Families Able to Unlock Travel for Remote Work Through Virtual School Networks

For all the talk about untethering from our homes and the golden age of travel, there’s one barrier that remains: children. Many parents probably do want to see the world while working remotely, but most would shudder at the thought of returning to virtual classrooms imposed on them during the pandemic. Fortunately, there’s a growing movement around virtual school networks, while new platforms are emerging to ease families into the nomadic life — or at least a few months somewhere nice without feeling guilty they’re neglecting their kids’ education. The crossover potential with travel is huge; there are an estimated 33 million families in the U.S., so this is a relatively big, and largely untapped, market. While platforms such as Remote Year focus on single digital nomads, there's equally an opportunity to program itineraries for cohorts of families in the future. One company, The Family Workation, is aiming to give parents a taste of the location-independent lifestyle. "It’s logistically difficult to set up the structure to embark on this path, so this is what we help with," said Kate Shifman, founder of The Family Workation, which offers coworking retreats and summer camps for digital nomad families in Portugal. She said there were two groups emerging. One is the family who are happy where they are now, but because they now work remotely, they're thinking about living in a nicer place. They’re not going to move, but go for a couple of weeks or two months. However, that can act as a stepping st