Digital Nomads and Worldschooling with Annika Paradise

12 Geniuses Podcast

There are approximately 35 million digital nomads - workers who work online from various places around a country or around the world - and the number is poised to grow rapidly. As tools that enable remote work improve and travel infrastructure grows, the idea of taking a family with children still in school on a digital nomad journey is becoming much more appealing to many parents.

Annika Paradise is one of the co-authors of the book “Wonder Year” - a guide to long-term family travel and worldschooling - in which she chronicles the twelve-month around the world adventure she, her husband, and their three young children took. In this conversation, Annika discusses the challenges faced and benefits gained from her family’s wonder year. She dispels the myth that this is something only the wealthy can do and she goes on to talk about what she learned about herself, what their children learned about her and her husband, and she provides advice for anyone who wants to do something as audacious as packing up their lives and living them on the road for a year or longer. Annika makes the case for why their wonder year was the best learning her children have ever had, the best learning she has ever had, and why taking a wonder year will become a growing trend.

Annika Paradise and her husband, Will, worldschooled their three children across three continents and twelve countries including Nepal, Laos, China, Cambodia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Italy and Greece. With a cello. Annika is co-author of the book “Wonder Year” and is an adjunct instructor of English at Front Range Community College in Longmont, Colorado.