Travel Smarter, Cheaper and Longer with Nomadic Matt
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. If you're new here, I'm Chris Hutchins, and today I'm talking with Matt Kepnes, better known as Nomadic Matt.

In the early 2000s, he accidentally became one of the OG travel bloggers after saving money, quitting his job, and backpacking around the world. For almost two decades, he's been traveling, writing about it, and sharing how Traveler is easier, cheaper, and more life-enriching than more people realize. He wrote the New York Times bestselling How to Travel the World on $50 a day. And later, after more than a decade of travels, he wrote a memoir called 10 Years a Nomad.

We're going to talk about why travel doesn't have to cost as much as you think, how travel changes after doing it for as long as Matt has, what to do if you get burnt out on travel. We'll get some of Matt's favorite tactics for travels and discuss whether $50 a day is really enough. We'll also talk about why travel insurance is one of the most important elements of a good trip, which Matt knows firsthand from a crazy experience he'll share about getting stabbed abroad and a lot more than that. So let's get started right after this.

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Thanks for having me. As always, it's fun to be here. Well, I have a lot of questions. I'll special shout out all the Hacks member, Alyssa, who sent in a ton of topics to discuss. But I want to just start off asking what you think the biggest misconception people have about travel is. I mean, I think the obvious answer, at least to me, is that people think it's expensive. I think less so now because so much is on social media and there's so many blogs and it's

talked about, the vast majority of people will say, well, they don't really have time to travel.

But if you dig, there's always time. But then they're like, oh, I just can't afford it. Because people think, well, plane tickets are expensive, hotels, Airbnb. They see all these commercials and this glamorized version of travel on social media. And they just think, well, that's pricing. Travel is a luxury item, right? It's not a must-have thing. It's something you do to relax.

to take a break. And so there's this perception that this is expensive when it doesn't have to be because you always can go over to wherever you're going and just do the local things and the local things cost a non-touristy price. If you ask people like, well, how much do you spend in your own life?

People have these very way off estimates. They're on the lower end. But if you get people to record all their expenses, even like, oh, I bought a water bottle. That's a couple bucks, right? Yeah, but you don't think about it. People actually spend a lot more than they think they do. And then when you balance that versus the price of travel, it's oftentimes cheaper. I live in the Bay Area. So anywhere in the world I would go has to be probably cheaper, except maybe Tokyo. Life other places is cheaper, right?

I experienced this actually, it was probably almost 15 years ago. We traveled for eight months and we rented our place out at home and we broke even or even came out slightly ahead because it turns out we were spending more to live in the Bay Area than we were spending to travel. But...

I want to get into some of those costs, some of the ways you save money, some of the tactics you have. But I kind of want to get started and just ask how travel has changed for you. I know you have been in this industry for longer than many. And by industry, I mean writing and sharing your travels online. You wrote a memoir about what you've learned after being a nomad for a decade. How have things evolved for you personally and in the industry? I started this when I was 25. I started traveling the world. And I'm...

before you do this year. And so obviously my days of cheap meals and 12 bed hostel dorms is long gone. Like nice food. Since I work when I travel, having a place to work is really important. I haven't been getting

A lot of good sleep is important, so I tend to get my own room, hotels. I take a lot more paid walking tours or food tours. And so for me, the biggest thing is that my accommodation is a lot nicer. I take more paid activities, whereas when I was 25, it was all about the free stuff, the hostel dorms, cooking your own meals. I still consider myself a backpacker budget traveler. You know, I...

take public transportation. I love street food. I still do parks and local things and go to the markets and all that jazz. I'm not a resort guy. I don't really do luxury. I mean, it's nice, but it feels very isolating to me. So that's the biggest thing that's for me has changed is sort of probably the nicer digs. And then how has travel changed? I think travel has become a lot more accessible than when I started traveling.

Both the ability to do it and the ability to find information. When I started traveling, the internet was just sort of taking off as a means of finding information in the sense that you had forums and blogs and all these places you can go to ask questions about information.

Where do I find this hostel? How do I do this thing? And so I was still primarily using guidebooks as well as just asking around. But between social media and the advent of so many blogs, there's nothing you can't learn with a quick Google search. There's no hidden restaurant, this hidden town. Like, oh, have you been? Yeah. There are places that are more well-known than anywhere else, but there's

But there's no place that's unknown in the age of the internet. Somebody has been there and they posted an Instagram from there. No matter like what little town it is, no matter where it is. And so that is really great because it demystifies a lot of the travel experience. It allows people to become more comfortable with going. It's not so much of like you're going into the unknown. It's like, oh, okay, I've heard of this place. I've heard of this thing before.

So maybe I'll go there. Even if you're like so scared because you're going to a place you've never been, it's no longer like this fog out there. And then the advent of all these budget airlines and everything has made it just a lot cheaper for people to travel.

Sometimes one of the ways that I get inspiration is I'll just search on YouTube and it's like, okay, well, what's this place like? It's like, here's a video of a person walking down the street and you can get a really visceral feeling for what it's like to be there. And I remember when we first went to South and East Africa, I had this one brat travel guide that was from 1998 because we were traveling for long enough that I couldn't bring a book for each country. So I was like, this was the one. You don't get a lot of feeling about what you're about to embark on there. It was more of a directory and out of date.

Significantly. Yeah. Yeah. Guidebooks, even in the best of times, are usually a year and a half behind what's going on. I never have used guidebooks as a price guide, just more of a rough guide.

I think they're great about here's the part of town to look for. Here's some ideas of how transportation works. But I'm curious, you said now that you've gotten older, done this a while, your digs have gone up. You wrote the book. People have referenced it in many ways about being like the guide for backpacking, about traveling the world on $50 a day.

Do you think that still holds both in today's world, inflation pandemic, and as people age and want to experience travel, not in a hostel with 12 beds? Yes and no. That book was never about the number. A lot of people would get caught up on that. Like, oh, 50 bucks. Good luck doing it.

at 50 bucks. You're traveling the world on $50 a day. So it's a daily average. Some places, totally. Especially post-COVID, strong dollar. India, still very cheap. Parts of Central America, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, still very cheap. But,

Your average place for a hostel in Western Europe is probably 30 euros now a night. So it's very rare to see dorm beds, 10 euros, 15 euros. They're still out there, but they're harder to find and they're less common. And the beds are probably going to be like 20 beds. And I am going to redo this book probably for a post-COVID, post-inflation world. I'd probably up it to like a $65, $70 a day average. If you're doing the quintessential hostel,

round the world trip, going to Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South and Central America. And if you're coming from the US, that's going to be even better because the US dollar is so strong. Will that stay? Who knows? When I planned my original trip around the world, I remember it was one US dollar got you $1.30 Australian. So that's what my budget was based off of. And by the time I got there, it was one-to-one.

So I lost 30% of my budget because of that. I had to readjust everything. So it's less about the number and more about the style, like the tips and tricks. If you're just looking for ways to travel cheap, forget about the number. Just use the strategies in the book.

Okay. So let's talk about some of those strategies because I liked how you actually broke it down. It wasn't just there are a bunch of strategies. Go have a great trip. It's here's what you specifically need to know. So how would you walk someone through the high level of planning a trip like this with the goal to do it on a budget? What are the kind of key strategies that people need to follow? I think the biggest thing for people is one, travel slow.

The more you can sort of spread out your costs, the better it will be. If you're moving around a lot, you're going to have high transportation costs and that really can eat into a lot of people's budgets. But the big thing is just really being flexible because if you can wait for that deal to come, then you're not tied into like, I have to get this flight on this day to this destination.

One of the benefits of long-term travel is that you're in no rush to do anything. You can wait for that flight deal, that hotel deal, or you can find a flight deal or a hotel deal and be like, that's where we're going next because that's where it's cheapest. And so big picture,

Always be flexible. Second big picture thing is to travel like you live. You in your daily life cook food. You don't eat expensive food all the time. Restaurants. You look for free activities. You take public transportation. You go for walks. Do the same when you travel.

If you really want to get a taste of local life, go to the local farmer's market. Go take the train or the bus. Go for a walk. Sit in a park. Travel doesn't always have to be about doing things. It can be more about just existing in a place and soaking up the vibe. And so if you travel like you live, you're going to end up doing all the things that locals do. Because what people do in...

isn't different than what people do in the Bay Area or Austin. Everyone gets up and goes to work and takes a train and goes grocery shopping and lives their day-to-day life and then walks and maybe sits by the river. They do something, setting apart. Do

Do those things. Let's pause for a second and go back to a kind of more macro question. When it comes to travel, why do you love travel? What is it about travel that makes it something that you've now, I guess, dedicated your entire professional career to and something you've spent decades of your life doing? I don't like to be bored. I guess that's one reason. When you're traveling, you're always doing something. I like mastering my own time. I mean, this is an...

accidental career. The goal was never to start a company. It was just to keep traveling for as long as possible so that I could have my own time, have my own schedule, do everything I wanted to do, just get out there and go explore and see the world. The world is a book, right? But the world is also a puzzle.

And every place you go to adds one more piece. It's an unsolvable puzzle. You'll never finish it in your lifetime, but you just keep adding more to it. I just find people interesting. I'm also deeply interested in history and politics. And so going over to places and like learning about why they do things is just fascinating to me. It sounds like a lot of those things aren't always the paid tour, the Michelin star meals, finding the joy of travel that

isn't what you saw on Instagram, I think it can often make for the experience. So I'm curious, when you're trying to find those experiences, when you're trying to meet people, what do you do to connect with people? I think in today's world...

People are maybe a little more closed off than they were 20 years ago because they have their phone to distract them at a bar. It seems harder to meet people. Have you found ways to keep that kind of vibe going, especially now that you're not in the hostel? You might be in your own private room. Well, one of the reasons I still love hostels is even though I'm in my own private room, I'm a hostel. You still get the vibe, right? So you can still go to the common area. I think the opposite is actually true. I think the internet has made it easier to meet people.

True, people are glued to their phone, especially in the hostel, in a way that wasn't true in 2006 when I started traveling. But there's so many apps online.

and ways to meet people through couchsurfing, social media, Instagram, Facebook groups, Bumble BFF, meetup.com, walking tours, bar crawls. There's lots of ways to meet people and the internet has actually made it easier to meet people if you're open to it. And I think people are a lot more open to just meeting a stranger online.

It's not weird to like, oh, there's this cool meetup happening. I'm just going to walk over to it because I'm new here. Is there any kind of mental checklist or things you do before you're going to a new place to try to connect with people, figure out what to do? What resources do you use to kind of

ideas of things that you might spend your time on. I know you do say leave a lot of your time open for serendipity. So maybe the answer is none. But I'm curious what kind of research you do in advance. Very little. Maybe read a couple of blog posts, bookmark a few restaurants. I try to just go there and

see where the day takes me. Instagram, my Twitter feed. If I'm in the mood to meet people, like in the sense that like I want to actively like make sure there's people around me, I'll either stay in the hostel or I'll look at like a expat Facebook group or meetup.com or something and see what's going on while I'm there. Since I travel a lot for work,

And so like my travels are about like getting the price of food because we have to write a guide to it. It really depends on like, am I there for research purposes or am I there for fun? So if I'm there at a destination, cause we're going to write about it. I have a mission. I stick to it. Yeah. You know, if I chat up locals and they're like, come to this thing, I was like, okay, sure. But like my mind isn't like, I'm going to go join this group to like see if there's like a cool event going on.

If I'm there for fun, I most likely will do that.

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joining things that you just found on the internet? I joined a couple of couch surfing groups when I lived in Paris a few years back. And those people became my friends for the entire time I lived there. Back in the day, during the MySpace era, I met a bunch of people in a Thailand travel group. And we ended up traveling around Southeast Asia for like three months together. So that was fun.

Our travels were at a similar time in life and it was the Lonely Planet forums. Yes. Where we would just like post, hey, we're in South Africa. We ended up meeting these two guys from Sweden and we ended up renting a car, buying a tent and all this stuff together. And we basically camped in a tent with them driving around Namibia, Botswana and South Africa for three weeks. So I think that's still possible. It just sounds like you got to find a few different places to find people. Yeah, we do events here in Austin. Yeah.

And somebody came to one. I was like, oh, how long have you been reading the blog? Because I just assumed they had come because I was there. And it's part of our blog thing. And she was like, I just found this event on Eventbrite. I don't know what this is. And I was like, oh, that's really cool. She's like, I'm just passing through. I was like, super. Well, welcome. I remember after six or so months, I kind of...

was ready for something different. And we were doing some slow travel. I'm curious, you did it for a decade. What did you do to avoid getting burnt out about travel? It's impossible not to get burnt out. You will get bored at some point. You will get tired. You will get burnt out.

If you're just doing long-term travel, it becomes your day-to-day life, right? And eventually you need a break from that. In your day-to-day life, you take a break, you go on vacation. If travel life, you kind of just sit in one place and recharge your battery. Travel is a battery. It's not some unlimited wellspring of energy. You need to rest at some point because everywhere you go, you have to relearn how to live.

The language, how to get around, where to eat, where to stay, local customs, the streets. You're like relearning life every day and like it's mentally very taxing. There's a reason why like when you drive to work all the time, you can tune up because it becomes like a routine. Your mind just goes on autopilot. When you're traveling, there is no autopilot because like you're relearning everything. And so eventually like you're just...

You need a break. Slow travel can really help that because you're not really rushing yourself a lot. You're adjusting to new places at a slower pace, but you're

Even the slowest of travelers, eventually, they're just like, I just want to see. Even short trips, I found, can be a lot. And so sometimes it feels so counterintuitive to spend an afternoon on a one-week trip, like watching a movie in your hotel room. But the amount of energy you can recharge by just...

hanging out and relaxing, I think is really valuable. And so I think people very often think, oh, I'm in this country, I can't afford to not be doing something every second of every day. But sometimes you start to lose the appreciation for it if it feels like it's painful and it's work. So don't be afraid to take a break, even on a week long trip for an afternoon. Yeah. And if your goal is to like go to Italy for a week and like soak in Italian culture,

Spending an afternoon doing nothing is very much a part of Italian culture. Go sit at the piazza and just enjoy a cafe and just sit around and chat. People watch. They get a real sense of Italy that way. You mentioned customs and all the learning of a new place. I've had a few questions from listeners that ask about going to places that are very unfamiliar, whether it's the customs or the language, etc.

I'm curious what advice you have to someone. Maybe they're going somewhere in the Middle East or in Asia where the customs and the language are all totally foreign to them. What would you tell them to do either in advance or just to help them understand how it might not be as difficult as they might think? Read a book. You can't really know a place until you've

read something about it. So I always find reading up about where you're visiting a history book, if you can, or even just like current events book, something that just sort of gives you insight into the local culture can be super helpful. Additionally, like there's so many blogs out there in the world these days that you can read like on any subject you want and from local writers too. So like people that live in destination are now local bloggers that can really help you get a sense of place and understanding.

Also, a great way to get food recommendations, too. If you find a local food blogger on Instagram,

their audience is other locals, not tourists. So you're going to get all the inside info. If you have a VPN and you can connect to an IP in the country, or maybe you can change your Google search to that country, you might get a different set of results than if you're searching from a US IP or on Google US search. So I've sometimes found a better set of results when I'm searching for stuff online. Maybe there's a local search engine even. But if you could try to anchor yourself to searching within the country, you get...

maybe more relevant topics than the kind of travel guide from the foreigners overseas. I know one thing that I've heard you talk about, maybe more articulately than I can, is about communication. And I think so many people might assume that you need to speak a language to go lots of places, especially if you want to go off the beaten path.

And so first, I'm going to ask, how many languages do you actually speak, given that I think you've probably been to, if not 100, close to 100 countries, I'm guessing. I speak pretty good Spanish, decent Thai, and I can understand and read French, though my ability to give a reply was very slow. But that hasn't held you back from going to...

plenty of countries that don't speak those languages. Oh, yeah. English is pretty widely spoken, at least basic English. Even if you're going off the beaten path, sign language. Everyone kind of knows the universal like cluck cluck for chicken, choo choo for train. People want to help you. And so you just got to give them that opportunity to just be like, this is what I need. Most communication is nonverbal anyway.

based on like your facial expression or like how you're miming things or body language that can really help people figure out what you need. So never be afraid. And there's always Google translate now. So like worst case scenario, you open your phone and you type in and it kind of gives like a okay translation and

but probably enough to get your point across to people. Does it ever feel like cheating to you a little bit? Having been to the type of travel where you had to rely on so much intuition or kind of hard work to communicate with people that didn't speak the language that now it's like, well, I guess I could just pull out my phone and type something and it'll be understood by someone that has no common language threads.

How do you feel about this? I don't like it simply because I don't like pulling out my phone. In some parts of the world, that's not always the wisest thing to do. So I'd rather just do it the old-fashioned way. But I'm an old fuddy-duddy, so...

I mean, if there was like an earpiece that did it, I would probably get that earpiece. Like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where they put that slug in his ear and he can understand everything. That's what I would probably do. But I don't like pulling out my phone a lot because then you're always on your phone. And it's like...

back and forth. You know, it slows down conversation. You mentioned earlier that now you like to stay in places by yourself, but you also like to go on a lot more tours that cost money. How do you find them? How do you make sure you don't get caught up in terrible tours designed for tourists? Are there review sites? How do you think about that?

I do mostly like day walking tours or a food tour or something like that. Very rarely do multi-day trips, but best walking tour in X is really a pretty good search term. I'll read a couple of blog posts and if the same company appears in a couple and their tours look good and reasonably priced,

I'll probably pick them. You know, you can see star ratings. So if like 17,000 people on TripAdvisor are like, this is four stars. And then like three writers on blogs are like, I took this tour and it was really good. And I wasn't paid to say that. And you're like, okay, maybe it's pretty good. It's always good to look for the, my unbiased opinion of, I find that to be a helpful search term for almost any product. You're like unbiased opinion, XYZ mattress.

Is there any place you've been where you've actually found that just sign language and English weren't enough? And to be clear, when we say sign language, we're not talking, you know, ASL, professional sign communication. We're talking to more hand miming and gestures. But are there places you found that it's actually been very difficult to get around and communicate? No, not really. Maybe I haven't been to enough places that are like so off the beaten path. But I've always found that

mining and like sign language gets you far enough. I want to go back to some of the tactics, especially around what you travel with. I know you're a fan of a backpack, but nowadays...

What are the things that you take on every trip? Not the obvious things. I'm sure you bring a toothbrush, but what are the things that people might be packing that are different from how you pack? I honestly don't take much stuff with me because I started at a time where you didn't need a lot. And so if I ever need something like an umbrella,

I'll buy it. Or if I need medicine, I'll pick it up on the way. And definitely take a towel. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 101. I always have a towel. But honestly, don't take much stuff. I mean, I'm not a photographer, so I just use my phone. But to me, less is more. Like, what do you need to take? A couple of clothes, a couple of books, a phone charger, and your phone. And I take my computer. I take a notebook, a journal, backup credit cards.

And that's really it. I take a flashlight. I think a lot of people underestimate the power of having a flashlight, especially if you're camping a lot or just out in rural areas often. Just having that with you is really good. But other than that, I don't take a lot of gear. I'm like anti-gear. I'm also anti-app. People are always like, what apps do you use? I'm like Google Maps. That's it. Like you don't need anything else.

Get off your phone, like put down your phone, use a less, you don't need it. You mentioned backup credit cards. We could go probably for a while about travel hacking, but one area I haven't really talked about is how much do you think about banking and budgeting and that aspect of it for a long-term trip where you're going to need to access money and you need to pay bills? Do you do anything differently than you would if you were living stateside?

So like I'm in this unique position where like I work and travel. So like money comes in and it's all taxed right now for me. So I will say that my recommendation for people is always to have two bank accounts. Like if you're an American, you should definitely have the Charles Schwab ATM card. There are no bank fees, no ATM fees. And if you get charged an ATM fee, they will reimburse your ATM fee. So I always have money there. That's my primary card when I travel.

And if you lose it, they'll basically FedEx it to you anywhere in the world within 48 hours. But it's always good to have a backup just in case that gets hacked or something happens where you can't get in your 48 hours. So I always carry two, two ATM cards and at least two credit cards. I carry more than two credit cards just because I'm an average travel hacker. Only ever go out with one. I only take my ATM card out very rarely.

It's always home. Just the cash out that you need. But that varies by destination. You know, like, I mean, in Japan, you can walk around with $10 million in your pocket and no one's going to do anything. Versus, like, I wouldn't walk around Colombia with, like, a bunch of money or plastic in my pants. But at least definitely those two. And for the primary account that I have in terms of the Charles Schwab card, I only keep a few thousand dollars in there. So if somebody were to...

like kidnapping and say, take all the money out. It's not going to drain everything. There's only a maximum amount they can take. What about passport? Are you bring the passport with you when you're out and about or leave it back in the hotel or hostel? I always leave it in the hotel or hostel. I know I've heard varying opinions here, which is like, you always want to have some form of ID if something happens, if you get in trouble. And then the other is like, you definitely don't want to have your passport lost, dropped, stolen while you're out.

I bring my driver's license with me everywhere I go as a form of ID. Passport stays inside. The only time I will break that rule is if it's required for like a spot check on your train. Sometimes in Europe, if you're on a train, even if you're just like going between cities, it'll be like a spot check. But like just going out to like...

the bar or a restaurant or walking around? No. And if I were to ever get stopped by the police, they're like, where's your passport? And I'd be like, it's at my hotel. Let's go get it. I guess like if you were in a country that required it and like you got stopped and there was a lot of corruption, you may have to pay a bribe, but nobody wants that paperwork. Like, oh, why'd you arrest this guy? He didn't have his passport on him.

them. It's a lot of paperwork for nothing. Universal rule is cops never want to do paperwork. And every country has paperwork. The best will get a warning at the worst will pay a fine, like a bribe. A fine with air quotes. Whatever you want to call it. Been in any of those situations? No. Where you've had to pay a fine slash bribe? Nope. Never. Our only one was border crossing from Syria into Lebanon.

And the taxi driver, funny enough, he was so embarrassed that his country, uh,

would be the kind of place where you had to pay a fine that he paid the fine out of his own fare because he didn't want us to know about it. But we were in the car for a few hours. We asked about it. He was like, yeah, the way this works is if you get to the border and you have foreigners and you don't pay a tip, then they just hold you here for hours. And that causes delays for me and you and our country is terrible, but I got doing this stuff, but I'll do it. So I've never had to do it myself, but I know the paperwork issue deeply because I

My wife was pulled over speeding in Bosnia and they were like sitting here like, oh, this is the fine. And she was like, I don't know. We've just waited it out. And eventually they're like, yeah, you can go because we're not going to try to fill out this paperwork for your international driver's license and everything.

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One thing we haven't talked about that I know you have a pretty strong opinion on is travel insurance. What perspective do you have on travel insurance and its necessity in a day where so many credit cards have lots of forms of insurance baked into them? I still think it's very important just as you get better medical care, like emergency care. It's really the only higher end premium credit cards with the $600 a year kind of top end ones.

but you get really robust travel insurance. But even then, these aren't travel insurance companies. The credit cards tacking this on, they're not really streamlined to process claims in a way that a company whose only purpose is travel insurance. A lot of these credit cards don't really cover good medical evacuation. And so if you just want protection on trip interruption or cancellation or something gets stolen,

The credit card you paid that trip on is probably good enough. But if you want like actual medical insurance in case something goes wrong, you're going to want something to pay extra for. And travel insurance isn't that expensive. So it's like you're not paying like hundreds of bucks a month. Like you get plans for 50 bucks.

Are there any providers you've used or what do you use when you travel? I use a company called Safety Wing. They're really good. World Nomads is also really good for people having more gear. Ensure Nomads is really good, but pretty expensive. And then for seniors, I would definitely recommend Insure My Trip because not a lot of plans cover people over 70. Oh, wow. Okay.

Have you ever had to use travel insurance? Yeah, yeah. I used it in Colombia. I've used it in South Africa when my bag got stolen. I've used it in Thailand. So yeah, these are quite a number of times. It's coming very handy. It's coming handy for friends. I had a friend break their back in the Amazon and they had to get airlifted out and then sent back to Canada and travel insurance covered the whole thing. Wow.

I think it's so funny we get caught up in thinking travel insurance is about my flight got canceled, but it can be about a lot of other things. I don't know what kind of medical situations you've ever been in overseas. They don't end up being that expensive unless they're very extreme. And I can assure you that an airlift from South America to Canada is not something you want to have to cover on your own. No, no, that you do not, that you do not. Yeah.

Any situations you've ever been in? I think sometimes people think, oh, if I have a bad situation, I'll never want to travel again. I assume you've been in a situation that might scare other people away. And I'm curious how it affected how you travel and how or why, you know, it didn't stop you from keeping going. Yeah, you know, I got stabbed in Columbia and my mother always sends me like,

every State Department warning about Mexico. But it's like, hey, we live in the States. People get gunned down going to Walmart. There are mass shootings all the time in this country. Bad things happen. It's just part of life. It doesn't matter if you're home or in Mexico or in Thailand or in Paris or in Japan.

Shit happens. You can live in fear and say, I'm just going to never go anywhere. But then you walk across the street to a movie theater and then, you know, make it out because it's a psychopath or you get hit by a car on your way to work. Are you really going to live in fear about every what if? If so, then like never leave your house. If you're up for it, I'd love to hear the story in Columbia and maybe from the perspective of

I think a lot of people don't really plan for that. And so they don't know what they would do in that circumstance. And I imagine, you know, you're here now. So it all went well. How did you know what to do? And where did you end up going? And how did the trip unfold after that? Yeah, I was in Bogota. I had my phone out and long story short, you shouldn't have fancy electronics out. I just forgot to...

put it back in before I left this cafe. And someone tried to take it and he jerked backwards instead of just going forward. So like we started tussling and then yeah, he had a small little knife. I thought it was just punching me. I mean, if he had like shown the knife, I would have been like, yo, take the phone. But afterwards I was like, oh, so sore. And I was just covered in blood. It's cause like...

He was stabbing me. Luckily, it was a small box cutter, so it wasn't very big. I assume you went to the hospital and everything was fine? Yeah, the whole thing cost me like 50 bucks. The flight home was like a thousand bucks and I asked for reimbursement for that. But the 50 bucks, I was like, it's not worth the paperwork. And they could have done it for 50 bucks, but I did it for the flight. Would you go back to Bogota after that? Oh yeah, 100%. I love Bogota. I was really sad to have to go home.

I've also been to Bogota. It's just a great place. I love the country of Colombia. I've been there a few times. Bogota is close enough and time zone good enough that I think you could even do it in a long weekend and have a great trip. I don't want to not do slow travel, but I think for those who don't have the time to do it, it's still a place that you can go in a short period of time because of the proximity. It's such a phenomenal place. I was there for six weeks and

I'm going to stay in another six weeks. I want to just get some quick thoughts on travel hacking. I've obviously covered this topic a ton. You've thought about it a lot. Are there perspectives you have on it that you think are maybe a little bit contrarian to the average person who plays the points and miles game that would be helpful to hear? I think that people get too caught up in point value. Just for most people, just get a card, book your flight that works and don't like spend time doing it.

People overcomplicate the simple. If you're a person who's going on one to two trips a year, one or two credit cards just to optimize spending bonuses is going to be more than enough.

What's your setup for travel hacking? Do you have a lot of cards, a couple cards? I mean, I have like 30 cards. Okay, okay. Crazy. But I also have this for work too, so it's like really different. And I travel like constantly. On my personal stuff, I use Built, which is a card that lets you get points on your rent for free. And they have some good category bonuses that I use. And then I use the Chase Sapphire. For work, I either use an MX Gold or a Chase Ink.

Any favorite tactics for redeeming? There's a great new website out called point.me. And you can just connect all your stuff through an API and just search where you want to go. And it'll tell you where to transfer your points to get the most value. That's a really good news website. They're still working on some of the kinks. One of the things I don't like is you can't do a calendar view. You have to search day by day by day. Very frustrating. But it's a new program. So...

They'll fix it eventually. Yeah, when I talked to Tiffany, one of the founders, she basically said, don't expect that much. There might be a premium tier that you pay more for if you want to search more dates. So it's not clear that the full calendar view is coming, but I do like Seatspy for that feature. They give you 365-day calendar view for a handful of airlines. So before we wrap, I want to go down one path, which is just...

inspiring people with some of the kind of off the beaten path places you've enjoyed that people might not be considering. I get lots of emails of people saying, Oh, I have a trip coming up to Paris or London or Tokyo. But I think once you've kind of ticked off some of the most common places, you're looking for inspiration. You've done more travel than probably anyone listening.

What are some places you think people need to put on their list to explore? Taiwan, Romania, Bulgaria, Mexico. I mean like offbeat Mexico, like get out of like Tulum and Playa and all those places. I've been to Taiwan and it was fantastic, but a few of the others I haven't. I'm dying to know what set them apart from...

the rest of the world. Taiwan is just like very under visited, great food. It's like clean China. South Korea, just great nightlife and food. Bulgaria and Romania, incredible history, ruins, small little medieval towns, like national parks and mountains. You have the coast and it's just like phenomenal and cheap and

Not a lot of people go there. Mexico is amazing. Everyone's super nice. There's just a vibrancy to life there. Pesto food. So you can see there's a trend. Where in Mexico? I think Mexico might be really easy for a lot of people in the States to start exploring and flights can be pretty cheap. What are the places that you think? San Miguel de Allende, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Yucatan State, not the Potensia, Merida, Monterey.

Just got places that come to mind. It's a huge country, but most travelers stick to a few places. I mean, I love Mexico City too, so I mean, you can't go wrong there. Other places that come to mind, Malaysia, I don't think gets enough attention. Sri Lanka, Nepal, just great places with like not a lot of tourists. Basically getting like a really unfiltered view of places. I think that's something I'm looking for now as we kind of evolve. But one thing that's changed for me, and I'd love your perspective is,

You know, we did a lot of travel solo, did a lot of travel with my wife, backpacking. And now we have kids for people who have a more demanding career, aren't able to work entirely on the road, have kids, have families. How do you think that affects the style of travel you've spent years writing about and living? What do you think that looks like for the years ahead for you? Well, you know, I think budget travel is a...

state of mind more than a style. Like, oh, you have to stay at hostels or whatever. So for me, as long as I'm still doing the local thing, to me, that's just a bunch of travel. I don't think I will change that. I don't really like cruises. Whenever I stay at resorts, I'm like, everything here is overpriced. I just want to go eat whatever the locals are eating. So I don't really see a lot of change happening

in my life. I think even as a family, things change, of course. But as long as you're doing that local thing, it's really just more of a like your mindset than it is like, oh, anything else. I think one thing that I'm going to change, and you already highlighted this, but just having less things to do. It's easy to get three or four things done on your own in a day and still have lots of time for exploration.

With a family, it just feels like one. The goal is one thing to accomplish today and let everything else come to chance. Or maybe let your kids drive. We just had a great conversation with Derek Sivers, who talked about how he traveled with his son. And it was just let him lead and explore through their eyes, which can be very different from exploring through your own. This is really reminiscent because I did an eight-month trip where it was just like this. And my wife and I did a lot of this before kids is...

Just recognizing that a lot of what you're going to experience, like your example in Italy, is being in another place where...

understanding another culture, food, language. And that doesn't require seeing every museum in the town. It doesn't require ticking off every five-star restaurant. It can be a lot different and it can be a lot more rewarding to do that. And even more so if you get outside of the cities, sometimes just where you stay, maybe don't stay in the most central part of town to force yourself to be around, you know, locals. Yeah. Yeah.

I agree. I think as you age, you slow down, especially if you have kids, you slow down. I don't have kids, but like I've had a lot of other parents who travel with kids say the same thing. They let their kids just go and their kids will just discover things and they then discover things. One thing I'm going to wrap with, is there a place in the world that...

If someone were going, you have a few recommendations. Maybe it's because you lived there for a while. Maybe it's because it's home. If you go to Paris, go to Le Dite Vin. Le Dite Vin. That's a great restaurant. L-E-D-I-T-V-I-N.

How would you spend a day in Paris if you only had one? Wander and wander, get some wine, sit on the sand, sit in a park, go to a cafe and just eat. Paris is just great just to be there. I don't disagree. If people want to stay on top of everything you're writing, traveling, posting, where should they head? You find me everywhere at nomadicrat.com and nomadicrat on social media. Awesome. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me.

I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't already left a rating and a review for the show in Apple Podcasts or Spotify, I would really appreciate it. And if you have any feedback on the show, questions for me, or just want to say hi, I'm Chris at allthehacks.com or at Hutchins on Twitter. That's it for this week. I'll see you next week.