Housesitting Nomads in England, France, and Portugal with Gerri Detweiler

In this episode of the Expat Empire Podcast, we will be hearing from Gerri Detweiler. Gerri is no stranger to traveling. She traveled to Canada, Japan, and Haiti through various exchange and outreach programs all before leaving high school. As this was before the Internet became widely available, the resulting culture shock enabled Gerri to fully immerse herself in these diverse cultures and develop a passion for travel.

With her daughter moving on to further her studies in Norway, Gerri and her husband are now empty nesters. Making the most of this development, Gerri is prepared to fulfill her wish to travel and work remotely. Successfully reinstating her Lithuanian citizenship, Gerri is now free to move about the Schengen Zone. She recently took a 2-month trip around England, France, and Portugal with her husband and daughter to gain a better understanding of what it would feel like to move to Europe in the future.

In this episode, you’ll hear all about Gerri’s recent adventures, how she made it happen, and the tips and advice she has for others trying to follow in her footsteps!

LEARN in this episode:

✔ How coaching/consulting can help you get past analysis paralysis 

✔ How to save money on travel accommodation by housesitting

✔ Helpful tips and tricks as well as online communities to get you started as a digital nomad  

FIND Gerri at:

► Website: https://www.gerridetweiler.com/restartremote.html

► Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/gerridetweiler

► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gerri.detweiler/

► LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/gerridetweiler

—–

SCHEDULE your free consulting call: https://bit.ly/ExpatEmpireContact

DOWNLOAD our free Top 10 Tips for Moving Abroad eBook: https://bit.ly/ExpatEmpireTop10

REVIEW us: https://ratethispodcast.com/expatempire

DONATE to support the show: https://bit.ly/ExpatEmpireDonation

FOLLOW us on Social Media:

► Instagram: https://bit.ly/ExpatEmpireIG

► Facebook: https://bit.ly/ExpatEmpireFB

► LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ExpatEmpireLI

Conversation

Intro

Welcome to the Expat Empire Podcast, the podcast where you can hear from expats around the world and learn how you can join them.

Hi everyone, thanks for joining us today on the Expat Empire Podcast. Before we get to the interview, I want to remind you that we are offering a free consulting call to anyone thinking about moving abroad. 

Whether you’re thinking about retiring somewhere warm, starting an international career, or becoming a digital nomad, we’re ready to help you think through the next steps in your journey. 

Send us a message at https://expatempire.com to schedule your call today!

With that said, let’s start the conversation.

Conversation

David McNeill: [0:00:46] Hi Gerri, thank you so much for joining us today on the Expat Empire Podcast.

Gerri Detweiler: [0:00:51] Oh, I’m so delighted. I’m a long-time listener, so I’m thrilled to be on the podcast. Thank you.

David McNeill: [0:00:56] Yeah, a long-time listener, which is great to have you on here as well and of course, we worked together a bit as well on some of your recent adventures. I’m very excited to dig into those and hear the story. Not only that I’ve heard, maybe in some of our conversations, but of course hear some of the details I probably didn’t get a chance to hear yet and of course, share that with our audience as well. Thank you so much again for joining us today on the show. We would love just to start with a bit about your background, if you could tell us where you’re originally from, where around the world you’ve traveled to or had an opportunity to live in so far and where you’re living right now, that would be great.

Gerri Detweiler: [0:01:27] Sure. I grew up in Southwest Michigan and my first trip outside the US was a Toronto exchange program in junior high school, in Toronto, Canada. That was fun for a week. I lived with a family there. I also went on a church trip to Haiti with my father when I was in probably junior high school. Then in my junior year of high school, there was a presentation asking families to host students from abroad. I went to the presentation and I thought I want to do this. I want to go overseas.

My parents generously agreed that I could do that and I know it was probably a stretch for them. My mom was a nurse. My dad was a teacher. They were preparing for me to go off to college the next year, but they agreed and I was accepted into the American Field Service Program. I wanted to go to Australia, but they gave me the option of Tokyo, Thailand, or Laos. Tokyo was the only place I’d heard of. So, I said, yes. I shipped off for about a 10-month program in Tokyo, Japan. This was pre-internet. So, it was quite a big culture shock and also just a real experience of being completely immersed in another culture and not knowing the language or really anything about it. So, it was quite the year.

David McNeill: [0:02:45] What was that experience like though? In terms of actually integrating there and being able to make the most of that 10-month experience, I guess you knew at the end of it that you’d be coming back to the US, but how did you take advantage of that time and what did you fill your time with as part of that program?

Gerri Detweiler: [0:03:02] Well, I was living with a Japanese family and attending a Japanese school and Japanese schools are very intense. It was five and a half days a week. If we wanted to go anywhere on the weekend, we had to get permission from our homeroom teacher to do that. There were a lot of emotional challenges, I think, because it was so different and because I didn’t speak the language. My host sister spoke English better than I spoke Japanese.

I learned more as time went on, I was never super fluent, but I got by just fine. I look back on it as a terrific, terrific experience. I have no regrets about it. Although recently, I was reading some of the letters that I wrote home and I was pretty homesick for a while. I was pretty ready to come back, but I just wouldn’t give up and I’m glad I stuck it out. In the end, I feel like it was just a transformative, excellent experience, but it was challenging at the time.

David McNeill: [0:03:56] Where did things go for you from there? I guess going back then to the US, how did your interest in going abroad and travel develop from that standpoint?

Gerri Detweiler: [0:04:06] I had already been accepted into a University in Indiana, so I headed off to Indiana, and it wasn’t long before I realized I was getting bored. I expected and wanted to have a life or career overseas. Instead, I ended up going on an exchange program to Washington DC for a semester and I loved it. The moment I could I went back there. I persuaded my school to let me complete my studies at American University and George Washington University in DC, and got an internship in a senator’s office. That became my life.

I think what DC did for me was it had enough international flare that I was happy there and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to look for a job overseas. At that time, I think you probably had to find other resources that I didn’t have. It simply never happened, but it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. For the past few years, I’ve been rather obsessed with the idea of living in another country. That’s where you came in. I started listening to your podcast, listening to other people’s experiences, and trying to figure out how I could make that part of my life.

David McNeill: [0:05:23] That’s awesome. What really sparked that for you in the last couple of years in particular? Of course, it maybe could have happened sooner or later for that matter, but was there anything about the last couple of years that made it feel like it was the right time to start pursuing this?

Gerri Detweiler: [0:05:36] Yes. My daughter went off to college and so we were empty nesters. I could seriously think about traveling more and potentially living overseas. I looked a lot at countries in central and South America. I’ve done a lot of research about Panama, Belize, Mexico, and other countries. Initially, that’s what I thought would make sense for me but recently two things happened. One is that my daughter has been accepted into grad school in Norway. So she’s going to be in Europe and I don’t have to follow her, but it might be nice to be on the same continent. Then, the second thing is that my husband, Kevin said that, he was interested more in Europe, so that was another factor for us to seriously think about making it part of our plans.

David McNeill: [0:06:24] Right. If I remember correctly, you recently also got your passport to at least between the region let’s say, so it would be good to hear a bit about that process as well.

Gerri Detweiler: [0:06:35] Yes, I’m super lucky. I grew up with my grandmother who lived in Chicago, she did not speak much English. She probably did, but she was afraid to as she was from Lithuania and she and her family fled during World War II. As a result, I learned that I could apply for reinstatement of Lithuanian citizenship. It took me a little while to find the right legal firm to do that. I was very, very nervous about sending money, and working with a company in another country is terrifying, to be honest, but I did pursue it. Sydney and I both received Lithuanian passports. We are dual US and Lithuanian citizens, which just opens up the world for us as far as being able to travel, live and work in Europe. We’re very excited.

David McNeill: [0:07:24] Yeah. That’s amazing. Big congrats on that for sure. It’d be good to hear a bit about, as you said, it was a bit scary and difficult perhaps to find the right firm to go for, to help you in this process. Do you have any pointers that you could share with other people that might be in the same boat or trying to just find someone to work within another country?

Gerri Detweiler: [0:07:41] Yes. My internet research turned up a couple of legal firms and I contacted them. I remember one wanted us to spend about $3,500 each and send it upfront with no guarantee as to whether we would be accepted or not. It made me very nervous. I’m sending money online to someone I’ve never met. I can’t really verify. Somewhere in my Google search results, it served me up an ad for something called In Jure law firm. They do a lot of this work and they charge on a success basis. I was still nervous because to complete this process – you have to send a lot of personal information to someone you don’t know. One thing I did was, I found one of the testimonials and I tracked down this person through Facebook and reached out to her cold and said, “Hey, is this for real?” She said, oh, absolutely. Yes, I’m so happy. I got my citizenship and so did my daughter. That made me feel more comfortable. 

I would say David, literally until three days ago, when I got this passport in the mail, I still wasn’t convinced it was real. I think it was about $4,000 US, to the law firm that helped us. This is for the two of us. I spent about $850 on apostilling documents and then a few hundred dollars, we had to go to New York to the consulate to do our biometrics, et cetera. I still wasn’t sure, but I got the passport in the mail and we are official. So, it ended up being all worth it in the end.

David McNeill: [0:09:18] Absolutely. That’s an amazing story and super inspirational for me and I’m sure plenty of the people listening to this episode. More recently, I know you’ve been also doing a bit more nomadic living and going over to Europe the last couple of months of let’s say, the end of last year into the first couple of months of this year. It’d be great just to hear about how you thought about trying to make that trip happen, what steps you took to do it to plan it, to figure out where you wanted to go and make the most of this trip so that you could figure out your next steps in terms of trying to go abroad longer term?

Gerri Detweiler: [0:09:52] Yes. I’ve been doing a lot of research, as I said, I listened to your podcast and I eventually ended up hiring you for some coaching because I felt like I was sort of caught in analysis paralysis, where I just kept researching and it wasn’t happening. The other challenge was that my husband wasn’t totally on board with the idea and he’s still not completely sure he wants to move to Europe. If it were me, I’d be there now, right now at this moment. It was helpful to have you be able to answer questions for us and also for him to be able to ask questions and get an answer from someone objective, who could provide some perspective, rather than me saying, this is what we should do, or this is what we should do. 

I remember he asked you a question that I thought was really a good question. He said, ‘we don’t know what questions to ask. We want you to make sure that we’re asking the right questions.’ I think that’s a good reason to work with a coach if you’re feeling unsure about the process. What it did for me, was it just helped me move things forward so I could actually make this happen. What finally happened was our daughter graduated from college and then she was supposed to be going to Norway for grad school and couldn’t get in due to COVID. She had a gap year and she knew how much I wanted to go to Europe. She said, ‘you know what? This is probably the only chance. This may be the only chance we’ll get to do this together as a family, who knows.’ She’s going off to grad school, then her working life, and we don’t know what will happen. She said, let’s do it.

I have been working remotely for a financial technology company for a few years. Unfortunately, at the last minute, they decided that they could not accommodate me working as an employee from outside the US. Literally the week before we left, I found out that I would no longer have a job. I am consulting with them so, it’s all amicable, it’s working out fine, but that was quite a big surprise. It just became a matter of now or never.

It felt like it was the right time to get out. So, we left in November of 2021 and planned a three-month trip. At that time, I was trying to work with the Schengen Zone rules. Stay 90 days in the Schengen zone. I forgot that when we were in the UK, that wasn’t in the Schengen zone so I cut us a little bit short. We could have stayed a little longer, but it’s all right. In the end, it was about a three-month trip. It was fantastic. I don’t regret it one bit.

David McNeill: [0:12:24] That’s awesome. Where did you decide to go ultimately across then? The UK and I believe in Portugal as well. Where were the spots that you wanted to be in and how did you pick those cities that you thought would be good places for us to try out for a few months?

Gerri Detweiler: [0:12:38] Portugal was our main destination, just because we’ve heard so many good things about living in Portugal. Also because if this Lithuanian visa didn’t come through, we know that that’s a possibility as Americans for a place that we could live in Europe. That was our main destination, but flying directly from the US, we live in Florida, to Portugal was just going to be pretty long and we decided to break it up by starting somewhere closer.

We flew into London, we spent a week as tourists in London, and then we had a house sit in Filey, UK, which is sort of about five hours train ride Northwest of London. Then, we went to Paris for a week, and then we flew to Porto, Portugal, where you are, and started our journey. We spent two months traveling throughout Portugal. There are still so many places that we haven’t seen, but I feel like we did get to see a lot of just wonderful, remarkable places, and then, in the end, we flew back out of Paris.

David McNeill: [0:13:37] Okay, great. Could you talk a bit about your housing experience? I think that’s something that I’m interested in doing even as a way to better get around and find places to stay and have cool experiences. Obviously, it was a big part of your trip. As I understand your travels in general. What is it like to be a house sitter and how do people get involved in something like that?

Gerri Detweiler: [0:13:56] Yeah. A few years ago, after reading about other people doing house sitting, we decided we were going to spend some time outside of Florida during the summer. It’s too hot here. We didn’t have any reason to be here. I signed up for Trusted House Sitters. At the time I was going to Utah for work and we immediately were able to land a house sit with a woman who was in Salt Lake City. I was able to meet her in person on another business trip and made her feel comfortable. It was her first house sit and she accepted us.

From there, we spent that entire summer house sitting in Salt Lake City, Utah, Boise, Idaho, and a month in Portland, Oregon. It was just fantastic. We had a great time. Through those more local or US house sits, we were able to get some references. The website, again, we used is www.trustedhousesitters.com. It’s not expensive. For us, it was just fantastic. We also later did a house sit in Denver, Colorado. We had some references when we went overseas.

Now, I will say that going from the US to being overseas and trying to land housesits this past year was a little bit challenging. I don’t blame the owners because they have to feel confident that we’d actually be able to get into the countries, with COVID restrictions. We didn’t get a lot of housesits, but we did have one in like I mentioned, Filey, UK, and then we had a two-and-a-half-week house sit in Faro, Portugal, which is in the Algarve. Both of them gave us a really terrific experience. Feeling what it’s like to live in this place, not just to be a tourist because our trip was, we were on the move a lot, but these experiences let you feel like you’re living there. 

When people talk about house sitting, a lot of times they just think of free lodging and yes, it is free lodging. In the case of Trusted House Sitters, you don’t get paid anything, but you don’t pay for your lodging. You do have the responsibility of animals, dogs or cats, or whatever you end up house sitting. It could be other types of animals. There is responsibility involved, but the other tradeoff is that you are living in this area. I just think there’s something really valuable about that experience that I appreciate with house sitting. For us, it’s something I would love to do again and fully intend to do again when we get back to Europe.

David McNeill: [0:16:24] Yeah, that’s great. I look forward to getting involved myself and it’s always good to spend some time with animals and get an experience of living somewhere. As you said, that can be hard to do if you’re just in an Airbnb, a hostel, or a hotel. I think that’s a really unique and interesting experience I’d like to look into myself a bit more. I would like to jump back as I probably should have asked about this first. You were saying that, I think it’s an important point that you were trying to continue to work remotely with your employer back there in the United States and found out, seemingly near the last second, the last minute of your plans and travels, that you would not be able to do that. It’s great that it’s worked out from a consulting perspective for you, but what was that conversation like in the lead-up to taking your trip? Of course, getting that news, did it change your plans or thinking about what you wanted to do on this trip and how to approach it at all?

Gerri Detweiler: [0:17:16] Mentally, I had determined that I was going to do this no matter what. Years ago, I was self-employed for over 10 years. I had had that experience. Now, it’d been about 12 years since I had been self-employed, but I knew I could do that. In fact, I had maintained my corporation through that time. I could immediately go back into billing directly, as the owner of a corporation. I wasn’t too terribly worried and in the end, it ended up being just fantastic because I was able to take a few weeks off as vacation. They kept me on part-time through the end of the year, and it made it much easier to transition because one of the things that I wanted to try by working remotely from Europe was a flipped schedule. 

I’m much more of a later-in-the-day person when it comes to work. I get going slowly in the morning. I’m not a morning person. My thought was that if I could go out and just enjoy myself, go sightseeing, do whatever it is we wanted to do during the day, and then work in the evening. That might be a great schedule for my preferences.

That turned out to be correct. I really enjoyed working that way. I felt like we were doing something fun every day, even if it was something small. We would get out, do something fun, and then in the evening we’d come back and I would work. Having moved into a consulting role where I didn’t have to worry so much about internet issues which were a huge hassle in some cases, or about the exact time that I was online, just made it a perfect combination. I’m glad it worked out the way it did.

But I will tell you, David, two days before we left, I broke out in hives and my arms were just inflamed. This has never happened to me. I was itching, I thought for sure I contracted something. I didn’t know if it was COVID, of course, the tests were negative, but it was stressful because once I got to London and once we started moving around there, I cleared right up and I was just fine and it has not recurred since. Knock on wood.

David McNeill: [0:19:28] Yeah, I can imagine that’s a lot to take on and of course, a big change to your employment situation could take such a wonderful thing and turn it into something that is obviously considerably more stressful to deal with. I’m glad that it cleared up as you got there, got comfortable, and found a rhythm that worked for you. As you were adjusting to trying to work abroad, did you have any particular issues or things that you needed to change in terms of your business or set up or deal with some of these internet issues that you mentioned as well? What sort of issues did you experience?

Gerri Detweiler: [0:19:59] I ran into two major issues. One was the internet. Airbnb does not do a great job of helping you understand which places really have good, reliable internet. It’s actually pretty pathetic considering they’re trying to attract more remote workers or people who want to be digital nomads. As an example, at the very first Airbnb we stayed in, in the suburbs of London, I was testing my internet speed. It was running around four or five, I couldn’t even do a Zoom call with that. It was awful. You could do email and that was about it.

Throughout Portugal, we found it to be very up and down. I did get in the habit after that of asking people if they knew their internet speed, but most did not. They’d usually say something like no one’s complained or other people have worked here and no one’s complained. So I, in my Airbnb reviews would always list the internet speed. In Porto, for example, the internet speed at the place we were staying, I’m not sure what it was about, but it fluctuated. One minute it was 10. The next, it was almost 200.

I have no idea what was going on. I would say that was a huge challenge. I did, before we left, I bought a hotspot, we had Google 5 for our phones, and I could hotspot off of that. That was pretty reliable and then, I bought a hotspot, but I found that the hotspot was an international one, but I found that it pretty much worked when the internet worked and it didn’t when the internet didn’t. So, it didn’t really add a lot of value to me.

The other issue I ran into was that I should have, before we left, downloaded a VPN to my computer because I had just sold a website and the money had been put into PayPal. I couldn’t get the money out because PayPal thought I was acting fraudulently because I was logging in from the UK and trying to get ahold of customer service was a huge pain. Finally, I was able to download a VPN, and then with that VPN, I could pretend that I was in Miami, Florida, and do whatever it was that I needed to do without any kind of issues or without it assuming that I was in another country and showing me things that weren’t really relevant to what I needed.

David McNeill: [0:22:15] Outside of the house-sitting experiences, where of course you have a certain place that you need to go to. How did you decide which other cities you wanted to hit on your trip? As you thought about potential places to live, for example, in Portugal, did you just do a lot of thinking and analyzing and researching of places that you might want to live? Or did you just do it a little bit more free-flowing and see where the trip took you outside of those boundaries of the places at the house-sitting experiences that you have lined up?

Gerri Detweiler: [0:22:45] We didn’t plan a lot when it came to Portugal. We knew we wanted to see Porto, probably Lisbon, and we had the house sit arranged in Faro, and we arranged that pretty early. Faro is in the South, in the Algarve. Once we left Porto, we actually didn’t have specific plans and we ended up taking a train down to Sesimbra, which is a little bit of a beach ocean resort. Had a wonderful few days there. Then, we took the train down to Faro and we completed our house sit.

At that point, we were still up in the air in terms of, all we knew was the date we flew out of Porto. That was all we knew. Then we started driving, we rented a car and drove around the coast of Portugal. We drove to Sagres, on the tip of Portugal, and up and around, and ended up in Peniche, which is a surfer community, and then back down to Lisbon. From Lisbon, we ended up getting to Porto, so we could fly out.

We just saw some amazing, amazing places and it was a bit of a scouting trip because I’ve been following Facebook groups about Portugal, I’ve been reading articles and there are all these places that I had heard about, and it’s interesting when you really experience it and you say, granted it was short, it wasn’t a long experience, but for example, I’d heard a lot about Portimão and I thought, oh, this sounds magical. I didn’t like it personally. It has beautiful beaches, but it felt very much like South Florida in terms of the way the city is set up. It didn’t appeal that much to us.

On the other hand, we got up to Aljezur, the east coast, and I can’t even describe the beautiful scenery with the cliffs and the waves and everything else. It was just stunning. I would’ve liked to have spent a little bit more time there, but we kept going up. It really worked out well for us. Now, granted, we were traveling during COVID and this was at a time when there were a lot of restrictions. In fact, if you recall, that’s when the Omicron wave was starting, we got into the country right before that.

When we checked into the hotel in Sagres, for example, we had to take a COVID test, right there on the spot and show that we were negative to get into the hotel. What that meant was it wasn’t hard for us to find lodging. From what I understand, I wouldn’t recommend this in the summer, if you’re trying to go to the Algarve and just winging it. I don’t think that’s usually recommended, but for us, it worked out very well and it allowed us to see what we thought of a place and then sometimes we extended our stay. The one Airbnb, for example, near Peniche was just great. It was spacious, had great heaters, which we were cold a lot while we were in Portugal, and had great heaters and great internet. So, we used that as a jumping point to go to places in that area and it just worked out really well for us.

David McNeill: [0:25:43] Big picture, what were your overall impressions of this experience? It sounds like it was overall a very positive one for you, but I’m also curious about if you could share any of the thoughts of your daughter that you traveled with, or your husband as well, because of course, you were very eager to go abroad and I suppose your daughter as well with her graduate school coming up in Norway. I’m interested to hear a bit about how your husband took the experience and how maybe each of you dealt with it in your own way, to the extent that you can interpret that or share that.

Gerri Detweiler: [0:26:14] Well, the last week that we were in Paris before we flew out, Sidney and I were walking down the street and we said, we should just stay. We should just stay. Now, we did have to get back because we had our appointments at the consulate in New York to complete our passport process. We knew we had to go back. Kevin wasn’t quite as sold on living full-time in Europe as I am. That’s going to be a challenge. We’re going to have to figure out a compromise where we’ll probably have a home base here in Florida where we live and then be able to travel more frequently for more extended periods of time.

If it were up to me, I could easily see myself moving to Lisbon. I just fell in love with Lisbon. I could easily see myself living there for a while and using that as a spring point to explore more of Portugal and then ultimately though, more of Europe because there are so many places that I want to see and now I will be able to travel more freely.

David McNeill: [0:27:09] Yeah. That’s great. As you think about maybe your next steps from here, of course, a few months ago you came back from the trip. Now, you’ve got your passport in hand as well. It sounds like you have some other nomadic plans in the United States in the near term. So, it’d be great to hear about what you’re thinking about in the near future and how you might be able to leverage the additional flexibility that you have given the passport going forward.

Gerri Detweiler: [0:27:32] Yeah. We sold our house. We’d already downsized a couple of times after my daughter graduated from high school. We were living in a very small house. We sold that before this trip and so we are a bit nomadic at the moment. We are based in Florida right now, but we’re going to be spending the summer in a few different places. We’ve got three houses lined up. We’ll be traveling around the Eastern side of the US this summer and then probably coming back to Florida to really ensure our residency here and then look at future travel plans.

Of course, she’s going off to Norway and I would love to get to Norway at some point to see her while she’s there. I don’t know exactly what that looks like. As I mentioned, I’m ready to go. In the event that happens, I will be more than happy to get on a plane and head back as soon as possible.

David McNeill: [0:28:25] Yeah, completely understood. Do you have any other thoughts or advice for people that are considering going abroad? Maybe becoming more nomadic and especially as it relates to taking a trip like this, where you’re able to actually see a place in person before jumping in with two feet. If you have any parting thoughts or advice, love to hear it.

Gerri Detweiler: [0:28:48] Yeah. I would say two things. One is, if you can take a scouting trip to check a place out, I think it’s helpful, the reality of places that you read about is sometimes different than what you experience, and then you’ll get a feel for what makes sense for you. The one thing we didn’t do that I regret and wish we had more time to do was really spend some time getting to know people in the places where we were at. We were very much on the move.

Unfortunately, in Faro, we had connected with a hiking group and planned to hike with other expats there, but between the weather and then Sidney and I got a stomach bug that just didn’t happen. That was one thing we were missing was the connection to people who lived there so we could see and maybe experience what it would be like to be there and to have that as a home base. I’d probably recommend that if at all possible.

The second thing is that I really valued the coaching that we did with you, so I think it’s something worth considering because it is a big move. I’ve been working remotely for a few decades now, way before it was a thing but this was at a different level and there were challenges that I just don’t know that I would’ve thought through. It was helpful for me to get another perspective and also just to keep moving forward so that I didn’t get caught up in researching so much that I didn’t actually take action. Thank you for that, David.

David McNeill: [0:30:15] Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for saying that and glad to have been able to play a role in that. I definitely hope to be able to help others with that as well. I know that one of the problems is to actually get this analysis paralysis that you talked about at the beginning, where I think human nature is to just keep looking for the perfect answer or just one more fact or piece of advice, and sometimes it’s good just to go ahead and do it. I think you’ve made a really good point there.

When you did the research for this trip outside of, of course, our coaching, what sort of places did you look for information? It sounds like you had success in terms of Facebook groups. Was there anything in particular that stuck out or other resources or things that you’d recommend to other people as they do this? A bit of their own research as well?

Gerri Detweiler: [0:30:59] Yes, I am an avid podcast listener, so I listened to a travel podcast and then, I also found this group on Facebook, ‘Women Over 50 Moving to Portugal’, which is just the friendliest Facebook group I’ve ever been in. It’s wonderful. I got to meet the moderator when I was there. She holds a weekly dinner in Lisbon. I went to the dinner and there were probably 15 people there. It was a lovely experience. If you can find a good, supportive group like that, it can also go a long way toward making you feel more comfortable about the decision you’re making.

David McNeill: [0:31:31] Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing your experience. It’s been a pleasure hearing about it and even getting more of an update on my end than we were able to have prior to this call. I really look forward to hearing about how your new nomadic adventures go and of course, where you end up abroad as well, perhaps in the future. Maybe down the road, we’ll have an opportunity to have you on the show again. In the meantime, thank you again so much for sharing your knowledge and experience. I look forward to keeping in touch.

Gerri Detweiler: [0:31:56] Thank you, David.

Outro

If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a minute and give us a 5-star review on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts. It helps new listeners find us and lets us know that we are putting out content that you appreciate. You can quickly find out where and how to rate us at https://ratethispodcast.com/expatempire.

If you know anyone who would appreciate this podcast, please tell them about it so we can keep growing the global Expat Empire community.

Keep up to date on new Expat Empire Podcast episodes by pressing the Subscribe button on the podcasting app of your choice.

You can also visit https://expatempire.com and sign up for our email newsletter to get our free eBook Top 10 Tips for Moving Abroad right now.

We’re also on Facebook and Instagram at expatempire, so be sure to follow us there.

We are currently offering free consulting calls to discuss your moving plans and how Expat Empire can help you to achieve them. Please visit our website to schedule your call today.

Thanks for listening, and stay tuned for the next episode in the coming weeks!