At a young age, Renee was diagnosed with a skeletal disorder that forced her family to travel around the United States to get the proper medical help. At age 5, she made her way to the Big Apple and fell in love with traveling so much that her family took it upon themselves to check off all of the 50 states in the US, which they did. This only fueled her fire to see more of the world. Later in life, she experienced corporate burnout while leading a large team in a Fortune 500 insurance company and decided for the first time, to go on a one year sabbatical and travel the world. In doing so she broke the Guinness World Record for most countries visited in one year using a wheelchair.. Renee sheds light on inaccessible infrastructure, being an inspiration and resource for others, and her restored faith in humanity.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:13):
You're listening to the Globetrotters podcast,the show dedicated to bringing you fresh and
diverse perspectives from traveling enthusiasts all overthe world. Here at the Globetrotters Podcast,
we hope to show that travel wasso much more than how it's represented
on social media and television by bringingyou real stories, thoughtful discussions on ethical
issues, and investigations into how youcan make the most of an adventure without
(00:37):
breaking the bank. I'm your cohost Jonathan Odeto and I'm Maximo Gonzalez,
And in our last episode, wedid something we hadn't done before. We
interviewed two guests at the same time. Both of these guests had taken trips
to Nepal with the purpose of hikingaround the Himalayas. While one person chose
to go to Everest, the otherperson trekked around lesser known trails. That
(00:58):
episode highlights the differences and similarities thattwo travelers can experience while hiking around in
the same country and in the samemountain range. If you haven't given that
a listen, I highly recommend goingback and checking it out most definitely.
But on today's episode, we havethe Guinness World record holder for most countries
visited in one year using a wheelchair, Renee Bruns. At a young age,
(01:22):
Renee was diagnosed with a skeletal disorderthat forced her family to travel around
the United States to get the propermedical help. At five, she made
her way to the Big Apple andfell in love with traveling so much that
her family and herself took it uponthemselves to check off all of the fifty
states in the US, which theydid. This only fuelled their fire to
(01:42):
see more of the world. Laterin life, she experienced a little bit
of corporate burnout while leading a largeteam in a fortune five hundred insurance company.
She decided for the first time togo on the one year sabbatical and
travel the world alone. She boughta one way ticket of Bali, and
as they say, the rest ishistory. Renee. I can't wait to
get started with this conversation. It'sa great, great pleasure to have you
(02:06):
on the show. Thank you somuch. I'm so excited to be here.
Renee. We previously spoke. Yousaid that you reached out to the
Guinness World Record people to see whatthe record was for the most countries visited
in one year. Using a wheelchair. Where did you get this desire to
break a traveling record? Where didthat come from? And how much did
(02:27):
the Guinness crew help you plan forthis ambitious endeavor? Great question. So
I was actually I had already leftmy corporate job when I decided to do
this. And what really kind ofspawned me to do this is I was
out trying to find resources for disabledsolo travelers, and I was scouring the
Internet and all of my travel resourcesand there just wasn't a lot of information
(02:52):
available for me. So I startedthinking that I must be one of the
only people to do something like this, and so through that, I thought,
well, if I'm the only onedoing this, I can probably win
some sort of an award or arecord for this. And so it was.
It was a very just a basicinquiry to Guinness. I didn't actually
know that it would go anywhere thatthey would approve it, but I simply
(03:15):
emailed and said, hey, I'veyou know, I'm a world traveler using
a wheelchair right now. I'm atat that point I think I had been
to sixty eight or sixty nine countries. Is there some sort of an award,
you know, a record? Ican get for getting to say a
hundred countries. We went back andforth a number of times, and finally
they came back and said, youknow, well you're going on this year
trip, why don't you just usethis record? And they said that I
(03:38):
had to have forty countries. Theysaid a minimum because you know, a
lot of people could go to twoor three countries, so they have to
set someone of a a challenging minimumto get to. So they said it
to forty. No one else hadever won this record, and I said,
sure, I'm gonna go after it. So I was, you know,
a few weeks or months into mytravels at that point in time,
(03:59):
and I just went after it.And so how did the Guinness World Record
staff, I'm not even sure whatI should call them. How did they
keep check of your travels? Likewhat guidelines that they put in place to
ensure you were actually going to allthese countries where the limitations are like rules
that they said it must be atleast you got to exit the airport or
something like that. Yeah, sothe Guinness rules they do not help you
(04:21):
plan any of it. They basicallygo through and they're they say, at
the end of your year, wewant you to send us documentation indicating that
you've been to this number of countriesand you know, whatever number that might
be that I ended up at.So the things that you need. You
need to have a log of thecountries you went to, so the dates
that you entered, how you entered, how long you were there, kind
(04:43):
of just a log so that theycan follow through to say, Ariam,
here's where she started, Here's whereshe ended. You have to have GPS
coordinates, so that's super easy toturn on the location history on your phone
and just pull those files out.You know, it's really cool when you
look at it the whole year oflike where you've been all over the world.
That was a really cool map.And then you have to have photos
from each of the places you've been. They need to have airline tickets or
(05:09):
it could be a train ticket.They need to have an entry in an
exit ticket into each country, sohow did you get in and out of
each country. He rented a car, you need to have you know,
the rental received or you know,the proof that you rented the car.
And then they need to have witnessstatements. This is one of my favorite
pieces. It's the witness statements,So you have to have two signed witness
(05:30):
statements from people in the country whileyou were there, signing off saying,
hey, we saw Renee in thiscountry on X date. Here, you
know, here's my contact information ifyou need to talk to me to prove
that. So that piece was reallyfun because I got to venture out all
over you know, these countries andmeet people that I wouldn't normally have met
because I had to get these witnessstatements. So a lot goes into that.
(05:53):
But those were the Guinness requirements.And so just a quick follow up
question to that talking about getting peopleto sign these witness statements, how challenging
does ZA get in the foreign countrywhere you don't know anyone and ask them,
like, hey, sign this documentto you know, verify that I
was here. Yeah, it's challengingin so many different ways. So depending
(06:16):
on the country, there's language variaders, you know. So a lot of
people around the world speak English.That's that's not new news. So you
know, the English piece of itisn't so hard in much of the world,
but there are parts of the countrywhere they just simply don't speak English.
So I'm going up to them withthis form that is one hundred percent
in English, and I'm using GoogleTranslate to try to attempt to explain what
I'm doing, and they often don'teven know what a Guinness World Record is,
(06:40):
so they're they're looking at me like, who is this this woman asking
me to sign this form. Idon't understand what it is, and she's
holding her phone in my face,you know, with broken English as she's
tried to translate the best she had. So there were times where I had
to do multiple attempts to get peopleto sign this form, and honestly,
I think some of them just signedit, saying all right, we don't
(07:02):
know what she wants, but we'lljust put a signature on here, and
you know, that was fine,but it was unique and challenging in that
way. And then on top ofthat, the other pushback I got from
a number of people, and Iwasn't prepared for this, but they were
saying, is this going to getme in trouble with the US government or
their local government? And there wasa lot of hesitation to say no,
(07:23):
thanks, I'm not interested. Sooften I had to try multiple people.
But the people that did sign itwere so excited to be a part of
the journey when once they understood whatI was doing, and I have pictures
with people, I have selfies ofthem and me holding the form and I
made a lot of friends that waybecause it really opens a door for some
really cool and fun conversation. I'ma little shocked, I mean, I'm
(07:44):
not shocked to hear that the Gennisstaff crew, whatever you want to call
them, wasn't helping me out toomuch. But that makes sense, right,
this is your record to break,So given that they weren't providing you
with much support aside from just guidelines, what resources, if you were even
able to have resources did you usethat were helpful for you to plan this
trip? Where their Facebook groups andjust use search engines, other travelers,
(08:07):
other travelers. It's such a uniquespace when you start thinking about what I'm
doing trying to visit all one hundredand ninety five countries with a wheelchair.
So you have these, you know, these intense adventure travelers that are out
trying to see all of the countries. And that's one population of people that
I leaned on a lot, becauseyou know, not a lot of people
go to the places that I'm tryingto go to and then there's this whole
(08:30):
other population of disability travelers and they'renot necessarily trying to go to some of
these off the beaten path places,but they understand the nuances of travel.
So that segment where they overlap isthere's maybe one or two other people that
I've run into that are even kindof close to doing what I'm doing.
But it's it's kind of leaning onboth of those communities to say, Hey,
(08:52):
I'm traveling with a disability. Theseare the challenges and the things I
need to be prepared for. ButI'm also going to, you know,
a place that not a lot ofpeople in general have gone to this and
as a tourist, so what doesthat look like? And kind of in
my own mind molding the two dynamicstogether. You mentioned there were a few
(09:13):
other people doing similar things as you. Did you make any friendships or relationships
with those people since you have thisreally cool similarity. I do have a
few people and we've not met inperson, and it's mostly just following along
on you know, Instagram, socialmedia, that type of stuff to see
where they're at and if you seethat they happen to be in a place
(09:33):
where you are, where you wantto go. It's making that connection to
say, hey, when I getto that place, I'm going to lean
on you. I'm going to needyour contacts, I'm going to need to
know the do this, don't dothat kind of stuff. Let's talk a
little bit more about travel accessibility orinaccessibility, depending on how you look at
it. You know, I knowthat you planned ahead, but what was
the reality when you started traveling andwhat were some of the biggest challenges.
(09:58):
That's a great question, and Ithink like any traveler, you always plan
ahead if you have this like ideallike picture of what it's going to look
like, and sometimes it's better,sometimes it's worse for me. I mean
the airlines. Of course, theairlines are difficult for you know, a
lot of people, but they're justthey don't cater well to people with disabilities,
and it's frustrating. I could probablyspend two hours talking about the airlines
(10:20):
and areas they could improve in butthere's there's a ton of advocacy groups out
there already doing that, so Iwon't. I won't put a negative spin
on this, but the airlines,for sure, in so many ways.
And then I think second that themost challenging piece for me is just the
infrastructure of much of these places inthe world that aren't designed for wheelchairs.
There's I mean, there's places thathave an immense amount of history. There's
(10:41):
places that don't have the regulation.There's places that culturally disabled people don't have
the rights that I'm used to havingin the United States. So getting to
places and finding that the hotel mightnot be accessible even though I ask business
going to be an accessible hotel andthey come out I can say yes.
And arriving and seeing four steps toget into the lobby, those types of
(11:05):
things are difficult. There's curves crossingthe street. I take for granted that
every intersection I have here in theUS has a ramp to get up and
down and it's breezy, So littlethings. You know, you're trying to
go explore a city and it's youget one block and you're saying, well,
shoot, now I can't get down. And then if I do get
down, I've got to get rightback up. So those things that you
(11:26):
know, they're unexpected, and justthe infrastructure of the world, And when
you really start thinking about all ofthe places in the world, there are
very few that have built that infrastructurefor someone using a wheelchair. But I
want to stress that the most refreshingpart of that is around the world there
have been these people and all overwho see me, don't speak my language,
(11:50):
don't look like me, don't knowanything about me. And I come
up to that intersection where there's acurb, I got to get down just
to get right back up on theother side, and will common they just
helped me, and I don't It'samazing to me that these people can just
come up and smile kind of point, you know, we do a little
hand signaling, and they helped medown and help me back up, and
(12:13):
it's really refreshing for for me tosee that that side of humanity. And
I think I had kind of lostthat kindness and seeing that in people all
around, so it was really acool thing to see despite the struggles of
it not being there, which ofcourse I want there to be ramps everywhere,
but talking about the infrastructure. Sofor listeners, the timeline of this
(12:35):
trip was from February twenty twenty twoto about February twenty twenty three. Was
accessibility getting easier or harder as youwere going along on this trip? It
depends on where I was. Youknow, I started in Southeast Asia.
I would say it was the mostdifficult place for me, and it still
is. I think, of allof the one I have not done much
(12:56):
of Africa to be transparent, soI suspect Africa will be a difficult part
of the world for me, andI think that's probably why I've saved it
for last. But Southeast Asia isvery, very inaccessible. They don't have
the regulation, they don't have theeconomies to support it. They just don't
have the culture and the means tocreate that environment. But at the same
(13:18):
time, the people there are someof the most helpful, so, you
know, to kind of answer yourquestion, are there harder parts of the
world, For sure, there are, But ironically in those parts of the
world where it's more difficult because ofyou know, the physical infrastructure, I
think culturally the people are much morehelpful. One of the reasons I was
most excited to speak to you isbecause you are an inspiration and you're a
(13:41):
motivated for a lot of people,not just people that are you know,
handicapped in any sort of way,but just you know, even to people
like me about what you can doand get out on the world on your
own. And so there's a misconceptionthat I want to address here that if
you're using a wheelchair, there's stillyou know that you're limited in what you
can do and to like sports becauseyou've done a lot of activities that are
(14:03):
I would consider adrenaline pumping sports.So some of them, just to name
a few, skydiving, parasailing,paraglidinges, scuba tiving, windsurfing, kayaking,
and the list is endless. Right, So you did some of these
activities abroad, which was the mostnoteworthy in your opinion? Or can you
talk about some of these experiences thatyou took on abroad and why you did
them. Yeah, So some ofmy favorite and some of these were before
(14:28):
I was working towards the Guinness soa few years ago. But I went
windsurfing in bon Air and it's mysister. She was with me on that
trip, and she had said,I want to go windsurfing, and I
said, great, you go windsurfing. I'm gonna send it this little beach
bar. I'm gonna drinking and coladasand I'm just gonna watch you. And
after about thirty or forty five minutes, I thought, gosh, you know,
(14:50):
I could at least go and siton a board, you know,
just like a surfboard and kind offloat around. So I did that,
and then she comes up to meand she says, I think that you
can do this if you kneel onyour knees. And you know, we
had to modify it, but wecould, we could probably, you know,
you can at least try it.So I get on, I try,
and before I know it, theentire staff at this windsurfing school or
(15:11):
organization is coming over to help me. And I was doing it completely on
my own. And so as Istart going through it, this staff is
like, you know, we havea couple of people that that use wheelchairs
and we've created seats on these thesewindsurfing boards, and you know, you
should, you should really consider it. And I haven't taken it any further,
but just the way that they approachedit and embraced it, and you
(15:35):
know, they said, hey,you can do this. And I went
in saying, oh, you know, I'm gonna drink Pina clowns by the
beach and I ended up surfing,you know, through the Atlantic Ocean was
such a cool thing. So Iremember leaving that day, thinking, my
god, I never thought I wouldwin surface. That's so it's so freaking
awesome when I was one of myfavorites, I'm giving one more. That
was a really fun one for me. Is And again this was before my
(15:56):
year of travel, when I wasin the Andes Mountains side of Santiago,
Chile, and I had an opportunityto go paragliding. So you know,
you like get up, you driveup a mountain and then they run with
you and you jump off. WellI can't run, and so there's this
this man standing behind me running withme strapped to his chest, my legs
(16:18):
in the air, and I'm thinking, first of all, you've got this
like big backpack and this big youknow, parachute over you, and you're
carrying me like this is a disasterwaiting happen. But he runs off,
We jump off the mountain and wejust float around for I don't know,
an hour or so, and itwas such a liberating, just really fantastic
cool experience. Have you done that, Max? I haven't. Man,
(16:41):
that's one of those things I'm terrifiedto do. Yeah, I don't know,
You're you are to me? Okay, I would do it. I
really would. But I am alsoterrified of heights, and I've done some
like high altitude stuff where I'll jumpout of planes and stuff, but that
one specifically gets my hands are sweatingjust hearing you speak. Well, you
fall out of a plane, it'sdifferent. You have so much time to
(17:03):
back out. When you're sky diving. You don't have time to back out.
You're gonna just flop out no matterwhat. They're gonna push you.
I hear up there and they're like, this is your time, get out
of here. That's why I wouldhave a hard time with it, because
I too have a big fear ofheights. For me, it's kind of
like I need I need the ropeto just be cut and be, you
know, off with it. IfI have time to bail, I'm in
bail. Yeah, for sure.I think for me, this is,
(17:25):
you know, just kind of thinkingas you're saying that, there's a part
of me that once I'm up therefloating around in the sky, I don't
have to have my wheelchair to dothat, and so there's like this freedom
of oh my god, I'm justup here floating so free. If you
will, away from from the confinesof a wheelchair and just the way I
view that, I don't know,it's it's just such a surreal experience for
(17:47):
me. So yeah, fantastic experience. One of the activities that you did
do on your sabbatical that I readabout was you did go scuba diving in
on Duras. Was that your firsttime? It wasn't. I'm actually scuba
diving certified for six or seven yearsnow, so I've been scuba diving in
Thailand, Honduras, obviously, muchof the Caribbean, a couple other places
(18:11):
in like this off Pacific area.But it's similar to the paragliding and the
sky ending. I get in andI'm just like free. It's it's you
know, it's an opportunity to reallyexperience the world the same way that everyone
else is, but just free inliberating. Backtracking, there was something you
said that I've found really interesting becauseI'm sure it's happened to everyone where you
(18:33):
book either an airbnb or a hostelor a hotel and there's pictures, descriptions,
and then you know when you getthere, you're expecting that, and
you get there and it's something completelydifferent. And you were saying like for
you, like they're saying it's wheelchairaccessible, and then you arrive and it's
not. And so for you know, for me, like reflecting back,
I'm like, oh, these arejust minor inconveniences that you know, I'm
(18:55):
really upset about, but there's nothingactually stopping me from doing anything. And
so I just found that kind ofeye opening that you know, for you
it's a completely different experience when youkind of show up and it's you know,
the description is not accurate to yourbooking for sure. And fortunately I've
been able to make almost every placework. There's probably been a handful or
(19:17):
two, you know that I've said, all right, I'm going to have
to find a new place, andyou're doing that last minute scrambling to find
someplace else to say, But there'salso some expense to that too, when
you're scrambling to find something last minute, and often you know, breaks breaks
the budget. So I try todo my due diligence and you know,
send a message beforehand if I'm notsure whether it's accessible or not. But
(19:37):
there's definitions vary by country and theyvary by culture, and what somebody thinks
is accessible is for one person itmight be, but for another person,
it's not. So it's absolutely adifficult thing to navigate as to get out
there, especially by myself. Andyou bring up an important point when you
talk about budget and breaking the budget, which I don't. I think I
(20:00):
wrote down here that I was goingto ask, but I really should.
You know, you're you're out herefor a year. What was your situation
prior to this? Were you savingfor this trip? Did you a lot
of X amount of dollars for eachcountry, city or you know day?
So I was saving this. Takinga year off to just travel was a
dream of mine since I was Idon't know, probably twenty. So I
(20:25):
was saving everything I could, justputting it, you know, putting it
aside. You know, of courseI was saving for retirement and all the
other things I need to save for. But there was this like separate fund
of money that I had hoped totap into some day to do this.
So I was very conscious about doingthat. And that often meant all right,
you're not buying the shoes that youthink you need, or we're not
getting a new car, or youknow, it's it's it was really cutting
(20:45):
back on my lifestyle so I coulddo this, and I was able to
completely fund the trip on my own. It was one hundred percent self funded.
And then going back to the budgetpiece of it, that was a
huge part of it. I spentmonths thinking through how much is going to
cost me, what's a realistic amount, and what do I want that to
look like. So I actually didit a little different. I didn't break
(21:07):
it down by country. I brokeit down by day or month. Part
of that. When I left,you know, when I headed into Indonesia
for the year, I didn't havethe whole year planned out. It wasn't
like I knew exactly where I wasgoing to go, so I knew that
some places would be less expensive thanothers. So I broke it down and
said, this is how much I'mgoing to a lot per night for lodging,
(21:30):
This is how much I'm going toa lot for flights for the whole
year. And then kind of myother bucket, which would be taxis or
local transportation tours if I wanted togo on a specific tour in a place
where I couldn't see something without atour guide, food of course, you
know, and then just those unexpectedexpenses that might come up. So I
(21:51):
had that kind of a separate bucketthere and was there any regulation with budget
with the Guinness World Book of Records. Nope. They will let you spend
as little or as my as youwant. I should have mentioned this earlier.
It's really interesting with youinn as.They let you spend. They don't
ask about budget at all. They'rethey're not interested in night So you can
you can stay in five star resortsthe whole time, fly first class if
you want, or you can doit like I did a little bit cheaper
(22:12):
and stay in some hostels. Isriding in the back and coach. Also,
it's really interesting how they count visitinga country, and they will count
it as long as you were inthat landed in that country, so that
could mean not leaving the airport,which for me personally, that's that's interesting
that they count that. But I'mnot want to say, all right,
(22:32):
I've visited the airport and you knowMalaysia, that counts for me, because
how can you how does that evenyou know it's an airport, they all
look the same. How did youdefine visiting a country you personally? For
me, I absolutely had to leavethe airport. I wanted to do some
sort of an activity there. Soyou know, maybe that's going scuba diving,
(22:55):
maybe that's walking through the city andseeing some of the famous and just
site to Every country has their differentnuances, but I wanted to do something
touristy, if you will. Ialways want to try the local food everywhere
I am, so you know,it doesn't necessarily have to be a whole
meal, but it could be,you know, a roadside stand where they
serve the local food. But Iwant to try the local food and I
(23:15):
want to have an interaction with aperson from that country. So I don't
want to just you know, hopin a tour bus with a bunch of
Americans, drive around, look atsites, and come back. I want
that cultural piece of it. Andyou know that you can't get that just
sitting in an airport. And sothey don't have any time limit for how
long you have to be at anairport. You just have to land.
(23:37):
You could have a layover for anhour and then you've technically been there.
Absolutely yep, I know it feelsit feels like cheating in my mind.
And again, you know, Iguess you know, for all intents and
purposes, you could spend a lotof money just flying around the world and
going to airports, But what doyou get out of that? That's you
know, it's just not rewarding tome. And getting the Guinness World Record
(23:59):
was not the reason I set outon this. There were I had a
lot of personal reasons. Said Ireally just wanted to see the world,
and the Guinness was certainly an addedbonus. It was like the cherry on
top of the cake and ice cream. But I had no intent of just
bouncing through just to check them offfor the sake of Guinness. So you've
been to more than one hundred countries. What area, or more specifically,
(24:22):
what country would you consider to bethe most underrated or your favorite? If
you can name one to five countries, because I can't do one. Yeah,
what did you find as the mostunderrated country in your travels? I'm
glad that you said I have afew, because it's such a hard question.
I love Laos last is one ofmy favorite the people and the culture,
(24:42):
and I just had a wonderful timewhen I was there. I also
love Kyrgyikstan, which is probably alittle bit more off the beaten path.
I love Kyrgikstan, I love allof the stance. But if I had
to choose one, Stan would bemy favorite. I've never heard someone refer
to that he has the stands,but that's such a great Yeah, but
that's such a great way to breakit down, the five stands. Yeah,
(25:06):
I don't know, Maybe I madethat up. No, No,
I mean yeah, it sounds itsounds like it makes sense to me.
So sure, So those will probablybe my top two if I had to
put too underrated. And so withMax's question, I want to bring something
back that we used to do forour episodes and we've recently reintroduced it.
We got some rapid fire questions foryou, because it's not every day we
(25:29):
get a world traveler like yourself tobe on this podcast to just, you
know, give some quick answers tofive questions that we have all right to.
First, one favorite country for foodIndonesia, most difficult country to navigate
through due to language or cultural barriers, anything Resbekistan, one of the stands.
(25:51):
Best bang for your buck Vietnam.We've gotten that a lot actually,
best local drink alcoholic or otherwise well, and last one, which content has
the most impressive landscape? Asia?And you've been to six of the seven,
so we can't. We gotta I'veactually I've actually been to all seven.
(26:11):
Okay, earlier you threw me offwhen you said you hadn't been to
Africa, so well, let metake that back. I have been to
parts of Africa I've been to soI've been to South Africa, Kenya and
Morocco. So when I say Ihave a lot of Africa to do,
I have most of Africa to do. I respect your your answer when it
comes to best food, but Ifeel Morocco would give them a run for
(26:32):
their money. That's true. Moroccodoes have very good food. Yeah,
very good food. But it's sucha hard question when you start talking about
food because it's like, you know, like they all have I have a
favorite in all of them or mostof them at least. Yeah, that's
hard. Yeah, it's like canyou beat street tacos in Mexico? Like
you know, it's really hard todo. And then lamb and Turkey,
(26:53):
Yeah get out of Yeah for sure. What lessons would you say you've learned
from your year abroad? Did anyperspectives change? What was the biggest takeaway
that you got from this one trip? I think and this isn't new.
It probably was just reinforced in meand something that I had lost sight of
in my overall life. But thebiggest thing I walk away with after being
(27:17):
on the road for an entire yearis that there are these There are almost
eight billion people on this planet,and when you sit down and you really
start to talk to them, whetherthey're in Asia or in the Middle East,
or South America or even the UnitedStates, we are all so much
alike. We remove all of thenoise that the media puts in our face,
(27:38):
the politics, the religion, thehate, and people all around the
world wants to go home and feelsafe at night. They want to go
home and love their spouse, theyall love their children, and so there's
this again. It was really refreshingfor me. But there's this underlying respect
that I have for people all aroundthe world. And coming from the United
(28:00):
States, where we've got a lotof headbutting on different beliefs, it's really
allowed me to come back and say, take a step back. You might
not be right, maybe you aremaybe or not, but look at the
person and stop looking at the labelthat you've put on them, and hear
what they actually have to say,and so that's been probably my biggest takeaway
is just take a step back andlook at the person, listen to them,
(28:22):
and you're going to learn something.Take us through the day that you
got to your last country where youactually broke the record for most countries in
the year using a wheelchair. Whatdid that mean for you personally? So
I was actually in the United Stateswhen I got the record. So part
of the Guinness, part of therequirements is that you have to start and
leave in the same country. SoI started in the US when I flew
(28:45):
out and then came back. SoI was in the US. I submitted
my documentation, which took quite awhile to organize and put together, and
then they have one week to tellyou whether you got the record or not.
So of course, you know,the whole week, I'm just like
checking my email, checking my email. You know, where's it at,
where's it at, where's it at. On the day I received the email,
(29:07):
I remember, I was just sittingin my living room and I just
screamed at the top of my lungs. It was like, oh my God,
I actually got it. I'm soexcited, and I think, you
know, what does that mean forme? Personally, I think it's of
course, it's exciting to win ana war, no matter what that is.
So there's that own, you know, my own selfish pride and joy.
But on a broader sense, Ihope that as conversations like these continue
(29:32):
to happen in my life that Ican that it opens eyes for people that
have limitations and challenges. And maybethat's a disability, or maybe that's anxiety
about flying, or maybe that's justconcern about traveling in general. But I
hope that it inspires people to takethat step and get on the airplane and
say, gosh, I'm really scared. But if she did it, oh
(29:53):
my god, I can. Ican go to Italy and try that pizza.
I've been wanting to try my wholelife. So I think to answer
your question, what the way itfelt for me is, Wow, this
is a huge staff and I havea huge opportunity to push people to do
not necessarily what I did, butto fight that fear, whatever they might
have, and golden their life.Yeah. And you know, I have
(30:18):
one last question on my end atleast what's next for Renee? What's next
for Renee? So I am actuallyheading to Argentina in about two weeks,
actually about a week now, headingto Argentina with my partner Tony. He's
we've been dating for ten years.Shout out to Tony. Yeah, so
he's going with me on this nextjaunt of my journey. But I've been
(30:41):
wanting to learn Spanish fluently, soI'm heading to Argentina for an indefinite period
of time. I'm enrolled in someSpanish classes and we're gonna start in Buenos
IRUs, Argentina, will probably bouncearound a little bit in South America,
but the ultimate goal being that Icome back to the US. Yeah,
it sounds good. And if ourlisteners want to find out a little more
about you, where can they findyou? Renee runs dot nets. I
(31:04):
have a couple of resources on there. I'm actually working on building it out
a little bit more, but allmy travel stories are out there, links
to all my social media Feel freeto follow along. I will as I
can get to South America be postinga lot more on Instagram and all the
social media sources. Too great,And I just want to say this again,
it's been such a pleasure to haveyou on the show. And I
don't really get starstruck too much inthe podcast after doing X amount of episodes
(31:29):
today, it was definitely one ofthose days. But to our listeners,
if you want to find out alittle bit more about us, you can
do so by visiting our website atwww dot GTS podcast dot com. You
can find us on Instagram or Facebookat Globetrotters Podcasts, Twitter at globetrot pod.
Make sure you drop us a reviewon the Apple Podcasts or Spotify or
any streaming platform of your choice ifyou're If you enjoyed listening to Renee in
(31:55):
her story, her record breaking storyediting was done by everyone John Otaro,
thanks for listening and thank you again. Thanks for a day. Thank you
so much for having me
You're listening to the Globetrotters podcast,the show dedicated to bringing you fresh and
diverse perspectives from traveling enthusiasts all overthe world. Here at the Globetrotters Podcast,
we hope to show that travel wasso much more than how it's represented
on social media and television by bringingyou real stories, thoughtful discussions on ethical
issues, and investigations into how youcan make the most of an adventure without
(00:37):
breaking the bank. I'm your cohost Jonathan Odeto and I'm Maximo Gonzalez,
And in our last episode, wedid something we hadn't done before. We
interviewed two guests at the same time. Both of these guests had taken trips
to Nepal with the purpose of hikingaround the Himalayas. While one person chose
to go to Everest, the otherperson trekked around lesser known trails. That
(00:58):
episode highlights the differences and similarities thattwo travelers can experience while hiking around in
the same country and in the samemountain range. If you haven't given that
a listen, I highly recommend goingback and checking it out most definitely.
But on today's episode, we havethe Guinness World record holder for most countries
visited in one year using a wheelchair, Renee Bruns. At a young age,
(01:22):
Renee was diagnosed with a skeletal disorderthat forced her family to travel around
the United States to get the propermedical help. At five, she made
her way to the Big Apple andfell in love with traveling so much that
her family and herself took it uponthemselves to check off all of the fifty
states in the US, which theydid. This only fuelled their fire to
(01:42):
see more of the world. Laterin life, she experienced a little bit
of corporate burnout while leading a largeteam in a fortune five hundred insurance company.
She decided for the first time togo on the one year sabbatical and
travel the world alone. She boughta one way ticket of Bali, and
as they say, the rest ishistory. Renee. I can't wait to
get started with this conversation. It'sa great, great pleasure to have you
(02:06):
on the show. Thank you somuch. I'm so excited to be here.
Renee. We previously spoke. Yousaid that you reached out to the
Guinness World Record people to see whatthe record was for the most countries visited
in one year. Using a wheelchair. Where did you get this desire to
break a traveling record? Where didthat come from? And how much did
(02:27):
the Guinness crew help you plan forthis ambitious endeavor? Great question. So
I was actually I had already leftmy corporate job when I decided to do
this. And what really kind ofspawned me to do this is I was
out trying to find resources for disabledsolo travelers, and I was scouring the
Internet and all of my travel resourcesand there just wasn't a lot of information
(02:52):
available for me. So I startedthinking that I must be one of the
only people to do something like this, and so through that, I thought,
well, if I'm the only onedoing this, I can probably win
some sort of an award or arecord for this. And so it was.
It was a very just a basicinquiry to Guinness. I didn't actually
know that it would go anywhere thatthey would approve it, but I simply
(03:15):
emailed and said, hey, I'veyou know, I'm a world traveler using
a wheelchair right now. I'm atat that point I think I had been
to sixty eight or sixty nine countries. Is there some sort of an award,
you know, a record? Ican get for getting to say a
hundred countries. We went back andforth a number of times, and finally
they came back and said, youknow, well you're going on this year
trip, why don't you just usethis record? And they said that I
(03:38):
had to have forty countries. Theysaid a minimum because you know, a
lot of people could go to twoor three countries, so they have to
set someone of a a challenging minimumto get to. So they said it
to forty. No one else hadever won this record, and I said,
sure, I'm gonna go after it. So I was, you know,
a few weeks or months into mytravels at that point in time,
(03:59):
and I just went after it.And so how did the Guinness World Record
staff, I'm not even sure whatI should call them. How did they
keep check of your travels? Likewhat guidelines that they put in place to
ensure you were actually going to allthese countries where the limitations are like rules
that they said it must be atleast you got to exit the airport or
something like that. Yeah, sothe Guinness rules they do not help you
(04:21):
plan any of it. They basicallygo through and they're they say, at
the end of your year, wewant you to send us documentation indicating that
you've been to this number of countriesand you know, whatever number that might
be that I ended up at.So the things that you need. You
need to have a log of thecountries you went to, so the dates
that you entered, how you entered, how long you were there, kind
(04:43):
of just a log so that theycan follow through to say, Ariam,
here's where she started, Here's whereshe ended. You have to have GPS
coordinates, so that's super easy toturn on the location history on your phone
and just pull those files out.You know, it's really cool when you
look at it the whole year oflike where you've been all over the world.
That was a really cool map.And then you have to have photos
from each of the places you've been. They need to have airline tickets or
(05:09):
it could be a train ticket.They need to have an entry in an
exit ticket into each country, sohow did you get in and out of
each country. He rented a car, you need to have you know,
the rental received or you know,the proof that you rented the car.
And then they need to have witnessstatements. This is one of my favorite
pieces. It's the witness statements,So you have to have two signed witness
(05:30):
statements from people in the country whileyou were there, signing off saying,
hey, we saw Renee in thiscountry on X date. Here, you
know, here's my contact information ifyou need to talk to me to prove
that. So that piece was reallyfun because I got to venture out all
over you know, these countries andmeet people that I wouldn't normally have met
because I had to get these witnessstatements. So a lot goes into that.
(05:53):
But those were the Guinness requirements.And so just a quick follow up
question to that talking about getting peopleto sign these witness statements, how challenging
does ZA get in the foreign countrywhere you don't know anyone and ask them,
like, hey, sign this documentto you know, verify that I
was here. Yeah, it's challengingin so many different ways. So depending
(06:16):
on the country, there's language variaders, you know. So a lot of
people around the world speak English.That's that's not new news. So you
know, the English piece of itisn't so hard in much of the world,
but there are parts of the countrywhere they just simply don't speak English.
So I'm going up to them withthis form that is one hundred percent
in English, and I'm using GoogleTranslate to try to attempt to explain what
I'm doing, and they often don'teven know what a Guinness World Record is,
(06:40):
so they're they're looking at me like, who is this this woman asking
me to sign this form. Idon't understand what it is, and she's
holding her phone in my face,you know, with broken English as she's
tried to translate the best she had. So there were times where I had
to do multiple attempts to get peopleto sign this form, and honestly,
I think some of them just signedit, saying all right, we don't
(07:02):
know what she wants, but we'lljust put a signature on here, and
you know, that was fine,but it was unique and challenging in that
way. And then on top ofthat, the other pushback I got from
a number of people, and Iwasn't prepared for this, but they were
saying, is this going to getme in trouble with the US government or
their local government? And there wasa lot of hesitation to say no,
(07:23):
thanks, I'm not interested. Sooften I had to try multiple people.
But the people that did sign itwere so excited to be a part of
the journey when once they understood whatI was doing, and I have pictures
with people, I have selfies ofthem and me holding the form and I
made a lot of friends that waybecause it really opens a door for some
really cool and fun conversation. I'ma little shocked, I mean, I'm
(07:44):
not shocked to hear that the Gennisstaff crew, whatever you want to call
them, wasn't helping me out toomuch. But that makes sense, right,
this is your record to break,So given that they weren't providing you
with much support aside from just guidelines, what resources, if you were even
able to have resources did you usethat were helpful for you to plan this
trip? Where their Facebook groups andjust use search engines, other travelers,
(08:07):
other travelers. It's such a uniquespace when you start thinking about what I'm
doing trying to visit all one hundredand ninety five countries with a wheelchair.
So you have these, you know, these intense adventure travelers that are out
trying to see all of the countries. And that's one population of people that
I leaned on a lot, becauseyou know, not a lot of people
go to the places that I'm tryingto go to and then there's this whole
(08:30):
other population of disability travelers and they'renot necessarily trying to go to some of
these off the beaten path places,but they understand the nuances of travel.
So that segment where they overlap isthere's maybe one or two other people that
I've run into that are even kindof close to doing what I'm doing.
But it's it's kind of leaning onboth of those communities to say, Hey,
(08:52):
I'm traveling with a disability. Theseare the challenges and the things I
need to be prepared for. ButI'm also going to, you know,
a place that not a lot ofpeople in general have gone to this and
as a tourist, so what doesthat look like? And kind of in
my own mind molding the two dynamicstogether. You mentioned there were a few
(09:13):
other people doing similar things as you. Did you make any friendships or relationships
with those people since you have thisreally cool similarity. I do have a
few people and we've not met inperson, and it's mostly just following along
on you know, Instagram, socialmedia, that type of stuff to see
where they're at and if you seethat they happen to be in a place
(09:33):
where you are, where you wantto go. It's making that connection to
say, hey, when I getto that place, I'm going to lean
on you. I'm going to needyour contacts, I'm going to need to
know the do this, don't dothat kind of stuff. Let's talk a
little bit more about travel accessibility orinaccessibility, depending on how you look at
it. You know, I knowthat you planned ahead, but what was
the reality when you started traveling andwhat were some of the biggest challenges.
(09:58):
That's a great question, and Ithink like any traveler, you always plan
ahead if you have this like ideallike picture of what it's going to look
like, and sometimes it's better,sometimes it's worse for me. I mean
the airlines. Of course, theairlines are difficult for you know, a
lot of people, but they're justthey don't cater well to people with disabilities,
and it's frustrating. I could probablyspend two hours talking about the airlines
(10:20):
and areas they could improve in butthere's there's a ton of advocacy groups out
there already doing that, so Iwon't. I won't put a negative spin
on this, but the airlines,for sure, in so many ways.
And then I think second that themost challenging piece for me is just the
infrastructure of much of these places inthe world that aren't designed for wheelchairs.
There's I mean, there's places thathave an immense amount of history. There's
(10:41):
places that don't have the regulation.There's places that culturally disabled people don't have
the rights that I'm used to havingin the United States. So getting to
places and finding that the hotel mightnot be accessible even though I ask business
going to be an accessible hotel andthey come out I can say yes.
And arriving and seeing four steps toget into the lobby, those types of
(11:05):
things are difficult. There's curves crossingthe street. I take for granted that
every intersection I have here in theUS has a ramp to get up and
down and it's breezy, So littlethings. You know, you're trying to
go explore a city and it's youget one block and you're saying, well,
shoot, now I can't get down. And then if I do get
down, I've got to get rightback up. So those things that you
(11:26):
know, they're unexpected, and justthe infrastructure of the world, And when
you really start thinking about all ofthe places in the world, there are
very few that have built that infrastructurefor someone using a wheelchair. But I
want to stress that the most refreshingpart of that is around the world there
have been these people and all overwho see me, don't speak my language,
(11:50):
don't look like me, don't knowanything about me. And I come
up to that intersection where there's acurb, I got to get down just
to get right back up on theother side, and will common they just
helped me, and I don't It'samazing to me that these people can just
come up and smile kind of point, you know, we do a little
hand signaling, and they helped medown and help me back up, and
(12:13):
it's really refreshing for for me tosee that that side of humanity. And
I think I had kind of lostthat kindness and seeing that in people all
around, so it was really acool thing to see despite the struggles of
it not being there, which ofcourse I want there to be ramps everywhere,
but talking about the infrastructure. Sofor listeners, the timeline of this
(12:35):
trip was from February twenty twenty twoto about February twenty twenty three. Was
accessibility getting easier or harder as youwere going along on this trip? It
depends on where I was. Youknow, I started in Southeast Asia.
I would say it was the mostdifficult place for me, and it still
is. I think, of allof the one I have not done much
(12:56):
of Africa to be transparent, soI suspect Africa will be a difficult part
of the world for me, andI think that's probably why I've saved it
for last. But Southeast Asia isvery, very inaccessible. They don't have
the regulation, they don't have theeconomies to support it. They just don't
have the culture and the means tocreate that environment. But at the same
(13:18):
time, the people there are someof the most helpful, so, you
know, to kind of answer yourquestion, are there harder parts of the
world, For sure, there are, But ironically in those parts of the
world where it's more difficult because ofyou know, the physical infrastructure, I
think culturally the people are much morehelpful. One of the reasons I was
most excited to speak to you isbecause you are an inspiration and you're a
(13:41):
motivated for a lot of people,not just people that are you know,
handicapped in any sort of way,but just you know, even to people
like me about what you can doand get out on the world on your
own. And so there's a misconceptionthat I want to address here that if
you're using a wheelchair, there's stillyou know that you're limited in what you
can do and to like sports becauseyou've done a lot of activities that are
(14:03):
I would consider adrenaline pumping sports.So some of them, just to name
a few, skydiving, parasailing,paraglidinges, scuba tiving, windsurfing, kayaking,
and the list is endless. Right, So you did some of these
activities abroad, which was the mostnoteworthy in your opinion? Or can you
talk about some of these experiences thatyou took on abroad and why you did
them. Yeah, So some ofmy favorite and some of these were before
(14:28):
I was working towards the Guinness soa few years ago. But I went
windsurfing in bon Air and it's mysister. She was with me on that
trip, and she had said,I want to go windsurfing, and I
said, great, you go windsurfing. I'm gonna send it this little beach
bar. I'm gonna drinking and coladasand I'm just gonna watch you. And
after about thirty or forty five minutes, I thought, gosh, you know,
(14:50):
I could at least go and siton a board, you know,
just like a surfboard and kind offloat around. So I did that,
and then she comes up to meand she says, I think that you
can do this if you kneel onyour knees. And you know, we
had to modify it, but wecould, we could probably, you know,
you can at least try it.So I get on, I try,
and before I know it, theentire staff at this windsurfing school or
(15:11):
organization is coming over to help me. And I was doing it completely on
my own. And so as Istart going through it, this staff is
like, you know, we havea couple of people that that use wheelchairs
and we've created seats on these thesewindsurfing boards, and you know, you
should, you should really consider it. And I haven't taken it any further,
but just the way that they approachedit and embraced it, and you
(15:35):
know, they said, hey,you can do this. And I went
in saying, oh, you know, I'm gonna drink Pina clowns by the
beach and I ended up surfing,you know, through the Atlantic Ocean was
such a cool thing. So Iremember leaving that day, thinking, my
god, I never thought I wouldwin surface. That's so it's so freaking
awesome when I was one of myfavorites, I'm giving one more. That
was a really fun one for me. Is And again this was before my
(15:56):
year of travel, when I wasin the Andes Mountains side of Santiago,
Chile, and I had an opportunityto go paragliding. So you know,
you like get up, you driveup a mountain and then they run with
you and you jump off. WellI can't run, and so there's this
this man standing behind me running withme strapped to his chest, my legs
(16:18):
in the air, and I'm thinking, first of all, you've got this
like big backpack and this big youknow, parachute over you, and you're
carrying me like this is a disasterwaiting happen. But he runs off,
We jump off the mountain and wejust float around for I don't know,
an hour or so, and itwas such a liberating, just really fantastic
cool experience. Have you done that, Max? I haven't. Man,
(16:41):
that's one of those things I'm terrifiedto do. Yeah, I don't know,
You're you are to me? Okay, I would do it. I
really would. But I am alsoterrified of heights, and I've done some
like high altitude stuff where I'll jumpout of planes and stuff, but that
one specifically gets my hands are sweatingjust hearing you speak. Well, you
fall out of a plane, it'sdifferent. You have so much time to
(17:03):
back out. When you're sky diving. You don't have time to back out.
You're gonna just flop out no matterwhat. They're gonna push you.
I hear up there and they're like, this is your time, get out
of here. That's why I wouldhave a hard time with it, because
I too have a big fear ofheights. For me, it's kind of
like I need I need the ropeto just be cut and be, you
know, off with it. IfI have time to bail, I'm in
bail. Yeah, for sure.I think for me, this is,
(17:25):
you know, just kind of thinkingas you're saying that, there's a part
of me that once I'm up therefloating around in the sky, I don't
have to have my wheelchair to dothat, and so there's like this freedom
of oh my god, I'm justup here floating so free. If you
will, away from from the confinesof a wheelchair and just the way I
view that, I don't know,it's it's just such a surreal experience for
(17:47):
me. So yeah, fantastic experience. One of the activities that you did
do on your sabbatical that I readabout was you did go scuba diving in
on Duras. Was that your firsttime? It wasn't. I'm actually scuba
diving certified for six or seven yearsnow, so I've been scuba diving in
Thailand, Honduras, obviously, muchof the Caribbean, a couple other places
(18:11):
in like this off Pacific area.But it's similar to the paragliding and the
sky ending. I get in andI'm just like free. It's it's you
know, it's an opportunity to reallyexperience the world the same way that everyone
else is, but just free inliberating. Backtracking, there was something you
said that I've found really interesting becauseI'm sure it's happened to everyone where you
(18:33):
book either an airbnb or a hostelor a hotel and there's pictures, descriptions,
and then you know when you getthere, you're expecting that, and
you get there and it's something completelydifferent. And you were saying like for
you, like they're saying it's wheelchairaccessible, and then you arrive and it's
not. And so for you know, for me, like reflecting back,
I'm like, oh, these arejust minor inconveniences that you know, I'm
(18:55):
really upset about, but there's nothingactually stopping me from doing anything. And
so I just found that kind ofeye opening that you know, for you
it's a completely different experience when youkind of show up and it's you know,
the description is not accurate to yourbooking for sure. And fortunately I've
been able to make almost every placework. There's probably been a handful or
(19:17):
two, you know that I've said, all right, I'm going to have
to find a new place, andyou're doing that last minute scrambling to find
someplace else to say, But there'salso some expense to that too, when
you're scrambling to find something last minute, and often you know, breaks breaks
the budget. So I try todo my due diligence and you know,
send a message beforehand if I'm notsure whether it's accessible or not. But
(19:37):
there's definitions vary by country and theyvary by culture, and what somebody thinks
is accessible is for one person itmight be, but for another person,
it's not. So it's absolutely adifficult thing to navigate as to get out
there, especially by myself. Andyou bring up an important point when you
talk about budget and breaking the budget, which I don't. I think I
(20:00):
wrote down here that I was goingto ask, but I really should.
You know, you're you're out herefor a year. What was your situation
prior to this? Were you savingfor this trip? Did you a lot
of X amount of dollars for eachcountry, city or you know day?
So I was saving this. Takinga year off to just travel was a
dream of mine since I was Idon't know, probably twenty. So I
(20:25):
was saving everything I could, justputting it, you know, putting it
aside. You know, of courseI was saving for retirement and all the
other things I need to save for. But there was this like separate fund
of money that I had hoped totap into some day to do this.
So I was very conscious about doingthat. And that often meant all right,
you're not buying the shoes that youthink you need, or we're not
getting a new car, or youknow, it's it's it was really cutting
(20:45):
back on my lifestyle so I coulddo this, and I was able to
completely fund the trip on my own. It was one hundred percent self funded.
And then going back to the budgetpiece of it, that was a
huge part of it. I spentmonths thinking through how much is going to
cost me, what's a realistic amount, and what do I want that to
look like. So I actually didit a little different. I didn't break
(21:07):
it down by country. I brokeit down by day or month. Part
of that. When I left,you know, when I headed into Indonesia
for the year, I didn't havethe whole year planned out. It wasn't
like I knew exactly where I wasgoing to go, so I knew that
some places would be less expensive thanothers. So I broke it down and
said, this is how much I'mgoing to a lot per night for lodging,
(21:30):
This is how much I'm going toa lot for flights for the whole
year. And then kind of myother bucket, which would be taxis or
local transportation tours if I wanted togo on a specific tour in a place
where I couldn't see something without atour guide, food of course, you
know, and then just those unexpectedexpenses that might come up. So I
(21:51):
had that kind of a separate bucketthere and was there any regulation with budget
with the Guinness World Book of Records. Nope. They will let you spend
as little or as my as youwant. I should have mentioned this earlier.
It's really interesting with youinn as.They let you spend. They don't
ask about budget at all. They'rethey're not interested in night So you can
you can stay in five star resortsthe whole time, fly first class if
you want, or you can doit like I did a little bit cheaper
(22:12):
and stay in some hostels. Isriding in the back and coach. Also,
it's really interesting how they count visitinga country, and they will count
it as long as you were inthat landed in that country, so that
could mean not leaving the airport,which for me personally, that's that's interesting
that they count that. But I'mnot want to say, all right,
(22:32):
I've visited the airport and you knowMalaysia, that counts for me, because
how can you how does that evenyou know it's an airport, they all
look the same. How did youdefine visiting a country you personally? For
me, I absolutely had to leavethe airport. I wanted to do some
sort of an activity there. Soyou know, maybe that's going scuba diving,
(22:55):
maybe that's walking through the city andseeing some of the famous and just
site to Every country has their differentnuances, but I wanted to do something
touristy, if you will. Ialways want to try the local food everywhere
I am, so you know,it doesn't necessarily have to be a whole
meal, but it could be,you know, a roadside stand where they
serve the local food. But Iwant to try the local food and I
(23:15):
want to have an interaction with aperson from that country. So I don't
want to just you know, hopin a tour bus with a bunch of
Americans, drive around, look atsites, and come back. I want
that cultural piece of it. Andyou know that you can't get that just
sitting in an airport. And sothey don't have any time limit for how
long you have to be at anairport. You just have to land.
(23:37):
You could have a layover for anhour and then you've technically been there.
Absolutely yep, I know it feelsit feels like cheating in my mind.
And again, you know, Iguess you know, for all intents and
purposes, you could spend a lotof money just flying around the world and
going to airports, But what doyou get out of that? That's you
know, it's just not rewarding tome. And getting the Guinness World Record
(23:59):
was not the reason I set outon this. There were I had a
lot of personal reasons. Said Ireally just wanted to see the world,
and the Guinness was certainly an addedbonus. It was like the cherry on
top of the cake and ice cream. But I had no intent of just
bouncing through just to check them offfor the sake of Guinness. So you've
been to more than one hundred countries. What area, or more specifically,
(24:22):
what country would you consider to bethe most underrated or your favorite? If
you can name one to five countries, because I can't do one. Yeah,
what did you find as the mostunderrated country in your travels? I'm
glad that you said I have afew, because it's such a hard question.
I love Laos last is one ofmy favorite the people and the culture,
(24:42):
and I just had a wonderful timewhen I was there. I also
love Kyrgyikstan, which is probably alittle bit more off the beaten path.
I love Kyrgikstan, I love allof the stance. But if I had
to choose one, Stan would bemy favorite. I've never heard someone refer
to that he has the stands,but that's such a great Yeah, but
that's such a great way to breakit down, the five stands. Yeah,
(25:06):
I don't know, Maybe I madethat up. No, No,
I mean yeah, it sounds itsounds like it makes sense to me.
So sure, So those will probablybe my top two if I had to
put too underrated. And so withMax's question, I want to bring something
back that we used to do forour episodes and we've recently reintroduced it.
We got some rapid fire questions foryou, because it's not every day we
(25:29):
get a world traveler like yourself tobe on this podcast to just, you
know, give some quick answers tofive questions that we have all right to.
First, one favorite country for foodIndonesia, most difficult country to navigate
through due to language or cultural barriers, anything Resbekistan, one of the stands.
(25:51):
Best bang for your buck Vietnam.We've gotten that a lot actually,
best local drink alcoholic or otherwise well, and last one, which content has
the most impressive landscape? Asia?And you've been to six of the seven,
so we can't. We gotta I'veactually I've actually been to all seven.
(26:11):
Okay, earlier you threw me offwhen you said you hadn't been to
Africa, so well, let metake that back. I have been to
parts of Africa I've been to soI've been to South Africa, Kenya and
Morocco. So when I say Ihave a lot of Africa to do,
I have most of Africa to do. I respect your your answer when it
comes to best food, but Ifeel Morocco would give them a run for
(26:32):
their money. That's true. Moroccodoes have very good food. Yeah,
very good food. But it's sucha hard question when you start talking about
food because it's like, you know, like they all have I have a
favorite in all of them or mostof them at least. Yeah, that's
hard. Yeah, it's like canyou beat street tacos in Mexico? Like
you know, it's really hard todo. And then lamb and Turkey,
(26:53):
Yeah get out of Yeah for sure. What lessons would you say you've learned
from your year abroad? Did anyperspectives change? What was the biggest takeaway
that you got from this one trip? I think and this isn't new.
It probably was just reinforced in meand something that I had lost sight of
in my overall life. But thebiggest thing I walk away with after being
(27:17):
on the road for an entire yearis that there are these There are almost
eight billion people on this planet,and when you sit down and you really
start to talk to them, whetherthey're in Asia or in the Middle East,
or South America or even the UnitedStates, we are all so much
alike. We remove all of thenoise that the media puts in our face,
(27:38):
the politics, the religion, thehate, and people all around the
world wants to go home and feelsafe at night. They want to go
home and love their spouse, theyall love their children, and so there's
this again. It was really refreshingfor me. But there's this underlying respect
that I have for people all aroundthe world. And coming from the United
(28:00):
States, where we've got a lotof headbutting on different beliefs, it's really
allowed me to come back and say, take a step back. You might
not be right, maybe you aremaybe or not, but look at the
person and stop looking at the labelthat you've put on them, and hear
what they actually have to say,and so that's been probably my biggest takeaway
is just take a step back andlook at the person, listen to them,
(28:22):
and you're going to learn something.Take us through the day that you
got to your last country where youactually broke the record for most countries in
the year using a wheelchair. Whatdid that mean for you personally? So
I was actually in the United Stateswhen I got the record. So part
of the Guinness, part of therequirements is that you have to start and
leave in the same country. SoI started in the US when I flew
(28:45):
out and then came back. SoI was in the US. I submitted
my documentation, which took quite awhile to organize and put together, and
then they have one week to tellyou whether you got the record or not.
So of course, you know,the whole week, I'm just like
checking my email, checking my email. You know, where's it at,
where's it at, where's it at. On the day I received the email,
(29:07):
I remember, I was just sittingin my living room and I just
screamed at the top of my lungs. It was like, oh my God,
I actually got it. I'm soexcited, and I think, you
know, what does that mean forme? Personally, I think it's of
course, it's exciting to win ana war, no matter what that is.
So there's that own, you know, my own selfish pride and joy.
But on a broader sense, Ihope that as conversations like these continue
(29:32):
to happen in my life that Ican that it opens eyes for people that
have limitations and challenges. And maybethat's a disability, or maybe that's anxiety
about flying, or maybe that's justconcern about traveling in general. But I
hope that it inspires people to takethat step and get on the airplane and
say, gosh, I'm really scared. But if she did it, oh
(29:53):
my god, I can. Ican go to Italy and try that pizza.
I've been wanting to try my wholelife. So I think to answer
your question, what the way itfelt for me is, Wow, this
is a huge staff and I havea huge opportunity to push people to do
not necessarily what I did, butto fight that fear, whatever they might
have, and golden their life.Yeah. And you know, I have
(30:18):
one last question on my end atleast what's next for Renee? What's next
for Renee? So I am actuallyheading to Argentina in about two weeks,
actually about a week now, headingto Argentina with my partner Tony. He's
we've been dating for ten years.Shout out to Tony. Yeah, so
he's going with me on this nextjaunt of my journey. But I've been
(30:41):
wanting to learn Spanish fluently, soI'm heading to Argentina for an indefinite period
of time. I'm enrolled in someSpanish classes and we're gonna start in Buenos
IRUs, Argentina, will probably bouncearound a little bit in South America,
but the ultimate goal being that Icome back to the US. Yeah,
it sounds good. And if ourlisteners want to find out a little more
about you, where can they findyou? Renee runs dot nets. I
(31:04):
have a couple of resources on there. I'm actually working on building it out
a little bit more, but allmy travel stories are out there, links
to all my social media Feel freeto follow along. I will as I
can get to South America be postinga lot more on Instagram and all the
social media sources. Too great,And I just want to say this again,
it's been such a pleasure to haveyou on the show. And I
don't really get starstruck too much inthe podcast after doing X amount of episodes
(31:29):
today, it was definitely one ofthose days. But to our listeners,
if you want to find out alittle bit more about us, you can
do so by visiting our website atwww dot GTS podcast dot com. You
can find us on Instagram or Facebookat Globetrotters Podcasts, Twitter at globetrot pod.
Make sure you drop us a reviewon the Apple Podcasts or Spotify or
any streaming platform of your choice ifyou're If you enjoyed listening to Renee in
(31:55):
her story, her record breaking storyediting was done by everyone John Otaro,
thanks for listening and thank you again. Thanks for a day. Thank you
so much for having me
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