• 1 hour 47 seconds
    How to Be Norwegian (Cultural Concepts Worth Stealing) with Lorelou Desjardins

    Why does a tiny Nordic nation with just 5.5 million people feel impossible to summarize in a single sentence? 

    Lorelou Desjardins has been writing about Norwegian culture since 2013 at her blog and publishing house, A Frog in the Fjord. She has published six books in Norway and internationally, along with 250 articles in mainstream media including Norway's largest newspaper. Her latest book, How to Be Norwegian, offers a crash course into 55 essential Norwegian cultural quirks. She lives in Oslo and is now a Norwegian citizen. 

    In this episode, Lorelou and I dig into Norwegian culture and what makes this country so unique, covering the surprising scale of Norway's geography, the country's cabin culture, social dynamics among Norwegians, food and drink customs, the quirks of Norwegian English, and a Norwegian concept worth stealing for your own life. 

    Norway can feel like a country of contradictions: vast and remote in parts, intensely social in others, shaped by long winters and short summers that flip the whole rhythm of daily life. This conversation moves between practical travel insight and a more personal look at what it is actually like to live here long-term, even after becoming a citizen. Whether you are planning a trip, exploring your own Norwegian roots, or just drawn to borrowing a little wisdom from another culture, there is something here for you. 

    What is one custom or tradition from somewhere else in the world that you have brought into your own life? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message. 

    Tune In To Learn: 

    • How long Norway actually is, and which European capital it would touch if you spun it on its southern tip 

    • Why a growing wave of travelers are choosing Norway over traditionally hot summer destinations 

    • What Norway's "freedom to roam" law actually allows you to do 

    • How cabin culture works, and how travelers can access cabins most visitors never think to look for 

    • Why Norwegians have a reputation for being emotionally cold, and the bus ride that put that reputation to the test for me 

    • Why Norwegians are so eager to talk about their own cultural identity with outsiders 

    • The surprising history behind Norway's strict modern alcohol laws 

    • Why frozen pizza and Friday tacos became beloved national traditions 

    • The Norwegian concept that's similar to hygge, but with its own colder, deeper edge 

    • And so much more 

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    28 July 2026, 10:00 am
  • 1 hour 25 minutes
    Manifesting Your Ideal Lifestyle (Practical Tools and No BS) with Heath Armstrong

    What would it look like to build a life that reflects exactly who you are and where you want to go? 

    Heath Armstrong is an entrepreneur, author, and co-founder of Rage Create, a company known for its unconventional affirmation and oracle card decks that have raised over $200,000 through crowdfunding. He spent years living and working nomadically, including a period traveling full-time in a self-built van across the United States. He now runs Deck Creators, a community for people who want to create and launch their own card decks, from his farmhouse in the mountains of North Carolina. 

    In this episode, Heath and I catch up on his journey from the early days of location independence to the businesses he's building now. We get into his approach to freedom lifestyle design, what it actually means to take inspired versus forced action, and the daily practices he's used to move from vision to reality. 

    This is one of those conversations that works on multiple levels. On the surface, it's about entrepreneurship and building a life around your values. But underneath that is something more personal: how to recognize when you're operating from fear versus genuine alignment, and what it takes to keep moving in the right direction even when things get hard.  

    Heath's been through real darkness, real financial uncertainty, and real pivots, and he's thought deeply about all of it. Whether you're designing a lifestyle business, mapping out your next travel chapter, or just trying to figure out what you actually want, there's something in here for you. 

    What's one thing you could do this week to move closer to the version of your life you actually want to be living? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message. 

    Tune In To Learn: 

    • Why Heath draws a sharp line between inspired action and forced action, and why that distinction changed everything for him 

    • How the note card practice he started years ago still shapes his daily routine today 

    • Why visualizing your goals in the present tense only works if you actually believe them, and what to do if you don't 

    • How to tell the difference between resistance and intuition when they can feel nearly identical 

    • What Heath's "totem pole" framework looks like in practice, and why it brings long-term vision and daily action into alignment 

    • Why your environment and the people around you matter more than most productivity advice will tell you 

    • Lessons from van life that Heath still carries with him, including why nature and isolation sharpened his business instincts 

    • What Heath did when a tariff crisis threatened to sink a shipment, and why he frames problems like video game bosses 

    • Why Heath thinks moving toward the life you want and being happy in the present moment are actually the same thing 

    • Hidden gem destinations that left a real mark on Heath, including a spot in Oregon most people have never heard of 

    • And so much more 

    Resources: 

    • The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn 

    • The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale 

    • Love Money, Money Loves You by Sarah McCrum  

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    21 July 2026, 10:00 am
  • 56 minutes 9 seconds
    Top 7 Uganda Hidden Gems with Lynett Nakamanya

    What if one of Africa's most diverse and rewarding destinations has been hiding in plain sight — and most travelers only ever see a fraction of what it has to offer? 

    Lynett Nakamanya is a tourism professional and Kampala native who has worked across the East African travel industry for over a decade. She holds a master's degree in management science with a focus on project monitoring and evaluation in tourism, and is affiliated with the Uganda Tourism Board. She also runs her own trip-planning platform focused on sustainable and meaningful experiences across the region. 

    In this episode, Lynett shares her list of Uganda hidden gems and travel recommendations, the state of tourism in Uganda today, and the real impact that responsible travel can have on local communities. 

    Lynett brings a perspective that's hard to find — someone who grew up in Uganda, has spent her career inside the tourism industry there, and thinks seriously about what travel can and should do for local communities. She makes a compelling case for doing a little research before you arrive, because the gap between a standard itinerary and a genuinely memorable one often comes down to simply knowing what to ask for. She also shares a Ugandan saying about travel at the end of this one that's worth sticking around for. 

    What experience from this episode most surprised you, and has it changed how you think about where you want to go next? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message. 

    Tune In To Learn: 

    • Why a beautiful crater lake just 20 minutes from Uganda's most famous attraction is almost never visited — and why it's worth the detour 

    • How one of East Africa's most rewarding mountaineering experiences sits in Uganda, largely off the radar of international visitors 

    • Why Uganda's 56 tribes make cultural immersion more rewarding when you focus on just one or two 

    • What one of Uganda's most historically significant religious sites reveals about the country's layered cultural past 

    • How a massive collection of islands right next to the airport offers everything from white sand beaches to wildlife encounters that most visitors drive straight past 

    • Why one eastern Uganda destination pairs three waterfalls with some of the world's highest-graded Arabica coffee 

    • Why doing your own research before a trip is the single best way to unlock experiences that never make the standard itinerary 

    • How responsible travel creates a ripple effect through local families and communities that most visitors never see 

    • What cultural mistake tourists commonly make in Uganda that creates more harm than help 

    • And so much more 

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    14 July 2026, 10:00 am
  • 1 hour 21 minutes
    Reconnecting to Nature with Adventure, Purpose, Fun, and Travelers’ Curiosity with Alastair Humphreys

    What if the travel mindset you bring to far-off places is exactly what's needed right where you live? 

    Alastair Humphreys is a British adventurer, bestselling author, and speaker named National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. He spent four years cycling 46,000 miles around the world and has since canoed 500 miles down the Yukon River, rowed across the Atlantic, walked the length of India's Kaveri River, and crossed Iceland on foot and pack raft. In recent years he has become one of the most well-known advocates for microadventures and local exploration, and his newest book is Unwilded: Finding Our Way Back to Nature. 

    Alastair joins me to unpack the ideas in his book, including why our growing disconnection from nature matters personally and planetarily, and how a travel mindset and nature connection can be tools for changing both. 

    Alastair has made this case before on the show, but Unwilded takes it somewhere new. This isn't just a conversation about microadventures or getting outside more. It's about a specific kind of blindness that builds slowly across generations, and what it costs us without anyone quite noticing. Alastair brings the same practical, adventure-first framing he always does, but this time it's in service of something bigger: a way to take the traveler's curiosity you feel on the road and put it to work where you actually live. The episode ends with a surprisingly simple exercise that can help you turn the world's overwhelming problems into something personal, actionable, and genuinely fun to pursue. 

    What's one small thing in your immediate environment that you've stopped really noticing? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message. 

    Tune In To Learn: 

    • Why the traveler's curious, enthusiastic mindset is exactly what's needed at home, and why most of us leave it at the border 

    • What "shifting baseline syndrome" is and why understanding it changes the way you see the world around you 

    • How two apps transformed Alastair's relationship with his daily run, and how to try the same thing 

    • Why spending 15 minutes in nature daily is harder than it sounds, and why that's actually the problem 

    • How connecting with even a tiny patch of local nature can deliver the same buzz as a far-off adventure 

    • What the Overton window has to do with how we approach climate change, travel, and everyday behavior 

    • Why Alastair stopped flying and moved to a vegan diet, and the surprisingly positive effect it had on his life 

    • What the 5-25 exercise is, and how it can help you identify the issues closest to your heart and take action without burning out 

    • How the Netherlands transformed its streets in a generation, and what that says about what's actually possible 

    • The vision Alastair wrote for the world 25 years from now, and why it's closer to reality than it might seem 

    • And so much more 

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    7 July 2026, 10:00 am
  • 1 hour 11 minutes
    Adventure Filmmaking for YouTube, the Art of Storytelling, and Life on the Road with Molly McDonald

    Molly McDonald is a London-based YouTube producer and founder of Blue Door Productions, a YouTube-first content agency that brings broadcast-level production to digital storytelling. She studied journalism at Boston University and later earned a master's in Irish studies from NYU before building her career in television production in New York City. Her client list includes Red Bull, BBC, and National Geographic, and her films have accumulated over 200 million views on YouTube. 

    This episode covers Molly's journey from Irish-American New Yorker to YouTube travel documentary producer, including her work on some of the most extreme human endurance expeditions ever filmed and what she learned along the way. 

    Travel has a funny way of dismantling the stories we tell ourselves about the world, and Molly McDonald has lived that firsthand, from the pubs her family built in Manhattan to the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. She grew up straddling two cultures, and that dual identity turns out to be the exact foundation for the kind of storytelling she now does for a living: finding the human truth inside extreme, unpredictable adventures. There's a real conversation in here about what it means to travel to places that scare you, why the media often gets destinations wrong, and how following a story you can't fully control is actually what makes it worth watching. 

    What place have you avoided visiting because of how it's been portrayed in the media, and has anything ever changed your mind? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message. 

    Tune In To Learn: 

    • Why growing up Irish-American in New York shaped Molly's approach to storytelling and travel 

    • How Blue Door Productions brings TV-level production quality to the "wild west" of YouTube 

    • What it was actually like to cross into Iraq during a live expedition, and what happened to all the fear 

    • Why Kurdistan challenged everything Molly thought she knew about the region 

    • How to capture authentic moments on camera when you can't predict what's coming next 

    • Advice for aspiring YouTubers on what to cut, what to keep, and why most people share too much 

    • Why the title and thumbnail of a YouTube video matter more than people realize 

    • How to think about storytelling structure even when the story is still unfolding in front of you 

    • What the concept of "soul places" reveals about how travel changes you over time 

    • Why starting from zero on YouTube is actually an advantage, and what consistency really means 

    • And so much more 

    Resources: 

    • Watch Mitch Hutchcraft's expedition on YouTube 

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    30 June 2026, 10:00 am
  • 40 minutes 55 seconds
    Y We Travel Podcast: To Meet The Neighbours (Bonus Episode!)

    This week, I'm sharing a bonus episode from a brand new podcast called Y We Travel, co-hosted by my friend Eric Weiner, who has joined me on the show a few times over the years. Eric is a New York Times bestselling author and former foreign correspondent, and his co-host Erica Vella is an award-winning podcaster and former broadcast journalist. 

    There's no shortage of travel advice out there — who can save us a buck, what to do, when's the best time to go, where to go. But one fundamental question often gets left behind: why? 

    Born from an award-winning magazine series of the same name, Y We Travel explores the deeper motivations behind our journeys. The show unpacks the emotions, discoveries, and purpose that give travel its meaning. 

    In this episode, Eric and Erica discuss the origins of the series and their own motivations for travelling. Eric interviews author and Y We Travel essayist Pico Iyer, trading travel anecdotes from Japan to California to North Korea and discussing themes from Pico's piece in The Walrus magazine, which argued that we should travel to meet our neighbours. Erica continues the conversation with a selection of Toronto Pearson passengers, asking: "Why are you travelling today?" 

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    25 June 2026, 10:00 am
  • 1 hour 18 minutes
    7 Travel Tech Trends Worth Knowing in 2026 + 3 Emerging Hot Spots to Spend Quality Time with Matt Gray

    Matt Gray is the founder and CEO of Pangea, a free social travel app built to help people coordinate travel plans, share recommendations, and connect with their network around the world. After a decade in product development and corporate M&A at a global fintech company, he left the corporate world in 2023 to become a full-time digital nomad and build Pangea full-time. He is on a personal mission to visit every country in the world.

    In this episode, we get into seven travel tech trends shaping how people plan, book, and experience travel, including why most travel apps fail, the rise of social travel, and what AI can and can't do for travelers right now. We also dig into destination recommendations, advice for running a remote business on the road, and what it means to bridge the nomad bubble.

    These are genuinely fascinating times to be a traveler and a builder in the travel space, and Matt sits at the center of both worlds. He's thinking seriously about why travel tech has such a high failure rate, and what it would actually take to crack the code, and he brings a perspective that is grounded in years of on-the-ground experience across dozens of countries and travel styles. There is a real conversation here about the gap between wanting to travel and actually doing it, and I think it will stick with you. The travel tech trends for digital nomads piece is insightful, but the human thread running through it all is what makes this one worth your time.

    Have you ever had a piece of technology genuinely change how you travel or connect with people on the road? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message.

    Tune In To Learn:

    • Why so many travel apps are built to solve a single problem, and why that almost always leads to failure
    • How being a "multifaceted traveler" is reshaping what a useful travel platform actually needs to do
    • Why AI wrappers on ChatGPT are not the same as AI-powered travel tools, and how to tell the difference
    • How social travel is changing the reason people book trips in the first place
    • Why off-the-beaten-path destinations benefit most from the rise of connected travel communities
    • How to break out of the nomad bubble and go deeper in the places you visit
    • Why the people you travel with may matter more than the places you go
    • Destination recommendations for regions quietly gaining traction in the nomad world
    • Advice for running a remote team while living a location-independent life
    • What it looks like to bring urgency to travel, not just talk about it
    • And so much more

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    23 June 2026, 10:00 am
  • 1 hour 27 minutes
    How to Live an Unconventional Life of Adventure and Purpose by Becoming “Dirtbag Rich” with Blake Boles

    What would it mean to stop measuring your life by the conventional yardstick and start building one that actually fits? 

    Blake Boles is a writer, experiential educator, and the founder of Unschool Adventures, a travel company for self-directed teenagers, which he has run since 2008. He is the author of several books on alternative education and self-directed learning, and his newest book, Dirtbag Rich: High Freedom, Low Income, Deep Purpose, was released in March 2026.  

    In this episode, Blake and I get into the philosophy behind "dirtbag rich" living, including what it really means to pursue a high-freedom, low-income lifestyle while still navigating the demands of modern capitalism. We also dig into the practical side of how to make a non-traditional financial model actually work, and talk about purpose, downward mobility, unschooling, outdoor adventure, and so much more. 

    If you've ever wondered whether there's a middle path between grinding toward a distant retirement and going full dirtbag with no financial safety net, this conversation is going to give you a lot to think about. Blake shares a lot of real practical substance in this one, alongside some genuinely fresh thinking about how to measure wealth, what freedom actually requires, and what gets in the way of most people finding their version of a dirtbag-rich unconventional life. 

    What does "enough" look like for you, whether that's money, time, adventure, or something else? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message. 

    Tune In To Learn: 

    • Why the original dirtbag culture offers a useful framework, even if you'll never live in Yosemite full-time 

    • How Blake figured out a way to earn good money in short bursts and stay free the rest of the year 

    • Why "how do you know when you're wealthy?" is a more useful question than you might expect 

    • What the FIRE movement often gets wrong about making a clean break from work 

    • How to think about "downward mobility" as a feature rather than a failure 

    • Why having freedom from something isn't enough without also knowing what you're free to do 

    • What the real risks of a dirtbag rich lifestyle actually are, and how to go in with clear eyes 

    • How purpose shows up differently for different people, and why measuring it in "I get to" days works 

    • Advice for attracting the ideal clients and building work that doesn't eat your life 

    • Why getting your ideal client to feel genuinely excited to work with you is the job before the job 

    • And so much more 

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    16 June 2026, 10:00 am
  • 1 hour 6 minutes
    Uruguay: Top 7 Hidden Gems (That Most People Miss) + Testing the Remote Work Lifestyle with Lucia Krygier

    Ever considered traveling to or working from Uruguay? 

    Lucia Krygier is a Uruguayan entrepreneur and innovation consultant based in Montevideo. In early 2025, she spent two months working remotely from Cape Town, South Africa, an experience she describes as a turning point in her life. That trip led her to found Work From Uruguay, a community-driven workation program bringing together remote workers, digital nomads, and entrepreneurs to co-live and co-work in Uruguay. 

    In this episode, Lucia shares her journey from first-time remote worker to budding business owner, and makes a strong case for why Uruguay deserves a spot on your radar. 

    There is something worth sitting with in this conversation about what happens when you stop waiting for the right moment and just go. Lucia's path touches on trusting yourself through uncertainty, building a life around how you actually want to live, and what travel to Uruguay's hidden gems can unlock when you give a place more than a few days.  

    If you had the chance to spend a few months working and traveling somewhere completely new,  would you take it? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message. 

    Tune In To Learn: 

    • Why Lucia's first remote work trip to Cape Town changed the direction of her life 

    • How she decided between constantly moving and staying in one place for an extended time 

    • The hidden costs and benefits of spending more time in one place instead of country hopping 

    • The mindset shift that helped her leave a stable job and launch a business from abroad 

    • How she handled the uncertainty of starting a consulting career while traveling across Europe 

    • Why she built her business around her home country instead of continuing to travel indefinitely 

    • What Uruguay's digital nomad permit is and how it works for long-term visitors 

    • The off-grid beach village that gets a "wow effect" from every single visitor who goes there 

    • Seven specific places in Uruguay worth visiting, from a colonial port town to a bohemian surf village 

    • What to eat in Uruguay, from the national sandwich to a dish tracing back to Italian immigrants 

    • Advice for testing the work-travel lifestyle before committing to a full nomadic year 

    • And so much more 

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    9 June 2026, 10:00 am
  • 1 hour 16 minutes
    How to Transition to a “Normal Life” After Travel with Tom Turcich (10th Person to Walk Around the World)

    What do you do when the adventure ends? 

    Tom Turcich is a motivational speaker, author, and the tenth person in history to walk around the world. Over seven years, he and his dog, Savannah, covered 28,000 miles across 38 countries and six continents, completing the journey in 2022. He is the author of the memoir The World Walk and the children's book Savannah's World of Adventure. 

    In this episode, Tom shares what returning home after long-term travel actually looks like, from the mental and emotional toll of losing the road, to the financial catch-up game, to the harder question of who you are once the adventure is over. 

    If you've ever come back from a trip and felt a strange kind of grief you couldn't quite name, this one is for you. Tom is remarkably open about the difficulty of that first year back, and the conversation gets into territory that doesn't often get talked about after a big journey ends. There's real honesty here about what it takes to find your footing again, how to rebuild adventure into a life that isn't handing it to you every day, and how to make peace with the constraints that come with settling down. 

    What's one thing you've held onto from a big trip that's hard to explain to people who weren't there? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message. 

    Tune In To Learn: 

    • Why Tom describes his first year back as the only depression he's ever experienced 

    • How the world "stops coming at you" when you settle down, and what it takes to rebuild that muscle 

    • The unexpected mental and emotional challenge of no longer having a North Star 

    • Why consistency beats passion when it comes to making progress, in travel and in life 

    • What two years of walking in the Atacama Desert taught Tom about happiness 

    • Why your traveler identity matters less than the values underneath it 

    • How walking became a years-long meditation practice Tom didn't see coming 

    • The one mindset Tom would give anyone coming off the road for the first time 

    • Why building community after a big adventure takes longer than most people expect 

    • What it means to choose your constraints rather than just accept them 

    • And so much more 

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    2 June 2026, 10:00 am
  • 50 minutes 33 seconds
    Give Yourself Permission to Choose Differently: Jason Moore on the My Most Authentic Life Podcast

    What does it actually take to give yourself permission to live unconventionally, and what's really standing in the way? 

    I had the opportunity to be a guest on the My Most Authentic Life podcast with Fede Vargas, a conversation we recorded live on the rooftop at Podcast Movement Evolutions during South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. Fede interviewed me about the themes that run through this show, including unconventional paths, pivots, lifestyle design, and what it means to choose differently. 

    This conversation pulls out some of my most honest thinking on what it means to give yourself permission to live unconventionally. We talk openly about my decade as a nomad with no fixed home, the internal and external forces that push back against unconventional choices, and how imposter syndrome never goes away but can be trained around. There's a lot here that I think will resonate if you've ever felt the pull of a different path but weren't sure you were allowed to take it. 

    Tune In To Learn: 

    • Why giving yourself permission is often the first and hardest obstacle on any unconventional path 

    • How imposter syndrome works as a muscle you can train, not a problem you solve 

    • What it means to "pivot" before you've actually made any outward moves 

    • Why the journey before the journey has more value than most people realize 

    • How lifestyle design is less about optimization and more about filtering decisions through your ideal daily life 

    • Why the "perfect average day" exercise is a practical starting point for anyone designing their life 

    • How I spent a decade as a nomadic tour manager, including driving the Meow Mix Catmobile across the U.S. 

    • What unexpected things can happen when you follow your gut, even last-minute 

    • Why my definition of authenticity comes down to one word 

    • And so much more 

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    26 May 2026, 10:00 am
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