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Leaving America E7: Spotlight on The Philippines!

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What happens when a three-month vacation accidentally becomes a 15-month immersion into island life? For Heidi and Tony, being stranded in the Philippines during the early pandemic lockdowns wasn't just an inconvenience – it became a transformative lesson in what truly matters.

In this conversation, we discover how a small Philippine island with unreliable electricity, occasional water shortages, and zero Amazon delivery options became a paradise of sorts. The couple shares how they adapted to "island time," where urgency dissolves and community connections take priority over convenience. Rather than feeling deprived by limited resources, they found themselves liberated from the constant pressure of American consumer culture.

"We used to talk about new seasons on Netflix," Tony explains. "When we're on the island, we're excited because mango season is coming, or dragon fruit season, or passion fruit season." This shift from digital consumption to natural cycles reveals just how deeply our relationship with time, food, and community can change when we step away from convenience culture.

Beyond the practical challenges of conducting business from a time zone opposite the US or figuring out how to ship orthodontic supplies to a remote island, Heidi and Tony discovered something more profound – the creative spark that ignites when you can't simply buy a solution. Cooking became a daily challenge with limited ingredients and just two gas burners. Art shifted from digital to hands-on crafts using available materials. Every interaction with neighbors, market vendors, and local families built meaningful connections that sustained them.

Their story raises powerful questions about what we trade for convenience in America. As Heidi notes, "I love island life. I'd take the lack of water, lack of electricity, lack of internet any day over being overwhelmed with choice." Could it be that in gaining instant access to everything, we've lost something essential to human happiness?

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Aaron Martin:

Imagine living in New Zealand with your family. If that's your destination of choice, new Zealand immigration law is here to help. How do we do that? First of all, a deep dive diagnosis to ensure that you've got the right pathway and the pathway of least resistance. Because, let's face it, crossing international borders can be a nightmare. Borders can be a nightmare. We also look after you throughout the application process ensuring that that satisfies New Zealand government visa criteria and managing your application through the immigration process, dealing with the complexities and the issues that might be raised by Immigration New Zealand. I'm Aaron Martin and I've been working in the immigration space for 28 years, helping people settle successfully in New Zealand, and I'm supported by a team which collectively has 62 years of experience in this area. If you'd like to know more about me and my team and how we can help you, reach out to us on our website, wwwnzilconz.

Shawn:

Welcome to Leaving America, the podcast for people who look at rent prices, partisan gridlock and late-stage capitalism and think maybe it's time I lived somewhere, not America. In this episode, we're heading to a place where the locals will call you sir or ma'am with unsettling sincerity. Karaoke is both a pastime and a personality trait, and the Wi-Fi may or may not work, but someone will absolutely lend you their hotspot if you ask nicely. We're going to talk about the Philippines. It's one of the most English-friendly, foreigner-welcoming and culturally warm countries you could possibly land in, and yet it's oddly overlooked by many would-be expats and digital nomads. On last week's episode, we dug into the visa options, the cost of living and the culture in the Philippines.

Shawn:

Today, my husband, pavel, is back and we're going to talk to two of our closest friends, heidi and Tony, who got stranded in the Philippines during the pandemic, turning a three-month trip into a 15-month stay, about what they love about the country, what you truly need to start a new life somewhere, and how life on an isolated island stacks up against the American rat race. Hey Pavel, hi Shawn. So today we're going to be talking with some of our friends, heidi and Tony, about the Philippines. Have you ever visited the Philippines?

Pavel:

No, it sounds very exotic and far away and hot exotic and far away and hot, yeah, yeah.

Shawn:

Yeah, it's a huge country and it's got very different regions. So there's the big cities, like Manila, and then there's hundreds, if not thousands, of like outlying islands, and Heidi and Tony lived on one of the islands and they can explain this, but they did not plan to live on one of the islands. Circumstances kind of dictated that they did so. Neither of us has been to the philippines, but we've both been to islands. Could you live on a small island?

Pavel:

I don't think so. It's too little. When I've been on the cook islands, rarotong, and you can drive around the perimeter of the island in like 40 minutes, it seems a little overwhelming that there's this tiny little fragment of soil surrounded by a massive ocean. I mean, people totally live there, but it's just, uh, very removed. You have to be in a certain mindset to really enjoy that type of life or if you want to get away from it all, but then then there's nowhere to run it can be confining.

Shawn:

but I always wonder, like like you, so people do live on these islands small islands and big islands but I've always tried to figure out for myself, like what's the size that I could manage?

Pavel:

Yeah.

Shawn:

What about like Hawaii?

Pavel:

Like big island is kind of big enough.

Shawn:

I would say how long did it take us? Does it take us to get across that?

Pavel:

I think two, three hours, maybe two hours Across it, but not the perimeter. I'm sure like to drive around would take a lot longer, so you, feel like that's big enough?

Pavel:

I would think so. And it's very diverse because it's got like different microclimates on the different sides. So at least you have that diversity of different environments, as opposed to being in kind of like the same climate throughout the year, not having the change. I mean, that would certainly be a very, very interesting experience to go through, to like live there for a year or two and see how it is for you, because you never know until you try, all right.

Shawn:

Well, let's let Heidi and Tony explain their experience to us.

Pavel:

Yeah.

Shawn:

We're your hosts, Shawn and Pavel, and if you've ever stared out the window during a meeting and thought this would be so much better with a mango shake and an ocean breeze, and if you've ever stared out the window during a meeting and thought this would be so much better with a mango shake and an ocean breeze, then you're absolutely in the right place To stay updated on the latest episodes. Follow, like and share. Leaving America on the Deep Dive with Shawn podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're already living the island life in the Philippines and have tips on surviving typhoon season, local visa hacks or which SIM card won't betray you mid-Zoom, tell us everything at deepdivewithshawn at gmailcom.

Pavel:

It sounds like it's time to pack your bags, cats, because this is Living America. Philippines edition.

Shawn:

Heidi and Tony welcome. Hi, how are you?

Tony:

Hi, hello, we're doing well, I'm doing well.

Heidi:

I'm well, it's good to be here.

Pavel:

Pavel, how are you doing? I'm doing very, very well.

Shawn:

Okay. So we wanted to talk to the two of you because we know that you didn't make a concerted decision to live abroad, but you ended up living abroad for a period of time unexpectedly, thanks to COVID. So instead of asking you, I suppose, why you decided to make that move, maybe you could just tell us how that happened.

Heidi:

Well, the thing is too it is a place that we had gone back and forth to and stayed for like significant amounts of time in the past.

Tony:

But yeah, this time we had planned to go back for three months and I want to say it was that about two months into it was about two and a half months, almost two and a half months in, almost two and a half months in, and we started getting all the news about what was going on and there was going to be difficulties getting on flights and all this kind of stuff was happening.

Heidi:

ports were going to be closing tony didn't have his passport at the time and that the passport office was on a different island. So they were talking that they were going to be shutting down the airports in the next couple of days. So I was was like you have to go get your passport, that's thing number one, because we're not going anywhere without that no-transcript. And then I panic and I keep trying to call back, keep trying to call back, and at some point I just realized, okay, we're, we're really stuck here and we're we're riding this thing out here. And so I sent Tony an email like hey, just so you know, for better or worse, we're riding this thing out here. And so I sent Tony an email like hey, just so you know, for better or worse, we're riding this thing out here. I'm making myself a drink and I'm going down to the beach with our dog so I went and got the.

Tony:

I went and got my passport, got on the next ferry back over and, um, it ended up what a three-month trip was supposed to be turned into about 15.

Heidi:

So a little year yeah year and a quarter and the first three weeks were really like everything completely shut down, everybody quarantined at home and then kind of like after the three weeks and we realized there weren't admissions in the hospital and stuff and we're on an island. So at that point we actually were like you know, maybe this isn't a bad place to ride this thing out.

Tony:

It wasn't the worst call that went dead. I should say yeah, it was nice, it wasn't an issue.

Shawn:

What was the draw to the Philippines in the first place? You said you'd gone there a few times, so what was it about it?

Tony:

We decided when we quit our jobs that we were going to travel for a year, and as we did, southeast Asia along with Eastern Europe. We ended up on this little island in the Philippines and just really liked it. We extended our stay. We were supposed to be there for, I want to say, maybe 10 days or something, and it turned into six weeks, and the only reason we left was because we had to go somewhere else.

Heidi:

So that was right, meeting people elsewhere in the Philippines, so at the tail end of our trip.

Tony:

It was right at the tail end and so we knew we were going to go back there after we got back to the US and, you know, took care of some things, and so we just kept going back there. One of the main draws, one of the main reasons, was a dog Roxy adopted us while we were there and we wanted, we just loved her and we wanted to go back there all the time. But everything was wonderful about that island. It was small, the people were amazing, we made tons of friends there in the short time that we were there and we just really liked it. So we went back there. We had eight month stays, six month stays, a four month stay and then the third or the last one, which was supposed to be three, turned into the COVID 15-month trip.

Pavel:

Yeah, Was it mostly locals or expats that you made friends with?

Heidi:

I feel like we had a pretty good mix of both. They call the little villages, barangays, and the bar and guy that we were in and the sort of like resort that our long term rental was at. A lot of different families had been working in the same place and it was actually, I think, their family land that they sold to the resort owners at one point, and so we got to know those families really, really well and kind of a lot of the kids ended up being our sort of like nieces and nephews while we were there.

Tony:

When you're there too, it's for length, certain lengths of time, like when we went back for eight months that I think that was the first time we went back. You become part of the community. You, you, you know you hang out with all the people that are right in your area, whether they're expats or locals. You go to the same markets and you see the same people that are right in your area, whether they're expats or locals. You go to the same markets and you see the same people that are selling vegetables and you develop a relationship with them over that length of time. So it kind of felt like a second home, even when we were just going back there for those different lengths of time.

Heidi:

Yeah, the sense of community. I think that that is the thing that I'm always seeking, since having the experience living there is like the community that we had there right and like with the expats too. We made a lot of really good friends, for sure so it all kind of just like happened organically.

Pavel:

You didn't have to like work for it or anything like that, right?

Tony:

no, not really you, just the places that we started going to. If there was a place that we went to that we just kind of didn't had a bad vibe about, there was usually a reason whether it was some of the expats that were like oh I can tell why, we don't know, there's not a lot of other people that go there, or there's a certain kind of group of expats that go to that space, but that was in that community. There were you found, you found your people in the expat community and then obviously the, the locals were just really friendly, I mean yeah.

Tony:

Filipino culture is it's very family oriented.

Heidi:

It's the first place I think we were where people would like they would pull you off the street and invite you into your, into their home yeah, if you're walking by, and they had some dinner going on, they called you over to come in and have some food and wouldn't take no for an answer like or like drinks a pleasant kidnapping. Yeah, and like also, you are not allowed to not eat or not drink. No, until they say you're done, you're eating and drinking.

Shawn:

It's required.

Tony:

Was the food in the Philippines like? Would that be a culture shock for Americans? It depends on the American, I guess. I mean, there is a lot of stuff that I think that some of the things that would be weird for Americans is like when you're seeing a whole pig butchered just out on a table and there's not really, and it's, it's so fresh. There's nothing being refrigerated, it's just all there, and if you go there an hour later, they're still selling it, and so people would probably lose their mind over something like that.

Heidi:

And also like they use every single part of the animal, which you know is a good thing that I appreciate. But you know, a skewer of intestines might not appeal to anybody, everybody.

Shawn:

People move out of the country for, or they make big moves for a number of reasons, and most of the time, I think, people have time to prepare and sometimes they don't.

Shawn:

And I think we're living through a period of time right now where some people in the United States feel like they need to make a move very quickly and don't have a lot of time to prepare, and I think the only corollary that I can think of of the people that I know that have lived through something like that is the two of you with this scenario where you know you were planning to be there for three months and then just realized you were going to be stuck there indefinitely, and so most of this series is focused really on if you have the ability to plan to move somewhere.

Shawn:

You know over the course of a year or two, what are the steps that you could take. But, given kind of the experience that you had having to adjust to living someplace indefinitely for a period of time without having had the time to prepare to actually do that, what are some of the things that you had to learn to do or had to adjust to, simply because you hadn't prepared to be there for so long, and so you had to kind of level up pretty quickly.

Tony:

One of the issues. I'd say that we well I would say this first, having your own business, all we really need is internet and we can live anywhere, so at the drop of a hat we could. As long as I have a backpack and we have our laptops and that sort of thing, we could really just leave tonight and land somewhere and make it work. However, when you're on a different time zone, it's exact opposite of our time zone, basically. So all of the working hours were at night, like overnight, when I would normally be sleeping, then that would be.

Tony:

That was one of the biggest issues that I would say. That had to get. I'd have to get used to, because with our business we had to. You know, I had to be around during business hours and it was kind of tough to be awake at three, four or five in the morning, but the ease of that was that COVID hit so a lot of our business I want to say 80% of our business dropped to zero. So there wasn't a real adjustment that had to be made other than well, we're not working that much. It's just they have this saying there called island time and you just have to adjust to that, which is everything moves slower and you're almost forced to relax. So I I would say there wasn't a big adjustment I think that we had to deal with.

Heidi:

We were very fortunate that we were renting from tony's brother and sister-in-law like in a bruv garage, like studio apartment back so luckily, you know, the rent was cheap enough that we were able to keep paying for both places while we were stuck. The other thing is I had had jaw surgery and I remember I had to like have the orthodontist office like mail me. Do you remember that?

Tony:

oh yeah with your.

Heidi:

I'm trying to remember exactly what it was, but I was supposed to be back for like checkup appointments and so they ended up I talked to them and they were trying to work with me and ended up we had to mail it and that was a whole ordeal too, just trying to get something shipped, because you can't get anything shipped directly to the little Island that we were on. So we had to get it shipped to a neighboring island, to somebody that we knew who then had to try to get it on a ferry because nobody was allowed to travel between the islands at that time. So that was kind of interesting like working. Some of our medical needs.

Tony:

Yeah, I think, probably. Yeah, not having it. I don't think I had a dentist appointment for almost a year and a half then. Probably yeah Not having a I don't think I had a dentist appointment for almost a year and a half then at that point. So there was certain yeah, I think the medical normal schedule of medical appointments.

Heidi:

But I think that changed for a lot of people during COVID too.

Shawn:

What were you mailing back and forth? Your jaw?

Heidi:

I needed retainer like these retainers, but I can't. I can't even remember now it was after my surgery, right so?

Heidi:

then it was, I think I had broken one of the retainers and I was worried about like my teeth shifting and then also we couldn't get floss there, and so I I think I did up asking the dental office can we also just amazon some other stuff that we don't, that we can't find here or that we need? And there were a couple other things that we just like we couldn't find and so like they were kind enough to throw these extra things in that package for us when they mailed it. Yeah, but yeah, even finding like a shipping company it was, that was very interesting for sure.

Shawn:

I'm trying to think of, like if you lived on an island, like what could you use as floss? And the first thing that comes to mind is like coconut fibers.

Heidi:

I know my hair, your hair Not thick enough, it breaks.

Pavel:

No, I used no floss when I was growing up in Russia. Maybe that's why my teeth were so messed up we're so messed up.

Heidi:

See, the problem is is I. It's like an addiction for me, like that feeling of my being clean, and once I have it it makes me crazy, and also my teeth are very close together, so I think maybe it feels worse for me than other people it's also important in those situations to maintain those little, like you know, comfortable routines that are helping you to stay sane and otherwise very unusual environment.

Heidi:

So it does make sense, yeah it was interesting too, because there were which we may be dealing with here soon, um, but lots of shortages on the island because boats weren't moving stuff around as much. So it would be like, you know, like you just couldn't find certain things for like weeks or months at a time, or like to make the price of tomatoes was like crazy, because that's something that got shipped in and and so you know, it was just interest, an interesting thing to live through.

Tony:

Oddly enough, one of the biggest issues was there was no tonic on the for the gin and tonics, and I'm not joking, that was like there was a shortage of tonic and someone we would text each other if some store had it, or we would buy up like all of the tonic cans of tonic water and just with our friends, because, or the bars, or we would buy up like all of the tonic cans of tonic water and just with our friends because, or the bars that we would go to because it was it was in such a short supply, yeah, but they did had a gin oh there was plenty of gin I mean

Heidi:

it's not.

Shawn:

It's like green spirit, but they flavor in flavor it's flavored out island gin yes uh, I mean, this actually brings up a really interesting point, because I think there are some places that people consider moving that are remote and maybe less developed than they might be used to, and I don't know that we always know what we're getting ourselves into if we move to a place that has maybe a shaky infrastructure or doesn't have the same types of supply that we're used to in the United States or whatever. So how did you I mean, you've kind of talked a little bit about it, but how did you adjust to life where you couldn't get what you wanted, or you know things might go down, or you know just generally island life, which is just very different from being in a very developed, stable, at least until recently, country.

Heidi:

Yeah, I mean we had never really dealt with regular water shortages, like we were driving to a spring and filling up buckets for like basic things. Yeah, it's still a problem on the island because they keep developing even though there isn't the infrastructure, like with. They call them brownouts. They're really blackouts, it's just a nicer way of putting it. Like it'll end eventually and they're scheduled, they're scheduled so it's ones that surprise you?

Tony:

yeah, but there's usually if you. You hear about them ahead of time sometimes, but other ones just happen and you just get used to it. You, I mean, make sure you're when it's on, make sure anything you need charge it up, make sure you have your stuff charged but also the electricity itself is not great and has damaged our computers and so yeah, there's like surges and we finally realized we had to get.

Heidi:

We had a surge protector.

Tony:

It had a little needle that would like, you'd see them needle bump bouncing and you'd hear it clicking when there was a surge. Some days it would just be clicking all this time. Sometimes not, but you just kind of adapt to it and usually going back and forth there we would adapt relatively quickly to it. But with all of those sort of things comes living you know 30 paces from the ocean, where you go and sit there and watch the most amazing sunsets every single night walk on the beach, every you walk on the beach all day and you go during high tide, you go into the water and you just sit there and soak and there's not a soul around because it's during covid.

Heidi:

So that was very cool. We got to go to like places in the island that normally would be full of people and actually, yeah, be like the only people there, which was very, very cool.

Tony:

It was interesting because it felt like it was the very first time we went, which it was very different than when we initially went, that three months, where we ended up getting stuck there with having so few people there. It felt like we were back in that very first time we went, which was, I want to say, 10. Yeah, it was. It was 20 2012, so it was like a you trip back in time.

Heidi:

There was, there were no people there no tourists, no tourists, like only the few people that got stuck there. Most people found a way out, but yeah. Then it got to a certain point where we could have gotten back, but we didn't want to anymore no like well, we're gonna stay a little bit longer.

Tony:

No, we'll wait, we'll wait, we'll wait, we'll wait. We saw everything that was going on in the us and we're like we're in no big hurry to get and also the travel through the philippines and through asia back to the us.

Heidi:

Like we waited until it got a little easier to do that, because otherwise you're having to stop and test and do all these things to get to the next place. Like every step of travel was like another quarantine and we just didn't want to have to deal with all that. But I would say for me, I love island life and so I always have a harder time. I'd take the lack of water, lack of electricity, lack of internet any day. I'd take all those inconveniences versus like when I come back here and I'm just like overwhelmed with choice and there's so much happening all the time. I think that was a really, really hard adjustment after those 15 months of like very, very peaceful, quiet, simple living and coming back here.

Pavel:

Would you have considered like retiring there or stay there forever?

Heidi:

I could live there forever. But Tony, it's not really. He needs a little more culture, some live music, some art. I feel like you get really culture starved when we're there and you get more frustrated with some of the that's.

Tony:

That's true. I mean I especially. I mean I feel as as I'm getting a little bit older, I'm I'm needing less of it and as long as I don't need to run a business, as we don't need to run a business, that's such a stress when I'm there Because when the brownouts come, if I'm uploading files or things like that that need that sort of thing, there's an added stress to running a business. When you're on a completely opposite time zone and also with sketchy internet, it just adds that level of anxiety.

Shawn:

I want to kind of circle back to this idea that you brought up about.

Shawn:

All the choice that you have in the States but, you know, is, I guess, denied you if you live in a place like an island, in the remote part of the, in a remote part of the world, because and this is something that Pavel and I talk about quite a bit, and I think it's to some degree one of the reasons that people look to the United States as being a great place to go or a place to aspire to live because we have so much choice. But what I found when I travel is that and I often hear from people, if I'm going to go someplace, especially an island or a place that's very remote in the world for an extended period of time is aren't you going to miss having, you know, fill in the blank, same day delivery of things? Aren't you going to miss having Amazon? Aren't you going to miss having Costco or something? And I have found in my travel that I do think I'm going to miss those things until I'm there and I realized how stressful having so much choice actually is. Does that make?

Heidi:

sense. Yes, that is totally like I like not having a lot of choices, like it's like oh, they don't have that at the market, so we're gonna have this instead. You know, like I almost get overwhelmed, whereas if it's already narrowed down for me, that's why I'm kind of thankful for my gluten allergy, in a way Like okay, it takes out at least part of the menu for me, so I can't, I can't even look at that much of it. So it's narrowed down to these many things. Like I don't know, maybe it's because I grew up on a farm and I didn't have a lot of choice in my life as a kid that I just find it overwhelming and I'd almost rather just have fewer options and, like you said, a fresh market. It's like this is what's in season now, so that's what I want to be eating.

Tony:

That's. It's funny what you just said. There too. That makes me think of when we're here in the U? S, we're talking about oh, there's a new season of something on Netflix, or a new season of something on Hulu. When we're're on the island, we're excited because mango season is coming, or dragon fruit season, or passion fruit season. Those are the seasons we talk about. On the island, we're not. We don't care about Netflix or any of those.

Tony:

What season of television is on, it's all about the season of the, the fruit that's coming out or different fish or they're going to be coming through and they're going to be catching all of this different fish now and it's like we can't wait for that season to start happening. So it's a very different season sort of excitement.

Pavel:

Yeah, it's like you're not wasting all your attention and energy on trying to figure things out and you're able to like concentrate more and enjoy more with what is available and be a little bit more in sync with the environment that you are in. And that's what's so beautiful is that you were immersed in the community and you were able to like find the ways of how to get certain stuff from the other islands. So you kind of like yeah, like that's one of the things that here in the states is like we are losing or lost is that sense of community and ability to like work together on getting something, because everything is kind of available. You know, you can just place the order and get something like the next day or the same day if you pay a little extra yeah, whereas, like tony was saying, a lot of the local friends we made what was like the lady that we bought our fish from?

Heidi:

you know a few times a week we became really good friends with her and her whole family and we're still in touch with that and like the little market around the corner and like certain little places where it's just because you are interacting with people all the time.

Tony:

I think probably you'll appreciate this too, because I know you're as an artist doing here. I do a lot more work on my computer. I create a lot more on my computer. When we were on the island, I had my computer there, but there were so many other things. I found myself doing a lot more craft type hands-on art rather than digital art. So there's a lot of availability to different things that I don't have here and you just start crafting things and making things and um, it's, it's kind of from an artistic standpoint as well, it's, it's very, it's very different, it's a very different atmosphere.

Pavel:

So you just kind of go with it yeah, make do with what you have, as opposed to here you go to michael's and there's like such a huge diversity of things that you can get and make. And then like at some point I'm like, oh my god, I have too much crap, uh, and I'm not actually creating anything, and so I stopped buying and I'm like, oh, I just need to use what I have. I need to use, like the yarn or whatever the stones or like the paints that I have, and just make do with what I have, as opposed to continue to like buy and buy shit and not using it. Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, that's it. That's a good point. You can. You can be a better artist by being stuck on a little Island, right? You also can have a like a better, maybe, imagination, because you you don't have that Netflix to distract, distract yourself with all this.

Tony:

It's forced creativity. You're forced to really be creative because you're all of.

Heidi:

Your assets are much, much fewer yeah, and even cooking is a more creative exercise is like we don't have an oven there. You have two little gas burners and it's like a top chef challenge. You have this, this, this and this makes your ingredients you have to work with today.

Shawn:

I mean, it's actually a fascinating kind of indictment about convenience culture, because I do think in the United States we do have this idea that if we have to experience scarcity or if we can't get what we want, then that's an, that's an inconven, inconvenience, and we're not living our best life and something is wrong or something is backward or something is underdeveloped. But I also wonder if I suppose along the lines of what you're saying is if what we're also losing is what scarcity gives us, which is creativity and invention and a certain amount of almost like survival mentality that just gets lost when we have everything at our fingertips at all times. You know we have stopped using significant parts of our brains.

Heidi:

Yeah, and you need to rely on other people when I don't know, the sense of community was just a lot greater, I think, when you can do everything, like you said, online, you can buy yourself online. You're just kind of rushing from thing to thing, like it's. I just feel like you're not really living as much as like on that Island where you're, you're having moments with people all day long.

Tony:

You have endless options here in the US but you lose all human interaction because you have those options. When we're on the island, you lean on other people. You actually know, oh, these people have, like our fish lady, that's where we. Oh, she has this so we can go to her for this. And you talk about passion fruit. We had a friend who had a passion fruit tree and when that season was in she had more than she knew what to deal with or to do with. So we would go there and she would just she would basically give it to you because she had too much. So you kind of lean on community a lot more than you do. You know Amazon to just go fill your cart, ship shipping, boom and you're.

Pavel:

You know you're done, but it's just such a a lack of interaction and a lack of community yeah, now, even when, like door dash, somebody delivers food, I feel awkward opening the door while the people are still in the car because I don't know, for whatever reason, I just feel weird interacting with these people. So I wait until they leave and then I open the door like a weirdo and grab the things, the door and get inside. But that's what I became and it's so. It's so weird. Like I yeah, I used to also like in New Zealand was a lot more social and here, like I'm much more like. Sometimes I'm afraid to like be a little more open with people because I don't know if I'm going to offend somebody with something and everyone is afraid that they might offend you with saying something, and so you just like stay in your cocoon, uh, all alone with your faceless amazon and door dash deliveries that suddenly became bleak and gloom no, I told tony I was like I needed to learn how to people, how to be human in the U S.

Heidi:

Again, like you said, it's just different. Like, like you said, people have their guards and walls up and it's like I don't. I think they don't really want to interact with people, so I don't want to. You know, pop their bubble if they were not wanting. And I mean people just don't even make eye contact a lot of times. You know, heads are down in the phones or whatever. It's just a different way of life.

Shawn:

I had a Amazon package delivered a few days ago and I so you know they take a picture and then send it to you and they deliver. But I was just I saw them coming up, so I opened the door and the box was on the step. And they know they take a picture and then send it to you and they deliver. But I was just I saw them coming up so I opened the door and the box was on the step and they were about to take a picture and I was like, oh, I can just take it, it's fine. And they're like no, no, no, I have to take a picture. And it was. I kind of stood there for a second. Then I was like do you, do you want me to shut it's?

Tony:

like getting caught in the Google camera. You're out in your yard and you find yourself on Google Maps or Google Images.

Heidi:

I thought you were going to say like do you want a photo of me holding it?

Pavel:

Yeah, Thumbs up Smile.

Shawn:

But I did actually, pavel, I wanted to swing back and ask you because we were talking about earlier preparing to move and you've made two moves and they were very different one to New Zealand and then one to the States, and you at least the one to the States, you had some significant time to kind of prepare for that. So how do you feel about or what do you think the benefit is to having some time to prepare, or what is preparing to move to another country look like, as opposed to you know, as Heidi and Tony said, having to adapt on the ground unexpectedly and be able to like part on your terms with your stuff that you know that you're not gonna take with yourself.

Pavel:

So you have time to plan what you're gonna get rid of, give away to friends and or sell, and you know what you're gonna be able to take with yourself because you have limited amount of luggage or, you know, obviously can pay more to get a container or something.

Pavel:

But I didn't have that much stuff or that much stuff that I was attached to. So, yeah, it's just the ability to, uh, to plan what you're going to pack with yourself and plan all the things that you need to wrap up. Like you know, the bills change the name on the water bill or the internet bill and allow whoever you live with some time to, you know, find a new flatmates and stuff like that. So it's just, I guess, the ability to plan, plan your move and not feel rushed, because sometimes people, when they rush, you just have to you. You might, you might not be able to get the benefits of, you know, getting some cash for your stuff and you just have to get, get it to the goodwill or something was it easier or harder the second time that you did a big relocation?

Pavel:

I think it was easier because, first of all, I was moving to a place where I know somebody and I am looking forward to live with that person.

Pavel:

When the first time I was moving, I kind of like and I knew that I only have, you know, this amount that I can spend and I have enough money for, like, let's say, three, four months. So it was a little bit more stressful but it helped to kind of like prepare the worst case scenario with, like, still keeping my job in, you know, in Moscow where I was working. So that kind of helped you. You always have to create for yourself like a backup plan Okay, I'm moving, what's the worst case scenario if it's not going to work out? And you know, write, write it down, plan it.

Pavel:

And the other thing that you have to, or like I had to come up with is, like, what do I do to, like you know, be able to stick around and to prevent the worst case scenario from happening? So that's why, you know, I was looking for a job, I was going to classes on how to do this, you know how to write the resume and stuff, and I was networking. So it's, I would say, the main thing is just to develop like, okay, what's the worst case scenario and what will I do if that is going to happen?

Shawn:

For all three of you because you've had to kind of confront this has moving to some degree, for this is more specific to you, pavel, but it played out differently for you, heidi and Tony. Moving you had to shed a lot of belongings and kind of start over. Unless you do have like a container ship or whatever and you're moving everything that you own someplace, you're really moving with a handful of suitcases. As americans that means probably quite a bit of downsizing. Has that changed how you think about the accumulation of stuff and things?

Heidi:

I think it has um, and also another helpful part is when we came back here after our 15 months in the Philippines, we were still intending to split our time between here and there, and so we actually left quite a lot of stuff like in bins with a friend and then when we realized like it just wasn't going to work and we needed to stay here, you realize this stuff that we thought was so important that we needed to hold on to like I couldn't even really think what was in the bins, and so we just asked our friends can you just go through it?

Heidi:

And if there's anything that looks like it's important, just hold on to that, but everything else to just get rid of it. And I would like to almost do the same thing here, because we we also have moved a lot over the time that we've been together and lived all over the country, and you know we were bringing this tote from this state to the state and this state to the state. Like I almost would love to just do the same thing have somebody else go through it and throw most of it away.

Tony:

There's just something about doing it yourself that feels so much harder that I wish I could have brought home with me but obviously I couldn't get on the plane with it for obvious reasons was the knife that I bought there that I used to cut open. We used to get it's a machete. It's a machete. We used to get coconuts and it was the knife that I cut open my coconuts with and we would get fresh coconut water all the time and it was the best and that's the only thing that I'm like.

Tony:

Someone has that it's probably our friend Craig, and I'm like that was the one thing that I really prized there, like I loved using that and but it's, it's true, we left so many things there clothes, pans, different things that we really, you know, we really were like we're going to hang on to this stuff. It's all gone and it's. It's not a big deal. I feel like we're getting to that point here, too, where we're downsizing even more here. Even with my records, even with Heidi's books, we're downsizing a lot of this stuff just because we may want to get on out at the drop of a hat.

Heidi:

It's more of an anchor. I think that's what we're realizing is the stuff is an anchor and the less you're attached to it, the better. Yeah, because, yeah, like, if something happens, I think we could figure out a way to be out of here pretty quickly if we needed to.

Tony:

I know that I could fit everything I would need to take with me in a single backpack if I wanted to. I really could do it and it would be OK.

Shawn:

I mean, that's something I learned. I don't I don't want to say the hard way, it's just something I learned and maybe this is kind of along the same lines as what Heidi was saying which is like the times that I've had to leave and it wasn't necessarily internationally, but you know. So I left a relationship once. It pretty much left everything behind and then started over. And then I had big chunks of time when I was in New Zealand and I was living out of just one suitcase. Essentially, I thought at the time that I was leaving all kinds of stuff behind, but very quickly I just learned how to live with what I have and picked up along the way the other necessities. But, Pavel, you come from a different background, which is you kind of grew up with a certain amount of scarcity. So I'm wondering what your relationship to things and stuff is now that you have access to things that you've never actually had access to prior.

Pavel:

Well, I'm definitely compensating here in the States, but I do agree that all the stuff that we accumulate is kind of the anchor to the past that we hold on to. I cannot, like I moved, also like so many times while I, well, I lived in russia, because I moved from small town to a bigger town, then to a larger town, but I cannot remember of any particular thing or an object that you know I miss, I'm sure, like if I would remember something and it would bring back a certain memories associated with that object, I would be like oh, that that was nice, but I can't live without it.

Pavel:

I mean now certainly like we accumulated a lot of records, books and and stuff I, I, I that I would feel sad to to part with. I'm definitely going to be taking my peggy lee collection of the records, like, yeah, it's, I mean Shawn first, then the cat, then probably peggy lee collection, then my, then my notebooks, like you know, old diaries and stuff.

Pavel:

And then maybe some of my paintings or, you know, drawings, but yeah, the rest, like clothes you can kind of like very easily replace. So hopefully I can fit it all in one suitcase. Okay, maybe one and a half. It's ideal, but I certainly, you know it's not the end of the world is, if I'm not going to get my Peggy Lee collection, we're still Spotify that we can live by. And now thinking about like some of the drawings or paintings you know, I guess I can take good pictures of it, because it's just also kind of like a memory, the snapshots of like a certain feelings or emotions that I had when I would make something.

Pavel:

But yeah, stuff is just an anchor, it's just an extra weight.

Pavel:

That is that is holding us to to our past experiences, and I I had that period of time where I loved going to estate sales.

Pavel:

But every time you go to some of the estate sales and you realize, okay, well, probably the person who lived here died. Uh, well, 100 of a time, probably, yeah, and you go for some of the houses and they like so cluttered, there's like so much stuff and it's so heavy, and you get a headache almost in some of these houses and you're like, yeah, like that person never cleaned out their garage, like you know, it's just so much stuff. Was that person happy, I don't know. And it was always like a slightly different feeling when you're going through a house and it's kind of like more airy, cleaner in a way, less less stuff for junk. Um, so I I mean, you know we come, we're born naked and we die naked, so why bother, you know, wasting energy on trying to hold on to the objects you hold on to people and your friends and family and the relationships, and they usually, like you know, weightless, weightless.

Aaron Martin:

Yeah.

Heidi:

Well, and you have. You also felt like the things that you hold on to and bring to the new place Don't like. A lot of the things that I brought don't work in the new place. You know what I mean. So I'm like why did I move on to this? Why did I move this? It doesn't fit in the new place or the new life, or you know. So I think I'm'm gonna start seeing it more as an opportunity, like, okay, we're gonna let go of the things accumulated here and we will find new things in the next place that we like just as much.

Tony:

It'll be different, but it'll be fine we keep bringing things up from downstairs, especially now as it's getting warmer, and we put a whole box or two boxes of things out by the road and everything is gone within about maybe 45 minutes to an hour and it's. It's a great way to just purge things. And I swear if I needed to, we could do that with everything we own, and you could just be completely clean.

Heidi:

But, like you said, it's nice to get some money for some stuff.

Pavel:

Exactly.

Heidi:

Yeah.

Pavel:

Because, Shawn, like yesterday or yesterday, you went through this box full of stuff that was in the basement for a while. How did it make you feel?

Shawn:

while. How did it make you feel? Yeah, it was so it was. What it was is a bunch of bins that I have taken with me over the last 20 years of moves that I have never opened. I've just taken them with me when I move and then put them in a closet and then when I move again, I take them again and move them. So I went through them and, uh, I mean, there was some memory stuff there, but like a lot of it was just stuff that I've collected and I was kind of like I don't remember what this is or this is no longer, it doesn't, it's not applicable anymore, and I probably threw out 90% of the stuff. I went through like four bins and you know I'm down to like half a bin. There was some memory stuff in there, like photos and stuff, but other than that it's just junk that I've accumulated over time that at some point I thought was really important but is not anymore.

Shawn:

But I actually was having a conversation with somebody recently and we were talking about what is something that you feel like would be a real heartbreak if you did have to give up, if you moved. Another way to ask the question is what is something that you would feel like would be really important to take with you of the things that you have. And I guess, relationships aside, obviously I think I would miss my book collection, which is not a great answer, because that's not easy to take with you. It's highly curated and it's very old. I would miss it. But what would be the top of your list? Again, relationships and pets aside, what's at the top of your list for something that would just you feel like you would really want to take with you if you moved abroad?

Tony:

Outside of a digital thing, like I'm saying, because I've taken so many photos at so many concerts and I've taken so many photos of our travels that we did. But that's all digital kind of stuff. If we're talking about an actual physical, physical thing, it's. It's kind of difficult because I've even said I, I, I would be able to, I would be able to let go of all of the records I have, even though they all have specific, I would say, sentimental meaning. I would be able to leave all of that. But I would say, maybe some of the very first, like some of my old drawings that I did as a kid, I flipped through them every once in a while. There's something about that, just because it was kind of like the birth of all of what came afterwards and there's a lot of inspiration and there is a lot of connection with those very first drawings, from to my parents, to things like that that are very, very sentimental. So I'd probably want to grab some of some of that kind of stuff and just a few.

Tony:

I actually had a conversation with a friend who just went through a yearbook of his and he realized that I did some drawings in the yearbook. I don't have any of my yearbooks. I don't have any of this stuff from high school anymore. I remember when I threw it away and I just recently because one of my friends who passed away, a good friend of mine, who have drawn in my yearbook and written all these things I really I was really sad for a moment that I couldn't look at those again. I wish I could have, but the thing is I remember all of it. I would want to have it just for a moment to look through, but then I wouldn't at those again. I wish I could have, but the thing is I remember all of it. I would want to have it just for a moment to look through, but then I wouldn't need it again. But the memory is all there. So that's kind of it's. It's almost immaterial, like I wouldn't have to look at it, have it physically, but just the memory of that stuff is something.

Heidi:

Just to look at it one more time would be fun I'm like you, Shawn, my books and like, like you, I I've curated and tony's saying I'm slowly getting I'm very, very slowly getting rid of a couple books here and there, but I think as long as I felt they went to the right place, I could be okay with it. Like, if I found somebody that wanted to take my books for their library or something like that, I think then I would feel okay about it.

Shawn:

Pasha, what do you think?

Pavel:

Yeah, just just, I guess, my diaries because I have some from when I was like what, 10, 12. And now that I'm looking at like the first edition from the 50s of Dr Zhivago, I'm like should I take it? But then probably like, nah, I can, yeah, I can part with it as well. Yeah, I think, just some of those very intimate diaries and you know, those notebooks that come from the past and they're fairly light it's.

Heidi:

It's not that much weight, but yeah and I do have letters and drawings from tony, so I would keep those.

Pavel:

Yeah, do you go for them often?

Heidi:

I think because I put them in like safekeeping, like I'll come across like a little stash of them every once in a while, or like I know that there's tons in the basement too right now. But yeah, those I'd probably still hold on to.

Shawn:

Would you ever consider moving abroad again?

Heidi:

For sure.

Tony:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and even more so now it's.

Heidi:

It's one of the things it's tough because we do really like where we are now and again we finally feel like we have that sense of community here which took a while to build any of this right now.

Tony:

I mean, obviously we're all on the same page here. Any of this could just turn on a dime and, you know, really get nasty. So, and not that it isn't already, but, um, yeah, I would. I would be able to the drop of a hat. Like I said, I could throw enough things in a backpack that I could just leave this place and be gone and just disappear. I would be more than more than okay with it.

Heidi:

We could, it'd be sad I'd take a bunch of pictures. Yeah, and I guess I've done that. Every time I've moved and felt like I loved, you know like things about the place that I lived, I always made sure I took photos of everything, how I had it, before I like start packing stuff up.

Shawn:

Have you thought about where you'd go or places you'd consider?

Heidi:

I feel like it's all pretty open. Definitely the we'd have to look at who's accepting us and you know like we could take advantage of like nomad visas and like different, I think, working visas and probably even like possibly early retirement or those kind of things where you have to have X amount in your savings account. I think we have lots of options. I can't say that there's any certain place that I'm especially drawn to.

Tony:

Like some of those things you see online where it's like, oh, you can, for one dollar you can have, you can buy a place in italy in this area. You see those things. No, I I think that, um, probably the one of the prerequisites would be somewhere with a warm climate. I think it's always something that is kind of, you know, at the top the list, the body of water of some kind within near proximity is is essential. And again, like the way things are going, obviously Heidi has a great point, like someone that will accept us, you know, because that that's getting to be more and more of a true, I guess, concern. Yeah, that as long as someone will, will take us and I feel there's certain places that are very much like, come here, we'll accept you open arms, which is you know what we always want to, how we want to live our life with everybody else that you know we come across. So, but, yeah, how about you guys? Would you, would you be willing to do it and where would you go?

Pavel:

I would say that we would go back to New Zealand because that's uh, that's my second home. Uh, I would call Russia my first home, obviously because it's my homeland. I would call New Zealand my second home just because of the emotional connection and every time, in the saddest periods, it was always the memories of New Zealand that, you know, helped me through and that's the place where I draw most of the inspiration from. So I would say, like that would be our main option, because I do have a residency there and we do have some lovely and beautiful friends there that I hope will be excited about us being around. So, yeah, that would be our option. And yeah, I do agree with you Everything, the things are going to shit and you know it's not pleasant to live in a constant turmoil which, you know, everything seems to become.

Shawn:

Yeah, I mean all of that right, like obviously, one of the things that I'm learning through this series is the options that people have Americans have available to them, so that makes things more attractive. I didn't know how easy it was to get residency in Costa Rica, but I also wonder if I could live. You know, I want a warm place. I just don't know if I could do that year round. I do like my seasons. I didn't realize how easy it was to get a visa to France and that's interesting to me, but I also think, like my heart is in New Zealand and that's probably our most likely option.

Pavel:

That's probably our most likely option, and who knows?

Heidi:

maybe Heidi and Tony would be interested in exploring that option too. Well, we'll definitely be visiting.

Aaron Martin:

Yeah.

Shawn:

Heidi, Tony, thank you for taking the time. I enjoyed the conversation.

Heidi:

We enjoyed it too. Thanks, Shawn and Pavel.

Tony:

Yeah, thank you so much. This was fun to kind of talk about this stuff again. It's been a minute, thank you.

Shawn:

Life in the Philippines may move slower, sometimes frustratingly, so you won't always get what you want in two clicks or two hours, but that's kind of the point. When you trade the constant buzz of American urgency for an island pace where time is measured in tides, meals are shared without rush and there's no pressure to monetize every waking moment, something shifts. You start to notice things your breath, your neighbors, your own thoughts. Living without constant abundance doesn't feel like deprivation, it feels like enough, and in a world obsessed with more, that's quietly radical and deeply good for the soul. Alright, next week, on Leaving America, we're going to take a closer look at the English-speaking options Canada, new Zealand and Australia. If you're an American interested in moving somewhere that seems faintly American, these countries offer stability, safety and a culture that might feel surprisingly familiar. This is leaving America, because sometimes home isn't where you started. The Thank you.

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Shawn C. Fettig

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