Sailing the World as a Financial Trader and Family Man With Author Patrick Schulte

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests. 

Kristin Wilson, Host:    Hey there, Kristin, from Traveling with Kristin here and welcome to episode 163 of Badass Digital Nomads. We are back with another brand new interview for you today. This time with Patrick Schulte, a longtime world traveler and digital nomad who is talking with us today about how he's been able to sail and travel the world for nearly 20 years with his wife and two kids. Patrick is a writer, a blogger, a financial trader, and a community builder, and the founder of wandererfinancial.com. He's also the author of two books called Live on the Margin, Learn to Love Risk, Profit From Fear and Retire Tomorrow. And also the book, BumFuzzle, the story of how Patrick and his wife decided to leave Middle America to sail around the world. And if you are thinking of traveling or sailing somewhere in the near future, then make sure you have emergency travel medical insurance.  

Kristin:   This is a topic that Patrick and I talk about a bit in detail, and we have slightly opposing views, but you can get travel insurance coverage with Safety Wing using our link in the show notes starting at just $42 per month. Safety’s Nomad Insurance provides coverage for unexpected illness or injury while traveling, including eligible expenses for hospitals, doctors, and prescription drugs. It also provides emergency travel related benefits like emergency medical evacuation, travel delays, and lost checked luggage. Depending on how long you're traveling or staying abroad for, you may also qualify for coverage back in your home country for a limited time. You can sign up for a policy before you leave home or while you are traveling abroad. And for full details and to check coverage and prices for your upcoming trip, you can use our link in the show notes and support the podcast at the same time. Travel safe wherever you are headed. And let's continue on with today's show.

Podcast Interview:

Kristin: Well welcome Patrick to Badass Digital Nomads. It's great to have another sailing family back on the show. And where are you talking to us from today? 

Patrick:    Yeah, well, thanks for having me. I'm calling today from Minnesota in the US. We're just visiting family in between boats right now. We just sold our boat in Aruba and we're moving aboard our new boat in Mexico in a couple weeks. So here to visit family and make sure we catch up with everybody before we take off again.  

Kristin:    Oh, that's always a good idea. Do the family run before traipsing around the world again. 

Patrick: 

Yeah. Yeah,

Kristin: the very exotic Minnesota 

Patrick:

<laugh>. Yes.

Kristin: I've been to the airport there, but that's about it.  

Patrick:   Ah, well congratulations for you <laugh>.  

Kristin:   What kind of boat did you just sell?  

Patrick:    We had a 42 foot grand banks that was a trawler, so that was like a, it's like a motorboat, sort of a fishing style I guess you would call it. And that was like the perfect boat for the Caribbean where we spent the last five years in the Caribbean and so on. You know, when you're in the Caribbean, you're not really traveling huge distances, you know, a couple days at the most, at a time. So yeah, that was a good boat for us there, but now we've decided we're gonna head off and sail around the world again. So we needed some sales, so we're back to a catamaran this time.  

Kristin:  Nice. And you've been sailing for 20 years, is that true?  

Patrick:    Yeah, well, we've been traveling for 20 years. Our new boat will be our fourth boat in those 20 years, and we've also had a couple of motor homes along the way, so we tend to go like three or four years sailing. And then we do a couple years on land travel, the, you know, motor homes mostly in the US and Mexico. But my wife and I, before kids, we also lived in a VW bus and traveled for two years that way from Alaska to Argentina and, and off to Europe. And so we just kind of been all over the place so that the water had always calls us back. And so yeah, we've been on boats now. This will, if this trip goes off as planned, then it'll be like a good eight, nine years in a row I guess on the, on the boat.  

Kristin:   So starting out, when do you start your next trip?

Patrick:    Yeah, so it's in Mexico and we'll move aboard here in a couple weeks and then, but we'll be there for probably through about March. March or April. And then that's the season that you leave from Mexico for the South Pacific. So that's like the biggest ocean crossing of the, basically of your entire sail around the world.  

Kristin:    Right.  

Patrick:    Exactly the big Pacific crossing. So that's the correct season for that. So it's nice because my kids were born in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. This boat just happened to also be <laugh> in Mexico right there in PV. So it's kind of nice. It's kinda like going home. So we'll be going home there essentially for like nine months before we take off, which is kind of perfect.  

Kristin:    Great. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you about because you've been traveling for so long. How old are your kids now?  

Patrick:    They're 10 and 12. Boy and a girl.  

Kristin:    Okay, So they were literally born into this sailing nomad lifestyle?  

Patrick:    They were, yeah. Yeah, we were on boat number two down in Mexico at the time and yeah, they've just grown up on boats, motorhomes and just always traveling, always on the move, hanging out in new places. Yeah, it's been good.  

Kristin:    Do you do homeschooling?  

Patrick:    We do, but we don't follow a strict homeschooling regimen. Our  philosophy has always just been kind of follow the kids interests and, and really just kind of when they show an interest in something and they wanna do something, uh, to really, you know, press and kinda really help 'em out with that and make it fun for 'em and, you know, so they're interesting kids. I think they've got kind of different interests and different skills and maybe, I guess, you know, quote unquote normal kids that, you know, kind of just learn what they've been taught in school and on the wheel.

Kristin:   On the school curriculum.  

Patrick:    <laugh>. Yeah, exactly.  

Kristin:    So tell us a little bit about them. Like, so they're 10 and 12 girls, boys, Like what are some of their interests and skills that you've perceived as they've grown up on the boats?  

Patrick:    Yeah, so my boy is 10, my daughter's 12. I don't know, for instance, like, uh, we started scuba diving, gosh, it's about almost two years ago now. You know, my son was only nine at the time. You're supposed to be 10. So we had to fudge the numbers a little bit on that because they're just such, you know, they've grown up in the water. So these kids are just so natural in the water, you know, and they know, they know so much about the ocean and they know 'em about currents and they're just really, they're water kids. So for us scuba diving now, it's just so, so natural and calming and fun and just exploring the underwater world is such a cool thing to do with them. And you know, like I said, a skill that most kids don't have at their age, you know, and we'll be lucky if they get it, even as adults, it's such a different lifestyle than I kinda, I grew up in, you know, I just grew up as a suburban kid in Minnesota and, you know, I just didn't know the ocean, didn't know my environment so much, you know, as these kids are so in tune with their environment 

Kristin: mm-hmm.   <affirmative> 

Patrick:  and also it just, you know, living in, in all these different places. We spent quite a few years. They were born in Mexico, like I said, and we spent quite a few years in Mexico. Not even sure how many countries they've visited and spent time in over the years, but they're just, you know, very worldly, speak the languages and I don't know, they're just different kids as far as that goes. You know, it's not like just American history that they're learning, they're learning all this world history, you know, as we go around and, and actually see these places and explore them.  

Kristin:    Do they do any sort of other types of online classes? Like any of the basic curriculum?  

Patrick:    No. Well, we've got a Spanish tutor that they've had for years, so they do that. Then the rest of it's kind of just up to us. Um, like my son right now, he wants to learn coding, so I've been sitting down with him each, each day we spend an hour on some, um, coding courses that are on Udemy

Kristin: mm-hmm. <affirmative>, 

Patrick: You know, the online courses and we go through 'em and do that sort of thing. What else do we do? I'm a stock trader, so I'm sure we'll talk about that a little bit. But I also just, you know, my kids have their own investment accounts and we go over that stuff. They know how to look up stocks and you know, they know how to do all these different things, uh, financially that they're kind of savvy as far as that goes. It's just things like that that we, we do and we focus on  

Kristin:   Life skills that no one else learned <laugh> during school.  

Patrick:     Yeah, it seems like it, right? Like how many of us like wish we would've learned more about how to manage finances when we were–

Kristin: oh my God, 

Patrick: When we were in school, as opposed to just have it drilled into the hard way, like through life, you know?

Kristin: It's not even in the curriculum. I went to college, majored in business and went to grad school and at no point where we taught personal finance, like the most obvious thing,I just had to teach myself. And anytime I needed to do anything new, whether it was leasing a car or buying a house, it's like you learn a whole nother aspect of finance that was never taught to you. And I remember before I had a YouTube channel, I leased a car cuz I was living in the US for like a year or a year and a half. I was still traveling. It was a huge waste of money. But I remember after going through the process, like wanting to make a YouTube video about how to do it because there at so many points can you get ripped off from the, you know, the car salesman and whatever. Yeah. But that's a different niche that I was <laugh> not, not that interested in, so.  

Patrick:     Right, right.  

Kristin:   Yeah. That's so interesting because even someone like myself who, I hope I've given myself a bit of a real world education through all of my traveling and I learned how to scuba dive in high school and I've taken so many online courses and taught myself so many skills, it's still hard for me to wrap my head around, you know, just learning those life skills from the beginning. But I guess that's kind of the old way of doing things before the post-industrial education system, because children would just learn trade skills, whether that was farming or cooking or baking or welding, it was like, they would just go into a certain type of trade that they had mentors and people teaching them, and then that's what they would do for a living. And these days we all become generalists and it's not until you're an adult that you begin to specialize in something and then that's a whole other, whole nother thing. So that's so interesting. And then how do they feel when they go back to places like Minnesota? Do they kind of get like a culture shock from their normal life? Or are they used to it?  

Patrick:     They're used to it. I mean, we visited family, you know, it's kind of nice in our lifestyle since it's so open and free, you know, we're able to go visit family and spend a month with 'em or you know, whatever the case may be. But it's not like just going to grandma's for the weekend. Like it would be if we, you know, lived in Chicago, let's say, you know, like we used to. They've gotten used to the lifestyle. They see it, but they also recognize how totally different it is from both our lifestyle and from just the lifestyles of the people that live in the places that we visit. I mean, it's just really different. It's culturally so different. And so it's kinda, I just like that they get to, you know, see all these different points of view and, and live them, you know? I think it'll make 'em different, you know, just more interesting adults and there's something about that <laugh>, it's pretty good, pretty positive, I think.  

Kristin:   Yeah, that's a pretty interesting balance of skills, you know, scuba diving and sailing and coding from being in the single digits of your age. I mean, they won't really remember anything differently, so that's pretty incredible.  

Patrick:     I also like just them seeing the entrepreneurial side of things, you know, and knowing that like, they're not gonna grow up thinking, Oh, okay, so when I'm 18 then I'll go to college for four years and then after that I'll go straight to a job working for somebody else, doing whatever it is. At least they're exposed constantly to seeing, you know, not only myself, but other people out there. I mean like the other people that live kind of the lifestyle that we do these days, you know, with traveling and living on boats and other homes or just being vagabond in different places. Like everybody's earning a living different ways, you know, And so many of 'em are online these days obviously. So I mean, they can develop these skills that, you know, they'll go enter adulthood with. I think just a lot of different ideas about how they can, you know, move through life and how they wanna move through life, so, we'll see, you know, with kids, I mean, you do your best. You think you're doing everything right and not doing it a certain way, and then of course then they will grow up and do something completely different that you never expected. So <laugh> we'll see. we'll see.  

Kristin:      That's okay too. Yeah. And do you guys come across other families in either in the Caribbean or in your travels? Like, do they have other kids to hang out with?  

Patrick:   Yeah, totally. I won't say there's always other kids around, but you know, there's a lot of families out there and they think even more so in the last couple of years that sailing, the cruising lifestyle has really appealed to a lot of people. I think a lot of people that didn't feel like they could do it before kind of covid came along and all of a sudden they were teaching their kids, you know, or their kids were sitting on Zoom classes in their house all day anyway, so they were kinda like, well, why don't we just finally do that big boat trip that we were going to do, you know, after the kids went off to college or whatever. And so, a lot of people are just kind of jumping into it and, and taking off and, and just seeing how it goes. Um, so I had definitely seen an uptick in the number of families out there.  

Kristin:     That's good. Yeah. Is there a way that you all keep in touch or is it just kind of through WhatsApp messages or are they part of your community?  

Patrick:    Yeah, I mean there's obviously Facebook groups and there is all these different online ways to kind of keep in touch with people, other travelers, other cruisers in your area. So you can definitely do that. But you know, also it's just kind of a matter of, with cruising at least, you know, you kind of sail into a new place, you drop the anchor and you look around and see who's on the other boats and it's just a very, you know, small, tight knit community. So when you're in a place you tend to quickly meet everybody, you know, kind of quickly hanging out with everybody else. So I mean, that's just a sailing community and a cruising community is really kind of a cool one. It's really tight knit and really helpful and everybody's always looking you know, to kinda get together and you know, just be a part of this, this lifestyle together, I guess.  

Kristin:      Yeah. Yeah. I wanna talk a bit more about sailing, but I'm curious, so you and your wife got pregnant during your travels. Why did you decide to go back to Mexico both times to have your children? Or did you go back and then stay there for a few years while you grew your family?  

Patrick:     So we were traveling in our VW bus when my wife got pregnant. And we, we were actually like on a container ship going over to Europe when we actually took like the pregnancy test and, you know, so then we got to Europe and we traveled around there for a few months and, you know, got the ultrasound in France, eventually sold the BW bus in England and flew back to Minnesota to see our family and say hi to everybody. And I'm sure at that time they were kinda like thinking we were gonna settle down. It had been like six, seven years of travel by that point. But instead, then we just jumped in our car. We, a vintage Porsche that we've, it's been in our family forever, so we jumped in the car and we just drove straight down to Mexico with like, no real place in mind, but again, by that point we'd been like, we're American.  

So we were uninsured for six years at that point. And the idea of having a baby in, in the US and without insurance was like frightening, you know, like you could quickly go bankrupt doing that. So we just drove down to Mexico and said, You know what, people have babies down here, so here we go. And we got down to Puerto Vallarta, we were like, this seems nice. And so we found a place on the beach and found a doctor and everything went great. We had just an amazing experience. I, you know, just loved it. And we'd already been to Mexico many times and we love it there. So it was, it definitely just felt great to have our first born there and then ended up buying another boat. Then when she, when our daughter was a couple months old and then sailed it, that was up in, uh, California, and then we sailed that down to Mexico. And about that time is when, when my son was born. So the experience of having the baby there was great. The doctors were great. The price was great. The hospital was first rate. So I mean, we rave about it all the time. And not to mention, no, my kids, kids, you know, they carry two passports, they have dual citizenship. When I go to Mexico, I have to leave after six months, you know, just even if it's just for a day. But you know, they can stay out as long as they want.

Kristin:      How much was it to give birth down there?  

Patrick:     3,000. It was $3,000 from start to finish. I don't know. It was kind of, to us it was crazy. Like you can go down there and you, once you find your doctor, and she was fantastic. Like, we called her up out of the blue and she immediately gave us her cell phone number. She would do like ultrasounds like every week, meanwhile in the US tried to go get an ultrasound and it was like $500 for one ultrasound or something. And, but down there it was just a normal checkup routine every week, every two weeks, whatever it was. And I don't know, everything went great and, and like I said, it was $3,000 altogether for the whole prenatal care, whatever, and having the baby and, and everything. So hospital bills, everything was in that price. 

Kristin:      Yeah. I don't know how much it is in the US but I know it's in the double digits just to start with. And that's if there's, you know, no complications.  

Patrick:     Yeah, yeah, exactly.  

Kristin:     Wow.  

Patrick:     I think you would probably start at 12 or 15 in the states and then, and like you said, if there's even the tiniest complication, boy then, then that's gonna skyrocket pretty quickly.  

Kristin:     Oh yeah. And do you guys have any sort of international health insurance plan or do you just pay out of pocket in the different destinations that you go to?  

Patrick:    Yeah, we've always just paid out of pocket. So we've basically been uninsured for 20 years now. You know, just, it's frustrating because, you know, I would be willing to pay something, but it's also we spend so little time in the states that it would, it just doesn't make any sense. It would basically be like some sort of catastrophic insurance is all that would be for us. You know, it's like, it would only be helpful if something really horrible happened. So I feel like we're, we may be pressing our luck all the time, but I'm not really sure what a good answer is either to solve that. It's just one of those things that being an American, probably, it's probably the biggest negative, I would say, as far as our lifestyle as far as, you know, being nomads, digital nomads being people that travel the world and don't spend a lot of time in, in our home country. It's probably one of the, you know, biggest problems that we have to figure out a way to solve or not solve, you know, <laugh> but it could easily be your biggest expense, you know, as a family of four for sure in our lifestyle. Like if we had to pay a thousand dollars a month or something, that would quickly become our biggest expense that we in our life, you know,  

Kristin:      Even more than the boat, huh?  

Patrick:     Yeah. Yeah. It really would, you know, on a monthly basis. Yeah.  

Kristin:      Do you have any sort of emergency medical plan, you know, in case the boat sunk or, I don't know, something happened like an emergency while traveling?  

Patrick:    No, we really don't. We have Dan for our diving insurance, um, you know, and that would help us out if there was some sort of problem with that. But otherwise, no, it's pretty much, um, just we're self-insured and that's just the way it's been for a long time. So yeah, we do our best not to sink our boats and we do our best not to get hurt, I guess. But I don't know, it's also maybe this lifestyle, um, just is also just a healthy lifestyle. Like, I don't even know what our total out of pocket expenses for doctors and stuff have been through the years, but it's just incredibly minimal. I mean, we're probably talking 20 bucks a month <laugh>, you know, we never have to see a doctor. We just haven't had any issues and I don't know. And even like, you know, dental and everything else, I mean, well dental wouldn't be covered anyways with health insurance, so you'd be paying for that out of pocket anyways. So that's always gonna be cheaper in places like Mexico or wherever we are.  

Kristin:      Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you just go to dentists all over the world. That's what I did for many years. Yeah.  

Patrick:    Yep. Yep.  

Kristin:      Okay. And so do your kids have public healthcare in Mexico since they're citizens?  

Patrick:     You know, I've never really dug into it too much. I'm pretty sure they could qualify for something like that, but again, we just never had any need for it <laugh>.  

Kristin:      Interesting.  

Patrick:     Yeah. So we haven't really dug into it, but I don't know, I suppose if something came up, we could go there and try to figure it out.  

Kristin:      Yeah, that's always, you know, a big concern for people, especially from the US and myself included, I've had sporadic US health insurance coverage, but only on the years that I was going to be there. Yeah. But yeah, you know, as you get older, I guess you think to have full coverage, but I've always paid out of pocket for private medical care wherever I go. Yeah. But I've definitely used my emergency travel insurance. You guys are really lucky to be traveling around for so long with nothing happening. I mean, I've like sprained my ankle and broken my hand and had lost baggage, like all kinds of stuff go wrong. Yeah. I make claims on my insurance at least once a year. I had diphtheria one time and the Dominican Republic, I was in the emergency room and you know, I could have paid for it anyway, but I was like, Well, I'll claim it on my insurance.  

Patrick:    Yeah. They definitely are lucky. I know. But yeah, I just dunno what the other choices are, you know, it's almost kinda like, well, we've saved, I don't know, a hundred thousand dollars over these 20 years by not paying for it. So if, if something comes up and it costs us $20,000, well, I'm still ahead, you know, <laugh>, so I don't know. We'll see.  

Kristin:      Well, let's go back to kind of, of the beginning of how this all started because, you know, you grew up in middle America, you had this traditional lifestyle. How did you end up getting into the financial trading world?  

Patrick:     Yeah, so I grew up in Minnesota and I knew early on that I wanted to be a trader. It just happened that I think I saw traders on the nightly news, you know, every night doing the market recap kind of thing. That looks like a cool job. Like I would like to do that. And that was like always, I'm really good at math and it was just kind of a natural thing for me. So I knew from probably the time I was 16 that I wanted to be a trader. So I went to college, got an economics and a finance degree. And then actually during college I got lucky and I was in the economics association and they happened to take a trip to this place called the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, which I had never heard of before, but it was only, you know, 15 minutes from my home here.  there I was these guys doing exactly that, just standing around in the, in a trading, they were trading wheat futures, all things, but that's it. That's what I want to do. So after college, I saw a job opening there for a pit reporter, which is just somebody who stands in the trading pit and watches the traders. And when they make a trade, I would basically, you know, report the trade and it would go up into the screens and all around the world. Yeah. And then, you know, just kind of got noticed by one of the brokers there as, as somebody who seemed, you know, smart enough. And so he hired me and, you know, just kinda kept moving my way up. And pretty soon I was brokering trades. And then, uh, within a couple years I was trading my own account and that went really well. So then, you know, I talked to my wife and we said, You know what, if we're gonna make this happen, we should go to the big time, which happened to be in Chicago, that's the Chicago Board of Trade. And that's where like all the big agricultural trading was, the futures trading that I was doing. So we moved to Chicago and that went great. The rest is kind of history, I guess. <laugh>, we did that for a while and then things went really well. And then that's when we decided to take off.  

Kristin:     How did you guys meet?  

Patrick:     We are high school sweethearts. We started dating when we were 16. Yeah. So we just celebrated our 25th anniversary and it's like 32 years together. Kinda crazy  

Kristin:     <laugh>. Congratulations. And what does she do for work?  

Patrick:     She doesn't do anything. She helps me with Wanderer Financial, my business. She does kind of all the email and all the back office type stuff and, you know, so I can focus on what I'm actually good at, which is definitely not that stuff.  

Kristin:     Who had the idea to leave Chicago?  

Patrick:    That was definitely a joint decision. I don't know. We were 28 at the time, and like all our friends were taking off and moving to the burbs and having kids, and it was kind of time for that, I guess, you know, according to the American Dream thing, I don't know, it just didn't strike us. Like we knew we wanted to have kids at some point, but we just didn't feel like we were ready and weren't really interested in it yet. And we really just wanted to go off and like, have an adventure, like a real cool story and do something, just do something wild, you know, Like we were financially successful, but we just hadn't done anything else, you know? And we realized, I think together at that, you know, just, just money wasn't gonna be like enough really to sustain us and make us happy through the next 50 years, you know? So we decided to go sailing around the world. We just kind of came up with the idea and took off.  

Kristin:    What year was that?  

Patrick:    That was back in 2003.  

Kristin:      That would've been difficult to work remotely at that time. Yeah. Did you just take some time off from trading and live on savings for a while?  

Patrick:     Exactly. Yeah. So I was self-employed as a trader. And so basically my trading account was basically our savings account, you know, And, uh, it had a couple good years. We lived pretty simply in Chicago. Like I only paid myself $25,000 a year. I just paid myself that every, you know, monthly. I took a check for $2,083 <laugh> and my wife, she worked, uh, administrative assistant, basically secretary. We were able to, you know, pay our bills and live a pretty nice little life right downtown Chicago. We both were able to walk to work and had a nice little convertible on the whole deal. But yeah, you know, we weren't extravagant. I don't think we had my money from trading, and so we just decided to take off. And like you said, there was really no way to work online back then, or trade online. It didn't take long for that to change. We were only about a year into it when the board at Chicago Board of Trade kind of started to– the trading, that the way I had done it, which was standing there with a hundred guys screaming and yelling all day,, that started to fade away, like really quickly after I left, until it was all electronic within a couple years. And then over the next couple, maybe two or three, four years, and, uh, trading became easier and easier to do online. And, um, I started to do some more trading online. Again, dipping back into that, whenever, just kind of whenever we were, you know, somewhere that had good internet and, and we were gonna be staying put for a few days and I would do that. But yeah, for that first trip of sailing around the world, I really didn't trade it all. Our plan at that time, it always been like we would go back to work. You know, we'd sail around the world for four years and then go back to Chicago and just start over, you know? Just start fresh again. And we were probably two years into that when we decided that we definitely weren't going to do that again. we decided this lifestyle was for us, and that's what we wanted to do. So then it just became a way of figuring out, you know, just like everybody figuring out how you're gonna do it, you know?  

Kristin:      Yeah. I guess you don't see the whole path before you get started. You just see that next step. Yeah. You guys didn't have any experience sailing, right? So how did you get started with that? Did you just buy a boat and figure it out as you went along, or, That's a bit of a daunting idea. I mean, I'm pretty adventurous and I would not ever consider sailing around the world by myself. I mean, I tried to take sailing lessons once, and I wrecked the boat twice in the marina. I mean, I'm just not, this is not my thing. So I'm fascinated with people that get on a boat and go,  

Patrick:     Yeah. You know what's funny is like sailing, the most dangerous part is literally in the marina.

Kristin:      <laugh>. Oh good, got that outta my system.  

Patrick:     Yeah, right. Like, once you get out to the ocean, then there's nothing to hit anymore. You know, like it's just a matter of, you know, riding the waves, not trying to stay out of big, nasty weather. And yeah. It's just, we had no experience at all. We bought a boat, like literally one day we went on the Florida, looked at a few boats and bought one that day. Like we had, didn't know what we were doing, you know? And just didn't really care either. The nice thing back then is that there was so little information available. The internet was still, you know, still new. There was like, there was nothing for us to, we couldn't just go online and like watch YouTube videos about sailing and all this stuff. Cause it almost certainly that would've like freaked us out. We would've been like, Whoa, we can't just do this. But we were so naive, you know, that we were like, Yeah, sure. It can't be that hard, you know? And it turns out it really isn't. I mean, we're always surprised by you kind of envision sailing across oceans to be just this wild, crazy ride. You know, you see it in the movies, Right. But once you're out there, it's, you're just kind of amazed by how often it's calm, how often it's just really nice, how few times, it's really not even scary, but just like really terribly uncomfortable. And it can be that way, but it's not very often. And especially the nice thing about sailing around the world is you're kind of on a timeline. You're following the seasons. So there's always like a best time of year to make certain, to go across certain parts of the ocean, you know? And there's times through the year where, you know, there's storms, they're very, very rare, and you can expect like these nice calm or, you know, 10 knots of wind conditions just kind of perfect, perfect weather. And so you kind of follow those around. And I don't know, people always like to say that we are lucky, but I really think that's the way it really is out there. 

Kristin:      <affirmative> Just follow the endless summer in a way.  

Patrick:     Very much. Yeah. It really is. Yeah.  

Kristin:      Where are some of the first places that you went? So you're in Florida, were you in South Florida? Where did you go from there?  

Patrick:     Yeah, we bought that first boat that was in Fort Lauderdale. From there we went straight across to The Bahamas. And in The Bahamas, it's great. And well, getting over to The Bahamas is easy enough. That's only like 80 miles. So basically one afternoon, one day I guess. And then, yeah. And so you're over there, there's just, you know, there's so many islands and such perfect weather and all these little calm places to hide out in. So it was a really good place for us to like learn how to sail. So we spent like three months over there, and by the time we were like ready to leave The Bahamas for Panama and really get going on our trip, you know, and then by that point we really felt pretty good about things we were pretty confident, but then even though like leaving The Bahamas for Panama, that was like our first real off-shore experience. Like, that was the first time we were gonna spend nights at sea. So that was like a week, seven days of sailing. Yeah. We felt good about it. And I don't know, it all went pretty well, <laugh>.  

Kristin:      Did you learn from other people in The Bahamas?  

Patrick:    No, I think you really don't. I mean, you just kind of get out there and you pull the sail up and figure it out. Being like a really, really good sailor that takes skill and time, right? But becoming a competent sailor, like somebody who can pull their sail up and make the boat move, that doesn't take that long. Like, it's not that difficult, really. So, yeah, I don't know. We just kind of just, it's really, really just learning as we go. We learned how to sail, we learned how to fix engines, We learned how to just kind of do all these different things. I have so many different skills now than I did 20 years ago, like <laugh>. It's just, I'm like a completely different person. I don't know.  

Kristin:      You could be a mechanic,  

Patrick:     Uh, for sure. Yeah. <laugh>, I definitely could be. Like, I'm into vintage motorhomes, so vintage cars and motorhomes. I think our last five vehicles that we've owned have all been 50 years or older. Like, we just really like that stuff. So you become really good at fixing engines and, and with bullets, you know, you just don't have a choice. Like if something breaks and you're out at sea or you're, you're on some far off island, like there's, you know, you have nobody to rely on, so you have to figure it out. And so it's kind of cool. I enjoy being good at working with my hands and doing all these different things that I certainly wouldn't have ever learned how to do if I was just living in Chicago and, you know, living that lifestyle. So it's, it's kind of fun that  

Kristin:     Yeah. I guess, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. 

Patrick:     Yes.  

Kristin:    <laugh>. I was stranded on a boat once where the engine broke, and it was the perfect storm, like literally the worst storm ever. I mean, not ever, but it was such a bad storm that they canceled the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football game, and everybody came in off the field. They just, everyone went home. And in the meantime, my friends and I were out at sea in the Gulf of Mexico on the verge of capsizing. Oh. And we had to get rescued by the Coast Guard. So, I mean, this is, I've had a lot of bad, <laugh> bad experiences. So it, it's, it's mind boggling to think that you guys are just out there figuring out how to fix your broken engine. and then, and I mean, you must have some good karma, because to think about how often vans and RVs break down when they're in good condition and they're new. To then be passionate about vintage RVs, like, it seems like a psychotic <laugh> to be driving around like a really old rv. I mean, I guess it breaks down a lot. 

Patrick:    Yes.  

Kristin:      <laugh>. Yeah. I mean, you guys love the pain, I guess. So, you get to Panama from your sailboat, and then at what point do you decide to transition to RV life?

Patrick:     Yeah. Well, so we got to Panama and then we just kept going. So we sailed all the way around the world. You know, we went South Pacific and New Zealand, Australia, and, uh, across the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and all the way back to Florida. That took four years. So we were kind of like, I always tell this story, but we were in Italy half, you know, about halfway around the world. And we were backpacking around Italy for a month. We had left the boat in Malta, and we were just, traveling all over Italy. And that's when we kind of went, Oh wow, we've got to get, do some land travel next. That's kind of the point where we decided like, we're never going back to normal life, <laugh>. Like, after we sail around the world, then we're gonna go and we're gonna travel by land and just keep going.  And so, yeah, that's when we did, like, literally we got back and we immediately bought a VW bus and took off and that and like I said, two years in that. And then we were in boats, and then we were on our second boat with our kids. They were in, we were in Mexico for about three or four years, and then we kind of decided, okay, time to go do something else again for a little while. And so that's when we did like our first vintage motorhome that I restored that and we took off and yeah. And then we spent a couple years in that traveling around all over the US and then all over Mexico. I don't think there's like a road in Mexico that we haven't driven on. So it's like our map is just crisscross of highlighted lines that we've, we've been everywhere. So, yeah. And then, you know, we just kind of keep going through these cycles. It's like three years, four years, we do these things and we just keep going.  

Kristin:      And what are some things that, you know, in four years of traveling around the world, I mean, some things had to have gone wrong.  

Patrick:     Yeah, yeah. <laugh>, I mean, things do go wrong. Sailing is like, for the most part it's pretty, pretty safe and pretty calm. And we had mostly good experiences. Like I would say 99% of the time it was like pretty reasonable and, and under control. And then there was, you know, there is those times though that are just kind of crazy. Like we were in Australia, the problem with bullets is all, like I said, marinas are hard and it's always the, when you're close to land, that's where the danger is, right? So like, we are in Australia and we are coming up the coast and we're entering a river because it's all kind of all there is up in, up along the coast, you go up these rivers, river bar entrances and then up into the towns. And so yeah, we kind of came, we were in Australia and we came around this corner on the boat and got into this sort of, uh, river runway.  

 And, uh, we had just timed it wrong. The tides were wrong, and, and they're just huge breaking waves. And we were like immediately caught in it. And the boat just within seconds, like we had a huge wave roar up behind us and like, lift us up like a surfboard, you know? And here we are on this little catamaran and literally surfing this wave way up in the air. And I'm looking down and I can see it's already shallow to begin with, but when the waves are kind of sucking up all that power, it's just like surfing you. You're a surfer, I think. So you know how you can see it. Like, you can see all that water coming off the reef getting sucked into the wave, and you see the reef kind of getting shallower, you know, and you're thinking, Oh, if I crash into that, we're finished. I don't know how it happened. The boat kind of spun sideways and was just flying down the face of the wave. And I spun the wheel over hard the other way and the wave sort of broke. And I don't know, somehow we ended up riding out of there.  

Kristin:     Wow.  

Patrick:     And, but that was definitely both of us. Like, we immediately went in and anchored and we, I think we were both just sitting there in shock, like just completely shocked by what had just happened. And that was definitely as close as we've ever come to, like disaster. And again, here it was, you know, right in a river, right in front of people that are just playing on the beach, uh, you know, right next to it. And here we are just about dying.  

Kristin:      Oh. Oh my gosh. 

Patrick: It's kinda crazy to think, but like, that's not where you expect to ever, when you envision the worst on a, on a sailor around the world, you envision like, sinking out at sea, like in the movies, you know? 

Kristin: Yeah. 

Patrick:  That's not what happens. <laugh>  

Kristin:     <laugh>. And was that during your first four years?  

Patrick:     Yeah. Yeah. Fortunately I've gotten smarter after that. We never had any, any truly, um, scary spots after that. And, with the kids now, I, I think I've always been a little more, a little better about just really leaning towards being safer, you know?  

Kristin:      Mm-hmm.  

Patrick:  Obviously they don't have a choice, but you know, they're there because we're there, you know? So we have to make the experience as good and as fun and as safe as possible. So, um, I guess that's, that's my job now as a dad, but also to show them, you know, an adventurous life at the same time.  

Kristin:      Yeah. And what are some of your favorite destinations as a family and also your kids? Do they have any places where they like the most?  

Patrick:     Mexico is definitely our, our family favorite. We kind of always end up, end up back there, so that's just the number one on our list. We've always just loved the entire country, like everything about it. We love the beach towns in the winters, and we, like, we love to go up to Mexico City and all these different inland places that are at nice high elevations during the summer. And the weather's perfect. And you know, the food and the people, everything's great there. That's always high on the list. And when I talk about sailing around the world, my wife and I, we like, our favorite spot really was when we were going up the Red Sea, because it was so far just kinda off the beaten track. You know, There was this, there was just literally nobody out there. We were like, you know, in Sudan, like anchored, and there's nobody, I don't even, I can't even imagine where the next nearest person was, you know, like just hundreds of miles away, you know?  And we're just out there and it's just desert and ocean and the water is beautiful. And then the people we met there were just fantastic too, because everywhere we would go to, they were just so shocked to see us, you know? It was like, like we were just aliens that had just fallen outta the sky, you know? Like who shows up on a boat in these places? It's so weird. Um, so that was always, that was always exciting and fun. We loved being like, totally out of our comfort zone. Like that's when travel's really fun, you know, like that's when the cool things happen, the really truly great experiences. It's when you're like just really out of that comfort zone, you know? And you're, I dunno. So that was always great. So, and then, you know, like this time on this trip around, we're playing the sail around the world again, so it'll be a totally different trip, which is kind of nice too. I'll have the kids, you know, we'll have the kids, and now we're scuba divers, so there's like so many different places that I want to go and take them, and we want scuba diving on and, you know, so I don't know, there's just still so much to see. We've been to so many places and done so many things, and yet, like, I feel like we still just hardly scratch the surface, you know? 

Kristin: Mm-hmm.  <affirmative>. Yeah, I can definitely relate. It's like the more you see, the more you know there is to see, the more you know you haven't seen and it's life is short, but there's, you know, even for the people who've been to every single country in the world, you know, maybe they've spent one day in that country, it's, it's like you could just scratch the surface. And I just finished writing this book, Digital Nomads for Dummies, and there was a chapter where I had to summarize travel to different regions of the world. And, and I was like, how do I summarize an entire continent? You know, there could be 50 countries in one continent. Like in Asia and Africa, and you can't even summarize a country. You can't even summarize a city. Like there's so much diversity in one city, in a neighborhood. Yeah. It was an impossible task. I even had to put a disclaimer. I'm like, I can't summarize the world, but, you know, there's pros and cons to every region, every country, every city, every town, every neighborhood. What were some of the countries that you landed on? I mean, when you were in the Red Sea, did you dock at different marinas or did you just kind of sail up and then back out?  

Patrick:     So we went up the Red Sea, We went through, uh, well, we went, you know, from Oman, we crossed the Indian Ocean to Oman and then to Yemen, and then up into the actual Red Sea. And we visited Eritrea and Sudan and Egypt, um, along the coast there. And then we went through the Suez Canal and then on into the Mediterranean. Yeah, there's no marinas in the Red Sea. 

Kristin:     Oh Really?  

Patrick:     Yeah. I mean, there is in Egypt, Egypt has some big resort type dive places, you know, they're really into scuba diving there, there is some infrastructure there on the coast, but, uh, definitely not near Eritrea or Sudan. So those are, those are definitely, you know, you're just weaving your way into some little bay, which always has some town village built up around it. And yeah, that's really it.  

Kristin:      Did people stamp your passport there or they're just like, Okay, go ahead, humans continue on <laugh>.  

Patrick:     Yeah, no, there actually was, there was always somebody that clear you into the country when you arrived,  

Kristin:     Did you stop in Saudi Arabia?  

Patrick:    We did not, no. So we were straight across from there, but I'm not sure what the situation is now, but we definitely could not go there. At the time you needed to have  

Kristin:      A visa 

Patrick:     Government permission –visas that took, you know, like years to get and it would've taken, yeah, way too much work for us to <laugh> to figure that out.  

Kristin:     And then in Mexico, so, you know, one of the most common questions that I get from people is that, is it dangerous and is it dangerous to drive through Mexico? And a lot of people wanna drive, you know, from one border down to Panama. So what was your perception after driving a vintage RV around in Mexico?  

Patrick:     Yeah, we spent so much time there and, and traveled so extensively there and spent so much time in motorhomes there. And we have never had an issue, like, never once says somebody looked at us crosseyed, you know, we just love it there. I don't know. I mean, I totally understand that it is unsafe in a certain way, certainly not perfect, but, you know, it's, it's one of those things, it's like if you're a traveler and you're not hanging out at bars at 2:00 AM and you're not looking for, you know, drugs and you know you're not doing these things that puts you in danger, then you're fine. You're not gonna run into problems. And it kind of goes that way. It's that way everywhere in the world, right? like, I mean, if you just, if you go looking for trouble, you're gonna find it. But if you're, you know, you're just open and fun and friendly and, you know, you kind of get that back from people. And I think that's as true in Mexico as anywhere in the world that, yeah, we love it there. We never had any issue at all.  

Kristin:      Have you considered getting residency there or you're too much of nomads?  

Patrick:    Yeah, we're too much of nomads, but I think if we ever do settle down, that's definitely our, like our number one spot. And that's probably where it would be at which point, Yeah, that we would definitely look at residency. And I think we have a sort of a fast track to it too with um with our kids being born there.

Kristin:     What are some of the inland towns that you like to go to?  

Patrick:     Well, we always like Mexico City and all the little neighboring cities around there. It's always fun. We like Guanajuato, we like Guadalajara, we like San Miguel, Dalinde and what else? Teotihuacan <laugh> we like, gosh, I don't know, list goes on and on. I don't know. We've had so much, so many good times there. Teotihuacan’s fun. That's where, uh, the pyramids are. I don't know if - have you've ever been? 

Kristin:      I haven't been, but I know it's a day trip you can do from Mexico City.  

Patrick:    Yeah, exactly. It's only about an hour out at Mexico City. It was always great place for us and home. There was this lady that had a, just a small, small yard, and in her backyard she was, um, it's basically a campground, right? You can pull in and camp there. And she was like, just a sweet lady. And there's always like, always dogs running around. She always had dogs and they were friendly and, and then we could go up to the, uh, to the pyramids and like, so my kids have seen those pyramids. We've climbed 'em like from first thing in the morning and watch the sunrise, you know, from the top of 'em. We've been up there for sunset, you know, spent entire days out there just hanging out and, and sitting on top of the pyramids. And it's just like such a great magical place for us.  And then, and then the town itself, the little village is really cool too. And we even have like a favorite <laugh>, it's kinda funny, but like a favorite pizza place that we actually like, looked forward to going to all, every time we were there. So, I don't know, it's just one of those places, it's like for our family, we have so many great memories and, and love that place so much. And then, then we'll tell people that how great it is. And I'm sure they'll go there and be like, What <laugh>, Like what do they like about this place? You know, like, I dunno.  

Kristin:      Yeah, you start to feel at home everywhere and I know when I, I start to go back to the same places and I'm really craving food from a certain restaurant in a certain city in a different country. And yeah, it's kind of weird when you kind of pull back and think about it and even considering that, you know, the people at the restaurant or the people in that town don't even know that I love their place and I go there every time I'm in town  

Patrick:     <laugh>

Kristin:      So yeah, it's kind of this new lifestyle I guess, that we're so fortunate to have. And then what are a few of the places that you keep going back to in the Caribbean? Cuz you've spent so much time there. Any islands or places in particular?  

Patrick:     Yeah, well we were sort of circling the Caribbean when we'd been to The Bahamas multiple times. Um, and those, you know, those islands are fantastic. Um, so that's always great. We had also gone over to the western Caribbean. We'd been through Central America. We spent like a hurricane season in Guatemala, which was really cool because it's up a river, it's like 50 miles up a river, so that's what kind of gets you out of the hurricane, you know, So if, if a hurricane comes, you're safe from it, you know, at least your boat is safe, I should say. You know, you still have to get up to higher ground and get out of there, but you know, at least the boat won't get destroyed like it would. So that's like a, it's a hurricane zone, shelter I guess for boaters, which is nice. And that's a really cool place.  We enjoyed that also gave us like the, the time since it was like six months of hurricane season that you kind of have to wait out, you know, that gave us time to go to spend a month in Antigua and spend a month up in the, the lakes and just go to all these different places and really kind of get to know Guatemala too. That's kind of one of the cool things about this lifestyle too, I think, is that, you know, it's, it's, you can always, you can always leave the boat and you can kind of go off. And these days it's even easier cause you got Airbnb and it's just, you know, it's all these ways. It's just easier to find places to go and stay. And that was always great. What other islands did we like? And we spent a lot of time in Puerto Rico. That's where we had just happened to come in. We had just happened to sail into Puerto Rico and that's when Covid hit. We were super lucky that time we had pulled up to the dock at a marina just in order to load up a new battery onto the boat, we had to replace the battery. So I pulled up to the dock and as we were doing that, the Dock Master came out and he said, If you go back out to anchor, you can't come back in. They just told us like, it's locked down, that's it. And so we just stayed on the dock and then little did we know that we would be like sitting right there all alone. You know, the marina's emptied, there was nobody around. So for, I don't know, eight weeks or something, we were in total lockdown, Um, just right there on the dock all alone.  

Kristin:     Oh, during the pandemic?

Patrick: Yeah, yeah. 

Kristin: Oh wow. Oh, that was at, okay, so that was at the very beginning.  

Patrick:    Yeah, yeah.  

Kristin:     Oh, so <laugh>, we had another family on that. They were in lockdown I think in France or something on their boat. Yeah.  

Patrick:    Yeah.  

Kristin:      <laugh> weird times.  

Patrick:   Very weird, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It was strange. I mean like, so we were locked on, couldn't leave the dock. And then we had, there was other people that were like out at anchor. I know there was a, a family with a, like a four year old girl and they were from Italy and literally they had kicked out and they had to sail from Puerto Rico all the way back to Italy during that time because without stopping,  

Kristin:      Without supplies or anything.  

Patrick:     Yeah, I mean they were, it was completely crazy.  

Kristin:     Wow.  

Patrick:     Yeah, so fortunately things have not been so bad anymore, but it's still, you know, it's still a little tricky. It has been a tricky couple years in the Caribbean cuz you know, certain islands would be open for a little while and then they weren't. And then, you know, just the entry regulations were constantly changing. So for the last couple years we didn't move around a lot, which was kind of weird for us. Like, we just not used to kind of not being able to move, you know, usually if we do stay in a place for a while, it's, that's by choice, you know, This time it wasn't by choice. So that was definitely different. So I think that's kind of, part of that is what drove us now to say we're gonna sail around the world again. Like our kids, all of a sudden they're 12 and 10 and you know, like sailing around the world's about a four year trip time commitment, you know, at a minimum. So we're kind of like, okay, well that'll, you know, our daughter will be 16 or 17 by the time we're done and time to move on. And so off we go again.  

Kristin:      Yeah, it does seem that things kind of go in phases of life and no matter what you're doing, whether it's sailing or a job or college or having kids, it's kind of these like, maybe like four to seven year periods or 10 years. I'm definitely coming up on getting the itchy feet again to start traveling. I've been thinking about it now for months, but have been here finishing my book and then preparing to leave again on another phase of life sometime in the next couple months. So, Well, I wanted to talk with you more about finance, but we kind of run out of time here <laugh>. So it's called Wanderer Financial and you actually teach people how to live a similar lifestyle or basically to live life on their own terms by being financially self-dependent, retiring early, what you call it, pretirement, and basically teaching people how to become financial traders. So do you think that it's something that anyone can do and how do you help them with supporting themselves online through trading stocks?  

Patrick:     Yeah, so years ago, like I was, you know, I was traveling and people were following me on bumfuzzle.com, which is my travel blog, and they would follow me along. And then after so many years I think they were kinda like, how is he doing this? Like, you know, where's the money coming from? And so then I started to get the question all the time, so I eventually wrote a book called Live on the Margin and that kinda led to more questions. And so eventually I started teaching people like how to trade and that's all I've ever done, right? As an adult that was like, that's all I've ever done is trade. So it's kind of morphed, you know, through the years a little bit. And now it's become as much about the lifestyle and teaching people how to, uh, trade and earn an income or just how to invest properly, the money that they do have already, you know, so that they can, they can kind of go off and live the lifestyle they wanna live.  And I don't necessarily prescribe to the whole retiring thing, you know, like definitely not, I think I've shown that like, you don't have to work work work until you're 65 and then, you know, then go out and do something. So definitely encourage people and try to get them, you know, set up and be able to, to go out and, and live a dream, whether it's, you know, for a year, two years, four years, whatever that, you know, go out and really knock off some bucket list item, you know, like do something big with their life and then kinda show that you can always go back to it or you can, you can earn or maybe be able to earn a living from, uh, trading and investing and, you know, so I kinda just give 'em all the skills that, that I have and I I try to pass those on and, and provide a nice place for, for everybody to gather and kinda learn together. So it's, it's been a lot of fun. I really couldn't have asked for more out of it. It, I mean, I didn't know really how, what I was doing when I started, but it's morphed into this, this great community and a fun place to spend my days.  

Kristin:     I see, so you're, you're getting people to take that first step knowing that one or two years into it, they're never gonna go back to the old way of living. I see what you did there,  

Patrick:    <laugh>. That's right. It's kind of true, right? I mean you either go out there, that's what's gonna happen to you or some people will go out and they'll just be like, you know what, this isn't what I thought it was gonna be and it's, it's not for me. And then that's fine too. Like I try to try to tell people that you know, like nothing has to be forever, right? Like you can always go back, you can always start, you can always start over again. I mean, I don't know mean that's part of the reason for not waiting until you're 65, like <laugh> you find out it's not for you then, then, then what, you know, like it's, I don't know, I kind of, I find it better to just go out and figure things out as you go along kind of, 

Kristin:     exactly. Like you can always go back to where you started and I think it is helpful to do that sometimes. 

Patrick: Yeah

Kristin: I've come back, I call the US my home base, like I go back to home base for a little while when I need to get a dose of family and friends and you know, figure things out. Maybe just pause for a little while. Yeah. And then wait for the next step or the next thing to do. And so it's been interesting to hear how you've kind of had those similar situations, even when you're on a sailboat and kind of have closure on one trip and then go back to Mexico and pause for a while and then start the next thing. 

Patrick:  Yeah. 

Kristin: Maybe this new way of life. I think that could be the essence of what it is living life in phases.  Whether those phases are one month or three months in different countries or one year. And we're kind of creating it as we go along and there's really no right or wrong way to do it. And at first that can seem a little bit disorienting because we're so used to the linear path and it's only the past couple generations that we've had this very linear path of the way to live. And even before that, there really weren't many options cuz you could only go as far as you could walk or as far as your horse could go or your camel could go and there was only so far you could travel in a lifetime physically, right? So now we have just, well like an unlimited number of options but then, you know, putting some sort of not, I don't wanna use the word constraint, but you know, using your goals and your interests as guide markers for where to go and what to do because otherwise you could just, you know, lap the world into infinity.  

But to what end? You know, it's like having some purpose for why you're going where you're going and then maybe it's the people that you meet. It's the skills that you learn. It's the way that your worldview expands, your global education all happens during that time and then you start to find a new direction. So it's, it's nice to see how you've turned that into a lifestyle and then bringing other people along for the ride and everyone's kind of attracting their own little tribes. So I see here that you're also offering our listeners, uh, 10% off of joining your Wanderer financial community. So that's wandererfinancial.com. We'll link to that in the show notes and then using the code BADASS10 to get 10% off. So thank you for that.  

Patrick:     Yeah.  

Kristin:      And is there anywhere else that people can connect with you?  

Patrick:     Yeah, I mean if people are just interested in, uh, in seeing my travels and, and, and that I've been blogging, I feel like it's so old school now to be a blogger, but you know, it's just me writing my, my stories and, and and photography and that's all on uh, www.bumfuzzle.com. It's B U M F U Z Z L E and bumfuzzle means bewildered or confused. And that's what we named our first boat and that's what we named our website and that's kinda just, it stuck with us all these years. So now we're, we're the bums. Yeah. So check us out there and yeah. And then like I said, you know, Wanderer Financial, if you, if you think you'd like to learn more about trading and finance and just kind of taking control of your own money and, and earning more money with your money, then that might be the place for you too. So I assume that everybody here listening to you have some interest in, in world travel and digital nomadism. And so, uh, it all fits together pretty nicely.  

Kristin:      Yeah, definitely. And having the funds to make it happen is definitely an important part and as, as well as keeping the money that you make and growing the money that you've saved

Patrick:     Right.

Kristin:      Versus the way before the internet when it was harder to make a living as you were traveling. So many people just took time off of work to be able to travel, which is still an option too. And it's great to have sabbaticals for sure, but these days there's so many ways to make money online. So that's why we're here, Badass Digital Nomads, to just try to portray all of the different ways that people are making a living and to show how actually quite practical and realistic it is.  

Patrick:     Yeah.  

Kristin:      Great. Well thank you so much Patrick for coming on and to all the listeners, we're going to link everything up in the show notes as well as link to Patrick's books that he has out there Living On The Margin and Bumfuzzle so you can learn lots more where that came from. And save travels Patrick and I hope that our paths will cross somewhere too.  

Patrick:     No, thank you so much for having me. It was fun and I yeah, I'm sure we'll cross paths at some point. It's a small world amongst us world travelers I think.  

Kristin:    Definitely <laugh>. Okay, bye everyone. See you next week.