Financial educator and Wander Worldschool host Suzy May shares how her family funds and sustains a slow-travel life between Seville, Denver, and Japan — covering worldschooling programs, housing swaps and sits, budgeting, and the visa rules that shape where they go next.
Slow Travel, Worldschooling, and Money Planning with Suzy May
Certified financial educator and money coach Suzy May—host of the Wander Worldschool podcast—shares how she and her family live between Seville, Denver, and an upcoming multi-month stay near Tokyo while working remotely and prioritizing “slow travel.” She explains worldschooling options like Boundless Life’s three-month cohorts with an education center for kids and coworking for parents, describes settling into Seville via a German school to build language immersion, and outlines how slow travel supports culture, routines, and budgeting. Suzy also dives into planning styles, housing strategies such as TrustedHousesitters and HomeExchange, transportation choices, ways to fund extended travel by renting or subletting a home, and key visa considerations like the Schengen rules, digital nomad visas, and country-specific stays.
Timestamps:
00:00 Moving Along - ep. 43 - Suzy May
00:36 Introduction to Suzy May, Host of Wander Worldschool
02:09 Headed to Japan
03:56 Boundless Life - An Organization for Worldschooling Opportunities
07:47 Where Suzy Started: Growing Up in Loveland, Colorado
11:01 Moving to Spain with the Family
16:02 The Benefits of Slow Travel
19:53 Travel Planning for Families vs. Just Showing Up
21:37 Renting, Home Exchange and Housesitting While Traveling
24:37 Getting Around - Rent a Car?
25:44 Affording the Slow Travel Lifestyle
29:47 Visas, Dual Citizenship, the Schengen Shuffle
32:51 Digital Nomad World Schooler
34:54 Making Friends in a New Home Country
35:58 School Culture in Spain
39:31 Water Pistolas in the Plaza
41:39 Adapting to the Seasons in Southern Spain
43:38 Certified Financial Educator, Money Coach and Travel Mom
45:45 Endless Opportunities for Slow Travel
49:05 Resources
52:59 Waiting for the Bus
Contact Information
Suzy’s email: hello@suzymay.com
Wander Worldschool Podcast: https://www.wanderworldschool.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suzymay.wander/
Boundless Life: https://boundless.life
Servas International: Connecting for Peace (short-term stays) - https://servas.org/
TrustedHouseSitters: https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/
Furnished Finder: https://www.furnishedfinder.com/
[00:00:00]
Christi: Welcome to Moving Along. My guest today is Suzy May, a certified financial educator and money coach. She is also the host of Wander Worldschool. It's a podcast, about her travels around the world, but also money, planning, what she calls slow travel, long distance planning for [00:01:00] travel, and we're going to talk a lot about that today.
Suzy lives in Seville, Spain, with her husband Mark and two children who are ages six and nine. What a wide world it is for them. And I wanted to talk with Suzy because her story of moving her family to Seville, Spain, I don't, I don't even know how many years ago was it, Suzy?
Suzy: Almost
Christi: Almost three years ago. It just, like, intrigued me.
It's like, how do you... This is not a military family, and just over the, you know, the course of doing Moving Along, I've talked to retirees who are out and about. I've talked to younger people who don't have families yet and aren't even sure, you know, the digital nomads, we'll see how it goes. And I've talked to military families, but I've never talked to somebody who just said, "Yeah, let's go to [00:02:00] Spain."
So right now, as I understand it oh, and I, you know, basically I want to know how did she do it and how does it work and what's her day like?
Christi: But now there's even more intrigue involved because Suzy is spending her time with her family between Seville; Denver, Colorado; and Osaka, Japan, Osaka? Have I got that right?
Suzy: Near Osaka. We'll be there for a couple months this fall. We will be going to Osaka. I'm hosting a pop-up there, but actually we'll spend about three of the four months in Kamakura,
Christi: Oh, and where is Kamakura?
Suzy: about an hour outside of Tokyo
Christi: And how did you decide that you're just going to I think this is s- such a mystery to me
Suzy: Yeah, we are doing the Japan leg of our slow travels with a organization called Boundless Life, and they have eight locations around the world, and [00:03:00] they run three-month cohorts where the kids get to participate in the education center program from around 9:00 AM to 3:00 during the day. There's a co-working space for parents, and parent activities, and then also they assist with the accommodations.
So when they announced that they were opening a location in Japan, I jumped on it because that's a country that we've been wanting to go to for a long time. It does feel a little intimidating, especially as a family, and I really like the slow travel. We work remotely. We have that flexibility. I said, "Let's just, let's do it.
Let's go to Japan for a couple months." And it's great because we get a little bit of hand-holding through this organization, but yet we will still be there on our own, spending time as a family. We'll have other families to spend time with, but really by being there for a couple months, we'll have a chance to really get to know the Japanese culture as well. And so I'm really looking forward to it.
Christi: Wow, that sounds like quite an adventure. And what is this [00:04:00] organization? Can you, can you say it again? We'll put it in the show notes, but what is it?
Suzy: Boundless Life, and there's a lot of different world schooling opportunities, and I'll define that first. I take a very broad interpretation of world schooling. It's really using the world as a classroom in whatever way is available to someone, taking a global mindset to learning, if you will.
So that might take a place in your home base, like where you're located right now. Of course, it's really fun, though, to take that on the road. It's fun to travel. It's fun to see new places, have that place-based learning where you're in this new space and you really spend time getting to know the culture, the language, the mannerisms, the history, all the amazing things that we love about travel.
So Boundless Life is one of those world schooling opportunities. They started about four years ago, so post-pandemic. There were a couple people that were like, "We love to travel. We have kids. Let's kind of put these puzzle pieces together and create this [00:05:00] opportunity where you can go back to places you love."
You know, there's eight locations, so you get to explore new, but also go back to places you love with a consistent education program, a consistent accommodation. You know what you're going to get a little bit. Of course, every place is different, but you know that there's going to be some level of ease with the accommodation part of it, and then also the co-working, the parenting activities, the family activities.
So it's a really cool program. This will be our first time participating, but I have spoken to many other families, both in my travels and on the podcast, who have participated. And outside of Boundless Life, there are lots of other opportunities that are similar. There's a program in Croatia. There's one in Italy next year.
So there's various options. This one is a little more a little more formalized by now, I guess. They've put a lot of effort into their company and their branding and their marketing, and it's really taken off. The eight locations, if I remember, quite a few in [00:06:00] Europe, of course, and then Uruguay, Bali, Japan, and then some European locations.
So it's really cool. Some families do this full-time. They just do Boundless Life. Some people mix it up and do a cohort and then other things. So it's really, you know, whatever families are interested in or able to make work for them.
Christi: Cool. Is there a website or
Suzy: Yes, boundless.life, I believe So Boundless Life. Yeah, so I believe they got their name from boundless, like I am not bound to a location, because as a family, we might want to travel, experience new things. But with parents working or kids that really love social environments, there's a great way to integrate an education center there that is used to kids coming for three months at a time and then leaving.
It's not a set school, which is actually what we do here in Seville. Our kids do go to the German school when we are in Seville for half the year, [00:07:00] and that is a little more stationary families that are from here. So we're somewhat the odd family that tries to fit in as much travel as possible. So it's, it's great to also be around other traveling families.
So it's a good, a way to mix the aspects of being in one location longer. You know, so we first moved to Spain for a full school year and loved it so much that now we keep spending time here. We have an apartment here. But also there's a lot of the world that we'd like to see. We've had reasons that we've gone back to Colorado, and then the Japan is what we're doing this fall.
That is really exciting for us to have this opportunity. And I figure, I don't know how much longer my kids will be up for this adventure, so I'm taking advantage of it while I can to see as much of the world as we can as a family.
Christi: So you grew up in Loveland, Colorado, right? What did travel mean to you, moving when you were a kid?
Suzy: Yes. I always like to go back to [00:08:00] someone's travel origin story as well, because I think it really is indicative of where they began that love for travel often. And mine started early on. My mom had studied abroad in her high school, or sorry, university years to Germany, and she kept up those friendships and relationships with people over there.
So my first trip at age one, I don't remember it, of course, was to Germany to visit family friends. So that was a location that my parents would take us to periodically because we could stay with people and it worked out well for our, you know, family and it was financially a- able to go because we could have people to stay with, and also the culture and the people we got to see was really special.
So I would say early on, travel was part of my upbringing, but also there were some opportunities where we did some slower travel. My parents are librarians, but my mom was able to take off for a whole month one time and we slow traveled around [00:09:00] Europe, and that's when I really got to see what it was like to not be in the bigger cities.
They did not always like to go to the bigger cities, especially with family. I understand that now with kids. They don't really care if they're in Madrid or a small Spanish town as long as there's a playground. But it was really cool to see kind of just local life in these places. And also we traveled with an organization called Servas.
Have you ever
Christi: I have. In fact, I talked to an artist who lives in Santa Fe, and he's from Paris, and he and his wife traveled using Servas quite a bit before they decided to settle in Santa Fe.
Suzy: That's great. Yes. It's just recently I met a family that was traveling in Europe with it, and I was like, "Oh, I need to get reconnected." But I remember we were in the mountains of southern Germany in the, with, like, the helping with the animals up at the farm or staying at this family's house, and they would have dinner, and it was just such a great [00:10:00] cultural exchange.
And my parents tried to find families that had kids the same age. And so even though we couldn't always speak the same language, we were able to communicate. So those early memories were certainly part of my love for travel. And then as I was a young adult, I had an opportunity to live in Germany for two years.
You mentioned military moves at the beginning. This was with the military, and so they did a lot of the heavy lifting of getting me there and helping me get settled. Plus it was just me. But those two years in Germany were eye-opening. I loved the travel opportunities, the ease of getting around, and I would say that's when the travel bug really bit me.
And so after that, I left that job, and I took about a year off to travel. And later with my now husband, we took about six months off to travel. And so we knew that this would be part of our family life when, when we did start to have a family, that we would want to incorporate travel into that as well.
And so that took place, or at first was able to move to Spain in [00:11:00] 2023
Suzy: You know, we didn't travel much during the pandemic, and little kids are hard to travel with. And that's when I realized that slow travel works really well, especially with young kids. As much as I would love to fast travel and see as much as I can, like we used to do pre-kids, it's very hard with young kids.
They like a little bit of a routine. You just don't get to see as much. And so we decided to really focus on language during these early years. And my husband speaks German to them, but we wanted more German. And then we also know that Spanish is a very useful language in the US and all over the world.
So we said, "Let's combine those into a German school in Spain." Seville was like, "Sure, we'll take you." And so that's how we landed in Seville, and we moved here that first y- August or so, and it was a rough start. Broken AC, stolen suitcase. It was, it was, it was very rough. First day of school, I dropped the kids off and I was like, "What did we do?
They don't speak any Spanish." Like, [00:12:00] we, we had started to prepare, but we were just so busy getting there that I was like, "Oh my gosh." And thankfully, kids are quite adaptable. It did take a couple weeks. They had a common language of German, but again, no one else really speaks English, at least in their grades, and they didn't know Spanish yet.
Now they're just chatting up a storm in Spanish with their friends. We were just at the plaza, and I love to hear that because that's when I hear their Spanish come out, when they're talking to their friends. But that first couple months was pretty rough, I'll be honest. But by January, we're like, "Wait, we like this.
We don't wanna only do one school year here." I had to go back to work a little bit in Colorado and some other things, and then now we've been able to make it work to continue to spend, like the, the last two trimesters of their school year here in Spain, in the January to June, and then it gives us the other half of the year where we're able to travel.
And so it's like the best of both worlds. We get to have the stability in Spain. Of course, we [00:13:00] have friends and family back in Colorado that we're happy to spend time with this summer and, and other times that we've been able to be there. And then we still get to fit in some new adventures as well.
Christi: What language do you speak at home?
Suzy: Usually English, of course. That is certainly what they prefer. And then early on growing up in Colorado, they had a couple years where it really was predominantly English, of course. But my husband speaks German to them, especially if I'm not around, it's easier for him to stick to German. He does default to English, especially when I'm around.
And I understand the German, but I'm not also speaking it, which makes a big difference in just the family language dynamics. And then I try to do a bunch of reading with the kids in Spanish because I'm also learning. I've been taking private lessons for quite a while and I feel like making progress, but also Seville Spanish is quite they have a very strong accent, so sometimes understanding the local accent is difficult.
But then if I listen to a [00:14:00] podcast really slow in Spanish, I'm like, "Oh, I got this." Or my teacher who's not from here, you know, I can understand her and so I try to read and do things in Spanish with the kids when I can, but they know that obviously I speak English, and so that has really been our predominant family language, which is one reason that living here has been actually, I think, very important for the language acquisition because it's not just something that they're doing at school, it really is immersion.
And they're seeing when we go to Germany and visit family that there's a whole country that speaks this language that your dad speaks. And then also, of course, the community language is, in Spanish and Seville very much is the-- you know, it's a great way to be immersed in the language, to be living here.
And the school situation, the families are very welcoming. It's, been a great situation. So we're really happy to be able to keep all these things together. And my goal is that the kids, you know, are trilingual, and then [00:15:00] I also feel like at some point we could introduce another language. They seem curious, maybe some Japanese
Christi: I was going to say Japanese.
Suzy: Yeah. Or French I feel like would be a really useful language. But obviously there's, lots of opportunities in different languages if their interest is there, but at least we'll have a foundation of those three languages.
Christi: That's wonderful. That's their the neuroplasticity of children's brains too. Adults too, I hear, but well
Suzy: It definitely is a little harder as an adult learner, I would say. But, but I also think part of it is that the kids are less nervous perhaps, especially when they're really young. I mean, at some point, you know, they start to get shy again or, or they don't wanna be embarrassed. But when they're really young, they just are used to just trying and speaking and making those mistakes, and someone gently corrects them, and then they keep going.
Whereas adult learners, adult speakers, we're a little more in our own head about it, I [00:16:00] think. We- Mm-hmm
Christi: Yeah. What is, you've referenced this a couple times, slow travel. How do you define slow travel?
Suzy: And how I define it might be different from someone else, which is totally fine. You know, there's no set definition to some of these. I just define it as basically taking a more intentional mindset to travel where whatever maybe your initial instinct is, and I have this too. don't get me wrong, I'm J- I'm Japan planning right now, and part of me is like, "Oh, we could go here. We could go here. We could go here." And then I have to stop and say, "But are we really going to soak in the culture that way? Are we going to see what the daily rhythms are like? And do we need to move that fast to really enjoy parts of Japan?" And I know having lived in Seville, people can spend two or three days in Seville and see a lot of things, which is fine if that's all that works in someone's travel itinerary.
But also having been here longer, there's so many other things to do, and those are [00:17:00] the things that you only really learn about when you've been somewhere longer. So it's just taking an intentionality to slowing down Getting into more of the daily rhythms of life in that community or that city or wherever you are, and not feeling the desire to move around as quickly or have to see as much, maybe fitting one or two things during the day, and then the rest of the day leaving open for spending time at the park all day, or who knows what comes up.
I like slow travel because it also means that we can be more flexible with the weather. I'm sure we've all been on a, on a vacation where we have four days, and that's the four days it rains, and that can really overshadow how much fun we have on this vacation, right? But if we're somewhere for two weeks, and we can look ahead, and we can say, "Wait, this might be the best day to go do this activity, this day for that activity.
We've got a rainy day. Let's go indoors to the museum," and then the rest of the days we're going to take it easy, and we're going to build in time to just rest and relax and just hanging out at the plaza [00:18:00] or whatever that looks like, depending on where you are. So I think there's no one set definition, but it also does depend on, you know, if one or both people are parents, are working.
The ages of the kids may play a role. I'd say the younger the kids are, the more slow travel can really be a benefit. You're not having to pack everything up to go to a different hotel and unpack everything. But older kids, maybe you actually want to see more because they really can walk around all day.
You know, their legs don't get as tired as
little
Christi: By themselves.
Suzy: or they want to go explore on their own. So there's a lot of different things to consider, but also slow travel is often more affordable. You can stay in less central locations perhaps, because you can take time to get to know the public transit system.
You also can get those weekly or monthly lodging benefits. You can be somewhere in the off-season a little bit more, knowing that you will still have some nice weather days that you can see things, but you don't have to only go during the [00:19:00] high season to take advantage of that. So I think there's a lot of financial adventa- advantages to slow travel as well.
But really, at the end of the day, it also is just a way to make travel part of your life instead of the other way around. Instead of like, "I have to adapt everything to this trip that we're doing and come home exhausted," it's a way to say like, "No, travel is how I'm experiencing this right now, and I'm going to just, slow down a little bit and see what's around me and not feel this desire to see everything."
Because I've accepted a long time ago that there's a lot in this world that I will not see, you know, and that's okay.
Christi: And you're still young. I mean, really.
Suzy: Yeah. I mean, you're right. I, I, if I wanted to, I could definitely try to still see everything, but at the same time I'm like, "Oh, that would be, that would be tiring."
Christi: Yeah. Some- something certainly if you wanna go climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
Christi: You're a planner, right? Th- is that what I get from your podcast? You really like [00:20:00] planning.
Suzy: I do. I do. I, and I talked with someone recently, a family that is leaving for a year of travels, and they're like, "We don't like to really plan anything. We show up, we look for accommodations." They don't even usually have something booked for the first night, and my heart was just, like, racing a little bit, not, not, like, thinking about how I would feel in that situation.
But I was also a little jealous because it gives you this freedom to just explore. So I try to strike a balance. There are certainly things that we need to plan ahead. You get the best prices for things. You can get the best accommodation, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's also fun to have stuff to look forward to, I feel like, as well.
That's part of the traveling, honestly, is, like, the looking into it or preparing for it just as much as the being there. But I also think it's important to build in time for spontaneity, serendipitous experiences, opportunities. So that's where the slow travel kinda blends in with that.
Okay, I can plan to be somewhere [00:21:00] longer, but yet I may not fill every day. Not going to plan every day, but I know that we're going to be in this location because actually when we're there, we have time to figure out what we want to do. But I like having accommodations and things booked a little bit ahead of time.
Certainly, like, with kids, they always wanna know where they're staying or with a h- working spouse, you know, I need to make sure that I get the places that have functioning Wi-Fi and things like that. So there's a lot of, you know, moving parts to consider when you're trip planning for especially a family.
But I think there is benefit to planning ahead while also building in opportunity for, you know, let's see what happens here.
Christi: Do you rent or have you ever house sat or how does that
Suzy: Yes. I love talking about home exchange and house sitting. We've done quite a bit of both of those. I find that in the United States, and then also this would apply to the United Kingdom and maybe even Australia somewhat, TrustedHouseSitters is that pet sitting, house sitting website that's [00:22:00] very well known.
It, I think, started in the UK, so it is very well known with English-speaking travelers. But we have done on some amazing sits in Colorado, up in the mountains. Like it's only an hour or two away, but it feels a world away and we get to hang out with, let's see, last Thanksgiving we had chickens, three dogs, two cats, a horse, and a mini donkey, and that was an adventure for four days.
But I was like, people pay to go to a dude ranch and do this, and here we are getting to stay for free in a cute cabin in the mountains. And, you know, it certainly is-- You have to be flexible. The priority is the pets and the animals, but it is still an opportunity to experience new things and stay in a real house, which I really like to have the space, and the kids like to have the space, and it's very nice.
And then in Europe, we found that home exchange is quite common. We've done that even though we rent our apartment in Seville. We, of course, they, our landlords know [00:23:00] that we can-- They've allowed us to sublet or have... It's basically like having friends or family staying because no money is exchanged.
But we went to Naples and the family stayed here at our house, and then last year we got the points from a family from France staying here because we went to Morocco and, you know, we didn't, we had hotels and things. And so it was a way for us to get the points that then later we used to go to the coast of Spain, and I really love home exchange.
It's a bit of a process to reach out to people. I was trying to find a place to stay in Rome, and I'm, I'm sure those people get inundated with requests, so I couldn't really find anything. It was just taking too much time. But I find that sometimes you just get lucky. You just never know who's looking to come to whatever location you're in.
But I think it is much more common in, in Europe, where sometimes people can just drive from France over and come to Seville, and especially if, where you have Semana Santa week open, which is a big deal in Seville, that people want to come here. And I like that we [00:24:00] get to make sure someone's staying in our house and there's this level of trust and, mutually beneficial exchange with that website, and I think that's just a really cool way to build community in the travel world as well.
Christi: I agree. I, I did home exchange ages and ages ago because I had a friend who worked for a Swiss-based company called Interhome, which I think is probably whatever the genesis of home exchange. I think
so. And it was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful. And, you know, no, you didn't even have to water the plants.
Christi: But okay. So do you rent a car? Is that what you do?
Suzy: So we're lucky that where we're renting here in Seville, we don't really, we don't have a car. We don't need one. Everything is close by. It's so convenient. I w- I love public transit. Yes, it takes a little longer to get places, but I'm okay with that. We do sometimes rent a car, sometimes [00:25:00] for like two or three weeks at a time, and then we'll fit in a bunch of weekend trips during that timeframe, and then will not rent one for a while so that we can do more local things.
And then actually, like tomorrow we're going on a beach trip, but there's a big bus operator and it's 18 euros per person to just hop on a bus to take us to the beach. And of course it is a set time for pickup and all that, but I'm like, you know, honestly that'd be about the same as renting a car and paying gas and, you know, all that stuff.
And so it's nice to just hop on a bus
Christi: And you don't have to drive.
Suzy: yes, exactly. I usually don't do the driving here, but, and my husband does like driving, but at the same time it is really nice to not have to worry about it at all, for sure.
Christi: So let's talk about money. This is your specialty. But I have a note here because you recommend that people who own their home rent it out. Like, if you own... And I, I did wonder what you [00:26:00] recommend for people who either rent or live in restrictive co-ops or homeowners association regulations might not really like that.
I wondered what you recommend for people.
Suzy: Absolutely. And I-- this is where I think slow travel, if you have the flexibility to be gone longer, it now means that it could be worth it to put the time and effort into renting your house out, because you're not going to do that for necessarily a one-week vacation necessarily. Though I do think people actually have set up the systems and do that on Airbnb for just a week vacation.
But for a month or two or three, it becomes really worth it to take advantage. And if you can cover those costs at home through renting it out, and then now you're only really spending on the travels, it's a way to basically swap expenses instead of add on your travel expenses onto all the other expenses from maintaining your home base.
So that's where I feel like it [00:27:00] gives people more freedom to explore longer travel if the finances is a concern or a question or how do I make this work. But there are certainly a lot of things to consider even if you own your home, right? Setting up all those systems, having all the proper insurance and registrations and all that stuff.
Now, for people that rent, which again we actually do here in Spain, you could always talk to your landlord if it's possible to sublet it for a period of time, and there are plenty of platforms like Furnished Finder where you can find traveling nurses or remote workers or people relocating that want furnished homes for two months, three months, or more. And so that's a way that you can do all your proper checks, credit, background check, references, all that stuff.
And so if your landlord allows that and it's written into your lease, you could certainly, you know, look at subletting it while you're, if you're gone for a longer period of time. I also do know that [00:28:00] quite a few families have decided to sell it all. You know, they s- they pack the stuff in storage, they sell the home.
This might work well, and also if you rent a home, you might have a little more flexibility when your lease is up. Throw some stuff in storage. You don't have to then maintain anything with this home base home necessarily, and it gives you the freedom to look for a different accommodation, different housing situation when you do return.
This works really well if you don't plan to return to that location. You're probably going to move anyhow. You might as well sell some stuff, pack some stuff up, and then travel in between. So there's certainly a lot of options that it really just depends on someone's situation and perhaps how long they're able to travel and how much it is essential to their travel plans to rent that out for any length of time of that.
But I certainly know that people are often able to travel for long periods of time by renting out their home, and it, it basically sometimes even [00:29:00] provides them a little extra income for wherever they are. And if you then travel in a lower cost of living location and you travel slow, you can really drop your monthly expenses too.
I mean, I've talked to families that spend a month in like, Hoi An, Vietnam, for about 3,000 US dollars for a family of four, and I think it would be really hard to live for that in the US in many places with all your costs all together. So it's amazing what's possible if you slow down and g- then go to places that have a different cost of living.
You can really stretch your travel dollars more, which is often what someone who wants to take an extended period of time off, they're interested in that. They're interested in stretching their travel dollars or euros or whatever, pounds, as far as they can go.
Christi: What about the visas? Don't you need visas? Or do your kids have double citizenship with your husband? Okay. So they're already covered
Suzy: We're very lucky. Yeah, but [00:30:00] there are other opportunities. So there are plenty of people that have perfected the Schengen shuffle if Europe is on people's travel plans. They do the 90 days in, 90 days out. It's a rolling system. There's apps to help keep track of the dates.
And you do want to be extra cautious now of your Schengen dates because it's all electronic. It's gone are the days of the passport stamps when you enter the EU. And so it is definitely being more closely monitored. And the Schengen actually has grown even recently, so it used to be somewhat easy to bump to like a Eastern European country to be out for 90 days.
Some people from Spain, they go to Morocco because it's not that far away, and they... Or the UK. There's Ireland is one of them, I believe. Double-check all this. But
and
Christi: the-UK- uh, Ireland's in the EU, but Northern Ireland is not.
Suzy: Okay, gotcha. Thank you. Yeah. So the Schengen shuffle or, you know, being cognizant of it. I was just [00:31:00] chatting with someone today who does a world schooling program in Curaçao. People with a US passport can stay up for 180 days there upon arrival. Japan, for example, with my husband's German passport, they can get 90 days and a 90 days extension.
And then also there are a lot of digital nomad visas that really popped up post the pandemic.
Some of them are certainly easier to get than others. Some of them have a lot of hoops to jump through, and so I think it's still a deterrent somewhat. But for someone who wants to be in one country for maybe a year or more at a time, maybe it is worth going through the, steps of a digital nomad visa if they meet the criteria.
From my understanding, Albania allows one year on a arrival visa for people with a US passport, so that is a launching point for some people to explore Europe from Albania. So I think there is-- Yeah, whenever someone is in a Facebook group and they're like, "I wanna go here or here, give me some ideas," I think a lot [00:32:00] of people are like, "Well, what, what is your visa access?
Like, what does that look like?" because really that is the scaffolding to then fill in, you know, what type of trip you want around what is possible with the visas and things like that. Some people do find that if they're in Europe for longer, they do like to go to a lot more lower cost of living country for a little while in their off 90 days anyhow to balance out for the, you know, long-term or slow traveling budget.
So it really just depends what people are, are interested in. For example, with Japan, when I figured that we could actually stay there without having to do the digital nomad visa, it lightened the load a little bit of having to prepare and plan for that. But it is worth checking into before you book flights and try to stay somewhere longer and then realize, oops, that, that might not be possible.
So yeah, it's a big part of the trip planning process.
Christi: Do you consider yourself a digital nomad? You work, right? I mean, from all over
Suzy: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Remote worker, [00:33:00] digital nomad. Yeah, there's a lot of different terms, I think, to describe this. I think because we are here f- in Spain a little longer, we have kids in school here, it feels slightly even less nomadic because it's six months in one location.
And sometimes digital nomads are doing like one month in each location. So, I mean, again, anyone can define it however works well for them. I certainly think when we are traveling faster, then it might feel like, oh yeah, that's, that's what we're doing. But I definitely consider like a slow traveler.
World schooler I think is a term that, you know, some people think it means you have to be traveling and you can't like do any type of like schooling, but I really think that I take a more broad definition to that. Like basically if you're taking a global mindset to learning, you're a world, world schooler.
So, I think the cool thing about some of these terms is it just helps you maybe find like-minded people. But at the end of the day, you know, you really have to [00:34:00] spend time getting to know the people that you're wanting to be friends with or in the community you're in to really find a community of people that you can relate to and enjoy traveling with.
I've done that a lot with this World School Pop-Up Hubs. Like I mentioned, I'll host one in Osaka this fall, and I hosted one in Naples last month, and it's just seven days, but families from all over come and they, you know, it's a whirlwind seven days together. But it's amazing when these kids just met each other yesterday, but now they're playing in the park.
They're getting along. The parents have you know, other parents to chat with. We can share ideas or location ideas or how is this possible for you. You get to meet up with people like a year later. Actually, a friend I'll see this weekend came to my Seville pop-up two years ago, and she did it partly because they were interested in moving to Seville, and they loved it, and now they live here, and we have kids the same age, and we get to hang out, and they came from the UK.
Suzy: So it's just great. You never know who you're going to keep in touch with, and that's why I love these different [00:35:00] conversations and connections.
Christi: Well, it's interesting because that's your foundation from your parents, right? They kept in touch all those years. And I mean, that was one of my questions is, how do you make friends? So this is one way. Are there other... I mean, do you just walk around and sit on the park benches like we do in New York and start talking?
Suzy: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is where everyone's personality is going to shine a little differently. My husband's really outgoing, and so when we are out with other Spanish parents, he's chatting up a storm. He's a little more comfortable in Spanish, you know, and then I get a little more shy, but then I have a couple parents that if I'm, like, one-on-one with, I really enjoy that conversation.
So it's great to have different environments that you feel comfortable with, and this is where, thank goodness for, I guess, the internet and these podcasts and, you know, all these different ways that we can connect with people now. So absolutely, finding people at the park bench, going to the playground.
Suzy: Kids are this natural [00:36:00] attraction to other kids, and then before you know it, you're talking to the parents, or other parents are, are desperate for something kid or- oriented to do, and so they're happy to meet up with you. Also, I would say school has been a great way to get to know what culture is like in Spain, especially school culture.
And the way they approach school is very different from my experience with the US, and I think there's a lot of great things that can be-- That I will take with, like, wherever our, our education journey takes us, I'm going to take a lot of things with me from our experience here in Spain.
Christi: Like what?
Suzy: How invested the parents are, which I think, I'm not saying that that's not the case in the US, but they are truly invested in the community of the classroom and the other families.
I mean, the WhatsApp groups for, for each of my kids' classes, I mean, there's like 50 messages in there
sometime. And I was thinking, so we did a full year in Spain, and then I [00:37:00] went back to Colorado for a school year, like for a semester. And I said, "I'm going to be that mom that really tries to connect the families."
Because in the US- Any communication from the classroom is often from the teacher. So this, overworked, underappreciated person who's very busy in your kid's life is also managing the administration of the classroom often. Whereas here, there's parent delegates, and they will communicate, and it just, I think, lightens the load a little bit from the teachers.
And I, again, there certainly might be classrooms that have this, but it's a very strong bond in w- among the parents, and just so supportive. I just really think that that level of communication and openness and willing to invite the whole class to a birthday party, it doesn't have to be much, but it's a way to really make sure that every kid feels welcome.
I think that is a really great thing that I've picked up here. And then also just in [00:38:00] general, their school day is a little shorter. It also doesn't start 'til... It's 9:00 to 2:30, which is very nice for us to not have to rush out the door at, like, 7:30 w- is what time we started at when we did school in Denver, and it was just mornings were chaos.
And here we just eventually get our way to school, and then the kids can do after-school activities, because certainly there are parents that are working longer hours than that. But they have this fresh-made lunch, and then they get to pick certain after-school activities. And it's things like chess and science and karate and sports theater.
So it's very intentional kid-focused activities. Instead of my experience with after school in the US was often they're just playing, which is great. Like, they're just outside or they're in the cafeteria, and it's basically just like babysitting them until parents can come pick them up. [00:39:00] But here I feel like there's just this more intentionality to this time, like taking advantage of the time to really do things.
Next year, my son will do an after-school activity called pre-engineering. I just think it's really cool. Like, he's like so interested and so excited, and I'm like, "This is awesome." And so again, maybe some of these things do already exist in certain schools in the US, but I felt like really the parent involvement piece, and not just like one or two parents, but just this like equal footing that all the parents had is a really cool way to see it.
Suzy: And I think what is structurally different though is that, like I mentioned right before our call, there was this giant water fight water, you know, water balloons, water pistolas in the plaza, and of course, that was all communicated by our local, like we have a neighborhood WhatsApp group, of course.
But it's much denser living. Everyone lives in apartments, and so you might not always go into someone's home. But then you're out in the [00:40:00] plaza. You're outside a lot more. You're having a coffee. I mean, life is lived outside in southern Spain especially. And so there were maybe 100 kids and families that showed up to this plaza It was just so awesome. The parents were having just as much fun. And I was thinking to coordinate something like that and get that number of people to show up in the US, I feel like you'd have to start two months out and like get it on people's schedule. Whereas literally like four days ago, they said, "Friday night, 7:00, meet in the plaza with your water guns, and let's have fun."
And it was so fun. So I think- The mindset around the flexibility and communal living. And yes, that means that I hear the kids above us, like stomping their feet all the time. So there's a trade-off to close quarters, But the win for us is I don't need to have a car when we're here.
There's a grocery store like two minutes away, the school's five minutes away, the park, the bus. So it makes life really easy to live, and that's [00:41:00] very appealing. We're like, "Wow, it's so much easier to live here." And I recognize we have so much privilege with our opportunities and our access and our jobs, and I know not everyone in Spain has the same experience.
But for us, just being able to slow down here has really been a benefit for, for all of
Christi: That's nice. Some of what you said reminds me, maybe it's just an urban thing. I lived in New York for so long. I mean, it's like, you meet at the bar, you meet at the park, you meet, outside. But it's not a year-round event in New York, not with that snow. Just like in Colorado, right? Snow. Although then you go skiing, You go snowboarding and
Suzy: Yeah, there's still opportunities to get outside, and they certainly have their rough season in Spain. The summers can get very hot, and that's where adapting to the seasons is very important, and the siesta time, and the whole, cycle of the day, once you've been here, it just makes total sense.
At first, if you're [00:42:00] traveling to Spain for one or two weeks, you're like, "Oh my gosh, they don't start dinner until 8:00 or 8:30. I don't know I- if I can hang on that long. This is crazy." And then once you live here, you're like, "Oh my gosh, this makes total sense." You wake up and you have a small little something at home, but then around 10:00 you go get your coffee and like a tostada, and then that holds you over until your bigger meal, which is around 2:00 or 3:00.
You might have a big lunch. That's when everything closes. And so then you're not-- You're done eating around 3:00, so of course you're not going to be hungry again for a while. Maybe 5:00 or 6:00 you have a little snack in the plaza, people might grab a drink, and then there's chips or something kinda small to hold you over.
And then most people will have dinner around 8:30 or 9:00, but it's not a giant meal. It's a lighter dinner, because they already had their big meal earlier. And then you go to sleep, and you start it all over the next day, and it really fits with the seasons, especially when it is warmer. At night, everyone's outside till 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, and [00:43:00] it just works well.
And so I do like to see when places adapt to their climate and what works for them as a society instead of like, the work hours are 8:00 to 5:00. Even though I remember when I was working in northern Germany, and I was at work for two hours in the dark because of winter.
I really wish we had had winter hours. Like, give me a break in the day so I can go outside and have one hour of the sunshine for the short window we had it. And so I, I think there's something really beautiful about at least like adapting to the climate of where you are.
Christi: Which came first, the certified financial educator and money coach or the travel mom?
Suzy: Yeah. Good question. We've been on our we got... We've been together for over a decade, and early on, especially with kids, we really were on this personal finance journey. Just, I felt [00:44:00] like I knew stuff, but didn't know everything, and I decided I was an adult and needed to figure all this out. And that has been an amazing journey that has really allowed us to do things like this.
Certainly remote work is part of that, but we were very intentional about, you know, if we can have one parent working remotely and we don't need to save as much because we've already done know, quite a bit of savings. We were doing a lot early on. It allows us some flexibility now at this season of life, and that, someday again, maybe I'll, I'll work a little more, blah, blah, blah.
It gives us, like, an opportunity to spend more time with our kids at this age and stage of their life. And so then I was on that personal finance journey for years and helping people and talking about it, and then I said, "Oh, I want to look into, like, more of a formal certification." I'm also doing an externship this summer, which is an amazing eight-week program.
I've done quite a few other courses as well, and I've really learned how to work with a client [00:45:00] one-on-one to understand what their situation is, and again, just help them find their own answers to their own questions and where, where they need to go, because I feel like people often know what they need.
They might just need a little help putting some of those pieces together. And I'll also say I was a health educator for 10 years. I was also a nurse. So as a health educator, I did one-on-one visits, but it was health-oriented, and so a lot of that was, understanding what someone's specific needs are, using motivational interviewing techniques, helping them develop their own skills and their own resources and their own motivations to make positive change in their life.
And so it's really very similar, but just now on, a more of a personal finance side.
Christi: Oh, interesting. Are most of your clients, back in the States, or are they where you are in Spain, or are they all over? Or are they expats?
Suzy: Yeah, and I think certainly for people [00:46:00] that want to travel more or are moving abroad, the money piece really comes into play. Like, how am I going to make this work? But predominantly people in the United States that either want to travel more. I've also worked with, with individuals who are immigrants to the US, and so they've maybe worked out the day-to-day money situation, but they are also like, "I would like to retire someday," and what does that look like here?
They're navigating a whole new financial system in that regard, and I understand. You know, my husband grew up in Germany, and so he somewhat had to learn a whole new system, even though he's been in the US for quite a while. So I understand what it's like to be overwhelmed by money and the questions that come up, and feeling like it's too complicated.
And there is an entire industry out there whose job is to make it complicated, and they add these layers and these terms and, you know, then they're like, "Well, come work with me because I [00:47:00] can help you figure it out. And by the way, it's so complicated, I'm going to manage your assets and I'm going to take a percent of that."
Whereas I, you know, can say from personal experience and the training I've done, that I feel like 99% of people can understand how to manage their own money on a day-to-day basis. Also, you know, the next step though is o- is often how to save and invest for your midterm future, your long-term future, and how to balance saving for tomorrow while also enjoying today.
There's just a lot of discussions that come up in personal finance. And then of course, layer onto that is that finance is not only in this vacuum of what choices I make. Often it's a family or a partnership, but also systemic things around us, you know, our access to work or where we were born. All these different things play a role, and so everyone's journey is going to be so unique.
[00:48:00] That's why I really like one-on-one conversations, because if I-- you know, certainly on the podcast it's great to share general knowledge, but I never know how it's going to land with one person. Someone might know some of it, someone might know none of it. Whereas one-on-one, you can really see what is someone's needs and where can you help them meet their goals.
So that's really, I think, a lot more rewarding in that sense. But the cool thing about podcasting is just having conversations with traveling families and world school creators, and I ask them their financial and logistical questions, like how do they make this work? And you know, there are people who are taking a gap year and they've saved up or they sold their house or they're starting an online business or they have remote work or...
You know, I've seen so many different ways to make slow and long-term travel work for families that I really think that there's endless opportunities if someone has the motivation and has the desire to do it. They just need to create a path for them and how, whatever that looks like. You know, sometimes that [00:49:00] means working with someone that can help them get on their way even quicker perhaps.
Christi: It sounds like you really enjoy it.
Christi: What are some of the resources that you recommend for people who are thinking about moving abroad temporarily? You mentioned obviously Trusted Housesitters, Home Exchange, Boundless Life. Is that for everybody? That's just really for families,
Suzy: Families. Yeah, absolutely.
Christi: Then Servas, right?
Suzy: Mm-hmm,
Christi: What else?
Suzy: Yeah. If someone's planning to move abroad, I actually think there's perhaps even more resources if you're not doing this as a family. I sometimes think that a lot of families are doing this because it's kind of the world I'm in, and then I realize that actually there's not that many of us.
But there are quite a few digital nomads or, you know, people of all ages, couples, s- solo people who are taking the flexibility that they have with, let's say, remote work or between educational opportunities to go live somewhere, [00:50:00] perhaps a lower cost of living for a while. So I truly think there are some great resources out there on the, on the internet, and probably this is where, again, thinking about which location that might be.
Maybe you have a goal around language development, or studying abroad could be really cool, or something part of your family heritage that you'd like to spend more time in a location. And then researching the visa option would be important to do next. But then after you somewhat know the timeframe and what length of time you would like to spend in one location, I found that there's-- the only reason I really keep Facebook around is for Facebook groups, but there are a million groups.
I've learned so much. You can find a group for families or for expats or for digital nomads or blah, blah, blah in whatever city or community. And if you join early enough and read in there, you just kinda soak up some things, right? And then of course if you can find people that are living there Reddit has some [00:51:00] really great subreds for different locations.
You can start to ask people actual questions that are there. I also think there's a lot of value in just having-- like, just paying for a relocation service perhaps if it does feel overwhelming. And I say this because, when we first got to Spain, I was like, "We're going to figure all this out." And then I said, "Nope, we're just going to hire a lawyer to help with the visa process and my residency."
And it was so worth it to not have the headache and the bureaucracy. One of the moms at the school here w- recently started working with a company that offers relocation to Andalusia, and so it's been fun to talk to her about that. She says they're very busy. There's a lot of people wanting to move to the area.
And they can just answer so many questions, and I feel like that is probably money you're going to spend either in mistakes you make or in a relocation service. So you might as well just get some hand-holding if it feels a little overwhelming or you just need a little extra help, and that's totally okay. I also think it's very important to just keep [00:52:00] a flexible mindset, and even, like with your podcast, moving along.
Like, we might be moving to some place, but we're also moving along a journey. And so not one place needs to be a forever place. And sometimes when we're making big moves, it feels like we are taking on this, definitive action. And if it- doesn't work out, I will have failed in this endeavor," or something like that.
And I think that we learn and grow so much through these opportunities that it's just like moving along through the journey. And so even if you're somewhere and you don't stay as long as you thought you would, or it's not as great of a experience as you thought it would be It's okay to then adjust and pivot and go somewhere new, or even return to wherever you came from, because sometimes when you leave a location, you realize how much you liked it and how good it was.
And so it did offer you that important perspective. So I think it's good to have some grace in the process as well.
Suzy: And I'll [00:53:00] just close on this one opportunity I had in Naples. We were waiting at w- we were waiting at a bus stop forever, and my kids were like, "Okay, when's this bus coming?" And I was like, "I have no idea." And then I just asked this really nice family that walked up then, like, how basically, like, when the next bus is coming, and they didn't know, but then a bus came, and I was like, "I'm just going to hop on this.
We'll figure it out." And then, like two minutes after we got on the bus, he walks over with his Google Translate, and he basically had translated like how I should now take this bus to this bus to get to where I had to go. And it just reminded me that sometimes if we just ask someone, a quick question, more often than not, people are willing to help us, and we can get to where we need to go without always having to like refresh Google Maps, wondering why it's totally wrong, you know?
So that is a reminder that even though we have a lot of great resources, people have been doing this [00:54:00] for a long time, even before the internet e- era, And so it is possible to just show up and have an adventure, and that's how I consider some of those ups and downs, It's just part of the adventure.
Christi: And on that happy note, thank you so much, Suzy. It's been a pleasure. Thank you
Suzy: Thank you. This has been so fun to chat. I really appreciate
it. Thank you.
[00:55:00]