The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

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...

For me, some of the most interesting travel I've done has been the more challenging travel, and that's often when I've travelled to developing or poorer countries. The culture shock is greater, and where there's culture shock, there's learning! - although of course, I always also am reminded that wherever you go, the common denominator is people, and people are really the same across the world. Ju...

Hands up if you like the planning and research part of travel almost as much - or maybe even more - than the actual travelling itself! Some of the guests on Episode 128 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast would freely admit they have something of an obsession with the planning side of travel and you can learn a lot from listening to them, I think (or, like me, you may just giggle!). First up I chat w...

Ever been on a yoga retreat in an exotic destination or considered a meditation vacation? On Episode 127 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast we are talking yoga and meditation travel - where's a good place to go for a yoga holiday, what are the benefits of spending some of your travel time meditating, and much more! My first guest is Meagan Hurst who is my total go-to-gal for all things yoga - and sh...

Some people feel that language difficulties can be a reason not to travel, but trying to get by in a country where I don't speak the language is actually one of the (many) reasons I love travelling - the challenge and the fun of it are wonderful and mind-broadening! In Episode 126 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, we cover some of the many difficulties that can arise when there's a language barrie...

Do you dream about spending years living abroad? I've done it, and so have all my guests today, and we are all here to tell you that if you ever get the chance to try - grab it!  Living in another country is a very special experience and quite different from just taking a trip somewhere. And if you can live in several other countries (or more!) like the first guest in this episode, Kelly Dunn...

You know I love slow travel and if you're travelling on foot that's one of the slowest forms of travel there is - hence my love for the topic of hiking, which is what this episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is all about! I start off the episode talking with highly experienced hiker Greg Seymour, who has through-hiked the Appalachian Trail (amongst other hiking experiences) and we chat about...

Getting to know the cultural differences between different countries and nationalalities is one of the most fascinating parts of travelling, I think. In Episode 123 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I chat with three travellers who've experienced cultural differences in countries like China, South Korea and Spain, and I learn a whole lot in the process! First up, I talk with Jacky Lamenzo who spent...

Easily one of my favourite and most rewarding things to do when I travel is find the chance to talk to locals. I don't want to just see the sights: I want to know what it's like to live there! Especially after living in three different countries to my own (and each quite different from the other), I'm utterly fascinated by local customs, thoughts and ways of life and so Episode 122 is all about ta...

Travelling in cold places is absolutely not my speciality - so Episode 121 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is a useful one for me personally! I chat with three travellers about their experiences in cold places like Iceland, Finland and Canada; the result is a good reminder that I shouldn't ignore a destination just because the temperatures are low! First up I chat to Lucas Peters who recently too...