What Travelling the Alps With Two Toddlers Taught Me About Learning
As a teacher, I have spent years trying to understand how children learn- what supports them, what hinders them, what engages them. I started to notice how easily curiosity and wonder can be lost when learning becomes pressured or disconnected from real life. Long before I became a parent, I was drawn to alternative ways of educating children. This initially came from necessity whilst working with “school-refusers” and children with additional support needs who struggled to engage with traditional teaching methods however I quickly realised that teaching approaches that place lived experiences, creativity and the wellbeing of the child at the centre, are beneficial for all children and encourage learning in a way that is meaningful and rooted in an intrinsic desire to learn rather than compliance. I have watched children who have been disengaged with traditional schooling come alive with wonder and curiosity in woodlands and gardens; I have witnessed trauma-experienced children who have shut any and all adults out start to open up and trust through relationships built whilst hiking on mountainsides or den-building in forests. And when I have introduced these approaches to mainstream classrooms, every child in them benefitted and so I always knew that this is how I would want my own children to learn.
In the summer of 2025, I packed up my campervan and travelled to and around the Alps with my two and three year-old children for 5 weeks. For the most part, I did this on my own.
Friends and family questioned why I would take on a trip like this solo with two toddlers and many of them kept telling me I was mad to do it. One family friend even offered me a place to stay for the summer in the UK instead complete with regular childcare and daily massages (I won’t pretend that wasn’t tempting).
For many people, the unknown feels overwhelming and to be honest I was scared before setting out as well. I asked myself if I was doing the right thing? Was I being selfish? What would they gain from the trip? What if anything went wrong? When young children are involved, fear can easily take over but there is also so much to be gained from adventure and from stepping outside what feels safe and familiar. And so we went. There was no timetable, no curriculum, no pre-planned “learning activities” and yet, every day was full of learning. It wasn’t the the kind of learning that can be neatly tracked and captured on paper, but the kind that grows through experience, curiosity and necessity.
As both a parent and a teacher, I found myself watching closely. This is what I saw…
Learning through story, place and experience
One of the things that I realised early on in our trip was that my young children were connecting all these new experiences to not only the experiences they had had before, but the stories they had listened to. Castles we visited were transformed into castles from their fairytales: thunder and lightning we got caught in was a sign Maleficient was near; bridges came straight from the Billy Goats Gruff, complete with hidden troll beneath (and requiring us to trip-trap across them); the ice caves at Mer de Glace glacier became The Snow Queen’s hidden lair; church towers were home to the golden-haired Rapunzel (who we also learned is called Raperonzolo in Italian). These unfamiliar places and new experiences gave them something tangible to attach their stories to, giving the perfect opportunities for them to extend, adapt and invent narratives of their own which they would act out, sparking their imaginations and creativity.
This is clearly something that is innate within us as humans. Across cultures and throughout history, stories and folklore have been tied to landscapes long before written records existed, so much so that I was able to buy books of children’s fairytales based on the specific mountains we explored. To begin with my daughters would connect these new places to the places that they already knew of through their books and stories, but as they listened to more tales and explored further, they started to create more and more of their own, tying them in with the surroundings as they inspired them. Stories have always had a strong role in my teaching and I can’t even begin to say just how much fun it was to be able to create tales for my own children to foster their curiosity and sense of wonder at this incredible new world around them, and how beautiful it was to see their child-like understanding of it unfold in their own stories.
Communication, confidence and connection
Their communication and social confidence grew noticeably as they made friends on campsites and in mountain towns, learning to interact with children and adults who did not speak their language. They experimented with gesture, tone, expression and persistence, discovering that communication is far more than just words alone.
They learned about safety and risk in many forms: travel, strangers, steep paths, forests and water. Through experience and alongside guidance when needed, they learned where boundaries lay and how to keep themselves safe in different environments. This had been one aspect of the trip that had scared me the most before we set out, but watching them learn how to establish boundaries and keep themselves safe in different situations and with different people just highlighted to me how important these experiences are for children developing such skills.
Travelling together as we did also strengthened their bond with me and one another. Only recently did a key aspect of the resilience that this trip helped them to develop become clear to me. Whilst away one of our main ways of getting around, when not travelling long distances in the camper, was riding together the three of us to one bike. My 3 year old would sit in front of me on a front-mounted saddle and my two year old was behind me in her rear-fitted seat. We absolutely loved cycling around together like this (whilst receiving an equal mix of odd looks and encouragement from passers-by) but when we came upon any hills, oofft! Getting all three of us uphill was hard going and tested my fitness its limits. I tried to keep these moments positive, giving myself verbal encouragement as I tried to push us all on (and trying my best not to give up or swear). I worried that not being at my peak fitness may not be setting a great example for them, yet I later discovered that I had inadvertently taught them something else that I would argue is more important. A few weeks ago my 2 year old was trying to climb something new and was struggling. She started to give herself the same verbal encouragement that I would give myself on those hills, repeating the mantra, “I can do this! I can do this!” over and over to herself at every stumble or slip before eventually reaching the top and proudly declaring, “I did it!” I realised just how important it is for children to witness and experience the kind of challenges that we experienced on our travels. I worried that I was setting poor physical fitness and being out of shape as the standard, but instead I taught them to keep going, keep pushing even when it’s hard, and I learned that our resilience helps to form the foundation of theirs.
Learning from nature, up close
The girls encountered animals they had never seen before and some they had never even heard of: ibex, marmots, chamois, crickets. In the shadow of Mont Blanc, they found pools filled with frogs and tadpoles at different stages of their lifecycle, prompting endless questions, observations and discussion.
They learned about marmot burrows and even explored a purpose-built marmot tunnel carved into the mountainside on Mont Blanc. Living on campsites and spending long days outdoors brought them into close relationship with nature. We foraged for blueberries and wild strawberries on mountainsides, learning together about what is safe to eat and how to recognise plants we know well. Thoughts of worksheets and powerpoints from school would come into my mind at some of these times; diagrams of frog life cycles or farm to fork lessons. These are such important things for children to learn but suddenly those worksheets and diagrams didn’t make any sense to me. Learning is so much more powerful when children are engaged in it, and what is more engaging than actually living and experiencing it first hand?
Learning that isn’t always obvious
At two and three years old, most of this learning wasn’t academic and sometimes it wasn’t even immediately visible but the experiences sparked excitement, curiosity and interest in the world around them, something that is so crucial to learning.
In botanical gardens, they didn’t need to learn the names or uses of every plant, instead they looked in wonder. They studied flowers closely, searched for insects, watched bees and butterflies move between plants, asked questions constantly and sometimes formed their own theories about what they were seeing.
This is learning, the kind that can easily be missed when our focus is fixed on benchmarks, targets and learning intentions rather than on how understanding actually develops.
What this taught me about worldschooling and homeschooling
One of the clearest lessons for me was this: worldschooling and homeschooling isn’t about constant travel or abandoning structure. It’s about recognising that the world itself is a powerful teacher.
When children are immersed in real experiences, when learning is lived rather than delivered, understanding grows naturally. Curiosity deepens. Confidence follows.
This belief sits at the heart of The Wild School. It is why learning here is grounded in experience, creativity and nature, meaningful discussion and curious observation and why I am going to finish with this beautiful quote from the Scottish female adventurer and storyteller, Lee Craigie:
“The strongest force on earth isn’t gravity. It’s curiosity.”
