10-month family road trip: itinerary, CNED, and vehicle

Hi there,

We’re planning to set off in September 2028 for a 10-month road trip. You might say we’ve got plenty of time, but all this takes some organizing! We have two kids, currently 4 and 6½ years old, and we’d like to explore South America (excluding Colombia, where security seems tricky these days) in a fitted-out van.

A few questions: - What itinerary would you recommend? - For the kids’ education, what’s your experience with CNED like? - And for the vehicle: is it better to buy locally or ship a fitted-out van from mainland France? Thanks in advance for your thoughts and experiences on this!

Hi there, If you're heading that way, the most recommended itinerary is to arrive in Uruguay or Argentina, then head to Paraguay, Bolivia, and then go back down toward Ushuaia and up through Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. Colombia is by far the scariest on paper, but once you're there, you’ll also find campgrounds if you don’t want to sleep in the middle of nature—we did this with our 4x4 and rooftop tent. It’s worth considering, but skipping it really complicates the route! For the kids’ schooling, we didn’t go with CNED. Instead, we handled the curriculum ourselves for a 2nd grader and an 8th grader, and everything went smoothly when they returned. We worked about 2 hours a day with the older one, and the program was finished by May (starting in August), thanks to kids who are already good students in France. Given the hassles on the ground, we decided to buy the 4x4 in France (after some last-minute camper van sales fell through) and don’t regret it at all—more rugged, less comfortable, but way more adventurous, with more opportunities to meet people. We even brought the vehicle back and still use it! You can find our whole story on my blog.