So if Not Worldschooling, Then What?

Our plan for the next school year

We have decided to spend the next school year in Albania. For starters, here’s where Albania is—next to Greece, across the water from Italy, and just blow Croatia and Montenegro:

Okay, I know you’re wondering WHY?! And probably thinking: Wait, for real?

Yes, for real. We’ll reevaluate as we go, and I’ll share more about Albania over time. Okay, let me take a stab a the why.

As I’ve mentioned previously, partway through our international travels we pivoted and started thinking about what it could look like to live somewhere outside of the US for a bit rather than just travel around. The girls wanted to be able to go to school, make friends, and have more of a routine, but we also still wanted to be able to travel. Visas, taxes, and the cost (and type) of international school significantly complicated things and narrowed our possibilities, at least given the time window we had in which to make a decision (before the new school year started). In the end, we seriously considered Malaysia, Albania, and Argentina. (Sadly, Spain and Japan weren’t options for us, at least for now.)

Malaysia

Malaysia is English speaking and has a vibrant history and culture, tons of modern amenities, and good healthcare. It also has a bunch of international schools that offer the IB diploma. We visited one in Penang, researched a bunch in Kuala Lumpur and Penang, and drove by several in KL. Any number of them would be a good choice. And we could pick between the American or English/Cambridge education systems or even Canadian or Australian ones since S hasn’t started high school yet, though really we were looking at IB or American. Living in Malaysia would give us easy access to travel across Asia and even to Australia and New Zealand on long breaks.

However, it had one major drawback (besides traffic, LOL): Climate. The heat and humidity are constant. This is what kept Malaysia out of the top spot for us. Also, the visa was going to be a bit complicated. We’re hoping within the next year this becomes easier, as we’re still open to trying Malaysia if things don’t work out in Albania or if we just want to change things up. The one potential concern from an academic perspective is that many of the schools seem quite academically oriented. Many families are interested in sending their kids to top universities in the UK, US, and beyond. The head of secondary at the school in Penang said many parents will have their kids double up on math and science classes in lieu of the arts.

I’ve also seen repeated comments in the Malaysia International Schools Parent Support Group about kids going for “tuition,” which is basically working with a tutor after school to help them advance. While we want the girls to do well in school, it’s not because we care about them going to a top university; it’s because we want them to be well-rounded humans. While they would likely do well in a competitive academic culture (they’ve already had a taste of this in the Bay Area), we don’t desire this stress for them. Life is about much more than academics. So it’s all something to keep in mind.

Argentina

Argentina was very different from Malaysia in nearly every sense. It’s more humid that we imagined, but not like Malaysia and it has actual seasons, so it isn’t oppressively hot all year. We could walk outside in the fresh air and it was lovely, except for the horrendous mosquitoes (by far the worst we’ve ever seen, truly, and some carry and transmit dengue). The country also covers massive geography, which means mountains and beach and glaciers and waterfalls; amazing! But visiting these destinations means flying, and the internal options for air travel leave something to be desired; let’s just say they’re not like in Asia or Europe. Also, the country is far far away from everywhere else, so traveling when the girls aren’t in school would be expensive and involve long-haul flights. But Buenos Aires is in a closer time zone to the US and is vibrant in a totally different way from KL. Plus, it feels like Europe’s cousin, which it basically is in many ways. It has lovely parks and some of the best ice cream in the world. And we could get residency in a couple of different ways, including through Shelby enrolling in school.

Obviously, the country is Spanish speaking, so the girls would’ve needed to dive head first into immersion. It would’ve been hard, but in the long run becoming bilingual would’ve been amazing. And they would’ve needed to study a third language, either French or Italian, depending on the school. But there were multiple complicating factors from an education perspective. First, the school year starts at the end of February because it’s in the Southern Hemisphere, so the girls would’ve needed to repeat the second half of 6th and 8th grade (not a dealbreaker, but a difference from the other countries we were considering). Second, they would’ve needed all their documents (transcripts, birth certificates, etc.) translated and apostilled (also not a dealbreaker, but a bit more complicated). Third, the country is at an inflection point economically and politically. Inflation continues to be rampant, which means the cost of tuition (along with everything else) goes up every month or two and you don’t know how much the increase will be; we were told tuition could increase 15% every month or two.

Beyond all that, there’s only one true international school in Buenos Aires (the American one, which costs about twice as much as the others); the rest are bilingual. Of those, at least 10 offer the IB diploma, so those are the ones we focused on since an IB diploma is internationally recognized. However, because the girls aren't at least conversant in Spanish, many of the schools weren’t willing to talk to us. Had the girls been younger, it wouldn’t have mattered as much. But for Shelby in particular to have kept up academically, it would’ve been challenging and many of the schools didn’t offer extra support for language. (Yes, we would’ve paid for private language tutoring.) Also, some of the schools didn’t have capacity for the girls at their grade levels (private bilingual schools in Argentina are fairly small). That said, several schools were willing to consider the girls and we visited all of them, much to the girls’ chagrin. (They got tired of being dragged around, but it was for their benefit!)

In the end, we seriously considered one of the schools, but their admissions process was quite involved (multiple visits, interviews, and testing) and they couldn't even guarantee that they would have space for both girls at mid-year (end of July, when term 2 starts). No other school that we considered had an admissions process that was as involved and drawn out; it felt uninviting and non-inclusive. In the end, we felt like salmon swimming upstream. I could say loads more about looking at schools in Argentina in general and may at some point, but for now, this takes us to Albania.

Albania

If you’ve ever watched Cheers, you’ll know there’s an episode where Coach is helping Sam study and starts singing about Albania. If you’re singing now; you’re welcome. This is probably the extent of everything you’ve known about the country. It was for me. But Albania had been on Chris’ radar and he wanted to visit when we were next door in Greece last fall, but I resisted. Why did I want to go visit a random Southeastern European country when I hadn’t been to so many of the major Western European countries yet? So we didn’t go.

But Albania offers a distinct advantage for US Americans: We can stay there for up to a year without a visa, and residency is possible beyond that. It’s fairly affordable (that’s relative, of course), it does border on the Adriatic (haha), which is beautiful, and it’s a short flight away to many other European countries, though it’s not part of the Schengen or the EU. It also has lower taxes compared to most of its European neighbors and it gets about the same amount of sun each year as Colorado. You know how I like my sunshine. The climate is similar to California’s and it’s got mountains. All this in a country just a bit bigger than the state of Vermont.

Since neither Malaysia nor Argentina were feeling like quite the right options (though either could’ve worked), we decided it couldn’t hurt to look at Albania. I had connected with the mom of a worldschooling family and learned that she and her husband actually taught at the American international school in Tirana and loved it. They had kids roughly the girls’ ages and, while they had originally planned to stay only a couple of years in Albania, they were still there a handful of years later because they all loved it. This was quite the endorsement. Honestly, that’s what finally pushed me over the edge to agree to visit.

We toured the school within our first week of arriving in Tirana and loved it. Hands down it was our favorite out of all the schools we had looked at anywhere. The environment was so friendly and the energy was good; the student body is actually international (not the case at all international schools, contrary to what you may believe). The executive director took us on a tour during which a number of school kids came up to him to say hi; you could see there was good rapport and respect. Kids were super friendly with our girls, too (unprompted, as no one knew ahead of time that we’d be touring); they asked what grades they were in and said they hoped we’d choose the school. It felt genuinely warm and welcoming. The school building and grounds were also aesthetically lovely. I’m a big believer that the space you’re in has an impact on your psyche and the school space felt like a good fit from that perspective.

Of course, there was also a strong element of familiarity; it’s an American school, so the academic approach is one we don’t have to adapt to. The girls will slot right in from that perspective. And the application process was straightforward, without too many hoops to jump through and no translations needed. The downside is that the school is quite expensive. Turns out, American schools around the world are some of the most expensive options amongst international schools. I suppose the saying “you get what you pay for” applies; teachers are theoretically paid better and get more professional development, and as a result there tends to be less turnover, which is good for the schools overall. (I know this isn’t true across the board, of course.) However, the tuition is quite a pill to swallow, especially when we’ve only ever sent the girls to public school.

Beyond the school, we liked Tirana. It’s not a particularly large city, which makes it feel accessible; you can get around the central area on foot. It has a lovely artificial lake with a ~3-mile walking path around it and views of the mountains beyond. People are friendly and welcoming and they like Americans in particular. Albania in general is quite safe and the majority under ~age 35 speak pretty decent English, as it’s taught in schools. To be clear, it’s still a developing Balkan country that’s only 30+ years past the fall of Communism, so it will be a different way of living. It doesn’t have good public transit like the rest of Europe (there are no trains, though they’re working to modernize and reopen one of the previous lines), and employment opportunities for locals aren’t great, so many Albanians leave to seek work in Europe, the US, and beyond. In fact, there are more Albanians in the diaspora than there are in their own country.

For our purposes, we don’t need the perfect country (this doesn’t exist anyway) nor a forever home. We’re just looking for a place to land for a while so the girls can be part of a community, we can continue to travel as a family, and we can continue to explore future options. Yes, we could go back to the US, but we’d rather watch the upcoming election from afar. Also, I’d have to get a job (as much for the health insurance as the income) and then I’d only have two weeks off a year to travel. Plus, we’re then far from Europe and Asia, the two places we’d most like to continue exploring. Living in Albania will give us a home base to travel from fairly easily when the girls aren’t in school. There’s so much of Europe we haven’t seen, not to mention Turkey, Morocco, and other nearby places. It will be harder to go to Asia; hence, we still haven’t ruled out spending time in Malaysia in the future.

We’ve already found a villa to rent in Tirana. Fingers crossed it works out, as it’s not official until we sign the contract. I’ll share the story of how we found it another time. But the summary of “Why Albania” for us is that it’s where things just seemed to click and where we felt an unexpected sense of peace. The climate is familiar, the school option is familiar, and there are enough expats that we should be able to make some friends, too. Hopefully that’s enough to balance out all the unfamiliar elements we’ll have to navigate; I know there will be many.

I imagine you have questions. Trust me, we have many questions ourselves, chief among them: Are we actually doing this?! Apparently so. I can confidently say that I never saw this as part of our future, but we’re going to give it a go and see what we learn.