Embark on a captivating Indian odyssey! Join me and my Columbia Business School companions, along with 20 of our friends, as we explore Mumbai, Delhi, Agra, the majestic Taj Mahal, Jaipur, and then plunge into the wilderness of Ranthambore for an up-close encounter with Bengal tigers and an exhilarating West India safari. 🇮🇳🐅
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Embark on a captivating Indian odyssey! Join me and my Columbia Business School companions, along with 20 of our friends, as we explore Mumbai, Delhi, Agra, the majestic Taj Mahal, Jaipur, and then plunge into the wilderness of Ranthambore for an up-close encounter with Bengal tigers and an exhilarating West India safari. 🇮🇳🐅
Instagram @katshortsleeve
Tik Tok @katshortsleeve
Youtube Shortsleeve Travel with Kat Shortsleeve
Welcome back to the Short Sleeve Travel Podcast, where luxury meets budget and adventure is always a given. I'm your host Kat Short Sleeve and my journey from finance and wealth management to the world's hidden gems has ignited a true passion, making every trip feel first class without the first class price tag through inspiring stories, curated guides, and insightful tips. Short Sleeve Travel is your compass pointing you to experiences that are elevated. Yet attainable. Dive in with me and I'll help you fill in your life with as much travel as you desire. Earlier this year, I visited India for about three weeks. In this episode, I'm going to get into the who, what, why, where, when, and a little bit of the itinerary, each place that we visited, and then at the end, I'm going to dig into and do a deep dive on a place called Ranthambore. This is a national park in Western India, where we went for tiger spotting and tiger tracking. And it was one of the most incredible experiences. Now, I have yet to go on a safari in Africa, although it's on the top of my bucket list. And going on the safari in India really scratched the itch. And what was incredible about it is it is a fraction of the cost of going to Africa. So let's get into it. Starting with the who. So I went to India with my business school classmates. We had a group of about 15 of us and two of our classmates are actually from India. They're from Mumbai and they were nice enough to take us all the way to India and show us all around and it was absolutely incredible. I flew over and met them in India at the very end of December, right before New Year's Eve. I was able to celebrate New Year's Eve with them in Mumbai, which was amazing. And then a few days later, the rest of our classmates joined us in Mumbai, and we went on from there and did an entire tour, hitting all the major spots in India. We had some time off between the end of our fall semester and the beginning of our spring or winter semester, and Everyone in our class is very international and so we all wanted to do some sort of trip and we wanted to get together a group of about 12 to 18 people because we thought this was unmanageable, but inclusive size. And so we had this great group get together and some people had to leave early from the trip and some people joined later, but it was truly such a great group. So as I said, we started in Mumbai and then from there we went up to Delhi. To Agra, which is where the Taj Mahal is. We stayed at an Oberoi. And then from there we went on to Jaipur, the Pink City. And finally to Ranthambore, which is West India and much more remote. Let's start off at the very beginning in Mumbai. Now, Mumbai is known for being Bollywood Central and is often called the Hollywood of India because this is the birthplace of Indian cinema. Mumbai is known for being the financial powerhouse. It's the financial and commercial capital of India. That's where the Bombay Stock Exchange and numerous multinational corporations are going to be housed. One of the most interesting things I found in Mumbai is there's this famous slum called Dharavi. This is often called the heart of Mumbai. Despite the fact that it's one of the largest slums in Asia and it's actually the size of Central Park in New York City, there's this major sense of community and there's actually a very diverse community or diverse economy there as well. There's a lot of leather work, pottery, um, a lot of recycling, and it's become a major tourist destination. And it was something I was really curious and interested to see because I'd learned a lot about it. So the presence of this slum is a huge, it's a stark contrast to the luxury experiences that are associated with travel, but you find a lot of major wealth and luxury in Mumbai. And so you're looking at a skyscraper that just one family might live in and right next to that or a few streets over is this slum. If you're careful and you're being conscientious, you can hire a guide and have someone help walk you through, uh, Deharavi and just show you a bit about this experience. I found it completely transformative and I highly recommend doing it. After Mumbai, we flew up to Delhi. Now, Delhi is the historical hub and it's been the capital of several empires. As well as it's also a political epicenter. So this is where the heart of politics lies in India. It's where the parliament is. And it's also a major culinary foodie's paradise. Now there's this blend of northern Indian and international cuisines along with kebabs and also some really high end gastronomy places. You'll find tons of diverse shopping from budget friendly markets, which you find those all over India, but as well as these luxury malls. And of course, what you will notice in Delhi, I noticed this instantly, there does seem to be an issue with the air quality. And then there's also the infamous Delhi traffic, which if you haven't seen that or seen photos of what it looks like, you should probably Google that. So once we landed in Delhi, we took private transfers. We had, um, taxis and drivers that stayed with us the entire time, which was very nice and also inexpensive to do in India. And we drove to Agra. Now, this was about a three and a half hour drive, I want to say, and Agra is home to the Taj Mahal. We stayed at this incredible Oberoi Hotel, which I want to do an entire episode on my favorite hotels, but this is probably, it's definitely the top five of places I've ever stayed. If you don't know Oberoi Group, it's this renowned luxury hotel chain and it was actually founded and headquartered in Delhi, India. They're known for world class service. They have this impeccable attention to detail. And while I love minimalistic designs and minimalistic things for myself and minimalism, you know, there's this whole trend of people trending in that way. Um, Oberoi goes in the opposite direction. They do details up to the max and it's all these different wallpapers and fabrics and textures and it just blends together in the most beautiful way. And if I tried to ever recreate something like that at home, it would never work. It would look like a dumpster fire, but they seem to do it so perfectly. They also blend really well together the traditional architecture with the modern amenities. So it feels. Like you're in the tradition, in the culture, but you're also in a very comfortable space at the same time. Creating an entirely immersive experience beyond just accommodation. You know, we ate at their hotel one night, and of course they have, um, ate at their hotel. We ate at their restaurant one night, and of course they have a traditional Indian restaurant where we ate and had these lovely meals, but then one of the girls, one of my best friends on the trip, she She doesn't love Indian food, despite being in India, which I respect that, and she had pizza, so they have great offerings and they're very accommodating, which is so nice when you're truly in the middle of nowhere in Agra, there's not a ton there aside from the Taj Mahal, which is why everyone goes to this very remote location. So if you ever get a chance to stay at an Oberoi, especially the Agra Oberoi, it is luxurious, it's first class, but it's less expensive than staying at a 5 star, beautiful resort in the US. Now, I'm sure you know this, but the Taj Mahal is one of the 7 wonders of the world. This is an iconic monument, and it was actually built as a testimony to eternal love. The emperor built this in memory of his wife who had died and actually at the time he had a new wife and I think he had somewhere between seven and eight wives. So the Taj Mahal took 22 years to build and 20, 000 workers. Truly it's a symbol of love but it was definitely a labor of love too. I want to point out two of my favorite things that I had learned and seen about the Taj Mahal. So the first being the water system and the second being the changing of colors. Now the water system is still a marvel to this day. There are entire documentaries on Netflix. If you become interested or infatuated like I did, you can check those out. But. These water systems made water flow through to these fountains and it would spurt the water in a constant flow like how you see fountains today, which at the time had never been done before. It was not seen. It was, it was almost magical. And the way that they did this is using gravitational pull method. So the Taj Mahal is built right on a river, and interestingly enough, actually right across the river, is an identical Taj Mahal that is black. Um, people don't know about that, but it's pretty interesting. So anyways, the water pressure is pulled from the river. And it's pulled really evenly into these channels and inside these channels you have copper pots that are placed so perfectly in such an elegant way that the water is able to flow through and spurt out of these fountains just constantly and it was a wonder at the time, but now they actually do have just modern piping and The fountains flow per usual, but it's not with these copper pots anymore, unfortunately, but this is a lot of why the Taj Mahal became so famous is because it's a landmark of ingenuity and The second piece that I was describing is the changing colors. So the Taj Mahal it actually subtly changes colors throughout the day So if you're able to get there early in the morning And this is of course the best time because you're going to have a lot less people that are going to be at the Taj Mahal if you go early in the morning but It's going to appear a bit pinkish, and then as the day moves on into the evening, the Taj Mahal becomes more of a milky white, and then under perfect circumstances, which is when we were there, it's under the moon, and you'll see that the Taj looks a bit golden. So it's this. beautiful, you know, natural beauty and a touch of drama as well. And something I want to point out is that if you do stay at the Oberoi, you can see the Taj directly from your hotel room, which is absolutely incredible. Something I was not expecting. We spent a very short time in Agra because there isn't much to see there aside from the Taj Mahal. So you only need so much time. We just stayed one night, but I might actually recommend staying for two and seeing the Taj at two different times or two different days. It's it's maybe a nice way to see it. Also the Oberoi will organize for you a little tuk tuk transfer that will take you over to the Taj Mahal if you'd like to go that way. But like I said, we had. drivers that were staying with us for the entire week when we were going through Northern India and so they just took us over easily. But there are golf carts, there are tuk tuks that can take you from the Oberoi. It's very nice and accommodating. After leaving Agra, we went over to Jaipur. Now, this is famously known as the Pink City because most of the buildings are pink and they were painted that way to welcome the Prince of Wales all the way back in the late 1870s. Jaipur is home to the majestic, um, Amur, Amur Fort. And it's also the Palace of Winds. So that's a five story pyramid shaped monument. It's absolutely beautiful. And Jaipur, it is known online for being the gemstone capital. That's where a lot of gemstones are cut and polished. And you can buy them there for much affordable, much more affordable prices. But what we found, and I wasn't fully expecting this, I knew a little bit about this, but my best friend and I, we got to Jaipur and realized there are so many different fabric stores. Ugh, I could talk about this forever, it was so much fun. But there are all these different fabric stores, and you can go pick out fabrics for very inexpensive. Anything you want, it's just floor to ceiling. Fabrics are stacked up in these shelves, or just thrown out all across the floor. All sorts of different fabrics. There are block printed fabrics. That's what they're known for. Um, so nice patterns and things. But also just some quilted materials, and leathers, and bathrobe type materials. Tablecloth, linens. Beautiful linens. And so you can go pick out these fabrics and have anything made. So you could pick out a piece of fabric and then take it home and frame it because they're that beautiful. Or you can pick out pieces of fabric and... Go on your phone and you can pull up a photo of any dress, any skirt, any shirt that you'd possibly want to have made and they will make it right then and there for you and it was extremely inexpensive. They also do have a few things off the shelf that you can buy, but what we did is we picked out all these fabrics. We showed them. The things that we wanted to have made. And mind you, we spent the entire day doing this once we learned about it. We just went from different store to different store. Each place has slightly different fabrics and we'd pick out some fabrics and have things made. So we each had about 8 or 9 pieces made and in total for each of us it was under 200. So prices of things can range from less than 20 all the way to... Maybe 50 at the maximum if you're making a very nice gown or a very nice dress. Oh my goodness, this was so much fun. I could think about it forever. So, the pieces came back to us actually that night. Or maybe some of the pieces came to us the next night. But a few of them did come to us that night at dinner. Um, we went around, picked out all these things, had them made, and then... We were at dinner later that evening, and a driver came by and dropped everything off, and the delivery fee was included in the price of the fabric, essentially, actually, you just pay for the fabric and the price of the fabric includes them creating something for you. So of course, if you're making a pair of shorts, you're paying for less fabric, and so it's going to be cheaper than if you're paying for an entire long gown, because that's just more fabric. We also got to take tours of the different fabric factories, and it's just a major inside look. It was such a Silver lining but added bonus to being in Jaipur that we really weren't expecting and it's funny I go on these trips and I think oh I'm so excited for Jaipur to see these pink, the pink city and see the pink colored buildings And then what I end up thinking about and talking about when I go back home is something that I never expected to see or experience there which was for me this This fabric experience. Okay, now moving on to the absolute best part of this entire trip. From Jaipur, we drove another three hours to a place called Ranthambore. This is a national park, and it's one of the only places in the entire world where you can see Bengal tigers. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, because Ranthambore, this national park, it's, it's actually, It was built all around a fort, so it was an old hunting ground, and there are ten different zones for tourism that you can go explore. And so when you go out in your jeep for the day, and And you're going around trying to look for different animals, you'll be in one zone or another zone. And this helps to protect the animals and the wildlife. And if there's a bunch of tigers in Zone 4, but you've started the day in Zone 6, you'll stay in Zone 6. So it kind of protects the tigers and the other animals and the wildlife too. And makes sure that there aren't too many people all around the same animals at once. But I will get into all of that in a little bit, and first I want to start off with the accommodation. We stayed at a place called Sher Bog and I cannot recommend this place highly enough. This is a luxurious tented campsite, but it's hard to even call it a campsite because it's just a luxurious property and you stay in these gorgeous, technically they're tents, but they're just beautiful villas. Some of the villas are larger than others and some of them are farther away from the base and the center of the hotel than others. And so if you can splurge a little and stay in the bigger ones or the ones a little bit farther away, I highly recommend it because you're more likely to see more wildlife. Now they have had some tigers actually show up. Actually at Sherbog and they've had many different leopards show up there, especially at night, and they have some very cool photos of the entrance to the hotel or around the pool area, or actually even right next to the spa. They have cameras set up all over the property and they've captured images of the leopards and the tigers walking through. Minding their own business, but just coming right through. They've never had any issues with any guests or things like that, but Sherbog is one of the closest accommodations to the National Park, and so You're bound to get some wildlife flowing over because the wildlife, while they do stay in the National Park, they're completely wild and they can go absolutely anywhere they want. They aren't restricted in any way, shape, or form. And similarly, the tigers and all the wildlife, they're not tracked. So they don't have trackers on them. There's no way for even... You know the Jeep drivers and the workers in the National Park to keep track of these animals They want to keep them wild and let them run free and do their thing What I love about Sherbog is that it is all inclusive So the price that you pay for your nightly fee that includes everything from your meals to the private guided tours that take you into the National Park it includes I mean, I said meals, but all of your dinners, of which they do some incredible things I want to talk about. The only thing it doesn't include is the price of alcohol, but it's very cheap, I will say. Compared to, definitely compared to New York City, but compared to most other places, too. We did two different dinners that were absolutely amazing. Um, we did a campfire dinner, so we came back from our tours going through the National Park Animal Tracking and everyone sat in little fold up canvas chairs and had a small table in front of them with a very cute campfire lantern on it. And the lanterns of course lit up, um, with just a live flame. And you sat around this big campfire, we had about 15 of us like I said. And it was just our group. It was very private. And we got there and had some drinks as the sun was going down. And then as it got a little bit darker, they started to light up candles. And so you had the campfire, but then all sorts of candles that were covered. And it just lit up the entire outdoor venue that we were having dinner. And... Everyone went up, it was buffet style, and you went and grabbed this huge tray of all sorts of different Indian, traditional Indian cuisines. So different curries and breads and dips and sauces. It was so varied. There were so many different things that you could try and it's just one or two bites of each thing because there are so many things that they wanted you to try. And then we sat around the campfire and we had some nice dessert. Of course it was a three course meal. And we sat around and told stories. And we had dirty martinis. It was one of the best nights of this entire year. Similarly, they do bush dinners where you're even further out into the wild and they make sure that you're very safe. They're doing it in an area where there aren't going to be tigers or leopards or deer walking around, but they do these bush dinners as well. And they make sure it's at the right time and these are experts and so it's done really well. Another dinner that we had was out by the pool one night. They organized a very long table and we were surrounded by campfires. It felt very similar to Survivor in a way. And the service was incredible. We just had dinner and people were standing up and giving different toasts. It was such an incredible experience. Now Scherbog has all these facilities. They have a gorgeous infinity pool that flows right into the lush bush of Rothenburg. They also have a spa where you can have massages and facials. A lot of my friends decided to opt for that. And they have a sauna, which my favorite thing in the entire world is going in a sauna. I did that about twice a day. As well as a steam room. You can have a manicure, a pedicure, all sorts of different things. And one final thing that I really thought was an over the top touch that was so unique and something that I always think about wanting to do or bring on vacation, but never end up being able to, or just always forget, in each of the tents, hotel room, villas, whatever you want to call it, they had art supplies. So they had beautiful watercolor paper, all sorts of watercolor paints, and different chalks and things that you could use, as well as an easel. And so we set up by the pool one day, and we set up on the front of our villa another day, and just painted in the afternoon. When the sun was beating down and it was just too hot to be out in the national park. And so I want to talk about this part now, the daily routine of what you can expect at Ronthambore. So every night before you go to bed, the next day kind of begins. So as you're going to bed and before you head back, the staff at Sherbog, they'll ask you if you want coffee or tea in the Do you want a drip coffee? A cappuccino? Do you want an espresso? Because they come around and actually wake you up and slowly turn on the lights and knock on your, on the door of your tent to make sure no one misses the morning jeep safari. Because you go out there before sunrise and it's cold. It's very, very cold no matter when you go. So it's kind of a cool start to the day. But they wake you up with these coffees and set you on your way. And The night before they also ask you what kind of snack you want in your jeep, because when you set out in the morning, you go out for about four or five, maybe six hours, depending on how it's going. You know, if you're not seeing much and you're a little bit exhausted, you could head back after four hours, but if you're having a great showing that morning and you're seeing lots of wildlife or there's some great leads and the lead might be just, they call it a pug mark, but it's a paw print. Then you'll stay out there a little bit longer. And so they ask you what kind of snack you'll want. And then, you know, some more coffee or tea as well. And when you're in the National Park, you're riding around in what they call gypsies. So there are these open air jeep safari cruisers. It's such a fun way to go explore around. I found this really interesting, but the animals actually don't even notice. The gypsies or the jeep safaris. They don't even really see them So we had spotted a tiger and the tiger there are two or three gypsies All around and the tiger didn't even acknowledge that we were there The tiger was so focused on the elk that it was hunting and it didn't even look at us and didn't even notice us there so as long as you stay in your jeep safari your gypsy, you're going to be safe and You're able to view these tigers very close up, not that you're trying to get close to them, but you can be close up and they won't bother you or even look at you. You have your morning safari for four to six hours, and then you go back and you'll rest, maybe nap in case you're a little bit exhausted, because it is a lot despite the fact that you're just sitting in this Jeep safari. It's so much adrenaline and you are holding on tight. Sometimes you're racing around extremely fast in these gypsies. because you have a lead and you're trying to chase some tigers and go find them. And so sometimes you'll nap, sometimes you'll go to the spa, get a massage. Like I said, you'll use the art supplies and then you go out for an afternoon safari after the sun has moved from overhead and so you're not boiling because it's kind of desert like where it gets extremely cold in the morning but then in the afternoon it can be extremely hot. So I recommend layers as well. And then when you come back, you'll freshen up and maybe take a shower. You know, it's very dusty out there in the national park. So you come back and shower, maybe again, hit the spa, jump in the infinity pool, and then you'll have a dinner set up for you, whether it's around the fire pit, in the bush, in one of their gorgeous restaurants. And then something that's really interesting. I thought this was so sweet is at night. Before you walk anywhere around the property, you need to have a guide. So one of the resort staff will come to get you. No matter where you are, if you want to walk back to your tent and just grab your camera because you forgot it, or you want to go grab a scarf, or if you're walking home from the bar on property at night, they will walk you with a flashlight to make sure you are safe. Because, like I said, you can have some leopards and some wildlife on property. Okay, now the tiger spotting. There are going to be between 60 to 70 tigers. They all have names. And the first time that we spotted one of these tigers, it was incredible. Okay, let me tell you about this. I posted about this spotting on TikTok, but we had been out the first morning, our first game drive, and we didn't see anything. And so we were a little bit disheartened. We were going to go back home, have some lunch, breakfast, freshen up, and then go back out. And as we were leaving the park, we were almost exited, and I'm looking to my left, and I saw, moving in the distance, this large, brightly orange and yellow, thing. And I screamed. And we were in our gypsy. We had four of us, four of our friends, so me plus three of my friends, as well as the driver, as well as a person who's an expert on spotting these animals. But for some reason, I had been the one to spot this tiger. I was looking and looking and looking, and I saw it moving, and I just screamed. I was like, what was that? And... The gypsy just came to a fast halt, and thank goodness it wasn't the girl who cried wolf. And everyone looked, and about 15, 20 feet maybe away from us, this beautiful tiger was moving so slowly and elegantly, and the muscles in her back were just flowing in the most powerful, rhythmic way, and before we knew it, it was only about... Maybe 15 seconds that we saw her and she disappeared over kind of a hill into another part of the forest and we all just had chills. It was like a major dopamine rush. It was so exciting. And so, like I said, we had 15 of our friends there on the safari, and so our cart was the first cart to see this tiger, and the other cart of our friends, 5 of our friends, showed up right behind us. And so if we saw the tiger for 15 seconds, they probably saw the tiger for maybe 8 seconds. They were right behind us. And then our other 2 friends, our 2 carts of friends, the other 2 gypsies, um, they actually missed the tiger altogether. Luckily they had some incredible tiger spotting experiences that we didn't have later on in the next few days but this was so cool to be the first one to spot it and it just felt like such a magical little treat and a gift despite the fact that we were there doing that all morning for six hours looking for these tigers. The second spot was incredible. So we found this tiger who was hunting a deer and the deer was in the water, had no idea that this tiger had been waiting there. And so we, we stuck around for maybe two and a half to three hours and just watched this tiger. And it would move maybe one inch maximum every ten minutes. So it was moving so, so, so slowly. And... You'd think it would get boring, but everyone's trading off with the binoculars, and... When we first saw the tiger, we were about... 50 feet away from it. And then over time, we slowly were able to inch closer and closer and closer. And the tiger was completely unbothered by us. Didn't even notice or care that we were there. And at one point towards the very end, we were getting a little bit tired of waiting because nothing had happened in so long. It's literally like watching paint dry, almost more exciting than that, but still, it's kind of remotely similar. The tiger all of a sudden decided it was ready to make its move and go in for the kill to get this deer and I Cannot even begin to explain to you how fast this thing moved in a second. It just began to dart Almost out of nowhere we knew it was going to get ready because it was starting to get up and get closer and get closer and it just darted straight down this massive hill and And the deer was in the water surrounded by other deer, but this was the biggest kind of seemed like the most dumb deer because other deer noticed that the tiger was there and the other deer kind of started to migrate and move away. This one deer was just chomping away, eating all the seaweed and grass and whatever, whatever else. And the tiger ran straight into the water, running through water that was maybe a foot and a half too deep. Two feet deep, and the tiger was completely unbothered by the water, still moving just as quickly, and it nearly got the deer, but somehow the deer was able to get away, and I'm glad we didn't see a kill, it would have been cool to see a kill, but I think it would have been pretty intense to notice It's a beautiful big creature right in front of us, this massive deer get killed. So in our situation, we did not see a kill happen, but other people in the group and in our gypsy had seen a great kill happen in Africa before where they were tracking this one animal and it made a, made a crazy kill. So that was our experience. Those were our two viewings and these were the only two times that we actually saw tigers on the entire safari. But there is a group before us staying at Sher Bog that we had spoken with the night that we arrived. It was a family of six and they had two of their significant others there too, so it was eight of them. And they had two different carts going out on these game drives. They went out on four days, which was a total of eight drives because you do two drives every day. And they didn't spot a single tiger, which is a possibility. It's unlikely that that does happen, but they don't want to oversell. You on the fact that you're going to see a tiger because they're wild and you're going into this massive zone where they could be absolutely anywhere. They're very difficult to spot. They move quickly. They move quietly and you might not see something. So our group was so grateful to be able to see something, especially on our first drive. When I spotted that first one, it was amazing. We were blown away and the dopamine just doesn't leave you for a while. Now to that point, if you aren't able to see tigers, there are of course other things that you can see. Hard to find, but you can see leopards and often times these will be sitting up in the treetops in the branches. And so you're kind of looking at the ground for tigers and other animals while also simultaneously trying to look up into the trees. There's some great bird watching. There are 300. Very different species of birds that you can find in Western India, so if you're big into that, go for it. I was not big into birdwatching, but then you go and you're a part of it, and you're just bound to get much more into it. I also, a few months later, I went to Ecuador, and I was in the Amazon, and I'm telling you, I never thought I'd be into birdwatching, but you go to these places, and you just can't help yourself but to be. They're a bunch of different deer. This you are 100 percent going to see. I will absolutely guarantee you. You'll see somber deer and spotted deer. And they move in big packs, about 30 of them. And so you'll see some of the older deer. But then a lot of little babies. We saw a baby deer that was only 2 days old. And we know this because our guides, of course, are experts. And it's so cool. It's so cute to see. There are sloth bears. Those are difficult to see, but not too difficult. As well as wild boar, crocodile, and hyenas. And one of the coolest things is, there are all these different watering holes out there in the National Park and just in wildlife. And it's kind of common courtesy and practice around these watering holes for the animals to not hunt each other and to be respectful of one another around the watering hole. So despite that these things are fully wild animals, they do respect the fact that they all need to drink water. And so a hyena might be able to drink right next to a bird or a crocodile, and they're not going to attack each other, or maybe next to a deer. And while this doesn't hold true 100 percent of the time, sometimes it does, and it's kind of unique. Pretty cool thing that maybe you see in The Lion King and don't think is real, but apparently it is. Okay, now before I wrap up, I want to answer two questions that I've gotten on social media. I got one of them via email and the other via social media just to answer some of the questions that are coming in and I want to do this at the end of episodes going forward. So number one, this girl reached out to me and she was explaining that there are so many destinations for studying abroad and she was finding it hard to pick the perfect place. She was asking if I have any insights on what she should consider because a lot of her friends are going to Australia, but she kind of wanted to go on her own and go to Copenhagen. Well, not that she wanted to go on her own, but she would be going on her own. And I think this is a hard question to answer. Um, but you have to think about what you want to do as well as, What's going to make your experience the best it can possibly be, and then also take into consideration costs. So, in my opinion, and if this is me, what I would do is I personally would go to Copenhagen because Copenhagen is going to be much more well connected to the rest of Europe. And I loved studying abroad in Prague because I had access to all these other countries. Now, if you're in Copenhagen, you can easily get on a cheap Ryanair flight, you can get on a train, and you can visit so many other countries. If that's what you want to do, and if that's kind of where your mindset is at. But at the same time, Copenhagen is one of the most expensive countries in Europe to visit. Simple things like meals and coffee and pastries. Those are very expensive in Copenhagen. Whereas if you studied abroad in Prague, which is where I studied, it's not as cute as Copenhagen, that's for sure, but it's very inexpensive and it's similarly well connected. Now, I wouldn't go to Australia just to follow where your friends are going. You should follow what you want to do and be where you want to be. Think about your goals for studying abroad. Do you want to learn a new language? Is it going to help if you go to Copenhagen? Are you interested in studying business or going into business? Try to think more long term and see if there's something that you can position yourself well to do. Now, I actually have not been to Australia and I'm hoping to go next spring with my best friend. She will be studying abroad there. Through her business school, and so maybe once I visit Australia everything will change so stay tuned Now, the second question that I've had is this guy, he has always wanted to go to the South of France. It's always been on his radar and he has a friend's group trip going to London. He's a solo traveler in his thirties. He's 34 and he wants to explore the best spots looking for suggestions for the South of France. My suggestion, and if I had to give you one thing to do in the south of France, it's to go to this incredible town called Cassis. Now, Cassis is... It's amazing, it's a fisherman's village town, it's very cheap, it's very authentically French, it's tiny, and it's built on a national park so you're right on the water, you're right around hiking trails, it is truly beautiful, it's out of this world. Go there, and then what I would also do is I would rent a car, I did this completely on my own by myself when I went to the south of France, and go explore. So maybe have one jumping off point or two jumping off points. Maybe you start on the west side of the south of France, and you have one Airbnb, or one hostel, or one villa, and you explore around there with your rental car, and then you can go get another Airbnb, villa, whatever it is, down on the eastern side of the south of France. Maybe you're staying in Nice, or if you have some money you want to spend, go to Monaco, and keep the rental car and explore that way. It's so fun to drive these streets and there's so much to see and it's nice if you have your own transportation because you can get to some more of the remote, far off, obscure locations, which is what I absolutely loved doing when I was on my own, just exploring and finding the hidden beaches where no one else was. It was incredible. But that will be a story for another time. So if you never go, you will never know. Thank you for listening and thank you for hanging out. I really appreciate all of you who do come listen. And if you enjoyed this, please subscribe to the Short Sleeve Travel Podcast. I have new episodes coming out every week and occasionally, like this week, two episodes per week. You can follow me on any platform, whether it's Instagram, all at K A T Short Sleeve. So that's Kat Short Sleeve, if you want to see what I'm up to. You can also email me. At Kat Schwartzlieb at gmail. com. I can't wait for the next episode. I'm thinking I'm going to dive into some of my time when I lived in Colorado and moved out West. Cannot wait. Thank you. Cheers.