TCMMY - Almost Local/How To Move Away Without Losing Yourself w/ Marc Alcobé

Staying in your hometown can feel safe, but it can also feel like you’re stuck living inside someone else’s story. We sit down with Mark Alcobé, a Barcelonian-born UX and UI designer, professional futsal goalkeeper, improv theater actor, and the host of the Almost Local Podcast, to talk about what happens when you leave home and keep going.

Mark shares the honest version of moving abroad: the excitement, the culture shock, the bureaucracy, the loneliness, and the unexpected ways your identity changes over time. We dig into the idea that relocation isn’t “right” or “wrong” and it isn’t for everyone. Sometimes you move and thrive. Sometimes you move and realize homesickness is bigger than you imagined, and choosing to return is simply choosing what’s healthy.

We also unpack the meaning behind “almost local” and why Mark moved away from labels like “expat.” If you’ve ever felt like you don’t fully belong where you live now and you don’t fully fit back home either, this conversation puts language to that in-between experience and shows why community matters. Mark closes with practical advice for anyone considering a big move: do deeper research than jobs and rent, and make sure you can rebuild the routines and hobbies that keep you grounded.

Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with someone planning a move, and leave a review with your biggest question about starting over somewhere new.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Welcome back today. Call me Mr. You, the podcast. Of course, I'm your host, Mr. You. If you're watching us for the very first time, you know where you are and how you're viewing the episode. Thanks for making us part of your week. We're live on YouTube and Facebook. And of course, you can find all of our brands of shows across all social media and podcast listening platforms. Easy to find our shows. So thanks again for tuning in, making us part of your day. Thanks for being a part of ours. In studio with us today, he's a Barcelonian-born UX and UI designer, professional footsall goalkeeper, improv theater actor, which is so cool. And he hosts the Almost Local Podcast. Mark Alcove is with us today. Thanks for being in the studio, sir. How you doing, Mark? Good to see you. Oh, great.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Thank you so much for

Welcome And Meet Mark

SPEAKER_01 1:51

having me. It's a pleasure being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Pleasure is mine, sir. Good to have you here. There's so many things I want to talk to you about with the time that we have. So let's go ahead and jump in. Uh, I'm excited about what you're doing, I think because there is a powerful message in this somewhere. A lot of people, I I've met people on both sides of this particular idea that some people feel like when you're in your hometown, you never leave, you're disloyal. If you leave your hometown, you stay there, you raise family, keep your family together, growing generations and generations of people all in the same place. They feel like it's it's mandatory for some of them. And some feel like, you know what? Everybody knows me here. I can't grow, I can't evolve and be the person I need to be because all they know is who my father was or my grandfather was. And it put me in these boxes in life. So I have to move away from my hometown in order to

Stay Home Or Move Away

SPEAKER_00 2:43

thrive and become who I'm purposed to be. So it sounds like you have some perspective on the idea of doing that. What are your feelings on that? And did that affect your desire to move from where you lived, where you were born and raised? What was your idea on that one?

SPEAKER_01 3:00

I mean, it's clearly there is different people in that perspective, and I think that you need to be a kind of person to be able to thrive and survive abroad when you move somewhere else. I think it's something that it's it's not as easy as sometimes people put it outside, and it's not made for everyone, you know. I always say that to every to everyone that I interview or I meet. Man, it's not it's not a failure if while you move abroad you discover that hey, homesickness is bigger than you would ever imagine, that you miss whatever it was that feeling of home. It's it's all right. No, you know, it's not made for everyone. Nobody should be forced to to move somewhere. Unfortunately, we live in a world that sometimes forces certain people to move abroad. But for me personally, it wasn't really like the I mean, I had the idea of living abroad, and maybe it was more a kind of concept in my mind of like having that experience. I would never have thought that I would be that would be the core one of the core things around my life, nearly 10 years abroad, you know. Like I I wasn't expecting to to be where I am right now. I was more in the in this kind of idea of like, okay, maybe I move for three, two, three years, and then I come back. I made some money, I made some, I don't know, some experience of it. Now it's like nine years that I've been living abroad, three different countries. So um the first move wasn't planned. That's the truth. Like uh it happened spontaneously, and then the other moves happened also a little bit in the on the go, let's say, like this, with life happening. But I wasn't one of these persons who say, No, no, I don't know, I don't feel 100% to where I am. Like, I was happy in Barcelona, I had a nice life, but at that moment of time when they offered me to go to Germany economically, especially and like for a career perspective, it made a lot of sense. So I took that decision. And I I interviewed people who had both, no, this like desire of company component go out of whatever because family or environment is blocking them to grow or to change, and then other people who came back home and as soon as they could because it wasn't for them, and I think it's it's logical. Uh, we are all different, no.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

That makes sense. That makes sense. So it sounds like you didn't you kind of kind of were forced to move from Boston and you loved it there, you had probably friends and family there. Was there a part of you that became the old mark after you left and lived abroad for nine years? Was there a part of you that kind of uh died or or just kind of drifted away?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah, but I think also naturally, like nine years is a lot of time. I also moved with one with 23. So if I would be the same person right now, wouldn't be good for my health either, probably. Um for my maintenance of like life standards. There is a personal growth that it's related to age,

Identity Changes Over Time

SPEAKER_01 6:19

there is clearly a personal growth that it's related to the challenges of moving to new countries that I learned progressively. I like to define identity a little bit like an onion. Sometimes it's a layered things, you know, like you take some parts of these layers that don't make sense in your life anymore, and you add other things, and then that layer it's what defines who you are and what how do you think and your identity in general. Yes, of course, there is parts of who I was in Barcelona that died in that sense, or I left outside, and then I grabbed things from all the pla places where I went to live. There is cultural things that I also grabbed from the places where I lived and that I would like to maintain, and then other things that I'm I'm not willing to transport with me to my next home.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

No, no, that's fair. That's that's that's that's a good concept. So you have your hands in so many things that we mentioned in the introduction before we brought you on. You're a UX and a UI designer, you're a professional goalkeeper, in foot, you are an improv actor on the on the three other stage. You're also a podcast host of almost local. Out of all the things that you have done, and this is not to slight anything that you've done so far, out of all of those things, which one have you found to be the most fulfilling for you personally and why?

SPEAKER_01 7:47

That's a super difficult question. I think all of them create a routine that defines who I am in a way.

Work Versus Passion Projects

SPEAKER_01 7:57

I'm a I'm a UX UI designer because I studied DARP because I loved while I was studying that professionally, it makes sense. It's what it sustains me. So of the all of the other things might not be good for my mental health, they are good for my, I don't know, for my hope, for my lifestyle, they are good for for doing things and being capable of being creative and and so on and so forth. But I could, I suppose at some point I would need to stop playing futsal more before because of my needs than for anything else. Like uh, I could live without doing improv theater if I can, you know, find other things to do. I could close the podcast, uh I suppose at some point. Without having a job, it's much more difficult to leave. But that's yeah, so probably from all of this, it's the thing that defines me the less as a core value of myself, but I depend much more on it because we live in the world where you need to have a job and on something that brings money into the equation to to sustain the other parts, also.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

So that makes sense. How about if I if I rephrase the question? Which one actually excites you the most? Then it gives you juices flowing more than anything else.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

You would ask me like if I if you would have asked me this like three years ago, four years ago, when I was playing in like first division in Greece and so on, and life was a little bit different. I would definitely have would have gone for foodsal and and goalkeeping. I'm I'm in this moment of my life of career in sports that it's going a little bit down and down of logically, also. So, probably right now I would say that the improv theater part is the one that it's more exciting, also. Probably also because right now in Italy I'm using it as a as a trampoline to learning the language or

Why Improv Feels Alive

SPEAKER_01 9:48

improving the language, also, because I'm doing improv theater in Italian, and therefore it also helps me a little bit more to socialize better and and I don't know, be capable of like defending myself in a language that it's not my own. So it it excites me to to be able to do this whole improv, no, like it's so useful in real life, but it's so funny if if you find the correct group to do it with, uh it's it's super cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Love it. Okay, so I want to get into your uh your YouTube channel and your podcast, almost local. I love the name and the title, you know, just so you know, what does that mean and what are you trying to accomplish through the podcast? What's the goal?

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Well, I I mean, first of all, and being transparent, it wasn't the original name of the podcast, it's something that evolved, as you said, like me eventually. So when I was in Germany, I was interviewing only German people or like people living in Germany. Um I it was called the Ausländer, which means the immigrant in German. Um, but when I move abroad, it didn't make sense anymore. I rename it to expat experts.

Building Almost Local

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Then I didn't like the term expats that much, like it has like a kind of like I don't know, connotation, racial and classist connotation that it's not what I wanted to talk about. And yes, I thought a lot about how to rename the podcast. So almost local came with my own experience, but also out of the conversations that I had in the YouTube channel in the podcast with all these people. No, there is this common sense for a lot of us of I'm here now, I call I might call this country home, but I haven't grown up here. So all the cultural studies background, family, I don't know, even like you don't understand fully the educational system. So if you are parenting abroad, big part of it is learning how schools work, for example. That that already makes you that you are not a full local in there. And most of us happen to us happens the same when we go back home. If I go back right now to Barcelona, I've changed my city changed, the situation of my family and my friends also changed there, and I'm not fully local there anymore either. So you are always in this in-between of where do I belong? And I wanted to bring from the perspective of the podcast the challenges that it might come with this uh situation and living abroad, but also try to bring to the people to this sense of community of you're not alone in this feeling, and this being almost local, this being in the in-betweens of each world, it's common. And if you accept it and navigate through it in a nice way, it's actually pretty cool if you're capable of being there, and you have identity and stuff different than the locals from here. You have experiences back home that the people who stayed don't have, and if you take that positively, and of course there is challenges in it, it is it is a cool thing. So you need to learn how to to to be there, but uh, but uh it can be very very fulfilling also. Um it's important for me to also to to show the reality of the people that I discuss with, and not sometimes I find myself a little bit too I found myself watching Instagram or social media or anything that it was way too rainbowy, you know, like it's everything so perfect, move here, and everything it's perfect, and it's like it doesn't work like that. Like 400% for sure that the first month that you arrive to a place you will shock against bureaucracy for sure, it's it's impossible to avoid certain things. So I want to bring the real part of it through through the podcast, and that was the main the main goal.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

I love it. Just a couple more questions, Mark, and then we'll call the broadcast out for today. So in in in doing all almost local and hearing all of these stories from people not just regionally, but even in other countries, other parts of the world, you got a unique perspective. We you have a chance to kind of uh the culture and the language and the politics and nationality and talk to the people, real people with real stories. What did you learn about the human condition from doing this show?

SPEAKER_01 14:49

That no matter where you come from and where you are going, we tend as a as a

What Migration Teaches Us

SPEAKER_01 14:57

I don't know, as societies to fall in the same problems somehow, and that we are not that different between each other, and that's also comforting, no matter where do you come from, how do you look, what is your gender, your sex, your color, your no matter. There is certain things that everyone passes through when they move abroad, and that unifies in a certain way that I I really love when people share that experience. I I love listening to these stories, but I really love when the people who are sharing them pass through something, and it's already in the step of like, hey, this happened to me, but look, I solve it like this, like that. I I am assuming that that while we are all more or less passing through the same challenges, not everyone solves the same thing, like these challenges in the same way, and that's the beauty out of it, no? Like having resources out there to say, ah wow, okay, this person solved it like this, and I did it like that, and I did this. Communities and networks and and information out there, uh, it's infinite value for us, for all of us. And it's it's what it's important that you have the pass the capacity of like finding uh solutions to your current problems.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

That's good stuff, man. Uh so final thing I asked for you before we close the broadcast out. I'd love you to speak to the people who are watching, listening to the show today, who are maybe perhaps they're in their hometown, maybe they have a certain age, maybe they have hit the wall uh creatively and professionally, and they're ready to make a move to a different place, maybe to a different town, not just a different country, maybe a different city, a different state. How would you encourage them? How would you encourage them regarding their comfort zone and discovering who they really are? Without telling them what to do, how would you encourage them to decide if making that move is the best thing?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

If you are in the moment that you are like kind of ready

How To Choose Your Next Move

SPEAKER_01 17:23

to take that move, that you really think that you are in the like I don't know, blocked or emotionally stuck in somewhere, creatively stuck in somewhere. Normally people would tell you, do it and go for it. I would tell you if you can do the extra level of research or where do you want to move, if you have it very clear, okay. I want to go to this country, to this city, whatever. We are living in a world nowadays of information and resources out there that allow you to check these places in a little bit better way. My recommendation, and what I always tell to anyone of course, you can research what bureaucratic will be, how the language sounds, and whatever. That's the most like okay, easy to search functionalities. For me, the key to every adaptation that I had everywhere, it's bringing all these hobbies that I had and that we were talking about to my next place. If whatever I want to move, I'm capable to go to the gym, have a futsal team, continue with my podcast, work from home because there is a good internet connection, and maybe there is the level extra, if there is already some improv theater group, whatever, I do that research even before moving to that place. For me, the most important thing on a new place, it's rebuilding the routines that make sense for you and that will help you also integrate and go forward in the process. So do a little bit of research if that you can if you can maintain the things that you like from home in there, because it's not about deleting everything, it's not a it's never a fully fresh start. So if you would like to keep something, if you do ceramics and you want to keep doing ceramics, check if that place where you are going has given you the option of doing ceramics.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

He's a Barcelonian-born UXUR designer, hosted the Almost Local Podcast. You heard about it today on today's show. If you missed it, get back to the beginning of our podcast. You can hear all about his show. He's an improv theater actor as well. Definitely on the professional footsall goalkeeper stage. So that man does a lot of different things. Mark I Kobe is with us. Thank you again for your time, Mark, and for joining the show today, man. Thank you. Thank you for having me. If you're watching and listen for the first time, thanks for making us part of the week. This is The Call Me Mr. You, the podcast. I'm your host, Mr. You. That's Mark Out Kobe. Thanks again for watching and listening. You can find all of his work, you know, on the website that we posted in the comment section in the chat. Check it out for sure. Check

Wrap Up And Where To Find Him

SPEAKER_00 20:11

out all that he's doing. Thanks again for making us part of your day and making us part of yours.