SMNTY Interviews: Julie Piñero

Julie Piñero has a long career in storytelling across multiple mediums, including a new podcast about solo travel, Solita. We pick Julie's brain about her career, the podcast and traveling solo as a woman.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Dani.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
And Samantha.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production
of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
And today, we are so excited to have, okay, I'm
going to list them off. Writer, producer, performer, fellow podcaster,
fellow iHearter, an adventurer in so many things, Julie Pinheiro.
Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Okay, before we get into this, because we are really
excited to talk about a lot because there's so many
avenues that we could take with you specifically in so
many conversations. So I have a feeling this might go
a little long because we love to hear all the
things that you have to say. But with that, can
you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
So I'm a writer and a performer.

Speaker 4 (00:58):
And a lot of my work actually is on this
theme of uncertainty, whether it's I run a monthly comedy
storytelling show about what happens after things end in life.
Instead of telling the story of the breakup where we
break up at the end of the story, we break
up and then the story is about something unexpected that
happened after. The show is called Afters. And so I'm

(01:21):
really interested at what happens when people don't know what's
going to happen next. Which is why I think my
next project, which I'm currently publishing weekly on iHeart, is
a podcast called Solita, which is about what happens when
women go out into the world and travel by themselves.
What do they find when it's just you and the

(01:41):
beautiful receptivity that you get when it's just you alone?
What sorts of messy adventures can you sort of tumble into?
What sorts of strangers can you meet? What sorts of
predicaments can you work yourself out of and sort of
impress yourself? What sorts of things can you say yes
to that you have never said yes to before? So
prior to that, you know, I was producing a lot

(02:03):
of podcasts. I produced the podcast Who Killed JFK? I
had a project called De Lejos, which won an award
at Tribeca. And so I dabble in the world of
audio and also just like getting people in a room
and doing live performance and playing with the unexpected energy
of a room.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yes, and we're going to get into those projects because
they're so fascinating. There's so much to talk about. Samantha
and I, when we were discussing you coming on the show,
we both had a moment of saying, like, she has
done so much. It's a lot of the stuff that
you have been a part of creating in some way

(02:44):
or the other. It's a little intimidating sometimes.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
Really? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Oh my gosh. Why do you say that?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
In a good way.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
We love women who do like so much stuff. We're
big cheerleaders. We're big fans of people who do this.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Is this a comment on my schedule?

Speaker 4 (03:03):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
It's very packed.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
I would say like it might be a comment to
like your steadfastness in your career path because maybe you
have like SNL under your belt. You have like.

Speaker 4 (03:15):
That was a very early career thing. That was like
an internship type position.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
An early career thing. Early career and you're like SNL
was an internship. I'm like, excuse me?

Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, but you know when you're someone's assistant, it's sort
of like you could be someone's assistant anywhere.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
This was a cool job, though.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
This was a spinoff of SNL that lasted one summer
called Maya and Marty.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
I don't know if anybody watched it, but the premise
was brilliant.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
It's an SNL show where instead of new cast members,
it's like all the old alums hosted by Maya Rudolph
and Martin Schwartz.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
It didn't quite find its audience. It didn't quite land.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
But it was really fun to sort of start up
the production office at a new show like that.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
I was employee number two. It was crazy.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
I mean, yeah, that, Rob Reiner, you know, you're working
with the amazing Rob Reiner, which we're going to get into.
All of the amazing podcasts that you have done. Again,
we're going to talk about The Lighthouse in a minute
because I was like, what?

Speaker 3 (04:11):
What?

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Wait, what is this? But like, yes, that would be
for this mid-40s-year-old looking at your career. I was like, oh,
she's done some things. Okay.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
Well, thank you for saying those really nice things. Oh,
we love, we're hype women. We're there, we're there.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
But could you give us a breakdown of how you
got onto this intimidating career path?

Speaker 3 (04:41):
It's so funny.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
I was just talking about this with a friend last night.
So I studied biology in college. I thought I was
going to work in a lab forever. And at some
point it started to feel like not the right fit.
And I was creating radio shows, documentaries I was writing
on the side, always thinking that this is just a
thing that I like to do. And then one day
I got invited to something called speed networking at my college.

(05:05):
And I very reluctantly dragged myself there. And it was
basically this. It's sort of like speed dating. There were
a bunch of alumni from my college that were sitting
on the opposite side of a table. And you all
got three minutes sitting in front of each alumni to
exchange information about yourself. So I sat down. The first
person I sat down in front of was this man

(05:26):
named Matt Roberts. And I had three minutes to describe myself.
And I, of course, just sort of rambled about how
I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was
a senior in college. I had no idea what my
next step was going to be. And then the first
thing he said when it was his turn to talk was,
my name is Matt Roberts, and I'm the head writer
at The Late Show with David Letterman. And I'm was

(05:48):
so shocked. I didn't think that somebody from my, you know,
small liberal arts college could do something like that. It
really is a testament to the power of seeing somebody
with your fill in the blank doing something interesting. So
I approached him afterwards and I said, I never thought
I could pursue something like this professionally.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Can you tell me more?

Speaker 4 (06:09):
And then he invited me to apply for the internship
and then I got the writer's intern. And from there,
every single career step has been a step from that.
Or every single career step has been, you know, one
step after the other, starting with that opportunity. But I
never thought that you could make a career out of
writing about your feelings.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Like, that's what I do. I'm a very emotional writer.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
I write about my feelings, and then I put other
people in front of the microphone to talk about not
only their feelings, but the story of how they grew
into that feeling or how they realized something.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Something pivotal that happened to them.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Right. I mean, let's be honest. Not everyone can do that.
Only if you're good at it. And you're obviously very
good at it. And you do a great job in
giving other people platform to do that as well. So,
I mean, just the reality check is.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
I mean, everybody has the potential for it, though, because
we're all storytellers. It's baked into our DNA. The one
note that I would give all of us is that
most of us tell the story of a situation and
not a story. So we tell the story of the
things that happened to us. We don't situate ourselves in

(07:26):
that story. So why did you make the decisions you made?
And why are the decisions that you made at the
start of the story different from the decision that you
ultimately made at the end of the story?

Speaker 3 (07:36):
That's, to me, what a story is. That's how you
find yourself in your own story.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Well, one of the things that... I find interesting about
you and about storytelling is that you've done it in
several mediums. Like you've been in television and now with podcasts.
I'm curious, as podcasters, we always want to know, how
did you arrive at podcasting and what are some of

(08:05):
the different ways that you approach storytelling in these different mediums?

Speaker 4 (08:10):
So I arrived at podcasting Simply because I was in
the very unstable industry of digital video media when it
was changing. And I was very lucky to have somebody
connect me with somebody who worked in audio. I was
making videos for early social media, 2015, 2016. There were

(08:30):
huge budgets for it. And when those budgets got cut,
those jobs became unstable. And at that time, I had
a friend who said, hey, I was given the opportunity
to do an audio memoir today. do you want to
produce it for me? You know how to do story stuff.
And I was like, I don't know how to do audio,
but I'll figure it out. And then I did it.
And I've been in that ever since. And I think

(08:51):
I'm so grateful for it because writing for audio makes
you a lot more direct. I don't know if you
guys experience this too, but you don't have the visual
to lean on. You don't have the energy of the room.
It's you in someone's ear and you have to be
really clear with what you're saying. It's almost the opposite
of a visual artist, like a painter in that way,

(09:13):
because I can stand in front of a painting and
I can muse on it and I can be like,
what is this about? But if I'm in your ear,
like I have to be very direct and you can
be artistic with it, but I think it's made me
a much better writer. Because I can just be incredibly
clear with what I'm saying. And I think that gives
you a lot more freedom to be like, well, what
am I actually saying? And then spin it in a

(09:36):
lot of different depths. But yeah, there's a lot of
different forms of storytelling that I sort of play around in.
I was producing a show, directing a show for Zoom
during the pandemic. And I'm very specific about like, this
was not a show that I adapted for Zoom. This
is a show that I wrote for the medium of Zoom.

(09:58):
And I had my laptop face down.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
One direction.

Speaker 4 (10:01):
And then when I wanted to invoke a new place,
I shifted my laptop 80 degrees and I had built
a new set in that place. And so I would
jump between almost like rooms and sets. And I would
play with lighting cues. I would play with, you know,
the limited capabilities of Zoom to be able to create

(10:21):
these new emotional environments. And I just, I was so
inspired by that because I think that when you're put
into a box and you're given limited resources and limited
options to make something, your creativity really comes alive. This
is what I'm saying about like writing for audios. Like
you have one way into this person's heart. It is

(10:41):
through their ears. Like you can get really playful with
how you get creative with that. And then playing with
the energy of a live room, I think is so interesting.
You know, when you walk into a room and there
is somebody performing or they're giving a presentation, there is
a hidden contract there, which is that the person on
stage is going to land the plane.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Right?

Speaker 4 (11:02):
They can play around with vulnerability in a scripted way
or in an improvised way, but that requires skill. But
at the end of the day, when you're in the audience,
like you're trusting that the performer has control. And I
think that's really interesting to play with because the minute
that the performer loses a little bit of a grip
on that, I think that creates a very interesting sense

(11:24):
of uncertainty in the room. And that's just like tension.
And so I've played around with that a lot. The
reason I first started playing around with it was very unintentionally.
I was doing stand-up comedy, and out of nowhere, I
was dating somebody, and he passed away. And this is
the story behind De Lejos, the audio piece that I

(11:46):
made that won the award at Tribeca. But in the
very early stages of that, when his name was Jose,
right when Jose passed away, I was getting on stage
doing stand-up. and talking about my grief and getting really
emotional and like not landing jokes. And there was so

(12:06):
much tension in the room because people were like, is
she okay? And it really illuminated this dynamic again of like,
I'm supposed to be in control when I'm on a
stage and you're expecting me to be in control. And
then just something really interesting happened when I wasn't in control. People,
instead of getting that like immediate feedback of laughing, people

(12:28):
were like leaning in and they were coming up to
me after the show and they were like talking to
me about their feelings. And I just felt something a
little bit richer come from that. And it's interesting when
you're a performer and like you need something from the
audience that I think just creates a little bit more
of an interesting dynamic. So then I wrote a show
a couple of years later called Hum where, um, I

(12:53):
started asking the audience to read lines and everybody in
the audience had a role and it created a literal conversation.
The show was a literal conversation between me and the
audience the whole time. So again, like a little bit
playing with that uncertainty, playing with that tension in the room.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
I think that's where live performance really soars.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Well, you do an amazing job in interweaving all of
the different talents that you have in the way you
see things, in the way you produce or write or
host a podcast or do these different projects. It's really
interesting to hear you go through those processes because I
think you definitely have a different viewpoint that I've seen.

(13:36):
And Annie's been in this business a lot longer than me,
but in the last eight years of how you speak
about these projects, in these podcasts, that it becomes more
than just one medium. Somehow you combine so many into
these things. So that's a unique take on itself. I
feel like that just learned something new, a new perspective.
So thank you for that. I wasn't ready. I need

(13:58):
to write this thing down. I wasn't ready for this learning.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
Thank God you're recording.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Thank God I'm recording. Thank God we got this on recording.
But with that, I do want to go back to
Dahlia Hills because immediately I was like, as we are
researching all the amazing things that you did, and we're
definitely going to get into the newest podcast that you have,
which is amazing. I'm still listening to it. But like
the idea of telling your story, your grief story, processing

(14:25):
your grief, but also taking Zoom, which had been around,
but let's be honest, like, the pandemic really brought it to, like,
as the big thing. Like, that became, like, a verb.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Like, we're going to Zoom.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
We're going to, you know, all these things. So you
taking this, and Annie has talked about one of her
favorite horror movies. I'm going to bring in horror for you, Annie,
which was related to Zoom. Host. Yeah. And they did
a whole, like, essentially horror movie through Zoom.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
I think I saw that movie.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
It was good.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
It was good. I watched it because of Annie. But
with that, like delving into something that was new like that,
like I need to know more about this project. Obviously,
you were talking a little bit about why you did
it and how you kind of did it. But you
also did your music. You wanted to take the experience
of Zoom, but make it a VR experience, like all
these things. Can you just kind of talk about this
project a little bit? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
So in 2019, I was very fresh into a new
relationship with a man named Jose Zambrano.

Speaker 4 (15:25):
We had just become exclusive actually two weeks before he
passed away. And he passed away in a really unfair way.
He had his life taken by two guys on the street. And,
you know, we were at that point in a relationship
that we were more future than past. You know, he
had just met all of my friends for the first

(15:46):
time that exact night that he was killed. And I
was left like, at the top of the roller coaster
was how I described it.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
And we were starting a band together and.

Speaker 4 (16:00):
We had all of these like ideas for these creative
projects that we wanted to do together. So creativity was
very much within our love language. And so I decided
that I wanted to create something that finished the story
that felt like we had started writing together. I didn't

(16:20):
quite know what that meant or how it was going
to come to life. But I really dedicated myself, you know,
in this intense period of not only grief, but like
processing some serious trauma. We laid by his bedside for
four days in vigil, hoping that he would come through.

(16:41):
And the funeral and everything was incredibly difficult. And it
was right before the pandemic as well. I told myself
I was going to create a project that finished this.
So over the course of the next few weeks after
he passed, I sort of parked myself on my couch
in my apartment and I had a lot of friends
come through and visit and I would just process this

(17:02):
like verbally. I would just talk about it and how
unfair and confusing the whole thing felt. And as I
kept talking about it and him and us, a couple
of things started to come to life. First of all,
Jose was a virtual reality video game designer. And so

(17:24):
he lived and worked in these realities where, you know,
they didn't need the bounds of this physical world. And
that felt incredibly inspiring to me. Also, on our first date,
he told me about this video game that he was
designing that he called De Lejos, which in Spanish translates
to From Afar.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
And I'm Puerto Rican.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
And to me, you know, I loved the idea of
this game that connects people from afar because a lot
of my family is on the island. I grew up,
I was born here in the continental U.S. So I
love this idea of connecting two people into things from
a distance. He was writing it from the perspective of grief,

(18:08):
of having to leave, force leave Venezuela and connecting to
his mom who is still back there. And so this
project for him was a project about grief and connecting
to something from afar that you no longer are like
physically proximate to. And so as I'm processing his passing
and all of these things in the weeks after he died,

(18:29):
it dawns on me that like maybe he had some
sort of insight that I could tap into with this
unfinished video game that he was writing about grief.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
And so.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
I just started writing what was a commitment to finishing
his game. I decided I was going to finish his
game and it was going to have live music because
that's what we were, you know, a project that we
were starting. We were starting a band called Julian Jose's
Fever Dream, which feels incredibly apropos to what the whole

(19:06):
thing felt like. And then the pandemic hit and the
whole world shut down. And in a way, it felt
cathartic that everybody else's world stopped because mine did too.
And I didn't want the pressure of having to go
try to pretend to be a normal person when I
was like processing something incredibly heavy. So I moved back

(19:29):
to my mom's house in Maryland. I went down to
her basement and every day I wrote and produced and
directed this show, this project. And it eventually, you know,
because of because everybody was going to be joining from
afar from their homes, it also became a reflection on.

(19:50):
what it's like to feel close to people when you're
far away. And I did it from my mom's basement.
Like I said, I directed it. I built this whole set.
And I started just performing it every Thursday in all
of its different versions. And at some point, it was
a finished show. I don't know how to quite describe
how the show culminated, but basically when I would, I

(20:15):
would perform it every Thursday and it felt like an
act of prayer. I don't know how else to say it,
but it was almost like I was putting out this
call every time and I was stepping into this virtual
reality of this world where I'm still connected to him.
And again, sitting at the top of the roller coaster

(20:37):
and I needed it in order to heal. And so
this show became a grieving ritual for me. And I
would do it in front of people who were also
grieving the loss that they felt during the pandemic of
their loved ones, of their life, of everything. And at
a certain point, I decided this is enough.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
And I stopped doing the show.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
And, you know, I sort of describe it as like,
The roller coaster ticked forward and I had to put
my hands up and that grieving ritual like really served
its purpose.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
And I.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
It was a controlled environment, so I presented it to,
I think, a couple of thousand people ended up coming.
And one of those people was a friend of mine
who's an editor at The New York Times. And she said,
let's craft this into an audio op-ed. And so we did.
And it sat with The New York Times for a
couple of years, and they ultimately decided not to publish it.

(21:33):
So we took it back, and we entered it into
the Tribeca Film Festival as an audio submission. And it won,
which was incredibly gratifying and felt, again, like this like
notch of closure of like, OK, you know, this was
this was this started as his project. And I was
able to like adapt it into something. And now we're

(21:54):
sitting and talking about it. And so it feels like
an incredible ode to his legacy that I get to
keep talking about. Right.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
What an homage. That is beautiful. Like, I really was
intrigued by the entirety of the project. And I was like, okay,
we can't not talk about this. I need some answers
because it's such a beautiful concept. And obviously, you wanted
to honor someone that you cared for so deeply and
did it in a way that unfolded for so many

(22:25):
people at a time that many people were feeling grief
and needed an outlet and needed a way for someone
to To understand. And that's such an amazing thing. And
also like you're bringing in the mediums and making sure
in what I'm now finding is that you have an
ability to interweave so much together in a way that

(22:49):
it speaks to a greater audience. And it's a beautiful thing.
So thank you so much for sharing that. Thanks. There's
so many other projects that we could talk about, but

(23:11):
we did want to get into your work today with Solitas.
But before, because you also have your LLC, which you
call No Floaties, and you give a nod to a mentor,
Rob Reiner, the great Rob Reiner. Can you kind of
talk about how the name came about and why he
was such an inspiration for that?

Speaker 4 (23:32):
Yes, I'm so glad that you're asking me about this.
I'm feeling incredibly emotional. So Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle,
were two... I cannot even believe that I'm saying this.
I feel so lucky every day. They were two incredibly
close collaborators of mine. I produced the podcast Who Killed JFK?

(23:53):
And this actually happened to hit right during the writer's strike.
And so Rob had this big open chunk of time.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
And so him.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
And I and Michelle would sit over Zoom for hours
and just story edit this podcast together, which was a
lot of just like script wrangling. And then at some
point pulling it into a project file and watching him
story edit something in real time was such a gift.
And we were really in the weeds of this project together.

(24:21):
And so we just spent, yeah, a lot of time together.
They came to New York and took me out for dinner.
And I just, you know, I was a young story
editor at that point, and I learned so much from them.
And Rob was giving an interview, and him and Soledad
O'Brien was another host on this project. They were describing

(24:45):
how I was brought into the project with very little context.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
And I basically had to find my way through it.

Speaker 4 (24:52):
And so a big part of that was reading this
huge book on like the JFK conspiracy theory. And I
was always sort of like catching up. And so he
described my work as being thrown into the deep end
with no floaties. And it was very cool to have
like a video of him saying that now, given... you know,

(25:13):
him and Michelle's very sad and tragic passing. But really
right after he said that, it was time for me
to create an LLC and like, you know, take my
work a little more seriously. And so I named it
No Floaties. And I have that sign up in my
office now. It says No Floaties Productions. Like, I just

(25:34):
want to say Rob and Michelle are and were the
most wonderful, gracious people on top of being incredibly talented
and doing all of their work as a unit. She
really was right there with him. They were the most warm, welcoming,

(25:54):
passionate people that you would never expect considering their legacy
in the industry. They could brush, they really have the
capacity to brush so many people off. They could have
And with every turn, it's like they brought people in.
They brought me into their family. They set me up
with their daughter and we traveled through Scotland together, which

(26:17):
was really sweet. And I was set to produce a
new project with them about their family and about father-daughter
relationships when they passed. And I just feel incredibly grateful
for the time that we got together. And I hope
that with No Floaties being attached to my work moving forward,
that his legacy will also shine through too.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Well, thank you so much for sharing that because yes,
they seem like such incredible people. Like everything, everything reading
about them from beginning to end, like my understanding of
who he was from like the princess bride and him
sharing his own relationship with his father and then his
relationships with his coworkers and co-stars and people he worked through.

(27:01):
It very much feels like him and his wife, both
giant legends that go beyond obviously just Hollywood and just
through media, but just being great people, people of substance
and people of like care and humanity. So I love
hearing a personal take of that. So thank you so
much for sharing that. Cause that means a lot. And

(27:22):
I know like the depth that we have to keep
celebrating and, who they are and what they've done and
what they will continue to do. Because obviously their influence
reaches out and we see it with your work and
what you're doing, especially as you're talking about, you know,
you had traveled with his daughter. And I hope one
day that we do get to hear the father-daughter story. Obviously,

(27:43):
it's going to be a different avenue, but I hope
that you're able to get with his daughter and share
that story because that would be incredible. And that would
be so inspiring for so many people who are seeking
Like just that genuine loving connection between a father and daughter.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
They had such a rich relationship. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
But also holding time to grieve and being able to
grieve and for yourself with loss for someone who obviously
meant a lot to you on such a deep and
personal level. And I know like just from your works
and just from the bit of what you're sharing with
us with this new podcast, with the works that you've done,
you really are doing something unique. And I see that

(28:27):
he's helped foster a little of that in the way
you tell your stories and the way you bring such
empathy in the way you tell your stories, which also
comes out in this podcast. And so it is like
the way you interview individuals that you touch through so
many things. And I'm going to. Take it on a
little different, lighter, selfish note. Because I've been obsessed with

(28:49):
things like train travel recently. Like I've really been like, oh,
I need to go on some trains. I need to
do some overnighters. As well as being obsessed with like
international house hunters. Be like, can I live somewhere for
a year beyond the U.S.? Is it time for us
to be living in the U.S.? Which again, feels like
you coming and crossing our path may be a sign.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
There we go.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
We're going to leave that as a question mark, Julie,
question mark here. I'm putting quotation marks, not question marks,
but question mark here. But with that, can you tell
us a bit about your podcast? Yes.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
So Solita is about women identifying people who travel alone.
So I firmly believe that if you are a person
who was socialized as female, then you should travel alone
at some point in your life. Because, and I just
interviewed a travel psychologist, so I am armed with a

(29:49):
lot of facts, but it really named a lot of
the things that I think a lot of women feel
when they travel alone, the sense of freedom. You know,
as women, when we are socialized We are often taught
to put others first. And I always felt that. But
then this psychologist, her name is Dr. Katie Blake. She
told me that when men are asked to describe themselves,

(30:10):
they describe themselves in adjectives.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
I am strong. I am smart. I am bold.

Speaker 4 (30:16):
When women are asked to describe themselves, they describe themselves
as nouns.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
So I am a mother. I am a daughter. I
am a sister.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
When you travel alone... You're in one of the rare
positions where you're outside of those roles and you get
this flexibility with your identity where you can say yes
to things that you would not typically say yes to
when you're back home and you are filling those roles.
And it gives us huge opportunity for change. not only
like self-reflection, but also growth. Like you get to, maybe

(30:48):
you navigate a city for the first time. You navigate
a city in a completely different language, navigating the subway
for the first time, and it builds this feeling of self-capability.
Or you start talking to strangers for the first time.
You know, I firmly believe that Being alone makes you
more open and receptive to other people. You have to

(31:09):
ask for help. People will see you and they'll be
more likely to chat with you because you don't have
like a peanut gallery next to you. And then you
also like are, you know, you're more likely to change
your mind as well. You don't have, again, somebody else
there reinforcing your own beliefs back at you. And when
you are traveling to different places around the world, you're

(31:30):
getting to see how people actually live and not just
like the lies that you're fed about how they live.
I think it has the capability for being this incredibly
transformative time. I also think that the media has not
done us a great favor in that sense, too. We're
living in this like sort of post-eat-pray-love time where, you know,

(31:51):
that story has been flattened to like, if you travel
alone as a woman, you're going to find yourself. And
I don't think that you always find yourself. I think
that you can find aspects of yourself. I think you
can challenge yourself in all of these ways. But I
think that the problem with flattening that into when you

(32:13):
solo travel, you're going to find yourself is that a
lot of people walk into countries in a transactional way,
expecting like, hey, I'm here to find myself, you know,
and they engage with it in a shallow way or
they engage with extractive elements of the tourism industry. or
they're there to take their, you know, Instagram photos and leave.

(32:35):
A performance of finding yourself. So I think that solo
travel has this capacity to be transformative if you do
it the right way. I also think that like doing
it in responsible ways is really important, too, because tourism
can be so bad for the world.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
It can truly be like a new form of colonialism.

Speaker 4 (32:59):
This is why this podcast is sort of like an
anthology of different people's stories. What I'm not doing is
the 10 hottest places to travel. I'm not even giving
recommendations on where you should go because I think that
like a lot of different identity markers change how people
move through the world. So like X is not the

(33:20):
safest place to go. Y is not the most fun
place to go. What I'm really trying to encourage is
for more women to find their reason for why they
want to go to a place and go there and
be the most open that they can about it.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
And there's a lot to be said about that conversation.
And Samantha and I have been discussing this too, because
we've had our solo travel experiences. And there are questions
that come up when you're choosing the place. And there
are considerations that come up when you're choosing the place.
And your podcast really goes into some of those questions

(33:57):
and conversations, like traveling as a woman of color, or
saying yes to adventures.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
Or going to.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
politically charged areas, maybe. So do you think it's important
that we have those conversations about the deeper level of
what traveling around the world is and how it not
only impacts if we travel, how we travel, but why
we travel? 100%.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
I mean, starting with the element of like racial diversity
and traveling, you know, I'm interviewing a woman who not,
she's a Black woman who goes to different countries and
interviews the Black community there as a way of exploring
what places feel good to travel to as a Black woman.
It is so much of the experience of how you

(34:42):
feel you belong in a place, how you move around,
so much of that is dictated by identity markers that
are visible to the outside world. So to say that
This is, again, why I sort of push back on, like,
this is the safest place to travel. This is the
most spiritual. Whatever it is, it depends on the person.
It really does. And I think that the more that

(35:03):
we talk about the nuances of solo travel, the more
that we show, like, hey, it can be lonely or
it can be risky. The more that we put that
out there, the more that we're just equipping people to
be able to go into the world expecting things. the friction,
because there is a lot of friction with solo travel.

(35:24):
There is a lot of friction with travel too, and
there should be friction. Like you are entering a place
where other people live. You are entering a place that's
really different from where you are from. You should feel that.
The tourism industry exists to make a frictionless experience. Let
me come serve you your pina colada.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
By the poolside. It's like, well, I could be anywhere
in the world.

Speaker 4 (35:45):
If I have money, this is going to be the
same experience replicated. I also don't think it's like what
people necessarily, I mean, I'm generalizing maybe, or I'll speak
from my own experience. That's not what I am seeking
when I go and travel. I'm seeking to be stimulated
and challenged and to meet new people and feel connected
in a new way to a foreign place. So if

(36:08):
I'm going to an all inclusive or even if I'm
going to like a big city, but I'm sticking to
what they think that I want to see of the city,
then like that's I think that you're leaving a lot
on the table.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Yeah. Well, you have quite the experience in world traveling.
Just what are some of the more surprising things you've
learned while traveling solo?

Speaker 3 (36:30):
That's a good question. I've learned a lot about what
I'm capable of.

Speaker 4 (36:35):
I did the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, which is
about 500 miles walking across the north of Spain. And
in terms of my own capabilities, you know, I learned
that my body can really endure a lot of consistent breakdown.
I think that I've also learned, so I spent some time, basically,

(36:59):
I fell asleep on a bus in Argentina. I did
not go, I passed the place that I was going
to get off. And I got off at the end
of the line, which was a very, very small town
called Umahuaca in the north of Argentina. And I was
going to get off and go, you know, the next
day back to the capital. But I ended up meeting

(37:19):
this really nice family and I stayed with them. And
from them, I learned that, first of all, connection to
the land can.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
Be like a whole way to tether a life.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
It's like connecting and feeling connected to the land. And
then I also learned that, you know, there was so
much power in the way that they lived intergenerationally. It
was like four different generations of people that lived there.
And then just by being sitting and being curious with people,
you can really get so deep with them and you

(37:51):
can build like you can dig your little tendrils of
your life into theirs. And I ended up volunteering at
the local school in their community and then helping them
like build a website is all these things that, you know,
it felt very real lifey in a way that I
don't think I would have ever been able to approximate

(38:11):
if I had like stayed at a hotel or even
if I had gone back to the capital city.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
That's interesting you say that because it's the perfect segue
into the next question the first time i solo traveled
the person who i met who's kind of like my
mentor at the time in this area he he his
advice to me was go sit somewhere on a lawn
and someone will come up to you and just listen

(38:38):
to them and start up a conversation And that's what
I did. And it was wonderful advice. And he was
absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
I met people I wouldn't have met.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
It's not something I would do normally. It was nice.
It felt like, oh, I'm living the life I've seen
in movies. You go and meet people in this way.
So I know that this is kind of a broad
question and you've already said, rightfully so, there's so many

(39:07):
nuances involved. to solo traveling, but do you have any
advice for women who want to solo travel?

Speaker 3 (39:15):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (39:16):
Oh, God, I'm trying to think of on what scale
because I could go really broad. OK, so the biggest
question I get is about safety and about risk. And
I think there's some really tactile things to put into place.
First of all, share your location before you go with
somebody back home. Just some peace of mind that somebody
has an eye on you.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
If you are.

Speaker 4 (39:37):
Going to go on a date, if you are going
to go to a new neighborhood, if you're going to
do anything that feels somewhat risky, tell that person and
have them check in on you in two hours. I
think also having a support system that you know you
can call. So recently I was traveling to Greece. I

(39:58):
connected at London Heathrow and I dislocated my knee. And
I ended up having to fly right back to New York.
So I flew to and from London Heathrow in one day.
And the only reason that I got through that was
because I knew that I had a support system I
could call my family to. That being said, it was

(40:19):
2 a.m. in the U.S., so they didn't pick up.
I had to fend for myself. So that is also
a piece of advice that I would give, which is like,
if stuff gets really hard and you end up being
alone to have to make a really hard decision, it
will be hard, but you will get through it.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
And it will be hard.

Speaker 4 (40:38):
That's sort of a big thing that I say about
risk is like, there are risks. And you probably are
capable of working through them, even if it's a scenario
that you struggle to imagine to get through while sitting
in the comfort of your own home. There's risk and
there's ways to be smart about it. A lot of
women don't tell people that they meet that they are

(41:00):
traveling alone just as a way of mitigating some of
that risk. Other advice is... I love what you said
about going and sitting somewhere alone, embracing your solitude, like
don't lose yourself in your phone. If you go and
you eat somewhere new alone, don't have your nose in
your phone, like be sort of open and receptive.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
You will also feel, again, like a loosening.

Speaker 4 (41:23):
Of that pressure of worrying that somebody's going to see
you alone or worrying that you might appear to be
like lonely. Like you step into this you have the
capacity to step into this persona of like being a visitor,
being a stranger somewhere new. And there's so much liberation
with that. So I think just open yourself up to

(41:45):
the possibility of what it could be.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
I think that people are curious to meet people from
other places. So when you're visiting, they want to come
up and talk to you too.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
And that's how you have those interactions that you weren't
expecting and that oftentimes are really lovely.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
Totally.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Really lovely and stick with you. And it does feel
really empowering. It feels like I did this. I found
this place. Somebody came up and talked to me. I
have a memory, an interaction that meant something to me.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Well, looking back, do you think you would do things
differently traveling solo today versus when you first started doing it?

Speaker 4 (42:32):
When I first started solo traveling, I was staying in
a lot of hostels, which is why I think it's
sort of interesting to talk to women in their 30s
and 40s about solo travel. It's like what I'm doing
a lot of is talking to women in their 30s
and 40s because it's a little bit of a different shift.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
So I think I was.

Speaker 4 (42:50):
Able to pull a lot more like sort of shoestring,
like sleepless nights staying at hostels, staying in sort of
like dodgy places, or not dodgy places, but sleeping in
odd quarters. I have had bedbugs far too many times.
I've contracted them from far too many hostels, and now

(43:11):
I'm a little bit scared.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Now you can sleep.

Speaker 4 (43:16):
Now, some places have like smaller dorms or more private
dorms that feel maybe a little bit more like, okay,
I'm in my 30s and 40s, like, you know, the
stakes are not so high. I'm not going to bring
this back to my house. What did I used to
do in my 20s that I don't quite do anymore?
I mean, a lot of things have stayed consistent, I

(43:39):
will say. Like, I always do a walking tour, one
of the free walking tours when I get to a place,
because I think it's a great place to, like, a
great way to get situated in a place and get
sort of like a lay of the history and the architecture.
And then from there, you might also meet other people
if it feels sort of scary to you to like
be talking to strangers, that's a great place to just

(44:00):
kick it off for yourself. You know, I travel with
a doorstop. So sometimes, you know, you put a doorstop
on the inside of your door just so that if
somebody were to come in, it will catch. That's like
a little safety thing that it's always good to have.
I travel with a big scarf because it's always useful

(44:21):
in some way, whether it's like a cold airplane. I've
used it as a blanket when I don't have an
actual comforter with me. Yeah, there are little things that
I think like, you know, as you travel, it actually
the places change. You're never in the same situation as
you were last time you traveled. But the muscle does build.
You do get better at.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
Like going out into the world and fending for yourself
as you do it more. Kind of nice.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
We're about to travel, so that's things I'm keeping a
note of now. Nice. Okay. I love a good scarf, too,
and it's that season. So I'm excited about that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
That's great.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Well, one of the things you talk about is who
I would consider like one of the leaders. I called
him the father of unique traveling, which is about Rick Steves.
You actually mentioned him in your first episode, which, by
the way, he's the reason I went to the Cinque Terre.
So when you mentioned that, I was like, yeah, I know.
And that was my solo experience that I decided to
go in college right after I graduated. I'm like, I'm

(45:22):
going to go to Florence, Italy. I'm not really sure why.
I think because I had watched... While you were sleeping?
I know, Annie, I made you watch it. Julie, have
you ever seen it?

Speaker 3 (45:33):
I don't think I've seen it.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
That's not the example you were.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
You thought I was going somewhere else completely? No. I
watched While You Were Sleeping, and her whole dream was
that her mother and father had wanted to go to Florence, Italy.
So she had it in her mind, she must go
to Florence, Italy. And that put into my mind as
a child, I must go to Florence, Italy. That's amazing.
And we mentioned many of the movies, but this was

(45:56):
the movie that made me. And I went. And I went.
And by the way, I stayed way too long in Florence.
And I was like, why did... I should have researched
a little more about what to do in Florence.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Because I did spread it out. I did go to
Paris and I did go to the Cinque Terre. And
I went to a couple more spots. But I was like,
had I known, I would have shortened my trip to
Florence and gone longer.

Speaker 4 (46:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
And I loved, loved that. But because I was influenced
by also Rick Steves at this point, I was like, yes,
I must go to this location. I must go to
this small village in Italy and see the coast. But
with that, you specifically mentioned his three types of travel,
which included the tourist, the traveler and the pilgrims. And

(46:38):
I really thought that was a really interesting kind of
throwback of his philosophy in traveling, as well as something
that we should be looking at today as we learn
to travel ethically, as you talked about, and doing it
in a way that really gives you the best experience.
So can you talk a little bit more about those
types of, you know, travelers traveling and what the differences

(47:01):
are to you?

Speaker 4 (47:02):
Yeah. So Rick Steves outlines three different ways to travel.
You can either travel as a tourist. And when you're
there as a tourist, you're there to consume. So you
want to be entertained.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
You want to relax.

Speaker 4 (47:14):
You know, you'll stand in line for the viral ube croissant.
And that's just about the only way that you'll be inconvenienced. Or,
you know, I would say probably more realistically, you'll walk
around the city, you'll buy the things, you'll eat the
things that there are to do. And you really just
you consume your way through a city. And you're there

(47:36):
for convenience, relaxation, a lot of people travel as a tourist.
Then if you're on the other side of the spectrum,
there's the pilgrim. The pilgrim is there to, they're looking
for some sort of inner transformation. They're really like looking
at their home from afar. They want to sort of like,
they want to go on some sort of inner journey.
So those are two ends of the spectrum. And then

(47:57):
right in the middle is the traveler. And the traveler,
you know, you'll find the traveler at the local grocery
store because they want to basically experience what it's like
to live in a place as a temporary local. And
so they're talking to the people that live there. They're
sort of moving through what a day to day would
be like in this place. And I don't think that

(48:20):
any of them is necessarily wrong. I think we all
travel for all different reasons. Some people, there's push motivations.
This is what the travel psychologist said. There's push motivations,
which is, you know, you want to escape something in
your life and a little bit of escapism is okay.
But then there's pull motivations, which is like, I've been
really wanting to see this place. I want to connect
with this thing in this place. And so being very

(48:42):
clear on what your motivations are. and what your intention
is when you get to a place. If you're there
to consume, then maybe there are ways to do it
where you're shopping at local businesses, you're staying at places
that are owned by locals, and that those are the
people who are benefiting from your dollars. You know, there
is a way to be a tourist and also be ethical.
But then, you know, on the other side of the spectrum,

(49:04):
I don't think that the pilgrim is necessarily doing like
the virtuous thing either, which is sort of just like
looking to find themselves with this place as a backdrop.
So when I travel, I tend to travel more as
a traveler because I do want to like seek some
sort of understanding for like, how do people live? What
would it be like if I lived here and engage

(49:27):
with people that live there? And, you know, I usually
try and learn a little bit of language before I
go so that I can say, you know, one, two, three.
I can say, can you help me? I can say,
how are you? And usually that kickstarts some sort of
interaction that probably will eventually turn to English or Spanish
for me. So I think that just thinking about, yeah,

(49:48):
thinking about how am I going to engage with this
way that is not just purely consumption, especially on like
the tourist level, is important. Because otherwise you just are
enabling an industry that can be really extractive. Right.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Which, you know, we can look at Spain and seeing
some of the of what's happening there.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
In Barcelona, they're saying no tourists. In Puerto Rico, it's
like it's very similar. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Well, with all that, is there any place you haven't
gone yet that you want to go to that is
on your list?

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Oh, my God. So many.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
I don't even know where to begin. Everywhere, like the
whole world. I've seen fewer places than what I want
to see. I would love to go to India. I
don't even know where I would begin, which is the
amazing part. I would love to spend months traveling through India.
I just interviewed a woman who's Indian-American. And went back

(50:57):
to India for the first time and crafted like a
three-part trip for herself to connect with this place not
as somebody's kid, just as herself. She sort of faced
her fears of like safety and loneliness. And she really
developed like an itinerary that sounds incredibly exciting.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
So there's a lot of places that I would love
to go.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
This is my last commentary on like the way that
we talk about travel now.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
I think a lot of people lead with like, I've
been to 120 countries.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
Right. And I think leading with like the places you
haven't been and making sure that you're always clicked into
the wonder of like what you haven't yet seen. I
hate it when people say, I did this place. I
did Rome. I did, you know, it's like, did you
do it? Or you power walked through it and saw
the three, you know, things on the to-do list.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Right.

Speaker 4 (51:48):
Places are not a thing to do. It is a
place to see. It's a thing to experience. And you're
never going to experience the full thing. So leading with humility,
I think, as a traveler, even though we're talking about
how transformative it is, at the end of the day,
as much as you can decenter yourself while you're having
this transformative experience, I think that's really powerful.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
It was kind of a humbling experience for me the
first when I went to China and I was there
for eight months. And I was like, this country is
so huge. I could go there and still experience so
many new things and so many different styles of food.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
So like you can go to a country and you
haven't done it.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Exactly. Exactly. It's not your to-do list.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Check.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Yes. Yes.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Well, here's a difficult question. Do you have a favorite
memory while traveling solo?

Speaker 4 (52:45):
Okay, so I recently hitchhiked for the first time. I
talked about this in the first episode when I was
in Ireland. It was out of pure necessity. The walk
was 30 minutes. My bus was leaving in 20 minutes.
So I needed to get to the bus stop as
soon as possible. And I was on the side of
the road with my thumb out for so long. And
I had later learned that Ireland used to be this

(53:08):
like huge hitchhiking culture that And then there were like
a series of hitchhiking murders and then everyone stopped hitchhiking
in Ireland.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
So I had my thumb out. I had no idea
about this.

Speaker 4 (53:19):
People are laughing at me out the window.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
I mean, it is ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (53:23):
And then a car pulls up and it turns out
it's a group of Americans that I had just met
on this boat that we were all on. We were
going from the mainland to the Aran Islands and back.
So it was wild to see not only a familiar face,
but like a group of Americans who I'm not usually
like jazzed to see abroad, but it felt so familiar.

(53:44):
They took me in and not only did they start
driving me towards the bus stop, but then we realized
that we were all ultimately driving to the same place,
which was about two and a half hours away.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
They said, do you want to ride? And I was like, yeah, actually,
that would be great. I would love that.

Speaker 4 (53:59):
It was an older couple and their son who's in
his 30s probably. And they go, well, we're going to
stop at the Cliffs of Moher on our way there.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
Do you want to go?

Speaker 4 (54:08):
And I hadn't had a chance to see them yet.
And I was sort of, because I was solo traveling
on a budget, I was forgoing a couple of things.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
I said, sure.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
And so I have these amazing photos of the Cliffs
of Moher with this gorgeous family that I will never
talk to again. We didn't even exchange information. But on
our way, we're driving back to Galway. These two and
a half hours, we're just talking about We have no
context for each other. It's amazing the things you talk
about when you have no context. And we're just like

(54:37):
sort of like going on about our trips. And it's
like this Ireland trip was our entire world. And then
we arrive back to Galway and they're like, do you
want to come out to dinner with us? And I said, no,
thank you, though. Like I just was ready to it
was no hard feelings. But I was like, I'm going
to actually I have I have other plans.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
But thank you.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
Mm hmm. And it was this really magical experience where
everything was just one unexpected thing after the next.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
And I just sort of had to say yes.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
I love that. I do love the amount of people
that you met but never saw again and had been
inspired by, including the older gentleman who had you going
to Ireland to begin with, talking about him. And I
thought that, like, did you try to see if you
could find him?

Speaker 3 (55:23):
Yes, so hard.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
So I was inspired to go to Ireland because when
I did the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, I started
syncing up my walking pace with this elderly Irish man.
And every night before bed, he would call his publican,
which I found out was your bartender at your local pub.
I was so tickled that he had such a close
relationship with his bartender. Like, this experience was clearly not about, like,

(55:49):
the alcohol. It was about the place. And I had
heard so much about Irish pubs, so I, 15 years later,
was like, I need to finally make a trip to
Ireland and see what these pubs are about. And... I
gave my trip a mission, which is something I've learned
is how to have like a very short cut for
having instead of just like an itinerary, having like an

(56:09):
adventure on a trip.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (56:11):
If you give yourself a mission and the stakes are
not that high and you are here to complete your mission,
now all of a sudden you can ask people for help.
You can ask people for advice. You can ask people
for context. For me, it was about returning to the
same pub night after night to become a regular at
this pub. Mm-hmm. So anyways, I like decide this is

(56:32):
going to be my mission. I'm like, I should really
find this elderly Irish man. I should at the very
least just message him and, you know, maybe ask him
for advice or just say hi.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
I cannot find this man anywhere.

Speaker 4 (56:44):
I'm looking at my old Facebook photos because that's where
I had published everything.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
All my photos from the Camino. I can't find him anywhere.

Speaker 4 (56:52):
I mean, and this is the reality of solo travel
is that you have these like really finite connections with people.
And you might, even if you stay connected, like there
might not be a time where you ever reach.

Speaker 3 (57:04):
Back out to them.

Speaker 4 (57:06):
But because these, you know, you have this like ending,
this natural ending on your connection before you both go
back to your homes halfway across the world, you might
just go really deep with them and then never connect again.
I don't know if you guys have experienced this when
you travel, just like sort of opening yourself up to someone.

(57:26):
Sometimes it's easier to open yourself up to that person
because you know that you're not going to have endless
context or time with them.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
I definitely have some memories when I did that travel,
specifically because I met people through the hostels myself and
met some really great characters. There was one girl that
I think about often because I was such... a wet blanket.
Like I was fearful of everything. Coming from like a

(57:55):
small town to going by myself to Europe. And I
was like, we were riding and she randomly met a
dude who had a friend. We were riding around. I'm like,
I'm about to be kidnapped and I'm mad at you
because I don't know what you just put me in.
And so I was like the dude who was, I'm
sure I was being fixed up with, but I still
was like, I don't want to be here. He was like, no, no,

(58:15):
we're going to go have fun. And I'm like, no,
you're not. Drop me off. Drop me off. You can't
go either. You have a fiance. She did have a fiance,
but my bad. But I was such a wet blanket.
I wonder, I'm like, I wonder if she hates me
and thinks that I'm the worst part of the travel.
That's what I think about.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
I don't know. I think you just have to listen
to your instincts always when you travel. Somebody told me
that you have a higher likelihood of getting into a
dangerous situation simply because you're exhausted and you're having a
hard time listening to your gut feeling than you are
like stumbling into a literally dangerous situation. Like I think
that this is something to be aware of when you're

(58:51):
solo traveling.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
You might get.

Speaker 4 (58:53):
Fatigued really easily because you're spending all day making decisions
for yourself. When else in life are you truly just
spending all day? Like in life, you have relationships, you
have social ties, you have connections to people that you
have routines where you don't have to make so many decisions.
decisions for yourself. When you're solo traveling, it's always like.
Do I want to walk down the street? What do

(59:14):
I want to eat?

Speaker 3 (59:15):
Am I hungry?

Speaker 4 (59:16):
Do I want to eat at this place? And you
have nobody else that you have to check in with.
And so that can be really fatiguing. And even just
being away from your comfort zone can be really tiring.
And not having like a place where you can come
back home and like truly unwind, especially if you're staying
at a hostel, can be like existentially tiring. So making
sure that you're finding time to recharge to really be

(59:38):
able to like You need to be able to listen
to yourself. When you feel that little voice that's like,
this is not right, you have to be able to
listen to that and hear that. And sometimes it's hard
when you're exhausted.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
If I hope this girl, if she ever does think
about me, hears that part.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Of course.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
Everybody has our own comfort zone sometimes. And I think
being solita out on the road is about like finding
different ways to like hang off of that scaffolding. But
you should not be like fully abandoning your scaffolding. You
should keep your boundaries. Like you should challenge yourself, but
not be like unrecognizable to yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
Yes. Excellent.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Excellent advice. So I feel like we could all swap
stories forever. Maybe if we ever see each other, IRL,
we could do this because or come back on the
show anytime. But before we completely wrap up, do you

(01:00:41):
have any new projects coming that you want to share
with our listeners?

Speaker 4 (01:00:46):
No, I'm just publishing a new episode of this podcast
every Tuesday. And I'm putting like silly little videos on
social media too. So I hope that, you know, if
any of this is intriguing about solo travel and the
different ways that it can challenge you and shift how
you think about travel and all these things or even

(01:01:07):
just make you feel excited to go see the world,
then I would love some support in listening to the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
I think people are really wanting that content and wanting
to travel and solo travel. It was interesting, my mom
mentioned it to me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Really?

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
Solo traveling?

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
And I never thought.
I'm happy about it. I'm really happy about it, but
I just wouldn't have suspected it about her.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
So is she solo traveling?

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
She wants to. And she's narrowed it down to a
couple of places. The only thing she's worried about, I suppose,
is like getting lost, like the language and the getting
lost and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:53):
She should travel to an English speaking place if that's
like there are places that are more challenging to like
a solo traveler than others just because of like language or,
you know, if you're in like a remote place that
can be challenging, you know, there's like more ways to
do it in a little beginner sense.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
And I know in your episodes, you give like some
great sites for people who might, for the generations who
are okay with sharing couches or going, finding deals for flights.
Can you share some of those sites with us real quick?
Because I think that's so beneficial.

Speaker 4 (01:02:32):
A good resource for like anybody who's interested in this
but has no idea where to start with just like
solo female travel is Wonderful.com. because it's a network of
solo female travelers. So you can go to a new
city and you can connect with other people that are
solo traveling there. Or even some locals, I think, are
a part of this as well. And Wonderful is great.

(01:02:54):
Kindred is a really great home swapping app.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
And so you can put your.

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
Home up there and you can actually swap homes, sort
of like that movie, The Holiday.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
Yeah, maybe you'll even fall in love with her brother.
I mean, who knows? But And he will be Jude Law.
Who knows?

Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
But you can swap homes with people. So you can
go and actually live in someone's home while they're not there,
which is nice. And then couchsurfing is still a thing.
So couchsurfing.com, that's a good way to just be able
to stay on someone's couch, stay in someone's home. There's
a website that I used to use called Workaway. And
I don't know what the new website is, but you

(01:03:32):
could Google Workaway and I'm sure it'll direct you. Basically,
you can go and work in hostels, work on a farm. Basically,
people can post that they need help somewhere and you
will go. work for them and in exchange you'll get
like a free place to stay. They might even give
you like room and board. I did that in Chile.

(01:03:52):
I worked at a hostel and I got a free
place to stay and I got like one hot meal
a day. And then there's a website called Nomad Table
where I think it's an app where you check the
app when you get to a new city and there's
usually a table of people that are meeting up and
they're either people that live there who have traveled before
or they're travelers. And you can go and just share

(01:04:14):
a hot meal with somebody, some new people at a
city so that you're not arriving somewhere and you're not
knowing how to actually meet or connect with people.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Those are great resources. This has been such a fantastic conversation.
I would love to have you back sometime. But in
the meantime, where can the good listeners find you?

Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
They can find me on Instagram at Shmooly with four O's.
Or you can find on Instagram and TikTok. You can
find me at Solita Travels. So S-O-L-I-T-A underscore travels. That's
where you'll get updates for the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
And go check out the podcast listeners if you haven't already.
And thank you so much, Julie, for being here.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
Thank you so much for having me. It means so much.
Thanks for all your great questions.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Yes, of course. Thanks for all your great answers. Well, listeners,
if you would like to contact us, you can. You
can email us at hello at stuffmonevertoldyou.com. You can find
us on Blue Sky at Mom Stuff Podcast or on
Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I Never Told You. We're
also on YouTube. We have some merchandise at Cotton Bureau
and we have a book you can get wherever you
get your books. Thanks as always to our super producer
Rima and our executive Bruce Maya.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told
You is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
you can check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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