A conversation between Bob and Bill, the creator of the Where Have You Been (WHYB) podcast. Bill explains that his show focuses on the personal stories and life-enriching experiences of travelers rather than just logistical tips and tricks. He shares his own late-blooming passion for travel, which was sparked only ten years ago by his wife, and discusses his upcoming 24-hour journey to New Zealand to visit his daughter. The two delve into the cultural significance of travel, comparing it to the way people in St. Louis use high school affiliations to quickly understand someone’s background.

WHYB?

Bad AI Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome to a conversation with Bill from the Where Have You Been podcast or WHYB podcast. So where have you been? For a minute there, I was thinking just WHYB and I know that’s not the name of the show. So it’s kind of interesting the way it works out that way, WHYB. Yeah, I’ve had people try to tell me I should push it that way, and I feel like that would just confuse people more than I already confuse people. And at WHYB podcast on most of the socials, I guess, right? Yeah, pretty much everywhere. Oh, good. We’re just going to get these things out of the way. We’ll hit them again later, but I always like to just start off with that. So people, you know, they’re like, I don’t really want to listen to Bob.
Bill’s the interesting one. Let’s just go listen to him directly and just forget this whole Bob situation. So then they’re all set, right? So they don’t have to think about anything. That’ll do. So, Bill, why are you asking people where they’ve been? Are you the government? Officially, no. But unofficially, I guess someday you’ll see. Honestly, it’s something that, you know, obviously… Well, maybe not everyone knows, but you were also a guest on my podcast as well. That’s how we met. And I wasn’t sure if you knew that. So now you do. Honestly, it’s just something that I have a passion for travel. I’ve had a passion for travel for many years and just found that having conversations with other people who are passionate about travel just turn into very long conversations and they’re very enjoyable. And so I thought, well, I have a radio background. Maybe we turn this into something fun.
Oh, yeah. There you go. Look at that. I’m being all fancy here. So this is your website here. Where have you been? Yeah, no, that’s fun, though. I mean, it is interesting that, you know, sometimes people ask that question, but not all the time, right? So some people really aren’t interested in where people have been, but honestly, it tells you a little bit about the person, don’t you think? Whenever you find out, you know, if this person’s been to certain places, doesn’t it kind of like, Oh wait, this, you know, puts them in a little, and I don’t want to say categorizes people, but it certainly gives you an idea about them perhaps. Yeah, for sure. And I think that you and I may have even touched on this when we talked before that really travel, I think really kind of opens your eyes to,
what’s really out there in the world and really can enrich your life in so many ways. And so when you find out that someone has traveled around, you know, even if it’s just around the U.S. or whatever, it’s still I think it does. It does tell you something about somebody. A, they’ve got they’ve had some funds to be able to travel. No, that’s not what we’re looking for. But yeah, it really does kind of tell you something about somebody, I think. And it doesn’t mean that someone who hasn’t traveled doesn’t have that. had some enrichment in their life or some fulfillment but it’s just a completely different thing once you actually do it if you enjoy it well but the other thing would be not so much not, but you, then you find out, well, they don’t like to travel. Maybe they’re like, no, I don’t want to travel anywhere. I don’t, I just stay home. And so then that, that says something as well. Right. So, um, not that there’s anything bad with it. It’s just, you know it everybody’s uh
you know, kind of personalities are all different. And so all these things help make up your personality in St. I’m from, I’m in St. Louis, Missouri. And one of the, one of the weird things about St. Louis, I’m not originally from St. Louis, but I moved here when I was, you know, out of college. The, one of the things that people always ask people from St. Louis who grew up here is where did you go to high school? And they ask that question because then it gives them an immediate, huge amount of information on that person. Because depending on where you went to high school and depending on what era now, it’s becoming less and less relevant, but it was very relevant for people my age. And it gives the person who you’re talking to, okay, now we know you went to the county school. We know you went to a city school. We know you went to a private school.
And so then it kind of shapes the conversation because then you go, oh, then maybe you know this person or that person or whatever. And so the travel question is kind of a similar setup, right? So you ask the person about that. You’re like, well, for me, I’m like, well, I’ve traveled mostly domestically, right? So then you go, oh, have you been here? Have you been there? And it’s like an almost immediate narrowing of topic areas for you, which, so you don’t have to sit there and go, well, you know, it snowed last week. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I’ll be honest with you though. Most of the people that I talk to, well, especially, especially when, with the podcast, I don’t talk to a lot of people who, uh, has, who says, uh, I traveled once or twice and I just didn’t really like it. That would be a very short podcast episode, but you know, I’m sure that there’s people out there that that’s happened. Um, a thousand percent. Um,
My mom was one of those. She she enjoyed she enjoyed vehicular travel, did not care for airplane travel whatsoever. And so she was very limited. But so I guess I’m not really tying that together because she did, I guess, enjoy travel to some degree. But she just didn’t really want to do the long range travel, you know. So is this recently or in the past? Because I think airline. airline travel has changed drastically over the last 20 years. Yeah, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. But then, you know, my dad, who’s still alive, God bless him. He doesn’t really care about travel either. Like we used to take the family trips when we were young. We used to do Florida. I grew up in Western New York. So we would go to Florida every winter for a week or two or whatever. And in the summertime or spring, we would go to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. And that was basically it, unless we were going to see family somewhere.
And my dad’s somebody who just, I don’t think he, you know, he might go see his brother down in Texas or wherever he’s at now. But again, it’s, that’s a trip to see family, not a trip to travel. And so. That’s interesting. And that makes a difference as well. Right. So because I think, I don’t know, statistically, I can’t answer this question, but I think families are more dispersed nowadays, like say in the 21st century here. than they were in the 20th century. And so there becomes a lot of travel just to see family because you don’t get to see them regularly. Like before where everybody was each other’s neighbors and everything. So that could be a change as well. And for some people like myself who are very lucky and blessed, you have family who lives in New Zealand, which is where I’m heading actually in a couple of weeks to see my daughter finally. Oh, wow. That’s right. Yeah. She’s a Kiwi. She’s a Kiwi then.
I think you and I talked about it. I wanted to try to get there. Well, now I’m actually going. So thank goodness. Wow. Now, how long a flight is that? Start to finish from Pittsburgh, which is where I’m based. It’s about 24 hours each way with layovers and such. So where are you going to bounce from? Like, where do you go? Which is the points of switching or at least waiting? Well, they are located in Wellington. So I’ll bounce to Dallas and then it’s straight from Dallas to Auckland, which is at the very upper tip of the North Island coast. And then a little, just a quick flight from the tip to the southernmost part of the North Island. Yeah, there’s a show called Wellington Paranormal. I’ve heard of it. You should check it out. Maybe I should before I go, yeah. Yeah, just in case. That way you can avoid some nastiness down there in Wellington because it’s a comedy show. Yeah.
But that’s a long way to go from Dallas all the way to Auckland. You’d think they would break it up somewhere in the middle. I guess there’s no real place to break it up. Not really, I don’t think. No, I think it is what it is, man. You’re going to load up in Texas and then be on the plane forever. Yeah, I just feel bad for those around me. I’ve got to find something to stop my snoring. So do you sleep on the plane? I guess you do. I would never. I have a hard time. I typically don’t. No, I typically don’t. So the longest trip I think I took, I’ve been to Europe a handful of times, but I feel like the longest flight, maybe it was just because it was my first ever international flight, was to Athens. And I did not sleep on the flight. And I had a really rough go.
Because we only had like one day in Athens and then we were taken off for Santorini. And we walked and walked and walked and it was hot. And we wound up in a museum near the Acropolis or whatever it was. And I literally fell asleep standing up. Oh, no. Yeah, literally fell asleep standing up. And it was time to go get some coffee after that. Oh, my gosh. I’ve never done that before or again. That’s wild. Yeah, I’ve never. I got to try planes either. I’m, I’m always, you know, not, I don’t, I’m trying to think. Well, but I’d never, have you ever sleep in the library when you were in college or anything in school? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t doubt it if I did, but I don’t read, like, I don’t remember that. I’d like to think that there’s some kind of connection between people who sleep in the library, public sleeping. Usually the library seems to be the first place that people do their public sleeping. And then, uh,
that than other places, right? So on a plane or on transportation of some kind or just anywhere. I’m much more of a private sleeper. Yeah, I don’t like to be asleep in public for whatever reason. I think maybe because I was a younger brother. Sleeping is dangerous sometimes. Yeah, if you have an older brother and you’re the younger one, then yeah, falling asleep can be falling asleep at the wrong time could be detrimental. Yeah. I was the youngest, but I was the youngest by nine years and I had all sisters and they basically took care of me growing up. So I never experienced that. I’m sorry. Well, you got, yeah, you didn’t get beat up or anything then. No, my matter of fact, my youngest sister would defend me if anyone was coming after me. So, wow. I have had a terrible childhood apparently, and I didn’t even realize it.
Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you. I think you might have to see some therapy, talk to your brother. Maybe. So that’s not what this show is about. And therapy is not a joke. I don’t mean it that way. So why did you decide, you know, you’re like, I want to ask these questions. Did you do this because you’re, you know, looking for free tips, finding out where people are going that are cool? Or what was the driving force? No, if anything, it’s been the worst part of it actually is hearing about all these wonderful and amazing and incredible places that I either never even heard of or places that I have heard of but really know little about. It’s been many years removed from school where we learned the basics about a lot of these places. So I honestly just, it does two things for me. Again, I think that it’s so interesting to hear people’s stories and experiences. If you don’t know the podcast,
we don’t focus on tips and tricks at all. As a matter of fact, I try to steer clear of that stuff. Not that some doesn’t get sprinkled in, of course, and I’m guilty of doing it as well. Sometimes you got a good juicy tip and it’s good to get, get it out there for everybody. But I just, I fell in love with just hearing people’s stories and experiences. And I, and I know this sounds really cheesy and I don’t know if I told this to you before or not, but I literally feel like it would be such a shame if some of these people’s experiences go to the grave with them because it’s, Some of them are very touching. Some are very moving. Some are just hilarious. Some are scary, like, you know, life threatening situations, things. But I just feel like it’s what a shame if those don’t are never heard by anyone. And not that they were wasted experiences, but I don’t know. Like, does that make sense? I just feel like. No, you’re kind of cataloging or capturing these experiences because I think a lot of folks don’t.
necessarily think like that. Right. So they’re just like, it happened and I’m, you know, happy to talk about it, but i’m not going to do anything more than that. Um, and so they don’t ever, um, you know, capture things in a format that’s other than in their own, you know mind as it were yeah or photographs which yeah but even photographs don’t tell a story, you know? Right. That’s true. I mean, yeah. It may all look fantastic. And then you’re like, yeah, we were stuck in because of COVID, which is actually one of my favorite things about having an, and I don’t do a video mine’s audio only, but I do ask my guests typically to send me some photographs of the places that we discussed. Cause sometimes there’s funny stories in there or some really cool ones that you can try to create a visual in your mind. But then once you actually see the photograph on like Instagram or Facebook or something and you go, Oh yeah, I listened to that episode. I remember when he was talking about that or she was talking about that. It’s then you can really put it together.
Do you think the fact that your parents were a little more, I don’t want to say restricted, but didn’t travel very far afield, does that push you to think about these things? No, no. So if you want to go back even a little bit further, so I worked in banking now for the last, off and on for the last 15 years, I guess. And When I started off as a banker, I actually just found myself, I’m just intrigued by people. I’m just intrigued by humanity and human’s existence. And I just always felt like when I used to sit down as a banker and have conversations with people, and they would be telling me their stories because I need to get to know them. And should I be trying to give them a credit card? Does that make sense in their life? Should they be looking at a home? Whatever.
People really, it’s almost like sitting with a bartender sometimes. They really start to share a lot of information if they feel comfortable with you. And so that’s actually what started it for me. I developed some relationships with some of my clients way back in the day. I never really cared that much for travel because I didn’t grow up with it until I met my second wife, got married. And that was our first big trip was in 2016 was our honeymoon. And she was a world traveler. She is a world traveler. And so she really got me and i mean once we went to rome and athens and santorini and like that just, that was it for me that the bug truthfully bit me at that moment and and now i’ve been all over the place. Not as extensively as many of my guests, but i’m working on it so that so only for uh about 10 years then not even yeah yeah wow yeah i yeah i wouldn’t i don’t think we touched upon that, so i wouldn’t have guessed that, to be honest with you. I would be like oh yeah, this guy’s been
Yeah, like I said, I’ve done a lot. Backpack through Europe or something. I don’t know. That would be my… No, unfortunately. Would you do something like that? Would you backpack through Europe? Maybe not at this point. Maybe, maybe. Yeah, I don’t know. Has somebody hit me up with a suggestion? We’ll do it. Are you a… Would you rather do something that’s a little more civilized, right? Hotels and everything? Or would you do something that’s a little more rough and camp and things like that? Or do you camp? No, I think if I was camping, I’d be in a campground for a night or two. That’s about it for me. I’m more of the, I love to walk. I like to hike, but I don’t, I’m not really into the camping scene. Yeah. I hate camping. It’s terrible. But I think we did talk. Did we talk about that? I don’t remember. Maybe I touched upon it, but I don’t recall. It’s just like,
I don’t know why anybody camps, to be honest. I don’t want to put down campers, but I’m like, well, there’s a perfectly good hotel up the road. Why don’t I just go there? We can hang out outside until 11 p.m. We can all make it look like we’re someplace else. I’m just curious because I always wonder myself, I always think, now that I’m a little bit older, not i was younger, I’m like, oh, should i have done that? And I never did. And, and as i reflect upon like yeah i think i’m glad i didn’t. Uh, because it’s not my, it’s not in my personality to be, you know, like that, to, to do that kind of stuff it’s um it i like to travel where i kind of feel that i’m in control. Right.
And I think in the other, whenever you’re camping and stuff, maybe you do feel like you’re in control, but I would feel like I’m not in control. Yeah. And so then therefore I would be, it would change the experience for me, I think. Yeah. And I think like going to a local campground for me, I think would be more acceptable or I’d be more apt to do something like that because at least I feel like I’m still close enough to home. I know what’s going on here. But to go to another country where I’m really just not familiar and lay down camp somewhere, I just don’t think I would feel comfortable with it. Yeah, no, I wouldn’t for sure. So speaking of going to other countries and so forth, what about the language barrier? How do you cope with that? Do you learn Italian or what was your strategy? Yeah.
Typically, it’s learn the basics. Whenever I go to another country, I always try to learn at least the, you know, please and thank you, hello, goodbye, you know, maybe a couple other little phrases here and there. And typically, if we go to another country, I try to go long enough. It’s not just a weekend trip, right? I mean, you’re spending, you know, even if you’re going to different regions or different places, you’re spending four or five nights, hopefully, in each place. So, you’re around people enough over the course of a couple, two, three days. You catch up on some phrases or things that people continually say to you. You figure out what it means. Google Translate is the best, honestly. It’s making it too easy, isn’t it? Yeah, and most places that I’ve been, you can usually find somebody who speaks English well enough to at least get by. But it’s happened where we haven’t. I mean, we had some times in Italy where, you know, thankfully my
ex-wife, is fluent in Spanish. And so that goes a long way. I mean, we’ve done a lot of South America, a lot of Central America. And even when we’re in a place like Italy, you can kind of, and I didn’t realize this, but you can kind of get by a little bit with Spanish and Italian are close enough, I guess, sometimes. Romance languages. Yeah. Yeah, French as well. So those are the big ones that they kind of have overlapping, you know, whatever you call it. Themes? I don’t know what you call it. But yeah, a lot of the words mean they’re just a little bit different, but not so different that they don’t sound like the word yeah um to things. Yeah. Well, that’s cool. The, um, so you’re doing this in and so forth. If you couldn’t do the, where have you been? Is there another area that you’re like, I think i would like to do, you know xyz
Instead of this, if this didn’t happen for whatever reason, what would be another area of your life that you would like to explore in this way, you know, podcast way? I don’t, if there was one, it would be something sports related. I’m not sure exactly what it would be. The problem is I’m not, and not that I’m an expert in travel, but to answer your question, it’d be something sports related. one of the other reasons why it’s so great to do this podcast is because I don’t have the means to be traveling constantly. So not that I’m sure that there’s ways that I could make it work. I know that there are just, I’m not in a place in my life right now to be able to just do that, but I get to live sort of vicariously through everyone else’s stories. So even though I’m, I am, I’m no expert in travel in any way, shape or form. I’m, I get to gather so much information and I, and it,
it kind of fills the void a little bit for me that I’m not traveling all the time, but I get to hear of other people’s travels. So it makes a big difference. But I don’t think I’m a good enough expert in knowledge of anything to be able to actually do this. That’s why I rely on my guests to actually provide the entertainment. That’s the beauty. You don’t have to be an expert. You just bring on the expert. Yeah, that’s true. So what sport? You said sports. What sport is it? Baseball, football are my two big ones. Did you play? No, no. I was never athletic. I was on the bowling team, if that gives you any clue of my athletic abilities growing up. That’s okay. I never even learned how to swim, Bob. I had a pool all my life. Really? Yes. Not kidding. Nobody just accidentally knocked you in or anything? Never. No, I wish they had. I wish they had.
can swim. You can still learn to swim now. It’s not too late. Yeah, I can learn it’s just like bowling, except you move both arms and legs and legs bowling is one of those things, and i would have never thought this, so i was not on the bowling team uh my wife was, oddly enough, but i wasn’t in but i did bowl uh recreationally but it had a big lull, right? And now I find that my kids actually will go bowling. Whereas there’s this huge, you know, gap of time where bowling was not a thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can see that for sure. So you must have, you must fall in that time period when it was still, well, maybe they still do bowling for, I don’t know. I, my kids, uh, school didn’t have bowling teams.
Maybe they still do have bowling teams, but they never bowled at school, but they have bowled since they’ve been out of high school. And yeah, and I always thought that was kind of interesting because St. Louis, oddly enough, used to be where the Bowling Hall of Fame was because there was a lot of professional bowlers that came out of this area. Dick Weber was the big name, and he had bowling alleys here. And, um, you know, there was a museum for him and everything until, you know, now we’ve kind of aged out of that, but all that’s gone away now. But yeah, there used to be, it was not, not unheard of, you know, there’s probably, gosh, I don’t know, at least easily a dozen bowling alleys in the city, not counting, uh, outside the city. Um, and it was a big bowling town and all that kind of has gone away, which is kind of sad in a strange way. Um,
Not that I have this affinity for bowling, but I always like the fact that I always hate it when things go completely away, right? It hasn’t quite gone completely away, but everything’s changed enough to where it’s not the same. So I have my recollection because I would go bowling with my grandfather who loved to go bowling and was on a league and everything. And the bowling alley that I went with him, it doesn’t exist anymore. Um, because time has moved on. Right. And so it’s, um, it’s a different world, uh, now. So I took my kids, they wanted to go bowling, uh, over the holidays. And I said, I’ll go with you. And so it’s this whole other, you know, it was not a dark, dank experience with everybody’s drinking and smoking. It’s this very bright experience with full on lights and having food. And, uh, I’m like, well, this is not what bowling is about. Um,
but apparently that is what the way it is now. So, you know, maybe, maybe there’s something to a bowling podcast. Maybe Bill, this is your brain. Maybe a bowling podcast. Yeah. Maybe it’s making a resurgence. You know, there’s not a lot of people in the space. It’s a niche that’s not been filled yet. Yeah. Wherever your ball’s been. I do have a friend who was a professional bowler when he was younger. So I got a guest for you. Have you ever seen or heard of duck pin bowling? Yes. Oh, yes. I’ve never done it. Never done it. I’ve done it a few times. It’s fun and interesting for, you know, just when you’re having a couple of drinks with a buddy or something. It sounds like one of those drinking things, though. It’s not the same. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s small, though, right? Yeah. Yeah. It’s bigger than a softball, but much smaller than a ball. Yeah. Little short, squatty pins on strings.
Right. Exactly. It’s pretty neat yeah that’s funny like marionette bowling basically so that’s interesting so but football and baseball would be your choice. I got you off on bowling. because you mentioned you’re in the bowling thing, but football and baseball would kind of be your, um, sports of choice. Is it, what attracted you to those i mean if you didn’t if you didn’t play what’s you know what’s the interest there? Yeah, and actually, I’m a little bit surprised that basketball never became a thing for me. So I actually grew up in Western New York, just south of Buffalo. And so our local television station, when I was younger, when we had just regular cable back then, we were eight hours away from New York City, but we got WWOR from New York City, and they aired all the Mets games. So I grew up as a Mets fan. And of course, the Buffalo Bills are right up
you know, right up right there. And I grew up watching, you know, the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen. Oh yes. But as I got older, I kind of, I don’t know, basketball, I enjoy watching it, but it’s, I’m just not passionate about it. So, but yeah. Are you the guy that does the, fills in the stats while you’re watching the game? I used to, I used to basically do that stuff when I was younger, when I was a kid. Sure. I mean, I used to make my own, I made my own baseball cards. I used to draw my own baseball cards. Yeah, I actually tried to start a Buffalo Bills newsletter. This was back before www.anything existed. There was an internet, but you had AOL or Prodigy, and that was your only options. Yeah, the old Prodigy and AOL rooms and everything, boards. Yeah, and I remember trying to start my own newsletter for the Buffalo Bills. But yeah, I was heavy into that stuff when I was younger.
So I have a friend who loves football, but for the aesthetics, for the graphics. He loves the iconography and all of that, the colors and the helmets and all that in football. I mean, football, you know, he likes the game and so forth, but he really gets into – he’s a graphic designer, but he really gets into the iconography of everything. I didn’t know if that was maybe a – an interest there as well. No, no, I did. I did used to like to draw, like i said, I would draw my own baseball cards. I would draw the logos from the different teams and stuff, but that was just purely for fun. So now would you, uh, interested in any kind of sports overseas? because I mean, it’s a whole different world when you leave the country, as far as sports go. I mean, there is baseball and football and everything, but you know, that’s not the king of sports in most of the world.
it’s football, but not football it’s soccer I’ve never really gotten into it I will watch like World Cup stuff like that. Olympics. I will watch those kind of tournaments I do find football soccer to be very very exciting we were actually going to a match in Wellington while we’re there. I was going to ask you because Australian rules football is a whole thing. I don’t know if it’s in New Zealand as well, but yeah. Yeah. And there, so it’ll be Auckland and they’re actually playing Sydney, uh, Australian team. And, um, I guess Wellington’s not very good, but still, I just want to get to a match. I want to get to a match where people are really passionate about it. Not that the MLS stuff here, I’m sure that the fans are passionate, but I also, it can’t be the same, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So, but I don’t really follow like premier league or anything like that. My, um, my daughter’s boyfriend is a very, very, very diehard arsenal fan.
So if I see that they’re playing, I’ll maybe turn it on and root for them. But no, not so much. So I have another friend of mine who is going to all the baseball stadiums. And so he’s gone all around the United States mostly, I guess. Maybe he’ll go into Canada. I don’t know. I’ll have to ask him. But he’s not from here. And he came here to go to Bush Stadium, which is the Cardinals stadium. But, yeah, so anything like that in your interest area where you can combine the travel with the sports? Because then you would, you know, that’s kind of one of those weird combo things. Listen, I’ll tell you what. If the Pirates ever make the playoffs again and they can sustain some level of I can justify spending money to watch this team, I wouldn’t mind traveling around to see some away games because I do enjoy baseball stadiums very much.
And I’ve only been to, I think, three of them in my lifetime. So I would like to do that. But it’s not like on a bucket list sort of thing that I have to do that. So what is your bucket list then? You just mentioned it. Honestly, it’s really just explore the world. It’s just I want to experience as many cultures as I can and meet as many people as I can and just, you know, get to understand why people do the things they do and what do they do that I don’t even understand and eat the local foods and experience the cultures. That’s what I want to do. That’s the bucket list. So eat the food. So you’d eat, when you go somewhere, do you always like, what’s the local cuisine? I’m going to have it. I try to, yeah. Matter of fact, not that you’re asking, but I actually did have, when I was in Peru a couple of years ago, I had llama.
Which, eh. But I had guinea pig and it was very good. Guinea pig? Guinea pig, yeah. Very good. Really? A lot of little bones to pick from, but it was very good. I can’t even tell you. It was just very soft and moist. Maybe not moist, but tender. I can’t necessarily relate the flavor. It definitely wasn’t like chicken. I really don’t know what to say. No, I don’t think it was gamey at all. Really? Guinea pig? I would have never thought. I mean, because that’s one of those things, not to get gross or anything, but that’s one of those things that, like chickens, that would be easily grown, cultivated. And I can’t believe that the waitress hadn’t heard this before, but At one point in the conversation, she burst out laughing, and it’s because my wife had said to her, this is strange for us because we keep guinea pigs as pets, and she just lost it. She’s like, because they just breed them for food. Well, it makes sense. I mean, I’m sure they, I mean, yeah. I mean, just like chickens, they’re not taking up a huge footprint, and they probably, a bunch of them can live together. Yeah, that’s what they have, I guess. Take advantage of what they have available.
Yeah. That’s wild. To be honest with you, I’ve never heard of anybody mentioning to me that they’ve eaten guinea pig. My wife did ask them to take the head off because I guess they do that for kids. And I thought, well, maybe that’d make it a little more palatable. They did not. They did not. Oh, they didn’t take the head off for you? No, no. The whole thing was there splayed out on the plate. So it’s a whole guinea pig. You didn’t get like a piece of it. You got the whole darn thing. Yep. Just got it, I guess, and cooked. I don’t know. I think it was all there. Maybe they did take some parts out. Did they take the organs out? Maybe they did. I don’t know. I just ate it. It was wonderful. And I would do it again. I would think the hardest part of guinea pig would be getting the fur off of it. That probably comes right off in the fryer. I’m guessing. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.
Having a little knowledge in the preparation of certain meat products, yeah, there has to be some kind of process there. Because, you know, pigs are hairy. Did you know that? Pigs are very hairy. Yeah, they are actually, yeah. Yeah, and they have to get rid of all that because people don’t want to have a lot of hair in their food. Yeah. This is good bacon. I can imagine the guinea pig is very hairy. No, yeah, yeah. I think I would try just about anything anywhere, to be honest. The only thing I don’t think, and I’ve had the opportunity to try it, is it blowfish that if you’re not licensed and understand how to cook it, it’ll kill you? Is it blowfish? Yeah, if they don’t prepare it correctly, the toxins can get in there and then kill you. Yeah. I don’t think I’m willing to have one expensive, super expensive meal be my potentially last one. Yeah.
You’re looking at the guy, you’re like, I don’t think you really got what it takes. And it’s too late. I’m not going to eat blowfish prepared by a guy named Chet. Sorry, that’s a bad joke about Chets. But anyway, no, it’s interesting, though. That’s something I certainly am not up for. I’m not very food. I’m food averse rather than food adventurous. Um, and so, yeah, I love the, uh, blandness of the american diet. Um, but that is interesting though, that you you do uh when you’re there, you, you give it a whirl. I mean, that’s fantastic. So you haven’t tried ants then either? No, well, not on purpose okay but i i was i was uh in my own yard. I, uh, hurt myself and, i couldn’t get up and i was, had a bunch of ants on me. I may have ate one.
at that point in time, but not purposefully. I was trying to get away from them, but I couldn’t because I hurt my leg. But anyway, yeah, that’s interesting. No, ants or crickets because I think crickets or grasshoppers are like popcorn. People eat them in other parts of the world like popcorn. I feel like I’ve had crickets. I just don’t remember. But I remember having ants because it wasn’t that long ago. Now, when you eat ants, is it like rice? Or you eat them like rice? Or is it, you don’t do them one at a time, I’m assuming. They’re a little bit larger than normal ants, I think, what we’re thinking of. And the ones I had, they were very crispy. So, yeah, you know, one or two at a time. They weren’t my favorite thing. They didn’t actually have a ton of flavor. And so, you know, it’s a novelty. At least when I had them, it was a novelty thing. I had a few of them. And I don’t know if I saved the bag or chucked it. Yeah. I’d say I did it.
Meaning exoskeleton. But that’s one of those things that do you really want to just love it? Oh, man, I just love ants so much. I can’t get enough. Chocolate-covered ants might be okay. I don’t know. I don’t know either. That’s weird. I don’t know. I wonder what would happen if I did love something like that. Right. Would I start growing them myself? Out back, I’d have a box full of ants that I could go. Yeah. Get an ant farm, figure out how to breed them. Get them out and dip them out there. Hey, Bob, your ant farm was full last week. We had a party. See, I can see that you could do a sports travel show and go to weird sports around the world. I think that would be an interesting…
thing but i you know maybe i know that maybe not your thing but uh i can see that happening in the future yeah it’s an interesting idea well you can it’s a it’s a triple uh it’s a triple play so you got the sports travel and eating whatever the weird food at the stadium is yeah right yeah no it’s a great idea i’ll take that vuvuzela full of ants And then after you eat it, then you get a souvenir of Uvuzela. I feel like I’d be lucky to do one episode a month, though. If somebody wants to sponsor me, I’m game to try it. Let’s do it. There you go. Exactly. Well, so as we’re going through time here, kind of just to wrap things up a little bit. So what would be kind of the – where do you think you’re going to head with all this? Where do you want to go with it? I mean, other than obviously traveling more, is there something like –
You’re going to go to New Zealand, which, again, most people, not going to happen. Right? You’re probably in the nth percentile of people who’ve gone. The only people who’ve been to New Zealand live in New Zealand or Australia. And that’s, you know, the rest of the world, I don’t think, heads there very often. Yeah. Although I know one person that’s been, but other than you. Yeah. And actually, again, very lucky. My dad. My daughter and her boyfriend were supposed to be moving to Spain this summer. And that’s part of what I mean, I want I want to see my daughter, of course, and her boyfriend. But I also am selfish. I want to get there while I have a place to stay for free. So now they’ve changed their mind. They’re not moving to Spain. They’re moving to Australia. So that means next year I get to go to Australia. So that’ll be even nicer, too. Honestly, I think for me, it’s just, you know, like I said, I just I want to see as much of the world as I can.
Um, I want to get to Asia, probably one of the next trips that I do besides Australia. I have never been to Asia, so it’s on my high on my list. Um, and I don’t have to see every continent or every country. I’m not trying to check anything off a list. I just want to, I just want to have as many experiences as I can. And, you know, I’m, I’m probably more than halfway through my life. And so, you know, and I just started traveling 10 years ago, so I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Yeah. Well, heck, you’re halfway through your life. Don’t think about it like that. Come on. Well, even if I’m not, I don’t know that I’m going to be traveling that much when I get double my age now. Well, you never know. You never know. And health advances. Yeah. The person who’s going to live to be 150 has already been born according to projections. No, that’s not me. I thought it’s you, Bill.
No, it’s not me. I can tell you that, but, but, but you know, that means that you’re not halfway there perhaps. Maybe. Yeah. We’ll look, we’ll look less at full. We’ll take it. Yeah. Okay. Well, Bill, it’s been a pleasure. I had fun talking to you on your show and this has been fun. I hope you’ve had enjoyed it a little bit and maybe I planted a seed in for your future endeavors. I doubt it, but I always like to think that maybe I have some, I do have, actually, I do have one more thing. Let me throw it back up here. I think it would be, this is totally nostalgic thing for me. Wouldn’t it be fun if you had a pin board where people could pin, if they’ve been on your show, pin where they’ve gone?
Yeah. That’s a, that’s a cool idea. As soon as you said nostalgic, I thought he’s going to say something about a pin board. Yes. Because it’s so fun. Yeah. It’s a cool idea. And, and, and anybody, not even just the guests could pin and maybe make a little comment. Huh? Yeah. So that’s my, uh, you know, I always try to insert myself into other people’s projects apparently. And so that’s my, I’m not going to help you do it. Don’t get any ideas, but, um, I just wanted to throw it out there. I thought it just came to me while we were talking. And while I had your website up, I was like, wouldn’t it be cool if you had like a little pin board thing? Because whenever you go places, a lot of times, even still today, there’ll be a guest book or there’ll be a map and they ask you to put a pin on the map to show where you’re from, right? Not where you’ve been. But so for you, it would just reverse that.
And, and maybe it’s, maybe it’s, where are you right now? Where am I right now? No, maybe that’s what the pin board is. Maybe it’s because, you know, if you’ve been at, if you’ve been to 73 countries, it’d be hard to, it’s a lot of pins, but if I, well, I know, but that’s the interesting thing. Cause the weird thing is you could tie your episodes to the pins and it becomes this whole kind of nonlinear 3d kind of way to, to get to the content. I know it’s a lot of work. You’re not charging me for this, are you? No, I don’t. Oh, okay, good. I just think it would be cool. And to me, there’s a certain amount of nostalgia in that just because, you know, I still see it so that other people kind of like it as well still, but it should not, I mean, you, you know, pie in the sky and with AI coming on and everything,
You literally can make an app that says that you do a check-in to where have you been when you’re there, and it can drop an electronic pin on your map, you know, kind of as a, oh, Bill, I’m here. Maybe we’ll talk about it someday. And then, you know, it’s just kind of ongoing kind of thing. Yeah, that’s a great idea. But yeah, I don’t know how to do it, but I love the concept of it. So I thought, well, hey, we should talk about that real quick. So that’s the idea. I don’t know how to accomplish it, but maybe your daughter’s boyfriend is a smart guy and he can take care of this for you. My daughter’s a very smart girl, too. Oh, well, there you go. Yeah. Well, I always try not, you know, I’m like, don’t push your kids to do all this stuff. You got to push their…
significance because you haven’t got to utilize their free labor as much as your children. That’s true. That’s true. They got some catching up to do on the free labor department. Yeah. So, you know, but Bill, thank you very much for listening to my nonsense and being here and answering questions and going over stuff. It’s been fun. I hope you’ve had a little bit of fun. Everybody, where have you been? We don’t know yet. Maybe we’ll know in the future with this pin board. But you can always listen to where other folks have been on Bill’s podcast at W.H.Y.B. Where have you been? Podcast dot com. Yeah. At the podcast on socials. Anything else you want to talk about? Plug or anything? No, sir. I have nothing else to plug. I just like I said, like you said, I think we had a lot of fun. At least I did.
I had a lot of fun on our, on my podcast with you. And so, yeah, I had a lot of fun tonight as well. And so, yeah, just thank you very much for having me on. Hey, and it’s been great. And so everyone go see Bill. Where have you been? You tell him about it. He’ll listen. And then he’ll probably ask you where the best, if you have any relatives that he could stay with. And what kind of food I should eat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If there’s any good guinea pig recipes. Yeah. Hold on just a second, Bill. Everybody else, we’ll see you next time.