05/28/2026
How We Started Worldschooling
Back in 2011, I was in a relationship that I didn’t realize was toxic.
Coming from a previous marriage filled with severe violence, I thought things were “better” simply because this man never hit me. I didn’t understand yet that abuse can look different. Control, emotional exhaustion, financial stress, carrying everything alone… those things can slowly break you too.
We were struggling financially all the time. I was trying to buy a tiny house in a very small town, hoping stability would somehow make life easier. But nothing felt easy.
I was doing almost everything on my own.
I remember constantly thinking:
“There has to be something better out there. Life shouldn’t be this hard.”
A few years earlier, I had gone on vacation to the Dominican Republic with a friend. While we were there, a local man told us he lived on about $300 a month.
That conversation stayed with me.
I couldn’t stop thinking:
“If he can live there on $300 a month… why can’t I?”
One night, while I was up feeding the baby, I made a completely random decision that would end up changing our lives forever.
On a whim, I posted an ad on Craigslist asking for a school bus.
I wrote out all the things I hoped for in a bus, never really believing anything would come from it.
About a week later, a man messaged me saying he had a bus he would sell me for $1000.
We drove three hours through the snow to see it.
The bus was snowed in, so I couldn’t even test drive it. But after looking at it, the man and his wife invited us into their home.
And then something happened that I will never forget.
He told us they had prayed about selling the bus. He said God told him that we needed it.
Then he offered to let us make payments.
I remember feeling stunned. Like maybe, just maybe, life was opening a tiny door for us.
We picked up the bus and started converting it as cheaply as we could. I found free materials and furniture on Craigslist. We made things work with whatever we had.
It wasn’t pretty.
It wasn’t perfect.
But it was ours.
By April, we set off in a bus that wasn’t even finished yet.
And somehow… those months became some of the freest, most beautiful moments of my life.
We had adventures.
We learned as we went.
We lived differently.
We lived in that bus until fall.
Then one day, I parked the bus and bought plane tickets to the Dominican Republic.
A friend helped me rent a tiny cabin there.
I still remember sitting on the plane thinking:
“This HAS to work… because I don’t have enough money for us to come back home.”
That moment changed everything.
I learned how to make money online as we traveled.
But more importantly…
I learned my worth.
I learned confidence.
I learned that there were entirely different ways to live outside the tiny box I had been trapped in for so long.
That journey became the beginning of our worldschooling life.
Not because we were rich.
Not because we had it all figured out.
Not because we were fearless.
But because I finally realized that sometimes the scariest decision becomes the one that saves you.
And that one tiny, desperate decision to post an ad for a school bus completely changed the course of our lives forever.
