This piece is written by Claire, who along with her husband Ben left the UK this year to travel with their two young children. Eight weeks into the trip, she reflects here not on where they’ve been, but on how they’ve kept their family working, and growing closer, through a level of togetherness most families never actually experience.

When people ask us what’s hardest about this life, they usually expect the answer to be logistics: visas, money, moving constantly. Honestly, the harder thing has been learning how to communicate properly, as a family, when there is genuinely nowhere to retreat to.

At home, we were already a close family, but we still had rooms. Someone could drift to the bedroom, someone else to the kitchen, and that gave everyone a bit of natural space without anyone really noticing it happening. Travelling has taken that away almost completely. We’re together constantly now, and while that’s a huge part of why we’re doing this, it does mean friction shows up more, simply because there’s no real escaping each other. I don’t think that’s a flaw in what we’re doing. I think it’s just true of this life, and worth saying honestly rather than pretending it isn’t.

The assumption we had to unlearn

We thought that because we were already a close family, being together constantly would simply be more of the same, just with better scenery. The reality was different. Closeness at home and closeness on the road aren’t the same skill. At home, closeness had natural breaks built in. On the road, it doesn’t, and we’ve had to consciously build in what used to happen by accident. That’s not a criticism of how we lived before. It’s just a truth we didn’t expect to have to learn.

Learning to spot the signs before they become something bigger

The biggest shift for us has been learning to recognise the early signs, in ourselves and in the children, before tiredness or snappiness tips into something harder to walk back. If one of us is getting short, or one of the kids is getting argumentative, we’ve learned to treat that as information rather than something to push through. Sometimes the answer is simply a few hours apart: Ben taking our son off for a bike ride or some football, since he needs to be active and stimulated, while I take our daughter for something calmer, nails, an ice cream, a walk together. Or one of us going alone for a workout or a wellbeing walk, just to get a proper breath of space. It’s a small thing, but it works, and it’s become something we actively plan for rather than only reach for once things have already gone wrong.

A game that’s earned its place in our evenings

Before we left, we intentionally went looking for something that would encourage real conversation as a family, and found a great card game. If your family, like many families, tends to spend a fair amount of downtime on screens, it’s worth thinking about something like this as a gentle way of moving back towards proper conversation.

The game we settled on was Talking Point. It’s built around different categories, from light-hearted questions to ones that make you think a little more, and it works well across a range of ages. We’ve made it a regular part of dinner or our evening wind-down. Phones are put away, everyone takes a card, and we all answer the same question in turn.

It sounds like such a small thing, but hearing each other’s answers, especially the children’s, has become one of our favourite parts of the day. We’ve laughed at answers we never expected, learned things about each other we probably wouldn’t have discovered otherwise, and created a simple routine that helps us reconnect, wherever we happen to be in the world.

The family hug

This one is entirely the children’s doing. At some point, before we even left the UK, they started it: whenever someone is sad, or someone is especially happy, they’ll call for a “family hug,” and the four of us come together. We’ve kept it going the whole way through this trip, and if anything it’s become more important, not less. It’s a moment to reconnect, to reset, and sometimes, on a harder day, a reminder of exactly why we’re doing this. I’m sure they’ll grow out of it eventually. For now, we’re fully in.

Letting the children practise communicating, not just receive instructions

We’ve tried to bring the children into ordinary decisions rather than just making them for them: reading a menu together and letting them choose, working through a shopping list, asking what they actually want rather than deciding for them. I won’t pretend that if it were entirely up to them, they wouldn’t eat terribly most days. But what we’ve noticed is real growth in their confidence because of it: asking for the bill in restaurants, sometimes in the local language, going up to ask a stranger for directions or where the bathroom is. Small things, but they add up to something that feels like genuine resilience.

Staying connected to the people we’ve left behind

Alongside all of this, we’ve worked hard at keeping contact with home properly alive: FaceTimes with close family, voice notes, regular calls. We let the children ask for calls themselves, whenever they want to speak to grandma, or a cousin, we try to make that happen there and then, because it’s clearly something they’re seeking in that moment. They’ve collected postcards to send back to friends, sent video messages to their old classmates and teachers, and the responses they’ve had back have meant a lot to all of us.

Two practical things worth knowing

A smaller, more practical note: phone and data coverage genuinely varies country to country, even across places that feel close together, we could use our phones normally in Croatia, but not in Albania nearby. We now check coverage before we arrive somewhere. To make this easier, we installed worldwide eSIMs through a provider called Airalo, the ones we chose are around £50 for a large amount of data, topped up as we need it, rather than trying to sort a new plan for every country individually.

Being honest about our own screen time

Because some of our income is earned online, there are periods where one of us genuinely needs to be on a phone or laptop. We’ve tried to be deliberate about when that happens rather than letting it creep into family time: Ben typically takes an hour online each morning after breakfast, while I take the children out for a walk, some reading, or a film if it’s a slower morning. When we’re all together, we try hard to put phones down, and more than once the children have called us out for being on ours, which we take seriously and act on immediately. In the evenings, once they’re in bed, we’re both guilty of a scroll like anyone else, but we’re trying to be more conscious of how long that lasts, and to spend more of that time actually together instead.

What this has done for us as a couple

If there’s one thing I’d want another family to take from this, it’s that this life doesn’t just test relationships, it can genuinely strengthen them. For most of each day, it’s really just the two of us and our children, with far fewer outside distractions than we ever had at home. There are real pressures that come with that. But I do think, underneath the pressure, something is quietly flourishing.

What else is possible, when the people you love most are also the only distraction you have left?

Frequently asked questions

How do you stop constant togetherness from becoming overwhelming?

We’ve learned to notice the early signs of tiredness or tension and act on them before they build, usually by taking a few hours apart, either separating the children for a while or one parent taking solo time.

What’s one simple thing other families could try straight away?

A game like Talking Point costs very little and takes almost no setup, but it consistently opens up conversations that don’t happen naturally around a screen.

Do the children actually enjoy the more structured moments, like the family hug or the journaling?

Yes, both were things the children themselves initiated or took to naturally, rather than something imposed on them, which seems to be part of why they’ve stuck.

How do you manage work alongside full-time togetherness?

By coordinating clear windows for online work between the two of us, so one parent is always fully present with the children while the other handles what needs doing.

What’s the most useful practical tip in this article for someone about to travel long-term?

Sorting a worldwide eSIM before you go, rather than assuming your regular phone plan will simply work everywhere you stop.

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Related reading: Beyond the Postcard: The Weeks Nobody Documents · How Our Children Took the News, and How We’re Keeping Them Settled on the Road · Packing for a Year on the Road