If you’re a parent to young kids in daycare or preschool, then you know just how important it is to have a place for them to go every day.
The problem is, that daycares can be hard to get into for short periods, or on short notice. This leaves many would-be traveling families with a hard choice: do you hit the road with your little ones and pull them out of “school” (which can lead to big work and money decisions for parents) or do you wait until they are older when they can be home-schooled, world-schooled, or join a hub or co-living community, etc.?
What if you didn't have to choose?
Short-term and flexible daycare for digital nomads with kids is just how it sounds—an option for your baby, toddler, or preschool-aged kids, that’s easy to find, easy to reserve, and easy for your child to transition in and out of. For many digital nomad parents, finding short-term daycare is often the one key ingredient that’s needed to make travel happen (again).
Read on to learn more:
What Is Short-Term Daycare for Digital Nomads Families?
Though there are many different terms to describe 'short-term daycare', the idea is that these are schools and/or programs that are designed to accommodate the needs of traveling parents. They do this by providing short-duration options without the need for long-term enrollment, lengthy registrations, and waiting lists.
Whether it’s the option to...
Enroll your child for just a few weeks or months at a time
Take advantage of open enrollment to sign up your child any time of the school year
Have a place to drop your child off when you’re checking out a new spot to settle for a while
...short-term daycares are giving digital nomad parents with kids an opportunity to get back out there.
Ultimately, with short-term daycare availability around the world, children can still receive the same supervised care and socialization experiences they crave at that age, while parents get time to work or explore new destinations. And, weekends (or, the days you choose) are still left to venture out together as a family, experiencing all the joys and educational perks of traveling that inspired you to seek this lifestyle in the first place.
The Importance of Short-Term Daycare for Traveling Families
There are 35 million digital nomad families from around the world as of 2023.
According to a report by MBO Partners, out of the 17 million digital nomads from the United States alone, nearly a quarter of them are families with children under 18. Of course, there are at least a good chunk of those who have babies and toddlers, or who are planning to have children in the near future.
But, what these numbers don’t mention are the people who define themselves as digital nomad families, but are taking a hiatus until their kids are a little older.
What if they didn’t need that hiatus, though?
Having short-term daycare is a necessity for families who want to continue living and embracing a lifestyle that they’ve promised themselves to introduce to their children in the early years. Without short-term daycare, many families are losing out on something they’ve always dreamt of doing. This is because many new parents—regardless of their travel history—may have to make the difficult decision to temporarily put off traveling with their young children until are old enough to take advantage of schooling options abroad. Most of these don’t start until 5+.
Parents of babies and toddlers who need to work, deserve a little break, and/or want those socialization experiences and routines for their children, shouldn’t have to wait five years to start traveling as a family.
Why not just travel without daycare?
Well, this could mean that one parent will likely need to stop working to prioritize care for the child. Or, the family will have to hire a caregiver which cuts into living expenses. This is even more difficult for single parents. And, while there’s nothing wrong with these options, parents who find their children simply do better with routine and socialization may not feel that these alternatives are good choices for themselves or their children.
Nannies, au pairs, and childcare may be easy to find anywhere in the world, but they are different from having the option to send your little one(s) to “school” every day. Depending on the situation, daycare may not only be more cost-effective for the parents but may be more beneficial for the family dynamic overall.
Who Is Short-Term Daycare Abroad Ideal For?
Short-term daycare isn’t ideal for every family, but for traveling families, it can be the perfect solution. We’ve found that there are certain types of families that short-term and flexible daycare and preschool options tend to cater to:
Digital nomads/remote workers: Families who work online may want to utilize short-term daycare to be able to take their young families on the road.
Bi-national: Families who move between each parent’s native countries frequently, often outside of a “normal” school schedule. For example, one parent is from Canada and the other is from Sri Lanka. They may want to alternate visiting their home countries (along with taking time to travel) so the child gets equal time with their extended families and cultures.
Long-term travelers/vacationers: Families who are taking extended vacations across multiple countries or regions; i.e., a year “off” traveling while the kids are young.
Expat families in transition: Families who are transitioning between countries due to work or personal reasons, need short-term childcare for the interim.
Single/solo traveling parents: Parents who are on their own and want some support and socialization for their child when traveling.
Families with older children, too: Traveling families with older kids who can access those schooling options for their eldest, but don’t have much available for their younger kids. This can restrict the family’s ability to travel with more flexibility overall.
For the heck of it!: Families embracing non-traditional lifestyles, such as “van life”.
What to Consider Before Choosing a Destination (With Short-Term Daycare)
As parents with travel experience—or, an interest in travel—several factors are a no-brainer when it comes to choosing where to take your little ones for a few weeks or months. Usually, the main considerations are:
✔️ Safety
✔️ Access to good-quality and affordable healthcare
✔️ Cost of living
✔️ Internet access
✔️ Ease of settling in/visas
✔️ Availability of short-term or flexible daycare
Based on the above criteria, many families will easily knock some places off their list (especially if they’re looking to send their young children to short-term daycare) if the destination doesn’t fit most or all of these criteria.
But, we have some additional insight...
When is a good time to start traveling with babies or toddlers?
Loads of families hit the road as soon as their baby is 3-4 months old—around the time they are old enough to travel and get the go-ahead from the pediatrician. But, if you’ve just had a baby and you’re wondering how anyone could survive traveling on top of the sleep deprivation, we get you. It’s super hard in the beginning, and that’s another reason why parents may want to wait until they’ve got a handle on things a little bit better, even if they do plan to travel early on. This could be when they feel their child’s sleep starts to regulate, they’re walking, napping less, out of diapers, or at least better at communicating their needs overall.
All this said, a good time to start traveling with babies or toddlers depends on not just when they are ready, but when YOU are ready. Of course, don’t forget it also depends on when the doctor says it is safe to do so.
When is a good age to put a baby or toddler in daycare? And, in another country?
The recommended age to start childcare according to multiple sources is at 12 months old. That being said, some children may be ready to start a few months earlier or later (and, for some families, they may not have a choice). But, for those that do—especially families who are thinking of traveling and want to look for short-term options—a year-old may be that magic number. You’ve gotten through that first year/newborn phase, and now you can get back to your life a little.
Now, deciding when the right time is to send your child to daycare may be easier to determine when you’re in your home country. Deciding when to put your child in daycare (especially short-term) abroad, though, is a bit of a different story. In addition to the normal worries that come with putting your child in a new environment, this can be all compounded when you’re in another country.
The good news is that if your family has experience traveling and living abroad, then your child’s transition into daycare in another country shouldn’t be too drastically different than what it would be at home.
Where are digital nomads with young children going?
As of January 2024, the top 18 rising digital nomad family destinations according to Nomad List were:
Lisbon, Portugal
Barcelona, Spain
Azores, Portugal
Gran Canaria, Canary Islands
Penang, Malaysia
Athens, Greece
Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand
Ericeira, Portugal
Prague, Czech Republic
Berlin, Germany
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Helsinki, Finland
Lagos, Portugal
Munich, Germany
Portimao, Portugal
Fuerteventura, Canary Islands
Madeira, Portugal
Valencia, Spain
These destinations—along with consistently popular hubs like Bali, Bangkok, Phuket, Medellin, and Mexico City —continue to attract digital nomad families with young families. But, for many families, the availability of short-term daycare may be that one factor that moves a destination higher up on the list.
How long are you allowed to stay in that country?
Maybe it’s easy enough for the parents to settle in in a new place for a few months, but what about your kid? How easy is it to get them into a school once you’re there? If you’re looking for your short-term daycare option to be a minimum of six months long, what happens if the country you want to go to can only have you there for three months?
That country might not then be the best place for your family (as doing visa runs with babies and toddlers is not advisable). Visas in general can also get costly for a family. So, in addition to researching short-term and flexible daycares and preschools in your desired destination, don’t forget to zoom out a little and check this information as well.
What’s it like to enroll your child in daycare in another country?
When it comes to enrolling your child, the school/country may have some policies in place that make it difficult for foreign children to attend the school; even if they do offer short-term options and you’re able to live there legally for several months at a time.
These policies could be something as simple as requiring a certain vaccine or could be more complicated, like requiring a local social security number. When choosing short-term daycares, you’ll want to find schools that make this process as streamlined as possible.
The Challenges of Finding Short-Term Daycare Worldwide
The challenges of finding short-term daycare abroad stem from several factors that set children this age apart from school-age children. While we’re seeing more and more options available for older kids of traveling families, the availability of similar options tailored specifically for babies and toddlers is much harder to find. Throw short-term and flexible requirements into that, and you have a real challenge on your hands.
Some of the reasons for this include:
Complexity of care: Infants and toddlers require specialized care and attention that might not align with the offerings of typical daycare or educational programs designed for older children. Their needs, including feeding schedules, nap times, and constant supervision, demand a higher caregiver-to-child ratio and specialized expertise.
Regulatory constraints: Many countries have stringent regulations and licensing requirements for childcare facilities. Meeting these standards—especially for short-term or transient childcare services—can be challenging, resulting in a scarcity of options in many places around the world.
Limited demand and visibility: The demand for short-term daycare for this age range might be comparatively lower within the digital nomad community. Providers might find it financially unviable to cater exclusively to infants and toddlers due to the higher costs involved in meeting their care needs.
Lack of flexibility in programs: Unlike school-age children who can engage in more structured learning or social programs, infants, babies, and toddlers often require more personalized care that might not fit into typical daycare or educational setups.
Language and cultural barriers: Babies and toddlers require many needs that their parents are often very attuned to. Finding daycare providers who can understand these needs from a cultural standpoint as well as being able to communicate, can be difficult.
As a result of these factors, finding short-term daycare abroad is not as easy as it would be to find a schooling option for a school-age child. However, short-term daycares and preschool options DO exist. And, as more and more digital nomad parents with babies and toddlers come out of their sleep-deprived hibernation phase, we’ll likely see an increase in these options pop up.
5 Tips to Finding Short-Term Daycare Options Abroad
Even though more short-term daycare and preschool options are bound to hit the market (as well as other variations of these), it’s still not easy to find them. If you’re interested in looking for short-term and flexible daycare options abroad, these tips can help:
1. Choose a Destination or Work Backwards
If daycare is a priority for you, then chances are you’re only willing to consider destinations that have this option available for your family.
This means that the first step in finding short-term daycare abroad is to decide whether or not you want to choose your favorite destinations and find what’s available there, or work backwards: search for daycares that meet your needs around the world and be open to choosing a destination based on that. This may mean changing some of your plans a bit, but it can also help open more doors in general.
2. Understand the Terminology: Decoding “Childcare” Worldwide
When you are searching, it’s important to keep in mind that although the term “short-term daycare abroad” makes sense depending on where you’re from, the reality is that the terms used to describe this type of childcare option are different all over the world. The terms used may also differ depending on the child’s age, the language, the audience, etc.
“Daycare” for instance may bring up images of germy environments with loads of babies, while “creche” might sound more sophisticated. “Nursery” in some countries may refer to a place for newborns, whereas the term “nursery school” may refer to a school for 2-4 year-olds. But, generally—regardless of the specific term used—they all have the same purpose: a place to bring your child to be cared for and socialize with other children.
All this considered, we find it helpful to categorize these terms as best as possible:
Program Availability:
Short-term: Commonly used in North America, daycare facilities offer supervised care for infants and young children during the day, usually 0 - 36 months, while preschool may be for ages 3-6. It will vary on the country and school, and of course, each school will have its language to refer to this (see ‘school’ below).
Open-enrollment: Programs that allow children to enroll on an as-needed basis without long-term commitments, or they can enroll outside of normal enrollment periods. This may be an attractive option to families who aren’t sure how long they may want to stay somewhere but want to ensure they can enroll their child at any time during the year for the foreseeable future. No need to operate under strict sign-up windows.
Flexible: Flexible daycare in the broader context generally means part-time enrollment, whether it’s a few days a week and/or a few hours a day. But, “flexible” can also mean for a few weeks or months at a time, or as needed. Keep in mind that while some short-term daycares offer flexible options, not all daycares with flexible options allow short-term enrollment. You’ll have to check what the school means when they say “flexible” and no it could be either/or both.
Drop-in: Programs where parents can bring their children at random or pre-scheduled times. The program may require the parents to stay for the program (for instance, a parent-child music class or yoga class), or have supervision for some time (for instance, a drop-off playgroup, or a babysitting service at a gym), allowing parents some free time.
Hybrid: Schools that offer one or more of the above and/or on a case-by-case basis.
Type:
School: “School” can encompass different facilities that offer supervised care for infants and babies, toddlers, and pre-kindies during the day. Usually, the ages can range from 0 up to 6 years, with different groups within this including “daycare”, “nursery”, “preschool”, “kindergarten”, and more. You’ll have to do additional research to understand what’s meant by the term your prospective “school” uses.
Co-working + Childcare: Many co-working spaces are popping up around the world that offer babysitting and/or more consistent daycare. This is a great option for digital nomad parents who need to work but want to be near their babies.
Indoor Playground: This is essentially any place you can bring your child to play when you’re in a new destination. In many cases, it could be a children’s museum or a play center (think: places where they usually do birthday parties), an interactive exhibit, or anything of that nature. Some indoor playgrounds also offer drop-in babysitting services.
3. Ask Around Your Network
One of the best ways to find anything in this day and age is by asking others in your network. In this case, the network might be a little broader or less physically connected due to the nature of who you are—digital nomads with young families.
But, there are so many groups and families out there, on Instagram, Facebook, etc.
These are good places to find where these families are putting their babies and toddlers while they are abroad, if at all. There are also many co-living communities or families that travel with other families. Again, while they do exist, it’s not always so easy to find (especially if you’re a sleep-deprived and/or busy parent).
4. Do an Online Search
Being the savvy traveler you are, you’re probably very good at doing online research to find what you need. But, finding short-term daycares is no walk in the park. Try searching different variations of the terminology we provided as well as the terminology that’s local to that country to see what’s available. For example “short-term daycares in Thailand” or “Nurseries in Dubai”.
You can also try to check local websites, blogs, government websites, or databases which often have lengthy lists of daycares. Keep in mind, though, that many of these may not link to short-term daycare and are instead catered to locals looking for long-term solutions. You might get lucky, though as some may at the very least offer open-enrollment.
Tip: Google reviews may offer some insight into this, as people may leave comments regarding their specific experiences and may mention that the school had short-term/flexible options for them.
5. Contact the School Directly
Once you find some schools that seem to offer what you’re interested in—or, seem to meet standards of safety, affordability, and child’s best interests at heart—you’ll want to contact the schools directly.
Don’t necessarily rule out schools that don’t explicitly mention short-term options; you may find a school you like, and it may just be that they offer it, but on a case-by-case basis. Likewise, schools that explicitly mention short-term daycare may be full or may not have updated their website in a long time.
By speaking with the school directly, you can get updated information while learning more about whether or not the short-term preschool, daycare, or program is a good fit for your child(ren).
Or…Try Roammies!
Wouldn’t it be great if there was just one place you could go to find short-term daycare and preschool options abroad? What about co-working spaces that offer childcare, or indoor playgrounds that you can bring your kid when daycares are closed? After all, parents of babies, toddlers, and preschool-aged kids don’t have all day! (Okay, maybe they do because they work remotely, but you catch our drift.)
The reality is, that while short-term daycares for digital nomad families do exist, they are not so easy to find. The amount of time it takes to do the research (which, may not always reveal anything), vet the school, contact the school for updated information, etc., can leave parents frustrated with the whole idea of it. Again, this may lead them to just throw in the towel and hunker down until their kids are older.
Trust us. We know. This has been our experience.
Roammies is a comprehensive website that features the most updated information regarding short-term daycares, preschools, and programs worldwide. Just search for what you’re looking for or explore to see all the places you can potentially take your family. Find schools that are vetted by parents, for parents in seconds, and save the ones that pique your interest so you can start planning your travels yet again.
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