THE WANDERLUSTERS MIND PODCAST

Abby Lewtas 28/5/19 Abby Lewtas 28/5/19

Sustainable travel, plastic free and setting boundaries with Sarah Rhodes.

Sarah has worked in the hospitality and tourism industry throughout her career and has a Masters in Tourism Management where she developed a keen interest in sustainable tourism. Following 4 years working for the South Australian Tourism in online marketing management and project management roles, she undertook training via the Climate Leadership Corps, lead by Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States.

Sarah Rhodes has always been interested in travel and when she finally stepped out into the world she started to see the devastating impact that the plastic pollution is having on our planet.

About Sarah

After completing this training Sarah moved to Siem Reap, Cambodia where she worked primarily with the NGO sector and responsible tourism practices, during which time Plastic Free Cambodia was formed. Specialising in consulting to businesses and delivering educational workshops on the topic of plastic reduction and other environmental issues.

Sarah now also consults to other countries around Southeast Asia thanks to the knowledge she has derived from her experiences and growing knowledge of climate change and plastic pollution issues in the region.

“Less than 9% of the whole world’s recycling (that we think has been recycled) has actually been recycled.”

— Sarah Rhodes

In the episode...

Sarah became interested in travel at school when she would always choose to assignments to research other countries.
When Sarah first felt outside her comfort zone when she was travelling on an overnight ferry from Rome.
Why Sarah decided to study Tourism and how she then became so interested in Sustainable Tourism.
How she came to live in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Sarah got involved with ConCERT and NGO where she could start contribution to her passion of sustainable tourism.
Sarah became aware of the waste problem in Cambodia and started a campaign - Plastic Free Cambodia which gained a lot of interest.
How Sarah’s Campaign is impacting Cambodia
Less than 9% of the worlds recycling (that we think has been recycled) have actually been recycled.
Sarah talks about how ‘we only know what we only know’ and what happens if your always in your comfort zone.
Sarah’s expectations about retuning home to Australia and how she believes ‘she is not going back.’
Why she will be challenged with ‘busyness.’
How Sarah has ‘Marie Kondo’ed’ her life.
Sarah talks about how people struggle with setting personal boundaries for them self.

Why Sarah continue to seek out travel and live abroad? Connecting with people and really discovering and exploring new places.

“We only know what we only know and through travel, I feel like I have a much wider, broader amount of knowledge that I would not have had if I had just stayed put in the one place.”

— Sarah Rhodes

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Abby Lewtas 21/5/19 Abby Lewtas 21/5/19

Forging a different life path and expanding your mind through travel with Sophie Delightful.

Known by her close friends and family as simply J, she has many monikers - including Kegeleagle as a roller derby player, Sophie deLightful as a cabaret performer and Hussy as a participant in the Burning Man community. A few years ago she made the switch from full-time travel agency manager and part-time performer/producer, to focus on her creative endeavours full-time and change to a home-based travel consultant contract. The lightbulb moment happened while on "leave without pay", travelling through Costa Rica, and she hasn't looked back since.

Sophie Delightful made the switch from full-time travel agency manager and part-time performer/producer, to focus on her creative endeavours full-time and change to a home-based travel consultant contract.

About Sophie

Sophie has travelled on immersive trips to London, St Maarten island, Caribbean, extended travels around Europe and South/Central America as well as SE Asia, Australia, NZ and the USA.

“You have to travel with an open mind.”

— Sohpie Delightful

In the episode...

How travel helped her realise the privileges that she has as a western white women.
You don’t need a lot to be happiness and money does not by happiness.
How Sophie has really taken a different path in her life, following her heart rather than following what is ‘expected’ of her.
Recognising that she is in a very fortunate position to be able to lead the life she wants.
Sophie’s experience working and living in St Maarten, living like the locals and gaining perspective.
Her advise to people who are feeling stuck in their lives.
The stress that drove Sophie to leave her full time job and change her lifestyle.
Sophie’s first experience travelling solo and feeling out of her comfort zone and how it made her feel so independent.
How getting robbed at gunpoint on a tour showed her how strong she could be in a challenging situation.
Learning to rely on yourself when you are travelling and how Sophie brings this back into her life back home.
That nothing needs to be permanent.
How there are simply endless options and ways to live your life.
Why Sophie doesn’t plan long term.

Rapid fire round

The last place Sophie visited - New Zealand
A place Sophie tells everyone to travel to - New Zealand and South America
Scariest place travelled to - Colombia
Favourite thing about travel - Exposure to different cultures, people and ways of living
Sophie’s next destination - Canada

Why Sophie continue to seek out travel and live abroad? There is still so much of the world to see and travel inspires her continuously nourish her soul and expand her way of living

“Travel has changed the way I am as a person and so I cant recommend it enough.”

— Sophie Delightful

Travel for growth and how it impacts our perspective with Aaron Yeak.

Aaron is driven from within. He is an entrepreneur, traveller, and lover of great coffee and people’s stories. His career spans Formula 1, sport and recreation, management consulting and now takes him on a business journey with an unknown destination. Much like his travel he enjoys the journey as well as the destination in life and business and takes every opportunity to see the world through the eyes and footprints of others. Aaron is documenting his business journey to a “destination unknown” and has also written a book about his career transitions from standing track side at motor sport events to inside boardrooms as a management consultant.

Aaron Yeak has been travelling since the age of 2. For him travel is all about how you can grow and gain perspective of others. He loves taking his learnings and applying them into his life and business back home.

About Aaron

From the age of 2, Aaron has been fortunate to have spent multiple periods overseas including studying in China, Austria and Finland. As well as travelling to over 40 countries throughout Europe, Australasia, Asia and North America. Much of his time abroad has been spent exploring the local scene with friends who are locals.

“Your mindset, in the moment, is so important as has the potential to be an enriching experience or something you can grow from and learn from or something you can get stuck on and go on a bit of a negative spiral which you really don’t want to be in when you’re away from your comfort zone.”

— Aaron Yeak

In the episode...

Aaron has always travelled to visit family and friends.
Studying abroad in many different countries.
Aaron likes to travel ‘through the eyes of a local.’
Figuring out the way the locals live and learning to adopt their ways in their country.
How technology has changed the way we travel, the pros and the cons and how we should not let these changes override the purpose and reasons for why we travel.
When Aaron got scammed on his recent trip to Helsinki and how it made him feel.
Why your mindset is so important when you are travelling.
What Aaron learned from the way scammers operate.
The appreciation and different perspective that travel offers you.
How Aaron gets excited for travel, even if its just talking to others about their travels.
Using the learnings from his travel to impact others in their life.
What you interpret as travel and adventure is up to you and may be different to others.
Scratch the itch or inkling for travel because ‘what if you dont?’
How travel has formed who he is.

Rapid fire round

The last place Aaron visited - Melbourne/Sydney, Out of country - Vietnam
A place Aaron tells everyone to travel to - Scandinavia
Scariest place travelled to - Malaysia
Favourite thing about travel - Meeting people from all around the world
Aarons’s next destination - Vietnam

Why Aaron continue to seek out travel and live abroad? Curiosity and wondering what else is out there.

“Travel has made me less materialistic.”

— Aaron Yeak

Aligning her life through travel and school bus living with Laura Banks

Laura sold her house and left her corporate job to get the most out of living her life. She now lives on a school bus and runs her own business as a life coach, continually being an example for her clients to show them how getting outside their comfort zone leads to a truly rewarding life.

About Laura

Laura is an internationally certified coach and Neuro Linguistic Programming Practitioner for humans who are ready to let go of their limitations and live into their potential.  Her unique approach to creating powerful and lasting transformation can be summed up as mindset, magic and mechanics.   Mindset focuses on subconscious transformation, helping release the deep-seated beliefs, habits, thoughts and emotions that are holding you back, then re-wiring your brain with new programs.   Magic is about learning how to connect with and trust your truth - your intuition.  And mechanics is about taking the inner and outer action to create a life and business on your terms, one that feels good AND gets results.

After a car accident Laura went on a journey to become the sort of person she wanted to be and live a life she wanted to live – not the life she thought she ‘had’ to live.  Now, she loves challenging herself to get out of her comfort zone, which has seen her compete in a half-ironman triathlon, get a mystery haircut and convert a bus into a tiny home with her husband.  

“To be living this lifestyle [on the bus] was a huge step outside my comfort zone.”

— Laura Banks

In the episode...

Laura’s first experience of travel was when she went to Japan on a school exchange.
She was originally going to travel to Japan but ended up meeting a ‘Kiwi’ and moved to New Zealand instead.
Laura has had many variations of stepping out of her comfort zone whilst travelling and the first was moving to New Zealand where she only knew her partner Matt.
Laura uses travel as a way to look at her values and they way she lives her life at home.
Laura and her partner Matt sold their house, brought a bus which they renovated and moved into to live in.
Minimalism was not originally part of something they had intended however it happened naturally when they moved into the school bus.
They get out and about every week in the bus to explore Tasmania.
Laura does have to think about all the challenges such as where to park the bus, emptying the composting toilet and managing transport to work.
Traditionally in her family they followed the ‘normal’ way of life and so living this style of life was outside her comfort zone however she always likes to ‘get outside her comfort zone.’
Laura was concerned that she would let her parents down when she would tell them they had sold their house and brought a bus to live in.
When they share their lifestyle with others, Laura recognises that their lives challenges others to think about the way they live their life.
Laura shares that the big changes were really just a collection of small steps towards something that she wanted.

Why Laura continue to seek out travel and live abroad? Because of the potential and possibilities that travel can bring in you and your life.

“You can just do YOU in the world”

— Laura Banks

Living in Spain and the complexity of the english language with Dani Jauregui.

Dani is a Spain aficionado who first discovered the country she now calls home, during a study abroad semester in Alicante, Spain. While studying a double major in Sociology and Hispanic Studies at a small, liberal arts school (Illinois Wesleyan University), Dani was incredibly encouraged to study abroad and she hasn’t looked back since. Danis life since her graduation has been primarily lived abroad.

Dani went to Spain on a study abroad program, she returned many times and now lives there and teaches English. She loves diving deep into the complexity of the english language.

About Dani

“I realise how little we pay attention to our own language and our own culture until we have this opportunity to see the differences from another one.”

— Dani Jauregui

In the episode...

Dani went to study in Spain and loved the country so much that she returned for more study. She continued to return to Spain and now lives and works in Granada.
Dani feels confident with the language and spent a lot of time in Spanish speaking countries so has not really felt outside of her comfort zone.
There has been so many lessons she has learned along the way and has loved learning from the students she is teaching.
How little we pay attention to our own language until we have to explain it and use it with others.
The way we use our words and our language and how it can be used in a more empowering way.
Dani now tries to apply this in her own language so she is speaking in a more empowered way.
Dani teaches mostly in English so does not often pick up the other languages through the teaching process.
How some countries and cultures give words to particular things which takes a while to explain as the English language has not given this ‘thing’ a word.
When Dani returned back to the United States she feels as there is conflicting energy as some people haven’t changed as she has. She also notes that you have missed out on so much of their life and that it is hard to find your place.
Dani thinks that sometimes her friends from home might not want to talk about the life they have been living aboard. Her friends have been able to see what her life is like on social media but may not be interested in learning the details.
Danis mindset has changed and she initially adopted the ‘no-passa nada’ attitude which can be translated to ‘its all fine, just go with the flow!’ But agrees that sometimes its not that easy to live in that mentality when you are setting up your life in a different country.
The advise Dani would give to people who are thinking of traveling, studying or living in a new country is use the resources that are out there to meet people ahead of time, in particular the local people.

Rapid fire round

The last place Dani visited - Sierra Nevada Mountains, Spain.
A place Dani tells everyone to travel to - Granada, Spain.
Scariest place travelled to - Dani has not felt scared in any place she has travelled to.
Favourite thing about travel - Meeting the people.
Dani’s next destination - Valencia, Spain.

Why Dani continue to seek out travel and live abroad? She likes to keep things interesting rather than falling into a routine. She likes to discover and get excited about the world.

“It says so much about a culture, the things that they have bothered to give a word to and the things that maybe we didn’t.”

— Dani Jauregui

Responsible tourism and accessing inner wisdom with Bianca Caruana

Bianca is a freelance journalist & sustainable tourism blogger from Sydney, Australia specialising in stories that ignite thoughts surrounding compassion, ethics and the happiness of all beings. She travels the world as a digital nomad with the aim to promote ethical values and give a voice to those who are making the world a better place.

Bianca Caruana AKA the altruistic traveller has left Australia on three separate occasions, she now shares her knowledge of we can all travel in a more ethical way.

About Bianca

Bianca left Sydney for the third time in October 2018, committing to full-time travel as a digital nomad. This means that she had no single home, her home is where her backpack and heart rest. Bianca wanders from place to place, working online and connecting with local communities, offering her storytelling skills and connections in the social and environmental impact space.

“While Nepal may seem chaotic from the outside, actually from the inside people are quite happy and peaceful and patient and going with the flow.”

— Bianca Caruana

In the episode...

How places like Nepal can seem so chaotic on the outside yet the people are at peace where as many places in the western world like Australia can be opposite Chaotic on the inside and looking at peace on the outside.
How anxiety can seem to be so much more common in the world and in youth today.
Bianca’s experience of when she was stuck in traffic on a bus in Nepal and how it made her thing about being in the present moment.
How we make a ‘catastrophe’ of things that really are not that big of a deal!
How travel has taught her about change and how beautiful it is and how she can let go of fear.
There are so many things that are removed when we travel on our own which is why it can be a great vehicle for self inquiry.
When coming home, it can feel like an identity crisis. Bianca finds it hard to use her wisdom when returning as she feels challenged by the ‘chaotic’ energy of home?
Confronting her physical fear of riding a scooter and how she did it.
The importance of using the right words such as “I cant” or “I can.”
Some ways that travellers can lower their negative environmental and social impacts on countries when they travel abroad.
Bianca’s advise for people who are holding back from travelling is that its so much easier than it seems. Also really understanding what your reason for travel is.

Rapid fire round