ABOUT THE BOOK
Embarking on a homeschooling field trip to Central America is stressful enough, but add in perilous bridge crossings, trips to the hospital, and a lack of women’s underwear, and you have the makings of an Adventure by Chicken Bus. Buckling under a mountain of debt, Janet LoSole and her family are at their wits’ end. Determined to make a drastic change, they sell all worldly possessions and hit the road. With only a few items of clothing, a four-person tent, and little else, the family visits a sleepy island backwater in Costa Rica to save endangered sea turtles. In Panama, they bounce around like turnips in the back of a vegetable truck to reach an isolated monkey sanctuary. In Guatemala, they scale the ancient Mayan temples of Tikal. In between tales of begging rides from total strangers and sleeping overnight in the jungle with an indigenous family, Janet endorses community-based travel—supporting local businesses and favoring public transportation called chicken buses. She also writes candidly about what it takes to travel long-term with two little girls amid the chaos of border crossings, erratic drivers, and creepy crawlies lurking at the edge of the jungle.
Book Details:
Title: Adventure by Chicken Bus: An Unschooling Odyssey through Central America
Author: Janet LoSole
Genre: nonfiction (memoir)
Publisher: Resource Publications (Dec 11, 2019)
Print length: 226 pages
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH JANET LoSOLE
Things you need in order to write: a good night’s sleep, tea, comfortable chair.
Things that hamper your writing: lack of sleep.
Things you love about writing: getting my ideas down and crafting a sentence.
Things you hate about writing: how draining it is mentally.
Easiest thing about being a writer: working from home, until I start to feel isolated, then I go out and meet people for coffee.
Hardest thing about being a writer: isolation, and editing.
Something you like to do: learn foreign languages . . . when we arrange vacations, I build in time to visit places where I can practice speaking the language.
Something you wish you’d never done: listened to someone tell me I couldn’t write.
Favorite places you’ve been: Nicaragua – the people are so warm and generous.
Places you never want to go to again: Amsterdam – way too crowded and chaotic.
Favorite things to do: travel, read.
Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: getting up early.
Best thing you’ve ever done: Homeschool my kids.
Biggest mistake: staying too long in toxic relationships.
Most daring thing you’ve ever done: backpacked through Central America with two young daughters.
Something you chickened out from doing: joining a francophone Toastmasters meeting in order to improve my French.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Janet LoSole is a freelance writer living in Ontario, Canada. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in French Linguistics from York University in Toronto and a Bachelor of Education Degree from Nipissing University. She is a certified TESOL instructor and has taught ESL internationally since 1994. She began homeschooling her daughters in 1997. She writes about traveling with children and homeschooling. Her work has been published in: Canada’s Education Magazine, Natural Parent Magazine, The Alliance for Self-Directed Education, Outdoor Families Online, Unravel, and elsewhere.
Connect with Janet:
Website | Twitter
Buy the book:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble
