My interview with Amateur Traveler

I had the great fortune of being interviewed about my hometown of Mobile, Alabama with Chris Christensen of Amateur Traveler for his podcast series last month, and the podcast has just been released!  You can listen to it here:

Amateur Traveler Episode 409 - Travel to Mobile, Alabama

Amateur Traveler is one of the most popular travel podcasts there is, and Chris has won quite a few awards over the years for doing his thing.  For any place you want to go, Chris has probably interviewed someone about it.  Mongolia?  Covered.  Papua New Guinea?  Done.  South Dakota?  Yep.

I first found out about Amateur Traveler from my good friend Jason at Hull Financial Planning.  He and his wife snagged the 3 of us an interview with Chris about our trip to Namibia a few years back.  It somehow worked with all 4 of us connected via Skype from different locations.  I was downright impressed, and I've been a fan of Amateur Traveler ever since.

So if you care to know more about Mobile, or if you just want to make fun of how I sound during an interview, here's your chance.  Learn/mock away!

Getting creative with cargo

I love the ingenious ways that people transport things in other parts of the world.  I've encountered all manner of objects, people, and animals being toted around by motorbike, bicycle, foot, car, truck, cow, donkey, and ox.  And to think I've been using U-Haul all these years.  How unoriginal of me.  I'll still likely continue to hire a truck when I need to move some serious cargo, but I'd like to give kudos to the top 3 transportation accomplishments that I've seen in my travels. 

1.  Vietnam: unidentifiable green plant overload

The bicycle tour group I was with was admiring a lovely rice paddy in the Mekong Delta when this woman came tottering down the lane.  She was lying on top of the load, barely able to reach the handlebars.  As she slowly plodded past us, I noticed that her feet were dangling off the back.  There was no way for her to access the pedals, so she gave alternating pushes with her feet.  This made for a very... slow...  ride...

2.  Namibia:  10 people in a small SUV

Oops, I'm part of the cargo this time.  Everyone wants to end a vacation with an epic final night, right?  That's exactly what we did in Windhoek, Namibia in 2010 before flying home.  And that's how we found ourselves crammed into a single vehicle headed to a country-western bar with our newly-acquired South African friends.  That's right - a country-western bar in the middle of Namibia. 

3.  Egypt:  a camel

Bah, who needs a trailer?  Just throw your large animal in the back of the truck and be done with it.  I can't imagine how the owner got the camel in there, but surely drugs were involved.  And that rope tied across the back does a lot of good, I'm sure.