The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

Over recent years, more of us have paid attention to ways in which we can travel a little more sustainably, and harm the environment a little less - but we still have such a long way to go. In Episode 213 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, I chat with three travellers who are also very concerned about the impact we are having on the environment, and have a wealth of tips and ideas to share with us....

Travelling is often fun but if you're travelling for a super-special reason like to get married - well, then that's even more fun! This episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is full of amazing destinations and very special trips indeed. My first guest is Scott Antcliffe, who told me this story about his honeymoon in the Maldives - I loved his tale so much that it inspired me to find some other...

Quirky limestone pillars, Spanish street names, a barbecued pizza ... all this and more in our most recent trip. It's been a busy year - oddly enough! I was due a break, and I took my son off for four days to Cervantes, a couple of hours north of Perth. This had all the hallmarks of some of my favourite kinds of travel: slow travel (staying in one destination rather than moving around), finding th...

It's Episode 210, a nice round number so it's time for a special edition of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast. As some of you may know, I've spent a fair bit of time working on my first book about thoughtful travel, and in this episode, I decided to tell you some stories from a particular section of my book that talks about how travel really helps us to understand the world better - in a way that no t...

Episode 209 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast was inspired by a chat I had with Rick Antonson a year or so back, who described a trip he'd taken in Canada with his ten-year-old grandson Riley. Since then I've been looking out for other stories of travelling with grandchildren and am excited to publish this episode with its three great tales. First up of course is Rick's story which began it all - a...

This special episode is the audio of the Facebook Livestream of the September 2020 meeting of the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club, talking about Step By Step by Simon Reeve. 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 Gr...

We might not be travelling as far and wide as usual thanks to Covid-19 and our state's border closure, but my son and I have just had a quick getaway to a town a couple of hours east of Perth, and it is worth telling you all about! I'm a big fan of travel for random reasons, and this one was pretty random. The destination was dictated purely by my 10-year-old son, and meant we ended up staying nea...

My first creative love is writing, and it's exciting to me to be able to explore how my guests combine writing and travel in this episode about writing retreats around the world. First up, I chat with Suzanne Moore, a novelist who lives in Perth but took the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks completely alone in Japan to work on her book, in the scenic landscape of Hokkaido. Next, Catherine Ma...

In July 2025 reports were published by The Observer (UK) suggesting significant parts of Raynor Winn’s story are untrue. This is a really sad development for books that both I and my listeners have held dear. You can read the main Observer article at https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-real-salt-path-how-the-couple-behind-a-bestseller-left-a-trail-of-debt-and-deceit   This...

Episode 206 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is a special one: for the first time, I'm doing a crossover episode with another podcast, because I'm sure it's one my listeners will love.  (Newsflash! We refer to Alpaca My Bags throughout this episode, but this wonderful podcast has been rebranded as "Curious Tourism" - a brilliant name!)   I chatted with Erin, the host of Alpaca My Bags, earlier in...

What turned you into a traveller? I've been pondering this question and in Episode 205 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast I chat with four travel lovers about the origins of their travel addiction. We start off delving back into childhood times to find some of the sparks that interested us in travel, and I speak first with Evan Petrelis. His particular entry point for learning about the world is qui...

Island life, island time, there are all kinds of phrases we use that evoke that special feeling of islands - be they tropical or otherwise, small islands are exotic places to visit and I've got such a long list of islands I've loved, and long to return to. Turns out I'm not alone and in Episode 204 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, I chat with three guests about some of their own favourite island...

Travel can have a lasting impact at any age but if you’re a teenager and you’re away from your family on some kind of student exchange program then it’s even more likely to be life-changing, and Episode 203 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast looks at this idea in this episode about student exchange trips. First up, we hear briefly from Abby Lewtas who describes her experience as a...

It's wildflower season! The Western Australian border might be closed thanks to Covid-19, but the positive side of this is as a Perth resident I'm able to travel throughout our vast state - including some of the lesser-visited parts. In mid-August, I spent three days in Australia's Golden Outback chasing wildflowers with my friend Di, and we kept an audio diary of our time away. In this special ep...

This is the second part of my celebration of 200 episodes - today, the wonderful listeners you met in Episode 200 share some of their very favourite travel stories. And they're amazing! Lily takes us first to Indonesia, back when she was just sixteen - and she learnt a lot! Next, Jane tells us of an amazing part of Italy that had captured her imagination and then proved even better than she imagin...

It's a big milestone today: this is the 200th episode of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast! And since this podcast would literally be nothing at all without all my wonderful listeners, I've decided to devote both this week and next week to you all by interviewing some brave listeners who volunteered to record chats with me - from all corners of the globe - Melbourne to Norway, British Colombia to Engl...

Seeing animals when we travel is high on many people's must-do lists - but are we doing it responsibly? Responsible animal tourism is one of those areas I'm constantly learning more about: for example, I still remember the moment, perhaps six or seven years ago, when I first learnt about why we shouldn't ride elephants (and if you're not sure, listen on!). Animal tourism is definitely an area...

The trips we take early in our travelling careers are very special - those first times when you are really seeing the world with truly fresh eyes. That newness is something you never get back, but I'm sure it's the reason why chatting with experienced travellers about their early trips is so interesting - years on and after many more trips, they recognise how important these travels were, and all...

Amongst travel lovers it's quite common that your engagement happens while you're travelling - I guess it's the obvious time to have a big romantic gesture! - and on-the-road proposals are the topics of all the stories on Episode 197 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast. I start off with a delightful story from Scott Antcliffe about when he proposed to his now wife - in fact, him telling me this story...

This special episode is the audio of the Facebook Livestream of the June 2020 meeting of the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club, talking about A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby. 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...

What do you do when your passport goes missing while you’re travelling? Well, as proven by Episode 196 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, what happens is you end up with a good story to tell (and like most travel problems, it turns out to be solvable). My first guest is Paula Morgan who explains the tale of missing passports during a train trip in Europe - and the unexpected glee of whose fau...

Regular listeners to The Thoughtful Travel Podcast know just how much I love hearing about encounters with local people when we travel, so Episode 195 is a collection of stories about all kinds of different ways my guests have met locals during their travels in Central Asia. First up, I chat with Tracey Croke, who explains a particular intriguing encounter with some local shepherds in Kyrgyzstan,...

This special episode is the audio of the Facebook Livestream of the May 2020 meeting of the Thoughtful Travellers Book Club, talking about Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajeshi. 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 Travell...

Train-lovers unite - Episode 194 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast is all about journeys on the Trans-Siberian Railway across Russia. This will always be one of my favourite trips, and it's such a pleasure to chat with other travellers who've also experienced the many ups and downs of crossing Russia by train. First up, I chat with Catherine Marshall, who decided to take the Trans-Siberian from Mos...

If you think back to the first time you travelled, you might just recall that this was a pretty important and influential part of your travelling experience as a whole. When I speak with avid travellers, it's often the case that their first trip has had a big impact either on their lives, or their future travels, or both. These transformative travel firsts are the basis for Episode 193 of The Thou...