In today's video, I have a special treat for you.
I'm interviewing Kevin Martin from the YouTube channel 30 and a Wake Up.
If you want to learn how to be a digital nomad, stick around.
He's got some great tips and tricks for how to get started.
I'm meeting Kevin Martin of 30 and a Wake Up.
He flew out from New York City to start his adventure of being a digital nomad, traveling
to one country every 30 days.
There he is, the man of the hour.
Oh my god, Amber from Story Chasing.
It's like I'm meeting a celebrity.
It's so good to finally meet you.
I'm going to give you a hug.
Nice to meet you.
Good to meet you.
All right, let's go do this.
First order of business, coffee.
I'm going to get a grande flat white with soy.
A venti white chocolate mocha.
Okay, you want whipped cream?
Yeah, please.
This is Kevin's first shoot as a full time travel blogger.
Just quit my job, about two days ago.
So how does it feel to be unemployed?
Feels fabulous, actually.
Little bit scary.
But, in a good way, like the good kind of fear that, you know, that you're taking a
chance to live your best life.
We're over here at the Xeriscape Gardens in Scottsdale, Arizona.
I'm with Kevin.
He's about to set out on his one year travel with Remote Year, and we're gonna find out
a little bit more about him.
Why don't you talk to us about 30 And A Wake Up, why that name?
Yeah, so I was in the military for 20 years.
I did six deployments.
And when a military person is on deployment, they have kind of like a countdown they do
for when they return home.
So if they have 100 days 'til they return home, they'll say, "99 and a wake up."
I wanted to travel slowly and spend more time in each country, so my channel's called 30
And A Wake Up because I'm gonna spend 30 days in a country, and the next day I'm gonna wake
up in another country.
So Kevin, you just quit your job.
Was it like, two days ago?
Yeah, two days ago I quit my job as a corporate lawyer to become a travel vlogger, you know,
like, what could go wrong?
Nothing, that's actually a pretty great adventure.
So you're traveling around the world.
Why don't you talk to us about where you're going and I think I saw a video of you doing
remote year?
Yeah, so I'm actually doing a program called Remote Year, and what Remote Year is is basically
a travel company that takes a bunch of professionals and handles all the logistics of traveling
for them.
So what's the premise around moving every 30 days?
What are you actually gonna do for 30 days in each country?
I like to travel a little bit different than most people.
I like to go beyond the touristy things.
So I plan on just absorbing as much of the culture in each of the places that I go as
I possibly can.
Why would you decide to do something like Remote Year versus just booking all the travel
yourself and figuring out what countries you want to go to?
So like I said, I quit my job as a corporate lawyer to become a travel vlogger.
And what I really liked about Remote Year was they handle all the logistic side of traveling,
and I can just focus 100% on travel vlogging and experiencing the different cultures and
everything without having to worry about logistical side of traveling.
Basically what remote year does for you is they book all the flights, they book all the
lodging, you get a pass to a coworking space, they handle anything that comes up while you're
traveling.
All I have to do is focus on being a travel vlogger.
And that's kind of what I wanted to do for my first year.
So after Remote Year I plan on continuing to travel and doing all that stuff myself
but while I'm building this channel in the very beginning I like the idea of having someone
handle all the logistics for me.
So what's your first country you're going to?
So the first place we're starting off at is Lima, Peru.
And then we're gonna head over to Santiago, Chile.
And then we're heading to Medellín, Columbia.
And then to Mexico City, Mexico, and then we're gonna shoot over to Southeast Asia.
We're gonna go to Hanoi, Vietnam, Kyoto, Japan, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
And then we're gonna shoot over to Europe to Split, Croatia, Valencia, Spain, Lisbon,
Portugal, and then we'll head down to South Africa, Cape Town.
Basically four continents over a 12 month period and 12 different cities and different
countries.
Dude, that sounds pretty cool.
Are you excited?
I know, it's ... super excited.
I didn't mention this before but another reason I chose Remote Year was because it's going
to go to cities that I might not have went to on my own.
So it kinda gets me out of my comfort zone a little bit and I'm excited about that.
And also, I'm a little bit of an introvert.
I know you probably can't tell, but I am.
And basically you travel and work with a group of people, so I'll meet people that are into
a similar lifestyle more easily than I would if I just would have started traveling on
my own.
So, in Remote Year, do they actually have a space for you to work in the apartment that
you'll be in, or how does that work?
Every apartment that they book will definitely have internet speed where you can work in
the apartment.
But unlike me, most people that travel with Remote Year have jobs, they've just talked
their employer into allowing them to do it remotely, so they need to have a space they
can work.
So in each city, Remote Year has coworking spaces, and those coworking spaces have high
speed internet, they have conference rooms, so professionals can continue their career,
they're just doing it remotely.
What kind of camera is that?
This is the Sony A6500 and I have the Sony Zeiss 16-70mm lens on it right now.
Why did you opt to go with that particular camera?
I wanted the best camera I could get that was small and compact and the A6500 just seemed
to fit that bill.
Most travel vloggers have the Joby Gorillapod, but I have a gimbal that I like to travel
with, and so having another big thing to lug around didn't seem very feasible for me.
So I went with this Bendy tripod 'cause I can just fold it up into a really small size.
Oh, that's pretty sweet.
Yeah.
It acts very similar to a Joby Gorillapod, you know, you can do the hole Casey Neistat
thing with it, still.
I'm like amazed by these cactuses.
I thought this was, like, only something that was in Bugs Bunny cartoons.
So Kevin, you said you were in the military for 20 years?
Yeah.
And you were also an attorney.
Kind of a weird transition.
I spent 20 years in the military, mostly in human resources.
I'm a retired Navy command master chief, an E9.
After I retired, I kind of wanted to reinvent myself and do something different so I decided
to go to law school.
I joined the military straight out of high school and it was always kind of some unfinished
business for me.
I got my undergraduate a piece at a time going to mostly online universities, and I always
wanted to have a real university experience, and so when I retired from the military in
2015 I decided to go to law school.
I was fortunate enough to get into a pretty good law school, Georgetown.
And then I went to a big law firm as a corporate lawyer.
And where was that law firm at?
That law firm was in New York City.
That's like, a pretty amazing place to live.
How did you like it there?
Yeah, I loved New York City, it was great.
That was one of the catalysts that lead me to quitting my job as a corporate lawyer and
becoming a travel vlogger.
Is when you're a corporate lawyer, even though I was at a great firm, with great people,
you work long, long hours.
And one day someone asked me, "How do you like New York?"
And I said, "I don't know.
I just see it from my window at my office."
And so that was kind of the catalyst to me deciding that I wanted to do something different.
I also had a little bit of a health scare, found out I had a little bit of skin cancer.
Luckily it was curable really easy, that's how I got this little scar right here.
They went in and chopped out some basal cell skin cancer.
It was nothing serious, but it kind of made me realize that you only live once, life is
short, and go out and do what makes you happy.
And traveling makes me happy.
I was trying to figure out what job I could do traveling, and I'm like, well, I watch
all these travel vloggers like Story Chasing and Beer for Breakfast and Remote Darren,
and a bazillion others.
And so I figured, I can do that.
And so here I am.
What's great about this Hero7 is it has the stabilization, so you don't really have to
do a whole lot.
The Sonoran Desert Preserve is so beautiful out here.
It's one of the things that I love about being able to travel around North America is to
see all of the different topography.
So there's just different kinds of cactuses everywhere.
Got your jumping cactus, your saguaro cactus, your regular cactus, I don't know what that
is, all kind of cactuses.
But it is beautiful.
And in the very beginning, I really did not appreciate the desert very much.
But now I've come to really love it and enjoy what it has to offer.
And the sunsets in Arizona, they're pretty amazing.
Kevin, what do you think about the desert?
I'm actually amazed, it's like beautiful.
I'm very surprised, I didn't realize Arizona would be this beautiful.
We just saw some road runners, and obviously we got these cartoon-sized cactuses.
So I kind of feel like I'm like, a Looney Tunes cartoon.
Kinda feels that way.
In a way.
Like a real life one.
It's pretty cool.
And this is definitely a place I'm adding to my list.
Does this kind of get you pumped for your travel now?
Yeah, it does.
If this is any indication of what's to come I'm exactly where I want to be.
Hey, so Kevin, on my channel I have a lot of people who are still in the research phase
of traveling full time.
Do you have any advice or tips that you want to give them to newbie travelers?
Yeah.
I mean, I'm new, so I'm kind of the perfect person to ask.
I have a couple tips.
My first one is, find a travel point system that works for you and start building up travel
points with your regular spend.
I'm a very anti-debt person so at first I was a little apprehensive about getting a
credit card.
But then I realized you could get so many travel perks by getting one of the travel
system credit cards.
And so my recommendation to people would be to find a travel point system that works for
you, and start building points with the normal amount of money that you spend.
Obviously I'm not advocating debt at all.
Every time I charge something on my credit card, I pay it off that night.
I never carry any kind of balance.
I've been amazed with how many credit card points I've been able to build up just with
my normal spend, when I buy food, or when I go to a restaurant.
Every time I spend money doing those things I would normally do, I'm building up points.
In this last year I've been able to travel completely for free, like, my first spot for
Remote Year is Lima, Peru, and you have to pay for your ticket to the first spot.
Well, mine was free, it was just credit card points.
That's amazing that you can do that 'cause you really don't have to change your spending
habits.
No.
You just put it on the credit card, it gives you the reward points, so you're not going
out and spending a bunch of money just to get reward points.
So Kevin, I know one of the things about traveling full time is starting to downsize.
Can you give my viewers some tips on how they can actually start downsizing and minimalize
their life?
Whether they're going to RV or travel the world by air.
Yeah.
So like, minimalism is a big part of my life right now, and it's one of the reasons that
I'm able to travel full time.
My advice would be to start living like you would if you were traveling full time.
In order to do that you just need to scale down the stuff you have.
I just started getting rid of stuff.
And it was hard at first, 'cause I had a lot of sentimental attachments to things, but
the pictures you have, scan them, and have them digitally.
Maybe some of the keepsakes that you have that have been in a closet for five years
and you're like, "At some point I'm gonna put this on my wall," but you never do, take
a picture of that.
You can always go back and look at the picture.
I got rid of pretty much everything so I could live like I would when I would be traveling
full time.
And this does two things.
Number one, it prepares you for full time travel.
But another thing it does is it helps you save money because you quit buying stuff.
Once you stop buying stuff, you'll be shocked by how much money you can save.
I was spending so much money on silly stuff on Amazon and all kinds of other places, just
to spend money.
I don't even know why.
And I was accumulating stuff, my drawers were filling up, and once I adopted minimalism
I realized that I only wear a few shirts.
I only wear a few pair of my favorite jeans.
And I just scaled down to that stuff.
And it actually made me a lot happier 'cause now I can wear this shirt I really like, you
know, multiple times a week and not feel silly about it.
Right.
And you're not spending so much money.
That's one of the things, is saving your money, getting out of debt.
So starting to minimalize your life and being able to save that money that you're always
spending on Amazon or decorating your house.
That will go a long ways to helping you save money for full time travel.
Plus, again like I said, you have to minimalize your life if you want to travel full time.
I'm talking about full time travel, I'm not talking about a vacation.
I'm talking about living out of a backpack for, you know, for me hopefully the rest of
my life.
Right.
I would love to travel full time forever.
I've seen your video on how you're packing your bags to go on full time travel.
I am actually in awe and totally inspired by you and what you're doing.
He's bringing, what, one suitcase?
It's a backpack, right?
Yeah, I'm bringing one backpack.
I have a 30 liter Osprey backpack and an over the shoulder satchel.
That's amazing.
So you're carrying one backpack with your equipment, basically, and another pack, right?
Yeah, all my vlogging equipment.
Okay.
Which takes up a majority of the backpack.
So I had to be really strategic about the clothes that I selected.
If you watch my channel, you'll know that I'm a huge advocate of merino wool.
Definitely go subscribe.
He's got merino wool reviews.
I was, another shocking video for me was to see what great benefits come from wearing
merino wool and how you really don't have to pack many clothes if you have merino wool
clothes.
Yeah, I mean, the great thing about merino wool, I don't want to bore your audience too
much, but it, you don't have to wash it as often because it's antimicrobial.
You can wear it for an extended period of time.
The founder of one of the companies, Unbound Merino, he wore his shirt for like 30 straight
days and like, had a smell test where his girlfriend smelled it at the end.
You can wear it more times than you would a cotton shirt, and it won't smell or anything
like that.
So when you've worn yours for like 30 days, are you gonna have someone do the smell test?
If I can find somebody, like, willing to do that.
I'm sure you could.
Maybe I will.
Maybe I'll do that.
If you want me to do a video where I wear all my merino stuff, and that includes underwear,
I have merino wool underwear as well.
If you want a video of me wearing it for an extended period of time and then trying to
figure out someone that'll do a smell test, just comment below in Amber's video that that's
what you want to see.
Yeah, but if you actually get some merino wool, they're a little bit more expensive
but they last longer.
You'll be able to pack less.
I actually like that for people who are traveling in RVs too, especially us van lifers because
there's not a lot of space in the vans to keep your clothes.
Yeah.
And I end up having to roll mine up and put them in the cabinets and although I could
probably downsize my wardrobe, it's really nice to be able to have something like that
where you don't have to wash it as much, takes up less space because you don't have to have
as many clothes.
Yeah, I mean, space is a commodity.
Yeah.
When you're traveling full time.
Whether it's in a van, or like me where you have a 30 liter Osprey bag.
What kind of coffee are you drinking there, Kevin?
This is kind of embarrassing because I was a command master chief in the US Navy.
We're kind of famous for drinking black nasty thick coffee.
I like froufrou coffee and I'm not ashamed to admit it.
So this is a white chocolate mocha.
What are you gonna do when you're in Thailand trying to drink froufrou coffee?
Do they have froufrou coffee there?
They absolutely do.
Especially in Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai has like ... Chiang Mai's coffee culture actually rivals Seattle's coffee culture.
Oh, wow.
It has an amazing coffee culture.
And Thai coffee is actually a really cool thing to drink, too.
In my time with getting to know Kevin, not only did I find out that he loves his froufrou
coffee drinks, but he also loves Mexican food.
We literally went to three different Mexican food restaurants in 24 hours.
He's a big huge chips and salsa fan, just like me.
I genuinely love Mexican food, but let me tell you, Kevin gave me a run for my money
with the amount of times that we ate Mexican food.
He was in heaven because he didn't have it that much in New York City, and Arizona, as
you know, has amazing Mexican food.
Hello.
How's it going?
Did you film me filming myself?
I did.
Think I'm gonna take this van with me.
If they'll let me bring it on the flight.
All the way to Lima, Peru?
This would be great to ride up to Machu Picchu.
Oh, good.
Maybe I'll meet you down there.
Yeah.
So thanks for having me, Amber, and showing me around Scottsdale, Arizona, and doing an
interview with me.
Hopefully some of your subscribers will come over to my channel and follow my adventure,
30 and A Wake Up.
Absolutely.
Everybody subscribe.
Subscribe below.
Like this video if you enjoyed me, and even if you didn't enjoy me, if you enjoyed Amber
you can also like video.
For sure.
You have safe travels!
I will!
I'm so excited to hear more from you.
I'm sure you guys loved this video.
Make sure you go over to Kevin's channel at 30 and A Wake Up.
I'll put his channel name in the description box and in the pinned comment so you can go
sub to his channel.
Have fun.
Bye!
Get out of here.