Traveling to 100 Countries as a Family of 5 ft. the Bucket List Family

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things that people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit Progressive.com to see what you can save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. We sold all our stuff, made about $45,000. And we had agreed that we'll only travel as long as that $45,000 from the yard sale lasts. Garrett and Jessica G. started the Bucket List family in 2015, when a six-month adventure with their three young kids turned into more than a decade of traveling the world. We took the kids cage diving with great white sharks. And the gaps in this cage were big enough and our child was small enough. He just kept jumping off the bottom and then kind of floating out of the cage. And I have every single rational fear that a mom does. But at the same time, I'm not going to shelter my kids from seeing the world. Today, their family has explored over 100 countries and built a global travel brand, collaborating with companies like. We expect a lot out of our kids and they have had some extraordinary experiences because of it. There's so much to gain from hardships and hard work and it's almost like on a daily basis of like, "How can I make my kids' life difficult today in a controlled environment?" We talk about their origin story, a close call with a 16-foot crocodile, and why they finally decided to settle down again, all on today's episode. We recorded this very special episode with Garrett and Jessica of the Bucket List family about two years ago, and it's never before been seen. It's been sitting in our vault ever since. And they graciously let us post this episode while Abby's healing and recovering postpartum from giving birth. So thank you, Garrett and Jessica, and enjoy this episode with the Bucket List family. I'm shocked that you guys just got off a 17-hour flight. Like, how, how, how? I'm glad you bring that up because if I just take a snooze or like pass out or just catch myself like yawning throughout this, it's nothing to do with the conversation. It's just that. Yeah. It's been a long. We had, well, so it was a seven-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur to Doha and then 17 hours to. Doha, L.A. So not just Doha to L.A. So we, we just got off a like 36-hour travel day. Where is Doha? I don't even know where that is. Doha is Qatar. In the Middle East. In Qatar is where they had. In the Middle East, where the World Cup was. World Cup, yes, yes. Oh my gosh. You guys have to be the kings and queens of going on like no sleep. You know, it's funny. We've realized that, I don't know, sometimes you just, you just go with it and maybe it's okay because our schedules aren't that, like, rigid. You know, when we flew to the other side of the country at the beginning of the summer, we were pretty jet lagged. We were just saying that on the way here. Like, it probably took us maybe five days to adjust. But, you know, you fall asleep. We try to go to sleep when the sun goes down, which we do. But then sometimes you wake up four hours later. And so you're like, that's okay. If you stress about not getting sleep, then it gets bad. But you just wake up at three and you just get a bunch of work done and it's fine. Oh my gosh. And honestly, I would say our kids do better than us, right? Yeah. Our kids are the troopers. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. You guys pulled up and you're like, you just called me on the phone like, hey, by the way, we're here. I don't know if it's the right house, so I walk out. And then you guys get out with your kids. I was like, oh my gosh. Like, you guys really do travel as a family unit. Like, you do this. Like, your life is no joke, you know? They just got off of a 36-hour travel day. And they rocked it. Honestly, well, because so we left Kuala Lumpur at 8 p.m. The kids slept most of that first flight. That was a seven-hour flight. Then we had a two-hour layover. And then the last 17 hours, they've been awake. Like, I think maybe everybody slept for one to three hours. Like, they're going to crash soon. Our eight-year-old gets off the flight and he's like, you want to know what movies I watched? We're like, what? And he rattled off like 16 movies. He watched so many movies. I slept. I took a melatonin. I was like, I'm going to bed. And yeah, he raged. That's incredible. Well, our kids don't get a ton of screen time. So you put them on a flight with a screen just right here for 17 hours and they're just dialed. They don't want to sleep because it's their one time to have screen time. So they just soak it in. That's awesome. That's kind of how Griffin is. Like, he's only two, but he can watch a whole movie because we don't like use it willy-nilly. He'll just sit and stare at it. You can't break it. And how old are your kids right now? We have 11 and 9 and 6. Crazy. And when you started this whole journey of traveling the world, how old were they? Let's see. Dorothy was almost three and Menela had just turned one. So we left. We left when they were super duper young. Which now looking back, if somebody asks us, what's the most difficult age to travel with? It's like that age. It's for sure that. Basically, you guys are in it. Yeah. And I normally, I give a lot of credit to my son, Menela, my second, who was just a good little boy. Like, I think any other toddler, 18 month old, like, that's like just the do not enter phase of travel. Just good luck. And he was just such a good kid. And if I would put him down for a nap, he would just go to bed. Or if I would, you know, we'd be in an hour line at security and he would just stand by my side. Like, I think most toddler boys are all over the place. Honestly, had Callie come second, I don't think we would have continued our travels. We would have quit everything. But yeah, but our second, Menela, is just the sweetest little toddler boy. And he made the travels doable. We just did a flight with our two boys flying home from Nashville. And you guys, it was one of the most stressful flights we've ever had. It was only three and a half hours. Like, that seemed long to us. And you saying, you just took a 17 hour flight. I'm like, 17 hours? I know, we were 45 minutes in. I, like, checked the app. I'm, like, refreshing it. I'm like, oh, no. But you're also in that zone where, like, you're holding a baby. And it's just, like, a little bomb that you're just waiting to go off. Especially at six months where they're kind of, like, starting to grab at things. And they want to move, but they can't. And anyway, yeah. We're in a really nice cruise control mode where our kids are pros. We check in. They go through security. They pull out an iPad. They ask for their cranberry juice. Like, they're. They're pros. I woke up and our youngest is, like, ordering himself some ice cream. And I was like, props, man. You can order by yourself. I can't stop you. So, what did you guys do when you had a one-year-old? Because our 11-month-old turned to one in a couple days at the time of this recording. And he cried for half the flight. It was one of the most stressful flights we've ever had. And it was during his nap time, which we couldn't, like, really control that. It just happened to be the flight that we needed that day. And I was walking him up and down the aisle, trying to get him to fall asleep. Like, shushing him, giving his Mickey. Like, nothing worked. So, like, what do you do? I mean, there's a bunch of stuff you can try. You can try to not book a flight around nap time. You can try to just tire him out as much as possible. You can sit at the back of the plane where it's a little bit louder, a little bit bumpier. And hopefully that'll, like, rock him to sleep. You can, yeah, just walk around with him. I think there's a bunch of things you can try. But at the end of the day, it's the best laid plans are always going to go out the window. You know, I can count many times of when I had everything aligned perfectly. And then all of a sudden. All of a sudden, you're sitting on the tarmac for an extra, like, two hours. And so, like, maybe the baby sleeps. But then by the time you actually take up, take off, you know, you're delayed. And it just always happens. So, you just got to be ready for it. You got. The only thing you can't control is your attitudes. And that's the way we go now. And we always take turns freaking out. That's probably my best piece of advice is with parents, you have to take turns. And Garrett knows when I'm in, like. Like, travel days are my, like, stressful days. Like, I'm the one who's done everything. I've done all the logistics. Like, I'm normally, like, very, like, trying to stay on it. And Garrett is really good about taking the kids. During check-in, he pulls them over to the side. They're running around, getting their wiggles out and doing all the stuff. So, I can, like, focus on what's happening. And he knows when he needs to step in and tell me to calm down and not stress. But. And then, like, on the flip side, there's times where he gets stressed. And I'm like, okay, kids, let's give dad some space. Can we go way back for a second? Because I know you guys have been married for, like, quite a long time, right? Was, like, how. Fifteen years. That's insane. Congratulations. How long have you guys been married? We just got to give it up for you guys. Five. We should have said five. Okay. Yeah, five years. But 15, I mean, how did you guys meet? Like, where. Like, can we go back to the very beginning? We met on our church missions. We were in Vladivostok, Russia, in our church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You go on a mission, and you're not. You don't choose where you go, right? So, we were just assigned. Both went to Vladivostok, and that's where we met. But you don't date on your mission or anything. You kind of forget everything and just try to focus on service during that time. And I knew who Garrett was. He was a really good missionary. He was very focused. And we were just good friends. We taught an English club together. And then, after our missions, we came home. And we had a buddy who was like, Hey, I want to take this girl out on a date. You guys should come. We were like, okay, cool. But, like, who should we go with? And he was like, we'll just go with each other. And we did. But when he said that, he was like, you guys should just go with each other. We both looked at each other like, oh, no. Like, that's weird. That's, like, taboo. But, yeah, we went just like, oh, let's just go. It was like a hangout. And then, that night, remember what we did? We went, and this is such, like, a Utah date. The guys all brought their trucks. And then they put beanbags in the back of their trucks. And they set up a white sheet and, like, a projector from their cars. Like, we were in the mountains. So, we did, like, a movie night up in the mountains. That's fun. Watched, I think, one of the Bourne movies. And, anyway, we ended up cuddling that night. It sounds so lame. But I just, it just felt really right. Like, the whole thing, I was like, oh, we're just, like, two puzzle pieces that just felt right. But also, it was, you know, it was taboo in our church because people are like, no, you need a focus. And it needs to be all about this work. So, sometimes it's this taboo thing to meet your spouse on your mission. Really? Even though we were super focused and good missionaries and all that stuff. But still, you know, sometimes it's not the best. It was after the mission? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, after the mission. So, honestly, nothing was wrong. But she means taboo. like people might assume like oh I bet they were like dating or like flirting went back when they were on the mission kissing in a back room or something yeah but like none of that none of that happened okay and living in russia what was that like russia is um i mean it lives up to its reputation it does it lives it's everything you see crazy all the things you know all those like dash cam videos or if you ever just see it there's like a youtube youtube russian dash cam and the craziest gnarliest things literally i'll just be a guy because there's so many crazy things that happen that people will set up for insurance purposes a dash cam in their car okay because like an example would be someone will be driving an old grandma or babushka will be like walking across the street and then throw herself in front of your car trying to like get the insurance from the insurance injury so if you have a dash cam you have like evidence of like she threw herself in front of my car or stuff like that the craziest stuff will happen anyways you'll see like a grizzly bear like take out the car in front of them or all of a sudden they'll be driving and like a rocket will just pass the road like the craziest stuff that actually happens and then you go there and you're like oh this is for real it's like this isn't just like the highlight reel on youtube like this stuff happens what's the craziest thing you saw with your own eyes because we were there for two years you saw probably some crazier stuff than i did i mean at that time in my life i was a young 19 year old and i i don't think i'd ever seen anybody die and then i came back home two years later having seen a handful of people die like yeah that was the hardest on me as like a 19 year old that was the craziest because of an accident die of old age there's a handful of things i remember like how cold it gets there on a daily basis like during the dead of winter if people were not in a state to like get home safely it would just get too cold that night it was like intense siberia russia so you'd like be walking on the street and see someone who's like literally frozen to death the next morning was like like yeah it was crazy crazy that is so wild i definitely think you love you learn to love whom you serve right and and after two years in russia you like truly learned to love these people and all their you know quirks and history and realize who they are and why they are the way they are because of you know their history um they can be very cold on you know when you see them on the street but you get into their homes and they're and then they just give you the shirt off their back they are your family loving people the most loyal people you know to be like going door to door and it can be really difficult but as soon as you get into someone's home they're just the most kind loving wonderful people so the first like few months you're just exposed to all the craziness and you're like where am i and then by the end of the two years you're like this is the most special place on the planet like love russia love the russian people it's a yeah it's a special place that's have you guys been back since no we were supposed to go back march 2020 and we haven't been back as a family i've been back twice but not as a family like the family hasn't been to russia yet now i don't know if we'll ever go back we actually we had a cruise plan to russia and then 2020 hit yeah and so that cruise never happened it was a family cruise with like abby's whole extended family and there's what's the cathedral that's like like world like the red square uh what is it all right not it's that's not in st petersburg st petersburg we're we're gonna go there and then yeah 2020 hit and it never happened and now you got the the war with russia and ukraine so um it's gonna be a minute yeah oh it's gonna be a while um i guess like serving there do you is that a bucket list stop with your kids that you'd like to take your kids back to where you served your mission oh my gosh i had convinced jessica to go there in 2020 and before it got cancelled and oh my gosh i was just so excited to show our kids i mean something as simple like when you live there i wanted to take them like grocery shopping which there that meant like going to the milk stop then going to the egg stop then going to the meat shop like it was so like old school and different i was excited uh really excited to show that to our kids yeah there's probably not a lot of americans there not where we were no i remember again people there was we're just painting a picture there i was walking down the street one day having been in russia for like a year and a half and like across the street i noticed a girl like with a bright white smile like walking down the street smiling and i was like american american i like run across the street and i was like hey hey excuse me and she was like whoa you speak english and i was like yeah like i knew like you can just tell yeah and it's just it's just different like cultures and again this was like eastern russia but like i i could tell i mean how often would you go up and say hi to someone or even just be on the street and someone would immediately would they cut you off and be like in russian it would try or in english it would translate yeah like your teeth are really white are they yours are they your way and so you just have to yeah they're mine they're my teeth they're my teeth they're like they're so white and they were just always like how did you get your teeth so white so you guys had to learn russian while you were yeah yeah yeah you learn you learn so in our church you go to an mtc the missionary training center and if you're learning a different alphabet you go for three months or you did at the time so we went to an mtc in provo utah for three months you like go through a really intensive course of learning to read and write and teach i mean but you leave this mtc and you can pray in russian you know i guess you can you can like speak like church talk yeah you know what i mean and you could maybe like order some food or something um but and you're also at least you feel confident that you can speak the language and understand the language i remember getting to the airport and like seeing my first russian and being like amazing i'm gonna go speak to this gentleman and i like in russian i'm like hello hi sir how are you and he like rattles off russian back to me and i'm like oh shoot what's that language like that is not what i learned and yeah you so you think you know but so doing your mission in russia you know clearly it wasn't just like a super easy experience just trying to freaking learn russian like did that toughen you up then to take on world travel definitely and definitely me like i like i said i'm such a a peaceful person and so when someone's just gonna like call you out on things or be like really blunt about things like i've learned i don't know it was easier for me to be blunt and i don't want to say rude because i wasn't rude but it was easier for me to be more direct in russian than even i would be in russian and i don't want to say rude because i wasn't rude in english okay you know and for some reason just being having that cultural difference and just being able to say it you know to invite somebody do you want to learn about jesus christ that kind of just i don't know it makes me a little bit more like nervous saying that in english whereas when i learned to say in russian i was like do you want to learn about jesus christ and people were like either yes or no and that was you know and you move on yes do most people say no no yeah there's a lot of no yeah there's a lot of no's it truly honestly is the hardest thing by far i i've ever experienced in my life like even just like talking about the whole time it's just like holding back like tears remembering what it was like to experience it especially the first six months i would say people there that part of russia didn't really speak english and so for me i like went six months without being able to like speak to someone i either like had to learn the language which i didn't know yet and so it's just a very very lonely six months without anyone to talk to or listen to and uh yeah so it just went from like i didn't know how to speak to someone miserable like survival mode but also to talk about motivation to like learn a language yeah after six months like fully fluent reading writing everything um but again it came out of like necessity and survival mode could you play sports with people like it could you was there ways of communicating that word just over language i think have changed quite a bit since but it was intensely strict where it was like you're going to wake up at 6 a.m you're gonna exercise and eat breakfast for an hour and then you're gonna eat breakfast for an hour and then you're gonna study the language and study like church materials for like the next two hours and then you're gonna be outside like proselyting and serving uh the entirety of the day until you come back at eight or nine p.m whenever that before the sun goes down and then you're you know back out at the very next day one day a week you had like four hours of preparation time when it was like this is your time to go and like play sports or relax but during that four hours just make sure you grocery shop you laundry you clean your apartment you get prepped for the next week and you're right home so maybe you got 30 minutes to like have me time or like go play some soccer or something like that and it was that way for two years oh yeah you're you were that was your time to like write your parents back home because when we were there you could call home two times a year you could call home on mother's day and christmas and so just like so insanely strict and for me just kind of like my personality type was like you know i was like i'm gonna go to school i'm gonna go to school i'm gonna if i'm gonna do something i'm gonna do it to the fullest and so if there was a rule i was like following it perfectly and it was very like big on rules so yeah i went the entirety of two years without like breaking a single rule because that's what it meant to be like a good missionary i wanted to be the best and so it was intense and so you guys did that mission together then you end up falling in love afterward you know a lot happens how do you go from living in russia for two years to getting married and traveling the world with your your kids i i will say like with garrett like he just mentioned whatever he does he goes in 110 and that and that's why i fell in love with him i loved how intense he was and how successful he was whatever he put his heart into he was very successful at it and so i knew whatever he chose to do in life he would do very well at and you know for a little bit that was soccer and he played college soccer and then for a little bit it was a an affirmation he started in college and he did really well with that and then it evolved into the bikeless family and just from there on out so whatever Garrett does he goes in like 110% so that was one of the things that really attracted me to him initially but I also like it's a double-edged sword because as much as I love his intensity and his drive I am also such like a think in the box type of girl I'm you know so conventional just the girl next door who had a dad who worked a nine-to-five and assumed that my husband would be the same and Garrett is not that way whatsoever so for me I feel like it's been a huge pivot of okay I thought I would marry this person and it would be just you know like like you know my he would work a nine-to-five and go to job get a job and then come home and and very quickly I realized that wasn't the case in college he had I don't know five or six like startups that he was just all over the place with and then finally he had created an app called scan scan it started to do really well brought in investors and it forced him to focus but he ended up doing really really well with it and it was when that sold that so much of it had been like her following me and my entrepreneurial ventures and dreams so it was like okay thank you for doing what I wanted to do like what would you choose for our next chapter in life and she literally said I'm not sure I I think we have a lot to like learn and figure out so why don't we just do a little bit of traveling and that became like the famous last words of a little bit of traveling because I translated those moderate words in my head to sell everything and go around the world so the common theme kind of thing in our marriage is maybe like my idea or his idea and then him taking it to like the 10th degree thank you to Nutrafol for sponsoring this portion of today's episode I am freshly postpartum one of the first things I was like I need to make 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Nutrafol is offering our listeners ten dollars off your first month subscription and free shipping when you visit Nutrafol.com and enter promo code unplanned pod that's Nutrafol.com spelled n-u-t-r-a-f-o-l.com promo code unplanned pod so that was a little bit of a that was 2015 and she wanted to do a little bit of traveling and I'm like well I'm not just going to go on like this six month vacation so what am I going to do during that and it was I want to like document these travels and I want to like do it on Instagram and YouTube so that's when we created the name the bucket list family and it definitely just started off especially at like 2015 that like this was before you had kids influencer or creator wasn't really a thing and so it was like I'm just want to document our family travels and share it and so that's when it was born the bucket list family so crazy so so crazy I can totally like relate to you and and like just wanting to do whatever you do 110 percent because that like that's that's literally yeah that's how I am too one thousand percent and how do you how do you deal with it you know like this honestly everything you said I can feel that because it's the same thing that it's like you love that passion you love that work ethic you love that drive and like the vision and the dreaming and then I'm but sometimes I'm like I'm just normal like I don't know so it's been fun though I I tell them all the time I'm like in hindsight like I would not have wanted normal like this is awesome but it's so funny I can relate so well because I was like definitely thought we were gonna have like the nine to five situation and when we um let's see when you sold his company to snapchat we actually moved out here to LA and I was so excited I was like just moving on we left Utah I just thought it had more like a nine to five and it was a nine to five situation and he came home and he didn't have his laptop with him and he was just so present when he was home and uh I loved it but very quickly I would say after three months you could see the light just fade and for him who's such a creative and it's so much about creating new things and doing what he wants to do and what he believes in and what he wants to do and what he believes he can do um to see that kind of sucked from him when it sucked out from him when he had a boss and and he realized that he was creating things to impress somebody else that's what like sucked the life out of him and so me who thought we were going to be in LA for the long haul or at least for the next five to ten years um very quickly I was like shoot like we this isn't gonna work and I know he felt really bad because I had followed him from Utah to San Francisco back to like I want to go back to Utah again and finish my senior year of college soccer and I was like no way like I was not happy about it but after those couple months of him doing the nine to five and again nine to five is for the majority of people it's probably for me you know it's for my dad is a lot of my family but I could see it wasn't for him and that's where I'm super super thankful to Jess because she yeah she put my happiness first and and saved me when I was in a situation where I was like dying inside yeah so then you end up quitting your job at Snapchat right and then moving you did you then play soccer at in Hawaii no no no well for a minute okay and then ended up back in Utah finishing one more season of soccer at BYU in Utah and then that was the like that was the compromise he was like I just want my last season because he had sold the company right before that and and basically you know was gonna forsake that last year of soccer for this company and for his employees and then when he ended up quitting he was like I want to just finish this one last year you get a little bit of traveling that then exploded into 10 years later I'm actually like really curious because clearly you've had a lot of success on the business front selling your your app to Snapchat working at Snapchat then traveling the world but then also being able to grow as a social media influencer what's been the most fulfilling thing in your life up to this point doing all that like where are you like man this is this is where I get joy the most yeah I've given it a lot of thought just recently when you like find success in certain areas you'll see like which ones bring you more joy and which ones you like find that like pot at the end of the rainbow and you're like oh that one's kind of empty like that didn't bring me as much joy in life as as I thought and um it was definitely like when I was running a successful business and like speaking at conferences and like rubbing shoulders with you know the millionaires and billionaires that taught me very quickly like oh that's not my scene that's just for me personally that's that's not for me I think a big way I've used it as a gauge is like when I'm around people who am I jealous of like in a good way in a healthy way who do I want to be like right yeah and if I'm around someone who's like way more wealthy than me that doesn't like instill any jealousy or like you know desire to be more like them um whereas then if I saw somebody who's like very healthy and athletic like oh like that that feels good to me if I was around somebody who had just like ultimate freedom in their life that was really big for me but the number one thing I would find is that would bring me like the lasting joy and just was like yep that's what I want in my life is when I would be around people who had a strong family strong marriage strong relationship good relationship with their kids and so that's where I started to like design and create my life especially when it was a transition from like the tech business world to what we do now as the buckles family and that's why from the very beginning we never considered ourselves like influencers we always consider ourselves family travel journalists because that was my way of like tricking the current state of the world and designing my unique way that I want to live my life and it was how can I spend as much time with my family doing things that we love together as a family and so we like invented family travel journalists I don't know how old you were 27 28 when you sold your company to be these you know under 30 millionaires and to not need to work the rest of your life I mean we had good money but if we were stupid with it then it would be gone a second like it wasn't endless money that we'd received and so we had the conversation with one of your co-founders and we of their three co-founders we all received the exact same payout and uh just to have those conversations of what do you do when money isn't the object right like when when you don't need to necessarily work and those conversations of health marriage family friendships those are the only things that really matter and so when Garrett and I like going into these travels and we set these goals we have them on our website it was so intentional of like what we wanted to do and even in creating the bucket list family social media influencing wasn't a thing it was kind of the mommy blogger era when we left It just wasn't a thing. So the goal has always been spend time together as a family experience the world learn about new cultures you know become closer to our friends and family so we had all these goals that we've tried to achieve and i feel like we've done a really good job over the last 10 almost 10 years now of um are we the biggest no are we the most successful do we get paid the most no no no but the time that we spend that's all that matters to us we have our health we have a good marriage we have kids that are awesome and we love being around and can handle 36 hour travel days with and we're we're really happy with where we are at that's so inspiring you guys where well my voice just like cracked where uh where would you say has been the most yeah the most fun country to visit with your kids so far because you've been to over a hundred countries almost to a hundred but we need to like sit down and write a list because we're probably in that like 90 range okay okay so over 90 that's wild kid friendly kid friendly well i so i just wrote a book with national geographic and i have it all kind of laid out of best you know the six months or the 18 month or the you know five to seven and then the older um you guys are at the two and six months two and one yeah one year old two year old i know what comes in my mind if you guys wanted to like get out and like go to like a far off destination but you wanted to know it was going to be kid friendly then first that comes in my mind is fiji i'm telling you you would arrive to fiji and before you even left the airport some fijian woman would come up to you and take your kids and you would immediately trust her and they would you would go through security while she like holds your babe and then like that would be your entire trip children they love them so much and a lot of the resorts they have you know kids clubs or nannies and like they have like one per kid and they just love your kids they love you and they'll like come take your child at breakfast and be like you guys go enjoy like me time together and then like six hours later they bring back your child and their hair is braided and they're they've got all these flowers and stuff like our kids have the best time in wow do you find that like because i think to the typical american hearing that like their that mom would be like oh my gosh i would never hand off my baby like that is terrifying to me do you find that in america we like our culture around babies is very different for sure for sure around mothering around nursing around you know safety all this stuff is super different and yes especially these like polynesian countries tonga fiji tahiti like they love children and they're so good and they're just these beautiful little aunties that you just see the love and the style like the style there's like a village style like a village raises the kids you know it's like open door policy like a lot of the villages don't even have the front doors and it's just like a village vibe it's really special there yeah wow whereas like i feel like in america it's kind of viewed as like it's the mom and dad but like you're almost made to feel guilty if somebody else is like your kids and somebody else's care it's very interesting yeah when you go to say fiji are you staying in a hut are you staying on a resort like where do you where do you live when you visit all these different places it's always been an interesting thing in our travels because we're both just like how we were brought up and how we still are is just like very very frugal so if we're planning a trip it'll always be like okay what's the most affordable way that we can have this experience when we left we sold all our belongings we didn't we had our acquisition money we didn't want to touch it so we set that aside and um we sold all our stuff made about forty five thousand dollars and from that we were like okay this is you know gonna take us six-ish months and we'll and then we'll come home and we'll get a certain new company we'll go from there that was and we had agreed like we'll only travel as long as that forty five thousand dollars from the yard sale last and so that that was when it became my motivation to like take the bug of this family our youtube and our instagram and like hopefully help it create some money make some money so that we could extend those travels because um we were both surprised how much we loved the like full-time travel lifestyle yeah and so yeah it was like okay how do we get creative entrepreneurial here but i would say like initially our vibe before you know all all of our family travels in the buck of this family was probably airbnbs like our first six months of travel yeah finding like a cheap affordable home rentals all around the world so we could have uh you know laundry and a kitchen like that that was the plan and that's what we did and then about three years later we three months in our social media started to grow very very slowly we had maybe 12 000 followers and i was like i'm just gonna start reaching out to some places and see if we can take some pictures for people and one of the first companies we partnered with was ritz-carlton and people would be like oh man like you guys acted like you were trying to save money but you're selling out working with or like staying at these ritz-carltons it's like no that's actually the cheapest way for us to travel is to work with partner with luxury properties that have marketing budgets so that's yeah right so it's cheaper for us to stay at really nice places than to pay our out of our own pocket to like stay at a cheap airbnb and so um yeah that it just became a game of like who can we work with we're working with airlines resorts tourism boards i'm super grateful for all the people that hosted us especially when we were so young and early on and and when i wrote my book that came out this last year it was so fun for me to put them in my book wow and to be like you guys believed in us tell me about it and i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm 10 years ago before when we had like 10 000 followers influencing was a thing you took a bet on us and we're like sure i guess we'll host you for free and uh you know and then to like write and now you're in an idea but i was really proud of that to email them back 10 years later me like hey just so you know that was thoughtful to even to think of that too um it just meant a lot to me that they had believed in us all those years ago how cool and these are people that you just like they they saw your videos they're like stay at my house for free in i mean it was that mostly me reaching out to early on i remember going to thailand that's kind of when we first started to see like if we could make this a thing and emailing i don't know 20 different hotels maybe 50 even and all different you know i wasn't going for the luxury brands but very quickly i realized like i said it's the nice brands that have marketing budgets so we weren't hosted in the three or four stars we were hosted in the five star hotels because um you know they before social media they're used to having media come and writers and journalists and stuff and so that's that's the the route we took and garrett's mom actually she she's a um she has a travel television series so we had traveled with her in the past and i knew a little bit of that world and how to have a media stay and what that means and so going into it that was kind of our example of how to be media at a at a resort wow walk me through the logistics of if abby and i right now with our two-year-old and one-year-old are like all right we're doing it we're gonna go travel the world for six months what would we want to pack what would we need to do and what would we need to do and what would we need what should we leave at home because we're gonna be able to like be able to find a bed or a car seat or whatever like what what would be our way of doing that oh man the quick answer is less less or as little as possible because the biggest stress or like what's gonna make your experience worse is just whatever causes you stress and probably the biggest stress is just like stuff like having too much luggage and checking luggage or losing things and having to pack and everything being heavy like that's just all stress and so one big takeaway from all of our travels is just learning the art of minimalism and how like liberating that is just having less i mean as far as clothes just everything mixes matches right so like i don't have like one outfit for one day ever everything layers and we've worn the exact same clothes for the last three months in southeast asia i have one little carry-on garrett has like a half of a carry-on and our kids have a half of a carry-on so like we packed clothing wise super minimal and then when it comes to gear i mean i always say reach out to your hotel or your rental home and say hey do you have a pack and play in a crib because 99 of the time they do so leave for sure leave that at home when we first left we packed a double stroller and i like die laughing about it picturing us like hauling this massive double stroller it was just so big but getting a good stroller that pulled up in the overhead bin or you know and then of course one that like attaches to your car seat or we didn't travel with cars so we packed a double stroller and we packed a double seat or we traveled uh we would just rent them or and that's also like the realization that like babies are everywhere so everywhere you go you can find diapers you can find diapers you can find everything all over the world babies are everywhere babies are everywhere pack with less thank you to mom cozy for sponsoring this portion of today's episode we've been using the mom cozy bottle washer and bottle warmer we did have an incident the other day where i accidentally did not press start on the bottle washer you said i'll 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when you pre-order the deep clean bottle washer d8 at mom cozy.com with code unplanned so head to mom cozy.com and use code unplanned for 10 off my favorite mom cozy products how do you navigate language barriers i feel like it's that's something to me that has never been an issue and most people speak english sometimes it's like a fun part of the adventure yeah it's fine sometimes it adds some like fun and excitement to it but it's never gotten us into like major problems it's just a fun i've like i'm gonna go into this grocery store and like try to like buy things and communicate i don't know i also feel like between my russian and my spanish i grew up speaking spanish like you're taking it in school and so that has gotten me pretty far with any romance languages so getting around i can i can get around pretty well see i like my street smarts really suck and so i feel like yeah so i feel like i would screw us if we accidentally stumbled upon some like sketchy area and i just didn't know because like i don't know like when you grow up in a city like i grew up in st louis and when i say i grew up in st louis people are like oh my gosh st louis like that's so dangerous because i think st louis is ranked in one of the number one cities in the world and it's like it's like it's like it's like it's like one spots for crime in the united states but it's because of east st louis across the river where there's a lot of suburb yeah i grew up yeah 30 minutes out to the city like i nothing ever happened where i grew up like it was very very safe but you know you just like typically know the bad parts of town and the good parts of town how do you navigate that when you're traveling the world that that is a tough part of trying to travel like frugal or especially affordable when you have kids because you just want to stay in nicer areas just for the and we did and and i if i'm booking something i'm looking at reviews like crazy and a lot of times i'll filter airbnb and i think vrbo have uh have a check mark where you can say it needs to be family friendly and then you can see it's next to parks it's next to grocery stores like i'm always going to make sure that i'm staying in like a good part of town for sure it's so interesting traveling because you know we have our mutual friends karen and nate like yeah the way that they can travel like they can stay in a hostel if they want like you're not going to do that with kids yeah and then also there's just like certain things where like okay let's say you didn't have kids and you're going to paris you're going to want to hit up this museum and this museum and this eiffel tower with kids it's like they just want to go to a playground they just want to go to a park they just want to go like meet kids and play with friends like so traveling is very different with kids but i would say i like i'd argue it's better like you have such a new aspect of like how you immerse yourself into a culture when you do it as a family to be more welcoming i think you know you see a little kid and it completely breaks down barriers yeah um it's also the cheat code when you're in airport go up with your little kids look extra stressed for that five minutes and go up to any line and say is there a family line oftentimes there's a family line and if there's not they're just hey you look very much like you need help let me help you that's so funny yeah they're the cheat codes talk to me too about like finding community when you're on the road i don't know i feel like i would maybe get lonely not being around family or your close friends like do you just meet new friends everywhere you go and then say goodbye forever look so we traveled full-time for three years and if you ask us what was the hardest that was 100 the hardest number one thing 100 and yeah you do get lonely and you and so over those three years i would say maybe every other month or something we would have friends come and meet us we had friends join us in iceland we had friends join us in italy we had friends join us in new zealand so we we tried to get have people come and join us and we had friends join us in italy we had friends join us so and that really helped take away a lot of the homesickness and that did a good job of like maintaining all of our friendships but community like family friends and community uh all are in the same bucket but like community is its own thing and that's almost like the more of the story for us like at the end of the day what did we learn after traveling the entire world uh we got to experience different cultures or in other words we got to experience different communities and it made us realize like that's what we want in our lives and so it was in 2018 we decided to settle down we chose hawaii and we chose hawaii in large part because the community that that would put us into and uh yeah that became everything for us it's funny you bring that up just because yeah we used to we used to live there um used to i actually learned to surf while we were out there i've noticed a lot of your videos like have some sort of element of surfing in them um especially like i think there was one where it's like my kid's like our son like swims with a shark how do you does that not like freak you out when it's like my kid's in the water with a freaking shark yeah i i mean it's you you know this like it's a part of surfing that there's just like that part of risk but then you're there's like the logical side of like what's the percentage chance like i i'm nervous every time we're in a car you know like i'm petrified of like car accidents and i just know like the likelihood of that over like a shark attack and so there's just that last week we were in the rainforest deep like proper rainforest it was pouring rain and there we had to wear these leech socks and everyone was freaked out about leeches and we were freaked out about leeches i'm not scared of sharks i'm scared we were so scared and like there are these things called tiger leeches that kind of hang on to like a plant kind of like that and they just like reach they're so gnarly anybody anyway they'll hang off the very end so they're like reaching out in case you hike by it and they can grab onto your skin clothes whatever oh god they're heat so strongly that they would be kind of relaxed and i would put my hand anywhere within like a foot and all of a sudden it would start going crazy oh my god we were freaking out but but our guides and everybody who lived there were just kind of like eh like it's okay like yeah it's annoying and i don't want to compare leeches to sharks but i just wanted to make the point that like when you're around something and spending a lot of time in the ocean it's just you're in the shark's home and they don't want to eat you and you understand and you get informed on it and like if we're out surfing and we see a shark we'll like paddle towards it and like get excited and like jump off our board so like look at it and see what shark it is and so because the kids are like used to it you'll go try to swim next to the shark well i mean we're talking reef sharks right okay not like tigers and great whites and stuff right got it but uh yeah we we spend a lot of time the ocean i'm sure if we asked these malaysians to come get in the ocean with us they would have been freaked out about sharks but sharks don't scare us anymore like they probably used to and maybe we'd eventually get used to the leeches but well i mean like someone just died though from a shark attack in hawaii this year yeah they did like a really good surfer yeah that was really sad it's really but i guess like yeah like you mentioned car accidents that's that that happens like people die in car accidents are you never gonna ride in a car you're more likely to die in hawaii by being hit in the head with a coconut than you are crazy that's crazy well i also know too like the ocean is so dang it can be so dangerous the water itself could like suck you under oh that's the that's what that's what you should be scared about yeah just surf in general that's scary i'd rather be taken out by a coconut than by a shark yeah if you get taken out by a coconut that's just god being like you it's your time you're done yeah i'll tell you what i'm like really afraid of now is crocodiles really and we have spent a lot of time around crocodiles especially this summer and literally i don't know it was like five days ago we were going down this river in the rainforest and garrett oh my gosh i need to show you this footage it's it's funny we had been looking for crocodiles yeah i didn't see any crocodiles and the guys were like there's crocodiles everywhere and we're like show prove it and we're kind of cruising through this river and garrett's leaning out he starts like taking a little video of the kids and he goes haha dorothy let me know if there's a crocodile behind me as i like lean out over the water then we see this probably 16 foot crocodile on the ground and and you know what you're living in hawaii you've like learned about sharks like sharks genuinely don't want to eat people you know what i mean like sometimes they're curious if you give it it's just because they're curious right or there's some sort of wrong if you're splashing around in crockwaters a croc wants to eat you and they will just they will eat anything and garrett our guide like kind of slams on the brakes you almost fell in on top of this crocodile oh i thought the kids were kidding because again i'm like leaning out just to try to get like proper focus so i'm taking video i'm like hey dorothy let me know if there's a crocodile behind me and i'm like hey dorothy let me know if there's a crocodile behind me and i'm like hey dorothy let me know if there's a crocodile let me know if there's a croc behind me and her face just lights up and she's like crocodile i thought she was kidding so i don't like whip around the camera at first and then i hear like a whip of the tail and i turn around just in time to see it like like have you fallen in connor i mean you we scared the crocodile the crocodile was like freaked out but yeah that would have been we asked our guide like as soon as we got on the boat like as a joke like hey would you swim from like here just across the river and he's like no you wouldn't make it the croc would get you wow lots of crocodiles you guys are hardcore you're hardcore you're taking your kids too i was gonna say the bonus of all this our kids are very very obedient like we wouldn't advise that like any parents or kids just like go on these type of experiences but like our kids have been not enough like they're very very obedient even the place we were staying we put us in our own tent and our kids are in their separate tent and they're not allowed out like they know they cannot leave because python is not allowed out they're not allowed out they're not allowed out lions like depending where we are like they know they cannot leave what's gonna stop a lion though from attacking the tent they want to go into a tent i mean it's like locked in doors and you know what i mean like they don't do zippers yeah yeah normally there's zippers and sometimes even like locks on it like they can't get in elephant like an elephant could theoretically just like plow through anything if they want to do but they don't you know like we've learned that lion or not lions uh elephants really like shore footing so they're not just going to start like climbing rocks and climbing rocks and climbing rocks and climbing rocks and climbing rocks and climbing through like they don't do that we just heard of a lady a couple months ago who she was on a safari and her safari vehicle got um Like, charged by a rhino. And now she's paralyzed. So, like, I know stuff does happen. It's crazy to hear what, like, you know, we always have these guides in Africa to hear what they're afraid of. And it's never lions and leopards. It's always the elephants or the water buffalo. Yeah. Thank you to Cash App for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. And this day and age, I feel like money is so confusing for kids probably because they never actually see money. Our kids will even play with quarters and nickels and dimes as toys because it's so rare for them to actually physically see real money. Kids today are growing up in a world where money is mostly digital. The key is giving them the right setup from the start, one they'll never outgrow. Cash App's managed accounts for kids ages 6 to 12 are designed exactly for that. Your kid gets a customizable Cash App Visa card that feels personal to them while you shape the entire experience from your side. 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Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners. Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank member FDIC. Cash App Visa debit flex cards issued by Sutton Bank member FDIC and the Bancorp Bank N.A. Pursuant to a license from Visa USA. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flex card. Savings and offers provided by Cash App, a Block Inc. brand. Parents and legal guardians. Can open a managed account for kids 6 to 12. Visit cash.app.com for full disclosures. I feel like a big theme in your content is like, and your approach to parenting seems to be like teaching them to be smart, but also to be fearless. It seems like you instill a lot of confidence in your children. Yeah. Kind of talk more about like that approach to parenting. Whereas I feel like a lot of social media parenting seems to be fear driven. Yeah. And like yours seems to be very counter to that. So expand more on that. And like, it's funny probably sitting here listening to us being like, oh, I don't know. We're crocodiles and snakes and all this. You know, like we're so used to that. But I don't want people to think that I'm just this, like, I don't care, mom. Like I have every single fear. And if you hear me in the boats or where we are, I'm like, put your hand in. Get, you know, like, go over this way. Like I'm, like I'm scared. But at the same time, like I'm not going to shelter my kids from seeing the world. And we're going to do it together. And we're very safe. And we are very conscious about everything that we're doing and where we're at and what we're doing. It's one of my joys of, like, being the man behind the camera is filming her and witnessing her be, like, a regular mom but in, like, extraordinary situations. One of my favorites is when we took the kids cage diving with great white sharks. And the gaps in this cage were big enough and our child was small enough that there was, like, definitely the ability for them just to, like, float out. And to see her just, like, grabbing our child and pulling him back. And then he felt like he was floating like an astronaut in his words. He just kept jumping off the bottom and then, like, kind of floating out of the cage. And she would grab him back. And, like, she's, like, mothering our child but within this cage surrounded by great white sharks. Like, those type of scenarios to me are so funny. Because, again, we consider ourselves, like, regular parents. But these situations are pretty crazy. I would say there was a TV show maybe, like, two years ago that I watched. It was on, like, ABC. I don't know if you saw. I can't remember the name of it. But basically they took maybe 16 different types of parenting. And they kind of pigeonholed every parent. Did you see that? Yes. It was called The Parent. The Parent. Oh. I don't remember what it's called. It was like a parent experiment, basically. But they, like, gave every parent, like, a name. And I realize that you can't pigeonhole every parent. But they, like, stared at it to, like, the gentle parenting. Yeah. The free-range parenting. I was so interested in that show. It was very interesting. I don't watch any shows, but I love that one. But I would say that if, Garrett, if I was to say what our, like, parenting style is, it's high expectations. Like, we expect a lot out of our kids. We expect them to behave on airplanes and behave, you know, sitting at a restaurant and to be sitting in the other room. We sit in the other room quietly for an hour or so while we do this podcast. And they do. You know, like, they're very well-behaved. And they have had some extraordinary experiences because of it. And we're able to do these wonderful things as a family. And it's because we, you know, expect it out of them. And I know a lot of parents wouldn't agree with that style. I think the more popular style these days is just to be more gentle and to be more accommodating to children. And Garrett and I, when we had kids, we looked at each other and we said, we're not going to stop our lives. We're not going to stop our lives because we have kids. We're going to bring them along on the journey and we're going to do it together. And that's always been really important to us. I think that's a big part of it, too, is, like, when we bring them along for the adventure, we treat them like they're very capable. We treat them like they're very smart. And we just, like, hold them to that level and that standard. And they live up to it. I think that's a big part of it. And then to even answer your question of, like, but why, like, the fearlessness or, like, the creativity? And, like, the courage and being brave. For us, it's always been, like, if you raise a child to be, like, too soft or gentle or whatever word you want to put on it, it's not so much about, like, oh, we want them to be, like, a daredevil. No, it's when it really matters, which it's not going to be, like, oh, jumping off this waterfall or doing this daredevil thing. It's going to be, like, that person is lonely and they need a friend. Are you going to be brave enough to go do the right thing and befriend that person? Or you're going to have a bad choice and a right choice and it's going to be scary and maybe it's going to go against your friends and the peer pressure to do the right thing. Are you going to be brave and courageous enough to do the right thing? Like, if we can put them in those situations and, like, all facets of life on a daily basis, then when it really matters, we hope that they'll make the right decision. I really admire that a lot because, I mean, that would be one of my goals. And I think it's easier for me right now to coddle them. But, like, I know. I know that I've seen. We've watched other parents, some parents we're really close to, when we first got married and before we got married, we were, like, we love the way you raise your kids. Like, your kids are so confident with speaking with other adults. They, like, take initiative. They're tough. Like, when they're faced with a challenge, they rise up to it. And I feel like they had that similar approach. And that's something we've both been, like, that's something we want to do. But, like, it's easy as a mom to just be, like, oh, no, no, no, it's fine. It's such a balance. And it's so hard. Because when you say that. When you see your kid crying or scared or upset. Oh, every time you're going to come from. You're going to come from no matter what. But I think it's also in the way, you know, and I know your kids are young. But now when you have a little bit older kids, you can have conversations with them. And that's, like, when it's really nice to be able to say, like, you know, explain things to them. And why it's okay to try this. Or why, you know, they can, you know, be happy and not worried about this or whatever. Yeah, so I think it gets a little bit easier as they get older and can just have more conversations. Because when they're younger. Then, yeah, you don't want to put them in any sort of difficult situation. Your kids are in school now. And I've seen, like, they're involved in, like, community activities and stuff. But they've lived up to this point, like, very different lives from the kids. Like, their classmates and the kids that they're doing plays with and stuff. What difference do you know? I'm not, like, asking you to, like, brag on your kids. But you can kind of. I'm curious. Like, what difference do you notice in your kids compared to, like, their peers? Because of how their childhood has looked. I think it's different for each kid. And kind of what. Their strengths are. I feel like my youngest, especially, he's so inquisitive and asks such good questions. And loves learning. Like, he's the one sitting next to a guide and saying, you know, tell me about the mom orangutans. And tell me about this tree. And why is there that. You know, like, he is always asking questions. And I love that. And I think he can take that into school and into just normal life. And be inquisitive about, like, everything. And then my son, Manila. Manila, he is, he's just easygoing. And he's always been easygoing. And honestly, I think it's because of the travels. He's had to be easygoing. So, him in life, he just goes with the flow. We could send him off to, like, a three-week sleepaway camp. And he wouldn't, like, blink an eye at it. Yeah. He's just so used to, like, life on the road. Yeah. And then our daughter, I think she's just mature. She's seen a lot of things. And she, you know, for good and for bad. I do think she's more mature. Than other girls her age. You know, sometimes I'm like, just be a little girl, you know. But she has seen a lot in her life. And so, I think she's able to go into school. And to other, like, peer situations. And know what's, she doesn't go with the flow. And she doesn't do what's popular. And she doesn't, you know, she knows exactly who she is. And what she wants to do. And what she wants to be. And so, she's very mature, I think, for her age. And okay being as different as she is. And okay being different. And knowing she's different. And I was the same way in high school. I think I thrived being a little bit. More different. And that was kind of my persona. And she's the same way. That's really sweet. When you say seen a lot. Do you mean, like, has there been something challenging. That you had to go through as a family. Through the travels that have matured. Well, I mean, even just the thing that first came to my mind. Is this summer in Southeast Asia. You know, Dorothy is part of the surf rider club at school. And it's all about, you know, recycling. And cleaning up. Ocean conservation. It's really cool. And we go around. around Southeast Asia and I would say I was blown away how dirty it was blown away just a lot of pollution there was one day where we were paddle boarding we took it to this kind of private beach and we go up onto the beach and it was beautiful white sandy beach and then all of a sudden we look behind kind of the greenery back up to the sand and it was like mountain of plastic bottles like it blew my mind it looked like a recycling center and the situation in this beach looked like it should have been like human had never set foot on it like it was out in the middle of nowhere and yet trash had just accumulated to see that you know and to be like i'm over here you know and hawaii is very tries very hard to like keep things clean and to you know not use single-use plastics and all that stuff and so to see dorothy's like mind blown like not only mine but she was like heartbroken to see that you know and i think that's going to be profound thing for her in her life to take forward and to you know continue on to be a advocate for the ocean and conservation and all that stuff so it's those sorts of moments that we've experienced as a family even just recently where you're seeing you know the other how other people live and seeing you know getting out of suburbia i grew up in this we both grew up in kind of that upper middle class american all-american lifestyle so to get out and see some of the things that the kids have seen well that's what i think is a big part of it speaking of like parenting and like when to be gentle and when to like push them outside their comfort zone is like if america is good at one thing it's comfort and convenience i mean it's so easy to have just like a perfectly cushy life and that's like where the trend is going but there's so much to gain from like hardships and just hard work and like think like how your parents live their lives and how their parents live their lives and like what it meant to be like a farmer compared to like how we're living now and so as a parent it's not like you know it's not like you know knowing how much my two years in russia shaped me but i'm not going to just send my kid off to vladivostok russia and so i think it's almost like on a daily basis of like how can i make my kids life difficult today in a controlled environment right like i i don't want them to just be too comfortable on a daily basis but as a parent you're not going to just purposely like throw hardships at them so i'm i'm constantly throwing like challenges at them but it's me trying to like push them outside their comfort zone again in a controlled environment support for today's episode comes from square the business platform that helps sellers become neighborhood favorites whether you're gearing up for a busy season or just trying to keep up with everyday demand square keeps your business running smoothly from payments and pos to online orders inventory staff and more all in one place so you can focus on your customers not your to-do list did you know that i've been thinking about using square with our kids that's a great idea because we have been talking for weeks now about doing a lemonade stand we need some sort of payment processing system for our lemonade stand with the boys certainly should so i think if we just have the square people can pay with their credit card their debit card that will make their business a mega success and square turns real time data into useful insights that help businesses make smart decisions their hardware and software are designed to be easy to use so day-to-day operations feel simpler square shows up when it matters most you'll always know where they're headed and that they're building for you square helps you run your business more smoothly bringing payments operations and insights together in one place so you're ready for whatever's next right now listeners can get up to two hundred dollars off square hardware when you sign up at square.com slash go slash unplanned that's s-q-u-a-r-e.com slash go slash unplanned get started with square and build a setup that works the way you do yeah i've noticed that speaking like building on that also to how you're talking about cleaning up in southeast asia the oceans there's definitely a service element in pretty much all of your travels that you've shared that's really cool and i think that's a really good way to start is that inspired by like kind of like what we started our conversation with like with your missions is that that uh posture of service something that you carry out in your travels because of that i think a lot of it comes from that but i i would give a lot of credit just to jessica and like who she is as a person just naturally when she goes somewhere like that's how she wants to spend her time is like getting to know the people and serving the people especially because when you serve people you just gain so much love and appreciation for them and that comes very naturally to jessica and initially like not naturally to me to be honest about it but she's like taught me the better ways and taught me like the joy and love of service and so most most every place we go we're looking for service opportunities big or small what's the most unique service opportunity you've had in a different country we did one uh early on we worked with a non-profit called effect.org and um they they took us to nepal where we spent a week learning about human trafficking and they took us kind of along the whole journey of how uh traffickers would come into these poor villages and take these girls and they took us kind of through the whole process and at the end of the week it was actually with a bunch of people from silicon valley so they brought out employees from google and other tech companies and at the end of the week they were like okay now we're going to make a change and basically have a two-day hackathon and like create something to make a change so it was really cool so at the end of that week anyway so we go and we learn about all this stuff and um the team there was so wonderful uh but it was so heavy it was really hard for us we really struggled heavy on us like and i think there was like the what do they call it like the steps of coping coping or like how to like get over something and then the first step is anger and garrett and i like never got over that never graduated to step two we just stayed in anger we're just so angry um but we're like we're just so upset over everything um but we're like we're just so upset over everything um but we're just so upset over everything um but we're just so upset but that was one of the first times that we had really been confronted with just the dark evils of the world and um and what can happen out there and you know at the time i think dorothy was i don't know she's maybe five four and you know learning that they were that people were going and taking these eight nine-year-old girls and setting them in try it was just the heaviest hardest thing we've ever done but then uh and this was when our social media following was very i mean so hard for us and we were like oh my god we're going to do this we're going to do this we're smaller at the time i think we were under a hundred thousand followers on instagram and with the those followers we raised seventy five thousand dollars we built a school in india because they they say that the best prevention human trafficking is just education so we open up a school right outside of delhi uh with our audience and that was just one of the first times i feel like we did something as a family we did something with our audience like it was just like this is what this is about this is why we're doing this like we're here sharing these stories and making a positive change um and we're like oh my god we're going to do this we're going to do this it was a really beautiful experience and then it wasn't until maybe three or four years later we were able to go to india the school actually ended up being built in india going to india visiting the school seeing the children and seeing you know the difference that we made um it was really really special um i think that was probably one of the most profound service opportunities we've had wow that's really cool the kids have gotten good to it seeing like small opportunities just seeing like somebody in need or just like a small small opportunity along the way especially in the cities that we visited this summer just like a small act of kindness your family just seems so close and i think it's really neat that your kids are literally just back in one in one of the bedrooms of this house right now just all hanging out you can tell they're they're so yeah tightly knit they love each other what yeah what's your secret to having such a healthy family where everyone just gets along yeah it gets along i don't know i think we're just used to it i think there hasn't really been any other choice you know and they're the people who are the people who are around the most are the people we should have the best relationships with and i mean i honestly think the kids start school next week and it's going to be tough it's going to be hard for us to not be spending 24 7 together all the time oh yeah we spend all day every day together and we love it and that's how we prefer it on you and i then it will be on the kids i i live my life currently as a father in a very selfish way where if you would ask like what is it that you love so much about travel why why do you not want to just stay home why do you want to travel it's because when i'm home i'm sharing my life with my kids and i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god my kids with soccer practice and friends and school when we're traveling like i get to spend all day every day with them and i selfishly as a parent that's how i want to spend my time and so that's like yeah that's how i prefer and we keep talking about this thing we're calling the pocket garrett we were at a soccer game and garrett was speaking to our goalie and the goalie was like how old are your kids and garrett told me he was like you're in the pocket garrett was like what's the pocket he's like you're out of diapers you're not teenagers yet like you're in this golden pocket and i think there's different pockets throughout parenting and stuff you know what i mean you're you're in such a special space right now when i look at you with your like little kids like oh just the best memories but i also feel like we're in such a special place where our kids are just so easy and i mean that literally 36 hours of travel and we're here and it's fine you know what i mean like we love being together we had the best summer together we're we're holding on to these moments and i know garrett especially is pretty bitter at life right now with how quickly our kids are growing up our kids are growing up quickly yeah it's going by fast and we're just like clinging to it you know i think is a big part of it though is going back to what you said about high expectations is we expect our kids to get along we expect them to be best friends i'm really tight i'm one of six kids and i'm really really tight with my siblings now but our it was a war zone growing up like how much me and my brother fought how much me and my little sister fought like was non-stop and i'm like man like what were my parents doing throughout all this because when my kids started to fight i'm like i put a stop to her immediately and i'm like I'm like, you guys can either be best friends or you can be enemies either way. you're stuck with each other so which one would you rather have yeah you'd rather be friends and so like stop this fighting and be friends and it's been that high expectation like their entire lives do your kids still think you're really cool because i know like at a certain point i remember the age where i was like my parents aren't cool but i i do have memory of being like really little and thinking and loving my parents and just wanting to be with them we're cool they do think we're cool and they think garrett is like i mean the boys look up to you so much and dorothy is always asking anyway i think our kids looked up look up to us and they're not too cool for school yet which is really nice and dorothy's probably on the verge don't talk like that she's not we've got many more years they definitely think we're cool still i dread that day because i mean you guys know what this is like too but just like when when you walk in the door and your kids just like so like you could have been gone for 15 minutes but then like they see you 15 minutes later and they're beaming because they're so happy to see you and they start laughing like you guys go home today and your kids are gonna be so amped to see you yeah it's the best and you've been gone just for the day i love it i dread the day that our kids don't like start laughing when they see us because i know it'll come i know it'll happen which sucks do you get to surf with your boys a lot like is that something that you just do with your kids a lot yeah i probably get to surf with them twice a week if it were up to me i'd be surfing with them every single day but yeah it probably is like twice a week with each of them individually when i used to surf i didn't have the most friends that like to surf too so i'd go by myself a lot and it was like a dream of mine to one day take the boys out with me and just have that memory together you know how because you and i were talking about this that for somebody who's like got a lot going on in their brain and constantly on a phone and stuff when you surf it's just the best way for us to like completely disconnect yeah be fully present the same goes with surfing with a child that you like parenting is at its best right when both of you are fully present and you just have each other focus unfortunately like that's becoming less and less in just today's world yes you go surfing and there's no such thing as phones or screens or chores or responsibilities and the nature of surfing because it's dangerous and scary like their full attention is on you and your full attention on them like it's just my favorite what a cool way to form a bond with your kid to just like be out in the water i uh i miss it man like i used to be out in the water and just like look up and there's a rainbow and like i'm like oh what is that there's a sea turtle swimming underneath my board and oh i miss it so much but the one thing i love in life better than surfing is surfing with my family yes i'm actually very impressed because garrett loves surfing so much now he's i would say addicted uh but i'm impressed when we go out as a family you don't catch a single wave i'm just helping them into waves i would literally rather just be out there with you pushing you into waves and like i don't even care to catch a wave i'm like that's impressive dude thank you i'm i'm flattered man i look up to you i think i see the stuff that you're doing and that you have done and i'm just like so inspired by you guys and inspired by your family and um yeah i don't know i just i just think what you guys are doing is is really neat and i noticed you even had a book i know you mentioned this before but with national geographic like working working with national geographic that is a really big deal can we talk a little bit more about that yeah it was i remember it was 2020 it was summer 2020 and we actually had a friend we had our friend's lake house and he was like who's your dream brand to work with is your dream company and we were like national geographic and then i kid you not it was a day later we're driving from his house to the airport and we get an email yeah and i got an email from uh allison and national geographic and she was like have you ever considered writing a book and we had actually been reached out to quite a bit about you know from publishers and gear and i don't consume a lot of books we're like we're like we don't consume a lot of books we're like we're like podcasters we would listen to podcasts if we're wanting to learn something and so we have our bucket list friends we have that sort of podcast webinar that we do and that's how we've shared our information and then she was like would you consider writing a book with us and i was like or have you considered writing a book and i said yes i've consider it i wasn't interested but with national geographic 100 i would love to do that and she you know she kind of pitched me on the idea of a big coffee table book very visual and initially she said it would be half our photos half and it ended up being 95 garrett's photos like they started going through our images and they were like these are perfect these are so good and so the first half of the book is anything and everything you know about traveling with kids budgeting packing kind of some of the things we just talked about here today and then 50 bucket list destinations and places to take your kids like full itineraries like here's 50 places you should go and here's the itineraries that you should consider but it was uh for me it was i had to i told garrett on that car ride i like looked at him and i was like i want this project like this and she had asked us to write the book and i basically kicked him out and was like you do the youtube you do that you know like we've we've he's been the person that i've just followed along and i really love writing and so to me i was like this one's gonna be mine and all mine and i was really happy with it it was a really fun experience i really enjoyed the whole process and those who know jess know there's not like a selfish bone in her body and so when she wanted to make this hers like it made me so happy and i was like yes like go for it yeah and you it took you three years to write it yeah and i mean it's it's like the pride and joy of our family right now i'm surprised you didn't do it in three years like it's massive yeah it's like a big coffee table it's the longest book i've ever read it turned out really well i'm really proud of it i would say the hardest part though then was turning and having to promote it i felt like she hates this spot i hate it and i do fine in situations like this or with the kit you know what i mean like i i felt i kept saying i felt like i was going all justin timberlake and leaving the boy band i'm like going you know going beyonce and going solo uh so that was really hard for me when we i did the book tour and had to be all like self-promoting felt very weird what is like from the book i know people should definitely go get a copy read the book but is there something in there that like you i don't know you're really proud of or that you'd like to share a little uh sneak peek of i mean i think for me a lot of it was just sharing my personal journey of being this very inside the box conventional you know comfort life driven human and for that girl to be living this lifestyle and thriving in it is just kind of what i was trying to get across you know is just getting outside of your comfort zone and trying new things and my family in particular like we were a disney world family don't get me wrong i love disney world i'll go disney all day um but that's all that's really the only other places we went i went to europe one time when i was a kid um and i think most americans they have their place like i don't know if your families are like that they're like a powell family or like a like a hawaii family or you know like a lot of families go to the same place over and over my family was the same way um but now just realizing there's so much more out there so much more out there and to try new things so i think my goal with it was to show people get outside your comfort zone go somewhere new take your kids out of the country there's so much to learn and gain from all that and that was my goal with the book it's been really cool to see uh as people receive the book and like you know have it setting on their table uh how much kids gravitate to the book because it's not written for kids or towards kids um we're actually working with national geographic to create a kids book collection but for jessica's book it wasn't geared towards kids and how often people will send us videos of their kids going over the coffee table book flipping it over and then just going through the photos and you know to be able to see a family we mentioned we met the timberlakes the other day no way she was like i love sitting down with my kids and reading your book i was like what she's like it's sitting on my coffee table and i was freaking out because just picturing the timberlakes going that's crazy you know so for kids to get to see photos real life photos of kids swimming with whales or going on this epic hike or doing you know this adventure um it's cool to see how much kids really enjoy her book that's so cool what's uh what is it a country that's a hidden gem because you mentioned you've mentioned some different places you know mexico and uh i don't know like typical places that people in the u.s travel to what's a country that americans should go check out uh one place that i suggest a lot i think especially for people who haven't traveled out of the country very much that i think is a good starting point is is the belize is like a belize belize takes the us dollar they speak english they have the jungle and they have the beach i think it's a great starting point there's direct flights from a bunch of u.s cities bermuda would be a good one for those reasons it would be good but i think costa rica as well i think a lot of those central america places that have great tourism and a lot of americans that come through but it's it's not just your like beach side resort in cabo you know what i mean like i think there's so much more that i would try to encourage people to go and do rather than just go and sit in it like bermuda my dad used to tell me spooky stories when i was a kid so like when you said bermuda i'm like oh that must be so dangerous there i feel like people go missing i don't know like getting the sense of how much we have in common and like the yes man that lives inside you i'm excited just to like send you invites and see which ones you guys take us up on now that we're really connected we're going to start sending you some invites oh let's do it let's send it all you just need to know that it's okay to say no because there will be a lot of them and so you don't need to feel the pressure and a lot of times they're super last minute like hey do you want to go to tonga next week oh we're ready that's how we are no that's how we are really bad perfect hey we drive our family crazy we're like oh tomorrow and they're like what well and my daughter would be she's done we're not we're done having kids but she's dying for a little baby so she would be oh she would it would be the best built-in babysitter for you guys so you guys now he tells me we can't have more because of traveling with when you're down a person he said you can't do man on man anymore but you have three oh no it's do you think more than three would have made it a whole lot different yeah you think three is the huh i this is personal opinion is like when you're just a married couple it's just you guys right as soon as you have baby number one like obviously that's a huge change for you as a couple but i kind of feel like it's still like you're this like young married couple and you have like it's almost like you're like playing house like you have just one baby i thought the big change was like when we had number two it was like oh now we're like growing into this like proper family um number three wasn't as big as adjustment as i thought i think um when people say like oh now you're outnumbered like it didn't feel that way dorothy vanilla are 22 months apart and manila and callie are three and a half years so that three and a half years it made all the difference because to be able to tell my toddler hey i can't help you i gotta nurse the baby he was like okay whereas had we had the boys two years apart it would have been very difficult it would have been super hard so um yeah i think it is a little when you have a lot of little ones it is pretty difficult yeah because i think about just your standard rental car if you were to have a fourth totally it would be well and even now we can we can cram into a taxi uh you know like we'll put i'll sit up front and garrett and the three kids and that works okay but i mean when they get older i don't know if we're gonna have to start like getting two taxis or you just have to get a van like a van taxi it's kind of wild that you guys do taxis now i think about it because i feel like we've never been someplace where we can't uber yeah with our podcast we like i'll get the uber and i'll be like crap like we have like because we were just in nashville and we lived there for a month and so we had all of our regular travel stuff but then we had three suitcases full of our podcast gear so then i was like we need to get a like we needed the biggest uber you could get just to fit all of our luggage yeah no i was telling her just yesterday i'm like it's funny the uh effect that being in southeast asia has had on us because she like grabs our kids she's like pick up callie and we're like booking across this like eight lane like busy freeway and just like jaywalking across and like making her i'm like wow we've been in asia long enough that we're like going for it i love that though like crazy well you guys go follow the bucket list family on social media i know you guys are on youtube instagram where all can people find you and follow and yeah just search in the bucket list family you'll find us and and jess's book is the title literally the bucket list family it's bucket list family travel thank you for being on the show and let's go travel let's go i'd love to i'd love to do some episode two destination we'll find out yeah awesome