Can Au Pairs Travel and Make Friends in the USA?

You are joining a community, not arriving alone

The part of the year au pairs talk about decades later is rarely the childcare. It is the people. Through the program you join a community of au pairs from around the world — and crucially, from many different countries, not just your own.

These are people who understand both halves of the experience: the excitement, and the homesick days that nobody warns you about. Friends at home will listen sympathetically. Other au pairs simply know.

Why living here beats visiting

A holiday gives you two weeks and a list. A program year gives you weekends, holidays and scheduled time off spread across twelve months, in a country large enough to keep surprising you the whole time.

That changes what is possible. You are not compressing a continent into a fortnight. You can go somewhere for a weekend, come back, and go somewhere else next month.

Making it happen

• Look at your schedule early and plan around your guaranteed time off
• Say yes to the first few invitations, even when you would rather stay in
• Travel with other au pairs — cheaper, easier, and more fun
• Explore your own region properly, not only the famous cities
• Ask your host family what is worth seeing nearby; they usually know

Friendships that cross borders

The friendships formed in an au pair year have an unusual quality: they are made by people who all chose to do something demanding at the same time, far from home. That tends to produce closeness quickly and it lasts. Au pairs visit each other's countries for years afterwards, and often at each other's weddings.

The year that changes you

Road trips, new cities, and a set of friends spread across a dozen countries. For many au pairs this is the part of the year they are still talking about decades later — not what they did, but who they became while doing it.