Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Cultural Geography, Exploration, and Sustainable Travel with James Fountain

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Cultural Geography, Exploration, and Sustainable Travel with James Fountain · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady, and I'm here with my good
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: friend James Fountain. James, thanks so much for being on
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: the podcast with me today.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Really appreciate it.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for the invite, Scott. I'm super excited to
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: be here. I really appreciate it.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Well, and it was fun to just when we were
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: chatting a few minutes ago, that was kind of how
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: you found out about Overlanding was through the Overland Journal.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Why don't you give us a little story on how
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: you found out about what we do.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's a that's a long one. We got
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: an hour. I guess, yeah, I guess. You know, starting
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: from you know, going all the way back, I mean,
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: expiration was always in me. I was raised by my grandparents.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: My grandfather World War two, veteran, World War two, Vietnam, Korea,
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: you know, the whole nine yards. Wow, he's that guy
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: that left home at sixteen to go fight new work
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: because you know, he had to take care of us family.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Zacher, story of my grandpa.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, it's the greatest generation, right. But yeah, so anyway,
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: he came back and I'm growing up here here are all
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: of his stories of you know, what it's like in
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: different places outside of my small little house. And sorry
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Montana now, but but then it was in Ohio. I
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: grew up in Ohio and just tell hearing those stories
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: and just kind of sunk into me, you know, as
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: a as a kid, just you know, I always want
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: to see these places. So exploration was kind of like,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: I don't know, built in me, you know. And then
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: you going through grad school, you know, I already got
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: into you know, geography, I guess, you know, exploration in
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: geography they go together.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: They go hand in hand, they really do.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so cultural geography is what I landed at, and yeah,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: just just trying to figure out how I wanted to
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: put all that together. So I had this bent toward geography.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: I had this bent towards uh, you know, cultural geography,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: had this bent toward exploration. This just like many of
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: us do. We all have these passions to go and
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: explore and see the world and just trying to fit
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: it all together, you know. And one day I think
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: skipping school, popping in grad school, but trying to just
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: trying to not write the paper I was supposed to
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: be writing, and went to the local Barnes and Noble
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: and walking the walking to the magazine aisles and there
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: was this these this magazine, these big beautiful pictures of
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: trucks and these far off places. I'm like, what's this?
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: You know put out the over and Journal. I'm like, wow,
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: that's it.
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  Speaker 2: That is so cool.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is really a full circle moment for me.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Right Well, we're really excited for you to be here.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're a fellow for the Royal Geographical Society
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: or a fellow for the Explorers Club, and that was
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: how we first started communicating, because you were really advocating
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: and helping to support me to get involved with the
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Explorers Club. And I'm so grateful for your support with
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: all of that, because I believe that as Overlanders, we
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: have the opportunity to give back to these beautiful places
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: that we go to. We have the ability to give
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: back towards science, we have the ability to give back
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: towards the communities that we visit. And I'd like to
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit today. But let's let's
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: start with maybe what was the most formative first adventure
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: that you went on, the first big journey that you
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: went on that really anchored you as an explorer.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Oh man, I guess that would be probably going to
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: work with the National sorry, with the MSNA already in
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: my career as a cartographer, the National Gegraphics sites. That
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  Speaker 3: that's what's it came from. But I would say probably
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  Speaker 3: my work in the Congo and the Democratic Book of
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  Speaker 3: the Congo. When I was with the United Nations, you know,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: and I mean, you know, it's like it's one thing
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: to go to Europe, you know, I mean, as a
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  Speaker 3: as a Westerner, you can go there and everybody speaks
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  Speaker 3: a language, you know, and it's it's beautiful, it's different culture.
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  Speaker 3: But but to see a completely different way of life,
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  Speaker 3: you know, and and and something you know, a language
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  Speaker 3: you don't understand, and and no resemblance at all whatsoever
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  Speaker 3: of a culture or.
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  Speaker 2: Anything that feels normal, infrastructure, roads, any of.
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  Speaker 3: It, anything that fels nothing feels normal. It's it's completely alien,
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  Speaker 3: you know. And in poverty, I mean, it's it's a
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  Speaker 3: it's a different kind of poverty as well, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, and but but also the happiness and I mean,
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  Speaker 3: everything is different. I was there with you with the
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  Speaker 3: United Nations early right after grad school. My first job
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: after grad school and working at the Nexus Between. I
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: was more of a cartographer at that point, so I
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: was doing gis work, working with a contingency from Uruguay
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  Speaker 3: on remapping some of the roads that were destroyed during
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: the during some of the warring factions that were happening
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  Speaker 3: during that time, the Cabilla's time, whatnot. And again just
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: seeing there just being there being that, and and the
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  Speaker 3: work I was doing in the field, you know, seeing
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  Speaker 3: seeing the way that the work was conducted with these communities,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: the impact you know, I was able to make with
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: these communities. And that's really what sunk it in for
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  Speaker 3: me too, I mean, because you know, up until that point,
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: you know, getting growing up in Ohio, I literally grew
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: up in the middle of a cornfield. I had a
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: cornfield to one side of me, in a swerving field,
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: and a hog farm not too far away, you know.
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  Speaker 3: So so you know, seeing a hill was a pretty
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: big deal to me. You know, So up until that point,
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  Speaker 3: when I travel somewhere, it's all about the scenery, you know.
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  Speaker 3: And that's really when you know, my background as a
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: cultural geographer kind of sunk in and it hit me.
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  Speaker 3: It's it's like, yeah, It's just it's way more than
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: just seeing a pretty mountain, you know, or a glacier
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  Speaker 3: you know, or you know, topographical feature x whatever it
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  Speaker 3: might be. You know, that's when it really hit me,
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: and that's when it sunk into me that you know,
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  Speaker 3: these far off places are more than just the physical
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  Speaker 3: beauty of things. You know, there there lived landscapes. Interesting.
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  Speaker 3: That's what it really made me want to go see
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  Speaker 3: everywhere else.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Why don't you kind of define for the listener what
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: a cultural geographer would be, What would that entail? What
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: does that defined as?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I mean I get that one quite a bit,
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  Speaker 3: actually cultural geographer, you know, so, I mean most people
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  Speaker 3: they think geography that they think like states and capitals
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  Speaker 3: and maps, you know, but geography really is taking a subject,
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  Speaker 3: you know, in science and looking at it from a
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  Speaker 3: spatial context. You know. So taking anthropology for instance, because
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: that that's that's a close premblant. Where anthropology may look
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  Speaker 3: at the culture itself, you know, and study their language
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  Speaker 3: and their ways of being, you know, and their their spirituality,
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  Speaker 3: you know, their their tribal politics. For for instance, a
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: cultural geographer will take a spatial look at that. We'll
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: look at that also, but we won't dive deep into that,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: so it's I mean some but not as deep in that.
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  Speaker 3: We'll also look at some of the spatial features that
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  Speaker 3: shape that that culture, for instance, topography. You know, how
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  Speaker 3: how are some of the customs and some of the
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  Speaker 3: infrastructure that they're they're using built are influenced by the
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: by their surroundings or maybe local maybe neighboring cultures also,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: you know has so I think Silk Road, I think
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  Speaker 3: the Silk Road is is probably the best example of
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: what a cultural geographer is study. So yeah, as a
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  Speaker 3: silk rowl would go east to west, I mean it
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: wasn't just it wasn't just a highway of goods and services.
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  Speaker 3: So sure chansferred cultures and beliefs and ways of understanding
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  Speaker 3: the world. So that's what a culture geographer looks like. Look,
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  Speaker 3: it looks at the connection points between the cultures.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you look at even some of the writings
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  Speaker 1: of Marco Polo, I mean, just as the first travelers
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  Speaker 1: to go along the Silk Road would have been an
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  Speaker 1: incredible way to experience the world and to better understand it.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, you can see why certain cultures would have
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: a god for the mountain because it was the mountain
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  Speaker 1: that had all the water coming off of it from
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the snow, and it provided the valley and it provided
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  Speaker 1: all of the their sustenance. So it was something that
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  Speaker 1: was incredibly powerful for them.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt about it. And in the animism, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the animistic faiths, I mean, it's so permeates. Like you know,
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  Speaker 3: there's Muslim faiths who has so who have animism, Sufi
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  Speaker 3: friends and Sufism, no Buddhism, you know, it's that and
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  Speaker 3: Buddhism has a lot of animism and it's still bonpo
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  Speaker 3: and whatnot, you know, So exactly right, I mean, and
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  Speaker 3: that's that's exactly what we look at. And so so
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  Speaker 3: what what makes the culture of the way it is,
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  Speaker 3: you know, and how is it influencing things? And then
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: then you know, and how our externality is also impacting
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  Speaker 3: that culture, which is where my work mostly focuses on.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and I would that leads an interesting question for
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  Speaker 1: me because you are able to look at the world
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  Speaker 1: in that way, it probably brings a lot of awareness
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  Speaker 1: for you in your own life and how other people
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  Speaker 1: interact with the world. What are some lessons that you've
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: taken as a cultural geographer that you apply to your
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: own life every day, like how you see people react
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  Speaker 1: to things, or like what are some tools that you've
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  Speaker 1: brought into your day to day life that you've learned
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  Speaker 1: from your job.
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  Speaker 2: That's a fascinating job.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for saying that. Yeah, And I think
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  Speaker 3: it's I mean, I think it's that par for most
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  Speaker 3: people who have traveled, you know, who travel some It's
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  Speaker 3: just it's ability to kind of look at a thing,
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  Speaker 3: you know, look at a person, look at a people's
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: look at a tribe, and not necessarily take it at
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: face value, to try to look at it and not
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: impose your own judgment and your own bent toward it,
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: but just to see it as you know, and if
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: you don't understand it, you know, try to understand it.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it may maybe it's just simply different. It's
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: a different way of life. And that shapes my leadership
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: style at my job, that that shapes my you know,
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  Speaker 3: how I work in my community, you know, and work
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  Speaker 3: with people, you know, really wherever I go. I think
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: being able to have that purview of just something different
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: rather than wrong. Yeah, I think that translates into.
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  Speaker 1: A lot And also that so many things don't translate.
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  Speaker 1: I remember when I was going through Malawi. I mean,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: it's one of the more impoverished countries in Africa if
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: you just look purely at demographics, if you look at GDP.
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  Speaker 1: But they were some of the happiest people I encountered
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: in the entire continent. I mean there was just joy everywhere,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: laughter and kids playing in the lake, and they had enough,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: they had food, and they usually were on a bicycle,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: not a motorcycle. So things that indicate, you know, a
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: lower level of GDP, but they seem to have a
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: very high level of happiness. So that was that was
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: a formative realization for me that it doesn't translate all
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the time, that just like, certainly we have basic needs
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: that need to be met, but beyond that, I don't
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  Speaker 1: know that it necessarily trans to happiness.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: I think that's true. Yeah, I mean, and you know,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: and that's a great example. I saw the same thing
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: when I was in the Congo. But you know, to me,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: I think one of the one of the in my
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: my own travels, my own experiences, I think one of
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: the most shreinding examples of that is in Bhutan. You know,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: and for listeners who don't know that. That's a small
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: Tibetan Buddhist kingdom in the in the Himalayas, so just
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: to the east of Nepal. Sandal's right between India and China,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: the two most populist countries in the world. Bhutan, you
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: know it, it's a poor country. You know, their GDP
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: is irrelevant to them. They measure their national wealth by
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: g and H, which is you know, gross national happiness.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I did read about that. Yeah, that's cool and what
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: so let's pick on that for a second. What are
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: something Have you been there? I have been there, okay,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: So what did you find help make those people be
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: so happy? What were some of the attributes that came
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: to life when you experienced that place?
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: Well, you know what, anything about Bhutan, I mean, you know,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: it's it's a it's a it's a Buddhist kingdom, you know.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: So so the way the way they see, the way
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: they see the world in the city life is different
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: than a lot of other places too. But they don't
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: really see something. They don't really separate faith or in politics,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: or or a way of being you know, from the earth.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: It's it's all the same thing, you know. So in fact,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: written into their constitution, you know, is that the at
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: any point in their history, it has to be covered
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: by sixty eight percent trees.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Oh wow.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: So they have environmental conservation written to the constitution, but
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: they also have cultural preservation written to the constitution as well.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: So they just they take these things very seriously, you know.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: And and and their king is attuned to it too,
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: you know. And he's a he's a The first time
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: I met the King of Bhutan was in was in
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: as in a charter not a charter plane. Just nobody
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: called a plane that you and I would take.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, commercial commercial plane, thanks.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, commercial plane. He was sitting in a
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: commercial plane. He's fined in a in a commercial plane.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: Didn't they didn't have a private plane to fly there. Wow,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: he flied to the people, you know, so in that
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: they admire that.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: So what an incredible what an incredible thing. I remember
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: reading there was a great story about Bhutan and that
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: and that goal that they have for happiness, which if
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: you're limited with natural resources, why not focus on other
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: things like preserving the natural resources that you have and
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: helping the people feel happier with what they have.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: It also drives innovation you know. I mean, you know,
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: the of course, being a Himalayan kingdom in the Himalayan
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: country period, you know, they have a lot of fast
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: flowing water, you know, so they're implementing hydropower. Yeah, and
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: they're and they're actually mining bitcoin with hydropower however exactly,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: you know, So it's it's a green solution of mining
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: bitcoin because you all know what the environment unpacked that
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: and whatnot. So it's it drives innovation. You know, a
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: lot of artists will say, you know, to really try
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: to I know this because my wife was an artist,
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: but to really force creativity take things away, you know,
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: to yeah, yeah, take some elements away. And I think
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: they've done that.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I find that we've We've talked about it a
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: little bit on the podcast, but we believe that's one
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: of the tenets of vehicle preparation is that the vehicles
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: not perfect when you've added the last widget to it.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: The vehicles actually perfect when you've taken the last thing away.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: So you've you've really been mindful to say, Okay, this
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: is something that I don't need, or I've gained additional
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: training and experience and now I don't need this, and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: this and I think that that applies in all areas
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: of travel and likely all areas of life. That yeah, okay, well,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: let's let's move on to what you remember, or what
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: you would think is one of your most ambitious expeditions
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: that you've done. You've written many books, and a lot
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: of them include conversations around what we're talking about right now,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: which is really important. But a lot of what you've
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: learned and you've been able to share in your books
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: and in your lecture lectures have come from expeditions. So
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: let's talk about what was your most ambitious expedition, and
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: let's talk about what you experienced with.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: That ambitious I mean one that that's been completed, you mean, yes, yeah, yeah,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: So the Wakan Corridor. I think when when I first chatted,
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: we talked about that quite a little bit, you know,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: one of my ambitions at the Wakonk Corridor. I mean
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: that's you know, through ta Jikistan for most of the people,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: just just north of the border of Afghanistan. Deserver the
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Pond River, I think it was.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's right, yeah, quite the river.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: It was. Yeah. So it's our ambition was to to
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: basically traversed the whole thing, you know, I mean not
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: quite rally style, but but you know, definitely no navigation.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: So we didn't have we didn't have maps, we didn't
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: have GPS, we didn't have a compass. You know, we
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: didn't speak the language, you know. So but we're you
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: know that I went there with with one of the
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: one of my friends from Bhutan, his name was Kandu,
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: and he runs up he runs up a business out
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: that that too. But we we we met out in
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: in Tajikistan, and we're going to do this trip and
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: again more more the work I'm doing. So again my
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: work explores how climate change and other geopilical factors are
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: shaping indigenous communities. Sure, you know. And so we're going
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: to explore some of the communities along with the walk
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: on Quard and all the way up into Moragap.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: And they're incredible. These communities are incredible.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: They really are. Yeah. And it just just the richness
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: and the depth and the history that's amaz things.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Hospitality, the kindness, but also like it. I don't know
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: if this is an I'm an amateur compared to you
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: in this subject, but what I felt was so much
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: of the ancientness of the place had been preserved. Like
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: it just felt like I was in an ancient place
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and it was.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Important to them, you know. I mean, it wasn't preserved
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: out of out of just lack of means, it was
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: important to them to preserve it. Yeah, I felt that
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: same thing.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I mean just standing there looking at that Yamshun fortress,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: which is you know, this was like part of as
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I understand that this was one of the tentacles of
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the Silk Road was through this region, and there were
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: these castles that were built at different stages, sometimes by crusaders,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes by local lords or whatever. But ye, this castle
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: is incredible, Like you can still see the balusteria that
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: they would have shot the arrows through at their enemies
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: charging the fortress.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Just breathtaking, it really was.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. And you know, and part of the
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: reason we did it that way without the navigation was
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: because you know, I had oftentimes said that, you know,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: people ask me about about you know, people in child
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Don't you get scared going into central A, Don't you
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: get scared going to wherever? Right? I said, no, I'm frankly,
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: my experience has been the more remote I've gone, the
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: friendlier the people, and at one point another friend of
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: the exports club challenged me on that. You know, so,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: so the whole point was to see if I could
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: take that trip, no navigation, no instruments, don't speak the language,
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: just based solely on the generosity of people to guide
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: me where I'm going to go.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: And how was that experience for you? Whether did you
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: what were some takeaways or some little stories you can
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: share from that?
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Well, you learn pretty quickly the difference between this and
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: enough video, between this and sure yeah, but no, but
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: it's I mean, everybody wants to help, you know. I
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: mean I ran out of gas. Here's here's another story too.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: So I ran out so that the bike I was
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: renting then no two fifty Honda, you know where I
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: rented it from. The They didn't They provided us a pump,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: you know, for the bike, and and that was pretty
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: much it. But we got on the way the pump,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: I got a flat. I can't you probably would know
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: the point, but there's a point. If you're going to
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: walk on quarter you you get down to this valley,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: you cross this little waterfall, and you can I got
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: a flat in that waterfall.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Big rocks and stuff.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Bike stuff in there. Yes I got and then I
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: didn't even real it is my rear tire. And so
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: I'll go to change a tire. The tube is a
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: wrong size, soup is not fit, the pump doesn't work,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: you know, so I don't Basically I don't have a pump.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: I don't have a spirit too, because we're not running mooses,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: you know, buring tubes. So I had nothing. You couldn't
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: fix the tire. So you know, long comes, long comes
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: these farmers that they see us pass by, because you know,
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: I was when you may go places, the easiest way
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: to make friends in a village is to be nice
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: to the kids. Sure, because the kids are always waving,
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: got you when to come stay high And because we
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: did that, you know, they all give you high fives.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: You give them high five on the way. So they
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: were you know, were nice of the kids. So they
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: came and helped us. They they had they happened to
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: have a pump. You know, we were able to. I
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: mean I was going for a little while. So one
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: of things we took out a kind of rally style.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: We took off all of our clothes and just kind
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: of filled the cavey of the tire, you know, enough
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: to just to get to a point. Zip tied it
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: on you like you would do, you know. And then
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: we got to this point, and then the people saw us,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: and then they said, hey, we we got this, and
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: literally gave me an er two that they had, an
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: er two that fit for them. Of course you don't
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: have means, right, they don't. Yeah, so they gave me
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: an inner two, you know, and fix my tire for me.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Wouldn't even let me help them, wown't let me help them.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: They just kind of sent me. Always say again, the
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: generality of people. I genuinely believe that people want to
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: help you, especially when you're a traveler.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I think it's an ancient part of culture. And maybe
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: that's part of what you've discovered in you know, in
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: your in your doctoral degree and everything else like that,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: is that there's a translation between the way that things
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: have always been, like a sense of a village, Like
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: we don't feel like we're part of a lot of
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: people don't feel disregulated because they don't feel like they're
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: part of a village anymore.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: I think that's true, especially in the West.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, that's something that we've lost along the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: way is that you used to raise barns together as
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: a community because it was the only way to make
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: it happen totally. And those villages they understand that, they
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: understand that you aren't going to fix this thing unless
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: they help you.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think the the you know,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: the cliche takes a village to raise a kid. I mean,
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: I think it also takes a vital to have a
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: good life.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, what are some other insights that you've come to
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: along the way in those terms? Like we talked, just
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: talked about it takes a village, But what are some
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: other insights that you've taken that have changed your life
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and changed the way that you have relationships with others
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: because of what you've learned as a cultural geographer.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I mean a lot of the work
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: I do, especially when I'm not writing or not in
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: the field, it revolves around sustainability, you know, So I
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: help organizations you know, work work on those practices and
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: make it make it a more profitable business, you know,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: and sustainable means and a lot of sustainable practices you know,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: for for better or worse, they're they're a bit esoteric.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, what is circularity? You know, it's about keeping
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: these other landfill. You know, why why do we need
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: to rease our carbon footprint for instance? You know, because
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: because the math says so. But when you're in these communities,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: you know, and you see the actual impact that has
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: on them, because you know these I mean climate change,
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: whatever it is. You know, whether your believes are it's
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: a real thing or it's not a real thing. You know,
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: when you're in these I can see it, you know,
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: because because I think they live so close to nature.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, and you know, and I forget oftentimes you know,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: as as an American, how far removed I am. I mean,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: I have air conditioning, I have a heater. I can
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: turn water on by a faucet. I don't have to
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: go and get it somewhere. These people, they live in it.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: You know. And when you see that, when you see
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: shifting water migration routes, it's a trickling thing about doing.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: In Mongolia, when you see that happen and people have
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: to pick up their village and move somewhere else because
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: of water is dried up, or reindeer herders, you know,
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: when when they you know, in Lapland, for instance, they
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: can't any longer, you know, graze their reindeer because the
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: freezing thaw cycles there's free so all their food for
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: the reindeer would be frozen under the they can't eat it.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, when you see those things, it just it
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: just makes me more conscious about, you know, my impact
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: on both in society and in the environment, just makes
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: me more conscious of how I live my life.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: There's no question that things are changing.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I remember being in tuck Tyuk Tuck and you know,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: these people, they don't have a political leaning. They're a
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: small village and they just say this has changed because
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: things have gotten warmer, and they know they've been doing
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: this for thousands of years.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Things have changed.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: These animals are no longer present, or these other ones
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: have come in fortunately, or their diets had to change,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: or they've had to import different things, or they've not
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: had to import things anymore because now that there's more vegetation.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: So things are absolutely changing. And I think one of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: our responsibilities as travelers is towards sustainability, and from my perspective,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: it's always been how do we minimize the negative impact
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: on these communities when we're traveling through there. Do you
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: have some advice or any insights around sustainability for travel
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: as good travelers, what can we do to minimize the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: negative impact on these communities and how can we help them?
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, honestly, it's just have good manners. I mean,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: it's being culturally aware. I mean, it's like one of
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: my I I guess, one of my precepts. I guess
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: we're saying. One of the things I'll say oftentimes, is
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: it just you know, the thing to remember. I think
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: whenever you travel, wherever you go, remember that you were
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: a guest. You know, you know they're not there. You
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: people you're going to visit. You know, whether it be
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: Paris or whether it be and and Lapland, you know,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: indigenous community. You know they're not spectacles. You know they
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: are not The people you're visiting are not there for you.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Disneyland, it's not Disneyland.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: You know you're you're a guest in their land. So
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: my you know, mind your manners, You be yourself like
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: you would be a good house guest somewhere else. Mind
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: their customs. You know, don't don't don't impose your customs
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: on other people in traditions. You know, it's like if
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: if they if they eat with their hands instead of
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: a fork and knife, eat with their hands, and said,
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: wash your hands, you don't get sick. But you know,
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: mind mind the customs. And again oak cliche went in Rome.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember when I was in Ethiopia a couple
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: of years ago, and I'm left handed.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: I eat left handed me too.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know exactly where are going with this. Yeah,
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: my wife is from Iran, so I had I had
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: underneath my right hand.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Do you have to it's and it's not. And they
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: are very these are very intelligent people, so they understand
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: that something's not right, like that I'm not right. I'm
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: left hand, but I would have to sit on my
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: left hand to force myself to not and it took
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: it took a while, it took days to finally get
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: And I'm ambidextrious, like I throw a ball right handed
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and I shoot right handed. I'm right eye dominant, so
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: like I can use my right hand, but I'm used
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: to eating with my left and it just took a
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: little bit of effort on my part to not be
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: insulting to the people in the restaurant.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Well, and they have anything about that too. I mean
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: you know, it's easy again from the West, you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: because again we're knife and fork people staying on eating
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: their hands things for a bit, it's like, ahead's so
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: savage you eat with your hands. But but then, but
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: the first time I tried it, I mean, like, you know,
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: with my wife and her family, they looked at me
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: like I like, I'm this savage. There is an etiquette too,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: it Yeah, you don't realize. You know, there's a right
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: and the wrong way to you mention with your left hand.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: You don't do that. You know that there's the right
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: way to pinch your food and put it into your mouth.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: It's not just like grab a handful of food and
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: cram it down your throat.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's it's again. It's it's going back to
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: an earlier conversation about having that open mind, you know, yes,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: to understand there or there are other ways that are
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: not right or wrong. They just don't be different.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: But isn't that one of the joys of travel is
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: to experience something completely out of the norm for yourself.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: And I believe that it makes you a little more humble,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a little more open, a little more aware of how
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: other people live.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Totally and yeah, and I think, I mean, I think,
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: you know, why do you travel? As a question that
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: everybody asks everybody, what's the point? And I mean I
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: think it's the same. It's one. It's curiosity. You know,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: we all want to grow in some capacity, you know.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: And again I think the more open you can go,
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: you know Zen Buddhsts wud call it beginner's mind, you know,
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: the more you can go into a different area with
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: with that beginner's mind of I don't know anything, the
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: more you're going to learn, the more you're going to
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: enjoy yourself, the more fun you're going to have, and
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: the more that people will like you too.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: By the way, I agree, I think everybody loves the rookie.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: I think that.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: But I think the key is is that the rookie
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: has to embrace the fact that they are. Yes, you know,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: otherwise you run into the Dunning Krueger, a fact that
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: somebody's over overstating their competence. But if you are, just
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: like when I started adventure motorcycling years ago, like I
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: tried to embrace being a rookie like and then next
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: thing you know, people are helping you, people are giving
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: you good advice, I'm getting a good trainer, and I'm
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: learning this, and I'm learning that. And I think I
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: think the more that we embrace when we are a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: rookie and we can't be perfect, nobody can be perfect.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: But I think people see it as honesty of like, hey,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know how this works. And I think people
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: are open. Cultures are open to it. They know that
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: you don't know all of their cultures. They know that
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: you don't know their language. So be humble and be
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: grateful and be open, and next thing you know, you're
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: getting helped.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: It's fut on And and I think on the other
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: side that too, there is there is as eager as
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: you are to learn about their way of life, they're
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: also eager to learn about your way of life as well,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: you know. So you think about the exchange. It's not
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: just what can I take, what can I learn? What
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: can I learn, but also what can I teach? You know,
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: this is how we do that for instance. But but
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: but again not in a not in a this is
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: how we do things. That is better than the way
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: you do things. Just this is how we do things.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: It is different. It's a different it's literally just different.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, you just mentioned you know, your your in
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: laws being from Iran. This is an ancient culture. I
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: mean they the things that they did around mathematics and
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: science a long long time ago, and it just it
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: makes me so curious about Iran that, like, for example,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: you know Loess Price, who's contributed to the magazine for
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: a long time. She did, Yeah, she did this solo
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: motorcycle trip to Iran. And if you read her book,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: like you have to read her book because it just
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: completely reframes we're separating governments from people.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I think that's really important because there's lots of things
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: about the government that some people may think are okay
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: and some people think most likely are not okay.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: But the people of.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Iran, this is an ancient, beautiful culture filled with very smart,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: very effective people. Let's learn a little bit from them.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: And she did. She chose to come in with an
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: open mind and she learned a lot and.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: Very giving you, very very given culture. Yeah, and it's
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: almost to a fault. Yeah, it's like I don't like
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: asking directions, you know, or where I'm going fish, Oh
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: you come in, have a cup of tea. Yeah, I
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: don't have time, you know, but oh you must you
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: must come in, you know, the next thing, you know
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: that you're there for half an hour, an hour and
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: to Dikistan, I think, is this way same way, you know,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: I mean any like the Persian Persian influenced cultures.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Right, It's so impressive to me.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I remember the Uzbekistan Tadjikistan border and I'm at the
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: border post.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: It's a little shack.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Now it's a lot more improved, but at the time
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: when I went through in twenty ten, it was a
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: little shack and they would not let me even fill
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: out the forms. They sat Charlie and I down in seats,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: they took our passports, they filled everything out for us,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: and all we had to do is just sign it. Yeah,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I mean we we were absolutely taken care of. Yeah,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: And they welcomed us to their country. And this is
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: a place I was afraid to go to. I was
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: afraid that was terrorists there or whatever. And there was
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the furthest thing from the truth.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Bekistan is incredible, incredible. But I mean even my wife,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: my wife's mom, my mother in law. Now it's the
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: same way, like like if if I don't have seconds
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: or thirds.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: You didn't like it, you didn't like the fish.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: She's not happy on this. I leave miserable. How cool
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: is that? It's super cool? I mean especially because something
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: to me, the Persian cuisine is a is the best
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: in the world.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like it's working for you. There's nothing
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: wrong with that. Not a week goes by that someone
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: doesn't reach out to ask how they can help support
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: the podcast. We are supported entirely by Overland Journal, the magazine.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: When you become a subscriber to the Overland Journal print magazine,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: you get this beautiful book that comes in five times
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: a year. It also gives you access to our digital
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: archive and it's well over one hundred pages of gorgeous
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: images and detailed testing and adventures from around the globe.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: So if you go to Overland Journal dot com and
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: you subscribe to the magazine, use the code Overland Podcast
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: and that'll get you twenty percent off. It's only available
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: to our podcast listeners. We don't advertise it anywhere else,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: And then you help us to maintain that independent, employee
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: owned journalism that we have been famous for, so allows
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: us to conduct those tests without any advertorial Another way
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: you can help out too. I produced a book last
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: year with Simon and Schuster called Overlanding One oh one.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: You can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: or even your local bookstore, and that encompasses my decades
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: of travel around the world, all my mistakes and failures,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: and the lessons that I've learned in traveling around the globe.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Many of those that you hear on the podcast have
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: been distilled down into print form with great lists and
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: beautiful imagery, So you can find that at your local bookstore.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Overlanding one on one. And thank you all for listening
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and for supporting us so much throughout these years. Okay, well,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: let's move on to some of the work that you
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: do around the RGS and the Explorers Club. I think
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: it's important to talk about the Explorers Club. That and
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: the RGS both have a rich history of supporting overland travel,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: supporting overland expedition. They they do really great work around
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: the world. But let's talk a little bit around the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Explorers Club. Why should people get involved, how can they
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: get involved? What does the organization do to support scientific endeavor,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: geographic endeavor?
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: For example?
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the Explorers Club first,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and kind of some things that you've been inspired from
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: that organization.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, one of the I mean a way
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: to get involved Explorers Club. There there's many ways, i mean,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: sit down on the lectures. A lot of them are televised,
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: you know, join, you know, I mean, it's it's it's
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: not just a simple process of filling in an application.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: You do have to find members, you have to get
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: sponsored through it. You know, you have to have a
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: background in science or exploration. But you know, one of
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: the common things that the Explorers Club will say that
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: separates them from other like travel based clubs, is it's
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: not a travel club. It's a it's a science based
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: exploration club, you know. So it's it's based you know,
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: you have to have some writings, you know, like the example,
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: you know, there have been people who've been turned away
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: who visited eighty countries. Yeah, eighty countries on a on
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: a cruise ship. Is different than eighty countries. Is doing
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: fieldwork and furthering science and a thing, you know, or
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: furthering knowledge in a thing. It doesn't have to be
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: hard science, you know. I mean, I'm I'm a I'm
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: a qualitative science guy. I'm social science is my background,
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: you know. So it's it's whatever you're into. But to
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: get what they do is really cool. You know. It's
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: there's a dinner coming up with Exports Club and in
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: April it's called EKAD, the ex Sports Club Annual Dinner.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: And I twenty twenty seven, I'm gonna go. I wanted
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: to go this year, but it just wasn't gonna happen.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: I gotta go, man. I mean, it's it's like the
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: gathering of the world's most interesting people. And they're the
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: first ones to tell.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: You, well, maybe I shouldn't go. Then I won't qualify.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: No, absolutely, you be there. I mean, you be button center.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: It's it's uh, but it's super interesting. But because you know,
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: it's what we learned about, what we hear about science,
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: like say five years from now, it's happening right now
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: in this club. That like they're the avant guarde of
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: what is coming next in our understanding of the world.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: And that's that's across the spectrum. That that's not just climate,
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: that's not just that, that's not just you know, on
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: the social side, like a lot what I'm doing. I mean,
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: we're talking about the atmosphere in Mars. I mean, one
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: of the things that they're they're known for is the first, right,
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: the first of the moon, first one of the ocean,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: first Mount Everest, all these things, and all the members
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: have been there. Shackleton was was was a member of
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: the Exporers Club, for instance. So it's really about the
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: nexust of science, you know, furthering further I understand, not
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: heard science really about further and understanding of a thing,
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: combined with exploration and then telling that story, you know,
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: letting the world know, you know, for furthering our knowledge
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: of a thing. Yeah, that's the that's a quintessence I
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: think of the Expores.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, it's what And this is
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: an old organization from the eighteen hundreds.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: I think nineteen ten, fifteen, I don't h I think.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: It's a couple names. Yeah, if you look at the history,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: it's pretty cool.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: I think that's right.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: And then and they have this incredible facility in New York.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: And then of course you have the Royal Geographical Society
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: in London. I remember walking those halls and these were
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: the same halls that like Shackleton and all these guys.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just absolutely it's so humbling, and it
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: just it inspired me to do a little bit better,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: to be a little bit more mindful, to be to
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: help support science, like when we crossed Greenland taking snow
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: depth samples and taking samples of the snow on the
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: surface as we went across, because we wanted to help.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: We were doing something that's difficult to do, so we
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: can add some scientific component to it. So those are
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: some ways that Overlanders can give back. I mean as
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: opposed to just saying, hey, I just did an expedition
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: when what is typically happening is an overland adventure, which
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: is or wonderful. I do overland adventures all the time,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: but maybe instead of calling it an expedition, make it one.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Get a hold of the Explorer's Club, get a hold
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: of the RGS, get a hold of your local college
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and find out are there students that need to get
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: access into the sand raife else well, or they want
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: to go see a remote culture, or get a hold
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: of the universities and the countries that you're visiting. Find
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: out if they have remote researchers that needs supplies help
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: them be a part of science, be a part of
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: cultural you know, or or anthropological or archaeological efforts. In
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: these countries. It gives a deeper understanding of the experience,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: and it's possible to do that, you got it.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think what you're getting is impact, you know.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: I mean it's we can't have both. We can't. And
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: I'm like everybody else, I enjoy tourism. I mean I
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: never do an expedition or a trip anywhere without any tourism. Sure,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: that's and then it's just work.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you're just having fun on a motorcycle. Nothing wrong
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: with that, exactly, nothing wrong with that.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: But impact, I mean, we can always make an impact.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, to your point about your ice corese you know,
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: I mean it's just because you're going somewhere for fun
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean you cannot make an impact to me. And
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: that's not important everybody. That's completely fine, But to me,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: impact is important. And there's a lot of ways to
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: do citizen science, you know, and help with that, and
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: in some capacity there's organizations. Now there's one in Boseman.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: It's the name of it is failing me right now.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: But Greg Trainish is a is ahead of that group
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: and he started and he's also a fellow the Exports Club.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: But his whole, his whole science His whole shtick is
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: around sid isn't science? Like you know, he'll you know,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: you want to do a thing, He'll go you know,
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: he'll say, Okay, this university needs a core sample, you know,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: or some dirt from wherever you're going. Can you collect
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: this and bring us back and they'll they'll train you
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: on how to do it appropriate, properly, the train you
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: how to not contaminate it. And you go there and
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: you can go on your hike, you know, And how
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: cool is that, Karon Prescott? You grab a soil sample
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: and bring it back. Then you'll get it to the
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: scientist and you made an impact. You know, you were assisting.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: You're you're assisting the people who are doing the work
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: that they couldn't do themselves because they need sample sizes.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: And there's other ways to do that too. When you're
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: visiting a culture, you know, get a hold of the
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: local schools or get a hold of an organization that's
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: been properly vetted, because there's you do want to kind
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: of go through a chain of control around making sure
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: that good work is being done. But you can find
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: out like hey, a lot of times people will think, hey,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: they need pencils and paper. Usually they have lots of
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: pencils and paper. But I remember one little school they said,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: you know what we really ne he is breakfast. We
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: need breakfast, breakfast for these kids. So I brought tons
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: of boxes of cereal. I just found out what they needed.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: And because we have payload and we have big trucks,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: we can haul some stuff back in there to help
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: them out.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Ask the question, yeah, don't assume. Yeah, that's a Westion,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: you know. And the same with Buton is it? You know.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: I was my first trip there. I was gonna, you know,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: bring your rhetorical you know, pencil will take pictures and
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: you know, so I asked her. I asked the because
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: in Bhutan you can't just go across Baton on your own.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: You you must have a guide. Bye, by their law,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: you must have a guide there. So I mentioned Condo earlier.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: He was my guy through there too, So I call up.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: I was like, hey, what do the people need. He's like,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: they need advisors and work gloves. Oh okay, I would
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: would have never thought that exactly. And advisors because it's
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: sunny outside. They don't have anything to protect their head
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: their faces from and they need work gloves because they're
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: using their hands all day. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: How cool is that though a wait away, like you said,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: to have some impact on those people. The person that
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: got that set of gloves is really grateful, totally made
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: a difference. And then you also got to come back
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: with all these memory reason and the venture and experience.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, documentary, documentary, acture on that trip, you know.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. What's the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: name of the documentary.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: It was a document short, it's a little fourteen minute deal.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: It's called the End of the Road and it's a
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: It was documenting a place some in the far East
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: of Buton called Merrick m E r A K. Marrick
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: I think they pronounce it Merrick and Sucking America are
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: the two villages in the far East, and they were
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: building a road out to these villages. And the documentary
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: is effectively just me exploring what is it like, what
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: are the impacts of building a road to a community
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: that never had a road. And I'm sitting and I'm
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: speaking with the village chief about the and asking exactly
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: those questions, and he was he was awesome. He really
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: hit both sides of the pros and the cons of
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: the road. Of course, the pros being you know, it
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: provides it makes it easier because there's somewhere nomadic. You
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: know that this fund the winters down now in the
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: valleys where it's warmer and there's summers up highest where
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: they can raise you know, grazer yak and do their crops.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: But so the roads of course made that travel easier
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: for them, easier access to medicine, easier access to the markets.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: But you know the other side of it, going to
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: our earlier conversation, you know, it also brings other not
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: necessarily wanted things.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Like drugs or whatever, drugs or culture.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: Change, you know, because because he mentioned to me, he's like,
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: now a lot of our kids, none of our children
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: are not are replacing some of some of our language
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: with you know, English words or German words, you know,
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: or so the culture change, the part that the part
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: that is not wanted is also again going back to
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: respecting the cultures. You know, you can't control that. I mean,
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: you know, it's like you can't possibly go there and
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: expect to speak fluently the dialect of the tribe you're
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: going to visit, right almost never, you know, unless you're
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: linguist or something. Sure, but yeah it's pussis and minuses.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Like you said, impact, impact can go both directions. It
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: can be a positive impact or it can be a
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: negative impact. And I think the more mindful that we
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: are of the impact that we have when we visit
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: these cultures, the better.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: I think it's really important.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just exactly right. I think think about what impact
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: you're having, both negative and positive.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: So you've done so much field work, we'll bring it
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: back a little bit to overlanding. What's kind of your
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: favorite way to travel by vehicle and what are some
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: things that you've learned along the way that have worked
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: really well for you in these remote countries.
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: I mean I'm almost solely motorcycles and that's that's everything
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: from the big Gs spikes to a Honda two fifty. Sure,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: you know, depending on where I'm going, you know, if
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: I need to be on a single track or front
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: of you mostly roads, but yeah, it's mostly And the
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: thing about you know, motorcycles for me is is just
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: the access that provides. I mean it's you know, some
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: places it's just easy to get to the motorcycle. Then
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: it is something with four wheels or six wheels like
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: some of the big Arctic trucks. Yeah, sure, yeah, I
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: mean it's just easy to get there with the motorcycle.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: I mean you care less, you know, so, so it
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: kind kind of forces you to think a little bit
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: about what you really need to bring. But Frank, I
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: just like motorcycles too.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if this has been your experience,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: but when I'm in a four wheel drive vehicle, it
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: provides a little bit of a distance to the local community.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: They see you as like, who is this person? It
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: looks like that maybe they have maybe they have money
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: or whatever. You know, you're in this may Yeah, I
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: would agree. And sometimes our vehicles can look pretty imposing
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: and serious, whereas if you're on a motorcycle, and especially
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: if you have a flip up helmet or like Lowest
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: likes to ride with an open face helmet. But you
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: flip that helmet up and they see the smile, and
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: they can see you're dusty and you're hot, just like
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: they are.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: I think it changes the interaction totally.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: And I've said before, I think, you know, like like
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: food and dance and art, I mean, I think motorcycles
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: by us as I maybe I think motorcycles are an
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: international language. I mean, everybody gets it. I mean there's
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: a freedom the motorcycles.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: It's like you know, you you taste a dirt on
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: the road. You know, you smell the smells, you feel
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: the heat, you can feel the cold, you know, and
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: and just kind of the if I can get romantic
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: about a little bit too, it isn't romanticism about me
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: and freedom, you know, And I think I think people
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: get that, whether you ride or not. You know, it's
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: in the villages and and the kids, all of them.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: You know. The easiest way to get buy in with
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: it with the village is park your bike, put a
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: kid on there and let them home.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: That's right. They love it.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: They love it.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: They love it. Let them rev the engine a little bit.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what it might be, you know, get a picture
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: with it, take a picture on it, to give them
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: a thumbs up, you.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Know, especially if it's a big bike like a GS.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: I remember I did a bunch of riding on a
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: GS in South America, and man, those kids love it.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I mean they're just like and even the you know,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: the adults too, are like, what is this thing exactly?
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: You know, because there's so much bigger than the bikes
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: that they're used to.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: Right, They're just a huge bike.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: It is a huge bike for them, whereas a twelve
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: hundred or thirteen hundred Now, geez, unbelievable, But yeah, they
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: really are. Yeah, they're well, they're great, all great travel bikes.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: But two point fifty has its advantages and a twelve
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: to fifty has its advantages, and you can't expect either
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: one to be perfect.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: Like like you said during a first conversation, right tool for.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: The job, Yeah, you know, it's absolutely true.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: Figure out what you're going to need and go with that.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: So the the book, one of the books that you've
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: done more recently, does talk about sustainability. Let's talk about
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the title of the book, and let's go through some
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: insights that you can share with the listener around sustainability
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: or the impact of change on these communities.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So the series is Our Changing World, you know,
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: and and the first and it's the books vary. They
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: go everything from indigenous communities and their impact on sustainability
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: to uh kind of where sustainability is you know, past
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: president where I think it's going that. Another one is
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: on social justice, social rights and other than the last
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: one is on sustainable business, you know, but the one
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: that I think is probably the most applicable will be
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: the first book, and it works with it already talks
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: about the the impact and the contribution indigenous communities can
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: have on the sustainability movement, and it really kind of
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: goes into paradigm, I think, just the way. And of
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: course every culture is different, don't I don't want to
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: try to lump all indigenous communities into a monolithic trope
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: and saying you know that they all, you know, do
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: a thing. They all of course, they're all very different
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: like you and I and Americans and Europeans are.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: But I mean, what do you like the same? Hat?
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: We do like the same. But uh, but you know,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: I think one of the one of the broad areas
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: I think that that is common amongst most Indigenous communities
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: is the way they even view the way they view earth,
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: you know, to where I mean a lot of the
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of the Abrahamic traditions, you know,
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: view earth as a as a thing for us, you know,
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: think manifest destiny. But where where they'll view it they
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: viewed as very differently, as you know, rather than being
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: a part of land that they're more as being a
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: part of the land, sorry apart from the land, a
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: part of the land, and they melted the spirituality and
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: there and the tenure. It's just kind of the way
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: they view the land as and it's more it's the
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: sustainability is baked in. I think's the air Qui nation.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: You know that they have the principle that's it's pretty
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: common called the seven seven generations principle may be part
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: of it to where you know, as they're planning out
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: their land rights and excuse me, their land use, the
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: long term plan is for seven generations, like if what
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: we do today is not good for seven generations from now,
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: we're not going to do it. But Butan mentioned earlier
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: they have something similar there. There's like a four hundred
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: year plan that's and that that's from the very first
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: of Bhutan's how they start doing that. So I think
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: it's their approach to land tenure is what I would
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: say is probably the biggest contribution. Like holistically that they
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: and of course they have great ideas, you know, they
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: like they have innovations that we don't think about, like
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: they're biodynamic farming and some of the farming practices, the
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: animal husbandry practices. It's harder to scale some of those.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: I understand that. But holistically, just kind of the way
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: you view the land and land tenure is is just
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: it's just sustainable crop rotations, you know, grazing patterns. You
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: know where we're gonna you know, the the cultures who
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: are semi nomadic, they'll go to different areas every time too,
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: So the land heel so which.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Makes sense if you're trying to have the land be
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: productive seven generations from now, you would have you would
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: treat it very differently totally.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, but it's also not commoditized.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: You know that they're not they're not trying to make
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: a bunch of money from it. You know, they're there,
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: they're trying to feed their tribe, they're their family, their village,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: you know, so they're not trying to you know that
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: they're not trying to you know, strip the soil of
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: everything that can to you know, make a couple million bucks.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Well, and if you think about it, for them, if
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: the next generation, if it was stripped or it wasn't productive,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: the next generation, their bloodline dies off. Yeah, like they
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be difficult for them to move, yeah, and
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: be productive.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Fully, or they have to relocate, like a lot of
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: a lot of the seminomatic camera heurders and the Gobi
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: right in for instance. Right now, they're doing that because
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: again with changing climate. I believe the climate is changing.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: With changing climate, there's a lot more dust storm so
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: a lot on top soil is getting blown away, so
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: they can't plant craps anymore. You know, the waters is moving,
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: so they have to find another place to live.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that there's no question that the
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: climate is changing. I think what gets politicized is why
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: or how it's changing. But like even when I was
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: at the summit station of Greenland and they had done
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: this ice core, like they can go back they know
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: the exact year that the Roman Empire was the economy
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: was because they were they had they were smelting all
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: this so much more lead, Like they could actually determine
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: the amount of lead. And it's like rings of a
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: tree because every year the snow falls and then it
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: gets compressed and you can literally see this ice core
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: and it's like rings of a tree. And they can
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: go back in time and they can say like, oh
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: it perfectly lines up, and then you can see when
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: when there was a mini ice age and you can
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: see how that affected the snow, and then when it
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: was periods of it being warmer, and they know that,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: like things are changing in ways that they've never changed before.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: So there's something that's different or new.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: And carbon content too, by the way, because because you know,
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: it's not just water and ice gets getting stuck in
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: this course.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: It's everything little bubbles of air, yes.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: And what's in air carbon, So you can measure the
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: carbon content of the ice bubbles for every one of
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: those layers of ice core and measure how what what
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: what the what the global the carbon emissions were one
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: hundred years ago compared to right now. That is so
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: fascinating and that's how we know that. That's how we
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: know that there's more carbon in the air now.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: They literally know, I mean it's and people should look
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: at up because it's really interesting to see like those
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: ice cores and they can see like this is when
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Mount Vesuvius erupted, this is when this other volcano erupted.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: It shows it right in this history of you know,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: what's essentially a four kilometer thick ice core unbelievable, so fascinating,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: but it reminds us. It's like, just like we're talking
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: about about sustaining the land, we need to be as
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: mindful as we can of our impact. Let's when we
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: go to a campsite, let's not expand the campsite. When
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: we leave the campsite, let's leave it, leave it cleaner
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: than when we found it. If we especially if we
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: come across something of historic significance, Le's make sure we're
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: not disrupting it. Let's not take don't take arrowheads away,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: don't take pottery shards. Leave that stuff for the next
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: seven generations. Let's think about it in that as terms.
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: When it's not yours, it's theirs. It's exactly, it's a
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: part of history.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Leave it where you found it. I mean, maybe to
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: sure of course.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: Picture yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah, I love that. Actually,
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: and even think about erosion patterns too, you know, I mean,
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: like you know, it's I mean, when you're overly on,
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: of course, it's harder to be selected sometimes on the
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: route you have to take. You have to pick your
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: own path. I get that, you know, but you know,
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: if you can choose a path that may lead to
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: less erosion. You know that that's going to lead to
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: less sheet erosion downstream for a crop, for instance, ye pick,
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: maybe pick that path. Maybe it's a kilometer longer, but
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: you know what, so what, maybe it's better for the environment,
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: for the people who live there.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: And the things that we learn as drivers help us
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: to be more mindful of that. Engage for a drive
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: before you need it, Like if it goes from a
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: gravel road to an unimproved road, go into four low
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: so you minimize we'll spin, you know, Engage that rear
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: locking differential so that your tires don't spin and you
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: don't tear up the surface of the soil or whatever
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: structure there is to that road. You know, if you've
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: got to do if you've got fluids leaking, pick up
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: the oil that's dripped. And these are all things that
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: tread lightly and leave no trace. These are all well
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: established behaviors. But we have a responsibility as a traveler.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: If we're going to go visit this remote valley in
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: the walk on Corridor, we shouldn't be tearing.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: It up totally.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: We should be leaving it as good or as better
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: than we found it, or maybe even contributing back in
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: some way having a positive impact.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Because we're guests.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And wouldn't it be cool if one hundred years
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: from now that the next generation of overland travelers get
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: to experience the same thing we did exactly. I think
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: we have a responsibility for that. It's called stewardship for
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: future generations, and I think that we have a responsibility
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: for that. And I'm just grateful for the work that
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: you do. I mean, reading your content and us being
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: able to develop our friendship and learn more about what
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: you do is inspiring to me, James, it really is,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: it really is. And the work that you're doing with
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: the Explorers Club, you contribute to their publication on a
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: regular basis, Like people should check out the Explorers Club magazine.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: It's cool.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks, Yeah, right there. Sustainability column. I have a
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: just a two page spread, it's about two pages, but
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: it's on you know, basically the future of sustainable exploration. Yeah,
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: you know, so how are how are how are members?
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: Not always members, but usually how our members? How our members?
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: You know, furthering furthering expiration in a sustainable ways, and
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: how we make again, decreasing our impact, our negative impact yeah,
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: so decreasing our footprints.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, finding ways to make our impact positive exactly. You know,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: And for those that are listening, I always love to
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: hear about ways that you, as the listener, are doing
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: that things that you've learned along the way to reduce
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: the negative impact, or ways that things that you have
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: done to support science or to support local communities, ways
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: that you give back. I mean, the more stories that
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: we know and that we can share through social media,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: the better, because it's not just about for wheel driving,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: although I love it, it's fun. Motorcycling is super fun.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: It's a hobby and I absolutely love it. But isn't
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: it also great to give back to these places that
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: we enjoy so much. So please make sure that you
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: reach out with your stories of how you've made a
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: positive impact, like James has here.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: Thank you for saying that. Yeah, yeah, and again again.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: I guess if I could leave with one one thing,
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: you know, it's to me. I think the paradigm to
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: think when I when I go into the place is
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: living landscape and it's not just scenery, and to just
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: be aware of the human imprint, you know, the flora,
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: the fauna. I mean, it's it's a living landscape. It's
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: not just something. It's not just your motorized vehicle playground,
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: you know, it's it's not just a backpacking playground or
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: mountain biking playground, whatever your sport might be. It's it's
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: a living landscape. So so just tread lightly.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what great advice, And I really appreciate that. One
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: of the questions that I love to ask. And you're
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: not only very well read, but you've written many books
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: and papers yourself. But what are a couple of your
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: favorite books around overlanding or exploration or travel? What are
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: some of your favorite or even any pick any subject?
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: What's your top three favorite books?
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: You know, it's a little bit cliche, it's almost embarrassed
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: to say it. But then in the artament or cycle
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: matin so good. Yeah, it's so good. That's a tough
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: one to pass up on. Also, I should have been
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: prepared for this question, but I can't think of the
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: guys name the drummer from Rush. Oh, okay, well it's
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: his book. I feel terrible for not knowing then of
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: his book. He wrote a book, you know, after he
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: suffered some loss, you know, and then he took a
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: motorcycle trip around I think he did about sixty six
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: if he did it around on the United States, and
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: it was a really touching story.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's a good way to remember too.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a good one. My reading was pretty
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: the first. But yeah, that's.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: Always a classic. It's so it's so good.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: And now that you've you know, you've traveled so much
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: and you've become part of these organizations and you're leading
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: expeditions around the world. If you were to give some
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: advice to someone who's just getting into this, just getting started,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: maybe they want to take a career path or a
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: degree path similar to yours, what would be some advice
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: that you would give to them, or maybe some advice
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: you'd give to your twenty two year old self on
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: ways that you would do things different or better.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean a lot of what we talk about that.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, find a mentor, you know, find somebody you
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: know who who who admire whose work you admire, and
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: is willing to teach you what they know. But again,
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: just open mind. It's just you know, remember, no matter
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: how many of these things you do, and you have
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: done more of these than anybody I know, no matter
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: how many of these things you know, you never know
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: it all.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I only know maybe one percent of what
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: I would hope to know.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: That's what I mean, you know, and just just as
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: you're twenty two year old self, you definitely don't know
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: everything there is.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Is that.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: Weirdly, the order you get, the more you rise.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but again, open mind, you know, if I find
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: a mentor, I mean, and be open to a lot
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: of things, so too. I mean, because you know, the
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: other thing we don't know is we don't always know
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: what we're interested in. You know. At the beginning of
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: my career, I thought I was going to be a cartographer.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: I thought I was gonna you know, I got this
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: cool jow with Now, shoot, you got society. I'm making maps,
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: and I was going to do that forever. And then
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: I said in a lecture by a guy named Wade Davis,
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: he's he's an anthropologist and he's a lot of working
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: in the Caribbean and all over, and I was like, no,
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: that's what I want to do. I want to I
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: want to be around people. I want to I want
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: to understand more cultures, so I can just open mind,
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: like not just in the field, but you know, maybe,
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: And again you have to be twenty two for that.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: You can do fifty sixty seventy.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: You get started anytime, anytime you went to Yeah, yeah,
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: you know, I.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: Think about Kingsley Holgabo I've had on the podcast, and
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: he didn't start any of his big expeditions until he
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: was in his fifties, you know, I mean, so he.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Just got after it.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: At some point in time he decided he wasn't going
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: to be in a marketing company anymore. He's going to
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: go see the world. Yeah, and like, what an incredible thing.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: So it's never too late for sure to get to
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: get involved.
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: But again you have to be open to it.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: Again, if if you're not open to it, you're you're
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: going to miss a lot of opportunities, a lot of experience.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: All right, James, How do people find out more about
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: you and about your books? So let's talk about a
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: couple of the books that you've got out. How do
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: they if you do have a social media channel that
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: you would like people to follow you on, want you
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: share that? And then maybe talk about you know, the
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Explorers Club a little bit and how they can get
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: how they can find out more information.
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: Sure, so my James Fountain ut Earth is my website.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: My books are all over Amazon's you'll find them there.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: And I'm also on Instagram. Don't a lot of social
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: media I do.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: I'd probably a good idea.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't do a very good job of it,
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: I should say, of course LinkedIn and uh and Instagram,
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: but in Instagram is a better one for that. That's
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: where you'll see the work we're talking about today. In
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: my website of course. The Exports Club again, you know,
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: get on the website. There's different levels of membership. I
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: mean everything down and if in again, what I would
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: encourage even if you're not you know, a scientist or
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: an adventurer, you know, or you're you're the classic armchair
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: expeditionist to where you just enjoy reading about enjoyed and
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: hearing the stories and study. There's a membership level for
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: you and there's friends of the Exports Club. You don't
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: have to go off to you know, tajik Us on
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: our Central Asia or any of these places. You can
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: sit in the comfort your home and be a member
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: of the Exports Club Friends. So everything from friends to
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: member the fellow so to get on the website. Check
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: it out, you know, send in some of the lectures.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: You know, uh, if you're if you're in New York,
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: they're there at the headquarters all the time. But most
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: states have a chapter. You know, find out where your
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: local chapter is and attend and get to know people.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: It's it's a it's a really interesting group of folks.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so impressive and I look for ard to
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: getting more involved. But James, thank you so much for
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: making the time to come to Prescott. I know you
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: were down in Phoenix and you you took the day
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: to come up here and be a part of the podcast.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: The work that you're doing is just super inspirational to
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: me and and I love the stories and we look
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: forward to having you back on the podcast. So thanks
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: for being on the podcast with me today.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: It's been my honor. Thank you again. Full circle moments.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that great man and nice hat by the way.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: All right, and we thank you all for listening, and
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to you next time.