Can anyone just pack up their family and go camping for months?

Any story about a family travelling with their kids for an extended period, either internationally or domestically, is always a hit with RNZ readers.

There was Ella Ewens and her family of four, who visited 25 countries over 12 months. returning to New Zealand earlier this year.

Rob and Rachel Hamil, and their three teenage sons, are halfway through a sailing circumnavigation of the world. 

This week, we served you the story of the Leopards, a family of five from Rotorua, who have been travelling New Zealand in their off-grid caravan for four years and counting. The plan was for 15 months, but they loved it so much that they kept going.

Is this aspirational reading, dear readers, or are you seriously considering it? If you’re the latter, here is the ins and outs of what to consider:

Typically, the average age of starting to store memories for the long term is around age five, according to Annette Henderson, a professor of psychology at the University of Auckland.

“I take the add-a-few-years approach so somewhere kind of between middle childhood, like seven years of age...

“It is easier to travel with older children. You don’t have to worry as much about naps and as many snacks all the time.

“They’re able to walk and explore with the family, but also make those memories of the experiences that they have, whether that is in New Zealand or internationally.”

So, if you want your kids to really suck the marrow out of your trip - and remember it- you should hold off until at least then.

However, that doesn’t mean younger kids won’t benefit even if they can’t remember their big adventure, says Henderson.

“...when you're experiencing new things and having new experiences and are seeing different ways of life or eating different kinds of foods, all of those things, even early on, will help contribute to developing well-rounded individuals.”

Matt Wenborn, a financial planner based near Christchurch, often works with clients who frankly die with too much money.

“I’m not just saying the wealthy, I’m saying middle-class people die with too much money.”

While those who do take a longer adventure will likely have a smaller nest egg when they retire, a multi-month trip with their kids can provide a gift that keeps giving through memories and photos, he says.

“You can replay that memory again and again in your head so you get so much value out of it instead of buying the Maserati...”

For those considering a longer trip with their kids, they should reverse engineer their planning, says Wenborn. Start with when they want to retire and with how much, and whether they want to help their kids with university or a house down payment while considering the financial hit of a trip.

Parents need to consider their whole financial picture - KiwiSaver, insurance, mortgage, savings, how income will be impacted, etc- when looking at this investment in memories, says Wenborn.

“I think there you can have your cake and eat it too, you just have to plan for it.”

The Leopards, who are on the four-year-plus campervan trip around New Zealand, spent three years preparing financially for their trip.

For three years, they paid the minimum on their mortgage, and Mike Leopard took on extra work so the family could save. They sold their second car and a vintage caravan, plus any other possessions they wouldn’t need on the road. Their Rotorua house is rented out.

“ I know that when we left, we had $50,000 in the bank and we were like, ‘this should last us 15 months of travelling'."

When they decided to extend their trip, Mike picked up work in the trades as a Gib stopper where he could.

“It’s quite easy to find work in small towns, rural towns that don’t really have tradespeople.”

However, that also meant he had to take the family's only vehicle, essentially stranding everyone else at the campsite. Now, Mike’s wife, Sophie, works 30 hours a week in a remote job.

They have documented the ins and outs, and the highs and lows of their lifestyle on their YouTube channel, Leopards Go Wild.

Children in New Zealand between the ages of six and 16 must legally be enrolled in some form of education, otherwise, parents face a fine, says Karen Tui Boyes, the principal of Spectrum Online Academy. Parents can apply for a home education exemption through the Ministry of Education.

“The home school exemption means you have to say what kind of schooling you're going to give, and it might be world schooling or unschooling.

"You don't have to say your reasons why, but you do have to say how you're going to meet the needs of your child's education as well as a classroom teacher would.”

“That means that you have to look at the eight different subjects, and in your exemption, you have to say how you are going to make sure they cover English, maths, science, the arts, languages, all of that sort of thing, social sciences, health and wellbeing."

The Leopards didn’t need an exemption because their three kids are enrolled in Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu, the Ministry of Education’s national correspondence. They qualify because they have no fixed address.

“It is the same school that kids who live really remotely will go to,” says Sophie Leopard. The kids are being taught the standard New Zealand curriculum by Ministry of Education teachers who are based in Wellington, she says.

Other families the Leopards meet on the road opt for homeschooling or unschooling, a philosophy where parents follow whatever the child wants to learn. Homeschooling families are not required to follow the New Zealand Curriculum and can utilise various curricula and support systems such as Boyes’ Spectrum Online Academy.

Ella Ewens, who traveled the world with her husband and two kids for a year, bought curriculum books with them so they had some formal learning to complement their world learning.

They also plugged in with a world school organisation so they could network and meet up with other world school families while they were on the road. When the family returned , the kids were either on par or ahead of their school-attending peers, says Ewens.

Whatever route you choose, the wellbeing of each child should be a parent’s first priority, says Boyes.

“Learning about the world, learning about themselves, travelling around the world with your kids isn't quite as glamorous as it sounds, of course, because there's always going to be challenges.

“Kids get tired, and parents get tired, and you're in each other's space all of the time.​

“There are challenges to it, but having some kind of routine around the education or just around your life, I think, would be really useful."