Sometimes is all about a fun story or two! In this podcast episode, we swap travel stories from all over the world with our friend Palle Bo from Denmark. From accommodations to driving tales and much more. We hope you have as much fun listening as we did in the telling.
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Show Notes
04:52 – The evolution of a digital nomad – Cape Town Here I Come
14:47 – Using Couchsurfing to meet local people around the world
27:07 – “In ten years time I’ll remember the experience but not the cost.”
32:39 – What are the go to accommodations for a digital nomad?
38:22 – Covid lockdown in South Africa
45:45 – Dealing with travel fatigue
54:43 – Is the world a dangerous place for digital nomads?
1:01:50 – On the road to Lesotho
Other inspiring interviews with intrepid travelers:
Guinness World Record Climbers – Iain and Adam
Judging Tiramisu with Christina and Cynthia
Getting to All 63 National Parks – Brad and Grandma Joy
Phoebe Thomas’ Amazing Travel Stories
Thoughtful Travel with Amanda Kendle
Coritta Travels with her Family
Jennifer Lloyd Talks about Travel to Volunteer for Animals
Morgan and Sage – Hiking in the Dolomites
Morocco Desert Hiking with Eva
Kirsten Discusses Travel with Kids
Mary Jo tell us about her book – Secret in Seattle
Marissa tells us about finding her Irish Ancestors
Worth Mentioning
Palle’s Website: The Radio Vagabond
Some of articles that relate to stories we told:
Denmark:
Jelling Mounds – world heritage site
Copenhagen
Odense – a fairy tale city
Join Our Community and the Conversation
Podcaster Bios for Jim and Corinne: Jim and Corinne are a married couple who love everything travel. Having met and married in Germany, they’ve never stopped. Along the way, they have raised two kids, visited over 90 countries (including every country in Europe), and have plenty of stories and travel tips to share. Read more about them on our About page.
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Full Transcript of Podcast
Corinne 0:00
So today we’re in Puyallup, Washington. And we’re talking with our new friend, Palle Bo. And he’s been a podcaster for many, many years after working in radio and maybe still working in radio.
Palle 0:11
That’s right. I started in radio, when the world was black and white.
Jim 0:16
Welcome to streets and eats the travel and food podcast dedicated to taking our listeners to the sights, sounds and flavors of fascinating places near and far, both on and off the beaten path, where Jim and Corinne Vail and we’ve been traveling internationally and domestically together for decades, visiting more than 90 countries and all 50 states in the USA, we’ll share all of the local knowledge and food expertise we’ve gathered through years of living as expats in Asia and Europe, as well as traveling with families spanning multiple generations around the world. Join us each week for a new adventure.
Palle 0:48
In 1985, that’s when I had my debut in the radio industry. And I did my first podcast in 2006, which was two years after the first podcast came out. And I actually thought at the time, I was a late mover. I thought okay, I missed the boat on this one. But I just wanted to do a podcast because I found it so fascinating. And now so many years later, I can see that. Yeah, I’m one of the first
Corinne 1:15
you are one of the first if there’s anything we’re one of the late later ones for sure. For definitely
Jim 1:19
sure.
Palle 1:20
Yeah, but a lot, a lot of new podcasts that have come around in the last couple of years.
Corinne 1:24
Yes, they have. Thank God. So we met last week at a travel conference. And what we really want to talk about mostly is your journey being a digital nomad. Since 2016, that’s correct, right, almost six years. Yeah. And so how did you decide to throw it all up in the air and just hit the road,
Palle 1:47
I’d been living in the same rural part of Denmark all my life, not from Copenhagen, three and a half hours drive from there. And, and I’d been traveling quite a bit but always on short trips, like for vacation and conferences and stuff like that. But I never lived outside of my hometown, which is called Randers. Just close to the second biggest city in Denmark, Aarhus, which probably very few people have heard about.
Corinne 2:18
We’ve not only we’ve gone there on purpose. That’s right. spent the weekend in autos. Yes, because you know, that’s where really famous people come from. Like Hans Christian Anderson. He’s from Odense there, too. Yeah. But anyway, there’s a beautiful art museum and
Palle 2:37
Oh, yeah, with the whole rainbow. It’s an amazing museum and city.
Palle 2:44
It is and Oh my God, and it’s just 30 kilometers, 20 miles north of there is my hometown, Randers. And the main attractions in Randers is a tropical zoo, like three glass domes with the kind of rainforest in them. Really interesting. And then we have wait for it…A one to one replica of Graceland.
Corinne 3:11
Oh, wow. Oh my gosh.
Palle 3:12
It’s an Elvis museum. It’s yeah, exactly like it and yeah, so interesting.
Jim 3:17
How did that end up there?
Palle 3:19
It’s the weirdest thing. The guy who runs it, Henrik, he, he had a small Elvis museum always been a big fan. And then at some point, he came up with this idea and everybody thought, Okay, now he’s lost his marbles.
But he managed to get some investors involved. And he built it and it’s a huge success. People are coming from all over the world. That’s incredible. Actually, in the beginning, he was talking a lot with the people from Memphis and met with Priscilla many many times and he named it Graceland Randers. But shortly before and even the the the city built a street for it and call it Graceland Randers road so it was very official.
But then a few as far as I know the story goes that just before he was about to open they said oh you can’t call it Graceland. Because it’s a trademark. But he did that anyway and then went into an ugly lawsuit and ended up with them settling and him changing the name so now it’s the Memphis Mansion. But it’s still on Graceland Randers on the road in the city.
Now that’s yeah, so that’s what my the two small claims to fame my city has and but it’s a wonderful, very quiet, very safe and beautiful city that I love. But anyway, to get back to Europe. I lived there all my life and I thought it’s not going to be written on my tombstone that he lived in Randers all his life. So I was toying with the idea because I could see that three years down the road, my kids would grow up and move out of the house.
So that would be my chance to go live somewhere else. And I casually mentioned it to a friend of mine who has been to Cape Town for two years. And he wrote a book when he was there. And he’s just said, you have to go to Cape Town. It’s the best place in the world. And you should have the same adventure that I have. So from then, I thought, yeah, maybe it’s Cape Town, I’d never really known much about it. I knew there was a beautiful mountain.
So I’m, I thought, let me try it out. So I went there in 2013, stayed for two months, just to feel what it was like living there, because I thought I’d moved there for two years. And that’s when it dawned on me that I have my own little one-man production company doing radio and podcasting for my clients, I rarely met them, it was always on email or on the phone. I was a nomad before soon became a thing, right? And, but I could do my job anywhere. And it didn’t really matter where I was.
So I could totally do that there. And I thought, Why settle for one place when there are so many places on the planet that I want to see. So that’s where my idea of going traveling, I was still thinking two years. And in fact, in the beginning, I called my plan Around the World in 80 weeks, okay, because it sounds funny, but that’s just a year and a half. Yeah, and not enough.
So then I thought it was going to be two years. So I planned out a route around the world very detailed, which obviously didn’t stick. And it was always my plan when my youngest graduated, in the summer of 2016, I would travel and so I started selling off all my stuff, and my house and my car and my furniture. And when when it became that spring of 16, I moved out of my house, and in July I left the country and ever since then I’ve been living completely without a home base. And I now it’s been more than two years. And I have no plans of stopping anytime soon.
Jim 7:27
So nothing left in Randers. Now except for family.
Palle 7:31
Family. Yeah. And friends. I do have a small storage unit, but no furniture, just my vinyl records and my books and a few personal keepsakes. Oh, just can’t get I got rid of all my CDs. So I used to be a DJ, and I’ve been working in radio. So obviously I have a lot of those. But my vinyl is there. That’s a lot more nostalgic than CDs for me.
Corinne 7:55
What do your daughters think of you traipsing around the world? I did hear and listen to your Japan podcast because we lived in Japan for years. So we know Japan, I would say rather well. So we did this when they were on it as well. Yeah. What do they think of it?
Palle 8:10
Yeah, well, they’ve my youngest had been traveling with me for four months when my oldest came to Japan. And we ended up on that leg of the journey in Japan during cherry blossom season. It was wonderful. And we had two weeks there.
And my youngest had been traveling with me. We started in Thailand and went to Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, and a couple of places in China. And then we went to North Korea, back to China and then to South Korea. And then we came to Japan and my oldest daughter flew inland and join us there.
And then I left them there, I left before them and flew to Toronto because I was going to do speak at a conference there. And their flight was the next day from two different airport, very far away from each other. So they both had to sort out, checking out getting on the right train, getting on the right bus and going on the plane and stopovers and I thought okay, my God that they they’re kind of grownups but in their early 20s. So but they managed to do that and when they came home and everything worked out, I thought okay, my work is done. That’s when okay there I made travelers out of them.
Corinne 9:25
We raised two girls as well. And they grew up overseas, they grew up doing that kind of stuff. We would do things like when they were teenagers, we’d drop them off at some random amusement park and we go off and for the day and go back and pick them up at nine o’clock at night. We taught them how to ride the train.
We went to Tokyo when they were teenagers. This time we were just going to visit; it was before we lived there. So they hadn’t really been to Tokyo before. They wanted to go to Disney World or Disneyland Tokyo Disneyland. And we said well, here’s the train you get yourself there. Yeah, yeah. So and they were 16 and 14, I think. Yeah.
Palle 10:04
And actually, when if ever since they were very little because I could see my parents, it was always my dad that took care of that those kinds of things. My mom, she had no idea how to work an airport.
But ever since they were nine or 10, when when we got to an airport, I handed them the printout of the ticket then. And then I said, Okay, what do we do now? And they were just like, Okay, where’s the challenge, and they were looking at the screens, and look at that the paper as counter number eight, like questioning me and as well, let’s see.
So I wanted to really teach them how to do that. And they’ve been flying in and out of London and other places, for a long time when they were teenagers. So I felt quite confident, but this time I was far away. At that time, I wouldn’t be on an airplane halfway around the world, when they were, if they were getting into trouble, so I wouldn’t be able to assist them. So I really made sure that they knew what to do.
Corinne 11:09
Luckily, pretty much everybody around the world, as I’m sure you’ve found out many, many times are always so helpful. We’ve had many incidents with our daughters on their own, some of which may have been our fault, like not sending enough cash one time when my oldest daughter went to London.
Or not picking up…um No, I dropped Erika off. I think I dropped her youngest daughter off at Seoul airport a day early. And I don’t know why. But it was a day early. And I took off because I mean, we were at the point in our lives where you drop them at the curb and go, Yeah, because I trusted they could do it. Well. She basically, you know, started crying. I mean, I don’t blame her. She was I think she was 17-16 or 17. And, of course, the airline was like no big deal. We’ll put you on today’s flight. We’ll get you there. Yeah, I mean, it just always seems to work out, doesn’t it?
Palle 12:04
It does. Yeah. But to answer your question, which I think I avoided before. What do they think about that? Yeah, I think that think it’s pretty cool. And they’ve also visited me in Cape Town on one on one of my stops there. And, in fact, in a month and a half, we’re going on a two-week road trip around the UK together, and it’s going to be amazing. And then I go down, go home and visit them from time to time and see them and the funny thing is there’s almost not a single day where we don’t communicate either text or talk and do we speak more to my kids now than we did when we lived in the same house? That’s pretty cool.
Corinne 12:49
Yeah. Well, and that’s changed so much from when we first got married in 1985. By the way, we, it was so expensive.
Jim 13:00
Yeah. Well, we were we were living in Germany at the time. And you know, all we had was a landline was of course. It was the only option. You can mail a letter, but that would take forever. And a phone call to the States would run anywhere from 50 to $60 $70. Just for you know, a good 20 a 30 minute call.
Corinne 13:18
Yeah. Yeah, I know. So nowadays, it’s so much it’sso much cheaper and easier.
Palle 13:23
Yeah, yeah. And I do the same with my friends. I don’t speak to them every single day. I have a very good friend in Denmark, and we just spoke for an hour this morning, when it was nighttime in Denmark, and she was sitting with a glass of wine and I was sitting with a cup of morning coffee here. So yeah, I speak a lot to the people from both Denmark from home, and also all the people that I meet around the world that made so so many friends and now I have 10 more.
Jim 13:57
And it’s so easy to stay in touch. It’s so easy. And that’s I mean, that’s kind of one of the main reasons we travel is to meet the people and either fellow travelers or people who are living in the place where we traveled to.
Corinne 14:11
Yeah, and maybe because we’ve traveled all over we probably our most concentrated travel has been Europe because we lived in Europe for so many years. But we’ve traveled with one couple to over 25 countries. We’ve traveled with people just randomly that we don’t even know that well. And we’ll hook up with them and travel with them or we’ll meet somebody and here we met them in Japan and then we see them in Vietnam or we see them in California. Yeah. All over the place. Let me see.
Palle 14:45
Let me give you an example of that because I travel alone so I do my best to meet people when whenever I can. And one of the tools I use is Couchsurfing, although not necessarily staying with people. In a few days, I’m going to Iceland. And this morning, I just wrote to a handful of people of local people from Iceland, saying, I do have a place to stay. So I’m not, I don’t need a place to crash.
But if you want to go for a cup of coffee or a drink, I love that. And I just like to meet the locals. And, and that works. That works as well. Yeah, and I did. These are really good. I did that also, when I was in Conakry, in Guinea, in Western Africa. And, and most people I know, that’s been to Guinea saying, it’s not a very nice country, right. But I had such a good experience because I had a place to stay. But I went out and had lunch with one guy, I had beers with another guy who brought some friends and, and dinner at night. So I met three people and I have very fond memories of, of Guinea. And it’s one of the places I could see myself going back to because they told me so much about the beauties of the country that hardly any tourists go to.
Corinne 16:05
Is it safe, though, is that one of the safer countries or not?
Palle 16:09
It’s one of those countries because I did all my traveling in northwestern Africa, on land, except for going into Conakry, because two of my friends said the same thing, you do not want to drive in there, because you’re going to be pulled over even if you’re in a bus, you’re going to be pulled over and people trying to get bribes from you.
So you want to fly in. So I had to go back from Guinea Bissau, which is the neighboring country to Guinea, all the way back to Senegal to get a plane to go to Conakry. So that’s what I’ve been told, I did not experience anything. I was even walking along the beach and went up to some policeman saying, Can I walk this way down? Or is it a restricted area? And that would be an opportunity for them? To ask me for a bribe. Let’s see what we can do. Yeah, figure out some way that I was doing something wrong. But nothing. And I was totally the only choice there. I felt very different like I did when I was in Burundi.
Jim 17:19
But these were the people that got back to earlier. These were people that you met in Guinea using Couchsurfing?
Palle 17:26
Yeah, exactly. That’s a really good idea. And to get back to my story, I seem to get sidetracked. When I was in Florida, I spoke to another guy who’s a Couchsurfing ambassador, he lives in, in let me see Connecticut. And I became a very good friend when I was couchsurfing there earlier. And I said, Do you know anyone I should meet? Because I’ve been trying to see if I could find find some couchsurfing. And no one really answered.
But him being an ambassador of there are three couchsurfing ambassadors in the US. And he said, Yeah, you need to meet Cynthia, she is a well-traveled lawyer. And she has been 225 countries. And she’s an interesting person.
And I reached out to her and we went for a picnic in a forest and beautiful and became super good friends. And after that we talked about we could go should go travel somewhere because we got along fine. And she said, Well, as a solo female traveler, there are some countries that she prefers to go to with somebody else and not on her own.
So we were talking about going to some places in Africa. But then she discovered that there was a cool cruise from Dubai to Cape Town, all the way down along the shore, and would be amazing. And it was not that expensive. It was long, but it would take us to the Seychelles and Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion, an amazing journey.
But then, so we went to Dubai and thought we were going to get on that cruise when it was canceled. Because yeah, so then we were in Dubai and said, Well, should we do some Africa or should we do because she can’t travel all the time? But she has a law firm and she takes three, or four weeks sometimes. So we said Africa? Yeah, maybe but then let’s go to Saudi Arabia.
So we went to Saudi Arabia and rented a car and drove 4000 kilometers around the country on a 10 day trip. And it was amazing. It was amazing. And now we’re planning with a bigger group of even more well-traveled people to do some more difficult countries in Africa, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria, maybe.
Corinne
Overland?
Palle
Yeah. And that’s right now we have a group of, I think seven or eight people that are where I’ve only been to 105 countries.
Corinne
We’ve only been to 90 together.
Palle
Together?
Jim 20:17
Yeah. Together. And then there’s a couple she hasn’t been to, and a couple I haven’t so yeah, 90 together.
Palle 20:27
And then, in October, we’re going on another road trip, just the two of us in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. Before there’s a conference for extreme travelers over there. So yeah, and that all became that all happened because I got to make a new friend when I was in Florida. And we got along fine, and found out that we’re traveling kind of the same way in the workshop.
Corinne 20:57
Yeah, we do the same thing. We’re always traveling with people in weird places. I put together a quick little group to travel Mongolia. Six people I think we put together that was a lot of fun. In the same India, you know, sometimes we put groups together and go that way. But most of it, we’ve done just the two of us or maybe with that one other couple that we’ve done quite a few countries where, yeah, yeah. But it’s a lot of fun. We’ve been to every continent except Antarctica, if you’ve been to Antarctica?
Palle 21:25
No, no. Yeah. But she has. Cynthia has Yeah. And I did an episode of my podcast, the radio Vagabond where she tells the story about how it was to spend the night on the ice.
Corinne 21:40
My daughter, my oldest daughter, she made it a goal of hers to be able to go when she was in college, for free. She did it through the Girl Scouts. The Girl Scouts had a program and I don’t think it survived the pandemic. But they used to pick one girl scout, every three years to go to Antarctica and work with the scientists. One every three years. And so my daughter made that a goal and she got the one and only spot. Yeah. And she was there for four months working with scientists. Wow. Yeah. Pretty cool. That’s pretty proud of that.
Palle 22:17
That’s just a quick in and out. expensive trip.
Corinne 22:23
Exactly.
Jim 22:24
Yeah, not a trip you can buy.
Palle 22:27
That’s pretty cool. No, but I’m hoping to go I’m I don’t know about. I think it is quite expensive. But I heard somebody mentioned a trick that you could go to this other we’re planning on doing. Was it you that told me?
Corinne 22:42
No, because I don’t think we’ve talked about this before, but it’s probably not a secret anymore. But for travelers, it’s not a secret that you go to Punta Arenas or Ushuaia…
Palle 22:54
…and be flexible with your time. Just stay until Okay, we got an opening and then maybe you can get a half price or something.
Corinne 23:02
Oh, yeah, in a heartbeat.
Jim 23:03
As a digital nomad, you have the time you can go and just explore that option.
Corinne 23:08
Am I thinking of doing that? Not for 2022. Season, but for 2023. Season? So like it’s its way up there on the list? We’re gonna hit seven continents.
Palle 23:20
Yeah, yeah. And I want to see the South America. I’ve only been to Buenos Aires.
Corinne 23:27
The only thing we’ve done in South America is Chile, Peru and a little bit of Ecuador on the way to the Galapagos. And we went to Easter Island as well. So because the Easter Island part was a spontaneous trip. Yeah, it was completely spontaneous. We were in Chile, walking through the streets of Santiago. And this is back in the days of wasn’t that long ago, it was only 2007 I believe. So wasn’t really like it was tons and tons of years ago. But things have changed. And advertised on this travel agent window was the chance to go to Easter Island for a pittance. I remember, we had our daughters with us. So there was four of us. I think we went for $700 round trip. I mean, it was like we could it was more expensive to say no.
Jim 24:22
And it was such a cool trip. Because it’s not a big tourism destination. I mean, I think it’s most travelers do really want to go there. Yeah, but it’s just nice that at least it wasn’t a big tourism destination. So we got in we rented a small car from a local just basically borrowed their car for a small amount of money and just drove around the island and it was I mean explored all the Moai and really had a great time.
Corinne 24:49
We really had was a good opportunity.
Palle
How was Galapagos?
Corinne
Incredible. You may have guessed the status, we’re not really cruising people So a lot of the Galapagos tours are on big or, or you know, 150 people even, in my opinion, way too many. So I did some research before I went and there are a couple of small boats that you can charter. So we went on a boat with 12 people and again, we had our daughters with us.
So we were four out of the 12. And it was one of the most amazing trips of our life because we were just flying to the island and then they met us and took us to the boat or you flew to the island.
Yeah, we flew in from Guayaquil, You can fly in from Guayaquil or from Quito. And we flew in, we were met there they pay you have to pay I think it’s $100 or something goes National Park. So that was a little expensive. I mean, for people that was 400 bucks, right like that.
But really the trip itself, other than that was not expensive. And every day you pick where you want to go. And every day, you just go on the boat here and go to this island and see this. And our captain, because it was very small crew of three was so good if he saw one of those bigger boats going to the same place he had planned. He would like change the plans. We don’t want to go there. So he kept us far and away from any other groups, which was amazing.
Palle
I want the name of that Captain.
Corinne
Well, I can give you the boat we were on was called the Golendrina. And it’s still time we checked it. We still I just checked it because I was updating my blog on it. And yeah, it was still in service just few months ago. So I think it’s okay. It may not be the exact same captain, but I’m sure if the same.
Palle 26:41
I want the same captain.
Jim 26:44
Maybe it’s his son by now.
Corinne 26:45
But it was really, really fun. And you know, they set us there with fresh fish out of this sea, just incredible. Everything about it was incredible. And I mean, the small boat to me, is how to do it. Yeah, everything smaller is always better. Right?
Palle 26:59
And also when sometimes you’re buying something that okay, this is kind of expensive. I just came from Africa. And I did two fairly expensive things. I went to the Masai Mara. And there was an opportunity to go on holiday, a hot air balloon flying in the morning. And it was $450. How that is expected. Yeah. And I thought, Okay. And the only reason I remember is because I just edited my podcast where I was doing that, and it’s the way I justified it was in 10 years time, I will remember the trip, but I will not be able to remember how much it costs. And if I had just edited that I wouldn’t be able to tell you that it was 450. And then a week later I was in Uganda going to see the gorillas that was also super expensive. I had to do it.
Corinne 28:00
We’ve done the gorilla tracking with the exact same idea that this is more money than we would normally spend probably. But it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see, we saw the Bwindi gorilla family. And it was just I mean, it was magical. It was nothing less than magical. So who cares how much it costs really.
Palle 28:21
And I wouldn’t be able to tell you how much I paid for the group.
Corinne 28:24
I don’t remember.
Jim 28:25
I can’t either.
Corinne 28:29
No idea was about I don’t even remember that would like $750 a person I believe. Yeah. Sounds about right. Yeah, it was because we did chimps we also did the chimpanzees. That was 350. Like what a bargain. They’re smaller!
Jim 28:45
But neither one of those experiences will ever forget. Now, like you said, the cost. It’s done. It’s gone.
Palle 28:52
Obviously you need money to buy food the next day, but if you’ve had that I’d much rather stay in cheap hostels for a month in order to make up for that.
Corinne 29:05
As for accommodations. The only thing I care about and accommodations are that it’s clean. Exactly. And it’s got good Wi Fi No, no bedbugs, no bedbugs and no bedbugs. I’ve been we’ve been safe across bedbugs yet
Palle 29:18
I have Luckily in the worst hostel experience ever in London.
Corinne 29:23
Oh, wow, London. Cheap accommodations in London is kind of hard.
Palle 29:27
It is hard and I was I thought okay hostel. I just need a place to sleep. And I came into this and it was bunk beds crammed into a tiny room. And it was there were three layers in each bunk. So I couldn’t sit in the bed. It was more like a little shelf I had to slide into. And then because I came from another time so I woke up super early in the morning and I thought why not just go down and sit in the kitchen with my computer do answer some emails and stuff.
And I came down there and be because they have kind of a rule that they want it to be quiet at night and they don’t want anyone to party there was after one o’clock at night or something until seven o’clock, you couldn’t be in the kitchen. But I was not partying, I was just this middle-aged dude who wanted to sit with the computer and answer some emails. And there was a woman there. And she looked at the sign and said, No, no, you can’t be here. So what’s the problem? No, if the sign says, You can’t be here. So where do you want me to be? Where you can sit in the bed? No, I can’t.
So I had to sit in the staircase, which was super, super narrow. So I had to move every time somebody wanted somebody something. But that’s where I had to be because I could not sleep anymore. So I was angry with them. And then the next morning, I woke up with the itching all over because of bedbugs. So I packed up and went down and said, I’m I’m leaving, I’d like to have my money back. And they just said, Well, you can speak to the manager. So is he here?
No. But here’s his phone number. So I tried to reach him and wasn’t able to. And I booked it through hotels.com, I think a billing.com. And I wrote to them, and they gave me the money. The hostel didn’t but there was not. My review was the first time I gave one star given and be zero if it couldn’t be I couldn’t remember the name of the hostel, I would say but I can’t remember.
Corinne 31:33
We had no similar experience. But one of the times that we were meeting our daughters in London, and we were all coming from different parts of the world. My one daughter was coming from Japan, my other daughter was coming from the States and then the two of us from Germany.
And so we were all just sort of meeting in London getting off the airport and meeting at the wasn’t a hostel, it was a budget hotel. And of course, it was probably the reservation, right. And my oldest daughter shows up because she was from Japan. She shows up first thing in the morning, like eight o’clock in the morning. And her idea was let me just get their drop off my bag and leave, they wouldn’t let her drop off the bag. When she was later on when it was time to check in. They wouldn’t let her check in because we weren’t getting there until like an hour or two later. Because we were coming from Germany. And you know, it’s a short flight. So we had an afternoon flight. All these things. And we were just like, This is ridiculous.
Jim 32:29
She’ll be there early. Oh, we were so mad. They weren’t budging at all.
Corinne 32:36
There are London hotels, but we’ve also had some great London hotels. They’re not cheap, but they’re not cheap. I think to find budget. Hopefully, somebody out there can then tell me where can you get a budget hotel or some type of accommodation in London? That’s worthwhile. Good. You know, just we haven’t had good luck with budget accommodation in London other places.
Palle 33:04
It’s not cheap here in this area as well. (Seattle/Tacoma)
Corinne 33:07
No, it is not.
Jim 33:12
Speaking of accommodations, yeah. You’ve been on the road for six years, six years. Is it a combination of Airbnb?Hostels? Yeah, no, what’s your go to?
Palle 33:28
I do I do mostly Airbnb. I think around half of my accommodations have been Airbnb. And I remember when I started traveling in 2016, I was 51. At the time, I thought I’m not going to do hostels, because that’s just for the young kids. Yeah. And if I do want my own room, but now I really really don’t care.
Obviously, I prefer to have my my my own place and be able to close the door. And even better if I’m staying longer. I tried to get the entire unit on Airbnb so I can cook myself as well. But here in this Airbnb that we’re in right now, I have a room in the basement, a nice bed and TV, and a desk where I can open my computer, but I’m free to use the kitchen. So sometimes I sit up here and now we’re in the living room of this place. And so this is perfect for me.
It’s very, very rare that I do hotels, or especially normal chain hotels because they’re the same all over the world. So sometimes if I’m doing a road trip I just check into a motel and and and stay and if I’m at a conference like TBEX, I do stay at a hotel. And then I do Couchsurfing sometimes, but mostly if I’m doing a road trip, also because it’s a great way to meet people and not just a thing about getting a free state because that’s not what Couchsurfing should be all about. What else?
Yeah, I mentioned that I do cruises from time to time. But that’s that actually started with the Nomad cruise, which is a thing for nomads kind of like a conference on a ship. And I did three of those one from Malaga and Spain to Athens in Greece. And then I liked it so much and the whole community that later the same year, I went from Barcelona and Spain to Brazil. So across the Atlantic, we were 500 nomads from 42 different countries or something like that. It was amazing. And, and then I did one from Athens through the Suez Canal all the way down to Dubai, which was super cool as well.
Corinne 35:48
They need to do one through the Panama Canal. That’s my dream.
Jim 35:52
Yeah, we were scheduled for the Panama canal cruise this spring, in fact, but it got canceled because of Omicron.
Corinne 35:59
That pesky pandemic.
Palle 36:01
Yeah. And obviously, you know, my crew says, not been going off. That’s also been planned that planned out so much. So now they started doing something called Nomad base. And I actually in a week from now, I’m in Croatia for Nomad base, where a lot of the same people that I know from Nomad cruise are going to be there.
So that’s my main reason for going as soon to joining that community again, and being a part of that because it’s, yeah, it’s a part of my extended family, I’d like to say. When you’ve done a nomad cruise where you’re doing everything. It is a conference, but we’ve just come from a conference and it’s when the sessions are over for the day, you go to maybe you do some meetups at night or go to dinner with somebody.
But if you’re on a cruise ship, you’re doing everything you’re eating together. You’re all drinking, dancing, having meetups hanging out with people. So you’re you get really close with these people. So I have some of my absolute best friends in this world is somebody I met on the Nomad cruise.
Corinne 37:11
Well, I would do that kind of cruise. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Jim 37:13
Well, we’re not really qualified yet.
Corinne 37:16
We’re not qualified. Not really
Jim 37:17
nomads, yes.
Palle 37:19
I think to quantify a lot of the people that are on the Nomad cruise there, they have a home base, and they’ve just able to travel from time to time, you definitely would qualify.
Corinne 37:33
I’ve always kind of considered ourselves kind of nomadic. Although we’ve always lived in an apartment or home somewhere, but it’s only been for a certain amount of time. And it’s never been in the States, it’s overseas. It’s never been where we’re from.
But yeah, we lived overseas for over 20 years, well over 20 years together. So that’s pretty nomadic as it is going from Turkey to Japan, to Korea, to the Netherlands to wherever living there for years, not for three months or six months, but for years.
Now, on our next phase, it’ll be much more we’ll be doing a month here. Two months, three months. I don’t know if we’ll go much more than that. Because it’ll be time to move on from that. Yeah. Well, we’ll do it.
Jim 38:23
I mean, that’s, what’s the longest amount of time that you’ve spent in one place?
Palle 38:27
It wasduring the long lockdown? Yeah, in 2020. I came. I don’t know if you can sense that. I love Cape Town. It’s okay. It’s my favorite place outside of my home. I really love it. And I’ve been there a couple of times. And then when I could see that the world was slowly closing down. I thought, Okay, let me ride out this Corona pandemic thing. Those two months that it’s going to last?
Jim 38:55
Yeah, right. That’s what we all thought.
Palle 38:59
I was actually in Bali. When it broke out. I did a trip to Thailand, came back to Bali. And then I went to Qatar on my way to Europe, because I wanted to go to ITB travel fair and Berlin. And then from there to TBEX in Sicily, and I did go to Berlin after ITB was canceled. And then when I was in Berlin, and I was booked on a flight to go to Sicily TBEX got canceled and so I thought okay, I’m not going there. Let me see if I can get to Cape Town. So I from Berlin, I went to Cairo, spent a few days there and then I got to Cape Town on March the 12th.
Corinne 39:44
The world shut down on the 20th didn’t it?
Palle 39:48
No, it shut down on the 13th.
Jim 39:49
Oh the 13th. The States was a little bit further behind.
Corinne 39:51
Although we were in Japan when it all went down.
Palle 39:53
Yeah, and I thought let me go there and they’ve got nice wine and everything is beautiful. It is gorgeous. And then they took away the wine. No alcohol was allowed.
Jim 40:02
No alcohol?
Palle 40:05
And so and I didn’t even know I didn’t stock up a Saturday morning when they took out the wine on the on the in the morning I came to the supermarket and taught them to get a bottle of wine for the weekend and there was nothing on this shelves. Where’s the wine? Where’s the wine?
Jim 40:21
What does the wine have to do with a pandemic?
Palle 40:22
Actually, for the first month, they were the only country in the world that had positive… they had more people not dying than they had people because of no traffic accidents and no domestic violence and the or alcohol-related crimes really helped their mortality rate more lives than they then they lost to the pandemic, which was interesting.
That was yeah, that was bizarre. And then yeah, I ended up staying in Cape Town for nine and then half months until they open the border again in November of 2020. And since then, I’ve been roaming around the world, when people are still have been saying, Oh, I can’t wait till we can travel again. And I’ve been traveling I’ve been to 30 countries so so during the pandemic.
Jim 41:18
Any problems that you run into get stuck anywhere or anything like that?
Palle 41:22
No, a no quarantine, a lot of COVID tests, right, and a lot of forms to fill out. But I’ve no quarantine I’ve been tested more than 100 times and I never tested the positive, always negative. Even when a lot of people stayed at home just not to get tested positive and get tested positive. And in fact, I haven’t I haven’t even had a cold. I haven’t been sick at all since 2019.
Jim 41:53
But aside from COVID, This has been a pretty healthy couple of years for a lot of people. Yeah. We both Well, I’ve we both came down with it in Indonesia, inJanuary, like the beginning of January of 2020. Coming through Indonesia.
Corinne 42:08
Befor they knew what it was, before it was actually made it anywhere around the world. We had COVID so when it started coming out…
Palle 42:15
How did you know? How do you know it was COVID?
Jim 42:18
I mean, we weren’t tested.
Corinne 42:19
We weren’t tested because it wasn’t a thing. But it was the start of it already been in China.
Jim 42:25
And as they would discover new symptoms, we were Oh, yeah, we had that!
Corinne 42:29
They haven’t lost your taste yet. Oh, wait a minute. That’s happened to them yet. Oh, wait a minute. And so we had it all. Yeah. And we knew as the world was discovering things, what was coming next. Yeah.
Jim 42:43
So we know is months of breathing problems. Yeah, no, the brain fog, all of that loss of taste. And we were flying through Kuala Lumpur airport at the time when they were doing renovations. And so getting through customs was just a nightmare. It took three hours. And at the whole time, it was JAM PACKED at least 1000 people China from China a lot of coughing, obviously sick people.
Palle 43:07
Yeah. And that was before people were really wearing masks.
Corinne 43:11
Oh, yes. It was well before because they did. Like I said it wasn’t even really out yet. Now we had it before it was we probably helped spread.
Jim 43:18
Oh, la dee da. Why are we special?
Palle 43:23
Yeah. And I remember the in the beginning that, because first it was China. And then it was Italy. And then it was New York and it was kind of three big hotspots. And at TBEX. You all know Jason Rupp, the the traveling YouTuber, and just some amazing stuff. Yeah, he was actually in Wuhan and went from there. He went to Italy to Sicily.
Jim 43:45
Because he was going to the conference?
Palle 43:49
And, and then things went crazy there. And then he thought, Oh, I better go home to New York, New York.
Corinne 43:57
So it’s his fault.
Jim 43:58
He brought it around the..
Palle 43:59
Yeah, patient zero. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, of course. He was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s hilarious.
Corinne 44:06
Yeah. Well, Japan, we lived in Japan at the time, as I said, and we were coming back from Indonesia, and Malaysia trip that we were on. And Japan was kind of in denial.
Jim 44:19
Well, with the Olympics coming they really didn’t want to jeopardize that. So yeah, it was a long time before they really said, Oh, maybe this is a problem.
Corinne 44:26
In fact, they did start wearing masks, but they weren’t necessarily mandatory. And they didn’t stop public transportation. They didn’t stop any of that stuff. Masks weren’t mandatory on them or anything
Palle 44:39
But many of them do anyway. Yes, exactly. Right. Even way before.
Jim 44:43
It’s part of the culture. If you’re sick, you wear a mask hoping that you won’t get other people sick.
Corinne 44:45
I was hoping this would be a side benefit of what happened with COVID that that part of the Japanese culture would be shared because what they do is if they get a cold or flu, whatever, and they feel like they have to go out they mask up. So there’s respect other people. Exactly. I have not seen that actually coming to fruition, unfortunately.
Jim 45:05
Even though I am working, I still work. I almost at the same time feel is like one long vacation. And then it did happen to me. When I was in El Salvador, the way I travel, sometimes I travel fast. And sometimes I take it slow. And so that’s why when the pandemic hit, I counted it and divided it up to the number of days I’ve been traveling. And it was an average of 4.5 days in the same place.
Not in the States anyway.
Corinne 45:08
But yeah, so we were in Japan until June and then we went back to the States.
Jim 45:13
We’ve been here since then.
Corinne 45:17
So I’m always about stories. And you’ve told us some good ones. What are some of the, maybe the highlights or the funniest things that have happened to you over the last six years as a result of being a digital nomad?
Jim 45:33
Or if you can’t think of one of those? Was there a time when you thought, Why the hell am I doing? This? This isn’t really working. Maybe I should try something else.
Palle 45:45
People have told me that at some point, I’m gonna get travel fatigue, and it’ll all be the same. Just another day at the office and be the new normal. And I was always saying it’s new for me.
Obviously, that’s changed, and I travel slower now sometimes. But occasionally, I do travel fast. And then I can feel that I need to slow down, because I need to stay hungry. And that happened to me, I think. Yeah, sometimes I can just feel okay, now it’s time to just take a few weeks here.
But I was just done quite a big trip in Panama, from Panama City all the way to Bocas del Toro. And then I got into Costa Rica, rented a car drove around for two weeks from place to place and saw the whole country. And then I got to El Salvador and also stayed in a few places.
And then came to El Tunco In El Salvador, which is stunning and beautiful. And it’s a beach town. And at the time I was there, they were having the World Championship of surfing. So it was such a cool place to be. And everything I travel for, it had everything. And I just wasn’t feeling it. I was walking around, telling myself, why am I not? I wasn’t miserable in any way.
Right? I was just, I didn’t feel anything. So I said to myself, enjoy yourself. And, and I thought, okay, okay, I need to get the hunger back. So I looked for a place in the mountains. So we’re not much there was a volcano and I did do a volcano trip. But I went there, and checked myself into a hostel and stayed there for two weeks and did nothing but work.
Of course, I walked around the town, but I just needed to not do any big trips and go out exploring and getting my senses overloaded. I needed to get my hunger back. So I stayed there for two weeks and got to Guatemala stayed at another place, made some great friends there at a guesthouse and, and stayed there for three weeks.
And then I was ready to go traveling again and did a Caribbean cruise. Little travel rehab. Yeah, exactly. It’s cool. So I really tried to listen to myself, because I want to do this. In the long term. I spoke to I heard Nora Dunn who’s the Traveling Hobo, and she’s been traveling for 12 years. And she says it’s normal to get burnout after 10 years.
Some people it happens way sooner. And some people it happens later. And I think the way that because if I don’t like it, I can always go back and find a place to stay again. But I want this life and I love this life. But I have to remind myself to enjoy it. So those people that travel around just to tick off countries to get the country number up and rush in and out of countries. I do count countries but it’s not if I go back to places I’ve been to before and now I’m going to Croatia and I’ve been there and going to Spain again and so I’m going to places I go and I love to come back to. But I also tried to go to new places.
Corinne 50:04
Yeah, we’re the exact same way. We do count countries because you know, it’s a measure, but at the same time, it’s not our driving force. No, our driving force is enjoying travel, meeting the people, whether they be travelers or locals, experiencing the food and the culture, and yeah, whatever else, the beauty.
Jim 50:25
You can have amazing experiences like that, in, you know, the next town down the road, or it could be in a country that you’ve never been to. So it works either way.
Palle 50:37
Have you? Have you ever been in any kind of danger?
Corinne 50:40
You know, perceived danger, perhaps. Yeah, I don’t know that we’ve actually, I’m gonna say I don’t know that if we have or not. We’ve had a few interesting experiences we were unsure of.
Jim 50:54
The Philippines was the one I’m thinking and Oh, I was thinking to Tunisia. Yeah, there have been a couple of and like you said, perceived, maybe there wasn’t really danger. But in, in the Philippines, we did a side trip to Palawan Island, flew into the small airport and had arranged for a ride to take us to our accommodations. And so this van pulled up.
Corinne 51:18
It’s already almost nighttime.
Jim 51:21
It was getting dark. And we had really no idea how long to expect the ride to be but we climbed in. It seemed legitimate, no problem. And we started off down the road and the road got smaller and smaller.
Corinne 51:33
And the more we were on this thing, it seemed less and less and less legitimate.
Jim 51:37
And it kept getting darker and darker. And once it was pitch black, occasionally, the driver and there was a guy sitting next to him both kind of rough-looking gentleman. He would every now and then flip the dome light on and look back at us.
Corinne 51:51
And then start talking.. Oh, no. Like, like I said, the more where this is happening, the more nervous we were getting.
Jim 51:59
We’re like, are we getting kidnapped in the Philippines, or what’s going on? And this went on what seemed like for hours, man oh, in hindsight, maybe it was more like an hour and a half, maybe two hours. It felt like a very long, but it wasn’t very long.
And about the timek, we were thinking Okay, the next time we stop, we’re out of here. But about that time is when we pulled into this beautiful place on the beach, where we were one of two couples in the entire place. For some reason, it was completely empty.
Corinne 52:33
It was was a Filipino couple and ourselves. We had such an amazing trip, karaoke with them. We did all kinds of stuff. But it was just this weird, weird sort of Twilight Zone experience. But we not gonna say we weren’t nervous.
When we were in Tunisia, we had a guy following us. And I know he was following us. And so I even sidled up to him and started talking to him. He was a young guy. And I thought he was gonna mug us. We had cameras, we always have things like that. But he didn’t mug us, and he even talked with me. But he wouldn’t leave us.
So we knew there was something going on there. And then I thought, Okay, well, he wants to know where our hotel room is. And they’re gonna steal from us there, which may or may not have been the case, I don’t know. But it was getting to be a couple of hours this was going on. And he was just walking with us the whole way.
So finally, there was this man who was on the corner, and I just stopped and I said, Do you speak English? And he goes, Oh, man, you’re asking him French. I think I was speaking French. I said, I need I need a little bit of help. And he said, what’s happening?
I said, this man is following us. He keeps following us everywhere we go. He’s following us. And he let that man have it. I don’t know what he said to him, because he said it in Arabic. And he basically chased him away. And we went on our way back to the hotel, but we weren’t gonna leave before him. At first I thought we were just gonna get mugged by him. And then I thought, well, maybe he’s trying to figure out where our hotel is. I don’t know.
Jim 54:04
And you did talk to him, but he didn’t ever really talk back. So it wasn’t like, some people want to practice English or something like that.
Corinne 54:11
It was definitely sketchy. But we’ve and then in Poland, we got our car broken into, but nothing was stolen, including car keys right there in the car. I mean, we’ve had a few incidences I mean, we’ve been traveling together for going on forty years. So a few things but yeah, nothing really.
Jim 54:29
But no, not any real danger. How about you?
Palle 54:32
Never, never. And sometimes I hear some of the travelers they have some great stories. I spoke to adventurous Kate and she told me the story of she was in the shipwreck and the boat sank and it was like crazy. And I in the beginning I said to her sometimes I’m so jealous that I don’t have any stories and then she told me the story and said okay, I’m gonna tell stories.
Now. I’ve been scammed a number of times I’m sorry, but never anything serious. And whenever I’m getting scammed or something not according to plan happens, I think first, I think, Oh, this is so annoying. And then I think I got a good story. Yeah. So I try to remind myself and that’s when I bring up my microphone and start recording. So or get it down, open my phone and start recording there. And so they it’s not too obvious.
Corinne 55:26
We’ve never really had enough problems to stop us from traveling. That’s for sure. Yeah. And those are years and years apart. I mean, we’re, like I said, we’ve been traveling together for 40 years almost. So you’re bound to have little hiccups along the way.
Palle 55:41
It happens when you are living a normal life. I had people break into my house. I was in a car crash 500 meters from my home at some point that was very serious. And you can get run over by bus crossing the street in your hometown, or whenever people say, Oh, isn’t it dangerous to travel? That’s dangerous not to drown 99.999% of people in the world who want to do good, and then one of the smartest people.
Corinne 56:10
And that’s what we’ve always found. And I think we live by that. And that’s maybe where we’re a little travel weary. I was talking to my mother-in-law, my mother-in-law was at the conference. And she and my father-in-law have traveled quite a bit and I think they just think Jim and I are crazy. Some of the things that we do, maybe we’re a little crazy adventurous, so but we just don’t worry about it anymore. Nothing fazes me, it doesn’t matter what happens, I know it’s gonna work out.
Palle 56:45
And most people have some perceptions about certain countries, like if I say Colombia. They would say, oh, danger. No, it’s not. It was maybe in the 90s. I was just in Medellin, and spent two months there. And it’s such a transformed city. And it’s perfectly safe. Obviously, you want to use your common sense and not walk down a dark alley, in certain areas of the city. But that goes for
Jim 57:14
every big city. Yeah.
Palle 57:16
And also, if I was just in Rwanda, and all Rwanda, and has a bad ring to it isn’t a dangerous. And actually, according to all statistics, Rwanda is the safest country in Africa. It’s the safest country in Africa. And what blew me away is so clean, is like Japan clean. There’s not a piece of chewing gum in the street. It is so clean. It’s amazing. And very nice. And the people are friendly. And but because there was a genocide in 94, people still have a perception Oh, it’s probably not a safe country. But it is. And that goes for a lot of places.
Corinne 58:01
I have to say when we were traveling with our kids, we paid a little bit more attention to that. Sure. We were traveling when they were little. And we went to Yugoslavia back in 91.
The day before the war broke out, literally, the war broke out at midnight, and we were there that day. And we had planned on going down to Dubrovnik and camping out for doing some camping for a week. But the news was pretty clear that the war was happening soon.
So we did change our plans and we only went in for the day, and we plan to leave before nightfall. For that reason, it’s a good thing we left because they didn’t let tourists leave the country for a full week after that. 10 days or whatever. So we would have been stuck there. And when we went across the border, my daughters were.. how old were they were five and seven? And they were playing with guards, the young guards that were just about to go to war.
So I mean, it was pretty stark. But we had a wonderful day. We ended up spending most of it at this restaurant where this man took us under his wing as people do and just talk to us and told us some stories and explain that devaluation in the money which was mind-boggling at the time. I think it was devalued four zeros. Yeah, four zeros.
Jim 59:27
It had been devalued but they kept bills. They kept currency from both systems. So you had some like 100 million whatever. They were dinare, maybe yeah. And then you had 10 million or 10 -1000s.
Corinne 59:44
We talked to one guy we’re like, well, we like Yugoslavia and he goes from being real friendly to us and we said that word and he completely changed. Like there was killing in his eyes. You can just see the change.
Jim 59:54
Yugoslovia -No! Slovenia.
Corinne 59:57
We’re like yes, yes, yes, we love Slovenia!
Palle 1:00:00
the only country with loving his name. That’s right.
Corinne 1:00:04
So so we’ve been on the cusp a few times we were we were in Tunisia, right before Arab Spring. I mean, we were on the cusp in Syria.
Palle 1:00:17
You’re the Jason Rupp of war zones.
Corinne 1:00:21
So we’ve been around and done quite a bit, but never really, really never felt unsafe.
Palle 1:00:26
Now I remember that that first trip before I became a nomad, where I went to Cape Town, I said to a lot of my friends that I was going to Cape Town for two months. And so many of them say, oh, that’s rare, isn’t it dangerous, and also has a reputation. And then I need some support from a friend of mine who has been to South Africa many times. So I went to him and said, I’m going to Cape Town for two months. And then he said, All Palle, it’s so dangerous. I said, Come on, not you too? Know what I mean? I’s so dangerous, because when you get there, you don’t want to leave!
Jim 1:00:58
We really loved it there too. We didn’t stay as long as you did, though. But next time had the same you know, the same thing. Everybody would say, oh, keep down the crime. That was really bad. The worst theft we saw was the seagulls down it one port’s restaurants. Yeah, stealing the french fries from a lady.
Palle 1:01:16
They do that on the waterfront. Yeah, absolutely. And obviously, you don’t want to go to the biggest township in the middle of the night. But you can go to other townships like Langa is, especially during the day, and it’s more like an artistic area now and but there are you want to use your common sense, of course. But I, you asked me for a weird story.
And if we have time for that I did a road trip from there, from Cape Town, to Johannesburg, I rented a car. There was a little stretch from a Port Elizabeth to Durban where I got on a plane and jumped over that because I only had 20 days for this road trip. But I also wanted to go to Lesotho. So I looked at the Google Maps up this mountain road up there called Sani Pass. You know about it?
Corinne 1:02:14
No, but we know how Google Maps gets lost.
Palle 1:02:17
Yeah, but if the road was there, it just didn’t tell me much about what kind of road it was. And apparently I later found out that it’s illegal to drive unless you have a four-by-four. And there I was in a Toyota Corolla making my way up that road and it became more and more and more crazy. It wasn’t even a gravel road. It was just big, big rocks that you were just close slowly driving from one big rock to the next and I was so focused on driving and not injuring, hurting this poor Toyota Corolla. So I made it to the border and there was a little office and what’s it called? A boom?
Jim 1:03:03
Yes, a gate.
Palle 1:03:04
A gate that wasn’t closed. So I kept going, I didn’t even know that was the border and kept going. And then I came to a river that came across the road and I stepped out of the car and just to see how bad is this? Can I make it across here it was in the mountains and the guys came from the office at the border.
I wish I was a fly on the wall have them looking out of the window and seeing something they’ve never seen before. A crazy European driving a Toyota Corolla is like two things doesn’t match because they’ve never seen a Toyota Corolla up there before only four by fours.
So he didn’t even get in his car. He just walked slowly, because he knew it was like 200 meters, he knew that I was not gonna get any further. And, and I have this on tape because obviously, because whenever I’m in a good story, so I started recording and him coming up to me.
So I have that in my podcast episode that’s called the day I nearly made it to Lesotho. And he came up and said in this wonderful South African accent, you’re not getting any further in that vehicle, the road is gonna get worse from here. And so he got in the car and I had to back down to the office again and I was chatting with these guys they were having lunch and having a laugh of what the hell am I doing?
And it was my plan only to spend one night there. It’s such a tiny, tiny country in the middle of South Africa and then go back the same way. So he said well, you can you can wait and see if there’s gonna be a four-by-four coming that has an extra seat for you. But the place I booked was a little bit out of the way so I couldn’t really make it in there. So, I turned around, made my way down, Sani Pass instead. So of all the countries down there that I’ve been to, I have not been to Lesotho. I came so close. I was sort of in no man’s land, right?
Jim 1:05:17
You crossed the South African border, but not the other one.
Corinne 1:05:21
So can you drive to Lesotho on a different road?
Palle 1:05:25
From the north, I think you can, okay, or get a full bus.
Corinne 1:05:28
We haven’t done that part of South Africa. Actually, at all. We’ve done more the southern parts. So, we’ve got to get there.
Palle 1:05:36
Yeah. And then I went back and then I went to Ewantini. Back in the day when they was called Swaziland, not anymore stayed in, in a game reserve inside the country, which was stunning and beautiful and so great. And then made it all the way up and did a couple of days or days of self-driving in Kruger National Park before going to Pretoria and Johannesburg. So that was a great road trip. But let’s also let’s do that sometime. Let me let me know. Jim loves driving.
Jim 1:06:07
We do road trips everywhere. Yeah, done road trips in India. We’ve had Google Maps send us down roads that we probably should never have been on the day. Yeah. In fact, one was in Chobe National Park in Botswana. Oh, yeah, we got in trouble for it too. And we got in trouble for that. Yeah.
Driving into Zambia, Namibia. Yeah. On the other side of the park. There’s a road that goes through the park, there’s a highway that goes around the park. And we thought, you know, we’ve got time we’ll drive through the park, when we’re driving in sand about four inches deep.
Well, we got halfway through and realized we weren’t going to have enough time. It was gonna get dark before we got to the other side of the park. So I look at Google Maps, and there’s a little side road that connects off to the highway, only about three or four kilometers. Well, that’s where we ran into the sand. And we had a four by four. But pretty soon the sand track turned into a place where a tree had fallen down that we managed to get around. We did finally make it the whole little three kilometers. It took probably two hours. And we come out and then we go along the highway to the border or to the other end of the park. And because we had checked into the park, yeah, at the game trail, we should have checked out either at that point or the other game trail. And yeah, they slapped our hands. Who said, how did you get here? That road is not a road.
Palle 1:07:31
I got stuck in the sand in Saudi Arabia and I hate that. I could feel it just before. Come on. Come on. Come on. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then the locals say rushed in to help me. It was the friendliest people I’ve met in the world.
Jim 1:07:49
Well, that’s what we find people are friendly and helpful
Corinne 1:07:52
Everywhere, no matter where you go. Yeah. And it’s funny, because you say they’re the friendliest in the world. And I do believe the Muslim culture is one of the friendliest. I believe so. Yeah. We lived in Turkey for four years. And I mean, we, yeah. It’s the same story all over the Middle East.
Palle 1:08:10
If you ask people who have traveled a lot, they would say that the Iranians are the friendliest people. But I’m in Saudi Arabia. It was unbelievable. I was at a gas station in the morning, and I didn’t have breakfast. So I just wanted to get something from the gas station. And so I had a croissant in my hand, and they didn’t take MasterCard or Visa card.
They only took the local MasterCard, which they have there. So I know that’s okay. I’ll just get something at the next one. And then there was a random customer who said, No, I’ll pay for you. I said No, no, no, I can’t let you do that. Yeah, sure.
What do you what do you want? Well, this croissant and this. No, yeah, but you need more.You need some juice. Have any got a basket. He started filling stuff in there, juice, chips and biscuits and all kinds of things. I went out of that shop with a plastic bag full of stuff. And this random guy paid for me. That’s crazy. And the same thing happened later. A few days later. Exactly. The same thing happened. Somebody just offered to pay for me. And it was not a rich guy. It was a regular construction worker. So it’s Wow.
Corinne 1:09:24
I believe you. I have not been to Saudi Arabia. Jim has. It’s one of the countries we have not been to together. It’s definitely on the list. Everything’s on my list. Yeah. If I haven’t been there, it’s on my list. Even places we have places we been are still on the list.
So yes, well Palle. We could talk to you, obviously for hours and hours because we have so many shared ideas of experiences.
Palle 1:09:50
That’s all we have time for.
Jim 1:09:52
That’s all we have time for today.
Corinne 1:09:54
That’s right till next time. We’ll do it again. Absolutely. All right. We want to really thank you and everybody listening. You can check the show notes for Palle’s website and podcast, Radio Vagabond.
Palle
The Radio Vagabond.
Jim 1:10:16
Thank you very much. Thank you all right. Thanks for listening to this episode of streets and eats. If you liked what you heard, please show us some love. Hit the like button and leave us a review. Maybe even subscribe so you don’t miss any future podcasts. Also, we’d love it if you joined us on our Facebook private group streets needs where we just have an ongoing conversation about all things travel. Ciao for now.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai