Reshape Your Retirement – As Featured on The Frommer's Travel Show

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And welcome to the Frommer Travel Show. I'm your host, Pauline Frommer. Usually on this show, we talk [music] about vacations. Places you can go for maybe a week, maybe two if you're lucky. But many seniors, or people over the age of 55, have longer times available to them to travel. And a lot of folks right now are considering leaving the United States. Let's just put that on the table. Uh and so my next guest has a solution for those folks who want to do more immersive, slower travel. Who

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want to go to a place and fully unpack for 2 weeks to a month to 2 months. His name is Andrew Montewala. He is the founder of a new company called The Goodlife Abroad. Hey Andrew, welcome to the Frommer Travel Show. >> Thanks for having me. >> Hey Pauline. So this business has been around for a couple of years now, right? How did you originally get the idea to start the business and then we'll get into what you do exactly? >> Sure. Honestly, it was a little selfish. I was thinking about my own retirement coming

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up and I thought my dream is to live maybe half the year in the United States. I love living in California. And but I'd like to spend part of the year living in Europe and maybe a couple months in other places. But I would like to have like an apartment like a proper apartment that I could go to every year. And I don't want to have a time share and I don't want to, you know, own something in another country because that becomes complicated. I just want to like show up and have a really nice

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apartment waiting for me. And then I started thinking about well it's also like I can make friends but it would be nice to have like, you know, kind of a built-in community. And so, I sort of created the Good Life Abroad to solve my own problem for retirement. And then I realized many other people have the same idea where they'd like to live abroad for extended periods of time as well. >> Right. Right. And so, you've created a tour program that doesn't move, basically. You've created uh a uh a way

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for people to go and live in one of the great cities of Europe. And and a couple of unusual ones, and I want to talk about that, too. But uh mostly you're taking people to the marquee cities, to Paris, to Lisbon, to Vienna, to places where life is good. And you're putting them up in an apartment, but you're you're taking over the entire building in a lot of cases, right? So that uh this person can be alone, but they also have a community. Tell us about just the living situation first, how that works.

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>> Exactly. Exactly. Like you mentioned, you know, one of the things that's really important is if you're going abroad for a month at a time, you want to be really sure that it's going to be good, right? We can kind of put up with anything for a few days here and there. And I know you're well-traveled, and we've probably all had this experience in some European hotel room where the bathroom is so small you can't turn around in the shower. So we realized that we really

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needed to have vetted apartments that are appropriate for the needs of people 55 and older. Walk-in showers, um kitchens that you could properly cook in, things like that. So we have gone out and identified >> Elevators, I'm assuming. Elevators and air conditioning. >> in almost every case. Um And so we have now identified these uh apartments, and we have taken out either the entire building, as you mentioned, or our large blocks of apartments, so that everyone can have their own apartment.

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It's actually still an independent experience, but you have people living around you. And we put on activities and events that then allow you to connect with these other folks. Um and the whole thing I should mention is a cohort-based. So everyone kind of moves in together on the same day and then they end their program on the same same day. So it's there's sort of an orientation and a welcome party, but you you have your own apartment and as I mentioned a full kitchen, your dining area, your bedroom, a proper bathroom.

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So it's you really can make it your home away from home for a month or more. >> Right. So you all move in at the same time. If I remember correctly, you also have a common room where you can just go and hang out outside your apartment and meet others from the group. And then you said you have activities. Now, you're not doing activities every day of the week, are you? I would think that would get old if it was a a full month stay. How does that work? And and tell us give us some examples of some of the

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activities that are included in the program. >> So correct. We don't do activities every day. We just do activities 3 days of the week and they're just a few hours. It's just on Tuesdays we have something called our Tuesday lunch club. It's a time to come together as a community. Uh it's our local staff that's on the ground. They pick places that are kind of in that you might not go to on your own. Maybe in a part of the city that tourists don't really venture to. And

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we'll pre-order a bunch of local delicacies so you can learn new foods and also learn about the culture through its food. On Thurs- on Wednesday we do a cultural activity. That might be a cooking class or an arts workshop or uh maybe like a architectural walking tour. Something cultural. It's just a few hours. And then on Thursday we have um a happy hour. But it's a happy hour with a twist. It's some way to learn about the local drink. So French wine tasting or a vermouth making workshop in Barcelona. So it's

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something to acquaint you with the the local spirits as well. But you're right. The rest of the week is free and clear. And also all the activities are optional. So you can show up for some, don't show up for others. And we never schedule anything Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. So a lot of people are out there doing their own thing, but they love coming back on Tuesday with the community and swapping tales. What did you do this weekend? Oh, I found the the best gelato place in town or I went to some other town in the

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region. We took the train out for the for the day. And so it's um really kind of this sense of community that forms. It's really beautiful. >> Right. Right. But what if people want more support than that? Maybe they're nervous about going to a place where they don't know what to do. Uh you have people in the place. Is it just one concierge type person? And and what are their um expectations? What are their What's the scope of what they do for the folks who are part of this community?

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>> So we call them our community managers and they are Think of them as your local friend who lives in that town. And they're there at all of the activities and events. But they're also available by text message Monday through Friday 9:00 to 5:00. And in the beginning of the program they sit down with each participant one-on-one and say, "What do you want to get out of your month here?" And it They really try to get to know you so then they can be recommending things throughout the program that are

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tailored to what you want. So for example, you might show up in Bordeaux and say, "I actually would like to brush up on my high school French. And I just kind of back in in my mind and I'd like to get a French tutor. Oh, we can help you arrange that. Or I would like to I'm a World War II history buff. I would like to go see these sites. Oh, we can help you make a plan for that. And so they really try to create a tailored experience to whatever you want. Now, they don't lead you around. It's definitely not a

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tour, but they're guiding you uh with recommendations and helping you access local resources. So it might even be something as simple as I want to join a yoga studio while I'm there. Can you make that happen? We can help you do something like that. >> Mhm. >> So what's really beautiful um then is and they're just on the other side of a text message thread or a phone call. Um so they're they're always there to guide you and support you. And you know, in my case

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for example, I I was just in Lisbon and I love jazz and Jennifer, the community manager, knows this. And so she put it into the We have a We use WhatsApp, the text messaging platform, as our community kind of communication >> Sure. >> tool and she said, "Okay, Andrew and some of you other people are jazz lovers. There's a concert It's a student jazz recital at the local university. Um you might be interested in it." That is so cool, right? She knows that me and some other people mentioned we like

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jazz. I mean and I could go to Google and say, you know, jazz club in Lisbon and anyone could do that. >> Sure. >> wanted something more local. And so she is so you know, like has her finger on the pulse of what's happening in town and she knows what people like and can make >> Was it good? I'm always nervous about student performances. I mean, it really depends I guess on the quality of the student. Like I'm in New York City and we get Juilliard performances, but >> Yeah, it was pretty cool. But for me

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more more than anything, it was this excitement to walk into a university campus in another country and find the recital hall and it was a student's like graduation requirement, right? So, it was a pretty it was a pretty good. It was fun. And then but what happened is within the community, I said, "Oh, I'll go." And then some other people on the WhatsApp thread said, "Yeah, oh, we'd like to go, too." So, then it turned into dinner first, then we went to the concert, then we went out for cocktails,

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and we came home. And so, and that's sort of the beauty of what happens on the Good Life Abroad is because you have this community all these like spontaneous things happen where people are like, "Oh, let's go do this and this together." And suddenly you you're you have a little group of people going out to see a concert or often what we'll find is maybe one if it's a couple, and and this is a true story. We had a guy and his wife um in WhatsApp you can create group

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subgroups within in the community feature. And he created two groups. One called cathedrals and another one called sports bars. And I said, "Doug, you're joking, right?" He said, "No, no, no. My wife loves to go to cathedrals. I don't want to go to cathedrals." And so there was other people in that group that were like, "Oh, let's go see cathedrals." And Doug's wife went off with you know, the other people and he found a bunch of guys who wanted to go to sports bars.

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And they did that. So, you could the use of the this community feature in WhatsApp is nice because it creates affinity groups. And you could find other people in the community who share. Now, you're not going to be best friends with everyone probably, but you're going to find some people you really click with. And that's really fun. >> Well, what I like about this is I find on the regular tours, there's always somebody who you just wish you weren't on vacation with. You know, there's

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always one person. But I I would think in this type of thing you can get away from those people if there are any. How big is the community? >> No more than 20 people. It's usually around average of 16. And about a third of them are solo travelers. >> Yeah, and about a third are solo and about two-thirds are couples. >> Okay, and that's very interesting. So, do the solos tend to form a subgroup within the group? And do you think that this is a particularly good type of activity for solo travelers? Is it a way

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for them to have a safety net, uh but also to have their own independence, too? And do they have to pay more for their apartment? Sorry, lots of questions at once. >> No. No problem. Um so, what's beautiful is because it's so intentional about being a community that the solos and the couples are all together. I mean, there's no like isolation. Now, that said, many solos do create a little subgroup in WhatsApp and just say, "Hey, who wants to go to dinner tonight?" You know, nothing

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exciting, but just um meeting up for for different things. Um but really it's very inclusive. Uh there's there's no um clicks or per se. And then the other question was about pain. So, what we offer are different apartment sizes. And so, what we find is with solo travelers, they if we all have a studio apartment option, it's more economical and it's perfect for one person. So, they can actually pay less. And most of the times we find couples, they want at least a one-bedroom

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apartment. In some cases, we find couples who want a two-bedroom apartment cuz, you know, as we get older some of us snore and some of us have different sleep schedules. So, we often have couples with two-bedroom apartments, too. >> Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, tell me about the managers. How do you find them? What are their backgrounds? Uh you know, you know, how do you find the right person for this job? Cuz it's an unusual job. >> It is. It is indeed. Um we sort of have

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a formula now, which is we look for people who come from high-end tourism. Uh, and in any tour company, there's a role called a tour leader or a tour director. And that person travels >> Sure. >> with the group, maybe weeks at a time, up to many cities. And so they're used to being a guide and being a a friend and being a therapist and being a nurse, right? It's a it's a multi-faceted role. But these folks, um, especially at the highest levels, eventually say, "I'd like to sleep in my own bed.

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Um, this living on the road thing has kind of come to an end for me. Maybe I have kids now and I'd like to see them." And so it's a perfect transition for someone to take that experience working with, um, usually North American clientele, uh, but and do all those different things, friend, you know, nurse, whatever. They can do those that role, uh, for a community of people and they can sleep in their own bed at night and be with their family. >> So you have these people with a lot of

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experience leading tour groups, but hallelujah, they get to live at home now. I would assume some of that experience is with people suddenly having to go to the hospital or finding that some kind of disaster has occurred. They're pickpocketed or something goes wrong, right? So So tell me, how do your staff handle the crises that always happen when we travel? >> Yeah. Yeah, it's a great It's a great point. Um, and there The best part about it is, and this is one of the reasons I think

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it's important when people think about moving abroad for a month or two, is to keep in mind that we have risk management plans in place. We're actually doing the work up front before the emergency happens. So, we have I for example, identified English-speaking medical care uh in the vicinity of where we're living. So, when something happens, it's not like, "Oh, what do we do?" It's like, "No, here you already have the number and we can jump into play into action and and help take care of that."

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We had a fellow uh he was on his own and rented a bike and he he fell off the bike and had an and was kind of beat up. Um and we were able to take care of him. We helped facilitate everything at the hospital. We and we also provide travel medical insurance built into the program fee. Um you know, as we get older, things happen and we never know. We need to Um now, the great thing is in Europe, medical costs are a lot less. But, so this fellow was able to get bandaged up and you know, he was fine. Um we I think

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we got him uh a cane or something and he was fine and able to continue the program. But, you know, this is why we create these risk management plans. We pre-identify medical care. We have uh you know, we know where the US consulate is or the US embassy depending on um you know, that's a very common thing. A lost passport could be a real bummer in a trip. So, we like to have all those things, you know, thought through in advance. >> Right. Right. Okay. So, let's talk about some of the places you go. Uh I had a

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list. One of them I didn't know where it was. What Tell me about Cagliari, Italy if I'm pronouncing that correctly. >> Sure. Uh that's how I pronounce it, but the Italians will call it Cagliari. It's a very soft G. >> Uh >> It's on the island of Sardinia and what's >> Wow. >> so beautiful about that, one of the reasons we chose it, it's Sardinia is one of the blue zones. If you're familiar with the blue zones where people live exceptionally long lives.

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>> Sure. >> It's, you know, what our people are looking for is literally the good life abroad and these blue zones typify that that because of the food, the climate, but also the sense of community and relationships. And that's a big part of what we're trying to promote is not just going and you know, checking off things from your checklist of things you want to see, but actually building community and kind of slowing down and appreciate the little things in a city like going to the market, the fresh

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market buying your food for the day, cooking a meal, maybe a local dish that you just learned at the cooking class yesterday. And then sharing it with some friends in your community. And and I mean that in the community of travelers or with local people that you connect with because after all you're there for a month, you start to make connections with local people as well. And so it's a just a different type of travel and more about getting into the local rhythm of life than necessarily

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checking off lots of things off of a bucket list. >> Sure, sure. So what is your most popular destination would you say? Where where do people tend to want to spend a month the most? >> Florence, Italy. Florence is a is a all-time favorite for people and I mean it is an amazing city. You can see things every day and never see all of it. I mean it's there's so much in Florence, but also Paris and Lisbon. Valencia is becoming really popular and a lot of it has to do with motivations. So for most of our people,

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like 85% of the people, they are looking at this is like a slow travel experience. I just want to immerse myself in one place and go really deep. But I would say like 15-20% of our people are actually thinking about moving abroad permanently or or for a good part of the time on a regular basis. And so they're using us as the first step to kind of test the grounds, test the water and say, "Okay, I I've been thinking about Valencia, Spain, but I would like to, you know, get to know the neighborhoods. I really want to get

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a feel of the vibe before I commit to something bigger." And so, do they'll do a month with us and and do the and check it out. And if they're interested, we can help connect them with realtors or uh relocation experts to help them, you know, look at more of the details of making a move. >> Sure. Well, we do know that that record numbers of Americans are leaving the US right now and going to live abroad. So, I think it's a model that makes a lot of sense, uh sadly. Um so, you go to Amsterdam,

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Barcelona, Bilbao, uh Cagliari in uh Sardinia. I love that you go to Sardinia. Uh Dublin, Florence, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Malaga, Palermo. You know, many years ago, I led a tour of our radio listeners to Sicily. And I would say probably three quarters of the people who traveled with me traveled decided on Sicily because they had ancestors uh from that part of the world. Do you have a lot of people who are traveling for that reason? Who want to live in the place that maybe their ancestors four or five generations

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back came from so that they can better understand who they are? >> Absolutely. Absolutely, that's a very big part of it, especially Sicily. Uh a lot of heritage tourism where they want to go back, they bring their paperwork. Um also in Ireland, our program in Dublin. Um and I don't know if you've been to Dublin recently, but there's a wonderful museum there about the history of the Irish migration. And inside of the museum, there is a a sector uh for genealogy. Uh and that you can

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actually have a meeting with a foremost genealogist in Dublin, and he will help you connect back to your ancestors' hometown. If you don't know where it is, he can go look at the records. And what we find is people discovering that and then going off to those villages to see like where did my ancestors come from? So, it's very fascinating. >> Right. Right. Yeah, really fascinating. Well, and that leads me to in your uh I don't know, your brochures, in your your um public-facing media, you talk a lot

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about Joy Span. What is Joy Span and how does that underlay what you're trying to do with these vacations? >> Yeah. Yeah, we really see this type of travel as a way of completely reframing retirement. Um because it's again, getting away from sort of this checklist version of tourism. I got to go here, I got to go there, and racing around on these trips, but rather um living in a different way. It's a It's a It's a It's a type of living abroad that's that's a

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that you do in Europe, but hopefully you're bringing back some of those principles back home. And it kind of gets to this idea of Joy Span. So, let me talk about that. That is a term coined by Dr. Kerry Burnight. She recreated wrote a book last year called Joy Span. And we're all familiar with the idea of lifespan, how long you live, or health span, how long you're healthy. But how about the how many years you're full have a life full of joy? And what happens to so many people in retirement

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is there's like a some loss of identity. I'm no longer the accountant. I was an accountant. I'm no longer the PTA dad. I I'm the kids are grown up. So, who am I? And often loneliness starts to set in. Um And a lot of our our friends kind of move away or you know, they downsize to other parts of the country. And so, Joy Span >> Or they die. >> Sadly. >> Yeah, she she she talks about there's really four kind of pillars um of things you can do to increase joy in your life.

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Uh and it's a So, joy is not just like a accidental. We can actually cultivate joy in our life. And one of those things is around uh connections with others. So, community. Another is um adaptation, learning to adapt to new things. So, what better way to learn adaptation than dropping yourself into a European city that's completely foreign, the language, yeah, and every and having to learn you know, so you're really pushing yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone, but that adaptation process is

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really is powerful because at the end of it a month you're like, "Wow, I I just lived for a month in this other city with a language I didn't speak." And so, the world isn't getting smaller, the world is getting bigger. I can do this. You gain confidence, right? Another pillar of Joy Span is around um is um overcoming challenges, right? Reframing challenging situations. So, we can become kind of grumpy or angry when something is difficult, or we can see it in a different way and say, "You know

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what? That's an opportunity for growth." Or I'm going to I'm going to overcome this in whatever way. And the other the last pillar is about giving back. Um it doesn't necessarily mean volunteering. Of course, people can volunteer, it's a wonderful thing. But giving back to your community, in so many cases, like with the Good Life Abroad, it's Hey, I'm going to host a dinner party. I'm going to at my apartment, fellow community members, come on over. Um you know, and just uh

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being doing nice things for other people. And so, these principles it's a it's a you know, whole scientific book, but it boils down to some very practical things you can do to increase joy in your life and it maps perfectly to the good life abroad experience. And of course, you don't have to travel to do these things. You can do these at home by learning new things and volunteering etc. etc. But it's it works so perfectly and so what we find is that people come on our program and they say, "This is a completely

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different experience. I've never had this before and I have also discovered I found my tribe because the kind of people who go to one place for a whole month that's a unique breed of person. Um and so these are people who have a deep appreciation for culture different cultures and they know to get that they have to immerse themselves. And so that they're like, "Wow, these are my people." And we find now so many times they'll do a program, they'll meet, they'll become friends and then

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they'll book their next month with us somewhere else and they're all go together and it's a really beautiful and I hear from so many of our clients saying, "Andrew, this has reshaped my retirement. We do this in the spring with you and then we meet these friends and then we come back home to the US, we go visit these friends and then we start planning our next one for the fall and we pick the city and then we start researching you know, the public transit lines, we the restaurants we want to try, the

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things we want to explore and then we we do that and we have a whole month there and it's just a a really nice way to to travel while we still can." >> Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It sounds fabulous. So if people want to find out more, they go to the goodlifeabroad.com? >> Exactly. >> Okay. >> or just type in type in the Google the goodlifeabroad and we'll be the the thing to pop up. >> No, no, no, it's a it's a fascinating uh new way to travel. Um

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and so even though the company is is what? 2 years old now? >> Um yeah, 2 and 1/2. >> 2 and 1/2, but you have 30 years experience in the travel industry, I believe. >> Yes, so we the I created a company called Terra Education 20 years ago. And it's sort of an umbrella company full of travel brands. And The Good Life Abroad is part of Terra. So it's part of a larger company that I started 20 years ago, but now my focus is completely in on The Good Life Abroad. Most of the other

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brands are youth travel, educational travel. >> Ah, I see. I see. Very interesting. Well, I think you're onto something. Very much so. Uh thank you so, so much for appearing on The Frommer Travel Show. >> Thank you, Pauline. It was a pleasure. >> And that [music] is it for this week's show. I thank you so much for listening. And to those who are traveling, may I wish you a hearty [music] bon voyage. >> Sour [singing] candy on the table. Lazy afternoons [singing] in your swim trunks.