Schooling Abroad While Traveling: From Sweden to Mexico

At HomeExchange, we love giving the floor to those who can talk about it best: our members. This testimonial was written by Magda, a HomeExchange member from Sweden, who shares how her family traveled for several months, and even found a school for their daughter on the other side of the world.

How our long-term adventure idea was born

Our idea for a longer adventure than just two weeks of vacation was born when we were overwhelmed by everyday life – that’s when I thought “maybe we should drop everything and go away for a few months?”.

In my head questions began to appear :

• What about work ?
• What about school (our daughter Marysia is 8 years old and in Sweden education is compulsory)
• What about the house ?

Hmmm maybe HomeExchange ? Without thinking much I wrote a post in the HomeExchange group on Facebook – maybe someone is just as crazy as we are and would be interested in a longer home exchange. I received a few answers : France, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Denver, but we were looking for something more spectacular.

After a moment I received a message from Adriana : “ Hey Magda! We are a family from Mexico who loves to travel, we are interested in a 6-10-12 month exchange, our home is in Puebla, you can also spend your vacation in our beach house in Acapulco”. I thought wooow – let’s do it !

Preparing the trip : school, paperwork and planning

We started with an innocent conversation that turned into planning our trip.
To take the next step and move from idea to execution we had to find a suitable school that would be accepted by the Swedish school authority, our daughter had to receive permission for schooling outside Sweden.

Adriana helped us arrange all the details and obtain the necessary documents from the school in her neighborhood in Mexico – Colegio Teresiano America and we received acceptance from the Swedish authority. Woow so now our crazy idea is becoming a fact!

Together with Adriana we accepted the exchange and started planning! We started our stay in Mexico at Adriana’s house to sort out everything at school – buy textbooks, uniforms, visit the school, meet the teachers so that Marysia would feel confident. Next we went to Adriana’s house in Acapulco to rest after the trip and relax before the next adventures.

Traveling before the start of school year

North America

Our exchange started during the holiday period so we had planned to visit many places in Mexico and beyond. Right after our stay in Acapulco we packed our suitcases and thanks to HomeExchange we set off on the adventure of our lives.

• Point number one was Miami – Mark’s wonderful home right by Miami Beach (2 minutes to the beach!). We rented a car and visited Florida and right after that we planned a wonderful cruise in the Caribbean – Ocean Cay, Bahamas, Jamaica, Caymans. The cruise was our dream but quite distant because of its cost, however thanks to being so close to Miami and all our stays being organized with HomeExchange we were able to save money to make this dream come true!
• After returning to Miami we flew for a few days to Cuba – there unfortunately due to the political situation there are no HomeExchange homes so we stayed in a hotel. A beautiful country, beautiful people but difficult emotions, difficult everyday life, difficult political and economic situation. However the atmosphere of Cuba and the openness of its inhabitants is exceptional.

Yucatán Peninsula

After three weeks we returned to Mexico – this time to the Yucatán Peninsula.
Another three weeks of vacation ahead of us! We start with Cancun, then Playa de Carmen and Tulum.

All the homes we stayed in are a holiday paradise, several bedrooms, a pool and even an outdoor bathtub with a waterfall. The advice from the homeowners is priceless for us – this is also why we love HomeExchange. We explore the world from a local perspective, we choose local places, local food and we can see this world through their eyes and not through the eyes of a tourist. Value beyond price!

• Cancun and Veronica’s home was our base for the beautiful places Yucatán offers, we visited ancient Mayan cities, beaches, cenotes.
• Playa de Carmen and Ernesto’s home with a rooftop jacuzzi was right in the city center, next to the promenade and the beach so we had many opportunities to enjoy ourselves, walk around and soak in the tourist location. We also took a ferry to the island of Cozumel.
• Tulum and Reed’s home was an oasis for us, a house with a pool located in the jungle – could anything be better for relaxing at the end of the vacation ? We also went to Chichen Itza a pre-Columbian Mayan city which is one of the seven wonders of the modern world.

Starting the school year in Puebla

Our adventure in Yucatán came to an end – we returned to Adriana’s home in Puebla and started the school year. What excitement, a new school, new friends, new subjects and a new language! We had small concerns, after all Marysia is only 8 years old. The concerns turned out to be completely unnecessary, the teachers, children and parents welcomed Marysia with great openness.

Additionally thanks to our adventure, Marysia today speaks English freely and continues practicing Spanish. The school in Mexico was an excellent language adventure, like an international language camp, the difference is that you don’t pay for language learning, hotel or accommodation.

Exploring Mexico during school year thanks to GuestPoints

But but the start of the school year is not the end of our adventures – in the meantime we visit nearby towns, we take advantage of days off and weekends planning more home exchanges with GuestPoints (we collected enough before leaving Sweden to move around Mexico freely). Funny that when I was planning exchanges through GuestPoints in our homes my husband asked “why do we need so many points, we won’t use them in our lifetime”. And yet :-)))

Puebla and its surroundings

Puebla and its surroundings have a lot to offer, beautiful old town, historic center, towns of Atlixco, ValQuirico, Cholula, Cuernavaca, the Popocatepetl volcano – one of the most active volcanoes in the country as well as the smallest volcano in the world Cuexcomate into which you can enter. We were not bored even for one day.
Mexico is so diverse in climate, culture, geography that traveling around the country is fascinating.

San Miguel de Allende

The next place we visited for a few days using the hospitality of HomeExchange was the town of San Miguel de Allende and Susan’s very comfortable home. At our disposal we had a pool, a beautiful lemon tree, a rooftop terrace overlooking the entire town and the La Parroquia cathedral – one of the most photographed churches in Mexico. In San Miguel de Allende we spent one of the most exuberantly celebrated days of the year – Mexico’s Independence Day.

A huge celebration in the town square, music, fireworks and the shout Viva Mexico! That day will remain in our memory for a long time.

Ixtapa Zihuatanejo

Next we returned to Puebla and planned another trip, this time by plane to the west coast of Mexico to Ixtapa Zihuatanejo. Emilio’s home located right on the Pacific spoils us every day and my husband spends almost every night on the terrace listening to the sound of the ocean and waiting for the sunrise. It is simply a dream home, it is so wonderful and comfortable that during our stay we only went to the neighborhood to listen to a lecture about turtles and release baby turtles into the ocean. Marysia is delighted!

Veracruz

The next stop on our way was Veracruz and Bernardo’s home.
A very atmospheric place, renovated in the 19th century colonial style by a local artist from Oaxaca which is famous for its folk handicrafts so you can imagine this apartment! In the meantime during our exchange it unfortunately turns out that Adriana and her family must return to Mexico due to her grandmother’s illness but we can stay in their home according to the agreement. The plus side of this situation was the opportunity to get to know each other better – we spent several evenings together and formed a friendship. HomeExchange is our second family, I can’t wait until we meet again somewhere in the world or plan another trip together.

Acapulco

Our last destination was Acapulco to which we returned with sentiment to show it to our friends who visited us in Mexico and catch the last rays of sun. Ron’s home is a real gem and our cherry on top, 1400m2, seven luxurious bedrooms, two pools overlooking the bay and La Roqueta island.

The end of our adventure was the day of Dia de Muertos, the holiday of death, colors and joy, very important in Mexican culture.Together with our friends we planned traditional makeup, reserved a place in a restaurant and enjoyed this day together with the local community.

Summary of our journey in Mexico

Unfortunately we didn’t manage to visit all the places in Mexico but I am sure we will return there because of the richness this country offers. I think I should also mention safety – many people ask us about it. We spent several months in Mexico and nothing bad happened to us, the country is huge and of course there are places where it is dangerous but no worries. Just use common sense.

To sum up during our exchange we visited 2 continents, 9 countries and 15 homes with HomeExchange.

P.S. We can’t wait for our trip to Thailand for Christmas and New Year where in Guillaume’s beautiful apartment on Koh Samui we will spend 3 weeks.