Going Places

Today, we're speaking with Arto Sivonen, an activist and strategist fighting FOR human rights and AGAINST the climate crisis. Originally from Finland, Arto divides his time between Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Helsinki as the founder and CEO of Måndag, a creative change agency. A lot is happening in Africa and on the Indian subcontinent regarding young people leading movements for change, and Arto has...

Today, we’re continuing our conversation with Vincie Ho, a social justice educator and leader in travel who founded RISE Travel Institute. RISE is an award-winning nonprofit with a mission to create a more just and equitable world through travel education. It is also a Going Places Founding Member . If you missed last week’s episode, be sure to catch up with the first part of our conversation with...

Today, we’re speaking with Vincie Ho, the Founder and Executive Director of RISE Travel Institute, an award-winning nonprofit with a mission to create a more just and equitable world through travel education. RISE is also a Going Places Founding Member . Born and raised in Hong Kong and now based in the United States, Vincie is a disruptor, nonprofit leader, seasoned educator, and woman immigrant...

Today, I’d like to share with you a conversation I just had last week, in New York, on stage at the WITS Summit, the largest gathering of women travel creators organized by the Wanderful community and its CEO, Beth Santos. I attended WITS to moderate a panel called Travel, Power, and the Role of Creators in the World on Fire. With my brilliant co-panelists Janine Jervis, communications director fo...

Today, we're speaking with Natasha Hakimi Zapata, an award-winning journalist based in Europe. She’s also the author of Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America From Around the Globe. The book came out a few months ago and has given me so much hope and inspiration for the United States. Most of us are closer to being homeless than we are to being millionaires, with only one healthcare disast...

Today, we're speaking with Joe Baur, a Berlin-based travel, food, and adventure writer and filmmaker. We first connected on a media trip to Okinawa, Japan, last Fall. Born and raised just outside of Cleveland, Joe has now circumvented the globe, hitting the trails as often as possible in search of stories and new ways to torture himself–all of which he documents on his YouTube channel. Become a Go...

Today, we're speaking with Marie Ostblom from the Stockholm Archipelago Trail. The archipelago, larger than the famous Greek islands, is so close to Stockholm that it might just be the city’s best-kept secret. The newly opened Stockholm Archipelago Trail connects 20 of the archipelago’s 30,000 islands via a series of footpaths made by goats, sheep, and Vikings. Become a Going Places member for as...

Today, we're welcoming Alex Reynolds, a traveler building a radically different hostel in Pakistan's Ishkoman Valley. Alex is an American travel photographer, writer, and solo female traveler whose work has been featured on Lonely Planet, BBC Travel, AP News, and more. She’s scrambled up fortress ruins in Afghanistan, galloped horses across the Kyrgyz steppe, and motorbiked from Pakistan to France...

Welcome back to season 12!  Today, we're digging into what you can expect from us going forward, our thoughts on the kind of place we're building in our corner of the internet, and how you can join us. I'll also share 5 reasons to join our reader- and audience-supported community, including getting on a monthly group call with Yulia every First Friday of the month. Become a Going Places membe...

Welcome back to season 12!  Going Places features weekly interviews with people near and far who make our world better. At the core of it, it's about cultivating hope. And we need that feeling of hope more than ever right now. Here's a preview of who you're going to meet in Season 12: Natasha Hakimi Zapata, an award-winning journalist who wrote a book called Another World is Possible: Lessons...

Note to listeners: our new season returns next week! Today, we're speaking with Janine Jervis, a dear friend who's worked for Visit Jordan for 17 years and who currently serves as their North American Communications Director. Reminder: I'm running a 10-day group trip to Jordan this May. The trip runs from May 18th to 27th and you can get all the information by visiting here . The last day to...

Note to listeners: we're currently on hiatus, returning with new episodes in April 2025. Until then, we're sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive each week. Today, I'm sharing with you perhaps one of my most personal stories. It was published in AFAR Magazine in 2022. Reminder: I'm running a 10-day group trip to Jordan this May. The trip runs from May 18th to 27th and you can get a...

Note to listeners: we're currently on hiatus, returning with new episodes in April 2025. Until then, we're sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive each week. Today, we're speaking with Nikki Vargas, a senior editor at Fodor's Travel, founder of Unearth Women, and author of "Call You When I Land." In this travel memoir, Nikki shares her experiences navigating cultures and finding lov...

Note to listeners: we're currently on hiatus, returning with new episodes in April 2025. Until then, we're sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive each week. Today, we're speaking with Algerian-French language coach Feriel Temmar, who is based in Paris. Feriel was born in Algeria, grew up in London, West Africa, and New York, and worked in Canada before leaving it all behind and sta...

Note to listeners: we're currently on hiatus, returning with new episodes in April 2025. Until then, we're sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive each week. Today, we're speaking with Katalina Mayorga, the founder of El Camino Travel, a travel community for women with a passion for culture. Reminder: I'm running a 10-day group trip to Jordan this May. The trip runs from May 18th to...

Note to listeners: we're currently on hiatus, returning with new episodes in April 2025. Until then, we're sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive each week. Today, we're speaking with Chicago-based journalist and photographer Karthika Gupta. Her work has been featured in Vogue, BBC Travel, USA Today, Condé Nast Traveler, Fodors, AFAR, Travel & Leisure, Robb Report, and more. Ka...

Note to listeners: we're currently on hiatus, returning with new episodes in April 2025. Until then, we're sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive each week. Today, we're speaking with Sarah Munir, a journalist and tech executive who split her time between Karachi and New York before moving back to Karachi full-time.  Reminder: I'm running a 10-day group trip to Jordan this May...

Note to listeners: we're currently on hiatus, returning with new episodes in April 2025. Until then, we're sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive each week. Today, we're speaking with Lola Akinmade Åkerström, an award-winning storyteller, travel photographer, writer, creator, TED speaker, and multi-book author. She's a Hasselblad Heroine and she runs the Stockholm-based travel cons...

Note to listeners: we're currently on hiatus, returning with new episodes in April 2025. Until then, we're sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archive each week. Today, we're speaking with Emy Rodriguez, a freelance journalist from Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community. His writing has appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, Fodors, and many more magazines. Emy curre...

Today, we're speaking with Vanessa Abbe, a travel advisor who joined me on my trip to Jordan last October. In this conversation, which we had live on Instagram recently, I wanted to hear her take on what it’s like traveling in the country right now.  Reminder: I'm running a 10-day group trip to Jordan this May. The trip runs from May 18th to 27th and you can get all the information by visitin...

Today’s episode is a field guide for traveling to Jordan in 2025. We’ll answer urgent questions about travel safety in Jordan, look at some of the most incredible places in Jordan you shouldn’t miss, and hear from our past travelers who went to Jordan with me last fall.  Reminder: I'm running a 10-day group trip to Jordan this May. The trip runs from May 18th to 27th and you can get all the i...

Today, we're meeting Dana Barqawi, a multidisciplinary artist and urban planner based in Amman, Jordan. Dana’s multimedia work challenges colonial narratives and explores Indigenous identities and aspects of womanhood and community. Growing up with women who painted, sewed, designed, and made art, Dana has a long-standing fascination with detail. She works from a workshop studio in Jabal al Weibde...

Today, I’m sharing with you a conversation that is going to be quite different from anything we’ve done on the show to date. We’re going to do a studio visit to meet a dear friend, a renowned calligrapher, artist, and designer Hussein Alazaat who lives and works in Amman, Jordan.  Hussein is the founder of Elharf Studio, a platform showcasing rare books, design products, and sources of Arab v...

Today, we’re continuing part two of our conversation with Justine Abigail Yu, a Filipina-Canadian storyteller, community builder, and activist. Justine is the founder of Living Hyphen, a community and multimedia platform that explores what it means to live in between cultures as a hyphenated Canadian – that is, an individual who calls Canada home but has roots elsewhere. Get 20% off of a...

Welcome back to the show and welcome to 2025! Thank you for being with us all throughout this season. Today, we’re talking with Justine Abigail Yu, the founder of Living Hyphen, a community and multimedia platform that explores what it means to live in between cultures as a hyphenated Canadian – that is, an individual who calls Canada home but who has roots elsewhere. Justine is a Filipina-Canadia...