Get answers to your questions about marriage, parenting and family life from experts and parents of 7 children!

Rachel Denning (00:15.246)
Hey everybody.

Rachel Denning (00:20.142)
Welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life Podcast. We're your hosts, Rachel and Greg Denning. No, seriously, this is a terrible way to start. That's so bad. Oh my goodness. How about a little more enthusiasm there, woman?

My enthusiastic voice is not an attractive one. So it's best if I don't use my enthusiastic voice. Well, your sad monochrome voice wasn't very enticing either. Now everyone's feeling unwelcomed to our episode today. I'll just edit all of this out. No, you got to keep it. You got to keep it. OK, welcome everybody.

Thank you for listening again. Today we are.

Answering a lot of questions. It's pretty common and it's been it's a question. We've gotten for years and years years Well, we've gotten a lot of this specific question Lately because we've been traveling for six months and I've been posting reels about all the places we've been to the 17 countries we've traveled to in the past six months a full -time travel and of course people are like What how do you even start planning?

A trip like that, you know? Where do you begin? How do you even try to anticipate going to, well we went to 17 countries which means at least double that in cities probably. And...

Rachel Denning (01:55.31)
all the hotels and all the accommodations are the same thing as hotels. All of the transportation. Let's just emphasize all the housing, the logistics, the hotels, the accommodation, all the places you stay, all the places you're going to sleep. And the grocery shopping and or restaurants or how do you get around? You know, like there, I know because I do it, there are so many details.

that go into it. And not just that, because you could go through and have a transactional experience. You could go through and just like, we're going to stay here and eat here and go see that. And you go away, you're like, okay, that was cool. But I think our superpower, something we were very unique at, or what we do is this, and this is my passion.

is how do you squeeze the juice out of a place and experience, out of life? How do you get, like you go somewhere and you're like, OK, I, and this is what I do. I do this mentally. I've been doing it for a long time. I don't know if I've ever articulated it though. When I'm going somewhere, I'm like, I want to get the most out of this place. All that I can out of.

this place, this experience, these wonderful people. Like, how do I really experience them? And everything that's there to be offered, right? Because every place and almost every person has.

so much to teach us and inspire us and we get to feel and experience beautiful, beautiful things. But sometimes we just go and like, yeah, okay, that was it. And we don't really get to experience what's there to be offered. And so, well, thinking deliberately through like, okay, if I'm going to, whether it's Paris or Peru,

Rachel Denning (03:56.046)
Like, how do we get the most? What is there to be experienced? Yeah, and I have a couple thoughts about that. One is, at least from our point of view or our approach, we do what is to be done. We see what's to be seen. And we kind of, in some ways, bite off more than we can chew, in a way, not totally, because we know how to.

We know how to chew a lot. We know how to chew a lot more than some people do. We can take huge mouthfuls. But like when I think about how this whole six months of travel started, I mean it came from this crazy idea that really started with our daughter.

when she was 12 of traveling to all of these countries, you know, in a short amount of time. And for all of this, for all of us, when we first thought of that, it was kind of a terrifying thought. Like, whoa, that's scary. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of unknown. Like, that's a lot of money. How are we going to pull that off?

So that's one side of it, I think that that's where the transformation actually comes. Because when you come up with an idea that's terrifying but exciting at the same time, for me that's always a clue that that's the path you should be taking. And because when you do take that path, that's where you find transformation. Transformational experiences occur when you take the path that's terrifying.

So that's one side of it. The other side of it is you also can't plan those transformational experiences. Like, yeah, you do that part of it, but then in the moment, it's not like something you can actually plan. You can't plan that we're gonna go here and we're gonna see this and it's gonna transform us, right? You can't do that. So you have to really have this approach of embracing the unknown, the...

Rachel Denning (05:55.246)
the um... fully expect expecting serendipity and the way the definition of serendipity that i love to use is that when you're you're out doing something really cool and you find something even cooler it's you're out doing something good and something great happens

And that can be a conversation, a meeting, an experience, a place, a food, whatever. It can be anything. Well, but it's magic. It is. And even like our son who moved out when we were on that trip, he left from Austria and flew back to the United States. You did a podcast with him. And that's one of the things I remember that he talked about. He said, you know, what really transforms you in the travel experience is all of the sucky.

things that you don't want to do. But you have to do them because you have no other option. Like you don't want to be carrying your luggage for a mile through some city, but you have to. There's no other option because if you don't do that, you're going to miss your flight or your train or your ferry. Like there's no option. You have to go from point A to point B. The only way to get your luggage there is to carry it. And so all of us just have to do it. And it's sad.

and it's heavy and it's cold and it's all of these other things and yet you just have to do it and it's those types of experiences that actually transform you. They make you a stronger and a better person because you have to do something you don't want to do.

that dark night in the Baltic state through the rough part of town going to that haunted house of a place we thought we were going to rent. Our Airbnb that turned out to be like a haunted house. In a completely dark alley, like no lights, dark. We get to town in Riga, Latvia and we just want to go to our hotel, our room, our apartment and go to bed.

Rachel Denning (08:03.085)
We carry all of our luggage. Okay, we're rolling it. We have rollers. Rolling it through town. It's dark. But wait, before we got out, the bus station was sketch. It was sketchy. It was the sketchiest country we've been in so far. And you were nervous. On this trip. On that trip. And hold on, we love it there, by the way. It was awesome. But the bus station was sketch, man. Put everyone on alert. Like, you know, pay attention. Be aware, you know.

And then we had to walk in the dark all the way to the accommodations and it looked like a haunted house. And then we went inside and it smelled like it was 100 years old. And then something had been rotting for 100 years. It was nasty. And then we finally find the key. Like, the whole thing's in our deal. And you finally get in and we get into this teeny little apartment. And there's nine of us and there's one bed. And we're all just standing there looking at each other like.

okay something was off here where we can't sleep you know but everyone had this great attitude like all the kids just had a great attitude and then we found you know that's like well i think there's supposed to be two apartments so we i look it up and yeah there is supposed to be another apartment so we get the key for that apartment and we open it up and someone's living in there they weren't there at the moment but there was stuff everywhere like it was a disaster and we're like okay well we're not sleeping here

So then, that's right, I forgot. So then I had to get. We open the door and it's like occupied. Right. Still with only one bed though, so I don't know where we were all supposed to sleep. So then, you know. And this guy, I don't even know if we ever got our money back. I don't know if we did. He was a piece of work. Yeah. And so. So okay, this is a perfect example you guys. Like your best efforts to plan and. To plan. And Rachel is a great planner and she does the details so well.

But even with your best efforts, every once in a while you're going to have this miscommunication or a misrepresentation and it's going to be like, what? And so, you know, and we're talking through these stories so that you know what it's like. And so right then it's like, well, we can all try and sleep in this one apartment. Oh, he did actually, we got, communicated with him and he was like, oh, I have this other apartment that's right across the dark alley.

Rachel Denning (10:26.189)
at this other place and we went over there and it was nice but it smelled like...

Some sort of chemical like like if you had spent the night there you might have woken up with lung cancer Yeah, it was something like that is that chemically so it was pretty bad, and I was just like you know what no no sorry I'm not gonna. It's not worth it plus. We were supposed to be there for six days I was like I'm not gonna stay here for six days, so I'll guide the main point of communication He was like sorry. I'm in the mountains and sketchy reception. I was like man either outsource your Communication when you have a guest checking

or be available, he was something else. So to summarize the story, we decided to find another place. So I get on and I use my phone, internet that's not great, and I find another hotel, and then I book it, even though I don't know if I'm getting my money back, but I don't care at this point. And we book it, and so then we have to walk back the way we came. Now it's raining, in the dark.

And didn't we jump on the train? They had like the city train that went in the middle of the two lanes of traffic. That was a different city. No, I think it was this one, because we took a train down, because it was way back. So anyways, we go back, and then we show up at this place. And this place, it was a nice hotel. It was still kind of quirky, but it was nice. And it was right by that Christmas market. But then this was the trade -off. Yes. You know, the serendipity, I guess, in this situation was.

We got there, we check into the hotel and we walk right around, we were in Old Town of Riga and we walk right around the corner and there was the Christmas market. And it's January by now, so we didn't expect there to be a Christmas market. And it was the last night. And it was the last night of this Christmas market. And it was like the perfect little Christmas market. It was so cute and they had this little fire set up and they were cooking all of this meat and there was like a pig. And we walked up and we were their last clients and they just fed us all this amazing fire cooked food. And they were playing good music and it was just like a great

Rachel Denning (12:25.263)
great vibe and we're all just like, ah, it's those little things. Like you go through all this suck and then there's these little moments of magic that you're just like, you know what, that's why we do it. That's why it's worth all of that pain and hassle, you know? And so - In fact, every day that week we went walking in a different direction from that little hotel and had the coolest experiences. Because it's a cool city. Yeah.

So that was magic. So that's a perfect example. It's a total crap sandwich that we planned, but the plan failed. And then we just adjusted in the moment and ended up having such a special experience there. Yeah. That was so cool. Right. And so then, you know, the question of like, well, how do you start planning something like this trip? And, and the truth is you just start doing it knowing that.

it's not gonna all work out. And I think that's maybe where people get hung up on that is because they want to have everything perfect, they want all the details, they want to make sure it's... Because a lot of people approach...

planning something from this vacation mindset where you've got a limited time. It's a budget. It's once a year type thing and you want everything to be perfect because it's your vacation and you're trying to pack in everything that can be experienced in one week. But that's not what long -term travel is about. If you try to do it that way, you'll literally drive yourself crazy. It is more about having these unexpected experiences that end up transforming you because you have to do things. You know, nobody wanted to walk back.

in the rain because even if we caught the transportation which I think we might have we had to walk there and then we had to walk from it you know it's raining all these things that's a doozy right there trying with a big family trying to get on and off trains and exactly it's wild in different yeah in different cities each time where it works differently each time right I can't remember one of those cities you literally are in the middle no I remember what you're talking about traffic and that's where you catch the

Rachel Denning (14:31.727)
Instead of most places where the train or the taxi or the bus is on the curbside, this one you had to walk out into traffic into the middle of the road and get on and off there. And so then we get off of it and we're like in the middle of the road and you're trying to cross there, which of course is nothing compared to Egypt and Egypt's craziness. Wow. Yeah. So.

So how do you go about doing this? How do you start planning these big adventures? And then of course people want to know about budget. How do you pay for these things? How much does it cost? And I did start doing actually a reel about the cost of our trip and then it ended up glitching and I lost all my work and so then I was frustrated and I have not recreated that. But I may at some point with specific details, I'm not going to share them here because I don't remember them off the top of my head and I don't want to just come up with

of stuff. But one of the things... Just make up some numbers, Rach. I know. Just totally make it up. And that was $7. No, but it comes down to a fundamental principle, though, of picking...I guess I want to back way up. Well, wait. Sorry. While we're thinking about it, I do want to say something about the budget for just a minute before you go there. Okay.

For one, it's not, we were traveling through Europe and so it wasn't cheap and there were nine of us at times. So it costs money. I'm not gonna lie, it costs money. But. Norway, a month in Norway. I think we spent probably.

Rachel Denning (16:09.773)
Like we're both I don't want to say the wrong number But I think in some of the places with nine of us we were spending like a thousand dollars a day that sounds insane, but There were a couple places where it was that much some countries some of you are saying well. That's a lot so you're like that's it sweet yeah

But you have to remember... Which is a good reminder for all of us. It's just relative. It's all relative. But those places where we were spending that kind of money is when we're doing things like we're going dog sledding and we're doing the reindeer rides and we're, you know, there's a lot of activities that are going on in it's not just like food and housing. It's not that. That's cheap when you do that. But this was doing all of the bucket list things, right? You're spending that much. Now in the cheaper countries, it obviously was not that much, but you're still paying. But this is...

my point this is what I want to get to when you're not necessarily counting all the bucket list things and you're just you're traveling to and from and seeing the local old town which is amazing experiences in itself when you see the old towns and you go to the Christmas markets and you eat and you pay for your accommodations.

really we're not spending that much more than we do when we're living at home because when you're living at home you're paying your mortgage, you're paying your mortgage insurance, you're paying your utilities, you're paying food of course, you're paying for your car payment, you're paying for your insurance on the car, you're paying, like there's all these things you're paying for that we weren't paying for because we were traveling. We'd rented out our house, we sold our car.

cars. We, you know, canceled all those things. We're not paying for those things.

Rachel Denning (17:58.989)
that money is being directly transferred to what we are doing, which is traveling. And that's what we did for years and years and years, because again, we've traveled for 17 years, and most of the time, it was cheap, inexpensive travel. There was a time in our life when we lived in our truck and overlanded from Alaska to Panama, and for a period of time, we were living on $1 ,000 a month. It really depends on which country you go to and how you live. And how you travel and what you're doing. Yeah, there are so many countries that just

Just food and accommodations are extremely affordable.

very very inexpensive. And so that was the approach we took especially early on was we just went and lived in the country essentially so we didn't have living expenses in our home country we just transfer those living expenses to another country and now we're having an international experience we're seeing things we're having transformational experiences it's amazing but we're just paying for accommodations and food and normal expenses and it's no more expensive than what you're doing at home. So that's

That's one thing about the budget. And that also depends on how you do it, right? You can use Airbnb, which is getting super expensive now. Airbnb has the cost has gone way up. But you're paying for the convenience. That's why. Well, we were before. I mean, 10 years ago, it's just it's gone up in prices massively. But there's other platforms. We're actually enjoying booking .com. There's lots on there now. Any kind of accommodation is getting listed on there. And there's other sites in other ways. But again, it all depends on you, right? We've

We've stayed in very, very fancy, spancy, nice hotels or Airbnb, but we've also stayed in very... Regal up, yeah. ...very affordable hotels or Airbnbs or B &Bs. And we mix it up, honestly. And we mix it up on purpose because I want my children and...

Rachel Denning (19:53.485)
to not be spoiled and think they have to stay in a luxury hotel. I want them to be comfortable in a super luxury hotel and I want them to be comfortable in in a kind of ratty apartment and be okay with it. Now we're at a space where we can do that and I want my kids to have that full experience and not think it's always trashy or it's always luxury. Like life is just a full mix and if again this is just our personal philosophy if you can be comfortable.

with people who live in extreme poverty and who live in extreme wealth.

and be good with that and connect with them, love them, learn from them on both ends of the spectrum. I think that's a very, very good thing. So we plan in. So this even takes our planning to a whole other level because we're planning in an entire life philosophy and education and we want to grow and learn through experience. We're not just going to check little boxes and get our little Instagram pictures in front of a famous building. Although we do that.

We totally do that. But it's, we're there to have an experience, a full experience. To be touched by the place. To be reachable and teachable and touchable and to leave as better people and hopefully having left it and those we meet better people in a better place. We want to have impact. Yeah.

Okay, so fundamentally back to planning. You really have to back up and say, well, what is it I really want to experience? What do I want to see and do? And some of you are like, man, I have no idea. Others have a huge list. So you got this long list of all the places you want to see. But you can start with Instagram or Pinterest or YouTube videos or documentaries. You can start by hearing stories. People told you about some waterfall they found in Central America or like some...

Rachel Denning (21:50.381)
Epic place in Europe and and that's going to be a major determining factor in how you begin the planning process So if you want to go hike some huge mountain and some foreign land or you want to go to

see the library and the Magna Carta in London. It's very different. So you have to decide what do you want to experience. And are you going as a couple or are you going as a family? And you'll have different trips. So Rachel and I do couple trips and we do family trips. And then we create and lead trips. And so, in fact, on the schedule, ladies and gentlemen.

We are leading, we have our, in what, two weeks, we have a full retreat here. It's already full. A retreat here in, in Portugal. For youth. For youth. Then the next one is Scotland. Scotland. And that's already full. That one filled up super fast. We're leading a trip for families in Scotland. Then we are, I'm taking a group of men and they can bring wives and kids and we are going to go hike Kilimanjaro and then do a three day safari. What?

in February going to be epic so there's still spots for that get in on it because it's going to be extraordinary. Then we are doing Mongolia. Back to Mongolia was one of our all -time favorite places so that's for families or youth or men or whoever that was just open. Unbelievable and we're gonna go ride horses through. I'm really excited about that. Oh man you don't even know that country is so cool.

And then I was just communicating with our guides in Nepal that took us up to the base camp of Everest I'm gonna lead a group back there. We're going back. Probably go tracking. Yep, and good do a trekking in in Nepal again unbelievable. So those Those are different experiences and you have to decide like well, what do I want to experience? What do I want to see? What do I want to eat? What do I want to? Experience and I think

Rachel Denning (23:56.525)
I don't know for sure if people really understand how important this plays into at least our planning process is that we don't plan to do things that we just go to do because people say that's what you should do or whatever. I mean, we're very much in touch with the things that kind of light our soul, so to speak. So...

That's where I begin. Like I don't even start planning a trip, including trips that we lead for people, unless it's someplace that we're like, yes, I wanna go there and I wanna do that. So once, that's the first step. You have to identify that. If you don't even know where you wanna go or what you wanna do and see, well you can't plan anything. So you have to get in touch with this.

Spark within you and within your family because I'll get excited about things my kids want to do and that's where this this trip for us started we did You know 15 countries in Scandinavia and the Baltic states and Europe and that came from a dream our daughter had When she was 12 or 13 because she saw she saw a reel and it sparked it sparked her passion of like oh I want to go across I want to go do that several countries very quickly and so she and I remember I remember it was like a Sunday afternoon she

She was like, dad, I really, really, really want to do this. I'm like, well, let's sit down and see. Let's find a map. So it was a globe. I think we had a globe. I'm like, OK, where are a cluster of countries we've never been to that are close enough we could pull this off?

And that's where we came up. We could go all across Scandinavia and down to the Baltic States. That was the beginning of this dream. But that, that happened two or three years ago. And then we had planned a trip to Norway that we were leading. And then it, one day it just came up. You guys were like, well, we should do that trip. We should go across. And at first I'm like, ah, terrifying. Like that's a lot of traveling, but that's where it came from. It was like this, something that spoke.

Rachel Denning (25:56.527)
to us, you know, it spoke to...

you guys and then you shared it and even though I was terrified it was kind of like, oh wow, that would be incredible, that would be amazing, there's so many details it's frightening but... And to do it in winter. We were purposely going to take our Christmas New Year's break and travel across Scandinavia and you're like, it is dark and cold. Why would you do that? That's what people were like, why would you take your vacation and go there? Exactly. And it was epic.

magical. Oh, off the charts. So you begin by finding something that both excites and terrifies you. You've got to find that because that's the trip that's going to be transformational for you. If you're going to go travel, make it epic, man. Go for it. Send it. Go big. Or stay home, right? No, don't stay home. Just go big. So let's say you do this. You're like, OK, we want to go experience Norway.

Then we just start scouring. So for me, since I actually do a lot of the planning, what I then do is... She takes all the credit. Absolutely, I will. We do some things. You throw out ideas, and then I'm still in the blank. So I will share my process. That is awesome. Essentially for me, I do a lot of research. And I use Google Maps a ton. So first of all, I will just map things. I'll be like, oh, we want to go from here to here. And I map it. And then I look at all the different ways. So let's back up, though. Why do you want to go from there to there?

Well, it ties into what we talked about there, like of what we're excited about doing. So let's say you pick a country, and then you can do something as simple as like top things to do in this city or in this country. So you literally could go, hey, top things to do in Norway. And you're going to get actually a bunch of websites that have anywhere from 7 to 27 things to do. And just quickly, don't take a lot of time, but just quickly scan through.

Rachel Denning (27:55.213)
And you're going to come across, you know, six, seven, 10 things are like, what? That is so rad. Sometimes less. Sometimes less. Depending on the place. No, you're right. You'll find a place and they're like, top things to do. And you're like, there's not a single thing I want to do on that list. That's a really good point because there were plenty of places we could have gone. But when I Googled what to do, none of them are like that interesting. I did that same thing. Not worth it. Like what should we do in the city? And there was nothing worth stopping for.

so but when i do google and i'm like oh yeah we would love that and we would definitely want to do that then that's like okay i know that's a place i want to go perfect and so i start by then of course kind of putting that on the list of like oh norway we want to do these things that's how we ended up going to tromso and to oslo because you know tromso looked so amazing it had the dog sledding and it had the you know it's like dark all day long pretty much the sun literally did not come up right so you know we want to

to have that type of experience. But then that's how we learned about the Sami. The Sami indigenous people. And then we started learning about Viking history. Wait, this is interesting too. Let's back up on this because actually one of the reasons I started to look at going to Tromso was because my mom sent me an article about the Sami indigenous people who live in northern Scandinavia. And I thought, oh, well, that's really fascinating. These people and you know, they're kind of who in frozen.

the guy with the reindeer is based off of like that whole group of people because they're reindeer herders and that just was really fascinating to me. So that attracted my interest which made me want to learn more about going there and what they do and the reindeer and so we went and had a whole Sami indigenous experience where we learned about them.

They had their little teepee tent and we ate reindeer and they sang their Sami songs and it was really really cool. I think I still feel chills in my bone from that night. It was cold.

Rachel Denning (29:57.261)
It was very cold and then very warm and cozy because they put you in a little hut and feed you the reindeer stew and hot chocolate and it was just really magical. I loved it. So for me that's how I plan this. These things that kind of speak to you or call to you of like, yes, I want to do that.

And then I just, like I said, I start doing tons of research. So I start looking up where to do it, how to do it, how much it costs, how would you get from here to here? Like, you know, oh, well how would I go see the Troms... the Sami people? I have to fly to Tromsø. And then I look at flights from Oslo to Tromsø or flying directly from New York or something. And so I'm doing tons of research. I'm using... I've got tons of tabs open. What about this? What about this? Oh, what if we do this? Oh, what if I just did this? And then I end up putting together all these possibilities.

and then I have to start turning the possibilities into actualities. And the way I like to do it is I like to think of it as like pillars. I like to put my pillars in and then I fill the itinerary in between the pillars. So if I know for sure something's going to happen on this date, say for example there's a Christmas market that closes.

on a certain day, well you need to be there before the Christmas market closes, right? That would be one of your pillars. And I'm actually laughing about this because that was a detail I missed. If we went to...

Copenhagen and Stockholm to see the Christmas markets but they were closed. I had previously learned that they closed on certain nights but then I had to make an adjustment to our itinerary which just got us there after the markets closed. So you know kind of a big deal when you're going to see Christmas markets. But with the other details like we had a cruise that we took and we had this and that and so I knew I put the pillars in place of like okay I have to be in Finland by this date because

Rachel Denning (31:50.063)
of this thing happening, that means then I work backwards from there. I'm like, okay, that means we have to be in Stockholm by here and then we need to be in Copenhagen by this date. I know we get to Norway on this date because that's when we move out of our house. You know, I'm putting all of these pillars in place and then I start to fill in the details. Now it can get very...

for me when I do a trip it does get very detailed. In fact when we lead trips I literally walk through every hour of every day.

to see where we're going to be, where we're going to be eating, how long it takes us to... I map everything. How long it's going to take us to get there. But that's the detailed planning I only do on a trip we lead where I have to have everything planned. It's more like a vacation, you know? You have to have everything planned because, you know, people are coming and they're doing this with all their brains. And you're trying to squeeze in a lot. Otherwise, when we travel, we actually schedule in downtime. We, yeah, we absolutely schedule in downtime because when you're traveling,

long term, you have to have plenty of downtime or you just get so worn out everyone ends up hating it. I would even say that's the case for people who are like, I only get a week or two weeks off, we're going crazy. Many, many people I talked to, they come home with vacations and they're exhausted and they want a vacation from their vacation. Exactly. And they don't feel renewed and rejuvenated and ready to get back to work or studies. They're just like, ugh.

And they actually start to get this negative association with travel and vacation. They're like, that was terrible. So make sure you fit in some just peaceful, relaxing recovery time.

Rachel Denning (33:36.269)
And you can do this strategically. You can have a busy day followed by a chill day at a beautiful museum or park. Or just at a nice hotel. A nice hotel. You just stay at the hotel. The beach or the river or the lake. You're like, this day we're going to go see this beautiful. And it's a super slow, still special, still gorgeous, still get to see amazingness. But it's chill. It's a recovery day. And I mean, honestly, we try to only do one.

maybe two things a day, you know, we're not out there going from place to place like non -stop sightseeing. It's just too, too exhausting for everyone. Yeah, in some ways, we've talked about this for years and kind of laughed at it.

part of the hardest part of of doing this is deciding what one not to do that's what i was gonna say that often becomes the hardest part is deciding what to keep out of the itinerary because i know from experience that you you just can't do it all you can't see it all you never will every time we travel and go new places always missing out on more things we could have seen always

And you have to learn to be okay with that of like, well, I can't do and see it all. I just can't. And so I'm going to enjoy what I can while I'm here and then, you know, move on. Love it. So then we'll pick, we'll pick, we'll pick a country or an area of the world.

Sometimes we'll start with the area of the world, then we'll pick a country, then inside the country you start looking for your experience and you measure it a little bit and you start like, oh, that's really cool. So then you zoom in there. It's almost like you're zooming in. You just double click, zoom in, zoom in, zoom in. And you're like, wow, look at the old town in Tallinn, Estonia. Whoa, man, the old town is so rad. So we're like, OK, let's zoom in there. We want to stay either in old town or near old town. So then we pull up.

Rachel Denning (35:33.421)
booking, pull up Airbnb, pull up Expedia. I put in potential dates. I put in dates and how many people. And then you see the price differences and availability and start narrowing that down. And then sometimes you're like, okay, well, I know for us, of course, we always need Wi -Fi. So I put that filter on. I was like, we've got to have.

Wi -Fi for sure because we work. So when you know certain things, sometimes if we rent a car, I'm like, I know we need parking because we rented a car here. So you put on those filters and then you just start comparing, you know.

what's available in that area and then it's just a matter of trading certain you know price versus certain things you just want to have an experience so that night it was it was New Year's Eve and we wanted to stay right downtown and you picked the perfect spot. It was. The hotel on the this really sharp corner looking into the square with the fireworks.

It was unreal. So we paid a lot more for that experience to stay right in because we wanted that experience and it was worth it. That market was rad. It was super cool, but part of it was it was also just a more expensive time because it was New Year's, you know? And so things were more expensive and I thought, all right, if we're going to be paying...

I'm going to have, I'm going to pick the more of the experience I want to have anyway. So I'm not just paying a lot of money for a less desirable spot. And then other times we'll, we'll go outside of town and get an apartment. And, and we love those too because then you get the experience again, if you're open and deliberate to it and you're, you're curious, you're paying attention and you're interested, you get to see like, Oh, this is, this is what it's like to live here. This is what the people who live here, this is what they're experiencing.

Rachel Denning (37:23.917)
and you get experienced, the hap.

aspect of a foreign place instead of just the touristy aspect. Well, I like that too, where instead of a fancy hotel in the touristy area, you get a simple apartment in the residential area. And that was kind of our experience in Vienna. You and I have been to Vienna before and we've led trips there. Oh, and this was another mishap too, because we rented an Airbnb that was on the outskirts of town. It wasn't in the old town. It was out.

But when we showed up, it was not what it was expected. It was supposed to be like two bathrooms and it was really only one toilet with a, then another. Oh, I forgot about that one. Yeah. Yeah. This is, that one was a disappointment that turned into an awesomeness. Yeah. Because then, and then the master bedroom was actually a bed in the kitchen. That's right. I forgot about that. So like the, and the bathroom was right there too. Like it was a doozy. But there was one toilet and there was nine of us and I'm like,

we can't have one toilet one shower one toilet for nine of us for I think it's gonna be like four or five days and so I think the same thing I didn't know if I was gonna get reimbursed but I'm like I don't care I'm thinking which thing there is we're sharing these because there is misrepresentation out there about what these places have right and so I booked another place that was nearby

And we got, and it was amazing. Yeah, that was awesome. Two apartments, way more space than we needed, like tons and tons of bathrooms. It was great. Cool building. But we were outside of Vienna. We weren't close to anything touristy per se. We were just out there and we went to a local restaurant, which was really great food, of course, like a lot of Europe is. And just some more. You know, we went into downtown and you guys even went in and went ice skating and things. Oh man, we had, okay. That's, wow. How does that?

Rachel Denning (39:18.351)
even come about they you guys what went wandering or something somebody we got split off doing different things because I had to I had to fix something with your computer so I went to the Apple store team split off we were all over Vienna and then they're like we went past this ice skating rink and it was all lit up by these all these old old buildings and it was a part of Vienna I'd never been to and so we were there for I can't even remember how long we were in there and they're like could we please go can we please go and it was like our last night.

And it was late at night and we found out like if you go over at the very end is only like four euros each or something. And I was exhausted. I literally was spent. I was so exhausted. I stayed home. Yeah, I was ready for bed. They're like, please, can we go ice skating? I'm like, you know what? Let's send it. Let's just full go here. So we all hot. We figured out how to hop on the subway, went over there. It was such a special experience. Like.

That's the best ice skating I've ever done. This place was unreal. And it was surrounded by these old castles and cathedrals and lights and music. And it was just pure, pure magic. So fun. And that was all serendipitous. We didn't nose there. We didn't plan on it. But we made it happen and had such a special experience. One of the favorite memories for the family is, oh, so cool. Yeah.

So essentially though, in the process of planning, it's kind of this zooming in and zooming out. It's kind of a constant thing. You kind of zoom out and try to look at the bigger picture.

Then you zoom in and you even down to street level and looking at things. You know, I mean, I'm constantly zooming into where the accommodations are and what the streets are around in what restaurants there are. Cause for us too, we want to know if there's grocery stores nearby because we like to go because we're particular about our diet and plus with a family, it's cheaper. We like to go and buy food that we can eat, you know, take home and eat ourselves or prepare ourselves. So I'm zooming in and zooming out and just doing

Rachel Denning (41:22.895)
tons of research on every level you can imagine. So it's a lot of work, not gonna lie. But one of the other things that I thought of, and I kind of hinted at this at the beginning, that I want to talk about is that you can't plan something like that with all the details involved, especially over a period of months, until you learn how to plan things.

in your normal life.

Rachel Denning (42:01.965)
will also cultivate and develop and refine your skill set to plan your daily life. It's true. It does. So it goes both ways. And I think it's both critically important. Ultimately, you want and need to be a better planner. Yeah. Absolutely. And becoming a better trip planner actually helps you become a better life planner. Right. And being a better life planner helps you become a better trip planner. Yeah. So in some ways, you know, I...

If you have a hard time planning your week, most people do. Like you can't make it to church on time. You can't make it to lessons on time. You're this, that, the other. Like, yeah, you're going to have a hard time planning a trip because if you don't show up on time.

That's a lot of stress. That's a lot of money wasted and lost. Because if you miss a flight or a ferry or a bus or a train, like, sorry, they don't care why you are late. You missed it. That's it. And it really comes down. It's so, this is one of the most common problems out there.

I hear this every day, literally every day from so many different people. They struggle to get to bed on time, to wake up on time, to have a list of things to work on and to get things accomplished on their list. That's just, it's just so common. And it's so tempting to blame our circumstances. It really is so tempting, but it is choice, not circumstance.

that determines the outcome of our lives. And your life is just some total of your choices. Your days, your weeks, your trips are the sum total of your choices. And we have to cultivate and develop our capacity, our skills in making choices, making decisions. So everything you want in life lies in your ability to make good choices.

Rachel Denning (44:02.925)
And essentially to plan. That's what I mean. So planning is a choice and executing is a choice. And it's strategic choosing and decision making. So it really comes down to that. So some of you are like, you can't make it through the day and feel productive and effective. Every once in a while you do and you're like, hey, what happened? How did that actually work? But it's a skill we all need to work on and refine because it helps us.

Well, not only get more done and more meaningful things done, but enjoy life. But be able to do more things. Yes. The only reason we could actually pull off a trip like that, one, it's because we have a lot of previous experience. We have done a lot of other trips. And so that, of course, has gone into our ability to do something like this. Two, well, actually, I don't know what two is, but what I want to say is that...

Even with all of the planning I did, there were still mishaps, of course, but I know that if I hadn't have planned as well as I did, there would have been way more mishaps that would have made it actually a horrible experience.

You guys, we don't have time to tell you stories, but we had some deuces on this trip. Okay, that's what you're laughing about. I'm actually laughing about that if we had tried to do a trip like this ten years ago, I would have been... I cried maybe once or twice on this trip. I would have been crying the whole time.

on this trip if we tried to do it 10 or 15 years ago because we lacked the skills. We didn't have the skill set necessary to do something that one, cost this much and two, included this many details. We just didn't.

Rachel Denning (45:58.317)
And we didn't have a podcast episode like this to help walk us through it. Exactly. I mean, you know, I remember so many times in our early travel years, just in tears at the airport because of a lack of planning. I mean, start with, start with our very first flight to Costa Rica when I showed up at the airport with totes full, giant totes full of stuff I wanted to take to Costa Rica to live with. We went to the store looking for the biggest tote we could find and we filled it.

chuck full with everything we wanted to bring. And we were clueless. This is how clueless we were. We didn't even know that the airline was going to charge us for extra size and extra weight. That's how much, that's how little we knew about travel. Like that's...

most basic thing ever and we were clueless. So we were at the airport called your sister to come and get the rest of our stuff because we didn't want to pay a thousand dollars for extra luggage. And so we're like, come get our stuff. And so I'm, I'm outside the airport crying, sorting through the stuff as fast as I can to think what do I actually really need to take with me? And like, you know, it was just, we were clueless. We had no idea. And I can't tell you how many times something like that has that, you know,

I showed up at the airport with my baby wanting to fly with her and I didn't buy her a ticket and now they're making us buy a ticket on the spot and I'm in tears because I didn't know that and I didn't plan for that you know all of these things that you just don't know but it makes the experience so much

better when you do some pre -planning, right? Because there will always be unexpected things that happen. But the more research you can do to figure out what to expect, the better off you're going to be. And even that's like strategic thinking. And I don't even know what to refer to it as.

Rachel Denning (47:52.045)
possibility planning. I do a lot of this. Like, okay. And I just think through like, okay, if this happens or this happens, what are the potential mishaps here? This doesn't go right. If we don't meet this, right. What do you do? And you actually develop that skill set and it's really good. So you're not worrying. You're just preparing. So that when you're out, yeah, for potential. So when something happens, you're like, okay, that's, that's not ideal, but let's roll with it. And so often now the,

mishaps like the stories we've already told you in this episode, the mishaps turn out to be way better experiences than we had even planned. And that happens a lot in our lives with serendipity. We planned something that would be so cool and we ended up experiencing something that was way cooler. But back to my chuckle earlier, like so many things just turn out weird.

I mean, we rent cars all over the place all the time and then randomly show up to one country and they're like, uh, nope, your driver's license is not valid here. Like, what? Like I'm renting cars in almost every other country in this continent and not valid here. Like, nope. Like.

Oh man. Now what do we do? So then we scramble or you know we do trains or buses or boats and decide how you want to experience it. Do you want a backpack? Do you want to take buses, trains, planes? Do you want to rent cars? Do you want to drive? How do you want to experience it? You're talking about when you're planning a trip. Yeah when you're planning a trip. And there are countries that are very peaceful and very easy to visit like Portugal and Poland.

And then there are countries that you gotta like Egypt. You gotta buckle up. Egypt, India, Morocco, I would say. You gotta prepare yourself. Again, it's part of the planning. Like some of these countries are way more chaotic. And even Egypt, even with all of our traveling, guys, I think Egypt was probably 55 or 56 countries for me.

Rachel Denning (50:09.325)
over what 20 years like I've traveled a lot extensively and those first few days I was like okay this is and I'm driving especially because you're driving that's why mostly I'm like this is driving in Cairo was unreal but after and I could feel the the tenseness the tension through my whole body but then I read. By the end of the trip.

You were just like... I loved it. I was driving like the Egyptians, man. I'm like, let's go. Who needs lanes or stoplights or anything? This is amazing. And I loved it. And I loved, I actually loved going downtown, which it's just a beast of a city. It's unreal. But to go downtown, like, and it was open till 1 a .m. down there in the old markets. And you just somehow miraculously find a parking space.

And then just go wander through...

and just like feel the vibe of the city. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Connect with the people. I mean, you know, our kids still laugh about the guy that sold us our candle holders and how all the funny comments he would say like, oh, you know, about his hair or weird things, you know, it's just funny little things that just connect you with the place and the people. And the reason we ended up there that night is because we were planning, we planned. Oh, right. To go and to go do a Nile tour on a boat. But

Google Maps took us on two different routes that ended up being closed. Like the road was closed. The exit just had a pile of dirt in front of it. So that's what they do. They'll close an exit with a back of a dump truck, dump pile of dirt, and that's that. So our plan was to go on the Nile River tour, but because of two closed roads, then we were in the middle of Cairo and we're like, okay. So let's go somewhere else. And that road was closed and then we're like...

Rachel Denning (52:05.037)
What in the world? We're like, what's nearby? And it happened to be this old Cairo market. This insane market. And I dropped off Rachel and the kids. She dropped me off because Sanji had to pee. So he drops me off with Kimball and Sanji and we go looking for a bathroom in the middle of Cairo. And basically it was like, good luck. I hope we see each other again in this life. This is insane.

And then they took me, you know, we kind of asked around and they led me to some little hole in the wall that literally had a hole in the floor and that's what we use for the bathroom.

and then we wandered around waiting for you to hopefully find parking and then we met up miraculously thankful for phones. It was so awesome. And we shopped in that market till past midnight and it was wonderful and amazing and then Aliyah got Henna, she'd been so excited about getting Henna and we ran into a lady from Africa that did, well we were in Africa, southern Africa somewhere that did Henna and it was just cool experiences meeting people and talking.

and shopping and all because plans fail. Yeah, it didn't work. So, oh, I love it. So prepare again. And as you're going through, think through, think through potentialities. How about money and currency? We've had so many hangouts with money and currency and they only take cash and they don't take this card or that card and all the only ATMs on the other side of the country. Which is why we carry every card possible. American Express, Visa, MasterCard.

And if you can, travel with cash and try to get cash as soon as you can. Our rule is don't get cash in the airport because the exchange rate is usually horrible. So generally we take a card and...

Rachel Denning (53:50.221)
take it to the ATM to get cash out. That's our approach, usually. So we don't usually travel with cash, basically. And so, I don't know, but just try it. And if you've never done it, try somewhere simple. Try Spain or Portugal or...

Somewhere easy. Somewhere easy. Just go have a cool experience. Well, I would say there's a couple things here. One, start getting better at planning your regular life. Yes. Like honestly, start there. If you are having a hard time getting places on time or getting things done or whatever, start there because you really cannot do big things until you learn to do small things better. Yep.

So you have to start there. Start to get better at planning in your own life. And please stop. I'm going to be frank here. I'm going to be a frank coach. Stop blaming circumstances and other people. Like your life, and this is the hard truth, your life is the way it is because you've designed it to be that way.

And I know you're like, no, no, I didn't. It was my spouse or my kids or this thing happened. And I realized that things happen. But when you take full ownership and responsibility, you start to realize, oh, yeah. Had I gone upstream, so to speak, I could have prevented that from happening, or I could have responded better, or I could have been more prepared. We have to get to a place where,

you're more capable so that when a catalyst happens to two different people, the one who's more planned, more prepared, more capable just flows with it and adjusts and keeps going. The other one's like, oh, there goes my day, there goes everything, my whole schedule is gone, it's all, ah. And then six months later, they're still talking about how that ruined their day. Right.

Rachel Denning (55:55.405)
And I think that that's kind of the difference here that hopefully we're illustrating in our stories is that we do all the planning we can. We take full responsibility for the outcomes we're trying to achieve. Despite that, things will happen. And so that's the part of life that is just life. But when those things happen, if you've already done everything you can, then you know.

This is truly out of your control because you did everything you could control. And now you have kind of this freedom to respond without this... I know for me that it's kind of this processing I'm trying to go through of like, well, what did I do? How did we get here?

How could I have prevented it? Where did I mess up? You don't have that way. And I think even if you don't do that consciously, you do that subconsciously, you don't have that weighing on you because you're like, man, I did everything I could. So now what's the solution here moving forward from here?

And that just gives you a lot more power, I think, because you can literally take all of your mental, emotional energy and put it towards finding a solution, which is always the best thing to do when you come up with something unexpected. So, and I think it's wise to schedule in time, both in your day and on your trips. Time...

for things you didn't anticipate and money.

Rachel Denning (57:31.181)
for things you didn't anticipate. Because early on, I remember being so frustrated that it cost more or took more time. Yeah, I had this amount in my mind for this and it ended up costing more or double. I gave myself 15 minutes to get from here to here and you're like, yeah. See, that's the other thing too. I always add in buffer time. So if it says, oh, it's going to take us an hour, I'm like, eh.

to give us an hour and a half for before and after, you know, unexpected, all of those things because inevitably there's something. You know, we showed up, this is a classic example. We were taking a train somewhere, I don't remember where, who knows, doesn't matter, and we showed up with...

15 minutes until our train left and we thought that should be plenty of time right good. We're here We're at the train station. Well, it turns out this train we were taking I think we're taking a train to another country the train Platform was 15 minutes away, right? So we're at the train station and then we have to walk to the platform But this all the platforms are right there close within like two minute walk this one particular platform was way down the track we're running of course because

The train is leaving in 15 minutes and we just got here and it's 15 minutes away and so we literally were running with our luggage.

That was funny. And sweating, you know, and so there's always going to be something like that. So for me, I'm always giving, you know, always trying to give buffer time for the unexpected because you should expect the unexpected to happen. You should show up and be like, huh, yeah, I figured something like that would happen. You know, so, so yeah, the one is you start planning better in your, your day to day life. And then the two is the second one is you just, you start planning something because part of making something,

Rachel Denning (59:26.991)
like this happen is you have to do the planning beforehand. It will never happen if you don't start planning it now. It took me months to plan that trip. Now I didn't plan all of it because we ended up traveling for six months and initially I think we maybe thought about doing it for three and we extended. So I planned some of it, the later part of it, while we were on the trip but I started by actually planning.

And you have to, and this is an approach we've learned years ago that took a lot more faith years ago. Years ago, it was like a huge act of faith. Now it's just like, oh yeah, this is how it works. But you plan as if, like yeah, we're gonna do this. It's not, oh, wouldn't it be nice, or I hope it works out, or maybe one day. Like I plan like, no, this is happening. So if it's happening, what are the dates that are gonna work?

And then, and I can do all of that without actually committing to it. Like you're starting the commitment process.

you actually commit when you buy the tickets, but you can start all of that beforehand and you can plan it as if like, okay, if we're doing this, what are the dates? And you start to fit in all those pieces and put it all together and do like, do the work. If you want to plan something, you have to spend time planning. So that means every day you're devoting some time to planning this trip. We'll also start booking things now that have free cancellation. And I absolutely will do that. I'll go, I'll be like, okay, I'm going to book this. I'm going to reserve the car because cars usually have free cancellation.

I'm gonna book the hotel because this hotel I don't have to pay now I pay at the hotel and it has free cancellation anything like that I will start booking and then at some point we pull the trigger and we buy the flights and That is when like okay, we are committed But here's the other I think this is another very important point once you and I commit to doing something. We don't back out like if we buy the tickets if we You know pay the money

Rachel Denning (01:01:34.573)
we're doing it. It's not like, oh well if something comes up, I guess we'll just miss out on that. It's just, it's a principle in life that's powerful. I shared this with some friends recently. It's like, look things will happen when you make them happen. Right. But most of us are like, well I hope this works out. Let me see if this can happen. And they're like, no, it'll happen if you make it happen. Right.

And I think... You gotta lean in and say, this is going. Absolutely. And even on this trip, that played out for us because initially, again, when we started thinking about doing a trip like this, I was concerned about the cost. Like, this is gonna cost a lot of money. And it did.

But even not knowing how we were going to pay for it, we still started acting as if we started planning as if we were going to do this thing because it always works out like that. We always find a way to make it happen even though initially we don't know how that's going to happen. Now for us, or at least in my mind, I thought, oh, because we had this house in Georgia that we had rented and then bought and I thought, we'll sell this house and that will help us pay for that trip and it'll be great.

Well, we moved forward, we committed, we bought the tickets and guess what? The house didn't sell. So stinking wouldn't sell. And we're like, yeah, what? It would not sell. And the market was supposed to be hot and you know, all of that. And our house would not sell. And I'm like, what the heck? Like we've committed to this trip. We're doing it. I don't know how we're going to pay for it. The house isn't selling.

to the point where we left, we moved out of our house, and left it empty. This is how crazy we are, you guys. A house for sale, we're going on, like, we need this capital, and we're leaving. Plus, we're moving to Portugal after. And we don't know how it's going to work out. And...

Rachel Denning (01:03:35.789)
But because we were committed, because we've learned in the past, this is how it works, you commit and providence moves too. We committed and so we said, well, we're doing this trip. I don't know. I guess we'll just leave our house empty. And we left and almost right away, it got rented out and we rented it, you know, long term.

which is turned out to be a gigantic investment. Even despite the fact that a few weeks later we got notification that the house had flooded and it had damaged like tons of stuff that ruined the carpet in the basement and at the time we were probably in Lithuania and I was like, oh my god.

what's happening, this is terrible. That even turned out to be a huge blessing because it was the city's fault and we got an insurance settlement so we got new carpet in our house and new paint and everything. Remodeled the whole thing, it turned out better. That's amazing. So it was a serendipitous blessing in the end. So but the point is we we didn't know how it was gonna work out but we moved forward anyways and a way opens up like.

as you step into the darkness, then that's when you find the path. You have to move forward in faith. You're not gonna know all the details. You're not gonna know how you're gonna make it happen when you start planning. But you still just keep planning anyways and keep moving forward and keep committing and keep going and guess what? It works out and you figure it out and you pay for it and that's how achieving dreams works.

It is so I'll throw this perspective out it is so infinitely easier now than it was even 10 years ago 15 years ago we first started traveling there were so few websites almost no blogs or obviously no like Instagram people doing this now everybody and their dog is going out and doing stuff and then sharing how they did it right oh still go here eat here do this there like that didn't exist we just went.

Rachel Denning (01:05:45.677)
And we get there and ask locals like, hey, is there any places to stay the night here? Is there any food? I laugh. And we would drive or fly and then get there and be like, OK, where should we stay tonight with all of our kids and our stuff? No clue. I laugh and our kids laugh too because the very first time we drove to Costa Rica when our oldest was four, she's now almost 21, and we had four kids under the age of four. We drove without a nap.

We had no Google Maps. We didn't even have a paper map. I think the one thing we did do is we had a laptop and we would stay at hotels and we would get on the internet and we would pull up Google Maps on the laptop. For the next day. And then we would like reference that. But it wasn't like you followed the map and it told you, you know, because it wasn't live. We were stopping to ask. And yeah, so we'd get into a town and we're like, okay, in this town, you know, kind of like in the old days, we didn't use paper maps. We're like, okay, in this town, we got to take this road. And so we,

get into that town. Luckily you spoke Spanish and you'd be like, where do we go? How do we get here? That's how we trapped. We didn't have a cell phone. There was no Airbnb. Yeah, no Airbnb. Most hotels didn't even have websites. It was awesome. Yeah, it was the dark ages.

And we did obviously less planning then because there wasn't a lot of planning to be done. And so it was very much just go with the flow and see where you end up. And I'll throw that into leave some space for that. Leave some space for some spontaneity for.

Like, what are we going to do today? What are we going to figure out? Let's ask. Let's ask the locals. Let's go wander around through the old town and just find a restaurant. So don't have every last bit of it planned out. But that being said, sometimes that also turns into a crap sandwich. And you're like, oh, that sucked. I did that with my kids in Mongolia. And I was like, OK, we're not going to plan these days. We'll just roll with it.

Rachel Denning (01:07:43.565)
We've had experiences where just rolling with it is amazing. It's so special. There's no way you could have planned it. Then that, those first, that first day, I guess it was a day with my kids. It felt a lot longer than that. Oh man, it was horrible. Like it was just epic, epic fail. And they, they hold on to it and they hold it over me and we laugh and laugh and laugh. In that particular instance in Ulaanbaatar.

I think you showed up you landed I mean you'd been flying for who knows like 24 hours and landed it like 4 a .m. And you get there and nothing's open you're starving. Oh, I was like we'll just go stay at this hotel and we went to the hotel I was closed and I nod nothing like Everything was closed. The only thing that was open was a Circle K. Right. And we're like are you kidding me? So we just put our backpacks in Circle K and just sat there like zombies. For hours. And there was no food anywhere.

It was insane, but we laugh about it now. But yeah, so it might not always work out, but leave space for experience and for life. But it all begins by...

making the plans, just starting to do it. And again, I want to keep emphasizing this because hopefully you get that that's important. You have to act as if. Act as if you're going to take that trip. That's the only way to really plan it. I think too many people think, oh, I can't plan something like that because they keep it vague. They never make it very specific, like the dates, the time, the place, the... Well, unconsciously or subconsciously, we keep saying to ourselves, I can't do that. There's no way I can do that. I don't know how to do that. Because you don't have the how yet.

I was just interviewed on this guy's podcast and we talked about that. He's like, we don't commit to something because we don't know how, which I think the opposite is true. You commit to it and then figure out exactly. That's exactly how it works. So like, say, yeah, I'm going and like, well, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. Instead of saying you can't say, man, how could I, if I went ahead and committed in nine months from now to take this dream trip to wherever you want to go, whether it's.

Rachel Denning (01:09:52.749)
Japan Japan or Tierra del Fuego or You want to go climb Kilimanjaro with us in February Mongolia next summer, whatever just say I'm in Then start asking how can we make this a reality? How can I make this happen and your mind will go to work to come up with the coolest ideas and You start you start figuring all this stuff out. It's it's amazing. Well, but it has to be done in this

kind of non -stressful sort of way. It can't be like, how can we pay for this? It's more like, hmm, curiosity. I wonder how we could pay. How will we find a way? Because you still have to be moving forward in this faith of, okay, we're going to figure it out. I'm going to make the plans. I'm going to book the accommodations. I'm going to buy the tickets at some point. You keep moving forward step by step.

trusting that you are gonna find a way because guess what? If you have that trust, you always find a way. Like we've never had a time where...

that didn't work for us. The only time when it quote unquote doesn't work is when we end up being directed or led in another direction for something that's even better, right? But it's never not worked every time it's worked. And that's how we've done all of the incredible trips that we've done despite the fact that we haven't been millionaires, right? We've just figured it out because we've committed to doing it no matter what.

And then inevitably we always find a way to finance it. And we've had the most epic experiences of multiple lifetimes. It's been so special. So our invitation to you guys today is twofold. One, start planning a bucket list trip. And number two, start planning your week. And you can do both with our Extraordinary Life Planner. Yeah.

Rachel Denning (01:11:49.005)
Well that's the other thing, then you start planning your life. Yeah. Yeah, an extraordinary enough planner walks through like the big picture of your whole life.

and then walks you back to today. And very strategically. That's right. That's huge. And then your whole 28 day challenge that you're doing is just tracking simple habits for 28 days that move you forward in spite of all the chaos and mayhem and whatever's going on. Right. That's one of the things I keep emphasizing to my group that's doing the 28 day challenge is that you can't ever do big things and achieve big goals in your life until you learn how to make and keep small commitments.

to yourself. And that's what it's about. That's where I started. For me, personally, that's how I got better at planning. I learned how to order my life. I learned how to say, I'm going to do this, and then actually do it. And tracking it just helps you accomplish that. And when you gain that ability to actually make and keep commitments, well, that doesn't just play out in your day -to -day life, but then it...

plays out on a larger scale where you can do bigger, bolder things. Because you become a more capable person. It's huge. And gentlemen, like for you, if you want to... Basically, it's... You're becoming so capable, like...

Whether it's the funding, you're like, I need to earn way more money so we can pursue our family dream, even if it doesn't include travel, whatever it is. To level up that way, but level up in leadership, in your faith, in your family, in your fitness, in your finances, the whole thing.

Rachel Denning (01:13:31.501)
That's why I created the Be The Man Masterclass in Tribe to give people the tactics, the tools, the strategies, the systems to seriously level up so you can live this extraordinary family life and achieve your dreams. Which I know, you know, I was tooting my own horn about my planning skills, which is true. Like I bring a lot to that, but honestly, we couldn't do the execution without the skills that you have because you are the one who's very much on the ground. I know, I know like,

I kind of joke, I do all the planning, behind the scenes type thing, and then when we get on the ground, you're implementing it. And as soon as we get there, you're handling things, you're doing the recon, you're running here and there, finding out where the grocery store is, you're obviously always doing the security detail, right? You're scouting everything out and making sure we're safe. Because we were talking about with the bus station in Latvia,

That's not something I notice right away, but you're right there noticing and that's important, you know, cause people have asked us many times. I stepped off the bus and I saw like drug deals going down, drug use happening. I saw like, I'm not, and people were being discreet. I'm like, Oh, there's a deal right there. Oh, that guy's like shooting up drugs right there. Oh, there's a crime happening. Holy schnike. There's a prostitute. I'm telling my kids like, okay, everybody flags up. Let me, let me pull up the accommodations here. Let's see where we're staying. You know, and I'm cli -

this. But that's my responsibility as a husband and father to do the heavy lifting and the dirty jobs at a minimum. So it takes both of our roles. It takes I guess really both of that to make it...

the incredible experience that it is, that it could be a lot worse. I know that. I know that something like that could turn out literally into a disaster or a tragedy sometimes. And that's maybe the warning and the caution because we do know personally, families who've experienced tragedy out traveling because they weren't aware of all the risks.

Rachel Denning (01:15:40.717)
and potential mishaps. And so it is, despite everything we've said and about serendipity and all that, you still do have to be aware that the world is, it does have dangers, real dangers. And so real good planning also include, has to include good preparation. Plus, besides the fact that you have like tons of EMT training and wilderness medical training, like all of that, of course, is a huge...

huge peace of mind for me, does that even make sense? It gives me a lot of peace of mind to know that you have that because if anything happens, you've got those skills to take care of it. So that's the point. You have to be assets.

we're in no way saying hey go out and travel the world noobs. If you're totally incompetent. With your incompetencies no you need competencies because otherwise you can get yourself into trouble you need to be capable and competent and have assets and be an asset. Yeah. Right because otherwise your family you're putting your family in danger so.

That's our warning to this awesome episode. Okay, go out make it happen. Love you guys. Thanks for listening.