In 2013, Mike Margolies had all the things you’re supposed to want to make you happy, but it wasn’t enough. He left his corporate job as an engineer to see if the world had something else to offer that might fulfill him. The risks were minimal - to take a career break in your 20s is not completely unheard of. I did it and it changed me. What Mike found did change the direction of his life, his definition of a career, the limits of his curiosity, and creativity, and today’s he’s exploring the tra...
Apr 24, 2015•47 min
“I remember thinking, ‘What am I doing?’ I had a great husband, I had a great house, I had all this safety — this big safety net — and I’ve just taken myself out of it. Am I doing the right thing? What is this going to lead to? It was really difficult. And there were moments on the road when I was just distraught and confused but I think once you take that giant leap of faith, the only way is forward. And it’s only natural to want to go back to something that’s really safe. To go back to your ol...
Apr 17, 2015•39 min
Jonny Blair is the Northern Irishman behind the site Don't Stop Living, a blog "covering the lifestyle of travel," which he defines as being always on the move - even when employed. Jonny's backpacked to 99 countries and on the cusp of hitting #100 - while studying in England, China, Australia and Uruguay. In this episode, we get into how Jonny defines the travel lifestyle for himself, what motivates that, and how he makes this work for himself. Credits Music credit: Intrepid Journey, by Aaron S...
Mar 09, 2015•36 min
Mark van der Heijden is a creative copywriter from Amsterdam who just last year, left his job to travel the world with an unique goal. He calls himself The Backpacker Intern and is leveraging his talents as a creative copywriter to land internships around the world in the fields of content marketing, advertising, and production in exchange for (get this) only food and somewhere to sleep. This quest has led him to the TEDx stage in New York, The White House where we met, among the top 100 digital...
Feb 27, 2015•32 min
Marina Janeiko is a digital nomad with a particular skill-set with which she’s been supporting a lifestyle of travel and creative wandering, while building a career for herself that allows her to live and work from anywhere. As a User Experience Designer, she’s been working on What’s It Like — a web platform that focuses on travel by asking when should you go, rather than where — which is an idea I absolutely love. And for the past 5 years, Marina’s been living the digital nomad lifestyle with h...
Feb 18, 2015•37 min
"For every alleyway out there, there's an alleyway inside of you." This is part 2 of my conversation with Don George. Listen to part 1. Don George is the Editor at Large for National Geographic Traveler, as well as a Special Features Editor for Gadling. He’s the former editor of the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle. the founder and former editor of the Wanderlust section of Salon.com, and the Global Travel Editor at Lonely Planet. He’s the author of the lonely planet guide to travel writing ...
Feb 17, 2015•21 min
Don George is the Editor at Large for National Geographic Traveler, as well as a Special Features Editor for Gadling. He's the former editor of the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle. the founder and former editor of the Wanderlust section of Salon.com, and the Global Travel Editor at Lonely Planet. He’s the author of the lonely planet guide to travel writing and most recently the editor of An Innocent Abroad, Lonely Planet’s most recent collection of travel stories from some amazing people, s...
Feb 16, 2015•31 min
In 2006, today’s guest first appeared way back in episode 86 and 87, where we talked about how to travel longterm in a financially sustainable way and how to find free accommodation anywhere. Nora Dunn left a career in financial planning to embrace the desire of perpetual travel, which she has been doing for the past 8 years — and since then has been helping others accomplish the same through her blog, The Professional Hobo. She’s released two books, How to Get Free Accommodation Around the Worl...
Feb 13, 2015•33 min
This is part 2 of my conversation with John Marshall, author of Wide Open World. Listen to part 1. Wide Open World is a new memoir by John Marshall, a 9-time Emmy Award winning producer from Portland, Maine. This book is more of an opus to experience and a richly told account of likely the most beautiful thing John Marshall has ever done for himself, his family, and everyone they helped and were helped by along the way to finding whatever it was that they found waiting for them out there on the ...
Feb 12, 2015•34 min
Wide Open World is a new memoir by John Marshall, a 9-time Emmy Award winning producer from Portland, Maine. This book is more of an opus to experience and a richly told account of likely the most beautiful thing John Marshall has ever done for himself, his family, and everyone they helped and were helped by along the way to finding whatever it was that they found waiting for them out there on the road. And we’ll hear all about what that was. Before the trip, John’s marriage was struggling and h...
Feb 11, 2015•31 min
This is part 2 of my conversation with Erik Paquet from The Abroaders. Listen to part 1. As just a hobbyist, today's guest has redeemed over one million points and frequent flyer miles for at least $30,000 in free travel. Nowadays, Erik Paquet runs the international travel consultancy The Abroaders, helping people around the world travel for as close to free as it gets. As a result, Erik’s created a location independent business for himself and his partners, coaching friends, family and his clie...
Feb 10, 2015•29 min
As just a hobbyist, today's guest has redeemed over one million points and frequent flyer miles for at least $30,000 in free travel. Nowadays, Erik Paquet runs the international travel consultancy The Abroaders, helping people around the world travel for as close to free as it gets. As a result, Erik’s created a location independent business for himself and his partners, coaching friends, family and his clients on how to leverage their credit to dramatically reduce the cost of travel. Explore fu...
Feb 09, 2015•33 min
Hey Explorers! Danny was kind enough to give us all a free audio version of his new book, Buy Your Own Island: The Ultimate Guide to Breaking Free and Making Your Dreams Reality. You can download the audiobook here. After struggling to find employment out of college, Danny Flood instead decided to travel the world - and pursue a list of dreams that he’d written down on a piece of paper. Five years later he’s still traveling and living overseas and Danny’s ready to tell his story — and I’m excite...
Feb 07, 2015•32 min
Max Breckbill is an American in Germany, and together with his partner, Marcus Meurer, they’ve been embedding themselves into the entrepreneurial scene there in Berlin. Marcus founded DNX Global - The Digital Nomad Conference, which is happening on July 31st 2015, featuring a number of digital nomad speakers who have been on this show. In Berlin, Max runs series entrepreneurial community activities among aspiring and successful independent people in Berlin seeking support, help, and to spend tim...
Feb 05, 2015•40 min
Megan Jerrard is the mind behind the award winning travel blog and extremely helpful resource Mapping Megan. Meg and her husband Mike have been covering their own adrenalin-fueled travels for 8 years — since way back in 2007. Together they seek to let their own dreams inspire others to pursue their own — to get out there and explore, and become a better version of yourself. Adventure is the departure from your comfort zone, and in this episode we get into what it is that compels Megan to constan...
Feb 04, 2015•35 min
Jenna Davis is a travel blogger and freelance writer from Ontario who, since 2012, has been choosing a life of travel over the status quo. I’m going to quote something she wrote about herself that I can entirely relate to: “To be honest, I had no idea where I wanted to be in the future, I just knew I couldn’t be average. I couldn’t put myself into a position where I would go to bed every day unsatisfied with my life and worrying about the problems I have on my plate for the next day at the offic...
Feb 03, 2015•34 min
I met Alex Montoya in December of 2014 at The White House Travel Blogger Summit on Study Abroad and Global Citizenship. He was the only student we heard from at the event. All being participants of study abroad and travel programs ourselves, this was okay but the reason was obvious: He was a recipient of the Gilman Scholarship, which helps connect underserved populations that might not have the opportunity to afford or find programs to study abroad with the ability to actually go and participate...
Feb 02, 2015•32 min
"Losing everything, as shocking as it was at the time, kind of sets you free because suddenly you know what it is to lose everything. So you don't fear failure and loss quite as much because you've already experienced it." Justin Tyers and his wife Linda lost everything they had in the middle of the night. But instead of letting this devestate their lives, they chose to see this as an opportunity to pursue the life they'd always dreamed of. Without any experience, they set sail to live on a boat...
Jan 30, 2015•38 min
Life Out of the Box, according to founders Jonathan and Quinn, started with a dream to travel the world, live their ideal lives and make the world a better place. Of all the many things that we talk about on this show, this is the story I’m most interested in: How to see the world and make a lasting impact? Quinn and Jonathon left California for Nicaragua with nothing but a bag on their back and a desire to make something. While there, they worked with local educational non-profits and artisans ...
Jan 29, 2015•32 min
Today I get to sit down with a friend, who holds one of the most coveted gigs in the travel business as editor in chief of Yahoo Travel. Among the many hats worn over at Yahoo, Paula hosts A Broad Abroad, a must-watch travel series exploring the less expected stories hidden in places very few people think to go, like skiing in Afghanistan. Who knew? Before this gig, she was the deputy editor of the gossip column for the New York Post, authored multiple books and been featured in Vanity Fair, Gla...
Jan 28, 2015•32 min
Suffering from a perpetual case of self-described sedentary life-a-phobia, Nikki and Jason move every 7-10 days. They do this with ease because they live in a RV. Jason and Nikki Wynn are documenting the journey as they live out of their RV in an effort to integrate just a bit more adventure and exploration into their daily lives. At 28 years old, they packed up and left Dallas and haven’t looked back for 4 years. You can follow this perpetual adventure at GonewiththeWynns.com where they go off ...
Jan 27, 2015•36 min
"It's an incredible experience to go to Thailand for a month and sit on a beach... It's an entirely different experience if you build something in addition to that." - Ric Gazarian Fellow Boston-native turned world traveler and humanitarian, Ric Gazarian has visited 85 countries across all 7 continents. He documents his travels on his site GlobalGaz.com and most recently is the author of the book and documentary film, Hit the Road India: a road rally, and travel photo journal, through the heart ...
Jan 26, 2015•30 min
Brad Bernard is a former-corporate-consultant-turned-writer by day, and extreme experience junkie by night — Brad is the guy behind My Wanderlist, a travel blog documenting his extreme travel experiences — such as dancing with corpses, eating tarantula, hitchhiking across Saudi Arabia, living with sea gypsies, and being arrested in Oman, as one does right? The world is a full of adventure and Brad is pushing the boundaries of what you might believe to be possible in the interest of genuinely int...
Jan 23, 2015•31 min
Today’s guest turned a 20-month trip around the world into a new career as a blogger, author, and entrepreneur. He’s traveled to more than 50 countries across six continents, founded two popular travel blogs, Go Backpacking and Medellín Living, written several books on the subjects, and on top of all that, most notably he created Travel Blog Success, the leading community for travel bloggers and media producers that want to earn a living from their blog, or at the very least, get their vacations...
Jan 22, 2015•38 min
When you're buying a flight, do you ever feel that twinge of stress when you're about to click the "purchase now" button? How do you know the price won't just drop tomorrow? Or maybe you found a great price but you're worried the price will jump before you have a chance to run it by your travel companions? The airline's definitely not giving you any assurances. It's too bad you can't use a crystal ball while buying airfare. Or can you? Alexander Mans is the CEO and founder of Flyr, a new website...
Jan 21, 2015•27 min
Today’s guest quit her job to travel the world. But unlike the common narrative you might have heard from many of the guests on this show, Lauren wasn’t just escaping the mundanity of routine for new experience. She was suffering from frequent anxiety attacks and had just had her heart broken. For a 6-month period, Lauren wouldn't even go outside. Listen to her share her story and explain the immense value that travel has had on her and the personal exploration she's discovered simply by embraci...
Jan 20, 2015•34 min
Today I’m sitting down with a former broker from London who escaped the dull nagging ache of routine to answer for himself the question that so many guests on this show are compelled to explore: What else is there out there? In doing so, Leon Logotheetis has become a proponent for your inner rebel, a global adventurer, filmmaker, motivational speaker, television host on National Geographic and an author of two books. He’s been through over 90 countries across all 7 continents, completed the Mong...
Jan 20, 2015•33 min
This is part 5 of a 5 part series on The White House Travel Blogging Summit. Start from part 1. On December 9th, 2015, The White House hosted the top 100 bloggers and digital media influencers in travel to hold a conversation about their study abroad initiatives to foster global citizenship. In the room were some of the biggest names in travel, from online to television, along with senior White House administration officials, including the Chief of Staff. I still can’t believe I was included. I ...
Jan 16, 2015•14 min
This is part 4 of a 5 part series on The White House Travel Blogging Summit. Start from part 1. On December 9th, 2015, The White House hosted the top 100 bloggers and digital media influencers in travel to hold a conversation about their study abroad initiatives to foster global citizenship. In the room were some of the biggest names in travel, from online to television, along with senior White House administration officials, including the Chief of Staff. I still can’t believe I was included. I ...
Jan 15, 2015•11 min
This is part 3 of a 5 part series on The White House Travel Blogging Summit. Start from part 1. On December 9th, 2015, The White House hosted the top 100 bloggers and digital media influencers in travel to hold a conversation about their study abroad initiatives to foster global citizenship. In the room were some of the biggest names in travel, from online to television, along with senior White House administration officials, including the Chief of Staff. I still can’t believe I was included. I ...
Jan 14, 2015•11 min
