In short
How Garrett Gee and his family (The Bucket List Family) turned a planned 4–6 month international trip into a decade-long travel business, while building a “adventure, culture, and service” framework and later choosing a Hawaii home base.
Guest backgrounds
Garrett G grew up in Alpine, Utah, outdoorsy and entrepreneurial (selling rocks/crystals as a kid). He met wife Jessica on Mormon missions; they met in Vladivostok, Russia (2008). He studied at BYU, played soccer, and sold an iPhone app (Scan) to Snapchat before launching the family travel brand.
Key claims
Travel is funded through frugal planning plus sponsorships/discounts; “your family is your home.” Adventure/culture/service guide every trip. Learning discomfort and failing in front of kids builds resilience.
Notable examples
Shark diving in South Africa; hot air balloons in Turkey; biking shrines/gardens in Japan; ancient mythology in Greece; shaving heads in Bhutan; building a school in India. Early setbacks include baggage fees in New Zealand and a child’s face injury at an airport in Miami. Garrett later joined a Tonga pro soccer team, starting all three matches.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Birth of The Bucket List Family
0:00 to 1:35
Learn how Garrett Gee's joke about travel led to a life-changing realization.
“I had applied for a job in Portland, but the man who was interviewing me at the very end, he's like, I think the last question that we need to discuss is how much money is it going to take to like secure this for you?”
Growing Up Adventurous in Utah
1:49 to 4:28
Garrett shares his childhood experiences and love for adventure and nature.
“Tell me a little bit about your childhood and your love of adventure and nature.”
Traveling with Family: A Lifelong Passion
4:28 to 5:54
Garrett discusses how his mother's love for travel influenced his adventures.
“What was that like for, you know, being a 19 year old, 20 year old in Russia?”
Meeting Jessica and Early Life Challenges
5:54 to 7:48
Garrett recounts meeting his wife on a mission and adjusting to new challenges.
“And I was like, look, and I explained to him the whole Russia situation.”
From Startup to Traveling Family
7:48 to 9:32
Garrett explains the transition from selling an app to embarking on a world trip.
“And then maybe we'll have then a better idea of like how we want to live life, where we want to live, how we want to spend this money and such.”
The Journey Begins: Financial Strategies
9:32 to 10:34
Insights into how Garrett and Jessica managed finances to fund their travels.
“because so many people listen to this podcast and they're like, well, I could only do that if I had a trust fund or I sold a company or whatever.”
Adapting to the Influencer World
10:34 to 12:22
Garrett discusses the evolution of influencer marketing and their early experiences.
“So I think if somebody said you would not have taken that risk without it, they might be right.”
Lessons from Early Travel Challenges
12:22 to 14:00
Garrett shares stories from the early days traveling with his family and lessons learned.
“Instagram account for them so we could tag them these were the early days of social media when And sponsored content and influencing were uncharted territory.”
The Lessons of Travel and Family
14:00 to 18:00
Traveling teaches important lessons about family, adventure, and culture.
“You talk about silver lining so much on your Instagram and your YouTube.”
The Lessons of Travel and Family
18:01 to 18:45
Traveling teaches important lessons about family, adventure, and culture.
“Card members earn 5 % in card rewards on every purchase in REI and 1.5 % on everything else.”
Show all 15 chapters
The Bucket List Family's Journey
20:06 to 22:46
Garrett shares the story of how his family became nomadic travelers.
“took his family on a vacation, and they never came home.”
Chasing Dreams and Parenting Lessons
22:47 to 28:01
Garrett discusses his pursuit of becoming a professional soccer player and the lessons for his kids.
“In fact, Garrett recently went after his own wild idea, A childhood dream that most people wouldn't consider a possibility, especially for someone his age.”
The Importance of Free Diving and Mental Capacity
28:01 to 29:15
Learn how free diving teaches balance and mind control, enhancing overall life skills.
“Because if you're in the ocean, how important is it to just be comfortable and no waves and swell and tides.”
Creating Lasting Memories for Kids
29:15 to 30:21
Discover how family adventures create lasting memories and strong family bonds.
“Undoubtedly, they'll have endless stories of all their adventures.”
Encouragement for Adventurous Parents
30:21 to 31:00
Get advice for parents on overcoming limitations to pursue adventure with their kids.
“listening to this podcast who's looking to have a wildlife?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:02Garrett Gee:I had applied for a job in Portland, but the man who was interviewing me at the very end, he's like, I think the last question that we need to discuss is how much money is it going to take to like secure this for you? And as a joke, I answered to that saying, you just need to pay me more that is better than traveling the world with my family for free. And as those words left my mouth, I just came to this realization like, oh, shoot, no amount of money is better than traveling the world with my family for free, let alone getting paid for it.
0:39Jessica Gee:In 2015, Garrett G started documenting an international family vacation that was only supposed to last four months. He posted videos of himself, his wife Jessica, and their kids on YouTube and Instagram under the name The Bucket List Family. Fast forward 10 years, and that short trip has turned into a business and an inspiration to countless others. The Bucket List Family has acquired millions of followers online as they bring their audience along on their world travels. They've gone shark diving in South Africa, watched hot air balloons in Turkey, biked through shrines and gardens in Japan, and learned about ancient mythology in the heart of Greece.
1:24Jessica Gee:Garrett and his family chose a life that pushes them beyond their comfort zone, into new places, real challenges, and experiences that change how they see the world. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard.
1:49Jessica Gee:Garrett G, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living.
1:52Garrett Gee:Thank you for having me.
1:53Jessica Gee:Where do we even start? Were you always like this? Tell me a little bit about your childhood and your love of adventure and nature.
2:01Garrett Gee:I mean, if the question is like, have I always been into going against the grain? yeah for sure like that's just an innate part of who I am um same with like the entrepreneurial side I was that kid that was like collecting rocks in my backyard because I just loved being outside in nature and all of that but then the entrepreneur in me would kick in and I'd like put them on a table put them in my front yard and sell them back to like the other neighbor kids and I grew up in like quite the wealthy neighborhood so it wasn't uncommon for me to be able to like put a price tag on like a$20 rock or like a$50 crystal and like kids would buy them.
2:39Garrett Gee:Where did you grow up? In Utah, a place called Alpine, Utah.
2:43Jessica Gee:And so there was a lot of nature there too. That's awesome.
2:46Garrett Gee:Yeah, a lot of nature, a lot of outdoors, a lot of, you know, skiing. It was a cool place where I grew up. They had what was called ski bus and a bus would come from our school straight to the ski resort. And so we like lived on the mountain.
2:59Jessica Gee:So after school, you would ski almost every day?
3:02Garrett Gee:The ski bus was once a week.
3:04Jessica Gee:That's pretty great, though, for a kid.
3:07Garrett Gee:We loved it. And also the amount of just like epic lifelong stories that happened. I'm pretty sure like half of our grade had their first kiss on ski bus. Like it was just where life happened.
3:18Jessica Gee:What about the travel, though? Like where did that come from?
3:21Garrett Gee:My personal love for traveling can be thanks mostly to my mom because my mom is just as much as I love travel, She loves travel 100 times more than me. And, you know, we had our like highs and lows as a family financially. And for good and for bad, it didn't matter if we were on a high or a low. My mom was traveling. So I had the fortunate opportunity. By the time I was in high school, I had seen like most of Europe and been to maybe 40 countries.
3:52Jessica Gee:Love that. How did you meet your wife?
3:55Garrett Gee:We met we were both on Mormon church missions. and if you don't know too much about that it's like when a young man turns 19 and a young woman turns I think the age of 20 they might have changed it since but you choose if you want to go on a mission for two years but you don't choose where you go and so I grew up in Utah my wife grew up in Colorado and I had friends that got sent to Atlanta Georgia and to South Korea and Ghana. And my wife and I got sent to Russia. So we met in Vladivostok, Russia in 2008.
4:32Jessica Gee:What was that like for, you know, being a 19 year old, 20 year old in Russia?
4:37Garrett Gee:It was the most difficult, most depressing, scariest thing I've ever done in my entire life. And I've done quite a bit of experiences and nothing even comes close to like how difficult that was as a 19 year old to be plucked away from your friends your sports and hobbies and your family and just be like put into this very foreign land where you don't know the culture you don't speak the language or understand the language and then to take something that's near and dear to you as like your faith and your religion and to try to share that earnestly with other people and have them often literally like persecute or like actually try to beat you up.
5:23Garrett Gee:It was a really intense thing for a 19-year-old to go through.
5:27Jessica Gee:Wow, I bet. We actually have had a few Mormons on the show who've talked about that and also how they learned to pitch. Like they learned how to get rejected at a really young age and accept failure and it was horrible, but I don't know.
5:42Garrett Gee:That's funny you say that. Not long ago, I was in a pitch meeting with an investor and he straight up was like, look, I'm all in on this business mostly because he's like, I don't think I've ever seen someone as good a pitch as you. And I was like, look, and I explained to him the whole Russia situation. I was like, if I can for two years sell religion to Russians, I can sell anything.
6:11Jessica Gee:In 2008, Garrett came back to the U.S. He went to college at Brigham Young University, played on the soccer team, and started dating Jessica. The pair got married and moved in together the following year.
6:25Garrett Gee:That time could be probably best summarized as my wife, like, following me as I followed my dreams. I was playing college soccer in Utah at BYU. And then I was pursuing a startup. I had created an iPhone app called Scan. And then I sold that to Snapchat. And so our life was going all over the place as dictated by my dreams. And I had told my wife, let me finish out my full career of college soccer. And then whatever we do next can be your decision. And her idea was, what if we did a little bit of traveling? it.
7:01Jessica Gee:Those became famous last words in their family.
7:08Jessica Gee:What went into like the decision? Like you'd sold this app to Snapchat, which is pretty awesome. I mean, you were pretty young when you did that.
7:14Garrett Gee:Yeah, it was for a lot of money, like life changing amount of money. And so people just assumed when they saw us like take off for this trip around the world, that we were spending that money. But we're very proud of the fact that that was not the case. I mentioned my family had been through like highs the most financially, like I've seen far more money than we have disappear overnight. Fortunately, me and Jessica were on the same page financially that we felt in our hearts, it was not right to spend or splurge this money. And so that's what led to her idea of should we do a little bit of traveling, like let's go do four to six months of traveling, learn from different cultures.
7:49Garrett Gee:And then maybe we'll have then a better idea of like how we want to live life, where we want to live, how we want to spend this money and such. So we had devised a plan of let's do a yard sale, sell everything. We had two cars at the time. And from selling all of that, mostly the two cars, it came out to be about$45 ,000. So that was a plan. Let's travel for four to six months until this$45 ,000 is gone. And at that point, we'll get back to life. So everything from the acquisition of selling my company had gone into savings and investments. And the entrepreneur in me is very proud of the fact that we were able to take that 45k and start a YouTube channel, start an Instagram and work really hard during our initial travels.
8:37Garrett Gee:Any place that we would go, we would reach out to hotels, Airbnbs, airlines, like any brand that we could, hoping they'd either sponsor us or give us a discount. And our promise to them was like, hey, we'll show you off on our social media, all like 1000 of our YouTube subscribers, and maybe like 10 ,000 of our Instagram followers. And you can imagine we just got a lot of no, a lot of people who didn't understand what we were even asking, because influencer wasn't really a business model yet. But bit by bit, people would understand or take a chance on us. And at first, they were just giving us discounts or stuff for free.
9:14Garrett Gee:And then eventually, eventually, they started to pay us when they saw it working. And that$45 ,000 went from like bleeding out really quickly and then it slowed up. And before I hit zero, we started to become profitable, never touching or dipping into that initial acquisition money savings.
9:31Jessica Gee:Oh, I love that you told me the financial story of this, because so many people listen to this podcast and they're like, well, I could only do that if I had a trust fund or I sold a company or whatever. I started this podcast with, I think,$3 ,000 and it was like painful.
9:46Garrett Gee:Sometimes people, sometimes people ask us like, do you think you could have or would have done it without that, you know, safety net back home of having sold everything? It's a good question because despite what people usually assume, my wife and I were not big risk takers when it comes to finances. Like I'll tell you again, despite what you might see online, because we live this very adventurous lifestyle, but we're extremely frugal. We most of the time don't go on these trips and adventures unless we're able to work together some sort of like sponsorship situation. And so, yeah, it's a tough call because on the one hand, I want to be like, no, we get credit for doing this without that savings because we didn't touch it.
10:30Garrett Gee:But for sure, it played a role knowing that that was there to fall back on. So I think if somebody said you would not have taken that risk without it, they might be right. I don't know. It's hard to know.
10:41Jessica Gee:I appreciate that honesty. So initially you guys decided to travel for just, sounds like four months, right?
10:49Garrett Gee:Yep. That was the initial plan. It was kind of like budgeted out four to six months. We'll see how long it lasts. And I think it was six countries that we were going to visit.
10:58Jessica Gee:So was there an early experience where you were like, hmm, we're going to keep going?
11:03Garrett Gee:Again, it was mostly my wife, Jessica, who she, to her own surprise, liked the adventures, like being away from home, like living out of suitcase, like being more minimal, love the time as if together as a family, like all of it. And so it wasn't me convincing her. It was more so just a conversation of like, we want to keep going. How do we make this work financially? And that's when we started to like double down and really try to like work with brands and such.
11:31Jessica Gee:I love it because early on you could kind of customize what you did with brands. There wasn't like, oh, if you have this many followers, we'll do exactly this. There wasn't like a formula.
11:38Garrett Gee:And it was so hit and miss because I remember we were working with the tourism board of Greece. And the lady was like, so we can't pay you, but we can host you. And we will, you know, ask you to post this many times on Instagram. And I was like, wonderful. How about YouTube? And she's like, well, how does YouTube work? And I was like, it's, you know, it's the same, but videos. And she's like, and you just upload them? I was like, yeah. And she's like, and where do people see them? I was like, oh, you're like completely new to this. and then like the next month we're working with the Reno like Reno Nevada and they have like the biggest budget that we've ever worked with and so like it's just so it was just the wild west at the time so much learning so much training we stayed at one hotel where my wife literally set up their Instagram account for them so we could tag them these were the early days of social media when
Read the full transcript
12:31Jessica Gee:And sponsored content and influencing were uncharted territory. After four months of traveling through Australia and Southeast Asia, Garrett and Jessica weren't ready to come home. They had fallen in love with their new lifestyle, even though it wasn't always smooth or easy.
12:52Jessica Gee:So what parts in the beginning felt especially terrifying? Do you have any stories of those early days?
12:58Garrett Gee:there was definitely like man when you're trying to make 45 000 stretch like you're counting every dollar and i remember being in new zealand and we got hit so hard with extra like checked baggage fees and i was like guys you're like literally stripping away like weeks and and stops to our adventure it was like so heartbreaking and um i mean it was a learning lesson that we like you know what like do we pay this fee or do we just ditch this stuff because we've now been traveling for about a month and we haven't touched like the majority of our stuff it's one of the beauties of travel you just learn like minimalism at its finest so that that was uh one of the first lessons i remember and another one was this time we're at the airport in miami and we had like missed our flight and then things weren't lining up and it was just one of those most stressful travel days and all of a sudden I hear like a blood curling scream and I turn around and you know that like luggage cart that your kids should not sit on our child was sitting on it and fell off and just smashed his face and it's just blood everywhere and he needed stitches and my wife is like now crying and Jessica's like should we go home and then she starts crying even harder being like we don't have a home but the silver lining there the beauty in the lesson we learned that day was your family is your home.
14:27Jessica Gee:You talk about silver lining so much on your Instagram and your YouTube. And I think that lesson of silver linings is something that you really learn when you travel and you adventure. I mean, even Yvonne Chouinard has that famous quote, it's not an adventure until something goes wrong.
14:46Garrett Gee:Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, it is what it is, right? You can't like there's no such thing as like there's just the perfect vacation. And if it is, it's kind of boring. The highs and the lows are just all part of the journey.
15:00Jessica Gee:I'm curious, you know, maybe you could talk about some of the things you guys do on your trips, because I'm guessing most people will know you who are listening to this podcast, but there's going to be a few people who don't yet follow the bucket list family.
15:12Garrett Gee:I'd say this when we first got started, like, our last name is G. We're the G family. But the designer and entrepreneur in me didn't wasn't about to go on like a six month vacation, I wanted to, you know, build something and create something like that's my favorite part about entrepreneurship. It truly isn't about the money for me as I just love creating things, designing things. And so then I created a logo, you know, it says the Buckeyes family, but in a lot of colors, and it feels like watercolor painting, but like to the most vibrant level. And my thought there was life can feel pretty dull and black and white.
15:51Garrett Gee:And that's the beauty of travel because every time you visit a new place or a new culture, it literally like infuses vibrancy into your life. And then there's a symbol that is three brushstrokes. And why we had come up with that is because Jessica and I had decided we wanted to put more meaning and purpose behind our travels. So we came up with adventure, culture, and service that represents the three stripes, red, blue, and green. And the thought there was every culture that we visit or every country that we visit, we want to try to do three things, a unique adventure. So let's take example of like New Zealand, bungee jumping was invented in New Zealand.
16:33Garrett Gee:What a cool, unique adventure. And to do it in that place where it was, you know, originally invented. And then a unique culture experience. And so I remember when we were in Bhutan, we were at these monasteries with these monks and they invited us to shave our heads. And as you can see, like my hair is quite long, it was very long at the time. And so it was quite the big ask of like, oh my gosh, should we shave our heads? So me and our middle child Manila both shaved our heads. And then the last goal, service, was every place that we go, let's do a service project, big or small. Sometimes they've been big, like we funded and built a school in India.
17:11Garrett Gee:And sometimes it's been small, like, you know, we hear a heartful story from our taxi driver and give him the tip of his life. And so those three things, adventure, culture and service have definitely shaped our travels and our mindset. And that's what originated like the logo of the Buckethead family.
17:35Jessica Gee:If everybody could travel like you guys, that would be amazing. I mean, everywhere you go, you should do an adventure, experience the culture, and give back.
17:44Garrett Gee:Yeah. I mean, it sounds pretty simplistic, but it adds so much more to each of your travels.
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20:05Jessica Gee:In 2015, Garrett G. took his family on a vacation, and they never came home. They continued traveling, taking their young family to dream destinations like Chile, Switzerland, Rwanda, Greece, Fiji, Italy. The list goes on and on. But after three years of living a fully nomadic life, the Bucket List family decided that they were ready to put down some roads.
20:32Jessica Gee:Eventually, you guys have decided to have a home base. what sparked that decision and and how have your how have your especially your kids reacted to it
20:43Garrett Gee:it's I don't know I'll admit like we we live the best of both lives because we love traveling and let me just say selfishly as a dad who so many dads out there don't get to spend a lot of time with their kids because of work and then especially as kids become older you're losing time with them to clubs and school and friends and sports and practices, all the sorts. So when we're traveling and I have like undivided attention, you know, time, quality time with my family, I just treasure it so much. But it was when my daughter, Dorothy, became kindergarten age and she had, you know, seen so much of the world.
21:24Garrett Gee:And if you could ask her, what do you want most in life? She would say, I want to go to school. I want a desk with my name on it. I want a locker and I want a best friend. Like that's what she wanted. And so it truly is parents, you know, we love the travel adventure, all of it. But at the end of the day, nothing's going to compete with like just trying to give our kids, you know, what they need and the best life possible. And so that's when we decided to try to settle down. And we had looked seriously in New Zealand. We'd even applied for a visa and got accepted. But then my wife got pregnant with our third.
22:00Garrett Gee:And so then we pivoted to look at stuff closer to home. And we went and just looked at some properties in Hawaii, from Oahu, Big Island, Maui. And it was when we were doing that tour that my wife met some like incredible families and amazing community. So for my wife, it was more about the community that she fell in love with. And for me, I was like, Oh, and as soon as she says yes to any of these islands, like, I'm pouncing on it. And so we chose Hawaii as a place to settle down.
22:34Jessica Gee:Garrett has loved living in Hawaii. He's able to surf most days, and the family has built a wonderful community there. But having a home base doesn't mean that the bucket list family is ready to stop going after wild ideas. In fact, Garrett recently went after his own wild idea, A childhood dream that most people wouldn't consider a possibility, especially for someone his age. You recently decided to become a professional soccer player. That's so bananas, especially to someone who's now 45 and is like, I played a lot of street soccer even after college. But like, I feel like I would break my knees if I tried to play soccer today.
23:16Garrett Gee:This was the one. It's funny. Some of the hateful comments on this one have me proper shook because I'm like, how do you hate this old dad literally just trying to live up his glory days? I'm like, guys, I'm very self-aware. I know that I didn't make it as a young man into the pros. I'm devastated on the daily of that. You don't got to remind me. So what happened is a professional team in Tonga had reached out and said, we would like to invite you to play, join our team where we qualified for this tournament for the first time ever. And it allows us three international players. We'd love to recruit you.
23:59Garrett Gee:And I the answer was immediately. Yes, doesn't I'm just a yes man like that. But I did kind of like push my luck. And I said, few questions. Can I also I had gone to their Instagram page and stalked the team. I was like, yeah, they need new jerseys. And so I'm like, if I sponsor your jerseys, can I design them? And they said yes. So I got to redesign the jerseys. It was in a very cool way. I had like my own company's logo on the chest. Anyways, going into this, I had no clue. Am I going to play at all? Am I going to start? Am I going to play 90 minutes? Am I going to play no minutes? Like I just didn't know how good is my team going to be like all these were questions.
24:37Garrett Gee:I ended up the tournament was three games I started all three games and I never subbed out I'll give myself props and I pretty quickly on game one proved to the coach I can play and from that point on I just never subbed out and it was exhausting holy cow I this the closest my body has ever come to just like full-on shutting down I haven't run like marathons and stuff like that but this one put me to my limit and beyond.
25:08Jessica Gee:And what do your kids think about that? I mean, they see you guys daily going for it, whatever that is. I mean, your wife put yourself out there. She wrote a book with Nat Geo. Like you guys have done a lot of things that are just out of your comfort zone.
25:20Garrett Gee:What was the one? There was something the other day that, it was wake surfing and I was trying to pull off a 360 and my kids have seen me try and fail for like two years. And I eventually got it And that was cool to see my kids like see me succeed. But honestly, for me, the more important parenting lesson was like them seeing me how OK I was trying something and failing and failing and failing. Because my kids, you know, I would say it's hard for me to admit, but like in a great like most blame to me. My kids, I think, are exceptionally hard on themselves and just have high expectations for themselves.
26:04Garrett Gee:And for me, it's not like I'm trying to just be a pushy parent. Probably nobody is. But it's just like I just see so much potential and have so much faith in my kids. I think they're just the greatest humans ever. And so definitely, I'll admit, my expectations for them are high in every way, whether it's like I expect you to be great surfers or I expect you to be brave or I expect you to be the most kind, lovely human ever. All of my expectations for them are high and that can be hard on them. So they get very frustrated when they fail. So anytime they can see me trying something and routinely fail, I appreciate it.
26:39Jessica Gee:That's a good parenting tip, like fail in front of your kids. You really parent your kids differently than a lot of other people. It's really cool. You like to teach them about discomfort and adventure. Talk to me about some of the things that you've taught them so that they could be prepared on these travels?
26:58Garrett Gee:Yeah, when it comes specifically to like important skills while traveling, a lot of it is funny because to an outsider who doesn't do extreme sports or this type of adventurous living, it might seem dangerous. Well, I know it seems dangerous to them because we get trolled in the comments like constantly.
27:15Jessica Gee:Yeah, I've seen that. I'm like, no, this is actually really safe.
27:18Garrett Gee:funny enough, the reason why we do it is for safety. Because it's like, I always think back to this. When I grew up, I was next door neighbors with this kid, whose mom would not let him leave his own driveway while riding his bike. And I mean, growing up in Utah, back in 80s and 90s, I mean, we were riding our bikes everywhere. That was like life that was childhood. And this kid couldn't leave his driveway. And so we just see him as we came and went. And guess who broke both his arms falling off his bike on his own driveway. It was that kid because he literally just didn't have the bike skills that we had.
27:55Garrett Gee:So, so much of what we push our kids to learn is actually for safety. Because if you're in the ocean, how important is it to just be comfortable and no waves and swell and tides. Free diving is one of the most important skills, I think, altogether in life, just because how much it's a balance of mind, body and spirit. But yeah, the body can only hold its breath as long as it can. The muscles in the lungs really don't change as much as your mind does. It's most of your progress that you make is because your mind changes. And so like, what a cool thing to train your mind and realize your abilities as a human?
28:38Garrett Gee:And how does that bleed into every other thing you do in life realizing like, Oh, I'm capable of so much more than I'm currently aware of. Because when you hold your breath for anything more than like 10 seconds, your instincts kick off and these alarms start going off in your brain being like, I'm uncomfortable, I need air, I think I'm dying, when in reality, you're not. So having the mental capacity to like override all those red alarms, that practice can take place in and out of the water.
29:14Jessica Gee:What do you think your kids will say one day about how they grew up?
29:21Garrett Gee:Undoubtedly, they'll have endless stories of all their adventures. It's a beautiful thing to see how well they remember them. Maybe in thanks to some of our like videos that we've created. I think that'll be like a treasure waiting for us once we get older. But still, you like a fun thing we'll do at dinner sometimes is like trivia. Last night, my daughter's like, will you give us some travel trivia? They like me to ask questions about like, okay, where were we when Callie had a bot fly in bed into his head? And so they'll, you know, give questions like that. They remember all of it. It's a really fun, beautiful thing.
29:57Garrett Gee:But I also just hope that they realize how much me and Jessica have just tried to be like, good mom and good dad. Just having a very beautiful home life is something that we've worked really hard at. And most of the credit would go to Jessica of like how special that is. And so hopefully the kids appreciate that as well.
30:18Jessica Gee:Yeah, you guys sound like you're doing it right. What advice would you give to a parent listening to this podcast who's looking to have a wildlife?
30:27Garrett Gee:Oh, good question. I think it's like, don't put any limitations on yourself. Everyone can have the excuses of like, I can't leave the country or I can't afford this or different things like that. And it's like, there's so many adventures in your own backyard, adventures that are big and small. I mean, we're like a world traveling family, but there's a lot of families I look up to that are like a road tripping family or families that just go camping nearby and all of that. Like whatever is your style of adventure, it can be done. And so just not putting excuses in the way of your dreams.
31:10Jessica Gee:If you want to follow Garrett and his family's adventures, check out The Bucket List Family on YouTube and on Instagram. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Pierce-Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Motula and Joe Crosby. Thank you again to our partner, Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard. As always, we love when you follow the show, take time to rate it, and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.
From the publisher
Adventurer Garrett Gee turned a four month family trip in 2015 into The Bucket List Family, documenting world travel with his wife, Jessica, and their kids. What began as videos shared on YouTube and Instagram became a global family travel brand with millions of followers, built on experiences from shark diving in South Africa to hot air balloons in Turkey and biking through shrines and gardens in Japan.
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