What I Love About Living Abroad

Sneak Peek:

Kristin:    00:00:00    But it's true. I mean, that's what we're doing. Basically, we're flying around the world or planting ourselves in these different countries. It's not to just get a good Instagram photo. At least no one has ever told me that that's the reason that they wanna live abroad or become a digital nomad. It's because people want to challenge themselves, be better and connect with other people. And so that's what living abroad can do. 

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.

Wise

Kristin:    00:00:31    If you've ever had to send money abroad or pay someone in a different country, you know how expensive wire transfer and foreign exchange fees can be. That's why I've been using wise, formerly known as TransferWise for more than seven years. Now, sending money internationally with wise is between five to 13 times cheaper than traditional banks. It's also fast and easy with a Wise multicurrency account. You can manage your money in 50 plus currencies and send money internationally directly from your phone in the app. No filling out paperwork, no calling your bank branch, and most importantly, no outrageous exchange rates. Sign up with Wise today to join more than 10 million people in businesses who are managing their money across the world. With Wise, you can get your first transfer up to 500 British pounds for free by using the link in the show notes or by going to travelingwithKristin.com/WISE to learn more. That's travelingwithKristin.com/W-I-S-E.  

Kristin:    00:02:14    Hi everyone, Kristin from Traveling with Kristin here, and welcome to a two part podcast on what I love and hate about living abroad. So as most of you know, we love to get into some real talk on this show, and even though I'm generally a positive and optimistic person, I also don't wanna sugarcoat everything. So I wanna present to you the real deal, the real sides of the story. And somebody on my USA video requested that I do a video about what I hate about living abroad because I said so many negative things about the United States and that how I feel about the US video. And I thought, you know what? That's a good idea. I should do a podcast and a video about what I dislike about living abroad. But just to keep it fair, I'm also going to do an episode on what I love about living abroad, because the USA video was more about the USA, not necessarily living in other countries.  

Kristin:    00:03:19    So this episode will be about what I love about living abroad and what I think you will love about living abroad when you get to move, or if you already do live abroad, maybe you will resonate with some of these things or all of them. And then the next solo cast will be about what I hate about living abroad. Before we get started, shout out to TN24 from the US who left review that says, highly recommend dope podcast. Love it. You know, one of the things I didn't think about before I started a podcast was how much I would love reading reviews, because I feel like I get a sense of each person's personality through what you write, whether it's just one word or one sentence or one paragraph or one page. I love getting to see everyone's different personalities and where you're from and what you think of the show. So thank you so much for all of your reviews and YouTube comments too.  

Solo-cast

Kristin:    00:04:31    Okay, let's get into it. These are the things I love the most about living abroad. So when I was sitting and contemplating this, the first thing that came to mind is simply the aliveness that you feel when you move to a new country for the first time or when you move to your second, third, eighth, 10th, 20th country because travel kind of unlocks or activates something in your senses. And I think the reason that this happens is because when you grow up in one country and you live in that country your whole life, you don't necessarily realize how much you've learned about living in that country. So it's just like you don't remember learning how to speak your native language or learning how to walk for the first time. It's just something that you understand and acquire through context and through osmosis and through time.  

Kristin:    00:05:31    And so when you move to a new country, all of a sudden your senses just get activated because every little thing takes energy <laugh>, and this kind of has a pros and cons. We'll talk about the downside of this and the other episode, but I looked it up to try to figure out what was going on behind the scenes here. And as it turns out, the human body sends 11 million bits of information per second to your brain, and your conscious mind can only process 50 bits per second. So there's this compression that's happening <laugh>, where you're being bombarded by 11 million bits of information, but you're only consciously processing 50 of it. And so when you move to a new country, it feels like you're processing more than 50 bits per second because there's so much to take in. There's new sites, there's new sounds, there's new ways of doing things, everything is foreign.  

Kristin:    00:06:33    Um, but what I love about living abroad is that it just kind of heightens your senses and you become more present in ways that don't happen when you're in your day-to-day routine in a city or state or country that you've lived in for your whole life. So you know when you're commuting to work, or let's say you're going to drive the kids to school or you're going to the grocery store, something that you do on a day-to-day basis where you get to your destination and then you don't even remember driving there. Has that ever happened to you? <laugh>? I think it has something to do with this because when you live in a new country that automaticity hasn't set in yet, you are creating new channels of information, new pathways in your brain, and you're building new habits at the same time that you are learning your surroundings and learning a new culture and environment, living abroad allows you to experience more of the colors and sounds and kind of the depth and layers of life.  

Kristin:    00:07:43    Just day-to-day life. One of my favorite commutes to a coworking space in recent years was walking up and down the mountain road to and from Co-working Bansko and being able to see the mountain in the background and the river flowing through the streets. Just these are the kind of the little things that really make you feel alive when you're living in a foreign country. Now this feeling of everything being new and exciting can become addictive, and that's something that I'll talk about in the other episode, but that's not something that you have to worry about at all, at least for the first few years that you are living in a foreign country or that you are living a digital nomad lifestyle. And then the second thing that kind of goes hand in hand with that feeling are the actual adventures that you get to experience.  

Kristin:    00:08:36    And it just becomes a lot easier to go on adventures. So it depends on where you're living, but let's say you move to Greece, all of a sudden you can explore the entire country of Greece, you can explore all of the Greek islands, you can cross over the border, you can go to Bulgaria, you can drive around, you can end up in Turkey. It's like depending on which country you're in, you're all of a sudden within striking distance of so many local domestic adventures and then so many international adventures that are in countries that typically were farther away. So if you go to Southeast Asia, then you are very close from Thailand to get into Lao or Vietnam or Cambodia or Malaysia or hopping a flight to China or Japan. Um, if you're in Europe, you can take the train and you can be in another country sometimes within 30 minutes or just an hour.  

Kristin:    00:09:29    And if you are in Central America, likewise, depending on where you are from Costa Rica, you could uh, hop a flight over the border to Nicaragua or to Panama, or in many cases you can also drive there. And even when I moved into the city of San Jose, Costa Rica, my friends and I would go on beach trips to the weekend and it's like boom. All of a sudden we are on a ferry at Sunrise crossing over to the Nacoya Peninsula. And like, these are the kinds of things that I just couldn't conceive of when I lived in Orlando, Florida. You know, when you live in the United States, you might go meet somebody at Chili's for happy hour or some chain restaurant that's in a strip mall parking lot. But when you live in Hong Kong and you're gonna meet your friends for lunch, you could end up having dimsum on a rooftop with a view of the city, or you could take the ferry to Macau and meet them at a casino.  

Kristin:    00:10:27    I mean, it's like really the options are endless disclaimer when it's not a pandemic. So whatever your idea of adventure is, whether it is walking around a museum in Paris or taking a bus from Montenegro to Albania for the day, or taking a German class in Berlin, or exploring the fish market in Tokyo, or taking a cooking class in Thailand or Bali, like whatever your idea of adventure is, you can have it when you plant yourself in a country that has those opportunities available. And then these are in no particular order. But the third thing that we have to talk about next is the people that you meet when you live abroad. Now, there is also a downside to this that I'll talk about in the next episode, but basically when I look at my friend circle today, the majority of my lifelong friendships were made through living or traveling abroad.  

Kristin:    00:11:29    Because when you move to a new country, you typically don't know anyone. So you're starting from zero. It's kind of like making friends for the first time in preschool or kindergarten. So whereas you might not typically take that initiative to meet new people, when you're already ingrained in your daily life, in your job, in your home country, you are forced out of your comfort zone when you get to a new country because usually you're traveling by yourself or maybe with one other person or a couple. But even if you have a family, you're still gonna wanna meet other couples, other families. And so by design, you get that extra impetus and motivation to meet more people that you wouldn't necessarily do if you were just in your regular nine to five job and maybe going to the same Starbucks every day. For example, and I'm guilty of this too, even when I go back to my hometown, I don't really go out of my way to meet new people.  

Kristin:    00:12:35    I just connect with my hometown childhood friends. So I wonder a lot of the time if I hadn't moved abroad, how many people I would know or how many people I wouldn't have ever met because I wasn't in those countries. So of course you wanna value your long-term childhood friendships and the friendships that you have currently, and you wanna make sure to nurture and foster those friendships and maintain those bonds even when you move abroad and live in other places. But one of the great things about living abroad or becoming a digital nomad is the amazing people that you end up meeting that you never would've had the opportunity to meet otherwise. Thinking back to some of the friendships that I've made abroad, one of my best friends who now lives in California, we originally met <laugh> through Craigslist, so she was my roommate who found me through Craigslist and Andrea, I ended up in her wedding in Iceland a few years ago.  

Kristin:    00:13:40    So you just never know who you're gonna meet and what's going to happen. My roommate from studying abroad in Australia back in the early 2000s, we met randomly, uh, I think on the school campus, ended up moving in together in Miami Beach in Australia. And then when I was living in Costa Rica, I flew back to New York and Rhode Island for her wedding and bachelorette party. So you're gonna meet people in different places, you might not see them again, but even if you don't, you won't regret meeting them. And more often than not, they will become your friends for life. And another one of my best friends who I met in Costa Rica, her name is Joy. I only met her because both of us took a chance to go to Costa Rica. She was on sabbatical, burnt out from a high stress corporate job in New York City, and she quit her job with a big corporation, which shall remain nameless.  

Kristin:    00:14:41    She moved to Costa Rica to learn Spanish and learn how to surf. And there at the language school, she met her future husband and father of her children and then ended up moving with him to a town called Nosara where I was living, working in real estate. And he was the project manager at our office. So he was working, her husband was working with me, and Joy was teaching yoga at the Nosara Yoga Institute. We became friends, we've now been friends for more than 15 years and can't imagine my life without her. So there's too many friends to name thousands of people, but you guys get the idea. The fourth thing I love about living abroad is the inevitable personal growth and personal evolution that you undergo as a human being. Now, it's no secret that travel is the best form of education and I don't think that you change as a person when you, when you move abroad, but I do think that you become more of who you are unfiltered.  

Kristin:    00:15:44    And so living abroad helps ingrain these new experiences and new life lessons into your subconscious mind and into your personality. And this can take any number of forms. So in my case, I did a podcast about this as well. I actually changed my political affiliation after moving abroad. You could decide to change your job or your entire industry. You can decide to make a number of different changes, but ultimately you are going to grow more as a person and you're going to learn a lot of things about yourself that you might not have had the opportunity to learn if you always stayed in the same place, because maybe you wouldn't have the same kind of disruption to your environment that would bring all of these different things out. So some of the positives that you hear about travel become enhanced even more when you live abroad.  

Kristin:    00:16:47    So if you travel somewhere for a week or two weeks, you definitely learn a lot of things. You might go through some challenges, maybe a delayed flight, maybe lost baggage, maybe you get to taste a new food, meet new people, like lots of things can happen in a week or so when you're traveling. But when you move to a new country, you just get extra months or even years to learn more about that place as a traveler. And so some of the benefits of travel could be an increased sense of gratitude, increased sense of empathy, increased compassion for other people, increased happiness because you're focused more on experiences than material things. And another thing that happens that is uncomfortable in the moment, but that always pays dividends later, is an increased resilience. So less focus on the small negative things in life and more go with the flow attitude.  

Kristin:    00:17:55    And this can really increase your sense of happiness and wellbeing in the long term because little things just aren't going to annoy you as much. And I talked a bit about this a little bit in the USA video because I gave this example of when I was living in Nicaragua and how I had to teach the construction workers how to install the windows of our real estate office because they lived in houses that didn't have windows because they lived in houses that were made out of mud that had dirt floors and that didn't have plumbing or running water. And so you do see those sorts of things where you can recognize how much you have to be grateful for, but then also when the bigger things go wrong, like an accident of some kind or also, when I lived in Nicaragua, I, my car broke down multiple times and you just can't call Triple A <laugh> if you're in the middle of Nicaragua.  

Kristin:    00:18:52    And I would end up having to park my car at a mechanic for four to six weeks while waiting for the right car parts to come in the mail from Texas. And so you learn to have more patience, more resilience, and even if those things bother you in the moment, it really pays off in the long run with your sense of just overall wellbeing and serenity. You'll also get a chance to challenge yourself and test your skills and give yourself a lot of opportunities to be proud of yourself, whether you enter a new social situation that makes you uncomfortable, but you are forced to meet new people and then that gives you a boost of serotonin later. Or you learn a new skill like scuba diving, or you taste a food that you've never seen before or you were afraid of and you end up really liking it.  

Kristin:    00:19:49    There are so many opportunities for personal growth through travel, and the more you travel, the more pieces of information you're picking up in each place. And the more you get to develop your worldview and the more you get to pick and choose what works for you and what doesn't. So you get to compare and contrast places you've been, people you've met, cultural, uh, religious and other types of ideas that you want to accept or reject. And you start to feel more certainty and self-confidence in saying to yourself, oh, you know what? I recognize that that works for me. Or been there, done that. Not gonna do it. It's kind of like getting older. You know how when you get older you realize that you like what you like and you know what you like more than when you were younger and you care less about what people think.  

Kristin:    00:20:50    So when you travel, that kind of gets magnified where you're getting older at the same time that you're getting exposure to different people, different places, different cultures. And so you get to accelerate that process of like giving no fucks <laugh>. Like you just know who you are and you don't care what anyone else thinks. And so that is one of the big benefits of living abroad, that you get to question the beliefs that you held as a much younger person who didn't have those life experiences. And you get to replace beliefs and opinions and blocks that didn't serve you before.  

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Kristin:    00:21:32    Hey, it's Kristin. If you're liking this episode, I would be so appreciative if you could help the podcast grow by leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform or by sharing the wealth, send this episode to someone you think it might inspire or share it with your friends on social media. Badass Digital Nomads wouldn't exist without listeners just like you. Thanks for your support. And now back to the show.

Kristin:  Number five, when you live abroad, you develop a very keen bullshit-o-meter. That's right. So you're gonna get ripped off, you're gonna get scammed, and it's gonna happen in a lot of different ways, <laugh>. And eventually you're going to be able to out scam the scammers because you have been ripped off in so many different ways that you can see it coming a mile away. And a benefit of this that doesn't get talked about enough is that you get to develop street smarts that will apply across borders.  

Kristin:    00:22:36    So it won't matter if you're in a taxi in Mexico or Russia. At a certain point you'll be like, you know what? I've seen it all and I've done it all, and you can't pull one over on me. So in my case, when I first moved abroad, I overpaid for transportation, I overpaid for housing. I got pickpocketed before in Prague. Um, there was that time I tried exchanging money at the border of Nicaragua and when I walked away, half the money was gone. But you just start to recognize warning signs in people you meet, but then also in a public forums, you're gonna learn a lot about history and world events and also just social constructs around the world. So you'll start to recognize patterns in the news media, in speeches by politicians in different countries. And even if they're speaking in a different language, you'll pick up on their tone of voice, their mannerisms, and you'll just start to realize really how eerily similar all countries in the world are, because all personalities are represented in every country.  

Kristin:    00:23:52    And so you'll hear those politicians buzzwords loud and clear, even if it's not in your native language, you'll start to recognize the patterns in advertising, whether it's a billboard on the side of the road in Serbia, or whether it's clickbait ads on a web browser in the Netherlands that's in Dutch. And overall, yeah, you'll just start to feel really independent. And you know what? It feels really good because you're gonna feel more self-reliant, more capable and more assertive wherever you are in the world, even if you don't speak the language. And the sixth thing, which sounds kind of hippie dippy, but it's really true, is that you're going to feel more connected with humanity in general and also with the planet. So as I mentioned, when you live abroad, the more people you meet, the more countries you go to, the more you realize what a small place the world really is.  

Kristin:    00:24:50    So sometimes weird things will happen where you'll see like a doppelganger of yourself or your friends in foreign countries. So you might be walking down the street and see one of your friends doppelgangers and you do a double take because you're like, oh my gosh, there's Joe, but it's not, it's the German version of Joe <laugh>. And so you'll start to just realize how alike we all are and how much shared DNA there is all around the planet. And um, you'll meet people that remind you of other people that you knew in your hometown, and you'll just realize that, you know, we're all people. We all want the same things. We all have shared human needs. You know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We need safety and security. We need money. We need food, we need water, we need rest. We need love. We need sex, connection, family, community, a sense of purpose, creativity, self-expression.  

Kristin:    00:25:45    We need all of the human things. And likewise, we deal with all of the human problems, mental health, physical illness, accidents, insecurities, the whole gamut, right, of all emotions. And when you live abroad, you'll learn that other countries are filled with unique, beautiful wonders in different cultures, but that people at our core are all part of one human race. And you'll start to appreciate the differences between people in different cultures, but you'll also start to recognize that shared humanity. And then on the side of mother Earth and the planet, when you get the opportunity to fly internationally and you see how beautiful and also how small and how fragile the world is, then that also becomes a very significant part of your life experience. So whether you're flying over the ocean and you're just seeing how vast the ocean is, or you go from, let's say you go from the Pacific Ocean and the tropics and you're flying over to the Arctic of Norway, and you get to go around half of the globe and see the difference in the changing seasons and the terrain and the the color of the water and the landscape, it's really quite striking and it gives you a greater desire to take care of the planet that we live on because you see that we're all humans, we're all sharing the same home.  

Kristin:    00:27:22    And then you also see how everything is connected and how activities in one place impact another place, how weather patterns change. And then over the years that you might be traveling or living abroad, you can start to see the impact of climate change. You can start to see the lessening of wilderness in the world. If you've watched, I talked about this actually with, with Mike Corey from Fearless and Far talking about David Attenborough's message to the planet, about planet Earth and how even when he started traveling, I wanna say it was back in the 1950s, forties, fifties, sixties, I don't remember, he's like a hundred years old. And how even when he started traveling back then that the world had already lost so much of its wild landscape. And today that is shrinking more and more every year. And so I think about what the international pilots must think because they get to see this all the time.  

Kristin:    00:28:25    But when you live abroad, you will feel more connected to the planet that you live on as your shared home, and you'll start to feel more of a connection to want to help the local place that you are, the animals, the people, and just have like a, a stronger respect and reverence for the world around you. One of the favorite things I've ever done was go to the Elephant Nature Park near Chiang Mai in Thailand, and after seeing elephants in chains, walking on asphalt and pavement around Bangkok, or seeing tourists riding on top of them in different places, and then getting to go to the Elephant Nature Park sanctuary and getting to feed the elephants, getting to watch them interact with each other, giving them a bath in the river. It's like when you get to have close proximity to animals or nature, I think it just makes you connect with them more and care about them more.  

Kristin:    00:29:28    Likewise, when you're on a beach in Bali or Fiji and that beach is covered with trash that makes you want to protect the beaches, for example. So I think the more people that live abroad and travel abroad long term, the more they will get to see the problems of the world face to face and the more inclined they'll be to take action to fix these injustices. The seventh thing I wrote down is a more quality time with friends and family. So this is a multifaceted issue that I'll get into more in the negatives episode, but when you live abroad, you can actually increase the amount of quality time that you have with friends and family. So let's say that you're from Ohio, but you move to New York or California for work, and maybe you don't see your hometown friends or family unless it's a holiday, but when you live abroad, your friends and family can come and visit you <laugh>.  

Kristin:    00:30:29    So this is might be how you find out who your real friends are. <laugh>, just kidding. Well, kind of since I've lived abroad, it's been really great to be able to host my friends and family from the US in different places around the world. And so you get to make memories with people that you wouldn't otherwise get to make. So of course, it's great to spend time with friends and family no matter where you are, but it's super cool to be living in Costa Rica and your cousin comes to visit and you get to take her out to eat and show her all the cool restaurants, show her your apartment where you live, go to the beach, go to a cacao plantation. That's something I did with my cousin. And so you get to just have all of these memories in another country that you might not otherwise be in together if you were just going abroad on vacation.  

Kristin:    00:31:22    My brother and sister have come to visit me multiple times. My brother and I have been on road trips and surf trips throughout Central America together. My mom has come to visit a lot of times, or we've gone on trips together. When I was living in Europe, my parents came to visit me when I was living in Amsterdam once, when they were actually on a vacation in France and Belgium. But they went out of their way to come and see me in Amsterdam and kind of worked that into their itinerary. And so one of the really fun parts about living abroad is getting to have those opportunities with old friends and family members from home that you wouldn't have otherwise. And then you also might find yourself spending more time talking to your family members and friends on the phone when you live in different countries, whereas you might not call them if you were just living 15 minutes away because you know that they're there.  

Kristin:    00:32:24    And so I found that you can sometimes have more quality time and even you can travel with your friends from your home country too. One of my friends, Carly and I, we have gone on so many trips together. So even when she's traveling for business, I've been able to join her in that country and just hang out with her when she's not working. You know, go out to dinner, go to the pool, something like that when she has her time off. And I'm able to do that because I work remotely and I can work from anywhere. So definitely take advantage if you are living abroad to invite anyone who's willing to come visit you to come over. The eighth thing is that living abroad is good for your job no matter which way you cut it. Having a study abroad experience or a living abroad experience is good for your resume if you want to get a traditional job, if you are looking for a remote job or if you're working for yourself.  

Kristin:    00:33:21    I realized this very early on when I studied abroad and that experience was well received when I was applying to grad schools and also when I was applying for jobs, especially if you end up learning another language. But even if you work for yourself based on a lot of the other things I've already said in this podcast, you'll just end up learning more about the world, maybe more about your industry, more about yourself, and you'll be able to apply that in your work. Because at the end of the day, everything is connected. And many times your job is an extension of your identity. And if you are lucky to be working in your passion, it's even more intertwined. And so when you live in another country, your career will benefit. Even if you quit your job to move to another country, you'll be able to integrate that experience later on.  

Kristin:    00:34:18    And I've had many guests on my podcast who have actually found new jobs through the people that they've met in other countries. So not only does it just look good on your resume, but you'll be able to expand your network, have other job opportunities. And I was even offered a job once working in Switzerland, and that was through a girl that I met at a conference in Sweden. So you really never know what's gonna happen. The ninth thing is more happiness. There's all of that research that experiences are more fulfilling than things. And when you live abroad and you don't want to accumulate a lot of stuff, you end up focusing on those memories and those experiences that you create. If you wanna be really intentional about this, you can even move to some of the world's happiest countries, or you can specifically move to countries that have a really high quality of life.  

Kristin:    00:35:18    And so through living abroad, you can actually be more of the architect of your own happiness by putting yourself in countries and situations that you attribute or correlate with greater happiness and fulfillment in your life. So everyone has a different definition of happiness. You have to find what works for you. And of course, living abroad is not, not all sunshine and rainbows. And like I said, we're gonna talk about the negative sides too. But generally, I think living abroad can allow you to focus more on the experiences you're having in life, what you're learning in life, what you're accomplishing in life, and not just what you're buying in life. And then the 10th thing that I love about living abroad is that you learn so much and then you get to share your experiences with other people and you get the chance to inspire other people.  

Kristin:    00:36:16    Now, this can be as shallow as looking cool because you have lots of cool travel stories to tell at a dinner party, but I think it actually goes a lot deeper than that. I mean, I wouldn't have this podcast or YouTube channel or my company, relocation company if I hadn't have lived and traveled abroad. And so part of what I've found is the meaning of life is connecting with other people and sharing your life experience and your perspective through your lens. Now this doesn't mean just standing up on a soapbox or posting a bunch of rants on social media just to share your opinion on things, but this is actually thoughtfully having these experiences in life, living in foreign countries, and then applying those experiences in the appropriate circumstances. The first time I lived abroad, it was in Costa Rica through a scholarship with the Rotary Foundation and the purpose of that scholarship, the reason that they paid for me to fly on a plane to a foreign country and go to language school for three months wasn't so that I could have fun and go surfing in Costa Rica, although I'm sure they wanted me to have fun too.  

Kristin:    00:37:33    But the purpose of the scholarship program was to foster cultural understanding between nations. And that, to be honest, didn't mean a lot to me at 20 years old. I mean, I understood what it meant, but I don't think that I realized the depth and the significance of that concept until many, many years later. And so that kind of a program was very innovative actually, to send college kids to other countries, force them to learn the local language, local customs culture, volunteer. We had to do a lot of community service. And then I had to give three speeches in Spanish at different Rotary Foundation chapters. And that was terrifying experience. But you know what? Everything seems easy after you have given a speech in a foreign language to a bunch of business people, <laugh>. And so that's one of those examples of putting yourself out of your comfort zone and wanting to cry in the moment.  

Kristin:    00:38:40    And then later on being like, you know what? That was a good experience that developed a lot of character <laugh>. And so one of the things that I love about living abroad, and I think one of the things that everyone who lives abroad can relate to is, uh, not just how much you learn about yourself in the world, but how fun it is to meet other people, learn from them, share in your experiences in worldview and foster this understanding across borders and with other people in the human race. And it sounds a little bit cliche, but it's true. I mean, that's what we're doing. Basically, we're flying around the world or planting ourselves in these different countries. It's not to just get a good Instagram photo. At least no one has ever told me that that's the reason that they wanna live abroad or become a digital nomad.  

Kristin:    00:39:36    It's because people want to challenge themselves, be better and connect with other people. And so that's what living abroad can do. So these are 10 of the things I love the most about living abroad. I hope that some of them resonated with you or gave you some inspiration and things to think about if you haven't yet lived in a foreign country. If you like this episode, go ahead over to badassdigitalnomads.com and leave us a comment. Or if you have any feedback on this or other episodes of the show, send us an email to hello@travelingwithKristin.com. And you can also leave us a voice message on the website at badassdigitalnomads.com. And make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss the next episode where I talk about the flip side or the downside of living abroad. And we'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. And remember to leave a review for the podcast wherever you listen and share this episode with someone you think it might help.  

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