126 | Who do you Adventure with? (Carissa from Feed us Adventures)
Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design
Release Date: 09/27/2023
137 | Moving abroad with the Appino Family
Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design
Welcome to Ordinary Sherpa, the podcast dedicated to helping families embrace adventure, challenge the status quo, and design a life that aligns with their values. I’m your host, Heidi Dusek, and today, we’re diving into a topic that’s both exhilarating and daunting—moving abroad with your family. After years of exploring the U.S. and traveling the world, today’s guest, Jon, and his family found themselves craving something deeper than just another trip. What if, instead of just visiting a place, you actually lived there? What if you intentionally chose a location based on the...
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136 | International Gap Year with Teens via the_Axplorers
Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design
I didn’t know the concept of a gap year was available to me. As a mom in my 40’s with 3 school aged kids I thought I missed out. There weren’t many examples of families taking a mid-life break from professional careers and taking kids out of school to travel. The examples I had found were existing entrepreneurs and homeschool families. We were entrenched in daily life with activities, work and school schedules that required us to be placed-based. A family gap year meant a complete disruption from what we had to where we wanted to go. Throughout our adventure...
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135 | Building a Business that Supports Your Lifestyle with Jacque Hopkins
Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design
Much like our guest today, my motivation for pursuing gap year life was not that I hated my job. I just had a vision for something bigger and a window of opportunity with my kids that seemed like it might be closing. When we started to get really serious about Gap Year Life it was pretty obvious that our life didn’t cost that much. I didn’t need to build a business to replace our salaries, we simply needed enough of a runway to support an extended break. Sometimes when pursuing the alternate path, it can feel like all or nothing. Goals may have been crafted...
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134 | Lessons from 466 days of Travel
Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design
In this episode, we explore our family's transformative journey of 466 days of travel and the lessons we learned along the way. Discover how our gap year experience reshaped our outlook on life and home. Tune in to hear about cultivating a home filled with adventure, self-directed learning, and the joys of living with less while gaining more. Website for this episode Subscribe to the email list to follow updates on their travel memoir style book: Email Heidi for questions you have about gap year or to inquire about 1:1 coaching:
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133 | International Teaching Lifestyle Decisions with Kids (Christine & David)
Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design
Our guests today are parents we met at a playground in Alaska. Our lives intersect through many similar interests and after a 2+ hour parking lot conversation, some time together geocaching, a beach day with swimmers itch and swapping favorite RV stories I decided it would be great to continue the conversation on the podcast. Christine and David vistit their Alaska roots each summer but align with International Teaching community. With previous placements in Jamaica, China and Guatemala and the unique decisions and lessons that accompanied each stage. Join us as...
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132 | Finding Home through RVing with Joshua Sheehan of RV Gear and Far
Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design
In true RV fashion, this loop has not been unscathed from RV fixes. As we field more and more inquiries about RV life, one area that comes up are in the technical aspects of RV ownership. In our transition to RV life, my husband went from being a high school tech ed teacher (IE shop classes) to becoming a certified RV technician. If you or someone you know is interested in RVing or looking for resources when it comes to owning an RV and the maintenance required, Brent (my husband) is a handy resource to have. His is a helpful starting point to buying and...
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131 | Grace Periods and Embracing the Power of Pause
Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design
In the fast-paced world, where every moment seems to be driven by deadlines, notifications, and the relentless pursuit of productivity, there's a quiet revolution taking place—one that involves the deliberate act of hitting pause. II have hit pause several times on the podcast this year. In spite of a underlying sense of guilt, I dug deeper into the transformative power of intentionally taking breaks, as experienced by someone who decided to embrace the "Power of Pause" in a year like no other during our family gap year. I recognize I am publishing this episode while steeped in...
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130 | Better than Average Podcasting with Jonathan Mendonsa from Choose FI
Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design
Podcasting is a medium that has allowed me to 10x my network, have meaningful conversations with people I wouldn't otherwise have access to, elevate the stories rarely shared in the industry, and establish my voice and share my story. It wasn't until working with a few podcast coaching clients that I realized that while there is more happening behind the scenes, it doesn't mean everything has to be official there for me to share this episode. Show Notes: If you do have a podcast or are interested in starting one the link to schedule a podcast or podcasting resources to...
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129 | 10 Simple Ways to Infuse Adventure into your Life
Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design
The basis of our gap year is the foundation of simple and inexpensive adventures we do as a family. Within this episode, you'll discover 10 curated simple adventures that can be embarked upon with ease. From hidden trails to local landmarks, from unique flavors to thrilling challenges, each adventure is designed to ignite your family's imagination and create lasting memories. I know this because over the past 10 months (and quite honestly past 5 years) our bustling family of five has tested these simple adventures. Why simple adventures, you may wonder? Well, they are the perfect remedy for...
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128 | Experimenting with Indulgence
Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design
Periodically during our family gap year life in the RV, we have moments when we start to feel like we are missing the comforts of home. When people ask what we miss from home the kids often - having a bedroom door (instead of a privacy black out curtain), a dishwasher, hot showers that don’t require us to turn on the hot water heater nor having to listen to the groan of the water pump. Much like the novelty of travel, simple indulgences take us out of our daily routine and can offer a refresh. In this episode I want to lean into how we might experimenting with indulgences...
info_outlineAs you heard in the last episode we are 9m into our family gap year. This recording comes days after meeting up with a previous Ordinary Sherpa guest from episode 109| Living your Childhood Dreams. and continually grateful for the stories and connections that have helped us in taking steps and moving forward on this journey. We love meeting up with friends and strangers and the best platform to do that is through Boondockers Welcome, a part of the Harvest Host family. We’ve had over 20+ stays through this platform this year and are always intrigued by the connections and unique stories and generous people we meet. If you are interested in RVing I highly encourage considering a membership or becoming a host. If you use my link in the show notes: http://Ordinarysherpa.com/HarvestHosts to do so you’ll not only receive a discount but support Ordinary Sherpa in the process.
Our guest and I met in a natural hot spring in Stanley Idaho. We were experimenting with the idea of a gap year traveling in an RV with 3 kids on a 34 day sabbatical to test our current gap year potential. Carissa (and her husband Chuck) were already traveling full-time in their 25' RV with their two kids and dog. They spent the past few years becoming debt free, minimizing their belongings, working hard, playing harder, and homeschooling their kids. In 2020 they sold their house and hit the road to travel around America so they could focus on spending more time together, living a healthy lifestyle.
Meeting people ahead of you on the journey offers adventure sparks sometimes igniting new ideas or experiences. From that interaction we began following each other on social media. Our kids bonded over Harry Potter stories and through their daughter's suggestion my daughter has since begun the Percy Jackson series and her interest in Greek Mythology. It was even one of their taco recipes that sparked us trying tajun seasoning which is now a must have for so many of our meals. (If you aren’t familiar, Tajun is a chili lime seasoning that is not spicy). Through their examples of prioritizing self-care, clean eating, and fitness to maximize this time in their lives, they inspire others to live a healthy lifestyle and embark on their own adventures. Carissa from Feed Us Adventures, Welcome to Ordinary Sherpa.
We’ll have a conversation and share a bit of your backstory, what intrigued you to the RV lifestyle, what’s important to you. How do you do this life with kids. I’d like to talk about your focus on health and well-being and stead the conversation towards any action you’d like the audience to take.
Worth noting, I have found that I really enjoy podcasting and having conversation without all the ads and interruptions many podcasters use. If you enjoy the ideas, find joy or inspiration from my work, you can buy me a coffee to say thanks and support the show. If you want to go deeper with the content and/or get more engaged you can find additional ways to support the show through the links below.
Website for this episode: https://ordinarysherpa.com/126
Subscribe to the email List: https://ordinarysherpa.com/subscribe/
Join Harvest Hosts using our link to access our favorite type of travel, get a discount and support Ordinary Sherpa: http://Ordinarysherpa.com/HarvestHosts (Boondockers Welcome and CampScanner are our favorites)