Michelle: Welcome to the Savvy Travel Moms podcast. If you are a mom who wants to travel more with your family without spending a fortune, you're in the right place. I'm Michelle, the bougie one. Joy Smith: I'm Joy, the practical one. are two moms with different travel styles, but the same savvy mindset. In our show, we will break down family-friendly travel tips, points and miles, and realistic strategies that fit into a busy mom life. From hotel robes and room service to free breakfast and budget wins, we will help you turn everyday life into unforgettable family memories. hello everyone. Today's episode is such a fun one because we're talking about something that sounds luxurious, but it's actually incredibly strategic, slow travel. Now, you'll notice Michelle normally does her intro she is not here today. so I am gonna attempt to go solo. If you've listened to us for a little bit, you guys know Michelle's the super organized one. I'm the fly off the cuff one. Michelle: Real moms, real travel, real strategies. Joy Smith: So bear with me as I try to help Anna here and we get through and hear her amazing story. Today we have Anna Hawkinsons with us and and her family made the bold decision to take a full year off and travel full time. The craziest part is they did it in a way that they actually saved money in so many instances. Today we'll dive in to how they made it happen. ⁓ what slow travel really means and whether this could actually work for your family. So Anna, start us off, tell us who you are, what you do, and where in the world you are right now. Anna: Great, thanks for having me. So yeah, we kind of started our journey right after graduate school in Arizona. My husband and I both worked as physician assistants for 10 years and the burnout felt very real after 10 years. We had two kids during this time and we relocated to North Carolina and I told my husband, was like, I really want to take a family gap year at some point. So you plan to do it when the kids were older, which like feels like it makes more sense, right? When the kids are more self-sustainable. Well, work just kind of took us out at that point. And I said, I'm done. I want to do it now. We had taken like a trip to South Africa and to Austria and did less planning, more time off and it actually worked. Joy Smith: Mm-hmm. Anna: So we went all in, we saved up some money, quit our jobs, and then took ourselves to Mexico. Like we weren't ready to go too far, so we started there. But we did that, we did the gap year. We did a full year abroad, and then I was like, we can't stop. I love this. We saved so much money. Our family feels so much lighter. We enjoy life more together. I feel like personal development for myself has grown. So we're still traveling 17 months later, and now we're currently in Ecuador. Joy Smith: ⁓ my gosh, and you have two daughters, how old are they? Anna: They're three and a half and six years old. Joy Smith: Okay, so you are like in the throes of the hard season of motherhood, especially with a three year old. I have a seven year old who just turned seven, so I know you're still like very much needed. Travel gets really exhausting. So I understand the slow travel need a little bit, because you do, you have to travel differently when you have little kids. Anna: Yeah. Joy Smith: Versus when I take my 12 year old, we go nonstop and I overpack our days and he can hang, but she can't. yeah. So was this always a dream that you have or did it start more recently like in the past couple years? Anna: It was always a dream that we had when we, I don't want to say if it's like when we got married or when we started having kids that we wanted to take this time off. And it was just a matter of how to make it happen. Logistics felt like a far off dream of just saving up money. Cause we knew as physician assistants that we couldn't work abroad, which was fine. We were like, well, we'll have to figure this out. I just didn't know how and I wasn't ready to tackle it. Joy Smith: And how did you financially prepare for it? Anna: During COVID, like when we had our first daughter, my husband got really deep into financials and he redid all our financials, put a whole bunch of money into our 401k to the point that we got. to where we don't have to put any more money into it and then we could just dump it all into like, F-U money or your extra money or your fun money, whatever you want to call it. We dumped it there and we built it up to a point where we were like, okay, this is enough now. And we were living below our means. So it was really just like, save, live below our means and make sure retirement is set. Joy Smith: Did you guys put like a specific savings number to take your gap year or did you just get there until you're like, okay, we just got to jump in and do this now? Anna: We went up to 100,000, so it took a few years to get there, but that was like our goal. We were like, okay, I think this is a good enough buffer that we could do this. If anything bad were to happen, wherever we end up, because at the time we didn't know where we were even gonna go or what those numbers looked like. Joy Smith: and then. And then what role did putting your home on Airbnb play here? Anna: So we did that initially because we thought, let's put it on Airbnb. We'll get some money back from it. It'll be filled. But I had my mom living in the basement, and she just wasn't comfortable with having people move in and out. And then it led to us just keeping up with the upkeep of our home more. So we're like, you know, at this point, let's just sell it. let go of all of our material things in the US, put a few things into storage, and it just felt kind of freeing. I was like, it's okay, it's gone. It doesn't mean that our life is gone, it's just this material thing doesn't exist anymore, but we could still have a home in the United States wherever we want to live, which is kind of cool. Joy Smith: Mm-hmm. So when you put your home on Airbnb, how often did you plan on coming back home to visit throughout your gap year? Or did you not really have a plan? You're like, we're just going to go and then see where the wind takes us while we're out. Anna: We knew that we were coming home for Christmas for three weeks, and then after that we were gonna be gone nine months. So the house was gonna be pretty open other than middle of December where it would be shut off. So it was gonna be hopefully filled most of that time. Joy Smith: Mm-hmm. What were the biggest fears that went through your mind before you took this year off? Anna: I think it was just the unknown of what are we gonna do? How are we gonna live? We have to take care of medical appointments. How do we get around? Are the kids gonna be safe? There's so much unknown that we just don't see every day, because you feel like, if you end up in a resort or a hotel, they can take you around to different places, right? They'll be like, if you call a taxi, the person at the front desk can help you. And we were trying to go a route without doing any of that. Joy Smith: ⁓ my gosh, yeah, I feel like there's so many things that would go through my mind. A, like just the financial fear of taking a year off. Even though you have money saved, there's just no new money coming in. Scares me. And then the fact of like putting your home on Airbnb. And I've worked with Airbnbs and in vacation and also I know how much work that is too to put your home out there and rent it out and like take everything that makes it your home and make it disappear. Anna: Yeah. Joy Smith: That's the hardest part, because it's like you had your kids there and you have all your memories in your home. Okay, so let's transition over to slow travel. In your Instagram, you teach a lot about slow travel. What does that actually mean and how do you define it? Anna: Yeah. So slow travel to us means picking a location that fits our budget and our wants and needs. We really look for culture and places that we deem as safe and easy to get around that have groceries available to us, everything that we would need for daily life that we could put ourselves down in a location and stay there comfortably for at least a month at a time. Joy Smith: Okay, so your minimum number of days that you look for is a month. Anna: Yeah, because if you do a month, especially on Airbnb, which is where we're looking, you get a reasonable discount from most people, especially if you ask them ahead of time, I'm staying for a month. Some people even say, I'll even give you a discount because you're filling my home anyways. Joy Smith: ⁓ Now if someone listening to take this approach, but maybe say like two weeks instead because they couldn't take a whole month, can they still apply a lot of your concepts that we're going to talk through? Anna: I think so, absolutely, because we've done it a few times that way where we were traveling around India for two and a half months. And sometimes we stayed in a location like two or three weeks, even though we were in the country for a month, just because the country was so big and it still applied. We were still filling up the place and we still dropped ourselves in a location where having those amenities nearby for our family had to make sense for us to land there because there was no hotel and no one else bringing us stuff. We had to go have access to it. Joy Smith: That's true. mean, when you're there, you're like living. you're immersing yourself in the culture and your day to day. now I know the longer travel helps with cutting costs for renting a home. Does it also help you with like flights, airport transfers? What are other areas that you look to save with your travel? Anna: When we initially did our gap year, we flew over to India from JFK and we bought that all with points. So that got us to a destination halfway around the world, completely for free. And then we were there, we looked for train transfers as much as we could, because that cuts down major costs. And just trying to fly a whole lot less because there weren't as many points available to us. And what we were looking at in our realm of knowledge with that, that was available. So it was just like, okay, pick a location. in the world where train transfers or bus transfers made more sense. Joy Smith: Okay, so when you go to choose a destination, the top things that you're really looking at are like how to get there and then how you get around while you're there. So walk us step by step with your destination selections. Anna: Sure. So when we decided on Asia and... know, Southeast Asia. We knew we wanted to do India. When I looked there, I said, okay, how are we gonna get around? There was trains available all over Asia and Southeast Asia in that specific region that I can speak to, right? So it made sense to get there. We were not renting a car, because that bumps up the price. And then getting around in that area by driving, I was like, I would not recommend anyone driving in most of those places, because it's like Vietnam or India, like. Joy Smith: ⁓ Anna: You would have no idea how to do it and I would never attempt it. So public transit is like a major thing that we had to make sure was available to us. And then, you if you can do country to country via boat, because some of the like, Laos does that. Just things like that where you're like, get creative. We go on Rome to Rio and be like, how can you transfer from one place to another beyond flights? Joy Smith: You know, sometimes I pull up Rome to Rio when I'm planning my trips, but it's not always my first go-to and I need to do that more especially when I do like my big Europe trips and we're trying to navigate like, okay, how am I gonna get from Copenhagen to Beelin to go visit to Lego and then we're gonna get from like Amsterdam to Belgium and I know there's trains but sometimes you still need those like step-by-step instructions on how to book the trains because when you go to a different country It's not, it's so different. You don't know how to navigate the websites. You don't know which websites to go to. Like the pricing, right? You have to convert it. You have to figure it out. And some you have to book really far in advance. Some you can just show up. Like they're so different everywhere in the world. Anna: Yeah, I think that's the whole thing is we had enough time where we were like, we can figure it out. And if we mess it up, it's okay, we'll figure it out. Like we just had that time available that we just worked on it the whole time. Just keep figuring out. I swear it's available. It can work. You just have to get really creative. Joy Smith: So you basically booked a one-way flight to India and then just went from there. So you had your first home, your first destination, and then from there you didn't know where you were going. And did you set a weekly budget for what you would get, for what you do for food and transportation? Did you set a monthly budget? How did your budgeting work? Anna: We did. now. My budget in my mind was always focused on the housing and I was trying to look for $1,200 a month for us. A little above, a little below, it would always kinda even out around that range. And then I felt like my husband was kinda following everything else, cause he does the grocery shopping and produce stuff. Activities weren't very expensive, so we just kept landing on the same number each time. I don't know how we ended up doing it, but if I just watched the place where we're landing in terms of our Airbnb. then everything else just kind of fell into place, especially as he watches our budget every day. He can tell us right away if we're like, over, let's take a break the next day and not go spend any money. Okay, cool, let's do that. Joy Smith: How much on average do you guys spend on a month or on a week? What's your- Anna: Our average month is $3,000. All in, Joy Smith: I mean, and that's a month of travel. You can't even go to Disney for a week for that amount. Anna: Yeah. I know, that's what I'm saying. And I think a lot of people want to land in the same places because I think a lot out there for the United States is like go to Disney, go to Europe, and go to Caribbean. And a lot of the prices start to get up in that range where it might be hard to hit the 3,000 where we want to live. Joy Smith: crazy I mean we went to Dallas Fort Worth for a weekend and I just did ⁓ of our expenses and we booked our flights on points I used our hotel on points and we still spent over a thousand dollars ⁓ Anna: Yeah, it's hard, right? I mean, it's hard in the United States to really like get your budget down pat. It's hard. Joy Smith: It is? Food is so expensive! Anna: Yeah, it is. It really gets you, right? You go out to eat and you're like, there goes the money. Quickly. Joy Smith: Okay, so the next piece when you're looking, do you look for activities that are around there to do or is that kind of an afterthought of your planning process? Anna: I do look for some activities to do, but I think it's more like if I land in a location, ⁓ I want to know what's the major attraction there. Like for Ecuador, coming to Ecuador, when we initially landed in Quito, the main attraction there was the Intanam Museum, which is the equator museum. So that was a major thing we did there. And then we kind of hit different places. And then being in Cuenca, We're just hanging out. I'm not looking for too many fun things to do. I just want the kids to go out to the playground and enjoy every day. So it really depends on where we're landing, how much activity I'm looking for. And sometimes I'm like, maybe it's just the culture here is gonna be fun. Totally different. Learn from that, right? Joy Smith: What do you do with your kids all day? That would be my hardest part because I feel like I have to keep my kids occupied or else they fight. So what do you do with them all day if you don't have activities planned? Anna: Yeah. We go to the playground, so when we land, we make sure that we're close enough to a playground that's walkable in most cases, because that's really helpful. We get them outside and they reset every time. Luckily, they enjoy playing with each other. So when they're inside, have, like, I fill up a bag when I come, and they're going to play with the same toys for months. And sometimes we go out and buy new ones, and they get creative. I guess I feel lucky like that, because I'm like, that really helps entertain their days. And then we'll go do some activities once in a while. I go to the cafe, and they think the coffee cafe is cool. What a win. Joy Smith: So fun. And do you guys do screen time? I'm sure you probably are traveling with like tablets or something, right? Anna: Yeah, we have the iPad and the kids will hop on phone calls with their grandparents a couple times a week so they can talk to them and the grandparents will read them books over the iPad. Joy Smith: Do they tend to make friends when you go places? Like, so they'll make little friends at the playground and then you'll meet up more often throughout? Anna: I feel like they're, my three year old will wave and my six year old's kinda like getting used to it. So they're not too outgoing at this point. It really depends on their mood. Joy Smith: get that for sure. I plus if they don't speak the same language there's Anna: Yeah, sometimes that can be hard to... ⁓ It depends, like I said, where we land. In Southeast Asia, we were hitting a lot of places that spoke English too, which was a nice bonus. In Malaysia, English is widely spoken, and so was it in Singapore and Indonesia that they could speak English easily to a lot of kids. Joy Smith: ⁓ that's cool that kids that young are even speaking English with them. Anna: Yeah, it's like an innate second language in some of those countries. Joy Smith: Now do you typically pick places that are warmer? Because I feel like a lot of places you mentioned are warmer. So do you guys go swimming a lot too? Anna: We really aim towards not winter. I'm not a winter person. That's true. Yeah. Joy Smith: Well, that also helps with packing, right? I mean, I think if you're going to be somewhere for a month, if you're looking at multiple different climates, I mean, how do you even begin to pack for that? If it's one climate, you can at least like have a week's worth of clothing and then wash them and rewear them a little bit more easily. Anna: Yeah, that's true. mean, with being in Ecuador, we have it's cooler in the morning, but it's nothing beyond like 50 or 60 degrees. So I can still get away with a light top and a jacket versus having to pack for like winter. I just can't do it yet. Yeah, I get enough winter in the US when I'm home. Even in North Carolina, it's cold enough for me this past winter. Joy Smith: Yeah. It's hard. It's hard, for sure. Hahaha it's you know we had that I'm in Tennessee and we had that massive ice storm I don't know if it hit North Carolina or not and my kids were home for 11 days and I'm like can you please go back to school now ⁓ Anna: Yeah, it's hard with the weather. Joy Smith: Now with your kids, Do you guys do any type of homeschooling or teaching with them as well? Anna: I do, I'm homeschooling our six year old so she's like kindergarten age by North Carolina standards because she has a late birthday. So we have two books that we brought with us, like an English book and a math book, so we go out that every day. And then the rest of time she gets to go out and learn currency and shopping and what different fruits and vegetables are in season. So was like, that's cool, just like the world schooling aspect and showing her the equator and what the water's like going down the drain. So I'm hoping all that stuff will stick with her and just seeing. different cultures and people and what the world is like. Joy Smith: Gosh, that's so cool. I know this is where I miss Michelle because she's the homeschool mom. I'm the public school mom. So Michelle would love to probably dive into a much deeper homeschool conversation with you. But I think it's really cool. I know I personally could not homeschool my kids. I would go crazy. I think we would just, I'm not structured enough for that. But I love the thought of homeschooling and the thought of world schooling because there's just so many. Anna: ⁓ yeah. Joy Smith: values that your kids pick up from travel, even though like they're really young, they're going to learn things just from travel that will stick with them for the rest of their lives. Like how to behave, how to look for strangers, how to interact with strangers who are who are different than them. And there's just so many things they're going to learn that it's just going to benefit them in their future. Anna: Yeah. That's what I'm hoping. Yeah. Yeah, that's my hope is just like seeing people different doesn't mean that it's bad or dangerous or different religions and getting to experience it from people who just say come try it out. I want to show it to you. Joy Smith: Yeah, that's so cool. And then you bring the world to life for them. Like you take something that if they were in a public school, they would just learn about in a setting, right? They'd be reading about it in a book, looking at pictures, but you say, no, we're going to go look at the equator. This is what it looks like, you know, and you get that opportunity to do that with them. Anna: And how much more to talk with even me and my husband. Like so many things that we learn, we're like, ⁓ now it actually sticks and makes sense to us as adults. Yeah. Joy Smith: Yeah, because you've seen it. It makes such a difference. OK, so when you're traveling and you're looking at neighborhoods and picking a house, how do you know somewhere is safe? I think that's a really hard thing for moms as we travel because we want to be safe, especially with our kids, but we don't know how to find safe places. Anna: Yeah. Sure. One of the major things we do is we go on chat GPT and I type in like, it knows me now because I use it to help me out, find different places with travel. And I say, I'm going to be in this country or in this city. I want a family friendly neighborhood. And it gives me three options. And it hasn't let me down with that because I get to then go onto the Google map and I plot the grocery stores. I plot the playgrounds where public transit is, whether it be the Metro or the bus stops are. And then I do like a street view to see what does the street look like? Does it look like it's safer? Does it look like it's kind of run down? So using all those things and putting it all together has helped us. And then I go and look at Airbnb and say, does anything exist in this location? If not, then I go to the next neighborhood and it's helped us. I mean, in Penang, Malaysia, we couldn't stay in downtown Georgetown. It was too busy for how long we were going to be there. So I had to find another option. So it put us just north. of it, mapped it out, found groceries, spots and everything and it just ended up being a perfect place for us. So it does work. It just takes a little extra work. Joy Smith: all through chat GPT. So you're not looking at like crime maps or Googling safe areas in this area. You're just using chat GPT from that. Anna: I am, yeah, I ask if our family friendly neighborhoods and it usually can explain to me like families live here, it's quieter or this is an expat community and it's pulling it from different places but then I just go and like verify what's on near it. Because if it's a nice neighborhood but it's you know way far away from everything that's not going to work for us. Joy Smith: I love that. I would have never guessed chat GPT for that piece right there. Anna: Yeah. Joy Smith: I think this is so helpful because people assume that international travel automatically means like expensive or unsafe or scary, but you've just had this way of proving that that's not true. so you mentioned earlier when it comes to saving money on flights ⁓ you would use points a little bit. Now do you ever pay cash for some of your flights? Anna: Yeah, I found that we can typically get like a long flight, when it comes to flying around Southeast Asia, when we were doing that, there were no points available. There were different airlines that weren't involved in our credit card that we had. So at that point we had to pay cash. So we had to do that, but getting the big international flight covered was massive for us. Joy Smith: And is that typically something that you continue to do so you'll earn your points to cover your next big international flight? Anna: Yeah, yeah, we try to do that. Or if my mom is buying something big, I'll be like, hey, we'll pay for it. Because then it just helps us accrue some points and then I can look at flights and find ⁓ where to go. Because I don't know, when I feel like when we look, a lot of places that points go to, it's Europe. And we're not flying to Europe usually, so I haven't found as much with that. Again, we're not like major point people, but that's just what we found. Joy Smith: Yeah, mean points are definitely a, we are a crazy breed to be points people. It is a rabbit hole that you go down. There are a lot of tips and tricks, so Anna if you ever want to talk about some countries that you're going to and you need help, you know how to get in touch. We're always happy to help you with that. ⁓ So there are options out there, but with points, right, you build those on a credit card. So what kind of credit cards are you guys traveling with? Anna: Yes. I think it's the Chase Sapphire. That's the blue card, right, or the Chase Reserve. And it's the major credit card that they have that just like bumped up in their yearly fee. Yes. Joy Smith: Okay. the reserve. Yes, yes. Anna: Yeah, so that's the one we use. We have a couple other ones from like two other businesses that we have as like business cards and then pile them together and find out where we can go. I don't do anything in this realm. I usually am like this is where I want to go and I tell my husband to go find it because I don't know how to look at points and miles. I'm usually the person who's like I'll find the country, I'll find the budget, I'll find out what to do that's fun. Please find everything else. Joy Smith: Bye. You're so opposite of us. Michelle and I are like the main ones that plan everything for our families. And we're like, okay, we found the deal. This is where we're going. Now we're going to plan the itinerary. So I love that you two split the load, which I think is so unique too, because so many families, like I forget the statistic, but I want to say it's like 90 % of women are the ones planning the travel for their families. So if we don't plan it, it doesn't happen. Anna: ⁓ Joy Smith: So I love that he helps so much and you guys have really come up with a good system that works for you. Anna: Yeah. Yeah, it's helpful. Joy Smith: Let's jump back to your Airbnbs here for a little bit. I know we kind of talked about how you look for Airbnbs, talking about your location of it. When you're searching for an Airbnb in that area, do you have specific filters that are most important to you? Because houses come in so many different shapes and sizes. Anna: They do. So every time I go in, I put on the steam filters every time and then see what's available and where. So I always put on like, I want Wi-Fi. I want three beds because my kids can't share a bed, unfortunately. I need a washer. Yeah, it is. Sometimes I'm like, oh, they can, the little one could sleep on the floor if they have a mattress, but I need like three mattresses, right? Joy Smith: That's a long time. Anna: I look for a washer at least. Ecuador is unique in that it has a washer and a dryer, so I don't have hang any clothes up. So that's nice to have that. So I put that in every single time in a kitchen so that we can cook every time and then I just see what pops up and go from there. That way it kind of filters it down. I look for it and then try to see if it's anywhere else. Because sometimes Airbnb could have those extra fees that maybe other platforms still have, or maybe they just host themselves to. Joy Smith: Nice. That's a good, that is a really good tip. Cause you know, I used to work in vacation rentals for a really long time and Airbnb is one of the more expensive platforms to rent on. And there's a lot of newer ones coming out that aren't, but Airbnb is also just a really solid, well-known option with a reputation that favors the guest over the host a lot too, which is always one thing to keep in mind. Airbnbs are so controversial. You know, like some people love them, some people hate them. I know you've had some interesting experiences in Airbnbs throughout. what are some of your top tips for us or for families that are going to rent an Airbnb over staying in a hotel when they travel? Anna: Yeah. I usually do the Airbnb when we're doing longer stay that way we have access to making our own food and washing our clothes and everything of that sort. But every time I'm booking one, I try to see whether or not it's a person that I'm like renting from or is it a company. Oftentimes when it's a company that I'm renting from, the place is so sparse when you walk in, you would think they just. landed some furniture in there and walked away and there's nothing personable about it that I've noticed. So yeah, I reach out to them and I say, hey, we're looking at staying there. I have a family of four and if they respond and they're excited and they, ask questions, does your hot water work? Does your air conditioning work? How's your wifi? If they answer it and give like decent answers instead of saying, yeah, it's fine. Then usually that means if I show up that they're going to be more responsive if I have any issues. Cause when you're there, Joy Smith: Really? Anna: for a month, sometimes you'll start to notice certain things that are wrong, like maybe the air conditioner is leaking and other people were staying for like maybe a week or a few days wouldn't care. Because they're like, I'll be out of here. I'm not even in my house that much. I'm going out and doing more activities versus us living in the house. So having the house in good working condition, having the person responsive is important to us. So talking to them is helpful. And then trying to keep everything, like all of our conversations on the platform. Because as soon as I start doing conversations off of it, I feel like something is up and I'm usually right. at one place and the person said, hey, by the way, you're gonna have like a cleaning fee every week. I was like, okay, was this in the listing? No, it's not. And then they're saying it off platform. So just things like that where you just have like red flags, keep everything on the platform, know what you're looking for and talk to the person as much as possible in like a nice way. Like you're not going after the person in any way, but. You just have to be willing to talk and converse with the person, especially if you're staying longer. Joy Smith: Yeah. Have you had any, like, what is your best Airbnb tip that you can give someone to help save them from damage or any issues post checkout? Do you have any routines that you follow? Anna: Take videos. Take videos. We had a massive issue when we were in Guatemala. When we left, like, a teat line, the person tried to say that we took the keys, which was like five sets of keys on one ring. And they're like, costs a lot of money. And I was like, hey, no, ⁓ I returned it. Here's a photo. And then they're like, the new guest is already in there, sorry. Like that would have been a scam, in my opinion, of the person saying the key's not there, I cannot physically find it, and they would have tried to get me to pay for it. record the place when you leave it, record it when you arrive, anything that's damaged, that way you're not at fault when you leave or arrive, you know? Joy Smith: That's such a great tip, especially in other countries. feel like there's people that really want to take advantage of Americans a little bit sometimes too, in other places. Not that that's true for around the world, but it is something that I think you kind of need to be cautious of, especially in other places. And taking videos and photos is so important because there could be existing damages that they just didn't document properly from the previous guest. Anna: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Joy Smith: and they come in and they're like, ⁓ this is your fault. No, it's not. Anna: Yeah, yeah, just cover yourself like you probably have a phone in your hand or your pocket anyways, pull it out, start documenting, especially when you're leaving. Because a lot of places aren't electronic, they're using like actual keys still. So if you lose a key, they want their key back. Yeah. Joy Smith: Yeah, I don't blame him. I don't blame him. Gotta get in. ⁓ Anna: Exactly. Joy Smith: Are there any other stories or anything that you think would be really good to share? Anna: I think the biggest thing is just like public transit and just like so much of what I post sometimes is like, hey, these are mistakes that we made. And a lot of people come out and be like, why would you make that mistake? Why would you put your family through that? And it's like mistakes happen all the time. It doesn't matter where you live, who you are, what you do. I feel like I'm just more willing to say, hey, we made a mistake. Here's what you need to know. Because we're just out here figuring it out. You can't research everything. It's not possible. Joy Smith: You can't. Some of it you just have to go and say, OK, I'll that for next time. Anna: Why? Not everything is online, especially when you're in other countries and every country has its own special way of doing things. You can't know it all. You can't. Joy Smith: so the places you've traveled to, are these places that you think you would have gone if you weren't doing a slow travel? Anna: I don't think so because they were so far away that I feel like getting over there and having to turn around because you would have had, especially coming from the East Coast, you have to fly all the way across Europe to get all the way to Southeast Asia and that's already 12-hour time change that you have to then deal with for a few days, if not longer. So I feel like it's hard if you're not already situated in Europe or in Australia to just easily hit those up on shorter vacations. Joy Smith: How have your kids adjusted to the change of being in new countries, new places, and time zone differences? Anna: They like it now. They're like, where are we going next? My oldest is asking to go to China for her birthday. So they're into it. Yeah, they like want to check out new places. I don't know what the thought process is technically, but they're like, we're going to a new country. I'm like, yeah, you're right. So they're down right now. Joy Smith: love that. How do they handle the long flights, the long train rides? Are they pretty good travelers? Anna: Screen time on long flights. are. Gosh, it's like it's like a competition of who can watch the most TV. We flew from Singapore to JFK with like a stopover in Germany. It's like a competition to see who watched the most TV the whole time. Joy Smith: And your three year old did that the whole time? Anna: Yeah, she took naps, she would fall asleep and I'd turn off her screen and the three year olds, she's been doing it since she's been younger than my older one. So she's more with it and just kind of like with go with the flow. While as my older one knows more what home life felt like longer. So the younger one definitely easier going right now. Joy Smith: Yeah. Crazy my kids. I mean they don't do a ton of screen time when we travel they do But they still reach a point where I mean all the time. Okay, I'm done. I don't want to watch the screen anymore Can I get up can I move and I'm like, ⁓ no, we're on a plane So I'm really interested my daughter's never done really long flights like we haven't taken her to ⁓ Europe or anywhere yet. I've only taken my son at this point So we'll be taking her this fall when we go to Europe Anna: Hey. Nowhere to go. Joy Smith: And that'll be her longest flight yet. So I'm really curious how it's gonna go for us We might have to be those people walking the aisles a little bit Anna: I feel like whatever works for you and you're not hurting anybody else, like you're not getting in the way of flight attendants or bothering anybody. Some people get so irritated with seeing kids on flights or, you're standing at the laboratory stretching your legs. Come on, if you're not in the way of anybody, let's just all agree that a metal tube at 35,000 feet is just survival right now. Joy Smith: That is so true. That's such a great way to look at it. I feel like so many people forget, you know, we're all in this together when we're in the air. It's not like. Anna: What? Yeah, there's, there's like hundreds of people. We just have to deal with it. Yeah. Yeah. Joy Smith: make it to the ground. That's all we gotta do. Okay, there's something you said earlier that we talked about and touched on a little bit, but we didn't dive into was the appointment side of things. So how are you keeping up with like dentist appointments, haircuts, annual checkups, all those things that we do for our kids? How do you keep up with those in other countries? Anna: So we're still coming home intermittently, like after Ecuador for three months, we'll be home for a few months in the United States. So I intermittently do their appointments at home, especially the medical appointments. But when we're abroad, I try to do the dental and everything. Like I just had my kids dental appointments, my eye appointments, and I just go online. You can go on Google, find places, or you can find Expat Friendly for dentist and eye appointments. And a lot of times on the Google, gives you right to the WhatsApp, especially here in Ecuador. I guess I can't speak for the other ones too much, but I noticed in Ecuador, there's a WhatsApp number on there. It goes directly to the person. A lot of times it's just like a one-man show, so they just respond to you right away or email you, and you just set it up. And my husband and have our background in medicine, so we kind of understand what standard of care should look like. We know what questions to ask people, so we feel comfortable doing certain things. Joy Smith: Interesting. Have you had any major medical things happen while you're overseas traveling that you've had to deal with? Anna: Yeah, yeah, when we were in Thailand, my daughter's ankle got stuck in the bicycle spoke of the tire. And I mean, it just bent it and she stopped the bicycle while she was riding on the back of it. And we thought it was broken. It would have been like her smaller bone in her leg, but still it just like popped up. I mean, that's where the growth plate is, which is a big deal in little kids, because that's where the big deal. So we went there and we were treated so... Joy Smith: Yeah. Anna: Amazing. The care was what we expected in terms of standard of care. They spoke to us in English so we understood very easily what was going on. When we were done, we were taken out to pay our bill like it was a DMV set up. Everything was just explained and walked through piece by piece. The waiting time wasn't very long either. I was like, it's just reassuring that it was okay. Joy Smith: That's so good. And what about insurance? Like, do you still have U.S. insurance that would help pick up any of that or do you buy travel insurance? Anna: We buy travel insurance every time we travel because it covered 100 % of our emergency bills. terms of our medical appointments that we're making on the side on our own, we pay out of pocket. And that's typically $30 for a dental appointment, for a dental prophylaxis appointment. But the emergency stuff is covered 100%. So was $600 out of pocket for her emergency care in terms of emergency doctor, an orthopedic doctor, an x-ray, and then her emergency care was $600 plus her medication too, and 100 % covered by the insurance company. They didn't argue with us. They didn't ask any questions. They just said, submit this paperwork, and we were done. Joy Smith: And travel insurance isn't that expensive. That's not something I normally purchase. I know I need to look into it for our next big international trip, but from what I've researched, it's not very expensive. Anna: No, my husband and I are covered. Like we're paying on ours, it's $112 every four weeks. And since we're both paying, our kids are free. Joy Smith: not bad that's so cheap compared to what we pay here. Anna: Yeah, and it just covers like emergency. Yeah, I mean, I it covers emergency and that $600 isn't crazy if you're from the United States, but just to know that it's covered, why wouldn't you do that? Joy Smith: Now when you guys go back home for those several weeks throughout the year, do you go? Anna: We go on Furnish Finder, which is like a long-term rental site. So I go on there and we look for places to stay for a few months at a time. That's near our family. Joy Smith: Because you sold your home, right? Anna: Yep, it's gone. Joy Smith: It's gone. So what's your plan next? Like, are we going to keep traveling for a few more years or you think you're going to come back? Anna: I think we're gonna keep traveling right now. I really enjoy it. The kids are still down for it too. And I've had like this slur of ideas where I'm like, I wanna go here and here and here and I'm mapping it out for my husband. And then like I said, I'll leave it on him to find the flights now. ⁓ Joy Smith: love it. I love it so much. Because honestly, when they're little, there's heart at every stage. But I think when they're little, it's almost easier because you're not missing ⁓ those vital times of needing to build relationships and having social interactions with actual friends. That is when they're older. When they're older, they're also going to be more involved. Anna: Yeah. Joy Smith: and sports and activities or whatever else they want to do and start making their own commitments. So like you're at that age where they're not there yet. And then plus with homeschooling, like if you're going to homeschool, I think kindergarten and first grade are the easiest years to probably homeschool. Anna: Yeah. Yeah, we'll just start getting it under their belt and then we'll just, we're always open to seeing what the kids are interested in, but right now they're willing to go as long as we can come back and see family once in a while. Joy Smith: Yeah. do you guys have any family come visit you or ⁓ they want to go on trips with you guys? Anna: They're not interested yet. I don't know if it's the countries that we're going to, so I'm hoping for our next leg that I can get them to come out and visit us. Joy Smith: I That would be so fun. I bet your girls would love to be like, Grandma and Grandpa are here with us! Anna: Yeah. Yeah, I think that'd make a huge difference if they would come out and visit just so that they can experience and see what it feels like and just kind of see what different travel feels like for them too. Joy Smith: I love it, I love it, I love it. So Anna, where are you off to next after you guys leave Ecuador? Anna: We're going to go to the United States and then after that I'm hoping we'll go back over to Central Asia. Joy Smith: Alright, Central Asia. That's one place I've not been yet, but it looks really amazing to go to. Where are some of your favorite places that you've Anna: And it's safe, so safe. I think some of the favorite places that we've been, like India was amazing in the fact that there was so much cultural depth there that we've never experienced in our lives ever. And just amazing kind people who invited us in. And then Vietnam was just like affordable in every aspect for our family, but also a very welcoming community. It's just crazy how many like welcoming nice communities there are that are just. interested in knowing you as a person. Piano dollar sign. Joy Smith: What are some of, like what's one of the craziest stories or something that's happened to you while you've been doing this gap year that's now turned into two of travel? Anna: I think, let's see, when we were in India, we were in Jaipur, which is west of Delhi. So that's where Taj Mahal is, right, just south of Delhi. Joy Smith: Yeah. Anna: So we ended up doing a sleeper train and a co-ed sleeper with our two kids, which I would never think to do because there were like adult men in there and everybody was just very chill, nice. It was quiet and we slept because it was a five hour sleeper train when we got it on at like 3 a.m. and we showed up and it worked and we booked it ourselves and I was like, ⁓ we figured it out with our little kids in a sleeper train. Joy Smith: Ooh. in a coed sleeper train. Anna: And I coed sleeper training and I did not do that on purpose, but we were like, it was hard to get certain classes of the train on there and we were like, we need to sleep. So we tried it and it worked beautifully. Joy Smith: And what about food? Like I know one other concern a lot of moms have is when they travel, especially internationally, is what are my kids going to eat? They live off like chicken nuggets and hot dogs and mac and cheese. So how have your girls adapted to different foods? Anna: When we were in India, they wouldn't eat any of the food there because spice is real there. Like even if we say no spice, we get it and it still be spicy. So they're living off of bread products. But so much of the produce around the world was like it was made, it was there, right? Like they make it there so it's fresh. And I was like, okay, they'll eat fruit. They'll eat fruit like it's nobody's business. So they were living off fruit and bread in certain countries, which I'm like, well, if we had been home, they would have been living off of hot dogs and chicken nuggets, I guess. So this is. at least fresh where it comes from and the bread is made fresh too. Joy Smith: That's not our ⁓ highly over-processed bread that we have here. Do you guys carry your pack any protein snacks with you for the kids, like trail mix, beef sticks, or anything to get protein? Anna: Yeah. We tend to get almonds for the kids. My husband's really big into the grocery shopping and making sure that they eat certain foods. So we know they'll eat eggs. So either we make the eggs or we hard boil them for them so that way we know they're enough protein and enough of what they need to so they're not just living off of the bread and the fruit, even though I'm sure they'd like to. Joy Smith: I mean, it's hard. The food piece of travel is a real struggle for so many of us. I know I don't leave home without beef sticks and I don't leave home without, this is so bad too and they're not the healthiest things, but they're the go-go-squeeze yogurt pouches that you don't have to refrigerate because my daughter needs. Anna: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Joy Smith: like her mood cannot regulate without protein so those are my two sources of easy protein that I always carry with me for her. Anna: Yeah. Yeah, and luckily in a lot of the grocery stores you can find imports of certain foods. Like they cost more, but they're imported from like Australia or US or Europe. So you might be able to find a lot of the food that your kids are used to as well, even though it'll cost a little more. Joy Smith: ⁓ that's really good to know because if you're in an Airbnb you're making all your own meals anyway. Anna: Yeah, so if you can just go to those import stores, you'll find some other things that you would really want for your kids and maybe they just won't eat some other things. Joy Smith: really good to know. Okay, so let's wrap it up here Anna, why a mom choose slow travel over a standard five day vacation? ⁓ Anna: I would say given the chance and opportunity to travel longer will just totally change your mindset of what travel looks and feels like. That way you're not coming home feeling like you spent $10,000 and you're not coming home feeling like you need a vacation from your vacation. It just gives you a whole new mindset and a way of trying something new. Like no itineraries, no go, go, go all day. Just slow down and see what that feels like for your nervous system and your mindset. And I think it just is a totally new. thing to try and do. Joy Smith: I don't know if I could do it. I'll be completely honest. I'm that traveler that I'm like, how many countries can we check off? How many things can we go see? And we're going to get bored if we sit for too long. It's a very different mindset. What type of personality do you think would best thrive in a slow travel pace? Anna: But if. I don't know, because me and my husband are very different. I'm the type A person, maybe a little different from what the type of people think, because I probably have changed over the last year now. And he's very relaxed. So I don't know, like A, B, or C type personality? It just depends. I think it just changes you. But you have to be willing to try it. Joy Smith: That's true. You do have to be willing to try it, right? You don't know until you try something. Anna: Yeah. Yeah, it took a while because we went to Mexico and we were renting a car. I was renting an Airbnb that was bigger than what we needed outside the city so we had more space and I was like, we're overspending, we're driving more and I'm still building itineraries. So it took a while to get out of it. Joy Smith: I bet, because it's just a whole different thought process that you're jumping into. Anna: It is, yeah. Joy Smith: What is the minimum amount of time you'd recommend for someone trying out slow travel for the first time? Anna: I would say pick one location where you're going to land and stay there two weeks. Minimum. Minimum two weeks, one place. Joy Smith: week. of all the places you've been, what would be the best and easiest ⁓ point for a family to try? Anna: Penang, Malaysia. Yeah. Joy Smith: Malaysia, okay. Is that the one where you have a reel on your Instagram page where you guys are like standing along the side of a building and there's a train literally going right in front of you? Was that Malaysia? Just kidding. Anna: That's Vietnam. Vietnam's great. It's just a little, a little busier. Joy Smith: a little busier. Okay. I don't know why that image just popped in my head of the girl standing there and like literally you're on the edge of the train track. Anna: Yeah, everyone's like, that's not safe. And I'm like, I know. Nothing's safe. The world's not safe, but it's OK. Joy Smith: mean, safety standards are very different across the globe. Anna: Yeah, they are. Joy Smith: if mom listening right now is thinking this sounds amazing but also overwhelming, what is the first small step she could take? Anna: Ooh. I think the first step is to pick a budget. Because once you pick your budget, you can pick your destination. And once you know what you want to do as well, like if you're an activity person, then land yourself in a spot where there's a lot to do. Don't land yourself like in the middle of nowhere. where you're watching the sun go up and down every day. Make sure there's enough activities to do in that one spot with that budget that you want to be at. So that way it kind of matches your family. Joy Smith: That's a really good point. See, that's what I would need is activities and a budget. And from a budget perspective, you guys have been very successful around $3,000 a month, which I think is a very reasonable budget for most people. Because if we're going to take a week long vacation, we're most likely already spending more than three grand if we're talking flights, hotels, food, all of the things. So I think for an all in budget to slow travel. Anna: Yeah. Joy Smith: Picking a destination that's a little bit more off the beaten path where you can immerse yourself does make such a huge difference. Anna: Yeah. Joy Smith: Anna, tell our audience where they can find you and how they can get in touch with you if they have any questions. Anna: my biggest platforms right now that you can find me on are Instagram so wanderlisthawks or wanderlist.hawks and then we also have a website where we put up everything that we kind of offer people to kind of dive deeper into what we offer at wanderlisthawks.com Joy Smith: And what kind of services do you offer? Anna: So right now we're doing a destination match for people where you say, you know, your budget, your style of travel, ⁓ public transit, like certain things that are important to you. And then based on that, we put it into our tool that we made and it pops out three top destinations and why they would work for your family. That way it kind of takes away the whole, do I want to go? This is an overwhelming thing to kind of figure out where to go. So we pop out three top ones based on what people input. Joy Smith: Oh, I love that. So you narrow the scope for them so that they don't have like the whole world as their beginning point. Anna: Yeah. Yeah, it's specific for what you want. So I think that's a really helpful thing. Joy Smith: Love that. Okay, I'm gonna link Anna's information in the show notes so you guys will be able to find her Instagram and her website. I know you also have a newsletter that you send out newsletters to to give your personal stories. Awesome. Well, Anna, thank you so much for your time today. It's been awesome having you on here. ⁓ really enjoyed hearing your story. I know I followed you for about two years. I know we've connected over social media quite a bit throughout the years and just... Anna: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Joy Smith: Actually sitting down to talk to you versus messaging on Instagram is so much nicer. For sure, it's been great. Anna, this has been so eye-opening. I love that you've shown that slow travel isn't just for digital nomads or people with unlimited budgets. It's actually Anna: Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Joy Smith: a strategic way that families can travel more intentionally and often more affordably. If this episode has encouraged you, send it to a friend who dreams of traveling slower with her kids. And if you haven't already, leave us a five-star review. It helps more moms find the show. We'll see you next time.