The Trip That Changed Me
62 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 months ago -Captivating conversations featuring people whose lives have quite literally been changed by travel: businesses have been inspired, love stories have begun, perspectives have widened, life purposes have been found, and new beginnings have been discovered. The Trip That Changed Me, brought to you by Full-Time Travel, features a bi-weekly interview with entrepreneurs, entertainers, activists, authors, influencers, and everyday adventurers, recounting the personal tales of life-changing travel — uplifting stories that will inspire listeners to take on the world.
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Episodes
Central America with Bruce Wallin: How spontaneity and effort coexist to create a better travel experience.
November 02, 2023 10:00 - 40 minutesToday we are speaking with Bruce Wallin, an award winning editor, writer and producer and the host of the podcast, Travel That Matters, which was named one of the 10 Best Podcasts for 2022 by Men's Journal. Bruce has made a name for himself as a leader in travel journalism, a reputation that began when he and a group of friends launched their own publication called, Trip, in the 1990's. It was an incredible experience but eventually they ran out of funds. It was right around this time when Br...
Argentina with Kristin Newman: travel romances, the wanderlust gene, and taking a vacation from ourselves
October 19, 2023 10:00 - 49 minutesThis week’s guest is TV writer Kristin Newman, who has spent the last 25 years working on shows like, How I Met Your Mother, That 70's Show and Only Murders in the Building. As a lifelong traveler, Kristin used the breaks between seasons to explore the world, often alone, as more and more of her friends settled down. Her memoir, What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding, details her years as a single woman traversing the globe and enjoying commitment-free romances along the way. In this episod...
A United States Road Trip with Blythe Roberson: seeking awe, reimagining the female travel memoir, and the American obsession with freedom
October 05, 2023 04:00 - 52 minutesToday's guest is the writer, Blythe Roberson, author of How to Date Men When You Hate Men. As you can tell from that title, Blythe is best known for her witty comedic voice and has contributed to publications like The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and GQ. Her latest book, America The Beautiful?, was inspired by a two-month road trip from Wisconsin to the West Coast and back again. The road trip aimed to examine the American obsession with freedom, travel, and the open road via 30 national pa...
The Himalayas with Meg Stafford: the meaning of happiness, mother-daughter trips, and trekking in the Himalayas
September 21, 2023 10:00 - 49 minutesToday we are speaking with Meg Stafford, a clinical social worker, award-winning writer, and mother to two adventurous daughters. As a lifelong traveler, Meg has been on many expeditions with her kids over the years. One particularly meaningful trip would go on to inspire a memoir: Who Will Accompany You? My Mother Daughter Journeys Far From Home and Close to the Heart. When Kate's daughter opted to visit Nepal and Bhutan for a high school project researching the meaning of happiness, Meg dec...
Thailand with Christine Winebrenner Irick: looking for magic abroad, responsible tourism, and building community through travel
September 07, 2023 10:00 - 54 minutesToday's guest is Christine Winebrenner Irick, the entrepreneur behind the group travel company, Lotus Sojourns and the host of The Soul of Travel podcast, which features guests making a positive impact on the tourism industry. In this episode, Christine shares the story of her first big trip to Asia. In the midst of a period of rebirth, as her career and marriage were crumbling, Christine took inspiration from Alex Garland's book, The Beach, and set off for Thailand with one good friend and n...
Morocco with Yulia Denisyuk: the power of signs, misconceptions about Morocco, and a career-changing moment in the Merzouga desert
August 24, 2023 10:00 - 51 minutesToday we are speaking with Yulia Denisyuk, who was overworked and unfulfilled at her well-paid job as a brand manager when she took a trip to Morocco – a place she had always fantasized about visiting. It was an eye-opening experience from start to finish and one that would set her on the path to a whole new life. One starlit night in the desert, Yulia made the decision to leave her job and pursue her dream of becoming a travel journalist. The rest is history. Eight years later, Yulia's work ...
Rowing the Atlantic with Jimmy Carroll: surviving 36 days at sea, the growth opportunity of challenges, and the importance of therapy
August 10, 2023 10:00 - 1 hourToday we are talking with Jimmy Carroll, a former British Army officer who now puts his precision planning expertise to good use as the co-founder of Pelorus, a travel company that creates bespoke trips for travelers seeking unique experiences. In 2020, Jimmy and three friends embarked on the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge, a 3,000-mile unsupported rowing race from the Canary Islands to Antigua, known as the world's toughest rowing competition. For 36 days, the team rowed in alternating ...
China with Samantha Brown: travel show hosting, building confidence through rituals, and breaking bread with PB&J on it
July 27, 2023 10:00 - 49 minutesToday, Esme speaks with Samantha Brown, who is the host of some of TV's most popular travel shows. Samantha has been traveling the world professionally ever since landing her first job on the Travel Channel's show, Great Vacation Homes. She has since visited 250 cities in 62 countries and has created over 160 hours of programming, including on PBS for her own Emmy award-winning show, Samantha Brown's Places to Love. As you can imagine, Samantha's life has been full of meaningful trips, but a ...
Prince Edward Island with Lane Moore: from loneliness to belonging through solo travel
July 13, 2023 10:00 - 46 minutesIn this episode, Esme speaks with writer and performer Lane Moore. Lane juggles multiple creative projects at the same time and earns rave reviews for all of them. She is the award winning former sex and relationships editor of Cosmopolitan magazine and the author of two books, How To Be Alone, and the recently released, You Will Find Your People: How to Make Meaningful Relationships as an Adult. She is also the host of a podcast, I Thought it Was Just Me, front person for the band, It Was Ro...
Charleston with Lisette Austin: DNA travel, family reunions, and the challenges of tracing Black genealogy in America
June 29, 2023 10:00 - 51 minutesThis week Esme is speaking with Lisette Austin, host of the award-winning podcast, The Globetrotter Lounge, which features diverse women sharing their most creative ways to travel. Lisette is best known for her travel hacking expertise – skills she shares in her online course, "Jetset 101: Becoming a Travel Hacker" – but it's her personal passion for DNA travel that she is sharing with us today. Lisette is an adoptee from Seattle, who, with the help of consumer DNA testing, managed to track d...
Iran with Travel Writer Pico Iyer: the search for paradise, traveling with the Dalai Lama, and the appeal of complex places
June 15, 2023 10:00 - 55 minutesThis week Esme speaks to Pico Iyer, the prolific travel writer and brilliant mind behind 16 books, hundreds of essays, and several TED Talks. Pico's work touches on globalism, Islamic mysticism, the Cuban Revolution, and the Dalai Lama - a personal friend and travel companion of his. In his latest book, The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise, Pico weaves together travel experiences with the decades he's spent in monasteries to explore how each of us can find paradise amidst the complexity...
Cycling Around the World with Juliana Bühring: escaping a cult, learning to trust strangers, and cycling 18,000 miles across 19 countries
June 01, 2023 10:00 - 53 minutesThis week Esme speaks to Juliana Bühring, an ultra-endurance cyclist, best-selling author, and children's rights activist. Juliana's life story is one of triumphing over adversity. Raised in a cult known as the Children of God, Juliana developed the necessary survival skills of resilience and adaptability from a young age – qualities that would prove instrumental to her future achievements. After escaping the cult at the age of 23, Juliana wrote the book, Not Without My Sister, which contribu...
Sri Lanka with Laurie Woolever: writing with Anthony Bourdain, traveling sober, and working with food
May 18, 2023 10:00 - 53 minutesWelcome to Season 4 of The Trip That Changed Me! Our first guest of the new season is Laurie Woolever, writer, editor, public speaker, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute (now the International Culinary Center) in New York, and former assistant to Anthony Bourdain, with whom she co-wrote several books. The most recent of those books, World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, Laurie sadly had to complete alone following Bourdain’s death in 2018. In this episode, Laurie shares memories from Sr...
India with Elizabeth Becker: discovering a new world, addressing overtourism, and life as a war correspondent
December 15, 2022 11:00 - 55 minutesElizabeth Becker is an award-winning journalist and author who started out as a war correspondent at The Washington Post before going on to work for public radio and The New York Times. She is also the author of three books including Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism, which was an Amazon book of the year, and You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War, which won the 2022 Goldsmith Award from Harvard. But long before the achievements and accolades, E...
Around the World with Colin O’Brady: rejecting comfortable complacency, goal setting, and having a possible mindset
December 01, 2022 11:00 - 1 hourColin O’Brady is probably best known for being one of the world’s most recognized endurance athletes and explorers. He’s a 10-time world record holder and two-time Everest summiteer, and the first person in history to cross the continent of Antarctica solo, unsupported and completely human-powered – an experience he wrote about in his best-selling memoir The Impossible First. In this episode, Colin shares the story of a post-college, round-the-world trip that, unfortunately, ended in tragedy....
Iceland with Gabby Beckford: finding paid/free travel opportunities, female solo travel, and cultivating a ‘Why not me?’ mindset
June 16, 2022 10:00 - 53 minutesGabby Beckford is the Gen Z travel opportunity expert behind Packs Light, a content brand designed to empower others to seek risks, seize opportunity, skip debt, and see the world ASAP. Although Gabby was raised in a family of travelers, it was her first solo vacation – a backpacking trip through Iceland which she took right before starting college – that solidified her aspirations to see as much of the world as possible. Gabby is now a TEDx speaker and a travel expert whose work has been pub...
Burgundy and Paris with Rachel Signer: discovering natural wine, creating relationships with cities, and following inconvenient love
June 02, 2022 10:00 - 54 minutesRachel Signer was an aspiring author living in Brooklyn and cobbling together a living by freelance writing and working various jobs in hospitality when she was invited on a food and wine themed press trip to Burgundy and Paris. It was a trip that would affirm her deep appreciation for the French language, culture, cuisine, and wine – specifically, natural wine. Rachel spent the next few years following her heart, first to Paris where she dreamed of opening a bar with her best friend, and the...
The US by Train with Cheryl B. Engelhardt: creating music on a train, becoming a master passenger, and getting emotionally unstuck
May 19, 2022 10:00 - 46 minutesCheryl B. Engelhardt is a composer and songwriter whose new age, ambient music has been featured in films, ads, tv shows, and on meditation apps like Insight Timer. Cheryl began music lessons as a toddler; since then, her career has taken her all over the world but it’s always been unique places and experiences that inspire her most creative work – experiences like a nine-day, cross country train trip from New York to Los Angeles and back, during which she composed and recorded her new album,...
Los Cabos with Michael Baldwin: life after failure, speed-dating new places, and the best parts of Mexico
May 05, 2022 10:00 - 1 hourMichael Baldwin is a luxury real estate agent who made a lucrative living in Texas until the financial crisis of 2008 temporarily derailed his career. Ever the optimist, Michael decided to use the opportunity to live abroad, and set about speed-dating all the international destinations within a four-hour flight of Houston. Ultimately, it was Los Cabos, Mexico that stole his heart. In this episode, Michael shares the story of road-tripping down the Baja California peninsula to start a new life...
New Orleans with Hilton Head Island's Ahmad Ward: the history of Historic Mitchelville Park, humanizing our stories, and creating "brave spaces"
April 21, 2022 10:00 - 1 hourAhmad Ward is the Executive Director for Hilton Head Island’s Historic Mitchelville Park. If you’ve never heard of Mitchelville, then prepare for an eye-opening history lesson. Established in 1862, a year before Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, it was the first self-governed town of formerly enslaved people in the United States. In this episode, Ahmad shares how his five-year plan to exit the world of museums was quickly discarded when he began interviewing for a role at ...
Walking the Length of Africa with Mario Rigby: near-death experiences, walkabouts as a rite of passage, and becoming a modern explorer
April 07, 2022 10:00 - 1 hourToday’s guest is Mario Rigby, an eco-explorer from Turks & Caicos who became famous in adventure-travel circles for walking the entire length of Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo. A goal-oriented mindset and ability to push his physical limits have always motivated Mario, who competed for the Turks & Caicos national track and field team in his youth. He was 30 years old and working for himself as a fitness coach in Toronto, Canada before the adventure itch sent him on a life-changing two-year j...
52 Places with Sebastian Modak: landing the dream job, leaning into serendipity, and finding universal lessons in every travel experience
March 24, 2022 10:00 - 53 minutesToday’s guest is Sebastian Modak, travel journalist and current editor-at-large at Lonely Planet. Born in the US to a Colombian mother and an Indian father, Sebastian was a world explorer from the get-go. During his formative early years, Sebastian’s family moved to new countries frequently, giving him an ability to bond quickly with others and an aptitude for observing and appreciating other cultures – qualities that would serve Sebastian well when he landed a coveted job as the New York Tim...
Paris and Barcelona with Laura Edmondson: navigating van life, challenging the status quo, and diversifying the outdoor community
February 24, 2022 11:00 - 48 minutesLaura Edmondson is a digital creator, educator, organizer, podcast host, and owner of Cosmic Market, an online vintage jewelry shop. She’s also one of those adventurous travelers living the van life dream, roaming around the US working remotely on projects she’s passionate about with her two dogs, Willy and Stan. But before Laura set off for a life of endless freedom in her van, she was following a more traditional path. After graduating, Laura took a 9 to 5 job in education and tried to get ...
Hilton Head Island's Andrew Carmines: growing self-confidence in the wilderness, the ADHD advantage, and the importance of manners
February 10, 2022 11:00 - 1 hourAndrew Carmines is a successful business owner and pillar of the community on Hilton Head Island, where he was born and raised. As the President of Hudson’s Seafood House on the Docks, founder of the Hilton Head Island Seafood Festival, and a board member of multiple conservation organizations, Andrew has his hands full these days... but he wasn’t always so focused and together. After almost failing out of college, Andrew took a break from studying to train as a flyfishing guide in Cooper Lan...
Alaska with Andrew Carmines: growing self-confidence in the wilderness, the ADHD advantage, and the importance of manners
February 10, 2022 11:00 - 1 hourAndrew Carmines is a successful business owner and pillar of the community on Hilton Head Island, where he was born and raised. As the President of Hudson’s Seafood House on the Docks, founder of the Hilton Head Island Seafood Festival, and a board member of multiple conservation organizations, Andrew has his hands full these days... but he wasn’t always so focused and together. After almost failing out of college, Andrew took a break from studying to train as a flyfishing guide in Cooper Lan...
Europe with Brian Malarkey: the beauty of simple cooking, finding your echo, and fitting in amongst misfits
January 27, 2022 11:00 - 1 hourYou may already be familiar with today’s guest, Brian Malarkey. He’s a celebrated chef and TV personality, star of shows like Top Chef and The Taste, owner of multiple successful restaurants including the nationally acclaimed San Diego establishments Herb & Wood and Animae, and founder of Chef’s Life, a range of delicious oils that will change the way you cook. After attending culinary school and finding the entire experience too rigid and precise for his creative tendencies, Brian seized the...
The UK & Ireland with Remy Ruesenberg: Vegas behind-the-scenes, the kindness of strangers, and popping the question
January 13, 2022 11:00 - 46 minutesRemy Ruesenberg is a born and bred Las Vegan who grew up around the hospitality industry; Remy’s mother worked at the Bellagio from the time he was born and Remy eventually followed in her footsteps, steadily working his way up from pool lifeguard to his current role: Director Of Hotel Operations at Park MGM & NoMad Las Vegas. In this episode, Remy shares a story that helped shape his ethos as a leader in the hospitality industry — a road trip through the UK and Ireland planned by his wife’s ...
Lebanon & Beyond with Rose Previte: sharing culture through food, bringing flavors back home, and international culinary adventures
December 30, 2021 11:00 - 49 minutesChef and restaurateur Rose Previte was raised in a food-loving, Sicilian-Lebanese family in Ohio, and grew up working for her mother’s Middle Eastern catering business. Her own first endeavor, Compass Rose, is a restaurant inspired by the extensive travel she did while living in Russia with her husband, who was posted there as a correspondent for NPR. Since then, Rose has opened a second critically acclaimed restaurant in DC called Maydan which earned a Michelin star in 2019. In this episode...
Annecy and New York with Jodi Ettenberg: embracing spontaneity, becoming a full-time traveler, and cultivating resilience
December 16, 2021 11:00 - 58 minutesCelebrated travel and food blogger Jodi Ettenberg shares not one but two life-changing trips on this week’s episode. The first, a solo jaunt to Annecy while she was studying for her master's in France, signaled the start of Jodi’s life as a devoted traveler. Jodi got the travel bug following Annecy, and after briefly taking a job at a law firm in New York, she began traveling full time, making a successful living from her blog Legal Nomads. The second trip, a visit to Brooklyn in 2017, during...
Belize with Jessica Blotter: sustainable tourism, becoming a conscious tourist, and making a positive travel impact
December 02, 2021 11:00 - 50 minutesJessica Blotter is a born entrepreneur and journalist who spent her early 20s trying to figure out how she was going to leave her mark on the world. The answer came during a cruise trip to Belize with her partner’s family. Jessica adored the Central American country but was struck by the poverty, animal exploitation, and lack of sustainable ways to offer support. From this experience sprung Kind Traveler, the world’s first socially conscious give-and-get hotel booking and media platform. When...
Cambodia with Scott Neeson: making it in Hollywood, following your instincts, and the secret to a life well lived
November 11, 2021 11:00 - 50 minutesScott Neeson has lived many lives. He was born in Scotland and raised in Australia in a small industrial town with a high unemployment rate. As a young man, he managed to get an entry-level job as a movie theater projectionist, and from there had one of those legendary ascents to the role of President of 20th Century Fox International. It was as glamorous as you’d imagine - think private jets with Hollywood’s biggest actors - but suddenly seemed insignificant after a trip to Cambodia in 2004....
Backpacking Through Europe with Brenna Holeman: confessional travel blogging, showing up authentically online, and finding love abroad
October 28, 2021 10:00 - 1 hourTravel blogger extraordinaire Brenna Holeman started traveling solo in 2006 and has since been to 103 countries, chronicling her adventures along the way on her blog This Battered Suitcase. What sets Brenna apart from other travel bloggers is her candid style of storytelling. Always personal, intimate and inviting, her work immerses you. In this episode, Brenna shares the story of her first solo trip backpacking around Europe and the ways it ignited her career as a travel writer. Esme and Bre...
Greece with Mari Andrew: finding “special” places, exploring ourselves through travel, and the journey to a self-seeking mindset
October 14, 2021 10:00 - 57 minutesThis week’s guest is the insanely talented Mari Andrew, a writer, artist, speaker, and our host Esme’s personal favorite social media follow. She is known on Instagram for her beautiful watercolor illustrations and profound musings on life's messiest experiences. The success of her beautiful books, Am I There Yet? and My Inner Sky, are a testament to the fact that the more personal the experience shared by an author, the more universal it ends up being. Mari has always been a big traveler; sp...
Ethiopia with Marcus Samuelsson: cooking as a love language, cultural contrasts, and connecting to our roots
September 30, 2021 10:00 - 42 minutesOur guest today is one of America’s most beloved chefs, Marcus Samuelsson. Marcus is a man of many accolades; he’s the youngest person ever to receive a three-star review from the New York Times and the winner of multiple James Beard awards including one for his PBS show, No Passport Required. He’s been a judge on the Food Network’s Chopped and authored several books including a best-selling memoir, Yes, Chef, and 2020s The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food. When Marcus is not b...
Zimbabwe with Sarah Dusek: exploring the unknown, recreating the safari experience, and championing female entrepreneurs
September 16, 2021 10:00 - 52 minutesSarah Dusek is the co-founder of Under Canvas, the massively popular safari-style glamping company with locations just minutes from America's most iconic national parks. After turning Under Canvas into an Inc. 5000 company, Sarah set her sights on backing women-led businesses in South Africa with her private investment fund Enygma Ventures. Both of Sarah's companies were influenced by a trip to Zimbabwe in 1999; Sarah had just graduated and was taking six months to volunteer with a local orga...
Southeast Asia with Ruben Arribas and Rachel Pregunta: Couchsurfing, finding love abroad, and turning travel into a career
September 02, 2021 10:00 - 51 minutesRuben and Rachel, the couple behind the popular blog and Instagram Gamin Traveler, crossed paths for the first time when Ruben, who's from Spain, was exploring the Philippines. He was on a tight budget and used the site Couchsurfing.com to find free places to crash each night, which was how he wound up staying with Rachel. The two hit it off, fell in love, and in 2015, started backpacking together. The couple has now built a successful business monetizing their blog and social media and runni...
Backpacking Through Europe with Jason Moore: catching the travel bug, building community, and location-independent lifestyles
August 19, 2021 10:00 - 1 hourIf you like travel podcasts, then you may already be familiar with this week's guest. Jason Moore is the host and creator of the top-rated Zero To Travel podcast, on which he shares thoughtful interviews, unconventional perspectives, and actionable advice to help people travel the world on their own terms. He's also the co-founder of the Location Indie community and the Lifestyle Launch Academy, through which he's mentored hundreds of budding entrepreneurs, helping them build a side hustle an...
From Mexico to Peru with Adrien Behn: storytelling, awakening new passions, and the kindness of strangers
August 05, 2021 10:00 - 53 minutesBefore Adrien Behn became a triple threat storyteller — writing, podcasting, and performing live — she worked with baked goods. Specifically, she made pies at a bakery in Portland, Oregon. Disillusioned by her job, her city, and her toxic relationship, Adrien decided to travel from Mexico all the way down to Peru. It was a trip that recalibrated her life entirely. Weeks into the journey, Adrien split from her boyfriend, discovered a passion and aptitude for storytelling, and began recording s...
Namibia with Liz Warner: running with a sense of purpose, navigating a quarter life crisis, and finding a new direction
July 22, 2021 15:33 - 59 minutesAvid traveler and distance runner Liz Warner was on honeymoon in Namibia when she came up with the idea for Run to Reach – a global journey that would involve running 30 marathons in 30 different countries before her 30th birthday – all in support of women-focused NGOs around the world. Run to Reach went on to raise over 50,000 dollars, and would take her from the dense jungles of Sierra Leone to the central highlands of Afghanistan. Liz would wear out six pairs of running sneakers, burn 156,...
The Amazon with Jacki Hill-Murphy: being a modern explorer, ageless adventuring, and following in the footsteps of intrepid women
July 08, 2021 10:00 - 54 minutesThe spirit of wanderlust has always been present in modern-day explorer Jacki Hill-Murphy. After many unfulfilling years working as an English teacher, Jacki made the decision to recreate the journey of Isabel Godin, an intrepid woman she had previously studied during her master's program. In 1769, Godin became the first European to travel down the Amazon river and the sole survivor of her 42-person, 3000-mile expedition. Following in her footsteps, Jacki braved piranha-infested waters in a d...
Bhutan with Eric Weiner: karma, wisdom quests and the truth about happiness
March 04, 2021 11:00 - 55 minutesEric Weiner, a travel correspondent for NPR, was experiencing a self-described midlife crisis when he came up with the idea for his first book: The Geography of Bliss. The project took him to the world’s most contented countries, including Bhutan, a place famous for its Gross National Happiness index. It was there he met Karma, a buddhist monk and academic who changed how Eric saw the world and how he defined happiness. Find out more about Eric, his work and his latest projects at www.ericwe...
Bhutan with Eric Weiner: Karma, wisdom quests and the truth about happiness
March 04, 2021 11:00 - 55 minutesEric Weiner, a travel correspondent for NPR, was experiencing a self-described midlife crisis when he came up with the idea for his first book: The Geography of Bliss. The project took him to the world’s most contented countries, including Bhutan, a place famous for its Gross National Happiness index. It was there he met Karma, a buddhist monk and academic who changed how Eric saw the world and how he defined happiness. Find out more about Eric, his work and his latest projects at www.ericwe...
Bavaria with John Hudson: military survival training, honing environmental awareness, and hardship inoculation
February 18, 2021 11:00 - 56 minutesBack when John Hudson was a university student and aspiring pilot with the Royal Air Force, he naively volunteered for winter survival training in Germany. Armed with limited supplies, the goal was to travel stealthily through the freezing Bavarian wilderness while evading capture. It was an extreme challenge, but John had an unusual aptitude for it. Years later, he would go on to become the British Military's chief Survival, Evasion, Resistance & Extraction instructor, an author, and the sta...
Cambodia with Marta Tucci: solo travel, healing from trauma, and building a creative career
January 21, 2021 11:00 - 58 minutesTrigger warning: this episode includes descriptions of a violent attack. When Marta Tucci was living in London, pursuing a career in photography, a stranger forced his way into her home and attacked her. Left with PTSD and extreme anxiety, Marta was a shell of her former self. But, with the encouragement of those who know her best, she decided to face her fears head-on with a solo trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In the shadow of a city still rebuilding itself from past trauma, Marta worked on h...
Mexico with Amanda Keidan: Day of the Dead, travel as creative inspiration, and falling in love with a place at first sight
January 07, 2021 11:00 - 39 minutesTwenty years into a career as a jewelry designer and on the cusp of her 40th birthday, Amanda Keidan was feeling restless and ready for a new challenge when some friends invited her on a trip to the Mexican city of San Miguel de Allende to celebrate Day of the Dead. Five days later, she was smitten with the place and browsing real estate with the idea to open a boutique hotel. In 2019, Casa Delphine welcomed its first guests and a year later, despite the pandemic, the property has been celebr...
Bucket List Trips with Lauren & Chris Pronger: wellness retreats, living your dreams, and the healing power of travel
December 17, 2020 11:00 - 50 minutesLegendary NHL defenseman, Chris Pronger, and his entrepreneur wife, Lauren, are the duo behind Well Inspired Travels – a boutique travel company that curates five-star trips with a health and wellness mindset. Before launching the company, both had brushes with injury and illness that served to highlight the ways travel and quality time with the people you love can aid healing.Learn more about Well Inspired Travels at wellinspiredtravels.com Follow Well Inspired Travels on Instagram @wellinsp...
Bali with Amy Chan: the psychic, the love curse, and the heart healer
December 03, 2020 11:00 - 35 minutesAfter a New York psychic told Amy Chan – the heartbreak expert behind Renew Breakup Bootcamp – that a love curse was the cause of her romantic troubles, she promptly headed to Bali in search of spiritual guidance. After meeting with more than 20 balians (traditional Balinese healers), one particularly profound session appeared to lift the curse. Just four months later, Amy began dating her current partner. Learn more about Renew Breakup Bootcamp at renewbreakupbootcamp.com Buy Amy's new book...
Across the US with Meghan O’Dea: family travel, madcap whimsy, and seeing America by train
July 09, 2020 10:00 - 39 minutesMeghan O'Dea is a Lonely Planet editor who inherited a love of travel from her fearless and adventurous grandmother, Florence – a devoted train traveler who befriended strangers everywhere she went. One of Florence's bucket-list goals was to travel by train with each grandchild, so at age 10, Meghan was treated to a special one-on-one, long-distance journey across the US. On today's episode, Megan shares memories from that ten-day trip with Florence, during which they stopped in New Orleans, ...
Eastern Europe with Lillian Rafson: serendipity, surprise vacations, and making friends abroad
June 11, 2020 10:00 - 50 minutes*Please note, this episode was recorded before the lockdown and worldwide BLM protests. Lillian Rafson was living in New York City in her early-twenties when she felt the itch to escape. She decided to travel before determining her next move. On today's episode, Lillian describes a summer of solo travel through Eastern Europe, during which she encountered the concept of surprise travel agencies for the first time. Lillian shares milestones from that journey – through the Pyrenees, Poland an...
Burgundy with Andy Levine: wine, spontaneity, and the magic of traveling by bike
May 14, 2020 10:00 - 59 minutesLike many people with an entrepreneurial streak, Andy Levine’s endeavors began at an early age. While studying for a degree in philosophy and business at Denver University, he attempted to organize a bike race (Levine jokes his true major was “fresh snow and mountain biking”), but it failed to get any traction. The day after his graduation ceremony, feeling unsure of his calling, Levine packed up his beloved bike and headed to Beaune, France. It would end up being the trip that defined his wo...