Travel Support Thursday

Travel support Thursday travel Thursday travel on today's travel support Thursday. We got all sorts of what?

Travel Thursday

Travel Thursday

We're in our camper van camper van time camper podcast sassy sassy melassie. This is her name and she is wonderful

She is beautiful welcome back once again to travel support Thursday the show where we answer all of your burning travel questions

So just please as a reminder

We literally answer the questions that are down in the comments on YouTube

So just like leave questions that you have and we will answer them in next week's podcast and it'll be great for everyone

Everyone will have a good time with it

A big win-win experience so on today's travel support Thursday. We got all sorts of interesting questions

I think our like big overarching topic is safety while traveling

We're also talking about what are our go-to packs and what we usually pack when we travel

Best backpacks discussion big discussion you have so many

how we pick places to eat and

When will we throw in the YouTube towel? Oh, isn't like like what would it take for us to quit YouTube? That's right

All right, let's get into it. Okay

So first we just wanted to acknowledge all the support and the kindness that we received last week from the podcast when we talked about

Generally what it's like and what it feels like to travel all up being an Asian-American woman and

Putting it all on YouTube. We received a lot of thoughtful messages from all of you and we really appreciate it

And I think the overarching message that we received is that yeah, the world is

98% positive and there are just some terrible people out there who just need to take a trip

Yeah, it was awesome

There were so many great stories that we saw and so many like heartfelt stories some of them really kind of sad

But most of them I think all of them actually had like really good

Endings to them like all of them were like, yeah, there were some real jerks out there

But the thing that I think that we saw over all of them was that just like

Everyone ended their message with like hopefulness of that like yep

It sucks to be out there sometimes and there are some jerks out there

But most of the time people are pretty great. Yes, and I gotta say that's been our experience too agreed

We love all your stories all your messages all your comments sad and

sad and happy

challenging and

Uplifting all of them. So keep them coming. We really appreciate it. Yeah, but one question that did come up. Actually

A lot of you had asked a

Couple of you had asked where my my sweater or my top was from that I was wearing in last week's podcast and

You know, I think I bought this from Costco years and years ago

But this brand specifically is

Looks like green tea green tea

You know, I don't know if they have it at Costco any longer because it's been about five or six years

But you might be able to find on Amazon and if I do I will send you a link

Yeah, just look down in the description for the link for that sweater

If you are really interested in it Costco is about the height of fashion that we have it is probably the most

Fashionable place that we shop from I would say because it's either that or

When we buy new clothes

It says a waffle it's pretty cool. Okay, so let's get to it

Our first question comes from Brenna nor will 305 who says great series and thoughtful responses

We'd love a gear haul in a future video

What are your go-to packs codepoxy versus tortuga versus alternative brand and what do you typically bring on a medium length trip?

Oh, man. Okay. Well, our answers are gonna be very different. Okay. I don't want to monologue too hard here

But I have tried I think almost every backpack available

Also, a lot of you have noticed in our videos and pointed out

Josh's backpack changes. I think every season. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's an obsession of mine

Like I am not ashamed to say it that I am in constant search of the perfect backpack. Okay, so quite the collection

So, so let me give you my like history of this just real quick

So on my first trip around the world. This was like 2011 2012 had no idea what I was doing brought this absolutely

Gigantic REI flash backpack was 55 liters in the bag

And then another 20 liters on top and like this floppy head that you could like put over the top of the bag

Yeah, 75 liters

So if you like if you don't know what that means 75 liters

Imagine a backpack that goes from like right in between your butt and your knees like that's where the bottom of the backpack is and it goes

All the way up to just like halfway up your head Wow, and it's quite like it's like wider than you are

It's like really big. So like it's yeah, I brought way too much stuff on that first trip

I didn't know what I was doing stuff that you had. Oh, man. That's so much dumb stuff

Like I read I started reading through all these packing lists for around the world trip

I was going for a year and these packing lists are just

Insane, but you only realize it like after you've traveled enough that no you probably don't need a giant water purifier pen

You know, you probably don't need to actually bring a tent. You're not gonna use that every day

Yeah, you probably don't need a sleeping bag with you at all times so many little things and

Invariably on these packing lists. They always say like oh, yeah, bring this just in case and

That applies to like anything because you're going on a one-year-round-the-world trip

So literally anything could happen just in case right so therefore if you're packing just in case you should probably just pack your entire house

So so after that first trip I downsized substantially and then the second one I brought an Osprey far point

40 oh so significantly much smaller it might have been 45 might have been 45

Bright green way smaller than the last one, but honestly, I still had too much room like I just like I just like packed

Extra stuff to fit in there

I didn't really need all that room at all because mostly what I was doing on my one-year trip was like going from big city to big city

To big city to big city and then sometime off into the countryside

But if I did if I went on a long hiking trip

I would just like buy a tent for that one thing that I did rent it

Yep, and then I would just donate it back or give it to the next person who's doing the same trip that I was

Trip number three. I brought a 30 liter

What was it called? I brought a 30 liter Osprey porter

I'm a real big fan of the I was a real big

I was a real big fan of the Osprey backpacks and I think I still am they're very like hiking

You know like when you look at those backpack types, they're like super

You just imagine someone like strapping them on and going and climbing a mountain not so much strapping them on and like flying to Paris

And this one in particular bright green and when you put it on because it was so like short because with a 30 liter backpack

It's stuck out so far from my back that it literally made me look like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

They have other colors like there's like an orange one or a red one or something and either way you just look like a

Different Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle like there's no way that you avoid it

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Here is it a half shell turtle power

So that one with 30 liters, I think that felt just about perfect size-wise bringing just like a couple of changes of clothes

Just my like actual just my like running shoes and then a pair of flip-flops that I would just like jam in the sides of it

Yeah, and the way that it opened up kind of like a suitcase was a bit revolutionary at the time

This was like 2016 2017 there weren't other backpacks that really did this yet

And that was just so convenient

You just like flop it down on the bed pop the whole thing open and then you had access to all your stuff

But then on this last trip this most recent one that we took

And I guess kind of are still taking yeah

We found the Kodopoxie Alpo, which I think both of us love love love absolutely love

So on that trip I brought the 35 liter version of that which was honestly just a little bit too big

This is the one that I still have yes, yeah, and I

Think that out of all the backpacks that I've tried which have been a lot

I think the Kodopoxie Alpo is the closest to perfect that I've found so far

It does have some small annoyances, but it does like to be clear

We're not sponsored by any of these backpack companies or we're not sponsored by anyone right now

So that's okay. Yeah, so I think it does have some downsides. I don't know what do you like or hate about it?

Yeah, so I mean I think a lot of you who have watched our videos in the last couple of years

You'll notice that we both have this Alpo Kodopoxie 35 liter bags

Josh's Josh's is the colorful bright one mine is the the sleek black one that has this like waterproof

outside I

I love this backpack my list of backpacks though is pretty short compared to Josh's before this era. I also had an osprey

Teal green turtle shell backpack that was maybe 40 liters 45 liters

It was quite large as well

But I loved the clamshell feature of it meaning it could open up like a suitcase and so that was what I was looking for I

Hate I hate having to like with backpacks having to like dig through and like pull out stuff

So yeah, like you just open the top

Yeah, like shove your hand all the way to the bottom what you have so you have to bring out everything to find that one like dry towel

But the the Kodopoxie backpack that's like my biggest love of this backpack

It's it's it opens up like a suitcase

The each compartment has a zipper and almost like a compression not compression strap

But just like keeps everything together like a packing cube and it fits surprisingly a lot and I love the size of it

It's not too. It's not too chunky on either side. So it feels it feels just right

It feels like you're carrying a suitcase like a carry-on suitcase. Yes

It has a laptop sleeve. It has my backpack has an outer like waterproof shell, which is really great

The only downside I would say and and Kodopoxie if you're out there somewhere

I would you know, just like to say let's figure out a way to put like a sleeve for a water bottle

So I'm gonna put your water bottle because there's no good place to hang or or store your water bottle

Yeah, at all like you could get a clip to put on the side

But then it just be like bonking every side and everybody else as you're walking around

Yeah, yeah, I think that's kind of the only big downside of it. I mean she got the 35 liter

I just bought the 28 liter

Slightly smaller and I love that because no airlines even give that a second look even like a mega budget

Airlines that's like just the right size where it looks like. Oh, yeah, that could totally fit under

Yeah, you'll notice too in the last couple of trips in the last couple of years

Josh's backpack from the Kodopoxie has changed quite a bit

Like there were a couple of times like in our last trip to Japan you brought just an 18 liter that Tim buck to back

Oh, yeah, yeah years ago

I wanted to see if I could get by with less and I think that 18 liters for anything more than like a week or two

Even then is just it's just not enough. Yeah, it's just not enough

Yeah, that's true. We brought it on the Camino and unfortunately

Because of how small the backpack was Lisa had to carry a lot of the food

I'm sorry

Barely enough for like two t-shirts two shorts and then one one slipper on the side and one slipper on the inside

So it was like it was pretty tiny. Yeah

And I think and you asked specifically about the Tortuga backpacks, which I do also love those are great backpacks

But I think they have one massive flaw and that they don't acknowledge just how absolutely crazy

The airlines have gotten with their weight restrictions to be to be able to bring a backpack

With really anything on it onto any of these flights is difficult

I mean our flight over here to our flight to Australia. We can only take seven kilos, which is just over 14 pounds

That's not a lot packs are almost like two to three pounds already

And the Tortuga backpacks are almost twice as much as that. They're like five pounds

Some of them are like five or six pound. They're great. They're friggin indestructible

They're like and they're waterproof and they have all these cool pockets and all these features for charging stuff

They're great, but I think they're just I think they're just too heavy

If you're gonna be flying budget Airlines. Yeah, that was one of the I think the more recent

Conversations that we've been having now that we're no longer doing full-time travel. We're kind of going back and forth from our home base

We've been talking about like what what kinds of things should we pack?

What kinds of things should we be packing and it gives us some flexibility where we can leave a lot at home

And we can be more minimalistic

But now with airlines being so restrictive and we're looking constantly for good deals to fly out

Like my backpack is is getting a little bit too large like I love it

And I think it fits everything that I need

But on this flight I had to take a lot of it out and it was pretty much like two thirds empty

Yeah, it was like a backpack and you had like so floppy shirts in there and it was yeah

So and plus your laptop which is quite also quite heavy. So yeah, we're just we're thinking about you know

What what's the right size and I think that's what prompted you to get the 28 liter backpack

Yeah, for sure for sure like I don't even I haven't gotten a second look

At all from any of the airlines unlike when we tried to fly spirit with your backpack

I definitely got that. Oh, so okay

So the the actual ticket on spirit to where we were flying to was $59. Yeah, and then

When they decided just kind of randomly it felt like that your bag was too big

Yeah up until that point

I was feeling so confident about my packing skills and my ability to just like

Smile my way through and just like hi. No, my backpacks normal. It's I'm just a tiny person

I'm just short. No, but since it's a core part of their business model

You can just tell that like every X people in line

They just like pick you out and send you to another line where you got to pay a hundred bucks

No, there's no there's no real rhyme or reason now

We're the kind of people that carry luggage scales with us too just because these airlines have gotten way more restrictive to answer your question

Briefly, what do you typically bring on a medium length trip?

I think we have it pretty down pat

But our our process is this we think about how long we're going for

What the weather is gonna be like and what's the bare minimum that we need two or three pairs of shirts two pairs of pants

Two pairs of shoes

I usually bring my trail runners and then one pair of sandals either my slippers or my TVS and then

Like little toiletries as little as possible like face lotion

Toothbrush, you know makeup if you want it earrings and and that's kind of and then three to four pairs of underwear

It's pretty it's pretty minimal. So that way one

We know that when we're on the road, we can do laundry or we can go shopping which we do a lot

and bring home things but and then that's that's it for like clothing and

Then the tech is just a whole another thing that I think most people won't be bringing like their laptop their big cameras

These podcast

Yeah, I mean we obviously have to bring a lot of gear just for filming right and that's probably

Over half of the stuff that we bring at this point is a big old camera here

I think that my rule for packing that I've come to over time is that if at any point I say

Oh, I should bring that just in case I just leave it at home

I just straight up leave it at home because I know that I'll be able to buy it if it rains

I'll buy an umbrella when I get there everybody sells umbrellas everywhere and if I feel like I ran out of toothpaste

I'll buy that once I get there or any number of other things that rule applies to and I think that and

I think that over time

Reducing that like anxiety of like oh, but if I forget this I'm definitely gonna need it

And then it's gonna cost a million dollars when I get there like

Over time you start to realize that basically everywhere you travel to in the world

We'll have all of the basic necessities and almost everywhere you go to will have just literally more than what you had at home

So I feel like this rule applies to everything except for cables in your life. Oh for sure

Sure for sure. I always gotta have the right charging cables

Entire glove compartments right here in our camper van

We'll show you is full of cables. It is wild

But anyway, if you think it would be helpful for us to kind of go through every single thing that we bring and how we approach it

We can definitely do a packing video in the future

Yeah, cuz this is that that would be kind of the result of like

10 plus years of travel for around the world trips and slowly just like whittling down to just the good stuff

I think it could be interesting. Yeah, let us know if you think so. Yeah, and we can do it specifically also for where we are

Right now, which is our New Zealand camper van trip. Yes. All right. What are we got next? That's a great question

I love I love talking about this gear stuff, especially backpacks. I could talk about backpacks forever because you have like 20

All right, so the next question comes from take to the highway.com 3152 who says just finish your fantastic video in Fukuoka

Thanks, and had to come back to TST for another question. How do you find all these great and notable restaurants?

What's your go-to resource for finding the best places? Oh, man, I can tell you what it's not Google

It's not it's not the internet. Yeah, it's not the internet, and I think

Over time I've become more and more like disillusioned is maybe the right word with any website that gives reviews of things because

Especially if you're from America or if you're like looking into the way that Americans review things either review it as a five or one

There's nothing in between. We're so extreme with the way that we review things, especially on Google

They made me wait 30 minutes one star or even just like it's just so many unreasonable one-star reviews

I I could do a whole podcast on finding hilarious unreasonable one-star views, but like is true

Nobody really like like in the star ratings like a three out of five should be like good

And a four out of five should be like great and a five out of five should be like life changing

But instead pretty much every restaurant on Google reviews kind of like if it's any good at all if it's even like reasonably kind of

Good, it just normalizes out at like a 4.2 or a 4.3 and every restaurant is that and if it's like a 3.9

You're like, oh man, that must be a dumb one of the best tips

I've ever read was when you're looking at any reviews where whether it's

Amazon whether it's Amazon

Yeah, there's some mosquitoes and sand flies everywhere

Whether it's Amazon Google reviews Yelp someone said read the three-star reviews

They're often the most thorough and the most helpful the five stars and the one stars generally are like the worst

But three to four stars. That's where you should be reading and to get the most information

So, yeah, I think we're a little bit more weary of Google reviews

And and I would say our favorite finds are often not even on Google or online

Sounds very hipster to say that and I don't want it to come across that way. It's not like we're like

Not like we like are a magical fountain of like knowledge of these places

Or I mean there are some places like Tokyo that I've been to like ten times

You know and I know the things that I love and that's the stuff that we like put into the videos

It's like these cool things that I found walking forever and ever

I just like we're not we're not hipstery and that we're like totally without Google Maps or whatever

I think that we just genuinely think that we find better restaurants if we just walk around the neighborhood instead of

Instead of just like looking up things and then having this expectation in our head of what this restaurant's gonna be like and then we go to it and

Then the very best thing that could happen is that restaurant would just like meet our expectations

Which you know, which we understand the conundrum when it comes to like YouTube and we're reviewing and we are

We are showcasing a lot of these restaurants and these places

But in general we have a much better experience when we're traveling

I would say in general we have a much better experience when we're traveling when we just walk around and

Look for the right place. I mean I think on our fifth date

We we were we were gonna walk around the city and in San Francisco and just you know

Find a place to eat and I think we ended up walking for five hours

I made this poor girl walk basically all around San Francisco just to find the perfect restaurant because I love doing it

It's like my favorite pastime and it was it really what it comes down to though is like a couple of things budget

We're always looking for kind of just like a value a not fancy place

Yeah, but yeah, we or if it's fancy, it's fine, but generally a casual

Homie feeling place. We're looking for food. That's tasty. That's filling and for a good price

Like something that we can actually afford. Yeah, and I think that like we're we're very willing to pay for like really good food

but I think we

Immediately will be turned off of any restaurant that charges more because it has like fancy tablecloths or a nice view

Or anything like that stuff. I think to both of us is just totally valueless. Yeah, but like super delicious food

We're like super if it's like

Okay, but if it's if we had to choose between like crappy view great food

Yeah, yeah, or great view crappy food or expensive food. I put those two things in the same

I would say we'd always choose the great food for us

ambiance isn't you know candlelit dinners or really clean

You know the sounds bad, but like really clean windows or something like for me when I think of like my favorite

Experiences or some of our favorite experiences eating out have been like going to

Get breakfast on the side of the road in Taipei or you know at the food stalls in Hong Kong or Singapore

Like those kinds of places we just only discover just by walking around and knowing that this is just a feeling

We know it's going to be budget. We know it's gonna be tasty

We see a lot of people here. Yeah, and that's how we decide. Yes

I do think there are some websites in some countries that actually do accurate reviews

And I think it's worth talking like tape table log tab a log in Japan

I'm not sure how to say it that website for example

Things are eight things are generally rated accurately and coming from the US

It might seem harshly we're like if a restaurant has a 2.9 in the United States

You would think that that restaurant is actively trying to kill you

But objectively, that's like a 60% good restaurant, which means that it's like pretty good. Yeah

All right

And that's the way that mom says about me and that's the way that the reviews work on a website like table log or

For example, the or for example the restaurant reviews that were inside a neighbor in South Korea

They were generally pretty fair

Whereas like a restaurant rated four would be great. Yeah, it'd be like a genuine and a restaurant rated five

There were like three in the whole country. Yeah, that's true

We generally we generally when we look at Google or Yelp and anything is below four

You're like hold the phone

That is the response because everything is rated a five or a one, right? So there's so little nuance in there and like

Yeah, so I think that there are some websites, but generally I would say Google reviews

I think are kind of useless for finding a truly great restaurant

So I would say so I'd say in summary our overall approach is

You know, we we just like to get to the place that we're traveling in and walk around and use our eyeballs and see like

What what gets our attention what matches and what fits our needs like on our trip to Fukuoka specifically?

I mean we found like that ramen restaurant mostly because we saw the 290 yen

You know sign and we were intrigued. Yeah, so yeah budget is a big part of it

290 come on and vending machine

Also that bar that we went to like that bar

It was literally just walking around

Poking our heads into different bars and seeing wow this this place is full of life and so exciting

So you kind of just have to like take a chance and trust that like what is out there will meet your needs

Yeah, and basically we just keep walking until Lisa gets angry. I

Would say that's like that's generally like whenever Lisa gets angry like it's time perfect restaurant

It really really bothers me though when I settle and when we find a place and I eat somewhere that I'm like

I'm just angry. I just want to eat and then the food is unsatisfying. There's no feeling like that and that's a bummer

so

Just just just trust that like trust your instinct and trust trust your instincts and trust your gut

but also there are some I will say we use reddit and I think

Reddit mostly for some of like those those like well-known fun

Interesting things like Kitchi Kitchi Omurice and Kyoto. Yes, that was one of the ones that we booked

Advance and like a billion Google reviews, but that's kind of like that was more like booking a show

Than a restaurant, you know like you go there specifically for this like crazy

Experience of this guy like lighting his own kitchen on fire. Yeah, we love recommendations and we love when people tell us

You should definitely visit this place and you should definitely visit this place for this and this we love recommendations

But ultimately we know that like everybody has very different tastes very different budgets very different styles of traveling

So I think the way we approach it is when we get a recommendation or when we see something

We also have to kind of just tell is it something that vibes with us. Yes, and I think actually

Maybe the best resource for food recommendations is in the comments of our own videos

Because we never we'd like we release the video and then all of a sudden there's just these floods of hundreds sometimes

Thousands of comments of people being like oh you should have gone there

Oh, you should have tried this bakery you should have done that and we obviously we don't get to we don't get to try that

Because we've already released the video and we're home by the time that happens

But that's where I think you should probably look yeah try to find these like great

Restaurants that are kind of a little bit more off the beaten path generally a little more budget. Yes

Yeah, check out the comments of our videos

We've found some great things out of there that we absolutely agree

So the next question we got was from Andrew Pagan who asks

Another question on the topic of making your YouTube channel of business at what point would you decide to throw in the towel?

Would your runway have to run out or would there have to be some other event?

I love your videos and travels and hope you don't leave us. Oh, we hope not either

So we every single week we have a meeting where we talk about our finances and we have this like gigantic spreadsheet

where we go over

But

This thing is just a big calculator that I built that takes our like current how much money we got saved up

How much we got in our bank accounts, etc

And then it spits out at the end of it based on how much we're spending each month

How long of a runway we have before we run out of money?

Yeah, and this was really important especially for the previous like two and a half years of doing this YouTube channel where our revenue was

Essentially zero. Yeah, it was basically none and we weren't making any money from the YouTube channel

So we were just seeing our bank account just constantly go down and down and down to the right over and over time and these check-ins

Every week that we have would be like, okay, we got X amount of months left

We got oh now we only got X amount of months left because like the stock market didn't do well

Oh now it's it's been nice to do it, too

Like we we try to do it once a week

But also when we know we're about to make big purchases

When we're about to when we feel like we've been spending way more than we've been making

It's always just nice to go back into that spreadsheet

I can't believe I'm saying this because it gives me anxiety

So it used to give me a lot of anxiety to plan but the numbers were only going one way for a very long time

But now it's it's nice to kind of know, okay

Like I can I can take a little bit more here or we can make this big purchase for now

And hope that that recuperates in the future. Yeah, yeah exactly

And I think that that's like the financial part of it is we always know how much runway that we have left

And this was all part of our plan of doing this like when we quit our jobs

We didn't know that we were gonna be making a YouTube channel

We had no idea but luckily we had saved up, you know, like a year or two worth of spending

We don't spend all that much so that wasn't all that much money, but it was enough

For us to like bootstrap this little YouTube channel and give it a little bit of time to grow into the thing that it has now

which

Which now I mean, it's not like we're making a profit off of this thing at all

I'd say we're just barely covering our expenses throughout like life and then traveling here and making these YouTube videos

So we're like finally just evened out a little bit and that is a nice feeling

It's nice to have it's like this plant that we picked up at the at the store the other day

We've named him sunny. Yeah, and you know for those of you on podcast

This is a tiny white plant that I got for $1 at a Bunnings in New Zealand, and it's very beautiful

It adds a little bit of joy to our lives in our camper van

Like it, you know, it's not thriving currently in its current state because it's cold out

Are you comparing sunny to our YouTube channel?

No, I'm saying like you were talking about how it's nice, you know that we're kind of just like we're cruising

You know and

We we we don't we don't have a full garden yet. You know sonny's not growing tomatoes

That's not his lot in life, but he's adding some joy. I am so lost by this analogy

I had it, but I think to summarize

Are we a tiny bunning store plant and we're gonna eventually grow into a tomato?

Anyway, I'm gonna stop with the analogy. Okay. I don't know where we were at it with that

I think though to answer the question

Um

You know what would make us throw in the towel

We we want to keep going for as long as we possibly can

we

I think runway has some to do with it, but we're lucky enough like right now

I think we have what two years of runway. Yeah, something like that to keep trying

Also, we I don't know. I don't know. What are some potential

Things that would make us stop so I can think of one big one like I think the

I think the most

likely reason why we would ever stop and whenever I think of this

Potential I think of the dark night. So let me go with a quick nerdy quote here

So the Batman movie right the middle one of the Nolan series where he says

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain and I think

That all of us over time have seen some of our favorite creators. Maybe not do anything as dramatic as become a villain

But eventually they're the thing that they start making just

Evolves evolves and changes so far from where they started initially

That their initial fan base like the people that really like love them

And this has certainly happened with us with creators that we love watching

Eventually they just like move so far away from where they started that that initial fan base the people that like helped them get off

The ground just drop them fully because their content has just changed so far

And yeah, that's a struggle. It's a hard. It's a hard thing to grapple with like to have to have success

Change the type of thing that we would make would be such

A sad outcome for this for me personally

Is to have like instead of the success allowing us to do like

More of this or to be able to make like better versions of this or whatever to have that like

Fundamentally change the way that we think about making this stuff and feel like

I don't know and to feel like we're just creating to like chase that success

I think that would be for me at least

Becoming the villain over time that that would be like my villain moment where I would feel like maybe it's time to throw

on the towel because it wouldn't be about

Making something creative and useful and helpful

For other people out there that are trying to do like a similar thing that we are

It would be just about like chasing that algorithm or chasing success or fame or some other external silly thing

That we don't actually care about we do need some amount of it, right?

We need some amount of but if that became like priority number one

And we lost our way

To that at some point in time and the only way we'd know that is with you guys calling us out

Yeah, I do think I mean to that and I think one of the things that I was thinking about was you know, what

What could potentially make us throw in the towel?

I mean, obviously there are a lot of things that could change in the next couple of years, but

um, I I can see a world someday where

You know, we talked about burnout last week

how it's a thing that that continues

It's a thing that that a lot of people battle

In all forms of work, you know, it's it's the constant need to constantly be working without taking breaks

And I could see a world where eventually, you know, someone's

Creative drive or desire to help or desire to make

Content or desire to help other people

Just dries out burns out for sure because of the constant doing

And I think that can also be a reason why people might stop or quit not that I want that to happen

I want to quit well before I feel like our like creative well is dried up or like

Our helpfulness well is dried up and I think that that probably I don't know. I've seen some creators where that's happened

And I understand the implication. I like understand the point of like

changing what you do

I totally get that but like changing the reasons that we do this for I think that can never change

I totally get like changing the venue or the type of videos we make or

The things that we talk about because we're more interested

Over time in a different subject than we are right now or whatever but to change the reason why you're doing it or like

the point of it to change it from like

Internally wanting to help people to externally just wanting to chase fame or success or money

Like I think that well before that point is when we will throw in the towel. I hope I hope that we will have the wisdom

to not let it go too far if

Some crazy thing happens that we actually see any real success out of this. Thanks so much for that insightful question

We love talking about this, you know

The the ins and outs of how the channel works if you're interested definitely feel free to keep asking us more questions about this

And any travel related questions?

Speaking of travel, um, I saw this really interesting funny

Funny headline in the news today in japan

Bullet train passengers treated to wrestling match on board in worlds first

So my first thought is that it's a sumo wrestling match. Okay. It's not a sumo. Okay, so

Monday this past monday, uh, the world's first wrestling match. I think this is just like pro wrestling

Maybe or semi pro amazing. What on a train wrestling match took place on a japanese bullet train

So like immediately comes to mind like brad pits and that brad pit bullet train movie

But which was actually I thought that was really great movie. I don't know if that's inspired it

I had a lot of fun with that movie, but essentially a train carriage

Was like a wrestling. I don't you can watch the video and I'll post this on on our description below

But japanese professional fighters battled in the aisle of a train carriage and and it was actually like an organized event

Where they sold out tickets like within half an hour

Of posting them. I would have bought those tickets. Yeah, so the this train went from nozomi this this train

This bullet train went from tokyo to nagoya

on a shinkansen and

Spectators were basically treated to wrestlers fighting inside the train as they went up to 285 kilometers per hour

I don't know. Would you

I would wrestle on

Like not only would I buy those tickets, but I would absolutely like give that a try of

That would be so much fun. So what a crazy. What a crazy thing to do

I'm so curious. Like is this something that they're going to keep doing and what inspired this and

I don't know like to me when I think of japan trains. I think of

Quiet very peaceful rides home. There are a lot of rules too, right? Like it's it's considered

Bad etiquette to talk loud on the trains the fact that a whole carriage

was just the the setting for a

Fight was is fascinating to me. That's awesome. That's just awesome

So our final question comes from pamela 5719 who asks

Do you lock your passports in your room when you're out and about?

And I think is a great question and a very specific safety question

But let us to talk about some really. Yeah, I don't know leads leads me to think about some really interesting

questions about like

Safety while traveling and we ended up talking about this all last night after we read this question of life

What are our best practices? Like what are the things that we just do automatically now that we've been traveling so long?

Yeah, now that we've been traveling so long

What are just those things that we do and I think one of those things

Let's start with the question is

Yeah, we almost never bring our passports out with us

Yeah, if it's if we have a hotel room or even a camper van

We just leave it in whatever the safest thing is that we have and leave it at home

We do not walk around with it unless we absolutely know we need our passports with us

Like if we're going to an event where they're going to check passports, then we bring it with us

But other than that we try not to carry it around with us because our thought is if we're carrying it around with us

Our backpacks or our purses get stolen. That's it

Game over, you know, we have to start over we separate all of our like valuable stuff into two separate locations

Automatically, so like any major city we do basically the same thing. So when we go out into the city, I'll take normally like two credit cards

Probably my driver's license. So I have some sort of ID with me

From back in the u.s. And I just stick those things in my pocket and then a little bit of money

Yeah

And then we have all of the rest of our other credit cards and all the rest of our cash

Tucked away in the hotel. Yeah, we don't bring

All of our stuff like basically what's that phrase about eggs in a basket? Yeah, don't put all your eggs in one basket

We don't put all of our credit cards in one basket and bring that basket out with us. Right. Yeah. Yeah

That way, I mean

We have two debit cards

So then only one of us will bring one debit card out and then the other one will be back in the hotel room

So that way no matter what happens if we happen to get robbed in the hotel

We still have the stuff on us if we get robbed while we're out in the street or whatever

Then we still have the things back in the hotel to be able to get us out of a jam

And I think that that rule kind of applies to just about everything

We bring the bare minimum required for whatever adventure we're going on and we leave the rest in the hotel room

Yeah, now this is under the assumption that the hotel that you're staying at is trustworthy

And if it's not you should probably just move to another

Yeah, you should be staying there maybe

But I think for the most part we've been lucky enough like we haven't had any

Any major issues regarding this as we've traveled over the last few years

I think I remember though feeling that I remember worrying about this on on my first trip though by myself because

I hadn't really traveled a lot and I read online

People talked about locking things away in a safe people talked about

You know making sure that when you're staying in a hostel

You're storing your money in the safest places all the little crevices that no one will know about

I did make sure right to keep money

Tucked away in safe places and I didn't keep all my money in the same place like in a backpack

I might keep some cash in one compartment and then the rest like in a different compartment on me

um

But I didn't as soon as I started traveling. I didn't really feel like I had to worry about

Locking my passport in a safe

Right. Um, I felt safe enough in a lot of the hostels and a lot of the hotels that I stayed in that I could just stuck

Stashed it away in my backpack and put my backpack away in a locker or something

Yeah, and I think that like most

Crimes are crimes of convenience

Like if you just like leave out a gold bar on your bed in the hotel room

Sure, you're kind of you're kind of asking for it to disappear

But if you like put it away in your backpack and then put that backpack like under your bed or whatever

It'll probably still be there when you get back

like just um

I think yeah, just generally not making those valuable things super obvious and just like you know

Leaving them out in the world is is a pretty good way to secure things

I think I also think about digital security

All the time

Obviously as a very important aspect of this for example, I definitely recommend using a VPN whenever you're on a public wi-fi

At all

So if you're like if you go on the wi-fi thing and you click on it and it doesn't require a password to log into it

It means that you're on an unsecured wi-fi

Which means that basically anyone else could be sniffing that wi-fi traffic while you're there

And intercept your credentials in transit from like your computer to the wi-fi access point out to the internet

There are some obviously asterisks to that like if they're using htps or if they have like nice certificates installed or any amount of encryption

but

Generally on those unsecured wi-fi

access points

I will use a VPN immediately

for anywhere that we go and

Also backing up things as you're traveling. We do this all the time. We back up our photos every single night

We back up

And by back up I would just mean like send them up to google photos in the cloud

Or send them back to our little like storage thing that we have at our at our place and

uh

Also making multiple copies of all of our video files that we carry with us all the time because those are important to us

And making sure that we have a password on our laptops and on our phones to secure those

It's just using one password a password manager to make sure that all of our passwords are like

Secure and that we can change them easily

There's a lot of things that I think about when it comes to digital security, but I think you're much more likely

To have something weird happen or to have someone steal your credit card info because you put them into some like

Unsecured website then you are to have someone like steal a credit card out of your wallet

And I think thinking more about digital security is actually like a more

Important thing to do than it is to just like secure the things on your person

Or both maybe both sure. Yeah, both are important. No question

But if I had to choose only one

I I've had my credit card info stolen like eight times in my life and I've had people steal

I've had people like mug me and steal stuff out of my pockets like two times in my life. Sure. Yeah, that's fair

You know, it just it just happens way more frequently and it can happen from anywhere

Let's like walk through

What we do when we get to a new place what we make sure that we pack related related to safety

So I would say in general whenever we're heading out for a trip

We want to make sure that we have our passports, of course

But also copies of our passports photo copies of them like not additional passports

But like just pictures of yeah, so and we will both carry copies of our passports

On each other's like packs

So josh has copies of his and mine and I also have a copy of mine and his in my pack just in case

Yeah, just in case that way if we lose one pack then the other person has all the information that we need

Um, we generally bring we don't bring we don't bring all of our credit cards

We don't bring all of our cash when we're heading out for a trip

We usually when we get to the airport

We'll take out cash from an ATM

Um, and then we'll split up that cash between us so that one person isn't carrying all of it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly

And I think that there are also some things to make yourself just look like less of a target

And I think those are just like not flashing expensive electronics when you're out in public is a pretty basic thing

Um putting your cash away

Like at the ATM pretty immediately not just like walking around, you know

As fumbling around with it only pulling out just as much cash as you actually need to do whatever you're doing

Like just pull out enough for a couple of days instead of like your entire trip

Which we know a lot of people, you know debate about because

Before this I had to take out, you know loads of cash. I was like, I don't want to carry this much cash with me

But I didn't want to get hit with all these fees

Um, but now with Charles swabs ATM fees being refunded

We can we have the luxury of just taking out as much as we need at a time. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. It's great

We're not sponsored by Charles. No, not at all. Not at all. They're just like the best current

It's just a pretty cool

Pretty cool feature of their ATM and their debit debit checking account. Yeah, absolutely. And I think like

Also just kind of generally knowing where you're going

Seems to help a lot like not looking lost and knowing

Knowing where you're headed like either like screenshotting those google maps directions in case you don't have internet or yeah

something that I like to do before

Before our trips is when we're on wi-fi is just take a download google maps actually allows you to download maps offline

So that way when you get to a place and let's say you don't have data or don't have service

You can access your maps. Um, and and get to your location pretty easily. Yeah. Yeah

One thing I will say even though we talked about reviews earlier and we said they're generally unhelpful

Reading the reviews of hotels and accommodations in advance has really really helped the way that

I think about booking stays and safety specifically

Like reading people's experiences. What was it like to walk back to the hotel at night?

What was the staff like, you know, what were the rooms like generally those kinds of details

Helps me get a sense of

Am I gonna feel safe here? Is my stuff gonna be safe here? And um, so

Although you have to take every review with a grain of salt for sure

Reading the details and reading between the lines

And and seeing what kind of features of that hotel or that hostel has helps me feel more secure about

Safety. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I totally understand that safety is a bigger deal in some places than it is in others

You know and that you need to take additional precautions

But these couple of rules like splitting up all of our important things leaving our really valuable stuff back in the hotels

And then making sure that we have like multiple copies of important documents spread across our two backpacks. I think

Between all of that and then just kind of like the more intangible things of like looking where we know

We're going smiling and people being friendly. Yeah

Not kind of inviting in those like weird experiences just like saying no to scammers on the street that come up to you like

We're just ignoring people. Yeah, like you you you know, trust your gut

Yeah, and and I think that the biggest rule that I have

When we're traveling is that if someone approaches me in the street, I should be a little wary

I should I should maybe but if I go and like ask any general person in the world if I pick out someone

99 plus percent of the time like a rounding error 100

Those people are going to be like awesome helpful and just kind of like going throughout their day

But if someone like if I'm traveling out in the world and I look like a tourist and someone comes up to me

Maybe I need to be a little bit skeptical of the thing that they're even those

Situations most of the time those people are asking some other things or are also just curious about where we're from and want to

Strike up a conversation. We're just trying to sell you a weird bracelet

Like that, you know something you don't necessarily want and then you just like say no, thanks

And then you just move on with your life. I think safety too specifically as a woman and and sometimes solo traveling

It's always helpful like whenever I go out or we're not together

I think we always try to make sure that we have a set time that we're going to meet a meeting location

and

And we have ways to contact each other

I try not to take like

I try not to take too many shortcuts or back alleyways. I try to like look for places that are well traveled

Um, well popular

populated areas

And in well lit areas, but I try not to go out too late at night unless I really need to even then

I don't really need to sometimes

Yeah, I mean, I think for sure like your considerations of safety would be very different than mine on any given trip

And I like understand that. Yeah

Both are important, but um, I think those are specific specific things that I like to think about that being said we've had

very very good luck and and

Not too many problems with safety on the road

We've been pretty fortunate and and like I said, I think everywhere

Generally and and this is generally that I think the theme of traveling is what we've experienced

most

Most people are wonderful wonderful kind human beings that are just

Happy to see you and if they're not happy to see you. They're just they're just going about their business

Okay, I think that's a great place to end this one

So please just leave any more questions or comments that you have down in the comment section below

We'll answer your questions next week. That's it for travel support thursday. Thanks for joining us

We'll see you next week from another beautiful

Fun location in new zealand, which also happens to be a very safe and welcoming country. Yes

See you later. All right. See you next week