EP 1: Redefining Home: From New York to the Philippines and Beyond

What if a routine stop at a gas station felt like traveling back in time? 

In this exciting kick-off episode of No Borders, No Filter Podcast, host Debra Josephson shares a surprising encounter at a Shell station that evoked memories of 1950s America- where customer service was personal, attentive, and genuinely welcoming. 

Growing up in Long Island, New York, Debra always felt a pull beyond her roots. While her childhood home provided structure, she found a deeper sense of belonging outside whether in her neighborhood or the warmth of her high school sweetheart’s Italian family. This early contrast shaped her understanding of home as something more than just a physical space- it’s about connection, authenticity, and shared experiences.

Through years of travel and cultural immersion—from New York to calling countries like Costa Rica, Italy, and the Philippines home—Debra challenges the conventional notion of home. Is home defined by a physical place, an emotional connection, or the people we surround ourselves with? How does the journey of travel shape our identity and redefine our sense of belonging?

Key Takeaways:

  • 00:28 – Meet Your Host: Debra, the Experient Explorer

  • 01:33 – Redefining Home: From New York to the Philippines

  • 02:15 – What Does Home Mean?

  • 02:47 – Growing Up in New York: A Personal Journey

  • 09:56 – Adolescence and the Search for Belonging

  • 11:28 – First Love and the Feeling of Home

  • 14:54 - Cultural Perspectives on Home

  • 16:40 - The Search for Connection

  • 18:01 – Travel Adventures: Costa Rica and Beyond

  • 26:43 – The Allure of Italy: A Potential Home

  • 36:36 – Life in the Philippines: A New Chapter

  • 32:54 - The Value of Arts and Culture

  • 39:56 – Conclusion and Future Plans

Join Debra in the next episode as she reflects on her experiences living in China during the pandemic and how they further shaped her understanding of home. From lockdowns to unexpected moments of connection, she shares how a rapidly changing world forced her to rethink what stability and belonging truly mean. 

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Visit Debra’s multimedia website at www.dmeryl.net

Transcript

No Borders, No Filter

Episode 1, Part 1

Redefining Home: From New York to Philippines and Everywhere and Beyond


DEBRA:

If I was to start off the second half of this podcast on the topic about home, if there was a place that I could foresee myself living a longer term and being satisfied with being there for an extended period of time, I would say there are so far, maybe two places that I would consider for that and one of them and probably the number one at this point would be Italy. I've always had an affinity for Italy. 

You must have had these feelings about places even before you go there, or you just gather knowledge of certain things, and you just have a gut instinct that, yes, this is a match for me. As animals, as humans, we can draw to those instincts for a reason. Again, as a child and a teenager growing up with the Italian community, it's already something familiar, but it's also a place that a lot of Americans do travel to if they go out of the U.S., and there's good reason for that. It really does have this really special culture that universally feels good. I did go travel there about 10 years ago. 

I can't believe I'm saying that, 10 years ago. I finally made it there, and I only spent 10 days, but man, I just felt like they understand me. The reason why I say that is because as someone, again, as a creative spirit, someone that believes in beauty and function, they have that aspect to their culture, and it defines a good portion of their daily life. Because when you go to Italy, and again, you can put a big city as an example, like Florence or Venice and Rome, of course. You will not see billboards of advertisements everywhere for clothing, cars, food. 

They don't allow it. It's prohibited. If there is one or two, it's maybe for a very short period of time for a certain occasion. But overall, they preserve the aesthetic and beauty of their history, and the architecture is a big part of their culture. So when you walk around the streets there, day or night, you can really feel connected to their culture, their history, their roads, the texture of the bricks, narrow streets, the beautiful big windows with their shutters and people hanging out, relaxing outside or doing their laundry and hanging it up. I mean, you just can walk down the street and just be engulfed in their culture without any distraction. 


It is just beautiful. Just their life is beautiful; simple and beautiful. As someone that does photography, it's just eye candy. And every moment, as we would say, a Kodak moment, it really is that way, especially in the morning light and afternoon light. Their food, as you know, that is also very beautiful. You eat with our eyes and our nose as well as our mouth. So the cafes, everything is just charm everywhere. They slow down life and enjoy it. They're not about getting the most done out of their day and making sure that, I'm not saying untouched, but they can leave for the day without feeling like, oh, I didn't complete it. I have to stay. They know when to say, I'm done for today or it's lunchtime. I'm going to go home and spend it with my family and we're going to enjoy a meal together around a table and take that break. In Europe, they do that in many cultures there. They go home for work. They don't eat fast food or just run to a place and get back to work. They slow down and they take a break and then they go back to work. But then, you know, it's like in the morning too, they'll drink their little espresso in the morning at their cafe. I mean, I was there early in the morning and I would just see them hanging out with their friends or family and starting their day that way, not in any rush. And their culture functions just fine and life goes on. It teaches me a lot about what quality of life is about. And, you know, the arts are a big part of their culture. 


They think it has a huge value to their life. And for me, I agree. And I have the evidence to support it, which again, will be always part of my podcast, sharing how art and culture are such an important aspect to humanity and to education and to our day-to-day lives. Unfortunately, most cultures are not valuing it as we used to. But in many cultures in Europe and other places in the world, the arts are still of huge value and appreciated. And when I'm there, I feel like, again, me, because I see that their values are similar to mine and it makes me feel at home. It feels like I'm not alone. And again, I don't need to know every person there. I don't even have to have a good friend there. But the environment itself makes me feel at home because I can see their values. 

I can see what's important to them. You don't need to talk to anyone in a culture to get to know the culture. If you take the time to be a wallflower like myself and stand back and observe and look and listen, you get to know a culture because seeing is believing. You know, we know that actions speak louder than words. And what I see there is a lot of action on caring for and respecting humanity and what we've created and what life is all about. Now, that's important to me to feel that way. Again, a lot of people move to countries or places based on the socioeconomics of places because of safety. I talked about the reasons why people go to places, but there's also reasons why people travel to places. But we don't have to look at places we travel as just places we travel. We can go to places and say, wow, I'm really enjoying myself on my holiday, but maybe this could be a place that I could retire. Or this could be a place that I spend six months out of the year. 


This could be a place that I'm investing in. This is a place that I want something for a year. I mean, now that we're in this age of technology and the way things work, all of this is accessible. We don't have to separate places we enjoy from places we want to call home. They can be both. It can be a mixture of things. Home can be so much more than what I believe I see in the world, which is we choose one place or one country or one way, and then that's it. And nothing else is really explored on that. So as a creative, again, as someone that studied to critically think about my decisions, why I do things, what I don't do things, why things’ the way they are in the world, this plays a huge role on my decisions of my lifestyle and my home. If it really wasn't for money, I think that I'd probably live there or Spain again because Spain has similar feeling to me as does Italy. But money does play a big role on that. 

Again, I'm an ambitious person in my own way. Like when I want to do something, I will put 100% or maybe not exactly that, but I'm all in. Again, I can't make any more. I don't want to make decisions based on that money is a problem. So, you know, I've worked very hard for many years doing teaching, teaching art and teaching English in the countries that I have mentioned prior. I worked in Peru and Poland and South Korea, China as a teacher because it's something that I learned was a possibility of how can I live abroad? That was a long time ago and it wasn't the right fit for me, meaning what I really wanted to do. But to keep it simple right now, it's what made it accessible and I did it for a while, but now it's really time for me to change that. I'm really trying to start again with being a person that carves my way into making a living and doing things that support my values, my morals, my passions, my talents. This is one of them is starting with the podcasting and hopefully developing more into work that will allow me to have a more independent lifestyle where I can be more at home or more time to travel and just have more flexibility in the way I do things. 

So I'm starting kind of over again and I'm in the Philippines now. If I want to talk about the Philippines a little bit, I will share that just like in Costa Rica, there's a much more relaxed atmosphere. People are friendly. People still say hello when you walk by. There's lots of friendly people here, very friendly. I had a situation last night where I needed to rent a car because I needed to go take care of some personal business in another city. I did get my driver's license here in the Philippines. I'm not a new driver, but my license from the States expired and I needed a new driver's license and I was able to do that very easily here, very easily. It was so, so easy. And anyway, so it was great to be back on the road because I've used public transport in most other countries. I've not needed to buy a car or deal with that expense, which has been great. 

But here in the Philippines, it's a little more challenging. And anyway, so when I came back from my day, I needed to fill up the gas before I returned it to the owner. And so I'm at the Shell Station, which is a company that is familiar to me from the States. But when I'm at the gas station, I felt like I went back in time to the fifties in America. And if you would like go watch Back to the Future, the first one, when Marty goes back to 1955, I think it was, and he goes to the gas station, they want to clean your windshield of your car. They want to put air in my tires. They offered it to me. He was- his face was smiling, very clean, professional uniform, so friendly, so helpful. It was, wow, I was just like, now I know what it was like to be back at that time in America when customer service was really about customer service. And that's kind of stuff that you can experience. I'm not saying it happens everywhere, every time here, but it was really a great moment. And since I've been in Asia, because I was in China working before here, the reason why I'm staying in Asia is for some logical, practical reasons. When I got to China, it was like October, 2019. And the pandemic really, again, started in China, but lockdown happened by the third week in January. We were officially in the lockdown at that time. And right before that, I traveled to the Philippines during Christmas, New Year's time. And I'm like, oh, maybe the Philippines might be a place in the future for me to invest in or consider as a home base. Because again, I mentioned that they are jolly friendly, and I had experiences there in their culture that reminded me of Costa Rica. And I'm like, oh, well, and for me to go back to Costa Rica or that side of the world is very expensive, and it's just not reasonable. 

Thanks for tuning in to Episode 1, Part 1 of Redefining Home, from New York to the Philippines, and everywhere in between. Please continue to listen to Part 2, where I talk about my life and home in China during the pandemic. Until then, let's stay connected, and I will see you soon. 

And that's a wrap for today's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in and hanging out with me. If you enjoyed this podcast with no borders, no filter, and you feel a connection or a little inspired, please like, subscribe, and share it with a friend. I truly can't wait to hear from you. Let's keep challenging the status quo with an unfiltered perspective. I'll be podcasting with real stories, interviews, and reflections on my day-to-day and journey. In the meantime, explore your spirit, experience the world. Get to know me more by connecting to my social media at Experience Explorer, found in the description. Also, you can check out my photo website dmeryl.net. That's D-M-E-R-Y-L dot net. Until next time, the best way to learn is by doing. So go out and get your hands dirty.