We did a practise trip this past summer. We stayed at Jamie’s parents place in France for 8 weeks. During that time Soren got measles and our car broke down. We had the most intense last week trying to sort out how we’d get home. It was super stressful in 40 degree heat. We learned some very important lessons during that time.
We realised we needed more people around, and we liked that we took lots of stuff with us and made it home – but our biggest lesson was that if we could deal with everything that got thrown at us there then we could take these kids anywhere in the world and survive.
So we made the decision. We’d been ski bums for years before settling to have the children. We missed the snow and had talked about going back for a whole winter for so long. So we took the plunge.
Bansko in Bulgaria makes so much sense for a first family season. It’s relatively easy to get to. You fly to Sofia airport and then it’s a 2.5 hour transfer that is pretty reasonably priced. I think we paid somewhere around £100 for a private transfer.
Accommodation is very affordable. We’re renting a 3 bed right by the gondola and even though it has its issues it’s been good enough and the location has been excellent – and it’s only £550 a month.
You don’t need a visa to stay here. You can be here for 90 days no questions asked.
The ski area is very beginner friendly. The top of the gondola has a myriad of different beginner slopes and when the snow is decent the home run/ski road is a perfect 7km of piste through the forest.
The town has lots going for it. There is so much to do here that’s not just skiing. I’ll go into everything we’ve been up to as we go on but it’s great to have a bustling town too with lots of culture.
And the best thing… the community. Bansko has become somewhat of a landing place for worldschooling families. With the rise of the digital nomad in town and the affordability it’s such a great place for families to come together. There’s always something going on and I can honestly say we’ve made friends for life here. It’s opened up so many doors for us in regards to onwards travel and we’re pretty set on this lifestyle. For now.
Four days before we left for Bulgaria I was in the midst of packing the house up from Christmas and getting together everything we needed for coming travel. I sent an email to our agent asking if we needed to consider linen and towels and that where everything kind of went a bit nuts. She emailed me telling me the apartment had fallen through. She had no way to help us going forward. It was a nightmare. We were leaving Devon the following day to travel to London to spend some time with Jamie’s sister before we left. And here I was, about to drag my three kids to a foreign country in the middle of winter with absolutely nowhere to stay.
Jamie and I spent hours and hours scouring every Facebook group and Airbnb listing for a place for us. I was at like 10 for anxiety… it was not a fun time. Then the guys from the coworking space Jamie had signed up for had a last minute place – 3 bedrooms – 5 minutes from the ski road – fire place!! Erm… yes please. And this is where I learned a pretty big lesson in this community.
You see the lady who I had used for our original apartment was suggested to me through a worldschooling families group. It turns out this lady had made some pretty poor decisions and in fact she owes (still) a lot of people a lot of money. After digging around a bit it turns out the apartment we paid for was never available for us.
The worldschool community is close knit. I was nervous to bring up my grievances with this lady to the new friends we’d met because I didn’t know who was friends with who. I was hesitant to speak up and burn bridges or worse, get myself ousted from my new friends. But I’m glad I eventually did start speaking up and even though the community is close, people admire honesty and vulnerability and generally the worldschool community is very open minded. So it was a great lesson.
