By the age of 20, Dylan Hickcox has spent time in 21 countries and now runs his family’s blog about their experiences. He travels with programs, on his own, with friends and with his girlfriend.
When his family left the United States in 2007 to move to Atenas, Costa Rica, Hickcox was excited. He learned Spanish, played football in the streets and fell into the community of expats in the town he was staying in. By 2012, his father had created a popular activism and political news website with other expats they knew in town. The website took off, garnered millions of hits and suddenly was creating enough revenue for the family to continue to travel. So they left Costa Rica with their sites set on Thailand.
The move felt strange for Hickcox. He said he was worried about missing the people he met, but now as a seasoned traveler, he has no regrets. They landed in Bangkok and struggled with jet lag for quite a while, as the youngest son was only three years old and would keep them up through the nights. Finally acclimated to the time zone, they began to travel.
The Hickcox family utilized Thailand and Malaysia as their launching pads into South East Asia. They would cram into hotels and AirBnB rooms with two beds for the five of them, a small price to pay for years of travel.
The family would educate their children through worldschooling, an education model that capitalizes on the experiences the world and travel provided to young people. The children learned Spanish in Costa Rica, history through tours, bargaining, cooking, the world was their teacher. Hickcox said he feels he has a better grasp on seeing new cultures and accepting them than most adults do because of his global citizenship.
Hickcox was also very social while abroad. His family was active on their blog, Bohemian Travelers, and big users of various worldschooling Facebook groups. This is where Hickcox met his best friend, Miro Siegel, another world-schooler, who he began traveling with mid-2015.
They spent four years immersing themselves in new cultures before moving to Hawaii, U.S.A., in 2015. From his home in Hawaii, Hickcox began attending worldschooling retreats for teens through the company Project World School,hosted by Siegel and his mother, Lainie Liberty. He traveled to Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, back to Thailand, Greece and other countries with them.
Now, Hickcox continues to travel and intern with Project World School as well as independently. He looks forward to rock climbing around the world and chasing views globally.
Check back here next week to learn how Hickcox and his girlfriend, Cassidy Grant, met at the age of 17 while traveling.
