following the funks podcast

Episode050 is our LAST (regular) episode! We have LOVED being a part of your lives and appreciate all of our listeners. THANK YOU for supporting us and following our journey! Don’t worry though, our website will still be around sharing travel and expat articles. This episode wraps up a few life updates about language and […]

Episode049 talks all about our favorite podcasts, and not just our top 3. Since we will be ending out show at Episode050, we share lots of our past and present podcast favs to fill in the void. Questions for the listeners: What podcast are you loving right now? Do you listen to any podcasts we […]

Episode048 covers 3 things we are liking right now. Short, sweet, and to the point. Questions for the listeners: What are you loving right now? Do you use anything we talked about? Would you want to have an episode about what podcasts we enjoy and why? Listen to Episode048 and let us know what you […]

Episode047 covers our recent travels to the UAE to visit good friends and to run Jason's first race in Dubai! We also slipped in a desert safari and a side trip to Abu Dhabi.

Happy February! In Episode046 we wrap up with our January happenings. Our travels took us to the biggest city in Turkey, Istanbul. We went not for touristy stuff, but to help our friends, the Butterworths(co-founders of The Coffee Compass). The chat also includes some random happenings like people being scammed by shoeshiner tricks, trends in […]

Welcome back to the FunkTravels Podcast! Episode045 is a review of 2017. We chat about the best, worst, and unexpected things that happened to us this last year. There is also mention of future 2018 goals towards the end. If you stick around after we wrap up of this episode you are in for a […]

New Year, same show! First of all, thank you so much for following along on our journey of expat living and travel adventures. We are so thankful for you! Second, Happy New Year!  If you missed it here is our Christmas/New Year Card for you! Our first episode of the year recaps our Christmas holidays […]

Merry start to your Christmas season! In this episode, we are talking about how we celebrate Christmas in a predominately Islamic county, a.k.a. a country where the majority do not celebrate Christmas. We chat about how to be intentional during this time or Christmas would just pass you by! That being said, we are also popping […]

Welcome back and Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans and Canadians out there! In Episode042, we chat about our experience hosting our first Thanksgiving Party in Turkey. The 30 plus friends from 7 different countries that gathered in our home for this celebration made for a lively and enjoyable evening! But most of this episode […]

In Episode041, we share our recent travels to Antalya! Enjoy hearing about our first Glamping Hub experience at Saklı Göl Evleri in Turkey as well as some info about the nearby ancient ruins of Sagalassos. Traveling is good and refreshing for the soul, but it also causes us to rearrange schedules! We chat about how […]

Episode 40 y’all! When we started this podcast in January of 2016, we weren’t so sure that it would still be going. But almost 2 years later and 1 summer break, we love that we have a record of our travels and international move from the U.S.A. to Turkey! We hope you will dip into […]

In this episode, we are back to sharing about our expat life. That means several updates about daily life, getting back into a routine during our 2nd year, learning to love each other better in the midst of change and in a different culture, and weekend getaways to explore nearby 2,000-year-old ancient cities.

In this episode, we cover our WHOLE month-long travel through SouthEast Asia with our friends Eric and Ashley. So grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Welcome back! September means (somewhat) cooler weather AND Jason’s birthday. We celebrated in 2 ways… 1. Submitting all of our paper work for our visa renewals! We are hopping to get a 2 year visa.  2. We enjoyed the last days of summer, sun, beach, and the sea on a boat tour with friends! We […]

Welcome back to the start of Season 3! We have missed y’all over the last two months, but it was a good break for us! Now we are ready to get back to sharing life with our little podcast community. In recording this episode, a new intro was in order! The other two times we […]

Hello! In Episode035, we talk all our upcoming summer travels. You may remember our friends, Eric and Ashley, from the sailing trip in Episode017 and yet again in our Prague/New Years travels in Episode026. Well, we will tell you all about our new summer travel schedule with them starting in June. I won’t ruin the surprise here, but listen in […]

Hello!  Jason and I enjoyed a weekend with new friends out at the town of old Foça. We talk a little bit about it in the episode, but our main topic is all about Turkish weddings. Last weekend started the wedding festivities with some of our friends, Kaan and Melis, with their Kına Gecesi, or […]

Hello! One of our favorite parts about Turkey is the food! So in episode033, we discuss each of our top 10 list of foods we love in Turkey! We were surprised to see what each other did or did not have on their list! Also, at the beginning of this episode we talk about the local […]

Welcome back! This is part 2 of our Q&A! We answer some MORE of your questions! Again, thanks to all of those who contributed to our Q&A episode. We will continue to answer 1 or 2 questions throughout future episodes. So, please continue to send us your questions!   Also, at the beginning of this episode […]

We answer some of your questions! Thanks to all of those who contributed to our Q&A episode! We definitely will have another Q&A episode. Please send us your questions and we will answer them in the next episode! Also, at the beginning of this episode we talk about a few of highlights in last week or […]

Episode 30 comes to you on the 3rd month of year during Jason’s 30 year of life AND celebrating our 3rd anniversary. Couldn’t be any better way to celebrate our 30th podcast episode!   In this episode you hear about our travels to meet some Iowan friends passing through Istanbul. It was a short 2 […]

Welcome back! Episode029 is here! In this episode you hear about our weekend travel to our friends’ Olive and Almond tree farm spring festival. Jason and I also chat about how our weeks look like everyone else – normal. We have a work schedule that we have actually written out to help us stay on […]

Episode028 is here! In this episode you hear about our most recent weekend travels. We spent 2 days just 3 hours south of Izmir in a city called Bodrum. Thankful to have friends that have a car, we were able to stop off for a breakfast break on the way down and a lunch break […]

Hello everyone! Happy February!   Episode027 has a special guest! Meet Suat Ulusoy, manager/owner of Castle Inn Cappadocia in Ortahisar, Turkey. You will hear about our experience staying at his inn, but also a ton of great stores about his other profession as a hot air balloon pilot. He is a great storyteller and we hope […]

Hello everyone! We are on to year TWO of our FunkTravels Podcast.   In this episode you will hear about the end of our #funkchristmas2016 tour – Prague, Czech Republic! You can listen to part 1 and part 2 and/or read part 1 blog post about how we decided to go . To be clear  about the […]

Hello everyone! We are on to year TWO of our FunkTravels Podcast.   In this episode you will hear about our 2016 review… sorta. We mostly cover our move and the first half of the year as we have thoroughly covered our last few months in Turkey via Episode 18-24! Two main topics we discuss are […]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Episode 24!!! We released a day early to get one more podcast episode in for 2016. And this wraps up our first year of podcasting!   Currently in the Czech Republic, we will ring in the new year in Prague! So while we still have a little more to […]

We are currently on our #funkchristmas2016 Tour! But we wanted to release a quick podcast to keep you up to date.   We discuss a couple quick stories about our house and the beginnings of our travels. There is plenty more to come but for now… enjoy! Questions for the listeners: If you have traveled […]

Hopefully you enjoyed your Thanksgiving celebration (if you are American and celebrate it), we enjoyed our time in Istanbul celebrating with old friends.   This week has brought some major good news for our apartment to do list! Through the help of various men coming in and out of our apartment, pretty much everything on […]

Happy Thanksgiving to those in the states! We are off to Istanbul this week to visit some friends and explore the city we first met in so long ago. This episode covers some of the updates about our language learning and how our 3 weeks in language school went. There are updates about the apartment […]

This week snuck up on us! And so did November! Turkey has been our new home for 2 months now, and we are starting to settle in for the long term (and for winter, which should be much milder than the Iowa ones we have had).   This episode covers some of the updates about our […]

Don’t we all have a love/hate relationships with our home!?! A month in to living in Izmir, we have found ourselves in our new apartment… not without some on-going glitches which we cover in this episode.   You will hear 3 things we are loving about our apartment and 3 things we aren’t. We also tell […]

Two weeks in IZMIR! And a LOT has happened.  Transitioning into Izmir means some fun stories about apartment hunting and mini adventures in purchasing appliances… Jason teases Catie for what he assumes is her attempt at being on HGTV’s International House Hunters. (Spoiler: We weren’t. Yes, we actually did check their website to see if they were accepting […]

We are in IZMIR! And last night was our first official night here (not counting the airport hotel). Transitioning into Izmir means some fun stories about apartment hunting and exploring our soon to be neighborhood… but more about that in Episode018.   But THIS episode was recorded on a…. BOAT. Yes, folks, that is correct… a catamaran to […]

We are headed to TURKEY! Finally! But right now we are currently in Madrid until we depart on Tuesday. This episode recaps our final days in Spain by telling you about a couple more cities, Seville and Toledo.   Last time we mentioned that Catie is working on a new project to premier our travels in […]

We are in SPAIN! Yes, Spain… it is crazy that we are here. It is almost surreal that we have MOVED overseas… most likely due to not actually being in the country we want to move too just yet. However, we are making the most of it. Right now we are spending time with some family in […]

Hey hey! We are homeless! That means our bags are packed and we are ready almost ready to leave on Tuesday. IT IS HERE! This episode is short and sweet. We talk through several ups and downs including our feelings about moving out of our first home and finding out some bad news about our […]

  Hello friends! We are just coming along with our move here which means there are boxes, bags, and clothes everywhere! We have just over 2 weeks before we depart the states for our big international move. But in the next week, we will become homeless until our departure in August.  We didn’t talk about […]

    Hello all! The weather in Iowa these past two weeks has been all over the place – hot, rainy, AND cold. But this last weekend has been absolutely gorgeous, and we have been soaking it up! We have 1 month until we head overseas! We have enjoyed the Des Moines Farmers Market and finding new vendors like the Emu […]

After an extra week delay, we are back with episode 11! June has been hot, much hotter than last year at this time. We are soaking up our last few summer months here in the states with family and friends. Even managed to get a nasty summer stomach bug, but we are much better now. […]

EPISODE 10!  As Jason says in the podcast, it is our ‘decade’ of podcast episodes. It has been so fun to share our lives with you! If you missed our BIG announcement, go back and listen to Episode 9. You don’t want to miss it! Thanks to everyone for your support and well wishes from […]

Happy Monday! (Or whatever day you happen to be here!) This week we are heading to Denver for some work and play! If you have listened to our other episodes, then you know we like to add on some play days to our work conference we attend.  This podcast is a little different as we tell you our […]

Welcome back! We are happy to see you! Thanks for some of your suggestions for Denver and the surrounding areas. Keep ’em coming! This week we discuss one of our closer road trips we took to Manhattan, Kansas to see one our our friends. On the way down we stopped for a Mediterranean lunch at the Aladdin’s […]

The weather is getting warmer and we’ve managed to put off talking about our trip to Turkey for another week! In this episode we talk about some services that we love to use while we travel; including Airbnb, Uber, Yelp, and Google Talks… or is it Google Docs? You’ll have to listen to find out! […]

Hooray for recent travels. In March, we went to Washington D.C. We combined our anniversary trip with Catie's work conference. In this episode, you will here about a few life updates like Catie's weekend at the ONE Conference, celebrating our 2nd anniversary, and our recent awesome purchase of the Instant Pot. But most of the time we will be chatting about our favorite sites in the District - our likes, our fights, good food, and some things we did new this time... *Scroll to the bottom of the page to see a photo gallery.

While Catie has been to Dubai a few times before, last summer was our first time to go together. We went foremost for Catie’s work, but also got the chance to visit our good friends who just happen to live there! Jason talks (in depth) about the tallest building in the world. We also chat about […]

  In this episode, we talk about our busy week in Italy. This was the first part of a three part trip we took last summer.  Our time in Italy consisted of lot of hoping around and Catie had a full work itinerary while she was there. Regardless, we did get a few moments to enjoy […]

Third time's a charm! Here we are again. This is a real thing, people. We are happy to see you back here and thanks for hanging out with us!  Boston was awesome, and we loved talking through our travels there. And that title is no joke… yes, yes we did rent a studio apartment above […]

Episode 002 is here and makes this feel more real! As we are still in the midst of somewhat normal work-filled (somewhat mundane) February, we decided it would be way cooler to talk through our 2015 travels over the next 4 to 5 episodes....

Welp folks, we recorded our first podcast. Now, be somewhat kind to us as we are newbies to this thing and are just spreading our wings. BUT we also value your honesty. We would love your feedback and thoughts on the show.