389 How Travel Transforms Our Thinking

This is the Thoughtful Travel Podcast. I'm your host Amanda Kendal of theNotABallerina.com travelblock. Every episode I'll share travel tales from several fellow travel lovers, and together we hope to entertain and inspire you, remind you of some of your own great travel experiences and encourage you to hit the road again soon. Hello and welcome to episode 389 of the Thoughtful Travel Podcast. Today it's all about how travel transforms our thinking. Firstly let me pay my respects to the Wajak people of the Nungar Nation where I'm recording this podcast. We are just entering the Nungar season of Jeren, which is finally the end of extreme heat and having some cooler nights. It's my favorite time of the year really. This morning though we actually have even had rain and thunder. Enough thunder, I actually had to wait for a while before recording because it was too loud. I'm not complaining, it's nice to see a little bit of rain here. It's been a very dry spell. Now back to how travel transforms our thinking. My own experiences of travel have definitely constantly and just many, many times transformed and reframed how I think about the world. Above all, traveling almost always reminds me there's no black and white. There's no, you know, like many ideas or even facts and histories that I think are very clear. Much more often nuanced and multi-sided and needs a lot more deeper thinking. For example, I think on previous episodes over the years I would have mentioned the year I spent living in Slovakia, teaching business English, when I had so many interesting discussions there with my students. So it was the early 2000s, not all that long after the iron curtain fell. So they taught me so much about what it had actually been like to live there in socialist times. You know, some things were better, some things were worse. One of my favourite students, Bobby, always used to tell me, he actually, he always liked to get off track and not do the grammar lessons. So he knew this was a great topic to discuss with me because I'd always want to know more. And so Bobby used to say to me, yes, everybody was equal under socialism, but if you knew the right people, you were a little bit more equal. So yeah, I learned so much from them and it certainly wasn't the clear that it was not capitalism is better narrative that, you know, we'd been taught in high school history classes. So yeah, so always so much to learn. Now, my first guest today who has some thoughts on this topic too is Nikki Padilla Rivera and she starts off by telling me some preconceived ideas she had before visiting Vietnam for the first time. When I went to Asia for the first time, it was a really big trip. I mean, US American and from New York. So Asia is like a very big trip for us. And I went for work and I was there for like a month. I started in Vietnam and I did Thailand and which was wild. My family couldn't believe it. And I, you know, in New York City, I love trying a town. Love Chinese food, love Chinese people. The culture, like I just very, that was my real big connection and Japanese culture as well. I was around a lot here. And so very incorrectly when I went to Vietnam, I was like, it'll just be like Chinatown. It'll be like a big Chinatown because it's Asia. And I went and I was obviously dead wrong. You know, like I just had these preconceived notions of what it would be. I was very positive and excited to go, but it was all looking back like these negative things. Like, oh, well, it's going to be really crowded. People are going to be very assertive and it's going to be very pushy. And but then I go to Vietnam and like the fashion is amazing. Like they're all wearing these beautiful cute dresses and, you know, their little heels, their little red lipstick on the back of their bikes. They are because I spent time with our local team there at the time we're for Intrepid Travel. So they have a huge Vietnam office in Hanoi. And like, they were sassy. Like those women were like cracking jokes and, you know, breaking each other's balls. And it was so different than what I had imagined. And it really, I don't know, really kind of opened my eyes up. Obviously it's on a model. I mean, I was someone working in travel and I was like, it's going to be like Chinatown. That was really eye opening for me as a trip. And like, you do not know until you're there and amongst the people and the culture, like you actually have no idea. I mean, I think that's probably a very, very common experience that we, yeah, lump a bunch of places together based on our limited experiences at home and have expectations that are completely shattered. And it's a very good lesson, isn't it? I mean, that changes how you think forever. So good. And Vietnam is to this day. My probably my favorite place on earth. I love it. I would, I could only go to one place ever again. I would go back to Vietnam every time. I've enjoyed it. Oh, I love that. It's a very good lesson in life, isn't it? Can happen to all of us? I mean, I think I have those kind of preconceived notions about like Central and South America because, you know, I have limited experience of it here. You know, I've met a few Colombians and Brazilians. That's about it. I still honestly would stereotype all of them to say they're very outgoing, friendly people like full stop. And I'm sure that, you know, there's so many more nuances across, like that's a vast region that I have just stereotyped by my very limited experiences. That's so true. That's actually a really good example. I'm Puerto Rican and I also hold down, like, yeah, Guatemala and Salvadorians, like they're kind of similar. It's probably not the case at all. But it's human nature. We've got to try and like, you know, make order of the world. And so it's probably just human nature to box things until we know better. But it's good to remember that we don't know, I think. And I find Cuba a very fascinating destination also somewhere I've never been. What did you learn when you went to Cuba? Oh, man. Cuba was wild talking about preconceived notions. So I'm my family's from Puerto Rico. I married a Puerto Rican. I'm there a lot. So I had this preconceived notion of, oh, Cuba, it will be very similar to Puerto Rico and the food, in the language, and the music they listened to. I also knew that relations were awkward between the Cuba to say the least. Like I was generally aware of the Cuban Missile Crisis and all these things that my parents generation are much fresher on. We don't really discuss in school here. But then I go and I'm on this trip and it's a trip for Americans because you cannot go to Cuba, right? So it was a very special trip only for US Americans. And there are all these restrictions around it. And I was there for work during trip and they run trips to Cuba. And so they have this special license. But it requires you have to have a US employee on the trip. So I was there as like a the US shaperone to make sure Cubans weren't radicalizing. Anyway, I don't know exactly why you needed that. But I was like, I'm gonna lie. So we're there. It's already this really weird, veiled, you know, like layered situation. And it happened to be that group was half boomers. So my parents' generation and then half millennials, my generation, with those knowledge bases. Which I was the hearing before, right? So everything about that trip, I mean, I land and I was just like my first thought was like, I'm in a communist country. Like it just felt like so intense and I was hyper aware of like, these are communist people and those are communist police people. And it just, it wasn't something I thought about before I landed there. And I was just so hyper aware. And then, you know, we couldn't stay in hotels as US Americans because that is providing money to the Cuba government so we can only stay in the home state. There was like all these really weird holes or very police holes. And so we're in people's homes. And I just remember we would learn all these things. You know, the tour guide was phenomenal. You could tell he was like, you need to understand all this. And we only have so much time this week. So I'm just gonna keep talking at you. And so we'd be on that bus for stretches every day, you know, going from place one place to another. I can't just be talking and talking. And he would just drop these things and be like, well, and you know, this happened and this clearly isn't fair. He would say it in a very diplomatic way. I can't think of any exit. But he would say that to me felt so outrageous. Even that we still have an embargo against Cuba. Like, it's so greatly affects Cuba. And who cares? Like no one even thinks about Cuba. I was in the sharing those things on the bus. And I'd be like, what? Like this is so crazy. And what? But then the boomers on that bus would be like, well, but yeah, because and they had all this, you know, not proper. And I put the press at the time without context. And they were, they're grew up in the 70s and they had a very different context. It was so interesting how willing we were to the younger group were to believe, you know, this like young communist guy really, yeah, communism, like the US is the worst. And these boomers went into as much more like, well, you're not taking into consideration all the facts. And so that trip just really, I don't know, it was so unique. It blew my mind. Life lessons that you get from trips or things that you keep with you from trips from that one. It was like, Oh, I know nothing. Like a, you know, I know nothing. And there's a lot more context that I will never know potentially. Yeah, I think that's a great lesson. I know nothing is probably a good way to go into many situations in life. But especially those when we're traveling and learning about other people, history, cultures, etc. And especially that you can learn from also other people you're traveling with. It's not just the people you meet. So that was a really interesting thing to hear about. I also was reminded when Nicky was talking about Vietnam of a tour guide I met in Vietnam quite some years ago. And after a few days of traveling together and having, you know, lots of interesting chats, he said, Hey, I have to tell you more about my country, Vietnam is way more communist than you think. And nobody knows, you've got to go home and tell people. And that was, you know, another perspective that I wouldn't have thought of. I think, especially a country like Vietnam, our vision these days as travelers is, it's a delightful place for an interesting tropical holiday with great culture and food. And, you know, we don't really think beyond this to what locals are experiencing. So that was another interesting perspective. Speaking of Vietnam, my next guest is Tom Sykes. And he also discusses traveling through Southeast Asia. I mean, I think almost every meaningful travel experience I've had has changed me, which is sort of why I do it. But I think probably the most notable one, or the most radical one, was the first time that I went out of the global North, you know, and it was like a lot of bozos. My generation, I did the backpacking in Southeast Asia. And I think, again, looking back with hindsight, you see more of the, um, rougher edges or the sort of problematic aspects of that, which weren't so obvious at the time. And at the time, I was just very grateful to be learning about the reality of the rest of the world, you know, that there are not only extraordinary aspects of culture and nature that you don't have access to in cold, rainy, England, you know. In other words, sort of, you know, beautiful beaches and mountains and volcanoes and, say, natural features. Yes, you've seen, you can see a million photos or you can watch documentaries about, but there's nothing quite like that embodied experience of engaging all your senses and being in that place, being standing on that mountain all, you know, that's why we travel. It goes to the heart, you know, where anyone travels, I suppose. But also kind of cultural, you know, seeing wonders of the world, seeing places like Prambanan in Indonesia and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. And then sort of contrasting that with what was going on in Europe at that time, which was not nearly as interesting culturally and as advanced. And then that kind of, in turn, sort of challenging a lot of the sort of, you know, Western supremacists kind of assumptions that you're fed with as someone brought up in the West, you know, this idea that the West has always been kind of civilizational, or even superior, which is clearly nonsense. I guess I'd sort of, in a second hand way, I'd learn, I'd studied the history of Asia and I'd been a student of that part of the world. And there was a certain amount of knowledge I could gained from books in that, as I say, through doing sort of homework, but doing, is it the way that the legwork of actually traveling physically to these places and experiencing them up close and personal was hugely eye-opening? And I think also coming back from that almost year of travel into the West, the North, whatever you want to call it, then fills you with lots of questions about what do you mean by concept like poverty, when you've seen the kind of extreme poverty in places like, you know, in Indian city or a major Southeast Asian metropolis. That definition is very different to the definition of poverty we have in the welfare states, even though they were prumbling at the moment of sort of Western Europe, for example. I mean, the United States is slightly different. I mean, I'm always shocked. I was in the US quite recently. I was always shocked at it and continued to be shocked at the kind of level of homelessness and desperation and people with clearly with sort of health issues, mental and physical, just outfending for themselves, you know, on the street. That any division between the first world and the third world or the global North and global South starts to kind of to break down, doesn't it, when you witness that kind of stuff in the global North. And of course, there's extraordinary prosperity in the global South. And again, that's a funny experience to have and that kind of changed me and made me, I think, thinking about the world change, was to be a relatively privileged person on this kind of backpackers circuit where you'd see the same mostly white faces in the next city or the next stop on that kind of, you know, the big peninsula, especially peninsula Southeast Asia. And he'd realize that you were all, even though you were spending not much money at all by Western standards, you were still living like kings and queens compared to the local people. And then you'd start to see a certain kind of, and I think looking back again, I was writing about this for the book. And the benefit of hindsight is that you can make some of that kind of privilege seems a lot more problematic today than it did to me as a young, and bozo, as I say, who was very much part of that and complicit in it, you know, the fact that you would come in and, you know, just by eating a kind of halfway decent meal in a small village, that would probably be a cause of envy from a lot of people living, a lot of local people, we probably couldn't afford that. But take no a month to save up for that slap up dinner, you've just bought in some back packers hostel, you know. So yeah, so that kind of in all sorts of ways, it opened my eyes to the kind of wonders of the world beyond a particular kind of landscape and culture that I've grown up with in England and Europe. But it also made me, it kind of wised me up to a lot of aspects of, you know, sort of geopolitics and made me think more in terms, and sort of global terms about culture and society and values and ideologies, which I think has stayed with me and it's sort of informed by academic work and it's definitely informed my writing and it's informed my attitude. You know, when I hear some debate in England about immigration, I kind of think, well, you know, I want to say to some of these people, like, have you been to any of these places where people come from? Exactly. And would you not do the same if you were in that situation and maybe actually go there and have that experience rather than sort of read some propaganda about it? Yeah, again, so much that we can learn and that the biggest lesson is how I need to think more broadly and not rely on what I grew up learning or what I hear only here at home. Tom mentioned a bunch of terms like the global North versus the global South, West or not West, First World Third World. I think his mixing them constantly was a good highlight of the fact that we don't really have a good term for this anymore. And we're definitely, he didn't use this, but developing versus developed is a pair of terms that should be completely deleted from our vocabulary these days. It's a very colonial way to try and make it seem that more economically developed countries are somehow better when it's definitely not necessarily so. Anyway, this whole kind of, you know, what do we even, how do we even discuss these things and not knowing the best words? I think that's another thing that makes us realise it's travel that helps us reframe these and helps us understand that everything, every place, every people has their own individual pros, cons, histories, cultures, perspectives, and lots of food for thought. Now, my final guest today, we move on to Africa. James Ward has spent a lifetime visiting many, many parts of Africa and this experience has taught him and his family a lot. I love travel travel has changed me since my first trip. Now, my background, my mother's from Scotland. So, almost born with a passport in my hand. Obviously, I go visit family and friends in Scotland a lot. And growing up where I grew up, not many people, especially at the age that it was, had done international travel. And you just had a different perspective, right? Just seeing that culture even at a young age and how different it was from being in the US or the Northeast. And then we had our first trip to Africa when I was 15 years old and that's when I fell in love with the wildlife and conservation based trips. Again, it's the perspective and that's the word I'll always come back to with anyone I talk to about what travel does for you. Seeing communities that are different, that people in a lot of times I can visit communities that relatively have nothing. But yet people are happy, living an unbelievable life and it says, "Okay, here's perspective. We were lucky enough to bring my daughters to Zambia on a trip and we told them, "We're not just going. You have to do something." So, they collected school supplies and soccer equipment and we brought them to a school. And before we went into the classroom and met the kids, we sat with the headmaster and some of the teachers. And they were asking questions and on the way to the school, we drove through two dried up river beds. And the kids who asked how far did the kids come from and they said, "Past the second dried up river bed." And so, how do they get here and most they walk? They walk, it's like two kilometers, three kilometers. And someone said, "We're in the dry season. That dried up river bed isn't dried up all the time." So, what happens when there's water in there? So, they have to wait. And then one of my daughters put together the longer river as a lot of crocodiles and hippos, but they can easily come up. So, ask the question about, "What did they do with crocodiles and hippos?" And the answer was, "Weed carefully." And fast forward, we're now home and my oldest daughter, we're at the dinner table and she started complaining about something. And I probably, herself, on. Right? And my middle daughter said there, "Kam and how does that compare to the kids who have to wait through crocodile-infested water to get to school?" And she did the hands of the, like, the wait. Right? And I thought my oldest daughter was going to reach the cross-table and dinner. And she actually looked at her and said, "You know what? You're right." And that was the end of the conversation. Wow. And it was that really sunk in with me and my wife on perspectives. And we have the common saying in our households that's first world problems and our kids understand what that means. And I see all of our travelers that we work with. That is what I tell them. That's the special thing. You get that perspective. This is such a lovely example of things that kids can learn from travel as well. It's just a simple thing, but I remind of that at any age, we can definitely learn to appreciate multiple perspectives. Also, my extra two cents on the kind of some thoughtful travel aspects here. James and his family mentioned taking donations of soccer equipment and stuff to a school, visiting its students and stuff. This is something I do think we need to be wary about just anyone going to do this. So bear in mind that James has been leading trips in Zambia for decades, has lots of contacts and would have been able to ascertain and an actual need for this not just show up and say, "Here we are to save the day." So I just love hearing all of these stories because they just are really good reminders. We never really know what's going on anywhere even when we visit, but the more we can talk to people and learn and remember to think with a really open mind and understanding that there are so many perspectives to some thing that perhaps growing up we were taught was black and white. I think that's a really, really valuable part of travel. So thank you so much for listening to episode 389 of the Thoughtful Travel Podcast. A huge shout out to my wonderful guests. I started off chatting with Nikki Patilla Rivera. You might remember Nikki from our International Women's Day episode because she is running "She Shapes History" tours in New York City. So do go to sheshapeshistory.com/NYC. If you are in New York or headed there and please go on one of their tours. I then shattered with Tom Sykes. You can find out more about Tom from his website, tomgsykes.co.uk. And also you can look at Tom's recent book "The Years of Traveling Anxiously." There's a link in the show notes. And lastly I chatted with James Ward. You can find out more about James in a couple of places. He also has a keen interest and ability in wildlife photography. So JamesWordphotography.com and his safari business is the rewild. So you can look James's tours up there at rewildsafaris.com. Of course, come and chat with us more about these thoughts and what you think in either the Facebook or LinkedIn group for thoughtful travelers and sign up at thoughtfultravel.substact.com to always get the latest news and some extra food for thought as well. All of these links and more, they'll be in the show notes. For this episode, you can find them at notaballerena.com/389. As always, thank you so much for listening. This has been another episode of the thoughtful travel podcast. Show notes and other information are at notaballerena.com/podcast. Join me again soon for another chat about why we travel. Bye for now!