Ep. 263: How This Serial Expat Helps Others Create Their Dream Lives Abroad with Richelle Gamlam
In this episode, I speak with Richelle who is a serial expat who has been living abroad since 2013, and now she helps other people create their dream lives abroad.
After living and working in China for five years, Richelle transitioned to a location-independent life while working for herself online. Over the past few years, she’s lived in China, Vietnam, Tanzania, Australia, and the Republic of Georgia.
Now she works as a coach helping adventurous people live and work around the world.
Listen on to find out how this serial ex-pat has been able to live anywhere in the world.
Listen Below:
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Transcription:
Debbie:
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for being here. I am really excited to speak with my guest today. I’m here with Richelle.
Hey, Richelle. How are you?
Richelle:
I’m great. How are you? Thanks for having me.
Debbie:
I am so excited to talk to you today because you have a really interesting story. So can you tell us more about you and why you live an offbeat life?
Richelle:
Sure. Yeah.
So my name is Richelle. I’ve been living abroad since 2013. So quite a while now and I originally moved to China where I lived for five years. And then after five years in China, I became location independent. So I lived in Tanzania, Vietnam, a bit in Australia, and now I’ve been living in Tbilisi, Georgia for the last two years.
And I actually was only planning on being here for a couple of months and then COVID happened and I decided to stay and now my husband and I have been here for over two years. So I’m kind of a location independent expat now
Debbie:
Well, you’ve gone on to a lot of different places. So you started in China. How did you get there? How did you end up being in and then just not coming back and just continuing to travel?
Richelle:
That’s a great question. I definitely didn’t plan on being there for five years. So I was always really interested in China, like ancient Chinese culture, that kind of thing. And I minored in Mandarin Chinese in college and I decided I’m gonna study abroad in China. I just wanna go somewhere that’s very different from where I’m from, I’m from Seattle, in the US.
And so, yeah, I just wanted to go somewhere really different and challenge myself. And I found the culture and the history really interesting. And then majoring in international relations, I also found the politics and the different sort of like I guess, opinions about government and things like that, to be interesting.
So I studied abroad in China for seven months. And then when I came back to graduate, I realized, “Ugh, I don’t think I’m done being abroad yet.” And I thought, “Well, this is the perfect time.” Like straight out of college, I don’t have a ton of furniture, I don’t have that dream job or anything holding me back, I don’t have kids, or at least, in my opinion, I thought it was holding me back. Now I know you can move abroad with all those things.
But at the time I was like, “This is perfect. I don’t have a ton of attachments.” So I thought, “I’ll just take a job, teaching English in China, and I’ll be there for a year or two. And then I’ll come back and get a “real job” and start all my life back home in the US.” And I didn’t come back and I still haven’t been back.
So yeah, once I was there, I started finding all of these new opportunities and I realized that I actually really enjoyed my life living abroad and traveling, and I still don’t really have that strong desire to live in the US again. Now that I’m I’ve transitioned to being more location independent, I really enjoy living overseas, I enjoy that it’s much more affordable living here in Tbilisi, Georgia.
So I went with the idea of going for a year or two and I got sucked in and I have not gone back yet.
Debbie:
That is pretty incredible how you kept going. And I do have to say that that is one of the best times to set off and do all of these adventurous things, as people say you should do when you’re young, because yeah, you don’t have a lot of attachment.
And even though you can do it when you have children, when you have a family, it does become a lot harder. And it’s also different, right? Because it’s not just about you now, you have to kind of cater to other people’s lifestyles as well. So it’s different. I feel like it’s different when you’re single, when you’re a couple, and then as a family. So the experiences vary, I guess.
Anytime is good but it’s also good to just do it solo. So you did that. You are in China and then after China, you went off to other places. Now, how did that come about? Because living in China, living in Asia in general is as you say, really inexpensive and it’s affordable, and then you moved to Australia, which is not as affordable, right? But you still made it happen.
And you went to all of these other places. How did that come about? How did you find your jobs when you went to these other locations?
Richelle:
Sure. Yeah.
So I will clarify, my now husband is Australian so I’m spending time in Australia to spend time with his family and things like that.
Debbie:
Oh, okay.
Richelle:
So it was not the first place I moved right out of China.
But yeah, so I was in China for five years and after a few years, I started thinking there’s a lot of the world that I wanna see and China was starting to feel pretty comfortable. And also I was beginning to feel like I wanted to work for myself.
We can talk about China for a bit if you’re curious, but at the end of my adventure in China, once I finally started to figure things out, I had a really good job in China as a college admissions consultant, making a really great salary. I had my own private office. I was making really good money there, but I still had to be at the office every day from like 10 to seven and I had my commute and all of this.
And I started a travel blog when I studied abroad in China, so forever ago. And that was starting to take off a bit. And I was getting these opportunities that I couldn’t really do because I had this full-time job in China. And then also I had all of these people coming to me saying like, “How do I do what you are doing first? And then how do I avoid the stakes that you made your first year?” ‘Cause my first year in China was like a total disaster.
So we can definitely talk about that if you’re curious. So my first year in China was not great. So I have these people coming to me saying like, “I really wanna move abroad. I wanna move to China. How do I go about what you are doing but avoid the pitfalls, avoid these scams, make sure I have a good experience?” And so basically, I created an online course and started coaching people to move to China.
Now that’s branched out to the rest of the world. But it was just China at first ’cause that’s what I was familiar with at the time. So I was basically doing like two full-time jobs and I was like, “Okay, I wanna see more of the world.”
And also I really want to give this a shot like helping people move abroad and things like that. And me having a full-time job made it so that I couldn’t put my full effort into that because I was just so busy.
Richelle:
And so China’s not the best place to be location independent just with visas and costs and everything like that. So that was when I moved to Vietnam for a bit. And then also Tanzania because my husband used to work for a safari company. So, I was doing some social media work for them and we moved there for a bit as well.
And then during that time we also spent some time with our families ’cause we’d both been, I met my husband when I was living in China, but we’d both been living abroad for quite a long time and hadn’t been able to spend a lot of time with our families.
So that was what allowed us to like stay in Australia for a bit and like visit my family in the US for a couple of months at a time and just be kind of, I guess, a digital nomad where I moved around every few months. And then when COVID hit, I wanted to stay in one place for a bit. And so now I am a location-independent expat. So I live here but I could live anywhere. If that makes sense.
Debbie:
Yeah, absolutely.
And it’s good that even though you had that comfortable job in China, you wanted something more because you also were using your website to allow you to have all of these different opportunities and you created that for yourself.
So let’s go back to when you talked about the mistakes that you made when you first started out in China, can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Richelle:
I would be happy to talk about that and help you guys avoid my mistakes.
Like I said, when I first moved to China, I was 22 years old and did not know what I was doing. When I studied abroad, I went on a study abroad program and I had a great time. I had a fantastic experience, did a semester and a summer in China. And I thought, “Well, that was so awesome. Let’s do a teach abroad program.”
And I thought it would be the same thing. And so I found this what I thought was really good teach abroad program based in DC, where I went to college, and I even like went to their office and it was super nice. I saw them advertise through my old study abroad company. And I was like, “Ugh, this is gonna be perfect,” almost to the point where I didn’t shop around. I didn’t apply to other jobs. I just applied to this teach abroad company.
And now I don’t really recommend teach abroad programs just from my own personal experience. But yeah, I trusted this program. They were gonna fly me over, they were going to pay for my TEFL, which is like a certification that you need to teach legally in a lot of countries.
And they were gonna do an orientation and then the jobs, we’re all gonna have housing and we were gonna be placed at cities together. And I was like, “Oh, this is perfect.” But in reality, I ended up alone on a factory-like highway where I was the only like non-Chinese person for miles. And even though I speak Mandarin, I did not speak the local dialect that a lot of people in that area spoke.
And then, I realized, this is so dumb, but I thought all the contracts through this program were standardized. They were not. And so I didn’t do the math and I basically kind of signed my life away and that if I wanted to leave my school early, I could owe them a certain amount of money.
And when I eventually did the math, it was 8,000 US dollars if I wanted to leave early, which was my entire salary for the entire year. So I was really underpaid and I thought it was normal. I was like, “Oh, it’s China. That’s how much you get paid.” No, super underpaid. And a lot of these things like most jobs will fly you over, especially if you’re teaching in east Asia, right?
Like they’ll fly you over. They will pay for your housing. And you can get a really good TEFL online for like $300, 200 something dollars. And so I basically lost, not only did I lose out on thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in my salary being super low. I think I did the math and had I really shopped around and like maybe talked to people who’d done it before I could have made like an extra $7,000 like that year easily.
Also, my school wasn’t legally allowed to hire me. They placed me in a school that wasn’t even legally allowed to hire foreign teachers. So the school, my visa was not the school that I was working for, which I was like, “Oh, it’s China, not a big deal.” But one of my friends on this program got deported because the government found out that she wasn’t working for the school that was on her visa.
So it was a whole thing. Like this program that was supposed to look out for me, placed me in a school that wasn’t even legally allowed to hire me, and put me by myself in the middle of nowhere.
And so that experience really taught me that when you put all of your trust into these programs to look out for you and you don’t know how to do anything on your own, not only do you feel trapped, if it doesn’t work out and it’s not like what you think, but then at the same time, like nobody has your best interests at heart except you.
And so when you have the confidence to plan your own adventure, find your own job, book your own flights. When you actually have that confidence to do it yourself, then you’ll end up having a much better situation. And if God forbid, you don’t love it when you get there, you have the confidence to actually change.
Whereas, I felt stuck. I felt like I signed my life away to this contract and now I have to be here for a year. And I made a lot of mistakes but in hindsight, I’m glad that it happened because that’s the catalyst that inspired me to start helping other people avoid my mistakes ’cause I kept seeing them happen over and over and over again.
But then living in China, I eventually found this really good job. I eventually met people who were having a great experience and I eventually realized how much you should be paid, but the information wasn’t there, the guidance wasn’t there and the help wasn’t there, especially back then. It’s a little better now but yeah, that’s kinda what inspired me to start helping people move abroad because I was getting tired of seeing people who had these big dreams of moving abroad get stuck in situations like mine.
Debbie:
Yeah.
And it seems like, unless you’re there, you don’t really know what’s gonna happen unless you have somebody like you Richelle who has been there, it’s kind of interesting. And it’s really sad and really bad that a lot of these people will take advantage of you and do that.
So did you end up staying there for the whole year or did you end up leaving and working for another company? What happened with that?
Richelle:
I ended up staying there the whole year. And that was an experience.
Yeah. I did talk to the teacher abroad program to see if they would move me and they not only didn’t care until I started crying on the phone. They told my school that I wanted to leave without telling me that they were telling my school this.
Debbie:
Oh, wow.
Richelle:
And basically told the school like, “She wants to leave, so be extra nice to her.” And so the school started being extra, extra nice to me, which like guilted me, they assigned teachers to hang out with me each week.
Debbie:
Oh, my God.
Richelle:
They assigned people to be my friends. But I didn’t know until like six months in that these people were assigned to be my friend. And I just thought everybody was so nice; invited to dinner, to their house. And they were assigned to be friends with me.
Debbie:
How did you find out? Wait, what?
Richelle:
One of the teachers came to me and it was someone who kinda always rub me the wrong way. He comes up to me and he’s like, “Oh, Richelle, I’m really busy this week. Do you mind if we hang out next week?” And I was like, “Sure, why are we hanging out? Why do you wanna hang out with me?” Like, we weren’t close.” And he was like, “Okay, good. Yeah. ‘Cause this is supposed to be my week to hang out with you.”
Debbie:
Oh, my God.
Richelle:
And I put two and two together and I was like, “Wow.” Every single week I have a different teacher kind of like hanging out with me and asking me to do something. And I really just thought everyone was super friendly and wanting to get to know me. And they were just assigned to be my friend.
Debbie:
That is crazy. Did you talk to the other teachers and was like, “Hey, are you getting paid to be my friend?”
Richelle:
I don’t think they were getting paid extra. I think it was just one of their mandatory tasks.
Debbie:
Oh, my God.
Richelle:
But no, I did not confront anyone. I just was like, “Oh, interesting.”
Debbie:
Oh my gosh. Wow. They really went above and beyond to get you to stay there. I wonder if it would have cost them money if you left, right?
Richelle:
Definitely.
Debbie:
So that’s so interesting. They’re like, “Alright, we can’t lose the money. We gotta have her stay there.” That is so shady though. Oh my God, Richelle. But at least, you’d be like, “Alright. I guess at least people were nice to me so…”
Richelle:
Yeah, exactly.
But yeah, I mean, it was definitely an experience, it was an academic year, not a full year that I had to be there but yeah, like eventually I started meeting people and I started to see what was possible. I started to realize what I was actually qualified to do.
And then I ended up getting that college counseling job in China eventually. And I was making like four times the salary working legally, all expenses paid, visa trips to Hong Kong to get my proper work visa. And I had a housing stipend that allowed me to stay in a nice apartment.
I was in Beijing, not in the middle of nowhere. So I started to come kind of see what was possible, but I met so many people that were in kind of situations like mine their first year where I had this friend who was working at like a really well-known training center.
And she was telling me about her job. And I was like, “Oh!” She’s telling me all the things that she didn’t like about her job and things like that. There are all these rules and I’m not allowed to paint my nails. And I’m like, “Oh, that’s weird.”
And she’s telling me about her salary. And I’m like, “Oh yeah, okay. That’s fair for a first-year teacher.” And she’s just like, “Yeah. I talked to them to see if I could get a higher salary because I have a master’s in early childhood education and a couple of years of teaching experience.”
And I almost spit my coffee on this girl. I was like, “What?! Why, did you take this like a beginner job?” And she’s like, “Oh, well they offered me an extra, like couple hundred dollars a month ’cause of my experience.” And I was like, “No! What?”
And so I sent her a couple of links of jobs that she would be qualified for including the company I worked for. And she not only landed a job at my company, she turned it down because she got her dream job as a guidance counselor at an international school making like three times the salary with double the housing stipend and all these vacation days.
And I’m like, “All you need is like one conversation with the right person and it can completely turn your experience around. But a lot of times you don’t know about these things until you’re already there because the really good jobs aren’t quite as good at advertising and marketing to like first-year expats and things like that.”
Debbie:
Yeah.
And it’s hard enough when you’re there to figure that out. But then if you’re not even in the country, you are in the United States or somewhere else, that’s even more difficult. That’s why they say you have to really know people to understand how to do that.
So for things like that, right? For people who wanna do this, especially you mentioned for beginners, for first-year students, or people who wanna do this and become expats in China, where would be the best place to go? Like, the first place they should go to look for information like this?
Richelle:
Well, definitely my stuff.
So what I now work with people who wanna move anywhere, especially now with COVID and stuff like that, getting to China is not a super easy place to move to right now. But let’s say you wanna move abroad just in general, I would say the first thing I have people do is create a plan, right?
So we need to figure out what kind of lifestyle you want, where you wanna move, and what kind of job that you’re gonna get. And then once we have that actual plan, we can start to implement.
And so what happens is a lot of people get stuck in this dreaming phase of this like, “Oh, wouldn’t it be amazing if I move abroad.” And then you’re scrolling through Instagram and you get super jealous and like this pit in your stomach every time you look at those travel photos.
I’ve worked with a lot of people who have been talking about moving abroad for like five years, 10 years, and still haven’t made it happen. Or you get stuck in this research rabbit hole where you just researching, researching. Back when I moved abroad, there was not a ton of information, at least in China. But now there’s almost too much information and a lot of it’s conflicting and outdated, especially if something’s been written in like 2014. It might not be relevant anymore in 2022.
And so what we need to do is actually just like create a plan because once you have this plan, then we can start implementing it. And really the first step is to figure out what you want, what lifestyle’s gonna be right for you. Do you want a more kind of expat lifestyle where you work in an office? Do you imagine yourself being like a digital Noma living somewhere tropical? Do you wanna be sort of what I’m doing now? Like, a location independent expat, where you work remotely online and can live anywhere, but you pick a place abroad where you wanna live at least for a year.
Like, once you sort of do a little research and get in touch with what you want and what you envision for your life abroad, then we can start actually taking steps to implement this and like find those jobs and look at the visas and then put all the pieces together. ‘Cause sometimes what we want, we might have a very particular country in mind, but the only way to move to that country is to get like an expat style job on the ground.
But you wanna be location independent and be a freelance writer or something like that or work remotely. And I’m like, “Okay, well, those two don’t match. So we need to make a decision. What’s more important: this country or this style of job?” And once we know what you want, we can put all the pieces together and actually make it happen. And then that takes it out of the dream stage and into reality.
Debbie:
And that makes so much sense because there are a lot of things that you think about that have a lot more into it. Like there are backend things that you have to really learn and every country is different and they have different requirements.
And again, like you mentioned, Richelle, like the lifestyle that you want may not go along with it. So you have to really understand where that ideal life you want should be. So that is a great idea and we’ll definitely add your link where you all can connect with Richelle if you wanna help with that, if you want help moving abroad, and maybe just connect with her because she has so many interesting stories to tell. I love that.
Now, Richelle, one of the things that I am interested in and I’m sure some of the single people that are listening are interested as well. How did you meet your husband and ge a husband abroad or a partner abroad?
Richelle:
That is a great question ’cause I struggled for a very long time.
So before my husband, I was single for five years and this is a lifetime ago when I wrote this article on Huffington Post that like went mildly viral and it was like shared on Matador network and stuff about how travel was ruining my love life. And they changed the title on me. That was not the title I came up with, but that’s fine.
But yeah, so basically when I was living in China, I did not have a very good love life. It was pretty rough. There were not a lot of people that were interested in dating me as opposed to a local girl, if that makes sense. And so the people that were, they just didn’t wanna be serious. If that makes sense.
It was like, “Oh, this is my fun China year. I didn’t come here to settle down. And if I did come here to settle down, I didn’t come here to settle down with a girl from the US,” right? I mean I dated a fair bit but it was always like, “Let’s keep things casual,” and I’m like, “Yeah. Okay.”
And then after five years, I’m like, “This is getting rough. This is my life.” And I think at first, it was good to be single because it forced me to kind of become really self-reliant. I traveled the world solo quite a bit during my holidays and vacation time. I was able to travel all over Asia solo, which was a really good learning and growing experience for me.
Richelle:
But then yeah, I was ready. I was like, “I have this awesome life. It would be cool if I had someone to share it with.” So that was a struggle. But then I eventually met my husband at a travel blogging conference in Thailand.
Debbie:
Oh, wow.
Richelle:
Yeah. TBEX for anyone into travel blogging.
So we connected because I was living in China and he used to live in China and was gonna move back. And so someone introduced us drunkenly at a bar in Thailand and we talked for a couple of minutes, friended each other on Facebook. That was that.
I think he had somebody else who was interested in him that night and one of his friends, apparently liked me, his friend was very drunk, so nothing happened there. But we eventually connected on Facebook. He just friended me out of the blue.
And then a couple of months later when he moved to China, he posted a picture of his apartment on Facebook. And I was like, “Oh, if you’re ever in Beijing, let me know.” And then we just started talking and became good friends. And then a few months later, he was coming to visit me in Beijing. And then his brother and sister-in-law and nephew, like one and a half-year-old nephew, were moving to China.
So my husband got them to get a job in Beijing, which would give him an excuse to move to Beijing, which is where I lived.
Debbie:
Oh, wow.
Richelle:
And then eventually all five of us. So the two couples and my nephew who was like two at the time, all lived together in this teeny tiny two-bedroom apartment in Beijing.
Debbie:
Oh, my gosh.
Richelle:
So that was definitely an experience. But we’re still together. We are married now.
So yeah, it took a while to get to that point. So if you are single listening to this, I totally feel you because when you live abroad or you travel a lot and you have this sort of nontraditional lifestyle, it can be really difficult to meet somebody, especially if you’re a digital nomad and like moving around a lot.
But yeah, it can be really difficult to meet someone, especially meet someone who wants something substantial. So I really feel free on that one. It took me quite a while.
Debbie:
So what would be your advice for that? We gave advice, you gave advice on where to find work, if you’re a newbie. Now, what about love as a digital nomad? What would be the best advice you can give?
Richelle:
Oh, no, I don’t know if I’m qualified for this.
So I guess one piece of advice that I wish I could go back and tell myself is don’t put up with less than you deserve. Like, if you want more, don’t tell people that you’re okay with less because people will treat you the way that you let them treat you.
And now that I know that it’s gonna end up working out for me, I wish I could like go and tell my younger self. I started to feel really insecure in China after a while where I’m like these guys aren’t interested in me and like, nobody takes me seriously. And just say like put up a boundary there of like, “This is how I am allowing myself to be treated. Like, this is sort of the minimum standard for how, and this is for everyone, not just people who travel in abroad.
Debbie:
Yeah.
Richelle:
Like this is the minimum standard for how I’m gonna allow myself to be treated. And just in terms of like your self-worth and things. Like, don’t settle to be treated less than you deserve even if it means you have to be single for a while, maybe that’s okay, maybe that’s better than feeling crushed every single time that you see the person that you’re without of the bar is talking to another girl and you’re not exclusive so you’re not allowed to be upset, but you are still upset. Like, that’s just not a nice place to be in. And trust me, I’ve been there a lot.
So, yeah, definitely you are worth more than how these people treat you. So put those boundaries up, like the way that you allow people to treat you is how they will treat you. So if you’re looking for somebody who wants something more substantial, then only make yourself available for that.
Debbie:
Yeah.
That is such a great advice in love and also in life, right?
Richelle:
Yeah, exactly.
Debbie:
Because you really have to keep that in mind. And those are the type of people that you want around you anyways. And I’m sure with your husband, it’s a great thing that you guys met each other that way too because you both have these adventurous spirits.
And a lot of times I hear from my guests where they had to leave someone behind because they just weren’t into that lifestyle. And if you meet somebody on the road, you kind of have that same mentality with adventure, living and working from anywhere, really. So that’s a bonus for that. And you have that right now, which is pretty cool. And that’s awesome. So for those of you who are still single, hey, this is hope right here.
Richelle:
Yeah.
I mean, I had a boyfriend tell me that I chose China over him. So leaving someone behind, I definitely know about that. So, yeah.
Debbie:
It’s like in a way, yes I am.
Richelle:
Sorry.
Debbie:
Sorry, I’m not sorry.
This is when I was studying abroad but I’m like, “Yes, we were in a serious relationship but at the same time I was 20 years old.” I feel like, especially in your early twenties, that is a time to be a little bit selfish. And even if you love someone and you care about them, you don’t wanna look back on your life and have regrets and think, “What if I had just done this? What if I had just tried this?”
And this isn’t just for love, like, this is just in general. I’d say this about moving abroad as well, is that my biggest fear is waking up at 80 years old and realizing that I didn’t do the things in life that I wanted to do because I was too busy making everyone else happy because I was too busy following the path that other people set before me and just doing all the steps that I’m supposed to do.
And then you wake up and all of a sudden you’re like nearing towards the end of your life. And we don’t even know how much time we have. And you’re nearing towards the end of your life. And you realize like, “Wow, I’m almost out of time and I didn’t do anything that I really wanted to do.”
And you see those articles where people interview men and women in their eighties and nineties about what their biggest regrets are and it’s always the things that you didn’t do. And the things that you didn’t try because you were following the path and trying to make everybody else happy.
Debbie:
Yeah.
And that’s the thing you are never gonna get that time back. So, when you have it right now, you have to take advantage of that. I love that.
So speaking of getting older, let’s move forward to around 30 to 40 years from now and you’re looking back in your life, what legacy would you like to leave and what do you wanna be remembered for?
Richelle:
Ooh, that’s a good one.
Let’s see. I think it would be great if people talk about my own adventures and travels and the fact that I took risks in life and went after what I want. But I think the legacy that I wanna leave is helping other people do that because that’s something that I think, yeah, I would say it came a bit naturally to me to like, have these big dreams or goals or passions and just go for them sometimes without thinking necessarily about how they impact other people, which is, I guess, something I need to work on.
But, yeah. My fear is like having those regrets and not going after what I want. So I’ve always been very clear on like, “I want this and I need to do it.” But I work with a lot of people who need a push and need someone to tell them that it’s okay. Or like have these dreams but don’t want to upset the people in their lives, don’t want to cause disconnection or have people be like not understand them or who have this idea of like, what is successful and don’t know how to separate that from their own dreams and goals.
So I think I would like to be remembered for, I guess, helping people go after their dreams and what they want in life and showing people that it’s okay to not do things the way that everybody else does. It’s okay if you wanna do something different for yourself.
No matter what your age is or your situation, I feel like a lot of people need to hear that. So I think I’d like to be remembered for people saying like, “Oh, if it wasn’t for Richelle, I might not have ever done that, or I might not have ever gone there.” And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I feel good.”
Debbie:
I know; gives you all the tingles like, “Oh, okay.”
I love that. That’s such a great legacy to leave, Richelle. And obviously, you’re starting to do that now and who knows what’s gonna happen in the next few years? And you’re not just teaching people, you’re actually living this lifestyle.
So I love when people are actually doing what they say. It’s like your words are a reflection of what your life is too, which is great to see. I love that.
Thanks so much, Richelle. So if our listeners wanna learn about you, where can they find you?
Richelle:
Sure.
So I have a travel blog AdventuresAroundAsia.com. You can also find me @adventuresaroundasia on all of the socials as well. And that’s where I sort of write about my life and things like that. And on my social, I often post not only like what’s going on in my life right now and living abroad and travel photos and things like that, but also practical advice for if you wanna do this yourself, if you wanna actually move abroad either as an expat or be more location independent.
I do a lot of videos and things like that as well, where I talk about how to make this happen. So Adventurous Around Asia, you can find me,
Debbie:
Love it. Thanks so much, Richelle. We will definitely link all of that in our show notes on the website.
Thanks again. We really appreciate you sharing your journey with us.
Richelle:
Perfect. Thanks so much for having me.
Listen to Richelle’s extended interview where she talks about how to deal with fears and roadblocks that keep you from moving abroad.
What you’ll find:
In this episode, Richelle talks about how to deal with fears and roadblocks that may keep you from moving abroad.
