Afford Anything - What I've Learned from 9 Years of Nonstop Travel, with Geraldine DeRuiter, The Everywhereist

Episode Date: May 15, 2017

#77: “Have you ever tried to stop-peeing midstream? It’s like trying to put spray cheese back in the can. The damage has been done, and the only thing left to do is try to enjoy yourself.” That’s a quote from a deleted chapter in a book written by (in my opinion) one of the funniest bloggers on the internet, Geraldine DeRuiter. Geraldine is an ‘accidental’ travel writer. Nine years ago, she found herself laid-off from a copywriting job and decided, “screw it, I’m gonna travel.” She’s since visited around 30 countries, and her resulting travel blog, The Everywhereist, describes itself as “an award-winning cry for help.” For more, go to http://affordanything.com/episode77 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Have tried to stop peeing midstream? It's like trying to put spray cheese back in a can. The damage has already been done. And now, the only thing left to do is try to enjoy yourself. That's a quote from a deleted chapter in a book that's written by today's guest, Geraldine. You're listening, by the way, to the Afford Anything podcast, and I'm your host, Paula Pant. Now, the Afford Anything podcast was started because I went and traveled for a couple of years, and as I traveled, the number one comment that I heard from my friends was, oh, I'd love to travel

but I can't afford it. And I started the blog and now the podcast and the YouTube channel in order to spread the message that you can afford anything but not everything. Every dollar that you spend on X is a dollar that you're implicitly not spending on Y. And so money management is really all about figuring out what your priorities are. For me, back at the time, it was travel. And, you know, it still is travel. I've traveled quite a bit. And the guest who I invited on the show today, Geraldine DeRoyder, is an avid traveler. She says, has traveled for the past nine years ever since she got laid off from her job. She is also, and you're going to hear me kind of fan girl gush a little bit, she's also the best travel writer

I have ever read. So admittedly, I brought her on the show because she's funny and she travels a lot, and I thought that she would have some great stories and insight and wisdom to share about traveling. So if you're interested in globetrotting, if you think, oh, you know, maybe when I retire early, I would like to travel more, or if you think to yourself, you know, I've got some money and I'm not sure if I should travel with it now or if I should invest it now and travel later. We talk about those issues within this upcoming episode. Now, one thing that I will say right off the bat is that this is not going to be an episode about how to budget for travel. And the reason for that is because that's just not Geraldine's forte.

Geraldine's husband travels for work often and they have enough disposable income that she can accompany him on his trips. And so there's not a whole lot that she could really say about saving money for travel. But that's okay. We've got a whole lot of saving money episodes elsewhere on the podcast and blog. So today's episode is specifically about should you travel? Should you do it now? And it's funny, but it gets a little deep, you know, about two-thirds of the way through. We talk about a potentially terminal illness that she had and how that changed her framework around traveling in life. So Geraldine DeRoyder, one of the best travel writers I have ever read and blogger at the Everywhereist. Enjoy.

Hi, Geraldine. Hi. I'm really excited to talk to you. I've been reading you for years. Your blog, The Everywhereist, is one of the funniest, if not the funniest blog on the internet. I mean that sincerely. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Honestly, I wanted to bring you on the show in part because I'm just kind of scratching my own itch. I've read you for so long that I was like, I really want to talk to her. Wait a second. I have a podcast. I can. It's the amazing power of having a podcast. You can call up strangers. And you won't call the cops. Exactly. I probably wouldn't anyway. I love talking to people on the phone. So I'm like a rare breed. I know people hate the phone. I don't, I don't totally hate it if I'm talking to someone I don't know. I know that sounds crazy. Oh, good, because I was otherwise going to record this entire podcast just in text emojis.

You know, that would take a long time. The thing is, if I'm talking to like, someone I'm very close to, though, I can't do it on the phone. Oh, how come? I don't know. I don't know what it is, but like, I have a very dear friend, and she'll call me up, and I'm like, I can't talk to you on the phone. I need to see your face. It's a really, it's a really strange quirk that I have not explored. Oh, okay, I guess that makes sense, like the body language and the facial expressions and the her making faces at you. Yeah, something about that. I also think when you're talking to a stranger, you can lay out all the groundwork so you have more to talk to. Like there aren't as many wells in conversation, right?

Because there's so much to cover. Whereas if you're talking to an old friend, there's these awkward pauses and it's like, I've known you for 15 years and now there's a weird empty space. So I'm probably overthinking it. I like it. I like it. Tell me a lot of the people who are listening to this podcast are really interested in traveling. You've traveled a lot.

And I want to walk through that, but let's start it. Something I actually don't know about you. And I know some weird stuff about you, by the way. Like I know about the time that you dyed your milk pink. I know about your obsession with Jeff Goldblum. Well, now, to be fair, I think a lot of people know about that one. Yeah, I know you hate being called Mrs. Rand. I do.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of that. And I know that you. When you were 11 years old, you peed on the bathroom floor. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. You do, you know a lot. This is what I call research for my job. I'm putting this in air quotes, by the way.

And I want to clarify on that whole peeing on the bathroom floor. I actually, what happened was I did end up peeing on the bathroom floor. But what I really peed on was the lid to the toilet. because I did one of those things where you run into the bathroom because you really need to go. Because we only had one toilet because it was the 80s. I ran into the bathroom and I sat down to go and I didn't realize the lid was down. So it just went. It was bad.

It was a bad scene. Oh, my poor mother. Oh, man. I love that story. And I love how afterwards you, instead of cleaning it up, you just went and watched TV and waited for your mom to deal with it. No, I'm a horrible person. I'm a distinctly horrible person. And I'll never forget.

I was walk out, because I didn't know what to. It was one of those things where you're like, I can only make this worse. My attempts to clean this wall. I can't hide it. So I just remember I walked out and I said, mom, I peed all over the floor. And I just kept walking and she said, what? What? You did what?

And then I just heard her scream from. So, yeah. Oh, my poor mother. Oh, man. Well, you know what? I was going to start with the question of, like, walking through the beginning of the narrative with your first trip outside of the U.S., but since we're discussing peeing on the bathroom floor, I'm going to skip that question and go straight to, are there any other embarrassing bathroom experiences that you've had while traveling? Oh, yeah.

I mean, there's one in the book. Well, actually, there's several in the book. Oh, my gosh. I'm surprised that, like, mishaps with toy. didn't make it into the subtitle. But yeah, there is a there's an entire chapter and a half, I would say dedicated to mishaps that happen in toilets. I was just recently in Japan, which was wonderful, but it was my, it was my first time visiting Japan. And I actually had to have a friend tell me beforehand. She had the presence of mine to say, hey, I just want you to know,

this is the symbol for flesh. And so she showed me where all the, what the, what the kanji looked like for flush. And that became incredibly helpful. So I was super grateful to her for that because there's a lot of Japanese toilets are the Toto toilets and they've got a panel of buttons, which I'm sure you've probably seen or experienced. Oh, yeah. I dealt with that. There's a lot of buttons there. And sometimes there'll be a handy little kind of icon to tell you what it does, but sometimes there isn't.

So, yeah, I remain indebted to her for that. You press a button and it turns out to be the bidet and you weren't expecting it. Yeah. Always awkward. Well, all right. Let's go back to the beginning of the narrative. Tell me about your first trip outside of the U.S. How old were you? Where did you go? Oh, my gosh. So I think my first trip outside of the U.S. was, I must have been five years old. We went to Germany to visit my father. So that was many, many years ago. So my mother actually came over from Europe when she was pregnant with me. And my dad kind of came with her. I mean, it's sort of an interesting narrative because he thought that she was just going for a little bit. And he came over and he was like,

hey, let's go back home. You know, we live in Europe. And my mom said, no, I'm going to stay. And so that kind of became a deciding factor in their marriage. So he went back to Germany and they stayed married for a few years, but they were living on different continents. And I think it was You know, my mom felt like she, you know, we saw my dad, but he would always come to America. So my mom went to Germany and took us there to see him. So I got to see where my father lived. And that was my first trip. I thought your dad was Russian and your mom's Italian.

That's correct. Here's where the narrative gets really confusing. So my father was Russian. He and his family were supposed to get sent to the gulags in the, I guess it would have been World War II, 1940s. So my father was very small at the time. And on the day that they were supposed to get sent to the gulags, or the day before they were supposed to get shipped out, which if you're unfamiliar, the gulags were essentially, it was Siberia. So it was essentially for a young woman and her two small sons would have been a death sentence. On the day before they were supposed to get shipped out or trained out, the Nazis took Kiev and the Russian soldiers fled. So my grandmother managed to, since no one knew that, they weren't supposed to be there. She managed to get herself and her family across Europe during World War II. She ended up in Germany. And so my father spent a few formative years in Germany,

and they were in a displaced persons camp in Germany. They eventually made it to New York, where my dad joined the American Air Force, and then he worked for U.S. intelligence, and he was stationed in Rome, which is where he met my mother. Yeah. Yeah. Now I see where the connection is. Yeah, yeah, but my father lived, for years lived in Germany. He loved Germany, so he felt very at home there. Do you think having that international background was part of the reason that you became so enthusiastic about travel? You know, I don't think I realized it at first, but I definitely think it played a huge role in all of it, because I think, you know, I had heard about all these places, and I knew that my mother was from here, and I knew my father was from there, and, you know,

my cousins grew up here and my brothers from Northern England. So there were all these different components. And until I started traveling, I think a lot of them existed kind of in the theoretical. As a child, how often did you travel? Not at all, really. This is kind of the interesting part of the story. And the thing that I always say is I think it took my family so long to finally get to get everyone to America that once they were here, they were like, no, we're not going anywhere. So that trip, which we went back to Germany, and then my mother also took us to Italy, that became, I would not go back to Europe until I was, I took one trip there as a teenager for school. I was lucky enough to be part of a summer program where we got to go to Spain. But my mother would not go back to Italy until, I would say 20 years later. So 20 years after that trip. And I was lucky enough to go with her. I was kind of the impetus for that. I said, you know what? You haven't been back in a while. We should go together. So yeah, we did not travel a lot. I think we all just sort of stayed put once we got to America. As an adult, at what point did you become interested in traveling?

You know, it's funny. I would say that I never, you know, there were places that I wanted to see, but I was very unmotivated. terrible as that sounds. I just, I know that I, I had this feeling that I was not a terrific traveler. I could tell that I was, it's not something I was competent at. So I didn't, I didn't actually pursue it in any capacity. But my husband really enjoys traveling. And so for him, you know, after we started to travel a little bit when I was working, and he started to travel a ton for his work. And after I was laid off, which is kind of the starting point of the book, when I was laid off, I started traveling with him. So I would say that he is really the driving force behind most of our travels. And what year were you laid off?

How long ago was that? It sounds unbelievable to me. It was almost 10 years. It was nine years ago now. Wow. I know. I know. I can't even think about it.

Do you have an estimate of how many countries you visited? You know, what's funny is we do tend to go back to the same place a lot. So the number isn't super high, and I'm not terrific at keeping track. I think it's around 30, which in, you know, if you compare me to the hardcore travelers and the hardcore travel writers, they're like, 30. Yeah. I can do that in a week. So I suppose it's, you know, I'm always like a little bit embarrassed to say, oh, it's not that many. But, you know, I kind of shy away from it too because I think that, I think that especially in the travel world, there's always this kind of strange competition that we have again with each other.

Like, oh, where have you been? Oh, well, where have you backpacked? And it's like, you know, I think we're missing the point. You can have one trip. You can go one place and it can be fantastic, you know, so it doesn't really matter how many stamps you've got. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I'm a big proponent of slow travel, going to one place and spending a lot of time there. And I can see from your blog from the posts that you write that you also, you know, spend a decent chunk of time everywhere you go. Yeah, I'm actually, in particular my husband, and I would say to a slightly lesser extent, I too am just a huge fan of actually visiting a place and, and, spending a good chunk of time there.

Yeah, exactly. Approximately, how long, you know, I know it ranges quite a bit, but how long would an average trip be for you? Oh, gosh, it really does fluctuate, and it kind of depends. But to give you an idea, so our last trip to Japan, we were there for, I would say, about two weeks. And that was rather remarkably a pleasure trip for my husband. Usually we're traveling for his work, and then I will go.

and explore and find things to write about and do some research and, you know, see a couple things or meet with people while he has his work obligations. But this trip was purely for fun. And so I would say when we start to actually enjoy a place and have fun, and that's the focus of a trip, it'll be anywhere from 10 days to two weeks. Nice. Nice. You mentioned that you go back to, there are a handful of countries that you keep returning to over and over. What are some of those? Well, so Germany was one, and we've gone back probably every year for the last, not quite decade, but we've gone back repeatedly, and part of that was to see my father. He unfortunately just passed away this past December. So I think we will still go back to Germany, but possibly

not quite as frequently. I go back to Italy quite often because I still have family there, my aunt and uncle and my cousins are there. And we go to, you know, my husband has a lot of work in the UK. So we have the privilege of going back there as well. So there's a few places that we keep kind of returning to again and again. Throughout this past decade of frequent travel, what are some of the things that you've learned about yourself, about the world, about cupcakes and toilets. What have you learned about from these travels? Oh my gosh. There's so much, but I think I can talk to you about some of my favorite lessons that I've learned. One of the things is that for me, I'm a very anxious person. And it's just kind of, I'm wearing it. It's just kind of my makeup. It's just who I am.

And, you know, one of the things that I was talking to, I was actually talking to a specialist who works specifically with anxiety. And he said, what's the worst thing that can happen? And I'm like, well, I don't know. I guess death is always, right? It sounds crazy. But like, that's kind of the worst thing that could happen. And he's like, yeah, but you haven't, like, that hasn't happened. And so that kind of realization, I was like, okay, like, I need to, it sort of made me more aware of what the dangers are and to kind of be more realistic, you know, there are. there are obviously situations that you don't want to get yourself into and you want to be careful when you travel. But the anxiety that I feel because I'm rushing for a plane, I've learned

how to keep it in check because I think, okay, if I miss this flight, I am going to be fine. Like, I will be okay. And it will be okay. So that realization has been a big one for me, that the things that occupy space in our minds and that cause us a lot of worry, if we look at it the right way, they're not actually that big a deal. At least for me, for my husband, he's not worried about any of this stuff. So he doesn't need to come to these realizations. Something else, he told me actually. And it's one of my, it's one of my favorite sort of lessons that I've learned over these last few years was he said to me, if you're ever worried about getting lost, don't worry, because I will always be just a cab ride away, which is really beautiful and

quite sweet. And I think what he didn't consider is that with my ability to get lost, it might be a very expensive cab ride. But that point of view made me so much less afraid to go out, you know, and just explore a city because I used to, you know, I was so worried about getting lost and that kind of shifted things a bit. And I thought, no, I can go and I can see things. And even if I lose my way, I will be able to get back to where I started from. So that was an important realization. And then I think the last one, and this is kind of, this is kind of the big one. And this is sort of the ethos surrounding all of my travels is you don't need. to be good at travel to do it. And I think that a lot of, a lot of the pressure that people feel

because there's so many, there's so many travel experts out there. And I don't consider myself one at all. I think I'm an outsider in that world. But there are so many people out there who are telling us this is the best way to travel. And this is, you know, these are the things that you have to see and avoid the tourist traps and avoid this and avoid this. And avoid this. And avoid that. And I think as a, especially as a novice traveler, you feel a lot of pressure to get things right. And I think that the most liberating thing that I realized is, no, I can be really, really bad at this. I can get lost repeatedly. And, you know, maybe I'll accidentally, hopefully, hopefully I won't do it too often, but maybe I'll accidentally pay $18 for an ice cream, which I have done before

because I went to the wrong place. And that's okay because it becomes part of the experience. It was actually $9. It was $18 for two ice creams. It was still a lot. But I think embracing that belief and understanding that, you know what, I don't need to get it perfect to have a valuable experience has been one of the most important lessons that I've learned from traveling. And you know, what's interesting about that answer is the premise underneath it is that travel is a skill. And that might be a concept that some of the people listening haven't yet. considered. Can you elaborate on that, the skill of travel? You know, it's funny because it's something that I focus on, and I guess I take for granted that not everyone has that belief, but, you know, I see a lot of people offering how-to guides and classes and, you know, I think Rick Steves really has built an entire sort of platform on how to travel. I do think that there is a very large industry around it being a skill.

And I see, you know, I see a lot of people in my field who are doing an absolutely fantastic job at it. And I am not good at it. And so I'm acutely aware of it because I am so unable to travel sort of well and to travel smoothly and to travel seamlessly. It sounds strange that once. the larger role travel started to have in my life, the more I started to see it as a scale. And I think it was part of that was just getting more submerged sort of in the travel writing world

and around people who were in a lot of ways professional travelers. And so I sort of lost touch with what the whole purpose of traveling should be because I was just focusing on how terrible I wasn't doing it. What should the purpose of travel be? I mean, I think it very much varies from person to person, but I think it's about, you know, seeing things differently and seeing something new. And for some people, the focus is on relaxing. And I think for some people, it's going to museums and for some people it's taking photos. And for some people, it's visiting families. So I think it all kind of is a little bit different in how for each individual person. But I think overall, it's, you know, we want to change the scenery. We want to see something new. What are, I've asked you some of the things you've learned from your travels. What's something that you haven't yet learned that you're still trying to figure out?

Oh, gosh. I mean, I think empathy is kind of an ongoing thing that I'm constantly trying to learn. and just to be empathetic of where other people are coming from, both literally and figuratively. And so that is something that, you know, I'm still getting the hang of and still kind of understanding what it means to be an American and what, you know, not only what that means for me, but what that means for other people. We were just in Hiroshima and we visited the museum there, which is dedicated to the survivors of the nuclear bomb. that was dropped. And, you know, I'd learned some of that in school, but it was kind of glossed over. And that was a very heavy, very important experience. And so, you know, it makes you aware of just that you are constantly learning. You are constantly learning what it means to be an American. You are constantly learning what our influence and our impact is on the world. And I'm constantly

becoming aware of the privilege with which I walk through the world as an American and as a white woman and as someone who is able to travel and who is able to travel in most places and feel relatively safe doing it. So I think that that is that is something that I am constantly learning. And that's rather serious. I would say on kind of a more lighthearted note, I think I'm still learning that it is okay to get hopelessly lost. Like that is that is okay. So I'm still learning that as well. Is there some wisdom to getting lost?

Do you mean is there, can wisdom be gleaned? Is there wisdom to be found in the whole process? Yeah. Getting lost sort of implies that you haven't prescripted everything to the T. Right. Or you have and you're just very bad at fault. Exactly, exactly. And you're opening yourself up to the moment and up to chance. Or am I romanticizing it too much? I mean, I romanticize it too. I have to. Otherwise, I'll just get so incredibly frustrated. And I think that like a large part of this book that I wrote is sort of romanticizing the idea of getting lost because there's, you know, what else can I do? And I kind of trace the path.

of getting really frustrated with getting lost and feeling really anxious and getting very angry and finally getting to this point of acceptance. But that is hard. I'm not going to say that it's easy to get to a point where you feel this sort of inner peace with the idea that you are lost. It is a struggle. But every now and then, you know, I'll wander somewhere and I won't know where I am, but I'll, you know, I will find something beautiful or I'll, you know, just get very

introspective and have some time to think. And when that happens and it works out, that's great. Sometimes it doesn't work out and I just get stressed out and I can't find my hotel and I'll be late for something or I'll be in a bad part of town. So it's hard to say. And I would say if there is wisdom to be gleaned from it, it's hard one. There are people who, there are critics who will say that travel is self-indulgent, that it's nothing more than a glorified vacation, and that if you're traveling all the time, then you are necessarily not a productive member of society. How would you respond to that? Oh, wow. I just laid it all on you. I did. You did. I mean, it's hard because there are definitely times when I, you know, I have these nagging doubts inside of me. And so

there are definitely times when I'm on the road where I think I am not being a productive. member of society. And then I go spend, you know, I'll spend money in. And I'm like, no, I'm contributing to the economy. And I'm just like, oh, God, am I? This is bad. This is bad. You know, I think there's no way to paint that with a big brush and say, everyone who travels constantly falls into this category. You know, there's there's so many people who are doing wonderful things while they travel. Even people who are, you know, there's a whole large section of young people now who are digital nomads and they are working on the road and they are working remotely and they're productive members of the company that they work at or the company that

they started and they're seeing the world. So I, you know, I can't get behind that everyone who travels constantly is, you know, is on a glorified vacation. But I'm sure we could find counter examples to that. And I'm sure there are people who are on glorified vacations. The thing is, those people might be on a glorified vacation while they're at home. So yeah, I don't think we can paint with a broad brush and say that about all travelers. I think there's some young people who are doing amazing things right now. Many of the people who are listening have the question, should I travel now? Or should I, assuming that they have the budget for it, their question is, Should I travel now or should I wait and get to an even more secure place in my life and travel 10 years from now?

What advice would you give them? Oh, gosh. I come at this from a slightly different perspective. First of all, I would say, you know, if it is something that you want to do and you are in a financial position to do it, I would question what is stopping you. I know for me, you know, we had a health scale. which I wrote about pretty extensively on the blog, which you might be familiar. His name was Steve. It was.

Yes, I had a brain tumor coming on. You named Steve. I did name Steve. Yes, yes. Just to clarify for the listeners who are wondering. Yes. I apologize. Yes, why you were uttering Steve.

That is what I decided to name my tumor, which it's funny. It's one of those things where I named it that, but Rand and I never talked. Like, we called it my tumor. And what it became, rather than a name that I used, what it became was this fantastic way for people who were uncomfortable talking about the subject to talk to me about it. So it served a remarkable purpose, though it wasn't what we actually called my brain tumor. And that happened about five years ago. And when we first found out about it, the tricky thing about brain tumors is they can't really tell

what they are until they actually get it out and look at it. There's no way to kind of biopsy a tiny bit of it. And once they're in there, they try and take as much out as they can. So when it was discovered, they weren't sure. And they said, you know, it could be brain cancer. We're not, we're not positive. And that, I think for me and for definitely for my husband, you know, led to a lot of discussions of, well, what do we want to do right now? And I think, I don't recommend that everyone live their life that way all the time because that is exhausting and very, very stressful. But I think there is something to be said about not putting everything off, especially if you can do it now, because the 10 years from now or the 15 years from now or the 20 years from now aren't as morbid as the sounds, they're not guaranteed. They're really not. And I think that's something we became acutely aware of. the post that you read, and we'll link to this in the show notes, the post that you wrote about getting a brain tumor, I probably read that 10 times. I have passages of it memorized. Like the scene where you then inexplicably spent the weekend cleaning out your closet because upon your death, you didn't want people to rifle through your closet and say, when was she planning on wearing this? Oh my gosh. Yeah, you almost have that verbatim. Followed by the line, there is nothing like a brain tumor to convince you once and for all that you cannot pull off skinny jeans.

The thing is, the second after I had my surgery, I went straight back to wearing them. So those epiphanies are short with. It's a beautiful post. Frankly, the only post about getting a brain tumor that has ever made me laugh. Thank you. Well, that was my goal. I was trying to put a funny spin on it. If you don't mind talking a little bit more about that, once you had that diagnosis, did that reframe the way that you viewed the past four or five years of your life in which you had been traveling?

And did it reframe the way that you thought about the future? I guess with regard to traveling as well as with regard to everything else, home, family, career, cupcake. Sure, sure. It's funny that you say that because one of the things, one of the things that Rand asked me, you know, when we're still in the this kind of unknown area where they'd done an MRI and they knew I had a brain tumor but they didn't know what it was was Rand my husband said do you know like do you know what you want to do and it was sort of this open-ended question of you know which which didn't really he could have kept talking and said with however long you may have left kind of thing but for me I remember my answer was

I'm going to stop working out, which I was pretty proud of. And I said, I'm going to eat cake every day. And he said, okay, okay. But it was this, like, I did have, this is terrible. One of the first things I thought was, why did I spend all those hours at the gym? Which for the record are not that many hours. You see me, you'll be like, really, you spend hours at the gym? No.

But I feel incredibly lucky that I would. was at, I think when it happened, I was at a point where I was pretty, I was pretty okay with how I'd lived my life. And that's sort, I mean, like, don't get me wrong. I've done terrible things. I, you know, I, peeing on the toilet lid. I'm peeing on the toilet seat. Like, I could live, I could live another 80 years and not, you know, not make amends for that. So there's that. But, you know, there's also something to be said about like looking at your life and being like, no, okay, we did some stuff right. You know, I have, I have a great partnership with my husband. He is this fantastic person and I love him to pieces. You know, I was like, yeah, I couldn't have chosen a better partner and I couldn't have picked someone who I'd want to spend more time with than him.

So in that respect, there were a lot of things that I looked at and I was like, no, I'm pretty okay with this. what it did do was I did realize that there were a few sort of life goals that I had that I wanted to accomplish. And one of them was actually writing and publishing a book. So that finally just came to fruition. But that it really did, after that experience happened, it did light a fire under me to do that. Wow. Actually, now that you say that, I remember that you mentioned that within that post in which you announced the brain tumor. Yeah.

Your realization of, I never wrote a book. Yeah, there were a lot of just the first weekend. There were a lot of, yeah, a lot of crying realizations. And one of them was, I never wrote a book. Yeah. You have fantastic memory. Thank you. I loved that article.

I've read it so many times. Oh, wow. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Have you ever been interested in starting a blog? Well, guess what? I've got a page on my website that teaches you exactly how to start a blog set up a blog in less than five minutes. It's available at afford anything.com slash start a blog.

Within that, the company that I recommend is Bluehost. They are a hosting service, which means that they provide the space in which you host your blog on the internet, because you know, got to live somewhere. On afford anything.com slash start a blog, I walk you step by step through exactly how to set up that blog. There's a photo tutorial. There's a YouTube tutorial. So check it out. If you've been interested in starting a blog and you're looking for affordable high-quality hosting, you can learn how to set up a blog with Bluehost at afford-anything.com slash start a blog. You beat the brain tumor, you've written a book, you've stopped going to the gym. I've, sometimes I go back. I do. Not terribly often. It's so funny because, you know, it's a common question. It's a common question to get, and it's a question that I get all

the time. People are like, what are you up to? What are you doing next? And the thing is that right now, I'm really trying to figure that out because the book has been a project that has been something I've been working on for years. Even when your manuscript is done and you give it to your publisher, there's an average time of about 18 months before it makes it. It makes it. to print. So it's an incredibly long process to get your book out into the world. And it's something that I've wanted to do my entire life. And it literally just got published last week. And so I feel like there has been this finish line so far ahead of me. And I am finally there and I have no idea what to do now. So now I've just, you know, I've been doing some publicity for the book. I've been doing

some interviews. I've been getting back to blogging. But now, you know, now it's trying to figure out what my next big project is. And I'm talking about another book project, but it is, I'm in a very different place right now. I'm in a very strange place. So I'm trying to figure that out. If you have any ideas of what I should do next. I'm all ears. Hmm. Hmm. See, it's hard. Yeah. It's really hard. I bet you'd be great on YouTube. Oh, gosh. I don't see, that's, that's, that becomes interesting too, because like, what would it be? Would I still, am I still doing this travel thing? And am I going to keep doing it? I guess that's kind of the big question. Actually, let's elaborate on that. Because I was going to ask you, do you ever get tired of traveling? Are there ever times when you think about

stopping and what keeps you going? Yeah. I mean, what I'm about to say is going to sound awful, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I'm not a great traveler. And I would say, it's maybe not my favorite thing in the horror. I love being in a new place, and I love exploring a place and, you know, seeing family and friends who live in far off places. All of that is fantastic. I suffer from miserable motion sickness, you know, and I do have a lot of anxiety that I deal with. And so being on the road can be very, very tricky. I don't consider myself a travel writer if that makes any sense. I think of myself as a writer. who happens to do, who happens to cover travel. So I don't, I don't know if my entire world will always be so

travel specific. And I do anticipate that, that we are going to travel less in the future. And that is not, I'm not trying to be intentionally enigmatic, like, we've got something planned. There's, it's not like we're going to, you know, plop down and anything like that. But I, yeah, I can, I can imagine that we will travel less. because after a while you do get tired and you do want to stay in one spot. I don't say that to be ungrateful about the wonderful opportunity that we've had, but just that home can be great too. So I'm looking forward to that. Nice.

Just to close out. And these last few questions are completely, again, me just scratching my own itch. Oh, sure. I'm ready. So you, I mean, you're such a good writer and you have incredibly strong comedic voice. how did you develop that? How did you develop your comedy style? Oh, thanks. I mean, I usually say that it comes from traumatic middle school experiences. There's no better way to get a sense of humor than to have, like, a nose the size that I do as an 11-year-old. I mean, that'll teach you how to laugh at yourself.

But I, it's so funny because Rand and I talk about it. There are days when I am funny. There are days when, like, I can crack him up, and then there are days when I'm just not. And so it's sort of interesting. And today, I feel badly. I feel like you got me on a very serious day. But what I've noticed is, so first of all, like, I have very funny friends and I have very funny people around me. My brother is this bitingly sarcastic, hilarious person. And he will say things that are so mean, but you find yourself laughing and you just think, damn it, you're such a jerk. But that was a really, really funny thing that you just said. So I think that, I think that's one component is, is having those people around me. I think the other thing is I have a very, I have a very

sort of almost scientific approach to humor. And so if I consume something that's funny, you know, if I watch a TV show or read a book, I'm constantly analyzing what is funny about it. You know, how did they land the punchline? What did they choose to do? Did they go for a specific scenario? Did they make it generic? Why did I laugh when I did? What was it about that that really, you know, was humorous?

And so I do that a lot. And I think the other thing, too, is, and I've heard a lot of people say this, and I think it's unquestionable. true is that you need to read the genre you want to write in. Once you start to do that, and I find, I find that this is true for a lot of writers, is that once you start consuming something, your inner monologue will start to reflect the voice of whatever you've consumed. So if you read a lot of humorous memoirs by women, the voice that you will find, yourself speaking in and the voice that you, you know, will produce content in will be indicative of that. You know, I read a lot of funny authors and I think, I hope that some of that

comes through in my work. That is exactly the reason that I keep reading and rereading your posts. It's totally true. Sometimes if I want to write something that's funny and I need inspiration. I'll read a few posts on your blog and then I'll start writing. Oh my gosh. That is a huge compliment. Wow. Thank you. I also feel like I should apologize because it's my blog, which I mean, that like has to be some form of like punishment somewhere. Right. Like you have to read the everywhere for six hours today. So my, oh my gosh, I feel like I should apologize. But I'm also honored. What a weird combo of feelings. Well, it's well deserved. Oh, thank you. And then final question. And again, this is just me

scratching my own it. Tell me about your writing process. How long does it take you to write and rewrite and edit a post? Oh, gosh. You know, so confession time is I am a notoriously slow writer. I'm actually, that's embarrassing. What's even more embarrassing is, and it shouldn't be, but I do put a lot of stock in it. I'm a slow reader. And so my friends will go through book, like I've got people telling me they've already finished my book. I'm like, what? How? So I'm a relatively slow reader and I'm quite a slow writer. There are exceptions. There are, once I start writing, usually what will happen is the first thing. the first posts that I write will take me forever if I've had a woe. And then it gets faster and faster as long as I keep things going. And then I found that there are some stories that do not want to be told and you have to fight for every word. And then there are some that just comes spilling out. And so I, and it doesn't, it doesn't impact the quality of the work. I have spent, you know, I've spent days working on posts and the finished product will is occasionally just as good as something

that I've written in an hour or two. So it really depends on the story. And the thing that's, that's kind of amazing is that I remember when I look back at a piece, I can tell you, oh, God, that was miserable to write or, oh, no, that just came out instantly. And what I've found is if I'm struggling with one, if I'm struggling with a piece and it's just taking me too long to write, that's sort of, at this point I've started listening to what I think is kind of my brain trying to clue me into the fact that, you know what, maybe this isn't the story you need to tell right now. So I'll tell another story and usually it'll come out a lot quicker and a lot easier. Great.

Well, thank you so much. Oh, thank you. Thank you for helping me. Of course, of course. Please tell the listeners where they can find more of you. Yeah. So I am on my blog is Everywhereist. So it's the word everywhere.

IST.com. And that's where you can find my blog. I'm also at Everywhereist on Twitter as a slight caveat. My blog is pretty apolitical most of the time. My Twitter feed is not as of late apolitical. Also, let's see, you can find my book, which is called All Over the Place, Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Thief. You can find links to it on my blog. It's also available on Amazon at Barnes & Noble and possibly, hopefully, your independent local bookseller.

And that's also available in e-book form and an audiobook form which I recorded. Oh, nice. Yeah. I don't quite have, you have an excellent voice for podcasts and for recording. So I don't quite have that, but you know, you get to hear me for nine hours, which again, sounds like a form of punishment. And I'll link to all of those in the show notes. Thank you. And I'll also link to the brain tumor post and how not to cook a frittata. That one was amazing. Oh, oh, yeah. Oh, the crustata. Cristata, that's it. Yes. Yeah, no, that was an exercise in, I think I was, I don't think I was drunk. Maybe I was. I had no idea what I was doing. I have a lot of baking mishaps. Fortunately, I have friends who are not particularly picky when it comes to baked goods, which is a good thing. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. Well, thank you for having me. It was absolutely delightful.

I hope you enjoyed that. I loved it. What are some of the key takeaways that we got from this conversation with Geraldine? Number one, I was really struck by her comment that even though typically she's full of worries, she's full of anxiety, she's, you know, she suffers from fear and doubt and uncertainty. She's discovered as a result of traveling that most things aren't such a big deal. The things that occupy space in our minds and that cause us a lot of worry, if we look at it the right way, they're not actually that big a deal. I believe that this is an insight that comes from traveling to many countries being in strange situations that you're unprepared to deal with, being scared, being lost, not being able to speak the language, being alone, and eventually realizing, you know what, it's all okay, it's all going to work out. As she said, what's the worst that could happen? Death? And it was funny because when she, well, not funny, but, you know, when she first said that, she was being a bit flippant about it. But as we heard later in this interview, that's actually something that she faced.

So she's earned the right to be a little flippant or a little joking about it because she did come face to face with the possibility of dying young. Faced with that, nothing else seems like such a big deal. And that's a takeaway that can be applied not just to travel, but to anything that you want to do within your life, whether it's starting a business, investing in rental properties, or saving for an early retirement, or pursuing any other dream that your friends and family might think is out of reach, unconventional, weird. Because most of the things that you're afraid of, most of the what-ifs, even if they do happen, you'll live, you'll survive, and you'll have

a great story to tell. The other key takeaway that I got from this conversation with Geraldine is, well, it's that conversation about her brain tumor. You know, I get questions often. from readers and listeners who say, hey, I've got this pot of money. I'm interested in buying rental properties. I'm also interested in traveling. I'm not sure what to do with it. What decision should I make? And my response is typically do a little bit of both. Retire both early and often. So take many retirements as you are on your way to an early retirement. And that message, I think, is possibly a little uncommon in the world of financial independence early retirement, where there are some people, not all, but some people who are hyper-focused on getting to the goal.

It's like they're climbing and they want to reach the summit and nothing else matters until they get to that goal line. They get to that deadline. But to Geraldine's point, number one, not to be morbid, but we might not live long enough to get to that deadline. I mean, I'm sorry, hate to break the news to you. Don't shoot the messenger. But it's true. Number two, if you are so hyper-focused on a singular goal or, a singular deadline, then what can often happen is that when you get there, what comes next

feels like a bit of a letdown. Maybe you inflated it or romanticized it in your head, and so what happens next is not as glorious as you once imagined. Or maybe you've simply lost your purpose. You had this purpose that you were on fire for, and now that it's achieved, what's the expression out in the ocean without a rudder, whatever that expression is? You know, you don't know where to go next. And that's the reason that I often tell people, retire early and often. And Geraldine seemed to voice some of the same advice. If you have the money for it, assuming you're not in credit card debt, you know, assuming that it is a financially responsible decision to do so, there is really something to be said for traveling now, for living now, and also for doing it later. You don't have to choose one or the other, but don't defer your dreams indefinitely because you will be different and the world will be different 10 years from now, assuming, of course, that we all make it that far. Well, on that cheery note, I think I'm going to sign off. Quick public service announcement.

This is, by the way, a complete 180 and has nothing to do with anything that we were talking about. On this show in the past, I have often recommended a company called Digit for saving small increments of money. So if you're a long-time listener, you've probably heard me talk about them. Public service announcement. Digit is about to start charging $3 a month for their service. They have been free up until now. So I want to let you know that. I mean, it's up to you to decide if the value you're getting from it is worth $3 a month.

personally I'm closing my account. I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I just want to put that out there so that you aren't caught off guard. I was taken by surprise when I heard the news, and so I want to make sure you know it. Digit.com is about to start charging three bucks a month. Think about it, decide what to do. Coming up next on the Afford- Anything podcast, we have another Ask Paula episode. And then, and this is super exciting, we have an interview with Laura Roder. She's the founder and CEO of Meet Edgar, a software company that makes four,

million dollars in annual revenue. And what's amazing is that she self-funded that company. So in our upcoming conversation with Laura Roder, she's going to talk about how she quit her nine to five job, became a freelancer, then became a consultant, and then decided to scale that into starting a software as a service company. Fascinating conversation. She's incredibly intelligent. I really enjoyed speaking with her. So that is coming up as well as another Ask Paul episode in the coming weeks on Be Afford Anything Podcast. Thanks for joining. My name's Paula Pant and I'll catch you next week.