The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

Taking a dancing class when I'm travelling or specifically taking a trip to learn to dance is not something that I've ever done - but hearing about all the fun that my guests on Episode 154 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast have had makes me begin to wonder if it might be in my future! I start off chatting to Clare who has had several tango-related holidays. Clare describes her tango trips to Spain...

It seems that the number of people who love to travel AND who love to read makes up quite a high proportion of my listeners so I'm excited that Episode 153 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast can be all about reading books to inspire travel. I'm constantly reading books because they're set somewhere I'm about to visit, or alternatively I've booked a number of trips because of places I've read about i...

Because travel has changed my life in so many varied ways, I know that it's transformative; when I talk to three other people who believe this, like for this Episode 152 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, I'm even more sure about how transformative travel can be. If you're able to rearrange your budget to get travelling then go and do it! In this episode I start off speaking with Dean O'Shea who ru...

Scuba travel has never been high on my wishlist but after talking to my three guests on Episode 151 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast about their diving trips all around the world, I'm beginning to think otherwise! Scuba diving holidays are special - and my first guest Ella Loeffler should know as in the short few years since she first learnt scuba diving, she's tried it out in quite a number of pl...

Before I travelled to Denmark a couple of months back, I recorded Episode 140 with all my thoughts ahead of that trip. In particular, I wanted to be a more intentionally thoughtful traveller on that trip and in this special Episode 150 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I'm following up on how that all went. It turns out - quick spoiler - that being more intentional really helped me to have an even...

We who get to travel the world are a very privileged lot - right? If we're going to be good, thoughtful travellers, I think that considering issues of class and privilege when we travel is an important part of it. In Episode 149 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, I talk with three guests who articulate some really interesting thoughts on this topic and I'm so pleased to bring them to you, and hope...

Solo travelling is one of those things that you might fear before you try it: but if you take the plunge you will find that the life of a solo traveller is insanely rewarding. In Episode 148 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I talk to three people who have done a lot of solo travel in all kinds of parts of the world and they all agree that including some solo travelling in the mix is absolutely wor...

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...

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...

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 p...

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 t...

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...

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...

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 ev...

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 deci...

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 Windwal...

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...

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...

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 tra...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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 Windwalke...

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...