The Our Wayward Life Podcast

Tune in to hear a quick update about Nat and her new job

Join us in a few days to hear a quick update about Nat ❤️

It's finally time to wrap up our adventures from last summer. We loved every place we visited, but there was a very special place we found at the end of our journey. Tune in to hear which city we loved the most!

We are finally about to release the last episode of The Big Fat Summer Trip series! If you've stayed with us and listened to all our ramblings, THANK YOU!   We hope you've enjoyed traveling with us!

Italy was truly a dream - Panzano in Chianti and Bologna were absolutely incredible. Tune in to hear our favorite things and some incredible experiences we shared in these magical places. Walking up the giant hill was worth it!

We are finally almost finished recounting our adventures from last summer! Join in next week to hear about our next couple stops in Italy - Panzana and Bologna. I want to say it's about more than food and wine... but to be honest that's the majority of what we talk about. Eleven months later and we are still amazed by these two places.

Apologies for the delay - Daniel had knee surgery and we are finalizing some things we will share with you soon.     Join us for the last country of our trip (but we went to several cities so this is just the first episode of the last country...will this series ever end?) - ITALY! We have both always wanted to go to Italy and it was honestly a dream come true. We visited 5 cities over 3 weeks and can't wait to share all the details with you. Tune in to hear about our first stop in this gorgeous country.

Join us to hear all about our time in Sarajevo and Mostar in the beautiful country of Bosnia. History, nature, cities, food and drinks...Bosnia has so much to offer! After recording this episode, we are having an intense craving for cevapi!

After enjoying our time in Zagreb, Croatia, we took a night bus (the worst bus of our trip) to Sarajevo, Bosnia. We spent a couple days there then went further south to Mostar. Bosnia has a lot of history and we tried to balance reflecting on the war there with enjoying what the country has to offer. Join us in a couple days to hear all about our time in beautiful Bosnia!

When we originally started looking at cities to visit on our trip, we thought we would spend at least a full week in Croatia and travel down the coast. However, due to multiple reasons, we ended up only being able to visit one city in Croatia for a couple of days. While it wasn't the option we initially wanted, we absolutely loved our time there. Tune in to hear about the time we spent there and all the things we loved.

You'll have to excuse our brief absence in the middle of our summer series - between a trip to the USA and then two weeks of sickness for Daniel, we had to put off continuing the series. BUT WE ARE BACK!    Join us in a few days to hear about our time in Croatia (spoiler, it wasn't nearly long enough and we want to go back, just like everywhere else!).   As always, thanks for listening to our nonsense and if there's anything you want to share or hear on the podcast, please let us know. 

As promised, here we are with Part 2 of the The Big Fat Summer Trip from 2022. We absolutely fell in love with Slovenia. Even though we were only there for a few days, it was the perfect reset from the first week of our fast-paced summer trip. Slovenia had everything we were looking for - quiet, mountains, views, hiking, nature, clean water, quaint towns... it was pretty perfect. 

Join us in a few days for Part 2 of The Big Fat Summer Trip 2022. After exploring the cities of Budapest and Bratislava, we were ready for some time in nature. After a quick stop in Ljubljana, we camped out in Kamnik, Slovenia and it was exactly what we needed. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Last year we decided to do a "taster" of several countries over 5.5 weeks to figure out our preferred travel style, duration, and to get a feel for many countries at one go (you know, for future traveling purposes). In Part 1, we will dive into the first two countries that we visited and share some of the places we stayed, things we did, foods we tried, and of course, our favorite spots for drinks.    Join in for Part 1 of this mini-series of the big fat summer trip of '22.

Tune in next week to hear the first episode in a short series about our summer trip from July/August 2022. We visited several countries over 5.5 weeks and loved every second of it (well, almost).    See you soon!

As promised, we actually ARE back with a new episode! Tune in to hear how we plan and prioritize things in our travel and also a few tips we've learned along the way. We know our way isn't for everyone, but we always appreciate hearing how other people plan and implement, so we thought we would share our side.  Where should we go next? 3, 2, 1....

Join us in a few days as we get back into the swing of things talking about our favorite topic (or is it tropic?) - TRAVEL! Thanks for being patient with us and sticking around. Our life has been hectic over the last 12 months, but we are trying to get our balance back. 

For our Christmas travels in December 2022, we decided to visit the magical city of Krakow, Poland. We knew it would be cold, but the insane temps and snow was a shock for our bodies as we are used to the warm weather in Abu Dhabi. Listen in to hear about our experiences (of course it's mostly food and drink) in this wonderful city.

Happy New Year (I think it's officially too late to say that, but here we are)! Join us in a few days to hear about our recent Christmas travels. It was beautiful, snowy, and COLD!

Join in to hear about one of our favorite trips of all time! This trip started out incredibly bumpy, and it wasn't smooth sailing the whole time, but it was incredible.

We will be back in a few days with another episode! You know how much we love travel, and we always try to be as transparent as possible about the good, bad, and ugly of our adventures. This time we're going to dive into one of our favorite trips of all time that also left us facing many frustrations and challenges. This trip was a reminder that travel is not always pretty and you have to remain calm and roll with the punches. Join us to find out more!

After wrapping up our first year of podcasting, we embarked on an epic summer adventure around eastern Europe and Italy. While it was the trip of a lifetime, life happens and we came back to the UAE with a lot to deal with - mainly, our apartment completely flooded while we were away. Such is life, right? Join Daniel to hear about our recent struggles and know that we'll be back next week with more details about the fun parts of our life!

Our break was a bit longer than planned, but we are finally back!

Somehow it's already been one year since we started our podcast! Thanks for joining us and being a part of our journey.   We are off on a 5.5 week adventure across multiple countries, so we wanted to share our general plan and things we are looking forward to in our travels. We will do a couple episodes after the trip going into more details.   We'll be back in September with a new season! See you then!

Join us next week to hear about our summer travel plans! We've been dreaming about a trip like this for as long as I can remember, and we are excited to tackle this adventure!

We're back with another episode! We feel like everyone we know has had Covid in the last couple years, and we somehow have managed to escape it...until June 2022. It finally caught us and we tested positive just in time to complete our 10 day mandatory isolation at home before heading off for our summer travels. We are lucky that we weren't extremely sick (basically the flu for a few days) and that everything delivers in Abu Dhabi. Join in to hear our ways of passing the time at home.

Tune in next week to hear about our Covid isolation/lockdown! 10 days inside our one-bedroom apartment...how to stay entertained? 

We've taken a bit of a hiatus from podcasting over the last couple months as we had some personal matters to take care of and Nat has been sick for quite a few weeks (seven, but who's counting?).   As you know, it gets seriously HOT in Abu Dhabi in the summer. Like us, a lot of people travel during the hottest months, but in case you decide to stay in the city, we've got a lot of options to keep you entertained!   Abu Dhabi has plenty of things to do and see, even during the hottest months. Let us know if you've done any of these or have any further ideas!

We are starting a new chapter of our top 5's in Abu Dhabi (bars, rooftops, brunches, pool days, etc.). Even though the warm weather is already creeping in, we tell you five of our favorite rooftop bars. Each one has a unique vibe and we try to cover a range of budgets.    Join in to hear about some of our favorite rooftop venues in the capital city.

We're back with allllllll the details about our trip to Turkey! We spent two weeks in this amazing country, and we were able to visit three very different cities (Istanbul, Cappadocia, and Antalya). Even though we feel like we did a lot, it also feels like we've barely scratched the surface on all Turkey has to offer. Tune in to hear about the things we liked, loved, and were amazed by (spoiler alert - there's basically nothing negative we could say except that it rained haha!).

We are just back from our trip to Turkey (you know the one we planned, canceled, planned again, canceled again). Last episode we talked about what we expected out of the trip and some of things we were looking forward to. In this next episode, we go into how the trip actually measured up to those pretty high expectations. Join us next week to hear all the details!

HERE WE ARE! Finally going to Turkey after planning and then cancelling, planning again, cancelling again.... you get it.     We are so excited to be visiting Turkey and go into all the things we are looking forward to experiencing (I could go on about the FOOD for days since we already have amazing Turkish food here in Abu Dhabi).   Tune in to hear about our expectations for our trip to Turkey (a few cities are involved) and also keep an eye out for an upcoming episode that tells you how our experience measured up to our expectations.

If you listened to our last episode, you know that we had to cancel a long-awaited trip in March 2020 (we know, first world problems - and we appreciate that missing a trip was one of our biggest worries during a time that was critical for the entire world). We are finally getting to take that trip, and we decided to do a little "what we expect" episode. Spoiler - we expect to love every second of it!

As promised, here we are with our breakdown of the three tropical destinations we've visited during Spring Break (remember - Nat is still on school calendar) over the last few years.  The contenders are....   1. Phuket, Thailand 2. Goa, India 3. The Seychelles   Which tropical paradise do you think will reign supreme? Tune in to find out!

We'll be back in a few days with another episode!   The Christmas travel breakdown was a hit with our listeners (THANK YOU!!!!) so we decided to do the same for our spring travel destinations that we've visited since 2015.   See if we agree or disagree on our favorite beaches from three gorgeous locations.

As promised, here we are with another new episode!   Meet our friend Brian - who just happens to look like The Dude! We met Brian on a weekend getaway in Bahrain in 2015, and we managed to see him every year until Covid upended all our lives.    He's been everywhere and done everything, it seems like. Join in and listen to his journey from activist to teacher to hostel owner (oh, and of course you'll be hearing about his guitar obsession).

Join us in a few days for a new episode! This one is an interview with our friend Brian who has a bit of an eclectic background. From studying religion to doing aid work in Palestine, and from teaching English in Saudi Arabia to owning a jazz house hostel in Thailand... this guy's story will take you on a journey without a doubt.

Y'all. When we say that our friend John is the most interesting man alive, we mean it! He's visited an abundance of countries (plus a few that don't technically exist), worked all over the world, hiked the highest peaks, yet he's completely content to sleep in his car and hitchhike across countries. John is one-of-a-kind, and we are honored to call him our friend. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did - and we hope it leaves you inspired to travel and explore! It surely did that for us.

We'll be back in a few days with a new podcast episode, and it's one we've been planning since before we launched Our Wayward Life.  You'll get to meet our friend John Henzell, who is , in our opinion, the most interesting man in the world.  We met him when we first moved to Abu Dhabi in 2015, and he has always inspired us to travel far, travel often, challenge ourselves through travel, and to stay humble while doing so.  Before listening to the episode, take the poll on our instagram account to vote on how many countries you think John has visited!  Then tune into the episode later this week to find out the answer.

We're back! Join us as we dive into our favorite topic - TRAVEL!   Tune is as we discuss our definitions of travel and how that has changed over the years as well as what inspired us to travel more (which is a huge factor in why we moved abroad!).     Do you have the travel bug?  What sparked it?  Where are you traveling next??

We'll be back in a few days with a new episode, and this one is all about our favorite topic - TRAVEL! It's not specifically about traveling to a specific place, but rather it's about what sparked a love for travel in our lives and what travel means to us.   We hope you enjoy it!

As promised, here we are with our friend Bill Del Grosso.  Bill shares a bit of his journey as an expat from USA to the UAE, including the challenges and exciting adventures during that journey. He is now moving back to the USA, which of course brings about some excitement, anticipation and perhaps even some anxiety.  Bill shares his honest views and we appreciate his insight.  Tune in to hear more!

We'll be back in a few days with another episode, and this one is back to one of our favorites... interviews with expats! Join us as we talk to our friend Bill, who is currently repatriating from the UAE to the USA.  He moved to Abu Dhabi to work in his career of risk management, which is a huge move in itself, but then he decided to also change careers while he was here! Bill is incredibly interesting, genuine, and kind.  We hope you enjoy his story as much as we did!

Join us as we reflect over 2021.  We hoped to be able to travel again and also to see our families after two full years, and we are so thankful that both of those things happened in 2021!  Even though life is not back to our idea of normal, we are incredibly grateful for the ability to travel again as well as hang out with our friends.   We would love to hear from you!  What was your favorite moment of 2021?  What are you looking forward to in 2022?

Before we jump into all the things we hope to accomplish in 2022, we thought we would take a few minutes to reflect on 2021.  We are so thankful that 2021 was the year we were able to travel again and also see our families (after two full years). Tell us - what are some great things that happened to you in 2021? 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!  Tune in to hear us attempt to rank our Christmas travel destinations (that we have visited during the holidays so far).  Some categories we go through are food, nature/scenery, and culture/history.  We didn't discuss our answers ahead of time, and it was fun to surprise each other with our personal favorites.

Join us next week as we go through the places we've travelled over Christmas.  We will break down our favorites into a few different categories and will even try to pick our very favorite overall.

We're back sharing more about our expat life, but this episode is a bit different.  We quickly go through what makes us feel valued as friends while living so far away.  This not only applies to maintaining relationships with people far away, but also those near to you.  True friendship takes some intentional effort, but it makes all the difference.

Join us next week to hear our thoughts and opinions on maintaining friendships and relationships while living abroad.