Latest / Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences / 3 Years, 80+ Countries: The Solo Traveler's Journey

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3 Years, 80+ Countries: The Solo Traveler's Journey · Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences

• 0:00
  Good evening. Or whenever you're turning on.
• 0:03
  Welcome to another episode. Today we're doing something a
• 0:07
  little different. It's not an expat episode, but
• 0:10
  an experience episode, and I'm incredibly excited about it.
• 0:16
  My guest today is Carl, an amazing individual whose story I
• 0:19
  actually stumbled upon on Reddit.
• 0:22
  Imagine this, a 33 year old man who has spent the last three
• 0:27
  years traveling the entire world, visiting over 80
• 0:29
  countries. We're going to dive deep into
• 0:33
  what truly inspired such an epic journey.
• 0:36
  We'll talk about the honest realities of founding it.
• 0:39
  Yes, we even touch on privilege, navigating challenges like
• 0:43
  loneliness, discovering hidden gems in places like Kazakhstan,
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  and how continuous travel fundamentally reshapes your
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  perspective on money, belongings, and even what home
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  truly means. Get ready for an unfiltered,
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  inspiring conversation you won't want to miss.
• 1:00
  I'm Paul and this is whereabouts stills.
• 1:04
  Enjoy good evening or whenever you have clicked this episode.
• 1:11
  Is it an afternoon or day? I'm happy to have you here to
• 1:15
  Hey, today we have a special episode, not the typical expert
• 1:19
  episode, but the travel an experience episode.
• 1:23
  Today I have Carl, and maybe Carl you could say a few words
• 1:28
  about yourself first before I tell your story.
• 1:31
  Yeah, Hello everyone. My name is Carl, I'm from
• 1:35
  Austria. I'm like 33 years old and I've
• 1:39
  been travelling now for the past 2 1/2, almost three years and I
• 1:44
  think, I guess that's that's why I'm here today.
• 1:48
  For sure, for sure. I, I have to, I have to tell me
• 1:51
  the story of how how I find you or how we get in contact.
• 1:54
  I've seen me on on Reddit. I hope that's OK for you to
• 1:57
  share. But I've seen on I've seen on
• 2:00
  Reddit and ask me anything and the the title made me extremely
• 2:04
  curious. The title was I'm 33, a man and
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  I travelled the whole world the last I think three years, he
• 2:12
  wrote. And that was 85 plus countries,
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  right? Yeah, yeah, about 8181 now, I
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  think. Impressive story.
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  I'm I read the AMA in preparation of this episode.
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  I have to say impressive story. I'm I'm extremely happy that
• 2:27
  they're accepted to share it here.
• 2:28
  Carl may be a few a few words about yourself.
• 2:31
  You you said you you came you're coming you're you're born in
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  Austria or coming from Austria. But how was the how was the
• 2:38
  childhood you had the normal child because I'm trying to
• 2:41
  understand what triggered your curiosity to go in this
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  direction. It's.
• 2:45
  An interesting one, I would say. Probably quite quite normal.
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  I think I just, I grew up in a family where a lot of people
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  were at least interested in travelling or travelled quite a
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  fair bit. So like my, my grandparents for
• 2:59
  example, already travelled quite a bit.
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  And of course travelling back then was completely different
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  and much more difficult I think than it is nowadays.
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  Now you just Google for something and it's easy.
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  Back then it was much more more tricky and, and I, I think my
• 3:15
  parents like travelling as as well.
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  My aunt lived in China for a long time.
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  So I've had like all these influences around me all the
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  time that were kind of also eager to, to go somewhere else
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  and, and we got new places. And I think that's what
• 3:30
  influenced me kind quite early on to this travel.
• 3:34
  That's, that's really interesting.
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  I, I never had someone to have so much travel in his life.
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  Were you travelling a lot also as a child?
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  Not too much like we've had the occasional vacation.
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  I would say there's a few that were further away when I was
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  very small, like maybe like 3 years old or four or five years
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  old or something like this. Then we didn't really travel for
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  for quite a while until I started travelling myself when I
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  was like 15 years old or 16 years old.
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  And then I started travelling with like friends from school or
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  school trips or something like this.
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  So I think just really early on. And then there was a break, and
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  then I kind of got curious myself.
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  Nice. And you, you grew up in Austria,
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  went to school, went to university or started normal
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  job? But did someone or did some?
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  Did the idea already was in your head to do this?
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  It's been in my head for quite a long time.
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  So, so it's correct that I, I grew up here, I studied here,
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  but I also lived in the US and in, in the UK.
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  So that was kind of part of part of my studies as well.
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  And yeah, so, so that idea of like travelling a lot in
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  general, even when I was studying, I was trying to travel
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  as much as possible. I didn't have any, any money
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  back then, so there was no budget.
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  So that I, I looked out forward those places that had the
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  cheapest flights. This is how I chose like I, I
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  had no expectation of, of saying, Oh, I this is the good
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  place I want to go to and I'll book a ticket there.
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  No, I always checked like what's the cheapest flight?
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  I don't care wherever it is, just what is, what can I afford?
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  And then quite often came back with like, you know, 5-5 bucks
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  left on my bank account And I, I knew I had to work the next day
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  immediately. So it has been in my head for a
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  long time, but I, I couldn't afford it for most of the time.
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  And it was quite focused on just building a career and like
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  saving money for a long time. But it, the idea has been in my
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  head for at least 10 years, if not longer.
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  And and that's kind of where I also started like saving up for
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  it and having more or less like a plan in my head, but but it
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  only up until like a few months before I actually made the
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  decision, I kind of really refined that plan and came to
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  like a conclusion of what I actually want to do.
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  You were talking about money. And I have to say the moment in
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  in which I knew I I had to contact you was when I saw, I
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  think it was the first or the second question that asked me
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  anything because that's what people everyone is curious
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  about. How do you get the how do you
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  had how have you had the money to do the traveling?
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  And I loved your answer, man. I have to say the the the the
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  the honesty. I've never seen it anywhere.
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  I look a lot on this EM as I have the somehow the feeling
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  most of the times people are trying to throw a different
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  version of themselves. I don't know if you remember the
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  answer. Do you remember it?
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  Yeah, I mean the gist of it, because it's it's that's the
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  question I get the most is like people asking me when I tell
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  them about it, it's like, how do you, how did you afford it?
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  That's the number one first question by by far.
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  And I yeah, please go on. Go on.
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  No, go ahead, Go ahead. And I, I love how you said it.
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  I I in, in that there I think there are three parts answer, if
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  I remember it correctly. And that and was somehow told me
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  that you had a long time plan because you said saving, you
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  said good planning. And I think the third, the first
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  one, which which made me smile as well, was I'm I'm making
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  using the word now. I think I just wrote privilege
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  right? Privilege exactly, Yes.
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  Privilege. Yes, yes, yes.
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  Can you, can you give a bit of details here?
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  Not in, not in the, not in the privileged part, because I think
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  that's, that's pretty private. But I would say in the saving
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  part, you said that you save up for about 10 years.
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  Carl, how, how was the process was that?
• 7:41
  No. How was the process first?
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  First time? How was the process?
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  I mean, that's, it's, it's really for me, it's a question
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  of priorities, right? It's, it's a question of how
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  important is that really, really to you?
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  And IA lot of people that asked me that question of how I could
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  afford it are people that are usually much more well off than
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  me or were born with more privilege than I did.
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  So for me, I find it interesting to get that question of someone
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  who's in a better position to do something like this than me.
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  Actually, it comes down, it comes down to priorities, right?
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  So like the way I live my life is like, I don't buy a lot of
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  expensive things. I don't own, like an apartment,
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  I don't own like a car. It's these are things that are
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  not important for me to own them.
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  For someone else they might be important.
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  But for me, travelling was something that is really, really
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  important. And so I started kind of saving
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  early on while I was studying, for example.
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  And of course, I had like some student jobs where you couldn't
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  save a lot of money, but I had that money on my bank account.
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  And just because travelling was a priority, I spent it.
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  Maybe sometimes I'm travelling and if not, then I would, I
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  would save it, but there was nothing else that I would really
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  spend a lot of money of money on.
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  And that kind of kick starts the process.
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  And of course, as you progress in your career, then if you're
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  lucky, then you get more money as you progress from your job.
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  So what, you can just save more money, but then it also becomes
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  a question of how much money you're spending for travelling
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  afterwards. I think this is something, I
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  mean, maybe we talk about later as well, but but for me, it's
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  really about the priority. Like we all have our priorities
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  and what we want to spend money on.
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  And this was something where I knew I want to spend money on
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  this. So I have to save, save, save up
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  money on this. And and because you just
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  mentioned it before, I think privilege, I mean, we don't have
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  to go into it too much, but it does play a role, right?
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  Travelling is a luxury. So it is really important to
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  keep that in mind and that everyone that is travelling and
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  goes out and even if it's just a holiday for once, for once a
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  year, this is a luxury. This is something very
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  privileged to do. It's a very new privilege as
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  well. Like the way we travel hasn't
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  existed not even for like half a decade, right?
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  So that's, that's something that is so incredibly new that we can
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  do this and we can find suddenly flights in Europe for like 20
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  bucks or like 30 bucks or going further away for something that
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  is now expensive, but it's still much cheaper than it was like 20
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  years ago. So it is, it is about privilege
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  as well. And there are people that are
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  privileged that can go travelling and others that can't
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  go. That's just the reality of, of
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  the world. And I think it's important to be
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  honest about it like, and, and to make the most of it.
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  Like we, I didn't choose to have the privilege that I have, but I
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  tried to make the most out of it.
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  And I think that's important. I think earlier touching a
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  really important topic, the fact that we are able to travel as
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  easy as we are, we have today it's something that that was not
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  imaginable 100 years ago. And sometimes I think of course
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  we're living in Europe. And I think this is also bubble
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  because I think we talk about people living in Africa or maybe
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  living in the Southeast and Asia where we all go for them.
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  It's not so easy to go outside. And I think we, we have to talk
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  all open about this, about this privilege bubble.
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  Let's, we can also call it in this case like this or say, OK,
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  we are in Europe. We have the advantages that we
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  have, we have, we have the possibilities that we have.
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  And I think that's, that's really worth mentioning And
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  thank you for doing that. I think that it's not only the
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  privilege that you have from home, but also the privilege of
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  being born here and also the easiest to travel.
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  I think even being being with an Austrian passport, the the is
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  the privilege of the passport. I think in one of my previous
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  episodes, episodes, Priyanka said is that people living in
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  Europe are not aware of the passport privileges that are
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  actually see Europe. She was from, she was from
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  India. And she said that she was living
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  in London and said, yeah, whatever.
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  Our colleague was asking her, why don't you go to Amsterdam
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  for a weekend? Because I'm not allowed to
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  because I need a visa for that. No, it is, It is, yeah.
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  It's interesting that you mentioned that the passport I
• 11:53
  had a, a kind of interesting encounter in, in Tanzania at the
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  airport counter itself, whereas I was back then travelling from
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  Tanzania to the UK And back then the UK was still part of part of
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  the EU. So I, I just showed him my
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  passport and he asked me for my visa and I told him I, I live
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  there. I don't need a visa because it's
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  part of, of the European Union. And the guy, he was working at
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  the airport at the counter and he started laughing because it
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  was so unimaginable for him that I can just go to another
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  country. He really started like asking me
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  questions about it, like because he couldn't imagine that I can
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  just go to another country without having to apply for a
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  visa. So, so it is an absolute
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  privilege to have a passport. Or you can just very easily go
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  to other places and don't think about the visa.
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  And people get up. Like people in Austria get upset
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  when they have to like go to Vietnam or something and they
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  they have to apply for a visa. Then they are like, oh, I have
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  to go through this. We're just not used to it.
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  Exactly like when you leave. Like this is a matter of habit,
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  right? Exactly.
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  So Kyle, you did everything, you worked, you saved.
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  Was that the the the amount of money that you had in your
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  savings savings account that triggered the moment to say yes,
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  I'm leaving now or was was it something else?
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  It was a factor for sure that I just had the feeling, OK, now I
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  have an amount of money that will give me kind of the, the
• 13:27
  mental safety that I need to just go out and not think too
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  much about where I'm going and what I'm doing.
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  And I, I can get as many experiences as I as I want to
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  have without having that holding me back.
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  I think that was one key factor. Then I think career progression
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  for me, career was very, very important early on.
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  So, and my career progressed really fast.
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  I would say it, especially in the last few years and I just
• 13:58
  felt OK, I'm in a position where I'm comfortable leaving the job
• 14:03
  market for a while and still being able to return back at
• 14:07
  some point, maybe not exactly at the same point, maybe a little
• 14:10
  bit, I don't know. I have to like catch up a little
• 14:13
  bit or whatever, but that's fine for me.
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  But I'm still at a point where I'm really kind of safe that I
• 14:18
  can return back at some point. That was really important for me
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  to have that, to have that safety as well.
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  And then just a few things came together.
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  I ended a relationship just a little bit before that, for
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  example. So I had that kind of kind of
• 14:34
  freedom for myself as well to say, OK, now is a good time to
• 14:40
  to do this actually. So it's.
• 14:43
  A combination of everything at the end.
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  Yeah. What was the What was the report
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  between fear and excitement? A bit of both, right?
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  It needs to, it needs to be a, it needs to be a good
• 14:59
  combination of both. Like exactly.
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  I think for something to do something like this and really
• 15:05
  enjoy it, it has to be both. So the excitement was there
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  because it was kind of going into the unknown and just not
• 15:13
  knowing what's what's going to happen, where I'm going to end
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  up, which countries I'm going to and and how long I will be gone,
• 15:21
  how much I will even enjoy it. Like these are questions that
• 15:24
  can go through your head. The fear was there because of
• 15:28
  course, it comes with like sacrifice.
• 15:29
  So I gave away my apartment. I gave away all my belongings
• 15:32
  that I had, like all the furniture and stuff like this.
• 15:35
  And that's kind of an anchor that we have is just the things
• 15:40
  we we own and the apartment that we are in and kind of that safe
• 15:45
  space that we have for ourselves.
• 15:47
  And just giving that up, of course, was quite frightening at
• 15:51
  the beginning because I wasn't used to that.
• 15:54
  It was the first time I didn't have a place where I actually
• 15:56
  live. I didn't have my furniture and
• 15:58
  all that, all that stuff. So it was definitely frightening
• 16:02
  going out, seeing my apartment becoming emptier and emptier,
• 16:07
  and then handing over the keys and being like, OK, now I
• 16:10
  actually don't have a place. That was very, very frightening
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  at the time. You just forget about it very
• 16:18
  fast once the excitement kicks in.
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  That's once you start then travelling and you have all
• 16:23
  these things coming up like every day and all these
• 16:26
  experiences every day, then you forget about that stuff, like
• 16:28
  very incredibly quickly actually.
• 16:33
  You mentioned having about. You mentioned all of the
• 16:36
  questions having about 2000 pins from Google Maps.
• 16:41
  This on your phone on Google Maps.
• 16:43
  Yes. How was the?
• 16:46
  How was the decision making process when you started?
• 16:49
  How did you decide the direction which you go?
• 16:53
  The beginning was easy because we, I, I celebrated the birthday
• 16:57
  of one of my friends with another few friends.
• 16:59
  And we, we kind of, this was a planned vacation more or less
• 17:03
  that we had as a group of friends and we went to Colombia
• 17:07
  for that. So for me, the beginning was
• 17:09
  easy. It's like, OK, I'm going to
• 17:11
  South America. I might as well just stay there.
• 17:14
  I'm not going to go from Colombia then to Singapore or
• 17:17
  something, but I'm going to stay in that region, going to have a
• 17:21
  look in that region a little bit, see what is interesting.
• 17:24
  I don't know. I've been in that region before,
• 17:27
  but I haven't explored as much. So there was still a lot to
• 17:30
  discover for me in Colombia itself, but then also in other
• 17:33
  countries. And then as I went on, it kind
• 17:36
  of became very intuitive, but also very impulsive for me.
• 17:41
  Like I didn't have a plan of, OK, I'm going to be in Colombia
• 17:45
  for three weeks or 4 weeks or five weeks and then this and
• 17:48
  this and this and this. But I actually just flew there.
• 17:51
  And once my friends left, I stayed for a little bit.
• 17:54
  I went for hiking and did a few other things.
• 17:59
  And then I, I just had that feeling of OK, Now I've been a
• 18:03
  lot in the nature of, I've done a lot of nice things like hiking
• 18:06
  and stuff like this. I had to feeling like, OK, now I
• 18:10
  actually want to go out and enjoy the nightlife somewhere
• 18:13
  and go out and go to some good parties.
• 18:16
  So the natural thing for me to do was to check a flight for the
• 18:20
  day after tomorrow to go to Rio in Brazil.
• 18:24
  And it was fairly OK, the price. So I was like, OK, I might as
• 18:27
  well just book it. And so two days later I flew to
• 18:29
  Brazil and then stayed there. And that kind of became kind of
• 18:34
  how I progressed in each part of the world, just trying to listen
• 18:39
  to my gut and see what is the kind of experience that I want
• 18:42
  to have. And I think that was a key
• 18:43
  learning at the beginning as well, was not to focus so much
• 18:47
  on the places that I want to see, but much more on on the
• 18:52
  experience that I want to have and what I'm actually doing
• 18:55
  there. And yeah, experiencing there.
• 18:59
  How long were you in South America?
• 19:03
  So I went twice and and the first time was about 4 1/2
• 19:07
  months and the second time was a bit more than five months.
• 19:11
  You have visited all the countries.
• 19:14
  No, definitely not. No, not for sure.
• 19:16
  No, I haven't visited all the countries.
• 19:19
  So there's still like Venezuela, Sorry, now I'm Paraguay, among
• 19:23
  these countries missing for sure.
• 19:25
  And then there's big parts of the countries that I've been to
• 19:28
  for sure. Like for example, in Ecuador,
• 19:30
  I've been to a few places, but I haven't been to the Galapagos
• 19:33
  Islands and Peru, there's a lot I haven't seen and so on.
• 19:35
  So there's still an incredible amount to explore there still.
• 19:41
  What what stayed with you after South America?
• 19:45
  What experience stay with you? South America for me is is
• 19:51
  really the place where I would say from all the natural wonders
• 19:57
  that I've seen that were in absolutely incredible around the
• 20:00
  world. My top ten list would probably
• 20:03
  be all South America and Central America.
• 20:07
  Even though I'm a big fan of of being in Asian countries and I
• 20:10
  love Asian countries and I love African countries as well and
• 20:15
  even Europe is interesting, but. All the natural wonders were all
• 20:21
  in South America and Central America, like the probably my
• 20:23
  top ten. And I think that's what's
• 20:25
  really, really stayed with me where I find South America
• 20:28
  culturally a bit less interesting than Asia because
• 20:31
  it's I, I, I find it more uniform.
• 20:33
  But in terms of natural wonders, like by far all of the best
• 20:38
  things that I've seen were almost exclusively in South and
• 20:42
  and Central America. So you did 4.
• 20:47
  You said you did 4 1/2 months in South America first.
• 20:50
  Yeah. How was the plan versus reality
• 20:55
  from the budget perspective in the first four months?
• 21:03
  I didn't set out a budget. I think that's that's so so
• 21:06
  there wasn't too much of A plan actually.
• 21:08
  It was all very a talk and very impulsive, like just spending
• 21:15
  the money on what I want to do. And the one thing where I don't
• 21:17
  spend much money, and I think that's a sacrifice that I do as
• 21:20
  well is accommodation, because that's the, the, the key things
• 21:23
  that will drain your budget is transportation.
• 21:26
  So usually flights, especially if you book them really late and
• 21:31
  accommodation will also like drain your budget.
• 21:34
  That's where you can save the most, of course.
• 21:36
  So I stayed mostly in hostels throughout these three years and
• 21:40
  that really saved a lot of, lot of money for me.
• 21:44
  Of course, it's not for everyone, but I think that's the
• 21:47
  biggest savings you can kind of make more easily.
• 21:53
  I think in I think it's, it's, it varies from place to place.
• 21:57
  Some places I expect it to be cheaper, Some places I expect it
• 22:00
  to be to be more expensive. I've spent more time in Asia
• 22:05
  before, so I was used to having flights that were really, really
• 22:08
  cheap. So in South America was quite,
• 22:11
  I'm surprised by how expensive flights between countries
• 22:15
  countries are. And then it's sometimes the
• 22:19
  types the the flights will be cheap, like Argentina for
• 22:23
  example, the flights were relatively cheap actually.
• 22:27
  But then you're in the next country in Brazil, for example.
• 22:29
  And then flights within the country are really, really
• 22:32
  expensive. And then the second you have
• 22:34
  crossed the border, it becomes much, much, much more expensive,
• 22:37
  even though maybe you're only fly 200 kilometers more than the
• 22:41
  next airport that is within the country.
• 22:43
  But then even the flight will be double the price.
• 22:45
  So yeah, that's, that's something where I I had to
• 22:50
  adjust to the transportation just being much, much more
• 22:53
  expensive than I had expected. Did you have have you I, I'm not
• 23:00
  asking if you met someone on the way because I'm pretty sure you
• 23:02
  met a lot of people on the way. But did you have periods in
• 23:04
  South America when when you were not alone on your travels or you
• 23:08
  did solo the whole time? So I had two friends visiting me
• 23:13
  actually while I was in South America.
• 23:15
  Once was actually in the Caribbean and the Dominican
• 23:18
  Republic, and then once was was in Ecuador also for a couple of
• 23:23
  weeks. We had a friend from Austria
• 23:26
  visiting me there. So, but otherwise for most of
• 23:30
  the trip it was solo travelling. Of course, if you go to hostels,
• 23:34
  you're never really alone, you're not travelling alone, but
• 23:37
  total travelling in terms of of not being with your friends or
• 23:40
  your family from back home. Correct.
• 23:43
  Did you in any stage of of the travel have the had the feeling
• 23:48
  of loneliness? For sure, yeah, that's, that's
• 23:52
  definitely a big part. And it's an interesting part
• 23:56
  because you can be surrounded by a lot of people and still feel
• 23:58
  lonely, right. So that's, that's, I think a key
• 24:03
  learning for it as well is, is you will find a lot of nice,
• 24:08
  nice people around the world and, and you will find people
• 24:11
  that you click with and have a good time with.
• 24:15
  But then that changes a lot as you travel.
• 24:17
  They have maybe other plans, you have different plans, you go
• 24:20
  different ways and that happens quite a lot.
• 24:23
  And it drains you emotionally as well.
• 24:26
  Like it's really draining because you start kind of a new
• 24:29
  friendship every week or every two weeks and, and sometimes it
• 24:34
  works out and then it's really nice to have it while you have
• 24:37
  it. But then it's even more draining
• 24:39
  when it's gone. And maybe you spend weeks with
• 24:42
  those people and then afterwards you come to a new place and it
• 24:45
  feels like, OK, now you have to restart at 0 again.
• 24:49
  And you don't know if you're going to meet anyone that's
• 24:51
  going to be someone who's nice and who you want to spend time
• 24:55
  with. So, so it can just happen that
• 24:58
  for a week or for two or for three weeks, you don't meet
• 25:00
  anyone where you think, oh, that's someone that I want to do
• 25:04
  this activity with or go diving or whatever.
• 25:07
  And that can be, it can be, of course, course, quite, quite
• 25:11
  hard. Like especially I found it
• 25:14
  hardest when I met people that I really liked.
• 25:17
  And I had that, for example, in Thailand, I met two people and I
• 25:19
  spent like 2 weeks basically 24/7 with them.
• 25:22
  And then when I left from there and I went to a different
• 25:26
  island, I arrived there and for a week and I really didn't want
• 25:30
  to see anyone or meet anyone because I just felt like so
• 25:33
  drained from that, that now I have to start from zero again.
• 25:37
  And I just had this amazing experience with two people that
• 25:40
  it kind of made me feel quite lonely afterwards.
• 25:43
  But in a sense that I also don't want to meet anyone else, which
• 25:47
  is kind of strange, but it does for sure, for sure.
• 25:50
  I mean, you're far away from your friends, you're far away
• 25:53
  from your family. Of course you can FaceTime, but
• 25:56
  it's, I mean, since the pandemic, we all know it's not,
• 25:58
  that's not the same as seeing someone in person.
• 26:01
  And yeah, it's it, it can be really hard.
• 26:05
  Like even being surrounded by people you can feel really
• 26:07
  lonely. The, the, the thing with the
• 26:12
  friendship and, and like you said, two weeks of, of have you
• 26:15
  spending time with someone. You actually feel like a
• 26:17
  relationship is that it's right, Like a, like a love relation.
• 26:20
  I mean because it's not a love relationship but the person like
• 26:22
  you said, you spent 24/7 with someone and then you feel like
• 26:25
  oh what? Why?
• 26:26
  Why do you have to end? Why?
• 26:27
  How can I start from scratch? I think that's of course it
• 26:31
  sounds strange, but it is like this.
• 26:33
  No, it is like this and it's, it's the intensity of those of
• 26:35
  those friendships as well. Is, is because you usually like
• 26:41
  if you make new friends, like you have your, you, if you have
• 26:43
  your work and your, your things that you're doing, even if you
• 26:46
  go to a new place, there's only so much time you can spend with
• 26:49
  them. Like in a week, maybe you're
• 26:50
  going to see them like twice or it's already a lot.
• 26:52
  If you see them like 3 times for a couple of hours, but you're
• 26:57
  not going to spend like 2 weeks 24/7 with them and then do all
• 27:01
  of these amazing experiences. And it's just one great
• 27:03
  experience after another that you're doing.
• 27:06
  Usually this is the amount of time that you spend is usually
• 27:10
  what you would spend with someone in maybe like half a
• 27:12
  year. And so it feels also so much
• 27:14
  more intense when you've when you find those people and you
• 27:17
  spend the time with them. And so as you said, it feels
• 27:20
  like like your breakup afterwards when when you leave
• 27:24
  again, because you spent in such a short amount of time, so much
• 27:28
  time with them and experience so much with them that it just
• 27:31
  feels much more intense than if you would do that slowly.
• 27:35
  Correct what? What was the next step after
• 27:38
  South America? So for me, at the beginning,
• 27:42
  that was kind of very clear. For me, my big interests was
• 27:46
  always to go to more Asian countries, see more of Asia,
• 27:49
  100%. That's where most of my
• 27:53
  interests lied at that time. So for me it was clear, OK, I'm
• 27:57
  going from South America back home for the summer, stayed like
• 28:03
  about a month, maybe a bit longer.
• 28:06
  And then just, you know, repacked my stuff, left a lot of
• 28:10
  stuff back home as well that I didn't need.
• 28:12
  And then it was clear for me to fly to Asia.
• 28:15
  I didn't know where to start at the beginning, where in Asia for
• 28:20
  me, the process is quite chaotic.
• 28:21
  Like I, I, I then look at a lot of different places and I look
• 28:25
  at videos on Instagram and TikTok and blah blah.
• 28:27
  And then I look around and I can make a decision.
• 28:31
  And then I make a very fast decision.
• 28:34
  I'm like, OK, I'm going to fly to this place in like 3 days
• 28:38
  instead of planning it like beforehand and saying like, OK,
• 28:40
  I'm going to do this. So for me, I just really decided
• 28:43
  very quickly I was like, OK, I'm already too long back home.
• 28:46
  I'm going to fly in like 4 days to Bali and I'm just going to
• 28:49
  spend a month there, see what it's about, see how it is.
• 28:52
  And then from there I will go to Singapore.
• 28:55
  And then from there on, I don't know.
• 28:57
  So that was the process kind of, I knew exactly that I want to go
• 29:00
  to Asia. I didn't know exactly where, but
• 29:02
  then kind of figured out where where I should start.
• 29:05
  But this is the, the benefit of having don't, of not having the
• 29:09
  time limit, right? So because because I, we all, I,
• 29:14
  I do think that we all make plans because of the time limit
• 29:17
  that we have. We always have two weeks of
• 29:19
  holiday or three weeks of holiday, or I know a long
• 29:22
  weekend here, a long weekend there.
• 29:23
  And then you need this type plan.
• 29:25
  You need to know where you go and what to do.
• 29:27
  You didn't have this. So you said you you were back in
• 29:33
  in Austria for one month was because of the fact that you
• 29:38
  needed to be the people with the people you know again or was
• 29:42
  just how it worked out? I think at this point, so the
• 29:46
  first time I went back home, I think was more just how it
• 29:50
  worked out just because I had to feeling OK, it makes sense to go
• 29:55
  back home. I mean, I love the summer in
• 29:57
  Europe as well. It's it's just amazing so.
• 30:01
  It's only one month, unfortunately.
• 30:03
  More or less, yeah. No, but for me it was it.
• 30:07
  It just kind of felt like the natural progression of of going
• 30:11
  from South America, going back home, repacking all my stuff,
• 30:15
  kind of rethinking what my plans are and then going back to Asia.
• 30:20
  It was a little bit about the people, but I think the first
• 30:23
  time I went back home, it was a bit less about seeing my friends
• 30:26
  because not so much time had passed.
• 30:30
  That became more important, I think as I progressed, like then
• 30:35
  the years afterwards, that became more and more important
• 30:38
  to call back to see my friends and my family and spend, spend
• 30:42
  time with people that I've known for like decades.
• 30:46
  Not so much the first time, I have to admit.
• 30:50
  I hope they don't watch this. I miss you.
• 30:52
  You miss me? Yeah.
• 30:53
  OK. A bit.
• 30:59
  So we entered in, You said Bali then one month, right?
• 31:02
  Yeah, how is Bali to experience for one month?
• 31:10
  Really, Yeah, I don't know. I didn't have, The thing is, I
• 31:12
  didn't have too much of an expectation of, of Bali because
• 31:16
  I've heard of Bali a little bit before.
• 31:19
  But I I wasn't, let's say on Instagram or something targeted
• 31:24
  by any content from Bali or something like this.
• 31:27
  So I wasn't in that travel bubble where I would see Bali
• 31:31
  pop up constantly. So I went in with quite an open
• 31:36
  mind, which in in hindsight I, I found very nice not to have any
• 31:41
  expectation. Not I haven't.
• 31:43
  I hadn't even seen like a lot of pictures.
• 31:45
  Like I've seen like probably like 10 pictures or something of
• 31:47
  Bali. That's all I knew from Bali.
• 31:49
  So it was I I don't know how I dodged all the content because.
• 31:53
  I really don't. I really don't know.
• 31:55
  I have to be honest because I I also not but I see them.
• 31:59
  Yeah, I know, I know. Now it's everywhere.
• 32:00
  Now it's also my feet everywhere.
• 32:02
  But back then and it wasn't, and that was actually quite a nice
• 32:06
  experience. So I just came there with an
• 32:07
  open mind. I didn't know what to expect.
• 32:10
  I just knew I wanted to see like as many parts of Bali as
• 32:13
  possible and travelled around quite a bit, met some really
• 32:17
  nice people there as well. And I had a really, really good
• 32:22
  time. It wasn't, it wasn't the biggest
• 32:24
  adventure I had on like travelling the world because
• 32:31
  Bali's easy to travel around. There's infrastructure, it's
• 32:34
  cheap, there's electricity 24/7, there is Wi-Fi and Internet
• 32:38
  24/7. That's not given on other
• 32:41
  islands in, in Asia specifically.
• 32:45
  And so that makes it makes it really easy to go around and
• 32:49
  just explore, explore the island.
• 32:52
  Of course, it's very, very commercialized.
• 32:55
  So it's not the biggest adventure that I've had, but I,
• 32:59
  I think it's a really nice place to go to and, and also have like
• 33:03
  a routine. You can go there, you can go to,
• 33:05
  there's like nice gyms, there's like nice places to eat.
• 33:07
  There's still a lot of places you can see.
• 33:10
  And the tourist bubble there is very condensed to the South part
• 33:15
  of Bali. And once you leave that bubble,
• 33:17
  you're actually very fast in, in I would say more rural areas of
• 33:23
  Bali that are still more like, I imagine Bali to be like 20-30
• 33:27
  years, 30 years ago. So you still have those places
• 33:30
  there, but you have both. And I really like that contrast
• 33:33
  there that you have both this like very traditional part, but
• 33:37
  at the same time, you have this commercialized part.
• 33:40
  Of course, there's a lot of tourists there every year.
• 33:42
  It's crazy, insane amount of tourists actually there.
• 33:47
  So there are some parts that I went to that I absolutely didn't
• 33:51
  like and I'd never went there again because they were just too
• 33:54
  over commercialized. But you find everything you find
• 33:57
  the best and the worst of all worlds I think there.
• 34:00
  So it's really interesting to to just spend time there.
• 34:05
  In you mentioned Instagram and, and the touristic bubble and so
• 34:09
  on. I, I realized that at least in
• 34:12
  the last period, I mean, in a kind of this nomad bubble where
• 34:15
  everyone is placing posting the amazing place in which they
• 34:18
  work. And I want to ask you maybe
• 34:20
  generally about Asia, but especially about Bali, have you
• 34:24
  had the feeling that there is this exist, is this nobody
• 34:27
  bubble there like people working there and living like remote
• 34:30
  working? Yeah, for sure.
• 34:32
  Well in Bali the most more than in any other place in the world
• 34:37
  probably that I've at least that I've seen so far.
• 34:40
  The digital nomad bubble is really huge.
• 34:42
  There is a lot of Co working cafes, a lot of spaces that
• 34:47
  tender to those digital nomads for sure.
• 34:51
  And I understand it, of course. It's a place where you can live
• 34:54
  with very little money in a very nice way, especially if you're
• 34:58
  coming from Europe or Australia or the US or these places.
• 35:03
  And then as I said, you have Wi-Fi 24/7 that's really fast
• 35:07
  and good. You have electricity all the
• 35:09
  time, that's really fast and really good.
• 35:10
  You have good food from all over the world.
• 35:12
  You can go to a Greek restaurant or to a Italian restaurant or to
• 35:16
  a Chinese restaurant or whatever.
• 35:19
  Yeah. So you have any, any food that
• 35:20
  you could imagine you have there in really high quality as well.
• 35:24
  And you have a lot of activities.
• 35:25
  You have mountains there you have to see, you have to, you
• 35:28
  have cinemas, so and so on and so on, right.
• 35:31
  So there's so many things that you can do there in a very small
• 35:34
  condensed space. So you don't have long travel
• 35:37
  times as well. So of course there's a digital
• 35:41
  nomad. I think it's a really, really
• 35:42
  interesting and nice place. It has a lot of events also for
• 35:46
  digital nomads to meet other people and so on.
• 35:48
  So it's quite sociable. Of course, it has a lot of bad
• 35:53
  sides as well. There's a huge trash problem,
• 35:55
  there's over tourism and so on and so on.
• 35:57
  So that of course brings a lot of negative things as well to
• 36:01
  the island. For me, that's what makes it
• 36:04
  interesting because it's not this over polished place that
• 36:08
  just tries to look nice on every corner, but you it's quite
• 36:12
  immediate to see the the problems that exist there.
• 36:16
  And I like to have the contrast of just normal life as well.
• 36:21
  But there is of course this nomad bubble there that exists
• 36:24
  and it's it's quite strong there.
• 36:27
  You mentioned, you mentioned things which we take for as
• 36:30
  given in Europe, right, like trash.
• 36:32
  We don't have a trash issue. We have electricity, we have
• 36:34
  Internet and so on. What was the worst place from
• 36:37
  perspective of electricity, Internet and so on that you have
• 36:40
  visit and you you'll see the worst.
• 36:42
  When I say worst, I don't mean actually.
• 36:45
  Well, I think the worst place I think where I've, I've
• 36:48
  experienced it myself the most was in the Philippines on some
• 36:51
  islands, which totally makes sense because some of these
• 36:55
  islands, there's not a lot of infrastructures, not a lot of
• 36:58
  people living even there. And, and they were struggling
• 37:02
  with electricity, especially when there was like a lot of
• 37:06
  rain coming or flooding or something like this.
• 37:09
  Then that was a huge problem that there was no electricity
• 37:12
  for like one or two days on on the island.
• 37:14
  And without electricity, you didn't have any Internet as
• 37:16
  well. You didn't have any reception on
• 37:18
  your phone as well. And you couldn't flush the
• 37:21
  toilet even even as flushing the toilet was electric.
• 37:25
  So to the water pumping system on the whole island was
• 37:28
  electric. So, so that created a lot of
• 37:31
  problems quite quickly. If it for me, like travelling
• 37:34
  that was not not an issue. But at the time, for example, I
• 37:36
  was travelling with my brother and he needed to work remotely.
• 37:39
  So that became an issue quite, quite quickly then.
• 37:42
  And it's not something that you can plan for because you don't
• 37:45
  know it beforehand. And also why this happens.
• 37:48
  You never know how long it lasts.
• 37:49
  The first time it happened, they told us it's going to be fixed
• 37:52
  in like 3-4 hours and it took two days.
• 37:55
  So it's really, really makes it really difficult to plan.
• 37:59
  So there are some of these places where it's it's it's
• 38:02
  harder and it's usually especially islands just I think
• 38:05
  it's just much more of difficult to make a reliable power grid
• 38:09
  and Internet and things like these and islands that are not
• 38:13
  very developed. So I think you you rely on
• 38:18
  electricity for everything. Like you said, even the flushing
• 38:20
  system does not avoid the the water and everything is running
• 38:24
  on the electricity. And if you don't have it, then
• 38:26
  it creates huge issues for sure. How long was was the the first
• 38:32
  period in Asia, Carl? There was a can about 4-4
• 38:38
  months, four or five months I was until about Christmas time.
• 38:44
  And then I went back home for Christmas for about 2 1/2 weeks
• 38:48
  and then back to Asia. Actually right away because I
• 38:52
  had a feeling like, OK, I've, I've kind of seen a little bit
• 38:55
  of it, but there's still a lot that I, I kind of want to
• 38:57
  explore and a lot of things that I want to do.
• 39:00
  So it was clear for me to go back to Asia immediately.
• 39:04
  You said you, you, you. You didn't like the over over
• 39:07
  touristic places. What was the place where you had
• 39:11
  the feeling you are the first tourist walking in?
• 39:16
  It's a bit of exaggeration, but I think you know what I mean.
• 39:19
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. There were a few places that
• 39:23
  felt like felt like this a little like to different
• 39:28
  extents, Like in East Asia it was more difficult, like
• 39:33
  Southeast Asia, for example, Thailand.
• 39:35
  And these places, they are very catered to tourists.
• 39:39
  So they are very used to tourists.
• 39:41
  So it's more more difficult to find a place where you really
• 39:44
  feel like, OK, you're the first one.
• 39:46
  I think that's part of the world's Nepal in the mountains
• 39:49
  felt a little, even though I knew it wasn't true, it felt a
• 39:52
  little bit like it because we just didn't have any reception.
• 39:54
  We hadn't booked anything. We were just hiking.
• 39:57
  And we just went to the next village that we could arrive in
• 40:01
  within a day of hiking and just asked around that the guest
• 40:06
  houses like, hey, do you have any space?
• 40:07
  Do you have any space? And we were in low season.
• 40:09
  So those really. Very, very, very few people that
• 40:13
  we met along the way there. And and that's kind of felt like
• 40:17
  we're exploring a place because there you don't see any tourists
• 40:21
  for days. And then you just go to a
• 40:23
  village and you ask, hey, can I sleep here?
• 40:25
  And it, it kind of feels like like out of a movie or something
• 40:28
  that's that to have the freedom. And then I think the other
• 40:34
  places were the ones that are just really less frequented by
• 40:37
  tourists, like Kazakhstan, for example, and, and Kyrgyzstan,
• 40:43
  that's that's where I really felt like, OK, there's so few
• 40:46
  tourists there that you really stand out as a tourist there.
• 40:50
  And people are so interested and they're so surprised to see a
• 40:54
  tourist all the time. And they really gave you that
• 40:57
  feeling. OK, while we're here, no one has
• 40:59
  been here for like weeks or months or even years.
• 41:02
  Who knows, even though maybe that's also not not completely
• 41:05
  true, but you just quickly had that feeling that that no one
• 41:09
  was there. And I think the last destination
• 41:11
  where I went to, which was Timor, Leicester, which is a
• 41:15
  country most people don't even know or ever heard about.
• 41:20
  And that has very, very few tourists, that has less tourists
• 41:24
  per year than Bali has in a single day.
• 41:26
  And that really that that no one has ever stepped foot for tier
• 41:34
  so. That's that's also interesting.
• 41:38
  So first of all, the, the confidence to have to what to
• 41:42
  hike to the next village and then to go inside the house to
• 41:45
  ask them for a place to, to sleep.
• 41:47
  I think that's that's something that I have to say, but respect
• 41:51
  for that. I mean, that's that must have
• 41:55
  been really interesting, at least the first time, of course.
• 41:58
  Yeah, yeah, the first time was interesting, but then it it kind
• 42:01
  of, I mean, it, it became more natural and we were so welcomed
• 42:06
  by the people along the way and it was really, really cheap to
• 42:09
  stay at their place. It's like all of them had like
• 42:11
  extra rooms and stuff where you can sleep, so and they were
• 42:15
  incredibly welcoming. So that just made it really
• 42:19
  comfortable. Like quickly.
• 42:20
  Of course, the first time you're a little bit like it's a little
• 42:22
  bit strange to go to a place without having booked anything.
• 42:26
  Especially, especially in our experience card, because maybe
• 42:30
  for them not, but in our experience it, it is.
• 42:33
  Yeah, absolutely. Like for our experience, like
• 42:34
  it's normal, you pick up the phone, you go on any website
• 42:38
  where you can book hotels and you just book something at least
• 42:40
  for one night, right. And and they are, we just went
• 42:44
  along and it was actually perfect.
• 42:46
  I'm really glad that I didn't book anything beforehand because
• 42:48
  we could have booked something beforehand, but this gave us so
• 42:51
  much freedom to really decide along the way just where we want
• 42:54
  to stay and maybe skip 1 village if we didn't think this is the
• 42:58
  place where we want to stay. And then just go to the next one
• 43:01
  and just stay there for the night.
• 43:03
  And then not knowing like the day you wake up in the morning,
• 43:06
  you don't know where you're going to end up.
• 43:07
  You have no idea how it's we didn't look at any pictures
• 43:09
  before the same like we didn't know how it's going to look like
• 43:12
  the way there and, and the villages along the way.
• 43:14
  We didn't have any idea and we just went along with it and it
• 43:17
  was always the full day was a surprise basically.
• 43:20
  And that, that was amazing. That's a really nice experience.
• 43:24
  I can imagine that the fact that you don't know what to expect
• 43:26
  and you, you have an amazing experience.
• 43:28
  I always say, Everett, that if you, if we all would lower our
• 43:32
  expectations, we'll have a much happier life.
• 43:34
  No, absolutely. Carl, you are, you're speaking
• 43:39
  Austrian German. You're speaking an amazing
• 43:44
  English. Have you ever had issues with
• 43:46
  the with the with getting along with the locals in any of the
• 43:49
  countries there have been? Not really.
• 43:55
  Like of course there's a language barrier in a lot of
• 43:57
  countries. My experience was that people
• 44:02
  will still do their best and, and try, They will still in a
• 44:06
  lot of places, they will still continue in their local language
• 44:08
  and you will continue in English and you just see your hands and
• 44:13
  feet and it's it's somehow is going to work, work out.
• 44:17
  And the the experience that someone, if someone is speaking,
• 44:20
  I don't know if you made that experience, but if someone is
• 44:22
  speaking louder and not so fast, they have the feeling that now
• 44:26
  that you must understand. Yeah, it has to work.
• 44:29
  Yeah, no, absolutely. And and, and and I think you
• 44:33
  don't have to travel far to have that experience, right.
• 44:35
  If if I go, if I go to Italy from here, I would have a very
• 44:38
  similar experience probably or to Hungary.
• 44:42
  And, and I had to experience in a lot of places.
• 44:45
  But the people are really trying just to make themselves
• 44:49
  understood, use their hands and feet and just trying to, to help
• 44:53
  you in some way if they can. For me, what has really helped
• 44:58
  is to learn in as many local languages as possible, at least
• 45:03
  to say hello and thank you or how are you or something like
• 45:09
  very basic phases in, in each place.
• 45:11
  Because people will, even if you cannot have a conversation,
• 45:14
  people will really appreciate that you've made at least a
• 45:17
  tiny, tiny bit of effort. And I've really tried in in
• 45:21
  every country. I think there's only one country
• 45:23
  where I didn't learn thank you because it was too complicated.
• 45:26
  But but other than that, it was it was a case.
• 45:30
  Now I have to ask, what was that country?
• 45:32
  It was Armenia and and I, I have tried, I've asked an Armenian
• 45:37
  friend to pronounce it for me and I've I've given up.
• 45:40
  So. So it is really difficult to say
• 45:42
  thank you and I'm a minion. In most other languages it was a
• 45:46
  bit easier. Karl, how long was your second
• 45:52
  period in Asia? So that was again about like 5-5
• 45:58
  months, I think 5 1/2 months, something like this, yeah.
• 46:02
  I see a sweet spot there, somewhere between four and six
• 46:06
  months. Is it something which is somehow
• 46:09
  is the moment when you feel OK now I need a break from this.
• 46:13
  That's what I've realised. I think after the second time I
• 46:16
  I left is, is when I started, I thought I'm going to be
• 46:21
  travelling for a very long time. And I thought I, I want to be a
• 46:24
  gone for like a year or for like 1 and a 1 1/2 years or even
• 46:29
  longer without coming back. And I've realized that I like,
• 46:33
  that's the sweet spot for me. It's like somewhere between four
• 46:36
  and six months always depending on what I do and where I go.
• 46:41
  Like 6 months. I think it's almost already a
• 46:44
  stretch depending on how long you actually stay in one place.
• 46:49
  I didn't stay too long in like 1 place at a time.
• 46:52
  And I think that also changed that, that made that amount of
• 46:55
  time that I wanted to stay gone shorter because I craved like
• 47:00
  having a routine, having the same kind of people around me
• 47:04
  and maybe staying in one place for longer would give you all
• 47:07
  these things also away from your home.
• 47:09
  But for me, it really became that sweet spot was like between
• 47:13
  four and six months where I realized after four to six
• 47:16
  months, OK, like now I'm really craving to see my friends.
• 47:19
  I'm really craving to see my family and to be surrounded by
• 47:22
  the same people, not having to make decisions every day, where
• 47:25
  I go to eat, where I go over, which bus I take and so on and
• 47:29
  so on. That really became kind of kind
• 47:33
  of the sweet spot for me and also a spot where I felt like,
• 47:36
  OK, I'm starting to enjoy this much less.
• 47:41
  And it takes much more for me to be excited and to be surprised
• 47:46
  by something or, or to be. Yeah, to just enjoy it because
• 47:51
  I'm so saturated with experiences and with seeing new
• 47:54
  things that I think it's really hard for my brain also to
• 47:59
  process anything new that comes in.
• 48:02
  And I really had a feeling, OK, I need to go back to a place
• 48:06
  that I actually know where I am not constantly bombarded by new
• 48:10
  experiences. For me to actually process
• 48:14
  everything that happened and then becoming excited again to
• 48:18
  see like new things and experiencing new stuff.
• 48:21
  It's crazy that you, for everyone that doesn't experience
• 48:25
  this is crazy that you would say I need holiday from holiday.
• 48:28
  Yeah, right. Because if you want to put it in
• 48:30
  a sentence, this is what it is. But I fully understand it like
• 48:33
  you can, you can have the limited amount of new and then
• 48:36
  you'll say, OK, but then it's still new.
• 48:39
  I said yesterday, so I need a break from this.
• 48:41
  But it really makes sense. Yeah.
• 48:44
  Carl, what was the what was the most unexpected good experience
• 48:50
  with food that you have had? With food.
• 48:53
  Yeah. Interesting one.
• 48:58
  And then no one has asked me that question before, people.
• 49:02
  Yeah. Where the worst food was and
• 49:04
  where the best food was the most unexpected.
• 49:10
  With food, now I have to think. Unexpected good the The thing is
• 49:13
  I want to give you a bit of context.
• 49:14
  I always, we always know about good food, right?
• 49:17
  We always talk about good food, about bad food.
• 49:19
  Then we have some kind of patterns there, but you have a
• 49:22
  lot of situation which you don't expect much of a local food.
• 49:27
  And then you think, wow, that was, that was impressive, even
• 49:30
  though I had expected nothing from it.
• 49:34
  Yeah, I think there's like 2 places that come to my mind.
• 49:38
  One of them is is Bali again. And this is a place again, where
• 49:45
  I went in without any expectation and was completely
• 49:49
  surprised by the quality of food there in every cuisine that they
• 49:54
  cook like the local 1. I love Indonesian food.
• 49:57
  It's really an amazing, amazing cuisine as well.
• 50:00
  I was quite surprised by how spicy they can eat.
• 50:02
  I didn't expect that as well. It was quite tough sometimes.
• 50:08
  But then also the, the, the quality that in, in which they
• 50:13
  can make food from anywhere in the world.
• 50:16
  And you will find Indonesian chefs that will make Italian
• 50:19
  food that is incredibly well cooked or you know, any cuisine
• 50:24
  that you can imagine basically from around the world.
• 50:26
  And they will be able to make, make it to absolute perfection.
• 50:30
  That was quite surprising to see that in a, in a place where I
• 50:33
  didn't expect that. I think the other one where it's
• 50:35
  more about the local food is when I spent a lot of time in
• 50:38
  South America, I went then to Central America, to Guatemala,
• 50:45
  and this is a place where I had no expectation of the food.
• 50:49
  I thought it's going to be the same as in South America, like
• 50:51
  in most places, very similar. And I was quite surprised that
• 50:55
  especially the street food there was really, really good and
• 50:58
  really tasted really fresh, nice quality.
• 51:03
  And it's not something you've ever heard of.
• 51:04
  Like no one has ever talked about food from Guatemala I.
• 51:08
  Never you're. Right.
• 51:10
  So I had no expectation of it. And then I went in there and I
• 51:13
  had some really, really amazing food there and I was quite,
• 51:16
  quite surprised by that. Nice.
• 51:21
  What was it? After the second Asian
• 51:22
  experience? Where?
• 51:23
  What was the next destination? That was a tough one for me
• 51:27
  because I had spent at that point like 9 months in Asia and
• 51:32
  I had the feeling I had seen the things that were in my mind
• 51:38
  before I started travelling the world.
• 51:41
  And it made it much harder for me to make a decision of where
• 51:44
  to go next because I felt like, OK, now should I go back to the
• 51:47
  places where I went and explore more or should I see like some
• 51:50
  new places? And I was a bit lost.
• 51:54
  I was again back home. I was a bit lost and like didn't
• 51:57
  know what to do. Didn't I?
• 51:58
  Didn't at the point that I hadn't made the decision that I
• 52:01
  will continue travel. So I wasn't sure about that.
• 52:05
  At some point I made the decision, OK, I'm going to
• 52:07
  continue travelling for a while. And then it was just by chance
• 52:14
  that a friend of mine asked me whether I want to come to
• 52:18
  Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and that was not on my map at all.
• 52:25
  I never thought of going there. And she asked me if I wanted to
• 52:29
  come. There's this big, big event that
• 52:31
  happens every two years in Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan.
• 52:34
  And at that time it was in in Kazakhstan.
• 52:37
  It's it's kind of the Olympic Games for nomads sports.
• 52:44
  And, and I looked at just some images on Google images.
• 52:47
  I was like, OK, I just want to see how it looks like.
• 52:49
  And I looked on Google images and I when I saw it and I was
• 52:51
  like, OK, well, I really, I actually have to go there.
• 52:54
  This is amazing. And so I just booked my flights
• 52:57
  and I said, OK, I'm just going to join you and, and see the
• 53:01
  games there and then spend a bit more time in Kazakhstan and that
• 53:05
  so so that decision kind of came natural with that, but it was
• 53:11
  also lucky just by chance that I actually had reached out to that
• 53:13
  friend and then that she invited me.
• 53:16
  Sometimes these things happen and I think then you have to
• 53:18
  just grab that opportunity and go with it.
• 53:21
  And it was lucky that I was lost at the time and didn't have any
• 53:24
  certain race that I also wanted to go to, but it was maybe
• 53:29
  secretly hoping for something like this to come up, so I
• 53:32
  turned out perfectly. Was that the beginning of which
• 53:36
  Which which? Which year was which what?
• 53:39
  That was hard? Which year was that?
• 53:41
  So that was 2024. That was beginning of 24 then.
• 53:45
  That was summer. Summer of 2020. 4 summer of 24
• 53:49
  OK, so you, you went there and it must have been a completely
• 53:56
  different experiences from everything that you have
• 53:58
  experienced until now, right? Absolutely.
• 54:00
  Until then. Yeah, absolutely.
• 54:03
  One of the things that you you said in one of the answers on
• 54:07
  your air, may you say that the the most surprisingly for you
• 54:10
  was the kindness of the people there.
• 54:13
  Yeah, this was quite surprising because again, I tried to go in
• 54:19
  with no expectations, but of in in my mind I was expecting a
• 54:25
  country with like where it's very cold, it's dark and like
• 54:28
  there's, I don't know, there's a lot of steppe, there's a lot of
• 54:31
  nothing. There's basically a lot of
• 54:32
  desert cold. And cold and dark Germany.
• 54:35
  I see. Yeah, that is true actually.
• 54:39
  I'm sorry. So I wasn't expecting the
• 54:41
  kindest people, right? No, I'm joking.
• 54:45
  But yeah, so I, I was expecting like that people will like be
• 54:51
  more closed off, be more kind of to themselves, like not, not
• 54:55
  talk so much to foreigners or be like suspicious of them or
• 54:58
  something. I don't even know where that
• 55:00
  really came from. But I, I that was just kind of a
• 55:04
  feeling that I had in, in, in my head.
• 55:06
  And when I arrived and I arrived in the capital of, of Kazakhstan
• 55:10
  in Astana, and it's an eerie dystopian kind of city when you
• 55:15
  arrive and you just, I still remember to drive in from the
• 55:19
  airport in the taxi and it's a huge city with like skyscrapers
• 55:22
  and like massive streets. And there's no one.
• 55:25
  There's just building, but you don't see any.
• 55:28
  I didn't see a single person on the street.
• 55:30
  And it felt like I, I arrived two weeks after the world had
• 55:33
  ended. So it had this very dystopian
• 55:36
  feeling of, and it was called, it was the beginning of
• 55:38
  September, but it was like 4 degrees, 3-4 degrees.
• 55:43
  And so in the first, my first reaction was that this is kind
• 55:48
  of strange and, you know, it feels very cold and very
• 55:51
  uncomfortable, you know, in a way.
• 55:55
  And, and I arrived in a hostel and there was also a bunch of
• 55:58
  people that were not very talkative.
• 55:59
  So, so I was kind of a bit on the fence of how it's going to
• 56:03
  be. And that's why even when I was
• 56:07
  there, my first impression was that kind of my feeling with my
• 56:12
  gut feeling was right. And it only later turned out
• 56:16
  that I was completely wrong, actually.
• 56:18
  And, and these were some of the kindest people as I've met
• 56:20
  anywhere in the world, like incredibly welcoming, incredibly
• 56:23
  interested people were super happy about foreigners visiting
• 56:28
  and, and being there. I remember this like on the last
• 56:31
  day of this event, we were like a, a few European people kind of
• 56:36
  walking along together at the event and, and we just wanted to
• 56:39
  walk for like 200 meters. And it took us I think like an
• 56:43
  hour because people at the end kept lining up to take photos
• 56:47
  with us because they were so interested and just like talking
• 56:51
  to us in Kazakh and in Russian. We didn't understand the word,
• 56:54
  but they still wanted to talk to us.
• 56:55
  They gave us their phone numbers so we could call them if we
• 56:58
  needed something or whatever. So, so it was an incredible
• 57:03
  experience to see people really be so curious and so excited and
• 57:07
  happy to see foreigners. It was really the exact opposite
• 57:12
  of what I had expected. I think we have a, we have a
• 57:17
  really wrong understanding of the connection between the
• 57:21
  weather outside and the kindness of the people.
• 57:24
  And I'm telling you this because I had the same now with with
• 57:29
  Finland, but I thought, OK, the people in Finland cannot be so
• 57:33
  friendly because it's that it's dark.
• 57:35
  They don't see the light there. It's always cold.
• 57:38
  And I was so wrong. Yeah, I was so damn wrong.
• 57:42
  Yeah, yeah, I. Can imagine.
• 57:45
  But this is just an, I think, just a prejudice that we have.
• 57:49
  And I think that's something that only travel can cure,
• 57:53
  right, when you actually meet the people.
• 57:55
  Absolutely. And I think it's also a little
• 57:57
  little bit geographically we maybe have, I don't know, we
• 58:00
  connect Kazakhstan with Russia, for example.
• 58:03
  And if we look in the news and we and we see things about
• 58:06
  Russia, it's always negative. And so we probably have a
• 58:10
  negative feeling about Russian people, even though I've heard
• 58:13
  like amazing things of people that were travelling through
• 58:15
  Russia of how nice and hospitable people were.
• 58:19
  So, so, and it's really hard to disconnect from that.
• 58:21
  So you, I think sometimes you really have to go there and,
• 58:23
  and, and be there to be able to disconnect from, from the
• 58:26
  prejudice that you have in your, in your mind.
• 58:29
  Correct. 100%, yeah. What does the next the the next
• 58:33
  goal or the next destination go? So at that point I spent more
• 58:37
  time in, in Central Asia since I was already kind of around I my
• 58:44
  first experience there was really, really nice.
• 58:46
  So I spent quite a bit of time in, in Kazakhstan.
• 58:50
  I then went from there to Kyrgyzstan, which is just the,
• 58:53
  the, we just crossed the border. It's really close, which was
• 58:58
  amazing as well. And then from Kyrgyzstan went to
• 59:03
  Uzbekistan and just spent a bit of time there.
• 59:07
  So I spent most of the time in Kazakhstan and then about two
• 59:10
  weeks in Kyrgyzstan and two weeks in Uzbekistan.
• 59:16
  So quite a good amount of time I would say.
• 59:19
  Yeah, definitely. For the first time, I would say
• 59:22
  yes. I'm, I'm really eager to go
• 59:24
  back, actually. Especially curious stands.
• 59:29
  There's still a lot to explore, as big as standards, a lot to
• 59:32
  explore. Go on.
• 59:36
  From from all these experiences, Carl, one thing you never
• 59:42
  mentioned until now in our discussion, and I'm really
• 59:45
  curious about how was it from the safety perspective, would
• 59:50
  did you ever have had an area during these travels where you
• 59:54
  felt unsafe or when you felt unease?
• 1:00:01
  That's I think it's something that is very personal, right?
• 1:00:04
  Like how safe you actually feel and how safe you actually are
• 1:00:09
  are two things that are not correct.
• 1:00:11
  Always connected. And I guess the only place where
• 1:00:16
  I really felt unsafe was was Rio in Brazil.
• 1:00:20
  And it's still one of my most favorite cities in the world.
• 1:00:25
  But I think there it was mainly because the people that I was
• 1:00:29
  with around, like in the hostel, every day there would be someone
• 1:00:33
  coming up saying, hey, I was robbed here, something happened
• 1:00:36
  here, something happened here, something happened to my friend.
• 1:00:38
  And so it's different if you hear that in the news or you
• 1:00:42
  hear that somewhere else or you read it.
• 1:00:45
  But then if you hear it from someone that you see like every
• 1:00:47
  single day that something happened, then it really makes
• 1:00:50
  you think more and, and be more aware of your surroundings and
• 1:00:55
  so on. So that's, I think one of the
• 1:00:58
  very few places where I felt unsafe even though nothing
• 1:01:02
  happened to me. Maybe I was lucky.
• 1:01:04
  Maybe it's, I mean, I guess still most people that are
• 1:01:08
  there, nothing will happen to them.
• 1:01:10
  And it's still a minority of people that get robbed and where
• 1:01:13
  something happens. But that's at least where I
• 1:01:16
  personally felt the most unsafe because it was so, so apparent
• 1:01:21
  that things happen all the time there in other places.
• 1:01:25
  Some were surprisingly, surprisingly safe, especially
• 1:01:29
  like Central Asia, for example, a lot of people ask me in
• 1:01:31
  Kazakhstan, it's often the first question is whether I felt safe
• 1:01:35
  or whether it was safe actually. And it was probably one of the
• 1:01:38
  places where I felt the safest of all, all the ones that I went
• 1:01:42
  to and, and where I never heard anyone have any issues,
• 1:01:47
  something being stolen or they're being robbed or
• 1:01:50
  anything. So.
• 1:01:53
  So I think it's a very personal feeling of like, where do I feel
• 1:01:57
  safe? I think in South America, of
• 1:02:00
  course, it's a difference whether it's easier as a man
• 1:02:03
  that's just given. And I think it's also your
• 1:02:08
  looks. If I was completely white with
• 1:02:11
  like blue eyes and blonde and very tall, then maybe in
• 1:02:15
  Colombia I would stick out more and be more of a target than I
• 1:02:18
  am. So right.
• 1:02:23
  But but I mean, it's, it's, it's true, right?
• 1:02:25
  I can't. Believe.
• 1:02:27
  That much attention do you just draw to yourself in in a, in a
• 1:02:32
  place. And so I think for me it was
• 1:02:36
  easier to feel safe in places like like Colombia or Ecuador.
• 1:02:41
  But yeah, it's a personal feeling.
• 1:02:43
  And I, I think in like most places that I went to, I felt
• 1:02:46
  really safe. In Asia, I never even think
• 1:02:49
  about not being safe, even though stuff can happen.
• 1:02:52
  But I, I never had a feeling that I I'm somewhere in danger.
• 1:02:57
  And Rio was really the only city where I had a little bit of that
• 1:03:00
  feeling. But still, I really enjoyed my
• 1:03:01
  time there. It's still an amazing place to
• 1:03:03
  be. You came home, I do suppose from
• 1:03:10
  from mid mid Asia when you when you finish the the small trip
• 1:03:13
  there, I call it small trip, even though it was a few weeks,
• 1:03:17
  but compared to the others, you arrive home again for a for a
• 1:03:23
  small, small battery recharge at home.
• 1:03:28
  What was the? What was the next one?
• 1:03:30
  The next call? So at that time I went back home
• 1:03:35
  for Christmas again, stayed again for Christmas for about
• 1:03:38
  two weeks. And then I had some friends that
• 1:03:41
  were going to South America. That was the second time then I
• 1:03:45
  went to South America. I actually surprised him there.
• 1:03:47
  They didn't know that I would be coming and, and our initial plan
• 1:03:52
  was to celebrate New Year's in Buenos Aires, in Argentina.
• 1:03:56
  And I told him that I cannot come and I have to go somewhere
• 1:03:59
  else and so on. I just made-up some excuse and I
• 1:04:02
  arrived in the morning on the 31st of December just in time
• 1:04:07
  for New Year's and then celebrated with them and then
• 1:04:10
  thought right now that I'm here again, some of the things that I
• 1:04:15
  didn't do the first time around when I was there, now it's the
• 1:04:18
  time to do them. And it's also about like in
• 1:04:20
  which season you're going, which months you're going at.
• 1:04:23
  The first time I went, I started in April and then went until or
• 1:04:27
  like March, April and went until the summer and then this time I
• 1:04:31
  went in December. So there were places that were
• 1:04:35
  not really accessible at the first time when I went, and now
• 1:04:39
  they were accessible now I could actually go.
• 1:04:40
  So I actually planned it around some of those experiences that I
• 1:04:43
  wasn't able to have the first time and then do it this time.
• 1:04:50
  You said that you were usually not planning much in advance any
• 1:04:54
  of your trips, like it was most continuous decision.
• 1:04:58
  Have you ever had the situation in which you thought, oh, I want
• 1:05:01
  to go next or I want to go the day after tomorrow in this
• 1:05:04
  country, but I need a visa for that?
• 1:05:06
  Have you ever had? That with a visa, I think the
• 1:05:12
  only time where I had an issue with a visa was in going to
• 1:05:16
  Vietnam because I hadn't realized that I actually need
• 1:05:20
  one. Kind of maybe some some European
• 1:05:24
  arrogance, but we are probably so and.
• 1:05:31
  If I would, evidently I know what you mean.
• 1:05:34
  I didn't realise I need one actually.
• 1:05:36
  And so I, I tried to apply for one and you can do it online and
• 1:05:40
  to apply for one, just a website to apply is absolutely
• 1:05:44
  horrendous and it's it, it was an absolute nightmare to fill
• 1:05:49
  out the form online because you, you have a form that you fill
• 1:05:53
  out it just incredibly long. You have to list a lot of things
• 1:05:57
  and, and stuff like that. And then you get to the part
• 1:06:00
  where you pay and then you put in all your bank details and it
• 1:06:02
  says it didn't go through. And, and the only advice people
• 1:06:07
  give you is like, do that 10 to 20 times and at some point it
• 1:06:10
  will work and no one knows why. And so you have to start the
• 1:06:13
  whole process again. You have to fill out everything
• 1:06:15
  again that you filled out before it takes again 10 minutes and
• 1:06:18
  then it's declined. And I did that and I think it
• 1:06:21
  took like 10 or 12 times and then it's just said payment
• 1:06:23
  accepted and then it worked. And then you still have to wait
• 1:06:27
  and you never know how long. And it was like exactly a week
• 1:06:30
  before my flight was and I didn't know how long it was
• 1:06:35
  going to take. Like sometimes it takes a day or
• 1:06:37
  two, sometimes it takes a week, sometimes longer.
• 1:06:40
  And so I was getting of course more nervous and nervous as to
• 1:06:45
  they approach that I would fly. And I got it the day before in
• 1:06:49
  the evening actually before I before I flight.
• 1:06:52
  So I was quite lucky to get it in time.
• 1:06:56
  I think that the time were actually really was scared about
• 1:07:00
  not not being able to enter a country.
• 1:07:04
  Look, I have AI, have a Romanian citizenship and I I do live in
• 1:07:08
  Germany. I do book my travels from here.
• 1:07:10
  And two years ago we had a we had a family trip to the US and
• 1:07:15
  our flight back was cancelled. And talk about European
• 1:07:18
  arrogance. I got the message from
• 1:07:20
  Lufthansa, from the company, and they said, yeah, your flight was
• 1:07:26
  cancelled. You are booked on a connecting.
• 1:07:28
  Connecting or a flight that goes through Montreal.
• 1:07:34
  And I called in France, a call centre.
• 1:07:35
  I said, guys, thank you, you are really nice.
• 1:07:37
  But I'm not allowed to enter Canada because I need a transit
• 1:07:40
  visa. Yeah.
• 1:07:41
  No, you don't. Yes, I need.
• 1:07:42
  No, you don't. Yes, I need because I know my
• 1:07:45
  visas. Yeah.
• 1:07:46
  Fair enough. And that was a nice
• 1:07:49
  conversation, talk about the European, European arrogance, I
• 1:07:52
  think, I think it's, it's really hard to understand that it's
• 1:07:56
  also easy as you want it to be sometimes.
• 1:08:00
  That is true. That is true.
• 1:08:01
  Like you keep forgetting like if you haven't let you keep
• 1:08:04
  forgetting that there are places where you need one and you just
• 1:08:08
  you, you don't you're not prepared, prepared for it.
• 1:08:11
  And it changed in some countries as well.
• 1:08:12
  I mean, as I, I, I, I know the visa process from other like I
• 1:08:16
  went to China like 16 years ago, for example, and, and that was a
• 1:08:20
  weeks long process where you go to the embassy, you bring your
• 1:08:23
  password and all that, all that stuff.
• 1:08:25
  But that was the last time I ever, ever did that.
• 1:08:29
  And I know for others that's just reality that every time
• 1:08:31
  they go somewhere, they, they actually have to have to do
• 1:08:34
  that. So you exactly, I just forgot
• 1:08:36
  about it. That's.
• 1:08:40
  Carl, how long was the second piece in in South America?
• 1:08:44
  That was again about 5 1/2 months, like something like
• 1:08:47
  this. I came back in the summer again.
• 1:08:50
  Summer of 25, then. That was summer of 25, yeah.
• 1:08:55
  Considering that we still have six months, that was the last
• 1:08:57
  trip until now. Or it was always still something
• 1:09:00
  in between? There was a bit in between, I
• 1:09:02
  would say less of a of a trip at that time.
• 1:09:05
  I knew, OK, I'm, I'm kind of a bit that, that also sounds
• 1:09:09
  weird, but I'm, I'm kind of done with travelling for a bit just
• 1:09:15
  because I felt like I, I want more of a routine and I miss
• 1:09:19
  being able to just sleep in the same bed every night to just go
• 1:09:22
  to the gym, to just eat healthy and all, all of that stuff that
• 1:09:25
  is really hard, hard to do when you're on the road.
• 1:09:31
  But so, so I made kind of the decision that I will start
• 1:09:35
  looking for jobs again, like slowly, But since I didn't have
• 1:09:38
  a place or I don't have a place actually back home in Austria
• 1:09:42
  for me, I was like, OK, I'm actually going to fly to Bali.
• 1:09:45
  I'm going to set up my base there because I can live there
• 1:09:49
  quite cheaply. I know some people already
• 1:09:51
  there. I have some friends there that I
• 1:09:52
  can spend time with and so on. And they're just going to set up
• 1:09:56
  my base there. My initial, my plan is also to
• 1:09:59
  stay in Asia in that region. So for me, that was kind of a
• 1:10:03
  perfect, perfect base. And one of my friends, he said
• 1:10:06
  he will come along like from back home just for the first
• 1:10:10
  couple of weeks and he wants me to show him a bit around and
• 1:10:13
  spend some time there. So, so that's kind of what we
• 1:10:16
  did. So I stayed for some time in
• 1:10:18
  Bali when my visa expired. So this is where I also have to
• 1:10:23
  at least leave at some point. I went to Thailand for like 2
• 1:10:27
  weeks just because of the visa and then came back to Bali and
• 1:10:32
  from there to Timor Leicester, which was also kind of a
• 1:10:38
  impulsive decision because I just literally looked a year
• 1:10:42
  before where I also was in Bali, looked on Google Maps and I kind
• 1:10:47
  of zoomed out and I was looking around what countries exist kind
• 1:10:50
  of around me. And then I saw it on Google Maps
• 1:10:52
  and I was like, wait, I've actually never heard of this
• 1:10:55
  country. Like how, how do I get there?
• 1:10:57
  And there's only three airports that actually fly to Timor
• 1:11:01
  Leicester. So you can either from
• 1:11:03
  Singapore, from Bali and then from Darwin in Australia.
• 1:11:07
  And so I thought, OK, since I'm already in Bali, like now, it
• 1:11:11
  would make sense actually to go there.
• 1:11:13
  And I asked one of my friends who was there at the time as
• 1:11:15
  well, and he agreed to come. And so we went to Timor Lester
• 1:11:18
  for a week just to see kind of how it is and what it's about.
• 1:11:22
  And it was quite an interesting experience.
• 1:11:23
  But that was the last last. Proper trip in you said at the
• 1:11:31
  beginning that you studied in the studied in the US as part of
• 1:11:34
  your studies. So you've been there for I would
• 1:11:36
  guess from 1 abroad semester even though this US experience
• 1:11:43
  was there, I never heard you interested in any of the I would
• 1:11:47
  call it over civilized areas. I can.
• 1:11:53
  Can I ask you why? I think it's not that I'm not
• 1:11:59
  interested. I think there's a very few
• 1:12:00
  places that I'm not interested in.
• 1:12:03
  I probably couldn't even name a single one now, but.
• 1:12:09
  North. Korea, I think there's sorry.
• 1:12:12
  North Korea. I was considering going there in
• 1:12:15
  April, so that's, that's a different story.
• 1:12:19
  But but no, it's, I think it has like two sides to it.
• 1:12:26
  One of them is budget, which of course if you're travelling for
• 1:12:33
  a longer time to stretch your budget, it's easier to go to
• 1:12:36
  places that are cheaper. That's just how it is.
• 1:12:41
  So my budget would have lasted much shorter if I would have
• 1:12:44
  spent a lot of time in Scandinavia or Switzerland or
• 1:12:46
  places like this or even in the US.
• 1:12:48
  So the US is just really expensive for some of these
• 1:12:51
  places or even Singapore and and so on.
• 1:12:55
  The other thing is, I think for me is that it's more similar to
• 1:13:00
  what I'm used to. So since I've, I've lived in
• 1:13:04
  Central Europe, I've lived in the US, I've lived in the UK.
• 1:13:08
  I'm, I'm just more used to these kind of over civilized places.
• 1:13:13
  And I, it's easier for me to travel to these places from,
• 1:13:18
  from back home. And I've done that extensively
• 1:13:21
  around around Europe at least. And I've been to the US also
• 1:13:24
  quite a lot. So I feel like there there's
• 1:13:29
  less of an experience for me to have than there is in other
• 1:13:34
  places. And some of the things that
• 1:13:38
  people want to see are maybe less of a priority for me or
• 1:13:41
  like culturally, there are things that I find more
• 1:13:44
  interesting maybe in, in an Asian country than I would find
• 1:13:48
  in in let's say Canada or the US.
• 1:13:52
  And that's, that's more of an importance for me.
• 1:13:54
  Like for me, it's more important to have a culture that I can
• 1:13:56
  that it's really different from mine and where I can really see
• 1:13:59
  how that culture is, can learn from that culture and it really
• 1:14:02
  experienced that. Whereas if I go to a culture
• 1:14:06
  that's very similar, then there's not as not as much of A
• 1:14:10
  interesting experience for me, I think.
• 1:14:14
  I have I have the same problem with the with the over touristic
• 1:14:17
  places, to be honest. And I have to say this is
• 1:14:19
  something because it's not it's not enjoyable anymore.
• 1:14:22
  It's really not something that you can say, OK, I can go there
• 1:14:26
  and, and see it and so on because you cannot see anything,
• 1:14:30
  you cannot move. I think the one of the worst
• 1:14:31
  experience of my last holiday was Pisa because I, I was there
• 1:14:36
  the first time, I think in the peak of COVID somewhere in 2021
• 1:14:40
  and there was no one there. And it was so enjoyable.
• 1:14:43
  It was so nice because I, I could get to walk with my son
• 1:14:46
  and my wife there and everything was amazing.
• 1:14:48
  And I was there last year, man, that was the worst decision.
• 1:14:52
  A disaster. It's like I, I really, I have to
• 1:14:55
  say it's an amazing place, but from the, from the touristic
• 1:14:58
  perspective, I don't recommend it to anyone.
• 1:15:00
  It's, it's such a bad experience and everybody's doing this
• 1:15:04
  picture where they pretend to hold the Tower of Peace and this
• 1:15:07
  is just stupid. Sorry, I have to say, I'm sorry
• 1:15:10
  to go on this rant, but I have to say I have the same problem.
• 1:15:13
  And when I was in the USI tried to, to avoid the, the at least
• 1:15:19
  the, the places where everyone was trying to go.
• 1:15:21
  So I was in a lot of places in South Carolina, North Carolina,
• 1:15:24
  which is no, I was there for the culture as well, to be honest,
• 1:15:27
  because luckily I was there before due to work and I met
• 1:15:32
  some really nice people because I was there for I think three, 3
• 1:15:35
  1/2 weeks. And I tried to give the same
• 1:15:38
  experience for my family as well, because I think the
• 1:15:40
  culture in there is, is beautiful as well.
• 1:15:41
  But I I do get what you are seeing.
• 1:15:43
  Yes, a bit more of AI. Absolutely agree on this.
• 1:15:49
  And, and yeah, and in this over touristic, like body, for
• 1:15:53
  example, is also an over touristic place where you have a
• 1:15:56
  bit of both and then others. That was kind of a learning for
• 1:15:59
  me at the beginning as well, that at the beginning I started
• 1:16:02
  to check places where I want to go a little bit on like TikTok
• 1:16:06
  and Instagram. And I was like checking like,
• 1:16:08
  OK, Malaysia, places to go, whatever.
• 1:16:12
  And I realized that like following that, like following
• 1:16:17
  all those videos and all that content that comes out will just
• 1:16:20
  end. Like at the end, I will just go
• 1:16:22
  to these places where everyone is.
• 1:16:24
  And in the same way that you went to like Pisa, like everyone
• 1:16:27
  will be there, do the same photo.
• 1:16:29
  And I ended up in some of those places.
• 1:16:31
  And afterwards I really asked myself, OK, did I actually enjoy
• 1:16:34
  this? Like, was it worth like, like
• 1:16:35
  coming here? And the answer was mostly no.
• 1:16:38
  So I, I kind of tried to get away from basing where I go on
• 1:16:44
  the place and more on the experience.
• 1:16:48
  And I was like, OK, do I want to hike in like very high
• 1:16:52
  mountains? OK, I go to Nepal and that's
• 1:16:54
  because I want to do hike, I want to be in the mountains and,
• 1:16:58
  and stuff like this and less because I saw like someone going
• 1:17:01
  to like this specific hike or this specific mountain or
• 1:17:04
  whatever in a, in a video. And I think that's kind of
• 1:17:07
  important to make that differentiation because if you
• 1:17:11
  follow all these videos and everything, you will end up at
• 1:17:14
  the places where everyone takes the same video, everyone takes
• 1:17:16
  the same photo. And then even I took the same
• 1:17:18
  photo, I took the same videos I did.
• 1:17:20
  I did exactly the same as everyone else.
• 1:17:21
  And then I looked at it and I was like, OK, it looks exactly
• 1:17:24
  the same, like like the ones that I saw.
• 1:17:27
  Like what's the what's the point?
• 1:17:31
  Yeah, this is, this is one of the reasons why, even though
• 1:17:34
  it's not that far away, I have a problem visiting Rome because
• 1:17:38
  everybody's there, everybody's there.
• 1:17:41
  And this is something which I, I, I don't know when how to make
• 1:17:44
  it enjoyable, but. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:47
  And it's the same with Venice. Like, I love Venice, for
• 1:17:49
  example. Venice is an amazingly beautiful
• 1:17:52
  place, but it's so overcrowded, it's so full of people and, and
• 1:17:58
  it's, it's hard to enjoy it. It makes it really, really hard
• 1:18:01
  to enjoy it. I managed to find a place and I,
• 1:18:04
  I should not say this out loud, but I managed to find not a
• 1:18:07
  place, but a period in Venice which is not that crowded.
• 1:18:10
  And that's somewhere end of January, beginning of February.
• 1:18:12
  So now, but you have to be lucky with the weather.
• 1:18:16
  That's the only thing. Yeah, yeah, I love Venice as
• 1:18:19
  well, but I have the same. Problem.
• 1:18:22
  At the end, at the end, you know what, what we don't realize, the
• 1:18:25
  same discussion with like with the traffic.
• 1:18:27
  You always complain being your traffic and having to wait in in
• 1:18:29
  traffic jams, but you are the traffic.
• 1:18:31
  Of course. It's the same thing with the
• 1:18:32
  tourism. Yeah, of course, of course, when
• 1:18:35
  you're part. Of the problem of.
• 1:18:36
  Course. Yeah, that's, that's it.
• 1:18:40
  Carl, a bit of a, a technical question out of uncles you
• 1:18:44
  mentioned a few times Internet, Wi-Fi and so on.
• 1:18:46
  How did you were you always connected like through all of
• 1:18:50
  this period when you traveled you were always able to get
• 1:18:53
  Internet and at good at OK prices that so that you have
• 1:18:57
  connection everywhere. Depends on the place but in most
• 1:19:01
  places yes. So I would always look for like
• 1:19:04
  an E SIM, for example, before like so I didn't bring any
• 1:19:07
  laptop. So I do everything on my phone
• 1:19:09
  while I travel. There's no laptop with me.
• 1:19:13
  But I try to get like an E SIM in most places if it's
• 1:19:17
  affordable and if it's OK, it's usually a bit more expensive
• 1:19:20
  than if you would get a local one.
• 1:19:22
  In some places it's it's crazy much more expensive to get an E
• 1:19:25
  SIM. And then I would just try to get
• 1:19:29
  a local SIM card. In some places it's really nice.
• 1:19:32
  Like fun example, in Malaysia and Singapore, you can get local
• 1:19:37
  kind of SIM cards, but that are then valid in like other
• 1:19:40
  countries like Thailand and Cambodia, for example, Indonesia
• 1:19:44
  as well. And so you can just get this for
• 1:19:46
  like one or two months and then you're actually sorted if you go
• 1:19:49
  to one of these other countries. So I just tried to get like a
• 1:19:54
  SIM card everywhere I go with enough data to get around.
• 1:19:59
  I mean, if you are staying in a hostel, then you will have Wi-Fi
• 1:20:01
  in some of the cafes sometimes. And I mean if there's a.
• 1:20:06
  Power outage then no one has Internet anyway and in some
• 1:20:10
  places like if you go hiking in the mountains and of course you
• 1:20:13
  will have no reception as well. I I felt it's more difficult to
• 1:20:18
  find the places where you're not connected constantly and where
• 1:20:22
  you can actually shut off your phone and not need it for a day.
• 1:20:27
  Then then the other way doesn't. As long as you do it as a, as a,
• 1:20:31
  as a decision on your own is OK. But I think also the, the safety
• 1:20:36
  and orientation perspective is really important in these days
• 1:20:39
  and it's easy to do it and I think it's helpful.
• 1:20:41
  It's really helpful to to have the possibility to, to do that.
• 1:20:46
  Again, another technical question, because I have my own,
• 1:20:49
  my own curiosity that I haven't found the actual answer to on
• 1:20:53
  your on your ask me anything. What was the, the payment method
• 1:20:59
  of choice? Were you doing card payments?
• 1:21:02
  Did you use cash? Did you ever have the feeling,
• 1:21:05
  Oh, I don't want to pay here because this POS looks funny?
• 1:21:09
  How how was the process of of of paying for things for you?
• 1:21:15
  5050, I would say depending on the country, like in some
• 1:21:18
  places, Brazil for example, you can pay literally anything and
• 1:21:23
  everything by card. There's not a time of cash that
• 1:21:26
  you will need even even once regardless, which I found really
• 1:21:32
  interesting. That was like an interesting
• 1:21:33
  learning. Like I arrived and I was like,
• 1:21:35
  oh wow, I can really pay everything by card.
• 1:21:38
  So that was interesting. In a lot of places, of course,
• 1:21:42
  cash is king. I tried always to bring a few
• 1:21:47
  $100 in cash in U.S. dollars with me like some smaller notes
• 1:21:52
  or like at least have $100 in like $20 bills or something.
• 1:21:57
  Because dollars is just everyone will take dollars if the other,
• 1:22:01
  if the other option is that you don't have money and you can't
• 1:22:04
  pay them, then everyone will take dollars anywhere in the
• 1:22:07
  world. That always works with EUR.
• 1:22:09
  It was a bit more more difficult in some places, but it always
• 1:22:14
  works as kind of an emergency thing to have.
• 1:22:19
  Otherwise, I just tried to take out cash, tried to look online
• 1:22:23
  where I can take out cash. There are some apps to tell you
• 1:22:25
  where there's ATMs with like no fees or very, very few fees as
• 1:22:30
  well, like Worldwide. That's really helpful sometimes
• 1:22:34
  because those can add up really quickly as well.
• 1:22:39
  And yeah, so I think it was just a mix, mix of that, just cash.
• 1:22:43
  I never had any problems with like POS or something or ATMs or
• 1:22:47
  anything. I had my card being used once in
• 1:22:52
  Nepal and it was actually quite inconvenient because I didn't
• 1:22:57
  have another card with me so my card was blocked and I was
• 1:23:02
  running out of cash. So I had to ask some people that
• 1:23:05
  I met along the way if they can actually like lend me some cash
• 1:23:08
  until I get to a place where my stuff was where I have a second
• 1:23:13
  bank card with me. So it also helps to have like 2
• 1:23:16
  bank cards as well, just in case 1 you, you can even lose one or
• 1:23:23
  something happens or it breaks or whatever, you never know.
• 1:23:25
  So and it's sometimes tedious to get your cards if you're
• 1:23:29
  somewhere else or you're travelling around, you don't
• 1:23:31
  know where you're going to be in like 5 days.
• 1:23:34
  So that that can really, yeah, just be a become a problem and
• 1:23:39
  where you have to change your plans according to that.
• 1:23:41
  So I didn't want to have that. So it's good to have just two
• 1:23:43
  cards with you, but then take cash with you.
• 1:23:47
  That's that's was worked for me. It's it's interesting that you
• 1:23:54
  you, you travel so many countries and you never had an
• 1:23:56
  issue with your card except this once when it was blocked.
• 1:23:59
  But I think that's, that's something that can always
• 1:24:01
  happen. So that's that has nothing to do
• 1:24:03
  with scams or something like this.
• 1:24:04
  But I think it's it's safe to say that if you are careful
• 1:24:07
  enough, you don't have, you can avoid problems.
• 1:24:10
  Yeah, for sure, like this for sure.
• 1:24:16
  You are the crazy experience, man.
• 1:24:18
  I have to say the I, I, I know I have to say it's, it's it's it's
• 1:24:24
  incredible. But I have to ask you did this
• 1:24:28
  three years of travelling change the occurred?
• 1:24:33
  In I think I mean any time period will change you
• 1:24:37
  regardless of what you do I guess.
• 1:24:38
  But the travelling part, not as much, I think like it's just a
• 1:24:45
  lot of experiences. You meet a lot of people.
• 1:24:46
  Of course, you're influenced by those people that you meet, by
• 1:24:48
  the cultures that you see, by the ways of life also that that
• 1:24:51
  you see. I think it helps you kind of to
• 1:24:55
  calibrate a little bit of how serious you take yourself and
• 1:24:59
  and life as well. If you see how much is out there
• 1:25:03
  and what other people are are doing and how other people are
• 1:25:06
  living, that really helps with that.
• 1:25:11
  But really changed for me was I think more the experience of not
• 1:25:16
  being attached to any place and like not having an apartment,
• 1:25:20
  not being around my friends, not being around my family, all
• 1:25:24
  those things that kind of use up headspace every day.
• 1:25:28
  Like you think about your job, you think about, oh, I need to
• 1:25:31
  do this in the apartment, I need to buy groceries, I need to do
• 1:25:33
  this. So you spend a lot of headspace
• 1:25:36
  on all of these things and then you have some things that you
• 1:25:40
  maybe want to work on on yourself or some problems that
• 1:25:42
  you have or traumas or whatever. And those get very little
• 1:25:46
  headspace because you're busy with your daily life.
• 1:25:49
  And I had the feeling that as soon as I took out all of these
• 1:25:53
  these factors, I don't have to think about an apartment.
• 1:25:56
  I don't think about my friends like, or they're not around me,
• 1:25:59
  at least no one is influencing me.
• 1:26:02
  Suddenly that headspace, headspace gets taken up by
• 1:26:06
  things that I should be working on or should have been working
• 1:26:10
  on on myself or some problems that I've had.
• 1:26:14
  And suddenly I have a start, a thought process that starts
• 1:26:17
  going in circles around these, around these problems.
• 1:26:21
  And I was really surprising to me because I've felt like, OK,
• 1:26:25
  now this is taking up so much headspace, I actually have to
• 1:26:29
  change something. I have to actually do something
• 1:26:31
  and I have to work on these problems because now I have the
• 1:26:34
  time and I have the headspace to do it.
• 1:26:36
  And there's not so many distractions, even though of
• 1:26:39
  course you're doing a lot of things, you're experiencing a
• 1:26:41
  lot of things, but these are all positive things that happen
• 1:26:43
  every day. So you still have a lot of,
• 1:26:47
  yeah, just space and, and, and your mind is in a state where
• 1:26:51
  you, you can work on these problems.
• 1:26:53
  I think that's the biggest change that happened for me is
• 1:26:56
  having that experience and then really starting from there to to
• 1:26:58
  work on some of these things over the time.
• 1:27:02
  That's a that's something that I haven't thought about, but
• 1:27:05
  you're right. I mean the the daily routine is
• 1:27:08
  hitting your your headspace for sure.
• 1:27:10
  That's that makes a lot. Of and your energy as well.
• 1:27:14
  I mean, you spend like a third of your day at, at at work, but
• 1:27:18
  it's probably like 80% of your energy.
• 1:27:20
  So you have 20% maybe of your energy or even less for
• 1:27:25
  everything else that happens in your life in those like next 8-9
• 1:27:29
  hours that you're going to be awake.
• 1:27:32
  So it's really hard to spend much energy on on on all the
• 1:27:36
  topics in the way that you maybe should or or would want to.
• 1:27:42
  The important things, yeah. Right.
• 1:27:44
  Yeah, it is important things, absolutely, yeah.
• 1:27:48
  Carl, before we wrap it up, I have a usually a series of of
• 1:27:53
  five rapid fire questions that I try to tailor on the guest.
• 1:27:58
  They are never rapid fire, but they are also like direct
• 1:28:01
  questions that I ask at the end. The first one is 11 country that
• 1:28:09
  surprised you the most and why? And even if it's Kazakhstan or
• 1:28:12
  Kurdistan, you can you can still say it even though we talked
• 1:28:15
  about it. Yeah, I'm trying not to say
• 1:28:17
  these two so. I thought about about even to
• 1:28:22
  say besides those, but I don't want to make it too hard.
• 1:28:25
  Yeah, yeah. Now I want to say Indonesia here
• 1:28:29
  surprised me the most. I went in without any
• 1:28:32
  expectations. I, I knew that, you know, people
• 1:28:36
  in Asia are, are friendly and it's, I would say it's a common
• 1:28:40
  stereotype that Asian people are generally friendly.
• 1:28:45
  And, and I knew it from Thailand or other places, but Indonesia
• 1:28:48
  was the one place where the people stood out for me the most
• 1:28:52
  alive. And that's really 99% of the
• 1:28:55
  people that I've interacted with were just really, genuinely
• 1:29:00
  incredibly friendly, really smiling the whole day and the
• 1:29:06
  whole time and being just overly friendly, but without having any
• 1:29:11
  motive behind it. Like it was not because someone
• 1:29:13
  wanted to sell something to me or whatever.
• 1:29:17
  But in every interaction that I've had with regardless of this
• 1:29:20
  was some service or not, or it was just a person on the street
• 1:29:24
  that would start talking to me for no reason.
• 1:29:26
  They would just for the sake of talking.
• 1:29:29
  Even in the most touristic places where there's millions of
• 1:29:33
  tourists going through every year, they still remain
• 1:29:37
  incredibly friendly and incredibly genuine.
• 1:29:40
  And that was really, really surprising to me because I had
• 1:29:44
  experienced that in other Asian countries, but not to that
• 1:29:47
  extent and not as genuine. I always, it felt in a few Asian
• 1:29:51
  countries that it was always tied to some sort of transaction
• 1:29:56
  and that I would be seen as kind of a superior because I'm now
• 1:30:00
  the one paying for some service or something, which felt really
• 1:30:04
  weird and wrong to me. And in Indonesia, I had more the
• 1:30:08
  feeling that we're like always talking eye to eye, regardless
• 1:30:11
  of whether that's some service or not or some transaction or
• 1:30:14
  whatever. I'm just being seen as a human
• 1:30:18
  and I see them as humans and we'll just talk on that level.
• 1:30:21
  So that was really surprising for me.
• 1:30:26
  You realize in those cases, right, that the amount of money
• 1:30:29
  that they have is not what brings brings them happiness
• 1:30:32
  because most of them are just living at the limit and so on.
• 1:30:34
  And I think that's something that that helps you realize as
• 1:30:37
  well that the the importance that we set up money is, is much
• 1:30:41
  higher than it should be. Absolutely.
• 1:30:43
  Yeah, Yeah. What was harder, Carl coming
• 1:30:47
  home or deciding to leave again? Both are hard.
• 1:30:58
  I think it's it's switches. It starts with come coming home
• 1:31:04
  is harder at the beginning and then it gets easier and leaving,
• 1:31:11
  leaving gets gets kind of harder.
• 1:31:15
  Just progress, like the longer you're away, the harder it is
• 1:31:18
  once you're at home to leave again.
• 1:31:21
  So the first time I left, as I said, like I was OK to like
• 1:31:24
  leave. I was like, OK, I just want to
• 1:31:26
  see more. I want to experience more.
• 1:31:28
  Now when I leave, I'm really heartbroken to leave my friends.
• 1:31:31
  So, so that switched, really, really switched and, and coming
• 1:31:37
  home, I, I feel anxious about both.
• 1:31:39
  And that's, I know, like every time I come back home like 5
• 1:31:43
  days beforehand, even though I'm really happy to go home and to
• 1:31:46
  see my friends, I'm really anxious about how it's going to
• 1:31:48
  going to be, even though I've, I've absolutely no reason to be
• 1:31:51
  anxious about it. And every time I leave, I, I
• 1:31:55
  begin to be anxious about it like 3-4 days beforehand because
• 1:31:59
  you both of it, you go kind of a little bit into the unknown.
• 1:32:04
  And I think that's, that's scary.
• 1:32:05
  That's just, say, scary. One thing that long long term
• 1:32:15
  travel teach you that your normal life couldn't have.
• 1:32:24
  I think detachment from like money and from from belongings,
• 1:32:28
  that's something I I really had to learn from myself.
• 1:32:32
  Maybe others are better at this, but for me, I don't know, it was
• 1:32:35
  really important to have my career progress and to save up a
• 1:32:39
  lot of money and to see like more money on my bank account
• 1:32:42
  every month. As I said, I didn't buy anything
• 1:32:44
  big. I didn't spend really, really
• 1:32:46
  money. And I, I loved my apartment.
• 1:32:51
  I loved like all the furniture and like all the decorations and
• 1:32:54
  all the, all of that stuff. So it's really hard to give that
• 1:32:57
  away like that. I was like heartbroken to give
• 1:33:01
  all the stuff away and to give that comfort, comfort away.
• 1:33:06
  And then you go out and 3-4 months later you think about it
• 1:33:10
  and, and you realize you hadn't thought about any of those
• 1:33:14
  things for months, like not even a little bit.
• 1:33:17
  And I came back as I told you in the summer to Austria and I, I
• 1:33:22
  kind of opened one of the boxes where I kept like some clothing
• 1:33:25
  and stuff from, from myself and, and I really rediscovered all
• 1:33:28
  those things because if someone would have thrown away these
• 1:33:32
  boxes, I wouldn't have been able to tell you one thing that is
• 1:33:35
  inside because I just forgot about.
• 1:33:38
  And I was like, oh wait, I have these pants.
• 1:33:39
  Wait, oh wow, this shirt. Oh yes, I bought it a few years
• 1:33:42
  ago. Like you, you forget about it if
• 1:33:46
  you're wearing the same 5 shirts every week and the same 2 pants
• 1:33:51
  and you run around in flip flops, like you just forget
• 1:33:55
  about all that stuff And you don't just don't think about it
• 1:33:57
  anymore. And it just, yeah, it just loses
• 1:34:01
  any importance and is out of your exist and it doesn't have
• 1:34:05
  anything to do with your existence anymore.
• 1:34:07
  And the same goes with the money, right?
• 1:34:09
  So you said before very, which is very right.
• 1:34:14
  Like money, having money doesn't make happy.
• 1:34:16
  This doesn't make you happy. And I I think that's true.
• 1:34:19
  Like I think not having money makes you unhappy, but having
• 1:34:23
  money doesn't necessarily make you happy.
• 1:34:25
  And once you get out of that, that zone where you're kind of
• 1:34:31
  working just to survive and you're just, we're working to
• 1:34:35
  build your quality of life. You can build it for a while,
• 1:34:41
  but then it kind of stops at some point.
• 1:34:43
  And there's not, you know, buying that new decoration or
• 1:34:47
  like slightly bigger TV or whatever that will not add too
• 1:34:50
  much to your quality of life anymore.
• 1:34:55
  But at the same time, keeping that money on your bank account
• 1:34:57
  and having more and more and more every month doesn't really
• 1:35:01
  make you happy as well. So I think the quality of life
• 1:35:04
  then really depends on how you spend your money and what you
• 1:35:07
  spend it on and not how much you have actually.
• 1:35:10
  And if you spend it for the things that you that you enjoy,
• 1:35:14
  like in this case for me at least, travelling, then, then I
• 1:35:17
  think you can have that bump in your quality of life again.
• 1:35:23
  That's all good then. I think the one of the things
• 1:35:26
  which is important is to try to make yourself happy.
• 1:35:28
  Not to leave for status, not to leave to get confirmation from
• 1:35:32
  the others because they were they are not living your life.
• 1:35:34
  You are the one living your life and you should be the one
• 1:35:37
  enjoying it, not other ones standards.
• 1:35:40
  And I think that's hard. I think that's, that's, that's
• 1:35:42
  hard now for travelling as well, because if I go and like again,
• 1:35:47
  if I open Instagram or something, I see all these
• 1:35:50
  wheels of people like travelling.
• 1:35:52
  It looks amazing. Like it, it, it looks nice.
• 1:35:55
  But I think a lot of people have their dream of travelling, but
• 1:35:58
  it's not their own dream, but it's someone else's dream.
• 1:36:00
  And do you think like, oh, I have to go out travelling, I
• 1:36:02
  have to save up for this or whatever, even though it's
• 1:36:04
  actually not, not for them and it's not their not their dream.
• 1:36:07
  So I think it becomes harder not to live someone else's dream
• 1:36:09
  because someone else's dream looks very nice and like on
• 1:36:14
  social media, that becomes really, really hard.
• 1:36:18
  What social media is doing is bringing only the pluses, not
• 1:36:21
  the minuses. And I think this is also an
• 1:36:25
  issue. I don't know if you know Ramsey,
• 1:36:27
  he's a guy that doing is doing financial consulting or advising
• 1:36:32
  and he has a show since here in the US is on the US market.
• 1:36:35
  And he said the really interesting thing is that
• 1:36:39
  whenever we were in our neighborhood at home in the US
• 1:36:43
  was the the saying of keeping up with the Joneses like to to have
• 1:36:46
  if they bought a new car, you should buy a new car.
• 1:36:49
  If they bought 2 new cars, you have to buy 2 new cars and so
• 1:36:51
  on. But but he said, as we said
• 1:36:53
  there, the Jones were living on on down the street from your
• 1:36:56
  house and you knew when Missus Jones were having a fight with
• 1:36:59
  Mr. Jones and you know that the kids had some issues in school
• 1:37:04
  and you also knew the bad things.
• 1:37:06
  But on Instagram you don't see this.
• 1:37:07
  OK, that doesn't make sense. You only see the pluses because
• 1:37:11
  you they never post about them about them, because nobody's
• 1:37:14
  doing that. And I think that's why, why
• 1:37:16
  social media is so bad, because you are living somebody else's
• 1:37:19
  dream life, which is not actually their actual life,
• 1:37:22
  right? It's their dream life that you
• 1:37:24
  are living that even themselves are not, is not are not living
• 1:37:28
  it. Absolutely.
• 1:37:31
  You told me what what travel gave you, but what travel took
• 1:37:35
  away from you. I think there's a lot of
• 1:37:38
  sacrifices to it. I mean, I talked about the
• 1:37:40
  personal belongings. That's a sacrifice you have to
• 1:37:43
  make the comfort of your own home, being able to sleep in the
• 1:37:47
  same bed and wake up in the same bed every day.
• 1:37:51
  I mean that's that is I think that is something that is very
• 1:37:54
  important and can give you quality of life as well.
• 1:37:59
  Then of course, like not seeing your friends, not seeing your
• 1:38:02
  family, all of these things. That's that's a sacrifice you
• 1:38:06
  also make and something that you have to weigh in when you think
• 1:38:08
  of should I do this? Should I go out?
• 1:38:11
  How long should I be away and all of that stuff.
• 1:38:15
  The budget, of course, money, that's, that's a question.
• 1:38:18
  That's a sacrifice you have to make.
• 1:38:21
  You have to detach yourself from that money and be like, OK, this
• 1:38:24
  money is gone now. And maybe I won't buy a car for
• 1:38:28
  the next two years or for the next three years, or I won't buy
• 1:38:32
  the department or, or whatever. Like, you know, so there's a lot
• 1:38:36
  of, a lot of sacrifices. And I, I think for me it's more
• 1:38:39
  the personal sacrifices of not being around your friends, not
• 1:38:42
  being around your family, not having that comforts, sometimes
• 1:38:47
  being lonely, sometimes feeling lost.
• 1:38:50
  That's that's like the, the hardship of it is kind of the
• 1:38:54
  sacrifice that you do for all the nice, nice things that you
• 1:38:57
  get. Is there on the other side also
• 1:39:01
  a fear of missing out? Because usually the fear of
• 1:39:04
  missing out is when you don't travel, when you sit at home and
• 1:39:07
  you see the others travelling. But is it happening the other
• 1:39:09
  way around as well? Rarely, to be honest, quite,
• 1:39:17
  quite quite rarely. So I, no, I didn't have the
• 1:39:22
  feeling that I missed out. I I just had the feeling that I,
• 1:39:25
  you know, missed the friends or, or something and that I would
• 1:39:27
  want to be with them right now. I more often had the feeling of
• 1:39:33
  like having an experience and thinking, Oh, I would like to
• 1:39:36
  have this friend or, or like my brother or whoever with me right
• 1:39:40
  now to have that experience together.
• 1:39:43
  And I'm kind of missing out having that experience with like
• 1:39:46
  someone else. And now it's just for myself.
• 1:39:50
  So it's a different fear of missing out.
• 1:39:53
  It's it's fear of someone else missing out.
• 1:39:55
  And in that way, you're also missing out on that experience,
• 1:40:00
  not so much on the things that were happening back home here.
• 1:40:05
  That makes sense, Carl. If someone would be in front of
• 1:40:08
  you and they would say I would do the same, I want to the same
• 1:40:11
  thing that you have done, what would you warn them about first?
• 1:40:17
  I think what we've talked about like make sure this is your
• 1:40:20
  dream, Make sure this is not someone else's dream you're
• 1:40:22
  living. That's really, really, really
• 1:40:26
  important. Try to make it for the wrong for
• 1:40:31
  the right reasons. Like I, I was really trying to
• 1:40:37
  make this in a way, and the planet in a way that it's not an
• 1:40:40
  escape for me from, from my life here.
• 1:40:42
  I tried to have my life here as comfortable as I wanted to be.
• 1:40:47
  And then really focus on what I want to have from it, what kind
• 1:40:51
  of experiences I want to do, what kind of places I want to
• 1:40:54
  see and not think about, oh, I don't want to be here because
• 1:40:58
  it's winter and it's cold and it's dark and blah, blah and so
• 1:41:01
  on. So I think the motivation,
• 1:41:03
  having the right motivation and going out with that motivation,
• 1:41:07
  making the decision because of that motivation is really,
• 1:41:09
  really, really important. I think that's like 2 key
• 1:41:12
  factors is really go out for the right reasons and because you
• 1:41:16
  really, really want it, because it becomes with just comes with
• 1:41:20
  sacrifice in a lot of different ways and it has to be worth it
• 1:41:25
  for you. Makes absolutely sense.
• 1:41:30
  Less question of today, Carl. I promise I'll let you go after
• 1:41:33
  this. Where is home?
• 1:41:38
  Difficult one. I think for me now, the last few
• 1:41:45
  years, Austria has become more, the less I'm here, the more it
• 1:41:49
  has become my home, which is kind of counterintuitive.
• 1:41:54
  That's interesting. But but yeah, the more the less
• 1:41:57
  I was here, the more it felt like home every time I was here.
• 1:42:02
  And the more I was excited about being here, the more I could
• 1:42:05
  appreciate all the places, the food, the people, everything.
• 1:42:10
  Of course, there's downsides to to the place here.
• 1:42:13
  And I feel like I have other places that I would also call
• 1:42:17
  home now as well, because I have some friends there, because I
• 1:42:21
  like living there, because I like being there.
• 1:42:25
  But yeah, for me, like being away from what was my home
• 1:42:29
  before, where it, it felt less like a home, really made, made
• 1:42:35
  it more of my home. It's, it's, it's sounds strange
• 1:42:38
  and it's weird even to say it, but that that's how I feel right
• 1:42:42
  now. And it's about the people,
• 1:42:43
  right? It's the people that you have
• 1:42:45
  around you. It's those friendships that went
• 1:42:48
  on for decades and the family and everything where you can
• 1:42:51
  just sit with them. You don't have to explain
• 1:42:53
  anything. You, you're not new.
• 1:42:56
  You're you're just you and and that's it.
• 1:42:58
  And it. Everything comes off easy.
• 1:43:00
  I think it's it's more and more the same thing.
• 1:43:03
  That is not the place is the feeling.
• 1:43:05
  It's just the feeling of home, right?
• 1:43:07
  It's not especially Austria, but just the people that you have
• 1:43:10
  there that you meet when you go back.
• 1:43:12
  Yeah, absolutely. Carl, thank you so, so much for
• 1:43:16
  being here today. Of course.
• 1:43:17
  Thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time.
• 1:43:22
  Thank you. I'm trying.
• 1:43:25
  Thanks so much for your time. I much appreciated.
• 1:43:29
  I took a lot of your time today and I I hope that that your
• 1:43:35
  story is inspiring at least one person when they see this
• 1:43:38
  episode and that that would make make me happy even to do it or
• 1:43:41
  maybe not to do it. Like, I think that's important
• 1:43:44
  to have it in both ways. Absolutely.
• 1:43:48
  And man, I'm, I'm extremely honest when I'm telling you I
• 1:43:52
  don't know. Next year, when you're coming
• 1:43:54
  back from whomever you are living, just drop me an e-mail
• 1:43:58
  and we can do this again. Perfect.
• 1:44:00
  That sounds great. Thanks so much.
• 1:44:03
  Have a nice. One thank you.
• 1:44:04
  You too. Car's journey reminds us that
• 1:44:08
  home isn't always a coordinate on a map.
• 1:44:11
  Sometimes it's just a feeling of not having to explain yourself
• 1:44:14
  to the people around you. If cars 81 country odyssey steal
• 1:44:19
  something in you, don't let the momentum of it.
• 1:44:21
  We are building a global community of explorers and your
• 1:44:24
  voice is the missing piece. If you found value in the
• 1:44:28
  experience episode, please leave us a five star review on Spotify
• 1:44:32
  or Apple podcast. It tells the algorithm that
• 1:44:34
  atmosphere still matters in a world of noise.
• 1:44:37
  Do you know a storyteller, an explorer or a niche expert who
• 1:44:41
  fits the whereabouts fibes? Send me an e-mail or DME.
• 1:44:45
  I'm scouting for our next guest and I want them to come from
• 1:44:49
  you. Make sure you're following the
• 1:44:51
  show so you don't miss our next World building session.
• 1:44:56
  Until next time, keep searching for her somewhere.
• 1:44:59
  I'm Paul and this has been whereabouts stills.