- Speaker #0
It was going to be an online guide to Paris. So the idea was throw out your, you know, big, thick, heavy fromers or photos guide. And because you don't want to look like a tourist when you're walking down the streets of Paris. And you could have your phone and you could have, you know, what I think are the best restaurants and hotels and all these places that I'd visited and so forth. So it was going to be an online guide to Paris. And it was. And now it's 15 years later. It really helped me, interestingly, COVID, which is the last thing you'd think. Obviously, it was terrible for the travel business, but it allowed us to kind of regroup and figure out, you know, how can we get ready for what we think will be an onslaught of people wanting to travel? And now we're doing over 60 tours a year to 40 different countries.
- Speaker #1
So welcome to the Wing It Travel podcast with me, James Hammond. Every Monday I'll be joined by guests to talk about their travel stories, travel tips, backpacking advice and so much more. Are you a backpacker, gap year student or simply someone who loves to travel? Then this is the podcast for you, designed to inspire you to travel. There'll be stories to tell, tips to share and experiences to inspire. Welcome to the show. Hello and welcome to this week's episode. I am joined by Doni Belau. Doni founded the women-only tour company Girls Guide to the World in 2009 with a mission to empower women of all ages to explore the world. Girls Guide to the World now offers 60 tours to 40 countries. As an intrepid traveler who has explored to over 80 countries, Doni has used her destination knowledge to curate a diverse portfolio of trips catering to a wide range of interests from cultural immersion and culinary tours to active adventures and wellness retreats. Doni's diverse experiences from television production to humanitarian work in South Africa has fueled her passion for creating transformative journeys that blend personal growth with the joy of exploration. With over 15 years of experience in the travel industry, Doni's in-depth understanding of destinations, travel trends and evolving consumer desires ensures that each tour offered prioritizes connection, personal growth and unforgettable experiences. When not leading trips, she divides her time between France, New Orleans, and a sailboat named Radish, a testament to her adventurous spirit. This is pre-recorded, so let's get stuck into the episode. You won't regret it. This is a heck of a chat. Let's go. Doni, welcome to the show. How are you doing?
- Speaker #0
I'm great, and I'm just so thrilled to join you. Thank you so much for inviting me.
- Speaker #1
No, it's a pleasure. Can you tell the listeners where you are right now?
- Speaker #0
I am. I'm actually in New Bedford, Massachusetts. We live on our sailboat. in the summer. So our sailboat is named Relish. And so we have a 360 degree view of the water.
- Speaker #1
Fantastic. Yeah. Massachusetts was on my road trip last year and we loved it.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Oh gosh. There's so much here.
- Speaker #1
There's a couple of things, right? There's a lot of water there, which obviously is where you are, right? But the access to Boston and then ultimately further down to New York makes it a great place to hang out.
- Speaker #0
Oh my gosh. And there's so much history here, you know? It's a fabulous place. And Cape Cod, of course. Martha's Vineyard belongs to Massachusetts, and that's a gorgeous, gorgeous island. I highly recommend going there. So there's so much, so much. I mean, the Northeast, we're very spoiled up here with so much to see and do.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, we stayed in Salem, if you know that. Oh, yeah. And there's a campsite right on the cusp of the water. So it's like a... basically a concrete car park space, basically. But it's a campsite and also a couple of beaches. So we just camped there, checked out Salem, and then walked down to the train station, got the train to Boston a few times. So yeah, it's great times.
- Speaker #0
Did you take one of the witch tours? I actually thought they were really depressing.
- Speaker #1
Well, we walked around town just reading the stuff and it was a bit depressing. Yeah, it's not the most uplifting of stories, right?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, no, it's just actually really horrible. Especially as a woman and, you know, oh boy, I don't know, you kind of, they try and make it sort of, you know, one of the tourist attractions. And of course, I guess if I would have been a little bit more on the ball, I would have realized, of course, it's a depressing story. But it is, it's very upsetting. So keep that in mind, people, if you're going to Salem.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, if you take that stuff away from Salem, I actually quite like the place. Yeah. an alright place to hang out isn't it it's not just about the i guess a lot of it is dominated by the witches and all that sort of stuff but as a place quite a cool place to hang out and have a base as well in terms of you're going to see some cities or do some water activities i think it's quite cool absolutely
- Speaker #0
absolutely there's so many there's just tons of gorgeous and seaside towns in Massachusetts as well as Rhode Island. That's where we keep our boat in Connecticut, in Stonington. So that's right next to Rhode Island. So yeah, there's a wealth of wonderful seaside towns all up and down the coast.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, and before we get stuck into the main conversation, we parked up in Darien in Connecticut and then got the train into New York City. That was our little base.
- Speaker #0
Sure, very, very cute, very historic town. Very preppy as well.
- Speaker #1
What does that mean?
- Speaker #0
A lot of preppy. So a lot of waspy people.
- Speaker #1
Right. Okay. I think in the UK that means like private school to talk posh people.
- Speaker #0
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Exactly. Yeah. A lot of diversity is what I should say.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. That's a fair point. And let's go back to some early childhood memories or travel. I'd like to know. Was it part of your life growing up? And was there any trips that kind of ignited the wanderlust or the ambition to travel?
- Speaker #0
I definitely have to thank my parents for instilling that desire to travel in me. But I am from Nebraska. So as a Brit, you may not know, just look at it nowhere, exactly where Norwich is. It's the middle of nowhere in the middle of the Midwest, as Midwest as you can possibly get. And back... in the 70s when I was growing up, the only way anybody got anywhere, at least in Nebraska, of, you know, middle class rearing would be to drive. So you drove everywhere. I was not on a plane until I was like eight or seven or eight years old. And that was pretty crazy to be like someone who ever had gone on a plane because it was really expensive plane travel back then. So we would drive, you know, to Maine. think about that's a long drive. We drive from California. We drove down to Guadalajara, Mexico. So yeah, spending that much time in the car is not very fun in my opinion. So I'm quite happy that things are changed these days, but definitely my parents were really interested in exploring other states, other cultures, nature, you know, everything. So they definitely instilled that in me for sure.
- Speaker #1
Okay. And was there anything in those trips that maybe got you thinking like in the future, this might be something I want to do? I don't know, as a career is a bit strong, but like just as something you'd like to do often, you know, as you go into adulthood.
- Speaker #0
I don't know that I really became as passionate about it as I am now, until I took a trip with my sister, who is quite a bit older than me. And both of my sisters are, I was kind of an accident. And we for my high school graduation, she was nice enough to take me all over Europe. We actually held a tag sale to, like, come up with extra money. It was pretty hilarious. But we went, you know, to Paris, London, Florence, Rome, Belgium. And, you know, it was. a huge eye-opener. I'm 17 at the time. Nobody in my family had ever been out of the country, except for my sister, one other time. So it was, I think, then that I realized, basically, the aha thing was, wow, you know, there's so many different ways to live your life. And I, you know, when you have that sort of small tunnel vision of somebody who's grown up and, you know, it hasn't really... you know, gone too many places. Taking a trip overseas is just, you know, a shock to the system in the most exciting possible way. So it was from then on that I developed, and maybe a little bit later for a second trip, where I developed this passion for, in particular for Paris. And, you know, everything kind of flowed after that. So, but I never thought I would do that for a living until much later after two complete careers.
- Speaker #1
I think we had the same thinking as in me and my sister, maybe, maybe more me. Even though in terms of distance, Norwich is very close to Paris. It's like a 45 minute flight, maybe an hour tops. Whereas Nebraska is in the middle of nowhere. What I noticed about the road trip last year is the distance in Canada and US is huge. It's hard to convey being from Europe because it's the size of Europe. Each of those countries, right, in terms of going west to east or east to west. It's just crazy. So I think. For me, it was the same sort of thinking, right? Like, oh yeah, wow, like something could happen in a different way. It could be France, it could be Thailand, whatever it is. But did you suffer from culture shock, do you think?
- Speaker #0
No, I loved it. I never had to suffer from. I was always excited. And I do, again, credit my parents because it was all about discovery in our family. You know, just curiosity, discovery. And then what I learned later is never to compare a place. People will say, well, do you like Paris or London better? It's just, it's not fair. It's like saying apples and oranges. Well, I mean. oranges are great in, you know, in vodka, shall we say. They're also amazing in a cake. You know, it is late at night, so I'm now thinking of cocktails. And I did write a cocktail book, so there you go. But, you know, apples are fantastic with peanut butter. So, you know, it's like trying to compare your kids. It just, so that's something I learned the more I traveled. But I've never really. experienced, I don't think culture shock. What I do find, especially when I spend a lot of time in Paris, and then my sort of my second favorite place is, or anywhere in France, we have a house near Bordeaux. Or if I spend a lot of time, I just was in Japan for three weeks, and I just love, that was last year, I just love Japan. And when you come back, States, I have a reverse culture shock more often.
- Speaker #1
Oh,
- Speaker #0
yeah. Things that I love about those particular places, you know, I think about the markets, like it really kind of depresses me when I come back and have to go to a regular grocery store in the U.S. compared to, you know, a Parisian or a market near our house in Bordeaux. It's just so, it's so, you know, just so amazing. And the same with Japan, but in a different capacity that just the politeness there. You know, we had a... who lived there for a couple of years and they came back and we took this guy to a Yankees game and everybody's screaming and yelling, you know, which is part of the, you know, the fun of baseball in the U.S. But he was just having such culture shock because it's so not the Japanese way, you know, and just everything is so polite and so kind and so thoughtful. So, you know, I think I have reversed culture shock more.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Japan's an interesting one. because they love baseball, for example. I think it's their biggest sport, I think, outside of sumo wrestling, I think. But it's a completely different environment and different way of watching the game, right? Like you said, he was probably shocked, even though it's the same game and the same rules. Everyone knows the rules, but it's just the way it's perceived in the crowd, right? But also the biggest thing for Japan, for me, for reverse culture shock is the transport system. When I get back to North America, I think, how on earth... has Canada and the US just not built a high-speed rail? What is going on there? Imagine you can just get to LA, to New York in like, I don't know, how many hours it would take in terms of distance and time, but they travel at 500 kilometers an hour. Imagine that.
- Speaker #0
And they're always on time.
- Speaker #1
Time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, always on time. And you get, I think you get a rebate if they're like remotely late. So I think it's just an amazing country. Yeah, Japan's awesome.
- Speaker #0
I love it.
- Speaker #1
And I want to ask, when you sort of came through childhood and you're going into adulthood, I guess if travel wasn't there then, I imagine that the career aspect comes into it. So what were you doing or looking to do for career?
- Speaker #0
Well, it's a long story, James, and it might be I don't want to bore people too much, but I was going to be an actress. I went to UCLA and I was, you know, like every other girl and probably every other guy in Los Angeles. That lasted a couple of years until I realized that there was a lot of, you know, waitressing and starvation involved in being an actress. So I moved to New York and went into the film business, but behind the scenes. So I was I ended up worked my way up to being a producer in the film business. And, you know, so I was the typical 20 something who. saves up and goes on trips whenever she can or he can. So, but I've always, you know, I was always interested in going somewhere and a new place. I definitely am always looking for the new, even though I totally committed and love France in every possible way, but, you know, always someplace new. And, you know, we got married pretty young and traveled all the time, including bringing my son when he was. you know, five months old. His first Christmas was in France. My sister ended up buying a house there. There was travel throughout, but my first career was the film business. Took some time off and raised the kids for, I was home for about eight years. And then I got into the political arena and not-for-profit work. And that is not a business where you can travel at all, because of course it's all focused here. But, you know, any time I had off, also traveling. At that time, we bought a place in Paris. Um, so I was always trying to get back to Paris all the time. So I think it's been my life quest to live there. Uh, now we've had a place there for 25 years. So I'm super grateful for that. Um, have never stayed more than three months at a time. So, um, just recently got our long stay visa. We're actually working on it. So hopefully this coming year, we're going to be able to stay a little bit longer.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. That was my next question. Are you a citizen or at least a resident?
- Speaker #0
No. I am not a citizen of France, nor is that something that we want to do because it gets into some tricky tax issues. So we are definitely U.S. citizens. We have had a place there for a long time. You do not need to be a citizen in any way, shape or form to own a property there. And contrary to at least our house when we used to live in New York, the property taxes are really low. which, you know, people always complain about taxes in Europe. But actually, you know, just in terms of property taxes, very, very affordable.
- Speaker #1
I think France gets an interesting reputation in Europe because they do have workers'rights and rights for citizens that are probably a bit better than most countries. Now, it's obviously going to be a bit controversial because it depends what side of the spectrum you're going to be on. France for me is, it's not paradise, but it's set working hours, their taxes in terms of property tax is quite low. Not sure on the income tax, but they're very strict on time off. Like you need to take your vacation to get the five, six weeks a year. I think August is kind of notoriously known as a time where they all shut off and gone on summer holidays, even though it's the Olympics right now. As a country, I can imagine it's quite a cool place to live. And my biggest regret is that because the UK left the EU, I didn't get a chance to live in France when we had the chance. So that's a bit of a regret.
- Speaker #0
I know. I know. So our house that we've had since 2009 is near Bordeaux. It's near Saint-Emilion. And that is the Aquitaine. So as you know, the English ruled that area of France for 400 years. And I'm convinced that's why I have so many English neighbors, because you guys have not. You still think you own it? Okay. No, I'm joking, obviously. But... It's wonderful because we have so many English neighbors and it's great. We actually have the guy who takes care of our house is English. And so it's just really wonderful. It's a really great mix of French and English and lots of other people from a lot of other countries, too. So it's a really very vibrant area. And as you know, or I don't know if you do know, but they've developed a really fast train now so you can get from Bordeaux to Paris in two hours and 15 minutes. So. Bordeaux is really hot right now and all the prices have gone up in terms of property. But we like it just because we love Paris and we have a little flat there that we rent. But we love Bordeaux because it's so sunny and warm there. You got a lot more sun there than you do up north.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think there's three love affairs in the UK growing up with countries. And France is one of them because you always watch TV shows and there's people moving to the south of France. We just have that idyllic French countryside by, near the coast, but down the south. I think US is one because it's seen as the big grand US and opportunity, I suppose. And the third one I'd arguably say is Australia because we can get there quite easily and it's the other side of the world. And I think we have a similar culture, right? So I think, oh, what's it like down there? I think those three countries probably come into the basics of most people in UK, whether you're into travel or not. Yeah, France is obviously a dream of many.
- Speaker #0
We're not alone in this love of France, but I just went to Australia for the first time last year. And I was bowled over. I was on one of our trips, but I was bowled over by Sydney. And that is one of the most gorgeous cities in the world. And just, you know, wow, wow, wow, wow. It's kind of just the food, the people, the architecture, the sea. I mean, it's almost just. Picture perfect.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, that location, the harbour is... unrivaled.
- Speaker #0
It is. Absolutely.
- Speaker #1
Can't think of too many places like that. Yeah. Australia is a favorite, I must admit. Oh, yeah. Before we get stuck into Girl's Guide to the World, a couple of questions. Can you speak French?
- Speaker #0
Absolument, mais pas parfait. Not perfect. But I can get by. I have a decent accent, but sometimes my verbs sound like, you know, I'm four years old. So I revert to, you know. present tense all the time or something. But I can get by and get most of my things done. But if I'm at a dinner party with like six people and after like the second glass of wine, everybody starts talking really fast. And by the time I know what I'm going to say, they've moved on to the next topic. So I have decided I've got to live there for six straight months, take classes, you know, just have somebody come in. Or go somewhere for 45 minutes, an hour a day, and it will then hopefully get to the next level. But it's decent. And I speak some Spanish, too. Oh,
- Speaker #1
that helps. Okay. And on your bio, you mentioned that you're obsessed with food. So French food, is that a favorite of yours?
- Speaker #0
Absolutely. Of course. You know, I always say you can argue about which country has the best food. Of course, it's a ridiculous argument to have, but it's a fun topic. And some people would say France. Some people would say Italy. I might say Japan. I love Japanese food. It's probably my favorite. But you cannot argue that anyone makes better pastry than the French. I mean, they really do desserts better than anyone else. I would stake a claim on that. You know. But I like, I will try anything. I'm just very, very open. I like, you know, being from Nebraska, I like, you know, the cheese whiz and, you know, pigs in a blanket all the way to foie gras and caviar. So everything in between, I'm just, you know, somebody who likes, I just love food. And that's a big part of our tours to make sure we're staying in, you know, really nice and interesting boutique hotels. But, you know, making sure that you really do. discover the culture through the food if that's maybe a cooking class a market visit um you know a michelin star meal and some street food so and everything in between um and so you know i think it's um one of the most i just the few countries that i've been where i didn't like the food it's like that's a big that's a big drag for me i don't see a better way of getting your morning started than
- Speaker #1
just wandering through Paris and a random street and just picking a random cafe and getting a croissant or baguette and a coffee. I can't see anything better, maybe apart from an English breakfast, but that's obviously personal. In terms of traveling, I just can't see anything better.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what could be better? What a great way to start your day. And especially, I love the fact that the French and a lot of other people actually in other countries, and we don't do it here in the States, but they will sit outside almost no matter what, you know. There's little heaters out there. They'll put up some plastic tent-like things, and they're out there. And part of that is because some of the smokers are allowed to smoke on the terrace, but people love to be outside at the cafes. And it is a little bit of a cliche, but it's marvelous too.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, and what I love about Paris, France, and I'm going to chuck Italy in there as well, even Spain, is that the cost doesn't go up. In Canada, we can go to a trendy cafe here and it's $5 for a coffee. I'm like, that's scandalous. You walk up to Paris or Rome or any big city in these Mediterranean countries, if you like, or even Greece is another classic example. They're just still one or one euro fifty. And that's unbelievable.
- Speaker #0
Yep.
- Speaker #1
And that's totally the way it should be.
- Speaker #0
You know, I think there's a sense that in Europe in particular, but in other countries as well, I see this in Japan too. that it's a right to be able to eat well. I mean, you know, we have a place that we love near our house in the Bordeaux region where it's really a truck driver's stop. It's a truck stop. And, you know, you know what truck stops are like in the U.S. You know, you did some.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, stayed in some.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, and it's not really where you're going to find your best food, right? But for 13 euros. You can get a three-course meal with coffee, dessert, wine, and it's going to be good. It's going to be homemade. you know, it's considered normal. Like everybody should be eating well. You know, we don't have to just because we're on the road, we don't have to go right to chicken fingers and fish sticks and this horrible, disgusting food that we all feel like we have to eat on the road because there's nothing else. I just think, you know, it shouldn't be that in order to eat good, decent, real food, we have to pay. $18 for a breakfast, you know, a nice breakfast sandwich or something. It's getting crazy, you know?
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Out of control.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Crikey. To move on to an amazing part of this podcast episode and for you as well, you created the women-only tour company Girls Guide to the World in 2009. So I guess the mission here is to empower female and women travel. Tell us what got you started with the thinking of setting it up? Like, where did that come from? Was there a moment? Like, how did I get started?
- Speaker #0
Well, I'd like to tell you that it was all this grand plan. And I wrote a business plan, did all this market research. And that is not at all the truth. Basically, I was in the saving the world business, politics and not for profit, which was very rewarding, but I was getting really burnt out. And had coffee with a friend one day who was in book publishing. And I said, I just really want to do something I'm passionate about. That's a little bit more fun. That, you know, I just, you know, gosh, as you know, I love Paris. I'm telling her. And, you know, it would be really cool, I think, to write a book about my version of Paris. So I think that each of us has a lens by which we see particularly these big iconic cities. You probably have your version of Vancouver and I have my own version of New York. And if I were to bring you to New York, I'd show you a certain type of New York. Another person is going to show you something else. So this was my idea. And she said, you know, why don't you call it, because we had done, she had been with me on a girl's trip, just, you know, a bunch of girlfriends staying at our apartment. She said, why don't you call it the girl's guide to Paris? Because, you know. the whole chick lit thing is not going away. And she, you know, uh, and I, and I said, oh, what a great name. I love that name. And talk to another friend who was in publishing. And he said that nobody's going to publish a book by you. You don't have any authority on the subject of Paris, you know, nowadays. And he, he's an agent. Um, he said, you know, you have to have a big, huge following and you need to be able to get on the today show by yourself before anyone's going to, you know, publish a book. So I was like, oh. Gosh, well, this is 2009 or actually 2008 when I'm thinking about this. And I said, well, you know, I'll just I'll just create a website. How hard could that be? So this is before Wix and Foursquare and all the, you know, easy. So we like coding this thing, you know, and obviously I didn't know how to code. So I'm hiring a guy. It was a major learning curve. And I had no idea what I was going to do in terms of monetization of this thing. It was going to be a online guide. to Paris. So the idea was throw out your, you know, big, thick, heavy fromers or photos guide and because you don't want to look like a tourist when you're walking down the streets of Paris and you could have your phone and you could have, you know, what I think are the best restaurants and hotels and all these places that I'd visited and so forth. So it was going to be an online guide to Paris. And it was. It was like childbirth, launching that website. Very difficult. So it happened. Spent, you know, a good year and a half trying to figure out how I was going to make money instead of just spend money on the thing. We had we got up to a million readers and I was not making money. So I said this this is a year, not not monthly. But I said, well, something's got to change here. So I was really throwing spaghetti at the wall. And by 2011, I did my first tour. And that was to Paris actually with a life coach. So it was kind of this retreat slash discovery tour. It was really, went really well, but I was exhausted. I was like, oh my gosh, this is not for me. This is so hard. And just like anything, when you're learning something new, you know, it's really difficult because you're kind of trying too hard and, you know, all of those things. So I did my next tour probably a year later. So slowly, slowly. It got easier and we expanded. We just originally just did France and then we expanded to the UK and then we did Bali and just, you know, it was like two tours a year and then four and then 10 and then slowly. And now it's 15 years later. And, uh. It really helped me, interestingly, COVID, which is the last thing you'd think. Obviously, it was terrible for the travel business, but it allowed us to kind of regroup and figure out, you know, how can we get ready for what we think will be an onslaught of people wanting to travel? Let's develop some partnerships. Let's redo the website. You know, did all this work. And at that same time, my husband, who's been in tech his whole life. um decided uh he was sick and tired of what he was doing and he joined me he really helped me um build the business and now we're doing over 60 tours a year uh to 40 different countries so yeah wow that is incredible and it's interesting you said about the kobe
- Speaker #1
thing right uh two points in the cover thing uh this made me start the podcast and covered cover made me start it because we couldn't travel right so what's the next best thing we can talk about it so that's like why this started and it's still going
- Speaker #0
See, there you go.
- Speaker #1
This kind of ties in second point is doubling down during COVID. Someone else, I think two guests have said it recently, that during COVID they thought, well, people aren't traveling. So what do you do next? Well, you double down, you upgrade, you probably get better skills, you do more blogs, you do more better website maintenance, whatever it is, because there will be a comeback eventually. And I think now we're seeing this post-COVID comeback last year going into this year, especially. I love that because it's a bit of foresight there. There's not like a... down in the dumps or like, oh, what we're going to do is more like now proactive. Let's get out there and be ready for when people start going to Paris. Right.
- Speaker #0
Well, don't get me wrong. I had some I had definitely some sleepless nights, you know, and just of course, I was just praying that this we'd make it through. And and I had one really down day. And I will tell you, the thing that turned me around, this is the funniest thing, is I came home. And I had listened to some podcast. It wasn't actually a podcast. Oh, yeah, it was a podcast. It was the Daily, you know, the New York Times. And it's that guy who, this is probably like two months in, who predicted how long this was going to last. Because in my mind, oh, this is, you know, three months max. How could this possibly last longer? You know, because I'm such an optimist. And he really laid it out as to how long it was going to last. He was totally correct. And I was very depressed. came home. We were staying at a friend's house up in that, you know, had an empty house up by the beach in Rhode Island. And we watched the movie Fabulous Fungi. I don't know if you've ever seen it. It's one of the greatest documentaries. And, you know, I started, I think a lot of people, we got into a lot of different things, like you said, during COVID that maybe we never would have had time to. But I just got messed with mushrooms and how amazing they are. So you never know where. There are salvations going to come.
- Speaker #1
I totally agree. Yeah. I guess it's kind of sink or swim, isn't it? I suppose in those times, if you're trying to do something a bit more creatively or outside of the generic employee nine to five mindset situation, right? If you're trying to be out there, it's quite a difficult time. But I reckon some people loved it. And it is a time to reset and kind of get some creative projects on the go, right? And then maybe they're still going today and it's because of COVID.
- Speaker #0
Well, I definitely think it allowed people the time. to rethink things. You know, what's important? Do I need to be doing things this way? We got to spend a whole bunch of time with my daughter and her then boyfriend, now husband, which was amazing. We, you know, I mean, we actually traveled a lot during COVID, which sounds really crazy, but because we knew that all of a sudden we were going down to no income from, you know, having a business, my... my husband had the foresight to rent out our house because we had a house then up in just north of New York City. And as you know, New York City was the epicenter. So we rented out the house, which gave us, people were paying crazy, crazy amounts of money for anything that wasn't in the city, that was in the country. So that kind of got us through. And so we were super lucky and we would just kind of find places that would. take us we'd rent airbnb and sort of isolate there and and one of them was oaxaca mexico so uh it was a great place to be have you been there no but i'm going in november so i need some tips oh
- Speaker #1
wonderful are you going to go for day of the dead uh actually no this will be the start of december actually the first week it's the end of my trip so i'm going to finish in oaxaca and mexico city yeah you
- Speaker #0
Oh, it's just a marvelous, marvelous place. We got to live there for two months and we fell in love with it so much. My daughter, my son came down. And my daughter just got married there in March. So we just love it. It's the food capital, back to food, but it's the food capital of France. You know, it's the land of seven moles, beautiful colonial architecture, amazing indigenous history. It's really, it's definitely my favorite place in Mexico. And we do two different trips there because I love it so much.
- Speaker #1
Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, three weeks leading up to that is I'm overlanding from El Salvador, right? So it's a bit more on the go. Lots of stuff going on through Guatemala as well. But Iwaka and Mexico City are going to be more of a just a chill out, living in the city type vibe. I wanted to be in Iwaka and spend time in the city and see as much as I can, but not at a too busy a pace. I wanted to chill out for a bit. Yeah. Decide on the day what tours to do, where to go, markets, tours, foods, whatever it is. I'm really looking forward to actually. I can't wait.
- Speaker #0
Well, you're going to email me because I have a thousand tips. Too many. Yes, please. I've got some great insider stuff because we spent a lot of time there. I love it.
- Speaker #1
Okay. I'll hold you to that. I'll send you an email after this call. Okay. You bet. The thing I want to ask you about the Girl's Guide is you spent, I guess, 25 years, right, of the traveling in France, Paris, etc. What did you learn about traveling in smaller groups and maybe women only that made you... Also think about providing this for people because there must have been something that's really good about it because you must have loved it to then create a business years later that does the exact same thing.
- Speaker #0
You know, I think all all of us ladies, women, you know, probably all the women in your life, you must know, love Girls Night Out. It's very popular. Right. So Girls Night Out. Look, guys like that, too. But it's a time that we can share and laugh and bond. And I think that the bonding process for women is of paramount importance. It's just sort of our lifeblood. And, you know, I was always that person in the friend group who was bringing everybody together and making plans to do things together and doing creative things or, you know, going places, even whether it's going out. to dinner or going on a weekend trip or going somewhere like Marfa, Texas or whatever. So I was that person in my friend group. And I think also, and I just realized this recently, in my 40s, after I got, we got married pretty young, 24, had kids by 26, you know, and by like mid 40s, I was like, man, I need some time alone. Like I haven't been alone, maybe ever, you know, I mean. Yeah. So luckily, I have a very supportive, understanding partner. And I went away to spend some time in Europe. We had our place then, but just kind of traveled around for like three, four weeks on my own. And all of the issues that I think I was having at the time that I thought, oh, well, you know, it's my partner or it's my friend group or my family or whatever it was. I realized spending some time alone and realizing that I was happy and okay alone, that I could be, that I am a person outside of mom, wife, friend, volunteer, you know, entrepreneur or whatever. I think that not just women, but all of us need some time and space alone. And that maybe doesn't mean, and at that time it wasn't like I was totally alone. spent some time with a couple of friends and my sister and spent some other nights and weeks alone. But, you know, we are on this planet and we live and, you know, we're responsible for ourselves. And we are at the very end of the day alone, surrounded by friends and family, if you're lucky, of course. But you need to be OK by yourself. You really do. And I think that makes you a healthier person. So. I think it was that time that I felt it just really helped my, I came back invigorated, invigorated to put more energy into being a great mom and to be a more present wife, et cetera, et cetera. And I realized that I wanted to do that for other women, to empower them to not have to wait for a friend or a partner to go somewhere. But maybe they're not quite ready to completely go, you know, traveling around Spain on their own. It's just not, not everybody's ready for that, right? So this is like a nice soft landing. You can go with a group of six to 10 women. It's interesting, 53% of women in the United States are single. And even if you have a partner, isn't it amazing? And then even if you have a partner, like I said, it's nice to spend some time apart. When you come back together, you missed each other and it's really nice to. have something to talk about and tell stories about. And you just get to feel again who you are. It just gives you some clarity. So I've always loved connecting women. And I think they say if you can take your values and make your living around those things that you already do well, that are important to you. And so connection and... and empowering women, as well as discovering and seeing the world. These are all the things that I'm most passionate about. So I just kind of put them all together and realized that it turns out other people are also really in need of this. So it's been a really wonderful journey and a big, you know, a fantastic learning journey for me, as well as a wonderful. What's exciting about it is meeting all these amazing women from all over the world. I mean, that's really the cherry on the cake.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think that's the most underrated thing within travel, but also in real life is being comfortable on your own. So my trip in November, which is a month, is on my own. I'm doing it solo, right? Because I think sometimes you just need to have some time to yourself and to see if you can navigate the world by yourself sometimes. Because you are together with people a lot of the time, right? I wouldn't obviously reject my partner coming on the trip if she wanted to, but she can't because of the holiday on her job, right? So this works out that I'm going on my own. I'm actually looking forward to it. I haven't traveled on my own for a while. I did a bit last year. This is solo travel without a tour group. So this is like me literally on my own navigating the world. It's a different ballgame to group tours, right? So I'm looking forward to it and seeing what comes up.
- Speaker #0
I think it's just, it's always going to be a good thing to do. And you might have some times when you're lonely. but there's nothing wrong with that. And I, three months, one time, uh, in Paris on my own. And I think my partner did visit, uh, at least once, but you know, I definitely felt lonely after a while. Uh, but it's, uh, the times that you remember are going out to dinner. I remember going out to dinner into a kind of fancy restaurant and I came home and I said, you know, I really had a really nice time with myself, you know? And that is a great thing to do and to feel okay doing. And so many people do not feel okay doing that. And, you know, it just takes a little practice like anything.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah. Some people described it as like codependency issues, which could be true. It sounds a bit harsh, but maybe some people just need a dependent there, right, to do the trip or to do whatever, which I guess is more of a thing outside of travel, something you need to work on yourself. But travel could be a good vehicle to test it out, right? And maybe it doesn't need to be like on the other side of the world. It could be just like going to a different state to a city for a weekend or something, right?
- Speaker #0
Exactly. And I know we've talked about this before with women, but, you know, and some people are hesitant to sign up for a group trip when they don't know, you know, they don't know everyone on the trip. As a matter of fact, they don't know anyone. And most 80, 90% of the ladies who sign up. are not coming with a friend or family member uh so you know they're throwing themselves out there and i know sometimes what we talk to a lot of people before they come on and and the reticence is that feeling and do you remember uh i don't know if it's the same when you were growing up in norwich but going into the cafeteria and not knowing if you had you know maybe you're new in school and where should you sit in the cafeteria are you going to be you know at the dorks table or whatever they used to call it, you know, nobody wanted to sit with you. So there's that trauma that I think particularly, at least I know women, and I'm sure guys have this too, where, you know, is it going to be like that where I go on this trip and nobody likes me? You know, it's really, we go back right to fourth grade on this. And I always said, look, everybody feels that way. You know, even if you were the most popular kid in fourth grade, you've had it. Some experience with that. Everyone has, has had that moment where they're, and what's, we really train our trip facilitators to. Figure, and it's actually kind of complex group dynamics. I mean, there's all kinds of, we just had a leadership training from a facilitator for all of our tour guides, because this is really important when you've got a group of people that don't know each other. How can you create a bond in that group? And, you know, it's a matter of making sure that, you know, Susie and Linda don't always sit together. Maybe they hit it off night one, but we got to move them around the table so that Um, everybody gets to know each other and that's why I keep the group small so that, because even when you go to 12 and I've, I've tried this over the years, now you start getting subsets. You've got, you know, three groups of four or whatever. Uh, and, and what I really like is to be able to be at one table and have a conversation as a group. And of course you're going to break off and have other conversations along the way. Uh, but we, we go out of our way to make sure that group. dynamic is really supportive and draw out the introverts, the ones that don't talk as much, because usually they have as much of a story, if not a more interesting story, than those of us, you know, me included, who maybe talk too much at the table. So it's something that is really important to me. And it's the reason why a lot of the ladies will come back and back on trips, because we're developing a community of of women supporting each other and and that's really at the end of the day what what this business is all about yeah you're so right about the dynamics of a group for a tour leader that is a heck of a job yes
- Speaker #1
you've got to quickly switch on to if you can in the first impressions but also first two days whatever to try and work out how to get the best out of the group you know is this people didn't like each other or introvert versus extrovert like there's so many different dynamics is It's crazy, right?
- Speaker #0
It is. And I liken it to be you need to be that school teacher that you had that was fun, interesting, and, you know, kept everybody sort of engaged, but someone that you don't screw around with either. So you would not step out of line. So, you know, there's a lot of, you know, nuance to the thing. But it's also really, really fun. I mean, it's a lot more fun than doing dishes.
- Speaker #1
I mean, that's the ultimate game, isn't it? As long as it's fun. How do you navigate expanding to different countries? Because you mentioned France is obviously a passion of yours, but when you're branching out to, obviously, England or Bali or Greece or Morocco, etc., were there places that you went to to make sure that you understood that country and what a potential tour could look like so you could take it back to your company as yourself and develop something? Is that key to your thinking for other tours around the world?
- Speaker #0
At first, I thought I had to scout every single place that we were going to go beforehand. And I did, particularly in France. Then I realized there's such a thing called a DMC. So that's called a destination management company. So when we go to Bhutan, for example, or Thailand or Cambodia. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Or any of these places that. I am not, and we are not experts on. We hire an in-country guide and company that we create the tour with. So I never take some sort of off-the-shelf tour because we are really not about that. We're really about trying to go on the road less traveled, try to find, we don't stay in big, huge, you know, hotel chains ever. We... really are trying to find those local spots, those hidden spots, and we want to connect with other women to learn what life is like for a woman, say, in Bhutan or in Namibia. We just got back, a trip just got back from Namibia. So yeah, there are wonderful companies out there, but I really go out of my way to try and find women-owned companies that are smaller DMCs. So... We work with them and then we always send a trip facilitator. So somebody who really knows the way we work and knows this bonding process, if you will, as well as just keeping us on brand. And then we will have a guide who's an expert in Namibia, in Cambodia, in any of these places. So, yeah, luckily, the whole business is set up this way to help those of us who are. You just can't be an expert in 65 countries. It's impossible.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, absolutely. Baghdad used someone who can get the local, I won't say talent, but people who can actually deliver. what you're looking for, because that's key, right? And I think it also helps the local economy, I suppose, as well.
- Speaker #0
Absolutely. And that's why I prefer to work with smaller companies so that we're really affecting change. And every time that we can, every opportunity that we can, we like to, particularly in developing countries, we like to go in and, for example, there's a woman. that started actually raised in the US, but she's originally, her family is from Morocco. She went back to Marrakesh. She discovered that women who are divorced in traditional society there get shunned by their whole community. So here they are, you know, really hadn't worked, don't know how to make a living. They're trying to raise kids on their own and nobody wants to talk to them. So it's a really a tough situation. She started a... a really beautiful not-for-profit, which is basically a restaurant in Marrakesh where she trains these ladies to be either chefs or servers or run, you know, a restaurant. And they, I think they do six months to a year with her and then they go out in the world and they get jobs. And hence respectability and pay the rent and help the kids and all of that. So we try and meet with... women who are doing interesting things like that. The first trip I took there, the ladies at the table were so moved by this lady who started this NGO that we decided to sponsor one of the ladies for the whole year. So each year we go back and do that. So, you know, this whole concept of empowering women is going to, it's really full circle. It's not just for, you know, mostly well-to-do people that are coming on our trips, but it's. trying to affect everybody and as many women as we can when we're out there in the world.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, that's awesome. That's amazing. I bumped into a women-only tour guide company in Langtown Valley last year in Nepal. I was just hiking up with my guide and they're at the same sort of coffee stop, you know, little tea house, should we say, and got chatting to the guide and the two girls on the trip with her, one was British. were talking about it i didn't realize that even in nepal they have these women only uh guide groups because uh i guess there's some problem with safety uh occasionally right when hiking as men predominantly who are guides so yeah that was great to see and i just loved hearing about it and they're
- Speaker #0
loving the trip and can't believe it didn't really switch on that that was a thing kind of blew my mind a little bit i know isn't it mind-blowing i found a girl in mongolia i found a girl and she's been doing it for a long time i mean it's i'm part of this organization called Women Travel Leaders. So there are people who are at the top of this, their field that are, and they don't necessarily all have women's tour companies. They might be, you know, a top executive at Expedia or something, but it's a really great network for women in this business. And I think because women make 85% of all leisure travel decisions, it makes sense that You know, we get more women travel leaders, you know, out there. But it seems to be really growing. And I love the group because it's really supportive.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think it's definitely growing 100% as we go into 2025. I've got some sort of quickfire questions really about Girls Guide. Sure. Just more like admin questions, if you like. So what's involved on your tours? What type of stuff would you see and do?
- Speaker #0
Wow. So it's just so different depending on the location. But the... big thing is I like to develop a frame, so to speak. So how do you see, take Vienna, for example, how do you see Vienna in two days? We're going to do a Budapest, Prague and Vienna trip by train that I actually am leading. And so I like to have a lens by which you can see and develop an opinion about that place and see it from a point of view rather than just say, Here's the five sites that everybody goes to, and let's just check those off. So what we're doing in Vienna is we're, and actually in Prague and Budapest, is focusing on the secession and Art Deco period. So, you know, amazing Art Deco and Art Nouveau architecture in Prague. The secession movement, which, you know, is fascinating. And of course, super-enclimbed was part of that. It's so important to Vienna and so much of the beautiful architecture you see there. There's a secession museum as well. So just taking some sort of lens towards a place, I think, especially when it comes to cities, really, really helpful. You know, I did one of my first trips to Japan was the I think it was called Wabi Sabi Japan. So it was taking the aesthetic of Wabi Sabi and the concept of Wabi Sabi, which is a whole we could have a whole other podcast about. But if you don't know what it is, look it up. Super, super interesting and something that only the Japanese even have a word for. But we kind of geared everything around that. So the tea ceremony and ikebana, flower arranging and so forth. So I like to have a theme. I think, you know, big fan of theme parties. I like a theme because it gives you sort of a guiding point rather than I just didn't want to be like every other tour company that's just. you know, let's see the highlights of Morocco. Let's see the highlights of... It's not as interesting.
- Speaker #1
Hey, yeah, 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 Goodpods. Also, you can find me on social media on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok. Simply just search for Winging It Travel Podcast and you'll find me displaying all my social media content for travelling, podcasts and other stuff. Thank you. Yeah, because you can do that yourself. I know you can, obviously, you're offering a group. I get that, but like... if you want to go on google or learn your planet and just pick the top 10 things i mean anyone can do that because they're going to be pretty much in central location of the city right so it's not i would consider it's not hard travel in terms of the admin because they're going to be right there um right my tour last year in lebanon which was super interesting and obviously it's in the news right now because of what's going on but at the time that the guide who lives in lebanon portuguese but speaks english he was going into areas that I would probably consider that now wouldn't be advisable, but he was really going into local areas to meet the people. And you get a different perspective on that if you watch the news all the time, right? So that's what I found interesting. But if I was going to Beirut and to see the top sites in the center, I could have done it myself. So that's where tour groups offer that niche. And I think it's nice to have a purpose because you can aimlessly wander sometimes, I guess, on tours.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, and if you're just seeing sites and look, I mean, there's some... Incredible sights in the world. Of course. There's a time and place. I mean, you've got to see certain things. You've got to get on a boat on the Nile. There's so many things you have to do. But the intangibles, the hands-on, I love to have hands-on activities, too, because I realize, you know, when we're out there, we're seeing something, we're hearing some history, we're meeting people, which is really important. I mean, that's the authentic part of it. But. When you do something hands-on, whether it's a perfume-making workshop or a cooking class or, you know, anything really that you're doing with your hands, maybe it's a flower arranging class, it takes your brain to a different place, right? So you're not just passively seeing something or listening. It's almost like you're moving the culture into your hands and now into your body. And it's very different. And even if you're not a cook, you know, you don't have to like cooking to enjoy a cooking class. It just it's something that I really try and put in each trip because everybody enjoys it. And I do think it's important when you're traveling to step off the sightseeing route to meet people, you know, to go to the market and to do something that's visceral in some way.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, totally agree. How many people do you have in your tour groups?
- Speaker #0
So never more than 10. 10 is the max. And that's because of the reasons I told you, the bonding. So six minimum. We also try to make our tours go, even if, you know, let's say, and we just decided this the other day, you know, one tour, there's not as many people, usually six is the minimum. They haven't, for some reason, not as many people have signed up. As long as I'm not losing money, I will make that trip go because I don't want to disappoint people. And so, yeah, so it can be really even smaller than six. So it's, it's boy, it's like sisterhood hardcore when you have these small groups, but by the second night, he's laughing and they know each other.
- Speaker #1
A lot of secrets and stuff.
- Speaker #0
yeah they keep in touch afterwards which is what i love about it and they'll go visit each other they have reunions you know they go off and do trips on their own i mean that's the coolest part about it i think in the future future i think i could see myself doing this uh to a degree not right now but yeah that's a real carrot there where you get like those bonding experiences with people that you offer experiences to right and they they love it and it probably lasts forever right they're gonna forget that so oh yeah call me
- Speaker #1
Give you some pointers.
- Speaker #0
Yes, please. Yeah, yeah.
- Speaker #1
It's a service job. You know, it really is a service job. And your job as the tour leader is to try and create magic for people. And that's fun. But also to be understanding when somebody is anxious, to listen to them. That's the most important part is to listen. You know, we're really not so good at listening anymore in our culture. And everybody just wants to be heard. And, you know, if somebody is worried about something and it's sometimes, you know, I'll have, you know, like I had a lady who had never traveled outside the country and she went with us to Mexico and she was very anxious about her flight home. People get very anxious around, you know, just the flight things. And, you know, you and I travel to all these countries. Sometimes you can get like, what do you mean? What do you mean? You know, but you can't, you got to, you got to remember, put yourself in that person's shoes and say, well, she's never done this before. You know?
- Speaker #0
Absolutely. I get occasionally anxious when flying, mainly because it might be a short period of time with a lot of flights. You know, if I'm going in November, it's two flights in and out, one in, one out. That's okay. But if you're like traveling around the Himalayas, for example, and you've got to fly here and fly there and fly out of here, you do four or five flights in two or three weeks. It just gets a bit. I don't know, this weird thing comes across you that you think you're pushing your luck a little bit. I don't know what it is. It is a bit of anxiety, right? But it makes no sense.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I know. I know. It is a great, it's really a safe way to travel, though. So I've developed this sort of zen, you know, travel personality. Like, just whatever happens is going to happen. I can't do anything about it. Because that's what makes it safe. A loss of control, right? So you just, hey, you're not in control. Whatever happens is going to happen. That's it.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, yeah. Do you need to speak English to join your tours?
- Speaker #1
Yes. Yeah. The trip facilitators are always English speaking. So we get most of our customers are from the US, probably 75 percent. A lot of Canadians as well, you know, Australians, UK. And then, you know, the expat who lives in Japan or or somebody in the Netherlands who speaks great English. So. We had a lady from Tel Aviv. They come from all over, but yeah, you do need to speak English.
- Speaker #0
Okay. And what is the range of cost involved per trip?
- Speaker #1
So we are not the cheapest on the block, and that's because we include almost everything. So we stay in four to five star hotels, lodges or castles or whatever. So they range from basically five to 10,000. That's usually for, you know, five to 10 days. And we include almost all the meals. We include wine and decent wine, good wine, not house wine with dinner, two glasses, which is really rare. Almost nobody does that. And, you know, it's a very upscale, you know, very curated experience. But I never like to use the word luxury because it's not about luxury. It's about. being, have it be high, you know, it's really about the small group. Now, a small group is always going to cost a lot more than a group of 10, 20, 40, right? I mean, obviously, I have a huge bus of people I can, I can charge a lot less. But it is something really special. And, you know, we have everybody from school teachers to doctors to pilots join the trips, retired people, widows, lots of widows and, and young people as well. But it's, it's, um, Recently, I've been, I've learned about how, I think it's important to think about travel as an investment in yourself. It's not just luxury. It's something, it's really a fantastic way to learn, to connect with yourself, with the world, with other people. And we know now, according to studies, that you live longer if you take two vacations a year. As opposed to so many Americans in particular who take, you know, no, none of their their holidays. I mean, we really are crazy. It's killing us, you know. So it is an investment.
- Speaker #0
If you want to go and do maybe like, how can I put this? Someone described it the other day is if you're going on holiday or vacation, that is just going to like, I guess, not inclusive and just do nothing. Right. But these are more learning experiences. So that is more of an investment.
- Speaker #1
It is. And it's also, you know, every it's funny because a lot of women's only tours, they put you with a stranger in the same room and you have to sleep, you know, beds next to each other, which. I find, you know, after like I'm 25 years old, I don't want to sleep with strangers. You know, they're not strangers for long, but that's that also will bring the price down. But ours are single rooms. So you have your own room, your own bathroom. And, you know, all of those things drive the price up. But this is the first time probably in history where women have a lot more capital than they used to. You know, we've made some money. We've, you know. We've saved some money. A lot of our ladies come and they might be over 50 and they're ready to do something nice for themselves. So it's really a special experience, but we've got a lot of people that take two and three years.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's totally true. Okay. Do you provide travel insurance?
- Speaker #1
We don't. We have a page on our site. because I think it's a conflict of interest, actually. This is my own personal opinion. To sell and get a kickback from a travel insurance company because, you know, it's a pretty complex thing. And, you know, we have had enough experiences after 15 years that it's really important. I will insist to basically make everybody get travel insurance, which I didn't do before COVID. And now you have to have it in order to sign up for any trips. You have to have travel insurance and you also have to have medical coverage that goes with you. We have a thing on our website and it's just basically kind of like it's called Square Mouth. And it's similar to Kayak or Expedia, but for trip insurance. So you just put in, you know, what you're looking for and that'll spit out a bunch of places. But the secret, I think, to trip insurance is getting a yearly plan. If you go at least two places a year, get a yearly plan. It's much, much. cheaper and it's a much better value.
- Speaker #0
Okay. Interesting. Okay. And I noticed on your website, you do offer some vacation rentals. I guess they're maybe the properties that you might own and you can rent those out as well in France, I guess.
- Speaker #1
Yes, we do. Those are places that are ours. So I'm not in the vacation rental business, but, you know, we actually get tons of requests for those. And, you know, it helps us. offset the, I certainly wouldn't be able to have more than one house if we didn't rent them out. So we, it's a great way. And I always encourage people to, to think about that. If they want to buy a second home, make sure it's something you can rent out, you know, because it helps, you know, offset some of those costs. And so, you know, our place in Bordeaux is basically free for us. So that's a, that's a real plus.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. I think it's quite difficult these days with the prices of housing though. I think it's a. For my generation, it's almost impossible to even buy a first one.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, exactly. You got to find, there's still some great values in Italy, in Puglia, for example. You could buy something in the 250 range, you know, Spain. Actually, it's weird. Yeah, Greece, for sure.
- Speaker #0
Greece shocked me with maybe some of the prices there, but I get that. There's so many islands, right, to live in Greece. I can imagine that the not so popular ones are quite...
- Speaker #1
cheap to live in but obviously not as maybe easily able to get to right you have to probably plan certain flights or boats or whatever um but some great value unbelievable oh i haven't been to an island in greece that i didn't like so far so i'm willing to try oh yeah oh
- Speaker #0
got to go yeah carpathos island last year was amazing in greece yeah oh um fabulous get me back
- Speaker #1
how do people go about booking a tour so i guess they would go to your website and they can start from there or is there another way to do it so yeah you have to go to girlsguidetotheworld.com um you will see um you know uh tons and tons and tons of trips there you can sort by theme you can sort by a season uh country uh whatever uh what we do offer the ability we always have somebody standing by to take an appointment to talk to you on the phone um you We really love to do that one-on-one conversation and allow people to ask all their questions. Because especially if it's the first time you've ever done something like this, you know, it's important to get those questions answered and, you know, to really feel confident and to make sure that this is the right trip for you. How much walking is involved? You know, is it, you know, how big is the tour group? And, you know, what kind of places am I going to see? What are we going to do? You know, we and we have some really wonderful people on our team that can talk to you about it. So we love to do that. And most people we do talk to before. But then you can actually just go ahead and book on your own without without that conversation. And then we we don't ever discount anything. We're really not about that. We think we offer a huge value as it is. However, if you've taken two trips with us after that, you always get sort of basically a loyalty customer reward of 5% off.
- Speaker #0
Oh, wow. That's great. Okay. How do you keep the responsible travel element as part of the tours? Because we're in this world now, especially post-COVID, where area tourism is a bit of a hot topic at the minute, and rightly so. It is. So how do you make sure that your tours don't go into those sort of realms?
- Speaker #1
I think it's a really important topic and something that I think we do talk about in tourism, but maybe the larger public is not aware of. And I think it's important for those of us who are running tour companies to take a look at what we're doing. And so we have a whole page on what we call authentic, responsible travel. So authentic, we kind of talked about, which is really getting to know a culture, you know, eating their food. meeting the people, giving back in any way we can, and not just checking off sites. The responsible bit is not going to the over-touristed places. So I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but there are two islands in Greece that I will not go to because that's where they send all the Americans. It's gotten out of control. It's too bad for those islands, too. So and the people that live there, I'm sure it's unaffordable for them. So let's say Dubrovnik. So Dubrovnik in Croatia is one of the wonders of the world. It's just absolutely incredible. But we go there end of September, October. You know, it does kind of shut down at the end of October, but we try and go basically off season, not at the height. of when all the rest of the people are there with their families. So we do that in the Loire Valley. We don't want to be there when all the huge tour buses are coming in. So we go in the early spring and the late fall. So there are certain places that you can't say we're not going to go to the Taj Mahal, right? But when can you go there that is not the height of the season? So I just won't add to that over-touristing because it really... It's ruining places. I mean, you saw what happened in Barcelona this year. So the other responsible thing is really trying to stay as green as possible. So, you know, we and this is it might seem like a small thing, but it's a big thing to me. I don't want anybody to buy any more plastic bottles of water on our trips. So almost all the hotels that we are using now. Hotels around the world are getting really responsible in that area. So they'll have it particularly in countries like, let's say, Mexico or Thailand, where you don't want to drink the water. They'll have a big, huge glass jug and you can refill your refillable water bottle with that water. And so I say to everyone, we have a pre-trip call that we do, which is about two months before. So we do it on Zoom and we. This is a way that all the ladies can meet before they meet in person at the location. And everybody gets to introduce themselves and we talk about sort of all of these things. But I say you've got to bring your refillable water bottle. And, you know, if people forget, I'll say go out and get one, you know, because I just don't want to add any more plastic to the ocean because it's a giant problem, as you know.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, huge. Yeah, I'm glad to hear you say that as well. I kind of realised last year that on this podcast and most of my trips that I podcast about, but also talk about previously, I am a bit of an off-peak, off-season traveller. For example, I don't go away in the summer. What's the point? In the Northern Hemisphere. So before going to Greece, one of the two islands that you mentioned, right now, oh, no chance. Yeah. What's the fun in that? It's going to be chaos. It's going to be busy, hot. It's just going to be annoying, isn't it? I don't see the appeal there at all.
- Speaker #1
I mean, when you have little kids and they only have the time off in the summer, that's where the problem starts. So, you know, if you're traveling as a family.
- Speaker #0
uh you got to find some really out of the way places to go in the summer yeah that is a problem because also when you if you're a teacher right and i know the joke is normally teachers get 20 weeks off a year whatever because no one else gets that i get it that's a bit of a joke but they only get the peak times off so yes they can probably travel more which is great but you've really got to find those spots that aren't that busy in the chaos on peak times that's quite difficult i think it is it is
- Speaker #1
Yeah. It's a real thing. Yeah. I have to say, I was so thrilled when the kids were old enough and they went off to college that we didn't have to stick to those summers or those holidays. It is a lot easier now.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I think one other question is about the safety aspect. I assume you have no problems because you're working with local people, a lot of provisions in place. But I guess there's an element to it because obviously the women part of that is. different. I don't understand because I'm a white English speaking male. So I guess I don't really have many problems, which is very lucky. But I know women do have problems when travel sometimes. So how do you take care of that situation?
- Speaker #1
Well, a couple of things. First of all, we never travel to someplace that's not safe. And I do get those questions like right now, Egypt, we are going to Egypt this year. It is not part of the war. So I think there's there, you know, it's not. good for business to go someplace that's not safe, right? So I want my ladies to be safe no matter what. But there are certain countries that I don't recommend going as a solo woman. I made the mistake, and this is not because it's really unsafe at all, but I did go to Morocco by myself after I wrote the book that I wrote, which is called Paris Cocktails. I wanted to go to sort of like a place where I wasn't going to have any cocktails. And it wasn't so fun only because it's really a cultural thing, but people really harass you in the souks. And not, you know, I was older. It's not like they were harassing me in any kind of, you know, sexual way. But it was more about trying to sell you something. So it just got very tiring. So I felt like it was, you know, I had to armor up. So when we go to Morocco, we always have, you know, a guide, of course, that is Moroccan. And, um, and when you're in a group and you have a Moroccan guide, you just don't get, um, harassed in that same way. So, um, Morocco is an absolutely fantastic country. And, but it's one of those places that I wouldn't travel solo. There's tons and tons of places around the world that you, that you can comfortably. Um, but again, for people that are a little bit, um, more reticent, um, you know, about traveling completely alone, this is it. is safer to be in a group. I mean, it just is because, but I will say that, you know, you always have to be cautious though, even when you're in a group in a city, particularly in a city, because there's always, things can happen anywhere. So you need to, you know, wear your cross shoulder bag and make sure you're watching your bag if you're on the metro or, you know, in a crowded place. That's when somebody could, you know, grab your wallet or whatever. So there's always things that you have to just be aware of and not relax too much because what I do find sometimes people get have so much fun in these groups and they're talking and chatting as girls do and then you know it's like no don't walk in the street wait wait wait there's there's traffic so that's why you have a leader to make sure nobody walks in front of the bus you know it's true
- Speaker #0
I can't tell you how many times I've had to do that well some of the countries that you've got on your list on your website yeah 100% be careful of traffic Gets a bit chaotic, right?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, the craziest I've ever experienced was in Hanoi. Oh, my heavens. That is wild. They don't really, at the time we went there, they didn't have any, they had one stoplight, I think. And there's no crosswalk. So you just have to hurl yourself into traffic and hope for the best.
- Speaker #0
Best way to do it, I think, just got to, you know, audibly go for it. Not just like looking around and then just wandering to the street, into the road. But I think once you're ready, just got to go. and then hope they avoid me. Yeah,
- Speaker #1
exactly.
- Speaker #0
Okay. And where can people find yourself but also Girls Guides online? It could be social media and website so they can maybe get in touch with you to book a trip or ask more questions.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I would love anybody to get in touch and please tell me that you heard it on James's podcast. I just can't believe how many you've done starting in 2020. It's just, wow, you're a workaholic. Yeah, you can take... You're taking a vacation, right?
- Speaker #0
That was last year. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Girlsguidetotheworld.com. On Instagram, we are GG2, the number to the world. And the same on Facebook, GG2 the world. But it's when you spell it out on for the website, it's Girls Guide to T.O. the world. So if that's not confusing, just go to Girls Guide to the world and they're all linked there at the bottom. The other fun thing that we do have is called the Girls Guide. Traveling Sisterhood. Maybe you can put it in your show notes because that one is a little bit harder to find. It's a private Facebook group and it's really, we don't do any selling there. It's just a place to sort of cheerlead other women on to get out there and travel. You know, we don't have that much time on this planet and there's a lot to see here and there's a lot to learn when you're out there. So we just want to support any woman who wants to get out there. And that could be, as you said, going to the neighborhood, you know, the Nate. the neighboring town or to Mongolia. Yeah,
- Speaker #0
I'll put all the links in the show notes so people can find all those. For you, it's great because most of my audience is US.
- Speaker #1
Fabulous. Love it.
- Speaker #0
Okay, we're going to finish the episode with just a bit of personal travels and some quickfire travel questions. I actually want to ask you, outside of your tours that you offer and you lead, do you get to travel just in a personal context? You know, no tour group involved, no business involved. You get to just travel for yourself. I do. get to do that much these days or has that slowed down a little bit?
- Speaker #1
You bet. Because I want to stay married and my husband can't come on these trips, right? So he is not allowed. Well, we're lucky because we have a lot of fun places to go and things to do outside of this. And I'm also lucky because he is now part of our company. which is really wonderful. But yeah, we're about in about five, six days, we're going off to Turkey for a wedding. So my son's friend is marrying a wonderful gal who is originally from Turkey. So we're going to, you know, of course, take that opportunity to travel around Turkey. Then last year we got to go to a wedding in India. Same thing. Everybody seems to do destination weddings. It was my third trip to India and probably my most favorite because, you know, getting to go to an Indian wedding is just something extraordinary. Oh, my God. We went to Hawaii by ourselves. We go all over the place as much as we possibly can. We went to Oaxaca on our own earlier this year before the wedding. So Todos Santos in Mexico is one of our favorite places. But he.
- Speaker #0
like me will go almost anywhere um and i know he's dying to go to antarctica have you been no that's a heck of a cost and time it is constraint if you like if you're if you only got vacation time if you're working so it's on my list but not realistically in the next few years i don't think i know i know it's so expensive isn't it that's one of the issues yeah yeah rightly so of course i don't climb at that you know like most countries in the world if you think about it are doable like you you've got a budget, you know, you've got a couple of thousand dollars, let's say your budget, whatever that you can find somewhere to make that last. But Antarctica is like a set price that is 10, 15, 20,000, whatever it is. And there's no getting away from that. So you do need to plan it.
- Speaker #1
I know. The Galapagos we went to last year with a bunch of friends and we all rented one boat, which that is another place that can be costly, but you can do it cheaper. if you go to and stay on the islands, but there is nothing quite like being on the boat and going. I mean, that is an incredible trip. I really, really recommend it. It's just, that's one of our favorites that we've done in the last decade or so.
- Speaker #0
That's high on my list, but I guess Ecuador is in a weird place right now. I'm not sure politically what's going on.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, right after we, like literally the month after we were there, the other guy who was running for president was shot. So yeah, I don't think it's... Maybe you might want to put that on hold for a couple of a year or two. That said, I do feel like a lot of times we overreact. You know, Turkey suffered that terrible earthquake a couple of years ago and nobody wanted to go to Turkey, even though most of the main sightseeing places that we all go to are out. We're not anywhere near that earthquake. So, you know, I think sometimes we have to look into. the decisions we make about places that we don't want to go and just investigate a little bit further.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. Yeah, I went to Turkey last year and it's fine. So no problems that I can see. But then it's hard to know as a tourist, right? You don't know what's going on underneath the surface a little bit. But from the outside, it looks fairly good. So I enjoyed my time. I think eight or nine days there. Love the food.
- Speaker #1
I know. I can't wait. I'm so excited.
- Speaker #0
It's just incredible. My last thing is actually before we get to the travel questions, 2025, anything planned for that?
- Speaker #1
Oh, just a little bit. We've got so many trips. Oh, Lord. So personally, well. Well, this year I'm going trekking with gorillas, which I'm really excited about in Rwanda. That's one of our trips. We haven't made, we basically, how I do it is I plan the whole year. So that's happening now. Basically, it's almost all planned. We're just getting, we've got about another 20 trips to put up. But then in between those times that I'm going to be away, then we slot in our personal travel. So, and it's... And boy, I mean, I'm very lucky. I, you know, it's it's a it's a it's a wonderful, wonderful job to have it. It's, you know, but next year we're doing a really cool trip to Finland. We're focusing on women, the women of Finland, because, you know, Finland gets voted for has been voted the happiest place in the world for the last seven years. So we feel like, hey, there's something we can learn from these ladies. So it's really all about the Finnish women. and why they're the happiest in the world. So that's a really exciting, finally putting together a trip to Cuba, which I couldn't be more excited about. You know, really very excited about the music, the food, you know, just learning about the country. And that's 90 miles, you know, off our shores that it's always been sort of taboo. That is really exciting. Going to Slovenia. My husband and son have been there. I have not. Really, really. Yeah, it's so beautiful, right? Wow. There's Zambia. I'm going back to Zambia, doing a trip there. I love Zambia. You know, I could, like Greece, I could go to a different country in, like the islands of Greece, I could go to a different country in Africa every year. I'd be perfectly happy with that. I could just go on and on. We'd probably have to tape a whole other podcast to go over all the trips for next year.
- Speaker #0
Amazing. Okay, we're going to finish with some quickfire travel questions. There's a little feature at the end where I just ask a few questions, normally your favourites, and you get three choices normally, so there's a bit of leeway here. So I'm going to kick off with... It's travel question time. It's a question people don't like, but... Your three favorite countries.
- Speaker #1
It's a hard one, right? I get this question all the time. So I am going to, the two I always say are France, because, you know, obviously France, Japan, obsessed with Japan. And the third one is so difficult. Oh, my gosh. That changes from moment to moment. But I...
- Speaker #0
Oh.
- Speaker #1
Well, I'm going to say I'm going to. What am I going to say? I mean, I think I'm going to have to say Italy. Oh,
- Speaker #0
OK.
- Speaker #1
Who doesn't love Italy? Everyone loves Italy.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, OK. What about three countries they've not traveled to? But if you can go there tomorrow, where are you going to go?
- Speaker #1
Oh, my gosh. So I have like an actual very organized list. I even have a thing on my phone. You know, the app visited the ones you visited versus the ones you on your wish list. And I don't, I'm not one of these people that actually wants to go to every country in the world because I'd rather go to countries that I really loved again, rather than go to, you know, a war zone, for example. But I'm dying to go to Brazil. I am also, it's not a country, it's a continent. I'm dying to go to Antarctica. And I'm, you know, I don't. know exactly which stand it is but I want to go to some of the stands so Uzbekistan perhaps you know Tajikistan one of Kajikistan one of my one of my DMC's it does a bunch of trips to Kajikistan it just feels like we went to Georgia on a trip and it's just there's so much to see and do over there that you know I haven't gotten to do yet so and of course Oh my gosh, there's so many more in Africa too.
- Speaker #0
Okay. And if you could live somewhere tomorrow for a year that isn't USA or France, because I think they'd be obvious choices, where are you going to live? Japan. I knew you might say that. Give me a second one. I thought you were going to say that. Oh, yeah.
- Speaker #1
That was too easy, right? I would live in the Netherlands in a heartbeat. That just seems like such an easy, gosh, that would be so easy and lovely. And they're always in the top, like, five happiest places in the world, too. And they have a really good, people, good friends. So that would be easy.
- Speaker #0
Give me three favorite overall cuisines internationally.
- Speaker #1
Well, I'm starting to sound like a broken record. But Japan is my number one favorite. Everyone in the family is obsessed with Japanese food. Italy, because it is so, it's easy to eat Italian food for weeks on end. Whereas French food, you know, you can, it's rich. Although there's so many places that are, you know, much more, you know, I would say modern French. So it's not as rich anymore. But, um. absolutely French would be in the top three as well. But it is easier, I think, to eat Japanese and Italian on an everyday basis. And I'm going to cheat and say, weirdly, when we were in India for a couple of weeks, we did not get sick of Indian food either. Oh, no. That's my test. Like, can you, after seven days, do you still want like an eighth day of the same kind of food? Because we're spoiled for choice here, aren't we?
- Speaker #0
Do you know what? That's weird. I thought that yesterday. I don't know why I was thinking about it. I was probably thinking about these questions, right? And I was thinking, well, what is a test of your favorite cuisine? And I think that you just nailed it. The test is, can you stick out a cuisine for longer than a week or even two weeks? Yeah. I think there's only two places I can remember where I didn't get sick of it. And it was India and Thailand.
- Speaker #1
India and Thailand?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. I could eat that all day, every day. No questions.
- Speaker #1
Oh my God. Thai food and Vietnamese food. Both amazing. Absolutely amazing. I love that. I love Asian food. Asian food is just so great. But yeah, we always, when we were traveling as a family, we'd always have the last night, wherever we were, would be Chinese. Because wherever you were, you get sick of the food. And we found a Chinese place, you know, in Henya. We found a Chinese, we found, because you can always find a Chinese place anywhere you are. Like you can always find an Irish pub, you can always find a Chinese restaurant. That was our solution.
- Speaker #0
I don't know if India cheats on this though, because I don't know if you realize or remember that in restaurants in India, they always offer like a chow mein. It's always on the menu, a bit of Chinese chow mein. And I was like, I did occasionally have that. But it's got an Indian tinge to it. But like, is that cheating? I don't know. But I do seem to recall that as an option.
- Speaker #1
Which is not really a Chinese dish at all. That's an American Chinese. Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. And. I was going to ask three favorite dishes going a bit more granular now.
- Speaker #1
So I went, yeah, there is a soba noodle place in Kyoto that has been making soba noodles, cold, you know, cold buckwheat noodles in the same place for 400 years. That is unbelievable. You get like a little bento box. There's a number of different things you can get, but that is. one of the most memorable meals. I've been back there a number of times. I love that. And boy, you have soba noodles somewhere else. It just pales in comparison. I think that the croissants in France are worth getting on the plane for, you know, for no other reason. If you just want to go for croissants, worthy, worthy of the plane ticket, because you just almost cannot find those anywhere else. And they just... You know, especially the ones that are, they call bien cuit, the ones that are really quite well cooked and they're crispy and your whole outfit is covered with, you know, little bits of croissant. Yeah. That's the mark of a good croissant. Okay. Yeah. So it's the cacio and pepe. So that would be your. Oh,
- Speaker #0
Roman dish.
- Speaker #1
Yes. Roman dish. And there's a place that my daughter and I went to that we, the bowl itself is made of. edible parmesan cheese crisped up and then inside inside you have your cacio and pepe with all your parmesan and and and and pepper it's the simplest dish but to be able to eat the bowl is just off the hook and i i mean i i could go there fly there tonight i've heard this before this is crazy good i can't even tell you i know it's it's like unreal i can't get my head around that i i know like um
- Speaker #0
I'm a bit into my cooking right I do like especially Italian dishes I like to get to the simplified version of what it really is because I think in the west we tend to like call it bolognese but we're adding in like the wrong cheese or the wrong meat or whatever it is right if it's not the standard traditional recipe it's not bolognese it's your own thing cashew pepper is a bit like that right it's very simple dish but people start adding stuff to it i'm like well it's not cashew pepper then is it it's something else right
- Speaker #1
yeah don't be putting coming to me a little bit there yeah yeah a bit of broccoli yeah yeah but i think you just basically you grate a whole bunch of parmesan and then you uh you put it in the oven on a piece of parchment paper and you get it soft and then you would put it around the bottom of a bowl and then um you know basically something that's going to go into the oven and then uh we basically had a whole conversation with about how to make this with my friends that are like crazy foodies like us and uh and and then you know of course you got to make the killer cacio e pepe which i cannot say that i i know how to do but uh yeah put it in that
- Speaker #0
that parmesan bowl and then you've got paradise oh i don't know butcher this isn't cashew pepe um obviously your pasta um the pasta water is it pecorino romano cheese i think and pepper i think that's the four ingredients i might be wrong with that i don't want to butcher that but i think that's as simple as that yeah
- Speaker #1
no cream that is the beauty of italian food it's so simple but it's all about the ingredients isn't it yeah obsessive hamner sauce and i'm guilty of that sometimes as well but you can't beat originals
- Speaker #0
Okay, more questions. I've got, are you a sunrise or sunset person?
- Speaker #1
Sunset, 100%. Especially on the boat, there's nothing better than a sunset on the sailboat. Cocktail in hand, of course.
- Speaker #0
Do you think that's the most popular answer?
- Speaker #1
I think so, because most of us don't get up that early, although I think it's really cool if you get up early enough. But I'm one of those odd people. I like to get up late and go to bed early. So I love to sleep. It's one of my favorite things to do. I get a lot done during the day, but then I love.
- Speaker #0
Okay. A favorite landmark could be nature or man-made.
- Speaker #1
Well, I just went to Machu Picchu and, you know, it's one of those big bucket list items. And you always worry about those places. Are they going to, you know, is it really going to be as amazing? And is it going to be totally crowded and blah, blah, blah. It was incredible. Absolutely. I mean, you just, there's no pictures that do it justice.
- Speaker #0
No, totally agree. We've done the hike, four day hike, and it makes it work in the end. It's a tough hike.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. My ladies don't hike. We're non-hikers.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. If you're not a hiker, then just stay in Aguas Caliente, the town, and get a bus up. If you're a hiker, get ready for some steps. Oh,
- Speaker #1
yeah. Hardcore.
- Speaker #0
What about if you could sit anywhere in the world with a cup of coffee and watch the world go by for an afternoon, where are you going to sit?
- Speaker #1
Okay, so I'm not going to say Paris because that's too obvious. Boy, being on a canal in Amsterdam, or even better yet, Delft. Delft is a lesser known town in the Netherlands, and that is a spectacularly darling, beautiful, small city. Super friendly, was a royal city, and a lovely place to sit on a... A nice summer day as, you know, the weather is not always lovely there, but a lovely town, a lovely place to just hang out and chill and have a coffee.
- Speaker #0
Okay. I've got three questions left. Out of all the countries you've traveled to, which has been the best for the budget? Which area has gone the furthest for your dollar?
- Speaker #1
I think that Oaxaca, not all places in Mexico, but Oaxaca, Mexico. was one of the best value places that we've ever been for the deliverables you get. So we rented a house when we were there, and we'd walk right across the street, and there was a lady, and you see this all over town. You're going to be thrilled when you go there. But she was making the homemade, you know, tortillas every morning. And she makes, you know, basically five in a minute. See, it's just unbelievable how quickly they make them. And then so my husband would go over there. and get a fresh tortilla. She would put a little pork fat on there, and then some eggs, whatever you wanted, and then he'd bring it right back across the street, and it would cost $1.50. Best breakfast you've ever had.
- Speaker #0
Insane.
- Speaker #1
It's just such great value for a really incredible destination. So I hope I haven't spread the word too much, though. I know you get a lot of listeners.
- Speaker #0
The problem with questions is going to be a controversial one, but has there been a place you traveled to that you didn't like?
- Speaker #1
Boy, I feel really bad saying it. And I'll tell you why I feel bad about this. And I'm going to give it a lot of caveats because this is why I don't, I have a hard time. I'm worried about answering it because I saw somebody posted recently on Instagram and it got like 10,000 reposts about how much they hated Egypt. And this is why, and it sucked and it's horrible. And this, you know.
- Speaker #0
I smell that, I think. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. And so it's possible to have a bad time anywhere. It's also possible to have a good time almost anywhere. Egypt is an amazing country. And how dare that person, you know, malign a whole country and an incredible civilization, you know, really the cradle of civilization because she didn't have a good time. And just I think that's very it's obnoxious. It really is obnoxious. So I'll tell you a story that has a happy ending. The first time I went to India, I went on my own. It was April. I didn't do my research. I really didn't. And so it's like I do all the research for these trips for work. But, you know, the cobbler's shoes, you know, the cobbler has no shoes for his family. It's that kind of thing. So I'm just kind of on a whim. I thought, you know, I'd really like to do Ayurvedic treatment in India. because I had done it in California, but, well, I can go for two weeks there. It'll be so much less expensive. This is my logic. So I just looked up a couple of, you know, Ayurvedic resorts, one here, one there. So turns out, this is quite a while ago, whenever Modi first got elected. So it's probably at least 10 years ago. But I went in April. It was 110 degrees every day in Kerala and Goa. So horrible, horrible weather, you know, just sweltering hot. And the first place was actually a really nice and one of the original Ayurvedic resorts. But the treatment was not great. A very perfunctory lady who was not into what she was doing. And then the next place actually had good treatment, but did not. The whole place was kind of falling apart. So I basically both times I checked out like three days in and went to like a five star hotel and I had much better Ayurvedic treatments there. But I really couldn't wait to get on the plane and get the heck out of there. I know a lot of people have that reaction to India. But then a few years later, I realized, you know, I can't just write off a whole country because I had one, you know, a huge, really important country with fascinating. history and culture because I had a two-week vacation that I didn't plan well. And, you know, it's just not fair. So I went back, went to Rajasthan on a photo tour, actually someone else's tour, which I really enjoyed. And, you know, it was a much better experience. So I encourage people, even if they, you know, if you have the travel bug like you and I do, you don't write off a place after one bad trip.
- Speaker #0
No. Absolutely key. I think for India, if people are listening right now and are thinking about it, if you want an easier start to India life, then Rajasthan is a state that you should base yourself because it's very tourist heavy in terms of the infrastructure. So you're not going to be totally alone and it's kind of set up to welcome tourists. So it's a nice way to fill in. It's where I started on my three month trip, a nice little gateway into India. Totally. And the last question is, if someone's listening right now and they're really nervous about traveling. this could be very apt for your company as well, but just need a few sentences of advice or wisdom to push them forward to go and travel. What would you say?
- Speaker #1
I love that question. I actually did a whole webinar on this topic and it's about fear, right? So fear is what stops us from realizing our dreams and doing the things we want to do. And it's powerful. And anxiety is just one element of fear. And there's a lot of more visceral fears. But we did a whole, it was really appropriate, of course, during COVID. So we did it during COVID. I had a bunch of women travel experts on as well as a therapist. And she walked us through all of these exercises to deal with fear and anxiety. Most of them, and you know, you can Google, there's tons of them. But most of them are really about getting out of your head and back into your body. And breathing, right? And learning how to do the four-part breath and so forth. But my favorite thing out of that whole experience was... Because we had like 300 people on the call, I had asked people to write their questions beforehand. And I don't know if you know the lady who started Women's Travel Fest, but she was on the call. I'm just totally blanking on her name right now. I'll think of it. But she's younger. She's just a fireplug. She's amazing. But she was going to be answering this question. And one of the ladies said, how will I know? it's going to be okay? Big question. And she said, simply, you don't, you don't know. Yeah. We don't know.
- Speaker #0
Of course. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
We don't know. But don't let that stop you because, you know, this life is short and I just buried my 55 year old nephew. And at, you know, when you go to these, you know, terrible family experiences and, you know. everybody knows somebody who's died. We all remember, okay, this is a finite thing that we're in right now. And the world is large. If travel is a dream for you, just don't let fear stop you. You can still be afraid, but just do it anyway, because it's just about taking those steps and moving forward. And then you'll be so proud of yourself when you did it, because you'll realize, and the more we do things, you know, the less scary they are. The first time I ever spoke in public, I was terrified, you know, and you just get better and you get better at just by throwing yourself out there, getting yourself into a little bit of an uncomfortable place, doing something that's a little bit out of your comfort zone. But that's what keeps us alive. That's what keeps us young and vibrant. And it just gets all your neurons fired in your brain. So it's, you know, it's just really go for it.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, love that. Totally agree. There's two major things that can happen, right? You go on your trip, you're really nervous, and you love it. And it's amazing. You love the country, you love the trip. The second thing is you go on your trip, you hate the trip because you just didn't have a good time, but you learn something about yourself. So at least there's something, right? It can't be anything else.
- Speaker #1
That's right. It's usually not black and white. It's usually some of both, right? I always tell people when we have our pre-trip calls. People think when they're going to go on holiday, on vacation, on a trip, on an adventure, on a journey, it's like there's going to be this magical time. And oftentimes it is. But have you ever had a week in your life, whether here, there, or another place, where every single thing went right? Every person was on time. Every dinner was perfect. The weather was perfect at every moment, every single day for seven days. No, it doesn't happen. I mean, life is life. no matter where you are. So part of travel, it's a microcosm of real life, is to get used to rolling with the punches and looking at the glass half full and appreciating what you do have, what you can see, and the weather when it's sunny or when it's rainy and just living what is and appreciating what is.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, and you can learn so much from that in both ways. So it's an amazing way to finish the podcast. Donnie, thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks for entertaining me for nearly two hours. I appreciate it's quite late where you are. So I fully appreciate you making time and indulging in the conversation.
- Speaker #1
Oh, my gosh, what fun. It's my favorite topic. And I really appreciate being able to be able to talk to you. I love to hear all the things that you've done and what you're continuing to do. And you're going to have a great time on your trip. And say hello to Oaxaca for me. Make sure you shoot me an email. I'll give you some some my favorite places to go.
- Speaker #0
I'm already drawing up the email, so it's coming your way. Yeah, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
- Speaker #1
Have a nice evening.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, you too. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast episode today. If you've been 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 Skyscanner to book your flight. You'll find Booking.com to book that accommodation. Want to stay in a super cool hostel? You'll see Hostelworld down there too. You'll find Revolut to get your travel card sorted. Click the GigSky link to get your eSIM ready for your trip. And more importantly, you'll find Safety Wing Insurance to get that travel insurance for your trip. There are many more to check out. So when you click that link and book your product, a small commission goes towards me and the Wiganet Travel Podcast. Thank you in advance and enjoy your travels.
