On paper, we had the perfect life.

I’d spent most of my career as an advanced occupational therapist in the NHS, doing work I genuinely love. Ben had built his own businesses. We had our home in East Yorkshire, two happy children, family close by, and a calendar that was always full.

And some days, I only saw Molly and Benny to get them up or put them to bed.

I was the mum who couldn’t always make the school plays, the sports days or the stay-and-play sessions because I was at work. The mum guilt was huge. We were doing everything we were supposed to do, working hard, providing for our family. But it often felt like we were missing the moments that really mattered.

I want to say something here, because it matters to me. I know I’m not the only parent in that situation. Most families we know are living some version of it, and they’re doing their absolute best inside a structure that doesn’t leave much room. Nothing about this story is a judgment of anyone. It’s just what happened to us.

The number that stopped us

One evening, Ben sat down and did some maths.

He worked out that our children were spending more than 800 hours a year longer in school than they were spending with us as their parents.

Seeing that written down really stopped us in our tracks. Not because school is wrong. Because we’d never actually chosen that balance. It had just happened, the way it happens to almost everyone, one sensible decision at a time.

Around the same time, life kept reminding us how fragile it is. We lost several friends and people around our own age to illness. Each time, the same question got a little louder.

If not now, then when?

The year before, we’d spent six weeks travelling around Asia and Indonesia as a family. It gave us a taste of what it feels like to slow down, explore together and live a bit more intentionally. It made us realise we wanted that for longer, not just as a holiday. Less about escaping, more about choosing a different way to spend this season of life together.

Asking the question out loud

So I did something that felt enormous at the time. I asked the NHS for a career break.

I was shocked, relieved and incredibly grateful when my managers approved fourteen months away. Their support meant we could take this opportunity without me having to walk away from a career I love. My colleagues were amazing about it too.

And so many of them said the same thing: they wished they could do something similar.

That sentence stayed with me. It’s a big part of why this website exists. Because most people don’t need convincing that another way might be possible. They need to see someone ordinary actually doing it, with all the practical details and none of the fantasy.

What we actually did

On 3 June we left our home in Sunk Island, East Yorkshire, with no return date.

We rented out our house to cover the mortgage and our UK outgoings. We changed our cars to cut the monthly costs, watched our spending, and saved. We run our businesses online as we travel, and before we left we got our travel agent’s licence, partly to get better deals on our own trips and partly because it opened another way to earn on the road.

We deregistered Molly and Benny from school, and honestly, the school couldn’t have been more supportive. They gave us resources, we brought curriculum-based activities with us, and we’ll simply reapply for places when, or if, we come home. The children read and write every day. But so much of the learning just happens. Cultures, languages, history, geography, wildlife, food. They’re experiencing it first hand, and they’ve become so much more curious and confident. They ask questions constantly.

Benny even packed his rugby ball and tackle tags so he can keep playing with his dad and whoever he meets.

The honest bit

I’m not going to pretend it’s all sunsets.

Travelling full time with children can be exhausting. Plans don’t always go as expected. There are definitely challenging days. The hardest part has been losing the extra pair of hands the grandparents gave us, and we miss them more than we expected. Family are meeting us along the way, and when the children are in their bedtime routine we get our evenings back, but it’s a real trade-off and we’d never tell you otherwise.

And then there are the moments that make all of it worthwhile. We explore together, play together, learn together. The children are happier, more relaxed, and excited about every new experience. Watching their confidence grow, and seeing the world through their eyes, reminds us exactly why we took the leap.

One day they’ll grow up and have lives of their own. But they’ll always have these memories of the adventures we shared as a family. For us, that’s priceless.

Why we built Families Reimagined

Something kept happening as we travelled.

Everywhere we went, we met people quietly asking the same question we’d asked. Parents redesigning work around their families. Founders building schools, tools and services we wished had existed when we were planning all this. Families a few chapters ahead of us whose stories we’d have given anything to read two years earlier.

We couldn’t find one trusted place that gathered all of it. The honest stories and the real numbers. The founders and the experts. The hard bits as well as the beautiful ones.

So we’re building it.

Families Reimagined is a publication about one question:

What else is possible?

We’ll share stories of families who consciously changed the shape of their lives, in ways big and small. We’ll interview the founders building a better future for family living. We’ll publish the practical detail nobody else does, what things really cost, how schooling actually works, what the trade-offs genuinely are. And we’ll always tell you about the difficult days, because different should never be sold as easy.

Here’s our promise. We will never tell you what your family life should look like. The default isn’t wrong. It’s simply one option, and it’s a good one for many families. You might read everything here and decide your life is already exactly where you want it to be. Honestly, that’s a win too, because then you’ll be living it by choice.

And reimagining doesn’t have to mean an airport. It might be a different work pattern. A slower weekend. A new conversation at the kitchen table. Protecting dinner together. The scale of the change isn’t the point. Choosing it is.

We’re at the very start of this adventure, and the very start of this publication. We don’t have it all figured out, and we’re not going to pretend we do. We’re just a family who asked a question, and this is where we’ll share everything we learn.

If any of this sounds familiar, if you’ve ever sat in the car after drop-off wondering whether this is really the only way it can look, you’re exactly who we’re writing for.

Start here. Ask the question with us.

What else is possible?