Amanda Ashworth | Building Community: Creating a Worldschooling Hub in Goa

Autogenerated Transcript

Jesper Conrad: 0:10

Today we're together with Amanda Ashford and first of all, amanda, thank you for taking the time. It's super nice to see you.

Amanda Ashworth: 0:17

Oh, thank you for having me.

Jesper Conrad: 0:19

Amanda, you come recommended from our friend, Rebecca, who you also have had on the podcast. I was looking for guests and I was thinking why not just ask some of the people who have been on? And Rebecca recommended you and she's like Amanda is doing the World School Hub Goa. You would probably enjoy talking to her. So here we are.

Amanda Ashworth: 0:42

Thank you. Yes, I appeared on one of Rebecca's talks recently.

Jesper Conrad: 0:45

So where are you now and where will you go in a couple of days?

Amanda Ashworth: 0:50

So I'm currently in Dubai, which is our home base, and on Saturday I will return to Goa. So I'm currently in Dubai, which is our home base.

Jesper Conrad: 0:56

And on Saturday I will return to Goa. And you say home base, but return. So is Goa a steady thing in your life?

Amanda Ashworth: 1:02

Yeah, so this is a kind of five-year project. So we're now one year into it. So at the end of five years we'll re-evaluate our lives and see if it still fits, what changes we want to make. But it's the kind of the idea is for the next four years.

Jesper Conrad: 1:16

Oh nice, Maybe we should start by how did you end up moving to Dubai? What happened in your life?

Amanda Ashworth: 1:26

Okay, so I'll go back to the beginning of probably how I started homeschooling. It's probably the easiest thing. So I read a book by Tim Ferriss which was called the Four Hour Workweek, and it just made me start to question life. On paper I had everything that society says you should have, but I felt pretty empty and was like right, okay, is this it? And when I read that book, the desire to look at homeschooling it was kind of a nudge, and the more I investigated it, the more that I was like okay, I think this is something I should try.

Amanda Ashworth: 2:03

So at that point I had one child. I now have three and he was seven and there wasn't anything wrong with what he was doing. But he was incredibly bright and I just could see that the spark was starting to go out of him, and so I took him out. And then, after I took him out, I realized that there was a problem that hadn't been diagnosed by the school, that he had dysgraphia and he was also gifted and the two were masking each other within school and he was being punished because he couldn't produce the output that the school wanted, but at the same time he was really bored because it was way beyond the levels that he was capable of working at. And so then I discovered the world of world schooling, and so we started to incorporate that in our lives. So we have historically always traveled six months of the year and then always had a home base that we come back to.

Amanda Ashworth: 2:55

Three years ago, we decided to relocate to Dubai. So, for those that don't know, dubai has no income tax and has year-round sum. So those were the two things that were just let's see. And it's also connected to. About a third of the world is within a six or seven hour flight, so it's a great place to kind of and it's very, very safe for families. I love Dubai, but I don't love Dubai all the time. And so India I stumbled across six years ago. My husband's parents are Indian, but he never spent much time there, and I ended up there on a two day stopover, stayed for two months and just kind of found enough of the place. And this is a story I hear about India or not. I kind of refer to it as Marmite or Vegemite. You either love it and it stays with you forever, or you hate it and you can't wait to leave.

Jesper Conrad: 3:45

I'm not one of the Marmite people, I'm the latter. Yeah, but that's your brits, we don't understand the Marmite.

Cecilie Conrad: 3:52

We're all different. India is just not my thing.

Jesper Conrad: 3:56

No, I think we have been unlucky with India. We stayed for a month.

Cecilie Conrad: 3:59

And I was like, yeah, I've been there, I've done that, I'm not going back to India.

Jesper Conrad: 4:02

But we have a good friend from India who is also saying maybe you have been in the wrong place and should give it.

Cecilie Conrad: 4:08

Yeah, I would put 57 countries I want to visit before I go back to India.

Amanda Ashworth: 4:13

Okay. So I feel exactly the same about the United States. It didn't make a great impression on me. I've got like no, I'm not going to hurry back there, kind of. So yeah, I think people are all the same. So we've chosen Goa, and Goa I refer to as fake India. It's the softest possible landing you can get into India where you can get the people, the culture, the food, the environment, but you don't get the chaos that you get in the cities. You don't the noise, the overwhelm. Some of the poverty go is just almost like its own little pocket of India.

Jesper Conrad: 4:47

Yeah, I would like to circle back to the homeschooling. So you continued on the homeschooling path and he is now. Is he the one who is now 17?

Amanda Ashworth: 4:59

He's 17, yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 5:01

Yeah. So how has his journey been from not happy or bored in school and then going to homeschooling path?

Amanda Ashworth: 5:10

Yeah, good, and over the years we've tried so many different options, so he tried online schools. We've done online programs. He's done hubs. At the beginning of the summer he went to Canada on a some english and volunteered there, and now he's living in the uk for a couple of months independently and doing his studies there yeah, and the whole world schooling hub goa.

Jesper Conrad: 5:44

How did that came to be? What ignited the spark in you to want to do that?

Amanda Ashworth: 5:49

so I probably got the calling for community last beginning of last year that having three children say my children are 17, 8 and 5 now, so all very different ages and where they're at in terms of their learning and when I was looking around I couldn't find anywhere that we'd always traveled independently and loved that. But I wanted that community and I couldn't find many hubs that could cater for all three children and it was a case of well, if I've got one of them at home, we may as well have all of them at home. And if they had a drop-off program or a team program, the one with the team program that would stretch my team but with the drop-off program that didn't also replicate school, that was quite key and that also then had the community and some things that I wanted to do as well. So we got stuck in India at the beginning of COVID and we had to be repatriated.

Amanda Ashworth: 6:44

So it took me about four years to want to go back to India and we ended up there last year and kind of fell in love with the place again and I was looking for potentially quite a lot of people will spend the winters there. So I thought, well, maybe we could possibly look at getting a place here and have this community here, but not a hub. And when I looked on a website there were two properties, one that was really met and one that I sent to my husband and said this would make the most perfect world schooling hub. It was a huge project. I suggested that I went to look at it. Had no idea how we were going to pull it off, but I'm a massive believer in the universe and I kind of said to myself, you know, if now not when the girls were five and seven at the time like let's try. And now we're kind of a year on.

Jesper Conrad: 7:35

Wow. So what is the hub? What is going on in it?

Amanda Ashworth: 7:41

So we are a full-service hub, so we have different programs. We have a drop-off program for the younger children which is Waldorf-inspired, so we have two teachers that come from a Waldorf background. We don't offer a curriculum at all, so play is very much self-directed what we offer and any learning will be done via games and play-based activities. Then for the teen hub, it's more challenging, so we have a teen coordinator who we have more soft skills focused. They also all do personal projects. There's some leadership in it and they have a bit more independence. So it's quite separate and what the two offer is.

Amanda Ashworth: 8:19

And then I think what probably differentiates us is we then have a program for adults, that we have a. We saw last year a lot of families that were coming to us that were maybe on gap years or had been traveling for a while, and mums especially that would come and would be slightly burnt out and kind of you give especially when you are homeschooling, you give so much of yourself to others to say to actually finally take some time for yourself, so they come and spend one month with us and so also living there and eating there, and so it's like yeah yeah, so keep it in one place.

Amanda Ashworth: 8:51

So we're co-living, co-working. We have, we have options of people staying off-site. So, again, we only have, like, family rooms. So we understand that some families might want some more privacy or they have a bigger family and so they will stay off-site. We have more families staying off-site this year. We also have a lot of families coming back from last year.

Jesper Conrad: 9:13

Nice Congratulations, thank you Looks like it's glowing for you. And also a lot of work. I presume we are dipping our toe in it with the World School Village we are doing in Tarragona and I'm just like, oh my God, so many questions, so many people, so many interactions, and while looking forward to it, it's also a lot of work behind the scenes.

Amanda Ashworth: 9:35

So I was warned by other hub owners as I was taking this project on, about how much work it was, and I would say now, did I completely underestimate the amount of work needed? Then? Yeah, absolutely so. To give you an idea, in Goa it's now been raining since the third week of May. So monsoon brings amazing, amazing nature, but it also brings a huge amount of work that then we have to rectify before guests come of course it's not the the little drizzle that you can have in UK from time to time no, it's constant and.

Amanda Ashworth: 10:12

but what I am so lucky about in Goa is I have the most incredible team which they make it possible. So I do this role completely on a voluntary basis because I believe in it and I want to create a great environment for my children, but, at the same time, if I didn't have this team, I wouldn't be able to do it.

Jesper Conrad: 10:30

I could be interested in your personal journey. If we look at choosing to homeschool, what did it change in your life after having read the four hours work week?

Amanda Ashworth: 11:21

so I left school at 16 and I had undiagnosed dyslexia at that point. So I was really bright, but school just was not for me. I was disrupted, disengaged, didn't have the best teachers, and so I kind of entered the workforce and from a very young age I had my own businesses. So I started my first business when I was 19. And so I would always be an entrepreneurial.

Amanda Ashworth: 11:49

But when I started homeschooling I gave up what I was doing to kind of focus on my son, and I think, probably like most homeschooling parents, you learn as much as they learn. So I've been in the last 10 years on a complete journey, so including my own self-development, and then I qualified as a coach, and so that's kind of my side, what do on the side. But what I have also seen, and what I kind of bring to the hub, is I work with so many people adults that we're kind of trying to undo some of their limiting beliefs, some of what the damage that's been done, in order to give them the confidence to move forward. And so that kind of inspires me to give the children the tools that they need at this stage so they can then move forward into their lives.

Jesper Conrad: 12:36

Yeah, I sometimes, when Cecilia and I have talked about our goals for our homeschooling, our bringing them up to the young adult, life is I wish we can deliver them less broken than we self were. Broken than we self were, yeah, and I don't believe we won't break a little thing here and there.

Amanda Ashworth: 12:57

We will be perfect parents, but less broken would be a wonderful goal yeah, so I'm a really big believer I don't know if you've ever read the um book the body keeps score and about all the trauma you can have in your body, um, and so I'm a big believer in you owe it to your children to do the work, and so you might not know what's there, but in order for you not to pay, pass on generational trauma. So this is why we do things like sound healing and breath work, because then they can start to shift things inside of parents, and so some of the transformations we saw within parents and families last year were incredible, and this is kind of why we've doubled down on some of the wellness that we're doing I read that book, but it's been a while yeah or maybe only half of it, I can't really remember it's quite a big book.

Cecilie Conrad: 13:44

Yeah, just to not try to pretend I'm something I'm not, I flipped through a lot of books and read some of. I don't think I finished it no, I definitely read more of the when the body says no book.

Amanda Ashworth: 13:59

That was yeah, yeah so, again, this is the kind of ethos behind I was recording, but is that a lot of people live in lives of chronic stress and the pace of which they live at. So. So I can't take credit in Goa, because Goa has this incredible energy and for some people it can be really confronting because it forces you to slow down. Some people don't realize they need to slow down and just to be able to give yourself that space, and then suddenly you've got the nature, the beaches, the beaches, the food, everything in combination. Um, you start having less inflammation and people start having better sleep, and it's just the way that we live in the west, that we in india that they don't live. And the other thing that we have there is the team that we have. It's almost like we have a lot of indian aunties. Um, so we've had lots of guests come to us and say we didn't realise how lonely we were, and that's obviously a problem in a lot of the West and that just makes me so sad.

Cecilie Conrad: 15:03

Yeah, that's a big one.

Jesper Conrad: 15:04

Yeah, and I've been thinking about how to work with it in the normal life because we, as travelers, we often co-live, so we don't see it as much. But I can see it around me and I see it when I hear people. I see it when I hear people and I think one of the solutions is making more stuff in real life for people to attend if it's talks, if it's small conferences, if it's small retreats and I'm beginning to look more in this direction of can we help facilitate people, just be together? Yeah.

Amanda Ashworth: 15:43

But it was quite interesting, as I went to a conscious parenting workshop last night and we were talking about mother circles and women's circles and this lady was saying, actually in dubai it's quite hard, and I was. I kind of said well, it's what social media does. Social media that you know, everybody wants to be this perfect mother. So to admit that you're struggling and the shame that comes that we almost put on ourselves to go actually we're not perfect, whereas actually what we all need is to be around people that are saying exactly the same things, because that makes you feel connected and it also makes you realize you're not alone yeah, I'm doing some dad circles from time to time where I think the most healing part for the other parents is to hear how big a fuck up I am.

Jesper Conrad: 16:41

Come on, the knowledge come after looking at how I have been parenting or how I've been a husband and being like, oh, I could have done better. And then you find a solution and then you can share that. But you unfortunately sometimes need to do the walk and make the mistakes and see how you want to change as a person.

Amanda Ashworth: 17:05

Yeah, how have you found the dad circles? Because we do teen circles, we do women's circles, we've done couple circles and the men's circles at the Hub are the things that we struggle with the most in terms of actually getting men to sign up and kind of partake.

Jesper Conrad: 17:22

When I start the circle I ask them to raise their hand of who was sent there by their wife, and then we have a little laugh about it. But men are and I think that's often overseen actually really, really vulnerable because they don't get to their vulnerability and that is not good for them their vulnerability and that is not good for them.

Amanda Ashworth: 17:49

So this is one of the reasons we started the Teen Circle at the Hub was because we realized, especially with my son, that we was talking to other teenage boys who vulnerability was considered such a negative thing from such a young age and just going. Actually we need to encourage and support talking so they do open up and take that forward into adulthood.

Jesper Conrad: 18:08

Yeah, because I think that's. The challenge is that many of them doesn't dare sharing because they are afraid. But then it's the ones I've held is pretty, they're powerful because it is sitting sharing and it is the really good basis of it is. Do not give advice, just listen. And I often joke a little with them because I'm like if you could do this at home with your wife, with your children, you would have a lot easier life. But sometimes you just want to go straight to solutions. But for many of them I have done it on HIF, this Home Education Family Festival, and we have been like 18 men for each circle, which is a lot of men to go through on a subject, and there was a lot of returns from the year earlier. There was some of the wives passing me by and saying thank you for the change it had brought in them last year. I don't know what the magic bullet is for it. I think that they are the ones I've had at. Hif is easy in one sense, as if they are confined at being there for a week. It's a family festival that goes on for a week, so why not join?

Jesper Conrad: 19:29

But I think the challenge for many of us men is that we feel vulnerable when we share because we haven't been used to it. I think a lot of us men in my generation have been raised by men who forgot to talk with them, and the more I've thought about it, I've actually went down a. Okay, I can't find the books on this out there, so now I've started writing my own because I want to be part of changing that societal culture about dads not sharing. One of my favorite stories about it is I talked with my mate, martin, and said to him so what did your dad say to you when you came and said that you were becoming a father, that your wife had the baby on the way, and his dad tapped him on the shoulder, said congratulations and said let's go to the pub for a pint. That was it and that was the dialogue. There's a lot more to fatherhood than drinking a beer.

Amanda Ashworth: 20:32

Yeah, definitely.

Jesper Conrad: 20:36

No. So it's work that needs to be done and I'm trying to see if I can be part of lifting it. But it is scary at the same time because to go a place where you share and want to become a better dad, there's unfortunately also the steps in it where you cannot help to look yourself in the mirror and acknowledge the errors you have made and that is not a fun thing to do made and that is not a fun thing to do. So it's a balance of how can you do the wall, find a way to become a bit of dad person, husband, lover, all those things without judging yourself. And I think that's one of the challenges in all personal development that we see what we want but we should look at ourselves with love. I find it super challenging.

Amanda Ashworth: 22:15

So one of the things that we do at the Hub is we have quite a lot of families that stay for more than one month and everybody is on their own journey, and so some people are ready, some people are not. So there is a lot of doing the work while you're there. As a process of the healing, lots of families will do Reiki sessions or breath work or work on their fascia or do cranial therapy and cupping, so there's a lot of which can unearth a lot. So, again, it's having that supportive community that when you are having a tough couple of days, that kind of will hold you but also give you space.

Jesper Conrad: 22:50

Yeah, that's a good combination. How many families do you have room for, or is it fluctuating, as people can also stay outside?

Amanda Ashworth: 23:05

So the maximum families we take all together is 11 families, I think this year, and we deliberately keep it small because what we find is generally there will always be a child that has some noise sensitivity issues and that will be harder. But also we're really looking for connection. And so you know, when you do have 30 families over a period of a month, that's a lot and you know it's, it's. We want those deeper connections.

Jesper Conrad: 23:28

That's a lot and you know we want those deeper connections, yeah indeed. So how is your program? How many months are you running it? The World Schooling Hub Goa, is it like half a year all the time you're?

Amanda Ashworth: 23:39

planning. No, it's only three months. We do three cohorts a year now, so last year we did five cohorts. As I say, because my husband is in Dubai a lot, we end up being split as a family, so that's kind of tough for us as well. And in order to sustain the hub, this year I'm also running my retreats there. So my retreats because, again, I think this is probably not something that's talked enough about in hubs about the fact that hubs are businesses with costs and, as I say, we have a team, we have three acres. You know there's lots of costs that go into it all year round, regardless of whether or not we're open or not, and so my retreats are more profitable. So this is something that I'm doing on the side to almost supplement. So, for example, we're putting in a swimming pool this year which should be ready for the first guests. It's actually my retreats that have paid for that, which means that the families get to benefit from it, and you know it's a kind of win-win situation yeah, and just also.

Jesper Conrad: 24:40

One thing is the cost of running a thing, but also if everyone should be allowed to earn a little living on putting in all those hours, and it is a fun thing that there is this balance. How much can we talk about money? It would be, of course, a perfect world if everyone just came around and I created an event and then people, instead of money, just brought clothes and food and cooked for me, so I could use the time on creating the event. Yes, that would be a wonderful thing, but that's not how we live.

Cecilie Conrad: 25:15

I actually don't think so. I think it would be really annoying. No, but I do. I mean we would have to. It would be so much more work for the brain to have to figure out, you know. So I'd need some guests who could cook vegan food, but not too many, because we don't need oh, yeah, only cooks so I mean, it's just there's a reason the monetary system is working worldwide.

Cecilie Conrad: 25:38

It's because it's highly practical way of trading. It just works. You neutralize the energy into the money and then you reuse it where you need it. But there's a toxic relationship around. For most people it's a toxic relationship to money and we can't talk about money and we can't talk about how we feel. It's almost the last taboo. And creating hubs. You're doing this work, you're making social events, and then you are met by this question why do I have to pay for friendship? Well, you're not paying for my friendship or the friendships you make in the hub. You're paying for all the work, all the structure that goes around it, and that's just well. And then it becomes a toxic conversation because everyone has issues they need to work with around the money.

Amanda Ashworth: 26:30

Yeah, I think what some people see as value, other people's won't. So one of the things that we did we're doing differently this year than what we did last year was we've split up our package so we have one price for drop off. We do offer a certain amount of scholarships a year for single parents and Indian families. Then we have the package if you want to stay on site. You know that's. And then we have a package for the community and the activities. Because I think what people don't realize is you know, inevitably families leave on their air conditioning. You know coffee can start to add up.

Amanda Ashworth: 27:02

There's all these incremental costs that before we started the hub I had no idea about, and that money has to come from somewhere. And I quite often will be asked well, can I trade my skills for time? And so when we first started, before the hub opened, we had some volunteers and it didn't work out very well in terms of what we needed versus what was. It didn't feel like a balance exchange at that point. So, for example, now I will take gap year students that are kind of trying to, if that works, but that we can because there is a cost to us we can't discount, because obviously that's coming out of our pocket if we do discount and if people can't.

Amanda Ashworth: 27:47

So we believe in a huge amount of value. So we have so many partnerships locally. So, for example, families that come and stay at the hub, we have a personal trainer that comes in and does fitness sessions, however many times a week, and you also get a gym membership to his gym, um, and so there's all of these incrementals that actually add to the value that we're offering families. You know, I, when we first started World Schooling, I sold things, I sold my car, we house sat, you know so, and I think it's quite often to see people where they're at today versus where their journey first came from. It was a dream for me and you know that started off on, you know, day trips to Europe before I could expand into, you know, and my budget has changed over time, but I still remember, and it was that desire to want to travel.

Jesper Conrad: 28:39

Oh yeah, we started in an old Fiat Ducato that was. If I looked at it today I wouldn't touch it almost, but it gave so wonderful adventures, and the togetherness as a family when you travel is just. I think that's what I love the most by being confined in this small space when we are traveling is that we are so much more together than when we live in houses, because then we have all our different projects I think at the same time. It's kind of a breathing in, breathing out, because I also need to work on some of the projects, and so we have this intense life being in our van, traveling, and then we live in houses. So I think there is a nice curve in it, a nice rhythm, amanda, for people who want to know more about your retreats and the world school hub go and where should they go to figure more stuff yeah, so we have.

Amanda Ashworth: 29:38

we have a facebook group, um, which is world schooling hub goer, um, and I publicize on that a lot more. That's probably the channel I publicize on most. We have instagram, which again is world schooling hub goer, um, and we we have Instagram, which, again, as well as Calling Hub Goer, and we also have our website, which, again as well as Calling Hub Goer, so I manage any of the communications. So we again fit is so important to us. So families start off by filling out a registration form and then I have like a fit call to just make sure that, as I say, and some of the key things that we look for with families is one that they really want community, and second is that they're open and so kind of I advise families that if you have a lot going on in that month, you know probably not the best month to come to us, that you know to come with an open mind and an open heart and just kind of embrace what we offer yeah, and what about the retreats you do with people?

Jesper Conrad: 30:32

Can you share a little about that before we round out?

Amanda Ashworth: 30:34

Yeah, sure, I work with women and generally it's women entrepreneurs, and so I have three retreats that all are slightly different in terms of what they are wanting. One is a nervous system reset, so really focusing on that. One is about embodying kind of feminine energy and kind of moving into. We live in a very masculine world and I was just an event this morning and I rang my husband afterwards and I was like I just don't, it was just the energy was so masculine and I was like I and I've spent so much of my life in masculine energy now that I'm in my feminine, I'm just like no, this is where I'm happy. There's no resistance, there's no hustle, I'm just all about receiving and that's my happy place. So it's teaching women again to how to step into that space and own it. And then the other hub is, or the other retreat is, again, the business ideas how you can build your confidence, how practical steps.

Amanda Ashworth: 31:29

So I've spent 20 years running businesses and I'm about working smarter, not harder, but also building businesses that align with your core values.

Amanda Ashworth: 31:39

That I'm all about living in alignment.

Amanda Ashworth: 31:42

And so you know, I get approached quite often by people that want to homeschool and I found recently I've been telling people, especially here in Dubai, don't do it.

Amanda Ashworth: 31:54

And the reason that I've been saying don't do it is because quite often here now it's for financial reasons, and I'm like it's hard and you know I can normally tell within a few seconds of speaking to a parent because it's hard on you and it's hard on the child.

Amanda Ashworth: 32:08

If it's not, what's like, if you're doing it for financial reasons and saying you know, maybe reconsider. And it's probably the first time in the last 10 years I've been saying actually, you know, really consider it before you, before you jump, because you know, I don't think there's probably, I don't think there's probably a harder project to have to deal with than your children because you're so invested into them and then making sure, like you said, that they become successful adults and they're less damaged than what you were, and so the intentions need to be right from the start oh yes, that's one of the things I share on my dad circles and which I happily will share here with you and my wife is the amount of times I can be have when I was at an office, sat at the office and were thinking, oh, my wife is just at home sitting coffee having fun.

Jesper Conrad: 33:01

and now I've lived next to it because I'm still the one doing a lot of the behind the computer work and my, my wife, is the full-time mom plus doing her work. So most often, homeschooling, the one who is responsible which, let's be honest, often is the mother is doing a double job compared to many of us men, but we like to claim that we are sacrificing ourselves on the pillar of work.

Cecilie Conrad: 33:30

Yes, I'm saying it loud.

Jesper Conrad: 33:31

I kind of remember you said I said something like this last week.

Cecilie Conrad: 33:35

You said something like that yesterday and when I confronted you and said do I hear that whining about you sacrificing again? Yeah, you were like oh, but it's, and it's true, yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 33:50

No, but that's maybe why I wanted to share it. I'm sorry.

Amanda Ashworth: 33:54

One of the things I'm also loving is because we do it in one-month cohorts. There's no requirement with us that the child is homeschooled to start with, so we have. So, for example, in December we have some families that are coming from Australia because it aligns with their school holidays, and then we have quite a few families coming from Norway in January, and what I love is being able to give people that space to explore alternative education. So it's not a one size. So I was speaking to a journalist a while ago and obviously for most people it's a very different way of living. So they can't understand, when you step off the hamster wheel, that there could be this alternative kind of almost parallel universe that you live in. And she just kept on and she was wanting to find a pattern and I was like there is no pattern.

Amanda Ashworth: 34:44

We have some people that are long-term travelers, we have some people that starting out, some people that have sold their possessions and some people that gap years, some people that are homeschoolers, some people that are not their possessions and some people that are gap years, some people that are homeschoolers, some people that are not.

Amanda Ashworth: 34:55

I was like it just it's, and I spoke to the most incredible family yesterday who went on one of the world's schooling cruises a few months back and he was like we didn't know this world existed. But now that we've opened up this box we know that we want to be a part of this world, but we know we can't do it on our own, so we need help. And so then that's why they're looking for communities, and I love that more and more hubs are growing, because that there's almost that there's something for everyone and every budget. If you wish, you can find community wherever you go. But obviously, if you're fast traveling, it's quite difficult sometimes and relationships can be quite transient. So some like I am definitely a slow traveler now, and that's where me and the kids are happier, because it's really difficult to form those communities if you are traveling fast yeah, you, I've been there, oh yes we travel can't.

Cecilie Conrad: 35:49

So there's no pattern, as you say. For us there's no pattern in that we sometimes stay for a few months, we sometimes stay for a few hours, we sometimes stay for a few weeks. I think it has different advantages, but we've been traveling for many, many years and for us now, at this point, some of the fast traveling is community. It's making sure we catch up with everyone, and that means sometimes okay, but we only have these two weeks at hand and we're moving from the South of Europe to the North of Europe. That's what's going on. So why don't we zigzag and we make sure we just spend a day or two with everyone important on the way? So I mean even that you're right that it can be really hard to fast travel and create community.

Cecilie Conrad: 36:41

But in the long run that can even be negated. There's no system to this kind of lifestyle. Everyone has to make up their own way of doing it and I think that changes and evolves over time.

Amanda Ashworth: 36:56

So, just the same way you homeschool, you tweak it constantly. So I was, um, I I get fascinated by families that you know have these itineraries that I used to have. And now, because now I travel by feeling so I will book a trip. Quite often it's a one-way trip and when I feel it's time to leave, we leave and like as a family, we just know. And so people for people in and I'll say people in the normal world, my, my friends that have conventional jobs and lives, they just do not understand because they have their set holidays every year that they have and I'm and they'll be like, well, where are you going to be at this point? And I'm like I don't know, let's see. So because it means that you become quite non-committal about things, but I quite like the adventure that comes with that yeah, yeah, we're, funnily enough, moving in the opposite direction.

Cecilie Conrad: 37:46

We've been traveling by feeling and spontaneously for the first, I don't know maybe six and a half years of traveling, seven years. And then just recently, we realized the benefit of commitment, of being able to tell our community where we are, because you know, that's a community thing for us. If we say we're going to be in Rome in all of December, then suddenly five families that we're friends with would also pop by Rome in December. So, yeah, that's just, and it's really hard because we are so navigating by intuition. And now I have to be in Prague in April next year and I'm like that's a long time from now and I'm, I'm stuck, I can't be anywhere else in April next year.

Cecilie Conrad: 38:35

What? What if my heart takes me to Norway or I don't know?

Amanda Ashworth: 38:40

well, this is, this is my thing. I get serious FOMO. So I'm like, and then I had to say, I have guests asking me all the time, that families I speak to. But what do you do in the off months? And I'm like, well, I travel because I do the thing that I used to love to do the most. And now when I'm at the hub, I see all of these. I have to say goodbye to families that are going off and traveling and me going, but I still, that's still in me, I still want to do it.

Cecilie Conrad: 39:03

But there's freedom. That's the funny thing. There's freedom to be found within any constriction, right? So you have the freedom to create some deeper relationships, to provide something for the community, to make some money, to do something meaningful for your children all the things because you chose to constrain yourself and you're not able to travel those months. And, in the same way, if you choose the freedom of the one-way ticket and not really having made any decisions more than 24 hours ahead, well then you don't have the freedom to invite your friends to come and to align with other people, and you know it always has this. Any choice comes with a constriction of some sort and also with a set of freedom options, and it's just to find the one that makes you happy.

Amanda Ashworth: 39:51

But I think quite often we like to apply rules to ourselves in life. So you know, so quite often my husband would go but what about this? I'm like. But actually we get to decide, we get to make these rules, but we almost self-impose a rule or a restriction or a belief or a label and just going the same with, like homeschooling, I would say do what works for your family. What works for your family is not going to work for somebody else's family and that will change over time and you need to be agile and adaptable. But by being rigid in what you want it doesn't always help and so it's the same.

Amanda Ashworth: 40:28

I think families know when it's time to go home, wherever home there may be as well, that their time is done and they actually prefer home. So, for example, we've always had a home base and I never see us not having it. We have two dogs here. My husband's job is a bit more. He works from home but he can't always be traveling. But he likes his creature comforts, he likes his coffee mug, he likes. So at the moment I don't know if you've ever seen the film Up. This is what I'm dreaming about today that you know that almost that we our house here in Dubai and with all my things, goes to Goa and then I don't have to. I don't have to do the packing, but sometimes it's nice to come home and it's a feeling, and it's familiar and it's you know. So I do love having a base because, as I say, it's that sometimes you need to almost retreat to a place that is your safe space.

Cecilie Conrad: 41:25

Yeah, that's our band. For us it's like the in-between solution. It's not really a house, but at least it's our base, it's our stuff, it's our organization of a space, and we can take it with us and explode into a house if we need to, or stay in the van, if that's fine. Yeah, so, yeah, that's another?

Amanda Ashworth: 41:46

and how long have you been doing van night for?

Jesper Conrad: 41:49

well, that's the thing. It has changed, changed over time. When we started traveling I needed the mental security because it wasn't the real security of feeling. I brought a house with me, rebuild it and it is as dreamy and instagrammable as you can think. But it's quite hard to drive something that is 11 ton and you don't feel secure driving and it's old and it can easily break and you don't drive down to the beach in it and so we ended up having that as a base next to an animal sanctuary for many years and that was a really good base when that time was fitting. But then our perspective changed, our needs changed, our kids wanting to be with more older children changed. So we bought another van, traveled back and forth. So we do this mix between that.

Jesper Conrad: 42:53

The van life is more I would say it's a guest house we bring plus it's an adventure van. So sometimes we take a month where we just go deep and being different places and seeing beautiful nature wonders, and then we need to breathe out in the house and just stretch out and have projects on all the tables and stuff like that. So it is very interchangeable. I couldn't do van life full time, not with three kids and two dogs I think the most van lifers we have seen. They're like oh, it's so cool. So how many people are you in this big ass car One, Okay, yeah, I get it.

Cecilie Conrad: 43:32

Yeah, one or two is fine, but five.

Jesper Conrad: 43:34

No no.

Amanda Ashworth: 43:35

Yeah, I was going to say we kind of have some dreams about doing it. I think we'll definitely try it. So we have a place in the UK. I don't love going back to the UK. So I'm like, well, maybe we can just know. I like variety, so maybe we can just move around. But in my head I'm a minimalist, but in reality I'm not. So it's kind of I know what I need, so maybe prior well, it's not, and nothing is a choice for forever.

Cecilie Conrad: 44:04

You can have a van and travel in it for a while and then do something else for a while, and yeah, and then that's what we've been doing on different. I mean, it's our fourth van right now. If you count the bus, it's a van, so that changes as well. Then you need a bigger one, or a smaller one, or a faster one, or a stronger one, or you know. So I I don't think we could ever settle on one system for life. The needs change and the context change and children change, relationships change. We're quite a big family growing, with the romantic relationships adding on, and there's a lot going on.

Cecilie Conrad: 44:42

So yeah, there's no system, no rule.

Jesper Conrad: 44:46

We just have to make the best plan at the moment, but I could see us also 20, 30 years from now. Have a van, me and cecilia, because I love it as the guest house you bring. So when you go to friends they don't need to have a place for you to sleep over and you can stay all night. And you don't need to drive home tired in the middle of the night. You can just hang out, wake up, have a coffee and a talk in the morning.

Amanda Ashworth: 45:12

Yeah, we did a trip when we were in Australia. We drove from Melbourne to Sydney and we camped outside of my husband's parents' house in Australia. And again, that was quite nice because I was like we have all space, but they're next door.

Jesper Conrad: 45:29

Exactly. That's wonderful, I feel like we're procrastinating.

Cecilie Conrad: 45:33

You're packing, aren't we?

Jesper Conrad: 45:34

yes, we should I'm all for.

Amanda Ashworth: 45:38

I'm all for that. So, as I say, we've got our. We're taking a lot of um stuff back with us. So one of the things that we're doing at the hub this year more of is and that I'm incorporating into our retreats is biohacking. So it's an area that I'm really passionate about. So I've gothacking, so it's an area that I'm really passionate about. So I've got quite a lot of equipment that I've acquired over the summer where I've been trying all of these different treatments and going okay, this, I think, would be incredible to take back, and so some of the products that we're taking back this year actually they don't have in India. So you know, it's going to be nice to introduce it in.

Amanda Ashworth: 46:11

Thank you for having me.

Jesper Conrad: 46:12

It's been amazing it was good and we tried to stop at some point, but then just continue chatting. I loved it so, amanda, thank you for your time. We will share the links in the show notes and wish you some good months in Goa thank you so much.

Amanda Ashworth: 46:30

Yeah, it was fun.