Every-Day Explorer Podcast – | GKM

We’re talking about something a bit different for this episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast. While almost all our episodes up until now have spoken about finding adventure at home, we appreciate the ache for trips to faraway lands – so in this episode we discuss making a home for yourself in another country.

When we talk about taking big trips abroad, we usually imagine a scenario where we sell our apartments, leave our jobs, and pack up all our things into storage. But what if taking a longer trip abroad didn’t have to mean all those things? What if you took your skills in your current job elsewhere, and perhaps a few boxes of belongings too?

Heading to another country for a long time doesn’t have to mean giving up everything. In fact, it can mean building on what you already have, a theory that especially applies to your career and job prospects. We found no better person to talk to about this than our friend Hazel, our co-host for this Every-Day Explorer Podcast chat.

Travel writer and editor Hazel Plush spent two years living and working in the Middle East, exploring the Gulf’s best bits on weekends and the occasional day off. Soul hopping in Qatar, camping in Oman… It was catnip for this keen traveller: who knew you could cram such adventure into just a couple of days?

Now back in the UK, working as a senior editor on the Telegraph’s travel section, Hazel still squeezes many escapades into those precious weekends – only these days, she’s usually in waterproofs. The Cotswolds and Dorset are particular favourites.

She wholeheartedly recommends working overseas for the sheer joy of having different destinations on your doorstep – no matter what your profession.

Our founder Emma and Hazel chat about their experiences of expat life in Dubai, Canada, and Thailand, swapping stories about professional achievements (and a couple of mishaps) along the way. They also have plenty of advice to share about how to start putting the wheels in motion for living abroad, and argue why there’s no better time than now to do so!

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That’s it for the Every-Day Explorer Podcast for a little while, but never fear – we’ll be back again in a few months. If you’ve listened to all the episodes and need some more inspiration in the meantime, check out our travel print journal A Year in the UK & Ireland, which is about our own adventures around our home country last year.

We’ll be back soon!

We love taking photos here at GKM. We regularly go on photo walks, we get a thrill out of Instagram, and we care for our cameras as if they were our own children. Over the years, we’ve found that the more we’ve got into photography, the more we’ve developed a greater awareness when travelling. Being on the look-out for beautiful pictures has encouraged us to see things with new eyes – even then places we’ve lived in for years.

For this episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast, we chat to photographer Katrinka Sasha about how to pay more attention by becoming a shutter bug. Some of you may remember Katrinka from episode one of the podcast, where she talked about her adventures in daring destinations. We chat about this further from the perspective of photography, including her favourite places to shoot, some sage advice about how to get started, and why she loves to use film cameras.

Through her website, KatrinkaAbroad.com, Katrinka documents her travel and posts stunning galleries of her photos. From Salvation Mountain in the USA to the changing faces of Istanbul – her current base – Katrinka tells beautiful stories through pictures and words, and we’ve met few people more passionate about pictures than her.

This conversation between Katrinka and our founder Emma, another avid photographer, talks about how looking at life through a lens can force you to notice things you would otherwise skim over. This applies to travel and venturing through new lands, but is also so relevant when talking about home. Going out for a walk through your city with a camera in-hand and the intention of capturing a story with it puts an entirely new spin on familiar surroundings.

Photography can quite literally open your eyes to new perspectives, and is a form of discovery in its own right. Be inspired by Katrinka and her life of photos in this fascinating episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast.

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As well as using it for flicking through beautiful photo galleries, we love to use Instagram to help us plan future trips. Millions of photo are uploaded onto Instagram every day, making it one of the world’s most frequently updated resources for travel. People love to Instagram their morning coffee or Sunday walks, so why not tap into that and use the app to find cool things to see and do as you travel?

Read this post to find out more:

How to Use Instagram to Plan Your Travels

There’s nothing quite like the freedom of feeling the wind in your hair while riding a bike. Cheaper and greener than a car, and quicker than walking, cycling is an ideal ways to get around, and many people ride bikes to get from A to B. But have you ever thought to use cycling as a method of discovery?

In this episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast, we chat to bike fanatic Scot Whitlock. Scot spends the majority of his life on two wheels – he takes the kids to school by bike, he goes on big cycle trips, and in a couple of weeks he’ll be setting off on a bike journey across Kazakhstan. His books – Simple Words from the Saddle, and upcoming sequel Simply More Words from the Saddle – share his insights from a life of riding.

It’s fair to say that Scot is one of the best people to talk to about cycling as a means of exploration, and you’re sure to be inspired by his anecdotes and advice in this episode. Scot and our founder Emma talk about cycling adventures through France and Spain, what might make you hesitate before committing to cycling (and some solutions), the gear you need to get going with, and more.

Scot cycling in Connemara, Ireland

This episode is a one-stop-shop for riding bikes, answering all the questions you may have about becoming a cyclist and making a case for using cycling as a way to discover more of the world. Sit back and enjoy the ride!

(P.S. We recorded this in a room with a parrot – we’ll give a prize to the first person who gives us the time at which you can hear it squawk!)

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We hope that this episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast has inspired you to see more of your local and beyond area by bike. Perhaps you’ve even been persuaded to go further than that, and organise a long-distance cycle just like the expeditions that Scot goes on. If so, this post may interest you:

The Pros and Cons of Solo Travel from a Solo Cyclist

Dave Gill, our pal and this article’s author, travelled 12,000 miles by bike across North America, and wrote about it in his fantastic book Vague Direction. Not only does he write about solo travel in the above feature, but also his experience of that from the perspective of a cyclist, offering a fountain of knowledge especially useful for those of you thinking of going the distance alone.

When many of us want to get away for the weekend, we choose to escape on a city break. Spending a couple of days in an exciting new city is one of the best ways to squeeze in adventure around a hectic work and life schedule. In this episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast, we chat to travel blogger Hannah Kacary about how to organise a killer city break, from accommodation advice, to how to save money and balance your time between sightseeing and relaxing.

Since walking (read: being dragged) up Mount Vesuvius at the age of six, Hannah has loved adventure. She can’t sit still for long which has its difficulties when you’re working a 9-6 job five days a week! However, this has meant she’s learnt to master the art of a weekend break and crams in as many as possible whilst stretching her annual leave as far as she can. Her website, That Adventurer, chronicles her escapades, and she details heaps of advice on quick and budget-friendly trips.

This experience makes Hannah ideal for this conversation about city breaks with our founder, Emma. The pair share stories about their own trips – mostly across European cities – and use them to offer you some advice on how to become a city break ninja yourself. Between them they’ve stayed in anything from humble hostels up to design hotels, perfected the art of foreign supermarket shopping and eating out for cheap, and know the hidden secrets of where to look online for the best tips in town.

Even if you’re pretty apt at city breaking yourself, you’re bound to find some new ideas in the jam-packed episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast.

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If you’ve listened to this episode, you will have learnt that we’re always on the look-out for the unusual and offbeat when it comes to city breaks. There are of course unmissable sights in any city around the world, but when we zip away for the weekend we want to find something different and have a local experience.

As we travelled around the UK and Ireland last year, we began putting together alternative city guides, which are packed full of tips that you won’t find in a standard guidebook. Since then, we’ve also started to created them for our current location, Portugal. Here are a few to whet you appetite:

Alternative Dublin City Guide

Alternative Glasgow City Guide

Alternative Porto City Guide

Wild swimming is nothing new. People have been taking a dip in lakes and rivers across the world for thousands of years. And yet, for most of us it seems more normal to swim in a designated, chlorinated, heated pool, often inside and full of other people.

Somewhere along the line health and safety reared its ugly head and deemed natural bodies of water unsuitable for swimming. This episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast is here to tell you otherwise, helped along by wild swimming pro, Elsa Hammond.

An award-winning travel writer, Elsa Hammond has unicycled across England, spent 51 days rowing alone on the Pacific Ocean, and co-authored The Wild Guide to Southern and Eastern England. She lives in Oxford, and is busy finishing her PhD in Romantic and Victorian poetry. Alongside this, she swims in Oxford’s rivers all year round, writes poetry, and speaks and writes about her experiences “alone on a wide, wide sea”.

It’s clear when speaking to Elsa how passionate she is about cold water swimming. She recounts tales of swims she had across the world with fondness, and argues an excellent case for why you should take to the water too. Inspired by how Elsa spoke about wild swimming in this episode, we too have started diving into lakes here in Portugal more often, and doing so has helped us discover extraordinary things.

Elsa in her natural habitat

The reason why we wanted to include wild swimming in this series is because the practice of finding somewhere natural to take a dip offers a unique way of exploring the world around you – especially if you’ve never tried wild swimming before. New spaces open up, and you begin to find yourself trawling maps for patches of blue and skimming through internet forums to find advice from other swimmers. Wild swimming pushes us to connect with nature. By finding places to go for a swim we often stumble on undisturbed, quiet little pockets of paradise, away from the crowds and chlorine of a public pool.

If it’s never even crossed your mind to try wild swimming as a way to discover more of your local area, we dare you to listen to this podcast and not be tempted by it. Elsa has inspired us to go out for a wild swim whenever we can, and we’re sure this episode will do the same for you.

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In this episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast, we chat about the time Elsa took our founder Emma swimming in the Thames in Oxford – back in February when the water was a brisk five degrees. This wild swimming post talks more about what it was like to go wild swimming for the first time (and in winter!) and shares advice on how you can take the plunge too:

Wild Swimming in England: a First-Timer’s Experience

When you first think of volunteering and travel, pictures of schools or building projects across the world no doubt spring to mind. While these project do exist, volunteering is a much broader spectrum than we realise.

In this episode, our founder Emma and travel blogger Flora Baker, also known as Flora the Explorer, aim to set the story straight. With years of volunteer experiences between them – including working on a cheese farm in Canada, a prosthetic limb clinic in Bolivia, schools in Africa, and a vineyard in Spain – Flora and Emma share their (often wacky) stories and sage advice. What’s more, both have worked in volunteer projects at home, proving that you don’t have to go far to give back and that you can discover new things through volunteering even when you work  full-time job.

Flora Baker is a freelance writer, avid volunteer and founder of FloraTheExplorer.com, where she chronicles her adventures around the world. Flora is currently in London pursuing her masters degree in non-fiction writing, but we managed to nab her for a short while one afternoon to be a part of this episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast. With so much experience volunteering, there seemed no better person to chat to about this amazing way to travel.

A big part of our conversation with Flora is about volunteering abroad, something that we believe everyone should do at least once. Unfortunately, in the last few decades volunteering has become something of an ethical minefield, where large companies make profits on travellers paying to volunteer and vulnerable people are exposed to complete strangers coming into their lives. Flora and I touch on the ways to get around these challenges, and how to find placements that have their hearts in the right place.

But this podcast is about fitting travel and discovery around an everyday life, so it was important for us to include volunteering at home in our discussion too. Flora and Emma chat together about volunteering in their own countries, and how it’s helped them to meet new people and discover parts of home they’d never set foot in.

As Flora has also helped out in Calais refugee camps this year, the pair also talk about how the refugee crisis has opened up countless opportunities to volunteer. If you’re reading this, it’s likely that refugees are coming into your own country right now. Not only is it a worthwhile cause to help, but lending a hand is a great way to broaden your perspective on the world and talk to people with truly fascinating stories.

Hear all about this, and more, in this inspiring episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast.

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Having listened to the episode, you will have learnt that Flora has volunteered with children a few times on her travels. As this is such a touchy subject when talking about volunteering, it’s imperative to know what you’re getting into when thinking about volunteering with children. This post on Flora’s blog offers some know-before-you-go advice:

Volunteering with Children Abroad: the Issue You Should Know

Today we’re joined by Madoc Threipland, a keen traveller from London who founded a company named Secret Adventures. Designed to prove that the thrill of exploration is never too far away, Secret Adventures runs evening and weekend trips in London – anything from full moon swims to kayaking on the Thames.

We chat to Madoc about how he created the company, the kinds of experiences they’ve had so far, and the advice he’s got to share to people who want to seek outdoor adventure in hectic urban spaces.

We found out about Secret Adventures through a couple of blog posts we stumbled upon online. When we heard about the project, we knew we wanted to get Madoc on this podcast because Secret Adventures represents everything this series is about – especially the fact that the adventures prove that you can get your travel thrills even in smokey cities and around a jam-packed work schedule.

And that’s just one of the perks we’ve discovered about Secret Adventures. We actually went on one of their lido swim and camp fire evenings around the time we recorded this episode, so we could see what one of their nights is all about. It was a chilly February evening in London Fields, but there we were, a group of strangers all looking for something different, sat around a campfire discussing the perfect technique for toasting marshmallows. We were excited to meet people who crave adventure just like we do.

Madoc and a group of Secret Adventures kayakers

This episode of the Every-Day Explorer Podcast is great for those keen outdoor explorers who live and work in big cities. If you grew up in the countryside or you’re used to having access open spaces, sometimes moving to a city can be claustrophobic and it can feel like adventure is too far away – this chat with Madoc proves otherwise. We’re so impressed by the way he makes it look so easy to find little pockets of wonder in urban spaces, so there’s a lot to learn from him.

Get ready to be inspired!

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In this episode, Madoc and I touch on some advice for those looking for the outdoors in big cities. To give you some more tips, we’ve written up this post:

5 Ways to Find Outdoor Adventure in Cities

It’s all about pushing yourself to find those quirky spaces and reimagining what you can do in them. You’d be surprised how much you can find even in the most dense places, if you’re willing to rethink what it is to have an outdoor adventure. And sometimes, the challenge of finding it in a big city is more rewarding that venturing to wide open spaces.

Today we’re joined by Brenna Holeman, who runs a fantastic travel blog called This Battered Suitcase.

The inspiration behind collaborating with Brenna on this particular episode came from a blog post she wrote. This feature talks about different styles of travel, and how you should travel however you please. You don’t have to drop everything, and you don’t have to go away for months or years on end. And it doesn’t make you unadventurous to admit that.

Every word in Brenna’s blog post resonated with us (we also sit in our pyjamas watching Master of None, and Brenna and our founder Emma pretty much met over a mutual love of Malbec. But we also identified with all the travel opinion in her post too).

We find ourselves rolling our eyes at all the quotes and Pinterest graphics emblazoned with ‘Quit your job and go!’ Not only because they’re a little cheesy and lame in our eyes, but also because we think throwing out that statement is a dangerous game to play.

Brenna in Cinque Terre, Italy

Sure, we encourage people to travel and sure, we commend anyone who changes a life they’re sick of. But uprooting and rearranging everything to do so isn’t the only way to do it, and a ‘quit your job and go’ mentality is speaking to only one kind of person. It’s unfair to presume that it’s a feasible path for everyone.

What if you have responsibilities back home? What if you don’t have the money, or a safety net to fall back on if things go wrong? And, what if you actually really love your job and don’t want to leave it?

We wanted this subject to be in this series because this alternative audience is exactly who we want to speak to in this podcast – people who love travel, but are also perfectly content with their job, apartment, or living in their home country. This podcast is about fitting a love of travel around an everyday life, and we wanted an episode that felt like an antidote to all the articles out there telling people that a true adventure has to be big, bold, and miles away from home.

We get into all these topics and more in this episode. We unpack the ‘quit your job and go’ mentality and offer some alternative advice for the people who don’t think that mantra is for them. Brenna has travelled for years on end and her travel style has changed in a few different ways during that time, so she has heaps of advice to share. Enjoy!

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If you love this episode and consider yourself someone doesn’t fit in with that ‘quit your job and go’ mindset, you might enjoy this post:

GKM Guide to Travel Planning: 9 Steps for the Best Trip Ever

Travel planning is one of the best ways to feed your wanderlust when you’re at home, and that doesn’t only have to mean flicking through a guidebook. In this feature we talk about how to get seriously into travel planning mode through all sorts of reading, researching, and even in your kitchen.

This way of planning is great when you’re only away for a short period, because most of it takes place at home before your trip. The perfect way to discover without even stepping outside your front door!

In this episode, we’re joined by author and filmmaker John Rogers, and we’re talking about walking. The large majority of us are blessed with two feet and the ability to walk, which gives us everything we need to travel and discover within our immediate surroundings. Humans have been walking for thousands of years – the activity is travel at its most primal and fundamental level.

As this podcast is all about giving people ideas for accessible ways to explore – things you can do around a work schedule or with limited resources – walking was high on our list of priorities when planning out the episodes.

// Haven’t heard our mantra for the Every-Day Explorer Podcast? Read this. //

If you’re not familiar with John Rogers, we highly recommend checking out his blog, The Lost Byway. We found John through a simple Twitter search for UK walking fanatics, and knew almost immediately that we wanted him to be a part of this series. His most recent post at the time we first visited his website was a video of a walk he’d taken around the Plashet Park, East Ham, and Little Ilford area of London. We watched as he examined the things he found along the way – park gates named after poets, Hindu temples and 12th century churches. Towards the end of the video he looked to camera and said:

“I didn’t even intend going for a walk today, but look at all the amazing things I’ve seen already. It’s incredible… It just goes to show when you kind of surrender to the drift, things open up to you.”

This is, of course, where the title for this episode came from. “Surrender to the drift” – we loved that. We knew then that we could learn a lot from John.

During our chat we speak about our experiences with walking, and more specifically exploring cities on foot. We talk about the joys of discovering urban spaces by walking, and just how much you can stumble upon if you’re willing to give yourself the time to let your curiosities run wild.

John also shares a few tips about how to start out with urban walking and find interesting routes in your area. His advice shows that even if you’re in the most grinding, gruelling job, you have time for discovery – and walking could be your golden ticket.

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In this episode, we touch on getting lost and how that’s the aim for many people who choose to discover places on foot. We were inspired by that piece of the conversation, so wrote this post:

In Praise of Getting Lost (and not giving a damn about it)

In this article, we make an argument for how getting lost should be seen as a success, and how it can help you to tune in more deeply to the world around you. We take snippets from other people who have written about the subject to create a fuller picture of the beauty of losing yourself.

In this episode, we talk about how travelling to unusual, off-beat, and sometimes nerve-wracking destinations is the best use of your few weeks travel time per year. These are the kind of trips that will throw you out of your comfort zone, and on the plane home you’ll be thinking, “Wowza, that was an adventure – but I’m ready to get back to home.”

If you choose the right places, four weeks a year may be all you need.

For this first episode, we’re joined by our good friend Katrinka. Although most of our podcast recordings took place in various locations across the UK, for this we actually travelled all the way to Istanbul – a testament to how fascinating we think Katrinka is. (Plus, a good excuse to visit a truly mesmerising city.)

// Not familiar with the Every-Day Explorer Podcast? Read this. //

Katrinka in her happy place – Istanbul

Katrinka is a photographer and writer originally from the States but for the last couple of years she’s lived in Turkey’s capital. Her passion for analogue photography is evident in her stunning blog, Katrinka Abroad, on which you’ll find gallery after gallery of beautiful photos taken in intriguing lands. We picked Katrinka for this travel podcast for that very reason.

Not all of us have the privilege of being able to travel non-stop, which makes our allocated holiday time away from work all the more precious. But how can we fully make the most of that time?

Katrinka has an inspiring love for the Middle East and Central Asia, which makes her perfect for this conversation. We chat about our adventures in Turkey, India, South America, and Georgia, and how those wild rides fed our wanderlust, perhaps more than just hopping on a plane to western Europe.

We offer advice on how to choose the best daring destinations to suit you, and what to do if you feel nervous about certain countries or cities. We’re pretty sure after this conversation you’ll be thinking of a whole load of destinations you’ve never thought to visit before!

Sit back, relax, and get ready to be inspired.

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If you’ve listened to the episode, you’ll have learnt that Katrinka and I are well aware that travelling to unusual places can sometimes be scary. There are certain destinations that would put even the most seasoned explorers on-edge. To help you tackle those nerves, check out this post we wrote:

7 Ways to Manage a Fear of Travel

In this feature we offer tips on overcoming a fear of travel and going boldly into the world on your next adventure.