Join Jess Drucker in the return of Adventure Calls as she shares her personal journey of expanding her family and launching a new company, and reveals the exciting new direction of the podcast focused on the adventures, challenges, and triumphs of LGBTQ folks and their families relocating internationally.
Below are the key takeaways from this episode:
- The podcast will now have a specific focus on the interests and needs of LGBTQ folks and their families looking to relocate internationally.
- The host's new company, Rainbow Relocation Strategies, aims to help LGBTQ individuals and their families move, live, and thrive abroad.
- The podcast will feature interviews with relocation consultants, immigration specialists, thought leaders in LGBTQ spaces, and successful queer expats living abroad.
- The host emphasizes the importance of looking at moving abroad with a sense of adventure, despite the challenges and the need for backup plans.
- The episode concludes with a message of empowerment to the LGBTQ community and encourages them to follow their call to adventure and consider relocating abroad.
Living Abroad Challenges: "It's actually quite challenging to live abroad, but it's those challenges that shape us and give us life skills and tools that we wouldn't have otherwise.” - Jess Drucker
Find Jessica Drucker online:
Rainbow Relocation: www.rainbowrelo.com
Relocation Guide: www.jessicadrucker.com/guide
Coaching: www.jessicadrucker.com/coaching
How To Move Abroad Book: www.jessicadrucker.com/book
Jess Drucker [00:00:14]:
Welcome back to Adventure Calls. I'm Jess Drucker. It's definitely been a while since you've heard from me, and I'm so excited to be bringing the podcast back. In this episode, I'll tell you all about what's coming up for the future of the show. But first, I'm gonna let you in on a few things that have been going on behind the scenes since our last podcast. It's been almost a year and a half. So first, my wife and I had our 2nd baby. And having 2 kids, as any parent knows, is not just about doubling the number of children.
Jess Drucker [00:00:44]:
It's really about blowing up all the patterns of your life. She's the most wonderful little girl I could Move ever imagined for myself and for my family, and it's been an amazing life. But it definitely took some time adjusting to having 2 kids. Now the second thing that's happened in the meantime is that I kinda gave birth to something else too. Even though we weren't publishing on the adventure calls podcast, I was busy launching a new company. I'm the cofounder of Rainbow Relocation Strategies. We help LGBTQ folks and their families move, live, and thrive abroad. In the last year or so, we've actually had many clients, all of whom have either been LGBTQ or have children or family members that identify as LGBTQ hands they wanna move abroad.
Jess Drucker [00:01:24]:
And so now I'm doing all the things you do when you have a new company with a new focus. I'm updating a new website, which is rainbow relo.com, rainbowrel0.com, and I'll tag that in the show notes for those of you who wanna check that out. And it's life the fulfillment that Rainbow Relocation has given me, it's made me wanna take the podcast in a new direction as well. And maybe not life a new direction, but a very focused direction from now on. So before in past episodes, you'd have heard stories about my time traveling and stories from other expats living around the world, and we're gonna keep doing that. But now we're gonna get more specific on this podcast and focus specifically on the interests and the needs and the hopes and the worries and the fears of LGBTQ folks and their families who are looking to relocate internationally. So does that mean if you don't identify as queer or LGBTQ that you should just turn off the show right How? You can't listen to it. You won't get anything from it.
Jess Drucker [00:02:21]:
Absolutely not. It just means that we are putting queer folks front and center, right at the forefront of this podcast hands the types of interviews that we choose. Okay. So what does that all mean hands why are we doing it? So I'm gonna tell you something. I thought about starting another podcast. I thought about starting a show called Rainbow Relocation or something closer to my business name. But I'm a tell you why I didn't do that hands why I chose to keep it as the adventure calls podcast. Over the last few years, there are so many hot button issues here in the United States that focus specifically on queer folks, especially trans folks.
Jess Drucker [00:02:54]:
As a result of that, my client base is changing. So what I mean is before, when I was working with people helping them move abroad, I was talking mostly to folks who were looking for an adventure, who didn't wanna miss out on the adventure of a lifetime, folks who started to think about, you know, Youll, you only live once and they've always been dreaming about moving Abroad, so now's the time. Right? But now I see my client base changing, especially when it comes to queer folks, especially when it comes to trans folks. People are thinking about moving abroad now hands they're looking at it like a backup plan or like a break glass in case of emergency plan, where they just need to know where can they go in a hurry or if something bad really happens in their town or even in the US lives the current political landscape and what it looks like might happen in the future, whoever might get elected. And so world before, my clients were really the kind of people who had always dreamt of living in France and walking along the River Seine with the baguette as their daily routine or moving to New Zealand or something for a lot of adventure. Now my clients really are looking for an escape plan. They want a process to put into place should their rights be taken away, should their way of life be criminalized, And so and rightfully so. I mean, they should be thinking about these things, but I don't just wanna talk to those fears.
Jess Drucker [00:04:17]:
I feel like when we just address those fears, we're actually fearmongering. I mean, of course, I'm gonna address those fears and talk about them. And, of course, that's what I do with my clients too. And we do that through our content and all of our work. But I also get really mad, like, really annoyed. It's not fair. It's not fair that we, as queer folks, look at relocating internationally through that lens, through the lens of, like, a backup plan or what if. I really want us to be able to look at this no matter what with a sense of adventure.
Jess Drucker [00:04:45]:
But we start to look at things like, you know, what if things do get too bad in the US or maybe I can live somewhere where I'm not oppressed, and, of course, we're gonna address all of that. But I really want to go ahead and show you that while it's important to have a backup plan and a plan b and nobody wants to, you know, stay on the Titanic while the violins are playing, it's always been my mission to show you and to help people see why living internationally, why moving abroad is the best thing that you can do for yourself and for your kids life you have them. Moving abroad doesn't mean forever. It doesn't mean that it's something that you have to do and that you'll be living in that place forever. It's not a permanent decision. But whether you stay abroad permanently or you move back home after a time, the benefits of living abroad, the adventure of living abroad, it's life changing in extremely positive ways. Now that does not mean that life abroad is a 100% positive all the time. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Jess Drucker [00:05:42]:
It's actually quite challenging to live abroad, but it's those challenges that shape us and give us life skills and tools that we wouldn't have otherwise. It gives us empathy for the ways that other people live and understanding that everything is kind of arbitrary. You know, we think the way we do because of the patch of dirt that we were born on and that there are 100, thousands, millions of different ways of looking at things. But I also think that, you know, besides the benefits that we've talked about about moving abroad, you know, there's there's mental health benefits and physical health benefits, and then there's also psychological benefits, knowing that you took your life further than you ever could have if you had stayed in one place. Once you decide to move abroad, you're kind of writing your own next chapter. Right? Hands you're taking your life into your own hands rather than having anything be written for you. And so with the Adventure Calls podcast moving forward, we are specifically thinking about queer folks and their families who are looking to move abroad and serving that audience. So what does that mean? Well, we'll talk to relocation consultants in a lot of the countries that are safe for queer folks to move to, and they'll give us details about what it's like to live there and what we need to think about when we prepare and move to those countries.
Jess Drucker [00:06:53]:
We'll also talk to immigration specialists, To we'll talk specifically about all the yucky stuff life visas hands taxes and health insurance abroad. We'll also talk to thought leaders in LGBTQ spaces, in the spaces of climate change, blue zones, and all different ways of looking at where you should move and where you might be happiest, not only for yourself but also for your kids and future generations. And lastly, of course, we'll be talking to queer expats who are already living abroad successfully to understand what makes them thrive abroad. So I hope that the people you meet through this show make you feel connected to a world out there that is open and welcoming to you. And I say this to everyone I speak to, and I hope that this is something you really take away from every single show. But there are 9,000,000 Americans living abroad right now as we speak, roughly. They don't really estimate that, but that's the current estimate. And there are about 50,000,000 people who would identify as expats who are living outside of their home country right now.
Jess Drucker [00:07:50]:
And so what that means is it's possible. If 9,000,000 Americans can do it, if over 50,000,000 people can do it, then it's possible, it's doable, and it's available for you as well. We're just looking at this through the lens of being LGBTQ, identifying as queer or having someone in your family who identifies as queer. We can go out there too. We can follow our call to adventure. And so I hope that this podcast continues to be a way that you feel empowered, you feel connected to the world out there, and you feel like you're able to take the leap and move abroad. And with that, I say please stay tuned to this next season of adventure calls where we'll be talking to all those expats. And the first one that kicks off this whole next season is with Brigitte Romanes from Youll relocation.
Jess Drucker [00:08:35]:
She helps people relocate and thrive in New Zealand. But for now, that's a wrap. We'll see you on the next episode of the Adventure Calls podcast, the place where queer folks and their families can find the inspiration and information they need to take the leap to move, live, and thrive abroad. Thanks so much for listening to the Adventure Calls podcast. For more information on how to follow your call to adventure, check out rainbowrelo.com. That's rainbowrel0.com. And to access our consulting services, our books, and our guides, visit jessicadrucker.comforward/book, jessicadrucker.comforward/guide, and jessicadrucker.comforward/coaching Thing.