This is the seventh and final episode of my original travel podcast series, Boarding Call.  It was originally published on May 28, 2015.

We explore the windy city – Chicago – over the course of the Memorial Day Weekend, 2015.  This includes a stop at Giordano’s – a Chicago institution, famous for its stuffed pizza. (They ship pizzas anywhere in the United States starting for around $60.)  We also visit The Signature Room Lounge at the John Hancock Center, which offers great views of the city all for the cost of a drink at the bar. Alternatively, you can spend about $10 more and get access to the building’s public observatory a couple floors below.

Read moreEpisode 44 – Greetings from Chicago

This is the sixth of seven episodes from my travel podcast series, Boarding Call.  It was originally published on May 21, 2015.

David Letterman walked off the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theater for the final time the week this episode was recorded – and like a lot of people, I was reflecting on how Dave made an impact in my life and career.  And thinking about him isn’t complete without thinking about that cold Monday back in 2011 when Chris and I went to be part of the studio audience for The Late Show.

Being in the audience of a TV show is a unique experience – and if you have travel planned to any of the major entertainment/media capitals of the world (LA, New York, London, Toronto), it’s definitely an experience worth exploring.

On this episode of Boarding Call, I give you the skinny on how to get your hands on tickets to attend a taping of a TV show.

This is the fifth of seven episodes from my travel podcast Boarding Call.  This episode was originally published on May 8, 2015.

This episode is the first of what will be a continuing series of episodes dedicated to providing an audio guidebook for destinations around the world.  This show focuses on Japan including advice on getting to Japan, money, train travel, hotels, and must-see experiences.

This is the fourth of seven episodes from my travel podcast series, Boarding Call.  It was originally published on April 23, 2015.

Matt Kepnes is better known as Nomadic Matt, and is the author of the book How to Travel the World on $50 a Day.  (BBC Travel calls it “the bible for budget travellers.”) He shares some of his thinking with us and tells us how he’s using the ideas from the book to get himself across the United States to promote the most recent edition of the book.

Read moreEpisode 41 – Travel the World on $50 a Day

This is the third of seven episodes from my original travel podcast series, Boarding Call.  This episode was originally published April 17, 2016.

Kim Schmidt and André Mougeot had one request of their family and friends who came to celebrate their wedding.  Rather than bring gifts of toasters and wine glasses and other typical goods, all they asked was for a little help in making their honeymoon dream come true – an adventure to New Zealand.

The couple had an amazing adventure in NZ, getting to experience a number of thrills.  This is definitely not sitting on a sandy beach for seven nights at an all-inclusive!

Read moreEpisode 40 – Honeymoon in New Zealand

This is the second of seven episodes from my original travel podcast series, Boarding Call.  This episode was originally published April 9, 2015.

André Proulx is a self-taught wine expert who grew up on the Canadian prairies and now calls Toronto home.  He’s written about his recent trip to France’s wine country, including details about his visit to Beaujolais and Lyon.  He’s a frequent guest on CP24, Newstalk 1010 and CTV News Channel, and joins us to talk about his adventure.

For the next seven episodes on The Gone John Show feed, we are revisiting my original travel podcast series, Boarding Call.

Prior to embarking on my adventure to Asia in the fall of 2015, my plan was to produce a weekly travel podcast to talk with interesting travellers, feature unique destinations, and share advice from experts – along with providing some current travel news.

In May of 2015 – when life presented me the opportunity to go on my own travel adventure – I jumped at the chance.  However, Boarding Call went on to the back-burner and eventually a permanent hiatus.

With The Gone John Show and the Gone John blog being my primary focus of travel content creation these days, I’m winding down my Boarding Call online presence – and wanted to bring these seven shows into the fold.  The stories which were shared still stand up, and are as interesting now as they were when they were first published.

Following these seven episodes, new episodes of The Gone John Show will be forthcoming – so, stay tuned!

Read moreEpisode 38 – Around the World

Canada’s Victoria Day long weekend – while intended to commemorate the birthday of Queen Victoria – is (for most people) the unofficial start of summer.  For campers, it’s often the first opportunity to get out and enjoy the great outdoors.

To the surprise of family and friends, last year I decided to dive head-first into camping (despite being raised in a household where our definition of ‘roughing it’ was staying at a budget motel).

Read moreEpisode 37 – The Great Outdoors

Before we launch in to this week’s show notes, a quick note on a major disaster here in Canada.  The Fort McMurray wildfire has caused more than 80,000 people to be displaced as fire has ravaged a number of homes and businesses in the northern Alberta city.

The Canadian Red Cross is a fantastic organization helping those who are in emergency shelters and other accommodations since many people left with the clothes on their backs and the few items they could cram in to a suitcase.

For Canadians wanting to donate to the relief effort, you can pledge $5 by texting REDCROSS to 30333.  To donate $10, text FIRES to 45678.  These will be billed to your cell phone account.

If you’re not in Canada or wish to pledge using the Red Cross’ online donation form, you can do so by clicking here.

Before going to Japan, I was trying to brush up on my Japanese using an app called iTranslate Voice.  It wasn’t going so well.

Despite my frustrations with the app, my time in Japan went really well and I even picked up on some basic pleasantries and started to recognize some of the Kanji characters used in their writing system.

However, considering I love Japan – and I’ve visited so many times – I feel like I should become better versed in the language.  I should strive to at least be literate.  And so it was the gift of Japanese textbooks from Chris that have helped launch me in to actually buckling down and starting to learn the language.

There are two quotes from Walt Disney which are relevant to this week’s show.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

Walt definitely had a big dream of his own – putting everything he owned on the line to open Disneyland in Anaheim, California in under a year.  It was an ambitious task – one that some people even called impossible.  That’s where quote number two comes in.

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.

Seattle’s Christopher Wing also had a big dream that some people might say would be impossible.

A long-time fan of the film Around the World in 80 Days, Wing started thinking one day about what it’d be like to circumnavigate the globe himself.  80 days seemed excessive given how fast we can now travel – and a rather long time to be away from work.  But after doing some math, he figured it might be entirely possible to do the trip in 80 hours.

But Wing didn’t want to just stop in airports, he wanted to bring another passion of his along for the journey.  This was his love of Disney theme parks.  Aside from the original Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida, three other countries are home to Disney parks – France, Hong Kong and Japan.

After crunching the numbers and figuring out the logistics, Christopher’s mind was set – he was going to visit all five Disney theme park resorts (and 11 theme parks in total), and attempt to do it in under 80 hours.

On this week’s show, Chris talks about his long-time connection to Disney theme parks, why he made the trip, and how he pulled it off!

For more on Christopher’s Disney adventures, visit his website – Mouse Around the World.  Also, be sure to check him out on Twitter (@MouseATW), Instagram and on YouTube.

One of my favourite videos from Chris’ YouTube channel is of the fireworks he saw from his plane as he was arriving back in California at the end of the trip.  They seem like a perfect way to cap off what was a marathon adventure!

If you want to connect with The Gone John Show, tweet me @GoneJohnLive, visit our Facebook page, or e-mail me at [email protected].