Places I Remember with Lea Lane
Places I Remember with Lea Lane
Extreme Travel Adventures, With Author/Journalist Mike Finkel
Intrepid author and explorer, Michael Finkel lived as an expat in the South of France and skied down the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. His tales from Iran, China, the Congo and around the world offer challenging perspectives on how travel can shape our worldview.
From the harsh realities of crab fishing in the Bering Sea to the complexities of war as a combat journalist in Afghanistan, he tells of resilience and unexpected kindness amidst adversity. The convo shifts to appreciation for Italy's vibrant cuisine and culture, drawing comparisons with life in France, and Mike shares tips on coping with jet lag from his recent adventures in Japan.
We discuss conflicted regions, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the ethical dilemmas surrounding animal poaching in Central Africa. Michael's trek across the Sahara, and his encounters with natural wonders like the Northern Lights and Congo's active volcanoes remind us of the raw beauty and complexity of our planet.
We wrap up with Michael’s transformative experience at a 10-day meditation retreat in India, showing the power of introspection and resilience. This exciting, enriching episode is filled with adventures that expand your horizons.
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Michael Finkel is a journalist and memoirist, who has written the books True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa, The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit, and The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession.
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Podcast host Lea Lane has traveled to over 100 countries, and has written nine books, including the award-winning Places I Remember (Kirkus Reviews star rating, and 'one of the top 100 Indie books of the year'). She has contributed to many guidebooks and has written thousands of travel articles.
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Our award-winning travel podcast, Places I Remember with Lea Lane, has dropped over 100 travel episodes! New podcast episodes drop on the first Tuesday of the month, on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you listen.
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On Places I Remember. we really enjoy interviewing adventure travelers. A few examples: On episode 21, high-altitude climber Jim Davidson describes summiting Mount Everest and dealing with an earthquake on the mountain. On episode 42, we talked with Deanne Birch who moved to a remote Inuit village above the Arctic Circle. On episode 54, Sandra Smith shared about learning to sail at 43, and heading into the Pacific through storms and challenges, often alone. On episode 67, conservationist Paul Sosigzuski described quests in the jungles of Borneo, Laos and other exotic destinations, and a search for a mysterious white elephant.
Lea Lane:On this episode we're talking to another great adventurer, Michael Finkel, one of the fortunate people who's known what he's wanted to do all his life. In a journal he kept at age 10, Mike noted that he wanted to be a writer when he grew up, and his second choice, he admits, was mad scientist and a writer he has become. Michael has reported from over 50 countries, with several best-selling books and countless articles in major publications. His newest book is the Art Thief about Stefan Breitweiser, probably the most prolific art thief of all time. Welcome, Mike, to Places I Remember.
Mike Finkel:I'm so honored to be here. Thanks, Lea.
Lea Lane:Well, you moved to France and got to know Stefan Breitweiser quite well. Was that why you moved there?
Mike Finkel:No, I moved to France for the experience. I had three children in elementary school and both my wife and I agreed that being able to speak a second language really fluently is a great gift and opens up your mind, and maybe that was the reason. Another culture, another language. So we moved from the mountains of Montana to the South of France, and that was in 2014 and lived in the South of France full-time for seven years.
Lea Lane:What did you find being an expat? What was the thing that surprised you? Maybe?
Mike Finkel:I love the fact that you have a podcast completely dedicated to travel, and I feel like travel itself is partially a mindset, partially something real. I feel like I could go to 7-Eleven, a mile from my house and consider that a trip, and I could go to the middle of France and in the same way. So when you ask what is it like to be an expat, I have this funny sort of feeling. I've always traveled. My parents didn't get to travel when they were growing up. As soon as they had children they started traveling. So it was funny. I feel like my parents were also sort of wide-eyed, inexperienced travelers and I grew up with this. Let's figure it out. But I also have this funny feeling that I don't actually feel like I'm traveling or an expat very often. I feel that I am always on my home planet.
Lea Lane:Therefore, I'm always home.
Mike Finkel:Yes, of course, as soon as I opened my mouth in France, people knew that I wasn't from France. I guess maybe the most difficult thing about being an expat is that you do feel that there is a little bit more people sort of looking at you. That's a common thing when you travel. Sometimes it can be a little bit exhausting. I think speaking another language is a little tiring, especially if you're not fluent in it and you have to work at it. And you know I like to be witty at a dinner party and if it's a dinner party in French, I don't want to be less witty.
Lea Lane:It'll sound better in French.
Mike Finkel:Tiring, but also, sort of, like I said, literally going to the local boulangerie and making small talk with a woman working there felt like a small journey unto itself. So if you like the frisson and excitement of traveling it's sort of constant when you're an expat. Even I remember having like conferences with the school teachers, of course all in French, and even the smallest things were like semi-struggle, semi-adventure. If you have the right mindset, then you're going to thrive on that, and if you're the type of person who is more of a homebody then that might not be the most comfortable situation for you, but luckily I am the former category.
Lea Lane:You are Well. you started as a ski writer and you've skied all over the world. What are some of your favorite ski adventures or memories?
Mike Finkel:Yes, I was a ski r and I skied all over the world, but really I just thought of my skis as a giant set of skeleton keys that opened doors all over the world. I think my ski magazine editor might not be happy to hear this, but 99% of the reason why I skied all over the world had nothing to do with skiing. It was just an excuse to go somewhere.
Lea Lane:I know that.
Mike Finkel:Because I was a 22-year-old kid without a lot of cash If someone's going to buy me a plane ticket. So yes, in terms of skiing, oh my gosh. I skied off the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. I put my skis in the back of someone's house and traveled in Tanzania. I skied in Iran, where the slopes were divided between men's slopes and women's slopes, but really I put my skis in a locker and traveled through Iran. I skied one of the earliest ski slopes to open in China, but I also spent five more weeks traveling through China, so I used my pair of skis as a very bulky piece of baggage, but really it was just a way to open up other cultures.
Lea Lane:Like a business trip. A lot of business travelers do that. They go on business and it's an excuse to see the world, which is very good. And some business travelers don't do that. They just go for business and don't add that time, and it's a shame.
Mike Finkel:I always acknowledge how fortunate I am and, again, I totally understand if some people are wired differently. In fact, if everyone was the same type of traveler, I would be disappointed if everyone traveled like me, because I do like the fact that it makes it relatively easy to get off the beaten path. If you're uncomfortable and all you like to eat is pizza, then I understand not wanting to travel in China.
Lea Lane:I would go to Naples, but yeah, Anyway, let's focus today on some of your travel adventures and memorable destinations. You gave me a list. I mean, this is just a starting point. I'm just going to. How about Alaska?
Mike Finkel:So I spent about 20 years of my life before I moved to France living in Montana. I really love the mountains and I'm a person who loves winter, which is probably the least popular season. Also, I mentioned that I like to get off the beaten path, so maybe I like to get off the beaten season living in Montana. We used to refer to the rest of the United States as the lower 47.
Mike Finkel:Never heard that. Okay, my next door neighbor said if you really like winter, you like to experience the mountains, then you're basically living in AAA baseball here in Montana. If you want to see what it's really like, go to Alaska. Travel to Alaska probably my first time. I was 22 years old and it blew my mind the scales, the scope of it all and I probably went to Alaska 10 different times and I'd say by far my most memorable experience. Now, when I talk about travel, sometimes I have this funny little thing in my mind which is called the absolute value of experience, meaning what's your richest memories, what's the best trips? Is the one that affected you the most. Do you come back in your most powerfully move? Now, sometimes an extraordinarily positive experience. of course that's amazing, But also an extraordinarily negative experience is extremely powerful.
Lea Lane:They make the best stories afterwards.
Mike Finkel:No doubt this is way before World's Most Dangerous Catc. I got a job on a fishing boat. Your son knows all about this, Lea. You did not mention that I have been friends with Randall since we were teenagers, literally.
Lea Lane:I actually met you once, when you were roommates way back.
Mike Finkel:Oh yeah, of course.
Lea Lane:For a minute.
Mike Finkel:Yeah, I got a job on a crab fishing boat in the Bering Sea in Alaska in January in which I worked no exaggeration 20 hours a day for several weeks, hard physical labor, one of the absolute worst experiences of my life, but yet it brought me to the limits physically, mentally, psychologically. And I got paid. I got 2% of the catch. I literally went and worked on a boat and my proudest moment was after we did a complete season of a paleo, known as snow crab in restaurants. The captain of the ship said, Mike, I'd have you back for another season and I said, no, thank you, I got very soft hands. I'm a writer. To this day, I mentally pat myself on the back, thinking I worked an extremely rugged physical job and was actually invited back rather than fired, but.
Mike Finkel:I worked on the marine vessel, the MV Notorious, chartered out of Iceland. This was not any sort of dispensation for being a journalist, and that was my most memorable. This is way before that TV show came out. I'll never forget the experience, and I think neither will my lower back.
Lea Lane:Well, you've tested your limits there and came through. Proud of you. What about Afghanistan?
Mike Finkel:First time I went to Afghanistan was about three weeks after September 11th. I had a few years where I worked as a combat journalist, interested in the reasons why people would kill each other. I couldn't consider that any sort of travel destination, So I was in Afghanistan from October 2001 for the better part of six months. At the time there were no ATMs or credit cards, except that I think I came in with $10,000 stuck in my belt, in the soles of my shoes, and I traveled with a photographer and experienced what it was like to exist in the middle of a very undefined war the Northern Alliance versus the Taliban. There were a lot of US soldiers around. I was not embedded in the military, like other journalists were. I had fascinating experiences in a country where there were no hotels, so you had to find someone who was willing to put you up. So many memories from that.
Lea Lane:What did you learn about yourself there?
Mike Finkel:I think I'm learning about myself on a daily basis, being non-embedded and spending a lot of time with Taliban soldiers, people that were literally trying to kill Americans. I think what I learned most is that, first of all, my theory of humanity, which has been unchanged for 30 years of constant travel, is that 99.9% of us are really good people at heart, that the world is actually not a dangerous place, and I think the more people who travel will tell you both of those things. Almost everyone is kind and almost everywhere is safe, including Afghanistan. In the middle of a war, what do they say? One drop of poison. You have to spill out the whole gallon of milk, and so that's the real reason why there's any trouble in the world at all is very tiny percentage of people, and so the same holds with Afghanistan.
Mike Finkel:Almost everyone I met was beautiful, fed me, there was no restaurants, really put me up, and I think what I learned mostly is that you are a product of your upbringing. If I had been born in a certain part of Afghanistan and went to a madrasa and was exposed to the learning, I might have fought against the United States as well, and so open-mindedness and understanding of one's journey through life was really the thing that most struck me about my travels in Afghanistan. Like, oh, don't you hate this person who's fighting with the Taliban? Well, no, I don't actually. And there are terrible people in this world and I have encountered some of them, unfortunately, even like a Taliban soldier firing on US soldiers And I don't care how outre this sounds is not necessarily a bad person once you get to know them.
Lea Lane:There are many great movies with that theme, many World War I, World War II movies where you see that. But you've experienced it.
Mike Finkel:Right.
Lea Lane:How about Italy? Tell us about it, experienced it.
Mike Finkel:So I lived in France, as I mentioned, for seven years, and the thing that rankled the French people the most in my time in France, and especially as I got to speak the language better and realize that I could be just as jocular in French as I can be in English, is saying how much I loved the cuisine in Italy more than France. to be honest with you.
Mike Finkel:So we lived a two hour drive from the Italian border and all I thought about most of my time living in France was how can I get to Italy again. Funny, when you live in Europe, you know it's like going to another state in the United States, how we would sometimes like let's go to dinner in Italy. It is a cliche, but I will eat in any corner restaurants in Italy and this is one of those things where sometimes the cliched travel is also the truly beautiful, like the Amalfi Coast in Italy, the I Terre, the tiny villages that like, i you have not been to the west coast of Italy, it's almost like a dream, and yet it's also real and they're not trying to make it set up for tourists.
Lea Lane:Did you know? I wrote guidebooks on the Amalfi Coast and I had to go back to update them all the time. What a terrible thing. Of course, yeah, that was my favorite part of it.
Mike Finkel:And speaking of guidebooks, which I use all the time, I got back from Japan yesterday. That's an 11 hour time change from where I am. By the way, 12 hour time change is the maximum because you're going one way or another, so almost maximum. I have ways of coping with jet lag. Ignore it A little. Mind over matter. If you think it's midnight but it's seven in the morning, don't go to bed, have breakfast.
Lea Lane:I agree, just keep going Just pretend it doesn't exist, you'll sleep eventually.
Mike Finkel:A little mind over body.
Lea Lane:Well, you're doing very well with jet lag right now. I have to say. So Japan.
Mike Finkel:I just got back less than 24 hours ago, so this was my third trip to Japan. It was so reasonably priced. Oh my goodness, the dollar is strong. Unique travel experience for me. My daughter, my oldest child, just graduated from high school and it was a father-daughter trip to Japan, just the two of us and that was a first for me traveling with my child for nine days and we ate our way through Japan. I have an adventurous eating daughter,.
Lea Lane:Di I you have blowfish where you could be poisoned if you weren't.
Mike Finkel:We did not have any. The funny thing about travel is this I haven't been to Botswana. That's one place I haven't been to. If I go to Botswana for three weeks, I'll come back, and now there's a hundred places I haven't been to because there's little details. So the more you travel, the less you've seen. In a funny sort of way, there's no end to it. So now I haven't had Fugu, I haven't climbed Mount Fuji. There's like 17 places in Tokyo that were on my list.
Lea Lane:Hurry up, hurry up.
Mike Finkel:I didn't get to see. This is not like collecting a baseball card set. The idea of travel is truly endless. The guidebook that you write is. It starts becoming out of date the moment you put the card up.
Lea Lane:Exactly. That's why you have to go back and that's why I was so happy in the Amalfi Coast. How about Haiti? You have an amazing story there.
Mike Finkel:I have a very soft spot in my heart for Haiti, which is very close to the United States and yet perhaps the most challenging, most difficult country to travel in in the world. So right off the coast of Miami. I've reported from 50 countries. I've probably been in 100 countries. I do not know of a single country on planet Earth that is in a more difficult situation than Haiti, and so if you want to have your eyes not just open, but ridiculously opened, travel in Haiti is not for those who highly regard safety. Almost everyone is kind and will treat you well, and I will never forget.
Mike Finkel:There's a soundtrack to the Street of Port-au-Prince that is etched in my mind Funny sounds. It's like I remember, like the World Cup in South Africa many years ago, when everyone was blowing in those strange trumpets and I still hear that in my head. But the soda vendors in Port-au-Prince they have like a soda opener and they bang it against these bottles and there's hundreds of them going around and I think about people beating on the sides of glass bottles with an opener and there's really interesting sound that seemed unique to Port-au-Prince. That's a sound memory.
Lea Lane:Your trip on the boat is something you've written about.
Mike Finkel:I'm a journalist. This is not Euro. Disney the Eiffel Tower and get on a Haitian refugee boat, but it's' an unbelievable story.
Mike Finkel:I did document the struggles that some people are willing to take to get to the United States. I did purchase a seat on a refugee boat. It was a 23-foot long boat made completely out of wood. Five people could comfortably fit on a 23-foot boat and there were 46 of us. 43 of us were crammed in a dank hole.
Mike Finkel:Lea, I got to tell you of all the experiences I've had traveling, that one. I was, no kidding concerned about its potentially dire outcome, and the boat actually was foundering in the water and was sinking. We were actually rescued by the United States Coast Guard. In my life, I've been rescued by United States military forces two separate times. When some people say to a soldier thank you for your service, the United States military has saved my life in Haiti and also in Afghanistan. I don't want to make things any darker, but there was a very terrible incident in which a room in which I was staying with about 20 other journalists was attacked and two people were killed in the same room that I was sleeping in and I dove out a window and ran to a US Army base. They took me in For people listening. You're not supposed to be taking notes here and say, oh well, let's do this and this. This is my to-do list.
Lea Lane:No, this is not a cruise. This is something that's interesting to hear and we learn from it and admire that you have the capacity to cover all of these and to keep your spirit, and it's heartwarming to hear that you feel that people are good because there is so much. You covered conflicts in Israel. I know as well.
Mike Finkel:This was 2000, during the second Intifada, and both the sadness, current events sort of replaying in my mind. The more things change, the more they stay the same. You could literally read in the Bible about the Israelites and the Philistines, and now you have the Israelis and the Palestinians. You know it's only a conflict that's been going on for a couple of thousand years. And once again, I'm Jewish and I lived in Gaza City for more than a month without leaving the confines of the Gaza Strip and again was treated by most people extremely kindly. People like to share their stories. Sometimes I'm surprised that things haven't gone completely sideways. When you said to me you think that most people are good, I don't just think it, I actually know it.
Lea Lane:Good to hear.
Mike Finkel:It would take a lot to disabuse me of that notion. It's just the exceptions that get a lot of press.
Lea Lane:Well, here's an exception. In Central Africa, you documented the impact of animal poachers. What's your feeling there in terms of good?
Mike Finkel:I don't know if you've ever been really hungry. Desperate situations you don't really know what you would do.
Lea Lane:Especially with a family.
Mike Finkel:Yeah, again, this is maybe the journalist in me or the human in me, but I try not to judge. Now, yes, I think that someone who's going to kill an elephant for a hunk of ivory is in no way performing anything good. But I know bankers who make money off of other people's bankruptcies. I don't think that's particularly good either. That's not only legal, but celebrated. The world is all shades of gray.
Lea Lane:You crossed the Sahara with migrant workers.
Mike Finkel:All I remember is I jumped on the back of a truck that was crossing the Sahara for three days. It was fascinating A couple of things. We were mostly Muslim migrants and so the truck would stop five times a day so everyone could pray and I would crawl underneath the truck to sit in the shade. But the thing I remember most about that trip there was maybe 75 people on a pretty big dump truck. We were all crammed in and for dinners amazing there was this huge, birdbath-sized bowl of the group of maybe 20 people I was closest with.
Mike Finkel:Each group of 20 had this huge bowl and everyone would dig around in their belongings Like, oh, I found a can of tuna fish or I had some sardines. We would all dump it in this bowl, mix it together and eat with our left hands and we would all share from this communal bowl whatever we could come up with. I've eaten at some Michelin-starred restaurants, but I've probably not had any more memorable meals than sharing a bowl with 19 of my favorite migrant workers none of us who shared a language putting our hands into the same bowl in the middle of the Sahara Desert in a scorching day.
Lea Lane:In the Congo. You work for National Geographic magazine. You spent time with field scientists on a volcano. Anything there to reflect on?
Mike Finkel:We've spoken a lot about humans and my encounters with them, but I also you know I'm speaking to you from Park City. I mentioned that I lived in Bozeman, Montana. Let's not forget the amazing wonders of the natural world, which also I mean. I love being in crowded places, conflicts To write, to work. I need to be in a place that's quiet and peaceful.
Mike Finkel:Some of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life include the Northern Lights, full solar eclipse I just saw the one in April. I had great fortune to descend into an active volcano, to see a lake of lava, and it always makes me feel, as does just simply laying on my back on a clear night when I see the stars. It makes me feel both extraordinarily significant and completely insignificant and I do love that tug of war in my mind and I think the word sublime when it comes to something that's overwhelming in its beauty and its nature and you feel forces so much greater than you that, while seeing Nyiragongo, one of the world's most active volcanoes, which is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Wow.
Lea Lane:Well, let me just ask you -the name of the podcast is Places. I Remember. You've given us many memorable experiences.
Mike Finkel:I think I talked to you about my absolute value of travel theory. Extremes of emotion or feelings are what I seek. I'm going to end with what was the worst trip of my life, therefore perhaps the most profound. Like you mentioned earlier in this wonderful free-ranging conversation, I've been in Afghanistan, Haiti, covered conflicts in the Middle East, tried to climb an 8,000-meter peak in Tibet, been tortured in many ways. You probably can gather lots of energy and I'm a journalist, so therefore I am an outgoing person.
Mike Finkel:I decided that I would do a 10-day silent meditation retreat at the Damagiri Meditation Center in India. 10 days of not just silence. You couldn't even make eye contact with anyone. You couldn't bring anything to read, and I am an invertebrate reader. You couldn't bring a pen or a pencil. I've kept a journal for 30 years. 10 days that included hours and hours a day of sitting on a cushion doing guided meditation.
Mike Finkel:I cannot tell you the depth of how difficult that was for me. It was the most. I hated it in a level that was so deep and yet there was no chains attaching me. I could have left at any moment, and that also made it harder. If I was literally locked up, it might've been easier. Within 24 hours, every fiber of my being wanted to run out of the Dhamma Giri meditation center.
Mike Finkel:I managed to stay completely silent, without any distractions, for 240 hours, for 10 of the most difficult days of my life. Some people thought it was the absolutely most fulfilling experience, and I will never forget the difficulty of that. To explore the outer world is amazing, and to explore the inner world is no less vast. If you are at all interested in challenging yourself, a Vipassana meditation, 10 days, and here's what I love about Vipassana: meditation the cost of a 10-day retreat is precisely zero. It is such a pure form of meditation. The Buddha himself used Vipassana meditation to achieve enlightenment. That's how old it is and it's so well-respected. The people that teach these courses, which are all around the world, do it for free. The trip that cost me nothing, in which the entire itinerary was do nothing, was the absolute most challenging trip of my life.
Lea Lane:Wow. Well, you do lead an amazing life, and you're a young man relatively. You have a lot left to go, and I can only imagine where wisdom will add to this as you get older. It's just incredible to hear it, let alone to think of living it. Your bestselling, award-winning book, The Art Thief, is a great read, and it will be coming out as a movie, correct?
Mike Finkel:I speak better French than I speak Los Angeles. It's been an option to the movies let's see. Okay, I recommend it.
Lea Lane:Okay, I recommend it. I look forward to seeing it, and reading whatever you write next. You're a great journalist. Keep on traveling, living life to the fullest. You inspire us to push our own limits. Thank you so much, Mike Finkel.
Mike Finkel:My absolute pleasure, thank you.
