especially when you're traveling alone, I do it too. It's the best social crutch there is, right? If you're sitting alone and you feel nervous about it or you're bored or whatever else, you immediately pull out your phone, but that signals to everyone else that you're busy or you're closed off.

The amount of conversations that I've started from just sitting somewhere and just looking around, like people used to do when they had downtime, just kind of staring into space and making eye contact with someone, saying hello. Next thing you know, they say hello. How are you? Next thing you know, you're getting invited to grandma's house for dinner.

That has happened so many times. I think people are naturally curious, especially for solo travelers. They're curious why you're visiting their home, what you're up to while you're there, if you actually have the best recommendations or if you're going on some, that's something that they'd consider the tourist path or whatever that you actually, they wanna steer you somewhere else.

People are very passionate about where they're from. So tapping into that. - Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. I'm Chris Hutchins, and I'm your host, and I'm excited you're here today. And if you're listening to this podcast right now, you probably love to travel, and you don't need me to tell you how great an experience it is.

I'm gonna keep doing it anyways, and so is to our guest today, Sebastian Modak. He's a writer and a multimedia journalist based in New York, but he grew up all over the world and has since traveled to even more destinations. In fact, if you know that amazing New York Times 52 places list that comes out each year, well, in 2019, Sebastian sent his entire year going to all 52 places.

Well, except one, but we'll get to that later. He's now the editor-in-large at Lonely Planet and still writes about travel for publications like the New York Times, Condé Nast Traveler, and more. We're gonna talk about what he's learned from living in four different continents, traveling to 80 plus countries, what he thinks it means to travel like a journalist, and how he uses those skills to plan a memorable trip, some of the unusual experiences he's had on his journeys, why he thinks travel is important for everyone, and finally, we're both gonna share some of our favorite places to give you some inspiration for your next adventure.

(upbeat music) Sebastian, welcome to the show. - Thanks for having me, happy to be here. - You've probably spent more time traveling than almost anyone listening, so I'm curious just to kick us off what you think most people are probably getting wrong. What could people be doing totally differently in the way they travel?

- I think it starts before you even get on a plane or before you travel, and I think what's missing a lot of the times, myself included in the past, and that's something I've been trying to be more conscious of going forward, is the why of travel. I think we've nailed the what, we've even nailed the how.

You wanna go somewhere because your friend has told you about it and it's great, whatever, but are you really thinking deeply about how you're gonna engage with the place when you're on the ground? Is this really just a bragging rights trip? Is this because you saw an oversaturated photo on Instagram and you wanna get the same photo?

Maybe that is the way that you start getting interest in a place and you start getting the idea of traveling, but if that's the be all and end all, you're kind of missing the point, and especially now, I think, when you have to measure your travel decisions against things like your carbon footprint and the public health issues that now surround travel with COVID and everything else, you have all these other things to balance and measure out.

Now, more than ever, I think you need to be like, okay, why am I really going on this trip and how am I gonna act once I hit the ground? And I think that's really where people need to start more versus like, where am I gonna go? It's why am I gonna go and then taking it from there.

I think that's when you really start building a rewarding trip that's gonna give you these rewarding experiences that are gonna last a lifetime. - What are some examples of good whys you've heard from people about why they're traveling or why they're going to a specific place? - From solo travelers, for example, the why might be they wanna make some new friends and they wanna go to a place where they can really interact with people and meet locals and learn.

I think that's a great example of getting the right why. And I've known many people who have asked me that question, starting with like, where should I go if I want to really immerse myself in a place and immerse myself in maybe it's a language, maybe it's a cuisine, maybe it's a music scene or whatever else.

And that being a why I think is gonna just immediately lead to like the serendipitous life-changing encounters that we all really hope to have traveling. I can give you an example of a trip that I'm in the middle of planning right now. I got married recently and we're having our honeymoon.

And in thinking about our honeymoon, we started with a why. We didn't start with a where. We didn't start with, oh, we need to go to the Amalfi Coast or Hawaii or whatever else. And there's nothing wrong with those. Those are popular honeymoon destinations for a reason. But we were like, okay, we wanna go somewhere where we can do something active, something outdoors, not push ourselves too hard, not have to like over-plan it because we still do want it to be a honeymoon where we can relax and enjoy each other's company, but also maybe experience something new.

And that brought us to Slovenia and this incredible network of bike routes that Slovenia has put out over the last couple of years. And so I sort of poured over those. And then I found one that's like this gourmet focused route where you're like stopping in restaurants and you're riding through wine country and you're really learning about the local cuisine and you're staying at certified sustainable hotels and guest houses and you're doing it all on a bike.

So you're sustainable in that way. It was just all of a sudden, it's just opened up this trip that I had no idea even existed. And even as a travel journalist, I didn't know it was possible. And it all started with us just being like, where can we go that's like a little unexpected, but is also gonna give us, challenge us a bit, but isn't gonna be like grueling 70 miles days on a bike, but it's gonna be like 20 to 30 mile days instead.

And we'll end with a glass of wine and a good meal and a nice bed and breakfast. And we landed on Slovenia. So it's like, that's I think just one example of starting with the like, what am I looking for? And then going to the place instead of being like, man, everyone's been to Italy, but me, I need to go to Italy immediately, you know?

- Yeah, I've heard amazing things about Slovenia and haven't been. So I wanna get the recap when you're back, but- - For sure. - There's not like an obvious filter, right? If you wanna search for a hotel, you're like, well, I want it to be four stars. I want it to have a pool.

I want it to be within this distance of the city center. But when you took those criteria and you were like, you know, I would love to have a glass of wine at the end of the day, do something active. How did you end up to Slovenia? Like maybe it's the wealth of knowledge you've built, but how would the average person take this idea of a why and an experience they want and actually arrive at a place?

- So there's something, not to do the whole corporate plug, but there's something we talk about at Lonely Planet a lot in terms of like giving guidance to people, which is the bread and butter of what something like Lonely Planet does is travel guidance, is that you want to be their most knowledgeable friend, right?

You don't want to be necessarily just like, we're an authority, we're going to tell you what to do. You want to be that friend who's like, oh, what are you into? Oh, you got to try this and this and this, because like, this is, I totally know that you're into this.

And so you're going to really enjoy this. And so for me, I'm lucky to have this very extended network of travel writers and travel creators and all this stuff. So for me, like those were my friends. And I started just kind of asking around. I would see the articles that were coming through the pipeline at Lonely Planet.

I would see like some people writing about cycling in Slovenia. That would make me go down some rabbit hole of all these different green routes. And so it was really just like the kind of research that I think most travelers enjoy, is that kind of research where you get like a little tip and you follow that down a rabbit hole.

And you're like, oh, okay, so maybe not, you know, like it brought me down a rabbit hole looking at like Provence and Bordeaux and all this stuff. And I was like, oh, that's like, maybe just like a little too crowded for what we want. We want to have more space.

We want to feel like we're more embedded in local life. So we started looking at cases like, okay, if not France, if not Italy, just look at a map. Like, okay, Slovenia is right there. What's going on in Slovenia? So it's really just this like endless game, this kind of scavenger hunt where you're taking on little tips, you're doing your own research and you're landing on something that feels right.

But at least you've started somewhere beyond just like a bucket list, you know? - Yeah, we're going to come back to bucket lists 'cause we had a fun conversation about that before. But I'm curious, is there like a Lonely Planet or another source of like the world guidebook where it's like, you know, a page or so and about each country where you can kind of just start to like wet your palate on different places?

Or I know Lonely Planet, I don't know if you still do, but they used to have this thorn tree forum online where you could go ask questions. Anything in that realm of kind of broader inspiration? Obviously, you know, if you knew Slovenia, you could go get a guidebook about Slovenia and get the inspiration.

But if you didn't know Slovenia, you know, do you start with a continent or any ideas there? - Yeah, I mean, there is actually a Lonely Planet world book. I actually don't know the last time we put it out, but I've seen it before. It's this huge thick doorstopper of a volume that's just like an overview of the world.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend that. It's a big read to start going through. I mean, for better or for worse, I do think social media is a huge part of it. And it takes a little bit of your own work, I think, to filter through all the BS, so to speak, and the surface level stuff and the oversaturated photos and the influencer shots on the beach that aren't really telling you anything about the place.

But once you get past that, you can find some really incredible information on social media, just regular people out and about who put a Slovenia hashtag on something, or maybe not. Maybe they put a bike touring hashtag. And you're looking at the bike touring hashtag 'cause you're interested in doing something with bikes.

And you're like, where is this? Like, where is this person like drinking a glass of wine, looking at this beautiful valley with a bike in the background? Oh, it's Slovenia, huh, really? So I think like searching kind of subject areas in social media is sort of the digital equivalent of hanging out at a bar with the entire world and asking for recommendations, you know?

And it means you got to comb through some garbage to get to the good stuff, but it's in there. And it's the most, like the really genuine, from the heart, personal stuff that when you get to those recommendations, I think they mean a lot. I do it even as a journalist.

If I'm like interested in seeing where people are bike touring or where people are backpacking or hiking, like I'll search those hashtags. I'll follow those accounts on, you know, TikTok and Instagram or whatever, and just see where people are hanging out and what people are talking about. 'Cause for better or for worse, it is a pulse, and you're looking for a pulse, and you're looking for a trend, and it's there.

So I think that's one way. I think, you know, what I like to do is, yeah, starting with a continent, maybe. Maybe you're like, okay, Europe, I want to do a trip in Europe, but maybe I'm thinking beyond Spain, Italy, France. Just like look at a map and pick a country and be like, oh, Albania, like what's going on in Albania?

And then you can start looking there, and maybe something's gonna interest you. Maybe it won't. Maybe you'll be like, okay, this looks a little too rough for me. I need something with more infrastructure. And then you look west and you're like, okay, maybe one of these, you know, maybe Croatia, maybe Slovenia, maybe Czech Republic.

And just like looking at a physical map and like dreaming about it a little bit. 'Cause I know we'll probably get to this later, but I am of the firm belief that everywhere, literally everywhere, has something to offer if you open yourself up to it. It has something that's gonna blow your mind.

If you spend a little time, if you approach it with an open mind, you'll find something that's gonna blow your mind, even in your own backyard. I live two blocks from Prospect Park in Brooklyn. If I go into Prospect Park today with the mindset that like I'm looking to be educated, I'm looking to learn, I'm looking to have my mind expanded, I'm gonna have some interaction, whether it's, you know, staring at a cardinal for 20 minutes or watching a couple hanging out on the lawn or, you know, playing with a random dog that's gonna like make me feel good and make me feel fulfilled.

And I really firmly believe that it really starts with mindset, which loops all back to that idea of like, why are you traveling? And if you go in with the right mindset, it doesn't matter. Honestly, it doesn't really matter where you're going. You're gonna have your mind blown in some way.

- So I wanna dig into that process. But before I wanna mention, well, I don't know if the average listener is thinking of Reddit as social media. I wanna plug it because I use it a lot for travel. And I just did one quick search and I said, you know, European wine tour site colon reddit.com.

And it's like crowdsourcing my wine tasting trip to Europe. Who's got suggestions? There aren't a lot of comments, unfortunately. But the person who wrote it came up with all these suggestions that include Slovenia and Croatia and Alto Adige, which I don't even know where that is. - Alto Adige, yeah.

It's like Northern Italy, I think, yeah. - So this at least had a bunch of suggestions, even though there weren't a lot of comments. So I use that a lot. - I do too. And actually it's a great example. I, during the pandemic, I feel like you're gonna end this podcast being like this guy's obsessed with bikes.

Like shut up about bikes. But I like went down serious rabbit hole with cycling and bike, especially bike travel. Like I'm not really interested in the, you know, head to toe Lycra racing stuff. Like I'm, I love traveling by bike 'cause I think it like slows you down. You really get to notice a lot.

It's just a great way to like feel, get the feel of the place. But I really went down a rabbit hole during the pandemic because I was stuck at home like everyone else. I don't, I live in New York City. I don't own a car. So I was like looking at ways to tap into this idea of adventure and travel while still being close to home and doing it with the tools that I had, which was a bicycle.

And Reddit was like a goldmine for that kind of stuff. I just, as an example, I remember finding someone talking about the route vert, butchering that French, but it means the green route. And it's like a network of trails and routes in Quebec and Canada. Never would have thought of it.

Like my knowledge and desire and understanding of Quebec starts and ends with Montreal, like it has for a long time. And then suddenly reading about this network of hundreds and hundreds of miles of trails that exist in Quebec, started talking to my partner and we're like, you know, I hear the border's about to reopen with Canada.

What if we just went and did this trip that I like saw on Reddit? And we're like, okay, well, we don't have a car, but what if we took the train with our bikes as far North as it goes and then got on our bikes from there and rode across the border into Canada and did the trip that way, which is exactly what we ended up doing.

We took the train to St. Albans, Vermont, literally spent the night in Vermont, left that morning, rode to Canada, and then spent a week riding around Quebec and then rode back to Vermont and took the train home, all without ever getting in the car. I wrote about it on Lonely Planet's website actually, but it's a great example of something that just like started with like a tiny little spark of being like, huh, the green route Quebec, like sounds kind of magical.

Like, I wonder if we could do it. Next thing I know, a few weeks later, we're on a train with our bikes on our way up to Canada. So that just goes to show, I think, like how the germ of something, if you have the right curiosity and the right mindset, could turn into like a really great adventure.

- I think there's two things to take away there that you didn't mention. One, I imagine that was a pretty inexpensive trip for something you describe. You describe it in a way that people talk about these once-in-a-lifetime adventures that they plan for years and years and they spend thousands of dollars.

That doesn't sound like something that took a lot of advanced notice or a lot of money to make happen. - We didn't know where we were staying every night. Like it was one of those kinds of trips. And it was amazing 'cause you could do that in a place like Quebec.

We'd be like, oh, we're starting to get a little tired. We've been riding for 60 miles. It looks like a storm's coming in. Pull out my phone and be like, what's the nearest bed and breakfast? Give 'em a call. They're like, yeah, of course, come on through. Next thing you know, we're staying there.

So, and I think that's a great point that you make that like, one, that these kind of big, this is actually the point that I make in my story too, where like you think of like the capital B, capital T, big trip as something that you spend years thinking about, planning every moment.

You know, you're gonna go on a safari. You're gonna go climb to Everest Base Camp. You're gonna do these huge things, which is great. And those have a place and those kind of big goals are important. But what this taught me at least was that a big trip can come from like a small idea.

A big trip can be something that is largely improvised. It can be serendipitous, can be spontaneous. Again, I really do think it comes down to mindset. I think we could have gone into that panicking about not having a place to stay, tired, you know, we got rained on, we had flat tires, all this stuff.

But because we had the attitude where we're like, this is an adventure, like what? This is like, we've been cooped up at home for a year and a half 'cause of the pandemic. And now we're out here doing this amazing thing. Like how lucky are we? And because we came in with that attitude, it just turned into like a really fulfilling, if exhausting adventure.

- You know, it was kind of in your backyard per se, right? It wasn't directly there, but you took a train, you didn't have to cross an ocean, you didn't have to spend thousands on plane tickets. So, you know, I think a lot of times everyone plans vacations like, gosh, where can I go?

That's, you know, halfway around the world. And it's cool to hear that, you know, if you just think about it, you might find something, you know, not too far away. - Absolutely. - When we first spoke a few months ago, you kind of said, oh, I think people should think about how you to approach a trip like a journalist might, about the people you'll meet, how to approach it with an open mind.

So we talked about mindset. We talked about the feeling you want to get, a little bit about where you want to go, but I kind of want to just break down. Let's say someone listening has gone through these steps and is planning a trip. I'd love to just go back and forth and talk about some of the things you do.

So let's say we've now picked a place. Let's say we have decided the why and we know why we're going. What kind of research do you think people should be doing in advance versus leaving up to that serendipity you described earlier? - What I like to do is, so I'm just going to give you an example of from the 52 places trip I did, because I mean, I think it's very out of the ordinary, of course, but I think there's a lot that can be learned for it.

One of the things was that I, because I was going to 52 places in 52 weeks, I didn't have time to prepare, right? I luckily had someone at the times who was helping me and she would send me like a really great, like one pager of like, here's what you need to know about currency and here's what you need to know about public transportation.

And here's like the top 10 things to do when you Google the place, right? Like these are the big tourist hits or whatever. I would try to like knock out those 10 things in like an afternoon and be like, okay, so I've done the brass tacks. I've seen that now, like, let me actually have an experience, you know?

And I think that goes back to this idea of like travel being more serendipitous, more spontaneous, more connective than it is extractive. I think a lot of the times we think of travel as extractive where it's like, I need to go in there, get things that make me fulfilled and leave and that's, and wash my hands of it and plan the next trip.

And I think leaving things open has been, has always led to the best experiences. In terms of preparation, like, yeah, have a place to stay. If it's city-based, find a place to stay. I think beforehand, if you can go as local as possible. And I don't mean Airbnb. I mean, Airbnb is fine if that's what you wanna do.

But I think there's nothing better than staying at like a family run bed and breakfast. I think it's the best, you know, bathrooms down the hall, you know, dad's making you breakfast in the morning. Mom's giving you tips of where to go shopping. You know, like that vibe, I think opens up so much just in terms of local recommendations, in terms of the feeling of being a local, in terms of supporting local economies, you're staying at like a family run hotel versus the Hilton or whatever.

Like, I think goes a long way in terms of where you're putting your money. So I think that's a great place to start. I've had incredible experiences literally just from, you know, an innkeeper in Bulgaria who over the course of five days of me staying there kind of gains my trust.

And all of a sudden he's showing me old family photos and he's showing me into the basement where there's like a fresco on the wall from like the Ottoman times. And he like keeps it under, like behind glass 'cause it's like his greatest possession now. And it's in this house that he's owned and his family has owned.

So just like these experiences that you unlock by like going local, by going small. I feel like you didn't ask me where you should stay, but I do think that is kind of where most people start. And I think thinking even the why in that decision goes a long way.

You could just look at TripAdvisor and go with the one with the most reviews with five stars, but then you're just kind of doing what everyone else did. - Right. And is there a time and a place sometimes for staying in like the city center, being really close to things?

I don't know if the, you know, kind of bed and breakfast are always kind of located in that area, but- - You know, maybe you do both. Maybe you do the rural bed and breakfast for a couple of days, and then you stay in the middle of the city where you're not really gonna be spending time at the hotel anyway.

But I think to go back to kind of what my first steps are in feeling that I'm connected to a place, what I learned to do pretty quickly on my reporting trips is that, and I think it's reporting specific, but I think it's general tips for travel too, is when I get to a place, especially if it's a city, first thing I do is I leave the camera in the hotel room.

I put the phone away in my pocket and I just walk. I'll give myself like an hour and a half, maybe two hours, no destination in mind. I just want to get the pulse of the place. I just want to feel it. And maybe I'll get distracted and like sit down for a beer and watch the city go by that way, or a coffee or sit in a park for a little bit, but I just want to be there.

And that means not looking at my phone. The great thing about Google Maps is that you can get completely lost and then use it to find your way back, right? So I just like, if I think a street looks interesting, I'll walk down that. If I see a scene happening at the local park, I'll sit down and watch that for 20 minutes.

If I strike up a conversation with someone, I'll let that go and see where it takes me. But it's just such a small thing, but it goes such a long way. If you're just thinking like, of course you're going to want to document things. You're going to want to post things to Instagram.

You're going to want to share it with friends, all this stuff, but just like wait a couple of hours. Do it starting that evening. Give yourself at least a few hours to feel like you're there and you're in the place. And maybe you'll see places where you're like, oh, I need to come back and photograph that.

I need to come back during sunset 'cause I bet the photographs here are great then or whatever else that you need to do. And I'm thinking of that professionally, of course, as a photographer and a writer, but I think everyone's into documenting their trips. So everyone's thinking of that.

But if you give yourself time to just be, it's really amazing how much better you get the place. You understand it and you feel it in a way that you don't, again, if you're just like extracting content from it from the moment you hit the ground. - You didn't mention this, but one thing I like to do is where possible and where not ridiculously inconvenient, get to wherever you're going using public transportation when you first arrive.

Taking the train, taking a bus. You see people in their normal environment versus if you were to take a taxi or call an Uber in another country, you're just kind of sitting in the back, just moving. So I feel like your trip starts sooner when you do that. - And I think it's, yeah, public transportation is a great tip.

I think you really get to know a place. There's cities that I know geographically through their subway maps versus their actual maps. I know that this stop is here and this stop is here and that's my understanding of geography. And I think it's something that as people get older and as people have more money and all these things, you stop doing that.

Like when you're a backpacker and you're living off the $20 in your pocket, you're taking public transportation or walking because you're not about to drop half your budget on a taxi, right? Now I think, at least for me who's older and whatever, it's much easier for me to be like, I'll just take an Uber.

But if you force yourself to, there's a lot we can learn from our early days of travel, backpacking and whatever else when you're pinching pennies, including the fact that like, yeah, public transportation is gonna save you money, but it also like, you just get to understand, you're seeing the places in between.

You're seeing the kind of people that come on on certain stops and go off and get off at certain stops. You're like, you get a really better understanding of the place just by getting on a train or a bus or like in South Africa, the combis, the little mini vans that go around.

You just get such a better understanding and people will help you too. And that's another thing that I think it's intimidating. Of course it is, but if you're lost, people will help you. I remember trying to find my way around the metro system in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which is incredible.

I mean, in the case of like former Soviet countries, take the subway just to see the metro stations, they're like works of art, it's unreal. So I'm taking the metro around in Tashkent and I was just so confused. I was like, I didn't understand the maps. I was sitting there with like, two handfuls of coins and bills, just like unsure about the denominations.

I was jet lagged and someone like saw me immediately and came up to me and like, in broken English was like, where are you trying to go? I like, I said the name of the stop and just held out my hands with all the coins in it. And he just like picked out what I needed, put it in the machine, gave me the ticket and led me on my way.

You know, it's like, put your trust in someone, someone's gonna help you out. And just that interaction too, like I still remember it and I'll remember it probably forever. Just that small interaction that you're not gonna get if you just call an Uber. - Yeah, those things happen. So we had the same thing happen in Aleppo, Syria.

We got into the city, we took a taxi from Turkey and we, which fun fact, taxis from Turkey, I mean, I'm sure this is different now, but taxis from Turkey to Syria, because gas was like 10% of the cost, right? It was so cheap, the taxis would go for free almost.

It was like, you know, the cost to go from Turkey to Syria was almost nothing as long as you had no bags because there were special taxis where their entire trunk was just gas tanks. And so you would go into Syria and it would be super cheap, but you'd get dropped off and we had, we were staying couch surfing in a suburb and we had no clue what we were doing.

And a random person came up who spoke no English, but kind of got the sense that we were lost, called someone, handed me the phone. So just a stranger's handing me a cell phone and I answer it and this person says, "Hey, you don't know me, "but my brother says he thinks you're lost." So he called me and if you want, I can, you can tell me where you're going, I'll tell him and he can help you get there.

But he would love if you stopped by his house and have some tea first. So like, it was this experience that I think many people could just not be open to or think it's scary. And I wanna get at some point to, before we stop to talk about, you know, risk and safety and that kind of stuff.

But being open to those things has been some of the best experiences we have. So, before we get there, what are you bringing? Like, we don't need to go down to how many pairs of socks, people can figure that out on their own, but are there perspectives you have that are unique or contrarian about things to bring or, you know, I never bring a roller board, I always bring a duffel bag or just things that might spark some interesting thoughts in people listening?

- I'm not like the militant, carry on only school of thought. I mean, maybe now I might be with the amount of, with the mess that's going on at airports and bags getting lost or whatever. But I remember getting into, I mean, this is the closest things, closest my work has gotten to being a controversy.

When I got that 52 places job, I posted something about how I had like decided I needed, I was just gonna check in a bag for the year. And of course, travel Twitter just blows up. They're like, oh my God, you call yourself a traveler? Like, if you can't get all your belongings in a carry on, you don't actually know how to travel.

And I was just like, shut up. Like everyone has, people can do their own thing. People have their own styles. I had to pack for Siberia and Tahiti in the same suitcase. Like it's not, I just didn't want the stress of having to do laundry every four days or whatever.

So I did it. The bag got lost twice, but found its way back to me. So it was fine. But I tell that story to say like, I'm not dogmatic about packing in any way. I bring, oftentimes it's happening half an hour before I'm heading to the airport and I'm just throwing in whatever I feel like.

I think there are things that I swear by now. Like it's hard to find anything in my travel wardrobe that's not made of Merino wool. 'Cause I think the stuff is magical. It keeps you warm when it's cold. It cools you down when it's hot. I've worn it in like, in the Gambia during the hottest, rainiest time of year.

Like the same t-shirt four days in a row and it still didn't smell. Like it's just, the stuff is witchcraft. It's unreal. So like now that's something I definitely learned through long-term travel. And now I completely swear by is Merino wool. - Where are you getting all of these Merino wool products?

Is there a brand or? - Smartwool is great. They make, Smartwool makes some great stuff. I have a lot of stuff from then. Fjallraven, it's all like performance stuff. It's like, you're like spending, I don't know, $180 on a t-shirt and you're like, "Really, $80 on a t-shirt?" But if you only have to bring two t-shirts with you, it's pretty good.

So yeah, I had like one lightweight Merino wool and one heavier weight one. And like, that was basically all I wore for a year. So that I really swear by. Packing cubes, I also swear by. I think a lot of people have come onto the, entered the church of packing cubes, but I think being organized that way really has upped my travel game 'cause I just don't leave things behind anymore because I know everything has a place and I know where everything goes.

And if I feel that a packing cube isn't as full as it was when I got there, I know something's, my bathing suit's hanging in the bathroom or something's been left behind. So that in terms of organization. And also just like, like there's very few loose items in my bags.

I know I said like I'm not dogmatic about things and then now I've gone into being like, "No loose items in the backpack." But no, it's true. I have like pouches for everything. All my tech stuff is in one bag, all my camera gears in another bag inside the bag.

So I just know where, you know. And also when I inevitably get pulled aside at security, both because of all the electronics in my bag, but also for being a brown dude in the 21st century, you know, always the random security check happens. Then I can just open the bag and I've got four other bags I take out instead of an explosion of cables and other gear.

So yeah, those are kind of my main constants. Everything else is, you know, if I feel like bringing, you know, a extra pair of head, like earphones for working out or whatever, I'll do that. Sometimes I won't. You know, all the other stuff is kind of up in the air, but those are my hard and fast, my hard rules.

- I don't know if you followed the new church of in packing for travelers, but it seems to be putting an AirTag, an Apple AirTag in like every device or every bag. And I have not checked a bag since kind of going down this rabbit hole, but it seems like most people that have lost a bag that have had an Apple AirTag in it have somehow been able to figure out where it is and get it back.

- That's interesting. I mean, I just, I wonder how that plays out though, because you're, you know, especially now that all these airlines are overwhelmed. Is it that you're going up to them and you're like, you're saying you can't find my bag? I see it. It's at LAX or whatever.

And then what? What are they supposed to do? They're not gonna, they're gonna be like, okay, sure, sure, sure. And then they'll go do whatever process they were gonna do. I don't know if they're gonna go out of their way because you can show them where the bag is.

I don't know. - Well, I've seen, I've read multiple stories of people where the bag made it. Let's say you're flying to Denver, the bag's in Denver and they're like, we don't know where it is. And you're like, well, actually I know where it is in the airport. Now, if you're in Denver and the flight came from London and you're like, I know where it is in London, you're probably out of luck and you're gonna have to wait.

You might be able to say, look, I know it's in London. Can you get it? But to the extent that the bag is lost, maybe it's coming a day late. You kind of know where it is. You have some idea or even just figuring out when it's coming. Sometimes they're like, when the bag gets here, we'll deliver it to you.

And you're like, well, at least now I know it's here. - It's here, yeah. - Or I know that it made it on the plane, right? You land and you're sitting there like, oh man, the bags are coming off. I haven't seen it, I haven't seen it. Some airlines are getting really good.

I can't remember whether it was United or Delta or something. I looked in the app and it was like, we scanned your bag at the check-in. We scanned your bag when it's getting on the plane. Obviously, if you could get that level of detail with every airline, it would be unnecessary.

But I think people have really liked being able to at least have a sense of where is my bag? Like, is it actually here? Is it coming? If I see that it's still where I took off, I'm not gonna sit at the baggage carousel for 45 minutes to see if maybe it's coming.

I kinda, I know it's not here. - But you know it's not coming. Yeah, no, I can see the appeal. I'm trying to, like, for the trips that I have coming up, I'm trying to go carry on just 'cause I've heard about this, all the chaos. But then you run into stuff where you just have to, like, you don't wanna sacrifice.

Like, I just did a trip in the Faroe Islands where I was hiking for a week, basically, straight. And it was pretty intense hiking. So, like, I wanted to bring trekking poles. You can't carry on trekking poles. So, it's like, okay, do I not bring trekking poles and be miserable, or do I just bring 'em and check 'em in and run the risk of not having 'em when I get there?

And I chose the latter, and I had the trekking poles. So, there's decisions you have to make, and I'll probably go on the side of comfort over any kind of hard rules around packing every time. - Yeah, and there are things. I mean, trekking poles may or may not be as easy, but in some places, now that we have children, I've noticed there are sites, definitely in the US, probably all over the world, where you could say, okay, we need a high chair, or we need a pack-and-play, or we need these different things.

You can kind of rent them from local families and not have to travel with them. - I've also done the thing. I've done the FedExing ahead of time stuff that I'm gonna need there and shipping it back. Sometimes, especially now with baggage fees, it ends up being the same as it would be to check in a bag or even less.

So, for little things like that, that would've been another option. It would've been, maybe not to the Faroe Islands, 'cause it's a little remote, and who knows how long it would've taken to get there. But if I'm going to the Dolomites or something, maybe you just, and you wanna go carry on, just ship the stuff ahead of time to your hotel.

They'll accept it, and you pick it up when you're there. - There's also something, I'm gonna probably butcher the pronunciation. It's like takubin or something like that in Japan, which you basically, there's an entire network of services where you can send your bags between hotels. And it's the most efficient process as most are in Japan.

And so, I know a lot of people that are traveling, it's like, well, I wanna take the train, but I have this big bag, do I wanna lug it around? So, you just kind of pack an overnight bag. Sometimes, the bag gets there same day, and you know in advance, but sometimes, it's the same day or next day.

It's like you just pack a day pack, you hop on the train, you head down maybe from Tokyo to Kyoto, you go trek around for the day, you go spend the night, you wake up the next morning, you brought just enough for the next morning, and your toiletries, and then your bag shows up at your hotel.

And you had this wonderful experience of both taking the train, not having to go straight to your hotel when you land. So, I don't know if that service exists almost anywhere else, but I know that in Japan, it's like a very structured service that's very easy. - Yeah, I know some people who swear by it.

I've never used it, but it makes a lot of sense. - I think it's Takuhaiben, I can't remember. I'm terrible at pronouncing basically any Japanese term. So, before you talked about the serendipity, and so, okay, we've planned the trip, we've gotten the accommodations, we've gotten there, we've packed all this stuff.

You've talked about some of what you do when you first get there, but you talked about the serendipity of meeting people, locals, kind of immersing yourself in these experiences that you probably couldn't have pretended. Do you think there's a way, not necessarily to like cheat the system, but to kind of engineer that serendipity to kind of give it a greater chance of happening than you would if you maybe had a whole week with no agenda?

You know, maybe you just go sit at bars, talk to strangers, but what if you have a day and you really want to try to make something local and interesting and magical happen? What would be your advice to someone trying to do that? - I mean, the first one I think is obvious to anyone who's traveled before, but it's put the phone away again.

Like, you know, I think, especially when you're traveling alone, I do it too. It's the best social crutch there is, right? If you're sitting alone and you feel nervous about it or you're bored or whatever else, you immediately pull out your phone, but that signals to everyone else that you're busy or you're closed off.

The amount of conversations that I've started from just sitting somewhere and like just looking around like people used to do when there was, when they had downtime, just kind of staring into space and making eye contact with someone, saying hello, you know, next thing you know, they say hello.

How are you? Next thing you know, you're getting invited to grandma's house for dinner. Like that has happened so many times. I think people are naturally curious, especially for solo travelers. Like they're curious why you're visiting their home, what you're up to while you're there, if you actually have the best recommendations or if you're going on some, you know, that's something that they consider the tourist path or whatever that you actually, they want to steer you somewhere else.

People are very passionate about where they're from. So tapping into that. I think going in also being like, I'm going to be just a little more extroverted than I normally am, goes a long way. And I'm not, I'm an extrovert in the sense that I do get energy from being around friends and family and being around people I love.

But I'm still like a nervous extrovert, if that makes sense. Like I still get like phone anxiety and like, you know, weird, weird nervousness around approaching strangers and all these other things. So it takes an effort for me to be like, I'm going to strike up a conversation with this, with these random people.

And just as one example, I remember I was in Munich, which is a city that if you ask people from Munich, they'll be the first to admit that it's like not an easy place to meet people. It's just part of the, I think, Bavarian culture and such is, it's a little more insular.

It's a little more, yeah, a little more insular, a little more insider-y. So I was having trouble, like I was there for work too, and I needed a story and I was having trouble meeting people. And I was hanging out at this bar, not looking at my phone. So I was more aware of my surroundings.

And I was like overhearing this conversation with a bunch of dudes standing next to me. And they were like talking about space and rockets and astrophysics and like all just like very fascinating stuff. And like, it took me a second to like work up the courage. But once I did, I literally just like poked my head in.

I was like, "Hey, do you mind if I join you?" And they were like, "Yeah, of course, come on in, whatever." And I brought them around or whatever. Next thing I know, I'm talking to these like five astrophysicists who were working on some like German space program in the woods of Munich, just like totally fascinating stuff.

We spend the whole rest of the evening together. We go to a show, we just like hang out, taking me to like all their favorite beer gardens. And all because I just took that plunge. And it was like a little weird. It's a little awkward to do that in any situation, at least for me it is.

But like, I took a deep breath and went in there and said, "Hello." And next thing you know, I had this really wonderful, pretty magical day in a city where it's hard to do that. It's hard to find that serendipity. So I think those would be my two biggest overarching tips around that is one, being open to it, opening yourself up to it.

And the first step towards that is literally being physically available. So stop staring at your phone, put the book down for a second, just be there. Look around and see what happens. And then two, it's like, push yourself to just be a little more extroverted than you usually are.

And then actually, I'd add a third one too. And this goes back to mindset as well. And this has taken me a while to really master, if I can even call it that. But it's admitting your own ignorance and embracing it. I think a lot of the times, especially with well-traveled people, there's a tendency to be like, to make it competitive almost, right?

Be like, oh, I know this, and I've been there, and I know my way around this, and I've traveled, so I don't need help, and I can find my way, and I've read about this place that I'm traveling to, so I don't need to know anymore. But people, you're never gonna know as much as someone who lives there, who has been born and raised there.

You're never gonna know as much. You could live there for 10, 20 years. You're still not gonna know as much as someone. I've lived in New York for a decade. I'm not a New Yorker. I'm never gonna know New York like a New Yorker. And admitting that leads to you asking the right questions.

It leads to the approach that you have when you're talking to people, the openness that you bring to new experiences and new culturals and things that might be unfamiliar to you. All of that first is gonna just come across so much more effectively if you first admit that you really don't know anything, and you're there to learn, and you're there to engage.

And I think just that mindset opens up a place in a big way, and it's very hard to do, especially the more traveled you are, 'cause you start being like, oh, I know my way around. I know how to navigate this stuff. And so still for me, too, when I'm at a place that I've been to 100 times, I still try to approach it as like, there's still something to learn.

I still am not a local. I'll never be, so what can I learn from a local? And having that eagerness and that curiosity is gonna make you approach the right people and ask the right questions, and then the rest is serendipity. - So I love that approach. I've used it a lot.

And you traveled a lot as a solo traveler. You just got married. Congratulations. I've heard you on a couple podcasts say, one day, maybe there's a family. I have one. How do you think that changes? Or you haven't been through it yet, but you've probably met lots of travelers.

The idea of spending the afternoon kind of sitting in a bar, meeting some astrophysicists, going out to a random show is not the kind of experience it's easy to have with young kids around. So how do you kind of create these interesting experiences when you probably have a tighter schedule?

And have you thought at all about that or talked to anyone that's done it successfully? - I'd be curious, actually, from you, actually, if you've felt, as your travel style has changed, how you've felt yourself adapting. I think what's exciting about traveling with kids and having kids is that you now get to instill that curiosity and that sense of serendipity in someone new, right?

And encourage that in someone and have them grow into the kind of traveler that maybe it took you longer to be. And I know that that's much easier said than done when there's like nap time and meal time and all these things that are pretty set in stone when you're traveling.

But I do wonder if there's not like, of course, yeah, you can't be like, peace out, partner. I'm gonna go hang out at the bar and meet some astrophysicists, have fun with the kids. But I do wonder if there are like micro moments of serendipity that you can create where you can be like, we're gonna go for, we've rented this car, we're gonna go for a drive on this route that we've researched, but we don't know where we're gonna stop yet.

We don't know where we're gonna have lunch. We don't know where we're gonna go for a little hike. These little things that you just leave open enough so that when you do do it, you're discovering it together. You're discovering that moment together. You're having that moment of uncertainty and be like, oh, is this the right place for the hike?

Ooh, this looks a little intense, but then you do it together and you're like, wow, we did that, that was crazy. I remember when we did that thing. And I think I learned that from my parents too. And my parents were very good about doing that. I don't, I have like this problem where I like, I don't remember a lot of things concretely from my childhood, but I have like vague, like more like snapshots.

And I have so many like mental snapshots of family trips, of, you know, like the car pulled over on the side of the road, the physical map out over the hood of the car while my parents are like tracing our route and trying to figure out where the hell we are and where the hell we're going.

I have so many memories of us, you know, before smartphones, before the internet, pulling into hotels and like knocking on the door, you know, and being like, hey, do you have space for five at like 10 o'clock at night? Like my parents did that stuff a lot. And I think that, you know, they still, of course, their safety was the first priority.

When we were younger, there was all these other needs they had to cater to, but they still kept that little bit of mystery to travel. And that little bit of we're kind of gonna make it up as we go along. We're gonna improvise a little bit and we're gonna do it together.

And we're gonna have a conversation about like, ooh, which of these two restaurants looks better? What do you think, little Jimmy? You know, like bring them into it, bring them into that experience. So I think there's ways. I think, yeah, maybe you can't do it like you used to fully kind of flying by the seat of your pants.

But I think in micro moments and through little adjustments and through involving them in your decision-making process as you go, you can still keep that mystery of travel alive. - Yeah, it's funny. As you were talking, I just started thinking about a trip we haven't planned yet, but different ways that we would kind of bring it to life with children.

And our kids are two in two months. So, you know, we're not quite old enough to take them on all the adventures, but a few things came to mind. One, in the last few, I don't know, months, year, we've met a number of interesting people that live in our neighborhood going to the park.

Like just the park down the street from our house, we meet parents almost every time. So for some reason, I hadn't thought about it until you were talking, but I feel like we could just, if you want to meet random stranger, instead of doing it at the bar where you're sitting having a drink, which might be, you know, the solo traveler, you know, place of choice, you could also just go to a park.

You'll probably meet other parents. They probably have other kids your same age. You could make that your place to serendipitously strike up a conversation. So that was one that came to mind. Another thing that I think every person I know that seems to have unlocked travel one level beyond with children does is they all contact their hotel in advance or wherever they're staying and try to find some trusted source of childcare that can, not for the entire trip, but maybe help out one night so the parents can go out and have that kind of interesting, unique adventure of just walking down the street, finding a place to eat, et cetera.

- Another way to do that, and I know I have some friends with kids who have taken this route as well, is traveling with another family or another two families that are friends of yours with kids the same age. Then like you either can kind of rotate who's in charge of the kids that night while the others go out to a show or dinner or to meet people or whatever else, or you all kind of pull your money together while you're hanging out in France for some childcare that can take care of the kids one of the nights or two of the nights or whatever.

And that way you're doing it together and it's a little easier. So I know some people who have gone that route too, and I think that's a great way to tackle it as well. - The last one that I'm really excited about, and Japan hasn't opened the borders yet, but I'm a big fan.

We've been a few times. It's like re-experiencing the places that you know a little bit, right? Like I've never lived in Japan. I've been three or four times. I wouldn't consider myself an expert, but I do feel like I know it well enough to make it easier to kind of wander the streets and have a serendipitous experience than I would if I'd gone to Uzbekistan, which I've never been to, and I feel like I would be trying to get my bearings as well as lead the family through the public transportation.

So one thing I'm excited about is just going to places I've been to kind of share that experience and make it a little easier, right? Like the first trip with two kids running around a city, probably nice if you go to a place you know. Maybe you even test it out locally.

Maybe we go to New York for a long weekend 'cause it's like, I know that city even better. You know, we've already tested it in San Francisco. You know, we take the Caltrain. We actually throw our bikes on the Caltrain, ride the Caltrain up to San Francisco, bike around, and then come back.

So like we're trying to get a feeling for what it's like to adventure in a city. You know, we have our own travel training wheels as new parents that we're kind of trying to take off before we take a big adventure. - But also like what a fun thing to like see a place that you thought you knew well, like to see it anew through the eyes of someone else too, right?

Like I think that's why people love taking friends to places that they love or whatever. I'm in the middle of planning a bachelor party for friends of mine. And I'm really excited that they've chosen New Orleans, which is like a city that like I love so much. And now I'm gonna be able to like see it anew through their eyes, seeing it for the first time and go to all the restaurants that I love and all the bars that I love and do all these things.

And I think that's just like such a fun thing to do. I can imagine with kids too, to like see them get excited about something that maybe you've taken for granted by the fourth or fifth visit. - The other last one, and I'm fascinated by this broader topic, is just when you have a limited time and budget isn't the primary concern, it's trying to, you know, you can hire experiences, right?

You could do Airbnb experiences. You can find locals in various, you know, even if you're staying at a hotel, ask for a cooking class or these kinds of things. The hidden mystery of like fixers in other countries that help kind of engineer experiences and crazy things, I've always been fascinated by finding the most authentic ones versus the most commercial ones.

So I'd love your thoughts there, but that's the other thing. It's like, if you only have a couple of days and you've got a tight schedule and you wanna go have some authentic experience cooking with a local, you know, sometimes you don't have time to just go find the random local until someone invites you to cook in their home and you might just have to hire it.

What are your thoughts on those? Are there better ways to do it? How do you find those interesting people? - I've done that route many times and I try to look as local as possible. So it takes some Googling, it takes some digging. So you're not necessarily going through a Viator or Airbnb experiences or whatever, which some of them are, you know, very local.

Some of them are very small. But if you just like start Googling, like walking tours of this city, you might find someone who has little, you know, their own kind of ramshackle operation that they do. And that's like the most intimate experience you're gonna get, I think. So I think doing some digging until you find something independent on its own.

I used to like really be, I don't know, so like some chip on my shoulder about being exactly what I was talking about, about being an experienced traveler. I don't need this stuff or whatever. I used to be like pretty against the idea of the walking tour or even like the group tour in general.

I used to be like, I don't need that. I can find my own way. But then I started doing these, like a lot of cities, especially in Europe, have these like free walking tours that like leave three times a day from the center of town or whatever. And I started doing those when I was traveling in Europe and kind of fell in love with them.

It was like such a great way to like just get an overview of a place and gets a little bit of background before you start your own explorations. But also I found that a lot of the tour guides are not only awesome, but if you talk to them, they're like down to hang out beyond just the tour.

They're doing the job, you know, for the money, of course, but paid by the city, but also because they love meeting people and they love showing people where they're from. I think of two examples, one in Cadiz in Spain and one in a city in Germany where I like, I could tell that like just the vibe of the tour guides was like really good.

And so afterwards I was like, what are you up to this evening? Like, what are you doing? And they're like, oh, like nothing. I was like, can I take you to dinner? Like your favorite restaurant? Like what, you down to hang out? And next thing you know, I'm having this amazing experience because I've just taken that plunge of being like, okay, you gave me the city sanctioned tour.

Now can we like, can I buy you a drink and you can give me the other side of things? So I think doing that is a great jumping off point to meeting people. I think you'll find that the same people who are working in tourism, who are offering tours are very interested that you're there and are very enthusiastic about showing you around.

So I think that that's a great place to start. In terms of like actual companies, I think the more local, the better. If you can find someone who doesn't work for a major chain or whatever else, who's just doing it on their own. In my experience, they give the best tours.

- You've traveled to so many places. One of the reasons I originally wanted to connect with you was that the New York Times 52 places was kind of like my annual travel inspiration. You know, I think at least half a dozen places I've been in my life were because, you know, that post got me inspired.

The fact that you got to go on all but one of the 52 in a year, while that might've been a grueling adventure, it was certainly something that is gonna go down as probably one of the more memorable travel experiences of your entire life, I assume. What are some of the experiences you had on that year that you think are fascinating and worth sharing for people to hear about?

- Yeah, so, you know, I did a lot of really incredible things like surface level, incredible things, right? I saw a solar, total solar eclipse from a astronomical observatory in the deserts of Chile. You know, I saw, I was the only, I was like me and three other people and the colony of hundreds of king penguins in the Falkland Islands.

I, you know, did all these things, saw all these incredible things. But when I, this is gonna, I know it's gonna sound cheesy and there's gonna, I can hear the eye rolls from here, but like when I, it's true that when I think back of the year, the first, when I think back to that year, the first images that come to my mind are not all the beautiful things I saw and all the amazing things I ate.

It's people's faces, it's people I met. It's 100% my biggest takeaway from that were the interactions I had with human beings. I think of like the woman in Denmark who like literally called into sick to work for a week just so she could show me around Alborg. And, you know, I had dinner with her family and she showed me all her favorite places.

It's the guy in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, who drove me out to see a game of kopkari, which is this incredible sport where you have all these guys on horses playing a game of keep away with a dead goat that's been stuffed with rice. And like, I was the only tourist there, literally thousands and thousands of local spectators and just me alone there, incredible.

Again, just from an interaction turning into an experience. It's the family that hosted me in Orcas Island, this family who has a farm. And on my birthday, I was there alone on my birthday. And so they said, "We got to celebrate." And so they killed a duck in my honor and we ate and we prepared and ate an entire duck and had this huge feast with this family, three generations of this family who has been on this island in Washington state for years and run this farm there.

It's like these experiences that really stuck with me and changed the way I think about travel in the future too. It's where like, those are the, I am looking for those human interactions now when I'm on the road, no matter how small, even in places where I'm going for the nature.

You know, I just got back from the Faroe Islands, which is this incredible, beautiful, just naturally stunning part of the world, just incredibly high, dramatic cliffs. So green, you know, just empty, empty stretches of land where you don't see any sign of human habitation. And I went on these beautiful hikes and saw puffins and all these other seabirds and it's just like, really incredible.

But one of my favorite experiences was like, talking to these random group of like 20 somethings who had rented out a small house there for the weekend. They'd come from one island to another island. And next thing you know, they were like, offering me fermented lamb and whale jerky and like two different bottles of gin to try the different gin from the Faroe Islands.

Just like having this really great serendipitous encounter that lasted like 30 minutes, 'cause I had to get on a ferry. And that was, that's what stuck with me. So, I don't know, it's just, that's for me, all my favorite experiences with travel, including with the 52 places trip, have involved other people.

And I kind of use that to inform what I do and how I approach and how I think about the why of travel. It's really influenced the way I think about those things now, going forward. - Well, that might make you dislike this game, I guess, that I'm gonna play with you now.

So, I'm just gonna, we're just gonna get through it. But I get a lot of emails from listeners saying, "Hey, what are your favorite places to go? "Where should I go? "I've been to 60 some-odd countries, "not the 80 some-odd you've been." And so, I thought, I'd love to run through continents.

You've lived on four of them. So, you've got, I know you've hit four, but I also know I think you've hit all of them, and even Antarctica, which I have not. And I would just love, we don't need to go too deep, but just to give people some inspiration.

I think earlier, in the very beginning, we talked about how might you get some inspiration for places. Maybe we just throw some inspiration out, give a line or two about why. Some could be places that are obvious, right? Like, I can already tell you I'm gonna include Japan, and there's no secret that Japan is like a travel destination, right?

But, are you up for it? - Yeah, let's do it. - Okay, so I say we start at home. I'm gonna make you go first, and start in North America. - Okay, I'll go first with North America. I gotta do it, and listen, I know people are gonna be like, yeah, duh, but I'm gonna say New Orleans, but I'm gonna say not the New Orleans you think of when you think of visiting New Orleans.

I think you need to go to New Orleans, and never step foot onto Bourbon Street, barely even enter the French Quarter, and experience New Orleans like someone who lives in New Orleans. And that means, you know, yeah, sure, go for Mardi Gras, but go for the actual parades, and the parties, and the stuff that happens in people's backyards.

Go for all the other festivals that happen after Mardi Gras, and the other fairs. I think it is a magical, magical city that's unlike anywhere else, not just in North America, but the world. - I think, geographically, Central America is in North America, if we're talking continents, is that correct?

- Yeah, sure. - Okay, cool. So, my whole family took a trip to El Salvador, and we stayed at this small, I wish I could, I'll try to put the name of the place on the show notes. We found this small family-run eight-room hotel on the beach that was just like, wake up.

It was almost like a bed and breakfast, but it was kind of operated a little bit more like a resort, but definitely run by a family. Surfing was interesting. We'd walk down the beach to the little city, or a little town right near there. It was awesome. And then after, I can't even remember how we ended up getting to Nicaragua, and just kind of staying in the rainforest, and kind of exploring, and everyone always says go to Costa Rica.

That seems to be the primary destination, but I would recommend either of those countries. We had a great experience just kind of exploring around where we were staying, and kind of a local, I don't even know what to call this place, 'cause you could call it a resort, but you could also call it a plot of land someone built a few houses on, and the family operates.

- Love that. Anything else outside of the U.S. in that area? I know we've got a lot to get through, but you've also seen a lot. - Yeah, on the Pacific coast, this was one of the 52 places, actually. I mean, actually, no, not specifically, 'cause Panama was on the 52 places list, but there's a little town called Santa Catalina on the Pacific coast of Panama, on the west coast.

It's about a six-hour drive, maybe, from Panama City, and it's just this, like, when you think of the bohemian surfer paradise, like, this is it, hidden away, tons of locals living there, too, so it's not the kind of place that's been colonized by foreign surfers, but just a place where time slows down, and I spent just hours just sitting on this huge beach, also happens to be right off of Coiba, which is a national park with some of the best scuba diving in the world, so after days and days of just hanging on this beach, eating fresh fish every day, I went for a dive in Coiba, and at the end of our second dive, I look up, and there's just a giant whale shark just circling us, right above us, one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had, and it was all in this place that just felt like a place that had been hidden from the rest of the world for forever, and I hope it's still like that after I wrote about it, but I think it is, 'cause it felt like I'd entered a portal into another dimension, honestly.

- Gosh, I don't even wanna remember how many years ago. In college, so, like, a long time ago for me, I went to Tamarindo in Costa Rica, and it felt like that, and I have since learned, I don't wanna go back. As much as it was one of the fondest memories of travel, I have, but I don't wanna go back, because I've heard it is not like that anymore, so.

- I've heard it's not like that either, yeah. - Okay, so South America, I'll kick off, 'cause I don't have a lot. South America is one of the places I haven't traveled a lot, but I enjoyed Cartagena. I thought it was, like, an incredibly fascinating city. Full disclosure, I went on my bachelor party.

However, it was a city that, you know, I've been to a lot of places where you just feel like you're in a different place. Like, we didn't just do bachelor party things, right? Like, we went and explored the castle. We took a boat out to a random island. We just hopped around the island.

It was awesome, and I would recommend it to anyone. - Yeah, and so I'm half Colombian, so full disclosure. My mother's from Colombia, so I second that recommendation, but I would also encourage people to explore beyond Cartagena, too. I mean, Cartagena's great, especially for a first-timer. There's a lot of tourism infrastructure there and stuff, too, but check out some of the other cities.

Medellin, which is where my family's from, is not the Medellin of the '80s, you know, that people associate with Escobar and everything else. It's an incredibly dynamic, fast-growing, super-fun city with incredible nightlife and just, like, has the energy of a city on the move. You really feel it. It's also just physically beautiful.

There's also parts on the coast of Colombia, like the Pacific coast, that for a long time were largely off-limits because of conflict that are now kind of opening up to tourists for the first time, and there's just so much to see in Colombia, so I second that recommendation. To have something different, though, I'm gonna go actually a little bit into the Caribbean for this one.

I think there's a lot on mainland South America that I could recommend. Ecuador's incredible. City of Quito is worth spending a lot of time in if you can, but I'm gonna go actually right off the coast to the island of Bonaire, which is one of the Dutch Antilles, so if you know, like, Curaçao, Aruba, and then Bonaire's there as well, and Bonaire is another place that I feel like has slipped under the radar for a lot of people for a long time, and I think no matter how much I talk about it, at least I'm not gonna ruin it because it's just, there's something special about it.

Just another place where you can really slow down. Beautiful beaches. Some of the best scuba diving in the world, if that's what you're into. And just also a very fascinating cultural milieu of African influence, Dutch influence, mainland South American influence. Really cool place to just rent a house on the beach and hang out for a week and pick up fish from the market every morning, cook it in the evening.

Good place to unplug for that. - It might be right next to Aruba, but I had the exact opposite experience in Aruba. I felt like it's just become the most commercialized, Americanized island. - So it could not be more different. It's literally like two sides of a coin. It's really interesting.

And I think the difference is that Bonaire, while having nice beaches, it doesn't have those huge sandy beaches that make for a great setting for huge resorts. Here it's more rocky beaches. It's a little more rugged. And because of that, it hasn't had the, and hopefully it never does, the kind of infrastructure boom that Aruba has had.

Okay, you want me to go first for Europe? - Yeah. - I'm gonna say the town of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. It's the second biggest city in Bulgaria. One of the coolest towns I've ever been to, just full of creative energy, young people. There's an area called, I think it's called Kapana or something in Bulgarian, but it means the trap, because once you get into it, it's very hard to find your way around.

It's like this very densely packed kind of cluster of buildings, but it's like full of bars and cafes and full bookstores and just like this, a lot of creative people, a lot of creative energy. It's also, they call it the other city of seven hills. So if Rome has seven hills, so does Plovdiv.

But these hills are like smack in the middle of town. So you can go on a hike through the woods in the middle of the city, come out the other side and be in the second biggest city in Bulgaria. Such a cool place. And I can't wait to go back.

It was one of the places on my 52 places trip, actually, that I was like walking around and I was constantly thinking like, I could rent a place here for like six months or a year, just hang out, just read and go to the local coffee shop in the morning and write in the evening and had that kind of vibe.

Plovdiv. - I felt that way about Budapest, like being there. I was like, we could just move here and it would be amazing, but I'm not gonna go there. I'm gonna go to Bosnia and there are two things. So we were in Croatia and we thought, why don't we just rent a car and drive across the border and just see what happens.

And we drove up to Mostar, which is this like wild city that just kind of feels like a amalgamation of like every culture in the world, almost. The food was amazing. There's the most fascinating people watching because there's this bridge that is famous for jumping off of, and you can kind of just relax and sit by the water and you watch these people trying to get people to join the Mostar Bridge Jumping Club, which I was like, just close to doing it, didn't do it.

If I go back, I'm like, I'm doing it, I'm doing it. This is my plan. But the one thing I will suggest people do. So there is this famous general from the Soviet Union, Tito. He built this bunker and I think it's probably the largest. I mean, I could be wrong, but it might be one of the, if not the largest bunker in the world.

It's gigantic. And it's set inside just a random like neighborhood-y kind of experience. You go into this neighborhood, you go into this house and in the garage, there's just this false fake door. You go in the door and all of a sudden you're inside this gigantic bunker that they've kind of turned into an art gallery.

I don't even know how to explain the experience. We had heard about it and we just basically asked every local we could to figure out how it worked and someone knew someone who had a tour. I think it's slightly a little easier to go on now than it was at the time.

But that is my recommendation is to go explore that. In today's dollars, the bunker would have cost over $4 billion to build. It is, it's literally one of the most gigantic things. I think hundreds of rooms. I wish I had more of the information about it off the top of my head.

But that tour and experience was just so fascinating. And the kinds of people were on it. We had conversations about why they were there, how they learned about it. 'Cause it didn't feel like a tourist experience, though I would put it as a tourist experience. All right, South Africa.

- I think there's a lot of options here. I'm gonna go with the city of Dakar in Senegal. Another city that within a few days, I was like, I could live here for sure. Music everywhere. Just another city where you just feel the energy of it the moment you step off the plane.

People are so friendly, so hospitable. So many little places to have, get a whole fish grilled up on the beach. I think the whole fish, the whole grilled fish is a common thread between all my choices so far. So you can tell what I, it's a great universal of travel is the whole fish just grilled to perfection.

And in Senegal, you get that too. Yeah, like music everywhere, amazing history, both tragic and not in terms of the history. Really cool nightlife with live music everywhere. I mean, just a really amazing dynamic modern city that I think a lot of people, 'cause I think people overlook African cities in general.

If people are traveling to Africa, they're thinking nature, they're thinking safari, they're thinking all these things, which is true. It's a reason for it. It's spectacular in terms of nature. But I think the cities have a lot to offer. I mean, this is like one of the youngest populations in the world that are on that continent, right?

So there's just an incredible energy and incredible forward momentum, and you really feel it in a city like Dakar. - I like it. I'm gonna go a little off the rails here, or actually on the rails. That was not supposed to be a joke, but it just happened and suggest people check out the Tazara train.

So it's a train from, or I guess between Tanzania and Zambia. If I want, we took this, my wife and I, almost a decade ago, a little longer, and it was like a three-day train ride. And almost every person I've ever heard says the train breaks down a little bit every time.

You usually end up stopping in a random village. Everyone can kind of go explore, and you get back on. You meet the most fascinating people on the train because people that take a train for three days in Africa have some interesting story to tell. Flights in Africa are really expensive, so it's a really affordable way to get around.

And if at the end of that experience you want a little bit something different that's maybe a little bit more relaxing, you end up in Dar es Salaam, and you can take a ferry to Zanzibar, which is kind of this otherworldly cool island with a lot of both sad and interesting history as well.

So that's my- - And Zanzibar, I think, has, if not the, some of the best beaches I've ever seen in my life. - Yeah. - Around Zanzibar, just unreal. - It's wild. - So that's what I've got. Obviously, if you haven't taken a safari somewhere in Africa it's an amazing experience, but I assume that's not something someone needs to be told about.

This is gonna be the hardest one because it encompasses so many places. What are your kind of one to two hot spots in Asia? - Oof, yeah, it is really hard, especially 'cause I grew up there for the most part. So I'm not gonna, I'm gonna skip over Indonesia because that's like an obvious choice for me 'cause that's where I spent my formative years, but I'll say plainly, Indonesia.

It's endless in terms of the places you can go. Literally, there's 20,000 islands or whatever. So that's a good place to start looking beyond Bali and other things like that. But I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say Vietnam. I think the cities especially, I'm thinking, going from north to south, Hanoi, Da Nang, and Saigon, I think all offer very different things.

And I think the cities are just incredible. I think it's, you'll eat maybe the best you've ever eaten in your life just off on plastic stools on the side of the road. It's just a attention to detail with the food universally that you don't get in a lot of places and for next to nothing.

Just a huge part of the culture. And I think it's incredible to witness. I think you haven't lived till you've tried to cross a road in Hanoi during rush hour and felt the adrenaline rush of that. The trick is to keep moving and don't make any sudden movements. Motorcycles will go around you.

Yeah, it's just, I mean, again, another common thread I think between some of these places I'm picking is just cities that feel so alive and you can't help but get caught up in that feeling and the current of the place and kind of places where you can just sit down on a plastic stool and sip a coffee and watch the world go by.

And it's incredible to witness. So that would be one. Trying to think of, I can think of something maybe nature-based for the other one. I'm gonna say Siberia. I think now, obviously, is not the time to go for geopolitical reasons, but if things with Russia ever change, the area around Lake Baikal, which is the deepest lake in the world, is otherworldly.

There's an island called Olkhon Island. Absolutely otherworldly place. You feel like you're in a dream, especially if you go in the fall, where Edwin and I went. All the trees are bright yellow because of the changing foliage. Wild horses in random corners. Long stretches with no humans in sight.

Just really feels like you died and gone somewhere else. - I struggled with this, and then I was like, "Oh, well, I guess the Middle East is in Asia." So I'm gonna, I have two. One is, like your Siberia, Syria was one of my most memorable places to travel.

Would also probably not go there right now, though there are reports of people traveling there. But we also went to Lebanon, which I thought was just a wild, interesting place that both felt like it had the longest history. We went up to the mountains. We went hiking in the mountains.

We went to a ski resort in the summer and hung out there. There's all of these, I think they're like monasteries surrounding this valley. You could basically see every season, every style of architecture, every style of experience from the mountains to the beaches, all in a very small country.

We drove around the entire country. We drove to the South. We got calls from our friends in Beirut saying, "You're not supposed to drive that far "as an American tourist. "That's not a good idea." We never actually felt unsafe as much as people told us we were. And then the most interesting thing to me is that there's this weird amalgamation of French and English and Arabic that exists in the country.

And you'll hear people using all three languages in one sentence, which is something that, I don't know, you just don't hear it that often. And I only speak two of the three languages. So I could understand like 2/3 of what's going on. And it seems like they get combined in the calmest and the most aggressive circumstances.

So it's when people are just saying, "Hi." It's like, "Hi, (speaks in foreign language)." And then when people are angry on the street, cursing out of their car windows, you catch like bits of every language also. So, but it's a beautiful country. It has modern size. It has lots of remnants of wars and buildings.

I'm looking, your common theme was whole fish. I was like, "Gosh, I went to Bosnia." There's lots of buildings that have been bombed. I went to Lebanon. - It's amazing to see places that bounce back after those situations, so yeah. - So Lebanon was amazing. And then, I've mentioned Japan a million times, but I think it deserves to be on the list and is probably gonna be the place I will travel to more than anywhere else in the world, just 'cause we always keep wanting to go back.

- Yeah, yeah, I agree with that for sure. - But maybe I'll ask you this. You've been to Japan. What are some places outside of the, we've done, as we expand Japan every time, we're like, "Let's go to a new place. "Let's go to a new place." Any suggestions?

- I mean, I loved the area around Kanazawa and Shirakawago, I think, is that little village in the mountains in the Japanese Alps that looks like it's out of a fairy tale with the sloped roofs. It's unreal. We went there in the summer and it was just like dream world.

And I think the trick there is people, it gets touristy during the day 'cause a lot of people come on day trips, but hardly anyone spends the night. So if you spend a night there, you really feel this village that feels like it's from another time. And I also loved, I went to the area around the Seto Inland Sea, like Setouchi around Takamatsu, for the art triennial that happens there.

I think this one, I wonder if they've postponed it again. I don't know, 'cause the last one was 2019 when I was there. And that's just very cool 'cause you have these little islands and each island becomes basically an outdoor art gallery. And so you take the fairies around from island to island and you're just like in this alternate reality where there's sculptures everywhere and everything's a museum, basically.

Really special, special art event that happens in that area. So those would be my outside of the common path recommendations. But all that being said is, I think I've only been to Japan twice, so I've got a lot more to see in the years ahead. - Yeah, we had another travel journalist, Brandon Presseron, who actually wrote the "Lonely Planet" Japan guide.

And so go back and check that episode out or reach out to him. He has like every tip on earth for Japan. I'm trying to think. I feel like there's just more, like Taiwan needs to be on the list. I mean, India, I mean, like there's half the world, I mean, more than half the world, right?

- Yeah, I can't think of... There are very few... I loved Cambodia. I could just go through this long list and there's just the food and the people. It's just incredible. And I feel like half the world goes to Lebanon and half the world ends up going on a similar experience in Israel.

And I've done both and they're both fantastic. So I think go to Lebanon first because I don't think you want the Israeli stamp in your passport going into Lebanon. I don't think that that works well. So if you're debating between the two, I would start in Lebanon and do Israel next or just make sure you don't get the stamp in your passport.

But also make sure-- - Most of the time they won't stamp your passport these days 'cause they know in Israel. - But someone we were with had the sticker on the back of their passport. It's like they didn't stamp the passport but they had like a little sticker. - A security sticker, yeah.

- And it was not a fun border crossing for them. So, but gosh, I don't know. The food is like the highlight of the Middle East for me and the people. So eating with strangers is like my favorite thing to do there. I'm gonna let you take everything. I don't know whether to call it Oceania or Australia feels very biased to call the continent Australia, though I think that's what I grew up learning it as.

And Antarctica because my experience in that whole area is just like a one week city tour of Australia. So I'll let you take both. - So for Australia, Oceania, whatever we wanna call it, I'm gonna say South Island of New Zealand. It's not news to anyone that it's one of the most beautiful places in the world, but I would encourage people to look at the Great Walks, which are a collection of different trails that New Zealand has created over the past however many years, I don't know how many years.

And there's new ones being added every few years, but they're basically like multi-day treks you can do. And I would look for those in the South Island. I can't think of a better way to see that nature than by foot. And a lot of them have like, some of them are pretty rugged in terms of back country backpacking, but a lot of them also have like huts along the way that you can reserve so you're not fully exposed to the elements.

But just, I've only done sections of them and never overnight. I've only explored them kind of as part of a story when I was looking around at different trails. But I would love to go back and do one of the Great Walks multi-day treks. So that would be my tip.

But anywhere on the South Island, especially along the West Coast of the South Island is just, in one day you go from rainforest to glaciers to alpine terrain and it's mind-boggling. You don't even understand how a place like that exists. So that would be my tip for Oceania. And then, I mean, Antarctica.

There's not a ton of options. My advice for Antarctica would be the smaller ship, the better. You're getting there by ship unless you're Elon Musk trying to get a private jet to the South Pole or whatever. But you're probably getting there by ship. So smaller ship, the better. And I think part of that is understanding the rules around tourism to Antarctica, the environmental rules, including the fact that only 100 people are allowed on land at any one time in terms of landing sites.

So what that means is if you're on a ship with 700 people, you're not gonna be able to go out on every landing because they can only have 100 people at a time. If you're on a ship with 100 people, you're getting to go out every time. So that would be my tip.

The smaller ship, the better. You just have a better experience that way. And my other tip would be like, don't even look at the luxury amenities offered on the ship because you're in Antarctica. And if you wanna spend that time face down on a massage table, you're missing the point of being in Antarctica.

So go for the operator that you think is gonna give you the best actual experience on the ground, maximizing your time and interaction with a place that is the closest I think I'll ever get at least to being on another planet 'cause it is just unreal. I don't have words and my job is words.

But actually I wrote like 3,000 words on it. So you can read about it at lonelyplanet.com. - Yeah, I'll link to that in the show notes. Any other parting travel advice I know we went over before we take off? - I do wanna reiterate that like at the end of the day, don't get too attached to the where.

Don't get too attached to a list that you've given yourself. I mean, it's nice to dream and it's nice to imagine. It's nice to research and think about these places. And sure, maybe it's nice to write it down too. But I think the bucket list as we've long thought about it is a thing of the past.

And I think we need to start thinking in terms of experiences. I think we need to start thinking in terms of exchange instead of just enrichment. I think we need to start thinking in terms of just having the best experience. And that can happen in your own backyard. And that can happen in places where not everyone is going.

And it can happen at the time of year that not everyone is going. I don't know why we all have to go to Europe in the summer and Mexico in the winter and whatever else. I think death to the bucket list, death to the low season, death to the high season, all that stuff I think is things of the past.

And we need to start thinking differently in terms of why we travel and think less about where we travel. - I agree. The high season is just sometimes a worse experience. Like you get the great weather, but you don't get everything else and it's twice as expensive and awesome.

Where can people read what you're writing, see what you're seeing and follow you along all your adventures? - Yeah, so these days I'm writing exclusively for Lonely Planet where I'm editor at large. So you can find my work there if you search my name in Lonely Planet or just go to the website, look around a bit.

We've got a lot of other great content there. In terms of like my personal content, I'm @sebmodak, S-E-B-M-O-D-A-K on Instagram and Twitter where I often upload my latest stories and share photos and everything else for my travels. And there's a few other things in the works, potentially a newsletter and some other kind of things that I'm working on.

So just follow me on those social medias and you'll hear about them and you'll hear about where I am and where I'm going next. - I really appreciate it. I have a long list that is not a bucket list, but a long list of things to be inspired by.

And I'm excited for more travel to come in the future. - Yeah, no, thanks for having me on. I think, you know, hopefully there's some takeaways here. I know it's not as like concrete as some of the people you talk to who are like, you need to do this for a rental car or this for a credit card or whatever else.

I know it's different to be talking in these esoteric terms, but I do think it's important and I appreciate you having me on and chatting about it. - Yeah, thank you so much for being here. - Cheers. (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music fades)