Would you take your six-year-old out of school to travel the world?

To: anybody@needingachange.com

Subject: Pulling our daughter out of school to travel the world

The past month has been an absolute blast.

We've made the most of our European rail passes and have rode on trains — well also buses and, in one case, a ferry that carried our train — in 11 countries with still more to come.

On the whole, it's been a pretty smooth process using an app to plot our journeys and only one service has been suddenly cancelled — we also missed our station in Slovenia, but that was entirely our own fault.

We chatted with an alphorn player largely in gestures as we watched postcard-worthy views of the Swiss Alps flash past and we were politely, but firmly, scolded by an elderly man in Germany when my son Remy's shoes made contact with the train seating.

We stayed with old friends in Germany and Switzerland and with brand-new friends in France.

Staying with friends been great, but the rest of the time has been incredibly exhausting lugging our suitcases around, trying not to get pickpocketed and staying in different hotels that we've generally organised a day or two before arriving.

It's been a great reminder of why we planned this reformatting of our lives to stay in key locations for months, not days. But, because this is my first time to Europe, we decided it was worth having a good look around, even if it broke from our own rules of engagement.

In Trieste, Italy, we arrived without any accommodation booked — which is what my wife Junko and I would regularly do when travelling as a couple — and struggled to find anything appropriate when visiting the local hotels on foot.

There was no Wi-Fi at the station so we had to find a cafe with Wi-Fi to go online and find something that wasn't going to break the bank. We eventually did, but it's not ideal when you're travelling with two young and tired children and we haven't repeated this mistake.

All this adds up and we decided to hit reset by volunteering on an organic farm in France before we blew any fuses.

Luc, the guy who ran the farm, was extremely generous and easy-going despite the long hours he puts in. He told us that over the past 40 years he's only had two weeks off, and this includes sick days and weekends.

For a few hours each day Junko and I would help pick vegetables or remove weeds and in return we got good square meals made largely from his produce and somewhere to rest our weary heads.

We stayed in a beautiful stone farmhouse and our room sat directly above a stream that used to power the mill to which the farm owes its name.

The kids loved their time on the farm and learned a little French and a lot more about where their food comes from — it was a field trip that any science teacher would be proud of.

Homeschooling on the road

We get a lot of questions regarding our decision to take our daughter Juna out of school.

"Aren't you worried that she'll fall behind all the other children?"

No, lots of other children — like me — didn't get to experience half of what Juna has done on this trip.

"Don't you think an expert should be in charge of educating her?"

As it happens, Junko is an experienced primary school teacher who's worked both in Japan and Australia and volunteered in many other countries.

"But isn't she missing out on forming important friendships?"

This was definitely a concern for me, but I think that at this stage in her life, at six years of age, her life still revolves largely around us as her parents.

I've been really encouraged watching Juna interacting with other kids on this trip. Despite not having a common language, they've still managed somehow to communicate and build friendships.

"Are you even allowed to take your daughter out of school?"

We heard from Juna's principal directly that once she was out of Australia, educating her was solely our responsibility.

In Austria we sat next to some German people on the train who told us that we wouldn't be allowed to take Juna out of school like this in their country.

And the French, who now have compulsory education from the age of three, have also been surprised when hearing about our decision.

There are moments when I do question our taking Juna out of school, but then I think of all the things she gets to experience on this adventure and I'm reminded why we made this decision in the first place.

— David