The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

One of the most well-known (and successful, for that matter) travel bloggers around is Matt Kepnes, also known as Nomadic Matt. Here's the thing. I actually started blogging a couple of years before Matt, and we got to know each other while freelancing for some of the same travel sites back in the day - but he's the one who went on to turn his travel blog into a very successful full-time career. I want to be jealous, but whenever I encounter Matt I'm reminded that he's just a really nice guy and along with that, we share very similar attitudes to travel. And so after thinking about it for much too long, Matt and I have finally caught up for a special episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast where we talk about all kinds of travel topics: budget travel and staying in hostels, how to be a thoughtful traveller and the wonders of solo travel. Matt also has a new book out, "Ten Years a Nomad" and of course that rates a mention too! Links: Matt’s site Nomadic Matt - https://www.nomadicmatt.com Matt’s new book “Te

It's not all too many years ago that I would have thought Iran was definitely off the visit list, but in recent years it has become quite a popular destination amongst travellers I know. Episode 146 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is, in fact, devoted fully to Iran because I've had so many guests tell me about their good experiences there that I just had to create an entire episode to be able to share some of their stories. First up I chat with Brett Seychell of Social Cycles who first visited Iran on his two-year cycling journey from London to Melbourne. He loved it so much that he has now been half a dozen times and runs tours there! Next I speak with photographer Dale Neill who has also taken a tour group to Iran in recent years. Dale reiterates the common theme of this episode, that Iran is probably the single friendliest country he's ever visited. Finally, I hear from Joanne Karcz who was recently in Iran for a month and had so many good stories to tell about the country and especially the kindness o

It's becoming increasingly popular to make volunteering a part of a trip abroad, but it's also becoming increasingly known that not all volunteer programs are created equal. It's sometimes hard to be sure if you're helping or hindering, and difficult to be sure you're helping to create lasting change.  In Episode 145 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I chat with three travellers who've taken part in various volunteer programs in recent years. We talk about how to find a good volunteer program and their own examples are really worth hearing about. First up, I talk to Ella who is currently volunteering in Malaysia at an organisation protecting endangered sea turtles. She has an ecology degree and describes the great work that is happening there, along with some thoughts on how to find a good way to volunteer abroad. Next I chat with Meagan who lives in southern California. In the last few years she's become involved with regular volunteer work just a couple of hours' drive away in Mexico. Finally, Eva explai

Travel and life intersect in all kinds of ways and Episode 144 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is a collection of stories about when grief intersects with travel. I'm so grateful to all the guests for sharing these pretty personal stories, because I know they will be interesting and even useful for many who listen. First up I speak with Justin Watson who shares a story of a very special trip to the United States with a good friend; then Dean O'Shea talks about an important trip he took his brother on not long after their father passed away.  Finally, I chat with Kate Manser who started a project called "You Might Die Tomorrow" after the sudden, unrelated deaths of three young people she knew. She hopes to help people use activities like travelling to help them live life to the full - hopefully without having tragedy around them first. Links: Justin’s blog at Justin’s World - http://www.justins.world Dean’s site Unbelievable Adventures - https://www.unbelievableadventures.co.uk/  Kate Manser’s site You Mig

So are you a helpful traveller or a harmful traveller when you're on the road? I think we'd all like to think we're more the former, but there's always more we can do. For this episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I have a very special guest, Aussie broadcaster and journalist Jan Fran, who recently went overseas with adventure apparel brand Kathmandu to find out firsthand from the locals what's happening in our travel hotspots and how we can do better. They’ve produced three videos called Helpful or Harmful? featuring Bali, Nepal and Australia. I was a bit fangirly nervous before I got to interview Jan Fran but she was a delight to chat to and I loved finding out more about some of the behind the scenes experiences she had in Bali and Nepal to make these videos. Hope you enjoy this chat, too! Links: Helpful or Harmful Travel - https://www.kathmandu.com.au/helpful-or-harmful  More about Jan Fran - http://www.janfran.net Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtfultravellers Show not

We often fear getting lost when we travel ... but in reality, it usually either means we discover something we otherwise wouldn't have, and/or it becomes a funny story we repeat regularly later on! In Episode 142 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I chat with three travellers who all believe that getting lost is fun (or at least it is most of the time!). First up, Lucas Peters explains his strategy of getting deliberately lost - it's more sensible than it sounds, I promise! Next up I chat with Michela Fantinel who has had some wonderful experiences getting lost while driving in Australia, for example - although as a good Australian I must warn you all to make sure you take water and petrol with you if you're driving about in the Australian outback - it's one of those places where getting lost can actually end up being a bad thing. (Michela is fine!) Finally, I talk to Erin Holmes about some of the various times she's got lost while travelling.  Links: Travel Journal School - www.traveljournalschool.com  Luc

If you don't get to really meet the people of a country, have you really been there? Some of my first significant travel moments involved a lot of immersion with local people - from a school language trip aged 14, staying with three different families across Germany without a fellow Aussie friend in the home with me, to living and teaching English in Japan, meeting dozens of new Japanese people every day. I guess that's meant I learnt fast just how much more you can learn about a place when you take as many chances as possible to chat to locals, so it's really ingrained in all my travels now. And it turns out I'm not alone, of course. The three guests on Episode 141 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast value a good chat with a local as much as I do. First up I speak to Seng Mah, who describes a recent experience in India where he got more involved in an Indian wrestling hall than one would expect - but it was a great experience! Next I chat with Kim Yuhl who is slow travelling around the world as a digital no

It's a special episode again - every ten episodes I do something different for The Thoughtful Travel Podcast - and listener Justin suggested I record my thoughts about my trip to Denmark with my son and how this trip would challenge us to be thoughtful travellers. I liked this suggestion a lot so this is a solo episode with my pre-trip thoughts about visiting Denmark with my son; what made me decide to go, what I hope to find, and all of the thoughts I've had ahead of the trip. As always I've done some reading and research (also as always, not as much as I'd like, because life always gets in the way), and I'm curious to find out if the Denmark I expect is the Denmark I find. When this episode goes live I'll be mid-way through two weeks exploring both Copenhagen and rural Denmark so I'll have to have a follow-up later on what I actually discovered! Links: My thoughts on thoughtful travel - https://www.notaballerina.com/2018/01/thoughtful-travel.html The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell - https://amzn

We're used to expecting culture shock when we travel to a different country but what about when we return home? Sometimes it's a worse shock than when we travel, and we're not always prepared for it. This kind of reverse culture shock, or culture shock when you come home, is something my guests in Episode 139 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast have all experienced. First up I chat with Talon Windwalker who like me lived abroad for about six years. After two years at home he's still having trouble settling back, something I can very much relate to as it took me many years to feel like I was happily at home again. I then talk with Luke Mackin who, as a third culture kid who grew up in the Philippines with American parents, moved to the United States as a teenager and now lives with his family in Indonesia, finds it hard to decide what is home and what is "his" culture, meaning this whole culture shock issue can be really amplified. Finally I speak with Jo Duggan who spent six months volunteering in a medical s

Want to stay somewhere other than a hotel? Then Episode 138 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is for you! I'm not a huge fan of hotels and love to stay in alternative kinds of accommodation, so I was excited to chat to my three guests in this episode about some of their favourite kinds of non-hotel accommodation. I start off with a chat with Dan Johnston who has been living in a bunch of different places around the world in recent years. Being focused on generally longer stays than the average trip, he's found lots of really creative ways to find a great place to stay. Next I talk to Kendall Simmons who reminds me that hostels can also be a great accommodation alternative, no matter how old you are - hostels are definitely not just huge dorm rooms any more! We also discussing house sitting as another really interesting way to find somewhere special to stay (and to save money doing it!). Finally I discuss accommodation with Chris Haag who has a particularly unique perspective as he and his partner are cyclin

If you experience depression, you may have combined this with travel and either found it made things worse, or better. I would love to imagine that travel could cure depression, but from the chats I had with three different people for this episode, it seems (unsurprisingly, really) that experiences of depression and travel vary as much as people vary. First up today I chat with Justin Watson, who has actually found that travel has been quite helpful in managing his issues with depression. We talk about mindfulness techniques and how practicing these when you travel can be a great way to improve them. Next I speak with Megan Blandford, who has experienced depression while travelling during a period when she was in denial that she had any depressions issues at all. The link between Megan's depression and her adventurous travel activities is something I found really fascinating to discuss. Finally, I talk to Ian Oliver who has had some mixed experiences with depression while he is travelling: from finding tha

Everyone takes tonnes of photos when they travel these days - hundreds from a short trip is not unusual, thanks to bringing our smartphones complete with cameras these days, or because we're taking lots of shots to try and get an Instagram-worthy one! In Episode 136 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, I talk with three photographers about a bunch of different thoughts about taking photos when we travel, along with some very handy tips. First up, I chat with Seng Mah, who works as a photographer and takes people on photography tours to some fabulous places around the world. Seng's ideas on how we ordinary people should approach taking pictures is a breath of fresh air and well worth listening to. I then talk with Whitney Taylor, who similarly has a surprising attitude to photography while travelling. She's definitely of the Instagram generation but is not in favour of watching your trip unfold through your phone's camera. Finally, Dale Neill returns to the podcast with some really solid tips and information a

Ever painted the town red one night on your travels? Episode 135 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is all about the nightlife you've experienced on your travels - whether you hit a nightclub or bar or, my personal favourite, a karaoke box in Japan! Along the way through these discussions my guests and I discovered that exploring the nightlife is also a fascinating study in cultural differences. My first guest today is Whitney Taylor who experienced an Indian nightclub in Agra, and certainly discovered a couple of significant differences between our local Aussie nightclubs and Indian ones - and had a wonderful evening. Next up I chat with Dan Johnston, who currently calls Prague in the Czech Republic home and has also spent time living in Germany. We discuss some of the cultural differences in nightlife experiences between countries like Australia and Canada, and the European model. Finally I speak with Kate Toon who, like me, doesn't always get out and about at night when she travels because if you're trave

Having location independent work - which usually means doing a job that you can do online - is becoming increasingly popular these days and many people are wandering the globe at the same time as they're earning an income. Magic, hey? In Episode 134 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast we look at the topic of location independent work and I chat with two digital nomads about their current experiences and tips. Firstly I chat with Kim Yuhl who's over a year into working on the road with her husband. Currently in Guatemala, Kim has spent time in China, Italy, Mexico, the United States and Belize in the past twelve months and while doing her full time writing and editing job is also creating a YouTube channel with her husband called Nomading About. It's a busy and varied life, but Kim talks to me about how to get a routine into this kind of life as well. I also speak with Kendall Simmons, another digital nomad, but her job as an interior designer didn't initially sound like a job that's conducive to working online

Sometimes, the things we learn from travel creep up on us in a cumulative way. Other times, one trip teaches us so much and just whacks us in the head and makes us change something significant about our lives! And this episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is definitely about the latter situation. First up I talk to Dean O'Shea who took off on a huge challenge to hike the Pacific Crest Trail in California when he was 22 - and he chose it purely because it was the longest, hardest journey listed in his mother's book of long, hard journeys! What happened in and after California is not what you'd expect - and certainly not what Dean expected either - but it changed his life in some significant ways. I then chat with Seng Mah, a friend of mine here in Perth who has long told me that going to India is life-changing for many people (and yes, I'm now convinced I need to go there sometime!). Seng's first experience of travelling through India gave him so many insights and new perspectives that his life then chan

It's my birthday! Well, yesterday was my birthday, which means this week is the THIRD anniversary of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast. That's three years of the chance to chat with awesome, like-minded, travel-loving people from all around the world, and to share the results with a fabulous audience who challenge me with their interesting questions and share their amazing travel experiences with me. In this special third anniversary episode I answer questions from listeners (via the Thoughtful Traveller Facebook group) about topics as diverse as accommodation, language learning, photography, travelling with kids, environmentally aware travel, destination choosing and more. I also divulge some of the statistics behind the listeners and downloads of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast which I kind of obsessively follow (it's my maths degree that makes me love the stats, I think!). A huge thank you to every one of my listeners, whether you've just started tuning in to The Thoughtful Travel Podcast or you've been there

I'm an incredibly firm believer in the value of taking your children travelling, and my own son, about to turn nine, has already been to 17 countries with me, on a real variety of kinds of trips - and it's been pivotal in how he's developed as a wonderful little human so far. The guests on Episode 131 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast all agree with me on this! First up, I chat with Talon Windwalker, who travelled for six years with his child from the age of nine and could see so many benefits from this constant exposure to other cultures. My second guest, Megan Blandford, regularly goes travelling with her two young daughters. While it started out simply as being necessary to bring them along because she and her husband wanted to continue to embrace their love of travel, she has also seen the girls develop numerous life skills through their travel experiences. Finally I talk with Shannon Entin who now has an adult and a teen child and has used travel over the years to supplement her home schooling, and has

Episode 130 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast - being a nice round number - is another very special episode, where I chat with Brooke McAlary, a very like-minded traveller, book author and podcaster, and a very important friend of the podcast! Brooke and her family have spent the last year slow travelling around North America (with a little faster travel during Brooke's book tour for her book "Slow" ... ironically!). Packing up life in Australia and heading far north for an extended time was a huge deal and in this interview Brooke and I chat about how they made this decision, what it involved for work and for the kids' schooling, and how it's all gone. Like me, Brooke and her husband Ben left Australia in their 20s to spend an extended time abroad, but back then, it was much easier: no kids, no house, their jobs could be whatever they found. Making this kind of "escape" with a family is much trickier and it was great to hear about all the benefits they've found along with the challenges along the way. If yo

For me, some of the most interesting travel I've done has been the more challenging travel, and that's often when I've travelled to developing or poorer countries. The culture shock is greater, and where there's culture shock, there's learning! - although of course, I always also am reminded that wherever you go, the common denominator is people, and people are really the same across the world. Just the same, travelling in developing countries leads to some really impactful and interesting experiences and the three guests in this episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast have great stories to tell about their trips to countries as diverse as Haiti, Madagascar and India. First up, I speak to Fiona Galloway who spent some time in Haiti about twenty years ago. She learnt a lot from her stay in Haiti, and it set her up for her current work running tours for transformative travel. Next I chat to Linda Schlencker who talks about some of the poverty she found away from the key tourist zones of Madagascar. She's tr

Hands up if you like the planning and research part of travel almost as much - or maybe even more - than the actual travelling itself! Some of the guests on Episode 128 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast would freely admit they have something of an obsession with the planning side of travel and you can learn a lot from listening to them, I think (or, like me, you may just giggle!). First up I chat with two spreadsheet-obsessed accountants, Narelle and Shauna, who have a lot in common when it comes to planning their trips in extreme detail. Some of their tips, though, are actually pretty awesome! (Though I draw the line at their perhaps over-the-top Plan B, C and D plans?!) Next I talk to Queen about the research she did ahead of her recent move to live abroad in Mexico, and finally to Tiana who also agrees that a big part of the joy comes in researching and deciding where to go. There are also lots of planning and research tips from Thoughtful Travellers Facebook group members liberally sprinkled throughout t