September 1, 2026 • 36 mins
Are flights really cheapest on a Tuesday? How do you find a great homestay? Can you travel with just a purse? Gillian Morris built the cheap-flight app Hit List and she's perfected the art of budget solo travel. She's living proof that the less you spend, the more open you are to help from strangers, vibrant detours, and truly connecting to a place -- if you do it right! This episode is packed with tips for how to save on flights, stays and luggage, plus strategies like "playovers" that let you squeeze a whole trip out of a layover.
Follow Gillian on her Substack "Supernuclear: A Guide to Living With and Near Friends"
Follow @solita_travels for bonus content and subscribe on Substack for Julie's big 3 takeaways from each episode.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think we so often underestimate the good things that
can happen, and we overestimate the things that could go wrong.
One of the solo trips I took that meant a
lot was actually to Syria in what turned out to
be the beginning of the Civil War, which I didn't
realize at the time. I actually hitchhiked out to I
(00:22):
got on the back of some Bedouin's motorcycle. I missed
the bus and I was like, I can wait four
hours for the next bus, or this random dude is
offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B.
Would I make that same decision today, I don't know.
It worked out fine, and we went and I got
to see these incredible ancient ruins, and Isis largely destroyed
(00:46):
them a couple years later. So people cut themselves off
from these opportunities by being afraid, by being suspicious. And
I do believe, having really made a pretty thorough study
of this, that most people are pretty kind and want
to help.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
This is Solita stories of what really happens when you
travel alone. The beautiful, the messy, and the moments where
you say yes and surprise yourself. I'm your host, Julie Pinero.
Here's what I've come to believe about budget travel. It
doesn't just save you money. It has the potential to
(01:32):
close the distance between you and a foreign place. When
I backpacked through Chile, I had almost no money, so
I used a website called work away to pick up
a job working at a hostel in the capital city, Santiago.
I worked six hours a day at the front desk
in exchange for a place to sleep and one hot
meal a day. I lived a somewhat regular rhythm, so
(01:55):
I made friends with the owner of the hardware store
and the university students down the street. I went to
poetry readings, I shopped for groceries, and I ate my leftovers.
When you can't afford the touristy buffer, the hotels, the tours,
the curated experience, you end up somewhere much more interesting,
in the actual city, with the people who actually live there.
(02:18):
In this episode, I'm talking with Gillian Morris. Jillian created
hit List, one of the original apps to connect people
with cheap flights. Her newsletter super Nuclear is a guide
for adults who want to live with roommates, and she's
an expert at traveling with no luggage. Her budget travel
lifestyle hasn't just saved her cash, but it's led her
(02:40):
to much deeper experiences in new places. So what were
your early childhood experiences with travel.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well, I was a solo traveler from a rather young age.
I did a lot of flying as an unaccompanied miner.
But there was this horrible experience I had on a
layover in Chicago in O'Hare airport. There was a thunderstorm.
There are all these delays. They put all the unaccompanied
miners in this tiny room and then it lost power.
(03:12):
So imagine thirty kids under the age of twelve in
a room with no power but a view of the
planes outside and a crazy thunderstorm and like lightning striking
the planes and everyone screaming and crying and asking for
(03:34):
mommy and all this, and I was just like, this
is terrible. So I put my foot down to my
parents and I said, I'm comfortable flying on my own.
Don't put me in this program again. And so from
basically twelve onwards, I was just traveling on my own.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
So you were making your own way from check in
to the flight, yes, you were finding your own bearings.
And there was turbulence, you were holding your own hand.
I was pretty making friends. I learned early on to
not make conversation with a person next to you, because
then you're stuck with them for the rest of the flight,
but to sort of subtly notice what they watch reading
(04:12):
if they seem interesting, and then strike up a conversation
fifteen minutes before landing. So tell me about the first
trip that you ever booked and paid for yourself.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So when I was fourteen, I was a big nerd.
I went to band camp. I was also an a choir.
We were invited to tour Europe. The choir that I
was in and band camp was in Maine. My parents
were basically like, choose one. You can't do both. We're
only paying for one of them. So I needed to
figure out how to make about three thousand dollars, which
(04:43):
was a lot of money. That's a lot, yeah, for
international flights and a tour and to get over there,
and I did. I did a bunch of weird jobs
as a kid. I feel like those are different from
this podcast, so I won't get into it. But I
made the money and I came to my mom and
she said, great, Okay, book your flights figure it out.
I remember sitting down at the computer on Expedia, and
(05:07):
this is the year two thousand, okay, and I'm fourteen
years old, and I'm just sobbing into the computer because
I'm like, why won't my mom help me? Why? And
then I was just like, oh, actually, this is really
really straightforward.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, so I know that you said that it's a
whole other podcast to talk about how you made the
money to take this trip, but we are talking about
money on this podcast. Okay, can you tell us briefly
how you made the money to take that trip.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I did two things. I bred parakeets and I sold
them to pet stores super normal.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I know, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Then I also made jewelry and I sold it. So
we were commuting distance to New York. My dad worked
in the city. I would come into the garment district,
go into these wholesalers of like gems and pearls and things.
Turns out, actually jewelry is such a crazy racket. Like
you can buy a string of pearls for like four
(06:05):
bucks depending depending yeah, real pearls, depending on the grade,
or maybe you spend ten bucks or something, and then
you can turn that into a necklace that you sell
for two hundred dollars. It's insane.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
And you figure this out when you're fourteen, and basically
you're like, I can have my own income. I can
do what I want, including going and traveling. Yes, okay,
so this is really interesting to me because I started
solo traveling in my early twenties. You started doing it
much earlier, And I'm curious at what point you start
(06:36):
to realize you can do it cheaper than most people
are doing it.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
I think I always realized that I could do it
cheaper than others. I also wasn't spending money on a
lot of things that other people were spending money, Like
I've never owned a car that's like an extra eleven
grand a year wow that I have, Like that's the
average cost of car ownership in the US, And just
(07:01):
getting a deal was really exciting for me. I created
an app called Hitlist, which had millions of users. I
built this between twenty thirteen and twenty twenty, and specifically
it was based on like I was good at finding flights.
I would try and alert my friends when I found
good flights, and then I decided to try and systematize
(07:21):
it with great co founders, and we built this app
that it would alert you and flight prices dropped. But
you know, we had these really interesting models and would
be able to see how fares were changing and trending
and be able to say, this is a good deal,
this is a great deal, this is a bonkers deal.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
You know. I don't know if it's a myth, but
the saying of flights are cheapest on a Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Oh, oh my gosh. It's so interesting to hear you
say that, because that is a complete myth, but it
has a grounding in history. So before the Internet, the
airline industry used to work on its own proto Internet, actually,
the development of airline technology in many ways laid the
(08:04):
groundwork for the development of the Internet, and fair schedules
would be updated on Tuesday, that's why. Yes, but that
has not been the reality of when fares are cheapest
since like nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
There are some points of travel that are particularly expensive.
Can we talk about flights?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yes? Well, I love talking about flights.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
What are we missing when it comes to flights? What
mistakes am I making when I book my flights on
Google Flights?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I mean, the biggest thing I feel people are mystified
by is miles. So the amount of money that you
can save by booking with miles, opening up a credit
card that has a fifty thousand point bonus that you
can then transfer to airline miles. I spend very very
little on flights because of that. Now these days they're
(09:00):
built as well where you can pay your rent build
up miles. I happen to pay the rent for my house,
which is six people, which means that I'm actually making
about one hundred fifty dollars worth of points per month
is just coming in from paying rent anyway. Wo and
a lot of people don't register to get the miles
(09:21):
from the trips that they take, and that's just you're
leaving money on the table. And there's a really great
plug in called points Hound. This came about in the
last few years. So if you use Google Flights to search,
it's a Chrome extension and it's really nice because I
was actually looking at flights earlier. Today it's like, well,
this flight is five hundred and eighty dollars, but it's
(09:42):
twenty five thousand points. The easiest rule of them is
to think twenty five thousand points is about two hundred
and fifty dollars, so I can pay two hundred and
fifty dollars instead of five hundred and eighty dollars if
I have accrued the points, and if I've saved them,
and if I know how to transfer them. There are
also mark at places where you can exchange points. This
(10:02):
is very New York. There's a whole like room full
of Yiddish men in South Williamsburg that are points brokers. Really,
you got to get in with them.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
How would the average person get in with them?
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Got to spend a lot of time in internet forums,
You get to know people. I still think Reddit has
some really really great forums.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
It feels like Reddit is always the place you know.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
One thing I haven't really been using yet, though, and
I've heard good things is using chat GPT or claude
or your AI agent took choice. There's also another technique
that is debatably slash not really legal, but it's one
of those great is the concept of skip lagging. Are
you familiar with this? So you want to fly New
(10:45):
York to San Francisco, and direct flights to to San
Francisco are quite expensive. Sometimes airlines are trying to promote
flights to Santa Barbara or something. So a flight that
has a layover in San Francisco going to Santa Barbara
might be two hundred dollars cheaper than the flight New
York to San Francisco. And so you can book the
(11:07):
flight to Santa Barbara and just not get on that
last leg. Oh wow, you can't have checked bags right,
And technically the terms and conditions when you buy a
flight say like I intend to take every leg of
this flight, right, so you are violating those terms and conditions.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I see.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Can you always say, like an emergency came up and
I've decided to I'm not doing it. You know, it
really depends. At this phase in my life, I would
just book the proper flight. But at other phrases in
my life where I've been more budget conscious, I did
this a lot. There's a website started by a brilliant
kazakh Man named Octarar that is called skip lagged that
(11:47):
helps you search for these specific flights.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
That was going to be my next question, how do
you know when there's a hot deal going a Santa Barbara.
The beautiful thing is somebody has put in that work.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yes, yeah, And there's another thing for finding flights there's
a website called flight connections dot com where you can
see all of the routes that fly out of a
particular place, which can be really useful to understand. You know,
you're trying to get to Slovenia or something, and so
you can see all of the flights that will connect
(12:16):
to Slovenia, and then you can see if any of
those have discount carriers that can take you there.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I'm curious, what's an affordable trip that you recently took
and how much did you spend.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Actually, my most affordable trips are these totally bonus ones
that I call playovers, which is basically, when you're flying
somewhere far away where you probably have a layover, I
like to actually intentionally schedule sort of six to twenty
four hours. And it's a little cheesy, but I've been
trying to make this word a thing for a long time.
(12:53):
A playover.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I like it. I like it.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So it's not a separate trip. Depending on the timing,
you may or may not need to get accommodation, but
you have enough time to really immerse yourself in the
city for just a taste, and you figure out whether
you want to plan a trip there in the future.
So recently I was passing through Santiago, Chile, and I
had like twelve hours. I dropped a bag at a hotel,
(13:19):
because you can usually leave things with hotels. Also, museums
are a good place to leave bags if the airport
doesn't have a drop off themselves, which oftentimes airports will
have luggage holds. Yeah, and sometimes it's also nice to
use a hotel to freshen up, use a gym or
something like that. So a lot of times there will
be day passes available. I always try and go to
(13:40):
as high up as I can, so whether that's going
up a hill or going up some sort of large
building and getting a view and kind of getting a
lay of the land is something when I'm just traveling
on my own with no real purpose and not a
lot of planning, and so I'll get a lay of
the land and I'll be like, that looks interesting. That
looks interesting, Okay, looks like that's a cathedral, that's an
(14:03):
engineering college, that's a museum, you know, and then laying
out my day from there. As far as food, I
think one of the things that keeps things affordable. My
friend pointed this out recently is like if you don't
sit down. So there are street stands everywhere. In Paris
it's the kreperees and you get a really filling meal
for like five euros. In Berlin it's the kabab stands.
(14:24):
Well in like most of the world, it's the kabob stands,
just street food basically, and you get to sample all
these different flavors. And I also went to a flea
market type thing, and I visited a museum and I
got like a nice hike up a hill in a
park and came back quite tired and ready to pass
(14:46):
out on my overnight flight home. Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Okay, And this probably also helps you save money because
you're doing a flight with a layover. Usually those are
cheaper than the direct flights totally.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
And they also you know, if something happens with your
travel with your first flight, you're much less likely to
miss the second flight.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
God forbid, you're not running sprinting through an airport trying
to get from point A to B, stopping somewhere in
the middle to pick up a twenty six dollars burrito. Yeah,
that you're shoving in the overhead compartment.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Oh my gosh, it's just so much more civilized to
actually get out of the plane walk around a little bit,
you know, especially if you're traveling to Asia or something
where you, yeah, you're going to be traveling for nineteen hours,
you don't want to be sitting the entire time after
the break.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
How Jillian travels with no luggage.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
A lot of people.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Have strong opinions about luggage. I was just talking to
a friend the other day and his thing was, always
check your bag, because why would you carry it through
the airport have to put it. I never check a bag.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
I mean, the statistics on how often bags get lost
are nuts, So I would avoid checking a bag at
all costs. It's also very simple because I travel with
almost nothing. It wears you down to have to carry
a lot of things around, and if you're strategic about
your dressing and the materials of the clothing that you bring,
(16:22):
you don't need that much. Especially as women, you can
wear skirts. That helps because you can wear a skirt
like all week and it's not gross. By the end
of my sort of ten years of building my company
and traveling all the time, I was down to traveling
with just a purse for years. I mean, it's a
hefty person. There's nothing like showing up in a city,
(16:43):
not having to wait for luggage, being able to hop
on a city bike or whatever the equivalent is in
the place that you are being able to go directly
to the conference or directly to going out to bars,
or without having to drop off anything. It's so liberating
and it's very achievable. But you have to be willing to,
(17:06):
like fundamentally reconsider some things about the way you pack.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Okay, I want to get into the specifics. How do
you travel with no luggage?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Hygiene is important, Like I don't want to smell bad,
I don't want to be gross, so I'd travel with
about seven pairs of underwear. You know, if you want
to hand wash things, shampoo is basically going to clean something,
as well as laundry detergent will otherwise. Good materials wool, silk,
(17:36):
leather for outerwear, it's very insulating. But these natural materials
are timeless. So this is a Marino top. It's reversible,
so it can either be like the scoop neck or
it can be a boat neck with a low back. Okay,
and it's thermoregulating.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Is this the material that also doesn't soak up body odor.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Okay, Yeah, you basically hang it up in the closet
and it doesn't smell. Okay, So yes, I still wash
it about once a week, but I can wear the
same shirt for seven days. I've talked to some people
who just like don't even wash their Marino, which is
you know, that's a choice and same you can get
nice Marino woolpants or if you're traveling hotter climates, silk
is great for this. So just having a really effective
(18:18):
capsule wardrobe of things that you can swap in and out.
As big toilet trees, almost everything can be powdered. So
really toothpowder rather than toothpaste, you know, like a travel
sized tooth paste thing will get you like maybe like
three or four days if you're brushing twice a day. Yeah,
(18:39):
if you have toothpowder about the same form factor, that'll
last you a month or two. Then shoes are another
big thing. People carry way too many shoes. I'll generally
have something that I can hike er work out in,
usually sneakers, maybe heavy duty sandals, and then one thing
that I can dress up. I do have these amazing
(19:00):
sandals that have heels that you can remove or you know,
it's like these sort of transformer heels. I'm obsessed with them.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Transformer heels is amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, and it's nice because I can wear the flats
all day and then I want to look a little
nicer and I'll put the heel on for dinner, for
a concert or something. Okay, and then the electronics as well.
People just like there is a smaller, more efficient version
of pretty much everything that you would carry in your suitcase.
The universal travel adapter that I have is like a
quarter of the size of a normal one. My sunglasses
(19:33):
fold up to be about the size of like two
credit cards, and they're actually pretty fashionable. It's Rove. Roav
is the brand. I love them. There's a brand that
makes this thing. They call it underwear for lounge, gym
and swim, and it's basically like simple cuts of sort
of bikini underwear and a few different styles of tops
(19:55):
that are like really nice for lounge gym and swim.
So yeah, just having really versatile things. Yeah, I mean
my belt is also like a strap that I can
attach to my DP kit to turn it into a purse.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
No kidding, Wow, Okay, So transform is the key word here.
Things that can do other things. Yes, yeah, let's talk
about hotels, Airbnbs, accommodations can get super expensive. Let's say
that you're talking to somebody who has only ever traveled
(20:29):
by staying in hotels. What's your pitch to them to
try something different.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
That's funny because people so often fixate on getting a
cheap flight, but they don't think about the hotel. You know,
maybe you can get a three hundred dollars flight to London,
but then you're going to be spending two hundred plus
dollars a night in a hotel. Hotels are just very expensive.
And if you want to treat yourself, and if that's
what you're looking for, great, But I think what a
(20:55):
lot of people are looking for when they travel is
to meet people, to have new experiences. And in a hotel,
you're going to be very isolated for the most part,
and it'll be relaxing and you'll have control over your
situation and people who want to help you, you know,
concierges and room service. But I think that that's almost
(21:19):
a waste unless you're on your honeymoon or something.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Sure, it's going to feel like you're inside of a
hotel room anywhere in the world really true, could be anywhere.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So first of all, there are inns and guesthouses and hostels,
and I feel like people hear the term hostel and
they think about, you know, I don't know, there was
that movie taken or something, you know, like yeah, they
got captured, and or they think it's going to be
like a dorm full of twenty four year olds, And yeah,
it might be if you choose that. But most hostels
(21:49):
will also have a private room or a room that is,
you know, for twin beds and it's women only or something.
You know, you can choose tears, but it will be
a lot cheaper than a hotel. And so then you
also have this built in social experience. You have people
who are also wanting to travel and explore. You'll still
(22:10):
have a front desk person or someone local who will
be able to give you good tips, just like a
concierge at a fancy hotel, but also they might be
a little bit more real because concierges want tips and
they want to send you to the expensive places that
will give them a kickback, whereas the desk person at
the hostel might be like, this is the bar, I
go to this is the you know, this is the
(22:32):
great place to go and salsa dance for free. There's
also CouchSurfing, which you know. I join CouchSurfing in two
thousand and eight and it's been through a lot of changes,
but I still have friends who do it, and I
logged back into the website not too long ago, and
(22:54):
it's really incredible how this has managed to be a thing.
If you're not familiar CouchSurfing dot com and you create
a profile and you request a couch or a spare
room or something, you request to stay with people for free,
and you build up a profile and you can search
in any city who's offering whatever, and they can say,
you know, we have an air mattress on the floor,
(23:14):
or we have a tiny home in our backyard or
what have you. It doesn't work super well in places
like Barcelona or Paris or New York where everyone's traveling
and trying to get here, but if you're passing through Bilbao,
Spain or something. My first experience CouchSurfing was with this
really sweet Swedish girl who lived in Gorgos, which is
(23:38):
a town in northern Spain. I was living in Madrid,
I was working there for the summer. There was some
mystery holiday I'd never heard of, some Catholic Saints' birthday
or celebration day, and so I had the day off
work and I just decided to do an overnight trip
and sent out CouchSurfing requests to three people, and she
was the first one who said yes. We went and
(24:01):
I got to meet her friends. She worked in a
movie theater that had like the old reels, so she
had me back in the projection booth and showed me
how that worked. Why it was so cool. I mean,
we met and she's like, I'm in the middle of work.
Her keys to my place. You can let yourself in
is easy. I was just totally blown away. But maybe
because of that experience, and I've just had so many
(24:23):
experienced people just default trusting and it's not like I'm
a complete unknown. I've got a profile, you build up vouches,
people write testimonials to you. Maybe they live in a
smaller town and they're excited to meet new people. I've
had really incredible experiences.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
After the break, Jillian shares three stories where her decision
to go budget left her richer in much more than
just money. This is what I love about staying with
(25:05):
other people when you travel is that it's not just
a price half, it's also this added dimension of connecting
with people where you're there. Have you had any stories
that really change your life from CouchSurfing.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
I mean truly. I think the wildest one was I
stayed with a woman for a couple of days in
Kiev in Ukraine. She was a French diplomat and she
was really kind, and I think my second day there,
she said, Oh, we've actually got this like famous French
(25:38):
cartoonist like VIP visiting, and he's getting the standard like
VIP tour of the city. You speak French, you can
just go. And I was like, so we're in this
like black car limo service with a tour guide and
this famous cartoonist and then me no explanation, and we
(25:59):
get taken to every major site in Kiev and get
this beautiful tour. And I was just there for two days.
And then I was going to Kazakhstan to visit a
friend who was teaching English there, and this was also
I remember I was so excited because I'd gotten like
one hundred and three dollars flight and I show up
in Kazakhstan, and they said I didn't have the right visa,
(26:21):
which was false. I totally did, but they needed a bribe.
It was a long time anyway, so they deported me,
which was frustrating. Same day they just put me on
a plane straight back to Kiev. Wow. And I landed
quite late at night, and I was like, Laura, I'm
so sorry, but is there any chance I could just
crash with you tonight and I'll figure out my stuff
in the morning. I don't want to overimpose. She was
(26:43):
always already so generous. She's like, oh, you know, actually
I'm leaving for Egypt for eleven days, and if you
could take care of my cat, like I was going
to pay my friend, but if you could take care
of my cat, then you can just stay in my apartment.
Also like bart who was one of her friends. His
birthday is tomorrow. And then you know, Emily rented a
(27:03):
boat for a you know, exploring the river or whatever.
And she basically set me up with an apartment, a cat,
I love cats, and a social calendar.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
And then you know left for Egypt.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
What have you learned about the kindness of strangers through this?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
I mean, I think we so often underestimate the good
things that can happen, and we overestimate the things that
could go wrong. I'm not going to say all of
my travel has been rainbows and free VIP trips around Kiev.
You know, sometimes someone is creepy and hits on you
or something. You know, like things happen. I've been pickpocketed once,
(27:45):
But at the end of the day, like the tiny
bad things that have happened by like opening myself up
and being vulnerable and putting myself out there, a few
bad things have happened, but like a thousand amazing things
have happened, and I will tolerate the few bad things
for all the good things that can happen. So Yeah,
people cut themselves off from these opportunities by being afraid,
(28:09):
by being suspicious. And I do believe, having really made
a pretty thorough study of this, that most people are
pretty kind and want to help. And I've been in
situations where I've been lost, and I've been vulnerable, and
I've been drunk or you know, where things could have
gone poorly, and I've generally found that people want to
(28:32):
take care of you.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
How do you set yourself up to have a safe experience.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah, I mean I think try not to get drunk.
Obviously being smart about your surroundings. You know, I will
keep my money very close to my body, not in
a purse that's easy to slip a hand into. I
certainly would keep my valuables in a money belt or something.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Do you stay with men when you couch serve?
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I have relatively seldom. I've stayed with families. I've stayed
with in like houses with multiple people. I stayed with
an Iranian student in Sweden who was in a dorm,
so I knew I would be like around a lot
of other people. About ten years ago, I learned of
this thing called the Embassy network, which is a network
(29:22):
of people who live in usually in communal houses around
the world. And that's been incredible because now I feel
like I have a sort of hub and a built
in group of friends and almost any major city I
go to. But I was traveling to Amsterdam once and
it was pretty last minute. I'd been invited to a
conference where they sort of they're like, we'll give you
(29:44):
a free ticket, but we're not paying for hotel or accommodations.
It was like a bon balance. It's still worth it.
It's like it'll be a good professional networking thing. Yeah,
And so I was scrambling. But it was a big
conference and pretty much everything was booked up in the city,
and so I reached out to the Embassy network and
there was no house in Amsterdam, but there was someone
(30:07):
who was like, oh, but my friend Ari can host you.
And I was like, are we sure Ari wants to host?
And he's like, yeah, she's great. She's got a spare bedroom.
So I show up to Ari's house at seven am,
fresh off of red Eye, okay, and she's like, welcome,
you know, if you want to take a shower, I'm
making eggs. I was like that's so nice. And I
was like, also, just is there a cobbler nearby because
(30:29):
my boot like came apart on my trip over and
I need to, you know, and I'm going to the
conference in two hours. I need to figure this out.
And she's like, oh yeah, let me ask someone and
I go and take my shower. By the time I've
gotten out of the shower, there's like a full breakfast
and my boot is repaired no way, and she's like,
oh yeah, my neighbor had boot glue. And I just
(30:49):
put it, and it was just like, what a time
you get out of the show. I'm not a long shower,
this is like ten fifteen minutes. Wow.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
But she knows her neighbors and she's clued in with
her neighborhood and she just instantly yeah, was so welcoming.
She has a great cat as well, and you know,
the cat approved of me, which is always a big thing.
It's not a given. And so I stayed with her
for a couple of days. And then a year later, unexpectedly,
(31:22):
I was in Amsterdam with a person that we broke up,
and I was rather adrift and I just texted Ari
and I was like, no expectations, but I'd love to
see you because I am randomly free now. Was not
expecting to be wow. And She's like, immediately, come over.
(31:43):
The spare room is yours, Misha. Her cat is here
to comfort you, and she's like, you probably need to
like scream cry for a little bit. Right. I didn't
confirm or deny, but it was true. And that's still
I mean it almost it makes me emotional just thinking
about it. How this person who really was just a
friend of a friend was so generous.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Gave you a really warm place to land, Yeah, when
you needed it. Wow, that's really special.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yeah. I do think One of the solo trips I
took that meant a lot was actually to Syria in
what turned out to be the beginning of the Civil War,
which I didn't realize at the time. And I was
in Damascus sort of for a work thing and a conference,
(32:35):
but then I had planned to travel around the country
and my third day there, I actually hitchhiked out to
I got on the back of some Bedouin's motorcycle. I
missed the bus and I was like, I can wait
four hours for the next bus, or this random dude
is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose
option B. Would I make that same decision today, I
(32:57):
don't know. It worked out fine, and we went and
I got to see these incredible ancient ruins, and Isis
largely destroyed them a couple of years later. So I mean,
you can miss things, you know. I don't want to
give people total fomo, but also like, not everything is
going to be here forever. Yeah, and between climate change,
(33:20):
between unrest, you know, there are some things that are
very worth exploring and seeing and don't hesitate because you
know no one will get to see what I got
to see anymore. I also went to Gazaan twenty nineteen,
and everything that I saw as flattened.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, but there's a lot of beauty and incredible. There
are a lot of beautiful things to experience in the world,
and relationships are important, the relationships you build as well.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah. If you have the idea to go see a place,
go see it.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
So, since you've been traveling solo since you were eighteen fifteen,
twelve twelve, what insights would you share it to, like
a newer solo traveler, maybe somebody who's a little bit
more nervous just about the art of solo traveling.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
If it's really not working out for you, you can
cut the trip short. And I think again, just this
fear of the unknown holds us back from so many
good experiences. So hopefully some of my ridiculous stories will
help you realize that there are really good things that
(34:31):
can happen, but don't overestimate the things that can go wrong.
And if tragically, unfortunately something does really go wrong, like
you can bail, It's okay, You're probably going to survive. Hey, Solita's.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
If Jillian's got you wondering about other ways to travel
cheap and build community, I want to share three extra resources.
Check Wonderful, wa n d er Ful. It's a really
vibrant women's travel community with local meetups in dozens of cities.
Or consider signing up for Kindred, where you can swap
(35:12):
your home with someone else's home. It's a great way
to meet local neighbors. And hey, maybe her brother is
Jude Law and maybe you fall in love and maybe
that's just the plot of the two thousand and six
romantic comedy The Holiday, but maybe not Last resource. It's
a newer platform, and it's called nomad Table. It's an
app that connects travelers with other travelers and locals for
(35:36):
shared meals wherever you land, and with that make new friends,
fall in love, powder your teeth and get on the
back of that motorcycle. Solita is a production of iHeart
Podcasts and No Floaties Productions. I'm your host Julie Pinero.
Our producers are Me and Mary Do, with consulting from
(35:58):
Emily Maronoff and Hate Mansburger. Editing, mixing and mastering by
Mary Doo and engineered by Bihid Fraser and Paul Bowman.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Our theme song is by Ballum.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Cover art is by Me with finishing touches by Studio Lee,
and our executive producers are Me, Julie Binero, and Jason English.
If you like this episode, please tell a friend and
don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to Solita on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, and wherever you get your
favorite shows.
I think we so often underestimate the good things that
can happen, and we overestimate the things that could go wrong.
One of the solo trips I took that meant a
lot was actually to Syria in what turned out to
be the beginning of the Civil War, which I didn't
realize at the time. I actually hitchhiked out to I
(00:22):
got on the back of some Bedouin's motorcycle. I missed
the bus and I was like, I can wait four
hours for the next bus, or this random dude is
offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B.
Would I make that same decision today, I don't know.
It worked out fine, and we went and I got
to see these incredible ancient ruins, and Isis largely destroyed
(00:46):
them a couple years later. So people cut themselves off
from these opportunities by being afraid, by being suspicious. And
I do believe, having really made a pretty thorough study
of this, that most people are pretty kind and want
to help.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
This is Solita stories of what really happens when you
travel alone. The beautiful, the messy, and the moments where
you say yes and surprise yourself. I'm your host, Julie Pinero.
Here's what I've come to believe about budget travel. It
doesn't just save you money. It has the potential to
(01:32):
close the distance between you and a foreign place. When
I backpacked through Chile, I had almost no money, so
I used a website called work away to pick up
a job working at a hostel in the capital city, Santiago.
I worked six hours a day at the front desk
in exchange for a place to sleep and one hot
meal a day. I lived a somewhat regular rhythm, so
(01:55):
I made friends with the owner of the hardware store
and the university students down the street. I went to
poetry readings, I shopped for groceries, and I ate my leftovers.
When you can't afford the touristy buffer, the hotels, the tours,
the curated experience, you end up somewhere much more interesting,
in the actual city, with the people who actually live there.
(02:18):
In this episode, I'm talking with Gillian Morris. Jillian created
hit List, one of the original apps to connect people
with cheap flights. Her newsletter super Nuclear is a guide
for adults who want to live with roommates, and she's
an expert at traveling with no luggage. Her budget travel
lifestyle hasn't just saved her cash, but it's led her
(02:40):
to much deeper experiences in new places. So what were
your early childhood experiences with travel.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well, I was a solo traveler from a rather young age.
I did a lot of flying as an unaccompanied miner.
But there was this horrible experience I had on a
layover in Chicago in O'Hare airport. There was a thunderstorm.
There are all these delays. They put all the unaccompanied
miners in this tiny room and then it lost power.
(03:12):
So imagine thirty kids under the age of twelve in
a room with no power but a view of the
planes outside and a crazy thunderstorm and like lightning striking
the planes and everyone screaming and crying and asking for
(03:34):
mommy and all this, and I was just like, this
is terrible. So I put my foot down to my
parents and I said, I'm comfortable flying on my own.
Don't put me in this program again. And so from
basically twelve onwards, I was just traveling on my own.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
So you were making your own way from check in
to the flight, yes, you were finding your own bearings.
And there was turbulence, you were holding your own hand.
I was pretty making friends. I learned early on to
not make conversation with a person next to you, because
then you're stuck with them for the rest of the flight,
but to sort of subtly notice what they watch reading
(04:12):
if they seem interesting, and then strike up a conversation
fifteen minutes before landing. So tell me about the first
trip that you ever booked and paid for yourself.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So when I was fourteen, I was a big nerd.
I went to band camp. I was also an a choir.
We were invited to tour Europe. The choir that I
was in and band camp was in Maine. My parents
were basically like, choose one. You can't do both. We're
only paying for one of them. So I needed to
figure out how to make about three thousand dollars, which
(04:43):
was a lot of money. That's a lot, yeah, for
international flights and a tour and to get over there,
and I did. I did a bunch of weird jobs
as a kid. I feel like those are different from
this podcast, so I won't get into it. But I
made the money and I came to my mom and
she said, great, Okay, book your flights figure it out.
I remember sitting down at the computer on Expedia, and
(05:07):
this is the year two thousand, okay, and I'm fourteen
years old, and I'm just sobbing into the computer because
I'm like, why won't my mom help me? Why? And
then I was just like, oh, actually, this is really
really straightforward.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, so I know that you said that it's a
whole other podcast to talk about how you made the
money to take this trip, but we are talking about
money on this podcast. Okay, can you tell us briefly
how you made the money to take that trip.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I did two things. I bred parakeets and I sold
them to pet stores super normal.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I know, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Then I also made jewelry and I sold it. So
we were commuting distance to New York. My dad worked
in the city. I would come into the garment district,
go into these wholesalers of like gems and pearls and things.
Turns out, actually jewelry is such a crazy racket. Like
you can buy a string of pearls for like four
(06:05):
bucks depending depending yeah, real pearls, depending on the grade,
or maybe you spend ten bucks or something, and then
you can turn that into a necklace that you sell
for two hundred dollars. It's insane.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
And you figure this out when you're fourteen, and basically
you're like, I can have my own income. I can
do what I want, including going and traveling. Yes, okay,
so this is really interesting to me because I started
solo traveling in my early twenties. You started doing it
much earlier, And I'm curious at what point you start
(06:36):
to realize you can do it cheaper than most people
are doing it.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
I think I always realized that I could do it
cheaper than others. I also wasn't spending money on a
lot of things that other people were spending money, Like
I've never owned a car that's like an extra eleven
grand a year wow that I have, Like that's the
average cost of car ownership in the US, And just
(07:01):
getting a deal was really exciting for me. I created
an app called Hitlist, which had millions of users. I
built this between twenty thirteen and twenty twenty, and specifically
it was based on like I was good at finding flights.
I would try and alert my friends when I found
good flights, and then I decided to try and systematize
(07:21):
it with great co founders, and we built this app
that it would alert you and flight prices dropped. But
you know, we had these really interesting models and would
be able to see how fares were changing and trending
and be able to say, this is a good deal,
this is a great deal, this is a bonkers deal.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
You know. I don't know if it's a myth, but
the saying of flights are cheapest on a Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Oh, oh my gosh. It's so interesting to hear you
say that, because that is a complete myth, but it
has a grounding in history. So before the Internet, the
airline industry used to work on its own proto Internet, actually,
the development of airline technology in many ways laid the
(08:04):
groundwork for the development of the Internet, and fair schedules
would be updated on Tuesday, that's why. Yes, but that
has not been the reality of when fares are cheapest
since like nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
There are some points of travel that are particularly expensive.
Can we talk about flights?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yes? Well, I love talking about flights.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
What are we missing when it comes to flights? What
mistakes am I making when I book my flights on
Google Flights?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I mean, the biggest thing I feel people are mystified
by is miles. So the amount of money that you
can save by booking with miles, opening up a credit
card that has a fifty thousand point bonus that you
can then transfer to airline miles. I spend very very
little on flights because of that. Now these days they're
(09:00):
built as well where you can pay your rent build
up miles. I happen to pay the rent for my house,
which is six people, which means that I'm actually making
about one hundred fifty dollars worth of points per month
is just coming in from paying rent anyway. Wo and
a lot of people don't register to get the miles
(09:21):
from the trips that they take, and that's just you're
leaving money on the table. And there's a really great
plug in called points Hound. This came about in the
last few years. So if you use Google Flights to search,
it's a Chrome extension and it's really nice because I
was actually looking at flights earlier. Today it's like, well,
this flight is five hundred and eighty dollars, but it's
(09:42):
twenty five thousand points. The easiest rule of them is
to think twenty five thousand points is about two hundred
and fifty dollars, so I can pay two hundred and
fifty dollars instead of five hundred and eighty dollars if
I have accrued the points, and if I've saved them,
and if I know how to transfer them. There are
also mark at places where you can exchange points. This
(10:02):
is very New York. There's a whole like room full
of Yiddish men in South Williamsburg that are points brokers. Really,
you got to get in with them.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
How would the average person get in with them?
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Got to spend a lot of time in internet forums,
You get to know people. I still think Reddit has
some really really great forums.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
It feels like Reddit is always the place you know.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
One thing I haven't really been using yet, though, and
I've heard good things is using chat GPT or claude
or your AI agent took choice. There's also another technique
that is debatably slash not really legal, but it's one
of those great is the concept of skip lagging. Are
you familiar with this? So you want to fly New
(10:45):
York to San Francisco, and direct flights to to San
Francisco are quite expensive. Sometimes airlines are trying to promote
flights to Santa Barbara or something. So a flight that
has a layover in San Francisco going to Santa Barbara
might be two hundred dollars cheaper than the flight New
York to San Francisco. And so you can book the
(11:07):
flight to Santa Barbara and just not get on that
last leg. Oh wow, you can't have checked bags right,
And technically the terms and conditions when you buy a
flight say like I intend to take every leg of
this flight, right, so you are violating those terms and conditions.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I see.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Can you always say, like an emergency came up and
I've decided to I'm not doing it. You know, it
really depends. At this phase in my life, I would
just book the proper flight. But at other phrases in
my life where I've been more budget conscious, I did
this a lot. There's a website started by a brilliant
kazakh Man named Octarar that is called skip lagged that
(11:47):
helps you search for these specific flights.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
That was going to be my next question, how do
you know when there's a hot deal going a Santa Barbara.
The beautiful thing is somebody has put in that work.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yes, yeah, And there's another thing for finding flights there's
a website called flight connections dot com where you can
see all of the routes that fly out of a
particular place, which can be really useful to understand. You know,
you're trying to get to Slovenia or something, and so
you can see all of the flights that will connect
(12:16):
to Slovenia, and then you can see if any of
those have discount carriers that can take you there.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I'm curious, what's an affordable trip that you recently took
and how much did you spend.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Actually, my most affordable trips are these totally bonus ones
that I call playovers, which is basically, when you're flying
somewhere far away where you probably have a layover, I
like to actually intentionally schedule sort of six to twenty
four hours. And it's a little cheesy, but I've been
trying to make this word a thing for a long time.
(12:53):
A playover.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I like it. I like it.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So it's not a separate trip. Depending on the timing,
you may or may not need to get accommodation, but
you have enough time to really immerse yourself in the
city for just a taste, and you figure out whether
you want to plan a trip there in the future.
So recently I was passing through Santiago, Chile, and I
had like twelve hours. I dropped a bag at a hotel,
(13:19):
because you can usually leave things with hotels. Also, museums
are a good place to leave bags if the airport
doesn't have a drop off themselves, which oftentimes airports will
have luggage holds. Yeah, and sometimes it's also nice to
use a hotel to freshen up, use a gym or
something like that. So a lot of times there will
be day passes available. I always try and go to
(13:40):
as high up as I can, so whether that's going
up a hill or going up some sort of large
building and getting a view and kind of getting a
lay of the land is something when I'm just traveling
on my own with no real purpose and not a
lot of planning, and so I'll get a lay of
the land and I'll be like, that looks interesting. That
looks interesting, Okay, looks like that's a cathedral, that's an
(14:03):
engineering college, that's a museum, you know, and then laying
out my day from there. As far as food, I
think one of the things that keeps things affordable. My
friend pointed this out recently is like if you don't
sit down. So there are street stands everywhere. In Paris
it's the kreperees and you get a really filling meal
for like five euros. In Berlin it's the kabab stands.
(14:24):
Well in like most of the world, it's the kabob stands,
just street food basically, and you get to sample all
these different flavors. And I also went to a flea
market type thing, and I visited a museum and I
got like a nice hike up a hill in a
park and came back quite tired and ready to pass
(14:46):
out on my overnight flight home. Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Okay, And this probably also helps you save money because
you're doing a flight with a layover. Usually those are
cheaper than the direct flights totally.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
And they also you know, if something happens with your
travel with your first flight, you're much less likely to
miss the second flight.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
God forbid, you're not running sprinting through an airport trying
to get from point A to B, stopping somewhere in
the middle to pick up a twenty six dollars burrito. Yeah,
that you're shoving in the overhead compartment.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Oh my gosh, it's just so much more civilized to
actually get out of the plane walk around a little bit,
you know, especially if you're traveling to Asia or something
where you, yeah, you're going to be traveling for nineteen hours,
you don't want to be sitting the entire time after
the break.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
How Jillian travels with no luggage.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
A lot of people.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Have strong opinions about luggage. I was just talking to
a friend the other day and his thing was, always
check your bag, because why would you carry it through
the airport have to put it. I never check a bag.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
I mean, the statistics on how often bags get lost
are nuts, So I would avoid checking a bag at
all costs. It's also very simple because I travel with
almost nothing. It wears you down to have to carry
a lot of things around, and if you're strategic about
your dressing and the materials of the clothing that you bring,
(16:22):
you don't need that much. Especially as women, you can
wear skirts. That helps because you can wear a skirt
like all week and it's not gross. By the end
of my sort of ten years of building my company
and traveling all the time, I was down to traveling
with just a purse for years. I mean, it's a
hefty person. There's nothing like showing up in a city,
(16:43):
not having to wait for luggage, being able to hop
on a city bike or whatever the equivalent is in
the place that you are being able to go directly
to the conference or directly to going out to bars,
or without having to drop off anything. It's so liberating
and it's very achievable. But you have to be willing to,
(17:06):
like fundamentally reconsider some things about the way you pack.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Okay, I want to get into the specifics. How do
you travel with no luggage?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Hygiene is important, Like I don't want to smell bad,
I don't want to be gross, so I'd travel with
about seven pairs of underwear. You know, if you want
to hand wash things, shampoo is basically going to clean something,
as well as laundry detergent will otherwise. Good materials wool, silk,
(17:36):
leather for outerwear, it's very insulating. But these natural materials
are timeless. So this is a Marino top. It's reversible,
so it can either be like the scoop neck or
it can be a boat neck with a low back. Okay,
and it's thermoregulating.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Is this the material that also doesn't soak up body odor.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Okay, Yeah, you basically hang it up in the closet
and it doesn't smell. Okay, So yes, I still wash
it about once a week, but I can wear the
same shirt for seven days. I've talked to some people
who just like don't even wash their Marino, which is
you know, that's a choice and same you can get
nice Marino woolpants or if you're traveling hotter climates, silk
is great for this. So just having a really effective
(18:18):
capsule wardrobe of things that you can swap in and out.
As big toilet trees, almost everything can be powdered. So
really toothpowder rather than toothpaste, you know, like a travel
sized tooth paste thing will get you like maybe like
three or four days if you're brushing twice a day. Yeah,
(18:39):
if you have toothpowder about the same form factor, that'll
last you a month or two. Then shoes are another
big thing. People carry way too many shoes. I'll generally
have something that I can hike er work out in,
usually sneakers, maybe heavy duty sandals, and then one thing
that I can dress up. I do have these amazing
(19:00):
sandals that have heels that you can remove or you know,
it's like these sort of transformer heels. I'm obsessed with them.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Transformer heels is amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, and it's nice because I can wear the flats
all day and then I want to look a little
nicer and I'll put the heel on for dinner, for
a concert or something. Okay, and then the electronics as well.
People just like there is a smaller, more efficient version
of pretty much everything that you would carry in your suitcase.
The universal travel adapter that I have is like a
quarter of the size of a normal one. My sunglasses
(19:33):
fold up to be about the size of like two
credit cards, and they're actually pretty fashionable. It's Rove. Roav
is the brand. I love them. There's a brand that
makes this thing. They call it underwear for lounge, gym
and swim, and it's basically like simple cuts of sort
of bikini underwear and a few different styles of tops
(19:55):
that are like really nice for lounge gym and swim.
So yeah, just having really versatile things. Yeah, I mean
my belt is also like a strap that I can
attach to my DP kit to turn it into a purse.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
No kidding, Wow, Okay, So transform is the key word here.
Things that can do other things. Yes, yeah, let's talk
about hotels, Airbnbs, accommodations can get super expensive. Let's say
that you're talking to somebody who has only ever traveled
(20:29):
by staying in hotels. What's your pitch to them to
try something different.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
That's funny because people so often fixate on getting a
cheap flight, but they don't think about the hotel. You know,
maybe you can get a three hundred dollars flight to London,
but then you're going to be spending two hundred plus
dollars a night in a hotel. Hotels are just very expensive.
And if you want to treat yourself, and if that's
what you're looking for, great, But I think what a
(20:55):
lot of people are looking for when they travel is
to meet people, to have new experiences. And in a hotel,
you're going to be very isolated for the most part,
and it'll be relaxing and you'll have control over your
situation and people who want to help you, you know,
concierges and room service. But I think that that's almost
(21:19):
a waste unless you're on your honeymoon or something.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Sure, it's going to feel like you're inside of a
hotel room anywhere in the world really true, could be anywhere.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So first of all, there are inns and guesthouses and hostels,
and I feel like people hear the term hostel and
they think about, you know, I don't know, there was
that movie taken or something, you know, like yeah, they
got captured, and or they think it's going to be
like a dorm full of twenty four year olds, And yeah,
it might be if you choose that. But most hostels
(21:49):
will also have a private room or a room that is,
you know, for twin beds and it's women only or something.
You know, you can choose tears, but it will be
a lot cheaper than a hotel. And so then you
also have this built in social experience. You have people
who are also wanting to travel and explore. You'll still
(22:10):
have a front desk person or someone local who will
be able to give you good tips, just like a
concierge at a fancy hotel, but also they might be
a little bit more real because concierges want tips and
they want to send you to the expensive places that
will give them a kickback, whereas the desk person at
the hostel might be like, this is the bar, I
go to this is the you know, this is the
(22:32):
great place to go and salsa dance for free. There's
also CouchSurfing, which you know. I join CouchSurfing in two
thousand and eight and it's been through a lot of changes,
but I still have friends who do it, and I
logged back into the website not too long ago, and
(22:54):
it's really incredible how this has managed to be a thing.
If you're not familiar CouchSurfing dot com and you create
a profile and you request a couch or a spare
room or something, you request to stay with people for free,
and you build up a profile and you can search
in any city who's offering whatever, and they can say,
you know, we have an air mattress on the floor,
(23:14):
or we have a tiny home in our backyard or
what have you. It doesn't work super well in places
like Barcelona or Paris or New York where everyone's traveling
and trying to get here, but if you're passing through Bilbao,
Spain or something. My first experience CouchSurfing was with this
really sweet Swedish girl who lived in Gorgos, which is
(23:38):
a town in northern Spain. I was living in Madrid,
I was working there for the summer. There was some
mystery holiday I'd never heard of, some Catholic Saints' birthday
or celebration day, and so I had the day off
work and I just decided to do an overnight trip
and sent out CouchSurfing requests to three people, and she
was the first one who said yes. We went and
(24:01):
I got to meet her friends. She worked in a
movie theater that had like the old reels, so she
had me back in the projection booth and showed me
how that worked. Why it was so cool. I mean,
we met and she's like, I'm in the middle of work.
Her keys to my place. You can let yourself in
is easy. I was just totally blown away. But maybe
because of that experience, and I've just had so many
(24:23):
experienced people just default trusting and it's not like I'm
a complete unknown. I've got a profile, you build up vouches,
people write testimonials to you. Maybe they live in a
smaller town and they're excited to meet new people. I've
had really incredible experiences.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
After the break, Jillian shares three stories where her decision
to go budget left her richer in much more than
just money. This is what I love about staying with
(25:05):
other people when you travel is that it's not just
a price half, it's also this added dimension of connecting
with people where you're there. Have you had any stories
that really change your life from CouchSurfing.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
I mean truly. I think the wildest one was I
stayed with a woman for a couple of days in
Kiev in Ukraine. She was a French diplomat and she
was really kind, and I think my second day there,
she said, Oh, we've actually got this like famous French
(25:38):
cartoonist like VIP visiting, and he's getting the standard like
VIP tour of the city. You speak French, you can
just go. And I was like, so we're in this
like black car limo service with a tour guide and
this famous cartoonist and then me no explanation, and we
(25:59):
get taken to every major site in Kiev and get
this beautiful tour. And I was just there for two days.
And then I was going to Kazakhstan to visit a
friend who was teaching English there, and this was also
I remember I was so excited because I'd gotten like
one hundred and three dollars flight and I show up
in Kazakhstan, and they said I didn't have the right visa,
(26:21):
which was false. I totally did, but they needed a bribe.
It was a long time anyway, so they deported me,
which was frustrating. Same day they just put me on
a plane straight back to Kiev. Wow. And I landed
quite late at night, and I was like, Laura, I'm
so sorry, but is there any chance I could just
crash with you tonight and I'll figure out my stuff
in the morning. I don't want to overimpose. She was
(26:43):
always already so generous. She's like, oh, you know, actually
I'm leaving for Egypt for eleven days, and if you
could take care of my cat, like I was going
to pay my friend, but if you could take care
of my cat, then you can just stay in my apartment.
Also like bart who was one of her friends. His
birthday is tomorrow. And then you know, Emily rented a
(27:03):
boat for a you know, exploring the river or whatever.
And she basically set me up with an apartment, a cat,
I love cats, and a social calendar.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
And then you know left for Egypt.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
What have you learned about the kindness of strangers through this?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
I mean, I think we so often underestimate the good
things that can happen, and we overestimate the things that
could go wrong. I'm not going to say all of
my travel has been rainbows and free VIP trips around Kiev.
You know, sometimes someone is creepy and hits on you
or something. You know, like things happen. I've been pickpocketed once,
(27:45):
But at the end of the day, like the tiny
bad things that have happened by like opening myself up
and being vulnerable and putting myself out there, a few
bad things have happened, but like a thousand amazing things
have happened, and I will tolerate the few bad things
for all the good things that can happen. So Yeah,
people cut themselves off from these opportunities by being afraid,
(28:09):
by being suspicious. And I do believe, having really made
a pretty thorough study of this, that most people are
pretty kind and want to help. And I've been in
situations where I've been lost, and I've been vulnerable, and
I've been drunk or you know, where things could have
gone poorly, and I've generally found that people want to
(28:32):
take care of you.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
How do you set yourself up to have a safe experience.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah, I mean I think try not to get drunk.
Obviously being smart about your surroundings. You know, I will
keep my money very close to my body, not in
a purse that's easy to slip a hand into. I
certainly would keep my valuables in a money belt or something.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Do you stay with men when you couch serve?
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I have relatively seldom. I've stayed with families. I've stayed
with in like houses with multiple people. I stayed with
an Iranian student in Sweden who was in a dorm,
so I knew I would be like around a lot
of other people. About ten years ago, I learned of
this thing called the Embassy network, which is a network
(29:22):
of people who live in usually in communal houses around
the world. And that's been incredible because now I feel
like I have a sort of hub and a built
in group of friends and almost any major city I
go to. But I was traveling to Amsterdam once and
it was pretty last minute. I'd been invited to a
conference where they sort of they're like, we'll give you
(29:44):
a free ticket, but we're not paying for hotel or accommodations.
It was like a bon balance. It's still worth it.
It's like it'll be a good professional networking thing. Yeah,
And so I was scrambling. But it was a big
conference and pretty much everything was booked up in the city,
and so I reached out to the Embassy network and
there was no house in Amsterdam, but there was someone
(30:07):
who was like, oh, but my friend Ari can host you.
And I was like, are we sure Ari wants to host?
And he's like, yeah, she's great. She's got a spare bedroom.
So I show up to Ari's house at seven am,
fresh off of red Eye, okay, and she's like, welcome,
you know, if you want to take a shower, I'm
making eggs. I was like that's so nice. And I
was like, also, just is there a cobbler nearby because
(30:29):
my boot like came apart on my trip over and
I need to, you know, and I'm going to the
conference in two hours. I need to figure this out.
And she's like, oh yeah, let me ask someone and
I go and take my shower. By the time I've
gotten out of the shower, there's like a full breakfast
and my boot is repaired no way, and she's like,
oh yeah, my neighbor had boot glue. And I just
(30:49):
put it, and it was just like, what a time
you get out of the show. I'm not a long shower,
this is like ten fifteen minutes. Wow.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
But she knows her neighbors and she's clued in with
her neighborhood and she just instantly yeah, was so welcoming.
She has a great cat as well, and you know,
the cat approved of me, which is always a big thing.
It's not a given. And so I stayed with her
for a couple of days. And then a year later, unexpectedly,
(31:22):
I was in Amsterdam with a person that we broke up,
and I was rather adrift and I just texted Ari
and I was like, no expectations, but I'd love to
see you because I am randomly free now. Was not
expecting to be wow. And She's like, immediately, come over.
(31:43):
The spare room is yours, Misha. Her cat is here
to comfort you, and she's like, you probably need to
like scream cry for a little bit. Right. I didn't
confirm or deny, but it was true. And that's still
I mean it almost it makes me emotional just thinking
about it. How this person who really was just a
friend of a friend was so generous.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Gave you a really warm place to land, Yeah, when
you needed it. Wow, that's really special.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yeah. I do think One of the solo trips I
took that meant a lot was actually to Syria in
what turned out to be the beginning of the Civil War,
which I didn't realize at the time. And I was
in Damascus sort of for a work thing and a conference,
(32:35):
but then I had planned to travel around the country
and my third day there, I actually hitchhiked out to
I got on the back of some Bedouin's motorcycle. I
missed the bus and I was like, I can wait
four hours for the next bus, or this random dude
is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose
option B. Would I make that same decision today, I
(32:57):
don't know. It worked out fine, and we went and
I got to see these incredible ancient ruins, and Isis
largely destroyed them a couple of years later. So I mean,
you can miss things, you know. I don't want to
give people total fomo, but also like, not everything is
going to be here forever. Yeah, and between climate change,
(33:20):
between unrest, you know, there are some things that are
very worth exploring and seeing and don't hesitate because you
know no one will get to see what I got
to see anymore. I also went to Gazaan twenty nineteen,
and everything that I saw as flattened.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, but there's a lot of beauty and incredible. There
are a lot of beautiful things to experience in the world,
and relationships are important, the relationships you build as well.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah. If you have the idea to go see a place,
go see it.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
So, since you've been traveling solo since you were eighteen fifteen,
twelve twelve, what insights would you share it to, like
a newer solo traveler, maybe somebody who's a little bit
more nervous just about the art of solo traveling.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
If it's really not working out for you, you can
cut the trip short. And I think again, just this
fear of the unknown holds us back from so many
good experiences. So hopefully some of my ridiculous stories will
help you realize that there are really good things that
(34:31):
can happen, but don't overestimate the things that can go wrong.
And if tragically, unfortunately something does really go wrong, like
you can bail, It's okay, You're probably going to survive. Hey, Solita's.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
If Jillian's got you wondering about other ways to travel
cheap and build community, I want to share three extra resources.
Check Wonderful, wa n d er Ful. It's a really
vibrant women's travel community with local meetups in dozens of cities.
Or consider signing up for Kindred, where you can swap
(35:12):
your home with someone else's home. It's a great way
to meet local neighbors. And hey, maybe her brother is
Jude Law and maybe you fall in love and maybe
that's just the plot of the two thousand and six
romantic comedy The Holiday, but maybe not Last resource. It's
a newer platform, and it's called nomad Table. It's an
app that connects travelers with other travelers and locals for
(35:36):
shared meals wherever you land, and with that make new friends,
fall in love, powder your teeth and get on the
back of that motorcycle. Solita is a production of iHeart
Podcasts and No Floaties Productions. I'm your host Julie Pinero.
Our producers are Me and Mary Do, with consulting from
(35:58):
Emily Maronoff and Hate Mansburger. Editing, mixing and mastering by
Mary Doo and engineered by Bihid Fraser and Paul Bowman.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Our theme song is by Ballum.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Cover art is by Me with finishing touches by Studio Lee,
and our executive producers are Me, Julie Binero, and Jason English.
If you like this episode, please tell a friend and
don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to Solita on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, and wherever you get your
favorite shows.
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