A couple rented out their home and took their kids out of school to go on a year-long £85k around-the-world family trip.<br /><br />Dennis Horstman Maassen, 51, and wife, Sheila, 45, de-registered as citizens of the Netherlands to legally remove children, Oz, eight, and Zola, six, from school.<br /><br />The family took trains, hire cars, boats, buses and planes through 14 countries - including Ireland, New Zealand, Japan and Hawaii.<br /><br />They spent around €100-a-night on Airbnb and hotel accommodation and their biggest one-off expense was around-the-world plane tickets costing €15k.<br /><br />And while many are saving money for the future, the family decided to spend it on a around-the-world trip.<br /><br />Dennis says that because of rising costs it was "cheaper" for them to travel than stay at home.<br /><br />And with Dennis owning a small production company and having a number of projects abroad, the family decided to combine his work with travel.<br /><br />Dennis says the children's' school was "supportive" of their plans and even gave the kids work to do whilst they were away.<br /><br />Dennis and Sheila rented out their home and sold their car to raise some extra cash for the trip, before heading to their first stop, Germany, on August 8, 2022.<br /><br />The family then spent time in Ireland before jetting across the Atlantic to visit Canada and the US.<br /><br />Trips to theme parks in Florida and road trips on the west coast were followed by a flight to Hawaii, where they spent three weeks.<br /><br />Continuing west, they eventually reached New Zealand and Australia before venturing through Asia to reach Japan.<br /><br />A quick stop in Singapore and Dubai rounded off their year around the world, before they flew back to the Netherlands on July 25, 2023.<br /><br />Dennis, a production company owner, from Arnhem, the Netherlands, said: "When we thought it was an option, we made the decision to do it quite quickly.<br /><br />"I had some job opportunities with my creative production and we thought it would be nice to travel with the kids and school them as we go.<br /><br />"We had to rent out our house and sell the car, but the house had tenants within a week and it was a nice way of making passive income whilst we were away for the year.<br /><br />"I budgeted about €100k for the trip. We didn't have that in the beginning but doing some of my production work along the way helped with costs.<br /><br />"In general we paid around €100 for accommodation a night, €3k-a-month for car rental and the around-the-world travel ticket was €15k euros.<br /><br />"For some it's a lot of money but in general I think we did it pretty well and if you look at your costs in general for a family-of-four for a year I don't think it's too much."
