'We spent £85k to travel the world and take our kids out of school for the year'

14 September 2023 , 15:51

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Dennis, Shiela, Oz and Zola have just finished their big trip (Image: Dennis Horstman Maassen / SWNS)

A couple rented out their home and took their kids out of school to go on a year-long £85k around-the-world family trip.

Dennis Horstman Maassen, 51, and wife, Sheila, 45, de-registered as citizens of the Netherlands to legally remove children, Oz, eight, and Zola, six, from school. The family took trains, hire cars, boats, buses and planes through 14 countries - including Ireland, New Zealand, Japan and Hawaii.

They spent around €100-a-night on Airbnb and hotel accommodation, with their biggest one-off expense around-the-world plane tickets that cost €15,000 for all four of them. While many are saving money for the future, the family decided to spend it on a around-the-world trip.

Dennis and Sheila rented out their home and sold their car to raise some extra cash for the trip, before heading to their first stop, Germany, on August 8, 2022. The family then spent time in Ireland before jetting across the Atlantic to visit Canada and the US.

Trips to theme parks in Florida and road trips on the west coast were followed by a flight to Hawaii, where they spent three weeks. Continuing west, they eventually reached New Zealand and Australia before venturing through Asia to reach Japan.

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'We spent £85k to travel the world and take our kids out of school for the year'

The family travelled the world for a year (Dennis Horstman Maassen / SWNS)

The family enjoyed a boat ride in Siargao, Philippines (Dennis Horstman Maassen / SWNS)

A quick stop in Singapore and Dubai rounded off their year around the world, before they flew back to the Netherlands on July 25, 2023.

The trip wasn't a pure holiday however.

Dennis says that because of rising costs in their home country, it was "cheaper" for them to travel than stay put. As the dad owns a small production company and has a number of projects abroad, the family decided to combine his work with travel. The children's' school was "supportive" of their plans and even gave the kids work to do while they were away.

Dennis, from Arnhem, said: "When we thought it was an option, we made the decision to do it quite quickly. I had some job opportunities with my creative production and we thought it would be nice to travel with the kids and school them as we go.

"We had to rent out our house and sell the car, but the house had tenants within a week and it was a nice way of making passive income whilst we were away for the year. I budgeted about for the trip. We didn't have that in the beginning but doing some of my production work along the way helped with costs.

"In general we paid around €100 for accommodation a night, Euro 3k-a-month for car rental and the around-the-world travel ticket was €15,000. For some it's a lot of money but in general I think we did it pretty well and if you look at your costs in general for a family-of-four for a year, I don't think it's too much."

Despite Sheila suffering from the effects of long Covid, she was still keen to travel the world. Dennis continued: "Because of my wife's long Covid she's not as physically capable, but because we are seasoned travellers, we knew we'd be able to make it work. We knew what it'd be like and knew what we'd encounter."

They also had to plan their trip to allow enough time for Oz and Zola to complete their school work, from wherever they were in the world. They worked online and then checked in with the school every two months to make sure they were on the right track.

"They did bits of work on their experiences of travelling too. But it does change your way of travelling. They needed time to adjust and have time to work without being on the move all the time. In Australia they were able to work in the car on the long car journeys," Dennis said.

The family opted to travel west around the globe and aimed to follow the warm season so they could pack lightly. They had a great soaking up the beauty of New Zealand and fell in love with the national parks in the US.

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"Eight days of theme parks in Florida for the kids was great as well. The Hawaiian culture was great. Japan was very beautiful for us as adults, perhaps a bit less for the kids as it has a very structured culture," Dennis continued.

They got to swim above the Great Barrier Reef (Dennis Horstman Maassen / SWNS)

"But Australia the kids loved because of all the wild animals, the wallabies, the crocodiles, snakes, they loved that and found it so interesting. We had two weeks in Taiwan and there was so many parts that weren't frequented by tourists so that was really nice.

"We had an amazing time in the Philippines as well, which was beautiful - we rented a motorbike and just being with the kids on this small island was amazing. We roughly wanted to spend a few weeks or months in each place.

"We knew we needed to be close to playgrounds and theme parks and activities that the kids could do. Every other day we'd make it a 'kids day' so we could find that balance. Also with my wife being sick meant we had to keep in constant conversation to make sure everyone was happy.

"You need to be able to enjoy a holiday on your travels too. Every two months we would plan a 'holiday' week where the kids wouldn't do any school work and enjoy some down time."

The family touched down back in Arnhem just seven weeks ago and Dennis says they are still "readjusting" to their previous life. They spent most of their savings on the trip but Dennis says they "valued the experience more than watching their costs."

He added: "It's not about the money, it's about the mindset. If you're prepared to make the sacrifices then you can do it. If you really want to do it, it's the mindset that matters - I think most people in general don't want to leave their homes for a year.

"Even though my wife lost her job, I worked in healthcare for 20 years and I knew that if I couldn't find any work with my production company that I could always fall back on my healthcare work to rebuild savings."