When I was 14 years old, my parents sold our house and we (my parents and I, two dogs, and my pet rat) took off on a yearlong adventure in our RV. As we traveled around the U.S. (including Alaska) and Canada, I was being home schooled.

The idea of home schooling was new to us. My dad had to do extensive research on the subject to see if it would be possible to do it, both financially and legally. He wanted to make sure that I would still be able to get into college if we decided to continue home schooling throughout my high school years.

Before I start telling you about my home schooling experience, I should probably give you a little bit of background information.

I hated junior high. The students seemed really unfriendly and I was unable to make any friends. So when my dad brought up the idea of fulltiming, I was definitely interested. Eventually after the seemingly long process of making the decision, buying the RV, and selling the house, I was free from Jr. High.

My parents enrolled me in Laurel Springs, a home-school program based in Ojai, CA created for kids that travel a lot or are not usually in the same place for very long (i.e. child actors or athletes). I received a set of books and four spiral bound notebooks containing my assignments and their deadlines. The notebooks told me what I needed to read, and the assignments that I was to complete after the reading. At the end of each two-week period I would mail my assignments to my teachers (one of whom lived on a boat in the Pacific). A week or two later I would receive the homework back with a grade and my teacher's comments.

Because I was teaching myself, I had to have a certain amount of self-discipline and a desire to learn and comprehend the material. With this form of schooling it is very easy to slack off and fall behind. I never actually met my teachers, so needless to say, I didn't have the feeling that anyone was breathing down my neck if I didn't do my homework for a day or two, or five. This lowered level of stress made my learning experience much more fun and effective. I felt that my time was spent much more effectively than it ever was in a classroom because I had the ability to set my own pace. I never had to wait for the last kid in the class to understand the material. I've always been amazed by how many hours can be wasted in a regular classroom and I still end up getting hours of homework.

Of course there were some drawbacks to having no classroom or teachers nearby. The main downside was in the area of science. I was unable to perform nearly as many experiments or labs like I had back in public school, especially the elaborate ones involving various chemicals or tools, to which I had no access. I did perform several experiments, but they were very limited. One of these experiments was to see how much of certain solutes could dissolve in water. I remember performing this experiment while parked at a rest area on the side of the freeway. Another experiment was to make a model of an atom out of color-dyed marshmallows and toothpicks. I remember this experiment in particular because my dogs ate the finished model, and regurgitated it not too long after. It was the first time that I had ever seen green vomit.

The other drawback of having my teachers many miles away, emerged in the subject of math. Math was the subject that I had the most difficulty understanding on my own and it was the only subject that I think I would have been better off learning with the aid of a teacher, rather than solely from the book. However, I wasn't entirely out of reach from my math teacher. I called him and left voice messages or I often wrote my question out and sent it off with the rest of the assignments, and I'd get a response when he sent them back.  I also had the help of my dad.  He spent a lot of time going over Algebra with me.

There was, however, one advantage to traveling/home schooling in particular that greatly outweighed any disadvantages. I was fortunate enough to visit places like the Harry Truman museum and library, the Falcon Preserve and museum, and the Oregon Trail museum, which really had an impact on my learning. I learned about the U.S. President, Harry Truman, and about the Berlin Airlift while at the Truman Museum and Library. While visiting the Oregon Trail Interpretive Museum, I learned about the movement of people to the west and how they lived and traveled and I even got to see part of the actual Oregon Trail. I enjoyed visiting the Birds of Prey Museum in Idaho. I actually got to observe live birds in captivity for breeding. I was lucky enough to visit the Los Angeles Museum of Art to see the Vincent Van Gough exhibit. While in Alaska, we visited the University of Alaska Museum, where I learned a great deal about the wildlife and the native Alaskans. These places proved to be wonderful visual aids to my learning experience on the road. By visiting these museums and sites, I was able to learn via up-close, visual, and often, hands-on experiences. It was places like these that really sparked my interest in what I was learning and kept me motivated to learn more. Needless to say, I looked forward to these frequent breaks from the textbooks.

Throughout my experiences of traveling full time, I did miss the company of my friends, but not as often as you might think. I was at a point in my life where I did not really enjoy the company of my peers. After all, that is why I detested junior high. Through my experience on the road I was able to converse with many older people that we met along the way. I thoroughly enjoyed this and found almost all of the people I met to be very easy to talk to. I had plenty of things to keep me entertained as well. I was in a different place almost every week, so there were always new places to go and things to see. And half the fun of traveling was watching the scenery go by as we drove down the road. If I got bored, I put on my headphones and did my homework, or I watched a movie, but I was never bored for long.

After our adventure came to an end, I was enrolled in high school just in time for my freshman year. I found high school to be much more fun and relaxed than junior high. People are friendlier and more mature. I was reunited with most of my friends from grade school, which helped me immediately feel comfortable at school. There were some things, however, that were hard to get used to. It was difficult to wake up bright and early at 7:00 each morning. I had gotten used to sleeping in until 9 or 10 while traveling, so this was a big shock to me. It was also hard to get used to being constantly surrounded by thousands of people as well. But all things considered, I'm glad to be back, and I'm even happier to have spent 8th grade traveling with my parents.