Changing Perspectives: Travel's Impact

How Travel Has Changed Us (Mindset, Community, Communication & Mistakes)

Brittany and Josh discuss how travel has changed them as individuals and as a couple, from expanding their perspective beyond the United States and challenging misconceptions about other regions and cultures, to noticing tighter-knit communities abroad and trying to live more simply after trips like Ireland and Portugal. They explain how they’ve become more focused on exploring and experiencing places rather than just vacationing, while still being curious about trying an all-inclusive trip. Travel has also strengthened their teamwork and communication by forcing them to navigate stressful situations, mistakes, language barriers, and transportation challenges with patience, grace, accountability, and reflection—highlighted by a rocky Italy stop in Mandello del Lario that became a favorite memory. They also share how travel inspired them to engage more in their own local community.

00:00 Welcome and Topic

00:50 Food Adventures Abroad

01:26 Beyond the US Bubble

04:02 Safety and Stereotypes

05:42 Simple Living Lessons

07:22 Explorer Not Vacationer

08:53 Resort Debate

10:23 Travel Strengthens Couples

12:42 Stress Tests and Grace

16:28 Italy Trip Turning Point

17:17 Grace Under Pressure

17:36 Mandello Argument Lesson

18:20 Mistakes Teach You

20:39 Moving Past Travel Stress

21:45 Why Adults Fear Mistakes

24:03 Mandello Breakdown Story

27:22 Community Starts At Home

31:06 Travel Takeaways Recap

32:28 Next Trip And Wrap Up

@WSMHtravels

Transcript

brit 0:11

Hello, and welcome to the We Should Move Here Travels podcast. My name is Brittany.

josh 0:16

I'm Josh.

brit 0:17

And we are your hosts. Today, we are going to be talking about how traveling has changed us, because I think we've changed a lot as individuals and as a couple. So we'll be talking about all of the changes.

josh 0:36

Yeah. Or at least the ones that we can identify at the moment.

brit 0:39

Yeah.

josh 0:39

The- And fit into this episode.

brit 0:42

Yeah. The ones that we've thought of.

josh 0:44

Mm-hmm.

brit 0:45

There's so much about travel that has changed us, so we can't hit everything.

josh 0:50

Like our taste buds. It's a food podcast. It's changed our taste buds as people.

brit 0:55

It has, yeah. No, like for real, it has. We've tried a lot of really different things-

josh 1:02

Mm-hmm

brit 1:03

that we probably would have never tried before. Like artery.

josh 1:07

Yeah, like artery.

brit 1:10

That was interesting.

josh 1:11

That was.

brit 1:12

Probably our most interesting one. Either that or pufferfish. Mm-hmm.

josh 1:16

For sure.

brit 1:17

Yeah.

josh 1:17

Mm-hmm.

brit 1:18

Anyways,

josh 1:19

Definitely looking, a little more, in depth than that, or a little deeper than surface level, than that,

brit 1:25

Yeah.

josh 1:26

one that I had written down for us to talk about was kind of a personal change for myself, at least. I don't know if there's something that you've noticed that's changed about you. And I don't know how stupid, naive, privileged any of it sounds, but traveling has made me realize that there is so much more outside of the United States of America- than most people realize who've never left the United States, let alone maybe never left their home state.

brit 2:00

Yeah. I mean, it sounds so silly to say. Mm-hmm. But that's so true. Mm-hmm. you don't realize that there's so many different lives people lead out in the world.

josh 2:12

Mm-hmm.

brit 2:13

And there's so much more than the US. Like, the US is so focused on, being individualistic, and we're very, independent people

josh 2:24

Mm.

brit 2:25

We don't rely on family or friends or community as much as maybe we should.

josh 2:33

Mm-hmm.

brit 2:34

And it's not necessarily relying on them, but it, it's more of a community in other spaces.

josh 2:42

I definitely think depending who you are, where you live in the United States or anywhere else in the world, 'cause obviously it depends where you go in the world, it could be very individualistic in another country. But places that we've been, Western Europe, Japan, places like that, there are a lot of tight-knit communities-

brit 3:01

Yeah

josh 3:02

that people are a part of, and they're a part of several different communities and groups in their lives, where we feel like we see that less in our community and maybe in the United States.

brit 3:15

Absolutely. it is, like, when you, when you go there, it's immersing yourself in their world for a couple weeks, and you're like, Wow, we did not learn enough about other countries. We did not, we don't have the best education system here in the US. Mm-hmm. So we don't know much about other countries. Yeah. And going there and e- experiencing those other countries really helps you to get outside of that selfish bubble-

josh 3:45

Mm-hmm it does, it hurts to say out loud as an adult. But growing up, you know, to a certain point, I don't know when I crossed it, but at a certain point I was like, "Oh my God, people all over the world do so much more than what we see-

brit 4:00

Mm-hmm

josh 4:01

or what we hear about."

brit 4:02

Well, yeah. And it's like, there's so many, like, scary stories out there from n- people really trying to, like, scare people not to travel outside of the US.

josh 4:13

Mm-hmm.

brit 4:14

And once you do, like, you start hearing some of those stories and you're like, Okay, well, that person was being a fucking idiot, first of all." I mean, so many countries are incredibly safe. Mm-hmm. And we only hear, like, really scary things and-

josh 4:33

Right

brit 4:34

it's to intimidate us to not travel there. Right. Because the world is so much bigger than us.

josh 4:40

It's like with the United States and Middle East. The United States more often than not is and has been in conflicts with countries in the Middle East.

brit 4:50

Mm-hmm.

josh 4:51

And so a lot of times as someone a part of the United States of America, we just think of the people in the Muni- Middle East as that, someone that we're in conflict with.

brit 5:03

Mm-hmm.

josh 5:03

Or the unfortunate history we have with some Middle Eastern countries, and so then we think potentially terrorists or-

brit 5:10

Mm-hmm

josh 5:11

you know, the Islamic State, something like that. And then we think Islam is this terrible thing, and we think the Middle East is this terrible place when it is not. No. It is a small group of a large country. Mm-hmm. And just like we are a small group of a large country, it does not apply to all.

brit 5:33

No, absolutely not. And to believe that it does is racism.

josh 5:37

I think that's the deepest point we will get to.

brit 5:42

Traveling has also taught me that there is more than one way of l- life. more than one way to live your life. Because people in other countries, I have observed, live very simple lives. And here in the US, it's very chaotic. We, it is normal to live a chaotic lifestyle. but I've just observed in other countries, some other countries, I don't wanna group them all together, but I've observed in some of them that people live very simple lives, and it makes sense why people live longer in these countries.

josh 6:22

It seems like less of the rat race, I believe, if I'm using that term correctly-

brit 6:30

Mm-hmm

josh 6:30

in other countries.

brit 6:32

Yeah. I've been trying to adopt some of that lifestyle since we've came back from particularly Ireland and Portugal, these last couple trips, I've really been trying to live more simply. and that's... It's kind of hard to do here. It is kind of hard to do because it's set up for chaos.

josh 6:54

It's, it's always reaching for the next rung in the ladder. It's always the new thing, the, the next challenge.

brit 7:04

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's h- it's hard.

josh 7:08

It is. But like you said, that is not every country. There are plenty of countries with tons of challenges that we haven't been to.

brit 7:16

Oh, absolutely.

josh 7:18

But the ones that we have observed, like you said. Yeah.

brit 7:21

Yeah.

josh 7:22

One of the other things that has definitely changed us, and I think this happens to probably quite a few people depending on how you decide to travel, when you travel, why you travel. A bunch of different reasons. But for us, what's changed us is being more someone who explores and experiences a different country than someone who just vacations in a different country.

brit 7:48

Which is so interesting because I don't think I've ever vacationed. Like, even when we've gone to, like, beach towns or whatever, we still have tons of steps. We still explore, like, throughout the city. Like, I just I think that's just us too.

josh 8:07

Yeah. And you can be, you can be a vacationer and do all those things and still consider yourself a vacationer and not a explorer, whatever. Vice versa.

brit 8:18

Yeah.

josh 8:19

But just for us, being people who really never were, like, a beach resort or a mountain resort, ski resort, never being one of those, to definitely being like, "Oh, we wanna s- experience how the people live here, experience their history, um, not always be in a high tourism area."

brit 8:44

Mm-hmm.

josh 8:45

Is definitely something that traveling more has made it clear that we are this kind of person now.

brit 8:51

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that it actually, doing this more has actually opened my mind a little bit about doing a vacation in the future.

josh 9:02

Mm-hmm.

brit 9:03

Where we do an all-inclusive thing. Mm-hmm. Because I wanna, I wanna check it out. I wanna try it.

josh 9:08

Yeah.

brit 9:09

And I think it would be really fun. Mm-hmm. However, I also think I don't know. I think it would be kind of hard for us to just stay in one space-

josh 9:19

Absolutely

brit 9:19

one space the entire time. But it could be really relaxing, so we have to try it at least once. But-

josh 9:27

My mind, maybe it's ADHD, my mind gets a little bored just thinking about it.

brit 9:33

Well, I mean, I think on resorts, like, there's different places that you can go- Yeah to make it more fun and adventurous. it's obviously not like exploring the city. Like, if we go- Mm-hmm to Mexico, for example, and we stay at an all-inclusive spot, w- we will use at least one night to go explore Mexico. At least.

josh 9:58

Oh, at least. For sure. If- So- If we didn't go, if we went for multiple weeks, it would have to be half the time minimum to explore Mexico.

brit 10:06

Y- yeah. Yeah. For sure. I agree with you. I think that, it would be fun to do that. But even in doing that, we're talking about, like, we would still go out and explore. Yeah. And that's just something we've learned about ourselves, of like what we like.

josh 10:22

Mm-hmm. Yeah. With that, I think travel has changed how we communicate as a couple and work as a team as a couple for sure. Like, I'm trying to imagine us those first year and a half, two years that we had before traveling And I can't imagine what we were like beforehand.

brit 10:43

Yeah. Well, you and I have very different, communication styles, and we've had to learn how to communicate with each other, and sometimes it's still difficult. but when you have two different communication styles, it's so important to give your partner grace and understand their, try and understand their communication style- Mm-hmm and what they're trying to communicate to you.

josh 11:09

Mm-hmm.

brit 11:09

and also apologizing, taking accountability, and learning from things when we inevitably make mistakes, because that's going to happen, especially traveling. And it's happened, God, I don't know how many times with us. We've made so many mistakes.

josh 11:26

Every day of every travel.

brit 11:29

Literally. Yeah. But it's going to happen in every single relationship, no matter who you are, you're gonna make mistakes.

josh 11:37

Mm-hmm.

brit 11:38

And you inevitably will hurt your partner in some way. So I think traveling just kind of throws that in your face a little bit, and it's, it's about how you handle it after the fact. Yeah. 'Cause it's going to happen. Obviously, you don't go in, like, with intentions of hurting your partner or with intentions of not communicating well or whatever it is, or making a mistake, traveling, missing that train, whatever it is, but it's how you handle it after. And I think that's something that I've learned, like deeply to my core, is that, like, even when you make mistakes, you are never trying to hurt me. You're never intentionally hurting me. And I have to be in that mindset of "Okay, like, this is okay. We're gonna figure this out. We always do."

josh 12:30

Mm-hmm.

brit 12:30

We literally always do, and we've been in some, some situations that could have ended very poorly, but we figured it out.

josh 12:42

Well, like you said, and just to reiterate, like, when you're traveling the way that we do, experiencing-

brit 12:51

Mm-hmm

josh 12:51

different countries like we do, and some countries that have a language that you don't speak, you're gonna run into a lot of situations that are very stressful.

brit 13:02

Yeah. Very.

josh 13:03

And like you said, undoubtedly, that's gonna lead to mistakes on top of both of us being stressed. Not an easy situation to navigate.

brit 13:13

No, no, definitely not. I think I used to be much more challenging in those situations, and I've learned to be patient and give grace even to, I don't know, service workers who make a mistake or, um- Like, in airports, people... I mean, it's their first fucking day on Earth, so You know, learning to have grace with people in the airport.

josh 13:40

Yeah.

brit 13:41

Things like that, I think it's just, it's so important.

josh 13:46

Mm-hmm.

brit 13:46

And I think you've helped me a lot with that. I think traveling has helped me a lot with that, but I think you've helped me a lot with that too. Because you've always been that person to give people grace and patience, and you always try to deeply understand people-

josh 14:01

Mm-hmm

brit 14:02

and their intentions.

josh 14:03

Yeah.

brit 14:03

So.

josh 14:04

But you've helped me with communication, 'cause I've been a poor communicator since we've met, and always working on it, which does not help in stressful situations. So learning to be more open, to c- communicate more in those situations has definitely helped. Yeah. So that's definitely something that travel has given us, is- Mm-hmm better teamwork, better communication. It's a lot like what we've said 100 times, and you see all over the net. If you can navigate a train system in another country-

brit 14:38

Yeah

josh 14:39

you are... And, like, you can not kill each other as a couple- or friends or family, whatever, you guys are set. You can, you can do anything. And especially, I would even add, like, driving on the opposite side of a road in a different country. Oh my

brit 14:55

gosh.

josh 14:56

Even, maybe even more so.

brit 14:58

Through the mountains, and you're, like, on a cliff, and you're on the other side of the road. Oh my God, it's the scariest fucking thing. But you do so well driving, so I'm in good hands. I'm not fucking driving, though. No, but I think Traveling with your partner will show you if you have different communication styles and how to approach that.

josh 15:27

Mm.

brit 15:27

Because it will be thrown in your face. And if it's a relationship that is meant to last or if you both want to work on it, because you will have to.

josh 15:38

Yeah.

brit 15:38

If you both wanna work on it, though, it's... I think traveling helps you do that.

josh 15:43

Mm-hmm. Yeah. There, there's no faking it.

brit 15:46

No.

josh 15:46

When, when you're both in a very stressful situation in a different country together, you, you're not gonna fake your way through-

brit 15:53

No

josh 15:54

a relationship in that.

brit 15:56

And it, it'll show you if your partner wants to, you know, make it through with you.

josh 16:00

Oh, yeah.

brit 16:01

Like, if they don't want to, you will know by the end of that trip.

josh 16:05

Yeah. For sure. I mean, we have-

brit 16:08

I don't mean to laugh at that, but it's true.

josh 16:10

It is true. Well, I was gonna say, I hope we're not giving out the impression that we did any of these trips with any sort of grace and communication teamwork.

brit 16:21

I mean, we did. We did a lot of them with grace and communication and teamwork. For

josh 16:25

sure.

brit 16:25

But we've learned along the way. Yeah. Because to start, our Italy trip was rocky as hell. I think we did talk about it.

josh 16:34

We definitely did.

brit 16:34

We have totally different communication styles, and I'm crying in one corner. You're crying in the other. Like, we're... We were so upset at each other in Mandello de lario. However, we did learn from it. Mm-hmm. We talked about it.

josh 16:53

Mm-hmm.

brit 16:54

And we came back together and just realized, like, okay, we communicate very differently, so let's figure out a way to make this work, for the rest of the trip at least. And we've slowly, I think, figured it out.

josh 17:10

Mm-hmm.

brit 17:11

Because these last couple trips have been so smooth.

josh 17:15

Much smoother, yeah.

brit 17:16

So smooth. Mm-hmm. Like, we communicate well. We're patient with each other. We have so much grace. Like, I can't even think of, uh, maybe, like, a handful of moments.

josh 17:26

Well, there's always gonna be moments, for sure.

brit 17:29

Yeah, but I can't really think of, like, those big moments-

josh 17:32

No

brit 17:32

that happened in Italy. Yeah.

josh 17:36

Well, and you mentioned Mandell de lario. That is still one of the favorite stops on any of our trips- Yeah we've ever taken.

brit 17:45

Well, it's gorgeous, and also we had, you know, like the... Uh, we had one of the biggest arguments we've ever had there, and-

josh 17:55

Within the first, like, 30 minutes- of being there.

brit 17:58

Yeah. And it's hot as hell outside. Probably didn't help.

josh 18:02

No.

brit 18:03

Um, and but we came back together there, and we talked about things there, and we figured it out there.

josh 18:12

Mm-hmm.

brit 18:12

Like, you're gonna have arguments. You're gonna... It, it's gonna happen.

josh 18:18

Mm-hmm.

brit 18:18

You just gotta figure it out with your partner. I think that learning from your mistakes is super important, and that's kind of what we're talking about here. I think something that makes travel such an educational experience for people is because you will make mistakes, and you're outside of your comfort zone, so you don't know everything there is to know out there. And that also gets thrown in your face because you so badly want to know. Like when I go to these other countries, I wanna know the language they're speaking. Mm-hmm. Like I wanna know how to navigate the train system, but I don't, and we have to figure it out. And if we don't figure it out, well, we have to figure out plan B. Mm-hmm. And making mistakes, I have learned through traveling, making mistakes is not bad. It is educational.

josh 19:17

Mm-hmm.

brit 19:18

It teaches you.

josh 19:19

Mm.

brit 19:19

You can learn so much about yourself based on the mistakes that you will make traveling, whether those mistakes are about how you handle the situation, a conversation, or even how you missed a train. Notice how I keep bringing that one up. That was my fault though. But again, like- Oh my mistake.

josh 19:45

We've, we've missed more than one train or gone on the wrong train more than once.

brit 19:49

The one I'm thinking of was bad news bears- if we did not get on the right train. Anyways, but when you make those mistakes, you learn from it. You reflect on it, and you talk about it with your partner. If you're not traveling with a partner, then just learn from it. Reflect on it.

josh 20:11

Yeah.

brit 20:12

Maybe journal about it. Mm-hmm. But for me, I think it's so important to talk about it with you,

josh 20:17

I think because of the mistakes you make while traveling, it's, it's even more educational than a mistake that you could make when you're just at home.

brit 20:30

Yeah.

josh 20:31

When you're at home, you're kind of like in the comfort of your own bubble. Mm-hmm. Like, you kind of, you know what's going on around you for the most part. You got, you got a good sense about you, whereas when you make a mistake when you're traveling, kind of like our last point, you have to deal with that external stress of I'm in a new place, I might be uncomfortable, and I made this mistake. I gotta, I gotta work my way through this problem to compose myself and figure out what to do next.

brit 20:59

Yeah, it kinda teaches you that you, you can move on from it. Mm-hmm. It's kind of like feelings, like it's not gonna last forever.

josh 21:10

Yeah.

brit 21:11

So-

josh 21:11

Exactly

brit 21:12

I mean, some mistakes obviously do last forever.

josh 21:15

Mm-hmm.

brit 21:16

And again, reflect on those. Mm-hmm. Learn from those. But- the mistakes that you're tr- doing traveling, usually those don't last forever. Those are usually like snippets in time-

josh 21:28

Mm-hmm

brit 21:29

where you're kind of freaking out, you know, "Oh my God, I missed a train," kind of a thing.

josh 21:35

Mm-hmm.

brit 21:35

Like, what am I gonna do? Where am I gonna go? What's the next train? All of these things might go through your head, but you figure it out. You got this. Yeah.

josh 21:45

Mm-hmm.

brit 21:45

And we're taught, at least here in the US, I think it's very common that you're taught that making mistakes is so bad. We're never taught that it's an, it can be an invaluable learning experience.

josh 22:00

Mm-hmm. It's so interesting because I think it's- In early life for, like, young childhood, it's maybe more thought of as a good thing. Like touching a hot stove. Definitely not good, not encouraged, but if you do it, that's a crazy mistake. You learn to never do it again.

brit 22:18

Yeah.

josh 22:20

Right? Like, sometimes depending your parenting style, you know, like, oh, jumping off the furniture. Like, you're gonna get yourself hurt. Jump off the furniture, get yourself hurt. Crazy thing you do. You learn from your mistake. Yeah.

brit 22:34

I think as you grow and the more mistakes you make, the more those mistakes, can impact others. Mm-hmm. And if it impacts others, then the other people it impacted maybe don't give you as much grace or patience as they would have if you were a baby. So I think as adults learning this-

josh 22:57

Mm-hmm

brit 22:57

is so interesting because you're right. We're taught, you know, not to touch the hot stove by touching the hot stove.

josh 23:03

all this leads to, again, things that we learned from traveling, and like we talked about in, uh, the previous episodes about solo travel-

brit 23:16

Mm-hmm

josh 23:17

is that you can do hard things.

brit 23:18

Yeah.

josh 23:19

And a lot of those that you learn that you can do hard things is from making mistakes and learning from them and then proceeding.

brit 23:25

Mm-hmm.

josh 23:26

And then once you've proceeded, you're like, "I can do hard things."

brit 23:29

Yeah.

josh 23:30

Cause it's not always an easy path. You know, you don't always just get to push the boulder up a mountain and then get it on the first try. No. You, you make a lot of mistakes along the way.

brit 23:41

Absolutely.

josh 23:42

Mm-hmm.

brit 23:42

And I think that's also just life, right? Yeah. Like, we don't talk enough about the mistakes that we've made. We like to brush past them because maybe they're embarrassing. Maybe they hurt people. Maybe, uh, I, I don't really know, but we don't talk about them.

josh 23:58

No.

brit 23:58

And we should.

josh 23:59

We should. I

brit 24:01

think- 'Cause again, they're educational experiences.

josh 24:03

Yeah. I think that's why I love our Italy and Mandello de lario specifically so much, and I do try to work it into a lot of places and conversations with people because it is a fantastic story.

brit 24:20

Well, I don't even know what got us so, like, worked up. I remember it was hot. I remember I didn't like the pizza that we got.

josh 24:28

Oh my gosh. It was hot. We were hungry. We got off a train, like multiple train trip that was hard to navigate.

brit 24:35

Yeah.

josh 24:36

To a very small town, people that didn't speak English, and then from the train station to the hotel was a walk up a hill with roller bags on cobblestones, and then it was an Airbnb, excuse me, and then it was difficult to get inside. And once we were inside, it was, like, on the third or fourth floor. And it was hot in the room And so for us and for you it was your worst nightmare.

brit 25:05

It really was. I, I struggle to this day with hot rooms. but yeah, it was, it was a lot. And at the time we were not hikers by any means, all of that walking, and then it being hot, and then the room was hot when we finally got there, and then we're hungry. And then we go for a walk to go get pizza. We get the pizza. I'm, like, upset at this point because of everything going on.

josh 25:35

Mm-hmm.

brit 25:36

And sensory stuff is a nightmare to me sometimes.

josh 25:42

And we get a prosciutto pizza.

brit 25:44

Ugh, and I don't like prosciutto. I learned this there.

josh 25:50

Well, we just thought we'd wing it. We saw... The only word we could read was, like, pizza on the menu, so we're like, "We'll get that."

brit 25:56

Yeah. Everything was, in Italian so-

josh 26:00

Mm-hmm

brit 26:01

we were the only tourists in the city.

josh 26:04

Mm-hmm.

brit 26:06

Oh, that was a rough one. But what did we do afterwards? That's what matters.

josh 26:13

Mm-hmm. Had the... one of the greatest sections of our trip, for sure.

brit 26:19

Yeah, we did. We had a great conversation, and then the rest of the time in Mendello, Delario we just talked about things. we did this with Lake Como in the background and some delicious gelato and pizza, and every th- every Italian food you could possibly imagine. Mm. So good. I loved it there.

josh 26:43

Yeah.

brit 26:44

And, like, it's interesting because it is one of our favorite places we've ever been, but we had one of our hardest traveling moments there.

josh 26:54

It, it's, it's gotta be top three, for sure. Yeah. For sure. And then it was on our first international trip together.

brit 27:03

Yeah. So interesting. But I think, again, it speaks to what you do after the fact because since then we have both been working really hard to communicate effectively with each other. And sometimes we still make mistakes, but, like, I don't know, I think we, we learned a lot from that.

josh 27:21

Mm-hmm. I think, The last point that we have, we've kinda touched on a little bit and this is a food podcast, but it's also a podcast that's talking about, you know, potentially finding a place that we could live in the future, wherever that is in the world. And we have definitely learned, I think, a little bit more about who we are as people, as individuals in a community and a society in the world, but also in our current town and our current city. traveling has made us realize, "Oh, I am this person to my local community."

brit 28:01

Yeah.

josh 28:01

Mm-hmm.

brit 28:03

Yeah, and we've been going to a lot more community events and trying to be a little bit more involved in the communities that we want to be involved in.

josh 28:13

Mm-hmm.

brit 28:14

like I think all year last year we didn't go to one community event, and we have so many here. Like, there's concerts down at Jones Park. There's the farmer's markets. There's so many things that people get together for, and we just have to keep an eye out and look at those things. And I think there's so many things that we can go and do that we just haven't immersed ourselves in.

josh 28:42

Mm-hmm.

brit 28:43

Even though we live here-

josh 28:45

Yeah

brit 28:45

we are a part of the community. We just haven't involved ourselves much, so. We're trying to do that a little bit more.

josh 28:52

Yeah. It's about putting the time and effort into being a member of that community-

brit 28:59

Yeah

josh 29:00

of your local community. Because when we are doing these trips and we wanna see the, like, authentic side of a place we're visiting, we're putting that time and effort unknowingly into that. And we're like, "Oh, my gosh, this community is amazing." You know? Yeah. "This group of people is amazing." Because we're so interested in potentially living there, even though in all likelihood we probably won't. You know, the majority of places that we've gone, most likely we'll never live there. Mm-hmm. But we live right here currently, and we haven't put nearly that amount of effort into where we currently live.

brit 29:36

We haven't.

josh 29:37

Mm-hmm.

brit 29:38

At the end of the summer, we will be recording episodes about where we live, so.

josh 29:43

Mm-hmm. Hopefully we have a lot to report back on. Hopefully we've- Hope- stayed committed.

brit 29:48

Yeah, hopefully. Mm-hmm.

josh 29:51

for it to take traveling as much as we have in this last year and then in these last six years now that we've been together to kind of realize that, that we have to put just as much effort in, is something that I think is mind-blowing to me. You know, someone listening might be like, "Well, of course you gotta put effort into it."

brit 30:10

Yeah.

josh 30:10

But for me, like, that just wasn't the thought.

brit 30:13

No, it wasn't for me either. I mean, in other countries when we go and travel, it's just, it's normal to, like, go out there, go d- go do the thing. And I think when you're home, at least for us, we're such, like, homebodies that it's so easy to stay inside and cuddle with our cats.

josh 30:33

Mm-hmm. That's my community.

brit 30:35

That's my community, too.

josh 30:37

That's my why.

brit 30:41

But, I mean, putting ourselves out there, going to more local events, shows us that there are communities out there in our area that we would love just as much.

josh 30:54

Mm-hmm.

brit 30:55

Maybe we stay in Wisconsin forever It's definitely what we're going

josh 30:57

towards right now 'cause we're here.

brit 31:05

Yeah.

josh 31:06

All right. Is there anything else that you maybe thought of while we were talking about these? I think we did a pretty good job of just kind of flowing into what we were thinking of going through this.

brit 31:17

I think there's a lot of things that I learned, in these past six years obviously, and through travel. But I think these are some pretty big points. Mm-hmm. Even though they might seem obvious to some people, when you start traveling, these things, like I said, it's just about how you handle situations And how you learn from them

josh 31:41

That's what traveling is. It's handling a situation.

brit 31:44

Yeah.

josh 31:44

How you experience it.

brit 31:45

What about you?

josh 31:46

There's so many ways traveling has changed me. I couldn't mention them all in, in a short podcast episode. We start off by joking about, you know, food experience. You know, that's such a big part of life and a big part of what we enjoy. That's really fun. train travel, public transportation has been huge and something we've really enjoyed.

brit 32:08

Mm-hmm.

josh 32:09

Uh, experiencing different people, different cultures, experiencing people from a community where we're traveling to, so, like, other tourists, experiencing them in other countries is a whole thing you learn about yourself as well. I mean, there's so much we could talk about.

brit 32:26

Yeah. That's an interesting one, for sure.

josh 32:29

after talking it out, I'm, I'm really excited to go on our next trip and, you know, talk about our next episode and all the next things that we get to make mistakes on and experience.

brit 32:40

Yeah, me too All right. Next episode we'll be talking about our top 10 tours we have ever taken. These could be food tours, which they probably will be. Uh, but they could also be the historical tours we've taken, the, boat tours we've taken, things like that. Any tour we have ever taken, our top 10 overall. Look out for that next week. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and follow on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @WSMHtravels

josh 33:15

You can listen to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. YouTube is where we have our video record version, including pictures and videos from our trips. Please continue to leave your comments and send us messages on what you liked from our trips and suggestions for our future trips. We really appreciate it.

brit 33:33

Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.