We spent £100,000 to 'world school' our children on a year-long holiday across the globe. Here's why it was the best decision we've ever made…

While many of us can only dream of travelling the world once we've retired, shackled until then to desks and restricted by school holidays, a growing number of parents are removing their kids from the classroom indefinitely to take them on far-flung adventures, while teaching them on the road.

The number of children in England being legally deregistered from school to be home educated (words that still make many a parent shudder post-pandemic) increased by more than 10,000 last autumn to 92,000, and anecdotally many families are doing so from wherever they are in the world.

Those with a severe case of wanderlust avoid the fines imposed on parents for taking kids out of school for foreign holidays — set to rise to £80 in September — by formally deregistering them via their local authority for an unspecified time instead.

Welcome to the phenomenon that's being dubbed 'world schooling' — and the mums brave enough to juggle foreign travel, education, work and kids all in one go. Idyllic or insane? You decide . . .

Tessa Hawes with her husband Arron and children Oscar and Annie

TAKING A YEAR-LONG HOLIDAY IS THE BEST CHOICE WE EVER MADE

Tessa Hawes, 46, lives in Chelmsford with husband Arron, 48, and children Oscar, 12, and Annie, seven. They are co-founders and directors of two businesses, minimemindfulness.co.uk and Boss Your Morning. She says:

Taking the children out of school for a year-long holiday is the best decision we have ever made as a family. It may have cost £100,000, but we have all gained so much.

The children are more culturally aware than others their age and both are now excelling at school. The memories we have will last a lifetime.

Pulling back the curtains of our game reserve lodge in South Africa was like waking up to a scene from the Lion King. Giraffes, zebras, ostriches and bonteboks grazed just metres from where we'd been sleeping. It was early September 2022, and we wondered how this 'pinch me' moment could ever be topped during our year travelling the world.

We needn't have worried. Our adventure, which spanned 15 countries, was awash with countless spellbinding experiences like this.

In Uganda we went gorilla tracking, spotted lions, elephants, hippos and Cape buffalo on safari, and volunteered in schools and communities — the only organised part of our trip.

New Year's Eve was spent rollerskating in Kuala Lumpur, we watched the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, saw orangutans in Borneo, temples in Bali, Machu Picchu in Peru, and went canyoneering in the Philippines.

We stayed in hotels, apartments, and even huts on the beach in Zanzibar and Koh Lipe. In South America and Asia we lived like kings, less so in pricy New Zealand where, initially, we stayed with family then hired a motorhome to explore.

Our world-schooling adventure began five years earlier, when we set the date for 2022 so that we'd be home in time for Oscar to start senior school 12 months later.

I'd already quit my 23-year career in finance in the City to build a network marketing business and in 2021 Arron took redundancy from senior retail management.

During the pandemic we launched mindfulness mentoring sessions for children and subsequently developed it into a franchise that would enable us to work flexibly and generate an income while travelling. We also launched a lifestyle mentoring app, to help others turn their visions into reality.

Savings and shares helped fund the trip and during Christmas 2021 we placed a huge map on our kitchen island and each wrote down five countries we wanted to visit — then whittled it down to a doable itinerary.

The following spring we told the children's private prep school our plans, which meant Oscar would miss his final year there and Annie would return to start year two. To guarantee her place we'd have to pay the £13,000 annual school fees while we were absent. Instead we gambled and were fortunate that there was space in her class when we returned.

Tessa Hawes's family had a phenomenal time in Thailand

We didn't teach the kids while travelling. Every day was an education in geography, culture, food, landscapes, languages, religion and wildlife. They wrote in their journals about our adventures and learned about patience waiting five hours for a bus in Colombia, while a 24-hour coach journey in Thailand taught them endurance.

We regularly hired multiple bedroom apartments or adjoining hotel rooms to ensure we all got space and Arron and I had time as a couple. In the mornings, I'd do meditation, jog or swim, and he'd go to the gym, allowing us time to ourselves.

Come August 2023, we flew home from Costa Rica after visiting the rainforests and spending our final night sitting on the beach at sunset watching surfers riding the waves.

Now, after seven months back in our lovely, spacious four-bed town house in Essex (which we'd rented out while away) the predictability of daily life makes me miss travel.

Still, the courage and confidence Oscar gained travelling means he's made lots of friends at his new senior school. He's been selected for the football team, cast as the lead part in Oliver! and his attitude to learning is rated as outstanding by his teachers.

Oscar is now in the top sets for ability in year seven and isn't behind in any of his subjects — in fact, he's excelling in most of them. He has all the skills and more knowledge than many of his peers.

We recently went to Morocco for Oscar's 12th birthday and are plotting another adventure in 2030, after he's finished his A-levels, and before Annie starts her GCSEs, meaning she'll miss year nine.

In the meantime, this year we'll holiday in Portugal, Ibiza for a wedding, and either India or Sri Lanka for Christmas.

I TOLD MY HUSBAND I'D TAKE THE KIDS AND GO ON MY OWN

Chiropractor Nikki Collinson-Phenix, 47, and husband Ian, 50, quit their jobs in 2021. They then rented out their home to travel with their children Laanii, 12, and Raif, six. Nikki is an author and founder of the online group Worldschooling On A Budget. She says:

When I first put the idea of travelling the world as a family to Ian he said, 'people like us don't do things like that, we just work and then travel when we retire!' I told him we might not even make it to retirement.

I wanted a family travel adventure, not a retirement holiday. Over the next couple of years I kept dropping it into conversation but he wouldn't budge. Eventually I told him there may come a time when I'd take the kids and go on my own.

Fast forward to late 2018 when Ian suffered a serious assault during his work as a prison officer. It made him rethink life and we set a departure date for 2021.

Nikki Collinson-Phenix with her husband Ian and their children Laanii and Raif

Now in our third year of full-time world schooling, we've visited 23 countries. Unlike many families who sell everything to travel the world, we wanted to have an incredible adventure but also keep our home on the Isle of Wight as financial security, should anything go wrong.

The catalyst was a serious back injury in 2016 which meant I couldn't work for a year. It put a strain on our life and income and we nearly lost our home. I realised the daily hamster wheel of parenting, school runs and work had suppressed the adventurer in me. We weren't spending enough quality time with the kids because we worked so hard. They were growing up fast and the balance was all wrong.

In February 2019 we started saving and planning. We eventually deregistered Laanii from school and left the UK in September 2021 when she was ten and Raif was four. Three days in France got our adventure underway before we headed to Spain.

Laanii does maths, English and the sciences with an online platform that follows the British curriculum. Naturally, we chat to her about history, culture and geography on our travels but we don't formally home school her — as far as she's concerned we're her parents, not her teachers. It didn't work in lockdown so we knew it wouldn't now.

She isn't falling behind, though. On the contrary, she's thriving.

Raif is fully home educated and also thriving. We learn some of the language of each country we visit. He's six but is learning at the level of an eight year old.

Mostly so far, we've travelled in Europe in our caravan, mixing it up with rentals and house sitting. The Balkans has been our favourite area, and Turkey our favourite country so far.

Standouts have included a road trip to Olympia and the Acropolis after Laanii read a novel about Greek mythology. Another was visiting Cappadocia in Turkey, famed for its hot air balloon flights.

We're currently briefly in the UK sorting paperwork before we return to Bulgaria, then it will be back to Turkey so that Laanii, who wants to work for Nasa, can attend a kids' space camp. After that we may go to America, Asia or the pyramids in Egypt.

We like to be open to all opportunities. Family, friends and British supermarkets are the only things I miss.

We're now in our third year of travelling and all four of us are still loving our adventure. Most importantly, we are spending quality time together as a family.

SOME SAY WE'RE INSPIRING, OTHERS IRRESPONSIBLE

Lauren Selby Jones, 36, is a former senior government scientist from Nottinghamshire. She and her husband Jamie, 38, an accountant, have been travelling with their three kids Tobias, eight, Jaxon, four, and Alara, two, since 2022. She says:

Just three years ago I didn't even realise it was possible to take your kids out of school by deregistering them.

Yet, here we are, almost two years into an adventure where we've travelled from Sweden, Portugal, Spain and Italy, to Turkey, Slovenia, Greece, Macedonia, across the USA, and many countries in between. Being unexpectedly sidelined in my career after falling pregnant with our third child was one of many triggers for deciding to world school our kids indefinitely.

There was also the £3,000 a month childcare bill had we stayed in the UK and the long hours Jamie worked managing his own six-figure turnover accountancy practice.

Most poignant of all was a series of family tragedies, including the death of my sister-in-law at 34.

Lauren Selby Jones and her husband Jamie travel on a gondola in Venice with their children Tobias, Jaxon and Alara

We sold our three-bed detached home in a Nottinghamshire village for a profit in summer 2022 to free up our finances to travel.

With Tobias then six, we deregistered him from school, bought a campervan and left the UK in October 2022 bound for France. The first 24 hours were fraught with tears, tantrums, pouring rain and a looming sense of 'what have we done?'

On day two, we woke up at the side of a woodland to warm sunshine and decided to crack on.

For all three kids we use the Reading Eggs app favoured by schools to teach them English, maths, phonics and spelling. We visit historical sites such as the Eiffel Tower, Venice and the dungeons of a Cold War castle in Albania. They've swum in waterfalls, learned to ice skate and make campfires.

World-schooling is exhausting at times, particularly as Jamie and I are working too. He is setting up a campervan furniture venture (IVEA), while I have a business teaching mothers how to live happier and healthier lives. Jamie witnessed Alara's first steps, words and potty training, which he didn't with the boys. We're currently back in the UK organising paperwork but leave again in a few weeks, first for Albania and then Italy.

We don't make a fortune but we earn enough not to worry about money. Some people tell us what we're doing is inspiring, others call us irresponsible, and there are those who wish they could do it themselves.

It's an experience we will never forget — or regret.