Episode 25 - We Travel Along With Laura

Have you ever wondered how to travel the world on a tight budget while experiencing life-changing adventures? Join us as we chat with Laura Lisensky, a high school biology teacher and host of the "Travel Along with Laura" podcast, who shares her incredible journey from studying in Scotland to serving in the Peace Corps in Benin, West Africa, and beyond. Laura uncovers the myths around the cost of travel and offers insightful tips on how to explore places like Thailand and South America without breaking the bank. Her story is a testament to the transformative power of travel and the invaluable experiences it brings.

Laura's passion for travel reignited a dozen years after her South American expedition, leading her to embark on solo trips and start her own travel podcast. Hear about her empowering solo journey to Costa Rica, where she learned the nuances of solo travel and gathered practical advice to share with other adventurers. Laura's unique podcast style, which immerses listeners through authentic audio recordings, and her candid recount of a challenging family trip to Croatia underline the importance of preparation and adaptability in overcoming travel obstacles.

As we conclude, Laura reflects on her surreal solo adventure to Morocco post-COVID, offering a glimpse into the eerie yet captivating experience of traveling during Eid. We discuss how travel enriches our personal and professional lives, illustrated through captivating wildlife encounters in the Galapagos and thoughtful destination choices, like a memorable trip down the Mekong River in Laos. Join us for inspiring stories, practical travel tips, and a deeper understanding of why we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us.

https://travelalongpodcast.buzzsprout.com/
https://www.patreon.com/travelalongpodcast/

Chapters

• 0:23 Traveling Adventures With Jim and Rita
• 12:09 Family Travel Adventures and Tips
• 22:13 Solo Travel and Adventure Stories
• 32:32 Stay Connected With Jim and Rita

Transcript

Jim Santos: 0:23

Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita. I'm your host, Jim Santos, and in this podcast series you can follow along as my wife, rita and I work out our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increase our retirement nest egg by spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world. Are we bold, forward-thinking pioneers or just plain nuts? Let's find out together, shall we? Hello, and welcome once again to Travels with Jim and Rita.

Jim Santos: 1:03

As Rita and I have been traveling and doing this podcast, we've talked to people doing all kinds of travel. Some travel just once a year, some for part of the year or, like us, they've given up their home base completely. They voyage by bicycle, in campers, by boat, as couples, as families and also solo. There's really no wrong way to travel. You just need to decide you're going to take the leap and then do it. Today's guest has done a little bit of everything, adding something we hadn't discussed yet. Traveling is a single parent with two children. She's a high school biology teacher, former Peace Corps volunteer and obsessed with travel. Her name is Laura Lisensky and she's also the host of the popular podcast Travel Along with Laura, and we're lucky enough to catch up with her just before she heads off to Japan. Laura, welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita.

Laura Lisensky: 1:51

Thank you, good to be here.

Jim Santos: 1:52

It's always great to talk to a fellow podcaster and we want to get into that, but first of all, it'd be interesting to find out where you came from and how you got interested in travel. So origin stories are very popular, so what's your origin?

Laura Lisensky: 2:07

story. Well, I blame my parents, I think so. My mom was always worried whenever I travel places, and I like to remind her that it's her fault.

Laura Lisensky: 2:19

I think I had the opportunity to spend a semester in Scotland in seventh grade and then my junior year of high school and I went to school there and everything. So, although compared to the US, scotland isn't a drastically different culture, it had a really big influence on me, I think, going forward, and then I decided to join the Peace Corps after college and that was a huge experience. That was an extremely different culture and living by myself and that's what started it all. What part of West Africa was that? I was in Benin, so it's French speaking, it's between Togo and Nigeria.

Jim Santos: 2:58

I'm interested to hear that your trip to Scotland you thought had a big influence on you.

Rita Santos: 3:03

We have a granddaughter who's going to spend her senior year and I imagine it's going to have the same kind of effect on her.

Laura Lisensky: 3:10

Yeah, definitely. I mean it just changes the way you see the world and it also, I think, gives you a lot of confidence that you can figure stuff out and learn a new way of doing things.

Jim Santos: 3:20

So, once you were hooked on travel, what was your first big adventure?

Laura Lisensky: 3:23

Let's see post Peace Corps. Well, I think the next big thing I did was I was living in Portland and considering having a baby, considering changing jobs, and instead said what if I quit my job and traveled for a year and then came back and did all those adult things? So I spent 10 months traveling South America and that was, yeah, incredibly, incredibly special. Just such a privilege to be able to travel in that slow way like you are doing now, I believe and just wake up and go. Which direction should I go? Where do we want to go after this and meet people and learn things as you travel and change your plan. It's a great way to do it.

Jim Santos: 4:10

Yeah, we had a similar epiphany. For us, it was well. Why don't we just sell the house and then just leave?

Laura Lisensky: 4:15

Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. I love what you two are doing. I think it is so cool. I hope, I hope I can do that again someday. You will.

Jim Santos: 4:23

So how did you work your way through South America? I mean, what countries did you go to and how did you support yourself while you were traveling? Because we have people ask us that all the time right.

Laura Lisensky: 4:32

So this was, you know, 15 years ago, probably almost at this point. So things were a little cheaper but I spent about $5,000 for that whole 10 months. So you know, I I was spending money. We could have stopped. I was considering doing things like you know, woofing where you work on farms and things like that along the way, and I found those opportunities just a little harder to find than I thought they would be. And you know, I think you can do it. But I would have had to spend more time and energy doing that and I kind of just wanted to explore. So I definitely was traveling on a budget doing that and I kind of just wanted to explore. So I definitely was traveling on a budget, but I was able to travel there for cheaper than I would have been. Just, you know, even just paying rent in the US would have been more expensive than that.

Jim Santos: 5:14

Yeah, I think that's an eye-opening thing for people. There's an assumption that travel is extremely expensive because they're used to looking at prices for flying between US cities. It's amazing how much cheaper it is to get from city to city or even country to country in places like South America or Europe.

Laura Lisensky: 5:30

Right, yeah, I went to Thailand recently and it was just so cheap. The dollar goes very far there.

Jim Santos: 5:35

That's what we heard, yeah.

Rita Santos: 5:36

Yeah, we've heard that people live there $1,000 a month, which is just mind-blowing, although I think in Ecuador there were, there were expats living there. We lived in Ecuador for six years and I think that there were expats there living in 1000 or less a month, right.

Jim Santos: 5:56

So how did you travel during those 10?

Laura Lisensky: 5:57

months. It depended, you know, public transport. There were a few splurges I decided to do like a boat trip down through southern Chile to Patagonia. You know, there were a few things I was like I'm here, I need to do this, but for the most part it was, you know, just buses. South American buses are surprisingly comfortable they are. You know this is no Greyhound situation.

Jim Santos: 6:21

Yeah, we used to take the bus from Salinas to Guayaquil, one of the larger cities all the time it's about a two-hour drive and the seats were very comfortable, but what was always fun was they were showing some wildly inappropriate movie on the bus, in Spanish.

Laura Lisensky: 6:35

Oh.

Rita Santos: 6:35

I saw something there I cannot unsee. I know that's the problem, yeah it's true.

Laura Lisensky: 6:43

Yeah, standards are a little different.

Rita Santos: 6:45

Yeah, yeah.

Laura Lisensky: 6:46

I learned to not sit right next to the TV, yeah. Oh yeah, you can decide if you're watching it or not. Yeah, right.

Jim Santos: 6:53

Yeah, we've also gotten to the terminal in Guayaquil, and some of the people are staying on the bus waiting to see how the movie ends.

Rita Santos: 7:05

And the terminals there, especially the one in Guayaquil, when they have 6 million people that live there.

Jim Santos: 7:09

the terminals are so bustling, there's so many people. Was it on these 10 months in South America that you had a little concert home and a canoe trip?

Laura Lisensky: 7:17

Yes, my crazy Amazon journey. That was pretty exciting. Yes, so this was. It was in Peru, so I never made it to Brazil. I was working on Spanish, so I didn't really want to throw Portuguese in the mix, so I avoided Brazil on that trip. But yeah, I was in Peru and I'm a biology teacher. I was so excited to be in a place with such biodiversity and it was just so incredible so I wanted to get closer to the Amazon river. So, headed in that way, it was one of those like this this is true slow travel. Like, oh, we missed the boat that day, oh, the boat's broken this day. Like just waiting there to catch a boat for days. And it was just this like old wooden river boat. Hardly looked like it would float and it was an overnight journey and so people would just you would bring your own hammock and you would just tie it up and between two poles and that was your bed for the night on this boat.

Laura Lisensky: 8:17

It was really dramatic, it was beautiful, and so we had read I had a lonely planet and we had read that you are not supposed to do this journey during the rainy season. And it just had one sentence not recommended during the rainy season, with no explanation. So I was like well, you know, let's go see. I'm sure someone might be willing to take us. We'll ask them if it's a good idea. It turns out, the people I wanted to pay to take me in the rainforest in the rainy season said that it was possible.

Jim Santos: 8:48

Right well cash was involved.

Laura Lisensky: 8:49

Yeah, exactly. So we found a couple of guides and we took that overnight boat trip to their little village to meet them. It was called, lagunas was the name of this little village. So we had signed up for a five-day canoe trip and then you camp at night and canoe during the day. We were all in one big long dugout canoe me, my partner and two guides and it was clear from the beginning that the rainy season obviously means the Amazon River rises, so the water was super high. We were canoeing over the tops of trees. You could see them down in the water.

Laura Lisensky: 9:26

So it was very high, and that's what the Amazon does every year. So what we didn't realize is the challenges that that high water would bring, like finding a place to camp. There was very little land left, and the land that was left, you know little tiny islands, and you can imagine all of the insects that were in that area are now concentrated on that little tiny islands and you can imagine all of the insects that were in that area are now concentrated on that little tiny island, right? So it was just crawling with ants and bugs, as the Amazon already is.

Laura Lisensky: 9:55

So the stress was like will we be able to find a place to camp every night? And if we can't, we just sleep in this dugout canoe. It was not going to be dangerous, but it was not going to be comfortable. No one was really going to sleep. So yeah, it was just fascinating. The first night we found a muddy perch to build a little bed. On the next night we found a better place. Anyway, the last night we didn't find land and they said well, we can sleep in the canoe or we can just keep paddling, since we're almost there. And so we just paddled till two or three in the morning when we got back to Lagunas and just stayed on their floor in the village. It was a pretty good adventure.

Jim Santos: 10:34

The other challenge is how to use the restroom you would just be.

Laura Lisensky: 10:39

you know you'd be digging a hole or whatever out there anyway, but when there's no land, it turns out, what you do is you look for a branch that's nice and parallel to the water and you climb out onto a tree and then your guys will politely paddle away, give you a little time, in which case you are perched alone on a tree in the middle of the Amazon river going. I sure hope they come back. This is crazy yeah.

Jim Santos: 11:09

Yeah, I was wondering how you handle things like that and also meals.

Laura Lisensky: 11:13

Yeah, they brought the first night. Oh, now I'm remembering all the different nights. The first night was kind of a homestay in a tiny little village, and so we were at someone's house and they fed us. Other than that, it was a lot of potatoes and rice. We brought food with us.

Jim Santos: 11:29

So did you write to Lonely Planet and suggest they elaborate a bit next time?

Laura Lisensky: 11:32

Yeah, I have tagged them on some of my posts since then, to no avail.

Jim Santos: 11:36

Yeah, we've run into similar understatements hiking, seeing a trail guide that says some rocks.

Rita Santos: 11:45

Yeah, right.

Jim Santos: 11:46

So they go, that's not too bad. And then you find out these are like eight to 10 foot boulders you have to clamber over to try to find the trail.

Laura Lisensky: 11:54

Well, I mean I am glad I did it, though it was maybe more adventure than I realized I was getting into, but I'm glad I did it.

Jim Santos: 12:01

So yeah, a lot of experiences in life are much more pleasant to look back on.

Laura Lisensky: 12:05

Yeah, that's true. I am saying that in retrospect, yeah.

Jim Santos: 12:09

Okay, so you took the 10 months off from work and went out and traveled. What happened then, when you came back home, was that when you started teaching, yeah, then it was time to be an adult.

Laura Lisensky: 12:19

I started teaching. I went to a teaching program, started teaching, had a couple kids, and it wasn't until I you know a dozen years later when I ended up getting divorced and then was like remembering how much I love travel and wanting to get back into that. So my first big solo travel was also when I started my podcast, so that was three years ago. My first big solo travel was Costa Rica and it was so amazing and so empowering to know that I could figure it all out myself that now I travel all the time I haven't looked back. Good for you.

Jim Santos: 12:55

That's great to hear because, well, last week's episode we were talking with another solo traveler. But Rita and I go to international living conferences. They have me give talks there and we've set up in the exhibit hall hall and there's a surprising number of people who would like to do solo travel but are afraid to try it and it's always great to hear somebody with the stories that it's it's. It might be frightening but it's certainly doable.

Laura Lisensky: 13:23

Oh yeah, it's intimidating, especially the first time. But, um, you know, I always recommend to people that you know you can try, you can solo travel in your own country first see how that goes.

Laura Lisensky: 13:34

You know you can go out to eat by yourself is a challenge for a lot of people, but you know you can take these little steps too. But I still get scared every time. I mean, I really like to go places that I haven't been before, and so I don't feel like I know what I'm doing most of the time. So I'm always nervous when I solo travel, but it's always so wonderful.

Jim Santos: 13:55

Well, any kind of travel, especially to a foreign country, there is going to be a little bit of trepidation because you are often going to a place where you may not know the language or know much of the language. Or when you're traveling to places like Morocco and Thailand. There'd even be menus that you can't even read.

Rita Santos: 14:13

Right yeah.

Jim Santos: 14:15

So we can understand that. But it's interesting the more you do it, the easier that becomes and the less daunting.

Laura Lisensky: 14:21

You know it's okay if you don't know what to say. You can point at something, and people are generally nice yeah.

Rita Santos: 14:26

Yeah, smile and pantomime, and you usually get what you want. Now you also take your children with you on these travels right.

Laura Lisensky: 14:35

Yeah, we've done some adventures recently. Yeah, Italy and Croatia was just the three of us. Podcast is called Travel Along With Laura.

Jim Santos: 14:43

You can find it on any podcast platform and we will have links for that in the show notes so you can go to it directly. But it was very interesting the way you do the episodes. We tend to focus more on talking or discussing with guests, but you have a very interesting approach where you try to pull the person into the travels with you by having audio from your travel.

Laura Lisensky: 15:10

Yeah, I just travel with a little recorder and just record all kinds of things as I go and then get back and try and turn it into a story and bring all those sounds into it.

Jim Santos: 15:21

Was that your goal from the start, when you first started the podcast?

Laura Lisensky: 15:23

I think I just I didn't really know what my goal was from the start. I had always kind of had this idea of doing a podcast. I think I was very influenced by a lot of NPR and radio shows where they're blending sounds together. So that's kind of what I was imagining. But I had no idea what I was doing the first time. I just thought, well, there's no other way I'm going to start a podcast besides just doing it.

Laura Lisensky: 15:47

So I went to Costa Rica and recorded a bunch of stuff and then got home and went well, what do I do with this? And just Googled one thing at a time each step at a time, and I'm still getting better and figuring it out.

Jim Santos: 15:59

And you also post pictures from the places you've traveled, correct?

Laura Lisensky: 16:03

Yeah, I have an Instagram and I also, on my Patreon page, I post images.

Jim Santos: 16:08

I had to look up Patreon. I wasn't really familiar with that. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Laura Lisensky: 16:13

Yeah, I just noticed that a lot of podcasters use it, but so do artists of other types and all kinds of people. It's just kind of a way where you can have content for your followers and then there are free subscriptions so you can sign up just to be on my mailing list, basically, and see all my pictures and things. But there are different levels that you can basically pledge to just support someone who is doing something you like.

Jim Santos: 16:36

Getting back to that Croatia trip, you were there with both of your kids. They're, I believe, 10 and 12. Yep, yeah, and that trip did not seem to go exactly as planned.

Laura Lisensky: 16:48

No, it did not go smoothly exactly as planned. No, it did not go smoothly. Yeah, we had a lot of trouble, especially the second half of the trip that began with a canceled boat from Venice to Rovinj, croatia, and then a lost credit card. Well, the ATM machine, ate my credit card.

Jim Santos: 17:06

Ate your debit card yeah.

Laura Lisensky: 17:08

Yeah, so then I definitely learned a lesson that you should travel with many cards. I had another car, but it was American express and nobody takes American express.

Jim Santos: 17:16

We found that to be true also, yeah.

Laura Lisensky: 17:20

So we were. We were out of money for a little bit, which was hard with kids, you know. Had it been just me, I could have figured it out. I mean, I did figure it out, but after a very long day of being on the phone with credit card companies and the bank and everyone and trying to figure out what to do, I finally remembered the code on the back of a credit card that was at home in a drawer, managed to add it to my Google wallet, so then I could use my phone to tap and pay for things that way yeah, yeah, that's a good travel tip actually is to put your credit card information stored in like a google wallet or an apple wallet, or something, yeah, have things physically and digitally.

Rita Santos: 18:04

Yeah, yeah could you have gone to a bank with your american express?

Laura Lisensky: 18:10

and asked, oh, and gotten some maybe?

Jim Santos: 18:11

yeah, it was also the weekend when this happened, so it would have been a couple of days anyway, I think.

Rita Santos: 18:17

Yeah.

Laura Lisensky: 18:18

Okay.

Rita Santos: 18:18

Yeah.

Jim Santos: 18:19

Yeah, we had an experience in travel. I think we were in Panama where I got a fraud notice from American Express that someone had tried to use my credit card, so naturally they canceled it.

Rita Santos: 18:30

And then a couple of days later I got a notice from one of my Visa cards that there had been a fraud alert and they were canceling it.

Jim Santos: 18:39

So it is always important to travel with a couple of different sources.

Rita Santos: 18:42

Yeah, and there was two of us so we had different cards. But yeah, I feel your pain on that one. That would have been traumatic with the children.

Laura Lisensky: 18:54

Yeah, we were okay, Luckily they were tired and we happened to have an Airbnb that had a TV with Netflix on it, so they were like yeah, let's just stay here and watch movies all day. I was like great Sounds good.

Rita Santos: 19:05

Yeah, all the way to Croatia to watch Netflix.

Laura Lisensky: 19:09

Yeah, we had been traveling pretty hard for the last week and a half in Italy, so a rest day was just fine, yeah.

Jim Santos: 19:15

We have a granddaughter who's also 10. Right now she's with my son in Japan and he just sent me a picture of them and he's got a plate with noodles and something in it and I noticed she's eating chicken nuggets and french fries.

Rita Santos: 19:29

Right. Every once in a while, you just have to get back to the familiar product.

Laura Lisensky: 19:35

Yeah, a little comfort is just fine.

Jim Santos: 19:38

So how old were your kids when you started traveling with them?

Laura Lisensky: 19:42

I mean, I've always done a lot of travel with them, at least locally. That's a great question. It was a few years ago that we did kind of our first big international trip trip, so they were probably seven and ten or so how have they adapted to international travel?

Laura Lisensky: 19:55

they're pretty flexible kids, I think you know we all get tired and grumpy. Uh, the biggest thing I've learned is feed them often, all the time, just so nobody gets hangry, you know, and more because I can go longer without eating than they can and I forget sometimes and then everybody melts down and we just eat something and everything's suddenly fine. So I'd say that's the most important tip Feed your children frequently, you know. I think they've they've traveled enough now that they know that things go wrong and we're we're all just on the same team trying to figure it out together.

Rita Santos: 20:30

And that's a great lesson, totally yeah.

Laura Lisensky: 20:35

And some days are bad.

Rita Santos: 20:36

Exactly, and that's okay too.

Laura Lisensky: 20:38

Yeah.

Jim Santos: 20:40

Yeah, travel can be, it's not so much once you're there. It's getting there, those long plane rides and long waits waiting for the boat that's been canceled.

Rita Santos: 20:51

Yeah, we had a boat canceled once too, yeah.

Jim Santos: 20:54

That's rough enough for adults, but for children, you know, waiting an extra couple hours can seem like an eternity.

Laura Lisensky: 21:01

Yep, yep, that's when we get a Coke from the machine and everyone's excited that they get sugar. Yeah, we'll all be fine.

Jim Santos: 21:10

Have your kids ever suggested where you should travel? Are there new places they want to explore?

Laura Lisensky: 21:15

Actually, yeah, we are going to Japan a week from today. Oh good, and that was them that wanted to go there.

Jim Santos: 21:23

Oh, interesting.

Laura Lisensky: 21:24

And I was thinking, no, no, like that's too far for this summer, like I'm not sure if we're up to that right now. And then I looked at plane flights and Tokyo is such a hub that it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be to get there. So they tucked me into it and I love a food destination where they love the food. That was what was so great about Italy, too, was so much good food for the kids Pizza and pasta everywhere. Everybody's happy, and my kids love sushi and ramen. So Japan's going to be great for that too.

Jim Santos: 21:54

That's unusual for kids that age.

Rita Santos: 21:55

Yeah, it is. But that's wonderful, it is yeah they're weird.

Laura Lisensky: 21:57

They actually don't like chicken nuggets. That's good. Yeah, it's funny. Sushi is one of our safe go-to meals when we're traveling. If we can find sushi we had some in Croatia, in fact, that was our comfort food, so it'll be good.

Jim Santos: 22:13

I saw Morocco was on the list of places that you've traveled. Was that by yourself or with the kids?

Laura Lisensky: 22:18

That was a solo one. Yeah, that one was actually extremely solo, the ultimate solo trip, because it was right after they had opened up, after being closed from COVID, and so there weren't a whole lot of other tourists yet. So it was a very strange experience because there was a few places that I stayed, where I was the only guest, like I would be in this huge, cavernous, beautiful Riyadh, and it was just me. It was very surreal, really strange experience, and it also happened to be. I was traveling during Eid, which is a holiday when things don't totally shut down, but at least for that day and the surrounding days things were pretty closed. So I took an overnight train journey and I think there were only two of us on the train.

Jim Santos: 23:06

It was bizarre Borderline spooky.

Laura Lisensky: 23:10

Yeah, it was a little creepy. I decided I was safe. But yeah, it was very strange.

Jim Santos: 23:17

Let me ask you this about the podcast Is there a particular episode or series of episodes that you're you're most proud of? Do you feel like really captured the spirit of travel?

Laura Lisensky: 23:26

That Amazon one is one that I love a lot. That one's a little different because that was kind of a throwback to a trip a long time ago, so it's more of a story than like. Here's some tips for traveling.

Laura Lisensky: 23:39

Most of my episodes are kind of a combination of those things. If you're planning a trip, it would be really useful, and also you can get a feel for what it's like to be there. So the Amazon one is a little bit different. It's more storytelling than the others are, but I think it's a great, a great listen. And then, just in general, I think I'm getting better at it as I go. So the Belize and Guatemala are my most recent international ones at least, and I think those are pretty good.

Jim Santos: 24:07

Well, I'm sure the ones from Japan are going to be pretty interesting as well.

Laura Lisensky: 24:10

Oh yeah, they're going to be pretty interesting as well, oh yeah. They're going to be amazing.

Jim Santos: 24:12

Yeah, so is your mom still worried about you when you're traveling, especially with her grandkids?

Laura Lisensky: 24:18

A little bit, I think. Yeah, there's a few episodes that she's like. You didn't warn me. I needed to be warned that I shouldn't listen to this one at bedtime.

Jim Santos: 24:29

It's keeping me awake. I needed to be warned that I shouldn't listen to this one at bedtime.

Laura Lisensky: 24:30

It's keeping me awake.

Jim Santos: 24:32

What was it about that? Did the rest of your family? Did they do much traveling?

Laura Lisensky: 24:36

as you were a child growing up, you know they tended to not kind of travel around the way that I do now, but they're pretty internationally minded people. They've had a lot of exchange students over the years so they tended to go places, find opportunities to live in other places. So they've spent a cumulative number of years at this point in Sweden as well. So they're more into that kind of travel, but they're definitely worldly people.

Jim Santos: 25:05

I guess that is just a mom thing. You just have to worry.

Laura Lisensky: 25:08

Yeah, that's true.

Rita Santos: 25:12

Now that I'm a mom, I get it.

Jim Santos: 25:13

Worry, yeah, it's true. Now that I'm a mom, I get it. Yeah, yeah, really, have you shared any of this information with the kids in your classes? Because, uh, you mentioned, as a biology teacher in peru, a lot of the places you mentioned costa rica, panama uh have some really diverse uh bios here's. Are you able to translate any of that into classroom time?

Laura Lisensky: 25:31

A little bit. Yeah, I mean stories from travel definitely come up as I'm teaching things and just some of the crazy plants and animals that I see along the way come up in class for sure, yeah.

Jim Santos: 25:43

Yeah, we had a coado try to jump into our laundry bag in Mexico. That was interesting.

Laura Lisensky: 25:48

I love those up close and personal interactions.

Jim Santos: 25:51

Yeah, I moved up to try to take a picture of him and he just suddenly turned and ran up to me and jumped in my bag.

Rita Santos: 25:57

I think when you get in more populated areas the wildlife becomes tame. They just don't have any fear.

Jim Santos: 26:06

Yeah, it's true. When we were in the Galapagos, you have to walk around the seals and the iguanas.

Rita Santos: 26:12

Right.

Jim Santos: 26:13

They're laying on the streets and in the park benches, and you know it's their place.

Laura Lisensky: 26:18

You have to let them be. Right yeah.

Jim Santos: 26:21

So, after Japan, do you have any plans of what's the next trip?

Laura Lisensky: 26:25

I don't know yet, one day at a time, right? Yeah, I love the process of choosing the next place to go, so it's exciting.

Jim Santos: 26:36

Do you have any particular method for choosing the next place, or is it just whatever you hear about?

Laura Lisensky: 26:42

Right, yeah, no, I don't. I think it's often a question of I no longer have the luxury of the slow travel. So it's how long do I have? Do I want to deal with a big time zone change For a spring break? I have less time. I tend to stay in the Americas and not change time zones. So much, right, questions like that.

Laura Lisensky: 27:04

But I love a train and I love a river journey. So sometimes I'm like I went to Laos last summer and the reason I went there is because I wanted a river journey, and so I was trying to figure out like where can I go down a river in the world? And thinking like you know, okay, the Nile River, that would be really cool, but I think I want to save that one for another time. The Ganges it was originally going to be a solo trip and I thought that sounded a little intense for what I was looking for last summer. So I I finally landed on the mekong and then did some research to see where you can actually travel down the mekong. I wanted to do like public transit, something local, not like a organized cruise viking cruise, something like that yeah, exactly so I found it was the.

Laura Lisensky: 27:52

There may be other places, but the only place I could find evidence of online where you could actually take public transit down the Mekong River was this two-day journey in Laos from the border of Thailand to Luang Prabang, where a lot of people go. That's a great tourist destination in Laos. So, yeah, I went to Laos specifically to do this two-day river journey and it was pretty great. So sometimes I decide random reasons like that yeah, all right.

Jim Santos: 28:20

Has there been anything that you felt like once you got there? It was just completely out of your comfort zone.

Laura Lisensky: 28:25

When I first got to Morocco I was pretty overwhelmed. I found that like a lot of the cues that I use to tell me what's safe or not didn't really apply there. You know like, don't walk down, little alleys it was all little alleys.

Laura Lisensky: 28:42

Yeah, that'd be a challenge and I was kind of asking local people about what was safe and what wasn't safe, and I think they were interpreting my questions as, like how do I avoid getting harassed by people? Because people just want you to buy stuff? There's a lot of people trying to convince you to come into their restaurant or buy whatever. So I think they were interpreting my questions as how do I get people to leave me alone? But they were telling me, like, avoid eye contact, you could wear your face mask if you want people to leave you alone and like all these things. And I was interpreting it as I need to do this to stay safe, which had me kind of freaked out when I first got there.

Laura Lisensky: 29:24

So yeah, my first destination in Morocco was a little town on the coast called Eswara, which turned out to be my favorite place. I went by the end, but in the beginning I was terrified to leave my hostel. I also had trouble finding it and I was standing in a place where people were saying don't stay here, it's not safe. So I had a little trouble when I first got there, but then a guy that worked at the hostel was going to make breakfast that morning and he was headed out to the market and I asked if I could go with him. And so then walking around town together with him and getting a lay of the land and a better feel for where I was.

Laura Lisensky: 30:02

After that things went much smoother, but I did have that initial freak out when I first got there and it was at the beginning of my trip and everyone kept saying Eswara is going to be the easiest place I had. Initially I chose to go there first because I thought it would ease me into places like Marrakesh. And I was going. What am I doing If I can't even handle this? What am I doing? But it ended up being a wonderful trip in the end. It just took me a little adjustment in the beginning.

Jim Santos: 30:28

Yeah, adjusting is always the tough part.

Laura Lisensky: 30:30

Yeah, a little culture shock, yeah, give yourself some grace when you first get somewhere. Yeah, you'll figure it out.

Jim Santos: 30:34

For anyone listening, it might be a single mom or considering solo travel or considering traveling with younger kids. Do you have any advice for them, for a first step or a first place they should visit?

Laura Lisensky: 30:46

I mean, my best advice is just do it. And I think you know when, trying to plan what you're doing, I always try to cram too much in Right, Even when I'm alone, but when I'm with kids it's much more apparent. So you're going to be able to do less than you think you can. You're going to need to slow down, probably, but kids are pretty resilient and adjustable and you're going to have bad days, but it's going to be worth it for sure.

Jim Santos: 31:12

We've been speaking with Laura Lisensky, mother of two, traveler, teacher and creator of the Travel Along with Laura podcast. You can find her podcast at travelalongpodcast. buzzsprout. com or by searching any of the major podcast platforms. You can also find photos from her travels at www. patreon. com/ travelalongpodcast, and do remember that both links are available in our show notes. Well, Laura, thanks for speaking with us today and I hope you enjoy your trip to Japan.

Laura Lisensky: 31:42

Thank you so much. This has been great.

Jim Santos: 31:44

Yeah, we look forward to hearing all about it on your podcast.

Laura Lisensky: 31:46

And I look forward to hearing about yours as well.

Jim Santos: 31:48

You've been listening to Travels with Jim and Rita, now with listeners in 35 countries. Thanks for your support and please continue to like and follow and promote on social media as you are able and, as always, subscriptions are not required, but are always appreciated. Before we go, a reminder that Rita and I will be at the exhibit hall for the International Living Ultimate Go Overseas Boot Camp in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 26th through 28th. Stop by to see us and catch up on our travels and answer your questions. Also just found out I'll be doing two more talks in addition to the two I was already assigned, so more stage fright for me.

Jim Santos: 32:32

You can get all the information or sign up at intlivingcom slash events. That's intlivingcom slash events, but do it soon because it's filling up quickly. Also, don't forget, you can see where we've been on our blog at jimsantosbooks. com, and you can access my books, audiobooks and short stories, including one about stage fright. By the way, at jimsantos. net, We'd love to hear from our listeners as well. So if you have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover or you want to tell your own story, email us at jim@ jimsantosbooks. com. Until next time, remember we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us.