Resorts To RV Parks: Parents Take School Year On The Road

In RVs, rental homes and five-star resorts, families untethered by the constraints of physical classrooms for their kids have turned the new school year into an extended summer vacation, some lured by the ailing hotel industry catering to parents with remote learners through “roadschooling” amenities.

Since the start of the pandemic, families of means have decamped to second homes or taken long-term rentals in vacation spots around the world. With summer over, schoolcations offer others similar experiences, whether they’re roughing it on the road for extended periods or spending on hotels and resorts trying to make up for a summer slump.

Breaux Walker and Edie Silver Walker prefer Stormy, the nearly 30-foot RV they bought for $17,000 just before they took off Aug. 8 from home in San Francisco with their sixth-grader and twin first-graders. Logging in to school and homework is mandatory, the parents said.

“We’re working our itineraries around WiFi. We’re using hot spots on our cell phones a lot,” Silver Walker said from Ennis, Montana, about seven weeks in.

Reyne, the 11-year-old doing full days of live instruction, didn’t miss a moment when Stormy blew an air hose in the middle of school in a sleet storm north of Helena, Montana, on Interstate 15.

“With her laptop and her headphones, she just hopped up into the tow truck,” Silver Walker laughed.

Breaux added: “We’re out in the woods every single day after they go to class. They’re getting the coolest, most experiential, useful education every day.”

Check out the full article from the Associate Press here.