Sometimes we arrive in a town, and our favorite educational fare—museums and guided tours—are not available. Despite the general thawing of activities post lockdown, we still meet with apologetic announcements hanging like ghosts around the solemn words, Temporarily Closed. Take heart, travelers. You can still poke around a city safely without open doorways. Nothing like…
Author: Five Backpacks Family
Not all who wander are lost — we are living nomadically, exploring, and wandering to learn about the world, its people, and ourselves.
Chris and Holly Santillo are not your regular authors.
They are the epitome of the Latin phrase “Mens sana in corpore sano,” which means “A healthy mind in a healthy body.”
Having strong backgrounds in Martial Arts with Chris being the founder and Head Instructor at Potomac Kempo in Alexandria, Virginia, and Holly being a Senior Instructor, they have managed to develop the principles of Martial Arts into a cohesive parenting methodology.
They believe that children (and parents) with broader horizons and an open mind can sow the seeds for future generations of confident, strong, and resilient adults.
Now, you can find them gliding through the Siberian steppes on the Trans-Siberian Railway, visiting the buzzing markets of Samarkand on the Silk Road, or wondering at the vastness of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. They have decided to live a nomadic life and explore the world with their three boys in order to bring back memories, ideas, experiences, and a fresh view on life.
Join their epic journey at www.FiveBackpacks.family, visit www.ResilienceParenting.info for more information on their book, and www.PotomacKempo.com to learn about their Martial Arts teachings.
Oh, you’re the family that’s traveling the world, right?
Yeah, news travels fast on an island with six-hundred-something people on it. We met Heidi as we were leaving the charming family house we stayed in for the last five days. She seemed to be waiting in her car as we finished packing up, and I apologized for keeping her waiting. Honestly, we didn’t really…
To Shake Hands and Mayhap to Hug
Have you ever seen a seal or more to the point, has a seal ever seen you? They’re playful, like puppies floating in the water, and they look at you and smile, but in my experience, they tend not to leave their water. They float, and they drift, and they are all very, very wet….
To Seek or Hide From Beauty
It’s startling to realize that your children actually listen to you. It makes me very concerned about all of the things that I’ve been saying over the last eleven years or so. But my children have taken, upon seeing something incredibly beautiful—and especially if I point out that something to them—to scream, “Oh no, beauty!…
student + teacher = happiness
As many folks around the world tiptoe back to school, my thoughts are in gratitude for all the teachers out there. We are homeschoolers, yes, and we wrote in Resilience Parenting that parents can be the very best of teachers, yes. But, as we were reminded while hunkering down in spring and summer, our education…