Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (00:00.614)
Welcome to Digital Nomad Nation where we inspire you and empower you to achieve location independence and live life on your own terms. Today we have Chris Chera. Welcome Chris.

Chris (00:12.014)
Hey Ryan, thanks for having me.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (00:14.374)
Yeah, man, happy to have you been looking forward to this conversation. And I heard something about you having a little bit of a near death experience on a motorcycle in Thailand, which I think is where you are right now. So walk us through what happened.

Chris (00:31.454)
Yeah, was. am. I'm in Thailand right now and this is a place that I come to very regularly. So a few years ago, I was out on a motorcycle trip with some friends and there was one friend in particular who was much less experienced with motorcycles and

We kind of lost him. We lost him. And a few of us were ahead. stopped. We were like, okay, let's wait. And we're waiting and waiting and more bikes passers and more scooters passers. then, you know, like people on little carts go passers. And we're thinking these guys are really slow. there's, must've, we must've lost him. Something must've happened to him.

there's no way these scooters would be coming past ahead of him. So one of us turned back to go and look for him and one of us, I was waiting for him and I'm waiting and waiting and it's probably some of the most anxious moments of my life, like waiting to find out what's happening or waiting to see if they're going to come around the bend. And eventually I get the call.

And my friend calls me, he's like, found him. He came off. So I'm like, okay, hop on my bike. go back, turn around, go straight back. And I arrive and there's like this local guy with his truck and he's pulling this motorcycle out of the ditch. It's like around a right-hand bend and the bike's just gone into the ditch on the side of the road.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (01:59.392)
no.

Chris (02:04.942)
Our friend is okay, thankfully. his phone and everything has like gone into a million pieces on the side of the road. So that's why he couldn't call us, but like he's okay. His legs a bit cut up, but he's okay. So we get the bike out, the local guy says, okay, thanks guys. See you later. Takes off.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (02:13.266)
Chris (02:25.358)
And we're like checking over, we're checking over Frank, making sure he's alive, making sure he can move all of his limbs in the right way. And our other friend is checking over the bike, like is anything going to explode or whatever? Like, is stuff working? Can we maybe like ride it to the garage or do we need to get recovery, whatever? And while all of this is happening, you can imagine like we're on.

Like there's a lot of adrenaline. everybody's like trying to figure out the situation and the same bend. There's this huge truck like stacked high with hay. You know, I don't know if you, maybe people have seen it where like the hay is like way above the maximum load of what it should be, even at the sides and at the top area. This truck comes down. This is like a two or three lanes around a curve and

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (03:00.64)
no.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (03:05.842)
Wait, what?

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (03:18.274)
The truck is coming and it's coming in hot. It's coming in with a bit more speed than it should be. And I can see it. I'm like, this doesn't look good. And as it comes around the curve, it creeps out into like the outside, like the outside, I guess like lane one, like basically the piece of road where it shouldn't be driving and the piece of road where we're all stood. And I see it.

And I'm like, Frank, like, watch out. Like, like, like, look, I'm making noises to say like, Hey, look at this. And he turns on and as he turns around, the truck comes up onto two wheels. And then it takes, so it's starting to take the corner on two wheels and the driver must be like, my God, I'm going to kill these people. So then he snatches it all the way back the other way. And then it comes down. So now it's back on four wheels, but the

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (03:57.418)
wow.

Chris (04:13.42)
the momentum that it comes back down with onto two wheels, puts it back up onto two wheels on the other side, but it doesn't stop and he can't catch it this time. So then it goes all the way over and just like lands on its side and just like slides maybe like 100, 150 meters on its side into basically into the center central reservation.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (04:19.058)
Ugh.

Chris (04:37.43)
And we're all like, so like within this space of like two seconds, we've gone from like surviving a motorcycle accident to nearly being killed by a truck to then surviving being killed by a truck to then being in danger again, because there's like, there's a truck lying in the middle of the road and there's traffic coming. And I was like, what is happening? so that was that. Right.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (04:59.876)
Wow, so much so fast.

Chris (05:04.064)
I didn't think that when I left the UK to pursue a digital nomad lifestyle, I did not think that that would be one of the things. It's not all coconuts and beaches, right?

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (05:20.402)
Yeah, you know, 100%, especially in just all in Southeast Asia, right? You're you're on a motorcycle or you're a scooter and a significant amount of the tourists are in like they don't know what they're doing on the bikes, right? Like the locals are pros. But then you also have the locals that have like the big trucks that are like way stacked with way more stuff than it's ever meant for.

You see more things on scooters, like five people and the dog and a mattress on a scooter, stuff like that all the time. And it's like, it's like the safety standards are way different and you really have to be careful out there and like stuff like that can happen really fast. So it was really good that like you guys got away from both of that. And I bet you were feeling like, really appreciative of, that turning out. Okay.

Chris (05:53.454)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (06:17.07)
The rest of the ride was calm. Let's put it that way and for and for ref like for what it's worth I think it's also important to share like I I'm a holder of a full motorcycle license and have all of the correct insurance and I think if people are gonna do that then they should also Invest in those things Yeah, even even with that, you know stuff you can you can still have accidents

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (06:38.662)
Yeah, definitely, definitely travelers insurance, all that stuff, international driver's license. There's a lot of people out there just swinging it.

Chris (06:46.744)
Yeah.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (06:53.276)
Well, cool, man. So you're in Chiang Mai. It's like one of the digital nomad Mecca's like why Chiang Mai?

Chris (07:03.47)
It's a good question. I came here for the first time in 2018 and I think it was one of the first places, one of the first places I came to that like had hype, like it one of the first places that I'd visited where.

I had some like high expectation of what it was going to be like here. And it just kind of met all of the expectations. So since then I've been coming back like every year. I travel with my girlfriend. So we've been together for nearly 10 years now. So we just, have like, we've over those years, we've managed to develop like our own little.

little community here. Like we have our friends, we have, you know, the place where we like to get this meal or that meal and we know where we can get stuff done. Like, I don't know, it's just, kind of like, it feels more like home than anywhere else. And so that's why it's like perpetually in this cycle of us returning here. Yeah.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (08:10.63)
What do you love about Chiang Mai? Like what are the best parts about it?

Chris (08:14.658)
Convenience, a hundred percent. even I have this conversation all the time with people always ask me like, what about Bangkok? And for years we would toil and kind of like, yeah, we would deliberate over whether or not we should come back to Chiang Mai or whether we should stay in Bangkok for longer. Cause often we're like flying into Bangkok and then...

conversation is like, should we stay in Bangkok for some extended period or should we go straight to Chiang Mai? Especially in the first few years when our visa would be like 30 days or 60 days and ultimately we would always end up coming to Chiang Mai and staying in Chiang Mai for like the maximum amount of time that the visa would allow us.

And I think a big driver of that was convenience because Bangkok's great. like it is, like it's a super convenient city, but it's just so big. So there might be some things that you want to do where like if there's a particular gym that you like and or like right now in Chiang Mai, we're playing a lot of paddle. So the court is like 15 minutes away from where we live. Great. But like I'm

almost certain that if we lived in Bangkok, then the travel time to the core would be a lot longer. it's stuff like that where like from a convenience perspective, like Asia is great in the sense that if you want to get like laundry done, or if you want to get something delivered, like you can get anything delivered to you, right? Like at the push of a button in an app.

So like in some sense everywhere is convenient but the time that it takes to get that delivered or the time that it takes to get to a place that you want to be at in Chiang Mai is everything seems a little bit quicker and so For that reason it kind of wins like I it wouldn't be over Bangkok for that regard Yeah

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (10:15.836)
Things are in closer reach. It's not such a big place. Like you're not going to be stuck in it as big of like major traffic jams and like dealing with the some of the like most beat up buses you've ever seen in your life and like, and stuff like that, you know, it's like a little bit different.

Chris (10:33.25)
Yeah, have you been out here, Ryan?

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (10:35.218)
I have, it's been before COVID though. So I've not been out there. I've been to Bangkok and Chiang Mai, but 2019? So before it was really like a digital nomad hotspot. mean, it had been starting in 2019, but I think it's really come up since. I haven't been back since.

Chris (10:38.828)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, soon.

Chris (10:56.654)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know the different flavor of the two places, yeah.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (11:01.998)
Yeah, it's different. It's definitely different. And so like you mentioned a little bit about like your visa, know, originally you're on 30, 60 days, which probably like tourist visa. What's the situation now? Do you guys have something more long term?

Chris (11:17.678)
We, yeah, we got the, I think it was like last year, Thailand announced the destination Thailand visa or DTV. So we got that. like, it's a $300 visa and it lasts for five years. And when you enter, you can stay for six months. So for us, it was a bit of a no brainer. Like when we were coming, we were often...

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (11:25.51)
Okay?

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (11:34.033)
Okay.

Chris (11:41.167)
paying to do the online visa, which is like maybe like $15 or $20 to stay for 90 days without having to, like you can stay for 90 days if you go to immigration and get an extra stamp and stuff. But if you just pay like $15 or whatever to do it online, then you don't have to do that. just land, stay 90 days on arrival. And so for that convenience, it was like, okay, we'll just pay for the online one. And then adding all of that up, we were like,

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (11:53.389)
extension yeah

Chris (12:10.539)
maybe it makes sense to just have a visa where we can where we can go and stay for six months if we want to without any kind of administrative headache. So I'm seeing a theme here in all of my responses which is like convenience is obviously quite important to me. So yeah.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (12:22.803)
care.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (12:31.281)
there's nothing wrong with that when you travel enough. Like those things are important. Like if you're traveling a lot and you're always getting visas and you always have to go to offices for extension. I've definitely been in that line in like Phuket at the immigration station and the boiling sun, like waiting for an extension. And then there's like these

There's like a window on the side where there's like a separate secret line where people are just going up and like giving extra bot and like their passports through the window. And like it's an express lane because they're just paying off immigration. So like that whole situation is completely a headache. So, you know, having these new better visas that are more suitable, especially for digital nomads is a huge plus. I had the one year.

visa in Bali that's about to run out in a couple of days. And, that's also a great one to have, but so like for the five years, six months and five years, is it like, is it one and done? Like, is it one six month turn? Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (13:37.237)
No, so it is a that's a really good question. So maybe I explain that the best. So it's it lasts for five years from when you get it approved.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (13:46.758)
Okay.

Chris (13:49.731)
But you basically, when you enter every entry, you're valid for six months, but you can enter as many times as you like. And you can, if you want to experience like a little bit of administrative headache, because you miss it so much, then you can at six months, you can go to immigration and get a stamp to extend for another six months. So you could technically do a year if you wanted to do a year.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (14:09.81)
Okay.

Chris (14:10.575)
or you can leave and then you can like return the same day or the next day and like they know that people, yeah, it resets for another six months. So they know that people are gonna do that, but their goal is to like get you on this visa rather than have you, know, do like people, they know people do visa runs. Like I don't think it's a...

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (14:16.657)
and it resets for sit.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (14:29.743)
Right. So it's.

Chris (14:31.148)
I don't think it's an unknown thing. yeah, they'd rather get people to pay $300, which $300 over five years, like that's great. I think that, yeah, I think it's perfect.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (14:40.381)
That's nothing. Yeah. And so they're getting money up front and then it's probably cutting down on the amount of people doing border runs, right? Because you might do two border runs a year versus someone who might be doing like three to five ish, you know, like, right. So it's

Chris (15:01.399)
Yeah, like there's people, I've met people who've lived here for like 18 years and they're just constantly doing border runs. And I'm like, how are you, how are you functioning?

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (15:06.683)
Yeah.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (15:10.513)
So yeah, no, it's terrible. It sucks. so like I said, can see all immigration is like, we'll get this money up front and it's going to reduce our headaches of seeing these same guys come through like all the time. Like it's going to speed things up for everybody else.

Chris (15:26.531)
Yeah, yeah, it was and it was a really smooth process. they when they announced it, I think they announced it in summertime and we had to wait until around August to do our application because basically if they approve you, then you have 90 days to like come and use it for the first time. So we did it in August and we were coming back in late October, November or October it would have been.

And we did the application, I think it was like a Thursday and on like the following Tuesday, it was done, like it was approved. So it was a really, really slick process. know like digital nomad visas sometimes get a bad rap for being like, not being smooth or not having like a high success rate or like all of this stuff. Or I guess just it can be very bureaucratic sometimes the process, but

This one, it was the first one that actually, I was actually drawn to applying to, and it was a breeze. So I can only really say good things about the process.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (16:37.277)
Awesome. Yeah, no, I did Bollies for the first time ever because I've just came out recently and it was it wasn't a great process. Like you could do everything online. It took me weeks to get everything through the system, like getting all the documents just right and everything they wanted and everything approved. And then you get the payment part and the only way to pay them is to have an Indonesian bank account.

Chris (16:49.998)
Okay.

Chris (17:01.422)
okay.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (17:03.335)
You're obviously like a foreigner who's applying for this digital nomad visa on the internet and you can't get them the money for it. Like it was just a disaster. So I ended up having to hire an agent to do everything and then take my payment. And then they made the payment, which costs almost double of what it should have cost online. So using the agent was an extremely smooth.

Chris (17:18.925)
an agent. Yeah.

Chris (17:29.103)
Mm.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (17:32.487)
process. And I really thought that visa was like decent for what it was, but, maybe they've improved it since a year from that was a year ago when I was applying for it, but, it wasn't, it wasn't great. So it's good to hear that Thailand's on top of it. think they have, much more, they're just in general on top of the tourist stuff and immigration stuff, right? Cause it's such a hot spot, you know? So.

Chris (18:00.567)
Yeah, No, it sounds great. And that's actually a really good like those two visas in combination would serve a lot of people very well. Like I know a bunch of people who they like to do like the Thailand Bali shuffle. They're like, they just bounce. that if you like, if you manage to line up those two visas, then you'd be set essentially.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (18:15.517)
Yeah.

Just back and forth.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (18:22.129)
Yeah, you can just like hop on a couple hour flight back and forth and experience both of those. And yeah, no, it wouldn't be a bad situation at all. So take me back to the moment or time that you like knew that you wanted to be a digital nomad or like, how did that come about? Did it come about on accident? Was it something that you decided to do?

Chris (18:26.392)
Yeah.

Chris (18:49.293)
I think it was like semi accidental. in the, sense that like once I, once I had seen it, I was like, yep, that's what I'm doing. But I think the route to finding it was not,

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (18:51.941)
Okay?

Chris (19:05.165)
I think like I kind of happened on what it was in the first place. I was working, I think like most people, like I was working a normal job. I was working in an office job back in the UK. And I grew up, like I always grew up wanting to travel. I always wanted to travel. I was always trying to travel. I didn't really travel a lot when I grew up.

We, my dad worked in travel. This is like the super long version,

You can edit this like however you like. My dad worked in travel and then when I was a kid, we had family in Australia. So instead of doing like regular trips to Europe and stuff like that, we would, we tend, we tended to kind of wait a bit and do some kind of like lesser expensive holidays and then use the saved up money to go and do a big trip to Australia to see our family. and so I was kind of like,

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (20:01.907)
Okay.

Chris (20:06.487)
I always knew I wanted to travel more, but I wasn't well traveled as a child, I don't think, on reflection. When I got to 18 and I could travel by myself, that then became a big goal, right? It's like, okay, now I'm in charge of the travel schedule. I'm gonna pick the places I'm gonna go to where I wanna go to. So when I finished uni, I did a big trip and then I kind of went back to my home country.

after this big trip with the mindset of, okay, now I'm going to get a job. And like, that's the travel stuff, like done, like I've checked the box. I loved it, but I didn't think it was sustainable. So it was like, okay, now I have to switch back into the climbing the ladder of what society thinks I should climb. And then I met my girlfriend.

And she also loved to travel and this was at the same time. So I'd worked a couple of different jobs. I've moved around the UK a little bit and I've moved back to London for this, for this new role. my girlfriend at the same time, my now girlfriend at the same time. And I was, I remember like I'd moved from another city to London for this, for this role. And in like the first three weeks of being there, I'm on this introductory call, like meeting all of the different members of the team.

and this guy joins the court and he's I was like where are you and he's like I'm in Croatia and I was just like wait what like what do mean he's doing the exact same job that I'm doing but he's in Croatia and he explains to me that he this is a guy he's called Jeff and he was on the inaugural

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (21:28.466)
Ha!

Chris (21:46.063)
remote year program. So like the first ever 12 month program that remote year ever ran, he was on it and

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (21:53.201)
Okay.

Chris (21:54.927)
Like the company that we were working for was it was in financial services, is traditionally quite like a quite a buttoned up industry, not not the kind of industry where you think flexibility is is going to be a thing. But they were very, very culturally, the organization was really forward thinking and progressive. And they were they were trying to like push the boundaries a little bit for the industry. So they were like, hey, like, you can work wherever you want.

whenever you want, you don't have to tell anybody, like, as long as you get your stuff done, we're good. And so I just moved, I basically moved my entire life, like from one city that I was living in previously that I loved with friends and everything else, back to London. And I'm like, okay, so I've just moved here and now this guy's telling me he's in Croatia. And I really love traveling, like what the hell am I doing? So he and I, over the course of, like as he went through the remote year program,

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (22:30.098)
Awesome.

Chris (22:53.653)
he and I became pretty good friends. He met his partner on that program and now they live in Hawaii together. that was like a big download of what is possible for me. And then kind of outside of the work realm, I was speaking with my girlfriend all the time and we were constantly trying to...

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (23:03.539)
Sweet.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (23:11.589)
Okay.

Chris (23:22.593)
trying to travel as much as possible. Like this is one of the things that drew us together was connecting over travel. And she had a role which was not remote friendly. So this is like, for reference, this is back in like 2016. So we didn't have the pandemic boom in remote work and like remote work wasn't really as big of a deal as it is now. So...

her employer wouldn't let her go remote and so she eventually she ended up leaving that role and finding another role where she could be remote and and that was that was really the

That was the point. That was like the inflection point for like, okay, this is it now. Let's do this. And so earlier when I said, you know, I kind of happened upon it. I think I happened upon it semi-accidentally. That was just because I ended up working at a company where somebody else was doing it. But once I could see it, I was like, yeah, like this is like, that's now my new goalpost, like to go and do that. And we kind of engineered our careers to be able to do it.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (24:29.264)
Awesome.

Chris (24:33.599)
Yeah, and I think our first trip, we did a trip, we did a six week trip to Portugal and I think it was on that trip where I was like, yeah, this is like, I don't want to do, I don't want to go back to the other way now. Like this is probably it.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (24:51.515)
Yeah, that's awesome. So how was that for like, how was it? What was it? What what did it feel like? Like getting out and being in Portugal, like in a completely different country, still working, making money, probably spending less than you were back home in the UK. Right. Like, how did that feel like? What was that like?

Chris (25:15.555)
honestly, it just felt great. Like, I don't know if there's another way to say it. Like, I don't think I had like a...

Yeah, I don't think I had like a moment of consciousness where I'm like, okay, like this is like, this is better than I've ever felt. But it just kind of felt good. And a little bit, a little bit, it felt like I was like cheating the system a little bit because all my colleagues are still like essentially what had happened was

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (25:43.837)
You

Chris (25:49.261)
when she, my girlfriend, when she moved into this new role or like when she moved out of her old role into like remote work role, she actually had like, she had a one year contract with a company that, and they were just like, we need you to travel. It wasn't like you're going to work remotely. They were like, yeah, we've got this job. It requires a lot of travel, but it's just a one year contract. And so.

She went, she traveled to something like 30 different places in a year. so was really, really intense, really, really fast. And the company were great. They were like, if you have a partner, they can go with you. So they paid for a lot of stuff and I just kind of tagged along, where I could on different trips. But even I like, it was so fast that I had to kind of bow out of a lot of them and just stay wherever we were or go back home to chill a bit.

But that was really, really quick travel. And it was only after that when we went to Portugal and did like a slower version of Nomad Life, like six weeks. And so another feeling that I had there was like calm for the first time, because we'd just spent a year moving around like, you know, one week, 10 days, two weeks, that kind of, this kind of cadence. And so...

actually being in Portugal for like six weeks was a big like moment of reflection of like the last year and then like how do we want to like we knew that it wasn't sustainable to do that like to keep doing that two-week thing two weeks and bounce and so yeah I think the feeling for me was like really really calm

a little bit like it was like, like I found some kind of hack, like some kind of glitch in the matrix where like, I get to do this, I get to still keep my job. And like, I think a big thing at the time was like, I didn't feel like I could continue traveling because I had to pursue a career. Or not had to pursue a career, I wanted to pursue a career. Like that was important to me. I think that's okay to want that. But I also, I also enjoyed traveling and

Chris (28:04.267)
you're kind of stuck in this place where you can't have both. And I feel like I found the thing that was like, yes, you can, can have both. This is the glitch in the matrix. This is the hack. You found the cheat code. Now you get to do it all. And so there was definitely a bit of that. I think that's probably the best way to summarize like that feeling.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (28:23.271)
That's awesome. Yeah, it does. It definitely does feel like a cheat code, especially when you look back on like social media. All your friends and family are like doing the same exact thing like Monday through Friday, nine to five. It's like so like mundane and rent, you know, rents repeat like, you know, we've all been there before as well. And that doing that same thing. So like once you're out, you like, man, this is great. So totally get that. And so you're traveling with your girlfriend. What's it like?

Chris (28:39.615)
Mm. Mm.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (28:53.575)
Like being a couple on the road, like what are some of the hurdles there? Like, I know that can be probably more challenging. Do you guys like work together in the same apartment? Like at the same time, do you guys split up? Like someone goes to coworking, like how does that go? Cause I know it's, can be a challenge for some couples that are both working and traveling together.

Chris (29:16.737)
Yeah, I think, like, this is a, we get asked this a lot. I think, like, especially when people know that we've been doing it for so long, they're like, how is that, how you not killed each other yet? Honestly, I think we, right, it's like, that's what you're really asking, right? It's like, we talked about near death experiences. Yeah, honestly, I think it just comes down to like,

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (29:28.243)
I should have just asked that question.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (29:38.247)
But the people want to know, know, the people want to know.

Chris (29:45.859)
being overly communicative. We definitely don't, we don't always work together in the same place, but sometimes we do. And there's there's limits. There's limits on how much you, how productive you can be. Sometimes you just need your own space. There's certain stuff that I know I can do if I'm in the apartment or not.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (29:48.157)
Okay.

Chris (30:11.631)
or from a coffee shop. And then there's other things where I'm like, actually, no, today I'm going to go out here by myself and I'm going to do this thing because I need complete, I just want to give all of my creative energy to something or all my brain space to one thing. And she's the same. So she'll have those moments as well with her work. And I think, A, just being aware of that and then B, like,

overly communicating it or remembering to communicate it. Yeah, it's like, it's almost like it's a muscle and you don't really, when you first start using it, like you're not going to go to the gym if you've never been to the gym and start picking up the heaviest weights. But if you kind of like slowly build up this practice of recognizing what the triggers are of like, no, like I need my own creative space right now. Then over time you learn what that

what that signal is for you. And then you can satisfy that signal and give yourself the space. But it's hard, it's definitely hard. I don't think it's easy, especially in places where, like this is another reason why TrekMind is great. There's like million coffee shops and loads of co-working spaces. If you're in a place where...

because there are some locations where there's like one co-working space or, know, and it's like, everybody knows about it because it's like, it's the one that everybody goes to. And so if you end up somewhere like that, it can sometimes be difficult because then you're, then you're both.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (31:47.773)
You never get away, yeah.

Chris (31:49.039)
right, right, you're just kind of like both always in always working in each other's space or and then you know, obviously back at the same accommodation. So it's difficult, but I think it just it takes practice and it's definitely possible. It's not impossible. It's just different to the to the the more traditional thing of like, you know, a couple like if you're a couple and you live in a city and you both work in an office like you kind of have

average commute is like 30, 45 minutes. Like you've got an hour to an hour and a half every day of like dead time, but it's dead time, but it's your time. It's like, it's time to be with your own thoughts. It's time to, for you to think about whatever it is that you want to think about or catch up on that life admin. And when you're

when the co-working space is like downstairs or like across the road or five minutes away and you're traveling there together, you don't really have that. So there's definitely something to be said for like actively seeking some separation.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (32:53.425)
Yeah. And being in a location that gives you options for that, right? So. So tell me, like you're coming from the UK, where are you living in London, you said?

Chris (32:59.069)
on.

Chris (33:07.823)
Yes, we were we met in London and before that like I'd worked in I'd worked in different cities in in the UK and I'm originally from Manchester, which everybody knows because of football or soccer Right, right. This is like it doesn't matter where we are in the world. Like I can go to a tiny island

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (33:18.095)
Okay. Manchester United.

Chris (33:30.613)
in the middle of the ocean and like there will be a there will there will be somebody wearing a Manchester United t-shirt.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (33:37.731)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. World famous. So tell me about like the cost of living in Chiang Mai versus Manchester or London, like a flat, you're eating out, your groceries, your utilities, just how big of a difference is that?

Chris (34:03.53)
Significant. I was, when I was in London, I was sharing an apartment with my best friend. So we had a two bedroom apartment and it was like fairly central. I would say it's like on the outskirts of the center of town. Or if anyone's familiar with London, it's like zone two. So it's like, it's very close to central London. And we were paying.

This is like seven or eight years ago, we were paying 1800 pounds. So like well in excess of $2,000 for a two bedroom department. And then, you you add all of your bills and stuff on top of that. Basically, basically I was saving, like I was putting aside out of the money that I was earning, like over $1,000 to...

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (34:42.824)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (34:57.903)
just to have my place to live. And here in Thailand, have a condo which is on like the eighth floor, which looks out over basically just trees. And then in the distance it's mountains. Like this morning I woke up and I could watch like hot air balloons in the distance. It was really, really nice. And this is like, this is expensive for Thailand. It's like 17,000 baht, which is about...

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (35:19.354)
Nice.

Chris (35:28.303)
I think it's about 450-ish pounds, so maybe like five or $600. It's one-bedroomed, but the building has everything. There's three swimming pools, a sauna, a gym, a games room. If you have children, it's got a Lego room and a children's playroom, co-working area. I know if I already said that.

It's just got everything. It's got a music room. It's got a Pilates studio. It's got like the music room is like there's they've got a piano and a drum set, which is all like soundproof. So like if you want to learn drums, you can like have your instructor come here and like learn how to play piano. And some of it's some of it's like nonsense. Like I like I don't use the piano room. I don't. But I use a lot of the other stuff. Right. So it has all of that. There's like the sports courts, badminton, tennis, basketball. Like it's got

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (36:02.898)
Wow.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (36:14.259)
That's crazy.

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (36:28.225)
It's got a lot of stuff that we use. And so for that reason, because it's got all of that, it's on the expensive end. But even then, it's like $600 for two people. So comparatively, yeah. Right.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (36:42.21)
You're saving 70%, 65, 70 % just on rent alone and then other, eating out and any other bills. mean, are utilities all included in your?

Chris (36:57.411)
They're not, but we're paying maybe like the monthly for water and electric, I think it's something like $50 a month, like maximum. And that's like when it's really hot and we're using the AC and all that kind of stuff. So it's not a lot. And again, like it's...

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (37:09.116)
Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

Chris (37:18.867)
in our scenario, we're dividing it by two. And it's also like what we're getting for the money is way is way greater. Like you there are really good gyms in Chiang Mai and there's really good like co-working spaces in Chiang Mai. But we're also kind of making a saving there like for two people to pay for a gym and co-working maybe that would be like that'd be over $100 each a month. We don't we just have it here. So we don't really do that. We just use the stuff that's here.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (37:48.979)
Thanks.

Chris (37:49.775)
Yeah, so that's the big expense, Like accommodation and co-working and all of that stuff. Day-to-day, like meals, maybe you would pay $2 for street food or fast food. And then if you wanted to have a more Western experience, then maybe you'd pay somewhere between $8 and $12.

comparatively to, I don't know, maybe what you would spend 15 or $20 up if you were in the States. Definitely in the UK, you might spend like 15, 20 pounds on a meal, maybe probably more actually, 25 pounds, $30. And so yeah, there's savings everywhere, but I think that's like a, I'm quietly conscious.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (38:26.482)
Yeah.

Chris (38:48.195)
that that shouldn't be the primary reason why people do this.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (38:54.855)
Why, what's the most important reason for people to do this? In your opinion.

Chris (39:00.335)
Chris (39:03.823)
That's a good question. I don't know if my reason should be the same as everybody else's, but I think if you're gonna do it, it shouldn't be, maybe if you go into it aware, then that's not actually the worst thing. But I think there's so much more. For me, the biggest driver to do this was to go and travel and to see more places.

and now we still do that but we just have our base here and like so if we're here for six months of the year then the other six months normally we spend like six here and then we'll spend a few two or three months in the UK and then we'll spend a few months of the year like exploring or going to different places or visiting friends or whatever and so

For us, when we started, the driver was to explore more. And then we went through this cycle of realizing, okay, now that we've explored all this stuff, we probably don't want to live in the UK. So like, where could we live, at least for the medium term, a little bit more, like for more part of the year, for a greater part of the year. And that for us was Chiang Mai. But I think...

Like I think it's really easy for people to focus on the cost of living when they talk about digital nomad, like, like the lifestyle. and I think it's kind of like, I don't know. It feels like icky, feels icky for that to be the reason that you do it. Cause there's just so much more like, there's so much, like you can have such rich, there's like an abundance of rich experiences and culture that you can experience that to me outweigh.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (40:40.147)
There's...

Chris (40:47.199)
cost of living thing. Even if Thailand was a bit more expensive, I'd probably still come here, you know?

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (40:52.083)
Yeah, no, a hundred percent. think you need to be there to learn about like, if you want to travel and see new places and meet new people, learn new cultures and meet people, meet people from other places around the world. I think it's just, I think a lot of people, the, the reason that I like to highlight it on the podcast is because I think a lot of people see people traveling a lot at town digital nomads on Instagram and they

just think that everyone's like making tons of money or they're like all entrepreneurs or business owners and like they're living this lavish lifestyle. And I like to highlight it to just show that no, it's not like this pie in the sky thing that you have to achieve. Like it's much more obtainable. It's much more if you're coming from a hot place of high cost of living, like the U S or the UK, like you could pretty much almost go a lot of places and

make a lot less money than you're making now and live this more abundant lifestyle, right?

Chris (41:52.014)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. I will never ever forget the time that some friends, friend, we know, we know these, these friends from London, but they're from the U S and like, it was probably like, is it way, back? Like not long after we, we'd started to do this and we'd gone back to the UK to visit and we're catching up with them. And they're kind of like really, really inquisitive and questioning, how, like, how does this all work? How do you make that possible?

And they couldn't wrap their head around the fact that like, you know, the mentality of like the vacation mentality in the US of like, okay, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna earn, I'm gonna save my money. And then I'm going to go on like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go on a, on a week of vacation or two week vacation. And this is going to be my budget. Right, right. And I'm like, okay, but like, yeah, you see us when we're away for two months, but like, we're spending half of what you spend in two weeks. And

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (42:43.355)
and spend a ton of money.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (42:51.9)
Yeah.

Chris (42:54.147)
there was just this weird thing where like they couldn't understand that. They thought it was linear. Like, okay, if I spend like three grand over two weeks, then over two months, I need to spend like 12 grand. I'm no, no, like, come on. So yeah, it's probably good to highlight that if people are still, or for people who have that perception.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (43:04.381)
Yeah, no.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (43:15.025)
Yeah, I think that's a big perception from a lot of people, right? You know, cause a lot of people are just experienced with a week here and a week there. And if you do just fly out of the country somewhere, like all of that, like the shorter you travel, the more expensive it is. Everything about it is expensive, right? You know, like, so just going places that for longer, definitely helps keep the cost down. So,

Chris (43:22.404)
Yeah.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (43:41.405)
for like, if you were giving someone advice who might be interested in this lifestyle starting, like what kind of advice would you give any kind of mindset advice or what would you say to them?

Chris (43:58.639)
I love this question. I honestly, always ask, I always tell people that they shouldn't go unless they know why they're going. So like really try to like, and people will tell you, you they think like, oh yeah, you know, like I want to go to Thailand or I really want to go like I've never been to Europe.

And I'm like, okay, but like, that's not why you want to do this. You want a holiday. What you want is a holiday. So go on a holiday. I think you have to like sit down and try to really articulate, like with a pen, why you're doing it. And if you can do that and you can do it like comfortably, then you should do it. And if you can't, then like book a holiday.

And then the other thing is, you know, if people are, if people do have, if they're able to articulate it and they're making the first steps and they're a bit unsure, I always tell people not to bite off more than they can chew. Like I have literally told people in the past, like go to the next town.

Like if you're really, really that unsure, like go to the literally the next town across from you and try and work there for like for a month or for a week.

And just slowly build out like that. it may be for in the U S it's you go to a different state or, you go to, and that's kind of ideal actually. If you can go like, if you go coast to coast in the U S then you've also got time difference to consider. so like there's a way for you to practice and like build these reflexes of not really knowing like where to work from or not knowing where the gym is or where to eat or whatever it is and just build it up from there. And then you can start to go.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (45:31.837)
Yeah.

Chris (45:46.451)
overseas or to the next place to the next place or stay for longer and do it like that.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (45:52.339)
Yeah, doing a test, doing a test run is like super important, especially if you're like not a hundred percent sure. Like some people just know and they go all in and I love that. Uh, and most of them are successful. Yeah. Yeah. Just, sometimes that depending on the type of person that needs to be the way to do it. But like, if you're not 110 % sure, like do a test run.

Chris (46:03.853)
Yeah, I sold everything. put all my stuff in storage, like...

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (46:18.461)
You know, I just say, do a working holiday. Like, you know, for us citizens, if you want to get out of the country, just go to Mexico, somewhere close, go to Canada. so you can get out of the country. Things are different. Got to figure everything out. Do two weeks, you know, take one week off, do an actual holiday, have fun, and then work remotely that second week. See how that goes. See if you can even do it, you know, can, can you handle that?

Chris (46:18.702)
Yeah.

Chris (46:26.543)
Mm.

Chris (46:34.029)
Yeah.

Chris (46:44.292)
Right.

or their distractions.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (46:48.133)
with yeah, all the distractions and, keeping yourself engaged and still being productive depending on your work. So I think it's a good, it's good advice.

Chris (46:58.093)
Yeah. Yeah. It's romanticized. Like this idea that like I sold it. I sold my car and all my stuff. Like I think this gets glamorized a little bit. And actually like the probably the boring way is maybe the safe way to do it.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (47:11.527)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. With some like money in the bank for savings in case of emergency, too. No one ever talks about that, you know, like that's always a good thing to do, too. You know, that way you're like you can at least sleep at night knowing you got like six months of runway or something like that.

Chris (47:16.591)
you

Right.

Chris (47:29.901)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (47:31.985)
What are you doing for work now?

Chris (47:35.567)
So right now I work for myself. I kind of transitioned away from the role that I talked about in London. I had like a slow off ramp there. Like once I realized that I wanted to do this more permanently, I then realized, okay, maybe like, I mean, having a remote job is great and there's a lot of stability in that.

or not, there might also not be stability in it depending on the company and the role and stuff. yeah, I kind of, always wanted to work for myself and I just never really knew what that would be. My family have always been people who've run businesses and worked for themselves. for me, that was like a...

I knew I wanted to do it. just didn't know the idea or the business. And being able to travel and experience more things kind of into my sphere of reference what it was I wanted to do. So in 2019, I started my, I started an email newsletter that was essentially sharing accommodation, like long stay accommodation offers for other people who wanted to come away for a month or longer.

And that kind of bubbled away slowly until the pandemic happened and then.

That was a, for me, was a turning point where I decided, okay, I want to focus on this more full-time. And I took a, I like went part-time in my day job and was focusing on the newsletter more. And then eventually went into that full-time. And that became a catalyst for me to learn about, like to learn more about the business of email and newsletters. So now I run.

Chris (49:23.617)
multiple email newsletter publications and we do some consulting for other brands or people who have their own email newsletter but maybe don't really know how best to leverage it or they don't have one and they want one and they want to kind of like have a channel that they own. And so yeah, like I'm...

I you could say I do email consulting, which doesn't sound at all sexy or exciting, but yeah, I'm on a bit of a personal crusade to make emails sexy again.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (49:58.675)
Well, the funny thing is, is like how you came on my radar is from one of your emails from the digital Nomad trip report that you do, which I think is like a huge, like I really loved seeing your emails when they come, when they come in my, when they get in my inbox. like it's, it's always full of

Chris (50:05.647)
You

Chris (50:09.345)
Right, yeah amazing.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (50:24.915)
Good stuff. like right before we hopped on, I just saw one from the other day and I saw Airbnb like deal for a Buenos Aires, which I'm planning on possibly going to this winter. And I clicked on it and I was like, man, this is a great deal. Like how did he find this? You know, like I might be booking this is when I'm done with the podcast, but tell us also about like digital Nomad trip reports itself, because I think that's really like, uh,

Chris (50:39.673)
You

Chris (50:44.019)
Ugh.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (50:52.595)
cool thing that you put together and what's that all about?

Chris (50:57.101)
Yeah, this was another newsletter that I started that guess serves this group of people, like the traveling remote worker or the digital nomad. And basically, however many years it was,

you find yourself in this almost like a trap of like having the same conversations. So like I can go to a co-working space and I can meet somebody. Like if let's say you're in, you're in Europe, let's say you're in Spain, probably somebody that you're talking to, they're either going to or coming from France or Portugal. And so you'll be in, you'll be having these like one-to-one

conversations like almost on repeat, like where have you been and where are you going? And if I meet you in Spain, I'm like, hey Ryan, I'm going to Lisbon next. And you say, cool, I was just in Lisbon. Then immediately we're having a conversation about like what to do in Lisbon. And these like...

I would have not only would I be having these conversations, but I would go to co-working spaces or I'd be in a co-living and I would hear these conversations happening around me one to one. And I'm like, this is such a waste. Like this, all of this rich information needs to be captured and like shared with people.

because if you, if I'm going to Lisbon and I start to Google like best coworking spaces in Lisbon, maybe Lisbon is a bad example actually, because there's probably lots of really good information on that. But let's say you want to go to like a lesser known spot. Let's say you want to go to Seville in Spain. There's probably only like very SEO optimized affiliate link led.

Chris (52:44.271)
content on that. And maybe there's only a few different places and maybe it's hard to find because those places don't have huge digital marketing resources. And so really the only way that those places get discovered is through those one-to-one conversations. so Trip Reports is more about like taking that conversation and making it one to many. So if you're Ryan and you want to write a Trip Report about

your amazing experience having two months in Seville, you can do that. We have a form and people just fill out the form.

to say, you know, where they've been, what they did, where they stayed, what things they did there, what was good about it, what was bad about it, all of the kind of tips that you would share in a human one-to-one conversation. And then we emailed out to thousands of digital nomads and all of the reports are in an archive online, so they're searchable and people can find what they want.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (53:41.297)
Yeah. And I think it's great because like, you know, I'm thinking about going somewhere and I don't know where I want to go because I'm a typical digital nomad. Like the world's a big place. So I can just go to your trip report spot and like just peruse all the reports that there are. Right. And be like, that sounds interesting. I've I've heard about that. I've always thought about that place and then click on it. And then there's just lots of information that you're getting firsthand from somebody.

without having to bump into them in a random coworking space. I think it's providing a lot of value and I really enjoy it. I think it's great and I think you're definitely on to something there. So if no one's checked it out, you should check that out for sure. It's definitely a good resource to have.

Chris (54:15.01)
Exactly.

Chris (54:34.925)
Nice. I'm really glad you found me through that. That's a great way to make connections like this. And it only works. The other thing I'll say about that is like, it only works because readers submit their experiences. like, if you want to get involved and submit, like, please, please do that. Like the project only kind of exists because we as a readership continue to allow it to exist.

And it only takes like, it's, think it takes like 15 or 20 minutes to put together a report. And we always credit you and shout you out and point people to your podcast or your, uh, whatever kind of project it is or businesses that you're running. So it's a nice way to. It's a nice way to kind of give back, but also, um, you know, we try to share the love.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (55:23.387)
Yeah, it's a free resource. like, you know, it's it only works if we're all like pitching in a little bit. So yeah, I need to I know I need to submit a report. I've been in plenty, plenty of places. Yeah, because it'll be my first time. So like it'll be like fresh eyes. Cool. Well, awesome. So I just have a couple of rapid fire questions as we wrap up. What's your number one go to app?

Chris (55:30.68)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (55:36.224)
Maybe for Buenos Aires when you're there.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (55:52.455)
for either working remotely or traveling.

Chris (55:56.111)
Chris (56:01.111)
At the minute, I'm really enjoying this app called Whisper Flow. Yeah, I think it's like without the H, like W-I-S-P-R Flow. And it's like voice dictation. Sorry, it's like voice to text, but it's way better than...

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (56:06.055)
Whisper flow.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (56:11.559)
Okay.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (56:16.467)
Hmm.

Chris (56:22.583)
like the operating system native stuff. It's like, it's really, really fast and it will punctuate in the right places. And I'm really enjoying it. It's making me way more productive and it's free. you can like, think you download it on like the online and then it's an app that sits on your laptop and you just, I just press a button and I talk and it magically

dictates everything is, you know, classic AI tool, but I love it. And it's way, because I've done this before. Like, you you do like, no, you do it on the iPhone or whatever, but it doesn't quite punctuate or it doesn't know certain words that you say, but this is great.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (57:06.162)
Yeah, there's still a lot of editing going like going back through and then it like miscalculates what you said. And then if you like spoke a lot into it, you're like, I don't know what I was trying to say there. This is like, you know, it gets you confused. So that's a good one to check that out.

Chris (57:22.625)
Yeah, I really like that one at the moment.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (57:25.405)
What's the biggest money saving trick that you've learned as a digital nomad?

Chris (57:30.991)
Stay longer.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (57:32.741)
Okay, I like that. Always the longer you stay, the cheaper it gets.

Chris (57:37.999)
And make sure you subscribe to the remote-based newsletter for accommodation discounts. Cheeky plug.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (57:44.369)
Yeah, yes, yeah, absolutely. Best way to make friends in a new city.

Chris (57:52.567)
routine routine and sports like if you go to the same coffee shop every day for two weeks like you're going to see the same staff and maybe even some of the same customers like that's a great way to

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (57:55.793)
Okay.

Chris (58:05.177)
to just have, I think you need, there's like that thing of like, you need to see the same face like five or six times before you, before people might even like recognize that you're the same person. And then a few more times before they want to say hello. So you've got to like, I think you've got to build up a bit of a routine and doing sports is another great way to do that. Right. Especially if it's a team sport, because you're, you're socializing in amongst that and you have to communicate and all of these other.

wonderful psychological things that bring people together.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (58:36.421)
Yeah, quick way to make friends and, you know, there's always like something to do after sports go on, go out for drinks, dinner, and, exploring on the weekend. So awesome. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time today. Where can people find you?

Chris (58:48.387)
Yeah, yeah.

Chris (58:54.351)
Best way to find me is maybe LinkedIn. So can find me at Chris Chera on LinkedIn or Instagram is another good place. So the Instagram handle is nomadaccommodationguy.

They are the way to get me if you, if the other way to get me is just chrisjero.com. That's like the above everything is if you just go there, that's got all the links. so then you can choose your, your poison, whether that's send me an email, connect me on LinkedIn, follow me on Instagram. it has everything.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (59:30.803)
Cool, awesome. I really appreciate you taking the time today and I hope you have a good day.

Chris (59:37.699)
Thanks Ryan, I love the chat, so looking forward to hearing this back.

Ryan- The Digital Nomad Coach (59:42.991)
Absolutely. Amen. Thanks.

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