M&R Episode 012: Do you feel overworked, underpaid, and under appreciated?

In Episode 012 I spoke with expat Christa Romano. She shares how she got out of the daily grind in New York and found the life she always dreamed of on the road as a Digital Nomad. Enjoy!

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Hello and welcome to Misfits and Rejects, a podcast about expatriates and the artistic way they've styled their lives around the world.

I'm your host, Chapin Cr. Enjoy.

I didn't fit in America.

Find yourself shipwrecked in a far-off place, and Dale, welcome to Shell.

Try not to plan too much at all, you know, just be spontaneous.

I quit the limiting story. I really tried to overcome that fear.

I'm going to sail again, and we have one more, I got one more sail in.

Love her, but leave her wild.

But it didn't work for me. The American Dream was what it worked for me because I didn't fit in the American Dream.

I had respect, but I was the youngest one. Now I'm an old guy, and I have respect for myself.

You know what, Chapin, I'm a secret friend, and I prefer just to be secret.

And if you can figure out who Dale Daggers is, then figure it out. And if you can't, then go.

Welcome to another episode of Misfits and Rejects.

I'm sitting here with Krista Romano, a lovely lady I met in Nicaragua who, as I got to know her a little bit more, I realized she wasn't your average traveler.

She was actually doing something that I really aspire to do and accomplish with my life as I continue to grow my online business and really try to make my life more location independent from work.

And so when I got to get to know her a little bit, I was so pleasantly surprised to hear her inspirational story and how she created this life for herself, this lifestyle design, as we've talked about in so many past episodes, the stories that we've heard of other people.

So with that said, I'd like to introduce Krista. Krista, welcome to the show.

Hi, Chapin. Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure. I'm really looking forward to getting your story out there and letting people hear.

Because, you know, when I first got to meet you, we were having drinks in Nicaragua, and I got to hear a little bit about, you know, I think you're working for a startup and all the cool places you had just been and you were going to.

And I've been now working on my own little startup project online for like the last year, and I'm nowhere near where you've gotten yourself.

And so when I got to hear about the motivating factors that kind of pushed you over the edge to just take that leap of faith and buy that ticket to Asia, I believe it was, I was just like, oh, you're perfect.

You're somebody whose story is, I think, going to really pump a lot of people up to maybe take that leap of faith and get out there and try something new.

So with that said, like, can you just tell us where you're from?

Sure. I'm from Boston.

But I always like to say that I'm, I also kind of say that I'm from New York.

It's sort of the last place that I've lived.

It's actually where I am right now, where I feel the most connected to in the United States.

But yeah, American, Boston.

Okay. And you grew up in just a kind of normal family.

Did you travel a lot as a young lady?

As a kid, I think my family, I'm one of four kids and we're all pretty close in age.

So I think that makes it difficult for a family to sort of go far and wide.

But it has to get my parents' credit.

I think they tried to at least expose us to other things that were more accessible to us.

So I remember going on a trip to New York when I was young to D.C.

We would go up to the mountains.

We would go to the beach.

But yeah, not necessarily, I mean, not traveling to like other cultures.

So yes and no.

Do you think there was, I see that with the amount of children,

it probably would have been hard to buy everybody tickets to Europe.

Do you think there was any sort of underlying fear factor that maybe your parents had about international travel?

No, not at all.

My mom traveled a lot when she was younger.

And actually my grandmother, who's my dad's mother, she's like a little globetrotter herself.

Once she retired, she's been everywhere.

So a lot of people in my family actually travel.

A lot of my cousins have done the Peace Corps.

So I don't actually think that there was really any fear.

And as a group, my family is pretty accepting of the idea of international travel.

I think it was pure logistics when we were younger.

It's just expensive and too much fighting and stuff.

So yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Now from when we spoke earlier, you had mentioned you were more comfortable in New York.

So you've lived quite a few years in New York.

And that's where you found yourself as a young professional at what, like 26?

Is that about right?

Or maybe let's start a little earlier than that.

Did you take any big trips prior to your new life of being a digital nomad?

I did. Yeah, sorry.

Okay. So I thought the question before was, did I travel when I was younger?

So yeah, like I said, I had traveled to different cities and stuff in the United States, but nowhere crazy.

But I always loved the idea of travel.

I loved reading about other places.

And I loved being by the beach.

So actually when I was 19, I was a freshman in university.

And I actually found a Facebook ad, which weren't that common at the time because Facebook had kind of just started becoming a thing.

But there was a Facebook ad for a marketing internship that would take you to Europe if you got the internship.

So it was for a company called Kintiki.

They are a big like tour agency.

They mostly focus on Europe.

They've previously catered to Australians and maybe like cultures that can travel for longer periods of time or that it's more accepted to travel for longer periods of time.

But they were making a big push to market towards college students in the United States.

They kind of wanted to break into that market.

So they had an internship where basically they took like one college student from 50 different universities around the United States.

And it was a very rigorous application process, a lot of essays and a lot of like, I don't know, marketing plans that I had to draft.

And I actually didn't know anything about marketing at the time.

And like I said, I hadn't really traveled before, but I just was so infatuated with the idea of traveling and was so focused on getting this internship that I really tried really, really hard.

And I ended up getting it.

So that was awesome.

So I did a two week trip around Europe when I was 19 in the summer with like all of these new people that I didn't know.

And I remember being nervous at first because I didn't go with any friends and I had never really been anywhere by myself before, but had such a great experience.

And after that, I was definitely hit really hard with the travel bug and became really interested in it.

So anyway, later in my college career, I ended up studying abroad in Italy.

And oh man, that's a whole other story.

Yeah.

So actually, do you want to share your story?

That's great.

I'm always interested in these stories.

And it sounds like you did a very normal sort of transition for a lot of Americans who take that leap over to Europe and really get their feet wet there, which is a great spot to get sort of used to traveling.

And culturally speaking, it's so old and diverse.

It's really cool.

I think I'd like to more push forward though to like you as a digital nomad and how you kind of came to that point in your life because you were graduated from school, as I understand, and you went straight into working in digital marketing.

Is that correct?

Yeah, I did.

And so you got out of college and you just went straight into the workforce in New York.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, that is accurate.

I think when I graduated, I was just very focused on this like American idea of yeah, just going straight into work and building a career and getting a head start.

So I think I just get tunnel vision really bad.

Like when I decide that I want something, then I just I really get fixated on it and just go for it.

So I moved to New York pretty quickly.

I had decided, okay, if I graduate college, then I'm no longer going to have the opportunity to study abroad.

No more spring breaks, winter breaks.

So I'm never going to travel again.

I was all like sad about it.

So at least I thought if I go to New York City, then every street corner is different and there's so many different ethnic restaurants and neighborhoods to try out that at least it's going to be like traveling every day.

I moved to New York on a much smaller scale.

So New York lived up to that and I loved it for three years right after I graduated.

That's a really cool rationalization on transitioning from a travel bug to traveling to New York to experience the cultures that you felt like you had to sort of give up in order to chase your dreams of.

Fitting in with or whatever.

I remember thinking, I remember thinking that like I'm going to move to New York and work in Midtown and wear a suit and like pencil skirts.

And I really thought that was cool.

Do you think Sex in the City had anything to do with that?

Probably, probably.

I don't know.

Fair enough.

I've heard a lot of young ladies say that Sex in the City is what motivated them to move to New York and give it a shot.

So at what point though throughout the, when you said three years, you were living in New York working in online marketing?

Yeah.

Did you decide that maybe this wasn't living up to your life's dreams and hopes and you were feeling maybe drained by this whole experience?

Yes.

So I do feel that my rationale is justified.

The original rationale moving to New York that it's a stimulating environment and you can get a lot out of it.

It's very diverse.

You meet a lot of people, different people from different cultures you can explore.

But it's also such a grind and it's a rat race and it's expensive.

And you never see the sun because you're always in the shadows of a skyscraper.

So I also like came to New York with the idea also that I was going to do travel PR because I love the idea of travel again.

And I really want to travel PR.

So the first job that I got when I came to New York was in digital marketing, which wasn't really what I wanted to do.

But I took it anyway because I was so focused on moving to New York.

So I did that for two years and then I finally got a job in travel PR, my dream.

So I transitioned and then oh my God, I hated that job so much.

And I don't think I necessarily it wasn't necessarily the job that I hated.

I was using a lot of my like skills the right way.

But I don't know, I guess just trying to like convince people to go to Bermuda for restaurant week just didn't really line up with what I loved about travel.

It just kind of seemed very fake and like, I don't know, just kind of missing all the all the good things I loved about travel.

Yeah. So with a job title like that, I feel like you get to travel a lot.

Was that the case?

No, I thought that I thought that it would have been the case, but it wasn't.

Okay.

So yeah.

So anyway, to anyone that's thinking about going into travel PR, it's not necessarily like the jet setting lifestyle.

I mean, once in a while, sure.

All right.

So when did you hit rock bottom with this whole lifestyle experience that you were going through that you said, I'm over it.

I'm going to pull the plug and go somewhere else and do something different.

So there were like a lot of things that I really didn't like about.

I think it was more about the company.

It was just very structured, very corporate.

It was all like little blonde girls that had a college education, like from the same kind of university, which pretty much I just described myself.

So everyone was the same.

It was just I just hated it.

So so I lasted six months there.

And then I was like, you know what?

I need a change.

I need to do something else.

I don't know what I'm going to do.

So I stayed.

I stayed in New York for another six months trying to decide what route I was going to take because I had spent the last three years thinking that I wanted to do this one thing.

And then turns out it wasn't what I wanted.

So I was kind of like, well, what am I going to do?

I don't really know.

So what I really want is to travel.

That's the reason why I moved to New York in the first place.

So I decided that I should go travel.

And then I was like, oh, I have no money.

So that was a setback.

That's going to that a little bit.

So yes.

So now you want to you finally after three years, you have no regrets.

Obviously, you had a good time, but you kind of come full circle to the point where you're like, actually, all I really want to do is hit the road and travel.

But I'm broke.

So what did you do?

So then I was exploring options online and I was thinking, well, first, just talking to another friend, we were like, let's go backpacking.

I was like, oh, that sounds great.

Yeah, I would love to go backpacking.

And then, yeah, the reality is thinking that I couldn't afford that.

I had just been spending all my money on stupid rent in New York.

So I thought we were at this point if you don't want me asking, I was twenty five, twenty five.

OK, so, yeah, it's really hard to save money in New York.

So anyway, I was like, all right, well, if I want to travel, then I guess my only option is to work while I travel.

So I started looking up where can I work and travel.

So I had identified there are five places that Americans can get working holiday visas.

Canada, which is cold, Ireland, which is also cold.

And I didn't want that.

Singapore, which I didn't know enough about and wasn't interested in.

Also, just a big city.

And then Australia, New Zealand.

So I had a friend in Australia, so I thought, great, I'll go to Australia.

But then because I could get a job there and it would be easy.

But then looking into Australia, the cost of getting there was a lot.

The visa was a lot.

And the cost of living is so much that I did the math and I realized I probably need like, I don't know,

ten thousand dollars to go there and be comfortable and not necessarily drown and be in a situation where I would be totally screwed

and need to call back to my family to bring me home.

I didn't want to do that.

So then I thought, okay, not Australia either.

Where else can I go?

So then I was just Googling, like, where can I work?

And I found a blog that really inspired me.

And long story short, I ended up meeting the blogger and that's all cool.

But basically this one blog inspired me and it was about this Irish guy.

It's called One Step Forward.

This Irish guy who had the same thoughts as I did.

He actually was in Australia and still was in like a nine to five kind of grind and then decided to move to Thailand

because he read that he could teach English there.

And even though he wasn't really a teacher, it was easy enough to get a TEFL,

which could get you a job and that there was always a constant demand.

What's a TEFL?

Sorry, Teaching English in a Foreign Language Certification.

There's like a TEFL, there's a TOEFL, there's like a million abbreviations for different certifications that you can get.

But anyway, the point is I decided after being inspired by this blog that I would move to Thailand and teach English

and figured, you know what, even though I'm 25 and like I probably should be focusing more on a career right now,

maybe teaching English will just be a cool like six months kind of thing and I can teach and then have the summer off

and then once I've done my traveling, I'll come home and resume thinking about my career.

So that was the plan.

So how then did you afford a ticket to get to Thailand if you were broke?

I had like a little bit of money, but basically I got my security deposit back and I didn't have to pay my last month's rent.

I lived at home for a month, worked a couple more odd jobs.

Basically I saved, I had like $6,000 by the end, but like getting actually maybe not even that much.

No, that's great. Thank you for sharing.

I think it really paints a picture of where a lot of people find themselves and money is obviously always an issue

when it's time to take that first leap out and $6,000 might not sound like a lot to some people,

but when you take it to a place like Asia, especially Thailand, you can make that last for quite a while.

Yeah. So when I say like, oh, not a lot, like $6,000, I'm also very aware of the fact that to some people that's also a lot of money.

But when you're going to endeavor that kind of trip, like a six month trip, you know, you start to really investigate cost of living.

You know, it's not as much as people think when you're hitting the road and you don't have any income.

Yeah. And you know what? Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think I even had that much.

I think maybe it was like five or even under.

So a thousand of that went to the one way plane ticket.

Another thousand of it went to the teaching English certification, which lasted a full month.

So it was like a place to live for a month.

And I had something to do to keep me occupied for a month.

And I was gaining a skill.

And you did all this in Thailand. You got your certificate in Thailand.

I did. Yeah. I did a ton of research beforehand to identify the program that I wanted to do.

But I decided on a program called Samui Tuffle.

It was located in Koh Samui, Thailand on an island, which was wonderful.

Sounds like it. Yeah.

And so you got to Thailand with this new lease on life in a foreign country that had you been to Asia before?

No. What was your first impression of Thailand and Asia and this kind of experience coming from New York?

I think it's difficult to be prepared for no matter how much of Asia or anywhere that you've seen,

because it's just a really hectic, crazy, dirty, smelly, overwhelming, huge city.

So those were all the feelings I was feeling the first two days.

So I landed in Bangkok. I stayed there for two days.

And then I went to Koh Samui and that was like a breath of fresh air.

And it was all of a sudden life was amazing and the culture shock wasn't as intense.

And I was on the beach and I was talking to English speaking people every day in my program.

So it was a great like one month long kind of assimilation period into Thailand.

That's cool. And then what happened? So now you have your teaching credential.

Did you jump right into a school?

No. So one of the girls in my program, we had decided that we were going to go to Bangkok together.

And at the time, actually, I was like, oh, I remember we had decided, oh, we're going to do Bangkok like really early on.

And then when the time came, I almost chickened out being like that place was like so big and kind of gross and scary.

And maybe I can just stay by the beach. But then we were like, no, we need to go.

We need to give it a chance. Like, anyway, so we went to Bangkok to look for a job.

Moved all of our stuff into a hotel room and lived in the hotel for like a month while we were looking for jobs, teaching jobs.

So she got a teaching job and I was really particular about only wanting to work in the city.

I figured if I'm going to be in Bangkok, I don't want to work outside of the city.

That sounds awful. Like I want to be in the city center and like, you know, kind of have a similar lifestyle to what I had in New York, I guess.

So this was in the middle of the semester and there weren't a lot of good teaching jobs that were available mid semester.

So I thought, OK, I've been in this situation before.

I'm just going to freelance for a little while until the new semester starts and then I'll look for a better teaching job.

So I started looking for freelance writing and marketing jobs.

And I was actually on Craigslist because Craigslist exists in most countries.

I don't know, like, if your listeners are mostly American or if they're from other places.

They're from all over.

OK, so if anyone's not American, they might not be as familiar with Craigslist,

but basically it's just a huge kind of like janky classifieds website that anyone can post anything from like furniture to honestly to like weird sexual favors.

Like it gets a totally bad rep for weird stuff that people post on there too.

But there's also a lot of legitimate stuff and there's a lot of diamonds in the rough, if you will.

So I was on the job classified section for Bangkok.

And also, I think Craigslist tends to get it's like more well known in Western countries.

So there I don't know, I just think more expats tended to use it.

So anyway, I found a job posting for what I thought was like a blogging position.

So I applied and I remember the guy who was interviewing me called me back and he was like, OK, are you aware that this is a full time position?

No, I wasn't aware. Are you aware that this is in an office?

No, wasn't aware. Are you aware that it's not just a writing position?

It's actually a marketing position that could turn into something else.

And I wasn't aware of any of those things, but they kind of pitched me in the company.

So it ended up being a real estate website that was catered towards English speaking people in Thailand because that didn't exist there,

which is crazy because there's so many expats in Thailand.

But anyway, so this website, it was a startup and they were looking for someone to do just kind of like anything.

So I was like, well, I'm here. I have the skills for this.

And they hired me the next day, which is really cool because that would never happen in New York ever because there's always so many people applying for every job.

But I mean, whether I was whether I was super qualified for the job or not, I think I was qualified, but whatever.

I think being in the right place at the right time, like being in Thailand, being available for the phone call, being available to go into the office.

And having skill sets that's relevant.

They I think they knew there weren't a lot of people like me out there that would have been available.

So so I got the job really easily.

And and then all of a sudden I was employed by a tech startup in Thailand.

Now, just I just want to quickly go through that now that you're employed with a tech startup in Thailand.

Like how do visas work and how do you to stay?

Because I know you only get a certain amount of time with your Thai visa when you land.

Can you take us through that real quick?

Yeah, sure. So I went on a tourist visa to Thailand.

I got a three month tourist visa.

And so the first month I was in Koh Samui getting my TEFL.

The second month I was looking for a job.

And then it was a third month, luckily, that I found this position.

So they didn't want to hire anybody that didn't have a business visa, but they processed all the paperwork for me.

I just had to cross the border, cross a border, go get the paperwork stamped and then come back with the new visa and my passport.

So they gave me the papers.

I hopped and trained to Laos.

And then I was in Laos for a week, went to the went to the consulate or whatever it was, embassy, I forget, and then came back.

And then I was I was legal to stay there until I guess I was terminated.

Wow, that's cool.

So, I mean, how is that process?

Because you're in a foreign country and I have to go get all this crazy paperwork in a whole nother foreign country done.

Was that a pretty straightforward process and easy for you or was it difficult?

I would say it was an adventure.

Yeah, I have like funny memories thinking back to that time because it was just.

So I feel like from the day I decided I was moving to Thailand until when I was actually sitting in a desk like typing with at my new job,

the whole three, four months in between was like a total blur.

And this visa run that I did was sort of like the climax of it all, I guess.

Yeah, going allows crazy.

All of a sudden I was on an overnight train and I didn't have like a phone plan and I didn't know where I was going.

And the embassy like closed very shortly after the train is supposed to arrive.

And it was really crazy and very overwhelming and like I guess a little bit scary and definitely very stressful.

But then, yeah, I made it.

I made it. I made it on time and I got the paperwork processed and they were going to process it over the next like two days.

So then I was like, well, I guess I'm here. I might as well enjoy it.

And that was kind of I guess my first like really solo experience being in another country and kind of not having any plans.

And it was amazing. I met really cool people that I'm still like friends with today.

And yeah, I don't know. It was awesome.

It sounds amazing. It sounds like I think anybody who has done what you've done can relate, you know, where you just have those.

It's a blur. You're just experiencing so many new things at such a fast pace.

And you can't understand how this world works outside of your normal world back in your home country.

But it does. And you get through it and you look back wondering how you got through it.

But then the longer you're out on the road, you realize there actually is a system in place that enables these countries to function and you start to fall in love with it.

But yes, with all that aside, like now you have an office job in Thailand.

I mean, was that pretty cool? Are you excited about that or were you kind of feeling like you're back in the office again and just in a different country?

No, I I thought it was so amazing. I loved it.

The company was was pretty diverse. I was the only American, which for some reason, like every American that I tell that to, they're like, really?

You're the only one. And I'm like, Americans don't travel, obviously.

Not that we don't travel, but we actually really don't travel internationally very much.

And if we do, it's only for like a week at a time, two weeks max kind of thing.

So, yeah, I don't know. I didn't I hardly met any Americans in Thailand.

But yeah, there was a lot of British people like Swedish, Russian, French, someone from Mauritius, Irish, like people from all over the place.

So I so I loved that. And of course, a lot of a lot of Thai people, too.

So for me, I thought it was really cool working side by side with Thai people because that exposed me to a side of Thai culture that I never would have been able to see if I had only been traveling.

And I think even if I had just been living there as like a blogger, I wouldn't have had that interaction with with the actual culture.

So now I feel like I'm very familiar with like the way Thai people think and why they think the way that they do and how and why they do things the way that they do.

And there's just all these really cool little nuances between the different cultures that I think was very mind expanding to experience on a daily basis.

So I loved it.

Sounds like it. Now, how long did you eventually wind up staying?

For two years.

Wow. Two years in Bangkok.

Yeah.

In an office job, did you learn Thai?

Not as much as I should have.

I'm I am embarrassed about like how little Thai I know.

I know some I am I would call it survival Thai.

What I found most people, most expats kind of you either like you learn as much as I did and then you plateau or you make a really conscious effort to learn it and then and then you're fluent.

But there's not like a whole lot of in between.

It's just a really difficult language to learn.

And what I found, which is very much unlike places in South America where you might go there and they they expect you to speak Spanish.

And if you don't, then you're kind of out of luck.

But in Thailand, I think because it's the language is not like well known at all to anyone outside of Thailand, they don't really expect you to know Thai.

So as a result, most Thai people, not that they speak English, but they they're a little bit more accepting of communicating with people that don't speak English and that don't speak Thai.

And they might know like a couple of survival words, too.

So so you didn't really pick up tons of time.

But like many people, you either have to put yourself completely in an emergent situation or like you said, you just kind of plateau, which is kind of me and my Spanish.

I mean, I lived in Nicaragua for eight years and I'm embarrassed to say my Spanish is actually atrocious, but no worries.

I think that, you know, some people are either more focused or more naturally gifted at these things.

And I think we can go back to these countries and try again another time.

But I kind of like to ask you about when when did you start becoming more nomadic and were you able to live off of your computer from anywhere in the world?

Oh, yeah, good. OK, so that's like where I'm at in the here now.

So that's like a whole other kind of story with many roundabouts.

But I was living in Thailand and I loved my job and I loved my life.

I loved being an expat. I loved being abroad.

But the time difference from New York to Thailand is 12 hours.

The plane ride is a minimum of 20 hours and like a thousand dollars minimum round trip.

So it just I guess I was getting homesick or just more aware that I was missing a lot of things that I wanted to be around for.

And not only was I missing them, it was also just really difficult to even talk to anyone because of the time difference.

So I decided it was time to come home. OK.

Hey, can I ask you real quick? Sorry to interrupt.

Do you mind me asking how much you're actually making a month at this job?

Let's see. I was making sixty thousand baht, which is like a what?

Like a thirty five baht to dollar conversion rate right now or something.

Yeah, I guess it's like two thousand dollars a month.

OK, so to come home is going to take half your monthly wages.

And what was your cost of living per month when you were there?

Probably like twelve hundred dollars a month.

OK, so say roughly you're able to save about eight hundred bucks a month from living in Thailand and working.

That's pretty cool. Yeah.

Maybe I didn't save quite that much, but easily I would say five hundred dollars a month, which was more than I was saving in New York.

So go figure. That was crazy.

OK, sorry. Go on. So you got a little homesick and you came back.

Yeah, so came back and then I didn't.

It was like a little abrupt about how I came home. And that's just another story.

So basically I came home and I didn't I hadn't decided where I wanted to live or even what I wanted to do again.

I just I needed to come home for actually some family reasons.

So I did. So I had decided, you know what?

I actually have saved a little bit that I can afford to not work for for a few months when I get home if I live at home.

So I did that. And I spent those three months kind of like trying to just, I guess, repatriate.

Repatriation, repatriation.

Yeah. So, yeah, trying to sell back into American culture.

And I don't know, after being outside of it for so long, I wasn't thrilled with the idea of being back.

Can you talk a little bit about the repatriation process?

Because this has come up for many travelers who come back to their home country after after living outside of it for a period of time.

What what would you describe it to feel like when you come home? How would you describe that?

I definitely felt very misunderstood.

And that's pretty much the word that sums it all up, I guess.

Disconnected maybe to the culture that you once were very familiar with.

Is that another maybe way to describe it?

I mean, I still I still am like sad about missing.

I still miss Thailand every single day. And it's been over a year now.

So that that actually wasn't the strongest feeling when I got back, because it was it was OK being in and being in a different culture than what I had all of a sudden become used to.

Because you don't become like unused to being in the United States if you've spent 25 years of your life there.

It's just it's kind of like a weird familiarity where things look the same and you know how to get around and stuff.

So you don't necessarily have like those kind of culture shocks, but it's more like you you just have like a different perspective on everything.

And you're like, oh, I used to think this one thing about this.

And now I think something different. And does does that change me who I am?

And I don't know. I guess it made me feel kind of cynical.

And I like didn't appreciate meeting people as much as as I once had.

Yeah, I don't know. I guess just disconnected and misunderstood.

And it was also weird like whenever I told about it was also awkward to tell people about my life.

If someone were like, oh, where are you living? Then like, well, let me tell you my whole life story because I just spent two years living in Thailand.

And then people are like, what? That's crazy. And then they think you're weird because they can't relate to it.

And and they or they just don't care. And I don't know.

I just it was weird. I think I'm going to actually dedicate a whole episode to repatriation because I felt it myself.

Everybody I know who's lived abroad for long periods of time has felt it when they come home.

And yeah, it's a it's an interesting phenomenon for sure.

And yeah, go on, go on with digital.

You're becoming a digital nomad. How'd that happen?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I couldn't so I didn't I hadn't decided where I wanted to live.

I was considering the idea of New York. I was considering like maybe Florida or California or Austin, Texas.

I didn't know. So I thought, you know what?

I've been in a situation before where I couldn't decide what I wanted to do.

So I'm just going to do what I did before and freelance and start just like doing some contract work.

So, again, I was in a situation where I was picking up odd jobs.

And again, I found myself on Craigslist looking at the marketing job section.

So, again, I also inadvertently applied to an ad that was for a position that I the ad was like kind of cryptic.

It was sort of weird. I just applied to it as I was applying to like a million other things.

And I got a call back. And it's so weird how this story like literally repeats itself.

But turns out it was for a startup and that they were looking for someone that was kind of comfortable with doing a variety of things.

And, you know, it would start off as a writing position.

That's what I would have been hired as a contractor for at first.

So it was a decent hourly wage. The startup seems cool.

We're building an app. And, yeah, so because I was a contractor and there wasn't an office in New York,

the company is actually based in Washington, D.C.

I was just doing writing work for them for a while.

But I guess so this startup is a little unique.

The founders and most of the company is based in Washington, D.C.

But my boss, who's a CMO, he's known the founders for like 30 years or something.

And so they wanted him to be the CMO.

And he said, well, I live in New York, so sorry.

They said, OK, if you want to work remotely, fine.

So he was kind of like supposed. Yeah, he is sort of supposed to be.

If you were to hire anybody, they should have been in the D.C. area.

But I was only a contractor, so it didn't matter my location.

So then we were working together. And, yeah, I don't know, I think we just we just work together well.

And over the years, like having worked in a few different jobs and I think working in different cultures,

I do have a diverse skill set and am very comfortable with variety.

So basically, I was I was on a trip for New Year's to Costa Rica.

I was in Costa Rica and I was offered a full time position with the company.

And I said, well, I'm not going to move to Washington, D.C., so maybe not.

And then it just ended up I was able to negotiate my position being 100 percent remote.

So so, yeah, so I decided to do that.

And then I was already in Costa Rica. I had a return flight home.

But basically through a series of events, like I ended up not getting on the flight because I was already there.

It was easy to just kind of like continue what I was doing.

And somehow that escalated into a six month trip.

That's cool. That's super cool.

I think anybody listening, you might be able to negotiate yourself into a remote workplace kind of situation.

So maybe ask your boss about that. But that's cool.

So you kind of fell into this again.

But it seems like because you're always willing to just put yourself out there and and apply one for the job and to go out there and mix it up now.

You're now that you had negotiated this position to work remotely.

What what did you feel like?

I mean, did you feel like the keys to the city that's been given to you?

Like you could basically get anywhere you wanted and not have to worry about going home to make money like that's what a lot of people, I think, find themselves questioning.

Is that even possible?

I mean, I know it happened accidentally for me, but yes, it did.

It was accidental. And at the same time, I think I'm a strong believer in the idea of leap and the net will appear.

And that it's a lot about attitude.

And if you just you know, you have to take risks in order to have really big rewards.

And I mean, like I said, I would have turned down the job if I wasn't able to work remotely.

I wasn't. So I guess having that kind of attitude, like if you if you know for sure that you want something and.

You're not going to settle for anything less and you're still dedicated to doing a good job.

I don't know, it worked for me, I guess.

Beautifully said, I think you touched upon some very key points there with, yeah, don't settle for anything less than you want.

You know, especially if you don't have to.

I mean, obviously people have certain circumstances like kids, which makes that more difficult.

But I mean, that fear that a lot of people have of not having the safety net financially or the safety net of just not knowing what's going to happen next keeps people from taking that initial leap.

And like you said, if you just are somebody with integrity, somebody who's a hard worker, somebody who's willing to just take that leap, the net will appear.

You know, it will appear because because people are attracted to those types of people in general and willing to help and give them opportunities.

So now where are you at? What's what's life for you like for you right now?

So let's see, that was last, that was in January that I did that.

And then I spent six months traveling around Latin America.

And yes, I was given the keys to the city where I could work, quote unquote, anywhere.

But it was very stressful finding places that I could be plugged in when I need to be plugged in.

So I think a lot of people who are digital nomads work independently, whereas I'm I basically telecommute.

I'm an employee. So it's a little bit different in that I'm expected to be, you know, available during office hours.

I need to be able to answer the phone if my boss needs me. I need to respond to emails promptly.

I need to be available from nine to five every single day, New York time.

So if I was in Nicaragua, then my hours were seven to three.

And when I was in Brazil, they were like eleven to seven.

So anyway, that's just a side note for anyone who is interested in doing this,

because there is a difference between telecommuting and, you know, being a freelancer or whatever.

But yes, so spent six months like trying to figure out what the heck I was doing, because this was all very new to me.

And I was very unprepared. Like I said, I just didn't go home.

I had my laptop, but I didn't have like, I don't know, I didn't have a way to get Wi-Fi unless I just a lot of it was figuring it out as I went.

So I ended up deciding to come back in July.

And I'm in New York right now. I've been in I've been in New York since July.

All my friends are getting married this year.

So the end, you know, I figured it would be nice to be around for the holidays since I kind of haven't been for several years.

So I gave myself six months in New York, and it's been fun.

I work from home. So I'm like at my kitchen table all the time, which isn't the best.

Like, it's OK. But what's really nice is if I need to go visit my family in Boston, I can spend a week there and not have to worry about it.

And I think I don't know, I was kind of hesitant about the social aspect, like the lacking social aspect of working from home.

But for me, the flexibility totally outweighs it.

And now I'm just looking forward to deciding what my next big adventure is going to be.

And I plan on doing South America again, just because the time difference makes it a lot easier.

I see. Yeah, you touched upon that.

So, yeah, it seems like now you have this freedom, but at the same time, you're you're not bound to it.

But you do kind of have to be cognizant of the time differences that you can be picking up your phone at a reasonable hour for your boss and for yourself.

So you're not up at like two in the morning waiting for the phone call.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm doing kind of like a test run.

I'm going to Europe in a few weeks.

So that'll be when I'm in London, it'll be, I think, a five hour time difference.

And when I'm in Amsterdam, it'll be a six hour time difference.

So I'll be working till like 11 or midnight for a few weeks.

But what my plan is, is that I'm going to do such a good job and I'm going to be super productive and really efficient and very responsive.

That, you know, when the time comes at the end of January and I want to take off again, my boss is going to be like, I totally trust you.

Like, it's going to be fine. So because before I kind of I was already in Costa Rica when I was when I was accepting the job.

And so it was easy to just kind of keep that momentum going and sort of like just kind of, yeah, like, go with it.

But now this coming January, when I plan on heading out again, it's much more deliberate with more intentions.

And I don't know, to be honest, I'm a little nervous about having the conversation with my boss.

Like, hey, you're going to have to start contacting me on Google Hangouts now instead of on my phone.

Hope you're cool with that. And, you know, whatever.

But like I said, I think just I think he trusts me at this point and I plan on continuing to do a good job.

And at the end of the day, if if I get fired, I'm just going to go move to Colombia or Buenos Aires and do what I did in Thailand again and just screw it.

I love it. That's awesome. What a cool attitude and cool life you have, Krista.

If you could give any advice to anybody who may be in the situation you found yourself in in New York in the rat race,

finding themselves feeling overworked, underappreciated, underpaid, and they want to get out into the world, what would you say to them?

Well, one thing that I think, you know, besides the like, it's your attitude leap in the net will appear like that's nice to hear.

But for some actual practical information, practical advice, I would say that there are way more opportunities in developing countries than than most people realize.

You know, if you move somewhere with a low cost of living, you're just going to have an easier time and less stressful time getting set up, which which really helps.

So I think I think a lot of Americans like I originally thought that I wanted to do was go to Australia because it's going to be easier and less scary, like cultures easier.

Same thing with maybe like London or anywhere in Europe. They speak English and whatever, but it's expensive.

And like you're still competing with other people that have the same skill sets as you.

But from what I found in Thailand, from, you know, most of the other people that I met there and just, you know, from the expat community, hearing stories about how other people made their way there and found legitimate jobs.

If you're just in, you just have to go there, just go and figure it out, like to not be so afraid of showing up somewhere without a real job.

And English teaching is always an awesome option.

Like if I mean, now I have this TEFL degree, so I feel a little bit like I'll always have a safety net.

If I go to a country where English teachers are needed, then if nothing else, like if I can't find a job that I really like, then at least I can do that while I look for one.

So, yeah, I guess advice is to just go and just look for something when you get there.

And there are safety nets that you can set up in advance.

I love it. That's great advice. Thank you for sharing that cool story.

I learned a lot. I didn't know a lot of the stuff you talked about about being a digital nomad, like in those two areas of being a freelancer and being somebody who actually does have a boss to deal with.

But thank you. Yeah, that was awesome.

I wish you all the best and I look forward to crossing paths with you on the road somewhere in the future.

Thanks for having me again. Bye.

Thank you for listening to Misfits and Rejects.

I hope this inspire you to think about your life situation, where you're at, and possibly make a big decision to choose something different for yourself if you're unhappy with where you're at in life.

I hope these people that I interview inspire you to go out, spread your wings, and try something new.

To live a different lifestyle that maybe your whole life people were telling you was the wrong one, but when in fact it's the perfect one for you.

I'll see you next time.