Inside the Real Bangkok, Thailand with Erick Prince, The Minority Nomad (Part 1)

Sneak Peek:

Erick:    00:00:00    Capturing those little moments is therapeutic because it reminds me why I, I keep living, why I keep pushing, why I was, you know, chosen to survive Everything that I've survived. And I find it's my responsibility to be able to share this life, this planet, these experiences with the world. Because there's so many people who are legitimately stuck wherever they are in the world. They cannot get out. And if they come across my voice or my photographs or my writing, maybe that could be the thing that helps 'em get to tomorrow. My biggest goal is to be the brightest part of somebody's day.  

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

SafetyWing

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Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:02:13    Hi everyone, Kristin Wilson from Traveling with Kristin here, and welcome to episode 107 of Badass Digital Nomads with Erick Prince, The Minority Nomad. I first came across Erick a few years ago, thanks to the YouTube algorithm that served me a video that he made about what he doesn't like about being a digital nomad. And I actually avoided clicking on it for a long time because it seemed a bit clickbaity. But when I finally gave in and clicked, Eric totally delivered on the title. What he said really resonated with me and I really connected with him, and I've been following him online ever since. And he had no idea who I was, but I eventually tracked him down and convinced him to come on the podcast. It's been a long time in the works, but it is well worth it. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio. Erick is an extremely talented self-taught photographer and photojournalist, but he's also a serial entrepreneur.  

Kristin:    00:03:22    He has a marketing company. He does work for massive brands. He has another company that's undisclosed and he's just a badass. He's also an extremely experienced world traveler who first traveled the world in the US military before he dropped out and decided to travel on his own terms and do his own thing. And he's been to almost a hundred countries so far, and he's also on a lifelong mission to become one of the first African-Americans to visit every country in the world. He's such an interesting person. And in this interview, Erick sits down with us from his long-term adopted home in Bangkok, Thailand, and he does not hold back. He gives us an insider look into the expat lifestyle there and actually the local lifestyle and how to actually integrate into your community as a foreigner in a real way. Like really become a part of the place that you move to.  

Kristin:    00:04:29    We cover a lot of ground in this interview, so I don't wanna give anything away, but it's raw, it's unfiltered, it includes a lot of profanity. It's like when you meet someone and you just hit it off and you're talking for hours, or you go to dinner with a friend that you haven't seen in a few years and you're catching up on things. I feel like I could have talked to him for four hours, actually. So, because this was a two hour interview, I decided to split it up into two episodes. Part one today focuses more on how he ended up in Bangkok to begin with his upbringing in Cleveland as the oldest of 10 kids, and how stumbling upon a few old issues of National Geographic sparked his desire to travel. We also talk about how his serving in the US military changed his global perspective. And then next week in part two, we're talking more about travel, travel tips, travel stories, fitting in in the world, and finding your place and finding your community abroad. I hope you enjoy this episode with Erick Prince, one of the most badass people I've ever met on the internet. <laugh>, and see you all again next week.  

Podcast Interview:

Kristin:    00:05:52    Erick, Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads podcast. You are the epitome of a badass digital nomad, so I am so excited to have you on the show today. Welcome.  

Erick:     00:06:02    Oh, thank you so much for having me. I apologize it took so long for the, what were you talking like three months trying to get this together <laugh>, like it was a long one. 

Kristin:    00:06:11    I  know it's tough with the Thailand right time zone in the East Coast time zone, but it always works out in the end. And yeah, to give us a bit of context as to, uh, where you are right now. So this is where, where are we? April of 2021.

Erick:   Yep.

Kristin:  What's your situation over there?  

Erick:     00:06:27    I am, uh, currently living in my home of Bangkok, Thailand. I've been here, I've been back since March of last year. And you know, obviously Covid, you know, locked everybody down. I never went anywhere else. Bangkok is my home, so this is where I live. It, it is interesting, like when people talk about me being location independent, I'm like, I'm, I'm not really. I live in Bangkok. I've lived here seven years. I just happened to be a travel journalist and I'm always on the road. So everybody thinks that I'm living in all these different places around the world when I'm actually not. My bed is in Bangkok, Thailand. And so when Covid happened, everybody, I thought I was stuck in Thailand. Like, no, no. I chose to, this is my home. I chose to be here.  

Kristin:    00:07:09    You were gonna be there anyway.  

Erick:    00:07:10    I was gonna be here anyway.  

Kristin:    00:07:11    <laugh>, you just haven't been traveling abroad for work, I guess. 

Erick:    00:07:14    Right? Right, right. Yeah, it was, uh, I, and I won't be traveling anytime soon either. Um, I took the rest of this year off, but, and we'll probably talk about that later.  

Kristin:    00:07:22    Yeah. And, and then Thailand has reopened for this long-term, Thai visa months ago, but have people been using it? Have you seen any new expats?  

Erick:     00:07:32    Not really. Like one of the frustrating things about Thailand, um, I love living here and they don't like people bad mouthing 'em, especially when you have an audience like mine. So I kind of keep my mouth sealed. And Thailand, last year, Thailand did a very, very good job, uh, with Covid reaction. I mean, it was the best in the world for Covid reaction. And then money stop stops like flowing. So coming 2021, hard choices have to be made. And a lot of those hard choices have led to spikes in Covid and all those plans that they had before to open up the borders. Those didn't happen because not only has Covid returned in Thailand, but it's spiking at insane rates around the world. A lot of programs that you hear about right now, those aren't going to happen. You do have some people coming back.  

Erick:     00:08:21    The thing about Thailand right now is if you're willing to do the 15 day quarantine, 14 day quarantine, you can come no problem, just like any other tourist. Uh, but a lot of people aren't willing to put in that that 15 days sitting in a hotel room and you have to pay for it as well. So that's an extra 1500 to 2000 plus on your trip right there. Then that's time just sitting in a hotel room. You know, a lot of people don't wanna do that. But now they came out with a new proposal. Actually, it is in effect right now, it's April 9th. It was, um, April, beginning of April it started where if you have the vaccine, uh, you can do this whole pouquette thing without a quarantine. But then Covid came back and now we're back on lockdown as of today. So it is just chaos. It's just ever since the borders have been open, it's been chaos here.  

Kristin:    00:09:09    So we were saying before we started recording that it's Friday night, you're gonna go out and meet some friends, and then more lockdowns are starting tomorrow. Yeah. So what is open tonight then?  

Erick:    00:09:21    All the bars, uh, well, not all the bars, some of the, uh, bars voluntarily closed. So this is a quick story. This is what happened. We have a, oh man, I should not be saying this folks, this is gonna get me in trouble. Um, you know what? I don't care. So there's levels of society here in Thailand, right? And it's the same anywhere else in the world. So I am, I belong to what will be called high society, right? Most expats belong to high society. You show up if you're middle class, upper middle class, you are wealthy by Thai standards. So we can do anything we want, pretty much. It really is no restrictions to us living here. So there are certain clubs here that older rich gentlemen frequent, and a lot of these rich gentlemen are married in government jobs and police force, et cetera, et cetera.  

Erick:     00:10:12    Those places had a huge spike of covid this past weekend. It was, I wanna say there was 11 of them around the city, all in the same three areas.  So we had a very big festival in Phuket, the first music festival of the year. It was amazing. But somebody who contracted Covid at one of these clubs went to the festival, and then they went back to Bangkok and they were caught up in the whole testing of those clubs. And it turned out, yes, they had covid and then it just went wild from there. It just rapidly spread all over the city, all over the country. So the government decided to lock down 41 provinces and close all clubs and bars. Limited alcohol cells and restaurants. And it's, this has worked. This is, this will be our third time. The first time was the original lockdown everybody did last year. The second lockdown was for one month, uh, in January. And then this is gonna be our third one for two weeks. And you know, honestly, it's not like lockdowns that you guys have in like in in the western countries in Europe or the US or whatever. Our lockdowns are really just establishments, specific establishments, massage parlors, nightclubs, bars, and sometimes restaurants that that's the first way it was restaurant. But this way, that's about to happen. The only thing that's closing are clubs and bars. That's it.  

Kristin:    00:11:33    Okay. So are the markets open? Yeah,  

Erick:    00:11:35    They're all open. They never closed. Okay. But the issue is a lot of restaurants rely on alcohol cells to stay open everywhere in the world. So you take away alcohol sales, there's no reason to keep the doors open so they close, uh, small ballers

Kristin:    00:11:47   Yeah. That's where all the profit comes from.  

Erick:    00:11:49    Exactly. That's the profit. And know, uh, Bangkok's not as cheap of a city as people think it is. It's an international city. So a lot of these places have shut down. Some of the best restaurants in the world are here, and they have to close because of Covid, because of these lockdowns and closures. So, and I work very closely with f and b here, and a lot of us are looking at tonight as our, like the last hurrah for a lot of these places we love because we don't think a lot are gonna make it. Um, because shoot, they say two weeks, it's gonna at least be a month. It's just always the way it is there.  

Kristin:    00:12:21    That's so sad. All these local businesses going on a business. I heard on another podcast that you were friends with some Michelin star chefs in Bangkok, and I'm a huge fan of all those, like, cooking shows on Netflix and Chef's Table. Yeah. Specifically I saw an episode about a chef in Thailand there. Do you know who I'm talking about?

Erick:  It is Gaghan

Kristin: Probably. Yeah. Are you friends with him? 

Erick:    00:12:44    Yeah.  Yeah. You know, you know the funny thing about those shows, and I've been here a lot, I was like, I'm old. I'm a OG here. Like, like Chef Tone and all the, like, these are close personal-- Jared Risley, like bola, like these are all friends. We've been friends before Michelin even showed up. So now that everybody is like Mic, they're Michelin chefs now, they haven't changed. They're the same amazing people as they've always been. I think those of us who've been here this long, it, we're blessed to be able to have these relationships in the city. And that, you know, when you come here, I can introduce you to Chef Home or take you over to see J Phi and give her a hug. You know, like it's, yeah. It's just an absolute blessing to be here. It's brilliant. You, you wait till you get back. It's amazing. <laugh>.  

Kristin:    00:13:36    So I love Bangkok, but the last time I was there I was with my friend who works for, she was actually taking a job with Google and it was kind of her last hurrah before she went to go work with Google. So she was on a work trip to the Philippines. And you know, being location independent, I just met her over there in Manila. And then we ended up exploring Thailand. And we loved Bangkok, but neither of us had ever been there. And so it was kind of like, I don't know, I think when you travel by yourself it's different. But traveling with her, we kind of stuck together. And then when she went back to the US I just continued on exploring like the whole country, um, by myself, but I didn't have any local connections in Bangkok at the time. And then I just kind of went with like, no itinerary or anything. So I'll be really excited now that I have so many remote friends that live in Thailand. I'm really looking forward to going back and seeing a different side of it. Yeah. And you have been to, is it almost a hundred countries now?   

Erick:    00:14:36   Yeah, 95. 95.  

Kristin:    00:14:38    95 countries. Why Thailand? Because I lived in Costa Rica for eight years, so I know what it's like to get to a country where it feels like home. And then you stay <laugh>. So after going to so many places, what was it that attracted you to Bangkok? Or was it this kind of just invisible force that resonated with you?  

Erick:    00:15:03    You know, I think it's a combination of everything. Um, I, you know, I was in the military for 10 and a half years and it, it, I was blessed to travel around the world. Wanderlust wasn't a thing for me. Everybody talks about wanderlust, but it's not wanderlust. It's my life, my way of life. It's just the way it is. It's not something I've always looked at wanderlust as this thing that you seek, like this inspiration that just pulls you and this wanting of a far off land. For me, it was never that, like I've been traveling since I was 17, so the world is part of me. So living abroad has always been an important part of my identity. It's just what makes me comfortable. The issue always was finding a place in the world that I was comfortable in general, where the things that I love and enjoy are accessible.  

Erick:    00:15:52    There's no place in the world like that outside of Bangkok. None. There is not one place in the world that offers as many things that I enjoy as Bangkok, Thailand, the quality of life is so high. It's difficult to describe it to people, how high your quality of life is here. Especially when you don't adhere to certain Western perspectives of how life should be lived and how, you know, relationships should exist, how money should be allocated, how infrastructure should work. I just take things the way they are here in Thailand. This is the way things are. I'm, I'm Mable that way. Alright, cool. I like it here. <laugh>. Like, this is a great place to be. So, you know, back to what you said earlier, there was this force, every time I landed at Suvarnabhumi airport, I felt like I was home. Every time I smelled durian, I got excited.  

Erick:    00:16:44    <laugh> or I saw an orchid, I knew exactly where that orchid was from. It's just certain things, like when, when people say anything stupid about Thailand, I would get internally upset like it was my home. So it was, it was always this thing. Thailand is a place that will welcome anyone if you allow it to. I know a lot of people who don't like Bangkok, for example, because they don't understand it, how it moves. It's the same. Bangkok is only comparable to New York City. The exact same things that people say about New York City. It's the same thing that you'll say about Bangkok, Thailand. It's like either you love or hate it, that's it. And the, the, the locals are a special breed, especially when you spend time amongst them and you see how they think because it's entirely different than anywhere else in the world.  

Kristin:    00:17:33    Yeah. You gotta kind of go there to experience it. But the quality of life is super high. The food is amazing, the cost of living is low. Yeah. The city has this very dynamic energy that has, you know, it comes across in movies and things like that too. But then, yeah, there's also this kind of Je ne sais quoi that happens when you find your place in the world. That is kind of inexplicable. It like defies logic in words. And actually both you and I think that Lisbon is overrated. Oh God. But there's places that on paper are really good, or you think that you're gonna really love and then you get there and you're like, this is not what it's cracked up to be.  

Erick:    00:18:14    Yep. Paris. Paris to me. 

Kristin:    00:18:16     See? And then there's also subjective, like, I avoided Paris for years, probably a decade because I thought it's gonna be so cliche and overrated. And I completely surprisingly fell in love with it. And then there's places that I wasn't excited about going to, like the Balkans that I ended up really loving for some odd reason. And then you hate the Balkans <laugh>. So it's like, um, everyone, there's some places that we probably agree, like, this place is overrated, this place is amazing. And then there's other places that people disagree about. But that is the beauty of being able to choose. Absolutely. And you said on another podcast, I don't believe most people are born where they belong. Exactly. And so is that related? 

Erick:    00:18:59   Well, It's a gift. This lifestyle, you're gonna notice, I, I call being a digital nomad a lifestyle because I think we have to change this narrative that being a digital nomad is a job. It's a thing to us. Like no, it's a lifestyle.  

Kristin:    00:19:11    I call it a mindset. 

Erick:    00:19:13    Yeah.  Oh God, yes. You know, definitely a mindset. This entire thing that we do is a blessing, not because it's that difficult of a lifestyle. I do not believe being a digital nomad is a difficult thing to do. Right. Once you set your mind to it and you start putting things into motion, it's not a difficult thing. I think the hardest part about this lifestyle is gaining away from the programming, this sedimentary programming that we have in a lot of cultures where you have to stay within the same little bubble that you were raised in, where everybody looks the same, everybody thinks the same, everybody goes to the same school. You get a job nine to five, you spend it in 30 years doing the same job, and that's your entire life. And it's like most people, we, we are a nomadic creature. Human beings. We have, we, we are some of the most creative, adventurous animals ever created.  

Erick:    00:20:05    And we waste it our entire lives. We wasted. And it's like the more that I traveled the world and I interacted with Europeans because Europeans are different kinda animals than North Americans are. And I was like, my God. He said, yeah, oh, I'm 25. I've been to 72 countries. Like, what, how is that even like, what unicorn you? And it's like when you grow up, we all have those things about where we're from that we hate. Like, this doesn't make any sense. Why do we do it this way? Or those things about our religion, like this doesn't make any sense. Or things about how romantic relationships are formed. Like, why would I do that? I don't like that. Instead of just being miserable and un unhappy, get out there and explore and find the place in a world where you do belong, where things do make sense.  

Erick:    00:20:56    There are aspects of a lot of different cultures that we all can learn from. And just kinda adopt those things into who we are as people. It's frustrating for me because I care about people when I see or hear or read things online or talk to friends or interact with people from back home who can't see beyond the borders, who can't see what's what else is out here for us, especially as a person of color. And I always say, I get in a lot of trouble within my community for saying this. How many times do we have to be shown and told that that country's not for us anymore? They don't care. I, and I don't want to go on a rant about this, but over and over and over again, decade after decade after decades of abuse, like there's never been a better time in history to just leave, to go to one of the other 191 countries to build all who you have in the world and build a life.  

Erick:    00:21:51    And it's easier, it's simpler. You know how many people I know here who have been teaching English, teaching English without a college degree for 25 plus years. A lot, a lot of people living comfortably here. If you make around 2000 US dollars a month in Thailand, depending on where you live, you can do whatever you want. I live in Bangkok. I barely crack 1500 a month. I live in one of the most expensive places. It is two places. It's Phuket and Bangkok, the two most expensive places here. And I live in one of them. And I barely cracked 1500. You can imagine everywhere else. So it's like for us who, those of us who've lived overseas and explored the world, it's been all these countries, we begin to quickly understand that there's a lot of times we're not born in a place that we belong because our spirit wants us to go somewhere else. And I think that is what wanderlust should be described as, that search for the place in the world that you truly belong. Not just aimlessly wandering.  

Kristin:    00:22:57    There's like this inner stirring, like an a turbulence that happens and people sit in that discomfort because I think there's a, a weird disconnect where we're genetically programmed to want to belong and be a part of the community. But yet the US is a really toxic community in a lot of ways. There's so much wrong with it, but then there's no clear alternative. And by leaving the country, we basically become an outcast of that society. And then there's a gap between where you don't fit in in your home country, but you haven't yet found your place yet in the world. And that is the scary part for people. But if you can just push through that and get to the other side, it's like this relief, like this kind of breath of fresh air where all of a sudden you have this clarity overlooking at the birdcage almost of the us and you're like, oh, if I could just tell more people that they can get out of it. Like, you don't have to be a martyr of that system and suffer for your whole life and then become bitter when you get into your sixties because you're like, ah--

Erick:    00:24:08    Perfectly said. I mean, it's so many martyrs. So many martyrs. It's a very real conversation in my community. Like as an African people can't see me. I'm African American man, <laugh>. But you know, with the rise of everything that's been going on in the past, well it is been happening to us, you know, 38 years my entire life at least. Right. But with the more recent visibility of the abuses that people of color experience in the United States, there's been a push, there's been a internal struggle within our community with those who decide to become on the ground activists and those of us who live abroad. It's very similar to what happened with James Baldwin when James Baldwin was living in Paris. And James Baldwin, I'm paraphrasing here. He said, something's to the extent of Paris is the first place I felt like I was being treated as a human being.  

Erick:    00:25:02    Where he was able to be openly black, openly gay was his time in Paris. And you know, of course he came, he, he was, uh, around during an entirely different during the Civil rights movement. And he said, Medgar Evers and Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, those are his close friends. It's similar to what we're dealing with today. It's those of us who are people of color from the United States who live abroad. We are bystanders as well now. Like you go from being actively abused and oppressed every single day to being outside of the US watching your community be actively abused and oppressed. And then the question becomes, what do you do? How do you help? And you know, and this isn't just within our community. And yeah, I know other people deal with it. You know, you deal with the mental health crisis, you deal with the lack of access to education, the lack of access to healthcare. It's baffling. Especially when you go to so-called Third World Countries. And you see them do things significantly better for their people. And it is like, we are supposed to be the greatest country on the face of the planet Earth. We have the nerve to tell other countries what to do, yet we can't do the simple things to take care of our people. We can be, we can be all those things we pretend to be, but we choose not to be. And other places around the world just do,  

Kristin:    00:26:23    It's all lip service and propaganda. I think there was a moment where I had been out of the country for probably two or three years, where all of a sudden it just kind of sunk in that I had to stop looking at the world through that lens. It was like, like, wait, that is a flawed worldview. I need to just start over with a clean slate. Let's just assume that everything I've been told is wrong or is up for debate. What next? And that was around 2007. And I just went down this real deep rabbit hole of trying to figure out what life was about, how geopolitics worked, was the US really the best at everything? And to just to look at it like what it was, was kind of this brainwashing. And you said also in another podcast that American are basically, our perspective is manufactured and created. So you asked, when you leave that environment, who are you? And that's where you start with that clean slate. So could we break down what is the manufactured lie or set of lies that people are told? And then how does living abroad dismantle that?  

Erick:    00:27:46    You know, it, it is difficult because there are out and out lies, right? There are flat out things that are not true. But then there's manipulation of perspectives. I think the United States is more guilty of manipulating perspectives that, you know, people of color are only poor because they choose to be poor and they're lazy. There are a lot of lazy people of color. That's, uh, verifiable fact. Just like there are a lot of lazy other people though. And you also fail to show the systemic abuse that these people go through. Right? When you say, when you have a conversation about education, you say, well, why can't you just pay for your kids to go to better schools? Well this guy, his entire family was working in the steel mills in the Midwest. And then economic crisis hit. He's 42 years old. He's been working there for 30 years. No, well not, it wouldn't be 30 years, it'd be 20 years. Right. He's been working there for 20 years. And then there's nothing to replace those jobs. How's he gonna pay for his kids to go to school, to a private school or go to a university? That's frustrating because you have countries that have experimented with things like UBI that places like Germany where college is free, places where higher education. It's called education.  

Kristin:    00:29:09    Yeah.  

Erick:    00:29:10    If you get sick, you don't go bankrupt. This idea that overall, the overall American narrative, right? In the 1980s, it was solid. It was solid narrative. It was, we're one of the greatest countries in the world. We are awesome. We are innovative, we're forward-thinking we are aggressive. Like we protect a little guy. That's who we were. We really were. And then we got greedy, and then we got arrogant and we got lazy. When you don't have something to push you, because in the 1980s we had Russia.  When you don't have somebody to push you to greatness, somebody to push you to be better, you don't, generally speaking, you do not. It's like the United States. Like I love Orwell. It's like, you ever see, uh, read a book called Animal Farm?  

Kristin:    00:29:55    Yeah. Back in high school, actually.  

Erick:    00:29:57    Yeah. You should did it again. Read it again. I read Animal Farm once a year, every single year.  

Kristin:    00:30:02    Oh, that's a good idea. I do need to read it again.  

Erick:    00:30:05    Every time. It gets better every year. It's amazing how the book just gets better over time. 'cause it's like, my god, how did he see this coming? How did he recognize that this is exactly what the United States of America will be in 2021? So when, when you step back, when, when, when you step back outside of the American bubble, you gotta remember I was a soldier 10 and a half years. I served United States military. I loved and still loved my country. I bled for it. I fought for it. I love it. I vote in every single election. I'm a happy, proud American. But being a proud American means you have to question it. You have to stand up when we are wrong and we're wrong a lot. And you have to say the things that need to be said. You have to stand up for people who don't look like you, who don't have the same life experience as you.  

Erick:    00:31:02    When people tell you, Hey, this is messed up for me. Listen, when you get outta the US you take off all those blinders. It's easy in the us I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, 99.9% black. Everybody of authority that caused a problem in my life at that time was white police officers, teachers, social workers. Every position of authority was held by somebody white in my entire life growing up. So my perspective of race was totally skewed. We, there are certain areas and, and neighborhoods you don't go because I grew up in East Cleveland University Heights, that's where white people are. Shaker Cleveland, you don't go there. You might get jumped or arrested. That's the very real life there. New York is a better example. We've seen all over history of television and film. There's certain neighborhoods you don't go to if you're a certain color. So the way the US reinforces these things, it does nothing to combat them. It does nothing to combat these issues that we have with abuse.  

Kristin:    00:32:07    I think it's because these people in power, well, there's a lot of reasons for it, but also they don't have the worldview either. Like it, it kind of starts at the top.  

Erick:    00:32:18    Oh, I think they do. I disagree. I think they do have the worldview.

Kristin:  You think so?

Erick:  I think they realize that a educated and united populace would throw every single one of their asses outta office. There's no way--  

Kristin:    00:32:30    It would, I mean, I think that this is gonna change the electoral map these new migration patterns. But do you think there's going to be a brain drain away from the US now that so many people can work online?  

Erick:    00:32:43    I don't think so. We've been talking about this topic for over a year now, about how the, the rise of digital nomads. I just did a, a documentary, um, that should be coming out later this year, specifically about, uh, digital nomadism. And I do not believe that it's gonna be a significant shift as people believe or as people are claiming and hope. Sure. There will be an uptick because there are a lot more people who are in a position where they, they have nothing to lose. But there's still this, there a there's still familiarized. Family is strong, strong, strong, strong. There's familiarity. If you fall on your ass in the US you can get back up. 'cause you know it, you know the culture, you know, history, you know identity, you know the word, you know, language. It's relatively simple. And there's still fear. There's still fear of the unknown.  

Erick:    00:33:37    There are a lot of people now granted like me and you know, each other online, we might meet someday. There are very few people who knows somebody personally like you and I. So my family could say, Hey, I wish I could move abroad and live abroad. Oh, I know somebody who did that. My brother did it, or my son did it, or my cousin did it. Let me call him or email or message him. A lot of people don't have that. So they end up in my inbox and my inbox fills up, or they go to directly to the spam folder or any of the other hundreds of digital ads around the world creating content. Right. So I don't think that there's gonna be this massive shift, um, that a lot of people believe it is. I think it's gonna become a lot more normalized.  

Erick:    00:34:20    I don't think we'll be seen as these magical unicorns anymore. But I don't believe that there's gonna be a, a massive brain drain. The reality is the US is still a great place for a lot of people. It is. It's getting significantly more difficult to be overnight success as they say there. But I mean, for me, I still think it's one of the best places in the world to be born. I'm so glad to have been born in America.

Kristin:  That's true.

Erick:  If all things made equal, if I had to do, if I had to go home, I would go home and my life will be perfectly okay. Going all the way back to the original point you were making. I don't think there's gonna be a massive brain drain. I just think, uh, there's just, it's just gonna become more normalized for somebody to say, Hey. Yeah. I, I I work online overseas.  

Kristin:    00:35:02    So let's go back to your beginning because I know that you grew up in Cleveland. I know that you were in the military for 10, 10 and a half years. But did you always have this drive to travel and see the world? 

Erick:    00:35:18    The interesting thing about Cleveland is Cleveland prepared me for international travel. And I went back and I did a project there. I wanna say it was 2018, 2017, 2018. It was kind of like this, uh, you know, um, the prodigal son returns to Cleveland. We was working with the tourism board and being a tourist in the city I grew up in. And that's when I realized how much that city prepared me to explore the world. Because unlike a lot of places in the world, even though where I grew up in the area was like 9.9% black Cleveland is a very diverse city. So I was exposed to a, a lot of different cultures from around the world. Um, when I went to Poland for the first time, they were shocked. I knew pretty much everything about their food because I grew up eating Polish cuisine, Hungarian food.

Kristin:  Oh wow.

Erick:  Like Goulash and Perogies, like Baklava. I grew up eating that. Like I love sour crop and cabbage.  

Kristin:    00:36:14    This is is so crazy because my family's actually from Cleveland. And my grandfather's Hungarian see <laugh>. So my Italian grandma and my Hungarian grandpa met in Cleveland.  

Erick:    00:36:25    Yeah. It's an amazing place for culture and diversity. So I show up, it's young black kid, and I know everything about their food. And it opened that door. So my exposure, my, my exposure to travel was Cleveland was being a curious kid in Cleveland. Like, oh, what's a Kolachi? Like, I see this word. Like, what is this? And you go and, and you just fall in love with it. You know? I was, I was babysat by a woman from Estonia.  

Kristin:    00:36:53    That's cool.  

Erick:    00:36:54    And it was funny. I'm pretty sure she was Estonian. I'm old now, so, uh, I can't exactly remember. But she would give me, she was older. She had to be in her seventies then. And I would take out her trash floor. She would take it to the garbage can. Before I took ours out, I had to go and take hers out to the curb and then bring it back after I got on from school. And she would leave me a box of National Geographics and read Readers Digest from her husband's collection who had passed away. And these were old issues. These, there was never a new issue. I was reading 15, 20 year old issues, like the early runs of National Geographics. And I was seeing, you know, I, I saw my first pair of boobies in a National Geographic  

Kristin:    00:37:35    <laugh>. I think I saw that same National Geographic  

Erick:    00:37:38    <laugh>. Like, Ooh, what's these? Like? It was like growing up and seeing those things. I was aware of the world outside of where I grew up. I knew it existed. Um, and this is before the internet, you know, I, I'm 38.  

Kristin:    00:37:54    We're the same age.  

Erick:    00:37:56    We grew up. Before there was an internet before everybody had this smartphone.

Kristin:    00:37:59     Encyclopedias from the grocery store. National Geographics. That's pretty much how I learned about the world.  

Erick:    00:38:06    I lived in the library. I lived in libraries because I was just so fascinated about the world. Um, and I think my desire to see it came from that, from all those different cultures around me influencing me and my family being my family was never, I never had anybody in my family tell me that I couldn't do something like my family. If anything, they put undue pressure on me to be great. It was, was like same. I grew up in a family where I was expected to be exactly who I am today. Where it, it, it was for me to be mediocre was, it wasn't even a thought in my head. Growing up in my life. For me to be average is not even an option. From the day that I was born, I told I was great and to be.  

Kristin:    00:38:53    You have brothers and sisters?

Erick:    00:38:54    Nine of 'em. I'm the eldest of 10.  

Kristin:    00:38:56    Oh my gosh. Are they still in the US? 

Erick:    00:38:59    Yeah,  yeah, yeah. They're all there. Yeah. Um, and, uh, my mother did a fantastic -- 

Kristin:    00:39:03    Oh, we're both the oldest siblings. Yeah.   

Erick:    00:39:05    Yeah. <laugh> cool kids, man. We cool Kids club. And it's like that wanderlust, uh, as you call it, that's, that's travel spark pushed me to the military. I really wanted to be a fighter pilot. I wanted to fly around the world. And that's what I wanted to do. I just wanted to fly fighter jets all around the world. And then when I was a kid, when I was 16, I had a son and that changed the trajectory of everything. So instead of going to college, I decided to join the military because I had a son to take care of. Okay. So, um, I joined the US military, US Air Force and, um, my plan was to get commissioned as an officer in the US Air Force. So I was like, well, I wanna be a fighter pilot. I might as well become a aircraft engineer. So that's what I did. I became an aerospace maintenance technology engineer. Basically, if it flies, I can fix it. Even to this day, I can fix pretty much any airplane--

Kristin:  That's cool.

Erick:  --in the worlds. I joined in January of 2001, out nowhere. 9/11 happens.  

Kristin:    00:40:08    Oh, yeah. Yeah.  

Erick:    00:40:10    So I instantly became mp, basically security forces because I was young and I was a marksman and we were understaffed then. So they cross-trained me. So basically I was trained as a crew chief, but I was also trained as a mp.  

Kristin:    00:40:26    Like the Born identity sort of thing. Like secret assasin? 

Erick:    00:40:29    Oh  God, no. Not, not quite <laugh>. No. <laugh> not at that level. But, um, so I would go, a lot of my deployments were with the Army either way. So I was working on the C130. You've probably seen it in all kind of movies and video games. Um, it's the four propeller air airplane. 

Kristin:    00:40:46    Okay. This is another weird coincidence, but I actually looked into joining the Air Force. I went to this Air Force ROTC meeting in high school. 'cause I was trying to figure out a way to travel. And so I almost did that too. So that's really interesting that that was your gateway. It was. So you're working on this plane and what types of countries were you assigned to?  

Erick:    00:41:07    So the early days, one of my first Turkey was one of, I, I I was based in Turkey. I was based in Germany and Ramstein, uh, Okinawa. I was, oh my God, I love Okinawa. I was based in Okinawa and Korea. So all my overseas, all my overseas assignments were, it was just like being home. It, it was the, the best part of being in military. But in between those was obviously the Middle East, uh, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Afghanistan. Yeah. Throughout my 10 and a half year career, I basically, out of 10 years, I would've to sit down and calculate it. I wanna say after 10, outside of 10 and a half years, I was overseas for about six and a half of those.

Kristin:  Okay.

Erick: Yeah. Out of 10 and a half years, about six and a half was overseas.  

Kristin:    00:41:49    And then were you able to retire after 10 years?

Erick:  No. No. No.

Kristin:  Is that how it works? Or how did you get out? 

Erick:    00:41:55    Oh, I just left.  

Kristin:  Okay. <laugh>.

Kristin:  Oh, I was I was done.  

Kristin:    00:41:55     Oh, so you, are you getting like a retirement fund from the military?

Erick:    00:41:59    Nope. No. You get that at 20 years. At 10 years. Oh, shoot. 10 years. 10 years is the point where you either decide you're gonna stay in forever or you're gonna walk away.

Kristin:  Okay.

Erick:  That's pretty much what happens. And, uh, for me, I was done. My mind, my soul, my body. I couldn't watch what we were doing anymore. I couldn't be a part of that. 'cause I saw some things. I was at the beginning of the war, the very worst part of the wars, I was there in the desert. So I couldn't see that anymore. So, yep. I just called it a career at about 10 years.  

Kristin:    00:42:28    What is the collective mindset like in the military? Because I imagine you go through this training that must kind of be like education on like American education, on steroids because you're kind of behind the scenes. So there has to be an element of, you know, us pride and service to the country and fighting for these causes. But then when you really see what's going on after 10 years, like is the morale kind of, okay, we see what's going on, but we are doing our duty, so we're just gonna put our heads down and do it anyway and get through it and stay fighting for the cause. Or do people, does it become transparent to people in the military where they are demoralized and jaded in any way by whether it's upper management of what's happening or whether it's the politics of it or the government? Because I think like a lot of people get out of the military and then they stay silent on all everything that they heard and saw and did. What is that like? 

Erick:    00:43:38    You know,  I, I believe it goes, a lot of everybody's extremely different on this, because I think initially when you come in, your belief system, whatever it is, becomes reinforced. If you believe the United States is the greatest thing of all time, that's easily enforced. If you think it's some bullshit, it's easily enforced. Like, it, it, it's the very, the first two years reinforces everything you already believe and just makes it even stronger. But as time goes on, especially when you start to get into become a NCO, you gain rank and get authority over other people. You start to develop, uh, a perspective on what we're doing. Because you get to make those calls, you get to make those choices. Um, you get to advise on the best course of action, and you start to see things in this gray area. The United States military operates in a extremely gray area of morality.  

Erick:    00:44:36    If you have a moral compass, oh God, it's going to be tested. It is really going to be tested in the United States military. And that is really why a lot of people get out. And a lot of people stay in because, you know, for me, I no longer believed in what we were doing in those conflicts, not even a little bit. Because as time went on, I became more educated, uh, outside of the military and going to college as well as seeing things and being able to question like, wait, what? Like, that's not at all what's going on. Or when you hear news reports and you know better because you are there, there's been, there were so many times when we were in the desert watching the news being reported, and we're just laughing, like they have no fucking idea what's going on. And then it becomes scary because you're like, wait a minute, I never knew what the hell was going on, and when I leave this, I won't know what's going on. So it, it's such a difficult, the reason it's such a difficult question is because everybody's different. And I can only speak to my personal experience on this, my experience, I will always say that joining us military was the best thing I ever did in my life. And the second best thing was leaving the United States military.  

Kristin:    00:45:53    Yeah. It's like, it's gotta be so disillusioning and also--

Erick:  Enlightening

Kristin:  imb-balancing and enlightening at the same time. Because reality is so subjective there, there's so many aspects to what's happening. 

Erick:    00:46:08    Well,  see, I don't think reality is, is not subjective. Reality is not subjective at all in that case. I mean, it slaps you in the face with where reality ver it really is like news reported is subjective. That's what's subjective. How things are reported is subjective. How things are is not subjective. A motherfucker's trying to kill me, there's nothing subjective about that.  

Kristin:    00:46:29    That's true. <laugh>, I  

Erick:    00:46:30    Don't particularly care why. Like, we can talk about that later. All I know is this guy over there is shooting at me. Okay. So things become very crystal clear at that moment. For you, what becomes difficult is your question, do I want to contribute to this? Do I want to contribute to what really is happening? The death, the abuse, the greed, the lies, the manipulation that we all know. We're, we're well beyond that point of, oh, we didn't know. We're well beyond that point in history. We all know what we're doing, right? We all know where we're wrong and we're all choosing to be quiet about it or to be vocal about it. And we're all making those choices. And I'm not judging anybody either way. But for me, I chose that I could not be part of that machine anymore. My saying is, leave the world better than you found it.  

Erick:    00:47:24    And where that came from was, I was Muslim before and I was berated by a local and, uh, outside of Bagram, Afghanistan, they, I don't know how he found out I was Muslim. I don't know how, but he berated me for being a Muslim, killing my own brothers and sisters. And it shook my perspective on faith on what we're doing and community. And I, I had to ask myself. And, and then this was, uh, uh, ended up, we didn't have an imam there. So we, I I spoke with the chaplain about it. And the question comes, do you feel what you're doing is right? Do you feel you're making the world a better place? And the answer, no, this is not right. We're not making the world a better place. There's, there's nothing about this. That's right. And I had to keep that inside because I'm a, I'm a soldier. I'm out here. Anybody you see who has those doubts vocally, they don't last any unit that long by, you know, they're taken care of or they just can't handle it. So you keep that to yourself inside and it just steams and bubbles. And that could go different ways. It could become a negative or positive.  

Kristin:    00:48:40    How long between when you had that thought, did you leave?

Erick:    00:48:43    Three years? It was about, yeah, it was about three years. It was about right into my second time. Yeah. It was about three, three or four more years left. It was about years. It was six or seven. I was like, yeah, this is, yeah. This is not it for me. And I dedicated my life to making the world better. However, I see that it is just, just lead the world better. And you found it. 'cause what we have now is oof.  

Kristin:    00:49:10    Yeah. And you are, I mean, I would say for everybody listening, like, Erick, I think you know this, but you are so fucking talented. Oh, thank you. Like, you've got this clarity, your worldview and your sense of self are so authentic and transparent and clear. And then you make this matter of fact type of content where you're just telling it like it is, which is so rare that you need like millions of followers. And then you also have this artistic side where these pictures that you take are so, they're so profound. Like your photos actually could be a National geographic of the eighties for sure. Like hands down. And then also you're such a good writer. Like your voice in writing is so, it's so easy to read and it's so concise. But it's also, it makes you think like you've really got it going on. Like you've got like the whole package. And I'm just curious of, you know, where that comes from. You've started this foundation to help kids with photography. I don't know if this is like a question, but like how did this all come together? Or was it just an unfolding that's happened through your life? Or was this a plan where you thought, okay, I'm quitting, I'm getting out of the military and I'm gonna go start checking the boxes on what it means to be alive in this lifetime?  

Erick:    00:50:40   You know, honestly, I, I'm just not a planner in general. I just do things <laugh>. Like, it was like, uh, I remember it was funny, I think it was like joker in the dark night. He was like, do I look like a person with a plan? He was like, I'm like a dog chasing his tail. Once I catch it, I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. And that's just how my life is. It is just, all right, let's do that thing. That sounds fun. Let's go. And it's like, Erick, you wanna try this? Yeah, sure. Let's see what happens. You know, and, and it, and you know, I think part of it comes from, I've had a lot of positive experiences and I think people believe in me more. Like, it's, it's hard for me to listen to you say those kind of things about me is because I still, I'm almost 40.  

Erick:    00:51:22    I just don't see it. I don't see what everybody's been seeing my whole life. I just don't see it how everybody, oh, you're special, you're talented. And I'm like, eh, I'm all right. I guess I just, you know, I just work hard. That's all. And for me, everything that you said, and I'm blessed to have had people my entire life say similar things. All those have always come from a simple place. I just work harder than most. I just work like it. It's my default mode. I do not believe I'm that talented. I just outwork people and I care. Anything that I do, I care about it or else I wouldn't do it. I care about the authentic story of a place. For me, the reason photography is my medium. My, it's my muse. All things being, being stripped down, I'm a photographer at my core is because pho--photography is, you capture a moment that'll never happen again.  

Erick:    00:52:16    Like a painting can be replicated and you could, you could redo that. But a photograph, it, it's a moment that'll never be, you can never duplicate that. I'll be a second older. My subject will be a little darker, a little lighter, a little slower, a little faster. But you can never replicate it. So it's, you look at the beauty of that moment for time, and you just live in that. You just live there. And for me, those little capturing those little moments, it's therapeutic because it reminds me of why I, I keep living, I keep pushing why I was, you know, chosen to survive everything that I've survived. And to be able to share that. I find it's my responsibility to be able to share this life, this planet, these experiences with the world. Because there's so many people who are legitimately stuck wherever they are in the world, they cannot get out.  

Erick:    00:53:17    And if they come across my voice or my photographs or my writing, maybe that could be the thing that helps 'em get to, to tomorrow. My biggest goal is to be the brightest part of somebody's day. Like if someone, somebody has the shittiest day of their life, I guarantee you it will not be the shittiest day of their life if they meet me, because I'm gonna do whoever I can. That's true. To try to make them happy, to like, like, yo, today sucked, but I met that Erick guy. I will never see him again. I might not ever think about the people in your life you met one time and he left that impression on you, how special they were. It's like, my God, I remember that one girl I met on the beach. Right? We talked for 30 minutes and then we never saw each other again. I was at this festival and gonna be honest, I was a high and I was sitting on a beach and I was watching the sunset. And I get in these moments where I get entranced by nature because I hate nature. I don't like it at all. I'm not a nature dude. I don't like beaches. I don't like forests. None of it.

Kristin:   What?

Erick: Yeah, exactly. Everybody says that.  

Kristin:    00:54:20    Well, you live in the middle of no nature.  

Erick:    00:54:22    <laugh>. Yeah. I live in the middle of Bangkok. No nature so. 

Kristin:    00:54:25    Besides the rogue elephant in the streets. Which is very tragic. 

Erick:    00:54:29    Yeah.  So we have, so I'll have, I'll sit on, I'll sit on the beach. I have these moments where nature traps me and I can't get out. And I become entranced by it. Everything is, I see every blade of grass, I smell every scent on the wind, I feel every breeze. And I was sitting there and I saw people walking around and I just started pulling people to me. I just said, Hey, come sit down. And I ended up having a, a circle of 20 people and we were just talking about life and, and, and travel and the world and how we got there and what we're gonna do next. And we all sat there for about an hour and a half just talking on a beach. I'll probably never--

Kristin:    00:55:09    Where was this? 

Erick:    00:55:10    This was in, uh, Phuket. This was, uh, last weekend. Phuket and, oh,  

Kristin:    00:55:14    Last weekend? 

Erick:    00:55:15    Yeah,  It was last weekend. And we left happy. We just left happy. We all hugged high, five fist bumps, shook hands, and just, and went our separate ways. And it's like, for me, whenever I create anything, uh, uh, any piece of content I create, I try to bring that across to people. I, I've tried to bring people into the world where I am, because I know where I, I know where those dark places are. I know how those things feel, how to see death and abuse and, and pain constantly. Um, I, I empathize with people in the community I grew up in and communities that I didn't grow up in. 'cause I know what it's like to feel hopeless. I know what it's like to feel abused and ignored. So I try to make people feel heard and, and cared about and and focused. And hopefully that comes across in my work, you know, really hope it does, because otherwise I gotta adjust some things. <laugh>  

Kristin:    00:56:11    No, it definitely comes across, but you also walk the walk. Kristin, here. I hope you all enjoyed part one of my interview with Erick Prince, The Minority Nomad. Make sure to tune in next week for part two. And as usual, thank you for listening. Thank you for leaving your reviews, for sharing the podcast with your friends and family. And a special thank you to everyone who has joined my Patreon over at patreon.com/travelingwithKristin. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week and see you all again next week.