Digital Nomad Family Travel Tips: Finding Events & Things to Do Anywhere in the World

You've landed somewhere new. The bags are unpacked. And then comes the question every travelling family knows too well — so what do we actually do here?

This week I'm back with Julie Talbot — British ex-expat turned global nomad — who after 12 years in the UAE took the leap into full-time family travel with her husband and children. She's worldschooling her kids, running a UK property business remotely, and somehow always seems to know exactly what's on, what's worth doing, and where to find the kind of experiences that don't show up in a Google search.

This is Episode 3 of our special 4-part travel creator series. This week — the practical stuff that makes nomadic family life actually work.

In this episode: 

🗺️ Where Julie finds events and things to do in every new destination 

📱 The apps, websites and communities she swears by 

👨‍👩‍👧 How to keep a travelling family engaged and entertained 

💡 Tips for finding local experiences over tourist ones 

About Julie: Julie Talbot is an ex-expat turned global nomad. After 12 years in the UAE she and her family took the leap into full-time travel — worldschooling her children while running a UK property business remotely. She proves every day that location independence isn't just possible, it's extraordinary.

📸 @julierosetalbot 

Previously on the podcast with Julie: 🎙️ The Silk Road

Chapters: 

00:00 — Introduction 

00:29 — Meet Julie Talbot 

15:59 — Truly Expat Travel Introduction 

16:28 — Travel Guides & Destinations

Join me live on Instagram: Every last Wednesday of the month I go live with a different travel creator. Keep an eye on my stories for the time — @trulyexpattravel

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Transcript

An introduction to four travel creators and their unique perspectives

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Four creators. Four completely different ways of seeing the world. And between them, one tip to generally stop me with my tracks and make me rethink how I travel. One hack that I think will change the way that you travel. One hack that could save you lots of time planning. And one travel advice that I think everybody should know. I've been doing Instagram reels or Instagram lives with content creators. I do one a month. And I

The value of curated tips and travel hacks shared by creators

SPEAKER_00 0:31

thought this information is too good to just leave out there into the universe. I thought it actually needed to be told again and again. And so that's why I've created this next four episodes basically talking about all these tips and advice. So I'm your host, Paula Barnes, and today I actually have Julie Talbot on. And we talk a lot about digital being a digital nomad. And she is a freedom strategist, really, really interesting woman who was on my podcast one of my first podcasts for Truly Expat Travel. And she talked about Silk Road. So if you want to go back and listen to that. Otherwise, let's get started.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Welcome aboard Truly Expat Travel, where we're ditching the guidebooks, fastening our seatbelts, and diving into

Meet Julie Talbot, a freedom strategist and digital nomad

SPEAKER_00 1:30

real stories from travelers who have traded the ordinary for the extraordinary, proving the world really is too big to be left upon the table. Cabin crew be seated and ready for takeoff. Okay, okay, okay, I think I've got you. Are you there? Are you here? You're added as a moderator, but what does that even mean? Does that mean naturally feel silly? I'm just talking to myself. Okay, okay, you've clicked the request button and I have accepted and talk about not technology, technologically savvy. I mean like the dinosaur. I really struggled with that. I was like, okay, I

How diverse viewpoints inspire better travel planning

SPEAKER_00 2:21

can I can't even add you, I can't find you. So apologies. You've done it. You've done it.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Well done. And you know, I've got a huge confession. Like I I think regularly struggle with time differences. I get them mixed up, and I was so diligent when we

The importance of continuous learning from travel content creators

SPEAKER_01 2:38

planned our time. I had it an hour on. I just saw your message, like, no, it's no! Like I was getting ready for the in an hour from now. So oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

That's okay. That's okay. So you're in the pool. Let's let's just do a quick introduction about who you are, where you are, and then we'll go into a couple of questions.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Okay, so I'm Julie. I am a UK property investor, property property strategist. So I help people figure out how to grow

Why I’ve compiled these tips into a series for fellow travelers

SPEAKER_01 3:05

a property portfolio in the UK from outside of the UK. Or I help people who have a property business in the UK, but if they want to live overseas, then like I help them, you know, organise their property business so they can do it all without being in the UK. We travel full-time. We used to be expats, we now travel full-time, and we're here in Nepal. At the moment, we've just done a um a dog walk with the community dog shelter here in Kathmandu.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Oh wow. And so just a quick one why are you in Kathmandu?

A special conversation with Julie Talbot on digital nomad life and Silk Road insights

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Can you explain? Yes, we're in Kathmandu because we're hosting a meetup for the traveling families. So from Sunday, we have 19 travelling families, and we are all exploring Kathmandu together for seven days, and then we go on to Kathmandu. Sorry to Pokhara, and a week or so later we spend another week exploring Pokhara together.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

How exciting. So you are the perfect person to ask the questions that I'm going to about to ask. So the first one is when you land in a place, because I mean you're doing long-term. So most people travel just for a week or two, but you do long stints, like a month, two months, three months. How do you find out what to do if you're not a type of person that wants to plan all the time? How do you find events and things and activities of what to do when you land?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah. So full disclosure, we don't I I don't tend to plan beforehand. Like some for this trip we've had to because we're hosting 19 families, but often we arrive and I'd be like, okay, so we're here. So many, a few different ways. I I like to we do 10,000 steps a day. So we'll just the first one of the first things we'll do is we'll just walk around. You know, it's walk around the area with no particular plan other than we're just gonna walk around and do 10,000 steps. You know, we're just kind of maybe we'll have a route, but if we if we see a direction, we'll just go off in it. So generally it's walking around the city or or the town in which in which you are. And you know, you just see things as you're going around. Maybe you stop for a tea, maybe you see, you know, a poster in a in a coffee shop, or quite often toilets have like signs on doors and things like that. So just have it having our eyes open with no particular plan, just to wander, you know, wander around and do our 10,000 steps. That that's something that we do, that we do everywhere. Another thing I like to do is we like to get public transport when we're in a place. So, you know, if we need to go somewhere, yes, you can always, you know, book a taxi or get get get like the you know accommodation to organise something for you. But you can generally have a bit of an adventure if you just get on the local bus system or get you know that whatever the local transport is, it might go wrong and you might get lost. But then you find out things along the way. There's quite often posters that you can pick things up, you know, advertising local activities. And sometimes I'll end up chatting to people, you know, whilst I'm on the bus and just like you know, random, random conversations. It makes my kids cringe when I chat to someone on a bus or something like that. But you know, we just get good information.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Sorry, do you use any apps or any other type of like social media to find out as well?

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Sometimes, so we uh we had the most amazing street food tour in in in Kathmandu, actually, through through get your guide. And so we looked on there, and there's a just like you know, local guy who you know it's it's just him, and we had a brilliant food tour. So sometimes we look on there and find amazing things, something sometimes nothing takes our fancy from there, but we just sort of you know book those when we're in in the city and you know tend to book it for the next day. I mean Google Maps, we use Google Maps for things. Sometimes I'll use all trails for like routes and things like that, and download the maps. But in terms of like events and activities, sometimes we'll look on maybe a little a local Facebook group and something like that just to see what's going on. I think they're the main ones, I think.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

So how do we find out what's happening this weekend, for example? Like what are the locals doing, and how do you find out information from them or you know, rather than the tourist big, big tourist spots?

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, so similar to what you said, Ru, you know, asking, like, if we do get taxis or grabs or wing drives or whatever, you know, like we'll ask a we'll ask a taxi driver, you know, what's going on. We posters and things, you know, like in a in a local coffee shop, you there are some coffee shops that are maybe like, you know, quite touristy and mainstream, and there's some that are more like in local areas where you'll see like local community events and community activities. So we'll, you know, go and go and look at those and see and and see what's going on. Quite often in places there'll be like a community Facebook group, um, you know, just for that, for that city. So we'll look in there for things that are posted. And yeah. Sometimes just like walking around, just like doing your yeah, yeah, yeah, old school. You know, I don't tend to find I don't tend to find a lot of the stuff we do from like, you know, googling what to do this weekend because I tend to find that's the stuff that somebody's advertising or promoting. And I just, you know, I I tend to I just we tend to find things from like walking around, speaking to people, you know, finding a local coffee shop that we like, asking around in there. Yeah. Uh there's no one silver bullet as well. It's like different things in in different places.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

I guess it depends on where you are and where you're where what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

I so can we so we're here at the moment for for example, we're here at the moment at this dog shelter. There's 170 dogs. They do like hikes through the through the forest. We found them on the notice board in a in a coffee shop in in Kathmandu. I hadn't seen them on Facebook, I hadn't seen them advertised, I've not seen them in a blog, and we yeah, we just had the most amazing time here last year, and now we brought our friends back here this year.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

It's definitely old school. Just in a coffee shop. Do you know? I'm gonna go back to where you said about get your guide, because I I truly believe that's that's kind of I don't have as much time, the luxury of time with that you do have. So when I go to a new place, hi when I go back to when I go to a new place, I do the same thing. I go get your guide either like a walking tour or a food tour. Because the because the guides really know their stuff, right? So you can pick their brain on what's going on, yeah. You know, if there's anything to do. Because I find if I've got a couple of days spared, they're the people that I speak to to figure out where I'm gonna go. So I like that.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

And quite and quite often the get your guides, they do other things as well, but maybe they haven't got on get your guides, but then they can you know talk to you about other things. Like the the guy who did the food tour with us, he just sent me a WhatsApp message yesterday with you know, Julie, whilst you're here, here's a load of other things for you. I'm just so you know, so um so kind. So if you're in a place for a bit longer, then you know that you you've got a contact there for for doing that.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

The other, you know, the other one I would suggest, I jumped in an Uber, I think I told you this story. I jumped in an Uber just recently in IPO, and the Uber driver said to me, Oh, you're only here for a day, blah blah blah. She ended up being a tour guide. She took me for a full day tour of the area that was probably half the price of what I would have paid on a normal tour. And also, it was one-on-one experience, and I felt super safe in her presence, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

So that's yeah. That is a good we did something really similar yesterday. We went to Nagakot and I got the I got the in it's in drive here, not Grab or anything. So I got the in-drive to this like mountain village, and I was going to walk around, and I just kind of like the driver was leaving, he was like, Oh, what are you gonna do? And I said, Oh, I don't know. So we struck up on this dealing if we doubled the price, then he'd stay with us for a couple of hours, drive us around and take us home again. So there's always lots of transport options that you can book, but you're exactly right. Sometimes you can just make a really tactical plan with your uh, you know, with your taxi driver.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, and they'll and they'll know what's going on for the weekend and stuff and events that are happening as well. So even if they don't take you around, at least they can give you some other options. Do you have any other advice for people?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Oh, something we've done really recently, and I've just been talking to somebody about it today, and they they did it because we did it and they had the same brilliant experience. So, as a travelling family, we decided to stay in a hostel. Which I would never normally thought of a hostel. Like for me, hostels like backpackers, and like, you know, it's kind of like a different season of life. But you know, we stayed in in hostels and we met so many different sorts of people. Like, you know, some people were doing driving tours across, like, you know, continental, Asian continent, some people were, you know, like retired and doing trips. There was some other families, there were some like, you know, pairs of 20-year-olds who were doing trips, but we met a really different demographic of people who, you know, to talk to and to learn from. And some of the hostels were like co-working space hostels. You had people who lived there, who worked there. So again, you just you're learning from people who who live there who are sort of like freelancing but working for like different organizations, and it just brought such a rich experience to us being in um we were in Kyrgyzstan actually. Yeah, and we stayed in a few hostels. So I would never have thought of a f as a family to go and stay in a hostel, but it was it, you know, it's something now that I I would definitely look at again because we booked a room of four, so yes, we're in bunk beds, but there are some really, really boutique hostels about these days, like you know, it's not the hostel that that I used to stay in. Um really, really different. And they have kitchens, you can cook for yourself. We were baking cakes and biscuits, the kids were like, you know, serving up biscuits to all the other residents and staff and stuff, so and that it has focused on like community activities as well. So that's a bit of a really new hack for us, actually.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

That's a great tip, actually, because I think these days, not all hostels, because there are some hostels that are still a little bit like dorms and stuff, but there are a lot of hostels now that are brand new that are catered for families that you can have your own rooms, you can have your own privacy, and so it's not really that you know, bunk bed kind of communal feel that you used to have to do back when I was backpacking many, many years ago. Many, many years ago. Not that long toilet. Last week, it's just last week. Yeah, it was just I was 21 just last week. But yeah, but yeah, I think that's a really good one because I think people forget that these are great ways to learn. And because you know what? Back in the day when I was backpacking in my 20s, that's how you found out all the information because you didn't have the internet, right? So where are you going today? Oh, I found this great blah blah blah blah. And that's that's also a really good hack because they're the little hidden gems that aren't all over the internet. I think we may have lost her. Maybe it's just me, and I don't know if I'm still going, but I think we may have lost her because I don't know if Nepal has great internet access. But maybe I need to finish it there and thank her. And maybe she can see these a little bit later. But thank you everybody for coming on. I know people have jumped on, jumped off. Thank you for joining me on the Truly Expat Travel podcast. If you liked this episode and you found it valuable, then why don't you go ahead and like and subscribe so that you don't miss an episode moving forward. I've got some amazing guests and some fantastic destinations coming up. But if this is the episode and this is the destination destination that you really want to go to, then I suggest you head over to truly expatravel.com where you'll find travel guides and deep dive into this sort of destination. If that's not what you want and you can't find an episode that is a destination you want to travel to, then head over and follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok because I'm pretty sure you'll find something there. In the meantime, safe travels, and I'll see you next week.