re473: Walnut Wisdom: How a Family of Six Chose Slow Travel, Homeschool, and a Life Without Busy

October 16, 2025 00:38:50
re473: Walnut Wisdom: How a Family of Six Chose Slow Travel, Homeschool, and a Life Without Busy
Repossible
re473: Walnut Wisdom: How a Family of Six Chose Slow Travel, Homeschool, and a Life Without Busy

Oct 16 2025 | 00:38:50

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Hosted By

Bradley Charbonneau

Show Notes

Eating walnuts in Albania.
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Episode Transcript

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Okay. And we're live. And Josh, I want you to just repeat. Where are you again? [00:00:08] Speaker B: Yeah, so I'm in Saranda, Albania, in this little Italian restaurant, probably opened up about six months ago. And we're here for indefinitely, maybe 10 months. Eight months. Eight to 10 months. [00:00:22] Speaker A: So I didn't even know that. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Wow. [00:00:24] Speaker A: Okay. [00:00:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:26] Speaker A: Thanks for the introduction. That looks like a cool place. There's, like, cool lighting or something going on in the Italian thing. [00:00:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it's neat. [00:00:34] Speaker A: I love the fact. I'll get into my intro in a second here in a minute, but I just love the fact that you're in Albania. You know, it is just. It's not such a common. Well, it's becoming more common. It's becoming more popular. But I love the fact that you're in this sort of exotic place. And what we're going to talk about today is so exciting and adventurous and exotic and. And you're just living it, so. Hello, everybody. I'm Bradley Charvino. This is the repossible podcast and YouTube channel. And this is the now what? Series we're digging into. The boring way to talk about it is decision making. Right. The, like, exciting, sexy way to talk about it is, like, Venture. And, you know, coming to you live from Albania. Right. Wherever that is. Right. And then, so I want to get into. I want. I'd like you to get into. Give us a little background on your story, where you are, why you're there, how did you get there, and then we'll dig into more detail. But Josh Leets, it's great to. Great to have you. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on and give us a little background about how in the world you got to. What's the name of the town again? [00:01:40] Speaker B: Saranda. Yeah. Yeah. [00:01:44] Speaker A: Okay. I think you're on the coast, right? [00:01:46] Speaker B: We are on the coast. Yeah. It's a little tourist town just across the boot of Italy. You typically fly into Corfu and then you take the ferry over to Albania. Okay. [00:01:58] Speaker A: And you are not just on holiday. You're not for the weekend. [00:02:01] Speaker B: That's right. [00:02:02] Speaker A: You're with your four kids and your wife, and it's, you know. [00:02:06] Speaker B: Hello. [00:02:06] Speaker A: It's October. It's October. They're school. Hello. All right. [00:02:10] Speaker B: That's right. Just regular life. Yeah. Yeah. [00:02:12] Speaker A: What is going on? [00:02:13] Speaker B: Thanks, Bradley. Oh, man. No, I am super grateful and fortunate that this even happened. So we're probably two years in on this whole adventure. I mean, we went back one time to the States, but we're going to be gone another year. Or so. So really this is like a three to four year adventure. It all started with my wife wanting to give the kids more a world view of, of just different countries. And she is more. When you talk about decision making, you're talking about gut or feeling or what you want to do. That's my wife and I just go with the flow. And so I just think about how do we make that happen and so more of the problem solving, financial side of things. Okay. I don't think that's possible. So like let's, yeah, let's figure that out. So that's, that's where it started. [00:03:10] Speaker A: So give the kids. [00:03:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:13] Speaker A: A broader like education of the world or. You just said school of life. Yeah, broader education. You guys are from the United States, you're from Arizona. So they were just in normal school, regular school. [00:03:24] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. We're in a bilingual school. We, lots of activities, dance and taekwondo and life was good. [00:03:32] Speaker A: Okay. [00:03:32] Speaker B: But you know, it's, it's also, I mean even just regular life is expensive. And so it's just trying to, you're, you're making your own boundaries. You're trying to stay off devices. You're trying to make those, those friends with families that are in line with, with how we see either the world or, or growing up and just interacting, just, you know, what is, what does regular life look like? Whether it's the birthday parties and all the stuff on the weekends. Right. It's busy, it's busy. We both don't like busy. And it's really hard to make those boundaries. And so you couple that with how do we make this worldview, bring it to our kids. We know that as they get older, with high school or beyond, either it gets more expensive or you're just not going to have the opportunity to travel with them. And so even when I think of when I was young, I was actually fortunate. My, my grandparents took my brother and I, we traveled to Europe a few times in middle school and high school, whereas my wife didn't have that experience at all. So I, I didn't have the, the fear or the like, what's over there? Like, I, I've been to many, many countries before, so I'm like, let's do it. And so even so, even though my wife was, was trying to push it at the same time, she was still hesitant. Like more fear. Fear, fear based in, you know, is it possible? So, so really the first step, my wife and I did a trip, just us to Spain without the kids. And we just drove to different cities and just, I just, just, it's just, it's, it's nothing unique. I mean, it's neat, right? It's different countries and things like that, but it's not, not outer space. [00:05:20] Speaker A: And how long was that trip? [00:05:23] Speaker B: Yeah, seven or ten days. You know, people are like, yeah, yeah, A holiday. [00:05:28] Speaker A: A holiday, a vacation. [00:05:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. [00:05:30] Speaker A: Okay. So everything up until now, a lot of people have they, oh, busy life, expensive. Especially in the US Right. I don't live in the US anymore either. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:42] Speaker A: Life is hectic and soccer practice and all the stuff. Right. And so. And your wife has a, you know, dream or an idea of, oh, more worldly vision for the kids and not to mention for you guys, the parents. And then so usually, in my humble opinion, usually that's where it stops. It like stays, oh, what a nice dream. [00:06:01] Speaker B: Yay. [00:06:02] Speaker A: Right now, you know, pass the remote and let's watch a different show on Netflix. Right. So in other words, no action is taken. [00:06:11] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [00:06:12] Speaker A: And so what then? Okay, well, you took some action, went to Spain. [00:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:17] Speaker A: A lot of people go on a ten day holiday. [00:06:19] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. [00:06:20] Speaker A: And we're gonna, we're gonna shop for our future life in Spain. Yay. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people can do that. That's pretty easy. [00:06:26] Speaker B: Still. [00:06:26] Speaker A: Pretty easy. So then what was the next step? What, what brought you over that next step from holiday in Spain. [00:06:35] Speaker B: Yep. [00:06:35] Speaker A: To what was the next step? What was the next practical step after that? [00:06:40] Speaker B: Yeah, the next practical step. So when I think of, I feel like there's three things. The job, the house, the cars. How do you. So what do you do? So even we had a loan on one of the cars. And so, hey, I was fortunate enough to be with the company for a long time and had permission to if we wanted to move overseas, that was okay. So that I was fortunate. So I still have my US based job and I still work every day. That's a biggie. Huge. Yeah, that's a real big, big part. The house. We're fortunate to happen to have a house that's in an area in Phoenix that is Airbnb able. I mean, people want to book the house so that, that's, you know, number two. [00:07:25] Speaker A: So you do, you do short term Airbnb like weekends or a week or is it a longer term thing? [00:07:30] Speaker B: You know, it just depends. I mean, oftentimes somebody might book a month. But yeah, we decided, we decided to do the Airbnb route. We also, I mean, I gotta say we have a guest house with the house. So I was managing the guest house myself before we even made this move. And so then I looked for a property manager and I said, hey, why don't you manage the guest house and I can just kind of learn about this relationship before if we make this move. Because we were, we were looking at, okay, what if we just did a long term rental. Right. And just worry about what's nice with the Airbnb model is that, number one, we know it's clean. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:11] Speaker B: The wonder, you know, from the long term rental if it's clean or not. And then number two, we have the ability, if we need to come back, we have a house and there's not a, A big. Yeah. Transition there. So. So we experimented with the property manager on the guest house while we were still in Phoenix, Arizona. And I was able to build that relationship even though right out of. Bite my lip, I'm paying the commission, even though I could do it myself. But I knew that there was a plan coming that was, that was my test. [00:08:39] Speaker A: So like practice, even though you're there, you could manage it yourself. You're kind of practicing. [00:08:44] Speaker B: That's right. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Further away. Okay. [00:08:46] Speaker B: That's right. [00:08:46] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:47] Speaker A: And so, and how long, how long was that period? Is that like a month or a year or 10 years or, you know, roughly. [00:08:56] Speaker B: Yeah. From, from the time that we talked about it through the time we actually moved it, I think it was in six months. So we probably. Yeah, so we probably two to four months is when we just bought the tickets. So from talking about it to testing it, do I, I move pretty quick. Okay, Bradley, when, when that's. That's a right. That's a positive negative. When, when something happens, I can start solving a problem and I just make decisions. And that's never been a problem for me ever on making decisions. But it's, it's getting either the right people on board. Right. So it's the family. My wife. And if that is in line, I have no problem pulling a trigger if the practical stuff gets worked out. [00:09:49] Speaker A: Okay. So people speaking of being like on the same page or. [00:09:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:09:55] Speaker A: How old are your, your kids? You have four kids. How old are, how old were they when you first started? [00:09:59] Speaker B: Yeah, so when we first started, geez. Our, our youngest must have been three. So she's five now. She actually turned six on Monday, so I think it was like three, five, six and eight. And so right now we're at five, five, seven, nine and ten. Eleven. Almost. Yeah. Yeah. [00:10:24] Speaker A: So I guess there's pros and cons. Like when I moved to Europe. My boys were 10 and 12. [00:10:30] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:31] Speaker A: And, and I think that was a little late. It was, it was brutal. It was tough, especially for the 12 year old because he had like his roots ingrained in, you know, California and we like ripped the roots out of the ground. [00:10:43] Speaker B: Right. [00:10:43] Speaker A: And totally that did not, that did not go well. So, although I have to say I don't regret it. It was tough, but for all the reasons that you're experiencing, you know, because that's one reason I think we, we get along so well, is that we have this worldview of living in more than one place or living in different places or, you know, we don't always have to live in the same place our whole lives. [00:11:04] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:04] Speaker A: Exploring. And you guys are doing more than exploring. I mean, most people do the 10 day trip to Spain. Yeah, you are fully. Wow. [00:11:10] Speaker B: Okay. [00:11:11] Speaker A: So you had kids on board, wife on board. [00:11:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:11:14] Speaker A: House is getting, you can figure out the house, rental stuff, car, you'll deal with that. Your job. I mean, these are big things. Like the job is flexible. That's a huge one. Of course. [00:11:23] Speaker B: Huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, so we went through a couple phases of what it would look like. Like so our second time out after a year and a half or two, like we're now here, we're using Albania as our base. Whereas the first time we left, we literally booked. So when we left July 2023, we had a place in Valencia, Spain for six weeks. That's what we booked. That was our plan. And during the time leading up to it, a lot of things that needed to get organized, right, we just booked and we're, it's, it's set so you have to, we're not canceling. And there were times where that should we not go, you know, from different pressures, you know, family or this or that, just unknowns. And I just was head down, we were going. And I remember it wasn't until we were meeting some friends in, in California and then in D.C. we stayed with them because we were going to say goodbye and stuff like that because we didn't know how long we were going to be gone for. It was a one way ticket that we bought and I remember my friend dropped me off in Dulles Airport, D.C. to head to Valencia, Spain. And it. After he left, we got the luggage and now we're in line at the, at the, to check our luggage. And it was at that moment my heart started beating because I was, I was pushing forward for so long, whereas my wife and other people Are feeling all these feelings, and I. I didn't take the time or even think about that in my mind. We got to get to the airport, you know. [00:13:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:07] Speaker B: Months ahead, so. So my heart started beating and I just thought, what am I doing? You know? And it was unknown. Right. I mean, this is the first. The first time is the hardest. It is. It was so. It, man. Yeah. The unknown is hard. And so. Yeah. [00:13:29] Speaker A: All right, so what time of year was that? Was that July? [00:13:32] Speaker B: 2023? This is summer, so. [00:13:35] Speaker A: Okay. So summer. So. Yeah, I'm thinking school and school. [00:13:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Summer school is out. We had summer schools out. Yeah. [00:13:42] Speaker A: But then school's gonna start in whatever, August or September. [00:13:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. [00:13:47] Speaker A: Had you already planned? We're. We're gonna be gone and. [00:13:52] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So the plan was homeschool. Okay. My wife was going to homeschool. We didn't homeschool before. My wife does have an education background and teaching background and things like that, so it wasn't, you know, outside of her skill set, even though we didn't homeschool before. And it just. It's more responsibility than Maybe she would want it. She. She likes doing other things. That's. That's music based. But when we look at. Okay, how do we make this reality? Maybe it's time to sacrifice and. And let's do this. So. [00:14:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So the mindset was. Was homeschool for sure. [00:14:27] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. You know, a little teaser here. I. I talked with you and your wife a bit about your story, and when I wanted to interview you for this, I. I con. I thought about it and I thought, I want to interview separately. So there's a little teaser that we're going to have your wife. I'm gonna have your wife on the show, and. And we're gonna hear your angle. I know, I know people say. You think that's the same story. [00:14:52] Speaker B: No, no. She's going to discount everything. No. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, Totally. Different perspectives. You know, I mean, and so. So, like, my energy and thought. I mean, I work every day, and so my. My mind is on my job, on work, expanding the company, and it's hard. But what's. And so my wife's mind, of course, is on the kids and. [00:15:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:14] Speaker B: And ensuring from an emotional standpoint and activities and just relationships and all of those things. And. And I'm not going to pretend that I. I'm also involved in all of that. It's just. What's nice is it's hard. There's always good. Good and Bad. And so I, I try to keep the us hours still. And so as we're gone, I typically work the 2 or 3pm to throughout the night. And so sure, I miss, I miss the night. Whereas regular schedules, I'm part of activities and dinner and bedtime. Right. Did all that right as, as the kids were born and stuff like that from bath and all that stuff. But what's neat is the time during the day and it's the fun time and it does put more, I have to admit, it puts more responsibility, my wife to do the other stuff and I get the time exploring cities, going to the beach, cafes, culture, museums, all during the day. I'll spend a whole day with the kids and then I go to work. And you know what? Even with all that time, even with that time. So my youngest, I got three boys and youngest is a girl. And my girl will say daddy, you should, why don't you quit your job? Or can you get fired so you don't have to work? So even with all the time I have, it's still not enough. Right. Kids want more time and yeah, it is, it's important, it's precious to have to have that time with your kids. So. [00:16:50] Speaker A: But if you, if you think about it, so you say you go to work at like 2 or 3, right? [00:16:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:16:55] Speaker A: So I mean they're young kids, they probably get up super early. Right. They're not lazy teenage boys like my bums. I mean my boys. [00:17:02] Speaker B: Yeah, no, 5:30 they're up. Okay. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Right. So you've got a solid chunk of like morning and lunch and. [00:17:08] Speaker B: That's Right. [00:17:09] Speaker A: I would, I would guess that you have more time with your kids, with your current schedule than in a regular, you know, nine to three US School timing schedule. [00:17:19] Speaker B: Right, The US schedule. I. In order for me to be productive and I mean, hey, it's hard to have a family and to have the capacity to be a parent. And so I would get up at 4:30 or so, I do my workout, I have my morning and when I wasn't doing that and trying to wake up with the kids, you just can't survive for the day to function. And so you have your morning, then either you rush off to school or whatever when they start getting up and then they're gone. And when they come back, you're busy with traffic and activities and then dinner and then you have the bedtime. And the bedtime is a sweet time. Whereas when that schedule's flipped, there's no rushing and it's like just this. Enjoying slow Non busy day. And so it's like, okay, what are we missing out? And we incorporate different things and stuff like that, but man, it just, everything slows down and wow, that's, that's, that's what we love. And so when we first went out, we switched countries every month or six weeks or so. So we did about 20 countries and we did a couple road trips in between the first time out. And so now we're coming out to, we're here in Albania, we're using as a base, so we'll go out and we did a road trip to the Black Sea and, and went through Bulgaria, Romania. We even came back, we even came back to Kosovo. And never in my life I would have said I would have taken my family to Kosovo. And yeah, it was pretty, pretty amazing. Whereas, you know, if you're going to take a holiday, you're not going to choose those countries. And when you see the communist apartment building structures and you think about history, it really opens your mind to what that life was like. And so, and sure, we talk about it and try to teach the kids and things like that, but how much impact is it right at this moment? I don't know. But you know, five, ten years from now, when you look back or when they look back, they'll be able to pull from that. And that's, that's pretty powerful. [00:19:26] Speaker A: Wow. So you're outside of Schengen, right? [00:19:29] Speaker B: We are right now. Right? That's right now when we go into Schengen. Right. It counts the days. We can get into the, the Schengen Shuffle for sure. [00:19:36] Speaker A: Right, right. Because, because I'm sure people who are watching are thinking about like, how do you do that with visas or you know, you're renting an apartment in Albania. How in the world do you do that? [00:19:46] Speaker B: And hey, if you, I can get into the days if you want real quick. [00:19:49] Speaker A: Okay, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A couple details. Be fun. [00:19:52] Speaker B: So here's a couple of details. If you're a US Citizen, Albania gives you a year. Okay. Albania gives you a year. Yeah. Now, now there's, there's, there's. If you're a tax resident, the typical days in a country is 183. You exceed 183, you become a tax resident. So a US citizen in London only gives you, gives you six months. That's 180. You're not even a tax resident at 180. In you mentioned Schengen. So Europe, EU Schengen gives you 90 days. So you can't even become a tax Resident. So most countries can't even become a tax resident in the first place. Albania gives you a year. So here's a little. This is not a loophole or things like that. It's, it's totally. You can research it. So I know this is online and stuff, but Albania's law is a calendar year and you become a tax resident after 183. There is some question like, do they really want you to send the information that your tax and stuff like that. Whatever. There's, there's gray area there. But if you straddle the year. So even though we booked 10 months, it's not 183 within the same calendar tax year. So from a tax perspective, we'll, we'll never exceed 183 in either year. [00:21:13] Speaker A: Either calendar year. [00:21:14] Speaker B: Either calendar year. [00:21:16] Speaker A: I see. Oh, because it's October and you've been there since August. September. [00:21:21] Speaker B: Yeah, we came end of August. Yeah, we did. We did France and Belgium in Antwerp. Okay. But. Yeah, go ahead. So. Yeah, go ahead. So there's, there's really two parts. There's the tax, okay, tax resident, and then there's a, then there's a tax home and that gets, that gets really dicey with. In the US there's what's called the FEIE tax form. You can exclude income, and that's another topic. Okay. [00:21:50] Speaker A: But the tax resident, because sometimes it would be advantageous to, to be a tax resident of a certain country. But you're saying for Albania you don't want to be or it's not beneficial. [00:22:01] Speaker B: So. So my income is US Based. I'm not allowed to have Albanian clients. Right. And so that's one of the things, you know, you have people that, when they say they're a digital nomad or things like that, oftentimes they have their own business and they're even selling online and they could make money from people in the country that they're in. Well, even in the country they're in. And that's where it gets sticky. I'm a regular W2. I'm not like an entrepreneur. And you have these digital nomad entrepreneurs. I'm a regular W2 at a regular company. Nothing's changed. Some companies, right, they change your income because now you're living in a place that's lower, you know, cost living costs. Right, right. Fortunate. My company, they're not changing any type of, you know, income base. So. Yeah, so. So it's better for me to not be a tax resident because it's just US Based income. I'm Adhering to all the laws and things like that. And I, I don't notice having any job or making any money within the country from. Yeah, from that. [00:23:12] Speaker A: Right. And you're probably on that visa. Tell me if I'm wrong, but you probably cannot work. You can't go work at the cafe where you are right now. [00:23:20] Speaker B: Correct? Correct. [00:23:21] Speaker A: Okay. [00:23:21] Speaker B: And there are some tourist visas. People get so caught up in visas and things like that. And you don't need a visa if you, if now again, depending what citizen you are. But if you're a U. S. Citizen, you don't need a visa if you go to the UK Or Schengen or Europe or Albania, you don't need a visa if you adhere to those laws in those days. Sometimes in customs they'll ask you how long do you intend? And stuff like that. And so what I've learned is there was one time I'm trying to think what country it was, but we didn't have the second flight booked. It was really frustrating because wanted us to have that flight book. So we booked a flight and then they'd even look at it and they let us go. And so what I'm going to suggest, and it's not lying, it's just you don't. You just say your intentions. All they care about is not. Is they want to make sure that people aren't staying longer than they. Than they say because that's what gets, you know, that's tricky if you're really trying to play the system and stay longer. I don't, I'm not advocating any of that. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Right. [00:24:27] Speaker B: But to get past customs and things like that, you just say what you're, you know, you have what you're doing and it's a, it's a non issue. It's a non issue. People get caught up on that. And then, you know, Bradley, people get caught up in school. They're like, oh, you take your kids out of school. Well, it doesn't. From kinder to 12th grade. It doesn't matter what your kids do for school. When you think about it, it's only the SATs and eight acts if you're going to prep your kids and things like that. Now, when you're in other parts of the world, there's countries that it's illegal to homeschool and you won't see kids on the streets and stuff like that. And so they might look at you kind of funny. Aren't your kids supposed to be in school? But the majority of the time, the people just love seeing Families walk and the kids and they, they pinch their cheeks. We're on the bus in Albania and these, you know, older women like grab our kids and they're like freaking out, but they just want to have them sit on their lap and stuff like that. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, but it's, it's fun. So anyways. Okay, that's enough technical stuff. If there's another question you have. Yeah. [00:25:30] Speaker A: You know, I mean, I think it's just, I think the answer is sort of. It's so cliche. But where there's a will, there's a way. You wanna, you're gonna figure it out. It's gonna figure it out. You wanna. That was like for me with my whole now what? Idea. [00:25:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:45] Speaker A: And I talk about again, the boring topic of decision making. I think like, there's this point of no return where at some point, and you said it, you said, we're going, we're going. [00:25:56] Speaker B: So here's what. It's hard. It is hard. When I look at families that sell everything. [00:26:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:02] Speaker B: They don't have a job and they just go for it. [00:26:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:05] Speaker B: I can't say I would do that. I'm sorry, that's not me. I have the luxury of my US based job, the 401k. Everything is as if we were in the States. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:19] Speaker B: Okay. So that's, that's nice. That's nice. I think, I think when people unplug and they, they do that other route that I think people think that we're doing, that's even that. I don't know if I would be able to get on board with that. Because when you talk about now what, not that when it, when it comes to purpose and things like that. I love my job. I, I, I've been doing the same thing for 20 years. I put my heart and soul in it. That's what really moves me. And, and when I think of purpose and where I'm spending my energy and time, I get to enjoy this travel and my family and time. And then I have this wonderful wife that's, that's spending all the time, you know, loving and researching and teaching and managing really. The, the captain of the ship, if you will. [00:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you said, you know, you, you love your job. Like people talk about speaking of visas and moving to other countries and stuff, there's a lot of people who go retire somewhere else. Right? [00:27:25] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. [00:27:26] Speaker A: Like, especially Americans, they like to go to Portugal and Spain or whatever. And Italy. Yeah. Like me. [00:27:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:34] Speaker A: Like I, you're Gonna have to drag me kicking and screaming into quote, unquote, retirement. Right? I love what I do. I love work, I love creating. I love books and doing this. I love doing this. Right. And because maybe. Maybe I have a bias for your retirement, but retirement is like, I don't know, you play golf and you have tea or. I don't even know what the hell it is, but it's. It's not what I want. I don't want that. [00:27:59] Speaker B: Right. My grandparents did that. And it's hard to, you know, they grew up maybe, you know, they grew up in a different generation and poor. And so my grandparents. He never took a day off of work. He worked so hard to provide for his family and did an amazing job and then unplugged, retired early, and then took his family traveling the world and, oh, wow, he played golf and then he did, you know, world trips. And so he benefited from that. But when I look at that life missing out on the growing up time because of how he grew up before and so ensuring there's a financial stability there and then enjoying the second part and having the pension and things like that, you know, that was a way of life for that time. But I agree, there's got to be a way to balance it and live both. You got to be able to do both when if you miss out on that first part, you're missing out on so much. And I don't want to just wait until I'm older to suppose, you know, try to enjoy. [00:29:02] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Right. Wow. Wow. Wow. [00:29:07] Speaker B: So. Okay. Yeah, go for it. What else? [00:29:10] Speaker A: No, no, it's just. I feel like we can just talk for hours. [00:29:12] Speaker B: I know, I know. [00:29:13] Speaker A: There's so much, right? There's so much. But. All right, I'm gonna. I'm gonna wrap this up because I'm also now I'm even more curious to talk with your wife. That's gonna be great. [00:29:22] Speaker B: I know, I know. [00:29:23] Speaker A: Because we're gonna have people like, what? They're in the same family. [00:29:26] Speaker B: What? [00:29:27] Speaker A: Because I bet you're gonna have different opinions on stuff. Like, different. I'm so. I can't wait to talk with her. So. All right, I wanna. I wanna ask, like, of the. It's like 20 plus countries. Was that just the first round and now. [00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, when I say 20 plus, there's like eight countries that we hit, like in a week because we. Instead of flying or a boat, we. We did a drive and then we stayed a couple days. So we came from. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if it was Spain to Montenegro, for example. Right. We, we did it a little bit different. So we hit eight countries, but we, we did everything from, from London and Spain and France and Portugal and Crete and Cyprus and Montenegro. And I don't know, it just, those were those countries I just listed. We stayed more than a month, two months. And it just was, yeah, it was really neat. And so when you're able to stay that long, you're, you're not, you're not necessarily vacationing, right. You're buying groceries, you're using public transportation, you're investing in that community. You're meeting, seeing the same people. We see the same bakeries that we go to. And what's so great is that these cities that we choose, we choose off season cities. We need walkability, we need markets that are what, walkable. We have kids and we're, we're cooking. Right. So we got to look at all of those things. And in these cities it's, it's sustainable to go and buy your bread every day or buy your coffee or $1 or €1 or whatever it is. Coffee. You're not spending six or eight, you know, on a coffee. So when you go out, you go out every day, but you're not dropping a hundred, you know, every single day. Right? [00:31:14] Speaker A: Right. [00:31:15] Speaker B: So the stress of going, of the stress is gone. When we say, hey, let's go out and go hit the bakery, I'm not thinking about, oh my gosh, this is, you know, what are we going to. [00:31:26] Speaker A: Spend huge trip, right? [00:31:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And so we see, we try to find this, we experiment a little bit, then we find what we like and then we get to know the restaurant owners and they see the kids and then we learn a few phrases in the language that we're, we're in. So we have a little bit of Greek and Montenegrin and you know, French that we try to use. And, and it's fun, right? It's, it's fun. It's not like I feel like oftentimes you go on vacation and then there's this, you're trying to say something and they're frustrated with you because you're the tourist, you know, and there's this, like, there's like this rub, you know, we're not in a rush. Like, you know, you go on vacation, I got to hit like eight things today, right? Because we leave tomorrow or whatever it is, right. And so we'll go someplace and sit down. I don't know, we'll sit for an hour. It doesn't matter. And we play cards. We picked up different games and things like that. And it's just, we're enjoying the culture of what, how people live every day, you know? You know, I have so many great stories, but like, here's one that just, just came to me. And this was Albania. Probably the first time or so. You know, one of my kids souls were coming off and I needed to fix the shoe. And so we're walking Albania and I actually had the kids that time. I'm trying to think. My wife. It was just me and the kids. And so I find this little shoe place and he's. He can fix the shoe. And you know, we're talking this, these stores. When you, these storefronts, when you walk these cities, it's amazing how small some of these storefronts are and what they can fit in there. I mean, you look in there and there's just like so many things. But I mean, we're talking a closet and, and that's a business. Right. And so the guy has some walnuts like just on the side. And so he had a walnut cracker. He's fixing the shoe. We're sitting on the sidewalk cracking walnuts as we wait the shoe to be fixed. I mean, we don't get that in Phoenix. Okay. And so, so when we were in, when we were in Wales, I, I bought a walnut cracker. And that is one of my favorite things to carry a walnut cracker with me because it symbolizes the time to crack walnuts. [00:33:44] Speaker A: Wow. [00:33:45] Speaker B: So. [00:33:45] Speaker A: And, and to not be stressed and to hang out. That's right. The shoe shop, which is as big as a closet. Take your time. And that's right. Wow. [00:33:56] Speaker B: Wow. [00:33:56] Speaker A: Okay. So I was going to ask you for a story. You just gave this one. Oh, I love it. I love it. [00:34:01] Speaker B: So great. [00:34:02] Speaker A: And you know what's, you know what's fantastic about your story? Because this is typical, like tourist versus, you know, longer term traveler adventure. Right? Like the tourist was like, well, yeah, we had. I always make fun of the candlelight dinner with the red wine on top of the Champs Elysees in Paris. And yeah, the sun is going down, fireworks, and it's all fantastic. And it costs a zillion dollars. And you're like. We had, we were cracking walnuts outside of this shoe store while he. [00:34:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it was, yeah, 500 lek, which is like five bucks, six bucks, you know, to, to prepare the soul. And we got free walnuts. Okay. I mean, come on. [00:34:42] Speaker A: That's great. [00:34:43] Speaker B: I don't know. Maybe I Gave him like, ten, a thousand, you know, Lek. I'm like, I just. Thank you. But yeah. [00:34:49] Speaker A: So, you know, there's a. There's a big word. I. Sometimes I get really sort of infatuated almost with certain words. Like. And one word is expectations. Right. So if your expectation is red wine, sunset, beach view. [00:35:05] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:05] Speaker A: Hotel, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, then you're setting yourself up for disappointment, right? [00:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:11] Speaker A: But it sounds like you're out walking. You got to fix the sole on the shoe. And if that can be your adventure, if you can get some enjoyment out of that and talk about. And we got free walnuts, right? [00:35:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:24] Speaker A: Like, then your life is good. Then you're. You know, they talk about, like, wealth and like. Like health is wealth, but also, like, this, for me is a. You. You are living an abundant life. You are living a wealthy life. Because if you can smile and laugh and joke about the walnuts at the shoe shop, I mean, that is. I mean, you got it made, right? That's. [00:35:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:46] Speaker A: I think that's the secret. [00:35:48] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, it's great. And the time. I'll just also leave it with. When you interact with people that in these cities that we're in, right. They're either living next door to their business, and you look around and this is what they're doing every day, like, they are satisfied with. It's just. You're enjoying just each day. The whole hustle and bustle is not part of that culture. Nothing wrong with it. And, you know, who knows? We'll be back and stuff like that. But if there's a time to just disconnect and enjoy and you can see a different kind of life and think of. This is actually just a sustainable way of life, and it's okay. And you see these happy people that don't have the hustle and bustle, and, man, it's. It's. It's great. It's great for the soul. It's great. Great for the kids. And we get. We get to be. I don't know, something. I can go into lots of things on different skills that they're learning. Like, the time that they have to. You know, they. They say that boredom is the beginning of creativity. Letting your kids be bored. And from Rubik's Cube to origami to magic stuff to. I mean, there's so many things. I mean, I was in. Here's another quick story. I'm on the rocks in Cyprus, and my oldest has this little, you know, satchel, I think they call it. They Buy different. Different bags and stuff like that. And he pulls out, like, a needle and thread or whatever. He's, like, knitting something. I'm like, I guess, you know, my wife showed him that. But it's just. You look at that. And. I don't know, he was nine at the time, and he's just knitting on the rocks in Cyprus. And you can talk about the skills, right, for your fingers and things like that, for writing and the different things that you talk about and that can not get so caught up in, like, knitting, like, you think of, well, I'm not going to have my kids knit or, I don't know, whatever. Right. There's. There's. [00:37:52] Speaker A: Right. Right. [00:37:53] Speaker B: There's always the next competitive thing. And so it just. It was great. So anyways. [00:37:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. He's just doing. He's just doing what he's doing. He's just doing a thing. It's not to get the trophy or to win the prize or. He's just knitting a thing. He's doing a thing. Wow. [00:38:13] Speaker B: So. [00:38:13] Speaker A: All right, Josh. Wow. [00:38:15] Speaker B: Bradley, thanks. Yeah. Thank you for the time. This is fun. [00:38:18] Speaker A: Yeah. But it's also. It's just like, wow, we could do. I could literally talk for hours because you just. It's so cool, all what you're doing, and why don't we just plan on catching up again in some months and we'll see how you're doing down there in Albania and that'd be fun. [00:38:32] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:38:34] Speaker A: And I'm going to get your wife on here and we're going to hear the other side of the story. [00:38:36] Speaker B: I can't wait. Yeah. [00:38:40] Speaker A: Okay, Josh. [00:38:41] Speaker B: Okay, good. [00:38:42] Speaker A: Thanks so much for your time and thanks for doing this, and thanks for telling us your story. [00:38:46] Speaker B: Awesome. You're welcome. Thanks, Bradley.

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