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Welcome to Travel Buddy
In episode 22 of the Travel Buddy podcast, Nowell Outlaw, CEO of Switchfly, shares his transformative experience of quitting his job and traveling for six months through South America. Outlaw recounts the life-changing journey, offering insights into the value of unplugging from routine and embracing the unknown with his family. This episode promises to inspire travelers and those seeking a fresh perspective on life and career.
Key Highlights:
- Nowell Outlaw discusses his decision to leave his business and embark on a six-month road trip through South America with his family.
- The benefits of extended travel, including language immersion and family bonding, are explored.
- Nowell describes overcoming travel challenges by learning to adapt and enjoy simple pleasures.
- Insights into the cultural differences and material excess noticed upon returning to the United States.
- The importance of faith and embracing change for personal growth and stress relief.
Quotes:
- "You don't need as much stuff as you think you do to make this type of trip." – Nowell Outlaw
- "It's unbelievably great for your soul to switch off things and get a fresh perspective." – Nowell Outlaw
Transcript
Brandon Giella (00:01.023)
Hello, Noel, and welcome back to another episode of the Travel Buddy Podcast. Today, you are wearing your Bruce the Cow shirt. you tell? For those who are just listening and can't actually see you, what is Bruce the Cow? Can you just give us a quick update on that?
Nowell Outlaw (00:08.573)
I am.
Nowell Outlaw (00:17.594)
Bruce, cow is there's a guy on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, all the social media channels who has raised this cow since it was like three days old. And it makes really funny comical videos about trying to make stuff in his kitchen and the cow comes in and just starts eating stuff. So he'll be trying to make pancakes or trying to make pasta or trying to make that. And the cow just like takes the stuff out and makes a huge mess.
It's funny because sometimes to lighten the mood, even internally with the company, I'll show these videos to people. I actually tried to hire him to do a video for me, like a one minute video. And then I got the price for his agent and went, whoa, like no way. I won't say how much it was, but I was like, man, it's good to be you.
Brandon Giella (00:58.91)
Yeah.
Brandon Giella (01:03.966)
Really?
Brandon Giella (01:08.839)
Wow, really for a guy that has a cow in his kitchen. But of course the advertising and the brand and all that has developed into a whole legit business with an agent and all. Gosh, man, the internet is so crazy. I love that.
Nowell Outlaw (01:13.352)
In his kitchen, right.
Nowell Outlaw (01:18.184)
yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah, it's crazy.
Yeah. It makes you want to, I mean, the interesting thing I was, it was here meeting with Japan airlines and we were talking about Bruce the cow and I was showing it to people. It's my wife is probably, she's seeing this. She's like, you're an idiot. Right. But, but Japan airlines, we were talking about, the hot dog eating champions. You know, how the people that have the, the scenes on Instagram where their dogs are sitting at the table and they're feeding them. I'm like, someone needs to have man versus dog.
Brandon Giella (01:48.776)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (01:53.352)
hot dog eating contest. Like my yellow lab could crush that. Absolutely crush it.
Brandon Giella (02:00.112)
What's the guy who was the Nathan's winner for years? He was Japanese, right? I'm... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (02:04.094)
Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Correct. And we were having that conversation about him and I was like, you know, he might be really good, but my dog can probably like clock him, right? Like Bruce the cow would probably eat the whole thing, but like, you know, and so then I was like, I should have a, should make an Instagram channel with my dogs to, see who could eat more hot dogs. And you know, then there'd probably be a big mess on the floor.
Brandon Giella (02:15.986)
But Bruce the Cow would probably eat the whole bowl in one go.
Brandon Giella (02:30.207)
I have, I have learned never to criticize an idea for YouTube or Instagram channel because I have seen the craziest things become so valuable. So go for it. God be with you. okay. So today we are going to talk about, you had a very long trip, a six month trip in South America.
Nowell Outlaw (02:35.7)
Yeah, for sure.
Yep. Yeah, it's crazy.
Brandon Giella (02:51.011)
And I want to hear what this experience has been like. What was that like for you? What was it like traveling and what takeaways do you have living in here in America and in normalville? Yeah. Give us a rundown.
Nowell Outlaw (02:55.734)
Yeah
Nowell Outlaw (03:00.438)
Yeah, so ten years ago, right and I had you know, it's one of these weird life journeys right where you Realize like everybody's carrying around a bucket of stuff in their life and it's okay to dump it right and I at that time owned a private air charter business and I dumped it all I mean
I got rid of the business. sold the airplanes. I fired people like we just got rid of it. Right. And, and the outcome of that was, okay, I need a break. It's a good time to take the kids out of school because they were in middle school and basically, you know, the late stage of elementary school. And so we sort of like, you know what? I've always like, if you asked me 10 years ago, what do you want to do with your kids?
My answer would be, want to take a year off with the kids. That bite, just that was the thing. And you're like, here's the right moment in time to do this. And so literally 10 years ago, almost to the day, we had bought a 4Runner. We had basically rented out our house to a lady who's going to take care of our dogs and our chickens and our cat and all that other stuff. And I drove to Houston. I put the car in a shipping container.
that then shipped to Chile. And then we got on an airplane on January 6th, 2015, so almost 10 years ago, flew to Chile, went to where the shipping port comes in, out came the truck in a shipping container, opened it up, paid the agent forms. You're driving in Chile, right? And we then spent six months driving, hanging out in Chile, driving down
getting all the way to the end of tip of South America, all the way up the Argentine coast, across Northern Argentina to Northern Chile, the Atacama Desert, which is unbelievable, right? You're driving at 16,000 feet, up into Peru, which is like windy, like every road feels like it's this, and then we finish in Ecuador. And, you know, I would not trade that experience for anything I've done in my life, right?
Nowell Outlaw (05:20.298)
because it's a great bonding family time, right? Experience with your kids. It definitely teaches you to unplug from your normal day-to-day routines. And it's not that hard, right? It's, you know, you just have to be comfortable with going with the flow, right? Of, okay, well, I got in here and like, I gotta find a place to stay and I gotta find a place. Okay, you know, cell phone doesn't work.
Brandon Giella (05:41.16)
Hmm.
Nowell Outlaw (05:49.226)
this doesn't work, got a flat tire, you know, you just got to be able to roll with it. And, you know, when people travel on vacation for like a week or two, it's like you stuff everything in a bag and you know, you're kind of going and you don't do laundry. But when you're gone for like six months, you know, you're renting a place for a couple of weeks, you can do laundry, like you don't need as much stuff as you really think you do in order to do this type of trip.
Brandon Giella (06:13.503)
Hmm.
Nowell Outlaw (06:18.344)
And it's, you know, it's a great time. I mean, it's, it actually, at the end of our trip, we were super tired. I mean, like you're, you're kind of tired of traveling. You're like, you know, every, you know, and we didn't go every day, but it's like load the luggage, get it on top of the car, strap it down, tie it down. And, and, if you think about your day to day in and around where you live, you know, you run to the grocery store, you know how to get there.
you know what to expect, you know what's on aisle three, you know what's on aisle five. Every town you go to, you get to the new place, you're like, okay, where's the store? You gotta figure out everything, kind of city by city and place to place that you go to. And that taxes you a little bit. I mean, there's a fun aspect of it, but it's really hard to get into a routine of just, know it.
Brandon Giella (06:56.829)
Mm.
Nowell Outlaw (07:13.332)
But once you get to a place for, you after three, four days, then you start to understand it better. And by, you know, three weeks to a month, it's awesome. So.
Brandon Giella (07:23.455)
Yeah, I was going to say for folks that maybe don't travel frequently, you go to, especially if you go to a city where they don't speak your language, that mental burden, your brain just getting so tired by the end of the day is, surprising. First couple of times I did it. I just, and now I just got to factor that in. I just can't do a lot in the day because my brain is literally hurting. It's so tired.
Nowell Outlaw (07:31.478)
That's hard.
Nowell Outlaw (07:38.378)
Yeah, yeah, it's texting. Mm-hmm, yep. Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, I think my one takeaway from doing that is less is more, right? Like people think you have to have a lot of stuff. You really, really don't have to have a lot of stuff, right?
Brandon Giella (07:52.094)
Hmm.
Brandon Giella (07:59.251)
Yeah, I was going to ask how that has impacted or changed your life now thinking about that experience, know, just dumping everything and then now traveling, you know, for that extended time abroad. What is, I mean, is it, yeah, how has that impacted your day to day life now? I mean, thinking back on that time, is it just that you learn like, I just don't need to buy this much stuff. I have less furniture in my house. Like, I mean, how do you think about it now?
Nowell Outlaw (08:23.286)
you know, I guess the house is still the house, right? And the furniture is still there. We don't tend to, to acquire extra stuff. the, you know, the most disappointing thing for me, and every time I go to the grocery store, you know, you walk into the grocery store in the United States, everything's prepared for you. Everything's in a plastic bin. Everything like here's your lettuce. It's been, you know, pre-plucked, washed. It's in a plastic container and all that other stuff.
Brandon Giella (08:27.995)
Sure, yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (08:52.114)
outside the US that that's not the norm right and so when you come back especially that transition back can be really difficult right where you're like wow like there's a lot of material plastic things especially the United States that I don't think you see outside the United States for sure.
Brandon Giella (09:13.785)
I want to go back to that moment of you. Like I'm going to get rid of all this. I'm gonna get rid of the business. I'm gonna get rid of, you know, just, I'm going to dump everything. What was that like? Because I think a lot of people do dream of that. I know I dream of that. I've been obsessed with this blog post. It's called the indefinite backpack, indefinite backpack travel with Jeremy Maloof. And he's got like 25 items and he says he's been traveling with his backpack for 25 or for the last 10 years. And I'm curious, as someone who is like drawn to that.
Nowell Outlaw (09:20.182)
Yep.
Nowell Outlaw (09:28.918)
Yeah.
Brandon Giella (09:43.567)
idea of just chunking everything and just going being free. What is that? What was that like?
Nowell Outlaw (09:48.182)
Correct. So I am friends with a guy named Bob Goff and Bob Goff wrote a book called Love Does, right? And Bob is an amazing guy and I had never met, heard, talked to, read his book or anything until I was going through this like immensely stressful time with my business, right? And you know, we're talking like handcuffs and fines kind of, kind of.
Brandon Giella (09:54.288)
Yeah, love does. Yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (10:17.504)
business problems. And I literally went to Bob speaking at a thing. My wife is like, you're going to go listen to this guy. And I was sitting there and, Bob actually is the one who taught about the bucket analogy about we all have this bucket of stuff. It's okay to dump it. And I was literally sitting there and I was like, that's it. We're done with this. Right. Because the stress load for me personally was.
Absolutely insane. And, I realized like I had to get out of this situation. So it took, you know, a monstrous amount of stress to, a point where you're just like, cannot sustain this anymore because if I keep sustaining at this level, I'm going to lose my family. Right. Or, you know, God forbid I could end up in jail, like crazy stuff like that. And, and then you just realize like,
We're doing it right and and There's that fear that innate fear of Well, what happens if I don't have a job? I don't have a this and I don't have a that and Kind of my answer to people is it will be okay, right? You might come back and yes, you might have to work a crazy job like when I came back I did consulting right? I was just like I put my my name out there and I started and I got a couple consulting projects and
And then things started going again, but like it was, it was one of those things that you have to truly have a little faith that you can go do this. And when you come back, it'll be okay. Right. You're not going to be destitute, right? You're not going to end up being the person on the street with the sign. Right. you know, and, everyone manages their finances differently, but, know, I've, I've always had this innate fear of failure. Right. And, and so that took a lot.
Brandon Giella (12:13.001)
Hmm.
Nowell Outlaw (12:16.234)
But once you do it and once you get going, it's unbelievably great. It's great for your soul, right? To basically switch off things and then you also get a fresh perspective, right? Which is good.
Brandon Giella (12:28.447)
Mm.
Brandon Giella (12:32.809)
That is so comforting to hear. You don't know this. This is conversation is an answer to prayer. I've been thinking so much about this kind of stuff. that because last year had a baby started a business from scratch after getting laid off and, that's a lot of stress. I'm not going to jail hopefully, but, but you know, it is very, very stressful. And I've been just so drawn to like, what would it look like if I lived in a tiny house and I had no expenses, you know? I mean, just drawn to this idea. So I'm, I'm very, very.
Nowell Outlaw (12:47.957)
It is.
Nowell Outlaw (12:59.542)
Yeah.
Brandon Giella (13:02.752)
I you say that it is freeing and you're gonna be okay.
Nowell Outlaw (13:06.402)
Yeah, I think, you have to have faith, right? And I mean, that's the one thing that Bob taught me, which is, you know, it's okay. Right. It, you know, and, you know, and Bob talks a lot about love and basically, you know, getting it done. He, like, if you ever talked to him on the phone, he's a little crazy where it's like, Hey, I have this idea and he's like, all right, let's do it. Let's go like tomorrow. Right. And, and kind of has carried that.
Brandon Giella (13:26.127)
Yeah
Nowell Outlaw (13:35.048)
And you you try to do some of that, but you're like, Whoa, dude, like, you know, he, like, he was like, let's quit your job. Right. And this is way after I've come back and I'm like, I can't quit my job right now. He's like, come on, you know, you're not happy. Let's get this done. And I remember having a conversation with him about, you know, we all have this blueprint of our life. Right. And he's like, and then when you overlay the Etch A Sketch over that, over work, life, whatever.
Brandon Giella (13:46.14)
Yeah, yeah.
Brandon Giella (13:56.061)
Yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (14:03.008)
He's like, is the stuff that you're doing right now, and I was trying to sell a company and doing all this other stuff, is it shortening or lengthening that lifetime line? And my answer was, it's definitely shortening, because I was under all kinds of stress and stuff. And he's like, there you go. There's your answer, right? And it's a good perspective to have, right? And I think that travel is OK.
And it's also, I think people are like, that's super expensive. Yeah. If you go to Switzerland and you stay at like, you know, the Matterhorn hotel and you like, you know, are, yeah, that's going to be super expensive. Right. We went to South America. It cost us less to be traveling full time, six months, four people, you know, and we, you know, we went to the store and we made our own meals and did that stuff. Driving a car, renting hotels or.
Airbnbs or, you know, VRBO, those kinds of things. Less money on a monthly basis than it is to live in our house in the States, right? Because costs were less, food costs less, gas is more expensive. But when you know, hey, the kids don't have piano and there's no guitar lessons and we can shut off this and we can shut off that and we can do all whatever. All of a sudden you realize like, it's not that expensive to do this, right?
So yeah, and it's good.
Brandon Giella (15:30.418)
That's wild. I have some friends that every couple of years they travel to Thailand for like a month or two and they talk about how cheap it is to go in like a five star, six star hotel or whatever. And they're like, yeah, it's a fraction of what it is in the States or even in Europe. And it's just amazing to hear that difference.
Nowell Outlaw (15:46.038)
Yeah. And you know, South America, know, there's certain places you should go and certain places you probably shouldn't go. but it's a great place to go and, know, staying in the sacred Valley for, I think we were there for three and a half weeks is an awesome experience. Right. And the, thing for me about, especially with the kids at that time is, you know, and truth be told, if one of their teachers is watching you.
Brandon Giella (15:53.381)
Sure.
Brandon Giella (16:14.686)
You
Nowell Outlaw (16:16.5)
you don't do the amount of studying and people are like, you're going to homeschool. That's like, well, we did a lot of Khan Academy, right? But the interesting thing is, we did January through like July. And what's interesting about kids in school is you sit there and go, okay, well, they're off for a week and spring break. They have standardized testing, right? They do standardized testing prep. They have all these days.
Brandon Giella (16:22.162)
Sure. Yeah.
Brandon Giella (16:40.729)
Mm-hmm.
Nowell Outlaw (16:44.31)
There's actually not that many days when the kids are actually in school studying. Right. And.
Brandon Giella (16:46.747)
Hmm.
That's smart. And you've mentioned too that you're actually going to like a volcano and like really seeing a volcano. Like that could be totally different.
Nowell Outlaw (16:53.684)
Yeah, correct. Yeah, we were doing like earth sciences and we're staying on the volcano looking down the lava tubes going, yeah, this is what we read about in our book. Now we can see it in two days later, the thing exploded, right? So, you know, just a different, you know, life experience for the kids. when we left for South America, my older son, who was an eighth grade, you know, he knew some Spanish, right? A little bit.
My other son couldn't navigate the menu. Like reading a menu, speaking, you know, where is the bathroom? Couldn't do it. Right? By the end of the trip, Hayden, who's my older son, is jokingly talking to a guy in Argentina. And the guy in Argentina is a very funny guy. like, whoa, whoa, whoa, can you slow down? Spanish is my first language. Right? And Gavin, at the end of our trip,
is sitting in the front of a taxi cab, giving the guy directions and making change, monetary change with him in Spanish. Right. And so there's a huge, just life lesson, communication, you know, education that happens. And both boys now are absolutely fluent now, like absolutely fluent. More so like if we go to a country that speaks Spanish and I have one of the boys with me, I'll be like, Hey, ask him this.
Brandon Giella (18:09.83)
in six months.
Nowell Outlaw (18:21.556)
Like my Spanish is not that good, not like theirs. Like they can get by, they can, you know, they can hang with a guy on the curb, right? And keep a conversation going. So yeah. Yeah. Well, plus school, like, plus they took school after that, but yeah, by six months they were, they were probably fluent. Yep. Okay.
Brandon Giella (18:31.676)
Unreal in six months. That's amazing. Amazing. Yeah, of course, Sure, yeah.
Amazing. Okay. Last question quickly. Imagine you're talking to somebody who is on that precipice, you know, 10 years ago, mega stressed.
Nowell Outlaw (18:45.937)
Brandon Giella (18:52.935)
Thinking like there's, want to make a change. There's gotta be something that I can do to just change my situation, get back to the things that I really value in life. Like you're talking about. And I know travel is a huge component of that. And you being on the other side of this 10 years later and seeing how it worked out, what would you say to them?
Nowell Outlaw (19:12.438)
don't hesitate. Right. And it's okay. I think the thing I would tell them is it'll be okay. Right. So, you know, everyone has different stressors, right? That, that come into play, you know, kids, family, all that other stuff. I haven't met a person who has taken time off like that. And at the end comes back and is like, yuck. Right. And, you if I go back to the bucket.
analogy from Bob, right? So I have a bucket. It's in my house and I have loaned the bucket out to people. Right? I've also told this story to I told it to an employee like one day that old company and he got up that afternoon and resigned. Right? And I was like, that wasn't my goal. Right. But but I have loaned my bucket out to people.
Brandon Giella (20:01.487)
gosh.
Nowell Outlaw (20:09.3)
who are in the same thing, like I want to leave my job. I'm not sure how I'm struggling with this, you know, and, you know, one person who was like deciding if they want to stay in this relationship and some other stuff. And I loan it to them and just take the bucket with you. Right. And, know, sometimes it takes just a week, a couple of times it's taken a couple of months and the person that comes back is kind of the brighter, shiner.
shinier version of themselves, right? Where they've made this choice and they are so excited about dumping the bucket, taking the trip, doing the this or doing the that because they realize like, you know, stress is a killer, right? And it you're just in this locked up state and you know, you have to get through it. Sometimes you need someone to give you a swift kick in the butt basically to get it done. But once you do it and once you're
made the decision, the stress kind of stops, right? And now it's like, okay, let the new journey begin and it'll be okay, right? Like, and you know, anybody, like if there's a person who's listening to reach out to me, like I'll talk them through it. It's super easy to do. And there is that innate fear of, you know, can we, should we know what...
how is it going to work this and those are all logical normal things. But at the end of the day, it'll be okay.
Brandon Giella (21:43.784)
powerful. I struggled to take last week off for Thanksgiving. So I have some buckets to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (21:48.91)
I worked on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So, welcome back to the real world. it's, guaranteed there's people out there who are struggling with stuff and making decisions and the world that we live in now and all these other things. And you know what? The world's a good place. The world is a good place. I think it's with good people. I don't even want to talk politics, but like,
Brandon Giella (22:06.246)
Yeah.
Nowell Outlaw (22:18.358)
you know, people are good, right? Even if you go throughout the United States or you go throughout the world, people are generally good, right? And, you know, engaging with other people to help you learn is also super critically important. yep, for sure.
Brandon Giella (22:26.14)
Yeah, that's been my experience.
Brandon Giella (22:33.512)
Yeah. Amen. Amen. We need more of that, more of that positivity and that hope. So Noel, thank you. Truly. This is an answer to prayer to have this conversation. I'm really grateful. and yeah, I'm excited to talk again next time. So we'll see you then. All right. See you know.
Nowell Outlaw (22:41.718)
Thanks.
Nowell Outlaw (22:45.736)
All right. All right. Thanks, Brandon. See you. Yep. Take care.
