Conversations for Curious Travelers

Welcome to Conversations for Curious Travelers

Trip Scholars | Erica Forrest Season 1 Episode 1

Welcome to Conversations for Curious Travelers Episode 1

Ready to enhance your travels? In this premiere episode of Conversations for Curious Travelers, host Erica Forrest invites you into a new kind of travel podcast—one that helps you learn more about the world and yourself travel. Whether you're a lifelong learner, a parent planning a family trip, or someone craving more connection in your travels, you're in the right place.

🎙️ In this episode:

  • Why this podcast exists and who it’s for
  • An introduction to LEARN Through Travel
  • What to expect in upcoming episodes—personal stories, expert guests, and practical resources
  • Why travel is one of life’s greatest teachers


🌍 This Week’s Small Step to Enhance Your Next Trip

Choose one activity to educate yourself about your next destination. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
🎥 Watch a film
📖 Read a myth or historical novel
🍽️ Try a recipe
🎨 Do an art activity with kids
Let your curiosity guide you and make the experience joyful, not overwhelming. Download the free guide below for many more ideas!


💭 Reflection from the Episode

“When did you take a trip that changed you?”
What did it teach you about yourself? About the world?
Take a walk, journal, or ask someone you love to share their story with you.


🔗 Resources & Links Mentioned


If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast, leave a review, or share it with someone who loves to travel as much as you do. Your support helps more curious travelers find us.



Thanks for joining me on Conversations for Curious Travelers, a Trip Scholars podcast. I'm so glad you are here!

Please support the show— follow and leave a review—it helps more thoughtful travelers like you discover these conversations. Thank you!

Want to make your next trip even better?
Download your free guide: The Curious Traveler’s 5-Step Guide to More Meaningful Trips

Ready for personalized support?
Explore my workshops, classes, and travel coaching to get expert guidance in planning meaningful, personalized journeys at TripScholars.com

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Explore more episodes and free resources at TripScholars.com

Welcome to Conversations for Curious Travelers Transcript


[00:00:00] Erica: Welcome to Conversations for Curious Travelers, a Trip Scholars podcast. I'm your host, Erica Forrest. In each episode, we explore how travel helps us learn more about the world and ourselves. If you travel, not just to escape, but to grow, connect and understand you are in the right place.


[00:00:24] In a world of bucket lists, checklists, and travel clickbait designed to feed the algorithm. I want to invite you into something different, the kind of travel that transforms your mind, your relationships, and your understanding of the world. I remember standing outside on our first night in Crete, and the waves were gently lapping against the shore.


[00:00:47] We were staying in a little house in a remote beach town, and the sky was spectacular. It was clear and dark and just brilliant and alive with stars. And as I looked up at the constellations, I really realized I was gazing at the same night sky that had inspired generations of Greek myths. I was standing on the island, said to be the birthplace of Zeus himself, the home of the Minotaur and just deeply woven into ancient history and mythology.


[00:01:19] And I was crying because the past wasn't just something that I had read about in books. It was real, it had been lived right here. And travel really helped me feel that throughout my whole self, it awakened wonder and reverence and connection. And it changed me. And that's what this podcast is about.


[00:01:40] Conversations for Curious Travelers is a space for stories like that, stories of transformation and meaning and discovery. And it's a space for you because you are also a curious traveler. So I'd really like to welcome you into this new podcast. And thank you so much for joining me on this first episode.


How This Travel Podcast is Different

[00:02:01] It's the start of something special, and it's really here to help you go beyond checklists and bucket lists to travel in a way that is more connected and more inspired and more aligned with your values. In today's episode, I'll be sharing a little bit about what this podcast is about, who it's for, why I made it what you can expect from it, and I hope to always leave you with some, action step that you can take today towards your next trip and also a bit of reflection that you can think about on your own to hopefully enhance your future travels as well. So I will be releasing episodes every other week. It's going to be a mix of solo episodes with personal stories and insights from all my years as a travel educator and coach.


[00:02:48] But also interviews with other curious travelers, so travel professionals, educators and other people who have these extraordinary travel experiences and might not have another platform to share that. I am excited to share those stories. This podcast is an extension of my business, which is Trip Scholars.


[00:03:10] When I gave Trip Scholars the name Trip Scholars, one of the reasons I did so was because of the word scholar being something that can refer to both experts and teachers, but also students. And I firmly believe that we all have something to teach and share.


[00:03:27] And also that we all have so much that we can be learning from one another. And that is something I hope to really embody in this show with the guests that we bring on, people that we can all be learning from. So I will be bringing real stories from other curious travelers. I'll also be sharing lots of practical resources that you can use and of always inviting you to do some deeper reflection and leave you with some practical action steps that you could be taking towards your next trips. So some weeks it will just be us, and other weeks I will be introducing you to some amazing guests. I cannot wait to share our first lineup of guests that we have, and I'm so excited about people who we'll be talking to in the years to come and all of us see travel as one of life's greatest teachers.


[00:04:17] This show is really for all of us who are lifelong learners. If you are the kind of traveler who adds a new Duolingo language as soon as you book your flight. Or you are looking for the perfect historical novel to bring with you on a trip or find a game that's really going to engage your kids and help them learn about where you're traveling to.


[00:04:40] This is for you. If you like reading about current events and understanding the places that you visit, not necessarily as a tourist destination, but as fellow human beings that we're sharing this planet with, and we are visiting their home and learning more about what the world is like there.


[00:04:57] This show is for you. I also know that you're really busy and that's why the show will also be about really doable, joyful ways that you can travel with more meaning without adding a lot of stress to your life. So if you're wanting new trips to be more meaningful, but you also don't want to burnout, trying to do everything, this podcast is meant to help you enjoy the journey before, during, and after you return home.


[00:05:23] So I started Trip Scholars a while back because I had spent decades as an educator and school director, I'd gotten to do a lot of creative problem solving coaching with kids over the years. Eventually we ended up homeschooling and through that we were doing a lot of travel. We incorporated a lot of travel into how we approached education and learning. And as the primary homeschool parent, it was very time consuming to find great resources. But they really did enhance our trips. And so I was thinking, wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a place where we could go to just be inspired, find quality resources so that we can learn more both about the places that we're visiting, but also how to travel better, how to travel more, how to have it be less stressful and more enjoyable. So I started Trip Scholars and have been very grateful to get to share lots of resources through free blog posts. And I also lead workshops and do private travel education coaching and I have classes.


[00:06:30] But one of my favorite parts of all of this is talking with other travelers. So whether that is in coaching or in, any of the group workshops, I do, anything like that. And also when I'm working with other educators and travel professionals, hearing people's stories and learning from them, being inspired, everybody has such a unique perspective and all of us in this community have been so transformed by our trips and see the world differently.


[00:06:59] So I had been thinking it would be just wonderful to one day get to launch a podcast where I can share these stories and all these insights with other people, and I'm thrilled to get to do it. So thanks so much for joining me on my first episode! This is really intended to be a show that is for you to, and to support you in your unique travel journey.


[00:07:25] I also wanted to just quickly mention that with my background as a teacher I do find that it can be helpful to have some structure. Travel is so broad and you can kind of get lost in the weeds when you're talking about it. And so in my coaching and workshops and everything, I've created this structure, I call it LEARN Through Travel Framework.


[00:07:48] And it's just a way to think about travel in some very thoughtful ways. I'll be using it as my own background when I'm organizing these conversations. But I wanted to share it with you just so that you know that it's happening. You might see it once you know what it is. So it's called the LEARN Through Travel Framework, and LEARN is an acronym, and it helps us make the most of our time before, during, and after a trip.


[00:08:15] So L is for Listen– listen to ourselves and think about our trip more deeply before we make a lot of plans about it. Educating ourselves is E the second part, educating ourselves about the places that we will be visiting so that we can be really curious, respectful, engaged travelers. A is advancing our travel skills.


[00:08:38] So this is, how can we travel better? How can we travel more? Whether that's learning how to make travel more affordable so that we can travel more often. Packing tips, safety, all kinds of things in that realm. R is for revitalize ourselves while we're traveling. Travel in many ways has become awfully performative.


[00:09:00] And, we save up for a long time. We have this itinerary, we want to do all these great things and it can be tiring or exhausting. How can we stay present? How can we have the travel experience enrich us? How can we meet those inevitable challenges and grow from them? And then finally, N is nourish ourselves when we return.


[00:09:22] How can we integrate what we've learned, how we've changed, how we've grown through our travel experiences back into our lives? And for many of us who really fall in love with traveling, how can we find ways to travel more? Whether that's creating a digital nomad lifestyle, becoming world schoolers, becoming empty nesters who travel frequently, any of those kinds of things. So in every episode we will explore these different ideas. Obviously not all of them in any one episode, but we will be looking at travel through these different lenses.


[00:09:59] If you find this approach interesting, I have a free guide over at Trip Scholars and also in the show notes, it's called The Curious Traveler's Five Step Guide to More Meaningful Trips.


[00:10:11] I also have a similar one for parents or caregivers that's related to families that I'll also put in the show notes.


[00:10:18] And this guide is really meant to lean into that, educate ourselves about the places that we're going to in the LEARN framework. And in today's episode, I would like to invite you to choose one way in which you can do that.


[00:10:33] You could download these guides and get lots of ideas. In them, you will find suggestions for thinking about what is it that you or your travel companions, or your kids, already enjoy doing?


[00:10:46] Do you like watching movies on a Friday night? Do you enjoy playing games? Do you like cooking? Do you like going to see live performances? And how can you overlap those interests with the place that you're visiting and choose just one thing, whether that's getting a book on fairy tales or myths related to the place that you're going to, like I mentioned at the beginning for us, and that trip to Crete– or deciding to cook a meal, any kind of art project related to it with kids, or reading a historical novel, if that's something you're interested in about the place that you're going to, and stay open to that curiosity. Stay open to that spark of wanting to know more. Wanting to understand more so that when you are cooking that meal, wondering where did those spices come from?


[00:11:34] What do you suppose influenced the geography of the region so that those spices grew or that it was in relation to a particular trade route? And keep going with that curiosity. But just choose one this week about the next trip that you have planned and you can download that guide for some further inspiration.


[00:11:53] And we will also be asking ourselves many deeper questions about what travel is, what it means to us. We'll be looking at scientific research and people who are exploring curiosity and joy and learning but today I would invite you to go back to that listen part of our LEARN Through Travel to think about, “When was a time that you took a trip that really did change you? What did you understand more about yourself? What did you understand more about our world?” And I invite you to go for a walk and think that through, journal, and if you have someone you love to talk about travel with, talk about it with them, ask them about their story.


[00:12:35] You can always send me a direct message on social media at Trip Scholars. I'm on all the channels at Trip Scholars. I would love to hear what travel has meant for you, and I am so excited to explore these ideas and questions and inspiring stories with you in the episodes to come.


[00:12:55] Thanks so much for joining me. I know your time is valuable and I'm truly grateful that you spent some of it here together. Please come visit me at tripscholars.com for free travel resources, workshops and travel coaching. And if you enjoyed today's show, please follow, review or share. It really helps other curious travelers find us.


[00:13:16] Until next time, curious travelers.

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