Expatriotical

Episode 29: Travel as an Expat

• Chandra Alley • Season 1 • Episode 29

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Travel!!! It's kind of a big deal! But as expats, do we travel more? Join Chandra as she explores what may make travel as an expat different and stay tuned to the one thing that she hopes for and that inspires her when she is planning a trip.

Plus keep listening to hear this episode's "Chan Select" which is "asolutamente deliziosa" (absolutely delicious)!


Like what you hear? Text and tell me!

"Live and Travel in the Know" with Expatriotical!

Bienvenue, Benvenuti, and Welcome to Expatriotical, the podcast for expats, travelers, and other adventurous souls. I’m Chandra Alley and after living as an expat with my husband and 4 children in two different countries for 6 years, I’ve learned the arts of pivoting during pitfalls, traveling tastefully for less, and soaking in amazing new cultures without losing your own.


Join me, as we dive into the joys and challenges of travel and the expat life in every episode!


Bonjour everyone! It’s a beautiful sunny day as I sit down to write this episode. For me it is the last day of summer, yes that’s right my four kiddos, whom you’ve heard a bit about if  you have been listening for a while, are headed back to school tomorrow. Now when this airs, because I am off of my schedule and not ahead of things, like I would prefer to be, they will be halfway into their first week when you hear this.


And if I am really honest, I am not ready. I mean, I am prepared. Clothes and shoes are all lined out and ready to go, I have even purchased some items to make prepping the first lunch or two easier, but I am not ready mentally and emotionally to jump back in the grind, as it has been a pretty stellar summer and I have also realized that we have entered a new phase in our lives as parents.


One where we don’t have to stop and adventure, whether that be a bike ride close to home or an excursion in a place that we are visiting, so that one or more children can go home and take a nap in the afternoon. And on top of that, we are now able to allow them to stay up later in the summer without paying a major price, mentally and emotionally, which has allowed us to savor our summer evenings together, and that has been so nice.


So in that regard, I am not ready, BUT there are things to look forward to, such as not having to deal with so much fighting, whining, and complaining. I am sure that if you are a parent you understand completely! And I am also looking forward to a new season of travel, because as I mentioned in Episode 3: Traveling Tastefully for Less, as an expat, in France and many places honestly, there can tend to be more national holidays, or as they say in French “vacances”, than what is normal to me in America.


So, we, as expats, tend to take advantage of that time and travel. And I have really been pondering the concept of “traveling or travel as an expat”. Is it different and if so, why?


So in this episode we are going to explore this concept together and I have written down a few key points to dive into.


The first of which is the one that led my segway into this subject matter and that is Frequency. As expats, we tend to travel more often. I have observed this in Italy, in France, and even from chatting with and seeing the social media pages of my other  fellow expat friends.


We have these random, to us, school holidays, and so we take advantage. We also do not have family nearby to go visit during these holidays, so there is no guilt in using that time as we see fit. Not that we don’t enjoy seeing family when we live near them, but there is no expectation on their side for us to spend thousands of dollars to come see them when we have one week off of school in the middle of the year. I say “we” like I am the one going to school, but you know what I mean.


So in other words, availability breeds opportunity. I would say that when we were living in the United States, we did this a little bit, but not much. As at the end of our stay, this last time in the United States, our oldest child, Lilliah, was only in preschool 2 to 3 days a week, so holidays weren’t something we counted on or really even needed, since it was just preschool and there were no consequences if she missed a day. So nothing forced us to travel frequently.


But one occasion that did prompt a small bit of exploration, was the birth of our third child, Isaiah, and or plus Chris having one month off (for the first time ever) due to a change in his company’s paternity leave policy.


As  rule I tend to get stir crazy if I have to stay in my house for any extended period of time, so towards the end of Chris’ paternity leave, we decided to take a day trip to Bonham, Texas, which was just over an hour away from our house, to see the Sam Rayburn House. A National Historic Landmark made from the actual house of Congressman Rayburn, who served in the U.S. Congress for 48 years and as Speaker of the House of Representative for 17 years.


It was the first museum of that type, a house turned into a museum, that I had ever been too and seeing things left just as they were upon Rayburn’s sister’s death in 1969 (he left the house to her as he was never married), it was really cool.

And later that same year, when my dear friend Tasha came to visit we drove a few hours to a natural cold spring in Oklahoma and enjoyed some chilly swimming and (small) waterfall jumping.


I also mentioned recently in Episode 25: Home Leave Trips, that we try to explore something new whenever we go back to Colorado in the summer. But all of that seems more like random occasions, which leads me to my next key point: prioritization.


When you are living as an expat, for most of us (not all), traveling becomes a priority. We know, that our time in the country or area we are in is limited and so we want to see it while and when we can.


And after talking to other expats, most specifically when I spoke with Katie Donnelly in my second interview with her (listen to Episode 22: Fighting Cancer While Living Abroad to hear more of what Katie had to say), I really started thinking about how, at least in Europe traveling is a priority for many people, certainly not just expats.


And I think that goes for people of many economic standings. I was speaking to a woman named Lyn who is a cashier at my local market and she asked if I had a nice vacation and after I told her about mine I asked about hers and she said that they had gone to Normandie and went to a water park for several days. These are not your typical water parks, but can be super luxurious and very kid and family friendly.


I can’t quite put my finger on the cause of it, but something about being in Europe causes one or most to want to explore.


Which leads me to my next point of Exploration and Adventure. Chris, my husband, mentioned last week in Episode 28- Celebrating 6 Years as Expats, that adventure is his favorite thing about being an expat.


And I can see why. When you grow up in other countries, you learn about many places around the world, starting as early as elementary school and continuing on. And when you get the chance to visit some of these places in real life, it can be like a fairytale and a dream come true and certainly an absolute adventure. Trekking coastlines, visiting castles, wandering through ancient villages ignites something that I believe can lie dormant at times, but is intrinsic in human beings and that is a thirst for adventure.


That thirst sparks imagination and a childlike feeling and truly can bring so much joy and when you experience that, it’s hard to step away from it. I remember as a child, growing up in the mountains, that we, either me and my friends or me and my brother, would wander around and explore and sometimes we would pretend to be living out in the woods or my brother and I, specifically, would pretend to be Native Americans foraging and surviving on our own, this type of play was even complete with building an actual teepee or lean-too which we would go back to over and over to revisit our imagined world.


And I think that exploring and visiting these places ignites that same feeling as an adult, though admittedly I do not start building teepees or forts everywhere I go. But in my mind when I stood on the rampart wall of the ancient town of Saint-Malo, for example, I imagined what it might have been like to look out over the sea and see strange ships sailing towards me. Were those ships friend or foe? What would it have been like to live here hundreds of years ago… I wonder…


Which leads me to my next point… Wonder. This is actually the point that came to me first and has stuck with me the most. When I travel as an expat I travel with a sense of wonder and I find that sometimes wonder is what leads me.


Wonder is defined as: a feeling of amazement and admiration, caused by something beautiful, remarkable, or unfamiliar. And a verb definition is: desire to know something, feel curious. And I think it is a mix of these two definitions that drives travel for me as an expat.


What sparks curiosity in me? When I think of or learn about a new destination, do the photos spark a feeling of amazement or admiration? A lot of times I am led by curiosity and then there are other times when a friend or fellow expat remarks on a trip they took that wonder just starts oozing out of them and it again, ignites that curiosity and desire to see the place they are talking about.


For me, as an individual and also as a Christian, one place that I can always feel that sense of wonder is the sea. When I sit in the sand and hear the sound of waves crashing against the shore, seagulls screeching, and people laughing; when I see the vastness of the water stretching out before me or the clouds rolling by, or the sun surrounded by vibrant colors as it dips below the dark horizon, I am in awe of all that God has created. And a deep feeling of joy and peace wells up within me.


But this feeling has struck me multiple other times. And I wanted to share a few of those with you here in just a minute, in hopes that it will inspire a bit of awe and wonder in you.


But first for my last point, which is actually very important and almost a bit of a warning. And that is “Price”. It is really critical that with the new habits of prioritizing travel and making it frequent, you keep it within the budget. We personally have a monthly budget for travel which goes into a slush fund in our savings account and guides us as to what we can and cannot do.


For example, this year, we technically well technically last year in December around Christmas time, we sat down to look at trying to go skiing during the February White Week break, though I know that’s not what the French call it, but we called it that in Italy, because everyone except for us went skiing. Thus white for snow.


Anyway, after searching for accommodations and pricing out ski schools the total we came to was pretty high and we knew that we wanted to go to Greece for Spring Break later that year, which would also cost a good amount, though honestly it ended up being extremely reasonable, but regardless we knew that we couldn’t do both within our budget. Plus we also had Ireland coming up and after going to Scotland in November 2022 and being delighted by the country but coming back to being shell shocked by how much we spent at the end, we thought we should be conservative. But as a side note, Ireland was significantly less expensive than Scotland.


So we decided to forego skiing in February, and put a note in the calendar for the end of September, literally it’s in my phone as September 30th for scheduling to try to do a ski vacation this coming winter and we ended up to Bordeaux, the Dordogne Valley, St. Emilion, and Arcachon. Which were lovely and way more affordable!


I say this to say that if something looks a bit out of budget, don’t look at it as a negative thing. It may not be a “never”, it may be just a “not right now” and it can open up doors for other adventures you had never even thought of!


Plus, too many times of pushing past the budget can end up biting you in the butt later. I was talking to a friend about this whole subject of travel as an expat and she was the one who actually brought up the price point issue. She said that she had a friend whose family, after using any extra money that they were getting paid for being overseas (‘cause some expats get paid to be overseas) they were using it to travel like it was going out of style, ended up returning home and being in quite a bit of debt.

To me, personally, that is not worth it. The stress of paying for a vacation later would be, would put a bad taste in my mouth while I was having it and I would not be able to enjoy it. And then if that was compounded over multiple trips, the outcome could be disastrous.


Now, I am not telling you what to do. You do you! But, I am putting it out there as a gentle reminder or something to chew on when you are venturing out there and seeing the world, keep the cost, literally, in mind.


Ok, now enough of the money talk, I want to share the three trips that really stick out in my mind when I think of places that filled me with surprising wonder. Two of which actually happened in the same summer of 2020. Here we go:


Neuschwanstein. The castle that inspired Walt Disney to build a castle of his own. Perched atop of a rock ledge and then nestled in a crescent of surrounding mountains in the region of Bavaria, Germany. Neuschwanstein is a fairytale. Driving up to it, the awe and wonder begins as you imagine that a princess must be stowed away in its main tower. As you get closer the castle rises and seems to be even more majestic.


At the base of the hill that the castle rests on, sits a quiet village with horse drawn carriages, ready to drive you to the castle entrance and off to the side, at the end of the town, is a lake that allures you. You set out on a paddle boat over it’s crystal clear aquamarine waters. You can see fish lazily swimming below you which seem close enough to touch. You reach down and dip your fingers into the cool water and you let your hand linger because the water feels refreshing as the high mountain suns beam down on you, kissing your face.


It’s still on the water and expect for the giggle of your children as they put their hands in the water and splash each other, it’s quiet. You never expected a place of such beauty. This is wonder.


Sciacca. A small town on the southwest side of the island of Sicily, Italy. You are driving to meet up with your two sets of your sweet Italian friends. Sciacca is the home town of one of them. You meet his father and mother, who only speak Italian, and are told that his father wants to give you a tour of his home town.


The father beams with pride as he shows you the fishing boats that have gone out and returned well before dawn, the smell of what is left of the days catch wafting to and fro getting caught on the ocean breeze as he tells you his tale.


You are taken to Sciacca’s natural hot springs as you make your way to the top of a hill. The smell of natural sulfur rises as you are told the story of how some people claim to have received healing from these waters, all while a couple of families relax and play close by.


You arrive at the top of a hill and the father shows you the view of his treasured city with pride and then they say it’s time to go to dinner. The center of Sciacca is lively and colorful. The music from a carousel plays and street vendors sell colorful lights and toys to children. As you make your way further into the center you go to a small cafe and are led through it and out the backdoor.


A long lone table is waiting for you there in the courtyard of an old palazzo. You sit down and commence in eating some of the best food you have ever had. Flavors burst, wine flows, and laughter fills the air and echos against the walls of the palazzo. Later the children run and play and your friend’s mother walks your baby boy around in the stroller. Your children speak to her in their broken Italian and she comes to you and compliments you on how much they understand.


So many smiles, so much love. This is special. This is wonder.


Ljubljana. After a day of walking and exploring the capital city of Slovenia you make your way north to your accommodation that sits just outside of town. It’s early evening when you arrive and the air is starting to turn cooler on what has been a lovely October day. As you pull up to the drive, you can see the gentle yet swift flow of greenish blue waters of the Sava river.


Peter, your host, greets you with a warm and friendly smile and shows you to your cabin. You comment on how lovely the property is and he tells you that it has been in his family for generations and was once a working farm and that he hopes to one day restore the main house to be used for guests as well.


Peter bids you good evening and as you turn to head back into your cabin the light from the setting sun catches your eye and takes your gaze to the field beyond the main road. Sunlight glistens on the wet grass as horses and donkeys gently graze on its blades. It’s peaceful here. The peace and serenity envelop you, almost fill you. And as your eyes stare out on the beauty of this place. The beauty of God’s creation, you are filled with awe. It hits you again. That feeling of wonder.


Ok guys, I hope that these stories have inspired you to imagine and maybe seek out your own bit of wonder or, in the least, prepared you for a good nap!

And now it’s time to move on to this episode’s “Chan Select”. Last week, Chris and I celebrated not only 6 years as expats, but also celebrated our wedding anniversary. And a couple weeks earlier, we had our babysitter, for the first time ever stay the night so we could have a little staycation celebration here in Paris. I will share more on that (not too much of course though) in another episode, but what I wanted to tell you about today is the restaurant that we ate dinner at.


It’s called Pink Mamma and it sits on the corners of Rue Fromentin and Rue Duperre. With its triangular shaped building covered in vertical pink subway tiles and hanging vines, Pink Mamma makes its presence known. You are greeted with an effervescent “Buona sera” and told it will be a bit of a wait, but trust me it's worth it. (Though you can avoid the wait by making a reservation.)


Inside it is energetic and aromatic. The kitchen is bustling and the clientele are happily chatting, eating, and drinking. Our food comes and I promise you my mouth has never tasted a prosciutto more delicious than this outside of Italy of course. And the handmade Cappelletti, a type of ravioli, made freshly that day is a taste explosion. Chris also enjoys his handmade pasta all'arrabbiata, or angry pasta, for its freshness and spice.


We were so full from our starter and main course that we didn’t have room for dessert, but I can only imagine how amazing it would have been. If you are in Paris and want a fun and delicious place to eat at while walking the area of Montmartre, where the iconic Moulin Rouge stands, Pink Mamma is a great place to go!


I will be sure to include the website for Pink Mamma, which is part of the Big Mamma restaurant group that has restaurants all over Europe, in the show notes. And as always, I am not an affiliate of Pink Mamma, just a fan.


Now for our quote of the day! This quote is old, and it comes with a disclaimer from me, which is to say that, I know that not everyone can afford to travel or travel far. It costs quite a bit to travel and some of us, yes, this was me too in my younger adult years, are working hard just to put food on the table, let alone have money left over to travel. But I found even then that I could still “go places” and travel a bit, those places were just a bit closer to home and there is no shame in that.


Ok enough of the disclaimer, our quote of the day comes from Saint Augustin who said, “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” Since I love books and I love travel, this quote really paints a beautiful picture for me.


That’s it for this episode today folks. Thank you for exploring the topic of “Traveling as an Expat” with me. I found it fun and thought provoking and I hope you did too. I would love love love to hear about places that you have traveled to that have filled you with that sense of wonder! So as a challenge and a way to share these amazing places with others and with this community, please post a photo or photos on your Instagram page with the caption “This is Wonder!” and tag Expatriotical in the post! I can’t wait to see all these amazing locations and maybe even travel to a few!


Thank you all! I look forward to meeting you back here again next week. Until then, Bon Voyage! This is Chandra Alley reminding you to “Live and Travel in the Know” with Expatriotical!