#92 Christie Ogden | What If It’s Amazing? Nomadic Life & Worldschooling

In this episode, Christie Ogden shares her remarkable journey of embracing world schooling and creating a life of freedom and adventure for her family. As a single mother of six, Christie boldly moved her children from Canada to the Dominican Republic, transforming a challenging situation into an empowering opportunity. Her story is filled with resilience, creativity, and a commitment to living on her terms.

Christie discusses the highs and lows of nomadic living, from living in a converted school bus to capturing stunning photos of kite surfers to make a living. She also explores the concept of world schooling, highlighting its diversity and adaptability while emphasizing the importance of creating space for children’s growth and passions. Throughout the episode, Christie encourages listeners to embrace change and keep an open mind about life's possibilities.

🗓️ Recorded October 14th, 2024. 📍 The Addisons, Withyham, United Kingdom

 ▬ Episode links ▬

• https://www.instagram.com/whatifitsamazing 
• https://www.facebook.com/Whatifitsamazing
• https://www.youtube.com/@christieogdenadventures 
• https://www.facebook.com/creedenaliaventura 
• https://www.infinitymarketingsystem.com/christie-ogden 

Chapters

• 0:00 Bold Choices in Pursuit of Freedom
• 13:45 Creating Space for Unfolding Journeys
• 18:57 Travel Rhythm and Connecting With People
• 28:36 Freedom and Diversity in Worldschooling
• 42:10 Living a Nomadic Lifestyle Flexibility
• 47:57 Embracing Positive Possibilities

Transcript

00:00 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
So today we are together with Christy Ogden, who is a fellow world schooler. First of all, welcome. Thank you for sharing your time with us. 

00:10 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Thank you for having me. 

00:13 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, where are you right now, Christy? Where are you in the world? 

00:19 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
I'm in British Columbia, canada, at the moment. We're in the middle of moving, so I'm sitting outside in somebody's backyard. Yeah, so next week we're moving to Vancouver Island. 

00:35 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Oh, lovely, yeah, Is the weather okay there? It looks like you can still be outside. 

00:43 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Yeah, it's getting colder for sure, like winter's on its way, but it's not here yet and just before we started the recording, I was like we met in real life. 

00:56 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I feel that you we have been in each other's presence for for many years online, and then we were like, no, actually not, but you have been world schooling for many, many years online. And then we were like, no, actually not, but you have been world schooling for many, many years. Can you share how that started in your life? 

01:11 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
okay, our story is different. Most people, you know, they sell their house and they have this big dream of going to travel. Um, in 2007, I went on a holiday with a friend of mine to Dominican Republic and I said, oh, I'd like to live here. You know, you know, like you do, when you go on holiday, you always say, oh, I'd like to live here, but like I couldn't figure out how to make that happen at that time. And then, in 2010, I was pregnant with my fifth baby and I wasn't in a good relationship and you know, we were renting this tiny little house and everything was getting cut off, like our power was getting cut off, everything was getting cut off because I didn't have a lot of money and I kept thinking to myself there has to be a better way. Like you, you know, I can't just live like this. So one night after the baby was born, I went on online and we have a thing kind of like Craigslist in Canada and I put on there that I was looking for a school bus and I was a single mom and I didn't have a lot of money. And I got him and I thought, if I get a message back, it's meant to be. If I don't get a message back, well, we'll stay. I got a message back from this guy and he said I have a bus for you. So I went and saw the bus. It's the middle of winter so I can't drive the bus anywhere. I can just get in, turn it on and see that it runs. And I said OK. And then we went back into his house, kind of you know, to talk and stuff, and he said my wife and I were praying before you came and God told us that you needed this bus, and I'm not religious. And I was like, okay, but they, they, let me take the bus that night and give them $200. And then I made payments on the bus until it was paid off for $1,000. And then we converted that bus. We lived in that bus all summer and then winter was coming and I was like we are going to freeze Like winter in Canada in a school bus. We are going to freeze. 

03:20
So I called the guy that we had met, a guy in the Dominican. He was a tour bus driver and I called him and I said, hey, I have this idea. I want to move to the Dominican Republic. Can you help me find a place to rent. He said call me back on Wednesday Because they don't do email or they didn't back. Then he said call me back on Wednesday. So I called him on Wednesday. He said I found your house. It's $50. You need the rent and a deposit and I need $50 if you want me to rent a car to pick you up. So I sent him the $150. But after I sent him the $150 and bought tickets for us to go, I had $300 for the rest of the month. So we get on the plane. I've got a 13 year old, a 10 year old and a baby and I'm sitting there. My kids are so excited. They're like, yay, we get to go on an airplane. And all I could think was this has to work, because I don't have money to take us back home. 

04:22
You know, we got there and but I had camera equipment because I had been doing photography at home and so every day we would go to the beach and I would take pictures of people kite surfing and then I would take this SD card out, put it on my tablet and when they came in I would show them the pictures. I had a little card that I had printed up that said like three pictures for 75 or whatever. They would pay pal me the money. I would send them the pictures totally unedited and, um, that's what I did for the first six months to make money. So, like I didn't have like an online business ready to go or anything like that, I literally went on a wing and a prayer because, you know, I knew there had to be a better life out there than you know, then barely making it in Canada. So I said, like everybody says, I always say to everybody, you know, my theory was I would rather be destitute on the beach than destitute in Canada in January, you know. 

05:32 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
That makes sense. 

05:33 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Yeah, and over the years you know I've, I've, I've think obviously things have gotten better and you know I've, I've managed to come up with businesses and things like that, you know. 

05:50 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So you have five children and you said you left with three. Is that because the two first one were older? 

05:56 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
I have six children and the two oldest ones. They didn't want to go at all, because my oldest oldest is autistic and he's only cares about horses, and so he chose to live with his uncle, who has a whole bunch of horses, and he at that time he believed that Canada was the only place in the world that has horses. Okay, yeah, so, and then, um, okay, and then his brother stayed with grandpa, which is his uncle's dad, so they saw each other all the time, and then the three little ones came with me. 

06:35 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So yeah, makes sense. 

06:38 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
That's a wonderful, bold and courageous step to take bold and courageous step to take. Yeah, it was a little bit crazy now that I think about it, but I don't regret doing it. 

06:54 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
We've done our fair share of crazy stuff out there on the edges as well. Sometimes, you have to take a leap of faith. I remember back when we lived in a house in a country with a mortgage and that whole thing, the exact same thought that that just has to be a way for this to be better, there has to be a way for us to get out there. And uh right, yeah, we found it too. 

07:23 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Yeah, when, when I came back from my vacation in the Dominican Republic, my friend and I were talking, but we were so stuck on like our thing was well, I'd like to live there, but how would I keep, how would I pay my car payment, how would I pay my rent? But it never occurred to us that we could give up the rent and the car payment in Canada and just go you know, like we weren't ready yet. 

07:47
You know, like, so many people are like, but but how would I, how would I give up? You know, how would I do this, how would I do that? But they're not ready to give that up yet, you know so we often say that it's all mindset. 

08:06 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
If you believe you cannot do it, you're right, and if you believe you can do it. 

08:10
You're right too. So it's. It's actually basically about and of course there's this how, how brave can you be? How, how much risk can you actually handle? And sometimes you just have to be down on your knees where you know for you, if they're cutting off the power and the heating in your place, where you're staying in Canada, there's not much to lose to leave, yeah, I mean, at least you'll be, you know, on a beach and have no money, more fun than in the cold, and have no money. So sometimes we have to let life just push us out there where we, you know, doesn't really matter, and then we, we get to take the bold choices right, get to see them, and so many people think like they go on vacation and let's say, vacation costs them four thousand dollars. 

09:08 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
You know they went on vacation for a week, so they go. Well, four thousand dollars times four is well. There's no way I could make that much money to live while I travel, you know, but you don't need that much money. 

09:24 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
No you know, no, it's not a vacation, it's, it's it's life. Ah, today I have one of these um, not a moody day stark days where I'm just like my energy is all low. I woke up and I'm like, oh, is it the balances, is it the moon? I don't know, but I feel insecure. I feel I'm not doing good enough for my family and for my kids. And then, as a parent, you of course get in doubt. 

09:58
And I actually talked with my mom on the phone, and it was yesterday and it was quite nice because I talked with her about this insecurity as a parent and, as I said to her, yeah, but I live this kind of different life from many and I, I have taken these choices. So so I am in doubt if I feel more responsible for my kids and the insecurity as a parent. Or, and then my mom just said, oh, yes, but I can promise you it's like that also, if you took that road we took, which my parents they, you know mortared out kids in school, kids in the university and everything like straight and simple and family life and all that. And it's the same parental insecurity which made me feel a little better. But how are you handling this oh, have I messed up their life. Will they ever be adult? How have I done it? I'm in that mode today, so that's why I took up this subject it's easier for me with my two littles. 

11:10 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
My two littles are 10 and 13 because I have four adult kids who have already made it, so I know that it works. You know what I mean. And so it's it's easier for me because I'm like okay, well, I did the same thing with the big kids and they're fine, so pretty sure the little kids will be fine, you know maybe you should just look at our old. 

11:35 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
We have a 25 year old daughter who has made it yeah yeah, but she was in school some of the time. 

11:43 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
School, no, I know why has nothing to do with her making it. 

11:47 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
She's an artist. 

11:48 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
It really has nothing to do with her making it. 

11:52 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It was 100% herself and maybe like one gram of us. 

11:56 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

11:58 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Yeah, and that's the way I feel. I don't feel that I created whatever they have now. They did that, you know, but I, I supported them in their passions and interests and and kind of, instead of oh that's really nice that you're really interested in horses, but we need to sit down and do math today, you know kind of thing, right. 

12:26 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah, I was about to say you didn't create it, and I feel the same about my adult daughter. I didn't create that she is now a published author and but but I did create the space for her to unfold herself so that she could become what right always wanted to be, and and, and you did that. I mean we created that space together and we held that space for her and and in that way, of course, it means something, I think, for those dark days, if I can also oh, yes, yes what you really need is community. 

12:58
So even this conversation, talking to a fellow world schooler and where it happened to live with other world schoolers right now and just reaching out and be vulnerable and talk about how you can sometimes be full of fear and and also feel kind of lonely, because a lot of people looking at our lifestyle, they, they, look at it and they, they. 

13:18
What they see is you know the highlights, the freedom, the landmarks, the mountaintops, the art museums and, and you know, the beach time, but but they don't see the struggles, they don't see the loneliness, they don't see the just the. Every day you have to fix your motor or you, you don't have a legal address so you might have trouble with all kinds of changing your phone number, whatever you need, and all these things. And if, if the fear shows up about what about the children's lives, what about their network, what about their education? What about their future? Who do you talk to? Because exactly percent of the people you can talk to they will tell you uh, maybe you should make sure they get a high school degree, you know, and then you're back to yeah, yeah well, and the thing is too like. 

14:11 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
We're in Canada now and I still am in contact with all my friends I had way back when, but we don't live the same life. So if I call them and say, you know, I'm really unsure because you know we bought this boat and I want to do this and and they'll be like well, you know, you could just come back, you could just buy a house, you know yeah, that's I mean. 

14:43 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
What does it even mean when people say you could just come home? I mean, I was just reading Salman Rushdie, the satanic verses again, and he says somewhere about the Abrahamic culture, like the original Christian, not Christian, well, original nomads from the Bible. And you know, home is the journey, home is the movement, home is that you keep changing the location that is home. And when our friends and family from our country of origin they tell us when are you coming home or it's just all this, you know you could just come, just come home, I'm like I am home and that's the change that's happened to us. We just passed the six year mark. I realized today not that we passed it today, but I realized today that I didn't notice when we. It was six years since our bus started driving and something has fundamentally changed. 

15:50 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
There's no coming home for me yeah, exactly like I thought it might just be a year and I could get it out of my blood and then go back, but it just never happened, you know no talk about like settling down, like saying oh, what about if we slow down a little bit? 

16:12 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
or what about if we sometimes we go out this fantasy road of and it just never happens, never, right right. 

16:22 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
well, I am like red, like we are ready to buy a boat and we were going to, we bought, we almost bought one, but then it wouldn't pass inspections for insurance and stuff like that, so we backed out, but anyway. But I'm so proud of myself because I'm almost ready to buy a boat, which to me is a home, and like I have never committed to that in 13 years, like you know, it's it's always been like oh, but but if I buy that, then I have to stay there and I have to commit to that for like the rest of my life, and that just seems so scary, you know, like but a boat is a little bit like a bus or a van. 

17:09 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
yeah, yeah, yeah, but like we were talking about. 

17:12 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
We were talking about maybe buying land in Mexico and I said, yeah, maybe I could do that, and then a couple of weeks later I'm like I can't do it, I just can't do it. 

17:23 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
There's no wheels involved in that in land. 

17:26 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
And you buy that land and then you're committed to stay there because you got to look after it. You got to. You know, yeah, all these things right and I'm like, but if I wanted to stay in one spot, I could just, you know, get a place in Canada and stay at one spot. 

17:42 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
You know I have frequent nightmares about buying a house. Yes, it's true, if I have a nightmare it's very often that we by accident bought a house and now I had have to stay there and equally, the house is full of stuff. 

17:57 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
There's just stuff everywhere boxes of things and stacks of of plates and I have dreams like that where I'm like wading through hoarder, some hoarder's house, you know, moving stuff out of the way to try and get through to find what I'm looking for, and then I wake up and I'm like you know yeah, I get it yeah I get it 

18:23 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I can see that I consider if people would look at nomads like us as kind of restless souls and having this. But why don't you slow down and find yourself? And I actually think that I, on these travels, have found myself. I feel a great and bigger peace than before, but I also love to explore. We just talked with a woman today who we met in Istanbul and just talking with her I was like, oh, imagine living three months in Istanbul, not for life, but just dipping yourself deep down into the culture. That sounds like a yes for me and my wife. 

19:14 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Yes, and that's what we do, you know, and, and that's the best way. 

19:19 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, I think yeah yeah, I think we sometimes have traveled a little too fast and we are trying to learn to slow down. What is your travel schedule? Kind of is there a rhythm, and with a rhythm it can be. 

19:35 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
The rhythm is whenever I get itchy feet, we go, but normally we spend. The least we've spent in a place is three months. Just because my 13-year-old is autistic and he doesn't do fast travel very well. We tried it once and he just didn't manage well. Like we tried like one week here and then we're on a plane and we're going here or bus and going here and he just doesn't do well with that. So so we stay minimum three months, but usually it's six months or more. 

20:12 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Um yeah and also make everything more affordable. Longer term rent and you get to know the good um, the good, local farms or the local shops and everything. 

20:25 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
I like that a lot well, and we usually right, we usually rent in small villages because they're cheaper and, like in 13 years of of world schooling, I have rented one airbnb and I was not thrilled with it, so I won't do it again. Um, and so we just find, like, local places and I've never paid more than $300 a month and sometimes on Airbnb it's like you know, $1,300 a month. I'm like whoa, that's crazy, you know. But being in those small villages, what's that? 

21:03
sometimes it's way more yeah so but, being in those small villages, my kids can go outside and play with the kids and they're totally accepted because we're there for a longer period of time, so it works out really well. 

21:22 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
And for beginners out there how do you find places? 

21:29 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
I've done it a few ways. I've done it a few ways. The most ingenious way was we were in. Where were we? Anyway, we were in. I don't remember where we were, but I was walking around looking for for rent signs and every time I would call they wouldn't understand me. So there was a local guy just kind of standing around and I said hey, and he said Hi. I said Do you speak English? He said yes. I said If I give you the equivalent of $20, will you call this number? And and ask them how much it is for rent and that kind of stuff? And he said Sure. So because he called and he was a local, he got cheaper rent. And then he came with me and said he was my husband and, uh, I rented the place. And then he left and then, and then later, when the landlord came to get the rent, she said where's your husband? I'm like, oh, he left me, but he didn't. 

22:27
We were never married, he was never my husband, but it was a good way to get he did leave, yeah it's really funny, yeah, yeah and then, um, I've also joined like local groups for wherever we're going, and then I'll go on google translate and I'll create a post. You know, I'm looking for a place to rent and I'll just post it in that group and and usually I get a lot of leads that way- yeah, is there places you return to, where you kind of have taken a piece of your heart or you have a small anchor? 

23:02
Yes, like we always go back to Dominican Republic because we have so many friends that are like family there, you know, yeah, so we go back there often, um, but we have other places as well, you know, like mexico, different places where, where we have people that we've connected with and and really relate to, you know my kids are really good at finding grandparents. So they'll say, when can we go see grandma in italy? And I'll be like, okay, well, we'll arrange that, you know. Or when can we go see grandpa in mexico, you know? 

23:49 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
yeah, for us as well. We always say the the adventure is is the people. Uh, it's actually not so much about the places, it's about the people, and I think all the nomads I've met, they have places they come back to. We love exploring, but we also love returning, actually, and there's just this rhythm to it. I mean, we travel in a way faster pace than you do, um, but there's always an element of returning, and usually all of the exploration is is moving between this place on the map with people we love and want to spend time with, to that place on the map with people we love and want to spend time with. To that place on the map with people we love and want to spend time with, and then we can like look at it. 

24:37
Okay, what's in between? What can we, you know? Are there any landmarks or any art museums or any forests or walks? We have to do and, and we just set aside enough time and, and so the journey becomes, as a lot of our friends are nomadic as well. We some of these dots they are movable dots, and some of them are places where we keep coming back, where we have a lot of friends, and I think it's a nice, there's a nice rhythm to this, like a dance between the new and explorative and learning journey of new languages, cultures, people, places, and then the recognizing and the mirror of how. Oh, I remember how I felt last time I was here and now I'm here again and I can see how I developed and I can see how the children have grown, and I get back to my friends and hear their stories as they have evolved since last time we were around and that's actually really, really nice, I find. Yeah, so it, yeah, it's just a good little rocking boat. 

25:45 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Yeah, two angles yeah, it's a really good flow, you know. 

25:50 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I know can I say something? I just noted in the beginning of this conversation that I wanted to talk about something Jesper and I have talked about a few times the past few weeks, and that's the concept of world schooling. The word itself, um, because we meet, you and I, over this word or all what we didn't meet over that one. We're all three together here because of more or less the word on world schooling and we've met online because of that and it's a little bit like the word unschooling, like it's just a word. It kind of talks about what we're not doing more than talking about what we're doing, and we've also met quite a lot of people where we realize this concept. The world schooling is very different from what it means to us. So I wanted to ask you how do you sit with this idea or this word? 

26:50 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
for me. I think everybody has their own concept of what it is, you know, because it's it's not really a set philosophy. 

27:03
You know what I mean so everybody kind of has their own idea of what it is, you know, and some people think it's it's just traveling, and you know, and uh, going to all these exotic places and just traveling. 

27:19
But for me it's like learning from the world and like, even when we're here in Canada, which is our home country, we're still world schooling because we're checking out places that we've never been before. We're going to, you know, we're exploring new areas where, you know, everything's an adventure, an exploration, you know, um, but there are some people who you, they'll come on like a world schooling group and they'll say I want to world school. What's the curriculum? Well, there isn't one, you know, and they really have a hard time with that concept that you can't just buy this book that says world schooling. Open it up, and this is the first lesson, this is the second lesson, you know it up, and this is the first lesson, this is the second lesson you know. So, yeah, I think it's. Everybody has their own idea and and and more. It's how it works for your family, like how I world school is probably very different from how you world school, which is probably different from how the next person does, you know what I mean. 

28:27 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I think the concept of world schooling has this intuitive um content of you know, at the very least, you're traveling, yes, some of the time moving around, right, uh? And you have children who would normally be in a school setting, who are, yeah, therefore not in a normal school setting. Some world schoolers just move around, put their kids in school in different places, which is all good and fine. I kind of like how this concept is not yet been an area of conflict, how it's just this open-minded idea. You do it in whatever way makes sense to you, and the only thing I'm actually expressing that I am doing if I say I'm world schooling, is that I'm traveling and my kids are not in a traditional school setting, because it's impossible For me. 

29:20 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
It's kind of like an umbrella term, you know, just like homeschooling. There's hundreds of different ways to homeschool. You know there's hundreds of different philosophies. So for me, world schooling is like an umbrella term. You know what I mean. Basically, we're all traveling, we all have kids and we all have kids and we all want something better for our families, like freedom and that kind of stuff, you know yeah about uh freedom. 

29:49 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Then um, carla uh said in an episode, carla martinez. She said the amount of freedom you have is the amount of uncertainty you can hold. Um, and I like that because, yeah, some sometimes you really need to hold that insecurity and uncertainty um, but but why? Why do you think that you wanted more freedom? What was it in you? It's not like I can answer the question myself Like what was it? I don't know, I just wanted more out there. 

30:28 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
I don't know, like I've always wanted to travel, even when I was little. And you know, like, like, even now I'm not young, but, like you know it, just, I just don't get it when, when you ask somebody, um, like, I took a job at a hotel there for to make a little bit of money, and uh, this lady, I said, oh, how long have you been here? And she said 42 years. And I'm like, you've been scrubbing toilets in a hotel for 42 years, you know, and that just totally baffled me because I could not imagine doing that for 42 years, because, like you know, I'm always like, okay, so, like, if you ask me where I'm going to be in three months, I can't even tell you that. You know, nevermind that I'm going to be going to this job for the next 42 years, you know but maybe some people find peace in that. 

31:34 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I mean, I'm not going to be the judge of it, I'm just right, I just feel that my own restlessness, and it's not because I'm running from something. 

31:43
I think we're just all different people and we don't all fit into the idea of of staying in one place. 

31:53
There's always, throughout the history of humankind, been explored odd ones who were the explorers, and and I think I mean I once read a I can't unfortunately can't remember where, but I once read a some study, anthropological study, saying more or less in the, in a group of humans, you have the 85 that will do what culture is telling them to do, that will do like their parents and the neighbors, and they will just be those who hold the base, who make sure everything is working, that there will be crops on the fields, there'll be roof on the houses and you know fire for the winter, and it's a good thing. 

32:33
But then you have the 15 percent who experiment, who do all kinds of crazy stuff, and some of them are the travelers and some of them invent stuff and some of them fail, and some of them what you need for us as humans to evolve and also therefore be able to adapt to an ever-changing environment and an ever-changing culture. We can't stop that. So we have to be adaptable and we are adaptable because of the 15% who are like that and I think I'm not here to judge those who enjoy to have the same job at the same hotel for 42 years and just know what they're doing and come home in the evening and make the more or less same cup of tea in the same cup and just have that peace of mind. I think some people have cut out for that and actually have a good life like that of course they do, I just can't do it not cut out for that. 

33:29 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
I get that, yeah, I get that. That's where, that's where the the need for freedom comes from. 

33:34 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
You know, like I'm, I'm not cut out to work for other people and I'm not cut out to be stuck in one thing for the rest of my life, you know but I'm actually trying to say that I think for some people that steadiness and security of having a base and a job and a husband and a neighbor, and the priest and the school teacher and the bus driver, everything you know, that is freedom. And from my psychology and brain it's hard to wrap my head around. It wouldn't be freedom for me, but I'm I'm just saying my version of freedom. 

34:11 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
I need to be able to move around, right but everybody's version of freedom is going to be different. Yeah, yeah, that's what. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we, we were in florida and we were staying in this hotel and I didn't realize what kind of a hotel it was until after we got there and I had already paid for two weeks at this hotel. Anyway, we're at this hotel and there's this family and I was like, oh, they might be world schoolers. So everybody goes to the pool and the kids are playing and stuff. And I'm talking to the dad and he's like, oh, yeah, we live here. I'm like, oh, and he's telling me you should stop what you're doing and you should come live here, like move here and live the american dream, like okay you're not my american dream, my american dream are totally different yeah my dream is not 

35:08 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
american just for the record exactly. 

35:12 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
My dream is not american and my dream is not to live in a Motel 6 in Florida in one room and my partner work at Walmart part-time and we collect welfare. That is not my dream. But if that works for you, you go ahead and do that. It was funny because they were living outside of what I thought of the norm and so I assumed they were world schoolers you know? 

35:43 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, the boat. What is the? Does it have a destination or an idea about a destination? When it comes into your life, when is the first? Where will you set sail? 

36:00 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
into your life. Where is the first? Where will you set sail? We want to head south, like towards mexico, because we want to go like kind of down the coast, you know, um and central america and places like that yeah, and have you figured out how to sail a boat yet, because it has been among my dreams, but I I have. 

36:15 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I'm like, how more difficult can it be than driving? 

36:17 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
but probably some um, we've actually decided not to get a sailboat but to get like a motorized boat. So, like a trawler, it's got two big motors underneath and, um, yeah, because there's there's a really big learning curve on sailing and I'm I don't know if I want to learn to sail at this point in my life, but I could drive a boat. 

36:48 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I'll be curious to follow that transition. That's interesting. 

36:54 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
And we're not buying a new boat, so it'll be an older boat, and so we'll be an older boat and so, like um, we'll be on vancouver island, so we'll have time to make it into whatever we want and then start start going. You know, yeah, to me that's. That's part of the fun too, is creating it into what you want and then heading off, you know oh, yes, yeah. 

37:18 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Well, to me it's not to be honest yeah, cecilia is not a builder four van conversions, like you know three van conversion and one bus conversion, and I officially hate it. I hate every single moment of it. It's the worst. I hope I'm never doing it again, but I know I am doing it again because I live in vehicles. Apparently I just really hate the work. It's just no, I don't even want to go there. 

37:48 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
I hate it. 

37:49 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I hate it so much. 

37:51 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Anytime I say anytime I say I got a great idea, my partner goes oh no, because my great ideas are sometimes quite out there. A couple years ago I said I said we could go to Colombia and we could buy two tuck tucks and we could make them into like little campers and we could travel around in them. He's like okay, he's willing to do everything. I said to him one time I said I said I'm afraid that you just do all these adventures with me because you're afraid that I'm just going to go do them anyway. He said I know you would just go do them anyway but. 

38:30
I want to do them. 

38:31 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I'm like okay that's that's fair yeah. 

38:37 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Because we met when I was on my way to Honduras. So he's like where are you going Honduras To do what I don't know? Hang out. 

38:47 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, that sounds nice. 

38:52 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Check it out. Never been, why not you? 

38:54 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
know been, why not, you know, christy? For for people who, um, who are like, oh, traveling for 13 years with your kids, that sounds uh, awesome, uh, but I have no idea where to start. What, what is the normal advices? I know you mentioned some of them, but when you meet people and they ask you, so what, what is it? 

39:17 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
you suggest them I usually suggest coming up with some sort of online income before you leave. That's my first. My first thing don't do what I did and just leave with nothing and hope you make it, because I mean you probably will make it but it's, it's not worth the stress. Um, and then just go like, because so many people say, okay, in five years I'm gonna go world schooling, because I need to have this and I need to have this and I need to have this and I need to have this like they have this long list of things that that they need to have this and I need to have this and I need to have this. Like they have this long list of things that that they need to have figured out and I'm just kind of like, yeah, but if you wait until it's perfect, you're never gonna go. You know, and if you set the goal for that far away, by the time you get there there's gonna be something else that's sidetracked you on the way, you know just go. 

40:21 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
We usually also say just get the ambition down. If you want to go traveling, why don't you just drive to the next city over and sleep in the back of your car and go for a walk somewhere where you've never been and see how that feels doesn't have to be? Or go visit some friends, you know, in the other end of your own country. If it's a small one, it doesn't have to be across the world. You don't have to sell everything and make the perfect backpack with exactly 57 things in it, or any other instagram trendy kind of band conversion. You, you can actually just go, got feet, so yeah, and then check it out, see how it feels, come up with because your, your world will change once you start doing it. So all the ideas you have before you leave. 

41:07
It's a little waste of time yeah, I mean, we did it, everybody did it before they left, they put some thought into it, but the reality is that the world is actually changing. 

41:19 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
When you start living in a nomadic way rather than based way and I also tell people to like, like, once you get this goal of, let's say, I want to buy a boat, you know, for example, then start living like you're already living that dream. So like, now Christmas is coming, I'm gonna buy my kids stuff that they're gonna need on the boat. You know, so like, if you have a dream of I don't know backpacking with your family, then for the, for the kids birthdays, you know you buy them each a backpack for their, for Christmas, you know they get, they get a, a tablet for to use while they're traveling. You know things like that. And and like, if I have to go buy myself new pants, I'm not going to go buy myself, you know, um, anything white just forget or anything that you would wear in the city. 

42:10
I'm going to buy myself like hiking pants. I'm going to buy myself stuff that dries quick, you know all of those kinds of things. But then your mind is in that, in that goal, and and you're you're still thinking about it, and then you're closer to getting there. 

42:27 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah yeah, yeah. Go camp out on the living room floor one night. Just break things up, do them in a different way. 

42:36 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
That's I mean, see, see, how flexible you, yeah, yeah exactly yeah, one of one of the things I really love with uh, our yeah, it's more or less like a snail house, a house on the back with the van we have is that our relationships has changed with the people we visit, from visiting to living together, that that's such a big difference that and and I mean just staying over with friends could be and I can bound in their living room just to to, to break this normal where you come and are together for three or four hours. That's like a really good start to really get into a deep talk and understand your friends and family in a good way but also just handle these things like you know what. 

43:26 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
You're going to make your coffee in a new way in the morning and you're going to be really tired while you do it, and you might not be able to find your shoes when you're trying to walk out of the house, and you might have to eat something different for breakfast, and, and maybe when the phone rings, you can't answer it because something else has happened that you couldn't really know, and all these. You just become so flexible and adaptive by living in this way and and that you can work on before actually leaving. Just right, yeah, and maybe by going to stay over with some friends, or yeah, just do something different. 

44:04 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Yeah, or you know, for for years, like since 2005, I've known that I wanted to travel and so I signed up as a host for couch surfing because I wanted to meet people who were actually doing it so they would come and stay in my house and it was like this is this is awesome, I get to talk to them about their country. 

44:24
I get to you know all these things you know, and and my kids got to experience people from different cultures and who spoke English, but maybe not the same English that we speak, and you know, it was just great for them, you know we did the exact same thing, just with Workaway. 

44:42 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
We had Workawayers in our home People from everywhere come in and they help me out in the kitchen a little bit Some of them more, some of them less, but it meant that we had travelers in our home for several years before we left. It was the same and it was great, great and another way of breaking up your idea about how every day is, because suddenly you have one more person in your home and and that just adds to the dynamic and the ideas about how life can be, and you get great conversations and yeah well, and it also. 

45:10 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
It also is like so you have some, let's say, you have two people staying in your home, you know, and you're like, okay, so I was gonna make this for dinner. And they say, oh, I don't eat that, could we have this? Well, I don't know how to make that. Well, I can show you, you know what I mean. But. But it's, it's being adaptable and and realizing that that things can change. And you know all of these things, right, yeah. 

45:35 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, christy, of these things right, yeah, yeah, christy. I would love for people who have listened to our podcast with you if they want to follow along and see if you make a reality of the dream with the boat or one of the other dreams. Where do they find you and and how can they follow along on your adventures? 

46:01 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
We are what If it's Amazing on Instagram and we have a page as well on Facebook. That's what If it's Amazing. 

46:09 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
That's a great name for it. I didn't know that. 

46:12 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
What if? 

46:14 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
What if it is amazing, because it started, because people always say you know what if I, if it is amazing? Because it started, because people always say you know what if I hate it? What if like all the negatives and I'm always like, yeah, but what if it's amazing? What if it doesn't suck? What if you don't want to go home? What if? What if? What if? You know, just changing the negative? What if to a positive? What if yeah? 

46:36 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
yeah and I find that a perfect place to works out like a dream yeah that is a good place it's a good place to end our podcast for today. Thanks a lot for your time. It was a pleasure meeting you and I hope our paths will cross when the time is right yes, for sure. 

46:56 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It was a nice conversation and nice to finally meet you in real life kind of real life yeah, thank you, you're welcome. 

47:08 - Christie Ogden (Guest)
Thanks for having me.