Ep 166 – Meet Chris + Ellen – The Art of Spontaneous Travel + Apear (The New Sustainable Travel Accessory)

First time ever we've talked about this for a while, but we're making a physical product and we are making a travel blanket for travelers by travelers. I mentioned before, I'm passionate about sustainability. So it's made out of sustainable material. It's made out of bamboo. We've talked to all our traveler friends and we're like, okay, I'll tell you what do you guys want in a blanket? Okay. Sustainability, super soft, not too hot, not too cold. Like the fleeces, it also packed down super small. So like that was super, super small to pack down and it comes a little baggy. It has net clips.

pop around your neck to like clip in. It has a little hidden zipper pocket to keep your passport and your thing is and it doubles as a scarf and a shawl. you pop it around the neck. All three use because travelers we love. It's reversible. at that. So four different uses blanket, shawl, scarf, sarong and then you double it because it's a eight in one travel blanket with travel bag. Welcome to the Winginit Travel Podcast with me, James Hammond.

Every Monday I'll be joined by guests to talk about their travel stories, travel tips, backpacking advice and so much more. Are you a backpacker, got to be a student or simply someone who loves to travel? Then this is the podcast for you designed to inspire you to travel. There'll be stories to tell, tips to share and experiences to inspire. Welcome to the show. Hello and welcome to this week's episode where I'm joined by my friends Chris and Ellen, a traveling YouTube couple based in Asheville in the US of A.

Today we're going to talk some of their favorite places to travel, their travel philosophy, how to combine travel with a YouTube account, and how to utilize platforms to stay in place for free. Like a mansion they mentioned to me in France for six months whilst at TravelCon. I'm sure more topics will come up as we talk. Guys, welcome to the show. How are you doing? Hey, how's it going? Doing great here. Yeah, I'm not too bad. Where are you right now? We're home in Asheville. Now we just got back last week. I think, it's been a week. We got back from the Olympics in France. Still jet lagged. Yeah. Really?

Yeah, usually West is best, but like it's hit me hard this time. I think coming back from Europe to USA is quite difficult. Going there is okay. That's what I find. Yeah. I appreciate the sunrises. They're new. Can you explain to my European or actually worldwide listeners where Asheville is in USA?

Yeah, so it's in the Appalachian Mountains and on the East Coast of the US. That's usually how we describe it to our European friends. And then we show them a picture of the Llewage Parkway and then they suddenly get it, you know. But yeah, and the Appalachian Mountains, they're the same stretch back in Pangaea when they're all connected. So Scotland, Ireland, the mountain range, it was all connected. our mountains are the I think the oldest one of the oldest mountain ranges. like one point zero six eight billion years old. Other grandpa mountains are actually shrinking. So we're very proud.

I see on TikTok a lot about the Appalachian area. is all the stuff true? Is it all made up with the spooky women walking around at night and some random people? A lot of history. And there's definitely people making money on ghost tours here. Yeah, will say that Asheville is a very hippie city. we live in a very artsy hippie city in the mountains. so there's definitely a lot of that.

A lot of those myths run. If you talk to someone who's born and raised here, then they will say, like, listen, you know, and the mountains, be careful. really? So, mean, the story, the story of Asheville, at least what I've heard is we're all drawn here by the crystal that's underneath the city. Yeah. So there's a bunch of different reasons why people move to Asheville. Right. OK, there's that. We love the city because it's got like we all like we have friends who've moved here from lot of places and we usually say like, it punches above its weight like a small city. But like.

gets massive musicians. We saw a Bon Iverian concert here, really great folk artists and amazing art and history. so it's a small city that's got a lot going for it. Okay. And someone told me randomly that it's hip. It's quite a bit of a hipster city. Is that fair? Fair comment? Yeah. Definitely a hipster city. We have a whole art district where there's murals and graffiti and well-executed graffiti.

There's also workers and glass artists and potters and like all different kinds of mediums of art. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like she said, the music as well. And I think we're the number one beer city as well. sorry. Number two, because Portland's lost population. So now they have more per capita than we do. But aside from losing population population, saying how to be.

But yeah, a lot of beer, mostly because there's a river that runs through the city and a of waterfalls and a lot of spring water and natural water. So yeah, beer city and then just hiking. And so I think that that combination of like beer, hiking, art, like probably equals hipster. Yeah, you can't get too close. What defines hipster? I've noted. We actually have a, I mean, the last thing left is a coffee scene, right? So we have a coffee library that we go to and we have a selection of beans and we just like...

select our bean choice for the week, fill up our little container, take it to go and we make our espresso. It's really pretentious. That sounds a bit of a dream to be fair. Yeah. It's awesome. When you come visit, we'll take you. I've got to go. That reminds me of, I don't know you've been to Venice or not. Have you been to Venice? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, in the main part of Venice, know, not the actual, you know, where all the streams and the walkways are. There's a back alley, sort of at the back where the locals are. There's a cafe. can't remember what was called because my talent is shy as well.

but they have beans on the wall and you can literally buy, I think it's a hundred varieties of beans or you can take an espresso and taste it. I think it's about a hundred, 150 on the wall about a euro each. That's amazing. I have a taste. Yeah. of espresso each. That's dangerous. She'll probably send you what it is because that is incredible in terms of visit. I would love that. They define trendy cause they only open from nine to 1pm. That's it. They're closed rest of the day.

Yeah, Italians have a specific way of doing things and they don't shy away from keeping the code. Yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right. Asheville was on my list. I'll visit. Okay. Brilliant. Did you both grow up from there? Is that where you're from or did you grow up somewhere else? Yeah, I I grew up between Oklahoma. I was born in Oklahoma and then when was 10, we moved to North Carolina, so Raleigh area. Like my whole family, all my whole family is in North Carolina. So not Asheville per se, but in Raleigh area.

Yeah, I grew up in Hollywood, Florida, then Orlando for 10 years and LA for a bit for queer and then Tulsa for a bit. We traveled around for a year and a half and then now Asheville. OK, and what brought you to Asheville? We had friends here and then we had been visiting.

pretty often visiting our friends here like once a year for like five, six years. And we both had always loved the city. He came and visited. When did he first come and visit? Pretty sure it on the road trip. I think we'll hit on later, but like it was, yeah, when I was a kid, when I was like 10 or 11 years old and it was just gorgeous. You know, from Florida, everything's flat here with those mountains blazing hot every day. Here it was temperate. It's like the world can exist in a better place.

I had always loved Asheville because I loved the artsy city and I love the mountains but I don't love snow. We only get one day, two days of snow year. We'd always loved it. Then we just decided why are we waiting? We kept talking about, one day we'll move to Asheville, maybe down the line, the future, whatever. We had just been putting it off. I don't know why. think in our minds we felt like we're not ready for that kind of happiness or something.

that you have that flagellation. Not good enough. I don't know. And a lot of thinking like we were coming from Tulsa right before this. And it was a four hour drive to anything that were resembled. Mountains nature. To be around. There's prairies, which is a lot of slack line. Not we love hiking. Yeah. Like they had Turkey Hill, which is about the size of a garbage heap. And, you know, so it really Asheville was wonderful. It's closer to our families and stuff. So it was a really good, a good make. It's well triangulated for our family.

And how did you guys meet? met through in college. I went to college in Florida. And then my roommate, well, we met on Skype, really, like back in the day. My roommate was friends with him in high school and she was on a Skype call with him and then kind of got looped into the conversation and we met that way. And then I went home for her with her for a weekend and that's what we met in person. Trick or treating Halloween. Romance.

Yeah, I got the treat. Boom. That's the highlight. Yeah, that's that's going on social media. is. Yeah, so we've been together since I was 19 years 20. So we've been together 13, 14 years. wow. That's long time. And separately, before we get stuck into current travels, were you both traveling as a family? Were there any trips maybe when you're younger, which may be enlightened, the wanderlust? For me, like I so my family, again, from Florida.

But we went to like Busch Gardens and Disney World and that was our trips like growing up. But we would go camping and stuff and then canoeing down rivers and stuff. But our big trip, we took a trip from like Hollywood floor, like around Miami, and we drove through Georgia, through Mississippi, you know, all the way across to Nevada and then back. We would do three days of camping and then a hotel to shower off and then three days of camping and shower the hotel, a shower office. We went did that all the to the Grand Canyon.

And then back and that was life changing. was like discovering Asheville. That was seeing the Grand Canyon. That was seeing Colorado and the Rockies. That was seeing the vast nothingness of Arizona and Texas. And it was just, it was really impactful because I had never seen anything outside of Florida before. I had never seen snow. I was up in the

top of the Colorado Rockies and it's all snow for the first time in the middle of summer in July. And it was really, really cool to just see the expanse of the U.S. and everywhere I went, I fell in love with Silverton, I fell in love with Asheville, I fell in love with all these different places because they're so different than my upbringing. And it did like change my world. That was fun. Wow. And Ellen? So we grew up taking like normal family trips too. mean, like

You know, we would most of our trips involved like going from Oklahoma to North Carolina to visit family. But my parents actually, they traveled a lot in college. My parents both went to Eastern Europe before like the wall fell. And so they had a lot of photo albums of their travels, like when they were in their 20s. And I remember like looking at their photo albums and just being like, wow, there's like a different world out there. And so for me, I think it was more just like wonder less just from like my parents travel stories. Yeah.

and wanting to experience that for myself. I don't remember a time when I didn't want to travel. Okay, cool. Mostly just because I had looked at those photo albums and then I just loved reading. I read classics of Heidi in Switzerland or all the different classics from all around the world and I loved reading stories about that. So yeah, the first chance that I got, I mean, started writing in college. As you told me, lived for a childhood that like...

Freddie the Frog and like when he travels around obscure, obscure, deep reference. He went to the Eiffel Tower. All these things. We went there. It's all the epitaphs. It's like Freddie the Frog. What on earth is this? I I know. I started playing together these things. It's like, like my favorite movie, like my favorite books. Like they were all like your major in college travel. And I didn't really realize it at the time. That's amazing that you got to see your parents traveling. I guess that would have been like eighties. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That is

a time, kind of think 80s and 90s, that'd be pretty cool time to travel because you're kind of not too far in the past. There's a bit of technology coming in, there's a bit of ease coming in with short haul flights, but also not before smartphones, right? So there's a bit more traditional, right? Those stories I kind of get a bit nostalgia about even though I don't really have any myself because I'm not old enough. But I don't know what you guys think about that. exactly. I think that

On our very first trip to Europe, we didn't get the eSIM cards or anything like that. We didn't have any internet, we also weren't working. So it was like the closest I feel like we could have gotten to that. We only logged into Wi-Fi when we got back to the hotel or Airbnb at night. was a dream. We've done that fondly. like, man, that was nice.

We should try to do that again, but it's so difficult. think I don't know. a couple of reasons. I think it gives room for boredom, which is critical for digestion from memory digestion. If you want to process what you're experiencing, you need boredom to digest it. Right. They gave us a of that and also like

You might be able to log on Facebook or something, right? But very rare. So that six months was so raw. got to speak out. I wonder if we lose that ability to connect with people on a real granular level on the street, because now you don't need to ask anyone. You can just go on your phone, right? But then you do have to like ride the scam. Are we going to get scammed? If not, who's telling the truth? You really have to work out like who's genuine. Yeah, that's true. That's It's part of the fun, but it's also a bit of a skill, isn't it? Yeah.

I've seen a few recently of like these trending videos of people like trying to prove that, know, you can still go and travel without having a plan and like show up and talk to someone and book a place. I'm like, man, that sounds nice. And I think like I would maybe want to try that a little bit. I don't know. Yeah. Just like taking a little bit of that and a little bit of the surprise factor. know, yeah. You think about it. I'm sure in your own travels, like winging a travel podcast like like some of the best memories are when you just wing it, like when you just kind of.

happen to find yourself in a weird circumstance that you couldn't plan for that comes from just serendipity, you know? Yeah, yeah. I'm going to try and recreate that in November when I go to El Salvador, right? It's to be awesome. I'll to the fire check.

I do know eSIM. Okay. Yeah. So I'll be, I'll be cut off apart from wifi. Yeah. Debate in that. And yeah, I think I'll get content, but I don't want to rely on Google to, or AI to navigate me. So I'm going to try and go local recommendations or like hostel hotel recommendations. Where to go next. Cause I don't know much about the country. So I think it might be quite nice to travel that way. We'll see. That'll be fine.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to watching your stories and probably post it after the fact. But yeah, yeah. If you see me post and I failed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. After a day. Yeah. Yeah. Look forward to that trip. That should be good. Okay. We're going to delve into some travel. Perfect. We've talked about the history, how you kicked off your little travel careers as well. Also got some places here, places one, two, three. You haven't given me any places, so we're going to, we're going to that section, which is cool.

I want to know what type of traveler are you? you stingy like me? a budget backpacker? Are you mid-range? Are you luxury? Or, yeah, how would you describe yourselves? I think I'm going to give the annoying answer and say a little bit of both. Because like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so like, but like, okay. Okay, but to be fair, we travel cheaper than most people. We do. Like, we're not staying at five-star hotels. We're not. We're not.

Spending six thousand dollars on a ball of champagne. Most of the time I'm even paying for lodgings. Right. You're using points for me. I don't mind spending things when it's worth it. I think worth it is the key. Right. So I'm not going to get I like enjoying good experiences. I don't like getting robbed. You know, so even like in the States, I'm not paying seventy dollars at a restaurant here in the States for a French bottle of wine I can get for four years. And, know, it's not happening. Yeah. So budget like is on the mind persistently for me, annoyingly so.

But I'm not going to sacrifice a good experience that always costs that money. Switzerland, always expensive. So you might as well just work it out. It's not getting cheaper. We're not afraid of spending money, but also we're not going to get robbed. Yeah. I think that we were budget travelers when we were traveling full time. Just because you're living your life, basically, is just you're traveling while living your life. So I would say we were budget travelers in that sense because we're always traveling and that's where our budget's going.

Now that we're taking less trips, do find myself like, and we still travel three to six months a year, but I still find myself like now I'm like, you know, like we've always wanted to go to Switzerland and go, we love hiking and we've never gone during the summer because it's the most expensive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear you. But very much, you know, winter or like off season travelers. Exactly. We're nearly religiously against summer travel.

Same. I'm exactly the same. But we don't ski, so every time we've been in New York, like, well, we guess we can't go to hike in the Alps. So that was just one of those things that we should spend money on these bucket list trips for us. And in the sense that it's not going to get any cheaper to go to Switzerland or something like that. Right now we're talking about going to Japan and stuff like that, where it's some places and some things that we want to do with these bucket list moments. It's not going to change.

So now that we're traveling a little bit less, think we can do little bit more with that. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting because I had the same philosophy off season really only. I don't really like going in summer or Christmas. Even Easter is a bit of a nightmare. I looked at Japan the other day, Easter, the flights from two weeks to before Easter to in Easter, it's like a grand difference from here. So I'm not sure what's going on, that's birthday. So I think it's like 10th, 11th of April next year to the Easter weekend. So yeah.

If you're listening, you want to go to Japan, don't go then. But actually when you travel, do you work whilst you travel on the road or are you saving work when you get home like now in Asheville? How do you mitigate your careers? Yeah. So I work a normal job. I mean, normal. I work remotely. So I work nine to five remote job, but I do have a four day work week. So yes, I work in advertising and I take...

vacation like normal, but I do work most of the time when we're traveling because I don't have three or six months of vacation, you know? So I'm working most of the time and then we just pick like, you know, when I want to have like a proper vacation is what we call it. Like this is like a proper vacation. Like Switzerland, I took the vacation time or like last year when we were in Greece and like I took the vacation time. So it's like a normal 10 day period or something like that. But otherwise, if we're in Europe, I'm working three to 11.

PM, so I East Coast time. So it's either two to 10 or three to 11 generally. Yeah. Or four to midnight sometimes. But yeah, I East Coast time. And so that's a big reason why we haven't gone to Asia because the working time period is not completely compatible with East Coast time. And we...

We love long-term travel. like going to Japan for a week kills us. You know, yeah. But like we've also come to terms with like, hey, like we've wanted to go to Asia for a long time and we haven't gone because we're like not okay with going for a week or two weeks. And we're like, that's still better than nothing. We're making a worth it this time. Going to the world's fair in Japan. like, yeah. So yeah, we're just kind of when we're traveling, I'm working most of the time and that's, you know, we're long-term travelers. And then you work.

Yeah, so I'm more of a freelance worker. have a I am a weird case. I'm a film composer. So I write for reality TV shows and documentaries and films, whatever comes up. A lot of my stuff just comes from royalties and different payments. So I am here. I used to write on the road. It was a bit of a nightmare because my keyboard was like like this. Like a mini keyboard. to be inspiration. Yeah. Yeah. A mini, keyboard. That's a big reason why we got fat. Don't blame you. Yeah.

usually making content or editing content or whatever needs to be done. And how's your composing going? Because last time I saw you, showed me an album that gets quite decent royalties, right? So yeah, yeah, yeah. How's it going? So I'm working on a second one now. it's okay. It's like an autumn variation of this thing. So it's like it's a lo fi campfire thing. Imagine just got off a hike and you're like sitting in the campfire, like relaxing. You don't listen to classical music. You don't listen to like hip hop lo fi. You want like some acoustic.

Vibe Lo-Fi. So that's what I'm working on now. actually working with the Arts Asheville, like the artist grant community here. he's giving a grant to make the album. That's great. He's going be working with local artists. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be like a folky Appalachian sounds mixed with Lo-Fi. And I'm using all Appalachian instruments. I'm using banjos and fiddles. I'm even using the synths I'm using are made right here in Asheville from the Moog factory down the street. I got a couple Moogs with my realtor. I need get on to the Vancouver Grants Commission so I can get some. Yeah, check it out.

I need to come back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That is true. Can I can I black that not being Canadian? I don't know. Okay. And when you're traveling, could be Asia could be Europe, all of America, is there any activities that you have to include amongst your travels? So for me, an example would be, I would go to an independent coffee shop and try to coffee that be a guarantee. Is anything like that for you guys?

I mean, the first thing I think of is we always I mean, another cliche. Sorry. We always do the walking tours just because it orients us to the city and like it gives us a perspective going in. like probably day one of us being there, we usually as soon as they get up and because the more we know about like the orientation of the city, the history, the culture, what are the positives? What are the like what are the struggles? It kind of just gives us a glimpse of and even like oriented to like the landmarks and why the city is built the way it is. And it kind of gives us some context of where we are. So I think that's the number one thing.

What else do do? Other things, you mentioned the coffee shops, obviously love coffee as well, we do eat local, drink local. I also love thrift stores, so if there's a thrift store around, I definitely go to thrift stores. But also you see what they discard. You're right in culture. I'm very popular, very busy. I'm very popular. I'm very busy my brain and thinking.

No, I love like sustainable clothing. like there stores from around the world and that's my favorite souvenir. So I do that. And then we do love museums. I know I've seen several people recently that are like, I don't love museums or I don't, never go to a museum when I'm traveling. I'm like, you're missing a large portion. Yeah. I don't know. I'm passionate about museums. I love art and art museums. It's a huge thing. I worked in art museums for a little while. They're the, you know, I just think they're holding parts of our history and our culture and

The people that are doing tours in museums are such great resources of telling their stories of the pieces that are there and stuff too. So we usually do research and seeing a museum around in the city if it's possible and we'll definitely stop at a museum. Yeah. And some cities are museums like, know, Pompeii, I'm not going to go to the Museum of Pompeii. I'm going to go to the city of Pompeii. is, yeah, yeah, sure. In some regards, Venice, you know, there is a museum. yeah, I think we went to like the Doge's Palace. Like there's like things that's like, I don't know.

We usually say there's things that you need to do on your first trip and then there's things you do on your second or third trip. Arlington Cemetery in Normandy, or not Arlington, the American Cemetery in Normandy. You don't need to go to the museum there because the main event is the cemetery. And if you have to sacrifice time, it's that kind of balance. Sounds like Belgium. Yeah, exactly. I mean, they've got cemeteries everywhere, right? I remember going on a history trip there with us, school, and we're like, we are studying history and we would get it and we love it.

The 10th one, do we need to go to another one or? that's true. Yeah. Exactly. controversial saying it, but it's got to be asked, right? It's true. Yeah. I mean, I think in Normandy, we go back there quite often because we have friends there, but we don't, you we don't go to the D-Day sets every time because we've been there multiple times, you know? So it is like, it's the thing that once you've been there a few times, like there's different levels or layers of travel and repeating visits to places. Yeah. I had a bit of a shocking moment actually last week when I was in DC. So I do love a good museum. So I went to

George Washington's mansion at Mount Vernon. And I'm sorry, American listeners. had to Google on way there. Yeah. Was he the sixth or seventh president? I don't know. shit. shit. Not the forehand. In the Uber on the way there. Yeah. Yeah. was like, he's the first. so bad. Like, and I thought Abraham Lincoln was like next, but he's like way down the line. He's like, crikey. King Alfred, we know your first king.

We Alfred Eckbert We like history is John in there somewhere is John somewhere is definitely several Yeah, yeah The early ones no one really knows I don't think they're into it. Yeah, we watch Vikings. That's our excuse Okay, no history podcast for me. I brought that one out. Okay. Yeah, I love that So that I think what you're explaining as well. I love the fact you said the first time I agree. I think the first time especially major city

Get the things ticked off that are major because you've got to see them and tick them off because I think they're the main things. But once you start going two or three times, you can then delve into the, I guess, more local areas. Right. Yeah. And like there's, there's things that are too far off the beaten path for your first time there. Like if you go to Paris and you don't see the Apple tower, like you're missing something. Yes. He's thirsty, but for a reason. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think for. I say that for El Salvador when I land in San Salvador, I think you said the free walking tour. That's the first thing I'm doing. I think I get in the late.

And next one, I'm straight on it because I need to know what this place is about, where things are, a bit of history about it as well. So they're great. They're great as well. Yeah. And when you say free, just to clarify with people, you do tip as well, don't we? Yeah. It's mandatory tip. Yeah. Any sort of rules with how much? Is it 10, 20 % of what you think the cost would be? I don't know how you'd know how much the cost would be though. Yeah. We usually, I mean, in Europe, most of we do...

10 euros for each of us. And then if it was a really, really good guide or they gave us a lot of like some guides have given us like a full Google Maps rep of all the locations to be, you know, or something like that, then I'm like, an extra 10 for that, you know, 20 for the for a couple. Yeah. per person ish. I could be totally wrong. haven't really, kind of think that like that's what I would pay for, like in a museum, a guide kind of thing like that. consider, wait, what's yours? I'm curious.

No, I had 10 in my mind. I think 10 US dollars, 10 euros. Okay. Okay. So we're on the same page. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Okay. That's good to know. And when you travel, is there any thing you like to achieve? So I know you mentioned you get the basics done, but is there something extra that you're really interested in that you might like to try and get ticked off? It could be like a, a tour or even like an extravagant activity, anything like that. think for me, the first thing I think is food. Like of course, try the local dishes, try the local experience and just see like kind of another potential.

What is the terroir of the region? We know way too much. Sorry, French listening. Yay. No, think that as far as extreme, we're not like, we love nature. So anytime there's a nature thing that we can do, if that is a guided hike or even just a day trip somewhere out into nature, we always try to incorporate that. But also most of the places we're visiting, we're visiting because like...

We wanted to see the nature. So it'll be something like that. But that's the side of us where we're not the like splurgy travelers like, man, we probably should have like splurged more on those like hot air balloon rides or something. I don't know. I just like, I'm like, we do the things that we're happy to do. And then we find like off the beaten path stuff, usually because we're staying in places so long. Like if we're staying in a one location for two weeks, like we tend to.

get off the beaten path and do all of the, you random things. And we like looking at like flyers on little telephone poles that say like, hey, there's like in Normandy, there's a grain hall dance at August 6, or April 16. We're like, a grain hall dance in this tiny little town. We have to go or a Celtic festival in the middle of tiny town Normandy.

We have to find out where this is. It's a great memory. Yeah. So we very much like the local events, but like that's, yeah. And you do like look for like local concerts or like, local live events because it's like, what are the people interested in here? Yeah. And that's when we're staying in places for so long. It's like, we're living here. That's what we would do when we're home. Yeah. I tried to add in like one extravagant one. That's not, that's not like thousands of dollars. It's like a of hundred dollars. Right. So an example would be.

for my trip in November, I'm tempted to knit east to Belize. I don't know you've been to Belize or not. And do a flight over the black hole in the water. Yeah, blue hole, yeah. Now I'm not, never going to go into water because I don't do water. But I'm thinking, no, you know what? How cool would it to fly over it? So I'm thinking something like that. I don't know how much it's to cost. Yeah. But it'd be amazing, right? Once in a lifetime almost. Yeah, exactly. Like when we go to New Zealand, I cannot wait to do a helicopter tour around.

the island and see the Lord of the Rings sites. Did the helicopter ride for my birthday. Those extravagant things, like once in a lifetime things. I love those. And we have a list of those things. just think that generally they don't cost too much for us. we'll go like Switzerland was a thing because we were like, we're going to go to these hikes and do this glaciers and stuff like that. know, it's like... It was an extra five euros to ride on top of the little gondola chair. yes.

Wow. Have you been to New Zealand or is that in the future you're talking about? It's my dream. I cannot wait. We met someone on this past trip in Switzerland. She said that she's been all over the world. She's like, I traveled to two places again and again for their beauty. It's right here in Switzerland on this hike. And then it's in New Zealand and South Island. Yeah. So yeah. That is magical. I think I put a thing on my stories every day about someone saying, I think it says I'm like, I'm pretending I'm okay, deep down, that's what getting the flights to New Zealand. That is probably the case most weeks.

because it's magical down there. Yeah. How long you spend there? A year. Worked there for a year. Amazing. Yeah. I think Americans can get the work permit, I think. For how too old? Too old. I had to be like 31. I had an early 30s cut off. Yeah. I thought you were younger. There you go. It's a compliment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We dipped in five years ago, I think, or six years ago. So, yeah.

Yeah, think my advice for South Island, if you can, just camp it. If you're into that, road trip it and camp it. Yeah, I want to do that. That's another thing that's like we need to do and just be okay with going for two weeks. We're always like, we should just go for three months. I'm like, okay, but like practically we need to do, you know? Yeah. So New Zealand and Japan are top two that now that we've decided that we're okay with not going for a month, you know, that's what we're going next. They're always in my top five, those two.

But yeah, we did Lando came where the last line you see like these lines of people walking around the glass here, but we were the last ones up and last ones down. But amazing experience. I think like that. Things like that, like nature exclusivity things are just magical. Like we did a scaling Michael hike. Well, you chickened out. I did a scaling Michael hike.

I gave my ticket to my brother. It's off the coast of Ireland and it's the same like you go on the boat. Sometimes you can't even get onto the island because it's just the waves are too choppy and people have gotten off the boat and gotten crushed between the dock and the boat. Like they only go on like calm days, right? But you go up. It's where the Star Wars films were shot. The latest one. sacred place for Luke Skywalker and stuff. Yes. Yes. That's like you said, the exclusive nature things. I love those excursions.

Yeah. Like Milford Sound and New Zealand as well. 300 days of the year. So you've got to get lucky to get a range. got no rain luckily. Agreed. But that's a heck of a journey down. It's like one road only down there, right? You park up and you just look up hoping for no rain. So that is quite an amazing boat ride through the fjords, right? It goes through the fjords, waterfalls coming down. it's a magical adventure. Yeah. What place? Get me back.

Jealous. Okay. And we're going to delve into some maybe areas of the world that you have traveled to. You mentioned Asia quite a bit. Is that your next concentration in terms of area? Yeah, I think that's our next spot. We've been around Europe a lot and we love Europe, but I think that the next spot we're going to go to is focusing in Asia and New Zealand. Those are the top two places. There's Asia, the region, and then New Zealand, the country. Yeah.

Yeah, and he could take a lot of Asia. Yeah. And he's taken the places or... Yeah. No, he wants to go to I'm just going to Asia. Yeah. He wants to So the terminal stays. His number one place is Japan. Mine is like Vietnam or Thailand. Like both of those are pretty tied, but... Tied. You're welcome. This is a comedy show, not a travel show. No.

And then we've talking a lot about Africa recently too. I don't know. think that like we're just... We're all over the place. Africa's pretty big. We're going to Asia and Africa. That's where we're going. cool. We heard you talking about Senegal in your last episode. Yes. It sounds amazing. Like I've seen some beautiful pictures and then we've also talked to a friend who went to South Africa and we have some friends who are South African.

And we're like, I'm that we need to go to South Africa, you know? Tanzania was on my podcast. Senegal was on twice. I'm like, man. I feel for you. Like the struggle, like hearing these stories all the time. It's like half jettison. I'm like half into it and half, fuck you. Like you've been there, you've been there. That's amazing. It's all right if you can travel all the time, but like you say, we've all got jobs and we've got to pay for it. Yeah. Maybe one day you don't have to. Let's see.

Okay, so place number one, I don't know what's coming, so I'm going to wing this little bit. Where's one place you'd like to talk about that you've traveled to or maybe it's one of your favorites? So the places that we travel to the most and know the most about, let's say the country of France, we go to a lot, like at least a month a year, pretty much. And then Scotland is like the place that we, let's say we're in Europe and we're like, hey, what's a place we want to go to for a few days or a week? And we're like, huh, it's always Scotland.

so we go to Scotland quite a bit and then other places around, like, I feel like we kind of bounce around from there. third place is just like, it's a buffet of Italy and... Usually like our go-tos would be like, yeah, we've been all over Italy. have, we have been too far south. It's still on the list, but around Italy quite a few times around different areas of Spain, always love Spain. And then we also always love like the English countryside and stuff too. So like, those are like our kind of our like go-to spots when we're like,

in Europe and we're like, okay, you know, we have a couple of weeks in between house sits or something like that. Where are we going to go to fill it in? Yeah. You mentioned before about like, what are some things you love to do? Like when you're in a place and the right to roam in England is amazing. I love the right to roam and like the ability to walk from a cute little town to another cute little town to have a go into a pub and have a Sunday roast. Yeah. That's charming. I love that. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think like like voyaging from one town to like a trap, like traversing from one town to another by walking is just like magical. I love it. I feel like I'm in a video game. This is what we were to say as I'm from England, but I haven't really traveled that much in England. So I need to literally travel what you said. I need to probably pick a county. I probably pick some like Dorset or Cornwall, maybe Devon somewhere southwest. My own county of Norfolk, maybe. And just walk it. Yeah. Like you say, yeah, just a bit of a walking trip. So of those little villages.

There's always a pub, right? In every village. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do that. love the Cotswolds. mean, the Cotswolds are amazing. And we love like, I think the nice thing about like the house sitting is like, it'll be, you know, I'll see like, a house that pop up for our dates. Like, and usually it's sometimes like if we need a fill in spot or something, it'll be in England. And so like I see a house that pops up for the dates and then I'm like, what's this tiny village I've never heard of. And like, look up the pictures in the county and like, this looks amazing. You know?

And we love walks, so I'm like, great, we get to take a dog with us on these walks, you know? So yeah, that's usually like kind of our go-to. Yeah, I do want to come to the house thing in a bit. I'm coming to that because part of your journey. But I do want to touch on France because I do know you go there quite a bit. So what is it about France that just love? Is it the culture? Is it the food? Is it the wine? Is it the coffee? Is everything? Are there areas maybe? Yeah, I mean, we've...

been around to a lot of areas in France. Like we've have sat in the Southwest and like near Toulouse for about a month or so there and explored that whole region. That was gorgeous and amazing. Amazing food. Yeah. Carcassonne. And two months in the Loire region. Loire. yeah, loved that with all the chateaus and castles. then Normandy, we have friends. So we go back to Normandy quite a bit. So, Normandy. Yeah.

And then we love the Alsace region. So I mean, I feel like every time we discover a new region of France, there's just something that fits with the food, the people, the culture. Sometimes I think that if we're there too long, sometimes we're like, man, our American-ness kind of starts showing and we're like, I'm a little impatient, you know, sometimes.

one of our first house hits is around Normandy. It was in Normandy and it's like it feels like part of my upbringing as a traveler, like part of my first like core memories as a traveler were in Normandy and then spending a month in Normandy as our first part of house sitting was just like it's it's we have friends there and we know I can get around Normandy without a GPS much easier than I can get around Asheville. There's less options as far as roads, but yeah, it feels like home. A second home.

Heya, just a quick one. I just want to say there are many ways to support this podcast. You can buy me a coffee and help support the podcast with $5. Or you can go to my merch store with the affiliate link with T-Public where there's plenty of merch available to buy such as t-shirts, jumpers, hoodies and also some children's clothing. Thirdly, which is free, you can also rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser or Goodpods. Also, you can find me on social media on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

and TikTok. Simply just search for Winging It Travel Podcast and you'll find me displaying all my social media content for traveling, podcast and other stuff. Thank you. For France, what I find interesting, they do intrigue me a lot. I'm sure you're aware of the August rule where they do pretty much have August off. So anyway, I was last week in podcast movement. So I was there and there's a French provider there, hosting provider for podcasts called Alshair, which I'm actually going to go with. Interesting. Breaking news.

But they they'll see the edge in August. Right? So I sat down with their salesperson I think she's called Irene and I said to August we doing I'm supposed to be like on the beach somewhere not working she goes and I can't do a French accent. I can't it. Yes But but business is business is that okay fair enough. So You see not happy about it. She goes. Nope, we shouldn't be here But if the boss says so then we've got to be here right and then as we left

She goes, like, is that? Like Vancouver? I swear I'm from, what is it like? And I said, well, kind of as interesting because you can go to Montreal and, and still speak French and earn a living and live there. Right. She goes, I think it feels better here. I'm like, nah, nah, you got to stay European. Don't go North American ways. Cause you get two weeks off. You won't get August off and you won't get those 12, 30 PM lunches and they like sit down, they close the closed shops. They sit down to have dinner and lunch and it just won't happen. She's like, that's the last thing I said to her.

We found like in France, like they really, really know how to like enjoy life. Yes. Very good at it. As far as their skill points, they have maxed those skill points. That's how to enjoy life. We've learned a lot from like being present in the moment. Yeah. Doing things slowly and just like when we're there, we do find that like this slow pace, like you just kind of get into the groove and you're like, yeah, this is this is nice. know, a way of like, this makes sense and it's nice. And I feel like taking care of like.

as far as a life perspective. From a systems perspective, that's where it gets buggy. Yeah, yeah. That's why we're like, our friends ask us like, when are you going to move to France? And we're like, I don't know. We're very happy going and like spending a month or two there. Yeah. And for a period we thought, maybe we'll move there. But I think that it's one of those things that you learn too much and you're like, person kind of ruins it. Yeah, I think.

We haven't, we've never officially lived there. We've only been there the most was two months at a time. But one person told us that, you know, that you've lived in a place when you find the things you don't like about it. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And if I think that annoy you about it, you've that's when you actually like, and I feel like.

That's like France and like there's so many things I love about this, but I also know myself and I know that like that routine. I just don't know. I'm too much of a night person. But they're all they're all these like like, you know, kind of negative things are saying we still absolutely love the benefits. We just spent them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it is a place that we do constantly go back and it feels like home when you're so familiar with a country like that. Yeah. And how was the Olympics? Amazing. I think that

over all of the things and the signs everywhere and all of the ceremonies and events. I became very patriotic. I'm not normally patriotic like, you know, USA monosyllabic chants, but it really felt natural to represent the USA there. It was quite patriotic and I enjoyed that a lot. And meeting people from all over the world who are there just because of this mutual love of competitive sport and that environment.

So we were at a Kiwi bar, a New Zealand bar, because we went to one watch party that was on the little pamphlet and it says, there's going to be a watch party here, come and it's right near our hotel. Great. I go to the place, locked, the door is locked, found a police officer. Pourquoi fermer? Why is it closed? Pourquoi fermer? And he said, c'est fermé. No, no issue. It's closed. Yeah, and no kidding. Pourquoi?

And so it's like, we go to the other watch party and there's a big screen and there's people all around and there's a big gate with police officers there and there's like room still and they said, full sit down. We to say complete. We're full. I was like, things like that. Yeah. And that was such an amazing experience. The beers in Paris were like 12.

12 euros for a beer. The is for the Olympic. The Kiwi bar was six dollars or six euros for a beer. There we go. Local prices. There we go. But we sat at a table with South Africans. There was Irish people next door. There was some U.S. people. There's Canadian people. Everyone from all over were watching the opening ceremony. A boat would come by. You hear one person cheering for whoever was on there. Yeah. You hear, the whole place erupted like cooperation. So I'm half Puerto Rican. So.

So I see a little Puerto Rico with a couple of athletes on them like, Puerto Rico. And then the South African actually was like, you're from Puerto Rico? like, I'm half Puerto Rican. Puerto Rico! The whole place erupted. was convivial. I loved it. So this is a controversial question. So is, is Puerto Rico their own entity in the Olympics or they part? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're on it. Yeah, they competed separately. They had a basketball team that went in.

They got knocked out. The athletes get to choose. So the athletes could choose if they want to compete for the US or like compete for Puerto Rico. So they get to choose that way. And if Puerto Rico sends that team to the Olympics, over this one, it was basketball. The women's and the men's both qualified. So that's why they had their home vote. It's interesting these little, I guess, I don't know how to say this. They're not officially countries, right? Yeah, the territories. Well, they're countries. They're countries, but not UN recognized countries.

but they still get their own little entity represented at sports, which is quite interesting. I think FIFA would be the same for football. I someone like Chip Rolwell, for example, have their own team and stuff like that. So I do wonder what that means. I guess is that based on yourself on where your roots are and not accepting the territory meaning or the... Yeah, it's an interesting debate and relationship with sport and where you're from because it's not black and white, it?

Yeah, no, that's that's a whole can of worms. Even like, mean, even with the gymnast, there was a whole situation with like a gymnast who was French but competed under and forget the country. But she was on the French team and had disagreement with the coach. And she was like, well, I'm not going to compete under France anymore because her mom was from another country. she competed under that country and won a medal. You know, like I think that like some dynamics that happen in the Olympics like that, that is usually I find very interesting.

Yeah, yeah. 100%. Okay. And I want to touch on Scotland because you mentioned Scotland and it's also a fascination for me because I've never been. Can you believe I've met Edinburgh? No way. Yeah Edinburgh. We love Edinburgh. It's one of our favorite cities. So my question is, where do you go? Do you prioritize the NC 500 at the top or do you go to the Hebrides? Like where do you normally go? So we usually go like West coast. So we like love like around

We've done a Loch Lomond in that kind of area, a little farther north of that. But we have gone farther north and we just kind of prefer, I don't even know, I'm probably saying this in technical terms, but the middle bits. We went up to Inverness, right? And I I was confused as far as I thought the Highlands was going to be. You go to the Highlands and it's like, you know, outlander. And it's not.

Inverness is the plateau, so it's just all flat once you get to the top of the highlands. It's the little hikes and stuff, yeah. But it's the beginning of the highlands. That's what the most contrast is between the lowlands and the highlands, and that's where the most dynamism of landscape is. So for hikes and things that we enjoy, we run there. then we've done several houses. We did a house hit around the walk in that area near Lackaloma, and it's such a much smaller walk on one of the...

one of the many peninsulas that jutting out from the coastline. Big Lake, Yeah, so generally we kind of drive along that coastline and the peninsula and go in and out, and we love that whole area. We also really love Islay, and so we love Islay whiskeys. And then went to Islay and loved, just fell in love with the island in general and the people and talked to people who grew up there and everything, just really cool culture. then like Campbelltown and that area as well, just before you get to Islay.

But as far as like you said, you went to Edinburgh. Edinburgh is one of our favorite cities in the world because it's a mixture between like like gritty, but not too gritty, like not Glasgow gritty. But it also has like academia. Glasgow is so cool too. I don't know. It has like statues to like authors and intellectuals and like that's super cool. And yeah, in Edinburgh and they have like nature, like the parks are there and like actual

proper nature is like really close. Their pubs are amazing. Their architecture is like really like Harry Potter, to be cliche, or like haunted mansion. It's like gothic. Yeah. I don't know. I don't think that there's... We haven't been to another city that's similar to that, like that, on that concentration. Yeah. But the music in Glasgow also, like when we were there, like...

There was a random dandelion festival happening when we were there one time and I was like, this is cool and live music everywhere. The culture and carefree nature of that city is really fun. And it's really easy to make friends. exactly. So we speak the same language. We feel like we're speaking a different language. And also, it's so approachable. People are so approachable that it's just easy to make friends. A lot of times, another thing we do when we go to new place is we try to sit at the bar and try to make friends.

happenstance in sitting at the bar and seeing who talks to us and being open to that. So it's super easy to do that in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Yeah, very contrasting cities, aren't they? Yeah. Bibles really, I think. Yeah. I think every person outside of cities has a favorite. And even though I've not been to Glasgow, I think Edinburgh would still be my favorite. me too. My girlfriend Emma was at Glasgow, so I think we're going to disagree on that one. yeah, yeah, it's an interesting one. But Edinburgh is amazing. I think it's like the

the number one destination in UK, which I think is for backpacking. They have a lot of hostels there. It's a very popular route and it's very popular getting off point there. You get from London to Edinburgh if you train as well. So apart from London, you'll find hostels and stuff. But I think as a condensed place, think Edinburgh is the one that maybe is the most popular backpackers maybe. think. Yeah, that's interesting. I know that it's also expensive, like hotels and everything, very expensive. But yeah, it is like the starting point even just for

like nature backpacking trips and everything going out. Yeah, I think I think like as an American person, if you took a trip over to the Scotland and the highlands and slash, if you started off at Etobroke, had a great experience there, it's like a waiting pool to get into it. then like having that as your as your, you know, first impression, then going with the highlands like what a beautiful memory that becomes. Sometimes. Yeah, I think that a few times.

we've rented a car and driven and we've had like a general destination, but then like while we're in the car and like, Hey, like there's this Highland games happening at this castle. Like let's go spend it. was fun. Shocking rocks and shocking like telephone poles. I can do that. It's needed kilts to compete. Is that kilts? Yeah. Yeah. If you have a kilt, can compete. There was a Hawaiian guy who was like competing, a little scry little thing and he was chucking telephone poles.

Yeah, and it was like Glam's Castle, which I didn't know anything about until we got there. And I was like, this is where like the queen grew up. Like, that's cool. Like, you know, just didn't know anything about it except that there were Highland games there. And there's these sweet little like like girls about this tall. Right. And they were in their little cute little dresses dancing around doing the little Scottish dances and getting a little ribbons. It was precious, man. Yeah. So I think that like

sometimes and also it makes it easier. Like when you speak the same language, kind of happen on those things and figure it out. Like in France, we speak a little bit of French, like enough to get by. But even that, like when we call the make a reservation, like for like the local concerts or something, usually we show up and we're listed as like English. I did a good job. So it is a little bit easier when you speak the same language. It is. Yeah. Even Scotland is technically easier. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to go there.

Yeah, I do wonder what the because I've never really been. I think Edinburgh is too cosmopolitan. So I don't think you get the proper experience. But I do wonder what the Scots reaction is to English people when it's so clearly obvious that you are. So I wonder. Yeah, that's Ireland's the same as well. And have we been into the depths of Ireland or Scotland to test that out? But I mean, I was at a Scottish museum. This might need to be cut out. Trigger warning. Yeah.

Yeah, so I started a Scottish museum and there's this guy that killed and he was like... It was the Edinburgh fortress, the castle museum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had the tattoo and he was like, any questions? like, well, what's the little pockety bits on your kiln? He said, that's my spore and he was like, then we got to talk about the history. And I was like, so you're in the Scottish military. He's like, yeah, I'm in the Scottish. I'm like, so you but you serve under like the UK flag. It's really diving deep. Yeah. So like after all the history of your countries put together, like

that doesn't affect your service, like your desire. he's like, I'm proud. I'm like, that's great. But also they're pretty mean to you before. you know, learning about like Mary, Queen of Scots, we're about the colloaded and the Jacobite revolution, Bonnie Prince, all these things. And I was like, like, you're just going to serve voluntarily as in their army when they beat their meat shield. And he's like, yeah, I'm probably OK, cool.

So we talked about like devolution and we talked about Brexit at the time. And so maybe we can ask these questions because we're American. Yeah. then, but then, but then I introduced my wife and I say, yes, she has heritage too. She's a Campbell. Is there an issue? I wouldn't go saying that again. What's the issue is that Campbell's basically betrayed the Scottish people. So basically there's a rule, like a local rule. If someone comes to you and

Asked for shelter you are required by Scottish law to get shelter. So the Campbell's came and gave them shelter English came in like so they did They because the Campbell's were fighting with the English Yeah, so so they they hold grudges against the Campbell's but apparently not against the English. He was a he he conflicted many times I don't know. So maybe you'll be accepted. Maybe not new history roll the dice history here. I never knew yet I need to say the plans but I didn't realize there's a clan in the Campbell's that kind of trade them

I we've learned that like grudges can be held for centuries. Yeah, like just amazing to me. Yeah. I can see English like you. Yeah, I don't know. But a classic one I don't want to bring up, but as you mentioned it, the classic one in Glasgow is obviously the football, but also religious divide, right? Ranges, so Celtic Irish and Catholic and Ranges, the Protestant and Scottish. British, I should say. But they're both Scottish. So you can be born in Glasgow and you're Scottish at that level. Right.

Hereditary ones Irish and ones British, right? So that's the rivalry even had to both Scottish. It's a strange system. Yeah. I hope we get beyond this soon and I'll get along. That's why we don't like the Olympics. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. The Scots and English are together in the Olympics, aren't they? And the Great Britain. So in football, we're not we're rivals. So that's why it's interesting. Yeah. Okay. And my place three is going to be a question.

on a grassy field with a lake in the background. That's New England. Like a lobster roll. He's talking about Connecticut. He likes Connecticut a lot. Rhode Island, Maine. It's darling. It's precious. It's just like it's a little haven of like, I don't know, seafood and beauty and foliage. It's like a little England. It's a New England. We drove down there last summer on a road trip. came through Maine. think it was Maine.

New Hampshire. Arcadia. Arcadia. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gorgeous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a magical area. Yeah. I do know what you mean because when you drive through those streets, all those villages, the big massive houses set back, the flags all clean and it's quite a nice little area. It is, isn't it? Yeah. You get it. Yeah. I tell him like, I don't know. think that like

Like I was raised in North Carolina and like he was raised like near Miami. So I I think that like it's also like one desire that contrast. We were like, this is like what America, you know, in the history books and the pictures of like old colonial America being raised in like Hollywood, Florida, and stuff. I never experienced colonial America. I just I like old things. And like, I mean, like a seventh century, 17th century problem. Like, this is neat. Yeah. know, like history. Yeah. I think the other places that we really enjoy going back to.

like Washington State and and then nature. All the cascades. mean, yeah, your mountains. Yeah, mean, we're just basically yeah, it's the same mountains and nature you have. But yeah, just like absolutely beautiful that water meets forest is just so beautiful. Yeah, magical. Yeah, exactly. So I think that those areas and then I don't know where else we've we've only been to Utah once but it is like a spot that we want to go back to because it was like

another planet, essentially. I felt like we were on a different planet, like the nature in every, you know, every spot of it just looks totally different. We've yet to go to like the Montana Yellowstone area, so we can't speak to that. That looks epic too. We've been to almost all 50 states. And so there's just a couple more that we're like, we need to like go to like a few little, little, little areas, you know? But yeah, but for me, like, yeah, definitely New England. And also we're massive Gilmore Girls fans, so that's like where it's based off of stuff. I proudly claim this.

Yeah, I was on this podcast. was like, yeah. Yeah. I think also, like every time that we've lived in different parts of the country, we have taken road trips. like because we've lived all over. Classic America. Yeah. Road tripping. Basically. So like when I lived in Springfield, Missouri for three years, every time he'd come and visit me, we had like a five hour radius. So we went pretty much everywhere in the Midwest, you know. And then we lived in L.A. We took

road trips to get to nature, get out of the city a bit and like, then, you know, going up as far north as we could go and flying up to the, you know, Washington. So now that we're on the East coast again, we're kind of now on this like, okay, let's go to New England. And we went to New York for the first time last year and stuff. we're kind of, we tend to like, New York was near because it like, someone told us like, their favorite, what do they, what do they say? Something about like, they compared like, there's New York, and then there's the rest of the world.

After living there for like two weeks, house setting, we're like, I don't get it all the way yet, but I'm starting to get what they mean because it is like an ecosystem. And I can see how one can just never leave New York because there's plenty to occupy the mind. We loved it. Yeah. So yeah, think that like, depending on where we lived, have like our radius.

Okay. Yeah. It's convoluted answer. That's not break the clip up. I know. I'm sorry. I think there are so many beautiful places in the US. Like, it's to choose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We got to Connecticut last year on a road trip. Yeah. And agreed before we got there to say, no, we're not going to New York because we want to save it for a proper trip. Yeah. Yeah. But when you get to Connecticut and there's like a train ride away and we've got to Darien, which is on the coast. Yeah. fuck it. What's part of the car? And we spent two days in New York and we slept in a camper van in a car park in

Darien, which is like an hour train ride away to Central Station, Grand Central Station. And honestly, the best decision because you just get good days, like late summer, loads of things to see and do. Also free activities as well. If you want to walk the Highline or something like that. Just unbelievable. Pick a random bagel shop, pick a deli.

It's going to be epic and it's going to be filled with history and people who are like movers and shakers. It's a similar vibe to like being around D.C. Like you sit at a coffee shop, you hear like someone like making a deal for like a volunteer organization that's about to help like thousands of people. Like that's just like at the next coffee table over. Like just things are happening. It's you feel the electricity. It's fun. Yeah. We sat there for the two weeks. We kind of some days we just like pick an area. like, we haven't been to this neighborhood yet or this borough. You know, so really, let's just.

take the metro there and like wander and explore, know, like, yeah, it was just something new every day. Okay. And have you dipped into Canada? Cause I think if you love New England, surely the Eastern part of Nova Scotia, you found London to be right up your street because that's more green. I would love to see that. Honestly. We haven't seen it yet, but we've been to Montreal, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec and Toronto. We do. are.

Probably going to go to Prince Edward Island next summer. Yeah, we've never been. Is it good? Yeah. Really? Okay, cool. Okay. I've three random facts for you. Tell me. The best potatoes in my life. We drove past the farm. Do you know what? We need some potatoes with a camper van and they're selling for $5, $5 Canadian dollars on the side. Big bag potatoes and they taste incredible. like local potatoes are great. We went to a place called Singin' Sand Beach. So Singin' as in the band.

Singin' Sand Beach is arguably one of the best beaches I've ever been to in my life. And at that time it was sunny and it squeaks and you can sit there by the sand and like the view is incredible. Hardly anyone there. So it's on the Eastern coast. that's, I think it's near, is it Red Rocks? Might be near there. So East, yeah, Singin' Sand Beach is a recommendation. And also, the Lighthouses. don't know, this might sound really random, but when you go to every beach,

There's that old school white house, probably a bit like New England. Yeah. Yeah. And it's everywhere. Yeah. It's just, it's just nice, nice little novelty to sit by white house at the beach and the sand is golden and the roads are just quiet. Charlotte town is pretty small, but a of history there as well.

Yeah, definitely. love that. I think that we're going to go next summer. My mom is a big Ann of Green Gables fan, and I love Ann Green Gables too, and my mom really wants to go. It was a great napping show. yeah. And my mom's been talking about going for forever, and I was like, Mom, let's just go. And I think we're going to probably go with her next summer, and then we want to explore that area more.

have only been to Toronto, Quebec City, Montreal, but we were there for the week after Christmas, New Year's Eve. We went in winter to Canada. I thought it was going to be like Epcot's Canada. like, where's all the Mounties and such? I think that it was also not just winter, but there was a very massive ice storm that happened. Our train got stuck and delayed almost. We were stuck in the train till 4 a.m. Things like that happened.

I got 12 wells there, I couldn't taste any food. It was an up and down trip, but then also we had New Year's Eve in Quebec City and it was so much fun. We stayed at the castle a bit in Quebec, what do call it? Yeah, yeah. At the castle in Quebec City. then we had like the... fanbump. Yeah, that's one. Exactly, yeah. they did like, because of the storm, they were supposed to have really big outdoor stages and... luches and everything. Just clouds. But they did have...

They just have like one DJ out in the street. And so we were like out there dancing in the snow and we got sick, but it was great. So we tried to embrace the Canadian life for that weekend. Wow. Yeah. That Fairmont Hotel historically is quite important, isn't it? That's where second world war was at where it was agreed where to split up the bits at the end. So, yes, quite historic. That's new. I missed that.

It was a while ago. I missed it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Churchill and Stalin and stuff stayed there, I think. Wow. Two things else I remembered about Prince Edward Island. One bad thing is you've got to pay all my fees to get off and it's 50 Canadian dollars and people kick off about this. So, it's like imagine a toll bridge going over the water and normally they're two or three dollars, but for Prince Edward Island it's 50. Wow. Okay. Wow. In Charlotte town, we did find an English shop selling English sweets and English...

confectionary. I guess that's maybe got an extra hold on me because I've got some hula hoop, some Yorkie bars and stuff. there you go. Monster Munch if anyone knows what I'm talking about. Yeah, we definitely know Monster Munch. Yay.

Dream. How do you journal for your travels? Do you blog? Do you record voice notes? Do you? don't know. YouTube obviously is a thing, but how do you keep track of what you're doing? Yeah. mean, voice notes are when we can be disciplined to do it. Like it is so valuable to be able to go back and listen to like and pick up all the details because journaling for me, I think too much about it I get my head too much about like the words and the editing. And is that the common, the proper place?

Doesn't matter. like voice notes, you can just vibe off of it. You just sit in the bed at the end of the day. You're all exhausted. Just hit record. Yeah. They say your notes. It can be transcribed by AI. It can be summarized by AI. It can be turned into a, to a blog post by AI. It's great. Yeah. Sometimes it will like, well, we've had like a particularly memorable eventful day or something like that. Then, you know, we'll turn on the voice notes because we're like, Hey, we don't want to forget that this happened. think sounds bad for me. Sometimes like when you're traveling so much, like

So much is happening and you look back at your memories and on this day, reminders on your phone are like, my gosh, I forgot about that. So we did the voice notes thing. then my other journal, I'm really bad about journaling. My other thing is just filming videos and what I say in the video and photos and stuff like that, mostly filming videos. Yeah, we're going back through our old footage from four years ago in Paris and we're finding some videos and it's really precious to dig up those memories and to see from my own eyes four years ago what happened.

through the voice memos when we can, but a lot of it is through the YouTube stuff. And YouTube notes in your phone. Like usually when we're on trainings or trains, like you're, you know, he's much more introspective. Yeah, I have a lot of time to think. So I just like start writing philosophy things like, like on the train. I'm writing a book, I'm halfway through writing a book, 30,000 words in, right? So, and it's like, but like these things like, like introspectives on the train where you just have time to yourself.

I used to be more disciplined about this, but like don't entertain my mind with like US news or whatever is going on or, you know, tick tock, whatever it is, just like the B board, right. And like digest your memories and then see what's going on around to be present and then like let the members kind of like meld into a new into an existence. Yeah, it's yeah, I think train time and playing time is precious for like intersection. Yeah, good times. I remember in.

Interacting in Europe last year. I think that was my time to write my notes. So that's discipline because what there's no excuse I mean you're not trained one or two hours Try not to look at your phone. you're gonna do for me is our podcast editing. All right So yeah, it's a good way to do it if you go to my Asia as well at Japan because if you go and do your Shinkansen Pass which is three weeks or two weeks or one and you've done around the country That's another great way to do it as well as in Japan. Yeah, exactly. Yeah

And how does that relate to YouTube? You mentioned YouTube channel. So can you tell listeners and watchers, what YouTube in terms of you for your travels, what it means? Like, is it an extension of your travels? Is it trying to portray a different picture? Is it more personal? Like, how do you portray your YouTube channel to your watchers? I think that like we we try to balance like with every platform you're fighting an algorithm kind of thing. so

we have come to this conclusion that we're going to do our, not algorithm videos, but we have vlogs that we do of what we're doing in a place and we have our unique take on it. But then every now and then we throw in a philosophy video or a what it's like to be here kind of video that it is out for us to look back on and watch. And if someone finds it, great. They enjoy it. Great. Hopefully. at the same time, it's

that for us, like travel is more deep than just like the 10 things you can do in this place. Yes. And so I think that that and that's kind of how we found that balance, particularly with YouTube. It can be difficult to find that balance. So that's what you tried to do. Yeah, YouTube is a beast. Like we tried chasing the 10 things to do and I feel cheap. Yeah, feel the same. I the philosophy is like there's the hook videos, there's the community videos and there's like the super fan videos like the Patreon videos.

When you're in the place, it's so hard. Like, do you choose to capture content for the audience or do you choose to take one for yourself? And a lot of times, like when you're taking videos, we want to capture mainly a memory for us to remember later. That's our main thing. And that'll end up in the YouTube video. And then the second gorgeous pass that comes up on the train view, put the camera down and we have a phrase. This one's for me, where you just like have the shot already. This one's for me.

I'll never remember this afterwards, but like I need to be here because I am. Because we don't have to like some you don't have to capture every single like beautiful moment, know, like capturing three to five shots for the montage is good enough. because because the ones who aren't there will never get it. But if you are there, you're the only one who has the possibility of getting it. You will never get it if you're behind the camera. So you have to take some for yourself. Yeah. OK, guys, can you also tell me a project you're working on next? Yeah, sure.

First time ever, we've talked about this for a while, but we're making a physical product and we are making a travel blanket. For travelers by travelers, it should be for sale around the time of this podcast. If not, then we've got a link where you can get notified when it goes up for sale. But I mentioned before, I'm passionate about sustainability. So it's made out of sustainable material. It's made out of bamboo.

okay. We talked to all our traveler friends and we're like, okay, it's like, what do you guys want in a blanket? sustainability, super soft, not too hot, not too cold, like the fleece is also packed down super small. So like that was super, super small to pack down and it comes with a little baggie. It has neck clips you pop around your neck to like clip in. It has a little hidden zipper pocket to keep your pants covered and your thing is, and it doubles as a scarf and a shawl. you pop around your neck. Because travelers, love necklaces.

Yeah, and not only that, it's reversible. Look at that. So four different uses, blanket, shawl, scarf, sarong, and then you double it because it's an eight-in-one travel blanket with travel bag. And I think that with house sitting, we found that when house sitting, the biggest thing that I miss is a blanket because I want to be cozy. But there were never any blankets that we loved. They were always the size of a personal item, basically. I don't want another item to add on.

We made our own and it's sustainable and soft and cozy and it's perfect. So we're really excited to be selling our travel blanket. We, the brand is Appair Travel Gear. pair with you. We go with you. It was a very late night decision and I didn't bite for that ad sign. I must admit. Yeah. It was a very late night decision of the title and we're like, you know what? This is fun. We're going with it. And

It's going to be for sale on Amazon. So it'll be shipping everywhere in the US initially. We will expand to other markets later, but initially everywhere in the US on Amazon. So really excited about it. It's an actual product that we're making outside of like videos and podcasts and all those things. So we're excited about it. I'm excited for you guys as well. And I'm excited to get one myself. So I can't wait. Absolutely. That was what I make you guys at TravelCon.

getting to know these travel, I guess, YouTube creators in a nutshell about how they do it and get into the talks. I'm like, how do you capture the genuine moment? Cause you can't, can you? Cause the moment you take the camera out, it's not genuine. Cause you, I guess you're then thinking about in your mind content, I suppose. And I know occasionally you just want to get a photo of maybe someone you met or something like that was a bit more genuine, but like in terms of a video, this is where I'm struggling right now. I've done a year of it and I started, I guess more personally, but I've gone sort of

I don't know if it's on purpose or not or subconsciously. I've gone to the top 10 or the, what I call the lonely planet type videos where they just give you the rundown. And unfortunately they're quite popular, aren't they? With SEO or people who want to know stuff, but it's not the way I want to do it. So I'm now trying to figure out of mine, what am I trying to do and what I'm trying to convey? I think I'm like you. think I'm more, I want to do more storytelling or meeting people or getting underneath the generic top 10 things to do. But it's quite hard to do. I don't know how you plan that.

I don't think that we are not excellent at this by any means, but something that we've heard recently that we're like, that's the creator we want to be. Be second. Is the second. Yeah. Be second. Be the one that's recommended. Be on the related videos. You'll have the top 10 videos. Be on the related too. And you're like the slower version of the thing. You're not the top 10. That's the You're like the slow walk through the town or whatever it is. yeah, because you have the search term of like, you

we're planning to go to Japan. it'll be like, you know, spring in Japan is our search term. And then we'll find a, you know, the top 10 places or something like that. But then there's a recommended video that is someone who spent a month in Kyoto and is saying like all their favorite places in Kyoto or whatever, you know, or their impressions of it. And then, so it's like that, that's the creator we want to be is that second recommended. I don't know, man, like, like on a, on a personal level, like we had to just make sure that like we're

we're actually enjoying ourselves more there because like a lot of times we've missed out on great moments where we could not have been like struggling with why is the ISO locked? Why is the camera blasting the audio? And we've missed out on like precious moments we could have had for our own memories for like a lifetime. So we have to be very careful to like not ruin travel for ourselves. if that means like we are not successful on YouTube, I'm totally fine with that because like I want to capture these memories first and foremost.

for our own existence, right? When we first started, we were filming everything. And some of that footage we never even made a video with. so we're like, that just pains me. Because I'm like, I took all that time while I'm traveling. their story just wasn't there. So it just doesn't work in a video. So now we're at the point where we're like, if we're filming, we're telling a story, we're doing a video. Because I'm taking time away from my travels to do this. And when we're not, I clock out. Exactly. I'm going to go.

And also, the ISO, it's way too dark in this pub to like have good footage. So like, just like enjoy your time with whoever you're to. Okay, we'll film the closing part of this video tomorrow. And that's okay. You know? Yeah. Yeah, because last year I had in the back of my mind, I might do YouTube, so it wasn't fully there in terms of videos. There's some maybe towards the middle of the year and a road trip, but not really at the front of my mind.

But this year, when I go to my November trip, it's a brand new concept because I'm now thinking content wise what I need to get, but I don't want to compromise the genuine parts of the trip where I'm going to try and wing some of it. You have a good method because like when you have a shot list, right? It's like, get these then I'm done. Right. Because then you have a method of accomplishment. You have like a mode of success when you don't have that. It's like, I'm just going to capture everything and see what happens in the end. And that's where it gets dangerous because you've ruined your trip with like

content making. But you have the shot list for like, okay, this one story, I can do this. Sometimes like this last trip we went in, we were like, okay, this is the story that we're telling. And so we would do something in the day that didn't align with that story. We're like, okay, we don't need to film it. It doesn't need to be in that story. Like, that's okay, I'm not going to take this because if I put it in this video, there's gonna be a massive drop off because it doesn't match like the story. there's like, I took the time to film it they're not even interested. I think my I think my backup is going to be

just have the written down notes or voice notes of general moments I haven't captured. And if they can't make the video some way, they go in the podcast. think. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. That's what's our backup is like Instagram reels, TikToks, like all that shorts, you know, because it's just so much, it's easy to put a clip or something like that. If there's like, let's say like we did a small little excursion thing that didn't fit with our big YouTube story. Like, that's an easy reel, you know, something like that. Okay. And what about your blogging? Do you do blog?

for your website. We have some blogs up. We have a bunch queued up. Yeah. Our website is being where we were working at right now. So like, yeah, I haven't, I hadn't really touched it in like five, six years. And so then I was like, like I, we do have stories and blogs we want to put up, but we were working the website until we put them up. And I've got some other trouble questions. We mentioned this earlier. You stay in places for free. Yeah. You tell the listeners and the viewers how you do that. Absolutely. That is called.

House sitting and it is the number one hack of travel that we can ever recommend. It is a cheat code. We traveled for a year and a half house sitting around Europe and saved money. Like honestly, we'd sound fake. That's a great tagline that there's rich as I'm unreal. That's getting clipped. I think I mean, that's we save money for our wedding was like, yeah, we traveled for a year and a half in Europe and the U S and how sad

It was amazing. It was really cool to get to live in this chateau. I tell people it's like we were living in a park too, because not just the house, was 25 acres of land around us. Eight bedrooms, eight fireplaces, one for a bedroom, formal dining room. There's like a little dance hall area. when spring was happening. And it was rainy, but at the same time there would be sunny days with flowers popping out. I would just work out in the table in the garden and it was beautiful.

We took care of two dogs, two 18 month old German Shepherds. House setting is also usually you're taking care of pets. We were never not covered in saliva the entire time, but also in the afternoons we'd go out and we were friends with the caretakers. They had like a couple of kids and we'd play croquet in the yard with a glass of Sancerre wine, sun setting over the thing, long shadows of the trees, playing croquet, the dogs running around. It was really idyllic. It was magical. Yeah, it was really nice. Now, I mean, that's with 30 reviews.

locked in on Trusted House. Also, feel like that's not we've had some really amazing opportunities. One of our first house sits early on, like our only our second year house sitting. We have sat for like in a villa in Tuscany for a month, like on a vineyard and a vineyard. Let's walk out a door, turn right. And then there's the vineyard. You do the white tastings. You can do the vineyard tour.

That was on my fucking list. was like, one day I'll get to live in Tuscany for a month. sure enough, they their house sitting and it made it happen. I don't know, I just think that it's such a really cool opportunity to do these things. We would go to the garage and they had a vat, like a vat of olive oil that they got from the neighbor two houses down. like you put it on your bread, you eat the olive oil and it...

hits you right in the back of the throat. So peppery. So then we asked like the ladies who live there, I was like, so like, what's your, like, what's your dream in life? Like, when have you made it? Because it looks like you made it and to point it to the hill. If I can live on that hill over there that I'm done there. I was like, wow, wow, like you're so close. Yeah, yeah. Just saying how great it is. And I think we've gotten to how sit.

I mentioned the lock in Scotland for two weeks in a cabin and with a paddle boat and like a paddle board. I was in the middle of the lock in like the sun setting over the mountains. It's all the lock is all orange. I fall off the paddle boat and it's like just waist deep so I can just kind of like chill in the water. You just hear the sound of like seagull wings flapping on the water and then just nothing. It was gorgeous.

We had a couple of friends now, like one of my really good friends right now is actually house-sitting in Milan because we got her started house-sitting. One of us. Yeah, and she's like on her first couple of house-sits, she's been with us on some and she sent her like her first solo house-sit. She's like, guys, yeah, like this really is like the hack. I'm like, yeah, it's so much fun. Because you meet people, you meet the local person that you're house-sitting for. They want you to have a good time. They're like a host essentially.

So they're gonna introduce you to their friends or they tell you their local spots to go to. And then you're taking care of their pet, which we love pets. And we usually, you know, I'm working and stuff too. So it's made travel more feasible for us. Cause I don't like paying for a place when I'm working eight hours in that day, you Like that trade off. I'm like.

Hey, I'm good to spend time with your cat or dog because you want someone in the house. I'm here and we have the kitchen and all the things. It's really been the best mix for us. Really takes the pressure off to like when you can just sit there, you're not paying for a place and you can take a down day to reset. Yeah. It makes all the difference. And also like when you can do like regular things, like go to the grocery store, go to like the local small little church that just happens to be open peak inside.

enjoy the quietness and like not feel like shoot every minute I spend is about $20 US. So I have to make everyone count. And you on your website, you have like a guide to this, right? Or at least something people can download in the chateau. goal was going to the chateau. It was pretty remote. It's in a small village in France. And so, you know, we knew going into it, we're going to be remote. We're going to spend a lot of time at the house because these dogs are, you know, they're puppies. can't be left alone very long.

But our goal going there was actually to write a book on house sitting. So Chris spent the whole two months writing his book. Yeah. And it was, was, so the first part is like how to just get started with house sitting, how to get interested in house sitting, make your profile, et cetera, et cetera. Second one is how to be a luxury house sitter, which is basically what are some good practices when you're house sitting to stand off on the rest. If that's like taking pictures of the cupboards or like checklists before. then- interview tips and stuff. Cause usually you do like a small interview with the homeowner, especially for these like luxury house sets. They have a lot of applications.

So it's like, how do you stand out in those interviews? What are they looking for? And the third one is like actual, like practical toolkit templates. So you get like a template of the opening house call, like what questions are asked by the pad about medication, et cetera, how to ensure responsibilities are limited in scope. So don't get there and they are asked you to start cleaning up the gutters or fix the driveway like we had in one place. So it kind of prevents the bad cases. We've, we've only had like one weird house sit as far as like expectations not being aligned.

Everything else has been great because we use the things in the template and the toolkit to kind of make more smooth sailing as we kind of learned where the pitfalls were. Okay. So I'll put the link to that guide from your website in the show notes field and click that. Cause I think it's very interesting. It's a great hack. Yeah. And, it's one we haven't really explored that much. Certainly. I think we need to, to crack on with that to save some money. Cause let's face it, like a traveling accommodation costs. think that is astronomical at the minute. And it's probably the biggest cost of anything. Yeah.

Yeah, we didn't do a whole lot of house setting this last trip and I was like looking at hotels because we wanted to go, we're in Paris for the Olympics and I didn't want to risk that timing of things and then we wanted to go to Switzerland. So it was like, okay, it was our first time like really like booking hotels and accommodations in a while. don't like that. It's big blessing, of course, but at the same time, was like, man, this is expensive. How do people do this all the time?

And also, as I mentioned before, like it opens how sitting opens opportunities that would never be possible to because you'd feel so much guilt doing some mundane things like, for instance, in Paris, how sitting right, you can go to a cafe in the morning, have an espresso and croissant and just like sit there for two hours and just watch the fashion show go by and shop. You can sit in Luxembourg Gardens and just have a nap. You can read a book and fall asleep having a nap. If you're paying $400 a night, yeah, that's not possible.

Yeah, it's brutal, especially in cities there, isn't it? It's brilliant. Like when we traveled across Canada last year as an example, I want to see the cities. mean, there's nowhere really to camp in the city. So you got to get creative and it's a ball. Like if you're paying upwards of a hundred dollars a night, that's been cheap in the city. So yeah, if you can mitigate that cost, it would help your budget go further. Right? Yeah. It's the same in the U S like, you know, we've done a lot of houses around the U S too. Same reason that U S hotels are so expensive.

Yeah, it all depends on how much you want it. think we camped for two nights in Darien in Connecticut, but I think one of those days are absolutely pissed down with rain. Now with a small camper van like ours, there's nowhere to go. You just soaked, so you got like, store your damn clothes and just deal with it. So it depends how much you want it and then comfortable you want to make it as well. How much wouldn't you spend or not spend? Yeah, I think it's the same thing in like when you're house sitting, you know, we're taking care of animals or taking care of another person's home and we've had people say, well.

I wouldn't want to do that. just on vacation. It's like, yeah, okay. But like that trade-off is like, well, I'm getting to have these experiences that I personally wouldn't be able to afford two and a half weeks in New York on my own. So for me, like that's worth it. I'll vacuum up cat hair. That's okay. Okay. And we're coming towards sort of the end of the podcast episode. got a few more questions. Like travel philosophy, is there any type of travel you don't agree with? So I'll give you an example. I don't like cruise ship travel. I've been quite vocal on that on my podcast.

So is there anything like that or any type of travel you're not a fan of? Or basically, what is your travel philosophy? Well, think, to your point, cruise ship travel isn't travel, it's hedonism, right? It's a Rixchies quote. mean, it is. It's like a pleasure of the senses. It's not travel. It's not like going and learning something and expanding your horizons, broadening your global perspective and all those things. So I think that you can have cruise ship travel and not being on a cruise, which...

I don't know. But like, I think that like you can like, think that you can definitely that same mentality of the cruise ship travel and like not being on a cruise. We've been with you. OK. OK. She's saying you can still like travel and go see the other side as a mode of transport. I think that the mentality of like, at least why I would consider a cruise ship not travel, not travel is like.

you're in floating resort, you know, and like, and then when you're in places, you're popping in for a couple of hours, you're going to you're probably even with like a guide and like these big group tours, and you're all following along with your headpiece and doing the thing, you know. But I think that like, you can have that same experience, even not being a cruise ship mentality, same mentality. Let's say like you book, you know, the fancy hotel and you do the big group tour. And if you don't pay for it, then it's obviously not good, you know, like, or if you didn't pay.

$20 for that cup of coffee, then it must not be a good cup of coffee. Like there's like that mentality as well that I disagree with. I think that would be my like type of trouble that I think that, you know, is not really experiencing the culture of where you're going and not asking questions. I feel like if I went to a country and I didn't talk to, have a genuine conversation with someone living in that city, they don't have to be from there, but someone living in the place.

then I don't feel like I really traveled there. Interesting. think also with cruise ships, there are a tiny number of exclusions of this. Antarctica is a classic one. I mean, you've got no choice. Right. You've got go on. It's not cruise ship, that's per se, but you've got to on a ship, And live in that. So that's fine. I think even places around the North Arctic Circle, like if you're going to do, I think Alaska could be an example. think our friends Matt and Nat were on that this week as we speak. And also like North Norway, you know, if you're going around those sort of like

Arctic ice islands, if you like, go around there. What other choice have you got? think those they're more explorations and they're accepted. Yeah. But yeah, the generic when I see three cruise ships parking in town in Vancouver, it's hard to like get a good experience like when you're surrounded by such like everyone around you is the same, right? They're all Americans, right? So when you go to restaurant, you flood with Americans. It's so hard to get a good experience when you're just when your footprint is big. So one of my philosophies is like

have a small footprint so you don't disturb the habitat. Yes. If you're going into like a zoo, right? And you want to like see what these things are, which is an awful metaphor. But if you're just trying to see like what is there before you enter the picture, one, read the room. Americans don't read the room. If you're on a French train, listen, catch the level.

Yeah, think that like we're coming fresh off being in Paris for the Olympics. There's a lot of stories for that. And when we go to Paris quite often and we're like, we're not used to hearing so many American accents. So I think that that's like one thing that we save with room. And we we also travel, we've traveled in like, we take them with friends and family. like we've traveled with like group of six to eight people. And we know like the vibe of that is just different now.

You get a local experience. So I can't imagine better like when you're in a larger group than that. Like, know, it's just a different vibe and it opens up different doors for you when you're a smaller group. Yeah. Yeah. More opportunity. Like I think the more people you have in your group, the harder it is to have a local experience, even with two people were sometimes unapproachable because like we seem like we're set. We don't need conversation. If we ever like just went to the bathroom, it says to a point they were more likely to get engaged in conversation. Yeah. OK, that's fair enough. I agree. OK. And

This year, you mentioned Paris and the Olympics. Have you been anywhere else? Norway. We went to Norway to see the lights. What's it called? Yeah. We went to Norway in February. Northern Lights was amazing and Oslo was the first time there. And we went with his uncle. was great. to Tromsø. Yeah, we went to Tromsø. The there is so beautiful. we found our final destination there was Senja. S-E-N-J-A. Yeah. The islands and stuff there is so pretty.

want to go back in the summer and do hiking again. Yeah, but like just in the few hours of hiking. And then we went to Copenhagen for the first time as well, went to Denmark and house at Copenhagen. Again, another expensive city that we had never gone to. But we got a house set. So that was really cool. And then we went to...

went down to France to visit friends and we actually went back to the chateau. Yeah. And we met with the caretakers because we're friends. Then we love their kids and we just want to, you know, be a part of their lives. It was a lot of fun to go see them again. And the dogs remembered us, but it was very special. yeah. And then we went to Madrid, which we love Spain. Yeah, I mentioned it's another one those places that like we have a few days going on to Spain. And so we went to Madrid and then.

Well, till we've been this year, then I think the next biggest trip was then just like Paris Olympics. We went to Camargue and Alsace in Switzerland. And Camargue and Alsace is kind of like if you think of Beauty and the Beast Act 1 where like she's like, this provincial town. That's Alsace. Okay. Yeah. And then Switzerland was just heaven. It's just heavenly. Unbelievable. It's amazing place, but it's just the expense does put you off a little bit, doesn't it? But yeah, if you bypass that, you're in. Yeah. that's... is free.

Yeah, car cable car. Yeah, Yeah. It's still like 40 bucks a piece. We did. We did that. You know, like one way cable car hike back. And miles back. Yeah. Yeah. That's the us being cheap situation. Yeah. But like, yeah, like that kind of thing is really cool. And then don't know else we got this year. Also, like Asheville.

is a tourist destination in itself. we plan on being here for fall because we love fall here. Okay. So as far as like you mentioned, like places in the U S to travel to like Asheville in fall, nothing like it bar none. Like we were in Austria one time during fall and they had like the beautiful yellow leaves and it was just like, this is nice, but it does not be at home in Asheville. Like our colors are just better.

a once in a lifetime thing that we can do. The Olympics is like, my God, the Olympics. It's like the whole world's coming together for a thing. The World's Fair is like the whole world's coming together for a thing. And I just want to experience that. we're going to Osaka, Japan to go to the World's Fair. And then I have a quick trip to Barcelona in a couple of weeks. then I don't know, I feel like we don't we plan like usually big buckets and then they come up. Yeah. Okay.

I think we might be going to LA and house sitting for the month of January. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll be there for about a month. But yeah, just around. you guys travel come? We haven't decided yet. We've not. I haven't booked my ticket yet. Yeah, we haven't either. I don't know. I yeah, I don't know. This part might be cut, but I don't love Arizona. Well, I'm never been. Yeah, yeah, Tucson. Yeah. Remember that road trip I said we passed a lot of nothing?

They're salsa is amazing. They're corn tortillas or corn tortillas. Tucson's okay. As a Puerto Rican, I love flour. It's okay. I don't know. We just haven't decided yet. So we'll see. Apparently salsa, it should be good. A lot of green chilies. I wouldn't travel somewhere for green chilies. mean, they have some mountains, but I don't think Tucson's near them. Their mountains are pretty, but I don't think it's near Tucson.

I mean, when I announced it, was like, what the fuck is that? Yeah. Yeah. mean, Portland has waterfalls and nature and cascades. Tucson has sand. Yeah, it's OK. We'll see. Yeah. I think that I think it's a cheap convention center ticket. I think that it's a cheap place to rent for sure. I get the decision. Well, like if we speak, then like that would be really cool. So if we speak our two will change. It's crazy.

Just kidding, just kidding. We'll still do this to you, Okay. At this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll just note that one down. Yeah.

That's given a podcast. like it. like it. Okay. I've got one question actually from social media. Yeah. And it's from our friends and it's from Chris and Sarah actually. Hey. Yeah. They responded with is a tongue cheek question. How do they both have such perfect hair? Well, leave in conditioner. If you, if you have curly hair, it took me years to figure this out. Leave the conditioner in after you shower and it falls. It'll frizz up eventually, but you know,

you can have some hope. learned that in my many years being with him that when someone's coming up and saying, you have such nice hair, I know it's not from me. I've just learned.

Because to be honest, got to be honest here when they question in I was like, is that for Chris? I know it's true. I know it is. I don't mean that in fair way. Chris is being polite. Wait, wait, OK, how long? long? long? I know I get my hair cut. Is it longer? Yeah, no, he's got a little spray bottle, water and conditioner. There you go. Yeah. OK.

And final question is where can people find you on social media websites and YouTube? Chris and Ellen everywhere. Chris and Ellen.com at Chris and Ellen Instagram at Chris and Ellen TikTok. It's like I work in marketing. Yeah, Chris and Ellen everywhere. Okay. I'll put the links in the show notes so people can find that if they don't get that for some reason. Okay. The last part of the episode is quick, quick fire travel questions. We're going to fire some questions at you. And I do try and

Throw in a few cheeky ones that are not on my usual list. So I'm getting thinking right now. yeah, we've got a couple here. Let's do, I normally do a couple. I do one each and they're combined. You normally get three answers is normally the go-to, right? A bit of cliche question, you might not like it. The first one is, it's travel question time. Three favorite countries. So you can have one each and a combined one.

Okay. This is a hard question. How is it quickfire? I mean, on your fate. Out of loyalty, out of loyalty, I can't like not go back to France. So I'll pick France. Okay. Scotland. If I'm France. Okay, I changed my mind to Scotland. No, I like Ireland. I've recently come to this conclusion. I'm tossing between Italy and Spain, but currently I'm really missing Italy because I haven't been in like four years. But yeah, I think similar vibes, you know.

Cause I'll make sure that we go back to France. You make sure we go to Italy and then together. Scotland, then

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I like the food in Scotland more too. Okay. And one each here, because it might be difficult of a place you didn't like that you traveled to. Same place. I gotta think. Go ahead. Let's do this. I have to. No, yeah, say two. Throw the shade. Okay, I'm probably gonna get so much shade for this, but I try to like Germany. just. I see you.

I just don't. I know that that's so bad. there's Germany is like so varied and all the things like I like Christmas markets and like Oktoberfest. But like I've been to Germany multiple times and I've tried to like it. And I just it's not I'm not a fan. They are really good at systems compared to France. Yes, I'm not but not really good at life. I just. Is that controversial? That might come out.

As far as like, like, like... We have friends that are German, like I have friends that are German and sweet people. Just that I found last time we were there for Oktoberfest, we were in Munich for a week and we went to a couple of other towns and at the end of it I was like, you know, I think I'm okay without going back to Germany. I've never said that about a country ever. Normally I'm like, I'd love to come back here. just feel like I'm okay. Yeah. What's the second place then? intrigued by the second Luxembourg. my God, Luxembourg. Luxembourg?

I mean, to be honest, okay, we were house-sitting there for two weeks. And it was raining the entire time. It was raining the whole time and we spent most of our time. tried. We went to like Trier, Germany. to Belgium. We just got out of Luxembourg. We tried to make it work. It's the hub of money laundering, isn't it? You cut that out. Yeah. We tried to make Luxembourg work. We were there for two weeks. It rained the whole time and we just maybe we just didn't find...

the thing, but we gave it a shot. had, the thing is we had a friend who went to Luxembourg. They're like, my gosh, you guys have to go to Luxembourg. It's the best place ever. So we went, then we realized never take advice from someone who that was their first trip to Europe. We didn't realize that was the only place they went. We're like, okay, okay. Yeah. It had cobblestone streets and you were breast got it. So I don't know. Luxembourg didn't charm.

That's a place we've only been that one time for two weeks. And it was raining the entire time and it was nearly winter. So like with a grain of salt. Yeah, not the same as Germany. Right, okay. I'm sorry Germans, you're nice people. yeah, German speaking population in Luxembourg. We had our honeymoon in Rotenberg up the tower, which is on the romantic road. That was great. I would just choose other places. I also got sick there. Right, let's get back to quick fire.

Are you sunrise or sunset? Sunset. Okay, that's quick. Not a chance. We're not morning people. What about three cuisines that your favorite? can have one each and one combined. Creamy dishes, anything creamy. Mexican all the way, like authentic Mexican any day of the week. Except the corn tortillas. Leave out the corn tortillas, flour. I don't like the corn tortillas.

And you're like a glass of water. So dry. So you said Italian. I say creamy French meals, like anything with like a bechamel sauce or something white and creamy. Italian, give me you know, bacon carbonara any day of the week. Yeah, Mexican food. Okay. And if you could sit somewhere anywhere in the world with a cup of coffee and watch the world go by, where are you going to sit? Rue Montaguille. Yeah, Rue Montaguille. Rue Montaguille in Paris. That.

and or like a cute pub in the Katzwald. Yeah, just like an old like English beer, like super flat hand pull little dog in the corner shop dog. Really? love like half timbered. Sorry. I love the people watching in Paris. Like we've been there all seasons, multiple times. Like if I just have a few hours in a day, that's where you'll find me as a cafe. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, it's a fashion show. It's brilliant. Even this last time we went to Paris.

Sorry, it's quick fire. gotta hurry. For this last one in Paris, we went to a bunch of places and Rue Montregoix was just like, it's just magic. It's still fine, it's still fine in a second, but Rue Montregoix is just like, that's our spot. Okay, and tomorrow you got on an airplane and you're gonna live somewhere for a year. Where you gonna live? Wait, ask yourself this question. comes to France. Can't be France. France out. Wait, wait, wait.

together individually. Do I have to? no. It is a separate answer. Yeah. Yeah. I have a gauge. OK. I mean, I want to see my actual because then other people will go there. And I love it for its isolation. Sounds a bit like I'll tell you after the podcast. OK. But I guess if there's no visa requirements, this is a free year. Exactly. Exactly. haven't been to the South Island yet. If.

A place I've been before. And for a full year, know, you're spending all season. All season. Because we also talked about where we'd want to spend each season. I would be curious about Paris, but I also know too much. Now I've out France. That's right. OK, good. OK, that's maybe the Cotswolds or somewhere near. I would actually actually know. Forget it. Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh. Locked in. There's only bookstores and coffee shops. this type of dream scenario for a year. I really love Sevilla.

It gets blazing hot in the summer, but I really love the city. I love the city. feel I love it. And I'm currently want to go visit me Arco a lot. I feel like I might like that as well. So I feel like maybe in Spain for a year. OK, I accept. Wait, what's yours? I'm curious about yours. Mine tomorrow. Yeah. God, you've put a question on me. what? The last time you've put a question on me as well. What's happening?

Anywhere, anywhere, anywhere. I probably would pick, God, I can't believe this is a quick fire as well. I'm not even. Do you still? No, I'm just going to say Thailand. That's controversial. Okay. That's obvious. Yeah. You've been there yet. Because I miss it. haven't been back for years, Yeah, me What was the train you thought The next one is, yeah, the budget. If you're in your opinion, of all the places you've been to, where is the dollar gone the furthest? Tenjou. Tenjou. Mexico, probably. Not Tenjou?

Tenjie, got like a full like giant breakfast that fell off an entire table for like six bucks. Yeah, yeah, that's true. was really nice. I think that like hotels in Mexico and the places that we've been, like the hotels were still like a little little pricey ish, but like everything else was super cheap, you know. Morocco. Yeah, Morocco was still really good. We've also most of the places we've been have been Europe, so the dollar doesn't go very far. True. Yeah, yeah.

I would say 10 year because like like a fresh juice drink, fresh banana, pineapple, mango drink, like 60 cents. Yeah. What? They're visiting a friend who lived there, too. So she also like knew and told us a lot of the things. And like that was the only time they've ever gotten like a private guide because like we could afford it. We've got a private guide to take us all around, which was really cool. Yeah. So things like that. OK. And I was going to ask. Yes. It's a good question. Yeah. Why not? I was going to say if tomorrow.

You're going to go visit somewhere and it can be anywhere in the world and there's no rules. But I think I don't know if I, the reason I'm stalling is cause you might have answered already, but I'm going to ask anyway, but any place in the world to visit, not live, where are you going to go? You have one each and one combined. Cause I feel like you might say New Zealand, Japan, cause that's the list. So if they are, if that is in the top three, we can ignore those cause we know they're like three places you're going to go to that are new, not returning. are you going to go? We haven't met before. Yeah. And there's no rules.

No rules. And you're underwhelmed. OK, the no rules bit makes me pick St. Petersburg because they can't like arrest me and such. OK. No, this. think it's like Russia. OK, I would cancel that cancel that. No, I think no. I really I'm like my bucket list is like like Mongolia, Kazakhstan, like that area of the world, like Kazakhstan sounds really cool.

Our current purchase stands are the stands. Yeah, just social media. Yeah, I could just not seems really amazing. Or Mongolia also seems really amazing. But that would be like, I'd want to. I wouldn't know anything about it. So if I could pick a place tomorrow, budgets, limit. Like, you know, I would have a guide and go on a track and do like the whole the whole thing like that kind of thing. Amazing. I would go on a Japanese monk retreat somewhere in Japan.

with a Buddhist monk and just like teaches me some weird stuff I didn't know about. It is just like a new way of living just to see what he's on about, you know. Or she or she doesn't. Yeah, yeah, or she. OK, and let's have a favorite landmark. Can be nature or manmade? mean, favorite landmark nature. I don't think I've ever been asked this question. It's a really good question. Part of me wants to say the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Mostly because it's home and we've moved around so much and all the things that we've never had a place that we see a picture of it you get such warm fuzzy feelings about. So that would say probably the Blue-Wish Mountains. Gosh, that's a good answer. I don't want to be cliche, but I fear I might be with the stupid Eiffel Tower. Just because it's like, like whatever she is, that's she blows. No, can't. That's awful. That's awful. Favorite landmark.

What else is there? He's a nature or man made. Nature or man made. made. Your Blue Ridge Mountains. That was a brilliant answer. You might just piggyback off that. then. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing clever that's going to be compelling for your audience. I mean, I was thinking about how we were just in Switzerland and we were looking at the Swiss mountains and we had a friend or the Swiss Alps and we had a friend here and they sent us a picture. They were hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains and I felt like so nice about it. And I was like.

I'm literally staring at the Alps, you know? Yeah. I think it's like, it's just nice. It's home. Yeah. There's much worse sights than that. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I want you to put your digital nomad hat on. If you're going to pick somewhere to be a digital nomad for a month or two and work, you know, work and live, not necessarily just travel, it's work and live. Where you going to pick? man. Okay. We've done that quite a few times. Yeah. Yeah. You know, where we're working and living for a month. I mean, but it's just one month. So just one month. Exactly. Like I think

Yeah, because I think it's a minimum of a month, right? Yeah. Yeah. So for us, think the temporary nature is kind of nice. And I place you've been before that we know about now like dreams. Yeah, yeah. I think it's more of a recommendation tip if you're thinking about it. OK, recommendation or tip. All right. My first was Sevilla. Yeah, Sevilla. Because there's so many like remote work cafes. Like, OK. Yeah. In Granada. Yeah, but there's not a great for remote work. wasn't. Yeah, it's not great for.

But it's a spot. You can go there from Sevilla. The other spot I would say... Edinburgh. For remote work. Edinburgh. Yeah. I would pick Florence, I think too. would also be really great. Virginia is cliche, but I think if you're there for a month, like Wi-Fi is great, cafes are great, and you can get outside of the tourist crowds a bit by being there for a month. In Edinburgh, you can go to the nature bits really quickly as well. Yeah. So I like that. Explaining my computer really quickly. sorry. Pause. The battery's about to die. God.

Yeah, we've been talking for two hours, Carly. I'll wrap it up. Your Mac will soon sleep when it's plugged into a power suit. Quickly, desperation arises. I forgot to plug it in. I'm not sure these are even on. I don't see any lights indicating. So I have this. This is why I have backups. Set? Yeah. yes, we are saved. The light support has been initiated. Yeah, no, I recommend.

Full answers should be for sure. The more I think about it, I'm like, yeah, those are good spots. And I would say Edinburgh just because I love this spot and... University towns in general. Yeah, the university towns are great. Yeah, we found that like if remote work, if you need to pick a spot to be based for a little while, university towns. University towns have great Wi-Fi, has youth and vitality and like, so like there's like places to go and be and have a life. yeah, the university towns are good. Okay. And put on to the question is your favorite place to drink a coffee?

You got one each here or three. If you want to do a combined one. That could be maybe someone like a city has a great coffee or even a country. If you want to define a country as having great coffee, it's entirely up to you. But where is tomorrow? If you're to to have coffee somewhere, where you going to go? You've had such a bad coffee in France, which is strange. He's like French Roast. I love the coffee I make here. can be your answer. He makes my favorite. Really good coffee that we've had.

I mean Seattle like Seattle has really good coffee. Yeah, not Starbucks though. Yeah. No, I don't know. like the like the the coffee scene in Seattle is really cool. I'm a bad person as fuck coffee because I love licking ashtrays not physically but taste wise. So like I do love Starbucks. It will say OK. That image that image is like smoky whiskey's dark roast coffees. I'm just a plebby as far as like taste is concerned with coffee. So I'm the wrong person. As far as like

tips for places like the coffee. I really like Stumptown coffee, I mean, Portland. It's a favorite. It's my favorite. I also really love Blue Bottle too. like LA, like Stumptown and the Arts District in LA, great spot. And then also Blue Bottle on Abbott Kinney Road in Venice Beach. Like those are my favorite coffee places. I love that. Absolutely love that.

I there if I had like an afternoon where I wanted to get out of the house and work. Like I just worked in The people watching is amazing. And then like when you're done working and you take your coffee to go like just, you know, just wild people watching in Venice Beach, you know, it's so much fun. Dream on. like one the experiences we were just like walking down the sidewalk and then as we're waiting for the stoplight, like for the light to change or whatever, there's a guy who just climbed up the light pole to the top and like

hung off the side like Spider-Man and then he must be a stunt man or something. he climbs, then he saw the lights about to change. He climbs down the light pole and then continues on his run. It's like, what, what, what are we in? American world. Yeah. So I think that probably coffee, we've had some really good coffee in LA. Yeah. Got it. Okay. And the last question is going to be if someone's listening or watching right now, and I'm maybe a tad nervous about traveling could be to somewhere new, even somewhere like

left field like abroad or somewhere in Asia, whatever it is, what advice could you give to them to say, hey, look, it's worth the trip. It's worth the anxiety. You should make a leap and go. Usually I say like something along the lines of like... comes for us all. Got it. Got it. Got it. I mean, he does say that. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised.

No, I think that usually I think I tell someone whether you're at home and you're like, I want to get out of my comfort zone or I want to do these things. It's like the easiest way to do that is to go to travel. It's like the lowest hanging fruit of getting out of your comfort zone in the sense like it's just like you're literally picking yourself up, dropping yourself in the middle of a place where you don't know the language, you don't know the food, you don't know anything. And then having an adventure and going with it. I think that knowing that and then also like

It's cliche, but you're only going to make crazy memories by doing something different. You're only going to make those memories by doing something different and out of your routine and out of your normal everyday life. people usually ask us, how do you start working remotely? How do all these things happen? It was just a series of small steps. I didn't go from working a normal cubicle job as a secretary to like,

working a remote job and living six months in Europe, like in one step, you know? Yeah, yeah, of course. It was a serious... There's small steps along the way. And so it's like, if you're just taking one small step, that first step could just be taking a trip to a new place. And you don't know where that's going to lead you along in the process. mean, one of our like how we got started traveling in Europe real quick is just like I was at the Faux English Pub and then I was like, what is it like to look, be in the real fit, real thing? And I was like in Orlando. And I called him like, hey, crazy idea. What if we just like left our rent?

go travel to Europe for a month. And like that crazy idea of just taking us that leap led us into a world that we never would have thought we enter. So like I think small steps are yes, but also big moves. It can just be in your life. Like the skills that you'll learn while doing that on your own or doing it with a friend or whatever. that's that's like life changing for other areas. Yeah. So my advice would be OK. So here you go.

So, all right, we haven't found the key to eternal youth yet, right? You know, we've looked for it. So the only way we can live longer on this planet is through perception. And perception only becomes elongated when we have more little lily pads of members, different members. When you're in a rut, when you're in your daily routine, time flies by. It only flies by if you're in a rut. It only flies by when you're in a routine that's the same day. If you live the same day every single day,

Your life will fly by. The only way your life doesn't fly by if you do something new, if you like change your, or like stimulate your mental plasticity. If you put yourself in a situation where you need to like change your mind or like adapt to something, that's how you live longer in life is by perception of living longer, by like changing what you do on the day to day. Once you get in a routine, your life will fly by. If you could do something different every day or like, know, some days just do something different, your life will go slower in a good way.

You tell you what, that is way, way different to what you first said. Which we can't. yeah. Yeah. Okay. On that bombshell Chris Ellen, what a conversation. been two hours long. Super fun. I must say Chris, it has flown by. must admit. Well, it's always great chatting with you James. Yeah. Yeah. It's great to catch up. Yeah. We haven't seen each other for a while. So, yeah, really pleased to see you guys and have a chat about travel. It's been super fun, positive, engaging, and I think your audience is going love it. Yeah.

Awesome. I hope they do. Hello audience and goodbye audience. It's been great to meet you. James is awesome. Please continue listening. Subscribe, leave a review. It really helps out the channel a lot. And also it really helps other people travel. So if you want to be good for this world and help other people travel, leave a review. Yep. And if you've got some money, you can sponsor me as well. Exactly. Buy me a cup of great coffee. Yeah. Buy me a coffee. Yeah. I'll put a link in the show notes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thanks guys. Appreciate it. Thanks.

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