Planning Your Best Trip Ever with Brandon Presser

00:00:00.000 | I have been to about 130 countries and I do not want to be accused as a country counter

00:00:07.840 | because I've been to Iceland 37 times.

00:00:12.300 | I have three trips to the Tahiti plan this year.

00:00:15.960 | I like to go back to a lot of places that I know and I like to dig even deeper.

00:00:21.960 | I do try to find opportunities to visit somewhere new, but I want it to be organic.

00:00:28.680 | I don't want to go somewhere and not have a plan or a point of view or an idea for a

00:00:34.040 | story.

00:00:35.040 | I like to go everywhere with a mission and I think that's a really good piece of information

00:00:38.400 | for solo travelers.

00:00:40.320 | Find a mission for your trip so you don't feel lost.

00:00:43.960 | My mission tends to be finding information and personalities for an article.

00:00:50.600 | When things start to bake in those places, I prioritize that new place.

00:00:56.560 | Hello and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life,

00:01:01.480 | money, and travel.

00:01:02.680 | I'm Chris Hutchins and I am excited to have you here today because I'm talking with one

00:01:07.040 | of the most well-traveled people I've ever met, Brandon Presser.

00:01:11.440 | He's an award-winning travel journalist who's been to 130 countries.

00:01:15.480 | He's written over 50 guidebooks.

00:01:17.720 | He regularly contributes to Condé Nast Traveler in Bloomberg and hosted the Bravo television

00:01:23.100 | series Tour Group.

00:01:24.960 | But most recently, he released his latest book, The Far Land, and it is a crazy true

00:01:30.160 | story about 200 years of murder, mania, and mutiny in the South Pacific.

00:01:36.240 | It's definitely worth a read.

00:01:38.560 | In our conversation, I'm going to try my best to pull out all the travel tips and hacks

00:01:43.420 | I can.

00:01:44.420 | We'll talk about planning a trip, where to stay, having authentic experiences, how best

00:01:50.220 | to use reviews and guidebooks, why the type of Q-tip a hotel has matters, and we'll get

00:01:56.580 | his take on the best places you can go for your next trip, including a few unexpected

00:02:02.380 | ones.

00:02:03.380 | I don't know how we're going to get into all of this in the amount of time we have, but

00:02:07.100 | I'm going to try hard.

00:02:08.660 | So let's jump in.

00:02:09.660 | Brandon, thank you so much for being here.

00:02:17.420 | Thanks so much for having me.

00:02:18.980 | Yeah, I am really excited for this conversation.

00:02:21.580 | I want to jump right in and just ask, what do you think most people get wrong about the

00:02:26.140 | way they travel?

00:02:27.540 | Man, good question.

00:02:29.420 | Okay.

00:02:30.420 | Over the last 10 years, as we've seen social media really ramp up and we see that everyone

00:02:35.180 | can post all their experiences and find experiences to cover it on Instagram, travel has become

00:02:42.620 | a bit of a performance for a lot of people.

00:02:44.620 | Look at me in this place.

00:02:46.940 | And I think that's the biggest pitfall that people make.

00:02:49.700 | Because if you're seeing travel as a commodity or as you performing in that space, you're

00:02:55.060 | not actually engaging in that destination.

00:02:58.740 | And so if someone were thinking about how to spend an upcoming trip, they were like,

00:03:03.020 | "You know what?

00:03:04.020 | I'm going to take a week off in the fall."

00:03:05.500 | What would you tell them to start doing even before they know where they're going to have

00:03:11.500 | the right kind of trip?

00:03:13.460 | I think the biggest mistake that people make, but when they're about to travel is they pick

00:03:19.180 | a place and not a reason.

00:03:22.140 | So I would start your trip planning by thinking about what you want to get out of that trip

00:03:27.980 | and then find a shortlist of destinations and marry that shortlist to the purpose of

00:03:34.060 | your travel.

00:03:35.420 | So "I want to go to Italy" might end up being a hollow experience because the thing that

00:03:41.420 | you actually want to get out of the trip is going to a place where there's not a lot of

00:03:46.540 | other tourists or going to a place where you really want to have an experience where you're

00:03:50.940 | meeting people, making new friendships.

00:03:53.620 | Italy is America's favorite destination in Europe.

00:03:57.180 | That might not happen for you in a one-week trip there.

00:04:01.140 | And if it would, it probably might not happen in the place that you might by default go.

00:04:05.140 | You're like, "I'm going to go to Rome and meet people."

00:04:07.060 | That might not be the easiest spot to blend in.

00:04:11.020 | Exactly.

00:04:12.020 | And you know, there's nothing wrong with having your bucket list and hearing about a trip

00:04:16.580 | that someone else took and wanting to go there too.

00:04:18.900 | Word of mouth is the most powerful tool in travel.

00:04:23.100 | But if you're just sitting down to say, "I have a week in September and I want to fill

00:04:27.740 | it," start with how you want to fill it, not where.

00:04:31.660 | And do you have some examples of things to inspire people about how they could fill it?

00:04:35.700 | Yeah.

00:04:36.700 | Let's start with something like, is it a trip where you want to expend a lot of energy?

00:04:40.860 | Do you want it to be a really active trip?

00:04:42.500 | Do you want it to be physically active, socially active?

00:04:44.940 | Or are you on super burnout and you need a place where you don't want to talk to other

00:04:50.120 | people and you just want to be on a beach, in a cabin, on a mountain, in the desert?

00:04:55.460 | Think about that first.

00:04:56.920 | Is this going to be like a big social and physical spend or is this like a reboot?

00:05:02.740 | And a trip can be both too.

00:05:04.940 | Just put the big spend first and put the reboot second, so that you come home fresh.

00:05:09.660 | Yeah, I like it.

00:05:12.300 | Why do you love travel?

00:05:13.300 | I mean, you've done a ton of traveling, you haven't hit the whole world, but you're closer

00:05:18.540 | than most.

00:05:19.540 | I'm working my way through.

00:05:22.780 | Why do I love travel?

00:05:23.780 | Well, I was the kid, the 5-year-old kid that would ask my parents for a trip when they

00:05:32.500 | were like, "What do you want for your birthday?"

00:05:34.020 | I didn't want a toy, I wanted a trip.

00:05:36.860 | And I was a kid who had no attention for reading.

00:05:40.900 | All I wanted to do was look at atlases.

00:05:43.340 | And I think I've had this very ADD brain for years that finds something super interesting,

00:05:49.660 | jumps on it, learns everything there is to know about that thing, and then jumps to the

00:05:53.820 | next thing.

00:05:54.860 | And travel has been the only industry in space that has allowed me to let my ADD free.

00:06:03.220 | I am obsessed with learning.

00:06:05.860 | I'm obsessed with learning things about different cultures.

00:06:10.400 | I think through travel, you ultimately learn a lot more about yourself.

00:06:15.660 | And so for me, it's about seeing the world in an ordinary way.

00:06:21.700 | I want to go to places and see what the everyday life is for someone there.

00:06:24.980 | I don't need to check off the Taj Mahal or the Sydney Opera House off of a list.

00:06:30.300 | I just want to see how other people are experiencing the world, how other people's minds work,

00:06:36.140 | what motivates people, what are people's hopes and dreams, and what do we have in common,

00:06:41.020 | and what are our differences?

00:06:42.660 | Yeah.

00:06:43.660 | So that seems like a great goal.

00:06:46.180 | And I feel like the more you travel in general, the more you're able to appreciate that.

00:06:51.340 | How would you go about making a meaningful itinerary for a trip?

00:06:56.140 | Well, I think we've come so far away from checklist travel, especially in the American

00:07:03.340 | media.

00:07:04.340 | It's like, "Oh, don't go to the Louvre.

00:07:06.120 | Don't go to the Taj Mahal."

00:07:07.500 | It's okay if you want to see them.

00:07:09.700 | Go see them and have a look if that's part of your motivation.

00:07:13.440 | But I think what you need to be thinking about as well is that it's okay not to have everything

00:07:20.680 | figured out and not have everything structured.

00:07:23.460 | I've talked to people who've not been to destinations that they're about to go to, and they're really

00:07:27.740 | excited for the trip because at 8am, they're doing this and at 9am, they're doing that.

00:07:31.580 | 10, they have this planned.

00:07:32.580 | 11, they have this planned.

00:07:33.980 | And it's this whole list of checklist travel in a different way.

00:07:38.100 | We think of checklist travel as going to see the big ticket, but then people are like,

00:07:41.580 | "Well, I have my food experience and I have my museum experience and I have it all lined

00:07:45.260 | up."

00:07:46.260 | So, the best thing about travel and the thing that you will talk about to your friends when

00:07:50.780 | you get back, I guarantee is not on that list before you travel.

00:07:55.980 | It's the moment of serendipity where you're at a restaurant and you hit it off with the

00:08:00.740 | waiter and you all go somewhere after and you're in this cool place that you never thought

00:08:07.340 | you would be meeting people that you never thought you would meet and you connect on

00:08:10.500 | Instagram afterwards and you stay in touch.

00:08:13.460 | You need to let your trip breathe.

00:08:17.700 | Because if you're too planned out, you're not actually piercing the veneer, the tourism

00:08:24.380 | veneer.

00:08:25.380 | Are there any great examples from your many travels of letting that happen and what unfolded?

00:08:32.220 | Yeah.

00:08:33.220 | I was on a trip.

00:08:34.500 | I was on a surf trip in Northern Norway.

00:08:38.540 | And it was a great experience because I got to meet a lot of other people.

00:08:43.220 | I was traveling by myself and we were all doing the surf camp together.

00:08:46.700 | So it was instant friends.

00:08:48.780 | And then I tacked on a few days in Oslo at the end, just on my own, snooping around.

00:08:52.780 | And I went to this restaurant, I was just eating by myself and I was looking over to

00:08:57.860 | these people my age that were sitting next to me.

00:09:01.140 | And I just turned to them and I was like, "What are you guys up to?"

00:09:03.980 | And they just seemed like a group of fun friends and they're like, "Oh, we're going to sing

00:09:06.940 | karaoke after this."

00:09:09.020 | And we ended up staying out all night.

00:09:10.740 | I had a 7am flight the next morning and they were like, "Go get your stuff.

00:09:14.780 | Just leave it in my apartment.

00:09:15.780 | We're going to go out all night."

00:09:17.780 | And we sang karaoke.

00:09:19.700 | We went to these bars that didn't even know existed that were open all night long after

00:09:25.660 | after parties.

00:09:26.660 | It doesn't always have to be a party either.

00:09:28.860 | But it was just such an unexpected experience where I thought I had my built-in friends

00:09:33.420 | in Northern Norway for the surf camp, but yet the people that I stay in touch with are

00:09:37.740 | actually these random people I met in a Vietnamese restaurant in Oslo.

00:09:44.540 | And do you think there's something aside from just leaving space in the itinerary or leaving

00:09:49.980 | time open that you can do to help make sure experiences like that have a higher chance

00:09:56.140 | of happening?

00:09:57.140 | Yeah.

00:09:58.140 | I think solo travel, you have a lot of energy pointed outwards.

00:10:03.740 | You're curious.

00:10:04.740 | You're by yourself.

00:10:05.740 | You're open to having someone come up to you and talk to you.

00:10:09.660 | If you're by yourself on the street, that's usually when someone's like, "Hey, I need

00:10:12.820 | help with directions to this."

00:10:16.820 | Keeping that energy open, I know it sounds a little bit hooey, but that's part of it.

00:10:22.580 | Also, I think because we live so much on our phones, it's really jarring to actually go

00:10:27.860 | up and talk to someone.

00:10:29.700 | But it's become jarring in a good way at this point where people are like, "Oh, you want

00:10:33.500 | to ask me a question?

00:10:34.780 | Let's strike up a conversation."

00:10:37.300 | I think one of the things that I'm always thinking about is generosity.

00:10:42.380 | When you go to a destination, you come back with stories where you're like, "Oh, this

00:10:46.380 | family.

00:10:47.380 | I met them and they invited me into their house."

00:10:49.460 | You can get these Airbnb experiences of going into people's homes and cooking with them

00:10:55.780 | or learning tango or whatever it is.

00:10:59.220 | I think if we think about it in the opposite way, how can we be generous to the people

00:11:03.900 | that we're visiting?

00:11:05.180 | I think that you also garner a lot of goodwill in that regard as well.

00:11:09.940 | Can you give me an example of being generous while visiting?

00:11:13.940 | Sure.

00:11:14.940 | I always pack little gifts for people that I've not yet met.

00:11:20.540 | So it's like a little something from home, like a candy.

00:11:23.660 | We all have this sentimental feeling about the candy that we grew up with.

00:11:30.220 | I grew up in Canada and there's candy in Canada that you can't get in the US.

00:11:34.180 | Candy from where you're from is a really fun thing to exchange with people because it's

00:11:39.740 | oddly personal.

00:11:42.580 | Stuff from where you live, even like a cool postcard.

00:11:46.740 | I often bring little blank business cards with me.

00:11:51.620 | If I meet someone really cool, I'll write them a note and leave my email address.

00:11:56.660 | You can control the message that way.

00:11:58.940 | You can leave them a phone number for WhatsApp if you want to hear from them a lot or Instagram

00:12:04.060 | if you want to hear from the West.

00:12:06.940 | Doing things analog, it shocks the system and it starts inspiring devotion.

00:12:13.900 | I think back to a trip I took to Syria where almost everyone seemed to want to invite you

00:12:20.180 | into their home.

00:12:21.420 | I will say my wife and I were traveling together and so it's not just a solo traveler thing.

00:12:28.100 | Sometimes people can be a little put at ease by having two people.

00:12:31.660 | They're like, "Oh, this isn't a random dude on the street.

00:12:34.100 | It's a couple.

00:12:35.100 | They're probably a little bit...

00:12:36.100 | I can trust them and invite them over."

00:12:38.340 | And we had all kinds of experiences.

00:12:40.980 | For some reason, when I was like, "Oh, I guess if I'm paying to go to someone's house, does

00:12:45.120 | it feel less authentic?

00:12:47.140 | Is it the commercialized version of it?"

00:12:49.740 | How do you think about trying to make those experiences happen naturally versus maybe

00:12:55.100 | saving the time and buying the serendipity?

00:12:58.860 | Yeah, that's the Catch-22, right?

00:13:01.980 | I've had guides that I've hired to do mountain climbing or to visit a city and I have struck

00:13:11.060 | up genuine friendships with those guides.

00:13:13.220 | So I suppose it's not that different than hiring someone.

00:13:18.820 | Hiring someone is essentially what it is to be invited into their house and to cook with

00:13:23.180 | them or to learn something from them.

00:13:26.540 | It's an opportunity to connect with someone.

00:13:29.780 | It's just a shame that it has to be so transactional.

00:13:33.340 | I don't think that there's necessarily a way to have magic happen or have serendipity happen

00:13:44.300 | if you're trying too hard.

00:13:46.140 | One of the things that I'll try to do that feels like a little bit more unscripted is

00:13:51.380 | maybe try to find a run club in a city that I'm going to.

00:13:57.180 | And usually, those are free.

00:14:00.020 | Usually they're on weekends.

00:14:02.220 | And that's always a good opportunity because at least you have something in common from

00:14:07.060 | the start.

00:14:08.060 | You both like to run.

00:14:09.620 | And then often, you need to refuel after your run.

00:14:12.420 | So maybe there's an invite with the person/people that you're with to go for brunch after an

00:14:18.140 | early morning run.

00:14:19.140 | I would start there.

00:14:20.140 | I would start with something that feels true to you, a passion point of yours, and bridge

00:14:27.180 | a more organic relationship with someone because you share something that you like.

00:14:31.500 | We were in Sweden.

00:14:33.420 | And evidently, there's a lot of gamers in Sweden.

00:14:35.700 | And we walked by a store that had every board game.

00:14:39.020 | And I couldn't help but think, "My wife and I love board games."

00:14:41.900 | We didn't actually have time that day.

00:14:43.900 | But your example of a run club could be going to some board game night at a board game store

00:14:51.140 | or whatever your hobby is.

00:14:53.140 | I bet there is a group of people that partake in that hobby in most major cities.

00:14:59.140 | So if you're listening and you don't love running, I'm sure there is another group that

00:15:03.420 | you can find of people that might become people to hang out with.

00:15:07.420 | Yeah, definitely.

00:15:08.420 | It doesn't have to be exercise.

00:15:10.260 | It doesn't have to be running.

00:15:12.500 | A past version of me used to take different journalists as a fixer, producers, journalists

00:15:21.060 | to different countries to show them a few cool things.

00:15:23.820 | Maybe they wanted to use this as a filming location or they wanted to scout a photo shoot.

00:15:28.980 | And I took an editor from Vanity Fair once to Iceland.

00:15:32.860 | And I did just that, except it wasn't running.

00:15:36.460 | It was knitting.

00:15:38.340 | And we found a knitting bee.

00:15:41.700 | And we just hung out with these women knitting for a whole afternoon.

00:15:46.060 | We ended up baking cakes with them.

00:15:48.900 | That kind of thing.

00:15:49.900 | Find that point in common and start from there.

00:15:53.980 | I like that.

00:15:55.540 | Talk a little bit more about being a fixer in Iceland.

00:15:58.500 | What is that experience like and how would someone who doesn't know anything about a

00:16:02.980 | country find the person like you in that country to hire to help show them the ins and outs

00:16:10.340 | that is probably...

00:16:12.140 | I'm guessing you didn't just have a website where you're like, "I'm the Iceland fixer

00:16:15.420 | guy.

00:16:16.420 | Come hire me."

00:16:17.420 | Yeah.

00:16:18.420 | No.

00:16:19.420 | All that happened word of mouth.

00:16:21.220 | But I worked at Lonely Planet for about 7 full years, doing back-to-back guidebooks

00:16:29.880 | for them.

00:16:30.880 | And the cool thing about Lonely Planet is essentially, you just get paid to marinate

00:16:34.700 | in a destination for a very extended amount of time.

00:16:38.780 | And every day, you're going out looking for something new and cool.

00:16:42.420 | And through that, I built a portfolio of destinations where I could consider myself a real expert.

00:16:50.820 | I think everyone's probably stayed at a Marriott.

00:16:53.780 | And when you go stay at just a standard Marriott...

00:16:55.940 | Look, Marriott as a brand has lots of different hotels.

00:16:58.920 | But just like the standard Marriott, it's hard to not know exactly what you're getting.

00:17:03.800 | So I could imagine someone being like, "Well, this is 10 stars because I thought it was

00:17:06.600 | exactly what I wanted and it met the needs, but it certainly wasn't pushing the boundaries

00:17:13.060 | on anything by any stretch."

00:17:18.080 | How do you know if you're planning in advance and trying to pick between 5 hotels?

00:17:24.200 | You've agreed that the stars don't make sense.

00:17:27.080 | But if you needed to go pick...

00:17:29.580 | You had all the data, but couldn't go to the country.

00:17:31.880 | How would you try to figure out where to stay?

00:17:34.120 | How would you try to sort through the information that exists to you, knowing that it's imperfect?

00:17:38.960 | Well, I always say, in learning about other places, you learn a lot about yourself.

00:17:44.240 | And I think part of that is honing your instinct.

00:17:48.320 | A lot of travel requires street smarts.

00:17:52.200 | Marriott requires a lot of big decisions in real time.

00:17:57.120 | Where am I going to stay tonight?

00:17:58.160 | Am I getting on this train to go to Bucharest?

00:18:00.760 | What am I doing?

00:18:02.120 | And I think that trusting your gut when you're reading about places or when you're looking

00:18:10.600 | at photos is really important.

00:18:13.400 | And I know that's a bit of a cop-out answer, but you're going to get a vibe when you start

00:18:16.960 | looking at photos online, when you're reading different things about different properties

00:18:20.480 | online.

00:18:21.480 | I would try to find those honest photos.

00:18:26.200 | I would use the TripAdvisor to click the user photos because they're not polished.

00:18:31.720 | You can get a real sense of the room.

00:18:34.200 | I would not be allergic to calling a hotel and/or emailing with a hotel.

00:18:42.040 | I think a lot of people think that your hotel experience starts the minute you check in.

00:18:50.080 | That is not true.

00:18:51.200 | If you are booking a hotel, your hotel experience starts the minute you booked it.

00:18:56.760 | All of these hotels have concierge services at a certain price point, or at least they

00:19:02.800 | have a friendly person to check in.

00:19:05.560 | And if you don't want that experience, you can book a home or an apartment rental.

00:19:12.280 | If you're booking a human to have with your hotel experience, use them.

00:19:17.640 | People never use the concierges at hotels, or people think that they can only use it

00:19:21.840 | on Saturday afternoon when they're in their hotel because they're looking for a place

00:19:25.840 | to eat Saturday or Friday night or 6 hours before they think they need it.

00:19:32.880 | Use email your hotel.

00:19:34.680 | Email the concierge at the hotel that you're going to stay at a month before you're going

00:19:38.600 | to stay there and say, "I am really interested in finding a run club, a knitting club.

00:19:45.800 | I'm really interested in knowing more about your rooms.

00:19:49.360 | I really am a light sleeper, and I'm a little worried about city noise.

00:19:54.160 | What are some of the room numbers you recommend so that I won't be woken up in the middle

00:19:58.760 | of the night?"

00:19:59.760 | It is their job to provide you that service before you've even arrived.

00:20:03.560 | It's definitely something I think most people don't think about.

00:20:07.760 | The best hotels I've stayed at have emailed me in advance and said, "Hey, we have a person

00:20:12.200 | here.

00:20:13.200 | If you have questions, ask."

00:20:14.200 | I'll share a couple of the ones I like.

00:20:17.240 | I don't necessarily have any faith that TripAdvisor stars are good, but I think their review content

00:20:21.960 | is.

00:20:22.960 | So I'll often go and be like, "Oh."

00:20:25.800 | In a lot of countries, some hotels have sunscreen just free at the pool and some don't.

00:20:30.560 | So you could go to TripAdvisor and search "sunscreen" in the reviews.

00:20:34.440 | One thing I sometimes do is you could just go to Instagram and search for a hotel and

00:20:38.160 | just look at what people are posting in the hotel.

00:20:42.200 | People post some weird stuff.

00:20:44.160 | I've definitely seen the weird people that like to post photos almost naked in their

00:20:48.740 | bathroom on Instagram.

00:20:50.440 | But there's also people that post the vibe of the hotel on a Friday night in the lobby,

00:20:56.120 | which is probably not something you might see in a TripAdvisor photo.

00:21:00.960 | So that's another one.

00:21:02.560 | I've probably done this once.

00:21:04.000 | I think there was...

00:21:05.000 | I can't remember where, but there was a place I was going and I just didn't know how to

00:21:07.920 | answer the question.

00:21:09.400 | And I think it was maybe about like, "Is the Wi-Fi reliable?

00:21:12.200 | Is it fast enough to do some work meetings or something?"

00:21:15.320 | And I just found people that were there that looked like they would be able to answer the

00:21:19.000 | question and I just DM'ed them on Instagram and asked them a question.

00:21:22.240 | I was like, "You're here right now.

00:21:24.920 | Is the Wi-Fi reliable?"

00:21:25.920 | And they're like, "Yeah.

00:21:26.920 | It's super fast."

00:21:27.920 | I was like, "Cool."

00:21:28.920 | So I think social media gives us that channel as well.

00:21:31.560 | Any other hacks you have for getting knowledge from what I'll call "mediumly reliable sources"

00:21:39.200 | about a trip?

00:21:40.600 | Yeah.

00:21:41.600 | So one of the big things for me is I'll go on Google Maps or I'll go on Google Earth.

00:21:46.120 | And I think a lot of people, their eye goes to the stars and the reviews on Google Maps

00:21:51.520 | about a hotel.

00:21:52.720 | What I'm looking at is I'm going to zoom out and I want to see the businesses that are

00:21:56.160 | next door.

00:21:58.020 | So I want to know if it's a city hotel, I want to know what's in the neighborhood.

00:22:02.320 | If it's a resort on a beach, this is when it's super important.

00:22:05.640 | How close is that resort to the airport?

00:22:07.920 | For good and bad reasons, you're going to have to take a transfer.

00:22:10.840 | But also, do you want your relaxing beach resort to have a plane going over your head

00:22:15.040 | every 5 minutes?

00:22:16.920 | I want to see if there's a pet hospital next to your resort and you're going to be listening

00:22:22.560 | to barking dogs all night or things like that.

00:22:27.040 | When I used to teach travel writing, Lonely Planet opened a deli office.

00:22:33.360 | I think this is back in 2012.

00:22:35.880 | And they reverse outsourced me to deli to teach upcoming Indian writers how to do a

00:22:43.120 | Lonely Planet guidebook before the Indian market.

00:22:47.440 | And I had days of training with them where I'd put up a slide of a hotel room and I'd

00:22:53.240 | have everyone write a review.

00:22:55.760 | And of course, this was a trap because they would just say like, "Oh, the sheets are red

00:23:01.160 | and the wallpaper is nice and this looks like this."

00:23:03.840 | I'm like, "Okay, first mistake, 5 senses.

00:23:07.320 | Your review needs to have all 5 senses.

00:23:09.440 | What are you hearing?

00:23:10.440 | What are you tasting?

00:23:11.440 | What does it look like?

00:23:12.440 | What are the smells?"

00:23:13.440 | And I think you need to apply that to your hotel choosing, too.

00:23:19.960 | So one of the ways to see is what's around the hotel, you're going to get a sense of

00:23:23.600 | noise.

00:23:24.600 | People are really precious about noise.

00:23:27.020 | This could be a huge deal breaker at a hotel.

00:23:29.400 | So I want you to think critically about that, also.

00:23:33.560 | I like that.

00:23:34.560 | How do you determine what is nice if we've agreed stars and ratings and all those things

00:23:38.400 | don't matter?

00:23:39.400 | Yeah.

00:23:40.400 | So I have stayed at about 3,000 hotels, which is a bit crazy to think about.

00:23:50.440 | And I used to joke...

00:23:51.440 | Almost 10 years.

00:23:53.320 | Just one night each, it's almost 10 years.

00:23:57.560 | For Lonely Planet, I was staying in a different hotel every night.

00:24:02.120 | And we used to get a lot of questions at Lonely Planet.

00:24:04.820 | How can you tell if a hotel is good if you're only there for a night or this, that, and

00:24:08.920 | the other?

00:24:09.920 | And I would joke that it only takes 18 minutes to suss out a hotel.

00:24:14.720 | And the things that you're looking for are design and service.

00:24:21.120 | And they have to come together.

00:24:23.220 | So you can build a beautiful hotel that has great design.

00:24:26.480 | But if you can't staff it with individuals, it's going to be a bad stay.

00:24:31.960 | And vice versa, you can have a hotel that's completely falling apart, that's uncomfortable

00:24:36.360 | to stay in, and you can have friendly people, and it's still going to be a mess.

00:24:40.780 | So it's like storytelling, you need a good story and you need to tell it well.

00:24:46.680 | Otherwise, it's not working for you.

00:24:49.080 | So the first thing is you want to check those two boxes.

00:24:53.680 | And design doesn't necessarily mean that it looks good on Instagram.

00:24:58.860 | A lot of hotel rooms are designed without ever someone staying in them.

00:25:04.380 | The cord to plug in your phone, it's too far the plug from the bed so you can't look at

00:25:11.040 | your phone in bed.

00:25:13.040 | You can't find the lights.

00:25:14.720 | There are too many lights.

00:25:15.720 | It takes, you know, the room should be intuitive.

00:25:18.440 | I'm looking at design in that regard first.

00:25:21.200 | Second, I want my hotel room to make an impact.

00:25:26.000 | It doesn't need to be hot pink.

00:25:28.440 | But I want to feel like I'm on holiday.

00:25:30.800 | I would like it to embody the destination a little bit.

00:25:35.000 | It doesn't need to be a Disney-fied version of Italy.

00:25:38.400 | It doesn't need to look like a cheesecake factory.

00:25:41.400 | I want to feel like I'm somewhere different.

00:25:46.320 | And then I think I want service to be genuine.

00:25:49.840 | I don't want over-polite service.

00:25:52.440 | I don't want over-attentive service.

00:25:54.240 | I think that there's a balance to when you want someone for help that they're there to

00:26:01.560 | help you and that they know the destination.

00:26:03.800 | I want the hotels to be staffed by people who are knowledgeable that can enhance my

00:26:07.980 | experience.

00:26:08.980 | Otherwise, I'm just going to go stay in an Airbnb.

00:26:11.640 | I think smaller, I'm looking for cleanliness.

00:26:16.240 | Rooms generally get tired after seven years.

00:26:19.200 | You have to replace a mattress.

00:26:21.520 | Mattresses are 10 years old and they expire.

00:26:24.600 | I want that mattress replaced after seven.

00:26:27.120 | I want to be taken care of.

00:26:29.120 | I want the amenities in the room to be thought through.

00:26:34.480 | And I don't want people to skimp on a crappy Q-tip.

00:26:40.120 | I want a good Q-tip.

00:26:42.200 | It's things like that.

00:26:44.720 | Is that a metric?

00:26:46.000 | Instead of 5 stars, it's like...

00:26:48.480 | We all know what a crappy Q-tip is.

00:26:50.920 | Is that your...

00:26:52.240 | You should have your own sliding scale of Q-tip quality metrics.

00:26:55.600 | Yeah.

00:26:56.600 | For me, it's Q-tips and club sandwiches, because every hotel around the world has both.

00:27:04.040 | So I want to know if that club sandwich is...

00:27:07.260 | How well it's going to be served, how well it's cooked.

00:27:10.680 | I want to know how far the kitchen is based on how warm or cold it is, how fast it comes.

00:27:15.960 | A Q-tip is the best thing in a room, because everyone knows that they like a nice sturdy

00:27:23.560 | Q-tip.

00:27:24.560 | And if it's flimsy and there's not that much cotton on it, they don't really care about

00:27:29.160 | you at this hotel.

00:27:30.160 | And that money is the bottom line.

00:27:31.640 | I like that.

00:27:33.640 | Who has the best Q-tips and club sandwiches?

00:27:36.080 | I have found, and this is maybe a little bit of French snobbery in me, but countries around

00:27:43.600 | the world that have been touched by French influence always have it figured out much

00:27:49.760 | better.

00:27:50.760 | I've eaten an incredible club sandwich in Madagascar, for example.

00:27:56.600 | And where?

00:27:57.600 | So in Tena, in the capital, I stayed at this guest house that had an amazing food, truly

00:28:08.880 | amazing food, and just the care and that sort of French style of hospitality where every

00:28:15.360 | detail is important.

00:28:16.860 | You have that joie de vivre.

00:28:19.240 | It really made it a very memorable stay.

00:28:21.080 | And it was only supposed to be kind of like a layover stay.

00:28:24.320 | I was in the middle of Madagascar on a trip and then had to connect to the capital to

00:28:30.200 | kind of do another portion.

00:28:32.240 | And I didn't think I was going to get much out of it.

00:28:34.480 | And then it just turned out to be this wonderful place.

00:28:36.880 | Okay, you'll have to send us the name of this place and we'll put it in the show notes.

00:28:42.960 | Any other places known for their club sandwich?

00:28:46.400 | I've had some of the best Western food in Japan.

00:28:51.960 | And that is because there's this deep-seated element to Japanese culture where they scout

00:29:00.680 | the world for interesting things, and then they re-appropriate it and improve it.

00:29:07.880 | And ramen is the best example of that, Chinese by origin.

00:29:12.720 | They brought it over to Japan after World War II, it got really popular.

00:29:19.800 | The broth, four days of pork broth, steeping, and they made it into something that was really

00:29:27.440 | their own.

00:29:28.440 | And I think I see them doing it a lot with baked goods, French breads, different things

00:29:33.480 | like that.

00:29:34.480 | You will have the best pastries of your life in Tokyo.

00:29:39.400 | There are countries that everyone talks about and are overrated, and then there's countries

00:29:42.400 | that everyone talks about and you should still definitely go and just keep going.

00:29:46.320 | And I think Japan is the essence of a country that everyone talks about and you should still

00:29:52.080 | keep going.

00:29:53.080 | I 100% agree.

00:29:55.600 | I think there are places around the world of incredibly wondrous places that everyone

00:30:01.680 | already knows about.

00:30:02.680 | You should still go.

00:30:03.680 | You don't have to be a contrarian, Machu Picchu.

00:30:06.480 | It's incredible when the clouds lift off of it in the morning.

00:30:11.120 | It is amazing.

00:30:12.680 | I want you to go do it.

00:30:14.360 | Just because a lot of other people have doesn't mean you should skip it.

00:30:18.200 | What else is on that list of places that even though everyone seems to go there, you think

00:30:24.280 | are still standout destinations?

00:30:27.480 | Japan is always at the top of my list when people ask me what are my favorite places.

00:30:33.680 | I just would encourage people not to treat it totally as this otherworldly thing because

00:30:42.360 | then you don't have the opportunity to connect and have that meaningful experience.

00:30:48.400 | Don't treat it like an alien world.

00:30:50.600 | There are a lot of things that are similar but improved.

00:30:56.040 | Like the club sandwich I was mentioning before.

00:31:00.120 | The attention to detail and care is a different form of hospitality.

00:31:06.400 | The way that things are presented, the aesthetics.

00:31:08.960 | I once did a story for Bloomberg where I went to Kyoto and I wrote a whole story about what

00:31:14.520 | if you did only new things in Kyoto because everyone's hardwired to think Tokyo new, Kyoto

00:31:21.480 | old.

00:31:22.480 | But what if we flip the script and we did Tokyo old, Kyoto new.

00:31:27.560 | And I found these incredible photographers, performance artists, people that were changing

00:31:36.600 | the way sushi is made and it was maybe one of my best four days in Japan ever by doing

00:31:45.640 | Kyoto new.

00:31:47.000 | Wow.

00:31:48.000 | And then Japan old, I mean Tokyo old as well?

00:31:51.640 | Tokyo old, you can go to the northeast part of the city.

00:31:58.120 | It was the only area that wasn't really bombed during World War II and it didn't suffer as

00:32:05.160 | much during the Great Kanto Earthquake in the 1920s.

00:32:08.680 | And all of that is really well preserved.

00:32:12.280 | Rent a bicycle, go through Yanaka, that neighborhood.

00:32:16.400 | I wrote The Lonely Planet Guide to Japan and I created a pilgrimage that people do on New

00:32:26.000 | Years but I created this that you could do at any time.

00:32:29.240 | And you're looking for seven shrines of seven different deities and it's good luck to do

00:32:35.000 | it on New Years to go to all seven.

00:32:37.520 | But I laid them out in one of the older neighborhoods that you could do it anytime.

00:32:42.960 | And the point was just getting you through some of these back alleys so that you could

00:32:46.120 | see some old ceramics shops and I didn't want to name the shop because I wanted you to find

00:32:53.160 | it on your own.

00:32:54.840 | I like that.

00:32:55.840 | And do you feel like for someone going on this experience, just walking into the shop,

00:33:00.400 | you don't need to know which one, you don't need to have a reservation, you can just kind

00:33:03.400 | of explore in a place like that?

00:33:05.200 | Yeah, I think sometimes when there's a really cool neighborhood that you want people to

00:33:10.160 | check out, it actually doesn't damage to pick the one ramen place in the neighborhood that

00:33:16.740 | has 10 great ramen places and I've tried all of them and the differences are negligible.

00:33:22.720 | There's so much joy in the feeling of discovery that I'd rather just lead you to the cool

00:33:28.440 | neighborhood and then let you figure it out from there.

00:33:30.760 | And I think that's what actually a lot of people want these days.

00:33:33.960 | Right now, I'm late for lunch on the West Coast and a bowl of ramen is exactly what

00:33:38.960 | I want these days.

00:33:41.360 | I know so many people that plan a trip to Japan and it's "I'm going to Tokyo and I'm

00:33:44.840 | going to Kyoto."

00:33:47.120 | Where would you throw out a few places that someone going to those two cities should tack

00:33:51.840 | on?

00:33:52.840 | Sure.

00:33:53.840 | I think if Kyoto is your vibe, and you're a little worried that it's going to be overrun

00:33:57.960 | with tourists, I would go to Kanazawa.

00:34:01.720 | In the feudal times of Japan, Kanazawa was the second most powerful area.

00:34:06.920 | So it's giving you a lot of the Kyoto vibes that you're looking for.

00:34:10.600 | Less tourists, a little bit smaller scale.

00:34:13.320 | And right outside of Kanazawa is Kaga and it's a region that has a lot of hot mineral

00:34:20.240 | water.

00:34:21.240 | So it's one of the most popular onsen destinations where you can go for a soak.

00:34:28.300 | And this area has some of the coolest ryokan hotels, which are these little inns that usually

00:34:34.600 | have a hot spring attached.

00:34:37.240 | And it's a completely inclusive, immersive stay where you're always wearing your yukata

00:34:44.120 | robe and you have this set dinner and everything's planned out for you.

00:34:49.120 | And you're just constantly in hospitality and everything's taken care of.

00:34:52.740 | I think a lot of people are really into Hokkaido, you know, leaving Honshu, the main island,

00:34:57.600 | going to Hokkaido, going to Kyushu, Shikoku is often left off of people's itineraries.

00:35:03.880 | And this is the Japan that hasn't been glamorized.

00:35:08.380 | There's a lot of really cool inns, Minshuku, where you can stay and you'll have that experience

00:35:15.000 | where you're going to cook with the person who runs the inn.

00:35:18.120 | But because they need your help, not because you're paying them to have that commoditized

00:35:24.800 | cooking experience.

00:35:25.800 | Sounds awesome.

00:35:27.480 | We are anxiously awaiting the reopening of Japan for another trip back.

00:35:32.520 | It was our last trip before the pandemic.

00:35:36.480 | So hearing you talk about writing The Lonely Planet for Japan, which I imagine was months

00:35:41.500 | of time getting to explore everything about the country, you know, makes me just think,

00:35:46.920 | you have the best job in the world.

00:35:48.800 | And I'm sure many people listening here would agree from that perspective.

00:35:53.720 | What's the downside?

00:35:54.760 | What's the downside to having a job where you basically get to go live in incredible

00:35:58.480 | places on someone else's dime, you know, eat at the best restaurants, go, you know, try

00:36:03.880 | out all these amazing hotels.

00:36:06.540 | There has to be something that keeps everyone from wanting to do it.

00:36:11.760 | There is a really tough pace to keep.

00:36:15.240 | And I know all of us are pretty stressed by our jobs these days.

00:36:19.960 | But the pace that you have to go into a destination, try your best to uncover everything that you

00:36:27.560 | need for your story, and not miss anything, but also not miss your deadline is really,

00:36:33.520 | really tough to balance.

00:36:34.520 | And for me, I've had a hard time balancing that at different points in my career.

00:36:39.480 | And what's funny about travel is that you have to pack every day to move to a different

00:36:49.280 | place.

00:36:50.280 | And so, you have to be super mindful about the big and the small.

00:36:55.080 | Travel writing is one of those skill sets that you need to know big picture, you need

00:36:59.760 | to know your destination, the context, how it sits against other destinations, and paint

00:37:06.840 | a world in your story.

00:37:09.600 | And then you need to know that the bus leaves at 245, so that you don't miss it.

00:37:14.120 | And that you need to get all the things from your room, so you don't leave a bunch of stuff

00:37:18.120 | in your room.

00:37:19.120 | It only exists in the two extremes, and nothing in the middle.

00:37:23.880 | And I think 99% of careers are sort of in the middle.

00:37:27.920 | So you have to really hone your ability to think super macro and super micro.

00:37:34.000 | And be willing to move a lot.

00:37:36.680 | Move around.

00:37:37.680 | Do you get a break?

00:37:39.920 | Well, I've been a freelancer for the last 15 years.

00:37:44.200 | So every assignment that I've taken at Lonely Planet was for better or for worse.

00:37:49.720 | I could opt out of something to take a break, or I could always opt in.

00:37:55.160 | And I think when you're a freelancer, you want to always opt in because you don't know

00:37:58.440 | when you're going to have to get off the ride.

00:38:01.540 | You have to make sure to keep it sustainable because you can't let your work and the quality

00:38:07.120 | of your work degrade.

00:38:09.320 | You need to let yourself get excited for a trip.

00:38:11.560 | And I see a lot of journalists on different junkets who are just boom, trip, trip, trip,

00:38:16.720 | trip, trip, trip, trip.

00:38:17.760 | And they're missing the excitement of going on it.

00:38:21.040 | And so their writing is not imbued with that wonder and that excitement for being there.

00:38:26.840 | So you mentioned that you're always packing every day when you're writing these books

00:38:31.720 | and trying out these new hotels every day.

00:38:34.280 | I want to talk a little about packing and the hacks around what you bring on a trip.

00:38:39.480 | Because 3,000 hotels, you've packed your bags more than I think anyone has ever packed their

00:38:44.840 | bags ever in their life.

00:38:47.240 | You've probably thought about every single item you bring on a trip, every type of clothing,

00:38:51.760 | everything more than once.

00:38:53.240 | What are things you've learned in that process?

00:38:56.920 | Well, there was a time when I was really into this one particular bag.

00:39:01.600 | It was called the over/under bag because it was a rolling suitcase that was a bit squishy.

00:39:10.120 | And it was two different sizes depending on a zipper.

00:39:14.040 | So going on the trip, it could be a carry on.

00:39:16.840 | And then if you bought things while you were there, it could expand to a bag that went

00:39:20.240 | under the plane.

00:39:21.360 | I was really obsessed with this bag for a long time.

00:39:25.100 | And also, you want to have a soft bag if part of your trip is going to be on a small airplane.

00:39:32.960 | So it's great to have the Rimowa and those kinds of bags that have a hard shell to protect

00:39:40.240 | everything within.

00:39:41.240 | But you can't bring them on safari planes or puddle jumpers in the Caribbean.

00:39:46.180 | So I would always travel, especially for Lonely Planet, with this squishy over/under because

00:39:51.560 | I didn't know what I was going to get myself into, but I always was prepared.

00:39:55.440 | So that was my first thing.

00:39:57.200 | And do you still carry it?

00:39:58.520 | Yeah, I still have it.

00:40:00.520 | What else are you bringing?

00:40:02.240 | Shoes, cameras?

00:40:04.200 | What kinds of things do you bring to make a trip perfect for you?

00:40:09.560 | If there's one thing that you want to whittle down, it's shoes because they take up so much

00:40:15.920 | room.

00:40:18.320 | They are filthy.

00:40:21.000 | And so if you can have a versatile shoe that can read, you can go to a nice restaurant

00:40:26.400 | in a certain shoe, but you can also do a really long walk, I would invest in that and invest

00:40:31.440 | in a very comfortable version of that.

00:40:34.860 | That's the first thing.

00:40:35.860 | You don't want to fill your bag with five different pairs of shoes.

00:40:38.580 | Is there a shoe or two you found that do that?

00:40:41.120 | I like Palladiums a lot.

00:40:43.800 | They're really durable, and I think they were made for the French army using leftover tires

00:40:54.040 | or something.

00:40:55.040 | It's like how the company got started.

00:40:57.440 | And now they're like a super durable shoe.

00:40:59.080 | You can go on a hike.

00:41:01.120 | And they're cool enough looking that you can definitely wear them to a bar.

00:41:06.840 | What about taking photos?

00:41:09.020 | Are you someone who brings a nice camera?

00:41:11.080 | Do you now just rely on your phone?

00:41:13.360 | Do you try not to take photos and be in the moment?

00:41:16.120 | I've looked at your Instagram.

00:41:17.120 | I know there are some photos there.

00:41:18.980 | Talk about how you balance capturing a trip with really experiencing a destination.

00:41:26.800 | Yeah, photography is tricky.

00:41:28.240 | I think that a lot of people live their lives on social media.

00:41:35.800 | And when you're in a place, you'll find that people are looking at the destination through

00:41:40.080 | their phone.

00:41:42.400 | And for some people that works, that's not really my bag.

00:41:46.080 | I tend to be very present in what I'm doing, and I forget sometimes to post on social media.

00:41:51.240 | I'm not huge on social media, but I do enjoy making people jealous every once in a while

00:41:56.520 | with a fun photo.

00:41:57.880 | I'll take a lot of photos to jog my memory for when I'm writing up an article after I

00:42:02.640 | get home.

00:42:05.840 | And there have been these moments that I wanted to capture when I see something truly unique.

00:42:11.880 | And it's usually not the sunset at the Eiffel Tower of which there's already 50 better versions.

00:42:20.880 | But I like capturing those moments of serendipity.

00:42:24.520 | The best example I can think of was on a trip to Kyrgyzstan a few years ago.

00:42:30.640 | I was with a group of semi-nomadic people.

00:42:36.000 | And they had a really busted up old car that they were driving around in, and they were

00:42:43.800 | eagle hunters.

00:42:45.440 | And we got out of the car, parked, and the father put his eagle on his arm before he

00:42:53.600 | let it go hunt.

00:42:55.480 | And it's this photo of this.

00:42:57.480 | He's wearing these two thousand skins, the eagle is on his arm, cawing, and there's this

00:43:07.000 | beaten up car from 1972 right beside him.

00:43:10.520 | It's this bizarre moment of juxtaposition and I just had to have it.

00:43:15.960 | It couldn't just be a memory for me.

00:43:17.800 | It had to be a photo.

00:43:20.480 | It's not a quantity thing for you.

00:43:22.940 | It's trying to find the moments that are really different and something that you'd want to

00:43:28.380 | look back on and remember.

00:43:30.000 | Yeah, I don't want a photo that someone's already taken a better version.

00:43:34.720 | I want to capture my moments of serendipity.

00:43:38.960 | That's what I use photography for.

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00:44:42.700 | definitely check them out.

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00:44:50.340 | with the promo code "CHRIS".

00:44:52.620 | Just go to allthehacks.com/riverside, again, allthehacks.com/riverside, that's R-I-V-E-R-S-I-D-E,

00:45:03.820 | and get 15% off with the promo code "CHRIS".

00:45:08.100 | You've traveled a lot, what are your favorite hacks that we haven't hit on already?

00:45:12.220 | I really like helping people plan their trips.

00:45:15.440 | And I know that we touched a little bit on some of the big picture things.

00:45:20.140 | But one rule that I like to apply to a lot of trip planning is an hour on a plane for

00:45:25.880 | a day in the destination.

00:45:28.000 | And you don't have to follow it exactly, but it goal tends a little bit.

00:45:34.120 | If you're going to fly across the country, across America, and it's going to take 4-5

00:45:38.840 | hours, try to have 4-5 days, because you're going to spend so much time in transit.

00:45:44.600 | Flying is tricky, you have to be there early, you're going to be on the flight.

00:45:51.500 | Bank some time in the destination, or pick a closer destination if you only have 2 days.

00:45:56.920 | If you're only doing a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, pick a place that's an hour's flight.

00:46:03.720 | Don't try to go to Paris for 2 days, you're just going to end up tired and not getting

00:46:10.320 | out of it what you wanted.

00:46:12.800 | So one hour in the plane for one day in the destination.

00:46:20.480 | I would design an itinerary like the way you read a book, like the way you read a fairy

00:46:25.120 | tale, where it starts off where you're setting the world.

00:46:30.840 | So you're understanding the world in a broader way, and then there's turmoil.

00:46:36.880 | And that means a difficult experience, give yourself a challenge, get out of the box,

00:46:43.200 | try something new.

00:46:44.200 | It can be a physical challenge, a big hike, an overnight camping, something that maybe

00:46:50.720 | is a little bit unusual for you, and then have a happy ending.

00:46:54.680 | So put your best hotel at the end, put your most expensive hotel at the end.

00:46:59.680 | You don't want everything else to feel disappointing, because it came after the best thing you did.

00:47:07.280 | Is there a place you think people are overspending or underspending?

00:47:12.400 | Are they spending too much on food when they travel or hotels when they travel?

00:47:16.080 | And if they spent their money in a different way, they might have a better trip?

00:47:19.900 | It's interesting to look at nationalities and how they spend.

00:47:24.480 | A lot of different cultures will spend way more on hotels and then way less on food,

00:47:30.200 | like Americans, for example.

00:47:32.600 | But then you see Israelis, for example, actually spend way more on food than they do on hotels.

00:47:41.760 | So there's a lot of cultural differences that dictate how we're spending our money in our

00:47:46.920 | different destinations.

00:47:49.520 | Americans really like to have the comfort, they like to have their nice big bathroom,

00:47:54.040 | and a clean toilet and a nice bed.

00:47:56.320 | That's super important to them.

00:48:00.560 | And so I can't really judge how people are going to spend their money when they're away.

00:48:05.520 | But what I can say is that there are a lot of big value destinations, places where your

00:48:11.660 | dollar is going to go way further than the place you thought you wanted to go.

00:48:16.560 | I love Iceland, and I'll tell you everything you want to know.

00:48:19.240 | I've written books about Iceland, but if you're looking for those chiseled fjords and tundra

00:48:26.360 | and wildlife or, you know, big night skies, and you think that it's going to be Iceland,

00:48:35.720 | I would challenge you to think of somewhere that might seem less sexy, like Newfoundland

00:48:41.440 | in Canada.

00:48:42.640 | It looks like it broke off from Iceland, and I think it really did.

00:48:47.480 | Because all the fjords, you're going to get the whales puffing in the bay, you're going

00:48:52.360 | to get icebergs floating by, incredible accommodation, incredible food, the fish, oh my God, you

00:48:58.960 | know, the biggest fishing banks in the world are off the coast of Newfoundland.

00:49:03.680 | And you're going to spend kroners in Iceland, you're going to spend Canadian dollars, which

00:49:10.560 | is like monopoly money for an American in Canada.

00:49:14.480 | Wow.

00:49:15.480 | Are there other places like that where you'd say, "If this is what you were looking for,

00:49:21.680 | here's an awesome thing you haven't considered."

00:49:23.400 | Or just, "Here's an awesome thing you haven't considered."

00:49:26.240 | Yeah, sure.

00:49:28.120 | If you're thinking about mountains and Alps, and you want to go to Switzerland or France

00:49:33.480 | or Italy, and you want your Lake Como and you want to have your Heidi experience, go

00:49:41.960 | to Slovenia instead.

00:49:44.120 | It's right next door.

00:49:46.280 | It's still in the Alps.

00:49:48.040 | You're getting those snow-capped mountains, you're getting the lakes, you're getting food

00:49:52.360 | that is basically cheaper Italian food.

00:49:56.500 | You're going into people's homes and they're smoking salamis in their basement, and you're

00:50:00.960 | having wine that shares veins of loam and soil with some of the most famous Italian

00:50:10.360 | wines.

00:50:11.360 | But very few people think to go to Slovenia.

00:50:14.080 | I'm going to let you keep going because I now have two new places to go on my list.

00:50:18.120 | So, what else do we hit up?

00:50:21.200 | I think that people want to go to Australia because they want to see the other end of

00:50:26.080 | the world.

00:50:27.080 | I love Australia.

00:50:28.080 | I think the color of the sky in Australia is different than it is in America.

00:50:33.220 | That's the first thing that you'll notice.

00:50:35.120 | It's this place of incredible desolation when you get out of the cities.

00:50:40.200 | A lot of people think that they want to go up the East Coast, Queensland.

00:50:43.960 | They want to go to Cairns.

00:50:44.960 | They want to see the Great Barrier Reef, but go to Western Australia.

00:50:49.960 | That's where it's at.

00:50:50.960 | Because if you want that orange desert, the Uluru sand, and you want the Turquoise Bay,

00:50:57.960 | they actually collide in Western Australia.

00:51:00.960 | So, if you're on the Ningaloo Reef or you're in Exmouth, Shark Bay, all that bright orange

00:51:09.340 | sand from Uluru hits the coastline at the clearest water you will ever see halfway up

00:51:17.040 | the coast between Perth and Broome.

00:51:19.800 | That's amazing.

00:51:20.800 | Any...

00:51:21.800 | I mean, you write about a lot of this.

00:51:24.520 | You wrote a whole article on where to go in 2022 that I'll link here.

00:51:29.340 | Any other places to highlight from that list that someone thinking about maybe a trip in

00:51:34.960 | the fall this year should consider that they probably weren't already thinking about?

00:51:40.120 | Yeah.

00:51:41.120 | So, I'll let you in on a secret.

00:51:42.280 | I actually consult on a lot of those lists for a lot of different magazines.

00:51:47.160 | So, I contributed to a list for Harper's Bazaar this year, and I also contributed to the list

00:51:56.640 | for Bloomberg.

00:51:57.640 | And they're very different readers.

00:51:58.840 | Bloomberg tends to skew male active, Harper's Bazaar tends to be their mistresses.

00:52:08.000 | And so, I pick very different places depending on the audience.

00:52:13.000 | I try to tailor those lists to whoever's paying attention.

00:52:18.320 | Creating those lists has been hugely difficult for the last few years because of geopolitics

00:52:24.720 | and COVID.

00:52:25.840 | And I think what we're seeing in travel right now is a return to travel 101, where people

00:52:31.400 | miss the places they like to go.

00:52:34.520 | We're seeing a lot of interest in France, in Italy, in Greece, and the UK, and Ireland.

00:52:41.440 | People really want to go back to Japan.

00:52:44.560 | Whereas before the pandemic, in the year leading up to the pandemic, I was in Uzbekistan, The

00:52:51.520 | Gambia, I mean, I was dipping into places that were on the verge of being on our mental

00:52:59.440 | maps.

00:53:01.760 | So I would encourage people to go back to the places that they miss first, fulfill that

00:53:09.160 | need, and then start looking at the new.

00:53:14.800 | And I know that that's not a super sexy answer, but I think that there's a lot of places that

00:53:23.080 | are perfectly pronounceable that we should be checking out.

00:53:26.680 | Next week, I'm going to Madeira, for example, a Portuguese-owned island off the coast of

00:53:31.760 | Africa.

00:53:32.760 | And I think that strikes the perfect balance of familiar and new.

00:53:38.200 | Because Portugal has been trending for a few years now.

00:53:41.040 | It's the places that everyone in the travel media world has hit.

00:53:45.080 | Madeira is a little off-kilter, right?

00:53:47.200 | It's going to give you that Portuguese sensibility, but you're going to get these volcanic crags

00:53:51.360 | and you're going to get passing whales, and you're going to stay in a quinta instead of

00:53:55.400 | a hotel.

00:53:56.400 | You're going to stay in a little inn that's tended to by local individuals.

00:54:02.000 | And you're going to eat fresh seafood, and you're going to see a different version of

00:54:07.200 | a place that you know.

00:54:09.280 | I think I have whales on my radar, too, this year for another story.

00:54:13.720 | Again, a slightly off-kilter version of something you probably already know, the UK.

00:54:19.320 | But we're going to go into little villages and crumbling castles, and there's a huge

00:54:25.880 | whiskey industry that has really grown over the last 20 years, and now they're ready to

00:54:30.520 | compete with scotch.

00:54:32.560 | And I want to go see what that's about.

00:54:34.000 | So it's like, everything is like version 2.1.

00:54:38.640 | Is there an argument to be made that if the hottest places in travel right now are the

00:54:44.760 | Spain, the Italy, the France, now is the year to go and go counter, go to Uzbekistan, go

00:54:52.880 | to the places that no one's wanting to go to.

00:54:55.720 | Is that where maybe the best deals are to be had in the next year or two?

00:55:00.280 | Yeah.

00:55:01.280 | I think we're running into something a little tricky, which is that there is this sort of

00:55:06.880 | latent xenophobia that we're finding because countries are concerned about how other countries

00:55:13.320 | handled COVID.

00:55:16.780 | And we're seeing supply chain issues.

00:55:20.600 | We're seeing this sort of fake fuel issue, and everyone's sort of girding their loins.

00:55:27.880 | And what we're going to see is that travel will be easier based on where trade already

00:55:35.040 | occurs.

00:55:36.040 | So, Canada, America, Mexico is going to remain a really easy artery to travel within.

00:55:42.160 | Europe will be easy for Europeans, Asia is sort of multipolar, so you're going to see

00:55:46.680 | easy travel within the Middle East, easy travel within South Asia, East Asia.

00:55:52.240 | It's going to remain easier to travel in our regional bubbles, and prices will go up if

00:55:59.400 | you want to bust through that bubble.

00:56:02.160 | Also if you can find that inexpensive plane ticket to Uzbekistan, seize the opportunity

00:56:09.660 | because unfortunately, I think that will only get worse.

00:56:14.720 | So you mentioned Uzbekistan as a great place.

00:56:17.320 | What's on your list?

00:56:18.320 | I think you've hit, what, 130 countries.

00:56:21.940 | Are there places that somehow you've just never had the opportunity to go to, but you

00:56:26.960 | really want to?

00:56:27.960 | And when are you going?

00:56:28.960 | So yeah, I have been to about 130 countries, and I do not want to be accused as a country

00:56:35.760 | counter because I've been to Iceland 37 times.

00:56:41.560 | I have three trips to Tahiti planned this year.

00:56:45.520 | I like to go back to a lot of places that I know, and I like to dig even deeper.

00:56:51.200 | I do try to find opportunities to visit somewhere new, but I want it to be organic.

00:56:57.920 | I don't want to go somewhere and not have a plan or a point of view or an idea for a

00:57:03.120 | story.

00:57:04.120 | I like to go everywhere with a mission.

00:57:05.900 | And I think that's a really good piece of information for solo travelers.

00:57:09.600 | Find a mission for your trip so you don't feel lost.

00:57:13.240 | My mission tends to be finding information and personalities for an article.

00:57:19.480 | And so when things start to bake in those places, I prioritize that new place.

00:57:26.080 | I am really interested in countries that are about to pivot from oil to tourism.

00:57:33.160 | I think a lot of places are just totally off the map because they've never been interested

00:57:41.120 | in garnering tourists until now.

00:57:44.760 | So a country like Angola off the coast of Southwest Africa, because they've done so

00:57:53.040 | much offshore drilling, the interior of their country is pristine.

00:57:59.120 | And we've seen so many parts of Southern Africa get turned into agriculture or forms of monetizing

00:58:09.260 | the land.

00:58:10.260 | But this is a country that is wild in the interior.

00:58:13.820 | And I want to go before it develops.

00:58:16.160 | So I tried so hard to go to Angola.

00:58:19.400 | And I don't mean that in a strange way.

00:58:22.520 | I physically tried so hard because we were in Namibia and there was a river between Namibia

00:58:28.480 | and Angola, and we had a hand dug canoe and a guy I had met traveling from Sweden and

00:58:35.920 | I attempted to row to the other side to go say hi to some people that were in Angola.

00:58:43.980 | And we literally could not cross the current of the river and we tried so hard.

00:58:48.800 | So Angola has a special place for me as one of the few countries that I could maybe even

00:58:55.320 | throw a rock to, but I physically was not able to get myself into.

00:58:59.160 | Now, I have no idea what the legal ramifications of crossing the border in an unauthorized

00:59:05.000 | place would have been separate, but was not possible physically.

00:59:08.960 | I have been on the Kunene River myself and crossed and touched into Angola, but I don't

00:59:14.840 | count it because I was actually trying to say hi to some people too and crossed, touched

00:59:20.960 | down, you know, but in my mind, I was like, "Oh, I can't count this as a visit.

00:59:25.360 | I need to go to Luanda and start from the beginning."

00:59:29.280 | Do you have a requirement for you to say you've been to a place?

00:59:32.640 | Obviously, you can't just be touching the ground.

00:59:34.520 | Do you think you need to spend a night there, a meal there?

00:59:37.960 | What's your rule?

00:59:39.320 | My personal rule is that, first of all, I need to be choosing to go there.

00:59:44.920 | So a lot of people who've had a layover in a country, they say that they've been to that

00:59:48.360 | country.

00:59:49.360 | That doesn't count for me.

00:59:50.360 | It needs to be my end destination.

00:59:52.720 | It can be, you know, part of a three-country trip or something like that, but I have to

00:59:57.480 | spend a night in that place as well.

01:00:01.160 | It used to be that you had to get a stamp, but you know, so many countries don't use

01:00:04.400 | stamps now.

01:00:05.520 | So you mentioned you write a lot for Bloomberg now.

01:00:08.200 | And there is a series of articles --I wish they had a title-- that you've written.

01:00:14.500 | And I went deep on them.

01:00:16.540 | And I imagine when I start talking about them, people listening will too.

01:00:20.560 | So I don't even know how it all started.

01:00:23.040 | So I'd love to hear the story.

01:00:24.480 | But best I understand it, you spend a few days to a week doing a hospitality job at

01:00:32.520 | the intersection of really high-end luxury, and report on the inner workings.

01:00:38.680 | I read about you working on a private jet at a high-end hotel, being the maitre d' at

01:00:43.760 | Nobu, working on a luxury yacht.

01:00:47.400 | How did that happen?

01:00:48.640 | And how has that experience been?

01:00:51.440 | The origin story is totally random.

01:00:55.360 | And we did not think it was going to turn into a column.

01:00:59.320 | A friend of mine used to work for Norwegian.

01:01:03.600 | And they started long-haul flights between North America and Europe.

01:01:09.840 | And they were so well-priced, and they were all new planes.

01:01:13.800 | And even the business class on the plane, the premium economy was pretty comfortable

01:01:19.680 | and inexpensive.

01:01:20.680 | And he was pitching it to me for an article.

01:01:25.960 | And I was like, "Listen, I love this.

01:01:28.480 | It all sounds great.

01:01:30.200 | It's not reinventing the wheel, though."

01:01:32.680 | And he was like, "Well, what if you worked as a flight attendant on one of our planes?"

01:01:38.240 | And I was like, "Well, that sounds crazy.

01:01:40.040 | I mean, that sounds cool, but crazy how I'm not trained."

01:01:44.600 | And it took three months of getting all these different approvals.

01:01:48.440 | And we did it completely above board.

01:01:50.720 | And sure enough, I worked as a flight attendant on a long-haul flight from London to New York.

01:01:55.480 | And I interviewed my colleagues.

01:01:58.440 | And I reported authentically on what it was like to be on that plane.

01:02:03.240 | And the traffic on that story was absurd.

01:02:07.520 | We'd never seen numbers like that for a travel story at Bloomberg.

01:02:11.840 | And then we thought, "What if I did another job?"

01:02:14.640 | And the next job that I did was I was a butler at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

01:02:20.000 | And that story did even better.

01:02:22.660 | And from then on, in-house, we kind of called it the butler stories.

01:02:27.000 | "Oh, what's the next butler story that you're going to do?"

01:02:30.640 | Because the vibe of it was service.

01:02:35.960 | So service heroics is essentially what it is.

01:02:38.840 | And I go all over the world to the world's most coveted brands.

01:02:43.840 | I embed myself in the product.

01:02:46.120 | I serve the wealthy elite of the world.

01:02:50.000 | And I report on what it's like to do so.

01:02:52.440 | So I was a personal shopper at Barney's, I was a maitre d' at Nobu.

01:02:57.680 | I was a ski instructor in Aspen.

01:03:00.240 | I worked on a superyacht in the Caribbean, a private jet in Texas.

01:03:09.160 | I just actually finished another one.

01:03:11.280 | I'm on deadline to write it all up.

01:03:14.200 | And that one will be coming out at the end of April.

01:03:18.640 | Are there some examples of some of the most interesting things you've seen or learned?

01:03:24.760 | I will fully endorse anyone listening to go read them, but throw out a few of the good

01:03:31.280 | juicy bits to get people excited.

01:03:34.200 | I think the first thing that comes to mind is what really propelled this into a different

01:03:39.320 | stratosphere, which was for the Plaza Hotel.

01:03:44.560 | I was on break and I was chatting with my fellow butlers and I was just like, what's

01:03:49.920 | the deal with Eloise?

01:03:50.920 | You know, there's the Eloise children's book about how she lives in the Plaza Hotel.

01:03:54.280 | And he was like, oh yeah, you know, it's a really big deal.

01:03:57.260 | Everyone loves Eloise here.

01:03:58.320 | You know, one time a room called and asked for a butler to bring up the Eloise book and

01:04:03.920 | read them a bedtime story to read Eloise, you know, as the bedtime story.

01:04:09.280 | And I was like, okay, sure.

01:04:11.000 | That's a little quirky.

01:04:12.000 | And when we got up to the room, there was no child in the room.

01:04:16.000 | There were four adults in their thirties all in the same bed, like Charlie Bucket's grandparents.

01:04:26.080 | And they were all like, okay, read us the story now, please.

01:04:29.680 | And he read them Eloise for like 90 minutes and they were like, hey, thank you.

01:04:36.880 | That's all.

01:04:38.800 | That was the perfect amount of quirkiness to launch the series into popularity.

01:04:47.840 | And every time I do one of these jobs, I'm sniffing around for the Eloise moment.

01:04:53.400 | I don't need to tell you about the sex, drugs, and rock and roll because yeah, it's a private

01:04:57.600 | chat on a super yacht.

01:04:59.280 | Are you surprised people are doing sex, drugs, and rock and roll?

01:05:02.480 | No.

01:05:03.480 | Are you surprised that someone is reading for adults, a children's book as a bedtime

01:05:08.040 | story?

01:05:09.040 | Yeah.

01:05:10.040 | That's more fun.

01:05:11.040 | So I'm trying to find the humor in it.

01:05:12.040 | There's humor.

01:05:13.040 | I mean, there's still absurdity.

01:05:14.840 | I read that someone had Fiji water installed in their house and including their shower.

01:05:22.400 | Someone that spent tens of thousands of dollars to raise the height of the sink in their bathroom

01:05:28.420 | at a hotel, which I think you said they literally needed to involve construction equipment.

01:05:33.880 | Yeah.

01:05:34.880 | Actually, that is one of the other things that I think about often.

01:05:37.920 | It was a hotel in Chicago and a couple was going to Chicago for like a three-day weekend.

01:05:44.840 | And the wife called the hotel and was like, do me a favor, measure how high the vanity

01:05:50.960 | is off the floor.

01:05:51.960 | They were like, okay.

01:05:52.960 | Yeah, we'll get back to you.

01:05:53.960 | Oh, it's whatever.

01:05:54.960 | It's 45 inches.

01:05:55.960 | And she's like, that's not going to do, it needs to be 52.

01:05:59.320 | And they were like, okay, well, we'll raise it, but it's a marble vanity, so we're going

01:06:05.480 | to need to get new marble and it'll cost about $55,000.

01:06:09.440 | She's like, okay, sounds good.

01:06:11.720 | So they raised it.

01:06:13.540 | She stayed for three nights and that's all she wrote.

01:06:18.400 | And the reason was she didn't like bending down too far to wash her face.

01:06:25.400 | I'm not even...

01:06:26.400 | I don't even have words.

01:06:29.080 | The number of vacations you could take for the cost of raising that sink or finding another...

01:06:36.520 | I don't know why she didn't find another hotel that maybe had a higher sink, seemed cheaper

01:06:40.320 | or easier, but wow.

01:06:42.640 | You worked as a maitre d at a hot restaurant in New York, you worked at a hotel, you worked

01:06:48.520 | in a lot of the kinds of places that me, you, people listening will end up going to or wanting

01:06:54.620 | to go to.

01:06:55.960 | What did you learn when it comes to ways that we might apply some tricks or some tips or

01:07:02.240 | some tactics to get the reservation at the hard-to-get-to table or to get the upgrade

01:07:08.440 | at the hotel or get the good treatment on the plane from the flight attendants or something

01:07:13.960 | like that?

01:07:14.960 | At Nobu, I spent an afternoon with the reservations team because I was really curious how to hack

01:07:23.080 | that on a personal level.

01:07:25.440 | And they said that the best time to call is at around 4.15 p.m. because a lot of people

01:07:35.760 | do last-minute cancellations.

01:07:38.240 | And they will do it when they see their dinner coming on the horizon, they realize they're

01:07:43.280 | going to be late or someone can't make it.

01:07:46.920 | And that happens before 5.00, but usually a little bit after 4.00.

01:07:52.960 | They said right in that 4.15 sweet spot was if you called day of, you could probably get

01:07:58.860 | a table.

01:07:59.860 | I've heard a lot of people for everything from restaurant reservations to even daycare,

01:08:05.480 | where it's like, even though we have a waitlist, we usually just take whoever calls first.

01:08:11.720 | And so I imagine that was maybe similar at Nobu.

01:08:14.920 | There might be people that say, "If something opens up, give me a call," but they're going

01:08:18.160 | to prioritize whoever just calls in the moment.

01:08:20.200 | Definitely.

01:08:21.200 | I think you can certainly give them a ring and say, "If anything opens up, give me a

01:08:23.920 | call."

01:08:24.920 | And then you need to be proactive.

01:08:25.920 | You need to call at 4.20 or 4.30 and say, "I'd really like to come in.

01:08:29.680 | What can we make happen?"

01:08:31.720 | I think the less constraints you put on that reservation too, the likelier it is that you'll

01:08:36.800 | find a place.

01:08:38.440 | What about tipping?

01:08:40.840 | Go up to the maitre d' and offer a tip to get a table.

01:08:44.560 | Is that a real thing?

01:08:45.720 | Nah.

01:08:46.720 | I think that that's a dated TV show kind of thing.

01:08:52.600 | I don't think that that's going to work, but they do leave tables open for VIPs.

01:09:01.360 | They are ready at a moment's notice.

01:09:03.240 | If Blake Lively walks in the door and she wants a table, they're going to give her one.

01:09:06.840 | So it's really more about who you know.

01:09:10.120 | One thing that you could do -- everyone's going to hate that I say this -- is everyone's

01:09:15.640 | always thinking about concierges at hotels in the cities that they're going to visit.

01:09:20.880 | Make friends with a concierge at a hotel in the city you live in because a lot of times,

01:09:27.160 | what people will do is they will hold tables for concierge friends at Four Seasons or at

01:09:37.640 | a St. Regis or something like that, so that when they have a big spender come and stay

01:09:43.760 | at the hotel, they can funnel them a table right away.

01:09:48.260 | So go to a hotel in your hometown and try to make friends with the concierge there.

01:09:55.920 | And that'll often work.

01:09:57.660 | How would you suggest doing that?

01:09:59.580 | How would you make friends with the concierge?

01:10:01.720 | I honestly think that you could just go in and ask.

01:10:08.160 | A lot of times, a concierge will say, "Oh, I'm sorry.

01:10:12.960 | We only serve people in the hotel," or something like that.

01:10:17.800 | But a lot of them are really skilled and they're really well-trained in the art of the concierge

01:10:26.920 | business, especially the ones with the clé d'or, the golden keys that are on their lapel.

01:10:32.520 | And sometimes they really want something to do that is germane to their skillset.

01:10:40.520 | And so they will help you because these days, they're underused.

01:10:44.100 | It's a lot of, "Oh, can you send my bags up to my room?"

01:10:46.800 | Or the things that they don't get much joy in doing, which is illuminating the destination

01:10:51.460 | for their guests.

01:10:53.040 | Okay.

01:10:54.260 | So that's the plan.

01:10:56.360 | You make a reservation at a hotel restaurant and get there an hour early and spend some

01:10:59.720 | time with the concierge.

01:11:01.360 | Are there...

01:11:02.360 | You mentioned earlier bringing gifts while you're traveling.

01:11:06.640 | Is that...

01:11:08.120 | Not tipping, but is there a gift or something nice to bring to service people that might

01:11:14.320 | be better than a tip in any case?

01:11:16.280 | Yeah.

01:11:17.280 | All the flight attendants told me that they responded really well to bribery.

01:11:21.080 | I think you could make an argument that if you learn your server's names and you learn

01:11:27.120 | your flight attendant's names, that it endears them a little bit more to you.

01:11:32.760 | But they really respond to candy.

01:11:35.900 | They don't get to eat the stuff that's on the flight.

01:11:39.440 | They eat something different.

01:11:42.520 | And there are systems in place where pilots and flight attendants are all eating different

01:11:47.880 | things just in case the food is bad and everyone gets sick.

01:11:53.240 | There's always someone on the plane that's able to control the situation.

01:11:58.240 | They tend to eat pretty poorly.

01:12:01.560 | It's a lot of easily transportable stuff, bags of chips and things like that.

01:12:07.680 | So I bet if you brought a healthy snack for a flight attendant, they would really appreciate

01:12:14.840 | it.

01:12:15.840 | They also dress the part.

01:12:17.440 | I think flying...

01:12:19.160 | And this is something that I think a lot of people have said before.

01:12:22.520 | I always wear black on an airplane because if something spills on me, you can't see it.

01:12:29.240 | And it just makes you look cleaner.

01:12:33.200 | Black always tends to read chic.

01:12:37.600 | Colors tend to read pajamas.

01:12:40.900 | And people don't really dress up for plane travel the way they used to.

01:12:46.800 | And I think if you present yourself more agnostically, your ability to say right before everyone's

01:12:55.720 | boarding like, "Oh, is there room in Comfort Plus or Premium Economy?"

01:13:00.920 | They will size you up because if they're moving people to the front of the plane, they want

01:13:05.840 | them to look good.

01:13:07.800 | Has that worked?

01:13:08.800 | Have you been upgraded on a flight in the moment successfully?

01:13:13.680 | I definitely have.

01:13:15.800 | And sometimes it's just asking at the right moment.

01:13:18.920 | If there's a line and they're servicing 50 people in front of you, there's no chance

01:13:23.840 | in hell.

01:13:24.840 | But if no one's there, the plane's boarding, you can tell by...

01:13:31.260 | Look at the seat plan on your app of how many seats there are.

01:13:34.000 | If you can tell that it seems like there's not a lot of people boarding, yeah, just ask.

01:13:39.000 | I mean, especially for something like Comfort Plus on Delta, if there's an empty seat.

01:13:44.680 | It certainly doesn't hurt to ask if the gate agents are not busy.

01:13:49.580 | In the intro, I talked about this book you wrote.

01:13:52.560 | And I want to make sure we touch on it because it's pretty crazy.

01:13:58.520 | I looked at your Amazon author biography, and it's like 40 Lonely Planets and a book

01:14:05.200 | about murder, mutiny in the South Pacific.

01:14:07.000 | And I was like, "Oh, that's okay."

01:14:08.640 | And I dug in.

01:14:10.400 | And first off, I learned that there's a part of the world I've never even heard of -- the

01:14:14.080 | Picarin Islands.

01:14:15.640 | Talk a little bit about what drove you to write this book, what it is, who it's for.

01:14:20.340 | I found it fascinating.

01:14:22.640 | And I talked to my wife about it and she's like, "Can I read that next?"

01:14:25.520 | So yeah, I'd love you to share a little bit more.

01:14:29.320 | Yeah.

01:14:30.320 | When I worked at Lonely Planet, we definitely traded in obscure geography.

01:14:34.880 | We'd all traveled the world and we were all looking for these weird points on the map

01:14:39.560 | that no one else had heard of.

01:14:42.600 | And Picarin was a name that kept coming up because you can't get there using commercial

01:14:47.800 | conveyance.

01:14:48.800 | But people live on this remote island, and it is one of the most remotely inhabited islands

01:14:54.300 | in the world.

01:14:55.400 | And only 48 people live there.

01:14:58.440 | It's in the middle of the South Pacific, halfway between New Zealand and Peru, if that gives

01:15:04.840 | you any sense of how vast and forgotten this place is.

01:15:08.880 | And the only way to get there is by cargo freighter.

01:15:11.660 | And a freighter services the island four times a year, once every season.

01:15:15.560 | And you can travel on the freighter if there's room and you can stay until the next time

01:15:21.160 | the freighter comes to make a delivery.

01:15:24.680 | And I had traveled extensively through Papua New Guinea on my own with the help of someone

01:15:34.040 | who works in the industry.

01:15:35.280 | And she reached out to me one day a few years later and was like, "There's an opportunity

01:15:38.660 | to send one journalist to this very forgotten island."

01:15:43.240 | And I knew it because of my time at Lonely Planet.

01:15:46.480 | So she arranged for my transfer on the cargo freighter, and I ended up spending some time

01:15:51.520 | there living amongst these 48 individuals who, of course, there's no hotel because how

01:15:57.440 | do you get there to stay in a hotel?

01:15:58.960 | There's no restaurant, so you're just living in these people's homes.

01:16:02.800 | And I went thinking I was going to write an article for Travel and Leisure magazine, and

01:16:06.240 | I did.

01:16:07.240 | But when I left the island, I was just completely obsessed with everything that I learned while

01:16:14.200 | I was there about the people who live there today and about the history.

01:16:19.080 | And usually, when I take on a project for work, I fall in love with the destination,

01:16:24.000 | I marry it, I make the article, and then I go and fall in love with something else.

01:16:30.160 | And Pig Heron was this place that I just kept thinking about and thinking about.

01:16:34.020 | And all the characters involved in the founding of the island and all the characters that

01:16:39.160 | live there today could all have their own articles.

01:16:43.360 | And I realized I needed to write like a 100,000 word article, which of course is a book.

01:16:50.840 | So it wasn't until after I got back from Pig Heron that I was just like, "Okay, I got to

01:16:58.720 | keep researching.

01:16:59.720 | I need to know the truth about this place.

01:17:01.080 | I need to know all the details about how it was founded 200 years ago and why it's such

01:17:06.440 | a crazy place to visit now."

01:17:09.320 | Pig Heron is the kind of place that once you know three sentences about it, you're going

01:17:14.480 | to be instantly obsessed because the island was founded about 200 years ago when these

01:17:19.200 | British sailors mutinied against their captain, threw him overboard, stole the ship, and disappeared

01:17:26.520 | with their Tahitian brides.

01:17:28.680 | And for 20 years, no one knew where they went.

01:17:31.200 | They thought the ship had vanished, essentially.

01:17:34.120 | And then they were discovered living on an island that was previously uninhabited.

01:17:39.840 | But of all the men and women that went to the island, there was only one man left when

01:17:47.680 | they found the island 18 years later.

01:17:50.080 | And it turned out that it was like a real life game of Survivor where they were, instead

01:17:56.640 | of voting each other off the island, they were murdering each other.

01:18:01.800 | And there were alliances that formed, there was jealousy and secrets, and one by one they

01:18:07.560 | plotted and killed each other.

01:18:10.400 | When they were escaping an oppressive world, they then created an oppressive world.

01:18:15.160 | And before they were all murdered, some of them had kids with each other, and then it's

01:18:19.760 | those descendants, those seventh generation descendants of the original mutineers that

01:18:25.820 | still live there today.

01:18:27.240 | And they're haunted by the trauma of the island's founding.

01:18:33.440 | And so my book zippers the two timelines together.

01:18:39.280 | So it seesaws back and forth, one chapter present day, one chapter 200 years ago.

01:18:45.800 | And as the story goes on, the two timelines get more and more intertwined, and suddenly

01:18:51.680 | they're completely overlapping and there's this pendulum swing of cause and effect against

01:18:57.480 | the two.

01:18:58.480 | And, you know, of course, it sort of ends with a bang because, you know, by the end

01:19:02.480 | of at least the 200 year old timeline, everyone's dead.

01:19:07.240 | The book's fantastic.

01:19:08.800 | Rarely, if ever, do I know of a book that's like a thriller, mystery, fiction, you know,

01:19:15.440 | enthralling story, but just also happens to be one of the craziest true stories of all

01:19:20.360 | time.

01:19:21.520 | And weaves in, you know, a travel narrative as well.

01:19:24.580 | It's fantastic.

01:19:25.720 | Definitely check it out.

01:19:26.720 | I could do a whole nother episode about just learning about that island, though I don't

01:19:31.200 | think it fits in with the theme of the show.

01:19:33.680 | So to wrap up, you know, we talked about a lot of places.

01:19:37.640 | I want you to pick one place or two that I want you to pick a place that you feel like

01:19:45.600 | you're familiar with, which unfortunately, for all the guidebooks you've written might

01:19:48.400 | be too many and and leave us with a few things, a place, a place or two that people should

01:19:53.320 | go eat, a place or two that people should get a drink and just an activity that they

01:19:57.440 | might not think to do.

01:19:58.440 | Yeah, you know, and I want this to be really useful.

01:20:02.120 | I want I want there to be value here.

01:20:04.420 | And I think I want to pick two places because they're both really popular.

01:20:11.040 | I want to start with Iceland because I it's really close to the US and to Europe.

01:20:19.120 | And it's a really big impact destination because once you touch down, it just it looks like

01:20:23.960 | another planet.

01:20:24.960 | The thing is, is everyone does it wrong.

01:20:28.200 | And you know, I want to tell you, take a month and see all of Iceland.

01:20:31.320 | We don't all have a month.

01:20:32.800 | So if you have four days, spend one of them in Reykjavik.

01:20:37.320 | People often do the opposite.

01:20:38.680 | They usually base themselves in Reykjavik and then do one day in the countryside, flip

01:20:42.840 | the script, stay outside of the city, venture into the city for one day.

01:20:48.640 | It's a teeny tiny city of 250,000 people.

01:20:51.840 | There's some cool cafes and whatnot.

01:20:54.240 | But the reason you're there is not for the urban environment.

01:20:58.080 | You're there for the nature.

01:20:59.560 | I think you should forget the golden circle, which is just a marketing thing.

01:21:05.920 | Go your own way up to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula.

01:21:09.740 | It's a loop.

01:21:10.740 | You can loop the peninsula.

01:21:12.140 | There's really cool places to stay like Hotel Eielson.

01:21:15.360 | It's spelled like Eagleson.

01:21:18.220 | It's a beautiful little boutique inn.

01:21:20.320 | I highly recommend it.

01:21:21.940 | There's a great restaurant right across the street from that hotel.

01:21:26.420 | That's a whole evening unto itself.

01:21:28.540 | I think you should explore some of the public pools.

01:21:32.780 | There's a lot of Blue Lagoon and all of these commoditized luxury spa experiences.

01:21:39.740 | The public pools have the same geothermal water and they're $8 rather than $80.

01:21:46.140 | And that's an opportunity where you get to meet locals.

01:21:48.280 | People go to the pool every day and they want to talk.

01:21:51.540 | Awesome.

01:21:52.820 | What's the other place?

01:21:53.820 | I think we're all desperate to go back to Japan or go to Japan for the first time.

01:22:03.100 | I love it there.

01:22:06.260 | I just feel passionate about Japan.

01:22:11.340 | I would love for people to focus on Tokyo in the southwest part of the city.

01:22:18.220 | The Yamanote line is a ring line that goes around the city by rail.

01:22:24.540 | A lot of people tend to stick to that line.

01:22:26.460 | I would encourage you to get out of it in the southwest quadrant.

01:22:30.340 | You want to be in Setagaya.

01:22:32.060 | That's the part of the city you want to be in.

01:22:34.400 | You're going to find super cool neighborhoods out there like Shimokitazawa, Daikanyama,

01:22:42.260 | Geogauka, these are places that you should just go, put your feet down, walk the streets,

01:22:48.780 | you're going to find really cool little restaurants, tea houses.

01:22:53.180 | This is everything that Brooklyn wishes it could be.

01:22:59.060 | Anything specific to check out?

01:23:01.340 | So when you're in Shimokitazawa, for example, what you want to do is you want to go to everyone's

01:23:05.500 | favorite coffee shop called Bear Pond.

01:23:09.540 | They make the best espresso, I promise you.

01:23:14.940 | Everyone who's gone has absolutely loved it.

01:23:18.300 | Take that walking around.

01:23:21.160 | Everyone in Japan's okay with walking with your beverage now, they used to not be.

01:23:26.020 | You're going to want to walk through that neighborhood.

01:23:27.860 | You're going to want to look at the street fashion.

01:23:29.580 | You're going to want to go into the vintage boutiques.

01:23:33.340 | You're going to want to see the clothes are just so well-maintained and super stylish.

01:23:38.140 | If you want to understand what's on avant-garde street style, it's there.

01:23:42.940 | If you pop over to Daikanyama, it's a little bit more high-end.

01:23:46.060 | There's a bookshop in Daikanyama, Tsutaya.

01:23:48.620 | It's three white buildings connected by bridges.

01:23:51.780 | Maybe the best bookshop in the entire world.

01:23:54.540 | There's a cafe inside of it as well.

01:23:57.020 | Beautiful magazines, beautiful books.

01:23:59.540 | I mean, there are things that you can bring home and put on your coffee table.

01:24:03.500 | That's awesome.

01:24:04.500 | Ready to go back to Japan.

01:24:08.180 | Before we wrap, where can people follow all the stuff you're doing, writing, posting photos

01:24:13.700 | and everything?

01:24:14.700 | Go to my personal website.

01:24:16.580 | That's brandimpressor.com.

01:24:18.820 | I tend to post my new articles there.

01:24:21.860 | I have a link to my book, The Fire Land, there as well.

01:24:25.840 | You can follow me on Instagram @brandpress.

01:24:28.260 | Awesome.

01:24:29.260 | Thank you so much for being here.

01:24:31.460 | Thank you so much for having me.

01:24:32.940 | This is so much fun.

01:24:36.940 | Bye.

01:24:38.940 | Bye.

01:24:41.940 | Bye.

01:24:42.940 | Bye.

01:24:43.940 | Bye.

01:24:44.940 | Bye.

01:24:45.940 | Bye.

01:24:46.940 | Bye.

01:24:47.940 | Bye.

01:24:48.940 | Bye.

01:24:48.940 | (upbeat music)

Planning Your Best Trip Ever with Brandon Presser

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