Matt Bowles: My guest today is Travis Sherry. He is the host of the Extra Pack of Peanuts podcast, one of the world’s largest travel podcasts with over 6 million downloads. And he is the co-founder of Location Indie, an online community, which helps people leave the grind of the nine to five behind and create a lifestyle of freedom along with his wife, Heather. He co-founded the Haven Hospitality Group, which specializes in boutique short-term rentals. And has earned recognition from Conde Nast and Airbnb for having some of the top beach properties in the U.S. Originally from Philadelphia, Travis is an avid world traveler and has now run his business from over 40 countries.

Travis, welcome to the show.

Travis Sherry: Thank you, Matt.

Matt Bowles: I’m super excited to have you here, but let’s just start off by setting the scene and talking about where we are recording this from today. And fortunately, we are not in person. If we were, surely, we would be sharing a bottle of wine and having this conversation in different circumstances. But today I am on the West coast of Africa. I am in Luanda, Angola. And where are you, my friend?

Travis Sherry: I am sitting in my home office in Wilmington, North Carolina. But I am heading to Bulgaria in a few days to go skiing. And that’ll be the first time I’ve been in Bulgaria. So, I am excited to check off another country and really explore another region that I’ve only briefly touched before when I went to the Republic of Georgia. So, I’m pumped for that as much as the actual skiing and stuff that’s happening. Just going somewhere new and experiencing new stuff. That’s what travel’s all about. The skiing is like the cherry on top.

Matt Bowles: Well, let’s talk a little bit about Philadelphia. I want to hear a little bit about your backstory, just sort of contextualizing your journey. And I have to say, man, I am a big fan of Philadelphia. I think it is one of the most underrated cities in the United States. It’s one of the most populated cities, but I don’t feel that it gets to the billing of a lot of other cities. But then you go there and you’re just like, wow, like this is really a spectacular city.

It is also an unbelievable sports town. I know you’re a huge sports fan as well.

Travis Sherry: I am.

Matt Bowles: So, it’s super fun from that perspective, but give us a little sense of what was it like for you growing up in the Philadelphia area? How did you come up? And then when you think all the way back, how did your early interest in world travel start to develop?

Travis Sherry: Yeah, well, I love the love that you gave to Philly because I’m biased. I grew up in that area, but I would agree that it’s completely underrated. I think it’s starting to get it’s due in certain ways. Obviously, I’m very in tune when Philly wins any type of award or is on any list. You know, I’m like, yes, but I’m with you. It’s super underrated. I mean, just drive up 95 as soon as you’re driving up 95, it says Washington, DC, you pass Washington, DC, and it says New York city. I’m like, excuse me. You know that the fifth biggest city, maybe six, depending on Phoenix is in between, and you’re not even putting it on a sign on 95, come on guys.

So totally underrated. As far as growing up there, I grew up in the suburbs, typical suburban kid upbringing, really had a great childhood, played a lot of sports. I love high school. That’s what led me to be a high school teacher, which was my profession before entering entrepreneurship. Yeah. Through college, I didn’t study abroad. I mean, I traveled a little bit to Europe. I went to London, I went to Paris, and I liked it, but not enough to think it was going to take a hold of my life and be the thing that was one of the defining characteristics of my life until really, I went.

And did a master’s degree in Ithaca, New York. And for whatever reason, during that year, I taught high school history for a couple of years. And during that year, I said to my professor, I want to go abroad to do this internship that we have to do. And she’s like, you’re in sports management. Go to the NBA, go to the NFL. The epicenter of sports is here in the U.S. if you want to be in these leagues, like, why would you want to go abroad? I don’t know. I just never did.

Something clicked in my mind that I was going to go abroad. So, I went to Switzerland to work for the international baseball federation. Think FIFA for baseball sounds cool, but baseball is not an international sport. So, the international baseball federation was way worse than working for MLB as far as prestige or anything. And I went there for a couple of months, but at that point I knew I wanted to work Internationally. And I thought I wanted to work in international sports because I got bit with the bug during that trip, because that was the first time I lived abroad. And it was only a four-month stint, but living in Lausanne, Switzerland, which is just up the lake from Geneva and living a day-to-day life somewhere different was different than traveling.

I had my little grocery store that I went to and got my baguettes. And we had this kind of villa on a vineyard that we lived in across from the lake, and I go swimming in the lake every day, and so that’s what got me thinking, okay, you don’t just want a vacation, you want to live abroad. And at that point, I didn’t know I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I just wanted to get a job that allowed me to live abroad. And I thought that’d be in sports. It ended up not being in sports, but that was the first real big turn of the knife of like, oh, you’re addicted. And I remember standing. In the louder Brunon Valley in the Swiss Alps outside Interlochen under a hotel that had all these beautiful plants hanging over the balconies. You guys have probably seen them. You’re in a Swiss mountain town and I just remember looking up at the mountains and thinking I can’t live in one place full time If I didn’t know this existed and now, I’m experiencing this how many more times can I?

Can this happen in my life where I’m just putting in a spot where I think, oh my gosh, I’m seeing this with my own eyes. The craziest story about this Matt is I know the hotel I was standing under, I was standing there thinking this is it. It was like this almost come to Jesus’ moment. No joke. Five years later, I’m scrolling through Facebook. A friend of mine, an Irish guy says, we just bought a hotel in the Lauterbrunnen Valley in Switzerland.

He bought the hotel that kicked off the travel bug for you. I was like, Stephen, you’re seriously about that. I told him a story. He’s like, I’ve got goosebumps, man. This is the best thing. Best place on earth. I can’t believe you were standing under my balcony. So, uh, I haven’t paid him a visit cause that’s right when COVID happened. So, I owe Steven and that hotel in the Lauterbrunnen and Valley a visit, but you can’t script that stuff that a friend of mine who I met in Ireland bought a hotel and it was the hotel that really struck a chord with me.

Matt Bowles: That is amazing, man. Well, I, also want to hear the story about how you met your wife, Heather, because you guys have been traveling together the whole ride, basically. So, tell us a little bit about how that decision was made because. I have traveled with relationship partners, and I’ve also traveled solo and it’s very different and there’s a lot of different types of considerations and stuff like that. So, I am curious for you, because I know that relationship got cemented early on in your travels, so give us a little bit of that context.

Travis Sherry: It’s interesting because I have very little solo travel experience. We met in college. We went to a small school outside of Philadelphia for college. We were both history majors, secondary ed and history majors. The school had like 2000 kids. So, every class we were basically in the same class. Once you got into your track, we were in the same dorm. We had both transferred in.

So, we just became friends. And then at that point, we were 20 years old. And so, I didn’t have much travel experience, neither did she. So, our travel life is really predominantly together. And what is interesting is she wasn’t brought up traveling a ton either. You know, she grew up in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

So, she’d go up New England for winters or for vacation. I’d like to go to the Jersey shore in Florida. So very typical stuff. And I think our love of travel grew together. She wasn’t pulling me along. I wasn’t pulling her along. When I went to Switzerland, we had traveled a little bit together. We went and saw her friend in England and really had a good time then and all that. When I went to Switzerland, I stayed there for four months. She came for two of those weeks because she was working. And when I came home from Switzerland, I just said to her, that was an absolutely incredible experience. I want to do whatever it is for us to live abroad again. I don’t care about what the job is.

I don’t care about responsibilities or like starting our careers. I just really want to live abroad. Do you want to live abroad? And she was like, yeah, I’m jealous that you got to have that experience. I want to do it too. And that led us to. The easiest thing for us to do, we’re going to teach English abroad because we’re both teachers. We had backgrounds. We knew that that would be a simple thing to break into. And so, we were looking Czech Republic, and we were like, oh, we’re going to do it in Spain or Italy, somewhere that we thought we wanted to go. And we did want to go. And then we look at the numbers, we’ll pay you a thousand dollars a month. I don’t know if that’s going to cut it.

So, we ended up teaching English in Japan for two years. My buddy had gone through the JET program, which is a good program through the Japanese government. So, her and I moved to Japan and taught English in Japan for two years. We moved there two weeks after getting married and people say, oh my gosh, you just got married and you’re going to take on this challenge.

And I was like, actually, I think it was easier because when we were there together, we had friends who were there who were single and it could be difficult. You’re dropped into a foreign culture; maybe other expats aren’t around you. We had each other to lean on. Then we decided together to stay there for the second year. And then after that, our second year there, we basically were like, what are we going to do? Can we lead a regular life? Can we go back to the U.S. and kind of start traditional life? Or is that not going to happen? And we both understood that it was not going to happen.

And so, then we had to decide what that looked like, but it was cool that we both were making these decisions together and neither person was, ahead of the other, oh my gosh, I’ve traveled so much. You have to do is like no We were experienced a lot of it at the same level and at the same pace

Matt Bowles: What were your reflections on your time in Japan I mean that is about as culturally different from Switzerland as you can get and I know a lot of People that teach in Japan, they don’t put you in Tokyo.

They put you in a pretty remote area to teach. So, I’m curious where in Japan you were. And then when you think back on those two years, what was the impact on you and Heather of those two years?

Travis Sherry: The two similarities between Japan and Switzerland, awesome trains that run on time and very expensive. Other than that, you got nothing.

When we went to Japan, I will tell you, I knew almost nothing about Asia. We had never been there. We weren’t around Asian culture growing up, living on the East coast. It’s way less predominant than on the West coast. When we got to Japan, we then met people from the West coast, grew up in California, Vancouver, things like that. We were like, cool. Oh yeah, we learned Japanese in high school. I was like, what? It was like French, German, Spanish from the East coast.

And so, it was just that their upbringing. Was so much more Asian influence than ours. And so that was really unique for us. We had no desire to go to Japan necessarily. What we wanted to do was go somewhere that would be a brand-new experience. And Japan, let me tell you was that. And so, when I reflect on it, it was an absolutely incredible experience. It truly solidified our desire to live life on our own terms. When we were there, we both had jobs teaching. So, we went to schools, and we taught regular schedule, like 7:30 to 3:30. We had a regular jobs, but everything else was so new and unique. It didn’t matter. Like we certainly weren’t bored. Yeah. I can just walk outside any day and take a different road and not speaking language. Well, it would be an experience.

And we were in a bit of a suburb. We were in an area called Hamamatsu. So basically dead in between Tokyo and Osaka. On the shinkansen line, we were in a really good spot because we were in a suburb, still could get new city. The school I taught was right on the border of Inaka, which, which means the rural area. So, my school was rural, which was nice to see, but I didn’t live there. And then my buddy who lived north of that, Was the one who was like, I’m 45 minutes from any other foreigner having that type of experience. So much so that he then came live with us and commuted up.

But we had a great experience. We met incredible people. We knew we would meet incredible people. That was another reason for going. We’re like anyone who comes and does this experience, we’re going to be lifelong friends. And they’re going to come from all over the world. And sure enough, other teachers came from native English-speaking countries. So, we had friends from Singapore and Australia, New Zealand and England and South Africa and Canada, obviously in the U.S.

So those were the two biggest things it did for our life was one. It really showed us that we wanted to. Be able to go abroad as much as we wanted to, but we did not want to be signed into a contract for two years again. And our Japanese one was one year, but we realized we wanted to travel and get to have these experiences, but we didn’t want to do it working for another company, which, uh oh, that meant entrepreneurship. Uh oh, I don’t know how to be an entrepreneur, but we knew we had to figure it out. The reason I knew that was the case was that I got a job offer at the international school of Rio de Janeiro.

Because at that point I was like, well, maybe I’ll just be an international teacher. And every two years I’ll bump around in new places. They get paid well. We’re going to see parts of the world. I’m good at teaching. And my buddy was teaching at the international school of Rio. I got an offer to be the 10th grade history teacher at the international school of Rio. They were going to give us a two-bedroom apartment on Ipanema beach. We had Brazilian holidays and U.S. holidays off. I was getting paid like 50, 55 K untaxed, like basically the best situation you could have to be an international teacher.

And I was going to fall into that with my first gig international other than this one in Japan. So, I was like, oh, this is awesome. And I just remember sitting, talking to Heather and we were both like, we got to sign a two-year contract, and we just didn’t want to commit to two years in Brazil after doing two years in Japan. And at that point, it was like, oh boy, if teaching is your background and you’ve now gotten the best possible teaching job, probably that you could have for the lifestyle you want to lead. And that’s not good enough because it still doesn’t give you the freedom of time, the location freedom that you want. Now you better figure it out.

And the second big thing it taught, it really gave us, was friends around the world that we could then go and visit. And that would also then travel to us. And so, we did that 2010 to 2012 in Japan. And out of our core group of 12 friends, we have since seen every single one of them in probably seven, eight different countries around the world. And they traveled to us. We traveled to them.

So, giving us that friend group that was now much more international and more people are seeking out. This unconventional lifestyle than the people we had grown up with. That was big too, because we had a support system. Now people who didn’t think we were crazy all the time.

Matt Bowles: Yeah, it’s such an important distinction between being an expat that finds a way to live in another country, which is a cool cultural experience, but then you have a geographically restrictive situation where you’re working for somebody else. And you also have to be there to physically be present for the job that you’re doing versus this concept of location independence, where you can travel at will, live wherever you want for as long as you want and move around at your cadence of choice. And so, I think that is a really important distinction to uncover. And so, once you realize that and you want to just strive for that, talk a little bit about your entrepreneurial transition. How did that go?

Travis Sherry: Basically, when we were leaving Japan. We knew we were leaving August 2012, and I got this job offer at the international school of Rio at the end of 2011 and I had to make a decision and I remember turning it down and then saying, well, what the heck are we going to do? And I had never done anything entrepreneurial before. I had thought about entrepreneurial stuff. I had read the four-hour work week.

And so that had changed my mindset to what was possible, but I had never acted on it. And if I hadn’t been reading blogs like Chris Guillebeau’s blog, which a lot of people aren’t familiar with, he’s written a bunch of books since, and if I hadn’t read The 4-Hour Workweek and some of those other ones that kind of came about in 2010, 2011, 2012, that was like teaching this new way of living.

Location dependence. And it was in the beginning stages. I mean, people had done it, but it was like the beginning of stage, at least of my awareness of it being on the internet and people talking about their experiences. So, if I hadn’t been reading that, I don’t know if I would have been as in tune, but luckily I’d been reading stuff and I thought, okay, well, I’m going to give it a go.

So, January 1st, 2012, I started a site called Extra Pack of Peanuts. And it was about how to leverage frequent fire miles, hotel points, credit card points to get free travel because I had been doing it when we lived in Japan. I don’t know how I’m going to make money on this, but I would have paid someone to teach me because it’s now worth 10, 20, 50, a hundred thousand dollars to me because I’ve got all this free travel. So surely if I can help someone who doesn’t understand and I can show them the value that it’ll bring them, hey, you would pay a thousand bucks for his fight, but you’re getting it for 90 bucks. Maybe in between that Delta in between, I could siphon off.

And so, I started the site, and didn’t know how I was going to monetize. It didn’t know anything about online business, had never taken a business class and never taken entrepreneur class, had no tech skills. So, I was starting fresh, fresh, fresh, and I started the site and basically said, by the time you leave in August 2012, if you can be making 3, 000 a month from this, then that’s what you would kind of make if you went home and just took this kind of entry level job.

So that was my goal started doing stuff with affiliates and figuring I could make money through affiliates and started trading time for money by basically being a travel agent for people who had frequent fire miles and wanted to book tickets and didn’t want to deal with it.

We want to go to Italy. And then we want to go to Spain and then we want to come back to the U.S., and we’ve got these models. And I was helping them book their tickets. It was very time-consuming but still making me some money. Was I making 3, 000 Matt by August 2012? Uh, I was, we’re fudging numbers a little bit, but I was getting close enough that I felt comfortable.

So, I came home to the U.S. and basically said, I don’t know what we’re going to do next. I don’t know where we’re going to go next, but I’m going to give this a full-time shot. And so, I wrote an eBook. Everyone’s writing eBooks. I spent two months writing eBook, assumed it would sell. If you write it, they will come.

Not so much knew nothing about marketing. I just started building up that business. To a point where I was then one year up to 7, 000 a month. And most of my income was coming from credit card affiliates. I would recommend credit cards that were good for people. They would get them. I would get a commission. I would teach them how to use those points. So, it was really a win, win, win until the credit card company said, hey, we don’t want you promoting those cards. You want you promoting these cards? And I was like, well, those cards are crap. I’m not going to promote them. And like, well, no, we want you to. And I said, no again.

And they said, okay, this is my 30th birthday, January 3rd, 2013. On my birthday, they said, well, we’re just going to turn off your links. And for anyone who doesn’t understand that, basically, if you click a link on my site, and you open up a credit card, I would get a commission. They just turned it off. So now you’d click on that link, it would take you to that card, but I would earn no commission. They just cut me out. So basically 7, 000 to zero with one person making one decision. It’s my 30th birthday. We’re supposed to have a party. I told my wife, cancel the party. I don’t want to see anyone. I went out for wings. Well, not by myself. Cause Heather wouldn’t let me, she’s like, I’m at least coming with you.

I was like, I don’t want to be around anyone. I went out for all you can eat wings with her on my 30th birthday and was just depressed because I thought I had done everything right. And I had stuck to my moral high ground and then had gotten put down to zero. So that was the down moment, but I just had to figure out a way to build it back up.

And so slowly over time, I figured out ways that I could be in control of my financial situation. Okay. You build your own course. Now I can charge whatever I want. No one’s going to shut me down, do my own consulting. Build our own community to help people become location independent, run our own events where we control the ticket price, basically saying, I’m going to be in charge of all the products that I build now, and it was a long, slow road.

And I learned a lot of lessons, but that was our entrepreneurial journey in a nutshell, like took a big hit and I had to decide, am I going to keep going with this? You’re 30, you’re living at your parents’ house. That was not the plan when you came home from Japan, but now you have no money. So, we lived with my parents for a year and a half, married at 30. Luckily, Heather was super supportive. We still continue to travel, but I needed about another year and a half to start building our business back up to a level that was even making me like a sustainable amount of income.

Matt Bowles: I love that story, man. And I especially love the 30-year-old transition because that’s exactly the same as what happened in my life. I was working in an office job in the United States up until the age of 30, when I unexpectedly got fired one day, when I walked into work at the age of 30 and said, well, what am I going to do now? And I made a decision on that day. You know what? I’m not going to apply for another job to work for anybody else.

I’m going to figure out how to start my own business. There’s only one problem. I have no idea how to start a business. So, I drove to the bookstore, started reading books on how to start a business and just figured it out from scratch at age 30, how to slowly start figuring out how to build a location, independent business.

I was actually quite fortunate because that was 2007. And that was the year that The 4-Hour Workweek came out. So, one of those books that I read when I went to the bookstore looking for information on how to start a business happened to be The 4-Hour Workweek. And I was like, that’s what I’m doing.

And so, then I just went from there. But I think this concept of starting from scratch. At age 30 and just building something entirely new is completely normal. I did it. You did it. A lot of other people do it. And I think that’s really important because this whole concept of being able to reinvent ourselves and being able to pivot and having everything collapse and then being able to rebuild it all back up, I think is a really, really, really important thing.

So, let’s talk about some of the details now, as you look back on that process of building everything that you have built now. What were some of the biggest lessons that you would maybe give people if they’re trying to build some of these same things, some of the biggest takeaways from the types of courses. And I know you’ve done the paradise pack, and you’ve sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of information products in a single year. Can you talk about what some of those success breakthrough leverage points and lessons that sort of came out of that experience would be for people that want to try to do that for themselves.

Travis Sherry: Yeah,  for sure. When we do challenges and when I’m teaching, I actually write out a graph and I show my journey basically on a timeline. When I was with my parents after that crash, I call the dark ages. I was very far from the triangle of freedom. And so, when we talk about the triangle of freedom, it’s a term that I coined.

It means location, freedom, time, freedom, and financial freedom. When I was on my parents’ couch, not knowing what I was going to do. I was very far from that triangle of freedom, and I was in the dark ages. And every pivot point that made me accelerate my growth happened because of two things. One, people around me pushing me and supporting me when I wasn’t sure that I was able to do it. And two, I’m very frugal by nature, spending money on myself and investing in myself.

And so, I’ll give you an example. The thing that pulled me out of the dark ages was I went to the World Domination Summit, a conference that was run by Chris Guillebeau. And it was the third year he was doing it, the first two I’d been in Japan. But I told you I’d been reading his books; I’d been reading his website. It was like, man, this guy gets it. Like the way that he’s talking about leading an unconventional life in a conventional world that speaks to me. And so, we came home, and I’ve been talking about going to this conference, right? For two years. Cause we have been in Japan. We couldn’t go like, well, I’m going the third year. Well, unfortunately my business went from 7, 000 a month to zero and I had no money. And I remember sitting there looking to buy a ticket at the dining room table of the house that I grew up in. And I was like, Heather, I can’t do this.

This ticket is 650 bucks. Plus, we got to fly out there. Yes. We knew how to use miles to get out there cheap, but we’re going to have to stay out there. Yeah. We can stay at a hostel, but all told it was going to cost us probably two grand. And I was like, I’m making probably $150 a month right now, working 60 or 70 hours a week, trying to build this business.

There’s no way we can afford two grand. And she just said. If you don’t book that ticket, then never talk to me about this conference again. I don’t want to hear it. I was like, okay. So, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to not talk about it again because this was my guy, this was my tribe. Even though I’d never been there.

It was like, I got to get here. She held my feet to the fire. She’s like, we’ll figure it out. Book the ticket. I’m not going to go to the conference. I don’t even need a conference ticket. I’ll come out with you. I’ll support you. So, I booked a ticket. I went to that conference. At that conference I met Jason Moore, who we went on to, co-found Location Indie the Paradise Pack, Camp Indie. 95 percent of my entrepreneurial circle now I met at that conference or is one person removed.

I went from knowing not a single person who was trying to lead this lifestyle, never having met a single person in person who was trying to be. Nomadic, location independent, that word wasn’t even really around, but like, we’re trying to be location independent and build a business.

I had not met a single person in real life who had done that. I had just started my podcast; I’d interviewed a few people. Never met a single person in person. Went there, and all of a sudden had 15 to 20 people that I could call. In that moment and do it. Jason Moore, as I mentioned, we went on to probably do over a million dollars’ worth of revenue since our partnership started another guy named Jacob So cool. Who, when I came back, he said to me, do not record another podcast. Do not write another blog post until you figure out a way to make money. Cause you’re telling me that you’re making $150 a month and you’re doing 60 hours of work. So, stop doing what you’re doing and figure out how to make money.

Simple advice, Matt, but I needed to hear it because at that point, my head was like creating more content, building an audience, this and that. I wasn’t an online businessperson. I hadn’t thought about it in the right way. And he said, figure out a way to make money. And I had had the idea for my own course in my head for a year since I had started this blog.

And I went back. I built my first frequent fire bootcamp in two days. The day I landed after that conference and sold 1, 500 worth of course like that in the first seven days and was like, okay, well this is the start of something. Was it making me rich? No. Was it an overnight success story? Of course not. But 1, 500 to me then in seven days was way more than I was making.

And so those relationships that I built then moved me to the next pivot points that happened. And so, I can trace every single point along that journey. That was the first one that got me out of the dark ages. The second one was Jason and I launching our paradise pack. So, a year after that, after we had met, we decided to launch a product and we had to spend three grand on building a website. And I was like, no way, man, we can cobble together. And he was like, no, if we’re going to do this, we’ve got to spend it. We got to do it right. And with his prodding, just like Heather, my wife’s prodding before we spent the money. We built a website and that was the first time that I had breathing room as an entrepreneur, because we each made probably like 15 to 20 grand.

And I was like, whoa, now I’m not living month to month as an entrepreneur. Now I have something in the bank, and I’ve seen the power of spending some money, doing it the right way. And so, there’s two or three more pivot points along the journey. But it all came down to being around people who support you and having that network, whether it be spouse, whether it be other business people, other business partners, and to spending money that I was afraid to spend and that lighting a fire under my butt to then make that money back times 10.

Matt Bowles: Well, first of all, big shout out to Jason Moore. He has been on the Maverick Show. So, Maverick Show listeners know Jason. Can you talk about that paradise pack and what it was that you guys did exactly? Cause you went from a course that you created in a couple of days, and you sold it and you made a little bit of money, but that paradise pack, you sold hundreds of thousands of dollars a year of that. Can you talk about what that was and how you built it in a way that was so financially successful?

Travis Sherry: I think the beauty of that was naivety. I just read a book and it’s awesome. If anyone wants to get in this mindset, because I have to put myself back in this mindset sometimes. It’s called “make no small plans” by the guys who run the summit series and own a mountain on Utah and all this kind of stuff.

I didn’t know we were doing it at that point, but Jason and I just got together and we’re so excited to do something with someone else versus doing it on our own. That we just said, hey, we’re going to reach out to everyone. And in that time, Shawn Ogle was a big name to us, Natalie Sisson. If anyone knows these people, they were like, oh, geez, in the location, dependent space.

We didn’t know them, but we’re like, let’s just reach out to them and tell them we’re doing this project. And we got a few of those people on. And now it’s funny to think of them because they’re good friends of ours. And we’ve hung out with all of them in person many times over, but that first year was just amazing.

True joy and excitement to build something together. And we just reached out. We didn’t limit ourselves. We did it together. And I think that was a massive benefit because both of us had done it only by ourselves, even though we split up roles some, so we, we shouldn’t have to do it. But I think the biggest thing was just us encouraging each other to push more.

I would not have spent three grand on a website, but I was like, Jason. I’m leaving it up to you because I know I won’t do it and he did it and it worked. I reached out to people that he was afraid to reach out to and we made connections. He reached out to people that I was afraid to. We all have these mental blocks.

So, when you’re with someone else. If you’re scared to do it, they’re either going to push you to do it or they’re going to do it because they’re not scared of the same things you are. They don’t have the same limiting beliefs. And so that first year we did okay. And that led us to be like, well, let’s do it again.

And it got bigger and bigger. And I think in our biggest year, we did 350, 000 in seven days. Obviously, it was seven-day launch. We worked hard leading up to it. We worked hard after it, but it was very successful for us. And I think the biggest takeaway from that was that we were excited to do it. We didn’t limit ourselves to how big it could get. We also didn’t set too many expectations, which I think is important. We’re going to do it and have fun with it and enjoy it. And I think our excitement bubbled over. It helped us make sales, but it also helped us get people involved because we were so crazy excited about it. And other people who came through, we’re really excited about it every year.

So, it led to that ripple effect of when someone heard about it, like, oh, I’ve heard about that. Or I saw that this year, or like people would come to us and say, can I be involved? This seemed like so much fun. And so, we get away from that sometimes with business and I’m as guilty as anyone. When we get into the business too much, sometimes we forget to go back to what’s fun. Let’s make it fun. Let’s just try to have as much fun as possible while being successful doing it.

Matt Bowles: So, what was the Paradise Pack, just for folks that have never heard of it? What was the actual offer that you were selling? And then when you think back on it, what were the most effective sales and marketing tactics that you used that allowed you to do a $350, 000 launch?

Travis Sherry: It was a bundle sale of products designed to help people become location independent. So, when I say a bundle sale, it was a bunch of different information products. So sometimes I’d put my product in, or Jason would have a product in, but really it was us finding, okay, someone knows how to do copywriting.

Someone knows how to do SEO. Someone has an awesome product about solo travel. So, we’d find the best information products that we thought people would need in order to build a location independent lifestyle. So it was like half business, half travel, and we’d find these products and we put them together and all told they’d be like 5, 000 if you bought all these products on their own and we’d discount them 90 percent or more.

So, we’d be like, Hey, for 500 bucks. Or sometimes it was 300 bucks, but then the last couple of years, there’s 500 bucks. We’ve got so many good products and say for 500 bucks, you can get all of these products together and no, you’re not going to use all 20 of these products at once, but maybe you need this one today.

And then as your business grows, now you need to know copywriting. Well, now you have lifetime access to this amazing copywriting course. So, it was us saying, no matter where you are in this journey of location dependence, there’s going to be products here that you’re going to use. You’re going to get them all in one shot and you’re going to pick them up when you want to use them.

What made it so successful one was the discount two was that we only did it once a year and it was for seven days and each year it was a different bundle. So, if you didn’t get it, you were not getting it again. It was a one-time only thing. So those are like marketing strategies that really work. We also got in with Facebook ads when Facebook ads were newer and a lot easier.

And those did pretty well for us as well, because again, time sensitive scarcity and a great discount, but that overarching thing that made it successful was we got really clear on who we wanted to buy this and what benefit they were going to get out of it. We actually sketched out a roadmap for like four or five different types of people.

If you’re already location independent. Here’s the products that you should use. If you’re just starting, here’s the products you should use so that people didn’t have to figure it out there on their own, they didn’t see 15 products. And they’re like, what should I do? We’d be like, hey, you’re just starting on your journey, go to Chelsea’s 21 days to find your passion course. And so, as we got better at it, started walking through our potential customers, walking them through. What their journey would look like so that they could understand why this was beneficial to them. And on top of that, I think of the excitement of our affiliates.

So, we did a live cast. I think the longest we do is eight hours live. So on the last day of the sale, or sometimes second, last day of sale, We would get everyone who had a product in there or almost everyone to come on live and we would stream it live and we would record it as a live podcast and every half hour, a new guest would come on.

So, it’d be like Matt’s coming on now. Benny from fluent in three months is coming on now. Nora Dunn’s coming on for. Now Chelsea Dinsmore is coming on. So, like all these people that they were going to learn from, they were getting to hear from that, hear those people’s stories in a 30-minute bite. And so, people would come on for all eight hours, like a new age telethon, and we’d give away bonuses and all this stuff.

And that just got people so excited because they realize they got to see the people behind the products, hear their stories and be like, well, if Trav and Jay can do it. And if Nora can do it, if Matt can do it, if this person can do it and I’m getting to hear their stories and they started when they were 30 or 40 or not knowing what they were doing, then surely, I can do it.

And so that was the most fun day of the whole sale. And Jay and I would hold contests. Who was going to go to the bathroom first, just fun stuff that we do for eight hours live. And when someone’s on with you for eight hours live, or they tune into that and they see the excitement, they know this is something I want to be a part of.

Matt Bowles: Well, it sounds like the other major benefit of getting all of those people to contribute their course material to the package is that now all of a sudden you have, all of these people with built in audiences of the exact customer that you want to get in front of who are incentivized by affiliate commissions or however you structured it to market it to their audience so you have a direct reach to a massive customer base.

Travis Sherry: A hundred percent correct. It was a win, win, win for everyone because we would never have gotten in front of their customers. They were going to sell a product that was no brainer if someone saw it and resonated with the messaging. They didn’t have to do much of the marketing. They just had to put out their list and then they’d get a nice healthy affiliate commission. So, it worked really, really well for a long time.

Matt Bowles: Well, let’s talk a little bit about the podcast, Extra Pack of Peanuts. One of the most legendary travel podcasts out there has over 6 million downloads. Can you talk about, first of all, for people that have never heard of it, what is it all about? What can people expect when they listen to the podcast? And then take us a little bit on the trajectory of building the podcast and building an audience of that magnitude.

Travis Sherry: Yeah, sure. If you, if you’ve never listened to it, if you can’t tell, I like stories, right? Whether I’m telling them or someone else is telling them, I like stories. And so, it really comes down to stories from incredible people who are doing incredible things. And whether that’s Heather and I nowadays, it kind of takes two forms, whether it’s interviews with awesome guests or whether it’s Heather and I sharing more of our life story and having some fun on the podcast ourselves.

Those are the two types of shows, really interviews and then her and I on the mic kind of pulling the curtain back on our lifestyle. And so that kind of came about a year into it. To be honest, I didn’t have a podcast for one week. I’m like, Heather, can you get on the microphone? Let’s just have you on and talk about our 10 favorite destinations that we have ever been to.

And she got on and people were like, oh, that was so cool hearing you and your, and your partner. And like, can we get more of that? And then, so it became more and more of that. And so now it’s a little bit half and half and we’ve kind of changed around and we do seasons here and there. That’s really what it comes down to, whether it’s us telling our stories or other people telling their stories, because that to me is, The real linchpin of traveling.

It’s the stories that happen. We travel because when I land in Bulgaria in a week, I’ll have never been there. So as soon as I get off that plane in Sofia, there’s going to be stories happening because I haven’t experienced this before. And so the way it came about was we were living in Japan, as I mentioned, from 2010 to 2012, and I started getting into podcasts and during them, because I would ride my bike to school every day for 45 minutes there and back. And I needed something to listen to, so I started listening to podcasts, and so I was getting really into travel, I was listening to this NBA podcast that I really liked, but then, they only did one a day, so I’m like, I need something else, surely there’s some good travel podcasts out there, and I’d go searching for it, and every travel podcast out there was focused on destinations.

Here’s what to do in Rome. Here’s what to do in Florence. And they were good, but I was like, well, what about the stories? It’s one thing to get recommendations and we do recommendations on our podcast too. So, I like that format to a degree, but I was like, what about the amazing blogs that I’m reading out there? These people have been nomadic for 30 years. I want to hear that story. And so, I was like, I don’t know how to start a podcast, but I want someone to tell these stories. So, I’m just going to start a podcast. And so, I started a podcast in 2013. We started the site in 2012, started a podcast in 2013, and it was really selfishly an excuse for me to reach out to all these bloggers and people.

I read national geography and all these people doing amazing things. I just would ask him, hey, you want to get on Skype. That time it was on Skype, and I talk about yourself for an hour and I’ll record it. It’ll be on a podcast. And like, sure. No one turned out to be a podcast in the day and age because there were not that many of them. And also, it was a chance for me to selfishly get to hear their stories. And so that was the purpose of it. And you know, it wasn’t any crazy hockey stick curve of success. It was us doing a podcast from 2013. For a lot of years with a bit of a built-in audience already who were coming to our blog in the beginning, I’d say, hey, we’ve got a podcast, and no one would know what it was.

So that was a struggle. I literally on my website had like, here’s how to download a podcast. Here’s what a podcast is explaining it. Be like, it’s like TiVo DVR, but for audio and you can put it on your phone. Oh, that’s kind of cool. I can listen to it anytime. Yeah. It’s like a radio show that you can listen to anytime.

Oh, okay. And then. People started understanding podcasts. So, it wasn’t any big, crazy, yeah, oh my gosh, we got featured here. Now everyone’s listening. It was just a slow curve up. And it’s been a really important part of everything we’ve done for a while, because it’s a format that if you’re listening to this, you know, I like to talk. I enjoy.

Matt Bowles: What tips do you have in the 2023 podcast landscape where there are millions of podcasts for building a show and growing an audience, what today are the biggest leverage points and the most effective way to build an audience?

Travis Sherry: I think if I was going to start it from scratch, and this is advice that no one wants to hear ever, but I would niche down as much as possible. I would get super specific and ours is more general now. And that’s because we have grown it that way. But for example, if I was going to start it and I didn’t have one now, I would take on an area of my expertise and I would niche down on that. So maybe I’d be like, I’m going to start a podcast only on short term rentals, because I know if someone finds it, like I have less competition and also If someone finds it and they like me, then they’re going to listen, right?

Versus saying, oh, I’m going to do a real estate podcast. Well, yeah. Okay. What does that mean? Right. Like I could talk about a thousand different things, so I would niche down as much as possible and then I would find other people in your niche. And or complimentary niches. I’ll use this example again of short-term rentals. If I was doing a short-term rental podcast only, I would find other short term rental podcasts and I would be like, hey, let’s go on each other’s show because you might be putting one or two out a week. I’ll assume I want five weeks, and we might have different things and different ways we approach it.

So, I’ve always been of the mindset that a rising tide lifts all boats. And so, Jason and I would do this all the time. All the time. We have similar podcasts to his year to travel. My Extra Pack of Peanuts. We do joint shows. We do like, hey, we’re going to do our top 20 places for digital nomads, but the first 10 are going to be on zero to travel. And the second 10 are going to be on my show. So, like you almost had to listen to both. So, we do stuff like that so that we get both audiences to crossovers. So, I would find people in your niche that have other shows that you like. I would get on theirs. Have them on yours and because people who like podcasts love podcasts, that’s the thing.

And they usually want more to listen to. And unless you have a daily show, you’re probably not providing them with enough content. And then I would find complimentary shows. So, if I was doing a short-term rental podcast, man, I’d be like, okay. Matt, what other real estate podcasts do you know that might not be serving the short-term rental market might be a more general real estate one?

Hey, can I get bigger pockets because they talk about short term rentals, but they also talk about the thousand other things around real estate. So if someone wants short-term rentals, can I go and be an expert on that and then get people to my show? Can I get on someone who’s doing long term rentals and do a debate show?

The difference between long term and short term. So maybe people will listen to that show. Whoever are interested in short term come and learn more from me. So that’s how I would go about it is I would niche down as much as possible. I would just start doing it. You’ll find your voice and overall, more than anything else, be consistent with it, tell people when it’s coming out, because when we’ve stopped being consistent, that’s when we’ve seen drop off when we’ve been super consistent. That’s when the show continues to grow.

So, if it’s daily, be daily, if daily is way too much, cause it is for me, then be weekly and make sure that people know when it’s coming out, because that’s how you’re going to either increase your listeners or lose them because they’ll be like, well, I don’t know when Matt shows coming out. I don’t know when Trav show coming out. I don’t know when to tune in, make it habitual for them.

Matt Bowles: Love it, man. Great tips. And speaking of travel stories, I definitely have to hear some of yours because you and Heather have now been to over 40 countries or so. And I definitely want to hear some of the highlights and maybe a good place to start would be Croatia.

Travis Sherry: Yeah. So. We’ve driven down the coast of Croatia, awesome road trip, Montenegro, over to Mostar, through that, into Bosnia, up to Sarajevo, visit a friend in Sarajevo, and then we’re trying to get back to Croatia. Now, Bosnia is not in the EU, and Croatia is in the EU. So, you have to go through checkpoints. If it’s EU to EU, you don’t. If it’s not EU to not EU, you don’t. But you have to between those two countries.

And so, it was late at night. We left and we’re driving. The GPS was really wonky. This was before GPSs were even really good and we’re driving. We’re like, well, surely this’ll be pretty easy to go from Sarajevo, the capital to Croatia, another country, a big country near it, like it should be well marked. I shouldn’t have thought that I’d spent enough time in the Balkans to know better, but thought it’d be well marked. Was not. And we’re driving and we just keep going up mountains on these worse and worse roads. Then it turns into dirt roads and you’re pulling up to farms and you’re like, oh, this was actually just a driveway.

And so somehow, we were putting in the GPS and we were figuring out how to get to Croatia. And we were going all these back roads, and we get to this checkpoint and it was 9 pm at night. And it was just a little guard shack. And a barrier, like a one arm, over across the road. And then there was a mountain on the one side and a guard shack on the other. And then a mountain on that side. You had to be on the road. You couldn’t go anywhere else. You couldn’t off or anything. And the road was just kind of a gravel road. So, we’re like waiting there and we’re like, hmm. No one’s coming out. And then we look in like all the lights are off and what’s happening here.

And there’s no one there. There’s just no one at this checkpoint. I don’t know why it took us so long to find this checkpoint. We’re never going to find another one. And so. That gate, the handle, and the little arm only moved a little bit. So, like we couldn’t cross. The thing that helped the hand down the counterbalance on the other side, which is just like big rock that someone had somehow cut into and put on to hold to weigh it down.

And so like, I’m trying to squeeze this car between the big rock and the cliff. And I’m like, there’s no way we’re going to make it. And we have all the windows down and the rock is in the driver’s side window. So, it’s like in there. And I’m just like, I’m going to guess a 50-point turn because the rock had to stay in the window until I could get the back of the car around all this stuff.

It took us a good hour probably to get through this and I was like, dude, we’re going to scratch up this car. We’re going to crash this. We end up scooting around this border and we’re so proud of ourselves. Of course, we didn’t know, like there was a camera, but we’re like, well, the camera’s probably not on and like, what are they going to do?

Who knows? But we’re worried, but we’re also really worried that when we left Croatia, if they look close enough at our passport, they would see that we never stamped back in. And that’s a big deal because it’s an EU country. So, they would be like, while you left, you never stamped back in. We don’t know how long you were here. It could have been an issue. It wasn’t. No one checked. We got out of Croatia. But yeah, we snuck across the Bosnian Croatian border. Not because we thought it’d be a cool experience, but because we were stuck. We’re either going to sleep in this car in the hills of Bosnia, and maybe this guard shack doesn’t even exist anymore. Maybe it’s been closed for years. Who knows? We had to do everything we could to sneak across.

Matt Bowles: Well, speaking of passport issues, I also want to ask you about your experience in Singapore because I haven’t heard this story either, but I will just preface this by saying that if there was one country that I would not mess around with, it would probably be Singapore because when I fly into Singapore, I remember this vividly.

The first time I landed in Singapore, I landed at the airport and there is a big sign as you were getting off the plane in Singapore and it says, if you bring drugs into this country, you will be executed. So that is a country where I would not mess around with stuff. But what happened in Singapore?

Travis Sherry: I mean, I didn’t mess around with them on purpose. So, we were taking our first location independent trip because we were done in Japan and we were traveling Japan to Singapore, Singapore to Indonesia, Indonesia to India, India back to Japan, and then home to the U.S. So, this is when our contract of teaching was done in Japan. We’re treating ourselves to a month-long digital nomad, first location, independent trip.

So, I did all my mileage hacking. We were able to stay in Singapore for 23 hours. Cause that was a layover, not a stopover. Then we’re going to Indonesia for a week and a half. Then we were going to India for three weeks. Then we’re coming back. And the thing to know about airline tickets, people don’t know is that. If you have an itinerary like that and you miss a flight, it cancels out the rest of your flights, so you cannot miss a flight. It’s not just like, oh, I missed my one in Singapore. I’ll get another one. It’s like, no, now everything else gets canceled out. And I had spent months planning this and was so proud of myself.

You know, we did it for 40, 000 miles each. It was like 100 bucks a person. This is like my coup de gras, right? Like, this is it. I am the man. We’re going on this trip. We get to Singapore. Have a great time with our friend there. Run around the city, 23 hours. Go to get on the flight. And I get to the check-in desk, and they’re like, no, you can’t get on this flight.

And I’m like, what? Here’s our tickets, everything. And they’re like, your passport is too full. And I’m like, no, no, no. There are pages here. And they said, no, when you land in Indonesia, you have to get a visa upon arrival, and you need a full passport. Page for them to put your visa on here. I was like, ah, here’s my full page.

I’m like, oh no, no, that doesn’t say visas at the top. That says like amendments, I think, or something, or addendums. It says something. I was like, What? No one cares. This is just a page in a basket. Then I’d have pages with one little stamp on it. And they’re like, you do not have one full clean page for your visa.

And I was like, listening, put me on the plane. I’m sure they don’t care in Indonesia. I’ve been to Southeast Asia. And they were like nope, because if we put you on the plane and you get sent back, it costs us like 10, 000 or something. So, it was Singapore Airlines. So yeah, it wasn’t even like someone I could barter with. Like you said, no dice. I tried sneaking around. I tried begging. Nothing. So, I was like, guys, if we miss this flight, everything else gets cancelled. Go back to our friend’s house. I’m on my computer all day. Skyping, trying to go with us to areas who had booked it through and all these different people to get this changed.

And then having to go to us embassy and having to like, get new pages in my passport. So, I have my computer out of her desk. I’m making all these calls. Everyone’s telling me to go to someone else. USA rates, go to Singapore, Singapore, go to us areas. That’s where you book. Finally. I’m like, this ain’t working.

I’ve been on the phone for four hours. This is not working. So, I just Google Singapore Airlines. I go to their headquarters, which is in Singapore. Luckily, everything’s close in Singapore. And I go in there. I’m like, here’s the deal. I need you to rebook me on this flight through Singapore Airlines because then the rest of my ticket is valid. If I try to book it on my own, it will not be valid. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I’m sitting in their headquarters. I just said, I’m not leaving this headquarters. Until you do this, I needed it. Right? I’m like, I’m not leaving. And they thought I was bluffing. And I just sat there for hours. And the lady was at the desk and went to talk to someone else.

They want to talk to someone else in a more of a backoff, just going up senior level. And they’re like, this guy’s not leaving and he’s getting madder. So finally, they sent me back to this dude in the back office and I explained to him, and he just was like, did not want to do this at all, but he was like, okay, you’ve got to pay a rebooking fee. And I’m like, listen, I know where you’re going with this, man. I wish you had told me hours ago, I would gladly bribe you to get this done. So, I’m like, what’s the rebooking fees? Like. You know, 200 bucks. I’m like, okay, cool. Here’s 200 bucks. He hands me a printout with all these numbers and letters from a dot matrix printer, right?

You know, the ones that you had to, like, take the perforated things off. I’m like, this is weird. Singapore is pretty advanced. Why am I getting in on a dot major prayer? He goes, take this to the gate agents. I’m like, well, what does it mean? What should I explain to them? He’s like, just take it to the gate agents, they’ll understand what it is. I’m like, alright, well, I have not got a leg to stand on here. And he’s like, hey, the flight’s in two hours. You got to get there now. And so, I had to go back to across the city to my friend’s apartment, grab our bags, back to the airport, running around. I got to the airport. I hand this to the gate agent. She’s like, what is this?

I’m like, I don’t know, but I was at Singapore airlines. I had the guy write his name down. Thankfully. I was like, can you write your name down? Because they’re going to think this is fake, right? His name down. She looked at the name. She’s like, I don’t know who’s this. I’m like, I was at the office. This and that shit. I have no idea what this is, but she remembered me from the day before. She’s like, I’m just going to let you on. Here’s your ticket. I was like, thank you. Problem solved. Get on the plane, go to Indonesia, get to Indonesia, rock up to the visa line. Didn’t even ask. We’re the last people in line. Didn’t even ask anyone.

This guy comes up to me. He’s like, you man, you want to skip the line and get your visa? I was like, I don’t know. It probably takes 30 minutes, 45 minutes. He’s like, yeah, like 10 bucks. I’ll take you to the front of the line, get you your visa. I was like, I’m not even trying to bribe this dude in Indonesia. I told you I didn’t need a full passport page. I was like, sure, 10 bucks. Go to the front of the line. They put it right on that addendum page. I was like, oh my God, here it is. You know, I didn’t even tell you that whole point. I had to go to the U S embassy. I had to get a new passport. They wouldn’t give it to me. I had to beg and plead with them to do it in one day.

Anyway, Matt, so we’re in Indonesia. Everything’s great. The tickets will be fine. I opened my backpack. no computer because it was sitting on my friend’s table cause that’s the only thing, I had taken out to make the phone calls on Skype. So, I was like, oh my gosh, this is my first location, independent trip as a travel blogger.

I have no computer. It’s in Singapore. We’re in Indonesia for a week and a half. I was like, send it to India. My buddy’s a us diplomat. He just moved in three days ago. He barely knows his address, but send it to his address because surely it’ll get there. So, I don’t have it in Indonesia. I’m like, all right, I’ll Big time location independent digital nomad fail, but I’ll get it when I get to India.

I get to India. It’s not there Doesn’t come in the four days with my buddy. No word of it. She said she sent it We don’t we can’t track it down go on our three week trip around India great time still Guess not really a digital nomad because I’m not working because I don’t even have a computer But we go around India have a great time Surely it’ll be at my buddy’s house when I get back and fly out of Mumbai get back Not there.

No one can track it down. Fly home to the U.S. with no computer. I’m supposed to be this guy teaching travel blogging and digital nomad with no computer. Get back to the U.S. Turns out it was stuck in customs. They wanted a bribe. Again, we would have bribed him, but it’s like just tell me you want a bribe, please.

All right, I’ve already done this multiple times on this trip. It’s stuck in customs. This guy wants a bribe. My buddy, who’s a diplomat, goes down there, goes behind the counter, takes it, but it was like, you can take this up with my boss because he’s a diplomat. So, he was like pulling that card, shows his black passport, takes the computer.

And now I’m like, well, we can’t send it out of India, Matt, because if we send out, it’ll get stuck in customs again. They’ll want to bribe another friend of mine’s parents are going to India. My friend in India and my parents’ friends have no idea who they are. Like they’ve never met each other, but I put them together.

They’re willing to bring my computer back in their luggage. to the U.S. So, it is now December of 2012. I’ve been without a computer for four months as a travel blogger and digital nomad. We get it back. Cool. This is two days before Christmas. We go up to my wife’s parents’ place for Christmas. I’m sitting there typing up something. My wife has a cup of coffee. She spills the coffee, goes on the computer, it fries the computer, and the computer is dead. So, I have a computer for one. And it dies.

Matt Bowles: Oh,

Travis Sherry: I have just failed in every possible way at this location independent thing. So, if I can do it guys, and that’s my start as a digital nomad, surely anyone else out there can do it because that was my first five months of being a digital nomad and location independent business owner.

was without a computer than I had for one day. And so it got fried.

Matt Bowles: That is incredible. And yet you’ve persevered. I want to talk about the incredible community that you have built and Location Indie. Can you share a little bit about the impetus for that, what Location Indie is all about, and the live events that you have coming up for people that want to meet and hang out with you in person.

Travis Sherry: Sure. I told you guys, you’ve now known my life story, and I told you one of the big turning points for me to get out of that dark age was going to a conference, going to an event, and meeting other people there. And specifically, Jason, who then we partnered with a lot of staff, and best friends to this day.

And so, we did our first paradise pack. People bought it and they basically said, well, Trav and Jay, this is great. Now I have all the information I need to do this, but I don’t know anyone else who’s doing it. Where can I go? And we’re like, well, yeah, we thought the same thing. And we just luckily found each other randomly at an event and hit it off.

So, events have always held a special place in our heart, but that led us to forming the Location Indie Community after our first Paradise Pack in 2014. Because basically people were saying, I now know I want to do this, but where do I find people who are doing this? And so, the Location Indie Community is for people who want to become location independent, want to lead this lifestyle, or people who are already doing it.

And to surround yourself with like-minded people in a digital community, we also do a lot of live events as well, but with weekly mastermind calls, weekly accountability calls, sessions on how to do different business stuff. We have a talk on Tuesdays where we pick destinations and people come on and share about a destination they know well, so it’s built around this idea that you’re going to find your tribe inside of this community.

And so that has been going strong since 2014. So, nine years now, uh, it’s a community that’s way bigger than me, way bigger than Jason. It truly has taken on a life of its own in an awesome way. And it’s, we’ve had people who have been in there for like all nine of those years, we have people who have just joined recently.

And so, it’s there to serve the people who want to live this lifestyle and need to be surrounded by people who are motivate, inspire, and support them in travel and in business. And don’t have that in their regular life. Cause I certainly didn’t. And as you said, Matt, like when you started entrepreneurship, you weren’t like in this bustling group of entrepreneurs and stuff, anything like that.

So that’s the community. We’d love to have you join. You can join; you can get an annual plan. You can get a monthly plan. You can find all the information about that Indie.com. And if you get a newsletter, that’s the best way we send out a weekly newsletter. And then all the information about when we open up the community again, and the events that we’re having will be in there.

Digital is great. Virtual is great. In person’s even better. And so, when this conference, the world domination, somebody that Jason and I had met at was coming to an end because they announced they were going to do 10 years and then end it. And they have ended it. We decided. Because an event is not easy to pull off.

It’s a lot of time, money, stress, and all that. But we decided like, we got to carry this torch. Because it was so impactful for us, that if we can do that for other people, that is one of the biggest legacies we can have. If people look back on an event that we run and say, It’s You know what? In 2023, when I went to the adult summer camp that Travis ran called Camp Indie, that changed my life because from there I met boom, boom, boom, or I did X, Y, Z.

That’s the most important thing I could do with my life is allow people that opportunity. So, we are running an adult summer camp. It’s a conference held an adult summer camp, not a summer camp. Then adults come too, but the purpose built for adults. So, the ropes courses are adult level high. They will scare you.

They scare me. You can water ski, you can wakeboard, you can do all these awesome, amazing things. We’re also bringing in a ton of speakers to teach you how to build this lifestyle. So if you’re someone who wants a bit more of an unconventional lifestyle and you want to break free from this typical lifestyle, or you have broken free and you’re like, I need to spend time around other like-minded people, there’s going to be Keynotes.

There’s going to be workshops and stuff to learn from people like our mutual friend, Nora Dunn, who this will be her second time coming to this. It’s the second year we’ve ran it. I will have amazing speakers, but we’ll also like the cool part about it being at a camp is that you’ll also have time to just enjoy it for what it is.

And that is to go experience some awesome camp things. That’s to go to the lake, to swim, to go on hike, but it’s four days, three nights. Two hours north of New York city at a place called club getaway. And the event is called Camp Indie. So, camp I-N-D-I-E. If you’ve been sitting there saying, I want to build this lifestyle, listen to what Matt and Travis are doing. And I want to do that, or I’m doing that. But I want to get around more people in person who are doing that so I can build my network out. Camp Indie is the place to do it. It’s going to be an absolutely epic time.

Matt Bowles: We are going to put that link in the show notes so folks can just go to one place at themaverickshow.com. Just go to the show notes for this episode. We’ll have the direct link where you can get more info about Camp Indie. And one of the things that I love about it is that you obviously have been in this world for so many years, and you know so many amazing people and so your speaker lineups. Are just crazy.

So, you mentioned Nora Dunn, OG, Nomad legend, Ray Blakney. I saw is speaking as well. Maverick show listeners know both Ray and Nora because they have both been guests on the Maverick show. Brilliant, hilarious, super fun to hang out with. And the thing that I love about your format is that oftentimes when you hear that this person is speaking at a conference, what that means is that you’re going to be sitting in the audience. That person is going to appear from behind the stage on the stage, say words. Then go back behind the stage and then leave. And they’ve just been at the conference for 30 minutes and you heard them speak into a microphone, but that was it. At your event, you get these caliber people, the Nora Dunn caliber people, Ray Blakney caliber people, yourself and others.

And they just hang out the whole time and you’re doing these ropes course with those people and you’re drinking with them in the evening and all that. I mean, it’s an unbelievable format.

Travis Sherry: Yeah. When we sat down to put together what we wanted out of a conference, it took us years to figure this out. It was not. That, oh my gosh, I want to go talk to that speaker. And then, you know, there’s a lineup after they’re done. And then it’s that awkward interaction. Like, what do I say in five seconds? And is the person behind me waiting for their turn and this and that it’s like, I want them to come as speakers because they’re incredible, but you’re going to actually, like I said, like, Nora and I are going to be jumping off the bungee trampoline with you.

We’re going to be in the lake with you. We’re going to eat s’mores around the campfire with you. You’re going to get to watch Nora rock out to karaoke. You’re going to dress up in your craziest 90s dance party outfits with us. It truly is an inclusive community where you’re not just going to hear these people speak, but you’re going to get to form a real bond and get to know them and get to pick their brains and get to form friendships with them.

And that’s one of the things that a lot of people at the last time that we did Campini in 2021 came back and said to us, like, it was so amazing. To get to meet everyone in person. And there was no exclusivity. There’s no like, Oh, speakers over here, attendees over here. Because to me, everyone is an attendee.

Some people are going to get up and speak. Some people are going to run workshops, but every single person there is an attendee, and that’s why the people that come from our circle tell them. We want you to come and attend, not just speak. And in fact, they’re all like, we’re not going to come just to speak.

We’re going to be a camp. I’m like, oh, hell yeah, you’re going to be a camp. So it’s the people who want to be there and want to engage and want to impart their knowledge and want to learn from other people as well, because all of us want On this journey, at some point in this path, I’m not at the end of my journey by any stretch.

There are a thousand things you could teach me about real estate, Matt, that I want you to teach me about real estate. I’m just at a certain point in my journey. It’s not the end. And so, I come and I learn and I get to interact with these people. So, if that’s what you’ve kind of desired from other times you’ve been at conferences, like I wish I could build relationships, you really get to know that person. That’s what’s going to happen here at camp. We had four days and three nights. It used to be three days, two nights, and everyone said, we need another day. And like, all right, four days, three nights, let’s do it.

Matt Bowles: I love it, man. Travis, let me ask you one more question and then we’ll move into the lightning round and wrap this up when you think back about all of the travels that you have now done, 40 plus country, and the experiences that you’ve had. How has all of that impacted you as a person? And why are you still so inspired to keep traveling? What does travel mean to you?

Travis Sherry: I think I’m one of the most curious humans on this planet. That’s why I love having podcasts. I told you I started a podcast because I wanted to talk to people. And I wanted to hear their story. Because I’m curious. And I truly believe that the way to scratch that itch is by travel. It not only scratches that itch, but it also, while doing it, makes me a much better person. Because the people I meet and the experiences I have when I bring them back home, make an impact on who I am and how I interact.

With the world and in a positive way, I think it makes me more empathetic. I think it makes me more aware. I think it helps me when I’m struggling and sitting here thinking, woe is me to be like, really? Well, as you come on, you’ve seen some, woe is me situations and you’re not in it. It helps give some really needed perspective.

And secondly, as a parent now, and as a father of two kids who are now five and three, showing them the world. In this way, we’ll have an impact on their lives. And I don’t know what it’ll look like. I don’t know how it’ll come about, but I just know getting them to see different things and making friends in different countries.

And one of my son’s best friends right now is from Argentina and we meet him every year in Costa Rica, and he speaks Spanish and my son speaks English. Doesn’t matter. He tells me Pedro’s his best friend. All the time because they’ve had these awesome relationships and we’re going to go down to Argentina.

He’s going to get to see Argentina and get a different perspective at a young age for them to be able to see that. And then for me to be able to see it through the eyes of a parent versus just a traveler also changes my perspective. So, I guess the big overarching theme with all that is it allows me to see things in a different way and have different perspectives that I simply could not have.

If I stayed in my home state, it opens me up in so many ways that I’ve never had anything open me up that way like travel does when I get somewhere new and have a new experience.

Matt Bowles: So awesome. All right, Travis, at this point, are you ready to move in to the lightning round?

Travis Sherry: I think the listeners are ready for me to move into the lightning round so that my answers are quicker.

Matt Bowles: Let’s do it! Alright, what is one book that has significantly impacted you over the years you’d recommend people check out?

Travis Sherry: The most recent one is called Make No Small Plans. It’s an incredible book to really help you just think a lot bigger than you’re thinking right now.

Matt Bowles: All right. What is one travel hack that you use? You can recommend it to people.

Travis Sherry: If you’re U.S. based, the biggest thing you can do to move the needle is figuring out and learning how to use credit card points, air miles, and hotel points to get free flights. free accommodation, offset the cost of your travel. So, as you have good credit and you’re paying your credit cards off, there’s no limit to the amount of points that you can acquire.

And we’ve acquired over probably at this point, a million and a half points in the last 10 years since doing this and just finding the right travel credit card and leveraging if you have good credit and if you’re paying it off. And if you’re not, you can’t do that. Then what I would do is the next little hack I would do is I would just be flexible with your destinations when you can travel.

And this comes back to the location independent lifestyle, man. I can be flexible in where I want to travel and times I want to travel. And if you can’t, then I will try to start building that lifestyle now for a lot of reasons. But one of them is like, yeah, okay. I don’t know. Where do I want to go? Do I have a lot of money right now? No. Okay. I’m going to go to Bulgaria instead of Paris. Okay, cool. So, flexibility is key for sure. When you’re looking for cheap travel, because you can go to places that cost a lot less. You can find cheaper tickets. You can stay in areas that accommodations are less, what have you.

Matt Bowles: All right. What is your number one tip for traveling with kids internationally dealing with jet lag, all that kind of stuff?

Travis Sherry: Melatonin milkshakes, man. Bring melatonin with you. If your kid won’t eat melatonin cause they’re too young, like my son was on his first international trip for like seven months, we crushed it up, we put it in chocolate milk, we gave it to him and it worked like a charm. So, to this date, that is the best advice I can give, especially when dealing with jet lag because jet lag is a big pain for adults. It’s even twice as hard when you’re trying to get your kids to sleep and they’re like wired because to them it’s noon. So yeah, make use of that melatonin.

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

Travis Sherry: You wanna know the first name that comes to mind? I’m just gonna say, I don’t know. Charles Barkley. I’m an NBA fan. Just a funny dude, and I’m sure he would regale me with stories. Yeah, I don’t know. That just came to my mind. Like, he would be fun to have at a dinner party.

Matt Bowles: That is an amazing answer, especially being from Philly. It’s an amazing answer for anybody, but being from Philly, that is an incredible answer. I love that. All right, Trav, if you could go back in time knowing everything, you know, now and give one piece of advice to your 18-year-old self, what would you say to 18-year-old Travis?

Travis Sherry: The biggest piece of advice I would have given would just be like, when you have an idea, just act on it. Don’t be afraid to do it. It’s cliche. I had a lot of ideas that I never did anything about. And then I read The 4-Hour Workweek and my mindset shifted. Oh, now people can do it. I’m just going to start doing things. And I did start doing things and none of them really took off and at least started ideating on them. Right. And so, I wish I had done that and been less scared to follow an unconventional path earlier. Now, would my 18-year-old self-have listened to my 40 year old self? Probably not. I was pretty stubborn. I would be like, no, I’m going to college. I’m going to be a teacher. It’s going to be great. But if I had listened, it would have been that it would have been like. Don’t be afraid to blaze your own path and go after what you really want versus what you think is safe.

Matt Bowles: All right, of all the places that you’ve now traveled, what are your top three favorite destinations you would most recommend other people should definitely check out?

Travis Sherry: One is the Republic of Georgia. Incredible. The only scenery I can compare to when you get up in the mountains of Georgia is Switzerland, but it’s like a much more rugged and one 10th the price. Switzerland people are fantastic. Everyone makes you drink their homemade wine. Sometimes it’s really good. Sometimes it’s really awful. That goes back to everything’s story. So, you have plenty of stories. The food’s incredible, pretty off the beaten path, but still doable. So, the Republic of Georgia is my favorite, and I can’t wait to go back.

Second would be Thailand. I just think that’s a great destination for anyone looking to expand their comfort zones a bit while being very easy.

And then I got to give some love for my wife, Croatia. It’s incredible. And it’s a little bit off the beaten path of Europe. So again, if you want to get a little bit off the beaten path, it’ll give you a little bit of new an experience without being in a hurry.

Matt Bowles: All right, last question. What are your top three bucket list destinations, places you have not yet been highest on your list you’d most love to see?

Travis Sherry: One has to be Antarctica. I just think going there because it’s just so different from anything else. And for whatever reason, a lot of people in my life have been going recently. That’s kind of new and fresh. I would absolutely love to road trip through the stands. So, go through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan.

I’ve never been. I think that would be my number one if cost wasn’t an issue. Antarctica would be my number one if you’re talking about cost. You’re like, oh, someone’s going to pay for me to go to Antarctica. Great. But if you were just like, where would you want to go and be dropped today? And you’ve got two months to explore. It would be going through Central. Asia, because I’ve never been and I’m just dying, dying, dying to go. I’ll add one extra one on there. Middle East as well. I’ve only been to Israel. Haven’t been to the rest, so I would love to spend some time there.

Matt Bowles: Alright, Travis, I want you to let folks know how they can find you. Follow you on social media, how they can listen to the Extra Pack of Peanuts podcast, how they can become a part of Location Indie, and once again, how they can join Camp Indie and sign up for that. And when it’s going to be. Yep.

Travis Sherry: So, I’ll start with the most time sensitive one, which is camp. So, if you’re listening, when this comes out, that is June 16th through 19th, 2023. If you’re listening after that. Check out the website anyway, because the goal is to keep doing this year after year. So, if you’re like, well, I missed it. We’ll check it out. We might have another one planned. That is just campindie.com. You can also go to the link through The Maverick Show notes. If you do that, we’ll know you came through Matt.

So that’s actually, if you want to do it, go that way because then we’ll know. And that’s super helpful for us to know. Oh, you came from the Maverick show. Cool. Give you a little bit of extra red-carpet treatment, you know? So, you can do that. That’s Camp Indie. We’d love to have you June 16th through 19th. Yeah.

Two hours north of New York city. Very easy to get to there’ll be carpools and things like that. So if you get to New York city, it’s easy to get to from their Location Indie, and the community that we run easiest way to check that out is just locationindie.com. We do have a social media team who does stuff really well there.

It’s at Location Indie that’s I-N-D-I-E. So, you can check all that out. And the best thing to do there is get on the newsletter because then you know, everything it’s going, you kept abreast of everything that’s happening. And then if you want to follow Extra Pack of Peanuts, you can That’s just at Extra Pack of Peanuts on Instagram. That’s where I play. That’s basically the only social media I do. So, follow us on Instagram there. And then the podcast you’ll be able to find on any podcast player out there. It’s just called Extra Pack of Peanuts travel podcast.

Matt Bowles: Amazing. We’re going to link all of that up in the show notes. So, you can just go to one place that themaverickshow.com. Go to the show notes for this episode. And there you will find all of the ways to contact, connect with Travis and get involved with all the amazing stuff that he is up to. Trav, this was incredible, brother. Thank you for coming to the show.

Travis Sherry: It was a pleasure. I’ve known you’ve been doing this show for a while. I’ve been wanting to get on. Finally, we were able to connect. So many mutual friends. So yeah, if you’re a Maverick Show listener, you’re a friend of mine. Come check out what we’re doing. And I would just love, love, love to hear from people. So, thanks for having me on Matt. It’s been a pleasure.

Matt Bowles: All right. Good night, everybody.