START HERE
Welcome to FamilyAbroad.com! We are so excited to share our journey with you!
We are the McClure family, a Texas family of five, with origins in Mexico and the United States.
During the 2020 pandemic, we realized that tomorrow is not promised. So in 2021, we made the difficult decision to sell everything and travel the world as a family. Since then, we’ve have lived in 7 different countries (and more in the future). Now that’s crazy!
Traveling has been a priceless opportunity for us, especially for our kids. Our goal is to give our children the adventure of a lifetime and instill values in them that one can only get from experiences like this.
We’ve also come to adopt our family motto, “More Stories, Less Stuff”. As a family, we prioritize experiences and quality time over material things.
We want to empower and inspire parents who are considering the opportunities and obstacles of slow traveling to pursue that goal and give their children the greatest gift of all — a lifetime of adventures.
You will see both our successes and our failures and hopefully, you can learn from them both. Or, just follow along to see the places we go, the beauty we see, and the things we do.
If you are reading this post, it’s probably your first time here. That’s why we created this “Start Here” page to help direct you to some of our very best resources. All we ask from you is to have patience as we build up to our content. We promise that it will be well worth the wait.
THE MCCLURE FAMILY MOTTO
Our family motto is “More Stories, Less Stuff”.
We want to emphasize the importance of focusing less on material things and more on valuing experiences, quality time, and a creating memories.
Stories do not come from owning things (which puts you in the rat-race cycle), they come from experiences.
The less things you own and want, the more freedom you have.
"More Stories, Less Stuff"
DON
For me, the selling off of all of our stuff, while a bit painful, bought us freedom. Freedom from payments, freedom from upkeep and freedom from worry. Ultimately, it has helped to give us the freedom to live out our dreams.
Plot Twist! Plans to travel the world was an incredible plot twist to my otherwise practical life. Previously, I went through my life checklist, making sure to check off the “normal” life achievements such as college, marriage and kids. Working, trying to raise our children, and looking forward to the day we could have a safe retirement (whatever that means) was our daily mantra. But, eventually having the ability to kick back and watch life go by wasn’t really what I wanted and because of the pandemic, I realized just how short life could be as we had a friend pass away shortly after achieving the ability to retire. We wanted something else, something more.
And while I cannot predict that will find what we are looking for, I can guarantee that day-by-day, we will live out our life quote, “More Stories, Less Stuff” and, in the process, learn to be the author of our own stories. And, even though some of my story is already written, I look forward to writing many new chapters. It is such an exciting time to live out the challenge of this quote! So, batten down the hatches, here we come world!
EDITH
Even though it took us a while to get to this point, it isn’t rocket science. Stories do not come from possessing stuff. Stories come from experiences. Buying things can be great, but at some point, they put us on the merry-go-round of needing to work just to pay for stuff.
We figured that if we simply spend less, we would have more time to play, explore and create stories.
We want to tell stories about the people and places we visit. Stories about new adventures, cultures, and ways of life as well as hidden landscapes, beautiful mountaintops, and to-die-for beaches. From tiny villages to spiraling cities, we will be searching for more stories.
Nathan
To me, more stories less stuff is really about how to live your life.
Most people settle, find a stable job, have a family, and generally don’t, in my eyes, live their lives to their fullest potential.
My point of view tells me we should sacrifice stability in search of adventure and fun. I don’t want to work at a desk job sitting on my butt all day for 30 years of my life, I want to see the world, share it with people, and most importantly have no regrets.
I am in a very fortunate spot where I have never been in a tough situation, but I still think these are words to live by. You can’t get true happiness, especially over time, if you only get satisfaction from useless clutter.
Live your life your way or you’re not living life at all.
BETHANY
I prefer “More Stories, Less Worries” because it rhymes better than “More Stories, Less Stuff” and because on our adventure, we will be creating more stories and worrying a lot less.
What Family Abroad is All About
SLOW TRAVELING
Slow travel is an approach to traveling that emphasizes connection – to local people, cultures, food and music. It’s a mindset prioritizes quality over quantity of experiences when traveling. We want our trips to leave an impact on our lives.
We’ll be sharing our stories, lessons, experiences, highlights, challenges, and all the ups and downs of traveling with family.
MORE STORIES, LESS STUFF
The importance of focusing less on material things and more on valuing experiences, quality time, and a creating memories.
Stories do not come from owning things (which puts you in the rat-race cycle), they come from experiences.
The less things you own and want, the more freedom you have.
GIVING CHILDREN A LIFE OF ADVENTURE
We want to give our children the world. By traveling with them, not only do we educate them on history and culture, we also teach them to become world citizens.
Traveling allows us to instill values in our children that one can only get from experiences like this, and to give them memories to last a lifetime.
DON’T SETTLE FOR AVERAGE
Most people settle into an average life, because either they blindly follow the life path set by society, or they want to sustain an extravagant lifestyle, or they’re too afraid of venturing into the unknown. We too felt very conflicted in deciding whether this move was the best thing for our family. But we figured that life is really short and that we wanted to live a life with no regrets. After all, if not now, when?
Okay, what else can I learn from this website?
STEP ONE: MEET THE FAMILY
If you want to know more about this crazy family that sold everything to travel the world, be sure to check out our About Us page. While you’re there, read more about our plans for traveling as a family, including topics like homeschooling, and how we are planning to “Slow Travel” (and why).
Feel free to leave your thoughts and introduce yourself! We’d love to meet you!
STEP TWO: BE ACTIVE IN OUR JOURNEY
We plan on adding a lot of content. Between the preparation for travel (selling our stuff and our house) to our active travels, we will have blog posts, vlog posts, (including videos with our drone), monthly financial breakdowns of our costs of travel, articles about the nomadic life, and resources that could help you with your journey. See our platforms below!
We also invite you to subscribe to our newsletter, so you can get the first look at some of our content as well as some behind-the-scenes looks at our day-to-day lives as we travel. We are making a short stop in two of our favorite cities in Mexico, San Miguel De Allende, and Guanajuato, and then we will be off to Europe. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at the push of a button.
TikTok
We are hoping to share short stories and adventures on TikTok, and plan on live streaming as well. Follow us HERE.
YouTube
We are very excited about our YouTube channel. Not only will we have our family YouTube channel, both Nathan and Bethany will have their own channels. So, go ahead and subscribe to the Family Abroad channel and stand by for the announcement of the kids’ YouTube channel. Follow us HERE
If you want to stay up to date with us, be sure to click on the IG button. Follow us HERE
Be sure to get on our newsletter list to get behind the scenes looks at what we are doing as well as information as to what to expect. Travel tips will also be included. In addition, if you have any questions, leave us a message at info@familyabroad.com.
STEP THREE: ENJOY THE CONTENT
Look, the beginning is exciting and fun, but it also means less content. So, while you are at the very beginning of our journey, the content will be building as we travel. I promise the wait will be worth it as we will be producing content in so many ways. Writing, by video, photography, and through social media.
You will be getting a glimpse of our day-to-day struggles as we adjust from “normal” life to a “Not Normal?” life. You will be with us as we learn about schooling online and on the road! And you will be with us as we learn more about how to earn money online.
Here are some of our more popular posts:
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