Travel Smarter, Cheaper and Longer with Nomadic Matt

00:00:00.000 | And so even if you're going off the beaten path, sign language, you know, like everyone kind of

00:00:06.400 | knows the universal, like, "Cluck cluck" for chicken, right? And so, "Choo choo" for train.

00:00:12.080 | You know, people want to help you. So you just got to give them that opportunity to just be like,

00:00:20.080 | "This is what I need." You know, like, most communication is nonverbal anyway.

00:00:26.080 | So based on, like, your facial expression or, like, how you're miming things or body language,

00:00:34.240 | that can really help people figure out what you need. So never be afraid. And, you know,

00:00:42.480 | there's always Google Translate now. So, like, worst case scenario, you open your phone and you

00:00:47.920 | type in and it kind of gives, like, an okay translation, but probably enough to get your

00:00:57.440 | point across to people. Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about

00:01:02.640 | upgrading your life, money, and travel. If you're new here, I'm Chris Hutchins. And today, I'm

00:01:07.360 | talking with Matt Kepnes, better known as Nomadic Matt. In the early 2000s, he accidentally became

00:01:13.040 | one of the OG travel bloggers after saving money, quitting his job, and backpacking around the world.

00:01:18.240 | For almost two decades, he's been traveling, writing about it, and sharing how Traveler is

00:01:22.400 | easier, cheaper, and more life-enriching than more people realize. He wrote the New York Times

00:01:26.720 | bestselling How to Travel the World on $50 a day. And later, after more than a decade of travels,

00:01:31.840 | he wrote a memoir called 10 Years a Nomad. We're going to talk about why travel doesn't have to

00:01:36.240 | cost as much as you think, how travel changes after doing it for as long as Matt has, what to

00:01:41.440 | do if you get burnt out on travel. We'll get some of Matt's favorite tactics for travels and discuss

00:01:46.080 | whether $50 a day is really enough. We'll also talk about why travel insurance is one of the most

00:01:51.040 | important elements of a good trip, which Matt knows firsthand from a crazy experience he'll

00:01:56.240 | share about getting stabbed abroad and a lot more than that. So let's get started right after this.

00:02:06.960 | Matt, welcome to the show.

00:02:08.400 | Thanks for having me. As always, it's fun to be here.

00:02:12.880 | Well, I have a lot of questions. I'll special shout out All The Hacks member,

00:02:17.200 | Alyssa, who sent in a ton of topics to discuss. But I want to just start off

00:02:21.920 | asking what you think the biggest misconception people have about travel is.

00:02:26.160 | I mean, I think the obvious answer, at least to me, is that people think it's expensive.

00:02:32.320 | I think less so now because so much is on social media and there's so many blogs and

00:02:38.960 | it's talked about. But I still think the vast majority of people will say, well, they don't

00:02:48.400 | really have time to travel. But if you did, there's always time. But then they're like,

00:02:54.480 | "Oh, I just can't afford it." Because people think, "Oh, plane tickets are expensive. Hotels

00:03:01.440 | are being beat." They see all these commercials and this glamorized version of travel on social

00:03:07.520 | media. And they just think, "Well, that's pricing. Travel is a luxury item. It's not

00:03:14.160 | a must-have thing. It's something you do to relax, to take a break."

00:03:22.400 | And so there's this perception that this is expensive, when it doesn't have to be because

00:03:30.960 | you always can go over to wherever you're going and just do the local things and the local things

00:03:37.200 | cost a non-touristy price. And so I think if you ask people, "Well, how much do you spend in your

00:03:46.240 | own life?" People have these very way off estimates. They usually have a low... They're

00:03:56.000 | on the lower end. But if you get people to record all their expenses, even like, "Oh, I bought a

00:04:02.000 | water bottle. That's a couple bucks." But you don't think about it. People actually spend a lot

00:04:09.680 | more than they think they do. And then when you balance that versus the price of travel, it's

00:04:14.320 | oftentimes cheaper. I live in the Bay Area. So anywhere in the world I would go has to be

00:04:19.920 | probably cheaper except maybe Tokyo or a few cities. So life other places is cheaper.

00:04:26.160 | And I experienced this actually... It was probably almost 15 years ago. We traveled for 8 months,

00:04:34.080 | and we rented our place out at home. And we broke even or even came out slightly ahead

00:04:40.880 | because it turns out we were spending more to live in the Bay Area than we were spending to travel.

00:04:45.600 | But I want to get into some of those costs, some of the ways you save money,

00:04:49.520 | some of the tactics you have. But I want to get started and just ask how travel has changed for

00:04:55.680 | you. I know you have been in this industry for longer than many. And by industry, I mean writing

00:05:02.160 | and sharing your travels online. You wrote a memoir about what you've learned after being a

00:05:07.360 | nomad for a decade. How have things evolved for you personally and in the industry?

00:05:13.120 | I started this when I was 25. I started traveling the world. So I'm 42 this year.

00:05:19.920 | And so obviously, my days of cheap meals and 12-bed hostel dorms is long gone. I

00:05:31.840 | like nice food. Since I work when I travel, having a place to work is really important.

00:05:37.600 | A lot of good sleep is important. So I tend to get my own room, hotels. I take a lot more paid

00:05:47.520 | walking tours or food tours. And so for me, the biggest thing is that my accommodation is a lot

00:05:55.200 | nicer. I take more paid activities. Whereas when I was 25, it was all about the free stuff, the

00:06:02.160 | hostel dorms, cooking your own meals. I still consider myself a backpacker budget traveler.

00:06:10.160 | I take public transportation. I love street food. I still do parks and local things and

00:06:22.240 | go to the markets and all that jazz. I'm not a resort guy. I don't really do luxury. I mean,

00:06:29.440 | it's nice, but it feels very isolating to me. So that's the biggest thing that for me has changed.

00:06:36.160 | It's probably been nicer days. And then how has travel changed? I think travel has become a lot

00:06:42.400 | more accessible than when I started traveling. Both the ability to do it and the ability to

00:06:49.120 | find information. When I started traveling, the internet was just sort of taking off as a means of

00:06:56.400 | finding information in the sense that you had forums and blogs and all these places you can

00:07:03.520 | go to ask questions about where do I find this hostel? How do I do this thing? And so I was still

00:07:11.280 | primarily using guidebooks as well as just asking around. But between social media and the advent of

00:07:18.480 | so many blogs, there's nothing you can't learn with a quick Google search. There's no hidden

00:07:26.240 | restaurant, this hidden town. There are places that are more well-known than anywhere else,

00:07:35.200 | but there's no place that's unknown in the age of the internet. Somebody has been there and they

00:07:42.160 | posted an Instagram from there. No matter what little town it is, no matter where it is.

00:07:48.240 | And so that is really great because it demystifies a lot of the travel experience.

00:07:54.000 | It allows people to become more comfortable with going. It's not so much of like you're

00:08:01.360 | going into the unknown. It's like, "Oh, okay. I've heard of this place. I've heard of this thing.

00:08:05.920 | So maybe I'll go there." Even if you're so scared because you're going to a place you've never been,

00:08:12.080 | it's no longer like this fog out there. The advent of all these budget airlines and everything has

00:08:19.680 | made it just a lot cheaper for people to travel. Yeah. Sometimes one of the ways that I get

00:08:24.560 | inspiration is I'll just search on YouTube and it's, "Okay. Well, what's this place like?"

00:08:28.560 | It's like, "Here's a video of a person walking down the street." And you can get a really

00:08:31.280 | visceral feeling for what it's like to be there. And I remember

00:08:36.560 | when we first went to South and East Africa, I had this one BRAT travel guide that was from

00:08:42.400 | 1998 because it was the only one that was... We were traveling for long enough that I couldn't

00:08:47.200 | bring a book for each country. So I was like, "This was the one." You don't get a lot of

00:08:52.240 | feeling about what you're about to embark on there. It was more of a directory.

00:08:55.440 | Yeah. Guidebooks, even in the best of times, are usually a year and a half behind what's going on.

00:09:02.800 | Yep.

00:09:03.520 | I never have used guidebooks as a price guide. Just more of a rough guide.

00:09:08.480 | Yes. Yeah, yeah. I think they're great about, "Here's the part of town to look for.

00:09:12.720 | Here are some ideas of how transportation works." But I'm curious, you said now that you've gotten

00:09:20.000 | older, have done this a while, your digs have gone up. You wrote the book. People have referenced it

00:09:25.840 | in many ways about being the guide for backpacking about traveling the world on $50 a day. Do you

00:09:32.240 | think that still holds both in today's world, inflation, pandemic, and as people age and want

00:09:38.560 | to experience travel, not in a hostel with 12 beds? Yes and no. That book is never about the

00:09:44.960 | number. A lot of people would get caught up on that like, "Oh, $50. Good luck doing your way

00:09:51.600 | on $50." I mean, you're traveling the world on $50 a day. So it's a daily average. Some places,

00:09:59.840 | totally. Especially post-COVID, strong dollar. India is still very cheap.

00:10:06.480 | Parts of Central America, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, still very cheap.

00:10:14.000 | But your average place for a hostel in Western Europe is probably 30 euros an hour a night.

00:10:25.680 | So it's very rare to see dorm beds, 10 euros, 15 euros. They're still out there, but they're

00:10:32.080 | harder to find. And they're less common. And the beds are probably going to be like 20 beds.

00:10:38.320 | So if I, and I am going to redo this book, probably for a post-COVID, post-inflation world,

00:10:46.320 | I'd probably up it to like a $65, $70 a day average. If you're doing the quintessential

00:10:55.200 | round the world trip, going to Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand,

00:11:01.760 | South and Central America. And if you're coming from the US, that's going to be

00:11:08.880 | even better because the US dollar is so strong right now. Will that stay? Who knows?

00:11:19.200 | When I planned my original trip around the world, I remember it was one US dollar got you $1.30

00:11:26.320 | Australian. So that's what my budget was based off of. And by the time I got there is one-to-one.

00:11:32.000 | So I lost 30% of my budget because of that. So I had to readjust everything.

00:11:43.520 | So it's less about the number and more about the style, the tips, the tricks. If you're just

00:11:51.040 | looking for ways to travel cheap, forget about the number. Just use the strategies in the book.

00:11:57.040 | Okay. So let's talk about some of those strategies. Because I liked how

00:12:01.280 | you actually broke it down. It wasn't just, "There are a bunch of strategies.

00:12:04.560 | Go have a great trip." It's, "Here's what you specifically need to know."

00:12:07.760 | So how would you walk someone through the high level of planning

00:12:11.840 | a trip like this with a goal to do it on a budget? What are the best? What are the

00:12:17.360 | key strategies that people need to follow? I think the biggest thing for people is one,

00:12:21.600 | travel slow. The more you can spread out your costs, the better it will be.

00:12:26.640 | If you're moving around a lot, you're going to have high transportation costs. And that really

00:12:31.680 | can eat into a lot of people's budgets. But the big thing is just really being flexible.

00:12:37.680 | Because if you can wait for that deal to come, then you're not tied into, "I have to get this

00:12:44.000 | flight on this day to this destination." And so one of the benefits of long-term travel

00:12:50.160 | is that you're in no rush to do anything. You can wait for that flight deal, that hotel deal,

00:12:55.600 | or you can find a flight deal or a hotel deal and be like, "That's where we're going next

00:12:59.440 | because that's where it's cheapest." And so big picture, always be flexible.

00:13:06.320 | Second big picture thing is to travel like you live. You in your daily life cook food,

00:13:14.400 | you don't eat expensive food all the time, restaurants. You look for free activities,

00:13:20.080 | you take public transportation, you go for walks. Do the same when you're traveling.

00:13:26.480 | If you really want to get a taste of local life, go to the local farmer's market,

00:13:30.960 | go take the train or the bus, go for a walk, sit in a park. Travel doesn't always have to be about

00:13:38.480 | doing things. It can be more about just existing in the place and soaking up the vibe.

00:13:43.920 | And so if you travel like you live, you're going to end up doing all the things that locals do.

00:13:51.840 | Because what people do in Berlin isn't different than what people do in the Bay Area or Austin.

00:13:58.240 | Everyone gets up and goes to work and takes the train and goes grocery shopping and lives their

00:14:04.000 | day-to-day life and then walks and maybe sits by the river. They do something. Sit in the park.

00:14:10.000 | So I guess let's pause for a second and go back to a more macro question, which is

00:14:14.960 | when it comes to travel, why do you love travel? What is it about travel that

00:14:21.840 | makes it something that you've now, I guess, dedicated your entire professional career to

00:14:25.920 | and something you've spent decades of your life doing?

00:14:28.480 | I don't like to be bored. I guess that's one reason. When you travel, you're always doing

00:14:36.800 | something. I like mastering my own time. I mean, this is an accidental career. The goal was never

00:14:45.600 | to start a company. It was just to keep traveling for as long as possible so that I could have my

00:14:53.360 | own time, have my own schedule, do everything I wanted to do, just get out there and go explore

00:14:58.960 | and see the world. The world is a book, right? But the world is also a puzzle. And every place

00:15:09.040 | you go to adds one more piece to solve it. It's an unsolvable puzzle. You'll never finish it

00:15:15.920 | in your lifetime, but you just keep adding more to it. I just find people interesting.

00:15:23.520 | I'm also deeply interested in history and politics. So going over to places and learning

00:15:29.920 | about why they do things is just fascinating to me. It sounds like a lot of those things aren't

00:15:34.160 | always the paid tour, the Michelin star meal. So finding the joy of travel that

00:15:41.360 | isn't what you saw on Instagram, I think, can often make for the experience.

00:15:45.760 | So I'm curious, when you're trying to find those experiences, when you're trying to meet people,

00:15:49.440 | what do you do to connect with people? I think in today's world,

00:15:55.360 | people are maybe a little more closed off than they were 20 years ago because they have their

00:16:00.400 | phone to distract them at a bar. It seems harder to meet people. Have you found ways to keep that

00:16:06.960 | kind of vibe going, especially now that you're not in the hostel? You might be in your own

00:16:10.400 | private room. Well, one of the reasons I still love hostels is even though I'm in my own private

00:16:15.200 | world, I'm a hostel. You still get the vibe, right? So you can still go to the common area.

00:16:20.560 | But I think the opposite is actually true. I think the internet has made it easier to meet people.

00:16:27.280 | True, people have moved to their phone, especially in the hostel, in a way that wasn't true in 2006

00:16:35.360 | when I started traveling. But there are so many apps and ways to meet people through

00:16:42.800 | Couchsurfing, social media, Instagram, Facebook groups, Bumble BFF, Meetup.com,

00:16:54.000 | walking tours, bar crawls. There's lots of ways to meet people. And the internet has actually

00:17:01.040 | made it easier to meet people if you're open to it. And I think people are a lot more open

00:17:06.960 | to just meeting a stranger online. It's not weird to like, "Oh, there's this cool meetup

00:17:13.360 | happening. I'm just going to walk over to it because I'm new here."

00:17:16.400 | Is there any kind of mental checklist or things you do before you're going to a new place

00:17:22.000 | to try to connect with people, figure out what to do? What resources do you use to crowdsource

00:17:28.640 | ideas of things that you might spend your time on? I know you do say, "Leave a lot of your time

00:17:33.760 | open for serendipity." So maybe the answer is none. But I'm curious what kind of research you

00:17:38.800 | do in advance. Very little. Maybe read a couple of blog posts, bookmark a few restaurants.

00:17:45.600 | I try to just go there and see where the day takes me. Instagram, my Twitter feed.

00:17:52.720 | But usually if I'm in the mood to meet people, in the sense that I want to actively make sure

00:18:03.520 | there's people around me, I'll either stay at a hostel or I'll look at an expat Facebook group

00:18:12.400 | or meetup.com or something and see what's going on while I'm there.

00:18:15.760 | Since I travel a lot for work, my travels are about getting the price of food because we have

00:18:27.040 | to write a guide to it. It really depends on, "Am I there for research purposes or am I there for fun?"

00:18:34.000 | So if I'm there at a destination because we're going to write about it,

00:18:41.760 | I have a mission. I stick to it.

00:18:43.840 | Yeah. If I chat up locals and they're like, "Come to this thing." I'm like, "Okay, sure."

00:18:48.480 | But my mind isn't like, "I'm gonna go join this group to see if there's a cool event going on."

00:18:58.560 | But if I'm there for fun, I most likely will do that.

00:19:02.320 | Any memorable experiences that have come from random

00:19:06.400 | joining things that you just found on the internet?

00:19:11.200 | Just found on the internet? I joined a couple of couchsurfing groups when I

00:19:14.720 | lived in Paris a few years back. And those people became my friends for the entire time I lived

00:19:21.600 | there. Back in the day, during the MySpace era, I met a bunch of people in a Thailand travel group.

00:19:31.680 | We ended up traveling around Southeast Asia for like 3 months together.

00:19:36.240 | Yeah. Our travels were at a similar time in life. And it was the Lonely Planet Forums,

00:19:42.560 | where we would just post, "Hey, we're in South Africa. We ended up meeting these 2 guys from

00:19:48.480 | Sweden. And we ended up renting a car, buying a tent, and all this stuff together. And we basically

00:19:54.320 | camped in a tent with them driving around Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa for 3 weeks."

00:19:59.600 | So I think that's still possible. It just sounds like you got to find a few different places to

00:20:06.480 | find people. We do events here in Austin. And somebody came to one. "So how long have you been

00:20:12.880 | reading the blog?" Because I just threw that comment. So I was there and it's part of our

00:20:18.560 | blog thing. And she was like, "I just found this event on Eventbrite. I don't know what this is."

00:20:25.760 | And I was like, "That's really cool." She's like, "I'm just passing it through." I was like,

00:20:30.320 | "Super. Well, welcome." I remember after 6 or so months,

00:20:35.520 | I was ready for something different. And we were doing some slow travel. I'm curious,

00:20:40.320 | you did it for a decade. What did you do to avoid getting burnt out about travel?

00:20:45.040 | It's impossible to get burnt out. No, I'm sorry. It's impossible not to get burnt out.

00:20:51.680 | You will get burned out. At some point, you will get tired, you will get burnt out.

00:20:56.000 | If you're just doing long-term travel, it becomes your day-to-day life. And eventually,

00:21:01.920 | you need a break from that. And so in your day-to-day life, you take a break, you go on

00:21:07.600 | vacation. And if travel life, you can just sit in one place and recharge your battery.

00:21:13.360 | Travel is a battery. It's not some unlimited wellspring of energy. You need to rest at some

00:21:19.920 | point. Because everywhere you go, you have to relearn how to live, the language, how to get

00:21:27.760 | around, where to eat, where to stay, to walk around, local customs, the streets. You're

00:21:37.200 | relearning life every day. And that's mentally very taxing. There's a reason why when you drive

00:21:45.360 | to work all the time, you can tune out. It becomes like a routine. Your mind just goes on autopilot.

00:21:53.040 | When you're traveling, there is no autopilot because you're relearning everything.

00:21:56.640 | And so eventually, you just burn out. You need a break. And so slow travel can really help that

00:22:08.480 | because you're not really rushing yourself a lot. So you're adjusting to new places at a slower pace.

00:22:17.040 | But even the slowest of travelers, eventually, they're just like, "I just want to sit."

00:22:21.280 | Even short trips, I found, can be a lot. And so sometimes, it feels so counterintuitive to

00:22:31.040 | spend an afternoon on a one-week trip, like watching a movie in your hotel room.

00:22:37.600 | But the amount of energy you can recharge by just hanging out and relaxing, I think,

00:22:43.040 | is really valuable. And so I think people very often think, "Oh, I'm in this country. I can't

00:22:48.560 | afford to not be doing something every second of every day." But sometimes, you start to lose

00:22:53.440 | the appreciation for it if it feels like it's painful and it's work. So don't be afraid,

00:22:58.400 | I think, to take a break, even on a week-long trip for an afternoon.

00:23:03.280 | Yeah. And if your goal is to go to Italy for a week to soak in Italian culture,

00:23:09.760 | spending an afternoon doing nothing is very much a part of Italian culture.

00:23:14.960 | Go sit at the piazza and just enjoy a cafe and just sit around and chat.

00:23:22.080 | People watch. You get a real sense of Italy that way.

00:23:28.560 | Yeah, you mentioned customs and all the learning of a new place.

00:23:32.560 | I've had a few questions from listeners that ask about going to places that are very unfamiliar,

00:23:38.560 | whether it's the customs or the language. I'm curious what advice you have to someone.

00:23:44.320 | Maybe they're going somewhere in the Middle East or in Asia, where the customs and the

00:23:48.960 | language are all totally foreign to them. What would you tell them to do either in advance or

00:23:54.480 | just to help them understand how it might not be as difficult as they might think?

00:23:59.120 | Read a book. You can't really know a place until you've read something about it. So I always find

00:24:07.360 | reading up about where you're visiting. A history book, if you can, or even just a

00:24:14.240 | current events book, something that just gives you insight into the local culture

00:24:20.640 | can be super helpful. Additionally, there's so many blogs out there in the world these days

00:24:26.880 | that you can read on any subject you want. And from local writers too.

00:24:34.560 | People that live in destinations are now local bloggers.

00:24:39.520 | So that can really help you get a sense of place and understanding.

00:24:45.680 | Also, a great way to get food recommendations too. If you find a local food blogger on Instagram,

00:24:51.120 | their audience is other locals, not tourists. So you're going to get all the inside info.

00:24:57.040 | Yeah, if you have a VPN, and you can connect to an IP in the country, or maybe you can change your

00:25:02.800 | Google search to that country, you might get a different set of results than if you're searching

00:25:06.880 | from a US IP or on Google US search. So I've sometimes found a better set of results when

00:25:12.640 | I'm searching for stuff online, if I can anchor myself. Maybe there's a local search engine even.

00:25:17.200 | But if you could try to anchor yourself to searching within the country, you get maybe

00:25:22.480 | more relevant topics than the kind of travel guide from the foreigners overseas.

00:25:28.560 | But I know one thing that I've heard you talk about maybe more articulately than I can is about

00:25:35.280 | communication. And I think so many people might assume that you need to speak a language to go

00:25:41.440 | lots of places, especially if you want to go off the beaten path. And so first, I'm going to ask,

00:25:46.080 | how many languages do you actually speak, given that I think you've probably been to,

00:25:50.240 | if not 100, close to 100 countries, I'm guessing?

00:25:53.360 | I speak pretty good Spanish, decent Thai, and I can understand and read French, though my

00:26:02.800 | ability to give a reply is very slow.

00:26:07.120 | But that hasn't held you back from going to plenty of countries that don't speak those languages?

00:26:13.200 | You know, I mean, English is pretty widely spoken. At least basic English.

00:26:19.760 | And so even if you're going off the beaten path, sign language, you know, like,

00:26:26.080 | everyone kind of knows the universal like, "Cluck cluck" for chicken, right? And so,

00:26:32.320 | "Choo choo" for train. You know, people want to help you. So you just got to give them that

00:26:39.360 | opportunity to just be like, "This is what I need." You know, like, most communication is nonverbal

00:26:45.920 | anyway. So based on like, your facial expression, or like, how you're miming things or body language,

00:26:55.600 | that can really help people figure out what you need. So never be afraid. And you know,

00:27:03.840 | there's always Google Translate now. So like, worst case scenario, you open your phone and

00:27:09.120 | you type in and it kind of gives like an okay translation, but probably enough to get

00:27:16.320 | your point across to people.

00:27:19.920 | Does it ever feel like cheating to you a little bit? Having been to the type of travel where you

00:27:25.200 | had to rely on so much intuition or kind of hard work to communicate with people that didn't speak

00:27:31.360 | the language that now it's like, "Well, I guess I could just pull out my phone and type something

00:27:35.680 | and it could be understood by someone that has no common language threads."

00:27:40.800 | I don't like it just because I don't like pulling out my phone. In some parts of the world,

00:27:45.360 | that's not always the wisest thing to do. So I'd rather just do it the old-fashioned way.

00:27:53.120 | But I'm an old funny daddy. So, you know. I mean, if there was like an earpiece that did it,

00:27:59.600 | I would probably get that earpiece. Like, you know, like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

00:28:03.600 | where they put that slug in his ear and he can understand everything. That's what I would

00:28:09.840 | probably do. I don't like pulling out my phone a lot because then you're always on your phone.

00:28:15.680 | It's like back and forth. It slows down conversation.

00:28:20.160 | You mentioned earlier that now you like to stay in places by yourself, but you also like to go on a

00:28:25.600 | lot more tours that cost money. How do you find them? How do you make sure you don't get caught

00:28:30.480 | up in terrible tours designed for tourists that are maybe not as good as a much better one that

00:28:38.080 | you... Are there review sites? How do you think about that?

00:28:40.560 | I do mostly day walking tours, or a food tour or something like that. Very rarely do multi-day

00:28:48.000 | trips. But Best Walking Tour in X is really a pretty good search term. I'll read a couple of

00:28:55.360 | blog posts. And if the same company appears in a couple, and their tours look good and reasonably

00:29:02.640 | priced, I'll probably pick them. You can see star ratings. So if 17,000 people are TripAdvisor,

00:29:11.600 | this is four stars. And then three writers on blogs are like, "I took this tour and it was

00:29:18.800 | really good. And I wasn't paid to say that." Okay, maybe it's pretty good.

00:29:22.960 | It's always good to look for my unbiased opinion of... I find that to be a helpful

00:29:28.880 | search term for almost any product. You're like, "Unbiased opinion. XYZ mattress."

00:29:33.600 | So is there any place you've been where you've actually found that

00:29:38.800 | just sign language and English weren't enough? And to be clear, when we say sign language,

00:29:45.120 | we're not talking ASL, professional sign communication. We're talking about more

00:29:50.960 | hand miming and gestures. But are there places you've found that it's actually

00:29:54.240 | been very difficult to get around and communicate? No, not really.

00:29:57.440 | Maybe I haven't been to enough places that are so off the beaten path. But I've always found that

00:30:06.320 | miming and sign language gets you far enough. I want to go back to some of the tactics,

00:30:14.320 | especially around what you travel with. I know you're a fan of a backpack. But

00:30:19.840 | nowadays, what are the things that you take on every trip that you think...

00:30:24.160 | Not the obvious things, right? I'm sure you bring a toothbrush. But

00:30:28.080 | what are the things that people might be packing that are different from how you pack?

00:30:32.720 | I mean, I honestly don't take much stuff with me. Because I started in a time where you didn't need

00:30:41.040 | a lot. And so if I ever need something, like an umbrella, I'll buy it. Or if I need medicine,

00:30:48.640 | I'll pick it up on the way. I definitely take a towel. The Checkers Guide to the Galaxy 101.

00:30:55.280 | I always have a towel. But honestly, I don't take much stuff. I mean, I'm not a photographer.

00:31:00.480 | So I just use my phone. But to me, less is more. Like, what do you need to take? A couple clothes,

00:31:09.760 | a couple of books, a phone charger, and your phone. I take my computer. I take a notebook,

00:31:15.840 | a journal, backup credit cards. That's really it. I take a flashlight. I think a lot of people

00:31:24.000 | underestimate the power of having a flashlight, especially if you're camping a lot or just out

00:31:28.640 | in rural areas often. Just having that with you is really good.

00:31:33.840 | But other than that, I don't take a lot of gear. I'm like anti-gear. I'm also anti-app.

00:31:42.000 | If you're always like, "What apps do you use?" I'm like, "Google Maps." That's it.

00:31:46.080 | And you mentioned backup credit cards. We could go probably for a while about

00:31:50.080 | travel hacking. But one area I haven't really talked about is how much do you think about

00:31:54.000 | banking and budgeting and that aspect of it for a long-term trip where you're going to

00:32:00.080 | need to access money and you need to pay bills? Do you do anything differently than you would

00:32:06.560 | if you were living stateside? So I'm in this unique position

00:32:11.120 | where I work in travel. So money comes in and it's all taxed right now for me.

00:32:17.440 | So I would say that my recommendation for people is always to have two bank accounts. If you're

00:32:23.200 | an American, you should definitely have the Charles Schwab ATM card. There are no bank fees,

00:32:29.520 | no ATM fees. And if you get charged an ATM fee, they will reimburse your ATM fee.

00:32:36.240 | So I always have money there. That's my primary card when I travel. And if you lose it,

00:32:42.640 | they'll basically FedEx it to you anywhere in the world within 48 hours.

00:32:46.400 | But it's always good to have a backup just in case it's hacked or something happens where

00:32:54.080 | you can't get it in 48 hours. So I always carry two credit... I'll carry more than two credit

00:33:02.000 | cards just because I'm a travel hacker. But two ATM cards and at least two credit cards.

00:33:07.920 | And you only ever go out with one. I only take my ATM card out very rarely. It's always home.

00:33:15.920 | Just the cash out that you need. But that varies by destination. I mean, in Japan,

00:33:23.280 | you could walk around with $10 million in your pocket. No one's going to do anything.

00:33:29.440 | So versus like, I wouldn't walk around Columbia with a bunch of money or plastic in my pants.

00:33:37.200 | But at least definitely those two. And for the primary account

00:33:44.000 | that I have in terms of the Charles Schwab card, I only keep a few thousand dollars in there.

00:33:52.320 | So if somebody were to kidnap me and say, "Take all the money out,"

00:33:57.520 | it's not going to drain everything, right? There's only a maximum amount they can take.

00:34:02.240 | What about passport? Do you bring the passport with you when you're out and about or leave it

00:34:06.480 | back in the hotel or hostel? I always leave it in the hotel or hostel.

00:34:11.360 | And has that ever caused a problem? I know I've heard varying opinions here,

00:34:15.840 | which is like, "You always want to have some form of ID if something happens,

00:34:18.880 | if you get in trouble." And then the other is like, "You definitely don't want to have

00:34:22.160 | your passport lost, dropped, stolen while you're out."

00:34:25.920 | I bring my driver's license with me everywhere I go as a form of ID. The passport stays inside.

00:34:31.680 | The only time I will break that rule is if it's required for a spot check on the train.

00:34:38.400 | Sometimes in Europe, if you're on the train, even if you're just going between cities,

00:34:46.000 | they'll be like, "Passport." That's like a spot check. But just going out to the bar or a

00:34:55.200 | restaurant or walking around, no. And if I were to ever get stopped by the police, they're like,

00:35:01.280 | "Where's your passport?" I'd be like, "It's in my hotel. Come get it. Let's go get it."

00:35:08.400 | Really, they'll mostly fine you. I guess if you were in a country that required it and you got

00:35:21.120 | stopped and there was a lot of corruption, you may have to pay a bribe. Nobody wants that paperwork.

00:35:28.080 | "Why did you arrest this guy? He didn't have his passport on him." It's a lot of paperwork for

00:35:32.240 | nothing. The universal rule is cops never want to do paperwork. Every country has paperwork.

00:35:39.440 | At the worst, you'll get a warning. At the worst, you'll get a warning. At the worst,

00:35:47.760 | you'll pay a fine, like a bribe. A fine. With air quotes.

00:35:52.960 | Yeah. Have you been in any of those situations where you've had to pay a fine/bribe?

00:36:00.720 | Nope. Never. Our only one was a border crossing from Syria into Lebanon.

00:36:06.480 | And the taxi driver, funny enough, he was so embarrassed that his country would be the kind

00:36:14.560 | of place where you had to pay a fine that he paid the fine out of his own fare because he didn't want

00:36:19.760 | us to know about it. But later, we were in the car for a few hours. We asked about it. He was

00:36:23.440 | like, "Yeah, the way this works is if you get to the border and you have foreigners and you don't

00:36:27.120 | pay a tip, then they just hold you here for hours. And that causes delays for me and you,

00:36:32.080 | and our country's terrible at doing this stuff. But I'll do it."

00:36:35.840 | So I've never had to do it myself. But I know the paperwork issue deeply because

00:36:41.840 | my wife was pulled over speeding in Bosnia. And they were sitting here like, "Oh,

00:36:49.040 | this is the fine." And she was like, "I don't know." We just waited it out. And eventually,

00:36:54.400 | they're like, "Yeah, you can go because we're not going to try to fill out this

00:36:57.120 | paperwork for your international driver's license and everything."

00:37:01.840 | Yeah. I always count on nobody wants to do paperwork.

00:37:05.200 | Okay. One thing we haven't talked about that I know you have a pretty strong opinion on is

00:37:10.640 | travel insurance. What perspective do you have on travel insurance and its necessity in a day where

00:37:17.920 | so many credit cards have lots of forms of insurance baked into them?

00:37:21.680 | I still think it's very important just because you get better medical care,

00:37:25.040 | like emergency care. It's really the only higher end premium credit cards with $600 a year top end

00:37:38.000 | ones where you get really robust travel insurance. But even then, these aren't travel insurance

00:37:44.160 | companies. They're credit cards tapping this on. So they're not really streamlined to process

00:37:51.040 | claims in a way that a company whose only purpose is travel insurance.

00:37:55.760 | A lot of these credit cards don't really cover good medical evacuation. And so if you

00:38:03.520 | just want protection on trip interruption or cancellation or something gets stolen,

00:38:13.040 | yeah, the credit card you paid that trip on is probably good enough. But if you want actual

00:38:20.560 | medical insurance in case something goes wrong, you're going to want something to pay

00:38:24.720 | extra for. And travel insurance isn't that expensive. So you're not paying like $100 a month,

00:38:33.760 | get plans for $50. Are there any providers you've used that

00:38:38.960 | or you do use or I guess what do you use when you travel?

00:38:42.240 | Yeah, I use a company called Safetyway. They're really good. World Nomads is also really good

00:38:49.280 | for people having more gear. Insure Nomads is really good, but pretty expensive. And then

00:38:56.880 | for seniors, I would definitely recommend Insure My Trip because not a lot of plans

00:39:02.640 | cover people over 70. Okay. Have you ever had to use travel insurance?

00:39:07.280 | Yeah. I used it in Colombia. I've used it in South Africa when my bag got stolen.

00:39:15.040 | It's just in Thailand. So yeah, I used it quite a number of times. It's coming very handy. It's

00:39:20.880 | coming handy for friends. I had a friend break their back in the Amazon. They had to get airlifted

00:39:25.920 | out and then sent back to Canada. And travel insurance covers the whole thing.

00:39:30.640 | Wow. Yeah. And I think it's so funny. We get caught up in thinking travel insurance

00:39:35.040 | is about "My flight got canceled." But it can be about a lot of other things. And

00:39:40.400 | I will say medical... I don't know what kind of medical situations you've ever been in

00:39:44.560 | overseas. They don't end up being that expensive unless they're very extreme. And I can assure you

00:39:49.760 | that an airlift from South America to Canada is not something you want to have to cover on your own.

00:39:54.480 | That you do not. That you do not. So have you been in a situation where

00:40:01.360 | something went wrong? I mean, you mentioned your bag got stolen, you've gotten mugged,

00:40:05.360 | something like that. And why didn't that stop you from travel? When I think so many people,

00:40:10.880 | that's their fear, that something bad would happen. And if it does happen,

00:40:15.440 | they might not want to travel again. I have to assume it's happened to you. And you've kept going.

00:40:20.320 | Yeah. I got stabbed in Colombia. And my mother always sends me every State Department warning

00:40:29.680 | about Mexico. But it's like, "Hey, we live in the States. People get gunned down going to Walmart."

00:40:37.760 | There are mass shootings all the time in this country. Bad things happen. It's just part of

00:40:43.520 | life. It doesn't matter if you're home or in Mexico or in Thailand or in Paris or in Japan,

00:40:52.000 | shit happens. And so you can live in fear and say, "I'm just going to never go anywhere." But then

00:41:03.600 | walk across the street to a movie theater and then make it out because of some psychopath.

00:41:09.440 | Or you get hit by a car on your way to work. So it's like, "Are you really going to live in fear?"

00:41:16.000 | But what if? If so, then never leave your house.

00:41:19.680 | If you're up for it, I'd love to hear the story in Colombia. And maybe from the perspective of...

00:41:25.360 | I think a lot of people don't really plan for that. So they don't know what they would do

00:41:29.600 | in that circumstance. And I imagine you're here now. So it all went well. What happened? And

00:41:36.560 | how did you know what to do? And where did you end up going? And how did the trip unfold after that?

00:41:40.640 | Yeah, I was in Bogota. And I had my phone out. Long story short, you shouldn't have

00:41:49.280 | fancy electronics out. I just forgot to put it back in before I left this cafe.

00:41:58.800 | And so I tried to take it and he jerked backwards instead of just

00:42:02.960 | going forward. And so we started tussling. And then yeah, he had a small little knife.

00:42:09.040 | I thought he was just punching me. If he had shown the knife, I would have been like, "Don't

00:42:13.520 | take the phone." But afterwards, I was like, "Oh, so sorry." And I was just covered in blood.

00:42:20.320 | I assume you went to the hospital and everything was fine?

00:42:24.880 | Yeah, the whole thing cost me like 50 bucks. Honestly, the flight home was like 1000 bucks.

00:42:33.120 | And I have to reimburse me for that. But the 50 bucks, I was like, "It's not worth the paperwork."

00:42:43.200 | I mean, they could have done it for 50 bucks, but I did it for the flight.

00:42:47.520 | Would you go back to Bogota after that?

00:42:49.520 | Oh, yeah. 100%. I love, love Bogota. I was really sad to have to go home.

00:42:57.760 | Yeah. I've also been to Bogota. And I think, especially... I mean, it's just a great place.

00:43:03.280 | I love the country of Colombia. I've been there a few times. Bogota is close enough

00:43:08.560 | and no time zone good enough that I think you could even do it in a long weekend

00:43:13.120 | and have a great trip. Not that... I don't want to not do slow travel. But I think for those who

00:43:20.000 | don't have the time to do it, it's still a place that you can go in a short period of time because

00:43:25.200 | of the proximity. It's such a phenomenal place. I was there for 6 weeks and I'm gonna stay another

00:43:31.040 | 6 weeks. I want to just get some quick thoughts on travel hacking. I've obviously covered this

00:43:36.480 | topic a ton. You've thought about it a lot. Are there perspectives you have on it that you think

00:43:41.600 | are maybe a little bit contrarian to the average person who plays the points and miles game that

00:43:48.080 | would be helpful? Yeah. I think that people get too caught up in point value. For most people,

00:43:54.320 | just get a card, book your flight, that works, and don't spend time doing it.

00:43:58.880 | People overcomplicate the simple. For a person who's going on one to two trips a year,

00:44:09.520 | one credit card or two credit cards just to optimize spending bonuses, it's going to be more

00:44:15.200 | than enough. People are like, "Oh, well, this is worth 1 cent. So you want to move it here on 2

00:44:24.320 | days?" Yeah, you could really go deep. But for most people, they're taking one trip a year,

00:44:30.960 | 2 trips a year. It doesn't really matter that much. Don't spend a lot of time.

00:44:37.760 | What matters more? That it costs $100,000 points in $5 or 70,000 points in $500. I'd rather spend

00:44:47.200 | more points than more money. So when people are like, "Oh, I got this great deal. It's only

00:44:52.560 | 60,000 points plus $400." It's like, "Well, yeah." For this business class flight, it's like, "Yeah,

00:44:59.040 | but you're paying a lot in those fees." To me, that's not worth it. But some people are like,

00:45:04.560 | "No, I did the math out." And it's like that meme of all the numbers. It's like

00:45:09.680 | the guy from The Hangover. It's like they're calculating all this point value. It's like,

00:45:15.520 | "Aha! I've saved 62 cents." I'm like, "Yeah, but you spent 5 hours to figure it out."

00:45:21.520 | So what's your setup for travel hacking? Do you have a lot of cards, a couple cards?

00:45:26.240 | I mean, I have like 30 cards.

00:45:28.880 | Okay. Okay. So...

00:45:30.720 | Crazy. But I also have this for work too. So it's like really different. And I travel

00:45:36.000 | constantly. But my biggest... On my personal stuff, I use Built, which is a card that lets you get

00:45:43.760 | points on your rent for free, and they have some good category bonuses that I use.

00:45:52.000 | And then I use the Chase Sapphire. For work, I either use an Amex Gold or

00:45:59.280 | a Chase. Any favorite tactics for redeeming?

00:46:05.680 | There's a great new website out called Point.me. And you can just connect all your stuff through

00:46:12.000 | an API and just search where you want to go and it'll tell you where to transfer your points to

00:46:18.400 | get the most value. That's a really good news website. They're still working on some of the

00:46:24.160 | kinks. One of the things I don't like is you can't do a calendar view. You have to

00:46:28.400 | search day by day by day. Very frustrating. But it's a new program. So they'll fix it eventually.

00:46:40.560 | Yeah. When I talked to Heather, one of the... Or Tiffany, one of the founders,

00:46:46.000 | she basically said, "Don't expect that much because there might be a premium tier

00:46:52.560 | that you pay more for if you want to search more dates."

00:46:56.000 | So it's not clear that the full calendar view is coming. But I do like Seatspy for that feature.

00:47:01.840 | They give you a 365-day calendar view for a handful of airlines.

00:47:08.560 | Before we wrap, I want to go down one path, which is just inspiring people with some of

00:47:15.920 | the kind of off the beaten path places you've enjoyed that people might not be considering.

00:47:20.560 | I know I get lots of emails of people saying, "Oh, I have a trip coming up to Paris or London

00:47:24.480 | or Tokyo." But I think once you've ticked off some of the most common places,

00:47:30.320 | you're looking for inspiration, you've done more travel than probably anyone listening.

00:47:34.400 | What are some places you think people need to put on their list to explore?

00:47:38.000 | Taiwan, Romania, Bulgaria,

00:47:41.680 | Mexico. Not a lot of people... I mean, offbeat Mexico. Get out of Tulum and Playa and all those

00:47:52.320 | places. Maybe if you can, spend like, I don't know, a minute on each of the top few and just

00:47:58.640 | kind of... I haven't been to most of these, but I've been to Taiwan and it was fantastic. But a

00:48:02.880 | few of the others, I haven't. So I'm dying to know what set them apart from the rest of the world.

00:48:09.360 | Taiwan is just like very under-visited, great food, just like clean China.

00:48:18.640 | South Korea also, just great nightlife and food. Bulgaria and Romania,

00:48:28.000 | incredible history, ruins, smaller than medieval towns,

00:48:33.680 | national parks and mountains and you get the coast and it's just phenomenal and cheap and

00:48:44.080 | not a lot of people go there. Mexico is amazing. Everyone's super nice. It's just a vibrancy to

00:48:51.040 | life there, plus the food. So you can see there's a trend.

00:48:54.080 | Where in Mexico? I think Mexico might be really easy for a lot of people in the States to

00:49:00.960 | start exploring and flights can be pretty cheap. Where would you recommend... Someone's been to

00:49:08.640 | Mexico City or Cabo or Cancun. What are the places that you think...

00:49:14.000 | San Miguel, Delende, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Yucatan State, not the Peninsula,

00:49:21.680 | Merida, Monterey, just got places that come to mind.

00:49:36.400 | It's a huge country, but most travelers stick to a few places. I love Mexico City too, so

00:49:43.840 | can't go wrong there. Other places that come to mind,

00:49:49.120 | visualize the world. Malaysia, I don't think gets enough attention. Sri Lanka,

00:50:00.960 | Nepal, also just great places, but not a lot of tourists.

00:50:06.960 | Basically getting a really unfiltered view of places.

00:50:11.200 | Yeah, I think that's something I'm looking for now as we evolve.

00:50:15.840 | But one thing that's changed for me, and I'd love your perspective. We did a lot of travel

00:50:20.400 | solo, did a lot of travel with my wife, backpacking, and now we have kids.

00:50:25.040 | I know you said you're now in your 40s. How do you think travel for people who are now

00:50:31.520 | have a more demanding career, aren't able to work entirely on the road, have kids, have families,

00:50:39.120 | how do you think that affects the style of travel you've spent years writing about and living?

00:50:45.440 | And what do you think that looks like for the years ahead for you?

00:50:48.800 | Well, I think budget travel is a state of mind more than a style. Like, "Oh,

00:50:58.240 | we have to stay in hostels or whatever." So for me, as long as I'm still doing the local thing,

00:51:05.200 | to me, that's just budget travel. I don't think I will change that. I mean, I don't really like

00:51:17.520 | cruises. And then whenever I stay at resorts, I'm like, "Everything here is overpriced. I just want

00:51:22.240 | to go eat whatever the locals are eating." I don't want to eat at a resort. So I don't really see a

00:51:29.840 | lot of change happening in my life. I think even as a family, things change, of course.

00:51:41.120 | But as long as you're doing that local thing, it's really just more about

00:51:45.840 | your mindset than it is like, "Oh, anything else."

00:51:50.800 | Yeah. I think one thing that I'm going to change is just... And you already highlighted this,

00:51:57.680 | but just having less things to do. It's easy to get three or four things done on your own in a day

00:52:04.000 | and still have lots of time for exploration. With a family, it just feels like one.

00:52:09.040 | The goal is one thing to accomplish today. And let everything else come to chance. Or

00:52:14.800 | maybe let your kids drive. We just had a great conversation with Derek Sivers, who talked about

00:52:19.360 | how he traveled with his son. And it was just let him lead and explore through their eyes,

00:52:26.400 | which can be very different from exploring through your own.

00:52:29.280 | So I think the big summary for me, reflecting on... This is really reminiscent because I

00:52:37.440 | did an eight-month trip where it was just like this. And my wife and I did a lot of this before

00:52:42.160 | kids. It's just recognizing that you're not going to... A lot of what you're going to experience,

00:52:48.000 | like your example in Italy, is being in another place, understanding another culture, food,

00:52:53.520 | language. And that doesn't require seeing every museum in the town. It doesn't require ticking

00:53:00.400 | off every five-star restaurant. It can be a lot different. And it can be a lot more rewarding to

00:53:06.160 | do that. And even more so if you get outside of the cities. Sometimes just where you stay.

00:53:12.080 | Maybe don't stay in the most central part of town to force yourself to be around locals.

00:53:19.200 | I agree. I think as you age, you slow down. Especially if you have kids, you slow down.

00:53:25.200 | I don't have kids, but I've had a lot of other parents who travel with kids say the same thing.

00:53:34.320 | They let their kids just go and their kids will just discover things. And they then discover

00:53:39.520 | things. One thing I'm going to wrap with, is there a place in the world that if someone were going,

00:53:47.360 | you have a few recommendations? Maybe it's because you lived there for a while.

00:53:52.160 | Maybe it's because it's home. I mean, if you can go to Paris and go to

00:53:56.960 | La Dites Vines, that's a great restaurant. L-E-D-I-T-V-I-N.

00:54:05.440 | How would you spend a day in Paris if you only had one?

00:54:08.880 | Let's wander and wander and wander. Get some wine, sit on the sand, sit in a park,

00:54:16.000 | go to a cafe, and just eat.

00:54:18.000 | If people want to stay on top of everything you're writing, traveling,

00:54:22.160 | posting, where should they head?

00:54:24.800 | You can find me everywhere at nomadicmap.com and nomadicmap on social media.

00:54:29.680 | It's just traveling nomadic map. I'm branded the same thing throughout everything.

00:54:33.840 | Awesome. Thanks for being here.

Travel Smarter, Cheaper and Longer with Nomadic Matt

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