This week on Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene chats with Afar co-founders (and close friends) Greg Sullivan and Joe Diaz about the spontaneous travel stories that shaped Afar—from traveling without a plan—or luggage— for 5 weeks in India, to a trip that connected an Egyptian surgeon turned satirist to The Daily Show. In this light-hearted conversation they tackle the values that set Afar apart, how they’ve seen the travel industry change over the last 15 years and how they plan to continue championing travel as a force for good.
Transcript
I’m Aislyn Greene, and this is Unpacked, the podcast that unpacks one tricky topic in travel each week. And this week, we’re staying a little closer to home, because this year Afar celebrates its 15-year anniversary. Back in August 2009, we released the very first issue of Afar, which started out as a magazine and now encompasses a thriving website, travel guides, videos, this podcast, and so much more.
I’ve been with the company for 10 of those years, and I love that Afar has always been rooted in the power of experiential travel. And it all started with founders and longtime friends Greg Sullivan and Joe Diaz. They dreamed up the idea of a travel media company for travelers who embrace local culture and the realities of travel, while actually embodying those values on a five-week trip through India.
You’ll hear that story straight from Greg and Joe. They share their early hopes for the company, the challenges and the surprises that came up along the way, and they share some of their, shall we say creative differences when it comes to traveling together, which they have done a lot. Greg is team aisle seat and Joe will never leave the window seat and he also won’t put that window shade down. Their friendship and their passion for travel and making it a force for good in the world is undeniable. And it’s so infectious. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Aislyn: Greg and Joe, welcome to Unpacked. It’s so good to have you here today.
Greg: Pleased to be here. It’s kind of fun to be on the other end of this with you
Aislyn: Yes.
Joe: You finally let us on. You finally let us on.
Greg: Five years.
Aislyn: Five years, you’re right. Now, next year, you each have to do a travel tale. Now you’re in the universe, so you’re on the hook.
Greg: That’s a lot harder.
Aislyn: But we are here today to talk about and to celebrate Afar’s 15-year anniversary—and every time I think of that, it just blows my mind a little bit.
So, I would love to start way back in the beginning because your origin story for Afar is pretty incredible. Could you share that story with us?
Greg: Well, we’ll take a crack at it. Um, yeah, so actually that was January of 2007. Joe and I had a plan to go to India and actually Nepal was also on the . . . we got visas for Nepal . . . and, uh, all we did was we had a flight into Delhi and a flight out of Mumbai five weeks later. And we had a reservation, I think, for the first night at the Imperial Hotel, right, Joe? And, uh, we had no other plan. We had kind of done a similar trip the year before to South America, and so we thought, and it worked out great. So we thought, yeah, let’s try it to India. And, um, yeah, it was just an amazing trip. I mean, with no plan, our whole thing is just kind of find things to discover and go there and you know meet people, see where they take you and I mean, you know, from our first rickshaw driver taking us to his home and meet his mom to . . . the whole way, that’s the way we did it.
I think the first thing we did was go to Agra then we went up to north, we went to Haridwar to Rishikesh, there Joe met a swami, at, uh, Anandá hotel, and he said we had to go to see his guru at his school down in Pune. And we did that and went to school for a few weekdays.
I mean, just that kind of like real happenstance, go deep, see where it takes you, kind of trip that, uh, really got us out of our comfort zone and just, uh, yeah, really transported us. And at the end, basically we, we went to Goa and we finally kind of let our hair down. We were drinking Kingfisher beers and might’ve had something illegal, and reflecting back on the trip, uh, just like, wow, this was so cool. And like, gosh, more people need to travel like this. And maybe this is something we should do, try to inspire other people to travel like this. We had come up with, you know, taglines. I think it was, what was it?
Joe: Explore the world.
Greg: Reach beyond travel or look within.
Joe: It was “Beyond travel. Explore the world. Reach within.”
Greg: Oh.
Aislyn: These are, these are very good, you guys. Did you know right then that you wanted to do a magazine or were you just thinking, oh, we’ll inspire people somehow.
Greg: Um.
Joe: You know how it is. It’s one of those—like you’re sitting on a beach having beers and smoking some ganja and you think you’ve got the world’s best idea. And then you wake up the next morning, generally, and you’re like, “Oh my God, that was the dumbest thing we could have ever come up with.” But when we got up the next one, we’re like, eh, it’s still not a bad idea. And let’s, you know, let’s kind of flesh this out.
So that’s what we did was we got back to the States.
Greg: Oh, Joe, you gotta tell them first. I forgot this part of the story. They lost our luggage.We didn’t have luggage the whole five weeks we were in, uh, India. We had Indian clothes made and . . .
Aislyn: I didn’t know that part.
Joe: Yeah. The tailoring was amazing. Um, I wish I still had those shorts. Yeah, and so like we, we actually get to the States and after five weeks of them telling us that our luggage has been, is gone. It’s sitting on the steps at Greg’s house, which was pretty funny. But we get back and, you know, what do you do after you come up with a great idea and you know nothing about the business that you’re thinking about, uh, entering. You go to amazon.com and buy how to start magazine books. And so that’s literally what we did. I think we bought like three or four books and like three of them were written by editors and one was written by an accountant and Greg and I were like, well, we really got to make this a business, like, maybe we read the accountant’s book first.
So, yeah, his book was how to start a magazine and he helped start the magazine for the magazine industry and even helped launch Playboy with Hugh Hefner. And so we went and met him and this guy was an old timer and, you know, talking about his Rolodex and that’s literally where it started. And then we started making phone calls, getting the team together and, you know, 15 years later, this is . . . here we are.
Aislyn: Here we are. And the magazine is, we’re still producing the magazine.
Joe: Exactly. We’re still producing it and it’s going strong.
Greg: Well, thank god. Thank god we really weren’t that good at learning the book that we read. We really fortunately found some people that were already, that were very good at producing great magazines, producing great content, figuring out how to sell ads and all that kind of thing. So we’ve been very fortunate to find lots of other people that shared our dream and our vision.
Aislyn: Well, and I do love that you guys were not in the media industry, and I think that brought a certain bravery and some inspiration that may not have come from someone who had, come up in the, in the media world. So could you, before we go forward, briefly tell me what each of you were doing before this point?
Because you had very different lives before Afar.
Joe: Yeah. And I mean, I, um, so Greg and I have about 20 or so years’ difference between us. So he, he got to live a couple extra lives before me.
Greg: I’m younger than.
Joe: At least on camera, you’re looking great.
Aislyn: That kitchen lighting.
Joe: Yeah. It’s the toaster.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Joe: So I right out of college, uh, graduated and applied and got into a program called Teach for America, takes recent college graduates, puts them into under-resourced, underfunded schools around the country.
Uh, that sent me to Phoenix, Arizona, where I taught fifth grade for two years and seventh and eighth grade for a year. That’s actually where I met Greg. He was a volunteer in my classroom in my third and final year of teaching. His company, at the time, sponsored our school with volunteers and with, like, after-school money to help support some of the sports programs.
And so we got to know each other and I told him, look, you know, I’m actually leaving teaching this year and I’m going to focus on what I’ve been building the last couple of years. And he’s like, what’s that? It was, I was buying, you know, investment properties in Phoenix and just fixing up homes and, you know, selling them and renting them out.
And it was an interesting time to do that. So Greg’s like, let me know if you ever want help. And that’s how we started kind of doing things on the side there. And lo and behold, you know, took those trips together and, and then, then we were off to the races on Afar.
Aislyn: Amazing. That’s great.
Greg: And as Joe so gracefully pointed out, I have 20 more years of history. It’s a little longer story, but I’ll try. I was a lawyer that started a few businesses. I was in a used-car business when I met Joe, and then same time he was leaving teaching, I was going into academics in a way.
I was also going to classes at Arizona State, studying philosophy, and I was teaching law and ethics at Arizona State for business students. And so that’s what I was doing when we really were making our travels and the like and decided to start Afar.
Joe: But Greg started an arcade game manufacturing company, Super Shot. You know, the basketball game that has the movable hoops up and down, like, you know, this is the guy that came up with that. It was, I mean, legendary.
Greg: My own mind.
Aislyn: You’re an omnivorous businessman, Greg, Well, did you guys hit it off right away in that classroom? Like, was there a friendship vibe there right away?
Joe: I mean, god, what was this? This was like 20 something years. Do you even remember?
Greg: Yes, yes. I mean, but, but also, it was kind of gradual to start. I mean, it was, you know, I would pop into his class for an hour and then every once in a while. And he had to, you know, he had class before and after. So we didn’t have much chance to talk. Uh, and then I, I don’t know one time we . . .
Joe: It was really like, you picked me up, I remember you, ’cause you were an avid Phoenix Suns fan, and I think you had season tickets or something. And so I just remember like, you picked me up and we went to that and, it, it was fun and everyone was drinking and it was a great time And then we, were like, yeah I like this guy.
Greg: And then honestly we did—uh, so we were good friends and we started doing a little bit of business. And then we did that trip to, that I mentioned earlier, to South America. That was kind of similar. We had, I think we had a flight into Buenos Aires in a flight out of Santiago about five weeks later and with no plan and and, uh, that, at the end of that trip, you know, at the beginning he was a friend, at the end he was my best friend, you know, basically, you know. Yeah, we were really close.
Joe: Oh, I’ve never heard you put it that way, Greg.
Greg: Ha ha!
Joe: I thought you said: At the end, it’s usually “he was a big pain in the ass,” but that wasn’t . . . public consumption, I guess. This is a different, different version.
Greg: Yeah, we’re in the marketing.
Aislyn: We’re burnishing the history yes, exactly. We can’t show all the behind-the-scenes stuff where you guys argue.
Joe: This is recorded though.
Aislyn: Yeah. You have a soundbite. Um, well, we’ll get more to your travel style because you have traveled so much together over the years, but I wanted to go back to those, the early years of Afar.
So how long did it take you from the beach in Goa to the first issue of the magazine, roughly?
Greg: Two and a half years.
Aislyn: Wow.
Greg: I mean, we spent basically the balance of 2007 writing our own kind of plan, thinking about what we’re going to do, meeting various people, going to conferences, that kind of thing. And then it’s kind of at same time we both moved from Arizona to San Francisco and, we started to find people in San Francisco that really shared the vision and shared the dream and that’s, that’s really what, that was in 2008, you know, Julia, our editor in chief, and a couple others wrote our editorial plan and then in November 1st, basically we brought on our first employees and then, you know, it was 8, 10 months later than that we had our first issue.
Aislyn: And early on, you know, Afar was all about experiential travel, which was not really talked about at the time. It feels like now it’s kind of everywhere and what everyone does. But how did you see yourselves as different? Like, what were you offering to people that wasn’t present in the travel landscape at that time?
Joe: So I think, you know, we didn’t mention this in the, in the India’s piece, but when we were there, we were just kind of thinking about, man, we’ve just met all of these incredible people and gotten to their homes and gotten to their businesses and being able to see the world through their eyes and literally, literally off of the tour bus and sitting at kitchen tables.
And I think, like you mentioned, like we came at it from a different place. And I think where we came at it from was like, how can content media serve me as a curious, open minded, you know, consider myself a global citizen where travel helps me understand the world in a deeper way? There isn’t much out there for us.
Now, there’s, you know, tour companies and, you know, outfitters that have been doing this a lot for a long time.
But there wasn’t really, like, media that was speaking to us. It was like, you know, the fantasy of travel. So the supermodel on the elephant on a deserted beach, like, OK, that’s great. Or, you know, like the, the, the 27 best things, you know, kind of a check the box, and not this desire to kind of get a little bit beneath the surface and go a little deeper.
And so that was it. We said, there’s nothing like that. And so we should, we should do that. And, you know, now I think that’s become more mainstream for sure. And we can talk a little bit about where, you know, where we’re going from there—but I think Greg’s trying to say something so I’m going to be quiet.
Greg: Um, I’ve been fortunate in business. I’d made a little bit of money and I, uh, I’d also had this thing, like they talk about. . . . I felt like media talked to people that had been fortunate that could have the money to travel, like, all they cared about is you know that they cost a lot and I thought it was insulting, you know that it’s about that and so it’s ironic when we launched, uh competition called us, uh, you know a backpacker, you know, kind of magazine because we were you know we were not afraid to get our hands dirty type approach to travel—and by the way on the whole thing with . . . back then nobody, like experiential travel, like what is that?
And why, you know, the hotels were like, why do we want to talk to people about what they’re going to do outside of the hotel and you know it was, it was a difficult business environment to launch into.
Aislyn: Oh really. That’s a different time.
Greg: And yeah, it really is gratifying, a few years in, we just felt like all our words were being parroted by others—which was great, honestly, like what greater compliment is that if you’re trying to have an impact on the world? That’s amazing. But we, we also, what we thought was, OK, experiential travel sounds a lot about, being about, making yourself better and broadening yourself. And, you know, you, the word “me” comes up a lot, you know, in the concept and, and it was, ’’course, I really do think if you travel this way, you can’t help but care about others, but, a few years in, we became much more explicit as experiential travel became more mainstream to go: It’s not just about, I mean, it’s important—it’s gotta make you a better person, you know, but it’s also about your effect on the communities you visit and on the planet. And that’s what we’ve been, you know, really explicit on in the last eight, nine years.
And I think that’s really important.
Aislyn: Absolutely. I mean, the issues facing travel are so different now, you know, 15 years in. And I do like that there’s always been this nonprofit, altruistic part of the company, and that’s Learning Afar, which I do believe you launched at the beginning—roughly the same time as the magazine. So could you tell us a little bit more about that and what you’re striving to do?
Joe: Yeah, I mean, uh, it, it, we launched it technically even before we launched the magazine and you know, I was a teacher. Greg had spent time volunteering in, in, in South Africa in orphanages. And, you know, so it was, involved kind of an education in that, in that respect. I grew up, my mom worked for the Marriott for 25 years.
We had just a lot of people from around the world always coming through the house. So when she used to tell me that travel is the best form of education, it didn’t ring hollow ’’cause I could see it, you know, coming through our front door on the weekends. And, you know, when I was teaching, I had a class of my first year, 34 kids, all of them Hispanic, eight monolingual Spanish speakers, all my parents spoke only Spanish, except for one. And there was one girl in my class named Alexandra, and she had the opportunity to travel just a little bit. you know, like to the Grand Canyon from Phoenix or to the beach, you know, which was like five hours away. Um, all the other kids didn’t get to leave their neighborhoods.
You know, they lived in these like two-mile-by-two-mile-square neighborhoods. And the way that she related to me and the questions she asked and how she saw herself was just very different than the way other students were able to see themselves. And, you know, so both Greg and I felt this. We experienced it.
We lived it and taught in these environments. And we understood that there is this transformational power that travel can have when done with this mindset that we’re kind of talking about and you know, this, this idea that travel starts the second you leave your front door and if you’re curious and you’re open minded and you’re willing to go outside your comfort zone just a little bit every single day.
That, that can create some incredible opportunities for yourself and the people around you. And so this was the whole idea around Learning Afar: Let’s get young people out in the world who normally would never have a chance to travel, let’s get them to experience a place and then come back and make an impact on the places in which they live.
It started in, in 2009 and you know, we’ve grown the program and like our big dream is like just especially for today—I mean I’ve been saying this for a long time, but today I think it rings even more truer than it ever has, like imagine if a million of our high school students every year traveled in this kind of way where they’d study about a place and its issues and themselves and then they’d go for like a week and contribute to those places and, you know, grow spiritually and as individuals.
And then they, they come back, um, and share that with their communities in all the ways that they’re going to be able to share it. Like, imagine if that happened every year with a million students, like, the conversations that we would have together, the stuff that we would see on the news that we would find important, would be very different than the shit that’s out there today and that we are forced to watch and so, and be bombarded with and so we’d be able to elevate our conversations in our society. And so at the end of the day, that’s like the big, that’s the big like: Why are you doing this? Because we believe that that’s where it can go if we continue to do the work that we’re doing.
Greg: It’s one of the most rewarding things we do when the students come back from those trips and we get to hear their stories. Um, I mean, all of us, we all believe in the power of travel, but, you know, we’re very fortunate. We get to travel a lot. And although we get a thrill every time, and we grow every time and all that, it’s nothing like hearing somebody that has done it for their first time, and it, I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m a basket case in tears every time it happens. Ha ha.
Aislyn: Yeah, we have these annual company meetings and there’s usually someone who comes and talks about Learning Afar and either brings students or shares stories, and I feel like there’s not a dry eye in the house when that happens. That’s like the most meaningful moment for most people, uh, most employees, I think.
Well, so back at the beginning, did you have a, you know, quote unquote 15-year plan? Did you have an idea of where this was going to go?
Greg: No. Ha ha ha.
Joe: No 15-year plan. I think some of our first employees were having bets. They’re like, what’s the over/under on how long this thing’s going to last?
Greg: I think six months was as long as people were willing to bet.
Joe: Simpkins was like, it’s six months. That’s it. I’ve got my, I’ve got a six-month runway . . .
Aislyn: Of course, Simpkins.
Joe: . . . and then I got to find another job to support the family.
Aislyn: Everyone’s saving their pennies. Well, what has surprised you? So we’re still here and there was a pandemic that threw a wonderful wrench into all of that. Um, what has surprised you the most over the years?
Joe: I mean, lots of things but just how much people really believe in this idea and, you know, just being able to experience that with our core team who like live and breathe this every day. And to like, sit there now, you mentioned our company meetings where we now have, like, I don’t know what, 55, 60 people attending. Um, just how much everybody rallies around the idea and rallies around each other. And that’s been, that’s been for me pretty darn cool to see how we, everyone just kind of comes together around something that started the way that it did. So that’s one, one big thing. And then I’d say the other one is just, not only our team, but like this idea and these values and this mindset and this way of travel, like the, the audience that it’s attracting. You know, it’s, it’s attracting this audience that’s values-driven, believes in the power of travel, um, wants to use travel as a way to grow themselves and make a positive impact in the world, um, and they’re like the, you know, the ones that are setting the direction of where travel is really going. So to be able to have that kind of relationship with that kind of audience that believes in that and makes the impact that it does through the content that we create is, is very rewarding and, you know, it was not something that I thought could be that possible.
Greg: And I might as well just throw in then Joe, I wanted uh, I mean you’ve got our employees, you’ve got the audience, and then there is the industry, um. . . . I’ve been in like four or five industries. There’s nothing like the travel industry. It is, the people are, I mean, I go back to when we launched and we had, we, getting anybody to give us a dime in advertising was almost impossible.
Joe was spending all his time trying to do that.
Aislyn: Wow.
Greg: But, and a lot of people are like, you’re crazy. I mean, I mean, all the people though? They totally bought it, what we were doing. They’d just go, my business won’t let me do this. But they all were, everybody in the travel industry, believed in what we were doing. And yeah, I mean, it just makes sense.
I mean, travel people are travelers at heart, you know, those are some of the world’s best travelers themselves. And, and so that’s why they’re in it is, because they, they believe in it and believe in how it can be . . . make the world better, too. So yeah, it’s a, it’s a great industry. I can’t imagine going to another.
Aislyn: How have you seen the industry change in general? And then how did it change to enable Afar to be successful, essentially?
Greg: Well, experiential did become more and more mainstream. I mean, it just started, you know, they heard it from us and they started hearing it more and more. And it’s like, yes, all travelers were like: Hey, I’m not going just for the hotel experience. I’m not going just, you know, I want to understand the people and cultures of the places I’m visiting, you know, and, and, like I said, the employees knew it, but the businesses had to see the demand, and so they responded.
And then therefore we became something they could, they could justifiably work with, and it’s interesting, you know, I was kind of going, you know, I already kind of went through, that we made this transition from just experiential travel to this all encompassing enriching yourself, benefiting the communities you visit, and making the world better. Um, once again, that’s where the individuals that run travel industry business want to do, because they all know that. They’re looking 30 years out and they know these are the things they have to do. They, in some sense are waiting for the travelers to make it financially viable for them to do all the things they need to do to help do that.
Aislyn: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And Afar is leading the way and leading those conversations and, really, you know, sticking to our values. We’re going through the process of becoming a B Corp company. And I, I love that because it just feels like we’re putting our money where our mouth is.
Greg: I mean, honestly for us, we kind of were slow coming to that because, I mean, frankly, Joe, me and a friend of ours, Ernie, we’ve got three owners of Afar, and we’ve always run the business, you know, with this mindset, and I was like, why do I need a B Corp to tell other people that we’re doing it? We know we’re running this business to have a positive impact on the world and on the individuals that we reach and the like. But we decided, you know, it is important that you know, it’s not just about saying it yourself.
You need third parties and the like. So that’s where we are. We’ve applied and hopefully we’ll be, you know, hopefully by this time next year, we’ll have it done and the like.
Joe: I’d also say on that too . . . I mean, the other thing that I’m excited about with respect to B Corp is, um, the community that we’ll get to join. And so there are lots of others who have already done this work. And I think the more you get into it, you realize the work is never done. And so being able to plug into a community of people who believe in this, that are coming at it from different angles, I think, you know, we’re going to be able to interact with companies that are even outside of the travel space. And so having the opportunity to bring that into our world, expose those ideas, and create those connections for all of our team is going to be another exciting piece of this.
Aislyn: Absolutely. It’ll be cool if we can do that in our 15th year. That’d be a really neat bow on this celebration.
Joe: Fingers crossed.
Aislyn: Well, storytelling has always been at the heart of Afar, and that’s what drew me initially. But what are some of your favorite stories that we have shared and celebrated over the years?
Greg: Oh, gosh, that was not on your preview. Ha ha.
Aislyn: Gotcha.
Greg: No, no. I mean, I, I have one. Honestly, we, the advantage is, uh, we just picked 15 stories, honestly, and I think we’re gonna publish ’’em, in about, well, right around the anniversary, which is next month. Uh, Julia, Joe, and I picked our 15 favorites.
Aislyn: Oh, wow, that must have been so challenging or maybe it wasn’t, I don’t know. Maybe it was easy.
Greg: Um, yeah. And so I just picked one of them. It was, uh, it was Edward going to Lourdes. Um, oh my god.
Aislyn: Ah, yeah, yeah.
Greg: Um, Edward had, um, physical ailments of his own, uh, that actually ended up . . . we’ve lost Edward actually since he wrote the story for us. And he was a religious skeptic and anyway, he just takes us through this story that, um, yeah, I, I found amazing.
Aislyn: Yeah, that is a really moving story. And Edward Redeker Henderson, right? We’ll, we’ll include links to these stories in the show notes But yeah, his, his stories always moved me quite a bit. Joe, how about you?
Joe: I mean, I, for whatever reason, my mind just always goes back to a couple of the, of Ryan Knighton’s stories. So in the magazine, we established a department called Spin the Globe. And you’d spin the globe. We’d, we’d spin the globe. We’d pick a spot and then we wouldn’t tell the traveler where they were going, the writer, where they were going, until like the day before they went.
And it’s this whole idea of like kind of how we traveled, you know, use spontaneity as your guide. You’re going to have your experience. We don’t want to edit that. We’ll edit kind of your, your words, but you go have an experience and see what happens. And so like we spin the globe and, um, we land on, we literally had a hole in the globe and then we put all the countries in there.
And so you, reach in and pick one out and that’s how you would do it. And, and so Ryan Knighton, um, we’d get Egypt and like Greg and I had been to Egypt, you know, we, we landed there a week after Hosni Mubarak stepped down from power, it was, that’s a whole other story, but like, you know, for those who don’t know Ryan, you know, he’s visually impaired, like he’s, he’s blind.
And so to send a blind man on a trip by himself to Egypt, which is not the most ADA friendly country in the world and Cairo not being, you know, sidewalk stop and start like, you know, pieces of, you know, a telephone pole hanging out in the middle of the, you know, it’s just not easy. And so I remember they, they, called his wife to make sure it would be OK. And she was like, yeah you could just send him. And so he goes and has this incredible experience. But I remember the thing that he said when we asked him, you know, like: Ryan you get on this plane and you’re going to, like, this foreign country and you have no idea what to expect.
Like, what’s the first thing you do when you walk off the plane? And he says, I look for the first elbow to grab and I grab it. And it’s this whole, I mean, still like you know, this gives me goosebumps because it’s like that’s the spirit, right? This ability to put your faith and trust into humans and allow that to happen. And to be able to walk out of your front door every morning with this idea that like 99.5 percent of the people in this world are here to help me and not hurt me, really creates this incredible liberation that allows you to live your life in ways that others who don’t have that will never be able to experience. And so that to me is what that, um, what that story really encapsulates. I’d say the second one by him was when we took him on a safari and, um, and the whole idea of like a blind man on a safari.
You’re like, well, isn’t that, that’s like the most visually stimulating experience in the world practically. But his ability to interpret everything through his paradigm, you know, through the way that he looks at the world was so incredible to us, just the ability to zero in on smells and how he described those.
And to zero in on sounds of like, you know, comparing elephant feet to being footballs, when they’re when they’re stepping on the ground being footballs, like being flattened and all the air stomped out of them, made us literally see safari in such a different way. So I think those two stories just really hit on some of the core values and, and intentions of what we try to do in our storytelling for our travelers,
Aislyn: Well, Ryan did a Travel Tale last year about how he’s a surfer, you know, and he went to Hawai’i and learned how to surf the breaks there. And he was saying, when we did an interview, that for him a place is not really a place, it’s the person. Because it’s all about the guide and whether that guy can make the place come to life.
And so he was like, you know, it’s not Kaua’i. It’s, I can’t remember the name of his guide, but it’s, that guide, is Kaua’i him. And I thought that was such an interesting, you know, he always helps you kind of reframe how you think about travel.
Greg: Uh, I love that.
Aislyn: He’s very good at that.
Joe: One hundred percent.
Greg: That reminds me too, of like people, when they tell me: Oh, I’ve been, I’ve been to that place already. And I’m like, you’ve been there, but you had a set of experiences that, you know, that doesn’t mean that’d be like your experience if you went back. Ha ha.
Aislyn: Right.
Greg: So that’s why I’ve never gotten into the country counting. What does that mean? You’ve done some experiences, but you don’t, you don’t know a country because you landed there once and left seven days later.
Aislyn: Yeah, right.
Joe: Our litmus test is like: yeah, alright, so you’ve been to 150 countries whoopie. You know, how many kitchen tables in those countries have you been able to sit at, you know? And it’s like, oh, well, I didn’t sit at any I was at the Emirates lounge and you know, it’s like well, OK, that’s not that’s, sorry Charlie, but that’s not really what we’re talking about here.
Greg: Even though Emirates lounge is very nice.
Joe: Oh, it’s beautiful.
Aislyn: We’re… we do love those things. We want the lounge and then the, the dining table with friends, new friends. Well, I’m curious to know why you guys still think it’s important to print a magazine in this day and age? And especially given that we have Instagram and TikTok and all these other ways that people are telling stories and showcasing travel.
Greg: So, I mean, one of the things that’s happened with the internet and all the internet, I’m once again showing my age, but, but everybody’s a content creator and the like, which, which is, there’s a lot, that’s great about that. I’m going to be the first to admit it’s like, you know, democratization of content is a wonderful thing in some sense, but there’s also a sense of like people that do things that are professionals, that are experts, that do fact checking, that do things well, and hold themselves to professional standards and are accountable for the things they say, when they make a mistake, they own up to it, all those kinds of things. And, and honestly, I think magazine is part of that to me, uh, is part of, like, holding ourselves to a higher standard.
We’re not just putting stuff, you know, zeros and ones out into the world. We are putting facts, uh, and, and statements and opinions and professional design and the like out into the world. And that’s part of our way of saying it.
Aislyn: You know, one of our early taglines was “travel deeper.” And I think that’s still so appropriate. You know, there’s only so much you can say on Instagram, not to knock it in any way, but you know, we have the opportunity to go deeper with a print story or a digital feature or even a podcast.
Well, I’d like to get into some of your personal travels and travel habits, but I think we’d be remiss to not bring up that little thing called the pandemic, which was a frightening time for everyone and really changed travel. It’s changed travel at that time. It’s changed travel since then. So how did that impact the business and do you think it made us stronger?
Joe: I mean, no doubt it, it really impacted the business, uh, like it impacted everyone’s business and it uprooted people’s, you know, personal lives and families. And we weren’t sure what was really going to happen, um, and if we were going to make it through and I’d be remiss in, like, not acknowledging the fact that like, you know, we had to let people go and put them on furlough. These are people that have been with us for a long time, you know, and so that was just like, so tough, but like, we made those decisions, I’d say early and that I think helped, that allowed us, to kind of, the room to be able to make that through it.
Also, this experience said to us, like, all right, who do we want to be when we get out of this? Like when we emerged from this, like, what do we really want to be? And I think that was, you know, the opportunity for us to kind of really lean into like what we believe in as travelers and the values we hold, and what does it mean when you say that travel can be transformational and how do we create an environment and a place for people to engage in that kind of idea. And so we leaned a lot really into these values of like, we know when we go out there and travel this way, it’s always good for the individual.
But like, Greg was saying, I think there was a real kind of like pivot, during the pandemic, that said, all right, well, how, how does this travel really impact the places that we go and, and how do we become more mindful of the environmental impacts that we make, and how can we truly see this as creating win-wins and making sure that, um, our visitation is of high value to everybody involved and so kind of creating this idea of like helping travelers have these high-value visits.
Aislyn: I mean, it’s a tragedy that no one would choose, and so to have a small silver lining like that, to use it to clarify your vision and how we can, increasingly impact the world in a positive way, I think is, you know, it’s meaningful.
Greg: And I think travelers experienced that themselves probably, uh, and so I think more receptive to the message than they were before. A lot of us are city dwellers and, um, you know, we would leave the city to get away and try to find some fresh air and space and you know, we’d go to communities that were not so sure they needed more of us and so, you know, you had a lot of like, oh my gosh, you know, I should be thinking about my impact on those communities so that I’m not the one that they’re protesting saying “stay out of my home” and uh, and so I do think that’s really positive.
I think people are thinking about how do I travel in off-seasons? How do I not go to the popular spots and just have my picture, take, take a selfie and leave, and not spend any money with the the community and you know the small businesses of the place and all those kinds of things, like, you know, how can I be somebody that is welcomed, not, not a pain.
Aislyn: Yeah, absolutely. You guys travel a phenomenal amount, and you travel together quite a bit. So over the years, how many trips do you think that you have taken together, if you had to guess?
Greg: Gosh. I have no idea, but I mean.
Joe: Is it three? Do you think it’s three digit?
Greg: Could be. Yeah, probably. I mean, it was a lot, especially early on. Now Joe has a four-and-a-half-year-old and a wife, so it’s slowed down recently. But, uh, but yeah, we’ve done . . .
Joe: We’ll get it back up there.
Greg: Yeah.
Aislyn: Well, what are your, some of your favorite trips that you’ve taken over the years together?
Greg: Well, those first two, I mean, well, there were more, but, but I already mentioned, uh, South America and India.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Greg: He mentioned, uh, Egypt. And that was, uh, that was pretty amazing. Um, I, I had been to Egypt about three years before, not with Joe, and I was fascinated when the revolution started. I was glued to the TV and when, when Hosni Mubarak announced he was resigning and, and, Tahrir Square was full, I was like, Oh my god, we’ve got to be there. I’ve got to be there. And so I was like, Joe, I’m going to go, I’m leaving tomorrow. Can you go? He was like, yeah. And so we bought tickets.
Aislyn: Wow.
Greg: Um, and, and honestly, it turned, it turned out not to be as, you know, the Berlin Wall moment I was hoping it would be, uh, but, you know, it was this really important thing that, like, it’s a chance to be in history. But it was like, their travel industry is going to go through a really hard time. We’re now in the travel industry, you know, this is two years into Afar, this is 2011. And, I was like, maybe we can be helpful, you know, let’s figure it out. Let’s go there.
And so we get on a plane, literally we, I think we flew to London and then we took an Egypt Air flight from London down. There was, I think three people on our flight, nobody was going, nobody was going to Cairo. We go to the Four Seasons Hotel. I think there were three people in a 250-room hotel. And I think they all worked for CNN. You know, it was, you know, nobody was there, you know, no Westerners, and it was just amazing.
And it was like, well, first of all, that was kind of also . . .
Aislyn: What did you guys do?
Greg: . . . the first realization of like the power of being in the media, you know, having travel-media people, we just reached out and had people just go: “Oh my god, you’re here. It’s amazing. I gotta introduce you to this. . .” So we met some of the founders of the revolution. We met [a] Supreme Court justice. We met, uh, film producers,
Joe: Ministers.
Greg: yeah, Minister of Tourism, um,
Aislyn: Wow.
Greg: Everybody was like, god nobody’s here and you’re here to try to be supportive of us you, we want to meet you and so, um, and so we were really busy. And the one-week-anniversary of Mubarak resigning, they had a celebration in Tahrir Square, and I think the estimate was there were 3.5 million people there. And, uh, we were, once again, other than CNN employees, we were the only Westerners there. And, uh, probably the only ones who didn’t speak Arabic. And, uh, and it was amazing. And, you know, people were climbing up, carrying Egyptian flags, climbing on every statue. And it was just so amazing. We had, the department, the tourism department, had somebody that came with us and we asked, because I do remember, I asked somebody, like they had this, this guy up speaking and, most of the speeches were just, you know, exuberance and enthusiasm. This one guy was kind of ranting. And I was like, what’s he saying? And he was, it was like, oh, he’s not saying very good things about the United States of America.
Aislyn: Oh.
Greg: And I was like, oh, OK good to know. But never felt threatened or anything we, you know . . .
Aislyn: Yeah, yeah. That sounds positive.
Greg: It was really cool. So that’s, yeah, that was a great trip.
Aislyn: And out of that came a very unique aspect of Afar. Would you like to share more?
Joe: Oh, I mean, Afar Experiences. Yeah.
So we just, so we have this trip there and we go: Oh my god, the people that we met, the places we’ve seen, our audience would love to do this. You know, we should figure out how to create this for them. And so, lo and behold, like we, um, we met a woman that was working at TED and hired her to help really put this idea together about, let’s get a group of people to come to a destination like Cairo and learn about this place by connecting with its most interesting people. And let’s celebrate and have, like, a good time while we’re there. So we spent the summer going back and continuing to strengthen our relationships and inviting people who would normally not, like, give a tour of their home or their business, like, to be a part of this. Like, we’ve got these curious global citizen Americans coming and this is who we are as a brand and we’d love for them to see this world and like, you know, so we were getting people who normally don’t say yes to these kinds of things to be able to do that.
And in October, we had what Greg, like 30 travelers roughly?
Greg: Hmhm.
Joe: And for you know, four days got into people’s homes, their businesses, heard the stories of, you know, Egypt from not only 2000 years ago, but what happened, you know, during the Arab Spring and this revolution that they just had. And to see that for real was, was phenomenal. So I think that we knew we had something when, kind of, two things happened. One: Within 60 days of that trip, like 25 percent of the group had gone back a second time on their own.
So I was like, holy moly, like people are going back to Cairo within like two months.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Joe: Shows you, I think we were saying like the, it’s not about the place, it’s about the person. And like, when you make these like deep connections in places, that’s what you find yourself going back to. Um, and so, you know, that was, that was a . . .
Greg: Can I interrupt that right now? You just reminded me of one of my favorite stories from that. So one of the guys that on our, on this was,uh, was a cardiac surgeon, an Egyptian cardiac surgeon that in the revolution started a, uh, uh, a three-minute, like YouTube show. And he was, he was one of our guests, that you know, he would talk to, he talked to our travelers and one of our travelers
Joe: We had him do a comedy, a stand, we had him do a standup show or something. Right? Oh, sorry. I think I, I think I just blew your . . .
Greg: Yes, you did. He didn’t really do that but he did talk to us and told us about what his career. He was, uh, and he loved John Stewart and he told our, our group that, well one of the women on our group was, was a friend of the producer of the Jon Stewart show, uh, of The Daily Show. And so two years later, maybe a year and a half later, Joe and I are at the, at The Daily Show meeting Jon Stewart meeting, and Bassem Youssef, one of our speakers from our experience, is meeting them and actually on the show himself.
Aislyn: What? Wow! Wow!
Joe: It’s cool. And now he’s, I mean, I mean, he’s world famous now this guy. I mean, he’s got incredible like things on Netflix
Greg: Yeah. He’s had his own TV shows.
Joe: Yeah, he’s, he’s a standup comic and he’s…
Greg: That was a real breakthrough moment for him. So, yeah that was cool.
Aislyn: Yeah, yeah. That’s— how cool. I mean, I know we don’t do Afar Experiences anymore, but the way that they were able to connect us with these kind of behind-the-scenes experiences. Like, I’ll never forget being in James Carville’s backyard doing a crawfish boil and he’s coming around and teaching us how to do it. I’m like, where am I? What’s going on here right now? That was very cool.
Greg: That was so cool.
Joe: You know, Aislyn, now the question you’re going to get is like: Why don’t those guys do Afar Experiences anymore?
Aislyn: I know. Well, if there’s a huge demand because of this podcast, you might just have to bring it back.
Joe: Not only for attendees, but for sponsors, because you got to have both of those things to make the, that really work. Yeah.
Aislyn: Well, Greg’s email is. . . . Well, you guys share a similar travel philosophy, but as listeners may have gotten a little hint of, you do have your differences when it comes to travel. And we’ve had fun over the years playing with some of those differences. So I was hoping that we could, you could talk a little bit about what you’ve discovered.
They seem to be smaller to me, but . . .
Greg: I think they were pretty small. Um,
Joe: They are. But I mean, now that you’re getting like, you’re getting kind of old. I mean, you’re like, the patience is getting. . . . So like, you want to be at the airport now, like, before, when we started traveling, it’s like, oh, we could get to the airport like 45 minutes before. Like now, and like, he says it’s the four-and-a-half year old that’s prevented me from traveling with him.
No, it’s that he wants to show up at the airport like three hours early.
Aislyn: The recommended time.
Joe: Yeah, he, like, actually reads the thing that United says on the app and he’s like, we got to be there. We got to be there. And I was like, I’ll meet you.
Greg: I don’t know if I’m that bad, but I’ve definitely gotten more that way. Yes.
Joe: I’ll meet you there. But . . .
Greg: That’s funny.
Aislyn: That’s funny. Well we did a kind of a famous, at least within the Afar staffers, the, uh, “afargument” between you guys and your window shade preferences. Um, would you like to share a little bit of your, your insight around this?
Greg: Uh, I’ll do it just because it’s funny, cause I was thinking about that and it reminded me of a, of another difference we have. So, he’s a, he’s a window guy. I’m an aisle guy, so that’s great. Uh, so that makes it easy to travel together. He’s also a pilot, he loves flying. He likes to have the window open and the window shade open, and looking out all the time. And I’m one of those that I just want to read and go to sleep. You know, that’s what, that’s what I want to do. And I don’t want an annoying light. And he doesn’t care that I don’t want an annoying light. So we have that that was what our “afargument” was about um.
Aislyn: How do you handle that then? Like who wins?
Greg: He wins, cause he’s…
Aislyn: Or do you take turns?
Greg: . . . right next to this window.
Aislyn: OK. OK. I see. There’s no compromising here. You don’t book a seat like a couple aisles back?
Greg: So you just got me. That’s what we do sometimes, we sit separately. But, that’s why I’m going to the other problem is that Joe . . .
Joe: I know exactly what you’re going to say.
Greg: . . . is a talker on planes. He will make friends with the person next to him and talk the entire flight, which is definitely worse than having the window open—window shade open.
Aislyn: Because you’re sitting there trying to sleep and Joe’s drumming up business.
Joe: He’s trying to read his little, important book.
Aislyn: But I feel like there’s some stories about Joe talking to people on planes that have,like, worked to our advantage in big ways, like the people that you’ve met.
Greg: True. I’m sure there’s some people he’s pissed off too that I don’t know about, but . . .
Joe: I mean, why not take advantage of the opportunity by the way? You’ve got, like, interesting, interesting people with different stories all around you. And then you’ve got this, like you’re sitting in this seat, 29–30,000 feet above the ground. Like what better place to kind of look out and like, think about life and the world and what’s going on than, like, in that seat.
Greg: I can’t.
Joe: Like, I, it drives me nuts people that waste that opportunity.
Greg: I mean, I can’t, I, I guess I’m . . . I don’t, I view. So it’s funny he views the experience starting when he gets on the plane, I get it when we’re, after we land, you know, and . . .
Aislyn: Interesting.
Greg: . . . and uh, I can’t argue his approach.
Aislyn: Both valid.
Joe: I wouldn’t say that. I don’t go that far.
Aislyn: Well, I’m with you on the window shade, but my problem with talking to people—and I’m kind of hit or miss with this— is that I don’t want to talk the whole time. And so there’s that awkward, like, how do you stop? And then how do you start the movie? And how do you read your book? Like, could you have any tips for that?
Joe: I think you just got to be bold. You got to be bold. You know, you either just put the headphones back in. And be like, hey, I’m just going to do this now, you know, and you just put them back in or, you know.
Aislyn: There’s no slowly backing away.You’re just like, bye.
Joe: Yeah, it’s like good talking. I’m going to catch up on this now.
Greg: So Joe is telling this as if this is what he does. This is what people do to him is what he really means. Ha ha.
Aislyn:Haha. This is what he’s learned over the years.
Joe: They go cold turkey on me and I’m like, oh that’s effective. But like: wait, wait. Oh his headphones, noise canceling, right and he just put an eyeshade on, huh? OK. Maybe I’ll just wait till he gets up.
Aislyn: Oh my God. Oh, great. That was great. Greg, thank you for pointing that out. All right. Well, I was hoping that we could do, try something. I don’t know if this will work, but a quick rapid fire. So let’s start with well, we already answered this question, but window or aisle?
Greg: I’m aisle.
Joe: I’m a window.
Aislyn: All right, recline your seat or no?
Greg: I’m reclined, though I do want to be considerate, so I do try to be considerate, but I prefer to recline.
Joe: I just do what’s comfortable and I, so it doesn’t matter. I’m not, I’m not as considerate about reclining. If I’m going to recline, I’m going to recline and deal with it, but I don’t always recline.
Aislyn: What if somebody in front of you reclines how do you react to that?
Joe: I probably, well, then I tell them to push their seat back up. No, I’m just kidding. I don’t, you know, then, then I’ll probably that’s, that’s more likely to recline if someone else is reclining, you got to recline.
Aislyn: Yeah, yeah, yes. And then there’s the laptop question, but we won’t get into that. OK. Checked bag or carry-on?
Greg: I’m . . . so ever since that trip to India, when we lost our clothes for six weeks, I have always been a carry on.
Joe: I had been a carry on until the pandemic. And now I’m just kind of like, you know what? I mean, it depends on the trip, but checking luggage allows me the ability to not have to think as carefully about what goes in the bag and how tightly I wrap it. And so, especially, you know, if you’ve got, like, loyalty on airlines, like, uh, then, and I don’t have to pay for the luggage, I’ll probably go that route and check it.
Greg: Joe and I did, we used to travel with very small, you know, backpacks, and now Joe doesn’t only check, he checks an armoire it is humongous, it is the biggest suitcase I’ve ever seen. Yes, he doesn’t unpack.
Aislyn: Is it?
Joe: What, I think, what is it, what isn’t in it?
Aislyn: So Greg, would you wait for him at baggage claim or no, you’re off starting your trip?
Greg: No, I wait. But I do complain and bitch the whole time, yes.
Aislyn: Seems fitting. That seems fitting. OK, well, what’s in that armoire? Packing cubes, rolls, or layers?
Joe: Uh, I definitely am a packing cube guy and I roll inside the packing cubes.
Aislyn: Gosh, layers!
Greg: With, he also uses cellophane to avoid wrinkles.
Joe: Uh, this is for, for your nice shirts. If you don’t wanna have to deal with the wrinkles, you pack ’’em in cellophane. What I’m loving that hotels are starting to do now is they’re getting rid of the irons and they’re just putting in the steamers because I, I’ll, I’ll use the, I’ll turn on the hot shower and hang it in the shower to get the wrinkles out. But now they’ve got the steamers, and that’s a, that’s a pro move right there by the hotels.
Greg: Yeah, I just had that for the first time at the Dewberry in Charleston and I was like, wow—and I bought one as a result. I was like, I love it.
Aislyn: All right, Greg, did you answer? Did you say what you do?
Greg: Oh I just cram.
Joe:And it’s filthy. It’s filthy. He will take, he will take his shirts that he’s supposed to put on his body and he’ll wrap them around his shoes that go onto the . . .
Greg: Joe’s a very, Joe’s a hygienic person. I am not. I, we, as you know, Lyndsey Matthews, our former commerce editor . . .
Aislyn: Yes, yeah.
Greg: . . . had the, don’t put your, you know, don’t put your suitcase on the bed. Make sure you wrap your shoes. I do none of that. I am, I am, uh, I’m no, I’m not very good at any of that. I just fold and cram.
Aislyn: The shirt around the shoes.
Greg: No, I don’t do that!
Greg: They are next to each other. The shoe is pressing against my shirt.
Joe: You might as well wrap it.
Aislyn: I, yeah, it’s kind of the same thing then. All right, we’ll move on. Um, mountains or ocean?
Greg: That’s, that’s impossible. It just depends. It depends. I love them both.
Aislyn: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: I mean, I live near the ocean, um, which I do love, but I guess I’d have to say I’m, I’m a mountain guy.
Aislyn: Yeah, OK. And souvenirs—yay or nay? For other people.
Greg: Nay. I’m not . . . a, a, a, a, a, a, a seriously nay, nay person. I don’t like to get them. I don’t like to give them.
Aislyn: Wow. OK. Noted. Duly noted.
Joe: Having a four year old makes it tough to be a non–souvenir person and it’s even tougher to figure out what the heck you, you know, you bring back. And, so I’m always looking for good ideas on things that aren’t just, you know, kind of tchotchke, but have, like, a connection to the place. And, and, uh, sometimes I don’t execute and so I get in trouble.
Greg: People sometimes, like I just did Wimbledon a couple weeks ago and somebody, you know, people are like: Bring me back something from Wimbledon. I go, by the way, it’s online.
Aislyn: They want, like a tennis ball? Oh, OK. OK.
Greg: I mean, you don’t have to go to Wimbledon to get a Wimbledon T-shirt. And by the way, you get one that you like if you choose it versus having me pick one. But I, you know, it’s just I am not a stuff person. I don’t need more stuff in my life. I don’t know why more people need more stuff in their life. It is not my thing.
Aislyn: And you don’t have room for it either. Joe might have room. Um, all right. Last question. This is a more serious question, but what do you hope for the future of Afar?
Joe: That’s a big question. Greg, do you have something?
Greg: I, mean, I, I have something I could say, but . . .
Joe: I was looking to wait for you to say something better. I, I’d love to hear, I’d love to hear what you have to say. I think everyone would at this point.
Greg: I, I honestly, I don’t, yeah, I mean, my thing is, I just hope we’re connecting with more people and in a, in more regular ways, you know—I love what we do, um, and we’re just trying to figure out a way to, you know, to connect with people where they want to hear from us. You know, whether that’s on social media, on podcasts, through email, um, you know, how can we connect with them and help get them to think, travel better, live better. And we always want to continue trying to be a good prod to the industry to get better too.
Joe: I mean, I think it’s along, along those lines. Like we believe in, you know, this idea of travel is a force for good. And so the more people that think like this, travel like this, um, the better our world will be. So how can we create, you know, a stage that allows this community to go on and, and allow more and more people to, to be a part of it and to make it, continue to make it more accessible for people?
I think one of the things that we’re seeing is like: the questions that travelers are asking of their suppliers. And when I say a supplier, I mean like, you know, of their hotels, of their airlines, of the brands and companies that are supplying the travel are so much more different and improved. It shows kind of their thinking in terms of, you know, that impact that we talk about.
The more people are asking about, you know, how hotels handle their food waste or how well they pay their employees or, how much of the money that I’m giving to this tour operator or this hotel is staying inside the country or staying inside that community where I’m traveling, you know. So continuing to be able to help people ask these kinds of questions that help hotels and management teams and companies hold themselves accountable and continue to have confidence in the idea that they need to be working towards, you know, a more sustainable approach is really, I think, a huge opportunity for us. It’s a lot of moving parts that have to come together and that’s what we want to help continue to do.
Aislyn: Well, well said, and looking forward to the next 15 years and again, congratulations on the last 15—it’s been quite a ride.
Greg: Well, thanks so much for all you’ve done to help out along the way, and everybody, it’s, it’s been, the coolest thing I’ve ever done, that’s for sure, and most satisfying and, and, and yeah, and humbling, it’s cool. Some of the things we say we’re about, you know, they sound, I don’t know, you know, they’re, they’re high minded, you know, trying to make travel a force for good in the world and, and, and, and, I think that’s important. But it’s also like, it’s also humility of like—it’s not hard—we certainly don’t have all the answers, we’re just trying to, and that’s what I mean, it’s not like it’s simple, but it is about, you know, trying and communicating and making the efforts and that’s what we’re about.
Joe: What I love, what I love about it is it’s a practice, you know, it’s a practice almost, you know, it’s like a, it’s a life practice. You have a set of values. You have a set of behaviors and attitudes. And we always say this, like, it has to be fun. Like if Afar was like, just learn, like, if it was just all like in like a textbook, like, geez, I mean, subscriptions would have to be like $17,000 dollars a person and you’d have seven of them or something.
It’s gotta be fun. And it is fun. And like to be able to go out there in the world and meet people and for some of us actually talk to people that you sit next to and for others not. But it’s about what you are passionate about and use that as a way to, like you said, Aislyn, travel deeper. And when you come back to that front door that you left, you know, seven days ago you’re looking at the world a little bit of a different way or looking at yourself in a little bit of a different way and, you know, um, and that’s I think that’s a good thing.
Aislyn: Yeah. That’s a really important reminder, like the joy of connection, the kind of simple joy of all of this. You know, we can’t lose that in the quest to be better. Well, thank you so much, happy travels, and we’ll see you on the podcast again soon.
And that was the story of how Afar came to be. Thank you so much, Greg and Joe. We’ll be celebrating our 15-year anniversary for the next four months with releases on this feed of our favorite Travel Tales podcast episodes, every other Tuesday. The first will go live on Tuesday, September 10th. And visit afar.com/15 for an exploration of some of our favorite Afar stories over the years. That link is in the show notes. Next week, we’ll be back with a polyglot’s tips for learning foreign languages.
Ready for more unpacking? Visit afar.com, and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter. The magazine is @afarmedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great stories. Subscribing makes this easy! You can find Unpacked on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. And be sure to rate and review the show. It helps other travelers find it. We also want to hear from you: Is there a travel dilemma, trend, or topic you’d like us to explore? Drop us a line at afar.com/feedback or email us at unpacked@afar.com.
This has been Unpacked, a production of AFAR Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. Music composition by Chris Colin.
And remember: The world is complicated. We’re here to help you unpack it.
