Episode 12 - Kindness Without Borders and the Joy of New Horizons

Embark on a voyage of discovery with the intrepid Maya and Dave, whose leap from the classroom to the vast world has led to a retirement brimming with purpose and adventure. As former educators, their tale is one of financial foresight and embracing a minimalist lifestyle to fuel a passion for exploration. In this episode, they take us through their colorful journey, from the heart-warming reasons behind their initial move to Nepal, to the charm of  Ecuador's enchanting city of Cuenca. Their story paints a vivid picture of life's boundless possibilities post-retirement, as they share the intricacies of managing their stateside property and why their past summer travels as teachers laid the foundation for their love of voyaging.

Discover the heartwarming impact of spreading kindness without borders, as Maya and Dave share their inspiring work with children around the world. Their Kindness Clubs initiative has become a cornerstone of compassion, empowering youth to build a more empathetic future. The clubs' anniversaries are not just a date on the calendar, but a celebration of the tireless efforts of students and educators alike working to foster a world where kindness prevails. The couple's commitment to service continues in their current home, as they join forces with local expats to feed those in need—a true testament to their dedication to making the world a better place one act of kindness at a time.

Lean in as we savor the delights of 'slow travel' with Maya and Dave, who reveal how taking the path less rushed has enriched their souls. They recount the joy found in the laughter of new friends, the spice of local cuisines, and the magic in every unexpected stay—from the serene beaches of Bali to the potential of a future in New Zealand. Their tales are a masterclass in adaptability, showcasing how they transform challenges into opportunities for growth and learning. As they share their strategies for navigating the unpredictability of the nomadic lifestyle, they offer nuggets of wisdom for aspiring globetrotters. Join us and be inspired by a couple who prove that retirement can indeed be the beginning of life's grandest adventure.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2292506/supporters/new
http://jimsantos.net
https://www.instagram.com/jimsantosblog
https://www.youtube.com/@jimsantos508
jimsantos@mac.com

Transcript

Jim Santos 0:18

Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita. Jim and Rita, I'm your host, jim Santos, and in this podcast series you can follow along as my wife Rita and I work out our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increase our retirement nest egg by spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world. Are we bold, forward-thinking pioneers or just plain nuts? Let's find out together, shall we? Hello once again to everyone out there in podcast land. I'm Jim Santos and this is Travels with Jim and Rita. Say hello to everybody, rita.

Jim Santos 1:01

Hello this is Rita, just south of Borneo and northwest of Australia. It sits about eight degrees off the equator. Although small only about 2,230 square miles, which is smaller than the state of Delaware it's home to over 4.4 million people, so let's hear a little bit more about it from folks who are actually there right now. Maya, dave, rita and I would like to welcome you to Travels with Jim and Rita.

Dave 1:44

Very good. Thank you for welcoming us.

Jim Santos 1:47

Now, how about we start off with a little bit of a background where you're from and how you ended up traveling and ended up in Bali? I understand you're both from California.

Dave 1:55

Yes, correct, we are both from California. Retired school teachers from Temecula, california.

Jim Santos 2:02

And when did you get the idea to start traveling?

Maya 2:04

from Temecula, california, and when did you get the idea to start traveling? 2017, after teaching 26 years, I felt like I need to do something else. You know I do. I do five jobs and get stressed so we decided to retire in 2018. I was 50 and Dave was 57. And we were worried about you know, our salary not having our salary.

Dave 2:35

Sure.

Maya 2:38

But I thought that money is never enough. You know, never enough. We felt like, okay, we can survive with this minimum amount of retirement. I wasn't getting my retirement until I turned 55, but Dave was going to get retirement and then we paid off our house and we had no credit card debt, nothing. We had no debt. So we said, okay, let's travel around the world with this small paycheck and pension and we became very minimalist. We started living with very little and we were going to travel around USA with our RV also. So we rented our house, we had RV and then we went to Nepal and where I'm from I'm originally from Nepal and my mom was also getting old and my brother's sisters they were out of country and I felt like I need to help my mom. So we went to Nepal and then, 2018, we retired and then then we went to Nepal and, you know, we decided to stay with mom, maybe five, five months, and then travel around the world, and that's what we have been doing.

Dave 4:05

Yes, I could only stay five months, since I'm a foreigner. So we would stay in Nepal for five months and then we would travel those other months.

Jim Santos 4:17

Had both of you done any traveling before you got this idea to go around seeing the world?

Dave 4:22

Absolutely Every summer. We've got two months from teaching and we save money each month and by the time summer came around, we would be off and we went to a lot of places during that time. So we've been traveling since 2009 and each summer, and then in 2018 we shifted from a summer vacation to a permanent vacation.

Rita Santos 4:51

I like to say did you keep your home in california yes, we were renting it's become part of our retirement plan well, we did that once when we moved to Ecuador. For six years, we kept a home in the US and rented it out, but this time we're selling our home.

Dave 5:11

Yeah.

Rita Santos 5:12

And just going to travel around wherever the wind blows.

Dave 5:17

Yeah.

Rita Santos 5:18

Yeah.

Maya 5:20

So we went during COVID. We went to Ecuador and fell in love with Cuenca.

Jim Santos 5:26

And we bought a car.

Maya 5:28

We live in Cuenca part of the year too, now.

Rita Santos 5:32

Oh, okay, good, we lived in Salinas.

Maya 5:37

Oh, okay, oh nice place yeah.

Rita Santos 5:39

A bit of a pretty town on the weekends. It can be Six months of the year. It's kind of dead you know in their winter, which was really pleasant. We liked it. When it was hopping too, we didn't mind it, we got used to it.

Jim Santos 5:56

We did visit Cuenca a couple of times and we loved going to Quito, cotacachi and Atavalo.

Dave 6:03

Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Santos 6:04

So did you end up staying in Cuenca through the COVID crisis?

Maya 6:08

When we were there, it wasn't a big crisis. In September we got there and we stayed six months and then we decided to buy a place and then, after six months, we're still on tourist visa because we don't want to apply for the residence yet because we want to on tourist visa, because we don't want to apply for the residence yet because we want to travel Right now we are maybe 63 and 56. We still want to travel. Cuenca will be our permanent retirement home when we can travel.

Jim Santos 6:41

When you're done, are you renting that out now as well?

Maya 6:44

No, we don't want to rent out our place.

Jim Santos 6:49

I know you feel like it's it's your stuff. You don't want people in your stuff, right?

Dave 6:54

We might we, we might, but it's just we just finished paying it off and now we're have a hard time letting it Be rented out. We have some friends that sometimes will stay there.

Jim Santos 7:06

So, after Nepal, where did you go from there?

Maya 7:09

From Nepal we go different places before going to Cuenca, so we have been to different places like Thailand, Turkey.

Dave 7:21

South Korea Japan.

Maya 7:23

Hong Kong.

Dave 7:25

Spain.

Maya 7:26

And in between sometimes we do cruise and go to different places, like we were on a cruise last year 15 nights in Europe and then we went to many places there. But beforehand we went to Germany for two weeks and afterward we were in France for three, four weeks there. So we do things like that. But now things have changed a little bit for us. My mom passed away in October and so now we're not planning to go to Nepal every year, but we have to go and we want to tell you a little bit about our work, because retirement can be boring if we don't do anything and it has to be purposeful.

Maya 8:17

And before we retired I found an organization in Nepal and we worked with 100 orphanage girls and we did a lot of fun programs for them, because they don't have enough budget to do extra things for the girls. So we did a music program for them and then traditional music program and we did tutoring and then traditional music program and we did tutoring, we did a Zumba class.

Maya 8:47

Those classes we did. After that we decided to work with bigger groups. So we work with the school in Nepal which has 2,600 children from nursery to grade 12. And we opened a kindness club at that school. What we do with what we found out, or we felt that there's a disconnection between the younger generation and us because of the technology, they are becoming robotic. You know they don't have feelings, that's how we felt.

Maya 9:26

So we decided to work with children. So first we did the kindness diaries program, where I went a couple of times a week and we read kindness stories and we did a lot of activities and then like, oh, we need to take them outside of the school. So we established the Kindness Club Motherland in 2020, march 6th, so it's been going on for four. Like two days ago it was our fourth anniversary and we were always there for the anniversary program, but this time we left a little early. So, but programs are happening and now we have other three clubs in Nepal.

Maya 10:11

Then, after the school, we felt like now we need to work throughout the city. So we established another club for bachelor level students and we work in the whole city area students and we work in the whole city area. And this year we established another club for Montessori school, from nursery to class three, and then another club for the tribal group. So four, four clubs in Nepal. We have one in Kutaisi, georgia, which is in Europe, and one is in Europe, and one is in Cuenca, ecuador. And January 2024, we established two clubs in the Philippines. And that's what we did a planning event with all these kids to try to spread kindness.

Rita Santos 11:01

That's wonderful.

Jim Santos 11:02

Yeah, I was going to say you take the teachers out of the classroom. We can't take the classrooms out of the teachers, something like that.

Dave 11:08

Yeah, I was doing the same thing. It's scary.

Jim Santos 11:12

Unless I lost count, there that's nine different clubs.

Maya 11:15

Right now eight clubs and we have a meeting with the principal in Bali next week, so let's see what happens with her.

Rita Santos 11:25

Oh, wonderful.

Jim Santos 11:27

Is there a website or anything on Facebook where people can get more information about this?

Maya 11:32

Yes, we have Facebook for all clubs Kindness Club Motherland, kindness Club Pokhara, kindness Club Kutaisi. Kindness Club Kuenka. Kindness Club Asil, kindness Club Cuenca. Kindness Club Aseel. Kindness Club San Cristobal. Kindness Club Thakali. Kindness Club Pulwari Montessori. We have.

Rita Santos 11:54

Facebook pages.

Maya 11:54

I'm impressed.

Dave 11:59

Yeah, if you go to Facebook and type in Kindness Club Motherland, that'll get you started. Kindness Club Motherland.

Jim Santos 12:04

That'll get you started. Kindness Club Motherland.

Rita Santos 12:07

Okay, and you recruit other teachers to help implement your program.

Maya 12:12

Of course We've had teachers.

Rita Santos 12:14

Oh, that's wonderful.

Maya 12:16

We can't work because we travel around. So what we do, how we structure, the principal is a founder, co-founder with us, and then, Dave. Usually he's advisor, and then we have a few advisors for the club, and then we have all the students, president, vice president, all. And we keep the treasurer from the teacher group because we don't want to give money to the children. So we send money to the teacher.

Maya 12:49

Teacher that we can trust, so that's how we work and we plan a whole year event. The kids plan a whole year event, and then I just follow up and provide things what is needed. You know all that kind of thing. So so, we're behind the scene, yeah.

Rita Santos 13:07

There's an orphanage in Olón. Were you ever in that section of Ecuador?

Dave 13:13

No, but we did some volunteer with some lovely expats. We did feeding on a Sunday out of one of the restaurants. That was really lovely, it was very nice, but we didn't know about the orphanage. But it was at the end of 2020, toward the end I think, yeah, every sunday we would feed, prepare food at the restaurant there and then go over to the community hall and feed the locals.

Rita Santos 13:41

But feed the locals. But uh, from what I'm saying, it was no, that was no long and no long.

Dave 13:49

Oh, that was in no long. Okay, there were a lot of people from my understanding, long lines of people back when covid first hit, but when we were there it was later in the year and they were. They really the need wasn't as strong, but they were really building a nice relationship with the community and they were feeding elders mostly at that point we were back there in Olón and Salinas and Montanit and up and down the coast recently and apparently that restaurant's not there anymore. I don't know if they're still feeding people or not.

Dave 14:20

It was a nice program for the expats.

Meaningful Slow Travel With Local Connections

Maya 14:23

In Cuenca we were involved with Soup Kitchen. We love volunteering for the local organizations. We do, we just slow travel.

Dave 14:34

We go to a place we stay for a month usually and try to get involved in the community and find out what we'd like to participate in. That's the way we do it. It's not we're not satisfied just going to the tourist attractions and the different sightseeing spots we want to like. If there's a church, we want to go. When there's a service, we don't want to just take some pictures of the altar. Okay, that's done. Check that off the list.

Dave 15:01

Right, we want to be with the community and the locals and get a real good vibe of what's going on. It's just more satisfying that way. My wife is spotting the local restaurants and the ones that are good. We look around and see what people are doing, not afraid to ask questions. So that's the way we roll.

Rita Santos 15:23

Yeah, well, that sounds like a great life.

Jim Santos 15:27

Yeah, that's the thing about slow travel. It's not based on the tourist attraction part of it, Like you say you's you want to experience what life is really like in that country.

Dave 15:38

Yeah, exactly so. We've been to Monarch, we've been to temples, we've been to Mondaire, we've been to all kinds of different things. We've been to soccer games with community events, and we go to schools, obviously. You know, when we were in Quito, we hooked up with a group that was feeding people in the Grand Plaza. They let my wife take over the kitchen one weekend and she cooked Nepali food and we went down there just so I mean it just, it gives us a meaningful life. Meaningful, yes.

Jim Santos 16:17

I was going to ask you about the food, because that's for me that is the best part of travel is sampling the foods in different countries, shopping at the local mercados and markets and, you know, finding out. Sometimes it's not even just new foods, it's new ways of preparing the foods. So I was just wondering if you guys enjoy that as much as we do. Maya, it sounds like you like to cook.

Maya 16:39

Yeah, but I'm also lazy. Now I don't want to cook all the time.

Jim Santos 16:44

The person with eight clubs going on nine is lazy.

Rita Santos 16:48

Yeah right.

Maya 16:51

Because in Nepal we have full-time ma two mates, you know, because of my mom so they cook everything, so I just have to tell them what to cook. So yeah, uh so, but we love trying different foods. I mean, we go to fancy restaurant once in a while, but we love going to the local place and eating with local and asking questions. And you know, we were in Taipei, taiwan, six weeks and we did not speak one word, but they were very helpful. We'll just do sign language and point to picture, you know and we had the best time eating all kinds of food.

Maya 17:32

So we sometimes we're a little crazy, huh I.

Dave 17:34

I got to tell you. There was this one little dumpling shop next to the place where we were staying and we kept going there and we ordered 15 dumplings. Well, they don't serve 15 dumplings, they serve 10 dumplings. But the wife I think it would be the wife would turn to the husband and the husband would okay, okay. So they would charge us 62 or I'm sorry it was 82, uh, new taiwanese daughter dollars. You know, she had to figure out, you know, uh, 10 dumpling plus half a dumpling serving. And by the end of our stay there she was the 15 dumpling girl by myself and I had to hold up my hand five times and you go.

Maya 18:21

Oh, 15 dumpling, okay for the 15th and also we try to go to local place. So that way we connect with local family and we make friends. We have we have george, and that's how we get connected with people and they love seeing uh us, and you know, when we leave they miss us too, and so we miss them too, but it's a great feeling knowing these people. Yes, you don't miss home much. We don't miss America.

Rita Santos 19:02

Yeah, we don't, we always seem to find a niche in the community. We were in Positano, italy, I don't know, years ago 10 years maybe and we were in a little market picking up some odds and ends to make our dinner, and this these two little children were having problems with their math, and so Jim was helping them with their math homework. Well then, those people practically lived with us after that. They did, they adopted us and carried our groceries home with us. After that, they adopted us. They did. They adopted us.

Jim Santos 19:36

Carried our groceries home for us.

Rita Santos 19:38

I know, yeah, we were like, oh no, we can carry our groceries. But oh, that is wonderful to make connections, it is.

Jim Santos 19:46

I tell you, nothing opens up people more to you than when they see you enjoying their local food or complimenting them on their local food.

Dave 19:55

We have this one lady in Cuenca that a similar story that you just told. She invites us over, she makes the comida de costa, the coastal food that you're familiar with in Salinas, and she'll, at least once a month, maybe twice a month, she invites us over and we have gatita, which is like the intestine of the pig or cow, I should say.

Jim Santos 20:23

Oh.

Dave 20:23

I love gatita. Yeah, and he does, I don't.

Jim Santos 20:27

I've had it for breakfast in restaurants.

Rita Santos 20:30

Yeah, he does.

Dave 20:32

And she makes it with such love and the whole family would come over. It's very nice.

Rita Santos 20:39

It is.

Dave 20:40

We've adopted their daughter, I think.

Rita Santos 20:43

Ecuadorians have to be the sweetest people in the world. They're so accepting and so helpful and loving. It was a great experience for us living there.

Jim Santos 20:54

Of course, we haven't been to Indonesia yet.

Rita Santos 20:56

No, we haven't. We have to do that.

Jim Santos 20:59

Do you have a favorite country that you've been to? I know it's difficult because everything's different.

Maya 21:05

I think I have because what Rita said, people are so loving and kind and also the economy Economicallyically it's affordable. We chose.

Maya 21:19

Cuenca and the expat group and they are involved in so many community work. So for me, cuenca is my favorite. It doesn't have everything that other country has, but it has a heart. I feel home. When I go, I mean I'm, we're in bali, we're in taiwan, I'm like, no, I'm never gonna leave here. You know, I, I like it but no, I, I will never leave here because, um, we have a strong connection. We feel home. In poinka people are kind, we go after every. This year we are going after a year, but we go there every six, every six months. So Cuenca is my number one.

Maya 22:04

You know it doesn't have a perfect life or everything that we want, but it has a heart and and I will choose Poinka over any European country or USA. What do you think, honey? I'm glad you asked.

Dave 22:22

My ancestry is Norwegian and I love Norway and I would love to live in Norway. I speak Norwegian, but Norway is too white. It's just too expensive and it's also heterogeneous, right yeah.

Maya 22:44

We have a connection with expat, but we have connection with local. We don't want to be always connected with expats.

Rita Santos 22:52

Right, you want a little bit of interest in your life, right? Yes, us too.

Dave 23:03

Our kindness club in Cuenca is actually all Ecuadorian kids and you know that was a question we had early on. Do we want expat kids? And we said that's up to the Ecuadorian kids At some point down the road if they want to add expat members, that's up to them. Because what we do is we actually get kids together. We say what can you do to make this place, your community, more kind? Is there anything you guys can do? So the ownership, the control of the club is comes from the side of the kids. We're trying to get the kids to getting to become engaged with their community and you can't just go in and tell them okay, you guys need to go clean graffiti, the graffiti.

Dave 23:56

No, they have to decide they want to clean graffiti. If they don't think that's a problem, it's not a problem. So this is the way that clubs are organized. It has to come from them.

Jim Santos 24:10

And are you getting a good response from the kids in the clubs? Well, that's it.

Dave 24:14

So far pretty good, but there are occasions. There have been a couple times we've gone to a community and the kids were not interested. That has happened, but not very often. Maybe there's a couple of private schools that we approached and we did not get a good response. So it does not always go our way. But that's okay. If it's not a good fit, it's not a good fit.

Rita Santos 24:40

Right right.

Maya 24:42

Sometimes, you know, when we walk into the school they are interested because you know Dave is white, so they think he has a lot of money. Three dollars. Richard, Jim never gets that yeah how much money are we going to get out of this couple, you know? So that kind of attitude we don't like it. So we help them financially but we want them to take ownership of the program and it's been going great. But when principal has that kind of attitude, we don't go. We don't go Right right.

Dave 25:20

The clubs are not service clubs, they're not charity clubs. The mission is to instill, explore, develop inner kindness. It has to come from inside the kids. We ask them how are you kind to yourself? How do you take care of yourself? How are you kind to yourself? How do you take care of yourself? How do you? How are you kind to your family? How are you? It starts from there and in our uh, we have kindness classes as well and we are trying to help schools instill like a social and emotional learning in some of their, in their curriculum. So it's, it's the tip of the iceberg. You know there's a lot to it.

Jim Santos 26:01

I would think in bali there you know predominantly uh, hindu influences and buddhist influences that that kind of approach would be. You get a lot of response to that a lot of muslims here as well. Oh, there are yes, interesting now, when you're doing a slow travel, how far in advance do you plan out your itinerary? I mean, do you know what the next three stops are going to be on your trip, or how long you're even going to be in Bali? How do you go about planning each step?

Maya 26:31

You know we go with the flow. We don't plan like, oh, we're going to go this way, this, this, this, we just go with the flow. We're going to go this, this, this, this, we just go with the flow. And from Nepal we decided to go to Philippines because our friends from California, they were coming, she's Filipino, so they were coming home. So we said, okay, let's go. So we went there and we ended up establishing two clubs there With her help. Yeah, with her help. And then one day we're talking where should we?

Maya 27:05

go after, you know, philippines, and I said, should we go to Taiwan? And they said, sure, let's go, you know, and from Taiwan we're like looking at Vietnam and other places. Kuala Lumpur and Bali has been our bucket list and it was never a perfect time to go to Bali, but we're very close to Bali and also I don't like humidity. It bothers my skin. So we were not sure whether we should come to Bali or not, so we just came and then, okay, let's decide how we feel. So we booked hotel for four days and so we might stay three weeks, and after that they would like to and I would like to go to New Zealand, which is very expensive place.

Maya 27:57

But I think we're going to do New Zealand one month and then go to USA for graduation and wedding.

Dave 28:05

I would like to tell you how much I love Expediacom. Not that they're sponsoring anything maybe they should sponsor but Expedia allows you to cancel your.

World Travelers Embrace Uncertainty

Dave 28:16

Well, you have to be careful and read the fine print make sure you book with an American Airlines or something, and because they won't let you in the country if you don't have an exit plan, you have to have, like a return ticket or an onward going ticket. So well, I keep booking flights to LA and then canceling them because we have certain anchor events or bookend events, like, for example, there's a wedding we have to go to in Michigan, there's a graduation in North Carolina, I think that's it. Otherwise, we don't know where we're going to be exactly. We may stay in Bali another month, we may leave in three days.

Dave 28:57

It depends on the community and how we like it. After this, we'll probably go to New zealand. How long we stay in new zealand depends, but it's totally fluid now that kind of lifestyle is really?

Jim Santos 29:13

you know, a lot of people look at that and think that it's. It's just terrifying to not know exactly where you're going to be and when you're going to be there.

Dave 29:19

It takes a lot of planning, and planning is work, because you have to. I don't know if this is enough. Let's move on.

Jim Santos 29:27

Well, you have to, as Maya said, you have to be able to go with the flow.

Rita Santos 29:30

True yeah.

Jim Santos 29:31

Every country has its own little quirks and peculiarities and you've got to learn to roll with those and to accept those.

Dave 29:38

Exactly. Some things are out of your control.

Rita Santos 29:41

Yeah.

Jim Santos 29:42

So you've been doing this for seven years now.

Maya 29:45

We started from 2018, June 18.

Jim Santos 29:50

So six, seven years. Any idea how much longer you'll be doing it before you do settle down in Cuenca?

Maya 29:56

I'm 56. Dave is 63. Until we can, maybe when you turn 70, maybe we'll stay in one place, maybe.

Dave 30:05

That's a good question. We originally thought, oh my goodness, we have to go to Nepal every year and we have to fly out from North America or South America and, wow, that's on the other side of the world. What a bummer, wow, that's on the other side of the world. What a bummer.

Jim Santos 30:21

But then we thought well there's hubs.

Dave 30:23

If you want to fly to the other side of the world, you're going to have to stop somewhere.

Rita Santos 30:28

Let's make a holiday of it.

Dave 30:29

You know, if you've got to stop in Istanbul, spend a month in Turkey. If you've got to stop in Incheon, seoul, korea. Stay a month in South Korea, hit a few places there. So we've tried to. You know the old if you've got lemons, make lemonade, type of thing.

Maya 30:53

So we've ended up traveling to over 50 countries. Now my wife even more 60.

Dave 30:55

Yeah, and that's primarily because of the fact that we have two homes, or had two homes, in different parts of the world, different parts of the world. Right, when we had summer vacation, we would have what I call bookends. When we traveled to South America, we knew we were going to fly into Lima on a certain day and we knew we were going to fly out of San Pablo on a certain day. But the in-between part, uh, that when you hit the ground and you go native, you know you're it's off and running, you know, uh, you like, uh, you like cusco, you can stay for a while. We didn't really care for lima that much when we were there. There was a lot of smog. We headed for the hills, man, we went up to the Inca area and had a good time up there, and then Buenos Aires was really nice.

Rita Santos 31:49

That's one of our favorite cities. I think we're going to go back to Buenos.

Jim Santos 31:53

Aires for a month or so, because we were only there for a weekend.

Rita Santos 31:56

Absolutely. Actually, I don't think I could do Cusco. I'm a lot older than you guys. I don't think I could do Cusco again, honey. We hiked the Inca Trail and that altitude was a challenge.

Dave 32:11

True.

Rita Santos 32:11

And that was 10 years.

Jim Santos 32:13

Not if you were born in Nepal, I'm guessing.

Rita Santos 32:15

No, not if you're born in Nepal, but coming. We were on Salinas at sea level and hiking up to 15,000 feet. I mean it was a challenge.

Dave 32:27

Cuenca is 2,500 meters, so we had friends come out to visit us and they couldn't handle the altitude. Yeah.

Rita Santos 32:37

Cuenca bothers me.

Jim Santos 32:38

Yeah, Cuenca is right at that line where, if it's going to bother, you, it's going to start bothering you there. Now you mentioned a bucket list. Is there another country that you really want to make sure you get to?

Dave 32:49

I'm a retired history teacher and if you look at the list of World Heritage Sites, you'll find that most of them are in the Mediterranean area. Oh yeah.

Dave 33:00

And I haven't seen a lot of Italy and I haven't seen Greece. I haven't seen a lot of North Africa. I haven't seen much of the lands of the Bible, so to speak, biblical land. So that is definitely looking forward to some Mediterranean cruises and seeing some places in Italy and Greece and Cyprus, and maybe Jerusalem, I hope, egypt, these various places, those definitely. Yeah, I do love Norway and the Scandinavian countries. That's my background. It's expensive, but I would like to live in Iceland for a year. I don't think that's going to happen.

Dave 33:41

I probably could stay there for months and say, no, I don't want to be here.

Rita Santos 33:45

Our granddaughter is going to Denmark for a year as an exchange student, so she's all excited about that, so we have to go see her while she's there, absolutely.

Jim Santos 33:57

So do you have any general words of advice or wisdom for people who are considering a slow travel lifestyle.

Maya 34:02

You know, 2010, when we traveled to Europe, we planned every day Like three days here, three days, oh my God, oh God. And after I said, dave, I will never travel like this. It was too much, uh, to handle the pressure. You know, okay, you have to pack go, you have to pack go, no, and after that we just buy the, the front end and the end, and that's it, the bookends.

Dave 34:35

And then fly in the middle we go wherever we want.

Maya 34:38

however, days we want to stay, so that's the way we have been traveling and we love it.

Dave 34:48

My wife also hooks up with the expat groups before we go and she gets a lot of advice from the various expats I would tell you as advice listen to the locals. Talk with the locals when you get to a place, to a country. Ask them what's to see in your community what's to see in your town. They will tell you. They will tell you the best places to eat. They will tell you where to buy a T-shirt. They will tell you. Some of them will even take you down there.

Jim Santos 35:22

They love to show off their community and their background and their history.

Dave 35:26

It's part of their identity and they enjoy that. So don't be an outsider. Get involved in what's going on. Try to learn a few phrases. We're in Indonesia. We're learning a few. You know phrases here like terima kasih, sama-sama, yeah, have a good time, Smile, Not everyone's trying to rip you off.

Jim Santos 35:48

Well, we've been talking with Maya and Dave Anderson as they enjoy the roving lifestyle currently in Bali, Indonesia. If you'd like more information about their kindness clubs, check out the Facebook group Kindness Club Motherland, or just do a search on Facebook for Kindness Club and I'm sure you're going to find a little list of them there. Great story guys, and I really appreciate you taking the time to join us on Travels with Jim and Rita.

Dave 36:11

Thank you very much. We enjoyed hearing from you as well.

Jim Santos 36:14

Now, before we go, a quick update on our current status. Last week I told you we had our home inspection, which went well, and we're now firmly on track to close on April the 18th, and we've begun to slowly start packing boxes and making decisions on what to sell, what to store and what to give away. I've listed several things on Facebook Marketplace and we may have a tag sale the weekend after Easter to shed a few more possessions. We've secured our 10 by 25 foot climate controlled storage area, which, with insurance, will cost us about $307 a month. We also joined trusted house sitters and we're hoping to start lining up gigs Right now. In fact, we're waiting to hear about two jobs that would let us spend most of the month of August in London, so fingers crossed. So these are definitely exciting but scary times, and there's still a lot to do to get ready for the big event. We're really looking forward to being able to relax in Mexico for five weeks when it's all over. I'll have more details about our preparations to leave and the cost involved once things settle down, so stay tuned.

Jim Santos 37:19

That's it for this week's show. Keep listening and keep spreading the word on social media, as we continue to be surprised at how quickly the audience is growing. If you can, please take a moment to leave a rating and review and, of course, subscriptions are always welcome. If you have any questions or would like to tell your own story, email me at jim@ jimsantosbooks. com , and remember you can find my books, short stories and audiobooks on my Amazon author page by going to jimsantos. net . So until next time, safe journeys to you all and don't forget we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us.