The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby - Traveling to 100 Countries as a Family of 5 ft. the Bucket List Family

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

This episode has been sitting in the vault for two years, and we’re finally getting to share it with you. We’re so grateful to The Bucket List Family for joining us and for allowing us to share this never-before-seen conversation while Abby is taking time to heal and enjoy maternity leave. We talk about raising fearless kids, traveling the world as a family, their unconventional parenting philosophy, close calls with crocodiles and great white sharks, and what they’ve learned from nearly a decade of adventure together. We hope you enjoy this special episode as much as we loved recording it. ❤️ Bucket List Fam insta: @thebucketlistfamily National Geographic Bucket List Family Travel book: amazon.com Nutrafol: Get $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping at https://nutrafol.com with promo code UNPLANNEDPOD. Momcozy: Right now you can get 10% off the Night Pro Bottle Warmer and 10% when you pre-order the DeepClean Bottle Washer D8 at https://momcozy.com with code UNPLANNED. Cash App: Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/kssum24w #CashAppPod Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card at cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement, for the Sutton debit flex card at cash.app/legal/us/en-us/debit-flex-card-agreement-sutton and for the Bancorp debit flex card at cash.app/legal/us/en-us/debit-flex-card-agreement-bancorp. Savings and Offers provided by Cash App, a Block Inc. brand. Offers may not be affiliated with third party merchants. Parents and legal guardians can open a managed account for kids 6-12. Cash App will pass through a portion of the interest paid on your savings balance held in an account for the benefit of Cash App customers at Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Member FDIC. To earn interest on your Cash App savings balance, you need to have sponsor approval. Exceptions may apply. Savings yield rate is subject to change. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. Square: Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at https://square.com/go/UNPLANNED ! #squarepod Follow The Unplanned Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/unplanned__podcast/ https://www.tiktok.com/@unplanned_podcast Listen to the pod on Spotify/ Apple Podcasts: https://open.spotify.com/show/1ToDA4ufQuWuEgMq07zN6t https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unplanned-podcast/id1669604504 Follow Matt & Abby: Abby's Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/abbyelizabethoward/ Matt's Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/_matt_howard_/ TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@matt_and_abby Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/mattandabb YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@MattandAbby Mascara is sold out! Thank you guys so much! Sign up here for updates on restock: https://www.biswell-beauty.com/ Chapters: 04:42 - Traveling with babies 06:23 - Meeting on Mormon missions 20:57 - Becoming the Bucket List Fam 30:35 - Where we find joy 34:53 - Kid friendly travel 37:03 - Frugal travel 40:42 - What to pack 42:35 - Language barriers 43:44 - Safety when traveling 45:31 - Finding community while traveling 46:48 - letting our kids swim with sharks 54:39 - Teaching our kids to be adventurous 01:05:52 - Being of service 01:14:09 - Surfing with my kids 01:18:08 - Working with National Geographic 01:23:03 - Hidden gems Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We sold all our stuff, made about $45,000. And we had agreed, like, we'll only travel as long as that $45,000 from the yard cell last. Garrett and Jessica G. started the Bucketless family in 2015, when a six-month adventure with their three young kids turned into more than a decade of traveling the world. We took the kids cage diving with great white sharks, and the gaps in this cage were big enough, and our child was small enough. He just kept jumping off the bottom and then, like, kind of floating out the cage. And I have every single rational fear that a mom does, but at the same time, like, I'm not going to shell. shelter my kids from seeing the world. Today, their family has explored over 100 countries

and built a global travel brand, collaborating with companies like National Geographic. We expect a lot out of our kids, and they have had some extraordinary experiences because of it. There's so much to gain from hardships and hard work. It's almost like on a daily basis of like, how can I make my kids life difficult today in a controlled environment?

We talk about their origin story, a close call with a 16-foot crocodile, and why they finally decided to settle down again, all on today's episode. We recorded this very special episode with Garrett and Jessica of the Bucketless family about two years ago, and it's never before been seen. It's been sitting in our vault ever since, and they graciously let us post this episode while Abby's healing and recovering postpartum from giving birth.

So thank you, Garrett and Jessica, and enjoy this episode with the Bucketless family. I'm shocked that you guys just got off a 17-hour flight. Like, how? How? I'm glad you bring that up, because if I just take a snobetless, news or like pass out or just catch myself like yawning throughout this it's nothing to do with the conversation it's just that yeah it's been a long well so it was a seven hour flight from kuala lampur to doha and then 17 hours to doha so not just got off like 36 hour travel day where is doha i don't even know where that is in the middle east where the middle east where the world cup was

world cup yes yes oh my gosh you guys have to be the kings and queens of going on like no sleep you know that's funny. We've realized that, I don't know, sometimes you just, you just go with it. And maybe it's okay because our schedules aren't that, like, rigid. You know, when we flew to the other side of the country at the beginning of the summer, we were pretty jet lagged. We were just saying that on the way here. Like, it probably took us maybe five days to adjust. But, you know, you fall asleep. We try to go to sleep when the sun goes down, which we do. But then sometimes you wake up four hours later. And so you're like, that's okay. If you stress about not getting sleep, then it gets bad. But you just wake up at three and you just get a bunch of work done and it's fine.

Oh my gosh. And honestly, I would say our kids do better than us, right? Yeah. Our kids are the troopers. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. When you guys pulled up and you're like, you just called me on the phone like, hey, by the way, we're here.

I don't know if it's the right house. So I walk out. And then you guys get out with your kids. I was like, oh my gosh. Like I, you guys really do travel as a family unit. Like you do this. Like your life is no joke, you know. They just got off of a 36 hour travel day.

Yeah. And you rocked it. Honestly. Well, so we left Quill and Poor at 8 p.m. The kid slept most of that first flight. That was a seven-hour flight. Then we had a two-hour layover. And then the last 17 hours, they've been, like,

I think maybe everybody slept for one to three hours. Like, they're going to crash soon. All right. A year old gets off the flight and he's like, you want to know what movies I watch? Like what? And he rattled off like 16 movies. He watched so many movies.

I slept. I took a melaton and I was like, I'm going to bed. And, yeah, he raged. That's incredible. Well, our kids don't get a ton of screen time, so you put them on a flight with a screen just right here for 17 hours and they're just dialed in. They don't want to sleep because it's their one time to have screen time,

so they just soak it in. That's awesome. That's kind of how Griffin is. Like, he's only two, but he can watch a whole movie because we don't like use it Willie and Lily and he'll just sit and stare at it. You can't break it. And how old are your kids right now? We have 11 and 9 and 6.

Crazy. And when you started this whole journey of traveling the world, how old were they? Let's see, Dorothy was almost three, and Minna had just turned one. So we left when they were super duper young. Which now, looking back, if somebody asks us, what's the most difficult age to travel with? It's like that age. It's for sure that. Basically, you guys are in it.

Yeah. And I give a lot of credit to my son Manila, my second, who was just a good little boy. Like I think any other toddler 18 month old, like that's like just the do not enter phase of travel. Just good luck. And he was just such a good kid. And if I would put him down for a nap, he would just go to bed or if I would, you know, we'd be in an hour line at security and he would just stand by my side. Like I think most toddler boys are all over the way. Honestly, had Callie come second, I don't think we would have continued our travels.

We would have quit everything. But yeah, but our second Manila is just the sweetest little toddler boy. and he made the travels doable. We just did a flight with our two boys flying home from Nashville. And you guys, it was one of the most stressful flights we've ever had. It was only three and a half hours. Like that seemed long to us and you saying you just took a 17 hour flight. I'm like 17 hours.

I know, we were 45 minutes and I like checked the app. I'm like refreshing and I'm like, oh no. But you're also in that zone where like you're holding a baby and it's just like a little bomb that you're just waiting to go off, especially at six months where they're kind of like starting to grab at things and they want to move. that can't and anyway, yeah. We're in a really nice cruise control mode where our kids are pros. We check in, they go through security, they pull out an iPad, they ask for their cranberry

juice, like they're pros. I woke up and our youngest is like ordering himself some ice cream and I was like, props, man, you can order by yourself, I can't stop you. So what did you guys do when you had a one year old? Because our 11 month old turned to one in a couple days at the time of this recording and he cried for half the flight. It was one of the most stressful flights we've ever had. And it was during his nap time, which we couldn't, like, really control that.

It just happened to be the flight that we needed that day. And I was walking him up and down the aisle, trying to get him to fall asleep, like shushing him, giving his binkie. Nothing worked. So, like, what do you do? I mean, there's a bunch of stuff you can try. You can try to not book a flight around nap time. You can try to just tire him out as much as possible. You can sit at the back of the plane where it's a little bit louder, a little bit bumpier, and hopefully that'll, like, rock him to sleep.

you can yeah just walk around with them I think there's a bunch of things you can try but at the end of the day it's the best laid plans are always going to go out the window you know I can count many times of when I had everything aligned perfectly and then all of a sudden you're sitting on the tarmac for an extra like two hours and so like maybe the baby sleeps but then by the time you actually take up take off you know you're delayed and it just always happens so you just got to be ready for it you got the only thing you can't control is your attitudes and that's the way we go now and We always take turns freaking out. That's probably my best piece of advice is with parents.

You have to take turns. And Garrett knows when I'm in like travel days are my like stressful days. Like I'm the one who's done everything. I've done all the logistics. So I'm normally like very like trying to stay on it. And Garrett is really good about taking the kids during check in. He pulls them over to the side. They're running around getting their wiggles out and doing all the stuff.

So I can like focus on what's happening. And and he knows when he needs to step in. tell me to calm down and not stress. But, and then like on the flip side, there's times where he gets stressed. And I'm like, okay, kids, let's give dad some space. Can we go way back for a second? Because I know you guys have been married for like quite a long time, right? Was like how many years?

That's insane. Congratulations. How long have you guys been married? Five. We should five. Okay. Yeah, five years. But 15.

I mean, how did you guys meet? Like where, like can we go back to the very beginning? We met on our church mission. We were in Vladivostok, Russia, in our church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you go on a mission and you're not, you're not, you don't choose where you go, right? So we were just assigned, both went to Vladivostok, and that's where we met, but you don't date on your mission or anything. You kind of forget everything and just try to focus on service during that time.

And I knew who Garrett was. He was a really good missionary. He was very focused, and we were just good friends. We taught an English club together, and then after our missions, we came home. And we had a buddy who was like, hey, I want to take this girl out on a date. You guys should come. We're like, okay, cool. But like, who should we go with?

And he was like, we'll just go with each other. And we did. But when he said that, he's like, you guys should just go with each other. We both looked at each other. Like, oh, no. That's weird. That's like taboo. But, yeah, we went just like, oh, let's just go.

It's like a hangout. And then that night, remember what we did? We went in, this is such like a Utah date. The guys all brought their trucks. and then they put beam bags in the back of their trucks, and they set up a white sheet and, like, a projector from their cars. Like, we were in the mountains. We were in the canyon.

That's fun. Watch, I think, was like, one of the board movies. Anyway, we ended up cuddling that night, and it sounds so lame. But I just, it just felt really right. Like, the whole thing I was like, oh, we're just like two puzzle pieces that just felt right. But also it was, you know, it was taboo in our church because people are like, no, you need a focus. And it needs to be all about this work. so sometimes it's this taboo thing to meet your spouse on your mission but really even though we were

super focused and good missionaries and all this stuff but still you know sometimes it's not it was after the mission yeah yeah yeah so after the mission so honestly nothing was wrong but she means taboo like people might assume like oh I bet they were like dating or like flirting back when they were on the mission yeah kissing in a back room or something yeah but like none of that happened okay and living in Russia what was that like Russia is um I mean it lives up to its reputation. It does. It's everything you see. For good and bad and crazy, all the things. You know what those like dash cam videos? If you ever just get bored, there's like a YouTube, Russian dash cam. And the craziest gnarliest thing. Literally I'll just be a guy because

there's so many crazy things that happen that people will set up for insurance purposes a dash cam in their car. Okay. Because like an example would be someone will be driving an old grandma or Babushka will be like walking across the street and then throw herself in front of your car trying to like get the insurance from the injury. So if you have a dash cam you have like evidence of like no she threw herself in front of my car or stuff like that. The craziest stuff will happen anyways. You'll see like a grizzly bear like take out the car in front of them where all of a sudden they'll be driving and like a rocket will just pass in the row like the craziest stuff. That actually happens in Russia. And then you go there and you're like oh this is for real. I was like this isn't just like the highlight reel on YouTube.

Like this stuff happens. What's the craziest thing you saw with your own eyes? Because we were there for two years. You saw probably some crazier stuff than I did. I mean, at that time in my life, I was a young 19-year-old and I don't think I'd ever seen anybody die. And then I came back home two years later having seen a handful of people die. Like, yeah, that was the hardest on me.

It's like a 19-year-old. That was the craziest. Because of an accident, die of old age? There was a handful of things. I remember like how cold it gets there on a daily basis, like during the dead of winter. If people were not in a state to like get home safely, it would just get too cold that night. It was like intense Siberia, Russia. So you'd like be walking on the street and see someone who's like literally frozen to death?

The next morning was like clean up. Yeah, it was crazy, crazy. That's so wild. I definitely think you love, you learn to love whom you serve, right? And after two years in Russia, you, like, truly learned to love these people and all their, you know, quirks and history and realize who they are and why they are the way they are because of, you know, their history. They can be very cold, you know, when you see them on the street, but you get into their homes and they're... And then they just become... The most loving people. The most loyal people.

You know, to be, like, going door to door, and it can be really difficult. But as soon as you can get into someone's home, they're just the most kind-loving one. wonderful people. So the first like few months you're just exposed to all the craziness. You're like, where am I? And then by the end of the two years, you're like, this is the most special place on the planet. Like love Russia, love the Russian people. It's a, yeah, it's a special place. Have you guys been back since? No, we were supposed to go back March 2020. Oh, no. We haven't been back as a family. I've been back twice. Oh, really? But not as a family. Like, the bucket of this family hasn't been to Russia yet. Now I don't know if we'll ever go back.

We actually, we had a cruise plan to Russia and then 2020 hit. Yeah. And so that cruise never happened. It was a family cruise with like Abby's whole extended family. And there's so what's the cathedral that's like like world famous? Like the Red Square. What is it? All right not it's that's not in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg we're gonna go there and then yeah it's 20-20 hit and it never happened and now you got the the war with Russia and Ukraine. So it's gonna be a minute. Yeah. Oh it's gonna be a while. I guess like serving there do you is that a bucket list stop with your kids that you'd like to take your kids back to where you served your mission.

Oh my gosh. I had convinced Jessica to go there in 2020 and before it got canceled. And oh my gosh, I was just so excited to show our kids. I mean, something as simple. Like when you live there, I wanted to take them like grocery shopping, which there, that meant like going to the milk stop, then going to the egg stop, then going to the meat shop. Like it was so like old school and different.

I was really excited to show that to our kids. Yeah. There's probably not a lot of Americans there. Not where we were. No, hardly. I remember, again, people, we were just painting a picture there. I was walking down the street one day, having been in Russia for like a year and a half. And like across the street, I noticed a girl, like, with a bright, white smile, like, walking down the street smiling.

And I was like, American, American. I, like, run across the street. And I was like, hey, hey, excuse me. And she was like, whoa, you speak English. And I was like, yeah. Like, I knew. You can just tell. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and it's just different, like, cultures. And again, this was, like, Eastern Russia. But, like, I could tell. I mean, how often would you go up and say hi to someone or even just be on the street and someone would immediately would cut you off and be like, in Russian, or in English, you would translate, whose teeth are those? Yeah, like, your teeth are really white?

Are they yours? Are they your own? No way. And so you just have to, yeah, they're mine. They're my teeth. They're like, they're so white. And they were just always like, how did you get your teeth so white?

So you guys had to learn Russian while you were. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you learn. You learn, so in our church you go to an MTC, the missionary training center. And if you're learning a different alphabet, you go for three months or you did at the time. So we went to an MTC in Provo, Utah for three months. You, like, go through a really intensive course of learning to read and write and teach. I mean, but you leave this MTC and you can pray in Russian. You know, I guess.

You can, like, speak, like, church talk. Yeah, you can church talk in Russian. And you could maybe, like, order some food or something. But it's... And you're also... At least you feel confident that you can speak the language and understand the language. I remember getting to the airport and, like, seeing my first Russian and being like, amazing.

I'm going to go to speak to this gentleman. And I, like, in Russian, I'm like, hello. Hi, sir. How are you? And he, like, rattles off Russian back to me. And I'm like, oh, shoot, what's that language? Like, that is not what I learned. And yeah, so you think you know, but...

So doing your mission in Russia, you know, clearly it wasn't just like a super easy experience. just trying to freaking learn Russian. Like, did that toughen you up then to take on world travel? Definitely. And definitely me. Like I said, I'm such a peaceful person. And so when someone's just going to, like, call you out on things or be like really blunt about things, like, I've learned, I don't know. It was easier for me to be blunt.

And I don't want to say rude because I wasn't rude. But it was easier for me to be more direct in Russian than even I would be in English, you know? And for some reason, just being having that. that cultural difference and just being able to say it, you know, to invite somebody, do you want to learn about Jesus Christ? That kind of just, I don't know, it makes me a little bit more like nervous saying that in English, whereas when I learned to say it in Russian, I was like, do you want to learn about Jesus Christ?

And people were like, either yes or no. And that was, you know, and you move on. You got a yes? Do most people say no? No. It's a lot of no. Yeah, there's a lot of knows. It truly, honestly, is the hardest thing by far I've ever experienced in my life.

Like, even just like talking about it the whole time, it's just like, whole. holding back like tears remembering what it was like to experience it especially the first six months i would say people there that part of russia didn't really speak english and so for me i like went six months without being able to like speak to someone i either like had to learn the language which i didn't know yet and so it's just a very very lonely six months without anyone to talk to or listen to and yeah so it just went from like miserable like survival mode but also talk about motivation to like learn a language. Yeah.

After six months like fully fluent reading, writing, everything. But again, it came out of like necessity and survival mode. Could you play sports with people? Like could you, was there ways of communicating that were it just over language? The rules I think have changed quite a bit since, but it was intensely strict where it was like you're going to wake up at 6 a.m. You're going to exercise and eat breakfast for an hour and then you're going to study the language and study, like, church materials for, like, the next two hours,

and then you're going to be outside, like, proselyting and serving the entirety of the day until you come back at 8 or 9 p.m. whenever, before the sun goes down, and then you're, you know, back out at the very next day. One day a week, you had, like, four hours of preparation time when it was, like, this is your time to go and, like, play sports or relax. But during that four hours, just make sure you grocery shop, you do your laundry, you clean your apartment, and you get prepped for the next week.

And you're right home. So maybe you got 30 minutes to, like, have me time or, like, go play some soccer or something like that. And it was that way for two years. Oh, yeah, you were, that was your time to, like, write your parents back home because when we were there, you could call home two times a year. You could call home on Mother's Day and Christmas. And so just, like, so insanely strict.

And for me, just kind of, like, my personality type was, like, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it to the fullest. And so if there was a rule, I was following it perfectly. And it was very big on rules. So yeah, I went the entirety of two years without like breaking a single rule because that's what it meant to be like a good missionary. I wanted to be the best. And so it was intense.

And so you guys did that mission together. Then you end up falling in love afterward. You know, a lot happens. How do you go from living in Russia for two years to getting married and traveling the world with your kids. I will say like with Garrett, like he just mentioned, whatever he does, he goes in 110%. And that's why I fell in love with him. I loved how intense he was and how successful he was.

Whatever he put his heart into, he was very successful at it. And so I knew whatever he chose to do in life, he would do very well at. And, you know, for a little bit, that was soccer. And he played college soccer. and then for a little bit, it was an app he started in college, and you did really well with that. And then it evolved into the bikeless family and just from there on out. So whatever Garrett does, he goes in like 110%. So that was one of the things that really attracted me to him initially.

But I also, like, it's a double-edged sword because as much as I love his intensity and his drive, I am also such like a think-in-the-box type of girl. I'm, you know, so conventional just the girl next door who had a dad who worked in nine to five and assumed that my husband would be the same. And Garrett is not that way whatsoever. So for me, I feel like it's been a huge pivot of, okay, I thought I would marry this person. And it would be just, you know, like,

like, you know, he would work at 9 to 5 and go to job, get a job, and then come home. And very quickly, I realized that wasn't the case. In college he had, I don't know, five or six like startups that he was just all over the place with. And then finally, he had created an app called Scan, and it started to do really well, brought in investors, and it forced him to focus, but he ended up doing really, really well with it.

And it was when that sold that so much of it had been like her following me and my entrepreneurial ventures and dreams. So it was like, okay, thank you for doing what I wanted to do. Like, what would you choose for our next chapter in life? And she literally said, I'm not sure. I think we have a lot to like learn and figure out. So why don't we just do a little bit of traveling? And that became like the famous last words of a little bit of traveling.

Because I just want to. I translated those moderate words in my head to sell everything and go around the world. So the common theme kind of thing, our marriage is maybe like my idea or his idea and then him taking it to like the 10th degree. Thank you to Nutraful for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. I am freshly postpartum. One of the first things I was like, I need to make sure I have this. genuinely my Nutraful. Around four months I feel like it was when I was like, wow, there is so much hair on my brush and there's so not that much hair on my head. And I love how Nutriful comes in to support that specific gap. Neutriful is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand and it's the number one hair growth supplement brand personally used by dermatologists. Because hair health isn't a one size fits all, Nutraful offers different formulas for both men and women at any age or stage of life. Like I mentioned, I love their postpartum one. Right now, the Nutraful Women's formula has been upgraded to the most advanced version yet. It's 100% vegan, biotin-free,

and comes in smaller capsule size to make your daily routine easier. You of all people. You need some extra help with swelling pills. See, thicker, stronger, faster-growing hair with less shedding in just three to six months. Right now, Nutraful is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you visit Nutraful.com and enter promo code unplanned pod. That's Nutraful.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L-L-com promo code. unplanned pod. So that was what? That was 2015 and she wanted to do a little bit of traveling and I'm like, well, I'm not just

going to go on like this six month vacation. So what am I going to do during that? And it was I want to like document these travels and I want to like do it on Instagram and YouTube. So that's when we created the name of the Bucculus family. And it definitely just started off, especially at like, 2015 that like, you know, Influencer or a creator wasn't really a thing. And so it was like, I'm just want to document.

met our family travels and share it. And so that's when it was born, the bug of this family. So crazy. So, so crazy. I can totally, like, relate to you and, like, just wanting to do whatever you do, 110% because that, like, that's literally, yeah, that's how I am to. One thousand percent. And how do you, how do you deal with it?

You know, like, this, honestly, everything you said, I can feel that because it's the same thing that it's like, you love that. passion you love that work ethic you love that drive and like the vision and the dreaming and then I'm but sometimes I'm like I'm just normal like I don't know so it's been fun though I tell them all the time I'm like in hindsight like I would not have wanted normal like this is awesome but it's so funny I can relate so well because I was like definitely thought we were going to have like the nine to five situation and when we let's see when you sold his company to Snapchat we actually moved out here to LA and I was so excited. I was like just moving on. We left Utah. I just thought it was the next step. And it had

more like a nine to five structure. And it was a nine to five situation. And he came home and he didn't have his laptop with him. And he was just so present when he was home. And I loved it. But very quickly, I would say after three months, you could see the light just fade. And for him who's such a creative and it's so much about creating new things and doing what he wants to do and what he believes he can do to see that kind of sucked from him when sucked out from him when he had a boss and he realized that he was creating things to impress somebody else that's what like sucks the life out of him and so me who thought we were going to be in LA for the long haul or at least for the next five to 10 years very quickly I was like shoot like we this isn't going to work and I know he felt

really bad because I had followed him from Utah to San Francisco, back to Utah, to Hawaii, back to Utah. And then to L.A. and then for him to be like, I want to go back to Utah again and finished my senior year of college soccer. And I was like, no way. Like I was not happy about it, but after those couple months of him doing the nine to five. And again, nine to five is for the majority of people. It's probably for me. You know, it's for my dad. It's a lot of my family, but I could see it wasn't for him. And that's where I'm super, super thankful to Jess, because she, yeah, she put my happiness first and saved me when I was in a situation where I was, like, dying inside.

So then you end up quitting your job at Snapchat, right, and then moving, did you then play soccer at in Hawaii? No, no, no, no, well, for a minute. Okay. And then ended up back in Utah, finishing one more season of soccer at BYU in Utah. And then that was the, like, that was the compromise. He was like, I just want my last season, because he had sold the company right before that and basically, you know, was going to forsake that.

last year of soccer for this company and for his employees. And then when he ended up quitting, he was like, I want to just finish this one last year. You get to choose what we do next. And then I had said, a little bit of traveling that then exploded into 10 years later. I'm actually like really curious because clearly you've had a lot of success on the business front selling your your app to Snapchat, working at Snapchat, then traveling the world, but then also being able to grow as a social media influencer. What's been the most fulfilling thing in your life up to this point doing all that? Like where are you like, man, this is this is where I get joy the most. I've given it a lot of thought just recently. When you like find success in certain areas,

you'll see like which ones bring you more joy and which ones you like find that like pot at the end of the rainbow and you're like, oh, that one's kind of empty. Like that didn't bring me as much joy in life as I thought. And it was definitely like when I was running a successful business and like speaking at conferences and like rubbing shoulders with, you know, the millionaires and billionaires, that taught me very quickly like, oh, that's not my scene. This is just for me personally. That's not for me.

I think a big way I've used it as a gauge is like when I'm around people, who am I jealous of, like in a good way and healthy way? Who do I want to be like, right? Yeah. And if I'm around someone who's like way more wealthy than me, that doesn't like instill any jealousy or like, you know, desire to be more like them. Whereas then if I saw somebody who's like very healthy and athletic, like, oh, like that, that feels good to me.

If I was around somebody who had just like ultimate freedom in their life, that was really big for me. But the number one thing I would find is that would bring me like the lasting joy and just was like, yep, that's what I want in my life is when I would be around people who had a strong family, strong marriage, strong relationship, good relationship with their kids. And so that's where I started to like design and create my life, especially when it was the transition from like the tech business world to what we do now as the Bucklew's family. And that's why from the very beginning we never consider our. ourselves like influencers. We always consider ourselves family travel journalists because that was my way of like tricking the current state of the world and designing my unique way that I want to live my

life. And it was how can I spend as much time together with my family doing things that we love together as a family. That's cool. And so we like invented family travel journalists. I don't know how old you were, 27, 28 when you sold your company to be these, you know, under 30 millionaires. and to not need to work the rest of your life.

I mean, we had good money, but if we were stupid with it, then it would be gone a second. Like, it wasn't endless money that we'd received. And so we had the conversation with one of your co-founders, and there are three co-founders, we all received the exact same payout. And just to have those conversations of,

what do you do when money isn't the object, right? Like when you don't need to necessarily work, and those conversations of health, marriage, family, friendships, those are the only things that really matter. And so when Garrett and I, like, going into these travels and we set these goals, we have them on our website, it was so intentional of, like, what we wanted to do. And even in creating the Bucatless family, social media influencing wasn't a thing. It was kind of the mommy blogger era when we left.

It just wasn't a thing. So the goal has always been spend time together as a family, experience the world, learn about new cultures, you know, become closer to our friends and family. So we had all these goals that we've tried to achieve, and I feel like we've done a really good job over the last 10, almost 10 years now of, are we the biggest? No. Are we the most successful?

Do we get paid the most? No, no, no. But the time that we spend, that's all that matters to us. We have our health. We have a good marriage. We have kids that are awesome, and we love being around and can handle 36-hour travel days with. And we're really happy with where we are at. That's so inspiring, you guys.

Where, well, my wish is like cracked. Where would you say has been the most fun country to visit with your kids so far? Because you've been to over 100 countries? Almost to 100. We need to like sit down and write a list because we're probably in that like 90 range. Okay. Okay. So over 90.

That's wild. Kid friendly. Kid friendly? Well, so I just wrote a book with National Geographic and I have it all kind of laid out of best, you know, the six month or the 18 month or the, you know, five to seven and then the older. you guys are at the two in six months two and one yeah one year old two year old I know it comes in my mind if if you always wanted to like get out and like go to like a far off destination but you wanted to know it was going to be kid friendly then first that comes in my mind is Fiji I'm telling you you would arrive to Fiji and before you even left the airport some Fijian

woman would come up to you and take your kids and you would immediately trust her and you would go through security while she like holds your babe and then like that would be your entire trip. The jeans love children. They love them so much. And a lot of the resorts, they have, you know, kids clubs or nannies and like they have like one per kid. And they just love your kids. They love you and they love you. They'll like come take your child at breakfast and make you guys go enjoy like me time together.

And then like six hours later they bring back your child and their hair is braided and they're. They've got all these flowers and stuff. Like our kids have the best time in Virginia. Wow. Do you find that, like, because I think to the typical American hearing that, like, that mom would be like, oh, my gosh, I would never hand off my baby. Like, that is terrifying to me. Do you find that in America, we, like, our culture around babies is very different?

For sure, for sure, around mothering, around nursing, around, you know, safety, all this stuff is super different. And, yes, especially these, like, Polynesian countries, Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti, like, they love children and they're so good. And they're just these beautiful little aunties that you just see the love in their eyes. And the style there is like a village style. Like a village raises the kids. You know, it's like open door policy. Like a lot of the villages don't even have the front doors. And it's just like a village vibe.

It's really special there. Wow. Whereas like I feel like in America, it's kind of viewed as like it's the mom and dad. But like you're almost made to feel guilty if somebody else is like your kids and somebody else's care. It's very interesting. Yeah. When you go to say Fiji, Are you staying in a hut?

Are you staying on a resort? Like, where do you live when you visit all these different places? It's always been an interesting thing in our travels because we're both, just like how we were brought up and how we still are. It's just like very, very frugal. So if we're planning a trip, it'll always be like, okay,

what's the most affordable way that we can have this experience? And when we left, we sold all our belongings. We had our acquisition money. We didn't want to touch it. So we set that aside. And we sold all our stuff, made about $45,000.

And from that, we were like, okay, this is, you know, going to take us six-ish months and we'll, and then we'll come home and we'll get a certain new company, we'll go from there. And we had agreed, like, we'll only travel as long as that $45,000 from the yard cell last. And so that was when it became my motivation to, like, take the bug of this family or YouTube and our Instagram and, like, hopefully help it create some money, make some money so that we could extend those travels. Because we were both surprised how much we loved the, like, full-time travel. lifestyle. Yeah. And so yeah, I was like, okay, how do we get creative entrepreneurial here to send those travels? Initially, our vibe before, you know, all of our family travels in the Bucket of this family

was probably Airbnbs. Like our first six months of travel was just Airbnbs, VRBOs, home rentals all around the world so we could have, you know, laundry and a kitchen, like that was the plan. And that's what we did. And then about three months in, our social media started to grow very, very slowly we had maybe 12,000 followers and I was like, I'm just going to start reaching out to some places and see if we can take some pictures for people and post about it. One of the first companies we partnered with was Ritz Carlton and people would be like, oh man, like you guys acted like you were trying to save money but you're selling out working with or like staying at these Ritz Carlton. It's like, no, that's actually the cheapest way

for us to travel is to work with partner with Ritz Carlton. It's the luxury properties that have marketing budgets. So that's where we end up. Yeah. So it's cheaper for us to stay at really nice places than to pay out of our own pocket to like stay at a cheap Airbnb. And so, yeah, it just became a game of like, who can we work with? We're working with airlines, resorts, tourism boards. I'm super grateful for all the people that hosted us, especially when we were so young and early on. And when I wrote my book that came out this last year, it was so fun for me to put them in my book. Wow. And to be like, you guys believed in us 10 years ago before when we had like 10,000 followers.

Before travel influencing was a thing. You took a bet on us and we're like, sure, I guess we'll host you for free. And, you know, and then to like write their names in my book. I was really proud of that to email them back 10 years later. I'd be like, hey, just so you know. That was thoughtful you to even, to think of that too. It just meant a lot to me that they had believed in us all those years ago. How cool.

And these are people that you just, like, they saw your videos and they're like, stay at my house for free in China or something. But it was mostly me reaching out. to early on I remember going to Thailand that's kind of when we first started to see like if we could make this a thing and emailing I don't know 20 different hotels maybe 50 even and all different you know I wasn't going for the luxury brands but very quickly I realized like I said it's the nice brands that have marketing budgets so we weren't hosted in the three or four stars we were hosted in the five star hotels because you know they before social media they're used to having

media come and writers and journalists and stuff and so that's that's the the route we took. And Garrett's mom actually, she has a travel television series. So we had traveled with her in the past and I knew a little bit of that world and how to have a media stay and what that means. And so going into it, that was kind of our example of how to be media at a resort. Wow. Walk me through the logistics of if Abby and I right now with our two-year-old and one-year-old are like, all right, we're doing it. We're going to go travel the world for six months. What would we want to pack? What would we need? What should we leave at home? because we're going to be able to find a bed or a car seat or whatever.

Like what would be our way of doing that? Oh man. The quick answer is less. Less is more. Or as little as possible because the biggest stress or like what's going to make your experience worse is just whatever causes you stress and probably the biggest stress is just like stuff. Like having too much luggage and checking luggage or losing things and having to pack and

everything being heavy. Like that's just all stress. And so one big takeaway from all of our travels is just learning the art of minimalism and how like liberating that is, just having less. I mean, as far as clothes, just everything mixes and matches, right? So like I don't have like one outfit for one day ever. Everything layers and we've worn the exact same clothes for the last three months in Southeast Asia. I have one little carry on.

Garrett has like a half of a carry on and our kids have a half of a carry on. So like we packed clothing wise super minimally. And then when it comes to gear, I mean, I always say reach out to your hotel or your rental home and say, hey, do you have a pack and play in a crib? Because 99% of the time they do. So for sure leave that at home. When we first left, we packed a double stroller. And I like die laughing about it, picturing us like hauling this massive double stroller.

It was just so big. But getting a good stroller that pulled up in the overhead bin or, you know, and then, of course, one that like attaches to your car seat or we didn't travel with car seat. or we traveled, we would just rent them or... And that's also like the realization that like babies are everywhere. So everywhere you go, you can find diapers, you can find form. You can find diapers, you can find everything all over the world. Babies are everywhere.

Babies are everywhere. So just pack with less. Thank you to Mom Cozy for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. We've been using the Mom Cozy bottle washer and bottle warmer. We did have an incident the other day where I accidentally did not press start on the bottle washer. You said, I'll just hand wash them. I was like, how dare you?

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What sets the D8 bottle washer apart from anything else on the market are two, patent-tained features, Target Wash, which blast water directly into those nightmare blind spots like straws and nipples, and Pump 360, which rotates the water streams to completely clean the tricky curves of breast pump flanges. If you're in the infant stage or know someone who is, you need these Mom Cozy products in your life. And right now, you can get 10% off the Night Pro Bottle warmer and 10% when you pre-order the deep clean bottle washer D8 at momcozy.com with code unplanned. So head to momcozy.com and use code unplanned for 10% off my favorite mom cozy products. How do you navigate language barriers? I feel like that's something to me that has never

been an issue. And most people speak English. Sometimes it's like a fun part of the adventure. Yeah, it's fine. Sometimes add some like fun and excitement to it, but it's never gotten us into like major problems. It's just a fun of like, I'm going to go into this grocery store and like try to like buy things and communicate. I don't know. I also feel like between. my Russian and my Spanish. I grew up speaking Spanish, like, you're taking it in school. And so that has gotten me pretty far with any romance languages. So getting around, I can get around pretty well.

See, like, my street smarts really suck. And so I feel like, yeah. So I feel like I would screw us if we accidentally stumbled upon some, like, sketchy area and I just didn't know. Because, like, I don't know, like, when you grow up in a city, like, I grew up in St. Louis. And when I say I grew up in St. Louis, people are like, oh, my gosh, St. Louis. like that's so dangerous because I think St. Louis is ranked in one of the number one spots for crime in the United States, but it's because of East St. Louis across the river where there's a lot of crime.

But I grew up, yeah, 30 minutes out to the city. Like nothing ever happened where I grew up. Like it was very, very safe. But, you know, you just like typically know the bad parts of town and the good parts of town. How do you navigate that when you're traveling the world? That is a tough part of trying to travel like frugal or especially if, affordable when you have kids because you just want to stay in nicer areas just for the safety. And we did. And I, if I'm booking something, I'm looking at reviews like crazy. And a lot of times I'll

filter Airbnb and I think VRBO have a, have a checkmark where you can say it needs to be family friendly. And then you can see it's next to parks. It's next to grocery stores. Like I'm always going to make sure that I'm saying in like a good part of town for sure. It's so interesting traveling because, you know, we have our mutual friends Karen and Nate. Like the way that they can travel, like they can stay in a hostel if they want, like, you're not going to do that with kids. Yeah. And then also there's just like certain things where like, okay, let's say you didn't have kids and you're going to Paris, you're going to want to hit up this museum and this museum and this Eiffel Tower. With kids, it's like, they just want to go to a playground. They just want to go to a

park. They just want to go, like, meet kids and play with friends. Like, so traveling is very different with kids. But I would say, I would argue it's better. Like, you have such a new aspect of, like, how you immerse yourself into a culture. when you do it as a family. And people tend to be more welcoming, I think. You know, you see a little kid and it completely breaks down barriers. Yeah.

It's also the cheat code when you're in airport. Go up with your little kids, look extra stress for that five minutes and go up to any line and say, is there a family line? And oftentimes there's a family line. And if there's not, they're just, hey, you look very much like you need help.

Let me help you. That's so funny. They're the cheat codes. Talk to me to, too. about like finding community when you're on the road because I don't know, I feel like I would maybe get lonely, not being around family or your close friends. Like do you just meet new friends everywhere you go and then say goodbye forever? Look, so we traveled full time for three years. And if you asked us what was the hardest? That was 100% the hardest part. 100%. And yeah,

you do get lonely and you, and so over those three years, I would say maybe every other month or something, we would have friends come and meet us. We had friends join us in Iceland. and we had friends join us in Italy, we had friends join us in New Zealand. So we tried to have people come and join us. And that really helped take away a lot of the homesickness. And that did a good job of like maintaining all of our friendships. But community, like family, friends and community all are in the same bucket.

But like community is its own thing. And that's almost like the more of the story for us. Like at the end of the day, what did we learn after traveling the entire world? We got to experience different cultures. Or in other words, we got to experience different communities. And it made us realize, like, that's what we want in our lives. And so it was in 2018, we decided to settle down. We chose Hawaii.

And we chose Hawaii in large part because the community that that would put us into. And, yeah, that became everything for us. It's funny to bring that up just because, yeah, we used to live there. Used to, I actually learned to surf while we were out there. I've noticed a lot of your videos, like, have some sort of element of surfing in them. especially like I think there was one where it's like my kid surfing and then saw a shark or like I've seen the videos of like our son like swims with a shark how do you does that not like freak you out when it's like my kids in the water with a freaking shark yeah I mean it's you you know this like it's a part of surfing

that there's just like that part of risk but then you there's like the logical side of like what's the percentage chance like I'm nervous every time we're in a car you know like I'm petrified of like car accidents and I just know like the likelihood of that over like a shark attack and so there's just that as we grew in the rainforest deep like proper rainforest it was pouring rain and they're we had to wear these leech socks and everyone was freaked out about leeches and we were freaked out about leeches I'm not scared of sharks I'm scared of we were so scared and like there are these things called tiger leeches that kind of hang on to like a plant kind of like that and they just like reach on to anybody they're anyway they'll hang off the very end so they'll hang off the very end so

they're like reaching out in case you hike by it and they can grab onto your skin, clothes, whatever. Oh gosh. But they're heat sinking, like, they can sense heat so strongly that they would be kind of relaxed and I would put my hand anywhere within like a foot and all of a sudden it would start going crazy. Oh my gosh. We were freaking out.

But our guides and everybody who lived there were just kind of like, eh, like it's okay. Like, yeah, it's annoying. And I don't want to compare leeches to sharks, but I just wanted to make the point that like when you're around something and spending a lot of time in the ocean, it's just you're in the shark's home and they don't want to eat you and you understand and you get informed on it. Like if we're out surfing and we see a shark, we'll like paddle towards it and get excited and like jump off our board so like look at it and see what shark it is. And so because the kids are like used to it and around it. You'll go try to swim next to the shark. Well, I mean, we're talking

reef sharks, right? Okay, okay. Not like tigers and great whites and stuff, right? Got it. But yeah, we spend a lot of like. With those leeches, we're scared. I know. Spend a lot of time the ocean. I'm sure if we asked these Malaysians to come get in the ocean with us, they would have been freaked out about sharks, but sharks don't scare us anymore like they probably used to and maybe we'd eventually get used to the leeches. Well, I mean, like someone just died, though, from a shark attack in Hawaii this year. Yeah, they did, like a really good surfer. Yeah.

That was really sad. It's really hard. But I guess, like, yeah, like you mentioned car accidents. That happens, like people die in car accidents. Are you never going to ride in a car? You're more likely to die in Hawaii by being hit in the head with a coconut than you are. Crazy. That's crazy.

Well, I also know, too, like the ocean is so dangerous. it can't be so dangerous. The water itself could like suck you under, that's what you should be scared about. Yeah, just surf in general. That's scary. I'd rather be taken out by a coconut than by a shot. Yeah, if you get taken out by a coconut,

that's just God being like, you, it's your time. You're done. You're done. I'll tell you what I'm like really afraid of now is crocodiles. Really? And we have spent a lot of time around crocodiles, especially this summer. And literally, I don't know,

it was like five days ago. We were going down this river in the rainforest, and Garrett was, I need to show you this footage. It's funny. We had been looking for crocodiles. We had for crocodiles. And our guys are like, there's crocodiles everywhere. Yeah, I didn't see any crocodiles. And the guys were like, there's crocodiles everywhere.

And we're like, prove it. And we're kind of cruising through this river. And Garrett's leaning out. He starts taking a little video of the kids. And he goes, ho-ho, Dorothy, let me know if there's a crocodile behind me. As I, like, lean out over the water. And just then, we see this. probably 16-foot crocodile on the surface.

And you know, you're living in Hawaii, you've learned about sharks. Like sharks genuinely don't want to eat people. You know what I mean? Like sometimes they're curious. If you give it, it's just because they're curious, right? Or there's some sort of wrong situation. If you're splashing around in crock waters.

A crock wants to eat you, and they will just, they will eat anything. And Garrett, our guy, like, kind of slams on the brakes. You almost fell in on top of this crocodile. I thought the kids were kidding, because again, I'm like leaning out just to try to get proper focus. So I'm taking video and I'm like, hey, Dorothy, let me know if there's a crock behind me and her face just lights up and she's like, crocodile.

I thought she was kidding. So I don't like whip around the camera at first and then I hear like a whip of the tail and I turn around just in time to see it. Like, oh my gosh. Like, have you fallen in? Connor. I mean, we scared the crocodile. The crocodile was like freaked out.

But yeah, that would have been. We asked our guy like as soon as we got on the boat, like as a joke like, hey, would you swim from like here just across the river and he's like no you wouldn't make it the croc would get you wow lots of raccois you guys are hardcore you're hardcore you're taking your kids too I was gonna say the bonus of all this our kids are very very obedient like we wouldn't advise that like any parents or kids just like go on these type of experiences but like our kids have been not enough like they're very very obedient even the place we were staying we put us in our own tent and our kids are in their separate tent and they're not allowed out like they know they cannot leave

because pythons lions like depending where we are like they know they cannot leave what's going to stop a lion though from attacking the tent they want to go into tent I mean I mean like they don't do zippers just yeah normally there's zippers and sometimes even like locks on it like they can't get in like an elephant like an elephant could theoretically just like plow through anything if they want to do, but they don't. You know, like, we've learned that lion, or not lions, elephants really, like, shore footing. So they're not just going to start, like,

climbing on rocks and climbing through it. Like, they don't do that. We just heard of a lady a couple months ago who, she was on a safari and her safari vehicle got, like, charged by a rhino. Yeah. And now she's paralyzed. Crazy. Yeah. So, like, I know stuff

does happen. It's crazy to hear what, like, we, you know, we always have these guides in Africa to hear what they're afraid of. And, And it's never lions and leopards. It's always the elephants or the water buffalo. Yeah. Thank you to Cashat for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. And this day and age, I feel like money is so confusing for kids, probably because they never actually see money.

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Kind of talk more about like that approach to parenting, whereas I feel like a lot of social media parenting seems to be fear driven. Yeah. And like yours seems to be very counter to that. So totally. And like it's funny probably sitting here listening to us being like, oh, our crocodiles and snakes and all this, you know, like we're so used to that. But I don't want people to think that I'm just this like, I don't care mom.

Like I have every single fear. And if you hear me in the boats or where we are, I'm like, put your hand in. Get you know, like, just go over this way. Like, I'm scared and I have every single rational fear that a mom does. But at the same time, like, I'm not going to shelter my kids from seeing the world. And we're going to do it together. And we're very safe. And we are very conscious, conscientious about everything that we're doing and where we're at and what we're doing.

It's one of my joys of, like, being the man behind the camera is filming her and witnessing her be, like, a regular mom. but in like extraordinary situations. One of my favorites is when we took the kids cage diving with great white sharks and the gaps in this cage were big enough and our child was small enough that there was like definitely the ability for them just to like float out

and to see her just like grabbing our child and pulling him back. And then he felt like he was floating like an astronaut in his words. So he just kept jumping off the bottom and then like kind of floating out the cage and she would grab him back and like she's like mothering our child

but within this cage surrounded by great white sharks. Like those type of scenarios to me are so funny because again, we'd consider ourselves like regular parents, but these situations are pretty crazy. I would say there was a TV show maybe like two years ago that I watched it. It was not like ABC. I don't know if you saw it. I can't remember the name of it. But basically they took maybe 16 different types of parenting.

And they kind of pigeonholed every parent. Did you see that? Yes. What was called the parent. Oh. It was like a parent experiment basically. But they like gave every parent like a name. And I realized that you can't pigeonhole.

every parent. But they like stare at it to like the gentle parenting. Yeah. The free range parenting. It was so interesting. It was very interesting. I don't watch any shows by that one. But I would say that if Garrett, if I was to say what our like parenting style is, it's high expectations.

Like we expect a lot out of our kids. We expect them to behave on airplanes and behave, you know, sitting at a restaurant and to be sitting in the other room quietly for an hour or so while we do this podcast. And they do. You know, like they're very well behaved. And they have had some extraordinary experiences because of it. and we're able to do these wonderful things as a family. And it's because we, you know, expected out of them.

And I know a lot of parents wouldn't agree with that style. I think the more popular style these days is just to be more gentle and to be more accommodating to children. And Garrett and I, when we had kids, we looked at each other and we said, we're not going to stop our lives because we have kids. We're going to bring them along on the journey and we're going to do it together. And that's always been really important to us. I think that's a big part of it, too, is that,

like when we bring them along for the adventure, we treat them like they're very capable. We treat them like they're very smart. And we just like hold them to that level and that standard and they live up to it. I think that's a big part of it. And then to even answer your question of like, but why like the fearlessness or like the courage and being brave? For us, it's always been like if you raise a child to be like too soft or. gentle or whatever word you want to put on it. It's not so much about like, oh, we want them to be like a daredevil.

It's no, it's when it really matters, which is not going to be like, oh, jumping off this waterfall or doing this daredevil thing. It's going to be like, that person is lonely and they need a friend. Are you going to be brave enough to go do the right thing and befriend that person? Or you're going to have a bad choice and a right choice and it's going to be scary and maybe it's going to go against your friends and the peer pressure to do the right thing. are you going to be brave and courageous enough to do the right thing? Like, if we can put them in those situations and, like, all facets of life on a daily basis,

then when it really matters, we hope that they'll make the right decision. I really admire that a lot because, I mean, that would be one of my goals. And I think it's easier for me right now to coddle them. But, like, I know that I've seen, we've watched other parents, some parents who are really close to. When we first got married and before we got married, we were like, we love the way you raise your kids. like your kids are so confident with speaking with other adults. They like take initiative. They're tough.

Like when they're faced with a challenge, they rise up to it. And I feel like that they had that similar approach. And that's something we've both been like, that's something we want to do. But like it's easy as a mom just be like, oh no, no, no, it's fine. It's such a balance and it's so hard because when you see your kid crying or scared or upset, like you're going to come from no matter what. But I think it's also in the way, you know, I know your kids are young. But now when you have a little bit older kids,

you can have conversations with them. And that's like when it's really nice to be able to say, like, you know, explain things to them and why it's okay to try this or why, you know, they can, you know, be happy and not worried about this or whatever. Yeah, so I think it gets a little bit easier as they get older and can just have more conversations. Because when they're younger, then yeah,

you don't want to put them in any sort of difficult situation. Your kids are in school now and I've seen like they're involved in like community activities and stuff. but they've lived up to this point like very different lives from the kids like their classmates and the kids that they're doing plays with and stuff. What difference do you know I'm not like asking you to like brag on your kids

but you can kind of I'm curious like what difference do you notice in your kids compared to like their peers because of how their childhood has looked? I think it's different for each kid and kind of what their strengths are. I feel like my youngest especially he's so inquisitive and asked such good question. and loves learning.

Like he's the one sitting next to a guide and saying, you know, tell me about the mom orangutans and tell me about this tree. And why is there that? You know, like he is always asking questions. And I love that. And I think he can take that into school and into just normal life and be inquisitive about like everything. And then my son Manila, he is just easygoing.

And he's always been easygoing. And honestly, I think it's because of the travels. He's had to be easygoing. So him in life, he just goes with the flow. We could send him off to like a three week sleepaway camp and he wouldn't like blink and I at it. Yeah. He's just so used to like life on the road.

Yeah. And then our daughter, I think she's just mature. She's seen a lot of things and she, you know, for good and forget bad. I do think she's more mature than other girls her age. You know, sometimes I'm like, just be a little girl, you know. But she has seen a lot in her life. And so I think she's able to go into school and to other like peer situations and know what's, she doesn't go with the flow.

She doesn't do what's popular. She doesn't, you know, she knows exactly who she is and what she wants to do and what she wants to be. And so she's, uh, she's very mature, I think, for her age. And okay being as different. And she is. And okay being different and knowing she's different. And I was the same way in high school.

I think I thrived being a little bit more different. And that was kind of my persona. And she's the same way. That's really sweet. When you say seen a lot, do you mean, like, has there been something challenging that you had to go through as a family through the travels that have matured? Well, I mean, even just the thing that first came to my mind is this summer in Southeast Asia, you know, Dorothy is part of the surf rider club at school. And it's all about, you know, recycling and cleaning up. Ocean conservation.

Ocean conservation. It's really cool. And we go around Southeast Asia and I would say I was blown away how dirty. it was blown away. And Dorothy and I, there was one day where we were pad of awarding, and we took it to this kind of private beach, and we'd go up onto the beach,

and it was beautiful, white, sandy beach, and then all of a sudden we looked behind kind of the greenery back up to the sand, and it was like mountain of plastic bottles. Like, it blew my mind. It looked like a recycling center. And the situation in this beach looked like it should have been like human had never set foot on it.

Like it was out in the middle of nowhere, and yet trash had just accumulated onto it. see that, you know, and to be like, I'm over here, you know, and Hawaii's very, tries very hard to, like, keep things clean and to, you know, not use single-use plastics and all that stuff. And so to see Dorothy's, like, mind blown, like, not only mine, but she was, like, heartbroken to see that, you know, and I think that's going to be a profound thing for her and her life to take forward and to, you know, continue wanting to be an advocate for the ocean and conservation and all that stuff. So it's those sorts of moments that we've experienced as a family,

even just recently, where you're seeing, you know, how other people live and seeing, you know, getting out of suburbia. I grew up in this, we both grew up in kind of that upper middle class American, all-American lifestyle. So to get out and see some of the things that the kids have seen. Well, that's what I think is a big part of it. Speaking of, like, parenting and like when to be gentle and when to like push them outside their comfort zone is like,

if America is good at one thing, it's comfort. comfort and convenience. I mean, it's so easy to have just like a perfectly cushy life. And that's like where the trend is going. But there's so much to gain from like hardships and just hard work. And like think like how your parents live their lives and how their parents live their lives and like what it meant to be like a farmer compared to like how we're living now. And so as a parent, it's not like, you know, knowing how much my two years in Russia shaped me. but I'm not going to just send my kid off to Vladvostok Russia.

And so I think it's almost like on a daily basis of like, how can I make my kids life difficult today in a controlled environment, right? Like I don't want them to just be too comfortable on a daily basis. But as a parent, you're not going to just purposely like throw hardships at them. So I'm constantly throwing like challenges at them, but it's me trying to like push them outside their comfort zone, again, in a controlled environment. support for today's episode comes from Square, the business platform that helps sellers become neighborhood favorites. Whether you're gearing up for a busy season or just trying to keep up

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when you sign up at square.com slash go slash unplanned. That's S-Q-U-A-R-E dot com slash go slash unplanned. Get started with Square and build a setup that works the way you do. Yeah, I've noticed that speaking, like building on that also to how you're talking about cleaning up in Southeast Asia, the oceans. There's definitely a service element in pretty much all of your travels that you've shared, That's really cool. Is that inspired by kind of like what we started our conversation with, like with your missions?

Is that that posture of service, something that you carry out in your travels because of that? I think a lot of it comes from that. But I would give a lot of the credit just to Jessica and who she is as a person. Just naturally when she goes somewhere, like that's how she wants to spend her time. It's like getting to know the people and serving the people, especially because when you serve people, you just gained so much love and appreciation for them. And that comes very naturally to Jessica. And initially, like, not naturally to me, to be honest about it.

But she's, like, taught me the better ways and taught me, like, the joy and love of service. And so most every place we go where we're looking for service opportunities, bigger small. What's the most unique service opportunity you've had in a different country? We did one early on. We worked with a nonprofit called Effect.org. And they took us to Nepal, where we spent a week learning about human trafficking. And they took us kind of along the whole journey of how traffickers would come into these poor villages and take these girls. And they took us kind of through the whole process.

And at the end of the week, it was actually with a bunch of people from Silicon Valley. So they brought out employees from Google and other tech companies. And at the end of the week, they were like, okay, now we're going to make a change and basically have two days. day hackathon and like create something to make a change. So it was really cool. So at the end of that week. Anyway, so we go and we learn about all this stuff and the team there was so wonderful, but it was so heavy. It was really hard for us. It was so heavy on us. Like, and I think there was like the, what do they call it? Like the steps of coping. Coping or like how to like get over something and then the first step is anger. And Garrett and I like never got over that. Never graduated

did a step two. We just stayed in anger. And we were like so upset over everything. But that was one of the first times that we had really been confronted with just the dark evils of the world and what can happen out there. And, you know, at the time I think Dorothy was, I know, she was maybe five, four. And, you know, learning that they were, that people were going and taking these eight, nine-year-old girls and setting him and try. It was just the heaviest, hardest thing we've ever.

done. But then, and this was when our social media following was very, I mean, smaller at the time. I think we were under 100,000 followers on Instagram. And with those followers, we raised $75,000. We built a school in India because they say that the best prevention human trafficking is just education. So we open up a school right outside of Delhi with our audience. And that was just one of the first times I feel like we did something as a family. We did something with our audience. Like it was just like, this is what this is about. This is why we're doing. this. We're here sharing these stories and making a positive change. It was a really beautiful experience. And then it wasn't until maybe three or four years later. We were able to go to India.

The school actually ended up being built in India. Going to India, visiting the school, seeing the children and seeing, you know, the difference that we made. It was really, really special. I think that was probably one of the most profound service opportunities we've had. Wow. That's really cool. The kids have gotten good to it seeing like small opportunities, just seeing like somebody in need or just like a small, small opportunity along the way, especially in the cities that we visited this summer, just like a small act of kindness. Your family just seems so close. And I think it's really neat that your kids are literally just back in one of the bedrooms of this house right now, just all hanging out.

You can tell they're so, yeah, tightly knit. They love each other. What, yeah, what's your secret to having such a healthy family where everyone just gets along? Yeah, it gets along. I don't know. I think we're just used to it. I think there hasn't really been any other choice, you know, and the people who are around the most

or the people we should have the best relationships with. And, I mean, I honestly think the kids start school next week, and it's going to be tough. It's going to be hard for us to not be spending 24-7-7- We're together all the time. Oh, yeah. We spend all day every day together, and we love it, and that's how we prepare it.

Honestly, it'll be harder on you and I, than it will be on the kids. I live my life currently as a father in a very selfish way, where if you were to ask, like, what is it that you love so much about travel? Why do you not want to just stay? Why do you want to travel? It's because when I'm home, I'm sharing my kids with soccer practice and friends and school. When we're traveling, like, I get to spend all day every day with them.

And selfishly as a parent, that's how I want to spend my time. And so that's like, yeah, that's how I prefer. And we keep talking about this thing we're calling the pocket. Garrett, we were at a soccer game and Garrett was speaking to our goalie and the goalie was like, how old are your kids. And Garrett told me, he was like, you're in the pocket. Garrett was like, what's the pocket? He's like, you're out of diapers. You're not teenagers yet. Like, you're in this golden pocket. And I think there's different pockets throughout parenting and

stuff. You know what I mean? You're in such a special space right now. When I look at you with your like little kids, like, oh, just the best memories. But I also feel like we're in such a special place where our kids are just so easy. And I mean, that literally 36 hours of travel and we're here. And it's fine. You know what I mean? Like we love being together. We had the best summer together. We're holding on to these moments. And I know Garrett especially is, pretty bitter at life right now with how quickly our kids are growing up. Our kids are growing up quickly. It's going by fast and we're just like clinging to it.

You know what I think is a big part of it though is going back to what you said about high expectations is we expect our kids to get along. We expect them to be best friends. I'm really tight. I'm one of six kids and I'm really, really tight with my siblings now. But it was a war zone growing up. Like how much me and my brother fought,

how much me and my little sister fought. was nonstop. And I'm like, man, like, what were my parents doing throughout all this? Because when my kids started to fight, I'm like, I put a stop to her immediately. I'm like, you guys can either be best friends or you can be enemies. Either way, you're stuck with each other, so which one would you rather have? You'd rather be friends. And so like, stop this fighting and be friends. And it's been that high expectation, like, their entire lives. Do your kids still think you're really cool? Because I know, like, at a certain point, I remember the age where I was like, my parents aren't cool but I do have memory of being like really little and thinking and loving my parents and just

wanting to be with them. They do think we're cool. Okay. They do think we're cool. And they think Garrett is like, I mean the boys look up to you so much and Dorothy is always asking. Anya, I think our kids look up to us and they're not too cool for school yet, which is really nice. And Dorothy's probably on the verge of, see, don't talk like that. She's not. We've got many more years. But they definitely think we're cool still. I dread that day because, I mean, you guys know what this is like too, but just like when you walk in the door and your kids just like so, like you could have been gone for 15 minutes, but then like they see you, like, they see you. And they're be so happy to see you and they start laughing. Like you guys are going to go home today and your kids are going to be so amped to see you. Yeah. It's the best. And you've been gone just for the day. I love it. I love it. I dread the day that our kids don't like start laughing when they see us because I know it'll come. I know it'll happen, which sucks. Do you get to surf with your boys a lot? Like is that something that you just do with your kids a lot? Yeah. Yeah. I probably get to surf with them twice a week.

If it were up to me, I'd be surfing with them every single day. But yeah, it probably is like twice a week with each of them individually. When I used to surf, I didn't have the most friends that like to surf too, so I'd go by myself a lot. And it was like a dream of mind to one day take the boys out with me and just have that memory together. You know how, because you and I were talking about this, that for somebody who's like got a lot going on in their brain

and constantly on a phone and stuff, when you surf, it's just the best way for us to like completely, disconnect and be fully present. The same goes with surfing with a child. Like parenting is at its best, right? When both of you are fully present and you just have each other's focus. Unfortunately, like that's becoming less and less in just today's world. Yes. You go surfing and there's no such thing as phones or screens or tours or responsibilities. And the nature of surfing, because it's dangerous and scary, like their full attention is on you and your full attention. And you are full attention on them.

Like, it's just my favorite. What a cool way to form a bond with your kid, too, to just, like, be out in the water. I miss it, man. Like, I used to be out in the water and just, like, look up and there's a rainbow. And, like, oh, what is that? And there's a sea turtle swimming underneath my board. And, oh, I miss it so much. But the one thing I love in life better than surfing is surfing with my family.

Yes. I'm actually very impressed because Garrett loves surfing so much now. He's, I would say, addicted. but I'm impressed when we go out as a family you don't catch a single wave. I'm just helping them into waves all day. I would literally rather just be out there with you pushing you in a waves than I don't even care to catch wave.

I'm like, that's impressive. Dude, thank you. I'm flattered, man. I look up to you. I see the stuff that you're doing and that you have done and I'm just like so inspired by you guys and inspired by your family. And yeah, I don't know.

I just think what you guys were doing is really neat. And I noticed you even had a book. I know you mentioned this before, but with National Geographic, like working with National Geographic, that is a really big deal. Can we talk a little bit more about that? Yeah, it was, I remember it was 2020, it was summer 2020, and we actually had a friend, we had our friend's Lake House, and he was like, who's your dream brand to work with? Is your dream company?

We're like, National Geographic. And then I kid you not, it was a day later. We were driving from his house to the airport, and we get an email. Yeah, and I got an email from Allison and National Geographic, and she was like, have you ever considered writing a book. And we had actually been reached out to quite a bit about, you know, from publishers. And Garrett and I don't consume a lot of books. We're like podcasters. We would listen to podcasts if we're wanting to learn something. And so we have our bucketless friends. We have that sort of podcast webinar that we do. And that's how we've shared our information. And then she was

like, would you consider writing a book with us? And I was like, or have you considered writing a book? And I said, yes, I've considered it. I wasn't interested. But with National Geographic, 100%, I would love to do that. And she, you know, she kind of pitched me on the idea of a big coffee table book, very visual. And initially she said it would be half our photos, half their photos. And it ended up being 95% Garrett's photos. Like they started going through our images and they were like, these are perfect. These are so good. And so the first half of the book is anything and everything you know about traveling with kids, budgeting, packing, kind of some of the things we just talked about here today. And then 50 bucket list destinations and places to take.

your kids like full itineries like here's 50 places you should go and here's the it itineries that you should consider but it was uh for me it was I had to I told Garrett on that car ride I like looked at him and I was like I want this project like this and she had asked us to write the book and I basically kicked him out and was like you do the YouTube you do that you know like we've he's been the person that I've just followed along and I really love writing and so to me I was like this one's going to be mine and all mine and I was really happy with it it was a really fun experience I really enjoyed the whole process. And those who know Jess know there's not like a selfish bone in her body. And so when she

wanted to make this hers, like it made me so happy. And I was like, yes, like go for it. And you, it took you three years to write it. And I mean, it's like the pride and joy of our family right now. I'm surprised you could even do it in three years. Like it's massive. Yeah. Like that's a big coffee table book. It's the longest book I've ever read. It turned out really well. I'm really proud of it. I would say the hardest part, though, then was turning and having to promote it. I felt like... She hates his father. I hate it.

And I do fine in situations like this or with a kid. You know what I mean? Like I kept saying I felt like I was going all Justin Timberlake and leaving the boy band. I'm like going to, you know, going Beyonce and going solo. So that was really hard for me. When I did the book tour and had to be all like self-promoting, felt very weird. What is like from the book? I know people should definitely go get a copy, read the book.

But is there something in there that like, you, I don't know, you're really proud of or that you'd like to share a little, uh, sneak peek of? I mean, I think for me, a lot of it was just sharing my personal journey of being this very inside the box, conventional, you know, comfort life driven human. And for that girl to be living this lifestyle and thriving in it is just kind of what I was trying to get across, you know, is just getting outside of your comfort zone and trying new things. And my family in particular,

like we were a Disney World family. Don't get me wrong. I love Disney World. I'll go Disney all day. But that's all we, that's really the only other places we went. I went to Europe one time when I was a kid. And I think most Americans, they have their place.

Like I don't know if your families are like that. They're like a Powell family or like a Hawaii family. Or, you know, like a lot of families go to the same place over and over. My family was the same way. But now just realizing there's so much more out there, so much more out there and to try anything. So I think my goal with it was to show people get outside of your comfort zone, go somewhere new, take your kids out of the country. There's so much to learn and gain from all that.

And that was my goal with the book. It's been really cool to see as people receive the book and have it setting on their table, how much kids gravitate to the book. Because it's not written for kids or towards kids. We're actually working with National Geographic to create a kid's book collection. But for Jessica's book, it wasn't geared towards kids. and how often people will send us videos of their kids going over the coffee table book, flipping it over it, and then just going through the photos.

And, you know, to be able to see a family. We met the Timber Lakes the other day. No way. And she was like, I love sitting down with my kids and reading your book. I was like, what? She's like, it's sitting on my coffee table and I was freaking out because just picturing wild.

The Timberlikes going through my book. That's crazy. You know, so for kids to get to see photos, real-life photos of kids swimming with whales or going on this epic hike or doing this adventure. It's cool to see how much kids really enjoy her book. That's so cool.

What is a country that's a hidden gem? Because you've mentioned some different places. You know, Mexico and I don't know, like typical places that people in the U.S. travel to. What's a country that Americans should go check out? One place that I suggest a lot, I think, especially for people who haven't traveled out of the country very much, that I think is a good starting point is like a Belize. Belize takes the U.S. dollar.

They speak English. They have the jungle and they have the beach. I think it's a great starting point. There's direct flights from a bunch of U.S. cities. Bermuda would be a good one for those reasons as well. But I think Costa Rica as well, I think a lot of those Central America places that have great tourism and a lot of Americans that come through. But it's not just your beachside resort in Cabo. You know what I mean?

I think there's so much more that I would try to encourage people to go and do rather than just go and sit in it like in all-inclusive. My dad used to tell me spooky stories when I was a kid. A Bermuda? Bermuda triangle. So like when you said Bermuda, I'm like, oh, that must be so dangerous there. I feel like people go missing. I don't know. Bermuda's awesome.

Like getting the sense of how much we have in common and like the yes man that lives inside you, I'm excited just to like send you invites and see which ones you guys to like take us up on. Now that we're really connected, we're going to start sending you some invites. Oh, let's do it. Let's send it with the kids. You just need to know that it's okay to say no because there will be a lot of them. And so you don't need to feel the pressure to say yes. For super last minute, like, hey, do you want to go to Tonga next week?

Oh, we're, that's how we operate. No, that's how we are. It's really bad. Perfect. Yeah, good at the same time. Hey, we drive our family crazy. We're like, oh, tomorrow. And they're like, what?

Well, and my daughter would be, we're not, we're done having kids, but she's dying for little babies, so she would be thrilled. She would be the best built-in babysitter for you guys. So you guys, Maui's tells me we can't have more because of traveling with, when you're down a person. He said you can't do man on man anymore, but you have three. Oh, no. Do you think more than three would have made it a whole lot different?

Yeah. You think three is the point. Huh? This is personal opinion. It's like when you're just a married couple, it's just you guys, right? As soon as you have baby number one, like obviously that's a huge change for you as a couple. But I kind of feel like it's still like you're this young married couple and you have like, it's almost like you're like playing house. Like you have just one baby.

I thought the big change was like when we had number two. It was like, oh, now we're like growing into this like proper family. Number three wasn't as big as adjustment as I thought. I think when people say like, oh, now you're outnumbered. Like it didn't feel that way. We also waited. Dorothy and Vanilla are 22 months apart. And Manila and Callie are three and a half years.

So. That three and a half years, I think helped. It made all the difference because to be able to tell my toddler, hey, I can't help you. I got to nurse the baby. he was like, okay. Whereas had we had the boys two years apart, it would have been very difficult. It would have been too hard.

So, yeah, I think it is a little, when you have a lot, a little ones, it is pretty difficult. Yeah, because I think about just your standard rental car, if you were to have a fourth. Totally. It would be a bit. And taxi using. We can cram into a taxi.

You know, like we'll put, I'll sit up front and Garrett and the three kids, we'll sit in the back. And that works okay. but I mean when they get older, I don't know if we're going to have to start like getting two taxis. Or you just have to get a van, like a van taxi. It's kind of wild that you guys do taxis now that I think about it because I feel like we've never been some place where we can't Uber. Yeah, with our podcast, we like, I'll get the Uber and I'll be like, crap. Like we have, like, because we were just in Nashville and we lived there for a month.

And so we had all of our regular travel stuff, but then we had three suitcases full of our podcast gear. Two huge proceeds. So then I was like, we need to get an Uber XXXL or whatever it's called. Like we needed the biggest year where you could get just to fit all of our luggage. Just to fit all the stuff. Yeah. No, I was telling her just yesterday, I'm like, it's funny the effect that being in Southeast Asia has had on us because she like grabs our kids. She's like, pick up Cali and we're like booking across this like eight lane, like busy freeway and just like j-walking across and like making her.

I'm like, wow, we've been in Asia long enough that we're like going for it. I love that though. It's like crazy mayhem waving down the taxis, everything. Well, you guys, go follow the bucketless family on social media. I know you guys are on YouTube, Instagram. Where all can people find you and follow? Yeah, just searching the buggerless family. You'll find us.

And Jess's book is the title literally, the bucketless family? It's bucketless family travel. Thank you for being on the show. And let's go travel. I'd love to do some travel. Episode two, destination, we'll find out. Yeah. Awesome.