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How Two Empty Nesters Sold Their House and Became Digital Nomads. · Left Turn Travels

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: One of us plans everything.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: The other thinks we'll figure it out as a perfectly reasonable travel plan.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: After becoming empty nesters, we took a left turn and now spend more than half the year living around the world.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: We're not luxury influencers or backpackers, and we're definitely still learning as we go.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: On Left Turn Travels, we'll share what long-term travel is really like.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Slow travel, remote work, cultural surprises, and the adventures that come from building a less predictable life.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Hi there, and welcome to Left Turn Travels.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we're so happy you could join us today, and especially on our inaugural first ever episode.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, first ever.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, listen, we're just so happy you could join us.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: And today you find us at our condo, or villa, as they would say, here in the Algarve, which is in the southern region of Portugal.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we we really want to kick this first episode off by introducing ourselves and kind of diving a little bit into what left turn travels is and quite frankly, why we decided to create a podcast and put it out there in the podcast world.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Land.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever, the podcast something, ecosystem, ether.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Let me we'll start by hey, let me let me introduce my stunningly beautiful and gorgeous co-host, uh, Mrs.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Kim Wines.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Mrs.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Excuse me, my bride Kim.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, everybody.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Kim Wines.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 62 years old.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's getting up there now.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah, hush.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: You are absolutely, you are a young 62.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for that.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for that.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: I try to be.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was born and raised in Florida and then spent about 20 years living in California, and then moved to Colorado, to Boulder, Colorado, where I spent about 15 plus years, and that's where Hudson and I met.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we as my beautiful bride said, we met in Boulder, Colorado.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Hudson Lindenberger.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: I am a spry, 58 years old.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, where I spent all of my youth and a fair chunk of my early 20s, uh, that was broken up a bit by a five-year stretch in Alaska where I worked in my early 20s in the fish industry.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I kind of call that my wayward college experience.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: When my bride went to respectable colleges, I went up to Alaska as a hippie and lived in a tent.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: But we'll we'll dive into that one later.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: I ended up in uh Colorado and lived there for 20 years.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: As my beautiful bride here said, we did.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: We met in Boulder, Colorado, and we've been married since 2009.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: This is a second marriage for both of us.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we have two daughters that are now in their late 20s and both are recently married.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that was a very exciting year.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: We, we, we, yay! Happy for them.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And grandkids coming.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I well, I think we're excited about that too, aren't we?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes, yes, we are.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we actually inherited one stepgrandson.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and we have the another one in the oven cooking that will be showing up in October.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be an exciting time.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be happy to see that new baby and our other grandson, who we had not yet met in person.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: But we will, we will.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So just maybe I'm gonna take us back to business here a little bit.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um so for the last 10 years, Hudson and I have been living a semi-nomadic lifestyle.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we now have what what what are you what's a semi-nomadic lifestyle?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna explain that in a minute.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Give me a give me a moment here.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, okay.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's now we're up to about 50 countries and 60 continents visited between us.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's I think six continents, maybe not six.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, six.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, that obviously geography wasn't our strength in school, folks.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's like a lifetime number, but most of that has been in the last 10 years, yeah, the last decade.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And on left turn travels, we're going to be sharing all the ins and outs of our life, practical logistics about this, as well as our favorite places and adventures.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: But today for the first episode, we thought we would go over the most common questions that we get whenever we tell somebody we're digital nomads.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the first question is generally something on the order of, well, what does that mean?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or what does your life look like as a digital nomad?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, Hudson, just see if you can give them the overview.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, this this adventure started in 2016.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: Ken and I both were raising the girls.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: We were living a very um, I mean, we were we would travel when we had our vacation time, often to Europe or other places.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: But we it was a very classic lifestyle that we lived there.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we would work, we would plan our vacations, we would go on those, and we'd come back and we'd dive back into our regular nine to five lives.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and you'd come back from like your week or even if you had a two-week vacation and you'd be like more exhausted than when you left usually because you were going, going, going.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then you would be catching up on all the work that you missed while you were gone and you'd be twice as busy.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and especially when the girls were younger, then we'd really be exhausted coming back from vacation because we were we were go, go, go for sure with those two.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so we um in 2016, we we had a great opportunity to relocate to France.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh initially it was going to be a one-year relocation.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: It was going to be a full-time one.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: We did a house swap with a French family where we moved into their house, we got their car, we um got actually Well, no, we didn't get their pets.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't get their pets, but we brought our pets with us.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: But we relocated to Lyon, France, which is the third largest city in France.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: And uh one year turned into two years.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: We moved into a different house, and our youngest daughter moved over to live with us for the last uh 15 months we were there.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: Our older daughter was in uh college at that time.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: But so we were there from 2016 to 18, and what we realized living in France for two years was it was a completely different experience.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of like flying in on a plane and being there for a week, we just lived there.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: We went to the groceries, we went to the restaurants, we you had your favorite boulangerie where the French lady who was so sweet knew you because we would come in all the time and would help you learn French.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think the term is gently chide me on my French and forced me to order in French.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: And when I made the mistake, she would lovingly correct me and set me up and then quiz me the next time I came out.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: But we we really loved living in France.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: So when we came back, we came back to Boulder, we got back into our house, and we very, very quickly realized that we wanted to spend more time on the road and we really wanted to figure out a way to travel.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we we were empty nesters because our youngest daughter had moved out at that time.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: And we were, we, we kind of had the same thing.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone said an empty nest.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: We thought, let's go try to find some place to move to.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: And but we didn't want to make the mistake of moving somewhere and not being happy.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: So we set a goal for ourselves.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: We said for two years, one to two years, we're gonna live in a couple locations till we figure out where we want to buy our next home.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: But we but we kind of knew even at that point when we were in France, we're like, we would like to get to a point where we can be half the year in abroad, probably Europe, and half the year in the US.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that was always kind of a goal that we were working towards.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we ended up selling our house in 2019 and um living around, bouncing around, and we thought this was going to be a one or two year thing.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we're now what, seven years into this uh since we sold the house.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: We are still traveling, we're still going to new places, we're still hitting new spots, uh, and we're really, quite frankly, kind of loving it, I think.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it I would say that I feel younger today than I did 10 years ago for sure.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: It definitely takes you out of the rut of the day-to-day that you do for a lot of like your 30s and 40s, like when you're settled down, you're working, you're married, you have kids, and you have your routine.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that we didn't love our life or we didn't love Boulder, but it's a routine.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so now by moving to different locations throughout the year, it feels like it shakes up our routine and it makes it much more interesting.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And when we when we come back to a place that we haven't been or go to a new place, it's all fresh and not just a routine.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I will say that uh our life is a lot less clutter these days because selling a house and moving and spending six months on the road, you realize very quickly that uh you really don't need much more than what will fit in a rollerboard and a backpack.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was interesting because when we moved to France, we each took, I think, two big roller bags, like large ones.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're not that you know that you have to check.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and at one point we maybe brought uh in a trip back to the US, we brought a little more stuff back, like ski gear or something like that.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think we brought like a duffel bag back.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: But and even at the end of that, we realized for even for two years, we really didn't need a lot more.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: We really actually could have done with less.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you needed something, you could just go buy it.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Don't forget, we we also brought two other big pieces of luggage, our uh our Labrador retriever and our cat, which uh was actually well, the the plane rod was a train wreck for the poor dog.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: The cat didn't care, but yeah, we that that'll be a whole nother episode.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be a whole nother episode.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: That will be.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: But uh yeah, so you know, we realize what what our life looks like these days is that uh we have, I would say, trimmed 95% of our possessions that we had 10 years ago.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, which is amazing.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Are gone for sure.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and you know what we have now is, you know, like we've we've been on the road.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: We left the United States this year on New Year's Eve, and we have been gone.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we you're finding us talking to you in mid-May.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we've been gone now for five and a half months, and we will not be getting back to the US for another three and a half months.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: So we are on the road with a piece of luggage each and a backpack each and uh some tennis rackets.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Tennis rackets, that's the important part.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: We have become kind of tennis fiends since we became uh digital nomad, empty nestards, because we realize it's a very portable sport that we can do anywhere.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's actually also a nice social sport that we can meet other people.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you know, the other key ingredient to this is that over several years of moving around, we we have uh settled on, we have a uh small condominium in Hilton Head Island right by the beach.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Which we only bought two years ago.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Two years ago, but we had spent several years before that there.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, we take our condo when we're not there, we rent it.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we also bought five years ago a condominium in southern Portugal that uh when we're here, we're in it, but when we're not here, we rent it.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: So we have two places, but unlike we're not closing them up when we go.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: So when we leave, everything in the place has to be used by renters.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it's forced us to not have a lot of possessions.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, yeah, so that's good.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we so typically now we spend anywhere from three to six months in the US, and our home base there is Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, which we love.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of friends there and really enjoy it.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we're there typically in the fall, winter time.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then we go on the road and we're often here in Portugal, depending on the year, for anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then the rest of the time we're we pick somewhere and we travel slash live there for a significant period of time.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like for us, two weeks is a short visit.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: We like to be a month or longer whenever possible.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: We we we like to get comfortable and do that.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, uh another question we get asked just uh we get asked a ton by people is, you know, why did you do this?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like people, we people look at us cross-eyed and they're just like, what, why did you do this?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, you there's a lot of people out there that have trips that and they're younger backpackers doing this type of stuff or traveling the world.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, look, we're as we like to say, we're in our third act of our life.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we're in a time when most people are starting to slow down and settle and we've done the polar opposite.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: We've hit the road and we're doing this.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: So people always kind of ask us, Why are you doing this?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, Kim, why why are you doing this?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, for Besides the fact you want to follow your beautiful husband.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, it's just new experiences, sort of keeps life fresh and from feeling like you're just sort of on a treadmill or in a rut.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I love my work and what I do.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now I consult and I do it part-time.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's very easy to do remotely.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I just like whenever you go someplace new, or even like when we come back to Portugal where where we've been before, you know, it just sort of changes things up.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I like that part of it.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you know, what I will say is I said this a little bit earlier, but uh I find I feel younger doing this.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: I really do.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: When we go to a new place and we settle in, you know, the the urge to adventure and to just roam around, like one of my favorite things to do is when we go to a new city and we're like gonna be there for a month.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: I just I get so excited to just take off and walk around.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: And oftentimes, you know, you'll be working, you'd be like, What are you gonna do?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like I'm I'm gonna hit the road, I'm gonna walk around.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be back in three hours.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I just like to go explore.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I really find that, you know, doing all that, it just it imbues me with an energy that I kind of find I come home and I'm just excited.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think the other thing as like Americans, because we have such a large country and you know, it's a long way from one end to the other, and there's a lot of stuff in it, that we don't leave the country as much.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like I did not go outside of the US except for Canada until I was in my 20s, right?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I hadn't gone outside the United States until I drove to Alaska when I was 20.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'd never been outside.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and then after that, you went down to like Central America when you were in your 20s as well, kind of did the backpacking.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Mid-20s.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we've both done kind of the young backpacking thing.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: That is not who we are.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I don't sleep in unfamiliar, unclean beds at this point or on the ground.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I need showers and clean clothing.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: We could have a whole episode on Times where we've walked in and Kim just goes, hmm, yeah, I don't think this is gonna work.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So we we need to start adapting immediately.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's barely happened.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: That it just takes the right planning.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: But we're not, we're definitely not the the hostile backpacker types.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're also not kind of the influencers that like fly into a place, uh, show up, take a few photos with like a pouty mouth and looking their best.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: That is not us either.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Although we do, we have seen so many that they I, you know, I could almost I thought about this the other day.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: I could almost start a web page that is a capture the influencer where you shoot a picture of them looking ridiculous, shooting pictures of themselves.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like I I it's not a bad idea.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: Just be like, I got another one.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Look at this one because we've seen some pretty interesting behavior over the years.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like also at our age, we're not about that, but like I just can't understand people that like arrive at a place however they get there.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing they do is get out of their car and figure out where the best place is to take a picture of themselves before they even like look around or experience the place they're in or get to know a little bit about it.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just all about the Instagram photo.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we take a lot of photos, you take a lot of photos, but that's not really the purpose of our travel.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you know, I think part of the reason, you know, why we do this is, you know, I I certainly have had for a long time in my life a bit of an adventurous, adventurous streak in my body where I've always wanted to kind of go adventuring and exploring.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think, you know, by nature I'm a bit of a contrarian, so I don't really like to follow the rules.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: You don't like to follow the rules?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I know.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it does make for some interesting, uh, interesting conversations and outings and experiences sometimes, I think.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: Would that be correct to say?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, sometimes we need to compromise.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sometimes I'm told get your ass back over here and get in line, is what it means.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, we just uh we started doing this, we started traveling this, and we were just like, why not?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's part of the reason why we're doing this podcast is we want to share kind of what we've learned and what we're doing.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, if someone out there is interested in living this life, we want to kind of give them an opportunity and a peek behind the curtain to show you that you can do this too.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, anyone can do this type of life.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just talk about a few, like high level, like where are some of the places that we've been over the past, you know, we lived in France for two years, so we talked about that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when we take our bigger, longer trips and we're gone for six months, where have we gone?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: So Portugal, we mentioned, so we come here at least some every year.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, we've we've pretty much been absolutely all over Europe, especially Western Europe.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've hit just about, I think the only one we haven't hit is what's the little tiny one up by Switzerland?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like what's the Liechtenstein?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we haven't hit Liechtenstein.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Or Luxembourg.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Luxembourg, Luxembourg, we haven't done it.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: We haven't, but we've hit just about everywhere else in Europe, and we've done some pretty, you know, long stays.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, one of the highlight ones is God, the two months in Copenhagen was just that was that was probably one of my favorites.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we did two months in Copenhagen.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: We did um two summers, we went to different places in Canada, actually.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one was during COVID.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: We did a we drove up to Prince Edward Island.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: We did three months there.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And did three months there, which was really I loved it.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was very different.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was very kind of quiet and rural.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we did three months in Montreal, which was the polar opposite.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very kind of cosmopolitan and energetic, foody.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we've yeah, we've done that like we said earlier.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: We've been to, we just uh went down and did six weeks in New Zealand and six weeks in Australia.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, we we hit Singapore on the way back.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Asia is very big on the uh future board where we're going to be heading to is more explorations there.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: We did do about a month in South Africa a couple years ago.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep, we did that.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: And this year, this year we're we're continuing our project of exploring uh Eastern Europe.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yet last year we were in what Poland for six weeks.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then we were up in Tallinn, Estonia for about two and a half weeks.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: We're heading back to Tallinn because we liked it so much and we want to explore it a bit more, and we're gonna hit uh Latvia when we're up there.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: But so we kind of were hitting, we did Columbia, we were in Columbia, the country for a month and a half, I think, something like that.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a couple years ago.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Love that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we're kind of we we we have a circle that we expand.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, people always ask us like where are you picking where to go?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we're kind of we there is a plan to it, but it's I one of us might have a bit more of a plan, the other one might just say, why not?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's a little bit whimsical at times.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be like, let's try this next year.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we do kind of plan it in advance, yeah.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we sometimes mix in sort of shorter stints in cities that we haven't been to that we want to maybe sample, so to speak.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we did last year we did like a week in Budapest and five days in Vienna.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: We've never been to either and loved both of those.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we were just a week in Singapore on our way back from Australia and New Zealand on our way to Portugal from there, which was fun.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: We had never done that before.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes if we do like a week somewhere, we're kind of test driving it.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like Budapest, we could we could go back and do more time at Budapest.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like we really, really liked that.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: In Poland, my God, we're we're gonna definitely be going back to Poland.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we we have loved the Nordics.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: We've been for shorter periods of time to Norway, and we did a short stint in Sweden a couple years back.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: We got to go there again for a longer period of time.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then we did a long time in Copenhagen.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now we've been kind of focusing a little bit on the Baltics, so trying to get that sorted out.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then we've got a lot more of Eastern Europe that we haven't hit yet.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and and part of what we're going to be doing on this podcast is, you know, we're going to, you know, episodes will be on things we've learned.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, there could be one of the ones I want we'll talk about is, you know, basically how do you time shift?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: How do you how do you work remote work on the road?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: But other ones are going to be, you know, let's talk about Tasmania where we just were for two weeks, which was fantastic.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about, you know, Prague.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about, you know, other spots and really what we found there.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: So we want to share with people where we've been, some of the exciting stuff we've done, but also we want to share how we work remotely, you know, how we plan this, which, you know, that God bless my beautiful wife, since that's the planner of the family.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So just one little thing that people do ask, or big thing, which is one of the first things they ask, which is where do you stay?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I'd say is we rarely stay in a hotel.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so typically we'll only stay in a hotel if we're gonna be in a place for a short period of time for just a few days.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like last year, we were in Vienna for four nights, I think, or five nights, and it was just there wasn't a lot of Airbnb options.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we we did a hotel.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: But generally, we really prefer to stay in an Airbnb because we want a kitchen.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're typically gonna be there for a longer period of time.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: We often need like an extra bedroom or workspace so we can both work while we're there.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: So Airbnb is probably 98% of what we do.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: We were the week we were in Budapest, we stayed in the funkiest, coolest Airbnb on the cloud.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: That place was great, yeah.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, our host was wonderful.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that, I mean, it was that place was like a pat across from the past and with the future vibe.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just it was so fun and cool and funky as hell to hang out in.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: We loved that place.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it was in this old building that was obviously looks like it was probably built during the communist era, that this owner had completely renovated the interior.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: And when you came in through the entrance, you're like, What the hell is this place?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, like the it it would I we'll have to share some pictures on our stack or the creaky, the creaky rotten elevator, and then the open open courtyard in between it that like people are literally hanging all their laundry outside and smoking cigarettes as they grill on a tiny little grill outside.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: But the funny part was like the building sort of infrastructure didn't look great.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: The apartment was fantastic.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was updated, beautiful, modern, air conditioning, comfortable bed.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was perfect.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes, like, you know, and it's like that also in France a lot of times.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like you'll be in a building, the apartments are great, but like the the stairways or everything are just old, right?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they've been retrofitted with some type of elevator.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: So we, you know, the so when we stay, we often what we'll do is, you know, our preferred method of stay is to be somewhere for about a month is a minimum.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the last couple of years we've been doing a little bit of shorter stretches just because, you know, like in Poland, we did what, three, four weeks in Krakow and two weeks in Gdansk.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we trimmed and this last trip to Australia, New Zealand, we were moving around a lot more because we wanted to see it.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: But part of that was this was reconnaissance.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like we already, we already have agreed we're going back down to New Zealand and Australia again, probably multiple times we're gonna go down there because and now we really have a better idea of okay, we're gonna hit this.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like we go to New Zealand, we're gonna go to this place.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: So Yeah.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and we can talk about all those locations soon, but we're probably getting close to the end of our time.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we really are you what you're pushing me out the door already?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Just keeping us moving along.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, goodness gracious.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, uh, I I had an idea I hadn't told you about yet, Kim.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I I I think you'll like it.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I don't know.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you'll like it.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Should I be afraid?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, uh it's something that I myself, who I might be a bit more of a is what do you what's the term you use for me?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Am I an oversharer?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: Dramatic?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I am not dramatic.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: I am emotional.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, let's move it along here.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there you go.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's my serious wife.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I well, I thought it would be fun to do uh with this episode, and I think with every episode would be I'd like to ask ask you a couple questions that you don't really know what questions I'm asking you.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then if you want to ask me one, more power to you.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: If not, no big deal.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: Would you would you be out for that?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I could do that.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: What was the one thing that you most look forward to?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: What's the one thing you look forward to the most when we get to our condo in the Algarve?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's probably two things.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: So one is um because we've been here before and we know the place, it's very relaxing where we are in the Algarve.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I like coming here and knowing that we're gonna have some downtime and just some time to relax and not be going and moving around as much.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this year, especially because we were three months in Australia, New Zealand, we did move around a lot more than we normally do, which sort of wears on you a little bit after a while.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I especially was looking forward to that.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: But then the other big thing once we get here is the produce and the Algarve oranges, which are in season right now, are so fantastic.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're so flavorful and so juicy.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I grew up in Florida, so we had oranges, but I don't remember them tasting like this because I think they were mostly juice oranges.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And these are so wonderful.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I look forward to that each year.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and don't forget the incredible strawberries we had for the first three weeks here.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, my God, they were amazing.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the price was amazing too, because like now, like obviously everything's really expensive in the US and in other places as well.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: But we got here and like a whole flat of strawberries was I think like what five euros, which is what six and a half bucks or something, six bucks, depending on the exchange rate, which I think that would be like three times that in the US.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and they were absolutely ridiculous and obviously picked from very close by because they were Portugal strawberries.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: So they were just exploding with flavor.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like it when they're local.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I also think there's not as much in Europe in general, there's not as much like pesticides and processing.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when they're local, they haven't been like shipped and refrigerated.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so it just makes them really good.
• 28:52
  unknown: All right.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I have one other question for you.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Are you really gonna try to spay Sammy, our the cat that we seem to have adopted on our back deck?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: The feral cat that that started showing up three weeks ago that we well, someone's in their soft heart might have decided to feed.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: So now we we have a little black cat that's visiting us three times a day for cat food.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and I she's obviously a young lady because she went through heat a little bit ago.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, are you really gonna try to spay her?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I might try to get her spayed.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because there's a lot of feral cats here, and it's not as common, I think, here for people to like spay and neuter their pets.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm like, well, I don't want her to have like a bunch more kittens that then become feral, and then they have kittens that become feral.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like it just exacerbates the problem.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I I would try to like capture her and then get her spayed and then um let her go back.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think she's still gonna be a feral cat.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Do I need to go buy leather gloves for you to sugar?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because no, I'm I think I will get like a little cage of some sort, like a cat carrier.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then because she's now used, she she just showed up one day.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: We had never ever seen her before.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: We'd never had a cat before.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Just showed up one day.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: We opened our blinds in the morning and she was sitting on our deck.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like the first day, I think we fed her a little bit of turkey, lunch meat or something we had.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was like, well, after the second day of doing that, I was like, we might as well at least get cat food.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think it would be the responsible, even though we're not, we don't not her pet owner, I think it would be responsible.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so for the last question, because I know we're getting to the end of our time here.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we've been on the road since New Year's Eve this year.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we're four and a half months, I guess, in.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: What is your favorite thing that we've done so far this year?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm, that's a good question.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: We've definitely done a lot.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think, you know what?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think what I would really say is the two weeks we spent in Tasmania uh was pretty fantastic.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's yeah, we both didn't know really anything about Tasmania.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: We had been told when we were planning this from an Australian uh woman that we knew here in the Algarve, we played tennis with, she was like, go to Tazie, mate.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: Tazie's amazing.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: So we were like, all right, let's uh let's do it.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we it was one of the first places we hit in Australia.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: We were there for two weeks.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: We traveled all over the island.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: And Tasmania was just the landscape was beautiful.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: The food was food and wine and beverages was absolutely amazing.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: The beaches were beautiful, secluded, quiet beaches.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: The people were absolutely wonderful with a very wry sense of humor, very much very Australian in their sense of humor.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And fantastic wine that doesn't is barely exported because it basically is mostly consumed locally or maybe a little bit in Australia.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty much everything in Tasmania they produce pretty much stays on the island.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: They have a board-winning whiskeys, spirits, their food, their produce.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: It all just stays there.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: And the people are just incredibly friendly.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I have to say that was fantastic.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: And swimming in the Tasmanian Sea, which was icy cold, was just fantastic.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you know, I did pay attention for all the sharks that are all down that neck of the woods.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I really, I really liked that.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll do a whole episode about Tasmania at some point, probably in the not too distant future while still fresh in our minds.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that's a wrap for our first episode.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think we covered a good ground.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um if you guys would like to discover some left turns in your own life, if you might want to be inspired, please like and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and join us on some next episodes of Left Turn Travels.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for joining us.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know what?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: I I think this went pretty well.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think it went pretty well.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: I I think I think I followed your advice and restrained myself.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: Look forward to seeing you again here soon.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: Bye.