Adventure Travel with Erin Carey - Roam Generation

Erin Carey
Director
Roam Generation

Erin Carey is the founder of Roam Generation, a PR agency dedicated to helping brands and experts in the travel, adventure, and lifestyle sectors grow. Roam Generation was originally founded on a yacht as Erin and her family sailed around the world. Despite having no prior sailing experience, Erin and her husband and three boys pursued their dream of leaving the rat race, bought a yacht on the other side of the globe, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean just 18 months later.

With her adventurous spirit, lived experience, and sheer determination, Erin and her team share their clients' stories with media outlets in both Australia and the US. They boost brand awareness, elevate credibility, and generate a buzz, transforming brands from unseen to unstoppable through a fresh approach to traditional PR. Roam Generation’s mission is to share the gift of travel and adventure with as many people as possible because, for Erin and her team, travel has been life-changing.

summary
In this episode, Erin Carey shares her incredible journey from a suburban life in Australia to sailing around the world with her family. She discusses the pivotal moment that inspired their adventure, the challenges they faced while preparing for and living on a boat, and the lessons learned along the way. After returning to land, Erin reflects on the importance of community, the power of storytelling through PR, and how she built her own PR agency. The conversation emphasizes the significance of identity, taking action, and the belief that anyone can achieve their dreams with determination and the right mindset.

takeaways

• The decision to sail was inspired by a documentary.
• Both Erin and her husband were fully committed to the adventure.
• Preparation for sailing took over two years.
• Life on the boat was filled with challenges and learning experiences.
• Returning to land was an adjustment for the family.
• Community and connection are vital for travelers.
• PR is about sharing stories to grow brands.
• Building a PR agency was a journey of self-discovery.
• Everyone has a story worth sharing.
• Taking action and setting a date can lead to achieving dreams.

Learn more about Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Marketing and join our private community to get episode updates, special access to our guests, and exclusive adventure travel offers at bigworldmadesmall.com.

Transcript

Jason Elkins (00:01.149)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. Today we're going to go a slightly different direction, not really a completely different direction, but my guest today is Erin Carey. She's the director of Rome Generation. I'll let her tell you a little bit more about what that means, but she is actually a PR person and has recommended several of the guests that we've had here on the show. And I'd had a little bit of communication with her back and forth and something told me that maybe she should actually be on the show.

And when I dug a little deeper and learned a little bit about her story, was like, yes, absolutely. She needs to be here. Erin, thank you so much for joining us. really appreciate having you here.

Erin Carey (00:40.086)
Hi Jason, thank you so much for having me.

Jason Elkins (00:42.629)
And just real quick, so obviously your accent's a little different than mine. Where are you calling us from?

Erin Carey (00:49.302)
from Adelaide Australia so bottom middle.

Jason Elkins (00:53.011)
All right. Isn't technology pretty cool? Because I said, where are you calling from? We're actually in a video call for those of our listeners that don't don't don't realize that so we can at see each other's faces. But isn't it cool that we can have this conversation? You're in Australia. I'm in Colombia. We're going to talk about clients and things that involve the whole the whole world, literally. So super excited to jump into that. And let's start. This is kind of the normal place I like to start because I feel like everybody I chat with.

has an interesting story and it's not so much about what they're doing now. It's about all of the stuff that happened early on that got us to the point that we're at now. So Aaron, how far back should we go to kind of get an understanding for why you and I are having this conversation right now?

Erin Carey (01:34.69)
We probably have to go back to about 2015. yeah. Well, we might need to, you know, talk about a few things prior to that, but I think really that's when we made the life changing decision that we made. So from then things got a bit different. Well,

Jason Elkins (01:38.223)
Okay, we can go further back than that, we can start there. All right.

Jason Elkins (01:55.047)
Tell us about it. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Erin Carey (02:00.142)
I was, I am a mother of three kids. At that time, back in 2015, there were very little and we were a regular family living in the suburbs. My husband and I both worked full time for the government and we were just kind of a little bit miffed about the amount of hours that we worked and the lack of time that we had with our kids. And we had kind of said things like, it'd be cool one day to travel around Africa or go and live in Spain for a couple of years.

but had never made any plans because at that stage we had a one year old. But one night we were watching Netflix as you do and we hadn't discussed what we were going to watch. think my husband just popped on a documentary and I was looking on my phone, wasn't even intending on watching. And he played Laura Decker's documentary. So she was the youngest girl to have ever sailed around the world.

And something in that documentary just captured both of our attentions because I remember putting my phone down, not touching again the entire show. And we just sat and watched the whole thing in silence. And then at the end, the credits are rolling. And I remember we both just turned to each other and went, wow, we should do that. And that was quite honestly it. That is how we made our decision to buy a boat and sail halfway around the world with our kids. So.

Yeah, after two years and two months of all the preparations, learning, saving, figuring it all out, we finally set sail on our journey. But yeah, there's obviously a lot more to it, but that's kind of the gist of how we went from being regular folk in the suburbs to living on a boat for four years and sailing halfway around the world. But now I am back on land.

not living that exciting life anymore.

Jason Elkins (03:53.265)
All right, I've got a few questions already. know I'm going to have many more, but I think the first question I want to ask is because I don't know where Adelaide is. It's on the coast, right? I most places in Australia are where most people live, right?

Erin Carey (04:04.384)
Yeah that's true, yeah we are on the coast but we're on the bottom of Australia so our coast isn't as beautiful as Queensland, it is still lovely but also the oceans are a bit more treacherous down here than they would be if we were on the east coast of Australia.

Jason Elkins (04:19.375)
Okay, because I do know that sailing is a big thing in certain parts of Australia. I mean, there's some well-known things around sailing, but I'm curious, had you been sailing before you watched this Netflix documentary?

Erin Carey (04:33.694)
So my dad was a sailor but we're talking on dinghies in an inland lake. So I grew up in Wogorga which is five hours from any coastline. So we saw the beach once a year. So I did grow up on dad's boat but sailing but we're talking like 16 foot at the most. We bought a 47 foot boat so we had never done anything like that and my husband wasn't a sailor. I don't think he'd ever been sailing so...

Yes and no. I'd say mainly no.

Jason Elkins (05:03.827)
All right. Okay. That's all right. And I guess the other part of the equation that had you guys talked about doing, I mean, you said you kind of thought about maybe traveling to Africa or going different places. Had you traveled anywhere together at that point?

Erin Carey (05:22.828)
We were travel lovers, we, what did we do? We had, we started off with the Contiki tour around Europe, which is kind of like a rite of passage that plenty of Aussies go and do. So we did that together at early twenties. We'd done six weeks around South America, sorry, for our honeymoon. And then we'd done six months backpacking around Europe and Asia as well.

and we've been on a couple of overseas trips with our kids too. So we did love travel, but probably a little bit more so me and kind of like bringing my husband along.

Jason Elkins (06:03.408)
Would you, okay, that's interesting. When it got to the point of you both were like, okay, intrigued by this documentary, you both took some actions and then you went and did it. I can imagine where maybe the person driving that, I'm not sure driving is the right word since we're talking about sailing, but you know what I mean? The person driving that, did that change sometimes where there are points in time where one of you is more enthusiastic about the other and who was generally more enthusiastic?

Erin Carey (06:32.654)
Amazingly and I really don't know how this happened but we were both 100 % on board because I think it would have worked out if we weren't and we've never had anything that we've both been 100 % on board about before or since so I just don't know how it happened. Normally it's me having the crazy ideas and my husband kind of talking me off the ledge and then you know we don't do it but this time

Jason Elkins (06:47.623)
Ha

Erin Carey (07:00.054)
he was 100 % on board as well. Like don't get me wrong throughout the two years and two months that it took to save, because we had to make a lot of sacrifices. There were definitely times where I was like, I'm so sick of not being able to buy an item of clothing or, you know, having to think about every single dollar that I spend. So there were times where I got tired of it, times where he got tired of it, but luckily there was never a time when both of us got tired of it, so.

Jason Elkins (07:26.867)
And that would be really tough if one of you is less enthusiastic about it because I mean, anybody that's ever been in a relationship where you are attempting to do your finances together, you know, it's very seldom that you both have the same priorities and the same goals. so that's a, that, that in itself is pretty impressive. There's a few things that are impressive. One, just the idea of spending that time on a boat with your family and kids.

Erin Carey (07:37.921)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (07:44.575)
Exactly.

Jason Elkins (07:53.979)
I remember your story resonates with me because I remember, you know, quite a few years ago, I came across a series on YouTube of a couple that were traveling around the world in a sailboat. And I was like, my gosh, it was the most amazing thing I could, I would sit there and binge watch these YouTube videos, not just this one, cause I started watching all of them. And my

Erin Carey (08:14.584)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (08:18.243)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (08:19.611)
my poor wife at the time, you know, she sensed it. She knew that I was going crazy and, I was starting to, you know, we should do that. And we, and our son was probably about 11.

Erin Carey (08:23.736)
haha

Erin Carey (08:29.09)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (08:31.829)
we should do that. That would be amazing. We can travel, we can write stories and my son has autism. So I was envisioning this whole, wouldn't it be a great YouTube channel and blog posts. And I had it all figured out except for one thing. She was not having it. in hindsight, we're no longer married and I'm traveling full time, but in hindsight, it was probably a good thing because, you know, because we didn't have that similar vision.

Erin Carey (08:40.513)
You

Erin Carey (08:45.467)
Your wife? Yeah.

Jason Elkins (09:00.147)
And she's absolutely right. She's like, if you and me and Jackson were on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean, I don't think that would work. And which leads me into a couple, a couple of things. One, you started saving money. You mentioned that it was two years and two months. Okay. What was the first big like action step? Cause oftentimes when we do something like this, there's some thing it's like.

Erin Carey (09:00.204)
Hmm.

Erin Carey (09:06.905)
Mmm. Yeah.

Erin Carey (09:16.354)
Mm-hmm

Jason Elkins (09:24.551)
We're going to give notice on a job. We're going to sell a house. We're going to actually buy the boat. Was there a big action item other than just kind of saving? I mean, what's the first big thing you did that it was like, okay, we almost can't go back now.

Erin Carey (09:34.115)
Cough

Erin Carey (09:39.554)
good question. I think what it was was announcing to our family and friends what we were doing. So I remember exactly we were having like an early Christmas lunch. So it was early December when we watched the documentary. This might have been around the 15th of December. All my family were at the dinner table and Dave and I announced what we were going to do. I think someone choked on their meat.

Jason Elkins (09:43.379)
that.

Jason Elkins (10:03.645)
What you were, I'm curious, was it, this is what we're going to do or we're thinking about this. How did you present it? They're like, we're doing it. Okay.

Erin Carey (10:08.874)
No, this is what we're doing and that language never changed the entire time and we were very careful about that. We didn't say, you know, one day when we get on the boat or we might be going on the boat. It was like when we got on the boat and I think that was a small but critical part of the lead up that we just never envisaged that we would fail. We just knew that it would happen and we

used that language and we acted as though it was going to happen. So yeah we announced it to the table, someone choked on their drink, someone almost spat a drink out. I remember my sister saying that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard, my dad saying you know you guys are you gonna kill yourselves it's ridiculous you know you can't do that with three young boys and and mum was worrying and it was a total killjoy it just

Jason Elkins (10:41.747)
It's important.

Erin Carey (11:05.804)
ruined the entire mood of the Christmas lunch. It made Dave and I annoyed because then we're like, you know, they're not going to bring us down. We're going to do it even more now. So we were even more determined after their negative reaction. But yeah, I think just telling them that and going, can't put that back in the bag. We're definitely going to do it now. And them reacting negatively to it, that just made us want to do it even more.

Jason Elkins (11:18.662)
Wow.

Jason Elkins (11:33.043)
think so because if everybody's like, that's so cool. It's, know, sometimes we need to have that little, I don't know if it's chip on a chip on the shoulder, a little bit of somebody telling you, no, that's crazy. You can't do that. And some people will just say, yeah, you're right. I can't do that. But it's, but there's other people obviously like you and your husband that that probably inspired. Was there anybody in the family or at that lunch that kind of came to you and said, wow, that's, that's amazing.

Erin Carey (11:48.716)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (12:01.395)
I'm so excited for you or was it all just kind of that? No, this is, you're crazy.

Erin Carey (12:05.39)
I don't remember anyone being positive about it at that lunch. But it's not to say that they didn't get on board. My dad definitely got on board because he was a sailor. know, this was living his dream. He would have loved to have done what we did. So, know, dad got on board. Mum was always worried, but she did pretty good at hiding it. So, you know, she didn't she supported us. And we had a similar thing with Dave's side of the family.

It was almost like later and closer to the time and we're like, you guys still not using this idea? Like this is happening. But in the end, everyone was supportive.

Jason Elkins (12:43.219)
You you mentioned something interesting and you know, perhaps you're, you know, people in your family will listen to this someday. So I won't go too far down this course, but you mentioned something interesting because you, you right away said your dad, you know, I think he said he, you guys are going to kill yourself. You're going to get hurt. but then you turned around and said that it was kind of his dream and let's set your family aside for a moment and just have a discussion around dreams and how sometimes

Erin Carey (12:51.989)
You

Jason Elkins (13:11.633)
our parents or other people in our lives might have a dream, but they didn't fulfill, they didn't pursue it for one reason or the other. And then they see someone else that they care about that is pursuing it. And maybe even with more obvious obstacles. So I'm just imagining, you know, my daughter saying, I'm going to go do this with three young children and my husband. And I'm like,

man, I've wanted to do that my whole life, but I didn't do it because, you know, whatever, you know, because I was afraid to quit my job or something. and in your business now you've, you, we're going to get there, but you've met people along the way as well that I'm sure had similar experiences. I don't know any thoughts on that or should we go into the next subject?

Erin Carey (14:00.288)
Yeah, look, I, it seems to be pretty common, doesn't it? But I do feel very fortunate that I think we live in a different world now. Like it just wouldn't have been an option for my mum and dad. You know what I mean? Like it just, they were, and I mean, even though where I would say middle income earners, they were probably middle to lower, but yeah, I just don't see that they could ever have.

Jason Elkins (14:04.658)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (14:13.437)
That's true, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erin Carey (14:28.462)
pulled off what we pulled off just not because of them as people but more because of just how the world was back then. I mean Australians barely, I mean going to Fiji was a big deal or Bali you know back then so I don't think they could have ever ever fathomed doing what we did so I do feel very fortunate that we live in a time where you know and I am also aware of the privilege that you know

Jason Elkins (14:41.459)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (14:57.666)
we have that made us able to do that. But I do think that it is also available to so many more people than then they realized because we weren't special. We weren't rich. We're not rich. We didn't own a yacht at that stage. I literally had no idea what a yacht would cost. You could have told me it was 10,000 or a million. I had no idea. So we had to do Googling and the game. What does a boat cost?

kind of landed around the $100,000 mark, 100 US, and then we worked backwards from there. But I think if you're middle income earners, you've had a job and you've got the ability to save. Honestly, we didn't think we had the ability to save either. We were living week to week. We were like, there's no extra money. We saved 85,000 in two years, and that was from people who thought we didn't have any money to save.

Jason Elkins (15:52.275)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (15:52.674)
I think what I'm getting at is don't go, I'd love to do that, but I could never do that. Go, Erin did it. They weren't rich. They didn't have a boat. They weren't sailors. You know, they had three kids in the suburbs, middle kind of management jobs. If they can do it, then maybe we can too. And then just try and figure it out.

Jason Elkins (16:14.823)
Right. Yeah. No, great, great advice. Did you end up selling your stuff or were you able to keep the house and do this as well or?

Erin Carey (16:23.488)
Yeah, so we had kind of like two, two goes at it. So the first two years were in the Caribbean and we kept our house for that. And we also had leave of that pay from our jobs. So we both knew that the minute we came home, we stepped back into jobs. So that was a great safety net and we had savings. So we lived for those two years all around the Caribbean. I didn't have to work for the first year. And then in the second year was kind of feeling a bit, you know, there's only, only so many,

white sandy beaches and palm trees that you can lay on before you're ready to kind of use your brain a bit. So I started using my brain in the second year and that felt really good because I had never had a chance, know, where I wasn't working. We had done those backpacking trips, but this kind of felt different. I was inspired. I was older. I had a want to work and to make money. And so that really challenged me to go, what am I good at? What do I like?

I had that time and space to really lean into that. But so that, yeah, I'm getting off track here, but the second half, the second part of your question was after those two years, we needed a break. It seemed to be like this two year mark, it was actually about 22 months, both times where.

you know, we're all just over boat life. Boat life's hard and you just need a break around that period and we spoke to plenty of other people who agree everyone's got a different threshold, 18 months, two and a half years around that mark. So we came back to Australia in November 2019 and of course some of you know what happened in February 2020. So we were stuck in Australia essentially, what was meant to be three month

Jason Elkins (17:43.731)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (18:07.448)
holiday it turned into 18 months back in Australia and after 18 months back in Australia well we figured this out more probably around the sixth month eight month mark we knew we wanted to go back to the boat we still owned the boat the boat by that stage we had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and we were in the Azores so the boat was just sitting there in the Azores and we knew we wanted to go back

but we also wanted to feel a little bit different this time and not have all of the land things pulling us back, you know, being a landlord and dealing with house and stuff. So we sold the house that time around. and then we went again, but we only went for another two years because the same thing happened. We made the mistake of coming home for a holiday and yeah, in hindsight, that was a bad idea because the minute we got home, the kids who were now almost ready to go,

One should have been in high school by that stage, the other one would have been starting high school in a couple of months. They all said, we don't want to go back to the boat, we want to stay home. And that just got in our head and yeah, we stayed after that.

Jason Elkins (19:16.307)
Yeah.

Well, you said I'm interested because you said it was a mistake to come back because then the kids kind of didn't want to go back.

Was it a mistake? now you have hindsight, now you can look back, right? It's been, it's been a little while. So does it feel like it was really a mistake? I mean, do you wish that you had, do you still wish that you had not gone back or in the end is it, what do you think?

Erin Carey (19:32.558)
Mmm

Erin Carey (19:44.022)
It's a good question actually. I've never really thought or figured the answer to that one out. I think we needed to come home, I think just with the ages of the kids and to get them back into school for a bit. My son also has autism so I don't think we would have figured that out on the boat. It was always just like why is home school so hard? Why is this so difficult?

Now we know that because he has autism, difficulties, so we've got that kind of sorted. I do kind of wish we kept the boat, but then realistically without selling the boat, we wouldn't have been able to buy the house that we live in now. But don't get me wrong, that kind of not a day goes by where we don't think about going back to the boat or talk about going back to the boat.

So we are in this funny kind of limbo at the moment where we can't say 100 % that we're not going back to the boat but it feels a lot harder this time around.

Jason Elkins (20:47.889)
You've got that wanderlust. I, you know, for those of you that are listening to the show and can't see Aaron's face, I can see, I recognize that look. Let's put it, let's put it that way. Yeah. Okay. So what have you, you've got this wanderlust, wanderlust. What have you been able to do to kind of fulfill that? you, have you been traveling other ways or doing other things that kind of help?

Erin Carey (20:54.008)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (21:15.665)
meet that need or are you just really lacking because I'm looking at your face? I'm curious to see what you say.

Erin Carey (21:17.454)
Hmm

Erin Carey (21:24.209)
I think it, we've been back two years now. I think the first year was kind of, you know, the honeymoon phase. We were renting a house close to the city and we were, you know, trying to get out into the city and just appreciate all of the things back on land because when you're on a boat, of course you miss the things from land and when you're on land you miss the boat. But so

Possibly for the first 12 months, I didn't put much effort into filling that cup. But then in the second 12 months, I've definitely noticed that my cup needs filling. And so we have, we made the mistake of thinking that renovating a house would fill that cup. And very quickly I learned that that was not any sort of replacement. Yeah, it was.

Jason Elkins (22:14.621)
It almost sounds like the opposite to me. I just from.

Erin Carey (22:20.084)
It was honestly and it's like we became these different people on the boat and we learnt so much about ourselves and what we thought was important. Then we come home and we just go straight back to who we used to be doing what we used to do. And so I think for the last couple of years I've felt quite conflicted in like who am I? What do I enjoy? Why am I here? Why am I? What is my sole purpose?

Yeah, so anyway, long story short, renovating a house was not doing it for us and it was almost going against everything that we believed in because, we were essentially minimalists on the boat because we had no choice. The boat was so small and, you know, we were living our life and felt so connected to the nature and the ocean and then we come back and we're putting all of our money into a new kitchen, which has just been incredibly stressful and not fun at all. And we still don't have a kitchen because so many things have gone wrong.

Jason Elkins (22:59.186)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (23:19.808)
And so, yeah, my husband and I have said house renovations are not doing it for us. That they've got to just, we're going to finish off the bare minimum and then that's done. That doesn't bring us joy. So what we have gotten into recently is camping and it's, you know, it's got similarities to the boat. So we bought a forward drive and my husband's in the process of decking that all out. And funnily enough, it's got to have, you know, like an inverter and a battery and a solar panel and

similar things to the boat obviously in a much smaller scale. Yeah, I'll ensure it. And we're gonna go on a big road trip at Christmas. So we've got a month long holiday. We're gonna go up to Fraser Island and get into forward driving. So I think that is what we're kind of toying with at the moment. Is that gonna be enough? Possibly. We're also gonna try and get away, you know, as often as we can on weekends, long weekends, go camping, which we have done quite a bit of in this last kind of six months.

Jason Elkins (23:49.385)
a land yacht, right?

Erin Carey (24:15.286)
So that's, yeah, that's what we're implementing at the moment. Maybe a boat could be in our future, but it would be probably just, you know, down here in Adelaide. Whether those two things will be enough, I'm not sure.

Jason Elkins (24:29.075)
I'm curious because as I'm listening to you, hear, you know, we are trying to fill that gap and we're having these conversations and I'm hearing, I don't know if you're saying this, but I'm hearing you and your husband. So I'm really curious about the kids. Has there been a spot where you felt like they missed the boat or is it just like, do they talk about it? Do they, are they excited about going camping or is this just kind of you and your husband?

Erin Carey (24:43.724)
Mmm.

Erin Carey (24:55.63)
Yeah, so they're definitely excited about going camping and they all miss the boat at various times. So the problem is it's hard to get a day where all three of them miss the boat at the same time. And so that's exactly that is potentially why we haven't been able to come to a decision because to get all five of us on the same page at the same day has been hard. But certainly the 15 year old.

Jason Elkins (25:07.847)
Might actually be able to make some decisions, huh?

Jason Elkins (25:18.821)
I think you need to find a new Netflix documentary to watch together. Sometimes you got to stage these things a little.

Erin Carey (25:23.264)
Yeah, yeah right exactly. do. Yeah exactly. So the 15 year old, like I said, has autism, hates school. He'd get back on the boat in a heartbeat. So he's like a tick. Middle one is loving football and has mates and is doing pretty good at school. So he's like the one that he can kind of go back and forth. He's also a traveler.

applied for a scholarship to go to France for three months. So he definitely has the that one delust and the travel bug. But he's also torn between yeah, but I'm coming up to doing year 10 and what I'm just gonna not do year 10. I'll do it on the boat. That seems really hard or 10, 11, 12. So he's a like a maybe and swings back and forth and then the little one he's kind of like, you know, he doesn't know what day it is yet. It's yes one day, it's no another day.

I think he would also be pretty easy to convince you offering me, you know, a hundred bucks and it'll be like, okay. So yeah, it's hard. That makes it harder this time around because they're so opinionative and so much older. Whereas when they were like, when we first started, they were three, seven and eight, you know, they just wanted to be with mum and dad. didn't care what we doing. They were excited from day one.

Jason Elkins (26:25.914)
Yep. Yep. You know, it's

Jason Elkins (26:43.763)
Well, I have, I have two kids. my son who I mentioned has, has autism. would say around 14, 15, when I was watching the videos to go sailing, he could sit next to me and he'd be like, yeah, I'll go. He didn't like school. You know, he was, he was in a spot in his life where he wasn't necessarily making a lot of friends that he wanted to make and, that we wanted him to make. And he was like, yeah, I would go. then

Erin Carey (26:57.652)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (27:04.952)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (27:10.131)
I started traveling full-time three years ago. The first summer I took him for a couple months. did Central America. The second summer we went to Asia. Everything was fine. He could do two months, no problem. And now he just, you know, this last summer he was 17 and the plan was two months here in Columbia. And we made it about three weeks. And he's like, I miss my friends, you know, cause he's starting to make friends and I miss my friends. I want to go home, get a job. And so your 15 year old may, I mean,

Erin Carey (27:20.526)
Mm.

Erin Carey (27:32.396)
Hmm

interesting.

Jason Elkins (27:38.387)
Teenagers, it has nothing to do with autism. But other than the fact that sometimes, the child with autism a little younger, maybe doesn't have the friend network and it comes a little, maybe a couple of years later than some of your other kids in the family, but I trust it'll happen.

Erin Carey (27:41.195)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (27:51.416)
later. Interesting. Yeah, exactly. And that's why we feel we've got this very fine window if we were to go again. It's like we've got to go now and we might be able to squeeze two more years. But then after that, I think that'll be there'll be girlfriends and cars and jobs. So it's yeah, I think that also is making it a harder decision. I'm curious to know what was the YouTube channel that you watched?

Jason Elkins (28:12.679)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (28:20.878)
Do remember?

Jason Elkins (28:21.331)
was four or five years ago, five or six years ago. I do not remember. I'm sure you know, and that was one of the things I wanted to ask you about is some of the people that you met. Cause cause the last conversation you and I had, it sounded like you had met some interesting folks that were doing the YouTube thing and in your travels. So was there any stories in particular around that that you'd like to share? Cause I'd love to hear them.

Erin Carey (28:32.224)
Mmm

Erin Carey (28:45.102)
Yeah, well it was funny because I was almost waiting for you to say it was SV Delos. that's Delos is the name of their boat or they call it Delos you guys in America pronounce it different to us. Yeah and so we had been watching them in the lead up to our trip so it was YouTubers became an education we'd watch them every single night and we found various others. La Vagabonde is also the world's largest sailing channel, they're Australian. Yeah and so

Jason Elkins (28:55.453)
Sounds familiar. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (29:05.68)
Uh-huh.

Jason Elkins (29:10.065)
Yep, I've seen. Yep. Seen that. Yep. Yep. Aaron, is it appropriate for me to ask you if you have a sister? Just kidding.

Erin Carey (29:14.582)
Delos was our favourite. I do, I've got two other sisters, actually one single. But yeah, anyway, we'll talk about that later.

Jason Elkins (29:22.995)
I would love to meet somebody that would sit and watch YouTube videos and then go sailing. It's pretty cool. So anyway, so you're watching them.

Erin Carey (29:29.494)
Yeah, well, yeah. So yeah, we're watching Delos and they were like movie stars to us. You know, we really admired them. Super cool people. But you know, they're on TV. You just never dreamt that you'd actually meet them. Anyway, we're in Grenada, which was where we bought our boat. Side on scene, you. We flew over to Grenada, saw our boat for the first time up on stands and went, my God, it's enormous. How are we going to do this?

Anyway, so we're living in the boatyard for six weeks. My husband's fixing it up, doing all the jobs that we need to do. And we go to the supermarket one day and who should be there? But Delos, they're in the supermarket in Grenada. We did know from social media and from their videos that they possibly were in Grenada at the time. And so it was just like, you know, the hat can we get? How much more is it meant to be than this? And there were so many.

moments during the whole trip and the lead up to the trip that made me feel like I'm right where I'm meant to be, this is meant to be, the universe is conspiring to make all of this happen because there were too many things that were more than a coincidence which I love and I have an experience as being back on land which does make me feel like is this where I'm meant to be but anyway I digress.

Jason Elkins (30:46.099)
Well, it's interesting because, well, no, I get it because when you go to your family and tell them we're gonna do this and they're all like, no, I don't think so, this is crazy, whatever. The reality is, you know this, you two are different types of people. Your whole family is a different type of people than the average person. There's something about your personalities.

Erin Carey (31:06.509)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (31:11.921)
that fortunately you guys found each other and you had personalities that would do it together. But my point is that in my experience anyway, I spent an awful lot of time after my divorce waiting in Arizona, hoping to be inspired, hoping to maybe meet people that wanted to travel or meet people like me or that at least got it. And then finally I realized, you if I want to meet people that travel, you know, I was hooked on the digital nomad thing by then.

Erin Carey (31:32.46)
Mmm.

Erin Carey (31:40.194)
Mmm.

Jason Elkins (31:40.275)
And if I want to meet people that think that way and that, you know, I need to go where those people go. And for me, the plan was Thailand because Chiang Mai Thailand was where all the digital nomads were going. And, but with COVID was still kind of lingering. So Medellin, Columbia was the second place. And it was pretty amazing when I got here and I started meeting people that were like me, you know, like you meet.

Erin Carey (32:04.398)
you

Jason Elkins (32:06.109)
There's a few people here in Columbia that are not like me. I should preface that. That are here for other reasons than what I'm here for. But when I met other nomads and other travelers, whether they were from Europe, Australia, wherever it was, it's like, we just kind of, we're all kind of doing the same thing. And it just made, there was nobody. Well, maybe some Colombians think I'm crazy, but other than some Colombians that don't understand why I'm here by myself.

Erin Carey (32:22.392)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (32:33.277)
the other expats, the other travelers, just everybody got it. You know, there was no like, what are you doing here? Where you been going? And like, wow, that's crazy. You know, it's just like, yeah, cool. You know, and it's the tribe, right? It's kind of felt like I found my tribe when I started traveling. And you get that too, working in tourism. I worked in tourism for quite a while before that. And back in it now, and you meet, kind of meet your tribe. I suspect it's pretty much the same thing.

Erin Carey (32:42.604)
Yeah. Yeah.

Erin Carey (32:53.944)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (32:59.692)
Yeah, I mean, I'm lucky that I have really cool clients who are involved in tourism. So that gives me that kind of, you know, the talk about travel that I get to have each day and thinking about travel, I get that through that. I, yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. So when we're out and about, but that's the thing, there are a whole tribe of boat people.

Jason Elkins (33:13.659)
Well, and you saw them when you were sailing is what I was really touching on is when you were out and about traveling the world, you

Erin Carey (33:28.366)
for a lot of a better word, out there with their families or, you know, single or as a couple sailing the world. And so every person that we met was our people and that just doesn't happen back here. So we just loved that part of it. We had so many good friends, we have so many good friends, you know, like I know that I could send a message to Lizette in the Netherlands or Stacey in America and they would put us up if we said, we're going to America.

Jason Elkins (33:39.803)
Yeah, isn't that cool?

Jason Elkins (33:56.381)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (33:58.171)
We don't speak to them that often, you know, we just, were just such, such good people out there. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (34:01.223)
Yeah, there's that kinship and connection. I'm curious about something that I did hear about once, because when it became clear that I wasn't going to be sailing anywhere with my family, I came across something, and maybe you're familiar with it, but I was like, you could volunteer to be a third on a boat, especially if they're crossing the Atlantic or something like that. You need at least three. So there's a lot of couples doing this, and they need somebody else to go along.

Erin Carey (34:23.15)
Hmm.

Jason Elkins (34:27.111)
to kind of help out. I'm curious if anybody's listening to the podcast that's thinking, wow, that would be pretty cool, but I don't have anybody to do it with. Are you familiar with that? Is that like, if somebody was listening to this, wanted to go, wasn't in a place to buy a boat or didn't have somebody go with them, what would you suggest? I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Erin Carey (34:27.501)
Yep.

Erin Carey (34:41.272)
Hmm.

What I would say to get started is to just reach out to your local yacht, yachting club. Hopefully if you live on the coast, you'll have one. and then just jump on a boat. You probably got, you probably have around the beacon races. call it on a weeknight where they just go out for two hours and just do a course out in the, on the water. so that's what we did. The very first step we took was to just.

jump on a boat that was willing to take us. And so every Wednesday night, because we had little kids, I'd go one Wednesday and my husband would go the next. And that got us on a big boat. That was a 47 foot yacht. we just, every Wednesday we just had the hugest smile on our face. We loved it. And so anyone can do that.

Jason Elkins (35:25.543)
What's the benefit to the owner of the boat to let you hop on? Because I think I know what it is, but I don't want to make any assumptions. And I think people listening to this might think, I can't just go out and ask if I can ride on their boat. And I think there's more to it that maybe they should know before they do that.

Erin Carey (35:44.066)
Yeah, no, you're just helping crew the boat. So, you know, you get given a position. You might be at the start just sitting on the rails, literally just being like a ballast. And every time the boat jibes or whatever, you just have to swap sides and go sit on the other side. That alone was very fun because, know, you're out in the water. It's summer typically, so the sun's setting. And that was great. My husband, I found it a little bit daunting because

they're racing and typically racers take it quite seriously. So they were happy for me to just, for quite a while, just sit on the side on the rails and have my feet over the edge and enjoy the ride. I would do things like, you know, help pack up the sails afterwards and definitely muck in and do things to help. But my husband had more of an active role. He was like grinding on winches and sailing the boat essentially. He had...

Jason Elkins (36:25.415)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (36:38.738)
some crazy experiences, one race, it was really blowy out there and he was, I think he was grinding on a winch and then the boat jibed accidentally and the boom hit him in the head and as that happened someone fell overboard and so Dave's like gushing blood over his, I think over his eye and you've got somebody overboard and yeah Dave's just like you know the stories that he has from that experience, he's, he's a you know

Jason Elkins (37:02.151)
Cheers.

Erin Carey (37:08.302)
Wads going everywhere and he's trying to winch and he's leaning, they've to go, you know, go around and gone and picked up the person who's gone overboard. And he said he just like picked him up with his, you know, this amazing strength that you find in emergency situations and just like yanked him back on the boat. So it was just experience and you're there to help. So you've just got to muck in and do whatever it takes to help sail a boat. You'll get a job. It'll seem scary at the start, but you'll be fine.

Jason Elkins (37:21.383)
you

Jason Elkins (37:36.899)
I'm happy we had this discussion because I've probably watched more videos than most people, but, and I grew up in Wyoming in the mountains. didn't. So when, when my initial response, when someone says, down to the yacht club and find somebody to take you on their boat, like part of me is like, that's crazy. that's like such a huge barrier. That's like, go down to, you know,

Erin Carey (37:57.655)
Yeah

Jason Elkins (38:05.267)
know, in Beverly Hills somewhere and get somebody to drive you around in their McLaren car. I'm like, I'm not going to do that because these are rich people that own boats and, and why would they let me on the boat? Because I'm not an Instagram model or whatever, whatever stories I might have in my head. Right. so I think it's great that people can hear this and realize that it sounds like what I hear you saying is the boat owners are happy to have you. They almost need people to help out. so, so it's

Erin Carey (38:09.228)
Hmm

Erin Carey (38:12.941)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (38:18.162)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erin Carey (38:29.08)
Hmm, yeah, they're big boats and they need people. No.

Jason Elkins (38:32.625)
shouldn't be that intimidated. You don't need to show up and roll up in your Rolls Royce to go to the art club, right?

Erin Carey (38:37.934)
Exactly and I know that yachting sounds fancy but honestly most people are just like you and I. Generally yachties are pretty down to earth and the guy whose boat we went on, they were definitely very wealthy. He actually had a McLaren, funny story, he drove his McLaren one day to the Yacht Club, Mars was just like my god he's got a McLaren and a yacht and he had a power boot.

Jason Elkins (38:59.399)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (39:06.638)
But I digress, they're both lovely people. They also, funny story, said to us, do you know Riley from La Vagabonde? And we're like, yeah, he's like famous in our eyes, know, a bit like Delos. They were like, this is the very first boat that he came on when he wanted to go and sail around the world. He rang up the yacht club and we took him on our boat as well. So that was just like this, another little sign of like, what is...

Jason Elkins (39:17.523)
You

Jason Elkins (39:21.373)
Uh-huh.

Jason Elkins (39:26.673)
Really? That's cool.

Jason Elkins (39:33.991)
We're doing the right thing. We're on the right path, right?

Erin Carey (39:35.514)
What is the chances of that Riley came on this very boat and now we're coming on this very boat So yes, they will Pickle like people in general want to help you achieve your dream You know, if you're got this Energy and vibration of being excited and wanting to learn how to sail They're gonna take you under their wing and be like, you know, come yes, come on my boat. I'll help you

Jason Elkins (40:01.043)
You know, there's a parallel to my life. I grew up around hot air ballooning. So my grandfather, my grandfather were hot air balloon pilots. I became a hot air balloon pilot. My brother's a hot air balloon pilot. And you can go buy a balloon ride. There's a lot of companies that will sell you a balloon ride and you go buy a balloon ride for a couple hundred bucks or whatever for an hour. But what most people don't realize is balloons are big.

They're heavy. They're not something that you can just go out and do by yourself as a balloon pilot. cannot go ballooning unless I have people helping me out. And if I'm doing it recreationally, not selling rides, then I need other people to help me out and guess, guess who gets to go on the balloon, you know, or the people helping me out. So if anybody's listening to this as well, that maybe they want to go sailing, but they want to go get around hot air balloons, find a hot air balloon.

Erin Carey (40:45.41)
Hmm.

Jason Elkins (40:54.931)
person, somebody that has a balloon, you see one in the sky, drive after it, follow it. And when they land, introduce yourself and you say, you know what, I would, I've always wanted to be around balloons or is there anything I can do to help? I guarantee they will recruit you on the spot. And every crew person I've ever had just volunteered or a friend invited them to come out and they just stuck around there and never paid them a dime. And they got a balloon ride every once in a while and you get the camaraderie and a shared experience. So it sounds a lot like that.

Erin Carey (40:59.534)
You

Erin Carey (41:07.468)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (41:22.67)
That's so cool. Yeah, it is a lot like that. That's such a great tip. I'm going to remember that one.

Jason Elkins (41:28.935)
Yeah, and it's I'm sure people look at balloons. Balloons are expensive as well. Sky yachts, you know, but that doesn't mean that everybody that has one has a lot of money because you could buy a used balloon as well. You know, so anyway, it just seems very similar. So curious. When you started, I think you said the second you're in, you wanted to your brain and you started doing some work.

Erin Carey (41:32.462)
Mmm.

Erin Carey (41:38.102)
Yeah. Exactly.

Erin Carey (41:52.086)
Mmm.

Jason Elkins (41:54.097)
So I'm curious what the connection is between what you started doing there, what did that look like, and is that connected to what you're doing now? And then let's go a little bit into what you're doing now.

Erin Carey (42:02.606)
Yeah, so I had worked for the Australian government for many years, 17 years, worked my way up the ladder and essentially I had the skills of interviewing people, writing reports and making determinations as to whether or not they got their security clearance. And I was like, what can I, how does that translate to any other job? You know, I don't want to go back to the public service.

really will feel like a failure. I was very harsh on myself. If I have to, if I go back, I've failed. So I really was determined to figure something out. And at this stage, I'd amassed 5,000 followers on Facebook, you know, whatever, not a huge amount, but I was not in it to be an influencer. Never had any plan on that. But the people that followed me loved my writing because I would just be sharing what we were doing. And I kind of put it out on there. And a lot of people said, you know, we love your writing. Why don't you become a writer?

And that was something, you know, I would never have dreamed that I could do. I cannot spell to save myself. And I still probably can't tell you what a verb and a noun is or a prefix and a suffix. I don't have technical training, but I got paid to be a writer, which again, you take that as you will, you you don't.

Jason Elkins (43:15.159)
I'm in the same boat.

Erin Carey (43:25.218)
I think so many times we tell ourselves we can't be something and then you realize, actually you can, it's not as like secretive or as amazing as what you think it is. So anyway, I figured out how to be a writer. I was a freelance writer. I was making enough money then to support our journey. it wasn't a huge amount of money, but it was enough to just kind of like get us limpus along. It was travel writing and sailing. So a lot of sailing publications and then

Jason Elkins (43:47.219)
And was travel, travel writing or I'm curious. Okay.

Erin Carey (43:55.052)
general kind of travel but always with a sailing sailing angle and so I was enjoying that but I knew that wasn't it. I just I was too slow you've got to be really fast to write to make a lot of money in writing so I was too slow and I was second guessing everything you know I was at the beginning of this career and I would have taken quite a while to get really good but that

led me to understand magazines and the media and working with editors and journalists and how that kind of all worked and I learned the art of pitching and then having met Delos a couple of times on a couple of different islands we then bumped into them again. No actually I asked if I could interview them for an article I was like you know know Delos is on the island how cool will it be I've met them a few times but

to be able to sit down with them for a couple hours and interview them. So we did that. took Dave along because Dave was just like, can I come too? I'm like, yeah, you just pretend to be like typing the notes or something. And so we both went on to their boat, interviewed them and had a really awesome time. And then, you know, I sold that article to various places and then I just get this random email from Delos, you know, I don't know, maybe a month or two later saying, hey, will you work for us? We want you to be our marketing person. I'm just like.

What? This is a pinch me moment. We used to watch these guys on YouTube. They were like movie stars that we just happened to meet them and now they're asking me to work for them. Like I would literally pay to work for them. So I started working for them and then kind of not realizing what I was doing was essentially PR and after kind of some digging around and Googling and like what is marketing and what is PR and then going, I'm doing PR.

Jason Elkins (45:18.535)
Ha ha ha.

Jason Elkins (45:26.163)
huh.

Erin Carey (45:45.676)
And then going, you know what? PR sounds like something I'd be really good at because I'm good at getting what I want and I'm determined.

Jason Elkins (45:54.621)
summarizing it and presenting it with your business, know, yep.

Erin Carey (45:57.738)
Yeah, not taking no for an answer, hustling, figuring out ways. Okay, that journalist didn't write back, so I'll go to this journalist or I'll do this or I'll change it up a bit. yeah, PR was, it became, okay, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start a PR agency and I just did everything in my power to figure that out. So ended up finding a coach in America who had a course in literally how to start a PR agency. I was like, this is amazing.

did the entire course, set up my agency and because my very first client was SV Delos who were famous essentially, I was able to then leverage that and get a lot of other cool clients. And so my niche at the start was definitely in the sailing and sailing YouTube space, which was obviously too small in hindsight, but you know, I was able to grow that out and we ended up getting Predict Wind who's the world's leading weather forecasting app. So yeah.

Jason Elkins (46:52.295)
Yeah, we've, we've, think you had referred him to me. I'm not, for it. was on a podcast episode with me as well. Yep. Yep.

Erin Carey (46:57.794)
Yeah, okay, yep. Yep, so, you know, we still work with them. They're obviously super well-known client. And then we branched out to just general travel and adventure because that is my passion. And since then we've had, you know, amazing clients, surf retreats and all women's tour companies and cycling companies and.

you know, the list goes on, Digital Nomads, other YouTubers, Fearless and Far, he started off when we started working together with like 150,000 subscribers, I think now he's got over a million. He went on to get a job, have his own travel show on the BBC, you know, so I'd like to think that the help that we gave him with the PR helped him land those roles in the end.

Same with Delos when they started with us, I think they had around 300,000 subscribers. And then we organized a collaboration with another YouTube channel called Exploring Alternatives. And it just happened to be by the time it all came about right during COVID, when everyone was just sitting at home watching YouTube all day. Yeah, yeah. And their video, like I still can think exactly the start of it is like them on this.

Jason Elkins (48:06.557)
wishing they were sailing around the world.

Erin Carey (48:17.45)
aqua blue water in the Bahamas where their boat just looks like it's floating on air because of the reflection in the water and they're zooming out on this sailing yacht and as you can imagine that would have just like grabbed everyone's attention when you're stuck at home on the couch and that went viral so that was super exciting they got like a hundred and fifty thousand extra subscribers almost overnight and you know million, well not millions but hundreds of thousands more since

Jason Elkins (48:30.899)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (48:47.002)
So I guess that's like the power of PR. They're the little things that, or the big things that often come from all of the little actions that we take day in and day out. PR is a marathon, not a sprint. It does take time, but after you've done it consistently for six to 12 months, then they're the kind of things that can come of it.

Jason Elkins (49:10.931)
curious because I've got my idea in my head of what PR really is. It sounds like you weren't sure when you started, you kind of did some Googling and I suspect there's a lot of other people listening to this. Some of the people that have been on the show work with PR agencies. That's how I was able to connect with them. The PR person reaches out and says, hey, Jason, I've got this person. think it would be a good fit for your show. Sometimes it is. Sometimes.

Erin Carey (49:34.766)
He

Jason Elkins (49:35.549)
There's PR people just taking a shot in the dark. I got an email today from somebody that said, I listened to your podcast with Aidan from Turkey and it's amazing. His story of growing up in the mountains and on the coast. And I think I've got another guest that would kind of resonate with your audience. And he does, entrepreneur time management boot camps. Right. You know, and so that's, that's not what you do. That wasn't from you. I guarantee it.

Erin Carey (49:38.083)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (49:46.603)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (49:57.002)
Interesting.

Jason Elkins (50:03.543)
every single person you've suggested to me has been a great fit. but I'm curious. Other people that are listening to this, maybe other people that have been on this show or doing podcasts or just people that care about their reputation, I guess that might listen to you. What's your like elevator pitch to an adventure tour operator or travel writer, whatever that helps boil it down really quick. So they understand what PR is and what you do for your clients.

Erin Carey (50:03.555)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (50:06.895)
Okay.

Erin Carey (50:31.662)
Yes. So essentially we're going to share your story to help grow your brand and it don't think, I don't really have a story. Everyone has a story. So it's our job to, to ask the right questions, which I'm really good at cause I'm inquisitive and with my background in interviewing to elicit the information to then go, okay. amazing. You, you weren't a travel company, but you give, you know, 10 % of your earnings to a,

children's orphanage in Africa, there's a story there. So let's package that into a nice nice little email. That's our job and we write up this pitch that we call it that we then send to a journalist and we compel the journalist to write a story about you and by doing that you're getting a link to your company on whatever publication we get it in. Hopefully it's in Forbes or know Business Insider or Travel and Leisure, National Geographic and

So then you're getting more eyes reading about your company. You're going to be quoted in that article. You're going to have your business name mentioned in there several times. So then you're increasing brand awareness. You're raising your credibility because people are going to be like, wow, if this company is in National Geographic, they're legit. If I'm debating whether or not to book a tour through one company or the next, and I can see you've been in National Geographic.

And they're going to see that because you're going to put those as seen in logos on your homepage that you see a lot of your competitors have. And you probably always wondered how do they get those logos on there? You know, I've, I've got FOMO, I feel like I'm missing out. We need to be on the meet in the media as well. so once you get those logos on your website, on your homepage, you've created a media page, all of that raises your credibility because people, people believe third party

reviewers and essentially that's what a journalist is. We don't pay the journalists to write about you. So you pay us a retainer. We send hundreds of emails on your behalf every month compelling journalists to write about you. They write about you through either what you're telling them over an interview or they might, we could organize a press trip. They come and experience your tour or whatever you're offering and then they write about it from personal experience and obviously then that's very trusted.

Erin Carey (52:54.924)
because they're a journalist, know, they have, what's the word, standards to uphold and they've got to abide by journalistic guidelines, rules and that type of thing. And therefore we're raising trust amongst your audience, which yeah, so it's PR, it's a hard one because how do you measure the...

Jason Elkins (53:16.541)
Very cool.

Erin Carey (53:23.448)
feeling that you're creating for someone but that's what we're doing. We're creating like this feeling inside the hearts and minds of your audience and obviously we do have many ways that we can measure it. We can measure how many people have clicked on your link, how many you know people have read the publication and all that type of thing. So we do have end of month reports that we send out that kind of tell you all about that but when it boils down to it

we are really improving the perception that the public has about you in order to, at the end of the day, grow your company.

Jason Elkins (54:04.563)
All right. That makes sense. Thank you. I just learned a bunch of your perspective is very interesting because I was thinking, you know, so I do marketing and so someone can pay me to build a website and I can use some great stock footage and I can, you know, create some copy and stuff like that, but it's a website and it needs, you know, I think people need to have a good website.

Erin Carey (54:08.17)
Hahaha

Jason Elkins (54:29.597)
But anybody can have a website if they've got some resources to pay somebody to do it, do it themselves or anybody can have a website. getting your story out there in a way that you mentioned credibility, trust, things like that. If you've got 10 different journalists or maybe a podcaster or somebody is getting involved in helping you share your story, you've got 10 different angles on your story because they're not all going to be the same.

Erin Carey (54:52.899)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (54:59.256)
You

Jason Elkins (54:59.481)
And those are just gonna add something that a website just can't, right? Cause there's almost, you know, there's that third party person that has to be excited enough about the story to write about it. Well, no, there's a few people that you've got to be excited enough about it to take them on as a client. Cause if you don't see a story or you feel like it's not a legitimate story, then you're not going to get involved with them. And you're not going to be able to get the journalists to get involved with them. And then, yeah, so I get that. makes.

Erin Carey (55:09.388)
Exactly.

Erin Carey (55:13.518)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (55:24.812)
And then their editors have to agree with that story as well. So like it's, it's hard. Like PR is hard. We put in a lot of time, lot of hours and a lot of compelling. That's what we do. It's, know, we can't make them write about you. They have to want to, they have to see.

Jason Elkins (55:27.205)
Right, right. So there.

Erin Carey (55:45.026)
You know, at the end of the day, their job is to provide value to their audience. So Forbes just wants to share good stories. They don't care about you. They're not doing it as a favor to help your business out. They're doing it so that their audience can read some really cool stuff. And yeah, you know, they, they need story ideas. So it's our job to give them those story ideas. And so when people think, you know, I don't really have a story to share. You do let us help you find what those stories are.

Jason Elkins (55:50.363)
Right.

Jason Elkins (56:00.561)
Right. That makes sense.

Erin Carey (56:15.166)
because there hasn't been a client that we haven't been able to get featured in the media, know, dozens of times. It's just, yeah.

Jason Elkins (56:23.773)
What I suspect and I also suspect, I heard you say there hasn't been a client that we haven't got featured in the media dozens of times. But I also suspect you've had conversations with people that maybe they've got a story, but maybe it just didn't resonate with you. And maybe you're just like, look, I don't think I'm going to be able to help you achieve your goals. Not that you don't have a story, but it's just not the right fit. I think, and I'm sure there's other PR people out there that

Erin Carey (56:30.364)
Hmm.

Erin Carey (56:41.975)
Hmm

Erin Carey (56:49.016)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (56:53.223)
I don't care, you hire me, tell me what your story is. And I mentioned earlier, I got an email today from somebody that does executive coaching, I guess. I don't know what it was, entrepreneur stuff. So I'm sure you can find a PR company to take your money and send out emails. But what I really enjoy about you is the people you've sent me have all been really advanced. That makes sense.

Erin Carey (57:00.522)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Erin Carey (57:09.971)
Yes.

Erin Carey (57:15.234)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (57:16.307)
and then when I learned your story and learn more about your story right now, it's like, okay, I'd give you a big stamp of approval. So anybody listening to this that is, you know, is resonating with the idea of using PR. And I mean, so I'm happy, I'm happy we did this. It was very cool.

Erin Carey (57:23.157)
haha

Erin Carey (57:27.316)
Yeah, thank you. I think, yeah, me too. And I think that's what sets us apart. You know, we've lived this lifestyle that we're representing. We have traveled the world. We've smelled the smells. We've seen the sights. We can write effective pictures because we've done it. And particularly working with sailing related clients, you know, what other PR agency can say that they've

worked on a boat or so they lived on a boat and I worked from a boat. No one else has done that and I'm pretty sure of that because I was I myself got lots of media because I was the only PR agency in the world run from a yacht so I was in Forbes twice CNBC Business Insider and no one ever wrote to me and said hey actually I'm living on a yacht too so I'm pretty certain that I was the only one and

Jason Elkins (58:07.635)
You

Jason Elkins (58:18.419)
But you're not just, you're not just, want to make sure everybody listening to this, my understanding anyway, you correct me if I'm wrong, you're not just working with sailors, right?

Erin Carey (58:26.23)
No, no. So travel, adventure and lifestyle. So essentially anyone who is like doing something cool that they want to share their story in the hopes of inspiring other people to do something cool, they're the people I like to work with. So...

Jason Elkins (58:45.009)
You, you just described exactly the person that I am trying. I shouldn't say trying to get on the show. It's the types of people that I invite on the show are exactly what you just described for the same, for the same reason. It's about connecting and sharing stories, bringing people together, you know, in my case, making the big world feel a little, just, you know, just a little bit smaller type of thing. So anybody listening to this podcast. That would.

Erin Carey (59:06.742)
Yep.

Jason Elkins (59:12.189)
be in a position to want PR, it sounds like we'd be your perfect client.

Erin Carey (59:15.598)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And what, who is my perfect client? typically they're a, you know, medium sized company to a larger size company and they see PR as an important part of the marketing umbrella. So I mean, you, know about marketing, you can't just have a good website. can't just do social media. If you're doing it all at once, it's when you're going to have the best results. So use us to get you featured in the media, use you to.

to have the beautiful website and to, you know, I'm not sure what else you do exactly, but I'm sure you're sending out newsletters and automatic, yeah. And so you would then share our results. Yeah. And then get your social media done. And yeah, it's important, an important piece of the puzzle. I think unfortunately a lot of people just don't know what PR is.

Jason Elkins (59:51.141)
Yeah, we do some automated email type of stuff. yeah, you know, I don't do a whole lot of social media, but yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:00:09.457)
Yep. Well, if they've listened to this episode, now they do. So I'm curious, Aaron, we've, spent a lot of time. We covered a lot of topics. I know I could just talk for you to, you, to not to you with you forever, but I'm curious what questions did I forget to ask? Should have asked, or is there anything else you want to make sure our listeners know about either you, Rome generation life in general, before we wrap it up.

Erin Carey (01:00:13.665)
Yep.

Erin Carey (01:00:22.839)
you

Erin Carey (01:00:33.826)
Well, interestingly, I'll quickly share one more thing. So, you know, I spoke about the universe conspiring and all of the little coincidences that we had. Another amazing coincidence that happened was, remember how I said Laura Decker was the first documentary that we watched, the documentary that we watched that inspired us to do the boat trip.

And then we took our boat over to the Azores, we went home to Australia for 18 months, we came back to the Azores. And who should be in the Azores? Laura Decker. So we also got to meet Laura Decker and go on her boat and get a tour of her boat and just chat with her, get photos with her. You know, like, what are the chances of that? So cool. So it was like this full circle, you know, we...

Jason Elkins (01:01:05.831)
No way.

Jason Elkins (01:01:20.614)
So cool.

Erin Carey (01:01:24.928)
met both of the people that inspired us hugely and we actually got to thank them and say Laura you literally you changed the course of our life. Like she was just like you know she she must hear that all the time but for us it was like this is huge you know meeting you is just so incredible and she was just like okay thank you she's probably a bit overwhelmed and freaked out by us but yeah that was good.

Jason Elkins (01:01:35.954)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:01:51.347)
Well, well, see that to her, maybe at that moment, you're just walking up. We're sailing. You change her life. We watch your documentary. But, you know, that's that's a 30 second conversation, a two minute conversation, whatever. think if she were listening to this whole episode and the things we just discussed like, OK, yeah, this isn't, know, just some.

Erin Carey (01:01:57.742)
Mm.

Jason Elkins (01:02:13.811)
crazy rich kids from Australia that convince their parents to buy them a sailboat, know, type of thing. mean, what I love about your story is just like, cause you mentioned it a few times and when you get to the point of they had asked you to do their marketing for them and you weren't sure if it was marketing, sure if it was, weren't really sure how to do it, but you've figured it out. and, actually even before that, you mentioned writing, like, you know, I've, I've figured it out sailing.

Erin Carey (01:02:17.448)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (01:02:33.272)
Mm. Mm.

Erin Carey (01:02:39.352)
figured it out.

Jason Elkins (01:02:43.793)
I figured it out. PR firm figured it out. the whole theme that I just heard through this whole conversation was fucking just figure. Maybe I shouldn't use that language or maybe, but just you can figure it out. If you want to do something, figure it out. You don't have money to buy a boat. Figure it out. You're living week to week, but you want to, know, you want to become a writer, figure it out. You want to be a digital note because

Erin Carey (01:02:45.42)
Hmm, guess we're pretty good at figuring shit out.

Erin Carey (01:02:56.758)
I know, but it fires you up. It's like, just figure it out. Yep.

Erin Carey (01:03:06.296)
Figure it out.

Jason Elkins (01:03:11.763)
I mean, I'm asking these questions because I've faced some of the same things. You know, I remember the first massive action I took to become a digital nomad. You know, I walked down and gave a notice on my apartment that I was my was my boat was my safety net was my you know, my my bachelor pad after the divorce that just that I decorated so could feel comfortable and it was it was a big, difficult thing to do. But I knew as soon as I gave notice on the apartment, I wouldn't be able to rescind it for what it just

Erin Carey (01:03:15.448)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (01:03:26.638)
Hmm.

Erin Carey (01:03:33.326)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (01:03:38.508)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:03:40.497)
the reasons that this place and I'd have to do something because I wasn't in a position to go get another apartment and I didn't want to live with my mom. So like my options. Yeah, my options are basically live with my mom or buy a plane ticket and go find an Airbnb somewhere that's probably cheap. That not probably is much cheaper than the apartment I had in Arizona. Anyway, so I just love that that theme of just go figure stuff out and then

Erin Carey (01:03:42.296)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (01:03:46.442)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's pretty good incentive, that last bit.

Yeah.

Erin Carey (01:03:58.967)
Yep.

Erin Carey (01:04:03.384)
Hmm. Hmm.

Jason Elkins (01:04:09.851)
love that you shared that story at the end. That's interesting.

Erin Carey (01:04:11.692)
Yeah, because the universe rewards you and I know that sounds a bit woo but there were so many things that happened that made me believe in the woo woo after the boat, all the boat stuff. But did the universe reward you when you took that massive step? Did things just happen for you and fall into place?

Jason Elkins (01:04:27.853)
yeah, because I dreamed about it. I dreamed about it for years from watching sailboat videos to, okay, well, you know, divorce is not pleasant. My ex-wife is a wonderful person and I was still dreaming about it. And I was doing, you know, I was, I was working in real estate. I was a real estate agent. My last job, you know, there for a while near the end of the marriage and, for a while after I was divorced and

Erin Carey (01:04:44.557)
Hmm.

Yeah, okay. Yep.

Jason Elkins (01:04:53.561)
And that's not my thing to me. That's like, so when you mentioned remodeling the house, trying to fill your void by remodeling the house, I'm like, I sold my balloon ride business and went into real estate. It was like, whoa, this is definitely not filling the void. So yeah, so I get it. It's about taking action even when you don't know how. You don't have to take all the action. Like just one step for you, was tell the family.

Erin Carey (01:04:56.012)
Mm-hmm

Erin Carey (01:05:04.757)
Mmm, yeah, wow.

Erin Carey (01:05:09.399)
Yep.

Erin Carey (01:05:16.75)
Mmm. Mmm.

Jason Elkins (01:05:18.003)
You know, you didn't know how you were going to raise the money to buy the boat. You didn't know how you're going learn to sail. You didn't know how you were going to do any of it. But you knew that if we told the family we were doing it and they didn't believe us, then we would just do it. Right. So I just tell you, figure out that one thing. Not all of it. Figure out the one thing that if I do this, it's going to make it really hard to go back the other direction. Do that one thing and then it makes it hard to go back, but it also makes it a lot easier to go forward. So.

Erin Carey (01:05:22.87)
No. No.

Erin Carey (01:05:31.159)
Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Erin Carey (01:05:45.342)
100%. Yeah. And another good one is set a date. Even if it's two years, don't make it too far in advance. Five years, I feel is too far. But if you set a date, even if you don't end up going on exactly that date, if you speak about that date and act as though you're going on that date, you'll be amazing. You'll be amazed how things just fall into place.

Jason Elkins (01:05:53.117)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (01:06:05.491)
And the value of the words, because you mentioned we're not like when we get on the boat, it's like or not if we get on the boat, it's when we get on the boat and you had an idea what that meant something to you, you know, because, I went gave notice of my apartment. And then, you the other thing I did, I went to Facebook, I think, and change my little tagline that said digital nomad and world explorer. I hadn't even bought the ticket yet, but I gave notice of my apartment and I and I've got about 5000 followers on my Facebook.

Erin Carey (01:06:08.256)
Mmm. Yep.

When, yeah.

Erin Carey (01:06:24.878)
Hmm. Yep.

Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:06:34.003)
I've done some different weird things in the past that I generated a few followers that I won't discuss on this show, but they're not travel related. They're weird stuff. coaching stuff, you know, whatever. yeah, yeah. Well, okay. I'll share it. Someone's going to hear this and say, that's weird, Jason, but I was a dating relationship. I was a dating relationship coach for a while. You know, so I did the real estate actually got out of real estate, got in dating and coaching relationships, or dating and relationship coaching.

Erin Carey (01:06:34.284)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (01:06:45.011)
I'm like, my brain's going, hmm, I think I'm thinking weirder stuff than what you're talking about now.

Hahaha

wow, okay.

Jason Elkins (01:07:03.267)
because it would give me the opportunity to go travel the world and be a nomad and all that stuff. So anyway, I know the value of just making. Yeah, well, it's not really, but most people, most people, yeah, say that it was it was more about for me, it was mostly about repairing relationships because I'd been through divorce and I didn't want anybody else to. I'd learned a lot during the process and I didn't want anybody else to have to learn things the hard way like I did. So anyway, that was a that was a different life. But one of the things I learned was

Erin Carey (01:07:08.353)
Like a real life hitch.

Did you the dance lessons as well? Yeah.

Erin Carey (01:07:26.774)
Interesting. Cool.

Jason Elkins (01:07:32.445)
Sometimes you just declare that you're going to do something and it makes a tremendous impact on your ability to do it. I was dating relationship coach and I, I, I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not a psychologist. I didn't take any formal training. I just read a lot of books and I put on my face and I put on my Facebook profile, my dating relationship coach. And guess what? I got my first client in a week, you know, but anyway, and it was, was a good experience, but same thing with being a nomad. It's like, okay, I'm a digital nomad and world traveler.

Erin Carey (01:07:38.158)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Carey (01:07:45.87)
I

Erin Carey (01:07:49.762)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (01:07:53.186)
Wow, that's incredible.

Jason Elkins (01:08:01.821)
You just, sometimes you just put things out there and, it helps you. start to identity is so important, right? What's your identity? I am a sailor. Like I am in a boat, but I'm a sailor or whatever. And people will do what they believe that they are. I remember actually a story of this guy, this, these corporate guys that used to travel out or whatever. And one guy get up in the morning every morning at like five in the morning, wherever they were at the hotel, whatever it is, go out and rain, whether it was raining, snowing or whatever, whatever.

Erin Carey (01:08:02.06)
you

Erin Carey (01:08:09.134)
It is exactly. Yes. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:08:31.123)
And I think his buddy, think the story is something like, you why do you do that? Why do you get up and run every morning and do all this? It's really, you know, the weather is miserable, all this stuff. it's just simply just looked at him and said, because I'm a runner. There's nothing more you need to know. If you're a runner, you go running. So if you're like, I hate to run, but I have to run because I'm overweight and I need to get in shape. That's not very inspiring. So anyway.

Erin Carey (01:08:38.733)
Mmm.

Hmm interesting yeah yeah

Erin Carey (01:08:52.217)
Yeah, no, you're right. So I'm a sailor without a boat. I need, I need to sort that out.

Jason Elkins (01:08:57.393)
Yeah.

No, I actually the last I think is after I gave notice of my apartment, I was in the US for a month and a half and I immediately said, I'm a nomad. I'm just currently in Arizona. You know, I'm in Arizona. I'm a nomad. It's a lot of life is about who you decide to be and what identity you decide to give yourself. And so anyway, great conversation. I may go back and edit the whole part out about the dating relationship coaching, but we'll see.

Erin Carey (01:09:10.966)
Mmm, yep.

Erin Carey (01:09:15.608)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (01:09:19.565)
Totally.

Yeah.

No, that was interesting. Yeah, we'll just don't leave in the weird part because then people's brains are going to be thinking, hmm.

Jason Elkins (01:09:32.339)
Yeah, yeah, well, you know, I trust that anybody's listening to this is hopefully listen to another episode as well, but no You know what that that business is one of the steps that got me where I'm at right now So I am actually not ashamed of it Yeah, so anyway, Aaron, thank you so much appreciate you coming on the show and look forward to working on more projects with you in the future and Have a great day because it's early in the morning

Erin Carey (01:09:40.77)
Yeah.

Erin Carey (01:09:47.818)
Yeah? No.

Erin Carey (01:09:54.072)
Thank you so much.

Jason Elkins (01:10:01.531)
Still the morning over there. So have a great day. Thanks, Aaron. Thanks.

Erin Carey (01:10:03.244)
Yep, thank you. Thank you, Jason. Had an awesome time.