Speaker 1: Welcome to Everywhere, a production of I Heart Radio. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Scheffler, and I have some strong feelings about travel.
Speaker 1: This is Everywhere weekly. He'll hear me talk about the
Speaker 1: travel commandments. And as much as commandments sound like a
Speaker 1: religious thing in my context, they are not. They are, however,
Speaker 1: laced with a touch of ethics and a splash of
Speaker 1: moral imperentive. But please take these with a large pinch
Speaker 1: of salt and then throw it over the wing of
Speaker 1: the plane or wherever. What they really are intended to
Speaker 1: do is to offer up a suggestion. So feel free
Speaker 1: to use them and add them to your travel life.
Speaker 1: For me, they've done wonders. You will also notice my
Speaker 1: commandments on the positive, thou shalt opposed to the usual negative.
Speaker 1: So by all means go fromth and shelter away, and
Speaker 1: let's see what happens this week. Perhaps thou shalt keep
Speaker 1: holy the high end low of travel. I hear the
Speaker 1: word luxury much too often in the travel world. Luxury experiences,
Speaker 1: luxury hotels, luxury linens, luxury beaches, luxury. This luxury that
Speaker 1: the best, the finest, the most, the mostest. To me,
Speaker 1: somewhere between common sense and lunacy. We misappropriated this word
Speaker 1: luxury and we now use it as a door stuff
Speaker 1: for pretty much everything. Luxury has lost its luster, and
Speaker 1: it's very much all of our fault. The word luxury
Speaker 1: originates from the words lust and interestingly enough lucherers, but
Speaker 1: it's now used to describe anything that vaguely resembles wealth
Speaker 1: or perceived affluence, or even just something that seems nice.
Speaker 1: But what most people don't realize is that the word
Speaker 1: is laden with so much more than just a development
Speaker 1: of overly shiny condos in Mexico or Florida. Back in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, the BBC premiered a mini series on the
Speaker 1: history of luxury and its ambiguous meaning. Cambridge University academic
Speaker 1: and host of the show, Michael Scott said, luxury isn't
Speaker 1: just a question of expensive and beautiful things for the
Speaker 1: rich and powerful. It feeds into ideas about democracy, patriotism
Speaker 1: and social harmony, as well as our values in our
Speaker 1: relationships with the divine. I'm taking divine as a britishness
Speaker 1: and much less of a Christian theme. The problem is
Speaker 1: luxury is just not special anymore. Real luxury isn't what
Speaker 1: the travel industry has force fed us real luxury is personal.
Speaker 1: It's actually something truly special. It's understanding space, time, and freedom. Actually, stop,
Speaker 1: listen to those three words, roll over my tongue, space time, freedom.
Speaker 1: What does that mean to you? If you can find
Speaker 1: that somewhere in your deepest cabins, you've touched luxury something
Speaker 1: money couldn't assist with and conn out right by. We
Speaker 1: travel for those three things, not to be an opulence
Speaker 1: or splendor, because in the end that's immaterial to the
Speaker 1: full I don't know human experience. So yeah, like a hotel,
Speaker 1: for instance, the Amanoi in Vietnam, upon these beautiful pink
Speaker 1: cliffs overlooking the East Sea, would never have been built
Speaker 1: if it wasn't for a giant monetary investment to get
Speaker 1: roads to this place. And yes, it takes an iconic
Speaker 1: hotel group with drew imagination to show us how to
Speaker 1: find this space, time, and freedom. And then note how
Speaker 1: cautious those starry eyed leaders are of the wood luxury.
Speaker 1: Yet again, if you understand the power of this word
Speaker 1: and the ones who do use it very wisely, So
Speaker 1: basically I want to reclaim the word. I want to
Speaker 1: use it when it's truly a thing of I don't know,
Speaker 1: great comfort or grand ear. Maybe the luxury police could
Speaker 1: come and check out its overuse and gently tapped the
Speaker 1: knuckles of the overusers, because that hotel and that experience
Speaker 1: in that spa, like it is in luxury, it's just
Speaker 1: a room or I don't know, car ride or massage
Speaker 1: table with bad background music, without the consciousness that people
Speaker 1: actually deserve more. Of course, the luxury is personal. It's
Speaker 1: a feeling and you can anoint anything you'd like with it.
Speaker 1: But the word organic and artisanal they've stopped meaning anything
Speaker 1: at all. I'm calling on you in Brooklyn, and that's
Speaker 1: why travel is better when you take it from high
Speaker 1: and low. If you always do it on the high,
Speaker 1: you're missing the real moments from the ivory tower of
Speaker 1: your hotel and your black limo, you can't see the
Speaker 1: beauty that's right in front of you. But I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that you shouldn't stay at nice hotels, because I
Speaker 1: love a gorgeous hotel. But then come eat on the street,
Speaker 1: or stay on the street I don't know, at an
Speaker 1: air By and B or a tiny inn run by locals,
Speaker 1: and book one meal at that incredible Michelin star Chef's restaurant.
Speaker 1: If we all use the word luxury less, perhaps then
Speaker 1: we'll be able to reclaim it as I suggested, and
Speaker 1: only utter the word when things are really and truly
Speaker 1: luxurious for you, like when you're on the road and
Speaker 1: that feeling of magic washes over you. You're not remembering
Speaker 1: the luxury, You're remembering the lessons, the stories, the people
Speaker 1: you've met. Because as it stands now, the word means enough.
Speaker 1: And that's where the country of Estonia fits the bill perfectly.
Speaker 1: Estonia is this land of odd sagas and dizzying fables,
Speaker 1: some sultry and some truly tragic, the most northern of
Speaker 1: the less explored Baltics and one of the least populous
Speaker 1: countries in Europe is the continents most serially underrated. I
Speaker 1: think in Paris I met Merint, a forest born, beautiful
Speaker 1: Estonian nymph who had singlehandedly stopped all the traffic around
Speaker 1: the Arc de Triomphe. I've seen it again and again.
Speaker 1: She told me these enchanting stories about her home country,
Speaker 1: and I was mesmerized. For a country that's the most
Speaker 1: tech in all of Europe. Mythology and sharing of folk
Speaker 1: history is what locals just do instead of watching bad
Speaker 1: television or fixating on their smartphones. Elders share stories like
Speaker 1: the child who came from an egg, or the classic
Speaker 1: the young Man who would have liked to have his
Speaker 1: eyes opened. The real housewives have nothing on these stories.
Speaker 1: In fact, Estonian mythology dates back to pre Christian times,
Speaker 1: and it's largely dotted in traveler's accounts or told to
Speaker 1: you by your great grandmother. Of course, in some runic song,
Speaker 1: picture this a Viking singing about giants and animistic beliefs.
Speaker 1: The world of Lord of the Rings feels so tame
Speaker 1: and dull after you spend some time with Estonian blood. Luckily,
Speaker 1: the old world prevails, and it brings about a great
Speaker 1: touch of supernatural. And that's what I was seeking out.
Speaker 1: Determined to see the entire country and how its inhabitants
Speaker 1: differ from the rest of the world, I decided to
Speaker 1: drive from north to south, from east to west, and
Speaker 1: everywhere else I could possibly squeeze a tiny car through.
Speaker 1: The roads lapped me right up. With the post recession glow,
Speaker 1: Estonia has managed to pull itself up by its proverbial
Speaker 1: foot straps and renew the country's appeal through infrastructure, updates,
Speaker 1: a new entrepreneurial visa program, and keeping it all under
Speaker 1: wraps for the die hearts willing to venture beyond stuffy
Speaker 1: Paris and already seen Budapest, and really just being the
Speaker 1: final frontier of unexplored Europe. It has its advantages. The
Speaker 1: country is easily criss crossed, and as it's mostly flat
Speaker 1: in the good sense. The earlier lies not in the
Speaker 1: overt scenery from the freeways, but it's revealed that every
Speaker 1: little town, donning little steeples, cobbled streets and the soft
Speaker 1: surrounding meadows. It's understandable if you want to just jump
Speaker 1: out of the car and go lie in these fields
Speaker 1: with the farm animals around you, napping or escaping if
Speaker 1: you will. It's that kind of place. Your weirdness and
Speaker 1: firm attachment to nature will make you fit right in.
Speaker 1: Tallin the country's capital, is where I commenced my explorations.
Speaker 1: After a plush night of deep sleep at this gorgeous hotel,
Speaker 1: a former wartime post office, I contemplated Estonia's resistance during
Speaker 1: World War One and their second independence after the wreckage
Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union and today Russia is waiting on
Speaker 1: their doorstep. I wonder what Nabokov would say about this
Speaker 1: little tryst. So it makes sense to me that the
Speaker 1: country that invented Skype sees communication and the Internet as
Speaker 1: the ultimate delivery of the independence. In fact, they often
Speaker 1: commended for being one of the most wide countries in Europe.
Speaker 1: Take that Russia. Okay, but enough of this. The open
Speaker 1: road called que the opening scene from cruel intentions. Driving
Speaker 1: along the northern coastlines of Estonia, with Finland just in
Speaker 1: the distance. Across the sea, the bottomless forests come assumed me.
Speaker 1: Locals called these forests traveling forests, as they believe that
Speaker 1: when people are cruel in some place, the forests will
Speaker 1: leave the area. The smell of briny ocean air mixed
Speaker 1: with deep scents from pine trees is so unique and
Speaker 1: filtered into my car and right into my mind. It
Speaker 1: should have probably been bottled by some chic French perfumer,
Speaker 1: if they haven't already done that, because in a world
Speaker 1: of stereotypical smells, this one felt worth spraying behind my
Speaker 1: knees and my ears. I very seldom saw people along
Speaker 1: the roads walking by, and only in the many petite
Speaker 1: towns were stopping for a rhubarb pie or swig of kaffer,
Speaker 1: which they call peam. Some smiling, shy residents appeared. The
Speaker 1: car found this comfortable pace as I headed with no agenda,
Speaker 1: through villages and villages that could easily car pool their
Speaker 1: entire population. The RADI you love traditional music for some reason,
Speaker 1: and so this tribal fantasia overtook the airwaves. I was
Speaker 1: in trance. That was magic. Estonians are beautiful and big eyed,
Speaker 1: homely people, and as I got out in these small
Speaker 1: villages call them hamlets deep inside the forest like the hula,
Speaker 1: I saw how people lived here comfortably, with fresh produce
Speaker 1: picked from the forests, and the family all around for
Speaker 1: connecting all the time. Most homes have a sauna. And
Speaker 1: nearby neighbor told me and we started to chat about
Speaker 1: Estonia and all its many secrets. I of course love secrets,
Speaker 1: so I was eagerly leaning in to hear it all.
Speaker 1: I've decided to hold some of these to keep you
Speaker 1: at the edge of your seat for now. The holder
Speaker 1: of secrets guided me to a nearby bog called Veru Raba,
Speaker 1: which is a maya that accumulates peat and moss. And
Speaker 1: creates this incredible ecosystem like nothing on the planet. How appropriate,
Speaker 1: of course, Estonia creatures of the yawn its forest seemed
Speaker 1: to watch from the trees as I explored this strange
Speaker 1: marsh like water Ali Khara, Visaya, the Estonian healing elf
Speaker 1: of the springs, or Savanna, the Estonian guardian spirit of
Speaker 1: the wetlands might be on sun lounges nearby. Estonia is
Speaker 1: just like that, just when you don't expect it, a
Speaker 1: strange ecosystem, more mythical creature or abandoned manor house, or
Speaker 1: sometimes a sort of operational lighthouse or wink it you
Speaker 1: and nowhere, and nobody has mentioned the word luxury to me.
Speaker 1: The custom here is to stop for coffee and fishing,
Speaker 1: with big signs on every road indicating with this can
Speaker 1: be best done. It did take me a while to
Speaker 1: figure out what these signs meant. Fished with coffee has
Speaker 1: never been first on my sort of pallid of fancy.
Speaker 1: I decided to venture further south to explore the Setoma district,
Speaker 1: and en route I found locals happily sitting at a
Speaker 1: rest stop with a hot drink in hand, perhaps hoping
Speaker 1: for the catch of the day come on. You cannot
Speaker 1: possibly slow down more than this, and if you need
Speaker 1: of more of a substantial rest stop. Estonia has this
Speaker 1: culture of courts or beer halls that are located every
Speaker 1: couple of miles. Locals meet here from all over the
Speaker 1: country on their way somewhere to laugh and share local
Speaker 1: delicacies like smoked or pickled herring and a potato salad
Speaker 1: with of course, deer sausages. A few of these respits
Speaker 1: and you can get totally drunk, overly fed, and with
Speaker 1: a collection of new friends from all over the country.
Speaker 1: Set Tomm is in habited by the Center people in
Speaker 1: an area in the southeastern part of the country. Here
Speaker 1: locavore and handmade is original and not manufactured as an
Speaker 1: shortage in Brooklyn. Besides their protected culture, they also have
Speaker 1: their own kingdom and appointed a new king a few
Speaker 1: years ago who happily rules this odd little patch of
Speaker 1: the world with utmost charm. I tried to get his counsel,
Speaker 1: but he was busy milking goats with no time for
Speaker 1: a New Yorker. Set Us listed by UNESCO as part
Speaker 1: of the world's Intangible Cultural Heritage. Live without the rest
Speaker 1: of the world for the most part, they have carved
Speaker 1: out their own vision and here live out of the
Speaker 1: dreams of their ethnic and linguistic minority, as they should,
Speaker 1: and not in that we hate the world. Let's wear
Speaker 1: white sheets of our heads and only allow white people way.
Speaker 1: It's respectful and inclusive of and beautiful. And their language,
Speaker 1: which is part of the uralic language, is sounded less Russian,
Speaker 1: less finish, and definitely less Estonian to me, the generous
Speaker 1: and fascinating woman dressed in red embroidered long dresses are
Speaker 1: everywhere and overly friendly, just about to enjoy a feast
Speaker 1: with anyone, So please bring your happiest self hair ready
Speaker 1: for anything. I was naturally invited to sit down at
Speaker 1: a long wooden table and indulge as much as possible,
Speaker 1: and several pies stuffed with pretty much anything the land produces,
Speaker 1: and enough potatoes to feed a small colony of lemurs.
Speaker 1: I think I may be still recovering from this meal.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's no fancy hotel here. You stay in
Speaker 1: a little cottage in a family's garden, or you rent
Speaker 1: a tiny house on the lake, all decked out and
Speaker 1: everything you may need in a loving family providing home
Speaker 1: cooked meals this is luxury. Sitting cross legged with some
Speaker 1: locals around a fire, I signently listened to their local language.
Speaker 1: I wasn't understanding anything except that I think there was
Speaker 1: a meal being lovingly prepared another meal. The most maternal
Speaker 1: of the group, a beautiful alder woman who had lived
Speaker 1: a whole life and said to mar took my hand
Speaker 1: and started telling me a fable in her native language.
Speaker 1: She looked me in my eyes and said, you either
Speaker 1: with nature or against nature? Life is? That's simple. The
Speaker 1: translation came from someone sitting next to me, and I
Speaker 1: sat quietly, mesmerized by the country's love for a simple
Speaker 1: life of pure sharing the fable as they do taught
Speaker 1: me again to see the little magic in the simplest things,
Speaker 1: and to heat wisdom when it comes to your norse.
Speaker 1: The world could only see that religion won't help them,
Speaker 1: only nature can and shall, and that I think it's
Speaker 1: real luxury. I'm gonna pause this right here for a
Speaker 1: moment for our sponsors to weigh in, but do come
Speaker 1: back to hear more about where I've been scooting around
Speaker 1: this week. You've just been somewhere. What say we go everywhere?
Speaker 1: Let's dive right in with me today, is Holly a
Speaker 1: real connoisseur of luxury? I don't know if that's the case.
Speaker 1: I don't think of myself as a particularly luxury human, right,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm pretty like relaxed and groovy. I don't
Speaker 1: need fancy things. Yeah, but that's the whole point. Like,
Speaker 1: you celebrate luxury in a way that's not the conventional
Speaker 1: way I think of you. The way that you luxuriate
Speaker 1: your life by sewing and making your home beautiful in
Speaker 1: ways that I think it's very luxurious. It's very self indulgent,
Speaker 1: which I think is luxurious in its own way. Like
Speaker 1: my husband and I always say that, like weird grown
Speaker 1: ups and we're defining what that is. So if we
Speaker 1: want to have a house that looks like a giant cartoon,
Speaker 1: that's fine, and it's us and to us, that feels
Speaker 1: very luxurious. But that's about reclaiming luxury, right, It's about
Speaker 1: being Like, for instance, I think all travel is luxurious.
Speaker 1: The very idea that you could travel and get on
Speaker 1: an airplane or a boat or a mechanism that gets
Speaker 1: you from A to B. That's luxurious. Yeah. That well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because you get into a place very quickly
Speaker 1: of comparative luxury. Right, Like, if you traveled back to
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty and you told someone how much you travel
Speaker 1: in a year, they would think you're a sorcerer. Right.
Speaker 1: Whereas now technology and in some places not everywhere, prosperity
Speaker 1: has led a point where things that we once thought luxurious,
Speaker 1: like traveling all over the world, are now much more
Speaker 1: accessible to a lot more people. So a lot of
Speaker 1: these experts in luxury and I have to use the
Speaker 1: air quotes there because that gets into a weird thing
Speaker 1: of like how do you become an expert on luxury?
Speaker 1: And what does that mean? Right? The meaning shifts a
Speaker 1: lot of their kind of predictions is that luxury has
Speaker 1: stopped being about acquiring a lot of things. It's much
Speaker 1: more about a bespoke experience that is yours and yours alone,
Speaker 1: Which is interesting because I think that's kind of more
Speaker 1: in line with what you want to reclaim, but I
Speaker 1: also know it will get commercialized. Well now everybody wants
Speaker 1: to have that experience, so it's a reproduction of that thing. Right.
Speaker 1: Whereas I have this theory that what you need to
Speaker 1: do is you need to fall in love with life
Speaker 1: and luxury for yourself will come from that. Like I'll
Speaker 1: give you a perfect example. Michael and I went to Lapaz,
Speaker 1: Puerto Cortez, this incredible little place um north of crazy
Speaker 1: Baja California, Mexico. And the beauty of the whole thing
Speaker 1: was you could go down to the harbor, get a
Speaker 1: boat for hardly any money, and head out into the
Speaker 1: open gulf basically and see whale sharks and park off
Speaker 1: at a deserted island really, which is like a remote
Speaker 1: nature reserve, park off, barbecue on the beach, fresh seafood,
Speaker 1: which you just caught yourself with no one around. So
Speaker 1: that ties in with my whole thing about time, space
Speaker 1: and freedom. It was giving me all these things, and
Speaker 1: it ties into your thing about experiential like that is
Speaker 1: the experience. No one should want to replicate that. They
Speaker 1: should only want to go have their own version of that.
Speaker 1: And that's what makes it special because then you're in
Speaker 1: love with your life. That's the thing too, that rob's
Speaker 1: what could be luxury travel of its luxuriousness is it
Speaker 1: becomes a little bit performative. Right. I have these little
Speaker 1: things that I always tell people that that make travel
Speaker 1: more luxurious in a very personal way. For instance, you've
Speaker 1: been to many of my hotel rooms. I always bring
Speaker 1: my own little coffee set up, grind, a little packet
Speaker 1: of beans and a V sixty so I can make
Speaker 1: coffee as if I'm at home. I can make any
Speaker 1: hotel room like that. If I'm staying at a bad hotel,
Speaker 1: I take little spa goodies with me. And it sounds silly,
Speaker 1: but if I haven't a stick of incense which I
Speaker 1: got from India from the Ashram, and maybe a candle
Speaker 1: and maybe some essential oils, suddenly my room becomes the
Speaker 1: essence of healing and wellness. And that's where luxury needs
Speaker 1: to be reclaimed for those things are luxurious. Like I've
Speaker 1: seen what you travel with you you make home and nest.
Speaker 1: So I'm messy, so it spreads out in like twelve
Speaker 1: seconds when I walk in the room, so it looks
Speaker 1: nesty and constable. Like I also travel with a kikoi
Speaker 1: ois and a kickoi. Is this thing from Africa. It
Speaker 1: comes from like an Indian slash African tradition of having
Speaker 1: a cloth which is big you can wear. The Indians
Speaker 1: wear it like a lungi around their waist in the
Speaker 1: south of India, but in Kenya. Kikois are like what
Speaker 1: African women would wear around their bodies. It's basically a towel,
Speaker 1: a hair scarf, a next scarf, a little bag. You
Speaker 1: can make it into a tote, and I always travel
Speaker 1: with one. Sometimes I have it so Ella has something
Speaker 1: to lie on. I put it on the plane to
Speaker 1: sit on. So the KIKOI becomes this luxurious item from home.
Speaker 1: That item brings me home. Anyway I am on the road,
Speaker 1: I I'm thinking about you cause me to reflect on
Speaker 1: what like the most luxurious experience I have had is,
Speaker 1: And what keeps coming to mind is kind of surprising
Speaker 1: even to myself right, Like it's not a thing where
Speaker 1: I would be like, this is a legal experience you
Speaker 1: have to have. Um. Have you ever been to the
Speaker 1: Dolly Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida? So I went last
Speaker 1: year with two of my best friends. We just ran
Speaker 1: down there. The Museum of Fine Art there was doing
Speaker 1: an exhibit that we wanted to see about Star Wars costumes. Um,
Speaker 1: but we also wanted to hit the Dolly Museum. And
Speaker 1: that museum is fascinating for many reasons. It's an wonderfully
Speaker 1: strange architectural achievement, but also whether or not you love
Speaker 1: Salvador Dolly and his work. It's a very interesting space
Speaker 1: and in terms of how the docents tell his life
Speaker 1: story as they're leading people through the galleries, it's really lovely.
Speaker 1: But for me, the moment that keeps springing to my
Speaker 1: mind is when I first turned around this edge and
Speaker 1: saw in person for the first time the hallucinogenic tory
Speaker 1: a Door, which is a painting, I mean, a painting
Speaker 1: that will rock you back one. It is massive, and
Speaker 1: there's always like just the the very nuts and bolts
Speaker 1: kind of wonder of like how does anyone work at
Speaker 1: this scale? But too, I mean, that's just a painting
Speaker 1: that I really love anyway, and I had seen it
Speaker 1: reproduced many many times. You know, it's got a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting visual things going on, where things are not
Speaker 1: quite what they look like at first glance, and when
Speaker 1: you look deeper you see multiple different things in there,
Speaker 1: you know, faces hidden in them. And but what felt
Speaker 1: very what keeps jumping to my mind that felt luxurious
Speaker 1: about it, is that I was very taken with it.
Speaker 1: And this I am not what I would call a
Speaker 1: snootie art person. I don't need to know who painted it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I eventually want to find out, but if
Speaker 1: I see a piece of art that I connect to,
Speaker 1: it usually has nothing to do with knowing its history.
Speaker 1: Like it's just visceral. It's like falling in love and
Speaker 1: standing before this painting, which is like immense, It's the
Speaker 1: size of a room. It's huge. Just I mean, I
Speaker 1: was almost frozen on the spot. And the greatest thing
Speaker 1: to me, and what made it feel luxurious is that
Speaker 1: as I'm there and I'm talking and I'm drinking it
Speaker 1: with my eyes, the docents that are leading tours around
Speaker 1: just keep like making sure that they lead their people
Speaker 1: and leave me a little space. Like they're not moving me.
Speaker 1: They're not They're just letting me be with that painting
Speaker 1: for like way longer than most people are going to
Speaker 1: stand there and look at it. And to me, I
Speaker 1: was like this is it felt very luxurious because like
Speaker 1: I was just being allowed, even in a space with
Speaker 1: a lot of other people, to just have my personal
Speaker 1: interaction with this thing that I was shocked at how
Speaker 1: deeply it moved me. So to me, that's like a
Speaker 1: moment of deep luxury. And it's not a particularly expensive trip,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just even if you put all of
Speaker 1: the pieces of like your travel down there, staying at
Speaker 1: a hotel for a couple of days. As trips go,
Speaker 1: I doubt people are like, this is my apex luxury trip,
Speaker 1: But to me it was a very luxurious I love
Speaker 1: that holly hour of my life. Well, that's the whole point.
Speaker 1: It's about finding ways to reclaim that yourself, which is
Speaker 1: exactly what you did there, and you didn't plan it,
Speaker 1: but in the moment you were able to just accept
Speaker 1: that beauty. Right. I think like that ties into this
Speaker 1: high and low thing that I've been thinking about and
Speaker 1: travel and talking about if you live in the high.
Speaker 1: I understand that some people can only live in the low, right,
Speaker 1: because you travel and you'd like to travel, and you
Speaker 1: don't have money to do things that may cost extra money,
Speaker 1: but you can make that amazing And as a traveler,
Speaker 1: I feel like I want to experience at all. Why
Speaker 1: must I only stay at the five starhood or only
Speaker 1: stay at the MBNB. I think part of why I
Speaker 1: never quite feel completely at ease and like a fancy
Speaker 1: pants unicorn accommodation is there's always, like the voice of
Speaker 1: my father in the back of my head going this
Speaker 1: is very wasteful. Oh I don't have that. I just travel,
Speaker 1: just travel instead. Instead of feeling guilty, I just travel.
Speaker 1: My parents instilled that in me. There's nothing that inspires
Speaker 1: me more than just to travel. And it's not I
Speaker 1: get teased about loving beautiful hotels and fun things, but
Speaker 1: it's the people. It's everything. It's moving about the world
Speaker 1: and existing there that inspires me. And that's high and low.
Speaker 1: That's all the highs and all the lows. Amusing high
Speaker 1: and low in an example of like the hotel versus
Speaker 1: the eating on the street, but it's the high and
Speaker 1: lows of the entire experience. There will be beautiful highs
Speaker 1: where you're standing watching turtles lay their eggs on a
Speaker 1: beach somewhere so remote in Costa Rica, and then they'll
Speaker 1: be the low of driving through Cape Town to downtown
Speaker 1: and seeing the squatter camps. But they part of travel.
Speaker 1: Both those highs and lows need to exist for you
Speaker 1: in order for you to be able to understand the world.
Speaker 1: Like if you only went to the high and you
Speaker 1: flew private and you only stayed at the fancy hotels
Speaker 1: behind the high walls, have you really traveled or if
Speaker 1: you only went to the slums of Brazil and hung
Speaker 1: out there, could you really tell me that you understand Brazil?
Speaker 1: I mean that's the thing, right, Like you can lead
Speaker 1: an insulated life of highs, in which case you probably
Speaker 1: never appreciate the highs you're having, or you can lead
Speaker 1: a life where you do both of these spaces and
Speaker 1: all of the myriad in between. But you also see
Speaker 1: that again, I mean, I'm kind of a hippie. Can
Speaker 1: you tell that fundamentally those who are wearing a pant
Speaker 1: suit with flowers on them, they are daisies? But yeah,
Speaker 1: you those people living in less fortunate circumstances are still
Speaker 1: just humans. And you can see that if you travel
Speaker 1: in all of these places, like I think that's it, right,
Speaker 1: Like you see the united nature of humanity and you
Speaker 1: appreciate the gifts and the privileges you of with an experience,
Speaker 1: but in a way that also makes you appreciate the
Speaker 1: world in its entirety. Well. I have had this experience
Speaker 1: in India where I was driving by and I saw
Speaker 1: a woman on a street corner with her two kids
Speaker 1: literally sitting in the dirt with a cow next to them,
Speaker 1: and with my western I. I looked at them and
Speaker 1: thought that must be difficult. And then she lifted her
Speaker 1: hand and she was holding an ice cream that she
Speaker 1: was sharing with her kids, and she was beaming. She
Speaker 1: was smiling, and the kids were laughing, and that for
Speaker 1: them was luxurious. They was sharing like a ice cream
Speaker 1: cone that cost a penny, and they turned it into
Speaker 1: something so magical, and they were happier than what I was,
Speaker 1: and I could see it. I looked at them, and
Speaker 1: I laid on all my privilege and they looked happier.
Speaker 1: And I'm not suggesting that. Yep, there's an inherent hardship
Speaker 1: to it, understand But in that moment, in that one
Speaker 1: exact moment, she had more happiness than I had had.
Speaker 1: Now for a slight respite, and I'll be right back
Speaker 1: with Everywhere after a word from our sponsors. Welcome once
Speaker 1: again to Everywhere. Let's hop back to it. Hello again.
Speaker 1: I'm with Emily Davis from Counterculture Coffee. If you're tired
Speaker 1: of listening to me talk about coffee, well too bad.
Speaker 1: Emily Davis is the coffee teacher we all need. Thanks
Speaker 1: for coming into studio with us today in Atlanta. Emily
Speaker 1: is pouring us a little coffee. Do tell us we
Speaker 1: are brewing up a honey processed coffee from Kenya, and
Speaker 1: the honey process is a really interesting process. So I
Speaker 1: would say probably eighty nine point nine per Some of
Speaker 1: the coffee you've had in your life has been a
Speaker 1: wash process, which is when you remove the cherry skins
Speaker 1: from the seeds coffee beans. That's a misnomer. It's actually
Speaker 1: a seed, it's not really a bean. So you remove
Speaker 1: the cherry as quickly as you can, and then you
Speaker 1: wash off all the muselage, let that dry, and that's
Speaker 1: your typical wash coffee. What we're doing with this is
Speaker 1: instead of washing all that muselage off, we're letting it
Speaker 1: stay and ferment a little bit longer, so you're gonna
Speaker 1: get some more honey characteristics and more fruit characteristics than
Speaker 1: you would in a normal wash process. This is the
Speaker 1: thing that I do when I travel. Before I go
Speaker 1: to a city, I type in the woods, pour over coffee,
Speaker 1: and then enter city. Now. But that's usually my way
Speaker 1: of finding like minded people that I would probably want
Speaker 1: to spend time with. It's like an easy way into
Speaker 1: a city. Some people do Irish pubs, right They go
Speaker 1: all over the world they find an Irish pub. This
Speaker 1: is my version of that. I find the poor of
Speaker 1: a coffee and it enters me into a world which
Speaker 1: I think could be familiar. Tell me how counterculture fits
Speaker 1: into that philosophy. Yeah, you're looking for that, because you're
Speaker 1: looking for people who are paying a little bit more attention.
Speaker 1: They're spending a little bit more time, they care a
Speaker 1: little bit more than just pushing a button and getting
Speaker 1: a product. So counterculture goes above and beyond in many ways,
Speaker 1: much to the chagrin of even our importers. Our standards
Speaker 1: are very high and meticulous about how we source our
Speaker 1: coffee and how it's processed and um the way that
Speaker 1: it scores, and the way that it brews and roasts,
Speaker 1: and putting all that attention to every little detail I
Speaker 1: think makes us a good match. We're often in cafes
Speaker 1: that are spending more time brewing their coffee than just
Speaker 1: hitting a button, just trying to service people in and out,
Speaker 1: you know, but also trying to offer them and experience
Speaker 1: that translates. It translates to the cap it really does so.
Speaker 1: In Milan. One of the interesting things that I found
Speaker 1: when I typed in the woods pour of a Coffee
Speaker 1: was a tiny little shop in the southwestern part of Milan,
Speaker 1: which is not a touristy section of the city, and
Speaker 1: it was full are sisters that broke on from one
Speaker 1: of the most famous Italian coffee families from the south
Speaker 1: of Italy and started this independent third wave coffee company
Speaker 1: where they promote the idea of better coffee. I always
Speaker 1: talk about how bad the coffee is in Italy and
Speaker 1: how I'm such an advocate for getting the Italians to
Speaker 1: do better coffee. Italians think that it's okay to pay
Speaker 1: eighty cents or one euro for a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1: In the conversation they having is if you're paying so
Speaker 1: little for coffee, how much is the thinker the farmer
Speaker 1: actually receiving. How is it possible that you're getting a
Speaker 1: quality product at a price like that. I love the
Speaker 1: culture of Italian coffee because it's communal and it's only
Speaker 1: in Europe where the sidewalk cafe chairs face outwards right.
Speaker 1: So the idea is that you're taking in people in
Speaker 1: the landscape and what's happening on the streets. So why
Speaker 1: is the coffee so bad in both Italy and France. Oh,
Speaker 1: there could be numerous reasons for that, but to speak
Speaker 1: a little bit to what you're saying about paying a
Speaker 1: dollar and asking yourself like, well, how much does the
Speaker 1: person that makes it get? You know, when you're in
Speaker 1: Italy and France, you're typically paying per a cup of coffee,
Speaker 1: which you can find that here too, but it is
Speaker 1: it's an important question to ask, and it's very near
Speaker 1: to countercultures ethos thinking about the c price, the market
Speaker 1: price for coffee, and how it's dipped below a dollar recently,
Speaker 1: and that is a very tragic thing because you know
Speaker 1: that the producers are not making a living wage. Counterculture
Speaker 1: has kind of we've been doing this for twenty five
Speaker 1: years and we've kind of set the bar for um
Speaker 1: sourcing transparently and sourcing fairly into where people are actually
Speaker 1: not you know, everybody on the supply chain is being
Speaker 1: taken care of and they are making a living wage
Speaker 1: that that is a paramount value of ours. So I
Speaker 1: think I think people love the pomp and circumstance of
Speaker 1: going to get a poor over because the roost is
Speaker 1: extending themselves to you. They are part of what you're getting.
Speaker 1: They're not just delivering a cup of coffee to you,
Speaker 1: but they're extending a service. They're engaged in what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's part of what when you're traveling,
Speaker 1: getting to slow down and watch somebody engage in what
Speaker 1: it is that they're making you. I think there's something
Speaker 1: beautiful about that. It is artistic. It's I call it
Speaker 1: my zen zone when I'm making a poor over, just
Speaker 1: getting really involved in focusing on this thing that I
Speaker 1: know I'm going to thoroughly enjoy. And you can pay,
Speaker 1: you know, four or five dollars for an incredible coffee
Speaker 1: at a cafe and get a pore over that's brewed
Speaker 1: specifically just for you. It hasn't been sitting in an
Speaker 1: urn for who god knows how long. It's brewds specifically
Speaker 1: for you. It's less than a glass of wine, and
Speaker 1: you're still having this incredible experience that you can sit
Speaker 1: down and enjoy and rest and like engage maybe with
Speaker 1: somebody or maybe just by yourself and soaking in what
Speaker 1: it is that you're there to see in whatever city
Speaker 1: that you're in. Um And it's nice that you can
Speaker 1: kind of get it anywhere. Nice YEA. So the idea
Speaker 1: of keep holy, the high and low the travel commandment
Speaker 1: is really about there's Michelin style restaurants and then there's
Speaker 1: eating on the street, and they equally amazing. Yes, let's
Speaker 1: talk about how coffee fits into both those things, how
Speaker 1: coffee is both high and low. So the origin of
Speaker 1: when you think about the origin of coffee culture is Ethiopia.
Speaker 1: Ethiopian coffee ceremonies. That's how coffee culture began. And I
Speaker 1: love talking about this specifically because in Ethiopian coffee ceremony
Speaker 1: as it was always the woman of the village who
Speaker 1: made the coffee for everyone. It was her job, it
Speaker 1: was her honor to get to do that for everyone,
Speaker 1: and it really involved taking green coffee seeds and roasting
Speaker 1: it over fire, all in one sitting, and then crushing
Speaker 1: them up with a mortar and pestil and then pouring
Speaker 1: boiling water on it, and then just pouring the cups
Speaker 1: for everyone in a gibanna out of a gibanna and
Speaker 1: rebrewing the same ground. So that sounds horrible to people
Speaker 1: who like us, who are like I want my you know,
Speaker 1: filter coffee pour over. I would prefer can egs blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. But you think about that and it's still
Speaker 1: such a beautiful experience because everything is handcrafted, everything has
Speaker 1: paid attention to by somebody who feels that it's an
Speaker 1: honor to do this for you, to host this for you.
Speaker 1: And so when you think about that being how coffee
Speaker 1: drinking began, like that's the culture of coffee. It's still
Speaker 1: to this day. People want to sit down and drink
Speaker 1: coffee together and um, however you do it, whether it's
Speaker 1: in a French press or you know, roasting it on
Speaker 1: a fire with this tiny little tusip beverage that you're
Speaker 1: considering coffee that's really strong, or espresso if you're in
Speaker 1: Italy and it's just fast, like you know, a train stop.
Speaker 1: All of those different experiences originate from that culture of
Speaker 1: like sitting down, it's an honor for me to do
Speaker 1: this for you, and it's just beautiful. It is beautiful.
Speaker 1: I love that. When I met my husband, we had
Speaker 1: our first sleepover and it was Atti's apartment in Yorkville,
Speaker 1: which he called the Nosebleed of Manhattan. And I remember
Speaker 1: waking up I'm an early riser at six or something
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and it was a Saturday morning
Speaker 1: and he was clearly going to sleep in and I
Speaker 1: didn't know his behavior morning behavior as yet. So I
Speaker 1: sneaked to his kitchen and I started opening up some
Speaker 1: cupboards and I find a giant tin of already ground
Speaker 1: coffee from the supermarket. Next to that, I found the
Speaker 1: standard Mr Coffee coffee sheen and a pack of five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand filters. And I looked at this situation and
Speaker 1: I thought, by myself, I could still run, like I
Speaker 1: still have the opportunity to get out, because I don't
Speaker 1: think I could date someone who doesn't care about coffee.
Speaker 1: So I had this moment where I stood in the
Speaker 1: kitchen and I looked at these items with such judgment
Speaker 1: and then I thought, no, Daniel, you don't want to
Speaker 1: be that judgmental person. It's not who you really are.
Speaker 1: So I sneaked downs. Now, maybe seven o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: I was trolling the streets on the Upper East Side,
Speaker 1: and I found a small coffee shop that was setting
Speaker 1: up for the day, and I bought a Harryo Japanese
Speaker 1: hand grinder, a tiny V sixty ceramic pour over, and
Speaker 1: some filters, and I bought beans. And I went back
Speaker 1: to his apartment, and when he woke up, I sent
Speaker 1: to him. So if this is gonna work, this is
Speaker 1: how you're gonna have to drink coffee. And he laughed
Speaker 1: at me, and I told him how, and he changed
Speaker 1: the way he saw coffee for the first time. So
Speaker 1: he was a good New Jersey Italian boy whose mother
Speaker 1: would go to the big box grocery store and stock
Speaker 1: him up with coffee for the month. This was his
Speaker 1: introduction to coffee. That's amazing. So I have a plane
Speaker 1: to catch, but if you'd still like to reach us,
Speaker 1: go to Everywhere Podcast on Instagram, everywhere pot on Twitter,
Speaker 1: or the website at everywhere podcast dot com. Thanks for
Speaker 1: hanging out. I'm Daniel Scheffler and I'll see you everywhere.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.