Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, they're not lost, listeners. It's Acelin Green, host
Speaker 1: of the acclaimed weekly podcast series Unpacked by AFAR, the
Speaker 1: podcast that helps you navigate the travel world, whether you
Speaker 1: want advice on an ethical dilemma or just to figure
Speaker 1: out where to travel next. This season Unpacked, I'm speaking
Speaker 1: with seasoned travelers and industry professionals to unpack the most
Speaker 1: captivating and challenging topics in the travel industry, one conversation
Speaker 1: at a time. Today, I am thrilled to share a
Speaker 1: special episode of Unpacked with you. It's a roundtable discussion
Speaker 1: examining the twenty five most exciting places around the world
Speaker 1: to visit in twenty twenty four. Featuring myself and AFAR
Speaker 1: editors Saraka Bunsel, Tim Chester and Billy Cohen. We chat
Speaker 1: about everything from the sites to see in Rome that
Speaker 1: are beyond your normal tourist activities, reasons why travelers visiting
Speaker 1: Africa for the first time should go to Lamu Kenya,
Speaker 1: and the best destinations to view twenty twenty four solar eclipse.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, Unpacked is the perfect companion podcast and
Speaker 1: not lost, especially if you're looking for another podcast that
Speaker 1: dives into the heart of travel, so make sure to
Speaker 1: follow Unpacked on your favorite podcast app. With that said,
Speaker 1: here's the show. Hi everyone, Welcome to Unpacked. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Unpacked.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for tulling us. We're just so excited
Speaker 2: to be here to talk about where to go.
Speaker 1: I know and you are fresh off making this list happen.
Speaker 3: It's burned into our brains. We're all very excited for
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four to happen so we can start taking
Speaker 3: these trips we've been writing and editing about for months.
Speaker 1: Before we start talking about the list, I'd love to
Speaker 1: just start with having everyone introduce themselves and say where
Speaker 1: they are in the world. Sarka, do you want to start?
Speaker 2: Hi? I'm Saraka bunsel I am the editorial director. I'm
Speaker 2: based in Nairobi, Kenya. There's been a country wide power
Speaker 2: outage of the last twenty four plus hours now, so
Speaker 2: I have a bit of a cobbled setup right now.
Speaker 2: Luckily we do have like a good solar power backup
Speaker 2: and everything, but but I feel very like I'm glad
Speaker 2: I'm here by the string of my teeth.
Speaker 1: It is very impressive that you're here given all of that.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And Billy hop at you.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 3: I'm Billy Cohen, executive editor, and I'm based in New
Speaker 3: York and you have power and we have power.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's not too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, if it is not summer right where everything?
Speaker 3: There are a ton of brownets in the city. But yeah,
Speaker 3: seems to be doing okay. We have construction though, So
Speaker 3: if you hear any of that out out of my
Speaker 3: back window, that's what that will be.
Speaker 1: And Tim, that leaves you.
Speaker 4: Hi, I'm Tim Chester, I'm deputy editor. I'm in a
Speaker 4: very sunny power field southern California, thousand Oaks near LA
Speaker 4: where I always am when we do these. I thought
Speaker 4: I was a traveler, but I always seem to be
Speaker 4: as podcast time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we need to plan the next recording for
Speaker 1: when you are somewhere really fascinating. Yeah, maybe someplace on
Speaker 1: the list. Yeah all right, Well, let's dig into this
Speaker 1: wonderfulness that you've put together. I mean it's a big one.
Speaker 1: How did you approach this this year? What was your
Speaker 1: mindset going into it?
Speaker 2: I think a couple of things that we tend to
Speaker 2: look for when we start getting pitches in are Of course,
Speaker 2: there's just no shortage of great places to go. Ever,
Speaker 2: and I know that these lists can sometimes feel a
Speaker 2: little bit random. One of the things that we really
Speaker 2: try to filter for is like what's new in a
Speaker 2: place or what places are really having a moment, and
Speaker 2: that can be you know, one of many things. If
Speaker 2: there's a cultural opening, or if there's something exciting happening
Speaker 2: regarding conservation, or if there's just some big event happening
Speaker 2: that is a reason to go specifically next year. That's
Speaker 2: one thing that we really typically try to look for.
Speaker 2: And then we also really you know, are looking to
Speaker 2: get a good geographical mix, so you know, we don't
Speaker 2: want to just focus a bunch of places in Europe,
Speaker 2: but really want to try to get around the globe
Speaker 2: and give people reasons to go, maybe back to places
Speaker 2: that they've already been, and also consider some places in
Speaker 2: the world that they may not have ever heard of.
Speaker 2: And I think our list has a nice mix of
Speaker 2: both of those.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. My favorite part of making the list
Speaker 4: and working on this, apart from when the issues just
Speaker 4: left the building, is right at the beginning, when we
Speaker 4: solicit pitches and we have writers and contributors all around
Speaker 4: the world and all sorts of places and getting back
Speaker 4: in touch with them, finding out where they are, where
Speaker 4: they're recommending, what they're excited about. We kind of get
Speaker 4: all these ideas in like well over one hundred, couple
Speaker 4: of hundred ideas and divide them up by continent and
Speaker 4: then have a look at them together. And it's just
Speaker 4: really interesting to sort of take the post the travel
Speaker 4: writer community and see what's exciting everyone, and then the
Speaker 4: hard work of kind of narrowing it down, you know,
Speaker 4: all a list comes in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I love that we're working with writers and
Speaker 3: our staff who've actually been in these places with their
Speaker 3: feet on the ground.
Speaker 5: Some of them are live in these places.
Speaker 3: So we get all these pitches and we get all
Speaker 3: these ideas, and sometimes they are locations that surprise us
Speaker 3: because maybe we wouldn't have thought of that, but because
Speaker 3: that person is very familiar with that location, they're able
Speaker 3: to give a new spin on it that we think
Speaker 3: is really interesting and will be really interesting to travelers
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that there's so much knowledge
Speaker 1: and kind of intimate experience with these places going into
Speaker 1: the list. Tim, you mentioned it started as a pretty
Speaker 1: big list, and this year we have twenty five destinations
Speaker 1: on the list, which still feels like sometimes more, how
Speaker 1: did you wind up with twenty five?
Speaker 4: Well, it couldn't be twenty four twenty four.
Speaker 6: That, No, we don't go in for that kind of
Speaker 6: numerical puntery. Other funds are five but not rest totally.
Speaker 6: Wait till we start talking about Bruno.
Speaker 5: First, obviously obviously.
Speaker 4: This second question you beat me too. What we're talking about?
Speaker 4: Should we just talk about that joke? Now there's one
Speaker 4: of the places, Yeah, go for it, and it's felt Brno,
Speaker 4: which is obviously Bruno without the you and believe you
Speaker 4: want to explain.
Speaker 2: Why that.
Speaker 3: Because of Encanto And so the minute it got pitched,
Speaker 3: I just started making that terrible pun every time it
Speaker 3: came up. I was like, let's talk about Bruno. Let's
Speaker 3: talk about Bruno. And then I enlisted him to ask
Speaker 3: him to repeat the joke every time he was talking
Speaker 3: about it too, and he very gamely agreed. So here
Speaker 3: we are, and here all the listeners get to get
Speaker 3: to know the high jinks behind the scenes and my
Speaker 3: love of puns.
Speaker 4: I think with the list, we did get it down
Speaker 4: to sort of a dozen, and then and then we
Speaker 4: kept having places that we really wanted to have in
Speaker 4: and so it went up. Oh yeah, sort of doubled
Speaker 4: in size, isn't it. And obviously some of them are
Speaker 4: rounded up in thematic pieces.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we started seeing some places like, for example,
Speaker 2: Paris has the Summer Olympics going on, so it felt
Speaker 2: like an obvious inclusion, but we also didn't want to
Speaker 2: give it so much space in the magazine because the
Speaker 2: Summer Olympics could be for a lot of people a
Speaker 2: reason not to go to Paris next year, but we
Speaker 2: didn't want to not mention it. So it became like
Speaker 2: we had a few places like Bruno, che Chechia and
Speaker 2: a bunch of others that we were really excited to feature,
Speaker 2: but then there were some others that also just felt
Speaker 2: like there were important enough things happening there, or they
Speaker 2: were capitals of something like the European Capital of Culture
Speaker 2: and whatnot that felt, you know, really interesting and important
Speaker 2: to mention, but then we didn't want to give it
Speaker 2: as much space in the print magazine.
Speaker 1: Yeah that makes sense. Well, you mentioned events, and that
Speaker 1: does seem to be a bit of a theme throughout
Speaker 1: the list. We'll talk about some in particular a little
Speaker 1: later on. But why was that a focus and what
Speaker 1: are you most excited about.
Speaker 5: I'll jump in.
Speaker 3: One of the big events for twenty twenty four is
Speaker 3: the solar clips that's happening on April A. Across the
Speaker 3: staff at AFAR, we're all seemed to be obsessed with
Speaker 3: these eclipses.
Speaker 5: So that was in Texas.
Speaker 3: So the idea was raised by one of our colleagues,
Speaker 3: Mah Hamilton, that Texas and the hill country in Texas
Speaker 3: would be an ideal place to experience the eclipse coming aprillly,
Speaker 3: so we knew we wanted to do something on that,
Speaker 3: and then using that as an opportunity to talk about
Speaker 3: that area of the country where there's also a lot
Speaker 3: going on. There's a lot in the wine scene, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of small towns with a lot of culture
Speaker 3: to visit. It seemed like a great way to talk
Speaker 3: about an event but also make it more about a
Speaker 3: place that people could experience beyond that one day. Another
Speaker 3: way that we were thinking about events not just go
Speaker 3: and have the event and experience the event, but what
Speaker 3: can we share with people about the location that that
Speaker 3: event has taking place in.
Speaker 4: I think that really comes out nicely in Texas. On
Speaker 4: the choice of photography, when I thought of that piece,
Speaker 4: I imagine just big, wide open text and plane at night
Speaker 4: with some stars or something obvious about the eclipse. But
Speaker 4: actually what we've got is this lovely shot of two
Speaker 4: girls swimming underwater at one of the swimming holes and
Speaker 4: a truck driving through the kind of wildflower meadows. And
Speaker 4: that's one of my favorite things about writing for a magazine, especially,
Speaker 4: is when the art team bring it to life and
Speaker 4: it just it's just amazing. I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, an unexpected look at the place. Why do you
Speaker 1: think so many people are drawn to traveling for solar eclipses?
Speaker 2: It feels like a nerdy phenomenon that's still cool and
Speaker 2: you can everyone can still appreciate the enormous power of it.
Speaker 2: I think it's also a moment to just feel connected
Speaker 2: with this much broader galaxy that we live in, and
Speaker 2: to just realize that we are quite quite small. I
Speaker 2: felt that for sure. I got to see some really
Speaker 2: far away galaxies in a telescope, you know, very powerful telescope,
Speaker 2: and just that feeling of being really small and reminded of,
Speaker 2: you know, that we are just little dots. Kind of
Speaker 2: an amazing feeling. I think it just brings people together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the fact that we all get to witness
Speaker 3: it together. I think there are some really special about that.
Speaker 4: Astric tourism seems to be a big thing at hotels
Speaker 4: everywhere nowadays. I mean a number of places. Someone at
Speaker 4: a hotel, someone's rolled out a telescope and has been
Speaker 4: an impromptu stargazing type experience. I think people are just
Speaker 4: traveling for that all the time. So obviously the eclipse
Speaker 4: is like the big festival, you know, dramatic version of that.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Well, what else surprised you on this year's list.
Speaker 4: I don't want to give, but I know too much
Speaker 4: of the limelight, And obviously Prague is the more well
Speaker 4: known city, and great story from Emma John about just
Speaker 4: the arts and culture and the vibe of that city
Speaker 4: and some of the really interesting things going on there
Speaker 4: like cabinet moots, this vegan cafe by day and banned
Speaker 4: venue at night, Museum of Fine Arts with floating chairs
Speaker 4: and as part of the exhibits, cocktail bar where you
Speaker 4: take part in the story, and a hotel that's only
Speaker 4: twenty six feet wide. I think in that piece she
Speaker 4: really brought out all the sort of interesting curiosities of
Speaker 4: that place and definitely made me want to visit, which
Speaker 4: is obviously the point of these pieces.
Speaker 2: I'll say two things generally that surprised me about the list.
Speaker 2: One is a lot of places that we chose are
Speaker 2: places that you had I mean, of course, we do
Speaker 2: have the Burgnos and a few others that I think
Speaker 2: will be quite new for a lot of readers, but
Speaker 2: we do have quite a few places that I think
Speaker 2: people have heard of and may have traveled to before,
Speaker 2: but we have sort of fresh reasons to visit. Two
Speaker 2: examples that come to mind there are Rome, Italy and
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, California, and both of them are pretty well
Speaker 2: known destinations. In the case of Rome, there are a
Speaker 2: lot of new, beautiful looking hotels that I think will
Speaker 2: be a draw for people to come and not just
Speaker 2: come in and try to see the coliseum and try
Speaker 2: to do all of the bucket list type of things
Speaker 2: Rome is famous for, but also just try to stay
Speaker 2: and enjoy the city and experience a lot of the
Speaker 2: other piece of the city that may be overlooked. There
Speaker 2: are also a lot of archaeological sites that are being
Speaker 2: breathed new life into and I think that that just
Speaker 2: gives a lot of people who maybe have been to
Speaker 2: Rome once before on a europe trip at some point
Speaker 2: a reason to go back and really try to explore
Speaker 2: the city afresh. In Los Angeles, there's a really large
Speaker 2: black art movement that's going on there, a really large
Speaker 2: space that's opening up, and also a ton of new
Speaker 2: restaurants that I think a lot of our readers would
Speaker 2: be excited to check out. And the second thing that
Speaker 2: surprised me about our list is that a lot of
Speaker 2: destinations we chose because of their sustainability and conservation commitment.
Speaker 2: This is true for places like Fiji where a lot
Speaker 2: of hotels have strong commitments to help preserve ocean life,
Speaker 2: places like Norway where there's just so much green transport
Speaker 2: and ways to get around the country, and many others
Speaker 2: too that I think that really have done quite a
Speaker 2: lot on the environment, which was one of our factors
Speaker 2: and choosing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of the places that we chose had a
Speaker 3: cultural sustainability and a cultural aspect that was coming up
Speaker 3: obviously events and festivals. But one of the places that
Speaker 3: surprised me or that I learned something about was Saint Kitts.
Speaker 3: The pitch came in from a writer we've worked with
Speaker 3: Rosalinda Cummings Eats, and she had been there and met
Speaker 3: two people who were sort of bringing back the legacy
Speaker 3: of rom in Saint Kitts. Now it's in the Caribbean,
Speaker 3: and I think people sort of widely know that there
Speaker 3: was sugar plantations there during the various colonial eras of
Speaker 3: those islands, and Saint Kitts had been a British colony
Speaker 3: for a very long time where there were a lot
Speaker 3: of plantations that were farmed by enslaved African peoples. And
Speaker 3: recently there's this movement to reclaim that really painful and
Speaker 3: complicated past, but through local residents, local coetitions they call themselves.
Speaker 3: So there's two companies that are doing that to sort
Speaker 3: of bring back that history and talk about it in
Speaker 3: a new light, really re evaluating that history and sharing
Speaker 3: what it meant to the local people who were living
Speaker 3: there and their descendants now and I think especially in
Speaker 3: the Caribbean where maybe people are just thinking about it
Speaker 3: as a sun and beach destination, to learn that there
Speaker 3: are points of cultural connection that are available, that was
Speaker 3: surprising and exciting to me.
Speaker 1: That's so cool. And you can taste the rum, yes,
Speaker 1: you can.
Speaker 3: You can go to these places. The two companies. One
Speaker 3: is run by this guy, Jack Whittison. It's called Old
Speaker 3: Road Rum Company. And he grew up on in a
Speaker 3: state that was a sugar plantation and when he was
Speaker 3: like a teenager, they are archaeologists who found the ruins
Speaker 3: of an old distillery on it. They dated it back
Speaker 3: to the sixteen hundreds and they think it's the oldest
Speaker 3: rum distillery in the Caribbean. And he was like fourteen
Speaker 3: when they found this, and so then he grows up
Speaker 3: and he's like, you know what I'm going to do.
Speaker 3: I'm going to start our own company. He's trying to
Speaker 3: rebuild that distillery actually so that they can for the
Speaker 3: first time long time, you know, make rum actually on
Speaker 3: the island. But in the meantime he's blending RUMs from
Speaker 3: the region and inviting people to the property where he
Speaker 3: does tours and lets the taste and talks about this history.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you can go, and there's a tour you
Speaker 3: can take called the Sant Kids rum Master's Tour, so
Speaker 3: you can go and visit the Old World Rum. And
Speaker 3: another company called Hibiscus Spirits and Taste and learn how
Speaker 3: to make Saint Kits Cetician cocktails and Caribbean influenced cocktails
Speaker 3: and really hear the story and learn about the history
Speaker 3: and a new perspective.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the other things that I'm hearing you say,
Speaker 1: I think all three of you, is that you learned
Speaker 1: so much through making this list. Is there anything in
Speaker 1: kind of a broader sense that you feel like you
Speaker 1: learned kind of putting this list together?
Speaker 3: How many places there are in the world that I
Speaker 3: cannot wait to visit? You know, it's never ending, which
Speaker 3: I mean, thank goodness.
Speaker 2: I think also we have a lot of focus on
Speaker 2: arts and culture this year, and a lot of our
Speaker 2: stories like Los Angeles that I had mentioned before, Saint Kits,
Speaker 2: There's many others to Manchester, England, which Billy wrote, and
Speaker 2: they all seem so specific their art scenes. You can
Speaker 2: get to some things that feel like, you know, you
Speaker 2: could be anywhere, but all of the ones that we highlight,
Speaker 2: I feel like they seem very specific to the place,
Speaker 2: which I just I love.
Speaker 1: That some of that really seems to come because many
Speaker 1: of the writers who wrote pieces this year actually live
Speaker 1: in these places or know them really well. You mentioned
Speaker 1: Rome earlier, Sarka, and that was written by someone who
Speaker 1: lives there and has that kind of insider knowledge.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Laura, it's Goitz. She first moved to Rome
Speaker 2: for a couple of years in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 2: and now she's lived there permanently since twenty nineteen or so.
Speaker 2: It was so clear working with her just how knowledgeable
Speaker 2: she was. One thing I really enjoyed while working on
Speaker 2: that story in particular, was she talks about some of
Speaker 2: the archaeological digs and these different sites that were uncovered
Speaker 2: first by Mussolini and then fell a little bit more
Speaker 2: into disrepair and then are now being brought back. And
Speaker 2: I almost felt like as I was reading the story,
Speaker 2: I was getting the type of tour that she was
Speaker 2: talking about in Rome that so many tourists don't do
Speaker 2: because they're just focused on hitting up the coliseum, going
Speaker 2: to the forum, then you know, booking it to the
Speaker 2: Amalfi coast so they can take all their Instagram photos.
Speaker 2: And this was just such a just even the process
Speaker 2: of reading the story, I felt like, oh, I get
Speaker 2: what she's talking about, and every question that I had
Speaker 2: for her, she would just write these long paragraphs and
Speaker 2: then say, well, if this doesn't work, then we can
Speaker 2: try this site and she would just tell me all
Speaker 2: about the history of that site, going back to like
Speaker 2: Julius Caesar, and it was a little bit of a
Speaker 2: European history primer that I was getting.
Speaker 1: You need to put that out there somewhere for listeners
Speaker 1: to read. I also wanted to talk about sustainability. You
Speaker 1: mentioned it earlier. Is there anything else that you want
Speaker 1: to add about how this list was framed for a
Speaker 1: climate conscious traveler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So a couple of things that come to mind
Speaker 2: for me and Billy and Tim please add. One is
Speaker 2: that we do have a decent number of domestic destinations
Speaker 2: and the list as well, so people don't have to
Speaker 2: travel halfway around the world in order to get to
Speaker 2: experience something magical, like we do highlight a few great
Speaker 2: American cities, including places like Philadelphia and Seattle and Charleston
Speaker 2: that are having moments right now, and other North American
Speaker 2: cities too, like Toronto and Los Angeles. So all of
Speaker 2: these places I think are much closer for a lot
Speaker 2: of our readers to actually get to. So that's something
Speaker 2: that of course, like you know, the actual act of
Speaker 2: traveling somewhere uses a lot of the carbon and then
Speaker 2: a lot of the hotels that we mention throughout the piece.
Speaker 2: They also have really strong climate initiatives. For example, for
Speaker 2: getting back to Rome again the sixth Senses that we
Speaker 2: mention as one of the hotels there that's recently opened,
Speaker 2: they actually are on one hundred percent green power. So
Speaker 2: you know, guests can feel a little bit better about
Speaker 2: staying at places that have such strong climate commitments, and
Speaker 2: so you can make your trip greener growth than how
Speaker 2: you get there, and then once you get there, where
Speaker 2: you stay. Like, all of these things sort of add
Speaker 2: up and you can have a much lighter footprint than
Speaker 2: maybe a more traditional traveler wide.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you covered it. I mean, obviously we're
Speaker 4: always trying to help people find lesser known, lesser touristed places,
Speaker 4: or if they're going somewhere like Rome, to stay longer,
Speaker 4: and I think there's plenty of ideas in their own
Speaker 4: piece for making a longer trip supporting local businesses. I
Speaker 4: will say, I talk about what we learned making the list.
Speaker 4: I realized I need to see a lot more of
Speaker 4: La which is just down the road. Obviously, Destination Crench
Speaker 4: or the Black Art Project is finally opening next year,
Speaker 4: but there's loads of small businesses in that piece I
Speaker 4: could go and support and check out some great food options.
Speaker 4: It's also just while we're on LA the one hundredth
Speaker 4: anniversary of the Hollywood Sign as well, so as well
Speaker 4: as everything new there, there's a lot of heritage obviously
Speaker 4: to enjoy. And I went for a walk up to
Speaker 4: the letters with the Hollywood Sign Trust chairman. It's very
Speaker 4: it's very vitigenous. Hi, I'm not one for heights. He
Speaker 4: was giving me a long story of the history of
Speaker 4: the sign while I was kind of like holding onto
Speaker 4: the piece of wood that used to hold up the
Speaker 4: l for the land when it was Hollywood Land. And yeah,
Speaker 4: some great history there. And you can walk all the
Speaker 4: way out behind it and see the sign and the
Speaker 4: city behind it. So sustainability wise, what do we miss?
Speaker 3: There are three locations in particular on the list that
Speaker 3: are notable for their sustainability efforts, and those Refiji, which
Speaker 3: Tim wrote about, and he could talk about Norway and Bhutan.
Speaker 3: Norway it's almost, I won't say behind the scenes, but
Speaker 3: there's a sort of a countrywide effort to honor the
Speaker 3: beautiful nature that's there. Right obviously they have fjords and
Speaker 3: beautiful water and mountains, and they know it right, but
Speaker 3: they also know, hey.
Speaker 1: We have to protect this.
Speaker 3: So the public transportation options, they're working on hybrid electric
Speaker 3: trains and fully electric trains. The country is phasing out
Speaker 3: internal combustion cars, so like I think one in every
Speaker 3: five cars is an electric vehicle. Very easy to rent that,
Speaker 3: So the sort of day to day of your trip,
Speaker 3: if you were traveling there could be respectful of the
Speaker 3: nature that you were seeing, and we wanted to recognize that. Tim,
Speaker 3: you want to talk about Fiji, there's a similar kind
Speaker 3: of thing going on there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: What stopped me about fijis there's obviously lots of high
Speaker 4: end resorts there, but a lot of them are taking
Speaker 4: ocean conservation really seriously and letting guests help with that.
Speaker 4: So you can help plant coral, you can plant mangrove saplings,
Speaker 4: So mangroves is obviously the kind of plant superheroes when
Speaker 4: it comes to carbon sequestrian sequestration. How what is the
Speaker 4: word then, putting going down carbon and also acting as
Speaker 4: flood barriers and habitat. So yeah, I went there a
Speaker 4: year ago to stay at Nanuku Resort on the south
Speaker 4: coast of the main island Viti. Levu. Yeah, it just
Speaker 4: met some really passionate people there who just doing lots
Speaker 4: of great things in the ocean and on the land.
Speaker 3: I thought that was so cool that their resorts have
Speaker 3: marine biologists on staff. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing, right, not
Speaker 3: just for sustainability but for nerdiness, Like now I want
Speaker 3: to go to Fiji and just hang out with the
Speaker 3: marine biologists.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And they're doing great work with local communities as well,
Speaker 4: helping them come and see the project, get involved, and
Speaker 4: they're planting these mangroves near the villages to help sort
Speaker 4: of flood protection there rather than you know, building big
Speaker 4: concrete walls and putting bricks down. The other thing that
Speaker 4: struck me about Fiji is very few people go there
Speaker 4: from the States. When I went from LA it's a
Speaker 4: direct flight. You have to take an overnight flight both ways,
Speaker 4: which is the downside. But the plus side is in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two, seventy thousand people went from the US
Speaker 4: and seven point seven million went to Hawaii. So if
Speaker 4: you're looking for somewhere with a lot of tourists and
Speaker 4: a lot more space to enjoy all this natural beauty,
Speaker 4: then I recommend it. I love I loved it.
Speaker 1: Well. We talked a little bit about events earlier. One
Speaker 1: that really cut my eye was I think the whimsy
Speaker 1: of it was the Kite Festival. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the Chinese city that hosts.
Speaker 4: It, Yeah, I Fang. I've never been there myself. I've
Speaker 4: only been to Beijing, but it's about halfway between Beijing
Speaker 4: and Shanghai, about four or five hours drive from each
Speaker 4: and next year is the culture city of East Asia.
Speaker 4: It's sort of one of the places that has a
Speaker 4: claim to be in the birthplace of kites, but it's
Speaker 4: definitely known as a kite capital of the world. And
Speaker 4: they have this festival every April International Kite Festival. It
Speaker 4: draws in tens of thousands of people and as you
Speaker 4: can imagine, all the kind of colorful kites, and they
Speaker 4: have a World Kite Museum. I don't know if you
Speaker 4: guys flown kites. For me, it's like half an hour
Speaker 4: of untangling and for three minutes of fun. So I
Speaker 4: imagine it's amazing to see experts beautifully made, you know,
Speaker 4: handbag kites. The sky is full of them.
Speaker 5: It does sound so cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, White Fang's also Unesco creative city of craft and
Speaker 4: folk arts, so it's not just kites. The visitors there
Speaker 4: can earn about clay modeling for cutting, wood, block printing.
Speaker 4: It just sounds like a very interesting creative city and
Speaker 4: apparently has a great night food market scene as well.
Speaker 1: Well. I think it kind of came up naturally earlier.
Speaker 1: But you know, because Tim, you've been to Fiji, But
Speaker 1: have you been to any of these places recently? I mean, Billy,
Speaker 1: I know you were just in Estonia and loved it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna say I won't bore you all with it,
Speaker 3: but I will bore you all with it.
Speaker 5: I loved it.
Speaker 3: I loved it Estonia. I didn't know much about it.
Speaker 3: I think most US travelers familiarity with it is Talent
Speaker 3: in the capitol, which is a stop on Baltic cruises.
Speaker 3: So that's the port that people go to, and they
Speaker 3: don't really get out of that city, and that is
Speaker 3: just a missed opportunity. The country's small, it's phenomenal, it's gorgeous.
Speaker 3: You've got this beautiful UNESCO World Heritage old town in Talent,
Speaker 3: which is gorgeous. It's like fourteenth century castles and walls
Speaker 3: and things and then you can go two hours outside
Speaker 3: and in a couple of national parks. I went hiking
Speaker 3: in a bog which was like walking on snowshoes on
Speaker 3: Imagine a carpet of peat moss, like a foot thick,
Speaker 3: and it just kind of sinks slightly and you're on
Speaker 3: converted snowshoes, so you're sort of walking on water and
Speaker 3: it's just gorgeous. So I got to do that and
Speaker 3: hike through a forest and you can pick your own
Speaker 3: mushrooms because everything is like fresh and natural and all
Speaker 3: of it. Everything's like two hours apart, and it's super modernized,
Speaker 3: like the roads in the highways, everybody speaks English. There's
Speaker 3: Wi Fi everywhere, like the country is really committed to
Speaker 3: internet access and digital education and stuff, so it's very
Speaker 3: easy for travelers to experience. And then in Tartu, which
Speaker 3: is the second largest city, it's only about.
Speaker 5: One hundred thousand people, so it's still pretty small.
Speaker 3: They are one of Europe's cultural capitals for twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: So there we talked about events, but all year long
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four, they're going to be various things
Speaker 3: that people can go and experience and get to know
Speaker 3: that city. Which is also surprised me because you get
Speaker 3: to the main town square and it looks like something
Speaker 3: out of like Nice, like it looked like southern Europe.
Speaker 3: It's like a cobblestone town square with a statue in
Speaker 3: the middle and these beautiful, colorful, stately buildings around and
Speaker 3: open air cafes everywhere and a river running through it.
Speaker 3: So it has this very European feel that my guess
Speaker 3: is people don't associate with that far north in Europe.
Speaker 5: And it was just cool.
Speaker 3: And so there's all this like very sort of classical
Speaker 3: europe feeling stuff, but there's also leftover Soviet era relics
Speaker 3: and that was really interesting to see. I had a blast.
Speaker 3: I've met so many cool people and I can't recommend
Speaker 3: it enough.
Speaker 4: Go to Estonia, Billy, What makes you want to go
Speaker 4: there in the first place.
Speaker 3: I'd read an article in BBC Travel where a writer
Speaker 3: had interviewed this man who lives in the area where
Speaker 3: they do the bog hiking, and I think the writer
Speaker 3: hadn't even gone because it during the pandemic.
Speaker 5: But you can cut all this out Acelin, but.
Speaker 3: There is in this region of Estonia where it's all bogs,
Speaker 3: like it's all marshes and stuff. They have what they
Speaker 3: call a fifth season that happens in March when all
Speaker 3: the snow melt from the surrounding areas. There's no real
Speaker 3: mountains in Estonia, but there's a lot of rivers, so
Speaker 3: from the surrounding areas floods these rivers, and every couple
Speaker 3: of years like cars sink, you know, like the water
Speaker 3: rays is really high, and everybody has to get around
Speaker 3: on canoes. And I just thought that sounded so interesting,
Speaker 3: and it was such an interesting climate story. It was
Speaker 3: such an interesting cultural adaptation story, and I just thought
Speaker 3: it was fascinating. So I was like, well, I want
Speaker 3: to go there. And then the rest of the trip happened,
Speaker 3: and then I got to meet that man who does
Speaker 3: the canoeing in the box.
Speaker 5: He's the one who took me hiking.
Speaker 3: So you never know, people read our stories and then
Speaker 3: years later they go to these places. And then it
Speaker 3: turned out because Tartu was going to be the one
Speaker 3: of the twenty twenty four European Capitals of Culture, it
Speaker 3: was like, okay, well now it's there's a moment happening.
Speaker 3: How is this country going to embrace that and show
Speaker 3: off you know, their arts and culture.
Speaker 5: Scenes for the rest of the world. Was that true?
Speaker 2: Man? That is one thing I just love about our
Speaker 2: list in general is just hopefully, even if people aren't
Speaker 2: able to go this year, it just plants a seed
Speaker 2: somewhere that hey, this is the place that I never
Speaker 2: really thought of before, and hopefully one day when I'm
Speaker 2: able to go somewhere that this may be someone on
Speaker 2: my list. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, It's something that you kind of save, right like
Speaker 1: you saved this version of the magazine or bookmark the
Speaker 1: article online and hopefully use it as inspiration for years
Speaker 1: to come.
Speaker 2: I was just thinking the destinations I wrote about, which
Speaker 2: is La mu Kenya, I think is hopefully going to
Speaker 2: be that for a lot of people, because I think
Speaker 2: many people who come to Africa for the first time
Speaker 2: the continent of Africa, which contains fifty four countries that
Speaker 2: they do typically go on safari to experience Africa's wild places,
Speaker 2: which are incredible, and I totally understand that. At the
Speaker 2: same time, there is so much more to the continent
Speaker 2: than animals and wild places. There's also just incredible cities,
Speaker 2: and in this case, the one that I've wrote about,
Speaker 2: this island with a really very unique and well preserved
Speaker 2: Swahili culture, which is this blend of Bantu like East
Speaker 2: African culture combined with Arabic and Persian and some European
Speaker 2: and Indian and Chinese cultures that have sort of made
Speaker 2: this melting pot. And it's very you know, you wouldn't
Speaker 2: be able to find this architecture in many other places
Speaker 2: or a lot of other cultural facets that are very
Speaker 2: well preserved. Again, Lamu Town, which is the main town
Speaker 2: on the island, is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Speaker 2: for that reason, and I think anyone who is planning
Speaker 2: a trip to the continent, I feel like it's it's
Speaker 2: also really worth going to places like this.
Speaker 1: How far is it from you where you live.
Speaker 2: It's about an hour flight flying is the best way
Speaker 2: to get there, and that's from Nairobi, and there's direct flights,
Speaker 2: and there's gorgeous hotels and guesthouses to stay at. Like truly,
Speaker 2: you just feel like you're in a photo shoot all day.
Speaker 2: Then the really anique thing about the island is that
Speaker 2: there's no cars, so and there's not really like any
Speaker 2: like street signs or anything, so you just kind of
Speaker 2: walk around and there's there's this they're like meandering alleys
Speaker 2: and you kind of find your way, you know. That's
Speaker 2: the thing, Like you will get lost at some point,
Speaker 2: but then you'll be like, oh, yeah, I recognize that,
Speaker 2: I recognize that tree, or I recognize that donkey. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of donkeys there, and you sort of sort
Speaker 2: of just like find your way again.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so few opportunities to get lost anymore.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: But still feel safe, you know, it's like you're you
Speaker 2: feel like you're still contained with this a small place,
Speaker 2: like you really can't go very far. The donkey will
Speaker 2: take you, donkey will feel yeah, in distinct There actually
Speaker 2: is like a donkey rehabilitation site on the island as well.
Speaker 2: Go and visit and see just you know, three like
Speaker 2: a donkeys that are being rehabilitated and all sorts of
Speaker 2: other things. It's pretty cool. So another African destination that
Speaker 2: we've mentioned in our list is another city on the
Speaker 2: other side of Africa, Tan Tier, Morocco, which is in
Speaker 2: the very very far north of Morocco. I ended up
Speaker 2: learning a lot about the colonial history of the city
Speaker 2: and it used to be considered part of an international
Speaker 2: zone and it was managed by consortium of other countries,
Speaker 2: including like Italy and Spain, so it wasn't really considered
Speaker 2: part of Morocco for a long time, and it has
Speaker 2: a bit of an international edge to it. Now the
Speaker 2: city is becoming a lot more connected to its Moroccan identity.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of really creative Moroccans who are doing
Speaker 2: amazing things, like they're running restaurants and cultural programs and
Speaker 2: shops that are selling different types of home goods and
Speaker 2: beauty products that are all Moroccan led companies, and a
Speaker 2: lot of them are also run by young women. So
Speaker 2: I think it's a really cool way to experience a
Speaker 2: city that has historically had this international, very also very
Speaker 2: artsy edge to it, but now that artsyness is being
Speaker 2: led by a lot of creative young Moroccans. So it
Speaker 2: seems like a place that I would be really excited
Speaker 2: to go and kind of see both all Tangier and
Speaker 2: the New Tangier combined.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are so many great cities on this list
Speaker 1: this year. Are there any that you feel like we
Speaker 1: didn't talk about that we should.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll give a pitch for San Diego. It's in
Speaker 4: our list along with Tijuana. The two cities on both
Speaker 4: sides of the border are the World Design Capital twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four cities lots of design focused events and lots
Speaker 4: of great architecture to see there, which is you know,
Speaker 4: people think of San Diego and just beaches and tacos,
Speaker 4: and obviously there's a huge city and there's lots to
Speaker 4: sea in that regard, and I was there i think
Speaker 4: earlier this year, driving an EV around for an EV
Speaker 4: road trip for digital article, and so it's very easy
Speaker 4: to fly in and rent an eving and not have
Speaker 4: to have a gas power car. And some of the
Speaker 4: design things are happening up in La Joya, which is
Speaker 4: this lovely neighborhood north of the city on the cliffs.
Speaker 4: You can go see kayaking in the caves. There's leopard
Speaker 4: sharks in the waters and bright orange caralbody fish and
Speaker 4: snorkeling and it's just beautiful, beautiful place. So it's hard
Speaker 4: to recommend.
Speaker 3: That I give a shout out to Philadelphia.
Speaker 5: We put that in. We're all pretty excited.
Speaker 3: About Philadelphia this year. People know Philadelphia. Obviously it's a
Speaker 3: place for American history. Castitution was written there, but the
Speaker 3: food scene is just on fire. It won more James
Speaker 3: Beard Awards in twenty twenty three than any other city
Speaker 3: for the chefs and restaurants, and they're diverse and just
Speaker 3: so so interesting and varied, and it's a great reason
Speaker 3: to rethink and revisit that city this year. Plus, the
Speaker 3: arts scene has always been great, and there's amazing institutions
Speaker 3: of art like the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the
Speaker 3: Barnes Foundation. But also the gallery scene has long been
Speaker 3: thriving and.
Speaker 5: It still is.
Speaker 3: They still do a First Friday every month where the
Speaker 3: galleryes stay open that's actually expanded. It's near New York,
Speaker 3: so I've been there a lot, so I'm very excited.
Speaker 4: You know, when you said it has more James Beard
Speaker 4: Award winners, I was reaching for the handclapping emoji to
Speaker 4: pop up on the I think I've spent too much
Speaker 4: time on Microsoft teams.
Speaker 2: I'll also give a shout to Toronto, which is I
Speaker 2: did not know this that it is by many measures
Speaker 2: the most diverse city in the world, even more so
Speaker 2: than New York City and London. There are upwards of
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty languages spoken there and just this year.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons why it became included on our
Speaker 2: list this year is because they elected their first mayor
Speaker 2: who's a woman of color, Olivia Chow, who has talked
Speaker 2: a lot about diversity. And the piece takes you through
Speaker 2: several of the neighborhoods where you can go to a
Speaker 2: little to and have momos. You can go to Koreatown
Speaker 2: and go, you know, seeing karaoke there. You can go
Speaker 2: to a neighborhood where there's a lot of Somali people
Speaker 2: and there's also similar to Philadelphia, there are also some
Speaker 2: more high end gastronomical experiences to have, and also just
Speaker 2: a lot of cultural events happening throughout the year. The
Speaker 2: Caribbean Festival in August draws us I think a million people,
Speaker 2: and then there's a Contemporary Arts night in October that's
Speaker 2: an all night affair and just brings in Torontonians from
Speaker 2: all stripes.
Speaker 1: Amazing, and we're going as a company in March. I'm
Speaker 1: so excited.
Speaker 2: I know, I've actually, like, you know, I feel like
Speaker 2: the entire essay for that is basically just like my
Speaker 2: to do list of all the different restaurants, neighborhoods, taking
Speaker 2: it to check off.
Speaker 3: It is we have much more to eat than we
Speaker 3: have time for.
Speaker 1: Unless we can extend or come early now.
Speaker 5: Thus do all our things at the rest of lash first.
Speaker 2: Dinner or second dinner.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we had a great run of digital stories on
Speaker 4: Toronto earlier this year as well. So you look at
Speaker 4: the Toronto Guide on the website. We do this thing
Speaker 4: with My Perfect Day and it's a local runs us
Speaker 4: through how they'd spend a perfect day and won by
Speaker 4: Tiffany Ramsubic, who runs Owed, which is Towanso's only black
Speaker 4: owned boutique hotel. We've got a lot to do. We're
Speaker 4: going to need some extra time because we don't want
Speaker 4: to just be in meetings.
Speaker 1: No, the meetings should be in the restaurants. I think, well,
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about these urban destinations, arts and culture.
Speaker 1: What about people who like to travel for nature or
Speaker 1: to be outside.
Speaker 2: Billy had briefly mentioned Bhutan. I think that Bhutan is
Speaker 2: an amazing country. I have not been myself, but Kathleen
Speaker 2: Rellahan she went last year and was one of the
Speaker 2: first people to hike the newly restored trans Bhutan trail
Speaker 2: that fell into disrepair in the sixties and just reopened
Speaker 2: last year and now just this year Bhutan is lowered.
Speaker 2: It's always had a tourist tax, so that covers, you know,
Speaker 2: various things like lodging and a guy and whatnot. It's
Speaker 2: recently lowered the tourist text to now one hundred dollars
Speaker 2: a day in order to spur more tourism. And there's
Speaker 2: also a lot of new hotels that have opened, as
Speaker 2: well as the Transbutant Trail. So the Transbutan Trail goes
Speaker 2: through the Boutanese countryside and you get to pass both
Speaker 2: the stupas and temples and all types of small towns
Speaker 2: and villages that were previously pretty much off limits entirely
Speaker 2: to foreigners. So lots of really cool reasons to visit Bhutan.
Speaker 2: It's also hugely conservation minded, so sixty percent of the
Speaker 2: country must be under forest cover, and it's the first
Speaker 2: carbon negative country in the world, so that's another cool
Speaker 2: reason to visit. See how they did it.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, yes, yes, we were all ready regular the clapping
Speaker 6: hands of thank you.
Speaker 2: One of our roundups that we have in the book
Speaker 2: is classic spots that are potentially worth a revisit. One
Speaker 2: of them is Machu Picchu, which is Peru's most popular
Speaker 2: destination with good reason. I mean, Machu Picchu is a
Speaker 2: brilliant feat of Incan engineering. The Sacred Valley, though more generally,
Speaker 2: is just it's one of the prettiest places in the
Speaker 2: world in my opinion, and Intrepid Tours has recently opened
Speaker 2: up a new hike that takes people to be able
Speaker 2: to see Machu Picchu but also see lesser visited sides
Speaker 2: of the Sacred Valley. So it's called the Quarry Trail,
Speaker 2: and they're able to visit older Incan towns and also
Speaker 2: just see some waterfalls and some other sites that were
Speaker 2: previously a bit more off limits. So definitely, I love
Speaker 2: the idea of revisiting a classic destination, but with a
Speaker 2: bit of a twist on it.
Speaker 4: I would say, if you like your outdoors with a
Speaker 4: glass of wine, then head to Uruguay. This year we
Speaker 4: had a lovely piece from Julia Buckley who wrote about
Speaker 4: this region called Maldonado. It's a coastal region. I think
Speaker 4: it's the next one along from montevide and kind of
Speaker 4: notice but anyway, it's very much the up and coming
Speaker 4: wine region of the country. And there's a Somelia there
Speaker 4: who's worked on a Mappa Delvino, which is a map
Speaker 4: of all of the boutique vineyards in Uruguay, so you
Speaker 4: can follow that trail and it just looks beautiful land
Speaker 4: of al fresco food tastings and great red red wines.
Speaker 4: And yeah, definitely added that to my list after working
Speaker 4: on that piece.
Speaker 1: Well, I'd love to just pivot a little bit more
Speaker 1: broadly to kind of where we're traveling next year, how
Speaker 1: we're traveling. You know, twenty twenty three, with such a
Speaker 1: busy travel year, do you have any predictions for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four.
Speaker 5: It's still going to be busy. That's not going away
Speaker 5: anytime soon. But don't let that stop you.
Speaker 3: I think that's one of the messages of our list
Speaker 3: to you know, look to places off the mainstream path
Speaker 3: for example, you know in Europe, Estonia and Bruno. In Africa,
Speaker 3: Lamu and Tangier, and then also rethink places that may
Speaker 3: be familiar to you, like a World or Toronto. There's
Speaker 3: a actually there's another layer that we're trying to bring
Speaker 3: to the surface. So maybe that will that will help
Speaker 3: people avoid the goat track of the main masses of tourism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the busy places are just going to get busy
Speaker 4: and climate will obviously play part, so be prepared for that.
Speaker 4: In certain places, try and go shoulder season where you can.
Speaker 4: You know, the pandemic was a big reminder that you
Speaker 4: never know what's around the corner, so travel where you
Speaker 4: can make the most of it, and that kitchen extension
Speaker 4: on Newcock can wait and you get out there to
Speaker 4: see the world.
Speaker 1: Book your travel insurance. We'll link to our episode about
Speaker 1: that well. I'd love to end this conversation with where
Speaker 1: you are planning to go this year? Where you want
Speaker 1: to go. It could be places on the list, it
Speaker 1: could be other trips that you have planned. Where are
Speaker 1: you editors going?
Speaker 2: In part inspired by not our list, but a future
Speaker 2: story in our previous issue, our Epic Trips issue Over
Speaker 2: the Holidays, I'm going with my family to Oman, which
Speaker 2: I'm really excited about. I'd know a bit about it,
Speaker 2: but didn't really know just how diverse it was in
Speaker 2: terms of the types of things that you can do there,
Speaker 2: from snorkeling or scuba diving, to mountain climbing to visiting
Speaker 2: the desert to of course like spending time in cities
Speaker 2: and eating lots of delicious Middle Eastern food. So I'm
Speaker 2: really excited to be able to do all of that,
Speaker 2: and definitely was also additionally inspired by our future story,
Speaker 2: which is absolutely gorgeous. The photographs as well, are just
Speaker 2: breath taking. Some of these waddies, which are these big gorges,
Speaker 2: very sand colored and then they have bright turquoise blue
Speaker 2: water running through them. They just look like they're, i
Speaker 2: don't know, out of a movie set or something like that.
Speaker 2: They don't even look real well.
Speaker 1: Link to that story as well, because it's such a
Speaker 1: good one.
Speaker 5: It is one of my favorite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I should say the writing is amazing and
Speaker 2: the photographs are just kind of add to it even
Speaker 2: more so it's just like on both sides of it,
Speaker 2: you're just like, Wow, this place is just other worlds.
Speaker 1: Got to go Philly. How about you? What's your list
Speaker 1: look like this year?
Speaker 3: I'm heading to Kenya in February, so yeah, visits Tarca
Speaker 3: and then see if I can also get to allow
Speaker 3: move from our list. And I often will travel for
Speaker 3: music or a like one random event, so Burno's on
Speaker 3: my list. They have that free music festival in August
Speaker 3: and cool and Manchester has a bunch of stuff going
Speaker 3: on because they have also we were talking about arts
Speaker 3: and culture, have opened several venues, including the UK's largest
Speaker 3: entertainment basically concert venue is purpose built for music, and
Speaker 3: so there's concerts there I want to see and I've
Speaker 3: already got a couple on my list, including the citywide
Speaker 3: what's it called. It's called the City of Floating Sounds
Speaker 3: and it's an interactive symphony project where there's music throughout
Speaker 3: the city of Manchester and then it'll guide you through
Speaker 3: it and then back to this new theater space called
Speaker 3: the Viva Studios at Factory International, which just opened this year,
Speaker 3: and the reasons that the city's on our list and
Speaker 3: then it'll end up there. So that's in June and
Speaker 3: I want to go back for that.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Yeah that sounds I want to go to.
Speaker 3: Come on second Company meeting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish.
Speaker 4: I love your Manchester Peace, Billy how Obviously the city's
Speaker 4: so well known for its music scene, but there's so
Speaker 4: much more happening nowadays that people maybe not be aware of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and that was one of the reasons I
Speaker 3: went because it had that music history, but I was
Speaker 3: just floored by how much more there is, including amazing libraries,
Speaker 3: but that's another episode.
Speaker 1: Tim, Where will you be podcasting from the next.
Speaker 4: Time, I'll be back in my office at home. My
Speaker 4: travel calendar is looking quite light, considering I've been working
Speaker 4: on this feature. I'm going to Palm Springs in January
Speaker 4: and we have the trip to Toronto. But other than that,
Speaker 4: I'm looking at a blank slate that's filling up with
Speaker 4: other things, so I need to get the travels slotted in.
Speaker 4: I'd love to go to Peru. I think there's a
Speaker 4: direct flight from la and the idea of doing a
Speaker 4: trail like the Quarry Trail really.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we shall see. Would you take your kids?
Speaker 1: Do you think? Are they still too young?
Speaker 5: Very quick?
Speaker 1: No, not even a moment of hiking.
Speaker 4: And four year olds.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound fun to you.
Speaker 4: We were going to We'll go back to England in
Speaker 4: the summer, but we just bounced it back to the
Speaker 4: next Christmas now and then.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'm not looking for I look forward to seeing
Speaker 1: how your slate fills up. Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I mean, the list is phenomenal. The work that you
Speaker 1: did is really incredible, So thank you and thanks. I
Speaker 1: feel very inspired to go to all twenty five and
Speaker 1: twenty four. I think that's doable.
Speaker 3: Right, where do you want to golett, I know what's
Speaker 3: on your list?
Speaker 1: Well, all of them. I mean Manchester the music aspect
Speaker 1: sounds wonderful, Toronto is obvious, we're going to do that
Speaker 1: as a company, and then I don't know. I feel
Speaker 1: like Kenya would probably be the first one that I
Speaker 1: would pick if I were just to go anywhere tomorrow.
Speaker 2: That means welcome to Kenya.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Yes for this power when you come. No,
Speaker 1: that's okay, I appreciate that. I'll just bring my solar charger. Hey,
Speaker 1: it's Acelin again. If you enjoyed the episode and want
Speaker 1: to hear more stories like this, follow Unpacked by Afar
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite listening app.