- I want to go and pretend for a moment that you have no followers. No one knows who you are. - No one knows I am. - No one. And you're traveling. - Yes. - And I want to know, one of the things I think you're most well known for is building community and meeting people and connecting the world.

How would you go about doing that from scratch if you were in a new place, a new culture, traveling? - I love traveling. And I happen to have been not famous for like 27 years of my life, okay? So this is just a recent phenomenon, like five years old, right?

So I know how it's like to travel to like 30, 40 countries without nobody knowing me. But I found out that the best way to travel is to go to hostels. And I like strategically now, when I didn't have money and when I had money, strategically would go to hostels and I would check in in a hostel, ideally at a dorm, not at a private room, because you want to have like these random interactions with people that end up leading to friendships, let's go explore together.

And then I would spend like a crazy amount of time in the lobby of the hostel in the hopes of just like randomly meeting somebody. And then you just need that one person that's also in a very uncomfortable position just like you. And both of you decide, hey, let's go explore this country together.

And when you have one person, it's easier to find the third. And when you have three, it's easy to find the fourth, right? So it's all about getting that one partner to want to explore the country with you. And so every country I went to, I would literally just go to the hostels to make the friends not to stay at the hotel.

I don't care about staying in the hostels, just to make the friends. - So you'd go to a hostel, potentially even book a room and not stay in it. - Yes, I did that before. - Because I imagine sometimes if you were traveling with your partner, what would you do?

- Oh, so the second tip is to not travel with your partner. - Okay. - Yeah, so when I started traveling and I have never enjoyed traveling with a partner if you are trying to make friends. So the minute I became sort of self-sufficient in a way, like I started traveling with a partner, but I find it actually really important to travel single.

- Okay. - Is that, do you agree or disagree with that? - No, I think it depends. My wife and I love to explore places together. So I have that kind of player two to go on these trips with. - But you're never gonna get player three. - Yeah, sometimes we went- - It's gonna be weird as a third wheel.

- Well, we went to South Africa and we wanted to explore by car and we were cheap. And we were like, well, a car holds more than two people, so what do we do? And we met these two Swedish guys and the four of us together bought a tent, rented a car, bought four sleeping bags.

And we drove around for three weeks through Namibia and Botswana and Zambia and South Africa as a team of four. Those two player twos. We didn't find the three, but we found the three and the four together. But they were both single guys. They were not in a relationship though.

- That's interesting. - We had a third and fourth wheel to our- - Third and fourth wheel. But that is significantly harder than if you were by yourself, correct? - Totally. But your strategy seems to be trying to engage with and meet people who are also traveling. How do you try to engage and meet people local to the community and learn more about their culture?

- Yeah, so I found that school networks were also very, very helpful. So I graduated from Harvard and the alumni network is really global. And Harvard people tend to stick together because they think they're better than others. So I hope no one's listening to this. But so I try to check local Harvard clubs.

And if I know a friend that is from that country, like on Facebook. You know, remember the time of the social graph on Facebook where you can just search who are my, which one of my friends is now in Botswana or lives in Botswana. And you'd get a couple of people in every one of these countries.

And that's really all you need. It's all about getting the hook. The one person that will open the doors to you for to meet the next 10 people. That's how I think about it. So I just find the hook in the first two days and then the hook takes care of everything else.

They find me the next 10 people. - Do you ever find the hook just like at a bar, at a restaurant? 'Cause I think that's what people assume. They assume I'm gonna go to a bar and I'm gonna randomly talk to a stranger and now I'm gonna go on a adventure.

- That's how you find the hook up, not the hook. - Okay, okay. - So I found it very difficult to meet people at a restaurant 'cause you're sitting down the whole time. How do you meet people at a restaurant? Or a bar or an event like that? Maybe not a restaurant.

- Yeah, no, I had no success in this. - Okay. Is there something every time you go to a new country that you try to make sure you do? - It was by nature of my job, but I try to make videos as much as possible of every place I go to.

Because I found that when you travel, you're making so many memories, but you'll forget these memories if you don't take videos of them. So really, for me, travel is a form of archiving. Literally, I feel like I have my camera with me at all time like memorize, memorize, memorize, memorize, 'cause you wanna not forget this experience.

So that's how I became a video maker and traveling video maker. - How do you make sure you're not just living behind the camera when you're traveling? - I am living behind the camera when I'm traveling. Who said I'm not? - Okay, okay. - Do you make content when you travel?

- Almost never. - Almost never? - I make content about the travels. So I'll go to a country, come back and talk about the experience. - You're kidding. - But I'm not making them... I mean, I made a video once in a country talking about how I got there, but I don't know, I wanna be there and I don't wanna be distracted from wandering around and seeing things, thinking about, "Oh, what, I gotta go record this thing." For me, that seems like it'd be overwhelming.

- Wow, that's interesting. Well, I guess you and I travel differently. We should start to travel together one day. - I would like to see what that goes.