Where I'm Traveling in 2022

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. 

Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:00:23    Hello. Hello, Kristin here from Traveling with Kristin and welcome to episode 139 of Badass Digital Nomads and the last podcast of the year. I just wanted to kick off this episode by thanking you for spending time with me this year. I can't believe it's been two and a half years since the launch of the podcast in 2019 <laugh>. It's been a blur, but so much fun and so great talking about these topics with you about the future of work and travel and lifestyle design. And it's just been such an enriching, fulfilling experience for me, and I hope for you as well. I have a great roster of guests coming your way in 2022 that I'm so excited to share with you. And some of these people have been waiting very patiently to come on the show since 2019. We have a super long waiting list of guests, but I really hope that you enjoy all of the interviews that we have coming your way in the upcoming year and also the interviews that we had this year.  

Kristin:    00:01:35    So many amazing guests, so many dynamic and sometimes controversial conversations. And I loved all of them for different reasons, and especially the last two that we had in this month of December with Brent and Michael from Brent and Michael are going places. If you happen to miss those episodes on how to live abroad like a local and all about medical tourism and the cost of healthcare abroad, then make sure to check those out episodes 137 and 138. You can also look up any episode from the past by going to badassdigitalnomads.com, typing in any keyword you want in the search bar in the top right. And also we have episodes organized by category. So we have episodes tagged as interviews, solo casts, places in travel, mental health, like all kinds of topics, traveling with families, kids. So you can check all of that out and more at badassdigitalnomads.com. And I would also like to thank all of my Patreon patrons for the year. My goal is to create a community of a hundred patrons in 2021, and we got more than halfway there. So thank you to each and every one of you who have signed up as patrons for one month or one year or more. I see you guys, Walt and Sean, Teklordz,  

Kristin:    00:03:10    Sadly, my very first patron and one of my first YouTube subscribers, Teklordz tragically passed away from cancer in November. So shout out to you Teklordz, we miss you very much and thank you for being a supporter, sorry of my channel for so many years.  

Kristin:    00:03:42    Patreon has been a really special way of connecting with you guys, one-on-one each month in our Zoom hangouts. So the last couple this year have been canceled due to me being sick and then the holidays, but we will be back at it again in 2022. And you can join us at patreon.com, P A T R E O N.com/travelingwithKristin. I also want to thank everyone who made contributions to the show this year, either through anonymous donations at badassdigitalnomads.com/donate, and also through Buy me a Coffee, which is a new experiment I put up this year since I am a self-proclaimed coffee addict. And um, I really appreciate everyone's support over there. Special thank you to An Expose, Dave, Paul, Sub, Faruki, Privacy post, Nico, Isaac, May, Blair, Pete Henry, Maddie, Jocelyn, MJ, and again, all of the anonymous donors and my 51 patrons. I really appreciate your support and also thank you to you.  

Kristin:    00:05:02    Thank you to everyone who tuned in this year. Thank you for listening and sharing your highs and lows with me, the rollercoaster of life in this crazy, crazy couple of years we've had. Uh, thank you for all of the nice messages that you've sent emails joining the Facebook group at as Digital Nomads Facebook group has more than 5,200 people in it right now. And of course thank you to everyone who took a moment to leave a review for the show. And we have almost a hundred ratings now on Apple Podcasts, so I really appreciate it and enjoy connecting with you on different platforms and hopefully we will even get to have an in-person retreat in 2022, 2021. We had our first Traveling with Kristin Meetup in Los Angeles, California. The first week of October was so much fun. And if travel and covid cooperate, perhaps we can have a travel retreat somewhere at the end of next year.  

Kristin:    00:06:10    So stay tuned for more information on that. Also, a special shout out to the very first students in my relocation program Ready to Relocate. Brian Shez, Chip, Dave, Eric, Heidi, David Shams, Sophia, Matthew, Ron, Sarah Scott, Steven, Shelly, Lucky, Eddie, Kathleen, Yasmine and family, Jim and Sonny. It has been such a joy to teach all of you the process of relocating to another country for the first time in a group setting and you all are the inspiration for why I started creating content in the first place. The why behind Traveling with Kristin and the Badass Digital Nomads podcast is to just help as many people as possible live life on your terms and normalize an alternative lifestyle, normalize loving your life, normalize location, independence and a freedom lifestyle. And we're actually doing it so it's so fun and so fulfilling to be on this journey together.  

Kristin:    00:07:31    And last but not least, I would also like to thank my team behind the scenes who make all of this possible to bring you the podcast each week and all of the workings behind the scenes at Traveling with Kristin. And that includes Liz, Jasmine, Michael, Matthew, Kayla, Romulus, Gaston, Thomas, Anita, TJ, Valerie, Victoria, Jennifer Grace and Nicole growing our team a lot this year. I'm really looking forward to 2022, cautiously optimistic about the year and another full year and season of Badass Digital Nomads as well as hopefully getting back onto YouTube and publishing videos again starting in January. So I have a long list of videos I wanna get out there and I know that all of us thought that 2021 was gonna be the year for travel, but hopefully it's 2022. And so as we've gotten close to the end of the year, many of you have been asking me when I'm traveling again and where, and this makes sense because I have been traveling for so many years and according to Expedia, at least 37% of travelers are planning to travel in the upcoming year.  

Kristin:    00:08:57    So I know that that's on everyone's mind. Myself included, like most of you, my travel plans were derailed back in 2020 and they haven't really gotten back on track yet. And then with new covid variants coming out and travel restrictions and fluxx, there's been a lot of confusion and frustration around travel. It's been changing so fast that I haven't even been able to make videos to keep up with the changes because they change like days after I publish the videos. So the good news is there are some regions in the world that have remained quite open. Actually, where I'm based right now in Miami is quite open. There's tons of tourists here and also, um, Mexico, Latin America and throughout the Caribbean and Europe has been reopening although there in and out of Lockdowns. Um, I actually plan to take advantage of some of the direct flights from here in Miami in the first few months of the year and go to a few Caribbean destinations I haven't been to before because you may have heard in some of my previous content that I've talked about the Caribbean not being the best destination for nomadic travelers and expats because it's so far off the beaten path.  

Kristin:    00:10:18    It can also be expensive and also the Internet's not so great. But my priority for the first half of the year will be writing my first book Digital Nomads for Dummies that is coming out in the spring or early summer. And so I won't necessarily need very good internet, but I will need, uh, quiet and calm places to focus and do deep work. So when you're thinking about where to travel in 2022, think about the experience you wanna have. Think about the environment you want to be in and think about what your goals are. If you want to relax, if you want to have fun, if you want to have an adventure, maybe a combination of different things. Maybe there's some bucket list places you wanna see some museums and just go with that. You know, I think other than looking at the lists of the top X places to go to, those are all suggestions, but at the end of the day it's like what do you really wanna do?  

Kristin:    00:11:17    What are you craving? And just follow that line. Now, my target date for resuming long-term travel again and living abroad will likely be starting in the summer of 2022. Not necessarily because of Covid because I am fully vaccinated, but I will just be focused on my book for the first half of the year and I'll have a lot more information about how you can pre-order the book here on my podcast and also on my email list, which you can join at travelingwithKristin.com/subscribe. But this will be the season for writing and deep work. And after that we'll move into more of a season of traveling. But regardless, I'll be creating travel content for you from my home base in Miami. The podcast will still come out every week. The videos will come out on YouTube again, um, but travel plans will be paused until summer. And let's say take a few getaways over here in the Caribbean.  

Kristin:    00:12:24    Great time to be in the Caribbean during the winter. And then once summer comes around next year, I plan to go back to Europe for a few months, potentially through the end of the year. And on my list are some places that I've never been before and that I have been before. Some of the places that I was planning to go in 2020 included Scotland and Ireland for some reason. I've really been craving a trip over there and I am part Irish and Scottish and I've never been there. So kind of going back to, uh, places from my family heritage that I've never been before and also some that I have been to. So I'll definitely go to Scotland and Ireland also to visit my family members in London. And then I'd love to go back to Hungary where I've been before. Um, that's where my grandfather is from, partly from Hungary, partly from Romania.  

Kristin:    00:13:21    And I'd also like to explore more of Italy where my grandmother is from. She's actually from Sicily, but I'd also like to go more into northern Italy, Switzerland, and also more of Austria and Slovenia, which has been on my list for a really long time. I'd also love to go back to Portugal and explore more of Portugal since I've really only been around the greater Lisbon area. And then probably over into Eastern Europe, like I said, Romania, where my grandfather is from. And my plan is while traveling to hopefully DJ at some cool spots around on the old continent, especially summer in Europe is a great time to see live music and go to music festivals. Maybe I can pop over to Ibiza for a little while and eventually would like to go check out Turkey, Jordan, maybe more of the Middle East, which I haven't spent much time there in the past.  

Kristin:    00:14:24    And then head down to Africa, which has been on my list for a long time. Countries like Ghana, Kenya, South Africa. And my brother just got back from a trip to West Africa to Senegal, and he absolutely loved it and was raving about it, said it's super underrated. So, so much to see. And then after that, we'll see, you know, I might come back to Miami again in the winter or maybe go snowboarding since I haven't been in a couple years, and that's one of my love. So might have to hit up a ski resort somewhere. I also am potentially thinking of going back down under to Australia where I studied abroad back in the day, and one of my best friends lives there in Byron Bay. So I wouldn't mind going back to Australia, spending some more time in Sydney and also over on the West coast in Perth.  

Kristin:    00:15:18    And there's also some rumblings that New Zealand will be reopening. So I'm open to going there. I've, I've always wanted to do a road trip through New Zealand, so we'll see how it goes. It's a pretty ambitious list and probably all of this won't happen, um, in the next year, but you know, some travel is better than no travel and it's really fun to plan and daydream and think about these things. It'll also be interesting to see what types of new digital nomad and remote work visas are available in the next year, because I think perhaps one day every country in the world will offer some form of a long-term visa and the ability to live there for a year or two or maybe more. So it's definitely an exciting time, albeit a challenging time. And if you are looking for help on navigating these travel restrictions and changes and the steps of the relocation and also the timing of it, when to do what, how far to plan ahead, then applications are open now for the next private group to go through Ready to Relocate.  

Kristin:    00:16:32    So you can register for a free call with me by using the link in the show notes or by going to travelingwithKristin.com/apply - A P P L Y. And of course, if you're going anywhere, then make sure you have travel insurance. You can use my link for Safety Wing in the show notes, which is probably the most affordable option out there. I'm really looking forward to more of the products that they're coming out with in the next year. And also make sure to check out my episode with Safety Wing's founder. I'll go ahead and link to that in the show notes as well, one of the listener favorites. So thank you again for spending another crazy year on Planet Earth with me here on the podcast and on YouTube. Again, if travel restrictions cooperate, I hope we can have a Traveling with Kristin Retreat in 2022. So stay tuned and see you next week for the first podcast of the year. Happy New Year. Stay safe. See you soon.