Strangers Abroad

Out of all the states that we will travel to, traveling alone usually brings up the most trepidation in people. To many, that idea seems as foreign as the places they want to travel to. Why would you do anything alone? Why not just wait for someone? But that underlying fear might be because solitude is often misinterpreted as loneliness. Both mental states are present but we only have to entertain...

One of the largest plights of traveling is not knowing exactly where you are. It doesn't matter how many websites you have on a travel board on Pinterest or how long you have stared at Google Maps, once you land it is easy to take a wrong turn.  Your internal GPS glitches out because you have no idea where you are.  Nothing is familiar. Everything is novel. Which makes it easier to get turned arou...

Our identities shift when we go abroad. When we leave the familiar surroundings of home, we start to see ourselves from a new light and angle of the sun. What will going abroad show us about ourselves that we couldn't see and help us take control of our own identities? Guest Travelers: Michelle Carlo, Tayo Rockson, Vanessa Valeria, Alexandra Tracy, Eric Trules

This mini episode is the prologue to the second season of Strangers Abroad.    We all experience moments of anxiety during or around the planning of our trip .    The planning.    The packing.    The waiting.    And then the day arrives when our flight is about to take off. Carry us to far off corners of the world. Maybe new adventures or repeating affairs.    But that anxiety doesn't leave.    Ge...

This is a sample clip of Strangers Abroad by Adrien Behn

Three years ago, I was sitting on an uninspired carpet on my living room floor in Portland,OR and was planning my trip for Latin America. I was living in a sterol apartment with a partner who didn't understand me, a job that was exhausting my passions, and a parasitic feelings of having no direction, which would leave me crying on that irksome carpet. I had always used travel to run away from my p...

I met Doron at the beginning of his journey and in my last days of traveling. Although we were at the opposite ends of travel, we still shared one striking commonality: home. Where he had been walking around just hours earlier, was a place I hadn't stood on in months and while he was ready to jump out into the big wide world, I was ready to cozy up in a familiar bed. Our conversation happens when...

Blanca, from Spain, and I met at the top of a mountain overlooking Machu Picchu. I know how that sounds. As we walked around the town of Machu Picchu, I was immediately captivated with her storytelling of the ancient man mad feat and with stories from her adventures around the world. At the time, her and her partner, Heiko, from Germany were traveling for a year, dividing their time between Latin...

On the morning of my father's 58th birthday, I woke up at 4 in the morning on a full bed next to an Austrian boy I had met 16 hours ago in the middle of the Andes. Thomas hopping into the bus within the first few moments of beginning my trek to Machu Picchu. Thomas hoped into the bus and I were the first on a bus from Cusco to Hydroelectric. He was young and present, one of the most mindful people...

Matt and I met under extreme circumstances on evening when we were trapped inside of the chocolate shop due to aggressive protests in the streets of Arequipa, Peru. We were stuck in the cafe for a few hours, and being the only Americans, it was an opportunity for Matt and I to reflect upon our culture and country. We continued the conversation once it was safe to leave the cafe, and Matt and I fou...

Cindy was my Spanish tutor whom I met through Thomas ( from the previous episode) who worked with him through HOOP- the non-for-profit that provides lower-income students with opportunities for higher learning. Cindy's primary job was to teach English to children living in lower socioeconomic areas and provide them with the tools to learn English and other languages.  I needed a teacher who wouldn...

Thomas, from England, and I met at my first "hangover ceviche" which was always the Sunday morning after a late night of dancing and drinking around Arequipa. He mentioned to the table that a wonderful coworker was teaching him Spanish, and it was refreshing to hear another English speaker find it important to learn the countries language, while so many refuse to put in the effort. Shouting over c...

Rodrigo was a local Peruvian teen who worked at Chaq Chau. While working together, we would do our own twist on language exchange: he helped me with my spanish slang and I helped him create clever DJ names in english. He was always wonderful to talk to about Peruvian culture, identity, and history. But as much as he loves his home country, working in a community of travelers has fed a growing desi...

If you have ever had any hesitations about traveling- I highly suggest you listen to this episode. Michelle is the archetypal advocate for long distance travel and is brimming with enthusiasm over the challenges, uncomfortableness, and struggles one experiences while traveling abroad, which to many may seem bizarre. Michelle is an individual who lives wholeheartedly and embraces the growth that co...

Despising the complacency that is socialized into Italian youth, Rachel from Milan willingly thrusts herself out of her comfort zone which pushes her to rethink who she wants to be in the world. I vividly remember one time while eating alfajores, having one of the best conversations about how we have used our mothers as an example of what not to do (I love my mother, I come from a line of weird an...

We have finally arrived at our final destination, Peru, where I find the people who are so similar to me I was surprised we aren't blood-related. This episode is with my chocolate soul mate, Jen, whom I shared a room with while working at a chocolate shop in the south of Peru. The friends you meet on the road are a special breed- they see you at your most uncomfortable, your most scrappy and somet...

This is an excerpt of our conversation with Graham Hughes where we both get kind of ranty and I wanted to give it its own space now at a time when our thoughts about the world have been challenged. We recorded this conversation pre Trump and pre Brexit- so neither of us had the knowledge to know the outcomes of those elections but as you can here we do have foresight to feel that something was hap...

He holds the Guinness World Record for visiting every United Nations recognized country by traveling by land and sea. Like a turtle, Graham carried his home on his back for the better part of four years over every sanctioned United Nations country. Like the Mansa Musa, Marko Polo, or Zheng He, who only had their feet, a boat, or a few camels to further them on their explorations, Graham's trips em...

What would you do if everything you worked for- successful company, healthy body, living in a great city-was suddenly taken away from you? Many survive the setbacks of unpredictable chaos and unpleasant events and are able to return to a normal life. But what about those who not only get back to where they were at, but grow even more? Who see life for the fleeting opportunity that it is and take t...

I met Gaby while I was volunteering in a hostel in Costa Rica.  Born and raised in San Jose, Gaby thought she was going to go down the traditional path of education right into a career. However, her choice to work in a hostel, just to get some dinero on the side, has unintentionally challenged the way she thinks about her future.  She has formed a new perspective on homeland by seeing it through t...

Sara and I also met at the hostel in San Jose, Costa Rica where she was working at a program that teaches English to locals. Sara says exactly what's on her mind and has a specific pep about her that is emulated by the bounce in her curly red hair. Although far from Scotland, Costa Rica was not her first rodeo. As a well-traveled woman, she is attuned to the complexities and subtleties of new plac...

Sarah and I met in Costa Rica while I was working at hostel Beku. From the moment we met, we immediately broke into a long conversation, as if it was unfinished from years ago. Like a hummingbird, flying from one flower to the next Sarah gave a scattered synopsis of what brought her to Costa Rica and how she was leaving in a few weeks. Keeping my feelings to myself, I selfishly got upset at that n...

Karyn and I bumped paths while still working in a hostel in Costa Rica. She is hard to miss between her immeasurable height, voice, and personality to match. As boisterous as her presence is, she is attracted to the relaxed, Caribbean sway that is hard to come by in frigid Minnesota. I bring her on initially to tell a regional American joke that I had never heard before. This is a little snapshot...

Tina, from Finland, needed to find a place that was a 180 from her 9 months of snow, before becoming complacent with her beautifully simplistic life above the arctic circle. She decided to go and explore a climate and people on the other end of the world away from her reindeer eating folksmen. Flying in with a come what may attitude, Tina has not been disappointed with the challenges she has faced...

Do you resist office jobs the way cats resist pools of water? Do you need a life that keeps you moving, questioning, and searching for yourself outside of the bounds of the conventional path? David had those same questions and drives. In this episode, he opens up about the struggles and exhaustion of not fitting in or knowing what to do, which resulted into a lifestyle that harmed his body and min...