Stranded Abroad: The Truth About Getting Stuck Away From Home

The moment you get to the airport with a child, your bags trimmed down, your accommodation checked out, and your heart already halfway home, a cancelled flight hits different. We are stranded in Indonesia after our Emirates route through Dubai shuts down, and the hardest part is not the heat or the logistics. It is the whiplash of being mentally ready to return to the UK, then being told it is not happening for an unknown amount of time, all while staying steady for a four-year-old who is watching everything. 

I talk through the real, unfiltered layers of this kind of disruption: solo parenting without childcare, the emotional toll of uncertainty, and the strange mix of gratitude and grief when you are safe but still not okay. I also share how neurodiversity shows up in a crisis, how empathy can make a crowded hotel full of stranded travelers feel overwhelming, and how small acts of kindness can keep you going when you feel stretched thin. 

On the practical side, we get into why a remote business and multiple income streams are not just “nice to have” lifestyle goals. When your normal work routine collapses overnight, recurring revenue, retainers, and knowing which income lever to pull can create financial stability fast. That stability buys time, options, and the ability to be a present parent while you rebuild a plan, find a stable base in Bali, and decide whether to sit tight or adapt your route. 

If you care about the digital nomad lifestyle, location independent work, relocation planning, or building a resilient online business, this story puts those ideas under real pressure and shows what holds up. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the part that hit closest to home.

Transcript

Solo Parenting Without A Safety Net

Money Fear And Multiple Income Levers

Grief And Keeping It Together

Airline Chaos And Hard Choices

Finding A Base And Support

Gratitude Without Toxic Positivity

Podcast Schedule Update And Apology

Share The Show And Send Feedback

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello guys and welcome back to the Business of Lifestyle podcast. This episode is going to cover a topic that I never thought that I would share with the world and I never thought would be happening in the world. But here we are, we are stranded. So we are stranded in Indonesia for reasons that don't need to be explained. I know that the whole world by now knows what's happening with flights being cancelled. So we were due to fly home to the UK at the beginning of March, the day after the conflict broke out, and we were flying with Emirates directly through Dubai, and we can no longer travel. Our flight was cancelled after we arrived at the airport, after I had checked out of my accommodation and gave away toys, toiletries, slimmed down our possessions, ready to return home. And it has been quite challenging. If you follow me on social media, you will understand that I have been really quiet, and you'll probably now understand why. I fully appreciate that we are safe, that there are people in the world for whom this conflict is much more impactful. So this is not going to be any um semblance of that. I hope it doesn't come across as tone deaf at all because I fully, fully appreciate the privilege of being in the same place as my daughter, the same country, that we are safe and that we have no risk to our life directly upon us. So I acknowledge that privilege from the outset. But packing up all of your worldly goods, um, well not all of them, but all the ones that you you chose to travel with, slimming down your possessions and mentally being prepared to come home, turning up at the airport, um, with what was a lot, obviously a long flight ahead of you, and being turned away and told that you can't travel and for an indeterminate amount of time. So that was over a week ago, that was like 10 days ago, and we still don't have we're no further um ahead in getting home. So the good news is um that because I'm a freedom lifestyle strategist, I was literally, I could not have been more prepared. My business can run um partially on automation but fully remotely. I have just the knowledge and the skill set and the life appetite to take on a challenge. I've got ADHD, so we are excellent in a crisis, guys. So um, if you have an ADHD friend or family member, definitely go traveling with them. If you are neurodiverse, then I'm sure that you will recognise uh that that is a key skill to have at this time. I also have neurodiversities that don't make this very much um fun for me on my OCD and I'll I'll explain more. I'll basically spend this episode talking to you about how that process unfolded for me. And yeah, I hope that it's interesting, but it will be real, it will be quite raw, and it's not ideal, guys. Like, even though I am a freedom lifestyle strategist and I love travel, when you commit to a plan and your heart is somewhere else, like my heart was with my dog, Wilbur, and with my parents and my friends and family, and we had plans and medical appointments and things that were important to us that now um are no longer happening. And all of this on the context of the fact that I am a solo parent, right? I'm here on my own with a four-year-old child, and I've done that many times, and I'm quite good at it, if I do say so myself. But I put weights and measures and balance in balances in place to look after me and her and make sure that my mental health is supported and I've got practical support in the areas that I go, and I didn't have any of that because we we were we weren't expecting to fly, right? Sorry, we weren't expecting to stay. So having to solo parent for I think it was like nine days or something like that until I managed to get us back to where we had a solid base. Uh whilst dealing with emotions as well, like tough emotions of not being able to go home, whilst dealing with the practicalities of I can't work now. If I don't, sorry, mosquito, I don't if I can't have if I don't have childcare, I can't work. Doesn't matter how good my setup is, um, overnight, that was a problem, and it was going to be a financial problem for me as well. And this is where like freedom lifestyle strategies and the business mentorship that I do goes from like a nice to have because some people would love to go on more holidays, and some people maybe are happy with the amount that they've got, and some people would travel more or not, but everybody needs financial stability and financial leverage in a situation like this. Like, I don't mind telling you that when this happened, my first thought was, oh crap, money. Because I was thinking I was going back to the UK with my steady childcare and my normal arrangement, which meant I could do my one-to-one client work, and it meant I could do all of the things that I was doing to generate income for that month. Now I do have clients on retainer, so it wasn't like I was starting from scratch, but I had not at the time that this happened got my eye on how I was gonna pay all of the bills for that month because I was just thinking, well, actually, I know I'll go home and I'll do this, that, and the other, and that produces income for me. And so I was like, this is gonna be bad, but luckily or strategically, I have levers, I have multiple income streams, and I had a lever that I pulled like the day after our flight got cancelled, and I had within days, within like two or three days, had made all the money that I needed for that month. So I could then rest easy, I could be a present parent for my daughter, I could go back to homeschooling, I could go back to living in the moment. I still had the emotional toil of obviously being stranded and to figure out what we're gonna do, where we were gonna live, for example, because we had nowhere to live, but financially, I had my ducks in a row and thank God for the fact that I teach these strategies that I know about income generation and business and all of the things, and I think I just think it's worth like acknowledging that the sort of multiple income streams, that the knowledge of that. Anyway, so that was something that I managed to box off quite quickly. The emotional side, honestly, I dealt with much worse than I thought I would have done, and that you guys probably think that I would have done. Like, I wasn't sat there like crying into my pillow that I couldn't go home because I love travel, I love tropical locations. We happened to be in Bali, we had been travelling around other areas of Indonesia, but we had to get back to the mainland of Bali to fly, obviously, home routing through Dubai. And even I was surprised at the emotional toll that it took on me because I had to do it all with a smile on my face where I could, because I had a child watching me at all times because I had no childcare. Um, and I did, I felt sad for quite some time because yeah, you know, I'm a human being. Just because I'm a human being that loves to travel and and sort of espouses the virtue of this lifestyle doesn't mean that it didn't hurt when I couldn't see my parents or be home for you know with with my dog whom I miss very, very much. Right, so there was that to deal with and the solo parenting, but it what I can basically say that I wiped out pretty much a week of my life because I just had to figure out a plan, right? Obviously, your first thought is well, when can we fly again? So we were we our flight was cancelled, they booked us on one five day late five days later, which was subsequently cancelled again, and I condone that because the airline is obviously keeping people safe and safety is the top priority. I completely understand that, and plus, I also understand that the prioritization has to go to getting people who are in unsafe places, getting them home rather than getting us away from a place of non-safety. Um, so I understand that the airline is operating in unprecedented times, but I was really disappointed. So it was Emirates I was flying with, and at first they shipped us to a hotel and they covered the cost of that, but it only lasted for two days. So they gave us two days accommodation, and then they were just like, and food actually, they gave us accommodation and food for two days, and then they were just like you're on your own, sort yourself out, and that that's obviously less than ideal, and there were some people in that hotel, so that we there was 800 of us in one hotel where we'd all had flights cancelled with Emirates, and there were some people there that were like destitute, that didn't have enough money to pay for their own hotels, that had just come on like a week's holiday. There were people in that hotel that were separated from their children, you know, not little children like mine, but still like teenage children who were reliant on them, and I cannot imagine the emotional toll that that took on those people. And I don't know if this is a neurodiverse thing, but I am an empath, right? So I was absorbing the energy of all these people around me, and it was it was really challenging because I was dealing with my own feelings, with other people's feelings. Uh, there was one lady that was staying in the hotel with me that appeared on BBC News that night, and you know, there was some camaraderie as well. There was some like the nicest parts of kindness, like people offered to look after Ocean because they could see that I was a solo pair and on my own, trying to navigate like where were we gonna live. Um, I didn't take them up on the offer, but I was still deeply appreciative that they they offered at the time. So we spent three nights in the accommodation that Emirates provided, two nights that they paid for, one that I paid for. And luckily, hotels in Indonesia are not like ridiculously expensive. We did then go to like a fun resort. I chose a resort that had like slides and like pools and kids' activities because I was just aware that my daughter had just had to like watch me figure this all out, and like I wasn't able to have fun with her the way that I would like to have had or we would have done ordinarily if it was BAU. Um, so we booked ourselves into that and then um yeah, we looked at a longer term strategy. So I don't I don't have any insider knowledge, right? Emirates are not communicating with us other than to say that we can rebook that flight or get a refund. We could go home via a different route. If things got very desperate, we could go home via probably like a an a route like Singapore, but that would cost thousands and thousands of pounds because obviously that's what that's the only routes that are available, and whether that's a commercial decision by the airlines to hike those prices or whether it's just this algorithmic thing, supply versus demand, I don't know, but they are very expensive now and also very complex and very high demand. So I know a lot of the people who were stuck on those flights that I was in contact with, they are all going home via a different route. But I am waiting for the my original ticket to be honoured and for them to tell me when it's safe for us to go home. Personally speaking, even if they were to fly through Dubai right now, I wouldn't feel comfortable to do that with my child, and I'm not making any judgment call on anybody that does. I'm not saying that this is even, like I said, I don't have any insider knowledge, but I don't feel comfortable flying through Dubai, even if they offered it me right this minute. So we are probably going to sit tight. At the moment, we haven't been offered another flight anyway, they're not even flying out of the country, so there is no option, but we are probably just going to be on our freedom lifestyle path for a little bit longer. So after bouncing around for like a week, um, we have come back to the place in Bali, the mainland place that we we felt the most at home, and it's get it that was honestly like such um a godsend to us because we we know people here, ocean's got friends, I can take her on play dates. I know like we have a favourite bakery, we have a favourite um playground, part of the beach. I know where I can get my like favourite um seared tuna steak for dinner, and um yeah, just we feel really comfortable here and we feel really safe. So this is a positive update, in so much that I I don't have any long-term plans for accommodation yet. I am once again in free accommodation, and I am so glad that I knew I know the strategies that I I've outlined in the blueprints because it means that whilst I have had to spend out on accommodation for the first part of this and being stranded, for the moment, anyway, we're in a beautiful villa with a pool, and we are safe, secure. It's not a long-term booking, um, but we'll be here for a short while, and I can ground and I can get us a longer-term plan whilst I'm here. This area, we have reliable, trusted, vetted child support, um, access to schools and things like that if we need them. So I am very, very fortunate, and you know, anybody that's watched a number of these podcasts will know that I have been on a deep healing journey, and I am also coaching other women through not a healing journey, but through lifestyle choices and decisions that pair with income generation from a business mentorship perspective. So I've got a pretty deep well to pull from when things like this happen, and I'm just so grateful to the past version of me that invested in my own coaching journey on other coaches taking me through my own process on therapy, on all the things I did to help get me to this point. And it doesn't mean that like my mindset and everything is always 100% perfect, of course it's not. I've shared in this episode how I was emotionally quite challenged by yeah, this the conflict in general, um, my deep empathy for so many people who are suffering in the world, and the personal circumstances of yeah, being separated from family in a way that I didn't choose. But on the flip side, I have got this well of reserve, and you know what? I'm I'm really grateful. I'm sat here in gratitude and not in a toxic positivity way, in a you know, this lifestyle is something that I wanted to explore on a longer term basis anyway. Okay, I I I hadn't made the choice to do that right this minute. I was going home, and there are things that I need to do at home and I want to do uh there back in the UK, but right now we're safe, we are like I'm looking out the window, it's beautiful blue skies, it's sunshine, you know. Like I said, we've got a bit of a network here, and I have got a lot of skills that lend itself to this situation. So that is really I just wanted to give an update and sort of tell you where we're at and um tell you that we're okay and that we're going to be okay. Now I've got some choices to make. Um, obviously, I can't go home right now. Um, it's so my choices are whether I choose to explore another area or I really choose to drill down into what it would be like to live here and extend on a longer term basis. So by no means is the path completely clear, but we are happy, we are settled for now, we are safe, um, and I deeply appreciate everybody that has helped me through this and checks on me and sends you messages, and anybody that's listened to to what's going on. I hope that we never have another podcast episode that is a world, you know, potentially world um changing event. Um, and it's all rainbows and sunshine for the world and for me and my daughter from here on out. But you always get real with me, and it just took me a little bit of time. I didn't want to jump on here on the day, like being like, oh, look, you know, here's the airport, here's the massive cues, here's all the drama. Um, because I actually just wanted to take a minute, process my thoughts, and then share them with you. So, one thing I will just talk about for the podcast is we are gonna be hella out of order now. So I have recorded podcast episodes in Costa Rica, in Panama, in Los Angeles that have not aired yet. I have recorded podcast episodes about homeschooling, I've recorded your episodes about the difference between freedom, lifestyle, relocation, and travelling and why I've chosen to look at the relocation piece for the for the first time since becoming a mum. All of those are going to be out of order because I've decided to give you this update first. Um, but yeah, I hope they all contain huge amounts of value for you guys. I hope that you enjoy listening to them. So just please, if it sounds like you're like, oh well, Lauren's talking about like only being in why why is she talking about February when it's clearly she just done an episode in March? I'll obviously still want to give you those episodes, but they just might be in a bit of a roundabout order. But I wanted to talk about the things that are happening in the world and obviously the being stranded thing right now. So I am not a perfect human being. If any of this came across as insensitive to what's happening in the world, then I just give my sincere apologies because I don't mean it to. I really have tried to construct this in a way that honours what people are going through that's much, much worse than me, but at the same time doesn't dismiss what it's like to be a mum so far away from home and separated from your family and your support system. Because that you know, I I don't know who else might be listening to this, but they are real things and your feelings are valid if you're struggling through this as well. Even if you're sat at home and you're safe and you're still finding this really heavy and really um emotionally difficult to process, that's because it is. Um, and yeah, I hope this episode gave you permission to feel the way that you need to feel right now and to to lean on the support that you need to be okay right now. Okay, I will leave that there. Um, thank you as ever for listening. Um, please share this with somebody that might um resonate if you're not subscribing to the podcast. Please do so. Please give me feedback as well. My handles on social media is Miss Lauren Riley. I would love to hear from more of you about what you find helpful with these episodes, what you'd like to hear more of, and I will speak to you very soon.