We answer your questions around our family's food-focused travels
This week, we're taking a quick break from our usual travel and food tours and answering your top questions about how our middle-class family travels the world in luxury almost constantly while managing multiple schools, multiple jobs, and a bunch of sports and activities.
We spent all of 2021 and now a good chunk of 2022 jetting around the globe to incredible luxury family travel destinations, flying first class most of the time and staying at massive mansions that would make your mouth water. And we're able to accomplish this lifestyle without going broke because of Phil's Denver website design and development agency and our membership in Inspirato Pass.
Contents
0:00 Intro
1:14 What's your favorite destination so far?
5:01 How do you find all the places you eat?
6:30 How do you eat so much and stay thin?
8:14 Do you prefer fine dining or street food?
10:32 What do you do for a living?
12:34 Do you ever pretend to like food?
13:36 What do you eat when you're home?
15:16 What do you eat when flying?
16:58 What's the hardest part of your lifestyle?
18:16 How do you balance with kids' activities?
20:23 What episodes do you have coming up?
23:30 Conclusion
Full Transcript
Phil:
Two years ago, we decided it was time for my ad agency to abandon the in-person five-day work week, so we 8-6-ed our office and work hours, allowing our own family of five to start traveling almost constantly.
Erin:
We now work, school, and explore in a new place every week; from our own mountain and beach homes, to exotic villas, resorts, and yachts around the world. As we experience and support diverse cultures, we hope to inspire more families to design a life of freedom and adventure.
Phil:
This is a very different episode for us.
Erin:
Hopefully, you've seen all of our other episodes. We travel a ton with our kids, and we eat a ton.
Phil:
So, we're taking a week off from our food touring so that we can actually address some questions and some comments that we've collected from you guys on social media.
Erin:
Yeah, and some of these questions we get all the time, so we're happy to answer them now.
Phil:
So, we have maybe 12 questions that we're going to run through. And don't worry, we're actually going to do a lot of overlays here, so you're going to see a lot of these travels, you're going to see a lot of this food that we've been eating, and I think it's going to be really interesting, so let's get in.
Erin:
This is so typical of Phil to put things down on flashcards, very detail-oriented.
Phil:
All right, let's jump in. First one, ready?
Erin:
Mm-hmm.
Phil:
You know what? I'm going to skip that one. It doesn't make sense right now.
What's been your favorite food destination so far?
Erin:
Oh, well, it's got to be Italy. I mean, Italy, in general. We went to Tuscany, and then specifically, we went to Florence. It's hard to choose between the two. I mean, Florence is in Tuscany, so I guess I would have to say Tuscany as a whole, including Florence.
Erin:
All I wanted for lunch today. First lunch in Italy. This is delicious.
Phil:
And, hey, speaking of which, I'm going to pour us a glass of wine here. This is wine that we brought back from Tuscany. Chianti Classico, Colle Bereto.
Erin:
Yes, and we were lucky enough to find that at a local vendor nearby, so we keep ordering more and more. But we would never have discovered it if we didn't go to Italy and visit them in Chianti.
Phil:
This is their base, which is an award-winning Chianti Classico. That alone is a fantastic everyday wine. We probably drink several bottles of this per week.
Erin:
Yeah. What would you say? Is it about $20?
Phil:
Something like that.
Erin:
Something like that?
Phil:
Maybe low twenties.
Erin:
$20, and it's amazing. Even Colt loves it. He's a wine connoisseur.
Phil:
Yes, he is a wine connoisseur. Maybe the most talented out of the family.
Erin:
Yeah. And if you don't know us, he's nine. He's nine, but he has the most insane palate. It's so funny. With wine or food, he's...
Colt:
So many flavors in one bite of steak. That's like steak on another level.
Erin:
He goes... And then, he can tell you every flavor, every sense. He's amazing.
Phil:
It's incredible. Okay. I love Florence, I love Tuscany, and I love Italy. It's probably my favorite country. But I have to say, I think my favorite food experience so far would've been the lobster in Maine.
Erin:
Oh, yeah. That was cool.
Phil:
And by the way, this is an awful episode in terms of performance. And we have tried to optimize it time and time again and can't get any movement. This thing is, what, a year old now? I think it has like 300 views. It's ridiculous.
Erin:
It is, and I don't know why, because I actually like that episode.
Phil:
It's such a great story.
Erin:
You can check it out right here.
Phil:
We love lobster. We're in coastal Maine. What are we going to eat? We're going to eat lobster. But we don't want to just go to a restaurant and buy lobster, so instead, we hire a boat captain, a lobster boat captain, to take us out on the water. He says, "You know what? Before we go to the traps, I'm going to take you through Kennebunkport, and I'm going to take you to the..."
Erin:
Bush Compound.
Phil:
Yeah, the Bush Presidential Compound.
Erin:
It's called Walkers Point.
Phil:
And then, we go out and the kids are actually pulling up lobster from these traps.
Phil:
All right. Bring him back.
Colt:
Perfect. It's good. It's good.
Speaker 7:
That one's good, too.
Speaker 5:
It was splashing me.
Erin:
Good work, guys.
Phil:
Not a bad catch.
Phil:
We take them back. We have to stop at a grocery store to get a cooler and ice to put our lobster in. And then, Erin's on the phone trying to find a restaurant that will cook these lobster for us.
Erin:
So, we had no plan.
Phil:
Turns out, our hotel, The Cliff House, says, "You know what? Our in-house restaurant will cook it up for you."
Erin:
The Tiller Restaurant at our resort, Cliff House Maine, is going to cook these up for us. We haven't decided which dishes we're going to do quite yet, but we'll figure it out soon.
Phil:
So, they do that. It's this amazing feast.
Colt:
So good.
Erin:
Yeah?
Phil:
Brooklyn has questions about lobster. The chef comes out and is answering. It was such a cool experience, and that's what it's all about. We're not just trying to stuff our goal. It's like about the food experiences...
Erin:
Totally.
Phil:
... and that was, I think, one of the most elaborate food experiences we've had.
Erin:
I agree with you, totally agree with you. That was the whole experience on. That's how we're getting rid of them?
Phil:
Yeah. Okay. Next question.
How do you research and find all the amazing places to visit and eat?
Erin:
Okay. I'll take that one because I usually do most of the initial research and I use in Inspirato. So, we use a travel destination club called in Inspirato. If you've been watching us, you hear us talk about it a lot. You might even be a member. They have trip planners and concierge on site when we travel. They're the most amazing resource because they are all local, and they have these pre-set lists. And so, I usually go through, and I go to the websites and I do a little research, and I get advice from people who have traveled there before and we narrow it down from there. So, we try really hard to find the best places to take you.
Phil:
If you remember, when we first went to Cabo, which was one of our very first trips with Inspirato, we wanted to do some fishing. Colt and I wanted to go out on a fishing boat and Inspirato was like, "Do you want us to hook you up with somebody?" I was like, "No, that's okay." There are people along the shore there with boats, and so we just basically went up and said, "Hey, can we hire you to take us out fishing?" The boat was a piece of crap. The experience was eh, and from that point forward, we really put our trust in Inspirato because they, like you said, they vet these people.
Erin:
Yeah.
Phil:
And it tends to be the best of the best locally. So, even if you download our itineraries at followabc.com/itineraries, a lot of that stuff is actually coming from our Inspirato local guides, local experts because they really know what they're doing.
Phil:
I think you thought another one was what people asked us most often, but this is the one. This is the question, I think, we get most often.
How do you eat so much and still stay thin?
Phil:
Want me to answer that one?
Erin:
Ding.
Phil:
All right. Number one, you may notice that we do a lot of walking tours, and you can't really knock walking. There's exercise. You burn a ton of calories. And these walking tours that we do sometimes are four... I think San Diego was about five hours...
Erin:
Yeah.
Phil:
... that we just did, five hours of walking.
Erin:
Yeah.
Phil:
So, that alone, plus we don't always eat... We rarely eat everything that is put in front of us at any given restaurant, and it's because we're good at pacing ourselves. So, we get a dish. We get a taco. Maybe we're sharing the taco, at least between the two of us, or we're just taking a few bites of whatever an entree is. And we don't eat like that when we're at home.
Erin:
No. I would say it's part of our semi-Nomadic lifestyle where we travel, we indulge because we want to soak up all the experiences, and food is the biggest part of culture and history and your whole experience when you travel. So then, when we come home, we eat pretty healthy and we exercise regularly. It's important to us.
Phil:
Yeah. I have a gym membership. Actually, we just ordered one of those new Tonals. We don't get it for another month or so, but we're excited about that because it's something that doesn't take up a lot of space and allows the family to get good workouts.
Erin:
If you have a tonal, let us know how it is. We're excited to get ours.
Phil:
We've heard good things, but we haven't actually used one, so those would be new. Okay.
Erin:
Yeah. I would say, also, on the walking tours, they're good for us exercise wise and it's great to put the kids to sleep. They get so tired.
Phil:
As you see in the episodes.
Erin:
Sometimes they're sleeping on the table.
Erin:
Some people just aren't cut out for life on the road.
Phil:
And to be completely fair, I'm sure that genetics plays a little bit of a role there also.
Erin:
Naturally, I'm sure.
Phil:
So, I'm grateful for that.
Do you guys prefer the nicer Michelin-starred places, or the street food?
And we do a big combination of those on our episodes.
Erin:
Good question. I love pretentious food. I like the nicer-
Phil:
We love good food.
Erin:
Yeah, we love good food no matter what it is, but I like food that is different, interesting, something I've never tried before. I want to find food that blows my mind.
Phil:
And we've had Michelin-starred meals before that don't blow our minds at all.
Erin:
So true. Yeah.
Phil:
In fact, the most expensive, probably the most prestigious meal we have ever had... We're not going to name the place unless you DM us.
Erin:
DM us, and I'll tell you.
Phil:
Was super disappointing. I mean, the technique was there, but it was uninspiring in itself.
Erin:
I get mad thinking about it.
Phil:
I will say this, in terms of filming episodes, I think, hands down it's street food. It's so much easier to film. People are more open to having that experience. You go into a Michelin- starred restaurant, and a lot of times they're very cozy small spaces, and it can be difficult. If you see us in some of those episodes where we're speaking very quietly, it's because you don't want to disturb other people.
Erin:
We're trying to be polite.
Phil:
We're very conscious about not getting other people in the background. In our videos, we're making sure that they're blurred and that sort of thing. So, it's more difficult to film the higher end restaurants.
Erin:
So true. I think episode wise, I love doing the street food and you get more culture. I think it's a better experience when you travel to get more out of the destination when you do street food.
Phil:
Yeah.
Erin:
Yeah. But...
Phil:
And it's more interesting, I think, for the episode quality to see us walking around and to see the sites versus sitting in the dining room at a table the entire time. It's just more variety.
Erin:
I still have this dream of having the best food in the world and the best chef in the world. And so, I'm still looking.
Phil:
We know where she wants to go is Chef Grant in Chicago at...
Erin:
Alinea.
Phil:
... Alinea. So, if you've been to Alinea... We have some friends who have, and they rave about it. It was the number one restaurant in the world at one point. But if you've been there, let us know in the comments what you thought, if it's worth us taking a trip out there.
Erin:
Oh, we have to go, because I have to check it off my list, and we will make an episode of it, so stay tuned.
Phil:
Okay. We already did this one.
Erin:
No, we haven't done this.
Phil:
Oh, okay.
Erin:
This is what I think our number one question is.
Phil:
All right.
Erin:
This is what we get asked the most, I feel.
Phil:
She answers most of the comments on YouTube.
What do you do for a living to be able to travel like this?
Go ahead.
Erin:
I'll let you answer that because-
Phil:
Okay. Well, you saw part of this on the intro, assuming we use that intro on this episode, then you know I've had my own marketing agency for about 21, coming up on 22 years now. We are a virtual agency, so over the past decade, we kind of experimented going back and forth between having offices again, or just being remote. And 15 years ago, we had 70 people in our office, butts and chairs, because it was all about a local team and full-time employees. And then, as the years went on, our industry just kind of shifted. Why limit ourselves, our employee base to just the Denver area, or wherever we are, when you can have better people who happen to be spread around the country or around the world?
Phil:
So, even before COVID, probably almost a year before COVID, we went completely virtual again, and for the last time. That's all we're doing. So, really I can work from anywhere and my resources work from anywhere, so it gives us a lot of freedom and adequately funds this lifestyle. Let's put it that way.
Erin:
And you're brilliant. You're so good at what you do, and he is been doing it so long.
Phil:
Get a load of this one.
Erin:
I'm his biggest fan. I think you found yourself a cheerleader. I want to add to that, too, and say a big part of it is also Inspirato because we go to really nice homes, really nice resorts, and to do it this often, I'll tell you that there's no way we would be able to afford it without Inspirato. It is a subscription-based program that we're part of. They have two different types of membership, and the subscription-based program really works for us. And that's how we're doing it.
Phil:
And saying it helps us afford it not because they're giving us money, but because it's a very economical program.
Erin:
Totally.
Phil:
All right. I like this one.
Do you ever eat food for an episode and pretend to like it, even when you don't?
Erin:
That's the best question? I don't think so. You know what people also say about me, is that I'm too bubbly. But I am bubbly, so sorry not sorry.
Phil:
Okay. Now, sometimes we pretend like we're impressed maybe when we're not terribly impressed, but no, I can't think of a single instance where we would even want to pretend like we like something if we don't. We probably just wouldn't show that in an episode, unless we thought it offered value to people who are going to watch it.
Erin:
Yeah, that's the thing. We don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. We're not actual food critics. We're just sharing our experiences with you and we're hoping that it's valuable. So, if we think it's valuable to share a negative experience, then we will share it for sure. But I think we're pretty transparent. I just love food so much, I usually like all of it.
Phil:
All right. We have four questions left, I think. What do you eat when you're at home? And we touched on this one a little bit.
Erin:
Yeah, we did.
Phil:
It's a whole lot healthier, as a general rule, than when we're traveling. So, we used to-
Erin:
And smaller quantities, too, than these big food tours.
Phil:
Yeah. And there was a time when we would eat almost every meal out, even at home. And I think COVID actually kind of flipped that for us. Our home in Coronado, when we were locked down, everything was closed anyway.
Erin:
Yeah.
Phil:
We definitely started cooking at home a lot. Although then, we got right back into DoorDash on a regular basis. Our home in Denver here, since last November, I don't think we've eaten out more than two times maybe. We cook every meal here, and we kind of have our go-tos. We do pasta. We'll recreate stuff from our trips. We do a lot of Indian. We do a lot of... Some Asian, and anything that's kind of grilling. So, a lot of roasted chicken, or grilled chicken, and vegetables, and that sort of thing. It tends to be pretty simple, not elaborate.
Erin:
I do love that about traveling and coming back home, and spending a week at home and bringing our experiences back with us. And so, if there's a dish we loved when we went to Italy, we recreate it. We got to have the wine with anything Italian, and I always want excuses to use more olive oil when I'm home because we brought back some olive oil from Montemaggio in Chianti. My favorite. So good.
Phil:
And from Colle Bereto.
Erin:
Yes. And the salt. We also have Tuscan salt.
Phil:
Chianti salt, in Chianti. And almost all of that stuff is gone. We go through it probably faster than we go through wine, honestly.
Erin:
I guess we have to go back to Italy again already.
Phil:
Here's a good follow in question.
Erin:
Okay.
Phil:
What do you eat when flying between countries?
Erin:
Is it...
Phil:
So, meaning, I think while we're traveling.
Erin:
Oh, okay.
Phil:
Not when we're at a destination. So, like flying... I mean, a lot of our flights, we'll have all day travel; flights that could be over 10 hours long, and then those are usually multi flight days as well. So, it could end up being 12, 13 hours on a plane.
Erin:
Yeah.
Phil:
We fly so much that we get to fly first class a lot.
Erin:
Ding. But we never pay for it. We have never once bought...
Phil:
A first class ticket.
Erin:
... a first class ticket. Never.
Phil:
But we get upgraded a lot.
Erin:
Because of status.
Phil:
Yeah, and we are totally committed to United. So, every flight that we've taken over the past couple of years has been on United, so that really helps with status. And if we get into say, Polaris on United flights, I mean the meals are really incredible. I think I just had some filet mignon. You know what I mean? It's nice.
Erin:
They're pretty decent.
Phil:
Yeah. And they give you options. We have healthy options on there that are available to us as well. Centurion lounge, the other piece. Especially when we're flying out of Denver, there's the American Express Centurion lounge. So, instead of going to McDonald's, which we sometimes do for the kids if it's too early and the Centurion is not open, we'll go in there and have real food and real cocktails. And of course, because it's part of our American Express membership, we don't pay any extra for that. So, we're having real food in an amazing environment. So, we try to eat pretty well even when we're on the road.
Erin:
The Centurion lounge has definitely paid for itself already, very quickly paid for itself with the comfort of being there. Even if you don't put a price on that, the food and drinks alone.
Phil:
Yeah.
What's the hardest or worst part of the nomadic lifestyle?
Erin:
A think piece.
Phil:
Think. Oh, think piece. Got it.
Erin:
I want to hear your answer first.
Phil:
Okay. Honestly, and people ask this one a lot even in interviews that we do about semi-Nomadic living, and that's what we are. We're not a hundred percent nomadic because we do have a home base and we travel about half the time. Every other week, essentially, out of the year, we're traveling. The kids. We've got three kids; one who's a teenager, and then two who are much smaller, in elementary school. And just making sure that they still have adequate time and interaction with their friends, say in Denver for example, or with other kids when we travel...
Erin:
Right.
Phil:
... because sometimes it's challenging where it's nothing but adults and adult things, and of course, we're dragging them around doing episodes and trying to balance episode time with just enjoying family time together and not having a camera in somebody's face.
Erin:
It is work.
Phil:
That's the hardest part. I feel like it's my biggest focus; making sure that we don't mess it up with our kids.
Erin:
It's so hard, isn't it? It's hard not to mess it up; your parenting.
Phil:
It's hard enough to mess it up when you're living in the same house all the time, but when you're traveling, it adds a whole other layer.
Erin:
Yes. Another question we got was, how do we balance the kids' life with sports and everything? So, specifically about sports, Colt loves being on sports teams. He loves baseball, basketball, all those. He's on a baseball team and we're going to miss, I think, two practices, but we are making a commitment to try to hit as many games as possible. Because practices, you can make up, and especially since it's a team sport, we want him to understand the commitment to your teammates. So, yeah, I think we are working around the commitments we have at home and still traveling.
Phil:
Now, Reagan's a freshman in high school. She was on the volleyball team.
Erin:
Swim team.
Phil:
She is on the swim team. But that one's different this year because she actually has opted out of all of our travels that are not during vacations for her freshman year. She didn't want to miss a single day of in-person high school after the whole COVID fiasco. So, we've respected that. She's been able to stay locally with her mom during those times, and we've traveled in the periods when we don't have her. So, she's been able to fully partake in her sports. Brooklyn is like a budding gymnast, but she just does that anywhere and everywhere.
Erin:
She's more of a contortionist, I'd say. There's this episode where she's literally doing a backend and walking upside down on her hands backwards in the background. She's crazy.
Phil:
But then, they also have non-sports, non-athletic interests and pursuits. Same thing there. A lot of times we have private instruction for them, so it works around our schedule.
Erin:
Yeah.
Phil:
Brooklyn just started up a sewing class which is private one on one, so that can work around our schedule.
Erin:
And Colt does... yeah.
Phil:
His engineering.
Erin:
He does his engineering class. And so, if they miss a sewing class, or an engineering class, they just do two in one week the next week.
Phil:
Yeah. So, it's a challenge, but we make it work.
Erin:
You're right, that is the biggest challenge. But...
Phil:
Last question.
Erin:
... I'm not done traveling yet. I could stay out. I could do fully nomadic if we wanted to.
Phil:
All right.
What episodes do you have coming up?
Erin:
San Diego food tour is our next episode that we're going to be launching next Friday. So, make sure to subscribe and hit the notification button so that it shows you when it's live. And then, we are traveling to Croatia...
Phil:
Next week.
Erin:
Yes. We have a number of episodes planned to do in Croatia. Pretty much all around the food and the culture, and getting as much out of the whole area as we can. We're going to be a little north and Split, Croatia.
Phil:
So, several episodes, devouring episodes, and then the crashing, because we're in an amazing Inspirato home right on the water...
Erin:
So pretty.
Phil:
... one of their cool, mansion kind of homes. Let's see what else. We...
Erin:
And then, we go to Cabo.
Phil:
We booked Cabo. We have an amazing home on the water in Cabo. We just booked the Hamptons, so that's going to be a very fun one. We're thinking, we'll probably make that into a multi-location vacation just like we did the last time we were in New England. So, maybe hitting Cape Cod, maybe Philadelphia, maybe as far as Washington DC so we'll have a few episodes that come out of that.
Erin:
Yeah.
Phil:
We still have a bonus trip we need to pick for, so we might have another one in there. We're going to do maybe a sushi episode in Denver which is very unusual because we're so landlocked, and yet there's some amazing sushi here because everybody just flies it in from Japan every morning.
Erin:
Yeah. We're definitely going to focus on the areas that are close to us in Denver, too. When we're not traveling, we'll explore not just Denver, but Boulder, and the mountains, Breckenridge. But if you have any ideas for us, let us know. If you have specific food experiences, or specific destinations that you want us to go show and share with you, tell us.
Phil:
Yeah. We'd love to hear about that.
Erin:
Yeah.
Phil:
Oh, also Tijuana. We're going to take our kids down to Tijuana.
Erin:
Uh-huh.
Phil:
Especially amazing food experiences. Some of your favorites, let us know. And by the way, if you're in that area, like up by the Hamptons, or Cape Cod, and you know some places that we have to go there, let us know.
Erin:
Tell us about them.
Phil:
Because we really like to hit on recommendations that we get from viewers and followers.
Erin:
Yeah.
Phil:
Yeah. So, next week, we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming, and I think it's going to be our San Diego food tour episode.
Erin:
Yeah.
Phil:
So, again, make sure you're subscribed there; followabc.com/itineraries. If you want to download some itineraries, we're going to have San Diego and Coronado on there pretty soon.
Erin:
If you’re curious about Inspirato.
Phil:
Yeah. And you can also subscribe to our newsletter on our website, and then you'll get an email each time we launch a new episode so you don't have to worry about getting back to YouTube and see in the notifications.
Erin:
And if you have questions for us about Inspirato, or if you want to reach out to Inspirato yourself, go to followabc.com/pass. We'll hook you up.
Phil:
Whatever the current promotions are, we have a fantastic insider over there who can give you the entire scoop. Thanks for watching. Thanks for following and... What?
Erin:
One real quick, I want to say. Before we go, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I have so much gratitude for you watching, for you following us on our journey. We are trying to improve as we go with every episode. So, thank you for hanging in there with us. We are planning to do this for long hauls, so please stick with us.
Phil:
Because there's a new American dream. It's one that's void of templated expectations, templated career paths, templated education, templated families, templated homes, and templated lives. Freedom's no longer American tagline, it's just the new global way of life.
Erin:
Every day that you spend doing something that doesn't fulfill you to your core, you're living your life on pause. You're deferring genuine family time with no guarantee that there will be a tomorrow or a some day. Some people follow that mentality their entire lives. We've chosen to never live that way again.
Phil:
We appreciate you following our journey. The more our channel grows, the more time we can spend traveling to more locations, contributing to these cultures, highlighting local businesses, and sharing inspiring stories from these communities.
Erin:
So, please consider liking, commenting and subscribing so that you can stick with us for the long haul.
Erin:
Salute.
Phil:
Salute.
