Zero To Travel Podcast

Greg Abandoned 0:00
urbex the deal about urbex is that you go to places that you cannot go, the public cannot go, you're not allowed to go. When it's security, closed gate dogs, those are the type of places I read like to go. I, on a weekly basis, talk to passionate people who, because of this hobby have super unique experiences, because you meet people along the way. There's always so many different stories, we really like to preserve those places. I must say this took this took everything I had. And, and when I woke up there, I was crying when I saw them. Because this felt like the the sense of achievement to to do this was was simply insane. Those are

Jason Moore 0:54
clips from my interview today with Greg abandoned No, that's not his real name, because he is part of a subculture that you heard briefly about called urbex, or urban exploring. And this is a community of people that travel to explore abandoned places that are sometimes extremely difficult to find all over the world. And this conversation has so many different levels to it, you're going to hear, of course, about urbex get a little one on one on that the styles of urbex like roof topping tips for finding interesting abandoned places when they aren't publicized, some of the secrecy and the code of conduct in the urbex community. And we also get into some of the philosophical stuff around abandoned places that beauty you see in the decay, others might see it a little bit differently. And you can see a lot of that in the photos. If you want a visual guide to go along with this, I encourage you to check out Greg abandoned.com, check out some of the photos there that he's taken of these places. And in this interview, we get to, you know, kind of live vicariously through some of his adventures, some tense moments when he was arrested and interrogated. And so many other stories along the way. And what's nice about this is urban exploration is not a one size fits all type of situation, you might be one of those people that takes it to the extreme, like Greg, or perhaps maybe you're going to enjoy doing some mild version of this, just getting introduced to a whole other sub genre of travel, a way of thinking about what destinations you want to see in different types of places to see and what you can encounter along the way. So many parts of this make it well worth listening to. And of course, Greg's passion, and how this was really something that helped him find himself or rediscover himself in many ways. So all of that happening in today's interview, I know you're gonna love it. Plus, I will share a little bit of my urban exploration experience. It's very, very light. I will warn you so don't expect any crazy stories. But this happened many years ago in the city that has the most neon lights. So you'll hear about that. Plus, I'm gonna give a shout out to somebody in this community who found a unique way to bring their life on the road. And it made me think of four words that I'm going to share that may in fact, be a springboard to somebody out there listening and help them find their next version of travel perhaps it's always possible. So all of that happening in this show, and much more. It's a great one buckle up strap and thanks for being here and welcome to the zero to travel podcast, my friend.

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You're listening to the zero to travel Podcast where we explore exciting travel based work, lifestyle and business opportunities helping you to achieve your wildest travel dreams. Now your host World wonder and travel junkie, Jason Moore.

Jason Moore 4:04
Hey there, it's Jason weds your travel.com Welcome to the show, my friend. Thanks for hanging out letting me bring a little travel with your ears today. This is the show to help you travel the world on your terms to fill your life with as much travel as you desire. No matter what your situation or experience. How are you doing today? My friend, as you heard at the top, we're talking abandoned places today. And this got me thinking about maybe where does the excitement of this topic come in for me personally, or maybe for anybody? And I think there are a few different parts of this one is just adventurous travel, right going to places where not a lot of people visit hard to find places, places that are unique places that are not only unique in and of themselves, but that can give you a unique experience traveling to them maybe going through some places that you wouldn't normally visit all of those elements and By take it back even further. One thing I just thought about when I hit record on this was well, when I think back to just being a kid, and we can all think back to being a kid and that mentality of getting out and exploring, and whenever you find a new place, whether it's some fort in the woods, or if you grew up in the city, you know, you have your own versions, probably of that. And I think every kid has come across, you know, old railroad tracks, or some old shed somewhere, or whatever these places that kids tend to hang out, because they know no adults are going to be around. There's that excitement of being in a place that you kind of have all to yourself. That's not a place where a lot of people are. And perhaps, it may be that childlike wonder, inside of me being reinvigorated in this interview, and it's always nice to live vicariously through another traveler and other adventure, I am not going to do some of the extreme things that Greg has done. I'm just not. But it's really cool to talk to him and hear what that experience is like, and to be able to kind of walk in his shoes and live through that. And also, at the same time, just discover more of the world and get a bit of an education around the sub genre of travel. And it really has made me consider maybe the lighter versions of that, that I can get out and explore in different places and seeing Greg's photos on his website, of course, you can check out Craig abandoned.com. If you want to go to his Instagram page, you could see some of the shots, he's taken to some of these places really spectacular. And you can see that beauty in the decay as he describes it. And if you want to go deeper with Greg, he has a podcast called Chasing bandeaus you can find all that info on his website. And don't forget to stick around after the interview, I'm gonna give a shout out to somebody in this community who left me a voice message and shared how they were able to take their life on the road. And this reminded me of four simple words. That may be the next version of your travel life. Who knows. I'll talk a little bit about that on the back end plus share my very very light version of urban exploration I did in the city with the most neon lights. And perhaps you can guess which city that is before we get into the interview. Two quick things for you. First, when big adventures knock you want to say yes, but doing the things you love can require a bit of pre planning. US Bank offers a wide range of credit cards for a wide variety of financial needs. And one of its most useful cards is the US Bank visa platinum card with a low introductory APR for 24 billing cycles. This card is a tool for getting ahead. The US Bank visa platinum card is a savvy financial move for large purchases, unexpected expenses and balance transfers and with the ability to customize your payment date. This card gives you control over your financial future Apply now at us bank.com/platinum. 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Anyway, you Go check it out rumble r u m p l.com and get 15% off with the code zero ze aro 15% off for being a listener of this show with that discount code ZR, Oh, get a fantastic, great looking blanket that you can use anywhere in the world or at home. They also make great gifts for friends and family if you're looking for some ideas there and you get that 15% off discount just for being a listener of the show. So I want to thank rumpl Are you mpl.com For supporting today's show? Now, let's slip and slide into the interview segment. And I will see you on the other side my friend 32100.

Well, I'm excited to talk to you, man. And I see the clock on the wall. It's 7pm for you. It is afternoon for me. You're in China, right?

Greg Abandoned 10:53
Yeah, I mean Beijing. Yeah. Nice to meet you, Jason. Yeah. I'm in China.

Jason Moore 10:59
to of course, Amman with Greg abandoned here, which is, is an alias is that right?

Greg Abandoned 11:06
As far as everyone is concerned, that's my real name.

Jason Moore 11:14
You What are you doing in Beijing? What brought you there?

Greg Abandoned 11:17
I tried to escape toxic England, I had enough of that. And I decided that I'm a teacher, I teach math, believe it or not. And so in terms of like, earning decent money in the field that I'm doing, and also at the same time having holidays, a lot of holidays, Chinese holidays, and Western holidays. Put all of that together. It's really a great deal here. Because I can make decent money. And I have time to travel. And yeah, basically that.

Jason Moore 11:50
Well, where did you grow up?

Greg Abandoned 11:53
So I I'm originally I was born in Poland. And I when I was 19, I think 1890 I moved out as soon as I reached the age of conscious, conscious, I really need to get get out of Poland. I mean, I hear I'm here. I haven't been there for like, you know, 10 to 15 years I hear people are saying it's progressed and it's decent country and certainly with the recent event in Ukraine, like how the Polish government is trying to persuade Germans to like bring not just the helmets and everything. And with all the refugees they bring in, like I'm actually quite quite proud to say I'm Polish which I maybe didn't have a lot of chances to say that in the past. But yeah, I moved to England. I have doubled nationality now and I fell out of love in England and I moved to China No.

Jason Moore 12:51
Yeah. But why England? When when you Oh, okay, so of all the places you could go in the world?

Greg Abandoned 12:59
Well, first of all, first of all, like I needed to go to an English speaking country and England, I was obsessed with football. When I was a kid, I I was out all the time playing football. And you know what, just there's something about those British stadiums and the atmosphere. And the T shirts. The T shirts are so nice. I think it's the it's the black borders around the names. It just they are like, clean and they just nice to look at. From like an outsider perspective. This must be I must come across as a mentalist right now. But yeah, I when I was a kid, I watch I would religiously watch Premier League. So I decided that if I go to England, I would either go to Glasgow or Manchester. And it's actually I really base my decision on football. I loved Celtic Glasgow. I loved it. And I also liked Manchester United. But I was afraid of Scottish accents. So I decided to go to Manchester Little did I know, Manchester up north, the rough accent there. It's something else. But yeah, that was my decision making basically to move to

Jason Moore 14:10
England. I love that you still stuck with your childhood fantasy, right? You're like, well, I just, I'm just obsessed with football. I'm just gonna go to the Premier League. Right right to it, where it where it all happens, right?

Greg Abandoned 14:24
When I was at uni, I actually worked at Old Trafford or like I will work in the kiosk I was selling beer and burgers and hotdogs. I mean, oh, yeah. And I would I went to Premier League status and he was literally like fulfilling your childhood dream because it just Yeah, it was insane. I loved it. I haven't seen a football match in two years. Basically, since Corona happened. He kind of like it was like a light switch moment for me and I just kind of lost interest which is super surprising because I was so obsessed with it before.

Jason Moore 14:57
Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I think change in life, right? You get a different interest. Sometimes I'm the same with American football. I never thought I would go a week without seeing the Philadelphia Eagles play a game. And now it's sort of Yeah, I watch the highlights on Monday morning when I can because I don't have time for for that stuff. But wait, wait. So I want to ask you about the timeline of your life, just so I understand. You were in England, how many years? Were you there? And how many years? Have you been in China? or was there some traveling in between just kind of getting tried to get a sense of where you've been what you've been up to?

Greg Abandoned 15:30
Oh, yeah. Because you're looking at me trying to figure out how old is this guy? Right. Yeah, so essentially, I think I spent in English about 15 years before moving to China.

Jason Moore 15:42
Yeah. And then how many years in China? Have you been now?

Greg Abandoned 15:45
So this is my fourth year now in China? Fourth, fourth year?

Jason Moore 15:50
Yeah. How are you finding the Chinese culture versus the culture in England?

Greg Abandoned 15:56
Oh, oh, wow. It's, you know, the very first days, I still remember it. It's like coming to a different planet, from the outside world when you come to China. And especially for me, the little information that I knew about China, I didn't even know, I only knew, like, there's a city called Beijing and Shanghai. And I knew there was like something, something, there's something going on with Hong Kong. Like, that's my the, the, the knowledge that I had literally oblivious to what was happening in this part of the world. And coming here, I was, I would say, they kind of opened my eyes to the fact that it's not only day doing the own propaganda media, how media deliver things, you when you come to this part of the world, you quickly realize that the things that we are told in the West, they not exactly the way they are, that the West that our side of the world is also doing the propaganda they always have. There's always some sort of agenda to deliver certain information in a certain way, which is really fascinating actually, to to learn. And everyone else has a different perspective. Everyone has different opinions, and they can vary from where you were you already.

Jason Moore 17:27
Again, this is going to be a naive question, because I've never been to China. And I've I've never thought about doing work from there. But for the type of work you do, and you know, on calls like this, and I'm always here, everything's monitored, and certain things on the internet are restricted. Is there any worry about? You know, someone coming? knocking on your door right now? Hey, he's doing one of these podcasts. We've had enough of this guy. Get him out of here. But

Greg Abandoned 17:55
yeah, I was thinking I was thinking that but you know what, I was ready arrested by Chinese national security for what I do. Because I can't wait for that story. I flew a drone over the secret military base, because I did some crazy did my life. And so you quickly realize that, you know, this stuff, you know, I don't talk about politics on my podcast, and I would not be able to have those conversations, because I don't really, I mean, I actually do like this topic. But I don't think I have enough knowledge to be able to share opinions about things like this. My podcast is about urban exploring about aerobics and other stuff. But so

Jason Moore 18:44
we're going to get into big time today, by the way, yeah, of course.

Greg Abandoned 18:48
Thank you. Thank you for that.

Jason Moore 18:49
Yes, that's I mean, that's a big the biggest talk that's the topic here of the day, something like flying a drone over over a military base. You must have known obviously, there was a risk there but it was that part of the thrill.

Greg Abandoned 19:07
You know what it's actually some of the things that happened to me those kinds of I would, I would put them under the kind of umbrella of like negative things that happened to me. Well, there were before I was either city or I was reckless. For example, in Arizona, there is the biggest plane graveyard in the world. And some of the planes are that are stored because they it's like the safest place to store them. They don't get rusty in that sun. Some of the parts of the of the of this place. There are storage for like only abandoned place a brand on planes. And one day, I was researching places in China. And I came across an article that would that was describing In this Arizona graveyard, and he make link to a different graveyard in China, that someone on satellite mode spotted, huge amount of planes, and they shared the link share the satellite picture of it. And so the author of this article fought that he found a graveyard like the one in Arizona. And China is obsessed with America, they love to compare each other. It's always it's always that. And I took the article, and I started doing my own research. Obviously, the person just mentioned, the province mentioned couple things that I had enough time and dedication to actually find this place. And when I found this place, you know, you're looking at the satellite mode. And it's like, hundreds and hundreds of play of planes. So, so I just thought this is a graveyard because this, this article suggested that so I had nothing else to go on. And when and when I went there, I must say it was a real little bit reckless, I really don't do this. But at the time, I think I spent four hours in the car, driving from one place to the other. And I was exhausted. And there was it was really in the middle of nowhere, the bumpy roads, I was so tired. And when I got out the wall was maybe up to my neck, so I could just like see the top of the planes. And for very first red flag that I had was that the cockpits were covered, there was a cloth over them. And, but at the time, I was just like, Oh, it's okay. So I normally what I would do, I would, I would go far away from the location and I fly my drone, sometimes to just recon the place to find the possible entry way. Or sometimes I would go to a place explore it, and afterwards fly the drone to take some drone pictures. But this time around, I just like, just complete idiot just stood there on the street, started flying a drone. And, you know, I'm flying. And I'm trying to get my drone to like beginning so I can have all this epic vertical shot of all the planes lined up. And all of a sudden, there is a truck inside driving. And I'm like, wait a second, why is someone driving in the graveyard? And then there is a column of soldiers marching. And I'm like, This is not abandoned. And I'll try and remember like, what do I do? What do I do? And then in that moment, a soldier appeared on the scooter, by the way on the scooter appeared in front of me and told me to you know, bring the drone back. So it was two minutes. It was two minutes, and they got me.

Jason Moore 22:59
And then they arrested you. And how long did that whole interrogation take? Oh, this

Greg Abandoned 23:05
was this was a knife. I was there with my now ex girlfriend and bless her. I mean, this was a this was insane. So they took us to dislike How would I describe it? This was like a, it was just like bunch of rooms. But it was it was everything was super old. It was like some sort of station at the edge of the base, super basic furniture, something like you would imagine from like 9070 Soviet Russia style furniture, you know. And there was a lot of waiting. They interview her first because they wanted to basically, what they I think what they wanted is they wanted to see if we're going to say the same story. So the interview her first and then I was I was the day because she was Chinese, they didn't even offer her any water or anything. So when I walked to a room after waiting for like, I think four hours waiting, the whole thing was 10 hours. And she was just sitting there so fragile and just so tired. And at least they gave me a bottle of water. So I offered her a bottle of water. And then when mine integration starts it was actually quite fascinating to to look back on it. Because there was this little game that was being played in the day. They had this woman on the laptop, and there was a guy in a white shirt collar, white collar, no insignia nothing. And that's where I realized later on that this was like national security because it wasn't like military. I mean, I could be wrong here but from what I've learned so far, yeah, that would be my savvy, safe bet. They used my girlfriend to translate and that form me was I just could not understand this at all, when this was happening, and I was thinking to myself, like, how unprofessional are they to use my girlfriend to translate? Don't you guys have like someone speaking, you know, English in here to, like do this professionally. But actually, that was kinda like a genius move on their part. During this in interrogation, there were moments where I was talking to my girlfriend or wherever. And I just felt I just felt so bad for her. So bad because she had to go through all of this, you know? Because of me, because because I'm an idiot. So. Right. So I was trying to, like, reassure her. And at some stage, I just kind of just made some jokes to just lighten up the mood. But when I made that joke, the woman sitting in front of me, that one that was like some that she had a laptop in front of her hand, my her mouth, she smiled. And this is where I realized she can understand the English. So what they were looking at what they were trying to see if like, between the questions, if I maybe say something to my girlfriend and say, like, Oh, how about we don't talk about this? How, you know, like, if I mentioned couple things, or if she says to me, a How about we don't mention that. But obviously, obviously, there was nothing like that. Because all on my phone or my camera on my laptop, they took all of that stuff. I have like millions of pictures and evidence everywhere. That I thought this was a plane graveyard. And this is what I do. Even when they opened my laptop, it has a map, like Google map with a pin of this place. And it said, playing graveyard on it. So everywhere. And I kept saying and I kept saying I thought this was a playing graveyard. Therefore this is a very

Jason Moore 27:02
good cover story, Greg No, I'm kidding.

Greg Abandoned 27:06
I know. I know. You though sometimes what they do, what they do is like what they say to people is like, no, no, I am a spy. I just am a teacher because that's my cover cover job.

Jason Moore 27:15
Yeah, yeah, that's your Clark Kent, you're gonna put the glasses on and teach physics or whatever, during the day and at night, you go out and masquerade as a as a Oh. That's a crazy story, let I mean, you have more I want to hear them. But I want to give everybody the one on one on this or I want you to give everybody the one on one on this because there's some terminology this is like a sort of a sub culture of travel and exploration. Have a lot of questions around that. But I thought, you know, just to start from the top down, if you could kind of give everybody an overview on what urban exploration is or urbex you know, some of the lingo the unwritten code of conduct all that kind of stuff.

Greg Abandoned 28:02
Oh, yeah, that's that's really good question because I think sometimes this whole thing is little bit misunderstood. So, urban exploring there is a subgroup of urban exploring called urbex and this is specifically for exploring abandoned locations. So there is different types of exploring you know, you can do roof topping. You can do exploring the city's

Jason Moore 28:29
urban explorer once you have typing when you go to the

Greg Abandoned 28:32
roof topic is building. No, no people try to get on top of the highest buildings in the city.

Jason Moore 28:39
Okay. Yeah, like illegally accessing the roof?

Greg Abandoned 28:42
I don't know. None, not. You see, this is this is a bit of a shady, shady, gray area. Now urbex the deal about aerobics is that you go to places that you cannot go, the public cannot go you're not allowed to go. So for me, is I when it's security, clothes, gate, dogs, those are the type of places I really like to go. The ones that are a little bit difficult to get in the ones that require some sort of effort to get in. Obviously, if the place is wide open, and there is no one I've done hundreds and hundreds of places like this where it's just super easy. You just walk in and there's a beautiful decay and all that. So that's that's fine. But what I wanted to say is that sometimes people think that we like break in to two places that we go with a crowbar break the lock and

Jason Moore 29:44
like a cat burglar.

Greg Abandoned 29:47
Yeah, but I want to make sure that people understand that. Obviously there are bad apples everywhere. But I on weekly basis, talk to passionate people For who, because of this hobby have super unique experiences, because you meet people along the way, people who maybe used to live there, or there's always so many different stories. And we really like to preserve those places, there's a lot of there's a bit of a cloud of secrecy around locations, and that frustrates a lot of people that we don't share locations. And we don't share locations, because we want to preserve the places it's not some people call us like there's elitism going on. And I would agree, there is a little bit of that. But I strongly believe that anyone can find the places that I go to, or anyone else, it just requires effort. Because if I can find it, that you can find it, but the thing is, if I spent there was places where, where you look for six months to find, so if I spent this amount of time trying to find a place the likelihood of a person like this to go there and trash and destroy it, it's very minimal. But if there's some kids just ask you, like, where's this place, and then you just give them you know, they will not respect it. Effort equals respect. So I really try to promote the good values behind this, I would walk out from a place of traveling all day, miles flying for five hours, I would go to a place and I would walk out if I cannot get inside. I mean, this rarely happens. Because there's always some sort of way in you know, you just requires a little bit of effort, like you put some, some planks next to the wall, maybe there is a window open on the second floor. It just requires a little bit of effort. So what else? Yeah, take pictures, only take pictures and leave on the footsteps. That's the that's kind of the code. I am very, very frustrated with explorers who either take stuff from abandoned places. There's that's a total no go. You don't do don't take anything from it. It doesn't matter what it is. For me, I don't take it. I don't move. Sometimes for the picture, maybe I would like move something if I want. If there's like a chair that's been pushed to the ground, I'll just put the chair back in just to take a picture maybe. So for just taking pictures, maybe I sometimes move things around. But I will not take anything. I would not destroy anything. And unfortunately, I find out that people do and I said I even had instances where my guests on the podcast would I later on found out that they would do that. And I would remove the episode from my podcast because I cannot say those things. And at the same time have those being people on my on my pod. Where did

Jason Moore 32:59
the attraction to all this start for you? Hmm. So do you have do you remember a specific time where or was it just a collection of things that happen? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Greg Abandoned 33:09
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I felt like oh my life I'm finding the the true nerd that I am. That I am like,

Jason Moore 33:20
isn't that part of life is just discovering your true nerd.

Greg Abandoned 33:23
Maybe it could it could be but it was like it was I felt like in my life is like I'm gonna make a math analogy. He is like a sine graph. So like, now you just lost half of your audience. Okay. Sorry, guys, come back. Come back.

Jason Moore 33:40
Are we talking calculus now? Here we go.

Greg Abandoned 33:42
So, so I felt like I was so outgoing and playing football and then when I kind of moved to England, I got married and kind of my life kind of took like a little bit of a dip. And they turned into like Xbox gaming, obsessive kind of nature, earning achievements, that kind of stuff. And I played this game called Fallout free. I don't know if you've heard about this game, but this game is set in this apocalyptic world where everything is destroyed. The nukes destroy the world, and you can go anywhere and explore anything and you go to broken us buildings. And you look for loot, you scavenge collect that kind of stuff. And when I go to those abandoned places, I I'm actually playing this video game in real life. It's like it feels like Right,

Jason Moore 34:40
but that's a big jump between like doing that on the screen in some video game and then actually going out and visiting an abandoned place. So how did you make How did that

Greg Abandoned 34:51
happen? Okay. Yeah, well, you are good. You are good because this is not just happened like that. I got divorced when I was four. too I got divorced. And this was like the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. I have to thank my ex wife to divorcing me. Thank you. Because it was an adventure. There we go. You know what? Do you know some Do you know what's what's super crazy? We are recording this on the 10th of March. It's her birthday today. Oh, it's insane Day. Happy birthday.

Jason Moore 35:26
Yes. So she gave me the ultimate gift of divorce.

Greg Abandoned 35:32
But, but this was, this was a big moment in my life. Obviously, this when things like this happen is very dramatic. There's so many emotions, I had this neighbor, and Andy. And I remember, at the time when I met him, you met I met him at the same time, I was like going through all this. And when I added him on Facebook, I looked at his pictures. And the person on Facebook was this handsome guy. He was dislike, wow, this guy's so handsome. But the person I met in real life, oh my god, I was a wreck. So naturally, I am very straightforward. When it comes to communication. I said to him, dude, what happened to you? Like, look at your pictures like you Something must have happened in your life. And he told me a story of how he got divorced. And he turned into drinking weed, that kind of stuff. And you know what, this was like a moment where I felt maybe certain people appear in your life for a reason. Because I realized, you know what, I cannot turn into this guy. I cannot turn into this guy. roughly at the same time, there was this new guy that came to my he was an IT technician. And he joined in my school in London. And when I went to a does something wrong with my computer, I went to his office. And the first thing I see is a fallout that game Fallout three poster in his office. So obviously, he was like me obsessed with this game. And we instantly clicked. And then I told him later on I told the men, you know, my my my always my dream. Always my dream was to go to Chernobyl. And Chernobyl just felt like this magical place. This disaster happened 50,000 People had to leave. The whole town is deserted. It just feels like Fallout. And he said, I cannot believe you're saying this because I always wanted to go to Chernobyl too. So basically, I have not found the crazy person like me, anyone else and all of a sudden I have this guy. So guess what we going right? We go into Chernobyl, we book a tour. Total tourists, we going there. But Chernobyl changed my life. I was standing on top of the buildings looking at the panorama of this whole town covered with trees, Mother Nature takes over. And I'm telling you Jason, it was a light switch moment. From that moment I looked at and I'm like, there is nothing else I want to do in my life. I want this. I want to do this. For the rest of my life. I want to explore and find places like this. I felt every single moment when I was there and was there for two days. Like I'm opening a Christmas gift. Every moment. He was insane. He was I genuinely cannot describe i right now have shivers on my arms when I'm talking about it. And from that moment, you know what it is? I just feel like I was lucky because many people live their lives without partials. Because maybe sometimes they have not discovered that thing they like and from that moment, honestly, a lot of things they just it doesn't matter for me. It really doesn't matter. The things that people care about mostly I'm like, I don't I don't really I don't really care. Because it gives me purpose. And I just love doing it. I love weekends I love flying out to places researching finding places and you know what abandoned places, men that are everywhere. China for example, it's it's a goldmine for abandoned places and, and, you know, my tastes kind of progressed. I right now would say that maybe not every abandoned corridor creates the same emotions when you know when the first as the first one. I tried to find the most unique abandoned places right now. And, and yeah, I feel like the social media people sometimes have bad opinion about social media, but I feel like social media. Really, really Help Me because obviously, when other people like what you do, and they appreciate what you do, I mean, it gives you motivation to keep going. And when I, because mainly I posted stuff on Instagram. And then when I started doing that I discovered there's a whole community of urban explorers of aerobics people who do this thing. And they are like my family. Some of the guys, I love them to pieces, they have so much passion. And they've been doing this longer than I, I do. And I love hearing the stories. And they really give me motivation to keep going to keep doing it. Because I can just hear in the voice, how passionate they are about something. And it just gets me like, oh, no, no, okay. Okay, great. Like, I want to I want to do I want to do it. I want to go next next flight next next week, and I want to fly some I want to do something. It's contagious. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I love those guys to pieces.

Jason Moore 41:04
Thank you for sharing that. I think it's a really special when you experience this, this type of moment that you described at Chernobyl, where it's essentially I don't know how to describe it other than it's like your soul's desire, or maybe a hidden desire, maybe sort of their aligns with something happening in reality in a moment. And then it's just like, wow, this is, this is the thing, this is like my next path. And it's, it is like a light switch, kind of, but it's a very body oriented feeling. I feel it's a very sort of visceral like, wow, I just kind of know, on the gut level, this is, this is a thing I'm going to be doing and you're you know, for everybody that's different. But in your case, it's herb, I think that's so powerful and transformative.

Greg Abandoned 41:56
Oh, man, and if you know what, like everything else kind of like, started to make sense. Just like the books, I like reading the ones that create the emotion for me, like, Oh, those apocalyptic type of books, you know, Cormac McCarthy the road,

Jason Moore 42:15
you're kind of like looking back at the stuff you were attracted to and piecing it together? Or the

Greg Abandoned 42:19
movies, right? Like movies. Yeah. Madmax Book of Eli. Oh, those kinds of movies that I absolutely loved. It all kind of fits in and make sense?

Jason Moore 42:31
Well, let's talk about what you love about it. Because I think a big question and a topic that you address right on your your website is this idea of, of beauty and showing people what you find beauty and a human mentioned this interview, I think the words you use, which are really quite quite nice together as beautiful decay.

Greg Abandoned 42:53
Yeah, beauty and decay. Yeah.

Jason Moore 42:55
Yeah. I mean, what is it about these places? If you look at some of the pictures, I mean, I do want to talk about social media, because I know that there's a lot going on there. And I want to have that discussion. But you're taking these incredible pictures of these places. And you do want to be there, I think I can, I can see the the appeal with the you know, the there's the adventure and the planning. And there's a lot to it. You know, in the end, you're standing in the place. And there's something about that, that you find beautiful, and I'm just wondering what that is for you. And I'm not saying you're speaking for all of the urbex community, but I imagine that there are some commonalities amongst those in the community, in terms of why they see beauty in these types of places.

Greg Abandoned 43:44
I think ultimately, we are slightly weird people to be looking at a bank,

Jason Moore 43:52
I think. I think it's fascinating. I don't I don't find it weird, but that's just me.

Greg Abandoned 43:58
Well, I'm glad you said. So no, but it's just this, this concept of this, of like grass, growing plants sticking out from the carpet, everything just decayed and destroyed. I feel there is beauty in that. And it's sometimes it's that sense of, of like, how did this happened? A lot of the places have amazing stories of some sort of different conflicts or maybe someone that tried to have some crazy idea of what they tried to build this thing in the middle of nowhere thinking that it will attract some attention but ultimately failed. So there's this there's their stories behind the places. Sometimes it is about a sense of achievement, because some places are very difficult to get in. And you have to actually overcome a lot of obstacles in order to get in there. And then you finally there and stat relief and sense of achievement, and you're looking at this place, and it's oh my god, or maybe there is actually some sort of security that you had to avoid, and you had to sneak and so there's adrenaline pumping there is sometimes I've been in situations where, you know, it's like, almost like a James Bond type of movie where there was a guy, I managed to get inside, take my pictures get out, and he didn't even know that I was there. And those are those little moments. But I am I love taking pictures of those places. I really do. And I do see beauty in it. I do see beauty there. Yeah,

Jason Moore 45:46
I feel you're you must be very visual, with the with the pictures you take. And even when you were describing, you know, being an England one of the first things you said you were describing how the jerseys on the on the players look, so you obviously have this visual kind of

Greg Abandoned 45:59
view of the world. That's a good point. When I

Jason Moore 46:04
see these abandon pictures that you put up these abandoned places and things and or, you know, you've come across these things, you see maybe some old railroad tracks, or you know, something that isn't really used anymore. And then like you said, you see nature taking over. It's this juxtaposition of you know, what man humankind can make. And ultimately, like, no matter what we do, nothing lasts forever. thing. So in a philosophical sense, there's, I feel like a lot going on when you just take in a visual of something abandoned. And then and then you see that with nature, and it's just all sort of surreal. And like you said, apocalyptic, but part of the apocalyptic vision, or concept, I feel is just this idea that we Yeah, like even the Roman Empire fell, right? Like, I'm sure everybody when they were, when Rome was huge. They never thought, well, one day there won't be a Roman Empire, that that would have probably sounded insane to them. You know, but ultimately, in the end, I don't know how long but a lot of the, you know, a lot of this stuff gonna be around that is now and it's it's kind of a visual reminder of that, I think, in many ways, for for our own situations.

Greg Abandoned 47:17
No, I You did describe it beautifully. Yeah, I totally resonate with everything you said. Yeah.

Jason Moore 47:23
So we'll talk about the travel experience with this brand of travel with this subculture. I mean, one of the reasons I was excited to have you on was was because, you know, we share a lot of different, obviously perspectives and in different types of ways you can travel travel experiences, and there's a lot that's unique around what you all do in the urbex community, because you are not going to the typical places, right? So anytime you're you're sort of on a mission as a traveler. You know, you're getting a different travel experience. And and I would say in this case, it's a lot maybe different than the normal, you know, running the banana pancake trail in Southeast Asia or whatever. So I just wanted to hear some of I guess, this specific, like unique travel experiences and stories you've had through urbex.

Greg Abandoned 48:18
Yeah, you know what, it's funny, because I may be speaking of China, I may have been in like, 150 cities in here. Almost every single province, and not Tibet. And sometimes people ask me, like, oh, have you been in this city? And I'm like, yeah, what is it like? And for me, that's a really difficult question to answer, because I really don't know what they want to hear or what how do I answer that question? Because I don't know what the city is like. Because I went to like some districts far far away from a city center, or any civilization because those abandoned places, most likely, are very, very far. And I just went there to to visit that place. So I don't really know what the city is like. Because I will travel and spend all day either traveling and then being in that place. By the time I come back. All I want to do is just have a quick McDonald's go to sleep so I can actually do the same thing. So my traveling experience when it comes to visiting places, there's a lot of like being on the road does. You have to really be okay with this. Whenever people travel with me. I always really appreciate if I kind of bring someone along because to do what I do. It's like, you know, you see that picture on Instagram, but you just saw the last five minutes of this 10 hour journey.

Jason Moore 49:53
Yeah, right.

Greg Abandoned 49:54
It's not glamorous, it's not glamorous. I would say this is probably On the other side of the spectrum, it is you have to understand I do I would go a I would do anything within the laws of the land and what I mean anything, I would go through ditch, mud, climb the fence, barbed wire fence, I would do whatever it takes for me to climb that thing and get over it, I go dirty, I'm constantly covered with it. On my travels, the thing is, what my travel is like, my travel is going to go to go to a shop and buying new clothes because the clothes I have, I had to throw it away. Every trip, probably I would end up buying new shoes, buying new trousers. So but at the same time, I've been in situations where I saw the generosity of people, and they saw how genuinely people can people can go out of your way to help you. Because you see in China, you can because when I China doesn't accept International Driving Licence, so I cannot drive. And I've been in situations where I would I was with people who are driving. But sometimes we rely on this kind of car sharing app, there's a car sharing app here called Dida, where people travel and go to other places to other cities, and you can just, you know, share the costs of that. And people you can join so many times because the places are very remote i to actually get somewhere it's not a problem. But actually to go back to the civilization, it is a problem. And also, in China, not every hotel is registered to accept foreigners. So it's like they have a different license. So as a foreigner I can only be accepted in certain hotels and they are a bit of a better standard than like your regular because, you know I when I travel, I don't care about the quality of my hotel, because I know I'm gonna be so tired. I go back, I take a shower and go sleep. I tell you tell you this, for example, my friend Joe Joe, who is super rich, obscenely rich. She, when we travel, she always laughs about this because she would like she was like, we stay in the worst hotels, we eat McDonald's, we get dirty, she's wearing like Gucci shoes, but she gets like super dirty and all that stuff. And I think maybe that's why she kind of loves doing this because it's so different to her real life where maybe she can actually like finally like be herself or like letting go of all that stuff. But yeah, so the traveling is really unique. I was once in this place where

there was it was abandoned temple, it had a statue of a huge Buddha fallen down on the floor. And I when I saw this on Google Maps, I thought to myself, Oh, my God, like the drone picture of that is going to be amazing. So I traveled like 1000s of miles south China, I'm in Beijing. So I've traveled south China to get the I got the art. They had some COVID cases on in the cities nearby. So during the taxi ride, he told us to get off because he said I'm not going to I'm not going because I have to go through this city. So we had to, like get off in the middle of nowhere and try to get another transport. Because this guy decided that he doesn't want to go there. Anyway, we go there. I film it, I take pictures. And then I was I was thinking I was like why? Why is it I had this at the back of my mind thinking fallen booed like Buddha on the floor, I think is like a bad luck. There's something on that it shouldn't happen. It felt like it's been pushed to the ground. So we started walking around the nearest village and just asking people do you know anything that white? Why is that why this happened? Why this guy and you know people so generous, and they would advise invite you to your house. Give you some t shirt stories talk about obviously I do attract attention because I'm you know, the white dude in China. So obviously this is positive and negative sometimes, but people are super generous. So the amount of experiences like this or I went to this abandoned town temple in the mountains. We met this like a boss of the coal village. He has this like a cherry plantation or something and he would invite us to keep both he bought us lunch in Right, I felt like half of the village, we started drinking soju, which is like 70% Vodka at 12 o'clock, believe me, I was dead after a few, a few of those. So there's a lot of those different type of experience I felt I feel that I wouldn't have, if I just kind of went to museum. And don't get me wrong. I don't. I mean, I don't go to museums with few exceptions. But there was, for example, terracotta army in Cheyenne, the statues of the soldiers, right. I went there, because I thought he was magnificent and didn't disappoint me was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen my life. So maybe he links a little bit with what we talked about before about those eerie places, I think is also the silence of it. And the fact that you are there by yourself, and I don't have to buy the tickets to see this thing.

Jason Moore 56:02
Yeah. Yeah, it's your it's your museum.

Greg Abandoned 56:07
There. And you know, there is no guide that tells you stuff like you actually go and explore by yourself and you try to find little cues or like, maybe what happened here. Why is this here? Why is it like that? You know?

Jason Moore 56:19
Yeah. I saw the picture you posted of the abandoned Beijing 2008 Olympic beach volleyball stadium. And something about that picture. I thought, that's kind of depressing. I mean, it is depressing. In many ways to me. Some of the others pictures, I think, like see the beauty and that's okay. But some of it is also kind of depressing, like, what a waste of resources and money and what are your thoughts around that?

Greg Abandoned 56:46
I mean, to human waste, he never ceases to amaze me. The amount of waste that we manage somehow to produce? I would say that one for sure. But the one that got me ready was the was the car graveyards? The old electric carts, cars, hundreds and hundreds of electric cars. And they just were was that in China? I was like, yeah, that's that's, you see the reason I still

Jason Moore 57:15
have to say the country, right? And you're allowed to say,

Greg Abandoned 57:19
well, I technically I technically don't. But it's, it's pretty straightforward to figure out because, you know, I live in China now. Sure. Yeah, it is in China. It is in China. I just really feel so you see, maybe this is something about me. But I do feel like that very sensitive. When people ask me about the location.

Jason Moore 57:40
I understand. It's part of your code, man.

Greg Abandoned 57:43
It on daily basis, people asked me, where is it? Where is it on? There's not a day that goes by that people don't ask me where is it? So it just Yeah. But anyway, yeah, it is in China, it is in China, and it was really insane place. I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it.

Jason Moore 58:02
How does somebody get started in this, like, let's say somebody's listening, and they're like, Well, you know, what, they're not going to do the extreme, you know, travel 1000s of miles and research someplace for six months, and crawl through the mud and climate by wire fence and all that, but they're like, hey, you know, this is, this is pretty interesting. I want to kind of dip my toes and do a little urbex light, where I can maybe go to some known places that are still cool to see. And I mean, I know you can do tours at Chernobyl, for example, that was something you brought up, are there any other sites, places like that, that are sort of more maybe common knowledge a bit more accessible, that people listening that might be interested in having an experience like this can can maybe get started with?

Greg Abandoned 58:48
Oh, for sure. For example, in the United States, there are a few places where the owner, would you pay him like 40 bucks, 30 bucks, and you just have a free rein in that place? I think there are many places where they are much, much easier to do and what I would say that if you if you, for example, stumbled across a gallery of Xplorer on Instagram, and you saw his account, and do you have that you have those beautiful pictures and you want to experience this for yourself? I feel like if the person that would start this, I think he needs to be a curious person. First of all, like if you are a curious person, I think that's kind of like first tick tick box for me to get into that, and I think you know, what I would say I think if you type like abandoned places in your city, you bound to have you bound to find something online. It's just, it's just don't expect to ask urban explorer and they just give you the coordinates. He's just, that's just not going to happen. And, Carl, if there are, if there are any listeners who came here from my podcast, I would say, as Bill Finan, there is an explorer in America who is on a different spectrum of all of us. He is the one who likes to share locations, and we really don't agree with him. But he is a legend. He's an absolute legend in our community. So if you want to find some really straightforward, not difficult places to to visit, just just fine, Bill Finn. And then he will tell you right away within five seconds, you will know.

Jason Moore 1:00:42
Okay. Let's talk about social media bit because I know you, you said on, on your website, you said quote, I can't stand mass tourism, standing in queues, waiting, buying overpriced tickets, dealing with the crowds get out of my frame, I'm trying to take a picture how many times if you scream that to yourself, when I go exploring, I feel transformed? And quotes and, you know, well, I don't know if you know this, but I was looking this up Instagrammable, you know, that term, actually officially entered the dictionary in 28. already. I know you have 100,000 plus followers on Instagram, you got some beautiful photos there. And, you know, there's, that's the double edged sword with social media, right? You talked about being able to connect with the community and share and inspire and all this stuff. But then you can also look at some of the places around the world that are, quote, unquote, Instagrammable have now because of that turned into these mass tourism type of places. So how do you reconcile those two things?

Greg Abandoned 1:01:46
I'm really glad that you asked that question. Because I very frequently asked myself or ask my guests a question Are we ultimately are to blame for the future demise of those places. Because my experience shows me that those popular places, especially in England, Europe, and America, they get trashed very quickly. It's like the flavor of the week is this place, and there's hundreds and hundreds of explore, especially like North Pacific north east or northeast of America, there's a big congregation of explore is there. And so that's one side of it. And maybe that kind of secrecy of not sharing it. Or maybe maybe waiting a little bit, not like going this weekend and posting next day, maybe waiting a little bit to post the pictures, who I think that's kind of would be advisable to do. Also. I mean, you know, many of those things kind of don't really apply to me, because I'm in China. However, I can see this hobby almost didn't exist four years ago, in China. And there are so many explorers, Chinese explorers here. At the same time. There was this one explorer, English explorer, that gave me a little bit of a different perspective on on this whole idea. He said to me, James, Kevin, he said to me that, you know, sometimes those places they bring some positives. So for example, there is a very famous casino in Romania, absolutely insane, insanely beautiful building, that that's been abandoned for years. But because of the pictures of different explorers visiting that place, I believe it was Sony, who decided to film add in that place, a commercial. And because of that, they brought the revenue to that place, and that place is being restored. So that's one positive thing. There were other places similar places, there is a UFO building on top of the mountain, you are for, like building on top of the mountain in Bulgaria called booze Luigia, which has been a symbol of like the Communist Party back in back in the days in the 70s 80s, in Bulgaria, and it's after the fall of the Soviet Union. And when Bulgaria became a democratic country, they totally abandoned that place. And this place has this huge, beautiful mosaic around the around it. And, you know, because this place was super popular, and so many people wanted to go there and take pictures of it and so many people went there. They actually brought attention to this place, and now this place is being renovated. There's actually actively right now, a group of people who are trying to restore it and Some places, you know, some owners, I feel like they may be missing a trick instead of spending all that money on security or trying to prevent people going somewhere. How about you open on every other Saturday, you open the place? And and actually, if there's such interest in the place that people want to go, I'm sure you would find like some I would like, okay, maybe I wouldn't do it. But I think most people would like pay 20 bucks and just go in and, and take a picture of a place. I mean, I'm very specific. Because when

Jason Moore 1:05:34
I understand Yeah, you're you're you're a purist.

Greg Abandoned 1:05:38
It doesn't like if it becomes if it becomes like a touristy place that I live would switch off at that moment, because I don't know. But the places I talked about, after doing them the herb mixing them, I think that's kind of a verb that we invented, or faxing them. I would love to visit them and see what how they changed just as a regular tour,

Jason Moore 1:06:04
and you guys don't even share the locations amongst each other. If you have good a good friend in the community, who says, you know,

Greg Abandoned 1:06:13
so good, good, urban explorer, good urban explorer, they won't ask you. Like, they won't ask a

Jason Moore 1:06:18
Yeah, they just don't they will. They will they want to in their heads, they're like, if you could just tell me this would be a lot easier.

Greg Abandoned 1:06:26
However, however, there are people that I know that I feel that those people are so passionate. If they asked me, I will tell them. I mean, I am not going to tell some random person that just asked me because I got those questions all the time. But if somebody your time, you know, you respect or Yeah, yeah. And, and you know what many times I was in a situation when I would see a place that, because sometimes you can recognize certain architecture from different countries. So I just remembered instances where there was clearly from France, places from France, and I would I know, some French explorers, and I would just send them the picture and say, like, wow, look at this one. And what I get in return is the coordinates. And like, well, I didn't ask you for it. But thank you, you know, so.

But it is it is, I lost friends because of this. Can you believe it?

Jason Moore 1:07:28
Because they wouldn't, you wouldn't tell them?

Greg Abandoned 1:07:31
Because, you know, I would. In China, we have this thing called WeChat. And it's like a Chinese, mobile, Facebook. It's like you use it to talk to people, but at the same time, you can like post pictures, like things like you would normally do on Facebook. And so I would, obviously, would, when I would go some and sometimes would post some pictures in there. And people would ask me, where is this? Because Oh, this is so cool. I want to go there. And then like, how do I explain this to people? You know, explain this to them. He's like, Well, like, I don't really want to tell you because if I tell you then you tell someone else and you don't. And then eventually it's just gonna be ruined. And so people just get a little bit offended about that sometimes. And, and yeah, and

Jason Moore 1:08:23
yeah, well, I mean, good for you for sticking to your your code of conduct and your your ethics amongst the community. I mean, I think that's, maybe there's something to be said there across all travel, right, like maybe, maybe some things should be kept, you know, in this line of sharing, and also, perhaps keeping some things to yourself. I mean, obviously, you guys have reasons for that specifically with these places, but I'm talking generally with travel. That's another sort of gray area. Right. There's, there's, there's a lot of in between there. Do you do take all these photos that you have on your Instagram feed? Yeah, these all your photos? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible, man. Incredible photography. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah,

Greg Abandoned 1:09:10
I'm not good with receiving compliments, but I think I've been I've been I've been kind of learning as I go along with it. So I wasn't born with it. You know, it's just like, I like drone. I like drone photography as well. You know, because I feel like with a drone photography, for some places, you can really showcase the, the place and I like to take pictures of places where you you can't really tell like this could be anywhere in the world, that kind of that kind of place.

Jason Moore 1:09:43
Yeah. I encourage everybody to go check it out. I mean, at least check out the photos are so many surprising. I mean, I didn't expect that somebody could find like an abandoned rocket ship. A space rocket ship. Like I didn't even think that was even thing you could. I was waiting for. I mean, I understand like a stadium or some other some of the other things but what?

Greg Abandoned 1:10:09
Yeah, I was I was waiting until you get to the space shuttles. Yeah. Just because is this are you talking about the abandoned Chinese rocket are you talking about?

Jason Moore 1:10:19
Well, I see a couple. I mean, there was this the space shuttle. It looks like the space shuttle. Yeah,

Greg Abandoned 1:10:27
it was it was real space shuttle. I was inside sitting in the astronaut seat. Yeah. Okay, so people

Jason Moore 1:10:35
can say they sat in the space shuttle. Alright.

Greg Abandoned 1:10:40
Well, I have to tell you this. I have to tell you this in the urban urbex community. We do have certain places that everyone knows about them and we call them urbex. Holy Grails. Now you could bring up the abandoned city of Famagusta in Cyprus. There is obviously Chernobyl. There's the Hashima Island, the battleship Island, James Bond movie was filmed in Japan, they used to be the super famous abandoned roller coaster, wooden roller coaster, injera. It's called narrow Dreamland, now sadly demolished. However, there is one place in the world how do I describe it? Well, after the collapse of Soviet Union, Kazakhstan became an abandoned a became an independent country. But since the since that the Russians, they send their rockets to space from Kazakhstan, it's the place is called Baikonur, Baikonur Cosmodrome, men, if you're into like space and stuff, like I'm sure you would know about this. Russia had to make a deal with Kazakhstan. So they actually rent this land from them the do that. And so technically, inside the Kazakhstan, there's a Russian territory. So if you want to go there, you actually have to have a visa to Russia. Once you inside the Kazakhstan, if you want to visit that place, it's a functional city that goes around this whole Russian space program. And a lot of the American astronauts who would fly to the International Space Station, they would also sometimes go to Kazakhstan and fly rocket to go to go to that. Russia is actively trying to change this and move it to inside Russia. So this base is slowly slowly dying. However, during cold war when there was this big race, to send someone to, to the moon. Russians developed their own space shuttle and it was called Buuren, which means blizzard. And they actually took the because when you look at it, you must think like, Wait, this looks like NASA. This looks exactly like a NASA Space Shuttle. Now, the blueprints for NASA Space Shuttle, they've been widely available at those times. So Russians just took those engineering notes and they improved it. And they actually sent this space shuttle to space. And what is super, super impressive. This is the 80s technology. They send it to space, it orbited the Earth once and he was remotely controlled without anyone inside. And they landed successfully. And there was another one that was supposed to go to space, but then the Soviet Union collapsed and they stop financing this program. And ever since then, the ever since very early 90s in the hangar on the edge of this base, and this base is a military base. There are two space shuttles sitting there and there's another building that has a rocket that rocket will be attached to the space shuttle as a you know the fuel will be in the rocket that would propel the rocket to space to do

Jason Moore 1:14:34
so you had to get into a military base to get this

Greg Abandoned 1:14:37
I had to walk for 40 kilometres in total in dark in the Kazakhstan desert to get to the edge of this Russian military base and get inside that hunger and I spent two days inside. So I I understand this is not for Everyone, this was literally this was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I have been preparing for six months for this. Last three months before doing this, I would pack my bag full gear. And every Friday night I would walk around the city until 5am In the morning next day, because I wasn't an X. Yeah, yeah, why I really did. And I was not an expert on hiking and things like this. So, you know, at the beginning, I thought to myself like, well, it's just a hike right? It's just a hike. But obviously I have I have interviewed people who have done it I've interviewed Russian explorers who have done it before me and they told me that you know, it's not the hike that kills you is the bag because the bag will absolutely destroy your back.

Jason Moore 1:15:52
So don't you have to bring all your water because yes, yes,

Greg Abandoned 1:15:56
yes, yes, that's the thing. So all the gear all the cameras that kind of stuff, all that stuff and and yeah, so distribution of weight is important. Don't put all the heavy stuff at the back and how you clip your bag everything's strapped on and that you basically kind of need to train yourself to do this. So that's what I I did for three months. And you know I saw a progress within that but I must say this took this took everything I had and and then when I woke up there I was crying when I saw them because this felt like the sense of achievement to to do this was was simply insane. And walking in there in the middle of the night and just putting my flashlight on them people might be laughing if they heard me saying this before but this is so huge man displayed this dish shut the space shuttle is so huge. It's the picture we can never tell you describe how how huge displaces the hangar even the the engineering that goes into building this hangar with all this equipment and all this stuff on the on each side. And this huge door that would open obviously was closed. But in those back back in those days, it would have to it was just magnificent. This was I just could not believe it. i There is an explorer called Bob Tizen. And he was kind of a little bit of my legend. When I was starting up and way before I even started exploring. I saw in an article of him and few guys, a young AOL Haida super legendary Explorer from from from Denmark, and those guys went there. And I read this article about those guys hiking through the desert and going there infiltrating this abandoned space. This warehouse does the space shuttles abandoned space shuttles. And I just I just steal something from me that was like Unreal out of this world. And I couldn't believe that someone did this. And a few years later, like Baptists and young elders, like my buddies, and we talking all the time and exchanging pictures, exchanging stories and all that stuff. And yeah, so it's, it's a bit of a bit of a turn in my life with this. And this certainly is a place that everyone wants to do. But I would say like, be careful. I was super lucky. I've heard because on my podcast, I have miniseries. So Bran is one of the miniseries because I interview people who've done the same thing. And I love to just compare the stories like How was this for you? Versus to what I experienced and the experience is so different. Some people you know get caught some people don't some people experience the soldiers coming in waiting. There was a my friend Nick Winder from Denmark. He went in there and they had to like lie still for three hours. Because the guy with a Kalashnikov went inside and just decided to just be there and wait for free hours before leaving. And they even sealed the seal the window that he managed to get through. So on his way out he could just trapped inside he had to find some different way through the basement. Completely different way to get out. And yeah, so it's insane. Absolutely insane stories with that place. To be honest, anything space related. I just gets like butterflies like, to some excites me excites me so much

Jason Moore 1:20:05
have you been caught or arrested a lot or no?

Greg Abandoned 1:20:08
I have Yeah. Obviously, we mentioned the the national security thing in China that happened. Once I was caught in England. I was in this old people home that was closed. As I was climbing into the, in through the window, the police just arrived, I think I didn't realize this was a private property and the owners that lived next door, saw our car driving in, and they call the police. But that was okay. You know, in England, you can reason with the police, they, you know, it was it was okay. I was caught in China a couple times, you have to understand that in China, the trespassing is not illegal. So, me being caught in some property, as long as I leave, it is fine. Just sometimes, because when I was by myself, and there's a lack of communication, they had to take me to the station police station. And the case really, the only way they could contact someone was actually my employer. So you can imagine a conversation when your employer comes out to get you out of the forest.

Jason Moore 1:21:29
Again,

Greg Abandoned 1:21:31
well, let's just say I had to change jobs couple times here in China.

Jason Moore 1:21:38
You got to do what you got to do. You're not going to give up your your urban,

Greg Abandoned 1:21:42
it's a way of life. It's a way of life.

Jason Moore 1:21:45
Well, I mean, just just to kind of wrap this up, I'm wondering when I think back to you know, you playing the video games and some of the things you went through in life at that time, and just kind of having this sort of a bit of a dream and realizing that was a dream. And now having done all that you've done and looking back how has this impacted you and your life personally.

Greg Abandoned 1:22:12
I was a person who was afraid to take risks. I was slowly falling asleep with my life. And the divorce Chernobyl, finding this just it was like a big wake up call. And I have really changed it. This gave me purpose. The people that I surround myself, people who have passion for this and loved them to be loved talking to them love to experience things with others. I love inspiring some expert. I know people who started doing this because I started doing this, which is amazing. I could never even imagine in my dreams that I would be able to like inspire someone to try to do something. I know people who my my friend Zoe, she is a programmer. She spends all her day sitting typing code on the computer being the biggest nerd on the planet. Yes, Zoe, you are the biggest nerd I've met. And but you know what, on the weekend, I call her fearless, Zoe, because she goes, climbs defenses, doesn't care about all this stuff. And then she's just like a Spider Woman. Thing is that is that Spider Woman? I think it's Spider Man. Right? Yeah. So so. And she started this because, you know, I talked to her about what this was. And then she wanted to try and she loved it. And some we're going exploring this Saturday.

Jason Moore 1:23:53
Yeah, yeah. Amazing. I'm not going to even ask you where you're going? Because I know you won't tell me. Right? So I do want to remind people chasing bandeaus podcast.com. Number one urbex podcasts were amazing explorers share their adventure stories. I know you're hosting that. And if you go to Greg abandoned.com. And you can get all the links to the Instagram and the podcast and the various things right. Is there anything I'm missing here?

Greg Abandoned 1:24:19
I just wanted to say that the reason it's called Chasing vandals because in the urbex community bandeaus is the slang for abandoned places. So chasing bandeaus is like chasing the abandoned places. That's why it's like the that's the name of it. Yeah, yeah. Essentially. That's, that's really it. i I must say that I I was thinking of doing YouTube and people asked me, Why don't you like share the videos and do it on YouTube? But honestly, Jason, you know how much it takes to do the podcast. So imagine like traveling I'm exploring, having full time job, and doing the podcast and editing the podcast. And I probably over edit all my stuff. And like I say, like so many times, I have to always cut that out. So imagine all that. It just there's not enough time to edit videos. I tried. I had this one summer when I was little bit less busy. And I tried to do films, but I just couldn't I don't like to start something when I'm not consistent with it. So yeah, I can do it. I really respect the some some of the urban explorers who are on YouTube, they have a bad reputation because they over expose the place and because of them, maybe the place get ruined. But I know some YouTubers who really try to hide everything they can they blur stuff, and just consistency and the fact they consistently consistently edit those videos. I know how long it takes. I really get I literally have to give them credit for that.

Jason Moore 1:26:05
Yeah, cool. Well, this was fun, man, I am so glad you reached out and appreciate you coming on and sharing everything around this sort of sub genre of travel that I hadn't really I mean, I've seen, you know, these types of pictures before, but I didn't really understand that there was a whole community around this and really kind of getting to walk in your shoes for a bit and see what this is like and hearing your passion for it. It was it was a real joy. So yeah, thanks. Thanks for your time today.

Greg Abandoned 1:26:35
Jason, I want to say I want to also say thanks, but I've just came to my mind, my publisher is gonna kill me if I don't mention, can I plug my book as well? Please go for it. Oh, yeah. So this month on Amazon, there will be a book called abandoned China. This is volume one out of three. And yeah, so that will be very soon available. I'm not sure when this book is going to be out. So but this will be soon since in a belt. So if you want to check it out. It's a It's not your picture type of book. It's more of a 5050. So you will see all the pictures, and you'll see the stories of those places. And what happened to me when I went exploring so you would read it and see the pictures along the along the way. I think it's

Jason Moore 1:27:17
amazing. Congrats on that. Congrats on this.

Greg Abandoned 1:27:20
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it was pleasure, man. I really, really enjoyed talking to you. And yeah, that was amazing. Thank you for having Thank

Jason Moore 1:27:28
you. Thank you for coming. It was a blast chat soon.

There Yeah. But once again, thanks to Greg for stopping by the show and sharing what was a lot of new stuff to me. And I hope you found that as fascinating as I did. I loved that chat. And if you haven't done so yet, do check out some of his pictures, because that will visually bring to life. A lot of the things that we discussed for you, and you'll get a sense of what some of the places are like and certainly put some new styles of travel some new things to consider adventures to consider for future travel. So thank you very much, Greg. Now we have a couple of things to get into here. I did mention at the top, I would share a bit about my urban exploration light, very light. I don't know when I was talking to Greg and reflecting on this conversation, it brought to mind one experience I had in that city with the most neon lights in the world of any city that is Tokyo, at least according to the Internet, what it says Tokyo, Japan. And I was staying there for about four days on on sort of a stopover thing with a buddy of mine. And he is the kind of guy that will push the boundaries and go into places he's not supposed to just to have those experiences. And he wanted to do that he figured out I can't remember exactly if it was the hotel we were staying in or another hotel. But we somehow found out that there was some construction going on in the upper levels. I believe it was the hotel we were staying in. And I don't know how we figured this out. But he decided well, let's let's go up and see let's go see this. These uh, these unfinished floors, because we'll have this crazy view of the city and well, we're probably not supposed to do that. Well, of course we weren't and I don't even think the elevator took us there. I don't remember exactly what happened. I know. We tried to stairs doors were locked, things like that. We eventually made it onto this floor that was still being constructed, which felt thrilling. Many ways it was so cool to be in a place we weren't supposed to be and looking out over the city. I mean, this didn't even have windows. I don't think Doulton yet. So it was very it kind of felt very sort of dangerous in a way but not super crazy. We weren't walking on beams or anything. There was a floor but it was just cool to be there. So that was a little experience I had on my travels just a small taste. Cost of urban exploration and I can see the thrill in it, I really can. So if this podcast inspired you to do anything different, or just think about anything differently, or you had any questions, or you just had any thoughts, or you just want to say, hi, you can drop me a line leave me a message better yet, I am so fortunate that I've been getting some voicemails recently from listeners, thank you very much. And I'm going to share this one I got from Helen, who found a very cool way to take her show on the road, which reminded me of four words, that may be a way you can take your show on the road in the near future, or the far future. Or maybe today. Who knows? Here she is all the way from Australia.

Unknown Speaker 1:30:44
Hey, Jason, how you doing? This is Helen, I'm from Australia. And I've been listening to your show for a few years now. Actually, not even a couple of years. It's been a few years. And I've just like, absolutely loved it. And it's been super inspirational for me, because it's just like, yeah, travel is where it's at. I'm a musician, and music producer. And myself and my fiance, Courtney recently just put our recording studio. It was in a warehouse at the Gold Coast. And we just put it in a bus. And now we're traveling around with a recording studio and a bus because we're like, yes, stuff being still that's like lame and boring. COVID Spin like, hard. Like, it's like, nearly three years now since I'm went overseas, and I'm like, holy shit. But um, yeah, I just thought I'd just say hey, and say thanks for your show. It's like, awesome. And I really appreciate it. And it's helped me to just be like, Nah, stuff that I quit my job again, so many times in the past, and now I'm doing this. So thanks, man. Have a good one.

Jason Moore 1:31:46
Thank you, Helen. And what's the lesson here? What's the four words I want to share? Well, she, she put her recording studio, her fiance just put it in a bus, put it on wheels for words, put it on wheels. That's what they did, took the recording studio and put it on wheels. I've talked to people in the past, I remember I did an interview once with a guy, you can find it actually on the premium feed. He was a therapist, and he decided to just do his therapy out of a camper van, which added a whole other dynamic to the therapy sessions because he would just be meeting people in random cities. So what did he do, he took his therapy practice and put it on wheels. I mean, I've seen nail salons on wheels, hair salons, all kinds of things on wheels, you probably have to. So I just wanted to share this voicemail from Helen, fellow community member fellow listener here. And just put that those four words out there because you never know when these words hit people's ears. Perhaps one day, there'll be something I want to put on wheels. Or you might want to put something on wheels. And maybe if we just think put it on wheels, that opens up a whole different idea. Anyway, just wanted to share that. And give her a shout out. Thank you, Helen. Again, you can leave me a voicemail. There's a link in every show notes, no email required, just click the link takes 90 seconds or less. You just hit record and start talking. And I listened to all of them. And I reply to all of them. So drop me a voicemail much easier than then email actually. And I get to hear your voice. And I'll send you a personal message back. So do that if you have some time. Just say hi, share your story, share some feedback. Let me know what guests want me to have on. You can always of course get in touch as well. Jason at zero to travel.com. Now let me leave you with this quote. Do you remember during the interview when Greg was talking about this beauty in decay, which I totally see and I found this quote interesting from David Hume who said, beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates So, you could contemplate that as we let you go smile. Have a wonderful day. Thanks again for tuning in. And I'll see you next time. Peace and love.

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