Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to everywhere. I'm your host, Daniel Scheffler.
Speaker 1: Today's travel commandment thou shalt just go with it. As
Speaker 1: a travel writer, my belief is don't say no to
Speaker 1: any trip, and don't go only once, even when it
Speaker 1: comes to the open seas with thousands of people tagging
Speaker 1: along to cruise or not to cruise, That's what I
Speaker 1: like to say. I do think there's a rather robust
Speaker 1: cruise cliche here, and I know my grandmother would say
Speaker 1: the marketers have started to circle her. She resisted, but hey,
Speaker 1: if I want to be an open minded traveler and
Speaker 1: travel writer worth my salt, I cannot scoff. Even the
Speaker 1: late David Foster Wallace went on a Caribbean cruise, and
Speaker 1: he did end up writing his finest essay, a supposedly
Speaker 1: fun thing I'll never do again. Everyone's experience is different.
Speaker 1: So I did what any sane person would do and
Speaker 1: spent some trusty hours researching the different cruise lines. Some
Speaker 1: of them are themed like star Wars, perfect for Holly,
Speaker 1: or perhaps focused on a more niche audience, like gay
Speaker 1: men who love to play scrabble or women who love
Speaker 1: to knit. I wasn't exactly sure how any of these
Speaker 1: activities were enhanced by being out at sea, but I
Speaker 1: was absolutely willing to find out. I felt it the
Speaker 1: first time. The smaller the monolith of this boat, the
Speaker 1: better for me. A shopping mall of four thousand people
Speaker 1: floating the ocean seemed a stretch for a maiden voyager
Speaker 1: like me. On the cruise websites, everyone looked utterly thrilled.
Speaker 1: They had those giant, big smiles I've never had. Plus
Speaker 1: they seemed like everyone had their own individual seafood tower.
Speaker 1: Don't get me started on the many many relaxed spa faces.
Speaker 1: So I reached out to some veterans who cruised once
Speaker 1: a season to get a little bit of advice. Their
Speaker 1: advice to me is get to a cruise early. You
Speaker 1: don't want to risk missing the boat such deep insight.
Speaker 1: How useful cruise ships like aeroplanes and I guess cars
Speaker 1: and trains come with a very strict set of rules,
Speaker 1: from the don't lean over your balcony to get a
Speaker 1: better selfie because nobody, and I mean nobody we'll even
Speaker 1: notice you down in the water, to the please don't
Speaker 1: wear those jeans to dinner. Actually, it's more like I
Speaker 1: hope you packed a jacket or even a penguin tuxedo,
Speaker 1: and yes, check check, I always travel with those. No
Speaker 1: fuss if you didn't bring pants or they're required attire,
Speaker 1: because there's a handy tailor on board who can start
Speaker 1: working those hem lines for you right away. Personally, I
Speaker 1: felt I looked better in jeans and in the Palazzo
Speaker 1: pants that was now being fitted for me. But apparently
Speaker 1: I'm not making the rules. Of course, since pants take
Speaker 1: a few hours, the gene wearing meals you now have
Speaker 1: to enjoy in your own cabin or at the pool
Speaker 1: seated on a deck lounger. I personally think it's odd
Speaker 1: to have Osso buco poolside or a burrito with some
Speaker 1: pico de gaio. And as my friends Sue and I
Speaker 1: were horrified to witness in Florida, even hot tubs are
Speaker 1: perfect for eating Mexican food, especially when you can just
Speaker 1: wash your hands in the water. No problem, nothing to
Speaker 1: see here. What I haven't told you is that I
Speaker 1: jumped onto a press trip. Sometimes they call this a
Speaker 1: fam meaning a trip to make you and other travel
Speaker 1: writers familiar with place, hotel, city, cruise, ship, Oh the
Speaker 1: joys so part of being on a group trip, as
Speaker 1: I'm sure many have you've done with co workers, family members,
Speaker 1: and hopefully friends, is that you cannot do everything by yourself.
Speaker 1: You're sort of required to join people who you may
Speaker 1: or may not enjoy for various activities. Oh look, the
Speaker 1: artinery has a group mini golf session. I can't wait.
Speaker 1: So during these group trips, there's always one lovely soul
Speaker 1: who drives everybody insane. And I mean we all know
Speaker 1: this person. Maybe it's your very special aunt who treats
Speaker 1: you like a child, or maybe you're super annoying coworker
Speaker 1: who tells all those inappropriate jokes at fancy work dinners. Well,
Speaker 1: you see, press trips are no different. Meet Deborah and
Speaker 1: I've changed her name from deb in order to protect
Speaker 1: her identity. Among our little swarm of travel writers influences,
Speaker 1: Deborah was the self appointed cruise credit. She carried a
Speaker 1: clipboard to show off this authority. And I'm using air
Speaker 1: quotes here. She was exactly the picture that has just
Speaker 1: conjured up in your hand. After a few very very
Speaker 1: long hours of Deborah interrupting every single person so that
Speaker 1: she could lament just about how terrible everything is on
Speaker 1: the cruise. I started to feel that I may have
Speaker 1: to take one for the team. Day two, the captain
Speaker 1: came to greet our little posse of eager Beaver cruisers.
Speaker 1: While they were interrupted him mid sentenced to discuss her
Speaker 1: issue with a carpet right at elevator B one on
Speaker 1: floor sixteen, near to her room. She was told this
Speaker 1: carpet would be replaced. This was it for me. I
Speaker 1: was replacing her. So I want to preface this by saying,
Speaker 1: I'm really not a horrible person. This was much less
Speaker 1: about me and about an entire room of people having
Speaker 1: their time ruined by one individual. Luckily I paid attention
Speaker 1: during orientation, and due to the size of these cruise ships,
Speaker 1: if anyone shows signs of sickness, so many thousands on
Speaker 1: case hundreds of people can very quickly spread ill. Oh,
Speaker 1: how perfect. You've heard those stories of cruise ships having
Speaker 1: to offload thousands of passengers vomiting somewhere super unsexy in
Speaker 1: the Caribbean. Yeah, so this is the fate I decided
Speaker 1: Deborah deserved. I did what any generous team player would do.
Speaker 1: During lunch, I made sure to sit close enough to Debora,
Speaker 1: but not too close because I just didn't want to
Speaker 1: be there close to her. She was just wrestling with
Speaker 1: yet another shrimp. When I said, Debora, you don't look
Speaker 1: so well. Are you feeling ill? Please know that I
Speaker 1: said this loudly enough for a nearby staff member to overhear.
Speaker 1: Of course, anyone looks like after all that shrimp. But
Speaker 1: I had bigger goals in mind. She struggled to respond
Speaker 1: as her mouth was full. My timing was perfect. Oh no, Debora,
Speaker 1: you're looking a little green at the gills, darling. So okay,
Speaker 1: I had it up a little. But I was in
Speaker 1: custom beige Palazzo pants at this point, and I was
Speaker 1: merely assimilating. Within moments, a team of husmad wearing professionals
Speaker 1: unplugged Debra. She disappeared so fast, I think we forgot
Speaker 1: that she was even with us. Don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: she lived. She was perfectly fine. I didn't push her overboard.
Speaker 1: In cruise language, that would have been called an oscar.
Speaker 1: The sweet, sweet irony Betty Davis would say. Debra had
Speaker 1: also cruised many, many, many many times. She told me
Speaker 1: this herself, and she told me she was the formidable
Speaker 1: expert on cruising. Her words to me were nobody cruises
Speaker 1: like I cruise. Well, honey, you're not paying attention, and
Speaker 1: so they quarantine you to a special part of the ship.
Speaker 1: And this is where Debra went, where you can be
Speaker 1: sick without infecting absolutely everybody else. I don't suppose it's
Speaker 1: beautiful there, but I'm sure it's very RESTful. And since
Speaker 1: Debora wasn't really sick, I'm sure she spent this time
Speaker 1: contemplating her life and thinking about how miserable she made
Speaker 1: everybody else and how she could really cheer up and
Speaker 1: not be such a Debora down. But probably not. She
Speaker 1: probably made a voodoo doll of me with her own hair.
Speaker 1: The sun suddenly came out, and cruising didn't seem so bad.
Speaker 1: I loved it for about the rest of the day.
Speaker 1: After I had gambled, been to the pool a number
Speaker 1: of times, snapped twice, eating at seventeen restaurants, and toured
Speaker 1: the entire ship again. If I was a drinker like Holly,
Speaker 1: I would have had ten cocktails at this point and
Speaker 1: I probably would not have cared. But no, I was done.
Speaker 1: Oh good, we're talking in Guatemala, which means I could
Speaker 1: hop right off and just go home. Perfect. So at
Speaker 1: some point I stood with my suitcase in my palazzo pants,
Speaker 1: waving this beast of the sea goodbye, and I got
Speaker 1: into a taxi. I speak a handful of languages. Spanish
Speaker 1: happens to not be one of them. Spanglish if that counts.
Speaker 1: My driver was unsure of what I was saying when
Speaker 1: I was sharing my cruise ship stories with him, but
Speaker 1: the word airport is pretty unit jostle, so off we
Speaker 1: made for about twenty ft. At the harbor border control,
Speaker 1: I was told I didn't have a stamp. Where did
Speaker 1: you come from? They kept asking me. I kept saying,
Speaker 1: the giant cruise ship that just left you. Somehow missed that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what cruise ship. Well, the cruise ship didn't do the
Speaker 1: right paperwork, and I couldn't show where it comes from.
Speaker 1: I kept being like, Oh, let's not live in the past,
Speaker 1: let's totally look at the future blank. I was starting
Speaker 1: to sense that I had a problem here. But you know,
Speaker 1: Guatemala looked nice. It was warm. I could live here
Speaker 1: at the ducks. Why not. I didn't need so much
Speaker 1: except that I do. So I had this lovely idea
Speaker 1: for getting out of the harbor and into the country.
Speaker 1: I conspired with my driver in Spanglish for the Daniel smuggle.
Speaker 1: I do not endorse or recommend this to anyone, but
Speaker 1: sometimes desperate times call for pulling out the tire from
Speaker 1: the trunk of a taxi, clambering in and layering luggage,
Speaker 1: kid's toys, and all kinds of flotsam on top of yourself.
Speaker 1: The border authorities were none the wiser, and into Guatemala
Speaker 1: I went. My taxi driver felt like we were Fellmer
Speaker 1: and Louise at this point, and I was still in
Speaker 1: the trunk, wishing Brad Pitt was going to find me.
Speaker 1: I'd also like to add that this was the day
Speaker 1: that the volcano, aptly named Volcan de f Weego decided
Speaker 1: let's erupt. I'm not sure if there was a zomb
Speaker 1: Be situation happening, but they were definitely burning tires along
Speaker 1: the freeway as the volcano was busting out some serious
Speaker 1: smoke clouds. Needless to say, I arrived at the aircraft
Speaker 1: door as they closed it without me. So here I
Speaker 1: was stuck in Guatemala until the next flight out, which
Speaker 1: was conveniently not today. So I did what any reasonable
Speaker 1: person would do. I found the finest hotel I could
Speaker 1: possibly get my hands on. I ordered excessive amounts of
Speaker 1: room service and bubble bathed hard. I was also single
Speaker 1: at this point, and so I've learned that the easiest
Speaker 1: way to make some new friends in a new city
Speaker 1: is to go on the apps. If you gave grind,
Speaker 1: it works perfectly. If you're not, I don't know, you
Speaker 1: have to do something else. Of course, these apps come
Speaker 1: with all kinds of horror stories, so I always googled
Speaker 1: and checked some linked in page to be sure. Because
Speaker 1: some Q what a marlin gentleman who works at the
Speaker 1: National Bank as a manager and enjoys puppies in his
Speaker 1: free time, Well, he seems just fine. I had a penthouse,
Speaker 1: I had champagne on ice, and I was the freshest
Speaker 1: meat in town. So I cruised, and then I cruised.
Speaker 1: Let's take a break to hear from our sponsors, and
Speaker 1: we'll be right back with more travel from everywhere. The
Speaker 1: time has come for more of everywhere. Now where were
Speaker 1: we at this point? I'd like to invite my friend
Speaker 1: Holly to come and talk to us about her cruise.
Speaker 1: I have actually never been on a cruise. I feel
Speaker 1: I should preface this with exactly my point. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: will eventually. Part of it for me is being potentially
Speaker 1: trapped in a steel tube effectively with people I do like,
Speaker 1: and because I probably we would do like a Disney
Speaker 1: or Star Wars one, there's a whole kid thing to wrangle.
Speaker 1: I know there are adults only spaces on those cruise
Speaker 1: ships every That's what everybody always tells me. We're going.
Speaker 1: You and I are going on a Star Wars day
Speaker 1: at sea. That's fine, but you will have to protect
Speaker 1: me from sticky little people. I'm sure those kids are
Speaker 1: the best, but I'm telling you, there are kids on
Speaker 1: those cruises. You have to protect me from. Deb. I
Speaker 1: can handle deb, no problem. But I thought we should
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about how cruise lines got to
Speaker 1: be the way we see them today, because now it's
Speaker 1: a floating city. But obviously that was not always the case.
Speaker 1: I'm not going quite that far back, but you know,
Speaker 1: there was a point where there were a lot of
Speaker 1: ships going back and forth, for example, across the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: but they were carrying cargo. And then eventually it was
Speaker 1: like eighteen when one of these cargo lines got the
Speaker 1: idea of like, maybe we should make things a little
Speaker 1: nicer for the people that may have to travel on
Speaker 1: this ship. That was the black Ball Line. They operated
Speaker 1: of New York. The name was one. It was the
Speaker 1: black Ball Line, and I just grown up with me
Speaker 1: up to cruise on not to cruise. They ran a
Speaker 1: primary route between New York and Liverpool and back and forth,
Speaker 1: and they did have an eye towards their passengers, but
Speaker 1: really they were still a cargo ship. They were transporting
Speaker 1: things like livestock and mail. A lot of it was
Speaker 1: mail on all of these ships. But even though they're
Speaker 1: often cited as the one that is like, oh, they
Speaker 1: were the first ones that started thinking about comfort in
Speaker 1: terms of accommodations. It was not fancy. It was not
Speaker 1: comfort of the type that would be touted today in
Speaker 1: an ad for your your cruising experience. It was definitely
Speaker 1: like there's actually a space for you to lie down now,
Speaker 1: like fancy. And it was a few decades later when
Speaker 1: this idea of maybe offering premium accommodations began. Some ships
Speaker 1: actually started to shift their business from we're carrying cargo,
Speaker 1: or we're carrying cargo and we'll make room for some passengers,
Speaker 1: to what if we only carried people? Yeah, part of
Speaker 1: me is like, does that make it easier or more
Speaker 1: difficult than if you were carrying like a load of cows?
Speaker 1: And I don't know. Cows probably asked for less, but
Speaker 1: they come with their own complications. This also starts that
Speaker 1: shift where at that point they're not just giving you
Speaker 1: a place to lie down at night, but they're starting
Speaker 1: to think about, hey, we should have some onboard entertainment.
Speaker 1: Hey we should maybe make spaces where people could be
Speaker 1: on deck just for leisure. So that's where that all
Speaker 1: starts in the mid eighteen hundreds. And then there's this
Speaker 1: great moment we've talked a little bit about before, and
Speaker 1: it comes up on our History show a lot, this
Speaker 1: idea of traveling for the benefit of your health, which
Speaker 1: really started in the eighteen eighties. That was when the
Speaker 1: British Medical Journal extolled the virtues of sea voyages as
Speaker 1: a way to improve your health and possibly cure your ills.
Speaker 1: So nice to get the norovirus wild at right again,
Speaker 1: trapped in a thing with a bunch of people. And
Speaker 1: this is also the time though, when this idea of
Speaker 1: class based passenger segregation started to happen. You know, the
Speaker 1: immigrants went down in steerage and then down with more
Speaker 1: money could be in much prettier spaces. So that started
Speaker 1: to happen at that point as well. Isn't it ironic
Speaker 1: that now the people in the front of the plane
Speaker 1: are taking their own food because the food on the
Speaker 1: plane is so terrible. Everything is always a circle. Time
Speaker 1: is a flat circle, Daniel, it's only Earth flat too.
Speaker 1: Don't even get me started. It was they have a
Speaker 1: cruise ship. In fact, the Flat Earth Society next meeting,
Speaker 1: which is later this year, is on a cruise ship.
Speaker 1: Are they going to go to the edge? They will
Speaker 1: fall off the edge. The irony event is that the
Speaker 1: Earth has to be round an old for you to
Speaker 1: sail this boat. Yeah, perhaps they'll find the edge and
Speaker 1: kudos them um. The first ship that was actually just
Speaker 1: built as a cruise liner though, didn't happen until nineteen hundred,
Speaker 1: and that was the Princess in Victoria Luis, which was
Speaker 1: a German ship that one first had its maiden voyage
Speaker 1: starting on June nine hundred. It was part of the
Speaker 1: Hamburg Victoria line. That ship only lasted six years, though
Speaker 1: it was accidentally run aground in Jamaica, but it still
Speaker 1: was really like the beginning of this idea of just
Speaker 1: building ships with I know you hate the word, this
Speaker 1: idea of luxury travel and it being about humans being
Speaker 1: catered to completely, because even though that kind of activity
Speaker 1: was already happening, the design of the ship had not
Speaker 1: been built with that in mind, so it was all retrofitted.
Speaker 1: Of course, not too long after that was when the
Speaker 1: Titanic went down. That's its own story then, way bigger
Speaker 1: than the scope of this. Do you want to know
Speaker 1: what the next big thing that shifted the cruise line
Speaker 1: industry was? Kind so yeah, I guess since the cruise
Speaker 1: industry seems to love all things royal, right, princess cruizes
Speaker 1: royal blah blah bah, it's probably something related to the
Speaker 1: Queen for Love and Country. I'm gonna make the hand
Speaker 1: signal and go ish, not really love and country, you're
Speaker 1: onto it. It was World War One fair enough, because
Speaker 1: it kind of stopped the cruise industry for a while
Speaker 1: because all of those ships got requisition to transport troops
Speaker 1: and it wasn't safe for many people to just be
Speaker 1: cruising around on the sea. And then what really gets
Speaker 1: interesting one is that as part of the reparations that
Speaker 1: Germany had to make. They had to give the United
Speaker 1: States in Great Britain a bunch of their cruise liners.
Speaker 1: That's only right. Um. That actually led in some ways
Speaker 1: to the real boom that happened in cruising in the
Speaker 1: twenties and thirties, because suddenly the US had cruise liners.
Speaker 1: And that's really when Americans started getting on this idea
Speaker 1: of like, oh, cruising is a trip that sounds great, Yes,
Speaker 1: let's do that. I don't have to go to Florida.
Speaker 1: I can go on a boat, right, we can go
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic Ocean and won't have you romantic? Uh?
Speaker 1: No surprise that World War Two had a similar effect
Speaker 1: on on the cruising industry, where once again it was like, hey,
Speaker 1: not so much safe for you guys to be tootling around.
Speaker 1: We actually need these boats and maybe get out of
Speaker 1: the water if you're not military. So leisure cruising ceased
Speaker 1: entirely for a while, and then post World War Two,
Speaker 1: let's get back up on it. Because there had been
Speaker 1: this big boom after World War One, the same thing
Speaker 1: did not quite work after World War Two because just
Speaker 1: as that industry was starting to really get robust again,
Speaker 1: airline travel became much more accessible, and it really punched
Speaker 1: a hole in that industry because it's so much fun
Speaker 1: to rather go on a plane for three hours opposed
Speaker 1: to getting that by cruise over three weeks. I understand,
Speaker 1: I mean different people think fun is different, but particularly
Speaker 1: it really he really got a lot of interest in
Speaker 1: a lot of financial backing in the nineteen sixties, where
Speaker 1: the cruise industry was like, we have to fix this,
Speaker 1: and that is how we got the cruise city. That's
Speaker 1: where they were like, we need to make the actual
Speaker 1: travel just as important and fun and engaging and as
Speaker 1: much of the vacation as getting them to a place.
Speaker 1: I think they called that up sailing. Yes, So that's
Speaker 1: where suddenly cruise ships start to have not just lovely
Speaker 1: accommodations and a beautiful dining room and maybe a chef,
Speaker 1: but now also full casino, full shows every night, also
Speaker 1: twenty two water slides for all of the kids to
Speaker 1: be busy like. That is really how the industry got
Speaker 1: to the point where now they will have people like
Speaker 1: you come and do a tour of the ship that
Speaker 1: lasted day and a half because there's so much I'm
Speaker 1: still on my tour, so Holly at one point did
Speaker 1: we get the famed cruise direct at That kind of
Speaker 1: started also in the nineteen sixties, and then of course
Speaker 1: that entire aspect of having someone on board that could
Speaker 1: just give you your itinerary and keep you occupied. It
Speaker 1: sounds silly, but it really did get popularized because of
Speaker 1: the Love Boat, because the people who had never been
Speaker 1: on a cruise were like, wait, there is a person
Speaker 1: who will arrange your days and nights for you and
Speaker 1: make sure your fun is optimized at all times. That
Speaker 1: show really did have a significant impact on the industry
Speaker 1: and drawing more people to it because it always looked fun.
Speaker 1: Of course, everybody who's having nutty adventure, I think they
Speaker 1: were all having sex. Well probably, I mean, but it
Speaker 1: was the love Boat, not the boat. But I wonder,
Speaker 1: like the point of cruising is one I have friends
Speaker 1: that have done a number of cruises and they always
Speaker 1: joke that their personal cruise mentality is eat until you're
Speaker 1: sleepy and then sleep until you're hungry, and them it's
Speaker 1: just like a nice way to check out. They don't
Speaker 1: worry about like the rules of life. They didn't they
Speaker 1: don't worry necessarily even about doing the activities on the boat.
Speaker 1: You just want to hang out together in a way
Speaker 1: where there's no pressure and no concern about like what
Speaker 1: are we going to do next? Where do we have
Speaker 1: to be at next? That's the ultimate. We'll just walk
Speaker 1: to the restaurant. It's fine, they're ready for us. That's
Speaker 1: a big appeal for people. Right, everything is right there.
Speaker 1: You don't have to worry about logistics at all if
Speaker 1: you don't want to, unless you're wearing jeans. Unless you're
Speaker 1: wearing jeans and you have to get your palazzo pants handled.
Speaker 1: Even if the boat docks somewhere and at the port,
Speaker 1: like they're letting people off to do activities and come back,
Speaker 1: it's still structured in a way where you don't have
Speaker 1: to waste a whole lot of brain space. The thing
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about is gay cruising. Yeah, so I cruised,
Speaker 1: and I cruised, well, I cruised and then I cruised,
Speaker 1: cruise on the cruise. I didn't cruise on the cruise.
Speaker 1: They now have proper gay cruises. That's only for cruising.
Speaker 1: But I am interested in the drag queen cruises, and
Speaker 1: I think you and I should do a drag queen cruise.
Speaker 1: Both of our shows. What would be more fabulous and fun, right,
Speaker 1: and just giggling constantly in delight. So much glitter, so
Speaker 1: much glitter. It's true. How do they clean that ship
Speaker 1: from all the glitter? I think we should get someone
Speaker 1: on the line to tell us how they do that.
Speaker 1: They have to go into like a NASA grade clean
Speaker 1: room and create a vacuum and all glitter anti gravity.
Speaker 1: If they and anti gravity, all the glitter will float
Speaker 1: to the top. Maybe it gets caught in crevices, but
Speaker 1: I want of those people. It's like, I don't understand
Speaker 1: why people are so obsessed with cleaning glitter. Leave it.
Speaker 1: It's fabulous and sparkly. Yeah, but I have to go
Speaker 1: to meetings and then I'm in glitter. Great people be
Speaker 1: like that. Daniel Shuffler is so sparkly. I love it.
Speaker 1: Usually they say that about my personality, not my glitter
Speaker 1: combo burrito. You could have both in a hot tub.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, this is sanity. I'm gonna pause this
Speaker 1: right here for a moment for our sponsors to weigh in.
Speaker 1: You've been somewhere, what say we go everywhere? My next
Speaker 1: interview is with Captain Inger Klein Torhaug, the Faroese cruise
Speaker 1: captain for Conard Lines. We're on the MS Queen Elizabeth
Speaker 1: in San Francisco chatting about whether we should cruise or
Speaker 1: not cruise. Thank you so much for spending a little
Speaker 1: time with me, and welcome to my show. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. It's pleasure. There's this new wave of cruise shipping.
Speaker 1: People are more interested in it in new ways, and
Speaker 1: they're trying to get young people to get involved in
Speaker 1: cruise ships. Tell me a little bit about that. Well,
Speaker 1: I think finally it has come to people that it's
Speaker 1: a really, really nice way to travel and see a
Speaker 1: lot of the things. So you come onto the ship,
Speaker 1: you unpack ones, and you see lots of destinations. You
Speaker 1: can some of them basically with seven countries or eight
Speaker 1: countries maybe in the time you are on board, if
Speaker 1: you choose a two weeks voyage. Now for young people,
Speaker 1: I think with the development of the ships some of
Speaker 1: the ships have to offer today, it's spreading more and more,
Speaker 1: and we see younger and younger people coming because they
Speaker 1: see the opportunity in traveling to so many countries and
Speaker 1: only unpack ones. They used to be this thing in
Speaker 1: cruise ships that they called it. It was for newly
Speaker 1: wards and nearly deads. I've never heard that conspression before,
Speaker 1: but I think I think also that's the concept of it,
Speaker 1: isn't it. A many people think that that's that's what
Speaker 1: it is. The thing that I really want to talk
Speaker 1: about is you are the lines only female captain, and
Speaker 1: I think that you are in this position and successful
Speaker 1: not because you're a woman, but in spite of the
Speaker 1: fact that you're a woman, and that for me is interesting,
Speaker 1: So please indulge me. I think it's it's about a
Speaker 1: choice and life to me is not about the gender.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter. It's a choice you choose in life.
Speaker 1: What what would you like to be? What would you
Speaker 1: where would you like to go? And the choice is
Speaker 1: open for everyone. For me, it's about equality and I
Speaker 1: think that everybody has the same rights and for me,
Speaker 1: that's what I believe in. And I'm, you know, an
Speaker 1: equalist rather than anything else. Some people want you to
Speaker 1: identify as a feminist, and I think that the fact
Speaker 1: that you ident fire as an equalist is so much
Speaker 1: more important because you inspire people. Little girls in particular,
Speaker 1: or someone who identifies as a girl. A young person
Speaker 1: can look at you and think yes, there's an opportunity
Speaker 1: in anything I want to do. Look at her. I
Speaker 1: think we have a duty of care to actually do this.
Speaker 1: I think we have to the world is looking at
Speaker 1: right now and and there's so much division. An equality equalists.
Speaker 1: It's more about the equality of the world, and I
Speaker 1: think we need that more than anything else in as well,
Speaker 1: to try all to be equal rather than separating in
Speaker 1: different groups. You know, I I totally believe in equality,
Speaker 1: and I think that it's so important, and the more
Speaker 1: people who can carry that messages is it's important for me.
Speaker 1: So I'm still going to tell you about something funny.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that is always funny is
Speaker 1: when the pilots come on board and they come onto
Speaker 1: the bridge. So if you if I'm not standing right
Speaker 1: next to the door, when they come in, they all
Speaker 1: go straight to the deputy captain because it's taller than me,
Speaker 1: so they think that must be the captain. So it's
Speaker 1: the funny thing about that. I never considered that it's
Speaker 1: oh there's a woman or a female, maybe she's the captain.
Speaker 1: They'll go straight to the tall this guy, really, but
Speaker 1: you guy, I've also experienced and and I think it
Speaker 1: was in Bulgaria. I think in Sofia, one of the
Speaker 1: countries we went to, and the pilot came only he
Speaker 1: was so overwhelmed by the fact that I was there
Speaker 1: was a female captain that while as I was maneuvering
Speaker 1: coming alongside, he came over and it's like, should we
Speaker 1: take a selfie? And like the middle of and I
Speaker 1: could you just wait, pilot until I'm just put the
Speaker 1: ship alongside and then we can take a I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is, what people is, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's very often very overwhelming for people to experience. I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about the Faroe Islands.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little story about the Faroe Islands. Painted
Speaker 1: little pictures of people. I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't have an idea of what it is and what
Speaker 1: it looks like and how it is. Tell me a
Speaker 1: little something personal for me. Okay, So I grew up
Speaker 1: on the Fair Islands and it's just a very small society.
Speaker 1: So it's eighteen islands and there's only about fifty five
Speaker 1: people who lived there. It's a very modern society, but
Speaker 1: it's also in those days when I grew up, was
Speaker 1: a very free country to live in. Very open. I
Speaker 1: remember my mom always if we went out, like just
Speaker 1: come back before it gets dark. So it wasn't really
Speaker 1: like where you're going, or you can't go there, and
Speaker 1: don't go that far away and we need to see
Speaker 1: you or any of that. Just be back before it
Speaker 1: gets dark. And if we sometimes we lived outside in
Speaker 1: a small village about two people, and if we went
Speaker 1: into the main city, which is you know in those
Speaker 1: days maybe an hour to drive now it's about a
Speaker 1: half an hour, she would lock the door, but hang
Speaker 1: the key. And I wandered afterwards and I said, I
Speaker 1: said to some MoMA work wide to hang the key,
Speaker 1: and she's like, just in case somebody comes by, if
Speaker 1: somebody wanted to come in and visit, so the key
Speaker 1: was there. At least they could get into the house now.
Speaker 1: So in that sense, it was a very open um
Speaker 1: maybe clean environment to grow open. You know on Google
Speaker 1: when you when you went on Google Maps, I wanted
Speaker 1: to if you look for San Francisco, then it comes
Speaker 1: up on the map. You can go in, and you
Speaker 1: can swim in and you can see the street names
Speaker 1: all these things. Right, So on the Faroe Islands, you
Speaker 1: just got this landmass and there was nothing there, and
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of young people on the Fair Islands.
Speaker 1: So they wrote to Google and said, you know, why
Speaker 1: can't you put it on? And they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: well there's not so many search for it and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, and you know, we're developing all the time.
Speaker 1: So they then made a deal with Google that if
Speaker 1: they could get as many people you know, so so
Speaker 1: many to like them, then they would put it on.
Speaker 1: And they had this crazy idea, so they put all
Speaker 1: these webcams on the on the sheep. There are you know,
Speaker 1: twice or three times as many sheep on the Fair
Speaker 1: Islands as there are people. So all these sheeps were
Speaker 1: walking around with this web camps on so you can
Speaker 1: actually go on the into and actually follow as they
Speaker 1: walked around. And Google were so impressed by what they did.
Speaker 1: So now when you go go and go on Google
Speaker 1: Maps and the right Fair Islands, you can sum in
Speaker 1: on streets and everything. So they put it on. It's cool.
Speaker 1: What is your favorite journey you've ever done? I think,
Speaker 1: you know, people are very often asked me what's your
Speaker 1: favorite destination. I always say it's any because I think
Speaker 1: that everywhere we go it has something particular to offer
Speaker 1: or is amazing to look at, or you know, we're
Speaker 1: just on Alaska and then coming back into San Francisco
Speaker 1: this morning, it was absolutely amazing with just the twilight
Speaker 1: and just coming off and there's the bridge and you're like, yes,
Speaker 1: that's why you come here as well. This beautiful place, No,
Speaker 1: and and this is for every place. I think you
Speaker 1: just gotta open your eyes and see it. I'm with
Speaker 1: fellow podcasters and hosts of their very own show, park
Speaker 1: Landia Bradley and Matt carro Whack. I really wanted to
Speaker 1: have their dog on, but apparently she's visiting a national
Speaker 1: park and unable to come on my show today. Hi Bradley,
Speaker 1: Hi Matt, Hello, Hey Daniel. How are things. Things are
Speaker 1: going great. We are continuing our travels and really enjoying
Speaker 1: the road. So just take me through this. You sold
Speaker 1: your condo and you bought an RV and decided Chicago
Speaker 1: no more. And you now live in an RV with
Speaker 1: your dog and you travel to the national parks all
Speaker 1: over the country. Do I have that right? Yes? You do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We bought an r V before selling our loft in
Speaker 1: Chicago and kind of transition slowly into it over a
Speaker 1: few months period. We've been doing it full time for
Speaker 1: about ten months now, and we've been traveling NonStop ever since,
Speaker 1: across the country, visiting national parks and tons of places
Speaker 1: in between. I think about states in the last ten months,
Speaker 1: that's the lawn. Have you done every state? We're missing
Speaker 1: a couple, just the ones that were a little bit
Speaker 1: out of the way, you know, like Alaska a little bit,
Speaker 1: just a little? Can you take the r V to Alaska?
Speaker 1: We probably could. Honestly, it would take quite a while,
Speaker 1: but maybe one day. But you have time. You have
Speaker 1: nothing but time, right for sure. So I think what's
Speaker 1: interesting that I would love you to talk to me
Speaker 1: about a little is about the logistics and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't care about. What I care about is the feeling,
Speaker 1: like how does it feel to just have no home
Speaker 1: that's on the ground, that's just on wheels. Well, America
Speaker 1: is our home now. That's the beauty of it. Our weekends,
Speaker 1: instead of spending them at the local pool or the
Speaker 1: you know, the local state park, you know, we go
Speaker 1: to these like grandiose of ventures to Yellowstone or Carl's
Speaker 1: Bad in New Mexico, or Shannondoah, in Virginia or even
Speaker 1: down to the Ever Grades where we're kayaking with crocodiles
Speaker 1: and alligators, the one place in the world that they
Speaker 1: coexist and to have that as part of your daily
Speaker 1: or weekly life is truly a blessing and sometimes we
Speaker 1: have to pinch ourselves. Yeah, very much. It's definitely a
Speaker 1: dream come true. And it's taken a lot of time
Speaker 1: to acclimate to that or kind of get used to
Speaker 1: it because living in Chicago and having this full time
Speaker 1: home base, as great as that was and as much
Speaker 1: as we love it there and loved ar condo, this
Speaker 1: has been just so rewarding having these kind of NonStop
Speaker 1: amazing memories that we've made, and it's been really exciting.
Speaker 1: It comes with all these other struggles and emotions and whatnot,
Speaker 1: but we love doing it. But wait, what is that emotion?
Speaker 1: I think that that's crucial to this part, Like, what
Speaker 1: is the emotion that you go through you give up
Speaker 1: this this kind of life that we're supposed to. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we grew up in a society where it
Speaker 1: tells you yes, what you want to do is settled
Speaker 1: down by a house. I think there's a song that
Speaker 1: I'm about to sing you don't want me to sing.
Speaker 1: I can do Johnny Cash, but you don't want me
Speaker 1: to sing anything else. So that's the thing, right, Society
Speaker 1: tells us we need to do this in this one
Speaker 1: weird way, and then when we funk with that or
Speaker 1: we destroy that idea and we construct something else. There
Speaker 1: must be a kind of creativity that needs to be
Speaker 1: employed in order to create this world that very few
Speaker 1: people do. Yeah, totally, Like that's definitely something we're kind
Speaker 1: of adjusting to the whole aspect of getting comfortable with
Speaker 1: the travel process supposed to just like the kind of
Speaker 1: inspirations and memories that we make in the destinations, and
Speaker 1: the r V has helped with that a lot. Like
Speaker 1: I've never really been super enthusiastic about airports or air travel,
Speaker 1: even though like I would do it a ton, And
Speaker 1: my dad actually flies. He's a pilot for American Airlines,
Speaker 1: so like, I, yeah, the American tell him to look
Speaker 1: for me. I know all the pilots at this point
Speaker 1: in fact, the flight attendants come and say hello to
Speaker 1: me and asked me how how things with Michael next
Speaker 1: step the pilots. Totally, Yeah, but like it kind of
Speaker 1: in spite of that I've always been. I didn't hate it,
Speaker 1: but I guess I was someone ambivalent about it. But
Speaker 1: r V travel has been so different, and it's made
Speaker 1: the whole travel process and the in between very enriching.
Speaker 1: And making these unexpected memories along the way has made
Speaker 1: us love the travel process. And now ten months in
Speaker 1: seeing all that we've done and what we continue to
Speaker 1: do has turned any kind of challenging emotions into fun
Speaker 1: exciting ones, least for me, no, absolutely. I mean I
Speaker 1: grew up in Michigan and the farthest I went until
Speaker 1: seventeen was Ohio. I believe that was the Cedar Point,
Speaker 1: which is at the northern part of Ohio. So it's
Speaker 1: like basically still in Michigan. And then I joined the
Speaker 1: Marines and I got to go to countries like um Dubai, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore,
Speaker 1: Guam two more or less day where we got to
Speaker 1: um rebuild schoolhouses for the children there that actually had
Speaker 1: doors on them instead of them being bamboo sides. And
Speaker 1: that point in my life when I was in the Marines,
Speaker 1: I got to start experiencing other cultures and it became
Speaker 1: this like part where I wanted to just experience and
Speaker 1: explore all the different parts of the world. And recently
Speaker 1: we've been allowed to do this with both of our
Speaker 1: work life balance and our styles of travel. We've been
Speaker 1: able to take on this challenge of visiting America, and
Speaker 1: while doing that, it's not exactly going to the national
Speaker 1: park that's the most exciting for myself. Now, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, that is a super big highlight, but I
Speaker 1: mean just meeting these real people across the country and exploring,
Speaker 1: exploring their homes even I mean just seeing how they
Speaker 1: live compared to how we lived, and not exactly balancing
Speaker 1: them against each other, but finding those common grounds even
Speaker 1: though they might be more conservative or they might be
Speaker 1: more liberal than I am, and finding these beauties in
Speaker 1: all of it, and like kind of dismantling what the
Speaker 1: media is telling you about. Just finding those common grounds
Speaker 1: between people is very fulfilling for myself. That's beautiful. I
Speaker 1: love that. I mean, that's the power of travel, and
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, I kind of want to inspire
Speaker 1: people to set off and reinvent nuclear family, nuclear life.
Speaker 1: What I wish for people is that they could see
Speaker 1: travel is something that you could incorporate more into a
Speaker 1: date today that it's something that doesn't need to be feared,
Speaker 1: it's something just to be embraced with love. I mean,
Speaker 1: you guys have made a home of it, and you've
Speaker 1: made a life of it. But baby steps, baby steps
Speaker 1: like inspire people just to step out and incorporate this
Speaker 1: sort of travel mentality. I think it's exciting. Yeah. Absolutely, well,
Speaker 1: I um, I've decided, whether you like it or not,
Speaker 1: I'm coming to meet you on the road. That would
Speaker 1: be so um. Let's figure out schedules and schedules and
Speaker 1: you can show me a little bit of the RV life,
Speaker 1: because I haven't done that. I'll rent a little r
Speaker 1: V and I'll come meet you somewhere beautiful. That sounds great.
Speaker 1: That would be so much fun. Yeah, So thanks guys,
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thanks for hanging out. Connect with us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at everywhere pond, Instagram, at Everywhere podcast, or on
Speaker 1: the website at everywhere podcast dot com. Of course, I
Speaker 1: couldn't have done any of this without my executive producers
Speaker 1: Christopher Haciats and the loveliest of lovely Holly Fry. The
Speaker 1: big thank you to my lead producer and editor Chander
Speaker 1: Mays and also co editor and creator of the soundtrack
Speaker 1: Dristan McNeil. I am your host, Daniel Shaffler, and as
Speaker 1: I'd like to say, good boys go to heaven and
Speaker 1: bad boys are everywhere.