Matt Bowles: On this episode, the tables are turned and I’m the one being interviewed by Brittany Braddock of the Manifest Travel podcast. Brittany is a dear friend of mine and for this conversation we are in person, literally sitting on the couch in her living room. This originally aired on her podcast, Manifest Travel. It was a fun conversation, and she asked me some questions I’ve never been asked before on a podcast. So, I think you’re really going to enjoy it. And if you do like Brittany’s interview style, I encourage you to subscribe to her show, Manifest Travel. It’s one of the travel podcasts that I listen to consistently because she’s a very thoughtful host. She herself is a queer traveler, so she has a number of episodes that center queer travel experiences. But in general, she finds interesting people and asks substantive questions about travel. You’ll recognize a few of her guests because they’ve been on The Maverick Show. She’s interviewed people like Dianni Hall and Nora Dunn, but the super majority of her guests will be totally new for you because they’ve never been on The Maverick Show. So, if you enjoy this conversation, then wherever you’re listening to this episode, just type in Manifest Travel and there you can subscribe to Brittany show as well.

And now, without further ado, please enjoy Brittany Braddock interviewing me on the Manifest Travel podcast.

Brittany Braddock: Welcome, Matt, to the Manifest Travel podcast. I am so honored that you are here today in person for not only my first ever in person interview for the podcast, but also the first recording for season two. So, thank you for being here.

Matt Bowles: Well, I am a huge fan of the Manifest Travel podcast and of you personally, Brittany, so the pleasure is all mine. Super excited to be here in person with you.

Brittany Braddock: So, to kick things off, I want to get your travel origin story and sort of when and how you were introduced to travel and what inspired you to prioritize it in such a major way in your life.

Matt Bowles: So, I’ve gone through different, let’s call it, seasons of life, shall we say? I would say if I think all the way back, I did not do much international travel as a kid growing up, but when I got into college, I had the ability to study abroad and that changed the whole game. So, I got to go to Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland for a year. And while I was there during that year, I was able to take the month of the winter break. And my roommate and I, who didn’t know each other before that trip, but he was also Irish American like me and was studying abroad there, he and I decided let’s take this month and just do a Eurorail trip through Europe.

And we just bought a Eurorail Pass at the time it was like, hop on, hop off across 17 countries. And we just went, and it was just mind blowing. And I think once you do that, it’s never the same as it was before then. So that I think was really pivotal. And then I got into another study abroad semester program after that. So, I was out of my Main University for 20 straight months and people were like, is this guy ever coming back?

And the next study abroad program that I did was a Peace and Conflict resolution semester program that was focused on the Israeli Palestinian conflict and that took place mostly in Washington D.C., but it included a three-week trip to Israel, the West bank, the Gaza Strip and Egypt. And I did that for the following semester. So that was really a significant trip for me, particularly coming off of the Ireland trip, because I didn’t give you the dates yet, but the Ireland trip, my junior year of college was 1997, 98.

And one of the reasons why that year is significant is because that’s the year that in Ireland they negotiated and signed the Good Friday Peace Accords. So, I was there following that process the whole year. I was in Belfast the day that they signed that. And I was really immersed in that. And also, my undergraduate advisor back in the United States, he was Native American, right? So, he was Lakota. So, he and I started doing these comparative works looking at the British colonial processes over the Irish. Ireland was Britain’s first colony, if people aren’t aware of that, and then comparing that to the European colonial processes used over native nations here in the United States.

So, I had this whole framework. And then from that I went to Palestine for the first time. And then that was really clear that that also was a settler colonial conflict. And I was able to really connect and understand what that was. So, all of that background was, I think, setting me up in part for my activist career, I ended up going to do a master’s degree in international peace and conflict resolution and then worked professionally in the nonprofit space for many years. But I think also sort of setting the stage for a later season in life, which would be the digital nomad journey, because there was a pause in there.

After I did my master’s degree, I just lived and worked in the United States all the way up until the age of 30. And I was doing nonprofit advocacy work and things of that in an office every day and so forth. And it wasn’t Until I turned 30, I changed jobs, I moved cities. I unexpectedly got fired from my new job. And then I was like, you know what? I think I need to pivot. And then that’s when some of those travel passions started to come back. Because I thought, what would be the next phase of my life that I’d like to design?

Brittany Braddock: So, what was it about the full-time digital nomad lifestyle in particular that you found so appealing? I mean, as opposed to just a lot of travel from a home base. Cause you’ve been a digital nomad for over 10 years now, so there’s obviously something about it that you really enjoy. So, like, what is that thing? And leading up to that particular transition into this season of your life, was there a moment or an experience that was sort of like, okay, I’m leaving. I just want me in a backpack to travel the world.

Matt Bowles: So, it sorts of happened by accident. I didn’t exactly plan to just become a digital nomad. That wasn’t the plan from the start. I sort of wound up there. And I will give you the backstory. So, when I got fired from my job at age 30, I said, okay, I can either apply for another job, or I can take a completely different route and pivot my life entirely and try to start my own business. And I said, you know what? I think I’m going to do that. And then I said, you know what, there’s one problem. I have no idea how to start a business. I don’t have any background in this. I haven’t started a business; I don’t have any academic background in that. But you know what, I feel like if I really put in the effort, I could probably learn and figure out how to do that.

So, I said, I’m going to go to the bookstore, and I am going to start reading books on how to start a business. This was 2007 and what I would do each day is I would go into the bookstore, and I would just sit there reading books in the business section every day. I didn’t have a job, Brittany. I wasn’t buying the books, I just sat there reading them. If anybody knows LA, this was Barnes and Noble at the Grove in LA. And I would go in every day, and I would read these books. And what I would do first when I would walk in is I would look at the new business book section to see what new business books came out. And one day I walked in, and I looked at that section and there was a brand-new book that had just come out by some 29-year-old kid that no one had ever heard of by the name of Timothy Ferris, and it was called The 4-Hour Workweek.

And I picked it up and I looked at the back and I said, huh, that’s the book I’m reading today. I read that book and that changed my entire perspective on what I was about to do because with that book taught me was that when you’re building a business, don’t just build it based on a business plan for the financial revenue, money making aspect of it. Build it also to create the freedom of mobility for yourself and to build location independence into that. Because mobility is a currency of lifestyle design which is as valuable, if not more valuable than the money that’s required to execute on this lifestyle design.

And I said, wow, this is for sure what I’m going to do. And then of course I continued reading business books and I realized that I probably don’t have most of the skills required to start a business, Brittany. But I knew other people that did. I self-audited and I kind of knew what I was good at, and I knew what I was really not good at. And then I knew other people that were good at those things. And so, I bought two more copies of The 4-Hour Workweek and I mailed them to two friends of mine that I was trying to convince to leave their jobs and come start this business with me.

Because I felt the three of us together could do this. It worked. They did. And we have been running a fully remote real estate brokerage called Maverick Investor Group ever since 2007. Now that does not mean that I was a digital nomad starting in 2007. That just means that I co-founded a fully remote location independent business in 2007. And this here might be an important place to distinguish between location independence and the digital nomad lifestyle. So, location independence means I have the choice where to be based because I’m not required to be based in one particular place. I don’t have geographical restrictions that are imposed upon me by outside sources. I can choose where I want to be and how I want to design my life.

And so, I had that freedom once I founded this location independent company. But the way I chose to exercise it for the first six years of location independence was to be based in Los Angeles. Because I loved LA, and I was in a relationship in LA and my partner, and I were living together in LA and things were great. I had no business purpose in L A, but I loved the city. My other two business partners were in different cities that they chose to be in because that’s where they wanted to be. And my relationship partner was doing her Ph.D. at UCLA in Egyptian history.

So, both of her parents are from Egypt. She’s Egyptian American, born in la and we were living together and one day she came home, and she was like, so I got to go to Cairo for a year to do my dissertation research. And I was like, cool, I’m location independent, I’ll go to Cairo for a year. Let’s do that. And so, then we planned on getting rid of all of our stuff in LA and we started making plans to do that. And we’re like, well, you know, if we’re getting rid of all of our stuff, we don’t need to stay here for the summer. We could go somewhere on the way to Egypt, because pretty much everywhere in the world is cheaper than LA anyways. And we could see another part of the world for three months before we arrived in Cairo.

So, we got rid of all of our stuff and left three months early. And we pulled out a world map and we’re like, where would we most want to spend three months? So, we picked Buenos Aires, Argentina, because that’s on the way to Egypt from LA, isn’t it? You know, close enough. And so, we went to BA for three months and then we went to Cairo for what ended up being about nine months, we were based there.

And at the time planning that, I was only planning to be gone for a year. Like that was the only thing that was on my mind. I wasn’t like, okay, this is the start of 10 years of world travel. No, I was like, okay, we’ll go for a year, we’ll go to BA, we’ll go to Cairo. But then at the end of that year I was like, you know what, you’ve got your dissertation research, you’ve got a year to write this book, you know, your dissertation basically, right? And I can work from anywhere. We don’t need to go back to LA. Why don’t we just pull out a world map again and this time pick the top five places that we would most love to be anywhere in the world and just go rent an Airbnb for like two months or so in each place.

So, we were like, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, South Africa, Barcelona, you know, and we just went around the world. And that ended up being a two-year itinerant nomadic journey where we were staying places for one to two months. And we did that for two years. So, add into that the Egypt and the Buenos Aires legs of that trip. And so, we ended up nomading around the world for a total of three years together as a couple. And then we ended up breaking up in 2016. So, it had been a seven-year relationship at that point, and we ended up breaking up on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea.

Brittany, when we broke up, all of a sudden, I realized I don’t know a single person on the island of Cyprus. I’ve literally just gotten out of a seven-year relationship. I need hugs, I need support, and I don’t have one single person here that I can get that from. So, then I was like, okay, what do I do? I’m in this massive life transitionary moment, just got out of a seven-year relationship. I’m like, okay, what do I do? So, I was like, okay, step one, get off the island of Cyprus. So, I went to the Skyscanner website, which is a travel booking website. But one of the cool features that Skyscanner has, if people haven’t used it, is you put in your departure airport.

So, I was leaving from Nicosia, Cyprus but your destination airport, it allows you to put everywhere. And then what it will do is it will list out what other countries you can fly to in order of least expensive. So, I’m like, from Nicosia, Cyprus, going anywhere? Least expensive flight turned out to be Athens, Greece. I was like, book it, I’m going to the airport tonight. Get on a plane, land in Athens, Greece, check into an Airbnb and then get up the next morning. I’m like, okay, step two, plan the rest of life.

So, I went to a coffee shop, pulled out the laptop and I was like, okay. And I had remembered at that point. So, this was 2016. I remember that someone had told me about this company called Remote Year. And this was a company that was still in their very first year of operations at the point they launched in 2015. And this is a company that designs 12-month long itineraries for remote professionals. And so you go, and it’s a whole bunch of people that can work remotely full time, but nobody knows how to start. You’re all coming together to form an intentional community.

And then Remote Year, the company sets up all of your accommodations, your co working space, access, things to do on the ground in a different city every month for 12 months across four continents. And you travel the world for the whole year with the same community. So, you’re moving together as a community, living in a different place around the world, experiencing the world together for a year. And I was like, this is perfect because nobody knows anybody and we’re all coming together to form a community and to form friendships and it allows me to continue traveling. I was like, this is perfect. So, I did Remote Year for a year and then I just kept on going from there. So that’s how I got into the digital nomad lifestyle.

Brittany Braddock: So, while you’re in Athens, Greece, heartbroken, trying to figure out what to do next, was there ever a moment where you considered not traveling? Were you considered going back to the U.S. Maybe even back to L.A. or where your parents are or whatever and just like calling it quits on travel.

Matt Bowles: If it wasn’t for Remote Year, that was a very high possibility because my top priority at the time was, I needed community urgently. One of the things that I think that I neglected while I was traveling the world with my partner, which was an amazing three years, one of the things that I think I neglected was the building of social community because we had each other, we were there, we’re like doing a whole bunch of work during the day and then we just go out to dinner together, we’d go do this thing on the weekend together.

And I really felt incredibly isolated when I broke up with her because I was like, whoa, I don’t really have a community. So yeah, I was like, that’s my top priority. And maybe I’ll have to move to a city and build a community and connect with people that way because historically, traditionally, like, that’s how you would do it. Right? But then Remote Year just happened at the exact right time. And that created the opportunity for me to have both a community and keep traveling. And that is what really allowed me to do it at the time.

Brittany Braddock: Yeah. So, I’m all about intentional travel. And for me, my biggest intention with travel is for self-development, self-reliance, self-confidence, really getting to know yourself on a deep, authentic level in a way that I think only solo travel can do for a person. So, I’m curious about what your main intentions are with travel. Is it community? Is it your passion for the humanitarian and activism type of work that you do?

Matt Bowles: I think there’s a lot of things that I’m really passionate about when it comes to travel. One of them is just seeing and experiencing really different parts of the world that are very different from where I grew up or the culture that I came from. And you just learn so much about how other people live in these different cultures and see different architecture and you eat different food. And it’s just like this amazing learning experience which just blows my mind every single time. Even more than a decade into this lifestyle, I’m still so enamored and interested and impressed with all of these different things around the world.

And then when you get to connect with people in those places, that is incredibly special to me, being able to connect with local people and just how kind human beings have been to me all over the world in all of these different places. And this is one of the things that gives me so much faith in humanity, shall we say, is just the kindness of people who oftentimes don’t even speak my language, and I don’t speak theirs. And yet they’re willing to go way out of their way to help me and be nice to me and be supportive of me and welcome me into their country and things like that.

And so, I always just have heartwarming experiences with local people in all of these places that are total strangers. They don’t know me, and yet they’re so over the top kind to me. And so that’s amazing for me. And then there is the meeting of other travelers, which I host The Maverick Show podcast. Then I interview other travelers every single week on that show who I think are some of the most fascinating people in the world. And they’re from all different countries, they’re from different places in different cultures, and they also have been to a lot of different places in different cultures.

And those two things overlaid has produced really interesting reflections for them. And experiences for them and insights from them that I’m curious about learning because that might be different from my experience, because I’m from a different place or something, right. In terms of how was my experience there? So, I’m super interested in those different travel lenses and connecting with different travelers to hear their experience and the reflections on things that I learn from the travelers as well as from local folks when I go places.

And then, of course, there’s the personal growth stuff as well, right. Which is going to places oftentimes that are a little bit beyond our comfort level and intentionally putting ourselves in situations where it’s very different and we have to sort of figure it out in places where we are not familiar and we, maybe it’s different languages, maybe it’s really different cultural dynamics. Maybe it’s whatever it is. But putting ourselves in those places, I think creates an opportunity for personal growth at a much more rapid pace than just staying in our super comfortable, familiar surroundings.

And so, I think there’s that but that I think overlays with the learning. What else are we learning here? So, let’s also take this as an opportunity, even in the personal growth category, to learn about the history of this place, right? And then let’s learn, particularly if we’re, let’s say, like me coming from the U.S. as an American citizen, let me also learn about American foreign policy history in this place, right. And what impact that may have had on this place that I’m stepping into and why that’s important for me to be aware of that.

So now, all of a sudden, I’m learning about the world and I’m learning about history. I’m learning about my government’s role in that history, which is oftentimes a really problematic history, which is really important, I think, for Americans to contend with in terms of things that the United States has done all over the world, right. Whether we’re talking about overthrowing democracies and installing dictatorships in South America, or we’re talking about the crimes that the U.S. Government committed in Southeast Asia and the war against Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos or dropping the atomic bomb on Japan or doing any number of these things, then going to these places and really understanding that history. I mean, like, these are the types of things, I think also that travel allows us to do and learn about and then grow as human beings with that deeper understanding of the history and then allowing us to position ourselves today contemporarily in a place where we can be in solidarity with oppressed or vulnerable groups.

Brittany Braddock: Do you feel like your travels sparked your undeniable passion for activism and that sort of thing, or the opposite? And thinking back to like your childhood, were you always just a lover of your fellow humans and super curious and open minded in that way? You know, did your parents, what was their influence on how you perceive people and the world around you and navigate the world in such a way? Because, I mean, obviously I’ll link to your show in the show notes, but one thing that I love about The Maverick Show is how well you handle really delicate, upsetting topics that should be talked about. You shine a light on things that people don’t think about enough, and you have such a great perspective. So, I’m just curious how you got there.

Matt Bowles: I appreciate that feedback on The Maverick Show, Brittany, thank you very much for saying that. I think when I think back, you know, I grew up in a mostly white suburb. We moved around to a couple different places, but I went to middle school and high school in Buffalo, New York. And when I say Buffalo, New York, I don’t actually mean Buffalo, New York, I mean a nearly all white suburb of Buffalo, New York. And so it was, I think, really privileged and really culturally insular in many ways and pretty secluded in terms of the types of views that we were exposed to, even in school, what we were taught and not taught and so forth.

And I will say I will credit hip-hop music, political conscious hip-hop music, for raising a lot of my initial consciousness, right? So, for me, my high school was the early to mid-90s when I started getting a hold of hip-hop music from Public Enemy and groups like that. And I started listening to what they were saying. And then that started me asking questions like, why am I not learning about this in school? What are these guys talking about? Why are these people they’re referencing? I’ve never heard of them, right? And I loved hip-hop. I mean, I just completely fell in love with hip hop music.

And then I wanted to become a hip hop DJ, which I did in high school and college, and sort of parlayed that into like a mobile DJ business back then. So that was a big part of my life. But the hip hop and the political conscious lyrics in specific, hip hop really got me asking questions. And so, I would say that my very first interest in really trying to understand histories of oppression was with the African American experience in the United States and starting to look at that history and started to look at the resistance at different phases in the African American experience in the United States and the different challenges to what supremacy and other intersecting power dynamics.  And I started really looking into that.

And then when I got to college, as I mentioned to you, my advisor in college was Native American. So, then I took his Native nations class and then I started learning about that whole history. And then I went to Ireland and I’m Irish American, but I’m regenerations in the United States or so. And so, a lot of that Irish decolonial history gets stripped away. There’s sort of this quote unquote, becoming white process in the United States. Right.

But when you go back to Ireland, if you go to particularly the occupied six counties in the north of Ireland, you will find some of the most robust solidarity with other decolonial struggles like Palestine anywhere in the world. I mean, that’s quite a disjuncture from what you might see growing up in the United States. Right. So that was really interesting. And I started going into that. And then as I mentioned, I went to Palestine and actually went to the west bank and I went to the Gaza Strip and I went to the refugee camps and I went to the settlements and I saw that stuff and I talked to people and I saw the whole Israeli apartheid apparatus and what that looks like, right. What the Israeli occupation infrastructure actually looks like.

And once you see that stuff, it just becomes really clear. And then you realize, oh, and also my government is the one that is funding and backing and arming and politically enabling this whole thing. The United States is the primary funder and supporter and it’s basically the colonial metropolis of the State of Israel. Right. And so, then I start realizing, oh, this is really important for me to understand my, A responsibility because I’m a taxpayer and I vote in the United States. But B, my unique level of influence because I pay taxes and vote in the United States compared with people elsewhere around the world. You know what I mean?

Brittany Braddock: Yeah.

Matt Bowles: And my ability to actually influence this in a positive way from a human rights perspective. And so, then I started doing organizing around that. And so, I think a lot of that came about in part there was a travel component of it. I went to the north of Ireland; I saw those things there. I reconnected with my Irish heritage and particularly the decolonial history of my Irish heritage and the present day decolonial solidarity of Irish people. Right. And also, I went to Palestine, and I saw that.

So, some of that had to do with travel. But a lot of that travel though, and the choices of things that I was looking into were because I was motivated to try to learn about those things so that I could be in solidarity and be on the right side of struggles against oppression, because I wanted to learn about those things. I think it’s very possible for people to travel the world and pay no attention to those things if they have the privilege to avoid them and just go to resorts and go eat at restaurants and go out to nightclubs and don’t read any of the history and don’t pay attention to contemporary situations of marginalized group experiences in those countries and just ignore all of that. If you have the privilege to do that, I think that’s very possible.

So, I don’t think that travel alone is like this awakening thing that’s going to make you a humane person and conscious about the world, but I think that it is an extraordinary way to learn about those things if you choose to pay attention to those things.

Brittany Braddock: Yeah, I totally agree. And to sort of segue into some questions I have about The Maverick Show. I also just feel like you are such a good interviewer. So, I’m curious if that’s always been a way that you would describe yourself. I mean, you have over 300 episodes, so is it a skill that you honed over time? Do you spend a lot of time trying to, like, perfect your craft, or do you feel like you’ve always just had a way with words? Because, again, you’re an excellent interviewer, but also just sort of a wordsmith and a storyteller.

Matt Bowles: Thank you for that feedback again, Brittany. I appreciate it. I think that interviewing is a craft for sure, and I think like any other craft, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Part of it also has to do with how much effort you put into it. Like any other craft, how much background research I do on my guests oftentimes has them saying, wow, no one’s ever done that much background research on me. And so, part of it has to do with how much preparation I am doing for the interview so that I know what questions to ask.

And I am interviewing people on my show that I am fascinated with, I am impressed with, and I am genuinely interested in learning from. And if those three pieces are in place where you’re fascinated with this person, you’re impressed with this person, and you’re genuinely interested in learning from them, then that’s going to inspire you to prepare for the interview in such a way that you’re going to be able to ask questions that are going to, number one, draw out really interesting stories. If these people have had really unique experiences, I want them to tell those stories right. If these people have done things that are really Impressive. I want to deconstruct how they did that and draw value for the audience from that. Right.

So, for example, I will interview people that are remote entrepreneurs that have built businesses in spaces that are not at all traditionally virtual. I interviewed Jen McGee, for example, who owns an architecture design company, and she has Fortune 500 clients, Sharper Image and Barnes and Noble and these types of clients. She won an award for designing the duty-free shops at JFK airport. And she was on my Remote Year program, traveling the world full time with me for 12 consecutive months all over the world, running her business. And I’m like, how are you doing that? And so, I’m like, you know what, let’s turn on the microphones, open a bottle of wine and have you tell me exactly how you built that company and how you’re running it completely remotely. Or I was in Kenya for a month in Nairobi and I met Daraja Asili, who I’ve interviewed on The Maverick Show.

And I’m talking with her and she’s a remote business owner. I said, what kind of business do you run? She runs a live events business. All of the live events take place in the United States. She gets over 100,000 paying customers per year that attend her live events. And here she is with me, just hanging out in Kenya for a month running this business. I was like, how are you running that business? And I’m like, wait a minute, let’s turn the microphones on and do an episode on this. And so, this is kind of how The Maverick Show was born is I would just run into these fascinating people that had incredible travel stories to tell and then they had done these remarkable things that I genuinely want to understand how the heck they did that. But then also deliver that value to people, right?

So that the listeners could be inspired or intrigued or learn something by the travel stories. They can certainly learn something by deconstructing some of these business models and how people went from a traditional corporate 9 to 5 job into this digital nomad lifestyle, especially if it’s using a really nontraditional business model in order to do that. I think all of those things correlate and relate to my guest selection. And because I’m so interested in these guests, that inspires my guest preparation so that I know what I’m going to pull out. I know it’s going to be fascinating for both me and the audience. And then there is the conversational dynamic, right?

So, once I kind of know what types of questions I’m going to ask you, where I’m going to go at the interview. Then there’s really just creating a comfort level, creating a rapport. Like so, for example, you and I before this interview, hopefully people that are listening to this feel like we’re super comfortable together. Right. I mean we’re like legitimate, good friends and it sounds like that. And we’re just chatting about stuff. And you and I have hung out in the past in person, we’ve had coffee together, we’ve chatted. And so being able to build a comfort level and a rapport so that you feel like you’re talking to your friend that you’ve known for quite a while and the audience kind of is able to just listen in on that conversation, I think is also part of it.

Sometimes you can actually go out for coffee with each other like you and I have. Other times you don’t have that option because it’s virtual. But there’s other ways that you can have maybe a pre interview conversation or otherwise create a high level of comfort and rapport. So that just sounds like a casual, laid back conversation.

Brittany Braddock: Well, I’m going to take your advice and segue right into your nontraditional, fully remote real estate brokerage. So, let’s just get into everything that The Maverick Group does and offers and how you and your team have been able to create this again, nontraditional, fully remote business.

Matt Bowles: Yeah. So, Maverick Investor Group is a real estate brokerage based in the United States, but it is not a traditional real estate brokerage. We have a niche specialty which has been the exact same niche specialty since 2007, which is that we help people to buy turnkey rental properties as an investment from anywhere in the world. All of these properties are in the U.S. they’re in markets that we consider to be investor advantaged U.S. Real estate markets. And so, you can own in the best U.S. real estate markets without having to live near the property. Right.

So that’s the value proposition and it’s a turnkey value proposition. Which means that these are mostly single-family homes, sometimes two-to-four-unit properties. But they’re all residential, right? No, commercial real estate, all residential. And these single family homes come fully renovated with long term tenants in place on a lease and a local professional property management company already in place that is collecting the rent every month, handling any maintenance calls, dealing with the tenant, all of that stuff, so that you can own these properties from anywhere without having to be the rehabber or the landlord or live near the property.

So that is the value proposition. And that means that some of our clients, for example, are people that live in really expensive real estate markets where it’s not advantageous to buy rental properties. So, our clients live in San Francisco or Manhattan or something like that, and they realized that they could buy 10 houses for the price of one if they were to reallocate their real estate investments to markets like Indianapolis and St. Louis and Kansas City and Cleveland and those type of markets.

And in addition to being able to buy more houses, they’re able to get a lot more rental income for the total real estate investment than if they had deployed that in these really expensive markets. So, some of our clients just want to invest in more advantage markets, and they live in the U.S. outside of those markets, and they want to buy out of state properties. And they’re able to buy out of state properties with our model because they’re fully renovated, tenants are in place, and property management in place. So, they don’t even need to fly into the market to see or close on the property. They can just buy it in sight unseen from out of state, which is what most of our clients do.

And as you’ve probably gathered, this model also lends itself really well to digital nomads. Right. So, we have a whole bunch of digital nomad clients that want to own U.S. Rental properties as an investment, but they want to be traveling the world, doing their thing, living their best life. But as their businesses make money or their remote job makes them money, they want to be able to invest that into rental properties. And so, we facilitate their ability to do that. And we serve a lot of digital nomads. And so that is how the business model works. And then if you want, I can go into the other side of it, which is, how did we, as the business owners, build that business model?

Brittany Braddock: Yeah, please.

Matt Bowles: Okay. So, I think in general, when you’re trying to build a business model in a space that is not traditionally virtual, but you want to build a remote business. And a real estate brokerage is certainly not a traditional virtual business model. You need to itemize out all of the perceived obstacles, challenges, and geographic restrictions.

A traditional real estate brokerage, you think of real estate agents that are driving people around to houses to look at those houses so they can buy a house to live in it. Or you think of real estate agents trying to sell a house so they’re sitting in the house, hosting an open house and allowing other people to come in that might want to buy it. That’s what people think about as a traditional brokerage. Neither of those things could be done if you’re traveling around the world. Right. And so, we don’t do either of those things. Never once in our Entire history since 2007 have we ever helped someone to buy a house to live in, or have we helped someone to sell a house that they’re trying to sell on the traditional retail market.

So, we don’t do either of those things. The only thing that we do is help people to buy turnkey real estate investment properties in markets where they don’t live. That’s how we got out of some of those traditional obligations. Now, let’s talk about the turnkey real estate stuff. Well, there’s still a whole bunch of geographically restrictive stuff associated with that. Somebody’s got to buy these houses. Somebody’s got to oversee the renovations and the construction that’s being done on these houses. Somebody’s got to be on the ground to manage the property and, you know, send maintenance people over when the tenant has a problem, someone has to do that.

And that’s obviously a local job that you have to be on the ground to do. Okay, so you list those things out. And then what you do when you’re building your remote business model is you say, okay, my company, the role that we are going to play specifically is not going to include those geographically restrictive tasks being delivered by our staff. Rather, we are going to partner with, build business relationships with separate companies that are on the ground that do this professionally. So, a local professional property management company, they are professional property managers. They do this locally in that market, all day, every day. That is what they do.

We will build a relationship with them to manage the property. Separate companies that are on the ground and what they do all day, every day, is they acquire properties, they renovate those properties, they run their own construction crews, they’re able to do all this stuff. We will build a relationship with those companies in terms of sourcing properties to our clients. Our company, the things that we are delivering on is we are doing market research. We’re identifying which are the most advantageous real estate markets, markets to be in. We are building all of those relationships and making sure that all of those vendors are delivering properties that are advantageous to real estate investors. And then we are building relationships with the real estate investor buyers, our clients. Right?

We’re doing video consultations with them. We’re understanding what are their needs, what are their real estate investing goals? Where are they right now financially on their journey? What are their investment goals? Where would they like to be five years from now? And how can we help to get them on a path to start buying rental properties, to start building a rental property portfolio over time. And we work with those buyers. How can we support them in that? Well, we can also introduce them to other vendors, like preferred lenders that can qualify them for financing. And they specialize in doing mortgages on turnkey rental properties. So, we can get them qualified at no cost to them. Maybe they want to start an LLC to hold their property and after they buy it?

Well, we have relationships with asset protection companies that start those entities for people. We can introduce them there, we can support them through their whole process of independently doing their due diligence and hiring their own home inspector to inspect the property and hiring their appraiser and you know, all the things that they’re going to do that when they are doing this independently, we can walk them through it and help to direct them to the resources, to the vendors and walk them through the whole process. So, they feel totally supported, they feel totally educated, they feel totally empowered, but they don’t have to be there themselves to do it. And we as maverick investor group also don’t have to be on the ground in these places either.

Brittany Braddock: So why real estate? How was that inspired?

Matt Bowles: So when I was working in the nonprofit advocacy space, which I told you was my entire professional work experience all the way up until the age of 30, I realized that on a nonprofit salary, I was never going to make a lot of money as a salary in my job, which was fine because I was doing really important work that I really cared about. I was just amazed that someone was paying me enough money to live off of because this is the volunteer activist work, I’d be doing on the side when I got home anyways.

And now all of a sudden, I could do this. For a job like that was amazing. It was blissful. It was incredible. But I realized that this was never going to be super financially lucrative, so I should probably learn about investing. And so, what I did while I was working at my job is I decided to buy a house. But I bought a four-bedroom house, and I rented out three bedrooms to friends of mine. So, we had a group house, and I had three streams of income that were helping to cover the mortgage, right? And then what happened is the very first year after I bought that house, it appreciated in value more than my entire annual salary at my job.

And I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on a minute. Are you telling me that I could have just sat on my couch the whole year and made more money than going in and working 40 plus hour week every week for a year? That’s interesting. And so, then I did a cash out refinance and then I started reading every book I could read about real estate investing. And I started buying rental properties in other markets. And then my friends approached me, and they were like, dude, how are you buying these rental properties? We are interested in that. Can you help us to buy rental properties too? Like, just show us what you’re doing so that we can buy rental properties also. I was like, sure, you know, here’s what I’m doing.

And so, then I was starting to help my friends to buy rental properties. And then what I realized is that the real estate brokers that were helping us to identify these properties and buy these properties, they were getting paid a commission for all the properties we were closing on, but we weren’t paying it because in the U.S. the seller pays 100% of the real estate brokerage fees and the buyer pays nothing. I was like, well, that’s cool. Like they’re providing value to us and they’re getting compensated for it, but we’re not paying them. That’s kind of cool. So then once I get fired from my job and I’m trying to figure out how to start a business, I’m thinking about, what business could I start?

And I thought, well, I already have people that are already coming to me to help them to buy rental properties. If I could just get a real estate brokerage license and start a real estate brokerage business, I could literally just continue helping my friends to buy rental properties, continue charging them nothing, and all of a sudden start making money and having a business. I was like, that’s crazy. That’s the craziest business model I’ve ever seen. Because I don’t like selling stuff. I particularly don’t like selling stuff to my friends. But if I can literally just keep helping to buy rental properties, charge them nothing, and all of a sudden have a business and make money, that’s for me. And so, then that’s how it started. And then we’ve just been building it and it’s been going ever since then.

Brittany Braddock: Do you have any competitors or are you the only person doing it like this?

Matt Bowles: I mean, there’s different people and different companies that do all sorts of variations on any kind of rental property thing, or there’s all sorts of variations of companies that do different types of things. You know, one of the reasons we’ve been able to do this for so long, since 2007, is that we have been able to work with the same clients over time. A lot of the real estate brokerages are very transactional because in traditional brokerages that’s what it is. You’re going to buy a house to live in. Once you find the house to live in, you buy it. That’s it, there’s no more business.

And so traditionally they’re very transactional, whereas we are very focused on continuing to help people to build their portfolios of rental properties over time. So, a lot of our clients have been buying their properties through us for over 10 years and buying in different real estate markets and all that kind of stuff. And so, I think that’s one thing is that we’re very focused on long term client relationships. The other thing is that we have been also, we’re certainly the only digital nomad run company that I know of and that has allowed a lot of affinity marketing, if you will, or positioning within the digital nomad community.

Because if you are a digital nomad and you want to buy us rental properties, I mean, any real estate agent will tell you, yeah, I can help you buy a rental property in the U.S. but wouldn’t you rather buy it through a company that’s run by digital nomads like you, that understand the lifestyle and also specifically designed the business model for you so that you could travel around the world and still own these turnkey rental properties? Right. So, I think we’ve had a lot of unique positioning within some of those communities and I’ve been invited to speak at a lot of these digital nomad conferences around the world about how to do this stuff.

Brittany Braddock: Yeah. So, I want to circle back a little bit to more of the travel stuff and get your advice on a how a person can curate a travel experience similar to what your sort of intentions are when you travel, which is this really local, unique on the ground, connecting with people and understanding the history and that sort of thing. How can someone curate that type of experience in travel? And then what sort of resources do you use in planning travel but also in just staying current in world news? How are you ensuring that all the information you get about the entire world is legitimate and not propaganda?

Matt Bowles: All right, so let’s take the first part of that question first, which is about how to structure travel experiences and how to sort of get immersive local experiences. You know, one of the things that I will say is that if you are traveling around the world and you are plugging into digital nomad communities, let’s just say, because there’s a lot of those that are virtually available, a lot of folks are from different places.

So, a lot of times, what will happen is I will meet travelers somewhere. And in that place, we’re both travelers. We’re not from there. Right. But they’re from somewhere else. Okay. And when you stay connected with those people, then when you go to their country, if they’re there at the time, boy, can you have a special local experience. So, I recently interviewed a very good Kenyan digital nomad friend of mine, Eva Adongo, when I was in her home city of Nairobi, Kenya. She’s traveled to over 100 countries on a Kenyan passport and has unbelievable stories. I mean, she’s one of her more well-traveled than I am, but she and I have hung out in different places around the world. She’s a very dear friend of mine, so it was really fun to interview her in her home city.

And the first time I went to Kenya, which was 2018, a Ugandan friend of mine that I also know from nomading was in Kampala in Uganda. And she was like, dude, if you are in Nairobi, you got to come to Kampala. It’s super close. You can stay at my place. I’ll take you around and I’ll show you Uganda. I was like, done.

And so, I went to Uganda, and I only went for four nights, but it was one of the most unbelievable four nights of travel I have ever had. I mean, it was absolutely incredible. So, she’s taking me out to the nightclubs till six in the morning, and I am the only non-Ugandan person in any of these clubs, you know, I mean, she’s taking me around. We’re doing the local transportation on the Matatus, which are like these shared vans which are like packed in with 12 people. And some dude’s got a couple chickens he’s bringing into the van. I mean, like, really local stuff, you know, I’m rolling with her, and it was just amazing. But I met her outside of Uganda traveling somewhere else, and then I knew her when I went there.

Or another friend of mine I saw in Kenya who is also a Kenyan nomad is Agnes Nyamwange, who is a dear friend of mine who I also met outside of Kenya. And Agnes and I traveled together really extensively because she’s a nomad, right? So, when you know other nomads that just travel around the world with no base, you can just hit them up and be like, hey, want to go travel to West Africa for three months with me? So, I had Agnes up and she’s like, yeah, because she’s from East Africa. You know, she was born and raised in Kenya, went to college in Uganda, but she had never been to West Africa. So, I was like, like, want to just roll to West Africa with me? She’s like, yeah.

So, we went to Nigeria for a month, we went to Ghana for a month, went to Senegal for a month, went to the Ivory coast for a short trip. And there we were connecting with local folks through different mechanisms or different networks that we had. So, for example, in Ghana, we connected with a Ghanaian friend of mine who I actually knew from the Remote Year program. So, he had born and raised in Accra in Ghana. He had ended up coming over to the U.S. and then he had to actually leave the U.S. because of visa issues, which actually propelled him onto the Remote Year program. He was not on my program; he was on the program before mine.

But when he finished, we finished in the same city, which was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He finished a month before my group, and he stayed on for another month. So, he’d basically joined my group for the final month. And we literally met in a salsa class in Buenos Aires. And I’m talking to him, he’s like, oh yeah, I’m from Ghana, you know, stuff. So, when I went to Ghana for my first time in 2019 for a month, I said, bro, are you here? He’s like, oh yeah, I’m here. Like, let’s hang out. And so, he brought all his friends.

So, we were rolling however many deep in Ghana with local Ghanaian folks, because I had that type of a connection. Or even in Lagos, Nigeria, we rented an Airbnb. I’m just trying to give you different examples of this, right? We rented an Airbnb from local folks; local Nigerian folks had an Airbnb and we were in touch with them pretty regularly about stuff. And then they ended up, the owners, the local Nigerian owners of this Airbnb ended up taking us out with a bunch of their friends for like a club hopping night in Lagos. So, we were probably three weeks into that trip, we were rolling like 13 divisions in Lagos. And so, if you make an effort, one is connecting with travelers and then going to their homelands when they’re there.

But also, I think just when you’re in a place making an effort to meet local people, but also just, I think have a local experience, like even if you’re not going out with a local person, figuring out how to go to local places. So, I’ll give you an example. I’ll stay on the Nigeria example; Nigeria is a place that has a lot less tourism than other places. And so, when you look at stuff online or things like that there’s less stuff online than there is in other spots.

And so, we started asking local people, where do you recommend that we should go to a nightclub? And so, the response that we started getting was, you should probably go to this nightclub club. I think you would like it. And they’re making a genuine recommendation of what they think that I would like. Because that was the question that I asked him, where do you think that I should go? And so, then we would get there, and it would be not what we were looking for. I mean, it’s just kind of like a bougie bottle service. Some other white expats are there or whatever. And it’s just like, this is really not why we came to Nigeria. We came from really local club scene, Afro beats, you know, like this kind of stuff. So, what did we start doing, I was there with my friend Agnes, right? My Kenyan friend.

And what Agnes and I started doing is we started asking a different question. We started asking the Uber drivers, where do you go out to a nightclub when you go out? And they’re like, well, I certainly don’t go around here. And we’re like, okay, drive us to the place where you go when you go out. And he’s like, really? We’re like, yep. We started just. And then we found exactly what we were looking for. Right. So, I think a lot of those types of techniques, you know, you could use as well.

Brittany Braddock: Yeah, I agree. I’ve definitely done that with restaurants and stuff and found some amazing little spots that you would never be able to come up with on Google or through a blog from, like you said, a white expat from the U.S. you just can’t. The other question is, how are you staying current on world news and ensuring that the information you’re getting is the information that you should believe and should care about?

Matt Bowles: Okay. So, I think number one is paying attention to some independent media sources. So, for example, in the United States, we have democracy now, which is an independent media source, which I would highly recommend everybody check out. I think that you can also pay attention to international media sources that are outside of the United States. So, Al Jazeera sources like that. And then I think you can also have direct information. So, for example, with regard to the genocide in Palestine, you can actually follow Palestinians on the ground in Gaza who are literally live streaming this stuff and putting it out directly. No filter on social media. And so, you can actually follow direct journalists that are on the ground in these types of places. If you’re looking to get news from these types of places, and so I think following local journalists and people in these places is good. And then also following independent media is also really good.

Brittany Braddock: If there are any listeners who want to be more involved or more active in those goings on, where do you recommend, they start?

Matt Bowles: Active in what sense?

Brittany Braddock: I guess just more conscious as they travel. And if there are any local activism events that they can get involved in, that could be any number of things. And maybe you just named it. It’s following those content creators that are kind of on the ground. But if there are any other recommendations you have for someone who wants to be more involved but just doesn’t know where to go.

Matt Bowles: So, I think there’s probably a couple of different categories we could talk about. Right? One is just sort of generally making a proactive decision to try to read about the history of the places where you’re going. So, there’s a lot of digital nomads go to Colombia, let’s say, right? A lot of digital nomads from the United States go to Colombia. How familiar with the history of the United States foreign policy role in backing right wing death squads and paramilitary groups in Colombia are people that are going there. That’s probably an important piece of history that you could look into, right?

And when we have all this technology now, you could literally just do a really straightforward, abbreviated thing, start asking ChatGPT about some of this history and have them put you onto some stuff. Or you could start looking for books and looking for things and going more in depth into it, but just sort of being aware, why are things the way that they are today? What impact has the history of the last, I mean, just say the last 25 years, like recent history. It doesn’t even necessarily have to go back very far, right? I mean, the early 2000s, Colombia was the third largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid. And it was for a very right wing regime that was committing really extreme human rights violations in Colombia against the Colombian people.

And so, it’s important to understand that history. And how did that shape that piece of history, shape what’s happening in Colombia today? Right. And so forth. You know what are some of the politics today? Right. I mean, are people aware that that Colombia recently just elected a left-wing government for the first time with the first ever Black female vice president in Colombian history who is now in office? And what is this government now doing? And how is this government standing in solidarity with the Palestinians against the genocide that Israel and the United States are committing?

So, all of a sudden now you’re like wow, there’s this whole bigger picture there that I’m starting to see about. How are some of these things connected and how is history, history related to what’s happening now? And this region of the world is connected with this region of the world, and there’s these solidarity ties. And all of a sudden, a much bigger picture starts getting created. And so, I think it really just starts with making a choice that you’re going to be interested in the people and the places that you are going, and you want to read about that history and then also to pay attention to the groups that are marginalized in the places where you’re going.

So, for example, South Africa is a really, I think, important example of a place where there’s a lot of different intersectional marginalization dynamics that are happening. So, most people hopefully are aware that South African has this whole colonial history of apartheid, which was this white supremacist colonial regime which fell. The apartheid regime fell. But there’s still a lot of overarching dynamics of white supremacy and wealth inequality and things like that, which are pretty visible to anyone that looks around. But you’re also developing there now contemporarily. And for many years there have been dynamics where there is a pretty intense level of xenophobia, including vigilante violence against black immigrants from other African countries that are in South Africa.

And so now you have a lot of these different dynamics, trying to be interested in understanding those. And when you’re getting an Uber in Cape Town, there’s probably over a 90% chance that your driver is going to be an immigrant from another African country outside of South Africa. And so just literally opening up the conversation and saying, oh, what’s up, man? Where are you from? And say, oh, I’m from Zimbabwe. Oh, cool. And then you start talking about that and then asking them about their lived experience and just letting them know that you’re interested in listening, in learning, and that you’re supportive of them. And most of them are more than happy to talk about out what their experience has been in South Africa as an immigrant from Zimbabwe.

And then you, as the traveler, are able to, one hopefully boost this person’s day by saying they know that you’re aware that immigrants have been having a hard time. They know that you’re interested in that, and they know that you’re willing to listen to their experience and that you were interested in their experience. And that alone can be uplifting for, like, a human being, but also for you as A traveler can be incredibly educational so that you understand what some of these dynamics are that are going on. And then of course, if you’re from a country that has some pretty profound anti-immigrant rhetoric going on, you can be like, whoa, the anti-immigrant rhetoric sounds really similar to anti-immigrant rhetoric. I’ve heard before about entirely different groups and so on and so forth. And you’re able to make some of these global connections.

Brittany Braddock: That’s a lot to think about. And I agree that, that it’s really the responsibility, I think, of a traveler, to your point, to learn the history of where you’re going. And I think that, you know, as a queer traveler, I sort of have to make sure that I’ll be safe, even though I’m very straight presenting. And that’s a whole separate conversation. But still, you know, my partner and I have to do a certain level of research every time we travel to make sure we’re safe to hold hands or not call ourselves friends for the sake of safety.

And I think that a lot of travelers have the privilege of not needing to do as much of that prep research because they’re just going to be safe probably regardless. So, there’s not the same pressure to do that research ahead of time. So, then you don’t get into the history of the political climate and all of that. So, yeah, I think it’s interesting that people have such different experiences all over the world. And in order to be a conscious traveler, to your point, I agree that you have the responsibility of putting in that extra effort and learning about the people and then showing them the locals, that you care and that you are a conscious traveler is important.

Matt Bowles: Totally agree.

Brittany Braddock: You are so busy and have so much going on with the added layer of a sort of inconsistent dynamic environment. How do you stay organized and what’s your system or process for time management and productivity and just organization?

Matt Bowles: I don’t know if I have a great answer to this question, Brittany. I feel like in the nomad life there is a balance between routine and stability anchors, let’s call all of that in one category, versus the changing dynamics that we want to put into our life, because those are inspiring and invigorating because of the change. And this, I think, is a balance that different people strike in different ways. And I ask these types of questions to people too. If you’re moving around, what types of, of stability anchors do you use? That’s an interesting one. And I’ve had some people say, well, every place that I land, it’s a brand-new place. I’ve Never been there. I go immediately to the grocery store, and I at least buy a dozen eggs so that I can have eggs in the morning when I wake up. And I buy a bottle of wine so that I can have a glass of wine before I go to sleep my first night in a place.

And as long as I can have a glass of red wine before I go to sleep in a new country and I have eggs when I wake up in the morning, then I feel like there’s a level of stability there and that takes me from place to place. And other people are like, oh, I bring this thing with me. I think one is just sort of being able to create a sense of home and comfort in a really different place that you’ve never been before for yourself. And just thinking through what some of those things might be, either that you can bring with you or that you can then go get as soon as you arrive and that you can have a level of comfort. And then I think it’s about thinking for you personally and the recipe for this may be different for everybody in terms of how do you normally work and how do you normally organize your life and how do you normally do these things? But thinking about some pillars.

So, for example, exercise and fitness as we’re moving around, sometimes, especially you get in these stretches of the nomad life where there’s all this really exciting and fun stuff going on, and then I’ll be like, holy cow, I did not exercise for the last month, and I feel terrible, and I’ve gained weight and what’s going on here? And so, you just kind of, I think, need to pay attention to some of these things where you’re setting up. Okay, this is how I’m going to get fit in this country. Maybe I’ll join a gym because I’m going to be here for a month or two or three. Or maybe this is a type of place where I’m just going to jog outside each day. Maybe I live on the beach, and I want to just run on the sand each morning. And that’s a thing, and it’s lovely.

And there’s a huge psychological benefit, I think, to being near waves and ocean. And I try to do that for a minimum of a month out of the year to be on a beach somewhere and then to be able to exercise and jog through the waves. And that’s a nice thing for that month. And maybe I would much rather do that than join a gym, especially if it’s in a place like Brazil, where you also have outdoor fitness equipment that’s for free that you can use, it’s right on the beach. And now all of a sudden you have all of that in addition to being able to go jogging and stuff. Whereas other places it might be really difficult to exercise outside. And so, you really want to join the gym for that month.

So, I think setting up some of those things and then scheduling your life around that and then giving some variation depending upon what is happening and what your priorities are going to be there, right. And what you want to do. And maybe there’s like really cool stuff to do at a particular time of day and so you want to go and do that cool stuff. When I was in Dakar in Senegal, I wanted to prioritize the sunset on the beach every night. I mean, they would have these surfers who would all come out at kind of like right around the sunset period. And there was like this huge popular time for surfing. So, I’m watching all these Senegalese surfers and you’re just ordering a cocktail and watching the sun set over the ocean.

And now I was like, this is unbelievable. And I wanted to just prioritize doing that every single night. So, I would just have like my workflow in the day and then I would go, and I would prioritize that. And then maybe I’d come back and do more work in the evening and then maybe go out later after that or whatever. Whereas in other places, some places have later night schedules. So, for example, if you’re in Spain or Italy or I’ll tell you, the latest night place I’ve ever been in Argentina. I mean, Buenos Aires is crazy. Like if you try to go out for dinner at 8pm in Buenos Aires, there will not be a restaurant that is open. The doors to restaurants open at 9pm. Nobody is really going to be there until about 10. And the prime dinner hour is going to be about 10:30pm or 11.

And so, people eat dinner from about 11 till 1 and then they go out to the bars. And this is every night, this isn’t just the weekend. And then they go out to the bars from 1 till 3 and then they go from to the club from 3 till 7. And then this is the cycle. So, if you’re in a place like that versus if you’re in the opposite type of place where everybody goes to sleep super early and then gets up and does morning activities. And maybe if you’re a surfer or you’re an early morning yogi, or you’re a kite surfer or you’re whatever it is that you do that you like to do early in the morning. And it’s more of an early morning kind of like vibe and culture in the particular place that you are. Maybe you’re on a totally different type of cycle.

Brittany Braddock: Before we wrap up, is there anything that we haven’t covered yet?

Matt Bowles: I think we have covered a lot, and I think these conversations can continue. For me, it’s an ongoing learning process and I learned both through traveling and talking to local folks, but also through talking to other travelers and hearing their perspectives. Right. Like you and I are having this exchange right now and we’re learning from each other and. And you learn from your podcast guests, and I learned from my podcast guests.

And so, I would encourage people just to subscribe to both of our podcasts, Manifest Travel. And then wherever you’re listening to this, just type in The Maverick Show with Matt Bowles and you can subscribe to that as well. I’ve also put together some cool free stuff for the Manifest Travel community. So, if you guys are interested in the real estate stuff that we talked about, I have a real Estate Investing for Digital Nomads resource that will allow you, if you want to schedule a video consultation with us and talk more about directly, you can. Or if you just want to read more about it and learn more about it, you can do that.

I put a resource in here, this is all going to be at one link. I put a resource in here about how to build a fully remote business, even in a space that’s not traditionally virtual, like the seven core keys to doing that. And then just some other fun stuff like minimalist packing. I have free training on that, which digital nomads often enjoy. So, I put all of these free things in one place. So, if you just want to go to themaverickshow.com/manifesttravel, you can grab any of that and all of that completely for free.

Brittany Braddock: Thank you so much. I’m sure my listeners are going to love that.

Matt Bowles: All right, I hope you enjoyed that episode. As usual, everything we discuss will be in the show notes. So, you can just go to one place at themaverickshow.com and go to the show notes for this episode. And if you enjoyed Brittany’s interview style, then wherever you are listening to this podcast right now, just type in Manifest Travel and you can subscribe to Britney’s show as well. And if you like her podcast, please remember to leave her a rating and review because she works extremely hard to put together a high-quality show and ratings and reviews really help podcasters out a lot. And if you’d like to follow her on Instagram and connect with her there, her handle is at manifesttravelpod. You can shoot her a DM and let her know what you thought about this episode. And with that, thank you for listening and good night, everybody.