Welcome to Teaching Traveling!

Be part of our global education community!

My name is Lillie Marshall, and I am a National Board Certified teacher who created this site in 2010 to help people bring global perspectives into classrooms and homes through the power of great curriculum resources and educational travel tips. Over 1.6 MILLION people have visited TeachingTraveling.com in the past decade, and I thank you for joining us.

Stay Connected to Teaching Traveling

I warmly invite you to subscribe to my monthly newsletter which is a digest of the most useful articles of the previous four weeks. You can also connect with our community on social media via Facebook, on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube, and LinkedIn.

To reach me directly, please use this contact form, however please note that I do not run any programs or scholarships, myself. Rather, I am a teacher who curates and shares resources related to global education from experts in the field.

If you’d like to explore my other three sites, I also run Around the World “L” Travel and Life Blog, Drawings Of… educational cartoon site, and Reiki Colors, a blog about energy work. I look forward to being in touch as we explore our world, and expand minds and hearts!

A Full History of Teaching Traveling

Here is the story of this site, and where YOU fit in. I started teaching in Boston in 2003, fresh out of college. After 5 years as a high school English teacher, I was exhausted and frustrated. To continue in education, I knew I needed to step back and get perspective on what learning really is.

For this quest, I spent 2009-10 traveling around the world: teaching in Ghana, writing in Thailand, and exploring architecture in Spain. In 2009, I started Around the World “L” Travel Blog to chronicle this world learning.

At the end of the year’s journey, I was energized and excited to teach in Boston again, and have been teaching happily here ever since… with travels every vacation possible, of course!

Clearly, teaching and travel go hand in hand. It was upon returning home in 2010 that I launched TeachingTraveling.com, with the mission of exploring the infinite ways to explore Global Education. The aim of this site is to inspire and assist more teachers to travel, and more travelers to teach by sharing real-life stories of Teacher-Travelers… in EVERY sense of the term.

How does this site work? Simply use the menus and search boxes to find interviews that resonate with YOU, and with how you dream of combining teaching and traveling. Read for ideas, leads, and advice, and if you want further information, feel free to reach out to any interviewee with questions, either through the comments section of the article, or directly by email or social media, if that information is provided.

Over the almost-decade that I’ve run this site, it’s been thrilling to see the way this community helps each other, and the opportunities people have found and done! To be clear, this site is about you. I don’t have all the answers, but this community — you included — DOES know it all, so go forth and connect for inspiration!

Now, here are answers to your frequently asked questions.

Q: Who are TeachingTraveling.com‘s readers? Is this site for ME?

A: This site is for anyone who fits (or wants to fit) the title “Teacher-Traveler” in ANY sense of the word you can imagine.

Are you a middle school teacher in Detroit who wants to spend a week in Mexico sightseeing, because you know it will help you re-boot and get perspective? Perfect! Are you a ‘Round the World traveler who wants to learn how to get an ESL job? Excellent.  Are you a parent who wants recommendations for Global Education children’s books? Fabulous! Have you dedicated your entire life to teaching and travel already? Great! Join us!

At the end of the day, however, aren’t we ALL Teacher-Travelers in some way? This community also includes, for example, a man who draws fictional maps on human skin, because that teaches us a new way to look at our world.

It also includes students who travel, a woman who teaches clowning in Afghanistan, a Scuba diving instructor, a man who never travels outside his own city but is able to experience the world by teaching ESL at home, and a retired road-tripping couple.

Do not worry for a moment that you “don’t belong here” just because you don’t fit a cookie-cutter image of what “Teacher” or “Traveler” means. You ARE a “Teacher-Traveler” if you feel it in your heart! :)

The point of TeachingTraveling.com is to celebrate that teaching is great, traveling is great, and we benefit by doing more of both. This site aims to inspire more teachers to travel, and more travelers to teach, and to provide educators and parents with Global Education curriculum and resources.

Q: Cool! How do I stay connected to this community?

A: Do subscribe to my monthly Teaching Traveling e-Newsletter (it’s free!) which delivers a round-up of the best travel and education ideas and opportunities right to your inbox, with no spammy spam.

You can also join the Teaching Traveling Facebook page, and follow me at @WorldLillie on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and more!

Q: I notice that much of this site consists of interviews with Teacher-Travelers. Why, and who do you seek to interview?

A: Hearing how others made their teaching-traveling dream come true is an awesome way to learn how to do it yourself, either through concrete resources, or via general revelations.

This site is always seeking Teacher-Travelers (in, I am not kidding, ANY sense of the word) to interview, so please spread the word, and feel free to reach out to me on social media at @WorldLillie or by email at TeachingTraveling at gmail.

Even if you are a teacher who took a “non-educational” 2-day camping trip in the next state over which developed you as a person and a teacher, your story will inspire others to teach and travel, so do contact me.

Q: Do you endorse all the programs and paths described in the interviews?

A: The purpose of this site is to share stories about diverse travel experiences by people who love teaching and traveling. I have not personally tested every program and teaching-traveling path mentioned on this site, and therefore cannot vouch for or guarantee each.

What this means is that if you are interested in a program or opportunity mentioned, I invite you to contact the interview’s author to research more deeply. Always use good judgement and thorough preparation with regards to travel to strive for the best experience possible.

Q: Is “Teaching Traveling” an organization? Do you run trips or programs I can join? Do you offer any jobs?

A: Nope! This site is just a place for Teacher-Travelers to share ideas about ways to combine education and the world. Many interviews do have links to travel programs, grants, and job placement agencies that you CAN join, however — I just don’t run any of them, myself!

Q: How is this site funded?

A: Most people don’t realize that it’s quite expensive to run a website with the volume of Teaching Traveling, which has hundreds of articles (with more coming each week), and which receives tens of thousands of readers each month. To address these site expenses, I’ve launched several monetization elements that I aim to make as minimal as possible for your reading experience, while still covering costs.

First, I use a display ad network which pays by views, meaning that all you have to do to support this site is to read as you normally would! These display ads cover the majority of the site’s costs, but not all. (If you don’t see the ads I’m talking about, your school’s network may be disabling them, which is totally fine.)

Second, some articles include affiliate links where appropriate, and (as per FCC guidelines) these links are always clearly marked. What does that mean? Say you’re reading an article here about a Global Education author. The link to their book on Amazon will be marked as an affiliate link, which means that if you buy the book (or anything else) through that link, a small commission will go to Teaching Traveling, at no extra cost to you.

Absolutely no pressure to buy, but if you were going to do so anyway, the affiliate link is a nice way to keep the Teaching Traveling community going. For more information, feel free to review my Disclosure Statement and Privacy Policy. In sum, monetization on this site is for the purpose of covering costs, and I appreciate your understanding and support.

Q: Do you offer advertising opportunities?

A: Indeed I do, but they must fit the integrity and mission of this site fully. Check out my Teaching Traveling Media Kit here for more information, numbers, and contact information.

Q: Are you available for speaking engagements or workshops, Lillie?

A: Sure — I love speaking engagements! Only thing is, any bookings have to fit amid my schedule as a public school teacher. Feel free to reach out to discuss, however: Lillie at TeachingTraveling dot com. I can present about a wide variety of topics, from an overview of teacher travel and Global Education resources, to blogging, to social media use.

Q: What is your Copyright policy? Can I steal your articles?

A: Yargh — please respect the work and laws. It is a violation of my TeachingTraveling.com Copyright to re-post any articles from this site in their entirety on another site. The same goes for the TeachingTraveling.com RSS feed.

You may, however, use a short excerpt (two paragraphs or less) from articles on this site with a link back to the original article and an introduction giving the context. Please respect the hard work that goes into this site and do not plagiarize, or I will file a DMCA takedown order. Thank you!

Q: How can I connect with or contact you?

A: Use this contact form, find me on social media at @WorldLillie, or email me at TeachingTraveling at gmail. I love to hear from you, so be in touch.

I’m so glad you found TeachingTraveling.com and invite you to use the upper navigation to dive right in!