The Expat Chat

If you’re looking to travel than teaching English can be a great way to fund your lifestyle as Jack Askew  showed in an earlier interview. Jo Bruce headed to Korea from New Zealand 10 years ago armed only with a child care degree which was enough to give her a foot in the door of the English teaching game. Once there she was able to upskill sufficiently to relocate to Malaysia where the criteria for accepting English teachers was much stricter.

Jo is embarking on a new adventure, walking the Te Araroa walk from Cape Reinga to Bluff, the full length of New Zealand which will take her around 5 months and cover 3000kms. She then plans to walk even further traversing the Pacific Crest trail from the Mexican border to Washington State made famous by Reece Witherspoon in the movie “Wild”.

If you’re interested in embarking on a career teaching English overseas, or are an avid hiker looking for inspiration then you’ll enjoy listening to Jo.

What I learned from Jo’s interview:

Most people would think about visiting a country before making the leap to shift there. Most people would also think twice about relocating their business to a foreign country that they can’t really speak the language of – but Rachel Taylor is not most people. To coin her own phrase sometimes it’s easiest to step off a cliff!

Rachel made the move from Sydney, Australia to Paris, France just on two years ago and has settled in well to the Parisian lifestyle where she shares a flat with two room-mates. Her graphic design and website business has traveled with her and she still gets most of her work from back home along with some business she picks up from the expat community in Paris. So far she has loved the experience and doesn’t regret her decision in the least.

Today we talk to Rachel about the costs of living in Paris and how to relocate your online business successfully overseas.

Rachel can be contacted via her website http://petecreative.com.au

What I learned from Rachel’s interview:

To all intents and purposes Danna Bowman had the perfect life, living in Dallas they owned their own business, went to all the right places, spoke with all the right people and by her own confession did a good job of keeping up with the Jones. It came at a price though as they lived on the treadmill of working hard, getting more debt and buying bigger things.

One day they received an email about the benefits of living in Costa Rica – and it got them both thinking. On her husbands 40th birthday they flew off to their new life in Atenas Costa Rica – never even having visited the country before with their two young children aged 7 and 4.

7 years on and they still call Costa Rica home living in the area recognized as having the world’s best climate. Danna loves her new life despite some of the short comings of small town Central American life and is glad they made the move.

Since moving to Costa Rica Danna has been diagnosed with a thyroid problem – you can find out more about this and her involvement in helping others with thyroid issues on her website www.thyroidnation.com

What I learned from Danna’s interview:

Sometimes good things can come from bad experiences and you can look back and be grateful for what went wrong. For Nat Smith and Jodie Thompson a failed business deal in Dubai left them with two choices – head home to Australia with their tails between their legs or embark on something new. Deciding that Europe was closer than Australia they made their mind up – but with only a few hundred dollars to their name how were they going to survive?

That’s when they discovered housesitting and its ability to not only provide a free roof over your head but the opportunity to experience a community in a unique way other accommodation just couldn’t provide.

Several house sits later having enjoyed the experiences of Britain, Europe, Central and North America they found people beginning to ask them what their secret was to finding good housesits on a regular basis – and from that House Sitting World was born – their online resource which provides forums, books, magazines and online training for the new and experienced housesitter to learn and share from.

If you’re interested in housesitting then you’re going to live this interview. Nat and Jodie generously share their top 8 tips on what you need to do if you want to get into housesitting.  Check out the academy here

Here’s Nat and Jodie’s 8 Tips to Becoming an Effective Housesitter:

What’s the best way you could spend $1500 on travel? What if I told you, for that money you could get 28 flights? What if some of those flights were business and even first class? What if those flights enabled you to travel from Europe, through Asia, Australia, New Zealand and back? What if it included some 5 star accommodation and the chance to sip champagne and nibble in airline lounges while you await your flights?

Seems too good to be true? Well it did to me to until todays guest told me they have done it…and they do it all the time!

Leanna and Andy Brown are expat Americans living in Germany, using it as their base to travel much of the world. Leanna and Andy are travel hackers – people who devote a good portion of their time to searching out the best ways to save money on their travel deals. Today we speak with Leanna who shares with us much of the secrets of what they do – including how they come to own 60 credit cards (none of which they use) and why they pay each other on Amazon!

I knew I was going to like this interview, and you will too! Check out their website www.economicalexcursionists.com  and their Very cool free tool - the Flyer Miler - for working out which credit card can give you what points for which trip http://www.economicalexcursionists.com/flyermiler

What I learned from talking with Leanna:

How does 12 months traveling the world with 4 children sound? What if you had to spend 10 of those weeks together in a combi van? For some people this would be too much of a challenge – for the Morgan Family; Jarred, Iri and their four children aged 5 – 13 years it’s been the making of them as a family.

The Morgan’s left Perth, Australia in December 2014 on a one year journey around the world, starting in Bali, heading up through most of Asia, then heading to Europe and Great Britain before leaping across the ditch to Canada and the United States where we caught up with them visiting family in Wisconsin.

The catalyst for their journey was the death of a young relative with leukemia. On the way to the funeral they discussed their own future and the opportunities they could give their children to live life to the fullest – and an adventure was born.

You’ll love this interview about how a normal family were able to transform their experiences and relationship with each other while on the move.

To follow their journey make sure you catch their blog at http://morgansgotravelling.com

What I learned from speaking with Jarred and Iri:

The benefits for children are every bit as good as for adults. The Morgan’s have home schooled and have been able to provide their children with many real life examples during the journey. More formal learning can be accessed online

If you think traveling the globe has to be all about scraping by on meagre savings and sleeping on dirt floors – think again. There are many travel bloggers who have built very successful businesses from their adventures and today you’re going to meet one of the most successful.

 US citizens Audrey Scott and Daniel Noll first hit the road in 2002 living in Prague, Czech Republic while working corporate jobs. After 5 years they decided they needed some adventure and in 2006 hit the road on a journey which, given the savings they had, was expected to last around 12 to 18 months.

 They were amongst the earliest travel bloggers out there and realized after a period of time that there were people interested in their story beyond family members. With an ever growing following they worked on their website and blog to the extent that it now provides them with an income through sponsored arrangements and leads through speaking engagements including Ted Talks they have given.

 If you want to learn more about their travels and how they have successfully built a thriving travel business from their journey you can check out their resources at http://uncorneredmarket.com/world-travel-resources or see them speak at the TBEX Dublin travel conference

What I learned from speaking with Audrey and Dan:

If you love inspiring stories of people who don’t let limits stand in their way then you’ll love today’s interview. Gwen McCauley suffered the loss of her first husband in an accident 40 years ago. Looking to escape for a while she booked a holiday to the Algarve region of Portugal, and fell in love with the place.

35 years on at a stage when many people are looking to settle quietly into their senior years the 60 something made two life changing decisions – she was going to relocate from Ottawa to Nova Scotia, Canada and she was going to step up her visits to the Algarve. This year, at the tender young age of 68 Gwen will be spending half the year in Nova Scotia with a full 6 month winter in Portugal where she has an apartment lined up and more work ahead as a restaurant critic.

We spoke with Gwen in Nova Scotia where we discussed living in the Algarve, and how being on a pension is no barrier to living the life you want to lead.

You can follow Gwen’s travels at her blog http://www.gwenmccauley.ca

What I learned from Gwen’s interview:

Sometimes travel is just such a passion you will move heaven and earth to do it. For Italian Claudia Tavani she knew from a very young age that she needed to do it as much as she could.

Born on the island of Sardinia, Claudia developed a love of travel with trips growing up with her family. She eventually left school to study and soon became entrenched in the world of academia, getting her Phd and marking papers as a means of earning in livelihood in the hallowed halls of England and Italy.

But she became increasingly frustrated with life as an academic and embarked on a backpacking trip through South America where she discovered the world of travel blogging during a conversation with a fellow traveler.

Two years on and she has committed wholeheartedly to a life of travel using her home in Sardinia as a base. No more academia for her!

You can follow Claudias story and her travel planning business at her website http://www.myadventuresacrosstheworld.com

What I learned from speaking with Claudia:

Be a patient traveler. Much of Central America needs a lot of patience, but if you relax and just go with it you may find a better person coming out the other end

If you’re worried about being a victim of the next round of redundancies why not take the bull by the horns and fire yourself! That’s what todays interviewees Alan and Heidi Wagoner did.

Deciding that it was only a matter of time until one of them faced a corporate axe they terminated themselves, sold up the home and with their two younger children relocated to the picture postcard seaside town of Almunecar, Spain.

The children enrolled in a local school without knowing any Spanish and within months were reveling in their new school environment. The Wagoners recently took several months off to travel Asia home-schooling their children along the way.

We caught up with them back in Spain where we discussed the Spanish lifestyle and how to integrate your children into a new culture and environment.

You can check out their blog along with the costs of their new lifestyle and how they raise their children at http://wagonersabroad.com

What I learned from speaking with Alan and Heidi:

 Visa requirements are not too onerous for non-Europeans with the initial 90 day visa in Spain providing time to meet the requirements of applying for a 12 month visa. This can then be extended to 2 year and 5 year once the initial period has ended