The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

In Episode 27, Amanda covers a very serious question: Are all Aussies tanned and tall? It’s all about stereotypes of different cultures but especially those of people Amanda's countryfolk - Australians. The first guests are Katie and Jeremy Kloberdanz of The Life Bohemian who have all these delightfully nice things to say about Australians (which gets a big thumbs up from Amanda!) Following on from them, she chats with Tom Parson, the Lego Backpacker, and hear about the stereotypes people are discussing in youth hostels across Europe these days. Finally, Amanda talks with her friend Dianne Bortoletto of Travelletto about both Australian stereotypes and how travel broadens our outlook and helps to dispel stereotypes completely. Links:  Jeremy and Katie Kloberdanz of The Life Bohemian website - http://www.thelifebohemian.com/ The Life Bohemian Podcast - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-life-bohemian/id1079385152?mt=2 Tom Parson of The Lego Backpacker on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thelegobackp

Encountering foreign languages when we travel is both a challenge and a joy - and some of us dream not only of learning a few phrases when we travel, but becoming bilingual. It’s definitely not easy to be bilingual but the guests in this episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast show that it’s not impossible, either. Amanda starts by chatting with Leyla of Women on the Road, one of those amazing people who can speak a multitude of languages, and treats coming across a new language as meeting a new friend. If you’re considering raising your kids bilingually, then Amanda's second guest, Adam Beck of Bilingual Monkeys, is the man to listen to. He’s got a wealth of information about it and shares a few ways he’s helped his children grow up speaking, reading and writing English nearly as well as their more-native Japanese. Finally, Martin Bailey shares his journey to bilingualism which didn’t begin until adulthood when he moved to Japan to work in a lace-making factory. Links: Leyla at Women on the Road http://

So just how slow is slow travel? We can probably all have some kind of similar idea on what slow travel is - being more mindful with how we spend our time travelling, not rushing around to tick off lists of all the sights, and possibly spending longer than usual in one spot - but how slow is slow? Amanda's guests in this episode all have a different take on how we can travel slowly, and her first one is a real champion at it: Jeff Ryan has taken 28 years to hike the Appalachian Trail! Not all at once, of course, but he has learnt some great lessons from these experiences about travelling slowly. Following this she chats with Jeremy and Katie Kloberdanz who are currently travelling full time and have used this experience to figure out the kind of slow travel that works for them.  Finally, Amanda talks with Lola Akinmade-Åkerström who has quite a different way of approaching slow travel, and one that has a lot of merit, as you can use her strategy even if you don’t have a whole of time to travel. Links:  Jeff R

Lots of people with a deep sense of wanderlust develop it by travelling at a young age, but as Amanda chats about in this episode, it's definitely not the only path to developing a love of travel.  Today she speaks with three guests who love to travel now, but never really got to travel much as kids. First up, Amanda speaks with Lisa Luken who grew up on a farm and didn't do much travelling at all, but who now does amazing road trips with her husband, three kids and their dog. It's really interesting to hear how her wanderlust came to be. Audrey Wanders also grew up without travelling, but her story is a little different, because her parents were definitely wanderers before they settled down to have a family. It seems like she definitely inherited that love of theirs and she has started to travel more and more as she’s got older.Finally, Amanda speaks with Mark Wyld of Wyld Family Travel, a fellow Aussie who does as much travelling as possible - especially to Europe - with his wife and two daughters. He de

Are you an adventurous eater? The topic of food in foreign countries is always a fascinating one and today’s episode addresses it on a couple of different fronts. To start with, Amanda speaks with Lola Akinmade Åkerström, who has built a fabulous career as a travel writer and photographer. One way she approaches foreign food is to get down to grass roots level which has seen her chatting with farmers and getting up very early to go out with fishermen. The next guest is Martin Bailey, another travel photographer who is based in Japan. It’s his decades of experience in Japan that led him to talk about some of the more unusual food experiences you can encounter in Japan, and they are not all experiences that Amanda would like to repeat! Jean Cheney of Traveling Honeybird has also eaten some particularly interesting foods in her time, and she discusses some of the meats she was served up in Mongolia, among other tasty treats she’s seen around the world. Links: Lola’s site Geotraveler’s Niche - http://www.lol

Recently Amanda has started asking her guests about their craziest travel moments, but really, what she's looking for is those particularly memorable experiences that stick with you forever - the kind of stories you tell over and over. The three guests in this episode all have fascinating stories to tell of memorable things which happened to them in various spots across the world. First up is Jeff Ryan, author of the new book Appalachian Odyssey: A 28 Year Hike on America’s Trail. Jeff had a particularly interesting mishap on the trail involving a porcupine. Amanda then speaks with Diana Edelman of D Travels Round about one of those slightly-scary-at-the time, but ultimately life-affirming moments while travelling where you actually end up in completely the wrong place - in this case somewhere in Croatia ... Finally, Tom Parson of The Lego Backpacker reminisces about his experiences on the grand railways of Russia. Tom took the Trans-Mongolian route while Amanda has taken the Trans-Siberian, but they both got

Episode 21 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is all about the internet. What did we do without it? On the surface, the advent of the internet can surely only be a huge bonus for travellers, right? We can research, book and communicate with so much ease. But as all of today’s guests point out, there are definitely both pros and cons of the internet for travellers. This whole discussion starts when Amanda speaks with Leyla of Women on the Road, as she reminisces on the “old school” way of getting information about the safety of countries long before the internet. Amanda also speaks with Jeremy and Katie Kloberdanz of The Life Bohemian. They are indeed living a pretty Bohemian life, working online as they travel the world, but it’s not always all that digital nomad life is cracked up to be. Finally, Amanda chats with Tom Parson aka The Lego Backpacker, who had some really interesting comments about hostel life since the internet and mobile devices became everyday items. Links:  Leyla at Women on the Road - http:/

The Thoughtful Travel Podcast has reached its 20th episode, and Amanda is celebrating by sharing a collection of special stories her guests have offered that haven’t fit into a particular topic yet, but are far too good not to share. Annalicia Lynn kicks off this episode with some of her fascinating experiences in Taiwan, and in particular some of the more unusual English names chosen by her students. On a completely different tack, Kerstin Pilz talks about two experiences she and her friend had overseas after becoming widows - and while these stories arise from tragic circumstances, these particular anecdotes are ones you definitely have to laugh at. Amanda's favourite guest today is none other than her own father, Barry Kendle. He lived and worked in Papua New Guinea in the late 1950s and has some very interesting stories to tell about his times there, many of which Amanda had never actually heard before.Links: Annalicia Lynn of Yoga and Pilates Online -http://yogaandpilatesonline.com Kerstin Pilz of Trav

In Episode 19 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast Amanda returns to the topic of travelling with kids - she's on a mission to prove to everyone that taking kids traveling is beneficial both for the kids and the parents.  First up, she speaks with Bethaney of Flashpacker Family who has several years of experience of travelling with very young children and is certain it has many benefits for them. She provides a great argument against the people who think that because kids won’t remember their travels, it’s not worth taking them. Lisa Luken of Simple Joy Living has taken several long (and many short) road trips with her three children in their quest to visit every state in the US and she has some great tips for taking kids travelling. Her and Amanda also chat about some of the great lessons both the adults and kids have learned from these experiences. And finally, Adam of Bilingual Monkeys tells Amanda how his Japanese-born-and-raised kids enjoy the experience of returning to visit the American side of their famil

 Discovering new cultural norms and comparing them to our own is one of the most fascinating parts of travel and the three guests on Episode 18 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast have all given this issue a great deal of thought as well. First up, Annalicia Lynn describes the cultural confusion she felt when she first moved to Taiwan to speak English. The assumptions she made about the culture based on her own experiences back in the States led her to some uncomfortable moments in her early days in Taiwan. Jeff Sandquist talks about cultural fusion and his experience of Scandinavian heritage as he grew up with in Minnesota, and what he found when he visited Norway and saw Scandinavian culture up close. In another case of cultural confusion, Glenn Shiell describes the issues facing the Japanese ski resort of Niseko with the growing numbers of Australians coming to ski during the Australian summer - and what happens when these Aussies don’t necessarily show quite enough cultural sensitivity. Links:  Annalicia

  Where does wanderlust come from? It’s a question that’s intrigued Amanda ever since she discovered that some people don’t like travelling, others love it despite their parents never mentioning it, and others still (like Amanda) have been led to a life of travel by their parents’ example. In Episode 17 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast Amanda talks to three travel lovers who have had their wanderlust sparked by very different things. For Bethaney Davies of Flashpacker Family, it was a childhood babysitter who started it all - after which she became a teenage Lonely Planet addict! The next guest on this episode is Diane Bortoletto of Travelletto, who was somewhat influenced by her parents - although she didn’t take her first overseas trip until the age of 24. Lastly Amanda speaks to Ava of My Meena Life who is a really interesting guest because her wanderlust has only hit her recently - but it’s hit her hard!Links:  Bethaney at Flashpacker Family: http://flashpackerfamily.com Dianne Bortoletto of Travellett

Travel is a powerful tool for so many things but one more way that travel can bring great meaning to your life is by helping you to process grief - and that’s what Amanda's two guests in this episode have certainly discovered. Episode 16 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast features two women who have found travel to be very therapeutic in dealing with grief. Amanda's first guest is Ava of My Meena Life, an American who has temporarily relocated to Germany, and has travelled extensively throughout Europe in the last year. Sadly, Ava lost her father a couple of years ago, but her experiences abroad have been instrumental in helping her deal with her grief about his loss. Secondly, she speaks with Kerstin of TravelPilz, who not only lost her husband about five years ago, but then had her feelings of grief doubled when a devastating cyclone hit her town just weeks after his death. She took off on a journey through Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India as a way to process some of this grief and her story is a fascinating o

Gaining confidence from your travels is just one more great reason to get out there and travel often. In Episode 15 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast Amanda talks to three guests who all agree that travelling has increased their confidence substantially and helped them out in all kinds of ways, including life beyond travel. First up, Amanda chats with Jeff Sandquist of Intentionally Wandering, who only started travelling relatively recently and learnt so much from it - travelling gave him a brand new kind of confidence. After that she speaks with Annalicia Lynn who spent a year living and working in Taiwan and was particularly able to notice how much her confidence had grown when her family came to visit. Amanda's final guest is Candace Rardon, and when they spoke, Candace was spending a couple of months in Norway writing a book about a trip she took to India, which was the kind of trip which pushed her far outside her comfort zone and therefore boosted her confidence significantly. Links:  Jeff at Intention

In Episode 14 Amanda returns to the topic of scary tales from our travels. Frightening experiences can be entertaining, but they also teach us that most travellers simply feel the fear and travel anyway. The three guests in this episode certainly do. Annalicia Lynn is a yoga and pilates instructor who taught English in Taiwan for a year and had some really interesting experiences there - including quite a few frightening ones! Likewise, Glenn Shiell spent some time in China for a conference and ending up having quite a scary experience at the Great Wall, but he lived to tell the tale. Finally, Diane Bortoletto returns with a fearful moment from a trip to Brazil when she became separated from her travelling companion and ended up in a taxi ride through the jungle. But like all Amanda's guests, she lived to tell the tale. Phew! Links: Annalicia Lynn of Yoga & Pilates Online - http://yogaandpilatesonline.com Glenn Shiell of Snowriders Western Australia https://snowriderswa.com Snowriders WA Facebook community at

Slow travel is a real buzz word these days but many travellers have been using slow travel principles for decades - because travelling slowly is a fantastic way to see the world and really get to know it well. In Episode 13 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, Amanda talks to three different travellers who have all embraced slow travel in their own way. First up is Tim Leffel, who prefers smaller towns and villages over big cities because it’s easier to travel slowly in a place where you can get to know the locals. Amanda also speaks to Candace Rardon, who as a freelance artist and writer is able to really practice slow travel, and she does it both on a daily basis by sitting still somewhere for a few hours to sketch, and planning her trips so she stays places for weeks or months. The final guest today is David Soto Jr who is currently in the middle of his own slow trip in a van around the United States. When Amanda spoke to him he was sitting in his van on an airforce base with his dog Rusty looking on; since

Cultural differences make our travels so much more interesting (if somewhat complicated at times!). In Episode 12 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, we talk about culture clash, and the differences we discover when we travel abroad. Stephen Henson has spent many years travelling back and forth to China, as well as doing business there, and has many tales to tell - today’s stories about the value of luxury and the importance of appearances in modern-day China are fascinating. Amanda then speaks to Adam Beck of Bilingual Monkeys about his experiences both on arrival in Japan some twenty years ago, and more recently when he has the experience of reverse culture shock when he visits his home country. Finally, she chats with fellow Australian Mike Campbell, who is spending a year housesitting his way around the United States with his family. He’s particularly shocked by one particular cultural difference between the US and Australia and Amanda finds she definitely agrees! Links:  Journeys with Stephen - http://j

In Episode 11, Amanda is celebrating the magic of getting lost on our travels. Back in Episode 2 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast she talked about the terror of getting lost, but this time round everyone’s getting lost stories are way less scary and are usually just plain fun.  First up in this episode Amanda speaks with Dianne Bortoletto, a Perth-based travel blogger, and they spill the beans on a slightly embarrassing but very funny incident when they both got kind of lost while in Bangkok for a conference. One of Amanda's most popular guests, Kiliii Fish, returns in this episode with yet another fascinating story, this time about his attempts to find an Ecuadorian indigenous basket maker and how he was pretty much lost most of the way. And finally, Joe Baur of the wonderful Without A Path podcast returns with his very sensible idea about intentionally getting lost. Amanda realised while talking to Joe that she's done the same thing herself on occasion and that intentionally going somewhere unknown and w

It's always a bit sad to hear someone say they didn’t want to travel somewhere because they were worried about not being able to get by in a foreign language. Struggling to communicate can be half the fun of a trip (at least in retrospect!) and we can learn so much from cultures with different languages and customs. Today Amanda has gathered together some tips and tricks from a number of travellers who have experience both in learning languages and in getting by in languages they don’t know. We start off with the highly multilingual Leyla Giray Alyanak, who has an incredibly useful language tip, and then move onto another clever linguist, Kerstin Pilz, who reminds us that it’s not just the words in another country but the more subtle cultural differences too which are important for good communication. Finally, Amanda chats with David Soto Jr., a very interesting man who’s currently living in a van with his dog and travelling around North America. He recalls one of his first experiences in trying to speak It

In Episode 9 of Amanda returns to the frightening parts of travel, because a lot of the time the story’s in the scary bits. What’s scary to one person might not worry someone else, but if something creates fear for you while you’re travelling, it’s probably something you’ll remember long after your trip is over. Jean of Traveling Honeybird has a great story to tell about scary moments on a horseback trek though the mountains of Mongolia, and some tips and tricks to get through those frightening experiences. She and Amanda also swap tales of their fears of driving (or being driven) in cars without seatbelts at high speed! Amanda also talks with Candace Rose Rardon again, this time about a particularly scary moment she had on a trek through Turkey. It was one of those incidents where nothing bad ended up happening, but it could have ended up quite differently. On this side though, it makes a great story. Links:  Jean at Traveling Honeybird http://www.travelinghoneybird.com Candace Rose Rardon at The Great A

In Episode 8 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast Amanda talks to parents about travelling with their kids, and then turns the tables and talks to some kids about travelling. First up is Mike Campbell, a fellow Aussie who’s currently spending a year house-sitting his way across the United States with his family. He’s learnt a lot about the differences between travelling as a couple and travelling with a four-year-old daughter. Amanda's second guest is Tim Leffel who talks about his teenage daughter’s experience of living abroad in Mexico. After talking to these dads, Amanda decided she needed to talk to some kids, too, and had a chat with her own six-year-old and his eight and ten year old cousins, all of whom have been lucky enough to travel pretty extensively for their young age.  Links:  Mike Cambell’s Live Immediately www.liveimmediately.com Live Immediately on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/liveimmediately/ Tim Leffel http://timleffel.com 5 things my daughter is getting out of living abroad - Tim Leff