Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Turkey - Travel with Brian
Follow Brian on Instagram:
@chasingbrian
@motivity_net
@waste_less_world
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Hi, welcome to our podcast when Next Travel with Kristen and Carol. I am Kristen and I am Carol, and we're two long-term friends with a passion for travel and adventure. Each episode, we interview people around the globe to help us decide where to go next. In today's episode, we are visiting with Brian, a philanthropist and entrepreneur, who shares about his nomadic lifestyle and his recent stay in Turkey. Enjoy, hey, how's it going. Good.
Speaker 2:How are?
Speaker 1:you.
Speaker 2:Hi, how are? You doing Good Great.
Speaker 1:No problem, yeah, so we'd love to first hear about how you maybe became so fluid in your location independence and how you're able to live like this. And then I want to kind of deep dive into Turkey and like, cause we've never talked to anyone from Turkey and I'm like just what we shared in a little pre-call. I'm just very fascinated, and now I want to go and so I want to know everything. Okay, so how did you become your nomad entrepreneur?
Speaker 2:It's an interesting story. It's something I've always wanted to do, but it really surfaced itself right in the middle of lockdown, kind of in the middle of right around June, say May, June of 2020. I was based in Fort Lauderdale and at the time I spent the last year and a half building a mobile application. So I'm a software developer, slash graphic designer by trade, but I've also worked in advertising and I've done a whole bunch of different things digital marketing. So I was building this mobile app for the last like year and a half and we launched it and we were piloting it in miami and fort lauderdale and it had to do with local businesses and bringing in instagram and it was kind of like groupon for instagram so we would.
Speaker 2:we would entice you to take stories at restaurants so you can get free things. So, like you know, get a free cup of coffee if you post a story at this place, you know, and it was like a marketplace so you could see what's available and you could go and you could tag your story, the whole thing. Cool, it was working really well. Yeah, it was working really well. I had about seven, eight employees. Things were going good. We were doing a pilot and then all the local businesses closed.
Speaker 1:Oh of.
Speaker 2:So it kind of left me in a tough spot, yeah, so when you have to pay payroll for a few months and you have zero money coming in, there's not many options. So we ended up shutting it down and at that point there was a morning that I woke up and I was lying in bed and I said I wonder how much it costs me if I just open my eyes and then I close my eyes. And I do that for 30 days and at that time in Fort Lauderdale was around $3,200 a month. I had a boat at the time. So I said, all right, well, let's just say money is no object whatsoever, let's just play this game. Like tomorrow morning I wake up and I have all the money in the world.
Speaker 2:What do I do? What's first on my list? It puts you in an interesting predicament to try to answer that question, and for me I just wanted to travel. That's all I wanted to do. So I said, okay, well, let's just say I took that three thousand dollars. Like where could I go, you know? So I started to play this like kind of logistical game, which is kind of what I do with software anyways oh nice.
Speaker 1:So you didn't own a place, you were renting, I was renting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I rented a place and I started to just kind of go through like all right. Well, let's say I did like how would I get out of my apartment? Well, my lease is up in November, okay. Well, how do I get out of my car? Because I had a lease on my car as well, I was like well, that's up in January, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know.
Speaker 2:So all these pieces started to come together. And then the last one was I have my best friend at the time was my dog. I had him since he was like eight weeks old and tiny little thing, Now he's 107 pounds and huge dog, so yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was like, well, I mean, he was at that time he was eight and a half. I was like was like man, well, I don't want to just sit around and wait for something to happen to him before I can keep going with my life. Like what, what do I want to do here?
Speaker 2:so I was talking with with my mom and she was like, well, you know, we were looking for a dog and I'm like, perfect, I have the perfect one he's all trained, yeah so this is like right in the middle of lockdown and um, and she was like, well, why don't you drive up here with him and let's try it out, like for a couple weeks, since there was, you know, nobody was really flying at that time, and all that. So I said okay. So I I made a road trip up, brought him up from miami all the way to b Boston, spent a few weeks up there and everyone just kind of fell in love and that was it. So she was like, yeah, yeah, I think I think we'll take him. I said okay. So I started to put the wheels in motion and I said, all right, I guess, I guess I'm gonna try this out.
Speaker 1:So I got out of my lease, uh, in December actually so then you started in like June, right, and this is so.
Speaker 2:It's like yeah, like yeah, I started thinking about it like may and june and then it took about four months to sell everything I ended up selling 47 items on, uh, that one of the apps and I I mean it was hilarious because there was people like trying to get buy like a blender that I wanted five dollars and they were saying I'll give you three. And I'm like I don't care, like it's on the sidewalk, like get it yeah.
Speaker 1:So it was really funny.
Speaker 2:But yeah, everything from like extra suitcases to you know, stereo equipment and electronics and cables that I've been carrying around since college, you know, just like stuff that follows you around.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I know, I know it felt so good. It's like a huge weight off my shoulders because a lot of the stuff you really are, you get attached to for some reason there's some attachment there, like like. I've been carrying around these two speakers since I was a freshman in college, literally 18 years old, and I still had them and I was like I do not need these anymore I've gotten my money's worth. You know, know I've gotten the money.
Speaker 1:So, when you like, go and move from place to place, but you're not thinking and just pack it all up in boxes and bring it to the next place and then you don't even think you're just like.
Speaker 2:This is my stuff, yeah, yeah exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:And speakers are now this big right. Yeah, exactly, yeah that was.
Speaker 2:The other thing is that back then speakers are like this big, so um, so yeah, so that was like a really nice exercise to kind of go through and but it took a while because I just had a lot of stuff, you know, and. But once I started to really dial it in I said, okay, I have a car full of stuff. I knew that when I was going to do this I wanted a the biggest carry on I could get, and a backpack that could function as a bunch of different things. So those are the two things. So I didn't really want to check a bag because I knew that would add up. So I found a suitcase that I really liked, so I ended up getting that.
Speaker 2:I got rid of all my old ones and just sold them. And then the backpack I kind of did a list, some research it's okay the one I have now, but, um, I use it every day. It's like a day I bring it to the gym, I bring it to the coffee shop, I bring it hiking, like all sorts of different camping, all everything. So nice, yeah, so finding that. And then I knew exactly like, okay, now I know, and then just donating a lot of clothes and like right and did you have a?
Speaker 1:how long did it take you to figure out where you're going to go first? And was the plan just to kind of be roaming or like, no, I'm. I got a friend in France, like you do now, and just like, hey, we're going to stay there, get settled for two months, see how it is to work in a new location.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting. So I kind of cheated at the beginning. I kind of cheated at the beginning. I kind of cheated. So a little bit of backstory is that I'm an extremely like. Um, well, I take a personality test and it tells me I'm an extrovert, but I'm telling you it's wrong. So I like, I'm a very like shy person. When it comes to being by myself, when I'm with people I care about and people that I like to be around, I'm a completely different person. But so this is part of it was an exercise for me to put myself in difficult situations and see how I would handle it, because there's a, I think there's a moment when you kind of break out of your comfort zone and you go into like survival mode, and when that happens to me, I'm extremely productive, like I get everything done.
Speaker 2:I remember the first time it happened is like it was a Friday afternoon and I got laid off from my first real job outside of school.
Speaker 2:I was 21 and it was 2007. So it was right when the economy was crashing and I got laid off and I remember sitting in my car I had so much debt and credit cards and all this stuff and I was like what am I going to do? Like I'm so screwed, like I was not prepared for this, and I remember I went home I don't think I slept for two days and I created all custom portfolios because I was a graphic designer at the time and I found like 48 job postings all within the mid-Atlantic area where I was at the time Virginia, washington and I created hand bound portfolios and wrote out my cover letter in my portfolio, printed it, so it was like custom bound book for each job and I sent it out to every single person and I got one response back in DC and I got the job the next week and it was like that type of stuff. It's like I don't know. It's very hard to get to that point of like I don't have yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, like you get to this point of like there's nothing else, like if I don't do this, this, no one else is going to do it, and I think that's really interesting, you know, especially when you're, when you're traveling. So I was like man, how do I get to that state again? Obviously without being in dire, you know, need of anything, but I want to get to that point somehow.
Speaker 1:Sometimes that's what it takes I know in college my dad made me grab a phone book this is a while ago and phone books were big and I was trying to get a job at a CPA firm and I literally got a suit. Actually, I worked at a summer camp and saved my money, drove from the summer camp Bass Lake to Fresno and went to the mall and bought a suit. And then I got the phone book and I made a resume and I literally drove to each job and handed my resume and then I actually did. Even, I think specifically companies it was a long time ago but yeah, and the very last one it was in the Zip gave me a job and it was a CPA firm, actually it was a CP firm. And then they had a client Key Container. It was a container company in Southgate and I got that job, but it was literally just one and I totally did it. I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know, it's this state of mind that I can kind of get into and then all of a sudden I become really productive. So I said, all right, how can I get back to that? And for me, with work right now it's it's extremely stable. At the same time, I'm a startup guy, so I like things to be very high risk and, and you know, very agile, so, but I'm used to that. Now I've been doing it now for over 10 years, 12 years.
Speaker 2:So like to me it's commonplace for things. You know, fires to be going and you know I'm sitting here trying to do 100 things and, like you know, put out all these fires. But like I wanted my life to be the thing that was like kind of crazy and my work to be stable, as opposed to what it was in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, which was my life was very stable because I didn't really do much, I was just staying in one place. But then work was kind of crazy because we sold our company and then I was trying to start another one and then we decided not to do that one. We're going to do a different one.
Speaker 2:And I was like okay, let's flip it around, because I'm at a point now to where work is stable, but now life is stable too and I'm kind of just sitting there kind of something to happen. You know like I don't know.
Speaker 1:I know it's like wait it can't be this good right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so. So that's kind of like a little bit of story as to like why I started doing it. Um, the first place I went to was Hawaii.
Speaker 2:Which island, oahu, okay, yeah, so I had a really good friend of mine from Miami who moved out there maybe two years before I went, Okay, or three years actually. I went and visited him once. It just seemed like the right place. I mean, I don't know, I kind of cheated Like I could stay with him. Once it just seemed like the right place. I mean, I don't know I could, I could, I kind of cheated Like it was, I could stay with him for free for as long as I wanted, kind of. So I said, okay, let me at least make the first flight right, get out of like, leave the dog. I turned in my car. Literally the next day I was on a flight.
Speaker 1:Did you get a one-way or a round trip?
Speaker 2:No car. Literally the next day I was on a flight um did you get a one-way or a round trip? No, one way, of course. Uh, hold on. No, that's a good question, because so there's a trick I use is that I almost always buy one way, uh, round trips, uh, for going long distances, and then I just I did like the last leg, I put it for like way in the future, whatever's super cheap okay and then I always have that leg to do something with so, okay, and as long, like I'm a delta gold or something like whatever the lowest one is and as
Speaker 2:long as you got that, they'll kind of do anything like they'll move it around. Yeah, so I did that. When I flew over to europe for this summer I flew from boston to istanbul. Yeah, and a one. A one way from boston istanbul was maybe 800. A round trip was about 8 50. So I said I'm gonna do the round trip. So I picked some random date in September actually, and now that I know what my final plans are to go back to the States, I decided let me just stick with Istanbul. I'm not going to risk it and try to get fancy with them. I'm just going to see if I can change the date and they did it for me. But even so, that ticket one way from Istanbul to Boston back now is $2,700.
Speaker 1:Whoa, whoa. Okay, that's a nice little trip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if I didn't do that I would be in a really tough place. So, yeah, like, budgeting those types of things is really important, especially if you don't, if you want to stay within your normal spend, which is kind of like I was like let me see how cheap I can do this Cause. To me it's like a game. So yeah, I mean I saved an exorbitant amount of money last year. Just in between the one that my last year in Miami and my first year of traveling full time, I saved like a ridiculous amount of money, like probably 35 to 40%.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very cool. So, yeah, it started in Hawaii and then after about two months I was like all right, what am I doing? But while I was there, I remembered this guy. I met at a conference about three or four years ago in California and we talked for a long time and I remember him saying something about Hawaii and he was in the industry that I used to be in, that we sold our last company with and I wasn't allowed to be in that industry for the next three years. There was like a non-compete after we sold the company. Those three years were up.
Speaker 2:So I was like maybe I'll see who's around, like what's what's going on. And so I found this guy on linkedin and I messaged him and I said, hey, I don't know if you remember me, but you know we chatted for a while at this conference a few years ago. I remember you saying something about hawaii. Anyways, I just got here curious to see where your software is at this point. You know it's been three years or so, whatever and he messaged me right back. He said I live about 10 minutes away from where you are. Let's grab a beer on thursday. And you know that was a year, over a year and a half ago now and yeah, um, so I joined them. When they were um, they had six clients, six organizations working for them Sorry, paying them. And now we just hit about 110 in about a year and a half. So we're.
Speaker 2:That's such a great story.
Speaker 1:It's just, I mean also just like so good, I mean that's why I love like social media platforms, especially like LinkedIn. Kristen lives for LinkedIn, right being a recruiter, but yeah, so like if you had his business card chances you might have lost it or whatever, but now you just like hey, I remember the guy like I remember his first name, the name of the company and that's all you need to know and then you can make it. Oh, that's such a great story, so how long have you been?
Speaker 2:at wahoo, then uh, so I was there like two and a half months. I was there, I think. I left right at the beginning of March and I decided to go to Costa Rica. That was my first spot, so I don't even remember how I chose it.
Speaker 1:Right Coming from Hawaii.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't remember Made to see beach? Yeah, I don't remember. I knew I wanted to stay. Well, first off, I literally just got that job Because I just wanted to be a consultant. And we kind of came to an agreement and I said listen, this is how I work. So we came to an agreement. But he was a little bit skeptical of the traveling. But I was like, if you want me to work, this isn't a debate, it's either going to work or it's either. I got you know it's either gonna work or it's not. So I I still like, once you find a position that's willing to trust you with that responsibility, um, I just complete like the last thing I want to do is let anyone down or give them that excuse. It's, it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 1:So, like it goes, both ways they give you what you want and you're like, yeah, exactly, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to be respectful of the fact that they were giving me this opportunity, right, um? So I didn't want to go too far and I wanted to at least stay within American time zones. So that was number one. Uh, number two is I went to costa rica before. I really enjoyed it, and, uh, I went for a wedding in santa teresa like a long time ago and I loved it and I always wanted to go back, and now that I was like, well, now I can go anywhere. Where should I go? I started looking and I ended up moving. The first place in costa r moved to was Playa Grande, which is just north of Tamarindo, and it was great because I was two and a half months sleeping on my buddy's couch in Hawaii and I was just ready to be by myself. And it was nerve-wracking because it was the first. I mean, I've traveled all over the world, but this is the first time that was like I was going to a place to go live there.
Speaker 1:I didn't know the language, like that, that type of thing yeah, I just got back from korea and I was, it was hard and I had brought my two kids with me too and uh, just seeing the characters, and then you know, trying to google translating everything, and they didn't also get the google translate. I'd show my cab driver and he's like I don't know, like oh no oh, wow yeah, a little rough yeah, totally good, yeah it, yeah it's tough.
Speaker 2:It's tough, I remember, because you feel now I don't care. Like now, after a year and a half, I just don't care, like I'll go into a shop here and be like, hello, you know, I just I just like I got work to do.
Speaker 1:You know, like I don't I went into the grocery store in korea and they just see me and they just I go to self-checkout when I get my stuff and they just do it for me because they see me and they're like yeah, she doesn't understand it yeah like.
Speaker 2:Thank you yeah, I mean you want to be as respectful as you can, but the more I'm traveling around, the more you know, even in Turkey, which we can get into a lot. It's interesting to see how different generations grow up with English and how it's introduced into their lives. One of my really good friends he's Portuguese and you know he grew up watching in Portugal. They watch everything in English when they're kids all the cartoons and everything is in English. So everyone that's kind of 40 ish and younger, they just know English. It's just perfectly well.
Speaker 2:You know, there's never a, there was never a language barrier when I was in Portugal, ever in Turkey, every now and then in France, here, absolutely Sometimes. But like I went and, you know, got a haircut the other day and the guy didn't. You know he spoke a little bit but not a lot. You know he was and he was an older guy. So those types of things are definitely, you know, some, some differences that you run into. But yeah, I mean, once you start living here, you kind of you got things to do and you want to be respectful, but also you need to like sit, not sit there with google translate, I'll just try and speak in english and say I'm sorry, you know yeah, I've done both, so you.
Speaker 1:So it's been a year and a half since you. You left florida, right, is that correct? And you've been in barry costa rica?
Speaker 2:it sounds like, if I'm not familiar, yeah, I mean I can go through my whole thing until I get to Turkey, and then we can kind of start there and then we'll go through.
Speaker 1:So how long have you been?
Speaker 2:I was in Turkey, uh, for almost two months okay okay, yeah, yeah. And then I moved to Paris um three weeks ago oh got it okay, so it's okay.
Speaker 1:So, florida, hawaii, costa rica yeah, and then um.
Speaker 2:After costa rica I did uh bogus del toro in panama that is awesome, do you surf? Yeah, I well. Yeah, in hawaii I started to, and then I went to costa rica. I did a little bit more there, but and I went to Costa Rica, I did a little bit more there, but I did not do good.
Speaker 1:And then?
Speaker 2:in Panama I did a little bit more, but yeah, no, I'm not the best. I like everything about surfing, except the actual surfing part.
Speaker 1:Oh, you should boogie board. Boogie board is amazing. It's so easy, but it's so fun.
Speaker 2:I've done snowboarding, I've done wakeboarding, I've done everything and I love it all. Skateboarding, you name it, but surfing, it's like it's so much effort just to do the actual task I wake up a lot behind you know, and so all you do is pull up and then you surf. Yeah yes, yeah, yeah that, I, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that sounds way better than like getting smashed on the head with like huge waves and drowning actually I was like well, I, I surfed in ocean, surfed in san diego a couple months ago and it was tougher because I just but it's I.
Speaker 2:I actually still loved it, but it is a lot of work just to do it. And then I was in bali.
Speaker 1:Uh, last week wait, two week and a half ago I was in bali um surfing with my kids with this guy from rip curl. We stayed with his family and and the way he did it it was like you know, we have the huge wave and actually a rip curl uh, competition was going on at surf oh, wow awesome.
Speaker 1:So like in between his sets we would go out and surf. And then the way he did it, it was like after it would go like you'd see it in the distance, like oh no, we're in trouble and then as soon as it would crash. It would. It will, kind of it still be its way. But then we surfed off those waves and then it was okay, really easy yeah, yeah, yeah, so much different a lot calmer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean. Yeah, yeah, panama was was amazing. I, I was in panama, um, maybe two years before that I was dating a Panamanian girl for a while and we went to see her family over there. But we went to a couple of different other places. We went to Boquete and Panama City. So, yeah, bocas del Toro is a really, really interesting place. It's like an archipelago seven different islands all in one little area. I ended up working with a nonprofit over there and doing some really cool things there. It was really fun. But that was right in the middle of COVID as well and like everything was shutting at about 11pm. You weren't allowed to be on the street after midnight. A lot of different restrictions they had there. I lived on an island, didn to even have cars, so it didn't really matter about that. But, um, but yeah, you get everywhere by boat.
Speaker 1:It's really it's really fun how long were you there for?
Speaker 2:five or six weeks okay yeah, um got an airbnb over the water, beautiful little spot had the view of the volcano of alkimberu out in the thing. Yeah, for six weeks or five and a half weeks, I think, I spent $900.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have a friend who there's like these little um this hotel right on the water and they're yellow little houses kind of thing and it was like $40 a night or something.
Speaker 2:Um, sweet families and like really nice people and yeah, everyone's super nice there and yeah, if you like scuba diving and stuff like you, can get your certification there for super cheap nice oh, wow super cheap?
Speaker 1:yeah it's international too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can use anywhere. So after that I went to santa barbara for like a week, uh, to meet up with a lot of people from our company. So we did like a little retreat in santa barbara for like a week, a week and a half, and then I went to Portugal.
Speaker 1:Portugal. That's where I want to go, yeah.
Speaker 2:Portugal is amazing, yeah. So I was in Portugal for like a month and a half and then my plan was to end the year with a month and a half back in Hawaii, because at that point we were making a lot of moves already and I was kind of setting them up for a lot more growth. So I was like, why don't I come back for another month and a half, stay and really work closely, because two of the founders are based there. So in between Portugal I went back to Boston for maybe a week or two and then went right off to Hawaii again and I was there till the end of the year. So it was a it was a pretty well-rounded year in Hawaii.
Speaker 2:And then at the beginning of this year I kind of took it easy a little bit and I went and saw some friends in the Midwest. Beginning of this year I kind of took it easy a little bit and I went and saw some friends in the Midwest and I stayed with one of my really good friends for a few months, actually with my dog, because I was now. I take my dog over the winters. It's winters are tough in Boston, especially with a big dog, so I take him over the winters. So I took him and we stayed in Iowa, actually at one of my best friends. He's got a huge farm in Iowa, so my dog was loving that and it was nice because I could just focus on work and kind of save up some money and relax and just kind of disconnect a little bit. And then in May I started traveling again and that's when I went to Turkey.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It sounds good Because it doesn't sound like super stressful and especially have these connections and in some of the places, so you don't have to like, oh, was there gonna be wi-fi? You know, I'm just like we're about all that yeah time zone. You're like we're all in pretty good time zones, so turkey was like the big one, though you're so turkey's the big one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't realize how, how far east it really is yeah, it's just looking white east yeah um, so yeah, and it's. I got that recommendation from a friend of mine who lives here in paris that I met in portugal. He's an analyst that lives here, he's moroccan, but he was planning on coming to see me somewhere and we were. I was like, well, where do you want to go? So he was that we were starting to throw around ideas and, um, he threw out antalya, which is the, the city that I stayed in.
Speaker 2:Um in turkey spell it a n t a l y a antalya, okay, yeah, and, and it looks really fun, really beautiful, and I found some. So there's a couple things I look at when I kind of run a place through my checklist of things, getting bored there or just enjoying it. Right, because a lot of the times that I'm here I don't leave the house all day because I'm working or I'm trying to be productive, and then I leave the house to either go to the gym, go to the grocery store, run errands, whatever, and it's kind of that like would I enjoy the street atmosphere, you know, um. And then obviously, is there fun things to do, is there things I could do on the weekends that are going to occupy me, or am I going to be bored? Um, is this going to be more of like day trips or can I, you know, walk three blocks to eiffel tower, like those types of questions? And then the the really big one is is there affordable housing that is of a standard that I like to keep essentially, and I try to keep my airbnbs anywhere between 35 to 55 a night usually. That's usually my range.
Speaker 2:It goes up and down like I'm staying at um, a really nice place in solaniki in greece for four days because I had a little gap between paris and athens, where I'm going next, and I spent way like three times that on the place I'm going to stay. But it was a beautiful place I really wanted to go. So you can kind of make those exceptions when the time is right and when you, you know, are saving a little bit here and you really want to go splurge on a place for a week, you can, and then you come back. So yeah, italia, just it worked out really well. I found a place, perfect location, nice and big, because I knew I was going to have some people come and visit, so nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and near the water it looks like pretty close yeah, oh yeah, yeah, intaglia is right on, right on the coast it is beautiful it looks tropical yeah, yeah, and so it's um and it's, is it like?
Speaker 1:hawaii, or does it have some seasons, or you weren't there that long, but was it like?
Speaker 2:super because you were there in the spring right I was there, yeah, um may and june, and the weather was perfect like absolutely perfect, and right now it's unbearably warm. Apparently, that's what people tell me, so I left at the right time. But yeah, I've never been to Turkey before and it was an interesting thing to take a taxi like 45 minutes, 30 minutes to my place from the airport, and it was like $7. I was like, okay, I can get used to this.
Speaker 2:And yeah, like from that point on it was just a game as to like how cheap could I get things. It was outrageous, it was fun because you would go to dinner or you go to have drinks or you go shopping. A lot of times I would go out to dinner with friends and you'll struggle to pay 15, but so my brother just went to him like lithuania and poland.
Speaker 1:He's like you know we went to like the fanciest and got dessert and coffee and everything. The nicest hotel is barely broke 50. He's like normally that's for two people. He's like it's just a crazy cheap, just like all of. Eastern Europe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean there's there's good and bad sides to that because, like the people that live there, obviously it's not great for them.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right, and those are the people that you're meeting, that you're interacting with, when, once you're there for a month, um, you're meeting the workers at the restaurant, or the the guy who owns the gym, or you're meeting, you know, people when you go out, the servers or whatever, and they're struggling, oh, they're not doing well in turkey, yeah, so the turkish lira is just keeps getting hit and, um, you know, in that respect, it's, it's quite difficult for them. So they see us coming over here, like woo, you know, and it's not all, you know, it's not all quite difficult for them. So they see us coming over here, like you know, and it's not all, you know, it's not all rainbows for them, but so it's. It's definitely a give and take, you know you still, I mean, we're not doing crazy stuff anyways, but you know what I mean it's um it's definitely two sides to every story when it comes to that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, like um, just on a daily basis going to get coffee at starbucks, I get a cold brew and a croissant and it was two dollars and fifty cents. You know, in paris today I paid eight dollars fifty cents for the same exact thing yeah, okay you know. So it's a. It's a quite a big difference. Yeah, you multiply that by 45 days. You know 60 days and, okay, a big difference. Yeah, and you multiply that by 45 days.
Speaker 1:You know 60 days.
Speaker 2:And then, oh, okay, a big difference yeah.
Speaker 1:So what were some of the things that you did, maybe on the day trips or on your weekends, outside of like the normal, just gym shopping eating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's a lot to do in in Italia. So I was in Italia for five weeks, six. So I was in Italia for five weeks, six weeks, and then I went to Istanbul for three weeks or two and a half weeks before I came to Paris. So in Italia the day things are very much beach related. It's a very touristy place so you can do tours. I did one tour to this place called Pumacalle, and Pumacalle is where they have these big, bright blue salt baths that you can kind of see. They kind of stage all the way down the side of a mountain.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you've seen these photos. If you Google Pumacalle and how is it Pumacalle?
Speaker 1:Can you spell that?
Speaker 2:P-U-M-M-a-k-a-l-e okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, it sounds like a hawaiian name, yeah it does actually oh oh my, oh, so that's salt, that's crazy yeah, it's calcium yeah, it's from the volcano. They're like natural all natural.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's wild, wow, it's really wild. So that is um three little over three hour bus ride. That's a full day trip that I did so is it like healing salt?
Speaker 1:you sit in them. Uh, we just look at them.
Speaker 2:You just kind of look at okay, oh okay, that's really pretty yeah, no, but it's also. It's on these ruins which are really cool. So there's the salt stuff, but then right behind it is all these ruins and they have this big stadium, old stadium and like oh, I see it cool things. Yeah, it's in this really nice preserved area yeah, it's really.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, that's really cool um, so yeah, there's that.
Speaker 2:There's like a lot of you do a lot of stuff on the beach. There's a lot of beach clubs like little places just go and you know, rent a, rent an umbrella and a chair and it was like five dollars for the whole day. That's really it.
Speaker 1:Like I didn't I don't know, I'm not huge on on doing a lot of the touristy things yep, what kind of yeah, no, I yeah, I love it because like it's like when I so I just want to see what it's like to be that's exactly what this podcast is about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just want to live yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, what kind of food did you have? What like did you have? Was the food amazing, was it? Eh, was it? It's no Paris.
Speaker 2:Or it's just different. It's no Paris.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's different. It's different. Istanbul is another animal. Istanbul's food was amazing, but you need to know where to go.
Speaker 1:Oh okay. Is it like Greek?
Speaker 2:food. So I'll get to that, because that one's really interesting. It's a really interesting Istanbul stories. But in Italia almost I mean I lived in what's called Kalici, which is their old town there's a lot of different neighborhoods in Italia. Italia itself is a, it's like a state. It's huge, but the actual city, I think it has like 2.7 million people that live there. I mean it's, it's a big place.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, but I lived right in the old town and I practically never left. I mean, I went a little bit here and there for dinner, but that was about it. And in there in the old town there are a couple really good places, but for the most part everyone serves the same thing. Like everyone has they, they all serve everything. It's like we got pizza, chicken, fettuccine, alfredo, uh, like like every everything.
Speaker 2:Everything they have it it's kind of like cheesecake factory ever been there like it's kind of like that yeah, like this menu is so crazy big and it's just that mentality I think of, of when you're in like a really touristy place, that if you're the one that doesn't sell pizza, well, they're just going to go to the next store because they really want pizza and they just. So next thing, you know, everyone kind of has the same menu, oh my gosh. So there are some places that are a little different.
Speaker 2:Um, I went to a couple that were really good, but for the most part not so much oh interesting but istanbul, the dates that I had for to stay at this home I'm at now, which is my business partner's place. They're out of town, so those are fixed dates. So I had to kind of work around those dates where I was and so I had like two a little over two weeks in between and when I was moving out of Italia and when I should come to Paris. So I decided just to go to Istanbul, found a really nice place in Istanbul, but it was like right in the middle of everything when I say that I went down. We'd stayed on the top floor.
Speaker 2:Thank God it was nice and quiet but you go all the way down the bottom and there's just thousands of people constantly. I don't care what time of day it is Sounds like India.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:So many people. It's crazy. So the energy was really fun. But, yeah, it was definitely a lot different than Italia and quite different than Paris.
Speaker 2:But there's one place which, if anyone goes to istanbul, you have to go to this one restaurant. It was about two blocks from where we lived and my friend and I walked by and we kind of walked by and we did a double take and we looked inside because it looked like a restaurant but you could all. It was also a kitchen, like a like someone's house, and I was like all right, and there was like three tables in there, what? And there was a lady sitting down in the table smoking and we kind of walk in. Or he walks in and he says this is a restaurant and she goes no, we're closed, that's why I'm smoking inside. And we said okay. And she said but no, we open at seven o'clock. And we said okay, like what kind of restaurant, what kind of food? She goes, whatever you want, she goes. Well, you make a reservation and then I ask you what you want and I pick it all up that morning at the market and then you come in and I make it for you and we said, okay, how do?
Speaker 2:you know what to ask for, yeah so we said, okay, uh, we want to make a reservation for tomorrow. So we made one and she goes well, what do you want to eat? And we said, just make us whatever you want, we don't care. We said like, and she was super nice, the owners from azerbaijan and, um, her and her daughter kind of work it together. And she, she used to be oh gosh, she was like some analyst or something six months ago and she decided to quit her job and become a chef and, like, follow her passion. She found this place like incredible story. Incredible story.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. So what was it called?
Speaker 2:It's called Cook Me, Eat Me.
Speaker 1:That sounds like sometimes the Asianian names are like food, good, food, house, whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's called cook me, eat me. It's amazing. You go there, you make a reservation and she'll just. I mean it's incredible, she pays, she plays the piano. I ended up uh, it's on my instagram, there's a couple stories of it but we, we had such an amazing time that I was like, hey, let's take a photo, because she was well, very long story, I won't get into it, but it was hilarious what we were, what we were doing, and I was like, yeah, let's take a picture. And she put the chef's coat on me and like we did a.
Speaker 1:It was like oh yeah, it was super fun. Oh my gosh, it was super fun. And they can just do that. She can, from a house, turn it into a restaurant if they don't have like rules. I don't know what it was before.
Speaker 2:It is a restaurant, it's just the way it's set up. Yeah, when you see it, you're like looks like a kitchen, yeah, but yeah, so she makes it all that day and then when you get in, she prepares it, like she warms it and like actually does it, and it's all these courses and it's just absolutely incredible food. She always has really good wine, um, she does desserts, all different sorts of stuff, and you, we walked out of there for 21 dollars. We were there for like three hours and you're the only people in there.
Speaker 1:There was another like a couple, three groups or something eight holds like eight or ten people yeah okay, maybe 12 if it's old yeah I love that. It's so unique, never seen anywhere else?
Speaker 2:you'll never see that yeah, cook me yeah, yeah, she's really great.
Speaker 2:And then in Istanbul I actually started eating a lot of vegan places. They have this way I ate at one and it was just incredible and they're all kind of right in this one little area. If you search for them, they serve all the vegan food, kind of family style, which is really interesting. So you kind of walk in and they have a big table and they have all these like uh, whatever you would make like a lasagna in or something right, and they have like 12 of them and they're all different and they all have different things eggplant, this or you know whatever and they just go okay, which ones do you want?
Speaker 2:and they just you just tell them and then they make this beautiful plate of food for you and you sit down and it's like you eat whatever they have, like there's no menu, it's just this is what we cook today this is almost all of them were like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all the vegan ones were kind of like that yeah, okay yeah, which I don't eat vegan a lot, but once I had one, I like I kind of get on like a little kick and I'm like this is good, good, oh yeah, and each one was like four or $5.
Speaker 1:It's just crazy.
Speaker 2:Crazy yeah.
Speaker 1:And then was it easy to get around. I imagine there's public transportation is pretty good, or is it mainly?
Speaker 2:just equivalent. Yeah, I walked everywhere. I walked everywhere in Istanbul, but there's a lot of Hills.
Speaker 1:Oh, there is Okay, yeah, but there's a lot of hills, oh there is Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, A lot of hills Um there is a pretty good Metro.
Speaker 2:Um, I used it a few times, but for the most part it's just so big, like Istanbul is, is so big that like there's a whole nother side of it that I went once and that probably has 10 million people that live there. Like it's like it's. It's it's just like it's very hard to comprehend, like I went there once and you got to walk all the way down the hill, which takes 25 minutes. Then you have to get on a boat that crosses the other side. So that's where you cross continents. You know you can be in europe and in asia in istanbul and you take a 50 cent boat and you can cross the continent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's the Asian side and the European side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for all of Turkey, then, or just Istanbul?
Speaker 2:just just Istanbul. Yeah, the the line kind of goes right down so Antalya?
Speaker 1:were you in Asia then? Asia yep oh, okay, oh, I always kind of wondered. Okay, I guess I could have googled it, but just just yeah, no, I didn't know either, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, I always thought that istanbul was the capital oh, what is the capital? Ankara oh, okay yeah, that's what I said.
Speaker 1:So biggest okay, there's like 10 million people in istanbul oh, no like from one side of 10 million yeah, yeah, from, uh, from wikipedia.
Speaker 2:It says like 17 and a half, but from what everyone else is telling me, it's more like 23 ish, which, like it's, yeah, exactly it's you can't comprehend I mean what is?
Speaker 1:manhattan five yeah five, six, seven million maybe in colorado we have like five million and you're in one city.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's like an absurd amount of people. It's hard to see everything, like I didn't really see anything, so it's just kind of wandered around and no, not particularly um. Do they have like?
Speaker 1:all like, like motorcycles and putt-tuts I don't know if those things are called like, like like like indian, like in, like animals on the road and stuff no, it's, it's more like a little more. It's not so developing country, it's pretty first world yeah, it's pretty developed second world okay, it's pretty developed there.
Speaker 2:The? Um, the juxtaposition between istanbul and paris from one day to the next was kind of shed a light on on istanbul being a little bit less developed than what I thought it was. Oh, because you get to paris and like everything's clean and orderly and pretty and istanbul is just everything's very old and you know the, they're, the guys are carrying the trash down the street like with wheels on, like this big dolly. You know, in Paris they would never, you could never do that, you know. So those types of things I wasn't really recognizing until I got here. Um, is this your first time in?
Speaker 1:Parisis or in france.
Speaker 2:No, no, I've been here this is like my fourth time in paris. Yeah, this is definitely the longest. Yeah, I've always come here for like a weekend or something yeah, oh, okay, very cool yeah how long have you been in paris now?
Speaker 1:uh three weeks and how long are you planning on staying, and and what's your next venture?
Speaker 2:I leave on Tuesday.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're getting ready to leave. Yeah, so yeah, we're going to fly to Soloniki in Greece.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Which is like this little town? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I need to really remember how long we chose these places. Soloniki, we've got Google Maps here. E-h-e-s-s naliki oh, like salon, like a hair salon, nika. I see saline, saline, nika, but that's may not say is it an island or you're on it's no, it's on the, it's on the mainland, so it seems like a cool little town.
Speaker 2:Will be there for four days and then, uh, taking a train to athens. It's about a four-hour train, so so that was that was. One of the things is that I knew I wanted I need to be out of this house by the 10th and finding a place in Europe for a month, that's reasonable price. That's also a very nice place. Anywhere in Europe during the summer, in August, is almost possible, especially with like a month and a half's notice when I was trying to do it. So there was a couple of places on the short list, but the only one that really made sense was Athens.
Speaker 2:Places on the short list, but the only one that really made sense was athens. And unless you wanted to just splurge which you know every now and then is fine, which I almost did a couple times you know to where you want to spend maybe three thousand dollars a month or something on a place, then the options are a little bit more. You know you can go to spain, you can go to italy, you can go to these places, but I didn't want to do any more at this point than like 14 or 1600 a month. So that's why I kind of landed on athens. But those dates I had to kind of be at their mercy as to when their availability was.
Speaker 2:So that left like three or four days in the middle and I'm like, oh, whatever, well, I'll figure it out, you know so that's so when you get into situations like that, then you're kind of in this like exploratory mind where you're like oh yeah, we can do fun stuff, like where should we go? We got a couple days, but that also means you need to have two flights right, because wherever you go, then you got to fly back or you got to fly to the other place. So now you have two airplane tickets which can easily add up. You know, um plus you're moving a lot, which means you're going to be very unproductive because you're, all your stuff is packed Right. That's the way I am, anyways, unless I can unpack and like, do something means you're not going to eat well, means you're not going to. You know, be active.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So like that. So I kind of take into account all those things. I said let's just try to do one flight and then a cheap train, the train into all account, all those things I said let's just try to do one flight and then a cheap train.
Speaker 1:the train was like 50 bucks I think or something 40 bucks, uh, and even the flight was like maybe 100 from from paris to solaniki.
Speaker 2:So so you're doing solaniki and athens or solaniki only there for like four days oh, okay, gotcha, yeah, and then.
Speaker 1:So how long are you going to stay then, like for a couple months, or you don't know yet.
Speaker 2:No, I'm just shy of a month. And then I have one more place which I think I'm going to go stay with my friend in Barcelona. So that's my birthday month, so it's pretty serious and I think I'm going to stay with my best friend lives in Barcelona. He has a good sized place. So I'm thinking about doing that. I haven't decided yet, but it's getting kind of late.
Speaker 1:So and then back to winter with your dog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll fly back to the States in October and I have a few things to do in Boston. I have a few things to do in Miami at the end of October, like wedding, and then I'll scoop up the dog and go back to Iowa for a couple months, okay, and then I think I'm going to start traveling again in.
Speaker 1:January I'll take two months off and then.
Speaker 2:I think, um, I think I need to go southern hemisphere, I'm just not sure where oh, okay. I've yet to, I've yet to go down there. So Machu Picchu is a big draw yeah, I don't know if I should stay on this side or if I should go Southeast Asia or Australia, or if I should just go, you know, brazil or Argentina or something.
Speaker 1:Bali was amazing. I need to go there for a month.
Speaker 2:I know I want to go there so bad.
Speaker 1:It was incredible. There was that talking about garbage. So we hired a driver and actually this is from a podcast I did korea and then she went to bali. So I stayed with her in korea and then she was like you need to go to bali. So we, you know that's how it happened, but anyway, she has a driver. It was 35 a day for him.
Speaker 1:It was amazing uh took us all over the island, or yeah. And then, um, but there was these, she. He said there's these guys from india and they came and and Bali and Balinese won't carry the garbage, but they will and literally they make money. They do really good and they have these little mopeds and they were just huge things on either side of the trash that they cleaned up.
Speaker 2:It was very interesting, but maybe Wow yeah, just let me see, there's a lot of money in trash.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I tell you that, yes, so the the non-profit that I helped in bocas del toro.
Speaker 2:They had a contract with the uh bocas municipality and and, um, he was able to get the contract to get all of the recyclables from bocas del toro. So I helped them buy some machinery and we take all all the recyclables from Bocas del Toro. So I helped them buy some machinery and we take all all the recyclables, we sort it, clean it, and then we have these machines that chomp it up into little bits until like little pellets, and then we have a machine that's like a press and it presses all of this plastic into lumber. Oh, and then we sell the lumber to make docks and everything that they need in Bogus del Toro. So they, they build docks and everything all the time because everything's by boat.
Speaker 2:So, so, yeah, so we have like a for-profit lumber company in Bogus del Toro that's all plastic lumber made from a site free recycled materials that's owned by this nonprofit at the top. Yeah, so it's a really cool thing that they're doing down there. They do a lot of other things as well in the area with, like lionfish and a bunch of other stuff. But, yeah, the recyclables.
Speaker 1:Wow, what's the nonprofit called.
Speaker 2:It's called Wasteless World. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, that's really cool it.
Speaker 1:It's called Wasteless World. Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really funny.
Speaker 1:In Korea we had trash and they're literally in Korea is super clean. Where we stayed at Songdo Dong, it's like an hour outside of Seoul, but everywhere we went like it was really clean but there was no trash cans. And then when I stayed with my friend, she had this tiny little trash can in the kitchen only no other place. And then I was kind of like I didn't think about it. But then after um, and she worked long hours, so I was like hey, what do we do? And she's like, oh, we don't, and you have to recycle. And she would put the trash like kind of compacted together and then you had to sort it. And she lived on the 14th floor, so it was like a you had to go in the hallway into some place to like sort it specifically. It was a trippy thing. So then my daughter she was in AP environmental science and so the way we looked at trash and how things were and there, so we were kind of shocked, but I still don't get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember that in Tokyo as well. I remember walking around with my trash like where can I put this, yeah, and apparently everyone just brings it home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, there was no trash cans anywhere on the streets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was no trash cans anywhere.
Speaker 1:No, oh, and then you probably have your allocation of how much trash, so don't buy things with a lot of packaging. Although there were some burn areas and they were like, oh, that's trash, or maybe was in bali, but I think there was, yeah, various places that sound like a bali thing burned. Yeah, probably bali, I think. But it was really interesting because I and the way she would fold the trash to put it together. It's like oh, never thought about that, I just shove everything in there.
Speaker 1:You know stomp it down if you need to and you know, recycle and whatever and go with that, but it's funny because now I'm in tahoe this week and coming from bal Korea and then being in Tahoe for a week and it's like this huge garbage. There's garbage cans everywhere, you know bins, and of course they're closed because the bears. So it just made me think like they didn't have any of this, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, you guys need to go to Korea.
Speaker 1:I know Totally. Learn some things Exactly All. Learn some things Exactly, all right. Well, I think we're gonna have to wrap it up, and we do have these rapid fire questions, so put yourself back into Turkey, brian, with that in perspective. So what would you say? What's the popular religion there?
Speaker 2:Muslim.
Speaker 1:Muslim Okay.
Speaker 2:And then everywhere.
Speaker 1:Oh, really Okay.
Speaker 2:Everywhere yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you have? To take your shoes off and where does no, like I didn't actually go into them, but they do like the.
Speaker 2:They do the. I guess it's the prayers over the loudspeakers throughout all the cities like five times a day five times a day.
Speaker 1:Do people like?
Speaker 2:yeah, meal and stuff. Then about?
Speaker 1:no, no one really listens okay like literally no one really listens. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Like literally no one pays attention to them. That I saw. But it's really interesting the way the times work. My friend was telling me that it has to do with the moons, maybe what, and the time changes when they do these every single day.
Speaker 1:Oh, so it's not always one, three and eight, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it changes every day it's like yeah, one day it'll be like yeah, yeah I was just in seattle and they had someone had a little tide monitor on the wall and then you know, so it always just changes, so you know when the tide is and that's all tied to the moon. Oh my god, it's so interesting how some cultures, like you know, the mayans, etc. Like the moon and the stars is how they figured everything out. That's so interesting. How some cultures, like you know, the Mayans, et cetera, like the moon and the stars, is how they figured everything out. That's so cool. And so what were one of your favorite foods when you were in Turkey, whether Istanbul or Atalia, that's where it was from.
Speaker 2:Do they have?
Speaker 1:hummus. Do they have a lot of like Greek food?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, I'm going gonna go with a just a basic kebab okay, lamb or beef yeah, lamb, they know how to cook it really well, oh um, do they have gyros in? No, not really no I'm excited to get that in greece, but uh, but no, theirs are just very basic and then it really depends on like the sauce or like the little things that they use. But yeah, the way they cook it there is incredible.
Speaker 1:All right, and what would you eat for breakfast? What do you have for breakfast most days? Like the croissant and coffee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got hooked on Turkish tea. And I'm not a tea person. There's just everyone there drinks Turkish tea. Everyone doesn't matter if you're eight years old or 80 or like yeah, it doesn't matter that everyone drinks Turkish tea.
Speaker 1:What is that? Is that like Thai tea, where it's like milk and sugar?
Speaker 2:No, it's just like this, like dark reddish tea that Do you put milk in it. No, I just put like one or two sugars, that's it. It's served in this glass that just kind of like. It's kind of small, it's almost like a shot glass a little bit bigger. Is it hot? It's really interesting, yeah, hot.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there's a lot of history about it, that I don't know, but yeah, it's, it's everywhere. Oh, it's like 20 cents or something, so yeah, okay, if you want something to do and like people watch, you sit down at a cafe and you order triggers tea and you just yeah, it's like oh, that's so fun.
Speaker 1:Oh, awesome. Uh, was it easy to meet people there? Did you meet any locals? I mean other than just like talking to the person at the restaurant. I mean be there for two months. Did you like make a?
Speaker 2:friend. Yeah, so that's yeah. That's an interesting thing too that, unless you go to, I mean for me, I'm, I just don't think that I'm a younger guy, so I there isn't a large bar scene. I've found in Turkey a large bar scene. I found uh in turkey. There's the uh in antalya at least, at least in the smaller places. They're much more like you could go to a beautiful place that has a dj and all this stuff, but everyone has a seat and a table and it's um, it's just, it's kind of like that at a lot of places do you like to go dancing?
Speaker 1:yeah.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you like clubbing yeah I used to, but but I'm not a big club, live with that yeah okay, I'm not a good no, no, no, I'm not a club guy, um, but it's uh like I like to just be in an environment. That's like that's just kind of like you can walk around and it's not a lot of people, but music's good and it's just like I can yeah there were a lot of like you wanted to go to a rooftop.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, you know we don't have any more seats available. It's like I can kind of stand here at the bar.
Speaker 1:It's like nobody stands at the bar oh, it was just kind of like that.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, it's more like okay a lot of places are like that okay. But then you had a couple places that, yeah, they would do like live music and they would have people dancing or like have an area that you could kind of go stand in, but or if you went to like a club in which you know if you're going into a club, so so that was kind of interesting. Yeah, their nightlife was a little bit different.
Speaker 1:That kind of segues the next question what kind of music was popular there?
Speaker 2:Hmm, yeah, istanbul was a little bit different. They were much more like mainstream um western like if you're yeah, yeah, I guess italia was too, I don't know. And then you get there's a lot. There's a lot of places that just play turkish music as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's turkish music is like mandolins or or, or what do you call it? The organ, I don't know, accordions like kind of like eastern europe you always think of, like the german, the accordions I don't know what type of thing it would be.
Speaker 2:I mean, like in istanbul, there's just a lot of guys that are I. I mean, I think it's turkish music, I would imagine it is. I mean I'm not a scholar, I think it's Turkish music, I would imagine it is. I mean I'm not a scholar to tell you, to tell you otherwise. But yeah, it was just like they would just play like these, like string instruments, whether it was a guitar or whether you know, like a little thing with like four, three strings.
Speaker 1:I don't know what they call it, but yeah, yeah and they would be clapping and doing yeah, and they would be clapping and do it. Yeah, so All right, and the money's the lira. You said there.
Speaker 2:Turkish lira yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then the closest place you can surf, could you surf in that town that you're in? I know it's by the water, but it might not be surf friendly.
Speaker 2:No, it's a Mediterranean, so it was pretty weak. I think you'd have. I don't know, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Did you do any sports on the water, like wind surfing or kite surfing?
Speaker 2:No, I did a little boat tour. So in Italia there's a lot of waterfalls, yeah, and there's a couple that crash right into the ocean, yeah. So I did a boat tour for that, just to go check that out. But, um, and then I found some really like hidden swimming spots, like local swimming spots which like so there's there's parts of antalya that are beach, uh, rocky beach, and then there's another part which is called lara beach, and lara means sand in turkish, and then in between there's like cliffs and rocks and all these things.
Speaker 2:And then you have these things like beach clubs, which it's not like a club, like nightclub, it's like a club to where you go and you spend five dollars and they give you a seat with an umbrella and a thing, and then you can get food and you know drinks or whatever, but they don't play music or anything like that. It's just very chill. But they build those into the rocks, which is really cool. So you have to climb down all these crazy stairs and then you get to this place. There's just a whole bunch of lounge chairs and you can like kind of hang out and they serve drinks and stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, so there's those kind of all scattered and then there's like random ladders and everywhere. So we found a couple places that we could go, like local spots to go, and just jump and go swim and stuff.
Speaker 1:And so did you ever like work from those clubs, or like not too hot?
Speaker 2:No, actually the one I really did want to work from. They didn't have wifi, so Okay.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of times you see these digital nomads, like all these people like sit and by the beach and like I don't know, like I was in Florida and like working from there and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's so hot and sticky, like, yeah, my computer is getting.
Speaker 2:Costa Rica was like that too.
Speaker 1:It's just like so like, let me just go work and then go out, you know, because I still like the idea of like I don't mind, you know, working all day, but then you go out instead of seeing, you know, beautiful Boulder, which is amazing, but, you know, see a different culture after work every day, that's so cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so cool and for me I need the structure in my day to get started, so I need to have a reason to get up and get dressed and get moving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whether that and I'm not a big, I don't like working out or doing anything in the morning, I like doing it kind of in the afternoons. So for me, I just need to get out of the house, even if it's just to go take a walk, you know, and get a coffee and come right back. I just need to need to get the wheels moving, yeah. So yeah, there was a couple of spots in Antalya that I would just go just to grab a coffee and sit and work. I would just go just to grab a coffee and sit and work, and there are a couple of places like that that are really nice.
Speaker 1:Would you go back there? I mean, or just like yeah, it was nice. Oh yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:I mean it's so reasonable to live there. I don't know if I would go right back to where I was.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of other cities that I wish I could have seen um.
Speaker 2:There's one called bodrum boat. So antalya is um, is very has a very large like russian, belarussian and ukrainian influence right now, because of the war so the russians, ukrainians and belarussians? They have really nowhere else to go out, like they want to leave their country outside of, like Georgia and Turkey. They're very like they'll they'll let them in. They can't go to the EU unless they have visas and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So, they can go to Poland, but then sometimes they can't get back in. It's like this big thing. So that area of Italia is uh leaning more towards that side. Bodrum is uh a little bit more european oh, okay and over by bodrum, you have another place called fettier or cash. Those are all really, really beautiful places that are just right on the water, right on the mediterranean, that are just incredible that I really wanted to go check out.
Speaker 1:And those places probably don't probably still pretty mild, I would assume or they're not getting like weather, oh yeah, they're probably not going to get hot right now. Okay, so you want to go now, but like January, February maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I think they're pretty reasonable. I'd probably go like spring and into early summer. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, bodrum, you're basically in the sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's about 40 kilometers off the coast of Bodrum is this island called Rhodes, which a lot of people go to R H O D E, s, and that's a Greek Island.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, oh my, there's just like gazillion islands oh yeah, yeah, so much to explore crazy. Okay, right, all right yeah, well, thank you so much, christy. Have any other questions? No, my internet, of course, is down, thank you so much I mean. I do have some questions about visas and how it was to travel and get those. I know I didn't realize that for Korea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's a quick one. Obviously I'm American so I can go into anywhere in the EU for 90 days every 180 days, yeah, so it's a 90-day max every 180 days. Yeah, so it's a. It's a 90 day max every 180 days in the EU. Turkey, you get a onsite visa. So it was 30 euros right at the airport.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it takes literally 15 seconds. And the guy gave me a passport back and I thought he just took my money, scammed me. I was like what are you doing? And he opened it up and showed me a little sticker to look like a stamp, and that's it.
Speaker 1:It's funny now that I heard that it's stickers and not stamps now.
Speaker 2:But I have stickers in mind. Yeah, for the visa. Yeah, it's just a little sticker.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, that's it. Yeah, interesting, okay, no, very helpful. Thank you so much. It was really great having I don't know doing what I just recently did with a couple countries and things and talking with you. I don't think we've talked to someone that's in the middle like what you've done. There was a gal that was pretty young, that was staying in one place for a long time, but it's been really interesting talking with you to see you know where you're going and what you're doing and um.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much appreciate it yeah, no thanks, it's been fun yeah, no slowing down.
Speaker 2:It sounds like you know no, no, there's no time okay all right, thanks, brian I guess, one quick question if people want to see where you're at, or?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, it sounds like the instagram instagram's the way to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I actually turned off Instagram from January to like May of this year. So I went, I flew to Turkey, I was there for maybe almost a month and nobody knew, and it was great. And then I eventually turned it back on because I it's a and I'm building an app for it now, which I'll plug it later I'll show you guys. But but yeah, it's a, it's just a good connection tool. It's like a very low friction way of staying in touch with people you meet along the way.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people. I don't need their phone number and I'm not really going to text them, but next time I'm in wherever you know, um, hopefully I can remember them. So, um, so, yeah, chasing Brian on Instagram? Okay, perfect.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for your time and info. It was really awesome.
Speaker 2:No problem, yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, we'll let you. We'll let you know when it's ready to prove Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, great.
Speaker 1:Thanks, guys, bye. If you enjoy our, be sure to subscribe to our show, rate us in your podcast app and follow us on instagram at where next podcast. If you are interested in being a guest on our show or would like to nominate someone, please contact us on our website at wwwwhere next podcastcom. Thanks for listening.
