Places I Remember with Lea Lane
Places I Remember with Lea Lane
Best Bits Of This Year's Places I Remember Episodes!
Captivating travel memories from 2024, featuring guests who share unique adventures and insights. These include: Andre Van Ketz with a road trip around Cape Town, where whale watching becomes an unforgettable experience. Lila Kresic-Djurek tells of Spanish visitors falling in love with Croatia's wine and cuisine, while Harry Mitsitis paints a heartwarming picture of travel’s small, impactful gestures in Sierra Leone, Africa. Each narrative celebrates moments of discovery and cultural connection.
Bravo celebrity Aesha Scott takes us on a day off in Havana, Cuba. Best-selling author Mike Finkel shares a gripping journey across the Sahara, highlighting the communal spirit found even in the harshest environments. Ryan Hoke's picturesque return to Wyoming offers soul-soothing fly fishing in the Bighorn Mountains. And there's more: Whether it's the nostalgia of a childhood trip to Europe or the culinary traditions of Ecuador, each of these eleven favorite memories is a testament to travel.
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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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Travel vlogs of our featured podcasts-- with video and graphics -- now drop on YouTube in the middle of every month! Please subscribe, like, and comment.
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Hi everyone. As I record this at the end of 2024, we've produced 112 Places I Remember episodes, and on the first Tuesday of each month we present a new travel episode. If you haven't already, please check these out and follow us. This year we've expanded a bit, regularly putting some of our favorite episodes on YouTube with glorious graphics and video. So if you haven't already, please subscribe to Places I Remember Travel Talk with Lea Lane on YouTube. For this end of the year roundup episode. I've chosen a few favorite snippets from each of the episodes from 2024. Some guests are celebrities and professional travelers, but all of our guests are passionate about travel. So let's go. In. Episode 101, Andre Van Kets, director of Drive South Africa, takes us on a virtual road trip through his gorgeous country, focusing on the Cape Town area.
Speaker 2:And speaking of whales, Clarence Drive the other one you mentioned earlier is the road you take. It's just a little bit hugs the ocean a little bit more closely. It's not as high and sort of cliffish, but that's the road you take to get to Hermanus, about an hour and a half drive from Cape Town. All along that drive you do get to see whales and other sea life and then when you get to Hermanus it's known for being one of the world's largest breeding grounds of southern rights and other whale species. So what makes it so special is they actually come really close into the bay on these, with this protruding rocks and walkways that you can walk along and look down at these mothers carving with their young. I assume you've been there and seen it. You're looking very excited.
Lea Lane:No, I stopped at Sparks Bay. I remember a little coastal town called Sparks Bay where you had barbecue and you could watch the whale along that route as well, yeah, it's just magical.
Speaker 2:For any sea and nature lover, it's a wonderful place to go and a road to drive.
Lea Lane:In Episode 102, Lila Kresic-Djurek, US Director of Tourism for Croatia, shares a special memory of her beautiful country.
Speaker 4:Thirty people, members of the Gastronomy Academy of Marbella in Spain. They came to the islands. They brought wines with them. They brought prosciutto because they were afraid what they are going to find in Croatia. They literally didn't open any Spanish wine. They didn't touch the meat, and whatever prosciutto and cheese they actually brought with them, they literally gave it to the cook just to have it, you know, for later times. So they were eating local, organic, local food, local vegetables, local fruits. Everything was homemade, you know, local. They wanted to buy the wines.
Speaker 4:The owner of the little winery in Brac Island didn't want to sell them more. He said you are the friends of my friends. I gave you the best wine which I keep for my family. I gave it to you to taste it. One glass for each. You are 30. I'm not going to give you more because I don't have such a quantity and the best. I want to keep it for my family. It was so good that they were ready to buy the whole quantity. It was a time when Croatia really started to build its way on the gourmet scene. Only 20 years ago. People were so surprised to find good food and good wine. That is the reason why people come to Croatia.
Lea Lane:Harry Mitsitis, founder of Nomad Mania, has traveled to all 193 countries on Earth, some of them several times. You could call him the world's most traveled man. In Episode 103, I loved his philosophy of travel, which we can all learn from, even if we travel just a bit less than Harry.
Speaker 5:Yes, I remember once I was driving in Sierra Leone. Well, I wasn't doing the driving, but I was in a car. I was going from Freetown to Monrovia and it was a long overland journey. This is in Africa to Monrovia, and it was a long overland journey.
Lea Lane:This is in Africa.
Speaker 5:This is in Africa, and the journey involved a couple of barges to cross rivers because they don't have bridges there. And I remember, as we were waiting for one of the barges, there was a local village community and of course they don't get too many Caucasian people there, so they were all screaming, you know, and dancing and sort of playing around and I decided now I'm going to give these people a dollar, one dollar, and I gave them the dollar and I have never seen anything like it. You would have thought I gave them a million dollars. They all burst out and I mean there were about 20 people I don't know if they were one family or not and imagine them colorfully dressed, the women, in these sort of elaborate dresses.
Speaker 5:They didn't look poor, they looked, you know, very, very nice, clean, and they burst out in dancing and thank you. And they were, you know, really going for it. . And then when the barge came, I could still hear them, you know, elated. And I think that the lesson from that one dollar can really make such a big difference to some people. It's very important to remember these small lessons and that's a memory I have never forgotten.
Lea Lane:Episode 104 covers New York City. My son, Randall, who's the editor of Forbes magazine, loves every borough of the city. We cover the highlights of all of them, but he ends with a personal memory.
Speaker 6:Maybe the first time I can remember being in New York, mom was with you and I think it was from my what my seventh or eighth birthday.
Lea Lane:It was your 10th.
Speaker 6:It's an early memory so I think it might be less. We went to the top of the World Trade Center yeah, memory I will always treasure. And then we went to Chinatown and I love that's still my favorite birthday party ever. I didn't know the geography, I didn't know you could do both those things on the same day, much less the same afternoon. But that's what's great about New York is you could have that modern skyline skyscraper experience and then you could go and have a transporting culinary experience in a place that feels totally different. But that's what makes New York authentic is that it's the melting pot to do both those things in two hours encapsulates. what New York it's about, it's about what's new. It's not a super nostalgic city I mean the skyscrapers up there, for a reason, it's about progress and it's about that skyline and the strength and the idea of the city that never sleeps. I mean Ellis Island is in New York, it's where a huge percentage entered America and you can feel it. Lunch in Chinatown that's as New York experience as it gets.
Lea Lane:And also when you say nostalgia. Of course, when we went to the World Trade Center we had no idea that years later there would be the great memorial there, which is another thing to try to see, if you can at 9-11. It's a wonderful, wonderful memorial.
Speaker 6:You know, I was in New York that day. Something like that just became a way for New York to get stronger, rebuild in a different way, and that's the history of New York. It's a city that welcomes people, has ups and downs, but always comes back stronger, builds higher, taller, with endless ambition. And I think if you visit there, if you have that attitude that you're going to come in there and you're going to explore and not leave anything on the table, you'll have a great time.
Lea Lane:New York. New York is a hell of a town. In Episode 105, we talked with two guests Andres Adazmi, founder of Kind Human Tour Company, and Amanda Burke, creator of the digital community Balanced Travel. They both believe in journeying with a purpose.
Speaker 8:Andres shared a beautiful memory terms of what it connected me with this place in the Andes a little beyond traveling. Just exactly what we offer in Kind Human is an experience that I have here in the Andes that I was invited to a Carpay. Carpay is an initiation ceremony in the feet of a huge glacier in the south of Peru, close to Cusco, that is called Auzangate. So I was invited by a local, pampa misayo, that is a Nquero, local shaman. I was led by him to the feet of this mountain.
Speaker 8:For one day I spent half of the night myself in the middle of nowhere, connecting with not only the big glacier = that was no moon night, absolutely dark but not only that, I was looking at the most beautiful constellations and Milky Way, because that was a dark, clear night as I never seen in my life. And, of course, being there by myself, in the feet of this huge mountain, close to 18,000 feet high, it makes you feel so tiny but so humble at the same time. So it was a huge memory in my head about going to a place that is new for me but at the same time so close and connecting me in an even deeper level to what beyond this is still alive. This is part of the ancient culture.
Lea Lane:And Amanda shares a memory as well.
Speaker 7:I think this memory is what started my love of travel. It means a lot to me to be able to share this. My grandmother took me to Europe when I was seven years old. It changed my life. I went to Europe to visit my father for the first time. He was stationed over there. We flew into Germany. I'll never forget being a little girl and seeing the tile roo. I grew up in a really small town in East Texas and I had never seen it. It absolutely changed my life. The next morning when I woke up and realized that there was a pastry truck that drove around and brought you fresh apple strudel. From that moment that I got back, I knew I was born to travel and I haven't stopped traveling since. I'm so grateful to my grandmother for that very first trip. I hope that I've done the same for my son. He has a very well-used passport. I think her taking me on that very first trip has set the course for everything that I am.
Lea Lane:In Episode 106, Jessica Laughlin, author of 50 States Bucket Lists, shares surprises about one of the states she mentions in her book, Oklahoma. It was established in 1907. Why was it called the Sooner State?
Lea Lane:During that time there was a land grab and people were coming to Oklahoma taking land before it became available to purchase In 1830, the Indian Removal Act granted the government authority to remove the indigenous peoples, and the Trail of Tears refers to the long and brutal journey they made, that the Native Americans made Thousands did not survive. That's a part of the history of Oklahoma and there's a lot of evidence of that when you travel there. The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum is there. It has nearly 30,000 artifacts, paintings, sculptures and photographs. That's a lot of fun to visit. The historical accounts of cattlemen, rodeos and Native Americans. It gives the complexity of how the West was forged. And then there's the Dust Bowl, when in the 1930s many people from Oklahoma and other parts of the area had to leave because of tremendous damage there and they headed west to California. And there's a lot of documents there of photographer Dorothea Lange and the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa which features a rare collection of his belongings.
Speaker 9:Also Dorothea Lange and those beautiful photos that she took. They were so captivating because of the feeling behind them, and I think that that's the sort of thing, too, that when you travel and when you are visiting these sites, you know to also have that historical, a brief historical connection with what you're seeing.
Lea Lane:Michelle Buttigieg, director of the Malta Tourism Authority, loves her country and in Episode 107, she shares a joyful memory.
Speaker 10:I've lived outside of Malta now for 27 years, so when I go back to Malta now, I'm able to see it as a local, but also as a tourist and doing what I do obviously. Recently I had the pleasure to visit this beautiful olive grove farm called Tanishia, which is something I usually would not do right, And I had this opportunity to go with a special group of people when I heard that this organization called Meril, together with Tanishia Olive Grove themselves, they've created this heaven, like it's a little paradise, where they planted all these trees. You're able to go there, you have lunch. I met Charlie, the local farmer who takes care of this area, and I felt a peace that's all around it, all you can see of the history of the land, the people that still run it, the lunch that you taste. It was a feast for all senses the smell, what I saw, the colors, Charlie and his hospitality.
Speaker 10:I met his wife. They cooked lunch for us. We planted trees, which was incredible. I felt like I've contributed, I left something, and it's an experience that actually visitors can do, and Charlie was telling me all the love they've put in the land and it shows, and for me that was a special moment. I've done it two, three years ago and now every year when I go back I go see Charlie and I go see my tree to see how much it grew, with all this history that we have. Obviously I am also Maltese, so I have a lot of special moments and memories. But discovering the new and how it's still blended with history and the tradition of the locals, for me it's really important because we cannot forget where we came from, because this is who we are Right, so people preserving it is special for me.
Lea Lane:In Episode 108, we covered the highlights of Ecuador, focused on the colonial capital city, Quito, and the Galapagos Islands. Katie McDonough, Executive Director of Custom Travel at Explore Inc, talks of some of the foods in Ecuador.
Speaker 11:There is a celebration that we have for Easter. Obviously, as Katie was mentioning, we have an enormous amount of Spanish influence. It has been adopted from that Catholic tradition with a twist. So there is a delicious dish called the fanesca, which is a blend of all sorts of grains. I remember as a child everyone looks forward to that dish.
Lea Lane:I think the food is one of the things. We mentioned it already, but from local food and street food to Michelin food, it's one of the reasons people travel, so that's good to know about. What about during the Day of the Dead or the Feast of the Dead? Is there a special food for that? I know in Mexico there is. Is there one in Ecuador? Is there a bread? I think there's a special bread. Yeah, it's called a guagua de pan.
Speaker 11:Guagua in Quechua means child, a loaf of bread which is like a brioche and it's shaped in the form of a child with sugar decorations and color. So you have that with a drink which is called colada morada and it is berry-based, blackberry-based and very sort of spicy. It's quite delicious and when I was a child this is something that's being lost at the moment, but a lot of the locals would go to visit their loved ones and take them food and leave them there in the cemeteries.
Lea Lane:That's beautiful. I love the sense of family that comes out with so many of the holidays in South America and Latin America. Stephanie Bonham Carter, co-founder of the Galapagos Safari Camp, talks of sharks.
Speaker 11:I mean, as you say, the marine life. Both land and marine life are spectacular. They really are a treat. Marine life, obviously you think of the different species of sharks, of which there are many. . You can see the hammerhead sharks and the different reef sharks and tiger sharks, bull sharks. However, you know, it's also wonderful to see sea lions alongside the sharks, because they are playful. So that contrast is what makes the Galapagos really quite spectacular that you can have sharks with playful sea lions literally side by side, and then you will have a school of dolphins joining the party. Often, if you go diving, you see the whole spiral of species, from the tuna fish to the sardines, the richness and the variety that makes it special.
Lea Lane:And they come right up to you. I mean, I snorkeled I didn't dive and I remember a sea lion coming right up to me and looking at me, nose to nose, and I remember his mother or father I'm not sure which circling around, a huge, huge creature just circling like don't you do anything. But the little sea lion was just playing with me. I just didn't want to get out of the water and I didn't even think about sharks. I
Lea Lane:In Episode 109, we interviewed Aesha Scott, the dynamic and popular chief stew on the Bravo hit reality TV show, Below Deck Mediterranean. She shares inside info about life on a super yacht.
Speaker 12:One of my favorite, favorite memories of all of my travels, all of my yachting life, was when I was working on this boat called Phoenix 2. It's like a 96 meter super yacht. It's massive. There's about 30 to 35 crew on there at one time and I remember we were right at the end of a really intense season. It was like three months straight of just like every I hadn't stepped foot off the boat for three months. (Wh ere were you?
Speaker 12:We were in the Med, and then we crossed the Atlantic and then we'd been in Florida, then we went down to the Caribbean. Right at the end we ended up. The guests wanted to go down to Cuba, and so we pulled into Havana and the guests declared that they were going to go. They're like no, we're actually going to go off and go to some other place on land for like three days. And so the captain said that all of the crew can have the next day off and that they've organized a surprise for us in Havana.
Speaker 12:So we get all dressed up and get all ready, step off the port and we come out into the street and there are these three big buses there and we were like ooh, what's happening? There's like buses here, are these for us? And the person comes out and she's like no, no, no, this isn't it. And I don't know if this was planned or not, but it was like the home edition of Dream Makeover or whatever. When they're like move that bus and the bus is suddenly all shifted and behind the bus there's these 10 gorgeous, shining Cadillacs all lined up in a row. And she's like these are for you, guys.
Speaker 12:And we're like so we all sprint towards these Cadillacs and we're like sitting up on the back up on the back sea, cruising around Havana, the wind blowing in our hair, just feeling like it was the most magical experience I've ever had. They ended up taking us to Tropicana, which was, you know, the old cabaret where, like Frank Sinatra, went there, Marilyn Monroe, and they got us these like the best tables in the house at the very front with like cigars and all you could drink. And I just remember that night feeling so unreal. I couldn't believe that this was my life and this was happening to me. And if it wasn't for yachting, I never would have experienced that and I just I'll always be so grateful for that experience.
Lea Lane:In Episode 110, the bestselling author of The Art Thief, Mike Finkel, shares his most extreme travel experiences around the world. Here's one of them. Now you crossed the Sahara with migrant workers.
Speaker 13: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 size bowl of the group of maybe 20 people I was closest with.
Speaker 13: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 Episode 111, Ryan Hoke, executive director of Cody Yellowstone, shares his memories of Wyoming the heart of the American West.
Speaker 3:You know, when you're born and raised in Wyoming, one of the main things that you're always enjoying is the outdoors, and one of the best things to do outdoors, I always say, is fishing. For a number of years I actually moved away from Wyoming and when I came back, one of the first things I did it was a big family friends trip back in the Bighorns, which is just outside of Cody. So there I am, I'm fly fishing on one of the streams in the Bighorn Mountains and, sure enough, I see a big old mama moose pop out of the trees right there, and right next to her is her little baby moose. And then to my left I see a porcupine kind of come out of the bushes, and then to my right I see a big old herd of deer right next to me and I'm just thinking as I'm fishing. I'm thinking, holy cow, this is the most Wyoming thing I have ever seen in my life.
Speaker 3:I couldn't even make this up Surrounded by the natural beauty of the bighorns, tons of wildlife all around me, it was just such a cool thing. I just felt like, you know, I'm back home again, this is where I'm meant to be, and it just was fantastic with my little boy right behind me, fishing too, and it was just such a cool memory that I'll always have once again.
Lea Lane:Yeah, he probably will remember it as well.
Speaker 3:He will yeah, and moose? Yes. Moose can be mean. They can be meaner than grizzly bears sometimes, but there was a safe distance away and it was just such a cool moment that just felt very Wyoming to me.
Lea Lane:I hope this end of year sampling gives you an idea of the depth of travel information and memories you'll enjoy here on Places I Remember. I appreciate the awards we've received, but I'm most delighted that many of you around the world have become regular listeners. Do tell other travel lovers about us and, if you haven't already, follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. You'll get a new episode the first Tuesday of every month and you can listen to over 100 of our past episodes as well. And, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, we've just started placing some of our favorite episodes on YouTube with gorgeous video Subscribe there at Places I Remember Travel Talk with Lea Lane. I look forward to continue sharing more terrific travel memories with you. Happy and safe travels everyone.
