77 Countries & Counting: What Travel Has Already Taught Us

Kelly and I were sitting in the back of old pickup truck out in the middle of Wadi Rum when the truck broke down. Deep in the desert. Late at night. No signal, no backup plan, and more than an hour to wait before another truck could find us and ferry us on to our campsite. Kelly and I just sat there under an absurd number of stars, laughing a little, because what else are you going to do? That's a moment that we reflect on when we came to understand that travel is not just something we do, but it’s something that can shape and push us in meaningful ways.

Kelly and I have visited 77 countries between us, most of them before Eva and Jordan were born, sometimes together and sometimes on separate trips for work or adventure. Eva and Jordan have 16 countries of their own so far, all before we ever uttered the word "worldschooling." Before any grand plan. Before the blog, the itinerary spreadsheets, the curriculum binders. Just two people, and eventually four, moving through the world with open eyes and a growing suspicion that the best classroom has no walls.

Now, as we prepare to take our kids out of school for a full year of worldschooling, we're not starting from scratch. We're building on many years of lessons that travel has already drilled into us … sometimes gently, sometimes not. Here's what 77 countries have taught us, and exactly how we plan to carry those lessons into the biggest adventure of our lives.

Curiosity: It’s a Skill, Not a Trait

Before we had kids, Kelly and I would wander through a new city and just notice things. And we'd chase answers, sometimes in guidebooks, sometimes by asking strangers, sometimes by just sitting in a café and watching. Kids are born curious, but curiosity doesn't survive on its own. It needs to be fed, modeled, and protected, and the best way we know to do that is to keep modeling it ourselves.

How we're applying this: We want our worldschooling year to be a running conversation of questions, not just worksheets, projects and tests. Just the genuine, sometimes silly, sometimes profound things that catch our attention as we move through the world, and the willingness to sit with them, wonder out loud together, and see where the wondering leads. The goal isn't to always find the answer. It's to keep practicing the asking.

Courage: Get Comfortable With Discomfort

There's a specific kind of anxiety that hits when the plan falls apart. We've been there, stuck in the Bali immigration line for more than two hours after a long-haul flight, watching our energy drain minute by minute. Hunched in a guesthouse in Tbilisi for a week after I drank the tap water and earned myself a stomach bug that would not quit. Riding a train in the wrong direction in Portugal for a full two hours before we could get off at the next stop, turn around, and try again. Every single time, it worked out. Not because we're uniquely resourceful, but because discomfort is temporary, and the problem that feels catastrophic in the moment is almost always a good story by the time you get home.

How we're applying this: Our worldschooling year is designed with breathing room for the unexpected. We're not booking every night in advance. We're not scripting every learning moment. We're trusting that the discomfort of not knowing is itself a big part of the curriculum and our shared growth.

Connection: Common Language Not Required

In 77 countries between us, Kelly and I have communicated through charades in Laos, shared tea with our driver’s family in Jordan using nothing but gestures and gratitude, and found ourselves welcomed into markets, homes, and celebrations where we didn't share a single word with our hosts. Travel strips away the assumption that connection requires shared vocabulary. It doesn't. It requires shared intention, a willingness to be seen and to see someone else.

How we're applying this: One of our worldschooling goals is for Eva and Jordan to build meaningful connections in every country we visit, not tourist interactions, but real ones. We're prioritizing stays of three to four weeks in most destinations, meeting and connecting with people in each place, volunteering where we can, and choosing houses over resorts. We want the kids to know what it feels like to belong somewhere, even briefly.

Caring: The World Stops Being an Abstraction

Before we traveled, the news was just… news. A headline about drought in East Africa. A story about plastic in the Pacific. A report on deforestation somewhere far away. All of it felt real in the way things on a screen feel real, true in theory, distant in practice. But we know from experience that travel turns headlines into people. Statistics into faces. Issues into friends.

How we're applying this: We want Eva and Jordan to leave each place a little lighter than they found it, and to leave each place carrying a little more of it with them. Sometimes that will look like a beach cleanup or choosing the family-run guesthouse over the chain. Sometimes it will just look like sitting with something uncomfortable and listening. Caring isn't a unit we'll study on a Tuesday morning, it's a posture we hope they start wearing, long after the suitcases are unpacked.

77 Countries In, and the Best Part Is Still Ahead

Seventy-seven countries is a nice round-ish number, but it isn't really the point. The point is what all those countries did to us, how they sanded down our certainty, widened our definition of "normal," and taught us, over and over, that the world is both bigger and kinder than we expected. Curiosity, courage, connection, caring … those aren't travel souvenirs we picked up along the way. They're the muscles we've been quietly building, one flight, one wrong turn, one shared meal at a time. Now we're about to hand those same muscles to Eva and Jordan, not in a classroom but in the back of a tuk-tuk, at a market stall, on a dusty trail, under a new sky. We don't know exactly what this worldschooling year will look like. We just know it will change them, the way Wadi Rum changed us under all those stars, when the truck broke down and there was nowhere to be but right there. And honestly? We can't wait to find out who they become.

Author bio: Matt Nobles is a dad, husband, and relentless learner. After nearly 20 years in corporate finance and sustainability, and after having already travelled to 77 countries over the years, he's now spending the 2026–2027 academic year worldschooling with his wife Kelly and their two kids, Eva (11) and Jordan (9). Follow the journey at theglobalnobles.com.