Finding Your Tribe Through Travel in Retirement – As Featured on Built for This

Transcript: Built for This with Brian Briscoe

"How To Find Your 'Tribe' By Traveling Abroad"

Guest: Andrew Motiwalla, Founder & CEO, The Good Life Abroad

BRIAN: Welcome to Built for This. I'm your host, Brian Briscoe. My podcast features captivating conversations with intriguing people who have found purpose in their lives through their career, family, or life experiences and just why they were built for this. Through the stories that you will hear, I trust that you will be inspired and encouraged to find just what you were built for. So, let's get started.

Welcome again to another episode of Built for This. And I think you're going to really enjoy this journey today on the show. I have a very special guest with me. We're going to talk travel. We're going to talk purpose, meaning of life later on in life. But Andrew Motiwalla is my guest. He is the founder and the CEO of The Good Life Abroad. And Andrew, thanks for joining me on the show today.

ANDREW: Thanks for having me, Brian. I'm very intrigued because I'm in that age bracket and I'm very intrigued by this subject that we're going to talk about today — discovering travel and its meaning and its purpose and how it really can affect positively people later on in life. But first, let's start with how did you find your entrepreneurial spirit and the drive to want to do something like this and create this thing called The Good Life Abroad? Was there anything that sparked like, "Oh yeah, this is what I should be doing?"

ANDREW: Yeah, so the entrepreneurial journey started a while ago, early in life, and I think it runs in the family — I have a lot of uncles and aunts. But I knew I wanted to do something international. I knew I wanted to do something that was good for the world, something that made a positive impact. And I knew I liked business. So those were sort of guiding principles I had from early in my professional career and I tried to stick to them.

The Good Life Abroad is a more recent creation, and it came from a couple of seeds, let's call them. One is I had a travel company before. It was more traditional tourism where you'd go on a tour, you go on a bus, you go see a bunch of things. And we did a lot of intergenerational trips — grandparents, kids, and the grandkids. And the grandparents would say, "Yeah, these are great. We love it because we spend time with our family. It brings us together." But when we travel on our own, why isn't there something that is a little more slowed down? Because we're retired and we don't want to get on the bus, off the bus, check into the hotel, check out of the hotel. We have time. We'd like to just take it easy and see things at our own pace. And I thought, that's a great idea.

Then the second thing was me thinking about my own retirement — a little bit selfish, yeah. And thinking, I love living in California, I live in San Diego. But I'd love to live abroad for a few months every year in my retirement. And I started looking on the internet and I didn't want to buy something and have to deal with maintenance and taxes and things that come with owning property. And I thought, isn't there a way where I could just show up and have a properly vetted apartment that I knew would be comfortable, where I can go and live, but then also have a community of people around where I can do things with? So I'm not just by myself or with my partner.

And so these things kind of came together and we created The Good Life Abroad, which is fundamentally: live for a month or two in Europe in your own apartment, but you have a community of fellow travelers who live either in the same building in their own apartments or in the exact same neighborhood — so you're not more than a few minutes' walk from each other. And it's not a tour. We just do activities over the course of a month here and there — about three activities a week, like a cooking class, an architectural walking tour, a happy hour. But really it's an independent exploration where you can go at your own pace. Exactly what those older travelers were asking me for. And if you want to take a nap in the middle of the day, you can do that. You don't have to get back on that bus.

BRIAN: Yeah. So what have you discovered or I guess recognized since you started this? You mentioned one of the key things is a slower pace, being there for a longer period of time, being able to inject yourself into the community socially. What have you discovered is the positive takeaway for people that are doing this and they're seeing in their own lives by taking an experience like this?

ANDREW: Yeah. The thing that people don't always realize ahead of time — and I didn't realize the potency of this — is the sense of community that forms. And you really connect with these other people. Because the month, the activities we have planned are great, and there's a lot of time for independent exploration. But what happens is you really kind of find your tribe and you find people you really click with, because it's not everyone who wants to go live in a place for a whole month. It definitely attracts a certain type of person — a person who really values cultural immersion and has a deep appreciation for other cultures. So you find really cool people, people who are very well traveled, and then you're like, you're my friends, you're my tribe. And when you do things in community, what we've learned, it amplifies the joy. It's nice to go out to a nice restaurant by yourself or with your spouse, but when you have friends, it just makes it a more rich experience. And that idea of community-based travel is something that at the end of the program people say, "Wow, that was amazing. I want to travel like this all the time." They don't always realize at the beginning how big a part community will play.

BRIAN: You mentioned, Andrew, at the start that you were looking at your own life at that stage — you know, what to do and that kind of thing. So when a person gets to that age, whatever that age might be — and I know this is kind of targeted at 55-plus — but when we age and get older, how important do you see travel becoming a really experiential part that is important for a person? To connect the physical travel with actually experiencing something for a longer period of time than just a quick getaway?

ANDREW: Yeah. As we age, especially once we get into retirement, a bunch of things happen, right? There's a recalculation of identity, even. You know, I was an accountant, but now I'm not an accountant anymore. I was the neighbor who lived on the corner, but I just downsized to a condo perhaps. I moved to a 55-plus community. I'm not a PTA parent anymore — my kids have grown up.

So one thing we find from our program specifically is that people find their tribe as I was mentioning, and they realize, oh, one of my core values is cultural appreciation. And these people deeply appreciate other cultures — they're kind of the other "weirdos" who want to spend a month in a European city, but I found my people. So that's an interesting thing that comes from travel — you're bonding around a common shared core value.

But the other thing I think that's perhaps even more profound is that the world sometimes can feel like it's closing — it's getting smaller as you get older. I look at my own parents. My dad no longer travels, sadly. And it's not just physical limitations, but he just is getting more nervous about things. But when you travel and live abroad — for example, like a program like The Good Life Abroad or any sort of immersive travel — a few things are happening. One, you're learning. You're activating your brain because everything is new. The language is different. The public transportation is different. Ordering food from a menu is different. And that's great because your brain is firing on all cylinders.

And then in our program, you're living in a European apartment in a city center. Many Americans live in the suburbs. Often you only live in a city center when you're younger. So there's a process of adaptation — you're getting pushed a little out of your comfort zone. For many Americans, they go, "Oh, this fridge is a lot smaller than what I have." But you're not doing runs to Costco. You're going to the little market and buying fresh produce for a couple of days. And that process of adaptation, of taking in new things and adapting, is really good for us.

And another thing that's really good for us — and it comes up a lot in travel — is: how do you face challenges? You can put up walls and say, "Oh, this is uncomfortable. I don't like this." Or you can reframe things and say, "Okay, this is an opportunity for me to learn something new." And when you do that as you get older, the world actually starts to open up. One thing I hear a lot from clients who've spent a month navigating the Lisbon subway system, figured out how to take the train to the next town over — they feel a new sense of confidence. Like, I just did this. I just mastered Lisbon and I'm 60 years old. What's next? Bring on the world. The world opens up versus closing in.

BRIAN: And I want to follow up on that. That's fascinating. I sense that as we get closer and closer to retirement age and then beyond — you mentioned the word identity earlier. We all had this identity, usually around our job or work profession, and then, now what? But you touched on several things about getting immersed in the culture, having to navigate transportation. That has to be, by living this lifestyle, almost a reinvigoration — starting a new life all over again — by facing these challenges and thus perhaps lengthening your lifespan, giving you more joy by taking on all the things you put people in place to do.

ANDREW: You just hit on it. There's a great term coined by Dr. Carrie Bernide — I don't know if you've come across it — "joyspan." We know lifespan, how long you live. But joyspan is really about how much joy you have in those years of living.

And we're big believers that this type of immersive travel can increase your joyspan. That said, you don't have to travel — there are things you can do at home to still be learning and adapting and overcoming challenges and creating community. But for us, because we're in the travel business, we look at how we can apply these principles of increasing joyspan through a travel experience. And that's why we've built the program the way we have. In the book Joyspan, she talks about how this can also increase your lifespan, because you're increasing the happiness in your life — and these are practices anyone can do: learning, growing, adapting, overcoming challenges, connecting with other human beings.

BRIAN: Is it safe to say that travel, or immersive travel, extensive long-term travel, could improve a person's passion — their purpose in life? I would think something like a program like The Good Life Abroad would almost restart someone's passion if they were at a point of retirement age and weren't really sure what they wanted to look forward to. Maybe it gives them new passion and purpose?

ANDREW: You're so right. People always ask me, "Who is your program good for?" And I say it's good for anyone who's got some curiosity or some interests. It's got to start there. Because you can use travel — intentional travel, I think that's the key word — to go beyond the checklist. Checklist travel is like, I got to go see these five sites, which is fine, there's a time and place for everything. But if you're more intentional, travel is like an accelerant for whatever you want to pursue. And this is why the whole concept of study abroad exists for students — because you go to the place and learn it firsthand.

I'll give you a perfect example. We had a gentleman who was a retired accountant who had always been interested in art. He came on our program to Florence, Italy — the birthplace of Renaissance art — and he went so deep into it. He started painting. Every day he would go look at paintings and our staff could give him off-the-beaten-path recommendations. And then he got back home, and we did a Zoom call together, and he was showing me — he's a painter now. He's not an accountant. He found that passion for art, and being immersed in Renaissance art in Florence was life-changing.

BRIAN: You also mentioned learning the cultures of other places. It seems like in the United States we get tunnel vision — this is how the world is, but we're only seeing how we live. And that's a great example of how he became a painter just by experiencing a location.

Do you try to get the message across that this is more than an itinerary, more than a trip — that you want people to have an experiential journey much more than just a lot of fun things to do?

ANDREW: Exactly. What we talk about is the difference between touring abroad and living abroad. Touring abroad is just seeing a lot of things and having fun. Living abroad — the takeaway isn't the checklist of things you saw. It's actually experiencing a different way of life.

And my hope is not that you're going to come back home and suddenly live a European lifestyle necessarily, but just to maybe pick and choose the things that suit you. You say, "You know what, I really like that — I'm going to incorporate that into my daily life." But it starts with understanding that there are different ways to live in the world. We have a default setting, right, which we grew up with in this country — time is money, efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. And then you go to Europe and realize, "Wow, they're not trying to run me out of the restaurant after 90 minutes. I've been here for hours and no one seems to mind. It's kind of nice."

And slowing down a bit, enjoying the finer things in life — for me personally, I've now developed a deeper appreciation for food. And as I get older, I now care more about local ingredients. When I'm in Europe, you're using fresh local ingredients. I try to cook more and I like to cook the recipes I learn while traveling. So it all feeds into a slightly different lifestyle. I'm cooking different foods with better ingredients, and that has made my life better.

BRIAN: How hard have you found it is to convince people to step out of their comfort zone and entertain the idea of a life abroad for a period of time? We do get set in our ways. Is that one of your biggest challenges?

ANDREW: We actually say this is not for everyone. We say that quite a bit. Because many people think vacation means comfort, coddling, pampering, and they don't want to go out of their comfort zone. And so we say, "Look, if that's what you're looking for, go to the Ritz Carlton or the Four Seasons. I promise you, you'll be very comfortable."

But if you want to have this experience and learn and adapt and grow, this is a good way to do that. But it comes with a lot of expectation-setting and coaching, because people have these romantic visions of Europe — oh, Europe, it's going to be lovely and beautiful. They don't realize that in Spain, they don't even go out to dinner until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. So people are walking in the streets at 1:00 in the morning and they're like, "I go to bed at 9!" Or garbage trucks come in the middle of the night in these old city centers. Oh, I didn't realize that. So in those first couple of days, sometimes people get a little anxious, and then they settle into it and have a great time.

BRIAN: What kinds of fears do you think people face at retirement age when they're not sure what's beyond retirement and what to do — and how travel can be part of the remedy for that fear?

ANDREW: Yeah. Travel can help, but sometimes people just travel to fill the void. And that's something I try to talk to people about. I think traveling with an intention is the first step. So: what's your intention? Who are you? What are you interested in? Is there something you'd like to explore? Maybe you're curious about World War II history — great. Let's start there. Let's pick a destination where you can dive into that and really explore. But just traveling for travel's sake sometimes might leave you still feeling a little empty.

I met with one of our past clients in our very first group ever when we first launched. And he said to me afterwards, "You've changed my retirement." Because what had always been missing for him and his wife — they traveled a lot — was this idea of community. Now they do two trips a year with us — a month in the spring and a month in the fall. And he said, "Andrew, we love it because we first pick the destination, and then we research the subway lines and the restaurants, and it's a lot of fun just thinking about all the things we're going to do. Then we go on the program and meet a lot of like-minded people — our tribe again. And then we come home, become friends, and go visit our new friends in Texas and New York and California."

And so it's a sense of community that brings joy. There are so many scientific studies about what brings happiness and joy into people's lives — and it's relationships. So intentional travel, the way we do it, is really about fighting loneliness.

BRIAN: And you led right into my next question — expounding on the word community. We live in a world where we're all attached to our devices and things are fast-paced. But to be able to put together an experience like you're doing, where it exposes people to other communities and other people — if you could talk a little more about the impact that community through this intentional travel can have on a person when they come back from a trip and how it's changed them.

ANDREW: Yeah. Travel is an interesting thing because it's an intense experience. When I think back to my college days, some of the friends I'm still in contact with were ones I did the study abroad program with. Because you're going through this intense experience of a lot of new things. Similarly, on our programs, you're a month abroad, everything is new, and we really encourage you to go connect with the local community. There is a community of travelers around you — people building friendships in the apartments around them — but we're also trying to connect them to cool things in the local city. Encouraging them to go out and develop routines. Eventually you're going to this coffee shop and they know you after a month. And then at times we come together as a community — happy hours, lunches, different activities.

What's cool is then they're processing: "What did you do today? Oh, I did this thing and it was really tricky — I just learned this." They're helping each other. Because one thing that defines a community versus a fan club is that you look out for each other. Community's got each other's back. Sometimes someone might get sick and the other community members say, "Can I bring you something? Are you feeling okay? I can get some soup from the restaurant." And they're processing all this new information and suddenly realizing: "We have shared interests. Oh, you're into wine tasting — let's take the train this weekend out to the wineries." You have shared experiences that you're bonding over. That's really the magic of travel.

BRIAN: It seems like, listening to you, that the impact of what you're doing is much bigger than just experiential travel. The story you just told about how people become bonded together in this community — you're living near each other, experiencing the locals. But it seems like the impact you're having is that they take that sense of intentionality and community-mindedness back home with them. Maybe they had not been so socially outgoing or involved — but maybe it's a takeaway from this kind of trip: I should be more involved, care about my neighbor more.

ANDREW: Absolutely. The concepts we incorporate in the program can be abstracted out — these are great concepts for daily living. Challenging yourself to learn new things; developing patience; connecting with others and realizing the joy that this brings you — so you want to do this even when you get back home. You don't have to travel for that. You can get involved in groups that share a common interest.

And giving is a big one too. It doesn't have to be volunteering — just giving. You ever travel and start chatting with people you wouldn't normally talk to?

BRIAN: Absolutely.

ANDREW: Why do you do that when you travel but not when you're at home? And also, I think we're just nicer when we travel, often. So: how can I take that and carry it home? I want to do something kind every day for someone. Giving back is a really important principle for living — especially as we get older. And it's something you see naturally when you travel.

BRIAN: It also seems like at retirement age, the tendency for many people is to start living a very sedentary lifestyle — get into the recliner and watch TV. And the thought of a vacation may even seem too challenging: too many flights, too many connections. But something like The Good Life Abroad, where you're there for a long period of time — how does that work for someone who might fall into that sedentary lifestyle? This would be a way to keep them active — physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally.

ANDREW: Yeah. And it's actually more comfortable simply because — and I'm a young guy, but even for me — just the jet lag alone makes me not want to get on a plane. By the time I've recovered, a traditional short trip is over. But if I'm going for a month, I can be jet-lagged for the whole first week and it's fine. And then when we do some activity, go on a walking tour, I can go home and take a nap. It's more free-form. It's more independent. You set your own agenda.

So I tell people it might seem tiring to travel, but the way we do it, you can be as relaxed as you want. You can spend a whole day just sitting at a café reading a book if you'd like. You don't have to push yourself. And for many, that's actually a great experience in itself — they never do that when they travel because they feel like they have to pack it all in.

BRIAN: The slower-paced life — at retirement age, that's where most people are looking to stay active but at a slower pace. How important is it to wrap your arms around the idea that there's nothing wrong with a slower-paced lifestyle? Because we've all been conditioned to think that if you're sitting around, you're not being productive.

ANDREW: Yeah. Time is money.

BRIAN: Time is money.

ANDREW: And I think we all crave slowing down — there's a limit to how much we can push. I look at the younger generation with their energy drinks and everything is speed, speed. I just wonder if that's healthy long-term. We've worked hard our entire lives. Going to Europe, in this example, you realize — well, they have decent lives, too. You can survive and not work like crazy. You don't have to eat lunch at your desk. I tried to do that with my staff in Italy. I said, "Can we do a working lunch?" And they said, "Andrew, what are you talking about? We don't eat and work. We go eat. We respect the food. We take our time." That's a fast lunch for them — a solid hour. And I was like, "It's great. I can get this idea out of my head that I have to be working constantly." And hopefully that example — living that way for a month — makes you realize: I can do this when I get back home.

BRIAN: Now, when you started The Good Life Abroad, what made you decide Europe was where you wanted to focus on?

ANDREW: Just selfish. That's where I wanted to retire.

BRIAN: That's a perfect reason, as a matter of fact.

ANDREW: Let's start with what would I do? And I thought, a lot of people think about living abroad, many think about becoming an expat permanently. When I started, I thought that would be a lot of our customer base — people looking to live abroad who would do our program for a month as a test drive. Turns out that's a small percentage. Most of our people — about 85% — it's just a travel experience. Though many of those people want to retire abroad as a way to stretch their dollar. But that actually happens more in Asia or Latin America — Thailand, Mexico. Europe is for people who want to enjoy the life and are more willing to pay for a program that provides a lot of support.

BRIAN: You mentioned the gentleman who went to Florence and discovered his dream of being a painter. What does it do for you — someone who's put together experiences like this — when you see someone like that discover something? When you see people take away something that's going to be different in their life?

ANDREW: It goes back to the core — I was built for this. This really goes back to fundamentally who I am as a human being. For my entire life, all of my personal friends know this: I like to make people happy. I like to create fun. I'm the guy throwing the parties. For my 50th birthday, I had about 30 people fly out to Mexico City and I put on this crazy weekend with shows and private dining experiences — and it just brought me joy to see my friends having such a good time. And so that's just who I am. I like to have fun. I like to spread joy. When I talk to our alumni and see the evaluations come back rated so high — that just resonates. This is why I'm on this planet, I believe.

BRIAN: Could you see yourself doing anything else? You said you've been an entrepreneur from a very early age — was there any other journey, or did this kind of thing always linger in the back of your mind?

ANDREW: Yeah, it's funny. You can force yourself to do other things you weren't built for. But my professional history looks like a zigzag. I started out with student travel for high school kids — travel immersion. I was in the Peace Corps myself and I wanted to create a Peace Corps-like experience for high school kids — really immerse them in developing countries and have them learn firsthand about the world. But working with students can be challenging. They haven't fully developed that prefrontal cortex. They do some dumb things sometimes, and then you have the parents on top of you. So then I shifted — I started a software company. I did that for a while, because I like entrepreneurship and the challenge of figuring out a puzzle. But eventually the rush of solving the puzzle wears off and I'd think, "Oh, but I love cultures and travel and people," and I'd go back into travel. That's been my pattern — because that's what I was built for: creating these immersive experiences that are enlightening and also joyful. At this point I've found my calling and I'm really happy with what I do.

BRIAN: It seems like what did the Peace Corps lay as a bedrock foundation for you that now, these many years later, you're able to instill some of those same things in experiences for other people?

ANDREW: Yeah. When I was in the Peace Corps, I lived two years in a remote village in Central America. During that time, my cousins came to visit, my sister came to visit, my parents came to visit, and I just loved showing them around my little town — a town of 500 people with very intermittent electricity. Not a place you'd ever read about in a guidebook.

I would show my family some friends around town, and for me it was the most special place on earth. And they would laugh and say, after visiting my town for a few days: "That was the highlight of my trip. That was so cool — we really got to live the local life." We got up early with the farmers, rode horses out to the cornfields, worked alongside them, ate a packed lunch out in the field, rode the horses back, took a siesta. And that's completely different from if you came to Honduras on a tour — you would never have that experience.

So the Peace Corps was very important for teaching me the difference between touring abroad and living abroad.

BRIAN: When you connect with the local people or with the people coming on your experiences — the most enjoyable experiences I've had are when I've been there over a long period of time, gotten off the beaten track, and found places and people to interact with that you'd never find in a tour guide. What you have to offer seems like something they could never really get to do on their own — to get into a community and interact with food, people, and culture. That seems invaluable.

ANDREW: Yeah. I tell people all the time: when you go on a tour, you're going to forget all the dates and facts — when the palace was built, who the king was. You're going to forget all that. But you're going to remember the people you met. And if you have such a packed itinerary, you're not going to leave time and space to connect with people. And some of the most memorable encounters are the serendipitous ones. Like, this has happened to me — someone I'd just clicked with invited me to his daughter's birthday party. And suddenly I'm at an Italian kid's birthday party. What a cool cultural experience. I will never forget that.

BRIAN: In the time we have left here — what's next? Are you looking to expand this idea? More cities? What's on the horizon for The Good Life Abroad?

ANDREW: All of the above. We're always going to new cities. There are some big gaps in our portfolio — we don't have anything in Germany yet, or Ireland yet, or Scandinavia. We're working on those.

But what we're also finding is that this idea of community and these principles for living really resonate with our people. And can we expand that beyond just travel? Can we bring that community together somehow? I do these webinars, for example, and hundreds of people come and they want to interact with us and connect with each other. So my hope is that we can take that community feeling we have across all our programs and make it a bigger community even when we're not traveling.

BRIAN: You mentioned earlier the word loneliness. As people get to that retirement age, there's a lot to think about — who are the people around me, do I have companions, what am I going to do now that I don't have my work community? Loneliness seems to be a big topic. How much do you drill down on that when you put together experiences for people?

ANDREW: A couple of things. One is that as you get older, you often pare down your friendships. Does this person bring joy to my life, or is it just out of inertia? And so we recalibrate our friendships later in life.

But I also think many people don't think they're lonely. They don't say, "Oh, I'm lonely." But what happens when they come on a program like ours is they realize: "Oh, these are relationships with people that bring me joy and energy, and I want more of this in my life." And hopefully they realize, yeah, a lot of relationships back home aren't bringing them energy or filling them up. So: how do I get more of that when I get back home? And hopefully they realize it's easy — you've got to put yourself out there, but there are people out there you can connect with.

One thing I wanted to mention too: about 30% of our travelers are solo travelers. So for them to have this built-in community — other solo travelers and couples both — is especially meaningful. Because it's a community experience, it's not exclusive. It's all about bringing people together. Whether you're married or traveling alone, it's really nice to have that team.

BRIAN: Well, it's a fabulous concept. Andrew Motiwalla is my guest today — he's from The Good Life Abroad. Andrew, you're doing so much great work in connecting with people at this stage of life who need this kind of relational community through travel and living abroad, and impacting a lot of lives in a very meaningful and positive way. I just encourage you to keep doing what you're doing. I appreciate you being on the show today.

ANDREW: Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun.

BRIAN: Thanks very much.

Thanks for joining me on this episode of Built for This. Be sure to follow Built for This on your favorite listening platform and share it with a friend. Built for This is produced and recorded by Heart Media DFW.