Free To Roam With Austin And Monica Mangelson Blossom Your Awesome Podcast

Free To Roam With Austin And Monica Mangelson Blossom Your Awesome Podcast

Austin and Monica are experienced digital nomads who have built successful online businesses while exploring the world. With a combined 17+ years of nomading in 10+ countries, they have gained valuable insights into building and scaling online ventures. As certified life purpose coaches, they help other travel lovers create purpose and build their dream business.

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Transcript

Sue (00:02.432)
Hi there, today on the show, we have got Austin and Monica Mangelson here with us all the way from Lima, Peru. I'm so honored and delighted to have you guys here. Welcome to the show.

Austin & Monica (00:14.9)
Thank you so much, Sue. We're so excited to be here. Yeah. And thanks for inviting us on to have a conversation with you on your podcast.

Sue (00:21.344)
Oh, I'm so excited to have you guys here and get into the amazing work you do. You guys are digital nomads. You have kind of a cool story about how you met. You have a collective, I think, 17 years of like traveling freely and working. So give us, let's start with the backstory, like how the two of you met.

Austin & Monica (00:42.548)
Yeah, of course. One thing Monica and I always love sharing is that since we both graduated high school, neither one of us have lived in any one place for longer than nine months. And that was kind of a forced nine months due to COVID. So we are definitely big travelers. And that's been like really a foundational part of our relationship since we met. We met in college. We were college sweethearts. We had our apartment complex, this shared a parking lot and.

Yeah, he kept showing up and doing my dishes. So eventually I said, Hey, if you want to do this my entire life, that's totally fine. And yeah, that's kind of how we started.

Sue (01:15.744)
you

Sue (01:19.59)
Oh my god.

And I mean, how did you guys like colleges a few years, right? How did you manage like staying in one place for, you know, at least a couple of years or something?

Austin & Monica (01:32.084)
Yeah, so we were going to school in Idaho in Rexburg and we in between semesters we would be outside of Rexburg. So we took a summer job in Utah. So we moved down there for several months and we were working as river rafting guides on the Provo River. Another summer we went and we were visiting Oregon for a summer and lived there with a friend of ours or going back for holidays to visit our.

family members in California and Washington. So even during our college years, like we were all over the West coast and just visiting different places. Sometimes just based on the circumstances and other times, cause we just needed to be out somewhere in different out from Rexburg.

Sue (02:11.712)
Oh, I love that. And so then how did this, you know, come about where you're like, okay, we're gonna go I think the first you were went and worked for the Peace Corps or what was it something like that, right?

Austin & Monica (02:24.788)
So that was the original plan. Our goal was to go work in the Peace Corps. It kind of, through a series of events, we were looking at jobs in China and like teaching English jobs in China, which fell through, which turned into teaching English jobs in Thailand, which fell through. And just through a series of very serendipitous circumstances, we ended up getting a job at the Peace Corps. And so we were going to be there for two, a little more than two years.

And we had already gone on some trips together. We both speak Spanish, and so we were Spanish interpreters for a medical team. And we knew, like, at the very beginning of our relationship that doing those kind of things together was something that we were going to prioritize.

And so we wanted to find ways that we could continue traveling together. And so the Peace Corps was a way for us to do that. It fell through because of COVID. So we had to pivot and come up with new plans after that. But we did technically have those jobs.

Sue (03:27.232)
And you know what's so interesting? Like if you don't live this lifestyle, you never really, it seems like so out of reach, right? You don't realize that there are so many organizations and so many opportunities where you could, you know, make a living, go live fairly, you know, cheaply, right? I mean, the cost of living is lower and all of that, and you can actually travel and work and make it happen. So that's so cool. So at what point,

Because so initially you guys are kind of you're doing these, you know, okay, we're going to teach English here and do this, there and that. But then now you have a whole business model where you're coaching other people. So how did that come about?

Austin & Monica (04:11.252)
Yeah, I mean, that's a really long journey. The condensed version is we the peace corps kind of left us high and dry. Like we had sold all of our stuff. Everything was in suitcases and it was like literally two weeks before we were supposed to go. They're like, hey, you're not going. We'll let you know. And so we're like, OK, well, like it'll probably be a month or whatever. So we moved in with Austin's parents and we were able to get jobs fairly quickly, just like to pass the time. So we both ended.

up working in senior health care and then we were on hold and we were just waiting and waiting and waiting and you know everyone knows how COVID unfolded how it became you know quarantine for two weeks two months forever and it just kept going it just kept going and going and going um and so it was a really weird balance of like trying to

to grieve our plans separately, but also like trying to figure out how to move forward with our lives. And it really, I hit a breaking point way before Austin did where I was like, I cannot wait for someone to tell me I can live my life again. I cannot live like this anymore. We were both superstar crazy. It wasn't the most ideal position to be living with Austin's parents. And I mean, we absolutely love them, but that's just not what we had envisioned for our lives.

and just not being able to travel and just everything on top of it, I just felt so stuck. So that's when I started looking for a way out. And that's when we actually started our online business. As soon as we started that business, we started traveling again as much as we could within the COVID restrictions. We took a lot of really fun road trips. We started living in different states all over the US. And it just brought this incredible sense of freedom again. And as we did that and as we built our business several years

down the road, people started being like, hey, like, you're doing a really cool thing. Can you help me do that? And we were like, yeah, we could totally help you do that. And so we started like, just kind of on accident, we started coaching people we helped, I think it ended up being like seven people, like friends and family launched their businesses.

Austin & Monica (06:19.636)
as an unofficial coach, like in an unofficial capacity where they weren't paying us, we were just helping them. And we got super addicted to that process. And we're like, we just love giving people a way out because that's what we needed. And we wish that we had somebody to like walk us through the steps. We made so many mistakes in the beginning. And so it just kind of became a natural thing where we're like, we can be that way out for people.

Sue (06:42.88)
I love that now. So initially before the coaching, what was the business model? Like when you went online and said, we're going to do this. What did that look like?

Austin & Monica (06:53.076)
So our very first jobs were as virtual assistants. Monica came across a course that taught you how to do all the different skills that a virtual assistant does. So we learned copywriting, we learned graphic design, we learned scheduling, a little bit of web design, like you name it, we learned how to do a little bit of it. And so we did that for like a year -ish, and we realized like it brought back the...

ability for us to travel and that location independence, we were able to earn money while moving around, which is one of the things that were, was really important to us. And so we got that back, which felt really, really good. But about a year into it, we realized that we were once again, at least the way we had it set up, we were still just working for other people.

And we were looking for like another layer to that freedom that we had where we can design our own business and we get to choose, uh, like what direction we go in. And we felt like, I mean, we probably could have created that with, with the, uh, uh, virtual assisting, but we stepped into something new in order to create that. So we started web design and we did that for also about a year. Uh, maybe, yeah, about a year. Um, and so we did specifically web design and branding.

Uh, and then that's when everything Monica shared with our friends and family coming to us, asking us for help kind of started, which led us into the coaching.

Sue (08:16.)
Wow, how serendipitous, right? Because that wasn't part of the plan. And then it's like, oh, we can actually make a living, a good living, probably doing this and helping other people. That's awesome. So Monica, you mentioned some of the mistakes you made in the beginning. Talk to us. Can you share some of those to help people out who might be thinking about this?

Austin & Monica (08:35.924)
Oh, of course. Yeah, one of the biggest, there's so many, one of the biggest ones though is right when we got started, trying to make our business look like everybody else's. So for example, when we like, we're like, okay, we exclusively want to offer web design services. At the time, the big craze was like VIP days where essentially you just work one -on -one with a client for like 24 hours and you build a website and it's really intense. And it was like this whole like, you only have to work four days a month kind of thing.

And so we built our entire structure. Like we spent hours trying to figure out how the structure was going to go. But then since we're digital nomads, time zones are a really real thing. It was impossible to set up VIP days. And we wasted so much time and energy and just kept hitting this wall over and over and over again because someone else told us that VIP days were the way to go. And so it was a lot of, business is a really deep like self -development journey that I don't think either one of us were quite prepared for when we started.

Sue (09:15.36)
you

Austin & Monica (09:34.9)
Um, but it was a lot of learning how to filter all of the information you learn through your own intuition to figure out what really is going to work for you when it comes to creating the lifestyle you want. And even knowing what that lifestyle is, like, I don't think when we started our business, we knew what we were creating. I don't think it just came out of a necessity of just anything, but what we had. And I don't think we knew how much potential it had to like,

give us all of the freedom to design our lives and really, really create a life that we absolutely love living.

Sue (10:11.52)
That is so great. Now, let me ask you, and this is a question for both of you guys. What do you think, and I want to go deeper with this, but what do you think, you know, as far as traveling and being exposed to so much, like I believe it is one of the greatest educations you can ever receive, right? Having access to different kinds of people and culture, all of that. What has that taught you about being business owners and entrepreneurs? What do you think you've gleaned from that?

experience in that regard.

Austin & Monica (10:44.052)
That's an awesome question. I think the first thing that comes to mind for me is how much empathy you build as a traveler. You are going across the world and you're meeting different people who believe different things than you. Maybe they worship different things than you or a different God or maybe they have different traditions and cultures around their food or their holidays or their clothing and

And you learn how different people can be, but that they can still be good people. They can still be great people. They can still teach you things that you didn't know. And so you learn about this, um, you know, how diverse the world is and how you can still love someone and still learn something from someone, despite being vastly different from them. And I think that carries over into our business worlds because business really is like about relationships. And that was another mistake we made was trying to be a little bit too far removed.

from the clients and the potential clients in our audience. And so we started leaning more into the relationships that we build with people. And you can take that empathy that you learn as a traveler into those relationships and learn to.

to not like, I guess, not judge people for being different than you and to learn that they have a different perspective. They have different objectives and they have different, um, desires than you do. But how can you, how can you as a coach help them get to their goals? How can you appreciate and acknowledge that they are in a different setting that maybe they want to do things differently than you, but how can you help them do that within their personality, within their strengths and their weaknesses?

Sue (12:28.85)
That's beautiful.

Austin & Monica (12:31.668)
Yeah, I love this question. I've never been asked this question before. So it really like made me think a lot. And I think one of the biggest ways that it has directly helped me as a business owner is just the inspiration that comes from just being exposed to new things. And...

And just helping me realize that, especially specifically as a coaching business, people have so many things going on in their lives beyond just trying to build a business. And so helping our clients build a life, not just a business, is really important to me. And I feel like the more I travel, the more I start to understand like...

what people really do care about, kind of like what Austin was saying, but also just like there's something so inspiring about being so far removed from anything you know, and is comfortable for you. And just it just makes you feel alive again, because all of a sudden you notice the trees and the buildings and the birds and the smells. Whereas before you start blocking all that out, because you're just so used to it.

And so there's this feeling of being alive and that just like fuels innovation and creativity. And I just feel like the more people can experience that, the more they're going to be able to build businesses or become a better version of themselves. And I don't even know if I'm answering the question anymore, but it's just, it's such a cool feeling to be exposed to different cultures and ways of life.

Sue (13:56.4)
Thank you.

Sue (14:03.348)
Oh yeah, those were both great responses. I loved both of your guys' take on that and just how it broadens your understanding of everything really, right? To be exposed to all this different stuff and you're bringing a different level of just awareness and mindset to your business and your clients and all of that. So that's amazing. Now for you guys personally, what do you think, like all of these amazing adventures, like...

Austin & Monica (14:15.24)
Mm -hmm.

Sue (14:32.268)
you know, that's got to keep your relationship fresh and exciting. And how has that helped you guys? I think it, you know, in your relationship, what do you think it's done for your you guys as a couple?

Austin & Monica (14:46.484)
It's definitely made us learn to rely on each other a lot more and force us to be a really good communicators. Especially just like being in business together, traveling together, we are together all the time. And I absolutely love it. There's no one else I'd rather spend my time with than Austin. But I've definitely like, for example, Austin is a lot more introverted than I am. I never have to be alone except for maybe to poop. And even then if you want to sit outside my door and talk to me, I'm totally fine with that. But Austin definitely needs some more time like to himself. And

Sue (14:53.024)
Yeah.

Austin & Monica (15:16.39)
And so learning how to balance that and just learning for him to communicate that need to me and then me learning that that's okay. And that doesn't mean he doesn't love me anymore. And just like learning that balance of like just reading each other. And I feel like we've gotten to the point where like honestly I'm like, okay Austin can use some space and he doesn't even have to communicate that to me anymore. And I can like go on a walk or I can go, you know, and I can be okay by myself.

Sue (15:36.04)
Thank you.

Austin & Monica (15:41.62)
And so I feel like that's helped us a lot. And then there's just so many fun things. Life is just so fun. I don't know. It's just, I feel like a lot of times I talk to my friends back home from high school or whatever, and they're really burning down with all these different things that they got going on. And they're plumbing broke and their kids and I don't know, whatever they have going on in their life. But I'm like, I literally.

Sue (15:45.216)
Thank you.

Austin & Monica (16:06.452)
I'm good, you know, like everything is so good and it's just so fun. So, yeah. Well, in that same vein of your first comment, Monica, I, for me, what it's taught me is like, I'm by no means great at this still. Like I still have a long, a lot to learn, but, uh, learning how to be more comfortable expressing my needs. Um, and that goes for both relationship and business, but.

In our relationship, like Monica was saying, I've gotten a lot better about telling her what I do need from her or what I do need in our apartment or just emotionally, what do I need right now? And like I said, it's still something I'm practicing, but that constant like relying on each other in our traveling, in our business and being together so often.

I've had to learn how to be better at that and how to, how to be more honest and, um, express more clearly where I'm coming from and what I need and what I'm looking for. And just to make that like a normal conversation, like it doesn't have to be a big scary conversation. Like we sit down, we need to talk like it's just like a normal part of our lives because we, we don't have that separation from work. So we get to skip all the like general, how was your day things? And we can talk about.

Sue (17:16.)
Yeah.

Austin & Monica (17:26.804)
the bigger things and it can just be, it's just so normal for us.

Sue (17:31.2)
That is so cool. And I think, you know, having again that kind of the worldly insights and seeing and being in different parts of the world and seeing how, you know, you go other places and people have so little and they're just happy. They're able to smile, right? There's no pretentiousness and all of that. And then also like you guys are evolving and having like this expanding your worldly knowledge. But at the same time,

coming back to the self and saying, okay, well, I still got to work on myself and learn how to manage being with this person. And I think having like the new next adventure keeps it exciting. Like it's still, okay, there's something to look forward to still versus those couples that are kind of stuck in a box somewhere and you got to go to that nine to five and right. That's a whole other thing. So how lucky are you guys?

Austin & Monica (18:22.676)
Yeah. And, and it gives us, um, a lot of common goals to work towards together. Um, a lot of big objectives, whether it's, you know, what we want to next year, we want to travel to Europe or like the end of this year, we want to travel to Europe. What needs to happen for that to work out, or we have a business goal that we want to work to, but whether it's an income goal or just something, some new thing that we want to create for, for people and having that.

objective that we are fighting for together every day brings us closer together.

Sue (18:55.688)
Mm -hmm. And now, so let's talk like some technical things to help people out. If somebody's thinking about doing this, where do they begin? What are a few places, you know, tips for getting started? Yes, yes.

Austin & Monica (19:09.556)
As far as like being in digital nomads goes. Yeah, so the very first thing you're going to need to do is figure out how to make some kind of remote income. Unless you're in a really cool place where you like already have sustainable income or you are retired or whatever it is, unless you are those very few people, the very first thing is to start an income.

And so there are some remote job opportunities. Some of those can be a little tricky to get because a lot of people don't want you to actually leave the country. So sometimes you have to be a little sneaky. And sometimes they're not actually remote. They're like, this is a remote position, but you have to come in every Wednesday. And then it's not actually remote. So finding an income that is 100 % remote can be kind of hard. But.

Creating it is so easy. Like there's so many ways to create an income that you actually like now. Like the internet is such a powerful tool. Anyway, that's like a whole round the whole we can go down. But the first thing is to find an income. And then I think right after that, just like, or maybe even right before that, just know what you're looking for. Like, are you looking to move to a country and stay there for long periods of time?

Are you looking to move really fast? Are you looking to travel indefinitely? Do you want to just try it out for a year, for a month? What is it that you're actually looking for? And then just get in communities of people who are doing it and ask lots of questions and just get your feet wet. There's a whole community of us. There's tons of us who are out here doing it. And so it can be, when you're first starting it, it can feel overwhelming because it feels like nobody you know is doing it.

But get yourself in the space where you can be surrounded by people who are doing it. And yeah, I don't know. That was a bunch of like really jumbled, like a lot of jumbled advice. Do you have anything you want to add or take away from what I just said? I definitely don't want to take anything away. I thought that was all solid advice. Yeah. So working backwards, backwards from what you said, you can go onto Facebook.

Austin & Monica (21:19.22)
And you can search any, basically any city in the world. Um, sometimes you can even search the city and a hobby. So you can say. Racketball in Da Nang, Vietnam, and there's a Facebook group for it.

And you can get connected with the people who are living in a place you want to live doing things you want to do. And that can be a good safety net for you where you can go and rely on people who do speak the same language as you. Maybe they're also entrepreneurs that you can connect with if that's the route you're taking and, you know, plug yourself into people who are.

who are living the similar lifestyle you want to live. And I do, I also think to Monica's point, like a lot of us have a lot of all or nothing thinking. Um, and when we think of a digital nomad, oftentimes what comes to mind is you're living in a new place every month. You're always on the go living out of a backpack in, you know, some remote place of the world. Um, but the reality is like, there's a whole spectrum of digital nomads.

Um, we know tons of digital nomads who travel with a couple of suitcases and they'll live somewhere for two or three years and then moved somewhere new. And like there's nothing you have to do to qualify as being a digital nomad. There's no travel requirement. There's no destination requirement. So taking a look at the, how you want to structure it and like, what do you want to bring with you? Where do you want to be living for? How long do you want to be living there? Those are all personal decisions that I feel like sometimes people don't fully recognize that they can.

take with them when the if they want to explore being a digital nomad and they want to explore traveling while working.

Sue (22:58.016)
And now what are some myths? What do people have wrong that you guys find most often about this lifestyle that we need to depopulate?

Austin & Monica (23:07.988)
Yeah, I kind of have to laugh because I feel like one really big myth is that digital nomads are sitting on the beach, sipping coconuts and working on their laptop. When in reality, working on a beach sucks. And also digital nomads are some of the hardest working people I know. A lot of times I like to joke that we live really boring lives and really exciting places. So most digital nomads are working 40 hours, although you don't have to like you get to create, you know, your own lifestyle, but.

A lot of us are really hard workers and are building businesses or working for companies. And it's amazing because we get to live a more healthy, balanced lifestyle because instead of getting a 10 minute lunch break, we can take a two hour lunch break and go to the beach. But we are...

really hard work. It's not like we're just sitting around on the beach all day, although as much as I would maybe like that to be the case sometimes. We did one time in Oregon, we got our hands on a remote hotspot that we could take with us. So our computers were connected to the Wi -Fi. So we're like, we're going to try it out. We took our lawn chairs and our computers to the beach and it was really hard. It was miserable.

I think another thing that comes up for a lot of people is they're concerned because they're not tech experts. They think you have to be a coder or a programmer or a web designer or know a lot about tech to be a digital nomad. And like there definitely is a certain level of knowledge you need to have, because if you're working from your computer every day, you need to learn some things, but they're honestly the very basic tech things that you need. And the, the.

Industries that people work in online is so incredibly diverse. There's writers, there's coaches, excuse me. There's like there's professional online poker players there. We met a guy who does refrigeration mentorship. Um, like literally there's so many different things you can do, um, outside of the tech world, outside of even things like, uh, the common things people think of like affiliate marketing and blogging, like there's thousands of opportunities out there.

Austin & Monica (25:19.924)
Um, and if there's not already one out there, the potential to go create an opportunity and create your own job based on your unique skills and your unique background and the market, um, interest in what you do. Um, it's almost unlimited. And so we always like teaching people like, what are the options out there? What can you do as a job online?

Sue (25:42.28)
And what kind of advice do you have for somebody like what would you say to someone who's like, oh my God, this sounds so cool and I want to do it, but I just can't or I'm so scared and I'll never work. What's your advice to that person?

Austin & Monica (25:56.372)
Yeah, I think the best antidote to fear is just to get started. So like Austin said, it's not all or nothing. Maybe you pack up for a month and you buy round trip tickets to Guatemala and you live in Guatemala for a month and then come back. Or maybe like us, you start traveling around your home country or, you know, there's lots of little ways that you can just start moving forward. And it's not.

nothing you do has to be permanent. So if that's the fear that's getting you stuck, it's not like you have to sell all of your possessions and then go travel the world for the rest of your life. Like you can take baby steps. And as you take those baby steps, you're going to gain the confidence in yourself. You're going to get bitten really hard by that travel bug. And it's just, it's just, we'll go from there and it'll become easier and easier.

Sue (26:47.104)
And now what is your guys's like, what's a story that you can share with us? Like your greatest travel adventure ever. Like what has been the best? Is there one like top of mind? I'm sure you guys have so many, but is there like one?

Austin & Monica (27:03.7)
Yeah, picking one. That's always the hard thing. People always want us to like share our favorite places or favorite stories. And you would think that it would become easier. And I feel like it only becomes harder. The one that immediately comes to mind for me was our first time living in Guatemala. It was our first time after it was like kind of tail end of COVID. So things are still kind of weird, but we had left and we were living in Guatemala and we were.

Sue (27:05.856)
Hahaha!

Austin & Monica (27:33.236)
It was over Thanksgiving that we were in Guatemala and it was the first time we were like, oh, we don't have any family here. Thanksgiving is not celebrated here. That's kind of weird. Like that's a big holiday for us and we really enjoy like getting together. And I remember like feeling a little bit of homesickness at that time and like just kind of looking forward, like what can we even do?

And we had some really good friends, we have really good friends in Guatemala and we were just chatting with them and they were like, oh yeah, there's like this thing called Thanksgiving coming up. And I was like, yeah.

Do you guys want to come to Thanksgiving with us? And they're like, yeah, I've only seen it in movies. Like, what do you guys even do? What is Thanksgiving? And so we like explained it to them. And then they ended up, they were living across the lake from us. So they like got a boat taxi across the lake to come stay in our little bungalow. And we had like this little tiny, teeny tiny little apartment. And I used every single dish we had to try to make a Thanksgiving dinner. And I don't think we had an oven. So it's like all these things like didn't work out. And I was.

Sue (28:13.408)
Thank you.

Austin & Monica (28:36.67)
stress it like I wasn't it was fun. There was tons of ingredients I didn't have so I just made it up some kind of pseudo Thanksgiving dinner. And then we had some other friends just end up showing up that day so we're like sweet like Thanksgiving come on in and then we I don't know I just remember like like walking into the kitchen and seeing piles and mountains of dishes like I kid you not every single dish I had used to try to make a Thanksgiving dinner and then I turn around and there's this table just like

full of people and we're sitting on couches and stools and chairs and like I'll just everywhere and everyone's just laughing and having a good time and it just it felt like home and I was like this is it like I am creating family everywhere I go my family is getting bigger everywhere I travel and it was such a powerful experience to me of like why I do this like why I am in Guatemala instead of at home for Thanksgiving and who I am trying to to make

a chicken instead of a turkey in this little tiny pan. You know, like it just, it just was all so worth it and so fun. It was such a fulfilling moment for me.

Sue (29:43.136)
That is beautiful. That is such a great story. It just says so much. I love it. Austin, do you have, is there one for you or?

Austin & Monica (29:52.852)
Um, so what's coming to my mind is just the overall experience of going to visit Vietnam. And that stands out to me because, um, there are certain perceptions about Vietnam and the Vietnamese people that people from the United States have because of the Vietnam war.

And a lot of our family members and friends were concerned that we were going there and they're like, you know, is it going to be safe? Are they going to even want you there? Like, I guess the American perception of what the Vietnamese perception is was not great. And we lived there for a month and it was awesome.

Um, not only did we not experience any hostility and there wasn't any kind of negative feelings towards us, but people were so friendly. Um, we were, I mean, we weren't in the South where I feel like maybe that might be a little bit more. The case, uh, we were kind of in the middle, but it was just such an enjoyable experience for us. Um, and.

I think my takeaway from that was, um, we have certain perceptions of how the world is, but without going out into the world and meeting those people and being in those situations, they're the kind of guesses, um, or whatever is fed to us from other people or from the media. And until you go and experience it yourself, you can't really know. And for the most part, the world is so much nicer and so much kinder than people give it credit for. Um, and.

people who, a lot of people that we know are terrified of traveling and terrified of going into certain countries or certain cities because of the stories that have been told about safety, about violence. And I'm not saying there's not places you gotta watch out for, because there are, but overall, it's a much nicer place than we often think it is.

Austin & Monica (31:47.092)
And that was just a really, like, I guess potent example for me of that.

Sue (31:52.768)
And you know, and I think for you guys also, because you've traveled so much, it's all energy really, right? Because you're, you guys are comfortable with yourselves in different places, and you can go places without just showing up like fearful of the worst. You're like, ready for a new experience. And what am I going to see here? That's awesome. And that's kind of what you're bringing to the table. And I think that's just, you know, speaks volumes to you guys and this life. So what is next for you guys? Like,

Austin & Monica (32:08.788)
Mm -hmm.

Sue (32:23.04)
Are you guys ever gonna settle? Do you ever see yourselves like living somewhere in one place for like two or three years? Or do you guys think about that? Talk about that? What does the future look like? What are the next five years looking like for you guys?

Austin & Monica (32:36.852)
We do, we think and talk about that kind of stuff all the time. Um, the short answer is, is that we don't really know. Um, and that's kind of the, the exciting part about it is maybe next year we decide we don't want to do it anymore and, and we can make that choice and we can do it. Maybe we decide for the next 20, 30 years that we don't ever want to stop.

And having that freedom, like that ability to decide on a moment's basis, like what do we need right now? What is, what is life? What do we want life to look like right now? And then we can make that happen. Um, right now where we stand is we would love in the near future, meaning the next.

two to five years maybe, to find a place that we can live from about half of the year, have our own apartment, have our own place that we own, that we live in part time, and then the other part of the year we are continuing to travel and explore new places, and then we come back to that place. So that's kind of what we're hoping to find in the next few years. And then we'll reevaluate and see how that's going for us and if we want to continue doing that or do something different.

Sue (33:49.728)
So what is that? I mean, is that going to be like buying a chateau in France that you're going to renovate and then rent out? I watch these like, you know, people doing all this cool stuff with these little villas in Italy or getting a little, you know, rundown chateau, fixing it up and rent it out for half the year. And then it's your space to come back to something like that. Would that be on the table?

Austin & Monica (34:12.5)
Yeah, that's exactly what we've talked about for sure. Monica has been looking at Southern Spain for a long time. We've been talking about Greece. But before we find a little of those places, like kind of what we're doing now is traveling to find that right place.

Um, so based on what we've seen and heard, we have, like, we're really interested in Spain and in Greece. Um, so we're going to try and get there at the end of this year and kind of scope it out and see like, do we like this, these communities? Do we like this country? Do we like this environment? Um, and see if that's the right place for us.

Sue (34:45.472)
And you know, I have to commend both of you guys for this kind of, well, right now, this is what we're doing right now. And that's so amazing. And people will spend a lifetime worried about yesterday and talking about the future and missing the now. And I just, you guys are like, just, it's so amazing. And I'm so happy for you. And I think it's so cool.

that you're living in the now and it speaks volumes to why you're just happy and present and aware and all of that. So that's awesome. Thank you so much.

Austin & Monica (35:23.924)
Thank you so much. That was very kind of you to say. Yeah, I do think one of the really cool things that come with this lifestyle is just how intentional it forces us to be all the time. Like every decision we make has to be intentional. We always have to be evaluating like, what do we need right now? Like, do we need to go live in a city where it's bustling and there's tons of people and energy or do we need to go to a quieter place where we need to like to focus on things and.

And it's just a cool thing that a lot of people don't get to do with their lives.

Sue (35:55.648)
That is so amazing, you guys. Okay, so a couple of things. I am going to have links to your website for people. And I just love all of what you guys have shared. I think you've offered a lot of great insights for anyone who's thinking about becoming a digital nomad or traveling. So I think people are going to have a lot of takeaways. And I just thank you so much, both of you guys, for your time today, all the way from Peru.

And in closing, if there were just one closing message from each of you, what is that closing message you would leave people with?

Austin & Monica (36:36.468)
That's a good question. Thank you so much, first of all, for this conversation. This is really life -giving for us as well. So thank you for just holding space for this conversation. I think for me, it's to take the time.

Sue (36:36.96)
Thank you.

Austin & Monica (36:51.604)
to think about what you really want with your life. Just take the time to think about it. And I think so often we're kind of given this path. Go to school, get a job, work for the promotion, buy a house, get married, and we're kind of given this path.

And all of a sudden we end up on the other end of that and we haven't made a single, we have never thought about what we actually want for our lives instead of what's given, what path has been laid out for us. So my encouraging words would be just to take that time. Take that time with yourself to figure out what it is you actually want out of life and then maybe start working towards it.

Sue (37:30.784)
Mm -hmm.

Austin & Monica (37:32.692)
I like it. Yeah, so Sue, thank you for this conversation and for letting us share some final thoughts. I would probably say to find the right people to do it with, meaning spend your life with. I think the people that we surround ourselves are so important and they're so influential in who we end up becoming.

So make sure that you are spending your time with the right people, whether it's your spouse, your kids, be very careful about who your friends are. The people that you're spending the most time with, they're going to change who you are. And make sure you find people who you can wholeheartedly defend and support and people who are going to do the same for you.

Sue (38:21.664)
Oh, I love it, you guys. You both have been so awesome. And I love those closing messages. Thank you so much. You've been wonderful.

Austin & Monica (38:32.18)
Thank you Sue, you as well.

Sue (38:34.218)
Thank you. Well.