Guest Bio
Mark Phillips is the Founder of Nomad Stays, a platform created to help digital nomads find comfortable, reliable accommodations built for long-term remote work and travel. A tech-driven entrepreneur and global business leader, Mark has spent years building ventures and relationships at the intersection of technology, hospitality, and international travel.
Across an entrepreneurial career spanning tech and travel, Mark has explored more than 100 countries and developed an unusually broad global network—connecting with everyone from local traders in remote regions to senior business and government leaders. That experience has shaped his understanding of what modern travelers need when they’re living and working on the road.
Since 2015, Mark has lived as a full-time digital nomad, running businesses while traveling continuously and relying on remote collaboration as the norm. Through Nomad Stays, he’s focused on making long-term travel feel more stable and livable by helping nomads find spaces that support productivity, comfort, and a genuine sense of home.
Show Summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Mark Phillips about the fast-growing digital nomad lifestyle and the hospitality gaps that many remote workers encounter when they travel long-term.
Mark shares what inspired him to create Nomad Stays and why traditional short-stay accommodations often miss the mark for nomads who need reliable Wi-Fi, functional workspaces, and the comforts that make a place feel livable for weeks or months at a time. He also explains how longer stays change pricing, expectations, and the kinds of services that hosts should consider offering.
The conversation goes beyond logistics into the lifestyle itself—how technology enables full-time travel, why community matters when you’re constantly on the move, and what it takes to stay adaptable and healthy while building a location-independent life around the world.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Nomad Stays was built to serve the specific needs of digital nomads.
- ✓ Traditional hospitality often isn’t set up for long-term remote work lifestyles.
- ✓ Comfort, stability, and a “home base” feel matter more when stays last weeks or months.
- ✓ Nomads tend to stay longer than leisure travelers, influencing pricing and support expectations.
- ✓ Hosts who understand their market can tailor amenities and services for remote workers.
- ✓ Technology is central to making full-time travel and remote collaboration sustainable.
- ✓ Community helps nomads connect, share knowledge, and feel grounded while traveling.
- ✓ Full-time travel requires planning, flexibility, and the ability to adapt quickly.
- ✓ Healthy routines—especially nutrition—take intention when life happens on the road.
- ✓ Global travel creates opportunities for people willing to explore and build relationships.
What You’ll Find on Nomad Stays
- Nomad-friendly accommodations designed for longer stays
- Listings that prioritize reliable Wi-Fi and work-ready spaces
- Comfort-focused stays that support a “live/work” rhythm
- Host insights that reflect the needs of location-independent travelers
- Travel solutions that make remote work on the road simpler
- A growing ecosystem centered on nomad lifestyle, connection, and practicality
Learn more about Nomad Stays and connect with Mark at:
https://www.nomadstays.com
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason Elkins (00:01.041)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. So happy to have each and every one of you back here today. Also very excited to have my guest. We’ve got Mark Phillips. Mark is the founder of Nomadstays. Mark, welcome to the show.
Mark (00:17.721)
Jason, thank you so much. So great to be here.
Jason Elkins (00:22.427)
Yeah, it’s going to be a pleasure. We’ve spoken a few times and now we’re actually doing it with the recording going so we can share the share the whole experience with anybody that might want to listen. So yeah, and I think there will be quite a few. And so Mark, I didn’t go into a whole lot of like introduction like Mark did this. Mark did that because it’s all going to come out during the conversation. But let’s do this for our listeners. Let’s do them a favor and basically.
Mark (00:30.699)
Yeah!
Jason Elkins (00:49.331)
Tell them in your own words what is nomad stays so they can kind of get a feel for that before we start digging into your past.
Mark (00:56.013)
Okay, so Nomads Days is my main business at the moment. It is a startup that my co-founder and I, Linda, we started six or seven years ago when we went traveling full-time. We’ve been traveling full-time for over 10 years now as digital nomads. And we found that there was a problem finding decent places to
stay and work at for a few weeks or a few months. Yet, from my previous experience in the travel industry, I knew that there all these empty rooms not being used. so the idea of repurposing empty rooms into something better for this market that a couple of million people in the world as it was back then was what created us, created the idea. So literally we tested it.
and it seemed to work for both sides and so we said well let’s turn it into a business and now it’s a global startup in 90 countries.
Jason Elkins (02:04.603)
Very cool. And before we go into, well, I guess we’re starting to go into what you do. You mentioned something you said there are lot of empty rooms and you use the word repurpose. And I’m curious, does that mean you would go to somebody that has empty rooms and just help them get in front of the Nomad market? Or does it go further into helping them understand what they need to do to change their systems? Maybe, or maybe they’ve already got it. Maybe it’s already a good fit.
So I’m curious, like how much effort do you have to take with the hosts to bring those facilities up to speed to where they work well with Nomads or did they just kind of generally already work?
Mark (02:46.729)
That’s a very astute question, Jason, and it goes straight to the heart of our most time-consuming part of the business, which is literally educating hosts, hoteliers, accommodation providers around the world about the needs of different markets. digital nomads, we’re just one market. And as a business guy,
Jason Elkins (02:58.83)
I can imagine.
Mark (03:14.587)
It seems to me it’s fine. It’s a simple concept. there’s, you know, this market, it needs different things than this market. And my product has got A, B and C, but okay, market A, it only needs A and B and market B needs B and C. So, okay, I’ve got two markets to attend to. But a lot of people don’t really understand that. And that’s the nature of the travel and tourism industry, the hospitality industry around the world. And the fact that they’re run by,
people that own property but may not be business minded or may not be trained in business or may not know how to turn their passion into a well-paying business.
Jason Elkins (04:01.351)
I get the impression, because as a nomad myself, I’ve stayed in an awful lot of places that maybe cater to particular markets really well, maybe not so much other markets. I guess where I’m going with this is sometimes I walk into a place and I think, these hosts don’t seem to understand the US market, you know, as someone that grew up in the US, or they don’t understand the, you know, you can, you know.
They’re not really set up for the family market. There’s a lot of markets, I guess is what I’m getting ready say. And there’s a lot of crisscross because a nomad from the U S might expect different things than a nomad from India or from a nomad from Australia. Things like just little things like washcloths. I remember when I first started traveling outside of the U S I was shocked that I would go to a hotel and they didn’t have a washcloth because in the U S.
That’s just what you have. And it seemed weird or you go to some places that don’t have a shower curtain and you take a shower and the whole bathroom gets wet. so combining the market of nomads and then also looking at, you know, are they single nomads or they double nomads? It’s, it’s, it’s pretty challenging. I don’t know where I’m going with this. Jump in and feel free to jump in and stop me anytime.
Mark (05:20.71)
You’re exactly right. But it’s the age old problem with the hospitality industry. So a while back I was a director of a hotel university. It’s university that taught hospitality as a profession. the university, it would deliver all of these things. It would articulate these differences in the languages. But if we go back
you know, to shall we say, at least the early internet years, the early web years, not the internet years, the early web years. Most of the industry at that time, if it reached out beyond its local market, it did it through intermediaries, it did it through travel agents or wholesalers or inbound tour operators. And those intermediaries, those amalgamators, they had very strong rules.
that said, if you want to be part of our global distribution, you need to meet these rules. So they set the standards for a host. Now, many hosts were not of international standard or American standard or in my case, Australian standard. It wasn’t necessarily the language, but it was the style of hospitality expected. So those people tended to stay local and they would advertise back in those days in brochures and
and advertising maps and all these sorts of everyday, usually printed material that was common in the year until the web really started getting going. So today it’s a lot easier for a small property to go global with things like a website. It doesn’t mean the global market is right for them or doesn’t mean that all global markets are right for them. And they’ll find that
when they’ll get bad reviews or critiques and things like that from people not getting what they’re expecting. But I guess as we move into this AI era where precision is critical, if you don’t have the right language and the right features, you’re not even going to be considered by the global AI American market again, using your example, because you just don’t speak their language and people
Mark (07:42.526)
Consumers are in the power position right now. They have got these amazing tools to search out and compare hundreds, if not thousands, hundreds of thousands of properties to find exactly the best one that meets them. the conditions haven’t changed, just the mechanism of distribution has changed.
Jason Elkins (08:03.975)
Right. And you’re like, you’re looking at this at a much higher level than I am. And I’m just going to share kind of the things that come up for me because I’m curious. but one thing you’re right, there’s so many different avenues. can go onto a traditional well-known booking platform and search for things, but it’s not necessarily going to come up for what I want. might, you know, I can, I can sort it by ratings.
Mark (08:11.489)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (08:32.467)
But ratings don’t necessarily, know, you can, a place can have great ratings, but if it doesn’t match what I’m looking for, that doesn’t help. You know, and I’m limited by, well, do they have wifi? Well, everybody has wifi, but my idea of wifi might be different than some of these small, these small hotels that have wifi or they say, you know, a separate workplace or whatever. Well, what does that really mean?
Mark (08:38.186)
That’s it.
Mark (08:48.117)
Yep.
Jason Elkins (08:59.379)
And so what I love about what you guys are doing, it’s like, you know, we’re not for everybody. You know, we’re not trying to be booking.com. We’re not trying to be Airbnb or something. We’re trying to, you know, help, I guess, operators that have rooms and the ability to host, to host them well, to host nomads, and then get those in front of people that are looking for those types of things. That’s basically what you’re doing, right?
Mark (09:25.152)
It’s exactly right. And what we have is the advantage is that a no-band when they stay somewhere, they stay somewhere for longer. So the money you’re getting from a nomad customer is greater in most instances than what you’ll get from a what we call a leisure customer, a tourist. And so what you’ll find the big brand name platforms you mentioned.
Airbnb and Booking.com and Vervo, there’s three or four or five major platforms around the world that everyone knows. They almost exclusively work in the leisure industry. Because the leisure industry, people just taking a bit of a break. Now, most people don’t realize that 90 % of Airbnb’s business is done 90 to 100 miles from where the person lives. You know, it’s not that much that goes international or interstate.
Jason Elkins (10:14.251)
okay.
Mark (10:17.598)
It’s a weekend leisure business, and that’s what they’re best known for, and their products are best arranged around that. Whereas if we look at the Nomad market, it’s a fraction of the size. We’re talking 30, 40, maybe 50 million Nomads, remote workers in the world market compared to 1.3 trillion international leisure clients. So the Nomad market is a lot smaller.
They’re staying for longer. Our current average booking is between 21 and 28 days, whereas booking.com is 3.2 and Airbnb, think, is 3.8. So, you know, it’s a fraction. Those guys are doing a fraction of the length of business because our clientele is looking to stay longer. And that means they’re not
thinking of this as just a place to rest their head for the night. They’re not looking at the color of the bedspread and assessing the age of the mattress necessarily. What they’re looking for is a home. They’re looking for somewhere. This is my home. This is where I live at the moment. And as a home, I want to be able to go and
Jason Elkins (11:26.343)
Mm-hmm.
Mark (11:36.71)
make some dinner for myself. I want to be able to get on a call at two o’clock in the morning because I need to call America in your case and I’m in Asia or something. And so I’ve got to make these adjustments for my life and I can’t do that in a lot of places. So part of our job is not just the education of the hosts but the streaming of those ones to
get them in front of the nomads because the nomads will prefer this.
Jason Elkins (12:09.715)
You know, listening to you say that something just really occurred to me that I’ve thought about on occasion, but hadn’t probably have never mentioned it or put it into words is that when you’re Nomad, some Nomads that are some people that would call themselves Nomads, remote workers, you know, it’s not about labels. It makes it a little easier to have a conversation when we use the label, but, um, a lot of folks that we’re talking about. Maybe kept a home.
Mark (12:28.603)
Sorry.
Jason Elkins (12:37.203)
back in the States or back in Australia. Maybe they go back every few months. Maybe they only travel for a few months at a time. And then there’s a lot of nomads that just sold everything. Or they put renters into their house. They broke the lease on their apartment, whatever. And what you said about it being a home is something that recreational travelers probably can’t really understand until you’re at a point in your life. I’m a 52 year old man.
And I stay in, I guess we’re gonna say, you know, just it’s a label. I stay in Airbnb’s, right? Until I met you and that might change. But those places do become my home and it has such an impact on my emotional level that like if I’m in a place that’s like really uncomfortable, I tend to start having like existential crisis.
Mark (13:18.255)
Yeah.
Mark (13:26.011)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (13:35.431)
And I start thinking, what am I doing with my life? Why am I here? I don’t feel at home. I don’t feel comfortable. can’t, I’m, I’ve rented a room and a house and I want to make coffee and I go into the kitchen and it’s covered in dirty dishes and like people live there. And I’m like, I’m not even, I don’t even feel comfortable enough to make coffee. So, and this is my home because I don’t have another home. So if you don’t feel comfortable enough to make coffee in your own home, it starts to create issues with emotions and.
Mark (13:53.751)
Yeah.
Mark (14:03.417)
You’re exactly right. Well, at a critical level, we do not do homestays in that sense where you’re sharing with the, you know, the classic Airbnb where you’re sharing somebody else’s phone. We just don’t do it because it just doesn’t align with what, you know, men are looking for or their lifestyle. They want sole use of the phone. Yeah.
Jason Elkins (14:04.905)
Have you experienced that?
Jason Elkins (14:20.903)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (14:25.543)
Yeah, I keep I keep forgetting. I keep forgetting that mark. I think no more homestays and then I end up doing it.
Mark (14:33.624)
But you know, you have look at it. Airbnb is a great brand. But Booking.com has more apartments and is larger these days. And between them, they only cover about 50, early 50 % of the US, which is their critical market. So there’s the other half of what’s known as short-term rentals. The other half of the short-term rental markets are not on Booking.com or Airbnb. So.
Jason Elkins (14:43.687)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mark (15:02.316)
When you realize that and you’ve been sort of conditioned to go to the easy route, and it’s like, how else can I find something? And you start looking and experimenting. when, and Linda and I, Linda is my life partner as well as my business partner, when we started traveling, we would literally turn up into a town and go knocking on doors to find out who might have something to rent.
You know, we might have stayed in a hotel for a night or two, you know, expensive prices and then looked around or gone into real estate agents or knocked on doors and said for rent and spoke to people and said, listen, we want to stay for two months. Give us your great rate. Let’s have a look at your place and tell us about your Internet. And and we would literally walk in and run Internet tests. So we took that and put that into our company into Nomad States.
We do internet tests. We’re still the only company in years, as much as we’ve been copied by so many, but the internet testing has never been copied. We do the testing of every property and we try and get them updated every three months. So you know what the speed is recently. Not if they have it or not. just technology.
Jason Elkins (16:18.835)
How do you do that? I’m curious about the logistics. Tell me. You don’t have to share all your secrets, but I’m envisioning you or someone walking around with a phone and a speed tester.
Mark (16:26.934)
In essence, the…
Yeah, literally our hosts conduct the tests, their technology. They’ll do the tests while they’re connected to their networks. And it will, the data, they don’t see, well, they do see a little bit of data. We get the majority of the data because it’s streamed directly into our databases. And we then average it and weight it and then represent it. And so if somebody hasn’t done a test, it shows zero speed and
What no man’s going to book a property with zero SP. So they have a real incentive to get access to a three, four week or three month customer. There’s a few extra things they do beyond what a leisure client is looking for.
Jason Elkins (17:02.671)
That’s not good.
Jason Elkins (17:17.715)
So what I hear you saying, correct me if I’m wrong, we don’t need to dig into the technology or any copyrighted technology or patented technology, but what I hear you saying is they log in, they go to a page from their property and you guys can see the speed results. So you’re not relying on them. Cause like on some of the platforms, you just see a screenshot of somebody’s phone, right? You see the little speed testing and, but you don’t know where that was taken.
Mark (17:46.453)
Correct.
Jason Elkins (17:47.635)
but it sounds like you guys have it dialed in. That’s cool. I like that.
Mark (17:49.863)
Yeah, so they need to log in to our website to run this test. So it’s not available to every man and his dog. It’s IP connected. And then we also extend that to… Well, there are ways around it. I’m not going to spill the beans, but it’s technology. But the other thing is that we give that power to nomads that are staying there. That while you’re staying there, you can run the tests yourself just to see
Jason Elkins (18:01.425)
And they can’t fake it.
Well, we won’t talk about that.
Mark (18:19.462)
what your speeds really are. And guess what? Those tests now come in as an independent test of the host. And so it’s relatively easy to cut out a bit of mismatch. you know, there’s some tech challenges with all of that as well, but it works quite well. Much better than anybody else that we’ve seen for sure.
Jason Elkins (18:19.942)
Jason Elkins (18:31.069)
That’s cool. That’s cool. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (18:44.615)
Very cool. So I’m curious when you, don’t know how, I mean, we’ve had a couple of conversations. I’ve spent some time on your website and I guess the question is when you, let’s, let’s say you approach, let’s say you’re traveling, you find a place. Wow. This place is great for nomads. but they’re not currently marketing towards nomads and you approach them and say, Hey, have you thought about doing this? We’ve got this platform.
Do you get pushback? I’m just curious, like, what is the standard pushback from somebody that you used to do in three or four day rentals?
Yeah.
Mark (19:24.179)
So we don’t have that problem anymore because the world has woken up to the Nomad market. Certainly since COVID, the market’s gone from 3 million to 30 or 40 million people. So there’s a lot of money out there now. And if the property has not already thought about the Nomad market or started researching it, we don’t need to
spend our time convincing them that this is a good market. So if we get pushback, so be it. We don’t really get that much. What we get is curiosity. It’s often, I had this call today with a Chinese lady in Alicante in Spain, and she’s an industry player. And so she knew a lot and she said, but how do you do it? What do do it? So I explained all the stuff. said, I never realized that. didn’t, I just didn’t realize.
that’s really good and it’s like that’s that’s some people staying what three four weeks that’s some good money yes it is it’s very appealing to a host to get a guest the stay a long time and then they don’t need to do housekeeping every day and they don’t need to do the what we call the and and you’ll get this the the surface level conversations hello how are you where do you come from where does the accent
Jason Elkins (20:40.573)
Right.
Mark (20:50.19)
You know, get doing that every day, even from a host. It’s really tiring.
Jason Elkins (20:52.826)
He
Like, I mean, I wonder sometimes when I check into these places, how many times they have opened a refrigerator to show somebody the refrigerator. Here’s the refrigerator. Here’s the bathroom. Here’s the hot waters on the left, the cold waters on the right. And it’s like, holy cow, you know, that must just get exhausting. But also just the, you know, the people checking and getting ready to check in, they’re like, can’t find the place or they’re running late or they.
Mark (21:06.734)
Yeah.
Mark (21:14.064)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (21:25.095)
You know, the host wants to meet them at the gate, but then the bus is delayed. The train is delayed, the whatever, and it’s got to be exhausting. And they’re doing it for two or three days at a time. So, you know, it’s, it’s constantly going new reservations, people trying to decide if they want to extend. No, you can’t extend because I got someone coming in on Tuesday, whatever. It’s just those. Yeah, I am with you. So the, also imagine.
Mark (21:52.378)
But so the responsibility, sorry there Jason, I was just gonna say, our responsibility is to start removing some of that friction. I’ll give you an example. Addresses, I can’t find where to check in, is such a common problem. Even in well addressed and well documented places like the United States. But you go to Eastern Europe and you can’t even read the language and the numbering system is not sequential like you.
on either side of the road like you’re used to. We just did away with it. We said, you know, we’re going to use what three words as our location. So you don’t even need to remember a 10 digit GPS or sorry, the 20 digit GPS number, which is very easily mistaken. You have to remember, well, you have to remember, you can just see that you’re going to this place, which is three words, because every
Jason Elkins (22:23.539)
You
Mark (22:48.911)
three meter part of the world, every three meter by three meter plot of the world has been mapped, not all languages mind you, and so that where you are right now, there is a three word combination that I can get and go exactly to where you are or within three meters of where you are. Now it doesn’t require relying on the state supplied numbering system, naming system, road system, and it doesn’t require a
GPS number of 20 characters that doesn’t mean anything to you. Literally, it’ll take you there. So that’s just one thing that can remove the massive pain of where do I check in, which property am I going to?
Jason Elkins (23:25.223)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (23:38.011)
I’m super fascinated by what you’re saying. And I’d like to dig a little deeper because like, I like, this is in your app. how does that not, how does it work? But like as a user, because I’ve definitely been on the side of, you know, I got some message. here’s our location. They give you a pin on a map and you open it it’s in the middle of it’s just, it’s a pain in the ass. So how does that work from the user standpoint?
Mark (23:48.653)
But
Mark (24:04.205)
Here it is.
Okay, so first of all, this is a technology that we are a subscriber to. It’s not our technology. It is called What Three Words. I think it was invented in the UK. I did have a word with the CEO a couple of years ago, and he did say to me that it came from the idea of where do you put up your tent at a fair, at a country county fair or a town fair or an agricultural
festival. Which plot on the ground is where I put my tent? Now traditionally somebody would go around with paint and paint it on the ground and number it and you’ve got to try and read that after it’s rained. So they went to this system to make it so much easier and they chose three meters by three meters and then they said well we’re not going to use numbers we’re going to use words. So there’s a unique three word combination of that. It might be
Dog Saturday, Monday, for instance, know, three words. So from a user’s perspective, we send them a link which says Dog Friday, Monday. They click on that link. It takes them to the What Three Words website. It shows them the map, exactly where on the map in relation to the supermarket and the nearest hotel and things like that. So you can go exactly to this square on the map.
Mark (25:35.841)
It’s as easy as that.
Jason Elkins (25:37.245)
That’s very cool. That’s, I kind of embarrassed. haven’t heard of it. That’s really cool. my gosh. I have spent so many hours pulling my roller bag behind me, walking through streets and alleys and around blocks and trying to, know, cause, cause the taxi driver takes you to whatever address or whatever location you think you’re supposed to have. And they always say like, they look at you like,
Mark (25:53.109)
Yep, yep.
Mark (26:00.813)
Yep.
Jason Elkins (26:06.513)
Are you sure? And I’m like, no, I’m not sure, but I’m not going to make you sit here for 15 minutes and help me figure it out. So I just get out and then I’m standing on the street with my bag and probably a place where I don’t speak the language. And when you were, when you were describing, yeah, it’s a pain in the ass. And for laundromats and places like that too.
Mark (26:20.851)
Yeah, when you travel all the time, sorry, I was just going to say, when you travel all the time, you have more of this than most people because you’re out of your known area. When you’re at home, you don’t need a map to get to the supermarket, but you do when you’re on the other side of the world.
Jason Elkins (26:43.773)
Well, yeah, cause if you live in Des Moines, Iowa and you go to
I was going to say if you go to Jonesville, Iowa, whatever, yeah, you know, yeah, you might not live in that neighborhood, but things are pretty much the same. way the streets work are probably the same and the culture is the same. The language is the same. You just kind of know what to look for, but you take, you know, you fly into, I was recently in Georgia and you were talking about Eastern Europe and addresses and languages. And it was like,
Mark (26:53.099)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (27:17.907)
Holy cow, it’s just a totally different world. So, all right, I get that.
Mark (27:19.531)
How many characters in the Georgian alphabet is over 50 or something like that?
Jason Elkins (27:25.299)
It’s a lot of them and they, none of them look like anything that I would recognize. You know, yeah. So, okay. That’s, that’s you. You got me there. That’s, that’s pretty damn intriguing. don’t even know. Okay. So then I guess the question though, what I, what I’d asked and you, answered very well was, you know, the, maybe the hosts are the people that have these properties. when you go to them, Hey, you could, you know, be
Mark (27:32.038)
Exactly.
Jason Elkins (27:55.293)
targeting people that are going to show up on the third of January and leave on the third of February and you only have to deal with them once. I also have this story in my head that some hosts like to be able to go into their place every few days because they don’t trust people. so I’m wondering if you get any pushback when you say, we can help you get people that will stay for a month that will basically make it into their home. I just wonder if people are, if some people are resistant to that. Well, I don’t feel like.
I don’t know if I trust it to go for a month, because then what if I go in there and they trash the place and if they’re only in there for three days, then I get to see it every few days. Has anybody ever brought that up or is that just some crazy story in my head?
Mark (28:36.01)
No, it does come up occasionally. the problem is that it became such a big headline issue at Airbnb when people were going and holding big parties. So Airbnb’s approach was to have nouns and hosts that said no parties, no groups and things like that. If you look at the law surrounding
Jason Elkins (28:39.133)
Just mine.
Jason Elkins (28:52.199)
Yeah.
Mark (29:03.304)
short term rentals and hoteliers, the owner of the property can’t enter the area that you have contracted for, know, that they’re not permitted in there during the period that you’re there, that you’ve contracted to be there. And so while hosts may want to do that, they have no statutory rights in most of the world to do it. So most of them either.
Jason Elkins (29:13.341)
Mm-hmm.
Mark (29:31.748)
accept the fact that they can’t get in there or they will go and ask the host, you mind if I come in and do a cleaning service every week? Can I replace the sheets? And they use that period to have a look at things. But, you know, if I’m the person, why would I trash the place and then live in it for another few weeks? It’s like, that doesn’t make sense. you know, the caliber of our clientele or a nomadic
Jason Elkins (29:43.389)
Mm-hmm.
Mark (30:01.873)
clientele tends to be higher because it’s their life. You know, they have chosen to live that thing permanently. And if they’re booking for a month.
Jason Elkins (30:11.091)
And like we said earlier, yeah. And as we said earlier, it kind of becomes their home. mean, I don’t know about you, but yeah, I get pretty attached to the places I stay.
Mark (30:18.151)
So it is.
We’ve got great friends we talk to all around the world. So, you know, it’s it’s actually very empowering to have such deep new friendships made so often, you know, and networks are much bigger than people that are just sedentary in the town because you’re constantly going to a new part of the country or a new country and you’re finding like-minded souls and those people.
some of you hit it off with and some of you don’t and they just become your new friends.
Jason Elkins (31:01.331)
How, you mentioned kind of dealing with, not dealing with, but working with the hosts to better understand the, you know, the Nomad clientele and.
How do you do that? mean, do you have a lot of materials for them to read? Do you have consultations with them? Do you send by people to kind of do an evaluation and a little bit of a training? Because I’m thinking like, man, if I found a place that I showed up and they said, OK, here’s the laundromat we recommend. Here’s where the closest ATM is that has,
good transaction fees for international cards. And here’s where the barber shop is and here it all is. And here’s your desk and the plug is right next to it. I don’t have to climb behind the refrigerator to plug in my computer type of thing. I would just love that. And I’ve probably stayed in a couple hundred places in the last four years and I have not seen one that I was like, these guys, there’s been a couple that were close, but I’m just curious how you help them.
Mark (32:01.625)
Yeah.
Mark (32:07.013)
What you’re describing is certainly less than 5 % of the market. There’s no doubt about that. Excuse me. The competition factor, however, is increasing in this space. So if properties are not upgrading either their service or their property, they’re not going to be chosen by the market. And that’s not just the nomadic market, but this
the nomadic market has influenced the leisure market. And so these properties that are not upgrading, they’re just like an old hotel that every country town has. They’re going to get a certain amount of business, but not much compared to somebody that is in touch with the market and are going gangbusters. So the hospitality nature, the service nature,
is much easier spread. know, if you’re a good hospitality manager, your reputation is spread a lot easier these days. And that influence that has a direct influence on the next customer that is looking because the people are looking at these reviews in some instances. The and we touched on this a little bit earlier, the review nature of the world has been turned upside down in the last
20 years, 15, 20 years, when there were independent bodies previously that would review the property under their industry standards, maybe the law in some places. It was a two-star, it was a three-star, it was a four-star, according to the industry standards managed by and audited by an independent body or a large body representing the whole industry. But since the rise of the big OTAs, online travel agencies,
What you’ve got is that they threw those rating systems out and they went with popularity based systems. And what you get at a Airbnb or a Bookman.com or even a Verbo are not systems that are necessarily reflecting the true nature of the experience or the property. Because the penalty of giving a bad review
Mark (34:30.474)
is so high for both the reviewer and the reviewee. And so you’re getting some significant pushback from people saying, I don’t want this style of reviewing. And even guests are saying, I don’t believe the reviews, so I’m not going to look at them anymore. It is easier when…
Jason Elkins (34:35.72)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (34:50.259)
What do you think about this, Mark? Yeah. What do you, what do you think about this? Because it took me a while to figure things out and through my travels. But what I notice is those times when I do book a home stay, nothing wrong with home stays. And I’m a 52 year old man with a, that likes clean kitchens. So anyway, what I’ve noticed is everyone’s why I think, that looks
inexpensive, it’s got a nice desk, they’re promising fast internet and I read the reviews and the reviews are all like, Mary is so amazing. She’s so great. She saw the da da da da da. So I think, okay, yeah, I’m to do that. And then I get there and then I realized, okay, I’m, this is not a very good fit. I’m not really sure I understand those reviews, but Mary’s nice. And then when I get the email saying, please write a review for Mary.
I’m like, yeah, now I get it. Cause I just stayed in her house for a week and
Mark (35:51.97)
There’s no doubt. The big guys have weaponized their reviewing systems. There’s no doubt about that.
Jason Elkins (36:00.465)
Yeah. Well, it’s well, but it’s yeah. But and it’s like, I just stayed at Mary’s house. She was so nice to me. She, you know, when I needed something late at night, she whatever. So then how am going to write a review that’s anything other than Mary’s really nice, regardless of what the accommodations were like. It’s really hard. So if I don’t feel like I can write a good review, I’m probably just not going to write a review.
Cause I feel a personal connection where, where, when I go to a hotel, you know, even if the front desk, the front desk staff are very nice, I don’t have a problem writing a review and saying, the toilet leaked all night and, the sheets were dirty, but I don’t want to do that for Mary, even if it’s the same exact experience when it comes to those things.
Mark (36:49.609)
And what you’re describing is very common. so as a seasoned traveler, you can now read the reviews on these sites and say, there’s no mention of the cleanliness. There’s no mention of the design. Why isn’t anybody mentioning these things? Why is everything about the friendliness of the owner? That’s only one component of my study.
Jason Elkins (37:08.723)
Yeah.
Mark (37:16.553)
And it’s only one component that some people enjoy and other people don’t. So again, as you get more experienced or sophisticated in your travel, you’re looking for things that are not there to give you indications of weaknesses or whatever. So, you know, one of the things we did recently or in the last year is that we started listing amenities that were missing.
at a property. they’ll be the ones with the crosses next to them. There is none of this, none of this and none of this. And that’s that’s quite OK. Many properties don’t need like we list. We’ve got a huge number of things you can list. do vertiports and helicopter ports and landing strips and stuff like that. And years ago, we brought in EV charging stations and like, how long did it take the big guys to even think about that? But, you know, not everybody
Jason Elkins (37:46.9)
yeah, that’s good. That’s good.
Mark (38:13.18)
wants an EV charging station or a vertiport. And if the property has a good big cross next to them, you just say, I don’t care about that. It’s got the things I do like. It’s 500 meters from the supermarket. There’s three pubs within 200 meters and I’m in Spain and they do a 10, 12 euro luncheon every day. I don’t need to cook for myself for lunch. I’m in, you know.
Jason Elkins (38:40.701)
Yeah, yep. That’s, cause you don’t.
Mark (38:42.141)
So lot of that is our responsibility.
Jason Elkins (38:47.027)
Because you don’t notice sometimes when they just omit something, like you’re so used to, well, every place has internet. And then I book some place and show up and like, what’s the internet code? And they’re like, we don’t have internet here. Like, because I just assumed, you know, it’s, I’m learning as I go, but.
Jason Elkins (39:11.517)
What do you, so do you think you’re, are you able to put your finger on your average day? Cause we talked about like people staying for a month. you mentioned kind of what Airbnb and booking.com are, but what it.
Mark (39:20.671)
Yes.
Mark (39:26.673)
This week, our average day is 21 nights or this month, it’s averaging 21 nights. Other months, it averages up to 28, 29 months. So it varies throughout the year in that range of three to four weeks. And that may not even be accurate when somebody stays for two or three months. They will often make two or three independent bookings.
they’ve decided I’ve paid for a month, I’m staying for a month, actually is really good. I’m going to do another booking for next month, another booking for next month. So it doesn’t record it as a three month booking necessarily.
Jason Elkins (40:07.277)
right. Yeah. Okay. I got you. That makes sense. I really want to dig into your background because I know there’s some interesting things there and, but I want to make sure I don’t forget to, mean, we, we’ve got quite a while just speaking about nomads days and the whole thing. It’s really cool. but before we get into your background, I want to ask you, I don’t know. I probably just forgot what I wanted to ask you.
Mark (40:14.022)
Go on.
Jason Elkins (40:32.645)
So anyway, on that note, so tell me, Mark, how did you get from where you were to where you are now? Let’s go back as far to as close to the beginning as possible.
Mark (40:39.792)
Ha
well, where was I? know, I guess, I guess most of my peers are still in the same town that we went to school in. And I was not of that cut. You know, I’ve got this gene in me that says, there’s more out there. You’ve got to go and discover it. I’ve got to go and learn about it. I want to meet people.
want to find out what is different, how they do things. And I have the same thing with technology. I love technologies. And I said, this is great technology. It’s going to make my life easier. And it’s perpetually empowering to have this. It is not something that you had for a period of your life and it’s gone. It just it fuels you. And I’m in that basis. But if we go back, I’m clearly Australian. I grew up in a
middle, low middle class part of Adelaide, which is a one million population city. It’s the state capital of South Australia, the driest state in the world. The city that has 12 inches of rain a year. And this is where they film Jaws. So we have lots of beaches, lots of sharks, and it’s a really cool place to grow up.
But it was also a bit tough and rough and there was gang wars and this sort of thing that was going on. Not US style, but these things were pretty unknown in Australia, a lot of Australia. So it was a rougher end of the world. But I was very good at school. So school was easy, but I was also an athlete.
Mark (42:37.847)
And so what happened is that after moving around different sports as a kid, I found myself in the sport of gymnastics. So as I was going through school, I was getting bigger and I was getting bigger as a little guy, but I was getting more and more skilled moving up the ranks of the school levels in gymnastics. And like I said, school was easy. So I finished school.
Jason Elkins (42:50.163)
Hmm.
Mark (43:06.903)
matriculation year 12 with really good results. Couldn’t afford to go to university so I went and started work.
Jason Elkins (43:15.313)
What were you, Mark?
Mark, what were you interested in before you went to, you know, in high school, secondary school? What were your interests? You mentioned sports and that you were good in school. But what did you, like, did you envision what you might do for a career? Did you see yourself being a professional athlete or a computer programmer? I don’t want to put any words in your mouth. What were you thinking you were going to do?
Mark (43:30.08)
Yes.
Mark (43:41.622)
no, so,
Mark (43:48.958)
I like sport. I enjoyed it. I liked maths. So it was quite good at that. As I’m going through high school, secondary school.
I’m really enjoying economics and business. from an intellectual point of view, I became really good at those sorts of matters. so my parents spotted this in me and they said, well, you like business, so you’re going to look for business related sort of work. And as I was finishing coming up to my last half year at school, was like, better start applying for jobs.
So I started applying to places like banks and accounting firms. know, one of the family friends had said, I’m an accountant, I work for an accounting firm, this is what we do. oh, that’s all business. And I actually got a lot of job offers because at my level, you know, everybody wanted juniors that were good at maths. In the end, I left school, I went and worked in a factory, a gymnastics equipment factory for a few months.
and then started as an intern with what became KPMG, the big global accounting firm, as the office boy.
Jason Elkins (45:10.707)
Okay, all right.
Mark (45:13.973)
But I’ll tell you, I worked for a partner who’s now passed, but he was one involved in sport. He was on the board of the Australian Cricket Board. Not a big American sport, but it’s legendary in Australia and India and other places. So my clients were people like Sir Donald Bradman and the Chapel Brothers. And I was dealing with
world leading entrepreneurs, the Asia Pacific CEO of Coca Cola. I was dealing with artists and dancers and winemakers and I was like, my God, these people are like, they’re really interesting and they travel the world, they do interesting things. And to me, it was just, I’m like a kid in a lolly shop.
Jason Elkins (46:05.971)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mark (46:09.937)
Um, so I was doing that while at the same time. So I was studying part-time. was doing university half time. was working full time and then I was still training at that stage about 15 hours a week, uh, in my gymnastics. And, and I sort of won the junior Olympic level in Australia. was Australian junior Olympic champion and that saw me win a scholarship to the national training Institute.
in another city in the capital of Canberra. So I went over to Canberra, went full-time study and full-time training on a scholarship. So that sort of took me for a few years in that direction.
Jason Elkins (46:56.261)
I… Mark…
love how casually you said, well, I kind of won this thing. just kind of like kind of made a sandwich. Kind of won this thing was junior, junior Olympic. I can’t remember the exact term or title, but yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s very, very cool. All right. So you went and. But at this point, when was the first time you envisioned yourself living overseas?
Mark (47:11.918)
Yeah.
Mark (47:29.719)
So as a gymnast, I got to travel more than my parents did. you know, think I was 16 or 17 and went to New Zealand. It is another country. They talk a little bit like us Australians. And then I went to the World Student Games in Japan. And it was all pretty cool.
Jason Elkins (47:44.743)
you
Mark (47:57.375)
I’d always liked traveling. It seems to run in our family a little bit. so when I retired from gymnastics from the Australian gymnastics team, I went back to KPMG and I was working away there. And what happened was that I was an intermediate level.
account and one of the managers came down and said, Mark, Mark, you’re, you’re supervisor level. How would you like to go and work in, in Vanuatu for a couple of months? yeah, sure. When? He said tomorrow. Have you got a passport? said, yeah, well go home and get it now. And cause we got to pay process the paperwork. I raced home. It was unbelievable. had to borrow a car. was snowing in the capital.
and it doesn’t snow very often in in downtown to drive through the snow, get home, get my passport, come back. And he says, I was not not there in a while. It’s the Solomon Islands. It’s like, oh, I don’t care. But the next day I was on a plane to the Solomon Islands for three months, pretending to be an auditor of the National Airline and a few other businesses.
Jason Elkins (49:18.183)
Wow, roughly how old were you at that time?
Mark (49:23.052)
Uh, my 20s, 22, 23, something like that.
Jason Elkins (49:29.023)
so still quite young. What did your family, did you get any pushback from them? Were they supportive or like, that’s a long ways away. What did you get from them?
Mark (49:38.123)
Uh, not too bad. I had left my, my, my parents were in Adelaide at that stage. I was living, uh, thousand 1200 kilometres away in, in Canberra. I had a steady, steady girlfriend. Um, um, so we thought, yeah. Well, he later became my wife, but we had long distance relationships for, um, a number of months.
Jason Elkins (49:51.002)
yeah.
Jason Elkins (49:55.88)
That was the next question I was going to ask about.
Mark (50:07.05)
And this is a country where you had to give three days notice to book a phone call to call back to Australia. This was a country that had two flights out a week. So, you know, it’s third world, it’s Melanesia and it’s an island out in middle of the Pacific. They were really happy that 20 percent of their population actually had employment when I was there. So 80 percent unemployed. And I was under curfew not to talk about even my
Jason Elkins (50:15.805)
Ooh, wow.
Mark (50:37.108)
junior supervisor level salary because it was higher than the prime minister or the king. So so what white man salaries and Melanesian salaries tend to be very different back then. And so that this is cultural, cultural, interesting stuff. And you got to learn about these sorts of things. And I guess you. You have to. Step out of yourself and start talking to people.
in these places so you can find out what’s going on and make some new friends. But you also need to be a little bit diplomatic and listen carefully. And it starts challenging your beliefs in things that you might have been brought up to believe. But when you see it firsthand, you sort of say, well, actually, that’s not how I imagined it. And I’ll give you an example. They speak pigeon in the Solomons.
Jason Elkins (51:12.488)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (51:31.699)
Yeah.
Mark (51:35.526)
And I’m there the first day and the partner picked me up in his Jeep. We’re driving down and he goes, to bring your hash gear. He’s like, To bring your gear for hash. Now at that time I knew hash was marijuana. what if I walked into it?
Jason Elkins (51:54.851)
Uh-huh.
Mark (52:00.871)
It turned out to be the Hash House Harriers. So that night I dumped all my gear, I put on my runners and we went out. I don’t know, probably hundred people went out running, chasing a paper trail all through the jungles, stripping over World War II pill boxes and Japanese zeros that have been knocked down by the war and stuff like this. And then we finished this run at sunset and just
got absolutely drunk for the next four hours and then everybody drove home. It’s like. This is not Australia, is it?
Jason Elkins (52:39.827)
That is so
Mark (52:40.183)
But you’re constantly challenged with new situations. And this was life up in those places for the expats. We lived in a compound. You know, we had guards. It’s like, well, this is not my normal sort of environment. you know, just don’t walk down the street and start talking to people in the street necessarily. So, you know, it’s an eye opener. you know, so that age,
When was that? I would have been… again, that 21, 22 sort of age group. It was like, actually, this is pretty cool. I like this. So that’s probably the first time I, you know, three months overseas in a vastly different cultural place that I got the feeling that there’s a lot of the world out there to see. And I want to see more of it.
Jason Elkins (53:32.071)
So when you went back, your girlfriend was still your girlfriend, I take it.
Mark (53:37.663)
Well, no, it got complex. When I went back, she had left and taken a couple of years off. She was actually in London. So she wasn’t there when I got home. So I had to then get some leave and then fly over to London to see her for the period of leave. then so she came back like a year later and then we decided to get married and we got married and married for
Jason Elkins (53:39.045)
And
Jason Elkins (53:48.147)
Okay.
Mark (54:07.299)
quite some time before things went different directions and we separated and divorced many years ago now, 25 years ago, something like that. yeah, it was a good period of life. And to some extent, I’d done a lot of traveling during that time. I’d built up during that first marriage, built up lot of corporate work, did some interesting stuff, but I had this hankering to travel more.
and I couldn’t do it within my first marriage. So that was a part of the reason that, you know, we grew apart and grew in different directions. And so as we separated, literally jumped on a plane and went and traveled the world for a year.
Jason Elkins (54:48.528)
I, yep.
Jason Elkins (54:57.117)
Sounds, yeah, I can relate to that Mark. I remember when I was married and we talked about, one of us would get a bonus from work and I’d be like, we should go to wherever, right? We should go somewhere. And she was like, no, we should buy a new bedroom set or a new couch or a new TV or something. It was so challenging. Wonderful woman, but holy cow, yeah, that’s.
when you’ve got that desire to go travel and you can’t do it with your partner, it does cause problems or challenges.
Mark (55:29.057)
We traveled a moderate amount. We got to many, many countries and my work would take me to more countries. So I did probably three, four times as much travel independently than what we did as a couple. to me, just got bigger and better. And I wanted to go and live other places, but leaving Canberra, leaving home was not part of her agenda. And that just became, you
Jason Elkins (55:42.642)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (55:56.669)
Yeah, which this.
Mark (55:59.201)
not good enough for both of us as well. You know, we need to go different directions.
Jason Elkins (56:05.735)
Yeah, yeah. What other kind of stuff were you doing? Because I know that last conversation we had, you and I share an interest in hot air ballooning. So I want to figure out how that, because I’m fascinated, obviously, I want to hear about it. So how did that end up in the mix?
Mark (56:23.787)
All right, so I’ll take you back to working as an accountant at KPMG in Canberra.
Mark (56:33.137)
And I got introduced to these computers, these personal computers were coming out in the 80s. And then we started developing a lot of that technology in the business. And I found I had a bit of an aptitude for it. So we ended up pitching this to clients. Clients loved it. We built accounting systems for them. We networked offices. Oh, we just built the biggest local area network in Australia.
we set a world record. okay. that took me, actually, I got headhunted and went and worked for Apple during a period of massive growth. So I had a couple of years working for a big American tech company in the outer reaches of the empire in Australia. And that was just a blast. You know, it’s so much fun and so much energy. know, it’s nothing like startups really. But
As we know from Apple’s history, they’ve had ups, they’ve had downs and I got let go in one of the downs. I said, here we go, pocket full of Time to build my first travel company. So I started an outback four by four travel company. We’d take foreigners, usually Americans, and take them into the outback, into the forests and the national parks and the scenery in the outback of Australia. So I ran that.
that business built that up over a number of years, opened up an office in the United States. And as part of that, were being picked upon where there was a whole lot of laws that weren’t working. we created, I formulated an association of tour operators. And amongst that association of tour operators were some hot air ballooning companies.
And so that became members and we would catch up every month and talk about stuff. We jointly market. We’d go and lobby government to change stupid laws and things like that. And so I became very familiar with the ballooning fraternity. that sort of, I really enjoyed this aviation. I enjoyed this ballooning thing. So I became a bit of a fan of that. And so a few years later, I’ve gone back to the tech industry and I’m now working for Microsoft.
Jason Elkins (58:56.231)
Mm-hmm.
Mark (58:57.047)
Amber and the government levels. Windows XP is is announcing is about to be released and Microsoft did a very interesting thing. They distributed the marketing money to everywhere in the world and said, here’s the theme and here’s what you got to do. And I said, and then the theme was actually be free, fly and be free. But didn’t run with that. I’ll tell you why in a minute. But that was the theme. said, I know exactly what to do with this marketing money.
So I went out to my friends in the ballooning community and I built a hot air balloon covered by windows and Microsoft and Office and it became a big thing. again, hot air ballooning, at least from a sponsorship point of view, became a theme. I later became the vice president of one of the big balloon fiestas and was learning to fly.
Jason Elkins (59:28.787)
Uh-huh.
Jason Elkins (59:49.085)
Yeah.
Mark (59:55.993)
junior pilot’s license and all of these sorts of things. So aviation via hot air ballooning became one of those hobbies that I enjoyed and did a lot more than others, for instance.
Jason Elkins (01:00:11.805)
That’s very cool. There’s an awful lot of people out there that would love to find a company like Microsoft to buy a balloon so they can help. But because they’re expensive, it’s not a, it’s not a cheap hobby.
Mark (01:00:19.672)
That’s right. That’s right. Well, you know, you ran your own hot air ballooning company as we discovered on our first call.
Jason Elkins (01:00:30.557)
Yeah. Yeah, it’s, I was never able to convince anybody to buy me a balloon, but, yeah. So that’s, pretty cool. My, did grow up with my father flying balloons and he had a deal with the state of Wyoming to promote tourism to Wyoming. So that was, so we had a big, big balloon with said Wyoming down the sides of the bucking horse and, actually, you know, was fortunate enough to go visit Australia a couple of times. Well, at least once he visited several times.
Mark (01:00:53.687)
Yeah.
Mark (01:00:58.004)
wow! Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:01:00.679)
But yeah, I visited Australia to, back when the Haley’s Comet was a thing and they were doing balloon rides to see the Comet from a balloon. And so I was like 12 years old. was a while ago. but yeah, so, and it, and, know, I credit that trip with a lot of things, but one of the things about that, that was the first. Yeah, that was pretty much, I mean, we’d gone to Mexico a couple of times with dad, but, when I went to Australia.
Mark (01:01:10.082)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:01:29.267)
I remember we were out in the outback in Conoundra and there were these two girls about, you know, as me and my brother, he was a year younger than me. And there were these two, uh, local girls that were just so enamored with our accents. And they just wanted like, Oh, say my name, say my name or whatever. They just, wanted to have conversations with us because we were so interesting to them. And of course, as a 12 year old boy, I was thought that was pretty cool.
Mark (01:01:37.665)
Mm-hmm.
Mark (01:01:57.015)
you
Jason Elkins (01:01:57.255)
And I think to this day, that’s part of my desire to travel and just meet different people, because they seem interested in me, I’m interested in them. Yeah, some of my dating ended up…
Mark (01:02:06.091)
Yeah, and then for the.
For the people that are not Australians that haven’t been down there, Kinaudra is a country town of a couple of thousand people. It’s a couple of hours drive from Canberra, probably five hours drive from Sydney, but it’s not somewhere that has got ready access to international airports and foreign tourists. It’s not exactly on a route anyway. Beautiful country, but it’s farming country. It’s agricultural. It’s a food capital.
Jason Elkins (01:02:35.921)
Yes.
Mark (01:02:40.023)
And it has a secondary tourism industry around some very ancient skeletons and caves and things like that. And then as an age of fishes museum out there in Canoundra. And then you’ve got one of the most magnificent ballooning environments and long history of some great operators. So they’ve been hot air ballooning since the 80s. And I think the first hot air balloon
Jason Elkins (01:02:50.404)
I did not know that.
Mark (01:03:10.76)
There’s a little bit of a crazy story. The first hot air balloon flight in Australia went up in Adelaide, where I was originally from, back in about 1980.
Mark (01:03:27.923)
I’m going to guess. And the reason I know that is because it was on the news that night and the following story was a picture of me as a gymnast winning a state championship or heading into the state championships. And my mother recorded it on the old Betamax and so as I got these and started transferring them into digital years later, I goes, my God.
There’s a Blooming Story and I know the pilot now.
Jason Elkins (01:04:01.523)
Maybe it was some subliminal thing the first time you saw it that planted that seed around ballooning and look what happened.
Mark (01:04:07.911)
Who knows? I actually didn’t see it live, it only on the recording because I was probably out training. So Mum had recorded it on the VCR.
Jason Elkins (01:04:16.938)
okay, yeah, yeah.
that is at a super goal. Let’s go back to you mentioned, you know, when your relationship, you went different directions with your wife and you mentioned you went and traveled the world for a year. Tell us about that.
Mark (01:04:31.686)
Yes, I did. Yeah, literally, I built up a lot of points on corporate travel and frequent flyer points. I was very bored with what I was doing. And I just needed to get away. I was frustrated that I couldn’t move. And I said, that’s it. I’m going to have to go.
and my my ex at the time says well I don’t want to go but I might come and join you somewhere she never did but so I literally packed my stuff up went down the airport jumped on the plane flew off to South Africa caught up with some friends there this was New Year’s Eve I think I flew on New Year’s Eve and well the day before and
and literally arrived in Africa and said, this is cool. And then backpacked and hitchhiked my way from the bottom of Africa to the top and came out and went through Europe for a couple of months and down to South America and went all around South America. And, and, and eventually got home to Australia like a year later.
Jason Elkins (01:05:44.755)
See you, Mark.
Yeah, you mentioned that you weren’t happy with what you were doing. I sense that that meant around your work. Did you actually quit the job or did you, were you working as you were doing all this stuff?
Mark (01:06:00.955)
Bye!
Jason Elkins (01:06:02.481)
remotely like, you know, the digital nomad thing.
Mark (01:06:05.689)
Yeah, that was it was a little bit complex. So I had got bored at Microsoft after six years. So I resigned from Microsoft and got picked up at a startup which was growing. It was a travel tech startup and I needed somebody understood technology and travel. So they put me on board. We commercialized that I launched the business to do a couple of million dollars in our first year. And then I had to have a knee reconstruction. So
I’d snapped a bruised legament. so at this operation, had a long recovery, couldn’t work, couldn’t travel all that much. So I was at home just share trading, futures trading, that sort of thing, while doing my recuperation. so after I was recovered and I was like,
I’ve not got any better. I need to go and visit some of these places. I need to go and discover these things and I need a change. I need a change of life. And so literally I took all my credits and spare cash and said that’s it. It’s around the world.
Jason Elkins (01:07:17.117)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:07:30.109)
very, very cool. And I don’t want to, don’t let me miss any big gaps here, but I want to, I don’t know how far we’re moving forward, but at some point you found a partner that wanted to travel with you full time. And that’s not always easy to do. I think it’s, I’ve been looking for four and a half years, but you found one. So help me understand what’s the trick and how did you manage to work that one out?
Mark (01:07:44.186)
That’s it.
Mark (01:07:56.655)
Okay, so I separated in 2006, then I went traveling in 2007. And so I’m back in Australia, a little bit as a shag and a rock, didn’t know what to do in 2008. The business community hadn’t changed. I’d changed, I’d seen a lot of the world and nothing had changed back home.
I was still engaged with the hot air ballooning community. We went through a bit of a crisis where the state government basically nationalized our nonprofit association. So I was up in Sydney with the president planning to sue the government for nationalizing and taking our business away from us. And a fellow balloonist was heading heading back to Japan. So I went along to her farewell party and I met this lady. And that was a couple of years.
Jason Elkins (01:08:44.957)
Yeah.
Mark (01:08:53.622)
later and was through the ballooning fraternity that I met Linda. And she was an international flight attendant. She was traveling around the world every second week. Just happened to have arrived back from London literally an hour before this dinner. So I had this, I met this jet lagged, vivacious girl. And we became friends, we hit it off and
So when she was back in Sydney, she was living in Sydney at that time, I would travel up from Canberra, which is an easy three hour drive up the highway. And we would spend time together and stay going out. then it developed enough that we became a significant item and moved in together and started doing all sorts of things.
Jason Elkins (01:09:43.313)
So did you envision early on in this relationship, did you envision the two of you traveling full time and doing the nomad thing?
Mark (01:09:52.714)
Question? No, she had a great job. doing, I was still doing futures trading. I was volunteering as a startup mentor, I was plugged into some of the innovation centers. I was bored with the Canberra environment. So we moved to Queensland, Southeast Queensland, we moved to tropical area. I started getting involved in some of that.
sort of local innovation spaces, which were just emerging at that point in time. Lender was still flying around the world. I guess what happened was that she, in the airlines, you usually don’t know when you’re going to get holidays. And she got given her six or seven weeks holiday all of a go. And I was a bit busy. We would normally head overseas or something for that holiday period. And I couldn’t go that.
particular year with other commitments. So she said, I’m going to spend the time learning to fly. So she started taking pilots lessons to fly fixed wing aircraft. so suddenly our aviation connection moved into a different aviation connection. we, what had happened? yes, we
Jason Elkins (01:11:06.256)
cool.
Jason Elkins (01:11:13.277)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mark (01:11:19.784)
had been to a couple of world championships for hot air ballooning. I’d managed the Australian team in a couple of places. We’d been off to other things in Japan and New Zealand, flying hot air balloons. So we were starting to getting a lot more travel. I had bought a motorcycle in Europe via a friend and I’d left it there knowing that I was going to do at least a couple of months of every year riding around Europe on my newly purchased motorcycle.
And so we were, you know, Linda was, she was literally overseas 20 weeks a year sort of thing, flying. And then I was doing eight weeks or so every year traveling. was like, yeah, no, we can do a lot more of this. And, uh,
Jason Elkins (01:12:00.221)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:12:11.475)
I love it.
Mark (01:12:14.057)
So what had happened was that I was having a significant birthday and we were, we set aside a whole lot of time in Europe. Linda had left the job. she was working for herself. So she could take time off and we literally flew into Europe, jumped on the motorcycle and started tripping around France and Italy and things like that. I came in earlier to do a catch up with a mate and do a little bit of business. And while I’m here,
Another friend called me up in a panic and said, Mark, Mark, I really need your help. and he, and he went on a big sales pitch and I had to stop him after half an hour. I just was laughing so much. said, Harry, Harry, Harry, stop. You don’t need to convince me to help you with this trip. And because the trip, because the trip, the problem was that a friend of his had broken his elbow.
And he was supposed to be riding Perry’s motorcycle back from China. So Perry and another guy were leaving Barcelona where they lived and riding motorcycles across the Silk Road to China and flying home. Two people were flying in collecting the bike and riding back. Anyway, one of those had broken his arm. And so I was the emergency and I said, you don’t have to convince me.
Jason Elkins (01:13:11.677)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:13:26.611)
cool. Yeah, OK.
Jason Elkins (01:13:34.675)
Mm-hmm.
Mark (01:13:38.982)
The Silk Road was my next adventure. That’s one of the reasons I bought the motorcycle because after backpacking Africa and doing the chicken buses and everything, it’s just slow. said, I’m going to the motorcycle next time. thing, next one is the Silk Road. Cause this is like the world’s greatest trading route. This has got business, it’s travel, it’s cultures, but all of this mixed in. And so I said to him, I only have one question. The rest we can work out. He said, one question was a year. When? So he gave me the date and I said,
Jason Elkins (01:13:50.661)
huh.
Jason Elkins (01:13:56.485)
Yeah.
Mark (01:14:08.89)
Absolutely perfect. Linda leaves two days before. She’ll be back in Australia, back to her work. And I will meet you in Barcelona and fly to Kugastan or wherever the bike is. So, you know, suddenly there’s another three month trip on top of a month long that we’ve just done. was away now for four months of the year.
Jason Elkins (01:14:11.699)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:14:29.405)
Mm-hmm. That’s so cool.
Mark (01:14:39.788)
And long story short, a year later, we’re back in Australia and it’s like, do you think we can do this thing full time? And yes, we can do it full time. What do do? We finished the lease or the lease was being finished ahead of time for us. Landlord wanted to move back in. Got no significant business commitment. We can do it on the road. Cool. Let’s just drive.
So we started going around Australia and that sort of kept us, we did that for four years.
Jason Elkins (01:15:15.493)
Okay. Why? I’m just curious. Is there any reason you stayed in Australia? Is it because you had a car or a van and just for not that I’m saying four years is too long. I’m just curious like if there was you know, family constraints or something.
Mark (01:15:26.69)
Ta-da!
No, we to get rid of a lot of stuff. We actually had two cars and five motorcycles. So we had to divest some of that stuff because we didn’t have a house to put it in anymore. Linda hadn’t seen a lot of Australia and she said, I’ve lived overseas. She did live overseas in Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia with previous work activities.
Jason Elkins (01:15:40.563)
Peace.
Jason Elkins (01:15:45.095)
Yep.
Mark (01:16:00.065)
And she said, before I go overseas again, that we knew we’re heading out the streets, Australia was getting too small and wasn’t changing. It’s too isolated. So for us, we said, all right, we’re going to see Australia. So that’s literally why we decided to drive and ride, because of motorbike around Australia to see it from the ground. We had our dog with us, so he came with us all the way around. I did get a
contract that kept me in Queensland for one of those years. We literally had to drive up and down through about 3000 kilometres visiting incubation, innovation centres, start-up centres, governments and things and try and use some federal government money to kickstart their innovation activities. So we concentrate on Queensland there for the last year we were in Australia. And then when that contract finished, we
jumped on the plane to France because we’d already decided that they’d got very cool visa. So we’ll try and get the visa.
Jason Elkins (01:17:10.141)
What is your biggest advice to couples that are either thinking about doing this or maybe solo people that are thinking they want to become a couple and travel full time? What, what, maybe what’s the thing that surprised you the most or what do you just think people ought to know before they go in?
Mark (01:17:31.679)
Yeah, there’s a few things there and they may not be the things that you first think about. So one of the dangers of nomadic life or traveling all the time is that you forget to take weekends off. You you forget to have a day or two down every week. And so you can get very run down, tired, cranky, confused. In many parts of the world,
caliber of the food you’re eating doesn’t have the nutrition that you might have had at home. So again, it drops your energy levels again, meaning that you can get crankier, easier. So you’re going to recognize that travel is stressful on one hand, and you have to manage that. It manages that as an individual and as a couple. There’s a lot of complexity involved in traveling. As you know, you’re chopping and changing
Apartments all the time countries all the time. This is all the time phone numbers all the time You know just goes on and on and on where am I going to eat? What is my budget? Where can I get whatever? my iPhone cable is broken Where am I going to get one of those in this town at three o’clock in the morning all those things? But So you need to concentrate on on really knowing what you like about travel
and make sure that that is actually a shared benefit that your partner gets. Do they get the same level of energy from the things that you like to do? So that’s probably the second thing. And the third thing is you just got to be flexible. Traveling is not about following a plan. It is about soaking in life as it’s presented to you. And that means that
you’re going to make last minute changes a lot more often than what you might be when you’re in a sedentary hometown.
Jason Elkins (01:19:39.847)
Yes, that’s, it’s all very well said and I’ve done a lot of solo travel. and I, there’s been moments where I had other people around me and yeah, it can be stressful, especially if, like you said, if your partner is not getting the same benefits out of, like, so for example, if, if your partner is the type that just really likes to find a home, get settled in and stay for awhile.
and you’re the type that needs new stimulation and new things happening all the time. That can be a real, you you’re just constantly working against each other. You’re sitting, you know, you’ve been there a week and you’ve got your phone, you’re looking at flights or you’re looking at trains or buses or whatever, or rooms and other places and she’s over there just finally getting settled in like, my gosh, I really like it here. I could stay here a while. That gets really stressful because you imagine just in a regular relationship, you know,
right way to say it but in a standard relationship moving is stressful. I mean it’s a little easier when you only have one suitcase but still emotionally psychologically just moving can be very stressful for some people and for other people moving is like a necessity I gotta keep going so that’s just one example so yeah.
Mark (01:20:41.468)
Peace.
Mark (01:20:56.188)
But you know, you’ve got to work out what are the things that you value the most? You know, if you’re always looking for a spotlessly clean shower in every place that you’re going to go to, then your options are going to be limited. If that is your standard, you know, a lot of the world is not going to fit within that. You know, I’ve seen slums in Lisbon that are worse than anything I’ve seen in Africa, and people don’t realize that.
Jason Elkins (01:21:11.911)
Good luck.
Jason Elkins (01:21:16.68)
Mm-hmm.
Mark (01:21:25.73)
until they’re there on the ground. It’s like, my God, how can this be this sort of the environment? you know, those things are surface level things as a general rule. So what you get is deeper human connection when you’re traveling.
Jason Elkins (01:21:33.874)
Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:21:41.009)
Yep.
Jason Elkins (01:21:45.435)
I remember the, the first person really that I met when I started traveling full time, I had traveled quite a bit for work, but you know, after I sold all my stuff, I bought the one way ticket to Columbia. The first person I met, she, actually went with me to check into a place that I was staying, which is, I’m going to say Airbnb. don’t remember how I booked it, but it was that just, I’m just using that to, I don’t know, explain. was a short short-term rental.
And she went there with me and she’s like, okay, Jason, so if we ever travel, I need to be responsible for picking the accommodations. And I, and I realized immediately it was like, I don’t think it’s going to work between the two of us because if she doesn’t like this type of living, I don’t know, you know, like, unless she’s coming with a lot of money or something. I was just like, no, this is like.
Mark (01:22:22.538)
Hahaha!
Jason Elkins (01:22:41.127)
You can’t live like this. And yeah, it was pretty clear that we weren’t going to be doing a lot of traveling together, but do you guys, I’m curious. Yeah.
Mark (01:22:45.401)
But that happened. Oh, sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say that happened like that. The plane doesn’t go. The bus arrives at four o’clock in the morning and you can’t check in to four o’clock in the afternoon. I was just talking to a friend, flying at the moment, but she said, I’m leaving. She’s leaving Australia. She’s migrating to Italy first.
Jason Elkins (01:22:52.079)
I was just going to ask, you and Linda?
Jason Elkins (01:23:07.57)
Yeah.
Mark (01:23:14.945)
First digital nomad visa that Sydney Consulate has ever issued because it wasn’t ready. And they said, well, you have to come back within three months to get your visa. And it was like, it sounds a bit stressful. but she was like, and I just said to her this morning, my time, I it’ll work itself out. You know, there’s somebody that we can have a talk to further up the chain that
Jason Elkins (01:23:20.531)
right.
Jason Elkins (01:23:32.882)
Yeah.
Mark (01:23:43.766)
I’m sure we’ll allow that to be couriered in or couriered out. As it turned out, she got a dust as she was boarding. So she’s got a new beaver and she’s flying and she was texting me because they have free Wi-Fi on Qatar Airways. It was wonderful. So she’s flying right now. Her cat will fly the next day and they’ll be settled in Italy by the end of the week.
Jason Elkins (01:23:48.486)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:23:52.827)
wow.
Jason Elkins (01:24:10.235)
That’s, that’s, that’s super cool. I was going to ask, I was going to ask you, Mark, do you and Linda make a point of when you’re looking for places to stay, do you always try and get up like a two bedroom place just in case you need some space? I mean, I’m just, you know, I’m not trying to pry too much, but, that is a challenge is finding space when you’re traveling with somebody.
Mark (01:24:24.34)
I am… No!
Yeah, each to their own. We’re very tight. We’re very connected. We’re on the same wavelength. We have arguments usually about the business and direction and stuff like anybody does. But no, we have a really great relationship and it’s very unusual for us to sleep apart. And it’s usually because we’ve got other commitments in the business trips or we’re staying with friends and
helping them out with their sick dog or something like that, things we do along the way. But we do like space. We’re Australians. We do like activities. I was describing this place that we’re looking after at the moment, a bit like a submarine. It’s an old converted farm building here in the UK.
And so the floors are all different sides and the ceilings are at different heights. And so sometimes you’re ducking and sometimes you’re lifting your legs. It’s a bit like walking through a submarine going through the different floors. And I’m like, it’s a little bit tiring. It’s lovely place, but I’m getting a little bit sick of ducking and weaving my way around the house.
Jason Elkins (01:25:47.219)
place I was at, we, um, we tried to connect yesterday and had some, tech issues. And the place I was at then was I, the door was about two inches shorter than I am. Every, every time it wasn’t so low that visually you’re like, can just like peripherally you’re like, Oh, I need to duck. was just high enough that the visual, you know, I just visually wasn’t picking up on that. was short. So I just kept hitting it every time.
Mark (01:25:59.124)
Yeah
Jason Elkins (01:26:17.075)
So yeah, it’s
Mark (01:26:17.204)
So the trick for that is to wear a hat because a hat will just give you that split second warning. Just a sudden hat.
Jason Elkins (01:26:24.061)
Go.
That’s a good idea That’s that’s a good idea Mark I’m excited to spend some more time on the Nomads days website I understand you guys have quite a community that you’re getting that you’ve had going for a while now and it sounds like it hits it Hits a lot of the the areas that I kind of need in my life and I’m missing out on so I’m not this is not a promotion you’re not paying me to say this but
Mark (01:26:35.09)
Huh.
Mark (01:26:56.059)
No, no.
Jason Elkins (01:26:56.667)
I’m excited look at it. And, and I suspect that, you know, we talked a lot about nomads, their special needs, the market and all this stuff, but there’s a lot of, there’s other people that may never use the word nomad to describe themselves that probably still carry a computer when they travel, probably still want to be able to sit down and work for a few hours. Probably, you know, want to stay a little bit longer than, you know, the typical seven days that, you know, that maybe the typical American or the U S tourist would do. so it’s.
Is there any reason why somebody that’s not a nomad at all, is there any reason they shouldn’t visit your website and take advantage of it?
Mark (01:27:31.581)
No, no, no. If if I had my ability to influence world language, I would probably call it lifestyle travelers. It’s where you your life.
Jason Elkins (01:27:46.839)
But then people might have misunderstood that too. There’s a few different lifestyles out there.
Mark (01:27:49.745)
Well, of course they would, but you know, your life is traveling. you know, we’ve tracked nearly 30 different micro subsets in the digital nomad remote worker sort of communities. They’ve got very similar characteristics, but they hate the labels and they like to call themselves different names.
Jason Elkins (01:27:57.043)
I have wit. Yeah.
Mark (01:28:18.722)
That’s quite okay. Whatever you want to label yourself is fine. What happens is that what we provide is the features and benefits aligned for this sort of lifestyle travel. So we’ve got, we started in accommodation. We then moved into experiences or tours and events and so forth. We’ve moved into products. We now sell
some of the cheapest eSims around, for instance. And we’ve recently taken over another company which has a whole series of members in brunch clubs. It’s called the Nomad Brunch Club. And so our membership can meet in say, Medellin, in Colombia, which you’re familiar with, no doubt. It can meet every month with other Nomads and just have a bit of a catch up and learn new things, meet new people.
And this brunch club has even been the source of marriages. People have met each other in these sorts of events. It’s not even a year ago I went to a magnificent wedding in a chateau in France between one of our Australian friends that had followed us to Europe as a nomad, got stuck just before Covid. We sent him to a big nomad centre in Bulgaria.
lockdown for COVID, but he met his future wife there. so this sort of collision of people, and his wife is American, she’s from New York, he’s from Brisbane, Australia. This collision of people allows you to find others of a kindred soul. And you’ve got more chance when you’re traveling more places. there’s hope for you, Jason.
Jason Elkins (01:29:54.739)
That’s very cool.
Jason Elkins (01:30:10.173)
Well, yeah, I all I’ve always in part of why I, you know, I sat after my divorce in Arizona. I stayed for a while thinking I want to go travel, but I want somebody to go with me. And I was sitting in Arizona dating and meeting people that I thought might want to go with me, but that never worked out. And then finally, I, know, it’s like, if you want to meet, let’s, let’s put this way. If you want to meet women that like to go bowling, you go to the bowling alley. If you want to meet women that.
Mark (01:30:35.489)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:30:37.453)
religious you go to church if you want to meet women that travel you gotta go travel so that’s what I’m but anyway on that note it’s not all about women
Mark (01:30:45.644)
And you’ll constantly be surprised. But the people are… From the deepest parts of Africa I’ve been to, to the middle of the Silk Road, there is just lovely people. And you don’t even need to speak the same language when you will be taken on board as welcomed as a friend and you get to exchange.
Jason Elkins (01:30:52.31)
Hahaha
Mark (01:31:13.682)
a little bit of your life for a little bit of their life. And it makes everybody a richer person from that experience.
Jason Elkins (01:31:22.643)
I agree. that’s actually, I started the podcast when I, on my first trip to Asia, um, just a couple of years ago and the name, you know, big world made small was because Asia always seemed so far away. It’s a place I’d want to always want to go seem so far away. But then once I got there and, I was in Malaysia and Indonesia where I was seeing different, completely different cultures and people than what I was used to. I thought, you know, the world just literally felt smaller.
It’s like, here I am now. It’s like, oh, it’s not really that far away. It’s a long ass plane flight. But other than that, it’s not that far away. People are more alike than they are different. And so when I started the podcast thing, was like, oh, big world made small. So it’s all about that. So I get that. So I appreciate you sharing that. Mark, what did I forget to ask you? I know we’ve been going for quite a while now. Fascinating conversation. But before I wrap it up, I want to give you a chance. I told you earlier.
Mark (01:32:07.229)
Yeah.
Mark (01:32:12.531)
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Jason Elkins (01:32:18.387)
Is there anything you wish I would have asked, forgot to ask or anything else you want to leave with our listeners before we say goodbye?
Mark (01:32:24.829)
Okay, well, I guess if you haven’t figured out by now as a listener, the world is out there. It’s it’s ready to grab hold of. You just have to do it and you can work out the solutions to every problem as it happens. You can’t plan your whole life in the chair or in the bed that you’re lying in. You’ve got to get out there and do it and just roll with the punches. And you’re going to do things that you
Jason Elkins (01:32:44.669)
Yes.
Mark (01:32:55.369)
may not want to tell other people that you did, but you’re going to get it. I’ve crossed borders without passports. Sometimes you’ve got to do these things to survive or to keep yourself going. But I’ve also run into a whole lot of world leaders, which I’d never have got by sitting at home, even in a capital city like Canberra. So it’s
Jason Elkins (01:33:07.137)
huh, yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:33:21.917)
Mm-hmm.
Mark (01:33:23.954)
There’s so much out there and this and it happens every day when you’re traveling. And so it’s a it’s a more engaged, richer life, which appeals to me and obviously appeals to a lot of people because this movement has has grown so strongly in recent years and it’s not shrinking now that Covid is not a major issue.
Jason Elkins (01:33:49.341)
Right. Very well said. Thanks, Mark. I appreciate all your time and wisdom and experiences. Fascinating story. And I look forward to connecting with you. yeah. we could probably do a whole series of podcast episodes. Actually, that might be an interesting. I don’t know if you guys have thought about doing a Nomad podcast, maybe already doing it, but it seems like it would align really well with your brand.
Mark (01:33:57.518)
and you, Jason, thank you, because you’ve got a thousand and one stories. We probably could interview back in return about your own stories.
Mark (01:34:16.133)
Yeah, we may do. But as you know, it’s a lot of work and we already have a whole grading platform that we built from scratch to deal with 50,000 Nomads a month. It is busy. So maybe we’ll hold that one off to the investors coming board.
Jason Elkins (01:34:21.923)
It is a lot of work.
Jason Elkins (01:34:30.457)
Yeah, you got your hands full.
Jason Elkins (01:34:36.435)
All right, Mark, well, we’re gonna stay in touch and I’m gonna.
Jason Elkins (01:34:42.001)
Yeah, okay. And I’m gonna bounce over to your website and spend some more time on there when I’m looking for my next spot for sure. And the lunch, the brunch thing is like, I would do that every week. I’m just, that sounds fascinating. so anyway, the link to the websites in the show notes. So anybody that’s listening, feel a connection with Mark, if anything we discussed sounds fascinating, I click on the link, go take a look because it’s pretty cool. So Mark, thank you so much. Appreciate you.
Mark (01:34:54.04)
Yeah.
Mark (01:35:07.182)
Fantastic. Thank you, Jason. Great.
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