The 5 World Explorers

The 5 World Explorers A family of 5 world explorers 🌍
Full-time travel since 2018, worldschooling our kids while exploring cultures, food, and everyday life around the globe.

Real travel stories, practical tips, and meaningful experiences for curious families. Our family of 5 sold everything and set out to explore this beautiful world in June 2018. Through our page, we share our daily photo updates of where we are and what we are doing so you can explore with us!

✨ Happiness. ✨This was a conversation that came up the other day. Emma asked her grandfather when he had been really hap...
13/06/2026

✨ Happiness. ✨

This was a conversation that came up the other day. Emma asked her grandfather when he had been really happy, and he replied, “Depends what you mean by happy?”

I couldn’t stop thinking about his response because it is so true.

The concept of happiness is different for each one of us. For some, it may be going out with friends every chance they get. For others, it may be sitting at home reading a book 📚 or spending time doing a favorite hobby. For others, it might be something completely different. Some may even feel like they have never truly experienced happiness at all. We are all different.

As I thought carefully about what happiness means to me, I realized that in this moment of my life, it is truly the never-ending collection of simple moments spent surrounded by my family. ❤️

Today, it was sitting in a small town in the Tuscan countryside enjoying yet another gelato together 🍦. Tonight, it was everyone joking around the dinner table. Later, it was standing outside in the darkness with Monty, one of the dogs we are pet-sitting 🐾, watching the fireflies light up the backyard ✨ while listening to my kids laughing and talking inside the house. That was pure, unexplainable happiness.

I realized that even during some of the more difficult moments recently, I could still find happiness in our hugs, our conversations, and the simple moments we shared together. There was always light in my heart because I was surrounded by the people who bring me happiness. ❤️

And for myself, I also recognize that spending 30 minutes trying to photograph a beautiful white butterfly on a lavender plant 🦋💜 brought me a moment of incredible happiness—both in the process and in the final outcome.

So I agree with my father-in-law. Happiness can have a different meaning for each of us. Some may need bigger moments to feel it, while others recognize it in the quiet, ordinary moments of everyday life.

And perhaps that is the beauty of happiness: it isn’t one thing. It is whatever makes us pause and think,

✨ “This moment is enough.” ✨

What does happiness look like for you? 😊

🚆 A few days ago, we took a train from Brindisi to Florence, about a seven-and-a-half-hour journey.Originally, Cosimo, E...
05/06/2026

🚆 A few days ago, we took a train from Brindisi to Florence, about a seven-and-a-half-hour journey.

Originally, Cosimo, Emma, and I were supposed to leave before Mass and Luca, but when our plans changed, there was no space left on our train, so Mass and Luca ended up taking a different train that left a little earlier.

Since it was such a long trip, we decided to invest in business class after finding a good deal.

As the hours passed, each of us found our own way to enjoy the journey.

When we were finally reunited in Florence, our host asked us how the trip had been.

The four of us immediately said it was great.

No airport security lines.
No baggage stress.
No rushing through terminals.

We simply arrived at the station, sat down, and enjoyed the ride.

Mass, however, felt completely different.

He didn't go into much detail, but his body language and humor said everything. While the rest of us had enjoyed the journey, he hadn't.

I knew exactly what he was struggling with.

For seven hours, he felt trapped.

All he wanted was to move, to walk, to be outside, to be surrounded by nature. The lack of space slowly took over his experience of the trip.

🤔 What fascinated me was that we had all lived through the same day, yet we had completely different experiences of it.

And both were true.

His experience wasn't wrong.

Neither was ours.

Here is my point.

In a family, just as in a group of friends, the difficult experience of one person can sometimes overpower the positive experience of everyone else... if we let it.

It isn't Mass's fault that his experience wasn't as good as ours.

And it isn't his fault if his feelings have the power to shift ours.

That part is on us.

We have to be able to keep our balance even when others around us are having a difficult moment.

We should support them.

We should listen.
We should try to understand their experience.
But we should not lose sight of our own.

Because that experience is ours.

Too often, we end up stepping into someone else's emotions and making them our own, forgetting what we ourselves were feeling only moments before.

✨ Imagine if, instead of letting the negativity take over, we allowed our own positivity to create a little more balance.

Not to dismiss what someone is feeling.
Not to tell them they are wrong.

But to gently remind them of the things they may not be able to see in that moment.

Maybe positivity can be a superpower.
A way to bring a little more peace between people.

A little more understanding.
A little more light where there is darkness.

🏡 I like to think of family as our safe playground where we can learn all these important life lessons, practice them, and learn from them in a safe environment.

It is where we learn that two people can experience the exact same situation in completely different ways and both be right.
It is where we learn to support someone through their difficult moments without losing ourselves in them.

And if we can learn those lessons at home, perhaps we can carry them out into the world and bring a little more understanding wherever we go.

❤️ Sometimes the hardest part is remembering that someone else's disappointment does not have to become our disappointment, and someone else's story does not have to replace our own.

For the first time in a very long time, I feel the need to step back a little from social media.Lately, I’ve realized th...
22/05/2026

For the first time in a very long time, I feel the need to step back a little from social media.

Lately, I’ve realized that I miss experiencing parts of this journey more quietly, without always feeling the need to immediately share, document, or keep up with the fast pace that social media can create.

This isn’t goodbye, and it isn’t the end of what we create. It’s simply a pause from this space for a little while.

We will still continue sharing our journey in slower, more meaningful ways through our YouTube channel, blog, and newsletter for anyone who would still like to follow along with us.

If you’d like to stay connected, you can find us here:
✨ Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/0afdc3afcc0c/stay-connected
✨ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/the5worldexplorers
✨ Blog: https://www.the5worldexplorers.com

Thank you to everyone who has followed our journey, supported us, and shared pieces of your own lives with us over the years. We appreciate it more than you know.

Sometimes stepping back is also part of the journey.

The other day, my daughter was having a bit of a hard day. She was going through a bunch of emotions, but she was trying...
19/05/2026

The other day, my daughter was having a bit of a hard day. She was going through a bunch of emotions, but she was trying to make sense of them. At one point, she said to me, “I feel alone.” Not easy to hear for a mother, especially knowing that we are so present for all three of them, and now we are also in a place where they have so much time with other teens. Crazy, right?

We talked and walked until she felt better. Later, I could not get this thought out of my mind because, in so many moments, I feel exactly the same. Especially when we are surrounded by community, I realize that is when I feel the loneliest, and I think I have finally made sense of my why.

When you are physically alone, you can fully be yourself, you can really embrace who you are. Your immediate family can be your first challenge if you aren’t always together, but in our case, spending 24/7 together, we kind of know each other pretty well. We still do surprise each other at times, but I do realize that we are very accepting of this.

However, when we step outside of our peaceful environment, sometimes we slowly disconnect from parts of ourselves in order to belong, to feel accepted, appreciated, loved, or understood. We all do it at some point. Some might do it more than others, some only with certain people or in certain situations. We all stumble on this in different ways.

Once you make the connection between feeling lonely and being surrounded by people, it is mind-blowing. The challenge is: how can I be myself while still engaging in a group? How can I not change who I am just to feel accepted by others?

For now, my answer to this is that you really need to be centered within yourself and aware that people may not always like you. They might not like what you have to say or what you represent, and you need to be okay with that. There must be someone out there who is in a different place and wants to be part of your path. We cannot change others, and we cannot change who we are.

Maybe the real challenge is learning how to belong without leaving ourselves behind.

Time to wish happy birthday to our beautiful girl ✨ I cannot believe you are already sixteen. You have blossomed from a ...
11/05/2026

Time to wish happy birthday to our beautiful girl ✨

I cannot believe you are already sixteen. You have blossomed from a funny, spunky, tough cookie into this beautiful, caring, and graceful young woman 💕

We are so grateful that you chose us as your parents, as your family, because we get to enjoy your magical smile every single day.

Emma, keep following your heart. Listen to it deeply. Stay connected to your feelings, seek joy in the simple things, and never lose the chance to share your voice with the people around you 🌸 Never be afraid of being heard. You have so much to say, so much love to give, and you care so deeply for whoever walks along your path.

Never stop being you. Your light shines so brightly, and we love that we get to walk beside you every day until you are ready to spread your wings 🦋

Happiest Sweet 16, Emma 🎂✨ We love you endlessly 🤍

Florida, USA 🇺🇸Trying to play catch-up on everything that happened in the last month after leaving Colombia, so bear wit...
10/05/2026

Florida, USA 🇺🇸
Trying to play catch-up on everything that happened in the last month after leaving Colombia, so bear with me… here’s part one 🌎

We left Cartagena and flew to Miami, Florida, where we rented a car for 5 days. The goal was simple: reconnect with friends we met during our travels and hadn’t seen in years.

It was truly lovely to spend time together again, share meals, talk, and just be present with each other. I think this is one of the things I value most about this travel life, the friendships we make along the way, and how somehow our paths keep crossing again, even though we come from completely different parts of the world.

We had one more stop planned while in Florida: Universal Epic Universe.

Ever since Luca watched the live-action How to Train Your Dragon and discovered there was an entire land dedicated to it, he really hoped to go. And since his mind seems to work in powerful ways… conveniently, we somehow found ourselves there making it happen.

Some honest thoughts about the park, though.

The park itself is impressive, but the lines were extremely long, I’m talking 2 to 3 hours for some rides. Most attractions are roller-coaster-style experiences, and we quickly realized we weren’t willing to spend that much time waiting in line.

We didn’t do many rides, which honestly felt disappointing considering how expensive these parks have become. It made me reflect on how something you invest so much into isn’t always fully accessible once you’re there.

So instead, we shifted our focus back to why we came in the first place.

We spent most of our time in the How to Train Your Dragon area and absolutely loved it. We explored everything there, enjoyed it fully, and in the end, we left happy.

Still, as a parent, I can’t avoid saying it felt a little disappointing after paying such a high ticket price… but we made the best of it, and maybe that’s part of travel too.

Once all of this was done, we were ready to head back to Miami and board our very first repositioning transatlantic cruise ship to Europe…

More in the next post ✨

Resolution instead of regrets. ✨In the past few days, this message keeps finding me, in the books I read, the things I w...
03/05/2026

Resolution instead of regrets. ✨

In the past few days, this message keeps finding me, in the books I read, the things I watch, and the people I listen to or talk to.

Regrets. We all fear them.

They show up quietly, then all at once, at every corner of our lives. From not taking a simple photo of a sunset on the only beautiful day of the week, to not buying something because we felt guilty spending the money, to not speaking to that one person because we were shy… only to realize later it was our only chance, and now they’re gone.

Regret becomes a travel companion through life. It appears when we least expect it and lingers longer than we’d like. Sometimes, it even feels like it’s teasing us, reminding us of the choices we made and the ones we didn’t.

But the deepest regret… the hardest one… is the kind that involves someone else. The kind where there is no resolution, for whatever reason. When the moment has passed, when we think we’re ready to move on, that’s often when regret quietly wraps itself around us.

And isn’t it strange? It can feel like a cozy blanket, familiar, almost comforting, yet at the same time, it carries a sadness we didn’t even know was there. A weight we only notice once we’re ready to let it go.

Because at some point, we are given a choice: to stay wrapped in it, or to take a step forward and try to resolve what we might otherwise carry for the rest of our lives.

Why am I sharing this today?

Because I’m realizing that whether they’re small moments or life-changing ones, they all matter. They all shape us. They can slow us down, yes, but they can also invite us to move differently, to choose differently.

We are here to learn, at every corner of life, through every person who crosses our path. We can ignore that… but that often means choosing to stay still.

And isn’t life about movement? About finding balance as we move through it?

Is there something, big or small, you’d choose differently today? 🌿

01/05/2026

Riding a tuk tuk through Antigua…

The streets are beautiful, but every bump reminds you where you are.
One of those rides you don’t forget.

Would you ride this?

DirecciĂłn

Antigua Guatemala

PĂĄgina web

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