Written By: Jayme Face

Screenwriter Justin Zackham is best known for movies like The Bucket List, One Chance, and most recently Second Act. Now he and his wife Katherine along with their sons are set out to be the first family to travel to every country in the world!

upfrontNY: You wrote and produced the film Second Act, can you tell us more about the film?

Justin Zackham: Second Act, Jennifer Lopez’s character never went to college. She’s been a blue-collar worker at a big box store her whole life, but she always had this sense that she could do a lot more, that she had the skills to make it at a big company. And in true Hollywood movie circumstances she ends up getting a job at basically the equivalent to Proctor and Gamble, but her resume was faked to get her the job. So, it’s all sort of under a bit of a ruse. The whole idea of Second Act is that it’s about people realizing at a certain point in their life that they thought about doing something else and having the guts to go out and change their life for the better.

 

upfrontNY: Where did the inspiration for that film come from?

Justin Zackham: Well, the films that I do like Bucket List and One Chance sort of gravitate towards character driven stories of people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances and find the inner strength to become the person they always wanted to be. It’s sort of become my niche inadvertently. So, this story is just very much along those lines.

 

upfrontNY: How did you get into screenwriting?

Justin Zackham: I had a teacher my senior year of high school, my AP English teacher, this brilliant woman. I was a bit of a goof off back then and she told me once that “You know if you ever decide to grow up you could actually do this”. It took me a while to grow up, longer than most, but it stuck in my mind. Once I started I realized how much I love doing it and that’s been it for me. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to make a living doing what I love.

 

upfrontNY: We first saw your work in Bucket List, so what are some of the things on your bucket list?

Justin Zackham: So, this whole trip that we’re doing and the bucket list that I wrote that gave me the idea for the movie. A lot of things on my bucket list ended up in the movie, skydiving, going to the Taj Mahal, seeing the pyramids, the great wall of china. And now the trip that we’re about to take is to kind of fulfill those things I still haven’t done and a whole lot more!

 

upfrontNY: You are set out to visit every country in the world, how did this idea come about and how did you and your wife Katherine decide to make it a reality?

Katherine Zackham: It’s kind of this crazy idea and adventure that we’re embarking on, but I think the reality is we have always loved traveling as a family with our kids. It is important for showing them the world, showing them new things, but the reality for us was that Justin was working on this movie Second Act about having a second act. It just sort of made us reflect a little bit. What is it that we wanted to do with our lives? My father passed away about a year ago now, he was really young, and it was one of those things. We have loved traveling. We’ve always talked about doing this. Now is a good time for us to step back. How can we make that a bigger part of our lives? We really want to show our kids, especially given everything that’s going on in America right now, to focus on the good in the world. We wanted to show our kids that kindness exists across all different cultures, all different races and so really the best way of doing that is to travel. We decided to home school the kids. We have one five-year old who is in kindergarten and a ten-year old who is in fourth grade. This fall we set off on just a little adventure. We went to Spain, Portugal and Morocco. Then when we came back to the states in November we did a little road trip and went through about 14 or 15 states. It really wasn’t until the end of that, about 2 months of traveling, that we realized that this was actually really wonderful. We loved the process of it; we grew together as a family. Our kids loved it and we were able to successfully balance homeschooling and work with also traveling and new experiences. Justin and I were talking one day and said I wonder what it would be like if we tried to visit all of the countries in the world, how long would that take and what would that entail.

Justin Zackham: And the idea of it just sort of lends a structure to it. Obviously, there are some countries that are too dangerous to go to, but there are ways around them. Like there is a resort island off Yemen that you can go to. It’s more about the journey and the experience. We have social media accounts, our Instagram is @thisbucketlistlife. We’ll be doing YouTube videos. Part of that for our kids and potential audiences is meeting extraordinary people all over the world. What are the things that people who have these amazing lives have in common? Hopefully to show that at any point you get to choose the life that you live. A lot of times it feels like we don’t, but literally at any point you can say that’s it; I want to do this and that decision is the hardest part. We’re going to be working with some charities along the way and doing things like that, but it’s really about our kids and showing them all the good in the world. They get to decide who they want to be when they grow up.

 

upfrontNY: What are some of the challenges and rewards of raising a family travelling the world?

Justin Zackham: Challenges, I mean you certainly find out quickly if you can spend that much time together or not and luckily we can. It takes some getting used to especially on my part because as a writer I’m used to having much more time on my own. It’s the rhythm of four people living in each other’s pockets. It’s having a routine where homeschooling is the most important thing so, everything orbits around that. Then we had an experience in Little Rock, Arkansas. We went to the National Park where the little rock nine, the nine black students, were kept out of attending school by the Governor of the state and the national guard. The president called the U.S. Army who escorted them. My kids got to see that and the next day we went to the National Civil Rights Museum. Katherine got to go through that with our ten year old and it ends at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was killed. For us it was amazing and emotional, but for our kids they’ll never forget it.

Katherine Zackham: It’s tangible learning which is important not only for adults, but for kids. That’s one of the things that interests us about traveling. That’s one of the things we found so beneficial, being able to learn through the places that we go, the experiences that we have and the people we meet.

 

upfrontNY: Has anything surprised you?

Justin Zackham: We haven’t really started, but we hadn’t been to Spain, Morocco, and Portugal before this trip. It was amazing- the difference going from Spain to Morocco and it’s just across the Straight, up Gibraltar. You’re in a different world and the culture shift is just incredible. Every single thing about your day is really different, but in a kind of amazing way. We were definitely out of our comfort zone in Morocco.

Katherine Zackham: You know the funny thing about that was that our kids were not which is interesting and says a lot about the importance of traveling for kids. Right now, they have no preconceived notion of different cultures, races, religions and other stuff. When we went to Morocco, Justin and I, felt that, but the kids just were welcomed into a whole new country with really welcoming and lovely people . They tried new food and we walked around and had different experiences.

Justin Zackham: And it’s part of our goal that they grow up that way, that they grow up to see the good in people and not to be afraid of things that are new and different. And if that’s the least we’re going to give them on this trip then I think we’ve done our job.

 

upfrontNY: What are you most excited to do or see?

Justin Packham: My wife has many!

Katherine Zackham: I do have many. I mean there’s so many places I’m really interested in going. We have lived for that past year and a half in Vermont where it is very, very cold. I joke with Justin that we’re planning our travels following the summer months around the globe.

Justin Zackham: It’s not a joke; we’re doing it.

Katherine Zackham: For me I’ve always wanted to go to New Zealand and Australia. I’m very excited to explore South East Asia as well.

Justin Zackham: What she’s leaving out is that she wants to swim with whales in every country.

Katherine Zackham: That’s true I do!

Justin Zackham: So, we’re sort of planning our trip around opportunities to do that. Yeah, similar for me, New Zealand. In February, we’re headed off and we’re doing Central America and South America. So, you know Patagonia and Chile. There’s just so many amazing places that have always sort of been on my bucket list. Now the fun is just narrowing it down and figuring out what are we going to hit in each country and what’s the experience going to be.

 

upfrontNY: Are there rules to how this should be done?

Justin Zackham: So, Guinness listed 195 sovereign self-governing nations. It doesn’t include territories. There are people who have done this before but no group has ever done it. Technically as far as Guinness is concerned they don’t have a category for family, but that’s how we’re approaching it. There are ways of traveling and you have to document everything. They don’t want you to stay in any country for more than two weeks and once you start the idea is that you keep going; you know without taking extended breaks unless it’s for an emergency reason. So, we have those rules, but we also have two kids and if a year goes by and as much as our ten-year-old loves to travel says he doesn’t want to do this anymore and he wants to go home and go to school then we will do that. We don’t think he will because he loves it so much, but those are our biggest task masters and this is all about them and for them.

Katherine Zackham: Right now, we are looking at it on a year by year basis. We’ve planned 2019 and when 2019 comes to a close we’ll have to reevaluate how all four of us are doing at the time.

Justin Zackham: But the whole thing should take about 4 years.

 

upfrontNY: What are the kids excited about or worried about?

Justin Zackham: The little one is more concerned about the Wi-Fi strength than anything. That was his first request when we get to the hotel he wants to know how the Wi-Fi is because you know YouTube beckons. Our older son Finn, wants to go to Finland because he feels that he’s going to be welcomed like a king. He wants to go to Greece because he studied ancient Greece. One of our amazing experiences when we were in Spain was going to this town where there’s an ancient Greek village next to the ruins of an ancient Roman town. He studied it and then got to stand there and know the difference between  Greek and Roman arch ways. Again, it’s that kind of tangible thing and seeing things that he’s learned about previously.

Katherine Zackham: He’s also really interested in food. He’s a foodie which is interesting. Our five-year-old would prefer to eat bread at every meal. Our ten-year-old is loving exploring new food and that actually makes me try. I’m not quite as adventurous as he is so he pushes us all a little bit. He is thrilled and so excited to be on this adventure with us.

We’re excited for the adventure and we’re hoping it will help inspire others to take a step back and be adventuresome and follow their dreams as well!

Justin and Katherine Zackham: Follow us @thisbucketlistlife