Unknown: Je m'appelle Kesi. J'habite à Rennes. Je... J'adore la...
Oh I forget how to say food. My journey to become a travel
blogger was born just out of the fact that I love travel. In
2013 that's when I made the decision that I wanted to travel
around the world. But that one year turned into two years,
three years it became a full lifestyle. I'm finally a digital
nomad. I'm going to own that title now. My name is Kesi
Irvin. I'm 31 years old. I'm from New Jersey, but I currently
live in Rennes France and I live on $53 a day here.
Before moving to Rennes, I had no idea where it was. I didn't know
anything about it. But if you're curious Rennes is in Brittany,
France, which is a region it's in the northwest kind of close
to England.
When I was little, I always was that person who excelled at
everything that I did in school, I had straight A's the entire
time I had leadership positions. So I kind of was always on this
mind trap that I want to get a really high paying job and kind
of follow what my parents did. They worked in New York City
worked on Wall Street, and I had my first internship at 16 at
Morgan Stanley. So I just always assumed that I was going to be
that wall street girl.
I made a plan that I would take a one year career break. So I
saved up money for two years, I was saving $1,000 a month with
the goal of having $27,000 to travel around the world for one
year. After three or four years of constant traveling around the
world, I knew I was missing something to work on. Like I
want to use my brain somehow. And that's when I decided to
turn my travel blog from a hobby into more of a business and I
made my first investment which was a $500 blogging course. And
then once I finally invested money in myself, that's how I
knew I was good take blogging seriously. The reason I have
moved home in France is because I follow my boyfriend. That's
the really nice thing about being a travel blogger I have
the flexibility to just pick up and relocate to a new place.
Living in France is cheaper than living in New York City. For me,
it's kind of funny, because since I've been travelling, I've
really been living on a budget around $10,000 per year. So
France is considered expensive for me. Initially, I was scared
to move to France because of the money issues. But once I set out
my budget, I know I could spend $1600 a month and I can
definitely live a comfortable life here. Welcome to my new
home. As a travel blogger, there's different ways to make
income. One of my main ways is through brand collaborations and
they're usually paying me through either bank transfer or
my paypal business account. If I do a brand collaboration, it
could be anywhere from 300 to $2,000. Depending on how much
work and editing I need to do. Other streams of income are
group trips where I host people they follow the fro somewhere so
when I host these trips, I'll get a commission for organizing
it. I spent about $323 on travel per month, and about $150 on
entertainment like parties and etc. For example, I was just in
Paris this past weekend and I went to a concert the ticket
costs $55 and drinks at the bar cost around $10 for a beer. My
budget for eating out and groceries run about $609 per
month which is nice I split my groceries with my boyfriend's
that probably keeps that costs a little bit lower. My phone plan,
I actually still use my us number. Hey Dad! How are you? And that's because as a
travel blogger, I still am constantly traveling even though
my home base is France since I'm going to be in different countries
throughout the year. It's much easier just to stick to my us
phone plan which I love. I use Google fee, I highly recommend it
for any digital nomads because you get unlimited internet
access unlimited data. I'm renting a room with my boyfriend
and we pay 700 euros whereas in Budapest we were only spending
around 600 euros for a full apartment with no roommates in
the center of the city. Rennes is a big student city. They have
60,000 students here. So in September, everyone's coming in
and they're all looking for apartments. So it's quite
difficult to find. The way I found a place was I went on
Airbnb saw their apartment, which we are in now. And yeah, I
just asked if it was okay to rent long term. So I'm uninsured
right now, I most likely will go with Safetywing which is a nomad
insurance. And that's because I still do travel quite a bit to
Safetywing. It's $40 per month, and it will cover me while I'm
in France. I am going to apply for the long stay visa in France
with this visa there is a financial requirement so I need
to have 65 euros per day for 365 days there's a lot of documents
I'm going to need to show which includes scanned copies of
passports, birth certificate statement letters for your
purpose of stay, a scanned copy of medical insurance card
accommodation either Airbnb booked or a letter from a host
where you're going to stay, three months of your most recent
checking account, free months of your most recent savings account
credit card statements proving your credit limit and the visa
cost 100 euros.
One thing I like about Rennes is, it has a smaller city feel like
I don't feel overwhelmed. So typical day I'll wake up, grab a
tea, I'll either have breakfast in my apartment, or maybe I'll
take my bike, I'm trying to do some work on my laptop and a
cafe in the afternoon. Hopefully I'm doing some work. That's what
I should be doing, sending emails to clients creating a pitch deck
working on a group trip that I have, because I'm running group
trips to Antarctica and Uganda, there's like a million things I
always have to do. So figuring out what to prioritize for that
day. And then by the evening, it's really important for my
boyfriend and I to share a meal together. So I'm usually the one
that cooks, he's usually the one that cleans, so I'll cook a meal in
the evening.
I studied French for seven years growing up. But my French is
minimal because I am that stereotypical American that only
knows English. One of the things that I struggle the most about
living in France is that french people work on their own hours,
stores are only open for like a couple hours. They can be open
from 11 to two and then like seven to 10. So I think I'm just
trying to get used to the time schedules. It's very different
from American standards. Now, I've been out of the US for six
years. I don't really see myself living there again, or even
raising a family. I don't think I will stay in France. But you
never know. I never thought I would live in France in the
first place. I might end up really loving my time here. I'm
open like just give me a globe I'll spin it. And I'm like okay,
I'll live there. I'm down for random adventures like that.