Traveling With ADHD? What to Plan Before You Move Abroad (ft. Tamarind Murrietta)

Tamarind Murrietta (00:00)
I always like to say the Eat Pray Love moments that a lot of people want. Like you want that Julia Roberts, like you want to be going

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (00:05)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (00:06)
down the Italy in Italy and like the bread and the baguettes, and

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (00:08)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (00:09)
it’s like so amazing, right? And like you want to have the wine, you know, and it’s like great. Outdoor markets may not be our friend if we don’t plan.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (00:16)
Welcome to The Vibe With Ky Podcast, the show where we talk openly and honestly about mental health and the beautiful mess of being an adult in today’s world. My name is Kyrus Keenan Westcott. Thank you so much for being here, my friends.

Today we are talking about living and studying and traveling abroad with ADHD. Most of the advice out there stops at visas and housing and packing lists. It almost never plans for how your brain actually works.

And when your support system is an ocean away, the things you already manage at home can hit a whole lot harder. My guest today is Tamarind Murrietta, the founder of Live Abroad with ADHD, a community for neurodivergent people who want to live, study, and travel internationally in ways that actually work for them.

She spent nearly two decades living across Europe, Africa, and Asia, and she built the community after years of neurodivergent families, students, and professionals asking her how she handled all of this. In this episode, she shares what she’s learned along the way and what she learned the hard way. That way you can walk away knowing what to plan for before you go, not after you land.

And if you never plan to leave home, I think you’ll recognize a lot of yourself in her stories. Before we get started, if you want to see more mental health conversations and resources just like this, make sure you visit my website at TheVibeWithKy.com, or follow me @TheVibeWithKy on your favorite social media platforms. With that said, sit back, relax, and enjoy my chat with Tamarind Murrietta on The Vibe With Ky Podcast.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (01:49)
Hi Tamarind, how are you?

Tamarind Murrietta (01:52)
Hi, I’m wonderful, Ky. I’m so excited to be on.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (01:55)
Yeah, I’m so excited to to to talk with you. We met back in March

Tamarind Murrietta (02:00)
Yes.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:01)
at NeuroDiversion 2026. I’ve met so many

Tamarind Murrietta (02:03)
We don’t.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:04)
incredible people there, you being one of them.

Tamarind Murrietta (02:07)
Thank you.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:08)
Just for those of you that don’t know, NeuroDiversion is this really amazing event that takes place in Austin, Texas every year. They just announced the days for NeuroDiversion 2027, so make sure you get your tickets. But what was your experience like at NeuroDiversion 2026?

Did you have fun? Did you have good time?

Tamarind Murrietta (02:24)
My God. I had so much fun. And I was fangirling. Like seeing you, I was like, my God.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:28)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (02:30)
My God. I was like, okay, would it be weird? Should I go? It was

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:33)
My gosh.

Tamarind Murrietta (02:34)
there were so many incredible people there. Jessica McCabe,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:36)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (02:39)
and and people that I’ve, you know, I’ve followed their guidance or or watched them before and maybe couldn’t recall the name, but they’ve helped me in some way. And I think like just you know, the comfort level of people being able to like go into a dark room and just have a minute. You know, sitting on the side on a couch or like taking a few minutes and and drawing.

I mean, I just felt like, okay, why do we not have an aspect of like every conference and convention in the world like this?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:09)
Mm. Yes.

Tamarind Murrietta (03:11)
But then also there’s people like you and me and it just we’re all just we we’re we’re here. We’re here.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:17)
Yes.

Tamarind Murrietta (03:18)
And it just felt good. Like I could just kind of be myself and I’m like, you know what? I’m kinda done with this conversation. I’m okay, are you done?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:22)
You’re being yourself in a room that that that get you. Like you’re surrounded by

Tamarind Murrietta (03:26)
Yes.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:26)
a bunch of people that that get you. And that’s that’s one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much. And so it was it was such a pleasure to to meet you and to talk with you. And and you have

Tamarind Murrietta (03:34)
Likewise.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:35)
you have talked about spending nearly two decades abroad in Europe, in Africa, in Asia, and about how you you started to you started a thing called Live Abroad with ADHD after years of other neurodivergent families and students, professionals asking you how you were handling it.

So, what was the specific moment for you when you realized that this was this was not going to stay a series of just like one-off answers to friends and that you needed to make this into an actual community? What was the specific moment that you realized that?

Tamarind Murrietta (04:08)
Hmm, you know, I had it had crossed my mind a couple of times that this this may be an opportunity for me to use some of the solutions I built to fill a gap. Because there was obviously one there, because I had been looking for it for so long. It was the first time I actually had time to sort of think about other things and

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:27)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (04:28)
you know, and and had some time to work on something. And I said, you know what? This is a sign because I I really believe that we need to look at opportunities, you know, the universe.

God is trying to tell me something like, you know, rest for a couple of days, you know, get myself together because I’m I was dealing with a little burnout. Then this is an opportunity to help other people, particularly with the numbers of Americans specifically that are looking at moving abroad right now or looking at traveling abroad. I mean, the numbers are astronomical, way, way greater than even three years ago.

And so many people asking questions and wanting to know, I realized, okay, maybe it’s time that I really ramp this up to help people so they can take this journey.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:14)
Yeah, yeah. You’ve you’ve built something, you built you you’ve built something pretty rare, I think, in this space. You built this whole ecosystem for neurodivergent brains who want to live outside of their home country, from your your YouTube channel, your weekly Substack, resume templates that you that you just released on Etsy and all of that for ADHDs that are looking for jobs and stuff globally.

You also put together a special link for my audience over here, which is going to be included in the show notes of this. And with that, it’s a it’s actually a free resource that’s waiting for people that want to join this community. So what did you learn about how ADHD brains actually take in information that made you decide that that one format wasn’t going to be enough?

Because you you’re offering all of these things for people, which is great. Like how did you know that it was gonna take more than just one format to reach these people?

Tamarind Murrietta (06:08)
Well, I would say first person experience, one.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (06:11)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (06:13)
And then my time meeting more and more expats and not just Americans, but people outside of their country of origin. So if you are a Pakistani and you’re moving to England, you know.

And there are some things that are really universal, needing to make sure that another place that you want to go to, a company that you’re interested in, a school that you want to study in, that they can look at you and get a full picture of who you are, a new friend that you want to meet in another country. There are some universal truths.

And making friends or getting an employer to like you, or if you’re a business owner, getting a client somewhere, there are just some things that are universal. And I realized over time, although there are some cultural nuances that are very important to navigate, there are some things that you need to understand about everything from structure to to timing, et cetera, in different places.

That, you know, we are all just needing and seeking the same thing. And we have various different ways of getting there. And the more I picked up in these different, you know, regions and continents and speaking with people from this place and that place, I started pulling together like my own tools that said like everything from like spreadsheets to just my to-do list on my phone.

Here’s a trend that I noticed here. Here’s a pattern that I noticed here. And a lot of the times you realize that it’s not that different.

There may be a little different sort of early variants, but the goals and the benchmarks are somewhat the same. And so I started pulling things together with the hopes of getting people prepared for that move, that study abroad, that or just some people want to take extensive international travel.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:08)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (08:09)
And these are all great things. When you’re doing this, if you’re going somewhere, say for more than a couple of weeks, that’s you need your own systems in place. Prepare for that because it’s no longer you’re just somewhere and you know you kind of hit pause for a couple of weeks and you’re going and you’re coming back.

It’s a little bit more involved. So yeah, this is just years of like, you know, capturing information and meeting people from around the world and and really trying to feed it back into the community.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:38)
Yeah, I you know, I I had as you were talking, I I realized I had the same realization with my own community pretty early on. I learned that we just don’t all consume the same way. And honestly, that was probably one of the first things that surprised me about the size of what the whole vibe guy world became.

Like that was probably one of the biggest surprises for me. You have moved through some very different structures over the last two decades. Diplomat, student, consultant, business owner, all of them doing that all of that in international settings.

Looking back, what did those specific roles teach you about how your own ADHD, like what did it teach you about your own ADHD that you that you don’t think you would have learned if you probably would have stayed in one country or done one type of

Tamarind Murrietta (09:30)
My gosh, so much. I

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:32)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (09:32)
will first say that, you know, when I was diagnosed in the nineties, God, it feels so long ago. I’m like aging myself. You know, I I was in

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:37)
You and me both.

Tamarind Murrietta (09:42)
school and it was like, you know, I was a I was just starting out undergrad and I went through high school without this being they knew something was going on, but they never had any tools that they offered or any assessments to check anything. But I had known about neurodivergence because I had family members with it and and family members that actually like studied and did some work in it.

And and so, and my mother was a speech-language pathologist, right? So she was writing, you know, plans for people and students all the time. But somehow we just didn’t catch it.

And when I got to college and we started realizing something was going on, it was always this is just a learning disability. This is just, you know, you need some time on test. And so I believed that and I didn’t Google it, right?

And you look, maybe if I did, there wouldn’t have been much in the late 90s. But

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (10:36)
Sure.

Tamarind Murrietta (10:38)
I then, you know, decide, let’s go to grad school in another country, right? And I just kept making these decisions that in hindsight, were things that were affecting me. How I navigated my ADHD, how I balanced myself out on a daily basis.

And I couldn’t name it. I just couldn’t define it. Things were happening.

And, you know, rejection sensitivities, please, like for sure. But I

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (11:06)
did not have those tools. I didn’t know those names. I didn’t know what was happening.

And you’re talking like from like early 2000s, like 2005 and you know, on. There was still a lot not known particularly for women, for people of color,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:21)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (11:22)
et cetera, et cetera. So I was seeing psychologists and therapists and coaches, had so many great coaches.

But there was never this sort of intersection of like, hey, you know, let’s talk a little bit about your ADHD and the fact that, you know, you’ve just moved to this country and you cried for an hour on my couch about why like the first two people you thought would be your friends you feel like a rejecting you and no one likes you and you don’t, you

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:47)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (11:47)
know, like nobody ever said that to me. It wasn’t until, you know, the increase in social media, more people like you were coming out and being really vulnerable.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:56)
Sure.

Tamarind Murrietta (11:57)
That I said, okay, you know, like I knew I felt like this had to be, these things were coming from somewhere, but I didn’t know for sure. And COVID and et cetera. And even being back in the United States right now, I I’m telling you, it’s it’s I’m vastly more aware than I was before.

And I have been able to identify things and say, my gosh, like this, this was this. How could I? Okay, great. How can I help somebody else who

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:25)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (12:25)
is wanting to take a fellowship and work at a university in Indonesia? How can I help that person if they’re ADHD, if they have autism, anything under neurodivergence umbrella, what could I share?

What people that I know who are friends who are successfully operating and working as an expat in other countries, people that I know that take regular international trips, even lead trips, what are some of the things that we can all share that can

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:53)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (12:53)
help people prepare so they can have the most fantastic experience of the

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:59)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (12:59)
best thing to help them grow whatever it is that you’re seeking. I always like to say the Eat Pray Love moments that a lot of people want. Like you want that Julia Roberts, like you want to be going

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (13:08)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (13:09)
down the Italy in Italy and like the bread and the baguettes, and

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (13:11)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (13:12)
it’s like so amazing, right? And like you want to have the wine, you know, and it’s like great. Outdoor markets may not be our friend if we don’t plan.

And after, you know, like three hours of people yelling in a outdoor market, do you want to sit down for four hours with friends and drink wine and you’re fine?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (13:29)
Right.

Tamarind Murrietta (13:30)
And nothing’s wrong with you if you don’t. But if you do wanna do that, let’s talk about how we can make this work for you.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (13:36)
Right, right. Everything everything you just described leads actually straight into the the piece I think that our audience really needs to hear today. And that’s the actual like mechanics of what happens to an ADHD brain like the second that it does cross that border.

I want to talk a little bit of because you mentioned this just now rejection sensitivity, right? So for the the late diagnosed a adult that’s listening right now, who’s planning maybe their first international move and thinking their biggest challenge is going to be logistics like visas and housing and all that.

You have talked about how rejection sensitive sensitivity actually spikes for ADHD travelers at exactly the same time that the average new expat’s dopamine is dropping, which is right when they need to be building friendships and things like that. Walk

Tamarind Murrietta (14:24)
Yes.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (14:25)
us through what that week three or week four window has actually looked like for you when you’re trying to make friends in a country where you did not really know the social cues.

Tamarind Murrietta (14:38)
It’s it’s such a incredibly well said question and really robust, right? Because you’re looking at first, let me just say every country and every culture is obviously so different, right? So unique.

And who you are and where you’re from and what you look like always is gonna play a role. So I don’t wanna discount that. I want to acknowledge that up front.

So I would say that the first thing that tends to happen is how much you planned for ahead of your departure. If you have heard about some country and you decided, you know what, it’s time. I’m gonna go.

I’m gonna do this. And I worried about like logistics, like you said, like visas and such. And you haven’t really made attempts and maybe cross your mind, but you didn’t get to it to establish some type of connections with somebody, like some type of relationships.

Like maybe someone who knows someone said, I know a person who’s lives around there or something, right? And you didn’t get to reach out to them. And now you are in a country.

It’s very possible that you either don’t speak the language or you don’t speak it strongly at a level that someone who’s local who would comfortably understand you. And that third or fourth week, as you mentioned, that third or fourth month is when you are trying to set things up. You’re trying to establish yourself.

So think about it like this like you’re in Philly now, right? Like you

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (16:08)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (16:09)
have your apartment and you’re like, you know, I really want to come to DC, right? Yeah, DC’s amazing. You want to come to DC.

You want to get a condo. Great. Okay.

And you’re, you find the condo, it’s amazing, and you’re thinking about all the things. The difference is the infrastructure is virtually the same. It’s still the United States.

The language is the same. The cultural innuendos, et cetera, et cetera, are fairly similar. We’re familiar.

You we have this team, you have that team, right? Your mother, maybe she is a train ride away. She’s still on East Coast time.

So I say all these things because when you get to this new place, you are now trying to get some questions answered, right? And Google can’t answer everything. ChatGPT can’t answer everything.

Sometimes we need a little bit of extra guidance. And you may in DC just, hey, I’m your new neighbor. Nice to meet you.

I’m just wondering, X, Y, Z, right? If you’re in another country, if you don’t speak the language, how are you gonna ask them? The translator tools are very useful.

There are some that I’ve personally used myself. After a while, when you’re trying to work with and and build a relationship with a neighbor or get questions answered, sometimes they’re just like enough. Like enough

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (17:25)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (17:25)
with the with the tools. If you do speak the same language, you may not always be on the same page. They’re asking you’re asking for this and they think you’re asking for this.

And you go to what they’ve said and it’s clearly not what you wanted. That is a time that you are establishing yourself. You’re establishing your apartment.

You’re trying to find your grocery stores. How am I gonna feed myself? Getting my utilities set up, blah, blah, blah.

That’s no different anywhere else. Except that you maybe have nobody there. You didn’t make those connections ahead of time.

You have nobody to ask those little, you know, questions that don’t seem meaningful ahead of time, but they’re actually, they could be life-changing for you in those

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:05)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (18:05)
couple of weeks. You meet someone at a coffee shop, maybe another expat, and

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:10)
Right.

Tamarind Murrietta (18:11)
you’re so excited. This is gonna be your new friend, and you need this because you can’t reach your bestie and blah, blah, blah. And turns out that person, you know, they’re just not that into you.

That’s all right. You know, they’re a Sag and you’re an Aquarius, you know, like whatever. That as the hit different thing, that hits very differently because

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:31)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (18:31)
you are so holding on to the need for that relationship. It’s not just having a friend, it’s literally

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:39)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (18:39)
establishing yourself, getting yourself grounded somewhere. And that person looks like a lifeline. That lifeline now isn’t really interested in building something more.

That’s painful in a lot of different ways. So I would

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:52)
Right.

Tamarind Murrietta (18:53)
say those are some of the things. The hat not having that support network, not knowing where to turn, having questions about this, is it always super difficult? No, some places are a lot easier to set up.

I’ve lived in some really interesting countries and some that were very easy to navigate. But the point is that the systems that we have here that may be a little bit easier for you to overcome if you went from Philly to DC, they look and become very different.

And instead of it just being a friend, okay, we weren’t on the same page, cool, they’re a new acquaintance, it’s suddenly you’ve lost one of your three lifelines and it feels like the end of the world sometimes.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:30)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I I wanna dive even deeper into something that you were talking about earlier, which is probably I I think you were alluding to like the sensory overload that can take place, ’cause you were talking about like being in a market and like people screaming and yelling and all that kind of stuff. I wanna talk about some

Tamarind Murrietta (19:41)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:45)
specific things here ’cause like I I spent some time in in Barcelona and I was walking down I can’t remember the name of the road, but like there’s this like main like strip of walkway that is like miles long, you could just walk it. And like there’s so much happening and it it’s easy to be overloaded sensory-wise.

And so like I would prefer to walk that in either in the morning, like early in the morning or late at night.

Tamarind Murrietta (20:08)
Yes.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (20:09)
During the middle of the day, craziness. And I was just like, and you’ve said that sensory overload takes on like a whole new dimension in unfamiliar places, which is a piece of the international living conversation, the the the general travel advice world doesn’t seem to touch at all, I think, because like when I was prepping for Barcelona, that was not a conversation that anybody prepped me for.

From from what you’ve experienced, what are some like specific inputs, sounds, transit systems, food markets that you have actually learned to maybe screen before choosing where you’re going to spend a lot of your real time?

Tamarind Murrietta (20:49)
So I’ll give you an example. I used to live in Lagos, Nigeria. And if anyone’s familiar with certain West African countries, certain countries, similar countries nearby, a lot of the best markets are really outdoor markets.

And when I first relocated there, I was living somewhere where, like, really the easiest, most efficient way, reliable way for me to feed myself to get clean water, genuinely

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (21:19)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (21:20)
clean water to drink, I would have to go to these outdoor markets. Are they speaking English? Yes, they speak English.

Am I speaking English? Yes. But speaking English doesn’t mean you understand each other.

Speaking the same language doesn’t mean you’re you’re you get each other’s you know, colloquialisms, right?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (21:39)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (21:39)
That you understand each other’s accents. And so I would go to these outdoor markets and my, you know, I hate to sound so extreme, but my livelihood, eating and drinking clean water, depends on these outdoor markets.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (21:51)
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Tamarind Murrietta (21:53)
And I would go on Saturday morning, you know, when I normally do my grocery shopping, like here in the US, and I, my head would be pounding. I would start hearing ringing and buzzing in my ears. It’s loud, the smells, a cacophony of smells.

It’s people yelling and talking loud and laughing loudly, right? A very different culture there. Like if if any of your listeners have ever landed at the airport at Lagos, Nigeria’s in Murtala Muhammed, they know as soon as you walk outside, it is very different from many other places in the world.

People are are really happy and gregarious and the volumes of discussion. There’s so much passion, right? And you see that at the outdoor markets.

And so people are shouting at you constantly to come try their fish or their tomatoes. Then they’re shouting at each other. Then you’re smelling the chickens and the this that that are in the sun.

Maybe you’re not used to that. Then it’s maybe a lot hotter than a place that you’re used

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:54)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (22:54)
to, right? And so what I found is I was so overwhelmed that I would just be after like an hour or two of just getting basic items, I was done for like the entire day. And I noticed particularly early on, I wasn’t really getting myself settled, which is so crucial for us.

Like we have to have just some, you know, a basic, you know, system and organization and habits in place to really kind of get into a groove, calm our our nervous system down. And I couldn’t figure out what it what it is. I knew that was tiring, but I didn’t realize it was affecting me as greatly as it was.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (23:36)
Right.

Tamarind Murrietta (23:37)
And so those are the type of things that I would have thought about. I would have tried to get a location where I could, you know, easily get maybe a motorbike to take me to an indoor market that had, you know, air, like an actual, you know, a grocery store, versus trying to live this, you know, wonderful, different lifestyle right off the bat. There are some things you just need to ease into.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:01)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (24:02)
And that would be one of them. And if you are gonna have a sensory experience in a country that is, you know, maybe you know, it l- is quite different from where you’re from, you need to take it day by day, step by step. So your decision of what city you’re gonna go to, what province you’re gonna be in, these are all crucial.

And it’s amazing how many people, even people that I work with who are are planning to move, like they want to move their entire family. And you know, they’re not sure, they think they want to go to this continent and this region, they don’t know. And then you hear some of the things that they need or some of the requirements that they have or their children have.

And the countries that they have, you know, you know, put at the top of their list are just not a good fit.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:52)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (24:52)
Not a good fit for several reasons. And and they just never put those things together. They never thought to, and it happens all the time.

And look, I have done it so many times. If I haven’t, you know, done it myself and felt the repercussions of it,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:09)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (25:10)
I would, you know, just be like, it doesn’t, you know, like you’ll work it out.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:13)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (25:14)
Medication management. If you’re medicated, you need to plan for that. You need to find a place where this is you’re gonna have someone locally that you’re gonna have your substances, da-da-da-da-da-da.

And I can’t tell you how many people, it just doesn’t cross their mind.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:29)
Right.

Tamarind Murrietta (25:29)
And then they’re in a country and they can’t get their medication and then they’re trying to figure out what to do next.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:35)
Yeah, yeah. I I I also want to talk about the parents of of of kids that might be traveling as well. ‘Cause a lot of my listeners are moms and they have kids that are maybe a little bit older that travel.

And so for the parent that’s listening right now whose neurodivergent kid is about to leave for like a semester abroad or you know, might be doing a… You consult with parents and coaches on ways to mitigate some of those struggles before the family member even lands. What is the piece of prep work that parents almost always skip?

The one, you know, about you know, that ends up mattering probably the most, you know, when when the kid lands and they’re three weeks into the program. What do you think parents often skip the most when it comes to that prep?

Tamarind Murrietta (26:23)
Well, this may not be the best way to answer the question, but I honestly think that pretty much everyone misses it about them.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:33)
Mm.

Tamarind Murrietta (26:34)
They focus so much on their children and it’s great,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:37)
Sure.

Tamarind Murrietta (26:37)
they should, but they forget their needs and

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:41)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (26:42)
they they, you know, even if they do remember, it’s always second or third to the child. And and you know, we all have, you know, we all have a mother or we had a mother, and I can understand and and fathers and I can understand a parent wanting to put their child first. But it’s like on a plane, if you don’t put your mask on, you can’t put their mask on.

So if you yourself and and quite a few of the people that I’ve I’ve worked with or come in contact with in some way with these discussions, they have some form of neurodivergence themselves.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:18)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (27:19)
And they’re for the most part thinking absolutely everything to set their child up to excel, like wherever they are education or social this, the medication, whatever it is. But when you ask them about them and what their needs are and how they’re gonna I’ll I’ll worry about that when I get there. It it’s a child.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:38)
Yeah, yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (27:41)
Okay. We I think we all need to I think we need to plan for everybody. We need to plan

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:46)
Yes.

Tamarind Murrietta (27:46)
for everyone because if mom is starting to get off centered and not balanced, if dad is, you know, not able to get access to his medication and now has to figure out another way. If mom isn’t making friends and doesn’t understand why, no matter what you do to set your child up for success, they’re gonna know, they’re gonna feel that.

And and yeah, it kind of is antithetical to what they’re trying to achieve. So I don’t know if that’s the best way to answer it. I know maybe

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (28:14)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (28:16)
we’re thinking something for the child, but it’s usually people don’t think about themselves and it amazes me.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (28:20)
That’s important. Yeah, I think that’s really important for for people to understand. And and on top of that, like you you have talked a lot about going to grad school yourself in a new country, as like your first time, I think you said your first time living overseas was when you went to grad school, right?

Tamarind Murrietta (28:37)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (28:37)
And you talk about how you assumed that the accommodations that you were promised would be exactly what you needed to succeed in the program. So after after I read that, I I couldn’t help but think, like, what was the moment that you realized that the accommodations they were actually giving you were not the ones that you needed? What was going through your head when when you were in that moment?

Tamarind Murrietta (29:00)
Pure shock, just pure shock, pure like just utter fear of how am I going to get through this? I took this, you know, chance, I made this selection understanding I was gonna have these things and just utter, what do I do now?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (29:20)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (29:22)
And then I realized, you know what, I’m not gonna make it here. I’m not gonna make it in in the country. I’m not gonna make it in the school.

Like, and that came from, you know, a a sort of like a crossroad period. Because again, the, you know, I was trying to make friends. I couldn’t really keep up with some of the the overstimulating activities that they wanted to do.

I was having a hard time retaining some of the information I needed for my classes. And so there are a number of variables that were happening. A lot of our classes were starting very early in the morning.

And so I would struggle with that. I lived super far out, would have to come in. And so I just thought, hmm, my gosh, maybe this is like the final thing.

I can’t handle this. But it was, it was for our first midterms. So it was very early on, our first set of midterms.

It was maybe after like two, two and a half months. And I hadn’t received any updates about like, you know, what do I do next up? So I go to the office and I say, hi, blah, blah, blah.

Do you remember me? You know, here’s my letter. I you know, and they’re like, yeah, okay, great.

Yeah. And I’m like, yeah. So I, you know, midterms next week.

So where do I, is there like a place I go? Are you gonna send me a letter? They’re like, for what? Here

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:41)
Right.

Tamarind Murrietta (30:42)
like for my testing accommodations. They’re like, Yeah, no, that’s only for the end of your program final exams. And I was like, You mean a year and a half from now? Like, and

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:54)
Right, right.

Tamarind Murrietta (30:55)
and they were like, Yeah, that’s that’s it. And I’m like, Wait, you and I just I I couldn’t even like think clearly. I was like, how does that just equate to the end?

Obviously there’s a number of tests that I’m gonna be taking before them. And so yeah, I’m inevitably I had some great friends and family that were like, let’s try and figure this out, you know, try to keep going. And I did.

And the irony is when I did get those testing accommodations at the end, I raised my hand about 25, 35 minutes in the in the test, and I said, yeah, can I change back? Can I, is it possible? Can I like withdraw the requests?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:38)
Right.

Tamarind Murrietta (31:38)
And it was because the testing accommodations that like that I always knew of that, you know, universities were providing was very different in that country.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:48)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (31:49)
But again, if you don’t know the question to ask, you can’t ask it. I had no idea that I needed to ask these questions. And I do speak with parents and coaches and and different people who their kids are studying abroad and will be calling them and my God, I didn’t know this.

My God. And how can you know everything, right? Like

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:07)
Mm-hmm.

Tamarind Murrietta (32:08)
you can’t possibly think about you’re thinking I’m being approved for this. That must be what this is. But that’s very much a quintessential example of what it’s like to go from one country to another country. Different regulations,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:20)
Right. Right.

Tamarind Murrietta (32:22)
different infrastructure, different laws, different enforcement, different understanding of what it means. And so when you think you’re going someplace and they’re saying you’re getting accommodations, there are questions that you need to ask.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:38)
Yeah. Yeah. I wanna I wanna play a little game with you.

It’s called This or That. And what’s gonna happen is I’m gonna give you two choices. You can either choose one or the other, or both or neither, whatever your personal preference is.

It’s not deep, I promise. I’ll just

Tamarind Murrietta (32:52)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:52)
I’ll just give it to you and then you choose whatever you’d like. Okay. All

Tamarind Murrietta (32:56)
Okay.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (32:56)
right, here we go. First one. Aisle seat or window seat?

Tamarind Murrietta (33:00)
Aisle seat all day, huge best practice for people who are neurodivergent.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:05)
Tell me more, tell me more.

Tamarind Murrietta (33:07)
Huge. I’ve done some some posts about it as well. Concerts, I will pay more money to be on an aisle.

Definitely airplanes, enclosed areas. You need that time. You need it to get up, to breathe.

You need the time to walk. Any of your habits and rituals that you use to keep yourself together, if you are locked in, you’re too much. And what are these people?

How are they gonna be affected? I don’t wanna keep walking in front of them. I feel so bad.

Whatever it is, set yourself up for success with that aisle seat. I’m telling you, it

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:39)
I love it.

Tamarind Murrietta (33:40)
is a godsend.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:41)
Okay, nice. Second one, a city you already know cold or a country you have never set foot in.

Tamarind Murrietta (33:49)
Say it one more time.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:51)
A city that you already know cold, like you know it well, or

Tamarind Murrietta (33:54)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:55)
a country that you’ve never set foot in.

Tamarind Murrietta (33:58)
Definitely a country I’ve never set foot in. Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:00)
Yeah. Is that the is that the the curious nature of of of your brain? Like you’re like you’re you want to explore something new kind of kind of thing? Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (34:08)
I think so. I I think so. I don’t think I would have lived in these different countries had I not had that that that just that interest.

And I grew up the earlier part of my life in Flushing, Queens. And if anyone knows about Flushing is extraordinarily diverse, people from all over the world. And that is what I saw and that is what I expected.

And so I love to see that. So when I’m not in it, I almost feel like I’m like I’m incomplete.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:38)
Mm. Have there been any cities or countries that surprised you? Like you got there and you’re like, I like it here.

Tamarind Murrietta (34:45)
You know, I hate I hate to say this again, but Nigeria for sure.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:48)
Nigeria, yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (34:49)
I didn’t know what to expect.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:51)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (34:52)
But by far one of the most exciting places in the world to be, the most friendly, supportive people. China. I think I was surprised by China.

I was in Hong Kong, but you know, went back and forth to different Chinese cities, places like Shanghai and others just really surprised me. I would say one that surprised me, not in maybe the positive way, would that be not appropriate to say? I don’t know.

I think I was surprised by Russia. I was surprised

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:17)
No, please. No, you’re good. Can I take a guess?

I was gonna say France. I was gonna s- that was gonna be my that was gonna be my second guess. Or my f- not my first guess. But you’re s- you’re surprised by Russia, okay.

Tamarind Murrietta (35:29)
Yeah. Moscow particularly,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:31)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (35:32)
but Russia. It I thought I was going to just have this, you know, wonderful moment and explore, you

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:37)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (35:37)
know, you grow up l- you know, with history. And yeah, it’s very interesting for women, for solo travelers and particularly people of color. So that was a

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:46)
Interesting.

Tamarind Murrietta (35:47)
surprise for me.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:48)
Okay. My sister, she just got back from Frankfurt, Germany. And

Tamarind Murrietta (35:52)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:53)
and she wasn’t the biggest fan of Frankfurt, Germany at all. She she she she

Tamarind Murrietta (35:56)
I can understand.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:57)
loved Germany, like all the other places that she went, she had nothing but great things to say about Germany. All the places that she went, the one place that she was like,

Tamarind Murrietta (36:04)
Yes.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:05)
no, was Frankfurt, Germany. That was the one place she was like, no.

Tamarind Murrietta (36:07)
She’s not wrong. Tell your sister she’s not wrong. Frankfurt, I’ve heard several people ’cause like s- a place like Munich and Berlin, it’s like, yes. But

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (36:17)
like Frankfurt reminds me of Zurich, where

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:20)
Okay.

Tamarind Murrietta (36:20)
there it’s like it’s almost like the city was built for the airport. It’s just like, you

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:24)
Sure. Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (36:26)
know, there’s it’s okay.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:27)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (36:28)
I don’t wanna like offend it. It’s okay, but

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:29)
Right.

Tamarind Murrietta (36:30)
you know, it’s it’s it’s no Berlin.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:32)
That’s fair. Now I just lost my Frankfurt Germany audience. They’re all, you they’re they’re I’m checking no, I’m kidding.

I don’t I don’t I don’t think I I don’t think I have a Frankfurt Germany audience. But I I I I

Tamarind Murrietta (36:36)
My God, no, Germany’s a mid like this is Germany’s amazing.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:42)
I do have a lot of not a lot, but I I do know like a lot of people that that listen and follow me that are from Germany. And I’ve said this publicly before because I loved having these kind of conversations with people. And a lot every time that I’ve brought up Frankfurt Germany, most of the people, including some of the people in Germany, agree with me or agree with

Tamarind Murrietta (36:58)
Right.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:59)
my sister, I should say. Okay, number three. Overplan the itinerary or leave the day completely over.

Tamarind Murrietta (37:06)
So I hate to be that person, but I

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:08)
Be that person, do it. Go ahead.

Tamarind Murrietta (37:10)
would need to have a caveat.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:13)
Okay.

Tamarind Murrietta (37:13)
Is this for what is it? Is it like a one week, two week trip? Is it solo?

Is it group? Is it I’m moving somewhere and I’m just going somewhere for a weekend?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:23)
It is for let’s say because I have a lot of people that travel solo. So let’s say let’s say you solo travel.

Tamarind Murrietta (37:29)
Mm-hmm. Okay, if it’s solo travel and you’re just going like internationally, like you said, to Barcelona for two weeks.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:33)
Just to visit, just to be like, Yeah, I wanna go I wanna I I’ve never been to Barcelona and I wanna go to Barcelona.

Tamarind Murrietta (37:38)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:39)
I’m on

Tamarind Murrietta (37:40)
I would leave it open. But I would have like three or four elements in place that are sort of

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:45)
Mm.

Tamarind Murrietta (37:45)
guiding principles for that city. So, but leaving it open allows you that flexibility to just have moments of silence, to be able to disconnect and connect at any time that you want to. When you have to stick to an itinerary.

I mean I’ll just be honest, that’s something I rarely do. I have started building itineraries for different major cities so people who are neurodivergent, particularly tailored to them, so they know places they can go that will, you know, like say a museum that, you know, has low lights, right? Something like that.

Because I know that I will be out there and I’m looking for a place just to get away and it’s like I can’t find it, and then my whole day’s gone. So open-ended

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (38:28)
Sure. Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (38:30)
is great. Go with what you need. If you try and stick to something, inevitably you’re seeing new things, but that peace and that calm that you really seeking for the trip in the first place is maybe not going to be there if something with your itinerary is affected or if it’s too much or if something, you know, doesn’t work out.

I would say though, if it’s like an adventure travel type of thing, you know, you’re solo traveler and you wanna go, you know, ride the sand dunes somewhere. That’s

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:01)
Mm. Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (39:03)
a that’s an exception. You may wanna plan

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:04)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (39:05)
that out. I don’t want you stuck in a sand dune somewhere because someone said you had two hours of time that you just yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:07)
Yes. Yeah. That doesn’t sound like fun. Yeah, no, I’ll I’ll

Tamarind Murrietta (39:12)
No.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:13)
pass on that one. Next one. Learn ten words of the language before you land or figure it out in the wild once you get there.

Tamarind Murrietta (39:22)
Definitely the former. Definitely the former.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:24)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (39:25)
I would say, you know, it’s it’s a huge mistake in order for you as a person to just navigate, period. Even in the airport.

I mean, you know, I if a g- I guess and this was one of my questions for you, you said you went to Barcelona, if you or one of your listeners have gone somewhere where their particular passport or their visa had a little bit more of an expansive check-in when you get to immigration versus just, you know, floating in.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:49)
Yes.

Tamarind Murrietta (39:50)
Even dealing with that, speaking with the people

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:53)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (39:53)
who look at your yellow card or people who you need to pay for the on-site visa can

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (39:58)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (39:58)
be difficult to navigate. So and for you, logistically, it makes sense. For you to just kind of keep your balance, keep everything together, makes sense, right?

It it removes a lot of extra issues or concerns. But I think most importantly, personally, it’s about being culturally aware. These are

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (40:19)
Yeah.

Tamarind Murrietta (40:19)
cross-cultural experiences. You should absolutely go in making the effort to respect somebody’s culture, to respect where they’re from, where you spent the time saying, Let me learn something about you and I’m gonna come here, as opposed to going there and saying, Well, you need to speak my language to me because da-da-da. It’s like, I do.

No, I don’t. You’re visiting here.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (40:39)
Right. Right.

Tamarind Murrietta (40:42)
So I think just from the nexus of cultural appreciation. And I feel like if people learn 10 words, if every person learned 10 words before they went to another country, we would be so much of a closer community globally than we are now. I think

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (40:59)
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Tamarind Murrietta (41:00)
the mere fact that people don’t try, it says a lot.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (41:04)
Mm-hmm. Yes. I have one more question for you and I ask this of all my guests if there’s one thing that you want the audience to take away from our conversation today. What is that one?

Tamarind Murrietta (41:15)
That you too can live your dreams abroad, you too can travel and have a new life somewhere else, even if it’s for a couple of weeks or a couple of years, your neurodivergence, you being ADHD, it doesn’t have to hold you back. Don’t let it hold you back. Living in another place, traveling to other places makes us better people and we are just purely better for it in our life. And I highly encourage it to anyone that is interested.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (41:45)
I love it.

Thank you so much to Tamarind Murrietta for being a guest on The Vibe With Ky Podcast today. If you enjoyed Tamarind today, be sure to check her out at LiveAbroadWithADHD.com and follow @LiveAbroadWithADHD on social media. There’s a YouTube channel and a weekly Substack as well, plus a special link just for Vibers where you can join the ADHD Traveler and Expat Community and grab a free ADHD International Travel Checklist.

All of those links are in the show notes of this episode. If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure you visit my website at TheVibeWithKy.com or follow me @TheVibeWithKy on your favorite social media platforms for even more conversations and content just like this episode. And if you haven’t already, subscribe so you never miss an episode of The Vibe With Ky Podcast and leave a review so more people can find the show.

With that said, my friends, thank you so much for watching and for listening. As always, much love, good vibes. I’ll catch you next time. Bye!