Boundless Life - Our Family Experience Part 1: Pre-Arrival
When we decided to join a Boundless Life cohort and move our family to Syros, Greece for three months, we really didn’t know what to expect.
We were extremely excited, and had spoken with friends who had done cohorts before, so they were able to share a bit of their experience with us, but we still didn’t fully comprehend how incredible it would be until we actually arrived and started LIVING IT.
We have now been in Syros with Boundless Life for over a month, and it’s exceed all our expectations!
We want to help others know what to expect when joining a Boundless Life cohort, so this article will explain everything that happens before you arrive to your cohort.
First Step in joining a Boundless Life cohort:
Research and Talk to the Boundless Team
After reading through the details on their website and absorbing all that you can (we highly recommend you start there), typically the next step in the journey is a phone call with a Boundless Life team member (that team member is most likely a parent that has been in multiple cohorts that can answer your questions from experience!).
You can also start an online chat with someone on the Boundless Life website with questions you may have.
You can book a call with the Boundless Life team HERE, but we have a promo code for you at the bottom of this post so make sure you use it!
Sometimes one call turns into a series of calls, unless you’re ready to jump in with both feet after the first call (like we were)! Since we had been traveling full time for almost 5 years when we heard about Boundless Life, it was an easy decision to join.
Yes, before this experience our travel had been in an RV, but Europe had been on our bucket list to visit “one day” and this opportunity seemed like the perfect time to make it happen.
Boundless Life Education
For us to start RV travel around the U.S. and Mexico, we had pulled our children out of their public school that they loved when they were 5 and 7 and homeschooling. While they’ve enjoyed a lot about homeschooling, our daughter in particular had started mentioning that she wanted to know what going to school was like.
She only had a couple of months of kindergarten when we pulled her out back in 2018, so she had very few memories of school, but they were all very positive. We knew the Boundless Education program wouldn’t be like public school, but would remind her of the best parts of her school experience and would be new and exciting for both kids.
Aaron and I had been wanting to focus more on our businesses, and having access to a co-working space that Boundless Life provides and having the kids in school during the day sounded like a great opportunity to allow us to spend a season focusing on growing/scaling our companies.
This along with being able to immerse ourselves in a new country and culture, alongside other families who also value travel and new experiences sounded like a perfect fit for us.
Second step in joining a Boundless Life cohort:
Decide on a Boundless Life location & start onboarding
Choosing your location
After deciding we definitely wanted to join, we had to figure out which location worked for our family. The more popular the program is becoming, the faster the cohorts are filling up.
The two things the staff has to look for when signing up a new family is how many homes are still available in each destination that fit what you’re looking for (number of bedrooms and tier of home) and also how many spaces are available in each school age group.
We weren’t able to get into our first choice, which was Italy, but it worked for us to go to Greece, which sounded great to us, so we were in!
Boundless Life Onboarding
Once you’ve made the decision and officially signed up, you move to the onboarding process with Nataly. She helps you prepare for the transition and gets to know more about you and your children, so that you can all have the best possible experience.
I was surprised and impressed by how much time and effort the teams puts into getting to know you beforehand.
We filled out forms, giving Boundless Life insight into our family, our preferences, and our hopes/desires for the experience.
Our entire family (including our children) had an interview with an education specialist so she could learn more about the kids and create a profile for each of them.
This profile is passed along to their teachers so that the teachers aren’t just learning about your kids for the first time on day 1 of school. They already have helpful information about your kid’s personalities and are aware of any concerns the kids may have about joining a new school program.
Before arriving to the cohort, you receive your housing assignment from Nataly, based on how many bedrooms you requested, the tier of home you want and the preferences you reported. You can see photos of your home (many include a walk through video) and you get a list of items your home includes.
The app includes a map of the city you will live in, so you can see where your home is as well as the other homes, the education center, co-working space, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. Since I studied the map before arriving, I had a general idea of the layout of the city I’d be calling home for three months which was nice.
Friendships
In your onboarding, you are invited to join a community app so that you can start making connections with other families in your cohort, and start chatting with them!
I had also chatted with several families and already begun forming friendships virtually, before meeting face to face, which was awesome! One month before arrival we had a pre-arrival webinar where we were able to connect with the other families in our cohort and put faces to names.
We all took turns introducing ourselves and got even more excited about our new friends we were going to explore Syros with!
Third step for joining a Boundless Life cohort:
Getting there and settling in
Travel to Syros, greece
Boundless Life provided us with helpful information so we could book our flight and ferry to the island, and even picked us up at the port in Syros, with a sign that had our family name on it, which was really cool! They arranged a cab for us, took us to our new home and gave us a walk through of it. It made us feel very welcome.
Thanks to the app where we communicated with other families in our cohort, we were able to meet up on the ferry ride over to the island, so we had four hours to hang out and get to know each other in person on the way to our cohort!
The Arrival
After arrival, there is always a Welcome Event where you finally meet all the families you’ll be living with for the next three months. It’s the most exciting time to get to chat and hang out and start off those friendships that are sure to last a lifetime.
Our Welcome Event was held at an outdoor restaurant in the Square, and it was so nice because the kids could run around and play with each other while the parents chatted over drinks.
Promo Code For Boundless Life
Be sure and use code: WANDER for €400 off any cohort!
Hopefully now you have a better understanding of the process that takes place before you arrive to your Boundless Life destination. Feel free to drop any questions you may have in the comments below and we’d be happy to answer them!
Check out all of our content about our Boundless Life experiences!
From driving across the border to putting the RV in storage to fly overseas, we have fallen in love with international travel. Here is a quick rundown of our experiences so far.