Through the Rabbit Hole

As a continuation from last week's episode, I thought I'd tell a funny personal story from Yosemite National Park. This will probably be our last mini-episode for a while, so I hope you've enjoyed them. You can also check out our full-length episodes if you missed any of them. Have a great day!

In today's mini-episode we'll be talking about the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range that's home to beautiful locations like Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, and Sequoia National Forest. Californians sure are spoiled, as many of the range's most famous spots are easily accessible from California's big cities. 

Nigeria is a country that isn't talked about much in Western media, but it's absolutely massive, and it's only getting bigger. Known as the "Giant of Africa", Nigeria has the largest economy and the largest population in Africa, and it's projected to surpass the US in population within the next thirty years. The country also has a fascinating history, and it'd be interesting to read more about it in the future. 

In our first mini-episode, we discuss the public transportation system in Medellín, Colombia. A few decades ago the city was caught in the grasp of Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel, but now the city has a reputation for being safe, welcoming, and extremely innovative. That is thanks in large part to the city's astonishing integrated public transportation system, which has improved the economies and reduced crime in a lot of the impoverished barrios, as well as improving the lives of many who live in the Aburrá Valley. Tune in to find out more!

Matt Vocino is a fantastic storyteller and an awesome friend, and I had a fun time chatting with him for our final episode of Season One! Matt was born with Congenital Muscular Dystrophy, but he's travelled to Europe, the Caribbean, and even to the Olympics. We chatted about the challenges of travelling in a wheelchair, some fun travel stories, the future of the airline industry for people who travel with disabilities, and much more!!

The Arab world is a fascinating and often misunderstood part of the world. While often thought of as just being a hot, violent, and very politically unstable region, there is definitely much more to these countries than meets the eye. In today's episode we discuss the countries that are members of the Arab League, an organization of core countries within the Arab World. 

North America's Great Lakes are absolutely massive, and they've played a fundamental role in the development of both Canada and the United States. In today's episode we briefly discuss the lakes themselves, some cities in the region, some shipwreck stories, and then we spend some time chatting with my friend Ben about surfing on the Great Lakes.

We have a very interesting guest joining us for today's episode. Wilson "BearBacking" Kauzen has bicycled throughout India, and he's currently bicycling through the Canadian winter while towing his dog Mikoto. He's gone weeks without money in India, almost lost his toes in Canada, and has had some fun adventures with magic mushrooms in the mountains of India. Which reminds me, there's swearing and talk of drugs in this episode, so please don't listen if that bothers you. I do recommend listening though. Anyway, you can follow his adventures on his Instagram page which is @_bearbacking. 

In today's episode we finish off our ranking of the most influential cities in 2021. We took into account the entire metropolitan region of a city, and also took political, cultural, economic, and historical factors into consideration. Every city is important and unique in its own way, but the 25 that we covered over the last two weeks were the best of the best.

Our world is filled with a variety of fascinating and unique cities, all of them vastly different from each other. It was a difficult task, but over the next two weeks we're gonna try to narrow our planet's cities down to a shortlist of the 25 most influential metropolitan areas. Send me a message on [email protected] to banter with me. The rankings are obviously very subjective, and were based off economic, cultural, political, and historical factors. Enjoy!