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00:01:34.640 | Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading

00:01:41.520 | your life, money, and travel.

00:01:43.120 | I'm Chris Hutchins and I'm your host, and I'm excited you're here today.

00:01:46.320 | And if you're listening to this podcast right now, you probably love to travel

00:01:49.720 | and you don't need me to tell you how great an experience it is, but I'm going

00:01:53.120 | to keep doing it anyways, and so is our guest today, Sebastian Modak.

00:01:56.560 | He's a writer and a multimedia journalist based in New York, but he grew up all

00:02:01.000 | over the world and has since traveled to even more destinations.

00:02:04.120 | In fact, if you know that amazing New York Times 52 places list that comes out

00:02:08.800 | each year, well, in 2019, Sebastian sent his entire year going to all 52 places.

00:02:14.520 | Well, except one, but we'll get to that later.

00:02:16.640 | He's now the editor-in-large at Lonely Planet and still writes about travel for

00:02:20.800 | publications like the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and more.

00:02:23.880 | We're going to talk about what he's learned from living in four different

00:02:26.960 | continents, traveling to 80 plus countries, what he thinks it means to travel like a

00:02:31.480 | journalist, and how he uses those skills to plan a memorable trip.

00:02:34.880 | Some of the unusual experiences he's had on his journeys, why he thinks

00:02:38.840 | travel is important for everyone.

00:02:40.840 | And finally, we're both going to share some of our favorite places to give you

00:02:44.040 | some inspiration for your next adventure.

00:02:46.040 | So, there's a lot to cover.

00:02:48.120 | Let's get started.

00:02:50.000 | Sebastian, welcome to the show.

00:02:51.560 | Thanks for having me.

00:02:53.080 | I'm happy to be here.

00:02:53.920 | Yeah.

00:02:54.880 | So, you've probably spent more time traveling than almost anyone listening.

00:02:58.720 | So, I'm curious just to kick us off what you think most people are probably

00:03:02.800 | getting wrong and not that it's wrong, but like what could people be doing

00:03:05.600 | totally differently in the way they travel?

00:03:07.800 | I think it starts before you even get on a plane or before you travel.

00:03:11.520 | And I think what's missing a lot of the times, myself included in the past, and

00:03:15.400 | that's something I've been trying to be more conscious of going forward, is the

00:03:18.920 | why of travel, I think we've nailed the what, we've even nailed the how.

00:03:23.080 | You want to go somewhere because your friend has told you about it and it's

00:03:26.320 | great, whatever, but are you really thinking deeply about how you're going

00:03:29.080 | to engage with the place when you're on the ground?

00:03:31.360 | Is this really just a bragging rights trip?

00:03:34.280 | Is this because you saw an oversaturated photo on Instagram and

00:03:37.960 | you want to get the same photo?

00:03:39.160 | Maybe that is the way that you start getting interest in a place and you

00:03:43.720 | start getting the idea of traveling.

00:03:45.280 | But if that's the be all and end all, you're kind of missing the point.

00:03:47.920 | And especially now, I think when you have to measure your travel decisions

00:03:52.280 | against things like your carbon footprint, and the public health issues

00:03:57.880 | that now surround travel with COVID and everything else, you have all these

00:04:00.560 | other things to balance and measure out.

00:04:02.440 | Now, more than ever, I think you need to be like, "Okay, why am I really going

00:04:06.240 | on this trip, and how am I going to act once I hit the ground?"

00:04:09.600 | And I think that's really where people need to start more versus

00:04:14.240 | like, "Where am I going to go?"

00:04:15.400 | It's "Why am I going to go?"

00:04:17.280 | And then taking it from there.

00:04:19.000 | I think that's when you really start building a rewarding trip that's going

00:04:22.240 | to give you these rewarding experiences that are going to last a lifetime.

00:04:25.280 | What are some examples of good "whys" you've heard from people about why

00:04:29.440 | they're traveling or why they're going to a specific place?

00:04:31.720 | You know, from solo travelers, for example, the "why" might be they want

00:04:36.800 | to make some new friends and they want to go to a place where they can really

00:04:41.560 | interact with people and meet locals and learn.

00:04:45.080 | I think that's a great example of getting the right "why".

00:04:47.640 | And I've known many people who have asked me that question, starting with like,

00:04:51.800 | "Where should I go if I want to really immerse myself in a place and immerse

00:04:56.640 | myself in maybe it's a language, maybe it's a cuisine, maybe it's a music

00:05:00.640 | scene or whatever else?"

00:05:01.680 | And that being a "why" I think is going to just immediately lead to serendipitous,

00:05:06.360 | life-changing encounters that we all really hope to have traveling.

00:05:10.800 | You know, I can give you an example of a trip that I'm in the middle of

00:05:13.760 | planning right now. I got married recently and we're having our honeymoon.

00:05:18.240 | And in thinking about our honeymoon, we started with a "why".

00:05:21.000 | We didn't start with a "where".

00:05:21.880 | We didn't start with, "Oh, we need to go to the Amalfi Coast or Hawaii or

00:05:26.000 | whatever else." And there's nothing wrong with those.

00:05:27.520 | Those are popular honeymoon destinations for a reason.

00:05:30.680 | But we were like, "Okay, we want to go somewhere where we can do something

00:05:35.000 | active, something outdoors, not push ourselves too hard, not have to overplan

00:05:39.720 | it because we still do want it to be a honeymoon where we can relax and enjoy

00:05:42.360 | each other's company, but also maybe experience something new."

00:05:45.480 | And that brought us to Slovenia and this incredible network of bike routes

00:05:50.560 | that Slovenia has put out over the last couple of years.

00:05:53.280 | And so I poured over those and then I found one that's like this gourmet

00:05:57.920 | focused route where you're like stopping in restaurants and you're riding

00:06:01.040 | through wine country and you're really learning about the local cuisine and

00:06:03.960 | you're staying at certified, sustainable hotels and guest houses and you're

00:06:08.560 | doing it all on a bike.

00:06:09.400 | So you're sustainable in that way.

00:06:10.680 | And it was just all of a sudden, it's just opened up this trip that I had no

00:06:13.480 | idea even existed.

00:06:14.720 | And even as a travel journalist, I didn't know it was possible.

00:06:17.040 | And it all started with us just being like, "Where can we go that's like a

00:06:19.440 | little unexpected, but is also going to challenge us a bit, but isn't going to

00:06:23.400 | be like grueling 70 miles days on a bike, but it's going to be like 20 to 30 mile

00:06:27.760 | days instead and we'll end with a glass of wine and a good meal and a nice bed

00:06:31.920 | and breakfast." And we landed on Slovenia.

00:06:33.800 | That's just one example of starting with the "What am I looking for?" and then

00:06:37.920 | going to the place instead of being like, "Man, everyone's been to Italy, but

00:06:42.160 | me, I need to go to Italy immediately."

00:06:43.680 | I've heard amazing things about Slovenia and haven't been.

00:06:46.520 | So I want to get the recap when you're back.

00:06:48.600 | But for sure, there's not like an obvious filter, right?

00:06:51.280 | If you want to search for a hotel, you're like, "Well, I want it to be four

00:06:53.520 | stars. I want it to have a pool.

00:06:55.280 | I want it to be within this distance of the city center." But when you took those

00:06:59.280 | criteria and you're like, "I would love to have a glass of wine at the end of the

00:07:02.000 | day, do something active." How did you end up to Slovenia?

00:07:04.600 | Maybe it's the wealth of knowledge you've built, but how would the average

00:07:07.720 | person take this idea of a why and an experience they want and actually arrive

00:07:12.760 | at a place?

00:07:13.440 | So there's something, not to do the whole corporate plug, but there's something we

00:07:18.120 | talk about at Lonely Planet a lot in terms of giving guidance to people, which

00:07:22.000 | is the bread and butter of what something like Lonely Planet does is travel

00:07:25.160 | guidance, is that you want to be their most knowledgeable friend, right?

00:07:32.000 | You don't want to be necessarily just like, "We're an authority.

00:07:34.520 | We're going to tell you what to do." You want to be that friend who's like, "Oh,

00:07:37.040 | what are you into?

00:07:37.560 | Oh, you got to try this and this and this because I totally know that you're into

00:07:40.760 | this and so you're going to really enjoy this." And so for me, I'm lucky to have

00:07:44.440 | this very extended network of travel writers and travel creators and all this

00:07:47.720 | stuff. So for me, those were my friends.

00:07:49.440 | And I started just asking around.

00:07:50.880 | I would see the articles that were coming through the pipeline at Lonely Planet.

00:07:53.760 | I would see some people writing about cycling in Slovenia.

00:07:56.280 | That would make me go down some rabbit hole of all these different green routes.

00:07:59.840 | The kind of research that I think most travelers enjoy is that kind of research

00:08:03.760 | where you get like a little tip and you follow that down a rabbit hole and you're

00:08:06.760 | like, "Oh, okay. So maybe not." You know, like it brought me down a rabbit hole

00:08:10.480 | looking at like Provence and Bordeaux and all this stuff.

00:08:13.880 | And I was like, "Oh, that's maybe just a little too crowded for what we want.

00:08:16.280 | We want to have more space.

00:08:17.400 | We want to feel like we're more embedded in local life." So we started looking at

00:08:21.000 | cases like, "Okay, if not France, if not Italy, just look at a map." Like, "Okay,

00:08:24.640 | Slovenia is right there. What's going on in Slovenia?" So it's really just this

00:08:27.240 | like endless game, this kind of scavenger hunt where you're taking on little tips,

00:08:31.280 | you're doing your own research and you're landing on something that feels right.

00:08:34.600 | But at least you've started somewhere beyond just like a bucket list.

00:08:39.520 | We're going to come back to bucket lists because we had a fun conversation about

00:08:42.160 | that before. I'm curious, is there like a Lonely Planet or another source of like

00:08:47.160 | the world guidebook or a page or so about each country where you just start to like

00:08:51.440 | wet your palate on different places? Or I know Lonely Planet, I don't know if you

00:08:54.880 | still do, but they used to have this thorn tree forum online where you could go

00:08:58.360 | ask questions. Anything in that realm of kind of broader inspiration?

00:09:03.360 | Yeah, there is actually a Lonely Planet worldbook. I actually don't know the last

00:09:06.720 | time we put it out, but I've seen it before. It's this huge, thick doorstopper

00:09:11.080 | of a volume that's just like an overview of the world. I wouldn't necessarily

00:09:14.720 | recommend that. It's a big read to start going through. For better or for worse, I

00:09:18.280 | do think social media is a huge part of it. And it takes a little bit of your own

00:09:23.440 | work to filter through all the BS, so to speak, and the surface level stuff and the

00:09:27.920 | oversaturated photos and the influencer shots on the beach that aren't really

00:09:31.800 | telling you anything about the place. But once you get past that, you can find

00:09:35.240 | some really incredible information on social media. Just regular people out and

00:09:39.720 | about who put a Slovenia hashtag on something or maybe not. Maybe they put a

00:09:42.800 | bike touring hashtag and you're looking at the bike touring hashtag because

00:09:46.080 | you're interested in doing something with bikes. And you're like, "Where is this?

00:09:49.040 | There's this person drinking a glass of wine looking at this beautiful valley

00:09:52.120 | with a bike in the background. Oh, it's Slovenia, huh? Really?" So I think searching

00:09:56.680 | subject areas in social media is the digital equivalent of hanging out at a

00:10:04.320 | bar with the entire world and asking for recommendations. And it means you

00:10:07.880 | got to comb through some garbage to get to the good stuff. But it's in there and

00:10:10.920 | it's the really genuine, from the heart, personal stuff that when you get to

00:10:14.800 | those recommendations, I think they mean a lot. I do it even as a journalist. If

00:10:18.000 | I'm interested in seeing where people are bike touring or where people are

00:10:22.360 | backpacking or hiking, I'll search those hashtags. I'll follow those accounts on

00:10:26.480 | TikTok and Instagram or whatever and just see where people are hanging out

00:10:30.240 | and what people are talking about. Because for better or for worse, it is a

00:10:32.720 | pulse and you're looking for a pulse and you're looking for a trend and it's

00:10:35.520 | there. So I think that's one way. What I like to do is, yeah, starting with a

00:10:39.440 | continent. Maybe you're like, "Okay, Europe. I want to do a trip in Europe." But maybe

00:10:43.480 | I'm thinking beyond Spain, Italy, France. Just look at a map and pick a country

00:10:48.680 | and be like, "Oh, Albania. What's going on in Albania?" And then you can start

00:10:52.080 | looking there and maybe something's gonna interest you. Maybe it won't. Maybe

00:10:54.560 | you'll be like, "Okay, this looks a little too rough for me. I need something with

00:10:57.200 | more infrastructure." And then you look west and you're like, "Okay, maybe Croatia.

00:11:00.680 | Maybe Slovenia. Maybe Czech Republic." And just like looking at a physical map and

00:11:05.320 | dreaming about it a little bit. And we'll probably get to this later. But I am of

00:11:09.520 | the firm belief that everywhere, literally everywhere, has something to

00:11:14.100 | offer if you open yourself up to it. It has something that's gonna blow your

00:11:18.560 | mind. If you spend a little time, if you approach it with an open mind, you'll

00:11:22.360 | find something that's gonna blow your mind. Even in your own backyard. I live

00:11:25.600 | 2 blocks from Prospect Park in Brooklyn. If I go into Prospect Park today with

00:11:30.640 | the mindset that I'm looking to be educated, I'm looking to learn, I'm

00:11:33.880 | looking to have my mind expanded, I'm gonna have some interaction whether it's

00:11:37.880 | staring at a cardinal for 20 minutes or watching a couple hanging out on the

00:11:43.240 | lawn or playing with a random dog. That's gonna make me feel good and

00:11:47.080 | make me feel fulfilled. And I really firmly believe that it really starts

00:11:51.560 | with mindset, which loops all back to that idea of like, "Why are you traveling?"

00:11:55.880 | And if you go in with the right mindset, honestly, it doesn't really matter where

00:11:59.080 | you're going. You're gonna have your mind blown in some way.

00:12:01.880 | So, I want to dig into that process. But before, I want to mention... Well, I don't

00:12:06.080 | know if the average listener is thinking of Reddit as social media. I want to plug

00:12:09.520 | it because I use it a lot for travel. And I just did one quick search and I said

00:12:13.760 | "European wine tour site colon reddit.com". And it's like "Crowdsourcing my wine

00:12:18.400 | tasting trip to Europe. Who's got suggestions?" There aren't a lot of

00:12:21.680 | comments, unfortunately. But the person who wrote it came up with all these

00:12:25.840 | suggestions that include Slovenia and Croatia and Alto Adige, which I don't

00:12:31.200 | even know where that is.

00:12:32.240 | Alto Adige. Yeah. It's like Northern Italy, I think. Yeah.

00:12:35.360 | So this at least had a bunch of suggestions, even though there weren't a

00:12:38.400 | lot of comments. So I use that a lot.

00:12:40.480 | I do too. And actually, it's a great example. During the pandemic, I feel like

00:12:44.000 | you're going to end this podcast being like "This guy's obsessed with bikes.

00:12:46.800 | Shut up about bikes." But I went down a serious rabbit hole with cycling,

00:12:51.360 | especially bike travel. I'm not really interested in the head-to-toe Lycra

00:12:55.200 | racing stuff. I love traveling by bike because I think it slows you down. You

00:12:59.280 | really get to notice a lot. It's just a great way to get the feel of the place.

00:13:02.800 | But I really went down a rabbit hole during the pandemic because I was stuck

00:13:06.240 | at home like everyone else. I live in New York City. I don't own a car. So I was

00:13:10.000 | looking at ways to tap into this idea of adventure and travel while still being

00:13:15.920 | close to home and doing it with the tools that I had, which was a bicycle.

00:13:19.600 | And Reddit was like a goldmine for that kind of stuff.

00:13:22.240 | Just as an example, I remember finding someone talking about the "route verte",

00:13:26.960 | butchering that French, but it means the green route. And it's a network of

00:13:31.440 | trails and routes in Quebec, in Canada. I never would have thought of it. My

00:13:36.640 | knowledge and desire and understanding of Quebec starts and ends with Montreal,

00:13:41.360 | like it has for a long time. And then suddenly reading about this network of

00:13:44.960 | hundreds and hundreds of miles of trails that exist in Quebec, I started talking

00:13:49.120 | to my partner and we're like, "I hear the border is about to reopen with Canada.

00:13:53.280 | What if we just went and did this trip that I saw on Reddit?"

00:13:56.320 | And we're like, "Okay, we don't have a car. But what if we took the train with

00:14:00.080 | our bikes as far north as it goes, and then got on our bikes from there and rode

00:14:04.080 | across the border into Canada and did the trip that way?" Which is exactly what we

00:14:07.520 | ended up doing. We took the train to St. Albans, Vermont, literally spent the

00:14:11.760 | night in Vermont, left that morning, rode to Canada, and then spent a week riding

00:14:15.280 | around Quebec, and then rode back to Vermont and took the train home, all

00:14:18.560 | without ever getting in the car. I wrote about it on Lonely Planet's website,

00:14:21.520 | actually. But it's a great example of something that just started with a tiny

00:14:24.720 | little spark of being like, "Huh, the green route, Quebec? Sounds kind of

00:14:28.000 | magical. I wonder if we could do it." Next thing I know, a few weeks later,

00:14:31.520 | we're on a train with our bikes on our way up to Canada. That just goes to show

00:14:35.520 | how the germ of something, if you have the right curiosity and the right

00:14:38.720 | mindset, can turn into a really great adventure.

00:14:41.600 | There's two things to take away there that you didn't mention. One, I imagine

00:14:45.440 | that was a pretty inexpensive trip. You describe it in a way that people talk

00:14:49.840 | about these once-in-a-lifetime adventures that they plan for years and years, and

00:14:53.440 | they spend thousands of dollars. That doesn't sound like something that took a

00:14:56.640 | lot of advance notice or a lot of money to make happen.

00:15:00.080 | We didn't know where we were staying every night. It was one of those kinds of

00:15:02.560 | trips. And it was amazing because you could do that in a place like Quebec. We'd

00:15:05.840 | be like, "Oh, we're starting to get a little tired. We've been riding for 60

00:15:08.880 | miles. It looks like a storm's coming in." Pull out my phone and be like, "What's

00:15:12.080 | the nearest bed and breakfast?" Give them a call. They're like, "Yeah, of course.

00:15:14.480 | Come on through. Next thing you know, we're staying there." And I think that's

00:15:17.120 | a great point that you make. This is actually the point that I make in my

00:15:19.520 | story too, where you think of the capital B, capital T, big trip as something that

00:15:25.040 | you spend years thinking about, planning every moment. You're going to go on a

00:15:28.960 | safari. You're going to go climb to Everest Base Camp. You're going to do

00:15:33.360 | these huge things, which is great. Those have a place and those big goals are

00:15:37.280 | important. But what this taught me, at least, was that a big trip can come from

00:15:41.760 | a small idea. A big trip can be something that is largely improvised. It can be

00:15:47.120 | serendipitous. It can be spontaneous. Again, I really do think it comes down to

00:15:51.360 | mindset. I think we could have gone into that panicking about not having a place

00:15:54.560 | to stay, tired. We got rained on. We had flat tires, all this stuff. But because

00:15:58.960 | we had the attitude where we're like, "This is an adventure. What? We've been

00:16:01.600 | cooped up at home for a year and a half because of the pandemic, and now we're

00:16:04.400 | out here doing this amazing thing. How lucky are we?" Because we came in with

00:16:07.920 | that attitude, it just turned into a really fulfilling, if exhausting,

00:16:12.000 | adventure.

00:16:12.480 | It was in your backyard, per se. It wasn't directly there, but you took a train. You

00:16:16.320 | didn't have to cross an ocean. You didn't have to spend thousands on plane

00:16:19.120 | tickets. I think a lot of times, everyone plans vacations like, "Gosh, where can I

00:16:22.800 | go that's halfway around the world?" It's cool to hear that if you just think

00:16:26.240 | about it, you might find something not too far away.

00:16:28.720 | Absolutely.

00:16:29.840 | When we first spoke a few months ago, you said, "I think people should think

00:16:33.760 | about how to approach a trip like a journalist might. About the people you'll

00:16:37.520 | meet, how to approach it with an open mind." So we talked about mindset. We

00:16:41.120 | talked about the feeling you want to get, a little bit about where you want to

00:16:44.400 | go. But I want to just break down... Let's say someone listening has gone

00:16:48.720 | through these steps and is planning a trip. I'd love to just go back and forth

00:16:52.320 | and talk about some of the things you do.

00:16:54.320 | So let's say we've now picked a place. Let's say we have decided the why and we

00:16:58.720 | know why we're going. What kind of research do you think people should be

00:17:02.400 | doing in advance versus leaving up to that serendipity you described earlier?

00:17:06.400 | So I'm just going to give you an example from the 52 places trip I did because I

00:17:11.600 | think it's very out of the ordinary, of course. But I think there's a lot that

00:17:16.240 | can be learned for it. One of the things was because I was going to 52 places in

00:17:19.120 | 52 weeks, I didn't have time to prepare, right? I luckily had someone at the

00:17:23.680 | Times who was helping me and she would send me like a really great one-pager of

00:17:27.920 | here's what you need to know about currency and here's what you need to

00:17:30.080 | know about public transportation. And here's like the top 10 things to do when

00:17:34.080 | you Google the place, right? These are the big tourist hits or whatever.

00:17:37.200 | I would try to like knock out those 10 things in like an afternoon and be like,

00:17:42.560 | "Okay, so I've done the brass tacks. I've seen that. Now, let me actually have an

00:17:45.920 | experience." And I think that goes back to this idea of travel being more

00:17:50.800 | serendipitous, more spontaneous, more connective than it is extractive.

00:17:55.520 | I think a lot of the times we think of travel as extractive where it's like,

00:17:58.160 | "I need to go in there, get things that make me fulfilled and leave, wash my

00:18:01.200 | hands of it and plan the next trip." And I think leaving things open has always

00:18:05.760 | led to the best experiences. In terms of preparation, yeah, have a place to stay.

00:18:10.080 | If it's city-based, find a place to stay. I think beforehand, if you can, go as

00:18:15.920 | local as possible. And I don't mean Airbnb. Airbnb is fine if that's what you

00:18:19.520 | want to do. But I think there is nothing better than staying at a family-run

00:18:24.880 | bed and breakfast. I think it's the best. Bathrooms down the hall. Dad's making

00:18:29.360 | you breakfast in the morning. Mom's giving you tips of where to go shopping.

00:18:32.480 | That vibe, I think, opens up so much just in terms of local recommendations,

00:18:37.920 | in terms of the feeling of being a local, in terms of supporting local economies.

00:18:42.240 | You're staying at like a family-run hotel versus the Hilton or whatever.

00:18:46.000 | That goes a long way in terms of where you're putting your money.

00:18:48.640 | That's a great place to start. I've had incredible experiences literally just from

00:18:52.400 | an innkeeper in Bulgaria, who over the course of 5 days of me staying there,

00:18:56.720 | gains my trust. And all of a sudden, he's showing me old family photos.

00:19:00.320 | And he's showing me into the basement where there's like a fresco on the wall from the

00:19:04.400 | Ottoman times. And he keeps it behind glass because it's his greatest possession now.

00:19:08.880 | And it's in this house that he's owned and his family has owned.

00:19:11.600 | So just like these experiences that you unlock by going local, by going small.

00:19:15.600 | I feel like you didn't ask me where you should stay. But I do think that is where most people

00:19:18.800 | start. And thinking even the "why" in that decision goes a long way.

00:19:23.600 | You could just look at TripAdvisor and go to the one with the most reviews with 5 stars.

00:19:27.200 | But then you're just doing what everyone else did.

00:19:29.120 | Right.

00:19:29.840 | And is there a time and a place sometimes for staying in the city center,

00:19:34.560 | being really close to things? I don't know if the bed and breakfast are always

00:19:37.840 | located in that area, but...

00:19:39.440 | Yeah, no, of course. And maybe you do both. Maybe you do the rural bed and breakfast for

00:19:44.160 | a couple of days, and then you stay in the middle of a city where you're not really going to be

00:19:47.120 | spending time at the hotel anyway. To go back to what my first steps are

00:19:51.360 | in feeling that I'm connected to a place.

00:19:52.960 | What I learned to do pretty quickly on my reporting trips, and I think this is reporting-specific,

00:19:59.280 | but I think it's general tips for travel too, is when I get to a place, especially if it's a city,

00:20:03.600 | first thing I do is I leave the camera in the hotel room.

00:20:08.800 | I put the phone away in my pocket and I just walk.

00:20:12.240 | I'll give myself an hour and a half, maybe 2 hours, no destination in mind.

00:20:17.520 | I just want to get the pulse of the place. I just want to feel it.

00:20:20.240 | And maybe I'll get distracted and sit down for a beer and watch the city go by that way,

00:20:24.240 | or a coffee, or sit in a park for a little bit. But I just want to be there.

00:20:28.320 | And that means not looking at my phone. The great thing about Google Maps is that

00:20:32.160 | you can get completely lost and then use it to find your way back, right?

00:20:35.360 | If I think a street looks interesting, I'll walk down that.

00:20:37.920 | If I see a scene happening at the local park, I'll sit down and watch that for 20 minutes.

00:20:42.960 | If I strike up a conversation with someone, I'll let that go and see where it takes me.

00:20:47.440 | It's just such a small thing, but it goes such a long way.

00:20:50.800 | If you're just thinking, of course, you're going to want to document things,

00:20:53.200 | you're going to want to post things to Instagram,

00:20:55.280 | you're going to want to share it with friends, all this stuff.

00:20:57.200 | But just wait a couple of hours. Do it starting that evening.

00:21:00.880 | Give yourself at least a few hours to feel like you're there and you're in the place.

00:21:05.280 | And maybe you'll see places where you're like, "Oh, I need to come back and photograph that.

00:21:08.640 | I need to come back during sunset because I bet the photographs here are great then."

00:21:11.840 | Or whatever else that you need to do. And I'm thinking of that professionally,

00:21:15.120 | of course, as a photographer and a writer, but everyone's into documenting their trips.

00:21:19.440 | So everyone's thinking of that. But if you give yourself time to just be,

00:21:23.760 | it's really amazing how much better you get the place.

00:21:27.120 | You understand it and you feel it in a way that you don't, again,

00:21:30.560 | if you're just like extracting content from it from the moment you hit the ground.

00:21:34.880 | You didn't mention this, but one thing I like to do where possible and where not ridiculously

00:21:39.440 | inconvenient, get to wherever you're going using public transportation when you first arrive.

00:21:44.720 | Taking the train, taking a bus, you see people in their normal environment versus if you were to

00:21:50.880 | take a taxi or call Uber in another country, you're just sitting in the back,

00:21:54.880 | just moving. So I feel like your trip starts sooner when you do that.

00:21:58.160 | Yeah. Public transportation is a great tip. I think you really get to know a place.

00:22:01.680 | There are cities that I know geographically through their subway maps versus their actual

00:22:06.720 | maps. I know that this stop is here and this stop is here. And that's my understanding of geography.

00:22:11.760 | And I think it's something that people get older. And as people have more money and all

00:22:16.800 | these things, you stop doing that. When you're a backpacker and you're

00:22:20.080 | living off the $20 in your pocket, you're taking public transportation or walking because you're

00:22:24.000 | not about to drop half your budget on a taxi. Now, at least for me, who's older,

00:22:28.880 | it's much easier for me to be like, "I'll just take an Uber."

00:22:31.120 | There's a lot we can learn from our early days of travel,

00:22:33.360 | backpacking and whatever else when you're pinching pennies,

00:22:35.840 | including the fact that, yeah, public transportation is going to save you money.

00:22:38.720 | But also, you're seeing the places in between. You're seeing the kind of people that come on

00:22:42.640 | on certain stops and get off at certain stops. You get a really better understanding of the place

00:22:47.200 | by getting on a train or a bus or in South Africa, the combis, the little minivans that go around.

00:22:53.040 | You just get such a better understanding. Yeah.

00:22:54.880 | And people will help you too. And that's another thing. It's intimidating. Of course it is. But

00:22:58.640 | if you're lost, people will help you. I remember trying to find my way around the metro system in

00:23:04.560 | Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which is incredible. In the case of former Soviet countries,

00:23:09.280 | take the subway just to see the metro stations. They're like works of art. It's unreal.

00:23:13.200 | So I'm taking the metro around in Tashkent, and I was just so confused. I was like,

00:23:17.040 | "I didn't understand the maps." I was sitting there with two handfuls of coins and bills,

00:23:21.680 | unsure about the denominations. I was jet lagged. And someone saw me immediately and came up to me

00:23:26.640 | and in broken English was like, "Where are you trying to go?" I said the name of the stop and

00:23:30.160 | just held out my hands with all the coins in it. And he just picked out what I needed, put it in

00:23:34.640 | the machine, gave me the ticket and led me on my way. It's like you put your trust in someone,

00:23:38.240 | someone's going to help you out. And just that interaction too. I still remember it,

00:23:41.600 | and I'll remember it probably forever. Just that small interaction

00:23:44.480 | that you're not going to get if you just call an Uber.

00:23:46.720 | So we had the same thing happen in Aleppo, Syria. We got into the city. We took a taxi

00:23:53.120 | from Turkey, which fun fact, I'm sure this is different now, but taxis from Turkey to Syria,

00:23:57.840 | because gas was like 10% of the cost, right? It was so cheap. The taxis would go for free almost.

00:24:04.160 | The cost to go from Turkey to Syria was almost nothing as long as you had no bags,

00:24:08.640 | because there were special taxis where their entire trunk was just gas tanks.

00:24:12.160 | And so you would go into Syria and it would be super cheap, but you'd get dropped off.

00:24:15.600 | We were couch surfing in a suburb and we had no clue what we were doing.

00:24:18.720 | And a random person came up who spoke no English, but kind of got the sense that we were lost,

00:24:24.320 | called someone, handed me the phone. So just a stranger's handing me a cell phone

00:24:28.800 | and I answer it. And this person says, "Hey, you don't know me, but my brother thinks you're lost."

00:24:34.320 | So he called me. And if you want, you could tell me where you're going. I'll tell him and

00:24:38.480 | he can help you get there. But he would love if you stopped by his house and have some tea first.

00:24:43.520 | So it was this experience that I think many people could just not be open to or think it's scary,

00:24:50.000 | but being open to those things has been some of the best experiences we have. Before we get there.

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00:25:58.960 | and for a limited time, if you visit that link, you can get a free $25 to give to the charity of

00:26:04.960 | your choice. Again, that's allthehacks.com/daffy. Getting the crew together isn't as easy as it

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00:27:22.240 | today. Must be 21 plus, not available in all locations. What are you bringing? We don't need

00:27:28.400 | to go down to how many pairs of socks. People can figure that out on their own. But are there

00:27:32.480 | perspectives you have that are unique or contrarian about things to bring, or "I never bring a

00:27:36.960 | rollerboard. I always bring a duffel bag" or just things that might spark some interesting thoughts

00:27:40.960 | in people listening? I'm not like the militant, carry-on-only school of thought. Maybe now,

00:27:48.080 | I might be with the mess that's going on at airports and bags getting lost or whatever. But

00:27:52.560 | when I got that 52 Places job, I posted something about how I decided I was just going to check in

00:27:57.840 | a bag for the year. And of course, travel Twitter just blows up. They're like, "Oh my god, you call

00:28:03.440 | yourself a traveler? If you can't get all your belongings in a carry-on, you don't actually know

00:28:07.280 | how to travel." And I was just like, "Shut up." People can do their own thing. People have their

00:28:11.200 | own styles. I had to pack for Siberia and Tahiti in the same suitcase. I just didn't want the stress

00:28:17.040 | of having to do laundry every four days or whatever. So I did it. The bag got lost twice,

00:28:23.200 | but found its way back to me. So it was fine. But I tell that story to say I'm not dogmatic about

00:28:29.840 | packing in any way. Oftentimes, it's happening half an hour before I'm heading to the airport,

00:28:34.640 | and I'm just throwing in whatever I feel like. I think there are things that I swear by now.

00:28:38.320 | It's hard to find anything in my travel wardrobe that's not made of merino wool

00:28:44.000 | because I think the stuff is magical. It keeps you warm when it's cold. It cools you down when

00:28:49.520 | it's hot. I've worn it in Gambia during the hottest, rainiest time of year, the same t-shirt

00:28:55.360 | four days in a row, and it still didn't smell. It's just the stuff is witchcraft. It's unreal.

00:28:59.920 | That's something I definitely learned through long-term travel. And now I completely swear

00:29:03.520 | by merino wool, everything. Where are you getting all these merino wool products?

00:29:07.520 | Smartwool is great. I have a lot of stuff from then. Fjallraven. It's all performance stuff.

00:29:12.400 | You're spending, I don't know, $80 on a t-shirt. And you're like, "Really? $80 on a t-shirt?"

00:29:17.440 | But if you only have to bring two t-shirts with you, it's pretty good.

00:29:21.200 | So yeah, I had one lightweight merino wool and one heavier weight one.

00:29:24.800 | That was basically all I wore for a year. Packing cubes, I also swear by. I think a

00:29:29.280 | lot of people have entered the church of packing cubes, but I think being organized that way

00:29:33.680 | really has upped my travel game because I just don't leave things behind anymore because I know

00:29:37.920 | everything has a place and I know where everything goes. And if I feel that a packing cube isn't

00:29:42.400 | as full as it was when I got there, I know my bathing suit is hanging in the bathroom or

00:29:45.600 | something's been left behind. So that, in terms of organization, there's very few loose items in

00:29:50.480 | my bags. I know I said I'm not dogmatic about things. And then now I've gone into being like,

00:29:54.560 | "No loose items in the backpack." But no, it's true. I have pouches for everything.

00:29:58.320 | All my tech stuff is in one bag, all my camera gears in another bag, inside the bag.

00:30:02.720 | And also, when I inevitably get pulled aside at security because of all the electronics in my bag,

00:30:07.760 | but also for being a brown dude in the 21st century, always the random security check happens.

00:30:13.200 | Then I can just open the bag and I've got four other bags I take out instead of an explosion of

00:30:17.360 | cables and other gear. Those are my main constants. If I feel like bringing

00:30:23.120 | an extra pair of earphones for working out or whatever, I'll do that. Sometimes I won't.

00:30:29.040 | All the other stuff is up in the air, but those are my hard and fast rules.

00:30:32.400 | I don't know if you followed the new church of in packing for travelers, but it seems to be

00:30:37.600 | putting an Apple AirTag in like every bag. And I have not checked a bag since

00:30:42.000 | going down this rabbit hole. But it seems like most people that have lost a bag that have had

00:30:47.280 | an Apple AirTag in it have somehow been able to figure out where it is and get it back.

00:30:51.440 | That's interesting. I wonder how that plays out, though. Especially now that all these airlines

00:30:55.200 | are overwhelmed. Is it that you're going up to them and you're like, "You're saying you can't

00:30:59.360 | find my bag? I see it. It's at LAX or whatever." And then what? What are they supposed to do?

00:31:02.800 | They're like, "Okay, sure." And then they'll go do whatever process they were going to do.

00:31:06.320 | I don't know if they're going to go out of their way because you can show them where the bag is.

00:31:10.240 | I've read multiple stories of people where the bag made it. Let's say you're flying to Denver,

00:31:14.080 | the bag's in Denver. And they're like, "We don't know where it is." And you're like, "Actually,

00:31:17.680 | I know where it is in the airport." Now, if you're in Denver, and the flight came from London,

00:31:22.320 | and you're like, "I know where it is in London." You're probably out of luck and you're going to

00:31:25.440 | have to wait. You might be able to say, "Look, I know it's in London. Can you get it?" But

00:31:28.480 | to the extent that the bag is lost, maybe it's coming a day late, and I know where it is,

00:31:32.960 | you have some idea. Or even just figuring out when it's coming. Sometimes they're like,

00:31:37.040 | "When the bag gets here, we'll deliver it to you." At least now I know it's here.

00:31:40.160 | It's here. Yeah.

00:31:40.800 | Or I know that it made it on the plane. You land and you're sitting there like, "Oh man,

00:31:45.440 | the bags are coming off. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it." Some airlines are getting

00:31:49.120 | really good. I can't remember whether it was United or Delta or something. I looked in the

00:31:52.640 | app and it was like, "We scanned your bag at the check-in. We scanned your bag when it's

00:31:56.560 | getting on the plane." Obviously, if you could get that level of detail with every airline,

00:32:00.560 | it would be unnecessary. But I think people have really liked being able to at least have a sense

00:32:05.440 | of where is my bag? Is it actually here? Is it coming? If I see that it's still where I took off,

00:32:11.600 | I'm not going to sit at the baggage carousel for 45 minutes to see if maybe it's coming.

00:32:15.280 | I know it's not coming.

00:32:16.720 | I can see the appeal. For the trips that I have coming up, I'm trying to go carry on just because

00:32:21.840 | I've heard about all the chaos. I just did a trip in the Faroe Islands where I was hiking for

00:32:25.520 | a week basically straight. And it's pretty intense hiking. So I wanted to bring trekking poles.

00:32:31.280 | You can't carry on trekking poles. So it's like, "Okay, do I not bring trekking poles and be

00:32:35.360 | miserable? Or do I just bring them and check them in and run the risk of not having them when I get

00:32:39.280 | there?" And I chose the latter. And I had the trekking poles. So there's decisions you have

00:32:42.640 | to make and I'll probably go on the side of comfort over any kind of hard rules around packing

00:32:48.960 | every time.

00:32:49.600 | Trekking poles may or may not be as easy. But in some places, now that we have children,

00:32:55.520 | I've noticed there are sites definitely in the US, probably all over the world,

00:33:00.160 | where you could say, "Okay, we need a high chair. We need a pack and play. We need these different

00:33:03.920 | things." You can rent them from local families and not have to travel with them.

00:33:09.360 | I've also done the FedExing ahead of time stuff that I'm going to need there and shipping it back.

00:33:15.200 | Sometimes, especially now with baggage fees, it ends up being the same as it would be to

00:33:18.640 | check in a bag or even less. So for little things like that, that would have been another option.

00:33:23.200 | Maybe not to the Faroe Islands because it's a little remote and who knows how long it would

00:33:25.920 | have taken to get there. But if I'm going to the Dolomites or something and you want to go carry

00:33:29.760 | on, just ship the stuff ahead of time to your hotel. They'll accept it and you pick it up when

00:33:33.520 | you're there. There's also something... I'm going to probably butcher the pronunciation. It's like

00:33:37.680 | "Takubin" or something like that in Japan. There's an entire network of services where you can send

00:33:45.040 | your bags between hotels. And it's the most efficient process as most are in Japan.

00:33:50.320 | So I know a lot of people that are traveling. It's like, "Well, I want to take the train,

00:33:53.440 | but I have this big bag. Do I want to lug it around?" So you just pack an overnight bag.

00:33:58.080 | Sometimes the bag gets there same day or next day. It's like you just pack a day pack,

00:34:02.000 | you hop on the train, you head down maybe from Tokyo to Kyoto, you go trek around for the day,

00:34:07.440 | you go spend the night, you wake up the next morning, you brought just enough for the next

00:34:11.520 | morning and your toiletries, and then your bag shows up at your hotel. And you had this

00:34:16.080 | wonderful experience of both taking the train, not having to go straight to your hotel when you land.

00:34:22.000 | I don't know if that service exists almost anywhere else. But I know that in Japan,

00:34:27.440 | it's a very structured service that's very easy.

00:34:30.080 | Yeah. I know some people who swear by it. I've never used it, but it makes a lot of sense.

00:34:33.840 | I think it's Takuhaibun. I can't remember. I'm terrible at pronouncing

00:34:37.040 | basically any Japanese term. So we've planned the trip, we've gotten the accommodations,

00:34:41.680 | we've gotten there, we've packed all this stuff. You talked about this serendipity of meeting

00:34:45.120 | people, locals, immersing yourself in these experiences that you probably couldn't have

00:34:49.120 | pretended. Do you think there's a way, not necessarily to cheat the system, but to engineer

00:34:55.440 | that serendipity to give it a greater chance of happening than you would if you maybe had a whole

00:35:00.560 | week with no agenda? Maybe you just go sit at bars, talk to strangers. But what if you have a

00:35:04.800 | day and you really want to try to make something local and interesting and magical happen?

00:35:08.480 | What would be your advice to someone trying to do that?

00:35:11.520 | The first one, I think is obvious to anyone who's traveled before,

00:35:15.920 | but it's put the phone away again. Especially when you're traveling alone.

00:35:20.240 | I do it too. It's the best social crutch there is, right? If you're sitting alone and you feel

00:35:26.000 | nervous about it or you're bored or whatever else, you immediately pull out your phone. But that

00:35:29.360 | signals to everyone else that you're busy, you're closed off. The amount of conversations that I've

00:35:34.000 | started from just sitting somewhere and just looking around like people used to do when they

00:35:38.880 | had downtime, just staring into space and making eye contact with someone, saying hello. Next thing

00:35:44.480 | you know, they say, "Hello, how are you?" Next thing you're getting invited to grandma's house

00:35:47.840 | for dinner. That has happened so many times. People are naturally curious, especially for

00:35:53.840 | solo travelers. They're curious why you're visiting their home, what you're up to while

00:35:59.360 | you're there, if you actually have the best recommendations or if you're going on something

00:36:03.280 | that they'd consider the tourist path or whatever, they want to steer you somewhere else.

00:36:06.400 | People are very passionate about where they're from. So tapping into that, going in also being

00:36:11.040 | like, "I'm going to be just a little more extroverted than I normally am," goes a long way.

00:36:15.920 | And I'm an extrovert in the sense that I do get energy from being around friends and family and

00:36:20.720 | being around people I love. But I'm still a nervous extrovert, if that makes sense. I still get phone

00:36:26.480 | anxiety and weird nervousness around approaching strangers and all these other things. So it takes

00:36:33.120 | an effort for me to be like, "I'm going to strike up a conversation with these random people."

00:36:36.880 | And just as one example, I was in Munich, which is a city that if you ask people from Munich,

00:36:42.640 | they'll be the first to admit that it's not an easy place to meet people.

00:36:45.920 | It's just part of the, I think, Bavarian culture and such. It's a little more insular,

00:36:50.080 | a little more insider-y. So I was having trouble. I was there for work too, and I needed a story,

00:36:54.080 | and I was having trouble meeting people. And I was hanging out at this bar, not looking at my phone.

00:36:59.040 | So I was more aware of my surroundings. And I was overhearing this conversation with a bunch

00:37:02.960 | of dudes standing next to me. And they were talking about space and rockets and astrophysics

00:37:08.320 | and all just very fascinating stuff. And it took me a second to work up the courage.

00:37:12.560 | But once I did, I literally just poked my head and I was like, "Hey, do you mind if I join you?"

00:37:16.000 | And they're like, "Yeah, of course. Come on in, whatever." And I brought them around or whatever.

00:37:18.720 | Next thing I know, I'm talking to these five astrophysicists who are working on some German

00:37:22.640 | space program in the woods of Munich. Just totally fascinating stuff. We spend the whole rest of the

00:37:27.360 | evening together. We go to a show. We just hang out, taking me to all their favorite beer gardens.

00:37:31.520 | And all because I just took that plunge. And it was a little weird. It's a little awkward

00:37:35.280 | to do that in any situation. At least for me, it is. But I took a deep breath and went in there

00:37:39.920 | and said, "Hello." And next thing you know, I had this really wonderful, pretty magical day

00:37:44.400 | in a city where it's hard to do that. It's hard to find that serendipity.

00:37:47.760 | So I think those would be my two biggest overarching tips around that is opening

00:37:52.480 | yourself up to it. And the first step towards that is literally being physically available.

00:37:58.240 | So stop staring at your phone. Put the book down for a second. Just be there.

00:38:02.080 | Look around and see what happens. And then two, push yourself to just be a little more

00:38:05.760 | extroverted than you usually are. And then actually the third one too, and this goes back

00:38:09.200 | to mindset as well. And this has taken me a while to really master, if I can even call it that.

00:38:15.600 | But it's admitting your own ignorance and embracing it. I think a lot of the times,

00:38:22.080 | especially with well-traveled people, there's a tendency to make it competitive almost, right?

00:38:26.480 | Be like, "Oh, I know this. And I've been there. And I know my way around this. And I've traveled,

00:38:30.320 | so I don't need help. And I can find my way. And I've read about this place that I'm traveling to.

00:38:34.080 | So I don't need to know anymore." But you're never going to know as much as someone who lives there,

00:38:39.040 | who has been born and raised there. You're never going to know as much. You could live there for

00:38:42.080 | 10, 20 years. I've lived in New York for a decade. I'm not a New Yorker. I'm never going

00:38:46.560 | to know New York like a New Yorker. And admitting that leads to you asking the right questions.

00:38:51.760 | It leads to the approach that you have when you're talking to people, the openness that you bring

00:38:55.920 | to new experiences and new culturals and things that might be unfamiliar to you.

00:38:59.680 | All of that first is going to just come across so much more effectively if you first admit that

00:39:05.760 | you really don't know anything. And you're there to learn. And you're there to engage.

00:39:09.920 | And I think just that mindset opens up a place in a big way. And it's very hard to do,

00:39:15.040 | especially the more traveled you are because you start being like, "Oh,

00:39:17.520 | I know my way around. I know how to navigate this stuff."

00:39:20.080 | And so still for me too, when I'm at a place that I've been to 100 times,

00:39:24.000 | I still try to approach it as there's still something to learn. I still am not a local.

00:39:27.120 | I'll never be. So what can I learn from a local? And having that eagerness and that curiosity is

00:39:31.840 | going to make you approach the right people and ask the right questions. And then the rest is

00:39:35.440 | serendipity. So I love that approach. I've used it a lot.

00:39:39.920 | I just want to thank you, Quik, for listening to and supporting the show.

00:39:44.960 | Your support is what keeps this show going. To get all of the URLs, codes,

00:39:50.000 | deals, and discounts from our partners, you can go to allthehacks.com/deals.

00:39:55.840 | So please consider supporting those who support us.

00:39:58.720 | You traveled a lot as a solo traveler. You just got married. Congratulations.

00:40:03.760 | I've heard you on a couple podcasts say, "One day, maybe there's a family. I have one."

00:40:07.840 | How do you think that changes? You haven't been through it yet, but you've probably met lots of

00:40:11.520 | travelers. The idea of spending the afternoon sitting in a bar, meeting some astrophysicists,

00:40:16.560 | going out to a random show is not the kind of experience that's easy to have with

00:40:21.280 | young kids around. So how do you create these interesting experiences when you probably have

00:40:27.120 | a tighter schedule? Have you thought at all about that or talked to anyone that's done it successfully?

00:40:31.360 | I'd be curious, actually, from you if you felt as your travel style has changed,

00:40:36.320 | how you felt yourself adapting. I think what's exciting about traveling with kids and having

00:40:41.840 | kids is that you now get to instill that curiosity and that sense of serendipity

00:40:47.920 | in someone new and encourage that in someone and have them grow into the kind of traveler that

00:40:53.120 | maybe it took you longer to be. And I know that's much easier said than done when there's nap time

00:40:58.240 | and mealtime and all these things that are pretty set in stone when you're traveling.

00:41:02.160 | You can't be like, "Peace out, partner. I'm going to go hang out at the bar and meet some

00:41:06.480 | astrophysicists, have fun with the kids." But I do wonder if there are micro moments of serendipity

00:41:11.680 | that you can create where you can be like, "We've rented this car. We're going to go for a drive on

00:41:16.160 | this route that we've researched, but we don't know where we're going to stop yet. We don't

00:41:19.200 | know where we're going to have lunch. We don't know where we're going to go for a little hike."

00:41:22.960 | These little things that you just leave open enough so that when you do do it,

00:41:27.120 | you're discovering it together. You're discovering that moment together. You're

00:41:30.160 | having that moment of uncertainty and be like, "Oh, is this the right place for the hike?

00:41:33.280 | Ooh, this looks a little intense." But then you do it together and you're like,

00:41:35.680 | "Wow, we did that. That was crazy. Remember when we did that thing?"

00:41:38.240 | And I think I learned that from my parents too. And my parents were very good about doing that.

00:41:42.480 | I don't remember a lot of things concretely from my childhood, but I have vague,

00:41:46.640 | more like snapshots. I have so many mental snapshots of family trips, of

00:41:53.600 | the car pulled over on the side of the road, the physical map out over the hood of the car while

00:42:00.320 | my parents are tracing our route and trying to figure out where the hell we are and where the

00:42:03.520 | hell we're going. I have so many memories of us before smartphones, before the internet,

00:42:08.080 | pulling into hotels and knocking on the door and being like, "Hey,

00:42:11.840 | do you have space for five at 10 o'clock at night?" My parents did that stuff a lot.

00:42:16.080 | Of course, safety was the first priority. When we were younger,

00:42:19.280 | there were all these other needs they had catered to, but they still kept that little bit

00:42:22.560 | of mystery to travel and that little bit of, "We're going to make it up as we go along.

00:42:26.960 | We're going to improvise a little bit and we're going to do it together.

00:42:29.280 | And we're going to have a conversation about, "Ooh, which of these 2 restaurants looks better?

00:42:32.240 | What do you think, little Jimmy?" Bring them into it. Bring them into that experience.

00:42:36.640 | I think there's ways. I think, yeah, maybe you can't do it like you used to fully

00:42:40.480 | flying by the seat of your pants. But I think in micro moments and through little adjustments and

00:42:44.560 | through involving them in your decision-making process as you go, you can still keep that

00:42:49.760 | mystery of travel alive. It's funny. As you were talking,

00:42:52.880 | I just started thinking about a trip we haven't planned yet, but different ways that we would

00:42:57.520 | bring it to life with children. And our kids are 2 and 2 months. We're not quite old enough to

00:43:02.000 | take them on all the adventures. But a few things came to mind.

00:43:05.600 | One, in the last few, I don't know, months/year, we've met a number of interesting people that

00:43:12.000 | live in our neighborhood going to the park. Just the park down the street from our house,

00:43:15.840 | we meet parents almost every time. So, for some reason, I hadn't thought about it until

00:43:19.840 | you were talking. But I feel if you want to meet random strangers, instead of doing it at the bar,

00:43:24.240 | where you're sitting having a drink, which might be the solo traveler place of choice,

00:43:29.040 | you could also just go to a park. You probably meet other parents. They probably have other

00:43:32.560 | kids your same age. You could make that your place to serendipitously strike up a conversation.

00:43:37.280 | So that was one that came to mind. Another thing that I think

00:43:40.240 | every person I know that seems to have unlocked travel one level beyond with children

00:43:45.840 | does is they all contact their hotel in advance or wherever they're staying and try to find some

00:43:52.880 | trusted source of childcare that can, not for the entire trip, but maybe help out one night so the

00:44:00.080 | parents can go out and have that kind of interesting, unique adventure of just walking down the street,

00:44:04.800 | finding a place to eat, etc. Another way to do that, and I have some friends with kids who have

00:44:09.760 | taken this route as well, is traveling with another family or two families that are friends of yours

00:44:15.360 | with kids the same age. Then you either can rotate who's in charge of the kids that night while the

00:44:20.720 | others go out to a show or dinner or to meet people or whatever else. Or you all pull your

00:44:26.160 | money together while you're hanging out in France for some childcare that can take care of the kids

00:44:29.920 | one of the nights or two of the nights or whatever. And that way you're doing it together and it's a

00:44:33.760 | little easier. I know some people who have gone that route too and I think that's a great way to

00:44:37.360 | tackle it as well. The last one that I'm really excited about, and Japan hasn't opened the borders

00:44:42.240 | yet, but I'm a big fan. We've been a few times. It's re-experiencing the places that you know a

00:44:47.440 | little bit. I've never lived in Japan. I've been three or four times. I wouldn't consider myself

00:44:52.080 | an expert, but I do feel like I know it well enough to make it easier to wander the streets

00:44:58.000 | and have a serendipitous experience than I would if I'd gone to Uzbekistan, which I've never been

00:45:02.560 | to. And I feel like I would be trying to get my bearings as well as lead the family through the

00:45:07.360 | public transportation. So, one thing I'm excited about is just going to places I've been to share

00:45:12.480 | that experience and make it a little easier. The first trip with two kids running around a city,

00:45:18.320 | probably nice if you'd go to a place you know. Maybe even test it out locally. Maybe we go to

00:45:22.080 | New York for a long weekend because it's like, "I know that city even better." We've already

00:45:25.840 | tested it in San Francisco. We take the Caltrain. We actually throw our bikes on the Caltrain,

00:45:30.960 | ride the Caltrain up to San Francisco, bike around, and then come back.

00:45:34.640 | So, we're trying to get a feeling for what it's like to adventure in a city.

00:45:39.280 | We have our own travel training wheels as new parents that we're trying to take off

00:45:43.680 | before we take a big adventure.

00:45:45.280 | But also, what a fun thing to see a place that you thought you knew well,

00:45:48.960 | to see it anew through the eyes of someone else too, right? I think that's why people love taking

00:45:53.040 | friends to places that they love or whatever. I'm in the middle of planning a bachelor party

00:45:57.840 | for friends of mine and I'm really excited that they've chosen New Orleans, which is like a city

00:46:02.480 | that I love so much. And now I'm going to be able to see it anew through their eyes, seeing it for

00:46:07.440 | the first time and go to all the restaurants that I love and all the bars that I love and

00:46:10.880 | do all these things. And I think that's just like such a fun thing to do. I can imagine with kids

00:46:15.040 | too to see them get excited about something that maybe you've taken for granted by the fourth or

00:46:19.920 | fifth visit.

00:46:20.480 | Similarly, probably why I started podcasts. I love learning these things and then sharing them with

00:46:25.120 | people. The other last one, and I'm fascinated by this broader topic, is when you have a limited

00:46:31.600 | time and budget isn't the primary concern, you can hire experiences, right? You could do Airbnb

00:46:37.040 | experiences, you can find locals, even if you're staying at a hotel, ask for a cooking class or

00:46:41.600 | these kinds of things. The hidden mystery of fixers in other countries that help engineer

00:46:46.880 | experiences and crazy things.

00:46:49.120 | I've always been fascinated by finding the most authentic ones versus the most commercial ones.

00:46:53.360 | So I'd love your thoughts there. But that's the other thing. It's like if you only have

00:46:56.960 | a couple days and you've got a tight schedule, and you want to go have some authentic experience

00:47:01.760 | cooking with a local, sometimes you don't have time to just go find the random local until

00:47:07.520 | someone invites you to cook in their home and you might just have to hire it.

00:47:11.040 | What are your thoughts on those? Are there better ways to do it? How do you find those

00:47:14.560 | interesting people?

00:47:15.280 | I've done that route many times. And I try to look as local as possible. So it takes some

00:47:20.000 | Googling, it takes some digging. So you're not necessarily going through a Viator or Airbnb

00:47:25.520 | experiences or whatever, which some of them are very local, some of them are very small.

00:47:29.840 | But if you just start Googling walking tours of this city, you might find someone who has

00:47:35.200 | their own ramshackle operation that they do.

00:47:37.360 | And that's the most intimate experience you're going to get. So I think doing some digging

00:47:41.200 | until you find something independent on its own.

00:47:44.160 | I used to really be... I don't know, some chip on my shoulder about being a...

00:47:49.040 | Exactly what I was talking about, being an experienced traveler.

00:47:51.280 | I don't need this stuff or whatever.

00:47:53.120 | I used to be pretty against the idea of the walking tour or even the group tour in general.

00:47:58.640 | I used to be like, "I don't need that. I can find my own way."

00:48:01.600 | But a lot of cities, especially in Europe, have these free walking tours that leave 3

00:48:06.400 | times a day from the center of town or whatever.

00:48:08.640 | And I started doing those when I was traveling in Europe.

00:48:10.560 | And I fell in love with them. It was such a great way to just get an overview of a place

00:48:16.080 | and get a little bit of background before you start your own explorations.

00:48:19.040 | But also, I found that a lot of the tour guides are not only awesome, but if you talk to them,

00:48:24.400 | they're down to hang out beyond just the tour.

00:48:27.920 | They're doing the job for the money, of course, paid by the city,

00:48:30.800 | but also because they love meeting people and they love showing people where they're from.

00:48:34.880 | Two examples, one in Cadiz in Spain, and one in a city in Germany,

00:48:39.600 | where I could tell that the vibe of the tour guides was really good.

00:48:44.000 | And so afterwards, I was like, "What are you up to this evening? What are you doing?"

00:48:47.360 | And they're like, "Oh, nothing."

00:48:48.400 | I was like, "Can I take you to dinner at your favorite restaurant? You down to hang out?"

00:48:51.360 | And next thing you know, I'm having this amazing experience because I've just taken that plunge of

00:48:54.640 | being like, "Okay, you gave me the city-sanctioned tour.

00:48:57.840 | Now can I buy you a drink and you can give me the other side of things?"

00:49:00.560 | I think doing that is a great jumping-off point to meeting people.

00:49:03.280 | I think you'll find that the same people who are working in tourism, who are offering tours,

00:49:08.880 | are very interested that you're there and are very enthusiastic about showing you around.

00:49:14.000 | So I think that that's a great place to start.

00:49:15.520 | In terms of actual companies, I think the more local, the better.

00:49:19.920 | If you can find someone who doesn't work for a major chain or whatever else who's just doing it

00:49:25.680 | on their own, in my experience, they give the best tours.

00:49:28.480 | I don't think asking the person who took you on a tour to go to a public restaurant and have

00:49:33.360 | a conversation is a very risky proposition. But I do know that we live in this culture

00:49:37.680 | where there's constant fear of "What might happen down this alley? What's going on?"

00:49:41.360 | You've traveled to so many places. One of the reasons I originally wanted to

00:49:45.600 | connect with you was that the New York Times 52 places was my annual travel inspiration.

00:49:52.080 | At least half a dozen places I've been in my life were because that post got me inspired.

00:49:58.080 | The fact that you got to go on all but one of the 52 in a year,

00:50:02.160 | while that might have been a grueling adventure, it was certainly something that is going to go

00:50:06.480 | down as probably one of the more memorable travel experiences of your entire life, I assume.

00:50:11.440 | What are some of the experiences you had on that year

00:50:14.240 | that you think are fascinating and worth sharing for people to hear about?

00:50:19.200 | Yeah. I did a lot of really incredible things, like surface level incredible things. I saw

00:50:26.400 | a total solar eclipse from an astronomical observatory in the deserts of Chile. I saw...

00:50:33.120 | I was like me and 3 other people and the colony of hundreds of king penguins in the Falkland

00:50:39.280 | Islands. I saw all these incredible things. But I know it's going to sound cheesy and I can hear the

00:50:44.000 | eye rolls from here. But it's true that when I think back of the year, the first

00:50:48.160 | images that come to my mind are not all the beautiful things I saw and all the amazing

00:50:53.200 | things I ate. It's people's faces. It's people I met. It's 100% my biggest takeaway from that

00:50:59.440 | were the interactions I had with human beings. I think of the woman in Denmark who literally

00:51:07.360 | called in sick to work for a week just so she could show me around Alborg. I had dinner with

00:51:11.440 | her family and she showed me all her favorite places. It's the guy in Samarkand, Uzbekistan,

00:51:16.400 | who drove me out to see a game of kopkari, which is this incredible sport where you have all these

00:51:21.440 | guys on horses playing a game of keep away with a dead goat that's been stuffed with rice.

00:51:26.880 | And I was the only tourist there, literally thousands and thousands of local spectators

00:51:31.520 | and just me alone there. Incredible. Again, just from an interaction turning into an experience.

00:51:37.600 | It's the family that hosted me in Orcas Island, this family who has a farm. And on my birthday,

00:51:44.960 | I was there alone on my birthday. So they said, "We got to celebrate." And so they killed a duck

00:51:49.200 | in my honor. And we prepared and ate an entire duck and had this huge feast with this family.

00:51:53.680 | Three generations of this family who has been on this island in Washington State

00:51:57.280 | for years and run this farm there. It's like these experiences that really

00:52:00.960 | stuck with me and changed the way I think about travel in the future too.

00:52:04.080 | I am looking for those human interactions now when I'm on the road, no matter how small,

00:52:08.320 | even in places where I'm going for the nature. I just got back from the Faroe Islands,

00:52:12.640 | which is this incredible, beautiful, just naturally stunning part of the world. Just

00:52:18.160 | incredibly high dramatic cliffs, so green, just empty stretches of land where you don't see any

00:52:24.000 | sign of human habitation. And I went on these beautiful hikes and saw puffins and all these

00:52:28.480 | other seabirds. And it's just really incredible. But one of my favorite experiences was talking

00:52:32.720 | to these random group of 20-somethings who had rented out a small house there for the weekend.

00:52:38.400 | They'd come from one island to another island. And next thing you know, they were offering me

00:52:42.640 | fermented lamb and whale jerky and 2 different bottles of gin to try the different gins from

00:52:49.520 | the Faroe Islands. Just having this really great serendipitous encounter that lasted like 30

00:52:54.080 | minutes because I had to get on a ferry. And that was... That's what stuck with me.

00:52:59.440 | So I don't know. It's just... That's... For me, all my favorite experiences with travel,

00:53:04.880 | including with the 52 Places trip, have involved other people. And I use that to inform what I do

00:53:11.120 | and how I approach and how I think about the "why" of travel. It's really influenced the way I think

00:53:16.480 | about those things now going forward. Okay. I'm going to take a quick pause because we ended up

00:53:21.520 | spending 20 minutes going continent by continent around the world, sharing our favorite places to

00:53:26.560 | go. And given the positive feedback I got from splitting out a bonus episode last week, I thought

00:53:31.520 | I'd do the same this week. So if you want to hear Sebastian and I offer up some inspiration for your

00:53:36.240 | next trip, come back on Friday and check it out. Also, quick reminder that I'm doing a Q&A episode

00:53:42.240 | soon focused on travel, credit card, points, or miles. So please send any questions you have my

00:53:47.520 | way. Chris@allthehacks.com. Okay, back to wrap up the conversation. Any other parting travel advice

00:53:54.000 | before we take off? I do want to reiterate that at the end of the day, don't get too attached to

00:53:59.520 | the "where". Don't get too attached to a list that you've given yourself. I mean, it's nice to dream

00:54:04.240 | and it's nice to imagine. It's nice to research and think about these places. And sure, maybe it's

00:54:08.240 | nice to write it down too. But I think the bucket list, as we've long thought about it, is a thing

00:54:14.320 | of the past. And I think we need to start thinking in terms of experiences. I think we need to start

00:54:18.240 | thinking in terms of exchange instead of just enrichment. I think we need to start thinking

00:54:23.920 | in terms of just having the best experience. And that can happen in your own backyard. And that

00:54:28.720 | can happen in places where not everyone is going. And it can happen at the time of year

00:54:33.280 | that not everyone is going. I don't know why we all have to go to Europe in the summer and

00:54:37.840 | Mexico in the winter and whatever else. Death to the bucket list. Death to the high season.

00:54:41.360 | All that stuff, I think, is things of the past. And we need to start thinking differently

00:54:45.600 | in terms of why we travel and think less about where we travel.

00:54:49.600 | I agree. The high season is just sometimes a worse experience. You get the great weather,

00:54:54.960 | but you don't get everything else. And it's twice as expensive. Awesome. Where can people

00:55:00.400 | read what you're writing, see what you're seeing, and follow you along all your adventures?

00:55:05.520 | Yeah. So these days, I'm writing exclusively for Lonely Planet, where I'm an editor-at-large. So

00:55:09.360 | you can find my work there. If you search my name in Lonely Planet or just go to the website and

00:55:13.760 | click around a bit, we have a lot of other great content there. In terms of my personal content,

00:55:18.240 | @SebModak, S-E-B-M-O-D-A-K, on Instagram and Twitter, where I often upload my latest stories

00:55:26.000 | and share photos and everything else for my travels. And there's a few other things in the

00:55:29.520 | works, potentially a newsletter and some other things that I'm working on. So just follow me

00:55:34.800 | on those social medias and you'll hear about them and you'll hear about where I am and where I'm

00:55:38.080 | going next. That's awesome. I really appreciate it. I have a long list that is not a bucket list,

00:55:44.160 | but a long list of things to be inspired by. And I'm excited for more travel to come in the future.

00:55:49.760 | Thanks for having me on. Hopefully, there's some takeaways here. I know it's not as

00:55:52.880 | concrete as some of the people you talk to who are like, "You need to do this for a rental car

00:55:56.560 | or this for a credit card or whatever else." It's different to be talking in these esoteric

00:56:00.320 | terms. But I do think it's important and I appreciate you having me on and chatting about it.

00:56:05.200 | Thank you so much for being here.

00:56:06.320 | Cheers.

00:56:07.440 | I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

00:56:12.480 | As I mentioned earlier, you can catch Sebastian and I go around the world sharing our favorite

00:56:17.120 | countries to travel to in a short bonus episode on Friday. And if you haven't left a rating or

00:56:21.920 | review on the show and Apple Podcasts, I'd really appreciate it. I'm still on a quest

00:56:26.000 | to get to 1000 reviews and every single one means so much to me. Thank you so much to everyone who's

00:56:31.440 | already written one. If you have any feedback on the show, questions for me, or just want to say

00:56:35.920 | hi, I'm Chris@allthehacks.com or you can DM me on social. See you Friday.

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