Zero To Travel Podcast

What if the travel mindset you bring to far-off places is exactly what's needed right where you live? 

Alastair Humphreys is a British adventurer, bestselling author, and speaker named National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. He spent four years cycling 46,000 miles around the world and has since canoed 500 miles down the Yukon River, rowed across the Atlantic, walked the length of India's Kaveri River, and crossed Iceland on foot and pack raft. In recent years he has become one of the most well-known advocates for microadventures and local exploration, and his newest book is Unwilded: Finding Our Way Back to Nature. 

Alastair joins me to unpack the ideas in his book, including why our growing disconnection from nature matters personally and planetarily, and how a travel mindset and nature connection can be tools for changing both. 

Alastair has made this case before on the show, but Unwilded takes it somewhere new. This isn't just a conversation about microadventures or getting outside more. It's about a specific kind of blindness that builds slowly across generations, and what it costs us without anyone quite noticing. Alastair brings the same practical, adventure-first framing he always does, but this time it's in service of something bigger: a way to take the traveler's curiosity you feel on the road and put it to work where you actually live. The episode ends with a surprisingly simple exercise that can help you turn the world's overwhelming problems into something personal, actionable, and genuinely fun to pursue. 

What's one small thing in your immediate environment that you've stopped really noticing? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message. 

Tune In To Learn: 


Why the traveler's curious, enthusiastic mindset is exactly what's needed at home, and why most of us leave it at the border 


What "shifting baseline syndrome" is and why understanding it changes the way you see the world around you 


How two apps transformed Alastair's relationship with his daily run, and how to try the same thing 


Why spending 15 minutes in nature daily is harder than it sounds, and why that's actually the problem 


How connecting with even a tiny patch of local nature can deliver the same buzz as a far-off adventure 


What the Overton window has to do with how we approach climate change, travel, and everyday behavior 


Why Alastair stopped flying and moved to a vegan diet, and the surprisingly positive effect it had on his life 


What the 5-25 exercise is, and how it can help you identify the issues closest to your heart and take action without burning out 


How the Netherlands transformed its streets in a generation, and what that says about what's actually possible 


The vision Alastair wrote for the world 25 years from now, and why it's closer to reality than it might seem 


And so much more 

Resources: 


Sign up for our FREE newsletter 


Alastair Humphreys' website 


Unwilded: Finding Our Way Back to Nature 


Adventure + Purpose newsletter by Alastair Humphreys 


Follow Alastair on Instagram 


Merlin Bird ID app 


Seek app by iNaturalist 


4,000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman 

Want More? 


How To Have An Adventure On Any Budget With Alastair Humphreys 


Exploring A Single Map: A Travel Adventure For Everyone With Alastair Humphreys 


Is Your Summer Vacation Destroying The Planet? w/ Seth Kugel 

Thanks To Our Sponsors 


Become a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/zerototravel 


Experience intelligent trip planning for calmer travel with the TripWaffle app 

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Molly McDonald is a London-based YouTube producer and founder of Blue Door Productions, a YouTube-first content agency that brings broadcast-level production to digital storytelling. She studied journalism at Boston University and later earned a master's in Irish studies from NYU before building her career in television production in New York City. Her client list includes Red Bull, BBC, and National Geographic, and her films have accumulated over 200 million views on YouTube. 

This episode covers Molly's journey from Irish-American New Yorker to YouTube travel documentary producer, including her work on some of the most extreme human endurance expeditions ever filmed and what she learned along the way. 

Travel has a funny way of dismantling the stories we tell ourselves about the world, and Molly McDonald has lived that firsthand, from the pubs her family built in Manhattan to the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. She grew up straddling two cultures, and that dual identity turns out to be the exact foundation for the kind of storytelling she now does for a living: finding the human truth inside extreme, unpredictable adventures. There's a real conversation in here about what it means to travel to places that scare you, why the media often gets destinations wrong, and how following a story you can't fully control is actually what makes it worth watching. 

What place have you avoided visiting because of how it's been portrayed in the media, and has anything ever changed your mind? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message. 

Tune In To Learn: 


Why growing up Irish-American in New York shaped Molly's approach to storytelling and travel 


How Blue Door Productions brings TV-level production quality to the "wild west" of YouTube 


What it was actually like to cross into Iraq during a live expedition, and what happened to all the fear 


Why Kurdistan challenged everything Molly thought she knew about the region 


How to capture authentic moments on camera when you can't predict what's coming next 


Advice for aspiring YouTubers on what to cut, what to keep, and why most people share too much 


Why the title and thumbnail of a YouTube video matter more than people realize 


How to think about storytelling structure even when the story is still unfolding in front of you 


What the concept of "soul places" reveals about how travel changes you over time 


Why starting from zero on YouTube is actually an advantage, and what consistency really means 


And so much more 

Resources: 


Sign up for our FREE newsletter 


Learn more about Molly's work at Blue Door Productions 


Follow Molly on Instagram at @mollybmcd 


Watch Mitch Hutchcraft's expedition on YouTube 

Want More? 


100 Documentaries Project: Traveling the Globe to Find Extraordinary Humans + Changing the World One Story at a Time with Robin Danehav 


Transition to Travel: West Africa + Canoeing the River Gambia with Will Hunt 


Independent Travel as a Female in Afghanistan, Hitchhiking Iraq, and Ex-Pat Life in Sudan with Jacquelyn Kunz 

Thanks To Our Sponsors 


Become a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/zerototravel 


Check out Morning Brew Daily for business news that's actually fun. 

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This week, I'm sharing a bonus episode from a brand new podcast called Y We Travel, co-hosted by my friend Eric Weiner, who has joined me on the show a few times over the years. Eric is a New York Times bestselling author and former foreign correspondent, and his co-host Erica Vella is an award-winning podcaster and former broadcast journalist. 

There's no shortage of travel advice out there — who can save us a buck, what to do, when's the best time to go, where to go. But one fundamental question often gets left behind: why? 

Born from an award-winning magazine series of the same name, Y We Travel explores the deeper motivations behind our journeys. The show unpacks the emotions, discoveries, and purpose that give travel its meaning. 

In this episode, Eric and Erica discuss the origins of the series and their own motivations for travelling. Eric interviews author and Y We Travel essayist Pico Iyer, trading travel anecdotes from Japan to California to North Korea and discussing themes from Pico's piece in The Walrus magazine, which argued that we should travel to meet our neighbours. Erica continues the conversation with a selection of Toronto Pearson passengers, asking: "Why are you travelling today?" 

Resources: 


Sign up for the Zero to Travel FREE newsletter 


Listen to Y We Travel on Apple, Spotify 


Read the companion essays at ywetravelmag.ca 


Contact Y We Travel: hello@ywetravelmag.ca 


Learn more about Pico Iyer 

Want More?: 


The Geography of Bliss With Eric Weiner 


How To Live a Long and Useful Life (The Wisdom of Ben Franklin) With Eric Weiner 


Rick Steves On the Hippie Trail (The Making of a Travel Writer) with Special Guest Host Eric Weiner 

Thanks To Our Sponsors: 


Become a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/zerototravel 


Check out Morning Brew Daily for business news that's actually fun. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt Gray is the founder and CEO of Pangea, a free social travel app built to help people coordinate travel plans, share recommendations, and connect with their network around the world. After a decade in product development and corporate M&A at a global fintech company, he left the corporate world in 2023 to become a full-time digital nomad and build Pangea full-time. He is on a personal mission to visit every country in the world.

In this episode, we get into seven travel tech trends shaping how people plan, book, and experience travel, including why most travel apps fail, the rise of social travel, and what AI can and can't do for travelers right now. We also dig into destination recommendations, advice for running a remote business on the road, and what it means to bridge the nomad bubble.

These are genuinely fascinating times to be a traveler and a builder in the travel space, and Matt sits at the center of both worlds. He's thinking seriously about why travel tech has such a high failure rate, and what it would actually take to crack the code, and he brings a perspective that is grounded in years of on-the-ground experience across dozens of countries and travel styles. There is a real conversation here about the gap between wanting to travel and actually doing it, and I think it will stick with you. The travel tech trends for digital nomads piece is insightful, but the human thread running through it all is what makes this one worth your time.

Have you ever had a piece of technology genuinely change how you travel or connect with people on the road? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message.

Tune In To Learn:

Why so many travel apps are built to solve a single problem, and why that almost always leads to failure

How being a "multifaceted traveler" is reshaping what a useful travel platform actually needs to do

Why AI wrappers on ChatGPT are not the same as AI-powered travel tools, and how to tell the difference

How social travel is changing the reason people book trips in the first place

Why off-the-beaten-path destinations benefit most from the rise of connected travel communities

How to break out of the nomad bubble and go deeper in the places you visit

Why the people you travel with may matter more than the places you go

Destination recommendations for regions quietly gaining traction in the nomad world

Advice for running a remote team while living a location-independent life

What it looks like to bring urgency to travel, not just talk about it

And so much more

Resources:

Sign up for our FREE newsletter

Download the Pangea app

Pangea on Instagram

Couchsurfing

Workaway

Want More?

From Expat to Digital Nomad: Finding Your Travel Rhythm, Balancing Burnout, and the Digital Nomad Lifestyle with Kristin Wilson

The World's Most Traveled Person on the Ethics of Gamifying Travel, Best Regions in the World, and Why To Keep Traveling With Harry Mitsidis of NomadMania

Top 5 Reasons For "Slomading" + The Benefits Of Boredom With Tim Marting From Citizen Remote

Thanks To Our Sponsors

Become a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/zerototravel

Check out Morning Brew Daily for business news that's actually fun.

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What would it mean to stop measuring your life by the conventional yardstick and start building one that actually fits? 

Blake Boles is a writer, experiential educator, and the founder of Unschool Adventures, a travel company for self-directed teenagers, which he has run since 2008. He is the author of several books on alternative education and self-directed learning, and his newest book, Dirtbag Rich: High Freedom, Low Income, Deep Purpose, was released in March 2026.  

In this episode, Blake and I get into the philosophy behind "dirtbag rich" living, including what it really means to pursue a high-freedom, low-income lifestyle while still navigating the demands of modern capitalism. We also dig into the practical side of how to make a non-traditional financial model actually work, and talk about purpose, downward mobility, unschooling, outdoor adventure, and so much more. 

If you've ever wondered whether there's a middle path between grinding toward a distant retirement and going full dirtbag with no financial safety net, this conversation is going to give you a lot to think about. Blake shares a lot of real practical substance in this one, alongside some genuinely fresh thinking about how to measure wealth, what freedom actually requires, and what gets in the way of most people finding their version of a dirtbag-rich unconventional life. 

What does "enough" look like for you, whether that's money, time, adventure, or something else? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message. 

Tune In To Learn: 


Why the original dirtbag culture offers a useful framework, even if you'll never live in Yosemite full-time 


How Blake figured out a way to earn good money in short bursts and stay free the rest of the year 


Why "how do you know when you're wealthy?" is a more useful question than you might expect 


What the FIRE movement often gets wrong about making a clean break from work 


How to think about "downward mobility" as a feature rather than a failure 


Why having freedom from something isn't enough without also knowing what you're free to do 


What the real risks of a dirtbag rich lifestyle actually are, and how to go in with clear eyes 


How purpose shows up differently for different people, and why measuring it in "I get to" days works 


Advice for attracting the ideal clients and building work that doesn't eat your life 


Why getting your ideal client to feel genuinely excited to work with you is the job before the job 


And so much more 

Resources: 


Sign up for our FREE newsletter 


Blake’s website 


Dirtbag Rich book 


Unschool Adventures 

Want More? 


The Vagabond's Way: Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel w/ Rolf Potts  


The 5 Best Hacks of “All the Hacks”: Travel, Money & Life Optimization with Chris Hutchins 


Digital Detox: Downsizing Your Digital Life to Create Freedom + Reboot Your Lifestyle Business with Corbett Barr 

Thanks To Our Sponsors 


Become a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/zerototravel 


Check out Morning Brew Daily for business news that's actually fun. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices