The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

When we travel, we are sometimes wary of strangers - but should we be? The stories in Episode 242 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast suggest we shouldn't be. First up, I chat with Vince Dickson about one of his early travel experiences in Europe. He ended up almost penniless in Paris and that's when he came across a helpful stranger. I then talk to Pam Mandel who also had a wonderful experience with a stranger in Nepal when she was needing a way to cook her dinner! Finally, I hear from Tim Tricker about what I can call a reverse kindness of stranger  situation in Barcelona - a fabulous story! Links: Vince Dickson of Hunu - https://www.wearehunu.com/  Pam Mandel’s website - https://www.nerdseyeview.com Pam’s book The Same River Twice - https://amzn.to/319lwbq  The Kindness of Strangers on Your Travels - https://notaballerina.com/76  Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers - https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtfultravellers Show notes: https://notaballerina.com/242 Support the show: https://thoughtfultravel.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some travel is for fun; other travel is for a huge range of reasons. And some travel turns out to be really emotional - that's the kind we are looking at in Episode 241 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast. First up, I chat with Henry Gold. He's the son of two Holocaust survivors and tells the story of visiting the Auschwitz concentration camp with his mother when she was in her late seventies, when she could show and tell Henry and other family members about some of the horrid experiences she had there. It's quite a story. Next, I speak with Carolanna Lisonbee and our emotional travel story centres on Hiroshima in Japan. Carolanna also travelled there with her mother and they both found it a very important trip. Finally, I talk to Tim Tricker about the emotional aspects of irresponsible animal tourism, when he tells me about some difficult and distressing parts of a visit to Bangkok a few years back. Links: Henry Gold, founder of TDA Cycling - https://tdaglobalcycling.com/ (Tour D’Afrique) Carolanna Lisonbee - her poetry collection is Wisp of Fog Moment - https://amzn.to/3p9HiHl Why I’m Glad I Visited the Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps - https://www.notaballerina.com/2014/05/visiting-auschwitz-birkenau-concentration-camps.html  Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers - https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtfultravellers Show notes: https://notaballerina.com/241 Support the show: https://thoughtfultravel.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's a round-numbered episode so time for something different: this time I'm the one getting interviewed, and I answer questions about what happens behind the scenes of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, gathered from listeners through the Thoughtful Travellers Facebook group and other social media sites. It's three years since I did the first Behind the Scenes episode and so much has changed. This time round, travel writer Catherine Marshall interviews me with discussions about the ideas I have for podcast topics, what makes a good interviewee, any disasters I've had and an overview of the technical aspects of how The Thoughtful Travel Podcast comes together. It was fun to chat about these topics and I hope listeners will find the result interesting, too. Links: Episode 100 - the first Behind the Scenes - https://notaballerina.com/100 Catherine Marshall’s Time to Wander site - https://www.timetowander.com.au  Cait Flanders’ new podcast Opting Out - https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/opting-out-with-cait-flanders/id1560688606    Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers - https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtfultravellers Show notes: https://notaballerina.com/240 Support the show: https://thoughtfultravel.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wandering the world with your eyes wide open means you'll inevitably encounter some incredible street art and murals. My favourites (to date) have been in Penang, Malaysia, but after exploring the topic more while making this episode I can't wait to see more in many other parts of the world.  My first guest in this episode is Jenny Herbert, who speaks about discovering the street art in a city very familiar to her, Melbourne, Australia. She grew up there and still visits regularly, but learnt so much about it from a self-guided street art walking tour. I then chat with Kayla Wyszynski who is an artist and has completed many large murals already. It was so great to be able to quiz her with all my thoughts and questions about how it's possible to create such huge art!  Finally, I chat with listener Anuj about his memorable experience viewing a mural in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It's one of those tales where things don't quite go according to plan and that makes his experience all the more memorable. Links: The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti - https://amzn.to/3f0VYp3  Jenny Herbert’s book The Art of Being a Tourist at Home - https://amzn.to/3tcXnfX  Kayla Wyszynski’s site - Kayski Creations - https://www.kayskicreations.com  Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers - https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtfultravellers Show notes: https://notaballerina.com/239 Support the show: https://thoughtfultravel.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Travelling to participate in a sporting event is a niche reason to travel that a surprisingly large number of travel lovers have experienced during their loves, and I love the unique benefits and fun of trips for sport. In Episode 238 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I speak with three people who've travelled for a wide variety of sporting reasons. First up, I chat with Tim Tricker who has had many short trips to interesting destinations across Europe to take part in darts tournaments. I love that he gets to see out of the way places and congregate with a bunch of like-minded people. Eugene Devereux has travelled for a much more physical sport - adventure races. He's been able to combine this physical experience with exploring some particularly beautiful parts of Ireland. Finally, I speak to Emma Lovell who was lucky enough to experience the joy of travelling in a sporting team as a teenager when she toured New Zealand playing water polo. The change to meet local people and then attempt to beat them at water polo sounds like lots of fun! Links: Eugene from the Irish Bootstrapper blog and podcast  - https://www.irishbootstrapper.com/  Emma Lovell from the Lovelly Travels Podcast - https://lovellytravels.com Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers - https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtfultravellers Show notes: https://notaballerina.com/238  Support the show: https://thoughtfultravel.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You know I'm all about travelling more thoughtfully and purposefully - and you might find it strange that I'm talking in Episode 237 with the author of a book about *not* travelling! Jenny Herbert's book "The Art of Being a Tourist at Home" is, as the title suggests, about how to get that travel feeling, and many of the benefits of travel, without straying far from your home turf, and certainly without hopping on a plane or landing on the doorstep of a community overcrowded by other tourists. I agree with her premises for not travelling, although I do think there is still an important role for thoughtful travel even in a world fighting climate change and pandemics. In this interview with Jenny, we talk about some of her tips for gaining the benefits of travel in your hometown, when it might be okay to travel, how wonderful walking can be for getting some of the "travel feeling", whether you need to immerse yourself in a foreign culture to grow and how to carve out time for staycation-style travel. Links: Jenny Herbert’s book The Art of Being a Tourist at Home - https://amzn.to/3tcXnfX  Ep 220 How Travel Really Helps Us Understand the World - https://notaballerina.com/220 Ep 140 Being a Thoughtful Traveller in Denmark: Pre-Trip Thoughts - https://notaballerina.com/140 Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers - https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtfultravellers Show notes: https://notaballerina.com/237 Support the show: https://thoughtfultravel.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's nearly a year since I recorded an episode about how Covid-19 was affecting us here in Western Australia, and what I thought about travel then and for the future: so it's time for another one.  In this special solo episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast - inspired by a visit to the airport! - I talk about the Covid experience in Perth, Australia, over the past twelve months, and also share my thoughts and feelings about travel in the near future. You might want to listen back to Episode 190 first and then follow on with this, so you can see what's changed over the past year. Links: Episode 190 - Covid-19 Thoughts from Perth, Australia - https://notaballerina.com/190 Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers - https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtfultravellers Show notes: https://notaballerina.com/236  Support the show: https://thoughtfultravel.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dive into the transformative journey of Cheryl Strayed's 'Wild', exploring personal growth and resilience. The hosts appreciate the book's emotional depth and the humor in packing blunders for travel. They also dissect the contrasts between the book and its film adaptation, highlighting the storytelling richness lost in visuals. Plus, excitement brews as they look ahead to tales of couch surfing in Iran, emphasizing the joys and challenges of travel, particularly for women.

Things inevitably go wrong when we travel and I know from experience that listeners of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast quite enjoy hearing these tales! In Episode 235 I have three guests sharing some travel slip ups - some of their own making and some quite out of their control. My first guest is Bob DiMenna who was travelling in Peru with two friends when they had an issue with, well, punctuality - but not what you might expect! I then chat with Kayla Ridley who has a sorry luggage tale to tell from a cruise ship trip she took as a high school student.  Finally, Patti Buff shares her story of a mishap when she and her cousin were exploring the coast of one of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland. Their excursion doesn't end how she would have liked it to! Links: Bob DiMenna from The Travelers Blueprint podcast - https://thetravelersblueprint.com Kayla Ridley of Kayski Creations - https://kayskicreations.com/  Patti Buff - https://pattibuff.wordpress.com  Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers - https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtfultravellers Show notes: https://notaballerina.com/235 Support the show: https://thoughtfultravel.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Much of the fun of travelling is about bumping up against other cultures and habits - and these days as thoughtful travellers, we usually try to be prepared for this and learn what we can before we arrive. But cultural faux pas or "gross moments" happen to the best of us and there are some great examples to be found in Episode 234 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast. First up, I chat with Bev Malzard who tells me a series of fabulous tales about her own unfortunate cultural moments during the course of many years of travels. Some hilarious, some serious - all things that Bev would do differently the second time around! I then speak with Pam Mandel about a common cultural blunder - dressing inappropriately. Some years back Pam ended up unintentionally in Pakistan - unprepared and ill-informed - and made a cultural blunder she didn't intend to. Links: Bev’s blog TravelGal on the Move - https://travelgaltravels.com/  Pam Mandel’s website - https://www.nerdseyeview.com Pam’s book The Same River Twice - https://amzn.to/319lwbq  Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers - https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtfultravellers Show notes: https://notaballerina.com/234  Support the show: https://thoughtfultravel.substack.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.