Places I Remember with Lea Lane

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In Part 1's amazing tales, Episode 14, we found out that Randall Lane likes to live on the edge -- from the jungles of Liberia to the deserts of Nevada.  Besides being chief content officer and editor of Forbes, he's my son, and I found out details on the episode that I never knew about.  His motto is "life is to be experienced," and in both his work and play, he would rather do things than regret the things he didn't do.

-- Here, in Part 2,  Episode 15, Randall gives us even more exciting (sometimes harrowing) tales of his adventurous travels -- with a final tale that's unforgettable.

-- He begins by mentioning a few of the famous people he's met along the way in his far-reaching travels to "70 or 80 countries." He mentions Malala, Jane Goodall, and rock stars like Bono from U2 and Chris Martin from Coldplay.

-- But we talk with appreciation about memorable people we've met in our travels that are not famous -- real people. Lea mentions a rural woman in Guatemala who showed her beautiful poems she had written.

-- Randall tells of going to Cuba and meeting the old man who was a model for the fisherman  in Ernest Hemingway's great novella, The Old Man and the Sea. When Rand meets him in the 1990's, the man is 102 years old, but still strong and with some shady things to say about Hemingway.

--  We then talk of doing risky things like eating blowfish, which could poison you.

-- And in keeping with the Hemingway theme, Randall tells of his experience in his 20s when he took the famed right of passage to run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. This detailed description is absolutely fascinating -- it puts us all in the action. And even more, it becomes darkly hilarious. You maybe won't believe what happened to Randall -- but it's true.

That's my boy!
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Randall Lane is the chief content officer and editor of Forbes. He is the founder of 30 Over 30 and 50 Over 50 franchises, and appears regularly  on MSNBC. Check out his book,  The Zeroes: My Misadventures In the Decade Wall Street Went Insane.
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, written many travel books, including Places I Remember, and has contributed to dozens of guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter, Travelea on Instagram, and  blogs about travel at forbes.com  Contact her  on her Facebook page, Places I Remember by Lea Lane, and at her website, placesirememberlealane.com.
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Follow  Places I Remember with Lea Lane wherever you listen to podcasts. New travel episodes every Tuesday. And please review it on Apple! 

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Randall Lane likes to live on the edge: I know because, besides  being chief content officer and editor of Forbes, he's my son.  His motto is "life is to be experienced," and in both his work and play, he would rather do things than regret the things he didn't do. Here he gives us four exciting (sometimes harrowing) tales of his adventurous travels.

-- He starts off with a hair-raising  helicopter ride in the Liberian jungle, on his way to helping accelerate health care in an area that needs it. He finds himself in a situation that seems dire ... and then, a surprise!

-- On to Lebanon and Syria, and a dilemma based on identity. There is potential danger from Hezbollah, some mistakes and absurdities that could be dangerous, and we find out how Rand gets out of it  -- in a kind of truth or dare.

-- In Cambodia Rand reflects on the people's forgiveness. And in Vietnam he makes a big jump in Halong Bay, and pays the consequences. Lesson learned? Maybe.

-- Drag racing cars in Nevada? Rand and his friend race up to 200 miles an hour in a rented car -- top down. Do they win? Let's just say it's close.

(To be continued in the next episode: More daring stories of memorable people, and of eating poisonous blowfish. And Ernest Hemingway-related travel tales: in Cuba, meeting a literary legend; and in Pamplona, Spain, running with the bulls . Don't miss Part Two of Rand's amazing travel adventures, in Episode 15 of Places I Remember!)

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Randall Lane is the chief content officer and editor of Forbes. He is the founder of 30 Over 30 and 50 Over 50 franchises, and appears regularly  on MSNBC. Check out his book,  The Zeroes: My Misadventures In the Decade Wall Street Went Insane.
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, written many travel books, including Places I Remember, and has contributed to dozens of guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter, Travelea on Instagram, and  blogs about travel at forbes.com  Contact her  on her Facebook page, Places I Remember by Lea Lane, and at her website, placesirememberlealane.com.
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Follow  Places I Remember with Lea Lane wherever you listen to podcasts. New travel episodes every Tuesday. And please review it on Apple!

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Steve Perillo, a third-generation owner of America's biggest tour company to Italy, figures he's traveled there over a hundred times. Steve brings expertise and humor as he and Lea share glorious travel memories from Milan to Sicily, and offer a charming overview of this blessed travel destination.  What's not to love?

-- Steve talks about Adam Sandler playing him on Saturday Night Live, but goes on to list the myriad qualities that make Italy a just-about-perfect travel destination, and reminds us that it's an ancient crossroads of the Mediterranean. We even talk about a few of Italy's negatives, including the VAT tax.

-- Italy may be compact and easy to get around, but each region offers something special. These include:

-- Milan and the Lake District, including the Galleria, La Scala and The Last Supper in Milan, and the prettiest villages and grand hotels in the Lake District.

-- Venice, with Murano, Burano and the ancient cities of the region, including romantic Padua and Verona.

-- Tuscany, with Florence, Siena, Lucca, fishing villages and Pisa; nearby Umbria, with Assisi and Perugia.

-- Rome, with its ancient wonders and its pasta!

__ The food and beauty of Italy's Amalfi Coast, with Naples, Capri, Sorrento.

--  Sicily, the largest island in the Med, with its special treasures.

-- Steve gives us more basic travel tips about traveling to Italy, and then tells us of his favorite memory, involving a helicopter and an ancient high-rise Tuscan town.
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Steve Perillo is the president and owner of Perillo Tours, America’s leading travel company to Italy. A lifelong apprentice to his father, the legendary Mario Perillo who was also known as “Mr. Italy,” Steve represents the third generation of his family’s 75 year-old business.  Steve is also a respected classical composer.
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, written many travel books, including Places I Remember, and has contributed to dozens of guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter, Travelea on Instagram, and  blogs about travel at forbes.com. Contact her at placesirememberlealane.com.
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Follow  Places I Remember with Lea Lane wherever you listen to podcasts. New travel episodes every  otherTuesday. And please consider reviewing us  on Apple! 

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Florence Quinn, a travel and lifestyle public-relations pro, represents numerous destinations and lodgings around the world. She shares with us environmental problems and the best ways  to travel green, in what she  calls the "earth crisis" we're in today.

-- She  became especially aware of eco-travel when, among 120 million others, she saw a photo of a distressed sea turtle with a plastic straw up its nose.

-- Towels in hotels were among the first signs of green travel, and Lea and Florence share eco-centric stories from Miami to Greenland, melting glaciers to forest fires.

-- But there are good signs: Covid has temporarily greened up travel, bringing many of us closer to nature. Hotels are banning plastic straws, and planting sustainable gardens,  Some hotels even provide power from guests working out on gym machines. Wind turbines dot landscapes around the world, the Netherlands has state-of-the-art techology to keep the country from  flooding, and China's solar power has helped turn skies blue.

-- Lea and Florence share personal tips for green travel, including resusables, recycling, supporting local conservationists, carbon-offset, eating local, slow travel, using public travel, animal awareness, local souvenirs, eco-friendly accommodations -- including goats eating grass, "up close to nature."

Florence's favorite eco-memory is of climbing cold and windy Mt. Washington -- carry up, carry back.
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Florence Quinn, president of Quinn Public Relations,  is a winner of nearly every award available to PR professionals, including being #25 on Observer’s PR POWER50 list, and a five-star ranking in Forbes America’s Best PR agencies. 
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, written many travel books, including Places I Remember, and has contributed to dozens of guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter, Travelea on Instagram, and  blogs about travel at forbes.com  Contact her at placesirememberlealane.com.
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Follow  Places I Remember with Lea Lane wherever you listen to podcasts. New travel episodes every Tuesday. And please review it on Apple! 

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Susan Mihalic, author of the debut novel Dark Horses, shares her love of New Mexico, her home state.
-- Northern Pueblos, including Taos Pueblo,and  rituals and festivals, Bandelier National Monument,
-- Carlsbad  Caverns. Lea shares about a tornado;  Susan, a honeymoon road trip  with (or without) bats
-- Susan talks of Roswell, where supposedly a UFO crashed; "cute brick buildings" and a UFO museum
--  White Sands: "mountains of snow," soft, powdery dunes, no shade
-- Los Alamos, where nuclear bombs were built, with the "highest IQ in the state." Rock petraglyphs and  pictographs, at Bandelier
-- Albuquerque: hot air ballooning, "Breaking Bad" sites
-- Taos, Susan's hometown: high desert, blue skies, red aspens. "Taos is my landscape." Artists visiting Taos "stayed because of the light."
-- Ancient crafts, plus Anglo artists from late 1800s. Recreation, in mountains and desert
-- Susan's favorite pueblo, Acoma, known for pottery, and an ancient mica windowpane.
Silver City pueblo, and Zuni pueblo -- fetishes, amulets, jewelry. And  bread made in ornos, special ovens.
-- Red or green chilis? "I always get Christmas." Green chili harvest, and green chili stew.
Lea remembers eating green chili burger and Frito Pie, New Mexico faves.
-- Sante Fe:  "New York in the desert," star chefs, mountains, opera, arts, old theater, culture, slower pace. Stunning adobe brick. Georgia O Keefe museum there; her home nearby, a  ghost ranch and retreat
-- How New Mexico influenced her novel, in which horses are the backdrop.  Dark Horses allowed her to buy a horse and "quit her day job." The heroine's relationship with horses is based on Susan's relationship with her horse, Goldmark.
-- Susan's special memory is set on thousands of acres north of Taos, with old logging roads. She twice went horse camping there, sleeping in a tent with Goldmark nearby, riding out for the day.  Her "most beautiful place."
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Writer, editor, teacher Susan Mihalic lives in Taos, New Mexico. Her novel Dark Horses is on Oprah Magazine's and Parade Magazine's lists of Most Anticipated Books of 2021, GoodReads' list of 75 Debut Novels to Discover in 2021, and was named a "Title to Watch" by Library Journal.  Susan taught riding therapy for two summers in college and four years in San Diego. She rides her horse Goldmark every chance she gets, throughout beautiful New Mexico.
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine travel books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to dozens of guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter and  blogs at forbes.com. Contact her at placesirememberlealane.com.
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Please follow  Places I Remember with Lea Lane wherever you listen to podcasts, and if you enjoy, leave a 5-star a review on Apple.

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The Underline, a 10-mile linear park, urban trail and public arts destination, will meander from the Miami River to Dadeland South under the Miami Metrorail. With its first section, "Brickell Backyard" newly opened, Meg Daly, Founder and President of Friends of the Underline, talks with Lea about Miami's past, present and future.

-- Lea and Meg both grew up in  the Miami area a generation apart. Lea remembers Miami Beach of the past 50 years: no air conditioning, the airport not much more than a hangar, mosquitos sprayed from above with DDT, and much more.

-- Meg tells of growing up in an activist family in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables, in a vintage Spanish-style house. Her family came from Boston in 1960 and was active in keeping the gorgeous Biltmore Hotel from being destroyed.

-- At the beginning of the Millennium, when Miami still did not have a cultural center, Meg's father, Parker Thompson, who would later help plan The Underline, was involved in developing the Arsht Performing Arts center. It influenced an arts scene including museums, Art Basel, Wynwood, and new neighborhoods designed by great architects, spawning great restaurants.

-- Along with progress came heavy traffic  -- and that is where The Underline comes in, bringing us a 10-mile linear park by 2025, leading to a network of parks and trails with native plants, butterflies,  places to connect --"it equals life!"

-- Meg talks about the first section completed, "Brickell Backyard," from the Miami River through Brickell Village.

-- And the four thousand new trees and green design will help Miami get through climate change.

And last, Meg remembers how she conceived of The Underline --combining past, present and future in an engrossing memory.
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Meg Daly is a full-time volunteer, Founder and President of Friends of The Underline,  transforming the underutilized land below Miami’s Metrorail into a 120-acre linear park, urban trail and public art destination spanning 10-miles in the urban core. (www.theunderline.org).  

 A 30-year sales and marketing veteran, she held executive marketing and management positions in the television, public relations, advertising, technology, and real estate industries. Meg has a BA in English from Vanderbilt University and has served on numerous philanthropic boards.
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, written many travel books, including Places I Remember, and has contributed to dozens of guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter and  blogs about travel at forbes.com  Contact her at placesirememberlealane.com.
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Please follow  Places I Remember with Lea Lane wherever you listen to podcasts, and review it on Apple! New travel episodes every Tuesday.

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 Harald Hansen, travel expert from Visit Norway, shares his expertise with us from Oslo.

-- He talks of contemporary Norwegian architecture, and lodgings with spectacular views; even igloos where you can see the Northern Lights from your bed.

-- We learn of cruising up the Norwegian coastline, above the Arctic Circle, to Tromso, the "Paris of the North."  You can go dog sledding or on a reindeer safari, and see reflective Northern Lights in the Lofoten Islands.

-- Harald tells us  his favorite fjords, near Bergen, and talks of ancient stave churches. He tells us of the 18 Norwegian Scenic Roads,  designed only for cars, combining gorgeous new lodgings, restaurants to complement the scenery, and even special toilets with views!

-- We hear of whales, and an anecdote of polar bears seen very closeup. And of the Sami people in the north; travelers can join tours, celebrating the ancient family culture that revolves around reindeer.

-- Lea remembers the beauty of Oslo's City Hall, and Harald tells of how that capital city has transformed in the last few years; it's now hip and filled with restaurants.

-- We talk of Bergen, with its ancient warehouses, a center of the new "Fjordic cuisine." You can even catch your own seafood.

-- We mention Alesund, the art nouveau town in southern Norway. And of course we end with a favorite memory.  And Harald has a great one.

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Harald Hansen,  Media Specialist and Industry Specialist at Visit Norway, lives in Oslo and has been a Norwegian travel specialist  for decades. [email protected], www.innovationnorway.no, www.visitnorway.com
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, written many travel books, including Places I Remember, and has contributed to dozens of guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter and  blogs about travel at forbes.com  Contact her at placesirememberlealane.com.
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Please follow  Places I Remember with Lea Lane wherever you listen to podcasts, and  write a review on Apple! New travel episodes every  other Tuesday.

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Podcast host Lea Lane describes favorite delights of spring travel -- food, flowers and festivals -- from the magnificent to the hilarious.

-- She starts with food, remembering gorging on "spargle," the white gold (asparagus) of Germany.  Food festivals are delicious ways to have fun. And one food festival in England  involves a nine-pound cheese that rolls down a hill.

-- Spring flowers are Lea's next delight -- colorful wildflowers on roadsides and fields of yellow rapeseed. And gardens, including painter Claude Monet's at Giverny, outside of Paris; and Keukenhof, "the most beautiful spring garden in the world," outside of Amsterdam.

-- Religious festivals celebrate rebirth and cleansing in strange ways.  Spring ones include colorful Holi in the Hindu world, where people douse each other with colors and Sonkgran, in the Buddhist world, where everyone douses themselves with water, especially in Thailand. Las Fallas, a Spanish celebration,  honors St. Joseph, with huge puppets.

-- Semana Santa, Holy Week highlighted by Easter, is celebrated around the world, but no where more beautiful than in Seville Spain and Antiqua Guatemala, where processions involve robed participants and carpets of flowers.

-- Non-religious festivals include Sechselauten, where a creature called a Boogg is burned to end the winter season. And the King's Birthday in the Netherlands, when everybody wears orange and goes shopping at a huge flea market.

-- In the U.S. there's a sand-sculpture festival in Florida, rodeos out west, Patriot's Day in Boston, and baseball spring training.

-- And as in every episode, we end with special travel memories. Lea shares two unforgettable spring anecdotes: one in the New Zealand (in November), and one in the Greek Islands. Both are surprising, and both are delightful!
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, written many travel books, including Places I Remember, and has contributed to dozens of guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter and  blogs about travel at forbes.com . Contact her at placesirememberlealane.com.
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Please follow  Places I Remember with Lea Lane wherever you listen to podcasts, and if you enjoy, leave a 5-star a review on Apple! New travel episodes every Tuesday.

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Irish singer/songwriter Joe Kearns is blessed with the gift of song and the gift of gab, and generously shares both with us. From his house near Dublin,  he offers witty insights about the culture and pleasures of his beloved Ireland.

-- Find out how to choose the best pubs, and why Dublin’s Trinity College — home of the medieval illustrated Book of Kells -- has a barrel ceiling. We talk of Kilkenny,  a remote monastery in the Skellig Islands,  the Ring of Kerry, and the Irish beauty of castles, lakes, mountains, and even a coral beach.

-- Travel with Joe to the coolest music spot in Dingle,  as we talk of  the Celtic language and chat about colorful towns, a picnic atop the Cliffs of Moher, drinking honey Meade at a medieval banquet, and the pleasures of County Galway, the Wild Atlantic Way, and more. 

-- Coddle and Barmbrack are probably not what you think (they're classic Irish foods), and I add a memory about Baileys on corn flakes. 

-- Joe tells romantic travel stories set under Irish rainbows and "sideways rain."

-- And then, best of all — Joe, a fabulous singer, takes out his guitar and sings a beloved Irish ballad, even using his whistle!
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Joe Kearns, now living back home near Dublin, is a world traveler and a gifted singer/songwriter, often accompanied by his wife, Olivia. He loves Ireland, and it shows in his words and music. Facebook page: www.facebook.com/joeandliv Instagram: the_old_cabra_schoolhouse
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine travel books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to dozens of guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter and  blogs at forbes.com  Contact her at placesirememberlealane.com
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Determined to save endangered animals, Paul Baricault, CEO of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, shares travel experiences from Botswana to Antarctica, highlighting magnificent memories, impending crises and ways to solve them.

-- Paul explains why it's so critical for world conservationists to work together, such as at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Northern Kenya.
-- We learn of animals in danger of extinction, including the northern white rhino, and the success of helping to birth two rhino newborns at the San Diego Zoo Global.
-- "Life thrives but it has to move." Paul talks of elephants and gorillas, African habitats, the magnificent wildebeest migration and the movement of animals at the flooding of the Okavango Delta in Botswana.
-- We talk of favorite travel memories, including safaris, special zoos, working on species priority in the Galapagos Islands, walking among brown bears in Alaska, and visiting pandas in China.
-- Paul reminds us, "Be inspired to protect the world." And connects us to ways we can help.

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Paul Baricault is  President and CEO of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, and a committed conservationist, intent on saving and protecting the world's threatened plants and animals.
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, written many travel books, including Places I Remember, and has contributed to dozens of guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter and  blogs about travel at forbes.com  Contact her at placesirememberlealane.com.
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Please follow Places I Remember with Lea Lane, and leave a review on Apple! New travel episodes every Tuesday, wherever you listen to podcasts.