Search Guatemala online, and you will find plenty of stories about crime, travel warnings, dangerous neighborhoods, armed robbery, gangs and all the other things that make a parent wonder whether they have completely lost their mind for considering bringing their children here.

Concrete is gray. That is one of the first things you notice when you arrive in Guatemala. Cinderblock is everywhere. Houses go up in concrete blocks, walls are built in concrete blocks, retaining walls are concrete blocks, and plenty of buildings seem to spend years in the strange unfinished state where you can still see exactly what they are made of. If you arrived by plane, drove out of Guatemala City and headed toward the rural communities around Lake Atitlán, you could b

There’s no doubt about it: the most paralyzing thing keeping families from traveling is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of things not going to plan, fear of losing an income, and the flat-out fear of failing in the eyes of peers and family. We are culturechalk.org. Our job isn’t just to host families at hubs; we’ve lived this reality. Over five years ago, we sold everything, left Canada, and set off for Guatemala—a country we had never been to and knew relatively little about

I am often asked, “How have your kids adjusted?” Let's start with me Around 1994, my dad took a government job managing an arts facility in Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake), a remote Inuit community of roughly 2,000 people in the Canadian Arctic. The nearest neighbouring community was Rankin Inlet, an hour flight south along Hudson Bay. Inuktitut was spoken more often than English, and life was deeply rooted in culture and tradition. It was an incredible place to spend time while gro

We walked the city with our host family, played futból with their kids, and shared a pot of afternoon coffee while sharing stories, asking questions about each other’s lives and fumbling through broken second (or sometimes third) language barriers.

It’s a topic we’ve seen come up regularly on family travel groups, Worldschooling forums, etc. Facebook Mamas pleading for words of support after buying one-way tickets with their families away from home after selling everything with no easy way back! Here are some helpful tips we’ve put together to ensure travel is rewarding for every member of the family and that you don’t end up crawling back home, hating travel for the rest of your existence. Define your WHY. Every family