Weeeeee’re baaaaaaaaack!
We’ve done a whole lot of stuff since our last episode in 2019. In this episode, we go over what we’ve been up to and what our wish list of travel destinations for 2023 is.
Also, we have big plans for 2023 with regards to The Jetsetting Family. We’ll be putting out new content consistently across our podcast blog, and social media every week and we look forward to helping you travel more together!
Check us out on: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok
Episode Transcript
Rod: Welcome to the Jetsetting Family Travel Podcast. My name is Rod. And I’m Jess. And after 1,229 days we are back. We are so excited to be back with you guys. It seems like it’s been forever. Because well, it kinda has. We have the biggest smiles on our faces right now. I don’t know if you can tell through the microphone, but last time that we chatted was back in August of 2019, and that was our season finale for season two, all about Costa Rica, and it’s been three years since then.
Many of you thought we probably disappeared off the face of the earth, but it was still a pretty hectic, hectic time that we’d love to give you a quick recap of, and really get you to the point of getting caught up in knowing what we have now that it’s 2023, what we’ve got coming up, what are some of our thoughts on travel and all of that good stuff.
Jessica: I guess since being here on the podcast, we did visit a ton of places since we last spoke. We had planned on releasing a 2020 podcast back then, but life changed quickly. So, between August 27th, 2019 and now we visited a ton of countries. Should I name them really quick? Ok ready?
Canada, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, England, Scotland, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Jordan, Oman, Dubai UAE. South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Bahamas, St. Kitts and Nevis, Colombia, and Iceland.
Rod: So, while Jess catches her breath doing that, I’ll give you the general rundown of what happened.
After Costa Rica, it was all about a cruise through Alaska. Eventually we flew to Europe, did a whirlwind tour of Europe. From Europe, we cruised across the Suez Canal into Dubai, which then took us to Asia. Then down to Australia and New Zealand to start 2020. And then something called the pandemic started hitting and we probably have some more detailed thoughts on what happened there.
Jessica: Ooh, that was a crazy story, guys. But from there we ended up scrambling to figure out what are we going to do, because obviously we didn’t have a home base and COVID made travel really hard, so we had to find a plan and we moved in with my parents, which is really ironic cause I feel like when we set off as The Jetsetting Family, my parents one weren’t thrilled.
And I think my dad’s biggest fear is we were going to fail and end up moving home. And so, it’s kind of funny because we succeeded. We were making great money at the time, but we still ended up moving home and had to crash with them for a bit until we could figure out what was happening. We thought we were going to stay with them during the quick, you know, quarantine for two or three weeks and move on.
It ended up turning into about five months before we decided, okay, this might last forever. We need to find a home base. So, we moved to the beautiful state of Florida!
Rod: So, this is what, mid 2020? Our kids at that point were five and eight. And during our travels they were total troopers.
I mean, highly adaptable, super resilient. As long as they were with us then, you know, they were happy. We could tell towards the end of our travel. So, they were starting to miss just being around familiar faces with friends and family. One of the things that we really wanted was to find a community that, allowed them to just widen their roots, build new friendships, be close to us and be able to run around outside and spend time as kids instead of packing up bags, going on flights and all of that stuff.
Jessica: So, we, searched. Everywhere. Pretty much in the world. I had been asking on Instagram: where’s a community that’s like the eighties where kids ride their bikes, they knock on doors. It’s really safe and the kids can have a lot of freedom and one community in particular had come up several times so I decided to start reach searching it. And Rod and I flew out in July of 2020, all masked up. A little nervous. And instantly, I think within 30 minutes Rod was like, we need to move here.
So, the community is called Nocatee, it is near Jacksonville, Florida, and it honestly checked every box we were looking for. Our kids do exactly that. It’s like the old days. They play outside and come home when the sun sets, sometimes, not even when the sun sets. It’s a golf cart community, which is really cool. We can golf cart to grocery stores. There’s a pediatrician. There’s schools everywhere.
Rod: Yeah. And we haven’t mentioned them. There’s two like full on water parks.
Jessica: I know. Huge. I mean, I’m talking tube slides, mat slides, giant lazy river. There’s so much to do and it honestly feels like living at a resort. We feel really blessed. We’re only 15 minutes from the beach.
We’re about an hour and a half from Disney. We’re close to Port Canaveral, which for our family who cruises a lot was really important. And the kids absolutely love it. I think the only downfall of Nocatee which is me being crazy, is that our kids don’t wanna leave. So now when we travel, they’re like, oh man, but we wanna be home.
And then they used to get so excited with hotel water parks and now they’re like, but the waterpark at home is better. And I have my friends there, so it’s gotten a little harder to get them excited for trips. But I feel like that’s a blessing. We live in a place they absolutely adore and last year we got to swim on Christmas Day, so we love warm weather that we have year-round.
Rod: Yeah. So since really mid 2020 through, I’d say the end of 2022, we’ve just been in this rhythm. We had pivoted. A lot of the jobs that we had as the Jetsetting Family in 2020. We were flying pretty high at the beginning of the year, but we had a lot of cancellations, you know, since the pandemic basically canceled worldwide travel.
All of the opportunities that we had disappeared. So, we ended up pivoting. I ended up jumping into the startup world. Jess, continued to provide tips and inspiration on Instagram, and kind of keeping our brand and our company afloat during that time up until we could see that uptick and travel, which thankfully we have seen now through the end of 2022 and 2023 is looking great.
I’d say midway through 2022, that’s when we decided we’re going to dive deep into the Jetsetting Family again, I left my job at the time and we’ve been planning for a massive, massive year.
Jessica: Yes, it’s exciting. I feel like for me, Rod went on and got a job and, and for me, I think. When to the beginning of 2020, I feel like Rod and I had built the Jetsetting Family since 2018, so it’d been like two and a half years, two and a half years building it.
And guys, 2020 was going to be a big year for us. We had a lot of big contracts signed up. We had our year planned out. It was going to be the fruit of all our labor was paying off. We had this epic thing planned and when it all got canceled, I won’t even lie, I went into a depression of, I don’t even want to do anything.
I regret it now because I see people really use that time to build their TikTok. They built their Instagram, their blogs, whatever it may be. I think I was just so sad that everything crumbled that I was just like, I want, I just, I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t do it. It was, it was hard. And then I was almost resentful of our house at first, because to me, a house means roots.
It’s like I can’t travel anymore. I’ve lost the full-time ability. But after… It’s been two years I’ve grown to love our home. I’ve grown to find an excitement again because we can travel again. And so, while I regret not wasting those two years, but kind of taking a huge step back, I feel like now I have this new enthusiasm and energy just to rock 2023.
And like Rod said, the end of 2022, when Rod quit his job, we started working together on the Jetsetting Family. And I feel like throughout all of our time doing the Jetsetting Family, we have always posted in the moment. And we’ve been like little hamsters on this rabbit wheel just trying to churn content, get it out quickly, and we finally decided that now that we have a home base, the kids are in school, we have more time. We wanna actually strategize and have a plan. So, 2022 is the last quarter of it. At least. We’ve been working on putting out a lot of content so that 2023 can be epic, but also be planned and strategic and not just as the wind blows us.
Rod: I mean, I still have vivid memories of recording this podcast while on the road. I think we filmed our first episode in a closet, literal closet in Hawaii, because that was the quietest part of the house. And, since then, now we’re here and we’ve got our defined little area.
I think we’re ready now to just operate more as a, kind of like a media company, right? Media companies are there to support, to provide information, to help out, our listeners, our readers, and provide the resources that are helping people travel more together. Because as we’ve seen in the pandemic, not being able to travel.
Now things are opening back up and everything’s getting way more open. There’s still a lot of amazing places to see and a lot of places that we want to see. We want to be able to cover and provide the right level of tips and reviews and guides for you, whether that’s through our blog, whether that’s through a podcast or any other kind of forms of media for you to have what you need to make informed decisions about your next trip.
Jessica: Yeah, so for the podcast this year, we’re excited to feature new destinations, feature destinations we went to and didn’t cover yet. The repositioning cruise is definitely an episode I’m excited to share about, because that was epic, that went from Rome to Dubai and was one of our most amazing experiences we did since the last season.
And we’re also excited to share more for what’s to come in 2023 and kind of what our big plans are.
Rod: Yeah. So, starting with some of our bucket list destinations. I think when Jess read out that massive list of the countries that we’ve been to, we’ve hit close to 50, in the past five years, but there’s still some that we had set our sights.
And for a while just haven’t been able to get to one. And really the top that I’d say in my list and in our 10-year-old son Santi’s list has been Japan. And we, I felt like we’ve been so close but also so far away, especially during the pandemic when the entire country went into lockdown and it was very difficult to go and visit.
We had friends that lived there at the time, so we were living vicariously through them. But I think now that, Japan has reopened, we’re ready to commit to plan a trip over there. Our son, ever since he was maybe like three years old, he’s learned of this thing called like the Pikachu Parade. It’s an annual event, happens in August every year where a ton of Pikachus just parade down the road.
And he’s been just enthralled by this idea of being able to see all of these, dancing and marching Pikachus and, I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see if we make it this year, if not, another time. But that’s definitely near the top of our list.
Jessica: The Maldives is a trip that has been at the top of my list for a long time.
We would actually love to head back to Dubai. We spent some time there. There is so much to do in Dubai. I think even if you had two weeks there, it just feels rushed. So, hoping to do a Dubai Maldives trip. And for me, another huge one that’s top of my list in that which maybe would be easier to get to from that region is an African safari.
Whether we’ll accomplish that in 2023, I’m not sure, but it’ll stay on our list until we do.
Rod: Another on our list, which is kind of weird to say because we are relatively close to it is New York City. I’ve been to New York City one time for one day in my entire life. This was back in college and that one day I still have fond memories just because New York City feels like such a, like a concrete jungle as they say.
So much to do there, and overwhelming amounts. And you see it on TV, on movies all the time. So, I think now that the kids are a little bit older, we can, you know, have plans to walk around the city. Maybe in the summertime we’ll see and if not then during a holiday, but going to check out New York City, seeing the Statue of Liberty, just popping into places here and there is definitely on our sights.
Jessica: Then the other top one on our list is to head to Scandinavia. We would love to see so many of the countries there. That region is a lot more expensive than some of the places we visited, so we are trying to find ways to make it a little bit more friendly on the budget. whether that’s doing it through a cruise, or a road trip, we’re not quite sure as much as we love cruises.
I think in that region we’d love to hike and have time to really dive deep, which. Cruises are great. I always say they’re a great tester of a location, but it’s a lot harder. You don’t have a full day to like go on a three-day hike in a mountain. You’re there just for a few hours. So, we’re thinking a road trip through that region, would be truly, truly incredible.
Another one that might be hard this year, but we’re hoping, you know, you gotta set your sights high and make a crazy list and see what you can check off. And then for us for work opportunities, sometimes that’s what happens is we’ll have our bucket list trips set up, but then a, a work opportunity comes up.
And so, if we’re going to get paid to go somewhere versus going broke going somewhere, we usually prioritize those work trips. So maybe, you know, Put it out there. Gotta manifest good things. Maybe someone in Scandinavia wants to offer us a stay.
Rod: Right, right. And another one, it’s not on our list right now, but I’ll bring it up right now.
It’s a place that we wanted to go for a while would be, Bora Bora, Fiji, and Tahiti. I think, when we were traveling in Southeast Asia, every time that we’d be planning a flight, it’s like, okay, but we’re in Thailand. How much are the flights to Fiji or Bora Bora from there? We’re in Australia now. How much can we, you know, can we stop on our way back to the US? And it’s never happened yet
Jessica: In 2020 the plan was to stop there on our way home as like the big finale to our two years of full-time travel. But that was gonna be in April or May, and at that point it became impossible. So, maybe the next episode we’ll tell you are how the last week of our full-time travels came to an end because it was kind of a crazy story.
Rod: Yeah, that was a crazy story. We were, I guess, short teaser. We were living the van life in the South Island of New Zealand, when we started getting, you know, the little hints that things were happening.
But we already know the end of that story. We’re back. We’re still safe. But yeah, that was, that was a pretty crazy time. I’m sure we all have our crazy pandemic stories. If you do, feel free to share them with us. We always love hearing your thoughts.
Jessica: And just to put this out there, this podcast is more of just a recap and a hodgepodge of what’s happening, but the rest of the ones to come will be a little bit more specific on a certain topic.
Rod: Yeah. And I think just in terms of the structure of the podcast, we, I know we’ve had seasons before where we would film, I think it was like 16 or 18 episodes. We’d call that a season. We’d take a break, and then we’d record another season. The reason we did that is because we were on the road and it became so difficult to plan to make sure that we had a quiet space, we had the right equipment that the kids were set up, so that we could record, we can have interviews and guests on the podcast, and that became overwhelming when we were trying to balance that.
Planning the next trip, working on our current collaborations, and making sure that we’re putting out the other content on our social media channels and blog. But now we are so happy to announce that we are moving away from the seasonal model and we’re just gonna be coming to your ears every week.
Jessica: We’re excited! And I honestly have to say, I think what surprised me the most is with the podcast, it’s really hard. I don’t know, to feel like the podcast makes a difference in the sense that we don’t see you. It’s not really an interaction, but I am so grateful, especially this last year. We haven’t even filmed in two years.
Some of the best emails I get are from you guys who listen to the podcast. I feel like they’re, we’ll get emails being like, I listen to this podcast about Mexico and I’m so excited for my trip, or, I don’t know. We’ve gotten emails just saying how much they’ve loved being listeners and guys, that really motivates me and I’m just really grateful for all of you who have emailed in the past because I feel like, like I said, with the podcast, I’m just talking to either a wall or to Rod . I forget that there’s so many of you out there listening.
Rod: Yeah. Those of you that message us on like, hey, when’s the podcast coming back? You are the reason why we are back. So, we are really grateful for you to be able to join us along this ride. And really, as we’ve mentioned before, we want to help you.
So, whenever you have any questions, Particular trips that you have coming up. We’ve had, you know, people ask us a variety of questions on what should I pack, where should I go to? Is an Airbnb going to be the right call for this trip? Is this area gonna be safe for, me and my kids? And really nothing is out of bounds in terms of what you can ask us.
So always feel free to reach out. We’re on Instagram @thejetsettingfamily, or you can email us: hello(at)thejetsettingfamily.com
Jessica: We also wanted to share what to really expect from us in 2023. I’ve said that 2022 has been a time of behind-the-scenes work. We’ve been using the last three months to really prep and gear up for next year, so 2023.
We want to have a lot more structure. We’ve always kind of just put things out as we did them, but as we’ve been able to kind of create content over the last few months and gear up, we decide to go in with a weekly schedule, right?
Rod: We’ll start off with our podcast. Every Tuesday that’s when we’re aiming to release a new podcast episode.
We’ve got a bunch of awesome topics that are kind of formed from our travels and also having guests on the show. To give you some examples, we’ve had I’d say maybe 60 plus days of cruising. We’ve done Alaska, the Caribbean, we’ve done European cruises. We have a lot of tips and we definitely want to have an episode centered on that.
We want to have a deep dive on the time that we spent in Italy. We spent about six weeks there, so across a variety of different cities in Italy. We did a whirlwind trip via train across Europe in 30 days that we worked with Eurail on. And we have a lot of thoughts on that.
Jessica: I’d also love to cover that we recently went to Club Med.
They had like a totally different vibe than some of the other hotels we stayed at, so that’d be fun. And then a packing tips episode is great. I feel like we’ve come a long way with how we pack and different things we use. So, to share those with you guys. And of course, interviews with other travel families, we thought it’d be fun to bring back past guests but also interview some of the newer families that are out there doing amazing things.
Rod: So always reach out if you have something to share. If you want to be a guest on our show, then let us know. We are going to be going weekly.
Jessica: So yes, I think I want to, I just thought of this now.
New thing for you. Add it to your list, babe. Maybe have a podcast guest little box you can fill out on our website to like, just go to our website and fill that out. We, I know in the past we’ve gotten a ton of requests, so we can’t always accommodate everyone, but it is fun to have guests come on.
Yeah, for sure. We also plan to release new blog posts every Monday and Wednesday, so that’s something new and exciting. We’ve always just kind of released them as we go, but now we have a schedule. So, every Monday and Wednesday, especially if you follow us on Instagram, that’s where mostly I’ll be sharing swipe up links, or click, I guess it’s click here is the new thing.
Rod: Yeah, the types of content that you can look for on our blog. I mean, we’ve got reviews of different hotels or travel products. We’ve got guides on countries or locations that we visited in the past in terms of family travel, tips and tricks. Really giving you what are, you know, what are things to do when you go to a certain location, based on our experiences there.
Or say you have an itinerary that you’re looking to do. I mean, we went to Iceland in 2022, which was the most incredible trip personally for me. That will definitely have a podcast episode on as well. But really just resources for you to help you plan your next trip. That’s what we’re going to be posting on our blog on Mondays and Wednesday.
Jessica: We’re also going to start doing a weekly newsletter that’s going to go out. Some of you might have seen this in the past, it was called the Jet Set Review. This great little newsletter has travel tips, some inspiration. Sometimes we put collaboration tips, and it usually also includes some of the newest blog posts or most relevant blog posts for that season.
So, if you’re someone who don’t get on Instagram very often, that’s also a great way just to know what’s going up on our website without having to check. So yeah, if. Want to have more info on one, what we’re up to or have travel tips, make sure to subscribe to that. You can subscribe by:
Rod: going to our website. There’s a little popup page there that’s going to have you put in your name and email. It’s super easy. Or if not, then just email us hello(at)thejetsettingfamily.com and we’ll put you on our list too.
Jessica: And then we’re going to do ask me anything Fridays. I think that’s always a fun thing because I feel like we so often see people are nervous to ask, but by putting that out there, we open the door and you really can ask us anything.
We’re happy to answer whether it is about home life in Florida, about travel, about places maybe we didn’t love as much, whatever that may be. Those are going to be on Instagram as well. It’s usually just an easy fill in the box, but if Instagram’s not your thing, email us. We are always checking our email.
Rod: Yep. And the last piece here, I guess second to last, is back in 2019, we built a digital course. It was called The Art of the Pitch. It’s about us as content creators sharing what we do when we reach out to brands and what are some of the best practices that have led to us to work with brands like Royal Caribbean, Google, Hilton Hotels, Marriott, tourism boards all across the US. And really, it’s just a kind of self-paced course with a community, that we kind of didn’t market for those three years, especially during the pandemic. Now we’re seeing a lot more opportunity. We are working on making some updates that’s going to freshen up the course. We’re going to be relaunching that in 2023. And we’ve also got a couple of other ideas for courses that we want to, hit.
One of those being photography. Jess you want to talk about that one?
Jessica: Yeah, I think for years I’ve always had the desire to teach photography and more so not to people who are already great photographers trying to improve, but for the everyday mom or dad, the everyday person who just wants to. The course would be called Make It Frameworthy, just to make their pictures a little bit better so that you’re something you’re proud to hang in your home.
I feel like I kind of learned throughout the years, both from friends or being self-taught and just a course that simplifies it. I know technical terms, but it’s not my favorite way to speak. So, I want to break it down and be able to share photography through easy, simple ways that are understandable and that you can quickly learn how to improve your photos over the course of a few.
So, Make It Frameworthy. Another course that’s going to be launched in 2023. I already had a Facebook group years ago where I used to share tips, so we’re going to of kind of feed off of that. And I’ve had the domain name since 2017, I think , because it’s always been on my bucket list. I’m finally making time for it and I’m super excited.
And then lastly, there’s been a big secret project I’ve been working on all year, that I feel like it’s more of a passion project than I’m hoping becomes something bigger. I’m not going to reveal quite yet what it is, but there’s a lot going on behind the scenes with that. And I’m hoping in 2023 I’ll be able to share more, if that launches.
Rod: Oh yeah, we’re super excited about that one. Jess has been absolutely rocking it. And really the reason we’re putting all this out there is really, because you guys have to hold us accountable. We want to hold ourselves accountable to this stuff, and you can help us do that too. Hopefully you’re not, you know, coming up on a Tuesday and there’s no podcast and being like, what the heck?
And this is our way of making sure that we get it done. And also, if you have ideas, we’re always open. We’re part of the travel and family community, so definitely let us know your thoughts. We are super excited to be back on the podcast, to be back operating at full speed and even more with the content that we have produced for this year. So super, super excited.
Jessica: Yeah, so definitely hold us accountable guys at the end of the year. I guess that’s in like 52, 54 weeks-ish. You’ll have to send us an email. You can grade us. How well did we stick to this? But we’re excited. I think this year we always have a word of the year. We have a blog post coming out, detailing more why it’s our word, but our word for this year is consistency, and that’s something we really want to strive for is being consistent and showing up and sticking to our schedule and just knowing this is what we are excited to do. This is what we’re excited to share with you guys, and yeah, we hope you guys stick around for the journey.
Rod: Yeah, I think when we initially set out on this journey in 2018, All we wanted was the freedom and flexibility that came with, being self-employed, building our own business, and finding ways to travel as a family. And now we’ve been through such a roller coaster of not just emotions, but places and work opportunities that we’re still fighting.
We really believe that having flexibility to plan your day, to be able to work for yourself and build something out of nothing is something that really drives us and we’re excited to just really put that to test in 2023 and meet some really ambitious goals for ourselves.
Jessica: I know I’m excited and it’s fun to see the kids watch us try to strive, because I think it teaches them to chase dreams of their own.
Speaking of the kids, this is totally new. Now I’ve passed that segment I just thought of this. I think it’d be fun now that the kids are older for you guys to ask them questions and we’ll have a question and answer with the kids on the podcast. Where you can ask them maybe what their favorite countries were, what they liked about full-time travel, what they like about home.
But yeah. Eventually I think we should have a question box for the kids and maybe we’ll see if Santi and Nora will sit through a podcast so that you can get a perspective from them. I mean, yeah, we always kind of. Give you what we think they think. I’m a little nervous to see what they actually say.
Rod: Yeah. Santi has been on the podcast before. I think he was giving some fun facts about locations that we went and visited. Now that he’s 10, our younger daughter, Nora, she’s seven and they, they have thoughts, they have full on opinions about places, and now I think it would be fun. To have them on and get their thoughts from the kids’ perspective because you know, you really hear it from what we think, but they’re, what they go through is much different I bet. Than what we think and do on a daily basis.
Jessica: No, I think that would be awesome. But, well, we thank you guys for being here. We thank you for listening. We hope that by joining this community, you always feel comfortable to reach out to us. With whatever it may be, whether it’s a question or a suggestion.
And yeah, we’re excited for the year to come and to have so much to share with all of you and to hopefully get to know everyone a little bit better in this travel community.
Rod and Jess: So until next time, Happy Jetsetting!
