For some people, building a life abroad is carefully planned. For others, it starts with
a one-way ticket, a bit of curiosity and a lot of improvisation. Today's guest knows that feeling
very well. From backpacking adventures to building a location-independent life, his journey shows how
often the biggest decisions start without a clear plan. No plan. Everything was winging at you. What
are you that young? 22, 23. You don't know anything. But I ran out of money. Completely ran out of
money. And this wouldn't happen nowadays probably because I'm a bit more mature on that point of
view. But back then I had no money and I had to find a job. But luckily I met someone on the East
Coast in Magnetic Island. She gave me this number on a piece of paper. This is before smartphones,
but piece of paper said, "I'll ring this number. They might have a job." I rang this number on a
payphone and got in contact with someone in the company and said, "Oh yeah, we do have a job if
you want one. Can you start on Monday?" And this was like the Thursday. And I'm like, "Yeah, I'll start
Monday." What started as a wing it, slowly turned into something more intentional. Building a life
across countries, opportunities and unexpected turns. Sometimes the biggest turning points aren't
planned at all. But Canada was different because we actually only planned to stay here two years,
but COVID happened. So we were here for a year, then COVID happened and we got stuck, which ended
up meaning that we could stay as a permanent resident and now we're a citizen. We have a passport.
That's different because we kind of knew, well, it's not like New Zealand or for me,
Australia, because we're kind of here long, long-ish terms. From wing it to truly living
it. Today on Almost Local, the living abroad story of James Hammond. Let's start.
I am a failed musician. Let's start with that. I studied music and from that, in the midst of
that, I got interested in travel. And since then, which was obviously 20 years old, 21,
I really started to travel the world. And since then, I'm a bit of a traveller. I think I've been
to like 70 countries or something, 75 countries. Lived in three or four. So I feel like there's a
couple of stages in life, growing up in Norwich in UK, where I'm from in England. Very sheltered,
not much diversity or culture really, part from obviously the English culture.
Go to London to study, which is a big culture shock, there for four years, tried to make it
in music. And then suddenly realised that you can be the best musician in your hometown, but not
in somewhere like London, because all the best people come to London. And then quickly got out
of that game into travel. And since 2013, I've been living and working in travelling in different
countries. So that's going to be Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, living and then travelling
the world as much as I can, given the time and money. So in a nutshell, I love Jimi Hendrix.
I love English food. Don't blame me. I love travel. I love meeting people, love podcasting,
and meeting people like you. So yeah, that's kind of me in a nutshell.
Thanks for that introduction. Catch one moment that I think it would be interesting. And I wanted
to ask you, at the end, you said you arrived to London and you were trying to succeed in the music
industry, which is by far not in one of the easy ones, definitely a nightmare. Was that the moment,
there was a breakout moment that it was like, okay, I need to leave, I need to quit this whole,
of course, the environment of music, I think, yes, but UK in general, or it was more like a
curiosity moment? Do you know what's interesting? I halfway
through, so maybe two out of four years, ended the second year, I went back home to Norwich for the
summer. Because what happens in the UK is some people stay in the city that they go to university
and all they go back home in the summer to catch up with friends, earn some money and then go back
to where they're from. In Canada terms, well, I live in Canada now, that's crazy because London
to Norwich is only two hours. It's not like you're going to the other side of the world. Where here,
people commute that far to go to work, right? It's a different world. But in UK, if you're
two hours away, you go back home for the summer, it's a different part of the world. I met someone
in UK, in Norwich, when I went home and she had just been traveling and I didn't know this term
at the time. I was only used to holidays where you go to Europe for a week or the weekend away
in UK, whatever. But she said, "Oh yeah, I went for three months." I'm like, "What do you mean three
months? I don't understand." I saved some money and I went to Australia, New Zealand, a bit of
Europe and America for three months. I'm like, "Well, without working." She's like, "Yeah." I was
like... This whole term just surprised me. Since then, which would have been halfway through,
I started researching what this term traveling means. You might think, "Well, why don't you know
what that means?" Because I grew up in a very working class family, right? Single parent,
very low wage. Going on holiday or even traveling is another world. It's not possible. When this
person who's very middle-class decides to tell me that she went on this activity, I was obsessed
with it. Halfway through, I was like, "Do you know what? I'm going to go traveling and do this amazing
thing and go to these other countries around the world, but I need to save money." Middle of the
course to the end, I checked out of my music course, I finished and stayed and completed.
In my mind, it was gone. I was like, "No, I'm going to work as much as I can, save money. I'll do as
much music as I need, but I'll start planning my trip." That took two years from that moment
to leaving. That was where it changed. You're still playing from time to time and the music is
you never fully forget it, I suppose? Yeah, that's true. I have a guitar here. You don't lose that
certain level, I suppose. Yeah, but the problem is if you want to make it in the music industry,
you need to be really, really good. I mean, you can be good and maybe get lucky, but the musicians
who make it are top, top musicians. And that's a lot of work considering at that time, I've been
playing for 10 years, so there's more work to do. So yeah, I don't think I could mentally put the
effort in. Was Australia the first country? Did you follow what she did before? You said Australia and
New Zealand, and it sounded like the same countries that you did afterwards. Big influence. Yeah, do
you know what? Australia was first. In end of 2010, so after I met this person, the same year, I went
to Australia with my friends to watch cricket. So if you're from England, you can watch The Ashes
between Australia and England, which I went to in December, just gone. Yeah, I went to Australia for
three weeks to watch the cricket. Only cricket. But then when I landed there, I was like,
what is this place? It's sunny, it's clean, everything's new, everything works,
everyone's really nice. This is amazing. So from that moment, I was like, I'm going to come back
here and work here in the future. So that was my plan. So I knew as soon as I got back to England
after that holiday, yeah, I'm going back in a few years. And you did, in a permanent way. I got the
work visa, which is one year. So I went there, I went to Asia, New Zealand and Fiji first, a bit of
Australia travel, East coast, and I worked there for a year, then went traveling for another four
months after that. So yeah, about a two year trip. Cool. It's something that I wanted to ask, because
at the end you have a podcast that it's called Wing it Travel Podcast. Did you really wing it
at that moment of time or you had really more like a plan at the beginning of the years and then the
whole winging it part and let it flow a little bit more naturally, it's something that could grow up
on you after some time being... No plan. Everything was winging it that year, everything, when you're
that young, 22, 23, you don't know anything. So when I got to Australia, I had about five weeks on
the East coast with my friend who I traveled with for six months and he went home, but I ran out of
money. I completely ran out of money. And this wouldn't happen nowadays probably because I'm a
bit more mature on that point of view. But back then I had no money and I had to find a job,
but luckily I met someone on the East coast in where it should have been Magnetic Island.
She happened to be from somewhere that is near where I'm from in England and she weirdly knows
my sister now, which is a bit different, bit of a weird story. But she gave me this number on a
piece of paper. This is before smartphones, right? It's a piece of paper. She said, "I'll ring this
number. They might have a job." I was like, okay, well, I need a job. I need money. So soon as I got
down to like Newsa, which is just above Brisbane, I rang this number on a payphone and got in contact
with someone in the company and said, "Oh yeah, we do have a job if you want one. Can you start on
Monday?" And this was like the Thursday. I'm like, "Yeah, I'll start Monday." So I flew down to Melbourne
straight away. Because I had no money and I stayed at someone's house who I met them in Asia. I met a
couple of girls in Asia from UK. One of them was in Melbridge.com. Stay at mine. Just get some clothes
for your job and get yourself started. So yeah, I kind of started there, but the job had no idea
what I was doing. Went into the job and I just stayed there for six months doing like office work,
you know. But paid really well at the time, you know, 26, 27 Australian dollars an hour, not bad
for 2013. So I managed to save a lot of money in that job and work for a bit, which is pretty cool.
Nice. Interesting, no? Like it's something that probably now you would not do, you know, like
grabbing a paper of someone randomly and just like call it. Yeah. Like the bravery of being young,
it's sometimes incredible. It is incredible. Yeah, it is incredible. Yeah. When does then
leaving Australia and going to other places, correct me if it's not like this, but I think you
said India and there in the between before Canada, was it the moment where you were deciding,
there was a moment in there that you decided, Oh, I'm not going back home to my routine until then.
No, I did. I had a gap. So I went after a year, you have one year work permit in Australia.
In those days you had to leave or qualify for a second year. I didn't qualify for a second year.
I didn't do my farm work. Oh, I had to leave. So I booked a flight to Hawaii just randomly.
I thought on this day, I have to leave Australia. So I go to Hawaii over there,
way to South America, which I did. When I got back from that big trip, I probably had a year
and a bit at home and I thought at the end of that trip that I would be done with travel. So I went
back home, got a job and I quickly realized about six months in I'm not done. I need to go off again.
So after about a year, I started to plan where do I go next? New Zealand was in my mind, work permit,
great country. Love it. But I thought, do you know what, I'll go to India first because it's cheap
for a start at the time. And also I had a couple of friends going for three months.
So I thought, do you know what, somewhere completely different. It's a bit unique,
it's a bit challenging. Let's go and try there. So I went to India for three months to volunteer
for a bit at a camel safari camp in the West near the Pakistan border in the Tahr desert.
Interesting experience. Got to live with locals for like three or four weeks. It's actually quite
cool because you actually understand what they do there today and what they think about and what
they talk about. Right. Cause they just talk to tourists as business really, but when you live there,
you start to see the same guys every morning and they start to see you. So they bring you over
tea or they invite you for coffee or tea or lunch and you become one of them. And that's a really
cool experience in a different culture. So that was three months in India and that was a very
interesting trip. A lot happened on that trip. And I did learn a lot. I maybe grew up a little bit in
that trip as well. I think. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. No, like this mentality switch happens
while traveling, but while living abroad also. Like I think I do talk a lot about it. The impact
on this because of the impact that it has of connecting with other cultures, no. And living
for certain time, amount of time outside of your comfort zone, which is normally also a break.
When does Canada come in all of these equations? Like, yeah, yeah. Why are you in Canada?
I should probably talk about New Zealand because that comes first. Yeah, because
India finished. And the one thing I'd say, but India that will make you laugh is when I worked
at this place is on a row of shops, right? You had our office in the middle, but to the right of me,
there was a guy who sells flowers and next to him was a little restaurant that served tea,
coffee, and then there was a hairdressers next to the other side. And then there's another shop,
the other side of him who sells marijuana, it's called Bun Glacies Edibles and there's a money
exchange guy. So had all these different people just coming in every day, you've got a guy with
money, a guy with marijuana, a guy with flowers, a guy who cut your hair. It's just such a random,
random experience. And yeah, I don't really know those guys' names. I keep in contact with the guy
who we worked with. Yeah, just a really cool experience of getting to learn these different
types of characters. New Zealand happened in 2017, but in 2016, so I got back from India, right? And
that year, later that year, I met my current partner back home in Norwich and she had not been
working abroad anywhere. But we sort of agreed, "Oh, should we go to New Zealand?" "Oh, yeah,
why not?" Like, we're still young enough. We can get the one year permit. So we planned to go in
2017. So we put the plan in place to go to Wellington. But first of all, we traveled in
New Zealand for six weeks, the camper van, worked for, yeah, about 10 months, seven months,
saw the country again, Christmas time is summer there. So take Christmas off, road trip around,
end of the work permit, kind of see a bit more and then leave, right? So that New Zealand was
a cool experience. That's our first experience together. And I love the country, like New Zealand
is pretty special. And we worked in Wellington, met some friends there. And it was right. It's
kind of like Canada to an extent where I live now, but just a bit smaller and no one there. Nature's
incredible, everything about it. So then at the end of New Zealand, we're like, "Well, where do
we go next? Do we go home or do we try to go to Canada because we can still get a work permit there?"
But Emma was going to be too old in like three months to apply. So we applied instantly at Christmas
at New Zealand and she got it very quickly. And then I got mine a bit later or a bit earlier
actually. So then we had a plan to go to Canada anyway when we left New Zealand. So that was kind
of our last work permit in Canada because we knew we'd be too old. And then we went to Canada
and settled in Vancouver in the West where we are now. Cool. I have one question because you said one
sentence, should we go back home? Yes. What does home mean to you after so many years of traveling
around? What do you consider home now? I don't know. I don't know the answer. I guess home,
I think home means people. So I guess that is family and friends. So I would still say Norwich
went from his home in a natural sense, but I spent the most time as an adult in one place here in
Vancouver. So it's kind of mixed and Canada as a whole as a country as well. But yeah, home,
it's a difficult question. I don't know really the true answer, but I think it's people. I agree.
I also lived in four countries and at the end what it makes home is having people around you
that makes that sensation. At least it's my opinion also. One important part also that I
wanted to ask you because at the end you lived in countries and you work in there. You didn't have
me, for example, that I have a remote work and therefore I kind of have this specific freedom of
traveling around or living abroad while working from home. How easy was to build a routine
when you are switching countries, but you also switching works and professions at that point
during these years? Yeah, really difficult. And I didn't do the same job. I done very many
different jobs. For example, in Australia, I worked in an office for the first six months,
I then worked on vineyards and mine sites named mines in the second half of the year,
completely different jobs, different routines. I went from just living in a hostel, walking five
minutes to my job and five minutes to the city of Melbourne to doing 12 hour shifts and mine sites
in Northwest Australia every day for like 18 days. Crazy difference. So that was a learning curve
for Australia that kind of built the maybe like what I knew I didn't want to do for a job,
which was work 12 hour shifts in a kitchen. So I got to New Zealand and I worked in an office
pretty much in Wellington. It's a government city, it's a capital city and the same in Canada.
Right? So the problem with moving around is the starting up and leaving because as you might know,
you're going to have to arrive, but maybe not much and then buy everything again and build it all up.
And when you know it's temporary, it's all got to go again. Right? And you have that stressful time
at the start and end of each permit. We're like, oh, it's just a lot of admin. And Canada was
different because we actually only planned to stay here two years, but COVID happened. So we were
here for a year, then COVID happened and we got stuck, which ended up meaning that we could stay
as a permanent residence. And now we're a citizen, we have a passport. Okay. That's different because
we kind of knew, well, it's not like New Zealand or for me, Australia, cause we're kind of here
long, long-ish term, but we still went away traveling for a year in 2023. But we just had
our camper van parked in an underground car park, which we put all our stuff in. So it wasn't the
same. We kept a lot of stuff. So that was a bit easier for that transition, but the routines of
trying to find a new job, not having much money left over from travel can be stressful. So you
need to kind of keep calm and try and find some work, which has never really been a problem,
but I'm not too fussy with what I do. If you're an accountant and you're trying to find a job
as an accountant, I can imagine that stressful because there's not that many jobs I'd imagine.
But if you're kind of flexible and don't mind what to do, it makes it a bit easier. Right. So
it depends how much, I guess, how many rules you have with what job you do. My only rule was I'm
not doing 12 hours shifts in the kitchen or working in a bar or restaurant, that type of thing. Again,
no more. That's my only rule. He worked on mining. That's such a tough job. Oh man. Yeah. I had to
do it because I went to the farm's right to work in the vineyards. No work. I was running out of money.
I was like, well, I'm going to South America for four months. I have no money. So I met someone
again in a hostel who gave me a number, rang this agency and they said, yeah, we have some work in
the mine site. It's 12 hour shifts. It's paid really well. You pay nothing to be there because
they fly you in. They give you accommodation. They give you food. You live there for like three weeks
and you come back. I'm like, yeah, get me there. So I did that towards the end of my work permit
for like six, seven, eight weeks, two months, three months, because the first three months in the
vineyards, there's just not many days of work. So I had to do something. Crazy. I mean, cool. At the same
time. Needs must, right? Yeah. Maybe before we jump to the fast reply questions and dig a little
bit more into your time living in Canada and the big question is this the last move? Are you planning
to leave again? Is Canada the last you're establishing a base? Let's call it like this.
No, we are going to move again. Yeah. But that'll be back home to Norwich because I think we'll come
onto this actually when we talk about Canada. But if you want to own a property in Vancouver,
impossible. If you have no help from family or somehow you have a lot of money, it's possible.
But if you don't, like we don't, I don't see how it's possible. You can buy anywhere here.
So give you an example. If you want to buy the apartment that we live in, which is one bedroom
and one bathroom, ground floors as a little garden and it's next to the beach. It's a great location,
but it's worth probably in Canadian dollars, about $550,000 which in European money is going to be
about 300,000 pounds, maybe 350,000 euros. I don't know the exchange rate. Well, for the same price
or even a hundred thousand pounds lower in UK, we can buy a house, three bedroom and not in an
apartment block. It's just no competition. So we kind of decided that to travel long, long term,
we need a base where we can keep stuff. I can do my podcasting in a nice little room. If we have
traveled too much, we can just go back home and have somewhere to be safe. Yes. So that's the idea.
So that, that will happen. I don't know when, maybe in the next two, well a year to three years,
we're not sure when, not this year, but yeah, it's coming. It's going back home to Norwich,
which I'm not sure about in terms of going back home. Yes. It's going to be difficult.
Yeah. Reverse culture shock when you're back home. I'm used to hear about that in this podcast. I
interviewed a couple of, I will send you a couple of episodes that talk about this so you can
check them out before going back home. But definitely, I mean, it makes sense. It also
happens a lot that I have the conversation with people with, especially not with people who is
already in their thirties, forties, you know, like a little bit more in a more calm lifestyle as we are
having a more permanent base. It's also a very common topic. It doesn't mean that you stop
traveling. That's the whole point. No, no, no. Like it's the point is that you have somewhere where
you can go back and keep your things and like having them without needing to have a van in an
underground parking somewhere. Exactly. Yeah. And the key point is we have a passport each. So we,
if things just don't go well, and this is a privilege, I know, and, but we worked hard for
this. We've got a second parcel. We can go back to Canada. There's no rules. We can come back and
live here and work here. I think if you had to speak to me in Australia in 2013, what's one
thing in life you'd like, I think I'd say, Paul, yeah, I'd like a second passport somewhere. That'd
be pretty cool to have. At the time UK was in Europe. So I never appreciated living and
traveling Europe. Now, if I was to go and redo my travel, knowing what I know now, I'd go and live
and work in Europe. I can't believe I didn't do it at the time, but I never thought UK would be
out of the European union. And it's absolutely devastating, but it is the reality as we speak
today. But back then, I didn't think that we had problem, but now it is. And I can't live and work
in Italy or whatever it is. So yeah, that was a problem. I think neither you, neither a lot of
people would never thought that we would see that happening, but it happened somehow. James, I would
say let's jump to the first reply questions. You entered in some of them already. So we will just
dig a little bit deeper into it. As you know, I asked the same 12 questions in this case about
Canada, because it's the place you are currently living and you live for longer due to COVID,
which we will touch probably on the healthcare section. But the first question that I have,
it's cultural adjustment. That thing that took you a while to adapt. It's not too dissimilar to
places I lived in, but I think the Canadian way of life is a bit slower and it's not as cutthroat as
the UK, for example. I think the way the Canadians live here, my friends had, did they drink much?
Do they like, I guess they come from a UK perspective, they watch sport and do a lot of gambling and
drink. I'm like, no, what do they do? Well, they kind of live in nature. The nature is great here.
They kind of don't go out late. Vancouver is a bit of a dead city actually. So it's a bit of a nature
city. So I think the adjustment was that we have bigger big events here, like comedians and music
acts and all that sort of stuff, but it's not as fast paced as Toronto or Montreal. So I think living
here was a bit of adjustment in terms of the Canadian people here can be a bit flaky maybe.
Is that fair to say? Where they'd rather go and do a hike in the morning, rather than
go out in the evening and party. I'm not a party person, I'm just saying the difference was that
the daytime is much more, has much more weight than the nighttime. So I think the culture of the city
was a big change to anywhere being like Melbourne or even Wellington to an extent. So, and London,
of course. So I think that was a big culture shock. Interesting. I never thought about Canada being
a morning person, a morning country. Over this side, in the West coast, maybe. Yeah. I don't know East.
Yeah. The second one that I have is social life. How do you meet new people,
what is the most common way of connecting? Is this in Canada? Yeah. Vancouver is notorious for
being hard to make friends, but the couple of ways you can do that is they have, I can't believe I'm
saying this, but you have Facebook groups. So a lot of- More common than you think, to be honest.
Wow. Yeah. A lot of British and Irish come to live in Vancouver and they have a couple of groups
called the British in Vancouver or Irish in Vancouver. And there's always people who join
those groups just like want to meet up, do an activity or go for a pint in the English way,
which I find quite interesting. Yeah. They're the best ways to meet people here. We met friends
through friends and then they meet people in these groups. So we kind of, I guess it all comes back
to these Facebook groups, unbelievably. And of course we have work friends, but I think what
you find in Vancouver, especially is a lot of friends here are quite, I don't think clicky is
the word, but they've grown up here. They've stayed here. They've got their little group of friends.
They don't need to branch out too much. So I think that's quite a difficult transition. And also
probably I should mention the culture shock also with Vancouver, half of the population is also
Asian, which is great, but they have their own little culture and community as well, which is
quite hard to break into. So I think Facebook groups and just meeting people who meet people,
that's the best way and do activities. Next one I have, it's normally it's respond to, but in this
case, I don't think it makes much sense. It's about language, but I mean, being from UK and living in
English speaking country, I suppose it's made it much easier, but have you struggled in any way in
the sense of accent? This can be generalized not only into Canada, but because of your accent or
because of your dialect of English. No, never really struggled. I don't really have a strong UK
accents. I think that helps. I will say for Canada though. I mean, if you're going to go to live in
Montreal, Quebec, you're going to need to speak to French. So when we traveled there on a road trip,
because we drove across Canada, we got to Montreal, which was a third English, maybe two-thirds French.
Get to Quebec, bloody French. But I know someone who lives in Quebec. So when he was with us,
he was speaking French, but I don't speak, we don't speak any French. It's pretty bad. So I think
that can be a culture shock if you want to live in the Eastern part. And in terms of language,
you have to learn something, I think, especially for jobs. They would want you to speak French.
For example, even if you lived in Toronto, maybe or Ottawa or even Montreal, and you want to be a
teacher, for example, I think they need you to speak both languages. So I think there's certain
jobs that you will need to speak French in Canada, but obviously Australia, New Zealand, no problem.
Next one that I have, it's the cost of living. How expensive it is? What is surprisingly expensive
or cheap or how did the market go? Class use up, like everywhere, I suppose.
I'll be pretty transparent. The rent here, I think I said earlier, one bedroom apartment,
we live in West Vancouver, which is not the cheapest area, but it's by the beach. We're a five minute
walk from the beach, 10 minute drive from the mountain. So we're in between, it's really cool.
But one bedroom apartment per month here until recently was 2,600 Canadian dollars per month.
So I think in English pound, that's going to be 1,500 pounds and euros, that's going to be,
I guess, 1600, 1,700 euros, something like that. But the upside is the rental market is at the
lowest point in four years because it kind of changed the rules in terms of immigration for
students. There are less people coming in, which means there's more houses available because they
keep building houses here in apartments and no one can fill them. So we have reduced the rent by $200.
It's now 2,400, still expensive, but it's going down. I would say Canada at the start when we
arrived was expensive, but compared to going back home to UK, traveling in US, those two countries
specifically, it's not as expensive anymore compared to those guys. Those places are, they're
crazy. Even parts of Europe are like, what is going on? So I think Canada has kind of stalled. It's
kind of kept the same price from when we first arrived to now, to a degree. And now I don't think
Canada is that expensive for a lot of things. And Australia, the same, I couldn't believe
I'm saying this. Australia, Canada, I went to Australia in December. They're okay. I think
they're good value for like Airbnbs, accommodation, food, whereas when I go back home to UK, I find
everything expensive. Cost of living is okay if you live and work here. Maybe if you traveled from
Europe, it's going to be expensive, but yeah, so it's a weird time in a minute. I can't quite work
out which place has the best value. I always thought UK had the best value and it does for
a property. You want to buy one, but rent is quite high there maybe. And also food is getting out of
control and bills and gas and electric. And yeah, so I'm not sure at the minute, I'm still working
it out. Interesting. You touched on this one also, but finding a home, how do you find an apartment
right now in your case in Vancouver? It's easy. Like when we first arrived, it was really hard.
Like you had competition to see an apartment, right? And you think, okay, we like it. Oh yeah,
we've got four people before you who have signed the application form. Like, oh god. So before
up until literally probably six months ago, really difficult. But if you come to Vancouver today
and trying to find an apartment, there's loads and they're going down every month because
no one's renting because no one's here. Well, no one's coming in as much as they used to.
So if you want to come on a work permit to Canada or Vancouver and you want to find somewhere to
live, yes, it's quite expensive, but the choice loads of choice, easy. Cool. It feels like the
opposite of a lot of places. Yes. It's mental. I can't quite get my head around it. And it's so
much so that we're thinking about moving because we can pay 10, 15% lower. I think if it still keeps
going in the same direction and get like two bedroom apartment or just a bigger place, right?
I can't quite believe it's happening, but that's because of the rules have changed in the last six
to eight months. The caveat to that is the jobs are becoming harder. It's not all great. Now living
like a local, what's the one thing that you would recommend to blend into Canadian lifestyle?
That's a tough question. Like a local, I don't know. I think, I don't know, like a local,
what would be local? The fact that it comes to mind is a nature person. When it's a sunny day,
what are people doing? They go to the beach in the city, there's a few city beaches or they're
hiking somewhere. In the winter, they're probably snowboarding or skiing. That's the Canadian way
here for sure. I don't snowboard or ski, so that's not my thing. But if you want to be like a true
local and you meet some Canadians and they're like, "Oh, what are you doing this weekend?"
It's probably because they're skiing or snowboarding in the winter or in the summer they're
hiking in the country somewhere, like up in the northern parts or even around the city,
mountains around the city. Yeah, that's true Canadian local. Work life. How do you describe
the work culture in? Yeah, that's a mixed experience. I've had really good experience
where it's been not as hardcore in terms of the hours or work. I get really good,
it's a North American thing here, but you get really good benefits. Yeah, I get what?
Six weeks off a year, seven weeks off a year vacation, which is unheard of in North America,
it's normally three weeks. My partner gets three weeks. I literally have a month every year to
travel solo because she can't take time off. The hours are 35 hours a week for me and for Emma,
actually. The pay reflects the city, Vancouver, it has to be high because the cost of living is
traditionally high. So I think work life balance, I actually don't mind it, it's actually pretty
good compared to UK specifically, but also Australia as well. You think that'd be quite
cool lifestyle there, but yeah, some places are pretty hardcore, like the mine site I was working
in, I couldn't just take an hour off, it's 12 hours every day. So yeah, I think lifestyle's good.
And you have to deal with the candor, you have to deal with the winter because in the winter here
it rains. In the winter in the East, it snows like anything, it's so snowy. So you're going to have to
deal with that sort of dark cold period of time. What about getting around what it's the best way
to move? Do you need a car or public transport? Both. You need a car because outside of the city,
you're going to have to drive somewhere because the candor's huge, right? But in the city of Vancouver,
if you don't really want to go out too much, but you want to be in the city, great transport links,
they've got metro, they've got buses and very walkable city, I thought I find. Vancouver
specifically is great, even Toronto actually, great transport links. They've got trams as well
as trains and a network. Best thing about Vancouver is you can get to the airport on a train from
downtown in 20 minutes. It's so good, so quick and easy. So I think transport links in Vancouver are
pretty good. They built a lot of this stuff for the winter Olympics in 2010. Yeah, the winter Olympics
here, they built the Metro system, the underground, the bus system, and now they're building more
extensions to it. So it's going to get better in the next 10 years, I think. Cool. You lived COVID
in Canada, so what about healthcare? How does this healthcare system work? Is it easy to access,
the quality? Yeah, free healthcare, same as Europe, not like America. So I've never had a problem. I've
got a doctor, easy to book and see, yeah, he goes to the hospital if he needs it. There's no like
particular rules really. The only rules would be if you are a temporary resident, I think you have
to pay through taxes, but then you would because you get taxed on your job. So yeah, I don't think
there's anything unusual here in terms of if you're European, listen to this. Same, same, I see a doctor.
Yeah, it's kind of strange, like any health service that is free, like UK for example, or Australia,
whatever. But yeah, it's not gone private yet, and I don't think it will here. I think it will stay
public and it will stay free. Nice. Do you know what's weird about here actually, to add a caveat to it,
if you're really desperate, like you really want to have an operation or you don't want to wait,
a lot of people go down to the US and pay it because the US, given its problems with its health care,
where it's inaccessible and insurance problems. There's no wait times down there, or it's less,
way less. So some people go over the border and pay out their own money to pay for something.
Right. If you've got a lot of money because it's quicker, that's the only thing I'd say that could
happen here. And the way it works away around, if you're in the US and you can't afford health care,
like some people sneakily go across the border and to see a doctor, right, it's that weird thing. But
yeah. Strange. Next one is favorite one of everyone, bureaucracy, dealing with paperwork,
visas, permits. Yeah, we sort of say that the Canada admin is a bit lax and a bit paper heavy.
I think it's been frustrating at times at the bureaucracy compared to, you know, I don't like
UK for a lot of things, but the good thing about UK is it has great admin. It's great to get things
done to an extent. But here it takes ages and it's not as easy as you think. But if you're patient,
it's fine. Like the passport was easy to get. The permanent residency was actually okay in the end.
The work permit was pretty easy. We had no problems with that when arriving to Canada. So I think
overall a decent experience, but getting yourself a doctor was pretty easy. No real bad experiences,
but just takes time, right? In a big city, especially. Two more. The first one, it's the
best and the worst, like the best of living there and the worst thing of living there.
The best is I find it quite idyllic to live here because it's not as divided as a lot of countries
are. So when I go back to UK, I find it very edgy. When I go to US, as we all know, it's quite edgy
at the minute. It's very, it's just crazy. It is nothing like that. So it's very much, I feel like
where I live now in Vancouver, it's a much nicer atmosphere. So I don't underappreciate that. I
really appreciate it. And the worst thing about Canada is so big. If you want to see Canada on
your work permit, if you're here for one or two years, right, and you want to go and see Canada,
you got to really plan how to see and do it because it took us eight weeks to drive across
and see places, eight weeks. And that's going at a fairly quick pace. It's not slowing down much.
So traveling in Canada is tough. You got to fly a lot or have lots of time for a road trip,
go across, and you can only really do that in the summer as well, because of the snow and the winter
conditions. And that's just talking going across. If you want to go up, you've got two or three months
in the year, maybe July to early September, where you can maybe see it and come back again,
because the roads were just ice over. There's a couple of roads that go all year, but yeah. So
it's a huge country, lots of see and do, but you need time, money and patience because it's so big.
Yeah, that's kind of the downside I think. Cool. Last one that I have, it's the top tip. If somebody
is planning to move to Vancouver or Canada right now, what is your one line advice?
I would say now is a great time to come in to Canada because we have, I believe we have a
government and a prime minister who really makes the right decisions for the country. So I think
it's going to be a cool three or four years that he's there with the caveat being that the country
below us is a bit of a nightmare. But yeah, I think it's a good time to come in for jobs. I know I said
earlier it's tough to get a job sometimes and it's getting maybe a bit tougher, but it went through
troughs. So we came to Canada after finding a job. For periods, no one was taking jobs. So it's easy
to get jobs. It goes up and down. You've got time at well, but in terms of living here and rental
prices, they're the lowest they're going to be for four or five years. They're still going down. So I
would take advantage of that to come in now if you can to get set up here to see the country and stuff.
So I think top tip is come now because I've never known Canada to be as great value for money, but
also have plenty of options to live in terms of apartments or houses. That's Vancouver. I don't
know what it's like East. Yeah. I think Canadians are great. It's a great country. It's a great
place to live and see amazing nature, amazing culture. Thanks a lot, James, for all the
replies on Canada and Vancouver specifically. Since you built the podcast and a whole brand around
winging it, not like flowing, but you also build it. I would say that we jumped to the mini game,
what I call wing it or building it. Basically, I will give you a scenario and you can choose between
winging it and saying, okay, I flow with it or I build with it, meaning I need to think about it.
I need to reflectionate a little bit more about this decision. Okay. The first one that I have is
you find a cheap flight living in three days in a country that you never researched. Oh yeah, winging it.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, 100%. No thought. No, no thought. A cheap flight to a new country, I'm in.
Easy. Cool. Having five small income streams instead of a one big stable salary. That's a build it.
Yeah. Cause interesting. I'm trying to do that now. So I'm in this phase since we come back from 20,
23 year trip where I had to go back to the same job, which I'm grateful for, but that was not the plan.
So I've kind of had to rethink next time I go traveling, what's that going to look like when
I don't have a traditional job? So I'm trying to build some income streams, podcast, YouTube,
and podcast editing work, bits and pieces. So yeah, build it. Speaking your next base purely in vibes,
not on wifi speeds or visa policies. No, build it. I can't wing that. You must know you need good
wifi. Yep. I'll tell you what I've learned actually. You must know this ever since the start of the
podcast, I really appreciate good internet. It was never a needs before, but when you podcast or
YouTube on the road and you want to get content out in real time where you don't release it in the
future, you want to do it now, that's a problem. Wining wifi when you're abroad and you rely on it
is not a good idea if you're a content creator. So I think you got to build that need to think
about it. So for example, your first question about winging it to a new country. If I knew that new
country was not great for wifi, I would then think about what I'll do with content after the trip,
not during a trip. Okay. I see. Two more, dating or building deep relationships or friendships while
you know that you might live in three months, six months of a place. I'd wing it. Why not?
You don't lose anything. You don't lose anything and something great might happen. And yeah, yeah,
I'd wing that. I wouldn't think too much about that. Just get stuck in, yeah. And the last one that
I have, it's you actually started this lifestyle where you mostly wink it into living abroad.
And today you're still winging it a little bit, but you actually build something, no? So maybe
transition a little bit into what you are working around, you're saying right now that you are
building something a little bit more on the thought of monetizing it, of transforming it into a brand,
the product that brings things. Can you talk about the podcast, the YouTube channel? What are all
these productions that you have in your table right now? Yeah. So I think you said to me, okay,
it's during record or pre-recording that you don't have a fixed place to be because you can
work remotely. That's basically the aim, is to work remotely and not have any location dependence.
And the base comes into that because we want the choice of going back somewhere if we want to go
back. Okay. So yeah, it's kind of just building the podcast out of public networks. My network houses
like five, no, seven or eight travel podcasts, and they have advertisements on the networks.
That's an income stream. Okay. YouTube not links to podcasts. That's a monetized YouTube account. So
it's just about making YouTube videos and building that out to make an income. And I have a podcast
production business where I do some freelance work for some podcast editing or host management
or stuff like that research. So that's kind of what I'm building out there as well. They're the
kind of three main ones. And then it's weird because you said before about the friends thing
or relationships. Well, I know in the next two years, we're probably moving back. Just trying
to think what that means in terms of building another income streams. They're the three main
ones at the minute. We'll see how they go. And obviously I'll quit my job because I still work
now at the minute and that will happen eventually. So that's a different change as well with no
salary coming in every month. So that's kind of the journey. Still ups and downs. I don't know if
your freelance work is very consistent, but mine could be great one month and not great the next.
So just trying to learn that entrepreneur type mentality. I see where those listeners can find
you listen to the podcast, but also check the videos that you do in YouTube, or if there is
any podcaster out there that needs services or support? How do they find you? Yeah. So the podcast
is called the Winginit Travel Podcast. So that's on every podcast app that we all know. They
does have a website, winginnittravelpodcast.com. So that's pretty easy. That's part of a network
called Voyascape. So V-O-Y-A-S-C-A-P-E. Go to voyascape.com. My podcast is on there as well as
other great travel podcasts. So that's a cool resource and a free one. And then for YouTube,
my YouTube account is called Roaming With Hamo. So my last name is Hammond. I shortened that to
Hamo. So Roaming With Hamo. That's a bit different to the podcast. It's more raw, probably more
unpolished, just video of my travels. So at the minute, it's Bhutan. I went to Bhutan in December.
So both the podcast and YouTube have got Bhutan content. And for anyone who wants any podcast
work, you can go to winginnitproductions.com. That's where I have my expertise laid out and
the prices and all the projects I've been working on or still work with or podcasts I produce. And
on Winginit, I do different types of episodes. I do stuff like this, like guest episodes that
you're doing. I do set up episodes, but I also do like immersive travel episodes where collect
sounds and put them together like a, like you're traveling with me for that particular place. So
have a few of those this year for Bhutan, but I've got like maybe 10 or 12 of those. And that's kind
of showcasing a bit of like a portfolio to people. If they want me to do a similar type of production
for their podcasts, I can do that. So yeah, cool to do, takes ages, but they're the three things
that are easy, accessible for my work. Perfect. Cool. Like always, if you're not finding the
links or not finding it easy, they are in the description of the episode and of the YouTube
channel. So you can find it there as listeners. James, thank you. Thank you so much for today
episode and for taking the time to talk with me today. It has been incredible.
Now it's been a great chat. Thanks so much. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.
Perfect. And as always listeners, if you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to subscribe, give some
love to all social media, YouTube, whatever platform to both almost local and a Winginit
travel podcast from James. Until the next time, keep exploring, stay curious, and see you in the
next episode.
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