World-Trip Ticket: How sophomore Ava Carroll and her family planned and took a trip around the world visiting 32 countries — learning about culture and community

Then-nine-year-old Ava Carroll was wearing a Belinder Elementary School t-shirt sitting in a restaurant booth with her family, telling them a play-by-play of her day. The blonde waitress asked her what she would like to drink, and Carroll weighed her options: 

She could relish in an ice cold Sprite practically screaming her name, or save the $1.99 for a ten-month trip she would take in six years.

The answer was obvious for Carroll — she would save the money.

Carroll would continue to make small decisions daily, without the prodding of her parents, like avoiding sodas at restaurants or gumballs at grocery stores in order to accumulate money for a savings account — as a third grader.

A six-year-long goal for now-sophomore Ava Carroll and her family didn’t come true until last August — traveling the world and experiencing all seven continents from a tourist’s point of view.

“I wasn’t truly ready to go until about a month before when I realized it was my last couple of weeks in the U.S. for a long time,” Carroll said. “My whole life became about the trip, it was a majority of what I thought and talked about. I was just eager to stop talking about it and ready to go do it.”

Carroll and her family of five visited 32 countries from Japan to Antarctica from August 10, 2022 to June 15, 2023 while stopping for up to a month in some countries.

Because of the constant traveling between continents, Carroll was forced to confine all her belongings into an airplane-friendly cobalt gray Gregory hiking backpack. Her family only sent one box back to their home in Kansas every four months full of souvenirs and winter clothing.

“We had to be really selective with what we could take on the trip,” Carroll said. “Each piece of clothing I brought had to work with at least three different outfits. My family and I tried to travel with the sun so we would stay in warmer places and pack less heavy coats.”

Between Airbnbs and long bus rides Carroll was able to find time each day to sit down and work on her high school classes. Whitmore, an online learning program, helped Carroll earn credits while abroad.

Breaking up her core classes into smaller chunks Carroll used the afternoon to explore the country they were staying in. In Thailand, her family visited an elephant reserve where they were able to bathe and feed baby elephants with their bare hands. 

Carroll’s father, Dan Carroll, remembers washing the elephants in a man-made pool of water.

“We were bathing the elephants at the sanctuary when one of them took a big gulp of water and absolutely blasted our family with it,” Dan said. “We still laugh about it today as one of our funniest memories from the trip.”

In Antarctica — one of Carroll’s favorite destinations — her family had the opportunity to do a “Polar Plunge” in 31 degrees Fahrenheit water. 

Pulling on a silver and red harness Carroll shook all over as she stepped onto a ramp coming off of the expedition boat. Icebergs towered over the ice blue water casting shadows in their reflections creating an overwhelming Antarctica scene.

Carroll’s family drew near as she made her way down the last set of stairs before the final landing. Taking one last big breath she counted down from three and cannonballed into the freezing waves. 

At first, she couldn’t feel the below-freezing water. Then thousands of tiny needles poked at her skin as the chill soaked into her bones. Practically throwing herself towards the ladder, Carroll heaved herself back onto the boat. 

“Once I was in the water my natural instinct was just to get out,” Carroll said, “It’s a lot for your body to go through that much temperature change all at once so I was pretty tired afterwards and immediately went to sleep.”

Still, even freezing temperatures and international cuisine didn’t make Carroll completely forget about East. She’d hear about freshman activities like the Link Dance or Lancer Day and wish she was back at home.

Sophomore Gabrielle Higgins would make it a point to FaceTime Carroll at least once every two months to learn about what she was doing at the moment.

“My FaceTimes with Ava were definitely something I looked forward to last year,” Higgins said. “I probably called her five times and would make sure to ask about what animals she had seen recently like elephants or lions.”

Carroll became friends with the locals and visited long-lost relatives while abroad, finding that most people she met welcomed tourists into their lives and cared deeply for their own families.

“I found that for a lot of people, family is very important,” Carroll said. “When we would talk to people about our trip they would say how lucky we are all the time, but that they couldn’t possibly leave their family to go on a trip like ours. I got to grow a lot closer to my immediate family and experience the culture of so many people around the globe.”