Places I Remember with Lea Lane

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Bruce McAlpine and his sister Rhona Paterson grew up near Edinburgh. They share their love of Scotland with Lea, and they cover cities, countryside, islands and all things Scottish.

After describing Scotland geographically,  we start by talking of the Scottish character, and go on to the delights of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Scottish foods, Scotch whiskey, the Highlands (is there really a Loch Ness monster?). Also the 800 or so Scottish islands, focusing on The Isle of Skye.

We also discuss Scottish pleasures such as golf, bagpipes, and festivals.

To end the episode, Rhona and  Bruce share special memories of Scotland. And Lea shares two of her memories as well: one involving Queen Elizabeth and an unexpected meeting; and the other, dealing with the question of what a Scotsman wears under his kilt.  (Bruce gives a definitive answer!).
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Bruce McAlpine and Rhona Paterson grew up on a sheep farm in the Scottish Borders, near Edinburgh. From there, Bruce studied in Edinburgh before living and working in England, Africa, America and back to England. in finance positions. He currently lives in Oxford with his wife Erica and two children, Grant and May. 

Rhona studied in Aberdeen and after a few years in England moved back to the Edinburgh area.  She is an occupational therapist, and lives with her husband David and two children, William and Fia.
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Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to many guidebooks.

Contact Lea  @lealane on Twitter; PlacesIRememberLeaLane on Insta; on  Facebook, it's Places I Remember with Lea Lane. Website: placesirememberlealane.com. 

New episodes drop every other week, on Tuesdays. Please tell your friends, family and colleagues about us, and follow, rate and review this award-winning travel podcast!

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At Places I Remember we love stories of memorable people and places, and this episode certainly offers that.

After a life  of international travel; work including opera performer, chef and arts director; raising a family; divorcing and recovering from alcoholism, Sandra Smith was a ready for a sea change. Literally.

At 43, Sandra moved from Philadelphia to the California coast, bought a 35-foot sailboat, painted it pink,  and taught herself to sail. Her travel adventures for the next seven years took her down the coast to Mexico and into the Pacific.

Navigating by the ancient mariners' system of dead-reckoning, she experienced storms, evaded drug dealers and pirates as she sailed over 4,000 miles alone and sometimes with her rebellious teenage daughter. Using just a compass, a chart and a prayer, the author embarks on this spiritual odyssey which brings self-discovery and healing.

Later Sandra enjoyed adventures in Guatemala, and winds up in Arizona, living a land-locked, but still fascinating life.

Sandra's  spirit is unique. Her ability to live large in the moment and roll with the tide is remarkable and inspiring.
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Sandra C H Smith 's memoir, Out of the Fog, is available at Amazon in paperback and eBook. It's also available from the publisher, and online and in-store at Barnes&Noble: 
Her website: https://SandraCHSmith.com   
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Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to many guidebooks.

Contact Lea  @lealane on Twitter; PlacesIRememberLeaLane on Insta; on  Facebook, it's Places I Remember with Lea Lane. Website: placesirememberlealane.com. 

New episodes drop every other week, on Tuesdays. Please follow, rate and review this award-winning travel podcast!

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Celebrating the First Anniversary of Places I Remember with Lea Lane calls for something special, and so the tables are turned as Lea's sons, Randall Lane and Cary Lane, interview her.

They first all share fun and funny tales of family travels together in London, Iceland, Italy and Scandinavia, skiing,  and more. And then the guys ask Lea cool questions about travel, the podcast and personal thoughts on life.

By the end of this episode you will have shared laughs and interesting info, and you will get to know Lea better -- as a person and a mom as well as a traveler and podcast host.

Here's to another great year ahead for Places I Remember!
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Randall Lane is Chief Content Officer of Forbes Media. You can hear more about his travels in Episodes 14 and 15.
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Dr. Cary Lane is a professor and forensic artist. Cary curates exhibits at the Kupferberg Holocaust Center in Queens, NY. The current one, available virtually at the moment, is The Concentration Camps: Inside the Nazi System of Incarceration and Genocide.  You can hear more about his travels in Episode 18.
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Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to many guidebooks.

Contact Lea  @lealane on Twitter; PlacesIRememberLeaLane on Insta; on  Facebook, it's Places I Remember with Lea Lane. Website: placesirememberlealane.com. 

New episodes drop every other week, on Tuesdays. Please follow, rate and review this award-winning travel podcast!
 

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Travel writer/musician authors Josephine Matyas and Craig Jones share stories and experiences from their book about music, travel and the black experience in the heart of the South.

Major Delta destinations include Clarksdale, Tunica, Greenville, Dockery Farm, Greenwood and Tupelo, in Mississippi; and Memphis, Tennessee. Museums, homesteads, gravesites, juke joints, frolicking houses, Beale Street, Graceland and Sun and Stax recording studios  are just some of the sites discussed in relation to the blues and the music it influenced. Artists range  from Robert Johnson and BB King to Elvis Presley.

Civil rights plays a part as well, from the  grocery store in  Money Mississippi, where Emmet Till meet the woman who would lead to his murder, to the Lorraine Motel, where blacks and whites stayed together during are discussed as part of the experience that related to the music.

"The Blues are the root. The rest are the fruit." And Craig ends with a fine rendition of a blues song.
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Josephine Matyas has published in every major Canadian newspaper and specialized magazines, including a number of American-based publications. Jo specializes in history and culture, soft-adventure and eco-tourism. She loves to talk travel.
 
Craig Jones holds a doctorate in International Political Economy from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. His main gig – and lifelong passion – is as a full-time musician, bandleader, and music teacher. Craig has stepped onto bandstands to play bass and guitar in jazz, blues, rock and roll, Motown, Zydeco, and soul.
 
Chasing the Blues: A Traveler’s Guide to America’s Music  is their first book together. The book’s Facebook site is: https://www.facebook.com/ChasingtheBluesTravelersGuide
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Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to guidebooks.

Contact Lea  @lealane on Twitter; PlacesIRememberLeaLane on Insta; on  Facebook, it's Places I Remember with Lea Lane. Website: placesirememberlealane.com. 

New episodes every other week, on Tuesdays. Please follow, rate and review this award-winning travel podcast!

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Jayme Simoes, a renowned travel consultant for Portugal,  knows all about this tremendously popular country, and gives us loads of inside info. We go over what makes Portugal so special, starting in Lisbon,  and going on to the Portuguese Riviera on the Atlantic just outside the city.  We also discuss the special regions such as the Aletejo, the Algarve, and Portugal's great and ultra-popular second city, Porto.

Jayme goes over cruising on the Douro, taking the train or driving. staying in pousadas, lodging based in former castles and monestaries.

And then we focus on the Portuguese islands of Madeira, off the Moroccan coast,  and the Azores, off coastal Africa.

We end with Jayme's best memory. And a better appreciation of what makes Portugal such an exceptional destination for travelers and expats.

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 Jayme Simoes [email protected] is a top consultant for Portugal.
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Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter; PlacesIRememberLeaLane on Insta; on  Facebook, it's Places I Remember with Lea Lane. Website: placesirememberlealane.com.  Please follow, rate and review this award-winning travel podcast!

We drop podcasts every other week, on Tuesdays.

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In a truly special 50th episode of Places I Remember, Holocaust survivor Allan Hall tells his frightening, harrowing story as a child caught up in horror. We follow Allan and his parents from their comfortable life in Krakow, Poland, out-manuevering the Nazis in Lvov and Warsaw, and hiding in plain sight throughout the war.  Lea  prefaces his story with a few sites, memorials, and museums around the world where you can travel, to bear witness.

Allan's tale includes uprooting from Krakow to Lvov, to the ghetto in Warsaw ; near death experience in a children's pogram; changing appearances and identities; avoiding a last-minute train to Treblinka extermination camp; hiding in a closet with his mother for 10 hours a day in a Nazi-headquarters building in Warsaw for two years; the birth of a brother in the middle of the horror; and carrying- - as an 11-year-old -- that two-year-old brother  across Europe, to get to freedom, and reunite with his parents.

With a combination of brilliant moves, risky endeavors, bravery, hope, resilience and luck, the family survived the Holocaust.

Allan Hall tells his story with grace and detail, holding back nothing. And he ends with a memory of irony and hope.
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Holocaust survivor Allan Hall is a retired attorney. He is a docent at the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial, and is available as a speaker, in-person or on Zoom. If you are interested in contacting Allan, please notify Lea at one of her links below.

As a gift to you to celebrate our 50th episode, and because Allan Hall wants you to never forget, you can click on this link to read Allan's memoir, "Hidden In Plain Sight."
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Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to many travel guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter; PlacesIRememberLeaLane on Insta; on  Facebook, it's Places I Remember with Lea Lane. Website: placesirememberlealane.com.  Please follow, rate and review this award-winning travel podcast. We drop new episodes every other week, on Tuesdays.

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What a fabulous 2021 it's been for Places I Remember!  We've talked with fascinating travelers. We've won awards, and are now heard in 2,000 cities and 101 countries. To celebrate,  we're gifting you with a sampling of our favorite tales, stories and memories, so generously offered this past year.  Here goes:

Heidi Sarna, author of Secret Singapore, tells of a discovery there in Ep. 39. In Ep. 2, Millie Ball, former travel editor and Mardi Gras queen, recalls a sweet New Orleans memory.

In Ep. 40,  Donna Sandstrom, founder of The Whale Trail, tells a  of an Orca named Springer.  Jason Flesher, expedition leader in Antarctica,  explains "being snotted on by a whale" in Ep. 33.  In Ep. 9,  Norwegian travel expert Harald Hansen describes his surprise encounter with polar bears.

In Ep. 26, 'American Idol 'and 'So You Think You Can Dance' producer Simon Fuller tells a memory from when he was filming the documentary Serengeti, in Tanzania.  In Ep. 25, Ahmed Taumi, a top Moroccan guide, talks of of a request we won’t forget.  And we talk of Assisi Italy with author  Lori Erickson, in Ep. 30.

In Ep. 21, mountaineer/author Jim Davidson, remembers summiting Everest. In Ep. 20, actor Stephen Bishop has a reality check in the Dominican  Republic and South Africa, traveling as a person of color.

Travel memories from my much-traveled family: Granddaughter Sabrina remembers being on the border of Israel and Syria, in Ep. 23. Younger son Cary, a history buff and professor, offers a profound take about the WW1 and WW2 battlefields of Belgium and France, in  Ep. 18. In Ep. 15, son Randall, chief content officer of Forbes media, remembers meeting the aged fisherman from Hemingway’s novella, The Old Man and the Sea, in Cuba.

In Ep. 25, Patricia Schultz, author of 1000 Places to See Before You Die.  describes a special person: a story I especially love. Karen Misuraca, author of Secret Sonoma, tells of a mammoth surprise in Northern California wine country, in Ep. 47.  In Ep. 36, Patrice Henry remembers deep-diving women in Korea.

In  Ep. 16, Midgie Moore, co-author of 100 Things to Do in Alaska Before You Die, describes the magic when she first saw the Northern Lights in Alaska. And still looking up, Anne Born describes the Milky Way seen from Northern Spain, in Ep. 4.

Food makes memories. Financial guru Jean Chatzky, formerly of NBC’s Today show,  shares a special meal with us in Ep. 38.  Patti Eshai, TikTok’s popular “Duchess of Decorum” tells of a meal tradition in her homeland of Iran in Ep. 46. In Ep. 42, Deanne Burch, author of Journey Through Fire and Ice, shares  unusual meals  in a remote Arctic village. 

Drinks can also stir memories. The first concoction is from Beverly Hills tourism director Karen Wagner in Ep. 16. The other, the strangest I have ever heard, is from Canadian CEO of Tours By Locals, Paul Melhus, in Ep. 46.

And we end with a gorgeous Irish ballad straight from Dublin, from singer Joe Kearns, sung just for us in Ep. 7, to celebrate our wondrous year around the world. Even if we never left home, we were able to experience travel through memory.
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 Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, and written nine books, including Places I Remember.

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Pattie Ehsaei (TikTok: “duchessofdecorum”), leads a delightful and informative discussion about unusual and entertaining customs around the world, with lots of giggles along with fascinating facts.

After an intro about customs of the world by Lea, she and Pattie alternate in discussing customs in France, Italy, Nicaragua, Malaysia, Kuwait, Scotland, Greece, Germany, Indonesia, Russia, China, Thailand, Japan, Nigeria, Mexico, Egypt, Vietnam, Switzerland, Iceland.

Ways to kiss in France, how to eat in the Middle East, a strange way of pointing in Nicaragua, and so many more facts and fun.

We end, as we always do on Places I Remember, with a favorite memory.
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Pattie Ehsaei (TikTok: “duchessofdecorum”),has established herself as the expert of “P’s and Q’s” on the platform where she's received over 1.8 million likes and nearly a half million followers as she teaches social and workplace etiquette, along with financial literacy. A lawyer by trade and currently a Senior Vice President of Mergers and Acquisitions lending for a major national bank, she believes that success comes from information and empowerment.
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Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter; PlacesIRememberLeaLane on Insta; on  Facebook, it's Places I Remember with Lea Lane. Website: placesirememberlealane.com.  Please follow, rate and review this award-winning travel podcast!

And exciting news! In 2022  we'll be dropping podcasts bi-weekly, on Tuesdays. And we'll be on YouTube every other week, starting mid- February, with travel tips and trips.
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We start with memories of vineyards and wineries around the world , including in Europe, South America, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and the U.S. And then Lea and guest Karen Misuraca talk in more detail about Napa and Sonoma counties, wine regions in Northern California, outside San Francisco. 

We first discuss some differences, and then focus on what to see and do in Napa, the wines, and  some of the surprising things about Sonoma County.  

 We end with Karen's best memory of Sonoma County, which deals with some extinct animals you wouldn't expect in California.
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Karen Misuraca is a travel writer, a member (as is Lea) of the Society of American Travel Writers, and author of Secret Sonoma.
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Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter; PlacesIRememberLeaLane on Insta; on  Facebook, it's Places I Remember with Lea Lane. Website: placesirememberlealane.com.  Please follow, rate and review this award-winning travel podcast!

And exciting news! Starting in  January 2022 -- we'll be dropping podcasts bi-weekly, on Tuesdays, and we'll be on YouTube every other week, starting mid- February, with travel tips/trips.

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Iran is one of the great destinations of the world, but many travelers are hesitant to go. After listening to Pattie Ehsaei, born and raised in Iran, you'll want to, soon. She describes her birth-country's beauty, history and culture in cities including Tehran, Esfahan, Persepolis and Shiraz. She tells of castles, mosques, ziggurats, lagoons, islands, beaches, scenic mountain roads, and ancient pigeon towers.

Pattie came to the U.S. when she was seven, on the last plane out, in the Iranian Revolution. Pattie and Lea discuss the expat community of Persians in the U.S. and  what travelers need to do in terms of visas and such.

Besides the sites, Pattie reflects on family gatherings in Iran, the food and drink, and friendliness of the people.

She ends, as all our episodes do,  with a favorite travel memory.  And we end knowing so much more of what makes Iran an exceptional country to visit.
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Born in Iran, Pattie Ehsaei (TikTok: “duchessofdecorum”),has established herself as the expert of “P’s and Q’s” on the platform where she's received over 1.8 million likes and nearly a half million followers as she teaches social and workplace etiquette, along with financial literacy. A lawyer by trade and currently a Senior Vice President of Mergers and Acquisitions lending for a major national bank, she believes that success comes from information and empowerment.
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Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter; PlacesIRememberLeaLane on Insta; on  Facebook, it's Places I Remember with Lea Lane. Website: placesirememberlealane.com.  Please follow, rate and review this award-winning travel podcast!

And exciting news! In 2022  we'll be dropping podcasts bi-weekly, on Tuesdays. Every other week, starting mid- February, we'll be on YouTube with travel tips and trips. Now you can watch us one week and listen the next!