Whether it's a bus, train or subway, using any kind of public transport or transit system when you're travelling can be very eye-opening (and a lot of fun!). In my opinion it's a much better way to get to know a place you're visiting, and of course it's also usually the most budget-friendly way of getting around, another bonus. In this episode you'll hear from four guests who have stories to share about their use of public transport across the world. Ros Belford has some lovely stories about bus...
Jun 24, 2025•23 min
This special episode is the audio of the Facebook Livestream of the June 2025 meeting of the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club, speaking with author Ash Bhardwaj about his book "Why We Travel". If you'd like to join the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club, all the info is at https://notaballerina.com/bookclub, and you can keep up with all the thoughts about our current books in the Thoughtful Travellers Facebook Group at https://facebook.com/groups/thoughtfultravellers Support the show: https://though...
Jun 20, 2025•50 min
There's no single definition of mindful travel, but in this episode we talk about various ideas: from travel where we intentionally take time to practice mindfulness like on a yoga or meditation retreat, through the kinds of trips where we are really paying attention to what's happening around us, and even some specific ways we could travel that encourage mindfulness. First up, I chat with frequent solo traveller Chelsea Gruber, who has had numerous trips where she specifically aims to be mindfu...
Jun 10, 2025•25 min
This is the second part of a monthly, six-episode series celebrating the fact that exactly 40 years ago this year, my family and I spent six months in a striped motorhome travelling around Europe. I was nine years old and yes, this trip had an enormous impact on my life - I'm sure you wouldn't be listening to this podcast today if Van Life 1985 hadn't taken place! Throughout the series, I'll include chats recorded with my Dad this year, extracts from my late Mum's travel diary from 1985, and of ...
May 29, 2025•22 min
It rarely takes much experience of travel to collect an experience of someone you meet while travelling being surprisingly kind. While we're often trained to think the worst, countless tales from travellers tell of strangers helping out and showing kindness in myriad ways - it's one of the most heartening parts of seeing the world, I think! In Episode 350, I chat with four travellers who have stories of kindness to share. The first happened some decades back in Sudan, when Patrick Nash was welco...
May 22, 2025•25 min
We all take hundreds of photos on our travels these days, but I was keen to chat with Nicole Smith, founder of Flytographer, about how their network of photographers take this to the next level in many popular travel spots around the world. Nicole is an avid traveller who caught the travel bug young, and after a very unfortunate photographic "accident" on a long trip through Asia, she realised just how important having photos to job our memories can be. Nicole and I chatted about what it means t...
May 13, 2025•26 min
This is the first of a monthly, six-episode series celebrating the fact that exactly 40 years ago this year, my family and I spent six months in a striped motorhome travelling around Europe. I was nine years old and yes, this trip had an enormous impact on my life - I'm sure you wouldn't be listening to this podcast today if Van Life 1985 hadn't taken place! Throughout the series, I'll include chats recorded with my Dad this year, extracts from my late Mum's travel diary from 1985, and of course...
May 06, 2025•18 min
Travelling on foot is the ultimate slow travel and you can have some amazing experiences when incorporating a walk, hike or run into your travel plans. In this episode I start by chatting with Chelsea Gruber, a big fan of solo travel who's had quite a few active adventures on her trips and when we spoke was in training to run the Paris marathon. I then chat with Patrick Nash who spent time some decades back travelling through many parts of Africa, and his story centres on a long walk through the...
Apr 28, 2025•21 min
Most of us want to make more sustainable and ethical choices when we travel, but it's not always easy to do! Avoiding plastic straws and disposable shopping bags is one thing, but how can we choose our accommodation in a way that does more good, or think about our carbon footprint and change our travel habits? In this episode, I start by chatting with two travel writers who have come to the realisation that the constant jet-setting often required by that job is something they don't want to parta...
Apr 22, 2025•22 min
My dear friend, the Barefoot Backpacker, is a thoughtful traveller, but they often approach travel in different ways to me. We've chatted many a time about our varied styles and decided that making a collaborative podcast episode about just this would be a lot of fun. So, this episode is a combination of the two of us as hosts from Travel Tales from Beyond the Brochure and The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, and to frame our conversation we picked, of all things, a Buzzfeed quiz on the age-old (silly...
Apr 18, 2025•40 min
Learning languages, in the early days, is all about making mistakes, and then as we improve, we can see the benefits of really getting to know people and cultures by having common words and expressions. We still make mistakes though! In this episode I chat with three guests who've spent significant chunks of time in France and Italy, and have learnt much about these second homes through their gradual improvements with French and Italian. First up, I speak with Angela Correll who moved to Italy w...
Apr 03, 2025•25 min
Happy ninth birthday to The Thoughtful Travel Podcast! To celebrate, I've gone back to three of the early guests and interviewed them again to see what's changed in their lives in the intervening years. It was so fun to do! First up, I chat with photographer Kiliii Yuyan, who first appeared way back in Episode 2 in 2016. Since that time, Kiliii has had an incredible career and been able to go on some very special adventures to create stories for National Geographic. I then speak with Kerstin Pil...
Mar 25, 2025•28 min
Joining a tour connected to any special interest you have is bound to result in a memorable trip and when I heard about Political Tours, I was instantly attracted! This episode is a deep dive interview with founder Nicholas Wood, who used his skills and network from experiences like working as a foreign correspondent the New York Times to launch Political Tours back in 2011. We chat about how a tour works, the many aspects of such trips that lean heavily into being a thoughtful traveller - espec...
Mar 19, 2025•27 min
Confession time: I'd long assumed that virtual travel was a very inferior cousin to in-real-life travel. But then Covid hit, I experienced a couple of virtual tours, and really did feel transported to Thailand and China for an hour or two. Those kind of virtual tours are just the tip of the virtual travel iceberg though, and in this episode I speak with three people approaching virtual travel in different - and wonderful! - ways. First, I chat with Chiara Barbera about her "Assaggio" platform, w...
Mar 13, 2025•26 min
Since 1911, International Women's Day has been a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. To celebrate International Women's Day on 8th March 2025, I've gathered some of my favourite women travel podcasters in Australia for a conversation about impactful women in travel, and some of the most important lessons we've learnt while travelling, plus we have a few laughs, too! Thanks to the wonderful Australian women podcasters who joined me for this ...
Mar 03, 2025•48 min
Living abroad by choice can be such a wonderful experience - I was lucky enough to be able to spend time teaching English in Japan, Slovakia and Germany and these years were truly life-changing. In this episode, three guests share some of the fun, struggles and intriguing moments from their time living in Italy, South Korea and Poland. It's a real mixed bag of stories and I'm sure you'll enjoy it! First up, I chat with Angela Correll, who bought an apartment in Tuscany with her husband, thinking...
Feb 24, 2025•24 min
Hostel life can be great fun and easy on the travel budget, too. I'll always remember my Dad, in his 50s or 60s, explaining to me that hostels weren't just for young people anymore, and anyone could stay there - a philosophy I have long enjoyed and used. In this episode, we chat about many sides of staying in hostels, starting with Jamie Burr and his description of why he loves to book hostels when he travels. I then chat with Will Hatton who loves them some much he actually built his own - Trib...
Feb 17, 2025•22 min
Travellers will all have their special memories about the wonderful learnings they've had from travel: from tiny things like a new way to enjoy a favourite food, to enormous life-changing epiphanies inspired by other cultures or someone they meet. In Episode 337 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, I chat with three people about some of the ideas that have stayed with them or made them think. First up, Thomas Swick describes several moments including a long (very long!) train journey through easter...
Feb 11, 2025•24 min
Encountering new and interesting people is part of the magic of a good trip. Chatting with a stranger on a train or making a new friend at a hostel or bar is often what you remember above the sights you've seen. In this episode, I start by chatting with Carol McQuaid, who tells of a special person she met while working on a cruise ship. Next, veteran writer Thomas Swick shares tales of several of the fabulous people he has come across on his many travels. Finally, Bex Thomas explains just what h...
Feb 04, 2025•22 min
I'm excited to share this episode of Curious Tourism, a fabulous podcast about responsible travel, which I recorded recently with host Erin and producer Kattie, who generously agreed I could also share it here in my feed. We start off by chatting about some recent visa news for visitors to Europe and the UK, as well as the outrage in Australia to see our passport is the most expensive in the world. Then we get seriously deep by covering a bunch of thoughtful travel topics: how we can be more int...
Jan 29, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Want to know how to be the favourite aunty or uncle? This episode about taking your nieces and nephews travelling will give you plenty of ideas! Mike Day, a wonderful uncle, starts off by explaining how he really hoped he could give his nephews something special by giving them the gift of travel. It seems to have worked as he has a wonderful story to tell about the impact a trip over a decade ago had on one of his nephews. I then chat with Dianne Bortoletto, a fabulous aunty, about her recent ex...
Jan 24, 2025•21 min
Overtourism is a buzz word of late, but not a good one. We've all read about the cities and regions being overrun by tourists, who might be damaging natural or historical sights, or making an area unaffordable for its original residents to stay in. In this episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, I speak with three guests with an interest in overtourism and ask for their thoughts. First up, I speak with Dylan Thuras of Atlas Obscura. Dylan's whole website and podcast are based around encouragin...
Jan 18, 2025•24 min
If you're a sports fan (and as one guest will prove, even if you're not), travelling to play or watch sports can be a great combination of two enjoyable pastimes. It's one way you can immerse yourself in something that local people enjoy as well, and can even be a great way to connect or make new friends. In this episode I hear firstly from Julie Kaplan who has had some fun table tennis experiences in several countries - it's a great story! I then chat with Tara Wells, who is not usually a sport...
Jan 12, 2025•23 min
Learning more about being a responsible traveller when it comes to seeing or interacting with animals on my trips is one of the biggest learning curves running this podcast has given me over the past decade. In this episode, I hear from three professionals working at the intersection of animals and tourism, in three different but equally fascinating roles. First up, I chat with Nora Livingstone of Animal Experience International, about a trip she took to Sierra Leone to visit a dog rescue centre...
Jan 04, 2025•23 min
2024 is reaching an end, and I'm honestly looking forward to getting on with 2025! This year was a bit of a bust: the sudden loss of my Mum tainted most of the year with various repercussions, and even this podcast suffered from some neglect! But with a shiny new year ahead, I'm happy to look back on what travel I did manage in 2024, as well as talk about what seem to be the most likely travel trends for 2025. I also asked listeners about their resolutions for 2025 and I'm glad to include a wond...
Dec 17, 2024•19 min
Like many parts of travel, in recent years I've started to rethink some aspects of museum that I just took for granted in my early years of travel. In this episode, I chat with three guests on a variety of aspects of the ethics of museums, which all gave me great food for thought. First up, I spoke with Chris Christou, who articulates some of the key ethical issues many museums face, especially those that are focused on archaeological artefacts - some of which might not have been acquired in the...
Dec 10, 2024•27 min
Almost 40 years after my first trip to Hong Kong, I returned in November with my teenager son. Back as a nine-year-old, Hong Kong was the very first place I'd been to outside of Western Australia, so it made quite the impression. This time, I was there to visit friends who've recently moved there, and to do some extra sightseeing while they were at work. In this trip report episode, I'm going to let you know what my highlight was (hint: it could happen anywhere in the world!), explain the sights...
Dec 03, 2024•26 min
A huge reason many people travel is to get away from city life and into nature. In Episode 327 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast we don't just get into nature - we hear about some really rare and unique encounters with the natural world. First up, I chat with Satyajit Das, a veteran of many intriguing wildlife encounters on his travels, who explains how lucky he was in coming across the small cats of South and Central America: ocelots, margays and onchillas. Next, Paul Christie explains something...
Nov 26, 2024•24 min
This episode is a joyful collaboration with Tracy of the UK Travel Podcast. When one of your best friends invites you to his wedding in the Lake District in England, you say yes! We first met Cham in Cambodia - back in Episode 114 - and we've holidayed with him across Asia ever since, but meeting up in the UK to celebrate his wedding was our most exciting adventure together yet. My 14-year-old son and I took the opportunity to explore some more of north-west England and northern Wales while we w...
Aug 13, 2024•31 min
If you think of Australia, you're bound to imagine a few stereotypes of what life here is like: sun and sand might feature, and you will perhaps imagine we're a laidback nation of permanently relaxed people. Over the last year, the topic of what people think about Australia has come up with quite a few guests so I decided to compile an episode about these ideas. I chat first with Michael Jensen who spent half a year here on student exchange in the 1980s, and recently returned for another months-...
Jul 06, 2024•28 min
