Extra Pack of Peanuts Travel Podcast · Travis Sherry

Max Lee - Why He Moved His Family to Taipei and Opening Up 20+ Gyms Across Asia

·1 hr 16 min·5 clips

Max says the move from Miami to Taipei cut their budget in half and still bought a four-bedroom apartment in the city center.

Travis opens by welcoming Max Lee and noting that they have been trading notes off the podcast for a while. They place their first meeting at World Domination Summit in Portland, which happened before Max’s move to Taiwan. That gives the conversation a clean before-and-after shape. Max talks through the decision to move his family to Taipei. He says Taiwan feels like a cross between Southeast Asia and East Asia, and that balance is part of the appeal. The family side comes first. His older son went into first grade in public school, and his younger son entered a Mandarin preschool so the language would be part of daily life. Before the move, the boys pushed back hard against even basic Mandarin practice. Max says he probably could have made the landing easier if he had kept that preparation more playful and less like a chore. That hindsight feels honest rather than polished. He and Travis then turn to what world schooling looks like in practice. Max says the kids had already spent an eight-month stretch traveling, and they now continue with part-time world schooling. The episode keeps circling back to adjustment. By around six months in, both boys had settled and made friends who spoke Mandarin with them every day. The business thread runs alongside all of this. Max is planning to open 25 Anytime Fitness locations in Taiwan over the next four years. That goal gives the move a real structure, not just a lifestyle-story frame. Travis keeps asking the practical questions that make the story easy to follow, especially around schooling, language, and how the move actually works day to day. Toward the end, Max points to Project Maximus, mentions an Instagram page, and says he is going to buy the domain and spin up a website for it. The whole thing plays like a long, candid check-in about family life, location choice, and building something durable in a new place.

As heard by us

A family move story that works because it keeps the tradeoffs in view.

Max Lee's move to Taipei gives this conversation its spine: a family relocating, kids learning Mandarin by immersion, and a parent trying to make a cross-border life feel workable rather than romantic.

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Why you'd press play

Considering Taiwan? This episode gets into the family, language, and business tradeoffs fast.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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