Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Belgium, Bosnia and Bicycles with Digital Nomad - Maryann
In this episode, we meet with Maryann Walters who navigates life as a true digital nomad, exploring Europe with her husband, their dog, and their bicycles.
Maryann's journey began with determination in 2020, when she specifically sought out remote work that would accommodate a travel lifestyle. After securing a remote position and spending three years renovating their Reno home to make it rental-ready, she and her husband embarked on their European adventure, starting in Belgium.
Their time in Belgium revealed a cycling paradise where the sport is revered like football in America. But their journey was shaped by visa constraints – as Americans, they could only stay in the European Union for three months without special documentation.
This limitation led them to creative solutions, including stays in non-EU countries like Andorra (a tiny nation between France and Spain) and Bosnia to "reset" their visa clock. Each location brought unique challenges and rewards and stark differences in infrastructure and environment across countries.
Through it all, Maryann has maintained her professional commitments while forming deep connections to places they lived for months at a time – a depth of experience inaccessible to typical tourists. Her story reveals both the extraordinary freedom of the digital nomad lifestyle and its very real challenges, offering valuable insights for anyone dreaming of breaking free from geographical constraints.
Ready to reimagine what's possible with remote work and international living? Follow us on Instagram @wherenext_podcast for more inspiration and practical advice from travelers who've taken the leap into location independence.
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Hosts
Carol Springer: https://www.instagram.com/carol.work.life
Kristen: https://www.instagram.com/team_wake/
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Hi, welcome to our podcast, Where 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 meeting with Marianne, a true digital nomad, where she discusses her travels through Europe with her husband, dog, and bicycles while navigating remote work challenges and country hopping to manage these limitations. She tells about her stays in Poland and Dora, which is a tiny nation between France and Spain, which we just learned about. Also, we cover Portugal, Bosnia, and Belgium, the country she fell in love with. Enjoy. Welcome, Marianne, and you are a dear friend of Kristen's, and I understand you travel the world, so we're excited to hear what you're going to share today. Yes. Thanks so much, Marianne, for being here. So I've known Marianne since, what, 2015 or something. We met in our companies and just hit it off, and I've always enjoyed our conversations. We haven't talked in a little while, and then we talked, and you were... over in Europe, Central Europe, traveling and with your husband and your dog and your bikes and going and sending me these amazing, gorgeous pictures of all over. And this podcast we started, what, four years ago. And it was a lot about, you know, traveling and living anywhere in the world, digital nomad. And you embody that more than actually a lot of the that we've talked about. And so I was so thrilled to have you on this just because I'd love to see you and catch up and everything and we'll have to catch up afterwards, but also about your amazing journey and when it started and where you're at. I know you're here locally right now or actually in Reno, I think right now. Yeah. Yeah. For a couple more days. Yeah. In Reno. Okay. That's convenient. Okay. Yeah. For this podcast. Like a little Lyft driver asked me from the airport, you know, Like, oh, so where do you live? And I was like, nowhere. You know, he was like, he couldn't get his head around this. He was like, no, no, no, no, no. You live somewhere. And I'm like, no, I don't live anywhere. Well, you do have a house. I do, but I don't live there. I have people living there. Correct. Exactly. Happy there and do not wish to have me hanging around. Exactly. And before we start into your amazing adventure, because I know right now you're here locally, you're interviewing for a job, a remote job, and then you'll go back and or you maybe coming, which I thought possibly potentially to Oakland, which would be amazing because then I would see you and that would be fun. But that you start beginning in your journey when you and I had talked about renting out your house because of what you were doing and the anticipation even years before about that journey. And just so our audience can get an idea if they want to do that, you know, how did you set that up and make that work for you? Yeah, that's a good question. So this actually started, I think it started seriously in 2020, where I actively sought out a job that would allow me to travel. And so that was the first step. And your husband was on board with you, and he's retired. Yep, he's a retired bicycle racer and bike mechanic. He does a good job kind of you know, leading the home renovations and taking care of all of the stuff that doesn't include, you know, working at a corporate job. So that includes all of our four-legged children. And how many four-legged children do you have? Right now, just one dog in Europe with us. Yes. We left our cat behind, but as soon as we land and we know where we're going to be living for more than a month at a time, we plan to reclaim the cat. But as soon as we find a place to land, like I said, we hope to acquire more animals.
UNKNOWN:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So, OK, so it started with looking specifically for a job because I knew that, you know, the current job that I had, it was very U.S. based. There was no chance not only of there was no chance of being able to work for one of the international divisions or an office and no chance of being able to go overseas for more than the time you take on vacation. And being Americans, we never go on vacation except for Kristen, who gets to go hiking with Girl Scouts in August. And I'm incredibly jealous. I try. One of these days, I'm going with you.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So we started with that. So I started actively seeking a job that was remote only and was okay with travel. And at the same time, we got really serious about our house renovations. So that took exactly three years from that point on. I did manage to get a job with a remote company in August of 2021. And the house was ready to go by August of 2023. You know, the process of, you know, filling an entire house and God knows how many storage units with all of our stuff and my husband's stuff and my family's stuff, because somehow every book my family has ever owned is for some reason with me. I have a question, Marianne. So you're saying that the reason you renovated the house was because you were going to start working remote and you want to rent it out? So you want to get it in prime shape. Okay, got it. We installed air conditioning and a heat pump in it. And that was part of the exercise as well as actually installing installation on a house that was built in 1937 that had, sorry, insulation, had no insulation whatsoever. Okay, gotcha. And getting air conditioning in a house in Reno, Nevada, it's kind of pretty essential these days. I don't think it used to be, but it is now. And it's really unusual for the old houses nowadays. in the Midtown District in Reno to have air conditioning. And so we thought this is how we're going to differentiate ourselves. You know, this will be a place where people can live and, you know, not have to huddle in a room somewhere, you know, like trying to get the little mobile unit working. Well, and it's really a nice central location. I feel like I met you there while we were going to restaurant or something. Probably. You can walk everywhere. It's right downtown, right? Yeah, it's super walkable.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's a great place to live. It really is. Especially if you're not worried too much about the kind of stuff that my friends with young children worry about, which is like what school they're going to go to and all this stuff. If you don't really worry about that, it's a wonderful place to live. Oh, okay. I've never considered Reno. Yeah, and it's really close to Lake Tahoe. I mean, it's a lot of outdoor activities that... come with living where you're at. It's far enough removed so you're not totally in the snow, but I think you probably still get some snow. Yeah. Yeah. And if you ever get tired of winter, you just have to drive over the mountains and go to California. Right. Exactly. Just a couple hours. You don't get the same kind of seasonal depression that you do if you, like, say, live in New England or, you know, Pennsylvania. Yeah. Once it gets cold and dark, it stays that way, you know, until April, maybe. Absolutely. So then we're in your August 2023. You've got your house renovated. You have a job that's remote. And was it at that point where you said, OK, let's start planning and you took off shortly after that? Or what was that like? So we went to Belgium in the beginning of September 2023. And we stayed there for three months, which is as long as you are allowed to stay legally without doing any other paperwork as an American right now in Europe. I have heard that the rules are going to change, but they're not going to change for at least another six months. So for now, that's still the deal. Well, that's not that bad, because if I'm remembering correctly, that was quite a pivotal trip and a very beautiful biking community, which you and your husband are very involved in. Yeah. And, you know, we were out there every single day riding our bicycles, even though it literally rained every single day from October 15th to like the day I left on December 1st. Oh, wow. We didn't care. We were still out there riding our bicycles. Just absolutely so thrilled to be there. You know, I mean. from real winter it was like it's not that cold it's 45 degrees out and it's pouring rain it's fine and everyone else tough cookies also uh did everyone else bike in the rain only the pros everyone i saw was like a world tour pro if i saw another woman you know i'd be like oh i wonder who that is looking on strava just seeing who would pass me you know it was very um humbling in many ways, to be around those kinds of cyclists. And we ran into them in Andorra, too. Oh, wow. Where's Andorra? It's in the Pyrenees. It's a tiny country between France and Spain, and it is not part of the EU. Oh, that's interesting. I'll get there in a second because it's kind of part of the second part of our trip, which is while I was over there in Belgium, I was actually laid off from my job. And I agreed to stay on and do some extra work for the same company for a little while just to see, you know, what else would come up and help them out with some transitions in the compliance team space that they were working with. And so when we came back to the United States, you know, we thought we'd rent like an apartment for six months or something like that. And we just found that it was just impossibly expensive compared to Wow. It's so great to just think differently and save money. And then I'm sure you guys could go different places. The only way you can live in this part of the world for like$1,200 a month and live that comfortably. Wow. You know, stay at a state park. And some of them you have to move on every two weeks, but you can kind of cycle around. And we stayed at a place kind of halfway between Reno and Tahoe for a great part of the year. That was an RV park. It was really nice. Oh, nice. You guys have an RV? We sold it before we went back to Europe. Okay. We ran that thing into the ground. Nice. It was like not really seaworthy anymore. Yeah. So now give it to the Burning Man people. That's close by, right? Right, right. We ended up selling it for like$2,000. I can't believe somebody even gave us$2,000 for it. It was literally like worth nothing. Well, it's a roof over your head. It doesn't have to move. Yeah. I mean, my side of the bed leaked, but you know. We figured it out. To be serious, in Belgium, I was in the biking community, and you mentioned and just kind of hinted at the pros. What has the pros? I know we talked offline a little bit, but figured just to share it here. What makes the pros go to Belgium? What was so special about Belgium? Why did you love it? And if I'm remembering correctly, that was the place that you really want to go back to, you and your husband. Yeah, absolutely. And part of it is because we spent a lot of time there and it really takes like three months to get to know a place. And so we had the benefit of being there for three months in the fall. So by the time we came back in May, you know, we immediately like, you know, started making really, really good friends and kind of knew all the places we wanted to be and where we wanted to ride and kind of getting all that out of our system, you know, finding the good restaurants, etc., finding the good places. good houses to live in, meeting people who might like, for example, have like a place to stay, you know, in like the barn in the back of their property instead of having to go through Airbnb. Oh, nice. So, yeah. So part of what made it so wonderful for us was just spending a lot of time there. Yeah. But also is that, you know, in Belgium, cycling is like football in America.
SPEAKER_01:And,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. Cycling in America is like cycling in America. I mean, it's the national sport. It's not just commuting by bicycle like in the Netherlands or Germany, but like actually racing bicycles. And so we didn't see a whole lot of it when we were there in the fall, but... When we eventually found our way to the right place in Flanders, in the Flemish Ardennes, it's where all the very famous hill climbs are from the Tour of Flanders. And they're all cobbled. They're made of cobblestones. And they're absolutely, incredibly difficult and steep. There's one that I still cannot get up on my gravel bike. It's like, yeah, it's 24% grade. I'm like super cobbled. And it goes on for just like... Very cool. So it's just, it embodies the sport, not just for road, but also for cyclocross, which is a bicycle sport that I think is practically dead in the United States. As far as I can tell, all people in the United States ever want to do is do triathlons. Boring. Scrabble noises. And that's what I do, but it's all good.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I just can't. Triathlons are fun, but it's not the same thing as bike racing. No, no, not at all. It's so cool. Exercise. What's that? It's exercise. Exercise is really good and I love exercise. Yes. So what's your passion about bicycling that you love so much? I mean, because you get to explore and travel for so long. Well, there's two kinds. There's bike riding, right? And then there's racing. And bike racing is a craft. It is a finely tuned sport. Those that are really good at it are performing works of art when they're out there. Yeah. That's as a fan. Okay, yeah. As a cyclist, I mean, it's wonderful to ride your bicycle everywhere. To see the city in a way that you never get, you know, or just the countryside in a way that you don't see from a car and you can't see when you're walking because, you know, you don't really want to walk for 18 miles, you know, but you could easily like go for an 18 mile bike ride and get to see. Yeah, I've heard of some of these like cruise, like river cruises in Europe where you bike in the day and then the cruise goes along and holds on to all your stuff and then you sleep in the cruise ship. Oh, that's absolutely At night. And so you're hitting town by town, but then you're, you're biking. So you don't have to like do loops or anything. You just keep going. I like that. I think would be amazing. And we got really good at it. Like, um, my husband, part of it is cause he's not really afraid of anything. Uh, And that helps a lot because I'll be like, I don't want, I'm going to get lost, you know, and we went for a bike ride from a campground in Milan and we had a great time and we found fine roads to ride on in the middle of that, you know, crowded, crazy European city. But yeah, it's just, it's a, it's a very special place. And like, you know, It's amazing to just be in a country where every single person you see on a bicycle, whether they're like, you know, eight year olds that have better bike handling skills than like any women in the amateur racing field in California have. Or you see an old woman going riding her bicycle to the store, you know, to get this enormous vat of mayonnaise, which she has like strapped to the back of her rack, you know, on her bike. All of their bikes fit them perfectly. And you just know, you know, cause you notice like people just on bikes, you know, riding around, whether it's like DUI people or just people in the United States. And like, everyone's riding a bike. It's not the right size for them, you know? And that's one thing you notice in Belgium is they're all, their seat heights are all perfect and they'll have absolute perfect cycling form, you know? And it just comes from a country. Oh my God. Genetically in them. Yeah. There's a lot of genetics going on. The, the, the current, um, Well, he lost the world championship to the Slovenian kid, but the current great out there is a guy named Mathieu van der Poel. And his father was named Adrian van der Poel, which is also the name of our dog, Audrey. And his mother, I don't remember the name of his mother, but it's like literally like he's got like, he's like the grandson of this one, like most famous cyclist that ever lived. He's Dutch, but he grew up in Belgium. And, like, his father. And, like, it's the same, like, pattern that they look for in racing horses. Where they're like, this horse is going to win. You know, he's got, like, that heritage and that genetics. And, you know, he's one of the strongest guys in the world. Wow. That's amazing. And it just comes from this tradition of, you know, Belgian and Dutch families. Yeah. And the women, too. Like, the fastest women in the world are also from Belgium. Oh, interesting. So do they get it from the Belgian chocolate? Super Viking powers. There's something
SPEAKER_01:about that? Can we eat
SPEAKER_00:that? Well, and it's funny, too, because when I say it, it's like football. Like, even people who are sitting there, like, drinking, like... unbelievable amounts of beer at these bike races and smoking cigarettes. They love to smoke. You know, they're also huge cycling fans. And some of our best friends in Belgium are not cyclists. They're people that smoke that we met because we like to sit outside and you know, our favorite like cafe and at the same time as us. And one day they sat next to us and they were like, what's your story? And we're like, oh, we're American. And they were like, what? What are you doing in this tiny village in Belgium? You know, what was the village you were in? It was called Flobeck. And it has a local name. The locals call it Flobiza. Is that the one that's the home of Eddie Burks? Or is that a different... No, Eddie Merckx is... Actually, I'm not sure where he's from. I think he might even be from Wallonia. Is it Eddie Merckx or Burks, you said? I should know that, and I'm going to bicycle hell for not knowing the town. What's his name? Merckx or Burks? Merckx. Merckx with an M. M-E-R-C-Y-X. Oh, I was not that close. Okay. That sounds incredible. But I do know that Greg LeMond lived in Kortryk, which is pretty close to... So is your travel very bike motivated? You want to go explore this place on a bike or that place on a bike, or you just go explore? And of course you can bring your bikes just because that's what you do. No, well, it was a first, right? I mean, we ended up hanging out long enough in Belgium just to realize that this part of the world is like, this is where we want to be. This is where our hearts are. This is home for us. Oh, okay. And then we ran into visa constraints. So initially I was there. I was going to get a job working for the same company. It would be an on-site job in Portugal, but it didn't work out.
SPEAKER_01:Oh,
SPEAKER_00:okay. And so when the company basically confirmed like, no, no, like we can't actually sponsor your visa. The plan had always been like, oh yeah, let's go live in Portugal until we're EU citizens. And then we'll just go back to Belgium. And then I'll be able to find a job, no problem, because I'll be an EU citizen and no one will have to give me visa sponsorship. But that didn't work out. And so I actually ended up eventually quitting my job. What kind of work were you doing? I'm a supply chain operations procurement. Oh, okay. All right. So it's not like... Professional. I was working in legal operations. Oh, okay. Oyster. She's very modest. She's a pretty skilled job. Yeah. Yeah, she's very skilled. Unbelievable. Has done so much for so many very large companies and anyone that ever gets her is extremely lucky. I said, what would do and build was incredible. The way her detail and what she knows, unbelievable. Awesome. It was really impressive. So she's very modest, but yes, she kicks butt. Let's just say that. Yes. Yes. So at that point, you know, we were going to Portugal and we just kept running into these. We still have a European bank account that we can't really access because like we've never been able to get like the PIN number working. I mean, there's the bureaucracy and troubles of like not really having an address that people can send stuff to you is like it's it's really a part of the struggle of being a digital nomad. You know, a lot of places you'll stay, you won't be able to receive packages or mail because you're in like the back of someone's apartment or you're in some weird building. Oh, I never thought about that. Okay. Got to buy local then, I guess. Yeah. And when we lived in Andorra, nothing could get shipped to you. Nothing. Because they would derail it and always open it up for customs purposes and try to see if people were trying to get around the rules of a tax haven by bringing in cheap goods without paying the duties. Can you tell me about Portugal? Is it easy to become a citizen in Portugal? That was your plan? No. Oh, okay. Well, just not yet an EU citizen. I have a feeling that's going to happen for sure. The path to citizenship in Portugal that I had to take was something that they call, sometimes they call it the retirement visa. But what it is, is that you have to have an income separate from It can't just be one lump sum of money. You have to have a recurring income of not very much money, only€850 a month. And then if there's two of you, half of that. So I think maybe it was€1,250 or€1,200. I mean, they're close to the same right now. Euros are a little more expensive. But you had to have that just kind of coming in. So that's why so many people in Portugal are retired. That's pretty easy. And we were able to show that we had that in terms of our rental income. net level yeah quite on the gross level and so we ran into problems with our visa that way and plus like it was all tied into me doing this job that i just i didn't really want to do at that point you know i i'd taken a job um a little a couple notches lower than my capability um Because, you know, I thought it would be worth it to live in Europe and get the opportunity, but it didn't seem stable and it didn't seem like something that was going to be around for five years. And it just didn't seem like the right opportunity for me. So, yeah. So when I found out how incredibly difficult it was to get the visa and spend all that time in Portugal for a job I didn't necessarily know that I really wanted, you know, to live in a place that we didn't really necessarily want to live in. I
SPEAKER_01:mean,
SPEAKER_00:not for a long period of time. It just seemed to make sense to abandon that entire process. And we did after we were pretty far in. I still have national tax IDs and bank accounts in Portugal. Wow, that's crazy. So did you spend some time in Andorra? Yeah, so we thought that once we applied for the visas in Portugal, we'd be able to stay in Portugal. I had like five people tell me that that was the case. But... And maybe it would have been better not to ask the lawyers, but the lawyers said that is not the case. You cannot take her. And so we were getting ready to be done with our three-month period in the EU, which Portugal is part of. And it was so confusing because they wanted you to have a house with a lease to get the visa. But how are you supposed to find a house or a lease to a place to stay that you want to stay in unless you're allowed to stay there and find a place to live. Yeah. Catch 22. Airbnb and like rent a place that way and then show that. Sure. But we'd already been in Belgium for a month and a half, you know, buying the car and taking care of other business. Yeah. Headed to Portugal. And so it was around then we realized that we were going to run out of our time at the end of August and there was just no way this visa was going to happen before then. So that's when we went to Andorra.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I'm looking at a map here. How did you hear? I can't believe I've never heard of this. We've done France a couple times. We've been in the south of France. We've done Europe. We've done the Santiago. I've never heard anyone mention Andorra. Or maybe I didn't realize it was a country. That's crazy. I've heard of it, but I don't know much about it. It's mostly like it's a huge ski resort. It's like right between France and Spain. It almost looks like it's on the border between the two of them. It is. Yeah. And is it France or is it Spain? It's Andorra. It's its own country.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know why? Because as I look closer, there's a little circle, a tiny little circle with an arrow right on Andorra. So it is its own country. So it's like Lake Tahoe is its own country almost probably. Kind of like a little ski resort area. No, this is a little bit more like Guam, I would say. Oh, okay. And it's not part of the EU. Oh, so you can go in the EU for three months, but then you have to leave and then come back. And so you went to Andorra. How long did you have to stay there for then? Well, you can stay in Andorra for up to 90 days, three months as an American without a visa. But the rules in Europe have changed a little bit. You have to go for longer than three months now when you leave the EU before you can come back again.
SPEAKER_01:Oh,
SPEAKER_00:okay. And it's different in every country. We kind of got different rules in all the different places. But we tried in general to not stay too long in a European country. We would have liked to have stayed longer in, say, Portugal. We would have liked to stay longer in Croatia and Slovenia. They were all part of the EU. So we really were pushing against that time limit. So we went to Andorra. And the reason why we didn't leave, why we left Andorra, was not because we were in danger of our visas expiring. It's because the snow was coming. Oh, okay.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And we were not there for a ski vacation. And we lived at 7,500 feet. It would basically be like being, you know, living at a ski resort. Oh, okay. With that much snow. Not so great for biking, even though I'm sure you guys would bike in it. Yeah, again, all the world's worst roads were in Andorra. Never saw a normal person on a bicycle the whole time I was there. F.
SPEAKER_01:Really?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was like August. And yeah, everyone was there between the Tour de France and the Vuelta to España, which for the first time in like ever in the last 80 years didn't go to Andorra. I was so disappointed. Oh, wow. Yeah. So which countries are the best for biking? You know, I'm probably most of the listeners are not at the pro racing level. Is there... big advantage is for the normal layperson to bike in specific countries? I would definitely recommend the normal layperson ride a bicycle in Belgium. Okay. Yeah. The only reason why we always saw pros out there is because it was winter. Okay. In spring and summer, there's just vast hordes of like group rides everywhere, like groups of cyclists with 100, 200 people in them just riding. And they're on the roads or they do like a lot of off-road, like mountain biking? They like mountain biking there, but they're also, the roads are set up. Every single road has a bike lane. Oh, really? Okay. How about Slovenia? That's my heritage. I haven't been there yet. I'm really dying to go. Did you spend much time there? No. Oh, okay. It's a beautiful campground that we stayed at. Oh, it's a campground. Okay. Did you guys have like a van or you actually camp camped? We bought a cheap tent at Decathlon, which is like the European REI. Okay. And we had our car and we pitched a tent. Okay. Awesome. So you had a car throughout Europe or did you train somewhere? We bought the car in Belgium. We ran into a lot of red tape. We managed to get it registered eventually in Andorra. Yeah. Oh, wow. And then what'd you do after your time was up? So we left Andorra. And at that point, you know, in terms of the question of what was driving us, I was just applying for jobs at that point. I, you know, I no longer had any income coming in.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:except for a little bit from our rental property. So we just decided to live as cheaply as we could outside the Europe in a place we could drive to. So that's what led us to Bosnia. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. First we thought, you know, like we were kind of joking about Bosnia and we talked a lot about, you know, Albania and Montenegro, which are slightly, I think, places where tourists go a little bit more frequently. And, you know, we started looking at Bosnia and we found this like amazing apartment for$500 a month. And we were like, oh, let's just go there and check it out. And then we started seeing all these, like, YouTube videos about all these people who, like, clearly put absolutely zero attention to politics. Like, being like, this is the best place ever. Yay! This is our favorite new tourist destination. Turbinia, Bosnia. And it wasn't, you know, if you weren't a tourist that was there in the summer, it was actually a little hard living there. Why is that? Is it language or? The language is difficult. The culture there, people are not naturally friendly. Okay. I mean, they're not really in the Netherlands or Belgium either, but if you're there for long enough, they eventually, you know, you can weasel your way in once they figure out you're not a tourist. But, you know, we really struggled in Bosnia. We spent most of our time in Republic Srpska, which is the Serbian section of Bosnia. Okay. We did go to Sarajevo. There were just like small things about it not being part of the EU that were very noticeable. I would say the big trash and the trash, like the trash everywhere. And then the field dogs and cats. I mean, anyone who's been to Latin America probably has a little more experience with those too. It's very India-like almost. Yeah, it's a little, it's pretty heartbreaking if you're a dog person because the dogs are, they're not like, you know, in America, like... Or even in Portugal, like all the stray dogs were like the same breed, you know, and they were just clearly some kind of like super mutt, you know, that is accustomed to living on the streets. Or, you know, in America, they're all pit bulls and stuff. You know, they were really nice breeds of dogs, you know, like in many cases, like purebred dogs. You're not used to seeing like a golden retriever living on the street, you know. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Labradoodles. Yeah, like friendly, beautiful dogs. You know, big ones. I mean, mostly big. I didn't see many little ones. Okay. And the cats, too. Cats were so friendly. It was really hard to not take them with us. Oh, I can imagine. I would want to. And then also the pollution, too. You know, everyone in Bosnia is driving a 1984 Volkswagen with a diesel engine. And even though we were on the Mediterranean, sometimes, I mean, it usually wasn't that bad, but sometimes it could be really, really bad. The further you go into the mountains, which is the entire country, the more the pollution hangs in the valleys. I mean, it smells like sulfur. Okay. It's bad. It's really bad. It's like something that you don't ever smell in America. Okay. What about Croatia? Croatia was gorgeous. Okay. Part of the EU. We could ride our bicycles where we lived in Bosnia. We could ride our bicycles to the border of Croatia. We could see the Adriatic Sea and Dubrovnik and have coffee looking at the ocean. Oh, nice. We didn't actually ride our bikes through customs that much because every now and then they give you a hard time and wanted to see a passport and we didn't want to burn any days in the EU. Oh, I see. Oh, smart. Okay. You're not in there if your passport's not stamped. Oh, okay. Very good. And from then we went to Montenegro. Oh, yeah. I don't really think, but that's, is that kind of near Croatia? Yeah. Yeah. It needs to do it. Also a former Yugoslav. Right. Yeah. I'm Yugoslavian by descent. And so now it's like, I think we're mainly from Slovenia, but you know, there's Croatia and what else did you say it was? The Serbs. The Serbs, yeah. Yeah. The Serbs live in a lot of different countries. Like Montenegrins, they're ethnically Serbs.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And of course, Serbia is mostly Serbs. And then Croatia is mostly Croatians because they kicked out or killed all the Serbs. Oh, okay. Then all the Serbs in Bosnia have been killing the Bosniaks who are the Bosnian Muslims. Okay. He's joined in that as well. I need to read some history. It got pretty ugly. And you can really tell. Like, I spent only a couple days in Belgrade, in Serbia. And Serbia itself is not a place where, you know, people hold on to the past. I think it's really, you know, it's a pretty modern, pretty friendly place. That's not the feeling you get necessarily all the time. When you're in Bosnia, you really feel the tensions, the ethnic tensions still between the groups. Oh, okay. Wow. So, did you... Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say, I think Montenegro, if I'm remembering correctly, was one of your favorites. Yeah. Yeah, we did love it. We lived in Sotinje. And actually, this is crazy. A week after we left, there was like a mass killing with a gun in Satinia. This is like a tiny village. We were like, we could not believe it when we read it in the news. Did they say why? He was some ex-army guy. Wow, so not just in America, huh? I was going to say, was he in cahoots with the guy from... What, in front of the Trump Tower with the... No. And then in the New Orleans? Maybe there was a trifecta or something going on. It was an isolated incident. I didn't even know that they were allowed to have guns in Montenegro. I mean, I never saw any. Yeah, maybe they weren't. How long were you in Montenegro for then? We were there for a month and a couple months. Oh, wow. We would have stayed longer, except we decided that... Things were kind of coming to a head with my job applications. I decided that we should move on to Ukraine if we truly wanted to volunteer in Ukraine before I was going to end up having to start working for a company. Wow. What kind of volunteer work did you do? Well, I never made it. I got arrested on the Polish-Ukrainian border by the Polish police. What was that? I got arrested at the Poland-Ukrainian border by the Polish police. because I did not have an international driver's permit, which I had no idea I needed, which had not come up for driving this time. What did that look like? What happened? The police were really nice. Even they thought it was a shakedown. A bunch of the women on the police force kept riding in the back with me in the car, so I wouldn't feel like I was getting arrested. Oh, gosh. That's my other half. I'm Polish. Oh, yeah. Well, in fact, my husband's still there. He's not going to Ukraine until he's going to Ukraine on Sunday. Because when I came to America, I got him his international driver's permit, which is the BS cardboard permit. document with like a poorly trimmed passport photo taped to it. I mean, it's so ridiculous that, I mean, there's no like, there's nothing behind it. Oh my gosh. That's hilarious. You get from AAA. Oh, I think I've heard about that before. Yeah. It costs 20 bucks, 12 if you get, let them take your passport photos. Okay. So any big consequence of getting arrested? You just, they like slapped your wrist? interrogation for my punishment. And I was like kind of giggling at the police's English, you know, and they were just kidding. Now we will conduct your interrogation for your punishment. And then I actually saw the document and it really said on it. She was reading it? They gave me an English copy, English version of this document. It's great. I'm going to frame it. That is an awesome story. That's so cool. I mean, I'm sure you're a little nervous at the time, but. I had to write a letter to the judge. They're either going to give me a fine. Actually, I haven't gotten the letter back yet. They're either going to give me a fine or they're going to ban me from driving in Poland for six months or some combination thereof, or they could throw the whole thing out. And they didn't even know if I had to, like, I was trying to figure out if I had to go to court. And they're like, well, we've never really done this before, so we don't know. Yeah. Someone just on a whim decided to press you. Yeah, just on a whim. It wasn't really the police's fault. As soon as the charges had been clear that I was driving without an irrational driver's permit in Poland, I guess the police had no choice. So then we stuck in Poland over Christmas. Oh, my goodness. Oh, just like a month ago? Yeah, I just got back. Oh, you just got back? Oh, my gosh. She's here just interviewing, and then she's, are you going to go back? It all depends. Yeah. Yeah, so if I don't get a job, I'm going to go back to Europe and join him, and we'll get another three months in Belgium. Keep applying for places. And if I do get a job, then hopefully it's a remote job, and I'll be able to go over there and hang out with him and work. But if I get a job that's not a remote job, then I'll probably just go out there for a couple of weeks, take vacation and help them move, move home. And we'll be moving somewhere in the United States. Okay. Very open ended right now. Oh, that's so exciting. I love that. So living in Belgium, do you rent then by the month? How do you like, how do you do your housing? So we boarded with a family. Oh, okay. For a significant time we were there and we paid by the month. Okay. And Airbnb is hard to find in the villages there and it's kind of expensive. Okay. Short-term leases tend to be like three to six months. Right. Those are in Brussels and they tend to be for like, you know, diplomats and people working for the government. Okay. Those are very accessible in Brussels, but in the village, it's hard to find places. You might have to find like a overly expensive Airbnb until you kind of meet people and figure out. Okay. You got to get the lay of the land. Someone knows someone. Exactly. Once you start meeting people, you know, they're like, oh, my parents are renting out this house, you know. Okay. And they would never do Airbnb. Yeah. Okay. And then as far as like trying to find a remote job, our audience might be interested in this. So are there certain remote jobs that, yeah, they're remote, but no, as long as you're in the United States, are there certain remote jobs that only will let you be remote internationally? Um, so I am technically an American working in America with an American tax address, which is here in Nevada. It's a UPS store. And so therefore I can, when I work remotely, I can only go to Europe for within those same constraints, three months at a time. Okay. To do, to work somewhere where you can live longer than that, you have to obtain, um, you have to obtain a visa. No, no. I was thinking, I'm wondering if the, the employee visa, cares if you're in the United States or if they're worried about like security and on the internet in a different country? That's a good question. Usually what they care about are taxes and taxes and breaking visa regulations, which is why I went there. But I think most companies have advanced VPNs. Oh, okay. As long as you can get on that. And they wrap up the security. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. In fact, for me, having the VPN made it really difficult to do things like basically do anything online when I was in Montenegro or Bosnia. I kept on getting like, your bank does not, you know, allow this location. Oh, right. Because you're, yeah, it says like you're in America and they're like, why would Americans be hacking into our accounts here? All companies are going to want to make sure that you've got all of the VPNs and the two-factor authentication on anything you're using for work for your mobile devices.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Got it. For sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:How was it with the internet and trying to work and, you know, if it was tricky or not tricky? It was tricky. And I'm sure it's like, well, I guess I'm just not going to be able to work here for a couple days or a week or a month or something like that. It was tricky. There were a couple of places that said they had internet and they didn't. And so what I had to do was in both locations, I was able to find a co-working space that wasn't more than like 40 minutes away, drive away. And so that's what I always did. Yeah, it was really hard in places in Portugal. Oh, okay. I have Portugal's like digital nomad haven. Well, because of that, there were a lot of co-working places. You know, if you were anywhere near a big city, which again, if you're willing to drive 45 minutes, it's a small country. Yeah. So you can find those places. Every time it rained really hard in Montenegro, which was pretty much all the time we were there. Like the sun would come out like twice a week. We'd be like, get on your bikes, go, go, go. We'd lose power and like not be able to get into our apartment building and like our... You know, our Airbnb host was like, no, no, no, it runs on battery. It still lets you in when power is out. We're like, we're telling you that we can't get into our own apartment building. That was kind of stressful. And I had a whole bunch of interviews, you know, and it would always be like, oh my God, is it going to rain? Is it not going to rain? And the rain, I mean, like you couldn't, like one of them I had to reschedule. I had to reschedule an interview because the rain was so bad that I couldn't even drive. I couldn't even drive on the highway. There was standing water that was feet deep everywhere. The rain was insane. I guess that's just winter weather for the Mediterranean. What do you call that? The Dalmatian coast? Because Montenegro is next to Croatia, so it's like the next little loop in the coastline there. But I was not expecting that at all.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. It is really stressful. It's really stressful when you're somewhere and you can't work and you need to be working. Yes. That's why I'm always like, do I want to try to work remotely? I'm like, I'm thinking maybe more. I'm going to try to get myself set up so I can take three months off at a time or even just a month off and then go somewhere, come back and then plan another trip for one or two months. Especially in Asia, I think with the time difference and everything, I definitely think I want to just take a break and rather than trying to work remotely. Well, and even when I wasn't working, I teach English to Ukrainians online. Oh, okay. And so I always felt like there was always something I needed to do and needed to be online for, whether it was like networking calls or webinars or teaching English or job interviews. I never really felt like I could truly be off the grid.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:I could see that. It does make it stressful. Yeah. How did you get the teaching jobs in English? That sounds kind of fun. We were looking at all the volunteering in Ukraine. I think that's the name of the website. Although my husband, he's volunteering with the Ukrainian Bicycle Project, which actually he found through a different route online. He just sent him an email and was like, hey, I'm a bike mechanic. Can I help you build bikes? They're like, yes. Because volunteering in Ukraine, it had all kinds of options and some of them were remote. And that's how I found it. And I signed up and I got trained and I love it. I have three students. They're all women in their 40s. I have an economist, a computer science teacher and an attorney. And they're learning English so they can find a job outside Ukraine as refugees. Wow. Oh, my gosh. Good for you. That's awesome. It's amazingly more helpful than I thought it would be, you know, to help them. That's very neat. That's incredible. What would you say are your three favorite places and why? My first favorite place is Belgium. My second favorite place is Montenegro. And my third favorite place is Poland. Is Poland? Yeah. What was your three favorite foods? There's a food that they eat in, we call it Serbia land. Because, you know, it doesn't really matter what country you're in. Like the ethnicity of a lot of these same people are Serbs. They have something called Ivar, which is ground bell peppers and eggplant. And sometimes they put spicy peppers in it. And it is just absolutely. How do you spell that? In the Romantic alphabet. Or just like Ivar, like with Victor, the I-V-A-R? V-A-J-V-A-R.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, that sounds right. Ground peppers and eggplant. That sounds like something I would love. I've never heard of that before. So incredible. And then, you know, just all the little farmer's markets in Montenegro, like the little vegetable mongers, there was like, you know, like one of them every city block, basically, just with like all these amazing fresh vegetables. The peppers, especially in that part of the world, were just incredible. Yeah. Mild? And spicy, the whole gamut. Okay. Yep, everything in between. And, of course, you could get, like, persimmons for, like, you know, pennies, you know, for, like, a massive, huge bag of them. Those are so good. I love those. And then I really like the Spanish food. I love any place. And Portuguese, too. I love any place where you sit down and they give you a bowl of olives, you know, as soon as you sit down.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:And I really, really like the fish that they have in Portugal. Yeah. The famous fish dishes. I know that that whole region of the world is famous for like their Iberian ham. And I certainly ate a lot of that stuff, like all their smoked sausage and everything. We lived in Andorra. But, you know, we really started to just crave like fresh food, you know, amazing fresh fish.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:All of them are incredible. They just came off someone's tree. And then also, you know, The thing I love the most about Europe, and it doesn't matter where you go in Europe, you're going to find it, is just the bread. Oh, okay. So good. And I don't mean the white bread. I mean like the brown, whole grain bread. Uh-huh. So fresh. So fresh. And it's cheap. And what was your favorite dessert from what country? If you had to pick one dessert, what would that be? Oh. That's a tough one because I don't eat a lot of dessert. I usually have to choose between dessert and beer. What's your favorite beer then? What was your favorite beer if you had to pick one? Oh, well, you know, I'm a huge devotee. My Belgian friends would scoff at me, but I think Leffe, the Belgian beer, which is one of the few kinds you can get over here in the United States. And we actually found some in like a French store. grocery store at Andorra. We were so happy. You know, it was like Spanish, Portuguese, Italian beer. It's all like very light, you know, beer. It's all really light. And so we're really happy every time we can find a left. And I also had a rule that I couldn't drink any Belgian beer where I hadn't been to the actual town, usually the cathedral and been to left. My second one was Iname, E-N-A-M-E, which was also a cathedral town. And that was from Flanders where, where we lived.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, sounds good. It's all the same. It's all Belgian blondes. You know, it's all very strong, like 6.6. Yeah. It's all so, so, so good. And then I just, I love the Belgian chocolate too. Coffee or tea? Nini coffee? Coffee. Coffee. Nice. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Marianne. This was so much fun. Oh, my gosh. We could talk forever. I have so many questions. I mean, it just opens your people who are listening's mind of just a different type of adventure because a lot of people will talk about one country, but someone who's actually really doing it, which I want to do as well, along with taking you backpacking, obviously. It's happening. Oh, it will happen. I'll have to tell my new employers, you know, like, look, I got a problem with August, you know. Exactly. For sure. But thank you so much, Marianne, for just this wonderful discussion about your adventures and exploring with you, your husband, your dog, and your bikes, right? Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm honored that you're interested in my stories. Yes, for sure. Well, have a great weekend, and I'm sure we'll be talking very soon. Nice to meet you, Marianne. Take care.
SPEAKER_01:Bye. Bye.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, Can you please take a second and do a quick follow of the show and rate us in your podcast app? And if you have a minute, we would really appreciate a review. Following and rating is the best way to support us. If you're on Instagram, let's connect. We're at where next podcast. Thanks again.
