Summer Travels for You, Mr. Bourdain

Nate: 00:00 Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts. It even breaks your heart, but that’s okay. The journey changes you and it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body.

Nate: 00:16 You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind. Anthony Bourdain. Born June 1956, died June 2018.

Dana: 00:28 This episode of the Opt Out Life Podcast from the Opt Our Media Network was recorded while we packed our bags for Europe and is a preview of the Opt Out Life’s big summer travel plans.

Speaker 1: 00:42 Welcome to the Opt Out Life podcast. The no B.S. guide to living a modern good life. Hosted by subversive millionaires Dana Robinson and Nate Broughton, the Opt Out Life podcast explains exactly how creative hustlers are turning side gigs into real income and taking back control of their time. From their studio in sunny San Diego, the Opt Out Life welcomes guests that are solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, travelers and creatives who are proof that you can choose a lifestyle over money, but still make money too. If you feel like you’ve been chasing your tail, running the rat race or are stuck in the system that’s rigged against you, we’d like to offer you an alternative here on the the Opt Out Life podcast.

Dana: 01:21 We’re going to talk about some of our travel strategies in the context of Nate and my Summer travels. I’ll talk about my trip to Denmark, Sweden and the South of France. I leave in a couple of days. Nate is already on his trip and he is traveling through Reykjavik, Iceland, Amsterdam, Nice. He’s about to hit Lake Como, then Santorini, London, back to Oakland, and then home. In this three week trip Nate will have visited a retirement party, a memorial, two birthday parties, an anniversary and a wedding. Big travel for both of us and we’re gonna talk a lot about it. I hope you enjoy our interaction on this podcast and it’s the first time Nate and I host a podcast without a guest. So we hope you get to know us a little bit more as we banter about travel, the Opt Out way.

Dana: 02:12 We’d like to make this a tribute to Anthony Bourdain, who inspired us in travel, food and life. We mention Bourdain in the podcast which we recorded about a week before his death. The quote from Anthony Bourdain have been circulating in the media and on social media. One of my favorites is when he said this, ” If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can, across the ocean or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes, or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for every body. Open your mind. Get up off the couch. Move.”

Nate: 02:54 Today on the opt out life. It’s just you and I, my friend.

Dana: 02:58 This is a first, it’s … we-

Nate: 03:00 Sans guest.

Dana: 03:01 We’ve recorded darn near twenty guests and we have not bothered to talk amongst ourselves without anyone else. I’m a little nervous. I feel naked right now, like, us just talking to each other.

Nate: 03:14 Yeah, there’s a bit of pressure here, but we’ll see if we can’t-

Dana: 03:17 What do we do during the awkward silences?

Nate: 03:19 I know, I know. And we can’t break into ourselves. So there will be no beep beeps.

Dana: 03:24 No beeps in this one.

Nate: 03:24 No beeps.

Dana: 03:25 We’ll see whether … We’ve had a couple people that are like, “I wish your beep was different.” No beep this time people.

Nate: 03:30 And we’re giving you what you want. You want to hear more about Dana and I, there’s more of this to come and on this episode we are actually going to talk about our summer travel plans which are vast, but also very Opt Out, right? And overlapping and we think it’ll be fun.

Dana: 03:47 Yep. And we figured that we’ll throw this one on the podcast while we’re gone, so if you’re listening to this on the release date it should be a date when we’re not in the country.

Nate: 03:58 Both in Europe and other spots in Europe-

Dana: 04:01 We want you to be with us in spirit.

Nate: 04:03 That’s right. That’s right, so, I’m saying in spirit, “Hello, Dana. Where are you, you’re in Copenhagen I think, if we’re doing that. I think I’m in Greece, so I’m waiving North.”

Dana: 04:14 Let me start with my trip is all about finding people to interview which I think will be very cool for the Opt Out Life podcast, but it also makes much of my trip tax deductible. How about you Nate?

Nate: 04:30 My trip is also tax deductible.

Dana: 04:32 Really?

Nate: 04:33 Period.

Dana: 04:36 IRS do not listen to this episode of the Opt Out Life.

Nate: 04:38 Yeah, yeah, I don’t want to talk about it, but it’s deductible.

Dana: 04:41 So I made mine a junket. I’m going to enjoy it but I’m going to be connecting with two clients. I’ll interview both of them so they’ve been legal clients, cool people. I’ll interview one in Copenhagen and I’ll be down in the South of France with him later ,so I might get a little interview at his business and then one at his villa. The other guy’s an offer who has a side gig working on a patented product as well and has made money from consulting as well as being a well-known author.

Nate: 05:12 I look forward to both of those as a listener of the Opt Out Life and just the setting will be cool, regardless because we get the [inaudible 00:05:18] the stuff in the background, whatever’s happening.

Dana: 05:21 Yeah. It’ll be a second attempt at a live interview. If anyone’s listened to our interview with Jon Roleder-

Nate: 05:27 Or the Vegas one.

Dana: 05:27 … in his front yard. Oh yeah Vegas. We actually have some girls screaming in the pool.

Nate: 05:31 Right.

Dana: 05:32 Alright, so we’ll have a few hazards probably in Copenhagen and in Saint-Tropez.

Nate: 05:37 I don’t have any guests lined up. The impetus for my trip is actually my ten year wedding anniversary, so it’s not necessarily business-focused, but perhaps I’ll have my little H6 recorder with me and a mic so I’ll be recording as I go along. Maybe a little “This American Life,” NPR narrative approach to it. We’ll see what I can cobble together. We’ll bring it back.

Dana: 05:58 Yeah. I’m going straight to Copenhagen and got cheap flights, well in advance.

Nate: 06:05 You flying out of San Diego?

Dana: 06:07 Flying out of LAX actually. So I guess first step for an LAX flight is a rental car, one way. I use Orbitz for that because I can cancel without any consequence. I think I’m paying 60 bucks for a one way rental car and I get to drop that off and shuttle to the airport.

Nate: 06:23 So you uber down to pick up the car?

Dana: 06:26 Yep. Exactly. Uber from my house. Pick up the rental car at San Diego’s airport. Drive to LAX.

Nate: 06:32 Drop it off. Get on the bus.

Dana: 06:33 Drop it off. Get on the shuttle. Get in the line and go through TSA. I’ve got a pre-check. That should speed it up just a little bit.

Nate: 06:43 You gonna hit any lounges depending upon how much time you’ve got, right?

Dana: 06:46 I don’t think I’ll need to this trip. LAX, for the red eyes is usually pretty empty. There’s a lot of space. Restaurants are usually open so maybe have a little late dinner. It depends on whether I’m hungry enough to eat the in flight food.

Nate: 07:01 Sure.

Dana: 07:02 But we’re flying Norwegian, Norwegian Air.

Nate: 07:04 Ah, love it. Dreamliner probably.

Dana: 07:06 Pretty decent. The food’s not amazing but the airplanes are clean, newer. Pretty affordable price and a red eye, so I’ll be sleeping on that flight.

Nate: 07:15 A little medication before?

Dana: 07:17 Yes. It’s usually a choice between Xanax …

Nate: 07:22 CBD?

Dana: 07:22 CBD.

Nate: 07:25 I don’t know, I mean, that’s the new school option.

Dana: 07:28 I have not done the CBD on a flight, but yeah CBD could be a good choice, for sure.

Nate: 07:31 Cool.

Dana: 07:32 But yeah, usually medicate lightly because you don’t want to be on an ambien on an airplane and sleep walk and I don’t know, do something crazy.

Nate: 07:43 And that’s like 11 and a half hours or is it a little bit more?

Dana: 07:44 It’s about, yeah, 11 to 12 hours.

Nate: 07:46 Nice.

Dana: 07:47 Land in the late morning and we’ve got a VRBO rental so we’re using somebody’s studio flat.

Nate: 07:55 Nice.

Dana: 07:56 And we’ll spend a couple days just hopping around on bicycles and-

Nate: 07:59 I say he’ll be on a bike by 1:30 with a scarf and a hotdog in hand.

Dana: 08:03 Yeah. Absolutely. I have one woman that I really want to interview who owns a salon and I met her in Bali, so she’s a really resourceful designer. Has a business where she imports and designs and creates goods from Bali, as well as other places. Really visual, so I’m hoping to get some good video and some good photography. And a cool person to hang out with. But if she’s not in Bali, if she’s in Copenhagen then we’ll be lucky to have some cool stuff that I’ll bring to the Opt Out Life from her.

Nate: 08:31 Nice.

Dana: 08:31 Then, going to a little town in Sweden called Houvig. There’s a train straight from Copenhagen to Houvig. No stops. My buddy Todd will pick us up at the train station, drive us about a half an hour to his little village, which has all of one restaurant that services smoked salmon and one business in town that makes smoked salmon.

Nate: 08:56 Does he own the business and the restaurant?

Dana: 08:58 No, he just owns a little house and it’s got a guest room. I went to this little town of Houvig last year and visited with Todd.

Nate: 09:04 Ah, I see. Okay.

Dana: 09:05 So the second time. Loved it. Slept like a baby. It was quiet. Peaceful. Not a whole lot to do. Take some walks. Last time we drove to a nearby village which was maybe twice as a big and they had a jazz festival with food trucks and a bunch of vendors serving all kinds of food. Actually had American style barbecue from a guy that was not American, but learned the trade.

Nate: 09:30 Was it good?

Dana: 09:30 It was excellent. Was a lot of fun. Just looking for cool stuff to do. Todd has written two in a series of three fiction novels and I talk a little bit about a version of him in the Opt Out book. I mean I didn’t want to give away everything about Todd’s life, but I use him as an example of someone who actually makes side money from having been successfully published and he runs a side gig and we’re going to talk about a cool coffee product that he’s inventing. I think his patent’s filed so we’ll be able to talk about it openly.

Nate: 10:01 Is this town on the water?

Dana: 10:02 On the water. On the Baltic Sea.

Nate: 10:06 Cool!

Dana: 10:07 And you’re looking across Baltic Sea, there’s a little flat piece of land at the other end and that is Russia.

Nate: 10:13 No shit, okay.

Dana: 10:14 So it’s pretty close to the Russian border. Just unique little experience. A little bit like an American small town but you’re definitely not in America anymore.

Nate: 10:23 That’s cool that you’re going back and you were in Copenhagen last year too or two years ago? Okay.

Dana: 10:27 Yep. Last year too. Yeah, so this year … we could go back a bunch. Copenhagen’s amazing. After Houvig, after we sleep for four days in Houvig, going back to Copenhagen for a couple of days and that’s when I hope to interview my buddy that runs a woodworking shop there and makes beautiful furniture. Then we’re all going with that family and some other families down to the South of France. So we’re going to have a week, maybe it’s eight days at his villa in the mountains about Saint Tropez, surrounded by cork oak with cicada bugs buzzing and hawks flying overhead. So the villa has something very rugged about, but it also has a tennis court, pool. I think it’s got six rooms.

Nate: 11:14 Good wine. Good food. Good weather.

Dana: 11:15 Good wine. Yep. Great music. He’s got an incredible hi-fi system with a bunch of vinyls so we’ll play some cool jazz. He’s got great taste in all kinds of styles of music. Actually been in a band. He was in a David Bowie cover band at one point.

Nate: 11:34 Nice.

Dana: 11:34 When David Bowie was doing a release in Copenhagen he was asked to have his band perform.

Nate: 11:41 Wow!

Dana: 11:41 So one of his side gigs was performing as a David Bowie cover artist.

Nate: 11:45 Did they dress like Bowie?

Dana: 11:46 Yeah, I think the did the whole shtick.

Nate: 11:49 Nice. How did you meet this guy? How did you meet a few of these people?

Dana: 11:52 Yeah, this is the cool part about travel is you meet people when you travel. One of the things I’ve always done is try to travel where I know somebody so I don’t care how I met them. Did I meet them traveling? Cool. Like I invite them to come to San Diego. When they do, like let me hook you up. And people do the same for us. So we met this family in Bali and they came and rented the villa next to my villa and we just became friends from hanging out by the pool together and doing some things together, surfing together, going out on motorbikes, grabbing coffee in Bali and then he ended up in San Diego so I showed him what it’s like to swim with leopard sharks and hung out for a couple of days here. We’ve been back to Copenhagen, now this will be our second time.

Nate: 12:35 Beautiful.

Dana: 12:36 That will end my three week first stint of the summer.

Nate: 12:41 There’s so much that we could say about that I guess, ’cause there’s more travel to come that we can talk about. I guess it’s probably about time for me to talk about my trip.

Dana: 12:41 Yeah. You leave in days.

Nate: 12:48 My first one. I do! I leave in a few days here from when we’re recording this and I should be on the island of Santorini when this comes out, but yeah I said that it’s … my trip is for my ten year wedding anniversary, so oh, isn’t that cute?

Dana: 12:48 It’s very cute!

Nate: 13:03 We’re gonna …

Nate: 13:00 Your wedding anniversary, so oh, isn’t that cute.

Dana: 13:00 It’s very cute.

Nate: 13:03 We’re gonna redo our honeymoon, which was throughout Europe. At the time, I guess, what, 10 … oh, 10 years ago obviously.

Dana: 13:03 Obviously.

Nate: 13:11 ’08. It was, I think, the year I was two to one or something. 50 cents to one, basically. So twice as expensive as it could’ve been. We were young and excited to travel. I had only been to Europe a few times at that point. But yeah, we thought it’d be fun to redo it this year.

Nate: 13:28 We’ve been thinking about it for a while. We have young kids now, we are going to drop them off in Missouri with the grandparents and the extended family. So I guess that’s step one. San Diego to St Louis, old southwest. Couple things there.

Dana: 13:43 You gotta drop all that kid stuff off.

Nate: 13:45 All the stuff, yes. It goes even deeper, because we have a retirement party, a memorial service, and a birthday party in the 48 hours that we’re there. Not to mention all the other logistical things that must happen of arranging everyone to take care of the kids. Then we’re taking off Saturday night after getting in there on Thursday night I guess, so.

Nate: 14:06 Non-stop St Louis to Reykjavik, Wow Airlines taking over those mid-market airports with no directs to Europe, so they sprung, I think, seven or eight new ones on us this summer. So you got like, Cincinnati and Cleveland and St Louis nonstop on Wow.

Dana: 14:21 Yeah, you and I have been there. Have been to Iceland, to Reykjavik together. Has Christie been?

Nate: 14:25 Christie’s not been there, no. So I figured, yeah. It was fun to take advantage of that cheap flight and that there is even a nonstop from St Louis to anywhere in Europe. Yeah, she’s never been there. So we’ll do the hot water springs.

Dana: 14:39 Blue lagoon.

Nate: 14:39 Yeah, that whole thing.

Dana: 14:40 Gotta do the blue lagoon once.

Nate: 14:41 We’ve only got 24 hours there, so. We’ll do that, we’ll hang around in town. We’ll see what Reykjavik’s got. Go to the Lebowski bar, probably.

Dana: 14:49 Yes.

Nate: 14:50 Gotta jump off a diving board at a swimming pool and wake up the next way and go to Amsterdam, so. Amsterdam is next. Only there for a couple days, we’re renting a room with some guy that rents out a room with his wife. They seem pretty cool.

Dana: 15:03 Cool.

Nate: 15:03 It’s kinda nice to do that versus to have to worry about getting a one bedroom or a two bedroom with the kids and all the things that you need, so.

Dana: 15:10 Yeah, you haven’t had to do that, you have no kids.

Nate: 15:12 That’s right. Just winging it, man.

Dana: 15:13 And you’ve got a built in host.

Nate: 15:15 That’s right, that’s right.

Dana: 15:15 That’s a first in a while, right?

Nate: 15:17 Yeah, yeah. I’m excited to just hang with the locals and get some tips from them and have them lead us around a little bit of Amsterdam. That’s a place that we haven’t been together either, which is probably starting to sound weird because this is supposed to be our honeymoon redone and we’re going to all these places that weren’t on our honeymoon, but.

Dana: 15:33 Cheap flights facilitate these little [inaudible 00:15:35].

Nate: 15:35 This is true, right? Like, I was like, where can you get from Reykjavik that’s cheap and fast? Amsterdam is one. When I was planning the trip, I was like, I knew I had to get to Nice, where we’re going next, after Amsterdam. That was our, I think our first stop on our honeymoon was Nice. Yeah, it was like going nonstop from St Louis to Nice would’ve been horrible. But going from St Louis to Reykjavik to Amsterdam to Nice is, I think it’s probably like 100 something bucks each flight. So that’s how you do it.

Nate: 16:03 Nice for three nights, probably go over to Monaco or even Saint-Tropez or something like that. Cruise around. Beach time. Then we’re taking the train to Milan and to Lake Como, which Lake Como was a place that was on our honeymoon. So that’s an easy just couple hour train ride. Lake Como’s a very unique place geographically with kind of the mountains and the elevated lake and it’s very quiet and old worldly. George Clooney, you know. He’s got his place there. I know a couple –

Dana: 16:30 Yeah. You gonna hang out with George?

Nate: 16:31 Try, I’ll try.

Dana: 16:32 Good, say for me.

Nate: 16:33 I will, I will. He’s got kids now, we got something in common.

Dana: 16:36 Yeah. That’s about all.

Nate: 16:37 George, we’re both from the Midwest. We both live in California, we have kids. We gotta hang out, buddy.

Nate: 16:42 So yeah, we’ll be there for a couple days and we’re flying to Santorini, which is the most honey moon spot, I think, of it all. Greek island, kind of volcano crescent style. Like you got the volcano that erupted a long time ago and just left this crescent up on a ridge that has all the picturesque white hotel things with the blue roofs. That’s Santorini, so. The sunsets and the romantic stuff. We’ve got a pool in our room, actually. Like a dip pool, in our hotel room.

Dana: 17:14 That’s cool.

Nate: 17:15 Which should be interesting.

Dana: 17:16 I have not had a pool inside a room before.

Nate: 17:17 Yeah. I’m sure it’s really clean.

Dana: 17:19 Fancy. So it’s like having your own Playboy grotto.

Nate: 17:22 Yeah, exactly my point, really. Especially, it’s marketed as some –

Dana: 17:26 Well worth it.

Nate: 17:26 Lover’s getaway. I’m gonna –

Dana: 17:26 All right.

Nate: 17:29 Watch out for the, whatever’s floating around in that water. But –

Dana: 17:32 No, I’m sure they clean it.

Nate: 17:33 Sure.

Dana: 17:33 Every day.

Nate: 17:36 After that, we go to London for a night and then we go to Oakland for a wedding that I’m the best man of.

Dana: 17:44 Yes, I know. I’m missing it. Sorry Mikey.

Nate: 17:46 I know, you should be there.

Dana: 17:47 I know.

Nate: 17:47 My good friend Mike is getting married. A bunch of old friends from the old days, and new friends from the current days will be there. So yeah, that was nice that he was … that matched the schedule with the day we got back, which is also my son’s birthday. We fly from London to Oakland. We see him for his birthday, we go to the wedding, then we fly home.

Dana: 18:05 Amazing.

Nate: 18:06 Eight cities, nine flights, seventeen days. Memorial service, two birthday parties, a retirement party, a wedding, and an anniversary.

Dana: 18:17 And an anniversary. Now, are you gonna wear the same tux and have Christie wear her dress as you travel the first legs?

Nate: 18:25 Yeah, we talked about doing a wedding regrets podcast episode. That would probably be on there, actually. No, my tux is long gone, and it was long gone when I rented it and … I’m sure the dress is still around, but I don’t know where. So no.

Dana: 18:38 Nice. All right, so you get back while I’m still gone. You get to push some episodes live while I’m still down in Saint-Tropez. Then we come back, we’re gonna have to hustle up some Opt Out Life episodes, and then we’re sharing a trip.

Nate: 18:55 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dana: 18:57 Multi family trip with one of our greatest guests.

Nate: 19:00 That was talked about on the episode, so no surprise I guess. We’re both gonna go and maybe [inaudible 00:19:07]’s coming too, to Montana for a week at the end of July to live the Cameron opt-out life which we talked about a lot on his episode. I’m excited for you to see, ’cause you haven’t seen it yet.

Dana: 19:19 What’s amazing to me is that this lake is a warm temperature, it’s fed by springs, so it looks like the kind of Montana place that would be freezing, even in the summer. But all the pictures show people with no wetsuit, you know, wakeboarding behind boats and all of that, so.

Nate: 19:34 Maybe that’s the thing I’m most excited about for this summer. Even with all these grand Europe plans, I think we’re gonna have the most fun in Montana together.

Dana: 19:42 Getting pulled behind a boat?

Nate: 19:42 Yes.

Dana: 19:43 Yeah.

Nate: 19:43 Jumping off of bridges is another thing we did there.

Dana: 19:46 And good for your kids, right, this is the giving your kids the kind of experience that Cameron intends his kids to have all the time.

Nate: 19:53 Right.

Dana: 19:54 Even though San Diego isn’t exactly big city folk, it’s nothing like going to the mountains with your kids to fish and I don’t know, look for snakes.

Nate: 20:03 Yeah, totally, right?

Dana: 20:05 Bugs.

Nate: 20:07 Dig in the dirt.

Dana: 20:07 Dig in the dirt.

Nate: 20:08 Jump off the dock.

Dana: 20:09 Yeah.

Nate: 20:09 We’ll be doing a lot of that. Wakesurfing, paddle boarding, we hook the tube up to the back of the boat and fly around, you know.

Dana: 20:16 Yeah.

Nate: 20:17 And go into town, too like the old little town of Bigfork up in Montana, right? Like cowboy style.

Dana: 20:23 Yeah. Do you have a cowboy hat?

Nate: 20:25 I do not.

Dana: 20:25 I don’t either. I had one when I was a kid though.

Nate: 20:28 Really? I’m almost … really, okay.

Dana: 20:28 I liked boots and cowboy hats when I was a kid, I don’t know where it came from.

Nate: 20:28 You got … do you have boots? Do you have boots?

Dana: 20:32 I don’t even have boots anymore.

Nate: 20:33 I’m actually shocked by that. I figured …

Dana: 20:35 No boots, no cowboy hat.

Nate: 20:36 Such a distinguished, mature gentleman. I feel like you would have these things. You got everything else.

Dana: 20:42 I really, I should have –

Nate: 20:43 Leather jackets and the cigars and the … I don’t know.

Dana: 20:46 I should have some boots. I’ll work on that before that.

Nate: 20:48 Maybe we’ll get some boots. It’s gonna be like 80 degrees, but you know. [inaudible 00:20:51].

Dana: 20:52 Everyone’s in shorts and flip flops and Dana cruises up with –

Nate: 20:52 While we were in Montana.

Dana: 20:55 A cowboy hat and boots, spurs.

Nate: 20:58 Why not? Yes, that’ll be a great trip as well. Why not, before we talk about our trips in August, I think we should talk about why we travel. Why are we doing this, and how are we able to do this? Because this year we’ve started this podcast, we’ve come up with this thing. We opt out life. Doesn’t mean we both haven’t been living some version of it, and you’ve been working on the book for a long time. Now we have a bit of a platform, I guess, where we talk about this stuff every week.

Nate: 21:28 People who are living lifestyles of freedom, who are taking trips like this and making it a point to be able to do it, to be able to afford it, to have the time to do it, to make sacrifices to do it. We’re doing that, we would be doing it regardless of if we had this here podcast episode, right?

Dana: 21:43 Right.

Nate: 21:44 So why are you going back to all these places again this summer? What does it mean to you, so to speak, and how does it rank on the priority list? Pretty high.

Dana: 21:53 Yeah, it’s really high. I mean, it’s … I could make more money if I didn’t spend seven weeks of the next three months traveling. But I wanna travel, I enjoy it. I think I wouldn’t have had the [inaudible 00:22:09] to write the book and I’ve got two other books in the works that are close to done. You know, when they stall is when I’m spinning my wheels here doing work that I get paid for.

Dana: 22:19 So I could certainly do more of that, if … a lot of people are like, “Well, you’re so lucky.” No, I mean, it’s a choice. I would make twice as much, probably, this year, if I wasn’t investing my time in the Opt Out Life and traveling. Like, literally the Opt Out Life is a business that I’m investing in, and I’ve given myself the freedom to have the time and the mental space to launch this business, do this podcast, finish the book, get the rest of them done.

Dana: 22:49 As part of that, I’m not gonna just sit and crank out more work product. I wanna live the life that I continue to wanna live. There’s a cost. But that life is the life I want, and every time I travel I don’t look back and think, “Boy, I wish I had just stayed home.” There are times where you think, “God,” you know,

Dana: 23:08 I mean, this … adding Montana in the middle of two three week trips was a little bit of a pause. But then I thought, no. I’ve never been here. I don’t know how long Cameron’s family’s gonna have their place. When you get invited to go somewhere where someone else is sort of your guide or your host, I think that you seize those opportunities. Because those are the best memories.

Nate: 23:29 Right. Yeah, and I mean, just on that point, I mean, that’s probably why that was my favorite trip of last year. It’s ’cause I got to see and get to be shown around by a good friend showing me his special place, so to speak. It is a place that he had chosen to … well, the place that he grew up going to but he’d also chosen to spend all this time at.

Nate: 23:47 Someone who I know and admire and am friends with. Like, there’s probably a reason why. They were so generous with showing us around, I think that made a big difference. Or at least it put it to the top. So I’m glad, like I said, that you guys are squeezing it in. Because I think we’re gonna have a great time.

Nate: 24:03 All the things you said about, you know, why you do this, I agree. I mean, it’s the exact same reasons why I do it as well. In some ways, it’s what I’m working for. But I don’t wanna pause and put it off for 10 years and say I can’t do that until the Opt Out Life makes five million dollars a year or something like that, right?

Nate: 24:21 Like I said, we would be doing it if we had the Opt Out Life or not. No matter what business we were working on, or if business was failing or doing great or whatever. Like, there’d be very few, I think, business events or even life events that I think would stop me from doing these trips. They’re just that high on the list.

Nate: 24:38 I could suffer through shitty month after shitty month after shitty month if I knew I could get, especially some of these ones in the summer on the books. Some of my favorite times of the year.

Dana: 24:47 A lot of people just perceive they can’t do these things. I mean, one of the important things that we’ve given ourselves is the time. By being self employed, having side gigs, real estate, and businesses. You still have to be deliberate, but at least there’s no boss to clear it through.

Dana: 25:01 So we know, I know I can block out three weeks and then a week and then three more weeks and do what I wanna do. I’ll pay a certain price for that in terms of what I don’t make. I’ll be juggling it a little bit while I’m traveling to be sure that the balls are, continue to …

Nate: 25:17 And leading up to it.

Dana: 25:18 And leading up to it, we’re –

Nate: 25:18 [inaudible 00:25:19].

Dana: 25:20 We’re producing double the content we normally would. So we’re working hard to enable ourselves to do these kind of trips. But it’s what we wanna do.

Nate: 25:28 Simple as that, in some ways.

Dana: 25:30 Simple.

Nate: 25:30 But yeah, deciding to want to do it, deciding to do it, and then just dealing with the rest as it comes. Like, yeah, I’ve got to … I just explain the logistics of, and all, like the stats. Like the eight cities, nine flights, seventeen days. I mean, that’s gonna be exhausting. There’s gonna be parts of it that are really shitty.

Nate: 25:46 I had, well my wife and I had, we had to coordinate flying kids across the country, dropping them off. Getting three sets of people to watch them and planning crap for them and then actually getting a wedding tacked on to the end of it and having to take care of them getting flown there on our kid’s birthday. I mean, there’s these thing –

Nate: 26:00 … getting flown there, even on our kid’s birthday. There’s these things that I think people would be like nonstarters in a way where it’s like, “Well, we just can’t do that because x.” It’s like, no, you can figure that out.

Dana: 26:12 Yeah, those are excuses. Even money’s an excuse. I mean, the three weeks, you would envision three weeks to include [Santrape 00:26:19] and Sweden, Copenhagen, sounds very expensive, but part of it is when you’ve been invited by somebody that has a villa, I’ll pay my rent by making tacos. It’d be very expensive night because I’m making tacos for like 18 people and that includes patron-based Margarita. So I’ll be imbibing with my friends and supporting that. It’ll be a few hundred dollars, but I’m not paying for accommodation. I’m appreciating the people that have invited me. I’m using cheap accommodations and cheap flights everywhere I go. And so really, I think I spent more when I go to Vegas than for four days or five days than I might be spending on this trip. So money, it can be a big excuse.

Dana: 27:05 In fact, the next trip I’m doing this summer is Bali and I’m only doing that, well, I mean I lived there, I’ve been wanting to go back for two years, but I tripped across $750 flights round trip. This is a halfway around the world for $750. I mean I’ve paid $750 for round trip to the east coast and back. So it was opportunistic and once I’m there I won’t spend $100 a day between accommodations, food, transportation and fun. For two.

Nate: 27:35 Yeah, that’ll be really cheap. And you’ve already been there, you know the hacks, the tricks. That’s going to be real [crosstalk 00:27:40].

Dana: 27:42 One of the accommodations I booked is 35 bucks a night and other one is 50 a night. These aren’t kind of bootleggy outfits. They’re places I’ve been before. So I’m taking a three-week trip to Bali. Pretty much just for fun. I’ll interview to people while I’m there. One is a local that I know and one’s the next path that I talk about in the Opt Out book. So I’ll pick up two interviews.

Nate: 28:05 Tax write off.

Dana: 28:06 Tax write off, have some fun, keep my dive certification moving forward, surf a little bit, eat some amazing food. Just kind of goof off for almost three weeks.

Nate: 28:18 I admire that.

Dana: 28:19 And you are traveling about the same time.

Nate: 28:21 Yeah. Yeah. We’ll be gone again around the same time.

Dana: 28:23 Invited you on the Bali trip.

Nate: 28:25 Yeah, that’s true. I’m sorry. I’m going to be in Sweden. I’m busy. Yeah. So we’re going to Sweden two weeks. Only Sweden, so a little opposite of my usual [crosstalk 00:28:35].

Dana: 28:35 Instead of nine hops across a country?

Nate: 28:38 Yeah, just straight into Stockholm. Stay there for two weeks straight out.

Dana: 28:42 Cool.

Nate: 28:43 Wanted to do that because I’ve been there twice. We went there with my son for his second birthday and just fell in love with the city. Clean. Easy. People kind of look like us there. They wear Adidas and nice jeans and [crosstalk 00:28:58]-

Dana: 28:58 They fit your style.

Nate: 29:00 Yeah, yeah.

Dana: 29:00 You look like you look like you fit in there.

Nate: 29:01 I get the aesthetic there and they all speak English, which is nice, I would like to learn Swedish, but I don’t know if I can or if I even need to, given that they love talking. Seemingly in English to Americans. Not every place I’ve traveled to is that the case. Very welcoming, very clean, very easy to get around, very central. All the old town and parks and everything. We really enjoyed it. And I wanted to spend more time there and I got really cheap flights again, I think it’s a bit of a theme.

Nate: 29:32 I actually lived, I went there last summer with Charlie, our developer and some other people and as soon as I got back I was like, “I have to take the family there again the next summer.” So it was 11 months away. I looked and it was 500 bucks round trip from La.

Dana: 29:46 That’s amazing.

Nate: 29:47 So I booked it right away. So it’s 1500 bucks for three of us. And then the infant riding shoddy somehow on the floor. We’ll get him somewhere. Nice little travel kids tip is when they’re not yet two, you don’t have to buy them a seat if you don’t want to. They usually-

Dana: 30:03 Poor kid. Maybe get a bassinet [crosstalk 00:30:05]-

Nate: 30:06 Yeah, get a bassinet or usually they’ll try to treat you nice. If there’s an open seat on that plane, we will get it. I’m sure there’s once other kids around, but we’ve gotten lucky every time. We’ve been placed in the back row that was entirely open and it was free.

Dana: 30:19 [inaudible 00:30:19] center the fourth seat.

Nate: 30:20 Yeah, and the big long flights are just the same as two-hour flights, three-hour flights. Even for seasoned veterans like us, some of our worst flights have been two hours to Denver just for whatever reason versus 15 hours to Europe, so don’t worry about that. That was one thing we were worried about, but the long flights with the kids are manageable, especially if they’re overnight red eyes on the way over via Sweden and actually my parents are coming. So I was going to say part of the impetus for doing that trip was my mom’s retiring. They’ve never been anywhere and I want them to see places so-

Dana: 30:52 It’s a good first …

Nate: 30:54 It is. It’s approachable, right? There’s not too hard to find the train at the airport in Sweden and get down to there-

Dana: 30:59 The food is not that exotic.

Nate: 31:00 Right. Yeah. The people are, they look the same. They’re friendly, they’re nice.

Dana: 31:04 They speak impeccable English.

Nate: 31:05 So I figured it was approachable from their front and the benefit of them coming and also helping us watch the kids a little bit. Can’t wait to be there in August, hanging out at the park, playing a game where they throw the sticks that they sell at Ikea. Can’t remember what the hell that thing is called. Kubb.

Dana: 31:05 Kubb.

Nate: 31:22 You ever see people like hipsters playing that-

Dana: 31:24 No.

Nate: 31:24 … these days at the park? It’s like six wood sticks about this tall and you get about 20 feet apart. So about six inches high. Excuse me. The wood sticks, six of them [inaudible 00:31:34] about 20 feet away and you get little sticks to throw at them that are about the same height, six inches high an inch in diameter. And you just throw them and try to knock them down. And as you knock them down they like start to come closer. I can’t remember. It’s hard, but Swedish people are really good at it.

Dana: 31:50 And you got to play?

Nate: 31:52 Oh yeah.

Dana: 31:52 Oh yeah?

Nate: 31:52 [crosstalk 00:31:53] there and we bought them at Ikea here and … Well, I’m just assuming Ikea but where else would you buy Swedish shit?

Dana: 31:59 Always Ikea.

Nate: 31:59 We played it like me and Charlene, Devin we played a lot. So I think it’s going to take off in the US here, but we’ll be playing that in Sweden.

Dana: 32:07 Yeah. Well in south of France we play what I call bocce ball, but we’re not in Italy. So the game is called-

Nate: 32:13 Oh, they call it something different?

Dana: 32:14 Pétanque.

Nate: 32:15 I didn’t know that.

Dana: 32:15 Yeah, but it’s been-

Nate: 32:16 Exact same-ish?

Dana: 32:17 Yeah, the little steel balls. So you know the bocce ball balls look a little different I guess, but you’re basically playing the same game and they play it vigorously. Every retired man you see in the south of France is sort of in the evening carrying around his a leather bag that’s got his precious pétanque balls in it. Nice. Fun until you play against a local who kicks your ass.

Nate: 32:41 Yeah, same with the kubb or however it’s pronounced. They make it look bad.

Dana: 32:45 Great way to spend an evening though with some rosacea.

Nate: 32:47 Yeah. I definitely have images in my head of old men playing that game and I probably have never even played it right, but it’s definitely the south of France or Italy or some combination of both, right?

Dana: 32:56 Yeah, all of them. Yeah. And I’ve seen them playing it parks in Paris even. So it’s-

Nate: 33:00 Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. So yes, we’ve outlined our travel for the summer and we’ve done a lot of actually traveled content, not just in podcast episodes. I mean if you’re into travel, definitely listened to Adam Daily’s episode where he traveled around the world for a year with his four kids and wrote a book about it. Not to mention he owned a business where he lived in a bunch of different cities selling event tickets to the Olympics. It’s a great episode with some great travel tips and tricks.

Nate: 33:25 One of the travel ones that we have in there are Brian Kidwell from Scott’s Cheap Flights, which is this cool email service that sends out mistake fares and unpublished sales from airlines kind of in real time. And they’ve got an email list of over 1 million subscribers and that’s free, or you can pay like three bucks a month, which is a complete joke to get on their paid service where you can get flight alerts. Dana mentioned going to Bali kind of just because the flight deal came across and it was almost too good to pass up. If you’re on that list, you can find things like that 200 bucks to Paris. If you got that, you can figure out the rest of the trip and make it work. So check out those two episodes.

Nate: 34:05 We’ve got another travel episode coming out after this from Gabe Dweck who’s been to over 70 countries. So there’s a mix of business and travel and then on our blueprint course and we talk a ton about how to live in Bali for a year. Dana’s got a section on that. I talk about how to travel with kids and we lay out all of our best travel tips, tricks and hacks in that course on the Opt Out Life blueprint, which you can check out on optoutlife. com.

Dana: 34:30 Get on the list-

Nate: 34:30 Get on the list from when it comes out.

Dana: 34:32 … so you get the special price when we first launch it.

Nate: 34:34 That’s right. So get on our email list, you’ll get access to those courses at discounted rates and also updates on our travel as we are heading around all all over the world [crosstalk 00:34:44].

Dana: 34:44 Yeah and watched the social media. See how Nate and I do because we’re both posting simultaneously to social, so you’ll be getting a little bit of whiplash while you’re getting a post from Nate and his Nine Stops.

Nate: 34:56 Yeah, I think our social media posts are going to go up by like tenfold or somewhere. Like, “look at all the cool shit we’re doing.”

Dana: 35:01 Yeah. [inaudible 00:35:02] check it out. Hopefully. Hopefully we’ll have fun and let the listeners kind of ride along with some of it.

Nate: 35:07 That’s right. Alright, Opt Out, out.

Nate: 35:12 Thanks again for listening to the Opt Out Life podcast. If you liked this episode or any of our episodes, we’d love to have you as a subscriber. Click the subscribe button on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. Then head over to optoutlife.com. There, you can enter your email address to get on our email list, so you’ll be the first to know about new podcast episodes as they come out, including handpicked highlights, links to resources we mentioned, and top quotes from each episode.

Nate: 35:38 Dana and I are also publishing new articles on the site, including how-to guides and blueprints for you to use to find your next side gig or find a creative idea to help you live the Opt Out life. Opt Out Life email subscribers also will be the first to get access to upcoming video content, which includes a short documentary we shot recently here in San Diego as well as opportunities to interact with us and our growing community through the Opt Out Life premium membership. All that and more starts by heading to optoutlife.com and entering your email. If that’s not enough, you can follow us on Instagram @optoutlife. Give us a shout out or ask a question about your business, your travel plans, or anything we might be able to help you with. We’ll talk to you soon. Opt Out, out.