The following is a transcript of our podcast conversation with Mikaela Kiner and Carrie Nelson. You can listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Sarah Wilkins
Hello and welcome to Humans Beyond Resources, an HR podcast by Reverb where we cover topics from culture to compliance. Reverb believes that every decision a leader makes reverberates throughout the organization, from hiring your first employee to training your entire workforce. We believe in building healthy, inclusive cultures that engage your team. I’m your host, Sarah Wilkins. Thank you to our Humans Beyond Resources podcast sponsors, Parker Smith & Feek, AHT, and Joshua Brinningham of Carney, Badely, and Spelman.
Mikaela Kiner
Carrie, as we get started, do you mind introducing yourself?
Carrie Nelson
Certainly. I’m a human resource consultant with Reverb. I’ve been in human resources for 25 years now. And for the last few years, I’ve been a digital nomad traveling around and I love it.
Mikaela Kiner
I love that. And my name is Michaela Kiner. I’m the founder and CEO of Reverb. I am coincidentally also being a digital nomad right now for three months. And I’ve actually been watching Carrie do this for quite a while and it’s been really intriguing. So yeah, I just wanted to talk to you. So first of all, where are you?
Carrie Nelson
Today I’m in Barbados. Next week I’ll be in London.
Mikaela Kiner
Oh my gosh. And do you know what’s next after that or are you month to month?
Carrie Nelson
Well, last year what I did was I picked a different country each month. And now I’m really kind of, you know, deciding as I go along. It’s wonderful to have the freedom of being a digital nomad. And now that I’ve visited every place I’ve wanted to see, Now I’m going back. I’m trying to see like what festival is going on or special event. I’ll be in New Orleans in April because they’re having a great music festival. I’m planning to visit Greece and I’m trying to pick which time to go. Santorini has a festival once a year to honor the volcano eruption. I’ve never been to a festival that honors a volcano so I think I’ll go then. I think that’s September so that’ll probably be September, October and I’ll fit Italy in there.
Mikaela Kiner
That’s amazing. Okay. Greece has been on my list for a very long time. Yeah. That’s so amazing. And so if I’m right, when you started doing this, you, um, sold your home and put your car in storage.
Carrie Nelson
Yes. So I, I fix up houses as a hobby. So I was fixing up houses and moving a lot anyway. I live in them, fix them up. And my last house sold very quickly, inventory is low in a lot of places in the United States. and the prices are high. So I figured, you know what, here’s an opportunity. I have no children, no pets, no plants. So I put my stuff in storage. I put my car in storage and decided to travel for a year. But within that timeframe, I did come back and sell my car because I felt bad letting it sit in storage. I thought about renting it out. There’s so many options. You can rent your home instead of selling it while you’re traveling, rent your car. But it was the right opportunity for me. I still have my stuff there. And, uh, I come back every few months to visit family and my stuff and sort of coordinate, but change my luggage around. So I have fresh clothes.
Mikaela Kiner
That’s yeah. I was wondering like Barbados to London sounds dramatic in terms of the different climates.
Carrie Nelson
Yes, it’s an interesting because I crave it though. When you’re in one location, I was changing every month and then I came here and thought, let me settle a little while, let me unpack, let me relax. and I have, and I’ve enjoyed it, but now I miss the opposite. So I’m in Barbados on a tropical island, beautiful, quiet, now I’m bored. I want a city, I want to go to a show, a museum. It’s funny how my taste keeps changing, and I love that I have the flexibility to, you know, visit what I
Mikaela Kiner
want to see. It’s really amazing. So how long have you been staying in Barbados?
Carrie Nelson
This time it’s about three months, and I do have to be careful of all the visa rules. Here they allow up to six months, so that’s good. And yeah, I just love it. And it’s the same. I’ve rented all over the country. I’ve tried hotels and I try rentals through like a booking .com or VRBO, if anyone’s looking for tips. It has great, great rates. And settled into a place here that’s really nice, a couple blocks from the beach. I can see a palm tree from the window and everything, which I like. I’m a girl from Boston. So, you know, it’s snowing and I love being able to see a palm tree from my window.
Mikaela Kiner
I hear you the weekend, so I’m in Costa Rica and the weekend before I came here was I think 17 degrees in Seattle and I was, yeah, that’s cold for Seattle and I was very ready to skip out on some of the winter and it’s been. It’s been cold it snowed in March, although this coming week is up into the 60s and sunny I mean it’s really erratic, but I’m very happy to be here regardless of whatever it’s doing there it’s just been amazing. So, other than sort of not having any ties that would keep you at home, why else did you embark on this kind of an adventure?
Carrie Nelson
Well, it’s funny. As soon as I became an independent contractor, when I became an independent contractor, I was sitting at my house in New Hampshire and really within, I think it was within two weeks, I was like, yes, I’m home. I don’t have to set my alarm at 5 .30 in the morning and take a one hour commute to an old factory building that hurts my allergies. And I sat at home and I was looking around going, it was December, and I was like, why am I here? Oh my gosh, within two weeks, I can be anywhere in the world. Actually, I asked friends, come to think of it though, I did ask some friends who traveled and said, I’d like to just go somewhere for a year. Maybe Florida, I don’t know, what do you think? Tell me where’s the best place to live so I can choose a place to live. And a couple of people said, you can go anywhere. You can move as much as you want. And I did start planning though. I actually got, I hired a coach who travels around the world to give me tips. I created a budget. I created a spreadsheet, designed where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do at each place. So that’s what helped to enable it. And just the timing all worked with my house having to sell so quickly and then wanted to move in. I had to leave. I had to move into a hotel anyway. So I was like, do I buy another place at a high price or do I just hit the road? and I hit the road and I’ve loved it.
Mikaela Kiner
So cool, so cool. So I know at least for a while you were using Remote Year and it sounds like maybe you’re no longer doing that. Is that right?
Carrie Nelson
Yes. It was a great start. It was a great try. I did three months with them. So I did Mexico City, Peru, and Columbia. So there’s pros to it, but the cons would be my first apartment, Mexico City, I was with eight roommates. So it was difficult. I was the oldest person in the group. I was more introverted. Many of them didn’t work. So, or they didn’t work regular full -time jobs like I do. I love my job. I work 8, 10, 12 hours a day and I love it. They didn’t have that waking up in the morning alarm clock thing like I did. So that and also, and I found this in many places, the Wi -Fi was not what they promised. I had a lot of issues having Zoom meetings, and even when I rented an office with my own money, which they said they would provide it, I still didn’t get enough for Zooms. A lot of companies will say how many decibels they provide, but if 20 people are there, just like a hotel room, no matter how good your Wi -Fi is at your hotel, if 20 people are there using the same system, it’s just going to be slow. So that’s been my biggest hurdle to come across. So, so one thing is new people would want to travel with a group like that. It’s great to go out and see maybe for your first time somewhere, but now I’m more independent and I like being on my own.
Mikaela Kiner
That’s awesome. So yeah, I, Wi -Fi, I can definitely understand potential drawback. Um, anything else you found challenging or just, you know, for people who are thinking about doing this, what else would you tell them to look into before they go?
Carrie Nelson
Ah, challenging. That’s a good question. One of the things I did is I knew I was going to be in South America for 90 days, three months. I wanted to learn Spanish, and I used a couple of different apps to learn Spanish. I minored in French in college, so I thought it would be easy to pick up Spanish. I can usually pick up things pretty quickly, but I’m just not a language person. I studied, I actually studied for three months before my three -month trip, every single day. Took a little app, you know, lessons, and I was still terrible. I thought I was confident. I would get there. People would laugh at me.
Mikaela Kiner
Yes, it was tough. Yeah, and I have been using Duolingo for two years to get ready. You know, I want to learn and people want to speak English because I also think they feel like it’s more helpful to you. And so I’ve now learned to say like in Spanish, right? Like I’m practicing my Spanish. Is it okay? Because, you know, I want to speak because that’s how you learn. But so, so what happened then? Did you just learn?
Carrie Nelson
Well, luckily, you know, luckily I was with a travel group that would often, that would help. They would help in situations. Where was I? And then I ran into one of them in France and I helped them there, which worked out. But, but I realized I should have studied more. I mean, I remember the words I used, the phrase I used the most was, I’m sorry.
Mikaela Kiner
That’s a good one.
Carrie Nelson
I had a cheat sheet. I even brought around a cheat sheet, but I would study. And then in the moment I would get nervous. So I couldn’t order in restaurants. I’m lactose intolerant. So it was very difficult for me. They just didn’t understand. So I tended not to go out as much. I also just felt bad asking my roommate to translate the whole menu. You know, they didn’t mind, but it got to be a lot. So I ended up being more introverted on these trips, ordered in if I needed food, but I like to cook anyway. And I felt bad. If we’d be on a tour, I’d be the only one to say, hey, can you do an English translation? They do the whole tour in Spanish. And then every place we went, they would do this And they’d stop and tell me, sorry, everyone just slows things down. So that’s important to know that. And I knew outside of America, people wouldn’t speak English the way that we did, but I thought there’d be one person somewhere, you know, a restaurant would have one translation, one English menu, you know, being a tourist. So, and I was Mexico city, Medellin, Columbia, and Miraflores, Peru. So it was, it was tough.
Mikaela Kiner
That is interesting. Yeah. I was, um, I worked in India for three years and most people well, like anyone I came in contact with spoke English. Of course it is a national language there. But then I did a business trip to Beijing. And I mean, I just, I assumed for instance, wrongly, that when we got in a taxi and I said the name of my major hotel, that they would know. And I mean, the guy got out of his cab, I think as an invitation for us to get out of the cab because he didn’t know what we were saying. And then this other guy waved us over and he didn’t speak English, but he called a friend who did the translation so that he could take us to our hotel and I was like, wow, this is a very, it’s a very different experience and it is good. It’s good to be challenged because, you know, in the US, of course, we’re not challenged in that way. I also, I have high school French and I found first it made it harder because I couldn’t think of, you know, I didn’t really know any Spanish and I would say something and my daughter has seven years of Spanish and she was like, mom, that’s not a word. And I’d say, well, it’s a French word. I was like, it’s just what’s coming to my head. But then I’ve also found just the structure of, you know, knowing another European language, like the structure, the phrasing, where the verb goes, the conjugations, it has helped me in the learning process, I think. But, and I talk and now I realize there are things I’ve said to people that I was trying to tell them at the hotel that I left my valet parking ticket in my room. and I realized later I said I left it in my bed, and they must have actually thought I was crazy. I was like, it’s in my bed, and they’re like, what? But you know, it’s okay. I will say for anyone who wants a funny story about language learning, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, where he talks about learning French, and there’s a part where he’s like, I just used the words I knew, and so apparently his two words were bottleneck and ashtray, and so he’s like, you know, I’d just go into the butcher and I’d say bottleneck ash. So it was definitely more ridiculous than either of us.
Carrie Nelson
Wow. That’s good. And at least I had that happen in Greece too. And I had to go to restaurants with the like delis where you could point and say that I want that sandwich, you know, and you have it on the phone too. So people, a lot of people travel now you can translate on the phone. A lot of people though, I came across it. No, I’d say what I wanted and I’d put the phone up to them. to translate and they’d say, what, what, what’s that? No, no, listen, listen. I’d say, no, no, it’s gonna. And they go, we’re shocked by it. I’m like, I’m in a city. I was in cities in every place. I was just surprised how hard it was.
Mikaela Kiner
So any parting suggestions, recommendations, words of wisdom?
Carrie Nelson
No, it’s just do research. So I guess if anyone wants to be a digital nomad, it’s an amazing experience. Do research about where you’re going to go. Transportation is important too. There’s all kinds of ways to transfer transportation, buses, taxis, there’s apps, there’s different versions of Uber in almost every country, even Barbados. And just do the research beforehand, it’ll be a much smoother trip. And I also like to research what fun I want to do before I get there. Book ahead, a lot of things book in advance. And then I know what I’m going to do. I know what I’m where I’m eating dinner every night in London. But if you plan ahead, it is a really fun, amazing life. So I recommend it for people.
Mikaela Kiner
That is awesome. Well, thank you. And I know when we were doing those monthly water cooler chats, it was so fun for all of us to wait and see where you were that month. So really fun, really inspiring. Thank you so much.
Sarah Wilkins
Thank you for listening to this episode of humans beyond resources. Is it reverb people .com to find free resources, subscribe to our newsletter and connect with our team. If you haven’t already, subscribe to stay up to date on all of our upcoming episodes. We look forward to having you as part of our community.
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