Around the World with Mr. Clark

Clark Vandeventer interviews JT & Lydia Gardner about life in Spain. Clark and his family got to know JT and Lydia when their lives intersected for a few months while they were both living in Guatemala. Lydia and JT Gardner have been married for 2 and ½ years. JT is a student at Brigham Young University and will graduate in April with a degree in International Relations. Lydia is working as a...

Christopher Columbus traveled more after his death than most people will travel in their life. And he was still traveling almost 400 years after his death! Chris Columbus and Che Guevera are two figures with ties to Cuba that provide two book-ends to history. You can find Clark's classes on outschool at https://bit.ly/clarkonoutschool and follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/cl...

Clark Vandeventer interviews Jo Anne Lyon about the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Jo Anne is amazing -- and has traveled to 88 different countries! That's amazing! ONE INTERESTING THING IN THIS INTERVIEW --> There's some pretty serious division and polarization in the USA today, but nothing compared to what Sierra Leone has faced in the past. Jo Anne talked about how she admires...

"Travel is one of the best personal development tools. You voluntarily insert yourself into situations where you don’t understand everything, where the culture and thinking is different, and you maneuver through the frustration, the celebration and the new experiences. " - Sabina King You've got to hear Sabina King talk about Bali! Nyepi is a Balinese "Day of Silence" and h...

A Passion For Purpose, Peak Performance, and Inspiring Others In this episode, Clark Vandeventer interviews Greg Denning aboute life in France. "You can go somewhere and not experience anything but I wanted it to touch me and and reach me and change me and instruct me, and I wanted to squeeze the juice out of everywhere we went, and it really affected me, it really impacted me, and I'm li...

Your host Clark Vandeventer is launching a new interview series on the podcast! From Clark: As a traveler, when I visit a new country, I don't expect it to look like my country. In fact, I WANT it to look and be different! But my home country, the United States, is a country of immigrants, and one thing that's great about America is that we've taken the best stuff from all over the wor...

Hispanolia is the most populous island in the Caribbean and home to the #1 (Haiti) and #3 (Dominican Republic) countries in the Caribbean. Haiti is a mess. The Dominican Republic is home to Sammy Sosa! You can find Clark's classes on outschool at https://bit.ly/clarkonoutschool and follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/clarkvand/ You can email him at clarkvand@gmail.com

7,000 islands and 44 Million People. That's more people than Canada. But, how do you pronounce it? Is it " care -ib-BEE-an" or "cuh-RIB-be-an"? Look at those bright blue waters around the Bahamas. Let's talk about Alexander Hamilton. And Pirates! This is a Caribbean overview episode before host Clark Vandeventer moves to specific islands in forthcoming episodes. You can...

England is like the land of Great Works! We didn't even have time to talk about William Shakespeare, or William Wilberforce, or Charles Darwin. David Beckham barely got a mention, though David Beckham's right foot and David Beckham's left foot were both specifically mentioned. Even Winston Churchill only get a few lines at the end of this episode. Also, a Queen of England called the Sp...

Two of the most famous Scots in history are highly fictionalized acounts. One is William Wallace. The other is Macbeth, fictionalized by William Shakespeare. But you can't talk about Scotland without quoting and heavily referencing Mel Gibson's epic portrayl of William Wallace in the movie Braveheart. Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, home to about 5 Million people, and, probably the...

About 6 Million people live in the two countries that occupy the island of Ireland. There are about 80 Million people in the world who claim Irish Ancestry. Ireland was the first country host Clark Vandeventer every traveled outside the United States (wait, does Canada count)? This is a beautiful country with beautiful people that Clark has spent some time in -- and -- his wife Monica lived there...

Why don't we call it Fireandiceland instead of just Iceland? Have you seen the movie Journey to the Center of the Earth or read Jules Verne? There's seriously a lot of geothermal activity in Iceland! And, it Iceland is on the dividing line between the tetonic plates of Euroasia and North America, why do we consider it Europe and not North America, and why is it considered Scandinavia even...

Despite sharing a long border with a big and intimidating neighbor, the people of Finland are among the happiest in the world. Maybe it's all the fresh air and sauna. And, coffee. About 5 Million people live in this Scandinavian nation. You can find Clark's classes on outschool at https://bit.ly/clarkonoutschool and follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/clarkvand/ You can em...

Sweden is the most populous of the Scandinavian countries, and more than half of it is covered in forest. In 2017, Clark rode his bike solo and unassisted from Stockholm, Sweden to Copenhagen Denmark. That was a 500 mile bike ride, with about 470 of those miles being in Sweden. This is a wonderful and fascinating country with a long history. You can find Clark's classes on outschool at https:/...

Norway is the Land of the Midnight Sun, and also boasts more Winter Olympic Medals than any country in history, despite having only about 5 Million people. Also famous for fjords, which is a fun word to say. Don't forget, Norway also has a claim on Antarctica, which they are not about to renounce. You can find Clark's classes on outschool at https://bit.ly/clarkonoutschool and follow him o...

This week on the podcast we enter Scandinavia. In this episode we enter Denmark -- and this is a country Clark has been to. In 2017 Clark rode his bike solo and unassisted from Stockhom, Sweden to Copenhagen, Denmark. Copenhagen is now on his list of most favorite cities in the world. The city is amazing. One word you have to know about Denmark: hygge. The Land of Hans Christian Anderson, mermaids...

Is it Ukraine or The Ukraine? Lots of Soviet History. FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met here at the end of World War II. At war with Russia since February 2022, a war which is internationally deemed a war of agression by Russia but a war that is also, well, complicated. You can find Clark's classes on outschool at https://bit.ly/clarkonoutschool and follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagra...

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are three small countries on the Baltic Sea, often lumped together and referred to as the Baltic States. Combined, they are about equal in size to the US State of Wisconsin in terms of population. They stood up to the Soviet Empire by holding hands and singing. You can find Clark's classes on outschool at https://bit.ly/clarkonoutschool and follow him on Instagra...

In this episode of the podcast Clark takes us to Poland. An epicenter of the collapse of the Soviet Empire thanks to John Paul II and Lech Walesa, Poland is a great nation built on wealth created by salt, but it's always getting picked on by its neighbors. You can find Clark's classes on outschool at https://bit.ly/clarkonoutschool and follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/c...

We may not think of Austria as being a "big deal" on the world stage today, but when the archduke was assasinated in 1914, it sparked a world war. A mountainous, land-locked country in Central Europe, it's famous for skiing and Red Bull, and being the home of Arnold Schwarzenegger. There's also a town so beautiful that China spent $950 Million to build a replica. You can find Cla...

We are yet to experience a century in history with a unified Germany. For a country with such a long and rich history, that's kind of mind boggling. A complicated 20th Century, this is the land of Guttenberg and Luther, Mozart and Bethoven, castles and brats. You can find Clark's classes on outschool at https://bit.ly/clarkonoutschool and follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.co...

Switzerland is The Land of Swiss Army Knives, Swiss Watches, Swiss Cheese, and Swiss Banking. There's no capital city, but there is a "federal city" and it got its name from a super important duke killing a bear. Also, Switzerland has the second highest life expectancy of any country in the world, even though only 0.1 percent of the country is Mormon. And, what does that have to do w...

The British Poet Samuel Johnson once said that a person who has not been to Italy will always feel inferior because they know they have not seen that which they are supposed to see. As a cradle of Western Civilization, there's a lot of history and culture to see in Italy. If Leonardo is the Michael Jordan of the Renaissance, then Michaelangelo is the LeBron James? Or is he the Kobe Bryant? Plu...

France is amazing. Of course it's amazing. Paris is the capital in just about everyway. Polticaly, financially, and culturally. Amazing history and culture. The French Revolution, The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral. Was Coco Chanel a Nazi Sympathizer? Clark talks about all these things and more in the latest installment of Around the World with Mr. Clark. You can find Clark's classes o...

Portugal loves salted cod and Cristiano Ronaldo. Once a great empire, but not a great empire anymore. Home to maybe the oldest city in Europe. And, something that happened in 1755 sparked one of the biggest intellectual movements in Western History. On the Iberian Peninsula, this is a beautiful country influenced by Atlantic and Mediterranean culture. You can find Clark's classes on outschool...