“I never knew if I was going to make it but I just wanted to know. I wanted to set out.” - Laura Dekker Today’s guest did something that no other person her age has ever done before. At age 14, Laura Dekker set out to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the planet singlehandedly. And at 16, she completed that journey by sailboat. And while it’s an understatement to call that world record amazing, what I love most about it is that she took her time to complete it — exposing herself to th...
Nov 20, 2014•27 min
Alicia Sherrin has lived in Togo since July 2012 — and if you’re wondering where Togo is, it’s a tiny country between Ghana and Benin, in western Africa. Way back on episode 38, I mentioned someone was listening to the show in Togo, how little I knew about that place, and how amazing I thought it was that someone might be listening from there (the show was only 2 months old at this point!). Alicia was that someone and she reached out to me as a listener to see if I wanted to learn more about Tog...
Nov 19, 2014•34 min
Today's guest walked across America and lived to tell a TED Talk about it. Nate Damm took seven months to walk across fourteen states, clear across the continent of North America, and in this conversation today I cannot wait to ask him, "Why? Why would you do this?" And what came out of the experience? Including a book, Life on Foot: A Walk Across America. And a guide, How to Walk Across America for anyone who dares to follow in his literal footsteps. A Quick Preview: What compelled Nate Damm to...
Nov 17, 2014•31 min
Katja Gaskell has been published by Lonely Planet, Mr & Mrs Smith, and many other travel publications. She's moved with her husband and two kids to Mexico City, after living previously in Australia and India - while visiting Sri Lanka, Nepal, New Zealand, Fiji, the United States and much of Europe. Through all of this she’s become the co-founder and editor of GlobeTotting.com, a web platform, publication, and purveyor of adventurous escapes for families. Maybe you’ve always dreamed of living...
Nov 14, 2014•39 min
"How many people trudge off to work dreading the day ahead? How many people do you know who feel trapped in their jobs, working just to pay the mortgage, instead of pursuing their life's ambition because they just can't afford to take a risk? I can't, but I'm doing it anyway." Today’s guest wrote this, 3 years ago — on her kickstarter page, which launched a dream that changed her life. Jean Ellen Whatley is a writer who after experiencing a few deaths in her life successfully ran a kickstarter i...
Nov 13, 2014•45 min
This is part 2 of my conversation with Akshay Nanavati from Existing2Living. Listen to Part 1 in which we talk about his battles with addiction, war, and PTSD. Today’s guest is on a lifelong quest to traverse every country in the world, on foot, while raising a million dollars for his own non-profit foundation, Fearvana, which will partner with other for-purpose organizations to assist the global family with healing, both financially and spiritually. Before that, Akshay Nanavati was born in Indi...
Nov 12, 2014•25 min
This episode is part of a wider campaign for Veterans Day 2014 called Voices for Vets, in which more than 40+ podcasters have dedicated an episode of their show to interview a veteran or discuss veteran issues. Learn more. “The symptoms [of PTSD] don’t have to equal ‘disorder.’ These symptoms are just human symptoms in response to war. But they can also lead to growth.” - Akshay Nanavati Today’s guest is on a lifelong quest to traverse every country in the world, on foot, while raising a million...
Nov 11, 2014•40 min
Lauren Salisbury is the founder of Something In Her Ramblings, a travel blog aimed at inspiring women and solo travelers to explore the open road. A California native, she has found the best way to get to know a region of the world is to live there, and with that in mind has worked in four countries. While earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland, she wrote for NBC News and spent six months living in Melbourne, Australia. After graduating, she moved to Florida to...
Nov 10, 2014•34 min
“One of the things I admire most about travelers is how independent and confident they are. Those are qualities I never had growing up.” Today’s guest left a life in California to spend 4 years on the road with friends before settling, broke, in Thailand to study Muay Thai kickboxing and try his hand at entrepreneurship. He is the host of the Travel like a Boss podcast, where he interviews location independent entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs about their 4-hour work week style businesses, many o...
Nov 08, 2014•38 min
"Travel can transform communities and lives around the world... Imagine if we got to a place where people can go on holidays as their way of giving back." - Bruce Poon Tip I’m excited to bring on the show a figurehead in the world of travel whose passion — which is not unlike mine, or many of the prevailing motifs of this show has actually influenced the global perspective of what’s possible through the act of travel. Bruce Poon Tip is the CEO of G Adventures, the world's largest independent tou...
Nov 07, 2014•38 min
On this episode, I’m sitting down with a Canadian outdoors adventurer, explorer of remote places, online entrepreneur and consultant, writer and photographer, snowboarding enthusiast, and digital jack of all trades -- whose skills have, I discover, led him to live different lives in multiple places he calls home. Matt Gibson lived and taught english in Taiwan for 6 years, where he learned to speak Mandarin and founded his own travel magazine. His website has been featured on Afar, the Atlantic, ...
Nov 05, 2014•37 min
How do you feel when I say, “Staying in your current job?” How do you feel when I say, “Taking a new job?” How do you feel when I say, “Starting your own business?” This last option was the one that this episode's guest knew she had to pursue, and one she eventually discovered she could do from a life of full-time travel. She also knew that she needed to see the world. Gigi Griffis has been to over 30 countries across 6 continents and living and working on the road for the past 2 years, running ...
Nov 04, 2014•37 min
"I don't buy a lot of things. I buy pins on the map." Mandy France is the founder and contributing editor of The Responsible Traveler. She is a freelance travel writer and editor, a published children’s author and an illustrator. She is an ethical adventurer at heart. From trekking the Inca Trail in Peru to climbing the highest mountain in Africa, she’s made adventure a priority in life. She’s also a vegan which gives her further insight into what ethical travel is and how to be compassionate in...
Nov 03, 2014•39 min
Anne Lowrey is a small town girl who discovered the rest of the world. Those are her words — and she’s been to nearly 40 countries while still holding a full time job. She’s done this by prioritizing travel in her life, which is what I want this show to encourage you to do — at the very least. She’s a writer, editor, and content creator for hire - as well as a lover of good food, books and good hearts — spoken like a true explorer. You can find her work on her website, Part Time Traveler, where ...
Nov 01, 2014•33 min
Saving money is tricky. There are people listening who want to know how to save more at home, spend less on the road, or save more on the road so they can perpetuate their travels. So often, we ask travelers about travel saving strategies — and while I think the more well-traveled are particularly good at saving money on the road, saving money at home is equally - if not more important. And when I want to know more about money, then I want to spend time talking to the people who spend all of the...
Oct 31, 2014•44 min
Rebecca Burg is the author of the book Sail With Me, which chronicles her experienced as a home-owning, career-focused lady who gave up the security for an uncommon lifestyle — living aboard a small boat, earning a living with low-paying odd jobs instead of that steady career she once had. She wrote this book on her solar powered laptop while anchored at sea. I’m excited to get into what inspired this decision, and her story — as well as where this unconventional life has taken her, and the stor...
Oct 30, 2014•34 min
Today's guest is the author of The Footloose American (get it on Amazon), a travelogue following the footsteps of famed-writer Hunter S. Thompson across South America. This was a journey I wasn't aware he'd ever taken that Brian recreated, studied, pulled out the stories from and became an expert on. I'm curious about the trip, how that changed him, and what sorts of stories he found along the way. Brian Kevin has written about travel, adventure, and culture for Travel and Leisure, Outside magaz...
Oct 29, 2014•46 min
Kelly Lewis is an avid traveler with a love of writing. She’s also the founder of Go Girl Guides, a series of travel guides written by women specifically for women. And by the way, if you’re a guy, then give it a listen because Kelly’s got travel advice for all of us. I learned a lot about solo female travel through this conversation, a subject that I think is important for everyone to understand how to approach as something more nuanced than just an issue of fear. So, after growing up in Hawaii...
Oct 27, 2014•34 min
On this episode, Robert Holmes shares his stories from his career as a travel photographer, covering an expedition to Mount Everest and meeting Ansel Adams, and more. Robert Holmes career as one of the world’s most successful and prolific travel photographers has extended over 35 years. He was the first photographer to be twice honored by the Society of American Travel Writers with their Travel Photographer of the Year Award and he is the only photographer to be given the award 4 times, most rec...
Oct 24, 2014•37 min
Mickela Mallozzi is a dance instructor turned television host of the travel show called Bare Feet, which has aired on Travel and Escape and NYC Life, a PBS affiliate in New York. Starting in the Fall of 2015, Bare Feet will be nationally distributed on PBS in the US and Canada. Each episode, she travels to a new place and embeds herself into the people there through the traditions of dance. Occasionally, I speak with painters and photographers on this show, but I’ve never discussed dance — which...
Oct 23, 2014•43 min
“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” Today we’re talking to Shivya Nath, who at the age of 23 quit her job in the tourism industry to build for herself a life of travel as a social media consultant and entrepreneur. She’s a travel blogger at The Shooting Star, as well as the co-founder of India Untraveled, a company on a quest to help travelers gain greater visibility and exposure to the lesser known parts of India, an...
Oct 22, 2014•43 min
Today's guest got started traveling around the US as a young kid - visiting all the National Parks in a Volkswagen Van, right out of a postcard. Jesse Krieger has spent living as a musician in Vienna, touring Europe from there, and musicianship -= along with a strong desire to maintain a life of travel - led him to entrepreneurship, And that is as far as my intro can go because his story winds down a twisting path of careers, from the unexpected to the bizarre. However, Jesse helps others build ...
Oct 21, 2014•47 min
Matthew Karsten has been an Expert Vagabond for the past four years, and if you want to know what that means, then you’re in the right place because we are going to get to that. Matthew champions the belief that travel doesn’t have to be expensive, getting out of your comfort zone is healthy, and the world is a safe place — and so adventure is both attainable and good for you, no matter how old you are. In 2010, despite the bewilderment of his family, Matthew quit his job, sold it all and bought...
Oct 20, 2014•37 min
Juno Kim is the founder or Runaway Media, a career breaker, having escaped the confines of her cubicle and embracing the realistic life of full time travel. She covers her work at her blog, Runaway Juno, where she writes on her experiences and why she did what she did. She and I both believe in travel as a healing method of sorts — travel as therapy, even if you don’t believe you need it. It simply is, to us, "the best tool to make life better" — and those are her words. On this episode we get i...
Oct 17, 2014•37 min
JR Johnson is the CEO and founder of Trippy, a really fantastic Q&A website for anyone who has travel questions and wants answers from real people, or feels compelled to share their own travel stories and information. Formerly, JR founded Virtual Tourist, which became one of the largest travel communities in the world — and he's also started other companies which have since been acquired by Expedia. Having grown up in Southern California, I’m curious where in his life and why travel has play...
Oct 16, 2014•32 min
In yesterday's session, Everything Everywhere's Gary Arndt shared with us how he went from software entrepreneur to world traveler, earning six-figures from his blog and traveling to over 160 countries in 7 years. If you want to create for yourself a life of travel, there are few people more accomplished than Gary in travel blogging entrepreneurship. Have a listen to part 1, if you haven't already or sit back and enjoy part 2 of my conversation with Gary Arndt. Today’s guest is known as one of t...
Oct 15, 2014•27 min
Today’s guest is known as one of the most prolific and trafficked travel bloggers in the world. Gary Arndt has been traveling around the world nonstop since 2007, across all 7 continents and over 160 different countries and territories, and writing and photographing his experiences on one of the biggest travel blogs out there, Everything Everywhere. He also podcasts at This Week in Travel with our mutual friend and podcasting legend, Chris Christensen. Because Gary got started at the right time,...
Oct 14, 2014•31 min
Get $25 off your next Airbnb rental! This is part 2 of my conversation with Jasper Ribbers. Listen to part 1. If you’re interested in knowing everything there is to know about Airbnb, then today’s episode is for you. Today’s guest is the co-author of the book Get Paid for Your Pad, easily the most comprehensive resource I’ve seen on the subject of maximizing your profit from your Airbnb listing. He also runs the brand new podcast by the same name, Get Paid for Pad, which anyone interested in ear...
Oct 13, 2014•32 min
Get $25 off your next Airbnb rental! If you’re interested in knowing everything there is to know about Airbnb, then today’s episode is for you. Today’s guest is the co-author of the book Get Paid for Your Pad, easily the most comprehensive resource I’ve seen on the subject of maximizing your profit from your Airbnb listing. He also runs the brand new podcast by the same name, Get Paid for Pad, which anyone interested in earning form Airbnb should check out. Jasper Ribbers has a place in Amsterda...
Oct 10, 2014•32 min
Today's guest is an Indian-born writer, photographer and media professional having worked at one of India's most read newspapers. Her work has been published by dozens of media outlets. In 2007, Lakshmi Sharath left her 15-year career to take a creative sabbatical to travel the world. Since then she's been to 25 countries across 5 continents and continues covering her journeys in her work, which is published internationally. I'm excited to get Lakshmi on the show to discuss why she travels and h...
Oct 09, 2014•32 min
