March 23, 2021

100th Episode - Traveling with Kristin Interview on Travel, Life, and Becoming a Digital Nomad

100th Episode - Traveling with Kristin Interview on Travel, Life, and Becoming a Digital Nomad

A podcast listener interviews Kristin from Traveling with Kristin on who she is, how she started traveling, how she affords her lifestyle, and how she became a digital nomad. Plus, her advice for how to achieve location-independence as a beginner.

100th episode of Badass Digital Nomads! A podcast listener interviews Kristin from Traveling with Kristin on who the heck she is, how she started traveling, how she affords her lifestyle, and how she became a digital nomad. Plus, her advice for how you can achieve your goals of location independence.  

About: 

In this episode, a fellow Badass Digital Nomads listener (Jeremiah Bradshaw) puts Kristin in the hot seat to answer all of his questions about becoming a digital nomad, her entrepreneurial background, and her personal life!

Accompany Jeremiah as he explores his skepticism of how achievable a digitally nomadic lifestyle really is and diagnoses Kristin's true motivation behind becoming a full-time digital nomad. 

Jeremiah asks questions that dig deep into Kristin's background, both in entrepreneurship and in her personal life, to uncover many things that you might also be wondering about her. 

Enjoy this candid discussion on the reality of living and working abroad, the challenges and misconceptions that come with this lifestyle, and how you can start working towards a lucrative life of location independence.

 Dying to know more about Kristin and why she chose to live this lifestyle for the long run? 

Tune in to hear Kristin riff on things like: 

  • Is the digital nomad lifestyle in Southeast Asia a mental and financial trap?
  • Should you be skeptical about the reality of attaining a digital nomad lifestyle?
  • Why did Kristin start making content about being a digital nomad? 
  • How does she afford to travel so much? 
  • How has she been traveling and living abroad full-time since she was 17? 
  • How did she learn Spanish? 
  • What's the best way to learn a foreign language?
  • Does becoming a digital nomad mean you have to make less money? 

 

MORE QUESTIONS KRISTIN ANSWERED:

  • What were your first memories of traveling?
  • How did you afford to travel? 
  • How many countries have you been to? 
  • Was there anything else in your early life that evoked a response in you the way travel did?
  • When you became an adult and started taking trips on your own, did your desire to travel more happen organically?
  • How many years have you lived outside of the United States?
  • Is it uncommon to spend as long in the US as you are right now?
  • When did you start traveling and living internationally?
  • What is it like to learn a new language in a foreign country?
  • How many countries have you been to?
  • What’s the biggest appeal of Southeast Asia?
  • Do you have any negative thought patterns that you’ve had to overcome?

 

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: 

 

More Resources:

Podcasts: 

 

Videos: 

 

Other Resources Mentioned: 

 

Destinations: 

  • Italy Trip:
    • Rome, Tuscany, Venice, Amalfi
  • Rosarito, Mexico
  • Bansko, Bulgaria
  • Norway
  • Japan
  • Australia
  • Thailand

Movie: Office Space https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/ 

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Thank you to my current 2021 Patrons: Teklordz, Trader Walt, Shawn, Gary, Gary R, Yozhik, Bronwyn, Cynthia, Erick, Yasmine, Mike, Isaac, Michael, Scott, Karen, Erik, Heather, Craig, RZ, Timothy, Richard, Fred, Lakshay, Yohzik, and Ron!

 

My goal is to create a community of 100 Patrons in 2021 - You can become a Patron for $5/month at Patreon.com/travelingwithkristin and see all my YouTube videos first, attend monthly live streams, submit questions for the podcast, and be the first to find out about special offers and guests, as well as the chance to participate in beta programs at free or discounted rates.

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Podcast descriptions may contain affiliate links of products and services we use and recommend at no additional cost to you. 

 

 

Transcript

Sneak Peek:

 

Kristin:    00:00:00    Yeah, I think the biggest appeal of Southeast Asia is the price. Hands down, right? I mean, you can have such a high quality of life for a low amount of money and I really value that too. I mean, there's really nothing like it in, in Thailand to be able to eat out every meal and get massages and go to the spa every day for like $5, it's, it's pretty crazy when you come from a country with a really high cost of living. 

 

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

 

Wise

 

Kristin:    00:00:46    If you've ever had to send money abroad or pay someone in a different country, you know how expensive wire transfer and foreign exchange fees can be. That's why I've been using Wise, formerly known as TransferWise for more than seven years now. Sending money internationally with wise is between five to 13 times cheaper than traditional banks. It's also fast and easy with a Wise multicurrency account. You can manage your money in 50 plus currencies and send money internationally directly from your phone in the app. No filling out paperwork, no calling your bank branch, and most importantly, no outrageous exchange rates. Sign up with Wise today to join more than 10 million people in businesses who are managing their money across the world. With Wise, you can get your first transfer up to 500 British for free by using the link in the show notes or by going to travelingwithKristin.com/wise to learn more. That's travelingwithKristin.com/W-I-S-E  

 

Kristin:    00:02:04    Hi everyone. Kristin from Traveling with Kristin here, and welcome to episode 100 of Badass Digital Nomads, and we're doing something that we've never done before. And one of you are interviewing me. I have today on the show, Jeremiah Bradshaw, who's been listening to the podcast for a while, and he reached out to me on Facebook and asked if he could interview me just based on questions that he has as a listener about how to become a digital nomad and also more about my lifestyle and my background and my personal life. And so I thought that would be really cool to do for our anniversary episode. And, uh, this is the first time I'm speaking to Jeremiah. We've only exchanged messages so far, so we don't know what's gonna happen. It's pretty fun. And we'll do, um, possibly two, a two-part episode on this, uh, one with about travel, and then one specifically about the digital nomad lifestyle. 

 

Podcast Interview:

 

Kristin: So welcome Jeremiah to Badass Digital Nomads, <laugh>. Tell everyone a little bit about yourself and your background and then how you came across my content.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:03:18    Alright, sure. Thank you. This is fun. I'm glad that we're, um, we're gonna take a stab at this. Hopefully it'll be, it'll be a good time. Yeah. So my name is Jeremiah Bradshaw. You mentioned, I've done a, a little bit of traveling in my life. Most of my life I've spent working a sort of nine to five type gig, or in my case, I'm a bit of a night owl, so often a noon to, to 10:00 PM or later in the restaurant industry. So a lot of my career I've spent as a server in restaurants and, um, I haven't done as much traveling as I would like to do. It seems to me that our values as a culture have, uh, morphed into one, uh, to a set of values where a lot of people value getting out, expanding their horizons, having experiences over collecting things and so on. And so I'm drawn and attracted to this sort of a lifestyle whereby you can provide for yourself, but also be exploring and seeing the world. That's what led me to go online and I found you on YouTube is where I found you at first and just started watching some of your videos and discovered that you have such pretty vast experience doing this. I mean, you've been doing this before, it was a big trend. Is that fair to say?  

 

Kristin:    00:04:33    Yeah.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:04:34    Yeah. So you've, you've sort of paved and paved the way and carved a path of your own, and now it's becoming something where it's becoming more mainstream. So I thought it's invaluable to be able to have somebody who has that kind of experience speaking about this, seeing as how there's so many people speaking about it that don't have that much experience. And that's why I reached out and glad to be here.  

 

Kristin:    00:04:55    Yeah. Would you mind elaborating a little bit more on some of your concerns and struggles with figuring out about how to pursue this lifestyle and some of the dead ends that you came across that prompted you to reach out to me and, and ask these sorts of questions? Because part of the reason that I agreed is because what you wrote in the message has been echoed by so many other people, so many other emails and messages that I've gotten that they've been looking all over and weren't sure who to trust and, you know, just lots of dead ends in their information. So what were some of those, those reasons that were in the back of your mind?  

 

Jeremiah:    00:05:34    Yeah, absolutely. And just to be really blunt about it, it seems like there are a lot of potential scams out there. It seems like there are a lot of people who position themselves as experts and they're really looking to, to steer you into their sales funnel of whatever it is that they're promoting so that they can make money or whatever. So I did come across a lot of, of that sort of thing. I, I guess if I likened it to a path, then you, you see something on the path that looks like it might have some promise. So you deviate that direction and then you find yourself coming to the end of that and realizing, oh, I just spent a whole bunch of time finding out about what could be, what sounds like it could be a really great thing. And I am really suspicious here because I see that there could be some ulterior motives here.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:06:16    So there's that, the, the work aspect, being able to dependably believe that you're able to make enough money to provide for yourself outside of the United States. For somebody who has grown up here and lived most of their life here, that is a psychological chasm that's hard to get beyond without any sort of underpinning or anchor to financial security. Taking the leap is difficult. So that's another aspect of it. And then I would say a third aspect is that there just aren't a lot of voices out there in a position of leadership for those that are like you are out there because they, they want to add value to other people, their experiences and just show them the ropes. There just aren't a lot of them out there with a lot of experience. So, you know, we live in a culture where self-promotion is, um, is very common.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:07:14    And so you've got a lot of people promoting themselves as experts that I just don't know if they have the, the background to really claim that with some authority. And you're somebody who, I have to say, just to pay you a compliment here, not that I'm <laugh>, I don't mean to sound like I'm just here to, to promote you necessarily, but you're somebody who doesn't spend a lot of time out there in front promoting yourself as an expert. Which is why, as you may recall, when I reached out to you, I thought it might be, it might be interesting for somebody to interview you as well.  

 

Kristin:    00:07:48    Yeah. That I thank you for sharing that because I think a lot of people can relate to that. And you hit on exactly the reason why I started creating content about this to begin with was because for so many years I was so uncertain and insecure of my own life choices. And I finally got to the point where I was like, yeah, this is the right thing for me to do. This is an amazing lifestyle. I'm not going to apologize for it. I'm going to embrace it and I'm gonna tell other people how they can do it too. Because I feel like I wasted at least 10 years, not wasted, but just always had that voice in the back of my head of when was I gonna quit this lifestyle and go back to the real world. And I finally had to admit that this was my world, <laugh>, this was my reality, and I created it and I liked it and I wasn't going to apologize for it.  

 

Kristin:    00:08:39    And I started with seeing false information on moving to Costa Rica online, 'cause I was working in real estate in Costa Rica, which we can get into this in the background, but just to kind of preface things before we get started, I was working in real estate and relocation and there were a lot of snake oil salesmen quite literally in that industry. And the internet was becoming a thing. And I just saw so much inaccurate information on online. But for some reason I didn't think that I could be that voice. I didn't see myself as like an internet person like that. And so I just lived in my bubble, helping my clients under the radar, doing my thing. And then eventually I started seeing the same thing about the digital nomad lifestyle, where it would be like people who went on a remote year trip for one month or for three months, and then all of a sudden they're writing a book on how to become a digital nomad.  

 

Kristin:    00:09:38    And I was like, oh, dear God. Right? Like, I need, like, it, it is actually unethical if I I agree. Remain silent. I must share everything I know. And, and, and in a way it kind of became to my detriment business wise because I just started making a lot less money from my <laugh> from my regular business. 'cause I spent all my time on creating content without a sales funnel because that wasn't like the reason that I got into it. I was more just like, I'm gonna share what I know. I like writing. I wanna make travel videos and do this stuff and then eventually I'll figure out the monetization later. And so in a way it was like personally it, my income dropped, but my fulfillment in life and my happiness went up. And I guess that comes through now because I've been doing this for a few years while still doing my other business.  

 

Kristin:    00:10:30    But the business is not at the entry point of my content. It's like an afterthought. But I do think that what I have is valuable, obviously. Like what I have to say and what I have to teach is very valuable. But I have gone about it in the way of creating a solutions for people once I got to know who it is that was consuming the content and who wanted to learn from me and what did you guys want to learn from me. And there's only so much I can teach through free content without someone becoming my one-on-one client. But then there was also this other middle ground where people don't have to pay thousands of dollars to work with me. One-on-one, but they also don't have to search hundreds of free videos and podcasts to get what they need. Like there's a middle ground of digital products and courses with a lower, more accessible entry point where I can help more people than I can one-on-one. And they're getting a lot of value for that and saving a lot of time. And so eventually I will have <laugh>, I'll have more things that, again, it's not about the business, it's about me doing a disservice to you and to people who are listening if I don't create solutions that people can buy to solve their problems that I have the information to solve. Does that make sense?  

 

Jeremiah:    00:11:49    Absolutely. I have so much to say in response to everything that you just said. But it's funny because I think that I, I wasn't sure coming into this whether the perception that I have of you was going to be corrected or, or adjusted toward a more clear picture because I don't know you personally or if some of what I had picked up on was going to just sort of be magnified. But based on everything you just said, it's funny because that's, I think that that comes off in your persona online. In other words, you've got imposter syndrome, <laugh>, or at least you did have for what, 10 years?

 

Kristin:  Yeah.

 

Jeremiah:   You've got all these answers, but you don't think that you're somebody who should step in the light and be like, Hey, look at me. I've got answers for everybody. Because it's just not necessarily a part of your personality.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:12:34    You're the kind of person who wants to provide answers to people in order to help them, not necessarily to ask for attention or things or anything like that. Which is exactly what I thought was, was gonna be what I learned from this experience. And it, like I said, it comes off in your videos. And again, I think this is why if the people that are interested in a digital nomad of lifestyle were all this big abyss of people, I would be out in front saying, Hey, let's, let's listen to this person over here because this person has such vast experience. And so that's again why I wanted to, to do this today. Shall we dive into some of the questions that I have or ? 

 

Kristin:    00:13:12    Yeah. Well another thing I'll add, okay. That you just made me think of. So <laugh>, a lot of people know that I didn't meet any digital nomads until 2018 when I went on the Nomad Cruise. And this is a weird thing that happens when you live abroad or you become a digital nomad, is that the people that you meet only know the you in that particular moment. So nobody who I met out of probably a thousand people in a year, no one knew my background. Like I gave speeches on the Nomad Cruise. Like I did workshops. I, I spoke at Nomad Summit because I met Johnny Fd and like he's been doing this a while and he recognized, okay, you know what you're talking about come speak at my summit. But for the most part, people just, you know, there's like thousands of digital nomads around.  

 

Kristin:    00:13:57    Like no one really knew. And now, like three years later I'm getting messages from people from that I met on the Nomad Cruise that are <laugh>, like shocked. They didn't know my personality really. Like they didn't know how much I nerd out on these topics. They didn't realize how extensive my experience was in these topics. And I was living in Costa Rica in 2005. I started going, I started living there in 2002. So like whoever's listening, I don't know how old you guys are, but some of the people who I met in 2002, like they were probably in, I don't know, elementary school or something. I mean, I have thousands of I video ideas and blog posts that it will take the rest of my life to Unload the information in my brain <laugh>. And I'm finding more fulfillment in doing that. It's like so cathartic because I've been accumulating all of this information and experiences and stories for like my whole life. And I didn't tell anybody or share it with anyone except my friends, the people in my immediate physical vicinity. My family members, even my family, they don't know. Like they watched my videos, they're like, oh wow, that's so cool about Japan. And I didn't know that they didn't, they didn't know about my experience living there 'cause they were thousands of miles away. So, yeah. So this is all like starting to come out and I'm just getting messages from people who are like, surprised that I know what I'm talking about.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:15:20    <laugh>. Well hopefully you can hang on for the ride. And it doesn't overwhelm you when you get a rush of new digital nomads looking for answers. But, uh, yeah, if anybody should-- 

 

Kristin:    00:15:28    I'm working on it.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:15:29    I hope it's you. 'cause they need to be in good hands. So thank you. Yeah. So let me jump into some of these background questions that I have listed out here. Do you remember how old you were when you took your first trip? That was like a, a journey far away from home.  

 

Kristin:    00:15:44    So my parents loved traveling, but it was all within the US. So I think my first memories of going anywhere are in the car on the way to Disney World. We lived in Florida, so we were only two hours from Orlando. And so those were kind of my first memories. Actually, this is probably won't surprise you, but my favorite ride was A Small World <laugh> at Disney World. I was so intrigued by that. And then my next earliest memory of travel, quote unquote, I didn't even know this until right now that I'm saying it is, was at Epcot Center in the Morocco Country. Have you ever been to Epcot?  

 

Jeremiah:    00:16:25    I have not actually, but I'm, I know the Epcot Center is basically a cultural hub. Right. It points you toward all these different exper different places around the world. Yeah.  

 

Kristin:    00:16:34    Yeah. So you can visit different countries. Like you can go to Japan. And you can, uh, it's, it's a really cool theme park actually. And my, one of my earliest memories is from the Morocco exhibit and just learning about the Moroccan food. And my parents even have a picture of me standing next to women that were dressed in their clothing and I was really obsessed with Egypt as a kid. I read a lot of books about Egypt and Cleopatra. So I don't know, I was really interested in like North Africa and West Africa. But yeah, so those were my earliest travel memories. And the rest of it was kind of your Griswold Family Vacation style driving around the United States going to like Tennessee and Kentucky and New York. And I didn't actually get on an airplane until I was 16 and I still have my travel journal from that time.  

 

Kristin:    00:17:26    You know, a big hint of what people should be doing in their lives is based on childhood. And it seems so obvious when I look back, I'm like, of course I was, I literally wrote a book about our first trip to California. I documented the entire thing.

 

Jeremiah:  Interesting.

 

Kristin: I documented the airport. I wrote, I found it a couple years ago actually. I had written about how airports were like cities. I was only like 14 or 15 I think. And I had just really like this whole documentation, like Lonely planet guide of traveling from Florida to California. 'cause these are the things that I was always doing and thinking about. And then my first international trip was at 17 going to Italy for my senior vacation. It was my graduation present from my grandparents and they immigrated from Hungary and Sicily. And so that was what kind of really set it off.  

 

Kristin:    00:18:21    I already was probably set for travel 'cause I loved traveling domestically and I memorized every country in the world on in geography. Like I memorized the map of the world in 10th grade. So I think it was already implanted. I just hadn't been abroad abroad yet. But I started traveling for surfing when I was, um, 14, 15, 16. And I would go with, um, my friends to Hawaii and California and Puerto Rico. And, and then when I turned 17, we went to Mexico for the first time and it was just kind of hit the ground running and I never stopped.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:18:58    This is so very much why I think you're so, uh, well equipped to be somebody who's steering people in the right direction on this stuff. Is it this, was there anything else in your life growing up that, uh, evoked a response in you the way travel did?  

 

Kristin:    00:19:11    Uh, no.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:19:12    <laugh>. So you had, is it fair to say then you had these seeds in you from when you were a very small child that exposed to just the slightest bit of, of light sunlight that is to say information about what travel would be like. It just started to germinate these seeds. They all started to germinate. And this is a very organic way that you grew into this lifestyle, is that it's just, it it awoke in you a passion that you can't ignore.  

 

Kristin:    00:19:38    Yeah. When, when I tell this story a lot about when I was on a field trip in fifth grade and I, we went to the Keys and every one of my classmates was waiting in the payphone line to call their parents. And I was like off exploring the shark pond because we had only been gone for one day and I just wasn't homesick yet. Even though my home life was fine. Like my parents are still married and you know, we had like a dog and it was three kids and it was kind of the white picket fence lifestyle. So it's not like I was running away from anything, but I always wanted to explore. So whether it was on field trips or climbing trees in the backyard, or anytime I could, I would, I would go somewhere and I would be completely fine for as long as it took. Like I would spend two months in California surfing and surf contests in the summer and I would just be like, okay, bye. You know, I would go off. And so yeah, I guess it's always been that way. And maybe my, my grandparents worked for the airlines. They worked for PanAm. So my grandfather was a pilot pilot. My grandma worked in the office and they always told me travel stories. So maybe it has something to do with like genetics mixed with that opportunity. 

 

Jeremiah:    00:20:56     Yeah. Your grandparents  were obviously travelers and what a great gift they gave you to send you back to their motherland for your first international trip. Uh, but this sheds light a little bit on one of the other questions that I have. You've talked a little bit about how you organically when you were younger moved into a travel lifestyle for surf competitions and more domestic travel. And then you dipped your toe in international travel in Mexico and in Italy when you became an adult. And in America, when you're 18 years old, you're an adult, right. So you can make your own decisions. And you maybe it wasn't 18, maybe it was 20 or something like that, when you started actually taking your own trips where you made your own plans and it was completely independent of any sort of surf contest or gift from your grandparents or something like that. Did you find yourself ever coming to a point on any one of those trips where you, I don't know, I, I imagine you might have been staring out at the ocean on a clifftop and you thought to yourself, okay, I wanna do more of this. Or was it just something you just continued doing organically?  

 

Kristin:    00:22:05    I would say, so I should make a distinction here because I do get a lot of comments, not a lot, but I, I get pretty frequent comments about people saying things like, oh, it must be nice to have a trust fund, blah, blah, blah. And I always answer those because I don't want anyone else to read that and think that it's true. So I have been working since I was 14. So I started as a lifeguard when I was 14 before it was even legal to work actually. And I think I was making about 6.75 an hour at the time since I was 14 until the rest of my life, all of the money that I made was spent on travel. I didn't, I just saved all my money. I was a lifeguard. I taught surf lessons. I worked for minimum wage at a surf shop and then waited tables, took on student loans.  

 

Kristin:    00:23:02    But like any free money, like any free money, any free time I had, I would go travel and I would just spend my savings on that and surfing was the ba-- the main bridge to do that because that was my passion, especially from when I started surfing. It was the same summer that I started lifeguarding at 14. So I like just associated making money with going on surf trips. And as soon as I was, I graduated at 17 and as soon as I was old enough to just travel by myself, my parents let me go at 16, 17 on surf trips and I would go with my friends up the East coast surfing. And that was just, I just felt so independent and free when I was traveling. And so once I went into college, I was always a straight A student and then I felt like, okay, I'm doing all of the right things, got good grades in school, went to college, but on the weekends I was on the UCF surf team, so I would still go to the surf contests and I was on the crew team.  

 

Kristin:    00:24:04    So we would get to travel around going to the rowing competitions. And I still just was like, okay, I'm living this American Pie College lifestyle. But I also have this love of just exploring the world and I can't let that go. And so I tried to figure out ways to travel through school and I stumbled into study abroad programs and I ended up studying abroad twice, once through the Rotary Foundation on a scholarship that my dad told me about. 'cause he got invited to a rotary meeting one day for lunch and he heard them announce this scholarship, this ambassadorial scholarship program. And so he gave me the paperwork, I filled it out. It took a year and a half or something in the application process. It was way more than I thought I was getting myself into. But I ended up getting sent to Costa Rica as a student ambassador to do community service there and, and learn Spanish and promote cultural understanding between the US and uh, Costa Rica.  

 

Kristin:    00:25:05    So that was like the big one that really made me think, okay, I'm 20 years old. I'm living in Costa Rica. I'm drinking coffee in the mountains, learning Spanish with this beautiful view of the Central Valley. I'm taking the bus on the weekends with my friends to go drink banana smoothies and go surfing. And we're hanging out with monkeys and watching the sunrise. And I was like, this is amazing. And I couldn't imagine going back to the dorms at UCF and being like, oh, cool, now I'm back in Orlando. So I kept going and I went from there. I actually lobbied my business department. So I changed my major a bunch of times to be anything that could be travel related <laugh>. So I did hospitality management, I was like trying out all these things. And then I realized if I majored in hospitality, I could end up managing a hotel in Kansas or something.  

 

Kristin:    00:25:57    And I was like, well, I don't wanna do that. So then I switched to international business and I lobbied the business department for a study abroad program with Griffith University in Australia because they had a campus in Surfers Paradise. So they didn't have a study abroad program there, but I got them to allow me, I like worked out how I would get credit for those classes. And I moved to Australia for a semester and um, studied international business in, um, Griffith University on the Southport Campus in Surfers Paradise. And then it was like, for real, I'm never coming back. So I actually turned 21 in Australia. And when I got back that the day, I think it was like the day that I turned 21, I flew home and I remember having a glass of wine with my parents at dinner and they were like, don't you wanna go out with your friends and you know, go get drunk.  

 

Kristin:    00:26:51    And I was like, no. 'cause I've been drinking <laugh>. Right. I've been drinking in foreign countries. I know Australia parties a lot. And so I kind of felt like I grew up so much in that one year that I spent between Costa Rica and Australia. And then I was back in Orlando for my senior year, the sorority stuff. And everything just seemed so trite in a way like I was like, I'm working so hard, I'm taking 17 hours of classes and like all these events and all this stuff. And I, all I wanted to do was go back to Costa Rica. So as soon as I graduated, that is what I did. And then my parents convinced me to go to grad school because I didn't know what I was gonna do for work. So then I did a one year, uh, like a nine month MBA program.  

 

Kristin:    00:27:38    And then I moved back to Costa Rica because I had a major burnout in grad school, which resulted in a seizure.

 

Jeremiah:  Oh wow.

 

Kristin:  And taking away my driver's license and I couldn't surf anymore. So my surfing career was over. I couldn't drive a car. I was in this like classes again at UCF in the business department. And then when that ended, it was either take a job in a corporate cu- cubicle. Across the street from my university next to like the boring offices. Or go to Costa Rica and work in real estate. And I was just like, peace out everyone. I'm gone.   

 

Jeremiah:    00:28:13    And of course you took the job in the cubicle because that's super exciting, right? <laugh>  

 

Kristin:    00:28:17    It was like around the office that maybe, right? Yep. That came out. It was like the office and waiting had come out and I was like, oh my God, I already did the waiting lifestyle, which you can relate to if you worked in restaurants. I did that. Been there, done that. Now you've got I went to tour the office and I found out that my office was in the basement of the building. 

 

Jeremiah:    00:28:38    Oh, that's wonderful.

 

Kristin:    00:28:39     And I was like, there's no way I'm gonna have a red stapler. And he'd be sitting down here with no windows. I was like, Nope. And so I took this job for a thousand dollars a month in Costa Rica working in, um, in real estate. And that's like, it just kind of went from there. So I don't think there was a distinct moment, but I just--

 

Jeremiah:    00:28:59    Yeah. It sounds like it's a little bit of both where you, there wasn't necessarily a distinct moment, but you did have, you did share this moment that you were having where you were having coffee in Costa Rica and the jungle surrounded by monkeys and so on, where you maybe just had a pensive fortification of your, uh, neuro pathways that said, I want more of this you know, it also is very organic. Sounds like it's, it's just who you are. And you couldn't stop, you couldn't have stopped yourself from, from being this explorer or that that bounces around the world seeing, um, you know, following your curiosity and so on. Um, have you ever done the, the math and figured out how many years that you've lived outside of the United States?  

 

Kristin:    00:29:34    Yeah. I actually laugh about that because on some videos I'm like 15 years or 15 plus years. And then on some I say 20, but I think cumulatively it's 20 because I started traveling abroad. I'm 38 and I started at 17. Right. But there have been months that I lived in the US like this whole year I've been in the US. So I don't know. It's somewhere between 15 and 20 that I've spent outside of the US.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:30:03    Is it uncommon for you to spend as long a stretch as you're spending in the US right now?  

 

Kristin:    00:30:07    Yeah. It never happened before since I, since I started traveling, I've never spent this long in the US so--  

 

Jeremiah:    00:30:13    Right now, today you have broken your record for how long you've been living in the US as an adult. And tomorrow you'll break it anew.  

 

Kristin:    00:30:20    <laugh>. The last time I spent a year living in the US I was 16.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:30:26    Wow.  

 

Kristin:    00:30:26    That's crazy. 15 to 16. Yeah.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:30:29    Okay. And I, my question here is what year did you leave? But I think you've already answered that. It was basically around 17 is when you started your international travel? uh, and then it, it just really hasn't stopped since then.  

 

Kristin:    00:30:42    Right.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:30:43    Okay. And how, do you know how many times you've come back to the US for a stretch?  

 

Kristin:    00:30:48    No, I mean, I could figure it out. 'cause I have, well, for my taxes I had to always record my days in and out of the country. But for the first seven or eight years, I didn't spend more than the 30 days in the us. 

 

Jeremiah:   Interesting. Okay.

 

Kristin:  And then after that, I started spending a bit more time. So a lot of years I didn't even qualify for the income exclusion because it got to the point where I wanted to get the tax credit, but I also didn't want that to dictate where I was going in the world because that defeated the purpose for me. So for some people, like I know people that ha they really don't go over those days. Like they ca they calculate it down to the hour and the minute. But that became too restrictive in my mindset. So I thought, I'm not gonna care <laugh>. So if I want to spend two months in the US or three months in the US throughout the year, and I'm gonna pay more taxes. Oh, well, because my time is more valuable and my time spent with my family and friends is more valuable. So that was my take on it.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:31:54    Yeah. Interesting. I see. I didn't, I didn't know anything about all the tax benefits or consequences of coming back and forth. So that might be an area and maybe you've already done a podcast or a video about that, but that's definitely interesting. 'cause some people are probably gonna wanna do, like you mentioned, they're gonna want to sort of be guided by the tax benefits and others are going to like you. It sounds like it might be a little bit of the antithesis of how you are as a person, which is restrictive versus expansive and exploratory. So.

 

Kristin:    00:32:24    Yeah.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:32:25    Do you speak more languages than English?  

 

Kristin:    00:32:27    Only Spanish. So, okay. I should do a video on this as well. The, the best way to learn a language, because I really think that it's immersion and the only reason I speak Spanish is because I studied it in a country, a Spanish speaking country. And I lived with a host family and I took language classes and so I haven't been able to replicate those conditions since then. So yeah, I, I, I speak fluent Spanish, but I haven't stayed in a place long enough and, you know, gone through the whole thing with the language classes and all of that ever since.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:33:02    Yeah. That sounds like an interesting experience. What was that like? I'm sure in the beginning it was somewhat frustrating not being able to speak as well, but, uh, what was, how, how did you, what did you glean from that experience?  

 

Kristin:    00:33:12    Oh, it was so frustrating at the beginning. This is all goes into inspiration for helping people move to different countries because it was so uncomfortable. I talked about this a bit and what I hate about living abroad and actually a recent episode and video is that everything takes so much energy when you first move to a new place because you don't realize how much of your behavior is automated. Through habits. And if you're 20 or 30 years old or older, it's like you've already spent decades living in a country where you know how everything works and you speak the language and all of a sudden you're having to look up in a dictionary, how do you ask where the bathroom is? <laugh>. And it's like, it just becomes very draining. And that's actually where I got addicted to coffee because I was in school for four hours a day learning Spanish. We weren't allowed to speak English at our language school. Everything was in Spanish. And if we didn't know a word, we had to look it up. We couldn't ask, how do you say this, you know, <foreign>, whatever the word is. So it was very taxing on my brain and I'm really glad I took that semester off to only do Spanish because there's no way that I would've had enough bandwidth to also do classwork at the same time.

 

Jeremiah:    00:34:28    So why did that addict you to coffee?  

 

Kristin:    00:34:29    Oh, because I just, I had to focus so much

 

Jeremiah:  Ah, gotcha.

 

Kristin:  For so many hours a day. Okay. I just was waiting for the next coffee break every day. Oh, the coffee's so good in Costa Rica, you know, we'd be drinking coffee and eating papaya and speaking Spanish and it was just really nice and that, but then I would go home and my host family only spoke Spanish, so then it was like, there was never a break. But that intensity is what taught me Spanish. I, I learned Spanish in a month. By the third month of my school, I was reading literature in Spanish and discussing it with my teacher. And then I, when I moved back to work in real estate, I learned more of like the slang and that kind of stuff living at the beach and more social version of it versus the classroom version and making phone calls and being able to understand recordings on the phone, like the, the phone menu. You know, when you call for customer service, like those kinds of little things that you can't understand and you have to learn. And so yeah. But now it's really, really convenient because I can travel to so many countries and communicate.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:35:36    Yeah. You probably can pick up on Italian and, and, and other, uh, Latin languages as well.

 

Kristin:    00:35:40     I can, I can read, I can read Portuguese, Italian, even French. And actually since living in the Netherlands so long, I can, I feel like I can understand a lot of German and Dutch and you, you start to see the root of language depending on the type of language it is. Like it doesn't cross over so well into Russian or Bulgarian or Croatian or whatever, <laugh>. But yeah.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:36:05    Right, Right. Interesting. Okay, man, that's a fascinating subject matter altogether. It's, it's hard to focus in on <laugh>, um, on so many fascinating things. You've, I mean, you've, you've had such a, a wide array of experiences in your life traveling. But, uh, let me ask you this question. Speaking of all the countries that you've listed, so many countries, do you know how many countries that you've, you've been to? Have you ever done the math on that?  

 

Kristin:    00:36:28    I think it's exactly 60 or like 62, something like that. I used to keep track of it much more closely, but then I think after 40 or 50, I just was like, oh, whatever. Because <laugh> I noticed, I mean, I used to chase the passport stamp, if I'm being honest like, it used to be really important to me to get a bigger number of how many countries I went to. And eventually I realized that that was ridiculous. And you can go to every country in the world and then not see everything. So like, you can never see everything in the world. And so it kind of becomes this quest. It's like a never ending quest. It's like having more money or something. Like, you just have to be happy with, with where you are or comfortable and be like, okay, I can get more or I can go more places, but also let's appreciate the places I've been and, and you know, appreciate what I have now.  

 

Kristin:    00:37:28    So it's always been a balance for me. And I've seen some YouTubers that are trying to go to every country in the world in a certain amount of time, or I'm sure that's an amazing experience, but it's also like a lot of pressure and it's very stressful. And so, and then after that, then it's like, then what? Start over. So you just gotta keep that in context. And I know a lot of people that, and my friends, like my personal friends who have been like, let's go, let's do a layover here just so we can say we went to this country, or let's take a boat over to this island so we can get another passport stamp. And it's like, let's also go because we wanna like see the surroundings and meet the people and try the food. You know, like maybe add some other things besides the passport stamp because that's not the most important thing. So anyway. Long-winded answer, but yeah.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:38:21    Well, 60 countries is a lot of countries. You, you've listed some of them. I, I am I'm assuming, well, you were listing languages, I guess, so that's don't necessarily represent countries you've been to. If you, have you ever like rattled off all the countries that you've been to?  

 

Kristin:    00:38:35    I have, um, a TripAdvisor profile

 

Jeremiah: Okay.

 

Kristin:  That I actually got locked out of. But at one time I had documented 800 cities on there

 

Jeremiah:  Wow.

 

Kristin:  That I'd been to. So I think that it's on my TripAdvisor profile, but I, I've pretty much been to almost every country in north and South America and Europe. I've been to southeast Asia, I've been to Australia, Indonesia. I really haven't been much in the Middle East or Africa, which was not intentional, it's just that I lived in, in Central America for so long. So that's pretty much where I was. And then I lived in Europe and I wanted to explore more of my family history and then I just fell in love with the lifestyle there. So I just ended up, you know, staying many years in Europe and I have family out there and I studied in Australia, so I went to Fiji and other places around there. And then I've also, of course, you gotta do like the Southeast Asia run as a digital nomad. So.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:39:41    Yeah. It seems like that's, that's like the one, like one of the first things you want to, like, that's where I wanna start actually. And for me it's because the cost of living is just so accessible there that it could be a good place to go and get your digital nomad legs under you. Maybe that's what the appeal is to everyone. What do, what do you think about that?  

 

Kristin:    00:40:00    Yeah, I think the biggest appeal of Southeast Asia is the price hands down. I mean, you can have such a high quality of life for a low amount of money and I really value that too. I mean, there's really nothing like it in, in Thailand to be able to eat out every meal and get massages and go to the spa every day for like $5. It's, it's pretty crazy when you come from a country with a really high cost of living.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:40:27    Right. Do you think there's a trap there?  

 

Kristin:    00:40:29    Well, yes. So I don't know if Johnny FD was talking about this. I think so. I think he had, yeah, I think it was the Charles ngo, No, Charles Ngo episode of his podcast where I've already referenced this podcast in other episodes of mine actually. 'cause it really struck me because those two have a lot of experience in this lifestyle and it really stands out. So Charles was saying how his income went down when he went to lower cost of living countries because subconsciously, you know, you don't need that much money. Right. And I noticed the same thing. Well, it didn't always happen, like when I lived in Mexico, which is really affordable. There was one time I was living in Rosarito, which is one of the cheapest parts, uh, like cheapest beach towns in Mexico. And I had some of the best months ever on my online business.  

 

Kristin:    00:41:22    But then there were times when I was in Bulgaria or other places that I feel like I kind of slacked off more, or I just didn't care as much about money because I, I knew that my rent was so cheap. And so I spent more time just doing other things. <laugh>, like hiking and whatever. But then when you go places like Norway or Japan or Australia and you look, you know, the, the Airbnb prices or Hong Kong, I'm like, shoot, I better work more this month. Or, you know, so yeah, it can, I, I've definitely noticed people that they go to Southeast Asia and they never leave because, well, they like it there, but they also get dependent on the cost of living and they start to lock themselves into that. Like, they create their own limits to what they can do and where they can live, and so they just stay there.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:42:16    Right.  Well, I wanna dig into this a little bit because it's very interesting hearing your perspective on it. I've noticed that I have those similar thought patterns. One of the reasons why, again, I want to sort of take the leap into Southeast Asia as an on-ramp into this lifestyle is for this very reason. And I've already caught myself saying, well, if I can do this particular thing to make this amount of money, that will give me all this excess time to explore Southeast Asia. So I've, I've caught myself falling in love with the, the idea of making less money in order to optimize my experience there. And there's something to that. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but like you said, I I, I have noticed this as well, that there are a lot of people who go there and they just end up stuck there. And I don't, maybe that's the wrong way of saying it, not stuck, but they, they end up falling preve--  

 

Kristin:    00:43:05    It becomes a comfort zone.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:43:07    It becomes a comfort zone. That's a really good way of saying it. So what advice would you have to somebody who does want to start there, but also has ambitions to traipses around all of Europe as well? Are there certain goals, maybe financial goals, that you think are good to keep in mind? Are there any practices that you have or habits that you've made that have helped you not get comfortable so you can continue to follow your curiosity?  

 

Kristin:    00:43:30    Well, the first thing to realize is that this, these are not mutually exclusive to become a digital nomad or to live abroad or to live in Southeast Asia. You don't have to take a pay cut. That's just something that for some reason people think they have to do. And it's a, it's a, a societal construct. it's a uncertainty. It's actually a, I don't wanna say a self-esteem issue, but it's an insecurity that we have, I believe because we are a product of a traditional education system that teaches us that our value is based on our salary. So whatever a company is willing to pay us to do a thing, that's how much we are worth or that's how much our time is worth. But we need to detach from that way of thinking, because I actually talked about this in a coaching call last week on my, in my Digital Nomad Academy, that there's something called profit per employee or revenue per employee.  

 

Kristin:    00:44:37    And some companies make $2 million, $5 million per employee, so that employee's actually worth $5 million a year, but they might only be making $50,000 a year. And so this idea that right, if we quit our jobs to move to another country, we then have to prepare to live on less money is a trap. So it doesn't have to be, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it doesn't have to be that way. What I try to tell people is that to start thinking of their, their value and their income in a different way, because limits are only in your head.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:45:15    I agree. And I like that you worried it, that it doesn't have to be, because there are people who have the ability to maybe even give themselves a, a pay raise by launching into a digital nomadic lifestyle. I am one of those people who is not one of <laugh>. I'm not one of those people. Uh, because so much of my experience is, uh, is in restaurants and so on. So it's hard for me to, to step into Thailand and say, Hey, um, let me go wait tables at a restaurant there, you know? Right. So I'm, I'm trying to look for ways to make money online. I think a lot of people, um, I'm sure that there are a lot of people who are, um, have to solve the what do I do for money? question two in order to do it. And that's where I, I started to catch myself falling into the trap of, well, I don't have to make as much money where I have to be conscious of that now. And I'm, and thank you for your input about that, because I didn't realize that that could be a habit. That could be, that could not serve me very well in the future.  

 

Kristin:    00:46:10    It's because we're taught to make our goals realistic.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:46:14    Right.  

 

Kristin:    00:46:15    So what is, you know, if it's rooted in reality, it's always going to be held back from your actual potential because the status quo is not very aspirational. And that's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault. It's just that's the society that we live in. But that's the only way that it could be until now. Because when you look back at human history, people didn't have a lot of options when it came to what they were gonna do for work and how they were going to generate money because of limits on technology. But now those limits are all but gone.

 

Jeremiah:   I know.

 

Kristin: And our mindset just hasn't fully caught up with the reality of the situation. So, uh, another thing is for everyone to remember that, that you're a product of your environment in a way. So this is why there's that saying that you are the average of the people you spend the most time with, the five people, but it also has to go with your environment.  

 

Kristin:    00:47:19    So I found myself once at a eating dinner with people from Nomad Cruise, and one of the guys at the table was saying that he's never had more than $300 in his bank account. I was like, we're on the Nomad Cruise and you're far away from your home, and you've never had more than $300 in your bank account. And he'd been in a digital nomad for 10 years or something. And I just thought that is a mindset limitation. And if you just surround yourself with people that are, you know, that are thinking of things in a different way, and this can be people online, in Facebook groups, forums, but also in the place that you are. So that's why when you go to a country where the salary is really low, the cost of living is really low, unemployment is really high, it can kind of diminish, it starts to seep into your own subconsciousness.  

 

Kristin:    00:48:09    And then you go to a place like Tokyo or Hong Kong or a big city where people are hustling and not in a pandemic, but, you know, that is just you, you kind of get into that vibe. And that's why Charles from Johnny's podcast said that he moved from, I think it was Vietnam, if I'm not mistaken, Vietnam or Cambodia to New York. So his cost of living went from a thousand dollars a month to probably, I think his rent was four or $5,000 per month. So all of a sudden he forced himself to think bigger and to make more money. And I've been guilty of this too, where I didn't go, I didn't move to California a few times. I have family there and I didn't go because of the cost of living and the taxes. And then I went to an Entrepreneur House event in San Diego, and people were like, why don't you move in and blah, blah, blah.  

 

Kristin:    00:48:57    I was like, I don't wanna live in California. It's so expensive. And they're like, just make more money. <laugh>. Right. And I was like, oh, yeah. Because they all, they all had at least a million dollars a year in income to live in that house.  And I thought, oh, well, if I moved into this house, I wouldn't even be allowed to live there <laugh>. You know, I'd have to step it up. And so that was a big wake up call too. So it's just finding this balance between, if your goal is to travel Southeast Asia on a shoestring for a year or two, and that's what you wanna do, then go do that. And then when you feel like you're ready to work on your business or do something else, 'cause traveling just for fun on vacation gets old after a while, then you can shift into a different gear.  

 

Kristin:    00:49:39    So I would just recommend for everyone to not feel pressured to do all of the things like being a digital nomad in a different city every week for a year, while also building a multimillion dollar business and like creating a personal brand and going on clubhouse every day. You know, like, just pick one thing. <laugh>, make a theme for your year, like backpacking through Europe for the year, or through Southeast Asia, or through Mongolia, or who knows where you wanna go. And then, you know, change over to something else when you get to another phase in your life where that's no longer fulfilling.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:50:14    Yeah, Absolutely. So you reminded me of a, one of my closest friends who, because you, you have a, you and him have a similar mind in that you guys, you, you, you prefer to believe that the impossible is possible as opposed to towing the line, right? And you mentioned your friend who said he, he didn't have more than $300 in his bank account, which is kind of silly. I'm sure he has. Maybe he hasn't. I don't know. But it sounds silly, but yeah, my friend, there were times in his life where he didn't know, like a week out from when rent was due, and he lives here in southern California, LA uh, he didn't know how he was gonna pay his rent. <laugh>. Yeah. And there was a, a certain freedom that I used to envy with him. 'cause I remember knowing him at that time and like, what, like being kind of upset with him, like, dude, you should be stressed out right now.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:50:58    Like, you know how you're gonna pay your rent in five days. He's like, um, it'll be fine. <laugh>. And then a check would show a, without fail, a check would show up from a residual for a commercial that he did. He's an actor. Or something like that, that would cover his rent. And he just, the zen attitude, uh, was really admire, admirable that he was, he wasn't, he, he's not a lazy person or he's also a somebody who travels a lot. Another practice he does, which you, like I mentioned that you remind me of, is every year on his birthday, he attempts to do something that he thinks is impossible. It's not something that he's going to try to do unless he thinks, I don't think I can do that. For instance, one year he decided to, he, he doesn't kayak or anything, but he decided to kayak from the mainland here on the southern California coast out to Catalina Island.  

 

Kristin:    00:51:44    Wow.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:51:44    And he thought, I don't think I can do that. So I have to do it now, <laugh>. Um, because he wants to challenge his brain into moving the line every, every, every time he thinks something's impossible, that he, he figures out a way to make the impossible possible, which is cool. And, you know, this isn't about him, but it leads into something that I've noticed and I am learning from you in this conversation. And that is that you have, you have a way of thinking about things that is distinct and different. And so I wanna ask you some questions about that, because I'm sure you've but up against some of the traditional thought patterns that people have a lot. Um, do you have some thought patterns that sort of haunted you or in your early days of traveling that you looking back can see that those weren't serving you, that you had to figure out how to get beyond.  

 

Kristin:    00:52:32    Yeah. The first thing that I talked about a bit in that video about how I see the US after living abroad was that, my country specifically wasn't the best country in the world, nor is any country the best. I just started seeing the pros and cons of living everywhere. And I used to think that people were different in different countries. And a big wake up call was that people are the same in every country. We are all part of the same species.  And it doesn't matter how old you are, what you look like, what language you speak, like we're all on the same operating system. <laugh> And so that's the interesting thing about this thought of is the impossible possible. Like who are we to say what's possible and what's impossible? Because pretty much everything that we're doing right now would seem impossible even a hundred years ago.  

 

Kristin:    00:53:30    Right. Think about a thousand years ago, I mean, 200 years ago. It is even 20 years ago, like when you think about it, I mean, my first smartphone, the iPhone came out. I remember I was living in Nicaragua because I used to have to get around with paper maps and just asking directions to people, right? And then the iPhone came out in 2008 and it was like, what? Uh, so yeah, like there's things that would be inconceivable even 10, 15 years ago that we're doing now. And so the first thing was just that, that there's no one way to do everything. There's no right, like right and wrong, beyond like the ethical and moral implications is just subjective. And life is just a series of decisions and choices. And I think I also found out through travel that discomfort is the status quo. 

 

Kristin:    00:54:27    In most of the world.

 

Jeremiah:  Right. Okay.

 

Kristin:  People, I forget what the statistic is, but there's something like if you make over a certain amount per year, you're in like the top 0.1% of the entire global population. So just seeing how many people lived in poverty was eye-opening. Just feeling like grateful for the opportunities that I had, but then also aspiring to the connection, like the family bonding and the happiness that I witnessed in people that I thought, how could they be happy because they don't have anything or because they live on $2 a day. Like every kind of paradigm that I was brought up to believe was kind of broken down. But I really think that as babies, we come out and we're so formative, but we're put into the school system at such an early age that when we get out, it's just we're starting the journey of figuring out who we are and why we're here.  

 

Kristin:    00:55:28    It's just that that process was delayed by 20 years. Right. And so there's all these disconnects and that becomes very stressful, depressing, and confusing because we weren't really taught to expect that. Like I actually heard part like the first 15 minutes or so of a podcast with Steven Pressfield and Tim Ferris yesterday on the Tim Ferris show. And he was talking about that, how his first book didn't come out until he was 54 and his, his like real life quote unquote, didn't start until his forties or fifties and we're taught to believe that life is over when you get to 40. And so, I don't know, I just had, I don't know if that answers the question, but I just realized that, you know, let's just start with a clean slate and keep unlearning things and keep an open mind about facts, quote unquote, and what is the best way to live. And that took many, many, many years of facing my own personal hardships, discomforts problems, income fluctuations, not knowing what I was doing with my job, not knowing where to live, not knowing if I should go back to the US still having that thought in the back of my head and friends telling me like, why don't you come work for us at corporate in this, you know, blah, blah, blah office in Chicago and places. And just having to really say no to a lot of things so that I could say yes to myself.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:57:00    Were you ever tempted by those?  

 

Kristin:    00:57:02    I'm, I'm sure there were times because I had done so many different things. Like I started working in real estate, well, I started as a student, right? So I was a broke student living in foreign countries and realizing that I could live on very little money in other countries compared to living at the dorms at UCF. So that was my first wake up call. It was like traveling is just a series of, of wake up calls and realizations and, and lessons <laugh>. And it just makes life a lot more interesting, I guess, and more dynamic. But, um, I worked in real estate, I worked in Costa Rica teaching surf lessons. I waited tables there as well. I worked at a sushi bar. I did all sorts of things to make money until I made enough money from real estate that I could quit doing the other stuff. So there were definitely times where, you know, you could make a big real estate commission and then other months where you make nothing. So I always had my family members and friends asking like, why don't you come back and get a real job and blah, blah blah. But I just never did it. But I always thought if it got really bad, like if I actually did run out of money, then I could just go home.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:58:12    Did that, uh, provide some, I guess a sense of sec-- security to you that you, you had a bit of a safety net that you could fall back on?  

 

Kristin:    00:58:19    Well, I guess I, I think if I was in really dire straits, I'm sure I could have asked my parents to borrow money or something, but remember I started working when I was 14 and I had student loans and everything, so I really never wanted to rely on them ever since I was a kid. And, and that to me felt like the biggest motivation to keep going because that to me was like a big failure if, uh, whatever part of my career with an MBA and work experience that I could be like, you know what? I can't do it <laugh>, I just need help. But it was always an option, I think, but that scared me to even do that. So I always found a way, like your friend, so I don't have any pro, I actually have stayed with my parents on occasion to save money in between trips. And I'm like, fine with that.  

 

Jeremiah:    00:59:10    So if anything, it was kind of the opposite. It wasn't necessarily an insurance policy, it was a motivating factor for you.

 

Kristin:    00:59:16     Yeah. I had to really ask myself, do you have no other option but to do that? So there was a time that I quit working for, for this company in Nicaragua. There was like all this political stuff going on and, and a lot of issues. And I ended up moving from Nicaragua to Costa Rica and I didn't have a job. Like I was just working for myself. I was using internet websites like vivian.com. I was going out, finding property listings, posting them on online websites and hustling, basically renting properties to local people in San Jose. Like I was just running around doing everything I could to make money. And I always got by, even if my bank account balance did also get down to $200 at sometimes. So there are some years that I was making six figures and up, and there are other years that I was like struggling.  

 

Kristin:    01:00:09    'cause I didn't really know what I was doing, but I always made it through. And I think that's the biggest lesson for anyone that wants to become a digital nomad, is that there is 1,000,001 ways to make money online or to make money working for yourself. What you have to do is just commit to one and just keep going and be like, this is what I'm, if, if other people can make money doing this thing, whether it's graphic design or real estate or whatever the thing is, you have to believe in yourself enough to know that you can do it too. So if anyone else on the planet is making money, doing this thing that you're interested in doing that is a learnable skill that you can also learn. And yeah, and that's what kept me going all of those years is like, I could never accept that I just ran out of ideas or, or ran out of energy.  

 

Kristin:    01:00:58    So, you know, when push comes to shove, it's all about going out, finding clients, building relationships. Like if you moved on a one-way ticket to Thailand and you had no money to get back, like you would find a way to, to make it work and or you would have to admit that you just weren't trying enough. Like, like that you would give up at some point and come back. But maybe if you do that, then that's because you really didn't wanna be there, you know? So that's not a failure either. If you move somewhere and it's not working out and you're like, you know what? I don't like it out here and I don't like working for myself, I would rather just have like a stable job and go back to my home country. That's not a failure, that's a choice. And that's perfectly fine.  

 

Jeremiah:    01:01:45    Absolutely. It's funny, we're on this topic now and we're getting to the point where I, I wanted to start asking you questions about remote working and digital nomad lifestyle.  

 

Kristin:    01:02:03    Hey everyone, I think that is a good place to pause for today. This interview is a little bit long, so we decided to split it into two parts. I hope you enjoyed this first part about my background and history with travel. And then in next week's episode with episode 101, part two of our anniversary episode, I'll get into more of the nuts and bolts and behind the scenes about how I became a digital nomad and my top recommendations for people who are starting today with pursuing the lifestyle and starting from zero. And what I would've done back then, what advice I would give myself and advice I have for you all. So thank you so much for being here with me on this 100th episode of Badass Digital Nomads. Time is really flying by, but I'm just having such an amazing experience and I've really loved podcasting in general and connecting with so many of you on and offline.  

 

Kristin:    01:03:08    So thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. Thank you for all of your kind messages and comments every week. Thank you for leaving reviews. Thank you for sharing episodes that resonate with you, with your friends and family. And just overall, yes, thank you for being here for the Journey and I hope that you are finding a lot of value in every episode. And if you have any guest recommendations, you can leave a comment. I'll leave a Google form in the show notes so you can fill that out. If there's anyone you wanna recommend or if you have any questions that you would like me to answer, you can also leave me a voice message on badassdigitalnomads.com. And you can send an email to hello@travelingwithKristin.com anytime. And look forward to seeing you again next week. Thank you again, everybody. For 100 episodes of Badass Digital Nomads. Stay Badass.  

 

Kristin:    01:04:09    As you know, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And in the Badass Digital Nomads Facebook group, you can connect with 4,000 other like-minded people from around the world who all share the same values of freedom and location Independents. Plus, if you wanna become part of my Inner Circle, you can join my Patreon page for $5 per month and get direct access to private message me. Submit your questions for my podcast guests, contribute your opinion on new content ideas, and get early access to preview all of my YouTube videos before they're published. You'll also get to attend monthly private Zoom Hangouts with myself and other patrons. We just had a one and a half hour call last night with patrons from around the world calling in from places like Bali, California, Michigan, and Nebraska. It was so much fun. And you can join us for the next call by becoming a patron today at patreon.com/travelingwithKristin. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/travelingwithKristin. 



Kristin WilsonProfile Photo

Kristin Wilson

Host of Badass Digital Nomads & YouTube's Traveling with Kristin / Author of Digital Nomads for Dummies

Kristin Wilson is a long-term digital nomad and location-independent entrepreneur who has lived and worked across 60 countries in 20 years. Since founding a fully-remote, international relocation company in 2011, she has helped more than 1,000 people retire or live abroad in 35 countries. Today, she helps aspiring remote workers, digital nomads, and expats achieve their lifestyle goals through her YouTube channel (Traveling with Kristin) and podcast, Badass Digital Nomads.
 
Kristin is the author of Digital Nomads for Dummies. She's also a Top Writer on Medium and Quora in the topics of business, travel, technology, life, productivity, digital nomads, and location independence. She has been featured on The Today Show, Bloomberg Businessweek, Business Insider, ESPN, The New York Times, WSJ, Huffpost, HGTV’s House Hunters International, and more.