Episode 51 - Beyond Vision: The Sensory Art of Travel Writing

What would it take to stop you from exploring the world? For Penny Zubula, even total blindness couldn't dampen her wanderlust. This remarkable travel writer navigates foreign countries with her photographer husband Simon and guide dog Splendid—proving that disabilities don't have to limit adventure.

Penny's journey from Jerusalem-born, Montreal-raised TV host to acclaimed travel writer showcases an extraordinary life dedicated to experiencing new cultures. Through her website "Six Legs Will Travel," she creates vivid, sensory-rich travel narratives that go far beyond visual descriptions, breaking barriers for travelers with disabilities while inspiring everyone to see the world differently.

The conversation reveals fascinating insights into traveling internationally with a service animal—from the relatively straightforward EU requirements to the more complex regulations of Japan and Israel. Penny and Simon share their strategies for selecting destinations, with special appreciation for Holland America cruises that accommodate service animals expertly. They've developed a unique approach to cultural immersion by volunteering at language schools across Europe, where they help locals practice English while gaining authentic experiences themselves.

When asked what advice she'd give hesitant travelers, Penny's wisdom rings clear: "If you waste those opportunities, the person you hurt most is yourself." Her adventures—rock climbing, hot air ballooning, and exploring remote destinations—demonstrate that limitations are often self-imposed rather than insurmountable barriers. What's your excuse for not exploring the world? Join us to discover how this inspiring trio is redefining what it means to truly experience travel through all senses.

Penny's Website: https://sixlegswilltravel.com/ and https://muckrack.com/penny_zibula

Simon's Photos: https://photos.myeclecticimages.com/ and https://myeclecticimages.com/

Penny's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sixlegswilltravel

Simon's Instagram: https://instagram.com/myeclecticimages

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2292506/supporters/new
http://jimsantos.net
https://www.instagram.com/jimsantosblog
https://www.youtube.com/@jimsantos508
jim@jimsantosbooks.com

"Wherever We May Roam: Finding Your Travel Style" - On Amazon

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:09

Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita. I'm your host, jim Santos, along with my wife, rita. And welcome to the second season of our podcast. In the first season we set in motion our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increase our retirement nest egg by selling our home and car and spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world. While we did manage to increase our net worth while we traveled, a bout of pancreatitis in Latvia caused us to return to the States for surgery and recovery and to rethink our plans in light of our ages and other factors. Enter Plan B. We now have a home base set up in eastern Tennessee and are ready to hit the road once again. Our plans are now to spend anywhere from six to nine months a year abroad, returning to the US to visit friends, family and to recharge. Join us now as the adventure continues on Travels with Jim and Rita.

Speaker 1 1:12

Hello everybody and welcome back to our podcast, travels with Jim and Rita. Thanks for the interest in our last episode where we started going over our recent 10-week trip to Europe. I'll try to have pictures from the UK portion of our trip up before we cover that in a future episode, but today we've got something special and we've been looking forward to it for quite a while now. You know, we meet a lot of people who tell us variations of the same thing Gee, I'd really like to travel, but followed by some obstacle. I don't like to fly, I don't want to learn a new language, I don't think I'd feel safe, and so on. There's always something standing in the way.

Speaker 1 1:44

Well, nothing is stopping Penny Zubula. She's a freelance travel writer based in Greenville, south Carolina. She's always had a passion for travel, writing and learning. Her background is in public relations and community outreach, with nine years as a local television talk show host and producer, as well as four years as a staff writer for a local newspaper. Oh, did I mention that she was born legally blind and is now totally blind? Well still, with her husband, a photographer and FAA-certified drone pilot, simon Locke, and her guide dog, splendid Penny travels the world, focused on creating content of interest to serious travelers, armchair travelers, boomer travelers and travelers with disabilities. Penny, simon, welcome to travels with jim and rita, and thanks for taking the time to speak with us today.

Speaker 1 2:30

Thank you thank you for having us on your podcast so, penny, uh, you were born in jerusalem, grew up in montreal, which is where you met simon, who's from the uk. Now that certainly seems like a combination that could lead to a lot of travel in your life.

Speaker 3 2:46

Well it has, because most of Simon's family is in England. I have some family in Israel and also in New York and we definitely wanted our kids to get to know their family a little bit. Not so much in Israel because that was a little bit too complicated when they were little, but we did take them to England. And so our eldest does have the travel bug, our youngest not so much he likes to travel, but our eldest, he's addicted, like we are, and so is his wife.

Speaker 1 3:30

We were just in the UK for a few weeks, Simon. What part of the country were you from?

Speaker 2 3:36

Basically, I'm a good southern boy, as they say. I was born in Kent, lived in Devon, lived in Sussex, lived in London. Okay, so yeah.

Speaker 1 3:48

We've watched a lot of British TV. There seems to be a lot of comments about Northerners.

Speaker 4 3:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2 3:54

Well, you know, the British North is like the US South. Okay, in general they're much more friendly up there and open. The southerners tend to be rather snooty at times, not so much in the West Country. They're very taciturn down there in my experience, but particularly around the London area they are rather like folks from sort of our northeast very blunt and not very friendly.

Speaker 3 4:32

Careful. I mean, there may be northeasterners listening, that's all right.

Speaker 4 4:40

That's an opinion, yeah.

Speaker 3 4:42

I mean, some of our best friends are New Yorkers.

Speaker 2 4:45

Yeah, that's true, but we've also had some not such great experiences up in the Northeast, although we've had the same problems in the South at times as well.

Speaker 1 4:56

Well, yeah, you've lived here in Knoxville and also Atlanta, so you spent some time in the US South as well. Now you're in South Carolina.

Speaker 2 5:03

Well, since we moved to the US, we've always lived in the South. We started in Tennessee, in Knoxville, as you've mentioned, Then we moved to Atlanta, then we moved to North Carolina and now we're in South Carolina.

Speaker 3 5:17

Well, the first winter where I didn't have to deal with snow for four or five months, I was hooked. I said I'll never move back there again.

Speaker 1 5:27

Penny, as someone with a visual disability, how did you end up in the broadcasting field?

Speaker 3 5:34

Actually, it was our first year in Knoxville and I was trying to find something to do to get a job or whatever to do to get a job or whatever. I um, we, we moved in the summer and one of my neighbors knew someone at channel 20. Is that still going?

Speaker 1 5:57

you know, we don't have a broadcast tv at all we got out of the habit of watching tv when we lived in ecuador yeah, so now we just stream some channels, so I don't know that's us too.

Speaker 4 6:07

Yeah, we read all of our news and it was.

Speaker 3 6:09

It was a local channel and and, um, my neighbor knew the the director, so I went and had a chat with her and see if there's something I could do there. And by by I think it was October I had my own show called Potpourri and I interviewed local folks about fun things they were doing or interesting things, or even controversial things. I remember getting into it with the police chief once about the crime in North Knoxville and what they weren't doing about it.

Speaker 4 6:45

Yeah, yeah, that could have been exciting, yeah.

Speaker 3 6:49

Yeah, I mean, I guess you don't want to tick off a cop, but basically he was. No, he was a very nice guy, but we just didn't see eye to eye on something, so is this around the time you also began writing?

Speaker 3 7:03

No, I wasn't writing at the time. We were family, so I did a lot of volunteer work, I did my TV show and then we moved to Atlanta. But my background living in Montreal was in public relations and so I picked that up public relations, community outreach in Atlanta and worked a couple of jobs there and it was interesting and it always involved writing and writing was something I hated to do Because this was before text to speech software on computers. This was before computers. Okay, Right right.

Speaker 3 7:44

So it was a pain in the neck. But once I got the software and got the computer and whatnot, I really started to write a lot more and people told me I was good at it. So fast forward a little bit and we're in New Bern Bern and we were looking at retirement. But even before then I started writing for a local newspaper and we were going to England for Simon's dad's memorial. He had passed away at the end of 2012. And now this was 2013.

Speaker 3 8:22

We decided we were done, we were going to retire, and the editor at the newspaper said why don't you write some stories about your trip to England? And then we went on to Israel to visit my family Simon had never been. So I started writing a few of those stories. And then we were looking at copywriting and we found Great Escape Publishing and I took a couple of courses in travel writing and decided that was my niche. And so I started writing more travel articles for the newspaper and I told my editor that he'd created Monster because I got tired of writing about the dirtbags in New Bern and the dirtbags in our community, and it was. I want to write about something fun. So that's how how that all got started. It was. It was sort of a progression that at the beginning of it we had no idea where it would end up. But we're very happy to be here.

Speaker 1 9:36

You know, simon uh seen some of your photos on Instagram and they're really pretty impressive. How did you get interested in photography?

Speaker 2 9:46

Well, I was reflecting on that when I was in, I guess, the second year of my university. Well, third year of my university I went to Canada for a year on a sabbatical and after the time I spent working at University of Montreal, I went across Canada, down the West Coast and into Mexico, guatemala, honduras, and during that time I was taking pictures on a single lens reflex. You know, obviously film, so I was doing color slides. That's where I started taking pictures and then basically I didn't take any after that, didn't do any photography really, until we started traveling. Penny said to me well, you know, if I'm going to be writing, you're going to have to take some pictures so and that, and that was really the trip to England and Israel. It really started it because I had a camera, but if you go back through sort of memory folders, we've got very few pictures of the kids. I just didn't do anything in that time.

Speaker 3 10:54

And they'll never let us forget it. I'll bet not.

Speaker 2 10:59

So, yeah, that's the sort of genesis. So Penny forced me into it and now I really enjoy it. In fact, I'm headed up to New York next week to a big sort of photography conference, if you want to call it, that B&H is putting on. I'm sure you're familiar with B&H, the photography store. They did something two years ago for their 50th anniversary that I went to, and they're doing another one this year called BILT, which is apparently Yiddish for image, and they have a bunch of international speakers and that sort of thing on different photography tracks. I'm looking forward to that next week.

Speaker 1 11:50

You know, so much of travel seems visually oriented. Penny, how does this compare for you when you're going into a place and you have to rely on Simon to tell you what's around you?

Speaker 3 11:55

Well, the courses I took through Great Escape Publishing, which no longer exists, but it was definitely worth my while. One of the things that they kept harping on is use all your senses when you write. Well, that was a no brainer for me because I had to use the rest of my senses. But then I had the issue of well, you know, most people are visual because they can see. So I found myself in a situation where I keep having to ask Simon okay, we're in a restaurant, what is the decor? How many people do you think it holds? And that's a question I can actually ask someone at the restaurant. But just, you know, are the tables very close together? What is the layout? So I get a lot of that from Simon. So it really is a team effort. So he fills in that missing piece. But writing about the other sensory experiences, the smells and the tastes and just the general feel of the whole experience, I can do that.

Speaker 4 13:07

Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 1 13:08

You write about food as well, right.

Speaker 3 13:11

Yeah, yeah, we do. We both love to cook and I'm sure you've had this experience too. Because you take long trips, being retired, you don't have to confine yourself to a week or 10 days. You can go for a couple of months and by the time we get home, despite all the wonderful food we've tried on our trips, what we want to do is get in the kitchen and cook.

Speaker 1 13:37

Right, well, it's always fun to deconstruct the food that you had on your trip, though, and try to recreate it yourself.

Speaker 3 13:43

The food that you had on your trip, though, and try to try to recreate it yourself. Yeah, yeah, and and um, our friends enjoy it, because when we come back from a trip where we're excited about different things that we've tried uh, we came back from Spain once and we did paella, and then another time we did like a tapas night, and then, when we came back from Jordan, we did upside down chicken, which is it's basically layers, and you put the chicken at the bottom of the pot, and then there's tomatoes and eggplant and all kinds of seasonings, and then they put the rice on top and the liquid water or broth, and then you put the lid on the pot and you cook it. When everything's cooked, you turn it out on a plate so that the chicken is on top, and, if you get it right, it really looks pretty. Oh, I bet.

Speaker 1 14:38

Yeah, I bet it smells great too, yeah.

Speaker 3 14:41

Oh yeah, Good stuff right there.

Speaker 1 14:45

I was looking at your website and I love the name, by the way, six Legs Will Travel and I noticed that you've gone to some of the destinations that we have, like Krakow, thessaloniki, cusco. The family you visited in Chinchero, peru I think we saw the same people. We have a picture of them as well.

Speaker 4 15:04

Right.

Speaker 1 15:06

Did you have any kind of favorite destinations from all of your travels?

Speaker 2 15:12

Yeah, the favorite destination is the one we were at at the time.

Speaker 1 15:15

At the time, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we get asked that all the time. It's kind of annoying, it's like it's tough to. They're all different.

Traveling with a Guide Dog

Speaker 4 15:22

Right, I usually give it the can I live here test. You know about whether or not it's I could acclimate to the culture? Do I like the weather? All of that? We play that every place we go. Could you live here, yeah?

Speaker 1 15:38

Yeah, for instance, Thessaloniki seemed like a place that we could live that we could live yeah. Seville in Spain seemed like a place we could live, but Lisbon and Portugal, which was a beautiful city, I don't think we could live there.

Speaker 4 15:50

Oh no.

Speaker 1 15:51

Where were you in Portugal? Well, we were in Lisbon and then, on the coast, we're in Lagos and.

Speaker 3 15:58

Albufeira. We really have been to a lot of the same places.

Speaker 2 16:10

It's kind of interesting because we've been to Portugal twice now and the first time we spent some time in Porto, which we absolutely loved. Yeah, we haven't been there yet.

Speaker 4 16:13

Yeah, that's on our list. We will do that. Yeah, we haven't been there yet.

Speaker 2 16:15

Yeah, that's on our list. We will do that. And then on our last visit we were down in the Algarve, the South Coast, and there were some nice little communities down there, but way too many non-Portuguese. Yes.

Speaker 4 16:29

Yes.

Speaker 2 16:32

Lots of.

Speaker 4 16:32

Brits.

Speaker 2 16:33

Yeah, and some fairly obnoxious ones, unfortunately. And then we went to a little town called Tomar, which is just north of Lisbon. A friend of ours is living there. What? Six months of the year, I think she lives there full time.

Speaker 3 16:55

Does she now?

Speaker 2 16:55

Okay, but anyway, we loved that little town. It was a beautiful little town, everything was walkable. But on the other hand, I would be a little bit skeptical about, you know, the services for people who are aging, right, you know, I don't know that they had a very big hospital there. You know, probably limited capabilities and I think you know you'd have to be transported If you really needed hospitalization. You'd probably have to be transported to Lisbon, which is, you know, an hour away by vehicle, or an hour and a half or something, I don't remember how far it was.

Speaker 3 17:34

We kind of learned that the hard way when we were living in New Bern. I got sick, I got sick, I got pneumonia and I was so sick that the hospital, the local hospital.

Speaker 3 17:49

Really, if I had stayed there I would have died. And they did transport me to Chapel Hill and that was what saved me, because by the time I got there the doctor told Simon that I had about a 5% chance of survival. But I'm a tough old bird, so anyway. So that is something we definitely. When we think those thoughts not that we're going to move, but when we think those thoughts not that we're going to move, but when we think those thoughts it's like, well, what are the hospital services like? What are the medical services? Is there good public transportation? What would we do if we lived there? But we're not looking to move, so we don't, we don't think about that as much. We, we just kind of live in the moment. Do we like the place or don't we? Right? And most of the time we find at least something to like oh yeah, actually we love every place we go.

Speaker 4 18:51

it's just we realize oh no, this wouldn't work for us, you know, uh, in the long term, yeah, you travel with the guide dog.

Speaker 1 19:00

Splendid, correct, right? Doesn't that add another layer of difficulty, then, to the travel?

Speaker 3 19:06

It does, of course, for me it's worth it, but it definitely does in terms of getting the dog into whatever country we're visiting. Now. Eu countries are pretty easy. They want a health certificate and not much else. The Brits are more difficult.

Speaker 2 19:24

And Ireland too. They require tapeworm medication immediately before arrival.

Speaker 3 19:30

Which isn't a big deal. But even going to Hawaii, there are quarantine regulations and there are all kinds of things. Japan is a nightmare, israel is a nightmare, and the funny thing about Israel was one visit. We jumped through all the hoops and got all the paperwork and when we arrived and we were being interviewed, the person that you know sort of held our fate in her hands. She wasn't the least bit interested in the dog. She wanted to know why I left Israel. Oh gosh, I told her. I told her that this gal had no sense of humor. I told her that that that I was about a year and a half old when my parents moved, right, so I didn't have any say in the matter. And she said well, why did your parents move? Oh boy, I was like oh my God, yeah.

Speaker 1 20:29

They didn't discuss it with you at the time.

Speaker 3 20:30

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I heard several reasons and don't know if I believe any of them, but the factors that they moved, I don't know how I could have changed that like I was any kind of a threat. But you've got to look at it from their perspective. They profile people and if something looks off then you don't get in, you don't get in Right and if something looks off, then you don't get in, you don't get in Right.

Speaker 1 20:58

You know we've moved pets overseas twice, to Ecuador and from Ecuador.

Recent Adventures in Japan

Speaker 3 21:02

Yeah, Do you find that the cruise lines are easier than the airlines when it comes to traveling with a service dog? Well, really, we travel on Holland America. That is our favorite. We travel on Holland America. That is our favorite. We do the transatlantic and we just did a trans-Pacific cruise. We love the repositioning cruises because we do it in such a way that we spend a lot of time running around and then we have 10 days to two weeks to just chill out on the way home and you don't have the jet lag, because it's all gradual. But certainly on Holland America they are very well trained in terms of having people with service animals.

Speaker 3 21:52

I mean you need to present paperwork to show that it is a legitimate, professionally trained dog, otherwise, and that the dog is healthy Otherwise. They really don't ask a lot of you, but they provide a relief area that they keep clean. The staff is trained not to pet the dog, which is great, and sometimes I take pity on them because they're so good and I'll take the harness off and then they can get their fur fix.

Speaker 1 22:22

Yeah, it's always tempting to pet a dog when you see it. You never know whether that's a good thing or not.

Speaker 2 22:29

And I can't speak to any of the other cruise lines because Well, you can excuse me because remember we were on the Celestial Cruise I was about to say that and they were very good as well. They found a good relief area in a back corner and they bent over backwards to make sure that Splendid was comfortable with her surroundings.

Speaker 3 22:52

They really did. And what was funny was that the first area that they set up, splendid looked at it and was like I'm not using that. And then they tried about two or three different ways until they found something that Her Highness would approve of, but they really, as Simon said, bent over backwards to get it.

Speaker 2 23:13

It was the surface, the material of the surface that she didn't seem to like, and the location stayed the same. It was just trying different surfaces until she was satisfied, right.

Speaker 1 23:30

Felt right on her feet.

Speaker 3 23:32

Yeah Right, celestial was really good and, as I said, we tend to go Holland America just because you know we love the service, we love the ships and for me the ships are very similar, so getting around is pretty darn easy port and starboard and fore and aft, in which direction I'm going in. But the and I think all the cruise lines do this but they do have Braille on the doors, raised numbers and Braille, you know where you are, you know what's going on. And the other thing I like about Holland America is they're always asking us well, how can? What was your experience like? How can we do this better? What, what suggestions do you have? So you know you get and I'm sure this is true of other cruise lines but you get comfortable with with a particular cruise line and it just feels like coming home almost.

Speaker 1 24:35

You know, speaking of home, you're home right now, we're home right now, but we had a lot of trouble finding a time when we were all in the same time zone, right? What are some of your recent trips been?

Speaker 3 24:46

Well, we were in Japan and we took our Holland America cruise across the North Pacific, went down through Alaska We'd never done that before and ended up in Vancouver, so we spent a few days there. We were gone about five weeks. I couldn't bring Splendid because there was a technical snafu that really would not have caused any harm to man or beast, but they were adamant so I had to leave her behind, which wasn't great, but fortunately I still do have good mobility skills.

Speaker 3 25:27

Wow that's great, and then we're going to Ireland in September. Ireland and Estonia.

Speaker 4 25:32

Oh, that's yeah. We just came to Ireland in September. Ireland and Estonia, oh that's yeah.

Speaker 1 25:34

we just came from Ireland ourselves.

Speaker 4 25:36

Right.

Speaker 1 25:36

And really enjoyed it. That's one of the few times that we rented a car, actually.

Speaker 4 25:40

That's it, yeah, and we did in England, yeah.

Speaker 1 25:43

England. We rented a car for a week to drive around the Cotswold. Yeah, whereabouts in Ireland were you this time, everywhere the whole island Rented the car and flew into Dublin, rented the car there and then headed toward Belfast. Just worked away around the island.

Speaker 4 25:59

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 26:01

Ended up in.

Speaker 4 26:01

Dublin. Yeah, turned the car back in.

Speaker 3 26:04

We're going to be meeting up with Simon's sister and her husband and we're meeting up in Dublin and then they're coming by car. They live in York, they're coming by car and they're going to pick us up from Dublin and then we're going to spend about five days in Galway.

Speaker 2 26:27

Making day trips out of Galway to other places.

Speaker 1 26:31

Yes, we stayed in Roscommon and made day trips from there.

Speaker 2 26:36

Well, Ireland is small enough that you can get to anywhere in Ireland within about three or four hours at the maximum. Whereas in other countries you can't necessarily do that.

Speaker 4 26:50

You have to.

Speaker 2 26:51

I mean, when we were in Japan, for example. We were, we went from Tokyo to Tomar and from Tomar to Kyoto, and then we use Kyoto as a base for some things. But I mean just Are you?

Speaker 3 27:05

thinking of Toyama honey. Yeah, no, that's Portugal.

Speaker 1 27:10

Sorry, yeah, it blends together, doesn't it?

Speaker 4 27:13

Yeah, it all runs together after a while, that it does.

Speaker 2 27:16

But what I was going to say is, in Japan, like getting from Kyoto to Tokyo, it's a two and a half hour train ride. Well, you can't do that. You know, on a daily basis, you know. And it's expensive too, Right.

Speaker 3 27:30

Yeah, trains are expensive in Japan.

Speaker 1 27:33

What's the best way to see more of your work, more of your photographs?

Speaker 2 27:37

I've got my own Instagram account, but I put more up on pennies than I do on mine. It's my Eclectic Images. And then I have a website with some pictures called myeclecticimagescom. And then I have a much larger portfolio on smug mug and that is photosmy eclecticimagescom what's what's your next destination?

Speaker 1 28:02

what's what's high on your list now?

Speaker 2 28:04

well, obviously, I island, estonia and and then germany. We're actually hoping to do a language school in germany. This is something that I don't think Penny has mentioned, but over the years we have volunteered at language schools in Spain, in Italy, in Romania, but basically what we do, we go for a week. Our food and hotel accommodation is provided while we're at the language schools and our job while we're there is to just sit and talk to people who are trying to improve their English. Yeah, there are a number of organizations that do it, and it's a lot of fun because you really get to learn stuff about. You know a particular city within, let's say, spain, but you move every hour, you have a different student to talk to and you just sit and talk and you help them improve their English. Most of them are business people who need English for their job. Obviously, in Europe, english is the common language of communication between a French, a German and a Dutch person. Let's say, right, we really enjoy doing that.

Speaker 3 29:18

I could actually see you two doing something like that. Yeah, I could handle that.

Speaker 4 29:22

Yeah, yeah that would be interesting.

Speaker 1 29:24

I think the next time that we travel, we're going to be spending more time in one place.

Speaker 4 29:28

Yes, this last trip was a little hectic.

Speaker 2 29:31

You wore us out yeah.

Speaker 4 29:33

How time in one place? Yes, this last trip was a little hectic. Yeah, how long were you traveling, for it was 10 weeks, 10 weeks, 10 weeks, 10 weeks. Yeah, okay, that's, that is a lot it was a lot, but we've never really done that before, but uh, yeah, we've been gone for 10 weeks before, but only well, two locations like yeah we were in uh panama city for four weeks and then on the coast of panama, playa coronado, for six weeks yeah, yeah, we.

Speaker 3 29:57

We spent four winters in panama. We were actually thinking of moving there we were thinking about it too.

Speaker 1 30:04

It just seemed a little too hot yeah, well, we were.

Speaker 2 30:07

We were in bucchetti, up in the mountains and and the temperatures there were much more pleasant.

Speaker 4 30:17

But then you get into hospital services.

Speaker 1 30:19

Yeah, like you were talking about earlier, that's the problem.

Speaker 4 30:21

Yeah.

Speaker 3 30:22

That is. The other problem is that Bukete and I'm probably going to tick some people off here, but there are a lot of expats, A lot of expats yeah, a lot of expats.

Speaker 3 30:37

Many of them do a lot of volunteering. In fact, that's what we did when we were there. We did a lot of volunteering. We didn't just sit in the casita and twiddle our thumbs and we love the people. And then they've got these gated communities and prices have gone up so high that the locals can't afford to live there. And we ran into one guy who was giving us all kinds of unsolicited advice and he said if you're gonna move here, you need to move into a gated community of expats because you can't trust the Panamanians. And I thought you know what, pal, I'll have to help you pack.

Speaker 2 31:24

Why are you there if you don't trust your neighbors?

Speaker 4 31:28

I know it's crazy.

Speaker 3 31:31

Yeah, that kind of put me off because I don't want to be around people like that. I really don't.

Expat Communities and Cultural Connection

Speaker 1 31:36

Yeah, when we lived in Ecuador, there were expats who only stuck around with other expats. And they always told us about how they were getting ripped off.

Speaker 4 31:43

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 31:44

That was never our experience. Never we were there.

Speaker 4 31:46

six years and we got gringoed more by expats than we. We never got gringoed by the natives. So yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 31:57

No, we loved the Panamanians. We, you know we lived rented where there were. You know it was a mixture of expats and mainly Panamanians. You know there'd be chickens wandering around and you'd hear the roosters in the morning and you know you, you were part of that and that's what made it a wonderful so actually, I guess panamanians have more to distrust about americans than the other way around?

Speaker 2 32:23

yeah, I don't, and I don't, quite honestly, I don't blame them, no I don't either no, it's also the history of the canal and it's it's brutal.

Speaker 1 32:31

It's not good yeah but it's more.

Speaker 2 32:33

It's more than that. It's the fact that they're getting displaced from their traditional homes because some with some gringo can pay more money for the same property and, unfortunately, money very often talks when it comes to well, I unfortunately and this is true everywhere that there are some people that will give the rest of us a bad name.

Speaker 1 32:56

You've been traveling most of your life, traveling a lot now in your retirement years, despite having a disability. What do you say to the people who feel like there's something stopping them from traveling, when really it's mostly themselves just getting out of their comfort zone?

Speaker 4 33:13

Yeah.

Speaker 3 33:14

Yeah, and getting out of your comfort zone, you hit the nail right on the head because, yeah, you take some risks but it is worth it. I would say do your research, decide what your comfort zone is. Maybe, if you haven't traveled, do something that's within your comfort zone and then try to get out of it a little bit. I have never regretted doing something that initially I would think, oh my gosh, what am I doing? What was I thinking? You know, like I tried rock climbing.

Speaker 1 33:48

Oh, no that didn't.

Speaker 3 33:51

This was in panama. This is this young man who, who, uh, started a rock climbing school and, um, it was. It was great until my shoulder gave out. And then I hung there in the in the harness looking up at the sky and I thought, okay, I didn't climb this, but this is great, I could stay here for a while.

Speaker 1 34:15

Yeah, I think I can handle the harness part.

Speaker 4 34:16

Yeah, that would probably be the only part I could handle.

Speaker 2 34:22

Yeah, I was going to say. I think the other thing about people getting out of their comfort zone is if they have a disability, it is not so bad to travel with somebody else who can provide them with some additional support, whether it be pushing a wheelchair up a hill even if normally you can manage your own wheelchair or somebody who's blind being prepared to guide them along a rocky footpath, let's say, even if they've got a dog with them. I mean, sometimes Penny will take my arm, put the dog on a long leash so that I can sort of guide her around root stumps and stones for a short period of time.

Speaker 2 35:07

And you have to be prepared to work together as a team to get to your destination.

Speaker 3 35:15

That is so true, and the only thing I will add to that is that, from my experience, even if there's a bit of discomfort, it is so worth it Because you know, if you get past your concerns, it's so easy to talk yourself out of doing anything. It's very easy. But you know, when you take that plunge, when you take that step and commit to doing something, the result is so, so worth it. We've had some incredible experiences. We've been up in a hot air balloon, We've been on gliders, you know sailplanes.

Speaker 2 36:01

Incredible experience. You've been skiing with a qualified guide.

Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

Speaker 3 36:07

Right. Even though I hate snow, that was fun Snowshoeing All sorts of things I didn't do when I was younger, and now that I've got the time to do it and the opportunities, I'm not going to waste a single opportunity. Because if you waste those opportunities, the person you hurt most is yourself. Because if you waste those opportunities, the person you hurt most is yourself.

Speaker 1 36:31

Well, we've been speaking with Penny Zabula and Simon Locke. You can find out more at SixLegsWillTravelcom and MuckRackcom. Slash Penny, underscore Zabula, and be sure to check out the Instagram pages. And, of course, you'll find all of those links in the show notes. Well, penny and Simon, I'm glad our hectic travel schedules finally aligned so we could speak today, and our best to both of you. Well, all three of you, I guess counting Splendid.

Speaker 3 36:55

And happy travels. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 36:57

Thank you. Happy travels to you too.

Speaker 1 37:08

You've been listening to Travels with Jim and Rita. If you'd like to read more about where we've been, see some photos of the places you've been hearing about, check out our blog at jimsantosbookscom and our YouTube channel and Instagram for videos. Meanwhile, you can access my books, audiobooks and short stories at jimsantosnet and there are links to those sites Instagram, youtube and so on in the show notes. We love to hear from our listeners as well, so YouTube and so on in the show notes, we'd love to hear from our listeners as well. So if you have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover or you want to tell your own travel story, email us at jim at jimsantosbookscom. Until next time, remember we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us. Thank you.