Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hey Nomads.
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Welcome to Digital Nomad Stories, the podcast.
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My name is Anne Klaassen and, together with my co-host, kendra Hasse, we interview digital nomads.
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Why?
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Because we want to share stories of how they did it.
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We talk about remote work, online business, location independency, freelancing, travel and, of course, the digital nomad lifestyle.
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Do you want to know more about us and access all previous episodes?
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Visit digitalnomadstoriesco.
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All right, let's go into today's episode.
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Hey, hey nomads.
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Welcome to a new episode of Digital Nomad Stories.
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Today, I'm joined by Paul and Sandra.
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They've been location independent since 2016, so that's a while.
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I'm very excited to hear more about their experiences and what they've learned on the road, and they have a blog.
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It's called Minimalist Journeys, or I would say, websites more on the blog, a website, minimalistjourneyscom and they share a lot about intentional travel, sustainable travel and also being a minimalist, and they travel with hand luggage only.
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I'm very excited for those tips and tricks because I've been on everywhere on that spectrum.
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You know, when I first started traveling, I took way too much.
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I had a huge backpack with all of my belongings and then I went completely the other way, where I had hand luggage only, but and it worked for a while, but then after that I was like okay, I feel like I should find a middle ground.
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And every time I'm still asking myself like what do I actually have to take?
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Is it worth it to carry this around with me?
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Anyway, I think it's a big, big question for nomads or anyone who travels a lot.
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So, paul and Sandra, I'm very excited to have you on the show today.
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Welcome.
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Thank you Thanks for having us.
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Yeah, it's great to be here.
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Amazing.
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So can you tell us a little bit more about you, what you do?
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And yeah, just a little bit more about you, sure.
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As you said, we've been on the road for eight years.
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We used to have corporate careers.
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We lived in Sydney for 10 years and amassed many possessions and we had a big four bedroom house and had the corporate career and had everything.
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Had everything we wanted.
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But we also had a gardener, a cleaner and because we worked hard in corporate careers, we had no life.
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So we decided to basically give it up, sell the house, get rid of the kids and have been living on the road ever since.
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Awesome, well, big, big change.
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I think especially that you mentioned that corporate careers were a big part of your life.
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It took up a lot of your time and just life, yeah, like the whole lifestyle was around work.
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It sounds like yeah that must have been a huge change and not around work.
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Yeah, I mean, I worked as a management consultant back in those days and as anyone in that.
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In that field that's long hours, it's deadlines, it's pressure, it's politics at work and at some stage we realized that's not really the life that we want to live and, yeah, it's all kind of started from there really.
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Well, actually, no, it didn't.
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It didn't really.
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Funnily enough, a few years earlier, we'd actually gone on a three-month sabbatical and we were both allowed to have time off from our work, and so we went away on the sabbatical and we loved it so much.
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We went to Latin America and we came back home and we didn't want to come back home and we went into our jobs and it's like we're away 24-7 with each other and absolutely loved it, and so I think that was probably the nugget.
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That was the thing.
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That sort of said why can't we do this full time?
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Yeah the first little nugget.
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The first little seed that was put into our heads.
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Yeah, I mean obviously the journey, since it took us another four years or so to actually arrive at the point where we were able to actually take off and start our location independently.
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Yeah, what does life look like now for you?
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Where are you and kind of?
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What do your days look like?
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Right now we are in Switzerland, just outside Geneva.
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We can see the lake from here, where we're staying.
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We do a house sit at the moment, so we do a lot of house sitting around the world in different places, looking after two dogs at the moment, which we take for dog walks, which is also very nice, especially in this countryside, and other than that, our days look pretty much the same anywhere around the world.
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We still get up and work five to six days a week, but on our business and on our terms, and if the weather is crappy we work, and if the weather is beautiful and sunny, then we are out and about exploring.
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So we are quite a bit more flexible than than we used to and we take advantage of this obviously yeah, and I, and I think for me, I, I go for a lot of runs, so I run a lot, and so for me to be able to be in the countryside, as we are right now, and in different countries, and going for my runs and exploring the neighborhoods you know it's the first thing I do in the morning.
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I get up pretty early, as soon as the light is available, and head out for a run, and that starts my day off.
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Was I able to do it back when we had corporate careers?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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But I was probably only running for half an hour or 45 minutes before I had to get on the bus and head into work, and there's a lot more pressure there.
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From that point of view Nowadays, it's actually nice.
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I can go for a run, or we can go for a walk with the dogs, or we can go for a hike.
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It's pretty much, you know, whatever we want to do, really based upon the weather yeah, much more flexible than before, lots more freedom amazing and it sounds very nice.
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A dog sitting or house sitting with two dogs, and then right at the lake nature in switzerland that sounds like a pretty cool dream.
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Dream come true, experience yeah, we actually are here in this area, particularly the second time.
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We didn't five years ago, when we were last in europe and we loved it so much.
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We came back different dogs, slightly different village, but only um 10 minutes further, further along the lake.
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So, yeah, it's a gorgeous area yeah, and it's one of the things that help help us to be, uh, location independent and to be able to afford this lifestyle, is the house sitting, the fact that we can, you know, save this around about 30 of our expenses, uh, by by house sitting itself.
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And I guess it's like, uh, whether you've had, whether you do a help ex, or whether you do wolfing, or whether you do house sitting, you know the ability to, to save a chunk of money by offering services for a couple of hours a day you know really helps in terms of saving money, but also from a lifestyle point of view the experience that we get in different places and the different animals that we've looked after over the years.
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Another point is as well for us, because we are on the road all the time.
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We can't have animals ourselves.
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So one day maybe when we are settling down, then we have a whole bunch of them.
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But in the meantime that's kind of our animal fix as well.
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The house-sitting side, yeah.
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And I guess it's a little bit like grandchildren you get to be able to spoil them, rotten and then hand them back.
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I love that.
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Yeah, I really love dogs and I'm obsessed with dogs.
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Okay, I'll be honest, I'm obsessed with dogs and yeah, I also do some dog sitting here and there, but not really house sitting so far.
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I've looked into it but I do some dog sit.
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It was also through an app.
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It's called Rover, and I love it.
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Like you said, it's definitely my animal fix for not having my own dog.
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At least I can hang out with dogs and the co-living where I was a few weeks ago they had a dog and it was the best thing ever just to hang out and just walk the dog and such a different experience and I and I guess for us it's because we've got had so many years of experience with house sitting and looking after animals we're a little bit more picky and choosy and so therefore we we make sure that the dog fits our personality and vice versa.
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Um, you know when we when or cat or sheep, or horse or cow, I don't know, I don't know, how you match the chief personality oh, come on, there's.
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Sometimes we do the alpacas, the alpacas, occasionally speaking of them.
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I just barked um, but yeah, it's, it's.
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We are a little bit more picky and choosy in terms of in terms of which house that we actually go to now, which is, which is great for us, I guess, and you newbie coming on board and doing it for the first time, you can't be as much, but it is what it is yeah, exactly, you have that experience now and that profile, probably also on the website so that people can see your experience.
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Yeah, that must make a difference.
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So how do you balance this?
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Do you have a place somewhere and you, or are you fully nomadic and do you go from house it's a house, it, or is there I don't know airbnbs, any other accommodation that you balance out the house it's with?
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Can you talk a little bit more about that?
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Yeah, I guess to answer the question, we don't go from house sit to house sit.
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We definitely need to have some time off after the house sits because we see them as an assignment, we see them and work at them quite professionally.
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So it's quite important for us to dedicate our time to the house sit and so straight afterwards we normally have at least a minimum of three to four days to a week off between house sits to de-chill ourselves, to a week off between house sits to de-chill ourselves.
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But at the same time, when we are having breaks between the house sits, we will go stay at a short-term rental property and again, we may stay for one week to three weeks to four weeks, depending on what we want to do.
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Depends on the destination as well.
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Depends on where we want to go and what we want to do.
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Yeah, also, house sitting, at least here in Europe where we are, is not common in all countries.
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So we find in english-speaking countries it's more prevalent, or with expats, particularly here where we are right now, um geneva and the surrounding area.
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A lot of people work in geneva on you know, un things etc.
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And that's more common here, but for example, italy or the netherlands or wherever it's it's less common here but for example, italy or the Netherlands or wherever it's less common.
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So we also kind of pick and choose the countries according to that and do house sits where it's more common and not house sits and then do short-term rental where we can't do or don't want to do house sits.
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It always needs to fit into our schedule as well.
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So, for Europe, because Paul has a New Zealand passport, he can only stay in the Schengen area for three months and then we have to go out and then he can come back in after three months.
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So we work around that a little bit as well and kind of, yeah, which countries you want to visit, and either we do short-term rental or house sits or stay with friends, family, because obviously, being in Europe and I'm from Europe we also catch up with people we know.
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Yeah, so there's a bit of a balance between visiting people, catching up, and then house sitting and some short-term rentals in between to chill, recharge, get ready for the next house sit.
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Yeah, and also the fact that on our website we are travel bloggers.
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We do talk about intentional living and sustainable travel.
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So therefore, we do go to countries and destinations where we want to promote a certain type of travel and encourage a certain amount of travel to promote a certain type of travel and encourage a certain amount of travel.
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So, as well as house sitting and doing what we want to do it's almost downtime we then head off to a destination where we can write about, and that's also part of our lifestyle and part of what we want to do and how we grow how we learn Exactly.
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Yeah, because I can imagine in the past eight years that you probably learned a lot about business and travel and sustainable travel.
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Can you talk a little bit about what steps you took from when you were living in Sydney?
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You had your corporate careers and that seed has been planted already.
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Right, you went on your sabbatical and you're like, oh, this is very interesting, we might want to leave again.
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How did you make that a reality?
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A lot of planning.
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I guess, as Sandra said, in the four years between the three-month sabbatical and leaving Australia we planned a lot.
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We strategized, we knew we had to downsize.
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We obviously wanted to sell our house and our possessions and get rid of our possessions.
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We also knew that, a little bit like you, for the sabbatical we did have 70-liter backpacks.
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I had everything in the kitchen sink just in case, including a three-kilo tripod, just in case.
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Just in case.
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That's another story for another day, but yeah, so therefore, it did take a little bit of planning to get us down to that stage of being ready to launch, to leave, to escape, to start on our next journey.
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And also the why came into it as well.
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Why are we actually doing what we're doing?
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Exit strategies as well, what happens if it doesn't work?
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How long do we want to be on the road for?
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So we actually did a lot of that planning during those four years.
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Especially at the beginning yeah, yeah, testing the waters, testing out equipment, testing out, as you say, when we did take it down to smaller backpacks and smaller amount of possessions.
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Was that enough?
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Was it too much?
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Did we reduce to the point where we had one or two pairs of underwear and we had to wash them all every second day in the bathroom sink?
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That's not a good idea, is it?
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If you want to do this long-term full-time?
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Yeah, we did.
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I mean, with regard to the carry-on only travel, we did a bit of testing beforehand.
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We travelled in 2014 back to Europe and it was our first attempt in just traveling with carry-on backpacks and it worked well.
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We didn't have really an issue with that.
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And but with regards to reducing our four-bedroom house down to minimal possessions, that took quite a bit of time.
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I remember we had a whole wall full of post-it notes where we kind of scheduled out kind of what do we need to do to finish off by that day, and we ended up even translating that into an excel spreadsheet, coming both from a project management background and yeah, we work towards that.
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I mean it's.
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It's simple things like or they sound simple it's digitizing your lifestyle.
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You know we had or I had at least folders up in folders in bookshelves and going through those and digitizing what I still wanted to keep.
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We had a scanner at home and whenever it was raining, whenever I had some time on the weekend, I would scan documents and go through and chuck stuff out, to the point that Paul left two weeks before me heading to New Zealand and I had to finish off the last two weeks and took even a little bit with me, including the scanner in.
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New Zealand and we sold it then in New Zealand.
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So just to finish it off, photos, negatives, things like that.
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So that took actually quite a long time, even though with that project plan that we had, it's kind of funny when you leave a country to go to another one and you reduce things down, you close accounts, etc.
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People forget how difficult or how easy that part is compared to when you go to a new country and have to set up the bank account, the formal identification, the government ID, et cetera, and you don't know the process.
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So it's kind of a weird thing that the fact that for years you've been setting up your accounts at home, whether it be as you get older, you get a bank account and you do these different things and it's easy because you've done it over a period of years.
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But yeah, going into a new country and what do I need for that country?
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Do.
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But yeah, going into a new country and what do I need for that country?
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Do I need a SIM card?
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Do I need a driver's license?
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Do I need the bank account?
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Do I need this and that?
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And it becomes so much harder to do that because it's all squashed into a small amount of time.
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And luckily, we don't have to do that when we go from country to country and if we're in a country for two or three months, six months, it's a lot easier because we don't have to set up all those sort of things, even even as long-term travel, because we're travelers, we're not tourists yeah, exactly.
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Yeah, I think a lot of things you can you can take once you have that set up correctly, or like I don't want to say set up correctly, I mean more like set up in a way that you can take it with you, like some bank accounts are, or some banks are, better suited for travelers and some are not, so then you want to make that switch once and you know, set that up and then then you're okay, then you can take it to different countries with you.
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Yeah, no, I.
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There's definitely a lot of admin involved, and I think I personally think I was talking with a friend about this the other day Nomad Live.
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It just had a lot of live admin, like.
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There are other things that I don't do as much, like, for example, I'm now staying in a co-living and cleaning is included, so I don't have to clean my room.
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I don't have to clean my bathroom.
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For the time that I'm here, which is two months, I don't have to clean my room.
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I don't have to clean my bathroom.
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For the time that I'm here, which is two months, I don't have to worry about that at all, which is amazing.
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So that saves me a lot of time, right, but then I also do book flights and make sure that I'm checked in for flights and Airbnbs and where am I going next.
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And you know, coordinating all of that that definitely takes more time and yeah, especially setting it up at the start.
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How has the process been after you left australia and you started nomading and have you like, have you changed anything since then?
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Like slowed down or maybe travel faster, anything else that you that was just completely different from what you expected, that you had to change all of the above?
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a little bit.
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The first year.
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The first year we spent traveling around the americas, and we traveled actually with just one computer between the two of us.
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That's how we started and um it's hard to comprehend now but, um, we did actually manage.
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One of us had a tablet and put would, you would draft blog posts, and the other one would then grab them from there and put them in a computer.
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But yeah, that's kind of how we started and we realized after that first year now we need another computer and with the Surface Pros that they're using, they're light enough to do that.
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So that's one change.
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Definitely One thing that we didn't change is to just pick one continent a year.
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That kind of started right from the beginning and kind of has manifested itself being focused on responsible travel, that we are very conscious about our carbon footprint, and particularly with New Zealand as kind of the home base to a degree.
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There is only one option.
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You know, we can only fly, really and it's far away from everywhere.
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So, yeah, that makes it extra special or extra focus for us the carbon footprint.
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What else has changed or hasn't changed?
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We both wear.
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We both have seven pairs of underpants each.
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That's pretty important.
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That hasn't changed?
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Well, I think it did.
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Oh, the underwear now.
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I hope it changes in eight years.
00:19:23.631 --> 00:19:26.057
So it's almost seven years, no, no.
00:19:26.077 --> 00:19:27.182
It's one of those things.
00:19:27.510 --> 00:19:39.855
It's like you're getting used to a certain number, et cetera, which also then means we're washing once a week, which then means that from a process point of view, and all we know is you're probably washing every six days because it's the seventh day.
00:19:42.431 --> 00:19:43.554
So I guess that hasn't changed.
00:19:43.554 --> 00:20:04.983
I mean, one thing that is important for us, which sometimes is quite hard, depending on which country or continent is buying replacement gear, and that's always the difficult part, because what we have got is quality, what we have got is top of the range, best practice of the clothing that we wear or the, the technology that we've got, etc.
00:20:04.983 --> 00:20:14.778
But if we happen to be in a country where you're not able to get it, the concept of do we go, we do we compromise, do we wait, do we hold on to it for as long as we can, etc.
00:20:14.778 --> 00:20:21.589
So we're quite conscious of when we buy things and and what we're doing with it, and also what we're doing with it afterwards.
00:20:21.589 --> 00:20:32.602
If it's not fit for purpose anymore, what do we do with that Merino T-shirt that's got holes in it, or the shoes that have now started to fall apart, etc.
00:20:33.250 --> 00:21:23.402
So these are things that we're quite conscious of and our attitude has changed a lot over this period of time as well to be much more conscious about what we're using and what we're doing with it by bringing it on into our environment and removing it out of our environment yeah, yeah, I mean, let's talk a little bit more about traveling with hand luggage only, because I think that's really interesting, especially because you're very interested in sustainable travel as well as minimalist travel, and I think that you know, that mix is really interesting to me, because I have had times that I went, especially when I was traveling with hand luggage only, but also now sometimes I need something, and then I buy it and then it's like okay, so now I use this in this location.
00:21:23.402 --> 00:21:31.267
What do I do with this, you know, and sometimes I have to throw things out, which is not ideal, but then also, what do I do with?
00:21:31.387 --> 00:21:31.907
it, you know.
00:21:32.390 --> 00:21:48.557
So can you talk a little bit more about your approach to the minimalist, that minimalist travels, and how you make sure that that's not a situation for you, or at least, maybe not make sure, but maybe like minimize that or what your approach is?
00:21:49.740 --> 00:21:50.041
Sure.
00:21:50.041 --> 00:22:03.509
So between the two of us we've got the same kit, whether we're going to Iceland and have minus 20 degrees, or whether we're in the Sahara in Africa, 35 degrees.
00:22:03.509 --> 00:22:05.622
So it's the same kit that we've got.
00:22:05.622 --> 00:22:06.487
We don't change it out.
00:22:06.487 --> 00:22:09.900
We hold on to it the whole time and we travel with it the whole time.
00:22:09.900 --> 00:22:22.044
A couple of examples where things have had an impact Last year we were invited to a wedding and the wedding was a black tie affair or a suit.
00:22:23.355 --> 00:22:24.209
Men had to wear suits.
00:22:24.250 --> 00:22:27.019
Suits and women had to wear an evening dress A dress.
00:22:28.671 --> 00:22:35.743
So that made it quite difficult, because I personally only own three T-shirts and a couple of pairs of pants.
00:22:35.743 --> 00:22:37.536
It's not suitable for going to a wedding.
00:22:37.536 --> 00:22:40.679
So what we did is the wedding was on a Sunday.
00:22:40.679 --> 00:22:51.458
On the Saturday afternoon we went to an op shop and found a really nice suit for me, a white shirt Again all secondhand from the op shop, didn't need to be tailored or anything like that.
00:22:51.458 --> 00:22:52.756
It fitted perfectly.
00:22:52.756 --> 00:22:55.659
Wore it on the Sunday night to the wedding.
00:22:55.659 --> 00:23:02.835
On the Monday morning we actually had a flight out, so we took it back to the op shop and basically gave it back to them.
00:23:02.855 --> 00:23:05.121
Different op shop Different op shop.
00:23:05.121 --> 00:23:07.897
I didn't have time for that.
00:23:09.534 --> 00:23:13.351
But the fact that I was able to, and what did it cost us 50.
00:23:13.511 --> 00:23:14.955
Aussie dollars, 50 Australian dollars?
00:23:14.955 --> 00:23:15.778
I don't know.
00:23:16.200 --> 00:23:16.681
Whatever that was.
00:23:16.681 --> 00:23:23.319
So that's an example of where I'd made a conscious decision to buy something secondhand just for that one-off purpose.
00:23:23.750 --> 00:23:34.779
And we did actually look into it because, you know, ideally we would have just rented it and then returned it, but renting was actually more expensive than going to a secondhand shop and buying it and then returning it.
00:23:35.141 --> 00:23:36.023
And you had a dress.
00:23:36.345 --> 00:23:36.807
And I had.
00:23:36.807 --> 00:23:42.151
Yeah, I bought a dress and I still have a dress, because it's a really lightweight one and I was due to replace mine anyway.
00:23:42.471 --> 00:23:43.355
And it's from the same op shop.
00:23:43.375 --> 00:23:49.375
Yeah, it's a quality silk dress that I still wear Now can you do that anywhere.
00:23:50.138 --> 00:23:51.666
It depends on where the wedding is, etc.
00:23:51.666 --> 00:23:52.971
Or where you need to get dressed up for.
00:23:52.992 --> 00:23:55.442
Yeah, but as I mentioned, mending would be an option.
00:23:55.442 --> 00:24:06.873
Or we had a wedding a few years ago which was not that formal and then in that instance, Paul borrowed a button-down shirt from his son.
00:24:06.873 --> 00:24:20.383
So, and then his pants and everything else, they're're fine for the wedding and I have my dress and I can dress it up or dress it down with accessories and it still looks nice for a wedding or good enough for a less formal wedding.
00:24:21.291 --> 00:24:22.336
The one thing that we did buy.
