Matt Bowles: My guest today is Chase Warrington. He is the head of Remote at Doist, a pioneer of distributed work that specializes in productivity software. He is responsible for developing and executing Doist remote work strategy, co located events and advocating for the future of work on behalf of the company. Chase has been working remotely since 2009 and traveling the world full time since 2016 with his wife and their Siberian husky, Koda. He currently maintains a base in Valencia, Spain and travels about half of the year. He is also the podcast host of About Abroad where he and his guests discuss the challenges and joy of working and living abroad. He is a regular contributor to several of the top remote work publications and he speaks at conferences all week over the world. Chase was named a top 50 remote enabler by remote.com and named one of the top 10 voices for remote work by LinkedIn.

Chase, welcome to the show.

Chase Warrington: Hey Matt, what’s going on man? Thanks for having me, man.

Matt Bowles: I am so excited to have you here. The number of people that you and I know in common is just incredible in terms of how many of my friends have been on your show and how many of your friends have been on my show. I am so excited that we were finally able to put this together and chat with each other directly, man.

Chase Warrington: Me too, I’m really happy that it finally came together. Long time coming. Thank you so much for having me.

Matt Bowles: Absolutely, brother. Well, let’s start this off just by setting the scene a little bit and talk about where we are recording this from today. Unfortunately, we are not in person and the fact that we have agreed to make this a wine night. So, let’s definitely talk about what we’re drinking as well. I am actually in Lisbon, Portugal today and I just opened a bottle of Portuguese red wine. This is a red blend from the Alentejo red region of Portugal. And where are you today, brother? And what are you drinking?

Chase Warrington: You know what, man? It is really funny that you’re drinking a Portuguese wine, because as we were prepping for this, you told me I had to bring wine, and I begrudgingly agreed to that, of course. And I had two options. It’s a warm day where I am. I’m here on the Mediterranean side of France and French Catalonia on the coast, and it’s a warm day, and I said I could go with a, you know, a traditional red that’s here from France. That would be the normal thing to do. Or I’ve got this bottle of Vino Verde, which tastes really good from Portugal that I’ve been carrying around with me. But I opted for the French red. I thought I’d be authentic and stay with the home country, where’s home right now. So that’s what I’m sipping on, man. Cheers.

Matt Bowles: Cheers, brother. Well, I think that’s a very, very good choice. I love French wines, and it’s always so amazing to go to France and to go through the wine regions and drink French wine. It’s just a lovely place. But I want to start this conversation a little bit, Chase just going all the way back. Just want to give some folks some context on you and your journey. Can you talk a little bit about where you grew up, first of all? And when you think back as you were growing up, how did your interest in world travel initially start to develop?

Chase Warrington: It’s really funny. So, I was born to a pilot and a flight attendant. They did not meet on the road. They’re actually like high school friends, sweethearts’ kind of thing. But you would think on the surface that I was probably like a world traveler from the beginning. By the time I was 2, I had been on 30 something planes and had actually traveled a good bit. But the truth is, until I was 18, I never left the country. I was born in the U.S. in Miami and then grew up in North Carolina and spent most of my life traveling a little bit around the U.S. but we were kind of regional vacationers, like pretty typical standard vacations. But I always had this, like, burning interest to go explore the world. And I knew that I was going to. As I grew into being a teenager and looking at started going to college, I prioritized study abroad, and I looked at schools that were going to have good study abroad programs and internships abroad and even made some sacrifices, had some athletic scholarships that wouldn’t let me do study abroad.

So, I said, well, forget that, I’ll just pay to go to school like everyone else. So anyway, I knew it was something important. By the time I was 18, I was like, this is something I got to do. I saved up my entire senior year of high school and went on a month-long trip down to Australia for my first trip abroad and just fell in love with the whole idea of being hearing foreign. In that case it wasn’t even language accent, but it just blew my mind and seeing the way people do things differently and interacting with people from around the world and it was just totally hooked. And so that kind of carried with me for years into other chapters of life. I think it was from that moment I said, I’ve got to make this a core part of who I am.

Matt Bowles: And then where did you end up studying abroad and what was that experience like for you?

Chase Warrington: I went to regular college, regular university in Appalachian Mountain, we call them Appalachian Mountains from North Carolina. Everybody else I think calls them Appalachian Mountains, but I went to Appalachian State, so I feel comfortable saying it’s Appalachian, which is in the mountains of North Carolina, which a lot of people don’t know has some decent little ski mountains there. And so, I was a really heavy student taking snowboarding class and realized I really like this. When I do my study abroad, I’d love to go somewhere where there’s awesome mountains. So I went to the Austrian Alps, went and studied in Austria and did a semester abroad there and fell in love.

The really cool thing was I was able to get a Eurail pass at, at the time. This is not to like say I’m super old or anything, but at the time, like travel was very different. Internet, cell phones, things like this were very different. And so, it was still kind of a new thing to be able to travel around. And I used to have a Eurail pass and got to travel all over Europe and just fell in love with Europe in particular. Just the ability to go from one country to the next and so quickly, so easily hear different languages and became totally obsessed with it. And so that was my experience.

Matt Bowles: I love that, man. So much of what you just said I can relate to. First of all, when I was young, I lived in South Florida. I grew up in Palm Beach Gardens. My parents are currently retired and living in Asheville, North Carolina. So, I spent most of the pandemic in the Blue Ridge Mountains right there. And part of the Great Smokies. So much love for the North Carolina mountains and the incredible beauty of that state. And then study abroad, same thing, man. I went to Europe, I went to Ireland, actually, when I did my study abroad. But exactly the same thing was late 90s, and I was like, ooh, you can buy a Euro rail pass. It’s like, hop on, hop off to any of 17 countries. And my roommate and I just took the month of the winter break and we just went all through Europe and it was just mind blowing. I mean, it was life transforming.

Chase Warrington: Oh, man. You know what? We’re going to probably find a million of these parallels throughout this conversation. Just go back and forth on it. But it’s really funny. So, the last place I lived in the US Is Asheville. I call Asheville home. Like, if someone says, where are you from? I say Asheville. And it’s a very cool little town for people that don’t know it. It’s a cool little town in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. But talking about Ireland, that’s where my wife and I got engaged. It’s where we went back and spent six months living there a couple years ago when we first kind of started our journeys abroad, deeper journeys beyond just the 1, 2, 3-week trips when we said we’re going to go live in places, Ireland was one of those places. We went and spent six months living there on the west coast of Ireland, outside Galway. And so anyway, I have so much passion and love for that country. And yeah, man, it’s. It’s super cool.

Matt Bowles: Super awesome, man. Yeah, it’s a really special country. I went to Trinity College in Dublin for my year there, but every weekend we’d go to another place because Ireland is so small, right. I mean, the whole country of Ireland is like the size of North Carolina, right. And so, every weekend you can just go out to Cork or go out to Galway or go to the north or go to the south or wherever you want to go and just see so many different parts of it, and it’s such an incredible place. But let’s bring in this story about you getting married and then traveling the world and living the dream with your spouse, man. Take us from the sort of the college graduation thing up through the career path and the marriage and then how the two of you together decided to live this lifestyle, man.

Chase Warrington: Yeah, that’s a really fun story to reminisce on now because it definitely had some challenges along the way. So, we both kind of graduated with that mentality that unfortunately we’ve got to put the. The travel lifestyle behind us because, you know, remote work wasn’t a thing. This is 2009. The best you could hope for was some domestic remote work, which was I was lucky enough to find and, you know, always worked remotely. But at the time it was very, you know, got to be in the US Got to stay there and you’ll get your couple weeks of vacation and that’s when we’ll go travel. So we thought we were graduating from the fun travel lifestyle to let’s grow up and be adults and do all the smart things. And so, we dove into that world. We spent five years doing all the ‘right things’, buying a house and settling into the company cars and the 401ks and the stock options and all that stuff.

And then like four or five years in, I give so much credit to my wife. She really pushed the envelope. It was like, we’re not doing what we want to be doing. And so, through a series of events, we started making changes. She quit her job and started an online business and we sold the house and downsized and then started kind of nomading in the US and then eventually I quit my job and we set off for Ecuador, of all places, with our husky in tow and then just started going from there and just became totally addicted to the lifestyle.

We kind of mistakenly came across this visa in Spain and decided we were going to live in Spain for a year and thought we’d be in Valencia for three months and then ended up settling down there and being there for four and a half years and kind of calling it our home base now. And so it’s funny, it just changes, it’s adapted over time and it’s been a blast. It’s been a lot of fun. But it came with some challenges as well, for sure.

Matt Bowles: Can you talk a little bit about that transition? Because I feel like some people might be listening to this right now and saying, wow, your lifestyle sounds amazing. That’s really incredible. But I couldn’t do that because create list here, right? Like, I own a house and I have a dog and I’m married now and I’m this, and I’m all this stuff and you know, and they’re kind of from that perspective, like you said, right. Our traveling days are behind us. That’s when we were in college and we were studying abroad or we took that gap year, we did that thing. And now we’re responsible adults and we have pets and houses and all of this kind of stuff. And so can you take us a little bit through, I guess, the decision making process as well as mentally and emotionally? Just how you made that transition, how the two of you decided to do it. And then logistically, like, what that looked like for you?

Chase Warrington: Yeah, that’s a good question. I’m trying to take myself back there and think, like, what were some of the conversations like? Because they weren’t necessarily easy and they didn’t take place over weeks or even months, I would say this was probably two years in the making, which isn’t necessarily the right or wrong way. Some people might say, just rip the band aid off. In retrospect, I kind of wish I would have just said, let’s just go and do it. But on the other side of that, you know, we had some very, like, logical conversations. We have some good things going for us. It would kind of be ridiculous to waste those. And then at the same time counterbalancing that with, there will always be good things going for you. There’s always going to be a reason not to go.

And I think that that was one of those really aha moments for me were long story short, basically I said, I’m quitting, I’m going, I’m going to move to South America and teach English or something. And people said, you’re crazy. Literally, some people had an intervention with us and so it was offered a reason to stay. Basically, a pretty enticing kind of situation. And I was really seriously considering it. And again, giving credit to my wife, she said, you know, there will always be something. There’s always going to be a promotion, there’s always going to be a mortgage or somebody who’s not doing well or somebody who’s getting married next year and we’ll just wait until after that. Like, those things just never go away.

And so, my advice, when I talk to someone who’s considering this and inevitably come up with that list, like you said, that list’s never going away. So, if you’re going to do this, you might as well do it then. Take some logical steps. We saved some money, we put some money away for a rainy day, which we ended up needing much quicker than expected. When I talk about those challenges that came up and we prepared, we did some of the right things and then we learned a lot as we go. You get your bumps and bruises and enjoy the ride.

Matt Bowles: And what were some of your highlights from South America? You went to Ecuador, you started nomading around at that sort of early part of your nomad journey. What were some of the travel highlights for you?

Chase Warrington: I mean, we did like a five-day hike to Machu Picchu, which was epic and just saw some of the most beautiful landscape that I’ve ever seen. I remember celebrating my birthday on that hike, like getting to Machu Picchu on my birthday and just being like, I’m so freaking happy I made this decision. I know I left some things behind, but Jesus, this is beautiful, man. This is freaking awesome. That moment really sticks out of my mind. We also, we went up deep in the Amazon for some time and at one point we were hanging out on this tour, but we ended up being the only ones on this tour. And this guide was like, well, I know a family that lives deep up in the Amazon. Tribal people that we don’t normally do this, but if you guys are up for it, like, we’ll just go hang out with them for the day.

And so, we went there and they were showing us how they hunt monkeys and shoot fish with bows and arrows. And you know, that was another day where I was just sitting there, this is Tuesday, this isn’t normal. And so, there was just lots of stuff like that where there’s just these really cool travel moments, meeting really interesting people. Along the way I learned a lot about like E commerce and running a business abroad and which also came with lots of challenges. So, one other thing was like getting a little base of Spanish. I had studied a little bit of German for my study abroad, but I mean, I wasn’t really conversational. But being really immersed in a place, trying to do business in a place and knowing you’re going to be there for some time, learning another language was a very cool thing for me in my late 20s, early 30s, which I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get a chance to do after graduating. So that was another really cool moment for me.

Matt Bowles: I also want to ask you about Spain because I know that Spain has a super important place in your heart and in your journey. Can you share a little bit about your relationship with Spain?

Chase Warrington: Yeah. On that previous trip I was talking about after being in South America for a while, we were wanting to come to Europe. So, we came to Spain on a three-month regular tourist visa. Ended up spending three months down in Andalusia in the south of Spain. Really fell in love with that area. It was awesome living along the coast there in the Costa del Sol and just really enjoyed the Spanish lifestyle. I specifically remember being there on day two or three and sitting out by this little beachside cafe. The whole wait staff was out in the middle of the street dancing, cars were stopped and. And nobody cared. They say in Spain all the time, like everything’s very Tranquillo. It was just so relaxed. The whole wait staff’s out there in the street. Nobody’s upset that they’re not getting their food. They’re just having a good time.

And people were getting up and dancing with them. Sunshine, beautiful weather and lively atmosphere, but also very relaxed and it was great. I love this country. So, we only had three months, so we weren’t able to stay past that. We had to get out. We actually went to Ireland after that to reset our visa. But we knew we wanted to come back and spend more time in Spain. That was the short version is we wanted to come back to Spain. So later on, a couple of years later, we found this visa that allowed us to come to Spain and we could stay for a year. And that visa is called the non-lucrative visa. So, we came over and spent a year in Spain. It ended up now being four and a half years and has become our home away from home and just fallen in love with it, Valencia in particular. But I mean, we’ve traveled all over Spain and it’s been awesome.

Matt Bowles: Yeah. I want to talk about some of the different regions of Spain and some of your experiences. I as well love Spain and I try to go through at least once a year and I continue to try to spend time in the different parts of Spain, you know, So I stayed for a month in Bilbao and the Basque country, and I stayed for a month in Barcelona and Catalonia, and then I spent time in Andalusia, as you just mentioned, in the south, which is entirely culturally different.

And then I’ve spent time in Madrid and then I just keep going to these different parts of Spain and they’re all so different and unique and culturally distinct. But you’ve spent a lot more time. I’ve also lived in Valencia for a month, which is amazing also. Right. But you’ve spent a lot more time than I have there. And I would love to get just sort of your overview of Spain. Let’s just say for people that haven’t been before to Spain at all and they’re interested in coming and spending some quality time there. What for you are some of the top highlights in Spain, some of the top things that have become your favorites or that you definitely recommend that people should check out. Like, what have been some of your favorite experiences?

Chase Warrington: Dude, one of the things that you just touched on is literally my favorite thing, which is the diversity. Like you mentioned Basque Country, Catalonia, Andalusia. Within those three places, you have three official different languages and one with where Spanish is the primary language, the actual official language. They actually say they speak Andalus. Which is not even actually another language, but almost sounds like it. Like I really can’t understand it very well. That diversity is crazy. I think there’s five official languages in Spain. There’s really deep history from these different regions of the country that were once their own entities are very historically rich and really hold on to that. So, they have their own individual distinctiveness to them, which is just incredible.

So, someone from like you and I from the US where I can drive 25 hours in one direction and maybe hear a slightly different accent in Valencia, I can drive four hours in any one direction and hear a completely different language, hear different foods, see different traditions, different clothes. It’s really eye opening and kind of amazing. It’s not just the cultural aspect, but also the geographic thing. If you go from the north of Spain, where a lot of Game of Thrones was filmed, for instance, so you have this crazy rugged coastline and cliffs that kind of looks like Big Sur out in California, and huge redwood tree forests and green rolling mountains and snowcapped peaks. To like the south in six, seven hours to the Mediterranean, where it feels like you’re in ancient Rome and you’re walking around Roman amphitheaters and stuff. This can’t be the same world, much less country.

So, this kind of thing really blows my mind. Then you also have the Pyrenees, which are just incredibly underrated. People don’t really think about the Pyrenees when they come to Europe. They think about the Alps generally. But the Pyrenees are epic. They’re beautiful, cool little towns scattered throughout them. They border France and Spain, so you can see some of both. For me, it’s just an amazing place to call home.

Matt Bowles: And why did you choose Valencia? So, you’ve spent time in all these different amazing places. There’s a lot of incredible places in Spain that would be amazing to live or spend a long period of time. Why did you choose Valencia? And what is Valencia like for people that haven’t been there?

Chase Warrington: Yeah, it’s really interesting because we didn’t choose Valencia. It wasn’t planned. I’d never been to Valencia. When we were finalizing our visa, we had to go to the consulate in D.C. and as they were like, okay, you got it. It’s all good. We just need to put down where you’re going to live. And we were like, oh, we don’t know that yet. And they’re like, well, you have to decide right now. And we’re like, what? We haven’t decided. We have no idea. They were like, well, you. What do we put down? And it wasn’t like you could just put something down and then not go. You had to go register with the police there and everything.

So, we were like, oh, shit, what are we going to? We had had a friend that said, I think you guys would like Valencia. I’m pretty sure you would like the vibe in Valencia. It’s like a mid-sized city. There’s a lot going on, but it’s not too metropolis. It’s very good cost of living. It’s on the coast, good access to other parts of Europe. You can fly there from the international airport there. You can get quickly direct flights all over Europe. We’re like, all right, yeah, let’s give. So, we just put down Valencia and honestly just thought we would go for three months. We thought we would go, we’d register with the police, get established, and then probably move around every three or four months.

But for all those reasons I just listed, we really fell in love with it. It is like a great size city. Very easily manageable. It’s awesome for biking. You can bike everywhere. There are bike trails all throughout the city. Enough going on where you never get bored, but not too massive where it’s like hard to manage. And then one of the big things for me is literally I can be from my doorstep in the center of the city to sitting at my gate at the international airport, flying to all over Europe in like 40 minutes. It’s just crazy. That’s been one of the big things for travel purposes. It’s been really, really awesome in that regard.

Matt Bowles: Yeah, man, I loved it. I was there for about four or five weeks in 2018, and it’s definitely a smaller city than Madrid or Barcelona or something like that. But it had so much diversity within the city in terms of the old city, right, which is all the old European cathedral and cobblestones and this whole vibe and then literally walking distance. You have this hyper modern architectural structure with like the theater, opera house, fountains, like all of this kind of stuff, which is the most modern architecture you’ll see anywhere. And then you have this massive green space, just like enormous parks where you can just go and run and jog and party out in the parks and like, you have all of those things and it’s literally walking. Like, I don’t know that I took any transportation at all the entire month there. I just literally walked everywhere. I mean, it was just amazing. And of course, as is the case in all of Spain, the food and wine are absolutely insane.

Chase Warrington: Yeah. Oh, man, you hit on so many of the high points there. Kudos to you for bringing some of those out. That green space that you talked about is such an important thing for us. Having a big dog that needs a lot of energy. Not only needs to get out a lot of energy, not only is it a massive green space for humans, but it also has dog parks scattered throughout the whole park, which is not normal to find in Europe, especially not in Spain. And so, we live close to that park. They call it the Turia because it used to be a river, the river Turia. And they drained it and turned it into like a 10-kilometer-long green space, which is so hard to find. It’s very, very rare. And it goes right through the middle of the city. And you can ride through that from the center city on your bike out to the beach. Be sitting out at a little chiringuito or beachside restaurant in half an hour. I mean, yeah, I’ve used the metro. There’s a great metro system, there’s a great bus system. I’ve used it like a handful of times. Just ride bikes and walk everywhere.

Matt Bowles: All right, now, Chase, I’ve got to ask you this. You have one of the most well-traveled dogs in the world, Koda, and I got to ask you, how does that work, nomading with a dog, if someone has, let’s say, a pet and they say, I can’t go nomading, I can’t travel around, I can’t live in extended places because I have a pet. You obviously have overcome that and you have traveled the world with your dog. Can you talk about how that works and what the logistics are involved with that?

Chase Warrington: I’ve always wanted to ask Koda, like, what does he think? Because I’m not sure if he loves it or hates it. I was telling my wife, he’s so lucky, man, he’s gotten to see the whole world. And she was like, I think he just wants routine and a yard to play in. So, I’m not sure if he’s loving it or not, but for us, it’s been a really cool experience to travel as a little family and be able to experience some of the things we have with him. It’s not super easy and I don’t necessarily recommend it for everybody, especially with a big dog. Big dog is a big challenge logistically, just in terms of like catching flights and fairies and rental cars and things like that. It adds a huge layer of complexity.

And honestly, it was a huge reason why we decided not to keep moving once we got to Valencia, because it was just getting exhausting, not just figuring out flight stuff because there is a lot with, like, customs and shots and vaccinations and paperwork and stuff like that. But there’s also just the pure thing of, hey, I want to come rent your Airbnb for a month, and I have a wolf dog. Will you allow it to be in your house? And most people would say no. So, I developed a pretty cool formula that’s worked well for getting Koda into Airbnb’s, but it does add a lot. And so, we’ve kind of become super slow. Mads. One month feels like a very short stay, six weeks minimum. And really, we’re looking at three to six months or even longer to try to be in one place. A lot of which is just because moving him around is not super easy. But if you have a small dog, it’s super, super. I wouldn’t even hesitate now be like, yeah, just take the dog with you. No problem.

So, there’s a really good resource I’ll plug really quick, which is called petravel.com for anybody listening. Actually, I wrote an article about this. All the details I could come up with about traveling with a pet for Workforce, workforce.com. So, if you look that up and just search, like pet travel or something, there’s a lot of details in there. But petravel.com is linked to in that article, and they provide everything that you need. Whenever I’m going to a new country, I buy one of their little pamphlets, which are like 15, 20 bucks, and it tells you everything you need to know about moving an animal into that country. I highly recommend that.

Matt Bowles: Well, and one of the things that you do now is that you travel by camper van, which I’m sure makes the pet travel much easier. Maybe just take us all the way back to the beginning when you first had the idea to travel by camper van and what that journey has been like, as I understand it’s been. It’s been a little of an evolving journey for you. So maybe just take us from the beginning until how it is now.

Chase Warrington: We might need a little more wine for this story. It was stressful. Or a Xanax or something. I mentioned before, like, on our initial trip to Spain, which was years ago, I don’t know, maybe 2016 or something like that. We had been in Spain for a couple months. We were starting to look at options for moving, getting outside of the Shenzhen area to reset our visa, and we had flown Koda around several times in a row, and it had been really rough. We had particularly had kind of a rough experience where like he kind of lost him in the customs area and we couldn’t find him for a few hours. And it was pretty stressful. And he’d already been in the crate for 12, 15 hours, something, I mean, a really long time.

And so, we were really trying to think like, okay, how can we get out of the Schengen area and also get code out, but not fly him? And one of the options was to drive to the north of France and take a ferry to Ireland. And a fun fact about Ireland, which I’m sure you know, but maybe some people don’t, is it’s in the EU but it’s outside the Schengen area, so you can actually reset your Schengen visa by going to Ireland. So, we were like, oh, well, we love Ireland, let’s go do that. But you can’t take a rental car on a ferry outside of continental Europe, no matter how long you want to rent it for. Like, generally that you’re not allowed to do that. So, we said, what if we just bought a car? And then we stumbled across this old VW camper van. That seemed like a great idea at the time. And it ended up being a horrible idea because you get what you pay for. And we basically got a car that was falling apart and it started falling apart right away. So, we bought it, we said, we’re going to travel across Europe.

We had a seven-day trip planned to get to the north of France and catch the ferry. It turned into a 41-day trip because of breakdowns. We ended up on like 14 different tow trucks. We slept in more mechanic shops than we did parks or beautiful cities. It was pretty stressful. We at one point had some mechanic in France telling us to just kick it into a river and fly home. So anyway, we made it by tow truck to the ferry in France, dropped it off on the ferry, had another tow truck pick us up in Ireland and take us home, and we slept in our Airbnb for a week before we figured out the next steps. All that to say we graduated from that and got a real camper van now. And we love traveling by camper van through Europe in a more stable Ford Transit.

Matt Bowles: Now that’s amazing. And you do it for long term. I mean, can you share about now the types of trips and experiences that you have by camper van?

Chase Warrington: Yeah, so generally we don’t live in it. I went home over for Thanksgiving for the first time in a few years and I had many friends and family saying, like, oh, how’s it Living in a camper van, I was like, oh no, I don’t live in it. We travel in it a couple weeks at a time. For instance, what we’re doing for the rest of this year is traveling one to two weeks in the camper van and then getting an Airbnb for four to eight weeks. And that’s kind of what we do.

So, we spend a lot of time traveling around Spain and Portugal and France and some up into Switzerland and Austria and Germany and Italy. We’ve had some really cool experiences in it. I don’t recommend it for hashtag van life all the time, especially for a couple, I think it’s a lot to expect of each other, especially when you’re both working. For me, it’s not pleasant to try. It’s a fun way to get away, fun way to experience some small towns, get off the beaten path. But to live in full time, I commend those people that can do it. We can’t.

Matt Bowles: I want to ask your tips now on traveling with a spouse because you and your wife have been traveling together full time for many, many years now, and that’s obviously an extremely different experience than living in a house and going off to your respective jobs and coming back in the evening together and all of that. And I’m wondering if you can share a little bit about your experience from that, lessons from that and tips you have now at this point in your journey. For other couples that might want to consider starting to travel full time together.

Chase Warrington: It definitely does come with challenges because you end up spending a lot more time together than you would normally under normal circumstances. So, I think it comes with a lot of understanding of what each other needs and doesn’t need and really getting honest with each other about when someone needs their space and what’s going to be really important. Choosing your battles never is more true, I think, except maybe when you’re raising kids, but maybe in a close second is when you’re traveling together. You really have to figure out what’s really important and what’s not. I mean, you’re making so many decisions on a daily or weekly or monthly basis that you normally just make on a yearly or every multiple year.

So, it is really about choosing your battles, figuring out what’s going to be most important to you. How do we make sure we’re each comfortable? For instance, like when we were choosing the Airbnb that in right now, certain things about it were good for me, not good for her. And so, you make a lot of compromise, but you always are kind of anchored in the fact that, hey, we love seeing new places and we get invigorated by that. And so, we’re always kind of brought back to that concept of, hey, we’re doing this for that reason. Everything else is sort of ancillary. And so, I think remembering why you’re doing it and understanding the sacrifices ahead of time, having those real conversations about those sacrifices and being upfront about them is also really important. We’ve had to make a big one. You know, for instance, as I mentioned earlier, we sold our house before setting off on this journey.

And though it’s very much ingrained in us, like as Americans, I think, to own a home and that’s your key to financial success and all these things. We’d like to think we’re somewhat financially savvy, I guess, in some ways, but we haven’t bought a house again because we’re constantly on the road. And so that weighs on us, you know, and so we have to talk about that and think through that and figure out how we balance that with the lifestyle that we want to live. And so, these are real conversations that we end up having over and over again. So, there’s lots of little tips and tricks and stuff, but I mean, I think those are some of the, like, major bullet points that come to mind.

Matt Bowles: I also want to ask you about staying in Spain for as long as you have and what some of the ways are that people can do that. So, for example, I am an itinerant digital nomad, right. I rarely stay anywhere for longer than 90 days. Usually, it’s less than that. 30, 60-day kind of things. And then I keep moving. And so, at this point, in terms of my travel decisions, I haven’t needed to figure out how to stay more than 90 days at a time in the Schengen, because then I’m off to Asia or I’m off to South America or something else. But for people that are interested in staying in a country like Spain, let’s just use that as the example because that’s where you have the, the experience doing it. You had mentioned the initial visa that you got, and then now obviously you’ve been based there for like four and a half years. So, can you talk about some of the options for people, best practices, maybe considerations if people want to stay in a foreign country for longer and how they would go about doing that?

Chase Warrington: Yeah, definitely. I have a lot of people on About Abroad that kind of share their specific experiences and expertise in this area, because I’m definitely not a Visa expert. So, I just speak from my experience, but it’s something I’m always interested in too is how are you able to do this? And actually, like one of the main motivations behind starting that show and having these conversations, I think with people like yourself is how do you do this? I’m genuinely curious. So, in my case in Spain, I used what’s called the non-lucrative visa, which is like an old-time pensioners or retirees visa that was set up to allow people who have a fixed income, likely their Social Security or something like that there to support them. So said, oh, if you’ve got a paycheck coming from somewhere else, you can come here and not take a job. You’re welcome to come work from Spain.

Since I got on that visa almost five years ago, that has kind of gone away as an option for digital nomads there. It’s not necessarily completely gone, but they’re really trying to push people into the now what they formed is a real digital nomad visa, which I don’t know a ton about, to be honest, because I haven’t had to go through that process. But I do believe that it’s going to be, if it’s not right now, it’s going to be a better method for digital nomads because it’s going to actually be set up for them. It’s always been kind of weird square peg, round hole sort of thing with the non-lucrative visa, although the government knows exactly what you’re doing.

Literally I had to get a letter from my company saying here’s what this person does and here’s what they make and all of that to get that visa so they know exactly what you’re doing. But it was just always kind of like this isn’t really the way it’s set up to be done. So, the digital nomad visa that’s coming out in Spain is a really good option for some, although I think it has some drawbacks that I don’t know a ton of details on, but word on the street is it has some drawbacks. And then also one that I think often gets overlooked and it’s so easy is the student visa. Spain’s one of those countries that they want you to learn the Spanish language so you can actually get a student visa, come study Spanish, just sign up for classes, pay the tuition super cheap and take classes, get a visa and as a bonus learn a language, I think is always a really, really nice way to get your foot in the door.

Matt Bowles: That’s awesome, man. Well, let’s Talk a little bit about this job that you currently have. I’d love to hear if you can take us a little bit on your career trajectory and how you landed this really epic, remote job where you’re not able to only work remotely, but you’re actually able to be a remote work evangelist as such and be sort of totally immersed in all of these things that you’re passionate about and that you love. So maybe just take us a little bit on your career trajectory in terms of how you landed this, and then for folks that have never heard of Doist at all, maybe just share a little bit about the company and then the role that you have.

Chase Warrington: Yeah, man. I mentioned earlier, like, I’ve always worked remotely. It was very important to me to not have to go sit in a cube when I was thinking about graduating and what I was going to do in the next chapter of my life. It was just. That was something I knew I couldn’t do. So, I ended up taking a remote job, which was awesome. Worked for a great company that allowed remote work in 2009, which was great. It was a hybrid company that went about it in the right way, really trying to make sure everybody had a good experience, but I was the minority. You know, it was a very small group of us that were remote, and everybody else was in a couple main offices.

And so, I had that experience, I guess, is the reason I mentioned that, like, working remote but working for a hybrid company that was mainly in the office. And I think that served me well stepping into this role later. But in between there, I ended up taking a year off and traveling, and then during that time found this job with Doist, the company I work for now, which is a software company we make. We’re a fully remote team of like 100 people in 35 different countries, and we make a couple apps. The ones we’re really well known for are Todoist, which is a personal productivity tool, and Twist, which is a team communication tool built specifically for remote teams like us.

I found this job with them while I was traveling, taking this year off, kind of figuring out what I wanted to do next, and stumbled into it as a perfect situation from a culture, fit company, fit role. And I was like, yeah, I mean, fully location, independent, live wherever you want, very international crowd. At the time, I think we were about 40 people in 20 different countries. And I was like, yeah, this is perfect for me. So, long story short, since then, we decided we really wanted to become a central figure in the evolution of work and the future of work as we call it let’s be in that conversation. We’re a fully distributed team, we have stuff to share, we’re big on building in public and that was all pre pandemic and this is what we want to do.

So, I was a big part of that. I was kind of in the leading that project saying, let’s figure out how we can be a central part of this conversation. And then when the pandemic happened, it was like drinking from a fire hose. All of a sudden everybody wanted to talk about remote and we decided, well, let’s have somebody who really just owns remote work. It’s a core part of our DNA as a company. Somebody should own that. And I applied, got the job and here I am. And yeah, as you said, it’s kind of a dream job for me because it’s all the things that I’m passionate about wrapped up into one. So, it’s worked out nicely.

Matt Bowles: That’s amazing, man. Well, let me ask you for some tips and reflections. We have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to the show, people that are building or running location independent businesses and stuff. And I wanted to ask you for your tips based on your experience at Doist for managing remote teams, running remote teams and building company culture within a fully remote company.

Chase Warrington: So many things that can be done right and so many that can be done wrong. And it’s been so interesting during this time, this massive transition from office-based culture to distributed based culture to watch both mix of things being done really well and things being done really poorly. So, I think it’s easier. The lower hanging fruit is to start with like what not to do. And some of those things are just some high-level feedbacks that we generally give as. Don’t try to replace the office culture with your new virtual culture. Don’t take all the practices you were doing in the office and send them over to a virtual setup. It just doesn’t work. Remote teams, if they’re functioning at a high level, they’re generally functioning at a high level because they’re doing things very distinctly differently than you’re doing in the office.

And the easy example of that is doesn’t take all the meetings that you were having in the office and convert them to zoom meetings. Don’t take all the synchronous in person FaceTime and try to make it synchronous virtual FaceTime. Sitting in a conference room for three hours is miserable, but sitting on a zoom call for three hours is even more miserable and less efficient. So, we really, you know, we see a lot of Companies trying to do that. And our advice generally is to push for highly asynchronous communication between your teammates. Try to reconfigure all the best practices of the company around async to make it work really well for everybody and decentralize everything. Make everything very transparent. Make everything transparent by default a very democratic approach to work. You have to open things up when you’re not in the same place. You have to make it feel like you’re in the same place by being very intentional about these little levers that you can pull, like transparency and autonomy and giving people access to information, allowing people to make decisions and make mistakes on their own and ask for forgiveness later.

So, these are some of the elements that we try to infuse into our culture. It’s worked pretty well. The other thing I’ll mention is like disconnection. We have such an addiction to our devices. And it’s really easy when work is living where you live, to make work like everything and to always default to work and to always want to make sure that your teammates are working or that they’re present. And that’s the problem is that we think like being present is working and it’s not actually like it doesn’t actually equate to anything. So highly functioning remote teams are really focused on deliverables and outcomes, not on being present and responding quickly or getting the first idea that comes to mind out there. So really optimizing for like deep work and allowing people to disconnect, pushing people to disconnect is super important.

Matt Bowles: I love that, man. I could not agree more. Let me ask you this. For folks that might be listening to this that are interested in landing a great job that’s fully remote, you obviously did that yourself. You landed your dream job and it’s fully remote. Can you share any tips that you may have for how people should go about trying to land their remote dream job?

Chase Warrington: I’m so happy you asked this because I think a lot of people overlook the similarities that are consistent through the old world or the co located world in the virtual world. And a lot of it is like that old adage of it’s not what you know, but who you know in a lot of ways. And I don’t think networking is as dead as a lot of people think. So something you have to remember is that when you have a global talent pool to pick from, a remote team that’s hiring from anywhere in the world, for instance, or even just across one entire country, the pool of applicants is expanded greatly and you’re probably not going to really struggle to find talent. There’s a lot of really good coders out there and designers and business people, and they’re all going to apply for these positions because they want to work remote. They like the company culture, whatever the case may be. So, pool of applicants is pretty big and you have to find a way to stand out.

And it still remains true that if you have a connection, if you know someone, if you’ve been presenting in the community of whatever it is, whether that be like a coding community or whether that be the remote work community that I’m really active in, having someone that can help you get in and make an introduction can go a really long way. It can help you stand out. Another tangible thing that you can do is really focus on your writing. So you can be a really wonderful verbal communicator, you can be very gregarious and well spoken, you can never met a stranger, all of that. And you may be super smart on top of all that, but if you can’t articulate that in a very well spoken, in the written form, a well-spoken, succinct but thorough way, then it’s going to be really tough for us to hire you into a company that thrives on written communication.

So, I see all the time this happens very often. People apply for a job, they’ve got an awesome resume, their credentials are amazing, they probably have a wonderful personality, but we never really get to know because they write these super lengthy, long answers to the questions that we ask as part of their application. And it’s hard for us to follow them in the way that matches well with how we work. We need people to be very direct, very succinct, but also provide us lots of information and they’re unable to do that. So really thinking about what does the company want to see from me? Why are they asking me these questions? We ask five or six questions before you even get to an interview. And most people, I think, just kind of fly through those thinking that it’s like just a formality. But in reality, we’re putting a lot of thought into. We care about the content, but we’re really looking at how you write. And so that can be something that I think is possibly overlooked.

Matt Bowles: Awesome tips, man. Well, let me ask you now, Chase, about your podcast About Abroad. I am a big fan. I think you have one of the top podcasts in this particular space. And I want to just ask you, just give folks some context for your show. Can you talk about how it came about? Why you decided to start it. And for folks that have not yet heard of your podcast, what can people expect when they come and listen to it?

Chase Warrington: Well, first of all, thank you, man. I would say ditto right back at you. So that means a lot. It’s been such a fun project that really just started because of two things I would say. One, I’m a podcast junkie, and I’m always listening to a podcast. And there was some curiosity in me that was like, how do you create one of these? Like, I feel like it can’t be that challenging, but at the same time, I wouldn’t know where to start. And so, I just sort of had this curiosity, like, I would love to learn to create one. And then secondly, when I’d first started traveling, I just wanted to create a little travel blog to interview people and to learn more from people. Kind of like exactly what we’re doing now. Just learn from them how they were able to build a life, a location, independent life, and travel around and things like that. But I figured out really quickly that I wasn’t a writer. I can write okay, but it costs me a lot of energy and mental strain and time, and keeping up a blog just was not my thing.

So, I wasn’t really into podcasts at the time, but later on discovered podcasts and realized maybe this could be that formula, you know, that place where I can go have these conversations. I’m kind of already having them anyway. I always loved getting together when I was in Ireland. Go to a pub and have a pint and talk to another expat who’s living there. If you and I met and we were sitting here having a glass of wine, talking, having this exact same conversation, there’s nothing better for me. I do that for free and would do it all the time anyway. So, I said that, combined with the fact that my inbox is starting to fill up with people who are interested in this lifestyle. How do you live abroad? How do I get a visa in Spain?

All these questions were like, well, rather than me replying to them one on one, why don’t I combine these things, start a podcast, and if four people listen, including my mom, dad, and Nana, that’s cool. Whatever. I’ll learn something along the way. It’s been a lot of fun, man. I mean, I’ve met super cool people like you. I’ve had so much fun. I’ve learned a ton. It’s just been an absolute blast. Turns out that it’s become a little business, but on the other side of that the old cliche, it doesn’t feel like work when you’re doing what you love. And that truly is the case in this regard.

Matt Bowles: Yeah. 100% I feel the exact same way, man. It was the same thing for me. I, like, I would just find myself in the middle of these insane conversations’ rooftop bar in Bangkok at some spot. And I’m just, like, hearing these unbelievable travel stories and the experiences that people have had in terms of how they got into this lifestyle and what they’ve done with it. We got to record this. Like, I need to share this with other people. So, let’s just have this conversation again. Except we’ll turn the microphones on and, like, I’ll supply the wine if you come to have this conversation with me. And it’s literally how the Maverick show started as well, man. So, I love that we just get to talk with super interesting people and learn from them, and then we let our audience just listen in on the conversation that we would totally be having anyways. It would be the same conversation if we were at a bar in Spain drinking this wine, but we just happen to have the microphones on and other people get to listen in, man. So, I agree. I love it, man.

Chase Warrington: It’s so much fun. And I wondered, I don’t know if your experience has been the same, and I imagine it has. All of that stuff is so true and the real essence of why we do it. But also, it means the freaking world to me when I get an email from someone who says, hey, just want to let you know, been listening to the show for a little while. I just quit my job and I’m moving to Iceland next month. Or I’m going to teach English in the south of Chile for six months. I don’t know what I’m doing after that, but I’m going to figure it out. Thanks for the inspiration. That stuff that will power you through the worst of weeks. It’s just been really cool to have those little. That’s the cherry on top. That makes it really, really well worth it. I’m sure you’ve had the same experience 100%.

Matt Bowles: And those come in sometimes when you need them the most, at those moments where you’re like, man, I’m putting in an enormous amount of time producing this show. And are people really listening? They’re really getting value. And then you get an email like that or a message. It’s like, your podcast just changed my life. And this is what I’m doing. I’m like, yep, this is why I do it, right? And at the same time, though, I feel like we, as the podcast hosts, get to learn so much because I’m like, oh, wow, a brilliant, extraordinary, fascinating human being is willing to come and talk to me for an hour and answer any questions that I ask them. This is amazing, right? So let me use that to lead into my next question, which is of all of the people that you’ve interviewed over the years, when you think back, and you’ve had an incredible lineup of guests, because I’ve listened to a number of your episodes. I mean, really heavy hitters, high power, incredible people. What are some of the top lessons or things that you, as the host, have learned from your guests in hosting this podcast for so long?

Chase Warrington: Oh, man, that’s such a great question. I mean, I’m rifling through. People’s faces are flashing up in front of me as we speak. One of the things that’s super cliche is that idea of if you feel something that’s tugging at your heartstrings, you just have to go for it. And somebody that exemplified that for me is Goncalo Hall. Has he been on your show, by any chance?

Matt Bowles: Goncalo was literally, I don’t know, four or five episodes ago. I just interviewed him. He was in Madeira Island when we did the interview, and it was just amazing. He’s an extraordinary guy. So Maverick Show listeners definitely know Goncalo. But go ahead and tell me, what did he share on your show, and what did he share that connected with you?

Chase Warrington: I can’t wait to go back and listen to that episode, because I could listen to Goncalo talk about remote work and digital nomadism and world travel all day, and the two of you guys having that conversation must have been a lot of fun. So, I’ve got that one bookmarked. Now, what I love about Goncalo’s story is that he literally just followed his passion the whole way through whatever he wanted to do. He wasn’t sure how it was going to work out. And we were talking about, on the first time he came on the show, about how one year prior, we’re sitting there on the. In this interview, he’s having all the success in Madeira getting governments around the world trying to contract him to go set up digital nomad villages, and he’s saying how he was buying cans of tuna for, like, 70 cents because that’s all he could afford one year prior to.

But he was determined. Being a digital nomad is everything to me, and, like, we’re different in that way. Like, being a digital nomad isn’t everything to me. Like I said earlier, I’m kind of a slow mat. I kind of like being settled and just traveling a little bit from a home base, so we have different lifestyles. But I love that he followed his passion and just said that’s what I’m going to go do. And if I was going to give advice to my younger self, I would suggest to do the same. I wavered and dilly dallied around for five, six, seven years, not really following what my heart was truly wanting to do. That really stuck out to me. It’s just like so simple. But do what really aligns with what you really want to do and what really calls to you and everything else will fall into place and it always does. And I’ve had a bunch of people on the show since then who had similar stories, followed similar paths and sure they took a step or two backwards to take two or three steps forwards, but it all worked out in the end and I think that’s really rung true for me.

Matt Bowles: I love that man. That’s awesome. Big shout out to Goncalo. We’ll link up in the show notes. By the way, your interview with him as well as my interview with him for folks that haven’t yet met Goncalo or learned about what he’s up to because he’s extraordinary and is doing incredible things. So, I love that man. Let me ask you a little bit, just on the business side of the podcast. You mentioned that it has now become a business for you. Can you share a little bit about what some of your most effective leverage points have been in building and growing your podcast audience?

Chase Warrington: Yeah, sure. I think originally, I had no expectations. Like I said, I mentioned randomly my mom, dad and Nana shout out to. Nana obviously listens to podcasts. I didn’t know who was going to listen and I had no aspirations of it becoming any kind of monetized thing. It just has happened that way. It turned out that, you know, more people listened than expected and then opportunities presented themselves. And so, I think the first point is like the reason those opportunities present themselves is probably a lot has to do with just trying to be very genuine. One of the things I learned at Doist, which I love about the way we do our marketing and approach to business, especially having come from the very uber American mentality, kind of a bit more cutthroat.

We’re very business centric and finance driven, data driven at Doist, do what feels right. Present the case as it is, present the product as it is. Don’t try to sell it. Just, here’s our brand, here’s what we do, and we’re going to always stay true to that and not try to be too salesy. That’s worked well for me with the podcast too, I guess. Just be who I am, bring on cool people, let them talk, and people listen. And then using those relationships that you know will work out for you, having people like yourself on to my show will surely bring some people from your audience to come listen, and maybe a few of them will stick around.

And so being strategic about that and saying who would bring an audience with them and who’s willing to help me share this with their audience is certainly a part of it. And then I think knowing your value and not being afraid to ask for what you believe your value is, I think this is. We’re all kind of afraid to put ourselves out there and say, hey, here’s what I think my product is worth. But at some point, you have to do that. And the worst they can say is no. And so, I think having some experience, having heard no before helped develop some thick skin and say, okay, that’s fine, moving on. And that’s perfectly okay. The world keeps on spinning.

Matt Bowles: That’s awesome, man. Very good tips. Let me ask you this, Chase. When you think back about all of the travel that you have done over the years, I mean, even going all the way back to the Australia trip and the study you brought in Austria, and then all of your nomading since then, and your time in Spain, your camper van travel and everything else, how has all of this travel impacted you as a person, just in terms of personal growth versus maybe if you had done none of it and you were literally just still living in your hometown where you grew up, how do you think all this travel has impacted you?

Chase Warrington: It’s hard to even imagine, like, who I would be without that, because I thrive so much on being surrounded by people from different backgrounds and hearing different perspectives and learning about how things have done differently in different ways around the world. And so, if I think back to living in the Carolinas and growing up in one way and thinking along the lines of just, there’s a certain way to do things, maybe even more than the Carolinas, like the American mentality, the approach to work, the approach to personal finance, the approach to how you raise your kids and what vacation means and what the workday means, I mean, all these things have fundamentally changed for me. Being infused with wisdom and knowledge and other ways of thinking from around the world has Been like incredibly valuable just to shift things just a little bit to where I see things a little bit differently.

And so, I see the world through a different lens. And I remember specifically I mentioned that study abroad. I remember being in Austria and someone telling me that they didn’t care. A local there saying, we don’t really care so much about being the first or the greatest or the best because they overheard a couple of fellow Americans talking about like, well, yeah, but I mean, that’s how you stay number one in the world and that’s how you have the top economy and that’s how you do this and that. And they were just like, yeah, we just don’t really care about that.

And that was really important for me in that moment to think, oh, my first thought was, well, why would you not want to be number one? That doesn’t make sense. What’s the point in playing the game if you don’t want to win? I remember that really stuck with me, like, huh, there’s another way to play this game. You don’t always have to win and you don’t always have to be number one. There’s another way to do it. And so that’s always stuck with me. I don’t know if that makes sense at all, but for me it did.

Matt Bowles: Totally, man. So let me ask you one more question, Chase, and then we’ll wrap this up and move into the lightning round. After all, you’ve done all of this travel now and you’ve become the person that you are, why do you continue to travel the world? You continue to travel outside of Spain at least four or six months of the year or so, go to new places, see new things. At this point in your life, what does travel mean to you?

Chase Warrington: I think I just kind of have an addiction to new. When things are new, I feel more creative, I feel more enthused, I feel more excited about my day to day. I maybe have a little bit of fear of the mundane things just getting routine. And it’s weird because I do thrive on the routine. I do like having my routine. I like having my circle of friends and certain things. But when I get to a new place and just randomly, I mean little things and walk by a new building, taste a new food or learn that this type of wine is native. This area that I’m in here in France right now, they have this very specific super sweet wine which I don’t really like taste wise, but it’s very specific to this region and I’d never heard of it before, but everybody Drinks it here and I’m like, I’m totally fascinated by this. Like, this just made my whole week much more interesting. So, I think I have a little bit of a junkie for that, man. I just. I can’t get enough of it

Matt Bowles: I love it, man. What a great answer and what a great way to wrap up the main portion of this interview. And at this point, Chase, are you ready to move in to The Lightning Round?

Chase Warrington: I don’t think I am, man. I’m terrified. But let’s give it a shot. Can I top myself up here? Before we go?

Matt Bowles: Take another sip of wine, man. Fill that cup up and let’s do it.

Chase Warrington: Let’s do it, man.

Matt Bowles: What is one book that has significantly impacted you over the years you’d most recommend people check out?

Chase Warrington: I’m going to say, because of the context that we’re talking about in The Culture Map is an awesome book, especially given what we’re discussing here today.

Matt Bowles: Awesome. What is one travel hack that you use that you can recommend to people?

Chase Warrington: I got to go with my approach to getting a big dog into an Airbnb, and this is not going to apply to a lot of people, but here’s my travel hack on getting a big dog into Airbnb’s, where they clearly say, no pets allowed, by the way, which is almost all of them. I go through this really nice long spiel of how much I love their place. Our personal story. I let them know that we’re not just a couple of vagabonding backpackers, that we do have an income, that we have a place that we normally call home, that we have full time jobs, and oh, by the way, we do have this really sweet dog that sleeps at our feet every day and is 10 years old. And you can check our reviews. He won’t cause you any harm. He’s pretty much stayed in Airbnb’s his whole life. So, feel free to check those reviews. They almost all reference coda. And from there, I know almost always I’ve got like a 98% hit ratio. They almost always say, yes.

Matt Bowles: I love it. All right, Chase, if you could have dinner with any one person who’s currently alive today that you’ve never met, who would you choose? Just you and that person for an evening of dinner and conversation.

Chase Warrington: You know what, as a podcaster, I’m going to say Tim Ferriss. He’s been a huge inspiration for a huge part of my life. Actually, he retweeted one of my tweets the other day, which was like, what? Like we’re basically friends now.

Matt Bowles: Wow.

Chase Warrington: Yeah, so it was because it was about him in one of his episodes and maybe he’s got like an assistant that randomly retweeted it. But I’m going to say, Tim Ferriss, man, the Four-Hour Work Week was a book that changed my life. I can literally say it changed my life and the way I approach work. And I modeled a lot of About Abroad after the way he does things. So yeah, that would be awesome to meet Tim.

Matt Bowles: I love it, man. I agree. The book changed my life as well. And similarly, in terms of the influence with the podcast here, man. So that’s an awesome answer. All right, Chase, if you could go back in time, knowing everything that you know now and give one piece of advice to your 18-year-old self, what would you say to 18-year-old Chase?

Chase Warrington: Oh, I would love to have this conversation with 18-year-old Chase. He really wanted to go travel and he thought he only had four years to do it during college. He hadn’t been able to do it for the first 18. He really wanted to go see the world and he said, I got to figure this out in four years, so I’m going to do all the bucket list items. And I would have told him that, no, man, you’ve got your whole life to do that. Remote work’s going to become a thing. You haven’t heard of it yet, but it’s called remote work. And you’re going to be able to live in different places. So go slow, enjoy the wine in France and don’t need to skip straight over to Spain. And after two days in Paris, go slow, enjoy it all, enjoy the ride, and prepare for this to be a marathon, not a sprint. That would have been awesome advice. Thanks a lot, Chase.

Matt Bowles: That is awesome advice, man. I love that. All right, Chase, of all the places that you have now traveled in the world, what are your top three favorite travel destinations you would most recommend? Other people should definitely check out.

Chase Warrington: I’m a big Europe person. A lot of my travel has been in Europe. I’m fascinated by so many different things in Europe, so it’d be very easy for me to go 1, 2, 3, down the list in Europe. And I’m also a sort of get off the beaten path kind of person. Like, I like the cities, you know, I like Paris and Berlin and London and Buenos Aires and stuff. But I really like finding that like second or third tier of places. One of the first ones that comes to mind is the south of Chile; Pucón. In particular is a really cool place that I think a lot of people don’t necessarily get to en route to Patagonia. This is a beautiful volcano, rich mountain, rich lake, part of the country in Chile that I really love. So that’s one place that comes to mind.

Another one I mentioned earlier is the Pyrenees. Just in general, very vaguely speaking, the Pyrenees are a place that I love because it does feel like you’re kind of getting off the beaten path a little bit. I love the Alps, for instance, are freaking awesome. You have these beautiful chalets and awesome ski towns and all that. You go to the Pyrenees and you have a lot of this too. And there’s just like no tourists and it’s just really, really amazing. That’s a place that’s really called to me. And number three, I really thoroughly enjoyed and I was surprised by this, but I really thoroughly enjoyed Sicily as a specific spot within Italy. I love going to Italy in general, but Sicily in particular had a lot to offer. Being an island that also has like snowcapped mountains and really unique history and architecture. Fusion of cultures from a bunch of different places. That’s a place that maybe, you know, when you first think of going to Italy, you’re going to do Rome and Cinque Terre and Florence and stuff like this. But Sicily is worth a visit as well.

Matt Bowles: One hundred percent man, I love that answer. I lived in Sicily for a month.

Chase Warrington: Oh, sweet.

Matt Bowles: 2016. And I was based in Ortigia, the old city in Siracusa, which it was just enchanting. I mean it was just magical. And I traveled around, right? Like I went to Palermo and I went out to the Aeolian Islands and I went to Eddie on the, on the west coast and I traveled around a bit. But man, Ortigia in Siracusa won my heart, man. It was just absolutely incredible. Do you have any specific recommendations for Sicily for what kind of you connected with when you were there?

Chase Warrington: Yeah, sure. So, all those places you went to are super high on my bucket list. Or places where I’ve also just had a connection with. We went to a place called Cefalù, which is on the north side of the island. And, and just a cool little Mediterranean town with just enough going on where it’s like fun and lively, a couple of different beaches and coves, beautiful green water, awesome Italian food, really cheap. Like, like when you’re talking about Italy, you’re just. It can come with some, a price tag when you’re traveling on a budget. And we felt like we were living really well there. I mean, Cefalù was really awesome.

Matt Bowles: Incredible. Yeah. And it’s so much less expensive than northern Italy, and there’s less tourists there. You know, I felt it was more, like, culturally authentic. I mean, just an incredible place. I’ve been recommending it to everyone, and I had one of the most interesting experiences there, too. I booked a train from Siracusa, right, in Sicily, to Salerno, up by the Amalfi coast, right? And you can just book a train from here to there. And then after I booked the train, I’m like, okay, so I’m on an island, and the train leaves from the island, and it gets off on the mainland. Wonder how this is going to work. Do you know how it works, Chase?

Chase Warrington: I know. I’m super curious.

Matt Bowles: Yeah. Because I’ll tell you this. There’s no bridge and there’s no tunnel. So how does a train get from Sicily to mainland Italy? I’m wondering, as I’m sitting on the train, chugging along the tracks and Sicily, I’m wondering this, right? And I’m like, this will be interesting. Is there a bridge? Is there a tunnel? Then you get to coming up on the water. Nope, there’s no bridge and there’s no tunnel. So, what happens is there’s a ferry boat, and the train pulls up onto the boat. The cars decouple off the train, all of them onto the ferry boat. The boat goes across the water, and then the cars recouple on the other side of the mainland, and the train continues on the track. You literally do not have to get out of your train car if you don’t want to. You can stay in your seat on the train the whole time, and a ferry boat will take you across the water. It’s the most. Most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen.

Chase Warrington: That’s insane. How long is the ferry boat ride?

Matt Bowles: As it wasn’t that long. You can get out of your train car, and then you can just go stand out on the ferry boat, see the water. And it was actually a very cool experience. You get, like, great pictures and stuff like that. And then you hustle back and get back onto your train car before you arrive because they’re going to recouple the train cars, and then you continue your way up. I was on my way to Salerno to go up to the Amalfi coast, which was also totally insane, because Italy is just magical. And I try to go as many times as I can. I try to get through there probably once a year and just go to a different part of Italy because it’s so magical. But that was super special.

And I’ve been recommending Sicily to everyone because in part two, I think with regard to what you were describing about, like, your appreciation for Spain and all of the different cultures that comprise what is now Spain, right in Sicily, it’s just insane how much history is there in terms of Greek history and Arabic history and all of these different types of cultures that had significant influence and impact in Sicily over the many, many years. And so, you go there, and it’s just this incredibly, culturally fascinating, super unique part of Italy that’s really, really different from. From other places, man. So, yeah, I tell everybody they should go to Sicily, so I love that recommendation, man. All right, Chase, last question. What are your top three bucket list destinations? These are places you’ve never been highest on your list, you’d most love to see. See.

Chase Warrington: So, I was supposed to go to Egypt this past year, and it got canceled due to my wife tested positive for Covid just a few days before we were supposed to go. So, we weren’t able to travel. We had a big Egypt trip, Nile cruise and Pyramid tours and all of that. So that’s still lingering pretty hard. It was actually the last place on my original bucket list that I wrote when I was 18 that needed to be checked off. And so, I was a little bit bummed about that. So that sits at number one. I’ve also not been to Southeast Asia at all. So, kind of collectively, like, all of Southeast Asia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia. I really would love to get down to Indonesia, and there’s a whole region there that I’ve not yet touched.

And I could probably list those as, like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Because I was supposed to go there the year that Covid hit. Had tickets booked, and Covid hit, and so that was canceled. So Covid’s knocked out two of them. And then the other one is that I’m really, really eager to go to is Turkey, specifically Istanbul and Cappadocia. But I want to see a lot of that whole country and had a trip planned there as well that was canceled due to something out of our control. So, I guess maybe the thing that unites all those places is that they were all canceled beyond my control. And so now they’re just nagging at me. I have to go see them.

Matt Bowles: I love that, man. Well, I lived in Cairo for about a year.

Chase Warrington: Did you really? We got to talk about that, on About Abroad, because I’ve been wanting to get someone to tell me about Light, like, what it’s like to live there. That’s Kind of the kind of thing we talk about a lot on About Abroad specifically. It’s like people that really like ingrain themselves in places and what it’s like living there. And that would be a fascinating place to dive into.

Matt Bowles: Yeah, man. I mean, Egypt was actually my longest to stay of any place that I’ve been because I started nomading in 2013. I’ve been to like 66 countries since then, but Egypt was my longest stay. I’ve been to Egypt like three times total, but my longest stay there was about nine months or so consecutively. And then I’ve been there like three times, so probably a total of about a year based in Cairo. But yeah, man, it’s a super special and incredible place. And then the other picks are amazing too, obviously. Southeast Asia is incredible and Istanbul is one of my favorite cities in the world. So great, great picks, man.

Chase Warrington: It seems so cool and vibrant. It just seems like a place I got to like, go. Like I just need to go immerse myself there. I mean, both of them. But in particular, in that case, Istanbul as a city just really calls to me. Something you and I seem to have in common, that we like these like, fusion of cultures. Like we’re talking about that with Sicily. That was one of the things that resonated with both of us is like you have Greek and Roman and African and like all these different influences coming together in one place. After you travel a lot, I think you start looking for those things that really click with you and really set a place apart. And that mixture, that fusion is something that really calls to me.

Matt Bowles: And dude, the airport alone in Istanbul, it’s literally my number one favorite airport in the world.

Chase Warrington: Really?

Matt Bowles: Why? Even when I’m not going to Turkey, I will intentionally schedule extended layovers in the airport in Istanbul for like eight, nine hours on purpose. And I will just work from the Turkish Airways lounge in Istanbul. It is just incredible. The number of different cultures that come through that airport in terms of where that hub specifically is located in the world is like unbelievable. You’re walking through the airport and I can remember I saw this, this incredible line of people to get on this plane one time and they were just dressed in the most remarkably beautiful cultural garb. All of them were just having these like banging colors, like incredible cultural garb. And I was like, where is this flight going? I walked up to look at the destination and said Ashgabat. And at the time I didn’t know where that city was. And then I put it into Google and it’s the Capital of the Turkmenistan.

And so, I’m like, wow. So, it’s just this incredible hub of an airport that transports people to all of these different destinations in all these incredible places. And so, you have one of the most extraordinary places of cultural fusion in the world that I have ever seen in the airport in Istanbul. So, for me, just getting off the plane in that airport and just spending time with wandering around in that airport and just immersing myself in it alone, even if I don’t go outside of the airport is just one of my favorite experiences. So, I’ll intentionally schedule 8, 9, 10-hour layovers in the airport just on purpose and work from there the whole day.

Chase Warrington: I’m so glad you told me that I’m going to do the same because I actually they’re out of Valencia. A lot of connecting flights around the world go. In fact, it’s normally cheaper for me to connect in Istanbul, have a long layover there and then fly back to the US which is totally wrong direction. So, I don’t do it because of the logistics. But now that I know that I may just do that, tons of flights connect there.

Matt Bowles: I give you an incredible hack too. There is actually at the Istanbul airport and this is the case with a handful of airports in the world, but Istanbul is one of them. There is actually a hotel inside security at the Istanbul airport. So, if you had for example an overnight layover in Istanbul, right as part of like your flight connection, like oh, I have an 11 1/2-hour layover, I get out at 10 at night, I don’t leave until 9:30 in the morning. There is a hotel inside security. So, you get off of your flight, you check into your hotel without going outside security. You don’t need a VC; you don’t need to go outside. You sleep the whole night; you check out in the morning and you’re literally just walk to your gate in the morning. So, I just recently had an overnight stuff stay in Istanbul. I’m like, this is incredible. I’m totally staying at the airport hotel. I get to hang out at the airport until late night. And this is the type of airport with like all the restaurants are open till 2:30 in the morning, 3 in the morning or some of them all night. So, it like never sleeps. It’s like one of those kinds of airports and you get it. I’m like, oh great. I’m getting into Istanbul airport at like 11pm and then I get to stay over inside security the hotel and I walk out in the morning and it’s just like bustling 24/7. It’s a magical airport, bro. I highly recommend it.

Chase Warrington: I have to experience that. That just moved its way onto the bucket list. Not Istanbul. The airport in Istanbul.

Matt Bowles: The airport? Yeah, the airport. That’s where you’ll find, like, the most diverse concentration of human beings inside the airport at one moment. It’s amazing, man. It’s magical.

Chase Warrington: That’s incredible. That was worth the price of admission right there. I’m. I’m happy that I showed up for this entire conversation, but that’s super valuable to me. I’m actually going to do that and then I’m going to tell you all about it.

Matt Bowles: Amazing, brother. I love it, man. Well, I’m excited for this conversation to continue on your podcast About Abroad. And at this point, I want you to let people know, first of all, how they can find you, follow you on social media, learn about what you’re up to, and especially how they can listen to your amazing podcast that I’m a huge fan of. How can folks check out About Abroad, too?

Chase Warrington: Oh, man, I appreciate it so much. And yeah, we will. We’re going to continue this conversation. I can’t wait to flip the mic around and start asking you some questions because there’s a lot that I want to dig into. So, people listening here that want to learn a little bit more about you will have that chance in the not too far off future. You can learn more about the podcast at aboutabroad.com you can find it wherever you get podcasts, Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts. I think literally everywhere. At least I’m trying to be everywhere. And if you’re interested in following along, me personally, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn when I’m talking about remote work stuff. Twitter; dcwarrington, Instagram; dcwarrington. More for, like, travel and personal stuff there. If you really want to get into some more of the remote stuff that we talked about, I really recommend checking out the Doist blog. Right now, it’s blog.doist.com and you can find a whole remote work section, a whole productivity section. It’s very geared towards the remote worker, the remote team. Lots of good info there. So highly recommend that if you. That part of the conversation resonated with you, awesome.

Matt Bowles: We’re going to link up everything that we have discussed here in the show notes so folks can just go to one place at themaverickshow.com there we’re going to have all your social media handles, the link to the Doist blog, the link to your podcast, and everything. Else we have discussed on this show. So just go to the show notes for this episode. Chase this was amazing brother. I’m such a huge fan of what you’re doing, what you’re up to, what you’re all about brother. Thank you for coming on show the show man.

Chase Warrington: I appreciate it. Likewise. We started this show with some love for each other’s show and work and that reigns true through an hour and a half of chit-chatting man. I really enjoyed it. Super fun. Thank you for inviting me and all that you’re doing and spreading the word and this was a blast man. Thank you so much.

Matt Bowles: Means a lot to me brother. Thank you and good night, everybody