Caribbean expat life, Belize & Honduras

0:03

Chase Warrington    

Hey, what’s going on everyone welcome to another episode of about abroad where it’s my job to introduce you to people who have built amazing lives for themselves in various foreign corners of the globe. We’re talking with expats and thought leaders about moving abroad, remote work, visas, and all the fun and practical knowledge that you need to know to follow in their footsteps. If you’ve ever dreamed of making a life for yourself overseas, maybe working remotely or embracing long term travel, retiring or studying abroad, or even just taking a peek inside life beyond your borders, you’ve landed in the right place.

This episode is brought to you by my good friends over at Sanebox remote knowledge workers are inundated with distractions these days emails, voicemails, Slack messages, and a million other pings that keep you from traveling the world getting that first remote job or moving to a new country these days to get ahead, we have to be great at prioritizing what matters. In my case, that meant cutting down on the world’s number one productivity killer email clutter, so I turned to Sanebox you can think of Sanebox as AI as your email box assistant, it gets to know your preferences and tendencies then automatically filters out the distractions and sorts your emails for you into folders and priorities that fit your workflow. I love st blackhole, where you can drag messages from annoying senders you never want to hear from again. They also offer Sane Reminders to ping you if someone hasn’t replied to you yet, alongside other automated files for anything from your receipts to your news feeds all in one place. Sanebox works within any email client you’re currently using and can be set up in a matter of minutes. Even better about abroad, listeners can access a 14-day free trial and $25 in credit when they sign up at sanebox.com/abroad. Check out the link in the show notes for more details. My guest today is Jana Barrett. She is the founder of a marketing agency called first-page strategy and is currently based out of Roatan and Honduras. She spent six years living in Belize before this and is originally from the US. So she walks us through what life is like living on the Caribbean islands in Belize and Honduras and shares a bit about the Caribbean vibe that we all know from afar, but rarely get a chance to live for the long term as she has. This was super fun. I love the places that she’s called home. They’re beautiful, full of lots of nature and great culture, and a big vibrant expat community while also embracing a lot of what the locals have as well. Plus a very friendly immigrant status and the ability to come live and call these places home. So a lot to love. She shares it all here in this episode, please help me in welcoming Jana to about abroad. You’re currently in row 10, but have just basically lived all over. And I’m so curious to find out more.

2:52 

Jeanna Barrett  

Yeah. So that’s why I built my business marketing agency. So I can hire people that work remotely all over the world like you and like me. And so that’s the passion behind my biz.

3:02

Chase Warrington    

That’s cool how that’s kind of like the starting point. Not a lot I think a lot of companies are like kind of going the other direction. They’re like, we built this business, we had a brick-and-mortar setup. And now okay, we got to figure out how to do this like a remote thing. And people want to live all around the world. And we want to facilitate that. But we don’t know how you sort of like started from the other end of the spectrum.

3:21  

Jeanna Barrett

Yeah, I mean, I was interested in trying to convince my boss when I was a junior marketer at the tech company in Seattle, back when I was I don’t know, 26 or 25. I was trying to convince them to let me work remotely because I wanted to live in San Francisco. But we were in Seattle, and I could do my whole job online. He said no, but I eventually moved to San Francisco. And then the same thing, I went to Belize on a trip and I was like, You know what, I just want to be traveling and I want to be in other countries. I want to like see the world and be able to do my work at the same time. And so I left my career in San Francisco to do that. Then it moved to please to start this company and build remote agents.

3:58

Chase Warrington   

So what is the business? It’s a marketing agency. Yeah,

4:02  

Jeanna Barrett  

first-page strategy. We’re a growth marketing agency that started with just me and like one other guy helping me out that I recruited over from a job that I was working with him at and then now we’re about 40 people working remotely across the globe. We were remote obviously before COVID So I get a little bit annoyed when people are like, oh, yeah, like It must be nice to build that business after COVID allows you to do that. But there are so many remote companies and people working remotely before COVID So it’s just more forefront now. I guess. But yeah, so we’ve been remote since 2016. Wow.

4:35  

Chase Warrington 

That’s you’re a true pioneer of that space then because I mean, yeah, you’re right. Like most companies, you know, the kind of birth time in the remote setting was post-2019. 

4:45 

Jeanna Barrett   

Yep, exactly. We’ve been doing it a little while so it kind of helped us through all that. We were already stable and set up to work remotely from home. That’s cool.

4:52 

Chase Warrington   

So you guys didn’t have much of like, did you feel pretty unimpacted by a lot of the world changes that took place, or was there still like Pretty heavy packed on some level,

5:01 

Jeanna Barrett  

we were, um, we were not impacted from a business level because our clients are mostly tech product-led businesses that we do growth marketing for. And that industry, as we know is rarely affected and almost, you know, Triple, double, quadruple during COVID Just because everybody was online and we saw businesses like zoom get massively popular and some of these tools we were already using, but it did still affect all of our workers like in a sense because when you work from home a lot of people you know, they go to coffee shops or they go to co working space or there’s a way to get you to get out of the house and you work from home all day you get out of the house to spend time with your friends family. But so there was still the mental health side of like affecting our the people that worked for us just feeling like they were stuck inside all day and didn’t have any outlet to communicate connectable. We weren’t unaffected, but we just our business and revenues kept going. 

5:54 

Chase Warrington   

That’s a nice perk of remote work. Yeah, we experienced the same I mean, we’re, you know, similar. We’re about 100 people in 35 different countries and everybody, you know, and we’ve, we’ve been doing that for about 15 years. And so when the pandemic hit, we thought, like, okay, like, we’re pretty fortunate here, we can just keep on chugging along like we don’t need to adjust too much. But the one thing we didn’t account for was that everybody just kind of like leaned into work. That was their outlet for everything because you’re just everything like I was in a three-month lockdown in Spain, you couldn’t leave the house. And it was like, so I’m just going to work a lot. And then there was like, major burnout later, and people like isolation, mental health challenges. And it was a predictable wave in retrospect, but at the time we did, I don’t know, we didn’t take it, or we didn’t do a great job, like being proactive about it as a learning experience. For sure.

6:42  

Jeanna Barrett  

Yeah, I think well, all of us were just kind of surviving trying to survive. Like we didn’t know how to prepare ourselves at all for that, right? But I talked to so many of my the people that worked for the first page and my team members that, you know, were single and were home alone, and some of them didn’t even have pets. And those were the people that I think struggled the most that they are isolated. We had someone in Australia who was on lockdown and could like go out for more than one hour a day or something exercise couldn’t leave a certain mile radius around her house, and all her friends and family members were outside that radius. And so yeah, just but we did talk a lot. I think that as a founder, I’m focused on compassion and empathy and having a full first culture and talking to all the people that work for me, and getting to know what ticks for them outside of the company on the business. And so just continuing to have those like checking numbers like how are you doing? What’s going on in your world? Let’s endemic like for you, like, I think carried us through and some ways but it was really difficult.

7:39 

Chase Warrington 

Yeah, that’s so important to lead from the top down. And that way like for the team, to feel that level of empathy from the founder is vital in those situations, I think and I think that’s like the only way that remote teams made it through this pretty trying time and in like any state any sane sort of way was that was having that sort of leadership. So yeah, kudos to you. That’s, that’s awesome. I think it’s funny about the dog. Like pets. You mentioned Spain, I have a dog I have a Siberian Husky named Kota and he became super famous during the lockdown because that was the only way you’re allowed to just go for a walk was to take a dog out. So we had people like hey, can we like rent your dog? Oh my god, that’s so great. Well, yeah, I could it could have been very lucrative. I didn’t I didn’t take anybody up on that. But anyway, buddy. Yeah,

8:24  

Jeanna Barrett  

I just talked about the other day because I have a rescue and like, I’m passionate about people, you know, saving dogs that need homes. And so it was so cool. Like, that was good that came out of the pandemic when shelters were short on the dog or were dying to adopt pets that they really that all of them had been adopted. I’d love to hear that. But I did the same thing. I have a rescue named Gigi. And I mean, I was I got stuck in the United States during the lockdown because the airport closed in Belize and so for eight months so I was in the States with her and  I don’t know we walked like an hour in the morning, and an hour at night because I didn’t I wasn’t I was at an Airbnb rental I have in Long Beach California and I didn’t have any friends around and so it was just me and my rescue dog walking two hours a day and so yeah, the dog walk thing during the pandemic was my point of survival as well

9:14  

Chase Warrington  

it’s funny I actually one thing that I learned about halfway through the pandemic was that I didn’t understand the so many rules in Spain and they were changing constantly and one of the things I didn’t capture immediately was that there was and I’ve wondered like wait, did I just like purposefully kind of overlook this point like what is it like but you just like you see something and you’re like I’m gonna I’m gonna choose to not have seen that so I don’t know if they subconsciously did this but there was a rule where you had like a radius around your apartment like a very small radius and you couldn’t leave even for walking the dog like two blocks or something like that and but I didn’t see that so I was for the first couple of weeks I was like going on these super long walks through the ghost town of Valencia, Spain, which is normally like a pretty thriving metropolis and it was like totally dead at the time and I’m like walking through this ghost town with my dog just thinking like, Man, this worked out pretty good with Kota. And then I found out like, I’m breaking all kinds of laws, and so got restricted. Oh, shoot, that’s why I was did you end up doing most of your time during the pandemic back in the US, or were you in Belize at that time?

10:13  

Jeanna Barrett  

I did. No, I Well, in Belize, they were it was right in like hard to think back. I think it was April timeframe, like in March, and they were closing the airports, the international airports. And it made me nervous because my whole family, any connections if I got sick if I needed help, if I needed to go, you know, to health care or whatever was in the US. And so once they told us that they were shutting the airports down, it was kind of like all a lot of expats and their pets. I mean, I was at the airport that day with all my best friends, they were all with their dogs, kind of everybody was leaving Belize to be able to get to the other side of the airport before it shut down. And so I at the time, you know, lucked out, because I had just bought in 2019, this little tiny Airbnb home that I rent out and kind of use as my US home base anytime I need to go back and I had just had that setup. And so I was able to go back there. And yeah, so I stayed there for eight months during the pandemic, and because the airport load didn’t open back up and Belize till October 2020. But I had a cat and liked house sitters at my house for eight months, it was very bizarre. And I panicked, like being stuck on the other side of not being able to go home or you know, take care of things. I also had a sailboat that was kind of like randomly floating and didn’t have anybody don’t take care of it. And so I haven’t come back to the US much since then, because I got nervous about being, you know, just locked out for so long. And so when things were still a little bit iffy in 2021, and this year, I guess aid in Central America. So since that eight months didn’t have bad

11:45  

Chase Warrington  

I’m so curious. What was the initial attraction to was it Central America or was it specifically Belize?

11:52

Jeanna Barrett  

it was specifically Belize I went on a vacation to Belize for about 10 days on August 25. It just came at about the right time in my life. I had been in San Francisco for six years, I was not happy with my lifestyle or the lifestyle of video and the tech world and my career for about the last two years of it. I was kind of looking for my next step. I wasn’t you know, I wanted to get out of San Francisco, I didn’t really know broadly what US city was calling me I was kind of looking at Atlanta, Colorado, Denver, and New Orleans, but I went on a vacation leaves and I just like felt so great for those 10 days I was there and a total shift in my mentality and attitude from when I was in San Francisco. And the people were so nice. I was super relaxed and warm. We were in the water. I just had a blast. And I came back and I was like, you know, I want to feel like that every day of my life. Like I don’t want to live a life where I feel like I’m on vacation two weeks a year. And then the other 50 weeks a year. I’m just waiting for my next vacation. I’m like, I want to feel like you feel like you’re on vacation every day. And how do I do that? At the time, I was stuck kind of in a situation at a startup that was doing well I had the stock they were going to you know, they were considered a unicorn I kind of felt like I couldn’t leave that. But that situation installed itself in April of 2016. And I was immediately I was like, Okay, one month I like checked all the boxes of what I needed to do to get out of the country and just made the leap like I just quickly didn’t even think about it called my parents. I was like I’m going to Belize sold everything set up a business was like I think I might just freelance and then the agency thing kind of fell in my lap a couple of months later but yeah, so that’s how I did it. Just kind of chasing a feeling that I have a lifestyle. I was not getting the United States I can totally

13:43  

Chase Warrington  

relate to so many things. We have a ton of parallels between the path that we took I’m pretty sure it was the same year I think it was 2016 when I finally like rip the band-aid off and left a really good situation at a company it was like actually love the company love the people like most things about it, except I wanted more vacation time I wanted exactly what you wanted. My thing was like Europe, like my wife and I were traveling to Europe a lot but live it’s like we go for one week and then we fly back and you know, jet-lagged and all like jumped back into work on a Monday and do that once or twice a year and that wasn’t like filling the need but anyway ended up like you know, leaving a what most would consider like a good search situation behind sold the house all that and like are like okay, we’re just doing this finally, and you know, learned a lot along the way. But it’s I don’t know like yours is a bit unique story in and of itself. But also like how quickly like kind of ripping the band-aid off and just going and I think one of the cool things that Belize offers, and you can tell me more because I don’t know all the details, but like it’s possible for an American just to like move to Belize. Right? Like, like you could do that in a month. You couldn’t do that in Europe, for instance.

14:49  

Jeanna Barrett  

Yeah, you know, I always wonder like there’s, as you know, I’m sure, and all the people you’ve talked to you and just knowing the kind of scene of people that leave the US or other countries that work abroad. You know the pockets of peep that people go to there’s a huge location in Bali, and there are tons of people that work in Portugal Lisbon pockets around the world, and like Central America is not one of those pockets. And I’m always so baffled by it because it’s the perfect location in terms of timezone I’m on central time are mountain time. So now we don’t change. So I just switched back and forth between Central and Mountain. And so I’m never I’m in the middle of all the US timezone. So I can work in the US within like, with us client who has employees with like, zero interruption, and the internet is stable and great. I mean, we’re in a year where internet kind of problems might get them sometimes. But for the most part, people that zoom in all day don’t have an issue. There’s no acute work remote place on the island I live on called there’s kind of those work remote resources. And yeah, so then again, there are very few laws that are gonna keep you out of here. I know that people struggle kind of to make it work in certain European countries. And I think that’s because they’re just so much more developed in advance. But in a lot of countries here, they’re encouraging it right, because they want people to come down and purchase land and spend money and a healthy economy is down here. And so yeah, in Belize, it was just a situation where I had to go, you just have to go to immigration and stamp every 30 days, you have to pay I think it started at about $50,000,000,000.25 us started and now 100 Belize dollars every month. But yeah, so I just stamped every 30 days, you have to go to immigration, and you have to make sure you’re not late. They don’t they do want by by their laws. But I did that for about I think 18 months. And then finally they were they told me you know, we want you to have status and to them status being something more than just like someone on vacation stamping visa, they want you to have a work permit or a residency. And so I went through the work permit process, you just you know, you can work with various brokers who will kind of push it through quickly for no certain amount of money. So once you have a work permit, you can stay in the country without stamping for a year. And you get benefits like being able to go through the short line at the immigration when you come in, and you’re behind like two airplanes of tourists. And so yeah, then for my last three years there four years there I had,

17:10 

Chase Warrington   

wow, that’s cool. And do you feel like it was sort of like in some countries like France, I went and lived in Ecuador for a little while. And it’s kind of the same similar sort of thing you showed up, you could show up on a tourist visa for three months. And then after that you just every three months had to go through this process of like paying a fee and filling out some papers. But it wasn’t a question. It wasn’t like you were applying for an extension. You were just doing the process. And did you feel like more or less that was the case in Belize? Or was it more of like, you kind of worried about it every time like I hope I get it?

17:40  

Jeanna Barrett  

Yeah, it’s easier than you know, my boyfriend is from Honduras. And there’s like we’ve learned all the challenges that come with trying to get someone into the US very different than that. But yeah, you don’t there was no stress or struggle it was like check all the boxes, fill out this application, you know, send a letter of recommendation, here’s the list of things you have to get done at the fee, and then signed, sealed and delivered. There is no worry and stress about it. I mean, but I can’t say like I was someone that didn’t have a criminal background like they’re checking police records and stuff like that. So I can’t, you know, I was pretty much and they have a certain extent of like, you have to have so much money in the bank, you have to be making much money, you know, it’s kind of showing that you keep a job there yourself because one thing that you’re not allowed to do and I live in Honduras now and saying here, please and tourists, they don’t want you taking a job away from a local and so you kind of have to prove that you can make your income and you’re not going to come and you know, become an in Belize, like there nobody foreign could be a divemaster because they want to preserve like divemasters or local. After all, that’s a big job for locals. So I checked all the boxes in terms of like nothing being a red flag for them. So I can’t say it would have been a bit harder if I was a red flag or take us

18:47  

Chase Warrington  

Yeah, we’re sweet when we were speaking in generalities about these visa things. Like we do have to throw that caveat on there. Like if you’re a criminal or if you don’t have any money then yeah, this might not apply to you. Yeah, exactly. Right.

18:59 

Jeanna Barrett  

Yeah. But believe it was a lot easier than where I’m at with Honduras. Yeah, I just want to talk about that. Yeah, yeah,

19:06  

Chase Warrington  

I want to get into both of them because I’ve never been to Honduras. I have I’ve been to Belize and fell in love with it and was also like, like all the reasons that you just mentioned like the timezone thing the proximity of beautiful beaches, I fell in love with the keys like the little islands out there. Where did you live in Belize? Yeah,

19:24 

Jeanna Barrett   

I lived on ambergris key which is the biggest largest they kind of call it the New York of Belize. For me it was a great transition because I was in San Francisco, you know, I was a city girl I love going out on the town kind of picking out different bars and restaurants and so and Pedro has just a ton to offer in terms of like massive amounts of bars and restaurants and bowl and fun and then it’s about a half an hour away from Peak PACCAR which is very popular with like the cheaper travel backpack travel set of there’s a lot of Europeans that go to key Cocker and it’s just a smaller and sleepier, kind of, you know, not a lot of cars still have sand roads. but not as developed. So for me, it’s like San Pedro was an obvious choice because all the things I felt like I needed the services I needed to have to live my life are in San Pedro, where it’s a little bit you know, there’s not a whole lot on key Cocker. But both islands are beautiful. They’re, you know, in the middle of the Caribbean, the water is shallow and blue, you can sparkle Right off the shore, the people of Belize are, I think, what people talk about the most when they say that, you know, they’ve been to Belize, and they love it. And I’ve heard people say that people are like, some of the nicest in the whole world and I really, truly do not like they are just so kind. So smiley, they’ll joke with you. You know, English is the native language of Belize. Another reason why it’s great for people that don’t speak another language, which is many Americans, unfortunately, and I’m kind of one of those I’m trying to learn Spanish now. But yeah, so I give ya 10 gold stars. Yeah,

20:47

Chase Warrington    

I mean, all those things I fell in love with as well. It was so easy I was I loved the welcoming nature, like, like, I wasn’t going there for a long-term stay. But knowing that the approach the company to the country takes to like welcoming foreigners, you know, I’m just coming from the standpoint of being an American, but like, as an American, I could just move there I could come I could pretty much stay as long as I wanted. They seem to want me there and enjoy having me there. And I had like this, I remember having this amazing experience speaking to how kind people were a guy was working at our hotel, like doing maintenance and stuff. And I just happened to ask him, we want to go back we were out on key to conquer. And we asked like, yeah, we wanted to go like, you know, see some of the temples and stuff like in the back on the mainland, like, Do you know how we would do that? And he like an hour later, he came up, he’s like, Hey, my uncle is going to pick you up back in Belize City tomorrow, take you on a tour. And like legitimately, like, we rode the boat, rode the boat back to Belize City, got in a car with this guy’s uncle and he drove us out to look at the, at the temples. And we’re like, what, this is amazing, like, like that. And he just brought us back. I mean, sure, we paid him and stuff. It was a business endeavor, but it was like so so like, familiar, and it just had a very unique vibe to it.

21:56

Jeanna Barrett   

Yeah, so that is like, I mean, to me, I kind of just got goosebumps listening to you to talk about that. Because to me, that was life-changing. It changed my whole life to be in the culture and the community. I came from a city in the US where I felt very isolated. People are very transient. I lived in an apartment for six years, I did not know my neighbors other than a high-end buyer. I went to the same coffee shop gym for Sears bar down the corner. I didn’t know people, just like US cities can be super isolating. And our culture is not friendly in terms of just saying hi to people in the streets. I mean, I go back to California now to walk my dog and I like to say hi to people and they kind of divert their eyes like I just I’m super sad about what I see with the American culture now that I’ve experienced that culture. But being in Belize, it was like like I said, just like people are so kind they like they asked you about yourself all the time they want to get to know Eugen they open up their home, I knew they would recognize me everywhere I went, I had people stopping in the streets if my car broke down to carry like my bags and pick me up. And I just felt so supported as a single woman in Belize at every turn, like I was alone, but I was not alone. Because I felt like there were people if I was sick, they would I had people drive, you know, miles off the coast to drop off local remedy when you’re sick, which is ginger and lime and garlic. And yeah, I just have so many examples of being embraced and supported.

23:20  

Chase Warrington  

It does, it does change your perspective, right? Like, you grow up a certain way you just kind of have like your normal is your normal, and then all of a sudden, you’re transplanted to another place where you see a new normal in your life and you can take from the good and the bad and you know kind of piece together a new normality for yourself. And I think that’s one of the most attractive things about really like a long term like living in a place for a long time. Like you get to absorb those nuances of life in another place. And I don’t know, it gives you a whole new fresh perspective.

23:50 

Jeanna Barrett   

Yeah, it does. And that is why I am just absolutely obsessed with culture. Like I’m fascinated by it. I love it. I felt like, you know, when I left Belize, I kind of wrote a goodbye to some of my friends that I posted on social and I talked about how it was like the most special experience of my life date to be let in so intimately into other culture and just like learning the idiosyncrasies of like, how they live and work and the jokes and you know, what they do at Christmas time or all those little things was so cool to bring in something so different from what I did, but so similar in many ways, right? It also does that, like the human experience is the same across so many cultures, so many countries are all kind of feeling dealing with the same thing. So yeah, I’m endlessly fascinated by learning about

24:34  

Chase Warrington 

you, you and me both. That’s a cool point, too. So that leads me to believe like you were able to kind of integrate and I always like to ask, I’m curious to know, like, what the vibe was like in terms of like, you know, the expat community versus the transient community versus the locals and like how you as someone living there as a foreigner were able to like mix and mingle in those different spaces. Can you speak to that?

24:55  

Jeanna Barrett 

Yeah, I think it can be challenging in some ways. But then, like you’ll be embraced and welcomed in other ways and I can only speak to the cultures that I’ve been a part of in Central America. But the trickiest part, I think, is that they see so many people coming like there’s a lot of Americans or expats or Canadians or whatever country you’re from that stay for a year and so a lot of my friends were cautious and just kind of exhausted by letting people in being best friends saying findable over and over and over again and kind of a lot of them had talked to me about that that like painful or heartbreak some ways so it can take a lot to break into a local culture I think at least on the islands I’ve been a part of but for me, I see a lot of expats that are you know, they come down and all they do is like hanging out at expat business and they hang out in expat groups and that at all was not what I was then forced I wanted like  I did have expat friends because you connect with people that are that no, the same culture that you do, right kind of do need that in another country. But I wasn’t interested in leaving America I was really interested in having like a really breaking in and learning as well. So it took some time. But But yeah, I just didn’t you no matter where you’re from, or the color of your skin, or who you are, what country you’re from, like, I just wanted to get to know people that I felt were like-minded or not like-minded as, right. So I kind of went about that very way. And I wish that more expats, that and for me also, the biggest thing is I was interested in supporting local businesses. And so I made sure to go to local belief restaurants, local belief bars, and when you do that, and you like to hype up their business as I would go to like, you know, get a pedicure and a spa and like post about them on Instagram, like they appreciated that. And so I made a lot of connections through like the business owners of the businesses, I would frequent. And I became friends with them just because I was supporting their business,

26:48  

Chase Warrington 

Oh, that’s such a cool way to contribute. And like, like, while you’re I mean, it’s kind of like, you know, two birds one stone sort of thing, like you’re getting to experience the local culture, part of why you, you came there, and then also like supporting others, and I agree. Like, it bothers me a little bit not on a personal level, but just like I kind of hate it for people that go abroad, and they spend some time like living in a place but they never really get to, like know, the true nature of the place because they just they surround themselves with people exactly like them. And I get it that’s comfortable and nice. And you do need that you said that as well. Like it is nice to have that to lean on sometimes, but also like getting into the place that you’re now calling home is is such a vital part of the experience. And for some reason or another some people just kind of miss out on that, I think and I don’t know, I’m getting better at finding the balance. For me, it’s getting important to like to have that group of expats or digital nomad types that are coming through and like not, like shun that completely, but also like, ensure that I’m, you know, continuing to like integrate into the local area. 

27:48  

Jeanna Barrett  

Yeah, And I do think both those things are super important. Like I would never Yeah, I’m not interested in shunning my own culture, although I will say that it puts you live abroad, you kind of see an outside perspective of how some Americans Act, and I do have a hard time with that. But yeah, like having friends from back home or when you have friends from where you’re living right now the country that you’re living, that’s when you truly get to experience the culture. Like there are so many cool things that I did that I would not have been able to experience if I did not have Malaysian friends. You know, I had beliefs and friends that took me on a super secret island detour on a boat where we spent the night on little tiny keys, I wouldn’t have done that unless I had a friend who was a captain who knew how to navigate the waters. I went to a different cultural celebrations and saw how Malaysians do baby showers or have allegiance to Christmas. And it’s different than what we do. And so I wouldn’t have experienced those things I would add friends from Belize.

28:44

Chase Warrington    

Oh, that sounds amazing. And so you were communicating in English primarily or was there

28:49  

Jeanna Barrett  

English and that is why it was a lot easier for me to connect on a deeper level I am struggling a little bit with that now that I’m in Honduras, where it’s primarily Spanish speaking because English is the first language of Belize and so I am not able to connect as quickly with locals here as I wasn’t Belize. That is a struggle. So yeah, shared language just goes a long way in terms of just integrating quickly.

29:13  

Chase Warrington  

Yeah, that’s such an advantage of bilete like what a unique thing right? Is it the official language or one of the official languages

29:19  

Jeanna Barrett  

it’s the official language I mean because they used to be British Honduras right they were they were owned by the Brits for only they were independent only 40 years ago and I know this please same age as I am so every year when they celebrate their independence, it’s my birthday age but yeah, so I can’t remember who told me this that one time but it takes like three generations or something to fully unbind yourself from political ruling right so Belize is really young still in their independence but yeah, so English is the official language most of the locals do Spanish and then they also speak Creole which is probably the unofficial first language as the Legions all Creole with each other and you as well. All but most a lot of back, like, on building, right? But so it’s like a language country,

30:05  

Chase Warrington

Right? It’s wild, right? That’s it’s really interesting to think about the English being the official language like you’re like, Oh, that’s cool on the surface, that’s nice, you know, we’ll be able to communicate, but also like when you’re thinking about being an expat living abroad somewhere, like when paperwork like official paperwork and stuff is in your native language, or, like, you know, when you go to see a doctor or a bank, or you know, like, all those things get super complicated. I’m having to deal with, like, mechanic issues in France right now. And I’m like, translating back and forth with Google Translate on my phone, like when it when those kinds of things go away, and it makes the experience a lot nicer.

30:38  

Jeanna Barrett  

It does. Yeah, Yep. And that, like, I’m seeing that now in Honduras. Yeah, like your doctors think, or even talking to a doctor has been frustrating for me, because I have to, like, tell my boyfriend what’s going wrong. And then he has to translate it for the doctor. And like, you know, I feel like some things are kind of lost in translation sometimes. So the language thing is, is a barrier in a lot of ways to make it a little bit kind of exhausting to integrate into a new culture. So yeah, that’s tricky.

31:07  

Chase Warrington  

We’ll be right back to the show after a quick break. For a note from our sponsor, this season is brought to you by my good friends over at insured nomads. They’re the absolute best in the business when it comes to providing health travel and medical insurance for nomads, expats, and just all forms of world travelers. I know insurance is often something that’s overlooked when we’re fantasizing about traveling the world. But it’s an absolute necessity that we address this because often the policy you have in your home country isn’t going to cover you while you’re abroad. And it’s also a requirement as a lot of people may not realize to buy private travel or expat insurance, as it’s called sometimes to obtain a visa or even enter certain countries. So, fortunately, there are companies like insured nomads to help us with this. Not only do they have excellent coverage and great prices, but they’re also providing a first-class experience with additional perks and best-in-class technology via their app. It’s an amazing experience, I can’t recommend it enough. Now, this is a company that was built by world travelers for world travelers, so they know what it’s like to find yourself in a difficult medical situation abroad. And they want to keep you from having that same bad experience. So the next time you’re planning a trip abroad, whether it’s for a week or a lifetime, check out insured nomads via the link in the show notes. Hey, guys, if you’re still around and enjoy this episode, then I think you might like our once-a-month newsletter as well. If you’d like to sign up, just open up the show notes of the episode you’re currently listening to scroll down, and look for about abroad.com/newsletter It takes about 30 seconds to sign up. It’s a fantastic way to support the show. And I think you’ll be pleased with the information that we provide every month as well. Thanks a lot for listening. Hope you enjoy the rest of the episode. When did you make the transition to rotate it if you don’t mind sharing? Like was there any particular reason? Or was like personal or any reason to get away from Belize?

32:54  

Jeanna Barrett  

No, I’m not other than like the, you know, quintessential or like a stereotypical love story, I guess. But now that I’m here, I do think that you know, there was obviously in my mind like I’m a very intelligent woman, I wasn’t gonna like jump to somewhere that I didn’t want to live for someone else if I find myself here if that if it didn’t work out. So I evaluated row a tan A lot against where I was living, at least in Hamburg. And I moved to row 10 A year ago. But yeah, to me, it just is superior in a lot of ways in how it’s run and the development, and where the development heading, the environmental impact the cleanliness thing. So there are a lot of reasons that I had chosen this tip somewhere that I could like, okay, Belize was super fun, and I loved it. I had a great time. But do I want to like buy real estate there and become a full-time resident and like, really dig my heels? And

33:47  

Chase Warrington

interesting? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Did you like is it the infrastructure? Is it politics?

33:53  

Jeanna Barrett 

It’s all of it? Honestly, I don’t it’s somewhat sensitive because I don’t want to if anybody from Belize elicits a thing that would like hurt feelings, or get people in trouble or anything. But yeah, it’s just if you think about all the reasons you would choose to live somewhere, from education to infrastructure, to government, to the environment to food and health care. There are two big things I can say off the bat there are multiple hospitals on the island and an International Airport, and neither of those is on the island. I was living in Belize. So just like having an international airport and a hospital goes a long way, right in terms of where I want to live. So yeah,

34:31 

Chase Warrington   

I can relate to that. I mean, one of the things I love have loved about living in Valencia is like I’m kind of like drawn to like smaller towns or even like villages, you might say, but like the thing about being in a place like Valencia is that like in 15 minutes, I can be from my doorstep in the center of the city. And I can be sitting at the airport and like in 45 minutes, I’m sitting at my gate fly all across Europe, and like that was a huge thing for me. Like just having that international access and anything like that infrastructure is really important, I think exceptionally so when you’re in a foreign place like you don’t want to make it even more challenging on yourself, or maybe you do for a while, but after a while, it can get a little bit exhausting. Yeah,

35:11  

Jeanna Barrett 

well, I think there’s a difference between like, am I here to work remotely and, you know, have some fun for a couple of years? And is there another place that calls my attention versus I want to settle down, I want to buy something, you know, real estate or whatever, I want to build a family and a community here, like, you’re gonna weigh different things, right? Because once I started kind of leaning towards the ladder of like, where do I want to settle into? I had a whole list of things that did not crop up when I was just leaving San Francisco to go to Belize. Not things I thought about, but I do think that people leap too quickly, sometimes. And I’m just speaking like retirement exactly. I see a lot of people just like, you know, we’re in a Facebook group here where we’ll ask questions to each other, just like we’re moving to row 10. We’ve never been should we live in Sandy Bay or the West End neighborhood? And I’m like, never been and you’re trying to ask like a random goal. What neighborhood you should buy a house in like, maybe you should think a little bit further until like, why rose Han? And were on row 10. You know, so it’s like people are very, they’re not very thoughtful about sometimes about where they’re putting their lives and their butts, I guess. But yeah, so I was pretty thoughtful about the reasons why I wrote that out.

36:23  

Chase Warrington 

Interesting. Yeah. So what are what about let’s do like some basics on rotation because I feel like there might be some people listening who are like, I know, row 10? But like, I don’t really know. Rochin. So like, let’s just like start from a little bit of the beginning, like rotations are part of Honduras. And let’s go from there.

36:38  

Jeanna Barrett  

Yeah, so Rotana is one of the bait islands of Honduras. There’s also we’re not Han Khaled brothers, it’s probably the most habited largest like where people a lot of people who it’s really large like I would say, I can’t you know, I can’t give you exact miles two miles, where I was living at least and ambergris key but it feels like it’s five plus times larger, very large, like a rock in the middle of the ocean near the Mesoamerican reef. There’s a bunch of different towns that people live in, you know, across the island, so you could live in one part of the island would still have all access to all like grocery stores and restaurants and all that you could live in another part. So it’s like feels large when you’re moving to the island, but there’s lots of ease on it. It is an international dive location. It’s one of the main reasons I’m here it’s like one of those dream dive locations. I think for a lot of people diving is a huge part of the culture here. There are dive shops everywhere and lots of divers. Yeah, and it’s also a Caribbean island. So we’re next to a reef lots of snorkeling, lots of really cool water, lots of seafood, and just that whole Caribbean culture lots of water sports and churches and beach bars and stuff like that. It’s one of the lesser known islands a lot of times when I tell people that I live in Rhode tan they’re like oh, where’s that which yeah is surprising but then it allows this like kind of still untouched not for free right like prison is I find not as high as all the other United so it’s still pretty affordable becoming less though because I feel like people are covering it buying up real estate left to right but yeah, it’s a stunning place.

38:17  

Chase Warrington  

That sounds so idyllic because one of the things that are like the Caribbean is great, but a lot of times when you go to some of the islands you think like this is great for like traveling, you know, I love coming to spending a week or two here or something but when you have the kind of infrastructure that you have there and bro tan mixed with all the greatness of the Caribbean, the water the vibe, I mean, there’s the Caribbean vibe is like world-renowned. You don’t like that? What are you doing with your life? I’m so obsessed. I love it like it’s Oh, it’s so it’s just so vibrant and fun and like friendly.

38:46  

Jeanna Barrett  

Happy the music is amazing. The dancing and the food. Yeah, I like everything about it. I will feel strongly that I will never leave the Caribbean. I love it.

38:54  

Chase Warrington 

 Is there a time for you? Like do you have like a rainy season or anything? Like is there a bad time of year to be there?

38:59  

Jeanna Barrett  

Yeah, so it was quite different which is so bizarre what’s bizarre about ambergris key Belize, the keys, and Belize Caribbean islands in Belize versus Caribbean island Honduras? They’re so close like take a flight between them actually, which is how I originally came here from tropic air from Belize to grow a tan 45-minute flight. They’re very close in the water if you look on a map but they’re very different with their weather and Belize was really like the islands are hot and don’t really get a relief from it year round and there’s some months of the year July August and September where it’s like unbearably hot leave the house and your whole body just starts sweating like I felt like I get a spear and water throw a tan and there’s no there’s not a lot of vegetation on the island like it’s kind of like hot dusty like open to the Sun not a lot of trees grow a tan what I find those studying special about it is it’s like all jungles so the entire center of the island jungle like we’re on the like rainforests and then on the outskirts of it is all the but to keep this green it requires a lot of rain so there’s a little light, more rain etc. is inherent during the winter months which I think my like I would say it’s like November october november ish pretty rainy this year when I was here it was not really prepared for it with how rainy was so it feels like you are kind of inside during true winter than I was Belize which but yeah, so there’s definitely like a true rain

40:19  

Chase Warrington  

good to know do go in December planning to get your sunbathe on I don’t

40:23  

Jeanna Barrett  

know that’s hard to say though because it’s so very like. After all, we had beautiful weather in December as well and you live when tech but ah, but five days there were at the beach during December but then there are other weekends in December when it rains. So it’s just kind of it’s much like Arabian rain, right? Where it’s like Flash rains. And then yeah, but it’s still warm out. It’s none of the months have been like solid rain out. So it’s still like moments of breakthrough sun. But yeah, it’s heavier rains, and that’s kind of hard to say the weather just might be a little bit more of like a risk in terms of it renting your home.

40:57  

Chase Warrington  

Okay, good to know. Yeah, I think that’s important. Because like, there’s other like Island places around the world where, you know, they say like, I mean, it just, it’s pretty much-gonna rain for like two months during the rainy season. And it’s not like enjoyable to be there. But if you just get you to know, it’s all relative if you’re just getting more rain, and you know that that that could be a nice relief. That’s good. I was curious to ask you also, is there like, like, what was the immigration process like to Honduras? And were you aided in that at all by having been in Belize?

41:26

Jeanna Barrett   

I don’t think so. I don’t think Billy liked being in place had anything to do with it, but it’s different here. Like you’re only allowed to stay 90 days, and then they won’t come back. And I’m like just a wild person where that didn’t affect me because for the first year here because I bopped around so much. So like my first couple, six months here, I had to go back to Belize to like, you know, sell everything out. So I was leaving the country every three months. And then it’s just kind of natural that I’ve had a trip every three months but that is winding down a little bit and so I do have to go through the rest I’m going through the rest of the process now because I don’t want to have to leave my house every three months. So yeah, it’s similar to Belize there’s just kind of like a checkbox President process one of those to have like a local bank account as a positive money for six months and so I’ve been doing that for like the last once I get that done I go through like the process of sending and all that picking up

42:18 

Chase Warrington   

Oh, cool. Yeah, that’s good to know. So a couple of last-minute quick questions that I have and kind of for both countries and then we’ll I’ll let you get back to real work um, thank you so much for all the information it’s been a lot of fun so far in both countries. Is there anywhere else that you would consider living maybe another island or like even on the main

42:38  

Jeanna Barrett

Yeah, so I like I’ve said since being in Honduras I think that Honduras is like one of the most underrated untapped countries that people don’t travel in and we’ve spent quite a bit of time also traveling on the mainland of Honduras which is stunning as well like outside of Tulsa the capital very developed and has you know, a lot of city culture there is like an area that I love called Vita Angeles and there’s surrounding different various mountain towns that are super safe, really charming, lots of art, lots of graffiti. Really beautiful place so I love the mainland of Honduras just as much as I love the island in Belize, the mainland is also again the jungles stunning, very different than the islands you’re not going to get as that kind of no amenities or development but a lot of people swear by living in the mainland of Belize here so it’s kind of just you like jungle and mountain word to like the beach I think is the differentiation between those two things because I’m a girl so I would I live on the islands but I like to visit Maine but some people in both instances also like the Mainland’s are going to the mainland of Honduras Belize are going to be a lot more inexpensive and the island and less like fewer people that they’re an expat there so people that want like truly very inexpensive lifestyle or no, they don’t have a lot of money they want to build a home and the mainland of those countries are yours.

44:02  

Chase Warrington  

Oh, good to know. Okay. Yeah, I did. I tend to think of the islands also. That’s why I asked the question because I’m like, I know there’s this giant there’s giant, you know, relative bases that are like, you know, people don’t really talk about it as much but I assumed there was a lot there and, and I also like, you know, I mentioned that trip that I took like when I was out on the islands and key Cocker and then like ended up back in the mainland of Belize, like riding through like I didn’t spend much time in Belize City. So I didn’t necessarily get like an awesome vibe, but I was just riding through it anyway. But then like getting out into the jungles and the little towns and up in those mountains and stuff. I mean, it was like really, really incredible. Yeah,

 44:36

Jeanna Barrett   

it’s done. I mean, my absolute favorite place like my happy place and all of Belize is the sleeping giant lodge outside of Belen upon company on the hummingbird highway in the jungle, and it is so incredible. I’ve had people you know, I posted I’ve been there like five or six times and I’d always post photos and I’ve had a lot of friends travel there as well on their vacation. I say people need to like truly experience Honduras. In Belize, I don’t think you come for a week only to the island. Like when I went to Belize for the first time, I spent 10 days and I spent four days in the jungle and five or six on the island liked getting the feeling of the country. I feel like you also have the right to see the mainland and see the island really, right? But yeah, the mainland and the jungle towns, both countries are beautiful. And you’ll see all those crazy cool animals that plants that we don’t get in the US like cans and spider monkeys, howler monkeys, if you ever hear a howler monkey in person, it’s a very special experience as I’ve heard in both countries, though. Yeah, just the animals alone are worth visiting the mainland.

45:37 

Chase Warrington   

Yeah, it’d be a shame to come to that. Like, I mean, we don’t have that in the US. And you know, most of the world doesn’t. So if you’re coming from anywhere else, then like, you go, and you just sit on the beach the whole time, like you are missing a huge part of the story there when you visit this part of the world. Okay, very, very helpful. And then I was also curious to ask if you mentioned a Facebook group earlier, and I was just curious if there were any resources like that communities, forums, and websites, or anything that were like, especially useful and could apply to either or both country that for people that might want to kind of you know, follow in your footsteps? 

46:08 

Jeanna Barrett  

Yeah, I feel like they must have these for every country now because I’ve found him in Belize, and then also hinders and it’s been life-changing to be a part of I in leaves. There’s an ambiguous Facebook group called Fergus, Umbro tan, there’s one called Astro tan, and it’s just, you know, people that are newer to the community asked, like, can you recommend that what’s a good dentist, and I, you know, in Belize, I was hard, really a part of the group because I’d been there for so long since moving to rotate. And I’m just observing, and I do a lot of searching in the group because people post asking the same things over and over again, and members get annoyed by that, but I just Yeah, I do. I use it as like free resource. It’s like a, like a guy into the island. I just searched for everything I’ve ever needed. I searched the island and rotate someone that’s asked for and recommend. That’s how I’ve had my bet. That’s how I have my dentist. Like, that’s how we, you know, get certain things, sometimes fix it or house or like resources that we live. And so yeah, it’s

47:02

Chase Warrington    

Yeah, absolutely. It’s funny how it is just mainly Facebook groups which I don’t know why I just kind of tend to think that maybe there are some other tools out there. But Facebook groups have been huge for my wife and me as well, like, I mean, where we’re living now. There’s like Facebook, there’s a expats in Valencia, there’s also one like Americans in Valencia, and I would get it if somebody was like, Why do you need to? Like, why do you need to ask just an expat community? You know, like, but there is something about that because there are things you’re going through that are just unique to the fact that you’re, you know, you’re a local or you’re not a local, like, I mean, for instance, we’re just on it yesterday asking questions about a visa renewal process, and we’re doing a different visa than we’ve done in the past. So we weren’t quite familiar with a form and like, yeah, you search in there, and all of a sudden, you’ve got like, answers going back years. And if you need clarification, people can, you know, give you clarification, I’m always really amazed by the willingness to share pretty impressively.

47:52  

Jeanna Barrett  

Yeah, I mean, they’re such a great resource, like I said, and it’s just it’s so you don’t even realize some of the things that you take for granted that you know, and you’re only like, healthy. You know, the immigration stuff is one thing, that whole piece, but just like the pet thing only gets you to want to bring your pet to another country, like importing a pet and caring for a pet or like just the laws that are in another country. It’s really hard to learn all those new and you want to do everything right, and have, you know, a good citizen of this nook is part of

48:21 

Chase Warrington   

Yeah, well, I 100% agree. Well, speaking of sharing, and all the paying it forward, you’ve you’ve just done plenty of that in two different countries. So I’m forever grateful for that. It was a lot of fun for me, and I’m sure people learned a lot I did. So thank you for that. And yeah, yeah, thank you for joining. And I was wondering if we didn’t spend too much time talking about your business. But it sounds like an amazing place to work. I don’t know if you’re hiring. But regardless, I think it would be awesome if you could share where people could follow along with you and or the business. And we’ll also put all this in the show notes.

48:52 

Jeanna Barrett   

So we are hiring a lot all year, we have a very, like aggressive and high growth right now. And so we love to hire people that live across the world. And we just hired our head of people. She is an expat originally from Austin living in Mexico. And so she runs our people culture. And so we’re open to all sorts of people that live across the world and are doing what you and I do our name is first page strategies. First Aid strategy.com We do hire only experts who are highly knowledgeable marketers who have to be growth marketers. In one of the channels that if you’re familiar with growth, and marketing, you know what channels I’m talking about. And on Instagram and all of the social sites, we’re saying like just at first-page strategy on Instagram or space strategy on LinkedIn. So you have a careers page that talks about our culture. I’m super proud of our culture, have people that have been here for years, and I focus a lot after that we have a wonderful remote. So we have a listing of all of our job openings on that page.

49:54  

Chase Warrington

Wow. Sounds like an awesome place to work embracing the location independence and actually like striving to have people on your team that represent a bunch of different corners of the world and different walks of life, that’s the kind of place that I was seeking out and I know a lot of people are so that’s awesome. Cool. Very cool. Well, hey, thank you so much. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Well, we’ll speak again soon all that information will be in the show notes for anybody interested. And yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for tuning in today from wherever you are in the world. Once again, I’m Chase and this has been another episode of about abroad. For those of you wondering how you can best support the show, I have made it super simple for you. Just go over to the show notes of the episode that you’ve just finished listening to and click on one of the two following links about abroad.com/newsletter to get our monthly newsletter, no spam guaranteed, or rate this podcast.com/about abroad where you can quickly and easily leave a review for the show. It’s not just important to me it also helps more wonders just like you find us. Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to your podcast platform of choice. And we will see you again next week. Thanks again are still away. Hasta Luego Amigos!