Seven years on the road
The Leonard family of Waterloo is settling back into the region after sons were ‘world-schooled’
WATERLOO — Eight years ago, Mike and Vesna Leonard returned home from a three-week family vacation to Europe and realized their lives had changed forever.
The two 40-year-olds worked remotely and lived in a modest, 366-square-foot apartment with their three sons while overseas, a lifestyle that suddenly seemed at odds with their lives in Waterloo.
“Everything seemed so big and overwhelming,” Vesna said in an email to The Record from Serbia, where the family is spending the last few weeks of summer.
“Wasted space, upkeep, cleaning. The quality time we had spent socializing, working and focusing on what mattered while we were away was gone.”
A few months later, they began selling everything they owned, including one of their cars and their house. It left them with “a very small storage locker full of a few boxes of memorabilia, our Kia Sedona, and a tent trailer,” she said.
They left in early 2011 and have been nomads ever since, living out of carry-on luggage for the first five years as they travelled across Canada, the United States, Costa Rica and parts of Europe.
Their three sons (Torrin, 15, Devlin, 13, Caelin, 9) kept up with their school work with Canadian curriculum documents and also attended schools in Costa Rica and Serbia for short periods of time, along with help from local tutors.
“We ‘world-schooled’ the boys,” Vesna said.
But they’ve decided to slow down and return to Waterloo Region. The couple wanted their sons to receive a more formal education, so they rented a home in Laurelwood last year and the boys were placed in local schools on a one-year trial basis.
It was such a success the boys asked to stay for another year, and now the family has purchased a small condo and is preparing to settle down once again — even for just a few years.
“We don’t feel like the trip has stopped, just slowed down more than anything,” Vesna said.
Their decision to sell almost everything was based on their desire to value experiences and relationships over material goods. “With every item that left the house, we felt like we could breathe easier.”
They packed their few remaining belongings into their 2003 Kia Sedona, hooked up their tent trailer and left town on Jan. 10, 2011. A year later, they upgraded to a 1996 Winnebago, a 10-metre (34-foot) motor home with 116,000 kilometres on the odometer.
The dealer converted the queen-sized bed in the back into four bunks for their three boys, and Mike and Vesna slept on a pullout couch in the living room.
Work was done remotely after they started their own business in 2009 as software testers, helping startups with software needs and customer service. Their clients are all over the world, including Waterloo Region, Toronto, the United States, Europe and Australia.
Laptops, cellphones, Skype and a reliable internet connection means they can work from almost any corner of the globe.
“We actually haven’t had a vacation in over 10 years. We work almost every day,” said Vesna. “Recently we started taking weekends off, but no matter where we are and where we travel, we are working for our clients and with our testing team.”
Life was simpler when the couple avoided a lifestyle with multiple vehicles in the driveway and paying the mortgage and upkeep of a suburban home.
“There is much more to it, but when you are not paying for ‘stuff,’ your life and finances get a lot simpler,” said Vesna.
The biggest challenge was keeping their three sons occupied while they did their work and built their business. They used curriculum documents to educate them, as well as online resources such as Khan Academy and Starfall.
The boys learned local languages wherever they went, including Spanish, Serbian, German and French, as well as local history and culture.
The family even enhanced their own knowledge of Canada by visiting all 96 National Parks that form the Parks Canada Xplorer Program. Children receive a certificate and an official collectible Xplorer tag at the end of each visit.
Vesna said they collected their first tag in April 2015 at Cape Breton Highlands National Park, and their last one was at L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site in Newfoundland earlier this summer.
“The last 20 tags or so were a bit of a push and a rush. Our older boys are getting too old for the program, and this summer wasn’t a leisure trip like it was in earlier years,” she said.
Their journey has had its difficulties. One that stands out most is when their RV broke down two years ago in the Northwest Territories in the middle of nowhere.
After spending a night in Hay River on the shores of Great Slave Lake, they drove to the Wood Buffalo National Park visitor centre near Fort Smith — 270 kilometres east of Hay River, down a packed gravel road with no cell connectivity.
Halfway along Highway 5, the RV sputtered to a stop — they had blown their fuel pump, and it was a two-hour drive in either direction for help. They flagged down a few passing cars, which promised to send help, but none ever showed up.
The RV was swarmed by giant mosquitoes, black flies and horse flies throughout the night, and “it sounded and felt like we were in a bee hive” Vesna said.
They spent the night hiding under sheets and swatting mosquitoes that had managed to sneak inside the motor home.
The next day an RCMP officer happened to drive by. He called for a tow truck using a satellite phone. The RV was towed to Hay River and fixed.
More than anything, their journey across Canada has taught them just how different the pace of life is in southern Ontario, which is “definitely the hustle and the bustle” of the country.
“People vary so much from place to place. How they live, how they treat others, and how they treat the land. It’s completely amazing.”
We actually haven’t had a vacation in over 10 years . ... Recently we started taking weekends off, but no matter where we are and where we travel, we are working for our clients and with our testing team. VESNA LEONARD