Ep 181 Part 1 – Flesh-Eating Crabs, Legendary Pub Crawls & Immersive Travel Storytelling w/ Aaron Millar (The Armchair Explorer Podcast)

I interviewed Jeb Corliss, who's one of the number one wingsuit guys. Oh my god, does he have one of the most hideous accident stories you'll ever, ever hear. I don't even know if I should just share it now, but it's bad. Do you wanna hear it?

Yeah, yeah, I'm thinking a broken back, but I could be wrong.

It's way more interesting than that. This is like one of his, this is like the first one. But he was looking for, he was just kind of starting out in his career, was still an amateur at this point. And so he was looking for like cool places in South Africa to like jump off. And at this point he was just a base jumper, hadn't become a wingsuit. And so they found this one spot, this waterfall, like way, way back in, you know, away from any towns or cities. And the idea was like this mate was gonna film

who's just gonna jump off this waterfall, which was, I don't know, maybe a hundred and something feet high, so not massive. When he does it, what happens is the air from the power of the waterfall immediately sucks him into the waterfall, so he jumps off, and as soon as his chute comes out, he's sucked into the waterfall and just slammed down on the rocks, at which point he thinks he's gonna...

Do you love spontaneous adventures, travel tips and stories that will inspire you to pack up and go?

Well welcome to the Winging It Travel Podcast. I'm James, your host, and each week I bring you travel tales, practical advice and interviews with travellers from around the globe. Whether you're planning a big trip or just dreaming about one, you'll find everything from hidden gems to epic fails. Because travel is not perfect, and that is what makes it beautiful. So grab your backpack and let's wing it. New episodes every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts, and on YouTube too. You can find Winging It and more fantastic

travel podcast from around the world at voyescape.com. The link is in the show notes. Let's go and explore the world. Hello and welcome to this week's episode where I'm joined by Aaron Miller, who hosts the Armchair Explorer podcast and is a travel writer. Aaron comes on today to talk about his travels, his amazing podcast, which has won some awards, the art of storytelling and some podcasting tips for anyone looking to start a podcast. Aaron, welcome to the show. How are doing?

I'm doing great, mate. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me on. I've actually just got through with listening to your El Salvador episode and I absolutely loved it. So if anyone's listening and hasn't checked that out, go back because it's going to totally blow me away as an episode. It's really great, mate.

I appreciate it. Appreciate that feedback. It's always good to hear it you don't actually know if it's actually any good.

know, I know it's just speaking into a void and hoping that the void speaks back every now and again.

Yeah, I do see the figures. think the San Salvador is the most popular one, but my favorite is the volcano one in Guatemala because I have the volcanic sounds. I turn it all up so you get like a rumbling feeling through the headphones. It's quite cool.

nice

That's amazing. I'm gonna check that out. And the El Salvador thing as well, I was thinking it is, it's great at this time too, know, particularly in America where I live now. There's a, like, when you hear El Salvador, all you'll hear is that, you know, the prison and that's whole side of things. And it's almost tainting the image of that country, just as when it was kind of getting that image back, you know. So, yeah, really, really great from that side too.

Yeah, great country to visit and I think they're doubling their tourists this year. Well, they were before the, well, the prison stuff, but I think I was reading an article. I can read some Spanish, not too well, but it was kind of saying last year they got 4 million tourists. They think they're going to double it this year. Oh For the year. I think they're on the up, totally safe country. Right. mean, that was all in that series to kind of showcase that. But I do get the nervousness of some people with the scene, the prison stuff, but

If you listen to the episodes, people listening with my locals I interviewed there, they do talk about that and it is a thing that they know about, but compared to what it was, I don't know, 10 years ago or five years ago, it's a much better state than it was.

That's right. And in general, don't trust the media. know what mean? It's like that is... Plus you'd never wear a go anyway.

for a media guy.

So you mentioned you're in America, so tell the listeners where you're based.

So I'm based in a little town called Louisville just outside of Boulder, Colorado. I grew up in Brighton. Well, actually I was born in America. My mom's American. So I was actually born on the East Coast of America. And then I moved over as a little kid to Brighton on the South Coast of England. Kind of grew up there. And then, you know, I did the whole move to London, work in London and that whole thing. And I had a kid, my first child. It was one of those where I'd always dreamed of living abroad or traveling, doing more of that kind of thing.

And then I was staring down the gun of this is going to be the next 20 years of your life. I just pressed eject and ran away to the mountains. And I'm still here.

I think that's London Effect, isn't it? It's a young person. Yeah, I was there for university and it's tough going as a student. You need money. You need money.

Exactly,

Yeah, it's a place that unless you're earning a lot and enjoying it, there's no reason for you to be there. But it's a beautiful city. I do miss a lot of parts of it and still have lot of friends there too.

Yeah, how was it growing up in Brighton? If you're from the UK, you kind of think, Brighton would be pretty cool.

Well, it is. And by the way, James, I'm just, if you can't hear this, James is an Ipswich fan. so I've underneath my shirt, I've worn my Brighton and Hovallbian t-shirt to rub it in, just to rub it in.

Looks great.

We're gonna survive, but looks like not now.

No, Brighton was an amazing place to grow up. It's a very liberal town. It's a very creative, artistic town. I was really into music. I still am into music, but I was really into playing music with my friends and that kind of thing. It was a great place to do that. So yeah, I still love it. I absolutely love it there.

What was the early travel memories? Did you travel a lot of the UK or was there some abroad travel? Can you remember what maybe ignited some wanderlust?

It's a really good question. I've kind of thought about this because it's not always just like one thing, you know, but I think the deepest one for me was, so I moved over to England with my mom and what would be my stepdad, what would become my stepdad. But my dad was in America and he was like someone that, you know, I basically I saw him once a year and he was a big hiker and what his thing was.

is we would meet in Switzerland, which is somewhere he'd gone for many years. We'd meet in Switzerland and we'd go hiking together for two weeks. And so, from the age of, I would say probably 11 to 17, I went hiking with my dad for two weeks in Switzerland every summer. if you haven't, have you been to Switzerland?

I have, yeah, but not in the mountains, no.

okay, yeah. Well, the mountains in Switzerland, like I'm a big mountain person, obviously I've moved to Colorado and, you know, the Rockies are beautiful, but they've got nothing on the Swiss Alps. Like the Swiss Alps are just ridiculous. Like, it's like every single view you look at is just the most beautiful mountain view you've ever seen. And I think that really just sort of fired that piece in me about...

you know, just being outdoors. He was quite a hardcore hiker, so we'd go on these really, really long, long hikes. And I loved it. You know, I just fell in love with it. And, you know, I've kind of dipped my toes in all sorts of adventure sports since then, but hiking is like truly my first love. And the mountains too. And, know, when I kind of decided to move to...

America that Colorado was top of my list because I wanted to have that like I love the ocean being from Brighton I grew up next to the ocean and that's got a special energy to it I think but the mountains I just there was something about it that always just drew me Drew me to them. And so yeah, so I think that that was probably the first time I really caught the

I think that's why Vancouver is quite rare, it? Because we have the sea and the mountains. I mean, I'm 10 minutes from the top of the mountain, Cypress Mountain, and I'm 10 minutes walk from the water. So, well, five minutes really. So I think that's why people love coming here. That's why it's probably quite expensive. But the lure of kind of going up to ski and then you can go down to the beach on the same day is quite appealing for some people.

Yeah, and I always think those places where those two ecosystems meet, that's where a lot of energy and interesting stuff happens, whether it's wildlife or just the vibe of a place. I've only been to Vancouver once, but I loved it. I love that whole British Columbia area. You live in a beautiful place.

It's a special area, must admit. And Switzerland has got that, I guess, reputation in Europe, right? To being that quite special place to go and be in amongst the mountains. Because the Alps is probably the best there, isn't it? I think in Switzerland. That might be controversial, I'm not sure, but I think I read somewhere every day that the Alps... France or... In Switzerland, yeah. Take that I'm not sure.

Don't

For French or Italian plug your ears now

My dad growing up who's never traveled abroad, right? He's never been anywhere. He hasn't got a passport, but he would say the place he would like to go to is Switzerland. You probably watch the Sound of Music, like Austria, Switzerland, But think he he like thinks I'd love to go there and he's got no idea. But this has that sort of pull I think for, I guess if you're into hiking as well. Yeah.

I think it's a bit legendary when it comes to that and it's also got this great infrastructure too where what you would often do is you just get the cable car up to the high part of the mountains and then you get to sort of walk along on top and as soon as you get up there you get all the best amazing views and sometimes it's fun making your way up there. always feel like the view is relative to how hard you earn that view but at the same time it can be nice just getting the cable car up and looking at the view from

Yeah, think one of the best things we did in our year trip a few years ago was the Alps train went from Kerr on the border and got the Bernina Express over to Tirano in Italy. So it takes about four hours. The panoramic train only costs like 20, 30 pounds if you book in advance. And it was just incredible. Like it was going from nice weather to snow in about two hours and you get off and you have like a little bit of a walk at the top. That's quite incredible. And it's quite a nice way to see the Alps if you don't want to hike.

And that's a great tip. I've actually heard of that before, so that's a great tip.

Yeah, the Bernini Express would recommend it. For the UK, are you quite well travelled? Do you think or not?

Yes and no, I think. You know, I don't know what well-traveled in the UK, like where's the sort of grade of it? don't know. I love Scotland. My wife's from Scotland, so I've traveled a fair bit around there, but also like not really even scratch the surface, I feel like, you know what mean? Like it's one of those where I absolutely love that, the country. But I've done a fair bit up there. I love the Lake District. I think Lake District's amazing.

question.

But never been to like places like Cornwall. you know, like blatant amazing places I've never been. Devon. Been to Devon, but I should have just kept going because everyone's like, Cornwall's amazing. But I think there's a lot to see there.

Seven as well.

Yeah.

What about those isles off the coast of Cornwall? The isles of Sydney? yeah.

No, the silly, you know, just laugh about that one. There's nothing silly about them.

Yeah, but they look like they're serious actually.

Yeah, It's like little gems like that as well. never been to Northern Ireland, barely been to Wales, you know, so there's a lot still to do for a small place. And I think being out here, I don't know you feel in Canada, but you realise how kind of small it is really as a place. Like when you grow up there, you feel it's like this big, big place, but like people drive, you know, the equivalent of

up to the south to north of the UK and back just to go like a day pretty much. They're like, we're going to drive to the Grand Canyon, spend a day there and drive back. It's crazy.

I mean it's crazy the distance isn't it because we just had a long weekend in Kelowna which is about four to four to five hour drive east of here and people won't even barren isle to go and drive there for a weekend it's just a normal thing but like yeah UK if you're going from Brighton four to five hours north I mean where you gonna end up you can put your feet in Yorkshire aren't you?

Yeah, I know and that would be outrageous wouldn't it?

Yeah, outrageous, yeah. But I do feel like it makes me feel a guilty for not traveling UK because it is so small, but hey.

Mmm, you don't appreciate what you've got. That's right. And that's actually one of my missions this year is to see more of Colorado because it's easy for that to skip away too. And so, you you're always looking outward from where you are to where am I going to go next. But I'm really trying this summer, particularly just to like stay at home and explore all those little corners that I haven't been to yet.

Mm-hmm. Okay. And when you were moving into the career aspect, did you think, that we'll be within travel? Or was writing or being a journalist more of a thought first, and then I'll do that, and it's travel sort of came along as a byproduct. How did that work out?

Yeah, I've got quite an interesting story of how got into travel journalism. I started out in the music industry. I worked in the music industry in my 20s. was like, music was my thing. And then I kind of got burnt out from that. a lot of stuff I'd started and begun just kind of hadn't worked out. But prior to that, writing was always my sort of first love. And I think during that period, I realized that I was a much better writer than I was a musician.

But I wanted to do something creative and so I was kind of like just writing a few articles and trying to get them published and nothing much Happened and then a few months after and I kind of said to myself, you know I had like a thousand quid in the bank and I was like right if this money runs out then that's it I've not made it as a writer, you know, and so I was kind of just getting little piecemeal bits of work here and there and then

I came up with this idea. So travel journalism is I suppose is different in some ways to like content creation. Journalism when you're writing for like newspapers or magazines, a lot of it is about like the hook, the sort of why now of that story. And so a lot of times you're sort of following ideas of like where the story is rather than choosing where you want to go. And because of that, like ideas are really important. Ideas are king in a way. If you can have a great idea.

then you can write lots and lots of different articles and stories off the back of that. Anyway, so where Brighton is in the South Downs, beautiful rolling hills of the South Downs, and they had just turned that whole area that I grew up in to a national park a year ago, the South Downs National Park, and basically I thought to myself as the year anniversary was coming up, what I should do is I should walk the South Downs way.

which is from Eastbourne to Winchester. So it covers the whole sort of breadth of the park. It's about a hundred miles. And this has been walked for centuries by, you know, like sheep drovers and travelers and pilgrims and stuff like that, because they would follow the kind of spine of the Downs because it was easier to travel on. And because of that, like all these, you know, really historic coaching inns or pubs, right, had kind of sprung up alongside the trail. You know, some of them like 500, 600 years old now.

And so what I worked out is that you could do this as a pub crawl. that was my idea. So I pitched the idea of I'm going to do a 100 mile pub crawl from Eastbourne to Winchester, stopping off at all the pubs along the way that the trail kind of connects to. that was a whole other story. But that kind of led to, that was a great trip. Apart from the fact I did it in February. it was, yeah.

I think even a submarine wouldn't have kept me dry that week. Luckily when you write about it afterwards it's all rosy. And that sort of led into doing some outdoor adventure travel writing and stuff like that. But my really big break happened. I pitched this idea to the Sunday Times. was the time, I don't know if you remember, but Brian Cox was on the TV, Space and kind Astro Tourism was just bubbling up, this quite big interesting thing.

And I found out that Tenerife is the best place for stargazing in Europe. It's where all the telescopes and stuff are. Right up high in Mount Tehede National Park. so I pitched this idea of a galactic safari in Tenerife. I thought it just sounded cool. I sent it to a bunch of people. And one of the people was...

Let's go.

The Sunday Times and like this was all like crazy hit and hope stuff Yeah, and you know a month later nothing had happened and then suddenly I get a call and it's like is this I even answer it, you know pick it up and it's like hello This is Christine Walker from the Sunday Times. I've seen your idea, but who are you? you know, you're not ready to write for us and And I was like, right and she was like, well, here's what I'll do You know if you can find a way to get out there and write the article. I'll read it. That's all I can promise

And so I totally blacked it at that point. I phoned up the Tenerife tourism board, said I had a commission from the Sunday Times. I got all the hotels and flights for free. I phoned up Brian, I got hold of Brian May from Queen.

He did his- As you do, yeah.

Yeah, because he did, I knew someone who knew someone who knew someone and because he did his PhD in astrophysics in there and he was just about to do something there. So I like set this whole thing up, blagged this whole trip, went there, did it, wrote it and she published it and then after that I just kind of, I was Aaron Miller from the Sunday Times and I kept blagging it from there basically.

That's an amazing story isn't it? That's crazy. Do you know I find funny amongst all that is the classic British mentality is, you know what, I can do an article about pubs and drinking on a wall.

You know, combined all my favourite things in one. Yeah, yeah, it's the highlight of my life.

Unbelievable, but that's a great break there isn't it? guess that kind of for me is great to hear because that's inspiring in terms of getting outside of the box trying to figure something out like what could work. Let's try it. Let's give it a go. No guarantees, but I think that requires bit of that sometimes to get going isn't it?

Well, as a freelancer, I'd always go for stuff that was guaranteed stuff based on relationships I already had and sort of like low hanging fruit type stuff. But I'd always have like one big crazy low probability idea. But if it came off, it would be a total game changer. And I always feel like you always need to have one or two of those in the air floating around because that's really when things completely change. You can't rely on that. But if you don't ever have that.

You'll never really, well it's gonna be a slow path to getting anywhere else that you might wanna go. So I always try and have like one or two those big crazy ideas in the background at all times. But yeah, I don't know. I would encourage people to have crazy ideas and go for it. And don't be afraid. I think a lot of the time as well that it's the whole imposter syndrome of, I can't do that, I can't do that.

You know, really, I guess, you know, and for some things that's true, right? Like I'd love to be, you know, a rock star. I'm not, I'm not good enough. You know, I'd love to be a footballer. I'm definitely not good enough, right?

Well, not quick enough, it's different.

Yeah, no, I'm all over the shop. But, if you find your thing, whatever that thing is, you know, I think you can double down on it sometimes and just believe in yourself and go for it because you never know. And oftentimes there's a great thing, my mate JT, Jonathan Thompson, he's a really successful travel writer and he's actually now does a TV show as well. But he always said to be successful, there's basically like

three components to it, right? You need to be nice, you need to be on time, and you need to be good. But you only need to be two of those. And if you think about it, you're nice and on time, it doesn't really matter if you're good, right? If you're good and on time, doesn't matter if you're nice. You know what mean? Like you can work it out.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, because in my music degree at BIM, they said the same thing pretty much. I think the fourth one was a bit of luck. yeah, they said if you're just a nice person, you turn up to the studio on time, that's half the battle. guess with music though, you will get shown up if you're trying to shred a guitar and you can't hit the notes. I guess there is an element of truth alignment there with journalism and music to a degree. Yeah. It's interesting.

Yeah, that's.

Yeah, absolutely. But like you say, at least with writing you can like tear up draft 16 and go again. There's no doing that with the guitar in the studio. So are you a guitarist then? that your instrument? Well, we're halfway there to a band. I'm a drummer. So I just hang around.

Damn. Yeah, yeah.

Oh wow, to the bass! Oh wow, and a singer!

Yeah, exactly. Yeah

I actually had the same story as you, I got burnt out through the relentless, as four years been in London, that was just relentless performing and practicing every day. And actually, if you don't look after yourself, you will burn out. And when you start to not make money, that can be an issue, of change direction to travel, interestingly. But I still have that hankering to play guitar. Maybe not as serious as I probably should, but.

I do just want to sit down for two hours and just whack some tunes out.

You should mate. I mean, that's the thing is that you never, it's, I've never done it at a level where, you know, there was that level of pressure and intensity that you would have done it at that sort of professional level. But for me, it was always about like making music with my friends was always like the best thing in the world. Right. And that's really what music's about for me. And I just love that. I'm still doing that to this day.

Yeah, that's awesome. I should really get back into it. You give me some something to think about.

Bassist and a singer, that's all we need.

If you're a bass and a singer, that'd be ideal. My two questions with your comments about the having an idea and going for it. First question, can that be translated to podcast? If you're a podcast listening and that can be travel or another type of podcast, but let's go with travel because we're on a travel podcast. If you had a travel idea or something that's coming up that could be quite significant, do you think you can pitch idea like, you know what, I'll do a podcast series, six episodes, whatever, because I think, you know,

I think you mentioned one at the travel con. don't want to say it because people nick your idea, but you mentioned like a big anniversary coming next year or this year. Do you think if you can pitch that, that could work as well?

Well, I think the harder thing with content creation is that there is an element of a numbers game. Like part of it is the creativity in the content you create, but also it's about the exposure that you can offer. And that is the hard thing about being truly independent. Being an independent content creator, if you can make it happen, it's fantastic. And then you have the freedom to just tell the stories you want to tell. But if you're a freelance journalist, you don't necessarily have the freedom to tell the stories you want to tell.

you'd have to tell the stories that sell and that the editors want. But the advantage of it is you're sort of playing off the back of that already well-established platform and name. So it's a little bit easier in some ways to blag it. But I guess I would say, you know, it might be harder to have your own platform if you're starting from scratch, but you've got to start sometime, right? So you might as well get going with that. at the same time, you know, if you're

creative person, whether it's you're a writer or a videographer or whatever, you can still have that idea and you can still do that same model of partnering with maybe an already established podcast and say, hey, I've got this great idea for a series. What if we did this with you and I brought in this destination or these people and this local guide and we did this whole thing. I would just, I guess I would encourage you to think creatively, think like a creator.

But maybe try and think about how you can be the middle person between connecting the people with platforms, the people that want those audiences, and you be the creative person, you be the idea machine. That kind of is the glue between those two things.

It's quite a hard thought process because you think all the ideas have been done before, don't you? That kind of leads to my second question of do you always have in your mind every year, there's probably two or three, I don't know, could be big anniversaries, could be a new opening of something. Do you always just keep an eye on those sort of things to potentially pitch for that year?

Well, I think those are the big long ball type of ideas in some ways. Even though they're, in many ways, you get the best chance of doing those highly topical ideas. But when it comes to the podcast, it's not like that at all for me anymore. What I'm doing with our, we're doing a bunch of different types of episodes, but our kind of signature episode that we start out with, and that's really truly my first love still, are these.

kind of immersive documentary stories where I'll interview a guest and kind of chop that in between some scripted voiceover and music and stuff and try and present it as a continuous story that really hopefully drops people into that experience and shows them a piece of it. But for that, it's like, what's so amazing about it is I'm just looking for pure story. Like, what is this incredible, you know, what is your story? And that's such a refreshing.

thing for me in a way because it's like I can choose, you know, I can choose what I want to share and like being a travel writer for me, you know, obviously, you know, it's the perks of traveling are like unreal, right? You know, it's I wouldn't have been able to do anything like the stuff that I've done or share those things with my family either. So I'm eternally grateful for that. But beyond that, if you were to ask me like why

why this type of writing, why this type of podcasting? It's because I'm really passionate about putting out, I guess, an idea or a way of thinking about the world and the outdoors and people and stuff like that, that I think is, that I'm really personally passionate about. And so I'm always trying to pick stories that give that life in a way, without having to sort of preach your message, whatever that might be. But like,

What is it that you're passionate about? Like what are the stories that you really want to share because you want to impact the world in that way? And then, you know, find those stories, tell those stories because those are the ones that, you know, make a difference for you. And for me, that's still why I do it. And it's the number one thing. That and the free travel.

Yeah, I going to say that I think we may have listened on this podcast. I do sort of nominate Aaron's podcast, I'm True Explorer, as probably the biggest influence in travel podcasting because I like that idea because the genuine feeling is, as we were talking before the recording, is that I do want to try and show or at least

Yeah

give a sound of a travel experience where potentially if you're a listener you might not get it. And I think we do have to rival YouTube to an extent because on YouTube you can see it and that is a huge advantage. But I think how can we rival YouTube in terms of the experience? think these conversations are great. You can go and just do 20 minutes about the best things to see and do in a place. Great. But what about collecting sounds and make me feel part of it? I think that has got to be worth its weight in gold because

you do come along for the journey, think, if that can inspire someone to go and take that trip and see it for themselves. Or if they can never travel, but they get to experience that with themselves in their headphones, I think that's pretty cool. And I think that's the best way I can see travel podcasts going because it kind of brings you along for the journey. And there's no bias there. I don't put bias into it. I just say what I see, what I'm experiencing, and kind of give that genuine experience across.

No, I love your style. Like I said, I really love your style. I think you do it really, really well. it comes across, you know, like I would, A, like I always think travel content is informational and inspirational, right? Like, you know, like, and I guess I lean quite heavily on the inspirational side. But I think what you do, which is really interesting is it's like really both. Like it's very informational in the sense that, you know, I listened to that episode about San Salvador.

And I'm following you on that two, three day weekend in San Salvador and I really feel like I'm with you. And that piece is inspirational. But you're also revealing all these secrets, you know, and revealing all this information of what to do and what it's like, even to the point of like, you know, I'm walking from my hostel to the first place and I feel safe. It feels like there's people are cool and stuff like that. So you really balance that very, very well. And I think that

That's what we need to lean on. Going back to YouTube, think that audio does something different than video, right? Video is powerful for showing you something. It's got wow. Obviously our eyes are our number one sense, so it's got all that going for it. But audio does what really good writing does. Good writing, if you get it right, comes alive in the imagination of the reader. And because it comes alive in the imagination of the reader, they own it.

in a way that they don't own that movie. That movie is a spectacle they've seen. But if you read that book and you love that book, that book's kind of a part of you in a much deeper way. And I think that that's what we need to lean on in audio is how can we use the power of this medium to tell stories that really achieve that, that come alive in the imagination of the people that are listening to it. And I think using some of that

in-field ambience that you recorded, using some music, using all those types of things, and the way that you did the voiceover and the way that it's kind of scripted but also natural, it's pulled together in a way that's, in the same way that a really good article would, I think, give people a glimpse of what the highlights are, but also, if you get it right, like I say, just give them a...

glimpse of what it feels like to be, not just what it looks like.

feeling. That's the thing. How did you come up with the idea originally? Because was that back in COVID, right? You started off

Well, yeah, yeah, so, cause I sort of been in the music industry prior to that. I wasn't a musician in it. I was working for a management company, but I knew my way around a studio and I'd always kind of thought to myself, wouldn't it be great to tell all these stories, but like with music and all sorts of other stuff. And I was listening to podcasts and I'm like, well, why is no one doing this? Everyone's just doing interviews. Why is no one doing any these more sort of involved things?

And then, you know, I talked about it, talked about a COVID hit and it was like, right, well, this is it. If I don't do it now, it's definitely never going to happen. And so I just went and made my first episode and then I realised why no one else was doing it because it's...

Took me like 40 hours.

And it was still terrible. So yeah, I kind of shot myself in the foot in some ways there. Creatively, it's really satisfying. it is an investment of time, as you know. It's not easy. And the saying about writing is that easy reading is hard writing. And it's so true. To get that flow and to get that easiness so it all comes together is quite hard.

quite hard, there's quite a lot of behind the scenes that go into it. But it's worth it, right? Because it's also about putting that great content out there and hopefully inspiring people along the way.

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 TeePublic 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 Good Pods. 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 travelling, podcast and other stuff. Thank you. But even now there's not many podcasts doing it is there? I mean, I've dipped in this year. I don't know too many other ones that would do the same sort of style, right?

Not

No, I really don't know many that do it at all. You still see mostly that interview format. And don't get me wrong, that can be great. It's a different format altogether, but it can be great. But I think particularly with travel, because it's about place, because you can hear people. When you interview the guides in San Salvador, and you hear them, you get that level of trust about visiting there that you wouldn't get just from reading that.

And okay, you say, you you could, you know, you could film that guy and whatever. But here's the thing, when you shove a camera in someone's face, they freeze up and they, like most people, and they become nervous or they become very like presenter-like about it, They're very often not natural. Almost no one is natural. And it's quite hard to edit, right? Because you can't just chop bits and pieces together.

Yeah.

But with audio, they very quickly forget that there's a microphone there. And so you can just develop this natural rapport as you would do as a traveler. then I think you can get something of their real personality, like very natural, which you can't get on camera too.

Those two guys on the El Salvador ones are quite interesting, Carlos and Dave. I actually did film Dave, but he's such a larger than life character. He didn't care. He was happy to say anything. He's even looking at the camera when he's speaking out. He is really good. But Carlos is like, yeah, I'm not too comfortable with English. Can we just do audio? I'm like, yeah, absolutely fine. No worries. So I had two different personalities there. But I think that does shine through in the audio. You can probably tell that Dave is a bit larger in life. does his tours.

He's quite funny and stuff and he's very enthusiastic, which comes across, I think, in the audio, for sure.

totally. Yeah, absolutely.

And for other travel podcasts, think there is a slight caveat here is that we were both in the music side and I guess we did have that access to production. So I learned some of that in my course, right? And maybe that is a leg up to maybe someone starting from scratch who's probably never done like anything in a production studio or whatever. So I think that is quite a lot of learning involved when you start to think about.

The reason it takes 40 hours is you've to the sounds, you've got to story, well, I storyboard it. I've got to think, well, what am saying here? What happens here? Can I remember even what happened here? Look back on the video. Like there's all these things going on. There is quite a long ass production thing, but I think it is worth it in the end. I actually am quite super proud of those because they take so long to do and the end product is pretty cool.

Yeah, absolutely. it is, I would say, it's sort of not easy and it's also easier than you'd think. I bought Logic to start using this. I never used Logic before. is a music editing software for Apple, production software. But GarageBand comes on every mat, too. It's super simple. for me, it was just about playing, playing around.

You know, I would get the, you'd have to edit the kind of interview together and that can be a little bit of a finickety thing. But then, know, you're just like, there's all these different websites where you can sign up to and find all sorts of different songs and sounds that are legal to use if you sign up for it. And just messing around with that and where does it sound good and adding sounds to stories. I thought it was great. I loved it.

And I was absolutely terrible at it for like a long time. And I still go back and listen to those first episodes in the cringe. Of course, yeah. But at the same time, I always say like, if you go back to listen to your first episode and you think it's great, you've not learned anything. So just go for it.

That is terrible.

Yeah, some of the memories from previous recordings I used to do just the one USB mic like between two people. I'm like, god, this is carnage and don't sound that great. But yeah, you do learn that sort of stuff. I didn't have like great microphone knowledge, I suppose. That's the big learning thing I learned. Yeah. But collecting sounds is actually easier than you think. You can make it as technical as you want, but a lot of those sounds just come from the iPhone in the video.

Yeah, the iPhone actually picks up some good stuff. Yeah, it really does. It's not bad. And I'm sure it's getting better. I'm sure there's tons of apps there I haven't even checked out that do it even.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for, we're kind of jumping ahead here, but as we're here, because we're talking about the Armchair Explorer, what a Guardian named you is the best travel podcast to check out. That must have been a nice surprise at early doors.

Yeah, well, I was very lucky because it was COVID and I a lot of people wanted to escape wherever they were at. And so it was a good time to put out a podcast that helped people do that, if only in their imagination. I was pretty lucky to have done that at that time in some ways. And yeah, but it's always nice when someone says your podcast is all right. yeah, especially with The Guardian.

Yeah, it helps. And how do you describe your podcast now? mean, you started like that. Just for people who are maybe not sure who you are, like, do you do different types of episodes now? Was it always still that cool idea?

So it's still the core idea and that's kind of like behind everything we do and I think the other part of the core idea is looking for the deeper sort of themes and threads of a place, of a story, right? So it's not just, you know, we did a story about dinosaurs and dark skies in Utah, but that actually becomes a story about, you know, deep time and what it's like when you look at that kind of dinosaur fossil and get that hit of holy shit, it's real or

or whatever, know? And so it becomes about this deeper thread that takes us into that place. So it's both those things, no matter the format, and hopefully just great guests who are really the star of show. But yeah, we do that signature piece I talked about, which was that documentary piece. We do a lot of on-location stuff, like you do, which is a lot of fun to do.

And then we've just started doing a couple other things which are more like short form stuff which are like bucket list clips so like things that you know might be an amazing experience that like you know we did one recently of the the Everest of cage dives which is like Where I don't know you know about this. It's in South Australia in the Neptune Islands. Yes, Rodney Fox the whole story there Yeah, so anyway you go to the bottom of the cage of you basically go diving with great whites at the bottom of the ocean floor so

Super intense, but yeah, but a bucket list experience. Maybe not for everyone, but something you might want to hear about. And we just started doing some destination guides and stuff as well. yeah, we're trying to offer a variety of stuff, but at the same time, I hope it all kind of comes back to that one thing, which is really cool people telling amazing stories. And hopefully we showcase that in a way that is well-paced, because I always think that's important.

well-paced, as immersive as it can be with music, with sound, and hopefully it inspires you to think about one thing differently or in new way.

So how do you find the new stories or the new experiences?

So a lot with the guests, lucky to get pitched a lot of stuff. that works out really well. But we don't do many of them. So I was looking for a variety of stuff there. Like we did one recently with Felipe Massetti, who rode a horse from Canada to Brazil. He was originally from Brazil, emigrated to Canada. And then his parents got a

kicked out of Canada, their visa ran out when he was 18 and he rode his two horses and ended up three horses all the way back home. So incredible story. And you know, it's people like that, but it's also a variety of stuff. I really wanted to do, at the moment I really want to do a story with, you ever seen those mad cliff jumpers and stuff like that? I don't know if you're stuck in that Instagram hole.

Yeah, because I can't swim, so the thought of it is just thanks to cringe,

man, but there was like some of the real top ones there, the stuff they do is insane. I'd love to kind of find out what that's like to stand on the edge of that cliff, you know, to go searching, exploring for these places and find these little coves and just hope that the water is deep enough and know that you've got the target to do it. Like, I kind of want to get into all of that. And then also like, what is it to overcome your, like what's it like to stand there and how'd you then overcome your fear to do it? You know, and then how in

overcoming that fear, how does that change you or change your outlook on life? So it's all that kind of stuff, yeah, always looking for stories. If you've done anything mad or crazy or hilarious, let me know.

Hilarious, I was then thinking about bass jumpers. don't know if you've done many of episodes of those. Those guys are also a different level.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I interviewed Jeb Corliss ages ago, who's one of the number one wingsuit guys. my God, does he have one of the most hideous accident stories you'll ever, ever hear. I don't even know if I should just share it now, but it's bad.

I'm thinking a broken back, but I could be wrong.

No, it's way more interesting than that. he was, this is like one of his, this is like the first one, but he was looking for, he was just kind of starting out in his career, was still an amateur at this point, and so he was looking for like cool places in South Africa to like jump off, and at this point he was just a bass jumper, he hadn't become a wingsuit flyer yet, and he found this, and so they were exploring really deep into it, trying to find all these cool spots.

And so they found this one spot, this waterfall, like way, way back in, you know, away from any towns or cities. And, and the idea was like this mate was going to film him and he was just going to jump off this waterfall, which was, I don't know, maybe a hundred and something feet high. So not massive. Anyway, when he does it, what happens is the, the, the air from the power of the waterfall immediately sucks him into the waterfall.

So he jumps off and then as soon as his chute comes out he's sucked into the waterfall and just slammed down on the rocks. At which point he thinks he's gonna drown and he's underwater for a couple of minutes but he manages to crawl up on the side, on his hands, at which point he realises that he's paralysed from the waist down. can barely move. knows he's broken his back somewhere. So he's lying there.

And where he is, it's going to take his friend least a couple of hours to walk down and to get to him. So he's lying there in the banks of this river and he can't move and he's covered in cuts and bruises. And then these crabs start to crawl over him and they start to eat him.

awful isn't it?

For two hours while crabs can eat him until his friend came down and rescued him. So yeah

But how does his friend rescue him? he's got to somehow figure out how to move him, right? And maneuver him safely and...

I mean this friend just managed to like call the search and rescue or whatever and fight off the crabs off him. but then it took like another six hours for the people to get there and then they had to like stretch him out and took him like 10 hours to carry him out. But yeah, he was jumping off Table Mountain a couple years later because he's absolute nutter. Yeah, one and the other, probably a little bit of both.

He's absolute moron, yeah.

Do those type of stories, if you hear them on your podcast, do they make you just like being awed a little bit of awe or just think how stupid they are? Like do you sometimes get surprised about how crazy the story could be?

Yeah, depends. I think something like that, it's more like how crazy could this story be? I can't see myself doing that. And there's big stories like that, people walking the length of the Amazon River or stuff like that where you're like, wow, this is cool. I would kind of like to experience this, but I'm not going to dedicate two and a half years of my life to do that. It's such an ordeal. But it's amazing to hear those stories. But then there's other stories where you feel, I think a lot of time people are also what they're attracted to.

A lot of the guests always say is that they're in this place in their life and these are just normal people not you know famous adventurers or anything they're in this norm the place in their life where maybe they were unhappy they felt a bit trapped they weren't happy with their career they felt they were going nowhere and they'd always dreamed of doing something and Then they just found a way to actually do it. They found a way to take that step, you know and whether it's

going for one guy, and this does sound extreme, he went for like a thousand mile trek across West Africa, And it took him three months, so he took three months out of his life to do it, and it was a huge adventure, but he did that. It was within his reach in some ways, and kind of within all of our reach. So I hope one of the things that people take away from all of this is, A, you can just do it, right? It's not easy.

It's not easy, but at the same time, it's your life, And if you are dreaming of doing a big adventure or backpacking around Asia, whatever that might be, whatever the level of your adventure is, your dream is, you know, it doesn't happen instantly. But if you kind of have that in your mind, what everyone says on the show is you can, you can kind of create the space in your life, the opportunity of your life.

to do that and not one of them comes back the same. Every single person comes back changed in a positive way and changes their life after that.

I think you're kind going into the realms of psychology a little bit because there is the travel experience of course, but I guess there's an element to it of understanding why they've got to that point, how they achieve the aim, I guess the repercussions afterwards. guess it is going into like, yeah, like real life, I don't know what you call it, it is psychology, but like they're just going through life and they need to do something that's a bit extreme or different to the norm and it's quite an interesting balance.

I think a lot of people feel that there is a kind of accepted path to life, right? Like you go through school, maybe you go to university, you get a job, you do whatever, you get married, have kids, you know, and I followed a bunch of that path too, right? Like not, you know, I'm married with kids, but I think that, you know, you can get stuck on that treadmill of expectation where it's like,

your friends and your family expect you to do the usual thing. And it's quite hard to go against the grain of that, you know? It's really hard. And when people, when you do, people are going to question it and think you're a bit mad for doing it. But that path is only there because it's become like a norm of society to do that. You know, if you go somewhere else in the world, and this is the great thing about travel, you go somewhere else in the world, there's a completely different norm.

about how you should live your life, right? There's nothing about the way in the West that path that is set in stone or is the best way, right? You have to choose the best way for your life. And I always think that that is the ultimate kind of adventure of life in many ways is no one can tell you how to make your life meaningful. You have to give it meaning by doing something that you care about. for some people that is...

travel or related to travel and for a lot of people, travel is like a catalyst to find out what that is and to get there and sometimes it's just getting off that treadmill of that like that normal kind of expected path sometimes just by jumping off it for even a month or something like that can give you enough perspective to to see your life in a broader way than that

I think you just summed up in a nutshell definitely why I did a podcast. Yeah, maybe the same for you as well, but about trying to not convince people just trying to give them an alternative way of thinking about life or even travel or whatever and trying to get them thinking about you know what maybe I do need to do an Extreme adventure for three months or just need to go away. So I'm a completely different could be just a normal trip It's interesting that do another podcast. I produced another one called career breaks, which is

along the same lines, but it's more about taking a break from your career because it can get all intense, right? So I think these two podcasts combined is about trying to seek the alternative and don't settle for the norm if you're not happy.

Yeah, 100%. And I think in that too, I always feel like there's a thing about, you know, personal identity too, which is like your, you know, you, the kind of cliques you grow up in, which are like your family, your school, your town, like that sort of sets the, the sort of like parameters of the kind of person you should be. And if that works for you, that's great. But if it doesn't work for you, that's not great.

and then maybe you have to go and travel and find some different parameters that you can bring into your life.

Yeah. And I think that's why I like to get the different type of guests on. mean, I've had the most extreme has been probably my friend Frank in Quebec who hitchhiked the Congo river. wow. Three months, then nearly died twice. Had to send a voice note to his parents saying he's got malaria and he's going to die and all this sort of stuff. Saw Pygmies and the story was three and a half hours long and I couldn't edit any of it because this is too, it was too good, but completely raw. But that is the extreme level.

I think if he came on now to talk about that, he'd give a different story about how he thought he was addicted to travel and adventure and he's completely changed his ways. But then that is just as good, I think, as just someone who goes to Southeast Asia for the first time internationally, they've never been anywhere else. That's equally as inspirational, it should be anyway, to any listener because they take no leap.

relative to where you're at. Maybe just start by going on a really really really long pub crawl.

And that is an experience in England. Let's put that way. What were you like at end of the pub crawl when you finished?

You

Oh, it was a mess. I'll tell you, yeah, the only thing about, like, walking tipsy's great, but you know, the top of the downs, there's no cover whatsoever. No trees, no nothing. So, yeah, trying to find somewhere for a pee break is an absolute nightmare after you've nailed two points at lunchtime.

That kind of brings me nicely into you as a traveler actually. What type of traveler are you? Has that changed throughout your life?

Wow Yeah, I mean I guess it has changed in some ways I feel like you know, obviously I'm always Looking I'm not so much a city break guy. do have a lot of great experiences with that But I'm more of a you know, go somewhere outdoors and see some beautiful nature type of guy not shy of a cocktail though James I will say that

Yeah, I was in that first hand.

Yeah, so I don't need to be like dangling off cliffs to be happy I'm quite happy to be looking at cliffs with a a margarita that makes me happy too and My wall, you know, have you heard this flash packing phrase? I don't know if it's just Yeah, yeah, so I would say that's where you know my in my mid-20s Where I worked we used to get a month off at Christmas I think cuz our boss basically just wanted us all to go away

And so we started going on these longer adventures to New Zealand or South Africa or wherever. So we would go on these trips and that was almost like, that's where the flashpacking came from, is we would go on these month long trips. And a lot of it would be sort of like backpacking and camping. But then every now and again, we would go to somewhere quite nice, like a little eco lodge or a little place on the beach or whatever. And the thing is, like,

Luxury is completely relative. So, you know, if all you do is stay in five star hotels, it kind of blends into itself, right? And then it's not, you know, it's what it is. But if you like camp out and stay in a shitty hostel for four days and then you go to a really nice place, it's the most amazing thing you've ever done. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's what we're about. Yeah.

Nothing better.

Are you one of those people who can camp in the middle of nowhere with a tent? Are you quite comfortable doing that?

Well, I mean, it depends where the nowhere is, I guess. Yeah. I mean, you know, yeah. Yeah, I feel like I'm pretty comfortable with that. Depends, You know.

Because you see like people walking these like huge routes and yet there's a guy I'm following it a minute on Instagram. He's walking the world I think some day 480 or something. He's in Tajikistan. I think he is right now. Oh cool, and he just camps wherever he finds a spot to me. That's why I'll call because You're alone. It's probably wildlife about People might turn up like I don't know how you can truly relax But I guess it takes a certain mentality to to do that, you know, people can do that people can't do that. I particularly can't but I'm

intrigued by people who can for some reason

Yeah, I mean, I've never done anything as hardcore as that, but I have always sought out that kind of like solitude in the outdoors piece. Like, I love that. Like I want to go somewhere middle of nowhere, wild, and just be there on my own. You know, it's nice to go friends or family, whatever, but I love that feeling of being there completely on my own. Cause I think you get a different hit from it in some ways. And there's a little bit of that trepidation, but at the same time, I think when you're...

And when you solo travel too, like you do a lot of solo travel, things happen, you know, whether it's the way that you're experiencing it, who you meet, or like the way you're taking stuff in or, know, particularly that kind of thing, you're able to pay attention to the experience where you have to in a way, more and be present more than if you were just shooting the shit with someone whilst camping. So it's a different experience, but yeah, I love that actually. I really seek that out.

What's your view on traveling nowadays with maybe smartphones? Has it changed the game in terms of experiences?

Yeah, it's interesting. I think it has. mean, for good and bad, right? It's completely changed the game. Like when I first went backpacking, he was showing my age. Like it was the age of internet cafes. There was no mobile phones, you know? there were mobile phones, but only drug dealers had them, you know?

And the car salesman and you can play snake yeah So I think a couple things on that obviously There's you know a lot of benefit you can get from in terms of research and finding out the right places and stuff like that But there's also a doubt that's also a double-edged sword, you know My friend Brian Thacker who's an Australian travel writer. He wrote this book called Where's Wallace and his premise for that was by the way, that's

not the funniest book he ever wrote. The funniest book he ever wrote was called Rule Number Five, No Sex on the Bus. That was true stories from his life as an 18 to 30 tour guide leader. But whereas Wallace, what he decided was that he was going to find three of the most random places in the world that he didn't know a single thing about.

Ha ha ha!

wow, okay. Right.

He was going to intentionally not find out anything about them at all. Not the languages, the currency, nothing at all. Like the state of security, there are nothing. And just turn up and he wasn't going to use a phone or internet or anything the whole time. And he ended up having these like crazy adventures. But what he said was everything was amazing. Like, you know, he met some guy who took him to this forest that showed him this mountain and it was amazing because it was a surprise.

And then, you know, he got a boat to this beach and it was amazing because he didn't even know this beach was here. Whereas what we do now is we'd be looking it up and this would be the number four beach in the area to go to. And what you need to do is go to that guy. And so you take that element of surprise out of it. And so I think that you're losing something of that wow of discovery and surprise. You know, we're trading like accuracy of the things we should do for, you know, the

the freedom to for things to happen. Spontaneity. Yeah. Yeah, the spontaneity. I'm sort of my jury's out on that a little bit. know, if you're, you're spontaneous, because if you only got a week, right, you sort of want to make sure that you're that you're doing the best things you can do in that week. And I get that. But, you know, there is a price to pay for that. I don't think many people see. But if you have longer than a week, right, and you've got a little bit of extra time, I would definitely make in.

I think there's definitely a place for that spontaneity and just letting things happen. And I do think, I'm a big believer in putting things out into the world too. you know, and I'm not like kind of saying that you can manifest stuff in the world. I mean it like more literally like that than that. Like maybe you can, but I mean it more literally in the sense that I think that like, you know, one of the things everyone always says on the podcast and I've personally experienced, I'm sure you have too, is people...

for the most part, are kind, generous, lovely, amazing people. If you go somewhere and you have culture shock because it's like somewhere you've never ever been before, that's because it's somewhere you've never been before and you don't know how to be in that environment. And that does make you feel nervous. But if you, as a result of that, see thieves and muggers in everyone around the corner, right, what you're putting out there is this kind of

like element of fear and mistrust, right? And people then get off on that and they are a bit wary of you too. But if you can do it and you can just say, you know what, people are all around the world, you know, by and large, like don't go to some crazy place that you shouldn't be, but by and large, by far and large, people are good people. And if you go in there with a smile and an open heart and open arms,

then you're gonna get that back in return and that is probably the number one advice I always say to people to travel is it is scary sometimes going somewhere where you are completely vulnerable because you don't speak the language, you don't know the customs, you don't know where to go, you don't know anything. You are completely reliant on people and so you're completely vulnerable. That is scary. But if you know where that's coming from and you can somehow still put that to one side and just trust in the goodness of people,

then I feel that that trust in goodness is reflected back in your experience and the people you meet.

I totally agree. Could not put that better. And it's amazing how many experiences you remember from those situations. I sort of feel bad about this because I did travel to Southeast Asia for three months with my friend and that was before smartphones. And I can recall pretty much most of the stops on the way, probably some people we met, some things that happened, funny stories. And I repeated the trip again with my partner. And this is not on her. This is just in the situation about...

Yeah.

How do I get there? Well, if you go down the street, you'll find someone who can get a ticket from like, is that that rule? And is that learning experience that you probably do remember most, I think, instead of just going on Google and checking it. But I do wonder these days, if you were to on purpose, not take a smartphone, take a classic burner phone, like you said, and try and do a trip like the old days, I wonder how that would go.

I think it'd be difficult because it's so ubiquitous in our culture that whoever you're speaking to has got a smartphone. I think it'd be hard to do that. I don't know, think it's worth trying. It's an interesting one. I don't do it enough. Actually, here's a thing. Do you know a company called The Adventurists? They're brilliant. You know what? I'm going to connect to them. You've got to get one of them on the show. They specialize in this...

in this area. they create these like un-roots they call them. They're like the anti-packaged adventure travel. And it's like basically like drive a rickshaw from here to here in India. But you don't have a map, you don't have anything, right? You just have to like get there. the map you have is, you know, the size of a napkin, you know, and you've got to travel across, you know, so there's no detail. But, you know, they do stuff like that. They do like these

Okay.

They have a rally where you have to drive from London to Mongolia in a car that costs you less than a thousand pounds.

yeah, my friends have done that. Yeah. Yeah.

And so I love this, so they're all about this like the real adventure happens in in the unknown in the places where you don't know what's gonna happen and what's gonna expect and that is for them what the definition of adventure is and you know not everyone might want to like do that but at the same time I feel like we can tip our toes in that in in a few different ways easily. Yeah.

And maybe to help alongside that, if you've got a smartphone but you do want to take it with you, ask them to think the other day, well maybe not get an eSIM or a SIM card. Maybe just rely on the odd bit of Wi-Fi here and there where they might have it. And just obviously have your VPN available, but just maybe do it that way where it's not constantly available. That might enhance the trip as well.

Yeah, just use it as like an emergency phone type of thing, you know, but, trust yourself to figure out most things, you know.

Is that place that you traveled to where did experience culture shock?

Yes, I mean there's a couple but like the one that really comes to mind is I was in Morocco which is an amazing place to go and it was I was kind of in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains so it about two or three hours outside of Marrakesh and I was with a guide right we were doing a I was kind of going around this this whole area with a a local with a local guy who was kind of introducing me to people and stuff

Anyway, he slams on the brakes and stops all of a sudden. He's like, my God, I can't believe how lucky you are. And we were at, basically in the middle of nowhere, and there's this thing called a festival fantasia, which is like this traditional show of horsemanship that dates back, like the Berbers were the Imazine, they call themselves. They were the people that never surrendered. They're like this warrior.

culture originally. the word Berber actually comes from what the Romans called them, which was Barbar, barbarians. But they have these traditional shows where villagers almost compete against each other, and they would have these horses decked out in this amazing kind of gear and stuff like that. the goal was to ride this line of five horses as

as uniformly as possible and then all fire your gun at the same time, as if it was a mock charge. so there's that. And then next to that is this huge, full-on market, not a tourist market, like things being slaughtered in front of you type of market. And I was just such a person of interest. What the fuck was I doing here? And that's a legitimate question.

So that was definitely somewhere where I felt, you know, somewhere in the middle of that crowd. I felt a little bit like, what am I, you know, what am I doing here? Am I supposed to be here? Am I offending anyone? I don't know where to go. Is the vibe okay? Is uneasy? And yeah, that's, that's real. You know, that is when you feel that in the moment, that is, that's real. And

a bit uneasy.

you know, it was fine. And I guess I tried to use that experience later on as an example of actually an amazing time. Once I started speaking to the people that ran the stalls and just being more like, hey, how's it going? I'm here. Nice to meet you. Like overly friendly. Everyone was great. And, and it was an incredible experience. Got some of the most beautiful photographs ever taken. was, it was just one of those moments. Yeah.

And like on the flip side, have you experienced reverse culture shock?

What is reverse culture, shot? Is it just when you hate where you live?

Yeah, in layman's terms I guess. have at times. You probably have a great time in Southeast Asia, three months, and you get used to the customs there. And you come back to the US or UK and say, why are things so miserable or whatever. Yeah, have you experienced that?

Yeah.

Yeah, I have a bit. I don't think I've been away long enough since I was much younger. I do shorter trips. I've got family and all that. But we did this really cool road trip through Patagonia. it was like the kids were really little then. And we were just driving on these dirt roads and staying in these little local kind of hostels, stroke people's houses.

It was cold, know, there was everything, know, it had to be like wood burning stoves and, and, you know, all that sort of thing. And so it felt, you know, at first you're like, Oh, this is, you know, this is like going to be quite an adventure. then, but by the end of it, actually just absolutely loved it. Obviously didn't.

And that wraps up part one with Aaron Miller. We actually recorded on two separate occasions. And the first part was that good that Aaron wanted to come back on on another date and finish off with a part two, which is an hour long. So part two is going to be next Monday. And we're going to cover in that episode, the importance of storytelling and travel writing and podcasting, the difference between holiday travel and professional travel, capturing the emotional truth over visual spectacle, using journalism.

techniques in podcast scripting, the role of tight editing and pacing, maintaining authenticity, experiences with Shigendo monks and a volcano descent. That's pretty cool. And then of course we talked more about his amazing Amcha Explorer podcast, the purpose and the format of that. So that's come out in part two. Thanks for listening to part one. Appreciate it. And I'll see you next week for another great conversation on Winging It. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Give me a follow.

Give me a five star rating. I appreciate it. This does really help the podcast grow even further. More importantly, tell your friends. Word of mouth is still the best way to spread the podcast. So if you've got friends who need a bit of inspiration, a bit of wanderlust, send it their way. I'll see you next week. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast episode today. I'm inspired by today's chat and want to book some travel. If you head to the show notes, you'll see some affiliate links below which helps support this podcast. You'll find

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