There is one thing I must say: traveling families are awesome. I define traveling families as families (at least one parent and one kid) who currently do not live in a stationary house. They do this because they can, not because they have to. It is something they, and we, love to do.

Here are five facts about traveling families.

Traveling families homeschool their kids. Although this is a given in the traveling family world, I often notice that families that send their kids to a public school ask what we do for schooling a lot. Some traveling families take a gap year, but they are still teaching their kids just by traveling.

Age doesn’t matter. I am fifteen, and I have fun playing with traveling kids of all ages. Since I travel, I don’t get to play with kids very much, so when we meet up with other traveling kids, no matter what their age is, I’m pretty sure I can find something that will entertain all of us.

Traveling families are not isolated. This seems to be a common misconception amid non-traveling families. And maybe to non-traveling families we do seem isolated. Sometimes we don’t meet up with close friends for months. But that doesn’t mean we’re isolated. We meet people we don’t know, and we make friends. I remember one time when a traveling family drove an hour to meet us: we played music around the fire until 10 o’clock that night. They are now really good friends of ours, and I look forward to meeting them again sometime soon.

Traveling families like to caravan. Caravanning to me means going to the same parks with the same family a couple of times. We don’t always travel at the same pace (though sometimes we meet up at the same rest stops, even though we didn’t plan it beforehand), but we always meet up at the same park usually within an hour of each other. Caravanning makes life-long friends. Well, actually more like non-biological siblings.

Traveling families will come back to their hometown different every time. There is really no stopping it. We will change, be it for the better or for the worse. The things we have seen, the experiences we have had, the people we have met, will grow on us and change us. (The Beatles’ song I’m Looking Through You applies directly to my life for this very same reason.) I used to be a very shy child, and now my friends look to me as a leader. My room used to have to be clean as soap before company came over, and now the phrase ‘refrigerator rights’ (being able to go into a trailer without knocking; getting something out of the refrigerator without asking; etc.) has come into play. I used to hate traveling, and now I embrace it because I've been able to look back and see how much I would've missed, and how many memories I would never have had. I have learned to embrace traveling.

Miranda Boyink is a member of the Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program

All photos courtesy and copyright Michael Boyink