Wherever We Are with Joel & Erin Comm

Some days on a honeymoon don't need a bucket list. 🇮🇹

Day 10 was one of those.

We walked along the Italian Riviera from Santa Margherita toward Rapallo, ate Italian food, hunted for Erin's favorite gelato, admired houses we definitely can't afford 😂 and basically spent the day wandering around together.

And then Erin debuted a new segment:

ERIN'S INSIGHTS.

Insight #1 answers the question absolutely nobody knew they needed answered:

Can you make microwave popcorn without a microwave?

Apparently you can. And according to Erin, it might actually be BETTER.

🍿😂

This episode feels a little different from the big mountains, caves, trains and terrifying bridges we've been showing you.

It's just us being newlyweds in Italy.

And I think that's kind of the point of Wherever We Are.

▶️ Day 10 is up now.

Tomorrow... Portofino. And I've got another surprise planned for Erin.

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We made it to the Italian Riviera… and apparently I married a plumber.

After a six-hour train journey through Italy, we arrived in beautiful Santa Margherita Ligure, just down the coast from Portofino. Our little apartment has everything we need—including a washing machine that absolutely refused to wash anything.

Nine days into the honeymoon, we needed clean clothes.

Erin was determined to figure it out.

After an hour of buttons, messages, photos, troubleshooting and refusing to surrender, she discovered the highly technical solution:

Turn on the water. 😂

We also talk about the slightly ridiculous Italian castle we discovered for sale, our first dinner on the Riviera, Erin's obsession with somebody else's giant pizza, whether producing a show every day is going to drive Joel insane, and the enormous slug that nearly became an accidental casualty.

This is increasingly becoming exactly what we hoped Wherever We Are would be: not really a travel show and not really a podcast. Just us documenting life while it happens.

Sometimes Switzerland.
Sometimes the Italian Riviera.
Sometimes plumbing.

This is life, Wherever We Are.

Subscribe on YouTube or follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so you can come along.

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There are faster ways to travel from Switzerland into Italy.

We didn't want the faster way.

Today we're aboard the Bernina Express, winding through the Swiss Alps in a panoramic train surrounded by some of the most spectacular scenery we've seen on the honeymoon.

After hours of mountains, valleys, lakes and tiny villages, we cross the border into Italy and arrive in Tirano for the night.

But naturally, the conversation doesn't stay focused on trains.

We discover a castle behind our hotel that appears to be for sale, share our surprisingly effective trick for getting a little extra attention from hotels when you're celebrating something, debate the business potential of meat-and-cheese-filled pretzels, and explain why trains are quickly becoming our favorite way to travel around Europe.

And tomorrow?

Another train.

Another destination.

We're only giving you one clue:

Coastal.

Welcome to Day 8 of Wherever We Are with Erin & Joel.

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We've been telling everyone for months that we're going on a six-week honeymoon.

Apparently nobody checked Joel's math.

One week into the trip, Joel finally counts the days and realizes something: he actually planned a seven-week honeymoon.

So congratulations to us—we just discovered a bonus week. 😂

We've also left our little home on Lake Thun and traveled across Switzerland to Chur, where we're spending one night before an adventure Erin has wanted to do for years: an incredible train journey through the Swiss Alps.

While wandering around Chur, we once again stumble into something we weren't looking for—food trucks, live music, Korean food, garlic parmesan fries and seemingly everyone in town gathered together.

But Episode 7 also marks something new.

We finally have a name.

Welcome to Wherever We Are with Erin & Joel.

And yes, we now have our own deliberately cheesy, '70s-sitcom-inspired theme song and opening video.

We're embracing the cheese.

Tomorrow: through the Alps and toward Italy.

This is life, Wherever We Are.

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Erin has jumped out of an airplane. She has no problem with parasailing. But put her somewhere high with open air beneath her and apparently we have a problem.

On our last full day at Lake Thun, we decide to do something random: get on a bus and see where it takes us.

We end up in Sigriswil—and somehow stumble into the exact Swiss cow celebration we'd decided to skip. Decorated cows are parading through the streets, people are celebrating, and just when Joel says the only thing missing is yodeling…we hear yodeling.

An entire group of men harmonizing together.

But that's not why Joel brought Erin here.

There's a suspension bridge across a gorge waiting for us.

Erin isn't sure she's going to cross it.

She does.

And then, thanks to a slight transportation miscalculation, she discovers she has to cross the whole thing again.

We also talk about why traveling together before marriage might be one of the best relationship tests there is—and something else happens in this episode:

We might finally have a name for this show.

Wherever We Are.

What do you think?

This is life, Wherever We Are.

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Just when we thought Switzerland couldn't get any more surreal, the cows showed up.

Day 5 takes us into the Swiss Alps, beginning in Lauterbrunnen—a valley surrounded by mountains, Swiss chalets and a waterfall dropping roughly 1,000 feet from the cliffs above. Everywhere we look feels like a fairy tale.

Then we're sitting at a café when we hear cowbells. People start running outside.

So, naturally, we follow.

Suddenly a procession of decorated cows wearing enormous bells is marching through the village. We'd been thinking about attending a traditional Swiss celebration involving cows, cheese, music and allegedly spontaneous yodeling the next day. Instead, Switzerland brought some of the celebration directly to us.

From there we head to Grindelwald, where we sit beneath massive mountains—some still covered with snow—and pretty much just stare at them.

Along the way we discover just how expensive Switzerland can be, debate whether cows sleep with their bells on, finalize the next part of our six-week honeymoon and continue our spectacular inability to pronounce Swiss place names.

This is life, Wherever We Are.

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Day 4 takes us to Interlaken—but the best part of the day turns out to be somewhere we hadn't really planned on visiting.

On the bus ride along Lake Thun, we spotted the St. Beatus Caves high above the lake. So on the way back from Interlaken, we got off the bus and started climbing.

Inside were underground waterfalls, stalactites, stalagmites, mirror-like pools and about a kilometer of cave passages open to visitors. By the end, we'd climbed the equivalent of roughly 28 floors.

We also watch paragliders descend into Interlaken, discover what a giant hot chocolate does to Joel, hear about an upcoming Swiss festival involving decorated cows and cheese, and continue our ongoing struggle to pronounce the names of the places we're visiting.

And technically, we're recording Day 4 on the morning of Day 5—from Lauterbrunnen, with an enormous waterfall outside.

We'll get to that next.

This is life, Wherever We Are.

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We finally made it to Switzerland—and for the first time since the wedding, we're actually slowing down.

We're spending five nights on Lake Thun, surrounded by mountains and scenery that almost doesn't look real. Our first hotel room wasn't exactly what Joel had envisioned for the honeymoon, but after mentioning that we were newlyweds, the owner made a little magic happen.

Suddenly we had a balcony overlooking Lake Thun and the Swiss Alps.

In Episode 3 of Wherever We Are with Erin & Joel, we talk about our first full day in Switzerland, walking seven miles into Thun, Erin's newfound love of dipping fries in curry, and the Panorama Card that gives us free local transportation and opens up even more places to explore.

We're already planning Interlaken, Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen and an epic train ride through the Alps.

Mostly, though, we're finally sitting still long enough to look around and realize:

We're actually on our honeymoon.

Of course, neither of us is entirely sure what day it is anymore.

This is life, Wherever We Are.

 

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After a jet-lagged day wandering around London, eating fish & chips, and getting stranded when the Tube stopped six miles short of our hotel, we’re back at Heathrow—and it’s time for the first big reveal of the honeymoon.

The original idea was to arrive in London, look at the departures board, and spontaneously decide where to go next. Romantic in theory. Possibly stressful in practice. So Joel made a plan instead.

In Episode 2 of Wherever We Are with Erin & Joel, Erin finally learns the first real destination of the trip: Switzerland.

We’re flying to Zürich, taking the train to Thun, and heading for five nights by the lake with the Swiss Alps, Grindelwald, and Lauterbrunnen ahead of us.

We also talk about our Virgin Atlantic Upper Class experience, the little airplane salt-and-pepper shakers that somehow are coming home with us, our ever-changing list of travel must-haves, and why Virgin gave Joel 10,000 points for an entertainment system that ended up working anyway.

At this point, we still weren’t sure whether we were recording these conversations just for ourselves or whether anyone else would ever hear them.

Now you are.

This is life, Wherever We Are.

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We got married a week ago. Now we’re heading out on a six-week honeymoon—and Erin has no idea where we’re going first.

Welcome to the very first episode of Wherever We Are with Erin & Joel… except when we recorded this, we didn’t even know that was the name of the show.

We’re starting at a hotel near London Heathrow after flying overnight from Tampa. Eventually we’ll make our way to Tuscany, Portugal, Amsterdam and a two-week transatlantic cruise back to the United States. Everything between London and Tuscany? Erin has been kept largely in the dark.

This started as a way for us to document our honeymoon. But as we started recording, we wondered if maybe it could become something more—a show about travel, married life, things we discover, things that go wrong, things that make us laugh, and whatever else happens along the way.

In our first episode, we’re off to explore London, find some fish & chips, talk about the mystery honeymoon ahead of us, and try to figure out whether we’re making a podcast, a vlog… or nothing at all.

At the end of this episode, the show doesn't even have a name yet.

Now it does.

This is life, Wherever We Are.

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