Discover the Ultimate Travel Hack with This YouTube Super Star! | Cata @BackPackYourLife

Cata  
If I want to send money to you, I send money to you through WhatsApp, if I want to order taxi if I want to whatever, you know, you just you just have two apps. So they're basically there is no cash for two months, I haven't taken out. I've never seen any cash, you know, so when I came here I was in first to Colombia, I have to take our money change that then you leave the country then you realize I had another 100,000 pesos that I have to change them now I'm going to get a very bad currency you know, exchange rates for that. And then it's very, it is very easy just to do that, you know, you have it on your phone, you pay. So if the world would work like this, I'd be the happiest person alive actually.

Mike Peterson  
Cata, I'm glad we're able to make this happen. 

Cata  
Yes. 

Mike Peterson  
This is kind of an impromptu show. We met last night actually at the pizzeria. We were sitting there with Tim Berra, and Don LeClaire. And you came up to us and I think you were trying to use your bitcoin wallet and

Cata  
I tried because I have no prior experiences in Bitcoin. So I just wanted to pay with Bitcoin and the girl that was selling the proposal told me you know what, you can ask those guys who are at the table. And he was like, which guys? Is that? Okay, those guys? Okay. And this is why I came up to the to your table. 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah. So we actually had a fun time, he wound up sitting down with us and telling us a little bit about your story. You're a YouTuber that are a travel vlogger that travels around the world. And I pulled up your channel today, and you have like 700,000 subscribers, right? Like that? Was that was like. So I think you'd have like 150 million people have watched your videos overall, which is super impressive. So I'm curious to dive into that and how you got into that as a career. But before that. Last night, you were talking about how you'd been in El Salvador before? 

Cata  
Yes. 

Mike Peterson  
And yeah, I don't want to I don't want to take your thunder. So you tell, tell us why you wanted to come again, what you were hearing in the news? And how that compared to what you'd seen before? And yeah, so take it away. 

Cata  
So when I first arrived in El Salvador was, I think, late 2016, or something like that. I was in I was in Colombia. And then I had some friends who arrived in Istanbul that wanted to visit the country. I flew from Colombia, and actually spent just one night in San Salvador. And then I came to El Tunco. Where I think I stayed with my friends for a couple of days. Then we went to Nicaragua. Why we went to Nicaragua, because back home, we knew that Nicaragua was one of the safest countries here in the area, you know, so Freitas for us. It was like, Okay, we're going to El Salvador because my friends found the very cheap ticket to the Salvador. And I said, Okay, we just go there, we're not going to visit, we are scared, whatever. Okay, we're just going to go there, and then take a bus and cross boundaries and go to Nicaragua. And because I arrived very late at night, I said, You know what, we are going, I'm just going to stay at the hotel, and then in the morning, I will go to El Tunco. I didn't know back then that the airport was actually closer to El Tunco you know. So for me, it was like, I go to the Capitol, and then I go to El Tunco. And the morning when I saw that, well, it's much closer to actually go from the airport to El Tunco, I was like, okay, and I remember I arrived I knew very, very few things about El Salvador just the fact that it is a it was a dangerous country, but but to put it into context, whenever you think about Latin America, like going south from Mexico, you hear just crime, poverty and whatever. So it wasn't something special for me arriving in El Salvador. That is what I thought. I arrived in my hotel I checked in I don't remember the name of the hotel. I don't remember the area and then when I wanted to leave to actually just buy something to eat at 9pm more or less. I remember that the girl the reception strongly advice me against this, which for me was pretty odd because it wasn't like in the other Latin American countries or people were like, You know what? You shouldn't be careful. No, it was a very strange No, you shouldn't go outside now. I was like, What is like a revolution was no no, no, you shouldn't go is dangerous. Of course. Me considering myself pretty ballsy. I didn't pay attention to her. I wanted to leave the hotel and then I remember there was this there was a there was a gentleman, let's say in his maybe mid 50s or something like guarding the hotel. And the only thing that I remember is that he carried the gun that was larger, taller actually than him. He had a huge gun. And this guy told me no, no, you shouldn't leave. You shouldn't leave the hotel. Now it's night. There is no no public lightning round lighting round here. So you shouldn't leave, you know. And this was something that shocked me. Of course, I left it was a market very, very close. I went and I ate something. And it was really strange on the street actually saw a guy will who will who was just doing his his basic necessities on the street. There was another guy who approached me asking for some money, whatever. But what really shocked me was the fact that everything happened during pitch black. Well, it was full darkness, no light, no, nothing. 

Mike Peterson  
At 9pm? 

Cata  
9pm. This is something because I remember I had the big camera that I was using back then. And of course, I said, Okay, I'm going to go film I'm in El Salvador. And then when I left the hotel, let's say 50 meters, I got scared. And then I put the camera in my backpack. And I had no I have no footage actually from from that trip. So that was everything. And it's really interesting for people to understand it. It wasn't my first time in Latin America. So this happened in late 2016. I was traveling throughout Latin America for more than nine months. 

Mike Peterson  
Can you speak good Spanish too? 

Cata  
Back then, no. But of course, I could communicate the desire for me to communicate and just, you know, have a basic conversation with somebody. So this was my first interaction with the country. That my first interaction after that the second day, I came to El Tunco. We stayed here for a couple of days. But I I really remember that everybody was from my well. Not paranoid, but everybody was very had the shrink and excessive care towards all my, my well being, you know. Years past years past, I didn't come back to Central America. I just went in that trip, I went to Guatemala, like everybody know, when they come to Central America, they just go from country to country. And a couple of weeks ago, I was actually in China. And then I said, You know what I feel I want to go back to Latin America. I flew to Colombia. I stayed in Colombia for a while. And then I went to Guatemala. And my mother one night told me I you know, Catalin, tomorrow is the ceremony of Bukele of the President, you should go and see that. And this is why I decided to actually go from Guatemala City. And I said, Okay, I have to be here. Oh, no, it happened on a Saturday, I have to be there. And I have to say this. And when I arrived. I felt like I arrived to in a different country than back then. Because, well, during the last couple of years, of course, Bukele has become, his very viral. Everybody knows about him. You know, in the beginning, there were only positive things and good things about everything that he did here. But then the media and I'm talking about mainstream media started saying, oh, okay, the guy is a dictator. He's doing this, he's doing that he shouldn't do that. He's abusing his power and all that. So this is why I came here actually, to say, You know what, it doesn't matter what Western media what mainstream media says. It doesn't matter if I like him or not. What's important here, how people that live who live here, actually think about this, you know, and I had the I had the previous experience for many years ago. And I said, Okay, I'm going to go on the street and talk to let's say, 50 people, and just make statistics, you know, because it's a numbers game. Yeah. And I could say that 99% of the people with whom I talked, told me, everything is very good now. There wasn't a single person who told me I know, you should take your with your personal belongings. And numbers don't lie. It's also important to understand numbers don't lie. I did some research back then when I was here, El Salvador had almost 110 or 120 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. And now it went down to 2.5. And to put things into perspective, Romania, which is one of the safest countries in the world, has like 1.6 I think United States has more than I don't three or four times. 

Mike Peterson  
I think it's like 7.5 or something like that, you know. 

Cata  
Something like that. Exactly. But what's really interesting for me, too, is really interesting to understand that this this process is not a process that took decades is something that happened in a blink of an eye. So I just have I just had one person actually, who told me Bukele is a good guy, very good, what he's doing and all of that, but I have some people Look where have some relatives who who are in in prison now, and we know nothing about them, we don't know how to get in touch with them. And and all of that this is the only not bad thing you know, it's not so positive thing that I've heard. But so far for me is like shocking I think is the country is the best example of how things can go from from rock bottom. You know under good management. And under a strong management budget this is really important to understand how things can improve. So I'm very shocked, I'm very surprised in a pleasant way. And then my I don't know my time here has been amazing. So far I've been here just one week. But

Mike Peterson  
When you feel safe going out at night, you see where before you never didn't see anybody on the street. But now the streets are full.

Cata  
This is another thing you know, like whenever you go outside, then you don't see people, you know, but also what people need to understand. People need to understand that when it comes to safety, you need to look to pet to judge things into perspective. Of course, I'm not going to expect the same level of safety here as for example, in Switzerland, or also back home. As I said Romania is you don't hear about homicide homicides, we don't have just some petty crimes, all of that, you know, so no. So one when you come here, even though you hear our case, such as safe country, use, you just have to use your streetsmart and things that you you wouldn't do back home. You shouldn't do them here. You know, that's the only thing. But besides that. Absolutely no, no, no. Which whatsoever.

Mike Peterson  
And if you noticed are the construction and building going on? 

Cata  
Yes, everywhere. And actually, for me it was was really interesting that as I said, I was just in China. And when I arrived in San Salvador, I didn't do actually any prior research to see how the country has changed. And then when I went to the central part of San Salvador, I saw that big library. I had no idea about that. You know, I was just walking and then I was filming and I was like, What is this? I've seen this building. I saw this building a couple of weeks ago. They have it in Beijing, they have it in Shanghai, they have it like every big city in China has a big library, you know. And I was like, What is this doing here? And then I started to investigate. I saw it says they're made in collaboration with China, whatever, you know. So yeah, much, much more cleaner. The city. I actually walked from the from the place where where they had the ceremony, I went that night there. So I went in the morning to set the ceremony. And then I went at night because I said, I don't think it's so relevant. If I go during daytime, maybe if it's during the ceremony, because it's special events, of course, they're going to take extra precautions. I will go at night. I don't know 7pm I went at 7pm. And then I said you know what? I'm going to go back walking. I was actually in the San Benito neighborhood. I think I had to work for like two hours. Yeah, that's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just No, no, no, I walked all the way back. That's a long walk. Yes. As because I wanted to say I said, Okay, I leave at 7pm, which means I'm going to write form nine. I think I arrived at 10pm. Because I stopped I had some drinks or whatever, you know. And I said, Okay, this is going to be interesting. I just had my passport with me some money, of course, my mind my small camera. And I said, Okay, we will see how it goes. And then I just walked. And he's not, it's. Okay. Nothing happened to me. But it's also I was also just trying to pay attention and to say, okay, but nothing happens to me. But is there something weird going on? Or how do I feel or no, absolutely no problem. And usually here here in Central America, also Latin America, people need to understand that whenever you think about downtown, for example, back home, if I talk about downtown is the cleanest and the safest area. In Latin America it's exactly the opposite.

Mike Peterson  
Even in the US and a lot of places you don't want to go downtown. So what is the same thing in the US? Okay, depending on where you're at, but certain cities for sure, yeah. 

Cata  
For me, this was really really like a cultural thing because back home whenever I say okay, I live in downtown Bucharest. Bucharest is the capital of Romania. I live in the most central area. For me, this is where it's the best area and then we go to the outskirts. That's where I only have like some bad neighborhoods and all of that. Here, my first contact with Latin America. Whenever I arrived in Peru many years ago, in Lima. I said, I'm going to book something in that in downtown Plaza de Armas. The word is part of their Messiah, it should be very safe there. And when I arrived there, I was like, wait, wait, oh, he here is a bit different. Here. The good neighborhoods are on the outskirts. You know, I had no idea about this, you know, so I had no clue prior knowledge to this. 

Mike Peterson  
but El Salvador is trying to change that. And they have to a significant degree, as you saw, I mean, they've really revitalize the downtown area. And it's beautiful now. 

Cata  
Exactly, I was actually talking to some people that told me you can just stay now sleep on the street, and you're going to wake up with your personal belongings. And I said, if you did this a couple of years ago, you wouldn't even have found your your shoes, you know, they would have taken everything from you. And I've heard stories like I was on the beach. Before, before I met you guys yesterday, speaking with some locals. And who are telling me all this, all the stories, people are saying their mid 50s, who basically lived their whole lives with with this thing in their back of their mind, you know, if I go outside, somebody might kill me, us, let's say if you're like a tourist or traveler, you only experienced this for one week, two weeks, three weeks, one month, as long as you stay in that country, but you're not involved into in social activities. You are not working you don't when you work somewhere, you cannot just choose your workplace. So you are forced to interact with situations that me as a foreigner, I can just stay in my bubble. And I can, I can mitigate the damage that I might receive if I get involved in weird situations. 

Mike Peterson  
And even when things were really bad tourists were kind of off limits. So the gangs didn't really bother them. Because the repercussions would be much stronger if something happened to a tourist. So even even when things were bad, we didn't experience the you know, the things like the locals then. 

Cata  
This is very what what you're saying now is very true. And I tried to explain people that from the vast majority of foreigners, that for example, that if you hear that, okay, a foreigner got robbed or a foreigner got drugs or something happened to a foreigner it's really important sometimes to check the background to see what was he getting evolved into some shady business. Because most of the time if you just do normal stuff, as you said, people from these gangs they don't want a bet for example, what happened now I was in Guatemala I wanted to go to some very bad neighborhoods there a couple of weeks ago there was the one of the most famous Tiktok in Guatemala was killed. He was 18 years old. Who when he was killed from by by Barrio Diseotso or whatever they call it over there. And people, people who actually do these kinds of things now they don't want attention. Yeah, so you as a foreigner in the vast majority of cases if you're I don't know in a bad neighborhood by any I don't know bad luck if somebody comes to you they can say Okay, give me everything you have if you don't suppose this if you don't resist this it's very very very unlikely that they're gonna kill you if you are a woman the situation changes a lot like I believe that women have it's much more difficult for let's say solo female traveling throughout Latin America much more difficult. But this is what I tried to say that whenever they blame they say okay a guy went to went to Colombia which will not be a has a huge drug related issue right now with with foreigners with girls with drug foreigners and all that. He went to Colombia, they robbed him. Okay, but what was he doing? Was he just walking normal? No humans will park with the girl that he found in the street. And she invited him with 10 other girls, and they were doing I don't know which kind of drugs and all of that. Nobody tells you that. Yeah. So it's, it's very easy to blame it out. Okay, this country is dangerous. Of course, as I said, is much more dangerous here. Or let's say Latin America than the my own home country. Yeah. But still, I wouldn't get involved in shady, shady business in my country. Why would I do this?

Mike Peterson  
In a place where you don't know the people? 

Cata  
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, I always I always think that's funny. A lot of times people, not funny, but I just don't understand it. They'll go to a place where they don't know anybody. And they'll do things they wouldn't do in their home country. And it's like, You're crazy. For one you don't know who these people are, two your if you wind up in jail in Latin America, it's going to be a very different experience and wind up in jail in the US so but I don't know what it is. Sometimes people think they have a free pass when they get outside of their home country. And they they do stupid things sometimes. 

Cata  
Maybe because you're further away and you maybe you feel a bit more relaxed when it comes to this.  

Mike Peterson  
I still don't do. Don't do anything that you wouldn't do. 

Cata  
And whenever I talk to people, for example, they tell me stuff or whatever people who want to do, I don't know, illegal things. I always tell them, you want to do something illegal. Do it back home in Europe. You can waive your human rights you can say ha the police force me they pushed me you can do this. There are places in the world. We cannot do this in Asia cannot do this in China cannot do this in Latin America because You're not home, you need to respect me to understand that the law works completely different here than other parts of the world. And also democracy, democracy, which is really important. Something that I have understood, I've understood in the last years is not the type of democracy that everybody wants is not applicable to all the countries for example. Okay, maybe now El Salvador is in commerce, a German start with the Americans here for many years now, for a couple of years, they've extended it, I don't know, 100 times of emergency, they have a state of emergency. And us from back home from the comfort of my living room, just watching the TV not having to deal with homicides, I can say, Wow, that's such a bad thing. He's abusing power. I can say that, you know, but in order to understand the country, I have to understand the context and the history that the country is going through. 

Mike Peterson  
No, 100% 100% Well, that's why I always tell people come down and see it for yourself. Like don't listen to what the media is saying. Come down and see it talk to people talk to locals like you've been doing see what they think about it. 

Cata  
Yeah, yeah, that's that's a that's really important.

Mike Peterson  
So I'm curious is I know when we met you yesterday, it was because you were trying to use Bitcoin. And obviously you had heard that Bitcoin was a thing here in El Salvador. So I'm curious as to what you have heard in international news about Bitcoin and El Salvador and why you wanted to use it while you were here.

Cata  
Oh, so the thing is, I have almost zero knowledge when it comes to Bitcoin I just know the very basic things you know, I know just a bit about blockchain but very, very, very basic stuff. I've never actually had Bitcoin I never bought Bitcoin and I've never did anything crypto related in my life. But a couple of years ago, I don't know when exactly when when this started, it became more and more known that okay, the El Salvador is going to try to adopt Bitcoin and it's one of it's the first country, If I'm not mistaken, in the world that has adopted Bitcoin, you know, and when when when I knew that, I'm going to come here, I was like, Okay, I would like to make a video about this. How does it work? How what's what's what's, what's the thing with using between here, you know, so? Yeah, and I was able, like, for example, yesterday, I paid those proposals today. I also bought I don't beer, some coffee. I had breakfast. I just went and it's very easy and very straightforward.

Mike Peterson  
Yeah. Especially for travelers. You're not worried about exchanging money or anything. It's just on your phone. And you just,

Cata  
Yeah, that's like, for me, for me, because I change countries so often having to deal with cash currency exchange, do they do that? It's, it's quite, it's quite a nuisance, actually. Because I remember while I was in China was for almost two months in China. I've never seen cash. I've never used cash. You just use an app there. China has two apps. There are two apps for everything. Like for example, just put it this way is like on WhatsApp. But the type of WhatsApp for example, if I speak Romanian, you speak English. I send you audios in Romanian, you receive them in English. If I want to send money to you, I send money to you through WhatsApp, if I want to order texts if I want to whatever, you know, you just you just have two apps. So they're basically there is no cash for two months. I haven't taken out I've never seen any cash No. So when I came here I was in first to Colombia, I have to take our money change that then you leave the country then you realize I had another 100,000 pesos that I have to change now I'm going to get a very big currency you know, exchange it for that. And then it's very, it's very easy just to do that, you know, you have it on your phone, you pay. So if the world would would work like this, I'd be the happiest person alive actually. 

Mike Peterson  
Well, I mean, that's that's the goal for Bitcoinize world that you have one currency that no one country controls that something that's totally decentralized. And so nobody can stop certain people from using it. That's the great thing about Bitcoin you can send to anybody in the world. There's no sanctions, there's no nothing that can stop. And and so it's open to everybody. So that's what that's what makes it so amazing. Yeah. So compared to the news that you had been hearing you feel like El Salvador is in a much better place compared to-

Cata  
El Salvador is a different country. Yeah. And what really shocked me a couple of days ago, I heard on the news. There were two guys, expand the juros did did something in the northern part of the country. It was just something on Tiktok isointense. And I started to research it, and what I really liked about it, so it was the only event that happened somewhere Bukele sent 5000 people to deal with this, which for me was like, why would you send 5000? Ah, no, this is to send the message. This is to actually send the message is not about to deal with those people, because you can deal with those people very easy. Yeah. But the idea is, you know what we are going to, I will go all in, if something happens, if it's like the smallest smallest thing, we are going to go all in. And this works more like a deterrent, I think, you know, people have for people to think about doing something 20 times before actually doing good, you know. 

Mike Peterson  
No and it's worked, that's why that's why the murder rate is so low now people know, the gang members who haven't been picked up yet are all in hiding. Nobody wants to try anything, because they realize that they'll get caught. So yes, and it's the turn. It used to be the young people. You know, it seemed fun for them to to join the gangs, it didn't seem like there was very many repercussions and, and that felt cool to them. Now, the young people want nothing to do with the gangs because they realize that they're gonna wind up locked up. And so it's really transformed the whole society. 

Cata  
Yeah, yeah. And that I think is like, is like the best strategy. And I've watched tons of videos, tons, all of them, you know, because I made a video on a solver in San Salvador. And I wanted to understand as much as possible. So with 99% of the things that I've that I've heard, you know, that he said, I 100% agree. As I said, from back home, from the comfort of your living room, it's very easy to do politics or to understand how it works. It's very, very, very easy to do that. But you have to go and you have to visit for example, for me, it was a huge surprise going to China, which also had tons of negative image about China. And I went there with how should I say, I went there with with very bad stereotypes. I went there, you know, to China, and I was completely blown away as a person. Me like, I've never been to United States, I'm a very pro American guy, a very pro-liberal, I'm a capitalist 100% I believe in Liberal rights and all of that. So everything that has to do with with communism, or or with being a leftist, whatever this means back home, this is very, very important thing for us. Because Romania, we were under the Soviet for many years, we had the revolution back in 1989. My father actually went outside, I have friends, my father's friends who wants to want to fight for our for our liberation. So for me, anything that's related to socialists, it's something that I rejected a lot, you know, but once you go to China, once you go to China, and you see some things happening there, you know, you say, Okay, who am I to say that these these social model works everywhere, you know, you have to also understand that there are some countries, like, for example, if you take this whole continent, if you take this whole part of the world, Latin America, people are more violent here, because they are more passionate here. So passion can also be is like a two edged sword, you know, you can be more passionate doing good things, but you're also going to be more passionate doing bad things. So the same thing that applies in, let's say, in Japan, you're never going to be able to steal the Japanese model. And to put it here. Yeah. So you have to adapt, according to the people, you know.

Mike Peterson  
That makes a lot of sense. So I'm curious as to how you wound up being a travel vlogger, and you've obviously developed a very loyal following. I was like I said, I was shocked at the number of subscribers you have. And you mentioned beforehand that you you started out as a soap opera. 

Cata  
Yeah, yeah. Well, actually, I was a high school dropout. University dropout actually was the black sheep in my family. I have a sister who, who is a ballerina, she's dancing now. For the last eight years. She has been working for she she works for the National Opera Ballet in Birmingham. She studied in Germany. Then she danced in, in Switzerland in Zurich, and now she lives she has been living maybe seven or eight years or more, I think in the UK. So so she was the How should I call it? She was she was the good child, you know? And now, as I said, high school dropout, no high school, Oh, almost high school dropout. Because I graduated high school. Then I went into studying political science after the first couple, two semesters, I quit. And then I started to I started to become an actor. And then I got kicked out because I don't know. I was never able to actually integrate into into it was very difficult for need to integrate into society? You know, I was always a bit of a lone wolf, you know. And back, this was mid 2000s, where my Well, my life was pretty, pretty shitty actually back the back then. And then one night in 20, the 2008 or something else, my mother called me, I saw that, you know, Catilin, there's like an audition for a soap opera or whatever. And of course, I was very skeptic. I was just playing video games, playing Counter Strike playing StarCraft back in the day. I was like, obsessed with this. 

Mike Peterson  
I remember Counter Strike. 

Cata  
Yeah, it was crazy, crazy, crazy. This is actually why I lost two universities. This is why I lost like two or three relationships. Jobs in whatever. And just because of that gained more than 30 pounds back then just because of that. So my mother told me how you have to go audition for this? I was like, no, no, I don't want to go. I don't want to do this. I don't care about this, either one. And then she pushed me down. I went, I got the part. And then it was one of the we started with 12 with this season of 12 episodes, and then we ended up doing more than 600 episodes, if I'm not mistaken. Wow. Yeah. Like for many, many, many years. After one year, I also started to be a movie director there, you know. And this was until 2000. In late 2014, when the situation in my country, what people need to understand we have a border with Ukraine. We are part of NATO. NATO had a very big interest into having tons of influence in my country. And what they did, they gave total power to one of our presidents. And he started to do like a clean sweep to start to put in prison, all the people who were like corrupt, and who were against the United States. And most of those people had businesses and one of that person had the business, the TV station that was actually working for and he ended up in jail. Like many others, this is what happened. And when he ended up in jail, he lost the TV station, somebody else bought it. And everything changed there. And actually, this is one of my one of my contract ended when the soap opera I was working for one day, I will my boss called me I said, You know what Catalin this is our last day. Don't tell anyone just finish the finish shooting. Tomorrow, all of you are like unemployed. Which when you're working in something like this when you have no no when I had no no qualification, and I was also not willing to work for peanuts, because I had a good life back home. I was like, okay, what can I do? And then I invested the money that I had into some apartments, some invest into real estate. And then I said, You know what, I just want to travel, I want to go somewhere. And one week before I turned 29 if I'm not mistaken, I woke up and I said this was 3am. And I said you know what, I'm going to buy one way tickets, either to Latin America, or to Asia. But the ticket has to be close to $700 roundtrip or euros. I found the ticket to Peru. I left in five, six days, without any prior experience. And also I was the type of person who only went in resorts went I went a couple of times to Spain, to the United Kingdom, but that was like very, very mainstream, you know. And I went to Peru. I traveled in Peru for like three months in Brazil. I crossed the Amazon jungle on on a boat. And then I went back home and I said okay, I got this out of my system. Now I can just focus on the next step in life. I arrived on the 31st of December. And then on the fourth of January, I bought my next ticket to Asia. And this is when my ex ex ex girlfriend from back then she just told me something. I know what you're just traveling, you have some money saved up. Why don't you start the YouTube channels like YouTube? This is so stupid. Who uses YouTube? I was only using YouTube for for listening to music app. And I was like, No, I don't want to do this. Like I'm very reluctant. This is why I have no connection with Bitcoin. Because I'm very reluctant to everything that's new in life. You know, it takes a lot for me to actually get into things you know. And I bought a GoPro, GoPro 3 I think it was. And then I just started making videos for my mother for my family. I had one view five views, 10 views, 100 views, 400 views. And after one and a half years, my channel started to take off but take off in the idea that I had views. But that wasn't making any money. Because how YouTube works. YouTube works based on views of course, but based on ads, which means this means how much are advertisers willing to pay for 1000 views. The problem is that Romania was back then. It was very bad and 1000 views from Romania. An advertiser not going to pay as much to have an ad placed on 1000 views for Romania. Then it pays for some views that come from United States or from Norway or from Germany. So even though I had millions of views, I wasn't making tons, like I wasn't making enough to be able to serve to support my travels. So just I think until now from 2019 It actually took off and during the pandemic is where it's skyrocketed. The pandemic for me was like the best time. 

Mike Peterson  
Were you still traveling during that time?

Cata  
Of course, I think I took more than 80 PCR tests. I went to North Africa to Eastern to Western Africa, I traveled all over Latin America, I enjoyed the fact that there were no tourist people weren't I had to do pre travel, PCR, then arrival PCR, then quarantine for two days, then another PCR. And I don't know, how was it here, but in many parts of the world, I was paying close to $300 for a PCR. 

Mike Peterson  
Wow, Now wasn't that much here? 

Cata  
Because people were like, you know, what you want to travel? Pay. This is how are they doing it. And most of the PCRs, for example, especially in developing countries were really like, just fake PCRC No, no, no, actually, I knew how, how an okay, PCR should look like. And I know how was a very dodgy PCR did the magic tape? I don't know, it just gets the sample from you in a hot summer in northern Nigeria. And you have to pay I don't know back home, I was paying $40. There I was paying $300. Yeah. So during the pandemic, it actually took off. That was when when also advertisers were paying a lot because they started to believe more in the, in the in the market back home in Romania. And also because people were buying things online. And people were weren't able to leave their homes and what they were doing watching Netflix or YouTube. So that's when it actually started to take off and to say, okay, I can I can live off of this.

Mike Peterson  
So do you do have people that like companies that sponsor you directly? Or is it all through YouTube?

Cata  
No, the thing is that I have I'm working with with some brands, but they're just they're a very select few brands that I'm working with. Because as I said, I'm more of renegades as I said lone wolf is very difficult for me to actually follow the guidelines that sometimes brands impose. You know, when I get in touch to to the corporate mentality for me, it's very difficult because I never worked in that environment. So it's very difficult for me to understand okay, there are guidelines, there are deadlines, you have you you cannot talk about this, you shouldn't talk about this, you know, so actually had the had the sponsorship for a couple of years with with Canon back in the day that I had to do very good, very good deal. Good contract, but I had to end I had to end it to terminate it because I was working with the people were amazing, very good people. But as I said, I'm not used because I never actually had a nine to five, I'm not used to the word. You must do this, or this must be included or you mustn't do this, you know? So I work with maybe two three brands, I'm very, I rarely say yes to a new brand, you know, so. So it's been working for me and then hopefully to work in the future. 

Mike Peterson  
So in an average year, how many how many days are you outside of Romania?

Cata  
No, no, I'm always outside. Always. No, no, I never actually the last time I was in Romania, I was. Last year I was meeting with my girlfriend, my girlfriend's from Argentina. And we just went there because I wanted to show her Christmas in Romania. And before that, I think it was two years ago, maybe let's say from 2015 until now maybe I spent eight months all together back home. And whenever I do this most of time I just go there for passport renewal stuff. And for example, if I want to go in sometimes I visit my family and I go through Europe and I said okay, I might go to Romania for a couple of days, you know, but I don't get homesickness now. I don't have that. My parents are divorced. My my mother lives in Norway. My sister lives in the UK. So we are all spread out channel. So I have friends back home of course. But too, I could easily just stay without going to Romania for one year, two years. No, no, no problem.

Mike Peterson  
Have you spent much time in Argentina then if your girlfriend's there?

Cata  
Yes, yes, yes, I traveled-

Mike Peterson  
And have you been there recently since Malay? 

Cata  
No, no, I wasn't I wasn't I followed. I was actually I was in Argentina with her. She's from Patagonia, the south of Argentina. And now I was actually last year during and I stayed for two months because sometimes I took time off. I know I take time off I just say okay, you know what, I'm not going to travel now. Or find a nice place I'll book an Airbnb for one month or two months we'll just stay there you know, go radio silent on on all my social media and not publish anything you know, just just strive to, to actually I'm doing this to avoid burnout. Because when you do this for years without danger now you start to have like, people believe that, okay, an amazing life. You're traveling. Yes, but it has it. It comes, you know, which which burnout, like we were being impressed. That is becoming more and more difficult because you've seen so many sunrises, so many sunsets, so many beaches, so many mountains like, Okay, another beach, another sunset. So then it becomes more about people. Because people are always going to be special, they're always going to come up with new stories. So this is what keeps you going, I believe not places. Places are nice. Okay, you go you see a volcano, I've seen one meaning of volcanoes. But if you meet somebody during the trip, visiting a volcano of somebody with an interesting story. This is the this is what's going to get stuck.

Mike Peterson  
No, I agree with you that those are the things that are more impactful. And I've traveled quite a bit not nearly as much as you But definitely, my my memories. My best memories are all around the people rather than the place. Yeah. So I think we have a clip. If you can make it play Paco. Just give people a little bit idea. I think. Where did you say this was Afghanistan?

Cata  
This was in Afghanistan. I was actually in Afghanistan. Maybe I don't remember maybe March I think, okay, I was in I was in Afghanistan.

Mike Peterson  
How long, how long were you there for?

Cata  
I was there for 10 days, because you cannot just go and travel. Custom perfect. So the guest is there. Okay. They just let me talk to stage of-

Mike Peterson  
Is that home there. 

Cata  
Yeah, I was invited into an Afghan home here. It's okay, here. I'm good. Because I'm the guest. Actually, there are they're more polite. That's why they so so they are more polite to the guests. Okay, okay. Okay. Okay. Very nice. Because hospital is tied to the guest. Remain. 

Mike Peterson  
So this is the teacher for Moscato. 

Cata  
This is a very modest Afghani home.

Mike Peterson  
And how did you make the connection to be What were they like leery about you filming in their home 

Cata  
It's very difficult. First of all, you have to well, actually, now it's much easier to go to Afghanistan, even even if, let's say from United States might like, for me, the fact that I'm from Romania helped me a lot during my travels, why nobody hates Romania. If you come from United States, you go to a country, you don't know if you're getting in trouble with the police. Like it's a good thing because of the very strong passport. But sometimes it could backfire. If you get yourself into trouble, the fact that you have a very well known passport, or let's see if you might want to make an example out of exactly if you go for example, if you go to to some countries in Africa, and you're from France, or from Belgium, because they have this bad history, you don't know what might happen. If you want to say I'm from Romania, first of all, most people don't know anything about Romania, the people who know things about Romania know that we had a dictator, we were good in football back in the 90s. And that was everything you know, so actually, to get the visa, and you'd have to get a special permit from the Taliban's, they have to agree to those and they research everything about you have like an interview. But it was one of the nicest experience I have ever had in my life. I went to Pakistan, and I had to apply to go to the embassy in Pakistan, because Afghanistan doesn't have embassies all over the world. It's been recognized by a couple of countries, the Taliban regime. And I just went there. And of course, the question, what do you do for a living always shows up? And when you're a travel vlogger, and you want to go to these countries, you really need to know how to how to actually answer this question. Because sometimes, if the person asking you doesn't pay so much attention, it just is sheep, he's just filling out a form, most of the times I say, I'm a freelance, or I'm an actor, but if the person shows more interest, you cannot lie and you cannot say, you know, you cannot hide the fact that you are a YouTuber, because this could this can backfire a lot. You have to be like, have to pay attention to what you're actually saying, you know, because when I was there in the embassy, and the guy asked me, what do you do for a living? I said, I'm a freelancer. I do that do that. Okay, Now well, now what you What's your main occupation? I have to say, I'm a YouTuber. Oh you're YouTuber. Okay, can I please see your channel? And then you Okay, can I please see your channel, this means that he's going to do some research about me. So the first rule I never publish during my stay in the country. Even though I didn't say anything. There was nothing bad happening over there. But you know that you're under scrutiny and you know that you're being followed like 24/7. Second thing, you cannot just go and travel to Afghanistan like to come here. You need to go through an agency normally there like maybe three of them who do this. And he's like, very, very, very expensive, because the permits are really expensive. The quality of the places in which you're staying is subpar. No. But there is more about the idea of going to a forbidden country so to say. So it was, it was interesting. I was in Iraq, I was in many, many not so simple countries to travel to. But there's always one thing that I've learned. It doesn't matter where you go, people from all countries, they just want the same thing. They want to have a normal life. They want to be able to go to school, they want to afford food, like the governments of countries don't. Like most of the time, they don't represent the country. Whenever you hear something bad about the country, you mostly hear about. The government's are very isolated issues. You if you let's say you're from Romania, you're never going to hear about the guy who went to United States and nothing happened to him, you're going to hear about the guy who went to Miami wanted to do some weird stuff. And he ended up I don't know, when we were in police custody, because good things don't make the news. Yeah. The fact that somebody went to El Salvador, and they had a good time, not going to make the news. But the fact that you were killed in El Salvador, of course, is going to be like, headlining all over the world. 

Mike Peterson  
You know, that makes sense. So I'm curious, with all your experience, what do you think, is the most underrated country out there, the one that kind of surprised you the most of, of how beautiful it was? Or how great your time when there was?

Cata  
There are many countries would go who would enter who could qualify in this category. But right now, and I might be biased, saying this, because it's a very recent event. I would say China, really, yeah, China was for me, everything, not the complete opposite of everything that I expected. Like, first of all, back home, our China doesn't people don't read the government doesn't respect your privacy doesn't respect the fact that you they can see this, you have facial recognition, you have that. When I arrived there, I was like, either way, if the government wants to find out something about me, they're gonna find out something about me, whenever I download an app, when you go on Facebook, or whatever, you will agree to some things that you never read through those things, you know, so the fact that we had back home tons of paranoia towards this is because in our societies, we value freedom, more than everything else, there are countries where freedom comes second to order for them is more much more important to have order and then to have freedom. And people are used to this. For example, just imagine this, just imagine that you'd have a riot in China. The government cannot afford to have a right because there are right can be added on millions of people going out on the street, you know, he's not like back home, when you have a couple of 1000s, you have 100,000 people that go outside to do something. So of course, that the government has to I don't agree to the Chinese government, I don't agree to how things work there. But I understand that different countries, different systems. Yeah, this is really, really important. From my point of view, I had no problem it was very clean, I could walk at night at 2am. Without any problems, you cannot do this in France, you cannot do this in Germany, you cannot do this in Western Europe nowadays. It's very, very, very difficult to do this. And also people that when you when you if you've grown up, and everybody, all your culture, all the people that you've interacted with, never portrayed freedom as the most important value of your society. You don't have a big problem with this. Or if you have a problem with this, it's second or third or fourth in the line of problems that one might might encounter, you know. So this was the country that shocked me the most well now to be honest, now if I put it atleast El Salvador will be the country that shocked me the most because I had two completely different experiences in the span of I know eight years. But yeah, yeah, China because now it's always on the news on the news on the news with with bad things, but my favorite country like the country from like. 

Mike Peterson  
If you had to pick one place to live the rest of your life, you weren't gonna be allowed to travel anymore. Where would you? 

Cata  
No, I think that if I were to, I think I'd go back home, go back home. Yes, yes. But you know why? This is what I say now when I'm back home whenever I go back home after two weeks, I get angry and I want to leave you know, but now because I'm so far away, like it's very, it's very the grass looks greener on the other side. And now home is more or less the other side, you know. So whenever I go back home, nostalgia hits hard, I want this, I miss my friends, I miss people. And then whenever I meet people, my friends from back in the day, I realized that you just meet from some blue for some beers. But but there are no company like their life is very different. There is no connection there. You just are you remember back in the fourth grade or in high school. And that's it because the next day because they say, oh, you know what, I have to go home tomorrow, my my son is going to have to take him to kindergarten, I have to go to work. And me, I just think, okay, let's search, which are the cheapest tickets to go to Australia or whatever, you know. So you've burned some bridges? Well, no, you didn't burn those bridges. They were burned by by by time by natural, normal, natural. But if I were to live, I think I'd go back home but to one country from one country where I believe that all the people who work into who work in administration in law, for example, if you want to become a mayor, what if you want to wherever people should go to to Japan. I'm not saying it's very, very sick society very, very weird. Very, very weird society. But I'm saying I would give you for example, if a Romania they say, okay, in order to become a mayor, you have to go and do a free time three months internship in Japan, to see how things work there. And you know, the whole time you hear stories about Japan, everything works, like clockwork, and whatever. But once you go there to meet happen to me, being on a bullet train that has a delay of less than 30 seconds, you leave the train, and you have all the train stuff coming outside and actually apologizing for this. This is of course, not extremely Yeah, but this happens to me. This, this happens to me. So whenever you hear those things, I left my wallet with more than 500 euros on our on a on a bench in in a subway. And the metro station the metro system in in Japan is either no there are millions of people every day. So this was like Central Station. I left it there. How do I know that I left it there because I was just filming. And then I took the Metro I went to visit the temple. I reached out to my wallet. I couldn't find it. And then I said, oh no what I'm going to look on the wall to watch the footage what I found. And then I saw our okay, I had it in my hand here. And then I placed it somewhere. Okay, let's see, where was that? I went back, my wallet was there. Nobody touched it. And I'm sure during that time that our more than 10,000 maybe who knows 20,000 people. So So yeah, like for example, in order to become a good citizen, especially if you work into administration, you should say okay, you want to become mayor, go to Japan three months. Learn how they do things there, come here and then implement it.

Mike Peterson  
I love that.

Cata  
I wouldn't leave I wouldn't leave Japan it's especially as a foreigner Yeah. Especially as a foreigner I think is like very very, very difficult to to blend in.

Mike Peterson  
Now that's what I've heard that it's even some places they said that they weren't allowed in that it was Japanese only 

Cata  
No, no, you are not allowed to know there are there are neighborhoods. And this is not just just in Japan also in South Korea. Like for example, I remember one one anecdote it happened to me. I just wanted to go and visit some some nightclubs. And I knew that that part of the city was Koreans only and it was very interesting because I I wanted to enter in a nightclub and there was this big bouncer who just told me Hey, wait, you Korean? He asked me. I was like, Man, do I look Korean? I could do you could tell him the title is I'm from Turkey. I'm from which but you I'm not Korean. So no, no, you cannot answer if you're not Korean. In general, we then we became friends. And then I said, you know, I just want to go inside for half an hour and see how it is, you know, and he allowed me but yes, for example, if you're older than 30 you're not allowed to enter in many establishments. If you are ugly, you're not allowed to enter in establishments. Really, really like for example, you go to some places actually did this. I wanted to go to five places which I knew that there are Asian only Korean only and based on looks, and I said, Okay, let's see how many of these places I can enter. This was like six years ago, and I was allowed the three of them in two of them. They said no, too old. So for me, it's like well, at least I was allowed in three of them which which was like, which is very crazy because I had to agree. Yeah, exactly. So it was really interesting because back home. Now we are all victims of this. Everybody gets so easily offended. I don't know how it's in the United States. But in Europe you cannot use I don't know, some kind of words you cannot. It's really, really, really crazy this, you know, like, really crazy, I said, and I was thinking back home, would this be possible for me to open an establishment and to say I only accept to? I don't know black people? No, never ever, you know. So it's but but it's it's a cultural difference. Yeah. You know, you need to understand for example, their Korea, Japan are very isolated countries or countries where where they don't like just look, just pay attention to one thing namely one whole Hollywood star who is married to a Japanese woman maybe I don't know be besides the but no, no. John Lennon to The Beatles North row word from the from the UK here? No, I think so. I think John Lennon had his wife, who was actually Japanese. But what I want to say is that they don't they don't blend in. Yeah, there is tons of racism in Japan. I've said this 1 million times. But it's the type of racism that actually doesn't. I was victim of racism in Japan. But it didn't bother me so much. Because these type of races that more of them have an elitism. Like, you know what, I'm just going to, it's not that people treat you bad. It's just that they don't pay attention. You're never going to see somebody talking back to your or I don't know, saying bad words to you. No, but you don't get white privilege or or foreigner privilege over there. Which to be honest, I don't think it's such a bad thing. If you go to Southeast Asia, there you treated like a king, that if you have to queue under like five Thai people in front of you, they're going to give you priority. You know, so this is not? I don't think it's fair, you know? Yeah.

Mike Peterson  
Makes sense. Interesting. Well, I hope now that we've introduced you to Bitcoin, here, I think you'll you'll find as you travel, that it'll be a handy tool, just to have in a lot of places because even there's, there's apps like Bit Refill is one company where you can buy like all kinds of gift cards and countries around the world with Bitcoin. So if you if you have a time that you don't have, you know, any funds, I think just always keeping a little Bitcoin on you. And then hopefully, as you kind of understand it more and more, and watch it go up in value versus everything else. I think it'd be a huge tool for you as you travel. 

Cata  
Yes, yes. I'm going to research more into this actually. Because here, it was proven to me that yeah, it works. And it's, it's the ease of access to watch what attracts me the most. Because to be honest, why I was a Bitcoin not not because a crypto skeptic, you could call it because I was never able to see Bitcoin more than an investment. Yeah, I said, Okay, but how can I use it, maybe I don't want to invest. I'm very bad at investments. I don't invest my money, just as I said, real estate and whatever. Because I don't want to think about losing, I don't want to be stressed all the time. What might happen. So I was like, if this were used more, at the, let's say, the global scale, I think I'd be one of the first person that will say, Okay, I want to use this No, stop. But this is the thing now that I think, I don't know, why is this like many governments, right? The know why the why societies don't don't adopt it, don't implement it more. 

Mike Peterson  
Most, because they want to be able to print their money out of thin air. So governments have this unique privilege of being able to just print money, you and I can't do that they arrest us. If we do that. Yeah, governments can do that. And so they don't want to give that up. But that's why the value of money keeps going down because they printed out of thin air. So Bitcoin, it kind of levels the playing field for the world. Nobody can just print it, they can't ever have more than 21 million. It's something that's fair for everybody. So that's why a lot of governments are against it. And that's why it was such a big step for El Salvador to make that decision to adopt it.

Cata  
So yeah, as I said, if this were to happen in the global scale, I think it would be, as I said, just for the ease of access.

Mike Peterson  
Yeah. It's how much easier if you don't have to think about ever exchanging money? Yes, yes, you got it on your phone. 

Cata  
But I believe I believe that either way, the future. I'm sure 100% is indeed this direction. My only concern. My only concern is that I don't know how it works nowadays. But I think that if this were to become let's say the to become mainstream, you know, I'm sure that governments will get involved. And I'm sure we'd have or Bitcoin or whatever, or crypto we'd have the crypto world we'd have tons of regulations. And I'm a bit afraid to saying okay, but what if This is going to just replace what we're actually complaining about now. 

Mike Peterson  
Yeah, no, and I think that's important. The good thing about the way bitcoin is set up and that it's decentralized, and it's run by all these nodes that, you know, you can, you can cut off half of them, but the other ones keep the system up and going, governments can try to restrict what their own citizens can do, but it's very hard for them to actually kill it or to keep people from being able to use it. So that's why there's lots of governments that have tried, but it just keeps growing. So, but I want to make sure that people know where they can follow your channel. I'm gonna start following it now that you go into all these cool places, so make sure people know where they can follow you on YouTube. And then I don't know if you're on Instagram or whatever.

Cata  
Backpack your life all over TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, whatever. Yeah. 

Mike Peterson  
And just backpack life? 

Cata  
Just- no Backpack your life backpack. 

Mike Peterson  
Backpack, your life backpack

Cata  
Right there. Exactly. Actually, I came up with this with this name, I was hiking the Colca Canyon, which is in Peru. And then I wanted to search for a name and I had the piece of paper with me and I started okay, I might put this because as I said, at first I started in English, because I wanted to improve my English back then I was like, Okay, I'm going to do it in English. But then I was like, ah, you know what, there are so many people doing it in English. Is there anybody doing it in Romania? No. Okay. Okay, this is my train. You know, this is my train. So out of sheer luck, it was, yeah.

Mike Peterson  
How many languages do you speak now?

Cata  
Well, actually, I studied French in school quite a lot. But because I don't know, everybody from my generation back home in Romania has something we have something not against French people, but against French culture, I believe. So I also went through so many times I traveled in France, but I can understand French, let's say more than 95% I can speak if I'm forced, if I'm held at gunpoint, you know, maybe I'm able to speak French, but Spanish with which I learned it just by traveling to Latin America, because once you when you come to Latin America, I and also because I travel alone, when you travel in group, let's say you just speak English, you tend to speak English with the people you're currently with, you know, but because I travel alone in 95% of the time is like I had to interact with people, I had to speak with people. So it was very easy. I think in less than six months, I was able to have a decent conversation. And I also speak a bit and I can understand a bit of Portuguese because I traveled a lot in Brazil.

Mike Peterson  
English, obviously. Yeah, Romanian. 

Cata  
Yeah, Romania. Romania is very similar. Like, for example, because it's a Latin language is part of like French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, and Romanian a lot for a lot of Latin languages. So many words are are similar. And also because we had tons of soap operas back home, and I was very young, my mother watch soap operas from Mexico from Colombia. So any Romanian gonna ask, they're gonna know, Estonian Brasada or all these things, everybody, everybody knows that. So it's really, really easy for us to whenever we travel abroad if we especially if we come to Latin America to actually understand some words.

Mike Peterson  
Awesome. Well, congratulations on your successful channel and we'll be following you and I appreciate you joining us and I, I love just your story of you coming here and seeing El Salvador reborn and hearing that from you. So thank you.

Cata  
Thank you so much.