Growing Global Citizens — Maya Frost

For every adventurous soul who takes a chance, there are countless more ‘would be’ explorers who never fulfil their dream, citing all manner of completely understandable and practical reasons why they can’t pursue a different route. Fears about money, family concerns or a desire for stability so often squash the aspiration — but Maya Frost proves that seeking an alternative route is possible, without a trust fund, and even with a teenage family to consider.

Fortune favours the brave

Maya’s life is a movie waiting to happen. From her childhood hoeing onions in small town Oregon, dreaming of adventure, to the intervention of fate in bringing her together with Tom — her husband now of thirty years — and a fellow Oregonian, not in the US, but in rural Japan; there’s romance, adventure and risk on a global scale.

After her studies, Maya seized an opportunity to work teaching in Japan, an experience that feels like the foundation, not only of family life through the chance meeting of Tom, but also of her professional passions, as teacher, writer and instigator. There certainly seems to be a sense of serendipity about Maya’s path — albeit, despite her humility — borne from a luck of her own making.

“The most surprising thing is the concentric circles of my life, how people and places are interconnected. Wherever I go, I meet people from other places or stages of my life. I love the recurring sense that we’re in a sort of cycle, all moving along on our paths but coming together at surprising and delightful points of intersection.”

Returning to Oregon from Japan, Maya and Tom never lost their international connections, hosting exchange students and running their own businesses, at the same time as raising four young daughters, who they longed to take with them, travelling and exploring.

Growing global citizens

Worries about how a young family might adapt to a new life might be given by many as a reason to stay put — but the fact is that intercultural experience in childhood can be a great gift, expanding kids’ horizons and influencing their view of their own potential. Indeed, Maya’s tale inspires because the very thing that could prevent many would-be adventurers from pursuing new paths, proved to be the very motivation and impetus for seeking life changing experience for herself and her family.

“When the girls were 7, 8. 10 and 11, we yanked them out of school for three months and took them to India and Nepal. That trip changed everything for us as we realised we could live very happily and differently abroad.”

After this formative trip, the desire to allow the girls to travel burned bright — but with practical concerns about schooling and tuition fees, the time was not yet right for a full family relocation. Instead, Maya and Tom supported their children in seeking exchange experiences as part of high school, and in 2005, with their older daughters already studying abroad, they sold up and moved to Mexico;

“It all happened very quickly. We decided on July 4th and were gone by mid-August, getting rid of house/cars/stuff in a whirlwind of activity. We settled in Mazatlan and never looked back.”

Looking Forward

The family’s journey took them both further afield, and in many ways, back to their roots — a return to teaching, and another period of exploring and living in Asia.

“After a year in Mexico, we moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina and after three years there, with all of our girls launched, Tom and I bought a farm online(!) and moved to Uruguay. We LOVED our year there and made amazing friends, but we missed being around kids. We decided to go back to Asia and do some teaching again — just like when we’d met years before!”

Around this time, Maya also wrote her first book, “The New Global Student”, to help other families inspired by the prospect of travelling access the resources, ideas and experiences that proved so useful to them.

Whilst the opportunities for travel, study and work abroad are increasing exponentially now, the reassurance provided by Maya’s straight talking and practical book may prove the tipping point for families close to deciding to leap.

And as for Maya?

“We ended up getting a great offer for jobs at a brand new flagship English-immersion private kindergarten in Beijing,”

Maya explains — a position which led to further, exciting opportunities.

“After a year, I was promoted to vice-principal, but months after accepting that position, I was offered a very unique opportunity — to move to Hangzhou and serve as the private tutor for the young child of a famous billionaire! So, with the blessings of our friends at the school in Beijing, we left for Hangzhou, where we spent two years.”

And the experience of living in China was not only about a personal adventure and challenge, but a creative one also — Maya took a foray into the world of fiction writing, and wrote a novel inspired by her experiences.

Adapt and Develop

Taking the path less travelled is as much a journey of personal development as it is a physical move, and Maya, Tom, and — one suspects — the family as a whole, have thrived in the learning experience of moving.

“The biggest thing I have learned is that I can feel at home in places I couldn’t have even imagined — a converted love hotel in Japan, a renovated cigarette factory in Mexico, an isolated farmhouse in Uruguay, a fancy apartment tower in Beijing or on the grounds of an elite boarding school in Hangzhou.”

Naturally the course of life can take many paths, but the resilience built through travel and adventure make it easier to take the rough with the smooth;

“We’re happy with the way things are going. There are always new places to go and different choices we could have made, but we have been very satisfied with our decisions — even the ones that didn’t seem to be working out well at the time!”

And Maya’s advice to those inspired by her family story? Get going;

“If we could do it over again, we would take our kids to live abroad earlier than we did. It is SOOO much easier now with so many other families doing it, so many ways to connect via social media and tech tools that make running a business/educating kids/starting new projects a joy rather than a chore.”

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Why inspiring stories?

Here at Jobbatical we work to connect top class talent with short term professional opportunities around the world, bringing together personal and career development, travel and adventure.

Jobbatical exists for the modern day explorer; but we know that people have been seeking life changing experiences since long before we arrived on the scene to help. We want to inspire people to seek a life rich in experience, and we are looking to inspirational individuals from around the world to share their stories.

Contact claire@jobbatical.com if you would like to be part of our collection.

Connect with Maya — Mayafrost.com