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Why We Stopped Traveling Like Tourists (And Never Looked Back) · Left Turn Travels

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: One of us plans everything.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: The other thinks we'll figure it out as a perfectly reasonable travel plan.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: After becoming empty nesters, we took a left turn and now spend more than half the year living around the world.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're not luxury influencers or backpackers, and we're definitely still learning as we go.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: On Left Turn Travels, we'll share what long-term travel is really like.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Slow travel, remote work, cultural surprises, and the adventures that come from building a less predictable life.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Left Turn Travels, the podcast where we talk about the ins and outs of our lives as digital nomads.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Hudson, and here with sitting with me is my beautiful wife, Kim.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Hi Hudson.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're happy to be here today.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it's it's it's a the sun's out, it's a it's a beautiful day.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: You we're coming to you from uh southern Portugal in the Algarve region at our condominium down here.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we've been here for a month and a half, and we're here for about another month and a half, and the weather has it's warmed up and gotten to where the days are nice and they're not making you sweat and boiling, but they're definitely a bit warm.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the the chill in the evening has been cut, I'd say, in half.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't you agree?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we're like like low 80s for a high during the day, but then it's it's nice in the evening.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: The only problem is though we have a healthy wind that has shown up about four days ago.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, luckily, it's not coming from the Dew South, which would be covering us with sand and dirt from the Sahara, which is just across the ocean from us here, but it has caused uh the allergens to explode, and some of us are suffering.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've been I've been hitting the the allergy medicine hard.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: But it's been a it's been a pretty great week.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of we've been uh pretty busy enjoying life, enjoying uh our time on the road.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've been playing a lot of tennis.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's my well, my my wife has not been playing as much, but I've been playing fair amount of tennis, and it's just been good, but we have some changes coming up.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have visitors on the horizon, which we don't often get on our trips.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's often just the two of us, but they're coming.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Usually we get a few visitors in Portugal.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got next week two of my college friends are coming, which will be really fun.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then the week after that, it's Hudson's brother and his wife will be visiting us.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll be playing a bit of tour guide.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll be we will go from uh what we do with this lifestyle we live where we're on the road and staying in spots and really kind of decompressing and taking our time.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now we will be going out and playing tour guide each day and kind of back on a bit more of a classic travel schedule for people.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, I have just started a week ago a Portuguese language class.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm on a quest for citizenship and Hudson as well, but I'm a little bit ahead of him on the schedule.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And in order to get citizenship, you have to pass a certain level of Portuguese language skills.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the class that I'm taking is accelerated because I don't have a lot of time.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it's four hours a day, Monday through Friday, for eight weeks in a row.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it's pretty intense.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So every morning I'm up and into Portuguese.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then in addition to that, I'm still, you know, working, trying to play some tennis, and we have guests coming into town as well.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Needless to say, I'm being left to my own devices a bit more.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Which is a little dangerous.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Slightly, but but the house is clean, the groceries are here, and I've been getting a lot of walks in listening to podcasts because I don't have my normal walking partner with me.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this week we really wanted to dive, keep diving into left-turn travel.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people always ask us, you know, what is left-turn travel?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: What how do we do this?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we launched this podcast really as a project to tell people about our lifestyle and to really introduce them to what we call left-turn travel.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: So and that the questions that everybody always asks us every time we tell them we're what our lifestyle is, our digital nomad slash on the road lifestyle.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exploring the world, kind of traveling.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, we really want to kind of talk a little bit more this week about, you know, what is left-term travel?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, kind of what is it?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I would say it's it's really slow travel.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Kim, you know, how how would you describe left-turn travels or slow travel?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, basically we go to places and we stay for a longer period of time.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Typically, like a month is ideal or even longer.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we'll go for two or three weeks, just depending.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Just because we want, number one, we're working part of the time.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't want to show up in a city and do what you do if you, you know, do the normal vacation travel where you're, you know, four days and you're kind of on the death march to see everything you want to see in the four days you're there.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: We want to feel like we live there and sort of take our time exploring, do it little bit by little bit.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that's what it's about to do.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: But we but we do do often look in this traveling and how we do this going around the globe, we do do periods where we're on more tourists mode.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: We just had one, you know, a little less than two months ago when we were coming here from uh Australia.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: We did six days in Singapore, and you know, it was kind of the opposite of how we travel, in that we were in a hotel and you know, we were out walking around and just exploring and doing stuff.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you were since I got sick for three of the days.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, she did get sick and able to sit by a pool, but I Yeah, it wasn't so bad.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I got to explore a bit more Singapore and eat a bit more funky, freaky foods would be a good way to put it.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I I would say slow travel is it's being able to kind of dig deep and get a little bit under the surface of wherever we're at.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's the beauty of it is kind of meeting people, it's taking the time.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of finding the, you know, we used to call it the third street travel, we used to say, which was kind of three doors down.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like everyone always goes to any place and they go to the main tourist street.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or plaza.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or even the biggest city, and which is great.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: What we found is we like to kind of we call it the third street.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: We'd rather go two streets off the main street.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can find usually some pretty incredible stuff there and a fraction of the crowds.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the same with like cities.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we do go to major cities, yes.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've been to many of them, but we like to go to the secondary or tertiary cities as well.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, this was kind of born.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: This whole mentality was from our two years living in Lyon, France, which is the second or third largest city in France, but it's much more laid back, more of a working city.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's authentic.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's more locals, it's not overwhelmed with tourists.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, for me, the definition of left-turn travel is I like to be able to go out, especially if Kim's working.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: I like to just when we get to places, often, you know, we'll settle in, Kim will have to dive into doing some work right away.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And my favorite thing is I just throw in some headphones, I walk out the door, and I just start walking.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe I'll sometimes have some preconceived idea where I'm going or direction.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I love to be able to just roam around and bump into stuff.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then I come back and tell Kim, I'll be like, I found this really cool thing.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we normally wouldn't be able to do that because if we were in a place for four days, we'd be like, all right, we have a list, a checklist, we got to go do X, Y, and Z.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: I like that you do the reconnaissance and then I show up only the places that you've already vetted for me.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I I get reconnaissance through coffee shops, I get reconnaissance through grabbing a beer, I get reconnaissance through just walking, I get reconnaissance through bumping into people and just talking to them.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they start telling me stuff.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I got an idea.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I go back and I tell Kim, I'm like, I found a place.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: We got to go check this out.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So let's let's talk about like a little bit more logistics.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do we manage this lifestyle?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's a question that a lot of people have.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have, you know, we have three things we're gonna address today.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have three questions that we get asked just non-stop.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like people always want to know.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: How do you pick locations?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, that that would be that's probably the biggest one we get asked, wouldn't you think?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I think the the way I would say we pick locations, I'm I would say I'm definitely a bit more involved in this.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Kimberly is more logistics and planning.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: You do put a you have a lot of say in locations too, but often when we're kind of brainstorming or trying to figure out where we're gonna go, and we usually are working a minimum of six months in advance.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for locations were probably nine months.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, nine months at least in advance.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, right now, what?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's mid mid-May, and we are already starting to discuss kind of what next spring will look like when we hit the road from Hilton Head, like where we want to go, what we're kind of thinking.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like we know right now where we're gonna be till we go back to the U.S.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: in September, and then we're gonna leave the US next, probably early April.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we have just started tossing around like what next summer might look like.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, one of the couple of ways that we kind of pick locations, one of them that's really kind of fantastic is just talking to other travelers.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like we we bump into people all the time on this and we just start talking to them.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: We tell them our story, they tell us their stories.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a great way to kind of get in conversations with people as, you know, what are you doing?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you here?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then listening to them because they really people always want to tell their story to you, I think.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't you agree?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's probably the biggest way.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: I we also like run into like articles and stuff like that that might mention a place.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, usually, you know, it's something that different people have mentioned, or even sometimes it's like one person.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like we went to Tasmania this year for two weeks based on an Australian friend from Portugal who said, Hey, you're going to Australia, you should look into Tasmania.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we were having cocktails after tennis with her.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And mentioned, you know, we're going to your neck of the woods.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Well, where are you going?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we actually had somewhere else picked that.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember what.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And she was just like, You gotta go to Tazzy, mate.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Tazi's amazing.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we were like, All right, Tazie, sure, Tasmania.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like most people, but most people from the states don't know too much about Tasmania.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: I I know that they have doubles and they spin around and they're they were on the Looney Tunes.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's how we know it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: It turned out out of our two-month road trip, probably being one of the highlights that we three-month road trip down of that neck of the woods.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: One of the highlights was the two weeks we were on Tassie was pretty fantastic.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the other big thing is weather.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I really am searching out like an ideal temperature of 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: So that would be about what 20-ish, 22-ish Celsius for those of you that might be elsewhere.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that would be like my ideal situation.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times in the heat of the summer, like we don't really want to be in southern Europe.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: A, it's really crowded.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of tourists.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: We leave Portugal, we rent our place here.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, like often we want to go away from the hot weather, go up north during the summers where it's nice and fresh and not freezing, but not hot.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, pro tip to anyone listening: don't ever vacation in southern France in August.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just don't ever remotely go there.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: All of France literally takes August off, and they all head to southern France.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you might think that we'll go to the Mediterranean in France in August.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Dear lord, don't go there because it's gonna be so crowded you won't be able to breathe.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, or we went l a couple years ago, we were gonna meet a friend from Colorado in Sicily for like a week.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: She was gonna be in Switzerland.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think we were up, I can't remember where we were at Copenhagen, maybe.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're like, let's meet in Sicily, which we'd wanted to go to.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was the end of July, which wasn't ideal.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was, and we went to Tarmina, which I we didn't realize at the time because we hadn't watched The White Lotus season two.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But it was it had just been in the White Lotus, like literally the city was where White Lotus was, and it was we got there, it was really hot, and mobbed.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was pounded with human beings.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we at first we were just like, this is crazy.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then we looked a little bit online and suddenly we're like, oh my god, everyone's coming here because of white lotus.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: That was uh that's another pro tip.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: If white lotus films anywhere, never vacation there the next year or two.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll think you'll think about it.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: For sure, for sure.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, another way I think we probably, besides weather, is look, you know, we are consciously kind of working our way through a global map.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've go places we haven't gone.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: We one of our the kind of the driving factors behind us is besides coming to Portugal usually in the spring, we want to go to new places.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: We rarely go back to the same place.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're pulling, we're gonna do it once this year.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna actually go back to Tallinn, Estonia again just because we really liked Tallinn and we wanted to we want to dig a little deeper up there, but we rarely go back to the same place.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: We would rather keep exploring and keep going to new spots.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we've been pushing further into Eastern Europe because we ended there.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Loved it.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: South America is big on our list.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: We've only been to a couple places down there, so that's Asia.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Asia's massive.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Asia, we've I've only been to Singapore.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Kim's been to Japan for work.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that that's big, big, big on the list.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: But then coming to weather, look, you know, I don't really think Vietnam in July would be really fun.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'd want to black out.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think we'd have to plan another well weave and be over there in their wintertime so we don't die.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, so that's kind of the mentality behind it.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is it was we're kind of we we want to travel the world.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: We want to keep exploring the world.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that's their weather.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of that, another it's kind of whatever seems great to us, wouldn't you agree?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I would agree.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, once we've picked a spot, then we have to start really digging in deep.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where Kimberly is, she's our travel planner.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Once we've kind of brainstormed, we have the ideas.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I just step back and I just let her run with it.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And within a little bit of time, she'll be like, I found these four fast spots.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I might tell her, look, you know, I've looked online and saw there's a couple cool things here, but I've I've learned a long time ago that my bride's strength is planning and organizing and finding great neighborhoods.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, the first thing I do, because generally we're gonna stay at an Airbnb because it's just nice to be able to go to one platform and wherever you're gonna go, find someplace.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: So generally we're gonna go to Airbnb.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing I'll do before I even go on Airbnb is I'll do some research on neighborhoods.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And now, I mean, it used to be you could just Google it and I'd find blogs often of people that lived there or traveled there.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um now you can also use like Chat GPT or one of the AI tools is super helpful.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Don't don't don't trust the AI.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's trying to take us over.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yes, but in the meantime, it's helpful planning travel.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: So typically I'll look at like what are the neighborhoods, and generally, probably unlike people that are going for, you know, four or five days or a week to a place, we often don't want to be smacked up in the city center because it's often crowded.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we want to be in kind of near or a little on the outskirts, but we don't want to be like on the most crowded plaza, on the most crowded street where all the tourists are, it can be loud, a little too touristy, and we want to go out.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, the restaurants are all catering to catering to tourists, so we want to be a little outside.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and one of the things you've always, which Kim is fantastic at doing, is she's a huge fan of reading reviews for any place.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna get to Airbnb in a minute, but I want you to comment on the neighborhood first because usually at that point I'll say, here's a couple of options, and you'll give feedback.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because then once once we comes like, you know, I have these three spots, then what I love to do is I like to go online, start reading about it.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I go to Condé Nest, I go to CNN Travel, I'll go to BBC.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of type in the New York Times.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Other 36 hours anywhere are usually fantastic.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I start kind of researching there.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I might maybe just use the evil AI a bit.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I I start kind of reading and I'm looking often for me, it's really kind of a vibe.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm like, oh, this place looks like really cool.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: They've got some great parks, you know.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's some really good restaurant scenes or something like that.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then I'll come to Kim and say, look, you know, you gave me four, these two kind of seem meh.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: These two alike.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: What what do you think?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then like usually I'll take that, I'll have a couple of ideas, and then I'll start my Airbnb search.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I've made like my Airbnb search is is kind of now an art.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh after 10 years of traveling in Kim's Airbnbs, I think we can count on one hand the hard mistakes that suddenly were like maybe maybe three fingers.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's probably a few.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: That were like, oh no.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: The key thing is because we're gonna be there for a long period of time.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll often know the dates or the rough dates that we're going, you know, because we're gonna be leaving from one place, going to the next.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll put the dates into Airbnb, maybe plus or minus a few days because we have some flexibility.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: But because we're gonna stay a place, you know, a month maybe, you really have to book in advance.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because the problem is, is if you wait till the last minute, there's a lot of places where you might be able to get a week or four days or whatever.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: But to get like a month straight in one place, you really have to be ahead of the curve.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: So generally six months, I want to be booking Airbnbs if we're gonna be in a place for a long period.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and and you found that by working far in advance, you can reach out, you know.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Cause look, we're we rent, we have our condo in Hilton Head, we rent.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if someone reaches out and is like, look, you know, would you be your Kim will reach out and say we're thinking about staying for a month?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: A month, would you give us a discount?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes, if you're an owner, they're like, Absolutely, if I can get six weeks, sure.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: What disc like our place we're going back to in Thailand that we stayed at, they're offering us a discount this week.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because we last time we only stayed there for like two weeks, now we're staying for like a month.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll look for places in the neighborhood.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm also looking at, you know, pricing to be like we we're not kind of cheap end travelers, but we don't want to be ridiculously expensive.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we're kind of in that mid-range and we want places that are nice.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um to have a king bed if possible.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have like certain filtering criteria that I always use.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: AC if it's anywhere warm at all, even when it seems like it's cool, you know, a lot of the windows in Europe don't open that far.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm cautious about that.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like we were in Budapest last summer, it's quite warm there.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: So AC is usually a big one.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we want a kitchen, we need Wi-Fi.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: We usually like two bedrooms, two baths because we like to have a separate workspace where we're not both working at the kitchen table.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: We've done that, but it's not like ideal.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then king-sized beds.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, like if we're gonna be there for a month, we want a king-size bed.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: If we're there for a week, like I might like sacrifice.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and a trick that we've learned is if we're gonna be somewhere for any period of time or an extended period, and if we go in and if it's kind of the AC is not working quite to our level, it's not great, but it's not terrible.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: We've become a big fan of we just go to the nearest store and we just go buy a fan.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we do that.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Often, like probably every other place we stayed at has a fan because we're like, look, we'll go spend 25 euros or 25 bucks and buy a cheap fan and then it blows on the bed and we're happy.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's usually like 15 euros, so it's not much at all.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: The rest of the place we love, we're like, we're just hot.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: We like cold air boiling off the night, so we just buy a fan.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll pay 50 cents a night to not be sweating.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll search for the neighborhoods and then I'll start.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I create a wish list, so I start picking places in the different areas we're targeting, you know, put them all on a wish list.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then once I've got, you know, maybe a dozen, maybe it's a handful, just depending on the city, then I start weeding through.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've looked at each one, at the price, the pictures, it looks reasonable.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Then I start looking at reviews.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Huge reviews.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the nice thing about reviews on Airbnb, I don't just look at the overall score, but generally if they're not above, like if you're below four or five or four, four, that's usually a bad sign.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because people are pretty generous with review numbers.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: But what I go look at is the comments.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: So generally I search for things like hot air conditioning, loud, loud noise, party bar, Wi-Fi, like if the Wi-Fi doesn't work, because we need high-speed Wi-Fi.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: So generally I'll look for that and then I start weeding things out based on what I'm seeing.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'll also look much more closely at the pictures.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like if they say they have AC, C, this is a trick.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like in Europe, they might say they have AC, but they have those little splits that are per room.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then you get there and you find out, well, the bedroom doesn't have one and the one in the main room, or there's only one in the bedroom and there's nothing in the main room.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times in the pictures you can see.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'm not sure, if I'm like, I really like this place, but I'm not sure about X, then I message the host and I just ask them, do you have, you know, an AC in the bedroom or whatever it is?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and sometimes, you know, we've found we've shown up a place like our place in Kraka Poland where we worked for a month, was the place was great, but they had two upstairs bedrooms, and one of them was a smaller room, but it had the AC unit, and the other one was the technically master bedroom, which Which was this big room with the bathroom, but there was no AC, and that thing was hot as hell.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it had like these great skylights, like top floor units in the summer can be dangerous, can be really dangerous.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like these loft-like things, they get really hot.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it it worked out okay, but we uh we ended up sleeping in the smaller room, yeah.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, to make that work.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, another thing that we look for when you know we're looking at places is um, you know, one of the big things because when Kim finds places, say she has like three, I'll narrow it down.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: She'll show them to me.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: We'll kind of look through it, we'll say, all right, this place looks one of the things that I really look at is I'm like, all right, how are we going to get around?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because we don't rent cars when we're in places.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we will, but it's pretty rare.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So what we really look forward to doing is I look at walkability because I'm a massive walker.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: I like to walk all over places.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Walkability, biking.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: We have found, at least our form of travel, that the better the bike infrastructure, the better the place we're staying.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Almost always.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Any place that is investing money in good bike infrastructure tends to have a lot of good infrastructure for the people to enjoy.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: The parks are usually great.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they just, it's all part of a civic upgrade.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: They tend to have it.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, public transit we look at too.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, look, places you get it, there's a great subway system and good bike lanes.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, this is perfect.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: But like we said, it's usually often not like center center city.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, like when we're in, we were in Copenhagen a few years ago, which we loved.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: We were there two weeks, we stayed in two different places for a month each.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: The first was down in kind of a set of newer buildings by what they call the harbor.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost more like a river that used to be like a working harbor, but they've now moved the harbor to a different location.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's like a lovely, perfectly clean river that you can swim in.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: And all these beautiful buildings with all the canals, like modern condos and apartments they built.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that place was great and it was quiet, but they had such a great bike infrastructure system.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: You could do this bike rental program, donkey bikes, which was fantastic.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we just biked.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that was really quiet and kind of laid back.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: But then our next month, we booked a place in the heart of Copenhagen.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we weren't on like there's the main canal that's in every picture of Copenhagen with like the colifers.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's like tourist central.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's like when I lived in San Francisco, if you go to Pier 40, what was it, Pier 42 or something like that?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: 49, it's just tourist central.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to stay there.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we we were more near the city hall.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it was still a place where it was near the university.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but it was quiet.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we'd like to not be on the the busy, well, noisy street.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was quiet because when we looked it up, Tim found a couple of places that looked really cool, but in the comments, it was loud.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And once we got there, we realized that if we were two streets up, yeah, we would have been very cranky at night when people are drunk at 3 30 in the morning and roaring down the street, yelling at each other.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah, exactly.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, a big thing for us is you know, bike infrastructure, uh walkability, and the public transit.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the other question that we have once we know a place is really how how do we get there?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this is another one that Kim's in charge of is she's our transportation manager of how we get from point A to point B.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, usually if it's far, of course, we're flying.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And for long flights, we try to use our frequent flying rods.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like if we're going over the ocean, so like coming to Europe or going to Asia.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I wish I could say we had enough to be able to do like business class, but we really don't.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we I'd rather sacrifice, you know, even if it's 12 hours, in we are like the the better economy typically, just because we have some status.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: We we have legroom economy, but yeah, we are not we're not the business class people.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're not the people that are in the lay down.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: If once every three years we get the lay down, uh we enjoy it.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I promise you, I eat and drink everything they offer me because I'm gonna really enjoy this one.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, every now and then we have enough points.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: So typically we save up our points, we use it for the long haul.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then if we're going like between countries in Europe or shorter hauls, like then we'll look at anything.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: So like EasyJet or Ryanair, some of the budget ones are okay in Europe.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: We were in Australia and they had what was it called?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Jet Star.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Jet 2.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jet 2, and then there was a star something.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there was like, you know, or we did, I think, Qantas between New Zealand.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: So then we'll look at whatever is available.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: And typically we're you're paying cash for those flights as well.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the same thing, we're buying our tickets far out, and you monitor heavily through Google, Google monitoring, you you monitor plane flights pretty heavily.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I buy them far out, especially if we're buying the miles ones.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Those, you know, not the little hops aren't so bad.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like here going to Portugal to London, that's easy, but I'll buy them to make sure we can get the frequent flyer.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: But what's been interesting is with frequent flyer miles, you can like cancel or change your flight.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they're at least on the we are Star Alliance generally, there's no, there's maybe a$30 penalty.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, unlike when you pay for a ticket, here you can kind of make changes more easily.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: So when we were in um Australia and New Zealand, we were supposed to go through Istanbul to on our way to Faroe or to Portugal, and then the war started.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we had to and we had to pivot.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we decided to go through Singapore and then on to Paris.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: But because it was frequent flyer miles, we didn't have to pay a big penalty for that.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that was really interesting.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: But don't tell people this because now that you've told it, United's going to take that away from us too.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Hashtag we love you united, hashtag put us in first class, hashtag how can we help you?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: So generally we're doing that.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: If we're going shorter places, we will try to do train.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, where did we do train last year?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think we did a train from like Budapest to Krakow or Vienna.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so if it's in Europe and the train is, you know, less than a day, we'll do it.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're not, you know, if you're gonna be overnight, then usually it's easy to just jump quite a bit.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, when we were in New Zealand, we rented a car the hook for the six weeks we were there, and we caught it at a pretty decent rate, but that's just because it was just so much easier to do it.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we like when in Australia we had a car for parts of it, like there were parts that we did a road trip, but usually we we try not to rent a car.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: When we're here in Portugal every three months, we do have a car.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we will do a future episode all about every one of our airplane travel hacks, which as everyone knows, you know, flying can be interesting these days.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we have we've learned a lot now for you know, check-ins and security and border crossings and baggage.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's a whole one or two episodes of a couple.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: But uh well, you know, I think we're getting pretty close to the end of our time.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: You got anything else you think we should talk about this right now?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think we have lots to say for future episodes.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: I do too.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as I sprung on Kim last week, it's it's something I want to keep doing in this because these podcast episodes give me a chance, A, to spend even more time with uh Kim, which I absolutely love.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I always like to use this as an opportunity to ask Kim a question or two and kind of see what she'll say, and she doesn't know what I'm gonna ask her.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Are you are you want to do that again?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, let's try that.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: It it'll be good.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so here's my question.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you had to get a tattoo.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Jesus.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Which maybe our daughters might have tattoos, but we neither one of us have tattoos.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have anything against them, we don't have them.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you had to have get a tattoo, what would it be and where would it be?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and and if you need me to leave the room because you want to talk about it being my beautiful face somewhere, that's okay too.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: No, it wouldn't be your face.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, honey.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Faces are really hard to do on tattoos, and it would I'm not gonna do this, but if I were to do it, you are it would it would be a dolphin because that's my spirit animal.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is and and like what would the dolphin be doing?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, kind of like a little dolphin jump.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Would you have like little waves underneath it?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I'm not going that far because it's not gonna be where where where would you get the tattoo?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Somewhere subtle.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now that.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I like that.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: So okay, I now that you asked me a question about something that I'm never gonna do.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because now, like at my age, you know, like your skin wrinkles.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: And like when you're in your 20s and you get a tattoo, you don't realize what that is gonna be like when you're in your 60s.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: But now I know.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like, I don't need to get you know wrinkled ink on my body.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: But my question for you is this, because we talked about logistics and places to stay.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Over the last year, where whether Airbnb or hotel or whatever, what's the best place, the place you liked the most and the worst place we stayed?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh goodness.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, I would say the best place that we are you talking unit or location?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like unit, like like a like an Airbnb or hotel or something like that.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that one's the best one's easy.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: We stayed in this ridiculous place in Vienna that was just absolutely fantastic.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, Budapest, honey.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Was that the Budapest one?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: That was Budapest.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the Budapest one.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: The one in Budapest that was in the uh Jewish quarter, which the building, I think we talked about this last episode.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: It looked like hell on earth from the outside, beat up, like not terrible, but just the the building.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And even when we walked in the lobby and the stairs, we were just like, hmm.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say lobby is generous.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let's call it vestibule.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it was one of the ones as we walked up the stairs, our luggage, we thought this might be one of the few strikes Kim had.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then we walked in the place, it was just absolutely, utterly great fantastic.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it really was.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: And good location, good AC, good Wi-Fi, king-sized bed, comfortable, good furniture, all of it.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say probably the worst one, which it wasn't terrible, but when we took the ferry from the North Island to the South Island of New Zealand just a little bit ago, yeah, and we stayed in that little itty bitty room that was attached.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: We stayed in a one-room.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was like a studio, which we never do.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was built onto this guy's house who he was really nice, but it just was it was the size of a postage stamp.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like you had to not stub your toes getting out of bed.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I made a conscious choice with that because we were only there two nights, like in transit further south.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh there weren't a lot of options in that area.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I showed it to you.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Picked in.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: We were in Picton.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Picton.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I showed it to you, and you said it's really small, and you were fine.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing is, is like we could like you could barely open your luggage because you'd have to just put it on the floor somewhere.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: The positive was just up the road, we found wonderful wine at a winery and grass tennis courts.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that was true.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that works.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: It had some benefit.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, well, you know, it has been as always a joy spending this time with you talking about our trips.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: It has been.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: I we I enjoy discussing this and I I enjoy, and hopefully you are listener or listeners.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you're enjoying this too.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, um, you know, please like this episode.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, please follow us.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have we are getting ready to launch a left turn travels on Substack, and we will have a Facebook page going and our Instagram with pictures where you can see images of ourselves and maybe just maybe I can get someone to mock up a dolphin tattoo for Kim.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks everybody.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: See you next time.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, have a good one.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's it for this episode of Left Turn Travels.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for spending a little time on the road with us.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed the journey, follow the podcast, share with a friend, or check out our Substack for more stories, photos, and travel tips from the places we've explored.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Until the next time, keep your curiosity alive, take the occasional wrong turn, and remember sometimes the best adventures happen when you turn left.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you soon down the road.