Global Travel Planning

Stamped: Amanda Kendle – How Thoughtful Travel Shapes a Life of Meaningful Adventures

• Tracy Collins • Episode 63

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In this very first episode of the Stamped series on the Global Travel Planning Podcast, host Tracy Collins welcomes Amanda Kendle, creator of the Thoughtful Travel Podcast. Together, they dive into Amanda’s personal travel stories, exploring the sparks that set her on a lifelong journey of exploration, her most memorable destinations, and the transformative impact of travel.

Amanda reminisces about early adventures, from a childhood road trip around Europe to epic journeys like crossing Russia on the Trans-Siberian railway. She shares practical insights on navigating off-the-beaten-path destinations, the joy of long-distance train travel, and her deep connections with places like Japan and Iceland. 

Listeners get a candid look at travel from the perspective of someone passionate yet relatable, with highlights on family trips, cultural immersion, and the magic that happens when plans are left flexible.

⭐️ Guest - Amanda Kendle of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast
📝  Show Notes - Episode  63

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Speaker 1:

10 questions, endless stories. Welcome to the very first episode of Stamped, a brand new series on the Global Travel Planning Podcast. In this episode, amanda Kendall, host of the Thoughtful Travel Podcast, is first in the hot seat, sharing the moments, places and people that have defined her travels. Hi and welcome to the Global Travel Planning Podcast. I'm your host, tracy Collins, who, with my expert guests, will take you on a weekly journey to destinations around the globe, providing travel inspiration, itinerary ideas, practical tips and more to help you plan your next travel adventure. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Global Travel Planner Podcast.

Speaker 1:

This week I'm very excited to have my friend, amanda Kendall from the Thoughtful Travel Podcast, on to share her experiences and places that she's visited across the world in this new segment. So it was inspired. So I'm going to shout out um Holly Rubenstein from the travel diaries, who I absolutely love. I love those episodes and I love listening to them, but I kind of thought, you know what? We've all got some great stories to share and we don't all have to be mega famous tv stars or writers or like up there. That everybody has to. Kind of you know. I've listened to lots of the episodes. I thought, wow, they're fantastic, but let's just have some ordinary people like me and you, on Amanda, share our stories.

Speaker 2:

I'm thrilled to be an ordinary person. Thank you, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah well, you know you're more than ordinary, but you know what I mean.

Speaker 2:

I know exactly what you mean.

Speaker 1:

So, as you were the first guest on the Global Travel Podcast all those yonks ago, episode one, and we're now on episode 63, can you believe it? So you're back. This is the first time you've been back, so you are the first one to do this segment. So we have 10 questions. We'll see how it goes, but first of all, just introduce yourself, amanda. Go, go for it. Tell us everybody who you are, what you do and about your fantastic podcast.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you, Tracey, and thanks for having me back. I'm Amanda Kendall. I'm an ordinary person and I happen to love travel, and I have run the Thoughtful Travel podcast for about nine years now and getting very, very close perilously close to a million downloads. So I'm enjoying seeing Tracey laugh here.

Speaker 1:

I should say you're an extraordinary person, not an ordinary person For the rest of my life. Now I'm going to be aware of the fact I just called Amanda Kendall an ordinary person For the rest of my life. Now I'm going to be aware of the fact I just called Amanda Kendall an ordinary person.

Speaker 2:

I am very. No, I'm maybe not a normal person, but I'm a very. I'm not famous. So there, yes, and I'm just want to tell you all about my travel. So that's. I don't know how I can condense it into these 10 questions, but I'm going to try.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, thanks for having me. And what we don't cover, people can anyway pop over and listen to your podcast, because you have one of the best and top podcasts, not only in Australia but in the world, about travel so anyway let's, let's go on to these questions. So, like first one, who lit the spark for you? Who was the person or place, or book, or moment, at what point did you kind of go, wow, travel?

Speaker 2:

There were a few sparks but if I kind of narrow them down, definitely my parents were kind of key sparks for two reasons. One, both of them had kind of for their generation and their circumstances, done a bit of travel. So my dad had worked for the bank in Papua New Guinea for a couple of years in the 50s. So as I was growing up in the 70s and 80s he would talk to me about Papua New Guinea and then so it seemed like a you know, kind of really different to Australia and interesting, so that I had that kind of idea. And my mum, she'd grown up in a little tiny country town and her whole desire was to get out of the country town. That's what she lived for.

Speaker 2:

And in her mid to late teens, mid teens, she took a I guess now we would call it a working holiday from Western Australia. She went over on the boat to the east coast of Australia and worked like she worked for the Ford Motor Company for a few months and then she went a bit further and worked somewhere else. So she used to tell me stories of that. So that was their backgrounds, was their backgrounds. And then when I was nine, so 40 years ago this year I've been celebrating it. They took me and my sister to Europe for a six month trip, so my dad had long service leave from the bank and they, kind of, you know, scrimped together all their savings because they thought this was a really important thing. Turned out they were right and we had a motor home and travelled around Western Europe and the UK for six months, which was completely life-changing and completely ensured that I would always need to travel.

Speaker 1:

And, of course, you've been sharing that recently on the podcast as well and on photos. I loved some of the photos you've been sharing on the Facebook group.

Speaker 2:

Can you guess where this is.

Speaker 1:

You're going closer and closer because there's a few guesses and it turned out to be a caravan park near Paris.

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's right which you couldn't tell unless you had been there. I know I like to be a bit tricky.

Speaker 1:

But so much fun and it's lovely that you know you can trace it back. Same with myself. You go back to those childhood years and there's, you know, parents or grandparents, there's somebody there that's going to have kind of lit that spark in that lifelong love for travel. So, the first country that you ever visited. Can you remember?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so I was nine Actually I was eight, I was turned nine during our few days there. So that was the beginning of this big trip. And it was Hong Kong. So this was 1985 and we flew to Europe via Hong Kong and we stopped for like three nights, four nights in there. So that was the very first time I had been out of Western Australia and I guess what stood out, a few things stood out.

Speaker 2:

I don't really remember doing much sort of sight seeing, but what I remember is things like there were these huge apartment buildings everywhere, because back then Perth had, I think, probably zero apartment buildings and we just had all these, you know, houses on big empty blocks. You know, going as far as the suburbs could go, so seeing apartments and people had their washing hung out like from their windows and stuff, that was just like such a new thing to me. So, uh, and different coins you know they had a coin with a hole in the middle and all of those just little things that I suppose as a eight or nine year old that's, you know, that's what, what interrupts your norm, and so, yeah, that's what I remember the most.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's because up to that point, everything in your life is the norm. So then you go somewhere else that is so different. It's like, well, you mean, they don't have what I. It's different to what I'm used to at home.

Speaker 2:

It's not the same Exactly and there was no internet or anything, and so anything else I'd been exposed to was, you know, a bit of TV and so, which was basically, like you know, a bit of American sitcoms and a lot of British comedies, and that's about all I knew about the world by then, and have you been back to Hong Kong since?

Speaker 2:

Yes, finally, last year I finally got back to Hong Kong. I'd been trying to get back there for years, so I took my son back to Hong Kong because now I have very good friends who had just moved there to live. So it was so much fun to go back. It was completely different to how I remembered it, but I still loved it. So, yeah, now that we've got friends living there, I'd like to keep going back.

Speaker 1:

That's exciting. Now question three is what was your first real adventure? What was the first trip that you went on and went? Oh okay, this is different, this is exciting, this is unforgettable.

Speaker 2:

This was easy. So I did a fair bit of travelling before this, but this was the kind of thing I'd really wanted to do for ages, and it was taking the Trans-Siberian train across Russia. So, you know, I had read Paul Theroux's Riding the Iron Rooster and loved it and thought, oh, I want to sit on a train like that, I want to see you know the people. And, uh, and I had this opportunity. I'd been working in Japan and then had a new job in well, at the time it was supposed to be in Prague, so we had to get to Eastern Europe somehow, and so what better way than taking the Trans-Siberian across Russia?

Speaker 2:

This was 2003. So it was like nice and safe to be in Russia, it was a good moment in history and it was like that. That for me, like I'm not a physical adventurous, physically adventurous person, I'm not going to skydive or anything like that but to have this, um, like, in the end, I think, three weeks, uh, taking the train across Russia. We'd, you know, go for a couple of days on the train and then stop somewhere for a few days and then keep going, and it was uh, I have no words because it was one of the best experiences of my life.

Speaker 1:

I can just imagine it was something that we wanted to do so much and obviously not possible now. It's one of those things that when you get the chance to kind of reach out and do it, and it began a bit of a lifelong love for travel by train as well, because you love train travel, don't you?

Speaker 2:

100%, and that was the first time I'd done any significant train travel. Oh, that's not true. Actually, before the year before that, I'd been in Vietnam and we'd taken the, the poorly named reunification express. There was nothing express about that train, but um, so we'd done a few overnight trips in Vietnam as well. Uh, but that, yeah, that Russian one, absolutely Like it. Just, I just love long distance train travel where you can just sit. Um, you're really immersed and I love sleeping on a train. It like rocks me like a baby. I love it.

Speaker 1:

And what about? Did you meet some interesting people along the way as well?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so, um, I don't know if it was the timing or also, we went, perhaps going from east to west. There seemed to be less tourists or whatever, but basically we were always the only non-Russians on the train and so we'd be in a cabin of four beds. I was with me and my boyfriend, and so we'd usually have two others in there with us and, yeah, some of them were the type that would get in, they would pull out their vodka, they would drink and they would go to sleep and they would not speak. So there was people like that and on one stage we had there was a bunch of families in our car. There was no restaurant car, so we would all just be like sharing food and stuff.

Speaker 2:

But there was a bunch of families who had been to the coast, like to the far east coast, for their annual summer holiday. They were quite wealthy Moscow families, doctors and lawyers and stuff, and so they would travel like a full week on the train with these little kids and then spend their two weeks at the seaside and then a week back and it was like this is crazy, but their kids there was a bunch of them maybe kind of six to ten years old who loved us and they would try and come and practice their English sentences on us and we'd play, you know, chess and cards and stuff for them.

Speaker 1:

It's just absolute awesome fun oh, it sounds like it's one of those things, isn't it we're talking? We just talked about the fact that when you first go somewhere, it's the differences that you see, but after it, then it's actually not. What you realize is that we're all the same, so we're all the same.

Speaker 1:

We all enjoy the same things. Kids want to want to play the games, they want to interact, they want to chat. You know, it's all that kind of humanity stuff that you just get exposed to when you travel and you realize actually you don't do anything at all. We're all exactly the same, we all want the same things, we all have the same hopes and dreams, and so, yeah, I bet that was an amazing experience. And you say it took is it three weeks, that trip?

Speaker 2:

well, so if you go non-stop it's a week, but we get, we got off a lot of times but, what I would really love to do. I've dreamt of doing it now, you know, who knows if I'll ever be able to, but I would actually love to go back and do just the full week without getting off, and just have that like week of I don't know, just that.

Speaker 1:

It's like a retreat, almost so yeah, Well, isn't it if you could leave your social media, like your phone and stuff, behind? It really would be, wouldn't it? You could? Really, really just chill out and immerse yourself with that kind of train experience and the journey which would be which would be amazing. And that's always the thing about train travel, isn't it? It's as much about the journey as a destination.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so next question. I feel like I'm interrogating you, so oh.

Speaker 2:

I love it. It's nice to be answering instead of asking for one.

Speaker 1:

So so a wow moment. Can you describe one place or experience that completely blew you away and what made it so special?

Speaker 2:

I mean it's very hard to narrow down. So I've managed to narrow it down just to a country sorry, but that was hard but Iceland. So I had very long wanted to go to Iceland. I had, like in the early 2000s, I had students in Europe who'd been to Iceland. That was when I first sort of had it on the radar as a place where I could go, and finally got there in 2015, I think. So it was kind of not super popular. As you know, it became a lot more popular since that time. Um, so I didn't kind of know heaps about it, but like just the, the landscape of it, the, the, the massive scale of I don't know, of nothingness and of, or like of the enormous waterfall or of the glaciers or I don't know, it's just, you know, seemed like such a remote and different and crazy place. So, um, uh, yeah, I still loved it. Yeah, I still want to go back again.

Speaker 1:

And and. So what did you do when you went to visit to Iceland? Did you? Did you stay in Reykjavik? Did you travel around the island?

Speaker 2:

So a lot of people do the ring road route all the way around.

Speaker 2:

But I had my son with me, who was five at the time, and the amount of time we had it would have been a lot of driving to do the whole ring road. So we went along the south coast to where the biggest glacier lagoons and stuff are Jökulsalón, I think it is, uh and then back to Reykjavik and up a little bit on the west coast as well to some very beautiful parts, and then spent a couple of days in Reykjavik as well. So I think we had, um, must've been like 11, 12 days or so there, I think, in the end. So, um, yeah, I didn't want to race around, so I've missed some parts. I've missed the Far East and the Far North, so I have to go back.

Speaker 1:

I was just about to say. It just means that you have to go back. Iceland has eluded me so far.

Speaker 2:

You have to go, tracy. We went in the middle of summer, so it was 24 hours of daylight and it was super weird, but kind of cool. Hard to get a five-year-old to sleep, though. Well, I weird.

Speaker 1:

But uh, kind of cool. Hard to get a five-year-old to sleep, though. Oh well, I can imagine, if it's daylight, that entire time it'd be really difficult, it's a considering. I lived not too far away in the uk and I never made it over there and of course, I guess in the last what, maybe five or six years, it's become so super popular uh, and it's quite expensive it's quite I think let's read quite very, very expensive.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, I did, I did look. I did look. When I was in scotland this year I thought I could fly over and I was like, no, I think I'll have to leave that to another trip now. Well, so you mentioned you want to go back to iceland? Um, but is there a particular destination and you can have a whole country if you want? Amanda, I'll give you that. That you that you consider like a home from home that you just return to over and over again, or you would love to just keep going back to.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you would not be surprised if I say Japan. So, yes, it is like my home from home. So I lived there for two years, 20 years ago, and I've been back five or six times since and there's lots of reasons that I love it. So the people are fascinating and lovely and kind. Uh, the food is my favorite kind of food, like you know, if you always are. If you asked if you only had to have one kind of cuisine for the rest of your life, what would it be? That would be Japanese for me, a hundred percent. Uh, it's also such a varied country Like each time've gone back, I've, you know, been to a different part. It's, it's like, it's almost, like you know, 50 countries in one. There's so many different things to experience, different kinds of history, different kinds of like. It's so long and skinny. The landscape changes completely, like from, you know, snowy Hokkaido down to tropical Okinawa. So there's just, yeah, I feel a longing to return many more times. Put it that way.

Speaker 1:

So I know that you said you spent some time living in Japan, so we'll talk about that as well, and I know you've done some walking in Japan, which are both kind of interesting things, so we need to cover those.

Speaker 2:

So how did you end up?

Speaker 1:

working and living in Japan.

Speaker 2:

Well, I started off the usual, well, fairly stereotypical, route of teaching English in Japan. So I had known a few people who'd done it already when it was less common or less popular and you could earn a lot of money doing it, and I kind of missed that wave of becoming super rich from it. But it was enough to save a bit to send home, which was nice, and that kind of then funded a bit more, a fair bit more travel. So I lived in Osaka for a couple of years teaching English. I had not taught before then and I discovered I love teaching and I've taught in various ways ever since. So that was a bonus. And obviously, living somewhere, you know you get to know it in a completely different way. You know every day my job was to talk to Japanese people in small groups.

Speaker 1:

you know every day my job was to talk to Japanese people in small groups. You know it was perfect. It's the best way, isn't it? It's the best way to immerse yourself in a culture and learn about it. Learn about how people actually live in that culture, in that community, by becoming a member of it.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely yeah. I lived in a little apartment. I had, you know, slept on a futon. I ate rice for breakfast, because I quickly learnt that if I tried to eat a Western breakfast I would go broke. So you know, it was just like two of the very, very, very best years of my life, easily. So yeah.

Speaker 1:

And you returned not long ago to do a walk. Is that right?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so that's actually nearly two years ago now. It not long ago to do a walk, is that right? Yes, so that's actually nearly two years ago now. It was with Walk Japan, um. So my friend Catherine and I got to go um to Northern Honshu, so like a few hours north of Tokyo, not as far as Hokkaido, but um the cooler climbs and fairly mountainous area, and our hike was following the trail that, um, the haiku poet, um Basho, had walked many years ago. But it was, yeah, it was just like.

Speaker 2:

So we were walking on our own, but Walk Japan organised everything for us and gave us amazing, like book of you know here, walk here, turn left here, see this sign, go right. But plus all of the little, like you know cultural information or historical things, it's just so cool and we stayed in. You know beautiful inns. You know cultural information or historical things. It's just so cool and we stayed in. You know beautiful inns. You know very traditional inns every night, amazing, amazing food and, yeah, and the scenery up there, like the mountains and stuff we were walking through, was absolutely, yeah, breathtakingly divine. So that was, yeah, one of my very favourite trips ever.

Speaker 1:

I know it sounds it and uh, have you got plans to go back to japan in the pipeline, or is it always just hovering there?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I don't have actual definite plans, but whatever happens, I will get back there, I am sure.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, okay, there's always places in there that just that's just tug at you, that you just fall in love with and you just go. This is, this is a place that I know for the rest of all I will be wanting to go back to or experience. So what about places that are under the radar? So, have you been somewhere that is a lesser known place? Um, and obviously at the moment we're trying to kind of uh, trying to promote a bit of the lesser known places, because there's so much over tourism and and so many popular places around the world that everybody wants to go to, wants to kind of tick off on their bucket list or whatever they've got on their agenda of what they want to do. But what about some of the lesser known places that you've been to and you think, oh, why don't people not go and visit this place?

Speaker 2:

Well, I have a real yearning to go back to the Baltic states. So Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and obviously, like the capitals have become, you know, there's a bit more, or fair bit more, tourism there and, as I understand it, there's still a lot of, you know, like bucks, weekends and stuff like that. But outside of the capitals, uh, I spent, spent I don't know how long, maybe six or eight weeks, backpacking through those three countries a while back and I just found them so fascinating and so individually different but as a whole kind of a really interesting block and yeah, like cause, you know, there's the kind of the ex-Soviet kind of impact. You know, when I was a kid, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were not on a map and when I was, you know, first going there to travel, I had to kind of keep practicing my head to try and remember Estonia, top Latvia, then Lithuania. So you know they're in alphabetical order. Okay, got to remember this.

Speaker 1:

That's a cool tip. I'm remembering that one.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I just, you know, I just found them such fascinating countries and I'm still surprised that. I mean, I'm still surprised in general that not as many people as I expect go to Eastern Europe as a whole. So that's by far my favourite part of Europe, but I still see most people are going back to just France, italy, spain, you know, portugal, maybe Germany and sometimes Scandinavia. But yeah, I just still don't see many people going to Eastern Europe and like it's so brilliant. So I mean, I almost don't want to tell people, though, to go.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a bit true, because I think of places like Croatia, which have now become incredibly popular. I think Bosnia has become popular, albania now, so countries that were perhaps 10 years ago lesser visited or lesser known are starting to creep up, and certainly, I know Croatia has now become like a hot destination, slovenia as well. I think Prague, for example, has become a problem, with how many hen and buck weekends were taking place there, which I think they've banned now. Hopefully, yes.

Speaker 2:

I've lost track, but I know some cities have banned them, which makes a lot of sense to me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely the thing is. I think part of the problem in Europe is there's those cheap weekend breaks. Yes, exactly so once those cheaper flights go in, you can end up kind of where you've just got people going for a cheap weekend, cheap alcohol and then that's what it leads to.

Speaker 2:

It's very exploitative. I don't like it. No, I know it isn't good.

Speaker 1:

And there are so many other places to go that you can avoid that and most people actually want to avoid that that I speak to they're like how can we get to some of these other places? And you know, by train as well. That's what I'm saying. Yes, exactly, Some great train trips in Europe that you can. Yes.

Speaker 2:

Fly into anywhere and you could get anywhere. It's not, yeah, it's all very reachable, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Now I know we've talked about the fact that, well, both you and I have both lived and worked in numerous countries throughout the world, and that makes a difference and it does make you feel like a local and probably going to be more than one destination that you're going to cover in this but is there somewhere that you've been where you felt more like a local than a tourist? And I use the phrase tourist because I know it's a, it's a controversial one, but I always say, well, if we're traveling somewhere, generally we're there as a tourist. So, yeah, yeah, where have you been that you kind of went?

Speaker 2:

actually, I feel like I'm more immersed and and have that more local experience yeah, I found I find this tricky to answer, because I feel like it's very clear to me that it's the places where I have actually lived.

Speaker 2:

But if I think about that, then where I felt more local is always where I can speak the language. Um, so, german, I lived in Germany for a few years, um, but it's not just Germany where I feel more that I can fit in, it's anywhere where I can speak German, so in Austria or to some extent, german speaking Switzerland, if they stop their crazy Swiss German, because I find that impossible to understand. But I think that like, yeah, being able to speak a little bit more of the language is useful. And when I'm in Japan although I can't speak Japanese like fluently by any means, especially like on that trip that we described the hiking trip we're in areas where there's no tourists and a lot of people didn't speak English and definitely, you know, feel able to fit in more because I could speak the language. So I think for me that's I also love learning languages, so for me that's kind of that real localizing kind of thing.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure you still have many destinations that you'd like to visit around the world. I know I have, and the more I read, the more I see, the more I listen to other people talk about places I go. I really would like to go there. So is there a particular destination that is calling your name, amanda?

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean, you're right, many, many. So I've barely seen any of the whole continent of Africa and I have not even been to South America at all. So those two, 100%. But the one that's really calling me, I suppose. At the moment I keep being drawn to going to China. So last year when I was in Hong Kong, I got to just have a night. We went over the border into Shenzhen, and so literally just a night's experience, but I'd already been kind of intrigued and that really really whet my appetite.

Speaker 2:

A friend of mine's in Shanghai at the moment. I've been following all her posts with such intrigue and I think I want to go to China because it's a really important part of the world and I think we have so many stereotypes about it and we don't. You know, I really want to, um, I really just want to know more. And also, I think you know there's lots of really interesting things to see, there's amazing landscapes, lots of reasons to go, but mostly because I just think you know it's an era where we probably should know more about China and I'd like to know that firsthand.

Speaker 1:

So and I and I think, I think you're you're so right with this, amanda, because I was talking to somebody the other day about China and it's the country that I feel like we know the least about, and I don't know why. I don't know. Why do we not know anything about China?

Speaker 1:

It, you know I was watching the uh, there's a program on the UK race around the world and they actually started by going through China and we were like I've not heard of that place. I don't know about this, I don't know about that.

Speaker 1:

And then it completely Doug and I sat watching. They did a lot by train. So he was like, well, we have to go, because look at all these fantastic trains they've got in China, but we just don't know enough about it. So I think that's what we need to do. We must, we must get there and then come back on the podcast and share it with everybody. And if you're listening and you've spent some time in China. Get in touch because I want to talk to you.

Speaker 2:

Come on the podcast and share, give us some tips.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, share where you've been and what you've done. Absolutely Okay. So you've done a lot of travel. As you say, you're 49. Are you 49 yet, or is it this year that you turned 49?

Speaker 2:

No, I'm 49 already. Ah, okay, I'm in denial so I have to check. No, I'm 49 already. I'll be 50 next year.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I passed that a while ago. The next one I've got is 60, so don't. Okay, well, I won't complain. Don't complain. Obviously, with a lot of travel under your belt and a lot of living around the world as well, a lot of experiences, what would be the one tip that you always share, the thing that you kind of say to people that you wish you'd known earlier or you've learned throughout your life about?

Speaker 2:

travel. Well, this is something that early on in my travels I did without thinking, and then, in the middle of my travel career, I did it badly and then I relearned it. So, and it is basically to not over plan and to leave lots of space for spontaneous experiences. So when I was a young traveler, I was a backpacker. I had weeks and weeks, but before I had to be, you know, in place X, you know, and you didn't need to book anything and we would just decide from day to day what we would do. And you know, we just had this vague goal. Like you know, we had to be in Bratislava by you know, I don't know whatever the August 10th to start work, and I had two months to get there, so, whatever. So not very little planning involved.

Speaker 2:

And then, of course, I had a child and, you know, travelled with, then a husband and stuff, and shorter trips, and I felt, especially with a child, I felt like I had to, you know, have things booked and know where we'd be, and so I would plan a lot more. And then, of course, I realized that I hated traveling that way, and also my, you know, my child became a good traveler and, you know, very flexible, and so you know, from those days on, I have tried always, whenever I go somewhere, I have some things planned and sadly, there is some more things we do need to book in advance. These days, you can't go to a you know, a major city and not if you really want to go to a particular museum or something. You often do need to book in advance or you actually will miss out. So things like that I always check now, what do I have to book?

Speaker 2:

Uh, but otherwise I like to have some ideas, or lots of ideas even, but no particular plans, and just, you know, take each day as it comes and see where we go, cause I think that leaving space often creates the gap for what become the best experiences of your trip. So that is my big thing I bang on about with anyone who will listen.

Speaker 1:

I know and it's, it's a really it's a great tip, honestly. I mean, we've just come back from nine months and we we made some of it up as we went along and we knew what day we need to be back in Australia. But apart from that, we just kind of went with the flow and, and you say, made sure we kind of booked some of the things we knew we definitely wanted to do, but generally actually this time we didn't do a lot of the kind of must-dos that people say that you know no, actually we'll just mosey on and down and see what we feel like doing when we get there. So it was a really good trip. But thanks so much, amanda, for coming on the podcast. It's always a joy to speak to you.

Speaker 2:

It really is. Thank you very much for having me. It's great fun to talk about all my favorite things.

Speaker 1:

Thanks again, amanda, for coming on to this week's episode of the podcast. It's always such a joy to chat with you. You can find links to Amanda's website and her podcast on the show notes for this episode at globaltravelplanningcom. Forward slash, episode 63. That just leaves me to say until next week, happy global travel planning. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Global Travel Planning Podcast. For more details and links to everything we discussed today, check out the show notes at globaltravelplanetcom. Remember, if you enjoyed the show, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast app, because your feedback helps us reach more travel enthusiasts, just like you. Anyway, that leaves me to say, as always, happy global travel planning.