Strangers Abroad

It isn't about the destination, it's about the journey is one of the most overused, cliche, eye-roll sayings around travel.

But it reminds us to not take for granted what gets us from point A to point B. The buses, the planes, the cars, the trains, the conductors and all of the wonderful and weird people you met along the way.

But it is when we are on the move when we see the things we didn't expect. The goat trees in morocco, the base of the Italian Alps, or meet you new travel buddy for the next week. There is some kind of magic that happens when we remove ourselves from comforts and willingly throw ourselves out into the abyss.

Featured Guests: Everything Everywhere, Women on the Road, Sidewalk Safari, Why Wait to See the World

Travel has a way of redefining our romantic needs and helps us expand more than our horizons.

What can travel tell us about this silent connection. An eye glance or whiff of someone's pheromones can magnetize us to someone we might not normally be attracted to. We will talk to travelers who adjust their romantic needs, desire, chemistry, and commitment. Put some headphones in, this episode is not safe for work.

Featured Guests: Jamie Brickhouse, Authentic Asheville, Brad Lawrence

The whiff of challah bread or bite into roasted corn can transport you back to journeys you had long ago. Nothing like food can stir a deep hunger within us to trekk thousands of miles to find the perfect spring roll.

It not only motivates our travels but helps us understand where we are and who we are with. Invisible lines portion Moroccan tagine dishes, slurping noodles loudly is a high complement in Japan, while Mexicans are unable to eat anything without salsa on it. When we sit down at someone else's kitchen, we aren't just enjoying their food we are enjoying their perspective on how to nourish our bodies.

Food is an essential ingredient to having a rich experience abroad. It expands more than our waistlines. It expands how we understand each other and the cosmic soup we are all simmering in.

Featured Guests: Dan Pashman ( The Sporkful), Jonathan Berg ( Master Chef) Daryl and Mindy Hirsch ( Two Food Trippers), Chris Lueke ( Pubcast World Wide), Ubish Yaren ( Cultura Nacional)

Now comes the time that most travelers anticipate the most: the wandering. The musing through streets for hours, the hidden staircases, the gardens behind bookstores, and random conversations with locals. All of the things we find outside of the guide book make our trip. We enjoyed these surprises more because we had no expectation to find them. And arriving with expectations can only lead you to disappointment.

Featured Guests: Amateur Traveler, Travels of Adam, Far From Home,

Jessie Owens

Travel is the truest test of a relationship. It bonds unlikely people together and tests old relationships. It puts it to the test and finds the weak spots in a relationship like a raccoon sitting on a chicken coop, trying to find the weak spots.

But it also bonds you in ways that you couldn't have imagined. In this podcast episode, we are traveling with others. We will talk to travelers who have had their minds expanded, their relationships shift, and hearts grown because they traveled with others.

Featured Guests: 2TravelDads, Strangers Abroad Listeners, Ambitious Trekker, Stranger Abroad Host's Travel Wife

Out of all the states that we will travel to, traveling alone usually brings up the most trepidation in people. To many, that idea seems as foreign as the places they want to travel to. Why would you do anything alone? Why not just wait for someone? But that underlying fear might be because solitude is often misinterpreted as loneliness. Both mental states are present but we only have to entertain one. When we travel alone, we have conversations with ourselves that we can't have when others are around.

It offers a clear connection between our inner monologue and the solitude teaches us how to talk back. We could drown in a pool of our own loneliness or feel emboldened by the solitude.

Featured Guests:

Andrew McGill

Julia Bainbridge

J. Harvey- My Normal Gay Life

Adventurous Kate

One of the largest plights of traveling is not knowing exactly where you are. It doesn't matter how many websites you have on a travel board on Pinterest or how long you have stared at Google Maps, once you land it is easy to take a wrong turn.

Nothing is familiar. Everything is novel. Which makes it easier to get turned around.

And while we are exploring, we are bound to loose a few things along the way. A backpack, hostel keys, or favorite pair of earrings. Pieces of us go missing and found in other people's way.

But it isn't just a physical location or losing an object that gives us a sense of misdirection, sometimes we feel lost in life. Our compasses can be demagnetized, and we use travel as an escape to figure out where we need to be going.

Today on the episode, we are lost. Travelers will tell us stories about being disoriented in every sense of the word. We will lose important objects, get turned around, be lost in translation, and lose ourselves in the ideas of others. As we try to find our way, we will see what being lost can actually do for us. Have your GPS out, we will need a good sense of direction.

Guests: Castaway with Crystal, Jessie on a Journey, Rhonda Handsome, Jeff Simmermon

Our identities shift when we go abroad. When we leave the familiar surroundings of home, we start to see ourselves from a new light and angle of the sun. What will going abroad show us about ourselves that we couldn't see and help us take control of our own identities?

Guest Travelers: Michelle Carlo, Tayo Rockson, Vanessa Valeria, Alexandra Tracy, Eric Trules

This mini episode is the prologue to the second season of Strangers Abroad.

We all experience moments of anxiety during or around the planning of our trip .

The planning.

The packing.

The waiting.

And then the day arrives when our flight is about to take off. Carry us to far off corners of the world. Maybe new adventures or repeating affairs.

But that anxiety doesn't leave.

Getting to the airport.

Going through check-in,

security,

finding the gate,

smooshing yourself onto the plane

and finding your seat.

But then there is the fear of leaving all that you once knew.

Saying goodbye to loved ones. Putting your normal life on pause.

Every familiar sound, smell, and comfort will be thousands of miles away, and you don't know what you are getting yourself into.

This episode explores the stages of anxiety we experience before we take off and how to buckle up for what is coming next.

This is a sample clip of Strangers Abroad by Adrien Behn