Welcome to Our Blog, and Our Adventure!
Hi! I’m Gretchen, and I’ll be doing the bulk of the writing for blogs posts. I’m here with Gustavo, who’s in charge of most of the video and photography stuff. If you want to know a little more about us personally, you can head over to our About Us page -- but for now, let’s move onto the exciting part!
Our Digital Nomad Plan: Why and How
Gustavo and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out ways we could live together, since he’s Brazilian and I’m American. Our Plan A (which was moving to Berlin, where I could focus on writing and he could launch his opera singing career) hit snag after snag, until finally we ran out of time. As you can imagine, this was incredibly frustrating and disheartening. So we turned to a more optimistic option: exploring a life of being digital nomads. At first, it sounded incredibly unrealistic. The more we thought about it, though, the more it made sense.Gustavo’s first degree was in graphic design. I do freelance writing and have a solid base of wonderful ongoing clients. Between the two of us, we figured, we’d be able to support ourselves, especially in countries where the cost of living is dramatically lower than in our former home state of California.It would be unfair here to go on without offering a quick shout-out to our incredible family and friends, many of whom have contributed in one way or another to making this possible. Without knowing we have such a solid network of people who have our backs, I’d be way more nervous about this whole thing.
Where We’re Going
Any time you put yourself out there online, there’s some sense of wanting to take reasonable precautions. With that caveat, here are the countries and cities we’ve visited so far, and the places we plan to go soon!
So far:
Berlin, Germany - two months
Marrakech, Morocco - one month
Paris, France - one month
Sofia, Bulgaria - one month
Bangkok, Koh Lanta, and Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand - six weeks
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - five days
Kolkata, India - one month
Rome, Italy - five days
Lisbon, Portugal - just 18 hours!
Florianópolis, Brazil - six weeks
Montevideo, Uruguay - five days
Buenos Aires, Argentina - one month
Santiago, Chile - one week
Lima, Peru - one week
Cusco, Peru - one month
San Jose and La Fortuna, Costa Rica - one month
Flores, Tikal, and Antigua, Guatemala - two weeks
Oaxaca and Mexico City, Mexico - five weeks
Bangkok, Prachuap Khiri Khan, and Koh Chang, Thailand - six weeks
Kolkata, India - one week
Zagreb, Split, and Razanj, Croatia - six weeks
Barcelona, Spain - five days
Santiago, Chile - one month
Future plans:
Florianópolis, Brazil - two weeks
Berlin, Germany - three months (with little trips around Europe!)
Beyond that, our plans become hazy. Croatia? Ireland? Japan? Tunisia? Stay tuned and we’ll let you know when we figure it out!
What We’ll Be Doing
First things first: we aren’t hardcore adventure travelers. We’re not going to be hang gliding or parasailing or bungee jumping or ziplining. (Well, okay, maybe ziplining. Maybe.)To be honest, we’re both introverts rather than adrenaline-loving extroverts. So instead of these doubtless-exciting activities, we’re more interested in exploring the culture of each place we visit. That means the local customs, way of life, and experience.We’re well aware that, as tourists and outsiders, it’s next to impossible to truly experience the local way of life, if for no other reason than that you come into the experience with your own history and thoughts. Still, we’d rather catch the occasional bright glimpse of authenticity than swoop into a country, see the famous sights, and move on. That’s a big part of why we’ve decided to spend a month each in most places.We’ll also be eating. A lot. Which brings us to our next topic:
Food
I’ve been in love with food ever since working for a couple years at an amazing restaurant in San Francisco. Gustavo has been enthusiastically coming around. (One of my proudest moments was when he finally talked me into going to a Cracker Barrel, which he had long enjoyed, only for him to glumly observe that the food “tastes like salt and fat and nothing else.” #palateprogress)As you might expect, we’ll spend a lot of our time exploring local cuisine. We’ll dive into street food, traditional dining experiences, local grocery stores (seriously, am I the only one who loves just wandering the aisles of grocery stores in a new country?) and even learning to cook the local cuisine.This is made slightly more complicated by the fact that Gustavo is an enthusiastic carnivore, while I’m generally plant-based. (I’m avoiding the term “vegan” for several reasons, which maybe I’ll expand on some other time.) In other words, you’ll be getting two very different perspectives on food!
Our Blog, Vlog, and More!
You’re here, so you clearly already know about our blog! We’ll publish new posts every Friday at 11 AM Pacific, regardless of our local time zone.Once a week, we’ll also publish a vlog on our YouTube channel, which you can find at this link! These will range from food to sightseeing to tips and insights to general advice, and will go live every Friday at 11 AM Pacific. For now, our social media focus will be on Instagram, so check us out here and follow us for extra pictures!