How to be a Digital Nomad?
Thank you for being here and listening and tuning in for the travel and work with human design podcast. I have a lovely guest with me today, and that is Kayla. Kayla, do you want to introduce yourself for my listeners?
Hi Astrid. Yeah, so I am here filming from the Netherlands, but I’m originally from the US and I became a digital nomad in 2017 and started traveling. And ended up moving to the Netherlands for a few years, and now my husband and I are traveling full time again as fully nomadic entrepreneurs. So just kind of riding the waves of the different seasons of travel, and right now it’s a really fun season, so I feel really lucky.
Astrid: Right. So your roots are from the United States, whereabouts in the States?
Pennsylvania. And what kind of environment did you grow up in?
Kayla: I grew up in the suburbs. American suburbs translates to rows of houses. Like, we didn’t even have sidewalks. Like, you couldn’t, like, walk anywhere. Like, living in Europe, I don’t even think, like, Dutch people can understand what it’s like to live somewhere that doesn’t even have sidewalks for you to walk down the street.
It was quite, very, like, cozy, you know, relaxed, happy, safe, but quite, you know, bland. Like, I used to call it Nowheresville, and there’s nothing bad about where I grew up, but whenever you’re, like, dying to see the world, and have all this, like, interest, Yes, suburbia kind of feels like something you want to, like, get away from and feel that contrast.
So, but I had a great, I loved, had a great childhood, and both my parents were nurses, and my sister’s a teacher and still lives locally, and I’m kind of the oddball who left. They’re very supportive though.
Astrid: Right. Yeah. I definitely had a culture shock when I lived in Arizona. When I landed in Phoenix, my hotel was near the airport and I had a friend that I could pick up because she had a different flight.
So actually I thought, Hey, let’s just walk to the airport because here in the Netherlands, of course you can walk everywhere, right? I mean, that was my point of reference. Well, I definitely figured out that in Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona, you can’t walk to the airport.
Kayla: I had the same culture shock going back to the US.
My husband and I flew in from the Netherlands to the DC airport, but not in Washington DC outside, like the secondary airport. Hotel was only a mile away and I thought oh easy, you know, we don’t mind we have backpacks We don’t mind walking and it was like a three hour walk on google maps because it was a mile on the highway But you’re not allowed to walk on the highway.
So you it was literally hours. We were just laughing like oh, welcome back to the u. s And then it’s lovely to drive around like road trip country. It’s so nice So it has its its pros and cons, but it’s the shock whenever you’re used to walking or biking
Astrid: That’s the magic of traveling, right? I mean, your point of reference just becomes so much broader.
And then you realize that everything that you think that was normal is actually not normal at all, right? That’s just normal for that place, but it doesn’t have to be the normal for any other place in the world, right? So are you fully nomadic or do you still have a home base?
Kayla: We are fully nomadic right now.
We got rid of our apartment and all of our stuff, um, five months ago. Um, we gave most of it away to secondhand stores and my husband kept five boxes in storage with his parents. So we’re feeling pretty detached right now. And I have a suitcase in storage with a few things to kind of restart life whenever we get an apartment again.
But we have just been drifting around. We did a little bit of Eastern Europe and then we were in the US and then Mexico for 10 weeks and we just landed back in the Netherlands and we’re, I bought a sweater my first day. We’re readjusting going from the tropics to the kind of Dutch fall and winter. But, uh, enjoying the contrast a lot of all the different, like, you wake up in one climate, you fall asleep in another.
It’s really wonderful.
Astrid: And how did your nomadic journey start? Like, what sparked you into choosing this nomadic lifestyle?
Kayla: Six years ago, I became kind of obsessed with the idea that life was supposed to be more fun. And I started asking people at work and, like, colleagues, like, Don’t you think life should be more fun?
And they, everyone had the same answer. It probably should be, but it’s not. Like, life’s just not fun, even though it would be wonderful if it was. And I don’t know why, but I was convinced that travel was the answer to this, even though I had never traveled abroad, really, and I had never really solo traveled.
I just thought, you know, this seems like the solution. And I bought a one way ticket to Mexico, and I got a freelance writing job, and I just figured it all out on the go. It was very bumpy. I’ve made like a million mistakes and had so many things go wrong, and that’s all a part of the fun. And that was six years ago, and I’ve been abroad more or less the whole ever since.
Like, I’ve visited the U. S., but I’ve never moved back there. I’ve either lived abroad, Like I became Dutch. I naturalized in the Netherlands. That was a five year process. And, um, yeah, it’s been a, it’s been an adventure ever since. And I don’t know what’s up next. We know we’re headed towards Turkey, but we don’t have, uh, details yet on where, where or when.
Astrid: Nice. Nice. And if you, if you look back and reflect back on your journey and, you know, being in a position where you are now, six years later, do you think life is more fun?
Kayla: Yeah, I do. I don’t feel like life’s passing me by anymore. I really felt like, like in a movie, where they’re like trying to illustrate the passage of time, like all like the date, like the pages of the calendar will fly off, and that’s how I felt.
I felt like I was just watching it happen, but I wasn’t really experiencing it. And that was really scary for me. I felt like I was sleepwalking through life. And I just thought if I, if I accept this now, I was 23. If I accept it now, then I’m going to accept it forever. And that really scared me. So, um, life is not like travels done.
Just fun. It’s also really hard and starting a business to support traveling was like the hardest, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But it’s, it’s definitely, I feel alive. And I guess I thought I wanted to feel like I was having fun at the time, but what I really wanted was to feel alive and in the moment, like I’m experiencing life and not just watching it happen.
Astrid: Yeah. You’re not, you’re really present in the moment, right? You’re, you’re really there to, Experience life rather than to going to the motions of life, right? It’s so easy to just go through the motions. Yeah. I think when I reflect back on my own personal journey, uh, for me, freedom, that was the, I wanted to have more freedom.
Um, does, is freedom important to you?
Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely the freedom to spend my time, how I want and to go where I want and to make money. But that’s actually, you know. It’s the coin, the term was coined by Travis Sherry, the, the triangle of freedom. And that’s the triangle time location and financial freedom.
And once you kind of. Articulate that or Travis articulated it and he shared it on his podcast and I heard that years ago and it occurred to me. Yeah, that’s kind of everything, isn’t it? If you can make money where you want, how you want, and you can still be like, it feels so kind of selfish at first or indulgent, but then realizing, like, wanting freedom is not being selfish.
It’s, it’s like the most natural urge to want autonomy and getting to choose and yeah the freedom. Yeah, it’s amazing what like that kind of spreads it’s like a watershed moment in your life, where all of a sudden you see everything
Astrid: differently. Yeah, great. I really resonated with the triangle freedom.
But I did felt, um, that there was a lot of, um, pieces of the puzzles missing. And that’s why I actually created a hexagon of freedom. In addition to location, location, freedom, time, freedom, and financial freedom. For me, what’s really important is freedom from your inner critic, because if you are You know, you can travel all the nicest places in the world, but if you’re in a critic is still criticizing you every step of the way, and you don’t know how to deal with that or how to navigate, um, at those, those feelings and those thought that that’s come up, um, yeah, you’re not really free, right?
And then the other part is body and mind. Uh, so, um, this is a health component. If you’re not healthy enough to travel, something that I experienced because I became sick after six months in my location, independent journey, and my health was taken away from me and couldn’t walk, I couldn’t bike, I couldn’t do anything anymore.
And yeah, then. That definitely is a very important component of being free as well. Right. Um, so yeah, body and mind and also purpose is part of that because if you still go into the motions as a digital nomad making ends meet, you might have location freedom or Uh, time freedom, but if you’re doing something that doesn’t fulfill you or doesn’t make you happy, then that is also, um, an aspect that you can work on.
And the last part is stress freedom. So it’s about freedom from stress. So you can actually enjoy and have fun. So that’s kind of like why I created the hexagon of freedom to kind of compliment the triangle freedom, um, to kind of give you an update there. Wow, stress
Kayla: freedom. I’ve never heard that. And it’s amazing.
I, I mean, who doesn’t, who can’t resonate with that, you know, and inner critic, I’ve been dealing with that a lot lately. So I like that term inner critic freedom.
Astrid: Yeah. So, but really, really interested to, to dive into the conversation further with you. Um, if you can reflect back on your transition, uh, can you give a tip for people who want to transition to this lifestyle?
Um, you said you had a, a bumpy start. If I look at your profile, it’s that I have here right next to me. I can explain that a little bit, but well, I’m going to save that for later in the conversation. Um, but can you give a tip for people who are just starting, um, with what you learned in six years? Um,
Kayla: I would say be open to A lot of change, and maybe that sounds obvious because you think if you’re trying to go to a new place, or you don’t know the language or the culture, then you think, well, I’m letting go of everything.
I know by going to this new place, but you actually. You might find yourself in a new place, surrounded by new ideas, and you might still be holding on really tight. To what you think is right or what you think is, um, like the best way to do things. And I know within the first six months of my journey, I had to change everything.
I changed the way I made money, the way I saw travel and work. I was one of those people. I really felt like it was, uh, like a vacation. Like I thought I was going to be living on vacation and I didn’t expect it to be like. Coconuts and sitting on the beach all day, but I didn’t expect it to be so much work to just live like going to the grocery store and not knowing anything and not knowing.
Is this like a butter or lard or what? You know, and you’re like, you have no idea what to buy and, uh, all of a sudden little things are so much work that were never I’ve never been work to you in your life. Like knowing how to use the toilet. You’re like, is this the women’s room? I can’t tell. Uh, how does the toilet flush?
How do I know if someone’s in there? How do I get the hand dryer to work? It’s amazing how like every aspect of that very normal part of life can become a challenge. And I thought, I’m not maybe I’m not cut out for this because this is really hard and I didn’t know that I had to change a lot in order to kind of be ready.
I thought I’m doing it. So I’m ready. I’m getting on a plane. I must be ready. If I’m living the life. And in reality, um, It was kind of like a flight. It’s like you have to get up to cruising altitude first and that first bits a lot of work and it’s worth it. It’s completely worth it. But, um, I would say don’t be hard on yourself and be open to the fact that you might need to still learn and evolve a bit before you’re ready to enjoy the lifestyle fully.
Astrid: Yeah, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns, right? When you’re in this lifestyle, I mean, you still encounter a lot of things that, that you just never thought about, right? Because you’ve been going to the motions and things have become automatic patterns. Um, but yeah, then you, then if your environment is completely different, all that goes away, right?
It can, can definitely, um, Yeah, it takes up a lot of energy as well to kind of dive into all these little cultural aspects, uh, different languages, different ways of, uh, you know, customs, different ways of communicating. Um, but yeah, that’s also kind of the beauty. It’s kind of like, it’s, it’s both, right.
It’s exciting, but it’s also a lot of work indeed. So if you look back, did you encounter kind of like a low point in your travel so far? I
Kayla: Yeah, it wasn’t just traveling because for me, I did move. I got a residence visa in the Netherlands and I was using it as well. I was living here with my then boyfriend, now husband, he’s Dutch, he’s from the Netherlands.
So we met traveling and I moved here with him because he had to come back for family, a family emergency. So I came with him and I thought it would still be really fun. You know, I thought this is like, The most exciting form of travel to actually live somewhere. And I get this look at the culture that no one gets unless you stay.
And, um, for me, realizing that it wasn’t like, I wanted everything to be familiar. I wanted that exact environment that I was used to. And for me, it was really leaving the honeymoon phase. Like, I thought, wow, maybe traveling for me lost its charm. It’s not fun anymore. I don’t like being abroad. I want everything to be easy and predictable.
That for me was a really hard moment. I think if I had not been staying here because I was on the path to get my Dutch citizenship and we committed, well, it was supposed to be 3 years and ended up being 5 with the pandemic and we thought, you know, we have to commit, uh, so that we don’t have to deal with visa issues again.
And, um, Whenever you’re from a different country than your partner, you have this funny thing where you can’t live in the same place. It’s not a guarantee that you can be together. So we thought, no, this is the choice we’re making, but it was hard. And I think if I hadn’t been on that path, I would have given up and thought, I’m not cut out for this.
It’s too tiring. I that really predictable life again. And it was a phase, it was a low point that I had to get through, but it was hard and I don’t think I would have made it on my own.
Astrid: And how did you navigate through those, uh, travel, um, desires basically, because you were kind of in one place, right? Or did you already, uh, Had the freedom to venture out from, from the Netherlands as a home base then?
Kayla: We, we used to go as a home base, but we weren’t traveling as much as we would have liked because my visa restricted how many days I could be out of the country per year. So it was, um, a mix of travel and living. Um, which I think is actually what most people do who are location independent. They have a home base and then they take trips.
So I actually think that that was kind of the norm for most people. But, um, I just to get through it. Yeah. I, I don’t know if I would have gotten through it without having to, like, I had to figure out how to become happy where I was. And that is like a gift that like going through that thinking I want to quit, but I can’t.
And then figuring out how to become happy and become, you know, find peace in a situation. Yeah. A trap like whenever you’re abroad and thinking, how am I supposed to reconcile what I’m feeling with, you know, where I’m at and it was a good exercise. Um, I think a lot of people find themselves there where traveling is not fun or being abroad isn’t fun anymore and you think, am I supposed to just go home?
What, you know, what’s next and you have to
work through that in the moment.
Astrid: Yeah. And, and in working through that, I mean, that’s where the inner work comes in, right? Because travel is a personal development on its own because it’s such a big learning curve for life to literally bump into you. I mean, if you go into the motions of your nine to five job and you’re, you know, you’re in the same environment where you grew up in, everything is familiar.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you get that feeling of like, okay, we’re just going to the motions and life doesn’t unexpectedly bump into you as hard as that it does when you’re traveling because you’re putting yourself out there and all these new environments and life literally bumps quite hard. Yeah. To you.
Kayla: Yeah.
Yeah. You said it. The personal work, the internal work is never. Yeah. Yeah. more intense. I think like everything’s more intense abroad. You like crave your comfort food and you can’t find it and hurt like that, like pain is more intense or you’re sick and you like don’t know how to get medicine or what medicine to get.
That is so much more intense than if you were just home. And, uh, I think like everything at the inner work is much more intense whenever you’re abroad and it’s a good experience, but it’s hard. And it feels like, should I quit? Is this a sign? And it’s not a sign, I think, for anyone. I feel like you’re going to come out the other side stronger and more aware of yourself.
But it’s,
it’s hard.
Astrid: Did you do any inner work, um, in that whole process? Did you, did you start with personal development or is that a topic that’s, that has been on your mind or?
Kayla: Yeah, I journaled a lot. I was trying really hard to kind of work through it. And at the same time, I was building my business.
which was not going well for the first two years. I mean, it didn’t make money for the first two years. So, uh, it was a lot of inner work of like, what do I want? And is this what I want? And why can I, I see what I want. I was trying to manifest the future I wanted, but I wasn’t able to figure out the path there.
And it took a lot of personal development and listening to podcasts every day about like goals and trying to achieve something, you know, it was very, it was very lost. But I think now that I’ve come out the other side and I can say that that’s a very normal path that a lot of entrepreneurs go through whenever they’re trying to manifest their future.
Astrid: Yeah, I think, uh, if you talk about personal development, I mean, becoming an entrepreneur is again, another personal development journey in itself, right? Because it’s completely different if you are an employee or a remote employee or even a freelancer than when you start becoming your own boss. I mean, there’s So many things that you need to consider.
Did you create your business right when you started traveling or how did that evolve?
Kayla: I started a blog at the very beginning of my travels and it failed. Uh, it did not succeed at all. And then I thought, okay, I want to, I still want something for myself. Like if they can’t want to build something that’s mine.
So I started another business, a call or, uh, my mentor asked me to start a consulting firm with him. And I said, okay. Hey, I became a co owner of that and that business also failed. And for the third time I was kind of faced with, am I fail? Like, am I not cut out for this? Like I still want to build something for myself and, um, why are other people able to achieve this, but I’m not.
So for the third time, uh, this was a year after I’d started traveling for the third time in a year, I thought. I want this. And I started my website writing from nowhere. com in a hostel in London. I bought the domain and I thought, I don’t know what this is, but I want it to take care of me. I want it to make money.
I want it to be a business, not just like this funny thing that I have on the side of my life. Like I really, I wanted it to be like, I wanted to build my house, my like, My, I always kind of thought it was like a farm, like I want to be able to take care of myself and feed myself and um, that’s what I set out and I had no idea how I was going to do it.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I didn’t know what kind of work and what topics. I had no idea except that I wanted, I just kind of like kept thinking about the end, like arriving someday, manifesting that. And, uh, it took years. It took three years after that, or two or three years, but it support started supporting me full time.
And now it supports me and my husband full time. And, um, yeah, it was a, it was a long journey here.
Astrid: But it’s a rewarding one, right? Because Um, yeah, those three years are really hard, right? Because, um, there’s a lot of promises of like, Oh, you know, do this and you’ll be, you’ll have six figures in six months.
Um, well, those are not always the truth, right? Because it takes a lot of work to build up a company. And, um, I think it’s good to be honest about those things, right? Because it’s not, it’s not a given that a business succeeds. And especially it’s, it’s again, it’s a learning curve, right? And I’m so proud of you for sticking, sticking with it because basically that, that what, that’s what brought you success, right?
To keep going, keep going, keep going.
Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a big learning curve and no one knows what they need to know at the beginning. So I think that’s good maybe for anyone to hear who’s listening, who’s thinking about starting their own or they’re trying to build a business and it’s not going well. Uh, you don’t have all the information that you need yet and that’s okay.
Cause you’ll learn it as you go. And. Um, you’re gonna have to evolve. I know I had to evolve a lot before I was ready to run a business and ready to like, for my husband to come on. I was not that person. I was not ready. Like, if you had handed me what I have now, whenever I started, I would have ruined it.
I would have run it into the ground. It would have been, I would have been like shipwrecked in the bottom of the ocean. So you have to grow as well to be ready, but you have to start or else you’ll never,
you’ll never get there.
Astrid: Yeah. You have to start, but also you have to keep going, right? Yeah. You have to believe in your, in yourself to, to make this happen.
So when, um, did you came across human design anywhere in your, your path or, um, was I the one who introduced you to this concept?
Kayla: You were the one. I hadn’t, I didn’t know really anything about it until you sent me my human design chart and I was looking at all of it. It was my first time seeing it.
Astrid: Um, can you bring us back to that moment where you first saw your chart?
Kayla: It was really complicated. I kind of thought it would be like Myers Briggs test where it’s like, here are your four letters and then this is what each letter means. I didn’t expect it to be so, I don’t know, it looked very technical or something.
Astrid: Yeah. I actually have your chart here in front of me and for the listeners, um, Kayla’s chart. She’s an emotional manifester, uh, with a three, six profile.
Um, she has a completely open G center that we’re going to dive in because that is the first thing that I look at, uh, whenever I’m talking to travelers, because, uh, I’m not Yeah, that’s, I, that reveals so much already. Um, so we’re going to dive into that for sure. Um, what I also see is that you have a defined Ashna and defined head, defined truth and defined root.
And you have three channels, which is, um, the channel of emoting, the channel of transitionary and the channel of awareness. So, um, yeah, let’s, let’s dive in, um, into your chart. Um, When did you read anything about a manifesto piece if you’re in your research research that you came across about a strategy waiting to inform.
Did that resonate with you or.
Kayla: Yeah, yeah manifesting that manifest it all that resonates with me a lot and, um, I wasn’t surprised. It was interesting to see it there as like one of the primary kind of results of my, uh, human design analysis. I’m not sure if I’m using the right terms there, but, um, it resonated a lot with me.
Astrid: Yeah, I think, um, you are a manifester because you have a direct connection between your throat and a motor center, which is your channel of 35, 36 that runs between your throat and your solar plexus. That’s a manifest manifested Channel, and that makes you a manifesto. I think one of the things of a manifesto is really that energy comes in searches, right?
That’s it’s never completely, um, consistent because your sake was undefined that that little square there is, is white. So whereas 70 percent of the world has that filled in, then, you know, that’s the constant energy that’s available for a manifesto. You’re a part of the. 8 percent of the world who are here to initiate and to start things, but not necessarily to finish all the work that you started because you just don’t have the energy for that, right?
You’re here to create change.
Kayla: That’s such a nice way of saying that. Whereas, I would have never said it in such a nice way. I don’t think that’s one of my good qualities, that I start so many things and I don’t finish them all. No, but it sounds nice whenever you say it.
Astrid: It’s actually your core strength because, um, I, well, there’s a metaphor that we use, which is, um, that you’re kind of like laying in the ocean on this little tiny island drifting on your, your, your back.
That you look at. The beach and you see all the busy bee workers working on the beach and walking on the beach. And at some point in your, there, there’s an urge that where you say, okay, it’s time for change. You kind of swim to the, to the beach and that creates tsunami. And then the tsunami kind of engulfs the beach.
And then you kind of, you created your change. The landscape is changed and then you kind of retreat back and then just leave the rest of the worker bees to do whatever they need to do. But you did your piece and now you can rest again. That’s kind of a metaphor for manifestors. Um, Hmm. To kind of explain like, no, it’s not constant, right?
But if you do something and you do it with such a profound impact that you will change the landscape for good. And then, um, that also means that you don’t have to finish it because, well, you did your piece, right? I mean, and then you can build up that energy again. Oh, I love that. That’s something very specific to a manifestor.
Manifestors also, again, also to manifest, right? I mean, you, you can really manifest, um, your, your energy and you’re definitely your, um, you have a lot of power to that. So it’s really cool to work with manifestors. Um, yeah, I’m a generator myself. I’m a five, one generator. So I do have that constant worker bee energy, but, um, Yeah, it’s really cool to work with, with Manifestors because yeah, they’re so powerful, right?
If they step, if they allow themselves to step into their power, because often what happens is that a Manifestor tried to be like everybody else, because that’s how we learn, right? You know, if we, if we go into the soul system, we’re all kind of, Trying to be the same person and everybody’s just like, okay, you need to work from nine to five and have that energy.
That’s kind of how we are drilled, um, to kind of be in society. But yeah, that doesn’t work for you. It doesn’t apply to you.
Kayla: No, not at all.
Astrid: So yeah, I think there’s, I’ve met also a lot of manifestors who, who choose this lifestyle because of the freedom, because you need a lot of freedom, um, to kind of be.
be you, right?
Kayla: Yeah, and to work, getting the flow, I feel like, for me, that’s one of the most important things of the way I work is that I can do what I want to, follow the flow for the day, which to some people is really hectic. Like my husband works the opposite where he, Just wants to pick what he’s going to work on and work on it.
And I feel like I usually structure my weeks. Like I’ll decide what I need to do this week. And then each day I pick the thing that I have the most energy for. And that for me is my most impactful way to work. But that would be chaos to other people.
Astrid: Yeah. But it’s, it’s about having the freedom to create those own rules, right?
Because yeah, I mean, um, do what follow you. Basically you follow your energy, right? You follow your flow, which is. Yeah. I mean, that’s great. So really, really cool. So when I, when I dive in the rest of your chart, I mean, you have a completely open G and that is really interesting. Uh, whenever we’re, we’re talking about traveling, because these are the natural born travelers, because there’s always a search for identity according to the theory.
So Do you think that, do you feel that searching vibe, um, you know, trying to find new exciting places, trying to find new experiences? Does that resonate? Yeah,
Kayla: yeah, definitely. It’s kind of actually touches on what my husband and I are doing right now, which is we’re looking for a place that we want to live because we’re not really sure where we want to live.
And we have the freedom to choose with our own income. You know, we bring our money, you know, our, our, our jobs with us. So we’re just traveling around the world looking for places that we think, could this be home? Could this be the place for us? So we’re very actively searching right now. That resonates
a lot.
Astrid: And maybe
that search will never stop because that’s, that’s the process, right? It’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey here. Yeah, yeah. Very much so. So finding your place can be very, very important for people with an Open G. So, um, for example, in a restaurant or with an accommodation. Do you feel like that is something that you can resonate with, that placement is really, really important?
Kayla: Yeah, it’s funny
that you said that because we, or I often feel like I need, like whenever people say, Oh, sit anywhere, I like look at every seat and I always joke, I need to find the best seat in the house. But I, I don’t know. And if you didn’t tell me to sit anywhere, I wouldn’t be upset with where you put me.
But if you give me the choice. I will sit and look at every booth, every table, and I’ll decide which table and also which side of the table I want to sit on. It’s quite, uh, obsessive, maybe, to some people, but if given the choice, yeah, I like to be extremely particular.
Astrid: Yeah, no, it’s,
it’s. I, I had so many conversations, uh, with people who are just like you, um, again, the metaphor, um, people with a defined G, we say that the metaphor is that there are snail with a house on top of it.
And the people with an open G, they have, there are snail without the house. So whenever there’s danger, what do you think the people do with, um, with a defined G that That are a snail with a house. What do you think that they will do?
Yeah, they can just go
inside. They’re fine where they are. Yeah. They would just crawl into their own little shell.
Right. But as a, somebody with an open G you can’t do that. So therefore making sure that you choose the right spots to sit in and to not, yeah, to feel safe in that regard. That is something, um, that’s why it’s very particular where you sit in that kind of location. Um, Whether that be a classroom or, you know, a restaurant or a co working spots.
Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s part of, it’s part of who you are, right. It’s, it’s also about safety in that regard. So
Kayla: yeah, there’s a lot of internal dialogue about safety and placement whenever you’re traveling and
Astrid: especially because you also have an undefined spleen. And if we’re talking about the topic of safety, um, yeah, I mean, that’s all about feeling safe, right?
So do you have checks and balances in place if you want to feel safe in a new environment while traveling? Mm hmm.
Kayla: Yeah, I have a bit of a checklist. Um, like whenever I’m on the move, uh, like a travel day, for example, going through like bus terminals and walking down the street, I’m always kind of working through a mental checklist of, you know, are people staring, you know, are people, to people who make me feel uncomfortable and, um, Am I doing anything to unnecessarily draw attention to myself like, in some countries, just pulling yours like a smartphone out is a problem.
So, like, just walking down the streets. Um, I’ve been warned before, like, don’t pull your phone out, walking down the street or, um, someone on a motorbike will run up and grab it. So just kind of always thinking, like, what do I need to be aware of? And is there anything specific to this situation and trying to balance?
That’s like surveying like I often say I’m like a like radar like kind of like, you know, scanning my environment looking for things that need to be on my radar. But, uh, yeah, it’s a balance of travel because you can never not have those conversations unless you’re. in a very safe country or your home, I guess.
But even then, I mean, who hasn’t, like, been uncomfortable at some point in their own home? Like, even in, I mean, whenever I moved to the Netherlands, it was one of the safest countries. It’s extremely safe. And I think my first week, somebody tried to pickpocket me on the Fismar, on like the, at the fish market.
So, um, and that wasn’t violent. It was not, I mean, it doesn’t make me feel unsafe, but you kind of, you never, you never just completely. release your need for safety.
Astrid: Yeah, I think it’s, it’s interesting that you say that because I actually have a defined spleen and I’m not worried about safety at all. Like I’m kind of in the opposite end.
I’m going to Brazil and I booked everything and then somebody said, Oh, is it safe? And I was like, Oh, I actually haven’t even thought about that. Um, so that’s kind of like, um, because you have an undefined spleen. I mean, you’re more attuned to. Am I safe? And, um, having those, uh, checks and balances in place to kind of like, giving yourself the form of safety, right?
Whereas, um, for people who have a defined spleen are not, they, they already have, um, kind of like a more sense of safetiness inside of them. So they are actually more risk takers because they think, Oh, should be fine. No worries. Oh,
Kayla: funny. I didn’t know anyone operated that way. Not worrying so much. I mean, I know some people worry less, but it’s hard for me to imagine someone not thinking about safety at all.
Astrid: Yeah. I actually traveled with a friend and she has an undefined spleen and I have a defined spleen and we balanced out really nicely because she was very attuned to safety. Whereas I was like, no, it should be fine. No worries. You know, if there’s danger, I will sense it because that’s, that’s what happens, right?
Your intuition is kind of attuned to danger. So whenever there’s danger, yeah, you, you know, like, okay, let’s get out of here. I mean. I’ve been in South Africa. And of course, uh, when it’s turning dark, I mean, you, you, you kind of, you kind of feel like, okay, let’s get out of here because the streets are becoming unsafe here.
But because I can rely on that, knowing like, That, that will balance out. Uh, I’m not too worried about the other parts, but I think that’s one of the beauty of human design. We all think that we’re all the same and this actually shows that how different we all actually are. And there is no one way, right?
I mean, everybody has their own way and that’s the best way, right? Because there’s nobody who has the exact same. Energy background and, um, yeah, um, uniqueness that you have. So it’s about celebrating uniqueness rather than, you know, trying to be all the same and all alike. So really cool. Do you have any, do you have specific safety travel gear or how do you, how do you.
deal with, uh, your travel gear.
Kayla: I do have safety travel gear was apparently spot on for my spleen. Um, I have, um, I’m trying to think of this thing I use the most. I have a double sided cable lock that I use a lot. Like if I’m, um, sleeping at an airport overnight, I will lock my bag. So a double sided cable lock, it’s like a, It has like a flexible kind of like shaft on both sides of the lock so I can lock the zippers of my bag together with one end and then I can with the other end lock it to like a bench so that no one can steal it.
And, um, I always, I use that quite, quite a lot. And, um, as well, like whenever I’m going swimming in the ocean, uh, you know, you need to like, I would never, like, my husband would just like stick his keys under a rock and hope that nobody noticed, but I will always find a fixed object and lock the keys there so that nobody can take them.
And, um, I actually carry an umbrella for safety. Oh, I always take that everywhere. Um, I’ve had some run ins with dogs. Like, in some countries, there are just lots of dogs running around the streets, and I’ve never had anything bad happen, but I’ve been really nervous where dogs, like a pack of dogs, has come up to me at night, and I just stood there, like, while they all sniffed me, thinking, like, if one of these dogs bites me, I have nothing to do.
So I always have an umbrella, and, um, for those situations where. There’s like a lot of animals, like in, I was just in Mexico for 10 weeks and it’s a lot of dogs there and they’re nonviolence, but, uh, you never know. I am always cautious, so I have my umbrella. I call it the mugger slugger.
Astrid: Well, that’s great.
And I think everything that, that helps you in that process. I mean, that’s, that’s why it’s such a personal process, right? That’s also why. Travel gear is so personal because everybody has different things that, that I really, um, want to bring along. And, uh, yeah, it’s so cool. So one of the other aspects of the Open G Center is that people tend with an Open G tend to go towards new destinations rather than destinations that they’ve already been before.
Do you, how do you select your travel destinations? Do you also, do you have a balance between old and new? Do you revisit places that you’ve already been? Or, um, is it the thirst for the new shine, new, new, unexplored territory is, is, um, bigger than trying to want to go back to places that you’ve been before.
Kayla: Always the new
with me. I like to see new things and to compare things as well. Like, I, so like being, uh, moving to Europe and not being European, uh, I’m like, wow, what are all these countries? What makes them different? And then if you get a group of Europeans together, they’re like, Our bread is the best. A Dutch person will say, we have the best bread.
And then Belgium, right next door, we have the best bread. And then Germans, our bread. And then there’s the French, which like, have a reputation for having the best bread. I think it’s so funny. And I, to me, as an outsider, I think I want to go and experience, I want to eat the bread in all of your countries.
And now that I have, I can honestly say, I think it’s all the same. I can’t tell the difference, but. Uh, I always enjoy getting, because I feel like with a new experience, I understand the past experience better. Like, whenever I go to Germany, I think, oh, I understand Belgium a little bit more and what makes it different.
And I understand what makes, you know, France different from, or, you know, like Spain and Portugal. I just, I like going to, like, seeing. I don’t know, I like to go wide with what I see because I feel like it helps me understand everything I’ve seen in the past, what makes everywhere different, which is quite nuanced and difficult to see what makes things countries different beyond the language and beyond, like, German, like, let’s say, Belgium and the Netherlands, neighbors sharing the language, um, I asked Dutch people whenever I move here, what makes the countries different and the things you hear, I couldn’t quite understand the differences.
I like felt like I had to see it for myself to understand. So I feel that way a lot, I need to see things for myself to understand it. Yeah,
Astrid: I love that, yeah, definitely a lot of difference, right, between Belgian and, and, And the Netherlands. Um, yeah, even though it’s the same language, there’s so many different accents and culturally there are so many differences, but yeah, it’s, it’s about, um, I’m not surprised with your answer here, um, for your thirst for new experiences, but I, I really liked what you said that you, you know, you, You understand past experience better, um, because of the new, uh, new experiences.
Super cool. Do you have any tips for travelers how to select a destination? How can you share a little bit about your process there?
Kayla: I think
contrast is one of the best things that a remote worker specifically can, can get out of travel. Like, if you were going, like, if someone was burnt out and needing a break who lived in New York City, and then they went to London for a break, you’re not going to feel that great.
You know, it’s like Busy, loud city to busy, loud city, I would say, you know, go to, go to like, imagine going from somewhere really, like, let’s say London to like a cabin in Norway on a fjord, you know, that is contrast, that is gonna feel so much more engaging, I think, and like stimulating. Because I think that’s what we crave with travel is, stimulation.
Um, at least I crave stimulation, like all the different smells and sights and even the cars drive by and you think, wow, those cars look so different. And being able to take all of that in and contrast is, I think, a traveler’s best friend. But I’m going through it right now. I’m coming back from Mexico where it was, I think, in Celsius 30 degrees.
consistently, and now back in the Netherlands, and it’s been rainy and cold. So I feel like, oh, but the first day, first few days, it was really nice to be back in the cold. I thought, man, I’m not sweating. I was like, I would wake up and think, I’m not sweaty. This is amazing. And, uh, and then I’ll crave contrast again.
And we’ll, you know, we’re only here for a little while. So, uh, we won’t stay long term. I think we’ll be here for maybe a month max. And then we’re moving on towards Turkey. Nice.
Astrid: Yeah. That’s how I started my location independence, um, journey because I want to skip winters of course here in the Netherlands.
Yeah. Now you just have that option. So yeah, it, it didn’t really happen that way because I became ill six months in my journey, but, um, yeah, I really liked the change of seasons as well. But, um, I really like your, like, um, the concept of contrast. I think that’s very useful to kind of, um, see it in that way.
Right. So what are the other really cool thing is that as a, somebody with an open G you’re kind of like a chameleon. So basically the sentence, you become the person who you are surrounding yourself with applies to you. It doesn’t apply to me. I have a defined, uh, uh, G. G Center. Um, so whenever you are in a new environment, when you’re, when you’re in Mexico, basically you become Mexican, right?
When you’re here in the Netherlands, you become Dutch because you’re surrounding yourself with Dutch people. Um, have you experienced that culturally? Yeah, that, that environment that the people that you encounter, um, in your travels, that, that’s kind of changing you.
Kayla: I’ve encountered that socially my whole life.
This is not the first time I’ve been called a chameleon, actually, but culturally, it’s, uh, it’s different for me. I would say I, I don’t feel it traveling as much that I kind of struggle with. Um, well, travel makes you very aware of your differences. Like even height, for example, I’m tall. I’m well, six feet tall.
I can’t think of what that is in meters, but, um, and metric, but I’m, I’m often the tallest woman in the grocery store, even in the Netherlands, which has the tallest people in the world. I’m often very tall. My husband’s taller than me. Uh, we stick out like sometimes people like take pictures of us.
Traveling in Latin America that happens more, uh, more often, never in Europe, I should say, but in Latin America, yeah, people would take pictures of us. Sometimes kids would come up and, uh, ask for photos. And I think it’s height, but maybe maybe it’s something else. But, um, yeah. I, I definitely don’t feel that traveling as much.
It’s
Astrid: interesting to think about. Do you, do you, uh, because you’re traveling with your husband, do you source community while traveling or you’re more on with the two of you there?
Kayla: We try to make, to, to have social interaction. It’s not super healthy to have no social interaction except your partner. But, um, We’re still figuring it out to be honest.
Sometimes we’ll crave like, you know, like, like the bar environment, you know, like looking for an expat bar that’s having a pub quiz or an event and say, let’s go and do that there, you know, just be around other people. But in Mexico, something funny was like meeting people at the grocery store. Who were also foreigners, uh, well, our Spanish was not good enough to have, like, a social night with the locals, but meeting people in grocery stores who were also travelers.
And we met up quite a bit with some people that we met, like, in line. Buying groceries and they turn around and said, Hey, how’s it going? And you just start talking. So I’m always very open to those interactions. And I really enjoy that. Like, those kind of happenstance social engagements. But I think that’s something that has to change.
Like, one day you wake up and think, I need a girl. Like, I just want to go out to the bar with friends, or I just want to do something. You know, that’s with, just in a different environment than like always you being alone or always you with your partner. I think it’s really natural that that changes rapidly.
Astrid: Yeah, I think finding community, I mean, that makes travel experiences also really rich, right? And you never know who you are going to meet. Bump into literally, uh, while traveling and, um, yeah, it’s really, uh, I think the community aspect is something that people, um, might forget when they just start, like how important that is to kind of find your tribe in that sense.
Um, but I wanted to jump into your profile here because you said, um, yeah, three, you have a three, six, um, profile, which kind of, uh, means that. you learn through experience, right? You learn by, okay, let’s try this. And then you learn from that experience. What are things in your travel process that you really learned?
Kind of like the hard rate, right? Because the profile is called the martyr role model. Um, so basically you martyr yourself with new experiences to learn. the lessons that you need to learn. Um, can you name an example that you learned something the hard way, ,
Kayla: so many examples come to mind.
I would say something like, That I learned very much the hard way was about the benefit of understanding a little bit of the local language.
Whenever I start traveling, I thought, well, as long as I can order food and buy a bus ticket, I’m okay. I’ll know enough, you know, and I’m never I didn’t I’m not. handy with languages. Um, I studied French in high school and university and, uh, it was never something that I ever, I never used it ever. It’s kind of, that was my experience growing up in the US without any exposure to other languages.
So, um, I just never liked it. So I thought, well, I’m not gonna kid myself and say that I can become fluent in Spanish before I go to Mexico. And I learned the bare minimum. And I think that Uh, that a lot of things went wrong. I got a lot of wrong meals, wrong directions. Um, I’m sure I would have had a better experience.
And then I moved to the Netherlands and everyone said, you don’t need to learn Dutch, everyone speaks English, which is pretty true that pretty much everyone does speak English, even the kids on the street will speak to you in English. They’re like quite fluently. It’s really impressive. But I, once you start to be able to read the signs and see, Oh, that’s a pharmacy and these little things.
Like being able to be more aware of your surroundings is such a benefit. Like, I didn’t think I needed to read the signs to like, I don’t need to read every, every sign on the shop to get around and go to get my groceries and, you know, do what I have to do, but it makes life a lot better. And I didn’t learn that for a long time.
I really struggled with Dutch and, uh, um, I struggled with Spanish in the past, but on this recent trip, To Nexco, I was a lot better equipped to handle being immersed in a language I didn’t fully understand, but I wish I had just taken people’s advice and like learned more before, like a little bit more before I went, I would have had a better time.
Astrid: Yeah, I think, you know, you learn as you go, right? And you, you grow as you learn, because that’s, that’s also what’s natural and, um, you can’t know everything, right? I mean, that’s, nobody can know everything. So, um, but yeah, it’s just learning by doing that’s, that’s, that’s who you, that’s written all over you in your charts.
Sometimes you just have to dive deep into, into the world and see whatever comes. Yeah,
Kayla: I always describe that as shaking the tree, like shake the tree and see what falls out. And it might be nothing, but that’s something I like to remind myself, like, I’m like, why am I doing this? And it’s like, you’re shaking the tree.
You’re seeing what this experience like what? Yeah, it’s a good mantra.
Astrid: Great. So you already mentioned that you really like the element of, of water. So there’s a tiny little, um, element to your chart. I mean, the human design system, it’s, it’s indeed quite mechanical, right? I mean, there are so many layers and layers and layers, um, and one of the most hidden layers, but actually really interesting one for travelers is the environment variable.
And you’re, you have a shores environmental, sorry, you have a shores environment. So, um, are you drawn to water? Are you drawn to the beaches or lakes or how, how did you kind of, um, uh, select your travel destinations to be near water? Or when did you first starting to notice that, that you need water in your space?
Kayla: I love water. It’s always calmed me down. I’ve always found it so relaxing and I seek out places, maybe not like natural environments. I was just on the beach for a month in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. So like waking up every day and seeing the water all day while I worked like directly behind my laptop was the ocean and that was just so relaxing and That’s, uh, I felt as soon as we left and went to the next place, I immediately felt that absence of blue and of the sound as well, like hearing it.
And I don’t always. I specifically choose my destination based on that, but if there, I always look to see, is the city, is the center around a river, as many cities are, or even the canals in the Netherlands that are woven through the cities, it’s always a huge perk. And, uh, I would like to dive into that more now that I, I’m curious now because I’ve never really thought much about it.
I’ve always liked water, but I thought not everybody likes water, but this is interesting to learn.
Astrid: Yeah, it’s so, I think it’s such a really cool little element, um, because yeah, some people are really drawn to the mountains or mountain people. You have six variations of that. And it’s really fun to, because you have the freedom to choose, right?
A lot of people don’t have the freedom to, up there life and go to a place with water, whereas you can actually select where you want to be. And I think that’s the freedom that the nomadic lifestyle can give you. And, um, yeah, that’s why I really, really like this little tiny part of, um, of this chart. So one of the things that I also see is you, There’s a lot going on in your head.
I mean, there’s always something happening, right? It’s a lot of, uh, business in your head and often it really helps to use music to calm yourself down. Now, I know that you just wrote a book that you are launching in January. Did you use music to kind of guide you in your writing process,?
Kayla: I listen to a lot of very calming YouTube tracks. It’s like high frequency, uh, monk, uh, you know, you see those like really long YouTube titles. Um, but it’s kind of like the very calming music. I use that to try to condition me to write, um, cause I have a changing environments. I can’t just sit at the same place and write every day, uh, because I’m moving.
But, By kind of developing, like, okay, I sit down, I put in my headphones, I’m listening to this type of music that I only listen to whenever I write, and trying to condition my brain that this is, this, this is the time to perform. And that, I think it helps. Um, I’ve kept doing it since I finished the book, so I think it was a very helpful process.
Astrid: How, how did you start your book writing process or what sparked you in creating, okay, I want to transition from my business and, uh, writing for my business to writing a book?
Kayla: It was a total surprise. I am active on LinkedIn. I share about my travel sometimes and about the kind of work that I do. And one day I was, it was almost a year ago, actually.
Um, I got a message from someone on LinkedIn that said, I work for a publisher. Are you, we, we, Are looking for someone to write a book on digital nomadism. Are you interested? And I didn’t think it was a real offer. I ignored the message for about 3 weeks before I replied because I really wasn’t registering as like a legitimate invitation, but we finally got on a call.
And this was an editor, he said, yeah, I need someone to write this book. Um, I think it’s going to be, I think it’s a, it’s a really popular topic now and we want something on the market. And he offered me a book deal, which was completely out of the blue. And I was nervous because I didn’t, uh, I mean, I didn’t feel, I mean, yes, after 6 years of being abroad and a lot of experience working online, I still didn’t feel like I was, you know, Like the form, you know, like, I’m the expert or anything.
I kind of felt like I needed to to do more before I was ready to write about it. But, um, I didn’t want to say no. I always thought about writing a book. I’m a freelance writer. I just, I was, I thought this opportunity might never come around again. So I said yes. And I started writing the book.
Astrid: Oh wow. So basically it was an invitation that you couldn’t say no to, right?
Kayla: Yeah, whenever the world,
the universe brings you the thing you’ve always wanted, it’s, you can’t say no.
Yeah.
Astrid: And it’s, it’s also about the timing, right? Because, um, yeah, it’s, that’s, that’s how it works with these kind of things. You can’t, you can’t predict this happening, right? No,
Kayla: no, I had no warning and it was quick too. I had to get started within like two months. I had to start writing. Well, he didn’t tell me when I had to start, but, um, my editor said that the due date would be end of June for the whole book.
And he’s pretty much said, do whatever you want. Just, you know, write the whole book, however you want. And, um, I broke it up into five months and then I left them a buffer month in case I, something happened. And I actually got into a bike accident and got a concussion and. April so I did need my buffer month.
So I ended up taking the full six months to write. So that was good timing
Astrid: Did you have any habits that you picked up? From that book writing process that that’s stayed on even though the book is finished now.
Kayla: Um, I feel Habits, maybe not so much. Um, but I am really aware. I think I do work differently now.
I’m aware that I have better, maybe better stamina than I thought and taking breaks. Actually, that’s a habit. That’s been really impactful. I use the Pomodoro timer on Google Chrome. So 25 minutes of work and then a 5 minute break. And I used to always skip the break. If I was in the groove, I’m like, I’m in my flow.
I’m not going to get out of it. And I used to skip it. And I realized that after 2 hours with no break, I took, I crashed. I took, I would take like an hour break. It was way longer than I should have. So forcing myself to always take that 5 minute break, no matter what I’m feeling, and that has made a big impact and like, being able to sustain long work days, because it was a lot of long work days, like 12 hour days writing.
And that’s a big guy. It’s a lot of like mental stamina that I, I wouldn’t have been prepared to do in the past. In the beginning, it was really hard, but I kind of build them up, build the muscle
for it.
Astrid: Nice. When I look at your chart, you have the channel 35-36 and that’s also called the deal of all trades and your book is about, um, your book is called how to build a successful career while traveling the world.
Can you a little elaborate a little bit why you focused on the work elements of being a digital nomads?
Kayla: Um, I wish I
had a nice answer. Uh, it was just my publisher. He said that, uh, this is not a travel book. It’s a career guide for people who want to travel. So it was career 1st travel 2nd and the book is very travel.
Like, I don’t think anyone reading it would say this isn’t a travel guide, but my editor cut out a lot that went deeper into travel. Um, he said, focus on the career elements. And, uh, that was just the element. I guess every book needs to be very specific because there are other books on how to be a digital nomad on the market, but they’re a few years old and they’re travel focused, not career focused.
So this was the opportunity that the publishing house gave me. Saw.
Astrid: But did you have different, um, experiences as a, um, in your, when you started your nomadic journey, did you do different things? You already said that you changed your business a couple of times before you, um, before that, that veered you into this, uh, direction.
Um, do you consider yourself a Jill of all trades in that regard, or? Um, I guess I,
Kayla: I kind of, I, I accept that title. Yeah. I try not to because I feel like it’s, I want to be specialized. Like writing is technically my specialty, but I do so much more in my work. I do a lot of graphic design and a lot of like building systems for clients.
I’m aware that my work is very, it’s not very siloed where I just write. I don’t just write, you know, it’s a lot more, but it’s kind of normal though. I guess I don’t think it’s that unique. Cause I think most business owners are this way. You can’t choose to not, you can, you can say I’m not very good at the administrative side of business, but you can’t choose not to do it.
You know, you’ve got to build your systems, track things in your spreadsheets, uh, file your taxes. You just have your, I think being an entrepreneur forces you into that. And maybe I was inclined, maybe I took to it naturally. I’m not sure, but.
Astrid: I think, yeah, being a business owner means that you have to do everything, right?
I mean, of course you can outsource, but it’s, um, yeah, you need to develop new skills that you would definitely not have developed when you were still working in your nine to five, um, having, having a very different life, of course. Um, I think you, you also, um, You interviewed some guests, right, for your book.
You interviewed some digital nomads. What was something that you learned from that, from that, that you didn’t expect? Oh, how
Kayla: old the movement is. Um, I found the first digital nomads. His name is Stephen K. Roberts, and he became a digital nomad in 1983. Oh, wow. With the first portable computer. It was the first one.
So he already built his own home computer, because if you had a home computer at that point, you were very tech savvy. It was like, you were, I think his own words, he said, you were a huge nerd, if you, and you’d be pretty smart and a big nerd to have a home computer. And his home computer actually lives in the computer, the computer.
Science Museum now. It’s actually like in an exhibit there, as I think it’s considered to be the first personal computer. I could be wrong, but I think that’s the first one. But then in 1983, portable computers came out. The Radio Shack 1000, I think it was, um, it was a radio. So Radio Shack is actually like a, a Like a tech store that’s not even in business anymore.
Like, in the 90s and 2000s, it was still around, but it went out of business somewhere in the 20s. But they released the first personal computer that was actually portable. So he became the first digital nomad. With that, he had a tent and, um, he, instead of having Wi Fi, because Wi Fi didn’t exist, he used, it was called an acoustic coupler, where you took a payphone off the hook and then you put suction cups on the ends of it and then plugged it into your computer and I’m sure I’m not describing this correctly but it kind of like morse coded your text to a fax machine that you dialed and then that printed out your writing and that’s how we did his work for 10 years.
Wow. He lived in a tent. Um, his bike was like solar powered. It had solar panels on the side. It also lives now in the Computer Science Museum. Computer Science History Museum, I think it’s called. So, uh, this movement is so not new. You know, it feels new. People still act like it’s strange, and now I feel very equipped to say.
In fact, it is not new at all. You know, it’s older than a lot of its critics. Like people, uh, Who were born, anyone born after 1983 who still says, Oh, it’s, you can’t really work online or be as productive or build a successful career. I can, I can, we can look those people in the eye and say, this movement is older than you.
Astrid: Wow. That is such a cool story. Is he still traveling nowadays?
Kayla: He is building
out a mobile lab. So he lives on a boat in the U. S. in the Washington state. He lives on a boat with his cat and he’s building a mobile lab, a new mobile lab. Uh, he is as tech oriented as anyone has ever been.
Astrid: So basically he’s the Steve Jobs of the digital nomad movement.
Kayla: Yes! I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And he’s still loving life. And he actually started his whole journey.
He said that he was, he was really arguing, you know, with himself trying to figure out the question, is losing the spark in life? An advent of an inevitability of growing up, like, does it just you just lose that and he set out to build a life entirely out of passions. That was his mission. And it’s incredible.
I think it’s, he’s such a special person. And then whenever you look at the movement now, I mean, he called himself a tech nomad at the time and it’s still, I mean, here we are. I mean, it’s the, I feel like we’re standing on the shoulders of giants, really. Okay.
Astrid: Wow. In your book research, did you find any statistics or numbers that, um, about the digital nomad movement?
Kayla: I actually avoided statistics. And I, I know there are a lot, there’s a lot of research on, you know, how many people consider themselves nomads. nomadic and how I, there was, there’s a lot of research, but I decided to focus on the human elements instead of saying, you know, since, you know, for however many years people have been doing this, I thought, let me introduce readers to Steve and well, you can’t do it with kids.
That’s like a criticism. And I could find statistics that say this many people do it with kids and they’re this percent happier than other kids or something. But I found Rob Palmer, who’s been a digital, who started being a digital nomad with his whole family. in 1999. And, uh, then, now his son grew up as a digital nomad, and now he has his own business and is remote and travels, and he has a daughter.
So that’s the second generation, you know, of people growing up as nomadic kids. So I don’t know, instead of going into the research, I decided to tell the stories of people who lived it. And I knew that the research would date itself very quickly. That was also a concern of mine, wanting for the book to To have that like evergreen element, you know,
Astrid: I think, uh, I think that I really resonate with that.
I think, um, all the statistics are not, um, yeah, you can never pinpoint, um, Accurately. Right. Because, uh, there are so many different terms and so many different variations of who are you defining as digital nomads. So I think, uh, from a statistical point of view, it’s really hard to actually find a number that that’s correct.
We know that the bit net, the movement is growing for sure, but I really resonate with telling the stories behind that because I think. Yeah, the human experience. I mean, that’s what it’s all about. Right. And, um, any other things that you want to say about your book? Did you have any unexpected encounters in that regard, or?
Kayla: I was amazed by how many people became digital nomads by accident. I didn’t see this thing. I want to travel full time and. And that was my well, I guess I became a digital nomad because I felt like life was passing me by and I wanted to travel but most people had a story that was very Organic. Um, someone else I interviewed, they became a digital nomad in 2007 because their partner was offered this amazing job in France and they wanted to go with her.
So, uh, he thought, if I can do this, all my work’s digital anyway, you know, in this very organic, well, if I can work from home, why can’t I work from France? And just figuring it all out as you go. And Um, I was amazed by the stories that people really brought opportunities to themselves. It wasn’t just having fun until the money ran too low or having fun until it’s time to get serious about your career.
Um, people who couldn’t have financial stability, like, um, another couple that I interviewed, they were trying to break into the music industry in 2009 in the U. S. Which was, the recession was at its worst. They had just graduated from university and they could not, they were just getting by. They were like waitressing, trying to make ends meet, trying to get their career started.
And then on New Year’s Eve, somebody broke into their house and stole all their stuff. And they thought, that’s it, we can’t, we need, we need something new. So they moved to China and became English teachers. They didn’t sacrifice stability and money in their careers to make that move.
They gained it all. They gained, they had a higher income, they had more stability, their careers flourished. And there can be more, you just don’t know what’s on the other side of that kind of bridge. I feel like that to me was the big takeaway. People who like got married because they couldn’t have otherwise because of this, you know, they like found this medium to live and what it brought people is just incredible.
It brought people everything. Kids. Family, uh, adventure, career, money, uh, it really, it’s not just travel at the end of the rainbow. It’s everything life can offer you.
Astrid: Wow. That is, uh, very, very beautiful. And, uh, yeah, I think, uh, very interested to read your book, of course. And, um, if you, besides your, your book, uh, you have a business as well.
Um, Where can people find you? What, what do you do with your business?
Kayla: I am a freelance writer and a content marketing manager for businesses. So freelance writing I do for companies, like I’m a freelance writer for GoDaddy and HubSpot. And then I also run people’s content marketing strategy behind the scenes for businesses.
So you can find me online at writingfromnowhere. com. That’s where everything lives. And, um, yeah, if anyone wants to say hi, I would love that. You can send me an email at Kayla at writingfromnowhere. com. If anyone wants to say hi or ask questions or anything, I would
Astrid: love to chat. And I believe you also do a lot with Pinterest, right?
Is that something that you can elaborate a little bit more about what’s, why Pinterest?
Kayla: Pinterest is actually a search engine. So if you have like a website, a lot of people think it’s a social media platform because it feels very social, but it’s actually a search engine where people go in and type in, like, things to do in Amsterdam and they get all the results.
So I used Pinterest. Pinterest to drive traffic to my website. And I just got good at it and people started asking me for help. And then that’s actually how my business became profitable. I was still blogging thinking, gosh, what’s my business model? How am I going to make this work? And then I got a Facebook message where somebody said, can I pay you to run my Pinterest account for me?
And I thought, okay, it was a lot like the book deal. You think I hadn’t considered this, but I need to say yes, because this is like, I’ve been, maybe I’d been manifesting this and I didn’t quite know it. So I started doing Pinterest management and I did that for three or four years. It was a, it was a long time, actually.
I just kind of concluded that part of my business to focus on freelance writing. That was a big part of my journey to, uh, Financial freedom. And
Astrid: you still use Pinterest for your own, uh, channels then of course. Right.
Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. I’m still very active there for my website.
Astrid: Nice. Yeah. So it’s really, um, it’s really good to have this conversation with you.
Um, if, uh, for the last question that I have for you, if question, given that you have interviewed so many cool people in the digital nomad space and, um, Writing the book, living the life yourself for six years. What would be one tip that you would give to people who are just starting out with this or aspiring to become a digital nomad?
Kayla: I would say to start learning now, listen to podcasts, listen to this podcast, to the Location Indie podcast, when they talk about location independence. Listen to anything about travel, just kind of join that space. And, uh, I would say it’s easy to say, Oh, I don’t know. Like, I’m not a part of it. I’m not a traveler yet, but whenever you start to listen to those conversations, and I think it’s important to just like cross that bridge even mentally and say, I am, you know, I am going to do this.
I am going to go abroad or travel, you know, in your own country. I think you just have to kind of. Make it a part of your life, like a part of your mindset instead of like this big thing down the road because it’s easy to Feel like it’s never gonna happen or like it’s too scary to happen So I would say if you are nervous if you’re like not haven’t transitioned yet Join the community that way like start listening.
It feels like you’re meeting new friends. It feels like it all becomes very real
Astrid: Thank you so much for being on the show today Kayla. Yeah, it’s really Good to hear your experiences and, uh, yeah, I’m really excited for what the book will bring you in the future, but also have a lot of fun and traveling the world and, um, yeah, I’m sure we’ll meet somewhere in the world.
So thank you so much. Yes. I hope so.
Kayla: Oh, that was so fun. The question. Yeah. The chart revealed a lot. I, uh, I was surprised by how accurate it was. A lot of the things that you told me were so true about myself.
Like, I love water. You, you, you like broke in like kind of the breakdown of my, my charts you said about water and manifesting. And, um, those were really, uh, Accurate. Thank you Astrid. Thanks.
