LaBossiere Podcast

#13 - Rolf Potts

Episode Summary

The travel writer and essayist talks time as wealth, why we travel, and the role of social media.

Episode Notes

Rolf Potts has reported from more than sixty countries for the likes of National Geographic Traveler, The New Yorker, Slate.com, Outside, the New York Times Magazine, The Believer, The Guardian, Sports Illustrated, NPR, and the Travel Channel. His adventures have taken him across six continents, and include 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 book on the subject, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel has been through thirty-two printings and translated into several foreign languages. His collection of literary travel essays, Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations From One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer, won a 2009 Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers, and became the first American-authored book to win Italy’s prestigious Chatwin Prize for travel writing. His newest book, Souvenir, was published by Bloomsbury in March of 2018. Rolf’s stories have appeared in numerous literary anthologies over the years, and more than twenty of his essays have been selected as “Notable Mention” in The Best American Essays, The Best American Non-Required Reading, and The Best American Travel Writing. His writing for National Geographic Traveler, Slate.com, Lonely Planet, Outside and Travelers’ Tales garnered him five Lowell Thomas Awards. He has lectured at venues around the world, including New York University, the University of Lugano, the University of Melbourne, Authors@Google, and the World Affairs Council. He has taught semester-long nonfiction writing courses at Penn and Yale. Though he rarely stays in one place for long, Potts has, over the years, felt somewhat at home in places like Bangkok, Cairo, Pusan, New Orleans, New York, and Paris, where he runs a series of creative writing classes each summer. He is based in north-central Kansas, where he keeps a small farmhouse on 30 acres with his wife, Kansas-born actress Kristen Bush.

Episode Transcription

Alex: [00:00:00] Rolf Potts has reported from more than 60 countries for the likes of national geographic traveler, the new Yorker, slate.com, outside, the New York times magazine, the believer, the guardian, sports illustrated, NPR and the travel channel. His adventures have taken him across six continents and include 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 in his book on the subject, Vagabonding: an uncommon guide to the art of longterm world travel has been through 32 printings and translated into several foreign languages.

His collection of literary travel essays, Marco polo didn't go there: stories and revelations from one decade as a postmodern travel writer, won a 2009 Lowell Thomas award from the society of American travel writers and became the first American authored book to one Italy's prestigious Chatman prize for travel writing.

His newest book, souvenir was published by Bloomsbury in March of 2018. Rolf's stories have appeared in numerous literary anthologies over the years, and more than 20 of his essays have been selected as notable mentions in the best American essays, the best American non-required reading and the best American travel writing.

His writing for national geographic traveler, slate.com, lonely planet, outside and travelers' tales have garnered him five Lowell Thomas awards. He has lectured at venues around the world, including New York university, the university of Lugano, the university of Melbourne authors at Google and the world affairs council.

He's taught semester long non-fiction writing courses at Penn and Yale. Though he rarely stays in one place for long pots has over the years, felt somewhat at home in places like Bangkok, Cairo, Pusan, new Orleans, New York, and Paris, where he runs a series of creative writing classes each summer. He's based in north central Kansas, where he keeps a small farm house on 30 acres with his wife, Kansas born actress, Kristen Bush.

We talked about time as wealth, why we travel and social media.


 

When anybody asks you what you do or what you're about, what do you say? Cause I feel like you're a tough guy to pin down. Maybe it's just the tons and tons of experiences you've had in your travels, your life-- what's, what's the go-to response for that?

Rolf: [00:02:24] Well, I usually say travel writer just because people like the specificity. And it, you know, it just sort of avoids the weird followup questions that would probably eventually lead to travel anyway. Now granted, I've been doing this for more than 20 years now, and the definition of travel writer has changed immensely since I first started doing it and it will probably continue to change, but people like it, it, it peaks their imagination, you know?

So despite the fact, that my travel writing career specifics are very, very different than they were 20 years ago. And they involve my writing career and podcasting career involves a lot of things that don't necessarily hinge on travel. It's just a good shorthand for telling people what I do.

Alex: [00:03:03] So how has that looked  over the last year with COVID and being confined. I don't know how much traveling you do these days, how's that been?

Rolf: [00:03:14] Yeah, well, I haven't done, I haven't traveled outside the United States since the beginning of the pandemic. And that was the first time, I think since 1995 that I hadn't left the country-- maybe 94. If you include Canada and Mexico, it's maybe the first time since 93, if it's countries beyond Canada, Mexico is probably the first time since 95 that I had not left the country at all.

Of course I ended up meeting the woman who became my wife during the pandemic. So I'm not complaining. It was a, if you're going to spend time you know, quarantined someplace falling in love with your true love is a, is a great thing to happen. And I've actually done a lot of traveling with her.

Like we, we walked like 22 miles to a town nearby here in Kansas, which is where I'm based when I'm not traveling. And so, you know, vocationally, it's such a strange time to be a freelance anything these days. And so I think I was making a decent amount of money off podcasting when the pandemic started.

I continue to do a lot of podcasting, but my advertisers were travel advertisers and, you know, they didn't know where their money was going to come from. So they had to stop their advertising arrangements. So I'll probably circle back to advertising in the podcast. I'm not doing a lot of it now. But then I, you know, I sold another book, my fifth book I sold recently.

It's probably too soon to talk a lot about it, but it's coming out from random house in about a year and a half. And it does involve travel. So, so it's, it's strange how, even though I wasn't able to travel a lot, I have accrued so much expertise over the years that I can speak to travel in a pretty broad way, and that helped me sell my new book.

Alex: [00:04:51] Not a bad use of the time. To be honest. It's sounds like that's a trade I would take. I think. What's time been like, cause I know you talk a lot about time as, as equaling wealth in a way. I like to think of myself as a time billionaire these days it's really good for my ego.

How has that evolved for you over time and in just being intentional about what you're partaking in on a day-to-day basis.

Rolf: [00:05:15] Yeah, well, it, it really is a day to day basis thing. It's, it's just sort of a matter of embracing the present moment. It's sort of a spiritual exercise. I touched on this a little bit in Vagabonding, but just the idea that recognizing time is what you have and it's slipping away, not in a bad way, but in a way that must be embraced and celebrated.

Now, I think there are first half of life and second half of life issues, that's a simplistic way of looking at it. But oftentimes when we're younger, we think in terms of achievement and when we're older, we need to shift to appreciation because you can't live like a 20 year old when you're 50. I mean, you could try, but so my time wealth has been different as I've, as I've gotten older. You know, I think a lot of my vocational energy was put into achievement and to becoming a professional writer. And certainly I'm glad that happened, but my ambitions have shifted a little bit as I've gotten older. One thing that I do with my wife now every day is that we read to each other in the mornings.

Not necessarily practical texts, but more spiritual texts, if not explicitly spiritual, just texts about very simple things and being in the moment. And it sort of helps us realize that whatever tasks we have to do today, life isn't just about to do lists. You know, it's about appreciating every moment that you have.

And so I've often said that there's no silver bullet for time wealth, it's just an ongoing practice and it's good to inform yourself of time wealth. Years ago, when I taught college, at a couple of Ivy league institutions, I, I kept having to remind my students that there's more to life than just money and achievement, you know, in these very success oriented environments, sometimes it's easy to lose sight of things of, okay, well, you've made your first a hundred grand. You've made your first million. Now, how are you going to live? How is that going to enable you to live better? Because I've met so many people on the other side of the world from the United States, and it's rarely rich people.

It's usually just middle-class people who are making the most that they can do of all ages, like young middle-class people you're as likely to meet just the middle class, even a lower middle class person on the other side of the world, as a rich kid or a older people. Mid-career people that really, it's not a dollar amount that dictates your ability to travel. It's just your willingness to shift your life in such a way you can make travel possible. And yeah. So just that constant reminder that your wealth is how you spend your days and eventually those days will be gone is a good thing to remind oneself of on a regular basis.

Alex: [00:07:40] You seem really, really intentional about the whole thing. And I've got to ask because most other people that live in that, in that way or subscribe to that philosophy are minimalists of some kind, whether they like to sort of call themselves that or not. Are you someone that owns a lot of stuff?

I mean, I doubt you're tied down anywhere too much.

Rolf: [00:08:01] I'd say I don't own a lot of stuff, but you know anyone who spends a lot of time in travel, especially when they're younger, they come into a relationship with what home is and the idea of home. Of course, we have a digital nomad moment, a movement now and digital nomadism is sort of a new normal there's people, not just from the United States or the west, even from developing countries, who've learned that they can use their skills to take life on the road and just sort of leverage a life-- you know, so many people, especially after the pandemic have been doing remote work. Well, why not do your remote work from a cool part of the world or inexpensive part of the world or a part of the world that is warm when it's cold here. Cold when it's warm here. So yeah, I, I really think that yeah, that intentionality, it can ground things and then, you know, simplicity. I have a home now. I have a home in Kansas. Although, you know, the home isn't in a more fashionable part of New York or San Francisco, it's in sort of a provincial part of the country.

I have family here, but Kansas isn't really a destination, but it's really affordable and it's really laid back. And this is my form of geo arbitrage. I mean, lived in Thailand for a while. I've lived in Brazil for a while. Living in Kansas, in addition to being a place I like is just allows me to have a more affordable lifestyle.

So yeah, simplicity is one tool in the toolkit, but also, you know, choosing where to live, choosing what your daily consumption efforts are, you know, are you going to buy that expensive coffee and expensive meal every week? Or are you going to cook at home? You know, I'm not saying that you can't have an inexpensive meal, but you have to figure out what do I value in life and where am I going to send my money and spend my money? Because oftentimes, especially  in the United States, which is sort of a consumer culture, that's driven by advertising and  images of desire think about, well, what do I really desire as opposed to just buying more junk? What kind of stuff that I buy is going to make my life better.

And it's amazing how much, how simple your life can become once you realize what you want to buy versus what you're being urged to buy it by advertising and competition with other people.

Alex: [00:10:05] I guess it's a game of prioritization at the end of the day. And you bring up a good point when you're talking about this whole digital nomad movement, that's been really enabled by a lot of modern technologies. How has travel? I mean, very broadly speaking, right? Because you've been doing this for quite a while. How has it changed over the course of your life?

Rolf: [00:10:26] Yeah. Well, because of technology it's, it's gotten so much easier, you know, and actually if you study the history of travel and I have technology has always been a factor.

You know, when the Romans built roads, that changed things. When they domesticated the horse and learned how to ride it, that changed things. When they shifted from the sailboat to the Steamboat that changed things too, as well as the railroad. And now it's really an information technology thing.

When I was a teenager in Kansas I didn't really realize that I could travel. And  in some ways Vagabonding was written to that teenager to sort of encourage him and say, look, don't just see it as something you can do, but see it as something that's part of your greater life. Don't separate it from life, but it's something that you don't buy.

It's something you give to yourself. So yeah, I feel like this has a been an ongoing process of, of realization, I guess.

Alex: [00:11:16] You know, you mentioned history in there, and I think that's a really interesting thing to point out if we're talking about the uh, early stages of globalization and trade and all the great things and not so great things that, that afforded lots of different people and communities. I think these days the way I see it as it's a lot more of a question of accessibility for people. And I'm curious to your thoughts on that because when you have travel becoming more and more accessible, you get the mixing of cultures in the same way that you did, you know, on before in history.

Rolf: [00:11:47] Well, there is a US centric approach and, you know, we used to always compare it to Europe  or Australia, for example, or even places like Israel or Brazil, where for a certain class of people, travel is seen more as a birthright. In the United States it's sort of seen as an exception. And actually this is a thought that I probably should have finished at the end of the last question, is that just the information that it's available now compared to what was available when I was 25, for example, there's just so much more, you know, the odds that you're gonna find somebody who's like you traveling the world is so much greater, that,  if you're a black guy from Iowa,  there could have been a time once where it's like, yeah, nobody like me is traveling the world.

Where now, you just go on, you find blogs. There's other people who are doing it. There are people who are leading the way there's information out there. There's disadvantages to that too. Sometimes there's the Instagramification of travel, where everybody goes to the same places, because it's the same images that make them desire travel.

When, as I said in vagabonding sometimes just making mistakes and wandering are some of the best gifts of travel. But yeah, so, so now, you know, it's funny that I follow some of the travel Instagrammers I follow are Kenyans, you know, they're going to places at various places in Kenya. They're not wealthy by Western standards, they're not traveling around the world, but they're going to places in Kenya that I think are really cool. So there's an extent to which this has been leveling at many levels, that it's not just your classic Western industrialized countries that are producing travelers, that because of these communication technologies, we can now see what all sorts of people are doing as travelers.

And that's fine. I mean, technology certainly has its disadvantages. I think that sometimes people are less daring than they used to be. You know, it used to be just, if you didn't know something, you asked something on the street. Now people are really concerned about Yelp or other things. There's this young travelers really grasp certainty in a way that when I was younger, uncertainty was part of the fun of travel.

And I don't want to be the old guy on the lawn waiting my fist at the younger generation. It's just like it's okay. You know that you don't have to have the answer about every aspect of the travel experience before it happens. You can make mistakes, you can be lost, you can be a little bit lonely or bored and you can not know what happens next.

And that's part of why travel is fun.

Alex: [00:13:54] So how does that extrapolate? I mean, where do you see all of this going? Whether or not you think I'm right about the whole accessibility thing, let's say 20 years from now, whether we're talking about supersonic airliners, or we're talking about much more affordable tickets to go to, you know, wherever it is you want to be going, what do you think this is all gonna look like?

Rolf: [00:14:13] Yeah. Well, I, I think. Of course we've been in the middle of a phase  of a lot of affordability. You know, the airline industry had made it so inexpensive to travel internationally. We'll just have to see how that recovers now that sort of the fact that so many people were traveling meant that it was pretty cheap to fly around.

I think also that there is, there's just more information about how it's done. If you allow yourself to sort of get past that first level of dazzle and scare  and by dazzle I mean sort of the filter Instagram photos that have unrealistic expectations of travel versus like the war headlines that make you think every place is dangerous.

If you can get past that, there's just so much information that talks about how normal it is to travel. And again, going back to the, to the class issue that-- a lot of over history, a lot of the most prolific travelers have been  soldiers and merchants or even, you know, refugees or displaced

people who travel in a way that, that isn't necessarily a touristic way of travel. When I was in Syria years ago, Syria is probably not the best place to travel right now, but I met some Sudanese and they were refugees, you know, but they had a lot of language savvy, a lot of travel savvy just because they had to have it.

And so it's easy to forget that all sorts of people have made travel happen. You know, I've met a lot of guys who write me or one group of people who write me about vagabonding is saying, look, I traveled the world in the military for 20 years. I've been to 15 countries. And now I finally get to do it just in a relaxed way.

I feel like I have some familiarity with other cultures, but yeah. You know, in the military, that's a different task than just being able to enjoy it for yourself. So I guess through accessibility and information you know, there's just so much is possible and so much is inexpensive. And what I encourage people to do is just to remember that they don't have to do the obvious, they can go to Egypt and maybe spend a day at the pyramids and spend the rest and in interesting places and talking to normal people again, really separating the consumer side of travel from the experiential and spiritual side of travel. And I don't want to be a snob about that because you know, the travel industry you know, caters to our consumer needs in ways that are useful, including those cheap flights.

But if you're just a consumer as a traveler and you're not deepening your life, you know, and your skillset, or even your professional opportunities, which is not something that you have to sacrifice when you're traveling, then you might be selling your travels short. Because there's so much you can learn. It's it's, it's the truest education.

Alex: [00:16:41] I'm curious, you touched on this earlier. When you were talking about Kenyan Instagram travel influencers, you know, as a guy who's been doing this you know before Instagram was even a thing. What's your take on a lot of the social media trends when it comes to travel and travel, influencing and travel writing and all of this stuff is, is it positive? Is it --are there parts of it?

Rolf: [00:17:07] Well, I think like the more things changed, the more they stay the same. When I first started travel writing, all the critics of travel writing said, oh, the glossy magazines sort of forced their writers to write about these platonic ideals of perfect empty beaches and beautiful mountains and friendly people.

Well, now we've realized that no, it's actually not an editorial decision. It's driven by audience and algorithms.  A few years ago, I traveled across Sumatra and I did a little series called people of Sumatra. I really wanted to, to sort of promote the idea that meeting other people in other cultures is, one of the best gifts of travel.

And so I just met all these amazing people. And I would take their picture and write their story in the caption. It got a lot less engagement than like a picture of myself on a beach or a picture of a really pretty beach in Sumatra or a cool lake, or, you know, the Pacu jawi cow races. Basically, it ironed the nuance out of my stories, just because the algorithms and the audience and Instagram, it's sort of a visual media, people are scrolling through and looking for pretty pictures.

And they're not really trying to learn about the rest of the world, which is the same complaint that glossy magazines had 20 or 30 years ago. Basically saying we're not learning anything about the country. These photos are sort of fake idealized photos. These stories don't go very deep into culture and I'm afraid to say that the same thing comes across.

You know, there's, there's a lot of people taking pictures of themselves, looking sexy, in foreign places, but the foreign places are just backdrops and that's fine. You know, if you want, if you feel awesome and you look awesome on the far side of the world, that's fine. But your audience, you're not really giving any insight or even showing any vulnerability when you're just showing your best face in a picture where you know that there's 300 people in line behind you to get the same shot of themselves in front of the same piece of scenery. So I think that complaint about technology and media has always happened.

Because it's so atomized and individualized, now it becomes more narcissistic. It's really easy to write about yourself on the far side of the world, but the best lessons aren't about you, you know, they're about all these new things that you're discovering and, and really they're about the mistakes you're making there about what you learned by getting things wrong.

And I think we live in this social media environment where we're afraid to be vulnerable. We're afraid to, to be wrong or make a mistake or say something that someone disagrees with. And so travel has always gifted us the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. And I hope that's something that people are still experiencing as travelers.

Alex: [00:19:32] That's a really interesting point. And you talking about sort of the same kind of stuff going on, even before any of this Social media stuff was around. It's just, it sounds like it's more of an amplifier than something that necessarily changes behavior.

Rolf: [00:19:44] It really is. And I think that of course, you know, travel as much more of a consumer act than it was even a hundred years ago that post-World war two normal people have been able to travel in a way that they didn't used to.

But you know, the same obsessions and the same complainants are still sorta leveled about travel. You know, when trains started to stretch across Europe, people complained that they ruin the experience of walking. You know, when, when steam ships came, people said that this new generation has it too easy, we had to sail on sailboats.

And so one it's, it's always very easy to critique the new generation, which I try not to do too much, even as I remind newer travelers, that there is an older way of travel that is still, still pretty easy and doable, and that you don't just have to use your phone to travel.

There's there's other ways of getting from point a to point B, many of them that are more social, you know, we live in a time when we can spend a whole day on our phone and not really talk to any people. And isn't that, wouldn't that be sad to go to the far side of the world, just to take selfies and look at your phone when in fact, you know, the world is full of people that  have lessons to teach us.

Alex: [00:20:49] So, if not to, you know, take selfies and any of this other stuff, why do we travel? I mean, I'm being sarcastic obviously, but it's interesting to me in the sense that. There's not as defined of an incentive as there is to do many other things, right? Like I might travel and, and move cities because there's a financial incentive for me to be there for a job or you know, or because maybe, maybe family's around.

But if you're talking about Vagabonding, if you're talking about long-term travel, is it just the experience of being able to see the world, is it being able to experience other cultures? What do you think is hardwired into us?

Rolf: [00:21:30] Yeah. Well, hardwired is a good word because some of the oldest forms of storytelling as Joseph Campbell talked about a generation or two ago to do with the hero's journey. The, you know, the idea that the best transformations happen when you leave home are transformed by the journey that results. You don't have to fight a dragon. Sometimes that dragon can be metaphorical, be it overcoming language barriers, or just becoming a braver person out in the world.

And then often quite importantly, you come home. You know, the, in the hero's journey involves the protagonist coming home, a changed person and seeing it in a completely new way. And so, yeah, I, I really think that that education and spiritual and transformational part of travel is still something. Even if we don't articulate it, that's sort of what we're after.

We want to see a new version of ourselves. And I, you know, I think  social media allows us to cheat, you know, that we can sort of use filters to make ourselves look better. We can stand in lines that it seems like we're the only person there, but really at the end of the day, it's about those quieter, subtler changes that you could never put on Instagram because you come back a changed person, you come home and people are like, what happened? What, what changed about you? Well, you're just more confident, you know, more of the world. That, I think, is the bottom line.

I think, you know, traditionally travel has been seen as, as sort of leisure, it's a vacation away from your normal life. And I sort of talk about that in Vagabonding that if you just see Vagabonding as a, as an escape, then you're going to be selling yourself short because it's about integrating travel with your real life. And then there's also status, you know, the idea that wealthy people or newly wealthy people use travel as a way to show off and people still do that. But as I said before, you don't have to be rich. In fact, middle-class people as much as anyone are very dynamic and very well-traveled at the end of the day, it just doesn't take that much money to travel in a dynamic way that rich people don't have time for it because right, because billionaires have too many houses and too many things. And so a person who makes $60,000 a year can, can live a mindblowing life if they just discipline themselves in certain ways.

Alex: [00:23:36] So on the flip side of that, why don't some of us travel? You know, I was very, very lucky growing up cause I've got family in different places around the world. So there's sort of an excuse there, but you know, for many of us, and I think I'm probably taking more of a US sort of centric approach on this. There's a lot of people that choose not to go pretty much anywhere. And I don't know if that's a function of you know, a strong home or community environment. But there, there doesn't seem to be a need for some types of people.

Rolf: [00:24:07] Yeah. Well, one thing that I realized when I was writing vagabonding years ago was to acknowledge that some people don't want to travel. And so that's, that's a category. Personally I think travel has something to offer anybody. And sometimes people who think they don't want to travel are really tied into different fears and, and mental blocks that they can probably overcome, but I do want to acknowledge that this isn't the end all like, you know, when you're talking about time wealth about creating more time to live in a meaningful way as, as opposed to a consumer way. Like if you just, if you have three kids, you want to spend more time with your kids, one way of being time rich is to spend time with your kids instead of working all the time, you don't have to be a traveler.

So I do want to give people permission not to travel if they don't want to, but so many people don't travel because of fear for one thing, there there's sort of fear of other cultures, which, you know, if you look very closely at all, even supposedly dangerous parts of the world have, you know, very accessible places, very friendly people, very normal people.

But then there's also I want to start my career now. Well, do you, I mean, and maybe, maybe those two years overseas will teach you more than you learned in five and a half years of undergrad, right. Or however long it takes to finish undergrad these days. And so there's a lot of fears that are inculcated that aren't rational.

And, and sometimes our friend group or our family can underscore those, those fears. And a lot of times people say, God, I want to travel, but my parents are just freaked out for me. And it's just like, In a way you don't need the permission, just gently say, I love you. I'm leaving. I'll bring some souvenirs.

I'll Skype you once a week. Goodbye because fears are often collective rather than individual. And they're often irrational rather, rather than actually empirically researched because travel is easier and safer and more dynamic than it ever has been. Another thing too is procrastination. You know that people think, well, I'll travel when the time is right.

You know this now it just doesn't seem right. I just finished college. I should probably get that internship or, yeah I'm mid-career, you know, I'm getting that transfer to the new law office and I've worked hard for this. And it's like, well, why not ask for six months off before you get that transfer?

You know, at all times of life, there's all sorts of excuses to procrastinate things, but, and, and really my first Vagabonding trip, which was about eight months living out of a van in north America, I thought that was my last hurrah. I thought I was going to go home and be a good American workaholic. And that was going to be that.

But yeah, procrastination does not need to be an issue that really, and I say it in the book Vagabonding starts when you decide to do it, when you decide, look, I'm, I'm going to be on the road in two years, then sort of in a way you've already started because you've made that decision, that procrastination isn't going to be a thing.

And, you know, often it gets tied up in this idea that you have to be at home to be successful. And this is something that has shifted since I wrote the book. People used to say, because I say in vagabonding, put travel on your resume and people used to say, really?  I would never put travel on the resume.

Well now with digital nomads and just the idea that the world is more globalized, that you, if you have skills that include other languages and familiarity with other cities, you'll be the guy in the corporation. They send a Singapore because even if you haven't been to Singapore, you're  comfortable overseas, you, you're not going to be freaking out and wasting their time and money.

And so really those old vocational concerns about making yourself less employable have-- nobody complains about that anymore. At least not to me is that people are much more confident because we live in this globalized world where travel, you know, again, as long as you're not partying every day, I think you should party a little bit.

But if you're traveling in a way that is open to deepening yourself personally and vocationally, then yeah. There's no reason why you, don't, why travel is going to be a bad thing. So, yeah, there's lots of reasons why people don't travel, but unless just travel as your idea of a horrible time. The excuses for everything else have gone away over the years.

Alex: [00:27:53] I like that, you know, it seems to me that there's sort of this expectation or, you know, even this stereotype that travel's sort of exclusive to the rich or the irresponsible. But in any case, it's just an interesting thing to think about lots of reasons for that. One thing I do want to sort of end us on is maybe a more broad question. Individually for you, having been all over and building a career off of this and living such an experience rich life, what do you think. The biggest benefit or benefits have been for you in traveling, you know, just so much more than any other person might?

Rolf: [00:28:35] I think, I think it's that ongoing education. That it's that idea that your education, your true education doesn't have to end. And then it's also left me open to new things and new experiences, and that doesn't just necessarily be sort of this upwardly mobile compulsion that we have in the United States.

You know, I'm from a very provincial part of the country among a certain amount of achievement oriented people. It's the idea is that while you should be in New York or Austin or Minneapolis or Portland or San Francisco living in urban life, making six figures by a certain age. And I think I realized that those old standards, you know, if that's what you really desire, then that's great.

But. Now I've I consider myself a very successful person professionally. I am successful, but I'm back in Kansas. I live a very simple life. And I think it's just sort of underscored those values. You know, th it knew the day, what you desire in life is something that you figure out, you know, you don't subscribe to it.

You don't look at your neighbors and decide that this is how you're going to live. That travel can remind you about that intentionality of living that just sort of living in accordance with your desires and with what you love and even, you know, just the idea of having a community, even if it's a peripatetic one and giving back and, and sort of realizing that your place in the world can be a, an organic and dynamic one that is not just lived through your phone with your hashtags, but is lived through interpersonal experience every day.

Alex: [00:30:07] Rolf, I know you put a lot of weight on your time, so thank you so much for doing this. It means a lot.

Rolf: [00:30:13] Well, I'm happy to talk to you and good luck in your own journey.