Deviating From The Norm, Shaking Up Your Routine, And Living A Life Of Adventure Through Travel with Rolf Potts - 088 - Not Most People

Episode Transcript
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Bradley Roth (00:32):
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to another episodeof the Not Most People podcast.
This is your host, Bradley, andthis is the show for those
allergic to mediocrity groupthink and following the status
quo.
And before we get into today'sfull-length guest episode, I
have two quick reminders for youguys.
If you're tuning in for thefirst time or if you are a
repeat listener, I do this showad free.

(00:57):
And I will do that as long as Ican, as long as you guys
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(01:18):
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And again, that's only if youenjoy the show.
If you don't enjoy the show,don't share it.
But that's my one ask.
And otherwise, within not mostpeople, we have a lot going on

(01:40):
beyond the podcast.
So if you wanna learn aboutthat, just make sure to check
the show notes, all the linksand information for everything
else is there.
So that's it.
We're gonna get it right intoit.
I have Roth pots on the showtoday.
Roth, welcome to the show.
Good to talk to you, Bradley.
Yeah, this is one that's for me,pretty cool as a podcast host.

(02:02):
You know, you have people who,like, when you start the
podcast, you're like, man, it'dbe really cool to have that
person on because for me I'll,I'll get into a little bit of
the background here, but Roth isthe author of the book Vaga
Bonding, and it's one of theseven books I did an episode
several months back on the notmost people reading list.

(02:23):
So seven books that kind ofreally fit into the whole not
most people philosophy and VagaBonding was one of them.
So it's one of those books Irecommend to everyone and We'll
get into why in just a second.
But I'm really excited aboutthis one.
A little bit about Roth.
If you're not familiar, he'sreported for more than 60
countries for the likes ofNational Geographic traveler

(02:44):
outside the New York TimesMagazine, sports Illustrated, N
P R, the Travel Channel, and abunch of others I had to cut out
just cuz there were so many.
And his adventures have takenhim across six continents and
he's done things like piloting afishing boat, 900 miles down the
Mekong River, hitchhiking acrossEastern Europe.
Tra traversing Israel on foot,biking across Burma, driving a

(03:08):
Land Rover across South Americaand traveling around the world
for six weeks with no luggage orbags of any kind.
Which is something I actuallyjust learned about today when I
was kind of doing my research.
So I, I want to get into that.
But he's perhaps best known for.
Promoting the ethic ofIndependent Travel.
And his newest book, theVagabond's Way, 366 Meditations

(03:30):
on Wonderlust Discovery and TheArt of Travel just came out this
past October of 2022 and hisbestselling debut book,
Vagabonding and Uncommon Guideto The Art of Long-Term World
Travel, has been through 37printings and translated into
several languages.
And that is how I kind of,discovered your work back in, I

(03:51):
think it was 2017.
So it's funny because growing upI had like no interest in
international travel.
It wasn't something I wasexposed to.
One of my biggest regrets is,Not trying to study abroad in
college.
Like all my friends were doingit and I was like, why would I
wanna do that?
You know, this is fun here.
And I look back and I'm like,man, what?

(04:13):
Who?
Like, what was I thinking?
Because the world for me justchanged after, I think it was
2017, I met my now wife.
We started going on some trips.
I finally got my passport.
We went to The Bahamas, whichwasn't anything really crazy.
But that year, really kind oflike, I caught the travel bug
hard.
And as I'm looking into it, likethe number one book that keep
kept popping up everywhere.
And I had just read Tim Ferris'sthe Four Hour Work Week where he

(04:36):
referenced it was Vagabonding.
And I know he wrote the Forwardfor the book.
And so I was like, all right, Igotta check it out.
And here I am six years laterand I got my copy right.
I know the new one says morethan 300,000 copies sold on the
front.
Right.
And this one says more than ahundred thousand.
So this one I dunno, maybe it'sbeen updated and stuff since,
but I have literally every pageis highlighted and you're marked

(05:00):
and that kind of stuff.
And it's really interestingbecause, and I know I'm going on
and on here, but it, it kind oflike changed the paradigm for me
and I think it has for a lot ofpeople when it comes to travel.
Like, I think growing up when Iheard the word travel, I thought
vacation.
I thought like, you know, allinclusive resorts and escapism
and those things I think arestill a part of it.

(05:21):
But it kind of opened my mind tolike, travel can be almost a
lifestyle and here's how you cangrow as a person.
And it almost is, it almostreads, it has lots of tips in
there, but it almost reads morelike a philosophy book for me.
And when you were writing it,were, were you kind of like, To
you?
What were you writing?

(05:41):
A guide.
Just kind of sharing yourphilosophy and your internal
thoughts

Rolf Potts (05:47):
with it?
Both because to me, the mostimportant part of the guide was,
was, was the philosophicalstuff.
Like you, I didn't really travelmuch.
I didn't have a passport until Iwas 25, which surprises a lot of
people.
But then everything changed soquickly once I had a passport.
Once I started travelinginternationally, I guess before
I had a passport, I traveled theUS lived in a van for six
months, and that was a veryimportant trip.

(06:09):
Mm-hmm.
But I think that when people, I,I, I think a lot of people who
were sort of born into the worldwere travel is something that's
already a privilege.
Oftentimes it's about concretetips, that's what people want.
But me not really having, myparents didn't have passports.
I didn't seek a passport until Iwas in my mid twenties.
For me, the most importantaspect of travel was the
philosophical, existentialimperative.

(06:32):
do it and make it happen.
I think oftentimes when you'reyoung there's a lot of pressure
to start your life.
Air quote, start your lifeimmediately.
And I was, I was just, I I justsort of accepted the idea that
travel is something you do whenyou're old, when you retire,
that if you wanna travel for along time, you could do it when
you're old.
Yep.
And so I felt, when I took thatfirst Vagabonding trip when I
was 23, I felt veryself-conscious, like I was

(06:52):
breaking the rules somehow, andI was gonna spend too much money
and put myself in danger.
Well, that, that really wasn'tthe case.
It was, it was safer and easierand way more joyful than I
thought it would be.
And I realized that it didn'thave to be separate from a home
life, that travel can be inconversation with the life you
live at home.
And so, mm-hmm.
When I, I Vagabonding startedout as some advice I just put up
on the, on the Dial Up erainternet about 25 years ago.

(07:15):
But the advice when people wereasking, when I first started
writing and people were askingme how I could travel so much,
my answer is we're we'rephilosophical ones.
Basically, the idea that time iswhat you own, that you, it
doesn't matter what you pack inyour bag, obviously you wanna
pack light, but at the end ofthe day, you have to realize
that the life you have is thelife in this moment, and you
can't keep putting off your lifeyour best life for a different

(07:36):
time in life.
And so I wrote thisphilosophical book, it, it's
funny some of my editors andsome early reviewers were
confused that it was aphilosophical book instead of a
practical book.
You know, it's like, well, isn'tthere something about keeping
Ziploc bags or Yeah.
You know, to, to store yourpills in or something?
And it's like, well, that wasn'timportant to me.
The reason what, what enabled meto travel was this philosophical

(07:57):
imperative to make life yourbest life happen now.
And people responded to it.
Um mm-hmm.
I think that's why, you know, in2016 the cover had a hundred
thousand copies sold.
Now it says 300,000 copies sold.
It's, it keeps snowballing.
I, I, I think because it wasphilosophical in nature is not
pegged to thir.
20 years ago when I, when I,when it first came out, you

(08:18):
know, the, the, the philosophyof travel has stayed the same,
even as the technology anddifferent approaches to travel
have changed.
And so I, I stand by that.
People sometimes say, you everget tired of talking about bagga
boning?
It's like, eh, not really.
You know?
Uh mm-hmm.
Cause I, I stand by thosephilosophical principles.
Yeah.
It's,

it's interesting because when I read it, I was
already kind of like, man, Iwanna travel more.
But then after reading that,like the fire was officially
lit, you know, it kind of, likeyou said, the, the tips and the
tricks are great, but they'recompletely irrelevant if the
person never actually takes thesteps to go and get off the
couch and book the travel and,and take the risk and that kind
of thing.

(08:56):
So, It was really a paradigmshift for me, and it actually
kind of led to me, like I, I'vetold some people this, but I
started my kind ofentrepreneurial journey or
starting to work for myself backin, around that same time, 20
17, 20 18.
And literally the biggest reasonwas, you know, one, I thought
maybe, you know, maybe I canmake some money doing this, but

(09:17):
two, like the main thing was Ican, I can build a business that
I can do remotely and that meansI can travel.
So that was really like, peopleare like, why'd you get into
business?
And I'm like, so I could travel?
You know what I mean?
And, and everyone has adifferent kind of perspective or
reason, but yeah, it, it'sinteresting because there's so
many people, and I have so manypeople on the show who are big

(09:39):
entrepreneurs and you know,authors and speakers, and then I
have like a handful of peoplewho are like travel people.
And that's something that alwayswhen I was creating not most
people, right, it's the peoplewho kind of reject the status
quo.
Cuz the people who do thelong-term travel and make it a
lifestyle, like they're kind ofgoing against this, at least in

(10:00):
Western culture, like in the usthe societal narrative that,
like we were talking abouttravel is for when you're
retired, travel is for going andsitting on a beach and being in
one spot.
And so that's why I have, cuzsome people might be wondering
like why, you know, everything'skind of about business and
success and habits and thenthere's travel people on the

(10:21):
show and I said, you know,that's, that's kind of why,
cause I think there's so, likemost people never experienced
that and so I think most peopleare are losing out on so much.
But when you published a book, Ithink it was what, 2002?

Rolf Potts (10:36):
How 2003 was when it, 2003?
Almost Exactly 20 years ago.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay.
So

when you got your passport in, At 25, which I
think is arou just about thesame time I did.
And it's really almost like aparallel story there, kinda
getting the passport and, andhaving this spark and interest
in everything.
What was your first kind ofquote unquote Vaga Bondian style
trip and how long did you startthat before you, the book?

Rolf Potts (11:06):
Well, I wish I had some, some sort of more focused
idealized vagabonding story fromthat.
But basically I was outta money,right?
I did my vagabonding trip outtathe van in North America, which
didn't require, even when I wentto Canada on that trip, it
didn't require a passport backthen.
And then I was outta money and,and so, I was doing some, some
low level jobs in the statesthat I didn't really like very
much, but I had some friends whowere working in Korea and so I

(11:28):
literally got my passport orwhere I used my passport once I
got it.
to on a work visa to Korea.
I got a job teaching English asa foreign language, which was
not always easy, but it was alife-changing experience for me
because it, it, it, it was thefirst time that I was living in
and working in another cultureentirely.
And I think you canintellectualize what it's like

(11:49):
to live in another place, butit's another thing to actually
be in a place like Korea, whichis wired culturally wired a
little bit differently.
You know, Korea's it's been funto see Korea succeed as a
country so much in the 20, 25years since I've been there
because there's so many moviesand TV shows and books and, you
know, Korean pop culture is asstrong as anything.
But I didn't realize how, howdifferent it culturally

(12:12):
different it was in some ways,and so, I didn't really know
what I was gonna do on the otherend of my time in Korea.
I just wanted to make some moneyand save some money.
But then the more I talked toKoreans and other Americans and
Canadians and internationalpeople who were living there, I
realized that that internationaltravel was not as hard as you
might think it.

(12:33):
Should be, and you could also doit long-term as well, that I
didn't have to just have thisone-off long-term van journey in
North America.
I do the, I could do the samething in Asia.
Mm-hmm.
this is when I started gettingbylines for writing.
And so I saved, I was able tosave a lot of money in Korea and
I was able to travel for two anda half years, and it's at the
very end of that two and a halfyear travel window that I got
the book contract and I wroteVagabonding.

(12:55):
And so in a certain sense, Ifeel like, I know I have more
knowledge about travel in the 20years since I wrote that book.
But my passion and excitementand, and full immersion was, was
fully on fire then.
And so I think there's a young.
Part of my voice of Vagabondingthat I, I can't even try to
resemble now.
You know?
I was just so excited because itwas so new back then.

(13:17):
Yeah.
And again, I, I have expertisenow, but I, I, I'll never be
able to replicate just thepassion and the gratitude that I
was able to live two and a halfyears in Asia and North Africa
and Eastern Europe, justtraveling having each day be new
and just making my life biggerin ways that it hadn't occurred
to me were possible before Ileft on that trip.

(13:39):
Yeah.

So two and a half years and you didn't stop home
at all during that?
That was two and a half yearsstraight or what?
Was there kind of mini breaks inthere?
There was I took a

Rolf Potts (13:48):
mini break.
There was one year, the year2001.
I didn't go to North America atall.
But when was it?
It was 99.
I got, I got drugged and robbed.
I don't wanna dis to make peoplenervous that this is gonna
happen to them, but it, it, ithappens.
I, I got, I got robbed in, inIstanbul, Turkey and it just
made sense to go home andregroup for a while.
I think I went home for fourweeks, five weeks, six weeks,

(14:10):
something like that.
And then I went back out on theroad.
I flew, you know, all the wayback to Turkey and re and
resumed my trip there.
So yeah, I did, I did go home afew times, but for the most part
I was in full vagabonding mode.
I was living on very littlemoney each day.
I was moving from place to placepretty rapidly.
And actually I used rapidly, I'ma big fan of slow travel, so I

(14:31):
mean, I was in Egypt for, forseveral months.
I was in Israel and Syria andIndia for several months at a
time.
But I was usually on the moveand, and just sort of getting
into adventures.
It was fun to, to sort of givemyself permission.
To instead of having a day beframed by habits have your day
be framed by possibility.
That's a great thing that canhappen when you travel, is that

(14:54):
you can't even imagine what willhappen once you start traveling
because you aren't that personyet.
You know that every day youtravel, you become more
experienced, you become betterat doing it, and your instincts
become better.
And it was a blast.
You know, I, I, I'll never beable to redo that trip again.
It was the trip that I justfinished when I wrote
Vagabonding.
It was, again, I go back togratitude.
I was so grateful that I wasable to give myself permission

(15:17):
to do that.
And that's something I hear I'vebeen hearing for 20 years now
from readers, is that they gavethemselves permission with a
little help from Vaga bonding inmy book.
And they were just grateful thatthey were able to do it because
they didn't think they hadpermission to do that.
They didn't think they were ableto do it.
And yeah, it's easier than youthink it might

be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I definitely wanna get intothat, that last point, but, so
you flew back to Turkey rightafter you had gotten robbed
there?

Rolf Potts (15:41):
Yeah, actually I was, I was dating dating an
Italian woman at the time, so Iflew to Turkey and then I flew
to Italy and hung out with herfor the holidays and we traveled
a little little while, and thenshe stayed in Italy and I went
on to Egypt for a while.
So it's all mixed up.
There's, oh, once I took afreighter ship, yeah, there's a
couple times I went home.
I took a freighter ship fromSuez to Bombay, and then I flew
home to the States for a while.

(16:03):
Then I came back, but I had amagazine assignment in Laos.
And so like, I flew threequarters of the way around the
world.
I should have flown over thePacific, but I flew over the
Atlantic in Europe and half ofAsia to do my magazine Yeah, so
I, it it, it wasn't always a, a,a rational straight line, but
man, as a life experience, itwas amazing.
I'm sure.

So people are hearing, and I think they can
kind of have an idea of whenthey hear the word vagabond.
Most people are semi-familiarwith it, but like, what is your.
Kind of simple definition of

Rolf Potts (16:31):
vagabonding.
It's taking time off from yournormal life to travel in earnest
for an extended period of time.
It's something that goes beyondthe standard five day to two
week vacation that you're given.
And it's creating a time in yourlife to travel.
It's realizing that your truestform of wealth is the time you
own and not the things you own.
And using that time in a waythat enriches your life in this

(16:53):
case in a way that's travel.
And it's also about an attitude.
It's about sort of an opennessto the world and, and being
willing to improvise and, andlet your heart grow and let your
spirit grow.
And then to take that attitudeback home with you to make your
travels, be in conversation withthe life you live at home.
And then just have a morephilosophically and spiritually
grounded life thanks to thelessons you learned while you

(17:14):
were traveling.
Hmm.

Yeah.
So I'm sure a lot of peoplelisten.
Like, I know most, most peoplewanna travel more.
There's some people who are justlike home bodies and they have
no interest in it.
And it's very hard for me tounderstand them in the sense.
But for all the peoplelistening, they're like, wow,
two and a half years I couldnever do that.
My life wouldn't allow it.
Do you have some kind of, I'msure you do, like words of

(17:39):
wisdom or tips or, you know, howcan people make that, you know,
it doesn't have to be two and ahalf years, but more than like a
week in the Caribbean, you know,or something like that.
And it, and it's true.
I've noticed this.
We just, me and my wife did ourfirst kind of like, we'd been to
Mexico and the Caribbean andstuff, but our first big trip to
Europe back in the fall forabout two months.

(18:01):
And like you said, the US iskind of geographically isolated
in a, in a lot of ways.
Right.
Whereas you go to Europe andlike most Europeans, most
Australians, most people thatyou meet, over there, like are
so much more traveled than theaverage American.
And so it's almost like acultural thing in a sense where,

(18:23):
you know, for an American totravel, it's gotta be expensive.
You gotta take time off of workthat you don't have and all
these things.
So what would you say to thosepeople who are like, all right,
like, I kind of wanna do that,but I dunno how to make it
possible.
Where would I start?
Well

Rolf Potts (18:38):
first give yourself permission and, and decide that
it's gonna happen.
And this doesn't mean you haveto pack your bags and leave next
week, but.
Yeah.
I think in two years I can haveenough money to save, to travel,
save to travel the world for sixmonths.
And then once that becomes a, aconcrete goal on your, on your
horizon, maybe one that you'vetold your friends about and now
you're accountable to it.

(18:58):
Mm-hmm.
once you have that goal, itstart, it makes everything more
exciting.
You know, even a bad day at workis, it is a bad day at work
where you're saving a fewhundred dollars more for your
journey.
And then just like travel can bein conversation when you come
back home, before you leavehome, your, your travels can be
in conv, your future travels canbe in conversation with your
everyday life.

(19:18):
And then what happens?
You start researching travel.
You know, through your computerscreen these days or through
your phone and you just realizethat you don't just have to buy
the expensive hotel on theexpensive beach, that there are
other people traveling in reallydynamic ways.
There's people traveling in thelocal economy.
In a place like the Middle Eastor Southeast Asia and the local
economy, the dollar is a lotstronger than it would be back

(19:40):
home.
Mm-hmm.
and suddenly, yeah, you don'thave to stay at the$150.
Thailand has hotels for$15 andthey're kind of great, and
there's more Thai people there,there's more cool backpackers
there.
And then suddenly at thebeginning of this process, when
you gave yourself permission,what you assumed was the price
point for a, for a six monthjourney.
Using that as an example,suddenly is a lot lower than you

(20:02):
realized.
And you realized that there area lot of people out in the world
doing it, sharing theirexperiences, sharing their tips,
and you just become a moreconfident person.
And I try to discourage peoplefrom, from micromanaging their
travel before they leave home.
I think it can be excitingsometimes to plan each day of
your travel, but keep in mindthat you can learn a lot by
studying your travels.
You can learn about S safety andsaving money and things like

(20:24):
that, but then after one week onthe road, you'll be so much
smarter because you'll be doingit, you know?
So while you plan your travels,also give yourself permission to
deviate from your plans and bespontaneous because it's through
those that you.
You can sort of follow yourlove.
You can fall in love with aplace or a person or an
activity, and then pretty soonyou're studying Mui Thai in

(20:44):
Thailand or you're, you know,learning how to scuba dive in
Costa Rica.
And that is something new that'saffecting how your experience
goes.
I've met people who, their ideawas to, to travel to 20
countries in six months, andafter the second country, they
liked it so much, they decidedto spend the whole six months
in, in that country, and itchanged their life in a way that

(21:04):
mm-hmm.
racing through 20 countrieswouldn't.
So yeah, it's giving yourselfpermission to go, it's planning
carefully, and then letting goof those plans when you find
something you love once you'reon the road.
Yeah, it

is.
I, I directly experienced thatbecause when we went to Europe,
we were there nine, no, sevenweeks, so like 50 days.
And we ended up doing eightcountries, smaller countries, or
nine if you include VaticanCity.
But basically we were movingevery like.
You know, three days and we,we'd found a spot that we'd

(21:35):
liked and we're like, man, like,I wish we could just stay here
for a month.
You know?
So it, it does happen like that.
I think people, and then alsoour itinerary shifted and
changed as we learned thingsabout different places while we
were over there that we, youknow, probably wouldn't have
learned planning ahead over inthe us.
And so I think, yeah, the ideaof slow travel is something

(21:57):
that's really, reallyinteresting.
Or you know, not waiting tillretirement to go live somewhere
for a few months.
Especially, I feel like the lasttwo years has made that more
possible than ever, right?
Like things are opening back up,travel's opening back up, and
now more people are workingremotely than ever before.
And so I think you're startingto see it in some places, but I
think it's now more possiblethan ever.

(22:19):
Whereas, you know, when youwrote Vaga Bonding, Hardly
anyone was working on theinternet.
You know, there were a fewbloggers here and there and, and
that sort of thing, or, but nowit's, it's accessible to I feel
like the vast majority of peoplecompared to then.
Do you feel like that's part of,that coincides with the surge of
interest in it?

(22:39):
Like in the book growing?
Do you think it's moreaccessible and that's a big part
of it?
I

Rolf Potts (22:44):
think so.
I think technology shifted and Ithink the philosophical ideas I
outlined in Vagabonding found anew audience that was a good
audience because you mentionedTim Ferris, he really champions
Vagabonding in the Four HourWorkweek, which is his best
selling first book, right?
I think the fact that people whogo to the business section of
the bookstore were suddenlygoing to the travel section to
find my book, they were able toimplement.

(23:07):
Travel ideas that go beyond justsort of dropping out and being a
hippie for a, for a few monthsand just thinking, well, this is
something as technologies allowus to be independent of the home
office.
We can take a lot of thesetechnologies with us.
And so I, I think Va Gani has,has influenced this remote world

(23:28):
that has really bloomed uparound the world in the 20 years
since the book came out.
But it's also individuals usingtechnology, being creative,
finding ways to make it happen,and finding ways to, instead of
being stuck in traffic in thegreater Dallas area or wherever
they live, they are.
You know, surfing during thatone hour mm-hmm.
they'd be stuck in trafficcoming back on the beach in

(23:49):
Costa Rica and then doing thework that they would be doing in
Dallas anyway.
And so it's not like I, it's notlike I had a vision of that when
I wrote Vagabond.
It's just this philosophicalbook about living your best life
and giving yourself permissionto do that.
But it's been really fun to seehow people have used
technologies in really amazingways to not just earn a living
overseas while moving around,but like make a lot of money
overseas and, and give back totheir own communities in ways

(24:11):
that they might not be able toif they were this stressed out
person stuck in traffic everyday.
Right.

And you can even live at a much higher standard,
right?
Like, The cost of living insomewhere like a Thailand or
Indonesia is a small fraction ofwhat it is in the us.
And so, you know, it can be,travel, can save you money in a
sense, if you look at it thatway.
Right?

Rolf Potts (24:33):
Yeah, yeah.
No, I was a, I was a, when I wasin Thailand and Southeast Asia,
I was pretty much a dirt bag.
I was going as cheap as I could,But you can, you can live a
first class life with a thirdclass salary in a, in a place
like Thailand.
That, that that's one thing thatthat, that you can do.
You don't have to be a dirt bagand stretch a little bit of
money into a long amount oftime.
You can take a modest, whatwould be a modest income in the

(24:56):
United States, and you can livea really comfortable
sophisticated, you know, urbanor beach lifestyle in a place
like Thailand.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so I think there's,there's so many ways to embrace
this and so many ways to takeadvantage of places that, that
have a little bit cheaperstandards of living and then in,
in the US and, you know,different philosophies of, of

(25:16):
being in the world.
And it's fun to be in dialoguewith those places.
It's fun to give back to thoseeconomies and, and learn from
those cultures even as you areenjoying the material rewards of
living in a cheaper place.
For sure.

Yeah.
So to piggyback on kind of thisnew ability to work remotely, do
you think that the rise ofYouTube and travel v logging and
Instagram and all that has beenan overall positive for kind of
the travel world or negative, ora little bit of both?

Rolf Potts (25:46):
I think a lot of both actually.
Yeah.
it's been, it's been a lotpositive and a lot negative
because one big impediment whenI was a young 17 year old, or 23
year old, or even a 26 year old,I didn't really know how to do
it myself.
There weren't that manyexamples.
I could go to the library andmaybe write a book that was
written by a guy twice my age.
You know, 20 years before it washard to really get a pulse for

(26:08):
what was going on.
Well, these days, you know, allsorts of blogs, Instagram,
YouTube videos tell the story ofhow people are traveling.
And so it's easier than evergoing back to the P word
permission.
It's easier than ever to giveyourself permission.
It's, it's less, there's less ofa mystique.
It seems less difficult to gooff and travel for the long
term.
One problem with thesetechnologies is that, so many

(26:32):
times.
We're on the other side of theworld.
We're in this amazing place andwe're staring at the same
screen.
We stared at back home, youknow?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
We're texting with the samepeople.
We're trying to impress the samepool of people we barely know
with our social media feeds, andthat, that literally takes away
from your experience of theseother places.
I think we perform our lives atat home, and then suddenly we're

(26:52):
performing.
A super cool version of thetravels we could be taking, but
really aren't because we'reperforming them for our phone
all the time.
Yeah.
And so that's, that's the otherside of the coin, that that
technologies can enable travel.
You know, these days your phonecan be your map, your guidebook,
your camera, your translator,all these things.
That's a great tool.
But again, if you're staring atyour phone 75% of each day, then

(27:15):
maybe that uncertainty andsurprise is something that you
should allow yourself to have.
And that's a tough thing.
That's something I touched onquite a bit in my new book, the
Vagabond's Way, where I gentlytry to talk to people,
especially younger generationsof people who maybe are not, who
are digital natives, who neverdidn't know things like social
media, just saying, look, it'sokay.
You have permission to leaveyour Instagram.

(27:36):
Fallow for a week.
You have permission to not textyour mom for three days.
Just say, mom, look.
I'm going into the jungle.
I, I swear I'll buy you asouvenir and text you when I get
back.
Don't worry about me.
Because when I first started,you know, it wasn't that weird
to not communicate with yourfamily for a couple months if
you were off, off the beatentrack.
Whereas now you just texteverybody so much that people

(27:57):
get freaked out.
In fact, in the new book,there's this story about this
woman named Lydia Sullivan, whoshe went missing in Fiji and her
family was worried about her,and they combined, she's from
the uk.
They, they combined British andFiji and Task force to find her.
Well, she wasn't lost.
She just went to a resort withbad internet, right?
So after five days, they thoughtshe was maybe dead, when in fact

(28:17):
she was having the time of herlife.
She just wasn't able to, to sendtext messages or emails and so,
mm-hmm.
I think.
This new technological lensthrough which we see the world
is, is not really that normal.
For thousands of years, humanshave have been able to adapt and
really use their own resources,use the Five Senses rather than
smartphone apps to navigate theworld.

(28:39):
And if you don't allow yourselfto navigate a given day or a
week in a place like Europe orAsia, using your smell and your
sight and your sounds, you know,like walk down the street and
tell you, hear the, the coolsounds of a, of a concert or the
smells of some pastry or somecurry that you've never had
before, that's more exciting andmore life affecting than getting

(29:00):
on Yelp or looking at some sortof you know, e event listing
online.
And so I don't want to be toobroadly condemning of these
technologies because they'reuseful mm-hmm.
but I think that is, yourtravels are gonna touch your
heart and affect your life.
More fully if you allow yourselfto be free of what I call the

(29:20):
digital umbilical cord.
Put your phone, actually, when Iwas in Paris last year, I teach
a class in Paris every summer.
My wife and I decided that weweren't gonna buy data plants
for our phones.
And so we, we did some researchabout places.
We wanted to see restaurants, wewanted to eat routes, we wanted
to walk, and then we just took apaper map.
We put little pencil dots on apaper map, and if we got lost,

(29:42):
we asked directions or we usedthe logic of the map.
And it was so rewarding becauseit was, it was freeing.
We weren't looking at our phoneevery 10 seconds.
We were just looking around.
We were engaged in ourenvironments.
And often for all of thosepencil dots on our maps, we
found a dozen things that was asawesome as anything we'd planned
to see, simply because weallowed ourselves to interact

(30:04):
with our environment instead ofinteracting with our phone all
the time.
Yeah.
So yeah, it's, it's easier saidthan done, but it's really
rewarding when you could do it.

Yeah, I can totally relate to that cuz we,
again, we went to Europe and youknow, we had data on our phones,
but it was a very limited amountand so it would run out like a
weekend.
And so then we'd have to go fromlike, you know, having
step-by-step directionseverywhere to kind of figuring
it out a little bit more.
And, you know, I, I think that'sa super valuable experience

(30:33):
because yeah, like you said, forthousands of years people got
around without their phones.
They contacted people not everyfive minutes.
They were more present.
And so I remember partwaythrough, so we, we started in
Italy, we went there for awedding, kind of worked our way
south to North Italy, and thenwent through the Balkans and
Italy.
We hit kind of, you know, allthe classic touristy things.

(30:54):
Rome and Venice and Florenceand, and all the main sites and
attractions.
But after that I was like, okay,we're going to Eastern Europe
where it's not, not quite likethat, you know, there's still
some touristy stuff, but it wasit was kind of like the perfect
progression.
because for someone who I'vebeen, you know, I always joke
that I was like the biggesttravel expert who's never really

(31:15):
traveled ever anywhere.
Like, you know, I could consumetons of books and Hmm, and all
that stuff.
And we went over there and, youknow, Italy is very, I guess
somewhat Americanized and easyto get around and that kind of
stuff.
And then as the trip went on, wehad kind of got into like more
and more of the off the beatenpath stuff.
And so it was this really coolprogression.
And there was like, later on inthe trip, I remember we missed

(31:39):
we went to the wrong trainstation and Sarah gave O Bosnia
and then we, like, we found outright before the or sorry, bus
station, and they're like, oh,you're at the wrong one.
Then we tried to like, you know,get a taxi to the next one and
we missed that bus.
And then we had, we couldn'ttranslate to like buy the next
ticket for the ne and it wasjust this whole like, you know,
fiasco.

(31:59):
And I remember I was like, youknow what, like a month ago we
would not have handled this sowell.
So it was really interesting tosee.
Kind of like your ability toproblem solve your patience and
stuff, how it evolves just oversuch a short period of time like
that.
So I think there's, there's somuch to it from the personal
side of the growth side that youmiss out if you don't do

(32:22):
something like that.
But going back to what you saidabout the phones, I recorded a
whole lot on my phone, but aboutlike two weeks in, I said, you
know what?
I'm not gonna worry about tryingto post anything and whatever
until like after the tripbecause that's just gonna take
away.
And we weren't doing slowtravel, unfortunately.
We were, we were three dayshere, three days there, packing

(32:43):
up, leaving, moving.
And so I was like, that'svaluable, valuable time that I
don't wanna be spending on myphone.
So I think the biggest advantageof smartphones and everything is
the ability to record.
and stuff because you, youforget so many little details.
I'm sure you've experienced thistoo, where you come back and, or
you, you go through old picturesor old videos and you're like,

(33:06):
man, I forgot about that, thatthing that happened or that
conversation, or these peoplewe've met and that sort of
thing.
So I think it's a huge plus fromthat perspective, but it is sad.
I see people who go on a tripand yeah, they're on their phone
their whole time finding theperfect filter for Instagram to
make it look as cool aspossible.
And it's like, well, you're,you're missing the point.

(33:27):
But yeah, I, I dunno, I, I havea whole lot of thoughts on, I
could keep going on and on, butI want to I want to get into
your new book a little bit.
We've talked about Vaga bonding,and this is the Vaga Bond's way,
so I'm sure it's, you know,there's, there's a lot of
overlap in the ideas and thatsort of thing, but it's 366, so
is it kind of meant to beconsumed as almost just a daily

(33:48):
bite size?
Journal.

Rolf Potts (33:52):
Yeah, it's like a page, a day devotional book.
And I don't require No, butpeople don't, people can read it
all at once if they want, butthe idea is that each page packs
quite a bit of punch.
There's a quote and then areflection on that quote.
And then it sort of invites thereader to think about different
aspects of travel over thecourse of a year from
inspiration and planning earlyon to the early days on the road

(34:13):
all the way to the end of theyear when it's about coming
home.
And so, thematically, there's a,a lot of overlap with
Vagabonding, like you say, butit goes deeper into a lot of
specific issues.
For example, when you're talkingabout missing, going to the
wrong bus station it reminded meof a story I told in the
vagabonds way that when, when mywife was in her twenties, she
met her parent parents in Italyand her dad saw 1530 on the, on

(34:37):
the airplane.
Information and assumed like anAmerican, it was five 30, not
three 30, and they missed theirplane.
And so instead of just stayingin an airport hotel and waiting
for the next plane, he said,let's just go to the Alps.
And so they extended their,their vacation.
They had this amazing trip inTheta Valley, which they'd never
heard about before.
It was mis shrouded.

(34:58):
And the fact that it happened byaccident made it the most
memorable part of that trip.
So one of, one of my little minichapters in the Vagabonds Way
talks about what you were justtalking about in the context of
Bosnia, of making mistakes serveyou instead of frustrate you.
Like seeing mistakes as aninvitation to do something
awesome.
And yeah, tip of my cap to myfather-in-law or I guess he was

(35:21):
my future father-in-law at thetime, that instead of getting
frustrated or feelingself-conscious, it's like this
is an invitation to do somethingawesome.
Mm-hmm.
let's just drive until we seemountains and do.
And see what we see.
And to this day, I've never beento the Osta Valley in northern
Italy, but I want to go nowbecause my father-in-law made a
mistake, you know, 30 years ago.
Yeah.

I feel like those are the coolest places that
people end up at, or that theygo to kind of almost by chance
or by accident versus like, whenyou hear that there's more of
almost a mystique or a mysteryto that place than the
well-traveled touristy places.
Right.

Rolf Potts (35:56):
So I, I think sometimes those bucket list
places, they're, they'reamazing, but they're full of
long lines of tourists.
Mm-hmm.
basically people just like you.
Like, yeah.
If everybody has the Taj Mahaland their bucket list, then that
means there's gonna be a lot ofpeople with bucket lists at the
Taj Mahal, and that's fine, butit's not as exciting as having a
place to yourself or discoveringa place by accident.

(36:18):
When I, another thing I talkabout in the Vagabonds way is,
When I was in Sri Lanka, I wentto this place called Seria.
I didn't even know what it was.
It's this old thousand year oldcity on the top of a, a cliff,
basically.
And I was just so amazed.
It just blew me away that thisthing existed.
I had no idea it was, it wasn'ton my bucket list.
Cause I hadn't done enoughresearch to know it was in
central Sri Lanka.
And so it was so exciting.

(36:39):
It was such a gift to climb upand just sort of see how a
thousand years ago people madethese ingenious irrigation pools
so they could live on top of abutte, basically in this very
well protected area.
And that was fun.
That was as fun as, as Stu asgoing to the Egypt in, in, in
the, going to the pyramids inEgypt, which is a great place to
go.
But because I didn't know aboutthis place in Sri Lanka, and I'm

(36:59):
sure every country has like 20of these locations, if you just
allow yourself to get lost alittle bit, it was so fun to
learn in real time about thisplace I'd never heard about
before.

Yeah, I can I could definitely relate with
that.
And then, One thing that I meantto ask about earlier was your no
baggage challenge.
So like for that we're talkingabout, you know, being prepared
and that kind of stuff you had.
So I believe the rules were kindof, you couldn't carry a bag
with you at any point in thetrip, right?

(37:31):
So it was what you were wearingand what could fit in your
pockets, essentially.

Rolf Potts (37:35):
Exactly.
Yeah.
I, yeah, I, I recorded it.
So my cameraman had, you know, abag, actually, he traveled very
light too.
But I wasn't allowed to put mystuff in his bag, you know, that
I, that I, I couldn't, Icouldn't cheat that way.
And it was weird because when wefirst started making those
videos, I thought that one ofthe conflicts in the videos
would be the challenge oftraveling with no luggage.
But after about a week, I gotused to it.

(37:58):
I got used to.
One thing that people would sayto me when I first left, it's
like, you, you're gonna stinkAnd Yeah.
Actually it is like, no, it's,I'm not gonna go around the
world with not bathing.
I'm gonna go around the worldwith, with no luggage.
Right.
And so, right.
What happened is, is that I, Ishowered like twice a day.
I, I was, I always had two setsof clothes.
I always washed one and woreone, you know?

(38:18):
Mm-hmm.
And so, and, and actually I hungout with the same dirt bag
backpackers that I usually didsometimes, and I would look at
them and it's like they have agiant backpack that's full of
dirty clothes.
Whereas I have, I have onepocket full of my spare clothes
that I washed yesterday.
And it, it was exciting to, itwas exciting to realize that I
didn't really need all thisstuff.
And I'm not saying that I'vebecome a no baggage traveler

(38:40):
full-time ever since I stilltake small bags.
Mm-hmm.
But it made me realize that thejoy of travel isn't about all
these secret.
Things that you take with you,but it's about what can happen
that goes beyond what's in yourbag.
You know, it's about travel, isabout experiences, it's not
about things.
And you can have a, a great pairof wicking socks or a, a
smartphone that takes images and3D or whatever, but at the end

(39:03):
of the day, it's gonna be thosesmells and sounds and sights
and, and just sort of puttingyourself into an experience, be
it freezing cold, watching theNorthern Lights in Norway, or,
or sweating your brow andSumatra while, while you're
hiking through a jungle, meetingpeople who still live in sort of
a ch stone age adjacent way.
And past that, it's all extrabaggage.
So I, I, I really love thattrip.

(39:24):
I was always a pretty lighttraveler, but that trip made me
realize that you really don'tneed much of anything.
It was sort of a stunt to see ifI could do it, but what I
realized is that I think most ofwhat we all bring is stuff that
we don't, stuff we don't reallyneed.
It makes us feel better, but wedon't really use it that much.
Yeah.

Was was that challenge your idea or did
someone kind of.
Proposed that to you?

Rolf Potts (39:44):
It was my idea.
I had a, my sponsor was acompany that makes a po close
with a lot of pockets.
And, and, and so I thought, I'vealways sort of wanted to do
this, and now here's a pretextto do it.
And it's like, what if we dothis with, with your, with your
vest, with all the pockets?
And that's sort of how thesnowball got rolling.
It's like a, it's funny, again,it goes back to permission.
I think I might have figured outhow to do that independently,

(40:07):
just cause I liked the idea, butthen suddenly when I had a
potential sponsor, it's like,well, wait a second.
No, let's try this.
Let's, let's, let's make thishappen.
And so it became a lot of fun.
It became, it was much morepublic than I would've done
otherwise, you know?
Yeah.
But it was, it was cool.
People were following me alongon YouTube and, and and uh, this
was pretty early in the cycleof, of social media.
It was 13 years ago, but.

(40:28):
It was just fun.
And I think when you write aboutthese sort of things, they seem
like stunts.
They seem like sort ofself-aggrandizing stunts.
But I think sometimes it's funto give yourself a stunt, see
what you can do.
Can I learn three differentmartial arts?
Can I learn to cook 10 differentki types of food?
Mm-hmm.
can I learn how to build a housein the traditional way that they
use in Bali?
Right.

(40:49):
Those are stunts.
But gosh, you learn so much.
Even it doesn't have to doexactly what the stunt you're
trying to achieve.
And so for me, the no baggagetrip was just, it was just a
blast.
At the end of the day.
It wasn't really about nobaggage.
It was about the fun that I hadalong the way.

Yeah.
And so that started and ended Ithink, in New York.
Right.
And it took about six weeks.
Did you have that one prettyplanned out considering like you
were only, you were very limitedin what you could bring.
And did you have I think it waswhat, 2010, 11 around there?
So iPhones had kind of just comeout.
Did you have a smartphone orwhat?

(41:22):
What were you, was that a flowtrip?

Rolf Potts (41:26):
I had an iPod, like iPod, a touch iPod.
It was sort of the last era inwhich that was a thing.
I had friends who had, who hadsmartphones that were basically
a much mo more bulked up versionof what I had.
It was an iPod, but it was nicebecause it made me less
dependent upon that.
As I traveled and I did, I diddo a lot more advanced planning
because I had to get an aroundthe world ticket.

(41:48):
One of my sponsors was AirTreks, who does these great
round the world tickets, andthere really wasn't a lot of
wiggle room because they neededto be able to get me in and out
of places.
So yeah, it wasn't asfreewheeling.
in principle as you think,because I knew pretty much where
I was gonna be in a given place.
But surprisingly, one greatthing is that when you don't
have to stash a bag any place,when you can just jump off the

(42:08):
train and immediately startwalking across the city.
Mm-hmm.
I was able to be as spontaneousin ways I never could be when I
spent an hour trying to figureout where to stash my bag or
lock it up in my hotel room orwhatever.
Yeah, so it, it was good fun.
It was like, I'm not sure if Iwould want to do a bunch of six
weeks, no luggage trips, with alot of, like making three videos

(42:29):
a week.
Yeah, it was great to have done.
I, I, I sort of prefer to travelin a more quiet way, but Yeah.
How fun was that?
It was it was a cool thing andit was sort of meant as, as a
sort of a lesson about how youcan be a minimalist as a
traveler.
Mm-hmm.
but the lesson was, was for meas much as for my audience, you
know, that I just reallyrealized that it was, it wasn't
that hard to travel with, no,with no luggage.

(42:50):
So it's, it's a fun memory.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can relate

to that that lesson.
I mean, w when we were goingacross Europe, we didn't do no
backs.
you know, like I had a, wepacked it, I had a 75 liter,
big, big pack that was prettymuch full the whole time.
And like you said, finding aplace to store it and that kind
of stuff is definitely achallenge at times.
But you learn so quickly howlittle you really need.

(43:16):
Like, everything in thisbackpack, which I probably, I
didn't even, there are a couplethings I didn't even wear in it,
you know, that always kind ofhappens.
Mm-hmm.
but, but we had all this stuffback home and within a week I
had like, I was like, man, I do,do we even need anything else
really?
Like, I forgot you don't, youforget about all of your stuff.
You know what I mean?
So, I think that's, that's agreat lesson, especially in,

(43:38):
again, western culture.
We just kind of this consumptionmentality, things over
experiences and that sort ofthing.
So, definitely, definitely canunderstand that.
And man, I just feel likethere's a bunch of quotes that I
have from your book that wecould get into, but I know we,
we could easily make this twohours, but we won't today.

(44:01):
I appreciate your time, but Ilike to do kind of some rapid
fire travel questions, if youdon't mind.
So, sure.
How many, how many countrieshave you been to total?

Rolf Potts (44:11):
I try not to count, to be quite honest.
I've probably been to about, I'mprobably closing in a hundred.
I'm not at a hundred, but I'mclosing in.
The reason I don't count isthat, like what, what's a
country, you know, you said yousort, you've been to the Vatican
country.
Does that count like going toRussia?
Have you been to Russia?
If you go on a booze cruise fromFinland and spend an afternoon
in Russia versus if you, youknow, tour a cathedral in the

(44:32):
Vatican.
So I try not to depend oncounting, but having counted
counting every once in a while.
I think I'm in the eighties ornineties by now.
Wow.

Okay.
And which continent are you likethe most traveled, do you think?

Rolf Potts (44:47):
North America and Asia.
Asia, but it's, it, it's funny,there's huge parts of Canada I
haven't been to, I haven't beento North Dakota and I haven't
been to most of Central Asia.
But yeah, my, my first, my firstbig vagabond experience was in
North America.
It was so amazing.
And my first love was Asia.
As a traveler, a lot ofAmericans go to Europe first.
I went to Asia first, and I'llalways be fond of it.

(45:09):
It's funny, my wife knows a tonabout Europe and has never been
to Asia, so, Hmm.
We got married two years ago.
This'll be a chance for us tosort of have a, a, a, a region
exchange.
I can show her around Asia andshe can show me around Europe.
But those, yeah, those are,those are great regions.

So can I ask you about that, because that was
something that was reallyinteresting for us traveling as
a couple.
Have you guys done a lot ofinternational travel together at
this point, like long term atall?

Rolf Potts (45:34):
Well, because we were a covid couple, we didn't
really get our first big tasteof international travel until
last summer.
And so we did three, three orfour weeks in Paris and then 10
days in Norway and eight days inthe Faroh Islands.
And it was a blast, you know.
It's a little bit different.
You know, you, when you travelalone, you can do whatever you
want at any given moment,whereas there's sort of more
negotiation when you'retraveling with a partner.

(45:55):
But for sure, my wife is such agood traveler.
She's so much more knowledgeableabout food and wine and, and
certain cultural things than me.
And so I was really learningfrom her.
We also, because she has familyin Norway, she has cousins who
live there.
I was able to do a kind offamily travel that I've never
done before.
I've never been in anothercountry with people who've known
me or someone I love very well.

(46:16):
They, they were Norwegians, butthey've known my wife since she
was a little kid.
And so that was a really funlens onto that place.
Yeah.
And so I think each, each ofthose three major places that we
went to had its own taste, butgoing there with her was, was a
blast.
I mean, I just don't think Iwould've had quite as memorable
of the experience.
Was it the same for you?
Yeah, definitely.

(46:36):
I

mean, like I said, we met back in 2015 and before
that, you know, I had done veryminimal travel and so like I
feel like all of our kind ofmajor travel has been together.
But again, when you do a longterm and an unfamiliar place,
that's kind of a, a wholedifferent ballgame.
Like you have to be reliant oneach other.

(46:57):
You're with each otherconstantly.
There's no real time apart.
You know, you're staying in tinylittle, you know, whether it's a
hostile or an Airbnb orwhatever, like you're just in
close proximity for a long time.
Sometimes stress can be reallyhigh, right?
If you get lost or if somethingunexpected happens, which is
always going to, and so I thinkit's, it's a great thing to be
able to share that experiencewith someone, as I'm sure you

(47:21):
can attest.
And then it's also, I think likeif you can, if you can learn to
travel together effectively,like.
You know what?
You, you can probably getthrough a lot as a couple, if
that makes sense.

Rolf Potts (47:35):
Yeah.
Travel can be a great litmustest for Couplehood.
If you, if you're with someoneand you're not sure if you're
serious about them, you travelwith them for three weeks and
you'll learn very quickly howyou respond to stress together,
how you respond to theunexpected, how you, you learn
each other's idiosyncrasies, youknow?
Mm-hmm.
from snoring to eating food tooloudly or whatever, you know,

(47:55):
so.
Yep.
Yeah.
No, it's a good, it's a goodcrash course in being a couple.
Yeah, for

sure.
And yeah, I'd recommend it ifyou, if anyone's able out there
to do kind of the long term orlike a longer kind of honeymoon
type trip rather than go to theresort and play it safe.
But, you know, that's just us.
So anyways like I said, rapidfire.
So I know this is probably a, anear impossible question to
answer, but do you have afavorite.

Rolf Potts (48:20):
Yeah.
It's an impossible question toanswer Yeah, I I I love the US
actually.
I'm, I'm very, it's my, it's myfirst Vagabonding country and
I'm still very fond of travelingin the us but man, I, I love
France and Paris specifically.
I love Mongolia and Patagonia,which are strangely similar in
some ways.

(48:40):
And I love the idea that I mightfall in love with the country
that I visit the first time.
There's a good chance I'll go toKenya this summer.
I've been to Kenya before, butbarely to Kenya.
Mm-hmm.
And so I like the idea that Imight, I, I guess I'm at the
point in my career where it'ssort of a mix of places.
I know I love that I wannatravel and places I, I've never
been to that I might love, thatI want to experience for the
first time.

(49:01):
And that really bore out goingto Norway in the Fair Islands
for the first time.
How awesome that was.
So, yeah, that's a toughquestion to answer.
Do you have a favorite place?

I haven't been nearly as many places, so it's
hard, you know, I've, I thinkI'm at like a dozen or 13 or 14
countries, but I mean we went toHawaii this past August in
Hawaii.
My sister lives out there, andso we got like a really cool
local, like high adventureexperience.
So I know that's still the USbut as one place that, that's
way up there.
And then really it's hard tobeat Italy.
We saw a lot of Italy, but theother country that I really

(49:31):
loved was Montenegro, like a Bayof Kotor was really, really cool
and kind of flies under theradar.
So that would be my answer.
Yeah.
Okay.
So most surprising country thatyou went to and it just blew
away expectations compared towhat you expected.

Rolf Potts (49:46):
Well, this is gonna be a weird answer because I
started out as an Asia guy, andI, I became a little bit snobby
as, as an Asia guy.
Like, I thought, oh, I've beento Deli and Bangkok and, you
know, ho Chi Minh City.
What, what could possibly beinteresting in Europe, you know,
that's where tourists go.
Yeah.
And so I actually went to Europefor the first time from the
east.
I went, took the trans Siberianto Moscow and then took other

(50:06):
trains into Europe proper.
And I was blown away by Paris,like you hear, oh, Paris is
great.
Actually, the same thinghappened in Hawaii.
So I think with me, it's areverse snobbery thing.
I didn't go to Hawaii until Iwas in my late forties.
I didn't go to Paris until I wasin my early thirties.
Both of those places blew meaway.
They're not secrets, unlikeMontero.
They're not places that youdiscover by accident, but it's

(50:27):
like, oh my God, Paris iseverything it is supposed to be
and more.
And then, oh my God, Hawaii.
is amazing.
Of course, people wanna go tothis place.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm, I'm, I'm a reversed waythat sometimes I'm amazed by
being on the quote tourist trailand thinking, wow, this is why
it's on the tourist trail.
These places are amazing.

Yeah.
Yeah.
It's an interesting paradox.
Sometimes you're like, man, it'sso touristy all these lines and
stuff.
But then other times you'relike, all right, it's super
tourist street, and I completelyunderstand why it's totally
worth it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So was there a country that wasmaybe the most disappointing or
that you had high, highexpectations for that didn't

(51:07):
quite live up to it?

Rolf Potts (51:09):
Yeah.
I, I, I think that's subjective.
That can be subjective.
The, country that popped in myhead was Vietnam.
I grew up with Vietnamese kids.
My high school had VietnameseAmerican kids.
And so I was always reallyinterested in the country, but I
think when I went there Vietnamis just a little more hard edge
than Thailand and Laos.
Thailand and Laos are so laidback vie.
Vietnam is, is more in yourface.

(51:29):
It's more drive a hard bargaintype place.
And so it's not Vietnam's fault.
I think it was just my own faultthat I had been used to sort of
this chill Thailand, Laos,Cambodia way of being in
Southeast Asia.
And then Vietnam was like NewYork, you know, people, people
were, were no nonsense in yourface about things.
And so it was a disappointment,but that was about my

(51:50):
expectations, I think, more sothan what the country had to
offer that.
Also I was traveling as a dirtbag and in Vietnam they just
were less interested in the dirtbag travelers, you know, it felt
like if I, if I was spendingmore money, they would've
respected me more.
But a guy who doesn't wannaspend money is some someone
who's less interesting toVietnamese people.
So right?
But nothing against Vietnamesepeople.
I need to go back there now thatI have more money.

(52:10):
But yeah, that, that was the, II got off on the wrong foot in
Vietnam and someday I'll have togo back and, and sort of get a
more organic experience of theplace.

Well that's actually a really good to know
because we did the Europe trip.
Now the next I'm like, we gottado at least one more kind of
extended trip before we havekids in Southeast Asia.
So Thailand, Cambodia, Lao, andVietnam may be something else,
but that's, that's useful forme.
So, what's your number onecountry on your bucket list
currently that you haven't beento?

Rolf Potts (52:38):
Well, you said that I thought Antarctica, but that's
not really a country.
Yeah, it's kind of a gray area.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
More of a gray area.
Let me think.
I've been to so many places thatlike nobody, n nothing really
super stands out.
I'm, I'm interested in going toVA Watu, just for arbitrary
reasons.
I've never properly been in theSouth Pacific.
I mean, I've been to New Zealandbut, and I've been Hawaii, but

(53:00):
then there's all these amazingplaces in the middle Yeah.
That I don't think I've givenmyself permission to go to.
And so for esoteric reasons,I've sort of become interested
in, in Vanuatu, which is aculturally melanesian part of
the Pacific.
Every island has a differentlanguage.
It's, it's really superfascinating and it just sort of
captured my imagination.
So, yeah.
Within the next five years, I'd,I'd love to go there.

Very cool.
Okay.
And then where did youexperience the biggest culture

Rolf Potts (53:24):
shock?
Probably Korea actually.
And and it's funny cuz thesedays a given 25 year old will
have watched like 10 Korean TVprograms and listened to a bunch
of Korean pop stars.
It's Korea's not thatunfamiliar, but in the 1990s
when I went first went there, itwas really the first country
besides Mexico or Canada that Iwent to.
And I think nothing can compareto your first culture shock when
you have no idea what cultureshock is.

(53:46):
When you go to your 50thcountry, you're sort of ready
for culture shock.
Yeah.
But I went to Korea.
Culture shock is sort of a formof anxiety, you know?
Mm-hmm.
And so I was really anxious whenI first went to Korea.
It ended up being a happyending.
Korean is is one of places I hadthe most fondness for in the
world.
But man, I think coming to termswith that culture shock made me

(54:06):
a better traveler.
And I don't regret having gonethrough it, but it was pretty
tough at the time.
I was, I was really nervous and,and unsettled by the confusion
of being in another culture.

Yeah, I can imagine.
Cuz I, I think we went to Europefirst and in my head I'm like,
okay, that was a good warmup.
You know, like, not toodifferent.
And I was like, if we had goneto Southeast Asia first, like,
as our first kind of realexperience like that, I'm sure
that would've been much moreintense.
Kind of adjusting to that.
But what's, what's one travelitem that you can't leave

Rolf Potts (54:36):
home?
Well as a no bag is travel guy.
I'm tempted to save my passport.
Right.
Or, or my shoes.
Oh, right, right.
A good, a good pair of shoes.
A a, a good waterproof layer.

Let's say non non challengee, what's the one thing
you gotta have, right?
Well, it's

Rolf Potts (54:50):
a cheat answer and it's, it's, it's a can of worms,
but it's smartphone, you know,just cuz so much can be done off
your smartphone, yet yoursmartphone can, can almost ruin
your trip too if you spend allyour time looking at it.
But yeah, in an age when your GP s and your camera and

your Yeah, your train tickets and everything,

Rolf Potts (55:11):
or on Yeah.
Your plane tickets, it's, it'shas become so indispensable.
And so it's really thisdouble-edged sword where taking
advantage of this wonderful,amazing miracle tool without
turning into the same anxious,anxious, habit driven screen
starer that you can be back homeThat's the big challenge.

(55:31):
Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.
And then, This one might be hardto answer, but was there a
country that you could say had,like the friendliest people?
Ooh.
Or maybe even a region?

Rolf Potts (55:42):
Yeah.
Well, I, I I think the, theanswer is several.
I think the cheat answer is thatany place.
that's outside of that touristzone is gonna be full of
friendly people.
I think really when you, whenyou're in front of the louv
French people, they've seen athousand tourists by the Louv,
you know?
Yeah.
But you go, you go to a littlevillage that doesn't see as many
tourists anywhere in the world,and that's going, that's gonna

(56:05):
be the place with, with, withthe friendly local people.
I mean, I think, you know, Thaipeople have a reputation for
being friendly and, and o othercultures, Canadians,
Midwesterner Americans, youknow?
Yeah.
But I think at the end, at theend of the day, it is going any
place where you go, where youare, the only foreigner in town
is going to be just earthshockingly friendly.

(56:26):
Actually, it occurred to methough Egypt too.
Egypt is full of so manyfriendly people.
I really loved it there.
Mm-hmm.
I, I think Arab culturesculturally and religiously, they
really value hospitality.
So, even if it's just theirduty, it's sort of fun to be, to
taken an interest in.
Yeah.
But yeah, so I think places likeThailand, Egypt you meet natural
friendliness.
But I think even in places thatare considered brusk, you go to

(56:49):
a a village in Russia andthere's not usually travelers
there.
People really take an interestin you and are excited to have
you there.
And that's always fun toexperience.
And it's a great excuse forgetting off the beaten path.
And I think we've establishedthat the beaten path is beaten
for good reasons, but gettingoff the beaten path is where
you'll find really Frenchfriendly and interested in
engaged local people.
That's fun to experience.

(57:10):
Yeah.

And that's where not most people go, right?
Most people go down the beatenpath.
So yeah.
One or one or two more here.
Mountains, beaches, or cities.

Rolf Potts (57:19):
probably a beach guy.
Yeah.
I mean, I like all three, butI'm sort of fair and freckled.
So, so beaches, I'm eventuallygonna get tired of getting
sunburned I'm fond of cities,but I live in the country for a
reason.
I, I, I love more quieter, morebucolic regions.
So I think I'm a mountain guyand of course I'm a Kansas guy.
There's literally zero mountainsin in Kansas.
But true, I grew up going toColorado.
I always love a good mountainhike.

(57:42):
And so given a choice betweenthose three things, I'd probably
choose mountains about everytime.
Yeah.
Same here.

So, agreed.
And then what's one thing thatyou really learned about
yourself, whether it was on yourfirst trip or just.

Rolf Potts (57:58):
I think just I learned possibility.
I learned that I can adapt andmake it any place that for all
the anxieties that come with theunknown, when you face the
unknown as humans, we have thisgreat toolkit.
We've evolved to be veryadaptable people, even, even if
our smartphone is broken or wedon't speak the local language.
It, it's always been so, sorewarding to see how I always do

(58:24):
better than I thought I would.
And I can always draw onresources that I didn't realize
that I had.
And I think giving yourselfpermission to, to push your
limits a little bit and draw onthose resources is, is a great
gift of travel.
And it teaches the most you comehome by the time you come home.
It's those times where you werevulnerable to a place that
really stayed with you.

(58:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.

I love that.
There's, like I said, I've hadseveral other kind of like
long-term world travelers on theshow, and that seems to be the
most common answer is that, youknow, you will.
You'll become so much moreself-reliant, you'll build
confidence, those kinds ofthings.
And I find that all to be verytrue.
So thanks for answering allthose rapid fire.
And I gotta ask you the onequestion that I ask everyone who

(59:09):
comes on the show, and that is,what is your definition of not
most people or what do you thinkof when you hear that?

Rolf Potts (59:17):
My definition of not, not most people.
I think it's, it's probably,it's listening.
I'll, I'll paraphrase WaltWhitman listening to others
considering what they say, butgently and undeniably letting
hold of what would hold me back.
That's a paraphrase of Waltman.
Mm-hmm.
quote unquote, personally, Ithink not most people is, is an
awareness of what most peopledo.

(59:38):
Knowing what is wise and lessthan wise in their world, and
creating your own path in a waythat is informed by.
what most people do, but in away that is custom designed for
your own enrichment andhappiness and satisfaction,
spiritual growth and ability togive back to the people in your
life.

(59:58):
Wow.

Like I said, I've, I've asked that to probably 70
or 80 guests on the show, andthat might be the most
articulate, philosophical answerI've gotten.
So, but, but I agree a thousandpercent, so I love that.
And then as we wrap up here, I'msure people are listening to
this and they're like startingto Google, you know, where to
travel to next, they're orderingyour book, that kind of stuff.

(01:00:19):
And so if they wanna find more,are there any resources that you
recommend and then also for youpersonally, I know you have
your, your new book out, butwhere could people find you and
what else do you have going onthat you'd like to share or.

Rolf Potts (01:00:31):
They can find me@rothpast.com.
I'm an old school website guy.
I mean, I, I, I have Instagramand Twitter and all the, the
social media things, but I'vealways, for 25 years, I've kept
my website updated and I'm proudto do that.
And it has decades of storiesthat I've written and travel
advice on there.
As far as what websites to goto, I just updated in 2022 the

(01:00:52):
Vagabonding resources.
And so if you go tovagabonding.net/resources,
there's an updated wealth ofresources to draw from there.
They're also in the book, thepaper version of the book but
they're also available for freeonline.
So while I encourage people tobuy my book, those specific
resources have always been freeonline.
Mm-hmm.
and.
As for what comes next, I'mgonna, I'm gonna keep on having

(01:01:14):
adventures and ex exploring theworld.
And it was fun to have, have metmy wife during the pandemic and
to start traveling with her.
I feel like I'm in the verybeginning of my journey with
her, and we have talked aboutsome very specific travels that
I probably won't share just yet,because sometimes it's best to,
to just sort of get excitedabout those on personal terms
before I talk about them toomuch.
But yeah, I'm, I'm lookingforward to it.

(01:01:37):
Awesome.

Bradley Roth (01:01:38):
Yeah, I can't wait to see.
Maybe that's, that's a whole newkind of travel chapter, right?
And so, man, do you have any,any other partying words or
anything you'd like to leavewith audience?

Well, yeah, just as I said, everyone, good luck in
the journey.
If you decide it's gonna happen,then the journey starts right
now.
If you decide you're gonna stopmaking excuses and do it
someday, if that means in sixmonths or six years, then your,
then your journey has begun.
And so that's something to keepin mind.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Some days typically never.
So if you can put some sort oftimeframe on it, like for us, if
we hadn't been like, all right,we have this wedding, let's,
let's do it big, let's extendit.
It never would've happened.
And the things that we had to doto, to make it happen again
without a deadline, without kindof that, that accountability or
pressure, it never would'vehappened.
So, don't, don't take thatadvice lightly for those of you

(01:02:25):
listening.
But we're gonna wrap it up here.
Ralph, thank you so much forcoming on.
I really enjoyed thisconversation and I know it was a
long time coming and it lived upto, to my expectations and, and
more.

Yeah.
Good talking to you Bradley, andgood luck in your own

adventures.
Yeah.
Thank you so much and thank youeveryone for tuning in.
I, I hope you got a lot out ofthis one.
I know I did and my guess isyou're probably hungrier than
ever to go adventure off thebeaten path and so I encourage
you to do so.
Do so and do that with themindset of not most people.
And again, make sure you checkout Vaga bonding, the vagabond's

(01:03:01):
way everything Roth has going onwill be linked in the show
notes.
And we'll see you in the nextone.
Thank you for tuning in andalways remember, don't be most
people.

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Deviating From The Norm, Shaking Up Your Routine, And Living A Life Of Adventure Through Travel with Rolf Potts - 088

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Deviating From The Norm, Shaking Up Your Routine, And Living A Life Of Adventure Through Travel with Rolf Potts - 088