What if living abroad didn't mean settling down but constantly moving? No apartment, no fixed address, no clear long-term base.
For most people, the goal is finding a place to call a home. But for our guest today, it's been about learning how to live without a fixed home.
An Australian writer, educator and long-distance hiker, she spent the last four years navigating life across countries, dealing with visa limits, the reality of distance from family,
and the uncertainty that comes with never being fully rooted. But instead of staying in one place, she walks.
That's the joy of being at this end of your life is that you can take your time and say, "Well, okay, I have 200 kilometers. We're just going to do as much as we feel like."
And some days you might not feel like doing 20 kilometers. You just might feel like doing 10 or 13, and that's okay.
Through these long-distance hikes, she has discovered a completely different way of experiencing countries. One step at a time. But it's not always what you expect.
I did the GR 131, which is a traverse of the Canary Islands by myself. Now the funny thing was that it just did not end up well for me.
Anything which could have gone wrong went wrong. And I actually ended up with hypothermia, but I do enjoy hiking by myself. I enjoy the solitude. Would I like to do it full time? Well, now I have a partner, no. But I do like to go off, you know, maybe just one small hike a year, just by myself.
So what happens when adventure meets reality? And how does hiking through a place change the way you understand it? Today, on Almost Local, the living abroad story of Belinda Coker. Let's start.
I am an Australian, born in New Zealand. So I have dual nationality and I currently reside in Scotland. When I was just before I turned 60. Well, actually about a year or so ago, maybe a couple of years ago now, my partner and I decided to take early retirement and enjoy the golden years of our life while we still can.
Because I turned 60 on the trail a couple of years ago, sorry, a couple of months ago. And I know that I probably only have about 20 more years of active life. And I mean, active life. I want to be fit and healthy and doing active things until I'm in my 30s. And I think just being stagnant. And my only exercise is changing the TV channel. It was not the life for me.
So my partner and I, who I actually met on the trail, we met on a bus on the trail. We travel around the world and we hike around about seven to eight months of the year. And the rest of the time we are based in Scotland, we base ourselves in Scotland, we need to do the Schengen shuffle, but we're currently looking into longest day visas because we have my soul trader, the job, my new job, which hopefully we can get another visa.
But this is something that we're looking at. So my life is basically enjoying life to the absolute maximum that I can at this age because, you know, life doesn't carry on forever. And I want to be able to, you know, be on my deathbed and say, that was a ride.
Lovely. I mean, big sense. You said a lot of things that I want to touch upon this episode for sure, but maybe going to the very beginning of it, like you're originally from Australia, you lived in the country between New Zealand and Australia for a long time. How was your life there?
I was born in New Zealand. And then around about in between school and college and university, I took a timeout to go traveling around the world when I didn't actually travel around the world. I went to Southeast Asia. And what was supposed to be a six month travel around I rolled in university and then I had six months that I could travel and that ended up being 18 months.
So I ended up doing a lot of backpacking, traveling back then. And I'm going to say backpacking in the European, Asian, sorry, European, Australian, English sense of when we're young and we go from country to country as young, young sort of, you know, 20 somethings as opposed to backpacking if you're in North America. And that means backcountry camping, so backcountry hiking. So this is slightly, it's slightly different term for backpacking.
And so yes, I was a backpacker going through Southeast Asia and Northern Asia back in the 1980s. Before they had cell phones, before they had internet, when the only form of information that we had was a yellow book, and everyone had this yellow book and it was called the travel Bible.
Southeast Asia on a shoestring. Southeast Asia on a shoestring was written by Maureen and Tony Wheeler, the founder of Lonely Planet. And it was the very first Lonely Planet. So everyone had Southeast Asia on a shoestring, which was just a plain yellow cover with a little line drawing of a tuk tuk I think it is on the front.
So that was was how my lust for travel started. And then I ended up living in Japan for a couple of years teaching English. And there I met my children's father and you know, a couple of years later after you know, doing a little bit of travel around Europe, we went back to we went back to Australia to live. So I was born in New Zealand and went back to Australia.
Australians and New Zealanders can cross, there's a lot of cross borders, you know, quite freely work on all sorts of things. So I was able to actually get him citizenship and residency into Australia. He got his citizenship way before I did. And so we ended up most of my adult life has been living in Australia. I'm Australian citizen, and I refer to myself as Australian.
Now it kind of depends who I'm talking to. And the New Zealand passport is really, really good, as I've just realized, because New Zealanders can get an extra three months off on top of the normal Schengen visa and and probably I think there's about 12 or 13 countries we can do that France being one. Anyway, so this is I'm going to try it out and test it out. I'm not sure how well it works. But it's on the French website, it's all over the New Zealand passport website. So let's
try it. So, so then I, I had a period of around about 20 to 25 years where I was working corporate. And I was doing a lot of corporate travel. So I was flying in the pointy part of the plane, that's the front of the plane.
Business, business.
And staying staying in really nice hotels. And did I enjoy it? Well, yeah, I kind of did. But it was it was for work. And I would go into somewhere and do a trade show and come back out. And I never, never, never experienced a city or a country. I went to New York so many times, and I went up the Empire State Building once. And, and that was it. That was literally, that was literally it. I had hardly seen, I might have caught a few shows,
I knew the restaurants and the bars really well because you know, that's what we did at night time
But I didn't know New York New York at all and it wasn't until I went back as a tourist later later that I actually
Really explored the city with fresh eyes, you know with business travel. It's a completely different type of travel
You know, it's it's kind of you kind of separated from the guts of it and you know, you sort of on the surface
But at the same time you're still getting a total cultural immersion because you're doing business with local people
So, you know I spent a lot of time in America with track and trade shows and I you know, I kind of joke
I speak American well, I can you know, if you were American we would have this conversation and you would think that I was American
Just talking with a different, you know
There's a cultural difference with all nationalities in the way that you approach certain things and business is no exception
The other the other example is China
I used to go to China a lot and you know, I know how to conduct myself at a Chinese banquet
So it's kind of you know people sort of you know, you know squat for you know business trouble saying
Oh, they're just businessmen. They just you know go into you know, fly fly fly in there and nicely and stay in a nice hotel
But you do have to be totally aware of cultural identity of the cultural identity of the people that you're dealing with
In order to get anywhere and that's kind of really important. So
After my corporate life. Well, I was still kind of in my corporate life, but in the year 2000 during covered
I then decided that I wanted to
Change what I was doing and that was the catalyst for me starting to hike
So I'd hiked a lot when I was young. I mean I was in high school
University back in New Zealand. I had hiked a lot but I hadn't hiked for 35 years
I think it was as of the year 2000. So I went and bought a pair of
It's probably the same age as you, right?
So I went to bought a pair of hiking boots and and that was the start of
the my adventure. Yeah, okay
That was the beginning. You're really like disconnected with the hiking wall and now as far as for now you said like you're traveling around
Eight between six and eight months of the year
Hiking that's like leaving an empty estate in there and then coming back relatively hard into it definitely like
That was five years ago. So, you know, it hasn't been it has been a bit of a slow transition
I mean I still had children in school, you know during during COVID they were in their very very last years and it wasn't until they
until they you know started there, you know, I had one child left home and other you know, other children sort of, you know
I had had work fully ensconced in the university and then I felt it was okay for me to sort of move and I
Had to go and work in I had to go and work in the northern hemisphere and I could choose between the European or the
American time zone so I chose
Mexico for one year so I stayed there for five months in cellulite
And then I chose Ecuador and I was going and I stayed there for around about five months as well
So I chose both of those countries and then returned back to Australia
Before I ended up leaving fully and coming to the northern hemisphere
interesting
How is this hike like organized? How do you decide? Where do you go?
And how do you like I suppose do you do more than one single hike?
They are not hikes of six months straight on a single hike. I will be a very long one. I know I know well
Actually, there are a couple, you know, there are some very long distance hikes. So there's
You know, there's one that goes through New Zealand. There's a hexatrek that goes through
Through France and there's several in America North America, which which take around about three to four months each
So but those are the really long ones. I don't do those my hikes are usually two maybe three weeks
We did the Kungen stead and in Northern Sweden which which took four weeks. So how do we decide? Well, basically
All hikes have an optimum time to do them
So for example hikes in Scandinavia and hikes in European Alpine Europe or Alpine America
You can only hike July August September. So July August September
We know that we've got this group of hikes to do and then there's a whole lot that you can only do in spring
Northern I'm talking northern hemisphere
Seasons here spring or autumn and we're on Sunday. We leave for Greece for six weeks hiking
If I tried to do those same hikes and summer I would probably die from I would die. I would die from hyperthermia
I live four years in Athens and you die without doing anything. So yes can assure you that
so we basically we've just got this huge bucket list of hikes and you know, and we kind of pick from them, so I
Really wanted to go and do the Jordan Trail this spring summer, but of course, it's problematic
I don't really want to be stuck there. I just didn't want to go so we switched and we changed to Greece
so we have got we've got quite a few hikes that in each sort of month or
Sector like spring summer autumn and winter so European winter we can do hikes such as
we are
Especially in South America or Australia New Zealand. So there are a lot of South America. So
South America
Australia and New Zealand or anywhere in the southern hemisphere
So we can kind of sort of pick and choose what we can do based on budget wars
Price of ticket prices all sorts of things come into play. Yeah, so that's how we choose
How does it work like you trail like you track a certain amount of kilometers per day set up a like roots?
And then you have like you go with a tent and you come outside or you go to specific houses
Apartments you go to hotels. How do you work?
It depends. It depends which hike it is where possible we can't so in America
It's called dispersed camping or backcountry camping UK calls it wild camping France called it calls it bivouac in
So we we actually prefer to camp on the trail leave no place trace leave no trace principles
All that sort of thing. I love to wake up next to a lovely stream overlooking a sunrise sunset ocean whatever
But sometimes that's not possible, especially through Europe
there's a lot of trails where you can't wild camp and therefore that then there we would stay in huts or
refugees or
Guest houses sometimes we just sort of mix it up. For example, when we're going to Greece now
We're planning on wild camping the whole way, but we know that you know, every you know, three or four days
we'll probably want to find a nice guest house and
you know have a nice home-cooked meal and a nice shower and you know and chat with the locals and
That's okay, you know
But if we were to do it full-time and staying in hotels all the time, it would be it would become
Prohibitive cost wise so and yeah
So yes, that that's that's the way we do it. So how do we plan? Okay?
I am the I am the queen of just taking off knowing that I've got a trail knowing how long it's going to take
So I see okay. I've got a trail. It's going to take two hundred
200 kilometers are talking kilometers 200 kilometers, maybe a hundred thirty miles or 150 miles something like that. Anyway, so
I've got a trail if I have a look at the elevation profile
I can see how difficult it is and I can kind of work out there is information. Okay, so this hike will take
Between six to thirteen days. Okay, that's a huge amount
That means that some people are doing it very fit and some people aren't or some people are going from hut to hut
And only getting four to six hours a day and as we and we don't have to take holidays from work or anything like that
We can literally take our time and that's the joy of you know
I've been at this end of your life is that you can you can take your time and say well, okay
I have there's 200 kilometers
We're just going to do it do as much as we feel like and some days you might not feel like doing 20 kilometers
You just might feel like doing 10 or 13 and that's okay. There's you know, we don't we don't beat ourselves up
Yeah, yeah, you enjoy the flexibility of out. Especially if you can count that's the
Like you don't depend on like going from point a to point B and that's lovely sometimes. Um, I was going to ask also like from up from a
Discovery perspective like you walk through a single country or a couple of countries during days even weeks
Do you think that it's you start noticing more things or like stuff that people that travels there just as a tourist and visit?
Miss from there from the countries you visit
Absolutely. Absolutely. So for example when you are going on one of these sort of hikes you are walking through villages
Which they just don't see tourists
There's no there's no need for tourists to go there to just be some random village
In the mountains and you know, someone will be selling, you know, fresh honey. Someone will be selling yogurt
Somebody be selling, you know a lovely, you know
Breakfast of you know, feta cheese and cucumber and olives or whatever whatever it could be and so you really are
immersing yourself in the local culture and you're
Usually buying so for example, I'm talking about Greece. Okay, I've never been to Greece
But I'm talking about Greece with you because you've been there
You know when we're walking when we're doing this hike and it's called the long Pallian Trail. It's a very new trail
It's only just opened up
But there's several villages on the way and we know that when we get through those villages there might not be a taverna
but they might and
There's been times also where we've walked through a village and a local and said hey, aren't you hungry?
Come and have some food
You know locals are you know very very nice, but quite often we will walk into a a
restaurant or not a restaurant but like a taverna or a you know, some sort of very very local eatery where
you know, they a tourist has probably never set foot in there and you really see it's a slow immersive kind of travel you're
Walking past farm houses. You're seeing how the locals farm how you know how the locals how the like was
Interact with you and it's really cool. It is it's amazing actually. Yeah
Slow traveling. Yeah, you will let me know but I will really doubt that you pass a town in in Greece
That doesn't have a taverna in it. I really really doubt it and then you will not be hungry. That's for sure
Food it's good and it's cheap and it's most of times everywhere
There is a taverna in Greece in places that you would not even imagine that there is a taverna why there is a taverna here
They have a taverna there for sure
Maybe one last question about hikes itself. Have you done like solo hiking around also?
I know that you did some solo hikes how difficult difficult or different it is from being
Hiking with your partner in your case or with someone else
Like us there is a loneliness inside of it and being with yourself sometimes it's difficult for a lot of people
Yeah, I actually really like it and my partner won't mind me saying this but I do actually miss it sometimes
But then again, I really like hiking with them. So it's alright
but yes
I was hiking solo up until a year and a half ago when we start when we started hiking together and just recently
I did the GR 131 which is a traverse of the Canary Islands by myself
While he went back to New Zealand now
The funny thing was is that it just did not end up well for me everything anything which could have gone wrong went wrong
And I actually ended up with hypothermia. So and I was really kind of disappointed because I was so
I was so into doing this hike by myself, but I do enjoy hiking by myself. I enjoy the solitude
Would I like to do it full-time? Well now I have a partner and no but
I do like to go off, you know, maybe just one small hike a year just by myself and just
You know you just wake up in the morning
You're in your single tent and you wake up in the morning and you really are by yourself and it's quite a lovely feeling
but I did do the Arctic Circle Trail, which is a traverse across the Arctic Circle in Greenland
So it goes from the ice cap the edge of the ice cap over to the sea
So in the middle of summer and it was crazy because there were no trees now you go. Okay, so there's no trees
Yeah, so what so there were no birds no trees. No leaves rustling. No, you know small animals
You know scratching around there was absolute silence. So and for two days
I didn't see a single person and the silence is intense
Like the only thing I could hear was my footsteps and and that was it I could have heard of a pin drop
It was crazy and that was that was pretty cool. I didn't it didn't bother me
But it was it was quite surreal. I did wake up in the middle of the night
Did you go to the toilet in the middle of the night and right?
Outside that I heard this rustling outside my tent and it must have woken me up
I woke up to see this big reindeer outside my tent just chomping away on the grass
Nice, I mean I was just asking because I did one trail one alone and I ended speaking with the plants. I
Don't know how to be with myself. I'm a very too much social person and I really ended speaking with the plants
It was not my piece of cup like a cup of coffee, but it was it was interesting. It was a nice experience
So yeah, maybe the last question of this section and
introducing a little bit
To the to the first reply that we will touch later on. It's why Scotland at the end of all of this, no you're traveling all around the world and yeah
Scotland sounds random for someone coming from Australia New Zealand who lived in the in Asia
Yeah, well, yes, so right why Scotland as an antipodean?
We can stay and I don't know what it is for other other nations
but we can stay up to six months at a time in the UK where
We're retired with self-sufficient. So we're not taking anyone's jobs or anything like that
And we see we can sort of come and go as freely as we want as long as we don't over stay a six-month period
And I think if we stay longer than six months in a financial year
We could be you know that they could have tax implications, but we don't anyway
So we chose we chose the UK and we both love Scotland. It's got a great outdoor scene here
There's some fantastic hiking. It's also got quite a good culture now
I say that with a bit of tongue-in-cheek because I have been feeling very homesick lately then and looking
forward to this podcast I
Had to really do a deep dive about why I was in Scotland and what I liked about Scotland and it was quite interesting
It was an interesting exercise for me as well. So there's things I really don't like about this country after spending a winter here and
Feeling a little bit homesick and then there's things that I do
Really like about this country and things that I think would be you know for someone considering somewhere to live
It could be quite beneficial
Makes sense. Yeah, so maybe as you already did the exercise of analyzing a little bit your life in Scotland
We go to the first reply questions. I always ask the same exact 12 questions to the guest and you need to respond
Relatively fast under a minute. Let's say like this each of them
So we have a little bit of comparison on how it's or we have an idea of how live it's in Scotland
The first question that I have it's how its cultural adjustment the thing that took you a while to adapt to or okay
So because Scotland is part of the UK and it's kind of British
It's for us. There wasn't so much cultural adjustment
it if you know my
Children's father was Welsh or is Welsh. So I still have this sort of affinity to and
You know, I'm I I write people and I understand British humor
So for us the cultural adjustment was of that great that was that was the easy part
hmm
Second one that I have it's social life. How do you normally meet friends in Scotland right now? Okay, so we
We house it so in between hikes
We we stay in people's houses and we've actually become friends with the people that we've been doing the house
It's for so we've become friends that way but we also have made quite a few people on our hikes as well
So we've joined a couple of hiking groups and we've met some people with similar sort of
Similar values as us in terms of you know outdoors and hiking which has been great because you know some of the it's
Not everyone is into the outdoors here
When I say that with kindness
Next one that I have normally its language which for your case doesn't really apply to
Learning the whole language. No, it's Scotland
we were going to we were going we were getting on the ferry the other day going to an island and
one of the islands on the west coast and we stopped in the
supermarket the co-op and spoke to the guy and we ordered our ferry tickets from him and then one of us said
Can you tell us how to get to the ferry terminal?
And honestly he went into this big long description about how to drive there and I and we were just like what?
And then we both said thank you and we turned around
Did you understand that and my partner went no and I heard two lights two lights
So we knew that we had to go through two sets of lights. It was just hilarious. He had the broadest accent
I have ever heard. He was this old guy who was serving and in the supermarket
It was just hilarious. But most of the time I can understand I understand it. But yeah
Yeah, but that's kind of makes it fun
Yes
The next one that I have its cost of living it's cheap is expensive right now to live in Scotland
How number it? Okay, so it's kind of funny like some things are really
Expensive here and some things are cheap like for example, I'll tell you if I'm just buying coffee beans my god like
You know for a kilo of coffee I'll pay thirty to forty surprising fifty quid for a kilo of coffee beans like good coffee beans
Like and that's how to find good coffee in this country. I'm sorry. I don't I don't hear who's listening
It is the things country. Okay, you know where I'm from this, you know, there's five roasters just in my one neighborhood
And you know and the coffee is half the price. I don't get it. Like it's just a bean, you know, but these certain things are expensive because
for example alcohol
Scotland has quite high tax on its alcohol and that was that was introduced by the government to try and curb drinking and
And I kind of feel that you know, just things like beef and lamb are really really expensive
But you can buy you can eat cheaply if you buy from the supermarket and you buy what's on sale
And you eat cheaply you just you just don't necessarily
Sort of eat maybe what you're used to there's the odd
Asian supermarket that you know four to five times the price is an Asian supermarket in Australia
I mean our Asian supermarkets are you know, they're dirt cheap and they're great
So, you know and just like if you want anything authentic like, you know authentic, you know spices for Asian cooking or anything like that
It's either supermarket supermarket versions which are never that never as good as real thing or they're very very expensive
So there's certain things that are expensive in terms of food and and eating out is very expensive
But okay. So there's a there's a cheap pub called weather spoons. It's all over all over all over the UK
Now here's something like they they have this in the UK
They sell this bottle of wine, which is absolute crap. It's Australian and it's got a yellow kangaroo on it
I can't remember what it's called. But that's what people who people buy who are buying the very first bottle of wine in Australia
I mean, it's like teenagers violence teenagers ask the adults to buy this crap absolute crap
But then you can go into wither spoons and you can get a bottle of Grand Verge Chiraz
for like it's it's really really cheap compared to
What to what is in Australia and it's a really really really good Chiraz. It's hilarious
So obviously they've imported it and somebody and you know, who's in head office is just gone. Yeah, it's a bottle of red wine
Yeah, we'll just put this price on it not actually understanding that it's actually a really good bottle of wine
So yeah, yeah, the old thing you can find is good
You need to find your your tweaks around the system to find your quality at a proper price
I get it next one that I have it's finding a home. How does people find apartments?
Is it an easy process? There is availability of housing. There is an availability of housing
There's actually a huge availability to buy housing here when you buy housing. Okay, for example
we just bought an apartment last year last week and
for
36,000 pounds it's in a nice seaside village and
So there are some real gems as far as housing is concerned
renting lot harder, so there seems to be a shortage for
From rentals, but I haven't been we haven't been renting
we have been purely how sitting while we've been here and we have a we have a
Quarterly gig how sit that we do which lasts for a month. So one month each quarter
we have this beautiful old converted mill in Scotland that we go and house it for and
Well, the owners say they go off to Thailand for a month every quarter because that's where they workers
There are loads of beautiful house sits here. So house sitting is fantastic
I think fine if you if you wanted to buy but the other thing is when you look at home reports because it's quite a damp
Cold country. There's a lot of damage has been done with the damps. You just have to be very careful and do your homework
The next one that I have it's living like a local the thing that you do to blend in with the Scottish
I bought my partner a tartan scarf
Look we
Look we hike so that's about as local as we can get we stand out like sore thumbs
but the great thing about you know being as you know being Australian or New Zealand here is that you know, you can ask for anything or
request anything and you know, you come out the completely different accent and it's someone new and so they follow sort of do whatever
You know, I find people quite gracious that way. Yeah, we don't really we don't really blend in and
Yeah, no, no, we we kind of don't sounds good
I don't know if you can respond the next one because it's work life
You move to Scotland already without the work know so but I don't know if you know from friends and family
How is it normally the work-life balance for example how the work environment?
So look, it's a hard one because the people that we house it for they need a full-time carer
She's she's disabled and she needs a full-time carer. She cannot get anybody to help her if you are a
Tradesman there is such a shortage of tradesmen. It's scary like, you know, just people painters decorators
Diners that sort of thing. There's a huge shortage ever since brexit the whole country has always ground to a halt in terms of getting
Things repaired or fixed. So if you have a trade and you're moving to this country, there is so much work for you
It's it's not funny and but also if you if you're willing to put the work in and you know
There are other there are other jobs in terms of employment as in finding work
Finding a job been employed by a company. I can't tell you but I know for a fact that
Ever since brexit is a huge shortage of workers. Yeah next one that I have it's getting around
What's the best way to move around like it's a good public?
Transport system or do you need a car to move?
It is a good public transport system and there seems to be buses going to all kind of quite remote places
And I think the government the government is has done it's quite good because it said right? Okay. Well, we've got island here
We've got people living on the island and they need to be able to get out because they need basic that they need to be able
to obtain basic supplies
So we haven't had a problem with getting around this time
We did hire a car, but we were also house hunting so but it's but we've most of the time we train and bus it
Yeah, what about the healthcare? How does the system work?
To access the quality so so Britain has what's known as the NHS, which is pretty I mean look
I won't put it down because it's it's great. It's free. However, Scotland works on us
Scotland's NHS is slightly different and it's really good
So it's really easy to get in to see a doctor. The doctors are great. All prescriptions are free. So in
In the UK you need to be over 60 to get free prescriptions here in Scotland and all prescriptions are free
You do need what's an NHS number?
I actually had one from when I was here many years ago on a working holiday and I'm still in the system
But I think it is quite easy to be able to get to be able to get health care here. It's quite easier
I don't think I think they can turn anyone down. Yes, the doctors is the medical in Scotland
This is one of the reasons why why we are here as opposed to down in England, which is difficult
Okay, I don't know if the next one will be so positive but bureaucracy. How is dealing with paperwork?
I mean you go in and out so you need to also ask for for visas
Regularly, I suppose. How does it work? Well, we don't we we basically just we we can come and go being
relation but sorry
Can I just go back to that to the NHS to the healthcare? Sure all Australians have a new Zealanders have a reciprocal health agreement
So all Australians in New Zealand is in it and I think it's South Africans as well
So it could be anyone from the Commonwealth so that you do need to sort of check that but
bureaucracy, okay, so
I've just tried to apply for a VAT number and
Trying to actually find a person like a real person to talk to is really hard
It's almost impossible and I need to go through this whole this whole line of
robots and like like the bots and I think I think this is a worldwide problem, but I
Really struggle in this country to get any information whatsoever. I find it really really difficult. So
Yes, I found it difficult and just applied for the VAT number. Two more the next one
It's the best and the worst of living or being in Scotland. Okay, so the worst is the weather. I just well
I've just had the
I've just had a winter here and I have actually become quite homesick for Australia
The other thing is is the culture isn't as healthy as Australia, you know, Scotch is going we'll go back to Australia then
Well, that's all well and good. I've chosen to be here. I can't I do miss the healthy
Australian culture. I really do the weather does kind of get me down sometimes but I've I have just come out of the winter and
I think that's the same as anybody who's here. So I mean as soon as it's a sunny day
It's just like this huge cloud is lifted off
Everybody's you know of everybody and everybody's walking around like they're on happy juice. So if you were to come to
Come to Scotland and consider Scotland as a place to live and you have children who have not yet enrolled in university
Scotland does have free university you need to live in a place for three years and and then you can qualify for free
University and as far as I'm concerned, that's a huge bonus of living here that really is it's
That that's that's a that's why I love the I do love the culture. I love the humor
I love the people I actually even like haggis, although I don't eat it like it's supposed to
Sauté it with garlic fresh tomato loads of parsley loads of garlic and put it on top of spaghetti
But
Yes, and you know and there's certain things about Scotland. I love I mean it is a beautiful country
It really is especially the highlands. Yeah, and the last question that I have it's the top tip the
One-line advice that you would give to anyone who is planning or thinking about moving to Scotland
Look, I do I do think if you can handle the which I mean yes up near the snow now
We're at the base of the can can go on and it's just stunning
It really is the people are really nice the best advice I can give you is
Come here for a short time house it for a bit which I can I'd say for anyone going anywhere is
Go and house it for a bit and see and immerse yourself into the culture and see if you like it or not
And that's what we did and that's what made us fall in love with the place
So we switch to the to the two gears a little bit and go to the minigame
I called this one the trial truths
I wanted to learn a little bit more about the your experience in hiking around we talked about it
but the idea is that I would give you a
Situation or sentence and you can tell me the difference between what people thinks
This is what happened and what it actually looks like on that specific situation
Sentence or situation that I have it's the first day of a long distance hike
Yeah, so the first day of the long distance hike you normally feel very unfit. Um, is it?
There's a there's a there's a feeling of excitement
Normally, it's only a for for our day
We just ease into it but you know if you are on a hike that you have to get from A to B
It can actually be quite exhausting, but I think the most exhausting day is day three
I would say day three because you still you know, there's a lot of
adrenaline going through your blood on day one and probably day two as well because you're you just starting out
It's new. It's exciting
So yeah, but the first day the first day is pretty good. It's I would say day threes much harder
Having bad weather in the middle of nowhere really horrible and I'm really bad and bad weather but
Vanilla laugh I actually ended up with hypothermia in Gran Canaries. Sorry. I'm the Canary Islands. Sorry, not Gran Canaria and Tenerife
So look when it starts to rain, especially when if it rains here in Scotland
It's somewhere where I just do not want to be hiking and really do need good wet weather gear
Bad weather is something that I just I just try not to not to not to hike
And I would rather stay all day in my tent and wait for it to stop raining. Okay
Meeting strangers on the trail. I've had some of my best I I've had so much fun with people on the trail. I
look
Especially and when you're in America, the trail culture is absolutely amazing. Everyone has trail names
So mine's old treader but other you know
I kind of use my Instagram but other people have all sorts of you might be called long John or you might be called slow, you know
They're they're kind of fun names that people are given but I find that the out of all the countries I've been to
America is the best for travel for trail for meeting people on the trail and travel friendships
It really has been amazing. I've met some great people. Yeah
I'm I don't worry about my safety on the trail
you know not as much as I probably should because I
Kind of feel that if people are all the way out in the wilderness, then you know
You would have to be quite unlucky
you can kind of see if somebody is a is a bonafide hiker or if they're not and if somebody's out to do you know to
be
Not nice to people then or do something which is totally illegal or you know, whatever
They're gonna have far more options if they stay in the city, you know, there's far more sort of people there
So yeah, just think I have two more your body after multiple days of walking like
that's going on through a
lose a lot of weight and
So I have we will be doing around about six weeks of hiking when we go to Greece and I have been
Eating a lot lately so I can I'm probably around about seven kilos
Maybe eight kilos more than I should be which is going to be hard because that means I'm gonna have to carry eight more kilos
On the trail, but I will lose it very soon
And I would rather have more calories on my body now than be to know because I do go into calorie deficit
like
Okay
Well, and the last one that I have from the mini game
It's a contrary of the first one the last day finishing the long hike
Sensation it really is a feeling of elation and you kind of like, you know, it's
It's not I you know, it's kind of like a bittersweet like that was really fun and that was great now
Let's go and have a shower. It's gonna have a nice meal
It's going to have a steak, you know a glass of wine, whatever it is. And so it really is it's a great
Finishing a hike is a fantastic feeling and in something that you've achieved as well. Yeah, it's great
I love it. Nice cool before we wrap up the episode Elina
I wanted to give you a little bit the floor to talk about any projects that you have right now going on on your site
We talk a little bit about the housing house eating gig with the house eating collective
But I know that you also have like a platform called soul trader
So what's going on project wise and how can people connect with you actually? Okay
So yes, so my hiking blog is soul trader with with soul trader. You can see all of my hiking guides
I also have some guides on what to wear what to eat what to carry in your pack
I have free interactive packing lists. The other thing is what I do have is I have a book called health and safety on the trail
And this is it's a night. It's I think it's about 80 88 pages or 87 pages and it's a really good resource
It's free. It's just a free resource on my website and it goes into everything that need you need to know
Regarding health and safety on the trail which is kind of really important. Yeah
so if you are interested in getting into hiking whether it be
Getting into multi-day hiking or just day hikes. It's a great place to start
the other one is the house sitting collective and this is where we teach how the house it and
There is a bonus code for for 10% off all courses the code is HS travels h4
House is for sitting and then travel t r a v e L
And that's all our case and we'll be in the show notes for 10% off all courses on house sitting collective
It's a great way to travel free accommodation total cultural immersion
And so many other benefits which I also go into on the site as well. Yeah. Yeah interesting
Yeah
I mean for all the listeners in the audience if if you want to check it out either the soul trader or the house sitting
Collective and learn a little bit more about hiking or house sitting or both of them. Yeah, they are combinable
Just go to the show notes and and the episode notes and there will be the links over there plus the discount code
for the house sitting collective
Belinda, thank you. Thank you so much. It has been incredible having you in the show talking about Scotland talking about your experience hiking around the wall and
Sitting and learning about your own story. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you, Mark for having me
It was a pleasure. Thanks again. And if you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe
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