Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everyone, So in this episode of Not Lost Chat,
Speaker 1: I speak with writer and traveler Jessica to Bongo, and
Speaker 1: as you'll learn, she's been to every recognized country in
Speaker 1: the world, which is incredible. I mean, I've been to
Speaker 1: every recognized pizza shop in North Brooklyn, but foreign countries.
Speaker 1: Let's just say, I'm going to have to get to
Speaker 1: work if I want to catch up with her. But
Speaker 1: reading her book to Catch Me if you can, did
Speaker 1: get me thinking about, you know, where was the furthest
Speaker 1: that I've ever gone from home? And I started reminisce
Speaker 1: about adventures in Brazil and Japan and Estonia. And I
Speaker 1: was going to write a kind of moody intro essay
Speaker 1: to put here, you know, part tone poem, part personal reflection,
Speaker 1: some musical flourishes. But then a guy on the l
Speaker 1: train coughed in my face and I contracted RSV. So
Speaker 1: that's going to have to wait until the next episode.
Speaker 1: But don't worry, because there is lots of fun content
Speaker 1: in store for you. In this episode, they're listening to
Speaker 1: the aforementioned Jessica Nabongo will tell us about her travel adventures,
Speaker 1: including the scariest place she's ever been hint she didn't
Speaker 1: need a passport to go there. Also, the musical duo
Speaker 1: The Twins, the sisters Tegan and Sarah, come by and
Speaker 1: talk about the touring life. They've been touring since they
Speaker 1: were teenagers. Before they could drive, they used to take
Speaker 1: a greyhound between gigs, and while now they have an
Speaker 1: entire bus. They talk about that and they answer listen
Speaker 1: to travel questions. So stick around, and I promise that
Speaker 1: you'll learn at least one interesting thing. Again, this show's
Speaker 1: really blowing my mind because I feel like I'm like
Speaker 1: leaving with two like brand new thoughts in my brain.
Speaker 1: All right, two two interesting things more after sigh these
Speaker 1: advertisements welcome back to Not Lost Chat, my series of
Speaker 1: conversations with fellow travelers. I am Brendan Franz's Nunham. The
Speaker 1: idea behind this series was for me to talk to
Speaker 1: people in the travel space, because when I did the
Speaker 1: first season of the show, I wasn't really one of
Speaker 1: those people. I had had a travel column, I was
Speaker 1: a traveler. I did do some writing, but I was
Speaker 1: blinging it. And so now that I'm here, I thought,
Speaker 1: let me meet other folks who've been here, and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk to lots of writers and people who've
Speaker 1: spent their time thinking about travel. But if you're thinking
Speaker 1: about the modern world and traveling, you can't help but
Speaker 1: think of influencers, those modern sentinels on the lookout for
Speaker 1: all that is glamorous and instagrammable. And my guest today
Speaker 1: might be considered an influencer, but her writing and mission
Speaker 1: are a bit more substitutive than say, bathing suit selfies
Speaker 1: with an endangered species. Jessica Nobongo is basically a professional traveler.
Speaker 1: She is also the first black American woman to document
Speaker 1: visiting every single country in the world, and earlier this year,
Speaker 1: she published a book about her travels called The Catch
Speaker 1: Me if you Can, And that title totally fits because
Speaker 1: Jessica was kind of hard to catch. She's always on
Speaker 1: the move. But thanks to some deft sleuthing on my
Speaker 1: part and her book publicist, I was able to get
Speaker 1: some time with her while she was temporarily on the ground. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess my first question is just where are you now?
Speaker 1: And no idea where you are? I am in West
Speaker 1: Hollywood right now. I just got back in the country Thursday.
Speaker 1: Are you just constantly a little bit disoriented? Like about
Speaker 1: what the weather is, what day it is, like, what's
Speaker 1: happening in your town. I recall a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago being in a target and literally, for like maybe
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds, I could not remember what city I was
Speaker 1: in because it's like, wait, where am I It's it's
Speaker 1: the weirdest thing in the world. So I never know
Speaker 1: what day it is like that is always elusive. You've
Speaker 1: outstripped your consciousness, like you've traveled so much. You are
Speaker 1: a pure traveler, and I'm wondering, how do you describe yourself?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm someone where travel is the air that
Speaker 1: I breathe, you know, like I've been traveling internationally since
Speaker 1: I was for My family is from Uganda, so it's
Speaker 1: really something that we've always done. Every summer when I
Speaker 1: was little, we did something, whether it was camping in
Speaker 1: the US, going on an American road trip, or going
Speaker 1: to the Cayman Islands or Jamaica or back to Uganda.
Speaker 1: We did something. So, you know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: have asked me, oh, you've been to every country in
Speaker 1: the world. Are you going to stop traveling? For me,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like I have this goal, I'm going to
Speaker 1: do it and then I'm done because travel is a
Speaker 1: part of me, you know, Like now I'm set to
Speaker 1: be on the ground for like two and a half weeks,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, Okay, I have to book a flight.
Speaker 1: I have to go somewhere. You're getting itchy feet. Yeah. Well, look,
Speaker 1: one of the many things I learned in your book
Speaker 1: is that there's this culture of country counters, which is
Speaker 1: which which are almost they're rarer than astronauts or something.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little bit about this class
Speaker 1: of people. Yes, there's a group of lunatics from different
Speaker 1: countries around the world. Yeah, so the country counting community
Speaker 1: there might be more than astronauts, but as far as
Speaker 1: people who've been to every country in the world, there's
Speaker 1: less and three hundred some more people have definitely been
Speaker 1: to outer space than have been to every country in
Speaker 1: the world. I stumbled upon this group in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: I had already been to sixty countries and I was
Speaker 1: a country counter, but I didn't know there were other
Speaker 1: weirdos like me out there, people who are filling in
Speaker 1: these maps. And it's a really great community because people
Speaker 1: are supportive and share resources. Obviously, some countries are easier
Speaker 1: to navigate than others. So people often share fixers for
Speaker 1: certain countries, you know, and just give tips and advice.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think the important thing is because now,
Speaker 1: of course, a lot of people are like, well, I
Speaker 1: want to go to every country in the world. And
Speaker 1: I always tell people what is your why? You know,
Speaker 1: like do you want to just go to every country
Speaker 1: so that you can say you did it, or do
Speaker 1: you have a real mission behind it? And you know,
Speaker 1: for me, my mission I was driven by my own
Speaker 1: personal curiosity and as media around my journey picked up,
Speaker 1: like most of the people who've been to every country
Speaker 1: in the world are white men, didn't specifically like Northern Europeans,
Speaker 1: so like Germans and Danes and Norwegians. Um, I guess
Speaker 1: it's the Viking thing. I have no idea, right right
Speaker 1: exactly living different types of lifestyles. And so for me,
Speaker 1: I was the first black woman to do it. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if we're at fifty women yet who
Speaker 1: have done it. I don't think fifty women have done
Speaker 1: it yet. So it's a different experience, you know, Like
Speaker 1: dealing with immigration was not always easy. If I was
Speaker 1: using my American passport, sometimes they thought that it was fake.
Speaker 1: If I was using my Ugunan passport, they thought that
Speaker 1: I was going to overstay my visa. So I've been detained,
Speaker 1: you know, harassed by multiple immigrations around the world. But
Speaker 1: I will say, for me, one of the biggest lessons
Speaker 1: I learned is that no matter all of that, most
Speaker 1: people are good. And so for me, like the people
Speaker 1: in the country exist on a different plane than the government, right,
Speaker 1: and I don't conflate the two. So no matter what
Speaker 1: nonsense I deal with at the border, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to put that on the people of that country because
Speaker 1: I'm also like, I don't want people to associate me
Speaker 1: with either of my governments, the US or the Ugandan government,
Speaker 1: Like I like to be looked at as an independent person. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's still a graceful way to look at it. Well,
Speaker 1: you said a lot there, and I want to like
Speaker 1: unpack a little bit of it. You write in your
Speaker 1: book about how you are perceived as African instead of
Speaker 1: Black American, and I wondered if you could talk about
Speaker 1: how that affects your experience traveling versus maybe some of
Speaker 1: your friends. Yeah, for sure, you know, blackness is not
Speaker 1: a monolith. And those blue American passports, as powerful as
Speaker 1: they are, it doesn't work the same for everyone. The
Speaker 1: world is decidedly anti African. I mean, we can look
Speaker 1: at it from the refugee crisis in Europe a few
Speaker 1: years ago to how they responded to Ukrainian refugees, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's a very clear difference that we can acknowledge. And
Speaker 1: just the way that Africans are treated, not only in
Speaker 1: terms of economics and bilateral association between governments, but just
Speaker 1: in terms of television, all of the things. Right, And
Speaker 1: so for me, I recognize clearly how I'm treated as
Speaker 1: an African versus a Black American because I travel with
Speaker 1: my black American friends and so you know, they'll go
Speaker 1: through immigration and they're gone, and then I'm stuck and
Speaker 1: I'm being detained, and I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: we just came back from the same place. We both
Speaker 1: have American passports. Why am I being detained? And it's
Speaker 1: this idea that Number one, I guess Africans can't be American,
Speaker 1: which is weird because anybody can be American. That's kind
Speaker 1: of our thing. And then you know, when I'm using
Speaker 1: my Ugnan passport, is this assumption that somehow our countries
Speaker 1: are so terrible that no one with a Ugunan passport
Speaker 1: or any African passport can just go on holiday somewhere
Speaker 1: and then go back home. Right. Like, there's that idea
Speaker 1: that if they're crossing a border, they have to want
Speaker 1: to live in our countries, and it's like, actually, truth
Speaker 1: be told, there's a lot of African countries I'd rather
Speaker 1: live in than you know, the US, or a lot
Speaker 1: of European countries for sure. I mean, I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: the picture you have in your book of the sunset
Speaker 1: in Uganda right over the lake, and like that alone
Speaker 1: is would draw one back. You also write about how
Speaker 1: the scariest country you visited is America, Like quite literally,
Speaker 1: the experiences you had here were more searing, it seems. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the first time I saw a gun,
Speaker 1: I was looking at a point blank range and on
Speaker 1: the other side of it was Miami PD because they
Speaker 1: thought I was breaking into my friend's house. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can remember coming back from a work trip to
Speaker 1: Ethiopia and DC I was at dullest, got through immigration,
Speaker 1: went to customs and they asked for my passport and
Speaker 1: then asked me for another form of ID, and I'm like, what,
Speaker 1: my United States passport is not good enough to get
Speaker 1: me into the United States? You know, like that still
Speaker 1: is absolutely one of the most absurd things that happened.
Speaker 1: But I think just generally, the anxiety that I have
Speaker 1: when I'm in the US is unlike being anywhere else,
Speaker 1: whether it's landing and not knowing if I'm going to
Speaker 1: be harassed at immigration or just fear of like knowing
Speaker 1: that there's so many guns in rotation. I mean, and
Speaker 1: it's so often now we barely blink at mass shootings anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like I just can't wrap my mind around it.
Speaker 1: You know, at one point in your book, you quote
Speaker 1: Malcolm X and you quote American propaganda is designed to
Speaker 1: make us think that no matter how much hell we
Speaker 1: catch here, we're still better off in America than we'd
Speaker 1: be anywhere else. And the WII there is he's talking
Speaker 1: about black Americans. I feel like the we now as
Speaker 1: all of us though, But yes, definitely. You know a
Speaker 1: lot of people will semi messages and say which countries
Speaker 1: are safe for black people to travel to. I know
Speaker 1: where it comes from, but I hate it because there's
Speaker 1: this lack of freedom, that people feel like this idea
Speaker 1: that their blackness is such a weight that they can't
Speaker 1: travel the world freely. And so part of it, not
Speaker 1: only with the book and the imagery in the book,
Speaker 1: but just my Instagram and everything I do is showing
Speaker 1: me in all of these places. Because have I had
Speaker 1: some bad travel experiences, yeah, but very very few compared
Speaker 1: to how much I travel, Very very few negative experiences,
Speaker 1: And like, I'm unmistakably black, you know, and I go
Speaker 1: in places and I've been welcomed, and I visit rural
Speaker 1: parts of like Kyrgyzstan. I remember being in rural Kyrgyzstan
Speaker 1: and I was walking across the street to get a
Speaker 1: SIM card and cars were stopping and staring. I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I forgot I'm black, you know, because I just wasn't
Speaker 1: thinking about it, you know, And it was hilarious. But
Speaker 1: I really hope that not only for black people but
Speaker 1: also women traveling solo. I hope that people see my
Speaker 1: journey and gives them a sense of freedom, you know.
Speaker 1: And I know that has been the outcome because I
Speaker 1: get messages, emails, dms, whatever from people saying I went
Speaker 1: here because of you. I was afraid. My family told
Speaker 1: me to be afraid, but seeing me go, they went.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad that my journey has really released some
Speaker 1: fear for people. It makes me think of that. There's
Speaker 1: a Mark Twain quote which I will misquote and paraphrase,
Speaker 1: but basically how travel is the biggest and adode to prejudice, right.
Speaker 1: It's being there interacting with the people that are really
Speaker 1: just going to break through any kind of preconceptions you have. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And that's the other big thing I learned from visiting
Speaker 1: every country in the world. We're more similar than we
Speaker 1: are different. So for me, that's why I always say
Speaker 1: the world is our neighborhood. So it's about being a
Speaker 1: good neighbor. Because, first of all, borders are fiction. Borders
Speaker 1: are just geopolitical lines on a map, but they don't
Speaker 1: actually mean anything. We're all sharing this planet together, so
Speaker 1: we have to stop thinking about ourselves as Americans and
Speaker 1: Canadians or Ugundans, whatever it is, because we're all in
Speaker 1: this together, and when this planet blows up on us,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be like, oh, well, you have
Speaker 1: a strong passport, we're gonna save you. No, we're all
Speaker 1: going down. You talk about the you know, the eurocentric
Speaker 1: bucket lists that exists for various reasons, and this book
Speaker 1: is a corrective for that in many ways you want
Speaker 1: to speak to that. I love that it is a corrective, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I think for too long and still ongoing, the
Speaker 1: powers that be are still mostly white men in terms
Speaker 1: of telling us where to go, what to do. We
Speaker 1: look at Kane Nash Traveler, we look at Traveling Leisure,
Speaker 1: even my publisher, National Geographic. There's not that much diversity
Speaker 1: of those telling us this is what should be on
Speaker 1: your bucket list. A lot of the people writing haven't
Speaker 1: been to the continent. Because to me, if you go
Speaker 1: to a place like Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia,
Speaker 1: these are amazing countries where I have always felt one
Speaker 1: hundred percent safe, they have great tourism infrastructure, and in
Speaker 1: some cases they're relatively affordable to visit. So to me,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I mean, I look at the New
Speaker 1: York Times fifty two places to visit. I look at
Speaker 1: all of these lists every year and I always roll
Speaker 1: my eyes because I'm just like, Yeah, Vermont is amazing,
Speaker 1: but what about Madagascar? You know what I mean. For me,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, come on, y'all, so you know, for
Speaker 1: those listening, I'm here to help you make your twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four lists. Let me know if you need my help.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's part of why among the reasons I
Speaker 1: wanted to have you on is you know, I'm talking
Speaker 1: with travel writers and travel thinkers, and when you make
Speaker 1: that list it is embarrassing. And I was going to
Speaker 1: ask you, and maybe this is too reductive, but like,
Speaker 1: what do you you know? Like why do you travel?
Speaker 1: But when part of why I travel, I think is
Speaker 1: collecting wisdom? You know, when why am I like talking
Speaker 1: to all these people? What am I looking for? I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm looking for, but I know I
Speaker 1: am just trying to find some sort of wisdom about
Speaker 1: the world. What about you? What are you looking for? No,
Speaker 1: I think what's kept it going is I'm so curious.
Speaker 1: I am like a child, and I love asking questions.
Speaker 1: And I love visiting new places more than I like
Speaker 1: visiting old places. You know. I really novelty, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: And I think studying basically my degree was global economic
Speaker 1: and political history, So for me, it's just so interesting
Speaker 1: to go to these countries, knowing their political history, knowing
Speaker 1: their economic history. And I'm person who I feel like
Speaker 1: we all have something to teach and we all have
Speaker 1: something to learn. So if you're open, you can learn
Speaker 1: something new every day. I love that. Yeah, well, Jessica,
Speaker 1: I think that we should end it on that great point.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much for chatting with
Speaker 1: me and for putting this book together and sharing it
Speaker 1: with the world. Jessica Nobongo's book is called The Catch
Speaker 1: Me if you Can, and it is a really great
Speaker 1: place to start if you are looking to fill the
Speaker 1: blind spots in your travel itinerary. And it's not just
Speaker 1: pictures and places. It has lots of neat little information
Speaker 1: like this scary fact. In twenty eighteen, in the USA,
Speaker 1: seven hundred and sixty eight million vacation days went unused.
Speaker 1: Whoa right. So if you need some ideas about where
Speaker 1: you should go, you can check out the book or
Speaker 1: Jessica's Instagram page at Jessica Nobongo. The beauty full images
Speaker 1: on her grid will be certain to influence you. All Right, Well,
Speaker 1: after a quick break, we're going to move from traveling
Speaker 1: for pleasure to traveling for work. And I don't mean
Speaker 1: a two day convention at the Chicago Hyatt. I am
Speaker 1: talking about months and months on the road. Here you
Speaker 1: are on a bus like you're a grown adult, sleeping
Speaker 1: within inches of other adults. It's very intimate and uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and I've adapted to that by being able to like
Speaker 1: dissociate on some levels when you need to kind of
Speaker 1: ghost walk. Canadian indie pop duo Tegan Sarah stop by
Speaker 1: to talk about the touring life and to answer your
Speaker 1: travel questions. When Not Lost returns welcome back to Not
Speaker 1: Lost Chat. Hey, that almost rhymes welcome back to Not
Speaker 1: Lost Chat. It is now time for the part of
Speaker 1: the podcast where I invite someone more qualified than me
Speaker 1: to help answer your travel questions, and today I invited
Speaker 1: two people to assist me. They're kind of a package deal.
Speaker 1: Tegan and Sarah are an indie pop duo hailing from
Speaker 1: the Great Nation of Canada. And as always, if any
Speaker 1: Canadian immigration authorities happen to be listening, please slide into
Speaker 1: my DMS at b F Newnham so we can start
Speaker 1: building my new life in Montreal. Thank you anyway. Teagan
Speaker 1: and Sarah are identical twins queer icons. They are known
Speaker 1: for their catchy hooks and on stage banter. They also
Speaker 1: became best selling authors after publishing their memoir called High School,
Speaker 1: which is their story of teen angst and their search
Speaker 1: for separate identities. It is now a show on Amazon,
Speaker 1: also called High School. And these super twins all so
Speaker 1: just finished touring for their new album, cry Baby. They've
Speaker 1: been touring as a duo since they were teenagers. Back
Speaker 1: then they got from show to show via Greyhound bus.
Speaker 1: Now when they tour, they have an entire bus to themselves,
Speaker 1: well them their crew, a sort of family members and
Speaker 1: now babies. Oh and a quick note about this interview.
Speaker 1: Tegan and Sarah are twins. They do sometimes sound similar.
Speaker 1: In fact, when I conducted this interview over zoom, every
Speaker 1: once in a while I would discreetly mouse over the
Speaker 1: window so that their respective names would pop up under
Speaker 1: the images and I could remember who is who. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are so many amazing things about touring on a bus.
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that you get to sleep overnight
Speaker 1: is really nice rather than having to drive all day.
Speaker 1: That is Teagan, who plays guitar, keyboards and sings. She's
Speaker 1: also wearing a hot pink hat during our interview I
Speaker 1: can't reveal the name of the star, but we know
Speaker 1: someone who has toured with one of the largest artists
Speaker 1: in the world, and that is Sarah, who also plays guitar,
Speaker 1: keys and sings. And it's also wearing a hot pink
Speaker 1: hat during our interview. Not confusing at all. This is
Speaker 1: like private jets, like the whole thing. And he recently
Speaker 1: was describing to me a scenario in which this person
Speaker 1: how they deal with a show and sleeping and getting
Speaker 1: to the next show, like the suitcases and the family
Speaker 1: and the entourage and everything is just sounded like kyos
Speaker 1: and it's like not RESTful. And this person, you know,
Speaker 1: has like a thing over their eyes, you know, like
Speaker 1: they have all the sleep of koutrement and like trying
Speaker 1: to help them get to sleep. But I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: my god, this is like objectively one of the biggest
Speaker 1: stars in the world, And if that is how that
Speaker 1: star is getting quote unquote rest, then the rest of
Speaker 1: us are doomed. Like, don't ever think there's a level
Speaker 1: of touring that you're going to achieve as like an
Speaker 1: indie rock band where you're not going to feel kind
Speaker 1: of like deeply like cellularly exhausted. Yeah, I think it's hard.
Speaker 1: I have friends who have done pretty well in music,
Speaker 1: and at first when they would complain about touring, would
Speaker 1: you would be a little bit when you're in your
Speaker 1: twenties or third you're like, sorry about your problems, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you're up in to Australia and every cool person came
Speaker 1: out to see you and you were single. But it
Speaker 1: seems like the pain is real. It's real. I think
Speaker 1: it's like a total not to get like too dark
Speaker 1: about our wonderful great aunt Helen, who's ninety two this year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's amazing. But I I was teasing her because she
Speaker 1: doesn't really travel anywhere, and she said, I don't like
Speaker 1: to travel because you go somewhere, you eat what other
Speaker 1: people want, and then you sleep in someone else's bed,
Speaker 1: on someone else's sheets, and then you are you're stopped up.
Speaker 1: But she used some sort of old and timey word,
Speaker 1: but she means like constipated. And then you go home
Speaker 1: and you're just relieved to get back into your house,
Speaker 1: your sheets, eat the food, you like a poop again.
Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, well, great aunt Helen, you
Speaker 1: kind of just nailed the worst part of travel yeah,
Speaker 1: it's glamorous up to a point, but also to way
Speaker 1: your aunt was saying, it also makes you appreciate your
Speaker 1: home to a certain extent, Like I feel like, oh, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I like New York more after spending a year and
Speaker 1: a half traveling from Montreal to Mexico City doing things.
Speaker 1: I like my apartment more. I appreciate my friends more
Speaker 1: than I did when I was here and I was
Speaker 1: just chafing for something else. I think there's a calibration required. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh my god. I mean I used to feel completely
Speaker 1: the opposite to the way that I feel now in
Speaker 1: my twenties, and those gears were so fun, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean I had an apartment, but like did I
Speaker 1: you know, I was I'd finish a tour and I'd
Speaker 1: be like, I don't know, I'll just stay in Portland
Speaker 1: for a week and you know, I'll like take a
Speaker 1: bath and order room service, and like I kind of
Speaker 1: lived the dream of like, oh, I was single, I
Speaker 1: was having like a really fun time. But my draw
Speaker 1: to home and the sort of like nesting thing didn't
Speaker 1: really kick in for me until my mid thirties. I
Speaker 1: think that correlated with, you know the fact that I
Speaker 1: had more disposable income. I got more interested in like
Speaker 1: building a home and having nice things, and you know,
Speaker 1: I had like a weekly Bachelor watching like drunk Fest
Speaker 1: every week in LA when I lived there, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, like I just started to feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: like I really I really miss my community and I
Speaker 1: really miss the comfort of what I'm building in my environment.
Speaker 1: And now it's really hard to like this last tour,
Speaker 1: it was just hard. I have like a really nice
Speaker 1: life at home, and you know, I just had a kid,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, it's like, you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: like really settled. Did you you brought your kid with
Speaker 1: you on tour? Yeah, yeah, I did. I know, he
Speaker 1: did not get constipated. He did not get constipated on tour.
Speaker 1: Um he's almost six months, so he was just about
Speaker 1: to be five months. And uh, he did great. And
Speaker 1: my partner Stacy came out as well, and we brought
Speaker 1: my mom and she helped out. And it was profoundly destabilizing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've developed a lot of adaptations to make
Speaker 1: living on the road and touring and being nomadic work.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, the things that he can
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top about you know, here you are
Speaker 1: on a bus like you're a grown adult sleeping within
Speaker 1: inches of other adults. It's very intimate and uncomfortable. And
Speaker 1: I've adapted to that by being able to like dissociate
Speaker 1: on some levels when you need to kind of ghost
Speaker 1: walk I call it, like through some of the touring,
Speaker 1: so that you can feel comfortable and you know there's
Speaker 1: some self preservation there. Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't do
Speaker 1: that with my wife, mother, and son on tour. I
Speaker 1: felt like I had to be present twenty four hours
Speaker 1: a day, and if I wasn't present, then it just
Speaker 1: felt really uncomfortable. My pitch to my partner Stacy the
Speaker 1: whole time was I was like, we're building a story
Speaker 1: for Sid, you know, like we're gonna tell him about
Speaker 1: his first carousel ride in Utah, and we're going to
Speaker 1: tell him about his first swim in Pennsylvania, and you know,
Speaker 1: and there was a few times where she was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not a storyteller. Shut up, you know, like she
Speaker 1: was kind of like, this is exhausting. Stop trying to
Speaker 1: make it a positive thing. All right, I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: some of these travel questions. I lost the first one
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, but I'm going to try
Speaker 1: to call it back from memory. It was a very
Speaker 1: simple one, but it was essentially my colleague Emily was
Speaker 1: based on Washington, DC, and she was asking, if you're
Speaker 1: on a road trip with a partner, what if any
Speaker 1: responsibilities does the non driving partner have. I remember her
Speaker 1: signing it off. You may or may not be saving
Speaker 1: a relationship here, and I think they include like navigation, music,
Speaker 1: you know, what if any responsibilities? Yeah, I mean, speaking
Speaker 1: just specifically about the relationship I've been in for the
Speaker 1: last twelve years. There is a delicate balance when one
Speaker 1: says that the non driving person is in charge of navigation.
Speaker 1: I think that that's a trick. I don't necessarily think
Speaker 1: that you're in charge, and I also don't think you're
Speaker 1: not in charge. So I think it's a very dangerous
Speaker 1: place to be emotionally. There's tension there, like are you
Speaker 1: actually the person staring at the navigation system and saying,
Speaker 1: you know, two hundred yards and it's on your right
Speaker 1: you want to move over now? Like is it that
Speaker 1: layer or is it just more of like a you know,
Speaker 1: making sure that the volume of the music doesn't like
Speaker 1: overpower the navigation voice. You know, like, but it is
Speaker 1: important to stay on your toes. You are not in
Speaker 1: control or not not in control, you're somewhere in between.
Speaker 1: I think that's well said. You can do anything to
Speaker 1: add to that. As a lifetime passenger, my biggest piece
Speaker 1: of advice to other lifetime passengers is just to be
Speaker 1: very patient and helpful and it just just know that
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what the driver tells you. They are
Speaker 1: resentful that you're not driving. Sounds like we're both having
Speaker 1: a lot of fun in our relationships in cars. Usually
Speaker 1: I am the driver, but I think you guys both
Speaker 1: struck him on something. It's like you are relinquishing control. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so the driver ultimately has the power, which is
Speaker 1: why they shouldn't be a jerk, because if you drive recklessly,
Speaker 1: it's like whoa, whoa, whoa, Like you could kill us. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: two more questions. This is a short one comes from
Speaker 1: Sean from Saratoga Springs, and Sean asks guided tours could
Speaker 1: be cool or boomer culture. So we've been guided tours
Speaker 1: in a bunch of places. I love guided tours. If
Speaker 1: there's alcohol, yeah, probably nowhere more than New Orleans. We
Speaker 1: find a new one every time, like you know, French Quarter,
Speaker 1: Garden District, the Haunted Tour, We've done it all, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's particularly exciting when there's stops at bars. My
Speaker 1: partner and I did one in London. We did the
Speaker 1: Ripper Drack, the Ripper Tour or whatever. It was harrowing.
Speaker 1: You start at a bar and then there are multiple
Speaker 1: stops at bars, but then when they finish, like you're
Speaker 1: in a back alley and then they just are like
Speaker 1: okay bye, and the like guide person just leaves and
Speaker 1: everyone just scatters like rats. And Sophie and I were
Speaker 1: just like on this cobblestone dark lane, just heard about
Speaker 1: this horrible thing that happened and we had no idea
Speaker 1: where we were. I was like, this is awful. It's terrible,
Speaker 1: but I love it. I would do it again in
Speaker 1: a heartbeat. Love them. And oh, I want to just
Speaker 1: address the boomer thing. There were so many young people
Speaker 1: on the tour. Well, well that's why you want ones.
Speaker 1: That's why you want ones with alcohol, even if you
Speaker 1: don't drek it just it. I feel like it just
Speaker 1: attracts like a more fun demographic. Also, unless you're doing
Speaker 1: something like Graceland or something like you know you're doing
Speaker 1: like a home tour or something. Those are kind of fun.
Speaker 1: But in general, and this is just my own personal thing,
Speaker 1: I don't like guided tours because I think as a
Speaker 1: performer and just as like a kind of egotistical person,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm supposed to engage with the guide
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh God, does everyone think I'm like
Speaker 1: the hugest brown noser? And then if I don't connect
Speaker 1: with the guide, I'm like, how did that guide not
Speaker 1: see how special I am? And how how next level
Speaker 1: this experience could have been for everyone. Yes, I don't
Speaker 1: like guided tours. I don't like them. It gives you
Speaker 1: it sounds like it stresses you out. It stresses me out.
Speaker 1: It gives me a lot of anxiety. Well there you go.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that just the fact that you
Speaker 1: guys have gone on tours, I think answered Sean's question like,
Speaker 1: no shame in that game, no shame. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: this is a question from Latal in New Jersey and
Speaker 1: latal rights as fellow queer folks. I'm curious if they
Speaker 1: you guys share my version to B and B's where
Speaker 1: I feel, Oh my god, Yes, way would be. It
Speaker 1: would be too conspicuous sitting around a breakfast table with strangers. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to jump in and say, because I've stayed
Speaker 1: at a bunch of B andb's. Being on the West
Speaker 1: Coast the last twenty some years, I did a lot
Speaker 1: of travel on the Southern Gulf Islands and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of B and B's, and as a twenty
Speaker 1: something with my very queer looking girlfriend, I used to
Speaker 1: feel so uncomfortable. But there were like some of these
Speaker 1: places there's no hotels or in some cases away couldn't
Speaker 1: afford hotels, and I hated it. I felt very, very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: You can quote me on this. I don't like B
Speaker 1: and B's, I don't like Airbnb's, I don't like any
Speaker 1: I want to be in a hotel where I want
Speaker 1: to be in my house, but I would. I do
Speaker 1: think that there's something this again, this show's really blowing
Speaker 1: my mind because I feel like I'm like leaving with
Speaker 1: two like brand new thoughts in my brain. But I
Speaker 1: think that queer people and B and B's do not mix,
Speaker 1: and still even in this time in day and age,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't quite understand what it's about,
Speaker 1: except that there's a real visceral reaction for me about
Speaker 1: staying in a place that makes me feel very vulnerable
Speaker 1: and exposed. I mean more so than Tigan. I really
Speaker 1: dealt with a lot of internalized homophobia and fear when
Speaker 1: I was younger, and the few B and B experiences
Speaker 1: I had actually a lot of it was really like
Speaker 1: a lot of it hinged on my discomfort that people
Speaker 1: would know, like I'm queer, and are we like, are
Speaker 1: we staying in a house with people that that would
Speaker 1: be hostile to that? Well, what if it's different, What
Speaker 1: if it's a queer B and B? That might be worse.
Speaker 1: I mean it might be worse because then it feels
Speaker 1: like it's a theme park or something like. It's like,
Speaker 1: we have queer members of my family. My parents are
Speaker 1: much older, but some of their favorite people are these
Speaker 1: two queer B and B owners in Florida. They stay
Speaker 1: with like this couple, this married couple, and my mother
Speaker 1: loves them. I think that's the most exposure she's been
Speaker 1: with a married gay couple. Interesting is because they go
Speaker 1: there each winter and they stay with them. You know
Speaker 1: what our problem is, Brendan, I think I figured it
Speaker 1: out is that we don't even like staying with people
Speaker 1: we know, Like when we go to cities with friends
Speaker 1: who have space for us and offer us space, we
Speaker 1: always stay at hotels. And I wonder if a lifetime
Speaker 1: of being nomadic and traveling is that we just we
Speaker 1: crave space of our own. And this has probably got
Speaker 1: less to do with B and b's and maybe even queerness,
Speaker 1: although those are contributing factors to this discomfort, is that
Speaker 1: we just don't like sharing space. It's like indoor camping,
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I really genuinely enjoyed this conversation and in your in
Speaker 1: your nesting and then your touring, and I look forward
Speaker 1: to running into you all again. This was a delight,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, show your weekend, Thank you so so,
Speaker 1: and that everyone was Tegan and Sarah. You can check
Speaker 1: out their new album cry Baby and watch their show
Speaker 1: High School, which is on Amazon. Full disclosure that conversation
Speaker 1: went on for over an hour. I found them so
Speaker 1: easy to talk to. I want to become their best friend.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll become one of their fellow Canadians at some
Speaker 1: point um and if there's interest, maybe I'll share it
Speaker 1: on this feed later on in the year. So that's
Speaker 1: it for this edition of Not Lost Chat. If you
Speaker 1: have travel questions that you want answered in a future episode,
Speaker 1: you can email them to me at not Lost at
Speaker 1: Pushkin dot Fm or ping me at b F Newnham
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Please send them along. Not Lost Chat would
Speaker 1: not have been made without producer Jordan Bailey, who caught
Speaker 1: a red eye from Northern California to North Carolina to
Speaker 1: be able to set up that Teagan at Sarah interview.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jordan. This show is written and hosted by
Speaker 1: me Brendan Francis Nunham, The furthest I travel this week
Speaker 1: was the corner of Bedford Metropolitan to get a COVID test.
Speaker 1: Came back negative for COVID but positive for RSV, so
Speaker 1: you know, it all evens out. As usual, we receive
Speaker 1: top notch booking assistance from Laura Morgan. This episode was
Speaker 1: edited by the wonderful Julia Barton with assistance from our
Speaker 1: cools of Cucumber managing producer Jacob Smith and our mix
Speaker 1: engineer is the unflappable Sarah brugere Not Lost as a
Speaker 1: co production of Pushkin Industry's Topic Studio and iHeartMedia. It
Speaker 1: was developed at Topic Studios. And yes, there are some
Speaker 1: executive producers on this show, including me, Brendan Francis Newnham,
Speaker 1: Christy Kressman, Maria Suckerman, Lisa line Gang and Lata Mulad.
Speaker 1: If you dig what you here, please tell a friend,
Speaker 1: make a comment at Apple Podcasts, spread the word. It's
Speaker 1: really appreciated. And if your inboxes lonely, you can sign
Speaker 1: up for the Pushkin newsletter at Pushkin dot fm Slash
Speaker 1: Newsletter And if you'd like to find more Pushkin podcast
Speaker 1: and there are some great ones. There's Talk Easy, there's
Speaker 1: Story the Week, There's death of an artist. There's so
Speaker 1: much good stuff going on. You can listen and find
Speaker 1: them on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or you know
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcast. That's it for this episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much everybody,