Deviating From The Norm, Shaking Up Your Routine, And Living A Life Of Adventure Through Travel with Rolf Potts - 088

In this episode, I'm joined by Rolf Potts. Rolf has reported from more than sixty countries for the likes of National Geographic Traveler, Outside, the New York Times Magazine, NPR, and the Travel Channel.

His adventures have taken him across six continents, and include adventures such as piloting a fishing boat 900 miles down the Laotian Mekong, hitchhiking across Eastern Europe, traversing Israel on foot, bicycling across Burma, driving a Land Rover across South America and traveling around the world for six weeks with no luggage or bags of any kind.

Potts is perhaps best known for promoting the ethic of independent travel, and his newest book, The Vagabond’s Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel, was published this past October of 2022. His bestselling debut book, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel has been through thirty-seven printings and translated into several languages worldwide.

This was personally one of my favorite and most surreal episodes as a host because Rolf's first book Vagabonding was one that shifted my outlook and changed my life for the better.

Inside The Episode:

• Lessons that can only be learned through international travel
• Debunking the many myths that keep most people from traveling
• How travel and adventure brings you into the present
• Tactics for traveling more with limited time and money
• How to travel long-term for less than your regular living expenses
• What living with little (or no) belongings teaches you about life
• Rolf's favorite, least favorite, and most surprising countries
• How Rolf literally circled the globe without so much as a fanny pack
• The pros and cons of technology, social media, and smartphones in travel

Connect with Rolf

• The Vagabond's Way
• Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel
• Rolf's Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Twitter

Connect With Bradley

• Bradley's Instagram

Transcript

Bradley Roth: 0:32

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Not Most People podcast. This is your host, Bradley, and this is the show for those allergic to mediocrity group think and following the status quo. And before we get into today's full-length guest episode, I have two quick reminders for you guys. If you're tuning in for the first time or if you are a repeat listener, I do this show ad free. And I will do that as long as I can, as long as you guys continue to help me grow the show. So it's just a value exchange. I put a lot of time, energy, and money into the show. And if you guys could just help me out by sharing the show, if you get value, if you learn something, if you're entertained with even just one person that you know who will get value, that would be greatly, greatly appreciated. And then if you're not subscribed, make sure you hit that subscribe button and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or a rating on Spotify that helps the show get to people who otherwise might not find it. And again, that's only if you enjoy the show. If you don't enjoy the show, don't share it. But that's my one ask. And otherwise, within not most people, we have a lot going on beyond the podcast. So if you wanna learn about that, just make sure to check the show notes, all the links and information for everything else is there. So that's it. We're gonna get it right into it. I have Roth pots on the show today. Roth, welcome to the show. Good to talk to you, Bradley. Yeah, this is one that's for me, pretty cool as a podcast host. You know, you have people who, like, when you start the podcast, you're like, man, it'd be really cool to have that person on because for me I'll, I'll get into a little bit of the background here, but Roth is the author of the book Vaga Bonding, and it's one of the seven books I did an episode several months back on the not most people reading list. So seven books that kind of really fit into the whole not most people philosophy and Vaga Bonding was one of them. So it's one of those books I recommend to everyone and We'll get into why in just a second. But I'm really excited about this one. A little bit about Roth. If you're not familiar, he's reported for more than 60 countries for the likes of National Geographic traveler outside the New York Times Magazine, sports Illustrated, N P R, the Travel Channel, and a bunch of others I had to cut out just cuz there were so many. And his adventures have taken him across six continents and he's done things like piloting a fishing boat, 900 miles down the Mekong River, hitchhiking across Eastern Europe. Tra traversing Israel on foot, biking across Burma, driving a Land Rover across South America and traveling around the world for six weeks with no luggage or bags of any kind. Which is something I actually just learned about today when I was kind of doing my research. So I, I want to get into that. But he's perhaps best known for. Promoting the ethic of Independent Travel. And his newest book, the Vagabond's Way, 366 Meditations on Wonderlust Discovery and The Art of Travel just came out this past October of 2022 and his bestselling debut book, Vagabonding and Uncommon Guide to The Art of Long-Term World Travel, has been through 37 printings and translated into several languages. And that is how I kind of, discovered your work back in, I think it was 2017. So it's funny because growing up I had like no interest in international travel. It wasn't something I was exposed to. One of my biggest regrets is, Not trying to study abroad in college. Like all my friends were doing it and I was like, why would I wanna do that? You know, this is fun here. And I look back and I'm like, man, what? Who? Like, what was I thinking? Because the world for me just changed after, I think it was 2017, I met my now wife. We started going on some trips. I finally got my passport. We went to The Bahamas, which wasn't anything really crazy. But that year, really kind of like, I caught the travel bug hard. And as I'm looking into it, like the number one book that keep kept popping up everywhere. And I had just read Tim Ferris's the Four Hour Work Week where he referenced it was Vagabonding. And I know he wrote the Forward for the book. And so I was like, all right, I gotta check it out. And here I am six years later and I got my copy right. I know the new one says more than 300,000 copies sold on the front. Right. And this one says more than a hundred thousand. So this one I dunno, maybe it's been updated and stuff since, but I have literally every page is highlighted and you're marked and that kind of stuff. And it's really interesting because, and I know I'm going on and on here, but it, it kind of like changed the paradigm for me and I think it has for a lot of people when it comes to travel. Like, I think growing up when I heard the word travel, I thought vacation. I thought like, you know, all inclusive resorts and escapism and those things I think are still a part of it. But it kind of opened my mind to like, travel can be almost a lifestyle and here's how you can grow as a person. And it almost is, it almost reads, it has lots of tips in there, but it almost reads more like a philosophy book for me. And when you were writing it, were, were you kind of like, To you? What were you writing? A guide. Just kind of sharing your philosophy and your internal thoughts

Rolf Potts: 5:47

with it? Both because to me, the most important part of the guide was, was, was the philosophical stuff. Like you, I didn't really travel much. I didn't have a passport until I was 25, which surprises a lot of people. But then everything changed so quickly once I had a passport. Once I started traveling internationally, I guess before I had a passport, I traveled the US lived in a van for six months, and that was a very important trip. Mm-hmm. But I think that when people, I, I, I think a lot of people who were sort of born into the world were travel is something that's already a privilege. Oftentimes it's about concrete tips, that's what people want. But me not really having, my parents didn't have passports. I didn't seek a passport until I was in my mid twenties. For me, the most important aspect of travel was the philosophical, existential imperative. do it and make it happen. I think oftentimes when you're young there's a lot of pressure to start your life. Air quote, start your life immediately. And I was, I was just, I I just sort of accepted the idea that travel is something you do when you're old, when you retire, that if you wanna travel for a long time, you could do it when you're old. Yep. And so I felt, when I took that first Vagabonding trip when I was 23, I felt very self-conscious, like I was breaking the rules somehow, and I was gonna spend too much money and put myself in danger. Well, that, that really wasn't the case. It was, it was safer and easier and way more joyful than I thought it would be. And I realized that it didn't have to be separate from a home life, that travel can be in conversation with the life you live at home. And so, mm-hmm. When I, I Vagabonding started out as some advice I just put up on the, on the Dial Up era internet about 25 years ago. But the advice when people were asking, when I first started writing and people were asking me how I could travel so much, my answer is we're we're philosophical ones. Basically, the idea that time is what you own, that you, it doesn't matter what you pack in your bag, obviously you wanna pack light, but at the end of the day, you have to realize that the life you have is the life in this moment, and you can't keep putting off your life your best life for a different time in life. And so I wrote this philosophical book, it, it's funny some of my editors and some early reviewers were confused that it was a philosophical book instead of a practical book. You know, it's like, well, isn't there something about keeping Ziploc bags or Yeah. You know, to, to store your pills in or something? And it's like, well, that wasn't important to me. The reason what, what enabled me to travel was this philosophical imperative to make life your best life happen now. And people responded to it. Um mm-hmm. I think that's why, you know, in 2016 the cover had a hundred thousand copies sold. Now it says 300,000 copies sold. It's, it keeps snowballing. I, I, I think because it was philosophical in nature is not pegged to thir. 20 years ago when I, when I, when it first came out, you know, the, the, the philosophy of travel has stayed the same, even as the technology and different approaches to travel have changed. And so I, I stand by that. People sometimes say, you ever get tired of talking about bagga boning? It's like, eh, not really. You know? Uh mm-hmm. Cause I, I stand by those philosophical principles. Yeah. It's,

Bradley Roth: 8:35

it's interesting because when I read it, I was already kind of like, man, I wanna travel more. But then after reading that, like the fire was officially lit, you know, it kind of, like you said, the, the tips and the tricks are great, but they're completely irrelevant if the person never actually takes the steps to go and get off the couch and book the travel and, and take the risk and that kind of thing. So, It was really a paradigm shift for me, and it actually kind of led to me, like I, I've told some people this, but I started my kind of entrepreneurial journey or starting to work for myself back in, around that same time, 20 17, 20 18. And literally the biggest reason was, you know, one, I thought maybe, you know, maybe I can make some money doing this, but two, like the main thing was I can, I can build a business that I can do remotely and that means I can travel. So that was really like, people are like, why'd you get into business? And I'm like, so I could travel? You know what I mean? And, and everyone has a different kind of perspective or reason, but yeah, it, it's interesting because there's so many people, and I have so many people on the show who are big entrepreneurs and you know, authors and speakers, and then I have like a handful of people who are like travel people. And that's something that always when I was creating not most people, right, it's the people who kind of reject the status quo. Cuz the people who do the long-term travel and make it a lifestyle, like they're kind of going against this, at least in Western culture, like in the us the societal narrative that, like we were talking about travel is for when you're retired, travel is for going and sitting on a beach and being in one spot. And so that's why I have, cuz some people might be wondering like why, you know, everything's kind of about business and success and habits and then there's travel people on the show and I said, you know, that's, that's kind of why, cause I think there's so, like most people never experienced that and so I think most people are are losing out on so much. But when you published a book, I think it was what, 2002?

Rolf Potts: 10:36

How 2003 was when it, 2003? Almost Exactly 20 years ago. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So

Bradley Roth: 10:43

when you got your passport in, At 25, which I think is arou just about the same time I did. And it's really almost like a parallel story there, kinda getting the passport and, and having this spark and interest in everything. What was your first kind of quote unquote Vaga Bondian style trip and how long did you start that before you, the book?

Rolf Potts: 11:06

Well, I wish I had some, some sort of more focused idealized vagabonding story from that. But basically I was outta money, right? I did my vagabonding trip outta the van in North America, which didn't require, even when I went to Canada on that trip, it didn't require a passport back then. And then I was outta money and, and so, I was doing some, some low level jobs in the states that I didn't really like very much, but I had some friends who were working in Korea and so I literally got my passport or where I used my passport once I got it. to on a work visa to Korea. I got a job teaching English as a foreign language, which was not always easy, but it was a life-changing experience for me because it, it, it, it was the first time that I was living in and working in another culture entirely. And I think you can intellectualize what it's like to live in another place, but it's another thing to actually be in a place like Korea, which is wired culturally wired a little bit differently. You know, Korea's it's been fun to see Korea succeed as a country so much in the 20, 25 years since I've been there because there's so many movies and TV shows and books and, you know, Korean pop culture is as strong as anything. But I didn't realize how, how different it culturally different it was in some ways, and so, I didn't really know what I was gonna do on the other end of my time in Korea. I just wanted to make some money and save some money. But then the more I talked to Koreans and other Americans and Canadians and international people who were living there, I realized that that international travel was not as hard as you might think it. Should be, and you could also do it long-term as well, that I didn't have to just have this one-off long-term van journey in North America. I do the, I could do the same thing in Asia. Mm-hmm. this is when I started getting bylines for writing. And so I saved, I was able to save a lot of money in Korea and I was able to travel for two and a half years, and it's at the very end of that two and a half year travel window that I got the book contract and I wrote Vagabonding. And so in a certain sense, I feel like, I know I have more knowledge about travel in the 20 years since I wrote that book. But my passion and excitement and, and full immersion was, was fully on fire then. And so I think there's a young. Part of my voice of Vagabonding that I, I can't even try to resemble now. You know? I was just so excited because it was so new back then. Yeah. And again, I, I have expertise now, but I, I, I'll never be able to replicate just the passion and the gratitude that I was able to live two and a half years in Asia and North Africa and Eastern Europe, just traveling having each day be new and just making my life bigger in ways that it hadn't occurred to me were possible before I left on that trip. Yeah.

Bradley Roth: 13:40

So two and a half years and you didn't stop home at all during that? That was two and a half years straight or what? Was there kind of mini breaks in there? There was I took a

Rolf Potts: 13:48

mini break. There was one year, the year 2001. I didn't go to North America at all. But when was it? It was 99. I got, I got drugged and robbed. I don't wanna dis to make people nervous that this is gonna happen to them, but it, it, it happens. I, I got, I got robbed in, in Istanbul, Turkey and it just made sense to go home and regroup for a while. I think I went home for four weeks, five weeks, six weeks, something like that. And then I went back out on the road. I flew, you know, all the way back to Turkey and re and resumed my trip there. So yeah, I did, I did go home a few times, but for the most part I was in full vagabonding mode. I was living on very little money each day. I was moving from place to place pretty rapidly. And actually I used rapidly, I'm a big fan of slow travel, so I mean, I was in Egypt for, for several months. I was in Israel and Syria and India for several months at a time. But I was usually on the move and, and just sort of getting into adventures. It was fun to, to sort of give myself permission. To instead of having a day be framed by habits have your day be framed by possibility. That's a great thing that can happen when you travel, is that you can't even imagine what will happen once you start traveling because you aren't that person yet. You know that every day you travel, you become more experienced, you become better at doing it, and your instincts become better. And it was a blast. You know, I, I, I'll never be able to redo that trip again. It was the trip that I just finished when I wrote Vagabonding. It was, again, I go back to gratitude. I was so grateful that I was able to give myself permission to do that. And that's something I hear I've been hearing for 20 years now from readers, is that they gave themselves permission with a little help from Vaga bonding in my book. And they were just grateful that they were able to do it because they didn't think they had permission to do that. They didn't think they were able to do it. And yeah, it's easier than you think it might

Bradley Roth: 15:33

be. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely wanna get into that, that last point, but, so you flew back to Turkey right after you had gotten robbed there?

Rolf Potts: 15:41

Yeah, actually I was, I was dating dating an Italian woman at the time, so I flew to Turkey and then I flew to Italy and hung out with her for the holidays and we traveled a little little while, and then she stayed in Italy and I went on to Egypt for a while. So it's all mixed up. There's, oh, once I took a freighter ship, yeah, there's a couple times I went home. I took a freighter ship from Suez to Bombay, and then I flew home to the States for a while. Then I came back, but I had a magazine assignment in Laos. And so like, I flew three quarters of the way around the world. I should have flown over the Pacific, but I flew over the Atlantic in Europe and half of Asia to do my magazine Yeah, so I, it it, it wasn't always a, a, a rational straight line, but man, as a life experience, it was amazing. I'm sure.

Bradley Roth: 16:22

So people are hearing, and I think they can kind of have an idea of when they hear the word vagabond. Most people are semi-familiar with it, but like, what is your. Kind of simple definition of

Rolf Potts: 16:31

vagabonding. It's taking time off from your normal life to travel in earnest for an extended period of time. It's something that goes beyond the standard five day to two week vacation that you're given. And it's creating a time in your life to travel. It's realizing that your truest form of wealth is the time you own and not the things you own. And using that time in a way that enriches your life in this case in a way that's travel. And it's also about an attitude. It's about sort of an openness to the world and, and being willing to improvise and, and let your heart grow and let your spirit grow. And then to take that attitude back home with you to make your travels, be in conversation with the life you live at home. And then just have a more philosophically and spiritually grounded life thanks to the lessons you learned while you were traveling. Hmm.

Bradley Roth: 17:16

Yeah. So I'm sure a lot of people listen. Like, I know most, most people wanna travel more. There's some people who are just like home bodies and they have no interest in it. And it's very hard for me to understand them in the sense. But for all the people listening, they're like, wow, two and a half years I could never do that. My life wouldn't allow it. Do you have some kind of, I'm sure you do, like words of wisdom or tips or, you know, how can people make that, you know, it doesn't have to be two and a half years, but more than like a week in the Caribbean, you know, or something like that. And it, and it's true. I've noticed this. We just, me and my wife did our first kind of like, we'd been to Mexico and the Caribbean and stuff, but our first big trip to Europe back in the fall for about two months. And like you said, the US is kind of geographically isolated in a, in a lot of ways. Right. Whereas you go to Europe and like most Europeans, most Australians, most people that you meet, over there, like are so much more traveled than the average American. And so it's almost like a cultural thing in a sense where, you know, for an American to travel, it's gotta be expensive. You gotta take time off of work that you don't have and all these things. So what would you say to those people who are like, all right, like, I kind of wanna do that, but I dunno how to make it possible. Where would I start? Well

Rolf Potts: 18:38

first give yourself permission and, and decide that it's gonna happen. And this doesn't mean you have to pack your bags and leave next week, but. Yeah. I think in two years I can have enough money to save, to travel, save to travel the world for six months. And then once that becomes a, a concrete goal on your, on your horizon, maybe one that you've told your friends about and now you're accountable to it. Mm-hmm. once you have that goal, it start, it makes everything more exciting. You know, even a bad day at work is, it is a bad day at work where you're saving a few hundred dollars more for your journey. And then just like travel can be in conversation when you come back home, before you leave home, your, your travels can be in conv, your future travels can be in conversation with your everyday life. And then what happens? You start researching travel. You know, through your computer screen these days or through your phone and you just realize that you don't just have to buy the expensive hotel on the expensive beach, that there are other people traveling in really dynamic ways. There's people traveling in the local economy. In a place like the Middle East or Southeast Asia and the local economy, the dollar is a lot stronger than it would be back home. Mm-hmm. and suddenly, yeah, you don't have to stay at the$150. Thailand has hotels for$15 and they're kind of great, and there's more Thai people there, there's more cool backpackers there. And then suddenly at the beginning of this process, when you gave yourself permission, what you assumed was the price point for a, for a six month journey. Using that as an example, suddenly is a lot lower than you realized. And you realized that there are a lot of people out in the world doing it, sharing their experiences, sharing their tips, and you just become a more confident person. And I try to discourage people from, from micromanaging their travel before they leave home. I think it can be exciting sometimes to plan each day of your travel, but keep in mind that you can learn a lot by studying your travels. You can learn about S safety and saving money and things like that, but then after one week on the road, you'll be so much smarter because you'll be doing it, you know? So while you plan your travels, also give yourself permission to deviate from your plans and be spontaneous because it's through those that you. You can sort of follow your love. You can fall in love with a place or a person or an activity, and then pretty soon you're studying Mui Thai in Thailand or you're, you know, learning how to scuba dive in Costa Rica. And that is something new that's affecting how your experience goes. I've met people who, their idea was to, to travel to 20 countries in six months, and after the second country, they liked it so much, they decided to spend the whole six months in, in that country, and it changed their life in a way that mm-hmm. racing through 20 countries wouldn't. So yeah, it's giving yourself permission to go, it's planning carefully, and then letting go of those plans when you find something you love once you're on the road. Yeah, it

Bradley Roth: 21:15

is. I, I directly experienced that because when we went to Europe, we were there nine, no, seven weeks, so like 50 days. And we ended up doing eight countries, smaller countries, or nine if you include Vatican City. But basically we were moving every like. You know, three days and we, we'd found a spot that we'd liked and we're like, man, like, I wish we could just stay here for a month. You know? So it, it does happen like that. I think people, and then also our itinerary shifted and changed as we learned things about different places while we were over there that we, you know, probably wouldn't have learned planning ahead over in the us. And so I think, yeah, the idea of slow travel is something that's really, really interesting. Or you know, not waiting till retirement to go live somewhere for a few months. Especially, I feel like the last two years has made that more possible than ever, right? Like things are opening back up, travel's opening back up, and now more people are working remotely than ever before. And so I think you're starting to see it in some places, but I think it's now more possible than ever. Whereas, you know, when you wrote Vaga Bonding, Hardly anyone was working on the internet. You know, there were a few bloggers here and there and, and that sort of thing, or, but now it's, it's accessible to I feel like the vast majority of people compared to then. Do you feel like that's part of, that coincides with the surge of interest in it? Like in the book growing? Do you think it's more accessible and that's a big part of it? I

Rolf Potts: 22:44

think so. I think technology shifted and I think the philosophical ideas I outlined in Vagabonding found a new audience that was a good audience because you mentioned Tim Ferris, he really champions Vagabonding in the Four Hour Workweek, which is his best selling first book, right? I think the fact that people who go to the business section of the bookstore were suddenly going to the travel section to find my book, they were able to implement. Travel ideas that go beyond just sort of dropping out and being a hippie for a, for a few months and just thinking, well, this is something as technologies allow us to be independent of the home office. We can take a lot of these technologies with us. And so I, I think Va Gani has, has influenced this remote world that has really bloomed up around the world in the 20 years since the book came out. But it's also individuals using technology, being creative, finding ways to make it happen, and finding ways to, instead of being stuck in traffic in the greater Dallas area or wherever they live, they are. You know, surfing during that one hour mm-hmm. they'd be stuck in traffic coming back on the beach in Costa Rica and then doing the work that they would be doing in Dallas anyway. And so it's not like I, it's not like I had a vision of that when I wrote Vagabond. It's just this philosophical book about living your best life and giving yourself permission to do that. But it's been really fun to see how people have used technologies in really amazing ways to not just earn a living overseas while moving around, but like make a lot of money overseas and, and give back to their own communities in ways that they might not be able to if they were this stressed out person stuck in traffic every day. Right.

Bradley Roth: 24:17

And you can even live at a much higher standard, right? Like, The cost of living in somewhere like a Thailand or Indonesia is a small fraction of what it is in the us. And so, you know, it can be, travel, can save you money in a sense, if you look at it that way. Right?

Rolf Potts: 24:33

Yeah, yeah. No, I was a, I was a, when I was in Thailand and Southeast Asia, I was pretty much a dirt bag. I was going as cheap as I could, But you can, you can live a first class life with a third class salary in a, in a place like Thailand. That, that that's one thing that that, that you can do. You don't have to be a dirt bag and stretch a little bit of money into a long amount of time. You can take a modest, what would be a modest income in the United States, and you can live a really comfortable sophisticated, you know, urban or beach lifestyle in a place like Thailand. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I think there's, there's so many ways to embrace this and so many ways to take advantage of places that, that have a little bit cheaper standards of living and then in, in the US and, you know, different philosophies of, of being in the world. And it's fun to be in dialogue with those places. It's fun to give back to those economies and, and learn from those cultures even as you are enjoying the material rewards of living in a cheaper place. For sure.

Bradley Roth: 25:29

Yeah. So to piggyback on kind of this new ability to work remotely, do you think that the rise of YouTube and travel v logging and Instagram and all that has been an overall positive for kind of the travel world or negative, or a little bit of both?

Rolf Potts: 25:46

I think a lot of both actually. Yeah. it's been, it's been a lot positive and a lot negative because one big impediment when I was a young 17 year old, or 23 year old, or even a 26 year old, I didn't really know how to do it myself. There weren't that many examples. I could go to the library and maybe write a book that was written by a guy twice my age. You know, 20 years before it was hard to really get a pulse for what was going on. Well, these days, you know, all sorts of blogs, Instagram, YouTube videos tell the story of how people are traveling. And so it's easier than ever going back to the P word permission. It's easier than ever to give yourself permission. It's, it's less, there's less of a mystique. It seems less difficult to go off and travel for the long term. One problem with these technologies is that, so many times. We're on the other side of the world. We're in this amazing place and we're staring at the same screen. We stared at back home, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. We're texting with the same people. We're trying to impress the same pool of people we barely know with our social media feeds, and that, that literally takes away from your experience of these other places. I think we perform our lives at at home, and then suddenly we're performing. A super cool version of the travels we could be taking, but really aren't because we're performing them for our phone all the time. Yeah. And so that's, that's the other side of the coin, that that technologies can enable travel. You know, these days your phone can be your map, your guidebook, your camera, your translator, all these things. That's a great tool. But again, if you're staring at your phone 75% of each day, then maybe that uncertainty and surprise is something that you should allow yourself to have. And that's a tough thing. That's something I touched on quite a bit in my new book, the Vagabond's Way, where I gently try to talk to people, especially younger generations of people who maybe are not, who are digital natives, who never didn't know things like social media, just saying, look, it's okay. You have permission to leave your Instagram. Fallow for a week. You have permission to not text your mom for three days. Just say, mom, look. I'm going into the jungle. I, I swear I'll buy you a souvenir and text you when I get back. Don't worry about me. Because when I first started, you know, it wasn't that weird to not communicate with your family for a couple months if you were off, off the beaten track. Whereas now you just text everybody so much that people get freaked out. In fact, in the new book, there's this story about this woman named Lydia Sullivan, who she went missing in Fiji and her family was worried about her, and they combined, she's from the uk. They, they combined British and Fiji and Task force to find her. Well, she wasn't lost. She just went to a resort with bad internet, right? So after five days, they thought she was maybe dead, when in fact she was having the time of her life. She just wasn't able to, to send text messages or emails and so, mm-hmm. I think. This new technological lens through which we see the world is, is not really that normal. For thousands of years, humans have have been able to adapt and really use their own resources, use the Five Senses rather than smartphone apps to navigate the world. And if you don't allow yourself to navigate a given day or a week in a place like Europe or Asia, using your smell and your sight and your sounds, you know, like walk down the street and tell you, hear the, the cool sounds of a, of a concert or the smells of some pastry or some curry that you've never had before, that's more exciting and more life affecting than getting on Yelp or looking at some sort of you know, e event listing online. And so I don't want to be too broadly condemning of these technologies because they're useful mm-hmm. but I think that is, your travels are gonna touch your heart and affect your life. More fully if you allow yourself to be free of what I call the digital umbilical cord. Put your phone, actually, when I was in Paris last year, I teach a class in Paris every summer. My wife and I decided that we weren't gonna buy data plants for our phones. And so we, we did some research about places. We wanted to see restaurants, we wanted to eat routes, we wanted to walk, and then we just took a paper map. We put little pencil dots on a paper map, and if we got lost, we asked directions or we used the logic of the map. And it was so rewarding because it was, it was freeing. We weren't looking at our phone every 10 seconds. We were just looking around. We were engaged in our environments. And often for all of those pencil dots on our maps, we found a dozen things that was as awesome as anything we'd planned to see, simply because we allowed ourselves to interact with our environment instead of interacting with our phone all the time. Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's easier said than done, but it's really rewarding when you could do it.

Bradley Roth: 30:11

Yeah, I can totally relate to that cuz we, again, we went to Europe and you know, we had data on our phones, but it was a very limited amount and so it would run out like a weekend. And so then we'd have to go from like, you know, having step-by-step directions everywhere to kind of figuring it out a little bit more. And, you know, I, I think that's a super valuable experience because yeah, like you said, for thousands of years people got around without their phones. They contacted people not every five minutes. They were more present. And so I remember partway through, so we, we started in Italy, we went there for a wedding, kind of worked our way south to North Italy, and then went through the Balkans and Italy. We hit kind of, you know, all the classic touristy things. Rome and Venice and Florence and, and all the main sites and attractions. But after that I was like, okay, we're going to Eastern Europe where it's not, not quite like that, you know, there's still some touristy stuff, but it was it was kind of like the perfect progression. because for someone who I've been, you know, I always joke that I was like the biggest travel expert who's never really traveled ever anywhere. Like, you know, I could consume tons of books and Hmm, and all that stuff. And we went over there and, you know, Italy is very, I guess somewhat Americanized and easy to get around and that kind of stuff. And then as the trip went on, we had kind of got into like more and more of the off the beaten path stuff. And so it was this really cool progression. And there was like, later on in the trip, I remember we missed we went to the wrong train station and Sarah gave O Bosnia and then we, like, we found out right before the or sorry, bus station, and they're like, oh, you're at the wrong one. Then we tried to like, you know, get a taxi to the next one and we missed that bus. And then we had, we couldn't translate to like buy the next ticket for the ne and it was just this whole like, you know, fiasco. And I remember I was like, you know what, like a month ago we would not have handled this so well. So it was really interesting to see. Kind of like your ability to problem solve your patience and stuff, how it evolves just over such a short period of time like that. So I think there's, there's so much to it from the personal side of the growth side that you miss out if you don't do something like that. But going back to what you said about the phones, I recorded a whole lot on my phone, but about like two weeks in, I said, you know what? I'm not gonna worry about trying to post anything and whatever until like after the trip because that's just gonna take away. And we weren't doing slow travel, unfortunately. We were, we were three days here, three days there, packing up, leaving, moving. And so I was like, that's valuable, valuable time that I don't wanna be spending on my phone. So I think the biggest advantage of smartphones and everything is the ability to record. and stuff because you, you forget so many little details. I'm sure you've experienced this too, where you come back and, or you, you go through old pictures or old videos and you're like, man, I forgot about that, that thing that happened or that conversation, or these people we've met and that sort of thing. So I think it's a huge plus from that perspective, but it is sad. I see people who go on a trip and yeah, they're on their phone their whole time finding the perfect filter for Instagram to make it look as cool as possible. And it's like, well, you're, you're missing the point. But yeah, I, I dunno, I, I have a whole lot of thoughts on, I could keep going on and on, but I want to I want to get into your new book a little bit. We've talked about Vaga bonding, and this is the Vaga Bond's way, so I'm sure it's, you know, there's, there's a lot of overlap in the ideas and that sort of thing, but it's 366, so is it kind of meant to be consumed as almost just a daily bite size? Journal.

Rolf Potts: 33:52

Yeah, it's like a page, a day devotional book. And I don't require No, but people don't, people can read it all at once if they want, but the idea is that each page packs quite a bit of punch. There's a quote and then a reflection on that quote. And then it sort of invites the reader to think about different aspects of travel over the course of a year from inspiration and planning early on to the early days on the road all the way to the end of the year when it's about coming home. And so, thematically, there's a, a lot of overlap with Vagabonding, like you say, but it goes deeper into a lot of specific issues. For example, when you're talking about missing, going to the wrong bus station it reminded me of a story I told in the vagabonds way that when, when my wife was in her twenties, she met her parent parents in Italy and her dad saw 1530 on the, on the airplane. Information and assumed like an American, it was five 30, not three 30, and they missed their plane. And so instead of just staying in an airport hotel and waiting for the next plane, he said, let's just go to the Alps. And so they extended their, their vacation. They had this amazing trip in Theta Valley, which they'd never heard about before. It was mis shrouded. And the fact that it happened by accident made it the most memorable part of that trip. So one of, one of my little mini chapters in the Vagabonds Way talks about what you were just talking about in the context of Bosnia, of making mistakes serve you instead of frustrate you. Like seeing mistakes as an invitation to do something awesome. And yeah, tip of my cap to my father-in-law or I guess he was my future father-in-law at the time, that instead of getting frustrated or feeling self-conscious, it's like this is an invitation to do something awesome. Mm-hmm. let's just drive until we see mountains and do. And see what we see. And to this day, I've never been to the Osta Valley in northern Italy, but I want to go now because my father-in-law made a mistake, you know, 30 years ago. Yeah.

Bradley Roth: 35:41

I feel like those are the coolest places that people end up at, or that they go to kind of almost by chance or by accident versus like, when you hear that there's more of almost a mystique or a mystery to that place than the well-traveled touristy places. Right.

Rolf Potts: 35:56

So I, I think sometimes those bucket list places, they're, they're amazing, but they're full of long lines of tourists. Mm-hmm. basically people just like you. Like, yeah. If everybody has the Taj Mahal and their bucket list, then that means there's gonna be a lot of people with bucket lists at the Taj Mahal, and that's fine, but it's not as exciting as having a place to yourself or discovering a place by accident. When I, another thing I talk about in the Vagabonds way is, When I was in Sri Lanka, I went to this place called Seria. I didn't even know what it was. It's this old thousand year old city on the top of a, a cliff, basically. And I was just so amazed. It just blew me away that this thing existed. I had no idea it was, it wasn't on my bucket list. Cause I hadn't done enough research to know it was in central Sri Lanka. And so it was so exciting. It was such a gift to climb up and just sort of see how a thousand years ago people made these ingenious irrigation pools so they could live on top of a butte, basically in this very well protected area. And that was fun. That was as fun as, as Stu as going to the Egypt in, in, in the, going to the pyramids in Egypt, which is a great place to go. But because I didn't know about this place in Sri Lanka, and I'm sure every country has like 20 of these locations, if you just allow yourself to get lost a little bit, it was so fun to learn in real time about this place I'd never heard about before.

Bradley Roth: 37:11

Yeah, I can I could definitely relate with that. And then, One thing that I meant to ask about earlier was your no baggage challenge. So like for that we're talking about, you know, being prepared and that kind of stuff you had. So I believe the rules were kind of, you couldn't carry a bag with you at any point in the trip, right? So it was what you were wearing and what could fit in your pockets, essentially.

Rolf Potts: 37:35

Exactly. Yeah. I, yeah, I, I recorded it. So my cameraman had, you know, a bag, actually, he traveled very light too. But I wasn't allowed to put my stuff in his bag, you know, that I, that I, I couldn't, I couldn't cheat that way. And it was weird because when we first started making those videos, I thought that one of the conflicts in the videos would be the challenge of traveling with no luggage. But after about a week, I got used to it. I got used to. One thing that people would say to me when I first left, it's like, you, you're gonna stink And Yeah. Actually it is like, no, it's, I'm not gonna go around the world with not bathing. I'm gonna go around the world with, with no luggage. Right. And so, right. What happened is, is that I, I showered like twice a day. I, I was, I always had two sets of clothes. I always washed one and wore one, you know? Mm-hmm. And so, and, and actually I hung out with the same dirt bag backpackers that I usually did sometimes, and I would look at them and it's like they have a giant backpack that's full of dirty clothes. Whereas I have, I have one pocket full of my spare clothes that I washed yesterday. And it, it was exciting to, it was exciting to realize that I didn't really need all this stuff. And I'm not saying that I've become a no baggage traveler full-time ever since I still take small bags. Mm-hmm. But it made me realize that the joy of travel isn't about all these secret. Things that you take with you, but it's about what can happen that goes beyond what's in your bag. You know, it's about travel, is about experiences, it's not about things. And you can have a, a great pair of wicking socks or a, a smartphone that takes images and 3D or whatever, but at the end of the day, it's gonna be those smells and sounds and sights and, and just sort of putting yourself into an experience, be it freezing cold, watching the Northern Lights in Norway, or, or sweating your brow and Sumatra while, while you're hiking through a jungle, meeting people who still live in sort of a ch stone age adjacent way. And past that, it's all extra baggage. So I, I, I really love that trip. I was always a pretty light traveler, but that trip made me realize that you really don't need much of anything. It was sort of a stunt to see if I could do it, but what I realized is that I think most of what we all bring is stuff that we don't, stuff we don't really need. It makes us feel better, but we don't really use it that much. Yeah.

Bradley Roth: 39:40

Was was that challenge your idea or did someone kind of. Proposed that to you?

Rolf Potts: 39:44

It was my idea. I had a, my sponsor was a company that makes a po close with a lot of pockets. And, and, and so I thought, I've always sort of wanted to do this, and now here's a pretext to do it. And it's like, what if we do this with, with your, with your vest, with all the pockets? And that's sort of how the snowball got rolling. It's like a, it's funny, again, it goes back to permission. I think I might have figured out how to do that independently, just cause I liked the idea, but then suddenly when I had a potential sponsor, it's like, well, wait a second. No, let's try this. Let's, let's, let's make this happen. And so it became a lot of fun. It became, it was much more public than I would've done otherwise, you know? Yeah. But it was, it was cool. People were following me along on YouTube and, and and uh, this was pretty early in the cycle of, of social media. It was 13 years ago, but. It was just fun. And I think when you write about these sort of things, they seem like stunts. They seem like sort of self-aggrandizing stunts. But I think sometimes it's fun to give yourself a stunt, see what you can do. Can I learn three different martial arts? Can I learn to cook 10 different ki types of food? Mm-hmm. can I learn how to build a house in the traditional way that they use in Bali? Right. Those are stunts. But gosh, you learn so much. Even it doesn't have to do exactly what the stunt you're trying to achieve. And so for me, the no baggage trip was just, it was just a blast. At the end of the day. It wasn't really about no baggage. It was about the fun that I had along the way.

Bradley Roth: 41:02

Yeah. And so that started and ended I think, in New York. Right. And it took about six weeks. Did you have that one pretty planned out considering like you were only, you were very limited in what you could bring. And did you have I think it was what, 2010, 11 around there? So iPhones had kind of just come out. Did you have a smartphone or what? What were you, was that a flow trip?

Rolf Potts: 41:26

I had an iPod, like iPod, a touch iPod. It was sort of the last era in which that was a thing. I had friends who had, who had smartphones that were basically a much mo more bulked up version of what I had. It was an iPod, but it was nice because it made me less dependent upon that. As I traveled and I did, I did do a lot more advanced planning because I had to get an around the world ticket. One of my sponsors was Air Treks, who does these great round the world tickets, and there really wasn't a lot of wiggle room because they needed to be able to get me in and out of places. So yeah, it wasn't as freewheeling. in principle as you think, because I knew pretty much where I was gonna be in a given place. But surprisingly, one great thing is that when you don't have to stash a bag any place, when you can just jump off the train and immediately start walking across the city. Mm-hmm. I was able to be as spontaneous in ways I never could be when I spent an hour trying to figure out where to stash my bag or lock it up in my hotel room or whatever. Yeah, so it, it was good fun. It was like, I'm not sure if I would want to do a bunch of six weeks, no luggage trips, with a lot of, like making three videos a week. Yeah, it was great to have done. I, I, I sort of prefer to travel in a more quiet way, but Yeah. How fun was that? It was it was a cool thing and it was sort of meant as, as a sort of a lesson about how you can be a minimalist as a traveler. Mm-hmm. but the lesson was, was for me as much as for my audience, you know, that I just really realized that it was, it wasn't that hard to travel with, no, with no luggage. So it's, it's a fun memory. Yeah. Yeah. I can relate

Bradley Roth: 42:53

to that that lesson. I mean, w when we were going across Europe, we didn't do no backs. you know, like I had a, we packed it, I had a 75 liter, big, big pack that was pretty much full the whole time. And like you said, finding a place to store it and that kind of stuff is definitely a challenge at times. But you learn so quickly how little you really need. Like, everything in this backpack, which I probably, I didn't even, there are a couple things I didn't even wear in it, you know, that always kind of happens. Mm-hmm. but, but we had all this stuff back home and within a week I had like, I was like, man, I do, do we even need anything else really? Like, I forgot you don't, you forget about all of your stuff. You know what I mean? So, I think that's, that's a great lesson, especially in, again, western culture. We just kind of this consumption mentality, things over experiences and that sort of thing. So, definitely, definitely can understand that. And man, I just feel like there's a bunch of quotes that I have from your book that we could get into, but I know we, we could easily make this two hours, but we won't today. I appreciate your time, but I like to do kind of some rapid fire travel questions, if you don't mind. So, sure. How many, how many countries have you been to total?

Rolf Potts: 44:11

I try not to count, to be quite honest. I've probably been to about, I'm probably closing in a hundred. I'm not at a hundred, but I'm closing in. The reason I don't count is that, like what, what's a country, you know, you said you sort, you've been to the Vatican country. Does that count like going to Russia? Have you been to Russia? If you go on a booze cruise from Finland and spend an afternoon in Russia versus if you, you know, tour a cathedral in the Vatican. So I try not to depend on counting, but having counted counting every once in a while. I think I'm in the eighties or nineties by now. Wow.

Bradley Roth: 44:42

Okay. And which continent are you like the most traveled, do you think?

Rolf Potts: 44:47

North America and Asia. Asia, but it's, it, it's funny, there's huge parts of Canada I haven't been to, I haven't been to North Dakota and I haven't been to most of Central Asia. But yeah, my, my first, my first big vagabond experience was in North America. It was so amazing. And my first love was Asia. As a traveler, a lot of Americans go to Europe first. I went to Asia first, and I'll always be fond of it. It's funny, my wife knows a ton about Europe and has never been to Asia, so, Hmm. We got married two years ago. This'll be a chance for us to sort of have a, a, a, a region exchange. I can show her around Asia and she can show me around Europe. But those, yeah, those are, those are great regions.

Bradley Roth: 45:25

So can I ask you about that, because that was something that was really interesting for us traveling as a couple. Have you guys done a lot of international travel together at this point, like long term at all?

Rolf Potts: 45:34

Well, because we were a covid couple, we didn't really get our first big taste of international travel until last summer. And so we did three, three or four weeks in Paris and then 10 days in Norway and eight days in the Faroh Islands. And it was a blast, you know. It's a little bit different. You know, you, when you travel alone, you can do whatever you want at any given moment, whereas there's sort of more negotiation when you're traveling with a partner. But for sure, my wife is such a good traveler. She's so much more knowledgeable about food and wine and, and certain cultural things than me. And so I was really learning from her. We also, because she has family in Norway, she has cousins who live there. I was able to do a kind of family travel that I've never done before. I've never been in another country with people who've known me or someone I love very well. They, they were Norwegians, but they've known my wife since she was a little kid. And so that was a really fun lens onto that place. Yeah. And so I think each, each of those three major places that we went to had its own taste, but going there with her was, was a blast. I mean, I just don't think I would've had quite as memorable of the experience. Was it the same for you? Yeah, definitely. I

Bradley Roth: 46:36

mean, like I said, we met back in 2015 and before that, you know, I had done very minimal travel and so like I feel like all of our kind of major travel has been together. But again, when you do a long term and an unfamiliar place, that's kind of a, a whole different ballgame. Like you have to be reliant on each other. You're with each other constantly. There's no real time apart. You know, you're staying in tiny little, you know, whether it's a hostile or an Airbnb or whatever, like you're just in close proximity for a long time. Sometimes stress can be really high, right? If you get lost or if something unexpected happens, which is always going to, and so I think it's, it's a great thing to be able to share that experience with someone, as I'm sure you can attest. And then it's also, I think like if you can, if you can learn to travel together effectively, like. You know what? You, you can probably get through a lot as a couple, if that makes sense.

Rolf Potts: 47:35

Yeah. Travel can be a great litmus test for Couplehood. If you, if you're with someone and you're not sure if you're serious about them, you travel with them for three weeks and you'll learn very quickly how you respond to stress together, how you respond to the unexpected, how you, you learn each other's idiosyncrasies, you know? Mm-hmm. from snoring to eating food too loudly or whatever, you know, so. Yep. Yeah. No, it's a good, it's a good crash course in being a couple. Yeah, for

Bradley Roth: 48:00

sure. And yeah, I'd recommend it if you, if anyone's able out there to do kind of the long term or like a longer kind of honeymoon type trip rather than go to the resort and play it safe. But, you know, that's just us. So anyways like I said, rapid fire. So I know this is probably a, a near impossible question to answer, but do you have a favorite.

Rolf Potts: 48:20

Yeah. It's an impossible question to answer Yeah, I I I love the US actually. I'm, I'm very, it's my, it's my first Vagabonding country and I'm still very fond of traveling in the us but man, I, I love France and Paris specifically. I love Mongolia and Patagonia, which are strangely similar in some ways. And I love the idea that I might fall in love with the country that I visit the first time. There's a good chance I'll go to Kenya this summer. I've been to Kenya before, but barely to Kenya. Mm-hmm. And so I like the idea that I might, I, I guess I'm at the point in my career where it's sort of a mix of places. I know I love that I wanna travel and places I, I've never been to that I might love, that I want to experience for the first time. And that really bore out going to Norway in the Fair Islands for the first time. How awesome that was. So, yeah, that's a tough question to answer. Do you have a favorite place?

Bradley Roth: 49:10

I haven't been nearly as many places, so it's hard, you know, I've, I think I'm at like a dozen or 13 or 14 countries, but I mean we went to Hawaii this past August in Hawaii. My sister lives out there, and so we got like a really cool local, like high adventure experience. So I know that's still the US but as one place that, that's way up there. And then really it's hard to beat Italy. We saw a lot of Italy, but the other country that I really loved was Montenegro, like a Bay of Kotor was really, really cool and kind of flies under the radar. So that would be my answer. Yeah. Okay. So most surprising country that you went to and it just blew away expectations compared to what you expected.

Rolf Potts: 49:46

Well, this is gonna be a weird answer because I started out as an Asia guy, and I, I became a little bit snobby as, as an Asia guy. Like, I thought, oh, I've been to Deli and Bangkok and, you know, ho Chi Minh City. What, what could possibly be interesting in Europe, you know, that's where tourists go. Yeah. And so I actually went to Europe for the first time from the east. I went, took the trans Siberian to Moscow and then took other trains into Europe proper. And I was blown away by Paris, like you hear, oh, Paris is great. Actually, the same thing happened in Hawaii. So I think with me, it's a reverse snobbery thing. I didn't go to Hawaii until I was in my late forties. I didn't go to Paris until I was in my early thirties. Both of those places blew me away. They're not secrets, unlike Montero. They're not places that you discover by accident, but it's like, oh my God, Paris is everything it is supposed to be and more. And then, oh my God, Hawaii. is amazing. Of course, people wanna go to this place. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I'm a reversed way that sometimes I'm amazed by being on the quote tourist trail and thinking, wow, this is why it's on the tourist trail. These places are amazing.

Bradley Roth: 50:47

Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting paradox. Sometimes you're like, man, it's so touristy all these lines and stuff. But then other times you're like, all right, it's super tourist street, and I completely understand why it's totally worth it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So was there a country that was maybe the most disappointing or that you had high, high expectations for that didn't quite live up to it?

Rolf Potts: 51:09

Yeah. I, I, I think that's subjective. That can be subjective. The, country that popped in my head was Vietnam. I grew up with Vietnamese kids. My high school had Vietnamese American kids. And so I was always really interested in the country, but I think when I went there Vietnam is just a little more hard edge than Thailand and Laos. Thailand and Laos are so laid back vie. Vietnam is, is more in your face. It's more drive a hard bargain type place. And so it's not Vietnam's fault. I think it was just my own fault that I had been used to sort of this chill Thailand, Laos, Cambodia way of being in Southeast Asia. And then Vietnam was like New York, you know, people, people were, were no nonsense in your face about things. And so it was a disappointment, but that was about my expectations, I think, more so than what the country had to offer that. Also I was traveling as a dirt bag and in Vietnam they just were less interested in the dirt bag travelers, you know, it felt like if I, if I was spending more money, they would've respected me more. But a guy who doesn't wanna spend money is some someone who's less interesting to Vietnamese people. So right? But nothing against Vietnamese people. I need to go back there now that I have more money. But yeah, that, that was the, I I got off on the wrong foot in Vietnam and someday I'll have to go back and, and sort of get a more organic experience of the place.

Bradley Roth: 52:18

Well that's actually a really good to know because we did the Europe trip. Now the next I'm like, we gotta do at least one more kind of extended trip before we have kids in Southeast Asia. So Thailand, Cambodia, Lao, and Vietnam may be something else, but that's, that's useful for me. So, what's your number one country on your bucket list currently that you haven't been to?

Rolf Potts: 52:38

Well, you said that I thought Antarctica, but that's not really a country. Yeah, it's kind of a gray area. Yeah, yeah, yeah. More of a gray area. Let me think. I've been to so many places that like nobody, n nothing really super stands out. I'm, I'm interested in going to VA Watu, just for arbitrary reasons. I've never properly been in the South Pacific. I mean, I've been to New Zealand but, and I've been Hawaii, but then there's all these amazing places in the middle Yeah. That I don't think I've given myself permission to go to. And so for esoteric reasons, I've sort of become interested in, in Vanuatu, which is a culturally melanesian part of the Pacific. Every island has a different language. It's, it's really super fascinating and it just sort of captured my imagination. So, yeah. Within the next five years, I'd, I'd love to go there.

Bradley Roth: 53:20

Very cool. Okay. And then where did you experience the biggest culture

Rolf Potts: 53:24

shock? Probably Korea actually. And and it's funny cuz these days a given 25 year old will have watched like 10 Korean TV programs and listened to a bunch of Korean pop stars. It's Korea's not that unfamiliar, but in the 1990s when I went first went there, it was really the first country besides Mexico or Canada that I went to. And I think nothing can compare to your first culture shock when you have no idea what culture shock is. When you go to your 50th country, you're sort of ready for culture shock. Yeah. But I went to Korea. Culture shock is sort of a form of anxiety, you know? Mm-hmm. And so I was really anxious when I first went to Korea. It ended up being a happy ending. Korean is is one of places I had the most fondness for in the world. But man, I think coming to terms with that culture shock made me a better traveler. And I don't regret having gone through it, but it was pretty tough at the time. I was, I was really nervous and, and unsettled by the confusion of being in another culture.

Bradley Roth: 54:16

Yeah, I can imagine. Cuz I, I think we went to Europe first and in my head I'm like, okay, that was a good warmup. You know, like, not too different. And I was like, if we had gone to Southeast Asia first, like, as our first kind of real experience like that, I'm sure that would've been much more intense. Kind of adjusting to that. But what's, what's one travel item that you can't leave

Rolf Potts: 54:36

home? Well as a no bag is travel guy. I'm tempted to save my passport. Right. Or, or my shoes. Oh, right, right. A good, a good pair of shoes. A a, a good waterproof layer.

Bradley Roth: 54:46

Let's say non non challengee, what's the one thing you gotta have, right? Well, it's

Rolf Potts: 54:50

a cheat answer and it's, it's, it's a can of worms, but it's smartphone, you know, just cuz so much can be done off your smartphone, yet your smartphone can, can almost ruin your trip too if you spend all your time looking at it. But yeah, in an age when your G P s and your camera and

Bradley Roth: 55:09

your Yeah, your train tickets and everything,

Rolf Potts: 55:11

or on Yeah. Your plane tickets, it's, it's has become so indispensable. And so it's really this double-edged sword where taking advantage of this wonderful, amazing miracle tool without turning into the same anxious, anxious, habit driven screen starer that you can be back home That's the big challenge. Yeah.

Bradley Roth: 55:31

Yeah, for sure. And then, This one might be hard to answer, but was there a country that you could say had, like the friendliest people? Ooh. Or maybe even a region?

Rolf Potts: 55:42

Yeah. Well, I, I I think the, the answer is several. I think the cheat answer is that any place. that's outside of that tourist zone is gonna be full of friendly people. I think really when you, when you're in front of the louv French people, they've seen a thousand tourists by the Louv, you know? Yeah. But you go, you go to a little village that doesn't see as many tourists anywhere in the world, and that's going, that's gonna be the place with, with, with the friendly local people. I mean, I think, you know, Thai people have a reputation for being friendly and, and o other cultures, Canadians, Midwesterner Americans, you know? Yeah. But I think at the end, at the end of the day, it is going any place where you go, where you are, the only foreigner in town is going to be just earth shockingly friendly. Actually, it occurred to me though Egypt too. Egypt is full of so many friendly people. I really loved it there. Mm-hmm. I, I think Arab cultures culturally and religiously, they really value hospitality. So, even if it's just their duty, it's sort of fun to be, to taken an interest in. Yeah. But yeah, so I think places like Thailand, Egypt you meet natural friendliness. But I think even in places that are considered brusk, you go to a a village in Russia and there's not usually travelers there. People really take an interest in you and are excited to have you there. And that's always fun to experience. And it's a great excuse for getting off the beaten path. And I think we've established that the beaten path is beaten for good reasons, but getting off the beaten path is where you'll find really French friendly and interested in engaged local people. That's fun to experience. Yeah.

Bradley Roth: 57:10

And that's where not most people go, right? Most people go down the beaten path. So yeah. One or one or two more here. Mountains, beaches, or cities.

Rolf Potts: 57:19

probably a beach guy. Yeah. I mean, I like all three, but I'm sort of fair and freckled. So, so beaches, I'm eventually gonna get tired of getting sunburned I'm fond of cities, but I live in the country for a reason. I, I, I love more quieter, more bucolic regions. So I think I'm a mountain guy and of course I'm a Kansas guy. There's literally zero mountains in in Kansas. But true, I grew up going to Colorado. I always love a good mountain hike. And so given a choice between those three things, I'd probably choose mountains about every time. Yeah. Same here.

Bradley Roth: 57:48

So, agreed. And then what's one thing that you really learned about yourself, whether it was on your first trip or just.

Rolf Potts: 57:58

I think just I learned possibility. I learned that I can adapt and make it any place that for all the anxieties that come with the unknown, when you face the unknown as humans, we have this great toolkit. We've evolved to be very adaptable people, even, even if our smartphone is broken or we don't speak the local language. It, it's always been so, so rewarding to see how I always do better than I thought I would. And I can always draw on resources that I didn't realize that I had. And I think giving yourself permission to, to push your limits a little bit and draw on those resources is, is a great gift of travel. And it teaches the most you come home by the time you come home. It's those times where you were vulnerable to a place that really stayed with you. Yeah. Yeah.

Bradley Roth: 58:46

I love that. There's, like I said, I've had several other kind of like long-term world travelers on the show, and that seems to be the most common answer is that, you know, you will. You'll become so much more self-reliant, you'll build confidence, those kinds of things. And I find that all to be very true. So thanks for answering all those rapid fire. And I gotta ask you the one question that I ask everyone who comes on the show, and that is, what is your definition of not most people or what do you think of when you hear that?

Rolf Potts: 59:17

My definition of not, not most people. I think it's, it's probably, it's listening. I'll, I'll paraphrase Walt Whitman listening to others considering what they say, but gently and undeniably letting hold of what would hold me back. That's a paraphrase of Waltman. Mm-hmm. quote unquote, personally, I think not most people is, is an awareness of what most people do. Knowing what is wise and less than wise in their world, and creating your own path in a way that is informed by. what most people do, but in a way that is custom designed for your own enrichment and happiness and satisfaction, spiritual growth and ability to give back to the people in your life. Wow.

Bradley Roth: 59:59

Like I said, I've, I've asked that to probably 70 or 80 guests on the show, and that might be the most articulate, philosophical answer I've gotten. So, but, but I agree a thousand percent, so I love that. And then as we wrap up here, I'm sure people are listening to this and they're like starting to Google, you know, where to travel to next, they're ordering your book, that kind of stuff. And so if they wanna find more, are there any resources that you recommend and then also for you personally, I know you have your, your new book out, but where could people find you and what else do you have going on that you'd like to share or.

Rolf Potts: 1:00:31

They can find me@rothpast.com. I'm an old school website guy. I mean, I, I, I have Instagram and Twitter and all the, the social media things, but I've always, for 25 years, I've kept my website updated and I'm proud to do that. And it has decades of stories that I've written and travel advice on there. As far as what websites to go to, I just updated in 2022 the Vagabonding resources. And so if you go to vagabonding.net/resources, there's an updated wealth of resources to draw from there. They're also in the book, the paper version of the book but they're also available for free online. So while I encourage people to buy my book, those specific resources have always been free online. Mm-hmm. and. As for what comes next, I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep on having adventures and ex exploring the world. And it was fun to have, have met my wife during the pandemic and to start traveling with her. I feel like I'm in the very beginning of my journey with her, and we have talked about some very specific travels that I probably won't share just yet, because sometimes it's best to, to just sort of get excited about those on personal terms before I talk about them too much. But yeah, I'm, I'm looking forward to it. Awesome.

Bradley Roth: 1:01:38

Yeah, I can't wait to see. Maybe that's, that's a whole new kind of travel chapter, right? And so, man, do you have any, any other partying words or anything you'd like to leave with audience?

Rolf Potts: 1:01:47

Well, yeah, just as I said, everyone, good luck in the journey. If you decide it's gonna happen, then the journey starts right now. If you decide you're gonna stop making excuses and do it someday, if that means in six months or six years, then your, then your journey has begun. And so that's something to keep in mind. Yeah. Yeah.

Bradley Roth: 1:02:03

Some days typically never. So if you can put some sort of timeframe on it, like for us, if we hadn't been like, all right, we have this wedding, let's, let's do it big, let's extend it. It never would've happened. And the things that we had to do to, to make it happen again without a deadline, without kind of that, that accountability or pressure, it never would've happened. So, don't, don't take that advice lightly for those of you listening. But we're gonna wrap it up here. Ralph, thank you so much for coming on. I really enjoyed this conversation and I know it was a long time coming and it lived up to, to my expectations and, and more.

Rolf Potts: 1:02:36

Yeah. Good talking to you Bradley, and good luck in your own

Bradley Roth: 1:02:38

adventures. Yeah. Thank you so much and thank you everyone for tuning in. I, I hope you got a lot out of this one. I know I did and my guess is you're probably hungrier than ever to go adventure off the beaten path and so I encourage you to do so. Do so and do that with the mindset of not most people. And again, make sure you check out Vaga bonding, the vagabond's way everything Roth has going on will be linked in the show notes. And we'll see you in the next one. Thank you for tuning in and always remember, don't be most people.