October 24, 2024 • 44 mins
Will Hatton, the Broke Backpacker, shares his transformation from a broke, headstrong traveler to a thriving digital nomad and entrepreneur. He reflects on how budget travel not only shaped his personal growth but also ignited his mission to inspire others to break free from the traditional 9-to-5 and build location-independent careers. Now based in Bali, Will discusses his latest project, Tribal Hostel, the island’s first coworking space for digital nomads, and his relentless drive to keep exploring new horizons.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to the Globetrotters podcast. I'm your host, John O'theo.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And I'm Maximilganzalez and I'm Chelsea Paulson. Today we're going
to be speaking with Will Hatton, the first generation broke backpacker,
head honcho and true legend of budget travel.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Will's journey began over a decade ago, starting as a
penniless adventurer, but through years of learning, loving and making
mistakes on the road, he found his calling to explore,
share and teach. He's passionate about the power of travel
as a tool for personal growth and helping others embrace
adventure while building an online income.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Now based in Bali, where he recently opened Tribal Hostel,
the island's first dedicated digital nomad coworking space, which is
really cool.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
By the way.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
You can usually find Will up a mountain or deep
into a new project, but today he's taking a break
from his busy life to speak with the globe Chartters. Well.
A pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
The show, pleasure to be here. If I write an
autobiography at some point, I'm just gonna let you guys
do it, because that was I could just hire so
thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
But we got you. Let's start in, or let's dive
into the early early side of your travel hustle. You
started out by funding your travel. You started out by
funding your travels or buying goods abroad and selling them
on eBay. What was the spark that got you into
travel and how did you make it work with such
a small budget.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yeah, So a long story kind of encapsulated down to
a nugget is that I had a life changing injury
which meant I could no longer go into the army.
And then after that I kind of had a little
bit of a mental breakdown. Really didn't know what I
was going to do with myself. My parents had only
ever really traveled to one place, and that was India,
and they'd always raved about it. And there was like
some photos of India in the house, and I was like,
(02:00):
oh my god, to India. It looks like an interesting place.
People wearing colorful hats, cool forts. What's not to like?
So went out to India. I was able to get
a two year visa, which was one of the main
reasons I went, because I could stay there for a
decent period of time. I only had about three thousand
pounds to last the trip. So I was doing the
trip very very cheap. Was hitchhiking, was couch surfing, was
(02:20):
sleeping in train stations, working on farms, on earlier forms
of workaway, so like getting bored and food in exchange
for like twenty hours a week. And now I started
buying and selling stuff, and then I would end up
taking bits and pieces, well a whole backpack full really
of scarves and leather satchels and silver jewelry back to England.
I'm from Brighton, which is quite a hippy location, so
(02:43):
I could just go down to the beach, set up
a towel and sell this stuff. Anything I couldn't sell
on the street, I would sell on eBay. And because
I was buying it so cheap in India, I would
make like one thousand to fifteen hundred percent. So I
didn't have much money to play with, but I was
able to leverage it in a big way.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I mean, that's that's awesome, just to hear I've never
thought about doing that. Did you learn that from someone
else or was that just something you came up what
strategy you came up with on your own?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
I guess I guess like, being from Brighton, I've seen
all this stuff knocking knocking around in like the Brighton bazaars,
Brighton shops, and I'd seen that like a leather satchel
was going for like one hundred and fifty pounds, and
then when I was out in India, I realized I
could get it for like, you know, eight pounds, and
I was like, okay, I don't have the fancy shop,
(03:30):
so I can sell it for thirty pounds, fifty pounds,
sometimes one hundred pounds, and people are happy to buy
it because they perceive themselves as getting like a really
great discount.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
In a way. They are though, right.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Are we doing with the podcast?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, so we will actually be opening up a leather
goods online shop next week. Yeah. Our satchels are actually
how much were yours? How much are you selling for? Average?
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Between like thirty and one hundred pounds?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Okay, ours are going to be between twenty and eightys.
So just throwing that out there.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
All the ladies will love the leather goods. I'm telling you,
my aunt just brought me back leather purse from Italy.
So as you're talking about these leather goods, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Oh yeah, yeah, he's thrown a scarf and then you
got like a whole fit. I like it.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
We've had other guests on the podcast talk about India
and kind of how it in a good way, overwhelms
the senses. What was your experience, I mean, it's kind
of hard to give us kind of a breakdown of
two years of India, right, but what were some of
the highlights and things you learned on that first trip?
Speaker 4 (04:38):
So traveling in India is an amazing experience. India is
like such a culturally diverse place. I mean, India as
a country arguably didn't really exist until quite recently, and
it was like hundreds of different warring principalties. There's hundreds
of languages still out there, lots of very different cultures.
The way that I was traveling India was definitely challenging
(05:00):
because you know, I very rarely would spring for like
a guesthouse room, which meant that I didn't get much
personal space, especially traveling on like very crowded trains, on
like the cheapest ticket, sleeping in train stations where people
would be like, why is this white kid sleeping in
the corner of this train station. I don't know let's
(05:21):
go wake him up at three am and ask him.
I'm sure it'll be delighted to find out. So, yeah,
there was. There was a lot of a lot of
really unique interactions, some of them more more challenging than others.
But it definitely like traveling in that way. It taught
me so much. It taught me how to haggle, It
taught me how to say no, It taught me how
to be more social. So yeah, it was it was
(05:43):
a very formative experience for me.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, it kind of like sparked the hustle on you.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
It sounds like, yeah, I was literally just thinking that.
I feel like you just took the words right out
of my hustle hustle culture. Right, we hear all about it.
But also too, like speaking of, you know, the things
that you had picked up along the way, I want
to dive into it a little bit deeper because you
have said that travel is a powerful tool for you know,
(06:08):
personal development for yourself. So what were some of those
other like key skills that you feel like you picked
up in that journey.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Yeah, I mean it was during this time that I
started observing and recording what I was experiencing and how
I was getting around and my sort of skills travel
riders started to come together. I was super inspired by
like the oldie style of travel, like Indiana Jones, that
kind of thing. I mean, travel's not really like that,
(06:36):
but that was what That's what I was going for,
you know. I was like, Okay, I've heard about this
is like a footnote in the lonely There's a city
like fucking six hours into the center of Bihar and
there's some ruins there and that's all I could find,
so I'd go and check it out. You know. I
think being in India kind of made me endlessly curious
and also helped me become quite introspective, which ended up
(07:00):
being like a real superpower that would like help me
on my entrepreneurial journey as well. I love that.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, I'm just curious when you kind of broke into
that that trade hustle, I guess I would call it.
Did you have a moment where, like it your idea,
You're like, oh this this might work, this might not.
You can invest a little in it, you give it
a go and then it works. Did you have that
moment of like, oh, I made this much money doing it,
I can do it more of it and continue to
(07:29):
kind of grow in that way to you know, increase
your income and be able to travel more. Did you
have that like spark of like yeah, good.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Yeah, I definitely did. I also like I've tried so
many different things over like the last fifteen years. I've
done about thirty different things, and I've gotten good at
recognizing when when some things need need to just end
because they're not working or they've worked, but now you've
kind of run out of runways. So the moment for
when I run out of runway with bringing the level
(07:57):
of satchels back was when I had a whole bags
seized and they were like, oh, we're not going to
get it back to you unless you pay several thousands
of pounds of import duties, and I was like, I'll.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Just keep it.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
But at that moment, I was like, okay, this this
this one is finished out.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
You know, I did tell Max and Chelsea a little
bit about some of your dventures, because you know, we're
going to talk a lot about travel, but you're equally
as big as an entrepreneur as you are a traveler,
and you've talked about how you've developed these like protein
bars once twice give it a go, Like you're very
unafraid to try things. Is it the entrepreneurial spirit that
(08:33):
came first, or you know, being able to put yourself
in these uncomfortable situations and travel that kind of gave
you that, that developed that skill.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
So I'd always always worked, like from when I was young,
I was like going around trying to wash cars and
my lawns and go to car boot cells and buy
stuff to resell it, go around charity bookshops and see
if there were books on there that I could, you know,
make a couple of pounds flipping on Amazon. So I'd
always been quite entrepreneurial, and then I had quite a
(09:07):
few really shitty jobs, Like early on I worked in
a warehouse, I've worked in shops, I've worked in bars,
I was a lifeguard, and these all showed me that
it is totally possible to work really hard for somebody
else and for them to not even notice. So I
was like, do you know what, I'm not interested in
working for someone else in less and less they pay
(09:27):
me mad money. So I brought a rather kind of
struggle and and take on the pros and the cons
of being my own boss and then when I traveled,
I very much found that like that was the lifestyle
I wanted, and that traveling was cheaper than just even
surviving in England, so it kind of brought down the
(09:48):
amount of money I had to hit each month to
make that into a reality.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, facts, M So well, you also talked about how
I Ran and Pakistan are great for hitchhiking, which you
know to most people that kind of sound surprising, right,
So can you kind of walk us through.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
What that experience was like for you?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
And I'm also curious, you know, what do people misunderstand
about traveling through those countries specifically?
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Yeah? Sure, I mean I think that most countries that
have a bad international reputation, the people are especially keen
to be really hospitable, really take care of you when
you're in that country, And that was very true for
both Iran and Pakistan. Especially Iran, the people were like
the most hospitable, Like people would buy me food in
(10:41):
a restaurant, invite me to sleep in their home without
me asking. You know, it's difficult to pay for stuff
in Iran as a foreigner. You really have to insist
because they'd just be like, no, no, it's free it's
free and like standing by the side of the road,
I mean, people would pick me up in about thirty
seconds normally, whereas I've spent over twenty four hours unsuccessfully
(11:01):
standing by the side of the road in various countries
in Europe, so Europe is much more difficult. But yeah,
I think those countries are both so beautiful. Bo've got
a big place in my heart. I was actually married
to a lady that I met in Iran for a
few years and spent a lot of time in Iran,
and then I was also running tours in Pakistan for
a while and I had a small guesthouse in the
mountains of Pakistan. So they're both countries that are like
(11:24):
very close to my heart. And if you go, you
really you really get the understanding that like these countries
have been misrepresented. I mean, the interesting thing about Pakistan
as well is that the best part of the country
is all up north, which is like the Pakistani Himalayas,
and unlike India and Apal Tibet, there's just no one there,
so it's like very very empty, and that part of
(11:46):
Pakistan is very different to other parts of Pakistan that
are maybe more fundamental and definitely hotter.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
We've had a handful of people on the show who
have just raved about how great the stands were and
how you know, they're a lot safer than people perceive
them to be, and just we've heard a lot of
different experiences, and some from like solo female travelers who
you know, they they're really just pushing the envelope to
try to get like, you know, help other solo female
travelers understand how great of an adventure they can have
(12:18):
if they go there and actually take the time to
experience it for themselves. And it's just will You're just
another one in the list who is just like bringing
up the stands and how I really want to go
to Pakistan and I ran now and it's just yeah,
I think it's really cool that we get so much
positive feedback on those countries from our from our guests.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
That's I think that with like female travelers especially, a
lot of people have been really surprised at just how
welcoming these countries are. I mean, like they're pretty safe, honestly, certainly,
Like I think that parts of your parts of the
States are maybe more challenging than parts of the stance.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
As a female traveler myself. I mean there's times I
do solo trip and I do group trips, and to
even hear this from you, it actually brings me some ease,
you know, because I have not been to either one
of those countries. But now I would definitely consider it
because you're right, there's a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings
of the safety and especially for females.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
So thank you for sharing that. For sure.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
I hope the female listeners you know, can definitely, you know,
empathize with what you're saying, and it'll make them feel
safe for two if it's on their bucket list.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Cool. Yeah, one hundred percent. You should come out. We
can show you around.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Yeah, I would love to please.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, Okay, Will like, I want to ask you these
questions about Afghanistan or sorry not Afghanistan. Now I'm tripping
over Pakistan and Iran. The first one you talked about
starting this business in Pakistan and kind of running tours.
Can you tell us what the tours kind of centered around.
Was it like hiking adventures outdoors?
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yeah, it was kind of like cultural immersion. Came like
very close friends with this family that lives in this
small village, of three hundred people in Pakistan and it's
right in this like bowl of mountains and there's lots
of hikers you can do around there. So they'd been
trying to like build a guesthouse for a while, so
I help them with that, and then was bringing groups
there and we were spending time with his family and
(14:17):
like really learning about like mounting culture and doing lots
of hikes and going across or we swear and suspension bridges. Yeah,
amazing experience. That's sixteen day. Itinery was what we used
to do. I launched that from Snapchat a long time
ago when I was first doing my blogging and not
making much money at all, I was in Pakistan and
I think I was like, if not the first, one
(14:39):
of the first people to really be streaming from there.
When I was there, there was hard the internet, but
now there is. And I just got such a positive
response online. I was like, Hey, does anybody want to
come to Pakistan me on a tour. Here's a PayPal link.
Went to sleep, woke up the next day and it
had like sold out, and I was like, WHOA, Okay,
I guess I now need to figure out what the
how the hell are we're going to put this on,
so it on. It just kind of grew from there.
(15:02):
It grew in popularity. We did more and more of them,
and then Covid turned up and kind of crushed it.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah. Talk about being resourceful though, you know, like just
getting the word out via Snapchat back in the day.
That's that's that's the hustler. I love it. I want
to shift gears here a little bit and go take
this conversation to South America. You have mentioned traveling through
Venezuela on two hundred and fifty dollars for over six weeks.
I believe it was, Yeah, you know, which sounds like
(15:28):
a pretty good challenge. I haven't been to Venezuela, but
depending on when you went, you know, what was the
currency exchange looking like? Were things really cheap? You know?
What was it like? How did you make it work
while trying to find places to stay and eat? And
you know, did you find it dangerous? Say for you comfortable?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I'd love to hear more about it.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
So I leant on the couch surfing community quite heavily
to like meet up with local people who let me
into their home and sort of showed me around I
crossed overland from Columbia and the day that I crossed,
there was like major demonstration, like burning tires in the
street and like eys of assault rifles everywhere and like
body armor and like trucks, you know, with sirens going.
(16:09):
And I was like, oh, I'm not so sure about
this because I just changed like one hundred dollars and
I changed it into the local currency. I can't remember
what the rate was, but I had a pillowcase of money.
It was it was insane, and there was there was
no other foreigners there, and I was like, surely everybody
knows I've got this pillowcase of money. It doesn't feel great,
(16:31):
but the causiding community kept me from safe and I
traveled differently in Venezuela. I didn't hitchhiked there. I was
like walking around the street at night far less than
I normally would, kind of kept my guard up a
little bit more. I only met one or two other
travelers whilst I was there, but it was an amazing experience.
(16:51):
I mean, in Venezuela's a country of outstanding natural beauty,
and also the people were really really nice. It was
a bit like Iran and Pakistani again. In that people
just really wanted to show me that they, you know,
they were not how they have been portrayed by Fox News,
and they are normal people who maybe don't like their
(17:11):
government very much. Anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
You know what year was this?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
This was a while ago. I guess it was about
nine or eight years ago.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Now, okay, yeah, I mean it's been a shit show
for a while, so it's like thirty years. Yeah, you
said something that caught my attention because you know, I
consider myself, I think everyone here kind of a pretty
savvy traveler. But you said you didn't hitchhike in Venezuela.
So is there something? Is it just intuition that you
(17:42):
rely on and you're like, hey, I'll take my chances
hitchhiking and Pakistan and Iran versus Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Yes, it definitely is intuition, and it is kind of
learning to strengthen that muscle and being willing to say no,
I'm not getting in the car right now because this
person maybe it doesn't seem quite right, something doesn't quite
seem like a good shout to me here. But in Venezuela,
I was like specific At first, I was like, yeah,
I'm going to hitchhiker around at all, and my couch
(18:09):
surfing hosts pretty much like made me swear an oath
that I wouldn't do that. They were like, you can't,
you just can't. You are a target. People know that
the very few amount of foreigners here have changed money
on the black market and therefore have a pillow case
full of money.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
So yeah, and Max, I think you're muted.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I was gonna say, maybe having a pillowcase full of
a Venezuelan boulevards isn't the best idea for hitchhiking around
the country in South America.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Definitely, definitely not. I mean normally as well. I have
a tent and like I do a fair bit of
wild camping less now honestly, but I was doing quite
a lot of wild camping back then, and yeah, that
was I wouldn't do that in Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Hm.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Well, I have one other question too.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
So we talked a little bit about female travelers solo
in Pakistan and rant, so comparing that to South America
and Venezuela, what are your thoughts because even with you
and your intuition and.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
Okay, I'm not going to go out late at night
by myself.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
For I'm just curious, you know, in that comparison, what
your thoughts are.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
I think, like you know, South America is a big
place and part parts of it are very very safe.
I think it's one of those countries, one of those countries,
one of those places where it's really really worth learning Spanish,
Like Spanish is clearly the language that it makes sense
to learn because if you get it, you unlock all
of South America, whereas like in India, there was not
(19:35):
much point in learning the language because you two hours
down the train track, you know, the language changes. I've
only really had positive experiences in Latin America. From what
I've heard from solo travelers. There is maybe a little
bit more of a culture of like cat calling and
like bothering women with aggressive attention. But I'm not a woman,
(19:58):
so I haven't. I haven't, I haven't experience that, but
I can certainly see how that would be the case.
I think if you are a solo female traveler, you
just need to get good at like drawing your boundaries
clearly and concisely. I think that's like the main thing, right, Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, you know, during our pre interview, we kind of
touched a little bit about this kind of the ethical
side of travel when you you know, you travel to
some of these places like me and mar Venezuela, like
we just talked about, which have political or economic issues
that I mean, let's be real, it puts Westerners in
a very advantageous position to really like explore the country
(20:35):
and like, let's say, experience it in like a more
luxurious way. So how do you grapple with the ethics
of visiting those places and how do you justify for
yourself because I know I have this internal conversation with
me and I'm not I'm not trying to point fingers
here or anything.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think that
countries like my Amma is a good example, and I've
been to my amar a couple of times. It is
one of my favorite countries that people are absolutely amazing.
There are things you can do when traveling in these
countries to try and ensure that the money that you
do spend gets into the right hands by eating in
local restaurants, staying in local homestays rather than staying in
(21:13):
hotels because most of the hotels are government run, but
ultimately just by being there some of the money that
you're spending is one hundred percent going to end up
in government pockets. But I do kind of feel that
boycotting a country because you don't agree with the policies
of their government, it really stops like a cross cultural
exchange between travelers and between the local people. And I
(21:36):
think that travelers coming through these countries can be a
positive force for good for local people with these exchanges
that you have, with the money that you manage to spend.
And also, honestly, you don't have to look very deeply
at any government. Maybe there's a few in Scandinavia that
are pretty good, but you don't have to look very
deeply at many governments to find something pretty wrongare.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
So I'm a little bit curious.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Did you always have a plan to kind of turn
your travels into a business.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
Did it just kind of evolve over time? Like how
did it all fall into place for you?
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Yeah, it definitely evolved over time in that the broke
Backpacker was just like a passion project somewhere for me
to dump my writing and a few photos i'd taken.
I didn't even know it was possible to make money
from trial blogging for like a little while I'd never
heard of SEO and never heard of affiliate marketing, the
first money that I did make on the site was
people wanting like sponsored placements to buy links and stuff
(22:35):
like that, And that was how I manetized it originally,
and that was that's why I tried to scale originally
and trying to get hold of big lists of advertisers
who had spent money in the past with child blogs
and then reach out to them and try to generate
someatural real money. But obviously the affiliate side of things
and then selling my own products has been the bulk
(22:57):
of it over like the last few years, and has
been more exciting side of things. But I had no
idea that a child blog could could go to this
height and could be seen by so many people and
could drive so much well, so much revenue, but also
so much opportunity to show people parts of the world
that I'm really passionate about and to try to help
(23:19):
people to travel in more of an intentional way, because
I mean, like, we don't really do content like ten
best speeches in Thailand or like you know, sipping champagne
on a yacht that it isn't really what we're doing.
We're trying to be like encouraging to people, no matter
their background, to get on the road, but also encouraging
people to get out of their comfort zone, to travel
(23:40):
to countries that maybe they hadn't considered, to spend some
time off their phone, to start a journaling practice, because
travel can be like the most incredible opportunity for personal development,
but it's also possible just to get wasted all the
time and learn nothing. So you've got to try and
point people in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I love that, like the mindfulness piece of travel, right, Yeah,
being intentional, you're spot out there.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
That is one thing that really impressed me about our
initial conversation, and you just touched on it. And I
want to talk about journaling and goal setting because this
is something that you started implementing in your travels. Right.
You mentioned to me that you met out kind of
a five year plan down to a month by month basis,
which is very impressive. But how does that practice influenced
(24:26):
your decisions the way you approach both your personal and
professional life.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Yeah, so I've always been very kind of goal orientated,
and that can be a bit of a double edged sort.
It's recently over the last couple of years that I
have been able to take a step back and to
be content with where I'm at, to still have goals
to move forwards, but no longer to that as soon
as I hit a goal to not really celebrate it
and to just like immediately move on to the next one,
(24:53):
because that's just a zero sum game and you just
be chasing stuff until you die, right, So you've got
to figure out how to celebrate and how to be
happy in the moment. But I've always had like five
year plans. The question that I always kind of come
back to is like who do you want to be?
That question originally came from like not being very happy
with who I am and being able to use that
as fuel. It was very powerful, but it burns very
(25:15):
brightly when your like self talk is not good, when
you're like down on yourself all the time, like you
are not good enough, you need to be this to
be better. So I've I've had to kind of work
through that in my process as well. But I always
have a five year plan. I've got my daily habits
that I tick off at the end of every night
that there'll be all kinds of stuff in there, like
my personal practices like journaling, meditation, ice, bathing, like work
(25:38):
that makes me money, it's just called money work, like
creative writing, and like all of my fitness goals as well.
And then at the end of every month, that will
get digitally recorded. And I've been doing that for about
ten years. And I also ask myself the same seven
questions at the end of every month, which means that
when I'm feeling down or when I'm just curious as
to how I'm doing on a certain issue or in
(25:59):
a certain area of my life, I've got like a
hundred answers worth of data. So I can go back
and i can look at it and I can be like, yo,
I understand that right now you're not feeling so great,
but let's look at where you were a year ago,
and bro, you've come so far. So pat on the back, you.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Know, love, it's incredible.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
Honestly, that just like gave me chills. I really mean it. Yeah,
it was very very.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Inspiring, you know, with you saying that you've been asking
yourself these seven key questions at the end of every month,
I just think that that's super fascinating. Can you share
a little bit more and just dive deeper with us
about that practice and just yeah, for sure really impacted
your life and even just kept you focused over all
(26:42):
these years that you've been doing that.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Yeah, I mean I definitely like lost myself to the
entrepreneurship hustle for a little bit and was like working
mad hours and kind of forgot why I was doing
that and was just just putting, just putting in the
hours and then made money and was like, ah, I
want a car, or I think I want a fancy watch.
How it was like, this isn't really making me. I
(27:07):
feel the same, This isn't really doing anything for me,
you know. So I kind of went down that rabbit
hole of chasing things, chasing like prestige. I made the
conscious decision to majorly disconnect from social media like a
few years ago, and that has made me much happier.
I Like, so someone who's often struggled with like a
(27:29):
lot of anxiety, a lot of depression. I'm also like obsessive,
compulsive and ADHD. So if there's a few things going on,
and there's a lot of advantages to the way that
I'm wired, but there are some disadvantages as well, So
I need to be very introspective to keep on top
of it. And that's kind of where these questions come in.
Or I can ask myself how am I doing with
my view towards myself mentally, spiritually, physically, how am I
(27:51):
doing with my relationships with my family, with my partner,
with my friends? How am I showing up for my work?
How am I showing up for my creative practices? And
even if the answers aren't very satisfying, by answering them,
I kind of feel like I can let go a
little bit. And then it means that if I end
the month strong, I celebrate. If I end the month week,
(28:12):
I'm like, tomorrow is a new month, so let's let's
get let's get going, and let's start strong. And it
just really allows me to reset. Whereas before I was
properly doing this, a bad month could bleed into a
bad month pretty easily for me, and then before you
know it, it's in a bad year. So I had to
kind of find these natural barriers to stop that happening.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
So the month is like, that's your timeline, and then
you know November first, it's like a clean slate essentially,
and you evaluate that the previous.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Month, right exactly.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Well, can I ask.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Did you come up with these seven questions just on
your own?
Speaker 5 (28:50):
Were they recommended to you?
Speaker 4 (28:52):
No, this is just stuff I came up with on
my own, just playing around. I've also got, you know,
various journal prompts that I've just come up by myself.
I mean, there's loads of great stuff out there. If
you look online, there's loads there's loads of great into
out there. But I think that ultimately it's more powerful
if you can think about, like, if you're going to
look back on your life at the end of your life,
what are the metrics that you want to track for
(29:14):
you individually. Maybe it's like spending time with your loved
ones or loved pets. Maybe it's being creative, maybe it's
cooking healthy food for yourself. It's very individual, and I
think you've got to decide what matters to you.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I feel like we just got a master class for free.
Yeah this is this is this exercise. Is that you
decide somewhere we have to pay for this, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Absolutely, And also choosing your own individual habits and not
being afraid to change those at any time if they're
not working for you. Having a whole bunch of them
that you're tracking. What that means is that unless you
have a complete right off of a day, at the
end of the day, you should be able to take
one thing off and just that little exercise at the
(29:58):
end of the day is effectively a grass tude exercise.
It helps you sleep, it helps you get ready through tomorrow.
There's always time to get if you're tracking on tracking
twenty two things, there's always time to do a few
of them throughout the day, and many of them are
not supposed to be done on a daily basis then
more like weekly things, right, But it just helps you
stay on track, and then when you get to the
(30:19):
end of the month you can be yo, you've done
really well on this. Maybe you haven't done so good
on this. Do you want to take time away from
this one and reassign it over here or do you
need to be more aware about this one? Is this
one not working? You mean to take it out for
a couple of months and put something else in, you.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Know, right, So to go back into your entrepreneurialship, you
co founded Tribal, which is a coworking hostel in Bali.
How did that idea come about? And what was it
like building a space that caters to digital nomads like yourself.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
Yeah, So I met my co founder Mark in the
gym and we quickly developed like a close friendship. Mark
had also traveled extensively around the world and was struggling
with the same thing that I was struggling with, which
was trying to find a good workspace where one could
also be connected to the travel community. Basically, we were
either staying in hostels that were like too busy, too party, party,
(31:14):
and we felt like we were missing out, or we'd
throw off our work and go get involved, which you know,
you've got to be focused and find the time to
be involved. So that was really what we wanted to
build because the other alternative, we were staying in places where
there was just like no community element, and being an
online entrepreneur can be quite lonely. So we wanted to
try and build a place where people could come together,
(31:35):
find their tribe and collaborate. So that's what we've done
with Tribal one, and we're now building a much bigger
Tribal two in Lombok. It has been a real journey
figuring out permits, buying land, sporting cement all of these
kind of things. It was complicated. We pretty much put
(31:55):
all of our money into a big field, and then
COVID happened and we had this big kids, I hear
you there, we got we got it open, so it
worked out.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Something that I love also about our conversations, and I've
mentioned I don't know I've already said it on this podcast,
but I definitely said it to you. You are unafraid
to talk about maybe this wasn't a failure, but like
like all the mishaps that happened along the way of
like just this freaking journey of life, right, the journey
of creating your own business where it's not always going
(32:29):
to be pretty. But I do appreciate that you have
a very candor candid way of phrasing your experiences.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Yeah, I mean honestly, like I have failed so so
so much like the broke Backpacker, big success. Still made
plenty of mistakes on the bright Backpacker, like no formal
business training, no, like no mentor nobody needs to tell
me how to be a boss man and how to
build teams, made loads of mistakes, like some of them
(32:59):
literally still want me and I'm still working through them,
have lost businesses I really cared about. Have had other
ideas where I've put loads of money in and suppliers
have stolen the money off me because I didn't have
the guardrails in place, because I didn't know what I
was doing. Have tried protein bars twice. One was for
pregnant women who wanted to increase their protein intake. Didn't
(33:19):
work out. The how one was protein bars made out
of grasshoppers, didn't work out. So I've tried a whole
bunch of stuff and I've failed a whole bunch of times.
But you know, the great backpacker in Tribal on my
two kind of home runs, And where I'm at now
is I'm in a very fortunate position where I'm able
to mostly work on like my creative for fun projects.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah, I feel like we throw the F word around
a lot, and they're not failures. Their opportunity to learn right,
like you know, like you said, errors, mistakes, but they're
not failures. Failing would just be never doing it right.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
And yeah, I think that's where you've got how you
have to look at it, and that's how I've tried
to look at it, is that like some of These
were very expensive lessons where I even knew I was
making the mistake as I made it, and still continued
to make it. But now I'm thirty five, and I
hope that I've made most of the interpersonal mistakes that
it is possible to make, and I won't make them again.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
We'll see you on the pod for a follow up
on that one.
Speaker 6 (34:20):
Yeah, you know, I do want to You are an
obviously avid travel and I want to shift the kind
of over to some of the funniest things that you've
experienced in life in your thirty five years.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
What has been and you can only give me one
your favorite place to have visited and why.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
I mean it's it's probably begone in my in More. Honestly,
I went for the first time in twenty fifteen and
the country had just opened and begone. For those who
don't know it, it's a very flat plane with seven
thousand temples all across it, so you can see them
all just like spread out. It's kind of like being
in this snow globe of temples. They just march off
into the distan and because there's so many, it's possible
(35:03):
to be inside big ones with nobody else being there
and it really feels like Indiana Jones style exploring. I
spent New Year's Eve up in one of the bigger ones.
I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to be there, and
we took some LSD and it was one of the
best evenings of my life. That was awesome.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
We'll have you on for another episode just on that alone.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, yeah, And then kind of a follow up to that,
Who is Will the Traveler at thirty five? If he's
still the same person that traveled to India, how have
you changed, not only as a person but also like
your travel habits.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Right, Yeah, it's a great question. So, I mean, I
do a motorbike trip every year. This year I did
Peru six weeks of my brother on motorbikes, which was amazing,
like really fantastic. I try to do like a digital detox,
splash plant medicine retreat every year, and I try to
hike a mountain every year. So those are kind of
(36:04):
my goals. And then the rest is less adventury. It's
more like going to places that I could never have
afforded to go to previously, like New Zealand, like Australia.
I went to French Polynesia recently. That was amazing. And
traveling in a different way to how I was traveling
before for sure, like a more comfortable way. Still trying
(36:24):
to have those local cultural immersion experiences, but getting my
own car, driving around, not camping by the side of
the road, because I can do that when I'm on
the motorbike. And I've kind of found a good sort
of fifty to fifty split now.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, hey man, the back doesn't sleep well in a
hospital bed like it.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Very correct DIBs on top bunk.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Also, like my patients, my patience levels now with like
twenty year olds coming in at three am drunk, it
just pritty. It's about one minute of patients.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
I like to think about it as I'm being very communicative.
I'm very open about my feelings when people do that
when they come into a hostel at three am, it's healthy.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
It's funny when you see the shift though, from your
twenties to your thirties, with you know, different ways that
used to travel before, and you know even how you
felt when you were traveling your twenties in comparison to
your thirties.
Speaker 5 (37:22):
It's interesting to see the shift.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
For sure, Well, you've built a ton of businesses, and
you've traveled to some pretty wild places, and what's next
for you? Are there any new travel destinations or business
ventures that are on the horizon.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Yeah. So I've found a real passion for spearfishing over
the last couple of years. My partner is like an
incredibly accomplished free diver, much much better than me. But
she's terrible with a gun. We've tried it and like
she's like okay, like damn, just terrible. So we are
planning on opening a free diving retreat center. That's kind
(37:59):
of the next big plan for us. Finding the right
piece of land, maybe in Indonesia, maybe in New Zealand,
maybe in French Polynesia, maybe Mexico, and setting up a
retreat center for people who want to come and tap
into like the healing elements of the ocean. Because I'm
someone whose brain doesn't really switch off, but when I'm
free diving it does, and it's a very meditative experience.
(38:22):
So I think finding a way to bring people together
and to share that with them, that's that's kind of
our next big plan.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
And if for our listeners who might not be aware
of where free diving is, can you kind of share
a little bit of what that entails, specifically the feat too,
that you could the depths that you could dive.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
Yeah, so free diving is diving without oxygen just normally
with just thins and a mask. You do a breathe
up on the surface and then you dive down, sometimes
with a line, sometimes not. We just got back from
French polonies or we were free diving with huntback whales
on their migration and they were like right in my face.
It was amazing, it was amazing. Wow. I'm comfortable. I'm
(39:05):
comfortable between sort of fifteen and twenty meters and when
i'm hunting, I'm normally hunting between ten and fifteen meters.
But my partner can do like thirty forty meters and
pretty easily. She's just for.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
American friends, that's about sixty five feet that he's willing
to go up to. So his partner going at thirty
meters is comfortable going up to one hundred feet, which,
by the way, I've done one hundred feet with a tank,
big blue hole in belief. I cannot believe she can
hit those steps. Insane.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yeah, No, that's she's talented.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
I'm scuba certified and everything and I'll go. I think,
what is it? I've gone fifteen meters so not too far. Yeah, yeah,
Chelsea skied, do we I don't know if we ever
actually accomplished that or figure that out.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I'm not, but now Will has my wheel spinning and
now I'm in on this retreat.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
Yeah, you plan it. I'll be the first to sign up.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
I don't know how far my breath for I might
have to practice, but well, teaching sounds amazing, Please teach me,
and which is also very healing. So yeah, I would
love to know details about it once you plan it,
and sclub chatters will be headed to their destination for.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Sure, please please, that would be great. Well, I think
if anybody is looking to become an online entrepreneur or
to find a way to fund their travels long term, ultimately,
I've always kind of felt that you've got to do
one of two things. Is either you've got to get
paid pretty well by somebody else, or you've got to
figure something out for yourself. And like a little sort
(40:36):
of tipbit of info that I always like to kind
of drop in there is that like travel blogging, I
feel is the most visible digital nomad career because it's
all over Instagram and social media, probably one of the
worst paid. So I would say that if your passion
is travel and you're wondering how you can fund your travels,
(40:57):
be willing to step outside of the realm of travel
blogging to look at other money making endeavors because there
is easier ways to make money. And the problem with
making money through child blogging as well is it basically
gives you an excuse to be addicted to social media
because you're working, so you have to be very very
careful about that. Also, like with phones in general, I
(41:19):
think like factoring in time, scheduling in time on your
travels to have a digital detox might feel hard at first,
you'll feel so good once you've done it, and you know,
I'm like everybody else. Phones are addictive. I want to
see if some cute person sent me a message. Feels nice,
but like it's You've got to build that discipline in
(41:43):
to spend time off your phone. So I'm only really
on my phone until like seven pm in the evening.
Then it goes in the box and I've got a
second phone that comes out, which is just like Spotify
and Audible and like my mum's phone number and that's it.
So I think trying to find that balance when you're
traveling to spend the time off your phone so that
you can really spend a time in where you are
(42:03):
in connecting with local people is so worthwhile. And yeah,
if you do start your entrepreneurship digital journey, try to
find your crowd because it is lonely and you'll be
surprised at how much value can be gained by sharing
just a workspace with people who are not necessarily in
(42:24):
the same industry but on the same journey. If you're
looking from somewhere, well, I've built it so.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Nice. Plug. That was a good little wrap up right there. Man,
I could just listen to you talk like all day though,
Like this, Like, can I just get paid to listen
to you talk? This is just so informative.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
You can pay me to all.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Looking for the opposite here, I'm trying to take your
ideas and put them in the into motion.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Nice look, man, I think I speak for the three
of us. It's really freaking great to have you on
the show. If our listeners want to learn a little
bit more about you, where can they find you?
Speaker 4 (43:02):
Yes, I am on Instagram at willhatton Underscore. Underscore. It's
not on my phone, but I check it once a
week on my laptop, so if you DM me on there,
I will eventually get back to you. Obviously, you can
check out the Broke Backpacker and then I'm in bally
sort of six to eight months of the year hanging
around Tribal, which is also on Instagram at Tribal barly Side.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
You can find that nice and if you would like
to find out a little more about us, you can
do so by visiting our website at www dot gtspodcast
dot com. You can find us on Instagram or Facebook
at Globetrotters Podcast, Twitter at globetrot pod. Make sure you
drop us a review on Apple Podcasts Spotify. If you
enjoyed listening to our conversation, and feel free to shoot
(43:44):
us at email at hello at gtspodcast dot com if
you would like to contact us directly.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Editing on this podcast was done by our very own
Jonathan Otero.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Until next time,
You're listening to the Globetrotters podcast. I'm your host, John O'theo.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And I'm Maximilganzalez and I'm Chelsea Paulson. Today we're going
to be speaking with Will Hatton, the first generation broke backpacker,
head honcho and true legend of budget travel.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Will's journey began over a decade ago, starting as a
penniless adventurer, but through years of learning, loving and making
mistakes on the road, he found his calling to explore,
share and teach. He's passionate about the power of travel
as a tool for personal growth and helping others embrace
adventure while building an online income.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Now based in Bali, where he recently opened Tribal Hostel,
the island's first dedicated digital nomad coworking space, which is
really cool.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
By the way.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
You can usually find Will up a mountain or deep
into a new project, but today he's taking a break
from his busy life to speak with the globe Chartters. Well.
A pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
The show, pleasure to be here. If I write an
autobiography at some point, I'm just gonna let you guys
do it, because that was I could just hire so
thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
But we got you. Let's start in, or let's dive
into the early early side of your travel hustle. You
started out by funding your travel. You started out by
funding your travels or buying goods abroad and selling them
on eBay. What was the spark that got you into
travel and how did you make it work with such
a small budget.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yeah, So a long story kind of encapsulated down to
a nugget is that I had a life changing injury
which meant I could no longer go into the army.
And then after that I kind of had a little
bit of a mental breakdown. Really didn't know what I
was going to do with myself. My parents had only
ever really traveled to one place, and that was India,
and they'd always raved about it. And there was like
some photos of India in the house, and I was like,
(02:00):
oh my god, to India. It looks like an interesting place.
People wearing colorful hats, cool forts. What's not to like?
So went out to India. I was able to get
a two year visa, which was one of the main
reasons I went, because I could stay there for a
decent period of time. I only had about three thousand
pounds to last the trip. So I was doing the
trip very very cheap. Was hitchhiking, was couch surfing, was
(02:20):
sleeping in train stations, working on farms, on earlier forms
of workaway, so like getting bored and food in exchange
for like twenty hours a week. And now I started
buying and selling stuff, and then I would end up
taking bits and pieces, well a whole backpack full really
of scarves and leather satchels and silver jewelry back to England.
I'm from Brighton, which is quite a hippy location, so
(02:43):
I could just go down to the beach, set up
a towel and sell this stuff. Anything I couldn't sell
on the street, I would sell on eBay. And because
I was buying it so cheap in India, I would
make like one thousand to fifteen hundred percent. So I
didn't have much money to play with, but I was
able to leverage it in a big way.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I mean, that's that's awesome, just to hear I've never
thought about doing that. Did you learn that from someone
else or was that just something you came up what
strategy you came up with on your own?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
I guess I guess like, being from Brighton, I've seen
all this stuff knocking knocking around in like the Brighton bazaars,
Brighton shops, and I'd seen that like a leather satchel
was going for like one hundred and fifty pounds, and
then when I was out in India, I realized I
could get it for like, you know, eight pounds, and
I was like, okay, I don't have the fancy shop,
(03:30):
so I can sell it for thirty pounds, fifty pounds,
sometimes one hundred pounds, and people are happy to buy
it because they perceive themselves as getting like a really
great discount.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
In a way. They are though, right.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Are we doing with the podcast?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, so we will actually be opening up a leather
goods online shop next week. Yeah. Our satchels are actually
how much were yours? How much are you selling for? Average?
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Between like thirty and one hundred pounds?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Okay, ours are going to be between twenty and eightys.
So just throwing that out there.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
All the ladies will love the leather goods. I'm telling you,
my aunt just brought me back leather purse from Italy.
So as you're talking about these leather goods, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Oh yeah, yeah, he's thrown a scarf and then you
got like a whole fit. I like it.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
We've had other guests on the podcast talk about India
and kind of how it in a good way, overwhelms
the senses. What was your experience, I mean, it's kind
of hard to give us kind of a breakdown of
two years of India, right, but what were some of
the highlights and things you learned on that first trip?
Speaker 4 (04:38):
So traveling in India is an amazing experience. India is
like such a culturally diverse place. I mean, India as
a country arguably didn't really exist until quite recently, and
it was like hundreds of different warring principalties. There's hundreds
of languages still out there, lots of very different cultures.
The way that I was traveling India was definitely challenging
(05:00):
because you know, I very rarely would spring for like
a guesthouse room, which meant that I didn't get much
personal space, especially traveling on like very crowded trains, on
like the cheapest ticket, sleeping in train stations where people
would be like, why is this white kid sleeping in
the corner of this train station. I don't know let's
(05:21):
go wake him up at three am and ask him.
I'm sure it'll be delighted to find out. So, yeah,
there was. There was a lot of a lot of
really unique interactions, some of them more more challenging than others.
But it definitely like traveling in that way. It taught
me so much. It taught me how to haggle, It
taught me how to say no, It taught me how
to be more social. So yeah, it was it was
(05:43):
a very formative experience for me.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, it kind of like sparked the hustle on you.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
It sounds like, yeah, I was literally just thinking that.
I feel like you just took the words right out
of my hustle hustle culture. Right, we hear all about it.
But also too, like speaking of, you know, the things
that you had picked up along the way, I want
to dive into it a little bit deeper because you
have said that travel is a powerful tool for you know,
(06:08):
personal development for yourself. So what were some of those
other like key skills that you feel like you picked
up in that journey.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Yeah, I mean it was during this time that I
started observing and recording what I was experiencing and how
I was getting around and my sort of skills travel
riders started to come together. I was super inspired by
like the oldie style of travel, like Indiana Jones, that
kind of thing. I mean, travel's not really like that,
(06:36):
but that was what That's what I was going for,
you know. I was like, Okay, I've heard about this
is like a footnote in the lonely There's a city
like fucking six hours into the center of Bihar and
there's some ruins there and that's all I could find,
so I'd go and check it out. You know. I
think being in India kind of made me endlessly curious
and also helped me become quite introspective, which ended up
(07:00):
being like a real superpower that would like help me
on my entrepreneurial journey as well. I love that.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, I'm just curious when you kind of broke into
that that trade hustle, I guess I would call it.
Did you have a moment where, like it your idea,
You're like, oh this this might work, this might not.
You can invest a little in it, you give it
a go and then it works. Did you have that
moment of like, oh, I made this much money doing it,
I can do it more of it and continue to
(07:29):
kind of grow in that way to you know, increase
your income and be able to travel more. Did you
have that like spark of like yeah, good.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Yeah, I definitely did. I also like I've tried so
many different things over like the last fifteen years. I've
done about thirty different things, and I've gotten good at
recognizing when when some things need need to just end
because they're not working or they've worked, but now you've
kind of run out of runways. So the moment for
when I run out of runway with bringing the level
(07:57):
of satchels back was when I had a whole bags
seized and they were like, oh, we're not going to
get it back to you unless you pay several thousands
of pounds of import duties, and I was like, I'll.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Just keep it.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
But at that moment, I was like, okay, this this
this one is finished out.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
You know, I did tell Max and Chelsea a little
bit about some of your dventures, because you know, we're
going to talk a lot about travel, but you're equally
as big as an entrepreneur as you are a traveler,
and you've talked about how you've developed these like protein
bars once twice give it a go, Like you're very
unafraid to try things. Is it the entrepreneurial spirit that
(08:33):
came first, or you know, being able to put yourself
in these uncomfortable situations and travel that kind of gave
you that, that developed that skill.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
So I'd always always worked, like from when I was young,
I was like going around trying to wash cars and
my lawns and go to car boot cells and buy
stuff to resell it, go around charity bookshops and see
if there were books on there that I could, you know,
make a couple of pounds flipping on Amazon. So I'd
always been quite entrepreneurial, and then I had quite a
(09:07):
few really shitty jobs, Like early on I worked in
a warehouse, I've worked in shops, I've worked in bars,
I was a lifeguard, and these all showed me that
it is totally possible to work really hard for somebody
else and for them to not even notice. So I
was like, do you know what, I'm not interested in
working for someone else in less and less they pay
(09:27):
me mad money. So I brought a rather kind of
struggle and and take on the pros and the cons
of being my own boss and then when I traveled,
I very much found that like that was the lifestyle
I wanted, and that traveling was cheaper than just even
surviving in England, so it kind of brought down the
(09:48):
amount of money I had to hit each month to
make that into a reality.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, facts, M So well, you also talked about how
I Ran and Pakistan are great for hitchhiking, which you
know to most people that kind of sound surprising, right,
So can you kind of walk us through.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
What that experience was like for you?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
And I'm also curious, you know, what do people misunderstand
about traveling through those countries specifically?
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Yeah? Sure, I mean I think that most countries that
have a bad international reputation, the people are especially keen
to be really hospitable, really take care of you when
you're in that country, And that was very true for
both Iran and Pakistan. Especially Iran, the people were like
the most hospitable, Like people would buy me food in
(10:41):
a restaurant, invite me to sleep in their home without
me asking. You know, it's difficult to pay for stuff
in Iran as a foreigner. You really have to insist
because they'd just be like, no, no, it's free it's
free and like standing by the side of the road,
I mean, people would pick me up in about thirty
seconds normally, whereas I've spent over twenty four hours unsuccessfully
(11:01):
standing by the side of the road in various countries
in Europe, so Europe is much more difficult. But yeah,
I think those countries are both so beautiful. Bo've got
a big place in my heart. I was actually married
to a lady that I met in Iran for a
few years and spent a lot of time in Iran,
and then I was also running tours in Pakistan for
a while and I had a small guesthouse in the
mountains of Pakistan. So they're both countries that are like
(11:24):
very close to my heart. And if you go, you
really you really get the understanding that like these countries
have been misrepresented. I mean, the interesting thing about Pakistan
as well is that the best part of the country
is all up north, which is like the Pakistani Himalayas,
and unlike India and Apal Tibet, there's just no one there,
so it's like very very empty, and that part of
(11:46):
Pakistan is very different to other parts of Pakistan that
are maybe more fundamental and definitely hotter.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
We've had a handful of people on the show who
have just raved about how great the stands were and
how you know, they're a lot safer than people perceive
them to be, and just we've heard a lot of
different experiences, and some from like solo female travelers who
you know, they they're really just pushing the envelope to
try to get like, you know, help other solo female
travelers understand how great of an adventure they can have
(12:18):
if they go there and actually take the time to
experience it for themselves. And it's just will You're just
another one in the list who is just like bringing
up the stands and how I really want to go
to Pakistan and I ran now and it's just yeah,
I think it's really cool that we get so much
positive feedback on those countries from our from our guests.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
That's I think that with like female travelers especially, a
lot of people have been really surprised at just how
welcoming these countries are. I mean, like they're pretty safe, honestly, certainly,
Like I think that parts of your parts of the
States are maybe more challenging than parts of the stance.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
As a female traveler myself. I mean there's times I
do solo trip and I do group trips, and to
even hear this from you, it actually brings me some ease,
you know, because I have not been to either one
of those countries. But now I would definitely consider it
because you're right, there's a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings
of the safety and especially for females.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
So thank you for sharing that. For sure.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
I hope the female listeners you know, can definitely, you know,
empathize with what you're saying, and it'll make them feel
safe for two if it's on their bucket list.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Cool. Yeah, one hundred percent. You should come out. We
can show you around.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Yeah, I would love to please.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, Okay, Will like, I want to ask you these
questions about Afghanistan or sorry not Afghanistan. Now I'm tripping
over Pakistan and Iran. The first one you talked about
starting this business in Pakistan and kind of running tours.
Can you tell us what the tours kind of centered around.
Was it like hiking adventures outdoors?
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yeah, it was kind of like cultural immersion. Came like
very close friends with this family that lives in this
small village, of three hundred people in Pakistan and it's
right in this like bowl of mountains and there's lots
of hikers you can do around there. So they'd been
trying to like build a guesthouse for a while, so
I help them with that, and then was bringing groups
there and we were spending time with his family and
(14:17):
like really learning about like mounting culture and doing lots
of hikes and going across or we swear and suspension bridges. Yeah,
amazing experience. That's sixteen day. Itinery was what we used
to do. I launched that from Snapchat a long time
ago when I was first doing my blogging and not
making much money at all, I was in Pakistan and
I think I was like, if not the first, one
(14:39):
of the first people to really be streaming from there.
When I was there, there was hard the internet, but
now there is. And I just got such a positive
response online. I was like, Hey, does anybody want to
come to Pakistan me on a tour. Here's a PayPal link.
Went to sleep, woke up the next day and it
had like sold out, and I was like, WHOA, Okay,
I guess I now need to figure out what the
how the hell are we're going to put this on,
so it on. It just kind of grew from there.
(15:02):
It grew in popularity. We did more and more of them,
and then Covid turned up and kind of crushed it.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah. Talk about being resourceful though, you know, like just
getting the word out via Snapchat back in the day.
That's that's that's the hustler. I love it. I want
to shift gears here a little bit and go take
this conversation to South America. You have mentioned traveling through
Venezuela on two hundred and fifty dollars for over six weeks.
I believe it was, Yeah, you know, which sounds like
(15:28):
a pretty good challenge. I haven't been to Venezuela, but
depending on when you went, you know, what was the
currency exchange looking like? Were things really cheap? You know?
What was it like? How did you make it work
while trying to find places to stay and eat? And
you know, did you find it dangerous? Say for you comfortable?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I'd love to hear more about it.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
So I leant on the couch surfing community quite heavily
to like meet up with local people who let me
into their home and sort of showed me around I
crossed overland from Columbia and the day that I crossed,
there was like major demonstration, like burning tires in the
street and like eys of assault rifles everywhere and like
body armor and like trucks, you know, with sirens going.
(16:09):
And I was like, oh, I'm not so sure about
this because I just changed like one hundred dollars and
I changed it into the local currency. I can't remember
what the rate was, but I had a pillowcase of money.
It was it was insane, and there was there was
no other foreigners there, and I was like, surely everybody
knows I've got this pillowcase of money. It doesn't feel great,
(16:31):
but the causiding community kept me from safe and I
traveled differently in Venezuela. I didn't hitchhiked there. I was
like walking around the street at night far less than
I normally would, kind of kept my guard up a
little bit more. I only met one or two other
travelers whilst I was there, but it was an amazing experience.
(16:51):
I mean, in Venezuela's a country of outstanding natural beauty,
and also the people were really really nice. It was
a bit like Iran and Pakistani again. In that people
just really wanted to show me that they, you know,
they were not how they have been portrayed by Fox News,
and they are normal people who maybe don't like their
(17:11):
government very much. Anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
You know what year was this?
Speaker 4 (17:15):
This was a while ago. I guess it was about
nine or eight years ago.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Now, okay, yeah, I mean it's been a shit show
for a while, so it's like thirty years. Yeah, you
said something that caught my attention because you know, I
consider myself, I think everyone here kind of a pretty
savvy traveler. But you said you didn't hitchhike in Venezuela.
So is there something? Is it just intuition that you
(17:42):
rely on and you're like, hey, I'll take my chances
hitchhiking and Pakistan and Iran versus Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Yes, it definitely is intuition, and it is kind of
learning to strengthen that muscle and being willing to say no,
I'm not getting in the car right now because this
person maybe it doesn't seem quite right, something doesn't quite
seem like a good shout to me here. But in Venezuela,
I was like specific At first, I was like, yeah,
I'm going to hitchhiker around at all, and my couch
(18:09):
surfing hosts pretty much like made me swear an oath
that I wouldn't do that. They were like, you can't,
you just can't. You are a target. People know that
the very few amount of foreigners here have changed money
on the black market and therefore have a pillow case
full of money.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
So yeah, and Max, I think you're muted.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I was gonna say, maybe having a pillowcase full of
a Venezuelan boulevards isn't the best idea for hitchhiking around
the country in South America.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Definitely, definitely not. I mean normally as well. I have
a tent and like I do a fair bit of
wild camping less now honestly, but I was doing quite
a lot of wild camping back then, and yeah, that
was I wouldn't do that in Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Hm.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Well, I have one other question too.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
So we talked a little bit about female travelers solo
in Pakistan and rant, so comparing that to South America
and Venezuela, what are your thoughts because even with you
and your intuition and.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
Okay, I'm not going to go out late at night
by myself.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
For I'm just curious, you know, in that comparison, what
your thoughts are.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
I think, like you know, South America is a big
place and part parts of it are very very safe.
I think it's one of those countries, one of those countries,
one of those places where it's really really worth learning Spanish,
Like Spanish is clearly the language that it makes sense
to learn because if you get it, you unlock all
of South America, whereas like in India, there was not
(19:35):
much point in learning the language because you two hours
down the train track, you know, the language changes. I've
only really had positive experiences in Latin America. From what
I've heard from solo travelers. There is maybe a little
bit more of a culture of like cat calling and
like bothering women with aggressive attention. But I'm not a woman,
(19:58):
so I haven't. I haven't, I haven't experience that, but
I can certainly see how that would be the case.
I think if you are a solo female traveler, you
just need to get good at like drawing your boundaries
clearly and concisely. I think that's like the main thing, right, Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, you know, during our pre interview, we kind of
touched a little bit about this kind of the ethical
side of travel when you you know, you travel to
some of these places like me and mar Venezuela, like
we just talked about, which have political or economic issues
that I mean, let's be real, it puts Westerners in
a very advantageous position to really like explore the country
(20:35):
and like, let's say, experience it in like a more
luxurious way. So how do you grapple with the ethics
of visiting those places and how do you justify for
yourself because I know I have this internal conversation with
me and I'm not I'm not trying to point fingers
here or anything.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think that
countries like my Amma is a good example, and I've
been to my amar a couple of times. It is
one of my favorite countries that people are absolutely amazing.
There are things you can do when traveling in these
countries to try and ensure that the money that you
do spend gets into the right hands by eating in
local restaurants, staying in local homestays rather than staying in
(21:13):
hotels because most of the hotels are government run, but
ultimately just by being there some of the money that
you're spending is one hundred percent going to end up
in government pockets. But I do kind of feel that
boycotting a country because you don't agree with the policies
of their government, it really stops like a cross cultural
exchange between travelers and between the local people. And I
(21:36):
think that travelers coming through these countries can be a
positive force for good for local people with these exchanges
that you have, with the money that you manage to spend.
And also, honestly, you don't have to look very deeply
at any government. Maybe there's a few in Scandinavia that
are pretty good, but you don't have to look very
deeply at many governments to find something pretty wrongare.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
So I'm a little bit curious.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Did you always have a plan to kind of turn
your travels into a business.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
Did it just kind of evolve over time? Like how
did it all fall into place for you?
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Yeah, it definitely evolved over time in that the broke
Backpacker was just like a passion project somewhere for me
to dump my writing and a few photos i'd taken.
I didn't even know it was possible to make money
from trial blogging for like a little while I'd never
heard of SEO and never heard of affiliate marketing, the
first money that I did make on the site was
people wanting like sponsored placements to buy links and stuff
(22:35):
like that, And that was how I manetized it originally,
and that was that's why I tried to scale originally
and trying to get hold of big lists of advertisers
who had spent money in the past with child blogs
and then reach out to them and try to generate
someatural real money. But obviously the affiliate side of things
and then selling my own products has been the bulk
(22:57):
of it over like the last few years, and has
been more exciting side of things. But I had no
idea that a child blog could could go to this
height and could be seen by so many people and
could drive so much well, so much revenue, but also
so much opportunity to show people parts of the world
that I'm really passionate about and to try to help
(23:19):
people to travel in more of an intentional way, because
I mean, like, we don't really do content like ten
best speeches in Thailand or like you know, sipping champagne
on a yacht that it isn't really what we're doing.
We're trying to be like encouraging to people, no matter
their background, to get on the road, but also encouraging
people to get out of their comfort zone, to travel
(23:40):
to countries that maybe they hadn't considered, to spend some
time off their phone, to start a journaling practice, because
travel can be like the most incredible opportunity for personal development,
but it's also possible just to get wasted all the
time and learn nothing. So you've got to try and
point people in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I love that, like the mindfulness piece of travel, right, Yeah,
being intentional, you're spot out there.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
That is one thing that really impressed me about our
initial conversation, and you just touched on it. And I
want to talk about journaling and goal setting because this
is something that you started implementing in your travels. Right.
You mentioned to me that you met out kind of
a five year plan down to a month by month basis,
which is very impressive. But how does that practice influenced
(24:26):
your decisions the way you approach both your personal and
professional life.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Yeah, so I've always been very kind of goal orientated,
and that can be a bit of a double edged sort.
It's recently over the last couple of years that I
have been able to take a step back and to
be content with where I'm at, to still have goals
to move forwards, but no longer to that as soon
as I hit a goal to not really celebrate it
and to just like immediately move on to the next one,
(24:53):
because that's just a zero sum game and you just
be chasing stuff until you die, right, So you've got
to figure out how to celebrate and how to be
happy in the moment. But I've always had like five
year plans. The question that I always kind of come
back to is like who do you want to be?
That question originally came from like not being very happy
with who I am and being able to use that
as fuel. It was very powerful, but it burns very
(25:15):
brightly when your like self talk is not good, when
you're like down on yourself all the time, like you
are not good enough, you need to be this to
be better. So I've I've had to kind of work
through that in my process as well. But I always
have a five year plan. I've got my daily habits
that I tick off at the end of every night
that there'll be all kinds of stuff in there, like
my personal practices like journaling, meditation, ice, bathing, like work
(25:38):
that makes me money, it's just called money work, like
creative writing, and like all of my fitness goals as well.
And then at the end of every month, that will
get digitally recorded. And I've been doing that for about
ten years. And I also ask myself the same seven
questions at the end of every month, which means that
when I'm feeling down or when I'm just curious as
to how I'm doing on a certain issue or in
(25:59):
a certain area of my life, I've got like a
hundred answers worth of data. So I can go back
and i can look at it and I can be like, yo,
I understand that right now you're not feeling so great,
but let's look at where you were a year ago,
and bro, you've come so far. So pat on the back, you.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Know, love, it's incredible.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
Honestly, that just like gave me chills. I really mean it. Yeah,
it was very very.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Inspiring, you know, with you saying that you've been asking
yourself these seven key questions at the end of every month,
I just think that that's super fascinating. Can you share
a little bit more and just dive deeper with us
about that practice and just yeah, for sure really impacted
your life and even just kept you focused over all
(26:42):
these years that you've been doing that.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Yeah, I mean I definitely like lost myself to the
entrepreneurship hustle for a little bit and was like working
mad hours and kind of forgot why I was doing
that and was just just putting, just putting in the
hours and then made money and was like, ah, I
want a car, or I think I want a fancy watch.
How it was like, this isn't really making me. I
(27:07):
feel the same, This isn't really doing anything for me,
you know. So I kind of went down that rabbit
hole of chasing things, chasing like prestige. I made the
conscious decision to majorly disconnect from social media like a
few years ago, and that has made me much happier.
I Like, so someone who's often struggled with like a
(27:29):
lot of anxiety, a lot of depression. I'm also like obsessive,
compulsive and ADHD. So if there's a few things going on,
and there's a lot of advantages to the way that
I'm wired, but there are some disadvantages as well, So
I need to be very introspective to keep on top
of it. And that's kind of where these questions come in.
Or I can ask myself how am I doing with
my view towards myself mentally, spiritually, physically, how am I
(27:51):
doing with my relationships with my family, with my partner,
with my friends? How am I showing up for my work?
How am I showing up for my creative practices? And
even if the answers aren't very satisfying, by answering them,
I kind of feel like I can let go a
little bit. And then it means that if I end
the month strong, I celebrate. If I end the month week,
(28:12):
I'm like, tomorrow is a new month, so let's let's
get let's get going, and let's start strong. And it
just really allows me to reset. Whereas before I was
properly doing this, a bad month could bleed into a
bad month pretty easily for me, and then before you
know it, it's in a bad year. So I had to
kind of find these natural barriers to stop that happening.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
So the month is like, that's your timeline, and then
you know November first, it's like a clean slate essentially,
and you evaluate that the previous.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Month, right exactly.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Well, can I ask.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Did you come up with these seven questions just on
your own?
Speaker 5 (28:50):
Were they recommended to you?
Speaker 4 (28:52):
No, this is just stuff I came up with on
my own, just playing around. I've also got, you know,
various journal prompts that I've just come up by myself.
I mean, there's loads of great stuff out there. If
you look online, there's loads there's loads of great into
out there. But I think that ultimately it's more powerful
if you can think about, like, if you're going to
look back on your life at the end of your life,
what are the metrics that you want to track for
(29:14):
you individually. Maybe it's like spending time with your loved
ones or loved pets. Maybe it's being creative, maybe it's
cooking healthy food for yourself. It's very individual, and I
think you've got to decide what matters to you.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I feel like we just got a master class for free.
Yeah this is this is this exercise. Is that you
decide somewhere we have to pay for this, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Absolutely, And also choosing your own individual habits and not
being afraid to change those at any time if they're
not working for you. Having a whole bunch of them
that you're tracking. What that means is that unless you
have a complete right off of a day, at the
end of the day, you should be able to take
one thing off and just that little exercise at the
(29:58):
end of the day is effectively a grass tude exercise.
It helps you sleep, it helps you get ready through tomorrow.
There's always time to get if you're tracking on tracking
twenty two things, there's always time to do a few
of them throughout the day, and many of them are
not supposed to be done on a daily basis then
more like weekly things, right, But it just helps you
stay on track, and then when you get to the
(30:19):
end of the month you can be yo, you've done
really well on this. Maybe you haven't done so good
on this. Do you want to take time away from
this one and reassign it over here or do you
need to be more aware about this one? Is this
one not working? You mean to take it out for
a couple of months and put something else in, you.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Know, right, So to go back into your entrepreneurialship, you
co founded Tribal, which is a coworking hostel in Bali.
How did that idea come about? And what was it
like building a space that caters to digital nomads like yourself.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
Yeah, So I met my co founder Mark in the
gym and we quickly developed like a close friendship. Mark
had also traveled extensively around the world and was struggling
with the same thing that I was struggling with, which
was trying to find a good workspace where one could
also be connected to the travel community. Basically, we were
either staying in hostels that were like too busy, too party, party,
(31:14):
and we felt like we were missing out, or we'd
throw off our work and go get involved, which you know,
you've got to be focused and find the time to
be involved. So that was really what we wanted to
build because the other alternative, we were staying in places where
there was just like no community element, and being an
online entrepreneur can be quite lonely. So we wanted to
try and build a place where people could come together,
(31:35):
find their tribe and collaborate. So that's what we've done
with Tribal one, and we're now building a much bigger
Tribal two in Lombok. It has been a real journey
figuring out permits, buying land, sporting cement all of these
kind of things. It was complicated. We pretty much put
(31:55):
all of our money into a big field, and then
COVID happened and we had this big kids, I hear
you there, we got we got it open, so it
worked out.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Something that I love also about our conversations, and I've
mentioned I don't know I've already said it on this podcast,
but I definitely said it to you. You are unafraid
to talk about maybe this wasn't a failure, but like
like all the mishaps that happened along the way of
like just this freaking journey of life, right, the journey
of creating your own business where it's not always going
(32:29):
to be pretty. But I do appreciate that you have
a very candor candid way of phrasing your experiences.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Yeah, I mean honestly, like I have failed so so
so much like the broke Backpacker, big success. Still made
plenty of mistakes on the bright Backpacker, like no formal
business training, no, like no mentor nobody needs to tell
me how to be a boss man and how to
build teams, made loads of mistakes, like some of them
(32:59):
literally still want me and I'm still working through them,
have lost businesses I really cared about. Have had other
ideas where I've put loads of money in and suppliers
have stolen the money off me because I didn't have
the guardrails in place, because I didn't know what I
was doing. Have tried protein bars twice. One was for
pregnant women who wanted to increase their protein intake. Didn't
(33:19):
work out. The how one was protein bars made out
of grasshoppers, didn't work out. So I've tried a whole
bunch of stuff and I've failed a whole bunch of times.
But you know, the great backpacker in Tribal on my
two kind of home runs, And where I'm at now
is I'm in a very fortunate position where I'm able
to mostly work on like my creative for fun projects.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah, I feel like we throw the F word around
a lot, and they're not failures. Their opportunity to learn right,
like you know, like you said, errors, mistakes, but they're
not failures. Failing would just be never doing it right.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
And yeah, I think that's where you've got how you
have to look at it, and that's how I've tried
to look at it, is that like some of These
were very expensive lessons where I even knew I was
making the mistake as I made it, and still continued
to make it. But now I'm thirty five, and I
hope that I've made most of the interpersonal mistakes that
it is possible to make, and I won't make them again.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
We'll see you on the pod for a follow up
on that one.
Speaker 6 (34:20):
Yeah, you know, I do want to You are an
obviously avid travel and I want to shift the kind
of over to some of the funniest things that you've
experienced in life in your thirty five years.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
What has been and you can only give me one
your favorite place to have visited and why.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
I mean it's it's probably begone in my in More. Honestly,
I went for the first time in twenty fifteen and
the country had just opened and begone. For those who
don't know it, it's a very flat plane with seven
thousand temples all across it, so you can see them
all just like spread out. It's kind of like being
in this snow globe of temples. They just march off
into the distan and because there's so many, it's possible
(35:03):
to be inside big ones with nobody else being there
and it really feels like Indiana Jones style exploring. I
spent New Year's Eve up in one of the bigger ones.
I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to be there, and
we took some LSD and it was one of the
best evenings of my life. That was awesome.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
We'll have you on for another episode just on that alone.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, yeah, And then kind of a follow up to that,
Who is Will the Traveler at thirty five? If he's
still the same person that traveled to India, how have
you changed, not only as a person but also like
your travel habits.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Right, Yeah, it's a great question. So, I mean, I
do a motorbike trip every year. This year I did
Peru six weeks of my brother on motorbikes, which was amazing,
like really fantastic. I try to do like a digital detox,
splash plant medicine retreat every year, and I try to
hike a mountain every year. So those are kind of
(36:04):
my goals. And then the rest is less adventury. It's
more like going to places that I could never have
afforded to go to previously, like New Zealand, like Australia.
I went to French Polynesia recently. That was amazing. And
traveling in a different way to how I was traveling
before for sure, like a more comfortable way. Still trying
(36:24):
to have those local cultural immersion experiences, but getting my
own car, driving around, not camping by the side of
the road, because I can do that when I'm on
the motorbike. And I've kind of found a good sort
of fifty to fifty split now.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, hey man, the back doesn't sleep well in a
hospital bed like it.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Very correct DIBs on top bunk.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Also, like my patients, my patience levels now with like
twenty year olds coming in at three am drunk, it
just pritty. It's about one minute of patients.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
I like to think about it as I'm being very communicative.
I'm very open about my feelings when people do that
when they come into a hostel at three am, it's healthy.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
It's funny when you see the shift though, from your
twenties to your thirties, with you know, different ways that
used to travel before, and you know even how you
felt when you were traveling your twenties in comparison to
your thirties.
Speaker 5 (37:22):
It's interesting to see the shift.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
For sure, Well, you've built a ton of businesses, and
you've traveled to some pretty wild places, and what's next
for you? Are there any new travel destinations or business
ventures that are on the horizon.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Yeah. So I've found a real passion for spearfishing over
the last couple of years. My partner is like an
incredibly accomplished free diver, much much better than me. But
she's terrible with a gun. We've tried it and like
she's like okay, like damn, just terrible. So we are
planning on opening a free diving retreat center. That's kind
(37:59):
of the next big plan for us. Finding the right
piece of land, maybe in Indonesia, maybe in New Zealand,
maybe in French Polynesia, maybe Mexico, and setting up a
retreat center for people who want to come and tap
into like the healing elements of the ocean. Because I'm
someone whose brain doesn't really switch off, but when I'm
free diving it does, and it's a very meditative experience.
(38:22):
So I think finding a way to bring people together
and to share that with them, that's that's kind of
our next big plan.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
And if for our listeners who might not be aware
of where free diving is, can you kind of share
a little bit of what that entails, specifically the feat too,
that you could the depths that you could dive.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
Yeah, so free diving is diving without oxygen just normally
with just thins and a mask. You do a breathe
up on the surface and then you dive down, sometimes
with a line, sometimes not. We just got back from
French polonies or we were free diving with huntback whales
on their migration and they were like right in my face.
It was amazing, it was amazing. Wow. I'm comfortable. I'm
(39:05):
comfortable between sort of fifteen and twenty meters and when
i'm hunting, I'm normally hunting between ten and fifteen meters.
But my partner can do like thirty forty meters and
pretty easily. She's just for.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
American friends, that's about sixty five feet that he's willing
to go up to. So his partner going at thirty
meters is comfortable going up to one hundred feet, which,
by the way, I've done one hundred feet with a tank,
big blue hole in belief. I cannot believe she can
hit those steps. Insane.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Yeah, No, that's she's talented.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
I'm scuba certified and everything and I'll go. I think,
what is it? I've gone fifteen meters so not too far. Yeah, yeah,
Chelsea skied, do we I don't know if we ever
actually accomplished that or figure that out.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I'm not, but now Will has my wheel spinning and
now I'm in on this retreat.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
Yeah, you plan it. I'll be the first to sign up.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
I don't know how far my breath for I might
have to practice, but well, teaching sounds amazing, Please teach me,
and which is also very healing. So yeah, I would
love to know details about it once you plan it,
and sclub chatters will be headed to their destination for.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Sure, please please, that would be great. Well, I think
if anybody is looking to become an online entrepreneur or
to find a way to fund their travels long term, ultimately,
I've always kind of felt that you've got to do
one of two things. Is either you've got to get
paid pretty well by somebody else, or you've got to
figure something out for yourself. And like a little sort
(40:36):
of tipbit of info that I always like to kind
of drop in there is that like travel blogging, I
feel is the most visible digital nomad career because it's
all over Instagram and social media, probably one of the
worst paid. So I would say that if your passion
is travel and you're wondering how you can fund your travels,
(40:57):
be willing to step outside of the realm of travel
blogging to look at other money making endeavors because there
is easier ways to make money. And the problem with
making money through child blogging as well is it basically
gives you an excuse to be addicted to social media
because you're working, so you have to be very very
careful about that. Also, like with phones in general, I
(41:19):
think like factoring in time, scheduling in time on your
travels to have a digital detox might feel hard at first,
you'll feel so good once you've done it, and you know,
I'm like everybody else. Phones are addictive. I want to
see if some cute person sent me a message. Feels nice,
but like it's You've got to build that discipline in
(41:43):
to spend time off your phone. So I'm only really
on my phone until like seven pm in the evening.
Then it goes in the box and I've got a
second phone that comes out, which is just like Spotify
and Audible and like my mum's phone number and that's it.
So I think trying to find that balance when you're
traveling to spend the time off your phone so that
you can really spend a time in where you are
(42:03):
in connecting with local people is so worthwhile. And yeah,
if you do start your entrepreneurship digital journey, try to
find your crowd because it is lonely and you'll be
surprised at how much value can be gained by sharing
just a workspace with people who are not necessarily in
(42:24):
the same industry but on the same journey. If you're
looking from somewhere, well, I've built it so.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Nice. Plug. That was a good little wrap up right there. Man,
I could just listen to you talk like all day though,
Like this, Like, can I just get paid to listen
to you talk? This is just so informative.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
You can pay me to all.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Looking for the opposite here, I'm trying to take your
ideas and put them in the into motion.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Nice look, man, I think I speak for the three
of us. It's really freaking great to have you on
the show. If our listeners want to learn a little
bit more about you, where can they find you?
Speaker 4 (43:02):
Yes, I am on Instagram at willhatton Underscore. Underscore. It's
not on my phone, but I check it once a
week on my laptop, so if you DM me on there,
I will eventually get back to you. Obviously, you can
check out the Broke Backpacker and then I'm in bally
sort of six to eight months of the year hanging
around Tribal, which is also on Instagram at Tribal barly Side.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
You can find that nice and if you would like
to find out a little more about us, you can
do so by visiting our website at www dot gtspodcast
dot com. You can find us on Instagram or Facebook
at Globetrotters Podcast, Twitter at globetrot pod. Make sure you
drop us a review on Apple Podcasts Spotify. If you
enjoyed listening to our conversation, and feel free to shoot
(43:44):
us at email at hello at gtspodcast dot com if
you would like to contact us directly.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Editing on this podcast was done by our very own
Jonathan Otero.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Until next time,
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