Unknown: Je m'appelle Kesi.
J'habite à Rennes. Je...
J'adore la... Oh I forget how to say food. My
journey to become a travel blogger was born just out of the
fact that I love travel. In 2013 that's when I made the
decision that I wanted to travel around the world. But that one
year turned into two years, three years it became a full
lifestyle. I'm finally a digital nomad. I'm going to own that
title now. My name is Kesi Irvin. I'm 31 years old. I'm
from New Jersey, but I currently live in Rennes France and I live on
$53 a day here. Before moving to Rennes, I had no
idea where it was. I didn't know anything about it. But if you're
curious Rennes is in Brittany, France, which is a region it's
in the northwest kind of close to England. When I was little, I always was
that person who excelled at everything that I did in school,
I had straight A's the entire time I had leadership positions.
So I kind of was always on this mind trap that I want to get a
really high paying job and kind of follow what my parents did.
They worked in New York City worked on Wall Street, and I had
my first internship at 16 at Morgan Stanley. So I just always
assumed that I was going to be that wall street girl. I made a plan that I would take
a one year career break. So I saved up money for two years, I
was saving $1,000 a month with the goal of having $27,000 to
travel around the world for one year. After three or four years
of constant traveling around the world, I knew I was missing
something to work on. Like I want to use my brain somehow.
And that's when I decided to turn my travel blog from a hobby
into more of a business and I made my first investment which
was a $500 blogging course. And then once I finally invested
money in myself, that's how I knew I was good take blogging
seriously. The reason I have moved home in France is because
I follow my boyfriend. That's the really nice thing about
being a travel blogger I have the flexibility to just pick up
and relocate to a new place. Living in France is cheaper than
living in New York City. For me, it's kind of funny, because since I've been travelling,
I've really been living on a budget
around $10,000 per year. So France is considered expensive
for me. Initially, I was scared to move to France because of the
money issues. But once I set out my budget, I know I could spend
$1600 a month and I can definitely live a comfortable
life here. Welcome to my new home. As a travel blogger,
there's different ways to make income. One of my main ways is
through brand collaborations and they're usually paying me
through either bank transfer or my paypal business account. If I
do a brand collaboration, it could be anywhere from 300 to
$2,000. Depending on how much work and editing I need to do.
Other streams of income are group trips where I host people
they follow the fro somewhere so when I host these trips, I'll
get a commission for organizing it. I spent about $323 on travel
per month, and about $150 on entertainment like parties and
etc. For example, I was just in Paris this past weekend and I
went to a concert the ticket costs $55 and drinks at the bar
cost around $10 for a beer. My budget for eating out and
groceries run about $609 per month which is nice I split my
groceries with my boyfriend's that probably keeps that costs a
little bit lower. My phone plan, I actually still use my us
number. Hey Dad! How are you?
And that's because as a travel blogger, I still am
constantly traveling even though my home base is France since I'm going
to be in different countries throughout the year. It's much
easier just to stick to my us phone plan which I love. I use
Google fee, I highly recommend it for any digital nomads because
you get unlimited internet access unlimited data. I'm
renting a room with my boyfriend and we pay 700 euros whereas in
Budapest we were only spending around 600 euros for a full
apartment with no roommates in the center of the city. Rennes is
a big student city. They have 60,000 students here. So in
September, everyone's coming in and they're all looking for
apartments. So it's quite difficult to find. The way I
found a place was I went on Airbnb saw their apartment,
which we are in now. And yeah, I just asked if it was okay to
rent long term. So I'm uninsured right now, I most likely will go
with Safetywing which is a nomad insurance. And that's because I
still do travel quite a bit to Safetywing. It's $40 per month,
and it will cover me while I'm in France. I am going to apply
for the long stay visa in France with this visa there is a
financial requirement so I need to have 65 euros per day for 365
days there's a lot of documents I'm going to need to show which
includes scanned copies of passports, birth certificate
statement letters for your purpose of stay, a scanned copy
of medical insurance card accommodation either Airbnb
booked or a letter from a host where you're going to stay, three
months of your most recent checking account, free months of
your most recent savings account credit card statements proving
your credit limit and the visa cost 100 euros. One thing I like about Rennes is,
it has a smaller city feel like I don't feel overwhelmed. So
typical day I'll wake up, grab a tea, I'll either have breakfast
in my apartment, or maybe I'll take my bike, I'm trying to do
some work on my laptop and a cafe in the afternoon. Hopefully
I'm doing some work. That's what I should be doing, sending emails
to clients creating a pitch deck working on a group trip that I
have, because I'm running group trips to Antarctica and Uganda,
there's like a million things I always have to do. So figuring
out what to prioritize for that day. And then by the evening,
it's really important for my boyfriend and I to share a meal
together. So I'm usually the one that cooks, he's usually the one that
cleans, so I'll cook a meal in the evening. I studied French for seven years
growing up. But my French is minimal because I am that
stereotypical American that only knows English. One of the things
that I struggle the most about living in France is that french
people work on their own hours, stores are only open for like a
couple hours. They can be open from 11 to two and then like
seven to 10. So I think I'm just trying to get used to the time
schedules. It's very different from American standards. Now,
I've been out of the US for six years. I don't really see myself
living there again, or even raising a family. I don't think
I will stay in France. But you never know. I never thought I
would live in France in the first place. I might end up
really loving my time here. I'm open like just give me a globe
I'll spin it. And I'm like okay, I'll live there. I'm down for
random adventures like that.
