Speaker 1: Welcome to Had a Money.
Speaker 2: I'm Joel and I am Matt, and.
Speaker 3: Today we're talking digital nomadism, if that's a word on
Speaker 3: a dime with Becca Siegel.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you've heard about being a digital nomad, right.
Speaker 2: You've probably seen it in the headlines where they're talking
Speaker 2: about it over like at CNN or MSNBC. I feel
Speaker 2: like there's always like these future articles like featuring somebody
Speaker 2: awesome looking doing something really cool, and you probably thought
Speaker 2: to yourself, nobody actually does that wrong because we are
Speaker 2: joined by a real life digital nomad, Becca Siegel from
Speaker 2: Half Half Travel. And of course Becca is a well
Speaker 2: traveled photographer and digital content creator. She's got a unique
Speaker 2: approach to travel, blogging, and remote work that we're going
Speaker 2: to spend a lot of time discussing today. She has
Speaker 2: contributed her travel expertise to various publications like USA Today,
Speaker 2: Huffington Post, and her and her husband have been featured
Speaker 2: in the Oprah magazine, Lonely Planet, Travel and Leisure, lots
Speaker 2: of other places. And today we're really excited to talk
Speaker 2: about the ins and outs of being a digital nomad,
Speaker 2: how to go about doing it, how to find that
Speaker 2: flexible job that remote work. But then in addition to that,
Speaker 2: we're going to hopefully talk about like choosing where to
Speaker 2: go and even traveling with a baby. Maybe we'll have
Speaker 2: time to get to that as well. But Becca, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us today on the podcast.
Speaker 4: Thank you guys so much for having me.
Speaker 5: As you know, I am a huge how to money
Speaker 5: fan and being here is just super cool for me.
Speaker 4: So thanks for having me today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was telling you before we start recording, most
Speaker 3: guests are like, I don't even know who you guys are,
Speaker 3: but I joined you because you asked. But yeah, the
Speaker 3: fact that you actually listen is awesome, So thank you
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 2: Like, honestly, that's what was so cool about podcasts at
Speaker 2: least our show is. I mean the fact that like
Speaker 2: one episode we can we can talk with an editor
Speaker 2: at a highly esteemed publication whose work we've been following
Speaker 2: for years, and the next week we're able to talk
Speaker 2: to somebody that we would not have otherwise known if
Speaker 2: it wasn't for the podcast because she listens to us.
Speaker 2: It is so cool. Such a I don't know, accessible medium.
Speaker 2: It's small one of the many reasons I like podcasting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt, Okay, The first question we have to
Speaker 3: get to with you, Becca, as you know, is what's
Speaker 3: your craft beer equivalent?
Speaker 1: What are you.
Speaker 3: Spending money on cheap? Answer will be trappable. What are
Speaker 3: you spending money on proactively in the here and now
Speaker 3: while you're also doing the smart thing, you're saving and
Speaker 3: investing for your future.
Speaker 5: So I thought long and hard about this, and I
Speaker 5: thought I would mention flights, but that has been said
Speaker 5: a lot of episodes recently on your show.
Speaker 4: So I said, I have to be different.
Speaker 5: I think that my craft beer equivalent is shelter, and
Speaker 5: that is because I have spent a lot of my
Speaker 5: life in high cost of living areas. And while many
Speaker 5: people in the country might think, hmm, that's not for me.
Speaker 5: I want my money to go to other places, you know,
Speaker 5: like whatever they else, whatever else they enjoy in life.
Speaker 5: For me, living in places like New York City and
Speaker 5: like Metro New Jersey right near Manhattan has been really
Speaker 5: important and has added value to my life.
Speaker 4: So that is somewhere that I put a lot of value.
Speaker 3: Is that because of like proximity to cool stuff or conveniences.
Speaker 3: The what's the main reason you're willing to spend more
Speaker 3: on shelter than most folks.
Speaker 5: I might be biased, but having been born in New
Speaker 5: York City and having spent a lot of my twenties
Speaker 5: and thirties living there, it is the greatest city in
Speaker 5: the world. Sorry, Atlanta, but I think there's just a
Speaker 5: lot to be said about being in the biggest city
Speaker 5: like in the country, with all of the work opportunities there,
Speaker 5: the culture, and then of course, as we were saying
Speaker 5: before we started recording, there are three major airports in
Speaker 5: New York City that you can't really beat if you
Speaker 5: want to be leaving New York City. Even living in
Speaker 5: New Jersey, you know, I still get my pick of
Speaker 5: those three. So that's really cool for just you know,
Speaker 5: having a big array of flights to choose from when
Speaker 5: you want to get away.
Speaker 2: That's right, And we want to hear about your history
Speaker 2: because from what I understand, you met your husband Dan
Speaker 2: at a craft beer bar, which is something that we
Speaker 2: love to hear. Can you can you kind of share
Speaker 2: your story how y'all met and kind of how that
Speaker 2: led to the company, the site that y'all found it together.
Speaker 5: Yeah, our story is a bit of a unique one.
Speaker 5: So we met actually a very run of the Millway.
Speaker 5: We met on a social dating app on our phones
Speaker 5: in late twenty fifteen.
Speaker 4: So we met and we our first date was at
Speaker 4: this craft beer bar.
Speaker 5: That no longer exists, I don't think, but it's called
Speaker 5: or It was called Upright brew House in the West
Speaker 5: Village in Manhattan, and at the time it was a great.
Speaker 4: Place, very cool.
Speaker 5: So we met and within a few of our first dates,
Speaker 5: Dan said, you know, I'm really interested in traveling. I
Speaker 5: haven't done that much of it, and I want to
Speaker 5: go away for a year on this digital nomad like
Speaker 5: program I found where you can work and travel travel
Speaker 5: the world with a group of seventy five people and
Speaker 5: take your job with you. And I said, that sounds amazing.
Speaker 5: You know, you should totally do that.
Speaker 4: And this was before we.
Speaker 5: Started seriously dating and realized that that might cause us
Speaker 5: to date long distance. But I said, you know, a
Speaker 5: big part of me is that I spent two and
Speaker 5: a half years living in East Asia in my twenties.
Speaker 5: I studied abroad in Hong Kong, and then I worked
Speaker 5: abroad in Shanghai for two years twenty ten to twenty twelve,
Speaker 5: and a lot of it, you know, shaped like who
Speaker 5: I am as a traveler who I am as a
Speaker 5: person a professional, and so Dan and I kept dating,
Speaker 5: and then eventually in May twenty sixteen, he left for
Speaker 5: twelve months to go to twelve cities around the world
Speaker 5: working remotely. He took his New York City job with him.
Speaker 5: He's a web developer, and during that time we were
Speaker 5: dating long distance, and that's when we started the Instagram,
Speaker 5: which if you check out our Instagram, which is half
Speaker 5: half travel spelled just like that. We have two sides
Speaker 5: of photos that pair together different things from usually two
Speaker 5: very different places. And so that was like the project
Speaker 5: that we started, and unbeknownst to us, we actually got found,
Speaker 5: you know, as we gained a little a little bit
Speaker 5: of traction on Instagram, we wound up in Oprah magazine,
Speaker 5: which was really surprising but very cool.
Speaker 1: I'm sure your mom was impressed.
Speaker 5: My mom was blown away. There was very cool stuff
Speaker 5: that happened to us. Around that time. We were in
Speaker 5: Travel and Leisure and Cosmo and Conde Nast Traveler and
Speaker 5: Business Insider, and around the world. Actually we started getting
Speaker 5: featured in Japan and Taiwan and Spain, and we were
Speaker 5: in the news kind of everywhere for a little bit
Speaker 5: of time in like twenty seventeen, and from there we said,
Speaker 5: you know, we kind of created like an audience, kind
Speaker 5: of by mistake, but we love this because Dan loves
Speaker 5: taking photos and he's a web developer, and I love
Speaker 5: writing and I enjoy social media, and so we put
Speaker 5: all that together and we said, let's start like a
Speaker 5: travel blog. You know, people do that and they share
Speaker 5: tips about where they've been, and they shared travel destination
Speaker 5: guides and they share travel advice. And so we started
Speaker 5: doing that and we were both working full time for
Speaker 5: companies in New York, and we never meant for it
Speaker 5: to become more than a hobby, but it kind of
Speaker 5: just goes to show that when you put your mind
Speaker 5: and your effort and a lot of your creativity into something,
Speaker 5: it becomes bigger than.
Speaker 4: You could have ever imagined.
Speaker 5: So now we're reaching millions of viewers on half half
Speaker 5: travel dot com, where we share everything from you know,
Speaker 5: what we're packing, to guides to places we've been to
Speaker 5: nowadays how to travel with a baby. And we also
Speaker 5: share a lot about remote work and how we've done
Speaker 5: it while traveling, and how to be a nomad, and
Speaker 5: you know, things just kind of unfolded from there, and
Speaker 5: so Dan and I got married in twenty twenty and
Speaker 5: then again in twenty twenty one because during the pandemic
Speaker 5: you got to have three weddings and they're both very tiny.
Speaker 5: And then we had our first child at the end
Speaker 5: of twenty twenty two, so she's sixteen months and now
Speaker 5: we all travel as a family.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that's so cool, and like the way it started.
Speaker 1: I think if it is stitching.
Speaker 3: Your love together from abroad, you know the photos, it's like,
Speaker 3: that's just a cool way you're apart. This is a
Speaker 3: way to kind of have a shared endeavor and continue
Speaker 3: to communicate and create something. It's like it was like
Speaker 3: your first baby almost.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was well.
Speaker 3: Okay to talk to us specifically, maybe about Dan's first
Speaker 3: stint remote traveling. He did the twelve month thing. He
Speaker 3: did it with through a company called Remote Year. Is
Speaker 3: that right, Yeah, tell us more about that program totally.
Speaker 4: Remote Year still exists.
Speaker 5: Anyone can do it as long as you have a
Speaker 5: remote job. So Dan did it back when the standard
Speaker 5: offering was a twelve month program. He got to go
Speaker 5: to twelve cities around the world in Europe, South America,
Speaker 5: and Mexico, which is in Central America, and he also
Speaker 5: spent a month in Morocco, which is in Africa.
Speaker 4: Of course.
Speaker 5: And during that time, I was living and working in
Speaker 5: New York. Like my life hadn't changed, except I had
Speaker 5: a long distance boyfriend in twenty sixteen and seventeen and
Speaker 5: I got to visit him. So in those twelve months
Speaker 5: we only saw each other five times, but in those
Speaker 5: in four of those five times, I was visiting him
Speaker 5: in Spain, Columbia, Portugal, and Argentina, Buenos Aires and Corduba.
Speaker 4: So that was super cool.
Speaker 3: Remote Year versu kind of DIY digital nomadism. What is
Speaker 3: it the remote year off, I guess, versus kind of
Speaker 3: trying to do your own thing, like just booking your
Speaker 3: own Airbnb or just kind of deciding on your own destination.
Speaker 3: What is it that an organization like Remote Year has
Speaker 3: to offer.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is the perfect question, and it's the perfect
Speaker 5: segue into the fact that when Dan and I, So
Speaker 5: I should backtrack a little bit. When Dan got back
Speaker 5: from a remote year, you know, of course, it was
Speaker 5: great and we got back together and we moved into
Speaker 5: our first Brooklyn apartment together and everything was nice. Then
Speaker 5: a few months later, he was like, you know, we
Speaker 5: should really do that type of thing together. And I
Speaker 5: was like, no, that's crazy, Like my job is in
Speaker 5: New York and I live in New York and you
Speaker 5: can't take me out of New York even though I
Speaker 5: love to travel.
Speaker 4: And he was like, no, I mean we could really
Speaker 4: make it work.
Speaker 5: Quit your job and I was like no, Dan, like
Speaker 5: that's ridiculous. We need money and like, you know, we
Speaker 5: need to have careers, and he was like, I'll.
Speaker 4: Quit my job too. I was like, no, this is
Speaker 4: getting out of hand.
Speaker 5: Eventually, Dan and I negotiated with each other and he
Speaker 5: was like, you don't even like your job, and I
Speaker 5: was like I know, but like you know, life, we
Speaker 5: both the same kind of week, put in now notices
Speaker 5: with our jobs in New York, and we negotiated with
Speaker 5: those jobs to let us go part time and remote,
Speaker 5: which in twenty eighteen was kind of wild because if
Speaker 5: you think about it, the pandemic and COVID made everyone remote,
Speaker 5: but before then people didn't really like work remotely, kind
Speaker 5: of just like on a whim, like you had to
Speaker 5: really be asking for it or it had to happen
Speaker 5: to you. And so in June twenty eighteen, we left
Speaker 5: on a one way ticket for Europe. We were in
Speaker 5: the Netherlands, Portugal, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and
Speaker 5: then back to Spain, working from our laptops kind of
Speaker 5: like on our own hours and making it work. So
Speaker 5: then we went to Latin America. And this is where
Speaker 5: I'll answer the question because I know this has been
Speaker 5: really long winded, But in Latin America we did four
Speaker 5: months with Remote Year and we joined a smaller program
Speaker 5: of four months. But the question was what's the difference
Speaker 5: between doing this type of thing, this type of remote
Speaker 5: work with a group, either on your own versus with
Speaker 5: a program. And the difference is actually pretty big. Because
Speaker 5: I will detail this by saying when we were in
Speaker 5: and I forgot we went to Ireland. We went to
Speaker 5: Ireland too. When we were in Ireland, we were kind
Speaker 5: of just like, you know, let's try to work from
Speaker 5: our Arabian b and then we were like, oh, it's
Speaker 5: not so comfortable. Okay, let's go to a Starbucks. Uh,
Speaker 5: you know, the espresso machine is really noisy. Okay, we
Speaker 5: have to move again. We didn't have a coworking space,
Speaker 5: which is really.
Speaker 4: What you need.
Speaker 5: If you kind of want to spend like a regular
Speaker 5: business day working somewhere with all the comforts of an office,
Speaker 5: it's kind of ironic that you are going somewhere else
Speaker 5: just to like be in another office environment. But at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, working from a dining room
Speaker 5: table in a chair that's not ergonomic is going to
Speaker 5: break your back and strain your neck. So it's kind
Speaker 5: of like humans were meant for offices in a very
Speaker 5: sad So the difference between us going about on our
Speaker 5: own versus going with a group where you're paying for,
Speaker 5: you know, everything to be arranged for you, meaning the
Speaker 5: co working space has been vetted, the flights have been booked,
Speaker 5: your accommodation has been chosen, is kind of like, okay, well,
Speaker 5: I don't get to choose these things.
Speaker 4: But time is money, and so we spent so much time.
Speaker 5: Figure out how we were going to get from Taiwan
Speaker 5: to Vietnam and which Airbnb we were going to book
Speaker 5: in Taipei. And that's a story of its own because
Speaker 5: we spent we spent time doing that. But whereas if
Speaker 5: you are signing up for like a group travel trip,
Speaker 5: and there's so many of those now that you can
Speaker 5: do with remote work and remote years just one of them.
Speaker 5: There's quite a few others. All of those types of
Speaker 5: chores and tasks are completed for you by someone.
Speaker 2: Else, so they handle a lot of the travel arrangements,
Speaker 2: they handle the co working spaces.
Speaker 5: Or turnkey right, and it's all been vetted, so you
Speaker 5: don't have to do that research and you don't have
Speaker 5: to make mistakes either, like you.
Speaker 4: Don't have to pick a coworking space that closes. I
Speaker 4: don't know.
Speaker 5: Just as an example, in Vietnam, we were actually working
Speaker 5: some eastern hours, so we were working like nine pm
Speaker 5: to two am, and if you wanted to be going
Speaker 5: to a co working space, we actually didn't, but we
Speaker 5: knew people who were.
Speaker 4: You would need a.
Speaker 5: Place that was open twenty four hours if you needed
Speaker 5: to talk to your boss.
Speaker 4: In New York or in LA or anything like that.
Speaker 5: So there are a lot of considerations to have based
Speaker 5: on the demands of your job.
Speaker 2: Right, So that was back in twenty eighteen. Do you
Speaker 2: feel that things have gotten better when it comes to
Speaker 2: being a digital nomad just given the pandemic, given the
Speaker 2: fact that it's become something that's more popular.
Speaker 4: I think it's gotten better.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I say that confidently because even if you
Speaker 5: look on Airbnb nowadays and hotels also, they will like
Speaker 5: kind of boast about the fact that they have a spot.
Speaker 4: For remote work.
Speaker 5: Like I've looked at Airbnb listings, and you know, you
Speaker 5: can choose one you can filter by has a desk
Speaker 5: space for you know, sitting for a few hours getting
Speaker 5: work done. A lot of airbnbs also, because we were
Speaker 5: recently looking for I guess airbnbs in either Mexico or Columbia.
Speaker 5: A lot of airbnb hosts will even show a screenshot
Speaker 5: of their internet speed or they'll say that they have
Speaker 5: high high speed Internet, and they'll even quote you on
Speaker 5: what kind of carrier they have.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of like the.
Speaker 5: World is gearing a bit more toward the remote working
Speaker 5: professional and how that person can keep traveling and keep
Speaker 5: having the same type of confidence that they'll be able
Speaker 5: to have a ergonomic and fast Wi Fi workspace where.
Speaker 1: It makes sense.
Speaker 3: So, Okay, we all see the cool picks from the
Speaker 3: excursions that anybody who's traveling, but it's even digital nomads,
Speaker 3: right we see, Oh on this trail today, Look how
Speaker 3: beautiful the sunset is which is awesome, But you're still
Speaker 3: working too, like you just acknowledged, so like that makes
Speaker 3: funding those excursions possible, being able to work during the day.
Speaker 3: But can you give us a peek inside of the
Speaker 3: daily life of a digital nomad Monday through Friday's one thing?
Speaker 3: Like weekends, are you jet setting for other locations? I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: what's a typical week look?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 5: What comes to mind is like two pretty different nomad
Speaker 5: experiences we've had. So we had like the ten months
Speaker 5: of traveling and working remotely, and four of those months
Speaker 5: were doing it with a group and having.
Speaker 4: A lot more structure actually, because we did have a.
Speaker 5: Co working space every single day of those four months
Speaker 5: with remote year in Latin America, and the other times
Speaker 5: I don't know if we actually spent so much time
Speaker 5: renting out our own co working spaces on our own
Speaker 5: just me and Dan kind of like rumping around the
Speaker 5: world and figuring out. We went to a lot of cafes,
Speaker 5: and if we had to take a meeting, sometimes we
Speaker 5: did it from our accommodation, which sometimes was a hostile
Speaker 5: private and sometimes was an airbnb, And we might have
Speaker 5: stayed in some hotels too.
Speaker 4: But what I'm thinking of Is.
Speaker 5: In twenty twenty two, we spent a month in married
Speaker 5: on Mexico, which I recommend for anyone who loves hot weather,
Speaker 5: because this is like the hottest place in Mexico.
Speaker 2: Like it is just so hot you like the sweat, Yeah,
Speaker 2: this place is for you.
Speaker 5: The week we got there was a little after Christmas,
Speaker 5: and it was like ninety six degrees.
Speaker 4: That's really hot.
Speaker 5: Wow, Like yeah, that's like sweat your face off, get
Speaker 5: me inside type of hot. And then we were there
Speaker 5: for all of January and it got a little better.
Speaker 4: It was like mid eighties.
Speaker 5: Some days were in the seventies and that people were
Speaker 5: freaking out and thought it was winter.
Speaker 4: Oh, very laughable for us. But there.
Speaker 5: So we traveled completely on our own to Marrida. We
Speaker 5: were there for about four weeks, and we we bought
Speaker 5: like day passes or a month pass to a coworking
Speaker 5: space there. That was really awesome. And so what I'm
Speaker 5: what I was saying is at that time we were
Speaker 5: both working totally full time. The website was, you know,
Speaker 5: a nights and weekends thing. But I was working for
Speaker 5: a tech startup in New York and Dan was still
Speaker 5: working for the company. He had been with prior years,
Speaker 5: but like I needed to work nine to five and
Speaker 5: he pretty much did too.
Speaker 4: So our daily life and our you know, what we.
Speaker 5: Could expect day to day was I actually would walk
Speaker 5: sometimes to the corking spots alone if I had like
Speaker 5: earlier meetings than Dan did, and we would go to
Speaker 5: a phone booth take those meetings. We would sit at
Speaker 5: these long tables like hot desks.
Speaker 4: We would make our coffee.
Speaker 5: I would dip out for lunch and maybe pick something
Speaker 5: up or bring something from home. It's kind of like
Speaker 5: you almost lead your life at home, but you are
Speaker 5: leading it else somewhere else.
Speaker 2: That's what I was going to say. That doesn't sound
Speaker 2: all that different than I mean, the kids in the carpool,
Speaker 2: and you know, a couple of other things. But it
Speaker 2: doesn't sound all that different than like Joel and I
Speaker 2: showing up at at our little carriage house, our little
Speaker 2: clubhouse here, going to get coffee, coming back and doing
Speaker 2: the podcast.
Speaker 5: I think it depends how much work we would have
Speaker 5: on our plates. And then sometimes in those four weeks
Speaker 5: in Maridith, and this was only two years ago, we
Speaker 5: would take off like a Friday, and I'd be like,
Speaker 5: I want to go see Mayan Ruins would go do that,
Speaker 5: and that's kind of where things are a little different,
Speaker 5: or like, we really should go to the beach. We've
Speaker 5: been working really hard and we deserve a beach day,
Speaker 5: so we would take an uber out to the coast
Speaker 5: from where we were staying.
Speaker 2: Okay, it sounds awesome. You're talking about, Hey, beach day boom,
Speaker 2: Like all of a sudden you're on like some beautiful
Speaker 2: beach that you know you've only seen pictures of a
Speaker 2: national geographic that you get to hang out at. And
Speaker 2: otherwise you're working generating income, which is a good aspect
Speaker 2: of making this, I guess sustainable. But like, what are
Speaker 2: the biggest pain points of being abroad.
Speaker 1: For so long?
Speaker 2: Like is it the financial aspect of it that's not
Speaker 2: quite as streamline as and as efficient as maybe I
Speaker 2: don't know, maybe not New York City, but maybe a
Speaker 2: more reasonable cost of living area or talk to me
Speaker 2: about community, because I guess that's a big part of
Speaker 2: Joel and my our lives here where we live is
Speaker 2: just the community that we're trying to build up around us.
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you struggled.
Speaker 2: With the most.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Okay, so a few different things to pick apart here. So,
Speaker 5: first of all, from the financial aspect, going abroad to
Speaker 5: do work and work remotely really depends if you have
Speaker 5: done what Dan and I did the first time, which
Speaker 5: was quit our jobs and take them back part time
Speaker 5: in remotely, which you know, by working part time, we
Speaker 5: weren't generating the full time salaries that we had been
Speaker 5: taking home.
Speaker 4: Just days before we left.
Speaker 5: However, the second time, when I'm talking about we went
Speaker 5: to Mexico for a month, you know, a year and
Speaker 5: a half after we got back from like the ten
Speaker 5: month trip, is we both were making our New York salaries.
Speaker 4: We were just in Mexico.
Speaker 5: However, once you're living in New York, paying New York
Speaker 5: City rent, working full time, and just going on vacation
Speaker 5: to get out for a month, we were paying rent
Speaker 5: on top of the cost of the trip.
Speaker 4: So I think what I'm getting.
Speaker 5: At here is if you are already you know, paying
Speaker 5: your mortgage or paying rent somewhere, and you're leaving on
Speaker 5: top of that, you have to be prepared for kind
Speaker 5: of the costs piling up. However, if you are either
Speaker 5: maybe you have a free living situation, maybe you live
Speaker 5: with family, maybe you actually don't, you know, have a
Speaker 5: home and you just pay for wherever you're living. And
Speaker 5: I know people who actually in our like remote year community.
Speaker 5: We know other people who are full time geographic arbitrageers,
Speaker 5: like full time digital emads. They do not have homes.
Speaker 5: They just they'll go to Mexico for three months, They'll
Speaker 5: go to Morocco for three months.
Speaker 4: You know that.
Speaker 5: Then home is wherever your WiFi connects automatically.
Speaker 4: That's what people say. I don't know if you've heard
Speaker 4: that before.
Speaker 2: It seems like a digital nomadism.
Speaker 4: I would love to, you know, I'm sure people have
Speaker 4: it like tattooed on their arms and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I guess crossed it. I guess it's crossed it.
Speaker 5: So what you're asking about the financial aspect is are
Speaker 5: you paying two rents at one time or you know,
Speaker 5: are you out and about and you don't have any
Speaker 5: strings attached back home.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm getting at.
Speaker 5: And then for the community that you asked about, so
Speaker 5: I think a big plus of if you want to
Speaker 5: go and work remotely, and you want to go for
Speaker 5: months at a time and you want to never look back,
Speaker 5: and you don't want to do it, alone going with
Speaker 5: a program like Remote Year or Wi Fi Tribe or
Speaker 5: Hacker Paradise. You can look all these up online, but
Speaker 5: going with a program like that automatically buys you into
Speaker 5: the community of people who I don't want to say
Speaker 5: are like you, but are different from you at the
Speaker 5: same time. And I think one of the biggest aspects
Speaker 5: is you're meeting people who you never would have met
Speaker 5: at home because they're from all over the country and
Speaker 5: all over the world, and the one thing you have
Speaker 5: in common is that you are all working remotely, hopefully
Speaker 5: full time, hopefully on somewhat of the same schedule, and
Speaker 5: you get to all socialize whenever you're not in your
Speaker 5: coaking space working on your work. When we did the
Speaker 5: same type of digital med travel on our own.
Speaker 4: It was lacking in the community aspect.
Speaker 5: I mean when I keep mentioning Taiwan because I love
Speaker 5: it there so much, But when we went there, I
Speaker 5: was lucky enough to meet up with a friend from
Speaker 5: high school and meet up with a friend of the family,
Speaker 5: and we actually even met up with someone we met
Speaker 5: in Columbia, which was totally wild and at a house party,
Speaker 5: like you really never know what can happen but we
Speaker 5: didn't have, like, you know, a group of friends, or
Speaker 5: we also weren't there long enough to meet those types
Speaker 5: of people who we could trust in form relationships with
Speaker 5: and you know, share our lives with and stuff, because
Speaker 5: at the end of the day, we had flights out
Speaker 5: back home.
Speaker 4: So we've done it both ways.
Speaker 5: And I'm a very community oriented person, which is why
Speaker 5: I'm so happy with where we've moved recently, and it
Speaker 5: is why I was so happy in New York for
Speaker 5: so many years, you know, as a young couple, just
Speaker 5: like with all these friends from all these.
Speaker 4: Different parts of my life.
Speaker 5: Community is very important to us, and I think if
Speaker 5: someone is looking for community, you're not going to really
Speaker 5: get that by doing the whole thing like hodgepodge on
Speaker 5: your own.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: That's yeah.
Speaker 3: Another plus for a program like that, right, just making
Speaker 3: it a little more seamless, and also just helping connect
Speaker 3: you to other people who are in a similar phase
Speaker 3: of life, wants some similar things. All Right, We've got
Speaker 3: more questions to get to with you, Becca, and specifically
Speaker 3: you want to talk about how you decide where what
Speaker 3: destinations you're going to go to and wyte to travel
Speaker 3: for less. We'll get to some questions on that front
Speaker 3: right after this.
Speaker 2: We are back for the break, talking with Becka s.
Speaker 2: Siegel about, like Joel said at the beginning, being a
Speaker 2: digital nomad on a dime, and Becca, like you were saying,
Speaker 2: a big part of literally being a digital nomad is
Speaker 2: the ability to kind of sustain your life essentially just
Speaker 2: like you went at home, except for your somewhere else.
Speaker 2: And a big part of that is also generating income,
Speaker 2: having some revenue and so having a flexible work from
Speaker 2: home job seems like it's kind of a kind of
Speaker 2: a necessity, and it sounds like that's something that you
Speaker 2: and your husband were able to negotiate with the kind.
Speaker 1: Of work that y'all had.
Speaker 2: But if folks are working in person and their employer
Speaker 2: isn't flexible, though, like where would you suggest that they
Speaker 2: start looking for jobs? Because I could see some folks
Speaker 2: saying that, oh my gosh, like I hear Beca speak,
Speaker 2: she's clearly passionate about this. I love hearing about this
Speaker 2: wild house party and Taiwan like, and folks were.
Speaker 1: Saying, like, I want that, but my boss said no.
Speaker 2: Or they're just in a completely different line of work
Speaker 2: and so I think there might be some folks who
Speaker 2: are just building something from scratch when it comes to
Speaker 2: online work. Do you have any advice for folks there?
Speaker 5: Wow, this is a tough fee honestly, because from time
Speaker 5: to time, during you know, these years in New York,
Speaker 5: that I was unhappy at my job and which kind
Speaker 5: of sparked in to say like.
Speaker 4: You should quit, and I was like, but I don't
Speaker 4: want to quit.
Speaker 5: But I finally did quit and went back you know,
Speaker 5: remote part time and didn't love it, but.
Speaker 4: Did it because it allowed us to get out and travel.
Speaker 5: It's really kind of like a double edged sword because
Speaker 5: if you like what you do and it just won't
Speaker 5: let you be remote. I mean, some people are really
Speaker 5: passionate about what they do or they're very specialized in something,
Speaker 5: and if that's not a remote type of job, you
Speaker 5: can get creative by you know, becoming a type of consultant,
Speaker 5: maybe on the road, consulting in what it is you
Speaker 5: are an expert in. And then aside from that, I
Speaker 5: would recommend checking out a lot of the remote job
Speaker 5: boards that just exist out there. And I think what
Speaker 5: you have to go into it knowing is that a
Speaker 5: lot of remote jobs are maybe paying a little bit
Speaker 5: less nowadays because so many jobs want to bring people
Speaker 5: back into the offices. Like having listened to How to
Speaker 5: Money for the last four years, you guys talk so
Speaker 5: much about the remote work revolution and being flexible, but
Speaker 5: I've also listened to all your episodes on about how
Speaker 5: people who don't go into offices aren't getting promoted and
Speaker 5: aren't really seen as you know, the people who kind
Speaker 5: of mill around the office being present.
Speaker 4: So it's a tough time I think right now. And
Speaker 4: I don't know if the.
Speaker 5: World is going to slide back into a remote work revolution.
Speaker 5: Maybe this hybrid thing is going to go out of
Speaker 5: style in a few years. We might kind of see
Speaker 5: that in the future. But there are still a lot
Speaker 5: of remote roles out there. It's just that not all
Speaker 5: of them are like based in New York or LA
Speaker 5: or San Francisco, paying those types of salaries.
Speaker 4: So there are a few sacrifices that may have to be.
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, the financial sacrifice. Did you see me folks
Speaker 2: who are out there doing the odd jobs on some
Speaker 2: of the different platforms out there, like I'm thinking of
Speaker 2: like up work or fiver or something like that, were like,
Speaker 2: did you see many folks who were able to sustain
Speaker 2: enough income people living abroad. Yeah, while piecemealing it together
Speaker 2: with various projects like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 5: I think it depends and this will lead us definitely
Speaker 5: into a great topic. But it depends where in the
Speaker 5: world you're really trying to make a living, Because if
Speaker 5: you're in Norway, you're going to have to be bringing
Speaker 5: in thousands of dollars on upwork.
Speaker 4: But if you're in Thailand you could make it work
Speaker 4: with you know, a lot less.
Speaker 5: And it also I think a lot of Originally I
Speaker 5: thought a lot of digital nomads are doing engineering work
Speaker 5: like web developers, web designers, ux the tech stuff. But
Speaker 5: I've met a lot of people who are real designers
Speaker 5: and writers and consultants and people who do like things
Speaker 5: you've never heard of, just remotely. And I think it's
Speaker 5: been inspiring to see new jobs are being invented all
Speaker 5: the time. I think that's if someone is getting a
Speaker 5: bit down about the fact that they have to go
Speaker 5: into an office or you know, something like something like
Speaker 5: what I do can't be done remotely, there's always a
Speaker 5: first person who's going to say, no, I'm the first
Speaker 5: person who does this type of work remotely. You know,
Speaker 5: if it can be surgery, not so much. But if
Speaker 5: you can become just an expert for hire in what
Speaker 5: you do, I think there's probably some potential there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't do surgery be a zoom yet maybe someday,
Speaker 3: let's take a game of no I would game of
Speaker 3: operation or something like that. Okay, So you mentioned the
Speaker 3: dichotomy between a place like Thailand and Norway. I don't
Speaker 3: know if you can get a much starker contrast. You've
Speaker 3: avoided Norway to this point for that reason. I've been
Speaker 3: to Norway. It's very costly, So I can't imagine there
Speaker 3: are many digital nomads making Norway their home over an
Speaker 3: extended period of time, because you just gonna run out
Speaker 3: of money a lot faster. So how do you decide
Speaker 3: on destinations? And the thing is too when with digital nomadism,
Speaker 3: airfare prices matter less because you're going on to extended trip,
Speaker 3: you're thinking about all the other costs associated with it.
Speaker 3: For most novice travelers who are going somewhere for five, six,
Speaker 3: seven days, the airfare price is like top of mind. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: what's most enticing to you when you're thinking about where
Speaker 3: you want to travel.
Speaker 5: Yeah, still to this day, even though we are no
Speaker 5: longer going for really big trip.
Speaker 4: Well we've just went on a kind of big trip,
Speaker 4: but we're no.
Speaker 5: Longer going on huge you know, open jaw or one
Speaker 5: way tickets because we have a kid. We're still hyper
Speaker 5: focused on the cost of travel where we're going, and
Speaker 5: we think it's more fun to go places where you
Speaker 5: don't get bogged down by the cost of accommodation and
Speaker 5: eating out and you know, entertainment. We love going places
Speaker 5: where you get a huge bang for your buck, you
Speaker 5: feel like a king, you feel like nothing can get
Speaker 5: in your way of ordering whatever you want on the menu,
Speaker 5: and staying in a really great type of accommodation, where
Speaker 5: a place where your budget is going so much farther
Speaker 5: than it would in Yes, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, places like that.
Speaker 5: So some of our favorite trips to date, and not
Speaker 5: necessarily where we've done any type of remote work, but
Speaker 5: just places we've gone that have had the best price
Speaker 5: of travel to name have been me and Maar, Vietnam,
Speaker 5: parts of Mexico, parts of Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Lithuania.
Speaker 1: So all over the place.
Speaker 2: You definitely didn't mention London or Paris. What I think
Speaker 2: what you said to say true though, like the ability
Speaker 2: to have more fun because you're not constantly thinking, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, this better be worth it because we're paying
Speaker 2: out the nose for this trip or for this I
Speaker 2: don't know, Eiffel Tower tour or something.
Speaker 3: I mean, like a big mac meal in Oslo, like
Speaker 3: literally just going to McDonald's. It's like twenty four So
Speaker 3: that's going to send you back.
Speaker 2: Well, I think so much of what makes a fun
Speaker 2: trip are some of the things that you do while
Speaker 2: you're there, of course, but like I'm thinking about finding
Speaker 2: free things to do and so like where do you
Speaker 2: turn when you are trying to figure out what it
Speaker 2: is that you want to do, like and where to
Speaker 2: go within a new city, within a new location. And
Speaker 2: I guess I'm curious too, like how strict are you
Speaker 2: when it comes to planning out your travel, Like do
Speaker 2: you have a really strict approach to planning out your
Speaker 2: day or is it more kind of like flying by
Speaker 2: the seat of your pants? But I guess, yeah, I
Speaker 2: would love to hear you maybe your overall philosophy of
Speaker 2: planning a vacation or a trip like that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I used to be in the boat of
Speaker 5: like someone who wanted to go somewhere and see literally everything,
Speaker 5: and if I didn't.
Speaker 4: See it, I was going to be really disappointed.
Speaker 5: And I'm thinking specifically of the time I went to
Speaker 5: Guatemala for my first time with my friend, and we
Speaker 5: wanted to see everything, and she was totally down to
Speaker 5: see everything, and we spent so much time in transit
Speaker 5: that we did see all the things, but we were
Speaker 5: and we were on buses every other day when we
Speaker 5: could have been all so seeing things. So I think
Speaker 5: that was the last time. And I was about twenty
Speaker 5: five or twenty six years old on that trip. I
Speaker 5: think that was the last time I said, my gosh,
Speaker 5: I don't have the energy for this anymore. I have
Speaker 5: to figure out, you know, a way to go places
Speaker 5: and travel slower. And that's something that's also trending these days,
Speaker 5: is called slow travel. Actually, there's been another term developed
Speaker 5: called digital slowmadism.
Speaker 2: Oh, we have to change the title episode.
Speaker 5: That's for people who want to travel slower and spend
Speaker 5: more time in a place, getting to know that place,
Speaker 5: getting to feel like you live in that place. It's
Speaker 5: also better for the environment, and it's less hiring than
Speaker 5: really flying around, you know, taking lots of flights, taking
Speaker 5: lots of buses. None of this is good for the environment,
Speaker 5: and it's not good for anyone's like health either to
Speaker 5: be sitting on a bus or trainer even in a
Speaker 5: car all the time. But the question was, how do
Speaker 5: I really plan my travel? So these days it depends
Speaker 5: if we have our daughter with us, but typically we do.
Speaker 4: We recently went to Mediine.
Speaker 5: Columbia with our daughter, and we had a bunch of
Speaker 5: things that like we wanted to do in general, Like
Speaker 5: the first half of this trip we stayed with friends
Speaker 5: and I really just wanted to see the village where
Speaker 5: we were staying and it was beautiful, and I loosely
Speaker 5: wanted to go do some hikes, but you know, actually
Speaker 5: we have a baby. We didn't get around to any
Speaker 5: of it. There's nap time, there's meal time, there's early bedtime.
Speaker 5: You have to account for either you getting sick, baby
Speaker 5: getting sick.
Speaker 4: Someone gets sick.
Speaker 5: So we didn't get to do any hiking, but we
Speaker 5: got to see a really beautiful village, and then we
Speaker 5: spent some time in Mediine, where the only thing on
Speaker 5: my agenda was let's drink really good coffee. And I
Speaker 5: think at this point in my life, you know, just
Speaker 5: being somewhere. And I recently wrote a piece for our
Speaker 5: blog about this, called how traveling with the baby has
Speaker 5: changed the game. It's not that my expectations are lower,
Speaker 5: It's that I'm happy with less, Like I'm happy being
Speaker 5: away and enjoying just where I am, you know, just
Speaker 5: like appreciating looking around and just not being home, being
Speaker 5: somewhere and taking that all in. So even having a
Speaker 5: really good cup of coffee at a coffee shop, we're enjoying,
Speaker 5: like checks my boxes for the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I gotcha, So okay.
Speaker 3: Used to be like it's got to be an eight
Speaker 3: mile hike, or I got to go see three top
Speaker 3: things on my list, or but now it's like a
Speaker 3: super chill morning at a coffee shop.
Speaker 1: That's what kind of hits the.
Speaker 3: Right note, which makes sense, Like as we get older,
Speaker 3: the things that we want out of our travel experiences
Speaker 3: they morphin, they change, and the things we're comfortable with
Speaker 3: morph and change too. Think about I did CouchSurfing back
Speaker 3: in the day. One of my good friends met his
Speaker 3: wife CouchSurfing in New Orleans. I mean, those are the
Speaker 3: kind of experiences I was willing to sign up for
Speaker 3: back in the day, sleeping in a tent, all that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. And I'd still be down with a
Speaker 3: tent sleep every now and again. But my standards have
Speaker 3: changed and I'm not like four seasons are bust, but
Speaker 3: like not a like hostele with like eight people I
Speaker 3: don't know yet right or currently, So okay, talk to
Speaker 3: me about settling down having a baby and what that
Speaker 3: does to your wanderlust in general, Like do you feel
Speaker 3: like you've dialed back your expectations for how much you
Speaker 3: can and want to travel and how often you're willing
Speaker 3: to get out there too?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 5: These are questions that I've actually really mulled over in
Speaker 5: the last week since I wrote this pace for our blog.
Speaker 4: About traveling with the baby.
Speaker 5: And when I had the baby, I kind of just
Speaker 5: like I stepped back and I was like, oh, my god,
Speaker 5: having a kid is so hard. You're caring for a
Speaker 5: new person. This baby didn't come with a guidebook, like,
Speaker 5: you know, how do we do it?
Speaker 4: No one's sleeping.
Speaker 5: We're figuring out what this baby eats and how they
Speaker 5: like to play.
Speaker 4: And I said the fact.
Speaker 5: Of going away again is so overwhelming, you know, how
Speaker 5: do we bring all this stuff the baby needs?
Speaker 4: But with time we figured it out.
Speaker 5: And for our first flight with her, we went to
Speaker 5: Canada last summer, and you know, everybody survives, it went
Speaker 5: well and we had a great time.
Speaker 4: Like taking our baby around. People are like, oh my god, your.
Speaker 5: Baby's so cute, and we're like, hah, we don't now,
Speaker 5: but like, yeah, that was the first travel experience we
Speaker 5: had that was like far away and really felt like
Speaker 5: we were in our element again, you know, like going
Speaker 5: through an airport, getting the bags, using our passports, using
Speaker 5: our global entry, doing all those things we love that
Speaker 5: give us a high. We just had another tiny person
Speaker 5: with us. And so now having gone to South America
Speaker 5: recently with the baby doing it all again.
Speaker 4: We got her a passport and we got her a
Speaker 4: global entry. That's been very exciting for her. And she
Speaker 4: has no idea.
Speaker 1: She's gonna have more stamps than me soon, oh I know.
Speaker 2: And plus I'm just picturing a baby's photo, Like don't
Speaker 2: you have to like just hold a baby up like
Speaker 2: into the frame, Like what does that look like for
Speaker 2: a baby's passport photo?
Speaker 5: We have We put her down on a white blanket
Speaker 5: and then Dan like photoshop the wrinkles out, and then
Speaker 5: it's so funny.
Speaker 2: It's like she's just floating.
Speaker 5: I think eight weeks old in her photo. So even
Speaker 5: the last port officials laugh at her though, they're.
Speaker 2: Like, that's so funny, so funny.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so yeah. So, I mean now we kind of
Speaker 4: got the hang of it again, and now.
Speaker 5: That we've gone to South America with her toddler, we're like,
Speaker 5: all right, what's next?
Speaker 1: Nice?
Speaker 2: Okay. So I'm curious because that you are a very
Speaker 2: experienced traveler, Like I imagine a whole lot of new
Speaker 2: parents who like to travel and they're just packing like
Speaker 2: everything but the kitchen sink, because they're like, oh, I
Speaker 2: gotta do this, gotta take this, gotta take that, which
Speaker 2: is largely probably unnecessary because they probably don't touch half
Speaker 2: of the stuff anyway, you just think that you need it.
Speaker 2: And so I'm curious, given your experience traveling and with
Speaker 2: you being a a fairly new parent, what have you
Speaker 2: found and we're going to get very practically here, what
Speaker 2: do you think is totally overrated when it comes to that.
Speaker 2: Maybe the type of gear that parents are bringing along
Speaker 2: when they when they travel, and then what's something that
Speaker 2: you think is like, oh my gosh, we would have
Speaker 2: died if we did not have X piece of equipment.
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear your thoughts there.
Speaker 5: Okay, amazing question. I actually I think having traveled, but
Speaker 5: we took a bunch of road trips with our daughter
Speaker 5: to actually quite a few places. We went to Upstate
Speaker 5: New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, where else, Connecticut and New Hampshire
Speaker 5: before we went to Canada. So we had a bunch
Speaker 5: of time in the car with her, and what we
Speaker 5: were able to do was bring literally everything we wanted
Speaker 5: because we were like, it'll fit in the car, this
Speaker 5: will fit in the car too, and this will fit
Speaker 5: in the car too. But then we went to Canada
Speaker 5: and we realized the one thing we forgot because she
Speaker 5: was spiking a fever was a thermometer. And when you're
Speaker 5: in another country that doesn't use fahrenheit, you're gonna wind
Speaker 5: up with the Celsius. So now our best souvenir from
Speaker 5: that trip is a thermometer in Celsius that every time
Speaker 5: we use it, we're like, why are we using this?
Speaker 4: We just have to convert this, you know, with.
Speaker 5: Google and so now we traveled with a thermometer, and
Speaker 5: I actually think that's something that adults can trouble with too,
Speaker 5: because you never want if you think you have a
Speaker 5: fever and you want to, you know, either get more
Speaker 5: help or take some medication.
Speaker 4: You never want to have to run out for one.
Speaker 2: So right, so maybe broadly speaking back in that out
Speaker 2: just like a certain amount of medicine or healthcare, not healthcare,
Speaker 2: but like band aids.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, all the all the time and all types
Speaker 4: of stuff. So now that's like top of mine.
Speaker 3: There's websites out there now too that will let you
Speaker 3: rent baby stuff. Is it baby quip dot com?
Speaker 1: Maybe that?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 3: Or we've had how the money listeners? I think who said,
Speaker 3: guess what? I listed my baby stuff on there. I'm
Speaker 3: making money now renting out my baby gear. So that's
Speaker 3: a cool side hustle to make some money too.
Speaker 4: Is cool? Right? Yeah, that's super smart.
Speaker 3: So uh, I guess that's a way too to maybe
Speaker 3: avoid some of the you know, the hassle of bringing
Speaker 3: all the big mountain load of baby stuff with you
Speaker 3: is potentially ransome stuff when you're in a specific location too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and my other hack, because you said, what are
Speaker 5: the things that we haven't had to take with us
Speaker 5: or that we don't need. My main hack to this
Speaker 5: day has been stay in other places where you know
Speaker 5: people who have kids or babies.
Speaker 4: Because we went to.
Speaker 5: Columbia and we visited my friend Alex, who I actually
Speaker 5: met in Shanghai, so you know, everything comes full circle.
Speaker 5: She lives in Columbia with her friend Ryan. They also
Speaker 5: have an amazing blog about couples fitness. It's called Alex
Speaker 5: and Ryan du A Life, and they will probably love
Speaker 5: that I gave them a shout.
Speaker 4: But they have a.
Speaker 5: Child eight months older than ours, and so we were
Speaker 5: able to go to Columbia without taking a high chair,
Speaker 5: a baby club, a baby bath, and they even said
Speaker 5: if you need any clothes you can borrow the stuff
Speaker 5: are perfect out real, So that really.
Speaker 4: Helps you pack light.
Speaker 5: If you're able to visit and stay with people anywhere
Speaker 5: you can think of who are going to have that
Speaker 5: type of baby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that makes sense because then you can just
Speaker 2: fly spirit or you can go ultra cheap. I mean,
Speaker 2: so all that note, Actually, we've got more I guess
Speaker 2: maybe general travel questions that we have for you. We'll
Speaker 2: get to all that and more, right after this, we're
Speaker 2: back to the break. We're still talking digital slowmatism. Yet
Speaker 2: we just changed the title of the episode. That one
Speaker 2: right there with Becca's Eagle.
Speaker 3: Becca, we got a bunch of questions we got to
Speaker 3: get to, specifically on the money front and kind of
Speaker 3: how you handle and pay for some things when you're
Speaker 3: abroad too. First question, what cell phone service do you use?
Speaker 3: There's ah, do you use Google Fi? Because that's, in
Speaker 3: our estimation, one of the best, you know, cell phone
Speaker 3: services for people who travel frequently or using local simcards
Speaker 3: in different countries. What's the best route for regular travelers?
Speaker 4: Okay, such a good question.
Speaker 5: I have actually recently changed my answer to this question.
Speaker 5: So we used to use Google Fi and that performed
Speaker 5: really well for us in all of Latin America, Europe
Speaker 5: and East Asia. And however, on our most recent trip,
Speaker 5: I tried aer ralloh Ai r Alo and Dan helped
Speaker 5: me set that up in my phone. It was very fast,
Speaker 5: so as soon as I landed in Colombia, I had
Speaker 5: service from an e SIM And I'm gonna be writing
Speaker 5: something about that on our website, so check back soon
Speaker 5: and I'll be able to provide everyone with how that went.
Speaker 4: And how to do it?
Speaker 1: Okay, cool?
Speaker 3: What makes it better? What makes it because if you've
Speaker 3: had a good experience with Google Fi, why is it.
Speaker 2: Just is it just a more robust service? Because it's
Speaker 2: the it's the local provider.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's not much of a difference except it
Speaker 5: is hooking you. They're both hooking you into the local services,
Speaker 5: kind of what I call piggybacking.
Speaker 4: But this was very cheap. It was like twelve bucks.
Speaker 5: I got a three dollars discount from another blog, kind
Speaker 5: of if you search for Rollo, everyone's giving their own
Speaker 5: referral code. I paid twelve dollars for two weeks, and
Speaker 5: that just can't be beat.
Speaker 2: I think that is so stinking affordable. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: So it's a few dollars a day.
Speaker 2: We talked about our consternation when we went to Scotland
Speaker 2: and we're like, oh, yeah, well maybe we'll like drop
Speaker 2: twenty by on the mint Mobile International. And we've just.
Speaker 3: Changed their plans since and I think it's gotten better,
Speaker 3: but it's still not great.
Speaker 4: Well, you just.
Speaker 2: Blow through data faster than you realize. I guess that's
Speaker 2: what you realize is how much everything weighs. Once you
Speaker 2: start consuming when you're not on Wi Fi because obviously, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're not even thinking about it at home. But then
Speaker 2: when you are actually looking at the data that you're consuming,
Speaker 2: especially abroad, it makes much more of an impact. But uh, Becca,
Speaker 2: what is the best way for folks to access cash
Speaker 2: when they need it? I'm assuming most of the time
Speaker 2: you're using your credit card that way, you're not carrying
Speaker 2: around a lot of local currency, but I guess are
Speaker 2: there instances where you might need some pesos or whatever
Speaker 2: it is they're working for.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think the more you discover as you travel
Speaker 5: is well, first of all, a lot of the world
Speaker 5: is digitalizing, but if you are traveling in developing countries
Speaker 5: like India, like where else have I been?
Speaker 4: Places like Zambia.
Speaker 5: Maybe not everyone's going to Zambia, but a bunch of
Speaker 5: East Asia, bunch of Latin America, cash is still going
Speaker 5: to be king And some places might be charging a
Speaker 5: credit card fee for use of a credit card there,
Speaker 5: and so that might actually not even make it worth
Speaker 5: it once you are either getting your cash back or
Speaker 5: foreign transaction fees whatever you're running up there. When we're
Speaker 5: not using cash though, it's credit all the way for sure.
Speaker 5: And what you want to do is, especially if you're
Speaker 5: using a new credit card, is make sure before you
Speaker 5: leave home that there are going to be no foreign
Speaker 5: transaction fees. Because while Dan and I are experienced travelers,
Speaker 5: we have gotten new credit cards because we do shuffle
Speaker 5: through them and cycle through them. And we once went
Speaker 5: away or I think I actually went for my second
Speaker 5: time to Guatemala with a new card. We were trying
Speaker 5: to work toward, you know, getting the miles or the
Speaker 5: points back. And I came back and I had run
Speaker 5: up a bunch of foreign transaction fees that I negotiated
Speaker 5: with the credit card company and.
Speaker 4: They removed nice.
Speaker 5: But you want to be sure that you're not going
Speaker 5: to get those fees in the.
Speaker 3: First placendred percent. And that's that's so much easier to
Speaker 3: do now than before. Like for a while, there were
Speaker 3: just a handful of credit card credit cards that had
Speaker 3: came with zero foreign transaction fee. Now there's a lot
Speaker 3: of them, but yes, for sure, because you don't want
Speaker 3: to pay three percent more for everything when you're traveling.
Speaker 3: How important are credit card rewards points to you today
Speaker 3: and when it comes to reducing your out of pocket
Speaker 3: travel costs? Because clearly the sign of bonuses and then
Speaker 3: what you're accruing by just using those credit cards regularly,
Speaker 3: they can defray a decent chunk of the cost of
Speaker 3: your travels.
Speaker 4: I guess yeah.
Speaker 5: One of our greatest success stories was with the Capital
Speaker 5: X Capital one Venture X card, which at the time
Speaker 5: we got it was giving away one hundred thousand points
Speaker 5: if you got through the I think it might have
Speaker 5: been six thousand or maybe even ten thousand dollars spend
Speaker 5: in six months if you think about it, and if
Speaker 5: you have two users on the account, you can kind
Speaker 5: of hit those minimum spends to get all the miles
Speaker 5: in the points if you really put your mind to it,
Speaker 5: and if you put a bunch of things on credit
Speaker 5: that maybe you don't typically do, like if you're able
Speaker 5: to put your rent on credit, or really just some
Speaker 5: like large house expenses, if you're able to time that correctly,
Speaker 5: what we got back was one hundred thousand miles from
Speaker 5: hitting that minimum spend, and then we got the three
Speaker 5: hundred dollars account credit also, which is part of the
Speaker 5: yearly fee, which I think at the time was also
Speaker 5: like five fifty but three hundred dollars if it comes
Speaker 5: back and then you can use that toward any qualified
Speaker 5: travel expense. So I think for us, we use the
Speaker 5: points to book an entire two person round trip to
Speaker 5: Vancouver for a wedding, and then we used a bunch
Speaker 5: of the points left along.
Speaker 4: With the travel credit to book our hotel in Vancouver.
Speaker 5: So we pretty much went to a really high cost
Speaker 5: of travel place totally for free.
Speaker 2: Let me lead back to like we were talking about
Speaker 2: credit cards. Talk to us about the difference between paying
Speaker 2: for a purchase when you are abroad somewhere in local
Speaker 2: currency versus paying for it in US dollars. I guess,
Speaker 2: tell me your experience with buying stuff abroad.
Speaker 5: There's actually this is really good to know, and it's
Speaker 5: a really good point you bring up, because so we
Speaker 5: were just in Colombia. A lot of times when you're
Speaker 5: in a restaurant and they give you, like the credit
Speaker 5: card reader to punch out and add your tip, and.
Speaker 4: You have to like sign and hit enter.
Speaker 5: Sometime these machines give you a choice of like would
Speaker 5: you like to be charged in local paysos currency or
Speaker 5: would you like to be charged in usd If you're
Speaker 5: in a hurry and you don't realize you will just
Speaker 5: hit USD because you're used to that. But what you
Speaker 5: want to do is hit payesos. You want to be
Speaker 5: charged in the foreign currency because it will be converted
Speaker 5: on your bill at the most optimal rate at the
Speaker 5: time of purchase. Typically paying a USD is going to
Speaker 5: be a worse deal for you, even though it seems
Speaker 5: like a safe thing to do. So everyone should opt
Speaker 5: to get charged in foreign currency. And also when you're
Speaker 5: exchanging your money. If you're exchanging your money, the best
Speaker 5: way to do that is to pull money out of
Speaker 5: a local ATM in local currency. And an even better
Speaker 5: thing to do is to go with a card from
Speaker 5: like Fidelity or Schwab and get all of your foreign
Speaker 5: ATM transaction fees rebated to you at.
Speaker 4: The end the morning.
Speaker 3: That's a good point because just getting the money can
Speaker 3: sometimes be kind of costly, and some people think, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm just to bring like five hundred bucks and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna go to the counter at the airport and that's
Speaker 3: where I'm gonna exchange. You don't get as good of
Speaker 3: an exchange rate. You pay additional fees. It's just a
Speaker 3: bad way to get money, and it just cost you
Speaker 3: additional dollars that you don't have to spend. So that's
Speaker 3: a I think it's a really good point. Okay, Becca,
Speaker 3: What have we not covered that we need to cover?
Speaker 3: What is it that people need to know about slow
Speaker 3: travel saving money on travel that we haven't talked about yet.
Speaker 5: I think I would love to hone in more or
Speaker 5: in a final type of way, on the fact that there.
Speaker 6: Are places out there that are not London, Paris and Rome,
Speaker 6: and there are just places in the world that are
Speaker 6: so cheap that they'll blow your mind in like a
Speaker 6: great way where you could have an amazing getaway from
Speaker 6: home and you can spend a fraction of what you would.
Speaker 4: In Western Europe.
Speaker 5: And don't get me wrong, I love Western Europe. And
Speaker 5: I actually just wrote a piece for our blog called
Speaker 5: why I've never been to London, Paris or Rome. Before
Speaker 5: everyone gets at me, it's because I've been everywhere else
Speaker 5: and so what I would love for people to just
Speaker 5: you know, from a financial perspective too, if you can
Speaker 5: just take your boundaries a little farther, you can have
Speaker 5: so much of a long you can travel longer and
Speaker 5: better when you're not bogged down by the costs of
Speaker 5: high places or places that have.
Speaker 2: High costs of travel, which makes sense, but like, for instance,
Speaker 2: Vietnam is one of the places you mentioned that's like
Speaker 2: top of the top of the pile for you. But
Speaker 2: a lot of times some of those flights are so
Speaker 2: dang expensive. So is there any place that's it's abroad
Speaker 2: but it's not as expensive of a ticket, but the
Speaker 2: cost of living is crazy low and it allows you
Speaker 2: to really travel a lot more on a limited budget.
Speaker 4: So yes, And I'm so glad you asked.
Speaker 5: Because there is a country right next door to us
Speaker 5: called Mexico. And if you don't go to resorts, and
Speaker 5: I really mean this, if you go past Cancun and
Speaker 5: the resort strip, if you go to the city where
Speaker 5: we spend a month called Merida, and I guess you
Speaker 5: know you guys have so many listeners, the secret is
Speaker 5: going to be totally out. Everyone's going to book a
Speaker 5: flight to Merida. If people in the United States go
Speaker 5: to even just like second I don't want to say
Speaker 5: second rate, but like places that don't come up number
Speaker 5: one in Google's search, like in Mexico, like Guadalajara, Wahaka,
Speaker 5: wherever else, even Mexico City, like you will be amazed
Speaker 5: at what your dollar can do for you in places
Speaker 5: like this, And I really do mean this, go past
Speaker 5: the resorts cool.
Speaker 3: I like it a lot of good tips. Becca, Thank
Speaker 3: you so much for joining us today on the podcast.
Speaker 3: Where can our listeners find out more about you and
Speaker 3: your travel excursions?
Speaker 4: Sure? I am totally reachable.
Speaker 5: Anybody can email me at Becca B e Cca at
Speaker 5: half half travel dot com and we are half half.
Speaker 7: Travel on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, and of course visit
Speaker 7: half half travel dot com for all of our experiences
Speaker 7: and personal recommendations in remote work and travel, traveling with
Speaker 7: a baby, travel gear, travel advice, and travel destination guys.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I think we'll probably end up linking to
Speaker 2: a ton of the topics that maybe we just barely
Speaker 2: touched on, but if you want like the full ride up,
Speaker 2: we'll link to some of those in the show notes
Speaker 2: up on the site. Becca, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: taking the time to speak with us today.
Speaker 4: Thank you, guys. As you know I'm a number one listener.
Speaker 3: We appreciate it. All right, Maddie, where we traveling next?
Speaker 3: That's the uh, that's the question I have for you?
Speaker 1: Now? Do you have the fever?
Speaker 2: You got? The bud because I feel like I do
Speaker 2: man like truly, the ability to hear Becca's excitement about travels,
Speaker 2: it's obvious that is something that she's really pumped out,
Speaker 2: but she's enjoyed doing. The only cure for my fever
Speaker 2: is more cow Bell, though I think the cure of
Speaker 2: my viewer is is it Mereda or Marita Merida?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So it's over there on the Yucatan Peninsula. So I'm
Speaker 2: looking forward to looking more into that.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it might be too hot for me. I don't know.
Speaker 1: We live in Atlanta. We get enough heat. I might
Speaker 1: go somewhere a little cooler.
Speaker 2: Can we go there?
Speaker 1: Wait?
Speaker 2: She said that they were there in January and it
Speaker 2: was still and it's still like in the eighties, and
Speaker 2: I felt like a Colt snap. Yeah that does seem
Speaker 2: pretty hot. Yeah, don't go.
Speaker 1: In July for my blood.
Speaker 2: But what was your big takeaway?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: So I think my big takeaway was when she talked
Speaker 3: about negotiating for part time work or for remote opportunities,
Speaker 3: and we we've talked about the trade offs, and she
Speaker 3: even mentioned it that you listening to this podcast, she's heard, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're probably gonna make less money. Work from home, and
Speaker 3: I think it's a supply and demand thing if you
Speaker 3: want to work remotely, unless you're really lucky and your
Speaker 3: employer says, no, sure, we love you so much like
Speaker 3: you go work from.
Speaker 1: Wherever you want.
Speaker 3: We'll pay you the same amount of money. That is
Speaker 3: best case scenario. But these are things you can negotiate.
Speaker 3: And guess what, if you're willing and able to get
Speaker 3: rid of some of your current expenses, the apartment that
Speaker 3: you have, maybe you're willing to sell your car and
Speaker 3: you don't have those recurring monthly bills, you're not paying
Speaker 3: for the insurance on that car as well, you can
Speaker 3: maybe afford to take a little bit of a pay
Speaker 3: cut and jet set to a cheaper cost of living
Speaker 3: location for a little while. But those the kind of
Speaker 3: trade offs you're gonna have to make, and it's worth
Speaker 3: starting to have that conversation with your boss if this
Speaker 3: is something that insters you, if you've kind of gotten
Speaker 3: bitten by the bug.
Speaker 2: Listening to Becka, yeah, I totally agree. Man. My big
Speaker 2: takeaway is going to be that you don't have to
Speaker 2: completely diy figure all of this out yourself, because I
Speaker 2: think for a lot of folks who are listening again,
Speaker 2: you get inspired and then you start looking into it
Speaker 2: and you don't know where to start right. And so
Speaker 2: I think there's a previous version of not just Matt,
Speaker 2: but Joel Enman where we would say, guys, you don't
Speaker 2: need these communities. You don't need remote year or Wi
Speaker 2: Fi tribe or Hacker Paradise in order to put together
Speaker 2: a slomatic life. Just Di Wyatt put it together yourself.
Speaker 2: You're going to save so much in fees. You don't
Speaker 2: need all of that, but you're not flushing money down
Speaker 2: the toilet. There's something that you are receiving from that,
Speaker 2: the ability to have the expertise, and these are locations
Speaker 2: that are vetted and they know what it is that
Speaker 2: remote workers are looking for. There's a whole lot of
Speaker 2: value that is provided therefore, you plus the added component
Speaker 2: of community, you know, like hearing her talk about how
Speaker 2: when they put it a piece of it together themselves,
Speaker 2: how they kind of got a little bit lonely. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I could totally see that being the case. And especially
Speaker 2: if there's a language barrier, Oh my gosh, I think
Speaker 2: you could feel really isolated and I could really have
Speaker 2: you pining to get back home. Sooner than maybe you're planning.
Speaker 2: But if you're surrounded by a bunch of folks who
Speaker 2: predominantly speak English and you're all kind of on the
Speaker 2: same schedule, I think that could be more than worth
Speaker 2: the money. Plus, yeah, it just makes life a little
Speaker 2: bit easier. It allows you to focus on the things
Speaker 2: that you're good at doing your jobs. That then your
Speaker 2: additional time you can spend having fun that's.
Speaker 1: While you're there.
Speaker 3: I think it complete can completely change your experience of
Speaker 3: slow travel and digital nomadism. And so if you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: I was worried about the logistics. I was worried about
Speaker 3: the overwhelm of planning how to do this, it's kind
Speaker 3: of cool to have an organization that you know, you
Speaker 3: partner with her, and then you pay money. I guess too,
Speaker 3: I didn't ask her how much. I'm curious about that
Speaker 3: there's a fee. Yeah, that sounds like but like man
Speaker 3: to think about, Oh cool, you're planning, help me, help
Speaker 3: me plan this out for me, and you're also hooking
Speaker 3: me up with a tribe of yes folks who are
Speaker 3: doing just the logistics.
Speaker 2: It's also also the community, and I think that can
Speaker 2: be more than worth the money.
Speaker 1: But cool.
Speaker 2: All right, let's mention the beer. You and I both
Speaker 2: enjoyed a juice party.
Speaker 1: This is a hazy Imperial.
Speaker 2: You have to say it like that when you say
Speaker 2: the jew party, hazy Imperial.
Speaker 1: I p a.
Speaker 2: This is by fire Maker Brewing. These guys are ruined
Speaker 2: here in Atlanta, or at least it was. I think
Speaker 2: it started in They're.
Speaker 3: Still yeah, yes, okay, So this one, in my mind
Speaker 3: tasted like torched oranges.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh it did it remind you of digits
Speaker 2: burnt hickory for sure?
Speaker 1: Like a blood orange variety. Did they close? They did?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was like a brewery not too far from
Speaker 3: where we are, and it was an og It was
Speaker 3: a good one and it's gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this one like a blood orange IPA.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's because the dragons on the cover and dragons
Speaker 3: breathe fire. But I was just thinking as I was drinking,
Speaker 3: and I was like, this tastes like roasted oranges, almost
Speaker 3: in IPA form.
Speaker 2: Like you're sitting there at a bar, someone's making you
Speaker 2: an old fashioned and they got the orange zest and
Speaker 2: they kind of squeeze it and light it on fire,
Speaker 2: like right, that fragrance that Aroma exactly. Yeah, in my mind,
Speaker 2: it's sort of had more of an old school kind
Speaker 2: of IPA vibe to it. It's certainly not like a
Speaker 2: New England hazy like it says hazy on here, but
Speaker 2: it's not like it's not that kind of hazy kind
Speaker 2: of like the ones you get from Boston. They're stretching
Speaker 2: the truth a little bit by calling themselves a hazy
Speaker 2: Imperial IPA. But this was really tasty. Glad that you
Speaker 2: and I got to enjoy it here on the podcast. Sure,
Speaker 2: but we'll make sure to link to the different resources
Speaker 2: that we mentioned that we talked about with Becca where
Speaker 2: you can follow along with her and Dan their adventures travels,
Speaker 2: especially with a new baby, because it's like a whole
Speaker 2: new I bet for folks who follow them way back
Speaker 2: in the day, they're probably really excited to see them
Speaker 2: like embark on this next sort of journey because it's
Speaker 2: almost like you're kind of hitting reset and you're relearning
Speaker 2: how to do certain things, and so there's like a
Speaker 2: I don't know, I bet there's like a renewed vigor
Speaker 2: to what it is that they're doing over at half
Speaker 2: half travel dot com. But we'll make sure to link
Speaker 2: to that in the show. It's at how to money
Speaker 2: dot com.
Speaker 1: No doubt.
Speaker 3: All right, buddy, until next time, Best Friends, houst Friends
Speaker 3: Out