Today, my guest on the podcast is Stephanie Garcia. Stephanie is a traveler who worked and lived in a London hostel for three years. She has spent much time teaching children and showing them there's more to life than books.

In this conversation, Steph and I dive into her travels, the most important one being, or the focal point, the hostel, because, from my own experience, the hostel doesn't have a large play in what I thought about it. I hadn't realized how many variations on a hostel there could be, and also around the stigma of it.

For someone like Steph, who said I'm going to live here and work here for three years, it is one of those moments that shape and define how you view the world. It seems so out of the ordinary, especially as someone who's grown and lived in a grown-up and lived in an area that is roughly where I've always lived. We get into other stories that Steph finds meaningful throughout the conversation, from favorite travel places to levels.

Holly is the creator of Kick Butt Life. Her brand emphasizes incorporating adventure, thrills, strength, play, and community into everyday life. She deeply loves the outdoors and strongly believes everyone should follow through on their craziest dreams. She thru-hiked the 2,200 mile-long Appalachian Trail in 2019 and has extensively hiked throughout Arizona, the Adirondacks, and the White Mountains. Her upcoming adventure plans include the Oregon Coast Trail, adventuring through the Caribbean, and Mount Kilimanjaro. Her journal on taking control of your life story comes out this June.

Today on the podcast. I am joined by two of my returning guests and closest friends. Jordan Criss and Alex Ivy. And the reason I have them on the podcast today was pretty special to me. Jordan and Alex, at the time of this recording, are now living in LA. And this conversation took place roughly three weeks ago. As they were packing up to leave, we covered that. But the whole point was that I'm assuming many of you just had a wait. What, why would you leave right now? And that's the entire point. Because in the pandemic, the idea of moving sounds insane. But. The idea of moving at any point in your life, making a big drastic change. Be it a job. Be it a relationship or moving to a new place. Why now? That is always the question.

And the answer to that should be, why not?

Dierdre is fascinating in what she provides to people her outlook on the world. Being able to push back on norms of how people assume you should be. And also the power of writing because she believes that what you tell yourself informs what you can do. When you say, Oh, I'm supposed to be this, or I should be that, that's another person's value. And she says, write your own story. Or that's what she would say after talking to her. And so with that, everyone.

Derek Sivers(@sivers) is a creative thinker who is quite hard to pin down when explaining who he is: musician, producer, circus performer, entrepreneur, TED speaker, and book publisher. If I could sum up who Derek is, I would say he’s a philosopher and introspective person looking to push his thinking in ways he hasn’t explored yet. He won’t hold any belief or assumption too tightly.

Claudia is someone who prefers to go by many hats. By day, she works as an adolescent/young adult mental health therapist in private practice. Outside of her professional career, she enjoys sports/exercise, dinners with friends, and, above all, TRAVEL. 2019 was the year of battling several major health conditions while still trying to live life to the fullest.

Mike and Mary Taccona are both registered nurses. Mike works in the Post Surgical Unit, and Mary is in the Emergency Department. Outside of nursing, Mike and Mary are avid travelers. They have traveled throughout the United States and have time abroad while balancing Nursing school and jobs. In this conversation, we look at adapting to their roles as nurses, pulling back the curtain to the type of stress the situation puts on them. From there, we transition to travel. Next, we break down how and why they travel. Finally, we close on an impactful trip to a Field Station in Costa Rica.

Eric Herrera is a communications tower climber. In this episode, Eric shares stories from his unique and, at times, dangerous job. Tower climbing is one of the jobs that are easy to overlook in our hyper-connected world. Because of people like Eric and his crew members, we can have uninterrupted service with our devices. Eric highlights his journey of becoming a mentor and how he's grown since starting in the climbing industry.

In this episode, Erich, Joe, and Mike sit down and talk about Mike's recent travels. Then we tangent into some of Joe's more recent philosophical meanderings. It gets a bit wordy, but it's worth the listen since Mike has never waded into these topics.