Zero To Travel Podcast

Jason Moore 0:00
What traveler doesn't love chatting about destinations? Right, and today, we have a destination bonanza for you. Although that's only one of the courses we're serving up. I do have my friend and fellow travel podcaster. Chris from the Amateur Traveler podcast. On the show, this guy's been to 64 un recognized countries in 82 countries and territories. And he's recorded over 700 podcasts, with experts on different destinations from all over the world. So a lot to pick his brain on. But you know, the destination piece of this show is just one course of this meal. Yes, we'll talk about Southern Africa and the national parks in California and some other places. But we're also going to serve up a course of travel lifestyle stuff, which I always love to learn from people that have traveled extensively. How have they done it? And what are some of those lessons we all can learn and take with us. And Chris has done a lot of his traveling with a full time job. So I do get his advice on maximizing your travels with a traditional job. He talks a bit about career breaks and what to consider. We discuss strategies for building an itinerary that matches your personality and travel lifestyle. Why to consider climbing down the corporate ladder? If you're on it, instead of up it, we have a little dialogue on what you should do if you're considering going to a place you've been versus a brand new place, which is always a fun question to ask travelers. Chris here has one of his favorite hikes in the USA, and why and a load more. It's all happening in this show today. Plus, I've got two mystery numbers for you. And they're themed with the show. I'm gonna throw these numbers out here. And I want you to guess what they are maybe by the end of the show, you can guess because they do relate to the interviewer. And I've got a shout out somebody in his community. Speaking of destinations, who found a way to visit new places and also do his part to preserve those destinations. This is a really cool organization I want to share with you and perhaps you have something similar nearby that you can take advantage of wherever you live. So let's get into it. Shall we buckle up strap in. Thanks for being here and welcome to the zero travel podcast my friend.

ad 2:23
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 2:40
What's up my friend is Jason here with zero to travel.com Welcome to the show. Thanks for hanging out, letting me bring a little travel into 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 a bit of a destination Bonanza today, and boy am I a sucker for chatting destinations. And what a great guy to do it with. We have Chris from the Amateur Traveler podcasts on the show. Now you're going to take this conversation I mentioned that the top a couple of mystery numbers I want you to consider as this interview goes on, perhaps you can deduce what these numbers are. And those numbers are 63 and 48. Keep those numbers in mind 63 and 48. What do they mean? How do they relate to the content here, just a fun little game we'll play with you today, I want you to stick around on the back end as well because I'll share some thoughts on the interview. And also I want to give a shout out to somebody who highlighted a really cool organization in their neck of the woods. This is a member of this listening community and actually a former guest and he shares a bit about a an organization near him that really has a fantastic model for preserving destinations. And I want to share a bit of that with you. And he also talks about his rules for having nearby adventures which may be giving you something to think about. And he will also be providing the quote for the day which he sent to me via email. So all of that happening on the back end. Stick around for that. First one to say a quick thanks to today's sponsor better help online therapy at BetterHelp hvlp.com. You know life can be overwhelming and many people are burned out. Sometimes without even knowing it though symptoms can include lack of motivation, feeling helpless or trapped detachment, fatigue, and more. I've certainly felt burned out in the past I'm sure you have as well and a lot of times we associate burnout with work, but that's not the only cause any of our roles in life can lead us to feeling burned out. I wear a lot of hats. I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm a podcaster I run my own business there's a lot going on and better help online therapy wants to remind Due to prioritize yourself talking with someone can help you figure out what's causing stress in your life. And I have used BetterHelp actually as an expat in Norway, it was super convenient because you can meet with the same person and you can do it from anywhere, which is wonderful for travelers. BetterHelp is customized online therapy, they offer video, phone, and even live chat sessions with your therapist more affordable than in person therapy as well. And you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. And as a sponsor, they're offering you a special discount if you go to BetterHelp hvlp.com/zero. To travel, you can get 10% off your very first month, that's BetterHelp, b e t t e r h e l p.com/zero. To travel all one word, thanks to better help online therapy for sponsoring today's show. Before getting into the interview, a quick reminder, I do have a premium podcast feed over at zero to travel.com/premium. And this is a way that you can support the show, of course, help keep the lights on at the zero to travel podcast, and get something awesome in return. So if this show has changed your life in any way helped you in any way and you want to say buy me a cup of coffee a month, surround the price for the premium passport membership. And with that you get access to the full archives, which is over 400 shows now you get exclusive content that I haven't released anywhere else bonus content each month. And more. You can check it all out at zero to travel.com/premium. And I really appreciate your support. If you join up, we'd love to welcome you in there. You could try it for just $1. And if you don't like it, after seven days, you can cancel or spend $1 and just binge the content. I don't care. It's all good. Either way, I really appreciate you checking it out and your support. If you've been thinking about checking that out. Take a moment and do it today. Thanks for listening to the show. Now let's slip and slide into the interview segment and I will see you on the other side my friend

I pretend like I'm a professional every day. I don't know about you.

Chris Christensen 7:18
Amateurs right on the label.

Jason Moore 7:22
That is so awesome. What a great way to kick it off. I am on the line with my friend and one of the Oh geez. Of the travel podcasting and blogging world. He runs the amateur traveler.com and award winning travel blog and podcast helping real travelers plan real trips to their own backyard or around the world. Chris Kristensen. Welcome to the zero to travel podcast, my friend.

Chris Christensen 7:49
Thank you very much.

Jason Moore 7:50
So excited to have you here. You know, I'm calling this one a destination Bonanza because I mean, well. First of all, how many podcast episodes have you done?

Chris Christensen 8:00
Of Amateur Traveler or total podcast episodes of a total

Jason Moore 8:03
and then get into the Emirates?

Chris Christensen 8:05
And total about 2000? Somewhere in that range?

Jason Moore 8:09
What year did that start? Well, do you remember the first one?

Chris Christensen 8:12
Well, sure Amateur Traveler was the is the oldest show that I've done the longest running and it started July 2 of 2005.

Jason Moore 8:20
Okay, I even remember the date and everything. That's awesome.

Chris Christensen 8:22
Well, I could be wrong. But that's like what the what the blog post is labeled. So I assume that that that I'm getting it correctly.

Jason Moore 8:32
Do you remember the first time you sort of tried to record anything?

Chris Christensen 8:38
Oh, well, the first episode is, I mean, was the first episode there was no,

Jason Moore 8:43
that was your first crack. You just went? You went right into went live? Yeah. Because I think back to just trying to in the beginning, it just felt so. I don't know, strange in a way, you know, you, you have this idea. But now here you are 2000 podcasts later. And then how many? How many in the Amateur Traveler fee? Think 787. And those are all destination episodes,

Chris Christensen 9:08
right? Almost all almost all, there's pretty much earlier ones that were themed ones, like volunteer travel are working and traveling around the world. But pretty much at this point. It's just destinations. You chose change over time. My show originally was going to be my travel. We were going to talk about my travel, there weren't going to be any guests. And I was podcasting 48 weeks a year and traveling for weeks. So you're here if you look at that, that math does not work. You can't do 16 and a half years with that kind of ratio. So

Jason Moore 9:38
yeah, no, that makes sense. And I mean, this is why I wanted to focus on destinations here we got Chris, who's done over almost 800 episodes on destinations, right? This you know, over 700 At least, and then looking at the amateur traveler.com If this list is up to date, you've also been to 60 For un recognized countries and 82 countries and territories, so that's a lot of destinations, man. Why are you so in love with travel, because it's one thing to travel to all the places, but then to do all of these hundreds of podcasts and about destinations and to keep it going for so long. I mean, this is like some next level stuff here, Chris. So what is it, about travel that hooked you,

Chris Christensen 10:25
I like to learn new stuff. I just am a sponge for learning new things and nothing enables you nor forces you to learn as quickly as travel, you know, standing in front of the subway machine in Czech Republic when you don't speak a word of check. You know, there's, there's some problem solving involved there. So

Jason Moore 10:48
tell me about your first trip. That was kind of the thing where maybe the light bulbs went off for you. With travel,

Chris Christensen 10:54
we'll see. I think I learned to love travel during travel in the US with my parents as a kid, we traveled all around, we very seldom left the US. And if we did, it was just Canada. So you know, I didn't travel overseas until I was out of college and married. But in terms of as a kid, we would get in the car and pull a little trailer and drive. I think our record was like 5000 miles through the American West. So you know, we would do some long trips. Maybe it's 3000. Maybe it gets longer as I get older. But you know, we'd take two three weeks and go and explore the country. And I think I learned to love travel one national park at a time basically.

Jason Moore 11:38
That's a beautiful way to fall in love with travel. The National Parks are some of my favorite places anywhere in the world.

Chris Christensen 11:46
I'm a huge fan of the national parks and the National Park Service and the rangers and and such I think they do a wonderful job.

Jason Moore 11:54
Yeah, it's the whole vibe, the whole experience there. And I love that they can be so accessible for so many people, you can get into some beautiful nature areas, whether you're in a wheelchair, or you know, whatever. Like it's just very accessible. And yet they also have, you know, loads of back country. So if you do want to get away from the tourists and things like that you can for that style of travel when you were kid was it? Were you guys road tripping and hotels and things like that, were you camping? Was it a combination? Well,

Chris Christensen 12:26
as I say a lot of those were pulling a little tiny trailer, it was a 14 foot. I think it was a Sierra trailer, it was 14 foot if you counted the three feet of trailer hitch, right. So, you know, basically my mom and dad and my brother and I would be in what amounted to 11 feet of space. And we'd pull that around and stay in campgrounds was a lot of the travel that we did, we didn't have you know, a whole lot of money. So we weren't, we weren't staying in fancy places or things like that. And visited a lot of relatives and things like that on other trips, and would stay with them. So

Jason Moore 13:00
older brother younger brother, older brother, okay, were there any particular memories that stand out from those trips to you just, like, specific kind of moments that sort of encapsulate the, the experience for you?

Chris Christensen 13:15
Well, one of the things is when the men landed on the moon, I was outside the US I was in a trailer park in Victoria, British Columbia, and I got to watch it kind of from the outside, you know, and that's, that's my country doing that sort of thing. And so, you know, that was a very memorable moment I was not all that old but I was eight or something like that when that happened. So that you know, there's that there was going to the Canadian Rockies or or going to Bryce Canyon later on when I was a teenager, you know, and pushing the car out of the snow because we were there in an early or late spring snow in April and you know, those sorts of things are just very memorable.

Jason Moore 14:01
Yeah. Tell me about some of the Canadian national parks because that is huge on my list and I've had the privilege of going to a bunch of them in the United States but not across Canada. It's driving me nuts so

Chris Christensen 14:14
so I there's a lot of the Canadian National Parks I have not been to but where I have been mostly is the Canadian Rockies is where I've spent, you know, two three trips, three trips, I guess. You know, as a kid as an early when I'm trying to say employee did a conference in Banff one of the best best boondoggles that I've ever was able to do. And then later on taking my family back there when my kids were probably older Elementary, maybe junior high or something like that. Love Banff National Park Lake Louise Jasper National Park, gorgeous, gorgeous scenery, some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. But then also getting up into like going up and seeing you know, I say I love to learn things. So going to Drumheller to The turtle Museum of paleontology, the Royal turtle museum there and seeing you know the what would you call it? Not not Tyrannosaurus, but Albertosaurus skeletons or the philosophy Raptors or things like that, you know, great fun.

Jason Moore 15:18
Yeah. Are you the type of traveler, like in this moment right now, were you in this moment in this moment like today? Yeah. Because that moment? Yes, this will make more sense when I asked the question, but alright, so because I sometimes have the Battle of it, maybe it's because I have a kid. So maybe there's the element of me wanting to show them certain things. But there's, there's this struggle between struggle, I'm using air quotes here, the travelers struggle of going back to a majestic place that you've been before that maybe you want to experience with somebody else, or you just want to experience for yourself again, at a different age, for whatever reason, versus going to a new country or going to someplace you've never been.

Chris Christensen 16:02
Yeah, I want to do both. And in the form of one doesn't always work. In the sense that, you know, just three years ago, for instance, I grabbed my wife and my daughter and her husband, so my kids a little older than yours, obviously. And a couple of friends and we did the southwest. Some of the national parks there, Bryce, Sian, the slot canyons in Antelope Canyon, Grand Canyon, you know, Horseshoe Bend, those sort of things. And one of my favorite hikes in the US, is the hike, the Wall Street Navajo trail hike in Bryce Canyon, where you hike down into these Hutus, you've got these spires of rock on both sides of you, and you're hiking in to this canyon that's formed, you know, in between these Hutus that gets very narrow, and I love slot canyons I think it's gorgeous. As a photographer, I think that's just one of my favorite things. My wife is like, but the best views were from the top. She you know, she didn't she didn't appreciate it to the level that I would prefer. And, you know, that's always true with anything, almost any place we took my kids, you know, as a huge history buff, they did not have my same sort of love of history. So, you know, the times when they did get into it, like when we went to Rome when they were in fifth and sixth grade, and had been studying Rome, in school, you know, and they're running around grabbing my wife and saying, Mom, Mom, that's the Arch of Constantine and, and you know, here's who Constantine was. and such, that was pretty special, but also unusual experience. Usually it's, you know, dad trying to grab the kids and drag them to something historic and them not always appreciating it. So,

Jason Moore 17:45
yeah, why would a school ever

Chris Christensen 17:46
gets just drag strangers audibly to visit something interesting and historic? So,

Jason Moore 17:53
right? Yeah, cuz you do group trips with the Amateur Traveler. Right?

Chris Christensen 17:57
Right. Well, it also the podcast itself, you know, we're right, I tend to lean or I tend to lean towards the historic, even if not all my guests are. So I'm always wanting to fill in that information about that place and the significance of the, you know, what the history was there, whether it be Civil War history, or that particular city is, you know, was part of the Hanseatic League, or whatever it is. So,

Jason Moore 18:22
yeah, I mean, that's what brings it to life, right? There's so much of the culture in the modern day when you're standing in a place that's rooted in the history. You can't. It's not a separate thing. Right. It's happened, but it's, it's still very relevant. I feel today. So I, yeah, it's important to study that I feel on the ground. I have a lot of destination questions. But I wanted to start you know, you mentioned exploring your backyard and I wanted to ask you about your own backyard. What are some of the places in your own backyard that give you the travel buzz? And you should tell people where you are?

Chris Christensen 19:00
Yeah, so I live in California. I live in San Jose, California in Silicon Valley. I'm a Silicon Valley nerd, by by day and a travel blogger and podcaster by night. And in California, I get, I am told by listeners of the show that I get to be a real California bigot or, or proponent, depending on how you put it, you know, especially when we talk about wine. That's when people have called me out. It's like, yeah, you're right, you're right. But, you know, we got seven national parks in California, we've got the world's tallest, biggest and oldest trees. We've got, you know, Hollywood, we've got Silicon Valley, we've got not as much history as a lot of places in the world. But you know, some interesting history for what we have, including the you know, the Native American history, the Spanish, the, the Mexican, the Russian, all of those sorts of things touch upon in California history. So this last couple of years for instance, were especially before vaccines and I did not want to get on a plane. I've been focusing a lot on a California travel blog. And there's a lot of, you know, very cool places to go in my backyard. Could the coast the, you know, the rocky, the Rockies, the the Sierras, the wine country, the gold country, it's it's a pretty darn cool place. And that's even before you get into the cities, which I've, you know, avoided a little more recently, but you know, like Los Angeles or LA or San Francisco?

Jason Moore 20:24
Yeah. Is there a favorite road trip or loop kind of you have around California where you can hit?

Chris Christensen 20:33
There are so many, you know,

Jason Moore 20:34
it's such an awesome state really is incredible.

Chris Christensen 20:38
Well, I mean, a real easy road trip that is very local to where I grew up, would be in Central Coast. And I'm a big fan of the Central Coast of Monterey Carmel area, for instance, a really, really gorgeous portion of coastline with you know, some great attractions like the Monterey Aquarium, which is one of the, you know, better aquariums in the world, I think, and also, you know, very good, very interesting history as well as good restaurants and things like that and Cannery Row and places like that. So one of the road trips that I like is going down the Salinas Valley where I grew up, and you know, hitting some of the wine places there now and also doing your hiking in pinnacles, national I think they changed it Pinnacles National Park, I want to say, National Monument, which which it was until recently, and you know, doing some of the caves there and that you're basically around the San Andreas Fault. And then going down to some of the missions, say in San Luis Obispo, we're going over to Morro Bay and sea kayaking out in the bay there by the great big rock. And then coming up by Hearst Castle, which is William Randolph Hearst, you know of yellow journalism, his great big Xanadu Palace up in the hills, and then you know, seeing the the elephant seals and then driving up Highway One, and then kind of looping back around and Highway One is, you know, one of those great drives. So that's a pretty, that's a pretty great California trip that really couple days, you can see a lot to three days. Sounds terrible, Chris, it's a dirty, thankless job, but somebody's got to do it. Good.

Jason Moore 22:15
Grief. I mean, that's right in your backyard. That's, I've got those pictures in my head. And I'm just, I want to be there right now. This is what Chris does is what he does his podcasts he makes you want to be there. You've worked sort of like a traditional job, pretty much while you've been doing all these, this traveling is that accurate?

Chris Christensen 22:34
Most of the time, except for about seven. Well, actually, I guess of the time I've been doing Amateur Traveler almost half the time I've had part time work. So I took a seven month career break at one point in my career. But then, for about seven, six years prior to the pandemic, about a year before the pandemic i and before that I was doing contract work. And so I was working only about a third of the time doing software at that point, and putting the rest into travel. But most you know, the rest of the time I've worked, you know, IBM and apple and TripAdvisor and 20 different years and software startup companies, including right now where I'm back at work full time, which actually worked out well with a pandemic going on, you know, and traveling less, but didn't know that at the time that I went back to work there.

Jason Moore 23:27
Yeah, I was bringing that up because I was wondering if you could share some advice around because you've done so much traveling and also I just think it's really cool that you know, having this passion you have for travel in history and being able to explore the world even you know, virtually through the podcasts and you know, anybody can create different projects like that for themselves where you can still learn about the world which I think is such a beautiful way to also travel when you're home. I'm just wondering what your advice would be for somebody that's you know, working full time and really wants to maximize their travel maybe they don't have the crazy amount of days off or you know, maybe they do want to take a career break how to approach that just I know everybody's situation is different but really just kind of your general advice and how you've been able to get so much traveling done

Chris Christensen 24:12
let's do this search sort of separately what is the how do you travel with a day job you know, not not quit the day job and such and obviously it depends a lot on what the day job is and how much travel you can afford and how much time you have for travel you know if you're a teacher and you have the summers you know, then you've got more time we tend to Amateur Traveler tends to target a one week itinerary because I know so many Americans especially don't have as much time off they have you know, maybe two weeks a year or something like that and we try and put it into more bite sized pieces you know, one week two week itinerary because you know, I think you can do a lot of amazing travel my my daughter when she was in college, did her spring break with us in Hong Kong 12 time zones away. You know, and you know We were seven days, and we were in Hong Kong and she was probably tired when she got back, but she definitely wouldn't have traded that opportunity that we had a friend, I was gonna say a spare daughter, Brian, her spare. Father, if her parents had died, we would have raised them, she and her sister, and she was studying in Hong Kong, and it's like, well, you take advantage of the opportunities you have, you know, hey, we've got a tour guide in Hong Kong, let's, let's go to Hong Kong, or our first trip to mainland Europe, one of my former roommates from college was doing a postdoc in Paris, you know, and his, his French was getting pretty good. And we said, well, this is the time to get you know, and, and part of it is, you know, watching the sales and knowing to go shoulder season, so that you don't spend as much money if you have that option, or, you know, looking for opportunities for how you can travel for less money. Because maybe that means you can do two trips this year instead of one trip or something like that. So you don't necessarily have to do the most expensive and luxurious thing that you can afford. And partly, that's because I think sometimes the luxurious experience also separates you from the culture. You know, when you go to the all inclusive resort, you know, in Mexico, are you are you really in Mexico? Do you learn anything about Mexico, do you interact with people in the same way, you know, versus if you, you know, go down to, instead of going to Cancun, to the the all inclusive resort, when I go a little further down to Playa Del Carmen and get a condo and stay near the beach. And, you know, I honestly think you'll spend the same or less and probably have a better experience, you know, go spend a weekend in Merida on the weekend, when they're dancing in the street for the Fiesta and eat your $1 street tacos. And you know, I challenge you to find a better meal, you know, than those $1 street tacos, and they're really not that expensive, but they're, you know, pretty darn good. So, so partially, it's how you plan for it. You know, it's not the same as doing slow travel, right? It's very different from you know, I know, in your show, you talk a lot about the, you know, digital nomadism and quitting your job and things like this. And they're a very different style of travel. You know, I like the other two, but I haven't had all, you know, always had the opportunity to do that. And, you know, trying to balance how much work is the is the right amount of work for me has been an interesting thing. I've worked my way down the corporate ladder over the last eight years, nine years or so. When I was at TripAdvisor, I was Director of Engineering for the TripAdvisor flights product. And I actually left there to become an engineer. Because I wanted more time to travel, I wanted to work my way into a position where I could make some money with, with my own products, and with the blog and the podcasts and things like that. So that's kind of getting your second the, the career break sort of thing

is different for different people, obviously. So my career break wasn't going to be one of those, let's quit the job, sell the house and go get on the road because my wife stayed home when our kids were little. And she went back to work finally for her dream job when they went away to college. And so, you know, it wasn't going to be hey, let's let's quit your job and go, she's finally getting around to doing what she would plan to do in, in college, you know, some 20 years later. And so, and, you know, I like being married, I wasn't gonna, I was gonna blow that up for for travel, if I have to choose between the two, I'm going to choose the marriage honestly. And so for me having, you know, working my way into part time work, especially with what I do, where you can make a decent living from software contracting. You know, it's it's feast and famine. You know, sometimes I would have no clients for, you know, four to six months. And then I remember having one period of time where I was trying to do things for three or four clients at the same time. You know, it can it can drive you a little nutty. But on the other hand, it especially in my position of having the outlets to having the blog and the podcast at let me say yes, when I got invited places, which is something that happens to me, but doesn't happen to most travelers. But it also, you know, would give you if you weren't in my situation, but it would still give you the ability to say, hey, look, that cruise that we want or that trip that we're doing has a last minute deal. You know, working your way into some sort of flexibility can can enable you to take advantage of things like that. So, you know, our first trip to London was there was a fare sale on pan-am. And my wife went I can't believe how cheap it is to get to London and we had a she was pregnant. She was six months pregnant or something like that, which probably means we had a one year old or so that we had in tow with us. And you know, there were moments on that trip that She was a little exhausted when one day when every single escalator and every single elevator that we tried to get to was broken. She broke down crying under the Thames in the tunnel walking over to the Naval Observatory, and saying, I can't do this anymore. Fortunately, she didn't stop because there was, you know, we're under the temps, you know, this isn't a good place to give up. But we, you know, we went, we had tea. And other time, you know, I was up in the, in St. Paul's in, you know, tooling around, and she was out feeding the baby on the steps of St. Paul's. And she's like, I'd be doing the same thing if I was at home. But I'm in London. So, you know, you take advantage of the opportunities you have. And sometimes that means you get the work trip, you know, and you add on a few days to the work trip. While you're doing you know, wherever it is that you're you're going. My dad visited me in college, because he saved the company money by going from California to Ohio via upstate New York. He was really good at the the airfares and things. And the company said, Well, you know, hey, if you're gonna save us money shirt, go ahead. You know, any of those, those opportunities are things that you can learn to look for as well.

Jason Moore 31:14
Well, I just wanted to put a couple things in what you mentioned about sort of the long term travel lifestyle versus maybe this style of travel where you have a week or two I do feel like in, in the grand scheme of, you know, life, you might be a nomad for a period of time, but inevitably either on the front end or the back. And you're going to be probably in that situation where you can only go for, you know, a week or two and you squeeze in trips here and there when you can, depending on your life situation, I think that this is all such great advice I was going to ask you about how you picked destinations. And one of the big things I was just hearing is that idea of kind of taken advantage of the opportunity, which I think is really cool. Like you said, you knew a guide in Hong Kong, it's like, alright, well, maybe the opportunity like that, or a friend's gonna show you around in Paris. Maybe that's the thing that dictates the destination. Right? I think that's just great.

Chris Christensen 32:02
Yeah, I think there's, there's a combination, even today of, you know, I don't know where I'm going this year. I know that I've got a trip to take listeners to the show to Turkey, which hopefully we'll pull off this year, we you know, we've tried for two years in a row. But there's been something going on. I don't know if you heard about it. And, you know, I've got some conferences that I want to go to and things like that. But I think I'll do more travel than that. But I honestly don't know where I'll go. And so some of that will be last minute opportunity. Some of that will be friends saying, Hey, do you want to go here? My wife and her college roommates are like, they've suddenly decided they want to see the northern lights. So that may turn into a trip some time in somewhere someplace north and cold. But, guy, you know, a guy yeah. So we'll see if that turns into something. So there's some of those. And then there's the then there's the list, then there's the places where I really want to do this some time. And looking for the opportunities. You know, I want to get back to India, I want to get back to Africa, Southern Africa, especially, you know, those sort of places. You know, one of the reasons I want to get back to when I get to Turkey is I want to get my wife back to Turkey, the which I really loved so that you know, get back to your question earlier. So yeah, it's a combination of, I've got, I've got my, on the Amateur Traveler website under the about, you can find a link to my bucket list. So I have some places that I have been wanting to get to and have been checking some of those off as I go a lot of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, some historic sites in the US and elsewhere. But it's a combination of that and what comes when drops into my lap,

Jason Moore 33:46
going back to the career break thing too, because when you say work your way down the corporate ladder, I just love that phrase. And it's definitely counterintuitive to how most people are thinking, right, working your way up the corporate ladder, and then you get burdened with more responsibilities. And it's not always the case sometimes.

Chris Christensen 34:06
Yeah, I was a VP of Engineering and Operations for a small company for 14 years. And then did another year and a half as a director at TripAdvisor. And I enjoyed that work. And I enjoyed the people I worked with it was in fact, the first company was hard to leave. Because the people I worked with were we were like family, although it was time for me to leave probably two years before I did, because my heart wasn't in the work anymore. And the direction that I thought they should go. But money is I think money is useful and handy. It's helpful to have. I remember that you remember Craig and Linda from the indie travel podcast there. They I don't know if they'll ever get back to podcasting yet again, but they have been on a break here for the last couple of years from podcasting. But we've been friends for a while and the first time we met up in person we met up in London because we just happened to be in the same continent in the same country at the same time. And it was funny because they were doing full time travel and I was doing, you know, working and trying to fit in travel. And you know, working in probably at that point, I had four weeks vacation or whatever that I was definitely using every hour of. And it was funny because we sat there and they're like, I wish we could be like you and have more money to travel. And I was like, I wish I could be like you and, and have more time to travel. So So for me, somewhere in between is a good is a good match. Because I like home, I like being here too. So you know, traveling a third of the year or something like that it's a good is a good match for what I like. But you have to know that you have to kind of figure out what you want to do for now. It doesn't have to be the answer for everything for all time, as you say, you know, how many people do we know who were on the road for 10 years as nomads and then said, No, that's it. That's, that's my Nomad time.

Jason Moore 35:54
So it's interesting too, because sometimes, certainly not the case with everybody. But you get to a certain position in a company and it may be a tough pill to swallow from saying identity perspective to say, okay, you know, this head honcho or I'm in charge of all these things, and now I'm intentionally going to my boss and saying, Please demote me, it's,

Chris Christensen 36:19
that's sometimes a little easier to leave and go somewhere else. Yeah.

Jason Moore 36:24
But I think really, it speaks to your passion for travel and prioritizing the lifestyle, I think, which is something we always encourage people to do, especially on this show, right? It's, you know, you get this one life and all of the cliches, but it's true. You know, when you take those cliches to heart, it's like, wow, okay, yeah, I really don't have forever to do the things I want to do. Right. And times only running. And I also,

Chris Christensen 36:50
like, you know, I think everyone should find something that they like to do that they can use to keep the, you know, the lights on and the, and the bills paid, and the kids fed. You know, no matter how much time you need to do it, whether you're doing it on the road, or whether you're doing it at home, you spent a lot of your time doing those sorts of things, it ought to be something you know, that you don't enjoy every day necessarily, but that is fulfilling and interesting. And you work with great people. And you know, that's what I'm doing right now I'm back to work full time, and I'm enjoying it. You know, it's obviously limits what I can do in terms of travel, but there's, you know, something else limiting what I can do for travel right now anyway, so it's not a bad time to be working full time. And you know, from home,

Jason Moore 37:31
for sure. How do you build an itinerary that matches your personality and travel style?

Chris Christensen 37:38
Well, part of it is negotiation, right? Because if I'm traveling by myself, then it's a different answer than if I'm traveling with my wife, who, you know, doesn't need to take 100 pictures of that cathedral.

Jason Moore 37:53
It doesn't really with the pictures, again, isn't an idea, certainly understand

Chris Christensen 37:56
why you might want to. But, you know, so if I'm solo traveling, I travel at about twice the speed. Because I don't spend as much time eating fancy meals or things like that, I'll grab something on the run, or grab a pork bun from the 711 in Japan or something like that quick or street food from, you know, wherever I am, and I want to see CC, go go go. And don't necessarily interact with as many people, although you'll meet more people when you're traveling. So when I'm traveling with my wife, I need to know that that is not her pace. And I slow down when I'm traveling with my family, I'll slow down. And since I do a combination of the two, usually when I'm traveling with them, it will be we'll do what you want to do. You know, I'll get back here again, I'll get other opportunities. So you know, what do you want out of this trip? But we usually start with a piece of paper, we write out the you know, draw a calendar right at the, you know, boxes for the number of days and then say where do we want to go? We do have that two night minimum rule that we developed after that trip the infamous trip to Spain. The you know, Monday and Monday in Madrid and Tuesday in Toledo and Wednesday, and city and Thursday in Granada and Friday and Cordova and Saturday in Barcelona was a bad idea. As it turns out.

Jason Moore 39:26
It sounds like this one still being talked about in the household.

Chris Christensen 39:29
We still we still talk about it on the podcast, occasionally do it. You know, the fact that we also went in the heat of summer when I was saying well why don't we go in the spring when it won't be so beastly hot either. And but we wanted a little more time and so my wife wanted to go in the in the summer so we went in the summer and especially she and my son just melted in the heat. So you know I was often driving a car full of sleeping people and so didn't answer and it's true. lunches, it has challenges. So slowing down can be a real advantage. But on the other hand, we did another trip, there was a road trip in the US, where, you know, Monday was Little Rock and Tuesday was oh, sorry, Monday was Kansas City. Tuesday was Little Rock. Wednesday was Memphis, you know, Thursday was Nashville. Friday was Louisville, and Saturday was Cincinnati, because we were trying to get from a Giants game in Kansas City, and a week later to a wedding in Cincinnati. And we had the best trip ever. You know, one day we went to Andrew Jackson's home and to the Corvette factory and to Mammoth caves, all on the same day, plus, you know, four hours of driving. It was it was awesome, you know, and ate a lot of barbecue and watch them watch some baseball, and it was pretty, pretty darn good trip. So it depends a lot on how challenging the place will be to, you know, we're willing to relax that rule at times. But it is kind of useful to know your pace to learn what your pace is, and what is too much. Because it's really easy to add too much to your trip and come back exhausted. And I personally liked that. But not everybody does.

Jason Moore 41:17
Right. So yeah. And that's where it comes down to the style, I guess, right? Do you try to build some flexibility into your itineraries? And if so, how do you do that? Or is it pretty locked, kind of booking? Booking ahead and just,

Chris Christensen 41:30
it depends, we because we start with the, you know, we've done both, we've done the trip to Europe, where literally the first night is the only night we have booked. And you know, we stayed in some really great places. And then we also stayed above a beer hall on Pinkster fest, with a lot of drunken Germans up till 3am singing while we were trying to get some sleep because we were driving to go catch a flight the next morning. So you know it, it depends. Sometimes we have more flexibility than others. And sometimes, for instance, we did an overland trip with listeners of the show in southern Africa. And my wife said, I'm not going to do this long overland trip where we're pitching our own tent. And we're, you know, moving every day, and then you know, get to Victoria Falls and get on a plane the next day, I need to be someplace where I have some, you know, two days of downtime to to sort of recover. And you know, our first she said in, you know, two days of downtime where we're doing nothing. Well, it turns out that nothing worked fine with a luxury resort on the banks of the Zambezi and going out at early in the morning and late at night to go see elephants and things like that. That was that was a definite that fit within her definition of doing nothing. But you know, just knew that she needed some downtime after that this was going to be stressful. She's not a big camper. You know, she was definitely at the beginning of the trip saying I'm the oldest the only time you're going to get me to Southern Africa. You know, you're the only so far I'm going to do now by the end of the trip. She was saying, you know, next time when we go back to Ghana, we're talking about Namibia. And that sounds pretty interesting. But so I think you know, partly it's that mix. So like my son didn't care if he ever saw by the time you get to high school didn't care if you ever saw a cathedral in Europe again. And had a period of time where he said he wasn't traveling with he wasn't traveling with us. You know, don't don't bother inviting me unless there's a beach. You know, so we did a we did a trip in the Yucatan where there was you know, some running around and seeing Maratha and going seeing the Mayan sites and then you know, ended up at Playa Del Carmen for like three nights for some just beach time and that worked out well. That was a good mix for everybody. You know, some some combination of exploring and some combination of relaxing. How many kids do you have kids in their 30s Now okay, yeah,

Jason Moore 44:00
but it must have been fulfilling to you know, have the memories that you had growing up as a child to travel with your with your folks and now be able to you have been able to do that with your kids must be grateful. Yeah,

Chris Christensen 44:11
we we were able to afford a little more international travel than then you know we ever had, although kids have also done some domestic travel as well. But But yeah, we we would go on trips like we went on a trip for my 40th birthday. We did a Windjammer barefoot cruise in the Caribbean. And Windjammer is not in business anymore, unfortunately, but it was a lower cost sailing ship option. And, you know, the largest ship they had in their fleet was the legacy and it was 104 passengers. And you know, oops, bunks it was it was not at all luxury, but it was fun. You know, dressing up for dinner meant putting it on a t shirt, you didn't need shoes. So we did that and we were surprised the number of people on the ship who didn't bring their kids. They will I got ya know, their home, you know, under like, but but this is cool, you know, our kids were loving it. Why would you travel without them, because you only get so much time with them. And we love spending time with their kids to this date, you know, they get more and more fun, and then they move away. And something about that doesn't quite work out. Right. But, you know, we tried to do as much travel with them as we could when they were willing to go with us and or when they had no choice. So and did some amazing trips, you know, and did at least one exhausting trip to Spain.

Jason Moore 45:35
But how old? Were they on the cruise? Do you remember?

Chris Christensen 45:40
On the cruise would have been 21 years ago, roughly. So they would have been, you know, around 10 or so?

Jason Moore 45:49
Yeah. Okay. I'm just curious, because, um, I see a lot of these types of opportunities, you mentioned opportunities earlier coming in my near future. So trying to try to

Chris Christensen 46:00
get started, we we took a break from international travel between our like, first trip to continental Europe, you know, and then next year, we had we had babies for, you know, a while, because we my kids are 17 months apart. And then we really didn't get back to a lot of international travel until they were probably upper elementary school age, you know, third, fourth grade right around, then we wanted them to remember it. And that was a good choice for us. I think other people do, you know, choose something different. And that's fine. We did a lot of family trips in between or, you know, domestic trips and things like that, you know, I think there was the trip is like I you can go visit your mother. But I don't want to keep using all of my vacation time sitting in rural Virginia. So Right. Yeah. What else can we do?

Jason Moore 46:52
What destinations do you see as up and coming? We'll use that term.

Chris Christensen 47:01
Up and Coming destinations. Albania is starting to get a little more notice than it certainly was 1015 years ago, you know, Croatia, obviously, what 15 years ago or so started getting on people's radar. I think some of the other areas, some of the other places in in Europe around there, like Slovenia is easy and gorgeous and wonderful. You know, don't get noticed as much by especially by Americans, which is a lot of my audience. Other places around the the Balkans area. I think even in a lot of countries, we you know, we hit we say we've gone to France, we've really just been to Paris. Right? We say we've gone to England, and we've really just been to London. There are so many regions that are fascinating in the countries that we go to, you know, okay, you've been to Berlin, have you been down to prepare for it? Or have you been to dressed in or you know, there's a number of places like that you've been to Paris? That's great. Have you been up to Normandy? You know, have you been down to the Kota Azure, you know, have you? You've been to Rome. That's great, you know, and you've been to the Chippewa Terra, you know, have you been to polio? So I think that there's, as people especially as people go back, and you know, our generation, my parents generation, you retired. And then you took, you know, trips for a few years, I think they traveled for about four years, I think my mom had a special pension that she got for about four years. And they traveled internationally in those four years. And then that was it. And my generation has started traveling a little earlier. And of course, you know, the next generation down my kids generation started traveling, you know, a whole generation earlier than I did internationally. And when you go back to someplace I think then you're you're looking for someplace else in that area. I would like to see Southern Africa you know, get more tourism, especially when things get back because it's such a fascinating place. Just love the the wildlife love the people in in Africa. Gosh, what else?

Jason Moore 49:23
Well, that's the second time you've brought up Southern Africa. Yeah. What is the connection there for you? Okay, can you speak to some specific places I

Chris Christensen 49:29
was talking to somebody recently and I realized that I've only been to Southern Africa like three times, I think, and yet it it feels much more. I feel closer to it than that. You know, when you're when you're in a land cruiser chasing after a pack of wild dogs. I mean, that is a pretty amazing experience, that you're not going to get that many places. And if they're African wild dogs, there's probably Really pretty much only one place you're gonna get. So that's a pretty, you know, interesting thing, or even just going to, you know, Cape Town, I think is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And then if you love, you know, like a glass of wine, just, you know, a little bit off into the distance there, and you've got a really wonderful wine region as well. That's, you know, easy couple hours drive from from Cape Town. So, you know, interesting parts of the world. But especially, especially in the wildlife, I think, is is something that's fascinating and southern and eastern Africa.

Jason Moore 50:33
Why is it that some, you feel more connected to some places.

Chris Christensen 50:39
We just had dinner with the friends we've known for years in just recently, and we went with them to kawaii years ago, kids were little, and the one of the friends she had grown up in Madagascar, and it's the only time I've ever been with somebody who got homesick for a place that she had never been. I mean, she she was quiet, it reminded her so much of Madagascar, that she, that it just felt like home. And I think there are those places that we connect with on a different level, there's, there's something about the people or there's something, you know, I first time I went to Tanzania, you know, I came back and I said, you go to Tanzania for the people, and you go to Tanzania for the animals, and you come back for the people. Because they made such an impact on me, because I was on a volunteer trips. So we did some Safari, but we also did you know some time with a church that was caring for orphans of AIDS, and, you know, went to the girls school there the that was training some of the next generation of young women and in Tanzania, and, and it's it's fascinating, you know, spending time and meeting the people, you know, in some places, there's less of a language barrier. So that's going to be more open to some places, there's more connection in terms of what they're trying to accomplish or what, you know, what you love and what they love. So you'll have places that you'll connect more than others. And it's hard to say why.

Jason Moore 52:08
Yeah, yeah, we can try to sort of verbalize it, but it's not always possible, right. Sometimes it's the energy or I don't know,

Chris Christensen 52:19
I think of we did. So we did a one of our road trips in Europe. And we went to kind of in succession from each other. We were in Zurich, and then later on we're in nice as part of this road trip and many other places along the way. And I loved nice we stayed in apartment I could walk down the street in the morning and get my this was still winning with the franc was the currency and I would go down and I'd get Song Song, which was five quest songs for for five francs. You know, and you felt like you're part of the neighborhood and it nice is a little bit of a gritty city. It's not really that that clean, but it's interesting, and it's lively. And it's you know, I thought it was just great. Just love the vibe there. And my wife was the opposite. We were in Zurich, and we're in Zurich for Zuri foster Ginoza. refreshed. I've only seen it advertised in English once outside of Amateur Traveler, which was an MTV guidebook we got for my daughter after she graduated high school. Like you know where to go for young people and it's a festival they do every three years. The next one is in 2023 huge festival you know hundreds of 1000s of people descending on Zurich and there's fireworks every night there's you know, skydivers, there's 50 beer tents, 50 stages, you got Elvis impersonators over here you got to try to think of a cover band there and you know, it's just it's an amazing energy you know, party like the Swiss and then you know, By the evening of you know, it goes from like 10am in the morning till I think it goes to 5am at night and by you know by 5am Zurich is pretty trashed you know, there's there's trash everywhere there's you know, it's it looks pretty bad. And by 10am and the next morning Zurich looks better than most cities on their best day. You know, all the trash is picked up, everything's ready to go you know, it's it's it's Switzerland, right? My wife was like, these are my people. My wife was a project manager was like this the only time I think we started looking for for apartments, he's like, you know, I love the trains run on time these people not I get stuff done. Those were her people. So same trip, different experience. I was drawn to nice, she was drawn to Zurich. That's fun.

Jason Moore 54:49
Well, since you mentioned festivals, that that's something we can talk about in terms of destinations. What are some of the festivals around the world that you've heard from either So have you experienced yourself that you think are worth putting on some bucket lists out there?

Chris Christensen 55:07
That stuff? I would recommend through flash if you're Alaska 2023 And you'd

Jason Moore 55:15
like to st the next day

Chris Christensen 55:19
bye, but we actually stay downtown right in the midst of it, which was crazy. I don't know. I would like to get up to the, to Edinburgh to the Fringe Festival sometime. Well, you know, I'd like to get to the running of the bulls some time but I don't want to run with the bulls. I just want to see it. You know, I don't know about the Songkran or, you know, holy or some of those other festivals where people are throwing water or throwing you know, paint they might be interesting to film for instance, as a photographer as long as you can keep the camera clean but I'm not sure what else what other festivals I don't know if there's a lot of festivals on my on my to do list right now.

Jason Moore 56:07
How about food destinations your three hungry stampede to

Chris Christensen 56:11
I'm gonna get to the Calgary stay Okay. All right. I grew up in a place that at the California rodeo can't drag my wife down there but you know, I'd like to get to the Calgary Stampede who destinations

Jason Moore 56:22
Oh, yes. You know this is totally subjective Of course. Sure. Let's hear a few years

Chris Christensen 56:31
so you know obviously depends what you like I tell people with Amateur Traveler you know don't pitch me the food first. You know pitch me there's got to be something else that you know that you think is interesting about the place but we'll talk about the food but don't pitch me that but I have for instance in New Orleans exemption to that you know, there are some places that no okay, it's New Orleans you can pitch the food because because that is a place I would go for the food. I love South Carolina I love to Charleston for the food. I love the Portland food truck scene you know hey the $1 street tacos in Merida Mexico or the the Malays you know seven different Malays are excited six different Malays they do at least seven in Wahaca Mexico is you know pretty hard to beat although the the crickets not so much of a fan. India love the food it times it gets too hot even for me even though I like spicy Albuquerque you know love the love the Southwest food you gotta love a little spicy there but green chilies the with the green or the red you order red green or Christmas when you order your food and in Yeah, that's pretty much everything comes with Yeah, Mexican foods Talion food, French food. You know, less so British food. But that has gotten better, you know, less Irish food. But that is was more interesting than I thought it was going to be. You know, first time we're in Ireland. Spanish food is not my favorite. Because I'm not a big seafood fan. And they eat more seafood than any other place in Europe. Thai love to Thailand, you know, love just do this. Even the street food just on this side of the road and Thailand or Cambodia? Was pretty, pretty awesome.

Jason Moore 58:21
Is anybody else out there? stomach growling right now? It's happening. All right. Favorite travel resources out there. What do you love?

Chris Christensen 58:33
Besides the average traveler? I assume we're talking?

Jason Moore 58:35
Yes, of course. We're gonna we're going to circle it back to the Amateur Traveler. Yeah.

Chris Christensen 58:39
Well, you know, I don't know if there's a particular blog or other resource that I go to, you know, we certainly have a lot of other bloggers and podcasters on the show who are experts in particular destinations. You know, if I was going to Costa Rica, for instance, I'm going to my tan feet calm because you know, nobody knows the area better than those guys. In terms of other resources, you know, when I'm booking stuff, I'm often on the kayak flight engine or some other meta search engine, the TripAdvisor medicine you know, flight engine, which I worked on for a while, or something like that, that's going to search you know, a bunch of different places all at once is a really good resource for looking at. And similarly, there are similar, you know, certain meta search engines for hotels, for instance, that are going to search both Expedia and also hotels.com and also you know, all of those sorts of things and and put together some results like Hotels Combined and things like that. So those are good resources for planning. For hotel reviews, I still love TripAdvisor for where to go in a city I do not love TripAdvisor. You know, as somebody who who worked there, that's just not what they're good at. Everything is nothing is rated against each other. It's just when I went on that Segway tour did I have a good time so you know, if you You're looking at San Francisco usually the number one thing to do that TripAdvisor will tell you will be the Segway tour. It's like, yeah, no. to Alcatraz, you know? But I'm sure it's a good segue to our first Segway tour. So that's not a good resource for even though they're usually winning the the SEO for, you know, what should I do? They're not a good resource for

Jason Moore 1:00:20
that. This segue,

Chris Christensen 1:00:23
but they were really good at SEO. You know, I love that's funny. And I worked there for three years as a contractor also. So I worked at four and a half years and TripAdvisor but you know, they're really good at some things and not as good at others. So any

Jason Moore 1:00:37
any strange sights and sounds of a stranger is the right word. But any any sort of

Chris Christensen 1:00:43
strange they would be Atlas Obscura would be your life?

Jason Moore 1:00:46
Yes, for sure that well, that's great for resources. But I guess I'm referring more to places that you've seen or that you've heard about through your show. Now, we're

Chris Christensen 1:00:55
not where we're back in places. Yeah, sorry, I

Jason Moore 1:00:58
zipped back to places for one last, because I saw I had one more destination,

Chris Christensen 1:01:03
the answer would be yes. But it kind of depends on which which axis you're you're putting on, you know, your definition of strange. I think of anything that has the word ossuary in it, where they're making things out of bones, including, you know, right outside of Prague, I'm drawing a blank, but the city just just west of Prague, where you know, you've taken all the bones from people who've died and you've put them into art. You know, that definitely makes my my definition of strange. I don't know if it's my favorite, but stream sites. Yeah, you'd have to probably Donald ease,

Jason Moore 1:01:42
corn palace and Mitchell South covers. Weird. These roadside attractions are always fascinating to me.

Chris Christensen 1:01:50
The roadside inspections are pretty, pretty fun. Trying to think well, drug was maybe a little disappointing, actually, from that point of view. Oh, but you know, speaking of actually that area, when you're in North Dakota, the enchanted highway. So some guy wanted to bring tourism to his little. And I want to say podunk town. I mean, I've been to the town. There's really nothing there. But he wanted to bring tourism off of the interstate. And so he had this project with the locals. We did did these colossal metal statues every five miles from the interstate going down to this town. And the statues themselves are awesome. You know, here's here's giant pheasants and here's, you know, deer leaping over the, you know, that are 50 feet tall and things like that are you know, here's a family made out of horse troughs. It's fascinating, the enchanted highway. You know, when you get to the town, you understand why I didn't have any tourism. But it's a it's a fun little drive. So it's worth it to see the horse trough family. And while you're there, go go up to the oh, what's the name of that? What's the name of that place? There's a musical in that area. And I'm drawing a complete blank here. It starts with an M. And this tiny town that has only I think 200 People draws 1000s of people in the Medora musical, to in the summertime to this musical they put on with, you know, people coming from all over the world to help work it and it was a lot of fun. And you know, it's one of those things that the Tourism Board wants you to go there and you're thinking yeah, really, really? You know, it's not gonna be any fun. It was a blast. Really

Jason Moore 1:03:47
interesting, the greatest show in the West. Very cool. Well, I mean, we covered a lot of turf, I'd say I want to finish up with your number one travel tip.

Chris Christensen 1:03:59
My number one travel tip. Go with the right people. Who you travel with is more important than anything might my dad did a trip that he still talks about. He's 95 Now through Montana, when he was in college, to get up to a conference in Banff, Alberta. And the people he was with you know, they went to Glacier National Park they pulled off of the first turn off the first view port you know, if you sight on the go into the sun highway and Glacier National Park mazing highway, gorgeous views. And they sit down like the nice view Oh, we should probably go get a campsite. And so then they, you know, pulled turned around and went back and got a campsite. And in the morning he's like, Well, let's go back in the parking lot like well, we saw it you know, no, you did not. And I think he finally decided why don't I bring all your stuff you guys get in the other car. You go yourself and I will travel there by myself and sometime times you may be the the best travel companion is solo. But you know, they were not the best people to go see that place with. He enjoyed it much more when he went back there with my mom and my brother and I, because he got to see more than just the first view. So choose your travel companions wisely or marry your travel companions wisely as the corollary of that.

Jason Moore 1:05:25
Amen to that great tip and great way to end it. Of course, amateur traveler.com will link to in the show notes if you're so inclined. And you want to hear my episode over there on Oslo, we did one together, where I share some of my favorite spots around and always appreciate you, man. Is there any anything else you want to share in terms of links, projects, things like that, or travel is the best place to go? Yeah, okay. Well, I really appreciate your time. It's been a blast. And you know, come see the northern lights. You know, I am in Norway over here. So I've heard that I'm putting in from putting in my vote for you guys to come here. Now. I I really appreciate your time. And thanks for thanks for hopping on and make time to do the show.

Chris Christensen 1:06:04
Thanks for having me.

Jason Moore 1:06:11
There you have it. Chris Christian San Juan, thank him so much for stopping by and sharing his time with us. And be sure to check out his show Amateur Traveler is the name of the podcast. Look, I have to agree with Chris that the slot canyon hikes out in the western US spectacular, absolutely spectacular. And I hope today's episode gave you some things to think about in terms of destinations. And of course, we covered a lot in the travel lifestyle realm as well, which I always like to do. So thank you so much for listening. The mystery numbers? Did you solve the riddle? 63 and 48 worthy mystery numbers that I gave you going to the interviewer? That's right, you got it or while pretend you got it. I don't know if you got it or not. But those numbers represent the number of national parks in Canada and the US. So the USA has 63 national parks, according to Google, and Canada has 48 national parks. So there you go. If you add those up, it comes out to 111, which is kind of a cool number to 111. So if you're a numerologist that's a thing, right? A numerologist. You can tell me what those numbers mean, I actually looked it up, I couldn't find anything. But if you do add another one to that 11114 ones apparently, that's the angel number. And I read on a website somewhere that it suggests your aspirations and your prayers will be answered and achieve. So I don't know. But I do know, if you go to all the national parks in the US and Canada, you'll go to 111 national parks. There you have it, the mystery number game. Hope you enjoyed that if you want more of that, or you just have some comments on this show guest suggestions. You want to say hi, whatever, drop me a message, Jason, that zero to travel.com is my email. And in every set of show notes, you have a link to a voicemail box where you can click on it, hit a button and take 90 seconds or less to leave a message. You don't have to put an email in or anything I listened to all the messages that come to the voicemail. And I'll even send you a personal message back. So if you have any questions or anything like that, please get in touch. I do want to give a shout out before we let you go and a quote. Now this was for a former guest. We did a show a while back called the joys of solo travel with men Jinder Kang, which is actually a very popular show in the catalogue. I think there are a lot of solo travel fans here in this podcast community so I'm not surprised but man he sent me an update recently on what he was up to was really nice to hear from him. And he said in August 2021 This is I'm reading his email now I treated myself to membership with the National Trust's he lives in the UK. It's the first time I've ever bought it the National Trust is a conservation charity in the UK. They maintain nearly 600 sites of natural cultural and historic importance across the country. Along with their affiliate organization the National Trust of Scotland annual membership is 72 pounds when I bought it grants members free access to the vast majority of these sites as many times as they want within their membership period. It's perfect for just about anyone families friends solo adventures, couples young and old. I've therefore been using it to power my micro adventures. He says The rules are simple for micro adventures. anywhere within a 90 minute drive in my home I usually packed breakfast and or lunch depending on how long I'm going to be out for and off I go exploring. These places really can transport you in both place and time if you let your imagination run with your feet. Things also changed with the seasons too so you can make completely new discovery several times over the course of the year at the same location. I managed about one a month and have discovered some truly magnificent places and enjoyed some incredible natural environments. He goes on to say it's a fantastic model for supporting the protection of nature and heritage that more countries should look to adopt. I've also saved so much money against individual admission fees. And you can include like a whole table of how much money he saved anyway, really cool. I love that there are organizations like that than national trust where they are out there preserving sight. So, you know, to second that we talked about national parks today, I still don't think there's a better deal and travel than an annual National Parks pass in the States. It is so affordable for what you get, because you get unlimited visits to national parks with the annual pass, and you're also supporting the parks. So if you have any organizations like this around where you live, that maybe gives you a structure for your travels some new things to explore. And it also gives you a chance to give back to an organization or an entity that is doing its job to support these destinations and keep them alive and keep their authenticity in place. I think that's never a bad thing to support those types of organizations. So thanks Manny for sharing that. And he also sent me a quote from the National Trust founder Octavia Hill, and I'll leave you with that today. My friend, she said, we all want quiet. We all want beauty. We all need space. Unless we have it we cannot reach that sense of quiet in which whispers of better things come to us gently.

whispers of great things come to you today. Thank you for listening and I'll see you next time peace and love.

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