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Highpointing and Healing: The Man Who Hikes to the Top of Every Country He Explores · Roam Alone

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Rome Alone, the podcast for people who travel solo and feel empowered by doing it.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Teresa Stevens, and today's episode is about turning a hard moment into a lifelong tradition.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: My guest, Xavien Carpenter, went through a divorce in 2016, and instead of staying still, he started climbing.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Literally.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Every time he visits a new country, he hikes to its highest peak.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Ireland, Scotland, the Czech Republic, there are many more.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: A decade later, it's still going.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't just a story about mountains.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's about what we build for ourselves when something falls apart.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into it.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for coming on the show, Xavier.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that I find so cool is you started this tradition.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: When you visit a new country, you hike the tallest peak in that country.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: How did this tradition start?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it actually started back in 2016.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had just gone through a divorce and uh originally my ex and I wanted to go to Ireland, but we I think we looked at tickets for it and to do like some sort of trip or something.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was like seven or eight thousand dollars, and I thought, man, I can't afford to do that.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Not at the time, and um, it was like 2010s or something like that.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: We had like four kids, and it just didn't seem like something that we just could afford to do.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: But at the time, I always loved watching PBS specials like Rick Steve's Europe.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, and um this travel show, I think it's like like traveler or something, European traveler or something like that.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so we always liked watching that kind of stuff, and it would just show you a little bit about going through the city, tasting some of the weird food and then hiking, some of the trails and stuff like that.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where I kind of got the idea.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: But um, after I went through a divorce, and anyone that's ever gone through a breakup, you'll have all this energy that you don't know what to do with.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you go to the gym, maybe you put it into some creative writing.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: I decided to book a trip.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so my first trip was to go to Ireland and Northern Ireland.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so as a part of that process, I wanted to include a little bit of the city and also a little bit of nature as well.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it just so happens that a lot of the mountains in the UK are not really large.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're high, but they're not really large, and you can traverse them in a day or so.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I that just became my thing.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's perfect.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what made you decide to go to Ireland alone, as opposed to taking a friend or taking one of your kids with you?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that was something that I could control.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I meet a lot of people, and you know, I love traveling.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: So when you ask people about traveling, a lot of times they'll say, I think one of the major things they'll say is, I can't afford it, or I'm scared, or something like that.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, it was like, well, I can control me, I can control you know when I want to go.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you try to take a friend, I mean, I've never really been good with getting a whole bunch of people together to do one thing on a specific day.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so if I looked at tickets and saw that I could get the tickets for a$600 round trip and it's gonna be at this time, I can control that.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I can set my schedule apart for that.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you include other people, then you it it just gets more complex.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me about all of the different countries that you have climbed the tallest peaks of.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it started with Northern Ireland, and as I flew into Ireland, into Dublin, and that was kind of fun because I actually went to school in a place called Dublin, Ohio.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I always wanted to visit Dublin, the real Dublin.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And anyone that might listens to this, they're like, they understand what I mean by that.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh yeah, you grow up in Dublin, there's an Irish festival actually going on either now or last weekend in the city of Dublin.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so I always wanted to visit the real authentic Dublin.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, go to Northern Ireland, visit Belfast, and there was this place called the Giants Causeway.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and the Giants Causeway is a very cool geological abnormality that comes out of the ocean.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's it's like hexagonal spires that come out of the ocean, and they they do that in certain areas in that region, and so I wanted to experience that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So part of that process was to just go to Ireland first.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't foresee doing all these different countries, I just wanted to see it.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I did that, the coolest part of that process for me, when I did all my research ahead of time, there is a hiking trail, it's like 30 miles that you can walk across the northern coastal highway.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think they call it the the coastal highway, and so you're literally walking on the edge of the cliffs along the Atlantic Ocean.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see like a hundred feet down into the ocean, and you're walking on the edge, and you're also walking past ancient ruins, castles, and such.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so just being able to appreciate that and enjoy that process over several days, maybe about five days, and then camping in the the thickets here and there, and then occasionally staying at a at a hostel, and then waking up at four in the morning or five in the morning, and then working your way to a little Irish pub or something like that for breakfast.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: That was so amazing that I just wanted to do it again.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: But to get to the tallest peak, there's a place called Sleeve Donnered.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's the tallest peak in Northern Ireland, and so the Mourne Mountains is a mountain range in Northern Ireland, it's like 20 miles to traverse the whole thing.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did that, you know, when I got to the top, it was just such an amazing experience.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I took some pictures at sunrise.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can just see in the distance the clouds, and you're at the top of that.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I just say, you know what?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do that again.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do it again.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it again.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the start of it.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: So to really quick answer your question, uh, I did the top of Northern Ireland, uh, the top of England, which is uh Scaffold Pike, the top of Scotland, which is Ben Nevis, uh, the top of France, which is Mont Blanc, uh, the top of Germany, which I might mess the name up, it's Zuchspitz, the Czech Republic, which is Schnishka, the top of Wales, which is um Snowden.
• 7:50
  unknown: Okay.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm I'm probably missing a couple, but uh that's a pretty good list.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: You got a pretty good list so far.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Were you a big hiker before you started this tradition again in Ireland?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I think when people when you tell people that you like to hike the tallest mountains, they might think of the movie Cliffhanger where you're like hanging or dangling off of some like with ropes and poles and stuff like that.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I do.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: They're non-technical climbs.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, you like listen, I was climbing up in Scotland and Ben Nevis, and halfway up I saw an a guy with a cane and he was a little overweight and everything.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I say, you know what, I got this.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like no, it's yeah, most of these places, uh, it's just about more endurance than it is anything technical.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Which one of the ones that you have done, which has been the most challenging physically?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would say Ben Ben Nevis.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, actually, no.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I would say Mont Blanc.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Mont Blanc is the tallest in all of Europe.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize that.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's an Alps, it's the tallest mountain in the Alps.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was probably the most challenging, but on a personal level, Ben Nevis, just because it seemed to go on and on forever.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: I know that feeling as well.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Going back to your hike in Ireland, not to be too nosy, and if you don't want to answer, that's okay.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm curious, you're doing this solo trip, this solo hike, you had just gone through a divorce.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that you were able to, I don't know, work some things out in your head about the end of this marriage, about this new life that you're about to embark on?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think doing this hike alone, this trip alone, helped you work through that?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I love this question because there's different stages of our lives, I think, that mirror this.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm a bit this is kind of like happening right now, actually, for me as well.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: But going back to that stage, absolutely.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's you know, for me, being in nature has always been a place to reflect.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting away from civilization, and it's just you, it's just you, and if you're not comfortable with you, then you're gonna have problems.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the day, no one else can help you more than you can.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, obviously it's good to have people that can help you from the outside, but if you don't love yourself, if you don't figure out how to be with yourself, you're not gonna be good for anyone else.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so having that trip after a divorce, after 17 years, really was a chance to get to know myself a lot and wake up with me, go to sleep with me, and decide what kind of life do I want going forward?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: On any of these hikes that you've done, have you ever faced a moment where you were just done?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't want to complete it, you wanted to go back down and just hit the pubs again or go back to bed in whatever hotel or or hostel that you were staying in and just say, I'm done, I'm out, forget it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's a funny question, actually, because I decided to be there.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I paid the money, I got the plane ticket.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you're all in.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you decided, no one forced me to be here.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But in a comical way, yes.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I was in England, there's a place.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I love this place.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Lake District.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone that listens to the podcasts, if you know anything about England, the Lake District is very beautiful, and so it's the it it houses the tallest mountain in England, and the the the springs naturally flow down from from Scoffle Pike down into the lake district, and it has so many different little waterfalls and places.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: One of the coolest things about the lake district is is as as much as you hike and climb up these mountains, you're going to encounter sheep that are going to be sitting and climbing up there.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to be up as high as you can get, and they're going to look at you like you're crazy.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, and it's it's it's just fun.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I came into the lake district to climb Scoffle Pike, and a storm came in.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: This has happened a couple times.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: One in the lake district, another one was in France and Mont Blanc.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we powered through.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: But for for this story, the Lake District, I I was started climbing the mountain, and the wind kicked up and the rain came in.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: The rain was coming in so heavy, it was blowing sideways.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't see where I was going.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to turn around.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I tried to continue, but I I turned around and I got down to the base of the mountain, and there was a little pub there.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And this was an amazing little encounter.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a little English pub there.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: All the Brits in there, they were having fun, drinking their beer and having their fish and chips and stuff.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a guy named Neil.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Old guy named Neil.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the coolest things is, I mean, in England and places I've traveled, they love talking to Americans.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: When I was there, it was like 2018, maybe 2017, I'm not quite sure.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: But uh just depending.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, whenever you go there, you know, they say, you know, you say you're American, the first thing is they say is, how about that Trump guy, you know?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: They just want to talk, you know.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so Neil, he he was so happy that I was American.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he's like, I want to play my fiddle for you.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes in the back and he's the cook.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's the cook.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: He goes in the back, he gets his violin out, and I have a video recording of him playing his violin for me.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he just went, it was like a show and tell.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's just so happy to just connect with another person from another country and and everything.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it was it was a moment that I cherish, you know.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, just turning backward, happened to do it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I ended up going back.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I did it, but you know, sometimes you have to take a step back to go forward, you know?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have these meetings with people that by happen chance that you just weren't expecting, and it becomes something memorable.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's almost 10 years later, and you still remember his name and the conversation that you had, and that's an invaluable experience.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: And had you not turned back, you never would have met him.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, so here's something I think is really cool.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love to include in this.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So after I had a good time with Neil and eating some fish and trips, and you know, I think they bought me a beer as well.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I needed a place to stay because I hadn't um, you know, I hadn't accounted for that in my itinerary.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things, maybe for your listeners, is what I learned early on is to try not to be so rigid in when you plan things, because sometimes things happen and you accounted to be here, but you can't get there, so you have to make last-minute adjustments.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is not a plug, but I I'll try to I'll try, I won't use the name of it if I don't need to, but uh, it's okay.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love Expedia.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I've just I've been using Expedia for years, and so I hopped on the bus.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as I got a cell service, I went into my Expedia app to find a place to stay because I planned on staying in the mountain with my tent, but I couldn't.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I found a bed and breakfast.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was just uh just someone that put themselves on like the apps for for that.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I booked it as soon as I got like cell service, and then I ended up getting there, and it was in a place called Windermere.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I showed up at the door, and the lady I knocked on the door, and the lady came to the door, and she's like, Hello?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Yeah, I booked the room, and she's like, What room?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like the room that you have there, and she's like, huh?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then she looked at her computer and didn't even realize like it was instant, it was instantaneous.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, Oh my god, she's like, Come in, come in.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it was amazing.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, she took my wet boots.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, she did so much for me.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: She took my wet boots, she stuffed them with newspapers and put them under the heater.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Her and her husband had a wonderful, marvelous house.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: They made breakfast in the morning.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: There were other travelers there.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was a great stay, you know.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I miss bed and breakfasts.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's like that went the way of the dinosaur once Airbnbs came in.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe in places like England, small towns, you still find them, but they're just not as prevalent, I think, as they used to be.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: With all these countries, after your trip to Ireland, and you went back to Europe several more times, obviously.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: In these subsequent trips, you've got climbing the tallest peak, whether it's a mountain or just a very big hill.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's the traditional kind of sightseeing, traveling, where you're visiting restaurants and and pubs and seeing the local, whatever country you're in, the the big sites to see.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: How do you balance the two?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's just how, you know, I feel.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a little different with how I look at things, how I approach things.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just not that rigid.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm more of a I'm an artist.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm an artist and I'm a little weird.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm an artist slash engineer.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I like how things work.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: I have a little bit of rigidity to me, but not as much as the artist side.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what that looks like in terms of travel is I know that I can figure things out at the last minute.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: I actually like that.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: So part of the journey and allure for me to travel solo is to kind of reenact a James Bond type character.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So James Bond, he doesn't sweat trying to figure out things.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: He can figure out things in the moment, he can just decide I'm gonna hop on the subway.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he can figure that out.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's kind of a game for me to even right now, I'm in Toronto, and so last night was the first night I ever used the uh subway system here, and it it's a little, you know, it gives me a little bit of goosebumps at first, you know.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm like, dude, I can figure this out.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm a smart person, they have maps, and your phone has.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you have an iPhone, I don't know what Android people have, but if you go on to like if you put your directions in, you have little settings for your car, walking, transit.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to transit on your iPhone, it will show you many places where you are, whether it's here in Toronto or if you're in the UK or whatever, it'll show you color-coded train lines.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow that, even if you're in Chicago, like it will show you it's it's GPS for um your your transit system.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so brilliant.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: I've never tried it.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've used that many years, and um, it will tell you exactly when you need to catch which line, the A line, the B line, the C line, or whatever.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, I'll just love figuring that stuff out.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I try not to be too rigid when I plan things, I'll have specific places that I want to go.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: So for Northern Ireland, it was in my idea to visit Belfast.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to go to Belfast, and I also wanted to visit the northern coast.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: For example, when I went to France, obviously you got to see Paris.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I also wanted to end up in Chamonix.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so there, what I'll try to do is I'll look at things, maybe I'll do some research, see what restaurant or museum I want to visit or whatever.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll have like a couple days that I want to be in the city.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: So ideally, I mean, as I've gotten older, I don't want to spend too much time in the wilderness.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I want to backpack and camp, I'm good for at maximum two days.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: After that, I feel homeless.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: My back could kill me.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: My back could kill me and I'll feel nasty.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: But part of that is to schedule a really nice hotel.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good balance.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Treat myself, maybe as a spa, and so I'll try to do the best of both worlds, you know.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thinking about all of these trips you've taken, how would it be different had you had someone along?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it would have been a lot different, obviously, because you're sharing this experience with someone else.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a place for that.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: However, it's I don't want to say one way is good, better than the other.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just know for solo it's more connecting with yourself, connecting with nature, connecting with your your experience, your lived experience.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that's really cool is that you're not inhibited from connecting with others.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you're with a significant other and you come across someone, the conversation's gonna be a little different.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and so when you go, for example, you stay at a hostel.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hostels overseas are the ones I've been to are very nice, very clean.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're great, and so you can make friends with people that you would never encounter, you know, otherwise, and cook together in common areas, um, exchange stories over a campfire.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And when you include a partner or someone else that you're traveling with, that kind of takes away from the conversation, it takes away from the experience.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like I said, it's not a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a completely different experience, you know?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right, exactly.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: And somebody I'm I spoke with recently for this show said that when they travel with someone, it's like they're in this self-contained bubble and they've got their person and they stay in that bubble most of the time.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sometimes if you're at a bar, you'll bring somebody else into the conversation.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: But most of the time, you already have the person that you're talking to.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're alone, it feels like so many people are always seeking a connection.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you wanted to travel solo the whole time and you enjoy yourself, you're comfortable with yourself.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: There is just something about us as humans, I think, that makes you want to connect with others in your vicinity.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where I land when it comes to solo traveling, is I like people and I have more opportunity to connect with people I would never meet otherwise.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the coolest things about just traveling in general is I'll go to a place and I'll see people I would never have met, and I'll see them in their natural habitat, living their lives, whatever's going on in their lives.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're working, they have lives, they have their places that they go.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what it does for me is it actually energizes me.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: It actually gives me this hope that no matter what, I can go to another country.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: If all else fails, wherever I am, my home base is.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was in Columbus, Ohio.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: If I wanted to leave and just go to Italy or England, France, Germany, whatever, I can start over because there are people out there that are living.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to work, they're doing something, they're making it.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes we can get kind of accustomed to our own environment so much, and you feel like that's all there is.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thousand percent that there is a whole world out there, and there are people, billions of people out there.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're making it, they're living.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're not rich, but they're they're surviving, and you can too.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's and that's an excellent way to look at things, a great perspective.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is there another country, another peak?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: What's next on the list?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would say Croatia.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard fantastic things about Croatia.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: I've never been, but I hear the beaches are great, not true about the mountain peaks.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they have mountains either.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's a hill or something, but the tallest hill is to Croatia before COVID hit, and I just never I never follow through with it.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so there's there's definitely Croatia, there's uh Serbia.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of friends that are in Serbia.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Friends that are like, if you come to Serbia, they're gonna they're gonna treat me really well, you know?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I am going to venture out and I'm going to first place I need to get to in South America is Peru.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: I can attest that Peru is fantastic.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: You will love it, love it.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Cusco, Lima, Machu Picchu, the South Cante Mountains.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, fantastic.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know that it's it's it's heavily traveled.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one of the things that I did research was to try to prevent the rainy season.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's always good to just do a quick search, see what the best times, you know, to go are.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: So if somebody's listening right now and they want to do their first solo hike, let's do hike in particular internationally.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: They've never done one before.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: What would your best advice be for them?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I love this.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: My best advice would really just be decide first mentally that you want to do it.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that scary.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Everything, you know, like if you're going to um first or second world country, you have all the technology available to you.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be just as safe as you would be in any metropolitan city in the US.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you're fine there.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: The next thing I would do is uh just go online and look how much the plane tickets are to and and play around with it.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, just say, you know, whatever your budget is.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of people they just don't do it because they they assume they can't.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the biggest problem is you if you assume that you can't afford it or that it's scary, just do some research.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Research has always helped take the jitters out of things.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, oh, it's not as expensive as I thought.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's more safe than I thought.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's absolutely the first thing is doing some research.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things that I did, and I I love doing this, is um it's a bit of a spiritual journey for me.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: I come back from one of those trips, maybe it was Scotland or something, and that next year I said, I'm gonna go to Oktoberfest next year.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm gonna go to Germany, Oktoberfest, and it was a whole year in advance, but I said it, I spoke it.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: I said it out loud, I'm gonna go to Oktoberfest.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't have the money, I didn't buy the tickets, I didn't do any of that stuff.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: But at first, I said it in my mind, I'm gonna do it, and then I said it out loud, I'm gonna do it.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And over time it became a reality because I put actionable steps towards it.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I did was I went online and I saw some PDFs uh that other awesome travelers had done before me about Oktoberfest, when to go, when is it gonna be in the year that I was gonna go and all the things you can do, how much it costs, where you should go, all that stuff.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: So everything that you could ever want is out there on the internet.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: So just do some research, commit your mind to it, and put some effort towards it, and it'll happen.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Great advice, great advice.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I've got one last question for you.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's been 10 years since that first solo trip to Ireland.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: In those last 10 years that you've been roaming alone, how has this solo travel changed you as a person?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Huh, good, good, good one, good one.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't I didn't give you that question in advance, so surprise.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's good.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, I think what it has done is caused me to be comfortable with my surroundings and you know and and myself.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think that in life, if you don't love yourself, you can't truly love others because that love has to come from somewhere.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And to be able to accomplish things, to see in your own life that you can accomplish things, it creates a confidence that allows you to be your most authentic self.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so currently I decided to move to Toronto, and I'll talk to people that will say, Well, how did you do that?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: How did you decide to do that?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when you do some solo traveling and you get over the fear of whether it's moving or doing or whatever, and you can do those things more often, you can challenge yourself more often, you can make bigger moves.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like practicing anything.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you just go for it in larger capacity, you you'll still be a little afraid, but you won't be as afraid.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think solo traveling, what that does is it shows me I can do anything I want.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I really put my mind to it, there is nothing, there's no limits, you know, but it has to start somewhere.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't have to like decide, okay, I'm gonna take the biggest trip of my life.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do that, you can start small.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like a friend of mine just would go down to Florida from Ohio for like three days, just sit on the beach and then fly back, you know?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um sounds ideal to me.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so you could just start there.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can start, you know, go out to Mount Zion and in Utah and hit the arches and then come back, like you or or you know, just start even in your own city and just just see where it takes you.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, go out to dinner alone.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Some people start that way, just feeling comfortable in their own skin with their own company.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, don't get me started.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go to I used to I used to hate when people say like I used to go to the movie theaters alone.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: People are like, Were you went to the movies alone?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Yeah, man.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: No one's talking to me during this the show, right?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Xavian, it has been such a pleasure talking to you, and I'm excited to hear about your next trip.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, Croatia or Serbia, you've got a long list going, and uh, I appreciate your time today.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a pleasure.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's it for this episode of Rome Alone.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Huge thanks to Xavier and Carpenter for sharing how a decade of solo summit started with one hard year.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: If this episode resonated with you, whether you're rebuilding after a big life change or just looking for your next adventure with meaning behind it, do me a favor and share it with someone who needs to hear it.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't yet, subscribe so you never miss an episode.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, keep roaming.