The Passport Project: Two Sisters Ditch Middle School for a Life-Changing Journey Around the World

By Kellie McIntyre

"SISTERS meets THE AMAZING RACE" for teens, tweens, and families.

 

Would you trade middle school for the world? Literally.

 

When 14- and 12-year-old sisters embark on a "global family field trip," they must navigate new customs, cultures, religions—and detainment in a communist country—while also navigating adolescence. A true, coming-of-age adventure.

 

"THANKS FOR RUINING MY LIFE!"

Delaney McIntyre's all-American eighth-grade dreams crumble when her parents announce their "five-month family field trip." And despite her begging, bawling, and silent treatment, Delaney can't derail their obvious midlife crisis.

 

Seventh-grade Riley McIntyre is thrilled to ditch middle school for world school. The late bloomer dreams of bungee jumping in New Zealand and  completing the Riley Reinvention Project during this global adventure.

 

What about school? Forget science and math. The only way to pass this class is to survive:

• Public nudity in Iceland
• Deadly stingers in Australia
• Monster cockroaches in Panama
• Scam artists in Italy
• Projectile puking in Indonesia
• Toilet catastrophes in Thailand

…and many more horrifying and humiliating lessons that aren't in their textbooks. Each day is a real-life social studies class where the sisters must navigate new countries, cultures, and religions—while also navigating adolescence.

 

But when a flight mistake leads to their detention in a communist country, the sisters face the ultimate challenge. Will they fail the assignment? Or will they find their way home?

 

In this thrilling and witty account of their family's trek over four continents, author Kellie McIntyre deftly weaves her own experiences with her daughters' blogs and personal journals into a one-of-a-kind travel memoir. And as readers of all ages follow them around the world, they'll be inspired to abandon their comfort zones for priceless life lessons.

 

The Passport Project is a captivating true story perfect for middle graders, teenagers, and families. If you like unique perspectives, education outside the box, and inspirational transformations, then you'll love Kellie McIntyre's eye-opening exploration.

 

Buy The Passport Project to get your stamp for adventure today!

 

"[S]cary, thrilling, and eye-opening...An engaging and enlightening travel account about a family's global journey." —Kirkus Reviews

 

"A unique and engaging way for readers to learn about different countries, cultures, and points of view." —School Library Journal

 

"[A]n enticing global travelogue led by teenagers..." —Foreword Reviews

 

"[B]rilliantly captures the awkward hilarity of teen/family travel while highlighting the gift of a global worldview." —Rachel Macy Stafford, NYT Bestselling Author

 

*This family travel memoir includes maps, graphics, and a discussion guide.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shamrock House
• Release date: Mar 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781737743804

Book preview

Introduction

Hey y’all,

What would you do if your parents said:

We’ve come up with a brilliant idea! We’re going on a global adventure. You won’t go to school, see your friends, play your favorite sport, or go to any parties or dances for five months. You can only take one suitcase, three pairs of shoes, and you have to pack for hot and cold weather. And as a bonus? You get to spend 24/7 with your parents.

Would you squeal with delight? Or squall with dread?

Would you hug them? Or hate them?

That is exactly what our parents did. This is our story.

SignatureThe Passport Project playlist on Spotify

bubble

noun bub·​ble | \ ˈbə-bəl \

: an enclosed or isolated sphere of experience or activity in which the like-minded members of a homogeneous community support and reinforce their shared opinions.

Merriam-Webster.com. 2022.

Basketball

Why fit in when you were born to stand out?

Dr. Seuss

---

Delaney, 13

How am I supposed to choke this down? It’s taco night, which I normally love. But I’m too nervous to eat—or play the High-Low game.

My high was winning the coffee-grinder dance contest in gym. I even beat the boys. Riley wipes taco juice from her grin. My low was spilling my yogurt at lunch, so I looked like I had barf on my shirt all day.

My low was that a contract fell through for some clients I’ve been working with for months. My high is having dinner with my girls. Typical Dad always says something mushy.

It’s almost my turn. If I don’t come up with something quick, my parents will start grilling me. Not about homework or chores—like normal parents—but about the world.

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? Mom will ask.

Name the top five places on your bucket list, Dad will follow.

Our answers are always the same—French Polynesia for Riley and London for me.

Then we’ll turn it around and ask them, which is what they really want us to do. Because they always have a long list of places to rattle off. Sometimes they’ll name some random country we’ve never heard of. Asking where is that? is a huge mistake. It always results in a one-way ticket to the Wall of Dreams for a geography lesson.

I glance at the microwave clock again. 6:33 p.m. In less than thirty minutes, I’ll have my High-Low answer. The new girls’ basketball team roster for Liberty Park Middle School will be posted on the gym door at seven o’clock. I might throw up.

I’d much rather spend Friday night with my cat, Jingles, in my lap and a Harry Potter book in my hands. It doesn’t matter which one. I’ve read them all. Multiple times. I wish reading could be a sport. I’d be captain of that team for sure.

At 6:50 p.m., my mom and I make the quick two-mile drive to my middle school … which sits right next door to my elementary school … which is just one mile down the road from my preschool … which is why I love my neighborhood. I’ve lived in Vestavia my entire life. And I’ve been friends with these kids since we were pooping in our pants.

Drizzle falls as we pull into the school parking lot. I’m the first one here. Yay. I want to be alone for this. I hate getting bad news in front of people, especially my friends.

Wait here, I say, jumping out of the car.

Good luck, Mom says as the passenger door closes behind me.

I race through the rain to the gym doors. Another girl, Caroline, runs up beside me. Even though she’s nice, we aren’t in the same friend group. Don’t ask me why. Our eyes and fingers quickly scan the newly hung roster. Bad news for both of us. Before I can stop them, hot tears begin streaming down my face. Tears roll down Caroline’s face too. We share an awkward moment and then dash through the rain back to our parents’ cars.

I’m sor— Mom starts.

I made it! I blurt out, tears gushing now.

Wait. What?

I didn’t want to make it! I sob, using my sleeves as tissue to wipe my eyes and nose.

But why?

"Because I don’t like basketball, Mom!"

And that’s the problem with middle school. We do things we don’t even like because we’re trying to fit in.

Somewhere.

Anywhere.

I can’t wait ʼtil next year. Eighth grade is going to be the Best. Year. Ever.

Scissors

Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

---

Riley, 11

Even though my Riley Reinvention Project (RRP) is only halfway complete, middle school is off to a good start. I don’t have hatchet hair anymore.

I cut my hair when I was little, so I would look like Nanaw. Everyone was always telling my sister, mom, and grandmother that they look like three-generation triplets. Supposedly, I take after my other grandmother, but she died before I was born. So no one tells me I look like anyone. I thought I could change all that with a pair of scissors. Wrong! I hid under a smelly beach towel in a laundry basket until my parents found me.

Sadly, the only way to fix my hair was to get a pixie cut. Pixie is code for a boy’s haircut on a girl. Some girls can totally rock a pixie. But I wasn’t rockin’ anything. It was tragic. To make things even worse, my mom wouldn’t let me grow it out because she thought it was adorable. Wrong again! More like a-dork-able. To make up for it, Mom let me get my ears pierced. That didn’t help either, and I have proof.

One day, I stopped by the lake in our neighborhood to feed the ducks. A boy and his dad were fishing on the pier. When the little brat saw me skipping in a tie-dye skirt and pink halter, he looked at his dad and yelled, WHY DOES THAT BOY HAVE HIS EARS PIERCED? Double tragic!!

Fortunately, the bad-hair phase of my life is over. Unfortunately, my body is stuck in elementary school. If it weren’t for my long hair, I’d still get mistaken for a boy. Why do I have to take after the super-pale-late-bloomer side of the family??? But besides being small, I pretty much blend in. Which is the number one goal of every middle schooler on the planet.

Time to go. It’s my week to drive, Mom calls up the stairs. You’ve got a snack in the car.

Coming. I finish changing into my hip-hop outfit and stuff my leo and dance shoes into a bag.

Even though it’s my first year, my friends have been dancing forever. By sixth grade, most girls are either girly girls, sporty girls, or artsy girls. I’m none of them. Even though I'm into adventures more than activities, my parents always make me sign up for something. Last year was figure skating. Before that was diving, gymnastics, drama, swimming, softball (the worst), karate, piano, harmonica, art, and even fencing. They’re all fun for a few months, but who wants to do that stuff all the time? Boring!

My favorite activity ever was French Camp. I loved the two women who ran it, an artist and a teacher. We made crêpes, learned French, and painted the Eiffel Tower on canvases. On the last day, Ms. Tricia told us to paint whatever we wanted. So I did.

When Mom picked us up, the teachers couldn’t wait to show her my painting.

Riley made this. Ms. Tricia held up my canvas like a trophy.

"She came up with it all by herself," Ms. Katie gushed.

Pride and shock flashed across Mom’s face like I’d just scored the winning point in a championship game. Which has never happened. Stick people holding hands stretched across my painted globe. At one end of the canvas, the skin color was tan, at the other end, almost black. And in the middle were different shades of beige. I’d scrawled across the canvas in bright red paint:

Everybody is the same wherever they go.

In their heart they are the same.

That was my seven-year-old home run. Mom loved the painting so much that I made another one just like it. I gave it to Ms. Katie, and she hung it in her ESL classroom.

If only I could come up with a way to fast-track the completion of the RRP 2.0 upgrade, then my life would be perfect. Riley 1.0 had boy hair and a boy body. Riley 1.5 has girl hair and a boy body.

And that is where I’m stuck.

Exclamation marks

If you’re always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.

Maya Angelou, Rainbow in the Cloud

---

Delaney, 13

Molly barks, jumps off my bed, and runs downstairs. My parents must be back. A few weeks ago, Ri and I took our usual Sunday-morning-church seats between our parental bookends. That week’s sermon was about not living a life of accumulating regrets. Next thing you know, my parents have booked a trip to Chicago and I get to spend two school nights with my BFF.

Hey, girls. Dinnertime, Mom yells up the stairs.

What are we having? I yell back.

Tazikis.

Bummer, Riley says, leaning against my door. I was hoping for Surin’s coconut soup.

Same. Tazikis is Mom’s go-to dinner when she doesn’t want to cook, which is basically every night. Most moms have a specialty dish their kids love, like Ms. Diana’s spaghetti or Ms. Erin’s chicken. My mom's specialty is YO-YO. As in, you’re on your own. I’m curious to hear about this meeting they went to.

Did you see how they looked at each other when Pastor Wade said ‘accumulating regrets?’ And for the rest of the service, they kept having an invisible conversation with their eyes.

Yup. They’re up to something, I say. Time to find out what.

We head to the kitchen and fill our plates from the carry-out cartons lined across the counter. We take our usual seats at the kitchen table.

Tell us about the meeting. Was it fun? Riley starts the conversation.

"It was so much fun. It was full of travel junkies. Everyone in the room wore a name tag that listed the last place they’d been and the next place they were going," Mom says.

Sounds like your kinda thing, Riley says.

There’s nothing my parents like to talk about more than travel. Nothing.

What’d y’all do besides stand around and talk? I ask.

"Well, they had a panel of people who had taken gap years or traveled around the world. So people asked them questions about how they did it. Tips they could share. That sort of thing. Most of the people on the panel were single or young couples. But there was one family who had biked all the way from Alaska to South America with kids."

No way. I would die, I say.

Whoa. That’s sooo cool. Did you pick somewhere for us to go next? Riley asks.

My parents give each other the same look they did in church a few weeks back.

Well, sort of … Mom grins. We're going on a global family field trip!

What?! Riley squeals.

What? I repeat, stopping my fork mid-air. "What does that even mean?"

It’s like taking a gap year after college to travel, but we’ll do it as a family and only for half the year. Here’s what we’re thinking so far, Mom begins. We’ll leave in the fall. That way you can start school like normal. Then when your dad’s business slows for the season, we’ll take off. We’ll leave in October when your cross-country season ends and come back in the spring. And then you can finish the school year with your friends.

Are they crazy?! I drop my fork and inhale deeply, trying to slow my racing heart. I can’t miss eighth grade—or the Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve parties, Dirty Santa, bonfires, sleepovers, the Valentine’s dance, football games, basketball games and so much more. I’d become that weirdo kid who doesn’t fit in. My social life would never recover.

Why can’t we just go in the summer? That would make way more sense, I pivot, offering a more teenage-friendly option.

You know I can’t be gone in the spring or summer. That’s the busy season for real estate. But if we travel in the winter like we normally do, then it won’t be as big of a financial hit, Dad explains.

For the past few years, we’ve taken a big trip over winter break. Sometimes we miss an extra week of school, which is fun. But this is a whole different deal. They’ve obviously lost their minds. This must be a mid-life crisis. We have a cat, a dog, and a house. Not to mention they have jobs. I’ve got to remind them of their responsibilities. Riley and I take turns firing questions at our parents, like boys with spitballs at a substitute teacher.

What about Jingles?

And Molly?

And school?

And our house?

And remember,—I bare my teeth—"I have braces which require regular orthodontist visits."

My mom is super hyped, like she’s had too many Diet Cokes. Dad’s pumped too. This is not looking good. I hold my breath as Mom lays out the plan.

"I’ve already called Dr. Sarver, and it’s no problem to skip your adjustments for a while. You’ll just have to keep your braces on a bit longer. He can hook us up with someone if a wire breaks or a bracket pops off. He knows orthos all over the world. We’ll find foster families for the pets. That’s the tricky part, but we’ll figure it out.

As for school, you’ll homeschool while we’re gone and then go back to regular school when we return. Seventh and eighth grades are our last window to do this. After next year, you’ll be in high school, then college. If we’re gonna do something big, now is the time. We want to experience so many places with you, and there isn’t enough time to do it over two-week winter breaks. Besides, the most expensive part of traveling is getting there. If we’re gonna go halfway around the world, we should stay a while, Mom says.

Dad continues, So we’ll go back to Southeast Asia and explore more of that area. Then we’ll go to Australia and New Zealand. Since it’s the southern hemisphere, it’ll be summer there. The timing is perfect. We want to focus on the really far away stuff now, and when you’re older, you can explore Europe on your own. What do you think?

Are you serious?! This is AMAZING!! I’m dying to bungee jump in New Zealand. Riley jumps up and down, clapping and squealing. Then she busts into one of her cringey dance moves. Are the Baums going with us?

Great question. My head jerks toward my parents. The Baums are our family travel buddies from California. They have kids our ages. Taylor and Sydney coming along is the only way to keep this idea from being a total train wreck.

No. Just us. My parents lock eyes with me and ask, Delaney, what do you think?

Arms crossed, I give them a long, hard stare. I slowly reply, I’m not missing eighth grade. I’m. Not. Going. Then, for extra effect, I march upstairs to my room and slam the door.

Three soft knocks on my door. I know the knocks. They are my mom’s.

May I come in?

Silence. I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling while she sits next to me. My mind scrambles for the words to convince her to get off this crazy train.

I know you don’t want to go, she starts, but this is the opportunity of a lifetime.

You don’t understand! You don’t remember what it’s like to be thirteen. Eighth grade is the best year of middle school. We’re finally the oldest ones. It’s not fair to make me miss eighth, and Riley gets to miss seventh. Seventh grade is the worst. Everyone knows that.

I know you think eighth grade is going to be the greatest year ever, but you’re lacking one thing. Perspective. I have perspective. And I can promise you, you will be glad we did this when it’s over.

"This is your dream. Not mine! It’s not fair to make me miss school for this. Why can’t we just be a normal family?!"

"Number one, why in the world would you want to be normal? Normal is overrated. Number two, you’re right. This is my dream. To see the world with you. So here’s the deal: we’re doing this. We will regret it if we don’t, and we’ll never have this opportunity again. So you can choose to be mad, or you can choose to embrace it. But either way—you’re going."

Mom stands and walks toward the door. And one more thing … She reaches for the knob and turns around. I love you.

THANKS FOR RUINING MY LIFE! I sob as I pull the covers over my face.

Checklist

I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad

---

Riley, 11

It’s been a week, and Delaney is still giving my parents the silent treatment. She’s so dramatic.

I pour brownie batter into the pan, then run my finger around the bowl. I promise I won’t act like that when I’m thirteen. I lick the goopy-chocolate-goodness from my finger.

Well, that’s good to hear. I’ll be sure to remind you of that when the time comes, Mom says, closing the oven.

The trip timing is perfecto. The completion of the Riley Reinvention 2.0 upgrade is moving slowly. So even if the RRP isn’t finished by the time we leave in October, a new-and-improved Riley will definitely return next spring. That’s a whole year away.

Out of nowhere, Delaney appears. She stands next to the stairs—arms crossed and hip popped to one side. In her bossy-big-sister voice, Delaney announces, I’ll go under three conditions: One, we go to Europe. Two, we are back by spring break. And three, no naked people.

Ew. No. I hate Europe. Why would any kid want to go to Europe?

Why would you say that, Riley? Dad walks into the kitchen sniffing the air like Molly. You’ve never even been to Europe.

It’s just a bunch of old cathedrals and museums. B-O-R-I-N-G. Asia’s the bomb. There are elephants and beaches and good food and fun markets. And the people are sooo nice.

I want to go to the Harry Potter set in London, Delaney says.

I can’t promise when we’ll be back, and Europe’s not really in the plan, Mom says.

Let’s go to the Wall of Dreams. Let me explain why, Dad says.

Oh, yay. Time for another geography lesson brought to you by my dad. We file to the basement and line up in front of the floor-to-ceiling world map. Colorful pins stick out of the Wall of Dreams like lollipops. Different colored pins mean different things. Blue pins show where my dad’s been. Yellow is just my mom. Black pins mark the places my parents went before Delaney and I came along. And red pins show the places we’ve been as a family.

A dozen tiny red balls stick out of North America, South America, and Asia. The Wall of Dreams tracks the progress on our family goal: to explore every continent, except Antarctica, before we finish high school.

Finger pointed, my dad draws an invisible circle around the Southeast Asia/Australia/New Zealand part of the world. We’re planning to go here. See. And London is way over here. He takes the other hand and draws an air circle around London. That just doesn’t make sense. We would literally circle the globe.

It’s not fair! Everyone gets to go where they want except me. You picked New Zealand, Mom picked Sydney and Southeast Asia, and Riley picked the Gili Islands. She pauses, then announces, I. Pick. London.

My mom twitches her mouth back and forth. Dad lets out one of his hmm grunts like he does when he’s considering something. They are having another one of their eye conversations.

Mom studies the map again, then turns to us. It’s official. We’re going around the world!

Oh yeah, oh yeah. I bust into my best moves until Delaney Downer interrupts my happy dance.

And what about naked people?

Panama Mapcockroach

Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz

---

Delaney, 13

Cockroaches and naked people are not a winning combination