Ep 191 w/ Mark Phipps (Lost In Paradise Travel) – Off-Grid Mongolia & Southwest Africa: Reindeer Tribes, Wild Roads & Namibia Safaris

roads in Mongolia are like, pretty non-existent. It is dirt tracks. I'm generally a very adventurous person and I've done some road trips and I love road tripping, but I kinda did do some research and I just think that...

Unless you're probably with someone that knows what they're doing, you're familiar with some four by four driving. You should be a confident driver. If you're going to drive it yourself, if not, definitely get someone to organize you the transfer up there because you are going to be crossing frozen rivers. Google Maps doesn't work. You are just following tracks. You lead one way or there's no signpost, there's no nothing. These guys just know where they're going. And the roads are bumpy, like super bumpy. Like you are getting lifted off your seat, thrown around for

eight hours. So yeah, me, the one other guy, and the Mongolian guy that about 10 minutes into the journey whipped out a rather large bottle of vodka and started pounding it. It was making quite funny, but he drank the whole thing.

And so what was the next journey to get to your final destination?

So yeah, we made it there that evening, stayed at the guest house that night, and then I got picked up the next day back in the shuttle bus for about an hour. And then we got to pretty much as far north as we can go. And the next leg of the journey, the only way to make it really, or the way that we made it at least, was on the back of a reindeer. That's what the guys do. They herd reindeer with reindeer. That's their own, that's their lifestyle. So you're very much immersed in that. Now I've ridden horses.

Welcome to the Winging It Travel Podcast, your weekly ticket to the world, dropping every Monday and hosted by me, James Hammond, proudly part of the VoyEscape Network. This is a travel podcast that throws out the itinerary and dove straight into the raw, real and unpredictable essence of global exploration, chasing moments over milestones, those spontaneous encounters, immersive sounds and unforgettable stories. Whether I'm hiking up volcanoes in Guatemala,

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Mark comes on to talk about his amazing new product which we talk about at the end of the show and I was shocked and surprised about how good this thing is so stay tuned for that. And in between we are going to discuss Mark's travels to Mongolia. He recently dipped into the country for 10 to 12 days on his own, no tour group so a lot of travel content coming your way, logistics, stories and the best things that he saw on his trip there and trust me it's well worth listening to and it should wet the appetite if you have any ambitions.

great talker, a great storyteller and lots of wanderlust coming your way to get you to book that trip. And of course you might even want to buy one of his products, but I'll save the details until the episode. Finally, before we delve in, please rate and review the podcast on your podcast app, Apple, Spotify and any other apps that you use. Five stars is greatly appreciated. And if you're on YouTube, please like comment, subscribe.

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Very well, mate. Thank you for having me. Yes, good to be back.

Great to see you. Last time I saw you I was in Turkey, in Istanbul. That's where I recorded you,

Wow, okay, yeah.

Well, I can't even remember. I think I was in Copenhagen actually. I think I was down in the islands.

Yeah, I think that was a slightly quieter year, so I was a bit more based on the audience in one place for a little bit. So, ⁓ but yeah, you catch me still in Thailand, just in Bangkok this time.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Copenhagen Thailand has really started to feel like home the last couple of years. And yeah, I used to, I always used to think, oh, it was my job that kind of took me there and that's why I was there. But I think I see it much more than that now. Like really good base. I guess just a great place to be. So definitely feels like home, which is, which is strange because you would ask me 10 years ago, would I, would I still be here? No, no, I don't think so.

⁓ I think I'll probably move back home. I would moved on by then, but, ⁓ it's still, it's still is a great base for me to be and just, just a healthy place in every sense of the word, really. ⁓ it's a good place to be.

your new product or company, which wasn't around last time I spoke to you, so that's new for me. So let's dive into Mongolia. I've been following your social medias and it seemed wild. Is that the best way to describe it?

Mongolia. I mean, just before I even got to Mongolia, generally when everyone was, was sort of asking where's the next trip or where you going, I'd say Mongolia. The general question is why? Everyone's just like, Um, like why are you doing it? What's there? What's the draw? What are you going to, what do you want to see? And just generally why? Like, why can't you just take a normal holiday like everybody else and go to.

Yes.

Do something regular and I'm just like, look, just, do like, I will admit I like the surprise on people's faces a little bit when they're like, what? And they just, yeah, you want to go somewhere different, but I do look for those things in trips as well. know, like, um, I am like, like, like, we saw, I'm blessed and lucky enough to, to, do the island life and beach stuff quite a lot. Generally looking for something a bit different and, it's, it's certainly delivered.

on that. was very, very much a different place to go. I'm pretty much going into the peak of winter as well. So it's not a warm place to be, ⁓ what's why that, and kind of outside of like, ⁓ like the general tourism season there as well. ⁓ so yeah, from the moment I turned up at the airport, ⁓ I'd come from, I'd actually come in from, ⁓ I flew in from South Korea and generally when I fly, I like to travel quite comfortably. So I rock up wearing flip flops to, to the airport and I'm standard at the,

the luggage belt and flip-flops and I had no less than three people come up to me and ⁓ remind me that it's minus eight outside. So yeah, from the beginning I was kind of turning heads.

Well, that kind of leads me nicely into the next question about planning. How did you go about planning the trip? Was it with a tour company by yourself or? First of all, with one of those, I mean, what are we talking? Are we talking like independent travel here or even if you go by yourself, do have to book some tour because it's hard to get around? Like what was the planning phase like?

⁓ I mean, James, yeah, you've known me a little bit now. You probably know I don't plan too much, ⁓ if at all, but it was one of those places that it is so big, it is so vast. You do have to do a bit of forward planning. Travel there isn't particularly easy in that like flights are maybe only every couple of days to even get there. Depending on where you're coming from, internal flights are like few and far between.

⁓ a lot of them go back through the capital. So you do spend a bit of time going back, traveling on yourself, but majority of it is kind of like overland travel. So I did, I knew there was one main thing. There's one thing that I wanted to do and go and see there, which was go and visit the Sartan people, the Dukkha people up in the North. ⁓ so that was kind of my goal. And for anyone that's, that's unaware, they're the, ⁓ the last remaining sort of reindeer herders tribes that really still do live up there. And, and that's.

what they do. it's very much kind of like off the beaten track. mean, where we were was 65 kilometers from the border of Russia. Um, so you've actually got to apply for a special permit to get up there and it's like, it's like an extension of Siberia. The wilderness you're in is known as the extension of Siberia. So to get there, you do have to travel and plan ahead. So yeah, I generally, when I, when I do travel, I like to do things quite independently.

I had made contact with a couple of guest houses that were in that region to help me organize a bit of travel there. And for me, that really is the best and maybe one of the only ways to do it ⁓ is quite like individual travel. Especially this time of year when there's not a lot of other people doing it. You do end up like probably doing things quite very much like independently and by yourself. The few times I did bump into another.

traveler or tourists, we were kind of just as surprised to see each other. And I look at each other like, what are you doing here? they're like, what are you doing here? Um, so yeah, I did, I made contact with a few guest houses from, uh, a small town called Moran, which is a 12 hour bus journey to get up there. Um, and then the lady there helped me organize quite a lot of the, um, quite a lot of the things that I wanted to do and make contact with, with some of the tribes, because as you can imagine, they don't really have phone signal. They just have like one satellite phone that.

that they might turn on every now and then. So, uh, and they really speak no English. you you should spend a bit of time and do a bit of research into, um, trying to find a good guest house that, um, will work locally with the tribes. I am all about sort of making sure the money you give and goes back to the right places as well. So the first five, six days of the trip, I did have someone sort of helping me organize it, but, um, generally I was very much by myself.

So I guess you fly into Ulaanbaatar, kind of base yourself there for a few days to climatise, I guess, and then start to plan your trip. If people are looking to go west, east, north, south, whatever. then, yeah, so you're contacting guest houses. It's such a unique and almost an old school way of traveling, isn't it? It is almost like maybe back in the day, what it's like for most places, but now this is one of the very few where you can maybe rock up and you might have to speak to someone to speak to someone to arrange something, right? It's quite a unique thing nowadays.

Yeah, absolutely. and yeah, it felt nice. It was very refreshing kind of way to do it. And, ⁓ yeah, to, to get up there it's kind of like, well, there might be a bus going this day. You might just have to wait and see. ⁓ so yeah, if you're, if you're a big plant, big fan of like a structured trip, you're going to have to be a little bit more flexible, ⁓ to, try and work with that because things kind of happen when they, when they happen.

of admin questions. What's the language they speak? I'm guessing Russian, but could be wrong. And also with the currency because I guess you got to pay in local currency to get these buses. So what was that currency as well?

Yeah. So they, ⁓ I was surprised as well actually, cause when I got out the airport, the guy just said Russian, Russian. ⁓ but no, did speak that they all speak Mongolian, ⁓ their own language, yeah. Which was, which I was not aware of. I thought there must be some, so a lot of people speak in Russian, but everyone I spoke to was generally, ⁓ yeah, just Mongolian. ⁓ and then the currency, ⁓ Tigret, Hagret, ⁓ it's a phrase, it's a one that you don't hear a lot. They, ⁓ they, it's, it's a.

Yeah. Generally if people, if you're paying for something like in your trip, everyone is talking in US dollars. So yeah, paying for bus tickets was a bit difficult. The systems there are pretty old school. Even when I tried to book an internal flight, they send, the airline sends you their bag details and you transfer the money. an old school bag of transfer. This seems a...

bit shady. and then the same as the buses, but again, luckily, ⁓ through the, the, hostel West data and the person I was texting back and forth, I was like, look, I'm really struggling with this. Can you help me? And she just booked it, paid for out of her own money and just said, just pay me back when you get here. No worries. That actually worked out quite well. ⁓ and the same for the second bus I booked, she's the, were kind enough to just do it with the local currency.

Great, that's amazing.

Other than that, I did generally use wise. ⁓ if you know, like the wise, ⁓ a travel board, and then I was just transferring money to pay people with that. And that, generally works pretty.

Great. I'm going to go straight into the travel aspect of the bus. I jokingly said in this podcast that there should be a podcast about bus rides around the world because they're so epic, right? What is the roads like in Mongolia and is it as comfortable or as bad as you think?

I thought my days of 12 hour overnight buses were behind me. I'm done Southeast Asia, I've done Australia and I really thought I'd left those days behind me. I haven't, it turns out I had not. yeah, no, you got to travel a lot and the buses really are the best way to do it. I learned the hard way and some tips that I'll share along the way.

⁓ yeah, buses in Mongolia, especially overnight. ⁓ they are warm on the bus, but because it's like minus eight outside, don't book yourself a window seat because if you lean up against it with your hoodie, your hoodie will freeze. whoever had it up against it with the condensation and it was so cold, I could have snapped my hoodie in half. ⁓ but generally, okay, like the main roads you're taking. So where I went from Ulaanbaatar, the capital to Moron.

⁓ 12 hours overnight. 9 PM till, 9 AM. you know what credit where credit's due it left bang on nine o'clock and it arrived pretty much around nine o'clock the next morning. it was generally okay. they are, they were generally pretty full. ⁓ but of a pretty good quality, was a VIP bus. I don't know. ⁓ what, what bit of it was VIP, but, it was safe enough. The roads were, were decent, not super bumpy on these main roads.

⁓ to get to sort of the main town of Moron. yeah, when you get there, similar setup there, there are people there like taxi drivers to take you off to your guest house or whatever you need. ⁓ you know, if you're not afraid of a, of a 12 hour bus journey, then, then it's very manageable. I've certainly done a lot worse and then, ⁓ did a lot worse after that. That was more the, organized ticketed bus to get me to the main town from there to get to Sagna, the next town I needed to get to. That's a difference.

story. Okay let's start with Moron, tell us a bit about the vibe of this place and also tell us your experience of going to see this tribe the reindeer hunters. Yes I'm

Moran.

So that's kind of like the, it was one, two, kind of a three step journey to get me up to, see the guys in the reindeer moran. I got off the bus nine, 10 o'clock in the morning. I went straight to ⁓ the guest house, Sarah's guest house. was called, the time she's renovating her actual guest house. So I literally just stayed in her apartment. ⁓ And this is where I bumped into ⁓ two other travelers that were kind of, they'd just done a trip and they were on their way back to Ulaanbaatar.

We rocked up, she cooked me breakfast and she said, Oh, there's some kids coming in about an hour, 10 kids for an English lesson. Do you mind teaching English for a couple of hours? I was like, I can do that. So yeah, we, sort of taught me and the two travelers, we taught an impromptu two hour English lesson to these kids. And then she says, Sarah's just on the phone, on the phone, on the phone.

but I

She says, yo, I've got you a bus today. It leaves in an hour. Um, so I didn't see a huge amount of Moran, uh, that day, I did spend a bit of time there on the way back. Um, which is quite nice. Not, not huge there. a friend of mine told me to watch the, uh, the Top Gear, uh, no, no, no, the, um, the ground tour special when they to London. So this is the town they end up in. Um, that's where they drive. try to realize, so there's, they're really not a huge amount there. Um, it is one of those kind of, it's a town that.

I could only think of like, when you go out of town, you know what out of town means because town just stops. It's town and you can look all the way along and then there's just nothing. Which is really, really kind of wild to see, but I took a little walk around. There's not much to write home about in Lordhan to be honest. It is just a bit of a stop and off point to go and get to where you're going really from there.

So then you're going on from there to go and see this tribe. Like this sounds like a real incredible local authentic experience with the sounds of it.

Yeah, this is where things get a little spicy. When we jump in the bus, it's me, one other traveler that's going up the same way. And then we get joined by a lovely Mongolian gentleman. And you kind of get put in these, they look like real just Soviet era four by four trucks. I think they are a bit more modern than that, but the style of them is that. you kind of sat in the back and there's two rows, one facing forward, one facing backwards.

⁓ they're slightly lifted with like kind of big wheels on them. ⁓ and yeah, we left about 3 PM and it was an eight, nine hour journey. And this is where the roads are. ⁓ similar to what I think the rest of roads in Mongolia are like pretty non-existent. is dirt tracks. ⁓ I'm generally a very adventurous person and I've done some road trips and I love road tripping. ⁓ but I kinda did do some research and I just think that.

Unless you're probably with someone that knows what they're doing. ⁓ you're familiar with some four by four driving. ⁓ you should be a confident driver. If you're going to drive it yourself, if not, definitely get someone to organize you the transfer up there because you are going to be crossing rivers, frozen rivers. There's, there is no, like Google maps doesn't work. You are just following tracks like that lead one way or there's no signpost. There's no, these guys just know where they're going.

And the roads are bumpy, like super bumpy. Like you are getting lifted off your seat, thrown around for eight hours. so yeah, me, the one other guy, ⁓ and the Mongolian guy that about 10 minutes into the journey, worked out a rather large bottle of vodka, ⁓ started pounding it. ⁓ quite funny, but he did end up getting it when he drank the whole thing. ⁓ and then.

Yeah, I'm pretty drunk. Like I'd heard Mongolians enjoy a drink. I got this guy did. So yeah, he was pretty young. It was pretty merry by the time. And those didn't speak any English, but my God didn't stop talking the whole time. Mongolian, which, ⁓ which was kind of funny for the first five hours, but then yeah, get bumped around the rest of the trip. And he was a sweet guy. Yeah. We hugged it out at the end. ⁓ but it, but it is.

I've never used the word arduous in my life, but an arduous journey is definitely what that was to get to the town of Sadnur, which is a gorgeous lake. And that was kind of like the second leg of the journey.

I guess you've got no choice to have you. I I imagine it's the only way to get there, right? can't imagine any of a scenario.

That's really it. No, that's, ⁓ that's, that's the only way to go other than driving yourself. And it is just kind of like a shared van. ⁓ and that's what's kind of nice about it. It's that, it's that old school community feel of, ⁓ well, no one's driving that day. ⁓ so no one's going, or if they are, then there's a community filter. Like before we actually left, we, we, we got pulled out of the van and we were loading up. ⁓

double glazing windows onto the roof that clearly someone needed going up there. and we'd stop around town and just be picking stuff up from people that clearly need stuff transported. So that was really nice to kind of feel a bit of a part of that. And we were like helping load and unload the vans and stuff on because yeah, I guess it's just a shuttle service that, when people go, they go and when they don't, they don't.

And so what was the next journey to get to your final destination?

⁓ so yeah, we made it there that evening. ⁓ stayed at the guest house that night and then I got picked up the next day. Back in, back in the, the, the shuttle bus for about an hour. ⁓ and then we got to pretty much as far north as we can go. And the next leg of the journey, ⁓ the only way to make it really, or the way that we made it at least was on the, on the back of a reindeer. ⁓ so that's what the guys do. They, they heard reindeer with reindeer.

Wow.

That's their own, that's the lifestyle. So you're very much immersed in that. ⁓ now I've ridden horses quite a bit when I was younger, so I'm pretty confident to ride a similar animal. ⁓ yeah, there was three, one for, ⁓ one for my guide. ⁓ but I met there, I kind of got dropped off and that, that was it. ⁓ one for the bags and then, then one for me. So we jumped on the back of a reindeer and followed a stream for about an hour and a half up to, ⁓ up to the camp.

And that's where we stayed for two nights.

What's the living conditions here? it a basic tent? ⁓ you know, sanitation? Is it quite basic as well? Like what's the go here with this whole camp?

Yeah. So we get there and it's that they stay in traditional Gers, G-E-R, which are designed to be ⁓ put up and taken down quite quickly, quite easily. There's still a ⁓ semi-nomadic ⁓ tribe of people and family of people. So they do move according to the season. The family I stayed with, they actually didn't move a lot. They only moved once ⁓ or twice a year, suppose, for summer and for winter. But a lot of other families will move multiple times. So you stay in the Gers.

with them, ⁓ and they did have another teepee set up outside for any travelers or visitors to come and stay with. For what I kind of understood, they will have other families because it is quite spread out. The family I was with was just, ⁓ just a wife and the husband, just, just the two of us and me. but I know that the, the wife had a brother that lived about two hours away. So I guess sometimes they'll come, they'll stay, maybe stay the night if they, the conditions are too bad to go back. So.

⁓ yeah, the first night I was invited to stay in the, in the guy with, ⁓ with the family and, know, someone I've had no interaction with really, cause they don't speak any English. ⁓ you just, you just hold up. It's a very family feel, community, but yeah, it's a circular tent thing very much just like a yacht would be, ⁓ with a fire in the middle. and that's what they, they cook everything on. That's what the heat is from. ⁓ everything kind of comes from that with a very small door to go in and out. So.

stayed there the first night and then actually stayed in the teepee the second night, was much colder. You're very much just sleeping on the floor there.

What sort of food are you eating for dinner and breakfast and stuff?

it's cause I mean, they don't have a huge amount there, right? Like the conditions to grow vegetables are, are pretty rough. ⁓ every dish that I, I had there was made of, made up of generally the same ingredients. So it's going to be beef mostly, although I have heard from, from other friends, ⁓ depending on what time of year you might be having goat, ⁓ and where you are, where you're staying, but, but beef, it's going to be.

potato, a small amount of carrots, then if you're lucky, some onion in there as well. And it was cooked up in the stew and then with a variation of either maybe rice, pasta, or there's almost like this kind of like noodle, floury noodle that they put in. And that to be fair was my favorite. That's, that's a lot more filling. has a lot more sort of hearty meal to it.

But generally every dish I had was, a variation of that. And then for sort of maybe like a snack during the day that they're having homemade bread. ⁓ but yeah, very sort of basic, quite bland, ⁓ just with a little bit of, ⁓ salt mixed in. ⁓ so I pretty much had variations of that anywhere I went other than I did. I was lucky enough to spend my birthday in Mongolia. so the guys that I'd moved on to the center by then, but they did do a special meal of a horse.

Follow me. That's a down.

bit of horse. Do you remember back in the day when in UK people got a bit angry because the beef burgers had horse in them? Do remember that?

a rather large supermarket chain that think had horse meat in it. We're like, oh, that's disgusting. And then there's me on my birthday, just like, but that was good. That was nice. It was quite a special moment. Cause they got it specially and they, cooked it up into bar, B U U Z. And that's kind of like, honestly, not too dissimilar to like a Cornish pasty to be honest. That was quite nice.

⁓ nice. Yeah. Great. And for the, and for the few days there, what are you learning about the culture? Are you like learning how they live, how they work, how they spend their time? Is that more about the, I guess, like a real authentic local experience? Is that the point of the two days?

It really is. For anyone going there, especially for myself, I did go by myself. ⁓ So I stayed up for two nights. Now on the second night, I actually got quite lucky in that another tourist turned up and she was traveling by herself, but she'd gone to the lengths of actually hiring a Mongolian guide and she was traveling around Mongolia for like four weeks with a guide. he was Mongolian, but spoke English.

Sorry, Hebrew was- with a kite.

After like a day of me kind of just having no communication with the people other than just observing their daily life, which was amazing, um, to just be a fly on the wall, watch them bring the reindeer in and take them out. Um, do daily chores. really was just sort of sitting and watching. could walk around the area, um, there is nothing there. are, you know, wow, reindeer ride from the nearest town. Um, so it's probably about as authentic as, as you can get.

But I got to say it was a surprise and quite nice when this other girl turned up because I could then benefit from her guide and when we had a lot with this person I'd spend 24 hours with to learn a little bit more about them. But yeah, it's very much just sitting, observing. We did help them kind of like herd the reindeer and I'd put the tack on and off the reindeer a bit. At least I thought I was helping. They're probably like, yeah, you're on the reindeer.

⁓ so yeah, that, that turned out quite well, but no, just, you can get as involved or not involved as you would like go chop some wood, put the wood on the fire and just be a part of the daily life really, ⁓ is, what the experience was all about.

And what did you learn from that guide who turned up? Because I imagine you're probably hearing from him some information for the first time. Anything surprising or anything that you learned?

Yeah, I mean, I was quite interested to, I mean, I just couldn't wrap my head around the reindeer herding to begin with, I guess. Why are they here? What do you do with them? Cause I'd like the first, everyone's first impression was like, well, do you eat them? And I've done a bit of research, so I kind of knew that they, they, they, they don't, but they also, might do if a very old one does pass away. Yeah. We, we, we did have some quite interesting conversations about, about the reindeer. They do see.

Some of the reindeer are almost as close as like family. really do look to the reindeer. They do have quite a spiritual connection to the reindeer. Some of the reindeer I found, ⁓ depending on the reindeer's ancestors, they are actually quite a spiritual ⁓ people up there. ⁓ The religion does change a little bit around Mongolia, but up in the North there is generally shamanism. ⁓ And what I found to be most interesting is, yeah, the...

the lady that we would stay with, kind of, she kind of hinted at potentially being a shaman, um, because there, are shaman in the area and she, she kind of dropped a few hints in that, uh, she might be, she said, like, if I ever was, I'd never like, um, I'd never scream and shout about it. It's quite a spiritual thing to do. And she kind of did have this aura about her of like, a TV shaman, which was, was really quite interesting as well. So yeah, just learning about the daily life, obviously learning about, um,

kind of a dying tradition of it. Like the kids just don't really want to be involved anymore and they'd rather be in town and do something a little bit more modern. ⁓ So some of the families up there are supported by the government. I found was quite an interesting thing. Cause yeah, I did find it to be quite contradictory what she was saying, not from what she said, but the government are taking quite a bit of land away from them. So there's less land for them to do this.

But at the same time, they're actually supporting some of the families financially to keep this tradition alive as well. So yeah, it was a like, well, what are you guys doing here? You're reducing their land, you paying them to keep doing this? So it is something that it's nice to keep that tradition alive and to be able to do that. So that was definitely quite interesting to learn about.

Yeah, I was then going to say the next thing about how do they survive financially in the modern world? I know obviously they're doing fine because it's their heritage and that's what they do, but in terms of the modern world with finance, are they poor? Are they not? Where are they in society, do you think?

It's kind of hard to say, guess it's like when, and it could have been like a translation thing, but the guide that turned up and was speaking English, he did mention about the husband that he was going to go into town to trade. And now I thought that was amazing because I was like, wow, if he's really going to like trade, like that's,

really old school, like, like they'll, they'll sell like little trinkets and stuff to the tourists that come, that come through and stay with them, but they're not making big money off that. might just be a carving they made from the reindeer antlers, maybe from the hide and things like that. But they, think they very much just live with, with what they have. wouldn't imagine these guys to have bank accounts or a huge amount to do with money.

To be honest, what they need is probably what they have when they get there. Tourism definitely probably supplements it. And I'd say it's probably one of the bigger parts of it. ⁓ I don't know how many people would go up there and say it's a huge amount, but that probably does help a lot more nowadays as well. But definitely not on the richer end of the scale, but for what they were saying, it's not what they're about anyway. They're very happy with a simple, simple life.

Yeah. I kind of got an impression. Hence why they, yeah, there's no need. I guess they're not complaining about the kids, but yeah, they're probably a bit sad that the kids want to go and do something else, which is a bit of a shame really, but I can understand. That's shame. I do want to touch on the lady that turned up the guide and any intel on like how much would that be? For example, if you wanted to borrow a guide for like a week or two, cause that's pretty cool. Isn't it? Cause she gets to get, gets to see all the country with some information.

And I guess you don't speak Mongolian or Russian, so that's pretty cool. But yeah, what was the price on that? Any ideas on that?

So generally what everything that I kind of read all looked up you're looking at around about To further for what it depending what you want to do and where you want to go general budget is going to be maybe like a hundred dollars a day for the rest. So yeah, it's not it's not the cheapest place to go and travel. ⁓ When for the second part of my especially because you got to think like you're not you're not really getting much

I don't want to say you're not getting much value, but if you're like, I want to do a skydive or a bungee jump. can see where that money's going. Cause you got to pay for stuff. Whereas you're like, well, I'm not really, there's no financial value to it, but that's just the general cost is about that. ⁓ just to go to these places, but I'd say a lot of it goes on travel. ⁓ for the second part of my trip as well, when I did go to the north, sorry, to the, to the center. With the same lady, Sarah, that that booked my North trip, her husband actually works as a guide for.

So I arranged some stuff through them and she was like, yeah, he'll come with you and arrange it. Which again, I said, I generally do like to travel very independently by myself. I'll rent a car and drive myself, but Mongolia is one of the ones that was like, no, I'm fine for someone to take me. ⁓ So again, that was, yeah, it was around about a hundred dollars a day I paid. So I had him for, we did about a five day trip, paid $500 and he came along ⁓ and that was, yeah, transport. He arranged all the accommodation and would cook me food.

Again, he didn't speak English, but his 16 year old son came along. ⁓ So it was me, Ikhba and Gibba ⁓ just hanging out and through his son. that was actually really quite nice to have a bit of time there as well and to actually have a guide for myself that I could ask a lot of questions to.

What was the aim? What are you going to see in the center?

So the center, you got Karakum, which is actually really, really cool. So that's pretty much still like the ancient capital of the world. It was, was a Cengiz Khan's like capital city and an incredible place to be something that I wasn't super excited about until I got there and learned about it. And I was like, wow, this is a really amazing piece of history to come and see. And so yeah, that's a big draw.

⁓ I actually spent a long time walking around the museum and was kind of fascinated by, ⁓ to be somewhere that, that, that really does hold a huge amount of city because yeah, it was a very progressive city as well. they, ⁓ was very inclusive of a lot of different, ⁓ backgrounds and nationalities and religions. And it was cool to see something so ancient be so inclusive, ⁓ and then see why it became so popular. ⁓ so that was very cool.

⁓ and then you've got, ⁓ for anyone that doesn't have the time to go to the Gobi desert in the South, ⁓ they've got what they call the mini Gobi, ⁓ which is a couple of hours, ⁓ West as well. So that was very cool. Big sand dunes. they'd got the huge sort of, ⁓ Asian, camels there as well with, with the double hump, really shaggy fur. and then Hustway national park, which, which was incredible as well. That's where you can go and see, ⁓ if you're, if you're lucky.

some truly wild horses, ⁓ out in the wild. Just like Mongolia is known for its steps. ⁓ not the steps you walk up, ⁓ but you know, the, vast grassland plains. really, if you want to go see that, that's an incredible place to go and see. So yeah, they, they will probably the three, three highlights over the few days that we went to see, which was really cool. And then other than that, just enjoy the drive, really enjoy the surroundings.

Yeah. It kind of brings it back to, I met someone in India 10 years ago now almost. And he used to be in the British army as a cavalryman. And when I met him, he was driving from Australia to home on his motorbike and he got to Mongolia. So he must have got to Mongolia and came down to India. And I said, ah, why'd you want to go there? goes, well, I used to ride horses. And he said, I just want to go and ride horses in Mongolia. So he just dropped his bike off at Udumbata. Got a

got someone on some horses and just rode around the country for like a couple of months, think. It was pretty incredible. Some of their photos were absolutely insane. Imagine riding a horse and then you can do that sort of activity. That would be just the ultimate experience in Mongolia, right?

Yeah, I'd heard rumors you could buy a horse for $300 at the market.

I don't you bought one.

Naturally I was like this sounds really cool. And like I said, I can ride a horse. I could probably pick up some camping gear and do that. So I definitely haven't ruled that out. Possibly maybe more a Kazakhstan trip now that I've kind of said Mongolia. a hundred percent I would do that. I'm all up for doing kind of wild out there things. So yeah, that would be really, really a once in a lifetime trip for

Yeah, he was pretty nuts that guy, but good storyteller. I think he's Welsh actually. Yeah. Welsh guards maybe. I don't know. Something like that. ⁓ okay. A few more questions I'm on going before we go on to Namibia and Botswana. I was going to say like locals, I was asked about locals. I know you mentioned you kind of spent time with locals, but I was going with the question here about like, how are Taurus seen? Are they seen as like a vital income stream for them? it,

How can I put this? they trying to not grab you all the time, but try and get you to buy stuff all the time? it like that? Is it haggle culture? How did you get the vibe of Mongolia as a tourist?

Yeah, no, not at all actually. I mean, definitely got a few looks every now and then, I expecting the airport when it turned up in flip-flops. Yeah, had people, a couple of guys come up to me and just chat and kind of ask what I'm doing here. And I was like, yeah, just holiday. And they're like, wow. Like really, why? You know, it's super cold. And people were just more intrigued than anything, but no, you could walk down the street. No one's trying to grab you or harass you or ask you questions. They're very chill.

very relaxed people, ⁓ even in the main square, ⁓ in, in Ulaanbaatar, had one person come up to me and show me some, paintings and was very respectful and fine when I said no. ⁓ but no, no, not like that. More, more just intrigued than anything. Yeah. had a lot of, ⁓ lot of guys come and chat to me. Like one of the, had a girl come up to me in the airport and just say, yeah, what are you doing? ⁓ said, what's your plans tomorrow? ⁓ I'm going for lunch with friends. Would you like to come? And yeah, I was like, cool. Why not? got no plans.

So yeah, we went, we had lunch. She drove me around the city and dropped me off at my bus the next day. So super, super friendly people. ⁓ Not everyone's speaking great English, but there is an element of it, especially in the capital. But outside of that, you're going to encounter not too much. But yeah, I'd say tourism probably is a driving force there and quite important, but definitely not something that they're relying on. Cause I just don't think it's ever had that sort of.

boom for people to want to go.

Okay, and to finish, any crazy moment where you thought, I shouldn't be here, what am doing?

Yeah, think, um, yeah, the bus on the way back from, um, so the, the, the, the Soviet bus that I took up, same one coming back. So I was trying to come back, um, one day and there were no buses. So just, it is what it is. You stay in town and cool. I'll just stay here another night. Got picked up the next day on the same bus and didn't realize how good I had it when there's three people in it. So I got on the bus and yeah, you've got those kinds of two seats facing each other. And I got in and I was like, ah, I'm the last one in the bus. There were four people and a baby.

already facing forward. was like, ⁓ no, I'm gonna have to face backwards for eight hours driving the whole way on those bumpy roads. And then they drive around town and someone else got in. was like, very cool. And then we drove around town, someone else got in and then someone else got in and then someone else got in and someone else got in. And it got to the point where I was, I was laughing. had to laugh because there was, there was no room on this bus.

People would open the door and be like, and the driver would just be like shuffle. And I'm already, I'm not joking. People think I'm exaggerating. I'm sitting like this, like dude on me here. but the final count was I think 11 adults, three babies, most of which were being sick at some point on the journey. It's freezing cold. You're, you're all puffed up in a jacket. ⁓

And like just the most swash you possibly can be. I was like, the only traveler on the bus, no one speaks English. I can kind of see the guys kind of like laughing and we did have a good laugh. It was that communal like, what are we all doing here? But this was just so normal for everyone else there. And I'm like, this is wild. And not only was it eight hours, it was 12 hours on the way back and we left. I think we ended up getting there about three o'clock in the morning.

And actually worked out quite well because I was so compact in, I wasn't bouncing around as much. So was a nice seatbelt. The guy that I had no words with, I felt super close to him because he was like napping on me throughout the time. And I was just like, what am I doing? How have I got myself into this situation? Like it's so, yeah, just, just so ridiculous. ⁓ How many people were in this bus and no one was even batting an eyelid.

And full respect to everyone else on the bus, you know, like I, I'd planned and I've got my headphones and I've make sure I've downloaded a couple of podcasts or some, some movies or whatever. These guys just straight up sitting no, no headphones, no nothing. ⁓ particularly chatty people with something I observed. don't, they don't chit chat. ⁓

So they weren't even chatting amongst themselves. They were just, I believe the kids call it raw dogging. were raw dogging. This, this 12 hour insane travel journey. And I was like, you guys are crazy. Cause I can get through anything. I was in my happy space in my head, just like, I can get through this. This is fine. But to do it with no entertainment, insane, full respect to them. Crazy.

Roadhoggin, yeah.

absolute mental strength that is yes, raw dog and I was trying to think of the term. That's the term. I saw like Erling Harlan do it on a flight once. think he'd done eight hours raw dogging, comfy seat, nice, nice temperature. Um, but yeah, not, on the bus in Mongolia, is he?

Yeah, no, not really. mean, for me, it's just meditation, but, ⁓ I was like, you haven't invented something new here, guys. Like months have been doing this for thousands of years, but like, it's not a new thing.

Yes, I guess so, yeah.

New generation, eh?

Okay, we're going to dip into a different part of the world. Because I wanted to ask you about your road trip between Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. This area of the world is obviously going to get the headlines for the wildlife. Was that part of your trip or were you more thinking just going to see the desert, the road trip itself, like was the wildlife the main thing?

Was yeah, I am a sucker for a ⁓ a good wildlife safari. ⁓ I knew it was going to be a new hobby of mine when I went back, when I first went to South Africa a couple of years ago, ⁓ and, just became obsessed. I'd never really spent a huge amount of time in that, in that region of the world. So yes, going to see, mean, like I've grown up watching David Amber and planet earth and life. So something like the Ocovango Delta was always going to be one of those places I just.

had to get to. so yeah, that was a big draw for me to go there for sure.

and the logistics of this trip. Is it an organized tour or is it again independent?

No, this was as, ⁓ as a lot of my, my, my genius ideas are usually made, it's normally born over a couple of cold beers, and just getting excited about something. So actually that first trip I did in South Africa, ⁓ which was through, through work. ⁓ I met the guide that did that trip and we got to talk in after the tours. Had a few beers and was like, I'd love to do a big road trip, maybe from.

like Cape Town up to, to Vintuc and then go across and drive across. we, we, across, ⁓ yeah, Botswana to Zimbabwe. So we kind of sat there and on, on like a piece of paper, we were like, that would be cool. And we, just planned this trip out as to what we wanted to do. And I kind of already had it in my head for, yeah, it must've sat there for a year. And I guess it was such a big trip. never really knew if it would come to fruition or not, but.

I think again, I just threw it out to a couple of people and I was like, look, this is what I think I want to do. ⁓ it's going to be pretty unplanned. ⁓ I will rent four by fours. We'll, get some trucks. ⁓ and another non-negotiable of mine is I want the truck with the tent on top. I think, ⁓ and I want to a couple of those and I want to drive here and I want to drive back and that's the plan. This is what I want to do. Who wants to come? And, ⁓ I sent it to a friend of mine and he, ⁓

He just sent me back. said, these are the dates I'm looking at. ⁓ what do you think? And he said, sounds good. And the next day he sent me his flight details.

That's the kind of guy I like. Yeah, yeah, no messing about.

Honestly, I remember cause I had the, the screenshots. said, do you want to do this? He said, sounds good. I said, these are the dates. And the next message was, was flights. it was slowly. These are friends you need in your life. So ⁓ ended up being six of us going, ⁓ thankfully with, Mikael who is, so he is a trained guide in South Africa. So he did have a little bit of experience. ⁓ but other than that, no, it was very, very independently.

⁓ planned and yeah, we, planned out the route and everything we, we pretty much wanted to do generally by ourselves. We do work with a company there that gave us a few pointers, ⁓ and gave us a few industry discounts in a couple of places to stay. Other than that, no, we were pretty much at it by ourselves.

And where was the starting point here?

So the original plan was to, was to start in Cape Town. Um, were going to drop in Cape Town up to Windhoek. Um, that is, that is such a big drive, Windhoek in Namibia. Um, and there's not a huge amount to see other than, um, Fish River Canyon, Fish Hook Canyon, um, which is one of the biggest, um, yeah, canyons in the world. We thought it'd be better for timing, um, that we actually decided to fly that in the end. Cause even on a three-week schedule, it was going to be pretty tight. So we did fly into Cape Town.

⁓ we got a lot of bougie. rented a villa, started there and then flew up to Vindhuk. So that's where we picked up the trucks and we started the trip from there.

And obviously a lot of stuff happening in three weeks. I'm just going ask for some highlights. Poly per country. Namibia first. What was the highlight? Or two highlights there.

Maybe I'd definitely go into, um, going to Saucers Flay, um, which took me a long time to learn how to pronounce. It's not how it looks. Absolutely. Yeah. It's a how it took me a lot. I tried to explain to the guy and he was like, where? And I was like, place is that, yeah, you're so far off the mark. So Saucers Flay and then Def Flay and they're two, they're kind of one and the same. It's the huge sand dunes out in the Namib desert.

Don't say too wrong. Yeah.

⁓ so yeah, really quite famous for, for, ⁓ I think it's called big daddy or June 45, both of which you can hike, hike to the peak and look out over there, which is incredible. ⁓ And then you can kind of, you say hike down, takes probably about two hours to go up and about two minutes to run down the really soft sand. And you get to the kind of like petrified forest. ⁓ it probably looked very similar to anyone's looks at the region of the world, with the kind of like petrified trees all out in the sand. So that was really incredible.

⁓ to, go and see that. And then, yeah, we did take some, we took some, some quad bikes out through the Nambi desert and did a little bit of quad biking, which was a pretty cool way to go and explore that part of the world as well.

It's kind of on my list maybe, I don't know why. Maybe it's the vastness of it. It's quite sparsely populated, right, as a country.

is yeah, like we started the trip there, but for the first few days we didn't see a huge amount of it. the first few days we pretty quickly up the cars and drive into Botswana, but we actually spent majority of our time there on the way back. So went to like Etosha national park, which was wonderful. And then our highlight would be actually somewhere where we stayed up near the Botswana border. And we stayed in these kind of like tree houses that are perched.

over a river and that was definitely a highlight there. took ⁓ small little canoes out during the day. You can't see like hippos go past and elephants and stuff up on the bank, was wild. And then to stay there that night with ⁓ like, it's an open air kind of like tree house where you wouldn't want to fall off because you'd fall into the river where there are hippos, but it's probably one of the most

magical moments of my life. I'm not gonna lie. It's laying there in this open air, kind of like tree house, um, with just a mosquito net and you can hear hippos like within a stone's throw of where you are. And it's a real kind of pinch me moment. It's like, what is my life? How have I, how I ended up here doing this? Look, that was a highlight for Namibia. Um, which was an incredible spot to stay.

Like

really, really cool. Yeah. I've got in my mind that you might've like got up in the morning a early because of sunrise maybe. Yeah. I've got coffee on the go and you just watching these wildlife just come by literally by your feet by the tree. Yeah, that is, that's incredible.

Yeah. Like I didn't even have to get out of bed. was, could stay in bed cause there's no bamboo shutters you could roll down. I slept with them all night. I think I barely slept cause it like, don't want to waste a moment like being here. I had that, that was like incredibly, incredibly cool. So yeah, that was, that was a real highlight of the trip as well.

Okay. And you're off to Botswana, which I think is known for having a high population of elephants and stuff. Right. So I think it's one of the best places to see them.

⁓ and, still only a fraction of what I think it once was. ⁓ but a huge, yeah. ⁓ yeah. but still even now a huge, huge population of elephants. I I've never seen so many, ⁓ in one place, at one time, which is, ⁓ yeah, it was an absolute highlight of the trip to go and see there. So if you're, if you like your elephants, then yeah, absolutely a place to go, to go and see them.

And do have a highlight of Botswana? Like what are the people like there?

⁓ yeah, incredible. We, we never had a bad interaction with, with anyone. ⁓ everyone was always friendly. ⁓ yeah, super happy. ⁓ like they, want to hang out. ⁓ anyone that we, you know, ⁓ we did do a fair bit of driving. when we went to the Ocovango Delta, we did stay in a camp in the Delta. So it's one of the few times within the trip where we actually did do a bit of an organized, ⁓ tour.

to get deep into the Delta. So yeah, you have to do a fair bit of driving and it's pretty soft sand. So we booked a trip there to show us around. yeah, we had guys that were running the camp and cooking for us, making up the tents and taking us out driving every day. And they were just like one of the crew. They were incredible. So ⁓ welcoming. They'd happily adjust the schedule to whatever we wanted to do. ⁓ The service was incredible.

⁓ like really just like top quality service from anyone and just friendly people that you'd want to want to hang out with and crack a beer with. ⁓ yeah, really, really great interactions with everyone.

think that's key to hear though, isn't it? Because I think we probably have a bit of a misconception maybe of that part of the world of being unsafe or people not being nice to you, especially if you're a white guy as well, like you get like abuse. I think it's this key to like quash all those rumors and all those things. We can't say a hundred percent, but obviously most of the time, positive interactions like you had and also just people helping you out, making it good time and want to be like one of you, which is pretty cool as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

For Botswana, I don't actually know much about it apart from the wildlife. Was there anything else that was interesting to share about the country?

Yeah, we went, ⁓ so it was actually, the, friend, Mikael, the guide that he'd had on his bucket list to, to stay out, ⁓ in the soap pants, in Botswana. And, we're like, yeah, cool. That sounds good. Like this was, didn't know too much about it. Like, obviously you have an idea of like what the soap pans would be about, but this is really where the, ⁓ the four by fours and the tents kind of came into their own. ⁓ and we, we very much went like.

off script, off the reservation. we just kind of, were driving on a main road and then we just took a right hand turn, like no road. then we knew where they were. Um, and then that's it. Yeah. You get on these salt pans. So, letting the tires down a little bit and then just a complete freedom to just drive wherever you want. Like you're driving over this, these salt pans and you're not really aiming for anything because it's just, it's just a vast like nothingness.

We'd see like the occasional ostrich just run, run across and see them. And we were just like, I'd like I said, I love a road trip. And we were just like kids just bombing it across the, these four. It's perfectly fine and legal to go there. and yeah, we were just driving, ⁓ having a good time and it's kicking up so much dust behind us. we were just playing with each other, driving around, ⁓ and just enjoying the vast expanse of nothing. ⁓ and yeah.

played around until we picked a decent spot to camp for the night. And, ⁓ yeah, we, we, we set up camp, like we had a Frisbee. So we played with that for a bit and just waiting for the sun to go down and. my God, the stars. It's like any, like nothing you've seen before in your life. Like you've got the perfect sunset going down right in front of you. ⁓ yeah, we made a fire where we're cooking.

yeah.

Unrivaled. Yeah.

Um, cooking burgers and just cracking beers. And it's just one of those times in your life. That's just like, everyone needs to do this. This is, this is your side. Everyone watching or listening to get the crew together and go camping in Botswana in the salt flats. Cause yeah, not only you get in like just the cleanest view of the Milky way you've ever seen, but then stars, like I've never seen stars to the horizon. Like I've seen that it was, it was absolutely insane.

⁓ and then just, yeah, like a real once in a lifetime experience. And then to wake up there as well with nothing wrong and just to be like, we are just in the middle of Africa right now. nobody really knows where we are. It's just us, we're hanging out. and you're just camping out there in the middle of it, ⁓ was unreal. So that, that was a big highlight of Botswana as well.

Sounds incredible. What time of year is this? guess weather does play a part,

Uh, yeah, we went in, um, September, October time, um, around about there, which we, which we picked to be, um, good for, cause you want to get, you want to kind of time it with your game viewing, right? If you're, that's you want it Um, so yeah, like there is, um, there's like, cause there's, there's rainy season and then not rainy season. And then it can be quite confusing cause you, want to go, um, you don't want to go when it's fully wet and you think like.

Cause when there's a lot of water and a lot of rivers and there's a lot ⁓ of grassland everywhere, all over, then animals are super spread out. They grow wherever they go back to their territory. And it's very hard for game viewing. ⁓ You go in the slightly drier season ⁓ and it's a much more condensed region where everything is going to be. And you just, we got, I mean...

Our driver, our guide had a saying, what nature provides, you will receive. And that kind of came up. Never know what you're going to see. If anyone's not been or done a safari before, you do have to go with an open mind because you can't just expect to see things. It's not a zoo. It's not whatever. Like whatever you see that day is what you see. And sometimes nature doesn't provide it, but my God, nature provided for us. We got very lucky with.

course, yeah yeah

with what we were seeing. ⁓ and yeah, we were just, we were giddy. think that's the best word with it. would giddy with excitement about what you can see. yeah, October, September, October, definitely a good time to go, ⁓ for everything. Yeah. Not, not too hot, not too cold. Like it definitely dipped at night, which was quite nice. So you get a good night's sleep and then during the day windows down or just crank a little bit of AC in the truck and you'll be fine, but really, really perfect weather. So yeah, I'd highly recommend that time of year.

sounds incredible on the list. Okay. I'm going to dip into Zimbabwe. You went to Vic Falls, which is an iconic, iconic thing to see.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So yeah, that was kind of like the kind of, guess, end point before we to just turn around and double back on ourselves. ⁓ yeah, we, we had, ⁓ yeah, quite probably the most interesting, border crossings I've ever done in my life. We went up and, ⁓ we're like, am a friend of ours, Mikael, he's like, I know a good one. It's nice and quiet.

Okay.

So yeah, we get to the border crossing and this was after the night in the salt flats actually. So we had, we had cracked into a few beers and a little bit of wine. Um, well, so a lot of people were actually feeling quite ropey this day and a little bit hung over because it was very cheap wine. So that was cool. I feel fine. I haven't really been drinking much. So I'll drive. We go to the border. Um, now bear in mind a lot of the guys I went with, work in tourism. We're supposed to be professionals at traveling.

Um, we get to the border, no one's got any cash and we just kind of assume that we'll hard maybe. Um, and the guy's like, no, no, no, like you ought to pay, you have to pay everything in cash. we were desperately trying to get together. Um, and then we're, we're from all over the world. So, um, Michael's trying to pay in Aussie dollars. Isaac's trying to play in Canadian. Um, and Mikael's trying to pay in Rand. I've got some pounds and just everything. We're like, collectively, is this enough to

to pay for the board. I was like, no, was like, you got to go back to town, which is like a 20 minute drive away. And we're just like, Oh, how have we not thought that I thought ahead. Like, I'll drive back into town where the nearest ATM is we go back into town. get out and more, more than enough money come back to the border crossing. And I get there and everyone's just looking at me I'm like, what? And he's like, how much money did you get? And I was like, well, I got.

the amount that he told us, whatever it was. And he's like, he's just informed us. have to pay the tax on the vehicles as well. I was like, well, didn't, I didn't get enough money out for that. So I had to drive back into town again, come all the way back here and do that. It was just like, it was one of those laughable moments that we really just wanted to get over the border. And just driving back and forth in like no man's land between Botswana and Zimbabwe. When we did get across the border, the road again, just kind of stopped.

And we're on a day for miles and miles. Just seeing the odd giraffe go past and things like that. So yeah, that was certainly an interesting crossing. But yeah, we did ultimately get to Victoria Falls, which is, yeah, it was amazing. Probably one of the more, as you can imagine, a bit more built up, a little bit more catered towards tourists being over there. So that was incredible to go and see. And again, a good time of year. If you want to go and see the falls.

Okay.

because it can be very much one way or the other, lots and lots of water coming over and you're going to get a lot of spray, kick it up. You're not actually going to see a huge amount and you probably will get drenched or very much dry season where you're not seeing a huge amount of water actually coming off. We saw probably about in the middle, which was a good amount of time a year to go.

Okay. Awesome. So that's plenty of inspiration for that road trip. I keep saying this, but that is actually on our list as well. That road trip you just did there. Yeah. Maybe a Botswana Zimbabwe. I got a friend who owns a game preserve in Zimbabwe. So he's going to see him. used to work with him. Well, live with him in Australia. So he loves his animals. that's kind of, that belt is on the, on the list. South Africa as well, which you went to, which is, looks incredible as well. Yeah.

Yeah, know. Yeah, he had a few days in South Korea before Mongolia.

crazy. Okay. And what about the last part of the show, Lost in Paradise? So tell me, this is new since I last spoke to you. So what is the concept? What is the product? And what do want to tell people why they may want to get to know it and where they can find it as well?

Yeah, absolutely. Lost in paradise is something that, ⁓ you know, I kind of had in my head for, for a long time and it was, it was going to be a variation of different things. ⁓ and, yeah, it always kind of changed my mind. knew I wanted to give back to the travel community in some way. It's something that I've always been involved in. Travel has just been a huge part of my life. ⁓ in a, personally and professionally, ⁓ I've worked in travel. I've worked in tourism for the best part of 10 years now.

⁓ and it's something that throughout my time in that it's, ⁓ I, it's, yeah, I, see a recurring problem come up every now and then. And it was fully triggered, actually earlier this year, January 1st. I was with actually a lot of the crew that I did, ⁓ Namibia Botswana with, we went to Budapest. ⁓ had a New Year's Eve. having a great time. And, we come home from, from the club three, four o'clock in the morning.

⁓ to, find someone in our Airbnb, ⁓ kind of ransack into place. yeah, ran away. ⁓ luckily didn't get away with too much, just a friend of mine's bag. Unfortunately, one of her, was her first time sort of traveling. ⁓ so we spent January 1st, running around trying to deal with police, trying to organize everything that she'd lost, which was obviously, you can imagine, bank cards and documents. And, ⁓ unfortunately her passport.

wow.

Um, in, in, uh, the bag as well. we're running around this next day, all our travel plans have been completely thrown out the window. We're trying to deal with embassies. We're trying to call home. We're trying to deal with the rest of their trip because they would use travel a lot more of Europe. the main like bank cards we can deal with, that's not a big deal. We can cancel them. She's got them on her phone. Um, a few other things, not the end of the world, but I was like, getting the passport back was.

the main problem here. and I was just wondering around like this, this just seems ridiculous to me that with the technology we have now, why do we not have a way to track a passport? Why can't we our most important travel document that we all freak out about and there's like, where's your passport? Where's your passport? Have you got your passport? Like how many times do we check it when we're at the airport? How many times do you check it before you leave home? ⁓

So I was like, we need a way, we need to find a way to track this. So what I've done is, um, I've created a, a passport wallet, um, that has GPS capabilities in it. Um, just here as it happens. Uh, so branded quite nicely with, uh, yeah, a map on a compass lost in paradise on the back. Um, and yeah, fits fits all your travel documents there. So

sorry.

This is something that, I'm, ⁓ and again, in the industry that I'm in, ⁓ I work with travelers, from all over the world in the travel company that I work for. And at least, at least once a month, if not more, ⁓ we have someone that will have lost or misplaced or, ⁓ the password's gone missing or it's got damaged. And I'm just like, look, this is, this is a problem that.

Um, is easily solvable. Um, and one that, um, yeah, I think everyone should, should consider having just like, as you do have travel insurance, this is a way to ensure your passport stays safe and you can find it. Um, so yeah, it connects, um, at the moment it only works with iPhones, but you can connect it straight to your iPhone. works with the Find My iPhone app. Um, and it will remind you if you have,

If you've left it behind, if you've lost it, it shows up on your phone. can track it. ⁓ it can make, you can make it make a noise, ⁓ in case, you can't find it in your bag or, you've lost it in a dark hotel room or you've lost it down a, down a street or a back alley somewhere there. ⁓ yeah, this is, ⁓ this is something that I'm really excited about.

Yeah, that's kind of blown me a little bit. Yeah. Blown my mind. Yeah. I don't really understand. Maybe it's a compliance thing. think like that our passports nowadays, they can go through those scanners, right? In the airport. I guess if they start tracking where the airport goes, I know they can see it entry and exit. I get that. But I guess if they start tracking your every movement, that could cause a few problems. But you're right. If you lose your passport, it's a nightmare. It's actually one of the reasons why it sounds extreme.

I'm now a citizen in Canada, so I've got two passports. I'm like, if I ever lose one, I've got a second one to fall back on. And it's a real legitimate issue, right? Like you say, people ran sack in your bag, in your bag, you just lose it. It happens. And I think the admin that requires to get that back or get a document or a permit to go on or back home, it just seems like a crazy nightmare. I don't want to go through that.

Yeah, a lot of people I've seen trips just get disrupted. yeah, you apply for emergency passports. You got to go home. ⁓ and yeah, you just got to change so much. Like, mean, even buying a new passport now in the UK, think what, hundred and 160 quid, 170 quid maybe. ⁓ and then, yeah, you've to get travel insurance involved. Yeah. And not only that, you know, for the, financial loss of it, ⁓ not to mention the time off work, the money you've saved and.

Scandalous.

everything for a potential disruptive trip. Now in that particular instance in Budapest, have passport did actually get found. It got found about a week later, two blocks away. So it wasn't far. So the person had a glove in their bag. you know, they don't have a huge, you know, unless you're a mastermind criminal or organized crime, probably, her passport is not good to the common thief. So they just discard it.

We could have easily tracked that with this wallet and found it straight away and possibly even still tracks the thief of doing that. Now, of course, passports need to be removable. yeah, it's not the most protected potentially against theft, but it is quite a subtle design. No one's going to know that the passport is trackable, but it's more for your sort of day-to-day people leaving it in the hotel safe. Maybe it's falling out of your bag or putting it somewhere. It's very easily.

very easily found again.

That's great. And can you tell the listeners and viewers where they can find that and where they can buy it?

Yeah, absolutely. So you can find us at lostinparadise travel.com. The website's set up and ready to go. ⁓ And yeah, we're due to that. We're taking pre-orders now, which has been great. The first shipment is on its way to the UK as we speak ⁓ and should be launched fully in time for Christmas. ⁓ So yeah, you can grab them on lostinparadise.com.

lostinparadise travel.com. And then we'll soon be set up on places like TikTok shop. And you can of course follow our socials on Instagram, lostinparadise travel on Instagram as well.

And does that shit worldwide at the minute?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I can send all over. yeah, hopefully I'm in time for Christmas and I can get orders out depending on where they go. ⁓ But I'm very happy to ship worldwide, no problem.

Great. I'll put the links in the show notes so people can access that. That's a great product. I didn't expect to hear that today. So that's a nice surprise. kudos to you for getting that going. Cause I think there's actually, you know, so many products are there and you think they're nice, aren't they? Like nice to have. This is actually a need. I think people need this. So this is a, this is a cool thing you've done here.

Yeah, I mean, I see people just with passport wallets all the time and especially our British ones, you know, the gold scratches off so easy ⁓ and it comes away on the front cover. It sort of protects that keeps it safe as well. So yeah, yeah, it's pretty, pretty cool design key and you keep everything in there as well. So yeah, what I'll try and do, I'll have to, I'll leave you one in Bangkok for when you arrive and then you get in and have a feel for it. And yeah, try it out. Let me know what you think. I'll be, happy to get your feedback, James.

Oh, yeah. That'd be a pleasure. Yeah. Absolutely. Why not? Yeah. That'd be very kind of you. Yeah. Appreciate it. Okay. Mark, it's been great to see you again. And it's been a while, probably too long, actually. I enjoy speaking to you. You've got lots of great stories. You speak really well and you travel a lot, which is my kind of guy really. So I appreciate you coming back on the podcast. Thanks for asking to come back on. It's my fault for not asking you back on. And next time I'll get you on for another chat from wherever you've been on the world.

man yeah and that sounds good yeah definitely um yeah we'll make it work somewhere sometime we'll actually catch up for a beer um because yeah i think uh could be a lot of fun so no it's been a pleasure i appreciate you having me back um and yeah appreciate your time

Cheers, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

Alright mate, take it easy.

Thanks for tuning into the podcast episode today. If you've been inspired by today's chat and want to book some travel. ⁓

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