April 30, 2025 • 21 mins
Join Ralph Velasco in this enlightening conversation about intentional travel. As he delves into his latest book series, "The Mindful & Intentional Traveler," Ralph outlines the importance of thoughtfully experiencing each destination. Learn how to cultivate a deeper appreciation for the world around you and make your travels not just a checklist, but a series of meaningful memories that resonate throughout your life.
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YouTube: https://youtube.com/continentaldrifter
Facebook: https://facebook.com/thecontinentaldrifter
Instagram: https://instagram.com/ralphvelasco
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-troka-3a093058/
Website: https://focused-biz.com/
Website: https://christroka.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Be here now.
And those three words really resonatedwith me, but it sort of took me 40
years to kind of have it really registerbecause as I got older and the more I
travel, the more I appreciate slow traveland being here now, and that's where
(00:21):
mindful and intentional travel comes in.
I say, travel deep, not wide.
You're listening to Brainwork Framework,a business and marketing podcast
brought to you by focused- biz.
com.
Welcome back to another episodewith us today is Ralph Velasco.
He is the chief drifter atContinental Drifter Experiences,
also made famous and known onYouTube as the Continental Drifter.
(00:44):
Make sure to check him out.
Really excited to chat with him today.
Ralph, thanks so much for joining us.
How are you today?
I'm great.
Thanks for having me along.
Absolutely.
So the Continental Drifter,how did this come about?
What was your journey?
What were you doing before?
And how did that lead youinto what you're doing today?
Yeah, it might be easier to tellyou what I didn't do before this
but no, I've always been a traveler.
(01:05):
I've enjoyed traveling internationally onmy own or with like other organizations,
as opposed to like with family and thingslike that since I was about 15 and I
studied for a summer in Spain next year.
Was a volunteer in Peru for a summer.
The next year I volunteered inVenezuela and the next summer I studied
(01:28):
in Mexico city Spanish language.
So I've been a traveler since fairlyyoung and got hooked from the start.
Always enjoyed photography and so Ialways say it only took me 45 years
to figure out what to do with my life.
Most people never do.
So I guess I'm lucky in that sensebut it was kind of a late bloomer and
(01:51):
I had several restaurants I've owned.
I grew up in the restaurant industry.
So I grew up in an entrepreneurialfamily where I saw my parents working
very hard to run their own business.
After I sold my first restaurant, Ibought around the world ticket and
I traveled around the world for fivemonths by myself and that was one of
(02:12):
the great experiences of my life doingthat at age 24 that was a long time
ago before the internet social media.
Cell phones practically before the wheeland a wonderful experience but a very
different way of traveling back then.
And after that gosh, most recently,I was a marketing director for a
(02:33):
division of a fortune 500 company.
Right before that, I moved backto Mexico city and I was getting
my master's in internationalbusiness administration there.
So I figured what better way to get in.
An MBA then internationally becausewe had an international focus.
So lived in Mexico city moved back toSan Diego or moved to San Diego where the
(02:58):
school was based and finished up my degreethere and ended up being in Southern
California for about 15 years total.
Move back to Chicago in 99 andin 2001, I opened up my second
restaurant in downtown Chicago and Iopened up about five months before.
(03:18):
So that was like May of 2001 and then weall know what happened in September 2001
and here I was with a new business indowntown Chicago, everyone thought that we
were going to be next with the terroristattacks so that was tough stuff to be in
business at that time but eventually I hadthat restaurant from 2001 to 2004 and This
(03:40):
was what I would call the dawn of digitalphotography was the early two thousands.
And so at least consumer wise.
I started getting introduced to it.
I bought my first Kodak, easy shareone megapixel camera and I said, I bet
there'd be a market for people to helppeople to learn how to use these new
(04:01):
digital devices and so I was gettingto the end of my initial three year
lease where I had to decide, was Igoing to sign for another five years?
Or was I going to sell the businessand it was tough going at that time.
And I had this idea for creatingsome photo walking tours in
the city where I could teachpeople how to use those cameras.
(04:25):
And so I had to decide,was I going to sell her?
Was I going to sign thatadditional five years?
So I've literally took a yellow padand I said, on the left side, what do I
dislike about the restaurant industry.
Number one, I have employees, I'vegot a very expensive space in the
(04:45):
city that I got that rent comes everymonth no matter how good businesses
are not and then I came home smellinglike a French fry every night.
I was selling something to peoplethat they could consume and
could potentially make them sick.
So these negatives.
And then on the right side,I wrote the positives.
I said, I want to work for myself.
I don't want employees.
(05:06):
I want to work from wherever my laptop is.
I want to take a showerbefore work, not after.
And so all these things led meto think maybe I could create a
service teaching people how touse their new digital devices.
And then to make a long story alittle bit longer I eventually decided
that, okay, I was going to do that.
I sold the business.
(05:27):
I said, I'm going to create this otherside hustle of organizing photo walking
tours but then I realized, Chicago, thebest place to do that because the weather?
Not great, maybe six, seven,eight months out of the year.
I still think it gets a bad rapbut you're a little bit north
of me in Milwaukee, so we live intwo great cities but people think
(05:50):
that it's just cold all the time.
So I moved out to Californiaback out to California.
I'd already lived there.
Like I said, when I was in San Diego,so I moved back out to California,
started working for a friendof mine as a financial advisor.
He had a business he was a broker.
So he hired me and said, whydon't you get your licenses,
(06:12):
come on out here and work for me.
So I was like, okay, that'sa way to get out there.
And then I could create this businessfrom start from scratch out there.
So that's what I did.
And, just to fast forward alittle bit came September 2008,
we all know what happened.
We had a September, not a good month.
We had the financial crisis and hereI am a newbie financial advisor.
(06:36):
And the world was almostcoming to an end at that time.
And here I am trying to buildthat business, very difficult.
So that was the next day was theday that I said, I want full time.
Being a full time tour organizerand professional travel
photographer and that's what I'vedone for the past 16 years now.
Wow.
That's an incredible.
Sounds like a quite a journey to goon that somehow these opportunities
(06:59):
present themselves to you but itwas up to you to make that decision
if you wanted to go forward or not.
And someone who worked myselfin the restaurant industry, I
can attest to smelling like adeep fryer and french fries and
having a shower after you go home.
It never really leaves your clothes.
Unfortunately, you just haveyour set of work clothes.
That's right.
But good on you for finding thatopportunity, trying to provide
value through these walking tours.
(07:21):
Teaching them how to use these toolsand then fast forward today, now you're
kind of living a very enjoyable lifesomewhat stay being able to travel but
unfortunately, it's not all playtime,you're also working, you're creating
content so that's kind of at the frontof your mind so now, how's everything
going with the content creation forYouTube, kind of building this out?
(07:42):
Are you kind of gearing your experience?
To fit your content or you just kindof filming your enjoyment and then
the content gets created from that.
Yeah, it's a good question.
And it's probably a littlebit of both but more.
What I like to do is film what I'm alreadydoing on my trips and creating videos that
give people a good idea for what I do andwhat my days are like when I'm traveling,
(08:09):
I love to videotape particular experiencesthat I'm having, maybe it's something like
riding La Bruja in Columbia, which is areally interesting sort of cross between
a motorcycle and a hand cart on rails.
If you can picture that just differentthings like that, food experiences.
(08:31):
I love to incorporate foodinto my trips because it's such
a big part of travel anyway.
And I come from that background,so I'm interested in it and
my clients are interested.
So any of those, but then I also willput together these experiences into
one video perhaps that maybe gives anoverview of a particular trip of mine.
And that's really cool.
I think it opens up for the audiencean opportunity to visit a place that
(08:55):
they may not be able to financiallyafford to go to or are just curious
about visiting in the future.
They get to see that real hands onexperience so they can try the food, live
those experiences similar to yours andkind of customize that to themselves.
For sure.
Yeah, I often hear that people areliving vicariously through me, which is
(09:15):
nice that I can provide that for them.
It is excellent.
So now you have a newbook series coming out.
Do you mind going moreinto detail about that?
Of course.
I'll tell you the back story of how thisseries came about and it's called the
mindful and intentional traveler series.
Back on that trip in Peru, I toldyou I was 16 years old in high school
(09:36):
and I want to travel to Peru with myhigh school on a trip, like a social
justice trip, there was nine studentsand four teachers slash priests and
went to an all boys high school.
And we were down there nineteenage boys, as you can imagine,
we started moaning and groaningabout, Oh, we miss our beds at home.
(09:59):
We miss our mother's cooking andour friends and family and stuff.
So after about a week or two,one of the priests sat us down.
He says, guys, you know what?
You've got the most incrediblelife opportunity of a lifetime
to be here in Peru on literallyon the other side of the world,
experiencing seeing this way of life.
(10:21):
Be here now.
And those three words really resonatedwith me but it sort of took me 40 years
to kind of have it really registerbecause as I got older and the more I
travel, the more I appreciate slow traveland being here now and that's where
(10:42):
mindful and intentional travel comes in.
It means to be present
in a nutshell and so as a photographer,especially I'm the worst at this
because I go to these amazing placesand I see them through the viewfinder
of camera and I would come home andI'd say, man, I know I was there.
(11:06):
I got the passport stamps, the receipts,the memories and the photographs, was
I there mentally or did I just see thatplace through the viewfinder of a camera?
So the more as I age, I'mappreciating slow travel.
I think we slow down not that I feellike I'm really slowing down but we've
(11:30):
done some things, so perhaps we'vealready done those things and now we
can maybe do less or other things.
And I just like to spreadout the experience and I
say, travel deep, not wide.
And I love to do a deeper dive intoa place than trying to see a little
bit of a whole region or country.
(11:53):
Now, my trips are focusing moreon one, maybe two locations in a
destination and we do a deeper diveinto those instead of hitting the
Rome, Florence, Venice, typicaltourist track, we get off that track.
And have other experiencesthat are complimentary to that.
(12:13):
And my clients love it.
That is wonderful.
So do you offer a service whereyou're kind of their guide and
you offer them consulting toimprove their travel experience?
Well, I'm not sure if you realizethat I organize and lead these
tours and I'm on every trip.
So I lead every trip.
I'm there.
I do some custom tour organizing forsmall groups, families, organizations
(12:37):
that want to do their own thing.
They can't travel on my dates.
They don't necessarilyneed me on the trip.
So that I'm doing more and more of buttypically I'm on a trip with a group.
So oftentimes they're coming on a tripbecause they know me, they've seen me
perhaps on my YouTube channel or onpodcasts but I get over 50 percent repeat
(13:01):
rate of people coming back on to my trips.
So at least 10 people have traveledwith me before but some trips
it's nine out of nine or more.
So I think that says a lot.
I've got all five star reviewsover 16 years, nothing but five
star reviews for all my trips.
(13:22):
So I like nothing more than to sharethese places with my clients and to
see the place through their eyes.
So I am trying to pass along this ideaof more mindful and intentional travel
because I don't think a lot of peoplethink about it but as we get older,
we start to think about these thingsand it's it's pretty interesting.
(13:45):
That is so exciting.
So when you're working with your group,what does that process usually look like?
Are these all preplanned trips by you?
Do they have any input?
Or are you just kind of leadingand guiding them throughout
the entire experience?
Or do you kind of kind of throwin a wild card every now and
again and say, hey, you know what?
I think we're going to do this instead.
Yeah, I definitely like to do that andtry to keep some cards in my pocket once
(14:08):
in a while or up my sleeve for gueststo skim a little surprise, but no,
they're mostly planned but I do abouta half day scheduled half day free.
So we handle everything from soup to nutsfrom picking you up at the airport in the
destination to dropping you off at theend with my guidance, people arrange their
own flights from into the destination.
(14:29):
So I help them with that but theyarrange it because people are
coming from all over the world.
They've got different airlines.
They want to use timing, et cetera.
So we handle pretty much everything else.
But I also like to provide ahalf day of scheduled activities
and a half day of free time.
So that's a really nice hybrid.
Those trips where everything'sscheduled for you 24 seven for
(14:52):
14 days straight makes me tired.
Just thinking about it, let alonehaving to lead 10 or 12 of those kinds
of trips a year, which is what I do.
So it gives me a little downtimetoo, which typically means that
I just have time to do my otherwork because when I'm on a trip.
I'm really focused on that tripbut I'm still planning 5 or 6 trips
(15:14):
in advance or breaking down froma couple trips that just finished.
So there's always something to do butwhen I'm on the trip, obviously, that's
my priority but typical day might looklike somewhat early breakfast, 7, 7 30.
Then we're out by 8 39 o'clock.
I like to get out beforethe heat of the day.
The tourist crowds, betterlight, things like that.
(15:38):
We might even get out earlierbut we're not like every sunrise
or sunset and things like that.
People can choose todo that which is great.
But my tours were used to bemore focused on photography and
teaching people travel photography.
That's I've kind of backed offthat a little bit over the years.
As smartphone photography becomesmore popular and those hardcore photo
(16:03):
workshops are very tough to run.
For what I just said, it's everysunrise, sunset, image reviews, photo
walks, one on ones and and that'stough to do for the tour leader.
So I got to think of myself more thanany because I have to keep doing this
and think of my own well being too.
Absolutely.
(16:23):
And I love that balance betweenthe half day of planned activities
and the half free day justfinds that nice balance between.
Enjoying some new experiencesbeing planned and then just that
spontaneity that comes with it.
I'm kind of curious.
What was Antarctica like?
It seems like it's very unique continentand maybe not much to do there.
Or maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe there's some excitingstuff in Antarctica.
(16:45):
What is that like?
Yeah, I figured out that 0.
005 percent of the world's populationhas ever been to Antarctica.
So it's a pretty exclusive place and it'sa place that I had always wanted to go to.
I mean, it's the 7th continent,it's the place that is the most
off the beaten path I imagine.
(17:06):
So I finally found a touroperator that flies down there.
I wasn't interested in doing theDrake passage, sailing the Drake
passage, even on a big shipbecause it can be notoriously rough.
There's three oceansthat come together there.
They don't like each other and youcan get 100 foot waves and I'm a
(17:27):
sailor and I race sailboats butI have no interest in doing that.
One of the clients on my last trip,it was his second attempt to get to
Antarctica because his first attempt,someone died on the ship going down
from Argentina to the continent.
They must've hit her some rogue wavesand he got slammed against the side
(17:49):
of the The ship somehow and had ahead injury, so that was terrible.
So he went down, he's like,okay, I'm flying down this time.
And so he came with us.
So we fly down in less than 2 hours.
It's on a proper airplane, 75 seater.
You've got lunch on the way,flight attendants, everything.
It's great but then you get down there,you land on a sort of a research station
(18:13):
type airstrip and then they take you tothe shore where the zodiacs pick us up.
You could see our ship sitting offshore.
It's the smallest ship in theindustry, so 67 passengers and probably
maybe another 20 or 30 crew but
it's a proper ship.
I mean, this was a formericebreaker from Greenland.
(18:36):
So beautiful ship and allows us to getinto any drop off point that we want
because there's a treaty down there thatOnly a hundred people or less can ever
get off on the shore at one point atone time and at any one landing point.
So with the ship where there's only 67clients, the whole ship can get off.
I don't know what the maximumship is, but I think there's
(18:58):
ships with a thousand people.
They have to do it in stages orknock it off at all or whatever.
So kind of interesting.
Anyway this was absolutely fantastic andyou really know how off the beaten path
you are and how remote you are because ofthe silence the fact that you don't see
(19:18):
any airplane contrails or cell towers orfences or any man made structures and it's
just wildlife and landscapes and glaciers,beautiful icebergs, absolutely incredible.
So it was quite the destination.
I'm not a wild, I mean, I love animals.
(19:40):
I love wildlife but safaris andAntarctica and seeing the animals wasn't
that high on my list, to be honest,but man, was I happy that I got there.
And I've got a trip to Tanzania andZanzibar coming up this summer for an
actual safari, which I've never been on.
Very nice.
That is so cool.
For anyone who is interested ingetting in touch with you and finding
(20:03):
you online, where should they go?
You could go to continental drifterdot C O that's the hub for everything.
You can see all my trips thatare coming up in the future.
There the podcasts I've been on linksto my YouTube channel, my books,
merchandise, everything is there.
Excellent.
And we'll have the links available downin the show notes and the description so
(20:24):
you can get connected with Ralph here.
Ralph, I have one follow upquestion I wanted to ask.
If there is just literally one placethat you would recommend for others to go
visit, like, hey, you have to at least trythis once and I know you haven't seen it
all yet but as of today, where would yourecommend people to at least try once?
Well, Spain is probably my favoritecountry and it's the one I've
(20:47):
been to the most I would imagineand spent the most time there.
I speak the language.
I just love the culture, the food,the people, everything about Spain.
And I think it's a reallygood sort of dipping your toes
into international travel.
If you haven't traveled, it's aplace that is fairly easy to travel.
(21:07):
It's got a great tourist infrastructure.
A lot of the people speak English.
So you'll get around no problemeven if you don't speak Spanish but
it's still sort of exotic enough.
That and it's a big countrywith great transportation.
Can't recommend Spain enoughand the food, Oh, the food.
You had me at everythingyou listed already.
(21:28):
That sounds like a fantastic place.
Rob, we appreciate you comingout and sharing your wisdom,
tips and tricks with us.
Really appreciate hearingabout your journey.
Thank you again.
Excited to look forward to all of theplaces that you're going to visit and
travel and share on your YouTube channel.
Very excited for it.
Thank you.
I appreciate your having me on.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, Ralph.
Be here now.
And those three words really resonatedwith me, but it sort of took me 40
years to kind of have it really registerbecause as I got older and the more I
travel, the more I appreciate slow traveland being here now, and that's where
(00:21):
mindful and intentional travel comes in.
I say, travel deep, not wide.
You're listening to Brainwork Framework,a business and marketing podcast
brought to you by focused- biz.
com.
Welcome back to another episodewith us today is Ralph Velasco.
He is the chief drifter atContinental Drifter Experiences,
also made famous and known onYouTube as the Continental Drifter.
(00:44):
Make sure to check him out.
Really excited to chat with him today.
Ralph, thanks so much for joining us.
How are you today?
I'm great.
Thanks for having me along.
Absolutely.
So the Continental Drifter,how did this come about?
What was your journey?
What were you doing before?
And how did that lead youinto what you're doing today?
Yeah, it might be easier to tellyou what I didn't do before this
but no, I've always been a traveler.
(01:05):
I've enjoyed traveling internationally onmy own or with like other organizations,
as opposed to like with family and thingslike that since I was about 15 and I
studied for a summer in Spain next year.
Was a volunteer in Peru for a summer.
The next year I volunteered inVenezuela and the next summer I studied
(01:28):
in Mexico city Spanish language.
So I've been a traveler since fairlyyoung and got hooked from the start.
Always enjoyed photography and so Ialways say it only took me 45 years
to figure out what to do with my life.
Most people never do.
So I guess I'm lucky in that sensebut it was kind of a late bloomer and
(01:51):
I had several restaurants I've owned.
I grew up in the restaurant industry.
So I grew up in an entrepreneurialfamily where I saw my parents working
very hard to run their own business.
After I sold my first restaurant, Ibought around the world ticket and
I traveled around the world for fivemonths by myself and that was one of
(02:12):
the great experiences of my life doingthat at age 24 that was a long time
ago before the internet social media.
Cell phones practically before the wheeland a wonderful experience but a very
different way of traveling back then.
And after that gosh, most recently,I was a marketing director for a
(02:33):
division of a fortune 500 company.
Right before that, I moved backto Mexico city and I was getting
my master's in internationalbusiness administration there.
So I figured what better way to get in.
An MBA then internationally becausewe had an international focus.
So lived in Mexico city moved back toSan Diego or moved to San Diego where the
(02:58):
school was based and finished up my degreethere and ended up being in Southern
California for about 15 years total.
Move back to Chicago in 99 andin 2001, I opened up my second
restaurant in downtown Chicago and Iopened up about five months before.
(03:18):
So that was like May of 2001 and then weall know what happened in September 2001
and here I was with a new business indowntown Chicago, everyone thought that we
were going to be next with the terroristattacks so that was tough stuff to be in
business at that time but eventually I hadthat restaurant from 2001 to 2004 and This
(03:40):
was what I would call the dawn of digitalphotography was the early two thousands.
And so at least consumer wise.
I started getting introduced to it.
I bought my first Kodak, easy shareone megapixel camera and I said, I bet
there'd be a market for people to helppeople to learn how to use these new
(04:01):
digital devices and so I was gettingto the end of my initial three year
lease where I had to decide, was Igoing to sign for another five years?
Or was I going to sell the businessand it was tough going at that time.
And I had this idea for creatingsome photo walking tours in
the city where I could teachpeople how to use those cameras.
(04:25):
And so I had to decide,was I going to sell her?
Was I going to sign thatadditional five years?
So I've literally took a yellow padand I said, on the left side, what do I
dislike about the restaurant industry.
Number one, I have employees, I'vegot a very expensive space in the
(04:45):
city that I got that rent comes everymonth no matter how good businesses
are not and then I came home smellinglike a French fry every night.
I was selling something to peoplethat they could consume and
could potentially make them sick.
So these negatives.
And then on the right side,I wrote the positives.
I said, I want to work for myself.
I don't want employees.
(05:06):
I want to work from wherever my laptop is.
I want to take a showerbefore work, not after.
And so all these things led meto think maybe I could create a
service teaching people how touse their new digital devices.
And then to make a long story alittle bit longer I eventually decided
that, okay, I was going to do that.
I sold the business.
(05:27):
I said, I'm going to create this otherside hustle of organizing photo walking
tours but then I realized, Chicago, thebest place to do that because the weather?
Not great, maybe six, seven,eight months out of the year.
I still think it gets a bad rapbut you're a little bit north
of me in Milwaukee, so we live intwo great cities but people think
(05:50):
that it's just cold all the time.
So I moved out to Californiaback out to California.
I'd already lived there.
Like I said, when I was in San Diego,so I moved back out to California,
started working for a friendof mine as a financial advisor.
He had a business he was a broker.
So he hired me and said, whydon't you get your licenses,
(06:12):
come on out here and work for me.
So I was like, okay, that'sa way to get out there.
And then I could create this businessfrom start from scratch out there.
So that's what I did.
And, just to fast forward alittle bit came September 2008,
we all know what happened.
We had a September, not a good month.
We had the financial crisis and hereI am a newbie financial advisor.
(06:36):
And the world was almostcoming to an end at that time.
And here I am trying to buildthat business, very difficult.
So that was the next day was theday that I said, I want full time.
Being a full time tour organizerand professional travel
photographer and that's what I'vedone for the past 16 years now.
Wow.
That's an incredible.
Sounds like a quite a journey to goon that somehow these opportunities
(06:59):
present themselves to you but itwas up to you to make that decision
if you wanted to go forward or not.
And someone who worked myselfin the restaurant industry, I
can attest to smelling like adeep fryer and french fries and
having a shower after you go home.
It never really leaves your clothes.
Unfortunately, you just haveyour set of work clothes.
That's right.
But good on you for finding thatopportunity, trying to provide
value through these walking tours.
(07:21):
Teaching them how to use these toolsand then fast forward today, now you're
kind of living a very enjoyable lifesomewhat stay being able to travel but
unfortunately, it's not all playtime,you're also working, you're creating
content so that's kind of at the frontof your mind so now, how's everything
going with the content creation forYouTube, kind of building this out?
(07:42):
Are you kind of gearing your experience?
To fit your content or you just kindof filming your enjoyment and then
the content gets created from that.
Yeah, it's a good question.
And it's probably a littlebit of both but more.
What I like to do is film what I'm alreadydoing on my trips and creating videos that
give people a good idea for what I do andwhat my days are like when I'm traveling,
(08:09):
I love to videotape particular experiencesthat I'm having, maybe it's something like
riding La Bruja in Columbia, which is areally interesting sort of cross between
a motorcycle and a hand cart on rails.
If you can picture that just differentthings like that, food experiences.
(08:31):
I love to incorporate foodinto my trips because it's such
a big part of travel anyway.
And I come from that background,so I'm interested in it and
my clients are interested.
So any of those, but then I also willput together these experiences into
one video perhaps that maybe gives anoverview of a particular trip of mine.
And that's really cool.
I think it opens up for the audiencean opportunity to visit a place that
(08:55):
they may not be able to financiallyafford to go to or are just curious
about visiting in the future.
They get to see that real hands onexperience so they can try the food, live
those experiences similar to yours andkind of customize that to themselves.
For sure.
Yeah, I often hear that people areliving vicariously through me, which is
(09:15):
nice that I can provide that for them.
It is excellent.
So now you have a newbook series coming out.
Do you mind going moreinto detail about that?
Of course.
I'll tell you the back story of how thisseries came about and it's called the
mindful and intentional traveler series.
Back on that trip in Peru, I toldyou I was 16 years old in high school
(09:36):
and I want to travel to Peru with myhigh school on a trip, like a social
justice trip, there was nine studentsand four teachers slash priests and
went to an all boys high school.
And we were down there nineteenage boys, as you can imagine,
we started moaning and groaningabout, Oh, we miss our beds at home.
(09:59):
We miss our mother's cooking andour friends and family and stuff.
So after about a week or two,one of the priests sat us down.
He says, guys, you know what?
You've got the most incrediblelife opportunity of a lifetime
to be here in Peru on literallyon the other side of the world,
experiencing seeing this way of life.
(10:21):
Be here now.
And those three words really resonatedwith me but it sort of took me 40 years
to kind of have it really registerbecause as I got older and the more I
travel, the more I appreciate slow traveland being here now and that's where
(10:42):
mindful and intentional travel comes in.
It means to be present
in a nutshell and so as a photographer,especially I'm the worst at this
because I go to these amazing placesand I see them through the viewfinder
of camera and I would come home andI'd say, man, I know I was there.
(11:06):
I got the passport stamps, the receipts,the memories and the photographs, was
I there mentally or did I just see thatplace through the viewfinder of a camera?
So the more as I age, I'mappreciating slow travel.
I think we slow down not that I feellike I'm really slowing down but we've
(11:30):
done some things, so perhaps we'vealready done those things and now we
can maybe do less or other things.
And I just like to spreadout the experience and I
say, travel deep, not wide.
And I love to do a deeper dive intoa place than trying to see a little
bit of a whole region or country.
(11:53):
Now, my trips are focusing moreon one, maybe two locations in a
destination and we do a deeper diveinto those instead of hitting the
Rome, Florence, Venice, typicaltourist track, we get off that track.
And have other experiencesthat are complimentary to that.
(12:13):
And my clients love it.
That is wonderful.
So do you offer a service whereyou're kind of their guide and
you offer them consulting toimprove their travel experience?
Well, I'm not sure if you realizethat I organize and lead these
tours and I'm on every trip.
So I lead every trip.
I'm there.
I do some custom tour organizing forsmall groups, families, organizations
(12:37):
that want to do their own thing.
They can't travel on my dates.
They don't necessarilyneed me on the trip.
So that I'm doing more and more of buttypically I'm on a trip with a group.
So oftentimes they're coming on a tripbecause they know me, they've seen me
perhaps on my YouTube channel or onpodcasts but I get over 50 percent repeat
(13:01):
rate of people coming back on to my trips.
So at least 10 people have traveledwith me before but some trips
it's nine out of nine or more.
So I think that says a lot.
I've got all five star reviewsover 16 years, nothing but five
star reviews for all my trips.
(13:22):
So I like nothing more than to sharethese places with my clients and to
see the place through their eyes.
So I am trying to pass along this ideaof more mindful and intentional travel
because I don't think a lot of peoplethink about it but as we get older,
we start to think about these thingsand it's it's pretty interesting.
(13:45):
That is so exciting.
So when you're working with your group,what does that process usually look like?
Are these all preplanned trips by you?
Do they have any input?
Or are you just kind of leadingand guiding them throughout
the entire experience?
Or do you kind of kind of throwin a wild card every now and
again and say, hey, you know what?
I think we're going to do this instead.
Yeah, I definitely like to do that andtry to keep some cards in my pocket once
(14:08):
in a while or up my sleeve for gueststo skim a little surprise, but no,
they're mostly planned but I do abouta half day scheduled half day free.
So we handle everything from soup to nutsfrom picking you up at the airport in the
destination to dropping you off at theend with my guidance, people arrange their
own flights from into the destination.
(14:29):
So I help them with that but theyarrange it because people are
coming from all over the world.
They've got different airlines.
They want to use timing, et cetera.
So we handle pretty much everything else.
But I also like to provide ahalf day of scheduled activities
and a half day of free time.
So that's a really nice hybrid.
Those trips where everything'sscheduled for you 24 seven for
(14:52):
14 days straight makes me tired.
Just thinking about it, let alonehaving to lead 10 or 12 of those kinds
of trips a year, which is what I do.
So it gives me a little downtimetoo, which typically means that
I just have time to do my otherwork because when I'm on a trip.
I'm really focused on that tripbut I'm still planning 5 or 6 trips
(15:14):
in advance or breaking down froma couple trips that just finished.
So there's always something to do butwhen I'm on the trip, obviously, that's
my priority but typical day might looklike somewhat early breakfast, 7, 7 30.
Then we're out by 8 39 o'clock.
I like to get out beforethe heat of the day.
The tourist crowds, betterlight, things like that.
(15:38):
We might even get out earlierbut we're not like every sunrise
or sunset and things like that.
People can choose todo that which is great.
But my tours were used to bemore focused on photography and
teaching people travel photography.
That's I've kind of backed offthat a little bit over the years.
As smartphone photography becomesmore popular and those hardcore photo
(16:03):
workshops are very tough to run.
For what I just said, it's everysunrise, sunset, image reviews, photo
walks, one on ones and and that'stough to do for the tour leader.
So I got to think of myself more thanany because I have to keep doing this
and think of my own well being too.
Absolutely.
(16:23):
And I love that balance betweenthe half day of planned activities
and the half free day justfinds that nice balance between.
Enjoying some new experiencesbeing planned and then just that
spontaneity that comes with it.
I'm kind of curious.
What was Antarctica like?
It seems like it's very unique continentand maybe not much to do there.
Or maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe there's some excitingstuff in Antarctica.
(16:45):
What is that like?
Yeah, I figured out that 0.
005 percent of the world's populationhas ever been to Antarctica.
So it's a pretty exclusive place and it'sa place that I had always wanted to go to.
I mean, it's the 7th continent,it's the place that is the most
off the beaten path I imagine.
(17:06):
So I finally found a touroperator that flies down there.
I wasn't interested in doing theDrake passage, sailing the Drake
passage, even on a big shipbecause it can be notoriously rough.
There's three oceansthat come together there.
They don't like each other and youcan get 100 foot waves and I'm a
(17:27):
sailor and I race sailboats butI have no interest in doing that.
One of the clients on my last trip,it was his second attempt to get to
Antarctica because his first attempt,someone died on the ship going down
from Argentina to the continent.
They must've hit her some rogue wavesand he got slammed against the side
(17:49):
of the The ship somehow and had ahead injury, so that was terrible.
So he went down, he's like,okay, I'm flying down this time.
And so he came with us.
So we fly down in less than 2 hours.
It's on a proper airplane, 75 seater.
You've got lunch on the way,flight attendants, everything.
It's great but then you get down there,you land on a sort of a research station
(18:13):
type airstrip and then they take you tothe shore where the zodiacs pick us up.
You could see our ship sitting offshore.
It's the smallest ship in theindustry, so 67 passengers and probably
maybe another 20 or 30 crew but
it's a proper ship.
I mean, this was a formericebreaker from Greenland.
(18:36):
So beautiful ship and allows us to getinto any drop off point that we want
because there's a treaty down there thatOnly a hundred people or less can ever
get off on the shore at one point atone time and at any one landing point.
So with the ship where there's only 67clients, the whole ship can get off.
I don't know what the maximumship is, but I think there's
(18:58):
ships with a thousand people.
They have to do it in stages orknock it off at all or whatever.
So kind of interesting.
Anyway this was absolutely fantastic andyou really know how off the beaten path
you are and how remote you are because ofthe silence the fact that you don't see
(19:18):
any airplane contrails or cell towers orfences or any man made structures and it's
just wildlife and landscapes and glaciers,beautiful icebergs, absolutely incredible.
So it was quite the destination.
I'm not a wild, I mean, I love animals.
(19:40):
I love wildlife but safaris andAntarctica and seeing the animals wasn't
that high on my list, to be honest,but man, was I happy that I got there.
And I've got a trip to Tanzania andZanzibar coming up this summer for an
actual safari, which I've never been on.
Very nice.
That is so cool.
For anyone who is interested ingetting in touch with you and finding
(20:03):
you online, where should they go?
You could go to continental drifterdot C O that's the hub for everything.
You can see all my trips thatare coming up in the future.
There the podcasts I've been on linksto my YouTube channel, my books,
merchandise, everything is there.
Excellent.
And we'll have the links available downin the show notes and the description so
(20:24):
you can get connected with Ralph here.
Ralph, I have one follow upquestion I wanted to ask.
If there is just literally one placethat you would recommend for others to go
visit, like, hey, you have to at least trythis once and I know you haven't seen it
all yet but as of today, where would yourecommend people to at least try once?
Well, Spain is probably my favoritecountry and it's the one I've
(20:47):
been to the most I would imagineand spent the most time there.
I speak the language.
I just love the culture, the food,the people, everything about Spain.
And I think it's a reallygood sort of dipping your toes
into international travel.
If you haven't traveled, it's aplace that is fairly easy to travel.
(21:07):
It's got a great tourist infrastructure.
A lot of the people speak English.
So you'll get around no problemeven if you don't speak Spanish but
it's still sort of exotic enough.
That and it's a big countrywith great transportation.
Can't recommend Spain enoughand the food, Oh, the food.
You had me at everythingyou listed already.
(21:28):
That sounds like a fantastic place.
Rob, we appreciate you comingout and sharing your wisdom,
tips and tricks with us.
Really appreciate hearingabout your journey.
Thank you again.
Excited to look forward to all of theplaces that you're going to visit and
travel and share on your YouTube channel.
Very excited for it.
Thank you.
I appreciate your having me on.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, Ralph.
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