16. Teaching, Coaching, and Traveling as Much as She Can @wanderwithkt

A Travel Path Podcast

www.atravelpath.com

00:00 Introduction

03:30 How to you Balance Teaching with Travel?

04:30 What Sort of Commitments Outside of School do You Have with Teaching?

06:00 What Has Been the Longest Trip You Have Taken While Teaching?

07:00 Where Are You Staying When You Travel?

08:30 What Have Been Your Biggest Struggles to Get on the Road?

10:00 What Are Your Biggest Frustrations While You Travel?

14:00 What do You Love Most About Your Travel Lifestyle?

16:00 What Tips Have You Found Help 9-5ers Travel More?

18:15 Why do You Think People Are So Reluctant to Plan?

21:30 What Are Itinerary Creation Guides?

25:15 Are There Other Careers Where People Have a Long Gap From Work?

26:45 How Can People Save or Make Money for Travel?

29:45 What Has Been Your Coolest Travel Experience?

31:15 What Is One Thing You Can’t Live Without While Traveling?

34:00 What Have You Learned You Don’t Need While Traveling?

36:00 How Do I Start Planning my Trip?

37:30 How Would Someone Transition to a Career in Teaching?

40:00 Where There Any Influencers that Inspired You to Travel?

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/abbynoise/rocky-mountains

We had the pleasure of hosting Kati on our show who provided some valuable insight on how to balance a busy teaching and coaching career with travel. In this episode you’ll learn all about:

✅A few simple steps to get you started planning your next trip

🍎Taking advantage of time off teaching and coaching to take a 20+ day road trip

🏔️How to get more travel out of your 9-5 work life

And more!

Links

Find Kati At:

https://expeditioneducationblog.com/

https://www.instagram.com/wanderwithkt/

Episodes Mentioned in the Show:

From CPA to Trucker: https://atravelpath.com/trucking/

Kati’s Blog on 10 Ways to Save Money for Travel:

https://expeditioneducationblog.com/2020/04/01/making-extra-money-for-travel/

Save Money:

https://home.ibotta.com/

https://poshmark.com/

Gregory Backpack & Gear:

https://www.gregory.com/

YouTube Channels & Books:

Steve Yalo: https://www.youtube.com/@SteveYalo

“Through Hiking Will Break Your Heart” https://amzn.to/48BGArt

“Wild” https://amzn.to/3TfM8Ue

“Thirst” https://amzn.to/49TVYAv

“Nowhere for Very Long” https://amzn.to/3Vi2Nbl

(Commissions may be earned through purchases on this page)

Restaurants

Martins BBQ in Nashville: https://www.martinsbbqjoint.com/

Noble Smokehouse in Mystic: https://noblesmokehouse.com/

Relatable Blogs:

Goal Setting for Couples: https://atravelpath.com/2024-goal-setting/

Most Popular Blogs:

Most Popular Travel Hacks: https://atravelpath.com/money-saving-travel-tips/

Travel Gear: https://atravelpath.com/travel-gear/

How to Budget For Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/how-to-budget-for-gas-for-a-road-trip/

Our Favorite RV Upgrades: https://atravelpath.com/rv-upgrades/

How Much We Made Renting Our RV: https://atravelpath.com/renting-camper-van/

Never Run Out of Gas on a Road Trip: https://atravelpath.com/road-trip-tip/

travel #travelpodcast

*All content from atravelpath.com, including but not limited to The Travel Path Podcast and social media platforms, is designed to share general information. We are not experts and the information is not designed to serve as legal, financial, or tax advice. Always do your own research and due diligence before making a decision.

Transcript:

Tyler: Welcome to the show.

Kati: Hello, hello. Thanks for having me.

Tyler: Yeah, so we know you on Instagram as "Wander with KT." You post content on your Outdoor Adventures, and you also have your website, ExpeditionEducationBlog.com, where your goal is to make Adventure travel as accessible as possible on any budget. You've got all sorts of posts on travel tips, Gear reviews, and itinerary creation guides, which we'll talk about later on. Why don't we first start by having you share a little about yourself and then letting our audience know what your current travel lifestyle looks like?

Kati: Yeah, so I'm Kati. I am 31 years old, and I live in central New York. I'm a teacher by day and a coach by night, and then I try to travel as often as I can on my school breaks, on my weekends. I might take a personal day here or there to extend a weekend for some travels, but pretty much traveling on the school breaks and on the teacher budgets, so that is what the travel plans are.

Tyler: Sure. And your husband, Spencer, he's a teacher as well, right?

Kati: He is also a teacher, so we are both busy teachers. I teach secondary, so I teach grades 7 through 12, and he teaches elementary school, so he teaches pre-K through six. And we teach in the same district but different buildings since it's different age levels.

Tyler: Now, during the school year, particularly the school year outside of, like, summer vacations and winter vacations, how are you balancing your work and your travel life?

Kati: It can definitely be really hard, especially when you're coaching because when you coach, you don't normally get the full weekend anyway. You wind up having to leave after an early practice on a Saturday or not doing Saturday practice and coming back Sunday night for practice. And even school breaks, I mean, over like the holiday vacation Thanksgiving break, we have practice. So we definitely take shorter trips during the school year, which is not our style. We're definitely more like long road trip kind of people. But it can be hard to balance, but we just do what we can to get out there when we can get out there, especially during coaching.

Tyler: The high school level gets pretty competitive, and I remember doing high school basketball, you're going, basically, I think the only days we had off was Christmas Day and New Year's Day, that was it.

Kati: Yeah. Luckily, we both coach the junior varsity team, so we travel with varsity, and we're their assistant coach, so we have to be there to help them. But it's not as big of a deal if you give JV an extra day off over break. But at the varsity level, definitely, you know, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, then you're back.

Tyler: Do you have a lot of commitments outside of coaching, like more school-related on the weekends that take up a lot of your time, or is it just mostly coaching?

Kati: Generally, not mostly coaching. During the school year, I might have the occasional chaperone dance or I'm the Outdoor Adventure Club advisor, so we have weekend events and fundraisers that we do as well. So here and there, I have a weekend commitment that isn't related to coaching, but it's usually coaching-related in the school year.

Tyler: So for the most part, it sounds like if you want to get into teaching and you want to be able to travel, as long as you're not doing any of those extracurricular activities, just the teaching lifestyle allows for that flexibility on the weekends, the extended weekends, and then, obviously, the holidays.

Kati: Yeah, absolutely. You get extended weekends here and there, you get obviously your holiday breaks. The summer vacation is big there. There are definitely commitments from teaching over summer though, so you have to kind of plan around those things until you get to the point where you can just say, like, you're not paying me, so I'm not coming.

Tyler: What are some of those commitments over the summer?

Kati: Summer curriculum hours, different trainings, meetings, sometimes you'll have, like, seventh-grade orientation. And some of those commitments are also coaching-related too, such as, like, open gyms or going to a training or a coach's meeting.

Tyler: So it sounds like it's kind of a random amount of commitment. It's not like it's not enough where it's like a full-time job type thing, but it's not really enough where you can take a super extended travel vacation. What's been the longest trip you guys have been able to take?

Kati: We've been pretty lucky. We've gone on a couple really long trips. I think most recently we spent 23 days road-tripping from New York out to Colorado and Moab and then back. But we've also spent 17 in Utah and 20 days doing, like, the DTAs in Wyoming. A lot of our summer requirements too wind up popping up in August because you're getting closer to the school year. So it's like, oh, we have to get this in, oh, we got to do that training. So we pretty much have the month of July to do whatever we want.

Hope: Now, when you take those little bit longer trips during your summer break, how are you guys traveling? Are you traveling in your car, right? And then where are you staying?

Kati: So when we went to Utah, we flew there. It was one of our first times really doing that. And we flew, rented a car, and just did the loop from there and flew back. So we threw all of our camping gear in a big duffel, like, massive rolling duffel because we like to camp, because that's the only way we can afford to go on those trips. But since then, all of our trips have been road trips. So we drive, my husband has a Jeep, and we drive the Jeep out with all the camping gear, our bikes, everything we could need. We pretty much live out of the car for however long we're there. We'll snag hotel rooms here and there, whether it's like, oh, bad weather or just we need a shower and a bed or something of that nature. Yeah, we mostly camp, and we'll pay some, like, we'll pay for camping if we're going to National Parks. We like to camp inside the park, so it's worth it to us to pay whatever it costs to stay in there. But a lot of places will also camp for free because it saves you a lot of money and usually the views are better at those places as well.

Tyler: And those places are just like the public land, the National Forest lands, Bureau of Land Management lands.

Kati: Yeah, public lands like National Forest lands, Bureau of Land Management lands. So depending on what state you're in or like what section of the country you're in, they kind of have different names like National Grasslands. All over the DTAs have gorgeous places to camp and they're just free. You just pull up and go, free and dispersed camping.

Tyler: In terms of when you're teaching and you're looking to plan your trips both short-term and long-term, what have been some of the biggest struggles to get on the road?

Kati: My husband and I live in central New York, but his family is from Western New York and my family is from Long Island, and they still live there. So we're kind of like in our own little bubble living where we live, and we've lived here for the last nine or ten years. So I think the hardest thing for us is we see a break and we see an opportunity to travel, but then we also know that that's an opportunity that we could use to go see our family. So I feel like that sometimes is the hardest thing to get us out on the road, is like, what is right? What should we go do? My little brother's 14; he was born when I was a senior in high school. So, like, it's hard to not see him as often. And, you know, obviously our parents are getting older, so we have nieces and nephews at my husband's hometown area. So that's definitely the hardest thing that will get us on the road, is should we do that or should we go see our people.

Tyler: The guilty conscience, yeah. I was going to say, too, I would imagine just having your schedules line up, both being full-time teachers, both coaching all those extracurriculars. So that, on top of having all that family close by, I'm surprised you travel as much as you do.

Kati: Yes, it's a big, like, I don't know, it keeps us sane, our adventures, our travels. And for him, biking is his big thing, and I love to bike too, but Spencer is big into mountain biking, I'm big into the hiking. And both of those things kind of keep us level-headed.

Tyler: Outside of what we just talked about, kind of the frustrations of planning, once you're actually out there and you're camping and you're traveling, what are some of the biggest frustrations you face then, especially now with all the permit systems sometimes to enter Parks?

Kati: I'm really a big pre-planner. Like, our road trip for this summer is already pretty much entirely planned, all the camping has already been booked. I have, like, a spreadsheet where I put everything in. But if we are going somewhere that you need a permit for, I try to get camping there ahead of time. For example, we are going to Glacier National Park this summer, and they have a permit system to enter the park between certain hours, but if you are camping there, then you can just get it. So I try to plan all of that ahead of time. But there are places where you can't, or maybe I just can't get camping or I don't want to camp in the park, so that is a frustration. But one that I understand. I understand the permit system and have full respect for it. It just stinks sometimes. And then some people are just so, like, out to lunch, they're so rude, they just have no regard for nature. We're constantly cleaning up people's garbage, especially in free and dispersed camping spaces. And that is a huge frustration as well.

Tyler: That's interesting you say that because that's one thing we found, like, it just seems so clean everywhere we went. A lot of the national parks, I know they take care of the parks there, but even we were doing dispersed camping. I always was under the impression that that's just, like, that lifestyle, that mindset, people who travel, they take care of where they go. But apparently that's not always the case.

Kati: Yeah, some places are great and other places are not so. That's definitely a frustration that we face, just cleaning up people's stuff or seeing things that we can't clean up, like, you know, food waste and things that just shouldn't be left on the ground.

Tyler: And those are the people that make the new rules, where now, whatever, wherever that location was where that trash was found, that's now off-limits. Like, I remember we were in Redwood National Park, the biggest tree in the world, Hyperion, you can't visit because too many people are visiting it and, like, leaving trash and kind of destroying the area around it. Yeah, biggest tree in the world but you can't see it because people were being people.

Kati: Yeah, and I'll never understand that mindset. Like, I just, I don't get it. But that's definitely a big frustration. And then, this is a fun frustration, but when people are just, I don't know what they think, but people are like, "Oh, I have no idea how you travel for so long." And we're like, "Well, we literally sleep on the floor." And, you know, people be like, "Oh, like, you're so lucky." And yes, we're lucky. We're definitely, you know, lucky that we have that time off. But it takes a lot of planning. I'm like, "Would you sleep on the floor for 20 days?" "Oh, no." Okay, so it's a little more than luck. Like, that's a frustration too that's not really directly related to the travel, but having those conversations with people usually after we come back is always like, "Oh, like, oh, you're so lucky, that view is amazing." I'm like, "We hiked 21 miles to get to this view."

Tyler: I totally relate to that because we've been told that like countless times, you're so lucky you can do this. And we were traveling in our van but like anybody can do it, it's just a matter if you want to put the work in.

Kati: Yeah, everybody sees the nice picture, they hear the stories, but they don't see the work that was put in, whether it was hiking to that location, putting the time in to put signs in place where you can take a long vacation. There's a lot of work that goes into it that anybody can do it's just a matter of do you want to do it.

Tyler: I look at it like, yeah, we're lucky, we're blessed in a sense where we're alive, we're healthy, we took this trip and everything was okay. But outside of that, anybody can do it, you know?

Kati: Exactly, yeah. I will always be thankful for my ability to be here and doing what I can do, but you could do it too if you try.

Tyler: One hundred percent. So transitioning outside of kind of the bad news, what do you love most about your travel lifestyle?

Kati: I love, we're so busy during the school year that we hardly see each other. Like, all volleyball season, I usually have the early practice slot, and then my husband, he practices tonight until 9:00 PM. So we eat dinner very, very late. We'll eat dinner at like 9:45 when he gets home, and then I go to sleep because I wake up earlier because my school day starts earlier. And he'll just stay up and watch whatever anime show he's currently watching. And then we just don't really get to spend a lot of time together all school year. So it's nice to be like, stuck together for however long we're on vacation for however long we're traveling for. So that is definitely nice and, like, truly being stuck, stuck together, like, you got to talk, you got to hang out, you got to talk about what you're doing next, if you're mad at each other for some silly little reason, you got to talk about it. So that's something that I really like about it. And then I like how physically demanding, like, camping and hiking and biking and, like, the itineraries we plan for ourselves because we're trying to squeeze as much as we can in, it's go, go, go, go, go. And I'm a mover, so I love that part of it. I like the challenge of it.

Tyler: You bring up a good point. It's fascinating how many times people have told us they could never be alone with their spouse for a month or two, but for a long period of time. It's like, well, you probably should be able to be with them for that's kind of why you married them, right?

Kati: That's kind of what my father-in-law's like. I don't know how you do these trips together. I don't even know how, like, I don't know how you drive straight back together. I don't know how you spend 25 days together. And I just laugh. I'm like, those are my favorite days of the whole year, the 25 days we're stuck together.

Tyler: You mentioned on your website, ExpeditionEducationBlog.com, that one of your goals is to help individuals seek adventure whenever possible. What tips have you been able to find that help people do that?

Kati: I think if you can look at your... well, first, I like to tell people, when they reach out to me or whatever it may be, my friends at school say, find like five or six places within three hours of where you live that you have some type of interest in for whatever reason. Like, I'm outdoorsy, so I'm looking for outdoorsy places, but that might not be what your interest is in. So whatever type of adventure you want to take, think of that and come up with five to ten places. You'd be shocked at how many places are within three, three and a half hours of where you live. And the reason why I use that number is that it's easy for a weekend trip. Like, you can leave work on a Friday and be somewhere within three and a half hours with still enough time to eat dinner, check into your hotel, or whatever you're doing. And then you have the whole weekend to kind of just enjoy it. So that's my biggest suggestion is like find those places and then look at your calendar, look at your schedule, and plan when you're going to go and hold yourself to it. Like, if you're gonna book a hotel, book it, because then you're forced to go. And once you go once, you're gonna be like, "Ah, I need to do it more."

I'm lucky I have worked work-in days off. Teachers don't really get time off that they can choose. I get three personal days. So like, I can pick and choose to use those where I need to. But people who have, like, an office job and such, I always tell them, like, just plan it around a time where maybe you have a day off for a holiday or, you know, if you add two days to this weekend, it now becomes a five-day weekend and plan your longer trips ahead of time. Like, get a whole calendar out, just plan it out. If you plan it, you're more likely to do it, as opposed to just saying on a Thursday, "Oh, I think tomorrow I'm going to fly wherever." Like, probably not going to happen. So figure out what you want to do and then look ahead of time and plan, because even if you work a job where you have to be there most of the year, like, you can figure out where to go and when.

Tyler: Do you find people are reluctant to just start looking and why do you think that is?

I think some people, and I feel like it's like the age range of like 25 to 40, where they're willing to, like, get on Google and look things up. I feel like we were just, like, outside of the cusp of you could Google anything when you were in school and now my students are like, "I could just Google it," and they're, like, so annoyed by it. I'm like, "You just pick up your phone and you could figure out anything." And I feel like there's a group of people that are in that range of willingness to do it because they didn't grow up with it. They've learned it, though, and it's so easy to do. And then you have, like, people who grew up with it and think it's annoying and they don't want to do it. And you have older folks who maybe they do it from their iPad, but they don't know how to organize all of their online thoughts. Like, my mom plans everything from her iPad and she just starts sending me links here, there, and everywhere, which is great, but I'm like, "I put it in a spreadsheet, Ma. How are you organizing your trip? You're sending it to me."

Tyler: Yep, we're spreadsheet people.

Kati: I think people are just reluctant to do the work because the research portion does take time. And if you don't know how to organize all of your thoughts online, then it can be really overwhelming.

Tyler: It's funny. I'm not sure why it is because, like, even right now, like, we planned our first trip a while back and right now we're planning our second trip, but every time we go to do it, like, I don't know about you, but I'm just, like, dreading it. I don't want to sit down and do it. But the second you start planning something, it just becomes addicting, and you find one place and you find the next place, and it just gets that ball rolling where you want to go. But I don't know what it is about not wanting to sit down and just start. I love it. A couple weekends ago, I sat down with... I said to Spencer, like, "Hey, let's do some trip planning," because I pretty much plan every single trip. He just comes along for the ride. So he sat here with the maps for maybe 20 minutes, and he then retired himself to the living room, and I finished booking campgrounds and all that stuff. And I always send him the spreadsheet as soon as I started, like, "Hey, here's the summer spreadsheet. Here's the Norway spreadsheet," like, whatever it may be. And he never opens it. We were driving through Norway this August, and he's like, "All right, where do we go next?" I'm like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "Where do we go after we're here?" Like, how do you not know that you flew across the ocean to come here, and you have no idea what you're in store for? Like, what if I told you we were cliff jumping?" He's like, "Okay."

Hope: I plan about 99% of our trips, mostly the weekend ones and the small ones, things like that. Tyler really only gets pulled in once we're doing those longer, extended trips. We do struggle to get started, but like he said, it is addicting. Once you get going, the spreadsheet definitely helps us.

Tyler: We'll be leaving for an airport to fly out somewhere, and I won't know which airport we're going to. That's how bad it is.

On your website ExpeditionEducationBlog.com, you have a bunch of services on there: you post blogs, travel tips, gear reviews, and one of your sections is the itinerary creation guide. What exactly is that?

Kati: So, with the itinerary creation, you would fill out pretty much a Google form, and it asks a handful of questions. You have to have an idea of where you want to go first, but then it'll ask you like what your interests are, what type of lodging you're looking for, and it'll kick it out to me. Once it's kicked out to me, I will kind of write an email back to whoever it is with like a summary of what I think they're looking for, so they can either say, 'Yes, you're on point from these questions,' or 'No, you're really far off,' and then kind of an estimate of, 'Hey, this is what you can expect to pay for an itinerary of this length.' I organize it into a really nice PDF that if you have it online and you click links, it'll pull up like your Google Maps, your link to your Airbnb, your hotel, whatever it may be, or you can print it and just look at it like that. It's a service that a handful of people have used. Some, I planned somebody's trip. They were spending five days in Paris and then five days in Ireland, so I got to plan like their whole trip for them. And then these people were coming from England to the Adirondacks to do like a leaf peeping loop, and I got to plan their whole leaf peeping loop. So, I pretty much do all the planning for you, but you have to do all the booking for yourself, because I'm not a travel agent. But, you know, for the Paris trip, I way ahead of time I was able to get it out to her. And for each thing, it was like, 'All right, you're looking for this type of Airbnb. Here are two options for you to choose from.' The people who were leaf peeping, they rented a van in New York City, and then they were camping. So, it was easy for me. I gave them a free and dispersed site and then a campground option in each stop for them. So, yeah, it's really fun when I get to do it based off of places I've already been. So, like the Adirondacks are my playground. So, that was super fun because I was able to give a lot of different suggestions for like where they should eat depending on what they're looking for and things like that. But then the other, like I've never been to Paris and I've never been to Ireland, but pretty much she just didn't want to do the research herself. And I find joy in the research. So, I was like, 'Cool, I will research up your honeymoon sister, and you're gonna have a great time.'

Tyler: Perfect. Yeah. So, they do the booking; you do the planning. It sounds like a great alternative for someone who just doesn't want to do the planning.

And we can definitely vouch for it. It was funny; we brought this up last night. But Hope saw your template on your website, which is the Nashville itinerary. And we went to Nashville back in, I think November. And one of the places you recommended was Martin's Barbecue. Oh, so good. I remember it was probably the best barbecue we've ever had. Like, the ribs, the dry rub, they were juicy, they were amazing. I'm hesitant to say they're the best because we have a place right down the street, Noble Smokehouse Mystic, which is great. I have to have them, like, back to back. But they were amazing.

Hope: I think you posted that reel, like, as I was at the airport waiting to go to Nashville, and I was like, 'Oh, perfect, okay. Saved what you said,' and we hit a few other things that were in that itinerary that you did. So, we definitely took advantage of it.

Kati: Yeah, Nashville was fun. That was a Mother's Day trip with my mom; we went together and we had a blast. But yeah, for any of my itinerary-style posts, I'm sometimes a little behind, but I make a PDF of whatever the itinerary is, and it just goes into a folder. So, if you follow me on my blog, join my newsletter, which maybe comes out four times a year because of teacher life, you get access to that folder that has all of the itineraries. So, it has things like Nashville, and then it also has national parks and things of that nature, too. And it's the version where you can click, and it'll give you the link to whatever the Google map of the place or whatever it may be. So, that's a fun little side project that I like because I love Canva. If you're a teacher that doesn't use Canva, like, email me; I will help you. It is amazing.

Tyler: Have you discovered any other careers that are similar to teaching where people can have these big gaps in between work and take time off?

Kati: I would say if you work, like, I guess not necessarily as a teacher, but if you work in a school building, like our school nurse, our school counselors, our social worker, our psychologists, like, they are not teachers; they have different degrees and different backgrounds, but they do still get those breaks. I do follow a lot of travel nurses who will do, like, they'll do their gig for however long, and then they'll give themselves a gap before their next one, and they go and they do whatever they couldn't do wherever they were. So, I wish I could crack the code, but I could never be a nurse, bless them. Angels. But if I was, travel nursing would be it. I mean, my friend who wound up moving down to Nashville, she was like, 'You make so much more money travel nursing, too.' She was like, 'You don't have the benefits of working for a steady corporation, company, whatever hospital.' She was like, 'But you make way more money plus whatever your stipend is for your living expenses.'

Tyler: So, do you have any travel tips on how people can save or make money for traveling?

Kati: Well, like I also freelance write. And there's a company that I've been working with since 2020, same company this whole time. And it's very nice because I can write as much or as little pretty much as I want. If I have a lot of time, I can get a bunch of posts done. If not, it can take me a whole month to write a post for them, and they're fine with it. So, that's a nice little, just, that money goes straight into our savings account, and I put it towards whatever we do to road trip for the summer. So, I mean, there's definitely little things. But teacher life, I have all those little things at school that I do to make a couple extra dollars. But then, if you like to write, you're a good writer, whatever it may be, freelance writing is definitely a great option."

Tyler: Is that through Upwork where you were found or was it through a different platform?

Kati: They found me through my blog. I've just been working with them pretty much ever since, but I was on Upwork for a little while.

Tyler: You had a blog post I read, the "10 ways to make extra money for traveling." I wasn't sure if you wanted to reference that at all.

Kati: That's an old one, but it's a good one. Yeah, that's from before I even owned my house. It's funny. And all those ways are still solid. I still use Ibotta, which is like an app that you use when you go grocery shopping or anything of that nature. You can look ahead of time, and if I was already going to buy something, I'll put it in and then you scan your receipt at the end and you get money back. It also works for things other than groceries, like Booking.com. I just booked my husband and me a hotel room in Orlando for next week, and since I booked it through Ibotta, I'll get 8% back. So, it'll come out to like, I don't know, 20 something dollars in that account. It's seemingly pennies, but it does add up. I have probably made like well over $3,000 on Ibotta over the years, just grocery shopping, things here and there. Like Dick's Sporting Goods, 2% back on your order. You just have to look ahead of time and kind of buy it through there. So, little things like that, like coupon apps, I guess you could call them. Just selling your old stuff. I sell my old stuff on Poshmark all the time. Or like, I don't know if you guys have Plato's Closets where you are, consignment shops, those kinds of things. And it's one like, "Oh, I need new gear" or "I'm getting new whatever." So, I'll bring it here and then sell it. And it's not like you're going to make a killing off of it, but it's better than it just sitting around. And then you can put that money towards something else. I'll link that blog at the end of the show notes for people to check out.

Tyler: How do you get internet when you're traveling?

Kati: If I don't have internet on my phone, I don't have internet while I'm traveling. And when I'm traveling, I'm just traveling.

Tyler: I like that if you don't have it, you don't have it.

Kati: I always bring my Chromebook. I don't think I ever take it out of it. Never comes out of the bag.

Hope: That's okay. You're just there to travel and experience it. So, it's perfect. What has been the coolest experience you've had while traveling?

Kati: I feel like it's going to be a general statement because I've really done so many cool things. But I think the meeting of new people when I'm traveling, especially when we travel to national parks and other outdoorsy places, I feel like it's not somewhere that people think, "Oh, you're going to meet people and make friends." I feel like you think you'll do that in a city at a bar, at a restaurant, like whatever it may be. But we've met some really cool people just out at the national parks. We made friends with this older gentleman and showed us his rig with his gorgeous dog. And then a couple of days later, we ran into him in Grand Teton National Park. We had first seen him in Yellowstone, and he was like, "What are you guys doing tomorrow?" And we're like, "Ah, like, we're hiking to Lake Solitude. It's 24 miles. It's a long day." He's like, "Meet me for dinner in town. Like, I'll buy you guys dinner." He was just an older man, but we had such a good conversation. We had dinner and drinks, and it's just fun to meet people and laugh. Most of the people we wind up chatting with are significantly older than us, but they have so much knowledge, and it's so fun to talk to them. And my husband is a talker. It's probably a good thing that he's at practice and not sitting in front of you guys right now so he can make friends with a rock, pretty much. Yeah, he's good like that.

Tyler: Through all your travels, what has been one thing you've learned that you cannot live without?

Kati: This was a question that stumped me. This is going to sound silly, but I couldn't survive without my phone because my whole spreadsheet gets downloaded onto my phone, and that is how we do our travels. So, in a silly sense, like, I couldn't live without my phone for that purpose. But in a more literal sense, I also couldn't live without a backpack that is functional for day-to-day things, and that changes, I guess, based on what the travels are like. Obviously, my hiking bag is my hiking bag, my day pack, and that's coming with me no matter what. But if I'm doing more like city travel, I have a different backpack that I use for that because just function-wise, it works better. And that seems like such a silly thing, but I hate nothing more than not being able to find something that I need.

Tyler: Yeah, I've been there before. Do you have any backpack recommendations?

Kati: My day pack for hiking is a Gregory, and it has been for the last 10 years, and I am dreading the day it breaks or something is wrong with it because I love it to death. Although I did recently get called out in a very nice, friendly way on Instagram because one of my Instagram friends was showing her washing her same exact Gregory pack as me, and she's like, "How often do you wash your pack?" And I responded, "Never." And she was like, "Well, how long have you had it for?" I was like, "10 years." She was like, "That is disgusting. I can't believe you've never washed it." I'm like, "It never even occurred to me to wash my backpack." And I'm such a clean freak that it's wild to me. So, I'm going to wash it, and we'll see how it goes. But that's definitely my day pack recommendation. So comfortable, so functional, and I've had it for 10 years. It's probably traveled like 2,000 miles, gone across the ocean, across the country. So, that is definitely it.

Tyler: Comfortable, functional, and after 10 years, I'd say pretty durable.

Kati: Yeah, definitely.

Tyler: It may not be the same color it was when you bought it, but it's still working.

Kati: I know. I said to Spencer, I'm like, "Uh, we have to wash our backpacks." Like, that's a good idea. I'm like, "Right?" He goes, "Why haven't we ever done that?" Like, I'm not really sure. But, and we're both super clean freaks, so we both like it.

Tyler: Yeah, I don't think we ever,

Hope: I was gonna say, now I feel like I need to go wash my backpack. We definitely haven't. I've never, never occurred to me. So, thank you for that. It's a good tip.

Kati: Yeah, so a very good call out, actually. I was called in. I have to clean my backpack.

Tyler: Contrary to that, what has been one thing you've learned that you don't need while traveling?

Kati: I don't need even half of the clothes that I pack for myself. And that is also silly, but I am a chronic overpacker. You should see my luggage for next week to go to Florida for the week. My husband today, he's like, "Oh, I see that you're packed for a full road trip." I just, I always want options, and then I don't wear half of them. So, I've learned that, but I've never actually done what I said I'm going to do and take less. Something's wrong with me here.

Tyler: But, yeah, she makes fun of me for how little I pack. You're only bringing like one pair of shorts and three shirts, like, yeah.

Kati: I, well, and I'll say this to my husband too, like, if we, like, go out. So, like, we were in Leadville a couple of years ago, and he was just able to throw on like a cleaner pair of hiking pants and a flannel and a hat, and he looks like a normal person. I'm like, if I throw on like my hiking pants, I look like a nerd. I don't want to go out like that. I want to look decent. So, I feel like I have to pack additional clothes so that I'm not looking like I just came out of the woods like a creature, I don't know.

Hope: Very true. Men have a different ability to transition their outfits from day to night, rather than we have. And I was laughing because he doesn't pack himself.

Tyler: But, but in my defense, our clothes are bigger, so I should take out more space, but I don't.

Kati: Yeah, my husband and I are the same size, so our clothes are the same. We, we're both like five ten, weigh the same. We are the same, exactly.

Tyler: I’m like 6'4 and she's 5'6 so like my shirts are like five of her shirts. Um, if you could have listened to this podcast when you were first starting out traveling, what is one question I didn't ask tonight that you wish I would have, and how would you answer that now?

Kati: We, we, I feel like we kind of talked about it, but just the planning process, like where do I start? How do I start to plan? Maybe like a planning, um, what's the word I'm looking for, planning template. It can be, once you know kind of where you're going, I guess planning gets easier. But maybe like a drawing board template, like how do I start planning my trip? I think that can be the hardest part. Like Spencer and I are really into the national parks. We pretty much plan every trip around them. And then once we have MapQuest, Google Maps, ever, like do our route, then from there we'll be like, "Oh, this is close to here, so we'll branch off and do that. Oh, that's close to here, so we'll do this too." But we always know like national parks are like the pillars of our road trip. I feel like some people don't know, especially if national parks are not their thing, like where do I start? How do I put my thoughts together and then plan?

Tyler: Yeah, that's true. It sounds like the solution is finding those big places you want to go, the big national parks, the big destinations, and then just, yeah, like filling in the gaps.

Kati: Yeah, even like big cities, right? Like what cities do you want to visit? Are you going to like plan around that? But I do think that when I first started, it felt daunting to plan any type of trip, whether it was a, like when I first started backpacking, I'm like, "Oh my god, get me a map, like help me." Just in general, the starting of planning. And now I've become a planner because I'm like a neurotic type A perfectionist. Some people are not, I don't know how type B people go on vacation.

Hope: They usually have a type A person planed, I think.

Tyler: Yeah, there a couple more questions before I wrap up here. If somebody wanted to pursue a travel lifestyle similar to yours but is in a completely different career, um, what is one thing they could start doing today to get them there? And the reason I asked that, because it, it does, it sounds kind of silly, someone to completely change their career to pursue travel. But we had an episode four, um, Jeff, he was a CPA for eight years, decided he wanted to travel and got his class a trucker license and loves it and just did this complete, yeah, did a complete 180 with his career, but loves what he's doing. He's having a blast. He's been to all 48 states in the continental United States. And, yes, you never know what people want to, if they're going to take a drastic change in their career.

Kati: Yeah, no, that's awesome. Yeah, I guess so if you want to teach, it's different for every state. Um, in New York, it's one of the harder states to be a teacher in. You have to have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree. Um, you can start teaching with just your Bachelor's as long as your Bachelor's is in education and you're a certified teacher. So, like, I had to do my entire Bachelor's and then take three tests and do a project. And then I was initially certified in New York state, and then I had to start my master's before I could be professionally certified in New York state. So, that's how New York works. So, there's a lot of schooling involved in teaching, which is funny because for a master's degree, you don't make enough money to be master's degree required. Um, but then you go to other places, and that's not a requirement. My, my, um, my stepbrother lives in Florida, and he did his undergrad in like sports management, and he is teaching right now. He just had to take a test, bachelor's degree, and a test, and then he can teach. And he has all the same perks, the health insurance, the time off, all that stuff. It's just different based on where you live. Interesting. Yeah. So, okay. So, if someone has their bachelor's degree, depending on their state, they could just take study up and take a test, and they could be on their way teaching.

Tyler: Yeah? I Didn't know that.

Kati: Yeah. I know like some states are, are a little more stickler about it than others like New York, California, Ohio, of all places are very like bachelor's Masters must be certified, uh, but then other states, not so much. Florida, you just have to have a bachelor's degree. You take your test. Um, then you're, you're in that school system. That's what my stepbrother had to do. And he's doing it.

Tyler: Have there been any YouTube influences or books that have inspired you to travel?

Kati: I, I feel like I got into the travel scene like before I want to say like before the influencer age, but like before the influencer age, it was when people were still using weird filters on their Instagram square photos, you know what I mean? Like so in that sense I, I, I just feel lucky that my parents value travel a different kind of travel than I do. We were like all-inclusive resort people and like go to Florida. But um, since then, I guess there are definitely accounts and books and things that kind of have made me feel more passionate about travel. A kid that I graduated from high school with went to college, was doing whatever, and then he just became a like a YouTuber for travel. He was doing like Southeast Asia, South America. I don't even know what I, his, his name is Steve Yalo, Yalowitz, and that's his like YouTube channel. But his stuff is, he's a fun guy. Like you watch his stuff and you're like, like, wow, he's so happy. Um, he definitely inspires me when I, when I see his stuff posted, different kind of travel than I really do, but it always makes me feel like, all right, I could do a little more. I could be a little crazier, I let loose a little bit. I read a lot of through-hike, so and I think my husband would divorce me if I was like, Hey, we're doing a through-hike. That's our next trip. I just find it so inspiring and it seems like such an incredible way like, you know, the big thing now is slow travel, right? And like can you get any slower travel than a through-hike? I'm not sure unless you lived somewhere, right, for a long period of time. So reading books on on through hikes and through hikers really, really give me a new appreciation for traveling and nature in general.

Tyler: Good stuff. Any titles in particular we can link below?

Kati: Uh, "Through Hiking Will Break Your Heart" by Carrot Quinn is so good. It's like one of the first ones that I read after, you know, the typical "Wild", which is also very good. I'm not saying it's bad. Um, I currently have "Thirst" lined up to read. I have not read it yet. I'm currently reading "Nowhere for Very Long", which is not a through-hiker book, but it is um, an like an outdoorsy influencers book that I'm really enjoying.

Tyler: While our audience is checking out those channels and those books one more time Kati where can they find out more about you?

Kati: You can find me on Instagram at wanderwithKT, um, or you can find me at uh, Expeditioneducationblog.com or Expeditionedu.com both will bring you to the same place.

Tyler: Perfect. And last question part two, you're coming back to talk about the travel tips segment and what are we talking about for that?

Kati: We are talking about a Colorado road trip that you could do in a week's time and you will get all of the national parks in plus I'll give you a couple bonus locations where if you find that you want to be in a place more or less you can add one of these in and enhance your trip.

Tyler: Great. Perfect. All right everybody keep an eye out for that and Kati thanks again.

Kati: Thank you.