A British family spent a year travelling the world, taking their children out of school for an extraordinary adventure that included climbing Yosemite’s El Capitan.
Professional climber Leo Houlding, 46, and his wife Jess, 47, a GP and fellow climber, embarked on the ambitious ‘adventure education’ trip with their daughter Freya, now 13, and son Jackson, now ten.
During their year away from the classroom, the children helped climb the 3,000ft El Capitan rock face in California’s Yosemite National Park.
The family also reached an unnamed mountain summit in Kyrgyzstan and paddled sea kayaks between isolated islands in Papua New Guinea.
Their itinerary took them through Norway, the United States, Japan, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
Mr Houlding, who lives in Staveley, Cumbria, said he and Jess have always been ‘very adventurous people’.
The expedition began in July 2024, when Freya was ten and Jackson was seven.
Mr Houlding said: ‘For me it’s a profession, for her it’s a passion.
Jackson Houlding was just seven when he climbed Yosemite’s 3,000ft El Capitan with his family in 2024.
Jackson is pictured camping on a mountain face with his mother Jess and older sister Freya.
The Houlding family visited Papua New Guinea in May 2025 after homeschooling the children throughout their year-long adventure.
The family’s global adventure began in July 2024, when Freya was ten and Jackson was seven.
‘When we became parents, we carried on doing plenty of adventures with the children, but once they start school, there is so little time.
‘Between full-time education, after-school activities, sleeping and eating, you hardly get to see your children.
‘We have always treated weekends and school holidays as time for family adventures, and we’ve done some incredible things.
‘Ever since the children were small, we had talked about taking them out of school for a year so they could travel, learn about the world and experience other cultures.’
Mr Houlding said the most practical moment to leave was after Freya completed primary school.
‘Jess left her salaried GP position, while I used the flexibility in my own work to create space for this year of adventure.
‘After that, we had to work out where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do,’ he said.
Mr Houlding has long experience of extreme expeditions. In 2017, he led a 1,250-mile unsupported crossing of Antarctica before climbing the Spectre, one of the world’s most remote mountains.
The family is pictured in Norway in September 2024. Lessons in English, maths and science took place beneath coconut trees or thousands of feet above the ground on a port-a-ledge.
Once he became a father, he began including his family in his expeditions.
For his 40th birthday in 2020, he and Jess guided their two young children up the dramatic North Ridge of Piz Badile, an 10,853ft peak on the Swiss-Italian border.
Having also climbed Everest, Mr Houlding drew on years of experience to plan what he hoped would be an ‘unforgettable’ journey.
He said: ‘I’ve worked as a professional climber, traveller, explorer and adventurer since I was 16. I’ve been incredibly lucky to visit extraordinary parts of the world, but those journeys have generally revolved around climbing.
‘This time, we wanted to look beyond that, so we included experiences we had never tried before, such as skiing in Japan and sea kayaking in Papua New Guinea.’
The family began in northern Norway, where they lived in a van, before returning to Britain and setting off on the first of 17 flights booked with a round-the-world air ticket.
At roughly 3,000ft, El Capitan is one of Yosemite’s most formidable landmarks. The sheer granite wall was made famous worldwide by Alex Honnold’s rope-free ascent in the film Free Solo.
Mr Houlding climbed ahead with two friends, fixing ropes for the rest of the family while hauling 250kg of food, water and equipment up the rock face — approximately the weight of a piano.
Ms Houlding said she would always treasure the year spent travelling with her children, despite the difficult days and demanding conditions.
Freya and Jackson are pictured during the expedition. Mr Houlding said life in the wilderness had brought the family deeply closer together.
He said: ‘In many ways, it’s simply a camping trip — except you need enough food and, most importantly, water to last a week.’
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The Houldings took seven days to reach the summit, spending one of those days trapped by a blizzard high on the wall.
During the storm, Jess admitted: ‘Sometimes I look up at this enormous, frightening wall and think perhaps we should have gone to Disneyland instead.’
For the duration of the climb, the family stayed in a suspended camp with thousands of feet of open air beneath them.
They shared a small tent on a hanging platform called a port-a-ledge, relying on wet wipes to wash and a bag as a makeshift toilet.
As the climb neared its end, Jackson said: ‘I won’t miss it too much, although I will miss it a little. But I definitely won’t miss pooing in that bag.’
Mr Houlding, who featured in a memorable episode of Top Gear racing Jeremy Clarkson up and then off a cliff, knows Yosemite’s climbing routes well. In 2010, he became the first Briton to free-climb a new route on El Capitan.
He said: ‘Is it hard? Absolutely. And having children with you makes it harder.
‘But even getting out of the house with children can be difficult — you have to persuade them to get dressed and brush their teeth. Everything is challenging as a parent, but that shouldn’t prevent you from taking on worthwhile challenges.
‘What we discovered is that things become much easier once you begin. You just have to keep moving. The hardest part is leaving the house and stepping away from the screens.
‘People often underestimate how capable children are. They can do far more than you expect. They don’t carry the same assumptions adults do; they don’t know what they should or shouldn’t be able to do, because they have nothing to compare it with.
‘They may reach a psychological low, but five minutes later they can be laughing and enjoying themselves again.
‘I think everyone, particularly children, would benefit from more adventure. Being uncomfortable and confronting fear can be valuable — it develops resilience and strength. I’ve spent many seasons in Yosemite, a place I know and love, and I’d always wanted to climb El Capitan with the children.’
After Yosemite, the family continued on to Hawaii.
They arrived in time to watch the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational, one of the world’s best-known big-wave surfing contests, before travelling to Japan for three months in central Hokkaido.
From there, they flew to Papua New Guinea, which Mr Houlding called the ‘centrepiece’ of their adventure.
He said: ‘We used inflatable sea kayaks to travel 60 miles across the Calvados Group, a chain of tropical islands in the remote South Pacific waters of Papua New Guinea.
‘We exchanged reading glasses and snorkelling equipment for lobster and coconuts, cooked over open fires and slept on the white beaches of uninhabited islands for two weeks.’
After exploring the islands, the family travelled into the jungle to climb giant trees, then spent a quieter month surfing in Indonesia.
They brought the year to a memorable close by climbing an unnamed and previously unclimbed 4,231m peak in Kyrgyzstan’s Tien Shan mountains.
Mr Houlding said: ‘We travelled for miles in battered Soviet-era off-road vehicles, then spent three weeks at a base camp in an untouched valley surrounded by glaciers and peaks that had barely been climbed.
‘We became friends with a local nomadic yak herder and his family. They lent us horses and a small donkey so Jackson could travel further up the valley. We eventually selected a manageable peak and reached the summit on Freya’s 12th birthday.’
Freya said: ‘I really enjoyed riding horses to the high camp in Kyrgyzstan. The altitude made the final section of the mountain extremely difficult, but reaching an unclimbed summit was an amazing birthday present.’
Mr Houlding said arranging the expedition and managing the logistics had been ‘hugely challenging’.
Alongside the climbing and travel, the couple home-schooled their children, teaching English, maths and science beneath coconut trees and from a port-a-ledge suspended thousands of feet above the ground.
Jess said: ‘I’ll always treasure that year with the children. Not every day was easy, but we created so many memories that we’ll still be talking about for the rest of our lives.’
‘The greatest challenge was getting Jackson to read and persuading both children to brush their teeth,’ Mr Houlding added.
‘Those ordinary parenting tasks were just as difficult as anything else we faced.
‘But life was full of simple pleasures: climbing trees for coconuts and building a fire to cook fish we had just caught. It was genuine quality time together.’
He added: ‘When you travel and spend time in the wilderness, the children get much more of your attention. They can help put up the tent and prepare meals. There is nobody else around and no internet.
‘Being a family in the wilderness is deeply bonding. It brought us closer, although after a full year together every day, I have to admit we were all ready for the children to return to school.
‘Everyone should have more adventure in their lives. It is perfectly possible to be uncomfortable for a day, a night or even two. People are accustomed to heated car seats and relaxing on the sofa with a television remote, but those are luxuries, not essentials.’
