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Erik Lorenz "A Micro-Adventure"
46 Plays3 years ago
Erik is an author, publisher, moderator and podcast host from Berlin, Germany. He has published an impressive amount of work, ranging from travel guides, travel books, short story anthologies to magazine articles and more. He is also the founder of Weltwach (which roughly translates to world awake), a German online magazine for adventure and travel topics. The related podcast, hosted and produced by Erik, already has produced 188 episodes and counting.
Since last year, the Weltwach podcast produces an English offshoot called Unfolding Maps. The impressive guest list includes Laura Dekker, the youngest person to ever sail around the world solo, the endurance artist “Iceman” Wim Hof, and, one of my personal role models, National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry.
Especially beautiful to me is the book series How We See It, which is an anthology of short stories focusing on a particular country by offering the perspectives of the many. Each voice is acting as a building block emphasizing cultural abundance. Kind of like the mathematical letter PI that offers more accuracy with every single digit behind the comma, attempting the impossibility of squaring the circle. Just like it, culture needs many voices to be representative. Erik’s books make that very clear to me.
Originally, Erik studied International Marketing and Business Management in the Netherlands, Hongkong and Great Britain. If he would have studied travel, if that had been a viable study course option at university, or if his cultural thirst was acquired through his higher education, we will discuss in today’s episode - and, as always, a lot more.
SHOW NOTES
Weltwach German Podcast
Weltwach on Instagram
Weltwach on Facebook
Unfolding Maps English Podcast
Unfolding Maps on Instagram
Unfolding Maps on Facebook
List of Erik's books
The One & Only Jim Kroft
Peter Willers, Defusing mines in Cambodia
Khmer Rouge
Christine Thürmer
Eric Adams
Manowar
Hans Rosling on Population Growth, TEDx
Massai
Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond, 1997
Upheaval, Jared Diamond, 2019
Japanese Meiji era
Matthew C. Perry
Yellow Van Stories is a
Recommended
Transcript
The Essence of Travel
00:00:17
Speaker
What do we get out of travel? It is learning something that we didn't know before, seeing something that we didn't see before, and having these kind of experiences and aha moments maybe. So where else can we get them? That's basically the question, right? And that is also where, as you said, traveling in your own backyard can come in handy in your own country that you maybe
00:00:37
Speaker
missed out on so far because you thought it's just too well-known, it's not exotic, it's not interesting. Well, maybe your approach was not interesting, maybe it was not creative and curious enough, but if you really, like I didn't think print book would be that interesting for me, but if you really find some angle, some perspective and see it as a creative challenge to find something that is interesting, then the only way it will not be interesting is if you are not interested enough.
Introducing Bastian and the Yellow Van Stories Podcast
00:01:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to a new episode of The Yellow Van Stories. Your interview podcast taking you across the globe in a yellow French campervan by the name of Fonzie. I'm your host and driver Bastian. Every week I invite creatives from all over the world into the van to explore with them the opportunities hidden within a crisis and more generally what life is like in their part of our globe.
00:01:32
Speaker
We have been waiting just for you and kept you seated by the window side. Also because technically there are no others. Vons is in first gear already and we are good to go. So buckle up and get comfortable because today we're going to Philadelphia and then we'll just keep on driving.
Guest Spotlight: Eric Lorenz
00:01:58
Speaker
Here with us in the yellow van today is Eric Lorenz, an author, publisher, moderator, and podcast host from Berlin in Germany. Welcome to the yellow van, Eric. Thank you so much for inviting me, Bastian. I'm curious about the conversation. Thanks.
00:02:13
Speaker
Oh, and so am I, because I have so many questions, to be honest with you. It's such a pleasure to have you here. I've been following your adventure, travels, the podcast, the website, and I am really very, I feel very privileged that you're here today. No, that's so nice of you. Thank you.
00:02:30
Speaker
Well, so now that we got that out of the way, I would, you know, usually I always ask people what they drink. It's kind of the opening question, but I know, first of all, where are you right now? Well, there's a bigger answer and a smaller answer. The bigger answer is...
00:02:46
Speaker
You already know what's coming. We want both, though. You see me through video, so you know what's coming, I guess. I'm in the USA right now in Philadelphia, where I've spent the past couple of months. I've been here since August. I'm married here in the USA. And due to COVID, there's, of course, much less travel going on, as we all know. So that's why I'm just staying put for the moment.
00:03:09
Speaker
and living and working right here, right now. And the smaller picture is, I am at the moment in my self-made little speaking booth. That's the more professional way to put it, but actually it is, I have to be honest, it is a closet. I'm sitting in my closet, you see it, there are some carpets hanging beside me, behind me too.
00:03:30
Speaker
to help with the sound. We're living in a building that has very bad and thin walls. So if I'm going out of here, you could hear the traffic and it would be very annoying. So it is quite cozy, but I also have to say there is not a lot of air coming in. So at the end of this conversation, it will probably be very hot.
00:03:51
Speaker
And if I pass out in the meantime, if I'm passing out, you know why. It's not because I'm bought by the conversation, it's just due to a lack of oxygen.
Eric's Recording Setup Challenges
00:04:00
Speaker
Did you bring any towels, though, if there's no oxygen, just so that you can wipe off the sweat of your brows and stuff, at least? I should, I should. Well, I have these carpets hanging on the sides that you can see. They're very pretty, by the way. Very pretty, very colorful. I like them a lot. It's from Mexico, I believe. Yeah.
00:04:17
Speaker
I was about to say they look like they have a cultural background as well. How could it be any other way with you and your background? So that's wonderful. Also, it's fun because now when you say after this interview today, you're definitely going to be coming out of the closet, right? I mean, without any doubt. That is definitely true. That is definitely true.
00:04:36
Speaker
Fine, we will help you come out of the closet today then by having this conversation with you. So that's why I'm not going to ask you what you're drinking because of the time difference here. It's four o'clock roughly. So in Philadelphia, it's 10 o'clock in the morning now, right? And usually it is a six hours time difference right now because we already had the switch to summer time. It's just five hours. So we are at 11 right now.
00:04:59
Speaker
So regardless, it's a little early for a cold beer or whatever your choice of drink would be in the evening. So we skipped that for today. And I'm just having coffee just so that I don't come across as an alcoholic as well. So what is your reason for being in Philadelphia? Let's start with that maybe. What are you doing there?
00:05:18
Speaker
Well, as I have already hinted at, I am married here to my husband. We married about one and a half years ago. And yeah, that is the reason. That is the reason. I've not been as flexible up till recently. I worked in an agency for video production, for digital projects up to a year ago, full time, in the strategy department and concept department.
00:05:43
Speaker
I really loved doing that. I've done that for six years since my master's degree.
Career Shift: From Video Production to Writing and Podcasting
00:05:50
Speaker
It was kind of a struggle to decide what to do because my book writing, my podcasting, and all these projects for a long time, I thought them to be a hobby. I did them out of passion and not out of desire to necessarily make money with them.
00:06:04
Speaker
But it worked out pretty well. I had a lot of fun. It took more and more time to do them properly and to keep kind of the momentum going. So about one year ago, I really had to make a decision if I didn't want to burn out what to do. And even though it was pretty hard for me, I left my day job.
00:06:24
Speaker
to really become self-independent. Of course, that was kind of a bad timing in some ways because it was almost exactly the day when COVID really hit Germany and all my potential clients and so on said, oh, not a good time, sorry, we have to cancel. But anyway, that actually also turned out to be really good for me because this allows me now to be really here with my husband and just work from basically anywhere. And so I'm very happy, I'm very happy.
00:06:50
Speaker
That's fantastic. So that means you're not just visiting Philadelphia, if I understand you correctly, but you're actually living in Philadelphia now. Yes, yes, exactly. For the moment. Yeah. So my plan is to spend maybe one third of a year for the next years in Germany, two thirds or three quarters, whatever here in the US. This will be the focus of where I'll be because I'm just much more flexibly now location-wise than my husband.
00:07:12
Speaker
So yeah, that will be the case. Philadelphia for now, and starting in autumn, we will move to LA, which I'm also very excited about. I like good weather, so it will be a good time. I think, Len, you picked the right spot. From what I hear, it's quite good there, all year round. That's nice. So many things happening. Amazing. You know, to be honest with you, I'm very impressed that you tell me now that you had a full-time position in a video production company because
00:07:38
Speaker
When I look at what you have already done, and I can only recommend really check out the Unfolding Maps podcast, it's absolutely magnificent. For all of you who speak German, visit the Weltwach website and the podcast as well, I will obviously link to that. You've written books, you have published so many things. I mean, and you are not 65 years old, right? So I'm like, okay, so besides all of this, he did all these other things as well. That's really very, very impressive. I would have not thought that.
00:08:07
Speaker
I thought that that would have been your absolutely dedicated, you know, time alignment would have been that, just that, alone. Yeah, yeah. I've had some busy years, let's put it this way, but I mean, you know, I mean, for me, it's not work what I'm doing in terms of podcasting and writing. Of course, writing is in the end work once you really sit down at the table and with a wide sheet of paper on the computer.
00:08:31
Speaker
It's not always fun. It's really you need a lot of Discipline and really push through and it doesn't come easy to me, but it's always something that I love to do So basically for me that was a big portion of my free time and as busy as we are I think we all have free time and the difference is just if we watch some TV Whatever it would just also find how can you relax? How do you spend the little time that you have and for me for the past few years? That just meant I had to really organize my time. Well that meant
00:09:02
Speaker
My day job, for example, I was very privileged. It usually started at 9.30 ish, so pretty late. So I usually got up at six and got two hours of work done for my books or whatever in the morning, a few hours in the evening. If I didn't meet friends or whatever, maybe one or even one and a half days on the weekend. And if you do that continuously, you can get quite a bit done.
00:09:25
Speaker
Amazing. I'm very impressed. I mean, just saying, I think anybody who will go through your bodywork, so to speak, will be equally impressed because it's a lot to go through. I always like to say it is a lot, but in the end, equality is what matters. So don't be blinded just by the sheer amount. Make your own judgment if it's actually, you know, if it's any good.
00:09:48
Speaker
And
Eric's Accomplishments in Travel Writing
00:09:49
Speaker
you're humble as well. My God, you bring everything to the table. So, you know, just in order to put that in a better context and a better perspective of what I've already been hinting at, I'll just quickly read a short introduction so that our listeners get a bit of an idea who I'm speaking to if they haven't figured it out already. And then we'll just jump right in. What do you say about that? All right.
00:10:14
Speaker
Erich is an author, publisher, moderator, and podcast host from Berlin in Germany. He has published an impressive amount of work, ranging from travel guides, travel books, short story anthologies, to magazine articles, and more. He's also the founder of Weltwach, which roughly translates to World Awake, I would say, a German online magazine for adventure and travel topics. The related podcast, hosted and produced by Erich himself, already has produced 188 episodes and counting.
00:10:44
Speaker
Since last year, the Weltwach Podcast produces an English offshoot called Unfolding Maps. The impressive guest list includes Laura Decker, the youngest person to ever sail around the world solo, the endurance artist Iceman, Wim Hof, and one of my personal role models, National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry. Especially beautiful to me is the book series How We See It, which is an anthology of short stories focusing on a particular country by offering the perspectives of the many.
00:11:13
Speaker
Each voice is acting as a building block emphasizing cultural abundance. Kind of like the mathematical letter pi that offers more accuracy with every single digit behind the comma, attempting the impossibility of squaring the circle. Just like that, culture needs many voices to be representative, and Eric's books make that very clear to me at least.
00:11:34
Speaker
Originally, Eric studied international marketing and business management in the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Great Britain. If he would have studied just travel, if that option at a university would have been available, we will discuss in today's episode of The Yellow Van. And as always, a lot more. So welcome once more.
00:11:52
Speaker
Eric, to the other then. Thank you so much and my respects for doing your research. I mean, I know that there is not one paragraph anywhere on my websites where it is written just like that. You didn't copy anything. You really seem to have looked some stuff up. So thank you for that. I appreciate it.
00:12:08
Speaker
It is my pleasure. I'd like to take that time because it shows a little bit of respect, at least for a guest, like copy paste or something that we can all easily do, but also it gives it a nice special personal flair, at least. And I'm glad that you appreciate it. Thank you very much, Eric. Yes. So I would start actually very simply. Travel is really when one gets in touch with anything that you do, that is really the one
00:12:37
Speaker
guiding line through your life, basically. I just said that you studied international management in a lot of different locations. When did you have the idea to actually make your living with traveling?
00:12:52
Speaker
Honestly, I never really had the specific idea to do that. I never made the specific plan to do that. I always, as many of us do, I always liked traveling and I liked what it did to me and what I could get out of it and how it in some ways challenged me to
00:13:10
Speaker
to be more courageous and just to maybe plan a little bit less and all these kind of things that you can also use in your everyday life. But I would never say that I'm like the biggest and most exciting traveler persona in the world or anything like that.
00:13:27
Speaker
By now, I have done quite a few really interesting trips, but that was never my intention. My intention actually originally was just to write books because I always loved writing. As a child, I always wrote all kinds of random short stories that nobody really wanted to know anything about except for my parents because they wanted to do me a favor.
00:13:51
Speaker
I was about to say, I'm sure your mom read it. Yeah, sure. Yeah, she thought it was great, of course, yeah. So the very first book I wrote and actually published was not concerning travel. It was a biography on a German author that I really appreciated as a child. And to my surprise, there was no biography on her life and work. So I attempted to do that while finishing my school and published that I think when I was 18.
00:14:19
Speaker
And then I really just wanted to as a next little book project attempt to write one travel book because I liked here and there to read travel books. I loved the Bryson whom I read preparing for my first bigger trip to Australia for one year. And he wrote a very funny book on Australia that I learned a lot about but that was also really entertaining and really well researched. I really loved.
00:14:43
Speaker
the combination of that, how he did it, how he made it seem so easy to create a feeling for traveling a country. And I love people like Andreas Altmann, which is one of the best and most successful German travel writers. So I thought, okay, let's try to look for one potential subject matter that I would be interested in trying to cover in a travel book. And I decided to
00:15:08
Speaker
choose the little Southeast Asian country of Laos. I've never been there before. I had never been there before. I, of course, did a lot of research. I read a lot of books by Laotian authors about history and so on. I didn't just want to go there totally without any knowledge and just basically write a diary of a longer holiday. That was not my intention. I wanted to
00:15:33
Speaker
to really create a feeling of what it feels like to be there, to travel, but I also wanted to include a lot of background information on nature, landscape, about the whole change, the political and cultural change that results from the dynamic that this country has as a developing country.
00:15:52
Speaker
And I chose this country because of two reasons. It is a very beautiful country. It has a lot of nature, a lot of rainforest, but also of course the whole Buddhist culture. It's a very interesting topic for a foreign author to write about. It makes it much easier honestly also to write about something like that that has this little bit of
00:16:14
Speaker
exotic touch as compared to, for example, many years later, I wrote a book about Brandenburg, much more challenging, of course, to make it interesting. And the second aspect was that, of course, Laos is a very niche topic, not hundreds of millions of people will be interested in that kind of book, but it was a topic that wasn't covered in this way that I wanted to cover it. I wouldn't be the 100th person to write a book about Australia or something, or America.
00:16:43
Speaker
And that is why I decided to go to Laos to do this book. I traveled there for three months for the first book project. And this then led, indeed, when the book was published, other publishers approached me. So the first book, of course, maybe you know how it is done. If you are a no-name author, or not even an author yet, you just have to create work. So I wrote the book, I finished everything, and then I tried to get a publisher. Luckily, I succeeded.
00:17:12
Speaker
But because of that first book, other publishers approached me and asked me if I would write a Laos book for their book series or for their travel guide. So I ended up doing two more Laos books in the following years, which I also returned to Laos for, did more research, got a better and better understanding.
00:17:30
Speaker
And that allowed me to get contracts with even better publishers for even more exciting projects. And before I knew it, somehow I was in this travel niche in terms of writing and I really enjoyed it. But yeah, so that was a long winded answer to just show you that more or less I just got into it and one project led to the next. And I did some other projects as well besides travel literature.
00:17:55
Speaker
But to the biggest extent, I actually stuck with it because, of course, it's a huge privilege to be able to travel, to have a reason while traveling to really explore a country with open eyes and to have a reason and a motivation to, you know, sometimes I'm a little tend to be a little bit shy maybe, so I'm not that extrovert, but if I have this book to fill the pages of,
00:18:19
Speaker
I need to talk to people. I need to find interesting things. And this just encourages me, besides the fun of writing and researching, to also create better experiences for myself as I go. So I really enjoy it.
00:18:32
Speaker
I can totally relate to that because photography is the same for me. It's kind of like a backstage pass to life. You find yourself in situations that you wouldn't find yourself in. Otherwise, it's an excuse for you, a very welcome excuse to bridge over, seek out other people, make encounters that otherwise you wouldn't have made. So the camera for me, like the writing for you is
00:18:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's the kick in the ass, the kick in the butt that you need sometimes as well, I believe. And what you're saying is very interesting because I think, especially photographers, they're often confronted with this prejudice that if you're taking photos the whole time, you're not really experiencing the situation. I mean, me as a writer, I can experience the situation and then I maybe take some notes or whatever, but as a photographer... There's no technical barrier in between you and the subject, exactly.
00:19:24
Speaker
Exactly. You have to make the decision if you observe a specific moment, maybe something emotional through the lens, because you want to capture it, or if you take it just in for yourself. And for many people, that seems to be a contradiction. But what you are telling me right now also makes me think back of one of the conversations I had with Michael Martin. He's a famous German desert photographer. Great photographer. I'll actually link to his work as well. Great photographer. Yeah, he's really, really good. And he also told me,
00:19:52
Speaker
For him, the opposite is true. He is also maybe a little bit more, you know, lazy or just likes to be comfortable. But when he's out there traveling in Africa or wherever, and he would never get up 4 or 5 a.m. if you didn't have that mission to take these photos in the best light possible. And he says like 90 or 80 percent of the
00:20:13
Speaker
most memorable experiences that are really imprinted in his brain. He just really had, because he had this, as you said, a kick in the ass. He needs and he wants to do this project. So actually, in many ways, it can be a door opener if you have a creative project. And that can be photography, it can be writing, it can be whatever, collecting recipes, it can be something for yourself. It's just, I think, having some kind of creative project can, of course, it's not a must, but it can help you travel in a different way.
00:20:42
Speaker
Yes, I think it's a facilitator. That's what it does, like a catalyst, so to say. And I think what you're saying as well, and that's why it's not a long-winded answer at all, is it just shows that you were just following, in a way, what you enjoy doing.
Passion-Driven Success
00:20:56
Speaker
And first of all, being published at 18, I mean, what an accomplishment in itself, actually.
00:21:01
Speaker
But then to keep on going and just to be following through with that and continuing the things that you enjoy doing will sometimes get you to exactly where you want to be without having planned it and having put a goal in front of you like the five-year plan, this is where I want to be. But that it can be a lot simpler than that as well just by doing what you enjoy doing and then
00:21:21
Speaker
A lot of things will develop from that, I believe, if I take what you just said. Yeah, absolutely. Which, of course, is sometimes easier if you're talking about like hobbies like mine, which was writing. Of course, sometimes it's also harder, as I mentioned before, if you have to make a decision.
00:21:38
Speaker
For example, in a professional fashion. Of course, it's a huge privilege to live off something that you love doing. I think you're basically doing the same thing, but it's also coming along with many challenges, with moments where you have to have some courage, maybe also with some compromises.
00:21:57
Speaker
Being able to do that is first of all a privilege because of course if you have a family or other responsibilities, it's also much more difficult. It doesn't only depend on yourself. So whenever it is possible to adjust your life at least a little bit in that regard and refrain from only taking the easy and obvious route, I think it can be a good thing.
00:22:21
Speaker
And I think sometimes it's also not that you have to change your life from one moment to the next. You can just maybe start doing something you enjoy doing a little more every day, you know, a little more of a period of time and that'll lead to things.
The Birth of the Veltwach Podcast
00:22:35
Speaker
So when did you actually have the idea then to start Weltwach? Because Weltwach, just also to give a little more background, it's really a huge website with a lot of articles, a lot of publications on everything that has to do with travel and adventure. It's almost like an adventure online library, I would say, almost. So when did you have the idea to do that?
00:23:03
Speaker
Yes, it's very kind how you summarize. Of course, the focus is still the podcast, I have to say. That is also where I spend most of my time. But indeed, I also wanted to set it up in a way that it goes a little bit beyond the podcast, goes a little bit beyond myself. It works. Absolutely works. That's why, for example, I also didn't
00:23:24
Speaker
name the podcast something like the Eric Lawrence show or anything like that. It was never my intention to or the Eric Lawrence travel blog. It was never my intention to have something like that but to really yeah try to create a platform where hopefully at some point also other travelers can really find inspiration or exchange their insights and experiences and me being just one of the facilitators. So but yes the
00:23:52
Speaker
Quora of it all is the podcast that was also the first thing that I developed and worked on. I believe I started it, I don't even know, four years ago, three years ago, something like that. So not actually that long ago.
00:24:06
Speaker
And the idea came to me due to several reasons. Well, first of all, I already told you my previous passion or my older passion is writing. And it's hard to say where the idea exactly was created in my head. But one of the essential moments definitely was when I worked for my Cambodia book. I wrote a book on Cambodia, on its history, on my travels there. And I wanted to do one topic on
00:24:35
Speaker
history of Cambodia, which is of course not only Angkor Watte and the temples and the Khmer of the old days, but unfortunately of course there's also very bloody past if we look into the second half of the 20th century, especially starting in the 70s with Khmer Rouge and then there was like more or less 30 years of civil war.
00:24:55
Speaker
which led to this country being covered in some areas with landmines up to very recently. Today, it's much better, almost solved the problem, I believe. But for many years, it was just covered in landmines, which of course has many implications. Of course, it's a danger for especially poor people, the rural communities who live in these areas where the battlefields used to be.
00:25:22
Speaker
But it also has implications for development because these mine-infested areas, which are, as I said, very often in the neighborhoods of rural communities, these areas cannot be used for farming, for harvesting, for having a little bit more to eat, having a little bit more that you maybe can sell on the market to have a little income or anything like that.
00:25:44
Speaker
For my book, I was able to meet and accompany a very impressive person, Mr. Peter Villas. He is, I don't even know how to say it in English, Oberstleutnant. He was basically some kind of... Lieutenant Colonel, something like that.
00:26:02
Speaker
I'm not very good with army ranks in English either nor am I in German, but I think it's a lieutenant colonel. Some semi-high ranking army dude who was now a long time actually retired. He was about 75 when I met him there, so he really earned retirement and to have an easy life in Germany, but he decided against it. Instead of retiring, he actually had worked for six years when I met him already.
00:26:30
Speaker
in Cambodia, in the jungle, creating a mine clearing unit of Khmer, of local Cambodians. He trained them, 300 of them worked under him, and he trained them to be mine clearers, to do that safely and professionally. He organized them like an army corps. They were not military, but he had military discipline there, of course, so that nothing bad can happen.
00:26:58
Speaker
And he had this experience because he did similar things for many years in Africa, for example, in Djibouti and Chad in many places where he spent many years and did amazing work. And he told me about this work and he showed me the mine fields. I was there when they found mines and how do you say it? And Chav made them save, like, dissembled them.
00:27:22
Speaker
And he explained to me why this work is so meaningful. And that was a very impressive encounter for me. And the book, because the publisher had some guidelines, it wasn't a very big book. So this whole chapter was also not that long. And of course, he made it into the chapter. He's the core of the chapter. There are several quotes, and I try to also portray him in the way that I perceived him.
00:27:44
Speaker
But I was a little bit depressed because I could have written a whole book about him and instead I really had to sum it up and I had to filter his life story and his work. I had to be the filter for this whole thing, of course. And that's okay. That is what the job of a journalist is in the end, of course. If you write something, then you shorten your filter, you get the essence and then you deliver added value because you, for example, give context in terms of
00:28:10
Speaker
the history of the country and stuff like that. But what I really felt was, wow, it's such a privilege that due to my books, I can talk to people like this. Also, I talked to the German ambassador for my last book and just, of course, many local people. So interesting, these conversations to have them. And that really created the wish for me to not only use that for my books, but to really
00:28:36
Speaker
find interesting people like that who are not just travelers. I mean, of course, my podcast, if you sum it up in one word, it's a travel podcast. But of course, for me, travel just means you go from A to B, that's travel. But what does it mean? So that's why I'm trying to find people both for my books and my podcasts who really traveled and got some insights, some expertise and some experiences that are really
00:29:02
Speaker
uh... enlightening for me to to listen to and said really brought my horizon and that was one example and that's why i decided i was always an avid podcast listener i love the format i love being able to i was never a radio listener for example because i don't like to listen to random stuff i am very easily bought but the opportunity to really choose a show that i love on a topic that i love on politics on entrepreneurship on creative writing there are so many good shows on all kinds of topics
00:29:31
Speaker
I always loved that, but I didn't feel that at this point of time there was a travel podcast in the German language that I really enjoyed listening. There were some that are also good, no complaint, but it was just not my thing. I was not interested in travel advice or how to book the cheap flight or pack a backpack and how to what is the must 10 seas and Laos or something like that. I wanted the storytelling thing.
00:29:56
Speaker
So basically, that is the answer to your question. Again, very long-winded. These encounters that I have along the road and the feeling that a podcast that really enabled them to tell their story and that gave them a stage to share their experiences and wisdom in a meaningful way didn't exist so far. And that is why
00:30:17
Speaker
That is why I did it. And of course, that also enabled me to have a reason to keep talking to people like this, even if I'm myself not able to travel. So now I have the great privilege to, of course, as you are doing your preparation very well, I also invest, tend to invest a lot of time in my preparation. So I have a reason to read up on these people, these adventurers, these activists. Oh, absolutely.
00:30:40
Speaker
So it's just great fun to be surrounded by interesting people. That's basically my motivation today. I have such a big and amazing network just due to these projects that I would never have had any other way, I believe. I'm not as interesting in myself just because I'm me. So it's very helpful if you have a project that opens doors and you have a reason to approach people and to talk to them.
00:31:06
Speaker
It has enriched my life in many, many ways. And I mean, we talked about it in the beginning. That is why in part I'm here right now and being able to
Podcasting as an Educational Tool
00:31:14
Speaker
talk to you. So yeah, that's how it started. Which I'm so happy about. And just for the record, right? I like your long-winded answers, like you keep saying, because they give us so much, really. They're so rich in content. So please, don't ever feel like you have to cut your answer shortly anyway, because they're great.
00:31:33
Speaker
I'm rambling a bit. I actually want to know the next question, but yeah, that's the challenge. If you start rambling, I will definitely cut in there. Don't worry. I will be like, okay, sorry, your talking time is over. Yeah, do this.
00:31:49
Speaker
No, but it's, it's, it's actually wonderful. And to be honest with you, this is I can totally relate to that, because the reason, maybe not the only reason for me starting the podcast was also reason of bridging over reaching out in a time where it was almost frowned upon a transgression to reach out where physical contact was becoming an issue. And it felt it started become
00:32:10
Speaker
it started to feel dirty, almost, right? It's like, wow, other people like, and I think this is something that in the long term, we still have to also examine what psychological implications that has for us as as the human beings that we are that live off social encounters and, and also
00:32:27
Speaker
social proximity and physical proximity. So this was one of the reasons I started the podcast as well. But I can also totally relate to what you're saying, the podcast being self-education, because I love reading up on people that I'm interviewing, wherever they're from, what their background story is. And it's very good also that you make that distinction. How do you choose which people you interview? Because you don't have this one niche or target, a topic that you are targeting, right?
00:32:55
Speaker
which is great of course, but also a challenge for you because probably you also don't want your show to be totally random. So I'm sure you have some in our guidelines who is interesting for you.
00:33:07
Speaker
To some degree, I believe it has to do with a focus of, for me, what social transformation or transformation generally could look like to examine that a little bit through the pandemic. That's why one of the big questions is also always to discuss with people here how they see opportunities and what we're experiencing right now. This is, I think,
00:33:34
Speaker
I am convinced that everything that happens every crisis really comes with opportunities potential opportunities it's not that we necessarily always smart enough to see them and turn them into reality i think actually have a long history of actually doing the opposite.
00:33:50
Speaker
But as humans in general, I would say, but I do believe they're there and it happens and I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen being on location or during projects when Jim and I, Jim, who you interviewed and which is also why we're sitting here today, musician, incredible filmmaker, great friend, who is also the
00:34:12
Speaker
the wonderful man that contributes in the music for this podcast as well. Oh, nice. I didn't know that. Yeah, it's his love in the face of fear. I think it's a wonderful song. Big shout out again to Jim. And when we were doing a documentary around the refugee trial in Europe, we went there because we were so incredibly disappointed with the things that were going on politically in Europe.
00:34:37
Speaker
And we wanted to show what's going on away from streamlined media outlets and so on. And when we got there, we actually just saw, despite all the terrible things that we witnessed and that we saw, there was amazingly inspirational, beautiful stories alongside of that. And Jim actually coined that phrase, and I think he stole it from Marx or something like that. Don't quote me on that.
00:35:02
Speaker
But it's like everything is pregnant with its contrary. And I do really believe that this is true. And so this podcast is something like that. But you are right in the sense that it's also a little bit of a variety show because you never know exactly who's got to be here. But, you know, I'll just go with the flow and see where it takes me. As long as I enjoy doing it, I think that's what we also said in the opening. That's something worth pursuing already.
00:35:32
Speaker
So that's why it's very good that you say that the podcast is not like how do I travel best, how do I pack my bag, which gadget to take with me. It is a very strong focus on personalities, on their integrity as well, and on how they actually really contribute to the world and our experience in it.
00:35:52
Speaker
That's a very important distinction to make. So speaking of that, if you think of the the podcast, is there anything that you have that has stuck with you like a very special story of someone aside from the lieutenant colonel? I think probably all the military people are now like, Oh, that is so wrong.
00:36:10
Speaker
By the way, I of course also met him again later on in Germany to rerecord our conversations and he is actually a guest in two episodes. So one on Cambodia, one on Africa, one of some of the very, very early episodes. But yeah, so it actually happened that he became part of the show, which is also very nice.
00:36:31
Speaker
Great. That's fantastic. Yeah. What's his name? So people can actually listen to it. Peter Villas. Peter Villas. You said that. Yeah, it's just for the German listeners. He's in some of the first 10 shows that we did. I mean, I don't know, episode three or four, maybe something like that. Fine. I'll link to it. I'll find it and I'll share it.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, I also have to say, of course, if I know today, listen to my early episodes, I barely can stand it. So I'm so glad to hear that. I'm so glad to hear that. Why? Because because I thought it's just me. Because, you know, like when you when you edit your own podcast, it just becomes like sometimes you really think, my God, is this really any good that you're doing here? Yeah.
00:37:10
Speaker
So I think this is wonderful to hear. Thank you very much. I mean, back then I did my best, but today I just feel like, oh my God, the intro music so cheesy and how I speak like work with a microphone much too, maybe I'm still doing it wrong, who knows, but much too aggressive back then, really. I don't know. But I think the conversations were still nice. So just focus on that if you're listening.
00:37:35
Speaker
But in terms of memorable stories, of course, that is actually a challenge. That is like if I ask somebody who traveled for 40 years, like Michael Martin, that does tell me some impressive story that you had in all your travels. So with my, I don't know, 200 conversations, it's of course not to pick one, but what I can tell you is,
00:37:57
Speaker
that what I really get out of this show still is really the versatility of persons and topics and how they deal with it. For example, just talking about this overused cliché word of adventure. Of course, I'm also using it when I'm promoting my show and talking about it. Like we have a lot of big adventurers, some of the greatest adventurers still alive have been on our show.
00:38:22
Speaker
But what does adventure, what does travel, what does all of that actually mean? And even just talking about the word adventure, I have a whole chapter in my new book that's coming out in April. It just shows you how different we are, how different we travel, and how interesting that also is to listen to these different perspectives, because it can also teach you many different things, starting from people like the aforementioned Reinhold Messner, who is very famous because he's the first one
Perspectives on Adventure
00:38:51
Speaker
who ever
00:38:51
Speaker
climbed Mount Everest without artificial oxygen and the first one to ever climb but solo. He was up there twice and many, many other world records, of course. He can talk about the actual traditional adventure and why it needs to be dangerous and what he gets from it. He's also a great thinker, a great writer, so he can really reflect upon that very well.
00:39:12
Speaker
But I just as much enjoy talking to people like Christina Toma, who is a German author, bestselling author. She is the woman who hiked the furthest in the world. She walked by now more than 50,000 kilometers in the whole world.
00:39:29
Speaker
And for her adventure has a completely different meaning. She says, well, first of all, I don't want to have adventure. Adventure means I lost control and I did something wrong and I planned badly and it can get dangerous. And if you think I have an adventurous life because I'm living in the outdoors and in my tiny little crappy stinky tent most of the year.
00:39:48
Speaker
And for me, that is not adventure, that is my everyday life. You know, of course, if I throw you into my life, it would be an adventure for you because you don't know how to deal with a dirt or how to find your way or whatever it might be. I'm living that life, for me, that is my comfort zone. So it's not actually about adventure, the adventure for me. I'm not talking for her. The adventure for her is actually what this kind of life does for her. For example,
00:40:12
Speaker
what she gets out of it in terms of being happy, happiness. In her old life, she used to be a very successful manager, made a lot of money, but the happiness moments that she had, for example, when she would get a raise, she always likes to explain. It was a very abstract feeling. Of course, you get a little bit of a positive energy of, you know, your boss tells you good job and here's some raise and you will get some money next month, whatever, and then you can buy something.
00:40:38
Speaker
But what she feels is that the happiness she has now when a fellow traveler after a long day in the rain just gives her a little chocolate bar and she bites in it while she's hungry or if she gets like to get a shower after one week. This happiness for her is so physical, so real that
00:40:56
Speaker
Even though it also sounds kind of cliche maybe like to be happy about the small things or something, but in her lifestyle, this actually is not a small thing anymore. It's a big thing because she lives so humbly and because she likes doing that. So it just shows how versatile traveling and adventure can be.
00:41:14
Speaker
but also it just can broaden your mind. For example, it's not even published yet this episode, but last week or two weeks ago, I am here from Philadelphia. I traveled north five hours by car to meet somebody again whom I already interviewed two years ago. And this is going to be our second episode, somebody who seems to be a very unlikely guest for Weltwach at first glance. But I also like to surprise myself and my listeners here and there.
00:41:40
Speaker
Eric Adams, the singer of the heavy metal band Manuar. So I don't know if you've ever heard of them. Oh really? Do you know who that is? Yes, of course. I had my metal face. It's quite a few years back now, but they were already around back then. So they've been around for a long time too.
00:41:58
Speaker
So I mean, I'm absolutely into heavy metal and into old school rock and all this is just my style of music. But of course, men were they are probably the most cliche of all of them are the most cheesy ones. And then of all things, he is a passionate hunter. So.
00:42:15
Speaker
That doesn't sound like, I mean, of course, my Waldwach listeners, they tend to be nature fans, animal fans, they're very green oriented, sustainably oriented. So they don't necessarily like heavy metal and they don't like hunting. So what is this all about? But as it turns out, that's why I'm going back to him for the second episode. The first episode was so popular because to everybody's surprise, first of all, he's really kind and funny and witty and just a great person to talk to.
00:42:44
Speaker
And he also is very thoughtful about hunting. For him, he even teaches hunting. He teaches ethical hunting in the state of New York. So for him, there is a difference between bad and good hunting, basically, to put it simply. So we talked in the first episode very much about what ethical hunting means for him.
00:43:02
Speaker
why he hunts and why for him this is not a contradiction with his love for animals and for nature and the outdoors but why it is for him going hand in hand and of course that doesn't mean that at the end of the episode everybody needs to agree with him. I don't agree with everything he says.
00:43:17
Speaker
But it's a very good chance and a respectful way to get a conversation going because he feels misunderstood by many anti hunters as he calls them, like really convinced anti hunters who think everybody who is a hunter is a crazy monster basically. And I'm sure also many people do misunderstand them. So it's better to have an actual insight into how he thinks. If you can explain it well anyway, then it's worthwhile listening to it and then come to an opinion.
00:43:46
Speaker
That is just another example of why this podcast really opens a lot of doors to people, but also to topics for me and hopefully also my listeners.
The Role of Diverse Storytelling
00:43:58
Speaker
I absolutely understand what you mean and I think in order to...
00:44:02
Speaker
To have a better understanding of each other, we have to tell more stories. I think this is what enables our empathy and that's why what you're doing with your podcast is very important. I think the example you just gave us is very powerful because
00:44:18
Speaker
I think to dismiss hunters as ethically inferior or anything like that, I think is absolutely a limited way of looking at things. Because if you think how much meat consumption there is and how industrially produced meat is out there, then the problem is actually more that than the individual guy going out there taking just what he needs. And in order to relate that and to create a bigger context, we need to hear a lot of
00:44:46
Speaker
Different stories and this is exactly why I also like your book project how I see it so much or the book series because you're not offering the reader a
00:44:57
Speaker
one dimensional excursion of one person, which can be very interesting, don't get me wrong. And some writers, you know, they bring it all to life, and it's fantastic and wonderful. But in the end, it's just one single perspective, right? And the more stories, the more perspectives you get, I think this is why I said that with the letter pi in mathematics, only then you will get closer to an understanding. Absolutely.
00:45:19
Speaker
I think a lot of the times in our world, we try to understand culture from stereotypes and they stick. And then we deal everything that has to do with that remotely, with that tone, basically. And this is causing obviously a lot of misunderstanding, also suffering in the world. So the more voices we have, the better. And this is a perfect example of how it can be done. You are how I see it series, which I will also link to, but it's only available in
00:45:45
Speaker
German or is it also in English? Only available in German. We did that quite a few years ago. So this only goes out to the German listeners. Sorry. Sorry for that. Sorry for that. I apologize. Yes, but I will link to that. I think how many are there now? There's seven books.
00:46:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's not that big of a series. Honestly, we did that some years ago. It was a lot of fun because I did that before I started the podcast. So it was also a great chance. I was the editor of that and had the idea and so on. So it was a great.
00:46:21
Speaker
way to reach out to many really good journalists and authors and try to get them on board. It was just a very fun project to do. So we did an edition on Australia, India, France, and China. And basically the approach was, yeah, each book is an anthology with about 20 authors in it. And we always had tried to have three kinds of texts in it, three kinds of categories. One was
00:46:49
Speaker
very autobiographical texts, like authors really, maybe one of them grew up in China and then traveled to the West or the other way around, really have this very personal approach. One section was always travel text, travel literature, just if I would go to a place and spend a couple of months there or weeks there, how does this country present itself to me as a visitor?
00:47:15
Speaker
And one section was basically more topic-focused texts or chapters and essays, for example, the specific way of greeting or the role of the woman in the family, whatever, like very specific. Of course, it cannot be holistic or conclusive in this way, but just little examples for specific insights that can be presented because this particular author that we chose had some specific access to this topic.
00:47:44
Speaker
So yeah, so it was a fun project, but it honestly was also a lot of work and much more work than actually writing a book myself. I can imagine that then at some point the podcast came along. I also really had to have some prioritization and focus on.
00:48:02
Speaker
first of all, the podcast and the few book projects that I now find the time to do, they just need to be really passion driven and also ideally relate to the podcast. I really try to bring that both together, the writing, the podcasting and so on. So my last book from last year was about my podcast. It was released by National Geographic, which of course was very nice. And these projects just have my priority right now.
00:48:28
Speaker
I can imagine working with National Geographic is something that is very, very nice to be able to cooperate with National Geographic. That's like everybody's dream who's in any adventure or writing or photography or video business, so to speak. How is that actually for you as an experience?
00:48:49
Speaker
The same, the same, because I mean, I have to be honest, before I started Weltwach, I think I already did about, I don't know, 10 books, 10, 11 books, something like that. And some of them were very nice. And all the publishers also, they got more and more professional, like a little bit bigger publishers. But in the end, I have to say,
00:49:08
Speaker
they were still small publishing houses, which as I just want to point that out, I'm not ungrateful. On the contrary, in many ways, I really appreciated that because it was a really personal connection to the publishers. That's why I kept working with some of them for several books because we really, it was really like a friendship and a task for us to work on these projects. But I have to say, I had never managed out of my own
00:49:36
Speaker
Excellency of writing or amazingness of experience to get anywhere close to the leading German publishing houses for travel literature, such as National Geographic or the Malick publishing company, which is part of PIPA and is basically the market leader and I would say also the quality leader. They have all the big names in there.
00:49:57
Speaker
like Andreas Altman and Reinhard Messner and so on. And I have been able to open a door for myself thanks to the podcast. So because it gave me a name, it gave me a reputation, and it also, of course, gave me a network. It gave me a chance to actually get to know all these editors and publishers from these big
00:50:18
Speaker
companies because we are now partners in crime. We both, they want to promote their authors on my show. I want to get their authors because that is basically my show. And so it's a really good synergy. And that made me put me in a position. So basically that what I'm telling you is that
00:50:36
Speaker
It's one of the many aspects that is really great about podcasting and which I'm sure if you continue your project will also be very enriching for you, which is not only learning something but really meeting new people of all kinds of fields and that for me has led to many personal friendships, really good friends that I've made thanks to talking to interesting people all day long.
Networking Through Podcasting
00:50:58
Speaker
but also very good professional contacts, which put me in a situation that I'm now moderating, for example, a podcast for GEO, for the German GEO magazine, and some other projects. One of the biggest travel magazine, adventure magazine, if you will, in Germany, just for everybody who doesn't know it. Yeah, travel is one, but yeah, many, they cover all kinds of cultural... Repotage, let me say, Repotage, actually. Yeah, that's right, that's right.
00:51:20
Speaker
So, it's a good door opener basically and so that is why I'm, of course, it was also a dream of mine to one day work with Malik or work with National Geographic and I'm just very grateful that due to the Welsbach Podcast, basically a little trick, I was able to do that.
00:51:40
Speaker
Wonderful. Congratulations, really. It's wonderful to hear that just four years in, basically, that it's already done all of that. Really amazing and well deserved as well. I have to stretch that a little bit as well. But let's stay with traveling a little bit. Obviously, I'm stating the obvious, but according to me, when I think of travel, I believe that travel can improve the world in the sense that it helps
00:52:09
Speaker
us understand the human family, if you will, because that's at least how I see it, that we're actually one family with all the differences and whatever you have. That we're one family helps to understand it, and also being able to relate that to other people who are privileged enough. And I think that's exactly why what you're saying, people that can't travel are privileged. That's something I will address in another question as well to you, how that can be a problem.
00:52:34
Speaker
but how it can relate that and how it can create that empathy.
Travel and Empathy
00:52:37
Speaker
At least for me, how do you think that travel can positively change the world?
00:52:43
Speaker
Well, I think for me, it was always very helpful to have been in a place and to have talked to people to be then able to feel empathy towards them. That is for me a really big thing. Like before I went to Iran, for me, like for everybody, that is a very abstract concept. Yeah, sure, there is a place somewhere that is called Iran, but what does it feel like? What does it smell like to be there? And what are the people like?
00:53:09
Speaker
source of information, of course, is what other people tell us about it. And I'm not saying that must all be true or the media is always giving us the wrong impression. But of course, what the stories that are being told in the general mainstream media is stories about crisis, stories about conflict, stories about something urgent or bad that is happening. That is why it's used. And it's always a synopsis, right? And it's always a synopsis. Yeah.
00:53:35
Speaker
Sorry. Yeah, no, that's fine. So basically, just because it's news, it's of course relevant and valid, but that doesn't mean that this really adequately portrays a place or its people. It's talking about news. It's talking about a political conflict maybe.
00:53:52
Speaker
So I just know due to the fact that I have been, for example, to Iran, I have a very much different understanding and appreciation for the complex situation that we're in there with regard to the political problems. But I also have a much, much bigger empathy because now when we're talking about increasing the sanctions again,
00:54:13
Speaker
Earlier on, I would have said, of course, you know, they have to be stopped and whatever. And yeah, sure. We need to do everything that's possible, especially to avoid an armed conflict. And that is very easy to say. But if you think of the people that you met there, like just everyday folks I met, I mean, basically I was invited to tea and to conversations like every single hour that I walked through a city, they were so happy to see an international traveler.
00:54:39
Speaker
And they were so hard and so committedly trying to show their country in a positive light. And they kept asking me, what do you think about us? And what do you think about us now? And did it change you that you came here? They took me. I remember I met a teacher couple.
00:54:55
Speaker
They took me to their school where they teach, a primary school, and showed me the classrooms and the children, and they didn't try to show me just the sights or the touristy attractions on marketplaces. They really wanted to help me understand that it is just a very normal country with people that are struggling due to economic suppression and sanctions, which of course, they have very good reasons for these sanctions. I'm not saying they are wrong or anything.
00:55:21
Speaker
But it just shows you that, I mean, it's also stating the obvious, but it makes you feel that there are people there. And I think if we take that into the bigger picture, that is really helpful. I mean, it's also helpful to watch a documentary about a tribe in the Amazon that is fighting against land, you know, taken away from them for oil drilling or whatever.
00:55:49
Speaker
It's important to have this information, but it's probably more powerful if you have some personal access to it. And that's why storytelling can be helpful, but experience definitely can also be helpful. So it's a little bit of a cliche answer, of course, also that travel broadens your horizon and helps different cultures to connect and to decrease prejudice and all of that.
00:56:13
Speaker
But it's a cliche that is also true, not automatically.
Cultural Authenticity and Responsibility
00:56:17
Speaker
There are also many examples, I think, honestly of a travels and travelers. You can travel the whole world and still come honestly, if you want to, you can come back just as narrow mindedly as you have been when you left. So it's not an automatism. That's why.
00:56:30
Speaker
I also, of course, decline to have the position that travel automatically makes the world a better place because it also leads to a lot of challenges, like ecologically, socially, over tourism, all of that, a lot of problems. So we have to think about how to travel well and sustainably and responsibly, but it definitely has the opportunity or the potential to improve us and our thinking in some ways.
00:57:00
Speaker
Yes, and I think absolutely move what you're saying and move out of the abstraction as well. That is very often to do with only hearing about and not from places. And I think that's especially also a problem with us where we have so much media
00:57:21
Speaker
involvement, not to criticize media in general, I have nothing about that. But because it's also a business model, right? And that doesn't always help to understand everything in its full depth. And you can only do that when you actually go there on your own and take a look. But you have to care.
00:57:38
Speaker
not only to know, but to care. And that is why, of course, it's not without reason that many NGOs that, for example, fight for natural protection, climate protection, whatever, they try to take people to some rainforest or to help them help children in programs like the Jane Goodall program of roots and shoots, trying to take children to educate them and to take them into the outdoors and try to make them care. And that is what travel can do for us as well.
00:58:07
Speaker
This actually reminds me of one of the lines that a former visitor in the yellow van said, Katarina Kazu, who works for the STEPS initiative. They help homeless people in Athens now, especially during the pandemic. And she said, when you begin to
00:58:25
Speaker
When you relate, you begin to care, and when you begin to care, you take action. And I think this has really stuck with me also over the last weeks because it's very strong, it's very short. And in one way or another, I think travel can be very much related to that sentence. Absolutely.
00:58:41
Speaker
You have already anticipated a lot of the stuff that I wanted to ask you after that, exactly. So traveling is the one thing. But obviously there also comes some sort of responsibility with it, not that I want to quote Uncle Ben from Spiderman now. But it's, you know, I think, and this is what I said already in the beginning as well.
00:59:00
Speaker
Travel is also, and this is I think what we have to understand, and I think all of us is also something for a privileged elite, right? Not everybody can travel. Not everybody has the resources, the time to do that. So when we talk about most people, exactly the vast majority doesn't. So when we talk about travel and how it can positively influence the world,
00:59:25
Speaker
There's also a big danger of it being a very biased world because only one particular part of the world will be able to translate their experiences by traveling to other places. Where do you think the dangers lie in that? Do you think that it is actually a problem or do you think that's quite all right? That's how it is.
00:59:48
Speaker
Well, it is certainly not fair. I mean, that is the first thing to state and, of course, fairness is not given in many ways if we look at the global distribution of wealth and freedom and all of that.
01:00:03
Speaker
I think that is hard to solve in that context, but I think it just underlines the necessity and the responsibility for us that we are able to travel, not only because we have the money and the freedom, but also because we have the passport, for example, as Germans that opened so many doors for us. Absolutely.
01:00:26
Speaker
that we really have a responsibility and we really should not take it for granted. And I think, I mean, the pandemic probably helps us to also understand that we shouldn't take travel for granted. That's one thing. But also just besides that, it remains true. And I mean, there are many ways that I think we should think about how to travel, when to travel, where to travel. We can talk about the ecological implications, of course, every
01:00:53
Speaker
Long-distance flight if we're really honest with ourselves An absolute no-go we cannot even if you compensate It's just so bad for the environment just because you want to go somewhere and see something that it's really hard to argue that this is worth it and ordinary situations, but
01:01:12
Speaker
Of course the reality is also more complicated and many of us think that how cattle is held in mass production facilities is terrible but not all of us who really hate that become vegetarians some do they are stronger in their convictions and decisions than others.
01:01:32
Speaker
The same is true for flying. I'm now, as I told you, I have a relationship and marriage in the USA. I have also family in Germany and business there. I will continue to travel and to fly, even though that I know that it isn't a good thing to do. So that's why I think we, I just try not to be too dogmatic about it and basically
01:01:57
Speaker
create a list of five points and everybody who's not following that is a bad person or anything like that. I think that is not helpful in general. That's why I also don't like discussions that are led in these absolute terms. I think what should be expected and what we should talk and think about is what we in our individual situation can do to improve in that regard, to do better and to be as helpful as possible without
01:02:25
Speaker
completely giving up our job, our income, our life, whatever. And I think very often there's a lot that we can do and to improve. And if we talk about traveling, for me that, for example, means we are very often indeed talking about the ecological impact of flights, which is a big impact. But I think it's also often the case that we forget other dimensions, such as, for example, the social aspect that I mentioned and
01:02:51
Speaker
I think one thing that is kind of a misguided idea of travel is this whole thing of sites and like basically the whole attitude and way of thinking that leads to overtourism in the first place. I also don't think that it's everybody who goes to Angkor Wat as I also did. It's the biggest site and Cambodia is a bad person and the basic person because you just follow the guidebook and you're not a real traveler. No, nothing like that.
01:03:18
Speaker
But I think it is a mistake to think that to really make a trip worthwhile and true, we have to look for the authentic and basically the cliché. Very often I think we are hunting for cliches when we travel and I don't say I'm not doing that as well sometimes.
01:03:38
Speaker
I just remember when I'm coming back. I mean, I've been to other places as well, but we talked about Laos. I've spent quite a bit of time there and know the place quite well. That's why let's stick with that example. Of course, I also travel to the hill tribes and the Northern hilly rainforest or the mountainous rainforest, such as the Aca and the Hmong, like people who in part really live still completely off the beaten track, completely in their bamboo huts with
01:04:07
Speaker
the cattle completely self-reliant without electricity and all of that. And I wouldn't lie if I would claim that this is not a fascinating experience. I was there with one local guide, so it was not a big touristy endeavor. It felt very authentic and it made for great photography and it made for a great book in my very first travel, made for a great chapter in my very first travel book and all of that.
01:04:34
Speaker
But I think very often that is exactly what we hunt for like also people who go to africa and want to photograph the Masai or see them and then if you catch them using a smartphone like at the corner of the frame or maybe there's not a bamboo hut but
01:04:49
Speaker
one of the bamboo huts has like a metal roof already then of course you try to not have this hut in the picture because that doesn't look as nice and once the modernization of these villages starts and there's maybe electricity coming in as I've observed in the following years when I went back to Laos and that
01:05:07
Speaker
got some electricity and a little bit internet and water and better housing, of course, for us as a traveler. It's kind of sad because you feel the old traditions, they are being lost and it's not as photogenic anymore. But first of all, for the local people, it's not cute and photogenic, it's just means there.
01:05:28
Speaker
Of course, it's also romantic, the old-fashioned ways to live and so on, but it also means they don't have access to education, they don't have access to medical support and all of that, especially with the Masai, the connection that they have through their smartphones now and have had for many years. It also gives them access to the international banking system. They can get micro credits to set up some shops and become more independent.
01:05:55
Speaker
a whole different world and I think the mistake that we often make is to think that this new world is less interesting. That is the mistake that I feel many people are making and when I worked on my second last book, I purposefully only focused on the changes that are happening in the country. I didn't go back to
01:06:17
Speaker
trying to portray it as I honestly did in my first book, you know, the traditional lifestyle and how amazing it is and all of that. But I tried to find all the ways that this country is changing because it is so rapidly changing and many countries are in Laos. 30 years ago, there were 10 cars in the country and almost no internet anywhere.
01:06:38
Speaker
And now everybody is mobile with a little scooters. Everybody has a smartphone almost that gives them access to the internet and to information that they didn't even know exists some years ago. And they didn't have this whole transition as we had in the 20th century with landlines and then the fixed slow computers and laptops. No, they just went from nothing to smartphones.
01:07:00
Speaker
And that has so massive implications for their cultural environment. Of course, they start to have a film industry. 10, 20 years ago, there was no cinema. There was nothing. Now they have talked to the director of the very first a thriller that was ever made in Laos.
01:07:20
Speaker
a screenwriter and a director. And now, of course, it's not a big thing, but there's at least a small film industry. You can become a cutter, you can become a scriptwriter, there's a cinema in Vientiane, you can do that and that is something completely new. And how fascinating is that?
01:07:38
Speaker
But of course, also with all the opportunity come changes that are challenging. For example, if you are more mobile and more digital and more city-centric as a society, of course, that also means that these whole, these old ephemeral structures erode. 50 years ago, they lived with basically all generations that were still alive together in their village, in their house.
01:08:02
Speaker
And that changes also rapidly, and that of course leads to many challenges for how you understand family, how you structure family, how you take care of the elderly, and how you can bring that need and wish for self-reliance and self-actualization that some of them have. Of course, not all of them, it's still a poor country, it's still a developing country, but in the cities.
01:08:25
Speaker
How can you bring that in balance with what your cultural history actually tells you is the right thing to do or the traditional thing to do? And I think, of course, as a traveler, if you go somewhere for one or two weeks, it's very hard to get this kind of insight. But if we come back to the Maasai with a smartphone,
01:08:45
Speaker
It's a very simple example, but maybe simplified, but instead of telling him to get out of the frame with a smartphone, wouldn't it be much more exciting to actually ask him what he's doing and how the smartphone has changed his life in the past 10 years? I'm sure he can remember the time without a smartphone. Like if he's 30 or 40 years, I'm sure the impact it had on his life will be massive.
01:09:09
Speaker
And if you take 10 or 20 minutes or even invite him for a Coke or something, I'm sure he will tell you amazing stories about how his life changed. And that is again a very long-winded answer, but what I'm getting at is if you try to have these kinds of encounters and conversations, and I'm not talking about the most political conversations or anything, can be small things, can be everyday things.
01:09:31
Speaker
I think that really can help you to understand the country better. And then I feel if you take these stories back home and I think then really travel is worthwhile because then we really become a little bit more of something like a global citizen, which I believe is a good thing.
01:09:51
Speaker
Yes, I believe, and thank you for this long-winded answer, you said that again, because again, I think it was absolutely rich in content. And I just want to basically zoom in a little bit on two of the things that you said.
01:10:06
Speaker
I think in processing what you just said, and I'm kind of slow, so with me always it takes a while, so it's good that you speak a little longer. I'm thinking about in asking you about the privilege and how that can be a problem in our understanding if only the privilege go. Traveling, I think from my perspective how I see it very often is, and I'm making myself part of this, right? I've also traveled a fair share. There's still a lot of places I want to go to.
01:10:36
Speaker
that's totally besides the point, but just to say that I can relate to it a little bit, and I've done it. But we go to other countries, a lot of the times, having that perspective of the privileged, Western, rich world, right? And we go then to our eye, we will first see the things that are different to ours. And that is a discrepancy in development, in
01:11:00
Speaker
income, and so on and so on. We will see, oh, this is why this is an inverted commerce, a developing country. What can they learn from us, or what could we bring to them in order to improve their lives? I think this is something that happens quite automatically, so no blame there.
01:11:19
Speaker
But I think this is also a problem because in this way, we will only see the shortcomings of those countries and will very often not give the countries and these other cultures credit for their abundance, which they have. Africa is a perfect example of all the times Africa is defined by its poverty instead of its cultural abundance. What they bring, the singing, the dancing, the poetry, the writing, all this real abundance there. So I think in order to overcome the view of the privileged ones,
01:11:48
Speaker
Traveling all across the globe and telling everybody well, in order to be like us, you got to do this. Maybe it helps if on the outside of a journey, we would just sometimes think, hey, I'm going there. What can I take away from there? What do they do better than us? How could we learn from them? How can we take something away from us? And I think especially Africa is a fantastic example for that because
01:12:10
Speaker
They have little communities and they work well together. And this is something I think that we could definitely adopt in a way to also make our society in the West a little more future oriented in dealing with the challenges that we can, just something that comes to mind.
01:12:27
Speaker
Absolutely. And that is such a good point to really try to come home with answers to the question, what do they do better than us? Because very often we go and there was so much judgment just if we think about how we tend to think about the Arabic Arabian countries like Muslim countries and how they treat their women, for example, and that they don't want to
01:12:53
Speaker
So, if they visit us in Germany or whatever, don't want to give the hand to the woman as a greeting. So, we tend to very quickly attend with a judgment, not thinking about first of all, what are the reasons, what are the implications, maybe you don't care, maybe you think it's just respectless. Okay, fine. But then also take at least the time to also see and maybe appreciate that they
01:13:17
Speaker
treat their elderly with so much more respect than we do and they don't put them in nursing homes. And no criticism to anyone who does that because in our society, it's very often just very hard to take care of your elderly parents, almost impossible often. In these societies, it's not impossible and often it's just they have a different understanding of family. They're differently organized and they have many strengths. Maybe we perceive some differences as weakness. I think that's fine. That's we can have our values.
01:13:47
Speaker
But don't leave it at that. Don't make it too simple to yourself. And I think your point is very good. And I think also a part of that, what you're saying, the rich youth traveling to the many Pura people and this whole privilege.
01:14:03
Speaker
A big problem and challenge, and I'm not saying that I'm perfect in that regard, is also this whole attitude with which you often travel, which is this whole thing of self-realization. So basically, I'm going to another place to find myself and to think about myself, which is fine. I also partly did that in Australia or whatever too.
01:14:25
Speaker
figure out my future. So basically we use these places as a backdrop to meet ourselves. So we go there with our questions and then we're happy because the local people they are smiling and waving at us and even the poor people they are so happy and it's amazing you know we have these typical observations but actually all of that is just some kind of backdrop and I think I mean we all know that many movies are like that travel movies documentaries books
01:14:54
Speaker
It's fine, it's a certain genre, but this whole attitude of the wealthy, us going there and basically still centering mainly around ourselves and our own questions and struggles and coming home, basically having learned something about us, which is great, but I think ideally you should just try to learn something about yourself, sure.
01:15:19
Speaker
but really also learn something about the place that you went to, about its people and about differences and maybe something that you perceive as weakness, fine, but also something that you perceive as strength, absolutely.
01:15:30
Speaker
Yeah. And because you said that as well, because this is the one side, and the other side is also, you know, looking from the outside and having changes in a particular society, wherever that is, growth, development, whatever have you, I think this is something that's inherent no matter where you are, what part of society you are in.
01:15:49
Speaker
society is constantly going to change and try and reinvent itself. And also, in our case, especially urgently necessary, because we all know the challenges that we're facing. But it just reminds me also of a book that I've just read by by Jared Diamond. I don't know if you know it, it's called Upheaval. I think it's a book that basically, because he also wrote guns, guns, steel and germs, I think that's another book that I haven't read.
01:16:18
Speaker
And I read Collapse, why civilizations, I don't know what the subtitle in English is like, thrive or die or something like that. I have only read the one, so I can recommend the one I read to you, Upheaval, and I will read the other one that you just said, Collapse, and the other one, guns, steel and germs, I think has to do with
01:16:38
Speaker
Yeah, with germs, also with virus and with disease and how it shapes society as well, and guns, obviously, and the steel that's involved. So apparently also very good book. But in this book, he also describes, he relates personal crisis to national crisis.
01:16:56
Speaker
So going from the individual to the bigger entity, if you will, of a state. And it just came to me now because you describe these technological changes also when you go to Leos, for instance, and to the villages up there in the hillside.
01:17:13
Speaker
And this is also something else, first of all, the change that will come from the West, so to speak, because there's still something that a lot of people thrive for, that this is a model that they want to achieve. Whether that's really better or not is a whole other question.
01:17:28
Speaker
And then it is how to make that transition. And that is also a very big challenge. It just reminded me of what he wrote about the Meiji area in Japan, when basically the Americans landed in Japan after it had been closed for 250 years. And I said, we will be back in a year. And by that time, you open your entire country for trade with us, or you will be in big trouble. We'll come back with the cannonboats and level you to the ground, basically.
01:17:53
Speaker
And the process of how they dealt with Japan, with the change, and nonetheless maintaining their cultural integrity, that's really a leveling act that's very, very difficult. And it's very well described in that book. And I think this is something we will also see probably a lot in the future, but maybe not just with developing countries, but maybe this is also something that we have to see. And I'm saying the West a lot here, because I know it consists of many different countries.
01:18:22
Speaker
But this is where a lot of the changes concerning climate change and stuff will have to come from, not from the smaller countries. So this is going to be quite a challenge. How do you think this change and integration of change can be achieved without a lot of growing pains? Does it have to come from the inside or from the outside? With help from the outside, what do you think would be best?
Global Challenges and Wealthy Nations' Roles
01:18:52
Speaker
Well, if we talk about big challenges such as the climate crisis, for example, you mentioned that we have many changes that we urgently need to make as a global community. I believe, honestly, a lot of changes will have to come from the outside, from the north, from the wealthy countries.
01:19:12
Speaker
will have to give significant support to these countries that are not able to make these transitions fast enough out of their own power. Of course, developing countries should be allowed to have a development. They should be allowed to thrive and to improve the living standards of their population.
01:19:37
Speaker
But under a global context, they will probably not have the time that we had, we that we already polluted the globe, the industrial countries for centuries, basically, that will not be possible. So we will definitely have to support them to make these innovations and technical developments much, much faster. And I think the whole
01:20:04
Speaker
I mean, we could, this conversation could go into all kinds of directions. A while ago for the GEO podcast, as I said, also doing, I interviewed a guy, he is a specialist in the topic of overpopulation and he wrote a book recently that is basically dealing with the word double overpopulation, which is basically saying
01:20:25
Speaker
in the geographical south in these countries, or continents, there is clearly an overpopulation and it continues to grow, which means that
01:20:38
Speaker
that the population grows faster than the natural resources would actually allow. So there are more people there than the land can sustain in many ways. But also in the North, there's an overpopulation, not in terms of people so much.
01:20:56
Speaker
But in terms of consumption, so basically the degree to which we consume natural resources is also much, much higher than what the earth, the globe can actually allow for. And that means, yes, we can appoint to Asia and Africa and tell them to...
01:21:14
Speaker
to have less children to help us with overpopulation which of course will be, it is one of the big problems because if we have more and more people, then of course consumption will grow even if we make some technological improvements and use less resources per person. That's great. But if we are double the number of people at some point, then we still have the same problem. But it's just too easy to focus on that.
01:21:40
Speaker
the same urgency is needed with our kind of overpopulation, which is in fact actually an overconsumption. So I know that's not directly getting at your question, but it just shows. I think the fault lies in my question because it was a very long winded question. It's very interlinked and basically
01:22:03
Speaker
It has a lot to do with global responsibility and of course also respect for the situation of each particular country and its objectives and strategies. But that's why understanding can help. Yes, exactly. This is, I think, what I wanted to get to as well a little bit. Also with what I just know from some of the UN statistics as well, I think, is the population also goes usually down or the
01:22:31
Speaker
the infant mortality and the number of children that a family has decreases with the level of wealth that a family retains. So this is directly connected. So if we increase the wealth in Africa, for instance, or help, you see now we're doing this what I just said we shouldn't do, right? If we help Africa, if we're just not standing in Africa's way, because that's a lot of the time the case, I believe, of
01:22:56
Speaker
improving everybody's life standard there, then this is a problem that will take care of itself in a way. At least if I follow the UN statistics and you can think of statistics, whatever you will, but I think the UN statistics are at least some of the more reliable ones. And it's very interesting what you say is absolutely true. I also remember from the interview that I just mentioned, we talked about the example of China and the one child policy that was implemented there, as we all know, because they tried to deal with overpopulation, which
01:23:26
Speaker
Maybe not the ideal way to deal with it from our democratic standpoint, but what is interesting, you could argue, well, okay, it was not great for the people involved, but it actually worked. So, well, there you go. What actually happened in Thailand at the same time was that they didn't have this kind of policy.
01:23:44
Speaker
but they had a similar kind of development. They also improved in terms of education and mortality rates, just become a more wealthy society. It's kind of comparable, of course, a bad comparison maybe, but it is kind of comparable evidently to China's development in the same timeframe. And guess what? The exactly the number of children per person
01:24:07
Speaker
almost sank to the same number. So it was basically the same development on the one side due to pressure or even oppression, oppressive rules and guidelines, laws. And on the other hand, in Thailand, it was just due to development. So development definitely is a way to not only foster technological advances that can help us, but also to deal with overpopulation. But yeah, to get
01:24:37
Speaker
there, sometimes it's still a long way. Of course. Yes, it's always easy to put that in a statistic or something else.
Writing About Other Cultures
01:24:45
Speaker
But I would like to ask you about your writing, because this is also connected in that sense.
01:24:52
Speaker
I would like to know if you write about other cultures, what guiding rules do you follow? Because it's always different to write about another culture for an outsider than it is for someone part of the culture itself. As an example, it's okay for a Jewish person to make a joke, a Jewish joke. I don't think it's okay for me to make a Jewish joke.
01:25:13
Speaker
How does it work for you? Do you have anything, any guidelines? Or how do you do that? How do you go about it? It really depends on the concept and the genre of the book that you're writing. So in terms of travel books, of course, there are many sub genres, starting from travel guides, which is a thing in itself, but
01:25:32
Speaker
I did books that are more like travelogues, like basically stories where my experience is the red thread that we used to story together, such as my first Laos book, such as my book on my coast-to-coast hike through Great Britain. So it's like a book on a big tracking trip where I of course also
01:25:53
Speaker
and dive into many aspects of history and culture of the places that I hike through. But that is, of course, a very subjective approach and always will be. So basically, I'm describing the place that I visit from the perspective of a visitor.
01:26:12
Speaker
And I can enhance that with research to make it, as I also said, in the beginning, more in depth than just some travel diary. I got up at five and then I went there. This is not of interest, of course, to people. They want to know the place through my eyes, but it will still be through my eyes. There's no way around that, honestly. But you have to be honest about it. And then, of course, there is the...
01:26:35
Speaker
the genre of more like repertoire, more like documentary, which I also did in some books. My third book on Laos or the Cambodia book or some of the other books. It's not so much about me. It's about different facets, different aspects of a country. There's not a story of me traveling through a country. It's just different chapters on different aspects, as I said before.
01:26:59
Speaker
culture, history, I will meet maybe the ambassador, so politics, all kinds of things like that. And then still there is the challenge that you describe, which is I'm still not a local telling his story. So the same problem that applies to what I talked earlier about Peter Willis and his mind clearing unit.
01:27:23
Speaker
I already felt the disadvantages there a little bit because I had to be the filter. I had to be basically his voice or try to portray his voice in an accurate way as much as I can. Of course, that challenge grows even bigger if it's not a German dude like me in Cambodia, but it's actually a Cambodian with a completely different set of values, different cultural background, and so on and so on.
01:27:47
Speaker
So I believe what the best I can do is try to meet these people, research as much as I can so that I can maybe ask smart questions and as much as possible, understand the answers that they give to me and not only take them for face value at what they say, but also hopefully gain a deeper understanding of why they say it and what they may actually mean with it.
01:28:13
Speaker
But I think the best I then can do is also take a step back and just let them tell their story, give a little bit of context, and that is it. And I will never be able as a writer, even if I prepare by reading primary literature written by locals,
01:28:32
Speaker
or by reading secondary literature, by other travelers, whatever, by scientists. I will never be in a position to pretend to portray a place or a culture as if I would be part of it. I think that cannot work, especially if I'm not even living there. It's even a different thing if I would live in Laos for 10 years and then write a book.
01:28:51
Speaker
But if I'm there for three months, four months, five months, it's just not enough. So that is why a book project like that in my mind can give some access, can give some, can help some understanding, but it will never be the full and true story of a place or a people.
01:29:09
Speaker
But having said that, I think that's also okay, because if that would be the expectation, then there would be much, much less books, podcasts and films about these places and people. And I think there are ways, if you do it in a responsible way, to use these formats to tell good stories that are helpful.
01:29:32
Speaker
But of course, in the end, it's also great. I always recommend if you travel a place and don't only look in your guidebook as helpful as it can be, try to find some books that are written by people of that place. It can even be novels. It doesn't need to be nonfiction books.
01:29:48
Speaker
tell you about the history of Angkor Wat or something like that. No, just read a novel that maybe somebody from their road and that maybe even takes place in that place. Maybe that will give you a much deeper texture. Like I know that, I forgot the name now, but there's this series of criminal stories set in Laos written by, I think he's a Western person, but a guy who at least lived there for many years and I think still do.
01:30:16
Speaker
They're very rich and you can get a really good feel for how he sees Laos after living there for a decade or more. So yeah, I think it's a specific genre with the limitations and strength and you just have to be aware of them and be honest and don't pretend that just because I interviewed somebody for an hour, I'm now able to really speak for him or her.
01:30:40
Speaker
Yes, I think that's what I'm taking away. Absolutely. Don't ever pretend anything that you're not and don't create the illusion to know more than you do either. I think that will always serve you very well. That's a very good guideline for anything in life.
01:31:00
Speaker
It's not always I'm not saying it's always easy or sometimes maybe you fall short because it's just hard to leave your own predispositions and prejudice and whatever your own mental framing completely out of the picture you also are not neutral so there will always be a little bit of something in of something of yourself in your work but at least try to be aware of it.
01:31:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's all. Absolutely. None of us is perfect, right? We all have our flaws and we all have our blind spots, so that's absolutely normal and perfectly normal, as long as you're also open with that. I think what you just said as well, as I've said this here before in the podcast, also when I spoke to Jamie, it was about we have so much sources of information
01:31:46
Speaker
And when you have questions about a specific culture or a movement or a minority that is claiming its rights, before you dismiss anything, you can just go and open a book, listen to their music, do whatever in order to find out more about it and to exactly understand the position that's being presented to you. All it takes is a little more time and more context that you have to be willing to seek out yourself.
01:32:13
Speaker
So, how are you doing for time, Eric? I have about two more questions. Two more questions would be fine. My air is getting a bit thick in here, as I told you in the beginning, so I'm feeling, I'm falling. And you didn't bring the towels, right? That is not a problem. It's really just the degree of oxygen. But no, I'm just kidding. No, it's absolutely fine.
01:32:36
Speaker
All right, then I will ask you, first of all, what interests me now having something that, but you just gasp, right? When you're running out of air, you just put those blankets aside and you run for air, okay? Absolutely. Just so we have that mutual understanding, at least. Before you collapse, please, right? Before you collapse.
Travel and the Pandemic's Impact
01:32:58
Speaker
How has the pandemic changed you? This is also something I want to turn my attention to because obviously traveling is something that is your profession, it is what you do. We also heard opening up that a lot of things have also changed for you, your private life and also in your professional life. But what are the outcomes of the pandemic specifically? Has it changed you in a way or what would you say to that?
01:33:26
Speaker
I would say probably less than other people because first of all, yes, travel is my profession as a topic, but it's not like I traveled the whole year before that. So I did maybe two or three bigger trips a year if I could. And that was it. So right now I'm really, I spent so much time with the podcast and with writing that I didn't even have that much time in the past few years next to my day job as well.
01:33:56
Speaker
Partly, I even used my holidays that I had, my vacation to work on my projects, like to finish Upsam Book or whatever. So, that is actually in the past few years has fallen a bit short. Actually having time for travel, I hope I will have more time now that I'm self-employed and once the pandemic is over.
01:34:15
Speaker
I also have to say that I was always very good at keeping myself busy with my projects and with ideas, so I just have to say I'm very privileged because I know that, of course, I know many people who are working in theaters, on restaurants, and of course, the travel industry, I mean, let's talk about that, all these
01:34:40
Speaker
authors who actually don't live only from selling books, but from giving readings or presentations or filmmakers. Many of them, they don't have just a little dip in their salary. They fall to zero. There's nothing happening now for one year. So that is totally terrible. And due to the fact that I'm mainly working in the digital realm, of course, I'm just very
01:35:06
Speaker
Lucky that my projects, they continued and I'm doing fine enough. So my biggest obstacle to tackle or to deal with is just that as for any one of us, it's just somewhat exhausting if you are just stuck at home and we are taking COVID pretty seriously. So we really try to limit what we are doing and with whom we are doing it.
01:35:27
Speaker
So, it's just a little bit less exciting of a life right now, which is, as I said, nothing to really complain about in the grand scheme of things. I'm just as busy as I ever was. I just work from morning till late afternoon or evening on my stuff.
01:35:46
Speaker
I struggle a bit about how to plan the summer because we actually tried since last year's summer to also get a little Veltva festival started and I would have some live events lined up. So that is probably something that might happen or might not happen depending on how the next month will develop.
01:36:06
Speaker
But apart from that honestly, it of course gave me a bigger appreciation for the luxury of being able to go back and forth between places and to see my family and to go to Europe and then come back without worrying about a travel ban, something like that. Now it's just not possible or much more complex.
01:36:25
Speaker
So, once it's possible again, I will make use of that with a new appreciation, but of course, I also hope that not everybody will just go crazy in terms of traveling once it's possible again, but still maybe keep these lessons in mind that for some of us, maybe COVID had, for some of us, maybe we're also aware of it before in terms of what we talked about, social travel, social responsibility, but also, of course,
01:36:55
Speaker
Not to forget the fact that we can also travel very well without flying around the world. That's also, of course, a very important aspect. Finding new and creative ways to have, to use one word that is very on-vogue right now, to have microadventures or to find green ways to travel. We talked about that in our show many times, yeah. But I would lie if I would tell you that the pandemic itself has
01:37:22
Speaker
significantly and in its essence changed myself because I tried to have this awareness in many ways before and now I'm just really trying to remain patient because there are many ways that I would like many things that I would like to do that do not necessarily relate just to travel but also just to
01:37:41
Speaker
to networking, to projects that I want to do both in Germany and here in the US that are just being put on hold for quite a while now. So I'm just looking forward to the next phase, to the time after the pandemic. That's basically it.
Exploring Local Adventures
01:37:56
Speaker
And I think what you just said, it brings me quickly back to what you said in the beginning also, that you actually wrote a book about Brandenburg, right? Which is a long time ago, I did get that, but it just makes me think a few years. It was your second book, I think after the... No, not the second. No, it was somewhere in the middle. It was basically a book on the German author Theodor Fontane.
01:38:17
Speaker
who in his day wrote, I think, five books on Brandenburg. I wrote my book together with a historian, a friend of mine. So basically we told the story from the old days of Fontana to today. So we revisited all these places that he wrote about back then.
01:38:36
Speaker
And my co-author, he then went into the archives and did all the research of what happened then and why did Fontana write it like that back then and did he really meet that person or did he just make it up like trying to really find out what happened back then and also to find out what happened since then in these places and castles and whatever.
01:38:56
Speaker
And then we, of course, besides this historic research, also went to these places, and that was then my job to describe the experience today. What is it like there today? Which kind of people are living there? And how can we basically do the same thing that Fontana did back then, which is a part of these areas for today?
01:39:19
Speaker
So, that was the project and I would probably have not gone there without the project and I have to say, of course, as I said before, it's probably harder as a writer to write about that than to write about monks and Buddhism and water buffaloes and jungle. It's a much easier thing to do, to keep reader interested with that.
01:39:40
Speaker
But it was really a fascinating project and a lot of fun to tackle that creative challenge. And of course, as people who live in Brandenburg and have traveled, they also know it is a very beautiful area and there's no question about it. So it's very well worth it, definitely.
01:39:56
Speaker
But the question was probably something else than tourism. No, but no, but thank you. No, but thank you very much. No, because obviously people and you probably also is like, what? No, he went from Laos. Well, then he goes from Brandenburg. Like, what is he doing there now in his mind? But just to qualify, rightfully so as well. But just to qualify a little bit. The reason why I brought that up is because it ties in with me there for me to what you said, like now with micro adventures and so on. I think very often
01:40:22
Speaker
for the people who can, for the privileged few who can travel the world like this, I have that. I've seen it in other people. It's like, I have to get away. I have to see the world. I have to do this. It's like this thirst that can almost never be quenched. But if you take this thirst and realize it's the same thirst as having an adventure in your backyard, like in your case, Brandenburg, you can have the same. Because very often, the things that seem so familiar to you
01:40:51
Speaker
are also the things that we very often miss the most, where we don't see the details because we just see the surface and we seem to think that we know everything there is to know about it. But then when we take a closer look, there's actually so much more and so many more layers. And so I think what we were talking about now today as well, there's no necessity or prerequisite to travel. I think when you look at it under the microscope, it's really a mindset
01:41:17
Speaker
more than actually having to travel 10,000 kilometers or more. And that's why I thought of the Brandberg book again now. There are two things that come to mind in that regard. One is my recent conversation. It's not yet published. I'm also a very good German travel writer who was asked by one of my listeners if
01:41:39
Speaker
like, what is going on? You are the god of travel riders and now you can't travel anymore. And you know, you're also kind of getting old, so can you continue to travel? Like, can we hope for more books from you? Like, what is going on? I'm a fan, I need more books. And Helga also said, well, I'm honestly, I'm not worried about that at all, because yes, I traveled many places in my life. I lived in Cuba, I traveled India, whatever.
01:42:02
Speaker
But in my age now, I'm almost 70, I have learned that as cheesy as it sounds, life is the travel. And even if I'm sitting at home, by growing older and wiser, I kind of change and travel. I mean, I'm sitting on the earth, we all travel through space. I mean, it just depends on what your travel is. If you need to go to India to travel, sure.
01:42:25
Speaker
I think if I look back on my life, my whole life was just one big trip to be honest. So basically, that is something to keep in mind. I mean, whatever that means to you personally, I think when we travel, what do we get out of travel? It is learning something that we didn't know before, seeing something that we didn't see before.
01:42:45
Speaker
and having these kind of experiences and aha moments maybe. So where else can we get them? That's basically the question, right? And that is also where, as you said, traveling in your own backyard can come in handy in your own country that you maybe missed out on so far because you thought it's just too well known. It's not exotic. It's not interesting. Well, maybe
01:43:06
Speaker
your approach was not interesting maybe it was not creative and curious enough but if you really like I didn't think print book would be that interesting for me but if you really find some angle some perspective and see it as a creative challenge to find something that is interesting
01:43:21
Speaker
then the only way it will not be interesting is if you are not interested enough or not interesting enough. Yes. That is also the whole concept of the word that I used before, microadventure. And I talked to the guy who made that word big in Germany, which is Christoph Härster. I also talked about the guy who made it big in Great Britain. I think he even came up with the word, Alistair Humphreys. I'm also a great travel storyteller.
01:43:49
Speaker
That's also a very cute concept, I think, because they say basically, what is the reason why you want to have these big trips? Basically what I said right now. Why should you then wait until you have two weeks of holiday a year? Wait the whole year and struggles through or even worth wait until retirement comes and then you really have time, but maybe by then you are too old or whatever.
01:44:14
Speaker
Why not look for these little nuggets of inspiration and challenge and just change of scenery, whatever, you know, everyday life. So basically what can be small things can be stupid things like buy a hammock and like from Tuesday to Wednesday in the middle of the week, just sleep in a forest close to you.
01:44:33
Speaker
walk barefoot through the forest at night, whatever, just come up with creative ideas or buy their books. There are many ideas in there, but I think that just shows us exactly what you said. We just have to try to have a broader perspective on what travel gives us and what it can actually be like. And it doesn't mean only to go to the Sahara or to Patagonia to have a good time.
01:45:01
Speaker
I think when you put it like this as well, I think it's a question of mindfulness actually really as well. I think travel is just something because there's just so many impressions that are unknown to us that they are so strong and they're streaming towards us and they're loud in that sense, right? I believe.
01:45:19
Speaker
At the same time, I think if you can plant something in your backyard, if you can do anything sensual, I think if you just focus your mind on something, anything can be incredibly fascinating and interesting.
01:45:37
Speaker
Yes, I think this is something that I'm taking away from that travel is really something that is in your mind and has a lot to do with mindfulness for me of really being present in the current moment a little bit. And having said that, this is basically the perfect time now to ask the closing question to you.
01:45:57
Speaker
Wow. Before you suffocate in that closet of yours, because
Pandemic-Induced Global Perspective Shifts
01:46:03
Speaker
I wouldn't want to have that on my watch, I would like to ask you, what do you think are the opportunities after we've already discussed it in the opening? What are the opportunities through this pandemic for us as a global community?
01:46:21
Speaker
Okay, so you are not asking for the individual, because of course, on the individual level, it's very different from person to person. Of course, I also asked some of my interviewees, like where's the opportunity and all of that. And I honestly have to say many of them said, well, Eric, I have to tell you, I'm now in debt.
01:46:37
Speaker
My business is almost bankrupt. It's a cute question, but it's just a piece of shit this pandemic, talking about opportunity. It's nice in theory to always find a good thing about something bad, but I don't see it right now. So ask me again in two years, maybe something will happen that I can't foresee right now.
01:46:54
Speaker
So, I just want to show that awareness that for many people talking about advantages or chances opportunity right now maybe seems a little bit off, but I absolutely get your question because of course... No, but I thank you for pointing that out though as well because I think this is a misconception that people might also get when I ask that question like, wow, he's just detached from reality. I obviously understand that personal realities are very, very different from that. That's why you didn't ask for that personal level as well.
01:47:23
Speaker
You did well. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. You may answer now. Well, of course, globally, the first thing that comes to mind is the question, will it give us a new perspective on how we...
01:47:41
Speaker
understand mobile, like being mobile, like how we understand traveling and how we understand consumption and the fast pace of our daily lives, especially in the Western world. And what is wealth? Is wealth automatically growth as we used to understand it? Or now that we have had the challenge to find wealth and happiness, not necessarily just due to accumulating more money, at least for many of us,
01:48:10
Speaker
but through finding ways to be happy in a much smaller geographical frame. We cannot travel as much, not even to business trips. We are home much more often, just in front of Zoom. It's much harder to get real inspiration and happiness in these moments, so probably many of us had to refocus on
01:48:29
Speaker
getting happiness out of interacting with their family, interacting, going back to old passions that we've had, hobbies that we didn't have time for or focus on in the past few months.
01:48:46
Speaker
If that, if we would be able as a global community to take some of these insights and learnings with us into the future, of course that would be helpful because as we all know, the current pace of growth and consumption and all of that is not sustainable and it's also not, we don't solve that problem by just somehow trying to lower our CO2 emissions a little bit. The problems are much bigger than that.
01:49:17
Speaker
So, in order to, for example, avoid the four-degree growth that we're all worried of, there would need to be big, big, big changes in everything, basically, we do. Which was two degrees not too long ago as well, right? Now we're at four degrees. I mean, that's what people expect. That's not the goal, but that's probably what's going to happen.
01:49:41
Speaker
I mentioned before this guy that I talked to recently about the double overpopulation. He says basically in 30 years, it's not enough, which is already almost impossible, it feels like, to have zero emissions in most of the industrial nations. But actually, we have to strive for minus emissions.
01:50:02
Speaker
clean the air with technology because the developing countries of today, as we also talked about, they need to develop and should be allowed to develop, but with all the innovations that will come along, it will not be possible to create this development without CO2 emissions.
01:50:20
Speaker
a level of global CO2 emissions that is sustainable, we have to actually go into the miners to allow them to develop to then get to a place where they also have a more stable level of population growth as we discussed earlier that wealth and population growth go hand in hand and thus then become also more sustainable. Anyway, so it's a whole, it's a big challenge as we all know, I know that we are all aware of that.
01:50:46
Speaker
So, of course, there is some hope that this pandemic might nudge us into the right direction. But I also have to, from my perspective, be very honest that I'm not that optimistic that it will have a big lasting impact in that regard. I think that in many ways,
01:51:08
Speaker
Yes, businesses and people may have found new ways to work, maybe not to travel to every meeting. I think there are things like that where, I mean, I know it in my own projects, not only Weltbach, also other projects that I know I used to have to do them in person.
01:51:24
Speaker
And now I just do them digitally because my clients, they understood it's necessary right now. And it also works really well if you think about it. So that's, yes, there will be changes, but on the grand scheme of things, I'm still also, I honestly, I expect that many things will just fall back into place pretty similarly to
01:51:45
Speaker
to what it was like before, which doesn't mean that there is no hope at all for improvement. It just means that, in my mind, the challenges that we faced a year ago honestly will still be there for us to face and tackle half a year from now, even post pandemic.
The Power of Storytelling in Community Building
01:52:02
Speaker
You know, my hope is after today and speaking to you because in opening before we actually had this recorded this interview today, we were talking also about like how we can shift from a global society, which we are undeniably so far into a global community. And it's a very political topic. Of course it is. But if there's anything that I take away from this today for me is that
01:52:31
Speaker
One of the most important steps in doing that is to keep telling each other stories, make use of the existing infrastructures that we have, digital infrastructure, to keep telling stories to each other, and to listen to each other's stories as unbiased as possible. I know this is a very loose way of seeing things, and I might as well wish for the Tooth Fairy, but at the same time,
01:53:00
Speaker
I do believe we have that infrastructure and as long as we develop at least a consciousness maybe through this, then maybe we will do that. And I think this is the one chance of the pandemic that we have, that regardless of the varying realities
01:53:18
Speaker
connecting us here in this pandemic together, because it's a difference for me whether I live in a top apartment on 100 square meters with a balcony, then with six people in a tiny hut somewhere and I can't leave the house. This is an incredibly difference in reality, right? So I'm not trying to compare this. And when I close the podcast with we're all in this together, I'm very much aware that there are very big differences. But nonetheless,
01:53:47
Speaker
We are all in this together, despite all the contrast and despite all the varying flavors and shapes of this reality. And I think this is maybe the biggest opportunity of it, that we are realizing that maybe more than ever before. This might be the hopeless optimist that I am, and to some degree,
01:54:06
Speaker
Who knows? We might never figure it out. But at least this is what I'm taking away from all of the conversation to date, talking about storytelling with you, which was wonderful, very enlightening, and very inspirational, Eric. And I think what better note to close our conversation out right in the end of end than with this today. You are a very kind person. Thank you.
01:54:30
Speaker
It was an absolute pleasure having you, Eric, on board. Thank you so much for coming with us and we stay in touch. I can't wait to listen to more episodes of Weltwach and of Unfolding Maps. If you haven't checked it out, check it out and we'll speak soon.
01:54:46
Speaker
Thank you so much for your time. Have a good day. Bye-bye. And with this, we're coming to the end of this week's trip in the Yellow Van.
Closing Remarks and Audience Engagement
01:54:54
Speaker
All information about Eric and his extraordinary work will be provided in the show notes along with all relevant links to today's conversation.
01:55:03
Speaker
Thank you all very much for coming along on the yellow van today. We hope you enjoyed your time on the road with us. We sure enjoyed our time with you. If you feel I missed some essential questions or follow-ups, like I'm sure I did, send them to us and we will have them answered for you.
01:55:19
Speaker
If you have your own inspiring story to tell or you know somebody who does, get in touch with us on www.yellowvanestories.com where you can also leave us your general feedback or ideas for improvements. The hashtags for the show, learning on the job and stronger together are no coincidence.
01:55:37
Speaker
If you want to support Fonzie with a bit of petrol money, you can do so on buymeacoffee.com forward slash yellow van or you can leave us a review on our website or the podcast platform of your choice. This podcast is a mind the bump production.
01:55:55
Speaker
For the whole month of April, we have something very special planned. As international attention is turning away from Myanmar and its current struggle, we will attempt to gain a better understanding of Burmese society by inviting experts and locals into the yellow van. It is an experiment we hope you will join. Until then, stay healthy, keep loving, and always remember, we're all in this together. Take it away, Jim.
01:56:28
Speaker
My attitude disturbs you and so I should And I know my fantasies on trouble into those like you Took a very, very long time But my message is clear
01:56:51
Speaker
Heaven in the base of fear Keep shouting that you are here Talking about bells and dears
01:57:19
Speaker
All you standin' for your rights It's the fact of your life All you standin' for your rights It's the fact of your life All you standin' for your rights It's the fact of your life
01:58:13
Speaker
You stand is for the rest