¶ Meet Buster: Adventure Through Authentic Travel
Buster Upton has a passion for exploring the world , but not in the polished , picture-perfect way we often see on Instagram . For Buster , true adventure lies in authentic travel , where 90% of the experience isn't glamorous and moments of uncertainty , challenge and even a little fear are all part of the journey .
In this episode , we'll travel alongside Buster to some incredible places , including the hauntingly fascinating site of Chernobyl . Get ready for a raw and real look at what adventure truly means with Buster Upton . Welcome to Journey with Jake . This is a podcast about adventure and how , through our adventures , we can overcome the challenges of life that come our way .
While I expect you will learn some things about different adventures , this show will entertain you . Each episode will feature different guests or guests as they share experiences and stories from the different adventures they have been on .
Not only will you be entertained , but you will also hear the failures and trials each guest faces and what they have done or are doing to overcome the hardships that come their way . To overcome the hardships that come their way .
My goal is to take each of us on a journey through the experiences of my guests , with the hope that you'll be entertained and inspired to overcome your day-to-day challenges . After all . It's not all about the destination as it is about the journey . Hello everyone and welcome to Journey with Jake .
My name is Jake Bushman and I'm your host for another fantastic episode . What a great opportunity . I had to speak with Buster Upton . Like a lot of my guests , I found Buster on Instagram and there was something about his videos and posts that just made me like the guy and I wanted to hear more .
You're in for a real treat , as we talk about all kinds of things dealing with travel and , most importantly , buster's journey and why adventure means so much to him . Before we get into my conversation with Buster , if you've not done so already , please subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts , so you don't miss any episodes of the show .
If you'd like to get to know me better , the best place to do that is on instagram at journey with jake podcast . Besides featuring past , present and future guest clips , I also like to put out some information about me as well . While you were there , give me a follow , say hi and comment . I love to hear from all of you .
Journey Journey with Jake is part of the PodMatch Podcast Network . To check out some fantastic shows , just go to podmatchcom forward slash network . As I mentioned , buster was such a great guest and I was grateful I had the chance to speak with Buster about his journey , travels and adventures .
If you liked this episode , you will also enjoy episode 29 with fellow podcaster and friend , james hammond , about his many adventures and travels . Okay , let's get to my conversation with buster upton . Well , I'm excited today I have buster upton joining me on journey with jake buster . Welcome to the show , thanks for having me . I'm excited .
Yeah , this is going to be fun .
Just so people know , and just a little background on how I find some of my guests sometimes because I don't think I've really mentioned this on my podcast much I do a lot of just finding people like through Instagram and you popped up , I must have seen a reel or something , and it was a while ago because what I do is I typically save it .
If I'm like , oh , I want to talk to that person , I'll kind of save back through . I'm like , oh , yeah , buster , let me send a note to Buster . And so here you are . You said , yeah , let's do it . So kind of fun . Yeah , it's kind of fun , just organically , how I come across some people and anyway , I'm looking , looking forward to talking to you .
This one's going to be a little bit different , I think , because usually I can kind of gather a lot . You know , people have maybe a website or they're usually promoting something , or they got a book or they're doing things like that . I don't know anything about you busters . This is going to be just like yeah .
I'm going to learn all about you right here and now , so it'll be a lot of fun . This is the opening , exactly , exactly . So before we get cranking cause , the only thing I do know about you is you're out backpacking around traveling the world . Basically that's all I know .
So before we dive into some of your travels and experiences , tell me about Buster , where you're from . Obviously , your accent's a little different than mine , so tell everybody where you're from , and all that good stuff .
Yeah Well , my name's Buster , I'm 26 years old and I'm from North Queensland in Australia . I live in a fairly small city just off the coast of the Great Barrier Reef . Ever since I was really young , I've really loved traveling . I'm fascinated with the world , different cultures .
Last year , or the year before , I decided to make an Instagram under the pressure of my friends , like a public Instagram , just to kind of show off a little bit , I suppose , and I was never much of a social media guru when I was younger and I used to travel a lot and they said , hey , you really need to start posting some of your videos or do a little
bit of storytelling . Yeah , it really started last year when I quit my job for about the third time and went on a world backpacking trip .
See , okay , that amazes me how people just can quit a job and go travel . So we'll get into that for a second .
So born and raised Australia . Yeah , I was actually born in Ireland . My parents are Irish , my mom's Australian , but she's of Irish descent , and my dad is fully Irish . He moved here in his 30s , so I'm lucky enough to be a dual passport holder . That's always a bit of a fun travel fact . Yeah , so I was born in Ireland .
I moved to Australia when I was really young . Like I am Australian , but yeah , I moved here when I was about one or two .
Your accent , though , is Australian right .
Yeah , yeah , a hundred percent . Everything about me is Australian . Yeah , just that little piece of paper that says I'm not .
Yeah , Just a little piece of paper that says you're not . Your dad's probably hoping you'll , the more that Irish comes out . But you know , hey , living in Australia , what are you going to do , right ?
Yeah , yeah , that's right . He lives here now anyway , so he's got no excuse yeah .
Any siblings ? You just you solo , or you got any ?
Just me .
Just you .
Yeah , yeah , I grew up just with my mom for most of my life .
Yeah , I had an awesome , awesome childhood , lots of friends , pretty normal life , lived in the suburbs with my mom and , yeah , now live here in beautiful North Queensland and yeah , so as a youngster then , just living with your mom , did you and your mom travel like around Australia or did you go international ?
What did you guys do , as you know , growing up ?
Yeah , all the time . Mom
¶ Childhood Travel with Mom
always liked to sort of got itchy feet and just wanted to go around . Every sort of school holidays , every long weekend or something , we'd go camping . I used to camp all the time and I still do camp quite a lot when I'm at home . We live in such an awesome place . I've been to the US now and it's very similar . There's just so much to see .
It's obviously a massive country . Yeah , I'm lucky enough to have been to most places in Australia as well . I remember when I was about 15 or 16 , I was in high school and mom sent me a text at school . She goes when you get home , you're going to pack your bag , we're going to drive to Western Australia , which is like a five day .
It's like it's like a thousand 2000 miles away from where we're living . At the time she said , right , we're going to Western Australia because I really want to go and that was sort of not uncommon as a kid .
Wow , okay , very good . So your mom had that adventurous spirit about her . She was like ready to go .
Yeah , absolutely . And then my first sort of big trip is when I was 14 . Over our Christmas holidays my mom took me to Western Europe for two months . That was like the big sort of like I'd wanted to go overseas for a long , long time .
I got to see sort of the town I was born in Ireland , got to see some long lost relatives , and on that trip we went to the UK , france , germany and Ireland . Yeah , it was awesome . From there it was sort of like okay , now we're going .
So you had the bug . Like you were like , okay , I've had a little taste of this growing up with my mom . Yeah , you've got the bug . You're like , I got the travel bug , I'm gonna hit it . And you start traveling . What ? What do you think it was ? What do you think being a teenager , what was it that was like so awesome about it to you ?
I was just fascinated . I like I was always fascinated with other countries , even like when I was much younger , looking at flags and different languages .
And then I was kind of like , oh , I looked at a map and I was like , well , I've only just been to this bit , I've just been to the you know , france and germany in the uk , like that's just a speck on the whole globe . I was like , right , well , I really want to go somewhere else now . I gotta , I gotta see that place .
And then , oh , someone was talking about that place on that trip . I gotta go there . It just unravels from there . I want to go everywhere do it all go everywhere .
Yeah , getting done with school , high school , did you end up ? Did you go to college ? Did you do that kind of route ? What did you ?
do . I was actually , um , I really didn't like high school much , much , much to mom's enthusiasm , actually , my travels actually started when I was in high school . I was 16 and I was like seriously considering dropping out . I just hated it . Me and my friend used to skip school like every day .
We got called into the school's office and they said hey , like you boys are at like a serious risk of not completing high school here . What can we do ? Can we help you do an apprenticeship ? And there was a little form in the corner of the office that said go on student exchange . And I looked at my mate and we were a bit naughty .
Back then I saw you , should we do this ? And , long story short , both of us actually ended up leaving school for the year to go to school somewhere else . And we went to this seminar and we come home told our parents , said , hey , you know , we can actually go to school overseas and the school's going to help us do it .
On the day they said , oh well , what are you thinking about ? And I said , oh well , I want to go to school in Northern Europe somewhere . I ended up going to school in Finland for my second last year of school .
So you're like 16 , 17 years old , living in Finland .
Yeah , that's basically how it happened . I was like drop out of school or go to school somewhere else . The next minute I ended up in the middle of Finland , in this small city in Eastern Finland , and my mate was in Sao Paulo in Brazil , and we're texting each other like this is awesome , this is way better than going to school .
Yeah , and yeah , mom was cool with it . Mom was really cool with it . I didn't end up dropping out of school and I um did , yeah , most of my last year of school in Finland and then from there .
then that's when the travel like really started wow , okay , I want to go back to this whole Finland thing , because this is wild to me , okay , so , first of all , they set you down .
They're like hey , man , you and your buddy , you're like , you're not gonna make it , you guys are gonna flunk out of school , you're gonna flunk out of high school , but here's an opportunity . You see this opportunity to go study abroad . Essentially , yeah , you ended up in finland yeah language barrier . I mean , was there any of that going on ?
I mean , yeah , I was . I was lucky enough to be knowledgeable enough about sort of these countries in northern europe that I was like , okay , well , at least they can . Okay , no , they can speak english . I ended up choosing finland because it was , it was it was a coin toss actually between norway and finland and I was like , well , yeah , I'm gonna go there .
And they actually sent me . Um , when I got to finland , they'd place me in an international class , like an international baccalaureate sort of class , so all the lessons were actually done in English . There was a mishap when I first got enrolled to the school .
There was a whole heap of classes I had to do which were taught in Finnish , and I didn't know a lick . I didn't even know anyone that was Finnish . A lick , I didn't even know anyone that was Finnish . Yeah
¶ School Exchange in Finland
, my first day of school was actually really daunting . I was probably one of the only three kids at the school that didn't have like pasty white skin and bleach blonde hair and the blue eyes . Everyone was staring at me and I couldn't understand .
My very first lesson actually was an ethics class and the teacher talked to me for about 15 minutes in Finnish , but I didn't realize she was talking to me until one of the kids gave me a bit of a nudge on the shoulder and I was like , oh sorry , and she was the only teacher at the school that couldn't speak English Just me and I didn't know what she was
saying and I was just nodding , trying to be like a bit quiet in the back , hoping she wouldn't stop looking at me . Turned out , the whole class was looking at me and I just said oh hey , I'm sorry , I don't know what you're talking about .
What's crazy about this Buster is I sit there and I think like if I was put in that position at that age I would be scared . I'd be like calling home , crying . But it sounds like you . You're like this was awesome . You know my buddy's in Sao Paulo and I'm here . This is awesome . Is buddies in Sao Paulo and I'm here . This is awesome .
Is that what it was like ? Or was there any moments of you're like oh , what did I ?
do ? I don't know , it's weird . I didn't think about it a whole lot . I mean , it is looking back on it . You know , 16 , I'd only been in Finland for like three or four days , and now I'm in this ethics class and I don't understand what anyone's saying to me .
It should have been scary , really , but I was just like , well , you know , doing maths at home , so I love it .
I love the fact that you just rolled with it and it just it kind of fits from what I've seen of you on instagram and all I've seen is just your , your instagram rules . I don't really know you , but it just kind of fits your personality from what I've seen , so that seems appropriate .
I tend to not really like . I don't really . Nothing phases me a whole lot . It's kind of like oh , there's nothing I can do about it , I'm here .
So you did the whole the Finland thing and then you said then that's what really kind of sparked your whole travel thing .
Yeah , when I was towards the end of my Finland trip , I had a few weeks off and I had a backpack that my mom had bought me for my birthday . The year before , I caught a ferry by myself and I went to Estonia , and then I caught a bus to Latvia and that was the first trip I ever did by myself .
It was just just after my 17th birthday and I backpacked around the Baltic Sea for a couple of weeks . Yeah , it was . Yeah , it was wicked as a 17 year old just cruising around yeah , yeah , and the language barrier is much worse in Latvia and Estonia than it is in Finland , just for reference .
Yeah , so what were you doing ? Were you just using your creative juices to , like , figure out where to stay and what to do ? I mean , how did you do this ?
I had like I don't know . I think I had like 400 bucks or something and I was like , well , I got to make this work and I went to I don't know . I went to some museums , I went to the pub , I just went at things that I thought would be cool . Had a scroll on Instagram , tried to find some ideas of places to visit in the middle of Latvia .
Wow Okay , so you're 26 now . So this was just nine years ago , it wasn't too long ago . Wow , okay , it's amazing . So it was before the whole pandemic and all that . Yeah , Back in the glory days . Back in the glory days , right yeah , because I kind of feel like maybe it's because , you know , I started this , well , you know , partway through the pandemic .
So I feel like maybe travel has become more of a social media thing . Maybe it was before too . I just didn't notice as much . I don't know .
Yeah , I was pretty heavily into looking at stuff on Instagram and travel and it was . Instagram has definitely changed and it is much easier for people to find stuff and a lot more people do promote it , like myself now , I suppose , on Instagram post COVID . I think every social media is bigger post COVID , I reckon .
But yeah , it was just , yeah , something to do .
So in the meantime , okay , so you did that you travel by yourself at 17 years old , which is just amazing to me . But then you came home to Australia . I mean , I'm guessing you had to get a job . You had to like , yeah , life kind of settled in a little bit Like kind of how did that all work ?
Because you said you ended up quitting your job last year or something . So kind of give me that story .
Well , actually it all sort of starts when I got home from Finland . I moved in with my grandmother , my , my mum moved states and I got a job as a construction labourer .
I worked for a concreting company and we were just building bridges , fixing apartment blocks , and then I remember I got my first job and I was like first proper job when I was 18 and I got paid $22 an hour .
I was like this is awesome , I'm getting $22 an hour and I don't really have to go to school , I'm getting paid and hour and I don't really have to go to school , I'm getting paid . And I was living with my grandma , I was saving up . I was saving , you know , 95% of my salary . After three months I looked at my bank account .
I thought , well , that's a bit bigger than I thought it'd be . And then I quit that job . I used my Irish passport and I'd made some friends when I was overseas and I moved to Sweden yeah , didn't take long at all . So , yeah , one of the first jobs I quit and it definitely wasn't the last job I quit to go traveling .
Yeah , I ended up in my friend's parents' house on a farm just outside of Stockholm in Sweden . It was just the best time ever . My friends had just finished high school . They were actually exchange students in Australia .
Oh , in Australia .
That's how I met them and yeah , I was like cool , and they're like what should we do ? And we're like , oh , let's drive to Norway . That happened big Europe trip back . This was proper backpacking , like super budget , maybe spending like 10 , 15 US dollars a day , and that lasted me about three or four months and I learned heaps on that trip .
So let's talk about backpacking for a minute , because when you think of backpacking , a lot of people like in my mind , the first thing that comes to my mind is like oh , people hiking through a trail in the woods or something backpacker kind of thing . But for you it's basically you're just taking a backpack to travel the world .
Essentially You're Norway and Sweden and limited budget everything .
Yeah , backpacking is just to me , it's just the same three t-shirts for months on end and someone with a backpack in a dirty bus station in the middle of nowhere trying to find your way . That's what it feels like .
What's the appeal to that ? Why is that so fun ? Why did you like that so much ? I ?
think just yeah , it is a funny question and I it doesn't sound glamorous at all . And it's definitely not glamorous for 90 of the time . It's when you reach those you know cool destinations at the top of a mountain or a cool church somewhere . That's when it's cool .
But the other 90 is just eating like supermarket , you know pre-packed supermarket sandwiches yeah , it's not not all the hype that it seems .
So tell me , yeah , maybe in some of those earlier before you started your own Instagram account and things like that . What were some of those ? Maybe where you got to the top of a mountain
¶ First Solo Backpacking Adventures
, or just some examples of some places that you saw , or some stories that you're just like , wow , this is living .
Yeah , on that first trip after I left home , when I left Australia when I was 18 , I went to Chernobyl with one of my friends in Ukraine . Yeah , we caught a flight to Kiev and we caught a bus and we're standing in the middle of Pripyat , the abandoned city , and we're looking at reactor number four in Chernobyl .
And I said to my I was like , dude , this is awesome , like we can do it . Like getting there and realizing that I can do whatever I want really changed my perspective on travel and things that I want to do , because I was like , well , we just wanted to do that and we came here and we did it .
To be fair , it was really easy and I thought to myself , well , I could probably go anywhere . I really want to go . All it takes , all you want , everywhere on earth . All it takes is a flight , a few buses and maybe a taxi or a bicycle ride and you can get somewhere . That's all it is to it .
When you go to these places , do you have any set plans , or do you just kind of get there and say , let's check this out ? How do you do it ?
Yeah , very . I typically say I might waypoint two or three places on the way and the rest of it just unfolds . You'll talk to someone and they'll say , oh , you should go here . And 90% of the time I do go . Oh yeah , all right , I'll go there . Yeah , I just .
I bought a one-way ticket to Kiev in Ukraine and the only thing I had in my mind was let's visit Chernobyl . I ended up in Chernobyl and then after that , like cool , now what ? And yeah .
All right , I got to ask about Chernobyl a little bit then , because I've never had . I haven't had anybody talk about Chernobyl on the show before . So is it like what I imagine it to be , just kind of the remains , I mean , what's it like ?
It felt like the TV show the Walking Dead without the zombies . Yeah , it was honestly one of the coolest places I've been to .
We actually got lost in the city of Pripyat and I thought I was in a forest and I look up and there was just this wall of concrete in front of me and like stairs , like concrete stairs , and I was so confused because it was just trees , trees and then stairs and I was actually inside an old sports athletic stadium .
Wow , as I was in the stadium , I realized that the forest had actually grown up through the field . Wow , yeah , I read , I was reading kids' school books , ended up inside a school and there's old school books with kids' handwriting from the 80s and they because they just left like that , they just got up and left . Yeah , it was really fascinating , yeah .
That is wild . Yeah , what's the situation there now ? I mean , well , when you went , is there still like radiation in the area ? Yeah , like what's the- .
Yeah , there . Yeah , there were some forms , but there were some stern warnings . The Ukrainian military was there 24-7 . I mean , there's going to be radiation there for thousands and thousands of years . I just had to be careful . I covered up pretty well with my clothes and tried not to touch anything .
Yeah , I definitely didn't go too deep into some of the places . I mean , yeah , I was going to go there anyway . You know , I wasn't eating the dirt , I wasn't yeah right , yeah , exactly , you're not rolling around in it Okay .
Yeah , some people still actually live there the original inhabitants , a few of the older people decided they never wanted to leave , so that was reassuring . Lots of wildlife actually in the area . Yeah , wildlife actually in the area . Yeah , it's probably seen more wildlife than I'd seen on most of my travels . It was actually in the Pripyat Chernobyl area .
What kind of wildlife do they have there ? Deers , fox , lots of bird fauna and some snakes . Actually , it's probably one of the few places outside of Australia . I've seen snakes , wow , interesting . Yeah , I actually nearly stepped on a snake in Chernobyl .
Have been quite the quite the story to tell if I'd be bitten . Yeah , wow , for sure . Wow , okay . So chernobyl was one of those places . And and after you know , when you're you're 18 , you quit that job working , construction labor and you're off doing your own thing . How did the work ?
You just kind of bounce back and forth between aust getting a job and like how did this work , like what did you do until you finally quit again . But lead me up to where we are now .
I guess yeah , sure , I actually applied for a job before I left and I got the job and I was like , oh , this is a pretty well-paying job . It was in aviation . Then I flew back home to Australia , did that for a few years and I actually did that for two or three years , that job .
And I was like , oh , I'm getting a bit , I'm definitely getting itchy feet now . And I was like , well , I was saving lots and lots of money and the whole idea was to eventually quit that job and spend all my hard-earned cash on just a big world trip .
Like a one-way trip I was going to walk across Pakistan and I was going to catch a boat to Cuba , or like it was going to be crazy and , long story
¶ Quitting Jobs to Travel the World
short , I quit my job on the 1st of March 2020 .
COVID time .
And , yeah , it was all downhill from there and I was left with a whole heap of money that I'd saved up . I ended up living with my grandmother again Another house because I'd actually quit my job and I'd driven about 5,000 kilometers across Australia to park my car at my grandmother's house . While I was going overseas , had all these plane tickets set up .
I was taking my mom to Japan for her birthday . That was the first place we were going to and then , yeah , covid happened , and then it was two or three years until we could really really travel again . Couldn't find work for a good year during COVID . Had to spend a lot of that money just to survive . Yeah , I'm sure everyone has a similar story .
It seemed like 2020 was the year everyone was going traveling .
Yeah , yeah , exactly right . It seems like they all were taking off doing their thing .
COVID was sort of a bit of a blur , worked a few more jobs , ended up moving back to North Queensland where I live now . First it was really hard to travel in those few years sort of 2022-ish . I did a couple of first flight back sort of things . I just really wanted to travel .
I was on the first flight back to Bali from here and then that just wasn't the same . There's no like a lot of the tourism did shut down . It's quite hard to travel and there's also so many restrictions on being a foreigner you can just go there on that vacation holiday type . Feel not these big backpacking adventures that I like to do .
Yeah , it got to the point where it was like , right , travel's back , let's go . And yeah , last year finally quit my job . I'd been working in another construction job I still work in now . I'm quite lucky . My boss is always happy to have me back .
So I think I finally found that sweet spot where I that was actually him texting me before I can sort of come back and forth as I please and work for him , and I think that's going to be my life now for the next few years Travel when I'm sick of that , come back , earn some money .
Save up some money .
That's right , did that last year . I save really frugally when I'm at home because traveling is kind of just my passion . That's what I work for now Pay my rent , renovate my house and then go traveling .
Wow . So that's how you do it Basically you work for a little bit , save up as best you can and then hit the road .
Absolutely not . I meet so many people who think I'm like a travel guru that I take my laptop and sip chai lattes at like random foreign cafes . But no , I work a normal job at home . I shovel concrete and I use a hose and I save my money , put it in my bank account and then I'm overseas . That's when I spend it all .
Last year , that's exactly what I did . I worked for two years straight and then I said hey , dude , I'm going to quit for a while . I'm going overseas , got a one-way trip . I'll let you know when I'm back and yeah , that was six months ago . I got home from a nine 10 month , wow , okay , so 2024 was a big year for you as far as travel goes .
It was wicked . Yeah , ended up traveling through 20 , 30 countries that year .
Wow , okay , so can you kind of give me just the overview kind of some of the places you hit ?
I don't know if you know it off the top of your head or not , but what just come as some highlights of the places you went in 2024 , because it sounds like that was kind of the year , and is that the year that you started posting on Instagram for everyone to ?
see , yeah , my account's about a year old now . I think I'm pretty close to . I left at the end of January last year , got a flight to Bali because I live I'll actually live quite close to Bali , so it's it's really easy to get to . I went to every country in Southeast Asia , uh , last year , except for , uh , myanmar due to the civil war , and and Brunei .
So that , yeah , that's so that , yeah , did the whole lot Thailand , cambodia , malaysia , singapore , vietnam , yeah . So that was a big trip , that was a big part of the trip last year , and then after that we went to Sri Lanka for a few weeks . My girlfriend really wanted to go to Sri Lanka okay , because , yeah , you said we .
So I'm like , who are you traveling with ?
yeah , yeah , last year I did um it's the first trip I haven't done by myself when I was with my girlfriend , she also quit her job . She was actually living in New Zealand at the time , so it was quite nice for both of us to um quit our jobs at the same time . We're in the same frame of mind . And then we took off . I went to a few of the stands .
I went to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan last year , which normally gets a few eyebrow raises from people . That's somewhere a bit different , a little bit of a Europe trip . Went to see some family in the UK and Ireland again , and then I spent the last three months in Alaska my trip last year .
All right , went stateside to Alaska Very cool . Yeah , I've never been to Alaska and I live in the States and I haven't been . I heard it's awesome .
That's what 90% of Americans I've met have said . I find it to be like one of the only states that other Americans don't hate on . Everyone's always complaining about Californians or Texans or New Yorkers , and then everyone gives a thumbs up to Alaska , but none of them have ever been . Yeah , I've never been . I'd love to go , but I haven't been .
Yeah , alaska is a different place . It's cool . Yeah , it was a really eye-opening experience . Yeah , I've actually got a buddy from Australia who is Alaskan . I got to stay with him , so I got the real
¶ Southeast Asia and 2023's World Tour
experience .
Yeah , oh yeah , from what I've gathered looking at Instagram and your account , and , first of all , what is your account ?
so people know what's your Instagram account it's just uh , visit with buster , visit dot with dot buster visit dot with dot .
Buster love it . Visit with buster great yeah . So it looks like that's what it seems like you try to find . You try to find that real experience . You're not just going and sitting on a beach , you know , in a tourist spot . It sounds like you're like you know you're going to Chernobyl and you're going to these places that just seem real authentic .
Is that kind of the whole idea when you get out there .
Absolutely A lot of my travels . I stay with people that I've met on previous trips . I use an app called Couchsurfing a lot of the time , which is basically I've heard of Couchsurfing , I've heard of couch surfing . Yeah , I've heard of couch surfing . Yeah , you just go stay with a random dude or random lady .
And yeah , very first time I did it stayed with this guy in an apartment in Poland , this Polish guy , and he taught me around town . I was like this is so much better than staying in a hotel , you know ? Yeah , things like that . That's the idea Stay with some friends , get a local experience and really go out to the countryside .
That was one of the best parts about my trip in Central Asia , in Kyrgyzstan . I made a friend there and ended up staying with his mom and auntie . That was just like wow , this is so different . Like you wouldn't you , wouldn't you know you'd never get to experience that at a hotel or a motel or yeah , yeah .
What kind of things is it like when you're , when you're staying with somebody like that ? What is it that you're getting ? Cause I know , yeah , besides just a place to stay and kind of seeing how they live what is it that you're getting ?
Yeah , it's a chat Like . I love talking to people and when you're with someone you can talk about all . You can talk about everything . It's not just the normal conversations you have . You talk about what the neighbors do , what it was like for them as a kid .
I love asking people how their hometown's changed over the years and if it's a tourist destination , whether they like the tourism or if they don't like the tourism . A lot of the time I'm sort of the only foreigner in the area and I get lots of stares and I say , hey , well , you ask them , you get personal with a lot of the questions .
That's what I like and a lot of people don't really care . You can talk about politics or you can talk about religion , and they're normally pretty open . Once you're in their house and their spare room , they're normally pretty cool and you learn a whole lot and you're like , oh wow , I didn't think of that .
It's those dadgum Americans who aren't so open about that , right yeah .
Some of them are far too open .
Yeah , or they're way too open . Yeah , or they're way too open , yeah . There you go , exactly . Let's talk about the why . What is the whole point of this for you ? Where do you see it going ? What does the future hold for you ? Why do you do this ?
Oh , good question . I like the freedom of just being Well . I actually just got back from a 10-day trip to Indonesia . I've actually got a bit of jet lag . That's why I look so tired , sorry . I got back yesterday I was at work and I was like , oh , it's only 100 bucks . And I texted my girlfriend I said , hey , we're going to Indonesia .
And it was kind of like we , we get them , like this is just the best we can do whatever we want . We don't have to go to work . Because I don't like going to work . To be honest , that's a big part of the war . I mean , does anyone like going to work ? But I really don't like going to work some days .
The feeling of like impending , like adventure , I love . I love having to work out what I'm doing next . If I want to go from a to b , somewhere foreign , like I , I have to work for it and I've got to .
I do have to use my head a lot of the time and work out the most efficient route , learn another language on the spot and , yeah , problem solve a little bit . That's fun and it's all . It all feel . It feels like I've accomplished something when I finally get to the top of the mountain .
It's like a sense of accomplishment when you're like , oh , I did that because a lot of people are scared . The reason behind my account was my friends are like proper . A lot of them have that real small town mentality where they're . A lot of them will probably never leave , uh , the state that they're from .
I'm sure it's the same with a lot of them will probably never leave the state that they're from .
I'm sure it's the same with a lot of Americans . Oh , absolutely , you know , and I've for sure , and I think that's why I enjoy doing what I do here with this , because when am I ever going to talk to Buster , who's been all over the place , you know who's gone to Chernobyl , for Pete's sake ?
I mean , it's just , it's amazing , and it's amazing to hear your stories . I want to talk to you there . So I looked at quite a few of your reels that you have on instagram , your your post . There was one that really was fascinating to me . Okay , it was the the sounds of different places oh yeah , the um with no with the no .
Audio overlap yeah , yeah , you just . You just had , like the sounds of where you're at , whether there was a cat in one spot , there was sheep in a road , road in another spot . You're in a city .
I mean , talk to me about , like , just because it sounds like you love it , because it gives you a sense of purpose , like when you make it from point A to point B and you figured it out , so it sounds like you have that . But there's so many different elements to all of it as well , like just with the sounds .
I'm actually quite happy you said that , because I've made a couple of those reels and they're one of my favorites to make , because to me that's the real traveling . You see travel videos and they're often glamorized , which sort of annoys me a little bit , because it's really not . You're hearing the roar of an engine .
When you're on the plane , you're hearing the beeping of a taxi . There's sheep on the road . You spend a lot of time by yourself , thinking when you're traveling I'm doing a lot of bus rides , a lot of times sitting down , a lot of walking You're not hearing a Dua Lipa song in the background , you don't have that awesome music , you're hearing everyday sounds .
I think it's important for people to remember that when you're doing this cheap budget travel that was one of the reasons I posted that , to try and give it a sense of normality and I find myself when I am traveling , I'm a drop in the ocean . I'm just a person in someone else's life .
Whether I'm in a taxi of an Uzbekistani man , in the back of his car he's just trying to make five bucks for the day , or I'm in a national park in Sri Lanka , it's still someone's life .
I'm just like a side piece in that person's life for an hour or two hours , and it's important to remember that life's normal life goes on , and part of the reason I'm traveling is I want to see what people are doing in Sri Lanka at this time of day , because it's totally different to what I'm doing back home in Cairns or in New York City .
Absolutely . I'm glad you did that . Again , that was one of my favorite ones that I saw , just because it was so just kind of real and like this is what you know , what you're hearing and what you're seeing , so I loved it . So , yeah , keep doing those every so often .
That's what Cambodia sounds like . It doesn't sound like , you know , like a flight center ad .
It sounds like it doesn't sound like , you know , like a flight center ad . It sounds like cats purring and you know tuk-tuks driving . Yeah , well , and you know , we get on instagram . I get on instagram and I have a bunch of travel accounts .
The algorithm pushes me to a lot of them because I talk to a lot of people like you and yeah , yeah yeah , it's all this cool fancy . You know there's someone strolling on a beach with this cool music , or they're in cambodia through the . You know the city , but it's all . You know . It's festive music and it's like it's not really like that , you know .
So it's nice to get the real feel .
Yeah , yeah , that was the purpose . Yeah , you gotta , you gotta remember that it's . It's real , it's a , it's someone's house , somewhere you know . Like
¶ Behind Instagram: Real Travel Experiences
to be fair , life sounds pretty similar whether you're in London or you're in Johannesburg , or you're in Osh in the middle of Kyrgyzstan , it's all the same .
Yeah , I love that . That's great . So for this epic year that you had last year , a couple of highlights , some of your favorite places , any particular story .
Yeah , let me think for a second . Well , I'll give you one . We were in Laos , in Southeast Asia . Just by coincidence , it was Buddhist New Year in Laos . It's quite famous now due to Instagram , and in Thailand , next door , it's called Songkran and it's basically a three-day festival . One of the cultural aspects of the festival is you throw water .
Basically , it's a three-day water fight that we'd found ourselves in in the middle of Laos and what it is . People line up on the edge of the street in public and have big buckets of water . You just throw water at people . It is people line up on the edge of the street in public and have big buckets of water . You just throw water at people .
You get a , you get a glass of water , you get a bucket and the whole idea of the festival is just to douse people in water .
Um , so we're walking through this little town and some little kid just throws his bucket of water straight in my face and you're like , oh , and because I'm a , because I'm a foreigner in lao , I was just like the target and everyone's like get him . And I was just soaked for three days straight .
And it was like being a kid and I was culturally inclined to throw water bombs at every single person . I saw squirt people with the hose throw water at cars . It was awesome . It was like being a little kid again , but it was encouraged .
But it was encouraged . I love that . That's a great story . And you were with your girlfriend too . Was she there as well ?
Yeah , yeah , she was having a great time . I was throwing water at her for most of the time because you know she's like get off . But you know all the other kids were like you know , you've got to get her , you've got to get her . So I was you . Yeah , it was cool . I mean , I'm sure everyone anyone that's traveled with their partner before realizes a few .
There's a few issues . I am . It's a shame both of us get really hangry , so that's probably a bit of a . That was the only downside . Some of the days like get off a night bus and you just like just want something and I eat . I eat everything .
My girlfriend's lactose intolerant , so she's got to be really careful with the street food and we both got food poisoning in Cambodia and none of us ate for like four days . It was cool , it was actually . It was good . It was a lot easier to travel with someone in a lot of aspects .
We did argue a few times like she really didn't want to go to the Philippines . I was like , no , we're going to the Philippines . And then I didn't really want to go to Sri Lanka . So we compromised and we went to Sri Lanka . But it was cool to have someone .
It was actually cool to have someone take videos and photos of me the whole time , especially for Instagram . That made life a whole lot easier .
Yeah , I was wondering about that too , because I was like how did you get all these , some of these shots of you like doing stuff ? There you go . That makes sense , all right .
Yeah , there you go . That makes sense , all right . Yeah , it was . It was nice because before I had the instagram account , I um , I really rarely took photos . I actually come back from a three-month europe trip and I had like nine photos on my phone that I took . I just didn't , I didn't think about it .
But now I've got an instagram I feel inclined that I've got a yeah , and it's nice to look back . It was a year ago today . I was in the philippines . I got a notification on Instagram . You know , one year ago today I was like , oh cool , I was ziplining . A year ago today , so I was like , oh yeah , it's cool to have .
So everything seems fun . I mean you know it looks good , but you said like 90% of it is just kind of the . You know trying to find food and going to the supermarket , and you know traveling and things like that . What would you say are the biggest challenges of living like this ?
Yeah , it is Backpacking for a long period of time is you're just living a logistical nightmare , sometimes when you're overseas , and a lot of the time like we live in Australia and the US . We live at a really affluent part of planet earth . Things work , our roads are paved , we never have a shortage of gasoline in the car and we can afford everything .
This isn't the case for 90% of people . That's definitely an issue . We had a horrible , horrible traveling time in the Philippines . Nothing worked , everything was a nightmare to get to . We were in a town that actually had the highway collapse on it . We got into the town and the highway was just like it's just a nightmare to drive .
A two-hour drive turned into like six hours . We got there , the whole island lost power , all the internet signals went out and then in the middle of the night the town had bled dry its water source . So in this town with nowhere to get out , there's no internet to even . I mean we couldn't speak the language that they were speaking there . There's no water .
You just got what's left in your bottle and that was hard . You've got to remember that . You know stuff like that happens and it's you know if you're not in Western Europe or North America or Australia , you know , yeah , they didn't even blink , and for us it was like , oh , we've got no water , what are we going to do
¶ Water Festival in Laos
? It was funny . Actually , next door to me when the power went out , there was these American girls who had just left high school and they learned how to plumb their toilet because they had no water . They learned how a cistern works , and I'll never forget at 2 o'clock in the morning , though , yeah , this , these american girls , would you know ?
18 , 19 were learning plumbing in the middle of the night in the philippines because there was no water . Yeah , it was awesome yeah sorry that's a bit random , but I'll I'll definitely know that . Yeah , for sure and that's part of it . There's limited to no public transport in kyrgyzstan , which is which is really different .
You've very few places have no public transport in Kyrgyzstan , which is really different . Very few places have no public transport and you basically everyone just catches taxis and people just haggle on the street to get anywhere . People drive vans and people go , and I'll give you 10 bucks to drive me there in the van and that's what it was .
Yeah , that's something that you would never think of and it is a real issue . Sometimes , like , we had places that we wanted to go . Once you're outside of your comfort zone , you really gotta think outside the box . So , yeah , that's , things like that are really it's really hard to travel in some places . I can understand , I'm sure this .
I'm sure you've interviewed some people that cycle a lot for their travels . They go somewhere really random and they'll cycle , they'll take a motorbike . It's probably easier sometimes , to be honest , because some of the I've been trying to get somewhere someday .
You can't walk there and , yeah , cycling or taking your own motorbike is definitely the go then trying to figure it out .
If you can't walk there and there's no public transportation and trying to haggle your way , that's got to be got to be tough . Yeah , did this make you appreciate , like , what did this do for you as far as appreciation for , for what you have , I guess ?
every time I get home I'm happy that I live in australia and I'm happy where I live , and it's not just that one trip , it's every trip . I've been grateful for living in such a well developed place where things work , things are on time , it is fun and it's definitely fun to try the others .
But if it's your daily life , yeah , I'm , I'm pretty happy for it . And even , to be fair , even coming back from some other places like even when I come back from the US I was like you know , I was like , oh , I'm glad I don't live there .
No offense to anyone that's American , but I'm sure people say that about Australia you like your creature comforts at home and I'm very much someone that likes living in Australia . I'm happy to travel , I'm happy to spend a lot of time , but things work really well here .
And every time I've come home , every time I've crossed immigration , I've been like , okay , I'm happy to be back .
All right , so we're going to kind of we've been chatting here for quite a while Looking back , especially this last year , but you can look anywhere , I guess , but any of your travels , If you had only one place , you can only go back to one place . Which place are you going back to ?
I hate that question . It's probably going to be the United States . It's such a massive country . If it wasn't Australia , it'd have to be the US . You guys are so lucky and I get really annoyed because a lot of Americans don't travel . You live in one of the most beautiful countries on earth .
I did a road trip around the Southwest two years ago and I was in Arizona and New Mexico and I was like oh , this is just stunning . I travel for nature most of the time and you guys have such a diverse , beautiful country . Yeah , it'd have to be the US , purely based on size and diversity .
Yeah , I mean you said you were in Alaska , which is part of the US . Like you said , 90% of Americans haven't even been to Alaska . Yeah , to the Southwest , I'm from Arizona and Utah . I live in Utah now . So , yeah , I love the Southwest . But then the Northeast is beautiful .
The Southeast is beautiful , I mean there's so much the plains in the middle of the country . Yeah , it's very diverse .
I've already got plans to go back . I'm actually I'm actually um migrating to canada in a month . I've actually got a visa to go live and work in canada , which is quite you know , the landscape is quite similar to the north of the us . Yeah , my girlfriend and I already made plans to go visit montana and go visit the appellations and the great lakes .
Yeah , it's a really special place , and I think you know you can go anywhere on earth . But if it's a really special place , and I think you know you can go anywhere on earth , but if it's one country , yeah it's got to be the US . It's just so huge .
It makes sense . Yeah , with how big it is ? For sure , absolutely
¶ Challenges of Long-Term Travel
so . It sounds like you have those plans . You're going to migrate to Canada , and yet what other future plans do you want to do , like , what's the plan with the Instagram account or anything like that , or what do you just want to keep that rolling ? What's kind of your thoughts ?
yeah , to be fair , the um . I got really into the instagram for a while and I kind of just post on it willy-nilly now , just for and I I've made some friends online there and I've obviously got a personal instagram that I don't share with other people . Yeah , I just , I don't know . I just I just post it now when I feel like it .
If there's something cool that I think other people will like , I'll take a video and upload it to my story . Currently I'm talking to people about my Indonesia trip because that fascinated me . Going to Java , I climbed two volcanoes last week and I was like , oh yeah , people will like that .
Yeah , there's no plan and , to be fair , I'm not really good at Instagram .
Me neither .
It's hard . I don't know how people do it and make it look so nice and fruity .
It's amazing . I don't know . I don't know how people do it , because it's tough for me too .
I'm with you on that I'll keep it around . I'll definitely post my Canadian trips on there . Yeah , I should be back in the US next year . Yeah , I've got most of my . About 20% of my followers are actually American . They're the biggest cohort of my following , which is cool , so I'm sure that'll get me a bit more attention .
Yeah , a lot of my videos that did well is the American audience that really pushed it , liked it . They tend to eat it up a bit more , which is cool . The Instagram's just there . I mean , follow me if you want . I know sometimes the videos flunk , but I like what I upload and that's the main thing .
I Sometimes the videos flunk , but I like what I upload and that's the main thing . I'm not here to make money out of it . This is the first sort of . This is the second sort of thing I've done . Really , I've never done an interview before my girlfriend . She does it quite well and she gets stuff .
She gets like free bags and travel vouchers and things like that , but I'm just like , I'm just not good at it .
I'm not fair to her . Yeah , yeah , that's yeah . My Instagram is not great either . I'm struggling with it too . I mostly post little posts of us talking or some pictures you know it's all my guests .
you know it's all my guests that I'm posting . You got you got a few followers , though , so that's cool .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , it's like it's fun . It's a question I like to ask everybody For you , buster what does adventure mean to you ?
Adventure to me is when I'm traveling . It's almost the fear of the unknown . It's those times that I've been in the middle of somewhere random and I have no idea what I'm doing . That's the adventure is unknown , copied with . You know , I've got to work it out . Like that's an adventure to me .
I go somewhere with no plan and I feel like when I feel like I'm a knight from the 7th century going through medieval Europe , you know , I've got to work it out , I've got to plan , I've got to talk to people to work my way through the forest , like that's what I , yeah , that's what .
That's what happens in my head , unplanned and unknown , and it's almost , if you're a little bit scared , that's when you're on an adventure , I think a little bit of the fear of sneaking in there yeah , out of your comfort zone . That's the main thing , that's what makes an adventure , I think for sure .
Yeah , that's probably the thing I hear the most from my guests is being out of your comfort zone .
That's the general consensus . All right , cool , definitely correct .
Buster , thank you so much . This was a ton of fun .
Thanks for coming on journey with Jake yeah , thanks , jake , it's um , it's been awesome . First time I've done a podcast and , um , I've . Yeah , I'm happy I've seen yours . Now , um , I've read through some of your stories .
As you know , once you talk to people like this , you realize that there's actually thousands and thousands of people out there who have really interesting stories and without asking them the questions you probably wouldn't know . So , yeah , I appreciate it .
A big thank you to Buster Upton for joining me on the show and sharing his raw , honest perspective on travel and adventure . I loved hearing about his journey from navigating unfamiliar places to visiting somewhere as fascinating as Chernobyl . Buster reminds us that true adventure isn't always comfortable or Instagram worthy , and that's exactly what makes it so powerful .
If you'd like to follow along with Buster's
¶ Future Plans and What Adventure Means
travels , check him out on Instagram at visit with Buster . That's at visit dot with dot Buster . Give him a follow . At visitwithbuster . That's at visitwithbuster . Give him a follow . Thanks again , buster , for opening up and sharing who you are with all of us and to you , the listener . I know I say this every time , but I truly mean it .
Thank you for tuning in and being part of the Journey with Jake community . It means the world to me . If you're enjoying the show , I'd be so grateful if you could leave a rating and review and maybe share the podcast with your friends and family . Every little bit helps spread these incredible stories . Next week episode is a fun one .
It's all about bucket lists . I'm talking with Jeremy George , who set out to complete one bucket list item every week for a whole year . His journey is inspiring , uplifting and might just spark some ideas for your own list . Don't miss it . Just remember , it's not always about the destination as it is about the journey . Take care everybody , thank you .