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How One Mom Made the World Her Family’s Home
17 Plays16 days ago
Tired of waiting for the “right time” to travel, Brodi Cole packed up her life, grabbed her husband and son, and hit the road—permanently. In this episode, Brodi shares how she left suburban life behind to become a full-time digital nomad, what it’s really like to raise a child while traveling the world, and why driving the Pan American Highway changed everything. If you’ve ever wondered how to afford full-time travel, how to make it work with kids, or whether it’s truly possible—this episode will open your eyes to a new way of living.
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Transcript
Introduction to Brody Cole and Her Journey
00:00:05
CHANTELLE KINCY
All right, today I'm here with Brody Cole. She's a full-time digital nomad and she's a mom and the founder of our Offbeat Life. Since 2019, she's been showing the world motherhood and adventure are not mutually exclusive.
00:00:17
CHANTELLE KINCY
Brody, her husband, and her child have been traveling full-time through over 40 countries, including a life-changing trip along the Pan American Highway, which we're going to dig in today.
00:00:28
CHANTELLE KINCY
And I want to talk to Brody about that lifestyle, how it really looks, kind of beyond the Instagram pictures, what it's really like day to day, and then how other women can kind of start carving their own path in this world. So Brody, hi.
00:00:40
CHANTELLE KINCY
I'm so glad you're here.
00:00:42
Brodi
Hello.
00:00:42
CHANTELLE KINCY
Thank you.
00:00:43
Brodi
Hello, hello.
00:00:43
CHANTELLE KINCY
So you are in South Korea right now.
00:00:47
Brodi
I am. i am on a very beautiful tropical island called Jeju Island. It's the largest island in South Korea.
00:00:57
CHANTELLE KINCY
Amazing.
00:00:57
Brodi
And it is prime vacation season here for South Koreans on their summer school breaks. So it's really fun. There's a lot of families and kids exploring the island. And it's fun.
00:01:10
CHANTELLE KINCY
How long have you been there?
00:01:10
Brodi
We went to a lava tube last week.
00:01:12
CHANTELLE KINCY
Oh, I love Lava 2. I did one in Maui.
00:01:13
Brodi
Yeah.
00:01:13
CHANTELLE KINCY
arent They're kind of like a little claustrophobic, but then they get huge and you're like, oh, okay, hold on.
00:01:18
Brodi
I'd never been to one before. i Believe it or not, this was a first for all of us.
00:01:20
CHANTELLE KINCY
They're cool. And like all the formations on the inside, it's just, and you think about what went through there to cause that and like how forceful and crazy it had to be to make that.
00:01:24
Brodi
Yeah.
00:01:31
Brodi
Yeah, one of the caves basically in Korean translates to the cave of the two dragons because the lava, the way it flowed through the cave, it looks like the outline of two dragons.
00:01:31
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:01:39
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:01:42
Brodi
Like not just like on the wall, but like the tubes, like the sub tubes.
00:01:43
CHANTELLE KINCY
Creepy.
00:01:47
Brodi
It's super cool.
00:01:47
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:01:48
Brodi
Really, really loved it.
00:01:48
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's amazing.
00:01:49
Brodi
Yeah, it was super cool.
00:01:50
CHANTELLE KINCY
Oh, I love
From Corporate Life to Digital Nomad
00:01:51
CHANTELLE KINCY
that.
00:01:51
Brodi
Yeah.
00:01:51
CHANTELLE KINCY
So how long have you been in South Korea?
00:01:54
Brodi
weeks.
00:01:55
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay. Okay. And you were in Cambodia before that? Is that right? Or no?
00:01:59
Brodi
Sort of. did a 10-day trip of fast travel between Cambodia and South Korea.
00:02:00
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
00:02:05
Brodi
we ended up going to Thailand and Hong Kong in between for like a quick adventure, which was really cool.
00:02:05
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
00:02:09
CHANTELLE KINCY
Nice. Yeah.
00:02:12
Brodi
So yeah.
00:02:13
CHANTELLE KINCY
Amazing. So let's talk about this life. Let's dig into this. What did your life look like before all of this? So you're from Chicago. What were you doing?
00:02:23
Brodi
Yep.
00:02:25
CHANTELLE KINCY
they and then how did we kind of transition to like, we're on the road now? Yeah.
00:02:32
Brodi
It was, for us, it was a long transition, but like, it was a lot of like talking about it for a long time. And then there was that pivotal moment where we like made the jump and then everything happened within a year.
00:02:42
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:45
Brodi
So basically I moved to Chicago right after finishing undergrad and i got a job in human resources, got a master's degree in human resources, was working in ah h r worked my way up, was an HR director.
00:02:58
Brodi
um and just, I really loved what I did for a really long time. And then something kind of changed. And I was like, I just don't love my career anymore.
00:03:09
CHANTELLE KINCY
yeah
00:03:10
Brodi
and My husband and I had just had our son and even, guess even before that we had talked about, you know, maybe becoming expats, maybe working for a global company, living abroad because my husband had been in the Navy a lifetime before I met him and he had served overseas for a little while.
00:03:33
Brodi
So he already had that, like, I lived abroad bug. And so I was like kind of jealous i hadn't lived abroad.
00:03:38
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:03:39
Brodi
And so it just, we had so many different iterations of, we're going to live abroad. We were like, oh, so we bought a sailboat. We're gonna sail around the world. We're going find our remote jobs and sail around the world.
00:03:50
Brodi
that didn't happen. So we sold the boat.
00:03:51
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's an adventure. Yeah.
00:03:52
Brodi
Yo, God, we've, we've had like our blog, our upbeat life is like, we just, we've never lived normal. Like we had chickens in the city of Chicago, like the city, not the suburbs. Like, and it wasn't just like two chickens. It was like 20 some chickens. Like we don't do anything halfway. We never have like,
00:04:10
Brodi
were just, I don't know, like life's too short to be boring. So I'm working in HR. had my son, you know, I went on maternity leave and I'm like, I'm maternity leave. And then I had that moment where I'm like i don't want to go back to work.
00:04:26
Brodi
I went back to work for several years. And I just felt like I was missing so much of my kid's life. Like my husband actually got downsized from his job while I was pregnant.
00:04:38
Brodi
So he decided to be a stay-at-home dad and we juggled things, sold our home, bought a new home. Like he became the
Starting a Full-Time Travel Lifestyle
00:04:44
Brodi
stay-at-home dad. So he was like in it every day.
00:04:46
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:04:46
Brodi
and I was so jealous.
00:04:48
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:04:48
Brodi
So we fast forward, we're like, my husband starts working for an online ESL teaching company in 2018. And he was doing that really great, like balancing being a stay-at-home dad with that.
00:05:01
Brodi
And then i got downsized from my job in 2018. twenty eighteen And at that point we were Airbnb, we owned a multi-unit, like a three flat in Chicago, and we were living in one and Airbnb-ing the other. So but my husband was basically running the Airbnb and working online.
00:05:19
Brodi
So while I was looking for a new job, um we took all of my severance money and put it in the bank. We're like, we're not gonna touch it. We're like, what if we need it? Oh my God.
00:05:31
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:05:32
Brodi
so we were living in Chicago. We were surviving. We were not living. We were surviving.
00:05:37
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:05:37
Brodi
Like we were buying groceries and paying the mortgage on rental money and online income. And I was like, if we can get by Chicago on this money, how much better could we live somewhere else with another cost of living?
00:05:48
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:05:53
Brodi
And so we ended up going I don't know, like we, and and know like my husband went into these forums and found out there was a bunch of teachers doing what he was doing, traveling the world. i was like, this is it.
00:06:06
Brodi
We can do this.
00:06:08
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:06:09
Brodi
So I got, I got a job. i was like, I'll work there for a year. We'll figure it out. I'll find an online job. We use that year to like sell off everything we own, put our place on the market, sell it.
00:06:20
Brodi
And we put it on the market and it sold so fast. We had nowhere where to live. We had bought plane tickets to leave the country in October.
00:06:24
CHANTELLE KINCY
my gosh.
00:06:28
Brodi
and are not plane tickets but i'll get to that we bought tickets seat out of the country in october and they like we had nothing to do between july when our house closed in october so we ended up joining um a company called trusted house sitters and we traveled the u.s for three months house sitting and driving and visiting all of our family and just had like a massive road trip and right before we left the u.s s we sold our car
00:06:39
CHANTELLE KINCY
Wow.
00:06:52
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's amazing.
00:06:56
Brodi
And then we got on a one-way cruise from los Angeles. And we spent 24 days and we cruised to Singapore. And Singapore was the start of our international full-time travels. And it was amazing.
00:07:09
CHANTELLE KINCY
Wow.
00:07:10
Brodi
Yeah. And that was, yeah, 2019.
00:07:13
CHANTELLE KINCY
Wow. So how old was your son when
00:07:14
Brodi
So
00:07:15
Brodi
he was six, just, he turned seven on our U.S. house-sitting road trip.
00:07:23
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay. So had he been in public school before before that, or your husband was home with him teaching him? No, he had been in school.
00:07:28
Brodi
No, he was, yep, he went to a public school in the Chicago public school system that was a Spanish immersion school. So they spoke Spanish 80% of the day.
00:07:35
CHANTELLE KINCY
Cool.
00:07:39
Brodi
So he was, like I mean, you know, he was already speaking Spanish before we were.
00:07:45
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:07:46
Brodi
It was really cool.
00:07:47
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's amazing.
00:07:48
Brodi
Yeah.
00:07:48
CHANTELLE KINCY
And so you're in Singapore and then were you still doing the house sitting?
00:07:51
Brodi
Yeah.
00:07:52
CHANTELLE KINCY
Is that how you kind of arranged it to work out or what was your like game plan for life at this point?
00:07:58
Brodi
We had no plan. There was no plan.
00:08:00
CHANTELLE KINCY
I love this.
00:08:00
Brodi
There was no plan.
00:08:01
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yes.
00:08:01
Brodi
Like, this is the story of my life. And I've gotten even worse at planning the longer I've been doing this because I just don't. But so, no, we I mean, we had a hotel in Singapore for a few nights and then we went, like, we kind of, we had it all really planned out. Like, I was a big planner. I was planning like three to six months ahead. So we went to Singapore for a few days because it's too expensive. You can't really stay more than, you know, a handful of nights.
00:08:24
Brodi
So we went to Singapore, then we went to Indonesia and we saw Komodo Island with the Komodo dragons. We went to Bali and then we went to Malaysia for three months and and made some amazing, amazing friends.
00:08:42
Brodi
And then, you know, you can only stay in Malaysia for three months as a
Traveling During the Pandemic
00:08:46
Brodi
tourist. So we went to Myanmar for a month because that's the longest you can stay on a visa, in a tourist visa in Myanmar.
00:08:54
Brodi
And that was around the time that like 2020 was really starting to like get creepy. Like February rumors were flying.
00:09:01
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:09:03
Brodi
It was it was weird. And so we we flew back to Malaysia. We were supposed to be staying for another three months. we all We had like made a bunch of friends and we all agreed to like get apartments um next to Legoland. And we were going to spend three months going to Legoland together. We all bought annual passes.
00:09:20
Brodi
And that lasted for about three weeks. And then the world started shutting down.
00:09:25
CHANTELLE KINCY
yeah
00:09:26
Brodi
And I'd say most of our friends left. um But it was us and like six or seven other families. We actually decided to stay in Malaysia because they're like, it's two weeks, right?
00:09:39
Brodi
Remember that? It's only two weeks.
00:09:40
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:09:41
Brodi
Everybody can make do for two weeks.
00:09:41
CHANTELLE KINCY
Mm-hmm.
00:09:43
CHANTELLE KINCY
Mm-hmm.
00:09:44
Brodi
So we stayed for two weeks. But then two weeks turned into four weeks. And four weeks turned into six weeks. And, but we were like, well, we're here We have an apartment. We can pay our bills.
00:09:55
Brodi
My husband was working like crazy because he was still an online English teacher and, you know, everybody was home taking online classes.
00:10:02
CHANTELLE KINCY
Everyone was online at that point.
00:10:03
Brodi
So were making bank.
00:10:03
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:10:08
Brodi
He was working like 70, 80 hours a week. It was bananas. Like, but we didn't have anything else to do.
00:10:08
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:10:11
CHANTELLE KINCY
Dang.
00:10:15
Brodi
So it was, it was weird, but.
00:10:15
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:10:17
Brodi
We ended up staying in Malaysia for another 13 months because they kept extending overstay amnesty for tourists.
00:10:22
CHANTELLE KINCY
Wow.
00:10:24
Brodi
And we're like, who would want to get on a plane right now? Like, that's just bananas.
00:10:27
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:10:29
Brodi
So we stayed, we stayed, we stayed.
00:10:30
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:10:31
Brodi
And then they finally like, okay, tourist overstays amnesty is over. And it was like, gosh, this was April of 21. Like things hadn't really opened up yet.
00:10:42
Brodi
So we booked the most expensive one-way tickets of my life um back to the US. We stayed with friends that we had met in Malaysia at the Legoland meetup for about a month to get everything sorted.
00:10:54
Brodi
and then And then we went to Mexico and we lived in Mexico for six months. Came back to the U.S. for the holidays, went out with my friends, bought our car and went back to Mexico for another six months. And that's what started our road trip is we kept seeing that the world just wasn't reopening. And like our flight from Malaysia back to the U.S. was not horrible, but like,
00:11:17
Brodi
it made me realize long-haul flying sucks now like it used to be okay and now people are just like not fun to fly with so i you know we just decided to travel and drive and we love mexico so much we tried to spend as much time with there as we could because as a tourist you can get up 180 days in mexico that's six months like and it's such a big country it doesn't look like it on the maps
00:11:19
CHANTELLE KINCY
yes so Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:38
CHANTELLE KINCY
Great. Yeah.
00:11:43
Brodi
ah But there's so much to see and so much to do if you leave the resorts and go inland.
00:11:50
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:11:50
Brodi
Central Mexico is my favorite.
00:11:51
CHANTELLE KINCY
i was just going ask what your favorite part was.
00:11:53
Brodi
Yeah, I love, mean, Mexico City is, i mean, it's one of the largest cities on the planet by square miles. Like you it's huge. So there's so much to see and so much to do. And the food, oh my God, the tacos. You can get, you can get like,
00:12:08
Brodi
like a DIY taco where like you tell them what kind of meat you want. And then they have like toppings lined up on this massive table and you can just make your taco into whatever you want. It's 25 pesos, which is like what a buck 20.
00:12:21
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:12:22
Brodi
Like, Oh, it's the best $5 you're going to spend on lunch.
00:12:22
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's
00:12:25
Brodi
I promise you. ah it's so good.
00:12:27
CHANTELLE KINCY
so good.
00:12:28
Brodi
Yes. It's so good. I still miss the tacos, but the culture is really good too. Like Oaxaca, Mexico down South is amazing.
00:12:36
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:12:37
Brodi
It's the home of chocolate.
00:12:39
CHANTELLE KINCY
Hey.
00:12:39
Brodi
So everyone should go there because you could try like chocolate. You can watch them make it.
00:12:45
CHANTELLE KINCY
So is Mexico your favorite country that you've been to?
00:12:49
Brodi
Oh, I'd say, I'd say it's probably top five.
00:12:50
CHANTELLE KINCY
Because you've been to more than 40, so you've got to have a list. Yeah.
00:12:55
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
00:12:55
Brodi
Top five. Like I have different,
00:12:56
CHANTELLE KINCY
What else would round that out?
00:12:58
Brodi
ah Malaysia, for sure.
00:12:59
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:12:59
Brodi
i it it stole my heart. We lived there. like it was It was home for a while. So a part of my heart will always be there.
00:13:07
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:13:07
Brodi
um Peru.
00:13:10
Brodi
i absolutely love Peru. i these are like so basically, as we've been traveling, my husband and I are always like, could we live here? Is this a place we'd want to live?
00:13:10
CHANTELLE KINCY
Oh.
00:13:18
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:13:20
Brodi
Because that's always kind of like the end the end goal is at some point we'll find a place we love so much, we just stop. This is it.
00:13:27
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:13:28
Brodi
And Mexico definitely checked a lot of those boxes for us, for sure. I'd have to think a lot longer about what my other two would be now that I limited myself to top five.
00:13:37
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah,
00:13:38
Brodi
um Ecuador would be another one. I loved Ecuador because it's got so many different microclimates. Like you could, i mean, you can go to the rainforest, you can go to the mountains, you can go to a cloud forest, and you can go to the beach all in one country.
00:13:50
Brodi
And there's even other microclimates I haven't gotten to yet.
00:13:51
CHANTELLE KINCY
yeah that's cool.
00:13:52
Brodi
But like you could sightsee in that country for months on end and never leave and be happy.
00:13:53
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:13:58
Brodi
So i don't know.
00:13:58
CHANTELLE KINCY
And it's not that big of a country.
00:13:58
Brodi
That's probably.
00:13:59
CHANTELLE KINCY
i mean, it doesn't look that big.
00:14:00
Brodi
No, no, it's not.
00:14:00
CHANTELLE KINCY
And then you've still got all this stuff jam packed into it.
00:14:02
Brodi
It's one of the smaller ones, but it's just, it's got so much biodiversity.
00:14:03
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:14:07
Brodi
I mean, the Galapagos are there, like, you know, so there's just so much to do and so much to see.
00:14:09
CHANTELLE KINCY
I know that's amazing. Yeah.
00:14:13
Brodi
I love it. Culture and wildlife and food are the driving factors for us.
00:14:15
CHANTELLE KINCY
Very cool.
00:14:17
Brodi
So yeah, that's kind of, that's what we look for.
00:14:18
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah. Okay. That's good. Those are good. Good guidelines to, yeah.
00:14:22
Brodi
i know I'd have to think harder about a number five. I'll get back to you. New Zealand.
00:14:24
CHANTELLE KINCY
It's okay.
00:14:25
Brodi
Let's say that.
00:14:26
CHANTELLE KINCY
Oh, I'm gorgeous. How could you go wrong?
00:14:27
Brodi
and If it wasn't so expensive, I would move there like yesterday.
00:14:31
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah. And that's the thing you got to weigh out too, is, you know, the cost and all the other logistics that go into it.
00:14:36
Brodi
Yeah.
00:14:39
CHANTELLE KINCY
New Zealand's also like really far from most things, you know?
00:14:41
Brodi
Everything.
00:14:42
CHANTELLE KINCY
So that's a, you know, if you wanted to do whatever, that's a something too.
00:14:43
Brodi
Everything.
00:14:47
CHANTELLE KINCY
So it's pretty isolated.
Adventures on the Pan American Highway
00:14:49
CHANTELLE KINCY
So let's talk about the road trip.
00:14:52
Brodi
Yes.
00:14:52
CHANTELLE KINCY
Where did you start? Where did you end? How long did it take?
00:14:56
Brodi
So I know I mentioned part of it briefly, but we bought our car in Las Vegas, Nevada, because that's where we were staying with a friend over the holidays.
00:15:01
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:15:06
Brodi
And so we bought our car in Nevada. We drove south. We spent six months in Mexico. And then we just like, we need to keep going. Like this is this. it It grew like we really thought we were just going to drive to Mexico, drive around, maybe pop back into the US every six months for like you know, a reset on our tourist passes. We didn't know what we were doing.
00:15:29
CHANTELLE KINCY
yeah
00:15:29
Brodi
ah But then we're like, no, like we, we were, we were in Guatemala um when my son was small. He was three, I think when we went. So we really liked it. Let's go check it out. So then I found a house sit in Guatemala.
00:15:43
Brodi
So we spent six weeks in Guatemala house sitting and i love even more. I love it more now. That's probably another place I could see myself. Like the weather is gorgeous.
00:15:54
Brodi
it's It's fabulous. Like even though it's really warm, it's also in the mountains. So it gets cooler at night. So you don't need air conditioning.
00:16:01
CHANTELLE KINCY
Oh, that's nice. Yeah.
00:16:03
Brodi
So it's fabulous. So then we just kept going. We went from Guatemala. We went to El Salvador, which I was not sure if I would like. And I absolutely loved it. We were only there for a little over a week, 10 days.
00:16:17
Brodi
And i wish we'd spend more time. It was so much fun. and it was just... The people were kind. The food was really good.
00:16:29
Brodi
we we We stayed on a coffee farm. like The Airbnb that we stayed in was like on a coffee farm. So we would wake up in the morning and drink our coffee and like walk through the coffee farm.
00:16:35
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's cool.
00:16:40
Brodi
The owners didn't care. and the woman was so kind. She would like make dinner. And she like if it was anything like local, she'd bring it over and be like, you need to try this.
00:16:49
Brodi
So we tried all of her food.
00:16:49
CHANTELLE KINCY
oh
00:16:51
CHANTELLE KINCY
I love that.
00:16:51
Brodi
It was... It was, she was just so kind. It was the best homestay I think I've ever had.
00:16:55
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's amazing.
00:16:57
Brodi
it was wonderful. We just kept going.
00:16:59
CHANTELLE KINCY
Oh yeah.
00:17:00
Brodi
And then we were approaching Panama and we're like, do we want to go to South America? Like, that's a commitment because you can't drive to South America. You have to take a boat or fly because the Darien gap between Panama and Colombia is enormous, right?
00:17:11
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:17:15
Brodi
So, and it's some of the most like treacherous, wild land in the world. Like they've never built a road there because the ravines and like the mountains, it's just, it's too much.
00:17:28
Brodi
And the jungle is so thick, they can't really clear it very well, et cetera. So we ended up finding another family doing what we're doing. And we decided to share a shipping container. Both of our cars fit in the shipping container and a motorcycle.
00:17:45
Brodi
So it was our car. had a Toyota 4Runner. They had ah some sort of a Jeep SUV. I don't remember what kind, but they had a Jeep. We had a four-runner, so two big SUVs and a motorcycle fit in this container.
00:17:59
CHANTELLE KINCY
Holy cow.
00:18:00
Brodi
And we were and then there was there was another container of two vehicles and a motorcycle. So we were all kind of like shipping on the same boat, two containers.
00:18:09
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:18:10
Brodi
And so we shipped our car to Cartagena, Colombia and flew to meet it, picked it up. spent three months in Colombia and just basically spent three months in all the countries on our way south so that we could explore.
00:18:24
Brodi
And it was, it was really cool. It was not easy. i am sugarcoating this so much. Like I'm glossing over all of the bad things.
00:18:30
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:18:36
Brodi
But like the point is like you, actually, we have a podcast too. And we actually just recorded a podcast episode of like our top worst moments.
00:18:45
CHANTELLE KINCY
yeah
00:18:45
Brodi
And So that's going to be dropping season three um pretty soon. My husband is editing it as we speak. But i mean, in there, we talk about the time that we were Colombia the there was a massive landslide that literally destroyed a portion of the Pan American Highway. So we had to take side roads for three days to get around it.
00:19:07
Brodi
And we ended up driving on ah on a road called the Trampoline de la Muerte, which is the trampoline of death.
00:19:13
CHANTELLE KINCY
Death.
00:19:14
Brodi
It's Colombia's death road. that is still open for drivers.
00:19:16
CHANTELLE KINCY
Good.
00:19:18
Brodi
And like it it's literally like hundreds and hundreds of feet down with no guardrails. And it's it's a dirt road. It's not paved. like they They built it 100 years ago when Colombia was at war with Ecuador, and it was like to move troops and transport vehicles. It was never really designed to be a permanent road. But then the locals were like, this works for us. We're keeping it.
00:19:43
Brodi
so
00:19:44
CHANTELLE KINCY
Terrifying.
00:19:45
Brodi
It really was like, it was really scary, but it was also beautiful. Like some of the scenery that we saw, like it was unreal.
00:19:54
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:55
Brodi
So, you know and then there was a time in Ecuador that we were driving to a condor sanctuary and Google told us to take a road that was like not finished yet, but Google didn't realize it wasn't finished.
00:19:55
CHANTELLE KINCY
No.
00:20:05
Brodi
So our car literally fell off the side of the road and sat at 45 degrees.
00:20:08
CHANTELLE KINCY
No.
00:20:10
Brodi
Yeah.
00:20:10
CHANTELLE KINCY
No.
00:20:10
Brodi
Yeah. Oh yeah. This happens. until like some overlanding friends that we met, we called them and they had the like the biggest, most honking large, like overland all terrain vehicle I've ever seen.
00:20:22
Brodi
They drove over an hour to come and get us and pulled us out like we were nothing.
00:20:27
Brodi
And I love them forever. So, well, yeah, but like, I mean, so i just, I say this not to scare people, but like, I mean, crap happens wherever you are, right?
00:20:27
CHANTELLE KINCY
Oh my gosh.
00:20:29
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah. It pays to make friends, right? Like.
00:20:40
CHANTELLE KINCY
oh for sure.
00:20:41
Brodi
Like,
00:20:41
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:20:42
Brodi
you You could get in an accident driving to work.
00:20:45
Brodi
You know, like, you know, you could be like, you know, my neighbor when I was growing up, she was out walking her dog. She slipped and fell on the sidewalk and broke her back.
00:20:45
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:20:53
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:20:54
Brodi
Like, it happens.
00:20:54
CHANTELLE KINCY
yeah
00:20:55
Brodi
Anything can happen anywhere you are. Our stuff just sounds way more outlandish because I always have to preface it was with we were in this country doing this weird thing most people don't do.
00:21:06
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:21:07
Brodi
And then this thing happened.
00:21:07
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah. yeah Yeah.
00:21:09
Brodi
But like, if I just said this thing happened, people be like, oh, that sucks.
00:21:13
CHANTELLE KINCY
But now we're like, whoa, no
00:21:16
Brodi
It's
00:21:16
CHANTELLE KINCY
you on the Pan American Highway i from start to finish?
00:21:20
Brodi
Ooh. We left and December of 21 and we sold the car that we bought with it in September of 24.
00:21:34
Brodi
So almost three years.
00:21:35
CHANTELLE KINCY
Oh, wow. Okay, cool.
00:21:36
Brodi
Yeah.
00:21:37
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's quite a bit of time.
00:21:37
Brodi
Cause we drove all the way South to Ushuaia, Argentina. Then we drove back up North. We did Brazil and then we, then we were really crazy and we shipped our car back from South America to Mexico.
00:21:49
CHANTELLE KINCY
Oh,
00:21:50
Brodi
And drove around Mexico again, because we love it so much. And then we spent a month driving through the U.S., seeing family and friends.
00:21:55
CHANTELLE KINCY
that's amazing.
00:21:57
Brodi
And then we sold our vehicle in Seattle, um literally.
00:22:02
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay. And then that's when you took a cruise, right?
00:22:04
Brodi
And that's when yeah literally the day before we got on a cruise ship and went from Seattle to Sydney.
00:22:08
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
00:22:09
Brodi
And then we spent three months in Australia.
00:22:09
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right. Okay.
00:22:11
Brodi
And that was end of last year, beginning of this year.
00:22:11
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
00:22:15
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah, because I remember I missed you in Sydney by just a couple days or something like that. or
00:22:18
Brodi
Yeah.
00:22:19
Brodi
Yeah, no, by the time you got to Sydney, we were house sitting in Melbourne.
00:22:22
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's what it was. Yep, that's what it was. Yeah, because you were in Australia a lot longer than I was, but I remember we were crossing the ocean similar times.
00:22:29
Brodi
Yeah, we had three house sits in Melbourne and um Brisbane.
00:22:38
Brodi
Sydney, we just stayed in a hotel for a few nights.
00:22:38
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's right.
00:22:40
CHANTELLE KINCY
So is that what you do? Do you try to sometimes have an Airbnb, but sometimes you homesit or like, what's your, where, how are you living? where Where are you staying? What's happening?
00:22:51
Brodi
We spend at least, I would say at least 50% of any year house sitting.
00:22:57
Brodi
And then in between we'll do hotels or rentals. Um, after two really horrific experiences in Mexico, I stopped using Airbnb. I do not recommend them at all in any way. I will spend more for a hotel now.
00:22:57
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
00:23:11
Brodi
we do still do private rentals. ah When we were in Cambodia for two months, ah we did a little bit of house sitting. And then we wanted to stay a bit longer to hang out with some of the friends that we had made. So we just got a private apartment that we found through a Facebook group.
00:23:25
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
00:23:26
Brodi
and rented that and it was gorgeous it was a two-bedroom apartment that included everything including wi-fi and cleaning twice a week the only thing it didn't include was electric we paid that separate it was 350 bucks a month and i had and we had two pools right so oh god it was and it was two blocks from the grocery store so we didn't even have to like
00:23:39
CHANTELLE KINCY
Stop. Oh my gosh. Crazy. you imagine?
00:23:51
Brodi
lug food all over. We could just like go grocery shopping every couple days because it was easy to carry just a couple days of groceries back to the apartment.
00:23:57
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's so amazing.
00:23:57
Brodi
It was, it was really nice.
00:23:59
CHANTELLE KINCY
How are you guys choosing where to go next? Is it like places you want to go? Are you just looking at the home site, the home center site and be like, oh, they have an opening. We should try this out. Or are you like being super strategic about picking this out?
00:24:12
Brodi
i would love to say we're strategic. However, we're not always strategic.
00:24:15
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay. Okay.
00:24:18
Brodi
I mean, Like when we went to, so basically our driving force is we are trying really hard to do seven Christmases on seven continents in seven years.
00:24:30
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
00:24:30
Brodi
So we did, we started out with Asia 2020 and then North America, South America, Antarctica, the next two years. australia twenty
00:24:40
CHANTELLE KINCY
Australia.
00:24:41
Brodi
or
00:24:42
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
00:24:42
Brodi
so we just need to do
00:24:44
CHANTELLE KINCY
You got to go to Europe.
00:24:45
Brodi
africa and europe
00:24:46
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:24:48
Brodi
you know for the next two years
00:24:49
Brodi
So we've been kind of planning with that in mind, which is why we originally had a cruise planned from um from l la to Tokyo. But then we're like, well, we want to go to Tokyo for cherry blossoms. So going to Tokyo in October wouldn't work.
00:24:49
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
Flexible Planning and Travel Strategies
00:25:05
Brodi
So we like paid a change fee and switched to the other cruise that was going from Seattle to Sydney.
00:25:10
CHANTELLE KINCY
oh gotcha okay
00:25:11
Brodi
And I was like, so then we just have to figure out, we just have to find house sits in Australia to get us through Christmas. so we kind of have a plan but then we don't always have a plan so after australia we started looking at house sits in new zealand found some really great house that opportunities in new zealand and then that was perfect timing for us to fly to japan for cherry blossoms so but we try to be strategic and like well let's fly from this country to this country because it's cheaper like airfare isn't going to be a thousand dollars a person because
00:25:34
CHANTELLE KINCY
<unk> bo
00:25:44
Brodi
it doesn't matter if we find really great apartments in Cambodia, if I have to pay $1,500 to fly there.
00:25:49
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:25:50
Brodi
So we do like, that's why we're kind of trying to stay around Asia because it's really easy to get affordable flights within Asia.
00:25:51
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:25:58
Brodi
And we were supposed to fly direct from Cambodia to South Korea, but I found out it was cheaper for us to fly to go from Cambodia to Bangkok, from Bangkok to Hong Kong and Hong Kong to Seoul.
00:26:10
Brodi
Like that was actually cheaper than a direct flight.
00:26:13
CHANTELLE KINCY
Crazy.
00:26:14
Brodi
Like, and since we have time to work with, it's easier to find those deals.
00:26:17
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:26:19
Brodi
I'm not like, I have a one week vacation that I can take sometime in September.
00:26:19
CHANTELLE KINCY
Exactly.
00:26:24
Brodi
So where can I go in September that's affordable?
00:26:24
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:26:26
Brodi
Like we can be, you know, strategic in that way.
00:26:27
CHANTELLE KINCY
Exactly.
00:26:30
CHANTELLE KINCY
Flexible enough to make that work. Yeah.
00:26:32
Brodi
So I think it's, it really, yeah, you said it right.
00:26:32
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:26:34
Brodi
Like it's more about us being able to be flexible than really having a set strategy.
00:26:39
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:26:40
Brodi
But like we're leaving South Korea, in August and I haven't booked the tickets yet. That's like a month, a month, a little over a month from now. And I haven't booked the ticket yet because we're going to Singapore to see, um, one of my husband's friends for a couple days.
00:26:50
CHANTELLE KINCY
And where are you going?
00:26:56
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
00:27:00
Brodi
And then we're crossing into Malaysia to have a reunion that's well overdue with all of our, all of our friends that live there.
00:27:06
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's so cool.
00:27:07
Brodi
But I'm like, do we want to go straight to Singapore? Is there someplace else we want to go first?
00:27:12
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:27:13
Brodi
So,
00:27:14
CHANTELLE KINCY
So when you're talking about friends, are you meeting people that are local to the areas? are you meeting people that are also sort of world schooling? Like, is it a good mix?
00:27:24
Brodi
Both.
00:27:25
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:26
Brodi
It's both. um Yeah, like we, we make friends with anyone. But like, we've really lucked out with having some really good friends.
00:27:39
Brodi
Because especially when it comes to traveling families, you make friends quickly, because, you know, you're because kids bond quickly.
00:27:48
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yes.
00:27:48
Brodi
Right.
00:27:49
CHANTELLE KINCY
It's so much easier.
00:27:49
Brodi
So when you're traveling with a kid,
00:27:50
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:27:53
Brodi
It is so much easier to break the bounds because, you know, your kids like, hey, there's a playground. So you're like, ah, let's go to the playground because we just did temples for three hours. So let's go blow off some steam.
00:28:02
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:28:03
Brodi
So you go to the playground and then who's going to be at the playground?
00:28:03
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:28:06
Brodi
Other families. And, you know, we don't always speak their language. So like that's actually been trouble for us here in South Korea is outside of Seoul, almost no one speaks English.
00:28:18
Brodi
So even though there's kids my son's age in this complex, they don't speak English and Korean is a really hard language to learn.
00:28:26
CHANTELLE KINCY
It's, yeah.
00:28:27
Brodi
So he hasn't really been making onsite friends here the way we had hoped, but you know roll the dice. He still has his online friends that he plays with. Like he's kept in touch with friends that he's made all over the world.
00:28:41
CHANTELLE KINCY
That's amazing.
00:28:41
Brodi
And on any given day, he'll play with a friend from Chile, a friend from Canada, a friend from South Africa that he met in Vietnam that now lives in London.
00:28:53
Brodi
And one of the, and one of that kid's friends who also lives in London.
00:28:57
Brodi
And then he might also even play with some of his friends from before we started traveling back in Chicago.
00:28:57
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:29:03
CHANTELLE KINCY
Isn't that something? It is so cool the way that technology can keep, technology can keep them together that way in a way that it couldn't when we were that age.
00:29:04
Brodi
Yeah. I'm sure I'm leaving somebody out too.
00:29:09
Brodi
Yeah.
00:29:11
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right. Like it's just so
00:29:12
Brodi
Yeah.
00:29:14
CHANTELLE KINCY
See, that's so cool though. Right. And then you just have all these little connections everywhere and you can just.
00:29:16
Brodi
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like this is the kid, like her kids are around ah really close to my son's age and they were like, we had a freak snowstorm on our Antarctica cruise and there was snow on deck when we woke up.
00:29:32
Brodi
And so I have like video of my son and her kids throwing snowballs at each other in Antarctica.
00:29:39
CHANTELLE KINCY
Amazing.
00:29:39
Brodi
Like, super cool.
00:29:41
Brodi
Super cool.
00:29:41
CHANTELLE KINCY
How do you like not bond over that?
00:29:44
Brodi
Right?
00:29:45
CHANTELLE KINCY
Wait on your cruise. Did you get the Drake Lake or the Drake shake?
00:29:50
Brodi
We got the Drake Shake coming back. um
00:29:54
CHANTELLE KINCY
Okay.
00:29:55
Brodi
But going, well, no. Going down, okay. So Ushuaia, The was so bad. um The winds were so bad that they had closed the port so we couldn't stop in Ushuaia to like sightsee, which
00:30:10
Brodi
because we missed a port day, we had like an extra 36 hours to like go extra slow through the water. So even though the water was bad,
00:30:21
Brodi
we didn't like suffer on the way down because the captain, we had the best
00:30:23
CHANTELLE KINCY
It wasn't as bad.
00:30:26
CHANTELLE KINCY
the one thing that worries not worries me, but like that I think about when I think about the Antarctic cruises, because I mean, i get seasick easy, even though I love to be on the water.
00:30:35
Brodi
Yeah.
00:30:36
CHANTELLE KINCY
i um, I'm just susceptible to it. And so, but I think it's worth it, but I would still do it.
00:30:40
Brodi
I I didn't used to be, but I am more susceptible to boat movement on the, even on the big ships when we're, if it's really wavy, like when, I don't know if you noticed, but between like the last day or so when you're approaching Australia, the water gets really rough.
00:30:42
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:30:48
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:30:56
CHANTELLE KINCY
In, yes. In the Tasman Sea, it was rough.
00:30:59
Brodi
Yeah.
00:30:59
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yes. And they said that too, because I was like, what is going on? They're like, oh, it's always like that right here.
00:31:05
Brodi
Yeah.
00:31:05
CHANTELLE KINCY
And so was like, yeah.
00:31:05
Brodi
But no, nobody talks about that.
00:31:07
CHANTELLE KINCY
No, I didn't either.
00:31:07
Brodi
like I had no idea. so I have the little bracelets that I wear, the the pressure point bracelets. And then if those don't work, then I'll take Dramamine.
00:31:13
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:31:15
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:31:16
Brodi
But like, yeah, I was wearing my bracelets at breakfast and on the Tasman. it was It was rough.
00:31:21
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah, no, and it, yeah, and it was surprising because it didn't seem like bad outside, right? The sky was still blue.
00:31:26
Brodi
No.
00:31:27
CHANTELLE KINCY
It wasn't like this big storm or anything. It was just really rough water.
00:31:31
Brodi
Yeah, somebody was somebody told me it's because it gets a lot shallower really fast, so that's why the water gets bumpy.
00:31:37
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:31:38
Brodi
And was like, oh, okay.
00:31:38
CHANTELLE KINCY
Interesting.
00:31:40
Brodi
Because the Pacific is going up against the Tasman plate.
00:31:41
CHANTELLE KINCY
yeah
00:31:43
CHANTELLE KINCY
Interesting.
00:31:44
Brodi
I mean, they could have been making it up, but it sounded logical.
00:31:47
CHANTELLE KINCY
Sounds scientific. I like it.
00:31:49
Brodi
and was like, I believe you.
00:31:50
CHANTELLE KINCY
Let's just keep keep that one going.
00:31:51
Brodi
We'll say that we say that's correct.
00:31:52
CHANTELLE KINCY
I doubt anyone's going to look it up.
00:31:55
Brodi
For my infinite knowledge of plate tectonics, we'll check that off. Yes, that is correct.
00:32:01
CHANTELLE KINCY
Me going, oh, there's a Tasman plate. Interesting.
00:32:05
Brodi
Well, do you go to the, like, cause you know, like on the long cruises, they have those education seminars in the big theater.
00:32:11
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:32:12
Brodi
I love those. i will wake up. I will wake up before my family to go to those
00:32:17
CHANTELLE KINCY
No, ours was cool too. And they had like these, um, naturalist on board and then photographers on board.
00:32:22
Brodi
Yes.
00:32:23
CHANTELLE KINCY
The photographers were freaking amazing because they would have these amazing slideshows and they had been to like all these different climates and all these different areas and their picture, like underwater pictures and rainforest.
00:32:27
Brodi
Yeah.
00:32:35
CHANTELLE KINCY
was like, oh my gosh, you guys are living the dream. But they were so interesting because they just had so many different experiences that normal people don't get to have.
00:32:37
Brodi
Yeah.
00:32:43
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right. And they just had seen like all these migrations, like the belugas that all come together, like, oh, just crazy stuff.
00:32:44
Brodi
yeah
00:32:50
CHANTELLE KINCY
And I was like, dang.
00:32:50
Brodi
That would be super cool.
00:32:52
CHANTELLE KINCY
I know. ah that That's been haunting me. I gotta go see those ding belugas up in Canada one of these days. There's like thousands of them at one time.
00:33:01
Brodi
What?
00:33:03
CHANTELLE KINCY
And narwhals, Brody. Narwhals.
00:33:05
Brodi
oh The unicorns of the sea, my favorite.
00:33:08
CHANTELLE KINCY
And this, I was just watching this whale show the other night with my granddaughter and the belugas and the narwhals are like cousins, like in the whale family.
00:33:17
Brodi
They are?
00:33:17
CHANTELLE KINCY
Like they're the closest related to each other, but they don't really like,
00:33:20
Brodi
OK.
00:33:24
CHANTELLE KINCY
mesh Like they travel kind of the same area sometimes. Anyway, this narwhal went away from his pod, got 600 miles away and ran into this like little beluga family.
00:33:38
CHANTELLE KINCY
who took him in and now, and this photographer waited clear till the next season. And then the next season to keep seeing, like if he was going to just like adapt because they're like, he's not supposed to be here.
00:33:50
CHANTELLE KINCY
He's not going to know how to fish. He's not going to, or he's not to know how to hunt. He's not going to know how to survive.
00:33:53
Brodi
But they taught him.
00:33:54
CHANTELLE KINCY
They did. And then it's, they were like documenting over a couple of years and this guy kept coming back and he would find this family of belugas and this dang narwhal would be with them.
00:34:05
CHANTELLE KINCY
Like they adopted him and it's so cool.
00:34:06
Brodi
That's adorable.
00:34:09
CHANTELLE KINCY
ah was like, Oh, it's yeah.
00:34:10
Brodi
I'm to to look that video up. I'm sure someone has a YouTube video about it. My son loves that kind of stuff.
00:34:14
CHANTELLE KINCY
It's secret of the whales on Disney plus. And it's a national geographic guy that is doing the thing, but the secret of the whales, there's five episodes, like orcas and
00:34:17
Brodi
Okay.
00:34:24
CHANTELLE KINCY
I don't know, humpbacks and sperm whales or something. And then like the belugas and narwhals, but it's the coolest thing. But yeah, they all go from Norway to Canada every single year and they go where it's like super shallow.
00:34:30
Brodi
That's adorable.
00:34:36
Brodi
Oh, wow.
00:34:39
CHANTELLE KINCY
And then they like, they call it like a little beluga spa and they like rub along the bottom to get all of their old dead skin off. And then that's like, they have their babies and they kind of like refresh and like live in this little shallower water.
00:34:47
Brodi
Ooh.
00:34:52
Brodi
They're living the life.
00:34:52
CHANTELLE KINCY
And dude, they're so cool. They're so cool.
00:34:55
Brodi
my god.
00:34:57
CHANTELLE KINCY
Oh, and they all have, we're getting really off track, but I'll talk about whales all day. But they have their own like languages in their own families. And they think that each beluga like responds to a different call, like a different name, like individually.
00:35:13
Brodi
They all have names.
00:35:13
CHANTELLE KINCY
Each has a different call.
00:35:14
Brodi
That makes sense. They have such a large brain.
00:35:16
CHANTELLE KINCY
So freaking cool.
00:35:16
Brodi
i swear they're smarter than humans. They just don't speak a language that we understand. But I guarantee with all that brain matter, they have to be smarter than us.
00:35:21
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yes.
00:35:25
Brodi
I'm going
00:35:27
CHANTELLE KINCY
so crazy. So yeah, show's amazing. Shout out to Secret of the Whales because I'm an addict.
00:35:30
Brodi
to have to watch it. Okay.
00:35:33
CHANTELLE KINCY
But yeah, um secretly planning my trip to Canada now
00:35:37
Brodi
Love it. Not so secret.
00:35:38
CHANTELLE KINCY
Oh, back to the belugas. There's also a place in the Hudson Bay where the belugas go and the polar bears actively hunt the baby belugas.
00:35:42
Brodi
Oh.
00:35:47
CHANTELLE KINCY
And the tide in the Hudson Bay comes out so fast and so aggressively
00:35:48
Brodi
shame them
00:35:52
Brodi
yeah did they get caught and just wait lazy bears super smart they're super smart yeah oh i agree anyway moving on no more wheel talk
00:35:54
CHANTELLE KINCY
that they'll get like stuck. And then the polar bears just sit on the rocks and wait for them, which is sad, but also polar bears kind of cool.
00:36:04
CHANTELLE KINCY
So yeah. No. Okay. I digress. We're done with the whale talk. In my next life, I will be a National Geographic whale studier or whatever you want to call me, but that's what I will be doing.
00:36:19
Brodi
Love it, love it.
00:36:20
CHANTELLE KINCY
So um how's your son cope with
Raising a Child as a World Traveler
00:36:22
CHANTELLE KINCY
this? He loves it. He likes me and new friends. i mean, he was pretty young when you guys pulled him out of traditional school. So this is kind of just his life, right?
00:36:28
Brodi
Yeah.
00:36:29
CHANTELLE KINCY
Like,
00:36:29
Brodi
It is He was actually, were just talking about this the other day. It's so funny you bring that up. um Because were talking about like the things he remembers from the different places we've been. And it surprises me how much he remembers from so long ago.
00:36:46
Brodi
But he said he doesn't really remember living in Chicago anymore because at this point he's almost 13. So he spent half of his life traveling.
00:36:57
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:36:58
Brodi
And yes, there are drawbacks. Like I'm not going to say it's perfect. You know, like here here in South Korea, we booked this, you know, almost two month house sit and it's hard for him to make local friends.
00:37:11
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:37:11
Brodi
But when he does make friends, he does stay in touch with them. Like, One of the other kids he talks to regularly is the son of the family that we house set for in Cambodia.
00:37:23
CHANTELLE KINCY
Cool.
00:37:24
Brodi
And they talk a lot. So he does make friends. He bonds a lot over video games. You know, he he says he's on a mission to find the country with the best internet.
00:37:35
Brodi
That's like his mission. So he will like or dislike a place based on the internet.
00:37:42
CHANTELLE KINCY
Like if the game is buffering too much or not, then Right.
00:37:45
Brodi
Correct. which And I've tried to explain to him, like, dude, like, okay, so we were in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong has excellent internet. But we were staying in, like, a hostel with shared internet because I'm not spending $500 a night for a hotel.
00:38:03
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:38:05
Brodi
So, I mean, we stayed in this perfectly serviceable, clean, air-conditioned hostel, and it was fine. But the internet was shared and it sucked.
00:38:16
Brodi
So he's like, I don't like Hong Kong.
00:38:17
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:38:18
Brodi
And I was like, well, they have hot pot.
00:38:19
CHANTELLE KINCY
He just writes off the whole place.
00:38:20
Brodi
So I know he wrote off the whole place because the internet at our hostel stunk.
00:38:21
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yes, exactly.
00:38:27
Brodi
So, I mean, you know, there's, there's that, i mean, but he's seen and done so much that like, he does have kind of a hard time relating to normal kids because like, you know,
00:38:38
CHANTELLE KINCY
For sure.
00:38:41
Brodi
This kid is like, well, in history class, I did a report on the pilgrims. And he's like, oh, I went to Machu Picchu and saw wild llamas.
00:38:48
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:38:49
Brodi
like But like other traveling kids are like, oh, yeah, me too. Wasn't this cool? And then they connect because they have a frame of reference.
00:38:56
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:39:00
Brodi
like He's kind of lost touch with most of his friends from back home over time because, A, he's found kids that are more flexible in their availability because kids who go to traditional school like because my son gets his homeschool stuff done in like an hour or two because you know you don't need eight hours a day if you're only teaching one kid so and most of the time we're learning by unschooling or world schooling like you know when we went to the lava tubes that was school we're not gonna like sit down and do worksheets on top of that so like when i say do school it's i'm i'm using that very loosely just to be clear um
00:39:17
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:39:21
CHANTELLE KINCY
Right.
00:39:29
CHANTELLE KINCY
Sure. Exactly. Yeah.
00:39:36
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:39:39
Brodi
You know, so, but, you know, other kids who have to sit in school for eight hours a day, son's like, oh, well, okay, I guess I'm not talking to you today because you have to come home from school and then you have to do homework and then you have to go to baseball and then you have to eat dinner then you have to go to bed.
00:39:50
Brodi
So, like, where's your fun time?
00:39:51
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah, exactly.
00:39:54
Brodi
it And it's just the reality of, you know, scheduled life.
00:39:54
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:39:57
Brodi
It is not a bad thing. I am not knocking it because those extracurriculars are fun.
00:40:00
CHANTELLE KINCY
It's just different.
00:40:01
Brodi
It's just different.
00:40:02
CHANTELLE KINCY
It's just different.
00:40:02
Brodi
Right, right.
00:40:03
CHANTELLE KINCY
But he's he's going to have this totally different perspective of like humanity as well, right? Right. Because i because he's, yeah, people that don't leave, whether they're kids or adults, are just in their little bubble.
00:40:08
Brodi
That is my goal. Mm-hmm.
00:40:15
CHANTELLE KINCY
And it's hard to relate to other people. It's hard to be like, oh, maybe this is where they're coming from. Maybe this is why they feel like that. Maybe this is why they do things like that. Because you just do it your own way and you don't see those other things that are outside. And whereas your son is going to have this like, you know, outside view of like the history of somewhere and why people behave a certain way or believe a certain thing.
00:40:39
CHANTELLE KINCY
And that just makes you like an overall better human. really,
00:40:42
Brodi
We talk a lot about the similarities of places we've been. Like this reminds me of this place, not just in its look, but like the people have similar behaviors and why do we think that is?
00:40:54
Brodi
And it's interesting.
00:40:55
CHANTELLE KINCY
But also then you realize that people are like you too, right? Like you're not that different and you all want the same things.
00:40:58
Brodi
Yes.
00:41:00
CHANTELLE KINCY
Like you want love, you want safety, you want nourishment. You know, you at the at the core, everyone is the same, exact same.
00:41:07
Brodi
Playgrounds all over the world are the same. like They might be a different color.
00:41:11
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yes.
00:41:12
Brodi
They might have different decorations, but like kids love playgrounds.
00:41:14
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yes.
00:41:17
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yes.
00:41:17
Brodi
Like it does not matter, you know?
00:41:19
CHANTELLE KINCY
And they're going to get that interaction regardless.
00:41:20
Brodi
And.
00:41:22
CHANTELLE KINCY
Even if they don't speak the same language, they're still having... I mean, and kids are so much better at it than we are anyways, right? So that's another that's another thing.
00:41:28
Brodi
yeah. Taking turns on the swings, waiting in line at the slide.
00:41:32
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:41:32
Brodi
Yeah. They're, yeah.
00:41:33
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:41:33
Brodi
They're of connecting.
00:41:35
CHANTELLE KINCY
I love that.
00:41:37
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yes.
00:41:39
Brodi
And
00:41:39
CHANTELLE KINCY
when the
00:41:41
CHANTELLE KINCY
I
00:41:56
CHANTELLE KINCY
So what's the one message you would want someone to walk away with?
00:42:00
Brodi
I feel so much more satisfaction with my life. Like, okay, i grew up being very goals driven, very career driven, very like,
00:42:14
Brodi
you know, like my parents, you know, they, they gave up a lot to send me to a college preparatory private high school because I didn't want to go to the public school where I live. Like my parents gave up a lot to make sure I had like the best education. So I felt like it was my job to get a job that really like rewarded myself to show them that what they did for me was worth it.
00:42:40
Brodi
And I did of that.
00:42:40
CHANTELLE KINCY
that investment was paying off.
00:42:41
Brodi
Right.
00:42:41
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:42:42
Brodi
Like, You know, I was, you know, an HR manager before I was 25. I was an HR director by the time I
Prioritizing Happiness Over Material Wealth
00:42:48
Brodi
was 30. Like, i did the things. I had, you know, I have a master's degree in human resources.
00:42:51
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:42:53
Brodi
I had a 4.0 in grad school from, like, the best HR program in the country. Like, I did the things.
00:42:59
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:43:00
Brodi
And I just, like, I burned out. And i just was like, I need more. I need to feel like I'm living life on my terms because,
00:43:12
Brodi
I really wasn't. i was living according to somebody else's schedule. And I didn't even realize it. And when I realized it, I was like, I want to do this. But, you know, I've always wanted to live abroad.
00:43:25
Brodi
And, you know, I actually didn't want kids for a really long time because, you know, you always hear when you have kids, you have to give up traveling. You have to give up this. You have to give up that. And, okay, did I drink less Starbucks after I had a kid because I didn't have as big of a budget because, you know, I had to buy them, like, like clothes and food and stuff? Yes, that's true.
00:43:44
Brodi
But I still fed my Dunkin' Donuts habit. Like, you know, they have perfectly fine coffee.
00:43:47
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah, priorities.
00:43:48
Brodi
Exactly. Like, I just switched my habit. I didn't give it up. And, you know, and so I told my husband, you know, when we first started really talking about, like, where do we want our family to go? Do we want to have kids? Like, you know, people have those conversations usually before they have a kid.
00:44:03
Brodi
Not all kids are like, oops, I'm pregnant. going to family. So like we started talking about that. And I was like, look, if we decide to have a kid, I'm not giving up travel. We have been traveling, you know, once or twice a year to destinations together as a couple.
00:44:18
Brodi
And I'm not giving that up. Like I'm just not. So we need to figure out a way to make that a priority because that's what makes me happy. And he was like, no, I totally agree.
00:44:29
Brodi
was like, okay, good. So like now we can have this conversation. So it, You know, it is possible to find a partner with similar goals and it is possible to have kids with without a partner and still travel.
00:44:44
Brodi
And so, you know, motherhood and travel don't have to be mutually exclusive. If you want them to be, that's fine.
00:44:52
Brodi
But if you want to have a kid and you want to travel, you can do that too. I mean, you're probably not going to be high-powered corporate attorney working 80 hours a week and traveling and having a kid. Like something's going to give. But, you know, if your priorities are travel, you can work that in And I think that's what women have forgotten.
00:45:12
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yes. Yes.
00:45:14
Brodi
It's like, well, I have to do this and I have to that. I'm like, do you though? Is that really what makes you happy? Because, you know, leaving the corporate grind has given me so much peace of mind.
00:45:27
CHANTELLE KINCY
ye
00:45:28
Brodi
It's come with its own set of challenges. I will not say it's been easy. You know, like we've had to pivot several times financially.
00:45:36
Brodi
I think it's just important for people to understand that travel doesn't have to stop unless you want it.
00:45:42
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah, I think that's important. if it's your If it's what makes you happy, you'll find a way to make it work. Or you should find a way to make it work. You should get out of your own way and stop like living for other people and just do your thing.
00:45:49
Brodi
Yeah.
00:45:53
CHANTELLE KINCY
I was just telling someone the other day, like I've never been broker. I've never had less money, but I've never been happier in my life than am right now. like I literally don't care.
00:46:01
Brodi
100%. 100%.
00:46:03
CHANTELLE KINCY
i can't see myself ever going back to my high-paying job because I want to die every day.
00:46:06
Brodi
No. no We live on under $3,000 a month as a family of three.
00:46:11
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:12
Brodi
Like, I mean, if you had to live on $3,000 a month in the U.S., you couldn't live in Seattle.
00:46:13
CHANTELLE KINCY
Don't care. Yep.
00:46:17
CHANTELLE KINCY
Can you imagine?
00:46:18
Brodi
You couldn't live in Chicago.
00:46:18
CHANTELLE KINCY
No.
00:46:19
Brodi
You couldn't live anywhere that's near an airport.
00:46:19
CHANTELLE KINCY
Heck no.
00:46:23
CHANTELLE KINCY
Nope.
00:46:24
Brodi
Couldn't buy plane tickets.
00:46:25
CHANTELLE KINCY
No.
00:46:26
CHANTELLE KINCY
so
00:46:26
CHANTELLE KINCY
just get out and do the thing.
00:46:26
Brodi
my pleasure.
00:46:28
CHANTELLE KINCY
Just do it.
00:46:29
Brodi
Do the thing and do it scared and do it unprepared because
00:46:30
CHANTELLE KINCY
All the things. Yes. Yes.
00:46:38
CHANTELLE KINCY
Well, I adventures.
00:46:38
Brodi
Sometimes
00:46:39
CHANTELLE KINCY
i'm always like I'll read your post like, where the is this girl at?
00:46:39
Brodi
Well, thank you.
00:46:42
CHANTELLE KINCY
people where they can follow you. And i'll I'll put the links in the description, but go ahead and tell us.
00:46:43
Brodi
um every We're on pretty much every social network. our ah It's all rfbeatlife.com. Our Offbeat Life is the socials. um Our YouTube and our podcast is probably where we are the most active. We're actively recording and launching season three. It's dropping every week right now.
00:47:02
CHANTELLE KINCY
Cool.
00:47:02
Brodi
So, and yep.
00:47:03
CHANTELLE KINCY
And that's all our offbeat as well? Our offbeat life?
00:47:05
Brodi
Yep. Our offbeat life.
00:47:05
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah.
00:47:06
Brodi
We kept it simple. We want people to be able to find us wherever we are. So go to google.com and search for our offbeat life.
00:47:09
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yeah. Look it up.
00:47:13
Brodi
We would appreciate we appreciate that.
00:47:15
CHANTELLE KINCY
Heck yeah.
00:47:15
Brodi
That would be very nice. um
00:47:17
CHANTELLE KINCY
don't
00:47:17
Brodi
We've been so busy recording stuff that we haven't really been publishing it, but yeah, but we've done some really cool
00:47:20
CHANTELLE KINCY
I know it gets that way, right? Yeah.
00:47:25
CHANTELLE KINCY
Very cool.
00:47:25
Brodi
It'll be there so eventually someday.
00:47:28
CHANTELLE KINCY
Yay. All right.
00:47:30
Brodi
We're too busy living.
00:47:31
CHANTELLE KINCY
i know. That's the thing. You got to still have priorities, right? All right.
00:47:35
Brodi
Exactly. Exactly. Well, thank you for having me.
00:47:37
CHANTELLE KINCY
Well, thanks for chatting.
00:47:37
Brodi
It was fun.
00:47:38
CHANTELLE KINCY
Of course, it was so fun talking to you. All right, everyone.
00:47:40
Brodi
Take care.
00:47:41
CHANTELLE KINCY
We'll talk to you guys next week. Thanks.