Bryn Elise (00:00):

I create videos about health and beauty tourism. A lot of that focus is health and beauty treatments abroad for way less than you would expect to pay in a country like the us. The idea is how can you go abroad to have these treatments and make a whole vacation out of it and ultimately come back to your home country saving money.

Ross Borden (00:18):

This is Creator the podcast from Matador Network. I’m your host Ross Borden, and I believe creators are the future of all global advertising. So join me as I sit down with top creators to hear about how they got started, the challenges they’ve overcome, and the tips you need to become a full-time creator. All right, welcome back to another episode of Creator the podcast. Today we have Bryn Elise, a specialist in health and beauty tourism. Bryn, welcome.

Bryn Elise (00:48):

Hi Ross. Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be here.

Ross Borden (00:51):

So Bryn, where the hell are you? Where are calling in from?

Bryn Elise (00:55):

Yeah, so I’m in Brazil right now, was just in Argentina, decided while I’m over in this side of the world, might as well go check out Brazil too.

Ross Borden (01:05):

Tell us about your channel, about your platform. I think I discovered you from a super viral video date you did where you went to Turkey and you got every health check you could possibly get and it was the cheapest thing, way cheaper than I was expecting, certainly. But tell us about your platform and how you’re focused on health and beauty.

Bryn Elise (01:29):

So I create videos about health and beauty tourism and in addition to that it’s more about different ideas and opportunities in other countries that will help people maximize the value of their vacations. And so a lot of that focus is health and beauty treatments abroad for way less than you would expect to pay in a country like the US or UK or Australia. And the idea is how can you go abroad to have these treatments and make a whole vacation out of it and ultimately come back to your home country? Saving money, saving a lot of money compared to if you got that in the states,

Ross Borden (02:02):

Even including the travel, even including

Bryn Elise (02:04):

All the trip, including travel, this is the whole vacation and everything fun that you did. So often I came back, we’ve come back and my boyfriend and we traveled together. We’ve come back and been like, if I would’ve got this test in the United States it would cost me $6,000. But we just spent $3,000 and had a two week vacation and got it done and had the time of our lives. So

Ross Borden (02:25):

Yeah, it seems like a winning method there. So how did you get into that? Did you sort of stumble into this? It’s a really interesting niche as a creator to focus on health and beauty tourism. Tell us how you got your start. Were you already a travel creator and then you’re just like, I’m going to focus on this?

Bryn Elise (02:43):

Yeah, I always knew that I really wanted to travel. I at the time had been making videos just on the side about how to make money and travel. That was originally, I’m still really passionate about that, but how to little online businesses and little side hustles and stuff to make money while you’re traveling to ultimately sustain your travel so you can travel longer. So I was making videos like that on the side while also starting and testing these little online side hustles. And during these trips I was, the first beauty tourism thing I did was in Columbia, my friends and I, we decided that we would all go get matching tattoos if we survived bungee jumping and we survived and we went and got tattoos, just little ones and for all four of us it was like 25 bucks and that was my first experience with health. But beauty tourism and I remember feeling just like, this is so cool. I would consider stuff like this really the ultimate souvenir. This was way more affordable than if I’d got it back home and I’m coming back from vacation with something that ultimately will continue to add value to my life. And then from there I went and got hair extensions in Turkey and it was kind of the same story I got quoted

Ross Borden (03:57):

All way in Turkey for hair extensions. That’s got to be a surprising thing to people, but you might save money doing that. Is that your

Bryn Elise (04:05):

Experience? Oh my gosh, you would not believe. I don’t know if you buy hair extensions very often, Ross, but it is so expensive in the US people are getting robbed. I got quoted $4,000 for hair extensions in the US and

(04:18):

I was like, I wonder where on earth I could do this more affordably and could I go somewhere else and find someone who’s really good at hair and get it done? And I went to my Instagram saved reels and I kind of looked through hair inspiration photos and found someone who I’d saved as a photo, this would be my dream hair, realize this guy lived in Turkey and decided to reach out to him just like on a whim and get a quote. And he said he would do the exact same thing for $500. And so I booked a flight and went and had this big vacation, did a bunch of things for 2000 bucks and I was hooked.

Ross Borden (04:57):

One thing I have heard a ton about is you see I’ve seen a lot of creators going or just normal people going to get hair, men going to get hair transplants in Turkey. It’s the first time I’ve heard about hair extensions in Turkey, but that’s certainly a thing that’s pretty mainstream now. Mostly guys, but probably women too. Going to Turkey to get hair transplants. What makes the Turkish such hair professionals, why are they so good at it? Oh my gosh,

Bryn Elise (05:24):

That is a question I have asked many times. I’ve actually done research on the internet and stuff about it. It’s so interesting too when you go and get your hair done, even as a woman, all the stylists are men and they are just so good with women’s hair. It is always so funny to me. They’re so skilled. And actually we just got the chance to go tour a hair transplant clinic in Turkey because I wanted to learn about more of the hair transplant side and that’s also a phenomenal deal and they’re just so darn good and the clinics are beautiful. They’re so luxurious. It blows my mind every time.

Ross Borden (05:56):

I think that’s something they get, they package it in a whole experience where the ones I’ve seen, they’re like, they have me staying at a five star hotel. I flew for airfare was included and then they have transportation. It’s not as though you’re going there and you have an appointment and you’re on your own, which Istanbul, Turkey is not a scary place at all. It’s very approachable country to travel to. But still, I think for people who are traveling, especially just for that, maybe they’re not big travelers like you and I and they want that extra level of support on the ground, be picked up from the airport, stay at a hotel, they kind of handholding along the way and it seems like they’re really savvy about putting these things together.

Bryn Elise (06:44):

No, it’s great and it feels so much more attainable for people too. So much less scary when they’re going to be there at the airport to pick you up. They’re going to take you to the hotel. This hair transplant clinic, we just tore it. I travel with my boyfriend, I keep saying we get there and it’s on the second floor of this Marriott hotel, so it’s all Marriott, it’s beautiful. It’s like executive apartments. This whole second floor is this hair transplant clinic and it is gorgeous. And I’m like, so basically they pick you up from the airport, they take you there, you stay at the Marriott, you get your hair done, there’s restaurants right there and they take you back. And I was like, this is a one stop shop. It’s so interesting.

Ross Borden (07:23):

So what about the video? I saw the first video I saw of you where you go to, it’s not a salon, this is a full blown state-of-the-art hospital that you walk into and you said, I’m going Turkey to get the full beyond a physical every single test, blood diagnostics, cancer scans. How did that happen to you? How did you find that opportunity and then tell us about that.

Bryn Elise (07:50):

Yeah, so the hair stuff, that was really just the beginning. I was still kind of making side hustle content at that point. I barely filmed my first hair appointment. I’ve been back that same salon five times since. But really I went to Thailand and I broke a filling or something and this was my first time doing anything with medical tourism and I was very resistant to the idea of medical tourism. It’s a lot scarier than going to get my hair done.

(08:15):

And I hadn’t really ever considered it. I was like, oh, maybe we should fly back to the US to go to the dentist. And I was like, that’s crazy. Let’s just go. And this is again something I didn’t document the very first time, but I remember going to this dental clinic, they got me in next day appointment, by the way. I roll up and it is the most luxurious dental clinic I’ve ever seen. It is beautiful. Everyone there speaks five languages. The dentists were so nice and I walked out of there spending $40 for them to fix up my tooth. They really had to work on it. So I was worried I might need a root canal. It was a whole thing at 40 bucks from there. Unbelievable how this kind segues into the whole hospital thing. From there I started just wondering what else is out there.

(09:00):

It’s really hard to find good information on this stuff. So what led me to the point where I was at that hospital that took so much research. So to start creating this content, I found I really had to start asking the right questions and just kind of use my imagination. There’s not a resource for this out there really. There’s medical tourism agencies, but I never really wanted to go that route. I always feel they’re kind of scammy, I dunno. So I was like, what can I imagine and what can I find in the us? So since I already had such a good time in Turkey, I loved it there. I started to wonder if you could go and do full body checkups. I knew you could do full body scans in the us. That stuff was popping up. And so I started reaching out to the top hospitals in Turkey, kind of asking what do you have available?

(09:45):

Eventually I kind of narrowed it down. I knew that there’s a hospital group there that I would consider the best in Turkey, best reviews. And so I reached out to them and this was a process Ross, I had to really hound them. I knew this was different than a hair appointment. I knew that I probably need to get permission to come walk into this hospital and film. I couldn’t just show up day one. Hey, I have an appointment, can I film all this stuff? Like this is a hospital. So had to get special permission to be allowed to film meet with the director. And I remembered them just being very surprised that I would want to film a checkup. They’re like, you want to come and film your checkup here? I guess we could do that. I’ll have to get special permission and doctor’s approval to be on camera. But I was like, I think for Americans, this is going to blow their minds.

Ross Borden (10:32):

This is crazy. Were they even set up in the hare stuff in Turkey for medical tourism or is it just a normal hospital that caters mostly to Turkish nationals?

Bryn Elise (10:44):

They do focus on medical tourism. They get a lot of tourists from the uk, a lot of tourists from the Middle East and stuff. So they did have some things in place. They have an international patient department. But I think having somebody asked to come and film something for something, they’re like, it’s interesting to learn about medical health, health systems in other countries because in Turkey they’re like, we get these types of checkups every year. This is just something that’s normal for us. Why would you guys want to come film this? This is normal. So that was interesting

Ross Borden (11:16):

And this is not normal to an American. So walk us through, for those who haven’t seen the video, walk us through this insane day you spent at the hospital with the most amazing checkup of your life. Probably.

Bryn Elise (11:28):

Yeah. So they package it, and this isn’t something that I designed either. They already had packages to choose from. And so I did the VIP female checkup, which isn’t even their biggest one, but it’s a full day of test and scans. You get their first thing in the morning, they assign you a translator and they take you from appointment to appointment throughout the whole day at the hospital. They feed you lunch. So it starts out as like, all right, you’re getting blood drawn for your test. We’re going to go the cardiologist, we’re going to do a speed test where they did so many things. I got a DEXA scan to look at,

Ross Borden (12:01):

What is that? What’s a DEXA scan?

Bryn Elise (12:03):

So it’s to look for things like signs of osteoporosis. And that was actually one of the things they caught for me. So I had got osteopenia, it’s like the first step of osteoporosis and I was vegan for a very long time in my life. So they’re like, okay, that’s probably from that, but something to keep an eye on. They did. Oh yeah, they did an EKG, I got to see my heart and they did an ultrasound and look at different organs here. We did a mammogram. Man, it was

Ross Borden (12:31):

Incredible. It

Bryn Elise (12:33):

Was so many things.

Ross Borden (12:33):

If you were to guess, and I don’t even know where I would start, but if you did what you did in Turkey in the us your bill is going to be, I mean insane, right?

Bryn Elise (12:46):

Astronomical.

Ross Borden (12:47):

It would be astronomical

Bryn Elise (12:48):

If you can even get those things approved in the us. I know that after doing research, after the fact, I know that there are packages kind of put on through the Mayo Clinic. There’s different executive checkup packages that can range from as little as 10,000 to $50,000 depending on what you’re doing. So the exact number for something like this, I’m not sure, but I would say easily at least 10 grand if you could even get the appointments and doing it all in one day is unheard of. That would take

Ross Borden (13:16):

Much. And the grand in total for you was how much?

Bryn Elise (13:19):

Oh, it was like $810.

Ross Borden (13:22):

That is amazing.

Bryn Elise (13:23):

With all the tests same day. Oh yeah. One of the things, oh yeah, I got to meet with a bunch of different specialists and stuff, but one of the things was sitting down with an internal medicine doctor who went over all of my test results that were ready in just a few hours because they have a lab that works with the hospital. They’re like, oh yeah, we do the blood test first. We send it off a few hours. You’ll be back to go over the results one by one and be like, alright. Oh yeah. One of the things I was really low on B12, they caught that and I was just like, that’s never been caught before, ever as they gave me B12 shots and that’s something that I’ll have to keep an eye on, but I was just little things like that. It’s like, oh, it was missed.

Ross Borden (14:00):

Yeah, amazing. So did you have that video I think went mega viral, right? Did that sort of put you on the map with a lot of people other than me?

Bryn Elise (14:11):

Yeah, it was really exciting. I think on my platforms between my TikTok and Instagram, it got maybe 30 million views, but then it was picked up and people were posting it on Twitter. I did a little thing on the Today Show. It got so many news articles. I mean I know that just between the Twitter, the two people on Twitter I saw that posted it in me. That was almost a hundred million views.

Ross Borden (14:31):

Oh my god. So mega viral is an understatement. That’s incredible. That was exciting. When was that? When was that

Bryn Elise (14:37):

Post? That was in July. So last July.

Ross Borden (14:41):

And that wasn’t a branded post. You weren’t working with the hospital, you were doing that on your own. You’re like, you researched it, you found the place and then they said, okay, here’s your appointment. And you guys made a video

Bryn Elise (14:53):

And it was so cool. So after I posted that, I knew I had a good feeling about the video. Sometimes you can just tell you’re like, this is cool. This is the coolest day. I think it’s going to do well. But it exceeded expectations. And then after the fact, my boyfriend and I, we’d already left Istanbul, we went down to the coast in Turkey. We get a call from the hospital basically being like, we will let you see anything in the hospital you want. One of the things that we do now is what we require price sheets. I am such an advocate for price transparency with medical care. That is something I fight for every day with my content and kind of this, I am like, okay, I would love to come film at the hospital. I want price sheets for everything. I want to share them with everyone so everyone knows what it actually costs. So secretive in the US and they were like, whatever you want let’s you make us a list of the departments you want to see. We’ll get you all the price sheets. You could have full reign of the hospital. And so we went back and got to film this whole series.

Ross Borden (15:52):

There is a video that went viral recently about this guy who’s calling in and his daughter had an ER visit and he’s like, oh, I submitted my insurance and my bill went up. And they’re like, yeah,

Bryn Elise (16:04):

I saw this

Ross Borden (16:05):

Video. You don’t get the discount, you have insurance. He’s

Bryn Elise (16:09):

Like, that was a cash price. Yeah.

Ross Borden (16:12):

And he’s like, wait, doesn’t that not make any sense? I’m insured. Shouldn’t the price go down? He’s like, no for the discount now. And so he’s like, this is insane. He’s like, can I cancel my insurance and go back? And he’s like, no. Because at the time of the accident you were insured, so no, your bill just went higher.

Bryn Elise (16:32):

Just crazy.

Ross Borden (16:32):

Why is the healthcare system, so Ed in America, everything you’ve been talking about, waiting months to get into see a doctor, getting your results or getting the discussion with the doctor about your results weeks or months after the cost. I mean, as a medical tourism professional, why is our healthcare system so expensive and so it’s less efficient than the DMV? It’s super expensive. It makes no sense. Why is that?

Bryn Elise (17:05):

Man, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there is just so much money in it that everyone has the incentive to make things really expensive. The insurance companies want a ton of money. The pharmaceutical companies want a ton of money and it’s so messy.

Ross Borden (17:23):

It’s just too much of a business. It’s not about

Bryn Elise (17:25):

Healthcare. It’s too much of a business. And unfortunately other places, I didn’t really know how big of an issue this was in other countries until I started making this content. And from the very first video about my cavity filling in Thailand, we have gotten thousands, tens of thousands of messages from people all over the world being like, I have been on the waiting list in Canada for an appointment for two years. Oh my gosh, one the worst ones I ever got. This lady commented and she said, I just got a letter in the mail saying that the surgery or not, it wasn’t a surgery, it was some sort of her son was having problems with his heart and that he needed to go see a specialist immediately. She got the letter in the mail saying that he appointment was scheduled in 18 months. Insane. This is the kind stuff that gets me heated. I’m like, people need to know what their options are because of course nobody wants to have to travel super far to get medical care and do the things that they need to do. But I want them to know that there are other options so they can make their own decisions. Most people just don’t know.

Ross Borden (18:27):

So what are the options? We want to lean into your expertise here because I feel like maybe some countries are just good at everything, but I’ve heard about dental care in Thailand before. Is Thailand a dental care specialists? How do you rank the different countries for the different types of care that one would want? And let’s focus on medical for now. We’ll come back to beauty in a minute, but I’m really interested in this medical side of things.

Bryn Elise (18:55):

So there’s definitely certain countries that really specialize in things like Turkey with the hair transplants. I mean I know Mexico’s really known for things like bariatric surgery. Part of me feels like it’s just because it’s close to the US it’s easy to get to and a lot of it really just depends on the clinic. I find that when I generalize whole countries and I’m like, oh, this is the best place for this. That may not, there could be really good clinics there, but you really have to sift through the ones just like I would in the US and pick through the ones that are really, really good. And there’s really good clinics everywhere. There’s places in Romania. Romania is also known for dental care. Same thing with the Czech Republic. That’s two good places. I just got some dental work done in Columbia, had a great time. It was so nice. So

Ross Borden (19:41):

You’ve come a long way since being scared to get a cavity filled in Thailand. Now you’re getting dental care and healthcare all over the world. Pretty much.

Bryn Elise (19:49):

Yeah. Well I realized that I will do a lot to make a good video. I used to be very scared of the dentist, but I’ve kind of determined if I really want to find out which providers are good at what they do, the best thing I can do is walk in there and get something myself. So now I heard a tooth and I’m like, oh no. And I’m like, what content? But content, I can vet another place now can. You’re

Ross Borden (20:13):

Like, here you go. Google flights. Google flights. Let’s see. Let’s see. Where do we want to go?

Bryn Elise (20:18):

Yeah,

Ross Borden (20:18):

Yeah, that’s crazy. And so is there somewhere, if someone’s listening to this and they have some dental work that needs to get done or they have something more serious going on or they want to do a full diagnostic like you did in Turkey, is there somewhere on your platform or do you have a website where you rank places or if people don’t want to sift through all the different providers in a specific country, is there places where they can just get to the answer based on your experience?

Bryn Elise (20:47):

Yeah, so actually I’m glad you brought that up. This has been a very crazy past couple months for us over here. We’re in the process of launching a website. We brought on some business partners for the first time ever. I’ve had this idea for a website, just like you said, there needs to be a place where people can sift through the options and just really lay out the opportunities with price sheets with our system for vetting providers, how we sifted through them, just everything on there so people can make their own decisions. So that is in the process of going live. We have the landing page up right now, so it should be up within the next month. It going to be called, it’s a way more.com,

Ross Borden (21:24):

Way more.com.

Bryn Elise (21:26):

And the whole idea is really, it’s medical, it’s beauty, it’s just really things beyond that too that really maximize the value of a vacation. So it also could be things like did you know that you could go to Argentina and get a custom leather jacket made for $200 and while you’re there you can pop into the dermatologist for 35 bucks and then go to Patagonia and have this amazing adventure and come back with these really cool souvenirs that aren’t going to last you a lifetime and getting some care done that you needed and saving you money versus if you went to the US or they’re endless things like that. And that’s what gets me excited and I’m just excited to fill up the whole world map of all these opportunities so people can go, I’ve always wanted to go to Vietnam, what can I do there? What can I do there?

Ross Borden (22:08):

So dermatology, that’s one practice, that’s its beauty and its healthcare. Is there a special country that you find is really strong for dermatology?

Bryn Elise (22:20):

That is something that’s pretty new for us. But we did just go to London. They have this AI skin scan thing that we just did. So cool. Yeah, so anything

Ross Borden (22:30):

Affordable? Oh I saw this on your channel.

Bryn Elise (22:32):

Yeah, it was so cool.

Ross Borden (22:33):

Did it, your boyfriend did it and you said it said that they found something.

Bryn Elise (22:38):

Yeah, so that’s why we left there, came to Argentina and they called us up this clinic that we did the skin scan at and they’re like, Hey, it’s probably nothing. We do want you to come back in and just one of our doctors will look at it like this mole once more in person. And we were like, oh, we left the country. So we went in Argentina to the dermatologist, 30 bucks for a skin scan in Argentina and they looked at it and everything was good. But it’s cool to see all these advancements in healthcare too. And I love to highlight things like that as well. Things that are affordable like that AI skin scan and that we did as well as advanced. I mean it’s just really cool. There’s so many cool things popping up.

Ross Borden (23:19):

So that was affordable in London that seems, I don’t think of London like anything as affordable in London it was cheaper. I mean I guarantee a skin scan in the US would be very expensive. So what was that experience like and how was it so affordable?

Bryn Elise (23:36):

Yeah, so this company is really cool. So basically it was a skin scan and the machine is super futuristic and all that stuff, but it was also blood tests and they do things like a grip strength test. They look at your eye pressure, they look at the smallest veins on your arms to look for. They look at the smallest veins on your body to look for any signs of clotting. And I don’t know, it’s beyond me, but at the end you meet with the doctor and they present all your results on this big TV and you have your avatar and all your results and they’re able to show you what ranges you fall in. Obviously you want to be in the optimal ranges for everything, but using this AI system, they can kind of determine if maybe you have pre-diabetes, you have all these different things.

(24:18):

And they said they’ve caught, let’s see, 9% of the people that have come in and gotten this scan of theirs have caught something serious. 1% have caught something so serious that it was going to be life-threatening and they were able to resolve it, which is crazy. And their mission. Oh yeah. And it was $300. It was $300. Wow. Incredible. In London. And so they’re trying to make things really easy so people can come do this on a yearly basis and the skin scan thing is so cool. So they use AI to map out all the marks on your body and then when you come in on a yearly basis, it scans you again and it puts all of these little markings in this skin library for you. Mine had like 1500 little marks and dots and the AI’s able to check and see if anything has changed over the years and they know so if anything changes, even if it’s not something that you would normally catch.

Ross Borden (25:05):

Amazing. So alright, now let’s switch gears to beauty tourism. So I think of beauty tourism, I’d never heard of going to Turkey for hair extensions for a woman only the hair transplant for men. I know that’s super popular. What other beauty tourism, and I imagine I feel like for every triumphant successful beauty tourism story, there are a couple really bad stories like horror stories of botched breast implants or plastic surgery or stuff like that. Tell us about what is the overall global outlook on beauty tourism and give us some

Bryn Elise (25:49):

Recommendations. So I have been very hesitant to dive into the whole plastic surgery side of beauty tourism. When I think of beauty tourism, I know people are always going abroad to get their noses done and stuff like that. I always tell people if you’re going to look into that, there are great surgeons all over the world. There are South Korea is absolutely phenomenal for stuff like that. If you want any sort of cosmetic surgery, the doctors there, it is so competitive. The clinics are, I mean just the profession as a whole is so competitive that everyone across the board is just so darn good. So if you’re going to do something like that, look into that. Turkey is great for nose jobs and stuff like that, but just make sure that it is something that you are so dead set on. And also I tell people if you want, same thing with serious dental work and stuff.

(26:36):

Go into a dental clinic or a doctor in the US and get a consultation and so you can have a second opinion before you start getting second opinions abroad. If you have somebody you already know and trust, if you want to do it for a more affordable price, it can be totally done and totally done safe. But just be aware, do your research. As far as beauty tourism stuff, I like the easy stuff. Things that are really easy to add to a vacation, go get your nails done, go get your hair done, go get some Botox. These are things that are really affordable and so easy to add into your vacation.

Ross Borden (27:11):

So if you talk to other people that you’ve inspired who basically travel like you now who’s like, I need this procedure done or I want a beauty appointment and I’m just going to choose the best country that I already want to go to Anyway.

Bryn Elise (27:25):

Yeah, I’ve definitely talked to people like that. Right now I am trying to work on getting around the world with this new website coming out. We actually hired our first part-time employees, part-time video editor. So I’m like, all right, I’m hoping we can really ramp this up and go to more places. But I have definitely met people who either are going to go check out things on their own or reach out to me for my itineraries and will go follow the kind of things that I do. I always tell people, do your own research, reach out and get the most accurate prices for right now. But I’m always here. I’m just like an email away, a DM away. I will offer any insight I have. I’m not a doctor, I’m just a girl, but I’ll offer you any knowledge that I have.

Ross Borden (28:03):

So let’s talk about the business side of being a creator for you. You said you’re hiring a couple employees, you said you have business partners for the website and it sounds like maybe you’re starting a business around listings or recommendations and keeping track of all this amazing research you’re doing with price sheets for different providers in different countries. I assume people have approached you for brand partnerships as well. Tell us a little bit about the sort of journey to make this a full-time and growing business as a creator growing.

Bryn Elise (28:35):

So it has been such a ride and I’m still in the thick of it and it’s so exciting though to wake up every day and just be like, I learned so much yesterday and I’m going to learn so much today and I believe in this idea and it’s going to all come together and exciting. New opportunities are coming in every single day. So it’s cool to be at this level. In my creator journey right now, my main partnerships like brand deals, paid videos, are coming from travel sponsorships. So I do lots of stuff. This is all about maximizing the value of a vacation. So I also do, these are the fun things to do in the area. These are my favorite travel apps, things like that. So it all ties in for what I do. Something I didn’t really think, well, it’s not like I didn’t think it through. Something that turned out to be a little bit trickier than I originally anticipated was taking money from medical providers to do brand deals. Once we first started running into that, it was just like, okay, these people want to pay us to come promote their clinic. Is this the best clinic? Is this somewhere that we would’ve picked out? That I think is the best of the best in the area because I know that from our other videos, people travel and we’ll do the things that I recommend. Is it the best of the best? And

(29:50):

More often than not, we go, no thank you. And we stick to the travel. I mean the travel type brand deals.

Ross Borden (29:58):

You don’t want to compromise the integrity of the places that you’re recommending because someone’s paying you to say come there. But I’m honestly not surprised at all after the huge success of that organic video you made of the hospital in Turkey. They probably got hundreds if not thousands of bookings after that video got a hundred million views. So I could see a lot of people reaching out for

Bryn Elise (30:22):

That. It’s been such a cool experience to work with these providers once they’ve seen how good being on the up and up can be sharing price sheets, how much business that can bring them, they will do whatever we need. It’s like, hey, I need a treatment price for this. This price is really high. Can you lower it? They’re like, we can lower it. I’m like, great.

Ross Borden (30:45):

Well you’re being honest and awesome with your followers too. It’s really cool that you made that decision. I think a lot of people probably would’ve taken the money, but also you’d want to disclose this is a paid partnership and there’s something icky or risky about taking medical advice through a paid partnership. So I think you made the right decision there.

Bryn Elise (31:05):

I agree. I wholeheartedly agree.

Ross Borden (31:07):

So what’s next for you, Bryn? You’re in Brazil, you’re traveling the world, you’re starting to get employees, you’re building your business, you’re launching the website. Are you just basically on a nonstop, do you guys have a home base? Are you traveling full time?

Bryn Elise (31:20):

We don’t. So we’ve been traveling full time. I would consider my home base Idaho where my parents live because they’re always there to let me sleep on the couch if I need to. But most of the time we are on the road, we’re traveling right now. The next phase we’re actually getting ready to head to Oregon where our business partners are and really just try to ramp up this website. Things are moving so fast and from there try to build out a more structured travel plan. So like when we go to this place, we have a list of places we’re vetting, things are ready for us, ready to go for us instead of when we get here to these new destinations, we’re always still trying to work out deals. Hey, will you let us come toward the clinic? What’s the best, what’s the best hair salon, what’s the best dentist hospital? And it takes a lot of time. So we’re just going to go back, reset, get the website up and just try to ramp things up and make things a little bit more efficient.

Ross Borden (32:14):

Let’s go. Jumping back to medical tourism, if you were to rank the countries, I know we’re going to have more information coming soon on your website, but if you were to rank the countries that you’ve been and you’ve done checkups, procedures, diagnostics, or through your research, which countries you think or which cities you think are really high on the list for medical tourism, what would those be?

Bryn Elise (32:39):

Yeah, I just have so many things I still want to do. So many lists of places of places on my itinerary for this year even that I’m excited about. South Korea is really high up there. They are super advanced. They had a lot of great technology. The doctors are awesome. I’ve been hearing amazing things about Japan. I did that full body checkup in Turkey and I had so many people reaching out saying that they’d done something similar in Japan. So I’m really excited to go check that out. Turkey is so high up there for me just because of the quality of the clinics. You can really get anything done. Mexico is fine. A lot of people go to Mexico. I think Columbia is better. Columbia has been so cool. Plus it’s a beautiful place with lots to do, but the quality of the hospitals, the clinics are really, really good. So those are my top ones right now. But the more I learn about stuff, I get all kinds of recommendations from my followers and stuff. Two people reaching out, being like, I just went to the best IVF clinic I’ve ever seen. It was so affordable and it was in Aruba. I’m like, great, add it to the list. Let’s go to Aruba.

Ross Borden (33:40):

Really cool. Yeah, IVF, I didn’t even think about that. My, that’s probably another one that’s prohibitively expensive in the US and it’s probably a great idea to go do IVF somewhere

Bryn Elise (33:49):

Else. That’s my next video coming out. So really? Yeah. So I did an IVF video in Mexico too a while back. The average cost of IVF in the US is between 15,000 and $30,000 to get it done in Turkey. It’s $3,400.

Ross Borden (34:07):

Amazing.

Bryn Elise (34:07):

It’s appalling but exciting.

Ross Borden (34:10):

I love that comparison. So can you do that comparison for a couple other things that are standouts that you’re super knowledgeable about?

Bryn Elise (34:18):

Let’s see. I don’t know if I can get the numbers exactly right. There was at one point though I calculated out one of the big things people ask about is dental implants. If they need a bridge, they need a lot of dental work, a full set of dental implants in the us. The range is crazy, but it can get upwards of $40,000 to come in here and do all this. One point I calculated out that if you wanted to go to Croatia and get this done, you could go to Croatia, get the exact same thing done and live there for three months and it would still be cheaper.

Ross Borden (34:51):

Amazing. I love it. I love the cheaper procedure. I love the quality of the medical care or beauty, but I also love your travel take. That’s and a five star vacation for three weeks. That’s the best of both worlds.

Bryn Elise (35:05):

More the medical. Yeah, it’s just like you want to go travel. So many people who’ve reached out to me have said, I want to travel, I can’t afford it. Or even worse, I need medical care. I can’t afford it. It’s like, alright, well combine those two things. You are going to go get this treatment done. Even something so simple as an MRI, it can be astronomical in the US and so easy to get abroad. It is like this MRI, the hospital quoted me $6,000. It’s like, do you know that you can go to Paris on your Paris vacation and get it for 300 bucks and they’ll send it to your doctor in the United States and you can go have a Paris vacation and probably come back saving money. So it’s exciting for me and it’s also mind boggling.

Ross Borden (35:47):

This is making me want to sort of cancel my health insurance too, because getting back to that point of that guy charges went up after he presented his health insurance. I feel like Americans are at their wits end with the healthcare system and with insurance and the cost of insurance. And then when something does happen, you’re like, oh, good thing I have insurance. And then it’s still expensive or it’s even more expensive. So even,

(36:12):

I mean, what do you say to that? Is it maybe a good idea or something people should explore if they’re sort of at the end of their rope with the healthcare system, the cost of healthcare, the waiting and the unavailability of quality care to basically take matters into their own hands and if they do need something or if they do want to do a checkup every year to do it somewhere else outside the us

Bryn Elise (36:35):

Yeah, I say definitely do whatever you’re comfortable with, do your research. I wholeheartedly believe once people start doing their research and see what options are out there, there are options for going abroad and getting a checkup every year. It’s going to blow their minds. Also asking for cash prices of things. If you have insurance and you’re picking up prescriptions before you give them your insurance, ask them what the cash price would be. If you didn’t have insurance, you would be appalled to know just how much more medications can be if you’re on

Ross Borden (37:04):

Insurance, if you have insurance. Yeah. Yeah. That doesn’t make any sense. That’s completely broken. Doesn’t make, do you and your partner have insurance in the us?

Bryn Elise (37:12):

We don’t. And I’ve asked a couple doctors in the US that I’ve spoken to because of the video. I know people reach out, come to my clinic and stuff and I’ve asked them like, is this sketchy for me not to have insurance? Right? Because we’ve been abroad for so much of the year and they’re like, it can get serious if I’m in the US and something bad happens. So I’m taking a bit of a risk with travel insurance and stuff. I’m covered for emergencies abroad, but right now my plan is stay abroad. I know eventually when it’s time to come back and spend more time in the US I’m going to just have to suck it up and get some sort of very, very basic insurance. Like the least I can pay for the worst catastrophe. But right now I don’t.

Ross Borden (37:57):

Yeah, I think it’s something that a lot of people are going to start thinking about because these options are because of your channel and other channels like it, these options are going to start to become more well known abroad and the cost is just prohibitive to most people. And then again, when you’re covered, it’s like you’re screwed because you’re covered. Things are more expensive because you have insurance. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Bryn Elise (38:24):

It doesn’t make any sense. And it’s cool though. I’ve started to see this shift. More and more big companies are starting to look at, they call it employer paid health tourism. And so look at different package options to give to their employees. So it’s like, Hey, medical care is so expensive here. We can’t offer you IVF, we can’t offer you all of these things, but we can offer you those things if you want to travel to Europe for them. And so that stuff is starting to pop up, which I think is really cool. And my ultimate hope is that enough people will leave, that the industry will be forced to change and maybe be a little bit more transparent. I know it’s a little bit of thinking. I know, I know. But for now I can just keep educating people and let them know that they could leave if they need something.

Ross Borden (39:11):

For sure. I think it’s great what you’re doing and I really love your channel. I would encourage people to follow you. Bryn, for those who don’t know you, where can we find you on the internet?

Bryn Elise (39:22):

Yeah, so on TikTok and Instagram, it’s Bryn dot Elise. And then soon@waymore.com.

Ross Borden (39:28):

Way more.com. And then one last question that I ask everyone who comes on the show. It sounds like you’ve been on a travel rampage, so you’ve been to a lot of countries. I always ask if your passport only worked in three countries in the whole world and you could only go visit or live in those three countries, what would those three countries be?

Bryn Elise (39:48):

Oh man. Okay. Columbia is definitely my favorite one. Probably Turkey, because I do just adore it and man, I don’t want to, gosh, there’s so much to see. Probably probably Germany, Germany’s great

Ross Borden (40:06):

Germany. Okay.

Bryn Elise (40:07):

Yeah, that’s a tough question.

Ross Borden (40:10):

It is a tough question. That’s why I ask it. And the more you’ve traveled, the harder it is. So Bryn, thanks so much for coming on the show. Great to meet you and good luck on your journey, and we’ll be following along.

Bryn Elise (40:21):

Cool. Thank you so much for everything. It was so nice to meet you

Ross Borden (40:26):

Creator. The podcast is produced by Matador Network. We are a leading global travel publisher focused on travel and adventure. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe. Every week I interview a new top creator. New episodes are released every Tuesday on YouTube, apple Podcasts, Spotify and everywhere podcasts are found. Thanks for listening.