Hannah and I recently did a guest lecture at the University of Virginia. In this 10 minute excerpt, I swear a little, make fun of Bono, and probably piss off small retail shop owners. Deal with it. It’s the truth.

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Best types of business for a mobile lifestyle? Products are better than services. I tend to do a whole bunch of service businesses, but products are better than services, because a product you make it once and sell it a bunch of times and every time it makes money. A service? You or somebody you hire, which a lot of times is the case in my case, has to actually be there.

So, as much as you may think that being a rock star or a movie star might be a really great life. When U2 showed up down here and put on their little tootie fruity show? Bono had to show up and sing. When you pay your money and go and see U2. Four guys had to fly in from Ireland, put on their little shiny pants and get up there and flop around, but every time they sell a CD they don’t have to do that. It’s a very different model, products versus a service.

The internet is better than physical. If you’re going to sell something, sell it on the internet. Don’t sell it physically. Physically you have to show up and stand around. Physical retail establishments blow my mind. The idea that you have to show up every day at a place kills your mobility right away — you’ve got to open the door at 9:30 and close it at 9:30 (or whatever) and the whole time you’re just standing around just in case someone might want to buy a latte. Just in case. Two hours in the middle of the day, no one comes in? Guess what? You’re still standing there, or somebody you hire is still standing there. It’s just bad for mobility to have some sort of physical storefront or any kind of place that you physically have to go.

Selling information can also be a product, don’t forget about that. If you can create a tutorial, an ebook, some sort of dvd series that teaches something — that is a great product. That’s something that can’t be knocked off by Chinese prison labor. You make some sunglasses that shoot fire out the back of them (or something) and you think they’re the coolest thing ever (or Crocs for Christ’s sake — what the hell’s with that?) and all of the sudden, somebody can knock them off. And you know that Chinese prison laborers, or Indonesian school children are making those things for a fraction of the cost and they’re just going to eat your market in six months. Information as a product is a good one

Industry wise there’s no big rule — like don’t do food businesses or don’t do Graphic Design businesses.

Let’s take books for example. Opening a book store can be best or worst. Amazon is a great example of a best case scenario, they sell a lot of product in addition to books, but they sell a lot of product and it’s all on the internet, so there’s no physical store front. Conversely, if you have a small book store on the downtown mall. I feel for you man, I feel for you. You’re still sitting around doing nothing for hours a day, while people wander in “just looking”. Jeff Bezos isn’t sitting around listening to “just looking” he’s building his rocket ship to the moon or whatever crazy shit he’s into — that guy isn on fire. Excuse my language by the way, I’m a bit of a naughty boy, sorry if I’ve offended anybody.

Another thing to think about with businesses is micro-entrepreneurship. That’s just a fancy way of saying you do a lot of different things — a little bit of this and a little of that — and that’s really a great way to do business. Rather than thinking “what’s my big idea?”, “what’s that thing that’s going to make me a millionaire?”. Think “what’s going to buy me beer this weekend?”. Scale it down.

Like she said, I do a ridiculous number of things.

Yellowfish is my primary business, no doubt. Pays the mortgage, pays the plane tickets, pays for Fat Jack’s little happy pants and all that stuff. That is a business that generates a six figure income. Over $100,000 a year, for those of you who aren’t good with numbers.

Family Hack is something we started a couple of years ago as a way to just answer questions people would have when they’d meet us. A friend would say “Michael and Hannah just got back from Argentina.”
“Really what did you do there?”
“We just went down for a fun, just hung out for a month.”
“Who watched your kids?”
“We took the kids.”
“But, what about school?”
“We homeschool.”
There were all these questions…
“How do you do that?”

We decided we’d start a website — put up how we did that and that’s how it started.
Now it’s veered into some sort of mishmash of house hold tips, home school articles and all kinds of weird stuff, but that’s how it started. Two years ago it started just as a site with all these sort of little goofy articles about how we live our life and now, as she said, earlier this year the site was peaking at over a million unique visitors a month, it just went crazy. It has steadily grown. That site alone makes a five figure income every year. So that’s another example of micro-enterpenership We have Yellow Fish making a six figure income and Family Hack making a five figure income.

Then I have Campaign Fox, which we’ve just launched very recently (just a couple of weeks ago), which is an email marketing service. My clients can go on, they’re already into email marketing — “hey let’s send an email news letter to our clients”, that kind of stuff. So I said, let’s make that for you, rather than giving business to someone else. We have clients built in, who already want this, and I’m just going to do this myself. So we built this system that they can go in and whey can do their own newsletter, build it themselves, I don’t have to get involved and every time they send it, I get paid. So that’s a great example of a service business that’s actually a product business.

Another one is MacHintsandTips.com. By the way, Campaign Fox makes a four figure income, it’s right now probably generating a couple of thousand dollars a year. It’s just got started and I’m estimating. That’s a couple of thousand dollars. That’s a new Macbook Pro. I like that! I’ll take that free Macbook Pro. Mac Hints and Tips.com — speaking of mac books — that’s a site that I do with a partner of mine. He had ninety-five hundred macintosh hints and tips in a database and I said that is valuable and so, I as part of my fifty percent compensation in the site, designed the site, got the whole thing online, up and working, searchable, keywords and all that stuff tagged and his job is to put tips up on the site. He does all the work on a daily basis, I do all the front end stuff. That’s another site that generates a four figure income.

What else am I doing? AdJack. AdJack is this Youtube for commercials where you can win money. You watch five commercials, you’re entered in the sweepstakes and you can win half a million bucks. That I just own part of. I don’t get any money on a daily basis, but if it goes public and stock prices raises? Boom! If it gets bought by a private investment company, or whatever? I get a chunk. I just built that site for equity (or ownership, that’s just a fancy way of saying ownership).

Again, setting your business goals is important upfront.

Let’s say you wanted to start a bookstore. If you say “I want to be the next Amazon.com”, you’re going to fail. You’re always going to be a failure, even if you have ten bookstores all round the Virginia region and they’re rocking and you have a hundred employees, and everybody’s all happy and you’re voted entrepreneur of the year. If you wanted to be Amazon.com you’re a failure, you’re still a failure, because of the way you set your goal. Lower your expectation. Everyone’s trying to be Steve Jobs for Christ’s sake. Just be happy.

If you decided, “you know what I’m going to open a bookstore, but I just want enough money to buy beer on the weekend. That’s what I want. I want to buy a pizza so I don’t have to cook one night a week”. Go to the Goodwill. Go to the used book aisle, pull off a dozen books, go over and list them as used books on Amazon and you’ll make enough money to buy beer this weekend, you have a bookstore. So there’s a huge range between amazon.com and selling used books on Amazon. You’re still in business.

Don’t get intimidated by this idea that you have to employees and that sort of stuff. I have no employees, not one. Every single person who works for me is a contractor, they’re hired for a specific task. Now I have contractors in my design businesses that have been with me for years, They work almost full time, that’s the way it works. If I slow down one of those contractors doesn’t get work that week, but I’m not out of work.

“There are Five Environments you can live in on this planet. There’s The City. The Desert. The Mountains. The Plains. And The Beach.

You can live in combinations of them. Maybe a city in the desert, or in the mountains by the ocean. Or you could choose just one. Out in the plains somewhere, perhaps.

But you need to get out there and travel, and figure out where you thrive.

Some places you’ll go to and you’ll feel yourself wither. Your brain will fog up, your body won’t respond to your thoughts and desires, and you’ll feel sad and angry.

You need to find out which of the Five Environments are yours. If you belong by the ocean, then the mountains will ruin you. If you’re suited for the blue solitude of the plains, then the city will be a tight, roaring prison cell that’ll eat you alive.

He was right. I’ve traveled and tested his theory and he was absolutely right. There are Five Environments.   If you find the right combination, or the perfect singularity, your life will click…into…place. You will click into place.”

This story resonated with me. I spent decades in a city that didn’t fit me. While living there I read a book called Life 2.0. It profiled dozens of people who had left large coastal cities and thrived in smaller towns. Like a woman who worked in high finance who left New York for South Dakota.

I was inspired by the stories of how technology made working remotely possible, but I was skeptical about the people being happier. Then, I moved to a place that made me feel great, like I could do anything. As Patton Oswalt said. “Everything clicked”.

So, I decided to think about the places I’ve been in my life and how they made me feel. Below are a just a few and how I would sum them up in a sentence or two:

Charlottesville, VA – (Mountains & Plains)
Family, literary, casual, lovely and historic.
I love it here. I feel creative, clearheaded and relaxed.
photo by: Tim Jarrett

San Diego, CA – (Beach & City)
Physical, active, singles – no seasons, perfect weather you take for granted.
A popular favorite that makes me feel out of sync and nervous.
photo by: Tomcio77

Buenos Aires, Argentina – (City)
Stylish, smart, creative, a nightime city.
This place gives me a buzz…in a good way. I feel inspired, energized and balanced.
photo by: Ana Cotta

Rhone Valley, France – (Mountains & Plains)
Food & wine, agriculture, nature, earth, seasons and time, tradition.
I felt warm and alive in the Southern Rhone, while the Northern Rhone felt vacant and dim. What a difference a few miles made.
photo by: Michael Davis

Kauai, Hawaii – (Beach)
Tropical, relaxed, dramatic scenery, feels small, remote and disconnected.
I could live on the lush, rainy north side of the island. The dry and sunny south side was pretty but felt generic
photo by: Jeff McNeill

What are you best and worst environment experiences? Let us know in the comments below.

Traveling the world sans pants just got a lot cooler.  Google’s Street View has always been a great way to see panoramas of streets from all over the world. Today they’ve added some great improvements.

Instead of having to inch along streets using those evil forward and backward arrows, you can now use their spiffy new “pancake” to get around. Check out this short video to get the lowdown.

Of course, we’re most excited about the new Buenos Airesguide. It includes side trips to Gaucho Country, Iguazu Falls and Uruguay.

Three additional books for Spanish speaking destinations are Panama,Puerto Ricoand Los Cabos & the Baja Peninsula.

New for North America is Vancouver & Victoria,which also includes Vancouver Island, the Okanagan Valley and the ski destination of Whistler. Also a big honkin’ guide about Texasis now out. It hits all the major cities as well as the Hill Country.

Interested in the Carribean? Check out the new Arubabook. Happy Travels!

Vacation “packages” are set up for families of four. Having a family of nine can make vacationing on a budget a real challenge. However, it can be done! Here are some tips we have used to cut costs on our vacations without cutting out the fun.

1. BE NICE!

Make friends with the staff at the hotel or campground you are visiting. Tipping well once or twice will make you a friend of all the staff. Train your children to be polite and helpful to the staff. This goes miles if you are a large group and works on several levels.

1. The staff knows the area, and normally is happy to help you find great deals.
2. The staff knows if there are discount tickets behind the counter, and they do not have to make it public knowledge.
3. They will share if they like you.

2. SHOP LIKE A NATIVE!

Before getting to your destination, locate at least two shops you would like to visit. When you’re there, ask the shopkeeper if they can recommend any other shops…they can! They will also usually tell you which grocery has the best deals as well. Also, grocery coupons that work in California, will work in New York.

3. BUY A MEMBERSHIP!

For our family, the cost of a membership is roughly the same as visiting one time. Even if your family needs two or three visits to make up the cost, check out the fine print and see if your local museum, zoo, or science center has a membership program, find out if they are partnered with reciprocal facilities. If so, most will honor your membership and let you in free or at least for 50% off. Children universally love these places and they tend to be very different. As a bonus, most reciprocal facilities offer discounts in the gift shop as well. Check these websites for science centers and zoos that have programs nationwide:

Association of Science-Technology Centers
Association of Zoos and Aquariums

4. MAKE A CHECKLIST!

Make a travel checklist on fun or brightly colored paper and use it. This gives you time to figure out what is missing and put it in the bag before you go. Personalize a checklist for each member of the family, leave a few spaces blank so kids can add their own items to the checklist. Pack the checklists in each individual’s bag so nothing is left behind.

5. ASK FOR FREEBIES!

If you have, somehow, forgotten something, ask a member of the staff, who now adores you, if they have complimentary toiletry items available. If you already have toiletries in the room, and don’t use them, take them with you anyway. Kids will love them for future trips.

6. EAT AT THE HOTEL!

Eat the free breakfast and accept the free snacks. One hotel we stayed at made fresh cookies and had a free milk and soda bar every evening. Nearly every hotel has a complimentary breakfast of some sort. Eat breakfast at the hotel and save $$$!

7. CAMP!

Camp near your destination instead of staying at a hotel. If there is a state or national park nearby, camp or stay in a cabin and save lots of money. As a comparison, our family typically needs two hotel rooms or a large family suite. A deeply discounted weeknight is roughly 189.00 for a large suite. A night at a campground runs an average of $30.00 for a site with electric and running water. Throw in a huge tent for $120.00 at a local superstore and you’re already ahead on the second night of the vacation. Campground staff is just as important as hotel staff. Be kind and ask for tickets to local attractions.

8. TAKE YOUR FOOD!

A cooler or a hotel refrigerator can hold quite a bit of food for inexpensive meals or midnight snacks. Pack an extra duffle bag of high interest, non perishable foods, and a cooler with lunchmeats and cold snacks, such as cheese or yogurt. Freeze yogurt and juices before leaving to ensure freshness.
In most tourist areas, food prices are exponentially higher. Eating out for lunch and having sandwiches for dinner is another way to save, as lunch prices are usually much cheaper.

9. GO TO TOWN!

Do not shop or get gas on the main highway. Go into town whenever possible. Prices are usually cheaper, and you also have a chance to find out what is going on locally by looking at the bulletin board in the grocery.

10. BUY A LOCAL NEWSPAPER!

Yes, this is one of Michael and Hannah’s tips, but it holds for US travel as well. You will be able to find local free events geared toward kids and your interests.

11. TAKE A PRIVATE TOUR!

When you have a large group, ask for a private tour. Many companies will discount the tour price or give a free tour to help with the flow of traffic through the attraction.

12. MAKE THE KIDS DO THE WORK!

Let kids plan at least a portion of the trip. Give them a reasonable budget, but do not waver on the budget! Let them know how much can be spent and what it has to cover (food, gas, attraction tickets, etc) then follow through with their plans. You will be surprised how resourceful children are at planning fun activities.

13. BUY POSTCARDS!

Instead of buying cheap souvenirs that will barely survive the trip home, consider buying postcards. They are great ways to remember the places you visit and usually less than a dollar.

14. CALL AHEAD!

Call travel and tourism board for the area and ask to have discount books shipped ahead to your home. Normally they will send an avalanche of discount tickets for you to look at or you can simply ask for the website and have specific coupons sent to your home. This also works for the hotels or campgrounds you will be staying. Call and ask if there are special rates or discounts available.

15. GO LOCAL!

Planning your vacation during local festivals or fairs can build in automatic free or low cost activities. Talk to friends who are local or familiar with your destination, they may have an “in” or know of special deals. Many small towns have free cultural attractions and LOVE out of town guests stopping in.

16. USE COMPANY DISCOUNTS!

Check with your company to see if they have any sort of travel discounts. Many large companies have special deals with travel companies that allow employees to get discounted rates.

17. VACATION WITH OTHERS!

Say it with me….Group Discount.

18. BE FLEXIBLE!

Go off season, during the week, or in monsoon season. Rates are down at these times.

19. BE LOYAL TO A HOTEL CHAIN!

This may seem contradictory to being flexible, but many hotels have discount clubs that allow you to get free stays. If you get a discounted stay in the first place, and that stay goes toward your free vacation stay, the ten dollars you save by going to a different hotel may not be worth it in the long run.

20. ASK FOR A BETTER PRICE!

Prices are almost always negotiable, and if rules #1 and #2 are followed, you will usually get a better deal.

Hopefully your family will find some of these tips useful. Good luck and happy vacationing!

On a budget? Take a virtual trip instead. Visit Vegas via Party Casino.

About the Author:
Jeana Mitchell is the mother of seven kids under the age of 12. She knows things. You will listen to her.

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Travel Tip: Cheesy Bus Tours.

We recently had the opportunity to talk with Dan Clements about his terrific new book, “Escape 101: Sabbaticals Made Simple” It’s an inspiring and practical guide to taking a career break without losing your money or your mind. Here’s our interview with Dan.

Family Hack: Some jobs seem easier to “escape” from than others. What jobs would you choose to put in your Top 10 for easy escapism?

Dan Clements: I honestly don’t believe that it’s about the job – it’s about the mindset of the person doing the job that determines how easy it is to get away.

That being said, there are some jobs that lend themselves to portability, or to periodic downtimes:

Jobs with structured extended leave programs
Teachers
Career jobs at a companies with established sabbatical programs
Jobs with global demand
Doctors
Nurses
Portable work
Writing
Design
Programming
Any other web-based freelancing
Jobs with a defined end
Temp work
Contract work

There are many others, but these are the ones that always strike me as the easiest. A lot of these are easy because they let you take your work with you. Many people will prefer the idea of taking a complete break from work, but the trend towards mobile work lifestyles is definitely worth considering as an alternative way to escape.

FH: Are there jobs you think are unsuited to a sabbatical?

DC: No, but there are many people who believe their jobs are unsuitable.

I do think small business owners are the toughest to convince. They tend to work extraordinarily long hours, and are often in a place of, “No one can do this but me.” Once they do get away, though, they appreciate just how much taking time away can do for their business.

The real beauty of all of this, though, is that the more challenging your life is to leave, the greater the benefit of leaving. It’s an elegant equation.

FH: You believe that fear is one of the things that stops people from taking extended time off. What helped you break through this fear and take your first sabbatical?

DC: We’re planning our next escape and those same fears still tend to appear, despite having done it several times. In the end, what helps us the most is:

A belief that we can do it. I always think, “Okay – lots of other people have done this with less cash, more kids, tougher jobs and more debt. So why can’t we?”
A belief in the value of the time away. We truly feel that the benefits of living deliberately like this offset any costs of being away.
Two worry-busting questions. Anytime we’re worried or stressed, we ask “What’s the worst that can happen?” Normally, the worry is some sort of financial/business/career type setback. Then we ask, “Can we live with that?” Once we accept that worst-case scenario, moving ahead becomes far easier.
Lots of envisioning. You need to find a way to make things real. For example, I just picked up a travel guide to the South Pacific for a short sabbatical we’re planning. As soon as I opened it, I started getting really excited about going. Once I’m able to imagine what the time away could be, it helps motivate me to put things in motion. It’s the little steps like those that eventually get you there.

FH: You say “if you can afford to buy this book, you can take a year off.” Since money is a common excuse, will you expand on that a little?

DC: We’ve gone to a lot of effort in the book to try to boil the financial side of escaping down to something manageable for virtually anyone. Our last sabbatical cost roughly $200 a month for food and accommodation, and it was spectacular in every respect. The secret was in choosing the right opportunity (and there are many).

You can spend more than that or you can spend less, but the point is that in our culture, the amount we spend on television, books and coffee is enough to fund a sabbatical. It doesn’t have to be as expensive as it seems. The savings to finance our last relocation worked out to about the price of a book each, per month. Once we got where we were going, it was so inexpensive that we could do it by credit card if we had to.

Part of the shift in mindset needs to be toward just starting. It might seem impossible to get together the money you need, but the trick is just to start. Even setting aside the price of a book each month starts the ball rolling.

You don’t have to see the whole solution – in fact, most of the time you can’t – you just need to take those first steps and get some momentum. That’s particularly important on the financial side. Just start, and things will come together.

FH: What are the best and worst things to come out of taking a sabbatical?

DC: The perspective that you gain on your “normal” life is certainly the highlight for me. It’s like climbing a tall tree, and seeing life as a grand panorama spread out before you. It’s very challenging to get that sort of big-picture view of things when you’re neck-deep in it, but it’s that big picture is what helps you improve your life when you come back to it.

Ironically, that perspective might be the “worst” part in some ways. It has a way of bringing the parts of your lifestyle that you’re unhappy with into stark relief, and making them difficult to tolerate. Fortunately, that tends to work as a catalyst for change, and that initial discomfort always seems to bring you to something better.

I had a tough time after we returned from Paraguay last year – I had this sense that we were somehow “worse off” in our First World existence, and that we’d done our daughter a disservice by coming back. In many ways, I still think we were happier and healthier there, but we’ve also settled nicely back into our life, and have made even more positive change as a result of being away.

FH: What effects have these sabbaticals had on family/children?

DC: Our last career break was our first since our daughter Eve came on the scene. It was a profoundly rewarding and connecting experience for our family.

Eve was five when we went – she learned to speak Spanish, and went to a small local school. It was incredibly brave of her, I think, and that confidence has stayed with her. She makes friends easily, seems far more socially adept, and seems keen to try just about anything.

That trip was a gift for all of us. We’re quite a team, and I think we’ve developed this “we can do it” mindset that’s really made a permanent difference for our family. I can’t think of anything more important that we could do for our daughter or ourselves.

FH: Are there any resources that you’ve discovered since the release of the book that you are excited about?

DC: There’s a great surge in lifestyle related books and websites right now – it’s quite exciting. Since the release of the book, we’ve been in contact with so many great folks. It’s wonderful to see so many people taking control of their lives.

Some favorites:

Escape & Lifestyle Design
www.MyTropicalEscape.com
www.FourHourWorkWeek.com
www.EscapeFromCubicleNation.com
www.TheSabbaticalCoach.com
www.ThinkSimpleNow.com

Work Anywhere & Entrepreneurship
www.Anywired.com
www.LocationIndependent.com
www.SelfMadeChick.com

In this video I show you how I use a brilliantly designed and dirt cheap file holderto keep my active projects organized, in view and easy to retrieve. The system also makes working while traveling a breeze.

Product Link:
Rubbermaid File Folder Organizer

Have a good tip…we’d love to hear it.

“Why do they call it homeschooling if we’re never home?”
— A favorite bumpersticker

I grew up (and was homeschooled) in a rural area, where it took an hour to get anywhere and an average of two hours to get the place you needed to go. My parents figured out in pretty short order that if we didn’t take advantage of our time in the car, I wasn’t going to have much in the way of formal education. Car time evolved into one of the most focused and structured part of my homeschooling life. In fact, I think one of my main motivations to get my driver’s license was to get away from algebra.

I’ll occasionally hear my homeschooling-parent friends lament a day of travel or errands as a day “lost” from homeschool. Of course, I find myself thinking “what are you talking about? That’s the best time to do schoolwork. Hey, the kids are strapped in; they can’t get away!” Of course, in all seriousness, homeschooling on the road does present challenges: reading and writing, probably the backbone of a lot of your school activities at home, are difficult, if not just impossible to accomplish in a moving vehicle; reading can cause carsickness, and writing with anything sharper than a crayon is probably a bad idea. But, if necessity is the mother of invention, these limitations should only inspire us to greater creativity. I’m firmly convinced that travel time is a great homeschool opportunity. Here are some good resources to jumpstart learning on the go.

Contain The Car Chaos:

You don’t really need any complicated gear in order to learn on the go. However, a few simple items that provide you with a work surface and/or containment for your educational paraphernalia can be very helpful.

Travel Tray
This handy travel tray straps around your child or their seat–easy to use in the car or on a plane. I especially like that it has a lip on the edge to keep things from rolling off.

Backseat Organizer Tote
Great for keeping things within your child’s reach, so you don’t need to keep retrieving when you’re supposed to be driving.

Portable Learning Tools and Games:

Personally, I’m not a big fan of electronic games and toys. Even the good ones are too easy to overdose on. Some of them can be quite handy though for letting a child study and play certain kinds of games, even when you aren’t available to participate. I’ve found that keeping a few electronic toys and games in the car is a good compromise; a time limit is built in and the novelty of having them in a limited space and time makes them all the more valuable for holding your child’s interest.

Math Wrap Ups
These are a wonderfully compact and portable, easy-to-use, self-correcting math practice tool. Available in different levels for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Geosafari Laptop
We’ve got the big “desk top” version of this, but now they make a laptop version that is much better for the car. Don’t let the name “Geosafari” fool you, they cover way more than just geography.

Math Whiz
A little gizmo for independent math practice.

Magnetic Sodoku
Good brain exercise. Check amazon.com for magnetic travel versions of your favorite games.

Audiobooks:

Car time is a wonderful time to share great music with your kids. Don’t overlook other audio resources though. Car time is also great for learning foreign languages, and listening to history and literature. Check your local library for children’s audiobooks; you can also rent or buy from sites like Booksfree.com
, RecordedBooks.com or download from iTunes, Audible.com or Simply Audiobooks .

As your child gets older, you can utilize audio courses from The Teaching Company or through RecordedBooks.com. These recordings give you access to lectures from great professors at colleges and universities around the country—in your car, whenever you want—and for a fraction of the price of tuition!

But, in the meantime, some of our favorite audio resources for elementary-age homeschoolers:

Story of the World Audiobook
A history series often utilized by classical homeschoolers, but a great read/listen for others as well. There are also supplemental activity/workbooks available.

Beethoven Lives Upstairs CD
A great way to expose your kids to great classical music, including interesting stories about the source. Check out others in the classical kids series.

Jim Weiss’s Shakespeare for Children CD
Seek out other cds by Jim Weiss: everything from Robin Hood to Greek Myths to bedtime stories.

Fun Spanish for Kids CD
We really enjoy these fun language-learning cds from Beth Manners. There are three cds available in both spanish and french.

Magic Tree House CDs
Kids love these time-travel adventures: good for beginning independent readers; also a great listen in the car.

Misc. Travel-Friendly Activities:

Geography Sticker Book
Even though more traditional pencil-on-paper workbooks will usually be left at home (don’t worry, your kids probably won’t complain…), there are a lot of great resources out there in the area of educational coloring books, stickerbooks, etc. Check out Dover Publications for hundreds of ideas in one spot!

Lyra Beeswax Crayons

We especially like block crayons for travel, since they don’t roll away!

String Games Around the World
Unless your kids start tying the strings around each other’s necks, this is a good, safe, game for the car (optimally, involving a lot of quiet concentration!). Check out other Klutz books for more travel-friendly games and craft projects.

Brain Quest for the Car
The Brain Quest cards seem to be made with travel in mind: they’re a great compact size and come in a variety of subjects and grade levels. Perfect for a family quiz game in the car.

Although we’ve only scratched the surface of travel-friendly education methods here, hopefully you’ve come away with some good ideas to try—whether you homeschool or not! There are a lot of other good ideas out there—please share yours in the comments.

• Mango: Learn a New Language Online
  Mango says they “make learning a new language incredibly fun and simple.”

• Education Portal: Free Foreign Language Courses Online
  Ahem…again with the FREE. We’re liking the trend here.