A Journey of Intention: The Campbell Family's Year-Long World Travel

Ashley Campbell read a magazine article when her oldest child was a year old about a family who spent a year traveling the world. Seventeen years later, in June 2022, she and her husband Chris boarded a plane with their five kids, small backpacks only, and did exactly that. On this episode of The Franklin Planner Podcast, with John Harding away, George Wright III sits down with Campbell, a photographer, blogger, community leader, and now author of a book about the family's year-long world travels.

What makes her story useful is not the 21 countries. It is the 17 years of intentional living that made the trip possible, and the way a single dream reshaped how an entire family defines a successful life.

The idea would not go away, so the Campbells made a decision early: if they wanted to travel the world and raise a family, they had to be intentional. They chose a window when their oldest would still be at home and their youngest as old as possible, which landed on the month after their son graduated high school.

Two areas needed preparation. The first was money. There were no blog posts in the mid-2000s explaining what a year of travel cost, so they saved as much as they could. They lived below their means, ate at home, and told their kids no to things their friends' parents said yes to. Instead of individual custards, the family bought a gallon of ice cream and shared it. Campbell says her kids got a masterclass in delayed gratification.

The second area mattered even more: character. Chris and Ashley did not want resorts or heavy tourist zones, and their budget would not have allowed it anyway. So they spent those years teaching their kids to be comfortable being uncomfortable, to take calculated risks, and not to let fear be the loudest voice in their heads. An old travel trailer and trips across the United States were the training ground.

Campbell is honest that her kids were never exactly excited about an abstract trip nobody else's family was taking. There were hard Christmases and birthdays when the answer was "we're saving for this trip that may or may not happen." Consistency, she says, is what carried it. Even if the trip had never happened, the character built along the way would have been worth it. She did not fully believe it was real until the plane took off from Morocco.

Her advice for anyone with a big dream is to evaluate whether it is truly important to you and worth sacrificing for. If it is, stay consistent, and when you are discouraged, swap the bad "what if" questions for good ones. It was, she says, better than they imagined.

But what if it's better than I can even imagine? Do I wanna keep pushing towards this? Because what if it's even better?

The family planned only about four months ahead, mostly because a group of seven on a budget needed to lock down the one guest house or hostel bunk room they could afford. Beyond that, the route followed the cheapest next leg. In Morocco it was a $45 ferry to Spain or a $25 flight to Rome, so they went to Rome. They took buses and trains and went wherever the bus went next.

Setbacks came constantly. A driver in Albania arrived two hours late, they missed their bus into Greece, and the family of seven was dropped on the side of a highway near Thessaloniki with no shared language. Twenty minutes later a bus pulled up, the driver having somehow arranged it. Campbell and Chris knew they were setting the tone, so they stayed calm on purpose and gave the kids a simple frame for every problem.

We're in this together and it's either gonna work out or we're gonna have a good story.

Ask what the best case is first, she told them. If the worst case happens, it will be funny eventually.

In every country they visited a small town, a mid-sized suburb, and the capital, because seeing only Oklahoma would give a visitor a limited picture of the United States. They booked hosts whose reviews praised how engaged they were and stayed in hostels where fellow travelers pointed them to the bakery whose owner had a story. Her son Everett, 14, packed a deflated basketball and a pump in his one small backpack, and it became the MVP of the trip. Three American teenagers on a local court led to friendships, and friendships led to dinners in family homes around the world. A connection Hudson made at a gym in Indonesia turned into dinner with a family in Kuala Lumpur weeks later.

Two nights after coming home, Campbell and one of her daughters were in tears. The year was over and everyone had dispersed. She needed a healthy way to process, and she wanted her future grandchildren to see the world the way her family had. So she gave herself six months, set weekly deadlines and monthly goals, and finished a manuscript on December 31. She posted a picture of it on Instagram, a publisher who had reached out years before messaged her, and it became a publishing deal.

A self-described paper planner girl, she had carried her planner and written throughout the trip, which is why the book holds so much detail. The trip also gave her a hard stop on a decade of commitments, and she came back asking of every obligation whether she was doing it out of duty or desire. Her kids came home with a passion for their local community in Tulsa: two joined the youth city council, several volunteer with nonprofits, and the whole family is learning Spanish.

I don't want somebody else's list of what defines a successful life to be mine.

That, she says, is the biggest takeaway for the whole family: stay constantly mindful of how you define success, because your days are numbered.

• Step back and ask what matters most to you, then build your spending, schedule, and habits around it.
• Practice being comfortable with discomfort in small doses now so you are ready when the big goal arrives.
• Ask the good "what if" question when you are discouraged: what if it turns out better than you can imagine?
• Write things down as you go. Your planner or journal is how the details and the meaning survive.
• Be curious about people and their stories. It is the shortest path to a richer life.

Ashley Campbell's year around the world began with one intentional decision and thousands of small, consistent ones. You don't just manage time. You lead your life.