The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

Things inevitably go wrong when we travel and I know from experience that listeners of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast quite enjoy hearing these tales! In Episode 235 I have three guests sharing some travel slip ups - some of their own making and some quite out of their control. My first guest is Bob DiMenna who was travelling in Peru with two friends when they had an issue with, well, punctuality -...

Much of the fun of travelling is about bumping up against other cultures and habits - and these days as thoughtful travellers, we usually try to be prepared for this and learn what we can before we arrive. But cultural faux pas or "gross moments" happen to the best of us and there are some great examples to be found in Episode 234 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast. First up, I chat with Bev Malzard...

Opportunities for university or college students to study abroad - during non-Covid times, of course - are very special. While I didn't get an opportunity to study abroad for any part of my university education, it's something I definitely want to encourage my son to do and putting together Episode 233 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast reminded me of many reasons why. First up, I chat with Jennifer...

It's party time!! The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, in the past week, has both turned five years old (ready to start school now!!) and download numbers have hit half a million. It's been a very exciting week in our household! In this special celebration episode, I start off with a quick chat about podcast statistics and where The Thoughtful Travel Podcast fits into download numbers in general (rememb...

We all have some kind of unconscious bias - or a few! - some stereotypes or misconceptions that we think deep down, even if in our conscious minds we don't think we do. It's human nature, but yet another marvellous part of travelling is it often helps us identify and confront these unconscious biases, and the examples from the guests in Episode 231 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast demonstrate this...

This special episode is the audio of the Facebook Livestream of the March 2021 meeting of the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club, talking about Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams. If you'd like to join the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club, all the info is at https://notaballerina.com/bookclub,  and you can keep up with all the thoughts about our current books in the Thoughtful Travellers Fa...

For this special round-numbered episode I wanted to muse on just one of the important lessons the 2020 pandemic has taught me about travel. In this episode I talk about issues like taking relaxing holidays (I'm bad at it; and most of the Thoughtful Travellers community agreed it's not their style); travelling close to home and staycationing, and some of the reasons I really miss the ability to tra...

Travelling abroad is an amazing experience but living abroad takes this to an entirely new level. It's not for everyone but if you've been fortunate enough to call new countries home or you're wondering whether you'd like to, Episode 229 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is for you. I chat first with Flip Byrnes, a bit of a serial ex-pat who has plenty to say about how living abroad compares to tra...

Volunteering abroad is an experience lots of thoughtful travellers contemplate - who doesn't want to give back when we can. But of course, we know that not all volunteering opportunities are created equal. In Episode 228 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, I chat with three women who have had fairly in-depth volunteer experiences in Uganda, Zimbabwe and Nepal, and their stories might help you reflec...

Travelling to see the sights is one thing; travelling when you get to know some of the local people is a whole other level of wonderful experiences. Finding ways to have meaningful interaction with locals is something really important to me when I travel, and the three guests in Episode 227 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast illustrate some wonderful ways to do so. First up I chat with Tasha Goldber...

If nothing goes wrong, were you even travelling? Episode 226 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast centres on my firm belief that many of the best travel memories derive from when things go wrong on our trips. First I chat with Travis King, and he introduces a concept that I will carry with me on every trip from now on: "Level 3 fun". You'll have to listen to learn what "Level 3 fun" he had with his br...

Whether you follow a vegetarian or vegan diet or not, the stories in Episode 225 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast will still fascinate you, I'm sure! I start off chatting with Lindy Alexander, a social worker turned freelance writer who spent eight months living in rural Uganda in her mid-twenties. As a vegetarian, she was a bit concerned about what she could expect there in terms of food and what...

Usually the souvenirs we purchase on our travels are relatively small - we want to be able to fit them in our baggage to bring home, after all. I say usually: because Episode 224 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast proves that there are times when people make rather large purchases when they travel! Curiously, none of these three guests had any plan to make these big purchases on their trips - which...

This special episode is the audio of the Facebook Livestream of the January 2021 meeting of the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club, talking about Bewildered by Laura Waters. If you'd like to join the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club, all the info is at https://notaballerina.com/bookclub,  and you can keep up with all the thoughts about our current books in the Thoughtful Travellers Facebook Group...

Travelling with kids in tow is a great way to see the world, but if you're the only parent, it can add a degree of difficulty - but it can also make for the most rewarding trips of all! On Episode 223 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I chat with three single parents who've had wonderful experiences taking their kids away - although sometimes, things do go wrong! My first guest is Cindy Siano whose...

Bringing home a meaningful souvenir from a trip is such a pleasure: if the process of buying it was fun and special, perhaps involving a chat with an interesting local, and then you have an object you can enjoy at home which constantly reminds you of your trip, then it's a perfect scenario. In Episode 222 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I talk with travellers about their own meaningful shopping e...

Your style of planning and booking trips is likely, it seems, to fall into one of two categories: a detailed planner (sometimes, incredibly, almost over-the-top detailed - in my humble opinion!) or a more spontaneous, make a few arrangements and then just see what happens.  In Episode 221 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I speak with two travellers who are very dedicated to the detailed plann...

This crazy year, 2020, when everything about the world, and especially the world of travel, was turned on its head, is nearly over.  Phew - I think. Who knows, really, what 2021 will bring, but I think at least we're prepared to know that things are different, whereas this time last year we had not the faintest clue what lay ahead of us. In Episode 220 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, the fi...

It's Christmas time which - weirdly, I guess, since I live quite far down in the southern hemisphere! - makes me think about the North Pole, about snow, about cold climates. That made it feel an appropriate week for my episode about seeing the Northern Lights or aurora borealis - an incredible phenomenon I haven't had the chance to witness yet, but after hearing these four guests describe their si...

2020 is nearly over, and I know many people in the travel industry (and beyond) are breathing a sigh of relief over that. But what will the travel world look like in 2021? It's all a bit unknown but I wanted to chat with people who were on top of the research and could tell us more about what travel trends for 2021 are looking like. First up, though, I asked the Thoughtful Travellers Facebook grou...

The friends you make while you're travelling are, I think, often destined to be lifelong friends, because you've probably got a lot in common. If you're travelling in a similar way, or you're in the same destination, or however it is that you meet - you're already well on the way to a solid friendship. That's certainly my experience and I can think back over a long list of great friends I've made...

There are countless lessons we can learn from travel: from small to large, nice-to-know to completely life-changing. I'm sure that I'm a completely different person thanks to the things I have learnt while travelling - and hopefully a better one! In this episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I chat with three guests who agree that we can learn a lot when we travel. First, I speak with Justin Me...

Paul Theroux returns! This episode is the second half of my interview with travel writer Paul Theroux - if you haven't listened to Episode 214 yet, go and do that first! In this final section, we talk about another widely-varied array of travel topics, including the magic of train travel, one of my very favourite ways to get around. We also chat about some cultural differences and discuss some of...

I'd need a time machine to be able to tell for sure, but I think that Paul Theroux's "The Great Railway Bazaar" was probably the very first travel narrative book I ever read. It shaped a lot about what I thought about travel - that you should talk to local people, that you should travel slowly, alone where possible, and not in a group of tourists, for sure - and it gave me quite an obsession with...

This special episode is the audio of the Facebook Livestream of the November 2020 meeting of the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club, talking about Down Under (aka In a Sunburned Country) by Bill Bryson. If you'd like to join the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club, all the info is at https://notaballerina.com/bookclub,  and you can keep up with all the thoughts about our current books in the Thought...