#91 Carla & David | Worldschooling, Van living and Building Global Community

"The amount of uncertainty you can hold is the amount of freedom you have."​ - Carla Martinez.

We met Carla and David at the Worldscchool Summit in 2019. So many friendships formed. It was life-changing. In this episode, we talk with Carla and David, who share their unique journey of nomadic living. From their first transformative experience at the World School Summit in Granada to establishing a vibrant Spanish-speaking community, Carla and David opens up about the joys and challenges of living on the road.

Together, we explore how worldschooling nurtures lifelong connections, fosters cultural exchanges, and encourages a spirit of openness and flexibility. Carla and David reflect on their experiences, from serendipitous encounters with other home-educating families to creating opportunities and resources for fellow travelers. We dive into the logistics of traveling in camper vans, maintaining relationships across continents, and how technology plays a vital role in staying connected.

Their insights also touch on the evolving landscape of world schooling and the balance between structure and freedom, embracing change, and finding joy in life’s unexpected turns. Whether you’re curious about nomadic living or passionate about community building, this episode offers a rich tapestry of reflections, tips, and heartfelt stories.

And ... We are forever grateful for David's help in finding the right Van for us. If you are on the lookout for a van yourself, then check out his services at geckocamper.com :)

▬ Episode links ▬

• https://ligronesenruta.com
• https://www.instagram.com/ligronesenruta
• https://www.facebook.com/ligronesenruta 
  
  
• https://geckocamper.com
• https://www.instagram.com/geckocamper
• https://www.facebook.com/ggeckocamper 
  
  
• https://planetaworldschool.com
• https://www.instagram.com/planetaworldschool
• https://www.facebook.com/planetaworldschool 

Chapters

• 0:00 Worldschooling: Community Creation and Maintenance
• 10:36 Building Strong Community Bonds
• 16:39 Mechanic Turned Online Entrepreneur Story
• 25:11 Navigating Different Perspectives on Worldschooling
• 38:57 Embracing Change
• 52:21 Embracing Uncertainty for Freedom

Transcript

00:00 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
All right. Today we are together with some of our favorite people. It's Carla and David. David, because it's España. First of all, welcome, Thank you. 

00:12 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
Thank you very much for this invitation. It's a pleasure. 

00:17 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, and for some of the listeners out there, you will have heard Carla's voice a lot of times, as she is also part of Cecilia's the Ladies Fixing the World podcast, but we also wanted them on this part of our podcast and wanted to have David also there. So here we are. First time we met was in was it 19? Yep, yeah, in Granada, where we were at the world school summit, who, for us, were life-changing, and I don't know how it was for you, but many of the people we now count among our dear friends, not people that we met back then and actually, where we are right now is a true connections made back then. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. So, uh, here we are and we also met you and have had the joy of being together with you many times and, besides attending world schooling events, have also started to create some yourself. 

01:29 - David González López (Guest)
Yes. 

01:30 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
And I would love to hear about that. 

01:32
Yes, so you will continue to hear my voice here. For us, the first time we went to this summit was a year before that, in the 2018 in Thailand, and it was also life-changing. It said some things, ideas, how we wanted to do this, how we wanted to do the things, and we never thought on organize nothing. Because if you search on the internet and the group was already so big, I have so many inspiring things, people that, yeah, it was enough. But when we met in Granada in this summit, where we were the local coordinators, a lot of Spanish people reach us because we are from Spain and they ask me is everything in English? 

02:30
So then I realized oh maybe I can do something for the Spanish community. So actually I started doing I have a website and a lot of things about world schooling, but in Spanish. And then I also realized, oh, maybe I can do some of these hubs I'm going to, I can do it one by myself and organize and bring people to where I am. So then we also try that. So yeah, more or less. 

03:11 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Very short explain, try that. So, yeah, more or less very short explain. I don't know where I should start with all the questions. I mean, it's a great thing to facilitate knowledge and and just community for the other world schoolers to not just use it but actually create it. That's why we're doing the podcast and you took it one step further to do a hop and, as far as I understand, it just happened. We were planning to come actually, but then other things happened. 

03:43 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
Yeah, but you prefer the winter in england yeah no, we don't. 

03:48 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I don't know what happened this winter plan. Oh, we're only going south for new year but it's better than earlier seven years that we're north in the winters and maybe you did a. 

04:03 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
You did a norway, no, sweden winter yeah, but we, we like the the cold winters. 

04:09 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah, yeah, we don't no, we but we like the people, it's about the community, so yeah, that's what we're trying to talk about today how how to create and maintain community while being a world schooler yeah, I think you have to have something before. 

04:29 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
It's something you look for like people, because what I have found is, uh, people choose to where I'm, where I'm going, why but it's always about a place or I don't know. I it's not actually the people. Yeah, they. It's a process they have to learn, because they ask me how do you find people is? And it's like it's what I look for. I look for people and I keep my connections. This is also I have learned that people don't do yeah they don't keep the connections. 

05:05
Maybe they because they don't like the phones and being chatting, yeah, but yeah, using the facebook groups, for example. 

05:15 - David González López (Guest)
The base the world's cooler groups. 

05:16 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
No, so many people don't, don't want to use it, I don't know what is fine, but if you want to live like moving and you like to keep connections with the people, I don't know, it's like family yeah you keep in touch with your family, so you keep in touch with friends. If you want to keep also with the kids, they need to interact interact. And what do you have? Oh, we are lucky, we have this. I mean, it's amazing, yeah. 

05:49 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
But it is also a trap. I find it a very hard balance. I think we are pretty good at keeping in touch it made me actually think about. 

06:03 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
do you remember before you started going to your first summit and before you started homeschooling? I remember sitting there and reading what other people did, a lot of dreaming a lot of is this even possible? 

06:27 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
And browsing on groups and looking For me it was I don't know. I think life put the things in front of us, yeah, and then it's like it. It's more like I don't like this, I need something else. So then I have to find something, and it was quite in a hurry because Roberto went to school two days and I was like this is not for us, and it's not that I was sitting in calm reading. No, it's like I need something. I didn't do my homework or you know before because I was like trusting that it will be fine with the school I found, and then it was kind of in a hurry, but we were lucky to find this other alternative project and it was everything new people, amazing people, teaching us another way to look life. 

07:30 - David González López (Guest)
Yeah, and point of view of the life, manage your, your family, normal tax and everything more than in your mind. When you think about something and you only have sometimes one way but it's not you have a lot of way. You need only open. The process for Open your Mind was super nice for us. 

08:00 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
It was nice, but it's like yeah, we didn't have to. I mean, we have to find this place, and then, when I need to know more, because this point arrived when okay, yeah, this is super cool we are now. 

08:12
We are now in calm. So then I need to research more. I'm not the kind of person who look for books, so I was researching at university but in terms of parenting and family, I always look for families and other parents. I cannot explain, but for me it's more. It's like I don't think I will find nothing in the book that families can show me. I just need to show, I just need references, and then I pick what I feel is for me. So it's when we started our travel, actually because we were looking for this kind of projects with families that they have older kids I wanted to see that kids. I don't want it to read about the kids, I wanted to see that kids. I don't want it to read about the kids, I wanted to see them, you know, but it's funny how it was like. 

09:13 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It's just funny how the community really carries that. We have the similar initiation, initiation story of really, when we started homeschooling, unschoolinging, we met other home educators and we usually say it's a little bit like the Narnia story where you walk through the closet and it's a lot of coats and it's dusty and dark and weird in the beginning but then you realize on the other side there's a completely different world. It's like a fairy tale. Out there things work in a different way. People are amazing, their adventures and it really was for us also. 

09:54
The families we met that was also home educators in the beginning in Copenhagen, who would just question everything. As you said, david, it's not only about the education or not education of the kids, it's about the whole minds, everything you think. You start, put a question mark behind it and you discuss it with these people who who just are open-minded and think in a free way and and are open to just have an open discussion about how can we look at this thing. So that for us as well was the beginning. And I find it very interesting because when I talk to people who don't home educate, it's always one of the two questions Can they read, do they have friends? So it's always half of their thing is community, thing is community. What do you do for community and really for it? It? Community carries it and community presents itself. Like you said, carla, that it happened to you in your life. That's how I have experienced our community, when, when we went full-time traveling on top so no school and no house it has never been hard to find people. Really, we've been carried by people and we've bumped into people. 

11:15
I remember on one of the Canary Islands, once we sat down on the beach, on a very crowded beach on La Palma, because La Palma has very few swimmable beaches and it was around Christmas, so there were loads of tourists and I sat down and because I had to sit so close to the next person, I said hi and we started chatting and he was one of the three home educating families on the island. And this is not a unique story, it really is not a problem, just like the reading. You know, just let go and they will start reading. And in the same way, if you grab that moment and start talking to the next person over and you send a text message, you make sure you get the number, you make sure you stay in touch. 

12:00
I don't do Facebook that much, but then then I do phone calls and WhatsApp and just maybe more rarely than I should. But it is about having that mindset of community Also to travel for community. That's the reason we're here in the cold, rainy Northern Europe in the winter. It's because there are people we want to hang out with. 

12:26 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, there's a fun story about some of the park meetups for homeschoolers. For example, we have been in an area in barcelona and people are saying, oh, there's some homeschoolers meeting meeting up on this day in this park. And we were were like oh, but do we know any? Will we be able to find them? And then when you come to the park, you're like oh, it will be easy, it's all the ones with the kids with the long hair. You can just see them. You find each other. 

13:01
I want to honor you, david, and it is because, a you were right and I will come with that story later and and b I. Often when people ask me so how do? Can you afford to travel? Is it even possible? And when I want people to think out of the box, I say to them and I know of course, both of you do so much more but the story I tell to them is well, I have this friend he's an online mechanic and people are like what, how is that even possible? And then I say to them have you ever went to the mechanic yourself? And they say something to you and you can be like but how can I trust them? How would I know? I know nothing about cars. They will just take all my money and run no, but kind of, I can feel so unmanly insecure that I have they could say actually whatever to me about my car and I will trust them. So what I like and one of the services you have offered I don't know if you still do it is you can walk through people there with their car if there's a problem before they go to the mechanic, and often it will save them loads of money. 

14:18
And I've been very grateful to have you on the hotline because, yeah, yeah, I mean when I know, when there's something that is blinking in the car and I'm like what is this? And then you can call and it's like it's nothing, just you. Okay, but it blinked. Yeah, yeah, it's okay. No, but why I wanted to say you are right and why I wanted to thank you a lot was one of the other things you do and this is a recommendation to everybody is that you sometimes help people to find the right man for them and you found the right man for us and I love it, man, I'm so ever grateful. And the argument you won was about the length of the van. I thought that seven meters was too much. And all the times I said I asked you a couple of times, not a couple, no, many times I said the six meters is fine, or six and a half, you want a toilet in it? Yes, seven meters, seven meters. 

15:22 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It would not have been two centimeters. 

15:26 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
We could not have. No, we couldn't. I assure you not have been too sensitive. We could not have. No, we couldn't absolutely not have been in it and and your ability to know what you need to look for and find it was just such a gift in our life and I want to give that recommendation so to everyone out there dreaming on converting a camper van. This is a good man, so I just wanted to to give you all that love and and gratefulness yeah, yeah, thank you, and I'm so happy for my van I I sometimes. 

15:55
But the story is also when we met first time, we had bought this bus from 1973 and driving up the mountains in in spain was like 34 kilometers an hour and we talked about what I really wanted and he was like then you want six cylinders and mercedes and you want automatic gear. And now, when I'm just accelerating up the mountains in this, you think about david, every time I think about, about David, and I'm like, oh, I love it. 

16:26 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
He says oh, thank you, david. 

16:29 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
So, from the praising to how did you get that idea that a mechanic could earn money online? No-transcript. 

16:45 - David González López (Guest)
Yeah, well, the idea. 

16:52 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
You were doing it already. You were doing it all your life. You did it before without any competition. 

16:59 - David González López (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, at the beginning it was my hobby. You know, because I studied mechanics after my father teach me, because he was a teacher in a mechanical high school. He teach me with a car and with the books together in the same time. So for me it was very nice, but for me converted in my hobby After a few time. I study mechanics but I continue to study other things, but I maintain the mechanics in my hobby. My friends, for example, ring me hey, man, I have some problems, I have some noise in my car. Okay, come home, we will check Right. Maybe, for example, you have the pads for the brakes. It's is done, so maybe we can change. Uh, I can change. If you want to learn with me, I'm fine, I'm nice for you, and you pay only the, the parts and it's and it's okay. Uh, perfect, yes, um year to year. Uh, at some point one day, carla uh coming and say me what are you doing. 

18:11
I'm here in a group, facebook group, on elsewhere I'm some guy that he asked for some problems in them, car everybody say a lot of things and everything is wrong. So I write technical things and like these, like maybe you do something. And she said to me why you don't win money with like this and I say, no way, it's my hobby, it's for fun, it's for health. 

18:41 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
I'm doing nothing, he said, and I'm like it's your time, it's your knowledge, you can charge people for this. 

18:47 - David González López (Guest)
Yeah. 

18:49 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
No, but it's fair enough. 

18:51 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, because we were already researching how to earn money while traveling. 

18:56 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So I was reading things, so it was like yeah yeah it was a click, it's the female power yeah, exactly. 

19:05 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, exactly La lista, jefa. 

19:10 - David González López (Guest)
Yes, so during the few months we were talking about how to create a different service and make a good composition for Shell. So yeah, in November six years ago, we opened, starting to share and talking about our own process that changed life selling all our things, starting to talk about alternative education, the next big trip, everything, no. So we start to follow other accounts and persons and in the camper vans world, divine the van thing exactly always move a lot of people. 

20:20 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
Yeah, so then we had a lot of people like looking at our thing and, in this community, instagramers with a lot of followers. 

20:34 - David González López (Guest)
And in this community, instagrammers with a lot of followers. They have camper vans and I had them many times. So we start to talking about the. Okay, you can enjoy my service. You can talk about my service in your social networks. You can talk about my service in your social networks. So when we open our service, finally, we have a lot of people expectation for well, the our service. So the our the starts. The first month was super good, um, yeah, um and keep on working on that New services. 

21:11 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
Sometimes it's what people need. And then he creates a service. Yeah, exactly. 

21:17 - David González López (Guest)
I listen all the time to the clients, the people, because they ask me for something. Sometimes I don't think about this and I say yes maybe why? Not Other way. Yeah, I don't think about this and I say, yes, maybe, why not all the way? Yeah, but it's because, too, I we saw that in Spain almost nobody do something like I do currently. So it was like uh, yeah, I think it's a good option. Um, we can start at the beginning was experiment, since, yeah, I mean a few years ago. 

21:55 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It's a it's a company business so well, we have recommended it highly already yes thank you not that I don't want to talk about business, but before we pressed record, harley, you said something because you've just done the big uh hub in spain and valencia, and we just talked about community and world schooling, and you said something about how this movement is changing or moving. 

22:30 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
And I'm just curious to your observations you know, I don't really know what it is, but, um, here in Valencia I did, I did a summit for for Spanish community, and then they have in the family. There's this mom from Poland, poland, poland, but she speaks Spanish. 

22:58
So she came to the and they have yeah, and she told me something that maybe I can hear, the maybe. Maybe she said that most of the people that were school are from the united states, or at least more most of the people that come to these, these hubs. Um, it's possible that we have some kind of different ways of see the things or how we move. So I don't know if it's that or not, because in the end we are different cultures, different ways of doing the things, and there are so many people like starting to travel, uh, I have read in the in groups, like you have to go to, like you have to go to pop-ups, hubs, uh, reunions to be able to work school, and I'm like I'm organized, but I'm saying no, you don't have to, I'm not going to hubs, I'm not. 

24:15
I like to because I make connections, but I maybe I go to one in one year or maybe two if I find something that it's just I don't happening. But maybe I don't because I know how to find people. And then there are a lot of people asking, but that depends on how you approach education also, because there are a lot of they, they, they want, they want to have activities, and then you enter in a complex field. Because which kind of activities? Because it's, yeah, some people get together and travel, even with teachers. 

24:57 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah. 

24:59 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
So you know I got a lot of questions because I have this 10 days hub. That is just to get to. 

25:07 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
What was the curriculum? 

25:08 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, yes, have. That is just to get what was the curriculum? Yeah, yeah, yes, and no, there's I. I understand that they can be different, uh, but the options, yes, but then I get a bit like no, I'm not a company like organizing a tour for you. No, I'm also a family here. I do this because I like to be in the activities with you, so it's like I'm the mom of a family. That was cool and I want to be with other world schoolers. So now there is like a jungle of things and people looking for things that I think they they don't really know what they are looking for. 

25:52 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
There are many new people yeah I think maybe we have the problem that we also have around the unschooling, the concept of unschooling, where a lot of people are flowing into the field of educating from home or living without schools as an institution and of course, the traveling is a big dream for many people. It looks like I don't know. It looks like freedom from whatever you feel traps you. So there is a parallel process and I think with the concept of unschooling is very often misunderstood and being taken over by home educating, like really sitting down at the kitchen table, adults with agendas and curriculum and school books and all these things, and they call it unschooling. Just misunderstanding, not really, maybe. 

26:45
I'm not judging here. I'm just saying that lots of people call what they do unschooling, when it's actually schooling from home. And in a way I see that there is an inflow into the world schooling community, where world schooling becomes this ambitious project of bringing your child all over the world and when they're in Egypt they need to know about all the dynasties and they need to learn the hieroglyphs and the language and the dances and all the things and then they move on to the next country and it becomes this ambitious adult-driven project and I see also in the community that you have world services for world schoolers that actually replicate the mainstream life and the school system. I've seen a an advertisement for a credit card with the world with the word world schooling on it and a desk on a beach school desk, which really brings together this misunderstanding of what I think you and we mean by world schooling. So maybe we have to be outspoken about what this is all about and not about. 

28:02 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
It's actually not about schooling for me actually mean you can be a world schooler and go to school. I mean because world schooling contains everything, because you cannot help learning from the world when you travel. So I know that world schooling is an extension from unschooling, but for me, because also I like to be open and include everybody and everything, because we are diverse and I love people. How it is, you know, that's fine for me, but it's true that in this half, for example, that was only 10 days there were some families that the kids, sometimes they didn't come to the activity we have that day because they were doing school and it was like what? But then it's like well, okay, I don't know, it's like it's important for them? 

28:58
I don't know. So, yeah, I'm not saying nothing, I'm just like I mean I don't have a conclusion of nothing, it's just I'm watching things changing. Uh, maybe we were before we were less people and we were more in with an idea, and now it's more people, so we have more variety of the how things are done, and it's fine. So you have to like find your place or find the people for it, and I like to be with different people also. 

29:34
but yeah, I don't have really a conclusion here, I guess saying no, but maybe it's like I'm getting not all, but it's been like six years and so most of the people are um, they, they've been traveling or educating at home, even in spain, less time than us. So then I'm I'm getting like inputs, like when I was starting. 

30:05 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I don't know yeah so I'm starting to thinking like yeah, I don't know what I think now, I think one of the healthy things about the world schooling concept is that we, the world schoolers if we can talk about one group of people, because it is a lot of people are not defining what it is, that it can hold anything, but I at the same time think that it's important to hold a space for those who want to do it in a, in an, an ambition vacation, a bitch ambitious vacation. 

30:43
Um, I don't like. I didn't like that at that advertisement. I it made me afraid that unschooling becomes trendy. No, world schooling becomes trendy. But then people who live the mainstream life, who have their kids in school, bring a curriculum when they finally have the summer break, because then it's just more of the same and and there's a loss of freedom. So for me it's very much about freedom and also being open to accepting what life offers when it happens, and I can't plan for that, just like I cannot plan for community. I can be open for community and I cannot plan for, like learning options, but I can be open to catch it when it lands in front of me. 

31:53 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I don't think it has necessarily anything to do with world schooling, unschooling. I think the bigger picture is that when you, like us, and you have been down this rabbit hole for you have been down it on the homeschooling, traveling journey for many years and we have been down 12, 13 years with storm not being in school and all this and I think before that I lived a very output-focused life. So when you put children to school you believe there will be a certain output and you're looking for what will they learn by having this experience? It's the same with the. I mean, I don't have that feeling any longer. But if we went on we have just been in Scotland and saw some wonderful places the learning is not a goal for me, it's more the curiosity being filled. 

33:05
But I can sometimes in the back of my mind have this oh, that could, what would we learn by this? It's very far away now, but I can understand, I can remember how it was and and I think that if you live a life and you're like, oh, let's take a three months, uh, world travel and then our kids can go to school, then you more or less maybe have this normal way of thinking with a tick box of, then they will have learned all these different things and that is what I see growing with the popularity growing. Then I see and need more of this in the community. But I'm a fan of everybody getting out there and just getting a lot of experiences and just hoping they are not trying to force anyone to have a special coming home and the kids have experienced something wonderful. But if it wasn't on a box that could be ticked off, then wouldn't it be valuable. I hope people don't end there, but I don't think they do. 

34:18 - David González López (Guest)
Yeah, I think another problem of the things when you're listening about the concepts what a schooler, the concept, I think each family depends on your culture or society that you start. You have some point of view. So when you meet with other families around the world you can open your mind, but it depends on the person. So in the end it's not that you say no. The ticks in your list is more like keep the different experience and different options when you talk with other families, doing different things, maybe traveling or maybe not. She said you know, sometimes you can bring at your home work, school things, so receive persons from the other countries or from the cinema or the food or different things. No, but it's true that in the last years we saw some small explosion. Well, not small, but there are a lot of new families maybe coming for the homeschool education, looking for experience more. Put the focus in the tax, in the learning. Yeah, they learn something and it's okay, everything is fine, it's okay I was just thinking why did you choose to start traveling? 

35:54 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
didn't choose again. Life was like that and it was yeah. At the beginning we were just moving from the canary islands to the mainland of spain because we had a van and it was super small and in holidays we just want to go to the mainland, go to the Pyrenees in the north and then go back. So if we live in the mainland we could. We are already in the continent, so we could go anyway. And so we wanted to look for a alternative project and we and then find a place and stay. But then it was like, yeah, but how, how much time do we need to see if a place is right for us, for us? 

36:39 - David González López (Guest)
you know. 

36:40 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
So then we decided that because we we said at the beginning like six months to look for the place. And then, yeah, but then it was like it's too short, how? Because at least we we need to stay a couple of months in a place. So then it's like it's not enough. So then we go step by step, because one thing I have learned is like when you do a step in another direction, you see things that before you were not seeing. So you are in a different position. 

37:12
So then when we were there, then the thoughts keep on evolving and then we say, well, maybe the trip can last what it has to last to last. So then we have this infinite, indefinite trip and and then we decided that I wanted to. I decided I wanted to go to to the summit world schooling summit in Thailand, because I had to, I had to meet those people. And then, once we were there, it was another thing. And then, and then at some point it's like, oh, we are doing this, it's the same like the homeschooling. I never thought of being a homeschool mom. But then it's like, oh, it's what I'm doing. And then it's like, oh, no, I'm an unschool mom. Oh, it's what I'm doing so. 

38:01
It's not that I'm going to do this, no, it's like we are like just living. I don't know you live you. It's like we are like, yes, you are living, I don't know you live. You make decisions and then it, it takes, you, takes you to some point and but it's not a goal. We have super their goal. I'm brilliant. No, we don't have this. We don't do. This is the family is like our, our like goal. We have it already. We have it all. 

38:29 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
No, I mean it's a little bit like when people ask us how we plan our travels. I mean, I think we, your family and our family, have been traveling the same. I think you left the canary islands when we left copenhagen, more or less at the same time, so it's a long time. And when people ask us how do you plan your travels, short answer is we don't. They happen and sometimes we think we want to slow down or we want to just have a house and be like everyone else and have a base and just stay there and go away for six weeks a year, but it kind of never happens. 

39:11 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
But six weeks in one place is also a long time. 

39:13 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah, but it's the reverse, yeah, yeah. So it's funny how, when we just stay open to whatever happens, then a lot of things happen. I mean, the community happens and the adventures happen and and yeah, it's, it's. And when would you even plan? That's another question I really have in my mind. When would I sit down and plan for something? Because there's always something happening right now. So I mean, even it was stressing me out to a point of almost breakdown that I had to book an airbnb for november yeah, but we succeeded, we, we did it. 

39:56 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, I, I. I have a question, uh, or a thought, which is what do you do about the fear? I believe a lot of people when they hear that life just happens and you just follow along, they would maybe be a little afraid. I remember I was before this more free life we have now. I was 22 years in an office in wonderful jobs, but I was still sitting in an office for many, many years of my life, um and and this freedom is kind of terrifying. But, and then my question is is it when you plan the future too much, you get afraid, because what if things turn out differently? Maybe it's the not being too precise that makes it one's able to not be afraid. 

40:56 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
It's a question and a fault maybe you want to answer, because I know my answer but I know you're, I don't, you know, I'm not afraid. 

41:07
But even, yes, I have two things to say. One is like I plan things. I love planning. I love planning the thing. Yeah, but I'm not sorry it's my mistake, but I'm not afraid, afraid that the things don't go as I want. It's like I have a range of of like visualization of things, like it could be like awesome, I could, and it could be shit. It's like I'm prepared for both. So it's like if I, if I scare or I have fear of something, I always visualize the worst thing, I say, and then what that would mean, what I would do, and if it's something I cannot sustain, maybe I will do different. Or if I can't, I don't know, sometimes you can't. So, yeah, I don't know, I can't. I think it's because I can't hold. 

42:11
What is this is care about? It's about us or it's about, uh, confronting other people. The expectations you create to others or to you, because I always come, always come to my mind when people, when one get pregnant and they don't want to say it because maybe go wrong, so they wait till the fourth month, or I don't know when to say, for example, because you create expectations, or to others or to you. Maybe it's a bad example, but also in that case I was not afraid. You know, it's like I don't know. So, with the plan in the future is the same, I'm not scared. 

42:57
Now we have tickets for January to Japan, so and that was, and it lasts like uh, it's like because that was a plan we wanted to do. So we work this summer and we earn money, so we have the money. And then I have all this event in September and I was thinking, if I wait till October to buy the tickets, maybe it will be expensive. So in one week I was doing the research of the prices and the tickets and everything and it's like I don't know, do we have to buy it and everything. And he's like I don't know Do we have to buy it or not? And he's like that was a plan that's good. So it was like great, and we bought them. I don't know what are we going to do in these three months, but we have these tickets. 

43:40
I have to plan now, but I know I can plan in two months and if I don't have plan we will go. Yeah, we will do anyway. But if I don't buy, I mean, and it also can happen that we don't go because I actually I'm really now I'm really bad with my knees, now I'm better. But a few weeks ago I even said maybe we don't go to Japan because if I have to do something, then we don't, and it's money, but it's this money so I don't know if this is the fear you were talking about or it was another fear, but I I plan. 

44:20
It's like we are so different. I like to plan, to have. I mean, I can plan but I also can change. 

44:30 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
It's like you're not attached too much to if it go as planned exactly. 

44:35 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
It can go different, but I for me, it's important to have a direction. Where are, where are we going? I'm not good at flow. 

44:46 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
He's good at flowing, I'm not so but I think we actually very often have, like, like you have your plane tickets for japan. Last year we bought plane tickets for mexico. Um, we didn't buy a return ticket, we just bought a ticket over there and that took a lot of. For some reason, that took a lot of courage and it was also the same feeling. This is a lot of money and um, but then we did it and we had a great adventure in las americas. 

45:20
So it's not that we don't plan at all, and we are very often talking about how the if we could make a little more commitment, maybe things would be easier. But I think a lot of our travels just the plans come from things that happened that I couldn't have planned for. So leaving an open space for change and leaving an open space for, you know, not being attached to having to do specific things there are very few things that we insist on like we are doing this, and sometimes just having one within a time frame of two months can really define a lot of a journey, because you have to get there and, and then this gets in the way and and you have to keep insisting, or it's a specific day, so suddenly you're in a hurry and you have to learn to cope with that. 

46:20 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
So maybe I was lying a little bit before when I said we never plan, we do plan it's just like you said, we have to also be open to letting go of it yeah, and I think one of the answers I've come to is that it is when I've been too, um, trying to control what life is, then I I get stressed. 

46:46
When I've been too focused on things should being in one way and they aren't, then I can get annoyed with myself or the surrounding of things. And that is one of the things that traveling has given me in my life is this you get ready to pivot I think it's called in english, maybe I don't know but to turn on to change direction very quickly and say, okay, now life is like this. Then how do we handle that and that stamina from traveling, being a place and wherever we should sleep that night it's not working or anything. This not freaking out and just saying, okay, what are the options, and then solving it. That is a great gift that has come with this life, I think. And and from that bridging into, what have you learned from your six years of traveling? 

47:45
good luck choosing one thing I I can say one. 

47:52 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
It's not maybe so also a learning, but I was thinking about the fears or or the feelings we had. And I remember the first day when we arrived in the mainland, because for us the part was to take to put our van in a boat and go into the mainland. So when we arrived, we didn't we it took us one year to, you know, sort out everything with the house, with everything, but we didn't I know both together to sell everything, prepare the vans One year. Then we left and then we arrived in the mainland of Spain and we didn't have nothing planned, absolutely nothing, not even the place we were going to sleep. You just say like there's no problem. 

48:42
But I mean we were before, we were doing holidays or things, and where are we going to sleep? Here, and we are going here, and so it's like we get out of the, the ferry and it's like driving summer super hot in in Cadiz, and and I'm like where are we going? And he's like I don't know, we need to go. Where are we going? Because we have two little kids. They are gonna be hungry, they're gonna be, and I was so stressed like we need to stop. We need to stop plan, because we just get out of the ferry and just drive in and we need to stop, we have to go to the beach. 

49:21
So then we stopped and we went to the beach, breathe, and I remember like myself, in the water, looking the world with a complete, completely different eyes, because, yeah, everything is in our heads before when you are in like a normal life, even when you are a kid and you go to school, you are on holidays, but there is always this date in the calendar in red when you go back to something. But now there was blank calendar, blank, nothing black, and it was like no, not really, but in my head, yes, I was. I was like wow, like like how do you say vertigo, like when you're in high and you know, I think it's called vertigo in English, actually okay vertigo. 

50:23
Yeah, I was like that and this because of everything. I'm a doing person. I do things all the time, so it's like what I'm gonna do now. I was well, it was one of the main points like do whatever we wanted, but then it's like you have too much. Yes, you have to all options yeah, and also the money. 

50:48
The money it's a thing it's like. Since the beginning I was like we have to do something because we need money. We have to do something because we need money. So the and we have more money than now. I mean, we have our savings. 

51:05
So so with time also, I learned everything is about uncertainty how much or many, how much uncertainty you can sustain or you can cope with. And this is the freedom you you have, but you don't. But for me it there is a balance, because he's like the flowest person in the world. I don't know, I just invented the word flow the flowest person because he flows. So we meet our balance, like, okay, you don't have to everything under control, but if you flow all the time, for me you you need an, an action and a way of action. So make things happen, that they can happen or not, but you have a path to follow. You follow a path that can change or not? Uh, yes, and then I I realized that I am, I can hold now more uncertainty, a lot more than before, and I'm happy. I feel more freedom, I feel free because, also I know the options. 

52:26
I know I, we have learned we can do so many things. Yeah, we also have learned that that we didn't know, because in our society you become so technically specialized in something you know. I was working in a lab molecular materials, designing things and that was my thing. I was doing more things because I have this opportunity in my family, so I study other things. But can I live with these other things, like earn money, and then we have learned we can do a lot of things. So this also gives us freedom how the world works, what things people do for living, and it's not that complicated. In other countries they you have a job and then you can leave it, and it's not that like in spain, not your whole life in the same thing and in the. 

53:29 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So there are different ways and this is also something we have learned I just realized one thing about the options and the planning, because you talk about fear, and I think we've been becomes so. We have all these blank days in the calendar, we have all this freedom to do whatever we want and not whatever, but we have a lot of different options all the time. What scares me is making the decisions. I mean, my fear comes when I've made a commitment, like that booking of an airbnb for all of november, an entire month, which also means I have to be there, not the 200 other places I could have been november 1st. 

54:20
That took me actually a sleepless night after I booked it. It was like how, how do I go, which is I'm very good at not knowing what will happen and being open to whatever I'm not super good at knowing. But after we did it a few days ago, lots of other pieces have just fallen into place that will make us all the question marks that were annoying, all the things we couldn't really decide, didn't really know what are we doing here, what we'll do about that thing and how can we handle this. So once I did make a commitment, a lot of other things did actually work. I just have a new kind of fear that I have to overcome, and it's's not not knowing, it's knowing it's backwards. 

55:08 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Now, I would like to kind of sum up the podcast. I think that what you said, Carla, was so beautiful. The amount of uncertainty you can hold is the amount of freedom you have. I think that is you said that you said that you said that and I was like that t-shirt with your name on it, yeah that is a wonderful. 

55:34
That is a wonderful quote because it is it's wise it is wise and it's wild to to meet the uncertainty, and it's also sometimes it's sometimes in my darkest moments I have wished myself back to the office, like the guy from the Matrix, where I'm just like can't I just go? Can I just go back to sit in a place for 8 hours a day and come home and everything is like it should be. So sometimes I've not been ready to hold the uncertainty, but I I I'm a lot stronger now. I've held so much uncertainty in in my hands and, uh, I would love people to be able to find you, uh, read about your projects, all the things you're going on, so if you could be so kind to share where people can follow your travels and your business and everything are we. 

56:44 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
You can find us in our family project is, uh, ligrones and ruta, because this is like our family thing. Ligrones, it's like a ligron, he's ligron, hello. Yeah, we are in instagram, facebook and, yeah, we have a website also, and there we we share everything. 

57:06 - David González López (Guest)
We have his business yep, this is gecko camper and I have a website for service on social network too, in instagram and facebook and then we have I have planet world school yeah in spanish we will put the links in the show notes. 

57:29 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I have a final question perfect on David's t-shirt it says don't obey yes read so I needed to see that, right, yeah but it's true, I've only seen the top of the letters throughout the whole. What does it say? Don't read, don't read. Yeah, but it's true, I've only seen the top of the letters throughout the whole. It's a little bit don't read, don't read, and that's oh yes perfect, that's a perfect landing spot, thank you, thanks a lot for your time. 

57:59 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
It was wonderful hanging out with you. Yeah, thank you. 

58:04 - Carla Martinez (Guest)
I hope we can see you soon.