Category: Expat Stories

Lisbon cityscape with red tile roofs

She loves Lisbon, but she’s dreaming of Mexico

Justine PattantyusJustine Pattantyus coaches people through major life transitions. She spoke to me from Lisbon, Portugal, as she was embarking on a major life transition of her own.

What’s your travel story?

My family is from Hungary, most of extended family is there. My grandparents were refugees in the U.K. until my grandfather got hired by an engineering firm in the U.S. in 1963. My dad was in the U.S. army. I was born in Germany, but we moved back to the States when I was really young. As a girl, I read Nat Geo and books about travel. I’ve always been fascinated by the world.

But I didn’t travel (except for Canada) until my junior year in college when I went to Australia for a field study in sustainability and the environment. And the next year I got a scholarship to go to the UAE to study women’s leadership, and to Eastern Europe (Prague, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest), where I got to visit my extended family.

How do you support yourself?

After college I worked on a project helping children to eat better. I worked a couple of corporate jobs, but didn’t like that. Then I started my own business, and met my boyfriend who had started his own location-independent business in the Philippines. I was inspired to see the world on my own terms. Not just for short jaunts, but to be embedded in the culture.

I joined the Dynamite Circle, a membership community for business owners who work from everywhere. It took me about a year to be sure I could continue to provide a high level of service to my clients while I was abroad. In that time, I talked to other people who have clients in different parts of the world, to learn what I needed to have in place to be successful. That helped me build my confidence. I started shifting client expectations. They need to know that even if I’m available to that only at certain times, I’m no less responsive or supportive than before.

Before, I was doing business management; now I’m doing individual coaching, helping business owners step through a door of change. I help them align internally and reorient externally so that what they want to occur becomes inevitable. I’m happy that my clients have all achieved what they set out to achieve!

How did you decide on Lisbon?

My boyfriend and I have friends in Portugal who kept encouraging us to come. We hadn’t considered Portugal, but as soon as we researched it, it sounded great. The food is great; it’s sunny, affordable, with beautiful beaches.

We booked our flights and applied for resident visas. With this type of visa, you needed to show that you have a way of supporting yourself without needing a job. You can stay for a year and you can extend the visa for 2 years. It’s a bit of a process: You have to write a letter of intent; send all your tax forms; show proof that you earn at least $50,000/U.S. a year and don’t need a job in Portugal; send your fingerprints, FBI background checks, proof of traveler’s health insurance. We got approved while we were here.

We’ve been in Portugal for 49 weeks, a bit shy of a year.

What do you like best about Lisbon?

I’ve traveled to probably 40 American states and been to a lot of cities; Lisbon is way up there, easily in my top three. It’s about the same size as Boston, but with much better weather! Even in the winter, you get a bit more rain but it’s still so nice.

It’s so laid-back; there’s a great sense of hospitality and people take pride in their country. Every cab or Uber driver or restaurant owner asks me, “How is Lisbon treating you? How do you like it?” I’ve enjoyed it so much.

Lisbon has a strong sense of identity. There so much history, street art, great restaurants. It’s like there’s an unwritten invitation from the city, “I am who I am, so just show up and be who you are.”

I live a 10-minute walk to the train. I can ride 40 minutes to the beach for $2. I live a 15-minute walk to my favorite park. There are great dentists and doctors. I’m a 25-minute walk from some of the major attractions in the city.

I wasn’t sure how I would feel not having a car. I’ve really enjoyed it. Now freedom is being able to walk out of my door and end up anywhere I want to. The cost of living is great here. I can have a fully stocked fridge for like $60. I live in the city center, in a relatively more expensive spot . We pay 1000 euros/month, which includes water, internet, plus a once-a-week house cleaner!

Just walking around Lisbon, there are always new things to discover: shops, staircases, great little squares with food kiosks where you can get little sandwiches, espresso, sangria. A lot of bands come through town. Look out points are often places where bands or musicians play. There are tons of excellent restaurants, and it feels very, very safe here.

Some favorite spots: The Oceanário (aquarium) and the São Jorge Castle. Taking the train to the beach and renting a bike and taking the bike path out to a far beach. Taking the train to Sintra, where there’s a national park that’s gorgeously lush and forested, with beautiful hiking spots, and a Moorish castle.

People here don’t live to work; they definitely live! There are lots of classes, like pole dancing and salsa. And coffee shops. And wandering to the park with a blanket and relaxing. Lots of families with kids walking around. There are festivals throughout June, when people are dancing and grilling in the streets. You can even see it in the coffeeshops. They’re don’t ask you to pay right away; you hang out and enjoy yourself. They assume if you’re taking the table, you’re there for the evening.

What are some of your biggest challenges there?

People do not clean up after their dogs! You have to keep watching for dog poop while you walk. And a lot of people smoke, so there’s smoke out on the street (though not inside most restaurants). And in the touristy areas, you’ll have people coming up to you trying to sell you drugs. Drugs are decriminalized here (I think all of them were, back in the 1970s). And by the way, this country has some of the lowest drug issues.

But really, these things don’t bother me much. There’s not much I don’t like.

What’s your social life like? How do you meet people there?

There are a couple dozen people here from our business owner friends group. I meet people through them mostly. People use MeetUp here a lot, and Facebook groups. Going to the yoga studio and dance classes and co-working spaces puts me in contact with people I have things in common with.

I’ve met some people through International Women in Lisbon. And there’s a great Creative Mornings group here. It’s a social/learning event where creative people get together; there’s a talk on a topic of interest.  About 50 people show up, there’s breakfast and it’s free.

About 75% of my friends are expats. I speak a very little bit of Portuguese. In Lisbon everybody speaks English; in fact if you try to speak in Portuguese people will often switch over to English.

What’s next for you?

We could have extended our visas for another two years, but the world is a big place!

To help decide where to go next, we used Nomad List, a website where you can do research on different locations. We plugged in our criteria: not a big city, somewhere tropical on the beach, relatively safe with decent internet.

So later this month, we’re leaving Lisbon for Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We plan to live in Mexico for the rest of 2017. We have an AirBnB there for the first two weeks. After we get there, we’ll start looking for a more long-term apartment. I have contacts for real estate agents there, and I’ve joined about five Playa nomads groups on Facebook, which are super helpful for finding things like furniture and motorbikes.

Any advice for women who want to move abroad?

It’s been really helpful for me to have a network that I can reach out to for clarification on things like visas, living situations, working with client schedules and more. So build some kind of network for yourself, if you can.

And get clear on your level of desire to move. If you really know that you want to be abroad, if it’s only a matter of if, not when, then what are the sticking points? What are the foundational pieces that need to be clarified and handled, so that it becomes a yes?

Once those pieces are handled, take the leap and figure the rest out as you go.

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Tegucigalpa, Honduras by Soman

Adiós, Honduras: Next stop, Mexico City

Adalia

Adalia couldn’t find a lot about Honduras online before she moved there. But she was game for an adventure, and she had a teaching offer at a small international school there. Less than a year in, she’s planning her next move.

What’s your travel story?

I moved Tegucigalpa, Honduras in July on a two-year contract. I’ve been teaching for about 19 years, but here I have a non-teaching position as an instructional technologist, assisting teachers and students with integrating technology into the classroom.

As it turns out, the school is not in a great financial situation. They’re restructuring for the next school year, and not renewing the contracts of some of the teachers. They told me that I’d have to teach at least three classes next year in addition to doing my current job. It was also clear that they likely wouldn’t have funds to pay me beyond the initial two year contract. I asked them if there was any possibility of my not teaching, but it was not, so decided that I’ll be leaving at the end of the school year.

Initially, my daughter had no interest in living abroad. But she decided to come for a year. She enjoyed herself so much here that she was thinking she’d maybe stay for 2 years. But as it turns out, it’s academically much better for her to finish high school in the States. That made my decision to leave easier.

How did you decide to come to Honduras?

Going abroad was something I wanted to do my whole life. But I got married when I was 19 and had two kids. Going abroad was not my husband’s thing. I got divorced about two-and-a-half years ago. My youngest just turned 16.

I told myself I’d go abroad when my daughter graduated from high school. But last year I was in the classroom and I just found myself thinking, “I’m done.” I wasn’t sure if it was American schools, high school, or just teaching in general. This job in Honduras was an experiment to see what exactly it was I was done with.

I knew I wanted to learn another language. After trips to Thailand, China and Egypt, I decided I needed to learn a language where at least the alphabet was the same as English! So I shifted my search to Latin America.

I’d never been to Honduras before. Not that many people come here. Some people consider it a hardship post. But I thought, “It’s the capital, there’s got to be stuff to do….”

What are some of the challenges of living in Tegucigalpa?

People don’t typically hang out after dark because it’s really not that safe. All of the houses and stores are behind a wall or a gate; there aren’t really sidewalks. If you really want to hold onto your phone you don’t want to use it on the street. You just have to know how to carry yourself.

There are no city parks. I’m guessing that’s because there’s no money; and this is not a place where people hang out together outside much. We don’t have anything at school after dark. The school is having a concert this semester. The administration was very concerned about releasing the details of the event because of safety concerns.

There’s no mail service! When I set up my bank account, someone from the bank came to the school and brought me my ATM card. Because they couldn’t just send it to me!

Also, there are no addresses. I’m lucky that I live near a very well known landmark, because even taxi drivers don’t recognize the name of my neighborhood. If there are house numbers, they’re not in order. One house might be #33 and it might be next door to #2412. Some of the streets have names but nobody knows what they are. You can’t rely on Google maps here. Most businesses don’t have independent websites; they might have a Facebook page.

I’m from Houston originally, where there are tons of museums, concerts, so much going on. But in the capital of Honduras, there’s really not much to do. There’s one museum. You can go to the mall. That’s pretty much it.

What are some of the things you like best about being there?

My expectations with the standard of living were in line with reality. I knew it wouldn’t be able to drink the water, that kind of thing. Actually, the apartment they found me is way nicer than I expected. And the people have been incredibly nice.

I like some of the odd things. For the equivalent of 8 cents, you can buy water in a bag; it’s hilarious to me. Also, the rapidito buses are not centrally organized; each driver is independent contractor. So they pimp out their buses and blast reggaeton to attract more customers. ’80s music has gone to die in Honduras. It’s nonstop MTV hits from the 80s!

Overall, the food is not great; it’s typically overcooked. The signature dish is baleada, a thick flour tortilla with beans, eggs, fried plantains and crema.  But fried chicken is everywhere! On a given street corner, you’ll see three or four different fried chicken places.

Have you traveled much since you’ve been there?

Honduras is a really inconvenient place to be. It’s expensive to travel, even to other places in Latin America. There are no direct flights of from Honduras to Mexico City. Even flights to Panama are prohibitively expensive. Because of that, I knew that it wasn’t going to work long term.

The beaches are beautiful. But it’s not easy to get to them. We flew to Roatan for Thanksgiving. I purposely didn’t stay on the west side of the island, which is where the cruises go. We stayed far on the east side in a very small place, known for kite surfing. A population of Garifuna live on that part of the island. We stayed right on the beach, heard the crashing of the waves. It felt a lot safer there; people were still walking around after dark.

We took a bus to Tela, on the northern Caribbean coast. The Hondurans I work with told me that was kind of a dangerous idea because sometimes buses are targeted. A coworker told me not to put my bag underneath the bus, just in case someone stops the bus and sets it on fire! Also, you can’t travel at night from one city to another. I don’t think there are any lights on the highway; the roads are bad, and there are narcos or gangs on the highways. It’s just not safe.

What’s your social life like now? 

One of my coworkers (who’s 10 years younger than I am) has met the love of her life here! Another coworker is half-Honduran; she speaks Spanish and does muay thai and hangs out a lot with the people from her gym. But for me, it’s been very difficult socially.

I’m not going to hang out in the hostel bar. I’m not going out drinking and dancing; I did that once here and it was a bit of a disaster. The only guy who asked me to dance was maybe 60-something, and he didn’t speak any English. Most of the Hondurans and even the embassy and military guys are married. I just don’t think there are a lot of single men here.

But I’m an introvert, so it may just be me. Most of my fun involves doing stuff around the house. I sew, go to the movies, go out to eat. We get a long weekend every month, so almost every month we’ve traveled either within Honduras or beyond.

What’s next for you?

Honduras is surprisingly expensive. I couldn’t hang out here and live off of my savings, even if I’d wanted to stay. Now that I’ve decided I’m leaving Honduras, I’m in a position to do whatever I want!

Being here helped me clarify my must-haves: The next place I live needs to have a hub airport so I can easily go other places from there. It needs to be a large, relatively cheap city. And I don’t want to own a car.

I went to a site called The Earth Awaits, which lets you compare places based on cost of rent, safety, internet speed, whatever your non-negotiables are. I narrowed my choices down to Lisbon, Mexico City and Medellin. Over Christmas, I spent some time in Lisbon. I really enjoyed it, but the little Spanish I have didn’t help me.

I’m going to visit Mexico City in June. I’ve been to Progresso, Cancun, Guadalajara before, but not Mexico City. I’m concerned that the capital might be too big. So that’s going to be the recon trip that I didn’t take when I moved to Honduras. My daughter also is also happy for me to be there because I’ll be closer to Houston.

I’m not looking for another teaching job. After I travel this summer, I’ll enroll in an intensive Spanish course. And hopefully with my down time I’ll figure out some way to support myself before the money runs out. My daughter will be back in the States, but I’ll have my dog with me.

Advice to single women who are considering moving abroad?

If you’re bringing a kid, you have to think about schools. My school paid for my daughter’s tuition. In Latin America, you don’t make a lot of money, so that was really important. There are some places where you can let your child go to the public schools; this would not be the place.

My general advice: Go for it. It can be done. It’s not a difficult thing to do. I never had the thought of, “Can I do this?” It was more like, “How am I going to do this?”

Where you can find her

Instagram: @pickygirltravels
PickyGirlTravelstheWorld.com

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Hiroshima City, 2013 by At by At (Wikimedia Japan)

Life in Hiroshima City: Peaceful and Affordable

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Leslie WierLeslie Wier wanted to come to Japan ever since I was a kid. She’s been in Hiroshima City for almost four years, working as an English teacher with the JET program and completing a graduate degree.

What’s it like there?

Hiroshima City is amazing. I absolutely love it. I couldn’t have gotten luckier with my placement. I live a 5-minute walk from downtown.

When I told people that I was coming to Hiroshima, they’d ask how people there feel about Americans. The people here have no ill will towards Americans. Actually, they love Americans, which is surprising considering the atomic bomb and the atrocities that happened.

When America experienced something similar on 9/11, our immediate response was revenge. Here, the immediate response was peace. There was no overall thought of revenge or retaliation. For the past 72 years, there has been an overall message of peace here.

I think it’s because the atomic bomb was so devastating for so very many people, the impact was so large that they don’t want anyone else to ever go through that. It may also be because Japanese culture is very focused on the collective, whereas American culture is more individualistic.

Is there still radiation there from the atomic bomb?

No. The radiation started to diminish very quickly afterwards. Things started growing here much faster than they expected.

So Japan is super expensive, right?

Not really! Many people think Japan and they think Tokyo, where the cost of living is ridiculously expensive. But here in Hiroshima, it’s very, very manageable.

My rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in the middle of the city is $600/month. All of my monthly bills — rent, phone, internet, gas, water, everything — come to less than $1000, even in the winter. My building is pretty old, but it’s still quite nice. A newer building would be more expensive. And if you live in the country would be less expensive.

If you buy local food, it’s affordable. Even eating out is pretty cheap. Some things, like fruit, are really expensive in Japan. Melons (my favorite fruit) are stupid expensive.

The JET salary is plenty. I just paid off my car back home, and I’m paying off my credit card. I know people who have come over with JET as families of four or five people. They lived on just the JET salary. They had to save and make sacrifices, but they made it work.

Do you speak Japanese?

At this point, I know enough to get by. I’m not fluent, but I can do easy conversations.

I took two years of Japanese in college, but then I went seven years not speaking any. You don’t need to know any Japanese to work with JET. And they do offer a long- distance course that you can take before you come to Japan. But I didn’t like it, so I studied on my own.

The language barrier is a challenge sometimes. I can do day-to-day stuff, no problem. I’ve been able to find an English-speaking dentist and chiropractor. I did have some health issues that required me to find a specialist who spoke English. My supervisor was a great help, but it was still pretty traumatic.

What are some of your other challenges?

The biggest issue is it’s really difficult to make deeper connections.

I’ve had a few Japanese friends that spoke English but we didn’t become really close. Most of my friends have been other foreigners. The expat community is pretty small. So you end up spending time with people who you might not  have if you were home.

A friend of mine who I took Japanese with in college lived here for four years before I got here. He was able to introduce me to a lot of people. So I did have a circle of support for quite a while.

But expats are always coming and going. You get close to someone, and then a year or two later they’re out again. That makes it hard to form and maintain really deep close relationships. That’s one of the primary reasons why I’m going back to the States at the end of the summer.

When you keep having to say goodbye to people that you’ve gotten close to, it becomes emotionally taxing. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t have the energy to go out and try to form those relationships. Now I’m starting to focus more on my relationships back home.

Have you been able to travel around?

Yes, I’ve been to Osaka and Kyoto, and to the other prefectures around Hiroshima prefecture. I went to the island of Yakushima, which is home to one of the last virgin forests in the world. I did some of the most amazing hiking that I’ve ever experienced, surrounded by trees that are 7000 years old. I’ve also traveled to Seoul and to Bali.

In Japan, a teacher’s schedule is year-round! We even work through the kids’ breaks! Teachers here are civil servants; the jobs are very, very stable and they pay year-round. We have lots of national holidays and I get like 18 days of vacation a year.

What have you learned about being happy while being abroad?

I’ve been making an effort to really get to know the culture, learning traditional Japanese practices like ikebana flower arrangement, tea ceremony, and koto. Immersing myself in the culture has really made the experience more meaningful.

Self-care has been incredibly important during my time here. You’ve got to prioritize taking care of yourself mentally, physically and emotionally. For a while I didn’t do it. I can see the difference in my level of happiness between then and now. I work out regularly. And I see a therapist twice a month, even though it’s very stigmatized in Japan.

Coming to Japan meant having to relearn how to be a functioning adult all over again. I had to learn how to do my laundry, how to buy food. I started eating healthier because I couldn’t read the labels; for a while, all I bought was produce!

You have no idea what you’re doing but you’re doing it anyway. That’s when you come to the realization that you can do pretty much anything.

What’s next for you?

I’ll be leaving Japan in August. I’m hoping to relocate to California; I’m applying for jobs there. I’m nervous because I’ve never been to the west coast, and I know it’s really expensive.

I’m working on starting my own business offering career coaching and consulting for educators in cross-cultural contexts. For a while, I wanted to focus on becoming location independent.  But I’m concerned about health insurance, given the U.S. political climate. So I decided it makes more sense to find full-time work while I’m transitioning. If I don’t get a job right away, I’ll start with teaching English online.

Ideally, I’ll be able to go between California and Florida (where my parents will be retiring). I’d like to have a home base in Florida, maybe go to Panama for 2 months and do something there in terms of teaching/education.

I’d love to go to Iraq; my stepfather is from there, so part of my family is from there. I’d like to go to Israel, but if I have that on my passport, it’s going to be hard to get into some other middle eastern countries. I want to study Spanish, and I’ve never been to South America. So probably South America will be my next focus.

Advice to women who are considering moving abroad on their own?

Do it! I think a lot of people don’t take the step because they are afraid they can’t do it. But the reality is, we deal with change all of the time. Big changes, small changes — they’re a part of life and we have to learn how to deal with them in order to survive.

I had a great job working in international student advising, but for a good two years I wasn’t growing. And I wasn’t doing anything new outside of work because I was also finishing grad school. I was comfortable and complacent, and I hate the feeling of complacency. It’s usually when I notice a lack of personal growth that I’m led to seek change. 

At the heart of it, I saw moving abroad as just another kind of change, an opportunity for growth that wasn’t much different from other transitions I’ve been through in my life. I think as soon as I was able to confidently adopt a mindset of being able to tackle change head on, even though it was scary as hell, that’s when I was ready.

But I was still afraid before I left. I was afraid of losing the people that were close to me. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do it. And I did it anyway. And it was not easy, but it was the best decision that I’ve ever made.

Two things I would say if you’re thinking about moving abroad:

  1. Don’t have any expectations. Don’t expect anything in terms of the culture. Of course you should prepare yourself as much as you can and learn about the culture beforehand, but know that there’s still going to be so much more to it than that.
  2. Give yourself the opportunity to succeed. Too many people don’t do it because they’re afraid. The fact is you are going to lose something. And you may lose people in the process of living abroad. But it’s also entirely possible that you’re going to lose people if you stay home.

Would you rather regret never having done it or would you rather take the chance?

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view of ocean and rocky island from a sailboat

Out to Sea: Sue’s amazing life on the ocean

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Sue Gearan has created an amazing life on the ocean and a career around her passion for sailing. She runs a yacht chartering company and plans domestic and international yacht charters and travel for clients.

Sue GearanSo how did this sailing life start for you?

My folks have had a sailboat since I was about 17. I did some sailing with my college in Massachusetts, and my roommate interned with a yacht chartering company. She suggested I might like to work for them. So I went over and introduced myself, and soon I was selling corporate charters out of Boston. I also sold Caribbean vacations. This was in the 90s, when companies were spending lots of money on things like this.

I went to boat shows to inspect boats and meet the crews. On one of those trips I met my boyfriend. He was looking into getting us jobs on a sailboat. So I took a local cooking class and ended up moving onto a boat later that year. I spent 14 years doing that. I worked on catamarans in the British Virgin Islands, things like that.

I worked for a prominent CEO, cooking on his private yacht. He was a great employer, such a kind guy. (I cooked for Martha Stewart on that boat. It was daunting to say the least; luckily, it was just hors d’oeuvres!)

After doing that for several years, I was tired of being in the service industry, and I was getting older. So I teamed up with my original employer (Carol Kent) at her chartering company, and now I put together yacht vacation charters in New England and the Caribbean.

I also work independently as a global yacht concierge. It started because I was doing a lot of favors for people — writing resumes, consulting, travel planning. I like helping people, but I decided to charge for the favors I’d been doing for people for a long time.

I wear a bunch of different hats. I help out boat owners, captains of yachts, CEOs of startups thinking of getting into sailing. I also do day chartering. It keeps me well rounded in the business. I have a good grasp on the industry; I’m somewhat an expert in yachting.

What kind of travel do you do? 

I’ve traveled around quite a lot for work and otherwise. On my most recent trip I was in Antigua, St. Thomas, Tortola, and Fort Lauderdale. I went to meet the crew and see the boats. I’m probably going to Croatia this spring; their yacht week is a big event in the summer. And in between I sneak in my own trips. For example, after Christmas, I’m going to Ireland with my dad. (He recently became a dual citizen and he’s been able to connect with distant cousins thanks to ancestry.com and Facebook and other random connections. It’s pretty cool.)

I love to travel by myself. I’ve gone all over. I didn’t do the college backpacking thing; so I got started a bit late, once I hit my late 30s, as my friends started to get married and have kids.I want to travel as much as I can while I’m still young. For my 40th birthday, I went to India and Nepal by myself. I trekked in Annapurna. It was so great because you don’t have to negotiate with anybody about what you do from day to day, where you go. I thought, “Oh my gosh! Why did I not do this before?” I love it, love it, love it.

I’d love to go on the Trans-Siberian railway, from Russia to China through Mongolia. Turkey was high on my list, but now the sailing event is probably canceled there for now. Egypt, Jordan, Bali and Tahiti are all on my list of places I’d love to go.

I recently went on a 10-day trip to the Galapagos, on a 140-foot yacht with a bunch of other travel brokers. It was all expenses paid (except for tips), including hotels in Ecuador, really luxurious accommodations, all the meals. It was an opportunity to familiarize myself with what a charter client would experience so I can sell it. Now I can talk about each island, the food, everything. It makes a big difference to have first-hand experience because people are spending a lot of money on a trip like this. I can answer their questions honestly because I’ve done the trip myself.

What are some of your favorite places?

I spent about a month on a boat in Cuba several years ago. It was one of the best places I’ve ever been. Fortunately, because there are lots of restrictions there around who can do what in the ocean, many of the ecosystems around Cuba are extremely well-preserved. You can’t just come in with a private company with dive gear.

The Caribbean reefs on the other hand are ruined. It’s shocking. In the British Virgin Islands, I could not believe the state of the ocean and the reefs. The reef itself it is not as prominent; I think a lot of it has died off. And there’s not as much sea life as I remember from when I first started spending time there. It used to be like diving into an aquarium, but it really has taken a beating.

It’s really sad. It’s awful what humans do to things. I mean, people come in and don’t know what they’re doing. They drop anchor on the reef and things like that. In my industry the boats and crews are adamant about preserving the oceans, but not everybody is so well-informed or well-intentioned. It also doesn’t help that cruise ships have been coming to places that are so fragile.

The Galapagos is doing it the right way. It’s very restricted compared to the Caribbean islands. There are times of the day when you can go each place; they only allow two boats at a time. We had a naturalist with us the whole time. We had to wash our shoes so we didn’t transport things from one island to another. So the sea there is very alive versus some of the other places that I’ve been that are more overrun with human life.

Luckily the Galapagos is not easy to get to, which is probably its saving grace. Even high-end clients who pay a lot and who are used to doing what they want understand that in the Galapagos the rules are not going to bend for them. So the people who really want to go there are into the environment and the science. Hopefully it will stay that way.

Do you consider yourself rooted in a place, or are you more of a nomad?

I love being near and on the water. It’s funny how acclimatized I’ve become to it. Now being on land feels strange to me. I fell in love with sailing so now I’ll always be close to the water and sail as much as I can.

Rhode Island is my home base. Newport is the hot spot for the yachting industry, and I just love the culture here. I’ve lived in Florida and in Boston, but I love four seasons and I’m not a big city person. I’m originally from Massachusetts, so to me New England has such charm; it’s always been the place I want to come back to.

My boyfriend just bought a sailboat and plans to sail around the world. My business is really mobile; I can talk to clients a variety of ways. So I potentially could do the trip. At the very least I can fly in a bunch of times and stay for a month at a time.

I don’t think I would uproot myself again, but I have a simple life, a small apartment, a used car. I probably won’t buy a lot of stuff ever again. Living on a boat makes you simplify; you see that you don’t need a lot of function. I’m trying now to not just acquire stuff that I don’t need.

What’s the best way for women who haven’t sailed to get into sailing?

You can do it a bunch of different ways. You can participate in a learn to sail program, locally and vacation-wise, including a sailing program for women. You can put a group together and charter a boat.

I can put a family on a nice little catamaran for just about the same rate as a trip to Disney. It’s a bonding experience. They can only get on the internet sometimes. They’re not constantly on their phone. Half of our boats have skippers who are certified to train someone to be a sailor; others have cooking courses. So for one week, you do everything together. Because in a family everybody can get so frazzled and disconnected from each other, I think people are longing for that.

Because there are no decisions to be made; everything is decided for you. And it’s not like an a cruise ship where you’re herded from place to place with a hundred other people. People arrive stressed out — especially when they come in from places in the northeast like NY. On any trip, yachting or otherwise, it usually takes 3 days for people to unwind.  Yachting fast-forwards it a bit because you’re barefoot all the time; you’re never in a car or stuck in traffic. You’re unplugged and your outdoors. It’s really eye-opening. Especially with sailing, where there’s no engine, it’s so peaceful. After a week, the stress has drained from their faces and they look like different people.

I’ve never had someone come back from one of these trips disappointed.

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