Travel like a Journalist and Make Every Trip Incredible | Sebastian Modak

00:00:00.000 | especially when you're traveling alone, I do it too.

00:00:03.340 | It's the best social crutch there is, right?

00:00:06.020 | If you're sitting alone and you feel nervous about it

00:00:08.880 | or you're bored or whatever else,

00:00:10.240 | you immediately pull out your phone,

00:00:11.380 | but that signals to everyone else that you're busy

00:00:13.340 | or you're closed off.

00:00:15.280 | The amount of conversations that I've started

00:00:16.980 | from just sitting somewhere and just looking around,

00:00:20.260 | like people used to do when they had downtime,

00:00:23.780 | just kind of staring into space

00:00:25.260 | and making eye contact with someone, saying hello.

00:00:28.580 | Next thing you know, they say hello.

00:00:30.220 | How are you?

00:00:31.060 | Next thing you know, you're getting invited

00:00:32.580 | to grandma's house for dinner.

00:00:34.020 | That has happened so many times.

00:00:37.380 | I think people are naturally curious,

00:00:40.380 | especially for solo travelers.

00:00:42.460 | They're curious why you're visiting their home,

00:00:46.260 | what you're up to while you're there,

00:00:47.860 | if you actually have the best recommendations

00:00:49.740 | or if you're going on some,

00:00:51.180 | that's something that they'd consider the tourist path

00:00:54.540 | or whatever that you actually,

00:00:55.460 | they wanna steer you somewhere else.

00:00:56.580 | People are very passionate about where they're from.

00:00:58.660 | So tapping into that.

00:01:00.180 | - Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks,

00:01:03.060 | a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel.

00:01:05.780 | I'm Chris Hutchins, and I'm your host,

00:01:07.220 | and I'm excited you're here today.

00:01:08.940 | And if you're listening to this podcast right now,

00:01:10.580 | you probably love to travel,

00:01:12.180 | and you don't need me to tell you

00:01:13.260 | how great an experience it is.

00:01:15.060 | I'm gonna keep doing it anyways,

00:01:16.300 | and so is to our guest today, Sebastian Modak.

00:01:19.320 | He's a writer and a multimedia journalist based in New York,

00:01:22.380 | but he grew up all over the world

00:01:23.980 | and has since traveled to even more destinations.

00:01:26.660 | In fact, if you know that amazing

00:01:28.620 | New York Times 52 places list that comes out each year,

00:01:31.980 | well, in 2019, Sebastian sent his entire year

00:01:34.900 | going to all 52 places.

00:01:36.820 | Well, except one, but we'll get to that later.

00:01:39.460 | He's now the editor-in-large at Lonely Planet

00:01:41.540 | and still writes about travel for publications

00:01:43.660 | like the New York Times, Condé Nast Traveler, and more.

00:01:46.580 | We're gonna talk about what he's learned

00:01:47.820 | from living in four different continents,

00:01:50.140 | traveling to 80 plus countries,

00:01:52.300 | what he thinks it means to travel like a journalist,

00:01:54.660 | and how he uses those skills to plan a memorable trip,

00:01:58.020 | some of the unusual experiences he's had on his journeys,

00:02:00.760 | why he thinks travel is important for everyone,

00:02:03.700 | and finally, we're both gonna share

00:02:04.900 | some of our favorite places to give you some inspiration

00:02:07.340 | for your next adventure.

00:02:08.800 | (upbeat music)

00:02:11.380 | Sebastian, welcome to the show.

00:02:16.420 | - Thanks for having me, happy to be here.

00:02:18.640 | - You've probably spent more time traveling

00:02:20.220 | than almost anyone listening,

00:02:22.200 | so I'm curious just to kick us off

00:02:23.720 | what you think most people are probably getting wrong.

00:02:27.020 | What could people be doing totally differently

00:02:29.140 | in the way they travel?

00:02:30.420 | - I think it starts before you even get on a plane

00:02:32.960 | or before you travel,

00:02:33.940 | and I think what's missing a lot of the times,

00:02:36.060 | myself included in the past,

00:02:37.700 | and that's something I've been trying

00:02:38.540 | to be more conscious of going forward,

00:02:40.760 | is the why of travel.

00:02:42.680 | I think we've nailed the what, we've even nailed the how.

00:02:45.640 | You wanna go somewhere

00:02:47.780 | because your friend has told you about it

00:02:49.420 | and it's great, whatever,

00:02:50.580 | but are you really thinking deeply

00:02:51.780 | about how you're gonna engage with the place

00:02:53.560 | when you're on the ground?

00:02:55.580 | Is this really just a bragging rights trip?

00:02:58.140 | Is this because you saw an oversaturated photo on Instagram

00:03:01.700 | and you wanna get the same photo?

00:03:03.340 | Maybe that is the way that you start getting interest

00:03:07.940 | in a place and you start getting the idea of traveling,

00:03:10.160 | but if that's the be all and end all,

00:03:11.540 | you're kind of missing the point,

00:03:12.780 | and especially now, I think,

00:03:14.660 | when you have to measure your travel decisions

00:03:17.140 | against things like your carbon footprint

00:03:19.820 | and the public health issues

00:03:23.200 | that now surround travel with COVID and everything else,

00:03:25.260 | you have all these other things to balance and measure out.

00:03:28.700 | Now, more than ever, I think you need to be like,

00:03:30.420 | okay, why am I really going on this trip

00:03:33.100 | and how am I gonna act once I hit the ground?

00:03:36.240 | And I think that's really where people need to start more

00:03:40.180 | versus like, where am I gonna go?

00:03:42.460 | It's why am I gonna go and then taking it from there.

00:03:45.820 | I think that's when you really start building

00:03:47.220 | a rewarding trip that's gonna give you

00:03:49.300 | these rewarding experiences that are gonna last a lifetime.

00:03:52.740 | - What are some examples of good whys

00:03:54.780 | you've heard from people about why they're traveling

00:03:56.900 | or why they're going to a specific place?

00:03:59.460 | - From solo travelers, for example,

00:04:02.020 | the why might be they wanna make some new friends

00:04:05.820 | and they wanna go to a place where they can really interact

00:04:10.140 | with people and meet locals and learn.

00:04:12.440 | I think that's a great example of getting the right why.

00:04:16.540 | And I've known many people who have asked me that question,

00:04:20.260 | starting with like, where should I go

00:04:21.820 | if I want to really immerse myself in a place

00:04:25.380 | and immerse myself in maybe it's a language,

00:04:27.460 | maybe it's a cuisine, maybe it's a music scene

00:04:30.220 | or whatever else.

00:04:31.260 | And that being a why I think is gonna just immediately lead

00:04:34.480 | to like the serendipitous life-changing encounters

00:04:37.900 | that we all really hope to have traveling.

00:04:40.940 | I can give you an example of a trip

00:04:42.620 | that I'm in the middle of planning right now.

00:04:44.580 | I got married recently and we're having our honeymoon.

00:04:48.420 | And in thinking about our honeymoon, we started with a why.

00:04:50.860 | We didn't start with a where.

00:04:51.700 | We didn't start with, oh, we need to go to the Amalfi Coast

00:04:54.180 | or Hawaii or whatever else.

00:04:56.380 | And there's nothing wrong with those.

00:04:57.380 | Those are popular honeymoon destinations for a reason.

00:05:01.000 | But we were like, okay, we wanna go somewhere

00:05:03.660 | where we can do something active, something outdoors,

00:05:07.060 | not push ourselves too hard, not have to like over-plan it

00:05:09.660 | because we still do want it to be a honeymoon

00:05:11.200 | where we can relax and enjoy each other's company,

00:05:13.380 | but also maybe experience something new.

00:05:15.740 | And that brought us to Slovenia

00:05:18.060 | and this incredible network of bike routes

00:05:21.220 | that Slovenia has put out over the last couple of years.

00:05:24.580 | And so I sort of poured over those.

00:05:26.980 | And then I found one that's like this gourmet focused route

00:05:31.180 | where you're like stopping in restaurants

00:05:32.620 | and you're riding through wine country

00:05:33.980 | and you're really learning about the local cuisine

00:05:36.460 | and you're staying at certified sustainable hotels

00:05:40.180 | and guest houses and you're doing it all on a bike.

00:05:42.020 | So you're sustainable in that way.

00:05:43.300 | It was just all of a sudden, it's just opened up this trip

00:05:46.300 | that I had no idea even existed.

00:05:47.980 | And even as a travel journalist,

00:05:49.100 | I didn't know it was possible.

00:05:50.540 | And it all started with us just being like,

00:05:51.860 | where can we go that's like a little unexpected,

00:05:54.660 | but is also gonna give us, challenge us a bit,

00:05:56.760 | but isn't gonna be like grueling 70 miles days on a bike,

00:06:00.100 | but it's gonna be like 20 to 30 mile days instead.

00:06:02.340 | And we'll end with a glass of wine and a good meal

00:06:04.700 | and a nice bed and breakfast.

00:06:06.680 | And we landed on Slovenia.

00:06:07.660 | So it's like, that's I think just one example

00:06:10.180 | of starting with the like, what am I looking for?

00:06:12.640 | And then going to the place instead of being like,

00:06:15.020 | man, everyone's been to Italy, but me,

00:06:17.540 | I need to go to Italy immediately, you know?

00:06:19.980 | - Yeah, I've heard amazing things about Slovenia

00:06:21.860 | and haven't been.

00:06:22.700 | So I wanna get the recap when you're back, but-

00:06:24.940 | - For sure.

00:06:25.840 | - There's not like an obvious filter, right?

00:06:27.240 | If you wanna search for a hotel, you're like,

00:06:28.460 | well, I want it to be four stars.

00:06:30.020 | I want it to have a pool.

00:06:31.340 | I want it to be within this distance of the city center.

00:06:34.500 | But when you took those criteria and you were like,

00:06:36.340 | you know, I would love to have a glass of wine

00:06:38.100 | at the end of the day, do something active.

00:06:39.700 | How did you end up to Slovenia?

00:06:41.100 | Like maybe it's the wealth of knowledge you've built,

00:06:43.580 | but how would the average person take this idea of a why

00:06:47.060 | and an experience they want and actually arrive at a place?

00:06:50.460 | - So there's something, not to do the whole corporate plug,

00:06:53.940 | but there's something we talk about at Lonely Planet a lot

00:06:56.260 | in terms of like giving guidance to people,

00:06:58.760 | which is the bread and butter of what something

00:07:00.780 | like Lonely Planet does is travel guidance,

00:07:03.080 | is that you want to be their most knowledgeable friend,

00:07:08.080 | right?

00:07:09.460 | You don't want to be necessarily just like,

00:07:10.800 | we're an authority, we're going to tell you what to do.

00:07:12.340 | You want to be that friend who's like,

00:07:13.900 | oh, what are you into?

00:07:14.740 | Oh, you got to try this and this and this,

00:07:15.760 | because like, this is, I totally know that you're into this.

00:07:18.380 | And so you're going to really enjoy this.

00:07:19.980 | And so for me, I'm lucky to have this very extended network

00:07:22.980 | of travel writers and travel creators and all this stuff.

00:07:25.340 | So for me, like those were my friends.

00:07:27.500 | And I started just kind of asking around.

00:07:29.340 | I would see the articles that were coming

00:07:30.660 | through the pipeline at Lonely Planet.

00:07:32.020 | I would see like some people writing

00:07:33.340 | about cycling in Slovenia.

00:07:34.940 | That would make me go down some rabbit hole

00:07:36.780 | of all these different green routes.

00:07:38.240 | And so it was really just like the kind of research

00:07:41.580 | that I think most travelers enjoy,

00:07:44.460 | is that kind of research where you get like a little tip

00:07:46.900 | and you follow that down a rabbit hole.

00:07:48.340 | And you're like, oh, okay, so maybe not, you know,

00:07:50.220 | like it brought me down a rabbit hole looking

00:07:52.420 | at like Provence and Bordeaux and all this stuff.

00:07:56.340 | And I was like, oh, that's like,

00:07:57.180 | maybe just like a little too crowded for what we want.

00:07:59.020 | We want to have more space.

00:08:00.140 | We want to feel like we're more embedded in local life.

00:08:04.260 | So we started looking at cases like,

00:08:05.540 | okay, if not France, if not Italy, just look at a map.

00:08:08.240 | Like, okay, Slovenia is right there.

00:08:09.480 | What's going on in Slovenia?

00:08:10.380 | So it's really just this like endless game,

00:08:12.760 | this kind of scavenger hunt where you're taking

00:08:15.120 | on little tips, you're doing your own research

00:08:17.500 | and you're landing on something that feels right.

00:08:19.840 | But at least you've started somewhere beyond

00:08:23.720 | just like a bucket list, you know?

00:08:25.560 | - Yeah, we're going to come back to bucket lists

00:08:26.880 | 'cause we had a fun conversation about that before.

00:08:29.520 | But I'm curious, is there like a Lonely Planet

00:08:32.880 | or another source of like the world guidebook

00:08:36.360 | where it's like, you know, a page or so

00:08:37.760 | and about each country where you can kind of just start

00:08:40.300 | to like wet your palate on different places?

00:08:42.860 | Or I know Lonely Planet, I don't know if you still do,

00:08:45.000 | but they used to have this thorn tree forum online

00:08:47.620 | where you could go ask questions.

00:08:49.360 | Anything in that realm of kind of broader inspiration?

00:08:52.880 | Obviously, you know, if you knew Slovenia,

00:08:54.520 | you could go get a guidebook about Slovenia

00:08:56.320 | and get the inspiration.

00:08:57.160 | But if you didn't know Slovenia, you know,

00:08:59.320 | do you start with a continent or any ideas there?

00:09:02.320 | - Yeah, I mean, there is actually

00:09:03.960 | a Lonely Planet world book.

00:09:05.320 | I actually don't know the last time we put it out,

00:09:07.660 | but I've seen it before.

00:09:08.500 | It's this huge thick doorstopper of a volume

00:09:11.160 | that's just like an overview of the world.

00:09:13.740 | I wouldn't necessarily recommend that.

00:09:16.000 | It's a big read to start going through.

00:09:18.400 | I mean, for better or for worse,

00:09:20.160 | I do think social media is a huge part of it.

00:09:23.620 | And it takes a little bit of your own work, I think,

00:09:26.000 | to filter through all the BS, so to speak,

00:09:28.720 | and the surface level stuff and the oversaturated photos

00:09:31.440 | and the influencer shots on the beach

00:09:34.080 | that aren't really telling you anything about the place.

00:09:36.480 | But once you get past that,

00:09:38.000 | you can find some really incredible information

00:09:40.280 | on social media, just regular people out and about

00:09:43.140 | who put a Slovenia hashtag on something, or maybe not.

00:09:45.460 | Maybe they put a bike touring hashtag.

00:09:47.460 | And you're looking at the bike touring hashtag

00:09:49.080 | 'cause you're interested in doing something with bikes.

00:09:51.160 | And you're like, where is this?

00:09:52.400 | Like, where is this person like drinking a glass of wine,

00:09:55.000 | looking at this beautiful valley

00:09:56.680 | with a bike in the background?

00:09:57.820 | Oh, it's Slovenia, huh, really?

00:09:59.380 | So I think like searching kind of subject areas

00:10:02.560 | in social media is sort of the digital equivalent

00:10:07.360 | of hanging out at a bar with the entire world

00:10:10.140 | and asking for recommendations, you know?

00:10:13.080 | And it means you got to comb through some garbage

00:10:15.460 | to get to the good stuff, but it's in there.

00:10:17.000 | And it's the most, like the really genuine,

00:10:19.820 | from the heart, personal stuff

00:10:21.160 | that when you get to those recommendations,

00:10:22.620 | I think they mean a lot.

00:10:23.560 | I do it even as a journalist.

00:10:25.080 | If I'm like interested in seeing

00:10:26.920 | where people are bike touring

00:10:28.720 | or where people are backpacking or hiking,

00:10:32.000 | like I'll search those hashtags.

00:10:33.360 | I'll follow those accounts on, you know,

00:10:35.760 | TikTok and Instagram or whatever,

00:10:37.160 | and just see where people are hanging out

00:10:39.340 | and what people are talking about.

00:10:41.040 | 'Cause for better or for worse, it is a pulse,

00:10:44.420 | and you're looking for a pulse,

00:10:45.640 | and you're looking for a trend, and it's there.

00:10:50.080 | So I think that's one way.

00:10:51.740 | I think, you know, what I like to do is,

00:10:54.560 | yeah, starting with a continent, maybe.

00:10:55.880 | Maybe you're like, okay, Europe,

00:10:57.000 | I want to do a trip in Europe,

00:10:58.920 | but maybe I'm thinking beyond Spain, Italy, France.

00:11:03.260 | Just like look at a map and pick a country

00:11:06.600 | and be like, oh, Albania, like what's going on in Albania?

00:11:09.320 | And then you can start looking there,

00:11:10.360 | and maybe something's gonna interest you.

00:11:11.680 | Maybe it won't.

00:11:12.560 | Maybe you'll be like, okay,

00:11:13.380 | this looks a little too rough for me.

00:11:14.640 | I need something with more infrastructure.

00:11:16.640 | And then you look west and you're like,

00:11:18.000 | okay, maybe one of these, you know,

00:11:20.000 | maybe Croatia, maybe Slovenia, maybe Czech Republic.

00:11:22.920 | And just like looking at a physical map

00:11:25.520 | and like dreaming about it a little bit.

00:11:28.080 | 'Cause I know we'll probably get to this later,

00:11:31.000 | but I am of the firm belief that everywhere,

00:11:34.640 | literally everywhere, has something to offer

00:11:37.400 | if you open yourself up to it.

00:11:39.600 | It has something that's gonna blow your mind.

00:11:41.720 | If you spend a little time,

00:11:42.880 | if you approach it with an open mind,

00:11:44.640 | you'll find something that's gonna blow your mind,

00:11:46.480 | even in your own backyard.

00:11:47.680 | I live two blocks from Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

00:11:50.520 | If I go into Prospect Park today

00:11:53.280 | with the mindset that like I'm looking to be educated,

00:11:57.080 | I'm looking to learn,

00:11:57.920 | I'm looking to have my mind expanded,

00:12:00.160 | I'm gonna have some interaction,

00:12:01.520 | whether it's, you know,

00:12:02.920 | staring at a cardinal for 20 minutes

00:12:05.560 | or watching a couple hanging out on the lawn

00:12:09.160 | or, you know, playing with a random dog

00:12:11.400 | that's gonna like make me feel good

00:12:12.800 | and make me feel fulfilled.

00:12:15.080 | And I really firmly believe

00:12:16.480 | that it really starts with mindset,

00:12:19.000 | which loops all back to that idea of like,

00:12:21.120 | why are you traveling?

00:12:22.720 | And if you go in with the right mindset,

00:12:24.360 | it doesn't matter.

00:12:25.200 | Honestly, it doesn't really matter where you're going.

00:12:26.840 | You're gonna have your mind blown in some way.

00:12:29.080 | - So I wanna dig into that process.

00:12:30.440 | But before I wanna mention,

00:12:32.320 | well, I don't know if the average listener

00:12:34.160 | is thinking of Reddit as social media.

00:12:36.000 | I wanna plug it because I use it a lot for travel.

00:12:39.160 | And I just did one quick search and I said,

00:12:40.880 | you know, European wine tour site colon reddit.com.

00:12:44.160 | And it's like crowdsourcing my wine tasting trip to Europe.

00:12:46.760 | Who's got suggestions?

00:12:48.400 | There aren't a lot of comments, unfortunately.

00:12:50.840 | But the person who wrote it

00:12:52.760 | came up with all these suggestions

00:12:54.200 | that include Slovenia and Croatia and Alto Adige,

00:12:58.680 | which I don't even know where that is.

00:12:59.760 | - Alto Adige, yeah.

00:13:00.600 | It's like Northern Italy, I think, yeah.

00:13:02.760 | - So this at least had a bunch of suggestions,

00:13:05.640 | even though there weren't a lot of comments.

00:13:06.800 | So I use that a lot.

00:13:09.160 | - I do too.

00:13:10.000 | And actually it's a great example.

00:13:11.120 | I, during the pandemic,

00:13:13.760 | I feel like you're gonna end this podcast

00:13:15.960 | being like this guy's obsessed with bikes.

00:13:17.360 | Like shut up about bikes.

00:13:18.360 | But I like went down serious rabbit hole

00:13:21.160 | with cycling and bike, especially bike travel.

00:13:24.080 | Like I'm not really interested in the, you know,

00:13:26.720 | head to toe Lycra racing stuff.

00:13:29.200 | Like I'm, I love traveling by bike

00:13:31.360 | 'cause I think it like slows you down.

00:13:32.920 | You really get to notice a lot.

00:13:34.560 | It's just a great way to like feel,

00:13:37.440 | get the feel of the place.

00:13:38.280 | But I really went down a rabbit hole during the pandemic

00:13:41.320 | because I was stuck at home like everyone else.

00:13:43.960 | I don't, I live in New York City.

00:13:45.160 | I don't own a car.

00:13:46.360 | So I was like looking at ways to tap into this idea

00:13:49.000 | of adventure and travel while still being close to home

00:13:53.520 | and doing it with the tools that I had,

00:13:55.080 | which was a bicycle.

00:13:56.280 | And Reddit was like a goldmine for that kind of stuff.

00:13:59.000 | I just, as an example,

00:14:00.920 | I remember finding someone talking about the route vert,

00:14:05.920 | butchering that French, but it means the green route.

00:14:08.320 | And it's like a network of trails

00:14:10.400 | and routes in Quebec and Canada.

00:14:12.440 | Never would have thought of it.

00:14:14.880 | Like my knowledge and desire and understanding of Quebec

00:14:19.040 | starts and ends with Montreal, like it has for a long time.

00:14:22.200 | And then suddenly reading about this network

00:14:23.640 | of hundreds and hundreds of miles of trails

00:14:26.400 | that exist in Quebec,

00:14:27.560 | started talking to my partner and we're like,

00:14:31.280 | you know, I hear the border's about to reopen with Canada.

00:14:34.320 | What if we just went and did this trip

00:14:35.960 | that I like saw on Reddit?

00:14:37.400 | And we're like, okay, well, we don't have a car,

00:14:39.600 | but what if we took the train with our bikes

00:14:42.040 | as far North as it goes

00:14:43.640 | and then got on our bikes from there

00:14:44.960 | and rode across the border into Canada

00:14:46.560 | and did the trip that way,

00:14:48.080 | which is exactly what we ended up doing.

00:14:49.360 | We took the train to St. Albans, Vermont,

00:14:52.120 | literally spent the night in Vermont,

00:14:53.960 | left that morning, rode to Canada,

00:14:55.560 | and then spent a week riding around Quebec

00:14:57.600 | and then rode back to Vermont and took the train home,

00:14:59.720 | all without ever getting in the car.

00:15:00.960 | I wrote about it on Lonely Planet's website actually,

00:15:03.800 | but it's a great example of something

00:15:05.040 | that just like started with like a tiny little spark

00:15:07.240 | of being like, huh, the green route Quebec,

00:15:09.360 | like sounds kind of magical.

00:15:10.640 | Like, I wonder if we could do it.

00:15:13.000 | Next thing I know, a few weeks later,

00:15:14.800 | we're on a train with our bikes on our way up to Canada.

00:15:17.720 | So that just goes to show, I think,

00:15:20.960 | like how the germ of something,

00:15:23.400 | if you have the right curiosity and the right mindset,

00:15:25.400 | could turn into like a really great adventure.

00:15:28.560 | - I think there's two things to take away there

00:15:30.200 | that you didn't mention.

00:15:31.040 | One, I imagine that was a pretty inexpensive trip

00:15:35.640 | for something you describe.

00:15:37.000 | You describe it in a way that people talk about

00:15:38.960 | these once-in-a-lifetime adventures

00:15:40.600 | that they plan for years and years

00:15:42.240 | and they spend thousands of dollars.

00:15:44.160 | That doesn't sound like something

00:15:45.320 | that took a lot of advanced notice

00:15:47.080 | or a lot of money to make happen.

00:15:49.200 | - We didn't know where we were staying every night.

00:15:50.680 | Like it was one of those kinds of trips.

00:15:52.000 | And it was amazing 'cause you could do that

00:15:54.520 | in a place like Quebec.

00:15:55.400 | We'd be like, oh, we're starting to get a little tired.

00:15:58.680 | We've been riding for 60 miles.

00:15:59.880 | It looks like a storm's coming in.

00:16:01.640 | Pull out my phone and be like,

00:16:02.600 | what's the nearest bed and breakfast?

00:16:03.960 | Give 'em a call.

00:16:04.800 | They're like, yeah, of course, come on through.

00:16:06.080 | Next thing you know, we're staying there.

00:16:07.120 | So, and I think that's a great point that you make

00:16:10.760 | that like, one, that these kind of big,

00:16:15.360 | this is actually the point that I make in my story too,

00:16:17.240 | where like you think of like the capital B, capital T,

00:16:21.080 | big trip as something that you spend years

00:16:24.000 | thinking about, planning every moment.

00:16:25.720 | You know, you're gonna go on a safari.

00:16:27.720 | You're gonna go climb to Everest Base Camp.

00:16:31.200 | You're gonna do these huge things, which is great.

00:16:33.360 | And those have a place

00:16:34.560 | and those kind of big goals are important.

00:16:38.280 | But what this taught me at least was that

00:16:40.760 | a big trip can come from like a small idea.

00:16:43.160 | A big trip can be something that is largely improvised.

00:16:46.880 | It can be serendipitous, can be spontaneous.

00:16:49.960 | Again, I really do think it comes down to mindset.

00:16:53.160 | I think we could have gone into that

00:16:54.680 | panicking about not having a place to stay,

00:16:56.920 | tired, you know, we got rained on,

00:16:58.480 | we had flat tires, all this stuff.

00:17:00.880 | But because we had the attitude where we're like,

00:17:02.440 | this is an adventure, like what?

00:17:03.640 | This is like, we've been cooped up at home

00:17:05.320 | for a year and a half 'cause of the pandemic.

00:17:06.920 | And now we're out here doing this amazing thing.

00:17:08.640 | Like how lucky are we?

00:17:10.480 | And because we came in with that attitude,

00:17:12.040 | it just turned into like a really fulfilling,

00:17:14.800 | if exhausting adventure.

00:17:16.240 | - You know, it was kind of in your backyard per se, right?

00:17:19.000 | It wasn't directly there, but you took a train,

00:17:21.080 | you didn't have to cross an ocean,

00:17:22.360 | you didn't have to spend thousands on plane tickets.

00:17:24.320 | So, you know, I think a lot of times

00:17:26.840 | everyone plans vacations like, gosh, where can I go?

00:17:29.560 | That's, you know, halfway around the world.

00:17:31.120 | And it's cool to hear that, you know,

00:17:32.680 | if you just think about it, you might find something,

00:17:34.520 | you know, not too far away.

00:17:36.000 | - Absolutely.

00:17:37.040 | - When we first spoke a few months ago,

00:17:38.760 | you kind of said, oh, I think people should think about

00:17:41.560 | how you to approach a trip like a journalist might,

00:17:44.080 | about the people you'll meet,

00:17:45.160 | how to approach it with an open mind.

00:17:46.960 | So we talked about mindset.

00:17:48.280 | We talked about the feeling you want to get,

00:17:50.480 | a little bit about where you want to go,

00:17:52.400 | but I kind of want to just break down.

00:17:54.280 | Let's say someone listening has gone through these steps

00:17:57.080 | and is planning a trip.

00:17:58.240 | I'd love to just go back and forth

00:17:59.920 | and talk about some of the things you do.

00:18:01.920 | So let's say we've now picked a place.

00:18:04.760 | Let's say we have decided the why

00:18:06.720 | and we know why we're going.

00:18:08.440 | What kind of research do you think

00:18:10.120 | people should be doing in advance

00:18:11.480 | versus leaving up to that serendipity

00:18:13.640 | you described earlier?

00:18:14.840 | - What I like to do is,

00:18:15.880 | so I'm just going to give you an example

00:18:17.280 | of from the 52 places trip I did,

00:18:21.000 | because I mean, I think it's very out of the ordinary,

00:18:24.480 | of course, but I think there's a lot

00:18:26.400 | that can be learned for it.

00:18:27.320 | One of the things was that I,

00:18:29.120 | because I was going to 52 places in 52 weeks,

00:18:31.520 | I didn't have time to prepare, right?

00:18:33.480 | I luckily had someone at the times who was helping me

00:18:37.160 | and she would send me like a really great,

00:18:38.840 | like one pager of like,

00:18:41.560 | here's what you need to know about currency

00:18:43.000 | and here's what you need to know

00:18:43.840 | about public transportation.

00:18:45.440 | And here's like the top 10 things to do

00:18:47.800 | when you Google the place, right?

00:18:49.040 | Like these are the big tourist hits or whatever.

00:18:52.040 | I would try to like knock out those 10 things

00:18:54.520 | in like an afternoon and be like,

00:18:56.600 | okay, so I've done the brass tacks.

00:18:58.400 | I've seen that now, like,

00:18:59.440 | let me actually have an experience, you know?

00:19:02.240 | And I think that goes back to this idea

00:19:04.080 | of like travel being more serendipitous,

00:19:08.600 | more spontaneous, more connective than it is extractive.

00:19:12.640 | I think a lot of the times we think of travel as extractive

00:19:14.800 | where it's like, I need to go in there,

00:19:16.000 | get things that make me fulfilled and leave

00:19:17.840 | and that's, and wash my hands of it

00:19:19.640 | and plan the next trip.

00:19:21.560 | And I think leaving things open has been,

00:19:24.560 | has always led to the best experiences.

00:19:26.680 | In terms of preparation, like, yeah, have a place to stay.

00:19:30.120 | If it's city-based, find a place to stay.

00:19:32.880 | I think beforehand, if you can go as local as possible.

00:19:36.720 | And I don't mean Airbnb.

00:19:37.800 | I mean, Airbnb is fine if that's what you wanna do.

00:19:40.520 | But I think there's nothing better than staying

00:19:43.600 | at like a family run bed and breakfast.

00:19:46.200 | I think it's the best, you know,

00:19:47.600 | bathrooms down the hall, you know,

00:19:50.160 | dad's making you breakfast in the morning.

00:19:52.800 | Mom's giving you tips of where to go shopping.

00:19:54.720 | You know, like that vibe, I think opens up so much

00:19:59.400 | just in terms of local recommendations,

00:20:01.560 | in terms of the feeling of being a local,

00:20:03.960 | in terms of supporting local economies,

00:20:05.920 | you're staying at like a family run hotel

00:20:08.200 | versus the Hilton or whatever.

00:20:09.680 | Like, I think goes a long way

00:20:11.160 | in terms of where you're putting your money.

00:20:13.480 | So I think that's a great place to start.

00:20:17.760 | I've had incredible experiences literally just from,

00:20:20.040 | you know, an innkeeper in Bulgaria

00:20:22.120 | who over the course of five days of me staying there

00:20:24.960 | kind of gains my trust.

00:20:26.000 | And all of a sudden he's showing me old family photos

00:20:28.800 | and he's showing me into the basement

00:20:29.920 | where there's like a fresco on the wall

00:20:31.960 | from like the Ottoman times.

00:20:33.840 | And he like keeps it under, like behind glass

00:20:36.240 | 'cause it's like his greatest possession now.

00:20:38.080 | And it's in this house that he's owned

00:20:39.960 | and his family has owned.

00:20:41.160 | So just like these experiences that you unlock

00:20:42.920 | by like going local, by going small.

00:20:45.080 | I feel like you didn't ask me where you should stay,

00:20:50.320 | but I do think that is kind of where most people start.

00:20:52.320 | And I think thinking even the why

00:20:55.520 | in that decision goes a long way.

00:20:57.960 | You could just look at TripAdvisor

00:20:59.760 | and go with the one with the most reviews with five stars,

00:21:02.600 | but then you're just kind of doing what everyone else did.

00:21:05.480 | - Right.

00:21:06.480 | And is there a time and a place sometimes

00:21:08.160 | for staying in like the city center,

00:21:11.320 | being really close to things?

00:21:12.360 | I don't know if the, you know,

00:21:13.800 | kind of bed and breakfast are always

00:21:16.000 | kind of located in that area, but-

00:21:17.800 | - You know, maybe you do both.

00:21:18.720 | Maybe you do the rural bed and breakfast

00:21:21.520 | for a couple of days,

00:21:22.360 | and then you stay in the middle of the city

00:21:24.040 | where you're not really gonna be spending time

00:21:25.360 | at the hotel anyway.

00:21:27.280 | But I think to go back to kind of what my first steps are

00:21:30.720 | in feeling that I'm connected to a place,

00:21:33.320 | what I learned to do pretty quickly on my reporting trips

00:21:36.840 | is that, and I think it's reporting specific,

00:21:39.960 | but I think it's general tips for travel too,

00:21:44.680 | is when I get to a place, especially if it's a city,

00:21:47.240 | first thing I do is I leave the camera in the hotel room.

00:21:53.040 | I put the phone away in my pocket and I just walk.

00:21:56.000 | I'll give myself like an hour and a half, maybe two hours,

00:21:59.640 | no destination in mind.

00:22:01.280 | I just want to get the pulse of the place.

00:22:02.880 | I just want to feel it.

00:22:04.000 | And maybe I'll get distracted and like sit down for a beer

00:22:06.280 | and watch the city go by that way,

00:22:08.080 | or a coffee or sit in a park for a little bit,

00:22:10.760 | but I just want to be there.

00:22:12.240 | And that means not looking at my phone.

00:22:13.440 | The great thing about Google Maps

00:22:15.440 | is that you can get completely lost

00:22:17.400 | and then use it to find your way back, right?

00:22:19.160 | So I just like, if I think a street looks interesting,

00:22:21.560 | I'll walk down that.

00:22:22.680 | If I see a scene happening at the local park,

00:22:26.560 | I'll sit down and watch that for 20 minutes.

00:22:28.400 | If I strike up a conversation with someone,

00:22:30.520 | I'll let that go and see where it takes me.

00:22:33.680 | But it's just such a small thing,

00:22:37.000 | but it goes such a long way.

00:22:38.920 | If you're just thinking like,

00:22:39.960 | of course you're going to want to document things.

00:22:41.560 | You're going to want to post things to Instagram.

00:22:43.560 | You're going to want to share it with friends,

00:22:44.840 | all this stuff, but just like wait a couple of hours.

00:22:47.880 | Do it starting that evening.

00:22:49.800 | Give yourself at least a few hours

00:22:52.240 | to feel like you're there and you're in the place.

00:22:54.240 | And maybe you'll see places where you're like,

00:22:55.600 | oh, I need to come back and photograph that.

00:22:57.680 | I need to come back during sunset

00:22:58.840 | 'cause I bet the photographs here are great then

00:23:01.240 | or whatever else that you need to do.

00:23:03.080 | And I'm thinking of that professionally, of course,

00:23:04.800 | as a photographer and a writer,

00:23:06.440 | but I think everyone's into documenting their trips.

00:23:09.360 | So everyone's thinking of that.

00:23:10.360 | But if you give yourself time to just be,

00:23:14.040 | it's really amazing how much better you get the place.

00:23:18.960 | You understand it and you feel it in a way that you don't,

00:23:22.000 | again, if you're just like extracting content from it

00:23:24.640 | from the moment you hit the ground.

00:23:26.720 | - You didn't mention this,

00:23:27.560 | but one thing I like to do is where possible

00:23:31.040 | and where not ridiculously inconvenient,

00:23:33.780 | get to wherever you're going using public transportation

00:23:36.760 | when you first arrive.

00:23:37.880 | Taking the train, taking a bus.

00:23:40.160 | You see people in their normal environment

00:23:43.240 | versus if you were to take a taxi

00:23:45.840 | or call an Uber in another country,

00:23:47.840 | you're just kind of sitting in the back, just moving.

00:23:51.160 | So I feel like your trip starts sooner when you do that.

00:23:54.280 | - And I think it's, yeah,

00:23:55.280 | public transportation is a great tip.

00:23:56.720 | I think you really get to know a place.

00:23:59.160 | There's cities that I know geographically

00:24:01.880 | through their subway maps versus their actual maps.

00:24:04.880 | I know that this stop is here and this stop is here

00:24:07.120 | and that's my understanding of geography.

00:24:10.080 | And I think it's something that as people get older

00:24:14.160 | and as people have more money and all these things,

00:24:17.720 | you stop doing that.

00:24:18.640 | Like when you're a backpacker

00:24:19.840 | and you're living off the $20 in your pocket,

00:24:22.640 | you're taking public transportation or walking

00:24:24.520 | because you're not about to drop half your budget

00:24:26.800 | on a taxi, right?

00:24:28.200 | Now I think, at least for me who's older and whatever,

00:24:31.080 | it's much easier for me to be like,

00:24:32.280 | I'll just take an Uber.

00:24:33.520 | But if you force yourself to,

00:24:35.400 | there's a lot we can learn from our early days of travel,

00:24:37.500 | backpacking and whatever else when you're pinching pennies,

00:24:40.600 | including the fact that like,

00:24:42.120 | yeah, public transportation is gonna save you money,

00:24:44.000 | but it also like, you just get to understand,

00:24:46.040 | you're seeing the places in between.

00:24:47.480 | You're seeing the kind of people that come on

00:24:49.520 | on certain stops and go off and get off at certain stops.

00:24:51.960 | You're like, you get a really better understanding

00:24:53.840 | of the place just by getting on a train or a bus

00:24:57.440 | or like in South Africa, the combis,

00:25:00.960 | the little mini vans that go around.

00:25:02.980 | You just get such a better understanding

00:25:05.520 | and people will help you too.

00:25:06.640 | And that's another thing that I think it's intimidating.

00:25:08.580 | Of course it is, but if you're lost, people will help you.

00:25:11.180 | I remember trying to find my way around the metro system

00:25:17.160 | in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which is incredible.

00:25:20.420 | I mean, in the case of like former Soviet countries,

00:25:23.480 | take the subway just to see the metro stations,

00:25:25.540 | they're like works of art, it's unreal.

00:25:27.920 | So I'm taking the metro around in Tashkent

00:25:31.240 | and I was just so confused.

00:25:32.440 | I was like, I didn't understand the maps.

00:25:34.560 | I was sitting there with like,

00:25:36.020 | two handfuls of coins and bills,

00:25:40.000 | just like unsure about the denominations.

00:25:42.160 | I was jet lagged and someone like saw me immediately

00:25:45.120 | and came up to me and like, in broken English was like,

00:25:47.600 | where are you trying to go?

00:25:48.440 | I like, I said the name of the stop

00:25:50.240 | and just held out my hands with all the coins in it.

00:25:52.680 | And he just like picked out what I needed,

00:25:54.520 | put it in the machine, gave me the ticket

00:25:56.080 | and led me on my way.

00:25:56.920 | You know, it's like, put your trust in someone,

00:25:58.840 | someone's gonna help you out.

00:26:01.080 | And just that interaction too, like I still remember it

00:26:03.680 | and I'll remember it probably forever.

00:26:04.920 | Just that small interaction that you're not gonna get

00:26:07.860 | if you just call an Uber.

00:26:09.520 | - Yeah, those things happen.

00:26:10.760 | So we had the same thing happen in Aleppo, Syria.

00:26:14.600 | We got into the city, we took a taxi from Turkey

00:26:18.700 | and we, which fun fact, taxis from Turkey,

00:26:21.760 | I mean, I'm sure this is different now,

00:26:22.960 | but taxis from Turkey to Syria,

00:26:24.320 | because gas was like 10% of the cost, right?

00:26:28.240 | It was so cheap, the taxis would go for free almost.

00:26:31.480 | It was like, you know, the cost to go from Turkey to Syria

00:26:34.040 | was almost nothing as long as you had no bags

00:26:36.880 | because there were special taxis

00:26:38.380 | where their entire trunk was just gas tanks.

00:26:40.640 | And so you would go into Syria and it would be super cheap,

00:26:43.400 | but you'd get dropped off and we had,

00:26:45.000 | we were staying couch surfing in a suburb

00:26:47.440 | and we had no clue what we were doing.

00:26:48.920 | And a random person came up who spoke no English,

00:26:51.960 | but kind of got the sense that we were lost,

00:26:54.320 | called someone, handed me the phone.

00:26:56.580 | So just a stranger's handing me a cell phone

00:26:58.920 | and I answer it and this person says,

00:27:00.320 | "Hey, you don't know me,

00:27:02.280 | "but my brother says he thinks you're lost."

00:27:05.160 | So he called me and if you want,

00:27:07.320 | I can, you can tell me where you're going,

00:27:09.060 | I'll tell him and he can help you get there.

00:27:11.140 | But he would love if you stopped by his house

00:27:13.700 | and have some tea first.

00:27:14.800 | So like, it was this experience that I think many people

00:27:18.240 | could just not be open to or think it's scary.

00:27:21.760 | And I wanna get at some point to,

00:27:23.600 | before we stop to talk about, you know,

00:27:25.400 | risk and safety and that kind of stuff.

00:27:26.800 | But being open to those things

00:27:28.280 | has been some of the best experiences we have.

00:27:30.680 | So, before we get there, what are you bringing?

00:27:34.720 | Like, we don't need to go down to how many pairs of socks,

00:27:37.320 | people can figure that out on their own,

00:27:39.120 | but are there perspectives you have

00:27:42.060 | that are unique or contrarian about things to bring

00:27:44.740 | or, you know, I never bring a roller board,

00:27:46.900 | I always bring a duffel bag or just things

00:27:48.420 | that might spark some interesting thoughts

00:27:50.340 | in people listening?

00:27:51.580 | - I'm not like the militant, carry on only

00:27:56.580 | school of thought.

00:27:57.420 | I mean, maybe now I might be with the amount of,

00:27:59.700 | with the mess that's going on at airports

00:28:01.440 | and bags getting lost or whatever.

00:28:02.940 | But I remember getting into, I mean,

00:28:06.180 | this is the closest things,

00:28:07.460 | closest my work has gotten to being a controversy.

00:28:10.820 | When I got that 52 places job,

00:28:14.320 | I posted something about how I had like decided I needed,

00:28:17.880 | I was just gonna check in a bag for the year.

00:28:20.860 | And of course, travel Twitter just blows up.

00:28:23.940 | They're like, oh my God, you call yourself a traveler?

00:28:26.340 | Like, if you can't get all your belongings in a carry on,

00:28:28.580 | you don't actually know how to travel.

00:28:30.340 | And I was just like, shut up.

00:28:31.560 | Like everyone has, people can do their own thing.

00:28:33.620 | People have their own styles.

00:28:35.060 | I had to pack for Siberia and Tahiti in the same suitcase.

00:28:39.020 | Like it's not, I just didn't want the stress

00:28:41.900 | of having to do laundry every four days or whatever.

00:28:45.580 | So I did it.

00:28:46.420 | The bag got lost twice, but found its way back to me.

00:28:49.760 | So it was fine.

00:28:52.220 | But I tell that story to say like,

00:28:53.660 | I'm not dogmatic about packing in any way.

00:28:58.460 | I bring, oftentimes it's happening half an hour

00:29:01.100 | before I'm heading to the airport

00:29:02.220 | and I'm just throwing in whatever I feel like.

00:29:03.780 | I think there are things that I swear by now.

00:29:05.980 | Like it's hard to find anything in my travel wardrobe

00:29:09.620 | that's not made of Merino wool.

00:29:11.540 | 'Cause I think the stuff is magical.

00:29:13.920 | It keeps you warm when it's cold.

00:29:16.700 | It cools you down when it's hot.

00:29:19.260 | I've worn it in like, in the Gambia

00:29:22.700 | during the hottest, rainiest time of year.

00:29:24.880 | Like the same t-shirt four days in a row

00:29:26.820 | and it still didn't smell.

00:29:27.880 | Like it's just, the stuff is witchcraft.

00:29:29.460 | It's unreal.

00:29:31.020 | So like now that's something I definitely learned

00:29:32.940 | through long-term travel.

00:29:33.940 | And now I completely swear by is Merino wool.

00:29:36.580 | - Where are you getting all of these Merino wool products?

00:29:38.760 | Is there a brand or?

00:29:39.940 | - Smartwool is great.

00:29:41.140 | They make, Smartwool makes some great stuff.

00:29:43.460 | I have a lot of stuff from then.

00:29:45.660 | Fjallraven, it's all like performance stuff.

00:29:47.820 | It's like, you're like spending, I don't know,

00:29:50.780 | $180 on a t-shirt and you're like,

00:29:52.540 | "Really, $80 on a t-shirt?"

00:29:53.860 | But if you only have to bring two t-shirts with you,

00:29:56.540 | it's pretty good.

00:29:57.380 | So yeah, I had like one lightweight Merino wool

00:30:01.220 | and one heavier weight one.

00:30:02.940 | And like, that was basically all I wore for a year.

00:30:05.460 | So that I really swear by.

00:30:08.620 | Packing cubes, I also swear by.

00:30:10.860 | I think a lot of people have come onto the,

00:30:13.760 | entered the church of packing cubes,

00:30:15.220 | but I think being organized that way

00:30:16.980 | really has upped my travel game

00:30:19.900 | 'cause I just don't leave things behind anymore

00:30:21.860 | because I know everything has a place

00:30:23.340 | and I know where everything goes.

00:30:24.900 | And if I feel that a packing cube isn't as full as it was

00:30:27.640 | when I got there, I know something's,

00:30:29.140 | my bathing suit's hanging in the bathroom

00:30:30.580 | or something's been left behind.

00:30:33.260 | So that in terms of organization.

00:30:34.620 | And also just like,

00:30:36.060 | like there's very few loose items in my bags.

00:30:39.100 | I know I said like I'm not dogmatic about things

00:30:40.780 | and then now I've gone into being like,

00:30:42.180 | "No loose items in the backpack."

00:30:44.100 | But no, it's true.

00:30:45.940 | I have like pouches for everything.

00:30:46.860 | All my tech stuff is in one bag,

00:30:48.460 | all my camera gears in another bag inside the bag.

00:30:51.220 | So I just know where, you know.

00:30:52.620 | And also when I inevitably get pulled aside at security,

00:30:55.820 | both because of all the electronics in my bag,

00:30:58.140 | but also for being a brown dude in the 21st century,

00:31:02.200 | you know, always the random security check happens.

00:31:04.620 | Then I can just open the bag

00:31:05.740 | and I've got four other bags I take out

00:31:07.180 | instead of an explosion of cables and other gear.

00:31:11.180 | So yeah, those are kind of my main constants.

00:31:16.460 | Everything else is, you know,

00:31:17.740 | if I feel like bringing, you know,

00:31:20.860 | a extra pair of head, like earphones for working out

00:31:24.260 | or whatever, I'll do that.

00:31:25.100 | Sometimes I won't.

00:31:26.180 | You know, all the other stuff is kind of up in the air,

00:31:27.780 | but those are my hard and fast, my hard rules.

00:31:32.380 | - I don't know if you followed

00:31:33.220 | the new church of in packing for travelers,

00:31:36.180 | but it seems to be putting an AirTag,

00:31:38.180 | an Apple AirTag in like every device or every bag.

00:31:42.100 | And I have not checked a bag

00:31:43.820 | since kind of going down this rabbit hole,

00:31:46.140 | but it seems like most people that have lost a bag

00:31:49.700 | that have had an Apple AirTag in it

00:31:51.380 | have somehow been able to figure out where it is

00:31:53.540 | and get it back.

00:31:54.580 | - That's interesting.

00:31:55.420 | I mean, I just, I wonder how that plays out though,

00:31:57.060 | because you're, you know,

00:31:59.100 | especially now that all these airlines are overwhelmed.

00:32:02.980 | Is it that you're going up to them and you're like,

00:32:04.660 | you're saying you can't find my bag?

00:32:05.820 | I see it.

00:32:06.660 | It's at LAX or whatever.

00:32:07.620 | And then what?

00:32:08.460 | What are they supposed to do?

00:32:09.300 | They're not gonna, they're gonna be like,

00:32:10.120 | okay, sure, sure, sure.

00:32:10.960 | And then they'll go do whatever process

00:32:12.620 | they were gonna do.

00:32:13.460 | I don't know if they're gonna go out of their way

00:32:14.500 | because you can show them where the bag is.

00:32:17.140 | I don't know.

00:32:17.980 | - Well, I've seen, I've read multiple stories of people

00:32:19.580 | where the bag made it.

00:32:20.660 | Let's say you're flying to Denver,

00:32:21.780 | the bag's in Denver and they're like,

00:32:23.440 | we don't know where it is.

00:32:24.280 | And you're like, well, actually I know where it is

00:32:26.740 | in the airport.

00:32:27.720 | Now, if you're in Denver and the flight came from London

00:32:30.160 | and you're like, I know where it is in London,

00:32:31.760 | you're probably out of luck and you're gonna have to wait.

00:32:34.000 | You might be able to say, look, I know it's in London.

00:32:35.720 | Can you get it?

00:32:36.560 | But to the extent that the bag is lost,

00:32:38.880 | maybe it's coming a day late.

00:32:40.140 | You kind of know where it is.

00:32:41.040 | You have some idea or even just figuring out

00:32:43.600 | when it's coming.

00:32:44.440 | Sometimes they're like, when the bag gets here,

00:32:46.040 | we'll deliver it to you.

00:32:47.320 | And you're like, well, at least now I know it's here.

00:32:48.960 | - It's here, yeah.

00:32:49.800 | - Or I know that it made it on the plane, right?

00:32:52.940 | You land and you're sitting there like,

00:32:54.500 | oh man, the bags are coming off.

00:32:56.180 | I haven't seen it, I haven't seen it.

00:32:57.540 | Some airlines are getting really good.

00:32:59.020 | I can't remember whether it was United or Delta

00:33:01.060 | or something.

00:33:01.900 | I looked in the app and it was like,

00:33:02.940 | we scanned your bag at the check-in.

00:33:05.020 | We scanned your bag when it's getting on the plane.

00:33:06.980 | Obviously, if you could get that level of detail

00:33:09.060 | with every airline, it would be unnecessary.

00:33:11.540 | But I think people have really liked being able

00:33:13.900 | to at least have a sense of where is my bag?

00:33:16.180 | Like, is it actually here?

00:33:18.140 | Is it coming?

00:33:19.260 | If I see that it's still where I took off,

00:33:21.700 | I'm not gonna sit at the baggage carousel

00:33:23.220 | for 45 minutes to see if maybe it's coming.

00:33:25.380 | I kinda, I know it's not here.

00:33:26.220 | - But you know it's not coming.

00:33:27.380 | Yeah, no, I can see the appeal.

00:33:29.380 | I'm trying to, like, for the trips that I have coming up,

00:33:33.300 | I'm trying to go carry on just 'cause I've heard

00:33:37.140 | about this, all the chaos.

00:33:38.660 | But then you run into stuff where you just have to,

00:33:40.340 | like, you don't wanna sacrifice.

00:33:41.900 | Like, I just did a trip in the Faroe Islands

00:33:43.460 | where I was hiking for a week, basically, straight.

00:33:48.460 | And it was pretty intense hiking.

00:33:50.340 | So, like, I wanted to bring trekking poles.

00:33:52.340 | You can't carry on trekking poles.

00:33:55.060 | So, it's like, okay, do I not bring trekking poles

00:33:56.900 | and be miserable, or do I just bring 'em and check 'em in

00:34:01.020 | and run the risk of not having 'em when I get there?

00:34:02.860 | And I chose the latter, and I had the trekking poles.

00:34:05.860 | So, there's decisions you have to make,

00:34:07.540 | and I'll probably go on the side of comfort

00:34:09.620 | over any kind of hard rules around packing every time.

00:34:14.620 | - Yeah, and there are things.

00:34:16.500 | I mean, trekking poles may or may not be as easy,

00:34:19.900 | but in some places, now that we have children,

00:34:23.700 | I've noticed there are sites, definitely in the US,

00:34:26.300 | probably all over the world, where you could say,

00:34:28.500 | okay, we need a high chair, or we need a pack-and-play,

00:34:30.820 | or we need these different things.

00:34:32.020 | You can kind of rent them from local families

00:34:35.280 | and not have to travel with them.

00:34:37.060 | - I've also done the thing.

00:34:38.140 | I've done the FedExing ahead of time stuff

00:34:41.140 | that I'm gonna need there and shipping it back.

00:34:43.700 | Sometimes, especially now with baggage fees,

00:34:45.420 | it ends up being the same as it would be

00:34:46.940 | to check in a bag or even less.

00:34:49.700 | So, for little things like that,

00:34:51.260 | that would've been another option.

00:34:52.380 | It would've been, maybe not to the Faroe Islands,

00:34:54.460 | 'cause it's a little remote,

00:34:55.340 | and who knows how long it would've taken to get there.

00:34:57.020 | But if I'm going to the Dolomites or something,

00:34:59.700 | maybe you just, and you wanna go carry on,

00:35:02.980 | just ship the stuff ahead of time to your hotel.

00:35:05.540 | They'll accept it, and you pick it up when you're there.

00:35:07.500 | - There's also something,

00:35:08.340 | I'm gonna probably butcher the pronunciation.

00:35:09.940 | It's like takubin or something like that in Japan,

00:35:13.380 | which you basically, there's an entire network of services

00:35:18.820 | where you can send your bags between hotels.

00:35:23.460 | And it's the most efficient process as most are in Japan.

00:35:27.300 | And so, I know a lot of people that are traveling,

00:35:29.060 | it's like, well, I wanna take the train,

00:35:31.340 | but I have this big bag, do I wanna lug it around?

00:35:33.840 | So, you just kind of pack an overnight bag.

00:35:36.620 | Sometimes, the bag gets there same day,

00:35:38.900 | and you know in advance,

00:35:39.840 | but sometimes, it's the same day or next day.

00:35:41.820 | It's like you just pack a day pack, you hop on the train,

00:35:44.380 | you head down maybe from Tokyo to Kyoto,

00:35:46.900 | you go trek around for the day,

00:35:48.740 | you go spend the night, you wake up the next morning,

00:35:51.180 | you brought just enough for the next morning,

00:35:53.260 | and your toiletries,

00:35:54.760 | and then your bag shows up at your hotel.

00:35:56.220 | And you had this wonderful experience

00:35:58.640 | of both taking the train,

00:36:00.500 | not having to go straight to your hotel when you land.

00:36:03.320 | So, I don't know if that service exists

00:36:06.220 | almost anywhere else,

00:36:07.700 | but I know that in Japan,

00:36:11.660 | it's like a very structured service that's very easy.

00:36:14.820 | - Yeah, I know some people who swear by it.

00:36:16.220 | I've never used it, but it makes a lot of sense.

00:36:19.060 | - I think it's Takuhaiben, I can't remember.

00:36:20.620 | I'm terrible at pronouncing basically any Japanese term.

00:36:24.000 | So, before you talked about the serendipity,

00:36:28.080 | and so, okay, we've planned the trip,

00:36:29.500 | we've gotten the accommodations,

00:36:30.740 | we've gotten there, we've packed all this stuff.

00:36:32.500 | You've talked about some of what you do

00:36:33.540 | when you first get there,

00:36:35.180 | but you talked about the serendipity of meeting people,

00:36:38.060 | locals, kind of immersing yourself in these experiences

00:36:41.300 | that you probably couldn't have pretended.

00:36:43.220 | Do you think there's a way,

00:36:44.700 | not necessarily to like cheat the system,

00:36:46.740 | but to kind of engineer that serendipity

00:36:49.220 | to kind of give it a greater chance of happening

00:36:52.260 | than you would if you maybe had a whole week

00:36:54.580 | with no agenda?

00:36:56.460 | You know, maybe you just go sit at bars, talk to strangers,

00:36:58.580 | but what if you have a day

00:36:59.540 | and you really want to try to make something local

00:37:01.460 | and interesting and magical happen?

00:37:03.540 | What would be your advice to someone trying to do that?

00:37:06.620 | - I mean, the first one I think is obvious

00:37:09.060 | to anyone who's traveled before,

00:37:10.160 | but it's put the phone away again.

00:37:11.980 | Like, you know, I think,

00:37:13.180 | especially when you're traveling alone, I do it too.

00:37:16.620 | It's the best social crutch there is, right?

00:37:19.300 | If you're sitting alone and you feel nervous about it

00:37:22.180 | or you're bored or whatever else,

00:37:23.500 | you immediately pull out your phone,

00:37:24.660 | but that signals to everyone else that you're busy

00:37:26.620 | or you're closed off.

00:37:28.540 | The amount of conversations that I've started

00:37:30.260 | from just sitting somewhere and like just looking around

00:37:33.540 | like people used to do when there was,

00:37:36.020 | when they had downtime,

00:37:37.060 | just kind of staring into space

00:37:38.540 | and making eye contact with someone, saying hello,

00:37:41.860 | you know, next thing you know, they say hello.

00:37:43.500 | How are you?

00:37:44.340 | Next thing you know,

00:37:45.180 | you're getting invited to grandma's house for dinner.

00:37:46.980 | Like that has happened so many times.

00:37:50.660 | I think people are naturally curious,

00:37:53.660 | especially for solo travelers.

00:37:54.940 | Like they're curious why you're visiting their home,

00:37:59.520 | what you're up to while you're there,

00:38:01.140 | if you actually have the best recommendations

00:38:02.980 | or if you're going on some, you know,

00:38:04.840 | that's something that they consider the tourist path

00:38:07.800 | or whatever that you actually,

00:38:08.720 | they want to steer you somewhere else.

00:38:09.820 | People are very passionate about where they're from.

00:38:11.900 | So tapping into that.

00:38:13.160 | I think going in also being like,

00:38:17.740 | I'm going to be just a little more extroverted

00:38:20.060 | than I normally am, goes a long way.

00:38:23.020 | And I'm not, I'm an extrovert in the sense that I do

00:38:26.880 | get energy from being around friends and family

00:38:29.040 | and being around people I love.

00:38:31.520 | But I'm still like a nervous extrovert,

00:38:33.400 | if that makes sense.

00:38:34.240 | Like I still get like phone anxiety

00:38:36.720 | and like, you know, weird, weird nervousness

00:38:39.820 | around approaching strangers and all these other things.

00:38:43.740 | So it takes an effort for me to be like,

00:38:45.840 | I'm going to strike up a conversation with this,

00:38:48.120 | with these random people.

00:38:49.380 | And just as one example, I remember I was in Munich,

00:38:53.160 | which is a city that if you ask people from Munich,

00:38:56.740 | they'll be the first to admit that it's like

00:38:58.140 | not an easy place to meet people.

00:39:00.200 | It's just part of the, I think,

00:39:02.740 | Bavarian culture and such is, it's a little more insular.

00:39:05.640 | It's a little more, yeah, a little more insular,

00:39:08.620 | a little more insider-y.

00:39:10.560 | So I was having trouble, like I was there for work too,

00:39:12.640 | and I needed a story and I was having trouble

00:39:14.200 | meeting people.

00:39:15.360 | And I was hanging out at this bar, not looking at my phone.

00:39:19.460 | So I was more aware of my surroundings.

00:39:21.480 | And I was like overhearing this conversation

00:39:23.000 | with a bunch of dudes standing next to me.

00:39:25.320 | And they were like talking about space and rockets

00:39:27.700 | and astrophysics and like all just like

00:39:29.900 | very fascinating stuff.

00:39:31.320 | And like, it took me a second to like work up the courage.

00:39:34.580 | But once I did, I literally just like poked my head in.

00:39:36.680 | I was like, "Hey, do you mind if I join you?"

00:39:38.340 | And they were like, "Yeah, of course, come on in, whatever."

00:39:39.940 | And I brought them around or whatever.

00:39:40.960 | Next thing I know, I'm talking to these like

00:39:43.200 | five astrophysicists who were working on some like

00:39:45.480 | German space program in the woods of Munich,

00:39:47.680 | just like totally fascinating stuff.

00:39:49.600 | We spend the whole rest of the evening together.

00:39:51.320 | We go to a show, we just like hang out,

00:39:52.840 | taking me to like all their favorite beer gardens.

00:39:55.920 | And all because I just took that plunge.

00:39:57.840 | And it was like a little weird.

00:39:58.820 | It's a little awkward to do that in any situation,

00:40:01.640 | at least for me it is.

00:40:02.800 | But like, I took a deep breath and went in there

00:40:05.520 | and said, "Hello."

00:40:06.360 | And next thing you know, I had this really wonderful,

00:40:09.580 | pretty magical day in a city where it's hard to do that.

00:40:12.380 | It's hard to find that serendipity.

00:40:14.140 | So I think those would be my two biggest

00:40:16.980 | overarching tips around that is one,

00:40:19.180 | being open to it, opening yourself up to it.

00:40:22.280 | And the first step towards that

00:40:25.580 | is literally being physically available.

00:40:28.860 | So stop staring at your phone,

00:40:30.180 | put the book down for a second, just be there.

00:40:32.620 | Look around and see what happens.

00:40:34.640 | And then two, it's like, push yourself

00:40:37.000 | to just be a little more extroverted than you usually are.

00:40:40.580 | And then actually, I'd add a third one too.

00:40:42.220 | And this goes back to mindset as well.

00:40:45.160 | And this has taken me a while to really master,

00:40:49.620 | if I can even call it that.

00:40:51.180 | But it's admitting your own ignorance and embracing it.

00:40:56.180 | I think a lot of the times,

00:40:59.440 | especially with well-traveled people,

00:41:01.340 | there's a tendency to be like,

00:41:02.900 | to make it competitive almost, right?

00:41:05.540 | Be like, oh, I know this, and I've been there,

00:41:07.140 | and I know my way around this,

00:41:08.240 | and I've traveled, so I don't need help,

00:41:10.100 | and I can find my way,

00:41:10.940 | and I've read about this place that I'm traveling to,

00:41:13.060 | so I don't need to know anymore.

00:41:15.220 | But people, you're never gonna know

00:41:19.580 | as much as someone who lives there,

00:41:20.860 | who has been born and raised there.

00:41:22.080 | You're never gonna know as much.

00:41:23.120 | You could live there for 10, 20 years.

00:41:25.280 | You're still not gonna know as much as someone.

00:41:26.700 | I've lived in New York for a decade.

00:41:28.700 | I'm not a New Yorker.

00:41:29.580 | I'm never gonna know New York like a New Yorker.

00:41:31.780 | And admitting that leads to you asking the right questions.

00:41:35.220 | It leads to the approach that you have

00:41:37.180 | when you're talking to people,

00:41:38.080 | the openness that you bring to new experiences

00:41:40.580 | and new culturals and things that might be unfamiliar to you.

00:41:43.380 | All of that first is gonna just come across

00:41:45.980 | so much more effectively if you first admit

00:41:49.660 | that you really don't know anything,

00:41:51.440 | and you're there to learn, and you're there to engage.

00:41:54.340 | And I think just that mindset opens up a place

00:41:57.900 | in a big way, and it's very hard to do,

00:42:00.740 | especially the more traveled you are,

00:42:02.140 | 'cause you start being like, oh, I know my way around.

00:42:04.080 | I know how to navigate this stuff.

00:42:05.820 | And so still for me, too, when I'm at a place

00:42:07.780 | that I've been to 100 times,

00:42:09.760 | I still try to approach it as like,

00:42:11.060 | there's still something to learn.

00:42:11.980 | I still am not a local.

00:42:13.060 | I'll never be, so what can I learn from a local?

00:42:15.780 | And having that eagerness and that curiosity

00:42:18.500 | is gonna make you approach the right people

00:42:20.380 | and ask the right questions,

00:42:21.340 | and then the rest is serendipity.

00:42:23.980 | - So I love that approach.

00:42:25.680 | I've used it a lot.

00:42:27.060 | And you traveled a lot as a solo traveler.

00:42:31.020 | You just got married.

00:42:31.860 | Congratulations.

00:42:33.020 | I've heard you on a couple podcasts say,

00:42:35.540 | one day, maybe there's a family.

00:42:36.980 | I have one.

00:42:38.140 | How do you think that changes?

00:42:39.500 | Or you haven't been through it yet,

00:42:41.400 | but you've probably met lots of travelers.

00:42:43.700 | The idea of spending the afternoon

00:42:45.220 | kind of sitting in a bar, meeting some astrophysicists,

00:42:48.060 | going out to a random show

00:42:50.100 | is not the kind of experience it's easy to have

00:42:52.140 | with young kids around.

00:42:54.380 | So how do you kind of create these interesting experiences

00:42:58.300 | when you probably have a tighter schedule?

00:43:00.520 | And have you thought at all about that

00:43:02.260 | or talked to anyone that's done it successfully?

00:43:04.540 | - I'd be curious, actually, from you, actually,

00:43:06.180 | if you've felt, as your travel style has changed,

00:43:11.180 | how you've felt yourself adapting.

00:43:13.080 | I think what's exciting about traveling with kids

00:43:17.180 | and having kids is that you now get to instill

00:43:20.160 | that curiosity and that sense of serendipity

00:43:23.620 | in someone new, right?

00:43:24.940 | And encourage that in someone

00:43:26.500 | and have them grow into the kind of traveler

00:43:28.740 | that maybe it took you longer to be.

00:43:31.660 | And I know that that's much easier said than done

00:43:34.860 | when there's like nap time and meal time

00:43:38.040 | and all these things that are pretty set in stone

00:43:39.780 | when you're traveling.

00:43:41.260 | But I do wonder if there's not like,

00:43:43.580 | of course, yeah, you can't be like, peace out, partner.

00:43:47.100 | I'm gonna go hang out at the bar

00:43:48.060 | and meet some astrophysicists, have fun with the kids.

00:43:50.660 | But I do wonder if there are like micro moments

00:43:53.460 | of serendipity that you can create

00:43:54.980 | where you can be like,

00:43:56.160 | we're gonna go for, we've rented this car,

00:44:00.620 | we're gonna go for a drive on this route

00:44:02.260 | that we've researched,

00:44:03.080 | but we don't know where we're gonna stop yet.

00:44:05.120 | We don't know where we're gonna have lunch.

00:44:06.620 | We don't know where we're gonna go for a little hike.

00:44:09.140 | These little things that you just leave open enough

00:44:11.500 | so that when you do do it, you're discovering it together.

00:44:14.460 | You're discovering that moment together.

00:44:16.140 | You're having that moment of uncertainty

00:44:17.620 | and be like, oh, is this the right place for the hike?

00:44:19.540 | Ooh, this looks a little intense,

00:44:20.660 | but then you do it together and you're like,

00:44:21.860 | wow, we did that, that was crazy.

00:44:23.020 | I remember when we did that thing.

00:44:25.300 | And I think I learned that from my parents too.

00:44:28.220 | And my parents were very good about doing that.

00:44:30.900 | I don't, I have like this problem where I like,

00:44:32.980 | I don't remember a lot of things concretely

00:44:34.960 | from my childhood, but I have like vague,

00:44:37.320 | like more like snapshots.

00:44:40.940 | And I have so many like mental snapshots of family trips,

00:44:45.140 | of, you know, like the car pulled over

00:44:48.820 | on the side of the road,

00:44:49.820 | the physical map out over the hood of the car

00:44:52.620 | while my parents are like tracing our route

00:44:54.340 | and trying to figure out where the hell we are

00:44:55.660 | and where the hell we're going.

00:44:57.740 | I have so many memories of us, you know,

00:45:00.620 | before smartphones, before the internet,

00:45:02.660 | pulling into hotels and like knocking on the door,

00:45:06.100 | you know, and being like, hey, do you have space for five

00:45:08.340 | at like 10 o'clock at night?

00:45:09.580 | Like my parents did that stuff a lot.

00:45:11.180 | And I think that, you know, they still, of course,

00:45:14.420 | their safety was the first priority.

00:45:16.580 | When we were younger, there was all these other needs

00:45:18.220 | they had to cater to,

00:45:19.540 | but they still kept that little bit of mystery to travel.

00:45:22.780 | And that little bit of we're kind of gonna make it up

00:45:25.060 | as we go along.

00:45:25.900 | We're gonna improvise a little bit

00:45:26.780 | and we're gonna do it together.

00:45:28.100 | And we're gonna have a conversation about like,

00:45:29.540 | ooh, which of these two restaurants looks better?

00:45:31.020 | What do you think, little Jimmy?

00:45:32.860 | You know, like bring them into it,

00:45:34.780 | bring them into that experience.

00:45:36.380 | So I think there's ways.

00:45:38.980 | I think, yeah, maybe you can't do it like you used to

00:45:41.620 | fully kind of flying by the seat of your pants.

00:45:43.980 | But I think in micro moments and through little adjustments

00:45:46.740 | and through involving them in your decision-making process

00:45:49.940 | as you go, you can still keep that mystery of travel alive.

00:45:53.660 | - Yeah, it's funny.

00:45:54.500 | As you were talking, I just started thinking

00:45:55.980 | about a trip we haven't planned yet,

00:45:57.740 | but different ways that we would kind of bring it to life

00:46:00.660 | with children.

00:46:01.500 | And our kids are two in two months.

00:46:02.900 | So, you know, we're not quite old enough

00:46:05.060 | to take them on all the adventures,

00:46:07.740 | but a few things came to mind.

00:46:09.180 | One, in the last few, I don't know, months, year,

00:46:12.820 | we've met a number of interesting people

00:46:15.540 | that live in our neighborhood going to the park.

00:46:17.740 | Like just the park down the street from our house,

00:46:19.540 | we meet parents almost every time.

00:46:20.980 | So for some reason,

00:46:22.340 | I hadn't thought about it until you were talking,

00:46:24.300 | but I feel like we could just,

00:46:26.300 | if you want to meet random stranger,

00:46:27.540 | instead of doing it at the bar

00:46:29.020 | where you're sitting having a drink,

00:46:30.140 | which might be, you know, the solo traveler,

00:46:33.100 | you know, place of choice,

00:46:34.620 | you could also just go to a park.

00:46:35.820 | You'll probably meet other parents.

00:46:37.100 | They probably have other kids your same age.

00:46:39.460 | You could make that your place

00:46:40.820 | to serendipitously strike up a conversation.

00:46:44.220 | So that was one that came to mind.

00:46:45.940 | Another thing that I think every person I know

00:46:48.820 | that seems to have unlocked travel

00:46:50.900 | one level beyond with children does

00:46:53.900 | is they all contact their hotel in advance

00:46:57.700 | or wherever they're staying

00:46:58.860 | and try to find some trusted source of childcare

00:47:02.700 | that can, not for the entire trip,

00:47:04.860 | but maybe help out one night

00:47:07.140 | so the parents can go out

00:47:08.420 | and have that kind of interesting, unique adventure

00:47:11.100 | of just walking down the street,

00:47:12.300 | finding a place to eat, et cetera.

00:47:14.380 | - Another way to do that,

00:47:15.260 | and I know I have some friends with kids

00:47:16.860 | who have taken this route as well,

00:47:19.700 | is traveling with another family

00:47:21.860 | or another two families that are friends of yours

00:47:23.900 | with kids the same age.

00:47:25.300 | Then like you either can kind of rotate

00:47:28.060 | who's in charge of the kids that night

00:47:29.660 | while the others go out to a show or dinner

00:47:32.500 | or to meet people or whatever else,

00:47:34.460 | or you all kind of pull your money together

00:47:36.300 | while you're hanging out in France for some childcare

00:47:38.900 | that can take care of the kids one of the nights

00:47:40.460 | or two of the nights or whatever.

00:47:41.940 | And that way you're doing it together

00:47:43.620 | and it's a little easier.

00:47:45.100 | So I know some people who have gone that route too,

00:47:47.700 | and I think that's a great way to tackle it as well.

00:47:50.620 | - The last one that I'm really excited about,

00:47:52.580 | and Japan hasn't opened the borders yet,

00:47:54.460 | but I'm a big fan.

00:47:55.820 | We've been a few times.

00:47:56.860 | It's like re-experiencing the places

00:47:59.100 | that you know a little bit, right?

00:48:00.220 | Like I've never lived in Japan.

00:48:01.940 | I've been three or four times.

00:48:03.340 | I wouldn't consider myself an expert,

00:48:05.100 | but I do feel like I know it well enough

00:48:07.460 | to make it easier to kind of wander the streets

00:48:10.300 | and have a serendipitous experience

00:48:11.700 | than I would if I'd gone to Uzbekistan,

00:48:13.780 | which I've never been to,

00:48:15.060 | and I feel like I would be trying to get my bearings

00:48:17.660 | as well as lead the family

00:48:19.380 | through the public transportation.

00:48:20.740 | So one thing I'm excited about

00:48:22.700 | is just going to places I've been

00:48:24.840 | to kind of share that experience

00:48:26.780 | and make it a little easier, right?

00:48:28.240 | Like the first trip with two kids running around a city,

00:48:31.900 | probably nice if you go to a place you know.

00:48:33.740 | Maybe you even test it out locally.

00:48:35.180 | Maybe we go to New York for a long weekend

00:48:36.940 | 'cause it's like, I know that city even better.

00:48:39.540 | You know, we've already tested it in San Francisco.

00:48:41.500 | You know, we take the Caltrain.

00:48:42.580 | We actually throw our bikes on the Caltrain,

00:48:45.260 | ride the Caltrain up to San Francisco,

00:48:47.300 | bike around, and then come back.

00:48:49.100 | So like we're trying to get a feeling

00:48:51.540 | for what it's like to adventure in a city.

00:48:53.900 | You know, we have our own travel training wheels

00:48:56.360 | as new parents that we're kind of trying to take off

00:48:59.060 | before we take a big adventure.

00:49:00.580 | - But also like what a fun thing

00:49:01.860 | to like see a place that you thought you knew well,

00:49:04.400 | like to see it anew

00:49:05.420 | through the eyes of someone else too, right?

00:49:07.100 | Like I think that's why people love taking friends

00:49:09.420 | to places that they love or whatever.

00:49:12.660 | I'm in the middle of planning a bachelor party

00:49:14.740 | for friends of mine.

00:49:15.800 | And I'm really excited that they've chosen New Orleans,

00:49:19.420 | which is like a city that like I love so much.

00:49:22.060 | And now I'm gonna be able to like see it anew

00:49:24.500 | through their eyes, seeing it for the first time

00:49:26.260 | and go to all the restaurants that I love

00:49:27.600 | and all the bars that I love and do all these things.

00:49:29.900 | And I think that's just like such a fun thing to do.

00:49:32.340 | I can imagine with kids too,

00:49:33.700 | to like see them get excited about something

00:49:35.980 | that maybe you've taken for granted

00:49:37.920 | by the fourth or fifth visit.

00:49:39.680 | - The other last one,

00:49:40.620 | and I'm fascinated by this broader topic,

00:49:43.980 | is just when you have a limited time

00:49:47.180 | and budget isn't the primary concern,

00:49:49.860 | it's trying to, you know, you can hire experiences, right?

00:49:52.700 | You could do Airbnb experiences.

00:49:54.240 | You can find locals in various, you know,

00:49:56.860 | even if you're staying at a hotel,

00:49:58.260 | ask for a cooking class or these kinds of things.

00:50:00.740 | The hidden mystery of like fixers in other countries

00:50:04.280 | that help kind of engineer experiences and crazy things,

00:50:07.700 | I've always been fascinated by finding

00:50:09.620 | the most authentic ones versus the most commercial ones.

00:50:12.340 | So I'd love your thoughts there,

00:50:13.340 | but that's the other thing.

00:50:14.780 | It's like, if you only have a couple of days

00:50:16.540 | and you've got a tight schedule

00:50:18.100 | and you wanna go have some authentic experience

00:50:20.580 | cooking with a local, you know,

00:50:23.060 | sometimes you don't have time

00:50:24.720 | to just go find the random local

00:50:26.420 | until someone invites you to cook in their home

00:50:28.220 | and you might just have to hire it.

00:50:30.240 | What are your thoughts on those?

00:50:31.440 | Are there better ways to do it?

00:50:32.980 | How do you find those interesting people?

00:50:35.040 | - I've done that route many times

00:50:37.280 | and I try to look as local as possible.

00:50:39.220 | So it takes some Googling, it takes some digging.

00:50:41.460 | So you're not necessarily going through a Viator

00:50:44.600 | or Airbnb experiences or whatever,

00:50:46.860 | which some of them are, you know, very local.

00:50:49.460 | Some of them are very small.

00:50:50.360 | But if you just like start Googling,

00:50:51.700 | like walking tours of this city,

00:50:53.680 | you might find someone who has little, you know,

00:50:56.600 | their own kind of ramshackle operation that they do.

00:50:58.700 | And that's like the most intimate experience

00:51:00.900 | you're gonna get, I think.

00:51:01.900 | So I think doing some digging

00:51:03.020 | until you find something independent on its own.

00:51:06.460 | I used to like really be, I don't know,

00:51:08.240 | so like some chip on my shoulder

00:51:10.320 | about being exactly what I was talking about,

00:51:12.320 | about being an experienced traveler.

00:51:13.740 | I don't need this stuff or whatever.

00:51:15.640 | I used to be like pretty against the idea

00:51:18.360 | of the walking tour or even like the group tour in general.

00:51:22.040 | I used to be like, I don't need that.

00:51:23.320 | I can find my own way.

00:51:24.820 | But then I started doing these, like a lot of cities,

00:51:27.800 | especially in Europe, have these like free walking tours

00:51:31.000 | that like leave three times a day

00:51:32.540 | from the center of town or whatever.

00:51:34.840 | And I started doing those when I was traveling in Europe

00:51:37.640 | and kind of fell in love with them.

00:51:39.600 | It was like such a great way to like

00:51:41.400 | just get an overview of a place

00:51:44.200 | and gets a little bit of background

00:51:45.400 | before you start your own explorations.

00:51:47.160 | But also I found that a lot of the tour guides

00:51:49.920 | are not only awesome, but if you talk to them,

00:51:52.480 | they're like down to hang out beyond just the tour.

00:51:56.560 | They're doing the job, you know, for the money, of course,

00:51:58.860 | but paid by the city,

00:51:59.720 | but also because they love meeting people

00:52:01.360 | and they love showing people where they're from.

00:52:04.760 | I think of two examples, one in Cadiz in Spain

00:52:08.280 | and one in a city in Germany where I like,

00:52:12.200 | I could tell that like just the vibe of the tour guides

00:52:14.480 | was like really good.

00:52:15.600 | And so afterwards I was like,

00:52:16.760 | what are you up to this evening?

00:52:18.400 | Like, what are you doing?

00:52:19.760 | And they're like, oh, like nothing.

00:52:21.040 | I was like, can I take you to dinner?

00:52:21.960 | Like your favorite restaurant?

00:52:23.080 | Like what, you down to hang out?

00:52:24.880 | And next thing you know, I'm having this amazing experience

00:52:26.880 | because I've just taken that plunge of being like,

00:52:29.120 | okay, you gave me the city sanctioned tour.

00:52:33.680 | Now can we like, can I buy you a drink

00:52:35.080 | and you can give me the other side of things?

00:52:37.720 | So I think doing that is a great jumping off point

00:52:40.080 | to meeting people.

00:52:40.920 | I think you'll find that the same people

00:52:42.760 | who are working in tourism,

00:52:44.320 | who are offering tours are very interested

00:52:48.280 | that you're there and are very enthusiastic

00:52:50.800 | about showing you around.

00:52:52.080 | So I think that that's a great place to start.

00:52:55.720 | In terms of like actual companies,

00:52:57.420 | I think the more local, the better.

00:53:00.720 | If you can find someone who doesn't work

00:53:03.760 | for a major chain or whatever else,

00:53:05.560 | who's just doing it on their own.

00:53:08.440 | In my experience, they give the best tours.

00:53:13.120 | - You've traveled to so many places.

00:53:14.520 | One of the reasons I originally wanted to connect with you

00:53:17.240 | was that the New York Times 52 places

00:53:20.040 | was kind of like my annual travel inspiration.

00:53:23.480 | You know, I think at least half a dozen places

00:53:25.760 | I've been in my life were because, you know,

00:53:27.880 | that post got me inspired.

00:53:30.580 | The fact that you got to go on all but one

00:53:33.320 | of the 52 in a year,

00:53:35.800 | while that might've been a grueling adventure,

00:53:38.260 | it was certainly something that is gonna go down

00:53:40.400 | as probably one of the more memorable travel experiences

00:53:43.100 | of your entire life, I assume.

00:53:44.740 | What are some of the experiences you had on that year

00:53:50.320 | that you think are fascinating and worth sharing

00:53:53.960 | for people to hear about?

00:53:56.440 | - Yeah, so, you know, I did a lot of really incredible things

00:54:01.440 | like surface level, incredible things, right?

00:54:03.960 | I saw a solar, total solar eclipse

00:54:07.300 | from a astronomical observatory in the deserts of Chile.

00:54:11.340 | You know, I saw, I was the only,

00:54:13.680 | I was like me and three other people

00:54:15.380 | and the colony of hundreds of king penguins

00:54:18.260 | in the Falkland Islands.

00:54:19.360 | I, you know, did all these things,

00:54:21.140 | saw all these incredible things.

00:54:22.580 | But when I, this is gonna,

00:54:24.060 | I know it's gonna sound cheesy and there's gonna,

00:54:25.740 | I can hear the eye rolls from here,

00:54:28.500 | but like when I, it's true that when I think back

00:54:31.460 | of the year, the first, when I think back to that year,

00:54:34.740 | the first images that come to my mind

00:54:36.760 | are not all the beautiful things I saw

00:54:39.460 | and all the amazing things I ate.

00:54:41.660 | It's people's faces, it's people I met.

00:54:44.060 | It's 100% my biggest takeaway from that

00:54:46.900 | were the interactions I had with human beings.

00:54:50.480 | I think of like the woman in Denmark

00:54:52.980 | who like literally called into sick to work for a week

00:54:57.260 | just so she could show me around Alborg.

00:54:58.900 | And, you know, I had dinner with her family

00:55:01.020 | and she showed me all her favorite places.

00:55:03.120 | It's the guy in Samarkand, Uzbekistan,

00:55:06.260 | who drove me out to see a game of kopkari,

00:55:08.940 | which is this incredible sport

00:55:10.740 | where you have all these guys on horses

00:55:13.080 | playing a game of keep away with a dead goat

00:55:15.500 | that's been stuffed with rice.

00:55:17.020 | And like, I was the only tourist there,

00:55:20.580 | literally thousands and thousands of local spectators

00:55:23.140 | and just me alone there, incredible.

00:55:27.180 | Again, just from an interaction turning into an experience.

00:55:30.240 | It's the family that hosted me in Orcas Island,

00:55:34.140 | this family who has a farm.

00:55:36.820 | And on my birthday, I was there alone on my birthday.

00:55:41.820 | And so they said, "We got to celebrate."

00:55:43.280 | And so they killed a duck in my honor

00:55:45.340 | and we ate and we prepared and ate an entire duck

00:55:48.160 | and had this huge feast with this family,

00:55:49.820 | three generations of this family

00:55:51.260 | who has been on this island in Washington state for years

00:55:54.380 | and run this farm there.

00:55:55.620 | It's like these experiences that really stuck with me

00:55:58.420 | and changed the way I think about travel in the future too.

00:56:01.720 | It's where like, those are the,

00:56:03.500 | I am looking for those human interactions now

00:56:05.640 | when I'm on the road, no matter how small,

00:56:08.360 | even in places where I'm going for the nature.

00:56:10.660 | You know, I just got back from the Faroe Islands,

00:56:12.940 | which is this incredible, beautiful,

00:56:16.240 | just naturally stunning part of the world,

00:56:18.180 | just incredibly high, dramatic cliffs.

00:56:20.660 | So green, you know, just empty, empty stretches of land

00:56:24.580 | where you don't see any sign of human habitation.

00:56:27.260 | And I went on these beautiful hikes and saw puffins

00:56:29.820 | and all these other seabirds and it's just like,

00:56:31.300 | really incredible.

00:56:32.120 | But one of my favorite experiences was like,

00:56:34.140 | talking to these random group of like 20 somethings

00:56:37.780 | who had rented out a small house there for the weekend.

00:56:40.500 | They'd come from one island to another island.

00:56:43.220 | And next thing you know, they were like,

00:56:44.780 | offering me fermented lamb and whale jerky

00:56:49.220 | and like two different bottles of gin

00:56:51.100 | to try the different gin from the Faroe Islands.

00:56:52.980 | Just like having this really great serendipitous encounter

00:56:55.800 | that lasted like 30 minutes,

00:56:57.900 | 'cause I had to get on a ferry.

00:56:59.460 | And that was, that's what stuck with me.

00:57:03.960 | So, I don't know, it's just, that's for me,

00:57:08.880 | all my favorite experiences with travel,

00:57:10.840 | including with the 52 places trip,

00:57:13.360 | have involved other people.

00:57:15.600 | And I kind of use that to inform what I do

00:57:17.880 | and how I approach and how I think about the why of travel.

00:57:22.180 | It's really influenced the way I think

00:57:25.520 | about those things now, going forward.

00:57:27.420 | - Well, that might make you dislike this game, I guess,

00:57:32.080 | that I'm gonna play with you now.

00:57:33.880 | So, I'm just gonna, we're just gonna get through it.

00:57:36.200 | But I get a lot of emails from listeners saying,

00:57:38.640 | "Hey, what are your favorite places to go?

00:57:40.200 | "Where should I go?

00:57:41.580 | "I've been to 60 some-odd countries,

00:57:43.420 | "not the 80 some-odd you've been."

00:57:45.200 | And so, I thought, I'd love to run through continents.

00:57:51.280 | You've lived on four of them.

00:57:52.480 | So, you've got, I know you've hit four,

00:57:54.660 | but I also know I think you've hit all of them,

00:57:56.240 | and even Antarctica, which I have not.

00:57:59.040 | And I would just love, we don't need to go too deep,

00:58:02.200 | but just to give people some inspiration.

00:58:03.980 | I think earlier, in the very beginning,

00:58:05.800 | we talked about how might you get some inspiration

00:58:08.480 | for places.

00:58:09.640 | Maybe we just throw some inspiration out,

00:58:11.920 | give a line or two about why.

00:58:14.560 | Some could be places that are obvious, right?

00:58:17.160 | Like, I can already tell you I'm gonna include Japan,

00:58:19.200 | and there's no secret that Japan

00:58:21.200 | is like a travel destination, right?

00:58:22.800 | But, are you up for it?

00:58:25.280 | - Yeah, let's do it.

00:58:26.280 | - Okay, so I say we start at home.

00:58:28.360 | I'm gonna make you go first, and start in North America.

00:58:32.780 | - Okay, I'll go first with North America.

00:58:38.440 | I gotta do it, and listen,

00:58:39.720 | I know people are gonna be like, yeah, duh,

00:58:41.400 | but I'm gonna say New Orleans,

00:58:43.820 | but I'm gonna say not the New Orleans you think of

00:58:47.080 | when you think of visiting New Orleans.

00:58:49.040 | I think you need to go to New Orleans,

00:58:50.480 | and never step foot onto Bourbon Street,

00:58:53.440 | barely even enter the French Quarter,

00:58:55.520 | and experience New Orleans like someone

00:58:57.560 | who lives in New Orleans.

00:58:58.520 | And that means, you know, yeah, sure, go for Mardi Gras,

00:59:01.720 | but go for the actual parades, and the parties,

00:59:04.280 | and the stuff that happens in people's backyards.

00:59:07.520 | Go for all the other festivals that happen

00:59:09.680 | after Mardi Gras, and the other fairs.

00:59:12.400 | I think it is a magical, magical city

00:59:14.280 | that's unlike anywhere else,

00:59:16.080 | not just in North America, but the world.

00:59:18.840 | - I think, geographically,

00:59:20.320 | Central America is in North America,

00:59:22.160 | if we're talking continents, is that correct?

00:59:24.120 | - Yeah, sure. - Okay, cool.

00:59:24.960 | So, my whole family took a trip to El Salvador,

00:59:28.600 | and we stayed at this small,

00:59:31.280 | I wish I could, I'll try to put the name

00:59:32.800 | of the place on the show notes.

00:59:34.240 | We found this small family-run eight-room hotel

00:59:38.000 | on the beach that was just like, wake up.

00:59:42.000 | It was almost like a bed and breakfast,

00:59:43.680 | but it was kind of operated a little bit more like a resort,

00:59:46.200 | but definitely run by a family.

00:59:48.960 | Surfing was interesting.

00:59:50.280 | We'd walk down the beach to the little city,

00:59:52.960 | or a little town right near there.

00:59:54.960 | It was awesome.

00:59:55.800 | And then after, I can't even remember

00:59:57.880 | how we ended up getting to Nicaragua,

01:00:01.320 | and just kind of staying in the rainforest,

01:00:03.800 | and kind of exploring,

01:00:05.200 | and everyone always says go to Costa Rica.

01:00:08.240 | That seems to be the primary destination,

01:00:11.680 | but I would recommend either of those countries.

01:00:14.800 | We had a great experience just kind of exploring

01:00:18.400 | around where we were staying,

01:00:19.800 | and kind of a local,

01:00:23.320 | I don't even know what to call this place,

01:00:24.600 | 'cause you could call it a resort,

01:00:26.520 | but you could also call it a plot of land

01:00:28.400 | someone built a few houses on, and the family operates.

01:00:31.040 | - Love that.

01:00:31.960 | Anything else outside of the U.S. in that area?

01:00:35.240 | I know we've got a lot to get through,

01:00:36.600 | but you've also seen a lot.

01:00:38.160 | - Yeah, on the Pacific coast,

01:00:42.480 | this was one of the 52 places, actually.

01:00:44.440 | I mean, actually, no, not specifically,

01:00:46.080 | 'cause Panama was on the 52 places list,

01:00:48.480 | but there's a little town called Santa Catalina

01:00:51.200 | on the Pacific coast of Panama, on the west coast.

01:00:53.920 | It's about a six-hour drive, maybe, from Panama City,

01:00:58.240 | and it's just this, like,

01:01:00.120 | when you think of the bohemian surfer paradise,

01:01:05.120 | like, this is it, hidden away,

01:01:07.760 | tons of locals living there, too,

01:01:09.040 | so it's not the kind of place that's been colonized

01:01:12.400 | by foreign surfers,

01:01:14.960 | but just a place where time slows down,

01:01:19.680 | and I spent just hours just sitting on this huge beach,

01:01:24.320 | also happens to be right off of Coiba,

01:01:27.160 | which is a national park

01:01:28.200 | with some of the best scuba diving in the world,

01:01:30.880 | so after days and days of just hanging on this beach,

01:01:33.640 | eating fresh fish every day,

01:01:35.360 | I went for a dive in Coiba,

01:01:37.720 | and at the end of our second dive,

01:01:42.720 | I look up, and there's just a giant whale shark

01:01:45.720 | just circling us, right above us,

01:01:47.920 | one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had,

01:01:51.560 | and it was all in this place that just felt like

01:01:54.440 | a place that had been hidden

01:01:56.520 | from the rest of the world for forever,

01:01:59.000 | and I hope it's still like that after I wrote about it,

01:02:02.440 | but I think it is,

01:02:05.160 | 'cause it felt like I'd entered a portal

01:02:08.080 | into another dimension, honestly.

01:02:10.240 | - Gosh, I don't even wanna remember how many years ago.

01:02:12.760 | In college, so, like, a long time ago for me,

01:02:15.880 | I went to Tamarindo in Costa Rica,

01:02:18.000 | and it felt like that,

01:02:19.120 | and I have since learned, I don't wanna go back.

01:02:21.480 | As much as it was one of the fondest memories of travel,

01:02:24.400 | I have, but I don't wanna go back,

01:02:27.480 | because I've heard it is not like that anymore, so.

01:02:30.080 | - I've heard it's not like that either, yeah.

01:02:32.160 | - Okay, so South America,

01:02:34.680 | I'll kick off, 'cause I don't have a lot.

01:02:36.400 | South America is one of the places I haven't traveled a lot,

01:02:38.840 | but I enjoyed Cartagena.

01:02:42.600 | I thought it was, like, an incredibly fascinating city.

01:02:45.320 | Full disclosure, I went on my bachelor party.

01:02:47.240 | However, it was a city that, you know,

01:02:51.600 | I've been to a lot of places

01:02:52.680 | where you just feel like you're in a different place.

01:02:54.760 | Like, we didn't just do bachelor party things, right?

01:02:57.720 | Like, we went and explored the castle.

01:02:59.440 | We took a boat out to a random island.

01:03:02.320 | We just hopped around the island.

01:03:04.680 | It was awesome, and I would recommend it to anyone.

01:03:08.720 | - Yeah, and so I'm half Colombian, so full disclosure.

01:03:11.960 | My mother's from Colombia, so I second that recommendation,

01:03:15.040 | but I would also encourage people

01:03:16.200 | to explore beyond Cartagena, too.

01:03:20.080 | I mean, Cartagena's great, especially for a first-timer.

01:03:21.840 | There's a lot of tourism infrastructure there and stuff, too,

01:03:24.360 | but check out some of the other cities.

01:03:25.920 | Medellin, which is where my family's from,

01:03:28.880 | is not the Medellin of the '80s, you know,

01:03:31.960 | that people associate with Escobar and everything else.

01:03:34.600 | It's an incredibly dynamic, fast-growing,

01:03:38.320 | super-fun city with incredible nightlife

01:03:41.240 | and just, like, has the energy of a city on the move.

01:03:45.320 | You really feel it.

01:03:46.440 | It's also just physically beautiful.

01:03:48.120 | There's also parts on the coast of Colombia,

01:03:52.760 | like the Pacific coast, that for a long time

01:03:54.880 | were largely off-limits because of conflict

01:03:58.960 | that are now kind of opening up to tourists

01:04:01.040 | for the first time, and there's just so much

01:04:03.080 | to see in Colombia, so I second that recommendation.

01:04:05.760 | To have something different, though,

01:04:06.800 | I'm gonna go actually a little bit

01:04:09.200 | into the Caribbean for this one.

01:04:10.800 | I think there's a lot on mainland South America

01:04:12.600 | that I could recommend.

01:04:13.520 | Ecuador's incredible.

01:04:14.960 | City of Quito is worth spending a lot of time in if you can,

01:04:18.040 | but I'm gonna go actually right off the coast

01:04:20.400 | to the island of Bonaire,

01:04:22.760 | which is one of the Dutch Antilles,

01:04:24.320 | so if you know, like, Curaçao, Aruba,

01:04:26.480 | and then Bonaire's there as well,

01:04:29.120 | and Bonaire is another place that I feel like

01:04:32.040 | has slipped under the radar

01:04:34.360 | for a lot of people for a long time,

01:04:36.800 | and I think no matter how much I talk about it,

01:04:38.720 | at least I'm not gonna ruin it

01:04:39.920 | because it's just, there's something special about it.

01:04:43.440 | Just another place where you can really slow down.

01:04:45.440 | Beautiful beaches.

01:04:46.840 | Some of the best scuba diving in the world,

01:04:48.560 | if that's what you're into.

01:04:49.920 | And just also a very fascinating cultural milieu

01:04:54.600 | of African influence, Dutch influence,

01:04:57.880 | mainland South American influence.

01:04:59.640 | Really cool place to just rent a house on the beach

01:05:03.960 | and hang out for a week

01:05:05.040 | and pick up fish from the market every morning,

01:05:07.440 | cook it in the evening.

01:05:09.240 | Good place to unplug for that.

01:05:11.120 | - It might be right next to Aruba,

01:05:12.520 | but I had the exact opposite experience in Aruba.

01:05:15.200 | I felt like it's just become

01:05:16.800 | the most commercialized, Americanized island.

01:05:19.800 | - So it could not be more different.

01:05:21.000 | It's literally like two sides of a coin.

01:05:22.880 | It's really interesting.

01:05:24.400 | And I think the difference is that Bonaire,

01:05:26.720 | while having nice beaches,

01:05:28.440 | it doesn't have those huge sandy beaches

01:05:31.000 | that make for a great setting for huge resorts.

01:05:34.600 | Here it's more rocky beaches.

01:05:35.960 | It's a little more rugged.

01:05:37.920 | And because of that, it hasn't had the,

01:05:39.880 | and hopefully it never does,

01:05:42.000 | the kind of infrastructure boom that Aruba has had.

01:05:46.320 | Okay, you want me to go first for Europe?

01:05:47.640 | - Yeah.

01:05:48.880 | - I'm gonna say the town of Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

01:05:51.640 | It's the second biggest city in Bulgaria.

01:05:53.720 | One of the coolest towns I've ever been to,

01:05:56.960 | just full of creative energy, young people.

01:06:00.520 | There's an area called,

01:06:02.120 | I think it's called Kapana or something in Bulgarian,

01:06:04.120 | but it means the trap,

01:06:05.480 | because once you get into it,

01:06:06.560 | it's very hard to find your way around.

01:06:08.080 | It's like this very densely packed

01:06:12.360 | kind of cluster of buildings,

01:06:15.040 | but it's like full of bars and cafes and full bookstores

01:06:18.120 | and just like this, a lot of creative people,

01:06:19.920 | a lot of creative energy.

01:06:21.200 | It's also, they call it the other city of seven hills.

01:06:24.080 | So if Rome has seven hills, so does Plovdiv.

01:06:26.720 | But these hills are like smack in the middle of town.

01:06:28.720 | So you can go on a hike through the woods

01:06:30.920 | in the middle of the city,

01:06:32.120 | come out the other side

01:06:33.040 | and be in the second biggest city in Bulgaria.

01:06:35.960 | Such a cool place.

01:06:37.480 | And I can't wait to go back.

01:06:40.840 | It was one of the places on my 52 places trip, actually,

01:06:43.920 | that I was like walking around

01:06:45.280 | and I was constantly thinking like,

01:06:47.880 | I could rent a place here for like six months or a year,

01:06:50.280 | just hang out, just read

01:06:52.600 | and go to the local coffee shop in the morning

01:06:54.240 | and write in the evening and had that kind of vibe.

01:06:57.960 | Plovdiv.

01:06:59.280 | - I felt that way about Budapest, like being there.

01:07:02.000 | I was like, we could just move here and it would be amazing,

01:07:04.400 | but I'm not gonna go there.

01:07:06.160 | I'm gonna go to Bosnia and there are two things.

01:07:09.840 | So we were in Croatia and we thought,

01:07:11.960 | why don't we just rent a car and drive across the border

01:07:14.360 | and just see what happens.

01:07:15.280 | And we drove up to Mostar,

01:07:18.400 | which is this like wild city

01:07:20.720 | that just kind of feels like a amalgamation

01:07:23.720 | of like every culture in the world, almost.

01:07:26.120 | The food was amazing.

01:07:28.240 | There's the most fascinating people watching

01:07:30.080 | because there's this bridge that is famous

01:07:32.200 | for jumping off of,

01:07:33.160 | and you can kind of just relax and sit by the water

01:07:35.240 | and you watch these people trying to get people

01:07:38.000 | to join the Mostar Bridge Jumping Club,

01:07:40.400 | which I was like, just close to doing it, didn't do it.

01:07:44.840 | If I go back, I'm like, I'm doing it, I'm doing it.

01:07:46.960 | This is my plan.

01:07:49.240 | But the one thing I will suggest people do.

01:07:51.960 | So there is this famous general from the Soviet Union, Tito.

01:07:56.960 | He built this bunker and I think it's probably the largest.

01:08:01.840 | I mean, I could be wrong,

01:08:02.720 | but it might be one of the,

01:08:03.840 | if not the largest bunker in the world.

01:08:06.160 | It's gigantic.

01:08:07.960 | And it's set inside just a random

01:08:10.800 | like neighborhood-y kind of experience.

01:08:12.920 | You go into this neighborhood,

01:08:14.440 | you go into this house and in the garage,

01:08:16.000 | there's just this false fake door.

01:08:18.000 | You go in the door and all of a sudden

01:08:19.600 | you're inside this gigantic bunker

01:08:22.360 | that they've kind of turned into an art gallery.

01:08:25.360 | I don't even know how to explain the experience.

01:08:27.960 | We had heard about it

01:08:29.880 | and we just basically asked every local we could

01:08:32.240 | to figure out how it worked

01:08:33.120 | and someone knew someone who had a tour.

01:08:35.200 | I think it's slightly a little easier to go on now

01:08:39.280 | than it was at the time.

01:08:42.040 | But that is my recommendation is to go explore that.

01:08:44.640 | In today's dollars,

01:08:45.760 | the bunker would have cost over $4 billion to build.

01:08:49.880 | It is, it's literally one of the most gigantic things.

01:08:53.120 | I think hundreds of rooms.

01:08:54.840 | I wish I had more of the information about it

01:08:57.800 | off the top of my head.

01:08:58.720 | But that tour and experience was just so fascinating.

01:09:02.040 | And the kinds of people were on it.

01:09:03.840 | We had conversations about why they were there,

01:09:05.680 | how they learned about it.

01:09:06.600 | 'Cause it didn't feel like a tourist experience,

01:09:08.680 | though I would put it as a tourist experience.

01:09:11.680 | All right, South Africa.

01:09:14.960 | - I think there's a lot of options here.

01:09:20.000 | I'm gonna go with the city of Dakar in Senegal.

01:09:22.920 | Another city that within a few days,

01:09:25.120 | I was like, I could live here for sure.

01:09:27.160 | Music everywhere.

01:09:30.600 | Just another city where you just feel the energy of it

01:09:33.280 | the moment you step off the plane.

01:09:35.280 | People are so friendly, so hospitable.

01:09:38.200 | So many little places to have,

01:09:40.000 | get a whole fish grilled up on the beach.

01:09:43.240 | I think the whole fish,

01:09:44.400 | the whole grilled fish is a common thread

01:09:46.200 | between all my choices so far.

01:09:47.720 | So you can tell what I,

01:09:49.360 | it's a great universal of travel

01:09:50.800 | is the whole fish just grilled to perfection.

01:09:53.400 | And in Senegal, you get that too.

01:09:55.160 | Yeah, like music everywhere, amazing history,

01:09:59.480 | both tragic and not in terms of the history.

01:10:02.960 | Really cool nightlife with live music everywhere.

01:10:08.240 | I mean, just a really amazing dynamic modern city

01:10:14.120 | that I think a lot of people,

01:10:15.960 | 'cause I think people overlook African cities in general.

01:10:18.240 | If people are traveling to Africa,

01:10:19.400 | they're thinking nature, they're thinking safari,

01:10:21.720 | they're thinking all these things, which is true.

01:10:23.640 | It's a reason for it.

01:10:24.480 | It's spectacular in terms of nature.

01:10:26.520 | But I think the cities have a lot to offer.

01:10:27.880 | I mean, this is like one of the youngest populations

01:10:30.360 | in the world that are on that continent, right?

01:10:32.200 | So there's just an incredible energy

01:10:34.200 | and incredible forward momentum,

01:10:36.080 | and you really feel it in a city like Dakar.

01:10:38.320 | - I like it.

01:10:39.160 | I'm gonna go a little off the rails here,

01:10:41.440 | or actually on the rails.

01:10:43.760 | That was not supposed to be a joke,

01:10:44.960 | but it just happened and suggest people

01:10:47.400 | check out the Tazara train.

01:10:50.640 | So it's a train from,

01:10:52.880 | or I guess between Tanzania and Zambia.

01:10:56.240 | If I want, we took this, my wife and I,

01:10:58.760 | almost a decade ago, a little longer,

01:11:01.040 | and it was like a three-day train ride.

01:11:04.600 | And almost every person I've ever heard

01:11:07.560 | says the train breaks down a little bit every time.

01:11:10.400 | You usually end up stopping in a random village.

01:11:12.440 | Everyone can kind of go explore, and you get back on.

01:11:15.680 | You meet the most fascinating people on the train

01:11:18.120 | because people that take a train for three days in Africa

01:11:21.000 | have some interesting story to tell.

01:11:23.240 | Flights in Africa are really expensive,

01:11:25.760 | so it's a really affordable way to get around.

01:11:28.960 | And if at the end of that experience

01:11:30.960 | you want a little bit something different

01:11:32.760 | that's maybe a little bit more relaxing,

01:11:34.600 | you end up in Dar es Salaam,

01:11:36.440 | and you can take a ferry to Zanzibar,

01:11:38.120 | which is kind of this otherworldly cool island

01:11:40.880 | with a lot of both sad and interesting history as well.

01:11:44.840 | So that's my-

01:11:45.680 | - And Zanzibar, I think, has, if not the,

01:11:49.480 | some of the best beaches I've ever seen in my life.

01:11:52.160 | - Yeah.

01:11:53.000 | - Around Zanzibar, just unreal.

01:11:54.120 | - It's wild.

01:11:54.960 | - So that's what I've got.

01:11:56.080 | Obviously, if you haven't taken a safari somewhere in Africa

01:11:58.840 | it's an amazing experience,

01:12:00.160 | but I assume that's not something

01:12:02.000 | someone needs to be told about.

01:12:03.560 | This is gonna be the hardest one

01:12:05.840 | because it encompasses so many places.

01:12:08.560 | What are your kind of one to two hot spots in Asia?

01:12:11.880 | - Oof, yeah, it is really hard,

01:12:12.840 | especially 'cause I grew up there for the most part.

01:12:15.440 | So I'm not gonna, I'm gonna skip over Indonesia

01:12:18.280 | because that's like an obvious choice for me

01:12:19.920 | 'cause that's where I spent my formative years,

01:12:21.640 | but I'll say plainly, Indonesia.

01:12:24.800 | It's endless in terms of the places you can go.

01:12:26.920 | Literally, there's 20,000 islands or whatever.

01:12:29.200 | So that's a good place to start looking beyond Bali

01:12:33.240 | and other things like that.

01:12:34.400 | But I'm gonna say,

01:12:35.400 | I'm gonna say Vietnam.

01:12:39.000 | I think the cities especially, I'm thinking,

01:12:42.760 | going from north to south,

01:12:46.640 | Hanoi, Da Nang, and Saigon,

01:12:49.920 | I think all offer very different things.

01:12:52.200 | And I think the cities are just incredible.

01:12:53.720 | I think it's, you'll eat maybe the best

01:12:56.080 | you've ever eaten in your life

01:12:57.320 | just off on plastic stools on the side of the road.

01:12:59.800 | It's just a attention to detail with the food universally

01:13:03.800 | that you don't get in a lot of places

01:13:05.720 | and for next to nothing.

01:13:07.200 | Just a huge part of the culture.

01:13:09.320 | And I think it's incredible to witness.

01:13:11.280 | I think you haven't lived till you've tried

01:13:14.000 | to cross a road in Hanoi during rush hour

01:13:16.600 | and felt the adrenaline rush of that.

01:13:19.800 | The trick is to keep moving

01:13:21.040 | and don't make any sudden movements.

01:13:22.400 | Motorcycles will go around you.

01:13:24.160 | Yeah, it's just, I mean, again,

01:13:26.600 | another common thread I think

01:13:27.680 | between some of these places I'm picking

01:13:28.960 | is just cities that feel so alive

01:13:31.240 | and you can't help but get caught up in that feeling

01:13:34.040 | and the current of the place

01:13:35.280 | and kind of places where you can just sit down

01:13:37.440 | on a plastic stool and sip a coffee

01:13:40.320 | and watch the world go by.

01:13:42.600 | And it's incredible to witness.

01:13:44.880 | So that would be one.

01:13:45.920 | Trying to think of,

01:13:48.040 | I can think of something maybe nature-based

01:13:49.920 | for the other one.

01:13:51.960 | I'm gonna say Siberia.

01:13:53.560 | I think now, obviously, is not the time to go

01:13:55.520 | for geopolitical reasons,

01:13:57.040 | but if things with Russia ever change,

01:13:59.880 | the area around Lake Baikal,

01:14:02.120 | which is the deepest lake in the world,

01:14:04.440 | is otherworldly.

01:14:05.920 | There's an island called Olkhon Island.

01:14:08.160 | Absolutely otherworldly place.

01:14:10.760 | You feel like you're in a dream,

01:14:12.280 | especially if you go in the fall,

01:14:13.720 | where Edwin and I went.

01:14:15.400 | All the trees are bright yellow

01:14:17.520 | because of the changing foliage.

01:14:19.400 | Wild horses in random corners.

01:14:22.880 | Long stretches with no humans in sight.

01:14:25.520 | Just really feels like you died

01:14:27.600 | and gone somewhere else.

01:14:29.800 | - I struggled with this,

01:14:30.840 | and then I was like,

01:14:31.680 | "Oh, well, I guess the Middle East is in Asia."

01:14:33.640 | So I'm gonna,

01:14:35.120 | I have two.

01:14:36.120 | One is, like your Siberia,

01:14:38.280 | Syria was one of my most memorable places to travel.

01:14:41.320 | Would also probably not go there right now,

01:14:43.000 | though there are reports of people traveling there.

01:14:46.720 | But we also went to Lebanon,

01:14:48.720 | which I thought was just a wild, interesting place

01:14:53.720 | that both felt like it had the longest history.

01:14:57.520 | We went up to the mountains.

01:14:58.400 | We went hiking in the mountains.

01:14:59.920 | We went to a ski resort in the summer

01:15:01.880 | and hung out there.

01:15:03.120 | There's all of these,

01:15:04.760 | I think they're like monasteries

01:15:07.000 | surrounding this valley.

01:15:08.840 | You could basically see every season,

01:15:11.560 | every style of architecture,

01:15:13.200 | every style of experience

01:15:16.760 | from the mountains to the beaches,

01:15:18.800 | all in a very small country.

01:15:20.160 | We drove around the entire country.

01:15:21.880 | We drove to the South.

01:15:23.400 | We got calls from our friends in Beirut saying,

01:15:25.440 | "You're not supposed to drive that far

01:15:26.840 | "as an American tourist.

01:15:27.840 | "That's not a good idea."

01:15:29.440 | We never actually felt unsafe

01:15:30.880 | as much as people told us we were.

01:15:32.800 | And then the most interesting thing to me

01:15:36.680 | is that there's this weird amalgamation

01:15:39.200 | of French and English and Arabic

01:15:41.520 | that exists in the country.

01:15:43.400 | And you'll hear people using all three languages

01:15:46.000 | in one sentence,

01:15:47.320 | which is something that,

01:15:49.400 | I don't know,

01:15:50.240 | you just don't hear it that often.

01:15:51.080 | And I only speak two of the three languages.

01:15:52.640 | So I could understand like 2/3 of what's going on.

01:15:56.680 | And it seems like they get combined

01:15:59.040 | in the calmest and the most aggressive circumstances.

01:16:02.080 | So it's when people are just saying, "Hi."

01:16:04.440 | It's like, "Hi, (speaks in foreign language)."

01:16:06.360 | And then when people are angry on the street,

01:16:08.320 | cursing out of their car windows,

01:16:09.800 | you catch like bits of every language also.

01:16:12.160 | So, but it's a beautiful country.

01:16:14.800 | It has modern size.

01:16:16.400 | It has lots of remnants of wars and buildings.

01:16:19.640 | I'm looking, your common theme was whole fish.

01:16:21.800 | I was like, "Gosh, I went to Bosnia."

01:16:23.120 | There's lots of buildings that have been bombed.

01:16:25.560 | I went to Lebanon.

01:16:26.400 | - It's amazing to see places that bounce back

01:16:28.400 | after those situations, so yeah.

01:16:31.120 | - So Lebanon was amazing.

01:16:32.440 | And then, I've mentioned Japan a million times,

01:16:35.280 | but I think it deserves to be on the list

01:16:37.520 | and is probably gonna be the place

01:16:40.120 | I will travel to more than anywhere else in the world,

01:16:43.640 | just 'cause we always keep wanting to go back.

01:16:45.920 | - Yeah, yeah, I agree with that for sure.

01:16:49.800 | - But maybe I'll ask you this.

01:16:50.800 | You've been to Japan.

01:16:51.920 | What are some places outside of the,

01:16:54.680 | we've done, as we expand Japan every time,

01:16:57.440 | we're like, "Let's go to a new place.

01:16:58.360 | "Let's go to a new place."

01:16:59.320 | Any suggestions?

01:17:00.760 | - I mean, I loved the area around Kanazawa

01:17:03.160 | and Shirakawago, I think, is that little village

01:17:07.800 | in the mountains in the Japanese Alps

01:17:09.360 | that looks like it's out of a fairy tale

01:17:11.640 | with the sloped roofs.

01:17:13.160 | It's unreal.

01:17:14.400 | We went there in the summer

01:17:15.280 | and it was just like dream world.

01:17:16.960 | And I think the trick there is people,

01:17:19.040 | it gets touristy during the day

01:17:20.720 | 'cause a lot of people come on day trips,

01:17:22.600 | but hardly anyone spends the night.

01:17:24.400 | So if you spend a night there,

01:17:25.480 | you really feel this village

01:17:26.680 | that feels like it's from another time.

01:17:29.040 | And I also loved, I went to the area

01:17:31.760 | around the Seto Inland Sea,

01:17:34.160 | like Setouchi around Takamatsu,

01:17:36.560 | for the art triennial that happens there.

01:17:38.720 | I think this one, I wonder if they've postponed it again.

01:17:41.000 | I don't know, 'cause the last one was 2019 when I was there.

01:17:43.720 | And that's just very cool

01:17:44.880 | 'cause you have these little islands

01:17:46.400 | and each island becomes basically an outdoor art gallery.

01:17:49.680 | And so you take the fairies around from island to island

01:17:52.640 | and you're just like in this alternate reality

01:17:54.760 | where there's sculptures everywhere

01:17:56.520 | and everything's a museum, basically.

01:17:58.400 | Really special, special art event

01:18:01.800 | that happens in that area.

01:18:03.480 | So those would be my outside

01:18:05.280 | of the common path recommendations.

01:18:09.080 | But all that being said is,

01:18:11.400 | I think I've only been to Japan twice,

01:18:13.680 | so I've got a lot more to see in the years ahead.

01:18:18.360 | - Yeah, we had another travel journalist,

01:18:20.960 | Brandon Presseron,

01:18:21.800 | who actually wrote the "Lonely Planet" Japan guide.

01:18:24.960 | And so go back and check that episode out

01:18:26.840 | or reach out to him.

01:18:27.680 | He has like every tip on earth for Japan.

01:18:32.120 | I'm trying to think.

01:18:32.960 | I feel like there's just more,

01:18:34.040 | like Taiwan needs to be on the list.

01:18:36.840 | I mean, India, I mean, like there's half the world,

01:18:40.920 | I mean, more than half the world, right?

01:18:42.560 | - Yeah, I can't think of...

01:18:44.560 | There are very few...

01:18:45.400 | I loved Cambodia.

01:18:46.440 | I could just go through this long list

01:18:47.960 | and there's just the food and the people.

01:18:49.880 | It's just incredible.

01:18:52.120 | And I feel like half the world goes to Lebanon

01:18:56.240 | and half the world ends up going

01:18:57.280 | on a similar experience in Israel.

01:18:59.440 | And I've done both and they're both fantastic.

01:19:01.800 | So I think go to Lebanon first

01:19:05.980 | because I don't think you want the Israeli stamp

01:19:07.520 | in your passport going into Lebanon.

01:19:09.000 | I don't think that that works well.

01:19:11.560 | So if you're debating between the two,

01:19:13.440 | I would start in Lebanon and do Israel next

01:19:16.680 | or just make sure you don't get the stamp in your passport.

01:19:19.000 | But also make sure--

01:19:19.840 | - Most of the time they won't stamp your passport these days

01:19:22.160 | 'cause they know in Israel.

01:19:23.800 | - But someone we were with had the sticker

01:19:27.240 | on the back of their passport.

01:19:28.320 | It's like they didn't stamp the passport

01:19:29.640 | but they had like a little sticker.

01:19:30.480 | - A security sticker, yeah.

01:19:31.920 | - And it was not a fun border crossing for them.

01:19:35.760 | So, but gosh, I don't know.

01:19:38.220 | The food is like the highlight of the Middle East for me

01:19:40.780 | and the people.

01:19:41.980 | So eating with strangers is like my favorite thing

01:19:45.240 | to do there.

01:19:46.420 | I'm gonna let you take everything.

01:19:49.300 | I don't know whether to call it Oceania

01:19:50.820 | or Australia feels very biased

01:19:52.900 | to call the continent Australia,

01:19:54.220 | though I think that's what I grew up learning it as.

01:19:56.540 | And Antarctica because my experience in that whole area

01:19:59.580 | is just like a one week city tour of Australia.

01:20:02.740 | So I'll let you take both.

01:20:04.300 | - So for Australia, Oceania, whatever we wanna call it,

01:20:08.400 | I'm gonna say South Island of New Zealand.

01:20:12.300 | It's not news to anyone

01:20:13.420 | that it's one of the most beautiful places in the world,

01:20:15.220 | but I would encourage people to look at the Great Walks,

01:20:18.560 | which are a collection of different trails

01:20:22.220 | that New Zealand has created over the past

01:20:24.420 | however many years, I don't know how many years.

01:20:26.500 | And there's new ones being added every few years,

01:20:30.060 | but they're basically like multi-day treks you can do.

01:20:32.900 | And I would look for those in the South Island.

01:20:35.260 | I can't think of a better way to see that nature

01:20:37.340 | than by foot.

01:20:39.060 | And a lot of them have like,

01:20:40.820 | some of them are pretty rugged

01:20:41.820 | in terms of back country backpacking,

01:20:44.020 | but a lot of them also have like huts along the way

01:20:47.180 | that you can reserve

01:20:48.080 | so you're not fully exposed to the elements.

01:20:51.740 | But just, I've only done sections of them

01:20:53.780 | and never overnight.

01:20:54.660 | I've only explored them kind of as part of a story

01:20:57.340 | when I was looking around at different trails.

01:21:00.060 | But I would love to go back

01:21:00.960 | and do one of the Great Walks multi-day treks.

01:21:04.800 | So that would be my tip.

01:21:06.720 | But anywhere on the South Island,

01:21:08.440 | especially along the West Coast of the South Island

01:21:10.300 | is just, in one day you go from rainforest to glaciers

01:21:15.300 | to alpine terrain and it's mind-boggling.

01:21:20.000 | You don't even understand how a place like that exists.

01:21:22.200 | So that would be my tip for Oceania.

01:21:25.160 | And then, I mean, Antarctica.

01:21:26.640 | There's not a ton of options.

01:21:29.360 | My advice for Antarctica would be

01:21:31.800 | the smaller ship, the better.

01:21:35.080 | You're getting there by ship

01:21:36.000 | unless you're Elon Musk trying to get a private jet

01:21:39.320 | to the South Pole or whatever.

01:21:40.800 | But you're probably getting there by ship.

01:21:42.160 | So smaller ship, the better.

01:21:44.300 | And I think part of that is understanding

01:21:46.540 | the rules around tourism to Antarctica,

01:21:48.680 | the environmental rules,

01:21:49.640 | including the fact that only 100 people

01:21:52.280 | are allowed on land at any one time

01:21:55.000 | in terms of landing sites.

01:21:56.760 | So what that means is if you're on a ship

01:21:58.240 | with 700 people, you're not gonna be able

01:22:00.960 | to go out on every landing

01:22:02.160 | because they can only have 100 people at a time.

01:22:03.720 | If you're on a ship with 100 people,

01:22:05.520 | you're getting to go out every time.

01:22:07.080 | So that would be my tip.

01:22:08.200 | The smaller ship, the better.

01:22:09.120 | You just have a better experience that way.

01:22:11.600 | And my other tip would be like,

01:22:12.960 | don't even look at the luxury amenities

01:22:14.560 | offered on the ship because you're in Antarctica.

01:22:16.280 | And if you wanna spend that time

01:22:18.040 | face down on a massage table,

01:22:19.380 | you're missing the point of being in Antarctica.

01:22:22.120 | So go for the operator that you think

01:22:25.440 | is gonna give you the best actual experience

01:22:27.440 | on the ground, maximizing your time

01:22:29.200 | and interaction with a place

01:22:31.680 | that is the closest I think I'll ever get

01:22:34.240 | at least to being on another planet

01:22:35.720 | 'cause it is just unreal.

01:22:37.720 | I don't have words and my job is words.

01:22:42.100 | But actually I wrote like 3,000 words on it.

01:22:46.040 | So you can read about it at lonelyplanet.com.

01:22:50.080 | - Yeah, I'll link to that in the show notes.

01:22:51.640 | Any other parting travel advice

01:22:53.520 | I know we went over before we take off?

01:22:57.400 | - I do wanna reiterate that like at the end of the day,

01:23:00.520 | don't get too attached to the where.

01:23:02.160 | Don't get too attached to a list

01:23:04.120 | that you've given yourself.

01:23:05.200 | I mean, it's nice to dream and it's nice to imagine.

01:23:07.360 | It's nice to research and think about these places.

01:23:09.320 | And sure, maybe it's nice to write it down too.

01:23:12.080 | But I think the bucket list

01:23:14.840 | as we've long thought about it is a thing of the past.

01:23:17.320 | And I think we need to start thinking

01:23:18.600 | in terms of experiences.

01:23:20.040 | I think we need to start thinking

01:23:20.880 | in terms of exchange instead of just enrichment.

01:23:24.920 | I think we need to start thinking

01:23:27.280 | in terms of just having the best experience.

01:23:30.960 | And that can happen in your own backyard.

01:23:32.520 | And that can happen in places where not everyone is going.

01:23:35.400 | And it can happen at the time of year

01:23:37.280 | that not everyone is going.

01:23:39.120 | I don't know why we all have to go

01:23:40.400 | to Europe in the summer and Mexico in the winter

01:23:43.320 | and whatever else.

01:23:44.640 | I think death to the bucket list,

01:23:46.480 | death to the low season, death to the high season,

01:23:49.320 | all that stuff I think is things of the past.

01:23:51.640 | And we need to start thinking differently

01:23:54.200 | in terms of why we travel

01:23:55.800 | and think less about where we travel.

01:23:58.800 | - I agree.

01:23:59.880 | The high season is just sometimes a worse experience.

01:24:02.680 | Like you get the great weather,

01:24:03.600 | but you don't get everything else

01:24:04.640 | and it's twice as expensive and awesome.

01:24:07.920 | Where can people read what you're writing,

01:24:11.080 | see what you're seeing

01:24:12.320 | and follow you along all your adventures?

01:24:15.080 | - Yeah, so these days I'm writing exclusively

01:24:17.080 | for Lonely Planet where I'm editor at large.

01:24:19.400 | So you can find my work there

01:24:21.680 | if you search my name in Lonely Planet

01:24:23.120 | or just go to the website, look around a bit.

01:24:25.120 | We've got a lot of other great content there.

01:24:27.560 | In terms of like my personal content,

01:24:29.760 | I'm @sebmodak, S-E-B-M-O-D-A-K

01:24:33.080 | on Instagram and Twitter where I often upload

01:24:35.520 | my latest stories and share photos

01:24:38.400 | and everything else for my travels.

01:24:40.160 | And there's a few other things in the works,

01:24:42.280 | potentially a newsletter

01:24:43.440 | and some other kind of things that I'm working on.

01:24:45.760 | So just follow me on those social medias

01:24:47.960 | and you'll hear about them

01:24:48.800 | and you'll hear about where I am

01:24:50.800 | and where I'm going next.

01:24:52.400 | - I really appreciate it.

01:24:53.480 | I have a long list that is not a bucket list,

01:24:56.320 | but a long list of things to be inspired by.

01:24:59.160 | And I'm excited for more travel to come in the future.

01:25:02.640 | - Yeah, no, thanks for having me on.

01:25:04.520 | I think, you know, hopefully there's some takeaways here.

01:25:07.320 | I know it's not as like concrete

01:25:08.760 | as some of the people you talk to

01:25:09.920 | who are like, you need to do this for a rental car

01:25:11.880 | or this for a credit card or whatever else.

01:25:13.560 | I know it's different to be talking in these esoteric terms,

01:25:17.320 | but I do think it's important

01:25:18.360 | and I appreciate you having me on and chatting about it.

01:25:22.080 | - Yeah, thank you so much for being here.

01:25:24.000 | - Cheers.

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Travel like a Journalist and Make Every Trip Incredible | Sebastian Modak | All The Hacks

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