airlines - The Expat Chat

Transcription

INTERVIEWS WITH THE WORLDS LEADING TRAVELLERS
THE
EXPAT CHAT
EUROPE’S
BEST LOW COST
AIRLINES
REVEALED
JANUARY 2016 | ISSUE 01
6 SUPER
TECH
PIECES TO PACK WHEN
TRAVELLING
HOW TO BUILD A
COVER STORY:
relocating
their job from
CHICAGO to
COSTA RICA!
MEET THE
KIWI COUPLE
WHO TURNED A
VILLAGE IN LAOS
ON IT’S HEAD
THE CANADIAN
COUPLE LIVING
A MILLIONAIRE
LIFESTYLE ON
LESS THAN
$C2000 MONTH
SUCCESSFUL
TRAVEL
FUND
20
THINGS TO LOVE ABOUT
CHIANG MAI
LIFE WITHOUT ICE CREAM:
REMOTE GROCERY SHOPPING IN MEXICO!
HOW TO BUILD A GREAT TEAM
TO HELP YOU TRAVEL
JANUARY 2016
WWW.THEEXPATCHAT.COM
THE
EXPAT CHAT
january 2016 | ISSUE 01
CONTENTS
IN THIS ISSUE:
WELCOME TO
THE VERY FIRST EDITION OF
THE EXPAT CHAT MAGAZINE!
THIS MONTHS
CONTRIBUTORS
BRENDAN LEE
SAM PATTON
DIANA EDELMAN
CHUCK ROS
DEIDRE MIZE
DAVE DEAN
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
“As this content includes directly
transcribed interviews and
regional language variations,
some grammar and spelling will
differ accordingly”.
Got questions? Thoughts?
Dreams of Travel?
We would love to hear from you!
STAFF
LEANNE ARGYLE
editor
LEAH SARAH LIMCANGCO
2
3
EDITOR’S NOTE
COVER STORY: HOW TO TAKE YOUR JOB FROM
CHICAGO TO COSTA RICA
15 WORLD FESTIVALS
17 HOW TO BUILD A TRAVEL FUND
20 FROM CORPORATE LIFE TO A CAFÉ IN LAOS
36 HAVE OUTSOURCERS WILL TRAVEL:
WHY BUILDING AN ONLINE BUSINESS DOESN’T MEAN
HAVING TO DO IT YOURSELF
39 20 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT CHIANG MAI
43 LIVE LIKE A MILLIONAIRE FOR FREE
58 GROCERY SHOPPING IN XCALAK, MEXICO
61 MY 6 PIECES OF TECH GEAR THAT HAVE MOST
IMPROVED MY TRAVELS
64 EUROPE’S BEST LOW COST AIRLINES
68 THE LAST WORD — MARGO PAIGE
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editorial assistant
CRISANTO DOMINGUEZ
graphics and design
CONTACT
[email protected]
[email protected]
1
THE EXPAT CHAT | ISSUE 1
or visit our website
http://theexpatchat.com/
"Inspiring tales from people living the life of
their dreams through travel"
January 2016 | All Rights Reserved.
HI EVERYONE!
Welcome to the very first issue of
The Expat Chat e-magazine!
W
e are really excited about bringing the world to your
inbox (and your ears through our Podcast) by t alking
to expats, digital nomads and roaming retiree’s about
their new lifestyle either on the road or moving to an entirely
different country. Each one has a different story, a d
ifferent
‘why’ which as humans now living in a world where more and
more is possible, we find intriguing and find ourselves wondering whether we could ‘do it too?’
Our mission with both the magazine
and the podcast is to dispel the myths
around travel being: not safe, too
expensive
The world in which we live is changing – faster, it seems than it ever has
before. With it can come chaos, uncertainty and change on a global scale…
but with all change comes re-birth and
the creation of new opportunities.
We now live in a world that our grandparents can only have imagined. Many
of them worked a 60+ hour week, had
no holidays, couldn’t travel affordably
even if they wanted, and worse forced
to work until they could work no more.
Life was about survival.
Some say that the baby boomers
are the first generation to really
enjoy life; to do more than just survive – and it would be fair to say that
we have embraced the opportunity wholeheartedly – travelling more,
buying more and doing more than our
parents ever could.
But are we happier?
Research tends to say no – but for
some the answer is a definitive yes.
Not everyone has embraced the post
war millennial consumeristic boom
that has taken over our society. For
some it is about living for their passion
and doing what they want because it
feels right and it makes them happy.
Many have found happiness following their travel dreams – be it as expat retirees enjoying the simple things
of life far more affordably in another
culture, or the new generation of digital nomads whose income is tied to a
computer but not to a desk – free to
roam the world, docking in wherever they can get good internet.
Then there is the perpetual traveler –
worldwide wanderers who enjoy
the experiences most spend two
weeks and several thousand dollars
to grab but have mastered the art of
doing it for cents in the dollar.
In this issue we share the experiences of Junior and Jackie Minchillo who
had enough of the winters of Chicago
and chose to relocate their jobs and
their lives to sunny Costa Rica. We
meet Andrej and Karen Brummer two
corporate kiwis now living in Laos
who teach the locals how to make
western foods and give all the profit to
local schools; who after doing a vision
board together, realized they weren’t
living their passion and Michael and
Yvonne Bauche, a fantastic Canadian
couple housesitting in the Caribbean
living the millionaire lifestyle without
the cost!
If you’ve been enjoying our podcast
episodes we’re excited to be bringing
you this publication. Look forward to
more issues soon.
Leanne Argyle
Editor
2
HOW TO TAKE YOUR JOB FROM
CHICAGO to
COSTA RICA
An interview with JACKIE and JUNIOR MINCHILLO
How long would it take you to get tired of
Chicago winters and two weeks holiday per
year? For Illinois couple Jackie and Junior
Minchillo it wasn’t long. The corporate life
of all day meetings and working into the
night proved to be too much and in April
this year they made their move to sunny
Costa Rica with their pet dog Harvey.
After some initial problems with the first
house they stayed in they have now settled
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into a local expat community in Playa
Langosta a small beachside community
of less than 1000 people near the town of
Tamarindo and they haven’t looked back.
Their new life now gives them the best of
both worlds with their income in US dollars while their costs are in Costa Rican
colones giving them far more spending

power for their dollar. We caught up with
them both for a recent chat.
Tony (Argyle): We’re with Jackie
and Junior Minchillo today who are
coming to us live from Costa Rica. Hi
guys! How are you?
Jackie (Minchillo):
are you?
Hi Tony! How
Tony: I’m great. Thank you very
much. Thanks for asking. First question, describe your surroundings.
Where are you sitting and what are
you looking at at the moment?
Jackie: Well,we live in Playa
Langosta, Costa Rica, which is the
north-western coast of the country in
the Guanacaste region; so it’s very
hot and sunny here. I mean outside
of our window—we live in a building,
so we get to look at the pool and palm
trees. We’re on a dirt road. We’re
about a 5-minute walk to the beach,
and we can kind of hear the ocean
from our balcony; so we like to sit out
there in the mornings, and we can
see the sunset in the evenings from
our balcony, which is awesome
We’re technically supposed to be in
the rainy season right now, but
we’re actually in a really
severe need for rain in this area. It’s
only rained a few times, and so we’ve
been in a bit of a water shortage lately. And—I don’t know… Do you have
anything else that you would add
about the surroundings?
Junior (Minchillo): No, I really enjoy looking at the palm trees outside
and the sun and the blue skies.
Tony: Well, thanks, because I’m sitting in the middle of a wintry day in
Australia here, so if you want some
rain, I’m more than happy to send it
across to you.
Jackie: Well, we feel your pain. We
moved here from Chicago, Illinois, in
the United States; so we’re very familiar with harsh, cold winters.
Tony:
What made you choose
Costa Rica?
Jackie: A lot of people ask us this
question. We’ve actually said, ‘We
should probably figure out what our
exact answer is to that’, because a
lot of people ask us. It was somewhat
random.
We started talking about moving to
another country in general. We really needed change. We were looking
for the experience of really immersing
ourselves in a different culture; so we
started watching this YouTube show
on expats, and that kind of tipped us
off to Costa Rica first. We saw an episode with this couple who was living
here, and they just seemed to be loving life.
We also had a friend that came and
stayed for 3 months in Tamarindo,
and he also raved about the area and
loved it. What else?
Junior: But we did our own research in terms of location. We
looked at a couple of different things.
We looked at the language, the cost
of living, where in the world we were
going to live.
Language, because they speak
Spanish here—I do speak Spanish—
so it was a little bit easier for us instead of, let’s say, Thailand or going to Italy or some other country in
Europe or even somewhere
else in Asia.
Colourful Downtown San Jose
4
Also because I’m from Brazil—it is
right in the middle of, in between the
US and Brazil.
Those were some of the things that we
looked at.
Obviously, the biggest one was weather. It was a requirement to be warm
and be close to the beach.
Tony: Well, it keeps you out of those
cold Chicago winters, doesn’t it?
Tell us a bit about your old life, because
you haven’t been there very long,
which was one of the great reasons I
want to talk to you today… about the
freshness of your experience. What
was your old life like before?
Jackie: I would say our life was a
typical description of the rat race.
We’re living in Chicago – big city,
very busy, lots of people. I worked in
an agency and spent a lot of my day
and a lot of my night working all of
the time. And just kind of that expectation in general, in the United States,
that we both kind of got caught up in
in terms of not really having a lot of
time off, being expected to be available via email or phone all of the time.
We were a bit lost. We were living to
work vs working to live; and it just
was exhausting.
Junior: I’d have to agree with what
she just said.
Tony: Yeah. That’s a common story
that a lot of people say. Did you reach
a point where you just decided ‘that’s
it’ or was it a gradual transition? How
long have you been thinking about
shifting before you did it?
Junior:
quick.
I guess we did it pretty
Jackie: It was pretty quick.
5
‘‘
‘‘
We looked at cost to travel back and
forth. Because we are pretty close
to the US, the cost to fly is relatively
cheap.
You know what?
We gotta make change….
Let’s do it!
Junior: Once we started talking
about it, I would say it was within 4 to
5 months.
Jackie: That we moved, yeah.
Junior: That we moved, yup. We
started talking about it. We said, ‘You
know what? We gotta make a change.
Let’s do it.” “Okay, let’s do it”. And
then the next day, we started doing
our research. And now 4 months
later, we are in Costa Rica.
Jackie: Yeah. . I mean, I would
say, kind of the tipping point —Junior
already mentioned that he’s from
Brazil—so the tipping point of us, kind
of starting to talk about it and start
researching it, seriously was actually,
when we were trying to plan a trip
to Brazil and we were getting really
frustrated, because for me, I only had
two weeks of for the entire year that I
was allowed to take off work.
And for us, living in Chicago, that
really limited us. It didn’t really make
sense to take a trip to Brazil for less
than two weeks. But if we did that
and took the full two weeks, that
takes away any possibility to go visit
home for the holidays or take a 3-day
weekend over the summer. So that
was really frustrating, and we just
had this epiphany of ‘there are people
that make travel a priority all over the
world, so let’s figure out how they do
it so that we can do it too’.
Junior: Yeah, and two weeks is
just not a long-enough—if you like
travelling and you want to explore the
world, two weeks out of the year is
not long enough.
Tony: I picked up on that, Jackie.
You said you only get two weeks and
then your holiday at your old job?
Jackie: Yeah. I mean I would say
that that’s pretty typical in the United
States. Some companies are now
getting a little bit more progressive
about it, and some companies will
have programs where you can
accrue extra paid time off the longer
that you work for the company and
things of that nature; but to the best
of my knowledge, two weeks is still
pretty typical on average across
the country. And so, I mean that
definitely does make it tough; and it
limits you for sure in terms of what
you can do in a given year.
Tony: Yeah, for sure. So you guys,
when did you move to Costa Rica? It
hasn’t been that long ago, has it?
Jackie: Well, we moved on April
Fool’s Day, April 1st of this year.
Tony:
omen.
I hope that wasn’t a bad
Junior: Believe it or not, it is true.
Tony: So it’s obviously a fresh
experience. What, I suppose, trials
and tribulations did you go through
during that travelling process? What
did you do wrong? What did you do
right? What recommendations would
you have for people?
Jackie: Oh gosh, everything has
been an adventure.
Junior: Yeah. You just learn so
much. It’s a completely different
place; and the way people live and
the way things are done here in
terms of shopping, in terms of how
you talk to people and bargaining,
and in terms of prices, it is a little bit
different. I mean… I don’t know. Do
you want to—Jackie?
A typical Neighbourhood in San Jose
Jackie: Yeah.I mean in terms of the
research process, if we just even
start there, it was pretty tough to
find the information just in general.
I mean if we’re talking about
Costa Rica specifically, it’s still a
developing country in a lot of ways;
and a lot of businesses are really
operating kind of the old-fashioned
way – on word of mouth, and they’re
happy serving the local community
and the tourists that come through;
but they don’t do a ton of advertising
and don’t have a lot of information
available online for example.
So when we were trying to research
areas and figure out ‘okay, if we lived
here, what would be around us?
What would be close to us?’ That
kind of stuff is super difficult to figure
out because not a lot of businesses
have websites or they have websites
that don’t have a ton of information or
haven’t been updated in a long time.
So we actually spent a lot of our time
during the research phase reaching
out and connecting with other expats
6
that we found on Facebook or that
we found online one way or another
that were already living here just to
say, ‘Hey, we’re trying to figure out X.
Do you know how to do this or where
we should go to find the information?’
So that was kind of tricky.
And I guess probably the biggest—
oh, go ahead.
Tony: Sorry, I was just going to say,
‘Did the shifting process go quite
smoothly for you?’
Jackie: Our first house that we lived
in in Costa Rica was an experience
that we’ll never forget, and we did
something that I wouldn’t recommend
to other people. And that was we
found this house online. It was close
to the beach, which was one of our
requirements, and it was within our
price range; and we talked to the
owner of that house one time and
just asked him some questions about
accessibility, and we saw one photo of
the house; and we said, ‘Okay. We’re
there. We’ll do it. Sounds good.’
When we got there, it was quite another story. We ended up quite in the
middle of nowhere in an extremely
rural area—
Junior: Without a car.
Jackie: Yeah, no car. The owner
advised things were in walking distance, but it was about a 45-minute
walk for example to get to the nearest
store to buy anything; and he knew
that we wouldn’t have a car. So that
was a challenge. The house was very
much… I don’t even know what you
would call it – rustic living I guess. No
windows, just open air, no locks on
the door.
Junior: No bathroom door.
Jackie: Yeah, no doors in the house,
no bathroom doors. So that all was a
huge shock to us; and we ended up
making it one week in the house, and
then we just kind of had a heart-toheart with the owner and said, ‘We really apologise. We really thought that
we were going to stay longer, but we
just can’t do it. We need to move closer
to town. For us, this is beyond culture
shock. I don’t know if we’re going to be
able to figure out how to live out here’,
kind of by ourselves in the middle of nowhere in the Costa Rican country side.
Tony: Well, the good thing about
those experiences, they’re no fun at
the time; but they make great coffee
cup stories for later on, because you
always remember those moments,
and you can laugh about them afterwards; but at the time, they just don’t
seem very funny, do they?
Jackie: Oh yeah. We say that all the
time – about how we’ll be telling that
story for years.
Tony: Okay. So let’s just look at cost
of living in Costa Rica. I understand
it’s reasonably affordable. How does
it compare to the US?
Jackie: For us, it’s a night-and-day
difference from living in Chicago; so
it’s kind of two extremes. Chicago is
an expensive city to live in, so it is
by no means the average. I would
say it’s on the higher end in terms of
United States’ cost of living
And then the area that we now ended
up in in Costa Rica, we now learned
it is also on the higher end for the
country; so you can find places to live
in Costa Rica that are a lot cheaper
than where we’re living. This is just
where we decided to be because it
made the most sense for us, and we
liked it the most.
For example, we cut our rent in half
basically. In Chicago, we were paying
1,325 US dollars for a one-bedroom
7
apartment in the city. Here, we’re
paying $750 for a one-bed, two-bath
condo.
And then in terms of utilities, it’s between $150 and $200 a month I would
say. In terms of utilities in Costa Rica,
by far, the most expensive is going to
be your electricity from running the
air-conditioner; so if you can be more
conservative with your air-conditioner, you’ll probably save a lot of money
on cost of living.
And then we kind of sat down the other day and took a look at this and figured we’re spending around $500 a
month on groceries. I mean from my
perspective, from our perspective, I
would say $2,000 a month is a really
comfortable budget in Costa Rica in
the area that we’re in.
Junior: I think the biggest thing
that helped us was cutting all of our
expenses – not all of them, but most of
them – when it comes to car payments,
car insurance, health insurance, all
these different things we’re being
charged on a monthly basis that really
we don’t need. And when you’re in the
US, you think, ‘Oh, this is good. This is
what I want’, and then you come here,
and you realize, ‘Oh, I really don’t
need all those services.’
We cut down on that. We cut down a
lot on all these expenses.
Tony: Just talking about health
cover there, Junior, how do you cover
yourselves, and what’s the quality of
health care like in Costa Rica?
Junior: We actually don’t have health
care here. We just chose not to have
it. We have insurance in the US, and
we looked at how much we spent
in the US for the year; and on top of
the payments, we had co-pays. So
healthcare in the US, as of now, I don’t
think it’s at a good place. Here, because
we are pretty young, we are healthy, we
keep ourselves active, we prefer to—if
we need to go to the doctor, we would
just pay for the visit out-of-pocket.
We haven’t really done a lot of
research on how healthcare works
here in Costa Rica. We just know that
as of now, we don’t need it.
Tony:
Okay. That’s interesting.
The people I’ve been speaking to
so far, I’ve always known the US’s
healthcare as being quite expensive.
What I hadn’t realized is it’s actually
not that good compared to other
parts of the world. There are lots of
parts in Asia and probably through
Central America where not only is it
considerably cheaper, the healthcare,
but the quality’s actually better, which
is another reason why people are so
keen to move I think.
Jackie: I think so.
Junior: We heard that too, yeah.
Jackie: Medical tourism is a term
that they use here. There are lots of
people that come to Costa Rica for—
if they need some sort of surgical
procedure or if they need dental work
done, because like you said, they can
get quality care for a fraction of the
cost.
Tony:
Can I ask a question?
Obviously, you’ve thrown in your
old jobs. How are you finding your
lifestyle now?
Jackie: We both work from home,
so… do you want to go first and talk
about what you do?
Junior: Sure.. I work with web
development. I was working from
home for the majority of time in
Chicago. I kept most of my clients
from the US. That was one of the
reasons why we said we are able
to make the move. I can keep my
clients, and I will have these clients
for at least the next three months;
and then we’ll see what happens.
I’m still doing the same thing. I get
new clients now and then, and…
yeah.
Jackie:
And then for me, my
background is in public relations and
marketing. Actually, when I spoke
with my boss in Chicago and let him
know that we’re going to be making
the move; we actually worked out an
arrangement together. I spent some
time consulting on public relation
strategies still on a freelance basis
for some of my same clients, and I
started doing some work freelance
writing as well since we got down
here.
So, so far, it’s been working out really
well. We both have kind of a steady
flow of clients that are all based in the
United States. And since we’ve been
here, we kind of started networking
with people. We’ve had some local
businesses and local business
owners that have expressed some
interest in working on projects with us
too, which is great because we would
love to get more involved with people
locally too.
So we’ve got our dining room
converted into an office with our work
stations, and we work from home.
Tony: That sounds like our dining
room. We do exactly the same thing.
Hey, that’s interesting because you
guys are really getting the best of
both worlds there because you’re
obviously still earning US dollars
but spending the Costa Rican currency, which is considerably cheaper
for you. So that’s a great one in itself, but I think the other interesting
thing about what you said, obviously
what you do, Junior, that’s something
that a portable business; but in your
case, Jackie, you probably didn’t see
the opportunity for that to become
portable. And now, because you’ve
spoken to your boss, you’ve actually created a position that you can
travel with which maybe didn’t exist
before?
Jackie: Yeah, absolutely. I mean
when we had talked about it, we had
kind of had this whole conversation
of ‘here is what I would like to do’. I’m
going to have to quit my job. There’s
probably going to be a period of time
where I’m not going to be working
and bringing in any income until I
can figure out how to sort of change
course. So we had kind of prepared
ourselves for that, and then I ended up being pleasantly surprised by
the opportunity coming up just to
work remotely, and it’s worked out
really well.
Tony: How’s affordability of flights
from there? You mentioned about
travelling down to Brazil. Is it comparable to travelling from the US to
Brazil?
Jackie: Surprisingly—we’re going to
be going on a trip to Brazil in October,
so I’ll just use that as an example. We
found flights from San Jose, Costa
Rica, to Sao Paulo, Brazil, for basically the same price that you can buy
them from Chicago to Brazil, which
was surprising because we’re closer,
we thought that flights would be more
affordable; but I have a feeling it has
to do with just the number of daily
flights. They’re just not as many going from Costa Rica as there are from
some hubs in the States. So when
we’re going in October, we’re actually flying to Miami first, and then we
booked a round trip flight from there;
and it was less than half the costs
Tony: Wow. So that shows it pays
obviously to maybe look at ratings out
back through a US hub if you wanted to go anywhere else in Central or
South America.
Jackie: Yeah. I mean we haven’t really looked into any other trips where
we would have to take a flight yet, but
it’s definitely something that we’ll look
at, I think, moving forward for any trip
because it surprised us.
It’s quite interesting just in general
for us, even talking with family and
friends about coming down here to
visit us – you can definitely find deals
out there and find affordable travel,
but sometimes, you just need to get
creative with it.
Tony: Yup. How’s safety for you?
Do you feel safe living there?
Jackie: Yup.
Junior: I do.
The climate in the mountains is perfect for growing and harvesting coffee
8
Jackie: That would be the short
answer. We haven’t had any issues
whatsoever since we’ve been here.
I think it’s like anywhere in the world
really where you just need to use
some common sense and kind of
have your wits about you. Just from
what we’ve observed and from what
other people have shared with us,
Stunning scenery abounds in Costa Rica…it’s not just beaches
I think theft is probably the biggest
issue in terms of crime here.
But again, I think it comes down to
don’t necessarily be super flashy,
make sure you lock your doors,
don’t leave things in the car that you
wouldn’t want someone to be tempted
by, things like that. We try not to carry
a lot of cash on us when we go out
and about.
Junior: We don’t wear our rings.
Jackie: We don’t wear our wedding
rings. We just leave them back home.
So we do take precautions in that way
just to protect ourselves and thinking
about if something were to happen,
what would upset us if someone took
it basically, and then we protect those
items. But again, we haven’t had
9
any issues. I feel totally safe walking
around town here on my own. I’ll walk
down to the beach with the dog by
myself, and it’s not an issue.
Yeah, it’s been… people here have a
very friendly disposition, and people
say ‘hi’ when you pass them on the
street; and it’s a small town, so there’s
definitely a community feel here
where, for the most part, you might
not know everyone personally, but
you pretty much recognise everyone
that’s a local here.
Tony: So I guess you’re not really
having to take any more precautions
than what you might have done in
Chicago anyway.
Junior: No.
Jackie: No.
Junior: We might have taken more
in Chicago.
Jackie: Yeah.
Tony: I was going to say that,
but I didn’t want to imply anything
(laughter). So what do you miss the
most about being away from the US?
Junior: I think it’s the same for both
of us, right? I think it’s just being able
to—it’s just the friends and the family
that we left behind.
Jackie: Yeah.
Junior: When you move far from
home to a different country or across
the country, it is difficult to leave
friends behind; but with time, you
meet people, and that’s how—you
make new friends.
We haven’t been here for too long,
and we started making a couple of
friends. I don’t know if they’re friendsfriend, but the friendship is definitely
flourishing now. So… yeah.
Tony: Is that with other expats? Is
there an expat community where you
are?
Junior: There is a huge, yeah,
expat community. Most of them are
from the US, but we’ve met quite a
few locals that I play soccer with or
play volleyball, that we just started
talking, and we met.
Jackie: Our dog has been an
excellent networking tool. I will say
that. You meet other people that have
dogs really easily.
Tony: Yeah. I can imagine that will
be the case. How long does it take
you to get back to Chicago and
10
what’s your flight cost if you do need
to return?
Tony: A good opportunity to come
down and have a look first, aye?
Junior: It’s about six hours I think.
Jackie: Yeah. Definitely.
Jackie: It’s about six hours total
flight time, and there’s generally a
connection in Florida somewhere.
Tony: So internet coverage seems
fairly good. We’ve had no problems
on this call. Is it generally pretty
reliable?
Junior: Or Atlanta.
Jackie: Let me think about the
flight costs. We did a round trip from
Chicago to Liberia for $750 each.
Most recently, we did a roundtrip from
Miami to San Jose, and we found
those tickets for $450 apiece; so you
really need to shop around the airlines, shop around where you’re flying in and out of, and kind of do some
comparison shopping.
I will say I’ve seen a lot of news in the
past couple of weeks, and Southwest
Airlines is newly flying into both
San Jose and Liberia, Costa Rica;
so they seem to be running some
really awesome deals right now.
So if people were, looking, I would
definitely check them out.
Jackie: Yup. I mean it’s generally
pretty reliable. We do pay for an
upgraded speed on our internet at
home, and it’s not too expensive. I
think the internet package is $80 a
month, and that’s for 10 megabytes
of speed.
Junior: Yeah. It might not seem
much in the US, but for Costa Rica,
usually, it’s about 2 megabytes – the
average here, or what most people
will have is 2. So 10, we feel like ‘oh
wow. The websites are loading really
fast’.
Tony: Yeah. And I guess given your
businesses too, you need to have that
reliability; and I guess that’s effective
for people. When they do relocate, if
‘‘
It just becomes a matter
of what it is that
I want to do every day that
makes me happy.
Junior: Yes, absolutely.
Jackie: Oh yeah. Definitely. I mean
there are days when the internet will
go out, so if you’re from a place where
you’re used to superfast, super reliable internet, I would be prepared for
a few days of frustration for sure. Like
there have been times where the internet goes out for a day, and there’s
no one that’s going to answer the
phone and give you an indication of
when the internet is coming back on.
You just kind of have to wait for it.
Junior: Usually, it’s not for a full day.
Jackie: Yeah, I mean I would—
Junior: Just for an hour, sometimes
a few hours. It’s not for a full 24 hours.
Jackie: No.
Tony: I guess when you’re in Costa
Rica, you got to be prepared for that.
And most people are kind of living in
‘olden times’, for want of the better
word. That’s part of what you pay
about living there, and I guess the
frustration. If you want something
fixed, it probably takes a few days.
Is that the case?
Jackie: Oh yeah.
Junior: Yeah.
Jackie:
Yeah. Definitely. It’s a
relaxed culture in general, and so…
yeah.
Junior: So ‘tomorrow’ might mean
‘next week’.
11
‘‘
they’re working online, that’s probably the first priority almost, isn’t it?
Jackie: ‘Next week’.
Junior: ‘We’ll get it done tomorrow.’
‘Oh okay, all right. I’ll expect to get it
done next week then when you say
tomorrow.’ We got used to it here.
Tony: That’s actually better than
Australia. When you ring a tradie
here and they tell you they’re coming
tomorrow, you don’t see them at all…
so.
Junior: Oh okay.
Jackie: Oh, we’re lucky then.
Tony:
You are. You shouldn’t
complain. Honestly, there are worse
places, I can tell you.
Junior: There you go.
Tony: You’re over that ‘honeymoon’
phase now. What would you say has
been the disappointment of having
done it, and what’s been a pleasant
surprise? Has there been things
that have happened that were ‘oh,
that’s really good. That’s better than
I thought it would be’, and other
things that have not been what you’re
expecting?
Jackie: For me… Junior grew up
in Brazil, and so a lot of things about
the culture are somewhat similar; but
for me, having always grown up and
lived in the United States, I think sort
of the thing that surprised me and that
I really enjoyed was kind of how lax a
lot of things are. We can take the dog
with us into a restaurant. He can run
loose on the beach and play with the
other dogs for example, whereas in
most places in the United States, you
would not e allowed to do that.
You can grab a beer from a local
restaurant, and if you’re not finished
but then you’re ready to leave, you
can just walk out with it and walk
down the street with it. Things are
very relaxed.
There are rules, but for me and
compared to what I’m used to, it’s like
‘Woo, there are no rules here!’ like I
can just be happy and relaxed and
not worry and kind of do what I want
to do on a day-to-day basis, and no
one will say anything about it.
That was kind of interesting and fun
and surprising all at the same time.
In terms of disappointments, I don’t
necessarily think that we have been
disappointed by anything, but just
challenged in ways that we had
never encountered before. Junior
kind of already mentioned leaving the
network behind. That’s definitely, for
me, the hardest part too – you really
have to put yourself out there in a
way that you never have before, and
you need to figure out culturally what
is acceptable.
Everything from calling the cable
company to what do you tip at a
restaurant to when you meet someone
local, what kind of questions can you
ask them? Can you be inquisitive
about their family or are there any
cultural things that you should be
aware of there? You have to figure
out ‘where do we buy our groceries?
Where can we go if something breaks?
Who do we call for really anything that
you need to take care of?’
And then friends, meeting friends –
you just have to basically put yourself
out on the line and say, ‘I’m new here.
This is my name, and this is what I
do’, and, ‘Let’s be friends.
Tony: Yeah, sometimes that’s where
you get the enjoyment out of life – by
being forced into those situations. You
do feel more alive, I guess, as a result
of doing that.
Jackie: Definitely.
Tony: The final question, I guess,
for you guys is ‘how would you say
what you’ve done has changed your
lives?’
Jackie: It has completely changed
our perspective. I think we now realise—when you go through the process, the way that we did, and the way
I think a lot of expats do when they
make a move like this is when we decided that we were going to come down
here, we sold all of our stuff. We got rid
of our car. We really shed our lives of
everything extra. And now that we’ve
done that, I think we realize essentially
how much time and money and effort
we spent on things that we really didn’t
need, that didn’t really make us happy.
It was more about keeping up with the
status quo.
And I think now that we’re in this position, we can really recognize that and
see it for what it is and kind of focus
on the things that do truly make us
happy
And then Harvey (our dog), he’s having a hard time being home right now,
but I want Junior to answer that question too.
Junior: Sorry. I’m trying to contain
the dog.
Tony: That’s all right. No problem.
Jackie: For you, how has it changed
your life?
Junior: As Jackie said, you just realise how much stuff you had that you
really don’t need; and it just becomes
a matter of what it is that I want to
do every day that makes me happy.
For me, right now, I have to make the
move; and for me, having an expensive car is not what I want. It doesn’t
make me happy. I really enjoy going
to the beach. We go pretty much every day. We walk our dog. We are
outside every single day. I play volleyball. I play soccer. Those are the
things that matter to me the most.
12
Being here, you realize ‘oh, these
things really make me happy’ and
‘that’s what matters to me’.
Tony: Awesome. Guys, it’s been
great speaking with you today. You
are indeed inspiring expats.
If people want to get hold of you, I
know you got a couple of websites. If
they want to know more about moving to Costa Rica and what’s involved,
how do they get in touch with you?
Jackie: Yeah. I started a blog just
before we moved to kind of document
our experience and share what we
learned along the way, and the URL
is DayWellLived.com. There is a contact form right on the website where
people can get in touch with me,
and that goes directly to my email
address.
People can see photos and videos
and read about some of our adventures. I try to include information and
facts along the way too – just about
different cost-of-living things, how we
are able to accomplish certain things,
and kind of some of the things that
we’ve talked about today just in terms
of things that came up that we’re surprising or scary or funny. Lots of funny things have happened.
Junior: And I would highly recommend to watch the videos about the
first house we lived in.
Tony: Ah, yeah.
Jackie: We’ve got a tour of the
house there.
Tony: That’s like the warning video,
isn’t it?
Junior: Yeah, it certainly is.
Tony: ‘If you don’t plan ahead…’
What about you, Junior? Have you
got a website?
Junior: Yes, we do have another
website. It’s ExpatsKnow.com. It’s
a Q&A website where expats—or if
you’re looking to make a move and
you have a question, you can just go
in there, ask your question; and then
we have other expats that go to this
site every day, and they just answer
the questions, and they share their
knowledge.
Tony: So is that just based around
Costa Rica or is that general?
Junior: As of now, it is just in Costa
Rica. We do have plans that once the
site gets to a point where we have
a lot of members in Costa Rica, we
already have plans to expand to other countries – and eventually, maybe
the whole world. We’ll see.
Tony: Global domination. Love it. It’s
great, guys. We’ll post those links up
on the page. You made a good point
earlier on – you did your research,
you got in touch with people in Costa
Rica before you went, which is obviously one of the best sources of information. So these blogs and the website that you have, I can say they’re
very valuable to people.
Guys, thanks so much for your time
today. We really appreciate talking to you. This is the first time I’ve
spoken to anybody who lives in
Costa Rica, and I’ve learned a few
things. It sounds like an exciting
place. It sounds well worth visiting.
So we really appreciate your time,
and thank you to both you; and I’m
sure our listeners appreciate listening as well.
Jackie: Thank you.
Junior: Thank you.
Jackie: We appreciate it too.
Junior: Thank you so much.
WHAT WE LEARNT FROM
JACKIE AND JUNIORS INTERVIEW:
1. Check out blogs before you go. They struggled to find information
from local businesses before they made the move but the expat
community was a source of great help. It emphasizes the need to
reach out to people in the locations where you want to go. All expats
have been in the same situation and you’ll find no shortage of
people ready to help you out, both online and when you arrive.
2. Your job may be more transportable than you think. Although Juniors web
design work was portable Jackie expected to have to throw in her
job as a public relations consultant and start fresh, but once she
spoke to her bosses they discovered a way she could continue to
work remotely from Costa Rica. Is your job more transportable than
you think? Don’t assume you have to give up the benefits of your
day job. Jackie can continue to do the work she loves but with much
better hours and a far more enjoyable and warm environment.
3. Look at hubs when planning any flights you take. Jackie and Junior found
they halved the cost of going to Brazil when they planned a trip from
Costa Rica via Miami to what it would have been to travel directly to
Brazil from Costa Rica. We regularly find the same thing in Australia
when we travel in Asia – a flight routed through the
relatively cheap hub of Singapore to other
Asian destinations is usually cheaper
than going directly from Australia to
the Asian country you have in mind.
13
Before heading out to the world
Before heading out to the world
make sure you have the right technology, grab your copy of
make sure you have the right technology, grab your copy of
HARD DRIVES
HARD DRIVES
By Dave Dean
By Dave Dean
CLICK THIS
THIS LINK
CLICK
LINK
14
W
orld
Festivals
December 25: Full Moon Party
Koh Phangan, Thailand 10-30,000
people rock it out at the Full Moon Party
in Koh Phangan ...every month! If you
are in the area it will be worth a look!
December 29 - 31:
Rhythm and Vines Festival
New Zealand Rhythm and Vines is
New Zealand’s premier New Year’s
Eve festival. The first festival in the
world to welcome in the first sunrise
of the new year. Come celebrate with
friends.
December 30 – January 01:
Hogmanay Street Festival
Edinburgh, Scotland
photo credit:
beautifulnow.is
HARBIN INTERNATIONAL ICE & SNOW
SCULPTURE FESTIVAL, CHINA
Date: Starts January 5th
photo credit:
www.tcmf.com.au
Tamworth Country Music
Festival NSW Australia…
15-24 January
If your boots are made for walking
make sure they head to the Tamworth
Country Music Festival in New South
Wales, Australia. In it’s 44th year,
the festival is a bustle of buskers,
live shows and the famous Gold
Guitar Awards…y’all come back now
ya’hear!
15
Chilled by the Siberian winter, Harbin, in
northeast China, plays host to the largest
ice and snow festival in the world. Starting
in January and running for over a month,
activities include ice slides and hacking the
sculptures to pieces with ice axes at the
end of the festival.
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL, USA
Date: January 22 to February 1
Fancy the Movies? The Sundance
Film Festival showcases its latest
offerings when Independent film
makers flock to this Utah town for
networking and showing their films.
Keep you eyes peeled for a few
Hollywood stars checking it out too!
TAPATI RAPA NUI, CHILE
Date: January 30 to
February 14, 2015
This famously isolated island is better known as Easter Island. In the
traditional triathlon, local men run
around the lake of the Rano Raraku
volcano carrying a hand of bananas.
MARDI GRAS, NEW ORLEANS
Date: February 17
Also known as Fat Tuesday, Mardi
Gras traditionally follows carnivals
around the world. Parades and jazz
bands mark the event in New Orleans’
French Quarter.
CHINESE NEW YEAR, CHINA
Date: February 19
John Shederick
In each part of China, the festivities vary, but in all of them the Chinese honour their
gods and ancestors. Red lanterns will be hung and firecrackers set off. Dragon processions can be seen in cities with Chinese communities around the world.
photo credit:
HOLI, INDIA
Date: March 6
PINGXI SKY
LANTERN FESTIVAL, TAIWAN
Date: February 27 to March 15
16
RIO CARNIVAL, BRAZIL
Date: February 13 to 17
This is Taiwan’s new year festival,
when thousands of lanterns are sent
into the sky. Pingxi is a small mountain village an hour from the capital
of Taipei.
Whoohoo! This is sooo on our bucket list! Join the crowds and get ready
to party in one of the biggest, most
fun parties in the world! Book tickets
in advance for a grandstand view and
don’t forget to get your feathers and
glitter on and join in the carnival spirit!
NAKED MAN FESTIVAL, JAPAN
Date: February 21
BATTLE OF THE ORANGES, ITALY
Date: February 14 to 17
Not too sure about this one but just so
you know….The Naked Man festival in
Okayama culminates in a heated onehour struggle among 9,000 men wearing only loincloths to grab two lucky
sticks thrown by priests from above.
The winners of the sacred sticks are
guaranteed happiness for the coming year…mmmm think I would rather
search for a four leaf clover!
People are put into groups to throw
oranges as part of a re-enactment of
a Middle Age battle in an annual carnival battle in the northern Italian town
of Ivrea….sounds like a juicy battle!
Also known as the festival of colours, Holi is the religious Hindu festival which heralds the beginning
of spring season and is marked by
revellers throwing coloured paint at
each other.
photo credit:
“Ivrea carnevale”
by Attilios - Own work.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via
Commons January 2016 | All Rights Reserved.
HOW TO BUILD A
TRAVEL FUND
by BRENDAN LEE
We need money to travel.
Fact. However, you probably
need less money than you think.
I’ve rented apartments for $6
a day, eaten delicious food for
$2 a meal and bought bottles of
drinking water for 15 cents. As
long as you follow the advice
below, there is no reason money
should stop you from travelling.
T
he first task of any aspiring
traveler is to save a travel fund.
Most world travelers I have met have
similar stories of saving for two, three,
maybe even five years before setting
off around the globe. While it’s possible to leave home with very little money, I would never recommend it. My
personal opinion is that your first trip
should be about enjoying the world,
not hustling for nickels and dimes.
Save, prepare, and then go and enjoy
your journey. It’s the best way. Saving
is nothing more than a simple 3-step
process:
1. Spend less money than you earn.
2. Put that money into a savings
account.
3. Don’t spend it.
Yet, despite its simplicity, the majority
of people struggle to follow it. When
the iPhone 6 comes out, we just can’t
resist buying it, despite the fact that
our iPhone 5 (and 4 and 3) still work
perfectly. For some reason, we can’t
wear the same shoes every day, and
just have to buy a second and third
and fourth pair. It’s no wonder none of
us have any money to travel. So, how
do we do it? Defining your Needs and
Wants In the personal budgeting world,
we separate everything we purchase
into two groups: Needs and Wants.
Your Needs are the things vital to
your survival – things like rent, electricity, water, food, insurance, etc.
Your Wants are things not vital to your
survival. These include things such
as Doritos, new shoes, sunglasses,
and cable TV.
Taking time to define these lists is
important, because they will underpin your entire saving process. Every
time you are about to spend money,
you need to ask yourself, “Is this a
Need, or a Want?” If it’s a Want, don’t
buy it. Save that money instead.
Sound simple? It is. Yet you’ll find it’s
a concept extremely difficult to live by.
Nonetheless, this mindset should be
the meat and potatoes of your saving
17
Brendan’s Top 7 ‘Save Money’
for Travel Tips
1.Set a target. As we discussed earlier, everybody’s travel style is
different.
2.Split your target up into smaller goals. You need to break it
down into more manageable and measurable goals.
3.Set your rewards. It’s important to pat yourself on the back every
now and then.
4.Set up an offline savings account. This is a key step in avoiding the
temptation to spend. You need to make it as difficult as possible to spend
your money.
5.Move your “target savings” to your savings account on payday.
A simle solution to prevent spending from happening is to do your savings at the beginning
of the pay cycle, rather than the end.
6.Record everything you spend. This is a habit you will need to get used to. Before you spend money on
anything, write it down.
7.Analyse your spending. This is probably the most important step of them all. At the end of the month, take
your statement (or your notebook or your spreadsheet) and sit down with a highlighter.
strategy, and if you are able to follow
it, it will be practically impossible for
you to not save money.
Let’s take myself as an example
(which, I’ve learned, is an example
not different from many people on the
road). I spent just over three years
saving for my initial round-the-world
trip. I avoided going out on Friday
nights with the workmates; I didn’t buy
a single new cell phone during those
years; I didn’t own a smartphone or
iPad; I owned one pair of work shoes,
one work suit; I didn’t take many holidays; I didn’t have internet on my
phone; I rarely ate out for lunch; I didn’t
own any fancy clothes. For the most
part, I lived within my means, and that
provided me the nest egg I needed to
quit and start my adventure.
Despite the fact Wants give you giddy bursts of excitement when you buy
them, they are, in fact, obstacles which
push your travel dreams further away.
People often see travelers and think,
“Wow, they’re so lucky, look at how exciting their lives are!” But few realize
the years of preparation that were necessary to get there: the long Monday
afternoons slumped over desks, and
the paychecks that were not used
for Friday escapes but were boringly
stuffed away into a savings account.
18
Your adventures around the world are
born long before you step on the plane.
Every dollar you spend is a dollar less
you will have for the road. How badly
do you want to travel? I’ve found that
for many people, travelling more is
simply a matter of buying less stuff so
you can spend that money on travel instead. This means travel must be a priority. Are you willing to give up a $4 daily Starbucks if it means you can travel? This one simple sacrifice will save
you $1,500 a year. To put that in travel
terms, that’s enough for six months’
rent in a private, fully furnished studio in Thailand, an entire year of hostel accommodation in South America,
or twenty plane tickets around Europe.
Just imagine how much you could
save, and travel, if you gave up cable,
Friday night drinks, your cell phone
plan and your private apartment.
Within a couple of years, you would
surely have enough saved up to travel for several months, if not years.
Internalizing this link between saving
and travel is important. As you try to
save, you are inevitably going to miss
out on shiny things back home. Giving
up your private pad to move in with
roommates, spending Friday night
reading instead of being out at the
bar – this is not easy. Understanding
that every dollar saved brings you
one step closer to travelling the world
is the motivation you will need when
trying to resist buying the shoes.
Remember, as travelers, we are minimalists. We collect moments, not
things. What things will you give up
to travel? How bad do you want it?
If you’re serious about seeing the
world, you need to make it a priority.
Brendan Lee ....
.... is a former accountant who knew after his
first 72 hours that a desk wasn’t for him. He has
spent the last 4 years traversing the globe. You
can check out his travels at
www.brenontheroad.com
Brendan Lee
19
N
OT MANY PEOPLE are willing to leave
suburbia, head for the jungle and run a
business that gives all its profits away,
but today’s guests are the exception to the rule.
Andrej and Karen Brummer said goodbye to two
well-paying jobs and left their western lifestyle
to head for Luang Namtha , Laos 4 years ago.
They swapped their big city lifestyle for an
environment of jungles and temples on the
edge of the Thailand border and have become
an important member of their local community
thanks to their western style café that not only
provides training in hospitality and English for
the local staff but helps fund the nearby schools
in the town in which they live.
We caught up with Dre and Karen and discovered
what made them choose Laos as the place they
wanted to spend their life, how the jungle lifestyle
has changed their purpose in life and how you can
use your own unique skills to enjoy an authentic
lifestyle experience for free.
FROM CORPORATE LIFE TO
A
CAFÉ
IN
LAOS
Andrej and Karen Brummer
20
Tony (Argyle): Hi, Dre and
Karen. I better make sure I
pronounce your name right
because I’ll probably get that
wrong, but nice to have you
on the show, guys.
Karen (Brummer): Thank
you. Nice to be here.
Andrej (Brummer): Thanks,
Tony. Nice to be here.
Tony: Firstly, tell us where
you are right now. What’s
the view from where you’re
sitting and which part of the
globe are you in?
Andrej: We are in Northern
Laos, the mountains of basically the Golden Triangle
kind of between Myanmar,
Thailand, and Laos; and so
the view outside our door is
coconut palms, mountains,
trees, flowers.
Tony: [Chuckles]
Andrej: Yeah, it’s quite pretty actually.
Tony: Sounds exotic.
Andrej: Oh man. It’s simple.
Tony: How come you chose
Laos? Because I don’t know
a lot about the country, but
from what I’ve gathered, it
doesn’t seem the easiest
place in Southeast Asia you
could have gone to; so you
really sort of stepped off the
cliff with this. Why Laos?
21
Karen: [Laughs] A little bit of
insanity [laughter]. No, we really fell in love with the place,
and we actually travelled
Southeast Asia for about a
year and a half – travelling
around, stopping in places
that we liked, and we just
keep coming back to this
place. We just really, really
liked it. We fell in love with
the nature and the people
and everything that sort of
goes on here.
Tony: I kind of imagine it to
be like almost a step back in
time as to how other parts of
Southeast Asia might have
been 40 years, 50 years ago?
So it was kind of just a gradual progression into living
here. It wasn’t like one day
we made the decision to do it.
It’s like we came for a month
and then another month and
then another month, and it
kind of just turned into living
[laughs].
Tony: Wow.
Andrej: It’s kind of like the
place in Southeast Asia
where you can really get off
the beaten track, where you
can take a motorbike or a bicycle and go and visit 7 different minority tribes. They
all have different costumes
and different ways of living,
and everyone kind of welcomes you like a family member. There’s rice paddies and
mountains and forests to explore in. It’s really beautiful,
and the people are like very,
very, very nice, very giving.
The climate’s amazing too.
Karen:
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. It’s pretty rustic, yeah.
[Laughs]
Andrej: They say it’s like
Thailand 50 to 100 years ago.
Karen: Yeah.
Andrej: Our manager in the
shop just got electricity in her
village three weeks ago for
the first time ever.
Tony: So you guys obviously don’t mind roughing it too
much.
Andrej:
Well, that’s the
amazing thing. You don’t actually have to rough it, because in the middle of the
small city, you can still get
super fast Wi-Fi, nice hotels,
good restaurants; and so
that’s all there in a tiny little
centre; but even a kilometre
away from the centre, people
are living in bamboo houses and foraging in the jungle
and stuff like that. So it’s kind
of like the best of both worlds
amassed.
Karen: Yeah.
Tony: It sounds like a real
contradiction.
Karen: Yeah. We sort of got
the comforts of coffee, pizza,
a big, 4-bedroom house and
stuff.
Andrej: Cocktails.
Karen: [Laughter] And then
you just, literally, 3 or 4 minutes away is just an ocean of
rice field and mountains and
stuff. So yes… yeah, it is the
best of both worlds for us.
Tony: It’s interesting
what you said before.
You’d been there for a
few times beforehand.
I think that’s obviously something that’s a
pretty important step
for people to take rather than committing to a
country that they’ve not
been to before.
Karen: Yeah, absolutely.
Andrej: Yeah, definitely.
Karen: Yeah. I mean I know
one time, maybe the second or third time we were
here, I was talking to my
mum on the phone and she
said, ‘Are you guys going to
stay there?’ I was like, ‘No.’
[Laughter] But then it happened [laughter].
22
Tony: Just didn’t want to
break the bad news to her,
did you?
Karen: [Laughs] Well, we
didn’t think we were, at that
point. We didn’t realise how
sucked into the place we
were getting.
Tony: So how long have you
been there for now?
Andrej: Basically 4 years,
haven’t we?
move, but this is our base.
Tony: Okay. And the reason
for your travel, is just as part
of your exploring that you’re
doing or is it Visa reasons
or…?
Karen: Oh, no. Just for fun.
Andrej: Yeah, just for fun.
Tony: That’s the great thing
about Asia too. I mean you
can get around there so
cheap. It staggers me how
affordable airline flights
are once you get to
Asia as your base, and
you can go elsewhere,
we isn’t it?
We just decided that
didn’t really want to live
the life anymore that had
sort of been sold to us
Karen: Ah, yeah.
Absolutely.
Andrej: And there’s
such a huge diversity
like volcanoes, coral
reefs, forests, amazing cities. There’s everything
like in a short distance. And
all the countries are so different, so it’s amazing – a melting pot.
Karen Brummer
Karen: Yeah, 4 and a half
years.
Andrej: Four and a half.
Karen: Yeah.
Andrej: We kind of spent 3
weeks of the month in Laos
and then 1 week in Thailand
and then visit other places
like Philippines and Borneo
and Malaysia and stuff like
that – so constantly on the
Tony: Okay. So in terms of
where you guys are out there,
and obviously it sort of sounds
as though you reached the
point where you just decided
you’d had enough. Is it sort of
how it worked out for you?
Karen: Yeah. We just decided that we didn’t really
want to live the life anymore
that had sort of been sold to
us. You grow up, and you’re
taught to go to school, get a
job, work for your whole life;
and maybe if you’re lucky,
you get a couple of weeks
a year off. We just thought
there had to be a better way,
and we didn’t want to do that
anymore. We just got sick of
it really.
Tony: So no regrets so far?
Karen: Oh, not at all.
Tony: So, tell us what you’re
doing there now, because I’m
quite fascinated. Basically,
you have a café that you’ve
set up, but none of the profits
are kept for yourself. Is that
right?
Karen: Yeah. A few months
after being in Louang
Namtha, we set up a training
restaurant where…
We sort of became known
in the town as the Kiwis who
were here; so we used to get
a lot of tourists approaching
us, and the question they all
asked was ‘where can we get
Western food?’ and our answer was always ‘nowhere’.
So we thought, ‘Well there’s
an opportunity.’
So we decided to, yeah, to
set up a restaurant; and we
23
The Bamboo Lounge Restaurant…Karen & Andrej’s café in Luang Namtha,
is the only western hospitality training restaurant in town. The staff also love
learning English here.
take local women from the
ethnic minority tribes, and we
teach them everything they
need to know. When they
came to us, they don’t speak
English. They’ve never made
a sandwich before. They’ve
never seen a pizza before.
They’ve never even seen a
knife and fork before usually. I mean they literally come
from out of the jungle.
Some of the local Children from the school
24
And yeah… I mean a couple
of years of really hard work
for that, but now, it’s sort of
all systemised to the point
where our most experienced
staff member runs the place.
She manages all the staff
and the customers. She does
everything. She does the salaries and everything, trains
the new staff. I mean most of
the staff who are there now
have been there like a few
years because it is a really
good workplace for Lao.
Tony: Wow. So how big is
the café, like how many staff
do you have there?
And then we donate the profits from the restaurant to
the local Books in Schools
Program, so at the moment—well, before we started it, there was about one
text book per three students
in the school; and so far, a
few of the schools now are
fully stocked with textbooks,
and we’re working on doing
more – as we speak actually.
Tony: Okay. So this is obviously a reasonably busy
place as a lot of Westerners
come through?
Karen: We’ve got six staff
at this time of the year. At the
busy time of the year—
Andrej: High season, we’ve
got 12.
Karen: Yeah. It’s usually
about 10 staff in the high season. And it sits about 35 or 40
people in the restaurant.
Karen: Yeah. In the high
season, pretty much all those
seats are full every day. At
this time of the year, it’s a lot
more quiet and chilled out;
but there are still people coming through.
Andrej: It’s because it is like
a big trekking mecca. It’s like
we have a massive, massive national protected areas; so this is a really good
place that people can come
and trek into the Lao jungle
and the primary forest and go
and stay at different minority
tribes. So it’s a very big ecotourism magnet, and that’s
kind of one of the reasons
why we’re here as well.
Tony: Oh, okay. So in terms
of economic impact you’re
having, can you sort of put
that in context? How much
money does the café make a
year, and how far does that
spending go? You’re talking
about more than a few textbooks. How many schools
are you supporting, and relatively speaking, how much
money is it putting back into
the community?
here now with you than I do
in the entire week at school,
because our staff can actually speak English better than
their teachers.
Tony: That’s cool. That’s
cool. You’re just affecting
things at so many levels.
That’s great to hear. So obviously, that leads to the question, if you’re giving the café
profits away, how are you
guys feeding yourselves?
What do you do to earn your
living while you’re there?
Swimming with Whale Sharks in the Philippines.
Karen: Oh. Well, it’s different
every year. We’ve got about
10 schools at the moment
that we’re giving textbooks
to. We’re also working with
the schools to get things like
desks and chairs because a
lot of the kids are just sitting
on the dirt floor at school, and
getting things like chalk and
whiteboard markers for the
teachers, stuff that we just
consider in the West being
the most basic of necessities
that they just don’t have.
I mean the most recent thing
we’ve done is we’ve just put
about $5,000 into a few of
the different schools. But
I mean… it’s kind of like a
multi-facet question [laughing] because all of the staff,
they support their whole villages usually. It’s not just
25
their salary for themselves.
It’s their salary for their families and usually their villages
as well, so it’s… yeah.
Andrej: Yeah, our staff are
some of the highest paid
people in the area.
Karen: Yeah [chuckles].
Tony: Right. So it’s not just
economic impact of your
profit. It’s the jobs as well,
etc. that’s going to make a
big difference to things.
Andrej: Basically, we’re the
only place in town that teaches hospitality training and it’s
English. Our staff spend all
day at school, at vocation and
college, and they come and
spend time with us and say,
‘Oh I learn so much more in
Karen: We’ve got a couple of online businesses, so
we make our money on the
internet.
Tony: Okay. Do tell more
[chuckles].
Karen: Do you want to talk
about Saltwater?
Andrej: Yeah. Well, like…
how many years ago now?
Karen: Eight.
Andrej: Eight years ago,
yeah, Andrew and Daryl
Grant, who are fantastic people, I turned up to a seminar
of theirs and kind of learned
a little bit about their e-book
model and just how to find a
niche online and how to build
an information product and
how to sell it. And so I kind of
started doing that and came
out with a couple of different
e-books. My most successful
quite a following on that now
as well.
Tony: Okay. So basically, if
you got a skill set and you
want to travel overseas but
don’t want to spend the money staying, you can trade
your skill set when you’re
there and basically work on
the location and have a working holiday.
Karen: Yeah, exactly. I mean
it works—
Andrej: It’s very rewarding
too.
Karen in ‘the office
niche was saltwater aquarium. Now I think I have… how
many e-books for that?
Karen: Eight.
Andrej: Eight different ebooks with different aspects
of coral keeping and setting
up saltwater aquariums and
providing the perfect environment, and so I sell those. It’s
just one of the many things
that we do, isn’t it?
Karen: Yeah [laughs]. One
of the other things we do is
a website called Swap Work
for Travel. When we first
came to Luang Namtha, one
of the first things we did was
we helped a lot of the local businesses just for free,
26
just for fun; and as we grow
our business, we started to
tap into a network of travellers who wanted to help other
businesses like ours for free
if we gave them food and accommodation. So basically,
we take care of all their living
expenses and they take care
of whatever we need doing in
the business.
As that kind of grew and
grew, we started a website,
Swap Work for Travel, where
we now provide a service for
travellers who want to make
a difference with businesses
who need someone to come
and make a difference in their
business but can provide
food and accommodation in
exchange. So yeah, we got
Karen: Yeah, and it works
quite well because usually
like 5 hours a day, and the
people work for 5 days a
week; so if you start at 8:00,
you finish by 1:00. You’ve got
the whole afternoon and evening to kind of explore a destination or hang out with people or do whatever you want
to do.
So it’s kind of like the best of
both worlds. You get to experience the destination through
the eyes of a local really because you’re there usually a
bit longer term than just a few
days or whatever. And then
you also get to make a difference someway and start to
feel good factor as well.
Andrej: Yeah. And some
places are quite fancy. We recently went to Philippines and
stayed in a place in Bohol.
The woman who owned the
big apartment building wanted a website built; so Karen
helped her with that, and we
got to stay in a fully-furnished,
brand-new apartment that
had a pool. It was amazing, a
beautiful place to be.
Karen: Yeah [laughing].
Andrej: It was fun.
Karen: Yeah. Some of them
are really nice.
Tony: So this is obviously
an international site when I’m
just talking about Laos here.
So people from any country could employ people to
come. People from any country can go anywhere pretty
much. Is that right?
Karen: Yeah, that’s right.
Tony: Cool. Coming back
to the cost of living, because
obviously, what you need to
earn will depend on where
you are and what it costs; but
what does it cost you guys
typically per month to live in
Laos?
Karen: Again, it’s kind of a
curving question because actually, when we live in Laos,
it doesn’t cost us anything
because the restaurant pays
for the rent and for the house
that we live in because we
share it with a couple of the
staff—they live downstairs;
27
we live upstairs—so the restaurant pays for that. We
eat at the restaurant every
day. So actually, if we’re really extravagant, we can usually spend $100 in total in a
month [laughs].
But in the real world, when
we’re in Thailand, or for example if you rented our
house, the cost of renting
our 4-bedroom house which
has got a big garden and it’s
looking onto the palm trees
and mountains and stuff, it’s
about $2,000 a year.
Tony: $2,000?
Karen: Yeah [chuckles]. So
a couple of hundred dollars
a month for rent. And then…
yeah. I mean when we’re out
and about, we usually spend
sort of $1,000 to a couple
of thousand dollars a month
when we’re travelling, don’t
we?
Andrej: Yeah. To eat in Laos,
it’d probably be $10 a day
maximum. You’d struggle to
eat and drink enough beers
to spend more than that.
Karen: Yeah.
Tony: Well, that’s a really important question, Dre. What’s
a beer cost?
Karen: About $1.50, $2.00.
Andrej: $1.50 for a longneck.
Tony: About $1.50 to $2.00
for a beer.
Andrej: For a longneck.
Tony: For a longneck, okay.
That sounds like a place to
go and drink. So obviously,
what you’re doing, you’ve
taken a fairly large plunge
with it. What fears and concerns did you have beforehand and have those come
to fruition?
Andrej: Well, it was sort of
like ‘could we make it work?
Could we really quit our jobs
and then spend the rest of
our lives travelling and get
enough money to do so without having to go back to our
jobs?’ And we always knew
that if worse came to worst,
we could go back to our jobs;
but that obviously didn’t happen, so we must be doing
something right.
Tony: So had you spent
a bit of time building up the
Saltwater Aquarium business
before you took the leap or
did that come afterwards?
Andrej:
Yeah. We’ve
changed the business model
a few times; but the thing is,
being in a place like this without the confines of work, you
got a lot more time to spend
on other things and new projects. So it’s quite fun to tweak
things and play around with
things.
But yeah, it was built up, and
many things changed; and
so we changed the model of
the site and the model of the
business around it as well.
Tony: And I guess sometimes too, it’s the old story.
When you burn your bridges
behind you, you kind of got a
force forward; and if you’re
still doing what you were doing before and then just dabbling in it—you maybe didn’t
commit the same—but on
this basis, an online business, you got to go for it fullon, haven’t you?
Andrej: Yeah.
Karen: Exactly. Yeah, you
got to put your faith in yourself
and you got to just go for it
and do it.
Tony: So what are your
plans long term? Are you
planning to continue your
stay in there or have you got
plans to move on?
Karen: Yeah, I mean this
year, we’ve only spent a
few months in Laos. We
probably spent about 4 or
5 months travelling so far,
like
around
Philippines,
Borneo, Malaysia, Thailand,
Myanmar; but moving forward, we’ll probably just
spend like a few months a
year in Laos, and we want
to spend a few more months
a year in New Zealand because we’re missing our families quite a lot too. We’ve
been going home for about a
month or two every year; but
now, we’re starting to feel like
maybe we need a bit more.
So spending a few months in
New Zealand, maybe a couple of months in Laos and a
couple of months travelling.
Tony: Okay.
Karen: Yeah.
Tony: Cool. Healthcare is
obviously a big issue and a
lot of people have a concern
they have. And I know you’ve
had a couple of incidents
yourself. What’s the healthcare like in Laos? I mean is it
something people need to be
concerned about?
Karen:
[laughter].
[Laughs]
Yes
Tony: Thank you for your
honesty [chuckles].
Karen: Yeah. We live near
Thailand. That’s our saving
grace. I mean in Thailand,
everything is world-class and
cheap and…
Andrej:
The healthcare
in Thailand is American
standard.
Karen & Andrej spend a few months a year travelling around SE
Asia – 4 Rivers Floating Lodge, Cambodia
28
Karen: Yeah. Or better even
really. In Laos, they really
don’t have the education to
really provide good healthcare; and it’s not the doctor’s
fault. It’s literally just that they
don’t have the education.
Andrej: Or the equipment.
Karen: Yeah. So anything…
Andrej: So minor scrapes
and bruises and like illnesses
and stuff, you can go to the
hospital here, but anything
more severe, you would definitely go to Thailand.
Karen: Yeah. So we’re only
like 3 hours from Thailand, 3
and a half hours. So it’s not a
huge deal for us.
Tony: So generally, if you
get to a bigger centre, you’ll
find slightly better healthcare;
but obviously in Laos, you’re
better off to get across the
border.
Andrej: Yeah. I think Luang
Prabang has got some pretty
good clinics as Vientiane, but
Thailand is really good.
Karen: Yeah.
Andrej: Everyone’s happy
and honest.
Karen: Yeah. That’s a really
good point.
Andrej: Very safe place with
children and single women,
and everyone’s really caring
and loving. It’s amazing.
Tony: So do you have any
trouble with communication with people? Because I
guess that can be the source
The Main Drag…Luang Namtha
Tony: So how big is the population of where you live?
Tony: What about safety?
Do you feel safe living there?
Karen:
Well, it’s about
20,000, but that includes all
the people who live in the
jungle, so.
Karen: Oh, absolutely.
Tony: Oh okay.
Karen: Yeah. I mean actually, this is basically a crimefree country. There’s no like
theft or murders or anything
like that.
Karen: Yeah.
29
Andrej: Much, much safer
than Australia.
of issues from time to time. I
mean it’s obviously a whole
new language. Have you
mastered it since you’ve been
there or do you find that more
people are learning English
and you don’t have to?
Karen: Oh, we have to speak
Laos here. The first couple of
years were pretty interesting because everybody we
were teaching couldn’t speak
any English and we couldn’t
speak any Laos, so that was
a big learning curve.
Andrej: It’s pretty much like
Thai.
requirements? What’s the restrictions on that?
Karen: Yeah.
Andrej: Everyone wants to
learn English as well, so we
spend most of our time teaching people to speak more
English. So our Laos doesn’t
really get that much better
because everyone wants to
practice English with us.
Andrej: It’s tonal. Yeah, their
tones are pretty hard. It’s like
the word ‘cat’ has five different meanings related to
the tone; and most of the
time, I can’t even hear the
difference.
Karen: We’re pretty lucky in
Laos with the Visas, like we
have like one year Visas that
we just renew every year,
and we don’t have to leave
every year. I mean we do
anyways—we travel—but we
don’t have to.
Karen: Yeah, but we speak
enough Laos to have conversations; and I couldn’t talk to
anyone about politics or anything, but all the basic stuff
we’ve got mastered.
Tony: Okay. Is it a hard language to learn?
Karen: Ah, yeah, pretty much.
Karen: Yeah [laughs].
Tony: Okay. And being outside of your home country,
have you had to give up anything in terms of your pension status or Medicare benefits or superannuation benefits? I guess hand-in-hand
with that, do you have to
leave the country on a regular basis because of these
In terms of super and
Medicare and stuff, our super
accounts are still just sitting
there in Australia. Medicare, I
can’t remember exactly how
that works now. But I think
once we’ve been gone for like
2 years or something, then it
got cancelled; but it can be
reactivated if we go back to
Australia.
A favourite spot….
30
Tony: Okay.
Karen: Yeah.
Tony: So not really losing
any benefits from your experience. You can pretty much
return at any stage and hopefully pick up where you left
off?
Karen: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And I mean that’s the thing
with healthcare too that I
should have said. It’s like if
something really major happened and you wanted to
go home, you just get on a
plane, don’t you? And you’re
always going to be treated for
stuff in your home country.
Tony: Yup, true. So, I guess
some of the food you have
there might be fairly interesting. What’s the most interesting thing you’ve eaten?
Karen: [Laughs]
Andrej:
Giant rhinoceros
beetles stuffed with lemon
grass and chilli. [Laughter]
Tony: Well, I like lemon
grass and chilli, but I don’t
know about the first thing you
said.
Karen: Actually, they’re really good! [Laughs] Surprisingly
good.
Tony: Are you going to tell
me it tastes like chicken I
suppose, are you?
31
Andrej:
actually.
They’re
tasty
Karen: Well it just tastes
pretty much like lemon grass.
Tony:
[Laughs] Was it
crunchy?
Andrej: No, because they
take their wing cases off.
Karen: Yeah.
Tony: Aw, that’s thoughtful
of them [chuckles].
Andrej: And bats on a skewer, like barbecued bats, silk
worm omelette, ant eggs or
ant egg salad.
Karen: You had made a few
crazy pizzas for people with
ant eggs and rats and things
like that.
Karen: We haven’t eaten
that either. We’ve just had
customer requests in our restaurant for it [laughs].
Tony:
Really? Okay. So
I can see why you set up a
Westerner style café, because a lot of people travelling through would struggle
to cope with a lot of these
meals.
Andrej: Especially after a
3-day trek in the jungle.
Karen: Yeah.
Tony: So what do you miss
most about being away from
Australia and New Zealand?
Andrej: Probably the ocean.
Andrej: It’s a different kind
of rat. It’s bamboo rat, which
is kind of like a giant hamster.
Karen: The Ocean, friends
and family. Sometimes, we
miss normality, which we do
get in Thailand quite a lot; but
life here is so different that,
99% of the time, it’s absolutely awesome and a load
of fun. And then sometimes,
you’re like, ‘Oh my god. I just
wish like I could have a normal conversation with someone about something that
everybody
understands.’
[Chuckles]
Tony: Ah, okay. [Laughs]
That doesn’t sound much
better [laughter]. I’m glad
it’s your stomach, not mine
anyway.
Andrej: But pretty much between here and Thailand,
we can get everything we
had back home; so we almost lacked nothing, like
Andrej: Lots of people in
town eat dog, but really, we
couldn’t eat any dog.
Tony: But you’ve eaten rat?
Karen: No.
Karen: We’re pretty lucky.
Andrej: It’s all good. But we
watch movies and stuff all
the time. I always Skype and
video calls; and most of the
time, it’s really, really good.
Tony: Oh, I didn’t ask you if
you’re missing those things.
That’s what most people say
that they miss.
Tony: So even on the worst
day, do you see yourself ever
going back to doing what
you’re doing before?
Karen: Yeah, and I don’t
miss those [laughs].
Karen: No [laughs].
people send us marmite and
vegemite over, and that’s it.
That’s all we need.
Tony: So obviously, with
modern technology, I mean
home’s really a Skype call
away; but how do you find the
internet? We’ve had a couple
of dropouts during this call.
Was it a bit of an issue there
or is it generally pretty good?
Andrej: It’s generally pretty
good.
Andrej: Yeah, I don’t know
if we’d go anymore. Life is
just too… too relaxing these
days.
Tony: And obviously what
you’re doing is perfectly sustainable. I mean health allowing, you can continue to do
this for years if you want to.
Karen: Yeah.
Andrej: Yeah, exactly. Well,
we have a restaurant that
runs by itself, and that pays
for us to be in Laos. And
our internet business kind
of gives us pocket money to
travel anywhere we want and
do whatever we want. So it’s
pretty good.
Tony: It does sound pretty
good. So final questions, how
would you say what you’ve
done has changed your life?
What would you say to someone considering what you’re
doing?
Karen: Oh, just do it. It’s
changed our lives so much
for the better, like just so
many… I actually pinch myself honestly nearly every
day. We go up to the temple
in the morning and look at
Karen: Generally, it’s good,
yeah. I mean we do have occasional days where it just
doesn’t work or there’s no
power or something; but most
of the time, it’s really good.
Andrej: Yeah. We get like
the best package. Our internet service provider, they’re
just a phone call away; and
so anytime we have a problem, we’d call them; and they
come over immediately because they want to take care
of us because we’re foreigners and stuff.
Karen: [Laughs]
32
“It
might be 11am on a Monday, and I don’t even know it because it
doesn’t matter” says Karen
There’s no
stress, and we’re
also in a very
lucky position
which we call
like a ‘win-win-win’
Andrej Brummer
the view and just think, ‘Oh
my god. I’m here. I’m living
this life.’ It might be 11:00 on
a Monday, and I don’t even
know it because it doesn’t
matter. I’m not worried about
going to work. It’s so good.
Andrej: There’s no stress,
and we’re also in a very lucky
position which we call like a
win-win-win. We get to be
here and live this really cool
life. We also get to help and
empower Lao people and
teach them. And then also,
Western travellers who want
information or want some
good-quality Western food or
coffee or espresso or something like that, they win as
well. So it’s basically like the
perfect scenario.
Tony: You use the term
‘lucky’ there, but you’ve made
your own luck. I mean you’ve
created this situation by your
33
own choice; and what you’ve
done with the café, what
you’ve done with your websites, you’ve created that environment. You were willing
to make the leap, which a lot
of people are afraid to do.
And you’ve worked hard setting up what you did. I don’t
envy you with the cafe. That
must have been a lot of hard
work trying to teach people something totally different. They don’t even speak
English.
Karen: Oh, yeah. There were
some days we’re just like,
‘Oh my god. What are we doing?’ But that was all fun. If it
wasn’t fun, we wouldn’t have
kept doing it.
So yeah, we did work—have
worked really, really hard, but
we are reaping the rewards
now. It’s good.
Tony: Great. Guys, thank
you for your time. You are
both indeed inspiring expats.
If people want to get a hold
of you or find out more about,
well, saltwater fish even or
swapping work for travel, how
do they get a hold of you?
Karen: Well that can go to our
website, SwapWorkforTravel.
com.
Andrej:
Facebook.
Find
us
on
Karen: Yeah, look us up on
Facebook.
Andrej: Also
SwapWorkforTravel.com.
Karen: Yup. Or you can
email us on support@
SwapWorkforTravel.com.
Yeah.
Tony: Sounds good. Well,
we’ll post those links up on
the page with this podcast as
well so people can get a hold
of you through that.
Karen: Oh, thank you!
Andrej: Awesome.
Tony: Guys, thank you very
much. It’s been a real pleasure talking to you today, and
I know that your story is particularly fascinating. I’ve been
looking forward to interviewing you guys ever since we
set this up, particularly because of what you do, where
you’re doing it, and also the
contribution you’re making
back to society, which is obviously a great source of satisfaction for you.
Thanks for taking the time today. We appreciate it, and I
know our listeners do as well.
Andrej: Sure.
Karen:
calling!
Great. Thanks for
WHAT I LEARNED FROM
DRE AND KAREN’S INTERVIEW:
1. It’s good to spend time somewhere before you commit.
Laos is a big jump for many people and is not a decision
that should be made lightly. Karen and Andrej spent quite
a bit of time there, visiting more than once before they
made their final decision to shift.
2. You can have the best of both worlds. Although they are
living near a jungle in Laos they are only just across the
border from the relative civilization of Thailand. This gives
them the chance to return to a less primitive lifestyle and
also access to better quality healthcare – something that’s
not so easily available in Laos. Plus they can (and have)
easily traveled through much of South East Asia from their
base
3. Although Laos can be described as a step back in time
these guys aren’t roughing it. They live in a comfortable
home, have access to western food and pretty reliable
internet. Laos is one of the most affordable places in Asia
(try less than $2000 per annum for a 4 bedroom home!)
and is a country with virtually no crime – far safer than
anywhere in the west that’s for sure!
Thailand introduces new
Multiple Entry Visa for Tourists
The Bangkok Post recently reported that the Thai
government will be introducing new multiple entry visas for
tourists allowing visitors to come and go more frequently
during the period of their visa stay. The new visas come
into effect in November but still limit stayers to no more
than 60 consecutive days at a time. It does however give
stayers a greater opportunity to come and go during the 6
months validity of the visa, an upgrade from the option of
one or three entries under current visas. The restriction of
60 days is designed to prevent visitors from effectively
residing during the 6 month period of the visa. Thailand is
targeting increased visitor numbers, hoping to increase
tourist numbers to 28 million per annum from the current 24
million figure.
34
Do you ever just wanna go and get away from everything?
Learn how to #SwapWorkForTravel , you can get our free
guide here that tells you how:
SwapWorkForTravel.com/freegift
35
HAVE OUTSOURCERS WILL TRAVEL:
WHY BUILDING AN
ONLINE BUSINESS
DOESN’T MEAN HAVING
TO DO IT YOURSELF
by SAM PATTON
The world is a global village - we’ve
bridged continents and cultures
to bring about a marketplace
where you as a business owner
can get any task you want done.
Whether it’s an article you want
written for your paper, an app
designed for your business or
marketing to lead customers to your
services, somebody somewhere
can get it done for you.
36
One of the easiest ways to tap
into this global marketplace is via
marketplace outsourcing websites
such as Upwork, Freelancer or Fiverr.
Let me give you a rundown of how
they work and how you can use
them to grow your business.
HOW THE MARKETPLACE
OUTSOURCING
WEBSITES WORK
At the basic level - these websites
provide a platform where freelancers
and those providing work can meet.
There’s two main methods for getting
stuff done; you can post a job description and have freelancers offer a
bid to do the work, or you can browse
the applications of freelancers and
send them a job directly.
The great part about marketplace
websites is that you can access the
previous ratings and the work history
of the freelancers before you settle on
a contract. That way, you can see how
other employers have rated them and
get a rough idea of what you’re getting
yourself into. Once you’ve identified a
freelancer, you can negotiate the price
of the job.
It’s obvious - outsourcing has the ability to save some serious costs by leveraging the global economy, but that
shouldn’t be your primary motivation.
Generally speaking, if you’re hiring a
highly rated worker, you can expect to
cough up more cash - however, if the
quality is a cut above - that may not be
a bad idea. Projects are usually done
on a contract or price-per-hour basis
- it depends on you who you’re hiring. Most marketplace websites have
some form of Escrow system to release payments are completed when
work is complete and approved - a bit
of extra security when you’re dealing
with people across the seaboard.
ARE THEY RELIABLE?
A common question I’m asked when
talking about marketplace outsourcing websites is “are they reliable”.
Not to jump immediately for the politician’s response but the answer is “it
depends”.
37
GOOD TRACK RECORD
If you find a good service provider
with a good track record then generally speaking, you’ll be fine. If you
don’t do your due diligence and pick
up the first person you see then you
may be in for a world of hurt.
One thing to realize is that these websites don’t guarantee the quality of
work, how fast it’s done, or even how
much will be agreed for payments for
projects. They simply provide the infrastructure for you to work together. The
other side of this is that the websites
also pocket a portion of payments paid,
(somewhere in the realm of 10-15%) of
the total cost. Each site is different, but
the general principles are the same.
FLEXIBILITY FOR
YOUR BUSINESS
A feature of marketplace outsourcing is that you only have to hire people when you actually need them. If
you’re in a growth phase in your business then you may need somebody
full time (in which case I’d recommend
against marketplace outsourcing), but
for one-off tasks or individual projects
these are a great tool in your tool belt.
In addition, you can tap into top
quality freelancers from around
the world at lower rates than what
you’d expect to pay if you outsourced local.
RUN YOUR SMALL
BUSINESS LIKE A
MINI-NATIONAL COMPANY
It’s no secret - most businesses
outsource at least some part of their
work. In fact, outsourcing is no longer
just a temporary solution to a shortterm problem - it’s a permanent fixture in most organizations. Using
Elance as an example, there’s over
30,000 new projects posted each
month. Does that sound like an industry that’s going anywhere?
Make sure you’re
slow to hire and
quick to fire.
These marketplace outsourcing sites
bring everyone together - from graphic
designers, writers, artists, editors, IT
professionals, photographers, web developers and even marketing and media professionals. You can have different aspects of your business done in
Europe, Asia, Australia, US and even
back home (wherever you are).
Of course it’s a cost effective approach, but make sure you’re careful with whoever you tap to get into
contract with. Sure, you may reject a
project and not pay for it, but there’s a
time cost for choosing incorrectly.
Sam Patton ....
“Preferring to travel most of the year, SAM
PATTON is a Digital Strategist, Outsourcing
Expert and Free-Time Enthusiast. When he’s
not online, you’ll find him at the beach (or on his
skateboard). Get more articles like this one at
SaveTimeOutsourcing.com”
Sam Patton
Click here
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38
20
THINGS I LOVE ABOUT
CHIANG MAI
by DIANA EDELMAN
A
lot can happen in two
years. And, there are plenty
of lessons I’ve learned
as those 24 months have
come and gone and left me, standing
here, marveling at how quickly time
passes. At how much life morphs
and grows and condenses and grows
again. It’s been two years of ups, two
years of downs, and two years of sheer
beauty in a place that draws awe from
those who come in contact with it.
Life as an expat in Chiang Mai is
not always easy. I’d be lying if I said
there weren’t times where I have
come home, crawled into bed and
had a good cry. I’d be lying if I said
there aren’t struggles. Living in a foreign country and not speaking the
language (although I can get by), not
having my own transportation, not
knowing anyone when I arrived, definitely has its challenges.
39
November 2015 All Rights Reserved.
In the two years here, I have made some of the best friends in the world. Friends
who don’t even live here anymore, but friends who came into my life and never
left. Thanks to the internet, its easy to stay connected. And, regardless of distance, these friends have a hold of my heart. But those friendships have also
proved some of the most challenging times for me here, because when these
friends left, my life changed. It’s a roller coaster of relationships here. Being a
city where people come and go so quickly, the revolving door of people I love,
well, revolves. And, waking up to a city where just yesterday there was a support group to a morning when there isn’t one is incredibly difficult. But, it also
forces me to meet other people. To get to know myself better, so that’s ok.
I get a lot of questions about life as an expat, so if you have questions about
what it is like living in Chiang Mai, please feel free to leave it in the comments.
I will be putting together a post later to answer your questions.
Today, to celebrate my two-year anniversary, I want to share what it is I am grateful for. The things that chase away the expat funk and take me back to this beautiful world. What it is about this city, this life, that makes it just so damn amazing.
And perhaps to inspire you to head to Chiang Mai (or tour through Thailand in
general), if for nothing else, than at least a visit and a fruit shake with me!
1
I live in a city surrounded
by a moat
On days when I start to feel down,
the solution (aside from going home
and having the ‘pity party’, which
doesn’t make me feel better and
almost always results in pathetic e-mails to my mom) is to go put
on some shoes and walk the three
minutes to the moat. There is nothing like putting my life here in perspective than just standing, walking
around this ancient moat.
2
My neighborhood is
like “Cheers” but with
more people
Sometimes, I yearn for privacy. To walk
down the street and not know anyone.
But, as I have mentioned before, the
expats here — love them or not — are a
family. At least in my neck of the woods.
We all look out for each other. We all
care about each other. There is something so heartwarming about walking
down the street (even on days when I
feel antisocial) and having people wave
and smile and ask how you are doing,
and mean it. On my worst days, I have
people here who will stop, make sure I
am ok, and then make sure again. Just
because. We’re all in this together.
40
3
A bottle of water is
around 20 cents
For 14 baht, I can get a liter of water.
It is always one of the top reasons I
give for never being able to go and
live in America again. I can’t fathom
spending more than that.
4
Elephants
Life with elephants is something I
wish every person could experience
at least once. I learn so much from
them. To be at Elephant Nature Park
regularly, to sit and watch these creatures whose lives used to be horrific,
and see them now, happy, is one of the
most beautiful and moving things in
the world. The fact that I can go there
and be with them, observe them, love
them, is one of the most healing things
for the soul.
5
head to the dog runs and spend time
in one of the runs with my favorite
pups, including Moshe, a one-eyed
boy from the Bangkok floods.
6
Cats
I first met Mr. Lucky on my third day as
an expat in Thailand. This tiny kitten,
dying on the street, stole my heart.
Today, he and I have a lovely little
partnership. He moved in with me a
little more than a year ago, and there
are nights when he and I just sit together, cuddling, grateful for each other. At least that is my human emotions
projected onto him have decided.
With him and my other girl, Penelope,
we’ve got this adorable little family.
7
Jungle beauty
I cannot escape the tropics here.
The jungle and all of its beauty is
around me, always. While the palm
trees are reminiscent of my Vegas life,
that’s it. The flora, the fauna, the humidity, quickly move me and remind
me where I am and why I am here.
I love the days when I am walking
somewhere and the scent of flowers
wraps around me. And don’t even get
me started on the massive, beautiful
trees. The roots, the intertwining of the
body, wrapping itself around each other … breathtaking stuff, I tell ya.
Dogs
My office is home to about 10
dogs. The park is home to about
500 (note: if you’d love dogs,
Elephant Nature Park Dogs is always in need of volunteers). Like
with the elephants, being around
these pups just makes any day better. When I go and visit ENP, I always
13
8
Mountains
Geography, in general, is sexy,
and I cannot get enough of natural beauty. The mountains here —
so long as it is not burning season
when they are cloaked by a yellowgray haze — are stunning. Crisp
and green during rainy season, thick
clouds hanging over them as monsoons roll into town. Love.
9
Proximity to the airport,
and then BKK isn’t so
far away either
I could walk to the airport if I wanted to. Seriously. It is that close. With
killer deals to other parts of SE Asia
and beyond, thanks to budget airlines like Air Asia and Nok Air, it
makes impromptu trips a breeze.
Plus, Bangkok is a quick hour flight
so when the need for hustle and bustle strikes (which is rare for me since
I love my laid-back city so much more
than the crowded capital), it can be
arranged.
10
11
The creative atmosphere
here, thanks to the
abundance of digital nomads
There is nothing I love more than calling up my friends and having weekend
work parties at coffee shops. There is
a huge digital nomad scene in Chiang
Mai and a large support system which
has been created to encourage meetings, mingles and more.
12
I can walk anywhere
I want to go
Up until a few days ago, this was a
major plus for me. Then, I totally bit it
and totally hurt my tender ligaments
in my ankle. When the doctor told me
to stay off my foot and not walk for a
few weeks, I burst into tears. Chiang
Mai is incredibly walkable and there
is nothing I love more than just putting on my sneakers, popping in my
headphones and wandering. So,
while I normally can walk anywhere,
right now, I cannot. But, once my ankle is healed, it is Game On.
The gym is cheap
Generally, the cost of living
in Chiang Mai is far lower than the
western world. For a one-year gym
membership, I am set back 9,500
baht (approx. US$266). My personal trainer costs around 600 baht (approx. US$17) a session. Sure, the
equipment isn’t always the best, but
I get to work out for cheap, have
a trainer and get into some great
shape for far less than I would back
in America.
14
Food is cheap
30 baht noodle soup (under US$1).
Sushi dinners for under 500 baht
(approx. US$14). Fruit shakes for 20
baht. I can eat well (and deliciously)
and not have it break the bank. A definite bonus when trying to save up
those pennies.
15
Rainy season
Coming from the desert, where I only
get to enjoy rain a few days out of the
year to Chiang Mai, where there is
an entire season, scared me at first. I
didn’t know how I was going to react
to clouds and rain and wet. But, I love
it. Absolutely love it. Those humid,
sticky days that turn to thick evenings
that lead to gorgeous thunderstorms
that shake my little teak house just
make me feel alive.Rainy season is,
by far, my favorite time of year.
The constant
flowing in of friends
I don’t like the exit of friends, but it is
pretty safe to say that when someone leaves, a new person comes in.
Or an old person comes back. The
revolving door of Chiang Mai expats
constantly keeps me on my toes, albeit the “see you soon’s” definitely
get old.
41
16
Winter season
There is a tiny part of the year where
the temperatures drop and layers are
needed. In my old world, that would
be called Autumn. But here, it is winter. And, thanks to that thin jungle
blood, those autumn temperatures
render me freezing and elated to don
hats and gloves. Even if it is only for a
few weeks. The air is crisp, the days
are short, and I just want to watch
a football game and drink a Bloody
Mary. I don’t. But, still … winter in
Chiang Mai is just bliss.
17
Health care
The stupid ankle injury last week
required me to report to the hospital to
get an X-ray. So, off I went to the western hospital in town, Chiang Mai Ram.
I was quickly placed through triage,
met with a doctor, X-rayed, then met
with the doctor again to find out what
was wrong. After that, I was brought to
the cashier, then the pharmacy to get
my medicine. The entire visit cost me
1,400 baht. I was in an out in one hour.
Last year, I had to get a medical checkup for my work permit. A full work up of
my blood and a doctor visit cost me
under 3,000 baht. I went to the dentist
for a deep cleaning. The cost? 1,500
baht. It boggles my mind how inexpensive medical visits are here. Although,
I should mention when the doctor told
me I could get an air cast for my ankle if I wanted to, he also said the cost
was pretty ridiculous: 15,000 baht. Of
course, I passed.
18
Massages
Every street has a massage shop.
I’ve found my favorites in town (and
will be telling you all about them) and
try to make it in for a head/neck/back/
shoulder/arm massage at least once
a week. For 200 baht for 60 minutes,
I really should be going more.
19
Incense
I know this is kind of weird
to put on my list, but I love how Nag
Champa floats through the air in he
mornings when everyone makes
their offers to their spirit houses. It
reminds me I am in Thailand, in another world.
20
Culture
The wats. The holidays. The monks.
The smiles. All around me, the beautiful Thai culture thumps and pulses.
It is intoxicating and inspiring and unlike anything I have ever experienced
in my old life.
Diana Edelman ....
...recently lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand and
volunteered full-time for Save Elephant Foundation,
an organization dedicated to rescuing Asian elephants
and educating travelers on responsible tourism. She
is the co-founder of the Responsible Travel & Tourism
Collective, which include #RTTC, a weekly chat on
Twitter about the topic and its many facets and also
tapped as a speaker for elephant tourism.
Join Diana and her travels on her blog
www.dtravelsround.com
Cuban Holidays Could Now be On the Agenda for US citizens
Recent improved relationships between Cuba and the United States may
open the door for improved travel for US citizens wanting to visit the
country. Hostilities between the two countries have begun to thaw after 50
years of standoff and there is a suggestion in some circles that
commercial flights may open up in the foreseeable future. Travelers
currently have to go via charter flights with restrictive baggage and long
checkin times the norm. An increase in US tourists will be an economic
plus for Cuba and will no doubt hasten the development of the country. If
you’re wanting to experience Cuba as it is now you may be best to go
sooner rather than later.
42
LIVE LIKE A
MILLIONAIRE
C
FOR FREE
an you really sustain a lifestyle caring for
other people’s houses and never have to
go home again? Today’s guests are living
proof of the fact.
Michael and Yvonne Bauche gave up a comfortable
but stress-inducing lifestyle in Vancouver Canada
3 years ago and they haven’t looked back. Their
income is lower but so is their living costs giving
them the opportunity to live a millionaire’s lifestyle
on less than $C3000 per month all without having
to eat into their savings.
They’ve met interesting people and made new
friends for life. They’ve housesat in many parts of
Europe, Central America and the Caribbean and
now spend over 70% of each year minding houses,
often for repeat clients who have them back. They
have so many requests in fact that they have built
up a network of fellow house sitters who can take
care of the clients they can’t get to!
But the best part is they have their freedom back.
In today’s interview you’ll discover just how easy
and cost effective housesitting can be and the
opportunities it can open up for you to live your life
to the fullest.
If you’d like to know more about housesitting
check out their website at http://thebauches.
com or you can grab their free report at http://
yourescapeblueprint.com/free-housesitting-report/
MICHAEL
AND
YVONNE
BAUCHE
43
Tony (Argyle): Well, welcome to the show Michael
and Yvonne. Lovely to have
you here today.
Yvonne (Bauche): Thanks
for having us, Tony.
Tony:
Paint the picture.
Whereabouts are you at the
moment? We know you’re
house sitting. Tell us a little
bit about your location and
what you can see from where
you are?
Yvonne: We are just around
the corner from Marigot Bay
in Saint Lucia. Although we
can’t see Marigot Bay itself, we’re actually on a little promontory with a bay
on either side of us. We’re
perched quite high up over
the cliffs, and we have an
amazing view of the ocean –
and the sunset, which is going to be quite spectacular
tonight.
Tony: Right. Well, you’ve
just depressed everybody
now. Thank you very much
for that [laughter]. I’ve seen
the photos of your previous
experiences in Saint Lucia,
and it just looks like a stunning place. You’ve obviously
been there quite a few times,
haven’t you?
Yvonne: We have. This is
our…
44
Michael
(Bauche):
This
would be our third time here.
Yvonne: Yes, with intentions
to return.
Tony: So tell us about how
did you get involved in house
sitting? What was your previous life like?
Yvonne: We did the rat
race, the 9:00 to 5:00 in
Vancouver, BC. It’s a beautiful place to live, but we were
working long hours just to
stay ahead.
What happened was a very
dear friend passed away
from a serious illness, and
we asked ourselves, ‘If we
only had 6 months left to
live, would we still be doing
what we were doing?’ Well,
the answer was no. So we
tried to figure out a way to
escape, to travel, which is
what we really wanted to do;
and we figured that out. We
turned our home into an asset, and we’re using house
sitting to reduce our living
costs, and we’re able to live
for less than we used to back
in Vancouver.
Tony: So what were you
both doing before in terms of
your work?
Michael: Okay. Well, Tony, I
was a professional engineer.
I was working in the oil and
We asked
ourselves, if we
only had 6
months left to
live, would we
still be doing
what we were
doing...
—Yvonne Bauche
gas business as a consultant. I had several lucrative
clients such as Chevron and
Imperial Oil, which is a subsidiary of Exxon, so I was basically working in a refinery
as a mechanical engineer.
Tony: And what about yourself, Yvonne?
Yvonne: I bounced around
from various, different careers. I was a newcomer to
Canada as you might be able
to tell. I’m English originally.
And so I’ve reinvented myself
a few times. I’d most recently been working in the financial industry, and the crash
of 2008 sort of put an end to
that; and so I was looking for
a new direction.
Tony: Okay. We’ll get into a
bit more about your cost of
living because you obviously
mentioned that what you’re
doing now is not earning as
much, but it’s costing you
significantly less. We’ll talk
about that shortly, but what
year did you first start doing this? How long have you
been doing it for?
Yvonne: We’ve been doing this just over 3 years. It
was end of April 2012 when
we waved goodbye to rainy
Vancouver.
Tony: So you’re spending, I
think, about 40% of the year
now doing house sitting. Is
that right?
Michael: No, we’re actually doing more like 75% right
now. So we are travelling
full-time, and we have been
travelling full-time for the last
few years. On average, it’s
working out to about 75% of
our time that we are actually
house sitting.
Yvonne: Yeah. I think the
first year, it was probably
40%; but now we’re actually
booked until January.
Tony: So you’ve gone from
being semi-professionals to
full professionals.
Yvonne: Pretty much, yeah.
Tony:
[Chuckles] The
thought of doing this, I mean
it must have been a little bit
45
scary for you. What were
the concerns you had before leaping into it? And have
those concerns become
real?
not wasted. There are things
you can take along with you
and apply to whatever new
venture you’re looking at taking on.
Michael: Well [chuckles], I
think, Tony, with something
like this, the biggest fears
are the ones that you conjure up in your head before
you go. I know from my perspective, I’d spent 5 years in
university getting a degree
and 20 years working in a
career; and the idea of jettisoning that, some people will
say throwing away a good
career was pretty daunting.
At that point, I had a lot built
up in my identity as being a
professional; so letting that
go was a big hurdle for me.
Tony: Yeah.
Tony: Funny you say that
because I hear that from a
lot of people. A degree is so
highly regarded and higher education is so highly regarded. You’re almost looked
at by people as ‘what do you
think you’re doing?’ when
you make this sort of decision, don’t you?
Yvonne: Yes.
Michael: However, I can say
that the skills that I learned
not only in university but also
in the 20-year professional
career, all those skills I take
along with me. I mean that
information, that knowledge,
and those experiences are
Yvonne: Yeah.
Tony: So just to make everybody feel really depressed
now, tell us all the countries
you’ve been to and house
sat.
Yvonne: Okay. Off to you,
Michael.
Michael: Okay. Well, since
starting full-time in 2012,
our first house sit which really solidified it for us was
in Tuscany, near Lucca –
Tuscany, Italy. Then we were
in Spain, the South of Spain.
From there, we moved on
to look after a vineyard in
the South of France. From
there, we went to London,
England, where we had
friends who decided to leave
town while the craziness of
the Olympics are going on.
So we have their 15 century
house looked after while they
were gone. So that was basically our Europe sojourn.
And then we shifted gears
and went over to Central
America, where we house
sat in San Jose, Costa Rica.
We house sat in Boquete,
Panama.
get the lowdown on what it’s
really like to live there as a
local. And because you’re
shopping and cooking for
yourself, it’s a different perspective than just going as a
tourist.
Tony: A more authentic experience of it.
Our very first housesit in Tuscany in 2012, solidified housesitting for us
says Michael.
Yvonne: Placencia, Belize.
Michael: Yeah, in Belize.
We had two house sits in
Belize.
Yvonne:
And one near
Belmopan.
Michael:
And then from
Central America, we were
planning on heading down
to South America; but in the
middle of last year, we kind
of got sidetracked to our first
house sit here in Marigot Bay.
We had been here house sitting for over a year now, and
I’m not sure if—
Yvonne: When we’re going
to ever escape [laughter].
Tony: It’s a living hell, isn’t it
[chuckles]?
46
Yvonne: In the Caribbean,
we’ve been bouncing around
between the Grenadines,
Barbados, and Saint Lucia.
Tony: Okay. Well my next
question was going to be
‘what do you enjoy best
about house sitting?’ but I
don’t think you need to answer that. I think the places
you’ve described in themselves, it’s obviously a fantastic experience.
Yvonne: I think, really, what
we enjoy about house sitting is we’re not staying in
hotels or hostels. You’re actually staying in somebody’s
home. You usually get access to a car. They tell you
the best places to shop.
They usually introduce you
to some of the locals so you
Yvonne: Yes, and you really
get a feel for it. One of the
reasons for setting up and
travelling was we know we
don’t want to retire and settle down in Vancouver. We
don’t know where that’s going to be yet; but this way,
we can get a really good feel
for those places we would
consider.
Tony: Yup. So what would
you say has been the best
experience you’ve had while
you’ve been on the road?
Yvonne: Hmm. That’s a
tough one. I think we both
would agree that our favourite house sit was the first
one in Lucca in Tuscany. I
think that’s mainly because
of where the house was located and the style of the
home. The owner was very
artistic, and she had a beautiful garden, amazing views,
300-degree views out over
the valleys. I think what really was the highlight of those
sits was taking cooking lessons, which is a lot of fun.
Tony: So a lot of your ‘business’, for want of a better
word, would be repeat customers now. Would that be
fair to say?
Yvonne: Ninety percent is
repeat customers. Well, actually, 100% is repeat customers or referrals right now.
Tony: Right. And I guess
once you get yourself started,
you can easily build into that
situation over a period of time.
Yvonne: Absolutely. We turn
down house sits all the time.
We’ve turned down 3 in the
last 3 weeks!
Michael: Yeah. That is the
biggest challenge about
what we’re doing. Once you
set yourself up and get a
good reputation for yourself, the problem is not
being able to be at 3 or 4
places simultaneously. So
we’ve started setting up a
network of people that we
can refer to our clients as
a value-added service; so
yeah, if we could be 3 or 4
places at once, that would
be wonderful.
Yvonne: But we haven’t figured out how to clone ourselves yet.
Tony: That must be tough
making a decision sometimes out there.
Yvonne: Yes, it is. One instance is we got asked to
house sit this Christmas in
Barbados about 18 months
before it was due, and we
didn’t really want to make
the commitment because
we weren’t sure we wanted to go back to Barbados
or not. But the reality is that
she was pushing for an answer, and so we said, ‘Yes,
we would do it.’ And then
once we’re committed, that’s
it – we’re committed. Even
if we’re better off with what
comes up. It’s like, ‘No, we
said we’re going to do this.’
So once we said yes, that’s
it. It’s done.
Tony: Yeah, fair enough.
Michael: We also tend to
keep travel costs down. We
tend to pick a direction of
travel and then pick house
sits that suit the route we’re
going. We do know house
sitters who fly around, go
from Australia to Canada to
Barbados; and unless you
have a fortune to spend on
airfare, that can get pretty expensive. So we tend to
pick a direction of travel and
then plug in house sits to suit
the region and/or the direction that we’re planning on
going.
We love our furry housemates!
47
Yvonne: Yeah.
Tony: Okay. Well, let’s talk
about cost because you
touched on the fact at the
beginning of this conversation that you’re basically now
living for considerably less
than what you were before. If
you don’t want to divulge too
much, that’s perfectly fine;
but I understand from looking through your blog and
stuff, that you guys are really only looking at a cost of a
couple of thousand dollars a
month to sustain yourself. Is
that right?
Michael: That’s correct, and
it does depend where we
are travelling and how much
house sitting we have to subsidise our cost. When we’re in
Europe, we actually rented a
car for 3 months; so that was
a bit of a cost. I think our average cost in Europe where
we house sat 70% of the time
with the car worked out to
about C$3,400 a month.
And then once we got into
Central America, our house
sitting was down to about
40% of the time; but with
the cheaper cost of living,
we were averaging about
C$2,000 a month.
And in the Caribbean which
has a reputation for being
quite pricey and rightly so;
right now, we’re house sitting
75% to 80% of the time, and
we’re managing to live very,
very well for about C$2,000
a month.
Tony: Okay. So you’re not
eating into your savings at all
with this? You’re able to create enough income to keep
yourself going?
Michael: Yes. At this point,
C$2,000 a month, it’s financially sustainable for us. We
have some real estate back
home that the renters are
paying the lion’s share of our
travel cost; and then also
with the travel writing and the
work we’re doing on the side,
that basically gives us our
beer money.
Tony: Yeah. I think this is a
thing that a lot of people don’t
appreciate, particularly if you’re
coming from a more expensive Western country – and I’m
What’s not to love? Our Spanish housesit.
48
in Australia here which is one
of the dearer places to live.
When you leave, the amount
of rent you get will more than
cover you in most other parts
of the world, won’t it?
Yvonne: Yes.
Michael: That’s been our experience. I mean, for us, living in Vancouver—which The
Economist Magazine listed
as one of the most expensive
cities to live in North America
in 2013—we were spending
just to maintain our lifestyle,
about double of what we’re
spending now. We were
spending C$4,000 a month
to keep the house going.
Yvonne: Two cars.
Michael: A couple of cars,
groceries.
Michael: That’s how to quantify. I mean going from a 9:00
to 5:00 career where you’re
in the rat race to living the
lifestyle where we’re basically retired. I mean we do work
and projects because we feel
like it, not because we have
to. We’ve been living in the
last 3 years in some really,
really wonderful places.
And really, we’re living the life
of millionaires without having
to have a millionaire’s…
Yvonne: Without having to
invest millions.
Tony: Yeah. So tell us a
bit about your business, because you are advising or
helping house sitters in getting started really, aren’t you,
that’s one of the businesses
you have?
Yvonne: [Laughter] Oh, triple? Quadruple?
Michael: Well, basically, I
guess our business is travel writing. What we’ve done
is we’ve written a book on
house sitting for international living, and they’re marketing it now. Also on top of that,
Yvonne’s been doing freelance writing. I’ve been selling some photographs that
go along with the writing. So
I would say that at this point,
Tony, our business is basically that of a travel writer.
Tony: [Laughs] Can’t put a
number on it.
Yvonne: Yeah, a publisher
I guess.
Yvonne: Things.
Michael: Yeah, just what
people would normally consider to be the necessities
for daily living.
Tony: So you’ve halved your
cost. In terms of the quality of
your life, how much has that
increased by?
Tony: Okay.
49
Yvonne: We do offer coaching for people that want some
businesses in house sitting,
but for a start would be our
free report we got out now, I
would say.
Tony: Okay. So just tell us
how do people get hold of
that report?
Michael: Our report, you can
go to our house sitting website. This is basically a website that we set up to advertise our house sitting services; but along with it, we also
have a free report called ‘What
Everybody Ought to Know
about House Sitting.’ It’s basically a 10-step guide showing
people how to do what we’re
doing basically, how to market yourself, how to find the
best positions, and how to cut
through the competition and
land up on jobs that we’ve
been doing for the last 3 years.
Yvonne: Yeah.
Tony: Well, you’re a living
endorsement. I don’t think
anybody’s going to doubt
what you’re saying. That’s
for sure. We’ll talk a little bit
more about that soon, but
I guess everything’s got a
downside. What would you
say has been the downside of living the lifestyle
you’ve got?
Michael: Well, I think when
you have the house sits
lined up one after the other,
there’s really not a downside. I guess psychologically, it might not be for everyone because you’d have to
be willing to live with a sense
of insecurity because sometimes, you don’t know where
you’re going to be travelling
next or where the next opportunity is going to arise.
If you’re the type of person
who is willing to live fluidly or
be able to roll with the opportunities as they come along,
then it’s not really a problem
at all.
Yvonne: Yeah. I
think what Mike’s
trying to say is that
if you’re an adaptable type of person, it’s not a problem. If you like everything structured
and like to use all
your own stuff,
then house sitting probably won’t
work for you.
Yvonne: Yes. It is. It’s very
liberating. It is. And it’s quite
strange. Even though we
travel full-time, our schedules are probably more structured than they were back
home, especially our travel
schedules.
Tony: I guess that’s something you’ve got to like now,
haven’t you?
Tony: [Laughs] I was just going to say, Michael, you found
the perfect woman if you can
get her down to a carry-on
suitcase. I think there’s men
all over the world who’d love
to meet a woman like that.
Michael: Yeah, I’ve done it
right, Tony. [Laughter]
Yvonne: No high heels in
my suitcase, Tony.
Tony:
You’ve got to be
practical, haven’t you? So,
you’ve obviously been to a
Yvonne: Yeah.
lot of countries.
If you had to pick
one to settle down
in, what would
“We went from the 4 bedroom have been your
favourite?
house filled to the brim with stuff ...
2 carry-on suitcases...
that takes a bit of adjustment.”
now we live out of
Tony: And I guess that can
be a learned skill too, can’t
it? I was interviewing somebody recently, and they said
that they came from a corporate lifestyle where everything was structured to having to adapt to the flexibility;
but they actually found it to
be invigorating in the end
because not knowing where
they’re going to be next
week initially was hard work,
but they eventually came to
love that freedom factor, and
50
that’s the best part of the
trade-off, isn’t it?
Yvonne:
Ooh…
Ooh. I don’t know
if we can pick one
—Michael Bauche right now. I think
there’s
probably 3 contenders, and Mike
Michael: Another trick is to
might disagree with me. I
be able to—I mean we live
love Grenada. That’s in the
out of 2 carry-on suitcasCaribbean. I really love that
es [laughter], and that’s a
little island. We both love
learned skill as well. I mean
Tuscany, but they have winwe went from the 4-bedroom
ter. And I like Belize too.
house filled to the brim with
stuff which we basically diMichael:
Yeah. I would
vested ourselves of, and we
agree. I think part of the
now live out of 2 carry-on
problem we have answering
suitcases. That takes a bit of
that question, Tony, is really,
an adjustment as well.
we have a life goal of visiting 100 countries; and we’re
Yvonne: I guess that brings
both around the 70-country
to the feminine downside - is
mark, so we’re getting close.
not having all your things.
We have a lot more travelling
one morning and got rushed
off to the hospital because
I had developed deep vein
thrombosis and had a massive pulmonary embolism.
Bequia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines.
to do, so we’re not quite in the
mindset yet of putting down
roots; but as we’re house sitting in different countries, we
are taking notes.
I think when the time comes
to put away the carry-on suitcases, we will have a pretty
good idea of where that place
will be. But right now, it’s kind
of hard to put a thumb down
on it.
Tony: Okay. So in terms of
practicalities, how do you
get on things such as your
healthcare travelling around
a lot, and insurances, and
also I guess going hand-inhand with that, the rights
you might have as Canadian
citizens in terms of your tax
status, Medicare, pension
funds, etc.? Is there any issue around that with being
out of the country so much?
Michael: Yeah, there definitely is. As far as the tax
51
status goes, because we still
have real estate in Canada,
we’re deemed residents of
Canada tax-wise; so we still
have to file income tax returns on an annual basis.
The really trickiest part for us
is, like you mentioned, is the
healthcare. In our province,
we’re allowed to be away for
7 months of the year and still
be covered by our provincial
medical system. Since we’re
away longer, we’re taking advantage of a leave of absence
from that program which we
can reinstate that at any time
within a two-year period.
But we are very strong believers of carrying adequate
health insurance, and we
can speak from experience
because just this January,
the 2nd of January, we were
with friends in our hometown,
Vancouver. I’m in my mid40s, pretty good shape, no
health issues, and I woke up
So one day, I was perfectly healthy; and then the next
day, right out of the blue,
I had an emergency room
doctor telling me to my face,
‘Michael, you’ve got a lifethreatening illness; and this is
very, very critical.’ I ended up
spending 2 weeks in the hospital getting that taken care
of, and I am so grateful for the
Canadian healthcare system,
that it was there for us.
The scary thing is, two
days later, we were going to be flying off to Miami,
Florida, which has worldclass healthcare but also has
world-class…
Yvonne: Price.
Michael: … price tags associated with that healthcare. And then a couple of
days later, we were planning
on being in the Bay Islands
in Honduras. We’ve been to
Utila before, and we know
the condition of the healthcare system there; and all
I can say is I’m very happy
that I didn’t get sick there.
So I think if you can’t afford
adequate travel insurance,
you can’t really afford to be
travelling. However, on the
flipside, I do think that you
cover your financial risks. I
think insurance is a financial
decision. You can cover the
risks against the biggest potential losses; so if you get
sick somewhere, it’s not going to bankrupt you.
And then a lot of the ancillary
coverage such as baggage
losses or trip insurance, that
sort of thing, we decided to
go naked and self-insure
ourselves; but we just make
sure that we’re covered for
any catastrophe that could
wipe us out financially.
turn the Creole on and lose
our English speakers.
Yvonne: The biggest language barrier was actually
in Europe. Because we were
bouncing around quite a bit,
there’s no way we can learn
German, French, Dutch,
Swedish, Swiss; but most
Europeans do speak English,
so it wasn’t a problem.
of tourism, the working language is in English; so even
if you go to a country where
English is not widely spoken,
places where you would rent
a car or find a place to stay,
those are the people who
speak English. They cater to
foreign tourists.
Tony: So what do you miss
the most about being on the
Tony: I guess travelling with
hand luggage, it makes it
reasonably easy for the rest
of that insurance. You don’t
have a lot of risk at the end
of the day, do you? So it certainly helps things.
How do you find language
barriers? I guess a lot of the
Caribbean is English speaking. What about Central
America?
Michael: Well, we’ve never
really had any issues with language. I mean when we were
travelling in Central America,
I was practicing my Spanish.
I do know a little bit. I know
enough to get into trouble
and maybe get out of trouble
[chuckles]. I can function.
And like you said, the
Caribbean is—they can
speak English if they want
to, but they’re going to also
52
This housesit came complete with Live in Maid!
Tony: Yeah. And we’re very
fortunate in that regard really, aren’t we, in terms of most
countries of the world, they
can be very accommodating towards understanding
English far more than we are
at understanding other languages too.
Yvonne:
easier.
It makes it a lot
Michael: Yeah. I think the
reality is that the business
road? Obviously other than
high heels, Yvonne.
Yvonne: [Laughs] I don’t
think I really miss—actually,
there’s one thing I miss, and
that’s having a garden. I like
to garden, and I get to dabble
in other people’s gardens. But
I don’t get to see the combination. You’re planting seeds
and harvesting them, stuff like
that. So I guess that’s the only
thing I really miss: the continuity of having my own garden.
sometimes is on the islands
here because the internet I
believe is with satellite uplinks. If you get a storm going over, then the internet
coverage will drop; but one
of the beauties of being on
the Caribbean is it’ll rain for
half an hour, and then the
sun comes out again.
Tony: I’m sure I know the
answer to this question, but
are you planning to return
to the rat race at any stage
soon?
Deliciousimo!
Tony:
I haven’t thought
about that. You don’t see the
fruits of your labour really,
do you, unless you go back
again later.
Yvonne: Well, we will in so
many cases.
Michael: Yeah. Typically,
our house sits are anywhere
from 3 weeks to 3 months.
So the garden, we don’t really see—if we do plant a lot
of seeds, we don’t get to see
the fruit.
Yvonne: No. But we get to
eat fruit sometimes from Italy.
Michael: Yeah.
Tony: That’s from somebody else’s labour. That’s
even better.
Yvonne: Yes.
53
Michael: Yes, exactly
[chuckles].
Tony: Now, you mentioned
at the start of the call about
internet coverage. How have
you found that most of the
places you’ve gone? Has it
been an issue at all?
Michael: No, not really, because we’re house sitting. A
lot of the places we’re house
sitting, our clients have very
good internet coverage. That
is actually a prerequisite for
us because we basically do
all our business and banking
online. We need to house sit
in a place where we have adequate coverage.
And in terms of the bandwidth and the speed, it’s
been more than adequate
everywhere we’ve gone.
I think one of the only
technical issues we have
Yvonne: [Chuckles] Nooo.
No way, Jose.
Michael: No. No way. We’re
quite happy being roving retirees for the foreseeable
future.
Tony: I think the key thing
is what you’ve done is set
up a sustainable situation,
haven’t you, where you can
continue to do this because
the income covers you.
Yvonne: Yeah.
Tony: And really, health allowing, you can do this indefinitely for the rest of your
lives I guess.
Michael: Absolutely. Yeah.
I think another challenge
is that having come from a
pressure-cooker career and
something that’s intellectually challenging, it’s also important to take up activities while
just go hand-in-hand because we love to go to the
local markets. We love to try
the new food. Sometimes it
is a challenge being in different places because you can’t
get the ingredients you want,
so you have to make do with
what you can get.
One of our favourite housesits has
the gorgeous Elle…
you’re travelling to keep your
gray matter going; and that’s
what we’ve been doing with
the writing and with the different projects that we’re doing
– just looking for challenges
to keep our brains going every day and keep things exciting and interesting.
Tony: Do you have any particular hobbies or anything
that you’ve had to try and
find how you can continue
to do it as you’ve travelled?
Or have you picked up new
hobbies?
Michael: Well, really, that
was an easy one for us because we both love scuba
diving; so that’s something
we partake in while we’re
travelling.
And we both love to cook. So
the cooking and the travelling
54
Really, the lifestyle that we’re
pursuing right now was really fitting with what we love to
do. We love to write. We love
to read. We love to cook. And
we like to walk and scuba
dive. So it’s a really good fit
for us.
Yvonne: And we like pets
too.
Tony: I’ve noticed that with
your photos. Obviously,
you’re more than happy to do
houses with animals.
Michael: Yeah. Ninety percent of our clients have pets.
And really, that’s the main
driver behind house sitting,
is looking after people’s pets.
Tony: I guess the final question for you guys: how would
you say this has changed
your life?
Yvonne:
How has it
changed—well, I’m going
to use Mike as an example.
He’d get up at 7:00. He’d
have a glass of water, clean
his teeth, get dressed, and roll
out of the house to be at work
for 7:30. And then he would
stuff up on coffee all morning.
And then when he got home
at about 4:30 because he’s
working a short day, he was
just so hyped on coffee and
stressed that he would take
him at least an hour to wind
down if he ever did.
He’s a different Michael than
what he was now. We get up
in the morning probably when
the sun comes up, a little bit
afterwards (it depends on the
schedule), walk the dogs or
whatever it is we have to do,
a half cup of tea or coffee,
and then decide what we’re
going to do for the rest of
the day. So the stress level
I think is the big difference.
There isn’t really any.
Michael: Yeah. I think to add
to that, our job right now is to
enjoy life; and we enjoy it at
our own pace. So really, we
don’t have a lot of stress in
our life at all right now, which
is a good thing; and I think it’s
a much more healthier way
to live than what we were doing back home working the
9:00 to 5:00 in a real highpressure type of a career.
Tony: Guys, it’s been awesome talking to you. Just for
somebody who’s listening to
this who’s thinking of getting
into house sitting and they’re
wanting to take the plunge,
they’ve got concerns, where
do they begin? Your report
probably sounds like the best
place to start. Is that right?
Michael: Yeah, I would think
so. I mean we’re a little bit biased. We wrote the report. But
yeah, we have a free report
on our website. The website
is
www.TheBauches.com,
and the report is called
‘Everything you ought to
know about House Sitting,’
and that is a 10-step guide
that shows how to do what
we’re doing. It’s a pretty comprehensive report.
The reality is that the best
place to start is to decide to
do it and take action towards
making it happen.
Yvonne: It’s a good starting
place, and it just gives some
of the websites that we’ve
used and some tips for building profiles and things like
that.
Tony: Excellent. At least I’ve
got my spelling right even
though I did mispronounce
it earlier. We’ll be putting a
link to that up on our podcast
anyway, but thanks guys! It’s
Tony: I will just spell Bauche
for people who are listening
to this. B-A-U-C-H-E, is that
correct?
Michael: That is correct.
Yvonne: That’s correct.
been a real pleasure talking to you today. I’ve learned
a lot about house sitting,
things I didn’t know about it.
I’m sure most of the listeners have too. We really appreciate you putting the time
in to share your experiences.
Thanks again for that.
Yvonne: You’re very welcome, Tony.
Michael: Our pleasure.
Yvonne: And your listeners.
WHAT I LEARNED FROM
THEIR INTERVIEW:
1. If you’re serious about housesitting travel
light. Both Michael and Yvonne exist with
hand luggage only and don’t really feel
they miss anything from doing so (Yvonne
even confesses to not carting heels with
her!). It helps they have mainly focused
around warmer climates but if you want
to make life easy (and save on luggage
costs and insurance ) then travelling light
helps
2. Housesitting offers a far more meaningful
way to enjoy an area. You can be
treated as a local. Michael and Yvonne
encourage their hosts to set them up with
a network of people when they arrive
which makes the whole process far more
comfortable for them
3. Don’t spread yourself too thin. The
Bauches concentrate on housesitting in
regions resisting the urge to leap around
the world and incur bigger travel costs.
55
56
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57
GROCERY SHOPPING IN
XCALAK,
MEXICO
by DEIDRE AND JASON MIZE
W
e live in xcalak,
a town of 400 people that sits on the
border of Belize and is an extremely remote part of
Mexico. This means that we’ve had to adjust to things
taking longer to do, longer to get to and overall being
quite a bit less convenient. Like grocery shopping. The days of a
quick stop at the store to pick up bread or milk or beer? Hah! Where
we live now, spontaneously deciding what’s for dinner is not an
option. We have to do planning and preparation if we want to eat.
58
And we do. So how do we go grocery
shopping in Xcalak?
Leading out of the actual town is a
one lane dirt road known as the beach
road. There are quite a few houses
stretched along this beach road, including ours. We live in the last house
on the road, about nine miles from
town and about a mile from the next
closest house. So like I was saying,
remote. We typically don’t mind the
privacy and serenity that comes from
being at the ‘end of the road.’ That is
until we get hungry.
Thankfully there is a food truck that
drives up and down the beach road
that sells fresh fruits, vegetables,
meats and a few other odds and
ends. The food truck announces its
arrival by honking their horn at the
front gate. There are actually quite a
few vendors that announce their presence with a horn or by playing music. Kind of like the ice cream man.
Unfortunately though, there is never
59
any ice cream for sale – too hot to deliver (boy do I miss ice cream).
For most of the road, a food truck
comes by daily. But because we’re
pretty far down the road many grocers
don’t want to drive this far so we typically only get a food truck 2-3 days a
week. That might sound like a lot, but
the food here doesn’t have many preservatives or chemicals added so everything turns pretty quickly. It’s best
to only buy what you think you’re going to eat in the next day or two.
The selection on the truck is surprisingly good. We pretty regularly buy
papaya, pineapple, mangoes, carrots, melon, bananas, eggs, tortillas
rice, chicken, tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and zucchini. But planning
meals based just on what you get
from the truck can be difficult. The inventory is never the same from day
to day. One day our truck guy has
loads of lettuce, then the next three
times he comes by he has none. It
could be that there was none where
he picked up the food from to deliver, or it could be that everyone else
on the road bought all the lettuce before he got to us. I can typically get ¾
of my list crossed off, but that might
be only ¾ of the things needed for a
meal. So we’ve had to find some other ways to supplement what comes
on the food truck, and to satisfy some
of our cravings.
Once in a while someone comes by
selling meals out of the trunk of their
car. It’s an odd version of a drive-thru,
but the food is SOOO much better and
often includes empanadas, salbutes,
tamales and, our favorite, cochinita pibil – pork that is marinated in a citrusy
sauce and roasted in a banana leaf.
But the food truck and the food delivery people don’t have everything. They
don’t have some necessary household supplies and foods that we crave
from the United States. And they definitely don’t have a lot of variety. It does
get monotonous eating tortillas, rice
and beans on a regular basis. So if
we want additional items or need anything more than what the food truck
and the people selling food from their
cars bring it requires us to get in our
car and drive. And drive. And drive. It
is not as easy as a quick run down the
street. There are a couple abarottes,
or corner stores, in the town of Xcalak
but not a grocery store. Our next closest option to buy groceries is in the
town of Mahahual which is about an
hour away. There are several specialty
stores and restaurants here and while
there is still not a traditional grocery
store, the corner stores are a lot bigger and have a much wider selection.
And if you can’t find it in Mahahual?
You keep driving. The closest real
grocery store to us is in the city of
Chetumal, the state capital, which is
about 2.5 hours away. Here there are
several grocery stores and…. yes, a
Sam’s Club.
If we’re going to drive that far for groceries, we’re going to stock up. And
Sam’s Club is the place to do that.
About once a month we take a day
trip and drive to Chetumal to replenish our supply of food items that
we want and crave. Sometimes we
REALLY want something besides
tortillas and rice. So when we go,
we make it count. Kalmata olives!
Cheddar cheese! Meatballs! Chicken
with the head already cut off!
As with many things here in Xcalak,
grocery shopping can be time-consuming and a challenge. And from
time to time we do miss the ease
and convenience of being able to run
down the street to pick up that one
item we forgot we needed for dinner.
But we have enjoyed eating extremely fresh food, trying new food and getting creative and coming up with new
recipes based on the food we have on
hand. Sometimes the recipes work,
sometimes they don’t. We’re having
fun trying. And so no ice cream, but
I’m pretty sure there’s a spare Dos
Equis around here somewhere.
Deidre and Jason Mize ....
....from Kansas we were enjoying lucrative corporate careers, had a house, a couple of cars and were
surrounded by stuff. So, so, much stuff. But at the end of each day, week, month and year we’d typically
find ourselves stressed, unhappy and never really sure where our money had gone, (probably to buy
more stuff). With the realization, and several reminders, that life is not a guarantee, we decided not to wait
until retirement to live our lives and begin to make some changes. We quit our corporate jobs, started a
new business together, sold almost all of that stuff, packed the rest into our remaining car and drove off
with plans to live, work and explore different parts of the world. We currently house and pet sit throughout
the world. We try to share the good, the bad, the exciting and the disappointing and we try to share it in a
way that is honest and, hopefully, entertaining. http://www.awolamericans.com/
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Deidre and Jason Mize
THE 6 PIECES OF
TECH GEAR
THAT HAVE MOST IMPROVED
MY TRAVELS
by DAVE DEAN
I
travel, and I write about tech. The end
result is, typically, a bottomless pit
of gadgets trying to burst out of my
backpack, most of which don’t really
justify being there in the first place.
Now and then, though, I find something
that’s genuinely pretty great. It doesn’t cost
an arm and a leg, is robust and reliable, and
simply makes my travels a better experience
in one way or another.
These are the half-dozen pieces of tech
gear that fit all of the above criteria, and
have made the biggest difference to me in
the last year or two on the road.
61
SMARTPHONE
The first one’s obvious, but it’s true —
buying an unlocked smartphone has
vastly improved my travel experience.
I’ll admit that in the past, I’d often be
afraid to explore too far from wherever I was staying, or walk off the edge
of the map in my guidebook or tourist brochure, because I might not be
able to find my way home. It’s a lame
excuse, in some ways, but it’s true.
Now, I’ll happily wander anywhere for
hours, knowing that the magic blue
dot will guide me home.
I don’t usually carry a camera when exploring cities any more, since the one
on my phone is good enough. Podcasts
and playlists make long travel days
pass more quickly, while still leaving
my eyes free to gaze out the window.
Tripit has replaced a binder with my itinerary, I use Skype, Whatsapp or email
rather than hunting out a payphone or
Internet cafe, and ebooks and Pocket
instead of paper guidebooks — and
that’s all before I even factor in trying to
run a business from the road.
I started out with an Apple iPhone 3G,
moved to a Samsung Galaxy S2 and
now carry a Google Nexus 5. They’ve
62
all been great, and each one has cost
less than the one before. You can
now pick up a perfectly usable unlocked smartphone for under $250,
and a pretty damn good one for under $400.
They come with downsides, of course,
and there’s always a battle to stay
engaged in the moment rather than
the screen. On balance, though? My
phone is the travel gadget I’d be least
happy to give up.
PORTABLE BATTERY
Smartphone prices may have come
down and usefulness may have gone
up, but the battery life still sucks.
Long travel days still leave my phone
and other gadgets gasping for power before I can get anywhere near a
mains socket.
The Powerdrive also provides extra
storage for mobile devices, so it costs a
bit extra, but you can pick up decent portable batteries for under twenty bucks.
CHARGING CABLES
After travelling for a while, and buying
gadgets wherever I happened to be
at the time, my cable situation was a
mess. US, UK and Australian plugs, a
dozen standard USB cables plus an
Apple 30 pin version, dedicated chargers for things like cameras, and all
kinds of other junk. I ended up with a
big, tangled bag of electronic accessories, and it was annoyingly difficult
to charge everything at once due to
needing multiple plug adapters.
Recently I started using a 7800mAh
Mazzo Powerdrive, which lets me
charge my phone a couple of times
and still have enough juice left to get
my Kindle or GoPro fired up again too.
It’s changed the way I use my gear, especially the phone — no more rationing screen time and keeping it in flight
mode just to nurse it through the day.
In the end, I declared cable bankruptcy and started again. Out went all
the power cables with non-US plugs,
replacing them with US versions instead. The cheap, crappy USB cables
went too. I donated the old iPhone I
carried as a spare, and the 30 pin cable that went with it, and bought a universal charger for things like camera
and spare phone batteries.
length, since I try to keep as much
weight as possible off the power
socket, especially when using plug
adapters that are always ill-fitting.
That simple process cost very little,
halved the size and weight of my
electronics bag, and made charging
everything much less painful. Ok, so
it’s not technically a single gadget —
but consolidating cables has definitely made my travelling life a whole lot
easier. I think it counts.
INTERNATIONAL
MULTI-USB CHARGER
MICRO-USB CABLES
(PLENTY OF THEM)
Speaking of those USB cables, I
have just one more than I need of
each type, carrying only high-quality versions of different lengths. With
micro-USB, for instance, I have one
that’s a few inches long for charging
my phone from a laptop, or that portable battery in my pocket. This way, it’s
less likely to get caught up and broken, and it’s not so bulky either. The
rest are longer than average, so they
can reach comfortably from a power
socket halfway up a wall, or behind
the bed.
It sounds like a small improvement,
and it is — but the simple decision to
have a spare of every kind of USB cable, and the right length for the job, is
something I appreciate every single
day. Never more so than last month,
when my phone’s charging cable died
right as I was about to leave for the
airport.
TRAVEL-SIZED
POWER STRIP
Picking up a travel-sized power strip
has made a huge difference. Now, I
only need one plug adapter for the
power strip, rather than a bunch of
them rattling round in my bag for
each device. It’s not perfect — it really could do with a bit of extra cable
63
Instead, the power strip just ends up
hanging from any power socket that’s
more than a few inches off the floor.
Still, it’s small, cheap and otherwise
very useful, so I’ll let it slide.
In the same vein, having a multi-USB
charger for the last few months has
been a godsend. The model I’ve
been using has four sockets that
can charge phones, tablets and other USB gear, is light and compact,
and comes with clip-on plug attachments for most countries in the world.
It’s such a simple idea, I don’t know
why (a) more companies don’t make
them and (b) I haven’t picked one up
before.
The combined output of the charger
is 4.8amps, so I couldn’t charge four
tablets off it simultaneously, for instance. Luckily I don’t own four tablets. I’ll often charge my phone, portable battery and Kindle from it, however, and there’s no problem at all.
Best of all? It costs around thirty dollars. Bargain.
So those are the gadgets and cables
that have made the most difference to
me, day after day on the road. Other
than the phone, buying something
similar won’t cost more than about
$30. Improving your travels doesn’t
need to cost a fortune. Who knew?
Dave Dean ....
Traveller, freelance writer and a founder of Too
Many Adapters, Dave has been a wanderer for over
15 years and a geek for even longer. When he’s
not playing with the latest tech toy or working out
how to keep his phone charged for just a few more
minutes, he can probably be found sitting in a broken
down bus in some obscure corner of the planet.
http://toomanyadapters.com/
Dave Dean
EUROPE’S
BEST LOW COST
BY
CHUCK AND LORI ROS
AIRLINES
L
ong term, sustainable travel means you have to
make your dollars (or euros or pounds) stretch
as far as you can. When it comes to air travel,
in the states our choices are pretty much limited
to Southwest, JetBlue, and a couple of others that might
be categorized as “budget” airlines. But in Europe there
seems to be a much more comprehensive list of options.
Here are the ones we’ve identified and bookmarked.
Note that, like here in the states, there are a couple
more airlines that might be considered budget airlines
that I haven’t listed: it’s just our bookmark list, not a
comprehensive sampling. And I’m only including those
airlines that obviously market themselves as low-cost.
64
An important tip! Be sure to read all the fine print and understand all the fees. Expect to pay extra for your luggage, including (on some airlines) your carry-on bags. Generally it’s better to pre-pay for any extras like luggage or meals. Watch
out for “hidden” fees like getting charged to print boarding passes at the airport.
Indicates an airline you should bookmark!
Airberlin
AtlasJet
Norwegian
Germany-based (duh) with great coverage all over Europe, but rarely the
cheapest.
Based in Turkey, with decent coverage within Turkey and to London, and
a few places in Eastern Europe and
the Middle East.
Great coverage all across Europe and
one of the first of Europe’s discount
airlines to fly across the Atlantic. They
offer connections between Orlando,
JFK, Las Vegas, Fort Lauderdale,
and Oakland to Europe at “mid-week”
prices. We haven’t flown them yet,
but we’re keeping an eye on them.
Onur Air
Turkey’s 2nd low cost airline (behind
Pegasus), with connections from some
major European gateways (Amsterdam,
Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna)
and Istanbul (as well as connections
from there to the Middle East).
Condor
This German-based airline is part of the Thomas Cook airline network and offers not only great coverage across Europe, but crosses the Atlantic with flights
to JFK, Baltimore, Las Vegas, and more. Not to mention, Condor has great
coverage in the Caribbean and even Asia and South America. Condor might
just be the first global discount airline; this is definitely an airline you should
bookmark.
Croatia Airlines
Obviously concentrated in the
Balkans, but with connections to major cities across Europe.
EasyJet
We took EasyJet from Barcelona to
Pisa once: it was an “ok” experience.
Great holiday/vacation type coverage
across Europe.
Flybe
Livingston
Based in Italy, this airline has good
coverage all around the Med, with
a few destinations in the UK and
Ireland.
Monarch
Quite possibly our favorite to get to/
from UK and the continent. Monarch
has destinations across Europe and
flies to the Canary Islands.
Pegasus
Turkey’s number 1 low cost airline,
your best bet in and out of Istanbul and
to the Turkish Aegean destinations like
Bodrum and Alanya. They also get
our award for the best safety video. If
Turkey is on your travel wishlist, bookmark Pegasus.
UK and Western Europe destinations
mainly.
Hop, by AirFrance
Great coverage in France, as you
might expect, plus destinations in
Italy and Prague.
Jet2
Holiday-centric, with lots of beach
and sun destinations.
65
RyanAir
The best known of the European budget
airlines. We’ve taken them a half dozen times or so before, even though they
leave you feeling a bit “used”. Beware
their fees (like most of the discount airlines), especially the luggage fees and
be sure to print your boarding pass
before you go to the airport. Play their
game and you can save a lot of money.
SmartWings
Decent enough coverage across
Europe, also going to Tel Aviv and
Dubai.
Thomas Cook Airlines
Holiday-centric airline branch of the
venerable travel company, they have
good coverage to fun & sun sorts
of destinations, plus a few US destinations (JFK, Vegas, Miami, and
Sanford/Orlando).
Thomson
TuiFly
Another holiday-centric airline with
lots of destinations in the UK and lots
all around the Mediterranean.
Another german-based low cost airline with a great global footprint.
They offer transatlantic connections
to Europe from Fort Lauderdale, Las
Vegas, and Seattle, and they fly to
South America, Asia, anda (naturally)
all across Europe.
Transavia
Amsterdam-based, these guys are
probably our best low-cost experience to date: we flew them from
Venice to Amsterdam once, but unfortunately haven’t flown with them
since. They offer “sun and fun” type
destinations across Europe.
Vueling
Barcelona-based with good coverage across Europe; we’ve flown them
only once, from Barcelona to the island of Ibiza. It was a good experience and we›d readily try them again.
Chuck and Lori Ros....
A few years ago, life changed dramatically for us: both of
Chuck’s parents passed away, we sold our company, both
our kids moved out, and Chuck shed 80 pounds! With a
passion for travel, exploring, drinking wine, making new
friends and having great conversation, we hit the road in
June, 2014. We returned home in March…just long enough
to sell our house so we can keep traveling. We’re full-time,
fully-committed, middle-aged nomads now! – Catch up with
our travels at http://www.chuckandlori.com/
Chuck and Lori Ros
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66
Tony Argyle - The Expat Chat
IF YOU
BECAME AN EXPAT
WHERE WOULD YOU
MOVE TO AND WHY?
We asked our Facebook Fans this very question...
here’s what our Top 5 picks had to say....
When I become an expat I would start in Istanbul because it's on the border of the
Middle east, Europe and Africa. The food, the friendly people and thousands of years of
culture. What a place to begin !!!
Cherie Jaillet
The Mrs. and I have been in the casino industry for a decade. We would love to retire to
Placencia Belize and work the tables there part time.
Stefan Leach
Moving to Playa Largardo, Costa Rica. Why? For a quiet, peaceful life. And because
Costa Rica is symbiotic with nature and one of the greenest countries on earth.
Lyn Opiela
I think I would have to say we would move our address annually. The "Year in ----"
fill in blank would add a wonderful sense of adventure and satisfy the wandering
urge to be global citizen.
Mary Kay Brautigan
La Rochelle, France - sea, beaches, temperate, good food, oysters (!),
and a great vibe.
Andrew Matheson
67
THE LAST WORD
ige
Margo Pa www.theoverseasescape.com
Name - Margo Paige
Age - 29
Hometown – Roanoke, Virginia
What year did you start travelling? 2009
Where are you currently? Washington DC (in transition to the US after years as an expat in Germany)
What do you love most about travelling the world?
Seeing the world from a different perspective – whether it’s by way of conversations
with local students in Vietnam, panoramic views from a hiking trail in Switzerland or
plunging into a plate of mofongo in Puerto Rico.
What place or experience is on the top of your bucket list?
Cuba. With the changing political landscape visiting is finally an option!
Which country has the friendliest people? Portugal!
What has been the most useful item you've bought for travelling?
Zip storage bags to compartmentalize luggage.
What's the best piece of travel advice you've received?
The joys of RyanAir and Airbnb. Both make travel within Europe incredibly affordable.
What's the worst piece of travel advice you've received?
The importance of seeing the Mona Lisa.
What is the best experience you have ever had?
Recently while in Vietnam a student offered to make me dinner in order to practice her
English. I immediately agreed and she brought over tins of homemade roasted duck
and chicken to my hotel that night. We chatted for hours and I was so inspired and
impressed with her drive and determination to learn my tricky native tongue. It’s
meeting people like her that highlight the true purpose for travel.
What advice would you give to people contemplating this lifestyle?
Personal growth only happens when you push yourself. If you’re content with where
you’re at right now then stay put but if you’re looking for more, then you must go. The
details will work themselves out.
68
Follow Margo on her blog
http://www.theoverseasescape.com/
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