Nicole Staples on Following Your Dreams

Have you ever thought about traveling to the other side of the world to just work, eat, sleep, travel, and see new things just because you can? Listen, if you're like me, you haven't really done that. Maybe you've been working or kids or whatever, but I got friends who do those kinds of things, and I can't wait to share my friend Nicole Staples with you too. In February of '22, you decided to go abroad and live for a little bit.

To live, yeah.

Why do you keep putting in the air quotes?

I don't know.

I guess it's— Because you didn't stay forever?

I guess I didn't. I don't know. I don't know.

But you went planning to be gone for—

It was a temporary live situation.

What was the original plan?

The original plan was really for like 5 weeks, 6 weeks. Just to backtrack a little bit, I, in July, I had, um, 21, of 21, I had a cousin of mine mention that she was going to Paris for like 3 months. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so jealous, that's so cool, I want to do that. She's like, why can't you? I was like, because I have— and I had no excuses. Like, I had a— I had a roommate. You were ready. Well, because I always had a job where I couldn't just get up and go. So So at this point I had a remote job and I was working for myself. So I, I just needed good Wi-Fi basically. So she mentioned it. And then like maybe a couple weeks later, a friend of mine said that her and her family were moving to France to be missionaries. And I was like, okay, that's the second time. Maybe I could go and visit her. And then after a while I was like, you know what, let me just go see, like I could go in February. February was my birthday. So I was like, It'll just be like a nice little 6-week type thing and I'll come back and it'll be business as usual. And I was looking at the map, you know, just Paris and seeing all the other countries and how close in proximity they were. And I was like, well, what if I just do like a group tour? You know how they'll take you around to all the cities and all that stuff? What if I just do that? Or what if I just, and then it just kind of spiraled. And turned into, I think, like 8 or 9 months.

Are you a pretty safe person?

I take calculated risks.

Okay. So do you feel like this trip for you was a calculated risk? Like you, because you had it planned out, you were able to do it?

I wouldn't even call it a risk though.

Now or then too? Like, is it not a risk because you've done it or did it not feel like a risk before?—

It felt a little scary.

Yeah.

I don't feel like I was risking anything.

Okay.

It just felt— I just— just the unknown again. So just nervous and like, okay, what am I going to expect? And yeah.

Okay. So you're single. You are at a place where you work for yourself. You can work remote from anywhere with good Wi-Fi. And I'm gonna go overseas. And we go from 6 weeks into many, many months. But when you left, you knew it was gonna be many months.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, 'cause it just kept like, I wanna be here longer.

Every day was planned out. And I knew where, by the time I left, I knew exactly where I was staying. The only thing that I didn't have totally planned out was like certain air travel, flights or transportation from one country to the next. I knew how to do it. I knew how I was gonna get from one to the next, but I didn't purchase the ticket yet or— 'Cause I mean, it was like 6 months later or 7 months later. Okay.

So how did you even decide, like, how did you decide where you wanted to go?

Literally, I had a map and I would just play. So I was like, ooh, I wanna go here. I would like to go here. Everything was— in Western Europe for the most part. So then what I had to do was just figure out the smartest way to get from one to the other instead of like jumping from this country to the next. Like, is there a train?

Is there a— were you looking at transportation?

Transportation, yes. How easy transportation was from one country to the next. And then that it just made sense. I wasn't going to London and then Italy, and then Paris, you know.

I was— You just challenged somebody's geography right there. I was trying to challenge myself. They're like, London and Paris ain't next door to each other? Okay.

They are.

But you wouldn't go to Italy then come back.

Yeah, so I went to London, then Paris, 'cause it was like right there. And then the next stop was Switzerland 'cause it's right there. And then what did I do after? Croatia.

Croatia.

Thank you, Croatia. And then, I did a couple days at Lake Como and met up with a friend there, and then Italy, and then back up to France.

So you do realize that as you're talking about this trip that you took overseas by yourself where you went to London and Paris and Italy and Croatia and all these different places, this is the dream trip. Yeah. That like a lot of people say.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I wish I could go.

I said that for a long time too. And I, for me, for me, it was just timing. The seasons you're going through in life, that dream is there, may not happen tomorrow, but yeah, it was just timing.

Could you have done it earlier? Do you wish you had done it earlier or shifted things in your life to make room for it earlier? This was good timing.

Mhm. It just seemed like it fit.

Okay.

Like it fit. Yeah. I didn't have to move major mountains or anything like that to do it.

So, okay. So you're making your trip, you pull out a map.

Yeah.

You knew you wanted to go.

I had some place— you knew you wanted to go, influenced by friends because they had gone and you're like, okay. Literally, they were going as I was planning. They had gone, posted pictures.

I was like, oh, Well, let me see where this is at. So you started with the known and then were like, where else could I go?

Yeah, there were some other defining factors too, um, like, um, we're getting very technical, but, um, with a U.S. visa you can only stay 90 days.

This, by the way, is all very cryptic to me. Like, when people— I mean, I feel like I'm about to sound really ridiculous, but when people go overseas— or for that matter, when people come to live here, the whole visa, work visa, what you're here to do. I mean, on this side of town, it's like green card. Like, I just don't understand any of it. It's just like, can you go? How long can you stay? What are the rules that give you permission to be there longer than, like, all of that? So, like, was that hard to navigate? Or as soon as you Google, is it right there and easy to understand?

I was learning as I was going. I had a nice little note document in my phone, computer, whatever, and I would just drag and drop information and then have to put all that information together to make it make sense, to make it make sense, to make sure I wasn't gonna get kicked out of a country because I was a little worried about that. Were you really?

I was like, okay, I hope she knew what she was doing. Is she gonna get over there?

Yeah, so I'll explain. And I'll explain what I know. So there's this like a zone called the Schengen zone, and it's basically you can travel from one country— Never heard of it. One country. I learned this as of 2 years ago.

Okay.

You can travel throughout the countries without having to show your passport, just like we could travel through the United States. Yeah. There are some countries that you cannot.

Yeah.

And within that Schengen zone, you can only stay 90 days within a 180-day period if you don't have like a visa, a special type of visa. I just had my U.S. passport.

So 90 days in the zone or 90 days in any one place in the zone?

In the zone.

Okay. You can only be in the zone.

Yes.

With 180 days.

So I had to break up that 180 days and I had to find a country that wasn't a part of the Schengen zone to go out. Yes.

To stay gone for enough time.

Yes.

To come back in.

Yeah. So that's why I was in Croatia for 2 months. But now, as of I think at the beginning of the year, Croatia is now part of the Schengen Zone, so that wouldn't have worked for me.

Um, spell that.

That's the case.

Schengen. Schengen.

S-C-H-E-N-G-E-N.

Okay, okay. So, okay, so you went over there. Okay, and, and just, just ignorant, right? Just ignorant. Maybe because I'm a Gen Xer. But all I remember is wars in Croatia. That's all I know is wars in Croatia, which were not recent. No, I'm just saying, when you said you were going to Croatia, I was like, is it safe over there?

Let me tell you something, the amount of research that I do, um, I was on YouTube, I was on—

which is a whole thing, you— there's a whole education for travel abroad on YouTube, 110%.

That I went to YouTube University and that helped me with like calming my fears of how do I maneuver through this train station or how do I do this or the subways or tube, whatever you wanna call it. How do I, just any question I had right down to, and I hope I don't sound crazy, but I found out where my Airbnb was in one of the countries. And there are people that do walking tours of an area, different cities. Uh-huh.

So you could know where you were going to stay. And before you got there, you knew where the coffee shop was.

They drove up. I said, that one right there, please. Thank you. Drop me off right there. Like it wasn't a question. I knew exactly where I was going. This was Florence.

Wait, people just straight up like a walking tour of a certain area of a city? So like that specific?

Yeah. For instance, London.

Yeah.

They'll walk around the city of London. It could be like a 1-hour video, 2-hour videos, and they'll just have a camera and you could just see the streets and everywhere they walk. Yeah. So I did that for almost every city that I could.

Have you thought about doing anything with all the photos and the videos that you've collected?

Oh yes.

Okay.

It's just overwhelming. I don't know what to do. I have ideas, but I don't know what to do. I don't know where to land this plane. Yeah.

With all the stuff you've collected? Yeah. I mean—

I've had a lot of great—

You did.

Just so many great memories. Just going through, I'm like, oh, look what, oh, it just, yeah. Videos and pictures and—

'Cause you could be a walking tour, is what I'm saying.

Oh, yeah.

Or at least of your experience. Okay, so you plan it out. Yeah. You think about where you'd like to go.

Yeah.

Where you have to go. Yeah. Based on the length of your visa.

Yeah.

And also, now, Did you, was it challenging to, okay, lemme start with this 'cause this is what a lot of people are gonna wanna know. You went by yourself. Now you're an introvert, a very strong, deep introvert. I have my moments. You do. I'm talking. Yeah, I'm saying you do. But so being alone was not a problem.

Mm-mm.

Did you get lonely?

There were times, homesick more so.

Okay.

To see and feel, touch.

People you know.

Yeah. But not lonely. And what I did, um, Facebook had a lot of groups, like for instance, for Paris, expats in Paris, there's a group for that, or, you know, foreigners in Paris. So I joined those groups and they always had meetups.

So this is different than meetups because there's meetups.

Oh, I don't know.

Yeah, it's a whole thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

And, um, like, they were all hanging out there.

And you just searched on Facebook? Mm-hmm. Okay.

I searched, I followed, um, some of them, and some of them you could see, mm, no. And then some were just active enough to where, you know, there were a lot of different people there and had a lot of meetups at coffee shops or dinners or parks or, you know, picnics and things like that. And I went to a couple of them, um, more than a couple of them, and just met friends that way that I'm still in touch with now. But it was great to have just people that you can do stuff with while you're there.

And you weren't in your introvertedness afraid to meet people you didn't know or weirded out about connecting with people you didn't know?

No.

Okay.

So can that meter of introvert move a little bit now?

Well, but you're just happy to be by yourself.

I do enjoy it a lot.

And I'm not mad.

I'm not mad.

And I totally understand.

So I have my moments where I was like, yeah, I can— I mean, just when you're exploring and stuff, you just, you know, it's cool to do it with other people.

'Cause the big reason why people won't travel abroad, forget travel abroad, the big reason why people won't travel by themselves, women won't travel by themselves, is because they're afraid. They're afraid, like scared to be, like literally, can I manage this? What you mentioned, am I gonna miss the train, miss the plane? They're scared to be by themselves. Am I gonna be alone? What happens if I don't have anybody to talk to? They're scared that they won't know the rules. You know, it's like, I mean, all things that you navigated and planned for. And I think what's notable about your trip, even though lots of people do it, is that you're not like a, like you said, you're a calculated risk taker. I don't think you're gonna join me jumping out of a plane.

I've already done it.

Wait, but no.

For my 30th birthday, yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

So you discovered that it was more likely you'd die in a car accident than jumping out the plane. Calculated, calculated risk.

I love that thrill.

Okay.

And I mean, what's the rate that— I didn't do that research. The rate of people—

he told me when you were jumping, he told me, he said, he said, he said, are you nervous? I said yes. I said, I hope I make it home to my kids. And he said, well, he said, oh, you might have a greater chance of dying on the way home in your car getting back to your kids than you will jumping out of this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, I did that.

And then you flew off the mountain in Switzerland.

That was— what do they call it?

Paragliding. Paragliding.

Yes. That was fun. That was a lot of fun.

Are you strapped in there good?

I was strapped in there good. And it's different than skydiving. You never get that drop feeling.

No, you just coast.

You're literally on this hill and you got to run.

Are you sitting or are you laying?

I mean, it's a little seat. No, you're sitting. I'm sitting.

Okay.

Yeah. I mean, you're standing and then when It picks up. It's just like a seat that just pops up. So you're just running. He's like, keep running, keep running.

You were in the front or the back?

The front. Oh, and then you just kind of literally just sail.

Okay, wait. So you have to run off the edge of the mountain.

I ran for all of 15 seconds, but— oh, yes, it's a hill. No, no, no. It's a nice little—

oh, okay. So at a certain point, the wind picks you up.

Yeah.

You're not like, I was like, that's It's not good.

No, no, I think you'd like it.

Oh, parasailing or Europe in general? Both.

Paragliding, parasailing.

Parasailing, paragliding. Yeah, parasailing is when you're above the ocean. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that because you dip below and when they want to be funny, they let you dip into the water and that's not funny.

Yeah, paragliding.

Yeah, paragliding.

Okay, you'll like it.

Other favorite memories? Think about every place you went and pick a favorite memory from each of those places.

Okey dokey dokey. London. London. It was just walking through the city. I really liked it. I love architecture and design. So just seeing all the old buildings, I think for all of Europe, that was one of my biggest, biggest, like, oh gosh, this is so cool type moments. But for London, yeah, London. And then also, Got to see a friend of ours, Aunt Ruth Ann, and she took great care of me and showed me all around. She exhausted me.

Yes, she definitely exhausted me. If you wanna see London—

Forget a tour guide.

Don't get a tour guide. Just call me and ask me to give you Aunt Ruth's number because at 70-plus—

She's younger than me.

That's all I have to say. She is gonna take you all around that city. You'll be worn out.

I was so tired. And Oxford was beautiful.

Beautiful.

Oh gosh, yeah. Yeah. So that was the beginning of my road trip. And I was like, this is so great.

Did you go into a bookstore in Oxford at all? Any bookstore?

No. There was one I wanted to go to, but it was closed off to the general public and only built for students.

If you go back, when you go back, you got to— there's nothing like a bookstore.

In Oxford.

In Oxford. Yeah.

I'll put it on my list. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. OK. OK. Next city.

Paris. Again, the architecture. I would walk everywhere. It wasn't, I was there for 6 weeks and it wasn't until like the last 2 weeks of my stay that I started taking, yeah. Like a couple of days.

'Cause you didn't wanna miss anything.

I didn't, I walked everywhere. The Eiffel Tower, it took me maybe about an hour to get there, but it was just, there was just so much to see.

Yeah.

So much to see, yeah. So I would say—

Is that your favorite in Paris? The apple tower?

The bistries. Oh no, no, no. I don't have a— I don't know if I have a favorite building, but the food.

I was about to say, let's go back to the food because really my mom would, when she would go to Europe, she would say, "I know there's a problem with American food because I can eat the food in Europe." It doesn't cause me any trouble. I can drink milk in Europe, she would say. I come over here, my body's like, we can't handle that. But it handled it just fine in Europe.

The amount of cheese I ate.

Listen.

The amount of cheese I ate.

And the bread and the croissants are actually different. Yeah. Yeah. It's different. Yeah.

What I did, I found, I went to, when I went to Paris, I went to several different like coffee shops and bakeries and things like that. And I found a couple that were my favorite with like just the staff being really nice and I would always go back. So it just felt like—

And you were their little American visitor.

I guess so.

Did they know your name?

One did. Yes, one did and knew my order. Yeah, yeah.

You were in Paris long enough for the local—

And the place was downstairs from where I was staying.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, it was really bad.

You liked Croatia a lot.

Sort of.

But you told me, you said at one point you said that was your favorite.

No, I never said it was my favorite.

You were like, I wanted to stay here longer. No. Am I making— messing this up with another one? Italy.

It's Florence. It's Florence.

Okay.

Has to be.

Go ahead, tell me about Florence.

Oh, um, it was just really cool. It checked off a lot of the boxes that like community. I found community there, like a few friends. Found an English-speaking church there, which I thought was really cool.

That's when I got scared. I was like, oh Lord, shit, I found a church.

Listen, I was there like, how can I make this work? How can I make this work?

Come on, Jesus is in Italy.

Yes. And the pastor is from like Kansas City or something like that. I was like, this is This is— how can I make this work? How long were you there? 4 weeks there.

Okay.

The food was great. Again, pastas, gelato.

But then you're walking everywhere.

I am walking everywhere. Yeah, I did. Yeah, I walked everywhere.

And Italy gelato is different than American gelato. It's just different.

Let me tell you something.

Let me tell you something.

Yes.

Let me tell you something.

The answer is yes. Whatever the question is, the answer is yes.

It is.

And the people were just so kind. They're really kind, very hospitable. And then the arts, arts, all the art that's there.

Meaning you went to museums?

Museums, yeah. There's people on the sidewalks painting and it's just, it was encour— it seemed like it was like just encouraged. It was just part of the—

So let me ask you about that. So culturally, yes. Yeah. Culturally, when you got back home to the US, um, if— I mean, I know we can't talk too much about too much in generalizations, but when you're in Europe for months and months as you were, and then you come back to the US, what felt hard environmentally, culturally.

Okay, work at the pace that we go is pretty fast. Um, a lot of places overseas, it just wasn't like that, and I enjoyed that slow pace, just taking everything in, and it's just a slow pace, um, that I really enjoyed. Yeah, but coming back, when I decided to come back—

What made you decide to come back?

It was a couple of things. Like, I felt like I got— I did everything that— like, I got a good run out of this when I was— 'cause I— let me back up. I was planning to stay until January 2023 and ended up leaving, like, the end of October. And it just happened where I was like, I'm good. This was a lot of fun. I'm good. I miss my bed, friends, family. I was starting to miss that a lot to the point where like a FaceTime wasn't really holding on.

So you started feeling— did you feel it? How long did you start feeling like, I'm ready, before you were like, I'm going home?

About 3 weeks.

Okay.

About 3 weeks. Yeah.

Did it get to the point of yuck or just like, it's time?

It's time.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

It wasn't yuck. It was just this time.

So when you get back home, you notice that the pace is different. What else?

I can't eat cheese. I can't enjoy cheese.

'Cause it doesn't taste as good or it doesn't agree with you?

It doesn't, like, it doesn't agree with me at all.

And you had lots of cheese in Europe.

Yeah.

You going back?

I would love to. I don't know if it would look the same as what I did before. Or if it would be the same loca— like, in my mind I'm thinking I would love to go to the same spots that I went to before, but there's just so much more out there to see. But I just liked the familiarity of going back to some of the places that I was in before. And yeah. Yeah.

Well, you can go back and then you can mix it up. I can go back. You can maybe out of the places you went, you can—

Of course.

—add a few new places in. Yeah. Hey there, it's Chrystal Hurst. I'm interrupting your regularly scheduled programming to share a a little bit of news with you. First of all, I'm so glad you're here. If you haven't already subscribed to this video or liked it or left me a comment or something, let me know you're here. Second of all, I want to make sure that you know that I'm not only putting out videos right or podcasts right or I'm on social right. You do know I have an email list. Let me tell you why you need to be on it, because when I launch stuff— and I'm about to launch some stuff— the first people I tell are the people that are on my email list. So you want to go to chrystalevanshurst.com, and right below my picture, you'll see a spot to put your first name and your email. Y'all, I got stuff coming. Black Friday is coming. The end of the year is coming. Uh, let me just give you a little nuance. If you didn't already know, I make a planner. Not only did they sell out last year, but also we made them prettier. And so when they're gone, they're gone. So you want to be among one of the first people to know, not only what I say in general, but when these beautiful planners arrive and are available for you to purchase. Can't say I didn't tell you. All right, y'all, back to the conversation with Nicole. Now you should go somewhere. Plan to go somewhere. Okay. We kind of dilly-dallied around it a little bit. We talked about visas. We talked about the 90 days in the, what is it, Schengen zone? Nice try.

I'm close. Schengen.

See, look at you, got specific ways to say things. You think you fancy.

E-N.

Schengen.

Yeah.

Okay, I got it. But if someone were to say, because somebody's sitting here like, oh, this sounds— I've thought about it, like I should go. And they work remote. They're like, there's no reason for me not to go. But the barriers of how long can I go? How can I afford this? Kind of walk through if you were going to tell somebody, hey, you want to go overseas, these are the steps. Or think about it for you, the next time I go, these are the steps that I'm going to go in. So first of all, you— well, just the basics of 1, 2, 3, go live in Europe for a minute.

Okay, figure out where you want to go. And I say that lightly because I've met people that just get to one location and figure it out after that. I can't do that. There's absolutely no way.

You know who did that? I'd go stir crazy. My cousin Danica.

That's a— she and a friend, they left.

I know people that can do that. And they would go to every city and stay until they were done, get jobs and everything. Oh, wow. The whole while planning for the next place. And then they would go to the next place and then they would stay, get like a job at a coffee shop, something, and did that for a year and a half. I had no plans. I would love that to do.

I would love to do that with someone else.

Okay, so you do want a friend?

Well, if I'm going to just be winging it for sure, I don't want to bear the burden all by myself of trying to figure out where to go next. Okay, so plan where you want to go. For me, I'll just say what I ended up doing. Once I decided that I was— it wasn't going to be 6 weeks, it was going to be much longer than that. One of the reasons why I picked February, it was of course my birthday month, but it was also when the lease for my apartment was ending. So it was just a perfect break. And I put everything in storage. Once I realized this was gonna be more than 6 weeks, I put everything in storage. Of course, didn't renew the lease. And the money that I would've been paying for my rent, I'm paying for, Airbnbs. Yeah, somewhere else. So you're not double paying for that. And then planning ahead helped out a lot because you could just find better deals that way.

That was one of the— just shopping around for the best Airbnb kind of thing.

Yeah, Airbnb, even flights. If you book far in advance, sometimes even for trains, it's much cheaper.

Yeah. So the flight situation. Yeah. Like looking for the cheapest flight, were you just, were there, are there certain rules or certain things? Like, you know, you hear about book flights on this certain day.

She was savvy with that. You just looked around and poked around. I just kept looking. So if I hit one of those book on these cheap dates, date, that was just by accident. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't planning for that. I did like from the US to Europe, of course, you know, the major airlines and then there's other airlines overseas as well.

But— Did you fly in the back of the plane when you went across? On the cross? When you went across the pond.

Across the back.

Did you fly in the back of the plane?

No, I splurged, y'all. This is what I did. I said, you know what? We're going business.

But I did it with points. So I saved up my points and bought a business class Laid down, went to sleep, and woke up in London. Was it amazing? It was great. Did you at least stay up a little bit to enjoy the—

Oh yeah, yeah.

Let them serve you. You gotta let them serve you.

I got the warm towel, all the food.

Were you awake for the cookie? Did they serve you dinner? Did they give you the warm chocolate chip cookie?

I don't remember what my dessert was. But you had one. Oh, trust. I made sure I got everything that was included.

When they got on the plane, they said, would you like some orange juice or champagne? Mm-hmm. Did you get both? Did you mix it?

What did I do? No, it was just purely champagne, y'all. I was leaving the country. Oh, I was like, yay!

Okay, I was so excited. Decide where you want to go. Yeah, poke around, plan, because planning saves you money.

Unless you want to wing it, then wing it. Wing it for sure. Um, planning definitely saved me money. I had everything mapped out. Um, again, Safety was an issue.

And how did you plan for being safe? Like, nobody's with you, so what were your safety measures?

What were my safety measures? What I did, um, I always had my headphones in but nothing on. So if people were, you know, catcalling or things like that, I could not hear them. I hear them, but I can pretend that I'm not hearing them. Also, when I had my navigation on my phone like if I'm walking somewhere to avoid looking lost, again, I would have my headphones in and not looking at my phone all the time and just don't look lost basically. But that was one of the little hacks that I did to do that. Everyone knew where, I had a group of friends that knew where I was at all times. I had shared my location with them and I would check in in the morning check in at night with them upon their request because they were also very nervous. I was like, "I'm fine." But they wanted to hear from me before I went to bed and wanted to hear from me when I woke up. So I was like, "That's cool." But I had shared my location. And then also, I forgot the website. I believe it's the US Embassy. But you can, if you're overseas, you can let them know where you are. Um, what country you're in, contact information, so if anything were to happen, they can get in touch with you if you need to get back over to the States. Um, war, stuff like that. Yeah, so those were some of my safety—

Did you plan out all the things you wanted to— like, you planned out your Airbnb, your flights, where you wanted to go. Did you plan out the things you wanted to see?

Yeah, so what I did was I just started creating folders in Instagram. You know, when people will post all their videos of travel. Yes. It's like, "Oh, that looks nice." I would add it to a folder and then just kind of map everything out, or not map everything out, but list everything and then just see if it was really something I was interested in. And so I would say 80% of the time I knew what I was doing. And then other days I would just leave and walk around and—

So you planned to paraglide? Oh, I sure did. Yeah, like you picked the company out, you knew you're gonna go, the whole thing. Yeah. What was the greatest surprise of something you didn't necessarily plan?

I don't know. Um, you know what I loved? There were times where I, you know, packing up from one location and going to the next was also always very stressful for me. It always made me very anxious because you're just going to a new place and just as soon as you get comfortable, it's time to pack up and go. And I would always just pray, just get me there from point A to point B, just get me there. But I always had people that would come, like, if I was lost or didn't know what to do, somebody would literally just point me in the right direction and keep walking. It would always just—

probably used to people Probably coming backpacking. Yeah, probably.

But everyone was just like— I didn't have any bad experiences really.

So what would you do differently? What would I do differently?

Uh, what would I do differently? I— y'all, I missed my bed. I really missed my And what kind of bed you have?

I mean, is it a special bed?

No, but just being in my own space, you know? Okay. So if I were to do it different, I would just have—

because you know I need to know what kind of mattress she got. Nothing special. I'm in the mattress zone right now.

Nothing special.

Yeah, you got a purple? You got an avocado?

No, I have an apple, a pear, a banana. No, well, you're naming fruits. I know those are companies, but Right? I was like, there's an Applebee's? No. Right. The apple apple. What was I saying? I would have a home base and then launch off for a month.

Meaning Airbnb home base? No. What do you mean?

My home base, home base. Yeah. Like in the, my home here in the United States. What does that mean? A place to come back to. Yeah, yeah. So what I would do is I've got my place here. I would go travel for a month, come back, lay in my bed, go back out maybe another month later.

Okay, but that's vacation and that's not living.

Well, so then what was your question?

No, I'm saying, so you would change? You wouldn't want to go and just live?

No, it's still a long travel if I'm going for like a month at a time. It's not like a 3-day weekend.

I know, but did you start to feel like I live over here a little bit?

Over there? Yeah. I did. In some places I did. Yeah.

But— What about the airfare of doing that? I mean— You got it like that?

No, I do not. I feel like it will work out if I make a plan.

Okay. So go for extended visits. Extended visits.

Come back home, take a breather. Yeah. And then go back out again. You know, I just didn't like traveling with so much stuff. I traveled with—

Okay. Okay, yeah, I get that.

Literally all seasons worth of clothing, um, for the most part, you know.

What about the people that go over and they take a little carry-on or they backpack across Europe for months with just a little backpack? You took your stuff?

Uh-huh, I sure did. I took my stuff, um, and some things I was like, Nicole, you do not need that. And I didn't use it, but mentally it would have it just brought comfort to have. Yeah, to have your stuff. Yeah, so packing lighter would be one, but yeah. Do you feel like it's doable?

'Cause one of the things you said before was your lease ended, so you had the money that would've been going towards your rent going towards travels and Airbnbs. So if you're doing that, do you feel like the financial part of that would be easy, not stressful?

I haven't gotten that far. I just know what I—

what you would want to do next. Yeah. How was working the different time schedules? I love—

I loved it, um, because the US was about 7 hours behind. So, um, the majority of the time I would maybe do like a small chunk of work in the morning, and it would be great because clients would get their stuff before they even woke up. So I felt so accomplished. And then by the time they respond, evening has hit.

So you had your days. Yeah.

So I did a lot of exploring during the day. I didn't go out at night a lot. Yeah. Simply because just— Safety. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.

What did you learn about you?

Oh, gosh. Anything?

While you're off by yourself journeying across foreign lands.

I wouldn't say me, what I've learned about me, but what I learned about just because fear tends to make me pause, of course, like, or stop me from doing something. But it's usually the fear of the unknown. And once I got into the situation, I realized I was fully equipped to troubleshoot. To serve it on its own. Yeah. So it was the, just knowing when you get to that stage, you'll be fully equipped. And if you're not, somebody next to you will be. There's always— yeah.

Has that changed in any way the way you operate in your life? Like, has it— you know, sometimes you have experiences in your life and that experience changes the way you operate. Like, Have you seen any greater confidence with working for yourself or the decisions that you make? Like, has it had an impact?

You know, I don't know if it fully stems from that trip, but just resting in the goodness of God when it comes to just, maybe it's hurdles that you have, things that you're facing, knowing his track record. I mean, for some, like sometimes it would just be the smallest thing that I hadn't even prayed. Or I just said it under my breath, not thinking it was an official prayer, and getting that answered, it just kept reminding me that he hears. So even if it was something just so small, like, "Lord, help me get on this train with all this luggage, and there's so many other people. Like, am I even gonna make it on with my luggage?" type stuff, and something always just happens. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Do you have a memory of any God wigs?

I do, but let me see.

I think one of the best things is when you are far away from what you know in life and what makes you comfortable, regardless of where you are, and kind of what you were just saying, like he's just got you and he has— there's just little ways where he shows you, reminds you, "Hey, I got your back"?

It would just, it was really just within the kindness of people that I really saw it. It was just, I don't know, I'm still processing to this day. Like, I really need to process. Part of me is like, "Oh, that was just so much fun. I can't wait to do that again." And, but yeah. He— yeah, yeah, I get it. I don't know, I'm literally just processing right now, trying to figure out.

Well, that's good. I, I know what you're talking about. I got— I was supposed to fly from Dallas to Heathrow, Heathrow to, uh, where was I supposed to go? Amsterdam, something like that. Anyway, whatever happened in Heathrow, I missed the flight. So I'm sitting in the airport and the flight I was supposed to catch was at 7 AM. The flight is at 8:30. I can't get through the checkpoint. Something was wrong with my ticket. End up missing the flight. And I'm standing there at 7:45 in the morning. I can't get to the gate. They won't let me through. And, um, they said the next flight is at 10 o'clock at night. PM. And I was like, okay, I mean, I could sit in the Advantage Club all day, that's fine. But then I was like, I didn't come all this way to sit in the club. And I thought but this is Europe. Like, all of my life I've heard Europe is easy to get around, there's a train everywhere, whatever. And I thought— so I started doing the math and I'm like, I think I can do it. So I ended up taking— I took a train from Heathrow to— I can't think of the name of the station, starts with a P. But then from that station I took another train, I took the Eurostar underneath the English Channel, through the French countryside, and ended up taking another train. I mean, like, I took 3 trains. A lot of luggage. So it's just a whole thing. They told me to bring a carry-on. I did bring the carry-on. I did bring the carry-on. And then they said in a small backpack, because Europe is not trying to have your big luggage. They are. Okay, so I brought a big carry-on. The big carry-on was like a tote that was bigger than my carry-on suitcase. So me trying to bring this— it was just a mess. It was— that part was a mess. But the point is, when I got to the last, uh, train station and didn't know where I was going, it was like what you were saying. It was this man, did not speak any English, but he could tell that I was lost. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she's gonna kidnap me. But then But he was just like, he just kept following me and pointing and following me and then like got me where I needed to be, pointed to the Uber drivers and, you know, did this and walked off and said, "Have fun." It was just, it was this, sorry, spit all over you. He was Black, he was short, he was bald. He just looked like a dumpling. He looks like super, super sweet. But he just kind of signaled. He was like, "Come on, like I'll show you." And I just followed him 'cause I legit didn't know when the train got to the station where I was supposed to go. And it dawned on me then, don't nobody speak English in here. And I don't have Wi-Fi. I have no cell phone service.

Oh, okay, that got me through a lot. Google Translate. Okay, did you pay for cell phone service like the whole time you were over there? So I switched over, and I'm not going to go into details on camera, but I switched over to T-Mobile, and by the end of my trip, T-Mobile was like You need to get back to the United States, basically. But they had a great international plan, and you know, it worked for as long as it needed to work.

Well, I did not plan for that. I didn't plan to not have my phone, you know what I mean? Like, to not have— anyway, so that was my kind of— it was just like, you're going to get where you're supposed to go, and at the very moment where you actually don't know what you're supposed to do, don't worry, I'll send somebody. Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. I had quite a few of those moments. Yeah. And it usually happened during my travel.

Just trying to figure out what does this sign say? I'm on the train and I can't read that. Yep.

Google has also the translate portion where you can take photos.

If you have T-Mobile and if you have service.

Yeah. If you have service, if you have cell service. But like grocery shopping, Uh-huh. I mean, photos are on the packaging everywhere, so that helped. But if you wanted to read anything else, Google Translate, you just hold the camera up and it'll— I was like, this is perfect. It was great. Languages? Do I know any? Did you know any?

Did you take French in high school?

Did you? No, Spanish.

And you didn't go to Spain? Mm-mm. No. Was that hard? Was the language harder in general to people?

You can always find somebody who speaks English, or you can always find someone who speaks English. And for the most part, many did. Paris was the one where I had the hardest, but everywhere else— and, you know, I would know some phrases, or again, if I would type something on Google Translate, I can say it back. So I was just very mindful of that. But for the most part, you can get around.

Google Translate has us all out here spoiled because there was a time when I was like, "Hablo un poquito." In a book. Right. Opening up a book. Get out there, the frequent phrases. The thick, thick book.

I was like, "Oh my gosh." Or the maps and the— Yes. This is going to age me.

That's because you're a Gen Xer.

I'm not. But what was I going to say? Oh, printing out the maps. You know, MapQuest, you print them out and all that stuff.

You staple it all together. They don't know about that. Well, I just want you to know that I know a lot of people do it, and I know that you watched a lot of people. YouTube. Yeah. You know, YouTube and all that kind of stuff. But I know you. So for me, it's like, oh my gosh, like somebody I know got their whole life together, left the US, and didn't go for 3 weeks. Went for months, planned it, figured it out, stayed in great places, took great pictures, had great experiences. You know, I would watch her Instagram and I could tell it's during the day and you're having a whole vacation experience. I'm looking at you like, yeah, but I'm like, she just sent me a graphic. She just sent me a graphic. But I see her out there gallivanting. Gallivanting. That's correct. It did make me feel some kind of way. It was like, no, I mean like, like kind of in a Like, it just made me, one, happy to see you living, and two, it made me go, am I living? And not in like a comparative negative thing. It just was like, and I felt it greater 'cause I know you. Like, she's like, wow, she's like doing that.

And you know another thing too, I had to be very conscious of being in the moment and being present and not thinking of the next country I was gonna go to. Mm-hmm. It, it was a challenge 'cause I was always like just daydreaming about what this place is gonna look like. And just being present was something that I had to be very intentional about. But yeah.

Was it hard to be present and get all your photos and your videos?

Well, no, because I feel like it's like my, just kind of— It's an extension. Yeah. Yeah. Sharing them with others was hard 'cause that, and then also another safety thing, I never posted where you were at while you were there. Yeah. I was always like maybe a week or two behind.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And trust me, I was waiting.

I was always a week or two behind. When we gonna get the recap? I was like, yeah. Let me wait on that. And not like, I mean, I don't know, that might have been too cautious, but no, it's just never been too cautious.

Better safe than sorry. Well, um, again, I think, I think watching you made me go, what is it that I want? You know, because there are things you just say you're going to do. I'm going to go on vacation, or I'm going to go. And then we do a lot of nothing wrong with it, but a lot of safe things. You know, we'll take the cruise or we'll go to the Caribbean or we'll, you know, go to a beach somewhere. But there's this whole other side of the world that with planning, it's affordable. You can do it, you know? And we get creative. When my daughter was, when Charis was a senior, we went to London for her senior trip. And I didn't, I had never even heard of, I mean, vaguely, but I didn't really know much about hostels. We stayed in hostels the whole time. You did too? Yes, my mother did. Wow. And Kanan, I mean, not Kanan, Joel was 3 and a half months old. And Charis begged me— He could wait. Charis begged me to go on her senior trip with her. And I was like, can I bring this child? I mean, it's a nursing baby. It's, you know, easy. I was in Westminster Abbey. I pulled a boob out to keep the baby warm. Keep that child quiet in the middle of the service. And then we had walking tours, and I was nursing and walking because they weren't going to wait on me to sit down and nurse.

So no, no, no, of walking tours, there are a lot of free walking tours too. So whatever— how do you find them? Um, how did I find them?

Is that a Facebook thing? You Google, Google just walking tour, the area of town, free walking tour, put in the country, city.

Who's giving free walking tours? It's donation-based. Okay. So they're hoping that you would donate. Okay. But when I got into a city, like within the first couple of days, I would do a walking tour just to get familiar. So when you mentioned walking tour, that's what I thought of.

Yeah. That's a— well, the only thing that I discovered was that hostels actually weren't bad. In my brain, I thought— In my brain, they are. But they have ratings. You know that? They're like 2-star, 3-star, 4-star, 5-star. I'm telling you, they were great. The ones we stayed in were great. That's great. And when you go to other places, having your eyes open, like what you just said, I would never think, let me look for a walking tour. I'm thinking I'm going to go walking. I mean, you want to go— And just look. Oh. It wouldn't have occurred to me to look for a walking tour.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, just to get the history and— all these great tidbits about the city or the country.

And okay, YouTube, Google, Facebook groups for meeting up. Any other resources for finding out what you can do and how you can do it?

There is a website, I don't remember the full name, Rio something, but it— we'll put it in the show notes— it shows you how to get from point A to point B. Like, you put in— no, you could put in California and Amsterdam.

It's like the best way to get there. And it'll give you all the options.

Flight, train, of course, or boat, you know, they'll have you take a flight there, but then you could probably take a train from XYZ, but they'll give you all these different options. And that helped me to figure out the best way to get from one country to the next and what was more—

'Cause there's a lot of ways.

Yeah. Tons of ways, tons of ways. But that was super helpful. Rio something or something Rio.

Yeah, you'll find it. We'll put it in the show notes.

But that was another huge plus. Yeah.

Well, I think you're amazing. Thanks. But you think everybody's amazing. Not everybody. And definitely not everybody in this way, because most people I know never do this. And I think that you are one of the, even though other people do it, most people don't.

I look back though and I'm like, what in the world did you just do?

You know what you just did? What in the world?

You were living. I was living.

I guess, yeah. You were living. Yeah. And showing other people what it looked like to do it. I'm telling you, if I can get Jesse to let me go for like 4 weeks.

Listen. Mika plan. I know.

Listen, I gotta— like, he gotta— I need to prepare him. If I say I'm gonna go— here's the funny thing. If I say I want to go, we have a nice summer trip. I want to go because we're about to be, you know, we're on our way to empty nesting. Like, if I want to go with Nicole to Europe, he's gonna be like, oh, so you want to go with one of your friends? But if I were to say, do you want to go with me over to Europe? To do what? Now let's just walk around and just live in there. He'd be like, heck no, right? Original plan. It's all in how you spin it though. It's all in how you present it. Original plan. This is great.

Thanks for letting us learn from you. I know.

Wow! Wow!

Wow!