October 21, 2025 • 38 mins
To celebrate 20 years of the Travel in 10 Podcast , David Brodie and co host Tim Johnson look back at how travel podcasting began and where it is today. David is joined by Chris Christensen, creator of long running Amateur Traveler podcast and member of the Podcast Hall of Fame, for a candid conversation about starting shows in 2004 to 2005, the gear and grit it took early on, and how travel audio has inspired millions to explore the world.
Highlights:
- The origin story of Amateur Traveler and Travel in 10
- Early podcasting hurdles, recording setups, and hand built RSS feeds
- Why interview driven shows unlock destinations beyond your own travels
- How travel podcasts are used by schools, governments, and airlines
- Favourite guest stories that challenge assumptions about places and people
- Evolving travel styles, trip pacing, and second visit strategies that reveal the local side of a city
- Building community across travel podcasters and launching Voyascape
Closing music: Grace Forestier, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” (Instagram: @graceforestiermusic)
Mentioned in this episode:
Check out the new Smart Travel Podcast.
This week's show is supported by the new Smart Travel Podcast. Travel smarter — and spend less — with help from NerdWallet. Check out Smart Travel at the Link below:
Check out the Smart Travel Podcast
This week's show is supported by the new Smart Travel Podcast. Travel smarter — and spend less — with help from NerdWallet. Check out Smart Travel at the Link below:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:40):
Foreign.
Travel In ten is now one ofthe world top travel podcasts, and
I've been pleased to join as ahost in the last couple years. But
David Brodie, he's thepioneer, he started it 20 years ago
(01:01):
when podcasting was absolutelyin its infancy. David, tell us a
little bit more about startingthis podcast.
Well, it's hard to believe,Tim, that as we come up to this month,
and it has been 20 years sinceI uploaded our first episode of the
Travel In ten podcast. Andwhen I did it initially, it was,
you know, my wife and I werespending a year living and working
(01:23):
in Southeast Asia and Japanand traveling around Japan a little
bit, and barely anyone knewwhat podcasts were at that point.
I think my podcast was, as faras I could tell, the second travel
podcast on the Apple PodcastStore. So very, very, very early
on. But it, it has changeddramatically since then, bringing
you on as a co host in thelast two years. And I know having
(01:45):
you, I think we, as a guesteven before that on the show has
just changed it dramaticallyin terms of being able to produce
great content and, and get itout weekly and having your depth
of expertise now with the,what is it, 140 plus countries that
you've been to around the world?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I alwayssay about 151 countries, so all seven
(02:07):
continents, all 50 states, allthe provinces and territories in
Canada. So it's been reallybeen a pleasure to share that experience
on this podcast.
Well, and what's also beengreat about it in just this last
year is me and you being ableto leverage what we've done with
travel in 1 podcast to nowstart a podcast network and working
(02:28):
together with you to getVoyascape kicked off, where we now
have really, I think, some ofthe best travel podcasts in the world
who we've aggregated togetherand brought together on a great podcast
network, work that we'vestarted up. And it's just provided
us a great opportunity to bothof us to do some amazing travel around
the world. And the best partis it gives me a chance to talk to
you in different parts of theworld every week and talk to you
(02:50):
about one of the things bothof us love the most, which is travel
and giving people some of ouradvice on how to travel more and
how to travel better.
Absolutely. No.
And it's always a pleasure tochat with you, David. So, yeah, I
know we've been in differentplaces, different locations, and
the travel that we talk about,we've been practicing. So always
(03:13):
a pleasure to chat.
Well, and we're Going to dosomething a little different today
to celebrate, sort of clickingover into the 20 years of podcasting.
I'm going to bring you on abit of a guest today, somebody who
I have known really since thebeginning of podcasting, Chris Christensen.
Chris does a podcast calledthe Amateur Traveler, and I think
I mentioned I was the, as faras I could tell, second podcast travel
(03:37):
podcast on the Apple PodcastStore. Chris started with the first
the Amateur Traveler. Andunlike me, you know, I've been a
bit more erratic in mypodcasting over the 20 years. He
has kept it up consistentlyevery single week. He is now well
over a thousand episodes, tensof millions of people who have listened
(03:57):
to his show. And I've had achance to work with Chris on a number
of podcasts and a number ofprojects. So sitting down with him
a little bit today to talk alittle bit about how podcasting has
changed over the last 20 yearssince we both kicked off our travel
podcast.
Can't wait to hear what he hasTo say.
(04:20):
As we kick off this 20th yearsof the Travel In ten podcast to take
a bit of a look back today.And nobody that I could think of
would be better to do thatthan Chris Christensen, one of the
few people in the world who Iknow who has been doing this as long
as I have and has been doingit far more consistently than I have
as well.
(04:42):
At least at first. At leastfor the first 18 years.
18 years or so, that's right.But Chris, I think we are part of
a very small club of peoplewho have been doing travel podcasts
since 2005. Curious, lookingback, like, what was that like when
you first started, whatinspired you to start the Amateur
Traveler?
(05:02):
Well, love the love ofpodcasting. So I started listening
to podcasts in two, I think,in 2004. So podcasts started just
in case people don't know,like around September of 2004. And
I started listening aroundDecember, January, because there
was a tech show that I waslistening to, or watching rather
(05:23):
on tv, was call for Help andit got canceled and they said, well,
we're going to make a podcastinstead. And. And that was my what
the hell is a podcast? Moment,was when that show said that they
were switching to this audioformat. And so I started listening
to that, sort of listening toAdam Christiansen, my brother from
another mother who was doingthe Mac cast and other shows at that
(05:46):
time and said, you know, I, Ishould do my own podcast and thought
about doing a tech show. ButAdam was already doing the Mac cast
and how many, how Many Macshows do we need? Of course it's
silly because, you know, then,now many, many shows in any particular
genre. And then thought aboutdoing a religious show, which I actually
did start a year later, whichI still do as well. But then we had
(06:08):
some friends over for, forMemorial Day and all the best stories
were travel stories. And so Isaid I'm going to do a show about
my travel stories, which was areally stupid idea because I, I had
a full time job and you know,basically I was gener. I was traveling
four weeks a year andpodcasting 48 weeks a year. And,
and that math does not work.So if I had stayed with that format,
(06:30):
I'm sure it would have stopped20 years ago. But it very quickly
became an interview show.Within the first, say six months
or so I started interviewingfriends and my circle of friends
has just grown since then. AndI found I really enjoyed hearing
about places I hadn't been toor reminiscing with people about
places I had. So that, and ofcourse, you know, I thought I was
(06:53):
well traveled when I startedthe show because compared to the
people I knew, I had been tomaybe a dozen countries.
Sure.
And of course now I don't knowabout you, but I know at least two
people who've been to everycountry and in the travel blogging,
travel podcasting, travelwriter space, you know, I've been
to what, 76. That's, that'snot pretty good.
(07:14):
That's pretty good.
That's pretty good. But it'snot bragging rights within that community
of people.
Do you remember? I'm thinkingback to it like I. What I can remember
of starting a podcast at thatpoint. The technical sides of it
were a lot harder then. I meanit was quite.
Oh, I was hand editing RSS feeds.
Yeah, you had to be a bit of ageek for sure to figure it all out.
(07:35):
I was recording on, you know,I was living in Japan at the time
when podcasting was kind offirst coming out. And so I managed
to get, you know, Japan alwaysis a little ahead when it comes to
technology. They had theselittle I river recorders that were
very small MP3 players thatyou could also record on. So it was
kind of ideal for podcasting.You could even still probably use
that today and it would bequite good. But I'm curious what
(07:56):
you used to record when youfirst started.
So I had an iriver, but I wasrecording on my laptop. I had some
Logitech collapsible travelheadphones with a, with a microphone,
boom microphone that I wasrecording with. And a boom microphone
is not a bad thing to startwith because you don't have to worry
about where your head isgoing, you know, as you're, as you're
(08:18):
fidgeting around. Then youdon't have to worry about that. But
they, they kind of creaked asyou wore them because they were,
they were collapsible. Theydid fold up. And then I switched
to a yeti microphone prettypretty soon thereafter within the
first year, I think at somepoint. And use that for years. Over
a decade, maybe 15 years. Twodifferent Yeti microphones before
(08:41):
I moved. I'm now on a suremicrophone with a boom arm. But,
you know, that's a relativelynew addition.
And it was, I mean, your showsto begin with, probably. Would you
say it was more other people'stravels versus yours? I think probably
in that first, first few seasons.
Not just the first fewseasons, I would say until. Well,
it still is, it's still. Mostof the episodes are still interview
(09:02):
shows. Some of them are placesthat I've been as well. So I'm contributing.
But we've talked about placesI will never get to. We've talked
about places I didn't knowwere countries. You know, you said
Comoros and I had to look itup on a map. I did not know where
that was. So. And you know, atthis point we've done 900 and I think
I've recorded 934 show, 964shows or so. So, you know, I joke
(09:26):
now at this point, if we don'thave an episode on it, you probably
don't need to go there.
That's right.
But, but yeah, no, it's stillmostly other people's travels, even
though a larger percentage ofthem are my travels this year because
I retired from the day job inJune of 2024. So I did this part
time for 19 years.
And. And has it been weeklythat whole time?
(09:47):
Yeah. So when I started, Idecided that I wanted to do a weekly
show, but I would give myselffour weeks off a year. Okay. And
when I hit 20 years, Iaveraged 47 and a half episodes a
year or something like that.So not, not quite the 48 that I was
targeting for. But, you know,considering that I had full time
(10:10):
jobs, often in startupcompanies and was doing, you know,
two active podcasts, twoactive blogs and things like that
on the side, plus, you know,getting married, raising kids and
putting him through collegeand doing some volunteer work, I
felt pretty good about that.Very consistent.
It is remarkable. And I findthe bank of content that you've got
(10:31):
now. I mean, I certainly tapinto it when I'm planning trips around
the world. I often. When I'mgetting on a plane somewhere and
or starting to think aboutplanning, I seldom do not find an
episode that you've got fromthat destination around the world.
I get that a lot, especiallyactually from people in our community
who, you know, who are awareof the show or have been on the show
before. It's fun to hear themsay the same thing. And I do that
(10:53):
myself. I honestly willdownload the show before I go someplace.
And I remember listening toshows about Oaxaca, walking through
the streets of Oaxaca, going,oh, that's what we were talking about,
because I hadn't been there atthe time we'd recorded the original
show. It's also formed where Ihave decided to go as well, which
is obviously one of thereasons I do the show well.
(11:14):
And I think one of the thingsthat's quite unique about podcasting
and maybe even more so, or Idon't know if it's more so, but within
the travel podcastingcommunity is it's always been very
collaborative, I think. Ithink the first time me and you ran
into each other, first time Ican remember meeting you at least,
was in Las Vegas at a veryearly podcasting conference. And
I think they had maybe. Idon't remember if there was a tbex,
(11:37):
like a travel bloggerconference associated with it, if
it was one of the very earlyones as well.
So there was no TBEX in Vegas,but Rick, who owns tbex, was running
Blog World or nmx, and he did.
Like a travel meetup orsomething, maybe.
Or they had a track for travelin Blog World, at least in one of
(11:59):
the conferences. So we're. Ithought we met before that, though.
I'm trying to think of whenblog world was 2007 or something
like that, because a few yearsbefore TBEX started in 2009, TBEX,
for those who don't know, theTravel Blog Exchange, one of the
larger blog travel bloggingconferences. Yeah. Is that where
(12:22):
we met in Vegas?
I think so. I'm pretty surethat was it. Although I think we
had definitely correspondedbefore that. You know, that we were
both kind of eking out tryingto figure out what a travel podcast
even was. And, you know, Ithink had both reached out to each
other a few times by emailwith different thoughts, suggestions,
or.
Well, I know you were on myshow first talking about Cambodia.
(12:46):
Oh, there you go. And I knowI've been on a few times. I know
I'VE done Fiji, I've doneCambodia, done a few, I think Vancouver
maybe once as well. You'vealways been super supportive and
helpful of the show and beenlucky enough to, well, thank have
you on a few times as well.
I try. I try. Yeah. No, it hasbeen a fairly collaborative environment
and still is. I was you, youhave Pauline Fromer in your, your
(13:09):
network and I was just on hershow on Wednesdays. So it still continues
to be, I think, a fairlycollaborative environment.
And we have now Both, nowafter 20 years of doing this, we
have both transitioned to thisbeing, you know, kind of what we
are doing full time.
The difference is, I quote,unquote, retired to mine.
That's right.
(13:30):
After 43 years in high tech.It was slightly early retirement,
but I was actually, what isit, 63 years old when I quit the
day job. So as I say, earlyretirement, but not by much.
There you go where I am moremaking a new day job now. Now bringing
(13:50):
together many travelpodcasters together in a podcast
network, which has been areally interesting thing to do over,
over the last year or so. Andwe've been lucky to work with you
on some projects through ournetwork and stuff as well, too, to
work on more. Absolutely.
Yeah. No, when I say retired,you know, I'm working seven days
a week.
But yeah, I was going to sayyou're, you're the busiest retires
in quotes.
(14:10):
When I say it. I'm doing whatI want to do.
So now what do you think?Another 10 years, another 20 years?
Are you still going to bedoing this?
10? Sure. 20, 20. I would be84. So we'll have to see how the
health holds up. I just did ahiking trip for the first time this
year in a Grand Canyon raftingtrip and just got back from Germany
(14:35):
doing a biking trip. So I'mtrying to work my way into a little
better shape so that I canstill be doing this in 20 years.
But we shall see.
Well, it has been, it has beenreally inspirational to see what
you have done over the last 20years with your show, Chris. Now
you, you've been named to thepodcast hall of fame.
You have had and in othernews, there's a podcast hall of fame.
(14:58):
Yeah, well, that's right. And,and I think the coolest part about
it with both of our shows, Imean, much more so with yours than
mine. But we've both beenlucky enough to have literally millions
of people from around theworld listen to our suggestions on,
you know, where to find thebest sushi at 3am in the morning
in Tokyo or where to findwhatever it may be about helping
(15:19):
them, helping them travel andexplore more. And I don't think there's
anything more, more excitingthan that to be able to help inspire
people to travel more.
Well, you know, I would saythat I don't know if being in the
podcast hall of fame is thestrangest thing that has happened
to me since I started theshow, but it's probably in the top
five, so. But, you know, thatincludes getting invited to the White
(15:43):
House.
Well, that's pretty cool.
Getting named as Travel andLeisure is the best independent travel
journalist. That was prettycool. And finding out that they were
asking permission to use theAmateur Traveler to teach English
as a second language at OxfordUniversity in the Canadian and German
school system. And probablythe weirdest thing, probably the
(16:06):
weirdest thing is if you go toget a job, at least at one time,
this was a few years back. Ihaven't heard from them recently.
If you went to get a job atthe Thailand Foreign Ministry, you'd
be required to listen to twoepisodes of the Amateur Traveler
as part of their Englishproficiency exam.
Very cool.
So it's been a bizarre ride.And that's not counting, obviously
the trips that have had achance to be paparazzi for the Pope
(16:30):
for the day in Jordan. It hasbeen an amazing journey that I would
not have predicted 20 years ago.
It's strange that English is asecond language piece. I've. I've
had that a few times as wellwhere people have asked to use podcast
episodes as part of that. It'sfor some reason travel podcasts seem
to be a popular choice forthat. So that's interesting.
(16:51):
Oddly enough, for the ThailandForeign Ministry, you're going to
have to listen to an episodeon Yorkshire in England and narrow
boating in England and Wales.I don't know why not, not even a
Thailand show or so, eventhough we've got those. But yeah,
it's been a. It's been aninteresting experience. You know,
the few times that I've flownin an airline and seen Amateur Traveler
(17:12):
on the Seatback entertainmentsystem, it's just, it's just weird.
It is.
And I don't know if you, you,I'm sure you have this experience
lots, too. I've started tohave it more recently where you run
into people out randomly inthe world who have, who have listened
to your shows and listened toyour podcast. I just said one last
night, actually, who wastalking about listening to my episode
(17:34):
on Berlin and on London andhow that it helped inform their trip.
And I find that hugelyinspiring when you know that you
have got somebody to maybepush out of their comfort zone and
go somewhere they weren'tthinking about or to inspire them
to travel more or. Yeah, justto get out and explore the world.
(17:55):
I hear those stories, but inthe real world, not as often. Maybe
every three years, ran intosomebody randomly who, you know,
I was in Key Largo, and Irealized the couple behind me was
staring at my T shirt and Iwas wearing an amateur traveler tour
T shirt. Because we've beendoing. I've been doing tours off
(18:15):
and on, you know, off duringCOVID for instance, with listeners
of the show since 2010, atthis point, including Cambodia, which,
you know, hey, I've been tonow since. Since you and I. Since
we talked about it so manyyears ago. But I realized they were
staring at my shirt and Isaid, you know, hi, can I. Can I
help you? And they said, oh,sorry, we're just trying to figure
(18:37):
out on the back of the tour ofthe shirt is where we went. They
said, well, we knew New Delhi,we knew Varanasi, knew Agra, but
we were trying to figure outwhat Tardigar was. I. So it's a.
It's a small town. That'sprobably why you didn't know it.
You know, and then it's thatpoint. You're like, should I give
them more content? I'veanswered their question. Should I
keep talking or not? And yougo, well, I do. I do a travel podcast,
(19:00):
and this is a tour T shirtfrom a trip that we did in India.
And they went, you're theamateur travel. We just listened
to your episode on the Keys.So it does happen, but it doesn't
happen that often. I think,you know, all the times I'm walking
through airports these days, Ithink, if only these people knew
about the show. I feel likesomewhere in here is my audience,
but, you know, I'm largely,completely anonymous. I'd say, well,
(19:25):
with.
What is it now? You've gotwell in excess of how many. How many
tens of millions of downloads now.
So I. I do about 1 and 1.78million downloads last year. I've
had years before COVID thatwere above 2 million. So I don't
know. It's. It's more than 20,less than 40 million downloads somewhere
(19:46):
in that range.
I just. I always find itincredible when I look back at those
numbers, thinking of thenumber of people out there who have
listened to some of that.
Yeah, yeah.
Hopefully inspired some oftheir travels.
I remember doing it for, youknow, half a year, three quarters
of a year, and getting 200downloads per episode and being,
you know, pretty excited.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. It was a smallerspace back then, too, obviously.
(20:09):
Yeah.
Any, any favorite episodes inyour, in your 20 years of doing them?
Well, some of the ones thatI've done recently, I've really enjoyed
some of my, my personaltravels. But I think some of the
greatest hits for me, the onesthat I quote most often that I reference
are, I think of two. One isthe best pitch I ever got. An attorney
(20:32):
named Chris from Atlanta,Georgia, said, I was just in Tonga
swimming with whales and Ibrought along a hydrophone and recorded
whale song. Would that be ofany interest to you? And that was
the first time he came on theshow. That was his pitch, basically.
And he came on the show atleast half a dozen times talking
(20:52):
about, you know, going tophotograph the wild horses in Mongolia
or going to see the mountaingorillas in Rwanda. So, you know,
he still has done things thatI have not done and was a wonderful,
well spoken guest, not at alla travel writer, but was always very
(21:12):
interesting to listen to andhis photos were amazing. And of course,
this was back in the days thatI was still doing chapters in Amateur
Traveler with photos, which Istopped relatively recently. But
that was one. And the otherone I think of is I talked to a couple,
Andrew and Friedel Grant fromCanada, and they were biking across
(21:34):
the world and they weretelling about biking through Iran
and just the hospitality thatthey ran into. And they told two
stories that were somemorable. One was they stopped at
a phone booth to, to call theembassies of the stands, the Central
Asian countries, to get theirtalk about getting visas. And somebody
(21:56):
stopped and said, becauseapparently the phones were very unreliable
at this point, this isprobably 15 years ago. And so they
said, can I help you? I've gota cell phone here. And. And then
somebody else stopped andsomebody else stopped and somebody
else stopped and somebodyelse. They had five different people.
They sent me a photo on fivedifferent cell phones, calling five
different embassies on theirbehalf just to help out, who just
(22:16):
saw the strangers there andthought, you know, they're going
to have a problem with that.Let me see what I can do. And they
had one person as they werebiking up a hill at one point, a
long hill, they said they werebiking up the hill for about an hour
and somebody rode reallyslowly past them, you know, or behind
them in his car for an hour tomake sure they got to the top of
(22:38):
the hill when they got to thetop of the hill. He honked and waved
and went on his way, but hejust, he just wanted to make sure
they were okay. And, you know,I just think about some of the countries
that we think of notpositively, and how the people there
are, you know, might be someof the most hospitable people in
the world. And I think that'sone of the things that I. One of
(23:01):
the reasons I like the travelexperience. Right. Is it is very
normalizing. You learn thatpeople are people.
I could not agree with youmore. And yeah, if there is one thing
I've taken away from mytravels around the world, it would
be exactly that and theperception versus reality. When you
get to some of these cornersof the world that, you know, you
hear about the news and youthink, you worry sometimes going
(23:23):
in, is this going to be atough place to travel around? What's
the experience going to belike? Without exception, whether
that's the Middle East,Cambodia, Africa. The first time
I was in any of those, therewas some trepidation going in because
of the perception what you seeand in every case the hospitality
of the people. The experiencewas so different than my perception
(23:44):
going in. And I hope through,through our podcast we get to share
just a bit of that and helpcorrect some of that perception because
just how. How friendly andwelcoming people are in virtually
every corner of the world.
Yeah. And that doesn't meanthere are not governments of whom
I am not a fan, which wouldinclude my own right now. But so,
(24:06):
you know, and the trip that Idid with amateur traveler listeners
to Cuba did not teach me to bea Marxist, but I still enjoyed meeting
the Cuban people, but did. Wasnot. Didn't love the situation of
the country right now. And soyou'll, you'll run to those things
where you see things that arebroken and don't need to be broken.
You know, visiting Zimbabwewith, you know, 90% unemployment
(24:26):
that was largely ruined by thegovernment in ineptitude and corruption.
In that you'll run into that.But still the people and just.
And just being able to seesome of those places and, and what
people are experiencing inthose parts of the world firsthand,
it does give you such adifferent perspective and point of
view, for sure.
Yeah, I remember being in. SoI did some of my first kind of third
(24:50):
world travel, if you will, injust in Tijuana, just down on the
border, doing volunteer trips,going down there to build houses
with a local communityorganization. And it was interesting
because later on I was inTanzania for the first time. Probably
15 years ago or so. And wewent to, you know, out to one of
the marketplaces and I'mlooking around, I'm going, oh, I,
(25:12):
I know this place. Iunderstand this place. It's, it's
just like Tijuana. It's so youcan you see it with different eyes.
You don't just see, wow, whata small shop. You see, oh look, he's
added onto his shop, he'sdoing good. And wow, they've got
the, they've got the satellitedish now and oh, look, they've got
power this time. And so yousee the progress where, you know,
(25:34):
the first time through, youjust see what they don't have, you
know, and, and it'sinteresting how your environment,
how you're. For me, my comfortzone has stretched here in travel
just in the last 20 years,even while I've been doing this show.
Well, it's interesting youtalk about that too. Going back to
(25:54):
a place that's one of thethings I've started doing some shows
on recently is some of thoselike iconic cities around the world.
Your second visit to the cityand what to do on a second visit
because everybody, everybodythinks about that first time and
you know, all the bucket listthings you need to do. But it is
on that second trip where youget a whole different experience
where you get to reallyunderstand a lot more of what local
(26:14):
life is like. And you don'thave to see the Eiffel Tower and
the Louvre this time. You canactually go figure out where Parisians
hang out and what they do. Andyeah, those second trips are. There
is something very specialabout them for sure.
Well, I enjoy doing shows too.On the second trip to the country
where you're not going toParis, maybe you're going to Leon
or maybe you're going, youknow, cruising down the Canal de
(26:36):
Midi or, or going to Normandy,which is a, you know, I think a very
typical first or second tripor just all of those places that
you don't know. For instance,I just in Germany and I've been,
I don't know how many tripsI've done in Germany. Eight or some,
somewhere in that range. But Ihad not been down to Lake Constance.
I really hadn't heard aboutLake Constance. I owned three UNESCO
(26:58):
sites, two within the samewith it, you know, one per day there
for a while. Saw amazingthings, beautiful place, medieval
villages. And it just wasn'ton my radar at all. Didn't know about
it. So I love going. Yeah, Iwould say discovering but you know,
being invited to in this case,explore some places like that. So
(27:19):
it's just pretty cool.
Now doing the podcast for 20years now being to 70 plus countries,
is your, your love for travel,your desire to travel more waning
at all?
No, no. You know, towards theend of the trip, yes, but towards
the, towards the last day ofthe trip, I'm one of those people
(27:40):
who's, you know, back early tothe airport, ready to go home. But
then, you know, after I'm homefor a couple, two, three weeks, I'm
also ready to hit the roadagain. So it just, it's interesting
just trying to find the rightcadence for travel because my wife
is still working full time,I'd like to stay married. We've been
married for 43 years and sofar she's putting up with me. So
(28:04):
trying to find the rightcadence that also lets you get the
work done and get the showsout and only take off the four episodes
a year, which is still mygoal. And it's kind of tough because
you're trying to picture,well, how will I feel in November
when I get back at the end ofthat China trip, Do I want to go
through South Korea or will Ibe tired of traveling by the time
(28:26):
I'm hitting that? And I'mstill trying to decide that for the,
the trip I'm doing to China islike, wow, there's really cheap,
cheap flights through Incheon.You know, should I, should I stay
in Incheon for a couple days?And because I haven't been to South
Korea, other, you know, otherthan airports, which I don't count.
But so, so, so no, so far, nottired of travel at all, but, you
(28:47):
know, just trying to find theright cadence.
Yeah, I would say exactly thesame. I mean, definitely, definitely
my love of travel hasn't wanedat all, but the way I travel has
probably evolved a little bitover, over the last 20 years. Although
largely I, I mean, I think weboth probably have a similar travel
style in that I will find, youknow, very much like you just referenced,
(29:09):
right. If, if I'm flyingthrough to one part of the world
and I see I've got a, there'sa potential I can get the direct
flight or there's potential Ican get a layover that may be 24
hours and will let me get outof the airport and see something,
I'm taking the layover at 99%,99% of the cases.
Not necessarily these yearsbecause there's still the getting
back home and seeing my wife,but my wife's definitely finding
(29:31):
that she is changing. So she'slike, we're going down on a trip
with Australis cruising downin Patagonia here in November around
our anniversary. But she doesnot want to do the overnight flight
anymore if she can avoid it.And so we're, we will spend an extra
night in Lima. An extra, aslong as we're there, we'll spend
(29:53):
a day in Lima and actually seethe city this time because she just
doesn't want to do that. Youknow, there's no need to do a red
eye. She's got enough time offthat she can take that extra day
and you know, will pay for thehotel even though it's, the rest
of the trip is sponsored andthat's just how she wants to travel
anymore. You know, when thatflight, those like two night flights
(30:15):
in a row to get to Africa, Ithink that was kind of the, the breaking
point for her. It's like I amnever doing that again. I'm going
to spend the night in Londonand then get on another flight or
something like that. Yeah.
My wife has had some healthchallenges in the last couple years
that have made long haulflight stuff a little bit more challenging
for her. But one of the thingsI find that has enabled us to do
(30:37):
as much travel, both me andher together and us as a family together,
we're really fortunate thatsimilar, very, very similar travel
styles where both of us wantto squeeze every moment out of a
trip that we can like. Thereare people who love to go to a, you
know, we've got, we've gotfriends who will go to the same place
in Mexico and have a greatbeach vacation where they lie on
(31:00):
the beach for two weeks everyyear. They love that we would happily
go with them, but they wouldprobably see us for about two hours
during that trip becausethat's about as much time as we,
any of us or a family wouldspend on the beach. And every other
moment would be.
We're, we're very similar.
Every museum, cenote, localvillage, still love the beach. But
(31:20):
we are, we are way morerecharged by the exploration and
the discovering of new thingsthan the, than the sitting back and
having as many frothy drinksas you can at the all inclusive resort
for sure.
Well, we have friends who, youknow, one, they're, they're not even
doing the Mexican beach,they're doing the Jersey shore and
staying in the same houseevery year. But then we also had
(31:43):
another couple that theirperfect vacation was a cruise to
Hawaii because you have liketwo or three days on a ship and he
could just sit and read abook. And then they get to Hawaii
and they run around like crazyfor a week, which is what she wants
to do. And then they cruiseback and he's got his two or three
days on the ship. So it's alittle more challenging if you don't
(32:05):
have the same travel styles totry and come up with a good compromise
that works well.
I think we're both fortunate,too, in that we both live in cities.
I mean, you in the Bay Areathere and me in Vancouver, that a
lot of people from around theworld travel, too, and are great
travel destinations in and ofthemselves. So coming home is never
so hard either. And I thinkfor some who loves travel, living,
(32:27):
living in a city like SanFrancisco or Vancouver is. Does.
Does make it a lot easier, for sure.
Technically, I live in SanJose, so we're a little. Little more
spread out, a little moreelbow room, a lot easier to park.
So I like visiting SanFrancisco, but I don't like. I'm
driving up there tonight for aCalifornia visit California event.
And I don't love driving in the.
(32:47):
City, but we got to thinkcoming home, you got. You've got
great restaurants, you've gotgreat. There's a lot to see and do
there, too.
It is, it is. Well. And that'swhy one of my three blogs is a California
blog. So. And we're workingour way through some of the local
vineyards right now of in ourown county because we got a. We got
a vineyard pass, you know, $90for a whole year. You can get a free
(33:08):
tasting at a bunch of things.We won't even get all of the maximum
use out of because we starteda little late. But it's kind of fun
exploring your own backyard asa traveler sometimes.
Absolutely. Well, it has beengreat, Chris, to see over the last
20 years all that you haveaccomplished with your show, and
you've been super supportiveof our show and it's been great to
(33:28):
be able to have you on as aguest and collaborate together with
you. We've, particularly inthis last year and a half or so,
got to work together on a lotof projects and looking forward to
many more and lots more travelover the next 20 years.
Likewise. Thanks, Russell.
(33:49):
Well, a huge thank you to bothChris Christensen and Tim for joining
me on today's show, and thankyou to all of you who have joined
us over the last 20 years ofthe Travel in 10 podcast. I've got
lots more great content comingto you with destinations around the
world and just incrediblygrateful for all the people who have
tuned in and listened to ourrecommendations on how to travel
(34:12):
more and how to travel betteraround the world and tuning into
all of our podcasts now on theVoy Escape Podcast Network. To close
out today's episode, I'm goingto leave you with a song from a great
artist out of my homeprovince, Alberta, Canada. Grace
Forester with her rendition ofLeaving on a Jet Plane and check
her out on Instagram as well.Raceforrester Music.
(34:42):
All my bags is packed ready togo Standing here outside your door
I had to wake you up to saygoodbye but the dawn is breaking
it's early morning taxisleeping is blowing his horn on Betty
(35:07):
I'm so long to my good D sokiss me smile for me Tell me that
you wait for me hold me likeyou're never cuz I'm leaving heart
(35:31):
play the Know when I'll beback again oh baby to come there's
so many times when I so manytimes played around her Tell you
(35:51):
now that they don't mean athing Every place circle think of
you Every song I sing sing foryou and I come back Open your so
(36:12):
kiss me smile for me Tell methat you wait for me hold me like
your lover let me go you playdon't know when I'll be back again
(36:35):
Hoping to come now the timehas come to leave you one more time
Just let me kiss you Closeyour eyes I'll be on my way Dream
(36:57):
about the days to come when Ihave to leave all night about the
times that I won't have tosleep so kiss me smile for me Tell
me that you wait for me holdme like you'll never let me go Try
(37:25):
leaving on your plane don'tknow when I'll be back again oh wait
barely to go turn leavingheart play don't know when I'll be
(37:46):
back again Open.
Foreign.
Travel In ten is now one ofthe world top travel podcasts, and
I've been pleased to join as ahost in the last couple years. But
David Brodie, he's thepioneer, he started it 20 years ago
(01:01):
when podcasting was absolutelyin its infancy. David, tell us a
little bit more about startingthis podcast.
Well, it's hard to believe,Tim, that as we come up to this month,
and it has been 20 years sinceI uploaded our first episode of the
Travel In ten podcast. Andwhen I did it initially, it was,
you know, my wife and I werespending a year living and working
(01:23):
in Southeast Asia and Japanand traveling around Japan a little
bit, and barely anyone knewwhat podcasts were at that point.
I think my podcast was, as faras I could tell, the second travel
podcast on the Apple PodcastStore. So very, very, very early
on. But it, it has changeddramatically since then, bringing
you on as a co host in thelast two years. And I know having
(01:45):
you, I think we, as a guesteven before that on the show has
just changed it dramaticallyin terms of being able to produce
great content and, and get itout weekly and having your depth
of expertise now with the,what is it, 140 plus countries that
you've been to around the world?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I alwayssay about 151 countries, so all seven
(02:07):
continents, all 50 states, allthe provinces and territories in
Canada. So it's been reallybeen a pleasure to share that experience
on this podcast.
Well, and what's also beengreat about it in just this last
year is me and you being ableto leverage what we've done with
travel in 1 podcast to nowstart a podcast network and working
(02:28):
together with you to getVoyascape kicked off, where we now
have really, I think, some ofthe best travel podcasts in the world
who we've aggregated togetherand brought together on a great podcast
network, work that we'vestarted up. And it's just provided
us a great opportunity to bothof us to do some amazing travel around
the world. And the best partis it gives me a chance to talk to
you in different parts of theworld every week and talk to you
(02:50):
about one of the things bothof us love the most, which is travel
and giving people some of ouradvice on how to travel more and
how to travel better.
Absolutely. No.
And it's always a pleasure tochat with you, David. So, yeah, I
know we've been in differentplaces, different locations, and
the travel that we talk about,we've been practicing. So always
(03:13):
a pleasure to chat.
Well, and we're Going to dosomething a little different today
to celebrate, sort of clickingover into the 20 years of podcasting.
I'm going to bring you on abit of a guest today, somebody who
I have known really since thebeginning of podcasting, Chris Christensen.
Chris does a podcast calledthe Amateur Traveler, and I think
I mentioned I was the, as faras I could tell, second podcast travel
(03:37):
podcast on the Apple PodcastStore. Chris started with the first
the Amateur Traveler. Andunlike me, you know, I've been a
bit more erratic in mypodcasting over the 20 years. He
has kept it up consistentlyevery single week. He is now well
over a thousand episodes, tensof millions of people who have listened
(03:57):
to his show. And I've had achance to work with Chris on a number
of podcasts and a number ofprojects. So sitting down with him
a little bit today to talk alittle bit about how podcasting has
changed over the last 20 yearssince we both kicked off our travel
podcast.
Can't wait to hear what he hasTo say.
(04:20):
As we kick off this 20th yearsof the Travel In ten podcast to take
a bit of a look back today.And nobody that I could think of
would be better to do thatthan Chris Christensen, one of the
few people in the world who Iknow who has been doing this as long
as I have and has been doingit far more consistently than I have
as well.
(04:42):
At least at first. At leastfor the first 18 years.
18 years or so, that's right.But Chris, I think we are part of
a very small club of peoplewho have been doing travel podcasts
since 2005. Curious, lookingback, like, what was that like when
you first started, whatinspired you to start the Amateur
Traveler?
(05:02):
Well, love the love ofpodcasting. So I started listening
to podcasts in two, I think,in 2004. So podcasts started just
in case people don't know,like around September of 2004. And
I started listening aroundDecember, January, because there
was a tech show that I waslistening to, or watching rather
(05:23):
on tv, was call for Help andit got canceled and they said, well,
we're going to make a podcastinstead. And. And that was my what
the hell is a podcast? Moment,was when that show said that they
were switching to this audioformat. And so I started listening
to that, sort of listening toAdam Christiansen, my brother from
another mother who was doingthe Mac cast and other shows at that
(05:46):
time and said, you know, I, Ishould do my own podcast and thought
about doing a tech show. ButAdam was already doing the Mac cast
and how many, how Many Macshows do we need? Of course it's
silly because, you know, then,now many, many shows in any particular
genre. And then thought aboutdoing a religious show, which I actually
did start a year later, whichI still do as well. But then we had
(06:08):
some friends over for, forMemorial Day and all the best stories
were travel stories. And so Isaid I'm going to do a show about
my travel stories, which was areally stupid idea because I, I had
a full time job and you know,basically I was gener. I was traveling
four weeks a year andpodcasting 48 weeks a year. And,
and that math does not work.So if I had stayed with that format,
(06:30):
I'm sure it would have stopped20 years ago. But it very quickly
became an interview show.Within the first, say six months
or so I started interviewingfriends and my circle of friends
has just grown since then. AndI found I really enjoyed hearing
about places I hadn't been toor reminiscing with people about
places I had. So that, and ofcourse, you know, I thought I was
(06:53):
well traveled when I startedthe show because compared to the
people I knew, I had been tomaybe a dozen countries.
Sure.
And of course now I don't knowabout you, but I know at least two
people who've been to everycountry and in the travel blogging,
travel podcasting, travelwriter space, you know, I've been
to what, 76. That's, that'snot pretty good.
(07:14):
That's pretty good.
That's pretty good. But it'snot bragging rights within that community
of people.
Do you remember? I'm thinkingback to it like I. What I can remember
of starting a podcast at thatpoint. The technical sides of it
were a lot harder then. I meanit was quite.
Oh, I was hand editing RSS feeds.
Yeah, you had to be a bit of ageek for sure to figure it all out.
(07:35):
I was recording on, you know,I was living in Japan at the time
when podcasting was kind offirst coming out. And so I managed
to get, you know, Japan alwaysis a little ahead when it comes to
technology. They had theselittle I river recorders that were
very small MP3 players thatyou could also record on. So it was
kind of ideal for podcasting.You could even still probably use
that today and it would bequite good. But I'm curious what
(07:56):
you used to record when youfirst started.
So I had an iriver, but I wasrecording on my laptop. I had some
Logitech collapsible travelheadphones with a, with a microphone,
boom microphone that I wasrecording with. And a boom microphone
is not a bad thing to startwith because you don't have to worry
about where your head isgoing, you know, as you're, as you're
(08:18):
fidgeting around. Then youdon't have to worry about that. But
they, they kind of creaked asyou wore them because they were,
they were collapsible. Theydid fold up. And then I switched
to a yeti microphone prettypretty soon thereafter within the
first year, I think at somepoint. And use that for years. Over
a decade, maybe 15 years. Twodifferent Yeti microphones before
(08:41):
I moved. I'm now on a suremicrophone with a boom arm. But,
you know, that's a relativelynew addition.
And it was, I mean, your showsto begin with, probably. Would you
say it was more other people'stravels versus yours? I think probably
in that first, first few seasons.
Not just the first fewseasons, I would say until. Well,
it still is, it's still. Mostof the episodes are still interview
(09:02):
shows. Some of them are placesthat I've been as well. So I'm contributing.
But we've talked about placesI will never get to. We've talked
about places I didn't knowwere countries. You know, you said
Comoros and I had to look itup on a map. I did not know where
that was. So. And you know, atthis point we've done 900 and I think
I've recorded 934 show, 964shows or so. So, you know, I joke
(09:26):
now at this point, if we don'thave an episode on it, you probably
don't need to go there.
That's right.
But, but yeah, no, it's stillmostly other people's travels, even
though a larger percentage ofthem are my travels this year because
I retired from the day job inJune of 2024. So I did this part
time for 19 years.
And. And has it been weeklythat whole time?
(09:47):
Yeah. So when I started, Idecided that I wanted to do a weekly
show, but I would give myselffour weeks off a year. Okay. And
when I hit 20 years, Iaveraged 47 and a half episodes a
year or something like that.So not, not quite the 48 that I was
targeting for. But, you know,considering that I had full time
(10:10):
jobs, often in startupcompanies and was doing, you know,
two active podcasts, twoactive blogs and things like that
on the side, plus, you know,getting married, raising kids and
putting him through collegeand doing some volunteer work, I
felt pretty good about that.Very consistent.
It is remarkable. And I findthe bank of content that you've got
(10:31):
now. I mean, I certainly tapinto it when I'm planning trips around
the world. I often. When I'mgetting on a plane somewhere and
or starting to think aboutplanning, I seldom do not find an
episode that you've got fromthat destination around the world.
I get that a lot, especiallyactually from people in our community
who, you know, who are awareof the show or have been on the show
before. It's fun to hear themsay the same thing. And I do that
(10:53):
myself. I honestly willdownload the show before I go someplace.
And I remember listening toshows about Oaxaca, walking through
the streets of Oaxaca, going,oh, that's what we were talking about,
because I hadn't been there atthe time we'd recorded the original
show. It's also formed where Ihave decided to go as well, which
is obviously one of thereasons I do the show well.
(11:14):
And I think one of the thingsthat's quite unique about podcasting
and maybe even more so, or Idon't know if it's more so, but within
the travel podcastingcommunity is it's always been very
collaborative, I think. Ithink the first time me and you ran
into each other, first time Ican remember meeting you at least,
was in Las Vegas at a veryearly podcasting conference. And
I think they had maybe. Idon't remember if there was a tbex,
(11:37):
like a travel bloggerconference associated with it, if
it was one of the very earlyones as well.
So there was no TBEX in Vegas,but Rick, who owns tbex, was running
Blog World or nmx, and he did.
Like a travel meetup orsomething, maybe.
Or they had a track for travelin Blog World, at least in one of
(11:59):
the conferences. So we're. Ithought we met before that, though.
I'm trying to think of whenblog world was 2007 or something
like that, because a few yearsbefore TBEX started in 2009, TBEX,
for those who don't know, theTravel Blog Exchange, one of the
larger blog travel bloggingconferences. Yeah. Is that where
(12:22):
we met in Vegas?
I think so. I'm pretty surethat was it. Although I think we
had definitely correspondedbefore that. You know, that we were
both kind of eking out tryingto figure out what a travel podcast
even was. And, you know, Ithink had both reached out to each
other a few times by emailwith different thoughts, suggestions,
or.
Well, I know you were on myshow first talking about Cambodia.
(12:46):
Oh, there you go. And I knowI've been on a few times. I know
I'VE done Fiji, I've doneCambodia, done a few, I think Vancouver
maybe once as well. You'vealways been super supportive and
helpful of the show and beenlucky enough to, well, thank have
you on a few times as well.
I try. I try. Yeah. No, it hasbeen a fairly collaborative environment
and still is. I was you, youhave Pauline Fromer in your, your
(13:09):
network and I was just on hershow on Wednesdays. So it still continues
to be, I think, a fairlycollaborative environment.
And we have now Both, nowafter 20 years of doing this, we
have both transitioned to thisbeing, you know, kind of what we
are doing full time.
The difference is, I quote,unquote, retired to mine.
That's right.
(13:30):
After 43 years in high tech.It was slightly early retirement,
but I was actually, what isit, 63 years old when I quit the
day job. So as I say, earlyretirement, but not by much.
There you go where I am moremaking a new day job now. Now bringing
(13:50):
together many travelpodcasters together in a podcast
network, which has been areally interesting thing to do over,
over the last year or so. Andwe've been lucky to work with you
on some projects through ournetwork and stuff as well, too, to
work on more. Absolutely.
Yeah. No, when I say retired,you know, I'm working seven days
a week.
But yeah, I was going to sayyou're, you're the busiest retires
in quotes.
(14:10):
When I say it. I'm doing whatI want to do.
So now what do you think?Another 10 years, another 20 years?
Are you still going to bedoing this?
10? Sure. 20, 20. I would be84. So we'll have to see how the
health holds up. I just did ahiking trip for the first time this
year in a Grand Canyon raftingtrip and just got back from Germany
(14:35):
doing a biking trip. So I'mtrying to work my way into a little
better shape so that I canstill be doing this in 20 years.
But we shall see.
Well, it has been, it has beenreally inspirational to see what
you have done over the last 20years with your show, Chris. Now
you, you've been named to thepodcast hall of fame.
You have had and in othernews, there's a podcast hall of fame.
(14:58):
Yeah, well, that's right. And,and I think the coolest part about
it with both of our shows, Imean, much more so with yours than
mine. But we've both beenlucky enough to have literally millions
of people from around theworld listen to our suggestions on,
you know, where to find thebest sushi at 3am in the morning
in Tokyo or where to findwhatever it may be about helping
(15:19):
them, helping them travel andexplore more. And I don't think there's
anything more, more excitingthan that to be able to help inspire
people to travel more.
Well, you know, I would saythat I don't know if being in the
podcast hall of fame is thestrangest thing that has happened
to me since I started theshow, but it's probably in the top
five, so. But, you know, thatincludes getting invited to the White
(15:43):
House.
Well, that's pretty cool.
Getting named as Travel andLeisure is the best independent travel
journalist. That was prettycool. And finding out that they were
asking permission to use theAmateur Traveler to teach English
as a second language at OxfordUniversity in the Canadian and German
school system. And probablythe weirdest thing, probably the
(16:06):
weirdest thing is if you go toget a job, at least at one time,
this was a few years back. Ihaven't heard from them recently.
If you went to get a job atthe Thailand Foreign Ministry, you'd
be required to listen to twoepisodes of the Amateur Traveler
as part of their Englishproficiency exam.
Very cool.
So it's been a bizarre ride.And that's not counting, obviously
the trips that have had achance to be paparazzi for the Pope
(16:30):
for the day in Jordan. It hasbeen an amazing journey that I would
not have predicted 20 years ago.
It's strange that English is asecond language piece. I've. I've
had that a few times as wellwhere people have asked to use podcast
episodes as part of that. It'sfor some reason travel podcasts seem
to be a popular choice forthat. So that's interesting.
(16:51):
Oddly enough, for the ThailandForeign Ministry, you're going to
have to listen to an episodeon Yorkshire in England and narrow
boating in England and Wales.I don't know why not, not even a
Thailand show or so, eventhough we've got those. But yeah,
it's been a. It's been aninteresting experience. You know,
the few times that I've flownin an airline and seen Amateur Traveler
(17:12):
on the Seatback entertainmentsystem, it's just, it's just weird.
It is.
And I don't know if you, you,I'm sure you have this experience
lots, too. I've started tohave it more recently where you run
into people out randomly inthe world who have, who have listened
to your shows and listened toyour podcast. I just said one last
night, actually, who wastalking about listening to my episode
(17:34):
on Berlin and on London andhow that it helped inform their trip.
And I find that hugelyinspiring when you know that you
have got somebody to maybepush out of their comfort zone and
go somewhere they weren'tthinking about or to inspire them
to travel more or. Yeah, justto get out and explore the world.
(17:55):
I hear those stories, but inthe real world, not as often. Maybe
every three years, ran intosomebody randomly who, you know,
I was in Key Largo, and Irealized the couple behind me was
staring at my T shirt and Iwas wearing an amateur traveler tour
T shirt. Because we've beendoing. I've been doing tours off
(18:15):
and on, you know, off duringCOVID for instance, with listeners
of the show since 2010, atthis point, including Cambodia, which,
you know, hey, I've been tonow since. Since you and I. Since
we talked about it so manyyears ago. But I realized they were
staring at my shirt and Isaid, you know, hi, can I. Can I
help you? And they said, oh,sorry, we're just trying to figure
(18:37):
out on the back of the tour ofthe shirt is where we went. They
said, well, we knew New Delhi,we knew Varanasi, knew Agra, but
we were trying to figure outwhat Tardigar was. I. So it's a.
It's a small town. That'sprobably why you didn't know it.
You know, and then it's thatpoint. You're like, should I give
them more content? I'veanswered their question. Should I
keep talking or not? And yougo, well, I do. I do a travel podcast,
(19:00):
and this is a tour T shirtfrom a trip that we did in India.
And they went, you're theamateur travel. We just listened
to your episode on the Keys.So it does happen, but it doesn't
happen that often. I think,you know, all the times I'm walking
through airports these days, Ithink, if only these people knew
about the show. I feel likesomewhere in here is my audience,
but, you know, I'm largely,completely anonymous. I'd say, well,
(19:25):
with.
What is it now? You've gotwell in excess of how many. How many
tens of millions of downloads now.
So I. I do about 1 and 1.78million downloads last year. I've
had years before COVID thatwere above 2 million. So I don't
know. It's. It's more than 20,less than 40 million downloads somewhere
(19:46):
in that range.
I just. I always find itincredible when I look back at those
numbers, thinking of thenumber of people out there who have
listened to some of that.
Yeah, yeah.
Hopefully inspired some oftheir travels.
I remember doing it for, youknow, half a year, three quarters
of a year, and getting 200downloads per episode and being,
you know, pretty excited.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. It was a smallerspace back then, too, obviously.
(20:09):
Yeah.
Any, any favorite episodes inyour, in your 20 years of doing them?
Well, some of the ones thatI've done recently, I've really enjoyed
some of my, my personaltravels. But I think some of the
greatest hits for me, the onesthat I quote most often that I reference
are, I think of two. One isthe best pitch I ever got. An attorney
(20:32):
named Chris from Atlanta,Georgia, said, I was just in Tonga
swimming with whales and Ibrought along a hydrophone and recorded
whale song. Would that be ofany interest to you? And that was
the first time he came on theshow. That was his pitch, basically.
And he came on the show atleast half a dozen times talking
(20:52):
about, you know, going tophotograph the wild horses in Mongolia
or going to see the mountaingorillas in Rwanda. So, you know,
he still has done things thatI have not done and was a wonderful,
well spoken guest, not at alla travel writer, but was always very
(21:12):
interesting to listen to andhis photos were amazing. And of course,
this was back in the days thatI was still doing chapters in Amateur
Traveler with photos, which Istopped relatively recently. But
that was one. And the otherone I think of is I talked to a couple,
Andrew and Friedel Grant fromCanada, and they were biking across
(21:34):
the world and they weretelling about biking through Iran
and just the hospitality thatthey ran into. And they told two
stories that were somemorable. One was they stopped at
a phone booth to, to call theembassies of the stands, the Central
Asian countries, to get theirtalk about getting visas. And somebody
(21:56):
stopped and said, becauseapparently the phones were very unreliable
at this point, this isprobably 15 years ago. And so they
said, can I help you? I've gota cell phone here. And. And then
somebody else stopped andsomebody else stopped and somebody
else stopped and somebodyelse. They had five different people.
They sent me a photo on fivedifferent cell phones, calling five
different embassies on theirbehalf just to help out, who just
(22:16):
saw the strangers there andthought, you know, they're going
to have a problem with that.Let me see what I can do. And they
had one person as they werebiking up a hill at one point, a
long hill, they said they werebiking up the hill for about an hour
and somebody rode reallyslowly past them, you know, or behind
them in his car for an hour tomake sure they got to the top of
(22:38):
the hill when they got to thetop of the hill. He honked and waved
and went on his way, but hejust, he just wanted to make sure
they were okay. And, you know,I just think about some of the countries
that we think of notpositively, and how the people there
are, you know, might be someof the most hospitable people in
the world. And I think that'sone of the things that I. One of
(23:01):
the reasons I like the travelexperience. Right. Is it is very
normalizing. You learn thatpeople are people.
I could not agree with youmore. And yeah, if there is one thing
I've taken away from mytravels around the world, it would
be exactly that and theperception versus reality. When you
get to some of these cornersof the world that, you know, you
hear about the news and youthink, you worry sometimes going
(23:23):
in, is this going to be atough place to travel around? What's
the experience going to belike? Without exception, whether
that's the Middle East,Cambodia, Africa. The first time
I was in any of those, therewas some trepidation going in because
of the perception what you seeand in every case the hospitality
of the people. The experiencewas so different than my perception
(23:44):
going in. And I hope through,through our podcast we get to share
just a bit of that and helpcorrect some of that perception because
just how. How friendly andwelcoming people are in virtually
every corner of the world.
Yeah. And that doesn't meanthere are not governments of whom
I am not a fan, which wouldinclude my own right now. But so,
(24:06):
you know, and the trip that Idid with amateur traveler listeners
to Cuba did not teach me to bea Marxist, but I still enjoyed meeting
the Cuban people, but did. Wasnot. Didn't love the situation of
the country right now. And soyou'll, you'll run to those things
where you see things that arebroken and don't need to be broken.
You know, visiting Zimbabwewith, you know, 90% unemployment
(24:26):
that was largely ruined by thegovernment in ineptitude and corruption.
In that you'll run into that.But still the people and just.
And just being able to seesome of those places and, and what
people are experiencing inthose parts of the world firsthand,
it does give you such adifferent perspective and point of
view, for sure.
Yeah, I remember being in. SoI did some of my first kind of third
(24:50):
world travel, if you will, injust in Tijuana, just down on the
border, doing volunteer trips,going down there to build houses
with a local communityorganization. And it was interesting
because later on I was inTanzania for the first time. Probably
15 years ago or so. And wewent to, you know, out to one of
the marketplaces and I'mlooking around, I'm going, oh, I,
(25:12):
I know this place. Iunderstand this place. It's, it's
just like Tijuana. It's so youcan you see it with different eyes.
You don't just see, wow, whata small shop. You see, oh look, he's
added onto his shop, he'sdoing good. And wow, they've got
the, they've got the satellitedish now and oh, look, they've got
power this time. And so yousee the progress where, you know,
(25:34):
the first time through, youjust see what they don't have, you
know, and, and it'sinteresting how your environment,
how you're. For me, my comfortzone has stretched here in travel
just in the last 20 years,even while I've been doing this show.
Well, it's interesting youtalk about that too. Going back to
(25:54):
a place that's one of thethings I've started doing some shows
on recently is some of thoselike iconic cities around the world.
Your second visit to the cityand what to do on a second visit
because everybody, everybodythinks about that first time and
you know, all the bucket listthings you need to do. But it is
on that second trip where youget a whole different experience
where you get to reallyunderstand a lot more of what local
(26:14):
life is like. And you don'thave to see the Eiffel Tower and
the Louvre this time. You canactually go figure out where Parisians
hang out and what they do. Andyeah, those second trips are. There
is something very specialabout them for sure.
Well, I enjoy doing shows too.On the second trip to the country
where you're not going toParis, maybe you're going to Leon
or maybe you're going, youknow, cruising down the Canal de
(26:36):
Midi or, or going to Normandy,which is a, you know, I think a very
typical first or second tripor just all of those places that
you don't know. For instance,I just in Germany and I've been,
I don't know how many tripsI've done in Germany. Eight or some,
somewhere in that range. But Ihad not been down to Lake Constance.
I really hadn't heard aboutLake Constance. I owned three UNESCO
(26:58):
sites, two within the samewith it, you know, one per day there
for a while. Saw amazingthings, beautiful place, medieval
villages. And it just wasn'ton my radar at all. Didn't know about
it. So I love going. Yeah, Iwould say discovering but you know,
being invited to in this case,explore some places like that. So
(27:19):
it's just pretty cool.
Now doing the podcast for 20years now being to 70 plus countries,
is your, your love for travel,your desire to travel more waning
at all?
No, no. You know, towards theend of the trip, yes, but towards
the, towards the last day ofthe trip, I'm one of those people
(27:40):
who's, you know, back early tothe airport, ready to go home. But
then, you know, after I'm homefor a couple, two, three weeks, I'm
also ready to hit the roadagain. So it just, it's interesting
just trying to find the rightcadence for travel because my wife
is still working full time,I'd like to stay married. We've been
married for 43 years and sofar she's putting up with me. So
(28:04):
trying to find the rightcadence that also lets you get the
work done and get the showsout and only take off the four episodes
a year, which is still mygoal. And it's kind of tough because
you're trying to picture,well, how will I feel in November
when I get back at the end ofthat China trip, Do I want to go
through South Korea or will Ibe tired of traveling by the time
(28:26):
I'm hitting that? And I'mstill trying to decide that for the,
the trip I'm doing to China islike, wow, there's really cheap,
cheap flights through Incheon.You know, should I, should I stay
in Incheon for a couple days?And because I haven't been to South
Korea, other, you know, otherthan airports, which I don't count.
But so, so, so no, so far, nottired of travel at all, but, you
(28:47):
know, just trying to find theright cadence.
Yeah, I would say exactly thesame. I mean, definitely, definitely
my love of travel hasn't wanedat all, but the way I travel has
probably evolved a little bitover, over the last 20 years. Although
largely I, I mean, I think weboth probably have a similar travel
style in that I will find, youknow, very much like you just referenced,
(29:09):
right. If, if I'm flyingthrough to one part of the world
and I see I've got a, there'sa potential I can get the direct
flight or there's potential Ican get a layover that may be 24
hours and will let me get outof the airport and see something,
I'm taking the layover at 99%,99% of the cases.
Not necessarily these yearsbecause there's still the getting
back home and seeing my wife,but my wife's definitely finding
(29:31):
that she is changing. So she'slike, we're going down on a trip
with Australis cruising downin Patagonia here in November around
our anniversary. But she doesnot want to do the overnight flight
anymore if she can avoid it.And so we're, we will spend an extra
night in Lima. An extra, aslong as we're there, we'll spend
(29:53):
a day in Lima and actually seethe city this time because she just
doesn't want to do that. Youknow, there's no need to do a red
eye. She's got enough time offthat she can take that extra day
and you know, will pay for thehotel even though it's, the rest
of the trip is sponsored andthat's just how she wants to travel
anymore. You know, when thatflight, those like two night flights
(30:15):
in a row to get to Africa, Ithink that was kind of the, the breaking
point for her. It's like I amnever doing that again. I'm going
to spend the night in Londonand then get on another flight or
something like that. Yeah.
My wife has had some healthchallenges in the last couple years
that have made long haulflight stuff a little bit more challenging
for her. But one of the thingsI find that has enabled us to do
(30:37):
as much travel, both me andher together and us as a family together,
we're really fortunate thatsimilar, very, very similar travel
styles where both of us wantto squeeze every moment out of a
trip that we can like. Thereare people who love to go to a, you
know, we've got, we've gotfriends who will go to the same place
in Mexico and have a greatbeach vacation where they lie on
(31:00):
the beach for two weeks everyyear. They love that we would happily
go with them, but they wouldprobably see us for about two hours
during that trip becausethat's about as much time as we,
any of us or a family wouldspend on the beach. And every other
moment would be.
We're, we're very similar.
Every museum, cenote, localvillage, still love the beach. But
(31:20):
we are, we are way morerecharged by the exploration and
the discovering of new thingsthan the, than the sitting back and
having as many frothy drinksas you can at the all inclusive resort
for sure.
Well, we have friends who, youknow, one, they're, they're not even
doing the Mexican beach,they're doing the Jersey shore and
staying in the same houseevery year. But then we also had
(31:43):
another couple that theirperfect vacation was a cruise to
Hawaii because you have liketwo or three days on a ship and he
could just sit and read abook. And then they get to Hawaii
and they run around like crazyfor a week, which is what she wants
to do. And then they cruiseback and he's got his two or three
days on the ship. So it's alittle more challenging if you don't
(32:05):
have the same travel styles totry and come up with a good compromise
that works well.
I think we're both fortunate,too, in that we both live in cities.
I mean, you in the Bay Areathere and me in Vancouver, that a
lot of people from around theworld travel, too, and are great
travel destinations in and ofthemselves. So coming home is never
so hard either. And I thinkfor some who loves travel, living,
(32:27):
living in a city like SanFrancisco or Vancouver is. Does.
Does make it a lot easier, for sure.
Technically, I live in SanJose, so we're a little. Little more
spread out, a little moreelbow room, a lot easier to park.
So I like visiting SanFrancisco, but I don't like. I'm
driving up there tonight for aCalifornia visit California event.
And I don't love driving in the.
(32:47):
City, but we got to thinkcoming home, you got. You've got
great restaurants, you've gotgreat. There's a lot to see and do
there, too.
It is, it is. Well. And that'swhy one of my three blogs is a California
blog. So. And we're workingour way through some of the local
vineyards right now of in ourown county because we got a. We got
a vineyard pass, you know, $90for a whole year. You can get a free
(33:08):
tasting at a bunch of things.We won't even get all of the maximum
use out of because we starteda little late. But it's kind of fun
exploring your own backyard asa traveler sometimes.
Absolutely. Well, it has beengreat, Chris, to see over the last
20 years all that you haveaccomplished with your show, and
you've been super supportiveof our show and it's been great to
(33:28):
be able to have you on as aguest and collaborate together with
you. We've, particularly inthis last year and a half or so,
got to work together on a lotof projects and looking forward to
many more and lots more travelover the next 20 years.
Likewise. Thanks, Russell.
(33:49):
Well, a huge thank you to bothChris Christensen and Tim for joining
me on today's show, and thankyou to all of you who have joined
us over the last 20 years ofthe Travel in 10 podcast. I've got
lots more great content comingto you with destinations around the
world and just incrediblygrateful for all the people who have
tuned in and listened to ourrecommendations on how to travel
(34:12):
more and how to travel betteraround the world and tuning into
all of our podcasts now on theVoy Escape Podcast Network. To close
out today's episode, I'm goingto leave you with a song from a great
artist out of my homeprovince, Alberta, Canada. Grace
Forester with her rendition ofLeaving on a Jet Plane and check
her out on Instagram as well.Raceforrester Music.
(34:42):
All my bags is packed ready togo Standing here outside your door
I had to wake you up to saygoodbye but the dawn is breaking
it's early morning taxisleeping is blowing his horn on Betty
(35:07):
I'm so long to my good D sokiss me smile for me Tell me that
you wait for me hold me likeyou're never cuz I'm leaving heart
(35:31):
play the Know when I'll beback again oh baby to come there's
so many times when I so manytimes played around her Tell you
(35:51):
now that they don't mean athing Every place circle think of
you Every song I sing sing foryou and I come back Open your so
(36:12):
kiss me smile for me Tell methat you wait for me hold me like
your lover let me go you playdon't know when I'll be back again
(36:35):
Hoping to come now the timehas come to leave you one more time
Just let me kiss you Closeyour eyes I'll be on my way Dream
(36:57):
about the days to come when Ihave to leave all night about the
times that I won't have tosleep so kiss me smile for me Tell
me that you wait for me holdme like you'll never let me go Try
(37:25):
leaving on your plane don'tknow when I'll be back again oh wait
barely to go turn leavingheart play don't know when I'll be
(37:46):
back again Open.
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