April 11, 2024 • 47 mins
This week on the podcast, we’re excited to welcome back Andy Corbley, a traveler, writer, and the founder of World at Large News. In this episode, Andy discusses significant changes in his life, including becoming a father and publishing his travel book 'On the Face of It: A Traveler On His World.' The conversation covers Andy's unique approach to travel literature, his recent travels, and the process of writing and publishing his book. Andy also shares his insights on human kindness across cultures, as well as what’s next for him travelwise, his future projects, including a second book that he’s working on, and much more. Enjoy!
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(00:02):
Hello and welcome to the World Wanderspodcast, a proud part of the Wanderbarn
podcast network. I'm Ryan, I'mAmanda, and we're your hosts. We're
a traveling couple and digital nomad's takingyou on our adventures as we explore locations,
destinations, and careers. Enjoy theshow. Hello and welcome to this
(00:24):
episode of the World Wanders Podcast.We're really excited and grateful that you decided
to join us with your ear timetoday. Today, we're really excited about
the interview we have to share withyou. We have recurring guest and friend
of the show, Andy Corbi,back on the show once more for the
first time in a couple years.Yeah, and for those of you who
(00:45):
aren't familiar with Andy, he's atraveler and a writer, and he's also
the founder of World at Large News, which is an independent news outlet that
covers conflicts and world events, travel, health, and other topics. And
he's also so the pretty new authorof an awesome travel log I guess you
could say called, on the faceof it, a traveler on his world.
(01:07):
And so in today's episode of theshow, we kick things off by
hearing where he's at. We hearhow life has changed for him over the
last couple of years since we hadhim on the show last Like Ryan said,
it's been a couple of years sincehe was on the podcast, and
he's had some pretty significant life changes. So he catches us up on life
and travel, and then we reallyjust dive into his book. We talk
(01:30):
about the process of writing, whatthat was like, and what you can
expect from the book. And oneof the things that we were really excited
about with this because if you followthe show, you know we don't do
a lot of interviews and episodes onpeople, specifically about books, but just
the way he went about writing thisand how this is a little bit of
a unique take on a travel book, which knowing Andy, we wouldn't expect
(01:55):
anything different. So really excited todive in with this and hopefully you guys
enjoy as much as we did.So without any further ado, here is
Andy. Andy, Welcome to thepodcast today. We're really excited to have
you here with us. Well,thanks, it's a real pleasure to be
back. Yeah, and where areyou joining us from? Are you in
the same place that you were backin twenty twenty two? I think yeah,
(02:17):
I think I'm in a very verysmall town in northern Italy, which
is more and more as time goeson. It's pretty much our house,
but it's not our house. Itbelongs sort of in the family. But
we live in a town where it'sso provincial that if you come into it
with five euro in your pocket,you will leave with five euro in your
(02:39):
pocket because there's not one place tospend it. Okay, that's good to
know, very interesting, and soI was looking. The last time we
had you in the show, itwas like the spring of twenty twenty two,
so it's been a little minute sincewe chatted with you. I know,
(03:00):
we've obviously got a big topic totalk about with a new book that
you released, so we're excited toget into that. But I'm curious if
maybe you can catch us up,like what is your last almost two years
look like since we chatted. Well, I had resolved based on a challenge
issued to me by an African ayoung African man to write a book in
(03:22):
the lead up to my thirtieth birthday, which coincided with the birth of my
son. So twenty twenty three sawonly modest travel experiences because I was becoming
a father for the first time,and I was writing the book, so
(03:44):
other than that, I can't Icouldn't just leave it at no trips.
But we did go to Sardinia,which I had never been before, or
Sardinia, and that was really nice. But that was just like a family
vacation. So in terms of Iwent to Estonia briefleet and but the big
trip was to Azerbaijan. And likeso many trips, I could barely remember
(04:10):
why I picked Azerbaijan. It justsort of happened that I was looking for
plane tickets that weren't crushingly expensive forthat period, which was October, and
saw that Azerbaujan was no. Isaw Georgia first, and I thought,
oh, do you know what Iknow? I've picked up a lot of
information about Georgia in my life.Seems like an amazing place to visit.
(04:31):
Then I looked to the left andI saw Azerbaijan, and I had this
thought in my head. I said, I don't know anything about Azerbaijan.
Oh, so I've got to goto Azerbaijohn instead. So I went there,
had a yeah, like a Bplus. It was like a B
plus trip, wasn't one of thelegendary memororial ones, but there was a
(04:54):
lot of things that were just strangethat I had never seen before. The
country has a fascinating history because becauseit seems to be split, like in
a perfect thirty three point three percentbetween three major ethnic groups, and those
three major ethnic groups today also kindof form a major, you know,
probably one of the most geopolitically significantchoke points on the global stage. So
(05:21):
it's a country with it's an awfullot going on. And Baku, the
capital, was absolutely stunning. Butafter Baku the level of wealth declined precipitously.
But it was a really interesting trip, a time to test out my
new camera and kind of express myselfand relax, and after I had finished
(05:45):
the trip, birth of my son. It was a bit of R and
R, so I didn't push myselfas hard as maybe I usually do to
kind of find the hidden you know, angles and nuggets. Yeah. Have
you been back to the States atall? No? No. I went
for Christmas last year, but asidefrom that, there's Christmas, my brother's
(06:10):
wedding, Christmas twice, my brother'swedding. So I haven't been to the
States since really of any substantial timesince twenty nineteen. Okay, wow,
and so how long have you beenliving in Italy? Then that'll be four
years and twenty days. It's veryprecise. Well, we're really near the
(06:34):
four year anniversary, so it waspretty easy. But okay, just like,
do you've countdown going No, that'samazing. So over four years by
the time that this goes live.And so I'm curious for you. I
want to hear more about this,like this challenge that you got to write
a book and deciding on a topicand all types of things. Share fill
(06:57):
us in a little bit on thebook and we can talk about we can
talk about it a little bit more. I think it's a pretty cool story.
But twenty nineteen November, I hadachieved a job that allowed me to
work for my computer, so Isold everything I owned. You know,
it was the old story and theI was just going to go travel and
I didn't plan beyond the first threecountries. I picked Namibia, Ghana and
(07:20):
Morocco. And in Namibia I metthe woman who would become my wife,
so that changed everything. But Ialso met a young man named Augusto who
had a has a cross close relationshipwith my wife, and he was staying
with her at the same hostel whereI was, and asked her to invite
(07:45):
me to dinner, which was reallystrange because I didn't go. I was
homeschooled, and so when this likebeautiful blonde European woman comes up and invites
me to dinner, I'm like,what is going on here? But he
had heard that I was a journalistfrom Washington, DC because I was talking
(08:05):
to a Canadian economist the previous nightand thought that he would really like to
meet me. And one of thefirst things he asked me was are you
going to write a book? Andhe didn't know almost anything else about me,
But I just found I loved thatthat expression, right, children go
immediately for the expression. They don'tworry that it's wrong even to say children
(08:28):
because he was sixteen at the time. So but he just I thought that
if that's what people from now onare going to think of me when they
see me, I have to makea substantial effort to reflect that whatever admiration.
And so I essentially just lied tohim. I just said, well,
(08:52):
you know, I was thinking oftraveling until I turned thirty and writing
a book about the first thirty Ivisited on my thirtieth birthday and he said
that was a great idea, andI thought, yeah, it's a pretty
good idea. And then I wascoming up to thirty, my thirtieth birthday,
and I haven't visited thirty countries yet. You know my path. I
(09:15):
took a different path in life andhaven't been able to be one of those,
you know, those Anthony Mordain HenryRowlins types that inspired me so much
to start traveling in the first place. So but I thought, you know
what, I'm just going to writea book anyway. And there were a
bunch of other reasons. One ofthem was, and maybe you guys can
(09:39):
speak a bit to this, isthat I felt like I had had so
many little moments of insight and inspirationand little views into human the human condition,
and cultural enigmas. I felt ifI just left my brain to absorb
(10:05):
another five years of this, Iprobably wouldn't be able to do each little
tidbit justice. So I wrote thebook to be able to put everything I
had experienced up until that point downand not have to worry about diluting them
in the future when my memories ofthem are less sharp. Or with another
(10:31):
twenty other instances of note, becauseI think it's important to highlight if you
care enough about something to write abook about it, you should do that
topic justice and not just try tocram as much. The book actually came
out kind of small, which kindof annoyed me, but I didn't want
(10:54):
to just keep cramming stuff in andfor it to become too scattergun. Yeah,
so how did you get like onceyou were like, hey, life's
taking a bit of a different path, but I want to follow through this.
I want to write a book beforeI'm thirty. What did you kind
of what was the process? Like, how did you settle on? Like,
hey, which idam I actually goingto go ahead with? And then
(11:18):
what was the writing process? Likethat's kind of a good question because I
didn't know exactly what I was goingto write about? What hope would I
have to make any money off thisbook? If I was going to write
about travel? Right? How manybooks have been written on travel? You
(11:39):
know, you have to have I'vewritten over almost four thousand journalistic pieces in
my career, and so I understandthat you have to have you have to
have a hook of some kind.You can't just even if it's the most
wonderful story in the world, youhave to have some story in it.
(12:05):
And so I just started writing down, kind of in an essay style,
things that I had remembered that Ialways wanted to say. For example,
I go on in the book agreat deal about contradictions, because after a
decade and almost thirty countries, Ifelt I had experienced, I had seen
(12:30):
in the world contradictions that upset me. Not upset me, you know,
emotionally, but intellectually. I'm aguy who cares a lot about intellectual consistency,
empathetic consistency. And as I wouldtravel to countries, you know,
(12:50):
further and further abroad, you know, more and more kind of remote,
I would notice things like that wouldjust stick in my mind. And so
I started just by writing some ofthese down, and it grew into a
case of where how can I kindof link these together? And it was
(13:11):
when I started linking them together thatI actually scrapped the whole idea and came
up with a new project, whichwas to describe there is a moment,
And you guys will probably know whatI'm talking about. I think all travelers
listening will know where I'm talking about. There's a moment that happens when you're
traveling, and it's so difficult todescribe where you're It might not happen for
(13:35):
days after you arrive in a foreigncountry, but you're kind of going around,
you're eating, you're seeing things,you're doing, and then something will
happen and you'll go, oh,now it's on, and now it's happening.
It's kind of like what people talkabout about being in the zone or
entering a flow state. You enterthis moment where like everything seems more than
(13:58):
it otherwise would be. And soafter I had just kind of thrown some
ideas at my Microsoft Word documents,I came up. I resolved myself to
describe that question because I felt,and some people had conveyed this information to
me, that perhaps I had theability to express what that feeling in words,
(14:24):
and so that's what I began todo, and other parallel missions spawned
out of it. So, forexample, I wanted to investigate how the
traveler is affected by the world,but also how the world has been affected
by travelers over time, and whoare travelers? Who are the people that
(14:46):
just are drawn to this activity,Why are they drawn to this activity.
Is it nature? Is it nurture? How far back in time did human
cultures somewhat venerate the traveler. Wehave many famous travelers in our canon,
(15:07):
like Mark Polo obviously case, butit didn't start with Polo. It started,
you know, long before that.So that was the book, and
then in the second half I justkept at it. I thought, let's
leave no stone unturned. Let's examinehow all things, all of the common
forces in our world, affect travelers, and how are travelers affected by them.
(15:35):
And at the end of the book, I looked back and I thought
to myself, this is a thingthat I bet you could give to any
twenty three year old and change thecourse of their life and convince them that,
you know, not only is agap year something fun, but it
(15:56):
could be the most critical activity they'llpartak it, you know. So that's
pretty much how how it went about. It was chopping and changing. But
what I'm really pleased, even thoughit's a bit short, I'm really pleased
that it doesn't read like an essay, which is kind of because I started
(16:18):
out kind of writing in an essaystyle. But I'm glad it doesn't.
It didn't feel that way to myeditor. It hasn't felt that way to
some people have read it. SoI'm really proud of it personally, and
I'm also really proud that I leftenough room to one day, many years
from now, write a much,much thorougher version of the same sort of
(16:40):
book. Yeah, that's amazing.That's so cool to hear. And so
I'm curious if you can kind ofwalk us through the process of like,
Okay, I've written this thing,now, like what did you do next
in terms of like actually getting thispublished. Well, I one of the
things I didn't want it to do, or didn't want to do, is
(17:03):
like I've done a lot of passionprojects in my life, and I didn't
want this to just become another thingfor me. I wanted it to be
a real product that represented my career, that represented I'm trying to be as
modest as possible. But you haveto believe in yourself, right, and
so I had to believe that itcame from a you know, a rather
(17:29):
unique intellect or something something like that. So the first thing I did was
I got a real editor. Ididn't self edit it, and I promised
myself that I wasn't gonna bother theeditor overtly with anything they wanted to change,
(17:52):
so I almost I onboarded probably seventypercent of the edits they suggested.
I'm actually very proud to say thatthe editor is Jerry WEISCORBLI my mother.
And the reason I'm proud to saythat is because she has an extremely long
career in writing and journalism. Shewas actually the very first ever female freelance
(18:18):
video journalist in Washington, DC.And she's you know, she's got shark's
teeth. She doesn't hold back,and I knew that was also an advantage
because I knew we could yell ateach other and not take take it personally.
So for anyone looking to write abook, if someone in your family
(18:40):
has editing experience, substantial editing experience, it's not a bad idea for that
reason. So then I did finda publisher. I was just fortunate enough
to hear about a guy on apodcast I listened to called The Tom Woods
Show. His name is Germinal gVan, and he was really inspiring to
(19:03):
me because he's from the Ivory Coastand he's just thirty. He's like my
age, and he immigrated to theUnited States at some point, and they
speak French in the Ivory Coast,so I don't know when he learned English.
But he's published twenty seven books onAmerican political and economic history and philosophy,
So real prodigy. And he startedhis own publishing company with the help
(19:29):
of Or, with the aim ofhelping first time authors navigate a pretty hopeless
industry right now, because you know, Amazon has taken up so much publishing
volume by publishing everybody's you know,small hobby books, and a lot of
bookstores are closing down as a result, and so you essentially have huge publishers,
(19:53):
huge bookstores, and it's just notparticularly easy to get your foot in
the door if you have, know, if you have nothing to show,
if nobody invited you to write abook, you know, give you a
contract beforehand. I thought the contracthe gave me was was acceptable, and
so we proceeded that way, andwe did it just the two of us,
(20:15):
the cover art, the front,the back matter and stuff. So
it was really a nice experience.I would recommend his publishing company to any
first time authors. That's awesome.Was the publishing process like very typical,
Or is the way that he setup his business like just a little bit
more welcoming to anyone, or like, did you have to send in a
(20:37):
pitch or how did that work foryou? I suspect it was easier,
But it followed a trajectory that Ihad become. I knew, you know
when I when I was a teenager, I used to play a lot of
music, and I became familiar withthe process of pitching music to record companies.
And it was about the same.You know, it's about the same.
(20:59):
Like you, you try to puttogether the best presentation of your work
as possible, and then they say, we'll take a look at it and
we'll write back you back in threeweeks. And when he did, he
said, the publishing process was essentiallyjust me writing, you know, every
(21:21):
little scrap of copy, from theAmazon description to the inner flap to the
you know, essentially everything was doneby me, and then he put it
all together. But aside from that, I didn't really have to do anything
at all. More so, thatwas actually really it was really quite easy.
In fact, the whole process,like I said, it is a
(21:44):
small book, but I wrote itand it was accepted, and I finished
all of the additional matter in fourmonths. Wow, that's very impressive.
So really, yeah, like Isaid, I would really recommend the guy.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure. If you're trying to make a
lot of money, you might youmight just want to try to go straight
for Penguin Random House or something.But I I thought it was a decent
(22:11):
opportunity and it was there, andI took it, and I didn't think
too much about it because what Ididn't want, what I really didn't want,
was to just have this manuscript right, like the archetypical, the archetypal
Los Angeles screenplay writers, like I'vegot a script, will you read my
script? Just like walking around waivingthis manuscript at publishing companies. What I
(22:33):
wanted was to if I was goingto do the book, if I was
going to edit the book, ifI was going to do it right,
I would take the first opportunity andthe easiest opportunity to get it published.
Because what I wanted to do washold it in my hand, because if
I knew, if I couldn't holdit in my hand, then my son
(22:56):
would be born and I would justreally lose momentum and it could be months
and months, maybe years, beforeI went through the process of getting it
published, So Germanal was a realhelp in that regard. Awesome. Yeah,
and then what was the What didit feel like to kind of reach
that stage of like holding it inyour hands for the first time, launching
(23:18):
the book, What did all thatstuff feel like? Well, I think,
you know, not to be anticlimactic, but I think by that
time I had already read it coverto cover like seven times, to you
know, like doing the proofreading andstuff. So it was a little it
was a little and I selected thecover arts, so it was a little
antico act, but no, itwas it was really cool when you know
(23:41):
what, here's a great story thatillustrates how cool it was. He went
on Amazon and within a day somebodyhad left a five stuff. I'd obviously
put it all over my social mediaaccounts and stuff on my website, and
within a day somebody named Nathan andI don't know, I only know one
(24:03):
Nathan and it wasn't the same lastname, but he had left a five
star review saying, oh my god, I'm so jazz to hear that Andy's
travel experiences have been all put together. This is going to be a great
read. And so I still don'tknow who that is. I just like
to think that it was some personI met in a hostel and totally forgot
(24:26):
about, but somehow they stood abreastof it. And then the other thing
that was really cool was I submittedit to a rating agency, because again,
I really wanted to take this projectseriously. I didn't want it to
just be something for me. Iwanted to really do it like a proper
author would, And so I submittedit to Reader's Favorite, which is an
(24:48):
enormous American rating agency, and Igot five out of five stars in five
of the six categories, and theygave me a stamp to put on the
front of your book, of mybook, and the reviewer said, you
know, left a very long reviewand at the end she said, I
can't recommend it highly enough. Andso that for me was like the real
(25:12):
coming to terms moment with the factthat I had succeeded. I'd put out
a really good product, and andthe idea that I had for the book
to make it a journey into examining, to define that really unique experience,
and then to explore these various aspectsof travel that I'd always fascinated me fascinated
(25:34):
somebody else, and not just somebodyelse, but you know a person whose
job it is to not be fascinatedby books, essentially because they have to
be a critic. Yeah, thanksfor sharing that. That's yeah, that
just is like such a surreal moment, right, And it's one thing to
(25:56):
like write something and publish something.It's another to like have a validated by
like third parties that are like,yeah, you not only did this,
but you did this really well.So I think that that's like a super
cool and amazing achievement. Did youever have a moment like that in your
professional life, because another reason it'simportant to me is like I never went
to school, so I never hadthat diploma, cap and gown moment,
(26:19):
Like I've never had a like areal somebody in an industry says, you
know, you've done it, kid, Yeah, I mean probably through school.
And then I published a book atthe end of last year as well,
so yoga, right, I stillyeah, yeah, and yoga.
(26:40):
Yeah, it's self published, somaybe a little bit different. But I
also felt like getting it in myhands, I was like, whoa,
I did it. That's cool.And then as people have like read it
and been like, oh this isgreat. I'm like, oh, thank
you, that's cool. So yeah, maybe similar to you as well as
I think with school there's always thatI don't know if you feel that way
a boat school. Yeah, it'sfunny because it's very like a ritual moment
(27:03):
of like crossing the stage and gettingin the diploma, the like hat tie
they like flip you, yeah,your little tie over your hat when you
like graduate from from university. Thatmoment, I feel like I remember just
sitting there and being like, it'slike Steve Adams, Tyler Adams, Jeremy,
(27:30):
but Trilli, we're so far awayfrom the f's it's just going to
take hours. The fs are sofar away from the zus. Awesome.
And then so when did the bookofficially come out? It was late last
year, right, December second awesome. I know kind of when you like
finish a project like that, youhave to like turn the page, new
(27:52):
ideas start coming. What kind ofcomes up for you next on like stuff
you want to work on, whetherit's like question or one. Yeah.
Right, that's what separates a goodauthor from a bad author. Well,
the good author already has his secondbook idea by the time you know at
the time the first book is published, so I have a few. The
(28:15):
one I'm doing now is not goingto be out anytime soon. I'm going
to try to interview twenty four ofthe most expansive and serial travelers that I
can get contact information for and justput together a book. So if on
(28:37):
the face of it explores that wantthat triggering flow moment where you go,
Okay, now I'm traveling. Nowit's happening, there's another moment where when
when you as a traveler, youjust get crushed by kindness. Somebody does
something for you and you're just like, oh, and you go can I
(29:03):
give you money? Or like andthey go, no, I don't want
any money. And it's a prettyubiquitous. Again, just like the other
feeling, it's a pretty ubiquitous aspectof traveling, and it's something that virtually
every traveler I've ever met has experiencedsome really bizarre demonstration of kindness when somebody
went out of their way to helpthem. So I'm trying to find the
(29:29):
most extreme travelers I can get thecontact information for and ask them to recount
stories when they've received these sort ofacts of inordinate kindness I'm going to put
them together in a book that tellsthe story of human kindness while examining it
(29:53):
through the different forms that kindness anhospitality take when nested inside certain human cultures.
So obviously the Middle East is anincredibly famous place for hospitality. That's
(30:14):
not fair. The entire era Islamicworld is, you know, certainly North
Africa is in that, in thatsort of cultural sphere where the guest is
God, as the Qur'an says.And so I've conducted probably seven or eight
(30:36):
interviews so far with some really cool, you know people. I was able
to speak with the Danish guy ThorPeterson a month after he had finished traveling
to every country in the world withoutflying, so I was able to like
debrief him, which was just exceptional, and that going well. I have
(31:00):
some other ideas I was thinking ofdoing, dependent on it. It's dependent
on the traveling I do from hereon out. So for example, I
would like to write a travelog inverse, but that would require I think
a longer trip then I'm disposed toembark upon with my son being just ten
(31:27):
months old. So those are someideas I'm kind of kicking around. But
this kind of like writing about travel. I don't want to do that for
a good long time because I ranout of ideas faster than I thought I
would writing on the face of it, and so I want to make sure
(31:48):
that the net is totally full beforeI start another project. And if that
means like when I'm fifty seven orsomething, that's totally fine. Just going
to let it come as in whenit does. Because I think another problem
with writing about travel literature, andI'll bet you guys can understand this,
(32:10):
because I know you're a fan ofthe man is like I always think of
Anthony Bourdain, and I think ofa guy who was able to write about
travel and places and what he hadto say about it became more interesting than
(32:32):
the place itself, which I thinkis an extremely what makes travel literature extremely
difficult. Who is interested in whatyou have to say about Paris? Right?
Paris speaks for herself, and nota lot of people need to know
what you did and how you thoughtit was right. So, when you
(33:00):
have the ability to express certain humanmental wanderings about a place, a country,
a culture, a landscape, aphenomenon, an attraction, and you're
able to express it that in away that's more engaging to a reader than
(33:25):
just doing it, just going there, just seeing it. Then you know
you've got a real talent. Andwe've seen a few talents like that in
our lives, you know, justlike there's great talents in all affairs.
But that's one of the reasons whyI took this project was really seriously,
because I knew that there's so manyreasons not to care what people, you
(33:49):
know, what, many, many, many people write about about travel,
and I had to believe that whatI had to say about it was somehow
uniquely valuable or interesting. And soI really want to make sure that I
don't push myself into any project,because I think as soon as I do,
I will just begin to do thiskind of stream of consciousness about what
(34:14):
I thought when I was in Vienna, or when I thought when I was
in Southeast Asia, and it's justgoing to be somebody will be reading the
pages and think, all, great, you know, I'm going to go
to Southeast Asia, and then they'renot going to finish the book. Yeah,
thanks for sharing that. I feellike one of the things I'm curious
(34:35):
about when it comes to on theface of it, is, you know,
maybe just some and we can sharewith listeners where they can go to
buy it and all that type ofstuff. But I'm curious, like some
of your favorite maybe like highlights ofthe book or favorite stories from the book,
Like maybe you can just share likea couple little tidbits from the book
that you really enjoy. Well,can I ask have either of you taken
(34:59):
a look at it? I've takena look, but I haven't fully read
it. In full disclosure, I'min a similar spot. Well, I
think if every podcast who interviewed aperson who wrote a book had read the
whole book, that would be,you know, a pretty unreal world.
That would be like a computer simulation. So there was one. There were
(35:22):
a few parts that I just Icould feel like the creative gears just go
spinning and I didn't have to thinkabout what I was going to write first,
and whatever I had down on thepage was like reaching backwards years into
you know, precise moments in mytraveling experiences and I could recall them with
(35:46):
perfect detail. And there were afew moments like that. But more than
actually travel experiences, I had alot of fun elaborate and exploring some of
the ways in which travel. Thebook is divided For listeners interested in reading
(36:07):
it, The book is divided intwo parts. The first part examines the
traveler and sort of the act oftraveling, and the second part explores the
effect that travelers have in the worldthrough a variety of the most common topics.
So there's war, religion, politics, geography, time, nature,
(36:32):
stuff like that. And I reallyenjoy writing a lot of those things because
it kind of reflected just my entireintellectual upbringing in the Western canon. And
I was able to explore that witha lot of satisfactory, you know figure.
(36:52):
And the best example of that ischapter twelve or no, chapter eight,
sorry, is where I explore theidea of what turns an ethnic group
into a culture, and a cultureinto a people, and a people into
a nation state. And which ofthose have happened in our uh, in
(37:21):
this civil you know, this epoch, you know, this post World War
two era, And which ones,which ones of those have happened organically,
Which ones have been you know,happened politically, Which ones have been called
rebellions, which ones have been calledindependence, which ones have been sanctioned by
(37:43):
the UN, which ones have beenlooked at as for some reason uh illegitimate
claims to statehood, and I juststart talking like, well, look if
the people in what were the exactsamples I gave. I can't exactly remember.
Perhaps a good example might be Russiaand Belarussia. So are the differences
(38:08):
between the people of Russia and Belarussiagreater than the differences between An example I
use in the book is the dewhich is an ethnic part of an ethnic
group in southern China and the HanChinese. And the answer would be they
are way different, more different thanRussians and Belarussians. And you could say
(38:34):
sort of the same about There's alot of these sorts of things. You
could say the same sort of thesimilar thing about is Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Are the people in those countries moredifferent than say the Spanish and the
(38:59):
Basque, which is another example Iuse. I mean the Basque. Everybody
who goes to northern France or southernFrance, northern Spain knows that it's inhabited
by a people who consider themselves entirelyunique, you know, like the oldest
is you know, continuously living racein Europe. And the Basque language is
(39:23):
an is a language isolate which meansthat there are no it has no links
to any other pro to European language, and so some some of those intellectual
things I'm I lean very hard towardslimited government, and so writing the chapter
(39:46):
on politics was full of lovely,witty, you know, recountings of stories
I've heard from taxi drivers and hotelierscomplaining about the regulators, environment and things
like that, and that was reallyfun to do. I loved exploring time,
(40:07):
which I do in several points,because I think time is such a
it's such a critical aspect to howwe conceptualize travel. In chapter three,
I mentioned how it's impossible for thehuman mind to conceptualize eight hours of doing
nothing, so we don't tend toremember them or preview them. And if
(40:32):
you think about going to wherever yougo, go to Me and Mar.
Right. The problem with Me andMar is all the roads go north to
south, and sometimes that's not alwaysconvenient or not obviously not all the old
roads, but you might have togo two hundred kilometers south before you can
turn east to just go a few, you know, a few kilometers to
(40:54):
the east to go to where you'retrying to get to. And so you
think only really about the nice thingsyou'll see in me and mar because you
don't have a way of conceptualizing whatit'll be like to sit on a bus
and do nothing for eight hours andso. But other than you know,
travelers are constantly aware of time.We're aware of the check in, the
(41:16):
checkout, lunch, business hours,the departure, how many days are left,
when is nightfall. We're constantly carvingup our day by these measures of
time. I really enjoyed exploring,which was not anything I had intended to
(41:38):
do when I started writing the book. But I just tried to see if
I could make an argument for abiological genetic origin for the travel bug,
and that was a real fun exercise. And then the last thing I'll say
was, if you read the book, the second to last chapter, Friedrich
(42:04):
Nietzsche had a really wonderful line,and I think about it a lot,
where he said quite simply esdent inmirror, which in the context that he
was using it, it means somethingis thinking in me. And what he
was describing was the phenomenon of whenideas come into your head that seems so
(42:25):
strange or so sudden that they almostseem foreign. Something's thinking in me,
And so the second to last chapterwas kind of that I just started writing
about something I had noticed happening tome where I began to start, and
I had traveled enough in my lifeto start kind of seeing. I started
(42:52):
to like, and maybe other travelerswill know what I'm talking about because I'm
not doing a good job explaining it. But I would start to see in
people. I would meet people Ihad met before, and I would start
to my brain was able to conceptualizevast things like I could see the whole
(43:15):
Koala lum Poor skyline, and Ifelt I could imagine every single person in
the whole city. And I juststarted writing, and what came out was
this really wonderful philosophical idea that Inever imagined. I was capable of writing
(43:38):
about how the travel kind of shrinksthe world but also expands it so at
the same time in this enormous,this enormously strange way, That's what I'll
say. It's strange. I feellike I can see every human in the
(44:00):
eyes of every other human, andI feel like I can I feel like
I've had the same con you said, you right, you have the same
conversations a thousand times with a thousanddifferent people, and they begin to run
over your They run through your headevery subsequent time you have them. Right
when somebody asks to go where you'refrom, I'm an American, what do
you do? I'm a journalist.I begin to see every person I've ever
(44:22):
had that conversation with. So thosewould be some really, you know,
good examples of things that I wasalways I walked away really really happy with.
Yeah, thanks for sharing. Thosesounds awesome and I just love hearing
that. You know, you've kindof you've got like a unique take on
(44:43):
traveling and seeing the world, whichis one of the things that I think
we really appreciate about your book.I'm definitely excited to dive in and read
more of it. And so I'mcurious. On that note, if people
want to purchase On the Face ofIt, where where can they go to
find it? So all the linksto all the ways to buy it you
can find at GGV Publishingcompany dot com. You can also find us on Amazon.
(45:07):
My author name is my legal name, Andrew Corby. On the Face
of It, The Traveler Around World. There's only one other book with a
title called On the Face of It, So forth I got pretty fortunate there.
But it's great. You know,it's a little bendable paperback. You
(45:28):
can stuff it in a in abackpack in a hurry. You can mark
it up with pen because it onlycosts twelve dollars American for the paperback version.
And if you're if you do buythe book, you're supporting a really
wonderful publishing company in Germinal g Van'spublishing company because they helped me out a
(45:52):
lot, and it's not going toSimon and Schuster or anything, you know,
huge New York based publishing company.You're helping an immigrant who has really
fallen in love with our country.Helped me out a lot, and it's
just just a great little small businessin the publishing industry. I'm hoping to
(46:15):
have it on shelves, literal shelvessoon. We'll have to see what the
American wholesale book company says in myapplication, But if they say what everybody
else has said, it'll be abig fat yes. So in that case,
you'll be able to find it soonat Books a Million and other retailers.
Awesome. Well, you have tokeep us posted on that, but
(46:37):
yeah, we'll make sure there's linksfor that in the show notes and just
yeah, just really thrilled for you, Andy, This is really awesome.
Congrats on this amazing achievement. Yeah, we're super stoked for you and super
stoked to be able to share thiswith listeners. Thank you so so much.
Guys, really appreciate you having meon to do a bit of a
plug, if I can call itthat, But I also want to let
(47:01):
the listeners know. How can Isay the integrity of your hosts is really
quite something? Because I had sentRyan an advanced PDF copy of the book
and he wrote me back saying hehad bought a copy anyway, So you
really am By listening to this podcast, you support some really wonderful people who
(47:24):
I'm very pleased to count among myfriendly distant acquaintances. And so thank you
Wisi and love talking with you.Hope we can talk again soon. Yeah,
absolutely, Thanks Dy
Hello and welcome to the World Wanderspodcast, a proud part of the Wanderbarn
podcast network. I'm Ryan, I'mAmanda, and we're your hosts. We're
a traveling couple and digital nomad's takingyou on our adventures as we explore locations,
destinations, and careers. Enjoy theshow. Hello and welcome to this
(00:24):
episode of the World Wanders Podcast.We're really excited and grateful that you decided
to join us with your ear timetoday. Today, we're really excited about
the interview we have to share withyou. We have recurring guest and friend
of the show, Andy Corbi,back on the show once more for the
first time in a couple years.Yeah, and for those of you who
(00:45):
aren't familiar with Andy, he's atraveler and a writer, and he's also
the founder of World at Large News, which is an independent news outlet that
covers conflicts and world events, travel, health, and other topics. And
he's also so the pretty new authorof an awesome travel log I guess you
could say called, on the faceof it, a traveler on his world.
(01:07):
And so in today's episode of theshow, we kick things off by
hearing where he's at. We hearhow life has changed for him over the
last couple of years since we hadhim on the show last Like Ryan said,
it's been a couple of years sincehe was on the podcast, and
he's had some pretty significant life changes. So he catches us up on life
and travel, and then we reallyjust dive into his book. We talk
(01:30):
about the process of writing, whatthat was like, and what you can
expect from the book. And oneof the things that we were really excited
about with this because if you followthe show, you know we don't do
a lot of interviews and episodes onpeople, specifically about books, but just
the way he went about writing thisand how this is a little bit of
a unique take on a travel book, which knowing Andy, we wouldn't expect
(01:55):
anything different. So really excited todive in with this and hopefully you guys
enjoy as much as we did.So without any further ado, here is
Andy. Andy, Welcome to thepodcast today. We're really excited to have
you here with us. Well,thanks, it's a real pleasure to be
back. Yeah, and where areyou joining us from? Are you in
the same place that you were backin twenty twenty two? I think yeah,
(02:17):
I think I'm in a very verysmall town in northern Italy, which
is more and more as time goeson. It's pretty much our house,
but it's not our house. Itbelongs sort of in the family. But
we live in a town where it'sso provincial that if you come into it
with five euro in your pocket,you will leave with five euro in your
(02:39):
pocket because there's not one place tospend it. Okay, that's good to
know, very interesting, and soI was looking. The last time we
had you in the show, itwas like the spring of twenty twenty two,
so it's been a little minute sincewe chatted with you. I know,
(03:00):
we've obviously got a big topic totalk about with a new book that
you released, so we're excited toget into that. But I'm curious if
maybe you can catch us up,like what is your last almost two years
look like since we chatted. Well, I had resolved based on a challenge
issued to me by an African ayoung African man to write a book in
(03:22):
the lead up to my thirtieth birthday, which coincided with the birth of my
son. So twenty twenty three sawonly modest travel experiences because I was becoming
a father for the first time,and I was writing the book, so
(03:44):
other than that, I can't Icouldn't just leave it at no trips.
But we did go to Sardinia,which I had never been before, or
Sardinia, and that was really nice. But that was just like a family
vacation. So in terms of Iwent to Estonia briefleet and but the big
trip was to Azerbaijan. And likeso many trips, I could barely remember
(04:10):
why I picked Azerbaijan. It justsort of happened that I was looking for
plane tickets that weren't crushingly expensive forthat period, which was October, and
saw that Azerbaujan was no. Isaw Georgia first, and I thought,
oh, do you know what Iknow? I've picked up a lot of
information about Georgia in my life.Seems like an amazing place to visit.
(04:31):
Then I looked to the left andI saw Azerbaijan, and I had this
thought in my head. I said, I don't know anything about Azerbaijan.
Oh, so I've got to goto Azerbaijohn instead. So I went there,
had a yeah, like a Bplus. It was like a B
plus trip, wasn't one of thelegendary memororial ones, but there was a
(04:54):
lot of things that were just strangethat I had never seen before. The
country has a fascinating history because becauseit seems to be split, like in
a perfect thirty three point three percentbetween three major ethnic groups, and those
three major ethnic groups today also kindof form a major, you know,
probably one of the most geopolitically significantchoke points on the global stage. So
(05:21):
it's a country with it's an awfullot going on. And Baku, the
capital, was absolutely stunning. Butafter Baku the level of wealth declined precipitously.
But it was a really interesting trip, a time to test out my
new camera and kind of express myselfand relax, and after I had finished
(05:45):
the trip, birth of my son. It was a bit of R and
R, so I didn't push myselfas hard as maybe I usually do to
kind of find the hidden you know, angles and nuggets. Yeah. Have
you been back to the States atall? No? No. I went
for Christmas last year, but asidefrom that, there's Christmas, my brother's
(06:10):
wedding, Christmas twice, my brother'swedding. So I haven't been to the
States since really of any substantial timesince twenty nineteen. Okay, wow,
and so how long have you beenliving in Italy? Then that'll be four
years and twenty days. It's veryprecise. Well, we're really near the
(06:34):
four year anniversary, so it waspretty easy. But okay, just like,
do you've countdown going No, that'samazing. So over four years by
the time that this goes live.And so I'm curious for you. I
want to hear more about this,like this challenge that you got to write
a book and deciding on a topicand all types of things. Share fill
(06:57):
us in a little bit on thebook and we can talk about we can
talk about it a little bit more. I think it's a pretty cool story.
But twenty nineteen November, I hadachieved a job that allowed me to
work for my computer, so Isold everything I owned. You know,
it was the old story and theI was just going to go travel and
I didn't plan beyond the first threecountries. I picked Namibia, Ghana and
(07:20):
Morocco. And in Namibia I metthe woman who would become my wife,
so that changed everything. But Ialso met a young man named Augusto who
had a has a cross close relationshipwith my wife, and he was staying
with her at the same hostel whereI was, and asked her to invite
(07:45):
me to dinner, which was reallystrange because I didn't go. I was
homeschooled, and so when this likebeautiful blonde European woman comes up and invites
me to dinner, I'm like,what is going on here? But he
had heard that I was a journalistfrom Washington, DC because I was talking
(08:05):
to a Canadian economist the previous nightand thought that he would really like to
meet me. And one of thefirst things he asked me was are you
going to write a book? Andhe didn't know almost anything else about me,
But I just found I loved thatthat expression, right, children go
immediately for the expression. They don'tworry that it's wrong even to say children
(08:28):
because he was sixteen at the time. So but he just I thought that
if that's what people from now onare going to think of me when they
see me, I have to makea substantial effort to reflect that whatever admiration.
And so I essentially just lied tohim. I just said, well,
(08:52):
you know, I was thinking oftraveling until I turned thirty and writing
a book about the first thirty Ivisited on my thirtieth birthday and he said
that was a great idea, andI thought, yeah, it's a pretty
good idea. And then I wascoming up to thirty, my thirtieth birthday,
and I haven't visited thirty countries yet. You know my path. I
(09:15):
took a different path in life andhaven't been able to be one of those,
you know, those Anthony Mordain HenryRowlins types that inspired me so much
to start traveling in the first place. So but I thought, you know
what, I'm just going to writea book anyway. And there were a
bunch of other reasons. One ofthem was, and maybe you guys can
(09:39):
speak a bit to this, isthat I felt like I had had so
many little moments of insight and inspirationand little views into human the human condition,
and cultural enigmas. I felt ifI just left my brain to absorb
(10:05):
another five years of this, Iprobably wouldn't be able to do each little
tidbit justice. So I wrote thebook to be able to put everything I
had experienced up until that point downand not have to worry about diluting them
in the future when my memories ofthem are less sharp. Or with another
(10:31):
twenty other instances of note, becauseI think it's important to highlight if you
care enough about something to write abook about it, you should do that
topic justice and not just try tocram as much. The book actually came
out kind of small, which kindof annoyed me, but I didn't want
(10:54):
to just keep cramming stuff in andfor it to become too scattergun. Yeah,
so how did you get like onceyou were like, hey, life's
taking a bit of a different path, but I want to follow through this.
I want to write a book beforeI'm thirty. What did you kind
of what was the process? Like, how did you settle on? Like,
hey, which idam I actually goingto go ahead with? And then
(11:18):
what was the writing process? Likethat's kind of a good question because I
didn't know exactly what I was goingto write about? What hope would I
have to make any money off thisbook? If I was going to write
about travel? Right? How manybooks have been written on travel? You
(11:39):
know, you have to have I'vewritten over almost four thousand journalistic pieces in
my career, and so I understandthat you have to have you have to
have a hook of some kind.You can't just even if it's the most
wonderful story in the world, youhave to have some story in it.
(12:05):
And so I just started writing down, kind of in an essay style,
things that I had remembered that Ialways wanted to say. For example,
I go on in the book agreat deal about contradictions, because after a
decade and almost thirty countries, Ifelt I had experienced, I had seen
(12:30):
in the world contradictions that upset me. Not upset me, you know,
emotionally, but intellectually. I'm aguy who cares a lot about intellectual consistency,
empathetic consistency. And as I wouldtravel to countries, you know,
(12:50):
further and further abroad, you know, more and more kind of remote,
I would notice things like that wouldjust stick in my mind. And so
I started just by writing some ofthese down, and it grew into a
case of where how can I kindof link these together? And it was
(13:11):
when I started linking them together thatI actually scrapped the whole idea and came
up with a new project, whichwas to describe there is a moment,
And you guys will probably know whatI'm talking about. I think all travelers
listening will know where I'm talking about. There's a moment that happens when you're
traveling, and it's so difficult todescribe where you're It might not happen for
(13:35):
days after you arrive in a foreigncountry, but you're kind of going around,
you're eating, you're seeing things,you're doing, and then something will
happen and you'll go, oh,now it's on, and now it's happening.
It's kind of like what people talkabout about being in the zone or
entering a flow state. You enterthis moment where like everything seems more than
(13:58):
it otherwise would be. And soafter I had just kind of thrown some
ideas at my Microsoft Word documents,I came up. I resolved myself to
describe that question because I felt,and some people had conveyed this information to
me, that perhaps I had theability to express what that feeling in words,
(14:24):
and so that's what I began todo, and other parallel missions spawned
out of it. So, forexample, I wanted to investigate how the
traveler is affected by the world,but also how the world has been affected
by travelers over time, and whoare travelers? Who are the people that
(14:46):
just are drawn to this activity,Why are they drawn to this activity.
Is it nature? Is it nurture? How far back in time did human
cultures somewhat venerate the traveler. Wehave many famous travelers in our canon,
(15:07):
like Mark Polo obviously case, butit didn't start with Polo. It started,
you know, long before that.So that was the book, and
then in the second half I justkept at it. I thought, let's
leave no stone unturned. Let's examinehow all things, all of the common
forces in our world, affect travelers, and how are travelers affected by them.
(15:35):
And at the end of the book, I looked back and I thought
to myself, this is a thingthat I bet you could give to any
twenty three year old and change thecourse of their life and convince them that,
you know, not only is agap year something fun, but it
(15:56):
could be the most critical activity they'llpartak it, you know. So that's
pretty much how how it went about. It was chopping and changing. But
what I'm really pleased, even thoughit's a bit short, I'm really pleased
that it doesn't read like an essay, which is kind of because I started
(16:18):
out kind of writing in an essaystyle. But I'm glad it doesn't.
It didn't feel that way to myeditor. It hasn't felt that way to
some people have read it. SoI'm really proud of it personally, and
I'm also really proud that I leftenough room to one day, many years
from now, write a much,much thorougher version of the same sort of
(16:40):
book. Yeah, that's amazing.That's so cool to hear. And so
I'm curious if you can kind ofwalk us through the process of like,
Okay, I've written this thing,now, like what did you do next
in terms of like actually getting thispublished. Well, I one of the
things I didn't want it to do, or didn't want to do, is
(17:03):
like I've done a lot of passionprojects in my life, and I didn't
want this to just become another thingfor me. I wanted it to be
a real product that represented my career, that represented I'm trying to be as
modest as possible. But you haveto believe in yourself, right, and
so I had to believe that itcame from a you know, a rather
(17:29):
unique intellect or something something like that. So the first thing I did was
I got a real editor. Ididn't self edit it, and I promised
myself that I wasn't gonna bother theeditor overtly with anything they wanted to change,
(17:52):
so I almost I onboarded probably seventypercent of the edits they suggested.
I'm actually very proud to say thatthe editor is Jerry WEISCORBLI my mother.
And the reason I'm proud to saythat is because she has an extremely long
career in writing and journalism. Shewas actually the very first ever female freelance
(18:18):
video journalist in Washington, DC.And she's you know, she's got shark's
teeth. She doesn't hold back,and I knew that was also an advantage
because I knew we could yell ateach other and not take take it personally.
So for anyone looking to write abook, if someone in your family
(18:40):
has editing experience, substantial editing experience, it's not a bad idea for that
reason. So then I did finda publisher. I was just fortunate enough
to hear about a guy on apodcast I listened to called The Tom Woods
Show. His name is Germinal gVan, and he was really inspiring to
(19:03):
me because he's from the Ivory Coastand he's just thirty. He's like my
age, and he immigrated to theUnited States at some point, and they
speak French in the Ivory Coast,so I don't know when he learned English.
But he's published twenty seven books onAmerican political and economic history and philosophy,
So real prodigy. And he startedhis own publishing company with the help
(19:29):
of Or, with the aim ofhelping first time authors navigate a pretty hopeless
industry right now, because you know, Amazon has taken up so much publishing
volume by publishing everybody's you know,small hobby books, and a lot of
bookstores are closing down as a result, and so you essentially have huge publishers,
(19:53):
huge bookstores, and it's just notparticularly easy to get your foot in
the door if you have, know, if you have nothing to show,
if nobody invited you to write abook, you know, give you a
contract beforehand. I thought the contracthe gave me was was acceptable, and
so we proceeded that way, andwe did it just the two of us,
(20:15):
the cover art, the front,the back matter and stuff. So
it was really a nice experience.I would recommend his publishing company to any
first time authors. That's awesome.Was the publishing process like very typical,
Or is the way that he setup his business like just a little bit
more welcoming to anyone, or like, did you have to send in a
(20:37):
pitch or how did that work foryou? I suspect it was easier,
But it followed a trajectory that Ihad become. I knew, you know
when I when I was a teenager, I used to play a lot of
music, and I became familiar withthe process of pitching music to record companies.
And it was about the same.You know, it's about the same.
(20:59):
Like you, you try to puttogether the best presentation of your work
as possible, and then they say, we'll take a look at it and
we'll write back you back in threeweeks. And when he did, he
said, the publishing process was essentiallyjust me writing, you know, every
(21:21):
little scrap of copy, from theAmazon description to the inner flap to the
you know, essentially everything was doneby me, and then he put it
all together. But aside from that, I didn't really have to do anything
at all. More so, thatwas actually really it was really quite easy.
In fact, the whole process,like I said, it is a
(21:44):
small book, but I wrote itand it was accepted, and I finished
all of the additional matter in fourmonths. Wow, that's very impressive.
So really, yeah, like Isaid, I would really recommend the guy.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure. If you're trying to make a
lot of money, you might youmight just want to try to go straight
for Penguin Random House or something.But I I thought it was a decent
(22:11):
opportunity and it was there, andI took it, and I didn't think
too much about it because what Ididn't want, what I really didn't want,
was to just have this manuscript right, like the archetypical, the archetypal
Los Angeles screenplay writers, like I'vegot a script, will you read my
script? Just like walking around waivingthis manuscript at publishing companies. What I
(22:33):
wanted was to if I was goingto do the book, if I was
going to edit the book, ifI was going to do it right,
I would take the first opportunity andthe easiest opportunity to get it published.
Because what I wanted to do washold it in my hand, because if
I knew, if I couldn't holdit in my hand, then my son
(22:56):
would be born and I would justreally lose momentum and it could be months
and months, maybe years, beforeI went through the process of getting it
published, So Germanal was a realhelp in that regard. Awesome. Yeah,
and then what was the What didit feel like to kind of reach
that stage of like holding it inyour hands for the first time, launching
(23:18):
the book, What did all thatstuff feel like? Well, I think,
you know, not to be anticlimactic, but I think by that
time I had already read it coverto cover like seven times, to you
know, like doing the proofreading andstuff. So it was a little it
was a little and I selected thecover arts, so it was a little
antico act, but no, itwas it was really cool when you know
(23:41):
what, here's a great story thatillustrates how cool it was. He went
on Amazon and within a day somebodyhad left a five stuff. I'd obviously
put it all over my social mediaaccounts and stuff on my website, and
within a day somebody named Nathan andI don't know, I only know one
(24:03):
Nathan and it wasn't the same lastname, but he had left a five
star review saying, oh my god, I'm so jazz to hear that Andy's
travel experiences have been all put together. This is going to be a great
read. And so I still don'tknow who that is. I just like
to think that it was some personI met in a hostel and totally forgot
(24:26):
about, but somehow they stood abreastof it. And then the other thing
that was really cool was I submittedit to a rating agency, because again,
I really wanted to take this projectseriously. I didn't want it to
just be something for me. Iwanted to really do it like a proper
author would, And so I submittedit to Reader's Favorite, which is an
(24:48):
enormous American rating agency, and Igot five out of five stars in five
of the six categories, and theygave me a stamp to put on the
front of your book, of mybook, and the reviewer said, you
know, left a very long reviewand at the end she said, I
can't recommend it highly enough. Andso that for me was like the real
(25:12):
coming to terms moment with the factthat I had succeeded. I'd put out
a really good product, and andthe idea that I had for the book
to make it a journey into examining, to define that really unique experience,
and then to explore these various aspectsof travel that I'd always fascinated me fascinated
(25:34):
somebody else, and not just somebodyelse, but you know a person whose
job it is to not be fascinatedby books, essentially because they have to
be a critic. Yeah, thanksfor sharing that. That's yeah, that
just is like such a surreal moment, right, And it's one thing to
(25:56):
like write something and publish something.It's another to like have a validated by
like third parties that are like,yeah, you not only did this,
but you did this really well.So I think that that's like a super
cool and amazing achievement. Did youever have a moment like that in your
professional life, because another reason it'simportant to me is like I never went
to school, so I never hadthat diploma, cap and gown moment,
(26:19):
Like I've never had a like areal somebody in an industry says, you
know, you've done it, kid, Yeah, I mean probably through school.
And then I published a book atthe end of last year as well,
so yoga, right, I stillyeah, yeah, and yoga.
(26:40):
Yeah, it's self published, somaybe a little bit different. But I
also felt like getting it in myhands, I was like, whoa,
I did it. That's cool.And then as people have like read it
and been like, oh this isgreat. I'm like, oh, thank
you, that's cool. So yeah, maybe similar to you as well as
I think with school there's always thatI don't know if you feel that way
a boat school. Yeah, it'sfunny because it's very like a ritual moment
(27:03):
of like crossing the stage and gettingin the diploma, the like hat tie
they like flip you, yeah,your little tie over your hat when you
like graduate from from university. Thatmoment, I feel like I remember just
sitting there and being like, it'slike Steve Adams, Tyler Adams, Jeremy,
(27:30):
but Trilli, we're so far awayfrom the f's it's just going to
take hours. The fs are sofar away from the zus. Awesome.
And then so when did the bookofficially come out? It was late last
year, right, December second awesome. I know kind of when you like
finish a project like that, youhave to like turn the page, new
(27:52):
ideas start coming. What kind ofcomes up for you next on like stuff
you want to work on, whetherit's like question or one. Yeah.
Right, that's what separates a goodauthor from a bad author. Well,
the good author already has his secondbook idea by the time you know at
the time the first book is published, so I have a few. The
(28:15):
one I'm doing now is not goingto be out anytime soon. I'm going
to try to interview twenty four ofthe most expansive and serial travelers that I
can get contact information for and justput together a book. So if on
(28:37):
the face of it explores that wantthat triggering flow moment where you go,
Okay, now I'm traveling. Nowit's happening, there's another moment where when
when you as a traveler, youjust get crushed by kindness. Somebody does
something for you and you're just like, oh, and you go can I
(29:03):
give you money? Or like andthey go, no, I don't want
any money. And it's a prettyubiquitous. Again, just like the other
feeling, it's a pretty ubiquitous aspectof traveling, and it's something that virtually
every traveler I've ever met has experiencedsome really bizarre demonstration of kindness when somebody
went out of their way to helpthem. So I'm trying to find the
(29:29):
most extreme travelers I can get thecontact information for and ask them to recount
stories when they've received these sort ofacts of inordinate kindness I'm going to put
them together in a book that tellsthe story of human kindness while examining it
(29:53):
through the different forms that kindness anhospitality take when nested inside certain human cultures.
So obviously the Middle East is anincredibly famous place for hospitality. That's
(30:14):
not fair. The entire era Islamicworld is, you know, certainly North
Africa is in that, in thatsort of cultural sphere where the guest is
God, as the Qur'an says.And so I've conducted probably seven or eight
(30:36):
interviews so far with some really cool, you know people. I was able
to speak with the Danish guy ThorPeterson a month after he had finished traveling
to every country in the world withoutflying, so I was able to like
debrief him, which was just exceptional, and that going well. I have
(31:00):
some other ideas I was thinking ofdoing, dependent on it. It's dependent
on the traveling I do from hereon out. So for example, I
would like to write a travelog inverse, but that would require I think
a longer trip then I'm disposed toembark upon with my son being just ten
(31:27):
months old. So those are someideas I'm kind of kicking around. But
this kind of like writing about travel. I don't want to do that for
a good long time because I ranout of ideas faster than I thought I
would writing on the face of it, and so I want to make sure
(31:48):
that the net is totally full beforeI start another project. And if that
means like when I'm fifty seven orsomething, that's totally fine. Just going
to let it come as in whenit does. Because I think another problem
with writing about travel literature, andI'll bet you guys can understand this,
(32:10):
because I know you're a fan ofthe man is like I always think of
Anthony Bourdain, and I think ofa guy who was able to write about
travel and places and what he hadto say about it became more interesting than
(32:32):
the place itself, which I thinkis an extremely what makes travel literature extremely
difficult. Who is interested in whatyou have to say about Paris? Right?
Paris speaks for herself, and nota lot of people need to know
what you did and how you thoughtit was right. So, when you
(33:00):
have the ability to express certain humanmental wanderings about a place, a country,
a culture, a landscape, aphenomenon, an attraction, and you're
able to express it that in away that's more engaging to a reader than
(33:25):
just doing it, just going there, just seeing it. Then you know
you've got a real talent. Andwe've seen a few talents like that in
our lives, you know, justlike there's great talents in all affairs.
But that's one of the reasons whyI took this project was really seriously,
because I knew that there's so manyreasons not to care what people, you
(33:49):
know, what, many, many, many people write about about travel,
and I had to believe that whatI had to say about it was somehow
uniquely valuable or interesting. And soI really want to make sure that I
don't push myself into any project,because I think as soon as I do,
I will just begin to do thiskind of stream of consciousness about what
(34:14):
I thought when I was in Vienna, or when I thought when I was
in Southeast Asia, and it's justgoing to be somebody will be reading the
pages and think, all, great, you know, I'm going to go
to Southeast Asia, and then they'renot going to finish the book. Yeah,
thanks for sharing that. I feellike one of the things I'm curious
(34:35):
about when it comes to on theface of it, is, you know,
maybe just some and we can sharewith listeners where they can go to
buy it and all that type ofstuff. But I'm curious, like some
of your favorite maybe like highlights ofthe book or favorite stories from the book,
Like maybe you can just share likea couple little tidbits from the book
that you really enjoy. Well,can I ask have either of you taken
(34:59):
a look at it? I've takena look, but I haven't fully read
it. In full disclosure, I'min a similar spot. Well, I
think if every podcast who interviewed aperson who wrote a book had read the
whole book, that would be,you know, a pretty unreal world.
That would be like a computer simulation. So there was one. There were
(35:22):
a few parts that I just Icould feel like the creative gears just go
spinning and I didn't have to thinkabout what I was going to write first,
and whatever I had down on thepage was like reaching backwards years into
you know, precise moments in mytraveling experiences and I could recall them with
(35:46):
perfect detail. And there were afew moments like that. But more than
actually travel experiences, I had alot of fun elaborate and exploring some of
the ways in which travel. Thebook is divided For listeners interested in reading
(36:07):
it, The book is divided intwo parts. The first part examines the
traveler and sort of the act oftraveling, and the second part explores the
effect that travelers have in the worldthrough a variety of the most common topics.
So there's war, religion, politics, geography, time, nature,
(36:32):
stuff like that. And I reallyenjoy writing a lot of those things because
it kind of reflected just my entireintellectual upbringing in the Western canon. And
I was able to explore that witha lot of satisfactory, you know figure.
(36:52):
And the best example of that ischapter twelve or no, chapter eight,
sorry, is where I explore theidea of what turns an ethnic group
into a culture, and a cultureinto a people, and a people into
a nation state. And which ofthose have happened in our uh, in
(37:21):
this civil you know, this epoch, you know, this post World War
two era, And which ones,which ones of those have happened organically,
Which ones have been you know,happened politically, Which ones have been called
rebellions, which ones have been calledindependence, which ones have been sanctioned by
(37:43):
the UN, which ones have beenlooked at as for some reason uh illegitimate
claims to statehood, and I juststart talking like, well, look if
the people in what were the exactsamples I gave. I can't exactly remember.
Perhaps a good example might be Russiaand Belarussia. So are the differences
(38:08):
between the people of Russia and Belarussiagreater than the differences between An example I
use in the book is the dewhich is an ethnic part of an ethnic
group in southern China and the HanChinese. And the answer would be they
are way different, more different thanRussians and Belarussians. And you could say
(38:34):
sort of the same about There's alot of these sorts of things. You
could say the same sort of thesimilar thing about is Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Are the people in those countries moredifferent than say the Spanish and the
(38:59):
Basque, which is another example Iuse. I mean the Basque. Everybody
who goes to northern France or southernFrance, northern Spain knows that it's inhabited
by a people who consider themselves entirelyunique, you know, like the oldest
is you know, continuously living racein Europe. And the Basque language is
(39:23):
an is a language isolate which meansthat there are no it has no links
to any other pro to European language, and so some some of those intellectual
things I'm I lean very hard towardslimited government, and so writing the chapter
(39:46):
on politics was full of lovely,witty, you know, recountings of stories
I've heard from taxi drivers and hotelierscomplaining about the regulators, environment and things
like that, and that was reallyfun to do. I loved exploring time,
(40:07):
which I do in several points,because I think time is such a
it's such a critical aspect to howwe conceptualize travel. In chapter three,
I mentioned how it's impossible for thehuman mind to conceptualize eight hours of doing
nothing, so we don't tend toremember them or preview them. And if
(40:32):
you think about going to wherever yougo, go to Me and Mar.
Right. The problem with Me andMar is all the roads go north to
south, and sometimes that's not alwaysconvenient or not obviously not all the old
roads, but you might have togo two hundred kilometers south before you can
turn east to just go a few, you know, a few kilometers to
(40:54):
the east to go to where you'retrying to get to. And so you
think only really about the nice thingsyou'll see in me and mar because you
don't have a way of conceptualizing whatit'll be like to sit on a bus
and do nothing for eight hours andso. But other than you know,
travelers are constantly aware of time.We're aware of the check in, the
(41:16):
checkout, lunch, business hours,the departure, how many days are left,
when is nightfall. We're constantly carvingup our day by these measures of
time. I really enjoyed exploring,which was not anything I had intended to
(41:38):
do when I started writing the book. But I just tried to see if
I could make an argument for abiological genetic origin for the travel bug,
and that was a real fun exercise. And then the last thing I'll say
was, if you read the book, the second to last chapter, Friedrich
(42:04):
Nietzsche had a really wonderful line,and I think about it a lot,
where he said quite simply esdent inmirror, which in the context that he
was using it, it means somethingis thinking in me. And what he
was describing was the phenomenon of whenideas come into your head that seems so
(42:25):
strange or so sudden that they almostseem foreign. Something's thinking in me,
And so the second to last chapterwas kind of that I just started writing
about something I had noticed happening tome where I began to start, and
I had traveled enough in my lifeto start kind of seeing. I started
(42:52):
to like, and maybe other travelerswill know what I'm talking about because I'm
not doing a good job explaining it. But I would start to see in
people. I would meet people Ihad met before, and I would start
to my brain was able to conceptualizevast things like I could see the whole
(43:15):
Koala lum Poor skyline, and Ifelt I could imagine every single person in
the whole city. And I juststarted writing, and what came out was
this really wonderful philosophical idea that Inever imagined. I was capable of writing
(43:38):
about how the travel kind of shrinksthe world but also expands it so at
the same time in this enormous,this enormously strange way, That's what I'll
say. It's strange. I feellike I can see every human in the
(44:00):
eyes of every other human, andI feel like I can I feel like
I've had the same con you said, you right, you have the same
conversations a thousand times with a thousanddifferent people, and they begin to run
over your They run through your headevery subsequent time you have them. Right
when somebody asks to go where you'refrom, I'm an American, what do
you do? I'm a journalist.I begin to see every person I've ever
(44:22):
had that conversation with. So thosewould be some really, you know,
good examples of things that I wasalways I walked away really really happy with.
Yeah, thanks for sharing. Thosesounds awesome and I just love hearing
that. You know, you've kindof you've got like a unique take on
(44:43):
traveling and seeing the world, whichis one of the things that I think
we really appreciate about your book.I'm definitely excited to dive in and read
more of it. And so I'mcurious. On that note, if people
want to purchase On the Face ofIt, where where can they go to
find it? So all the linksto all the ways to buy it you
can find at GGV Publishingcompany dot com. You can also find us on Amazon.
(45:07):
My author name is my legal name, Andrew Corby. On the Face
of It, The Traveler Around World. There's only one other book with a
title called On the Face of It, So forth I got pretty fortunate there.
But it's great. You know,it's a little bendable paperback. You
(45:28):
can stuff it in a in abackpack in a hurry. You can mark
it up with pen because it onlycosts twelve dollars American for the paperback version.
And if you're if you do buythe book, you're supporting a really
wonderful publishing company in Germinal g Van'spublishing company because they helped me out a
(45:52):
lot, and it's not going toSimon and Schuster or anything, you know,
huge New York based publishing company.You're helping an immigrant who has really
fallen in love with our country.Helped me out a lot, and it's
just just a great little small businessin the publishing industry. I'm hoping to
(46:15):
have it on shelves, literal shelvessoon. We'll have to see what the
American wholesale book company says in myapplication, But if they say what everybody
else has said, it'll be abig fat yes. So in that case,
you'll be able to find it soonat Books a Million and other retailers.
Awesome. Well, you have tokeep us posted on that, but
(46:37):
yeah, we'll make sure there's linksfor that in the show notes and just
yeah, just really thrilled for you, Andy, This is really awesome.
Congrats on this amazing achievement. Yeah, we're super stoked for you and super
stoked to be able to share thiswith listeners. Thank you so so much.
Guys, really appreciate you having meon to do a bit of a
plug, if I can call itthat, But I also want to let
(47:01):
the listeners know. How can Isay the integrity of your hosts is really
quite something? Because I had sentRyan an advanced PDF copy of the book
and he wrote me back saying hehad bought a copy anyway, So you
really am By listening to this podcast, you support some really wonderful people who
(47:24):
I'm very pleased to count among myfriendly distant acquaintances. And so thank you
Wisi and love talking with you.Hope we can talk again soon. Yeah,
absolutely, Thanks Dy
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