Episode 144 - Esme Benjamin, Full-Time Travel & The Trip That Changed Me Podcast
As travelers, we are no strangers to the deeply healing process that can occur when we visit a new space with a new outlook, separated from the everyday.
In this episode, Christine hosts a soulful conversation with Esme Benjamin, an award-winning writer, editor, and broadcaster based in New York City. Her editorial work can be found in ELLE, Condé Nast Traveler, Refinery29, SELF, Well&Good, Trip Advisor, Culture Trip, and more.
Esme is the current Editor-in-Chief of Full-Time Travel and host of the podcast The Trip That Changed Me, which features transformative travel stories from guests including writer/illustrator Mari Andrew, Top Chef judge Gail Simmons, and more.
In Season Four of The Trip That Changed Me Podcast, Esme interviews many exciting guests in the travel world, including Laurie Woolever (Anthony Bourdain’s former assistant), prolific travel writer Pico Iyer, and Emmy award-winning host Samantha Brown.
This is a special podswap episode with Esme! Don’t miss her interview of Christine on The Trip That Changed Me Podcast, available on Apple Music, Spotify, and wherever you catch your favorite podcasts.
Travel Shaping Our View of Ourselves – And Offering a Place to Heal
Esme’s original journalism beat was fashion–but she never found it to be “her.”
When she came to the United States, she began working for The Culture Trip as their wellness editor, an experience that began to shape how she felt about travel before becoming Editor-In-Chief of Full-Time Travel.
In 2020, Esme found herself leaving Hawaii and dropping her bags into her New York apartment the day mandated lockdown due to the pandemic began. She then unexpectedly lost a good friend, finding it difficult to work through the grief in isolation, but there was more grief on the horizon.
Esme also lost her grandfather and experienced two more devastating losses in close succession, including a missed miscarriage.
She didn’t know whether she could take much more.
Esme and her husband decided to head to Miami “just to rest our hearts” and conceived a dream of traveling around the country.
Ultimately, they did leave on the first of July and headed off to a grand adventure that would shift the course of Esme’s future.
The Beautiful Quiet of Travel
Esme shares that travel creates a pause within our lives, and within that space, you can set aside the identities and responsibilities that follow you in everyday life and begin to think about your possible selves.
Travel makes the space for dreaming.
When Esme and Christine’s good friend Nikki Vargas was a guest on the Trip That Changed Me Podcast, she shared about a trip to Argentina when she was first launching her path to journalism. She felt that there was more travel in her future, and on that trip, she could take a breath and make drastic changes in her life to align more closely with what she truly wanted.
On her year-long cross-country adventure in the United States, Esme and her husband found themselves hiking each week, becoming people who enjoyed the outdoors in ways that they never realized they needed.
Esme found herself able to trust her body again after her miscarriage, feeling herself getting stronger and stronger each time her foot stepped on the trail.
A Surprising Story in Retreats for Couples and Partners
Esme received an unexpected response about her commentary on retreats designed for couples to open up to new conversations. She spoke to three sets of couples and three different retreat leaders/therapists; couples work intensively two-on-one with a therapist in an exotic location. Esme found that these retreats, while expensive, did seem to make a major difference in the lives of the couples who attended.
She shopped the article around several publications before Elle Magazine picked it up, and the story is now in the early stages of development for a television series.
Esme sees this as a lesson in “trusting your gut and intuition” and persevering to follow something you truly believe in.
Traveling with Medical Challenges, Anxiety, and Uncertainty
Christine, journeying with her three daughters on an epic global adventure, shares the importance of creating space for women to share their personal and medical journeys.
Esme was a contributing author for Wanderess by Unearth Women, writing about mental health and travel. In her chapter of the book, Esme includes breath-related meditative exercises to help bring them back from a panic attack–the very place where she found herself in the midst of a bug-polluted jungle on one of her past trips.
“If you’re doing travel right,” Esme says, “there are gonna be some moments when you do experience some anxiety.”
Esme and Christine share tangible tips for returning to your breath, anchoring yourself in the present moment, and using tricks like counting to down-shift your emotions and move through them with more ease.
“I think you don’t realize how much your identity and all the pieces you place around yourself in your day-to-day life constrain you in some ways. And so when you go to a new place, and you don’t know anybody there, you are able to shed all of that, be really present, and start to think about your possible selves.”
Soul of Travel Episode 144 At a Glance
In this conversation, Christine and Esme discuss:
Their most powerful travel experiences
Travel’s role as a catalyst for change
Navigating mental health and travel
Traveling with anxiety
Wanderess: The Unearth Women Guide to Traveling Smart, Safe, and Solo
Join Christine now for this soulful conversation with Esme Benjamin.
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Related UN Sustainable Development Goals
Sustainable Development Goal #3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
Sustainable Development Goal #5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
Sustainable Development Goal #8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
Sustainable Development Goal #10: Reduce inequality within and among countries.
Sustainable Development Goal #11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
Sustainable Development Goal #17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.
Resources & Links Mentioned in the Episode
Learn more about Esme on her website!
Explore the world like an insider with Full Time Travel.
Stay up-to-date on The Trip That Changed Me podcast by Full-Time Travel.
Get your copy of Wanderess by Unearth Women on Penguin Random House.
To check out the Manduka travel towel Esme mentioned on the podcast, visit their website.
To listen to Esme’s interview of Mari Andrew on The Trip That Changed Me Podcast, visit your favorite podcast app or Apple Podcasts.
To listen to Esme’s interview of Lori Woolever, the former assistant to Anthony Bourdain, on your favorite podcast app or on Apple Podcasts.
Follow Esme on your favorite social media network!
Connect with Esme on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
About the Soul Of Travel Podcast
Soul of Travel honors the passion and dedication of people making a positive impact in the tourism industry. In each episode, you’ll hear the stories of women who are industry professionals, seasoned travelers, and community leaders. Our expert guests represent social impact organizations, adventure-based community organizations, travel photography and videography, and entrepreneurs who know that travel is an opportunity for personal awareness and a vehicle for global change.
Join us to become a more educated and intentional traveler as you learn about new destinations, sustainable and regenerative travel, and community-based tourism. Industry professionals and those curious about a career in travel will also find value and purpose in our conversations.
We are thought leaders, action-takers, and heart-centered change-makers who inspire and create community. Join host Christine Winebrenner Irick for these soulful conversations with our global community of travelers exploring the heart, the mind, and the globe.
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Credits. Christine Winebrenner Irick (Host, creator, editor). Esme Benjamin (Guest). Original music by Clark Adams. Editing, production, and content writing by Carly Oduardo.
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WE WON A BESSIE AWARD! The Bessie Awards recognize the achievements of women and gender-diverse people making an impact in the travel industry. To view the complete list of 2022’s winners, visit bessieawards.org.
Soul of Travel Episode 144 Transcript
Women’s travel, transformational travel, sustainable travel, women leaders in travel, social entrepreneurship
Christine: Hey listeners, it's Pod Swap Time. Again, one of my favorite parts of podcasting. Today I am talking with Esme Benjamin, an award-winning writer, editor, and broadcaster based in New York City. Her editorial work can be found in l Conde Nast Traveler Refinery 29, self Well and Good TripAdvisor Culture Trip and More. Esme is the current editor-in-chief of Full-Time Travel and host of the podcast, the Trip that Changed Me, which features transformative travel stories from guests, including writer illustrator Mari Andrew, top chef Judge Gail Simmons and Emmy award-winning host Samantha Brown. I am beyond delighted to be adding my name to this incredible lineup with this special pod swap. I'm interviewing Esme here at Soul of Travel, and then we'll turn the table. And she interviews me for The Trip That Changed Me as a part of her recently launched fourth season. In our conversation, we talked about her most transformational travel experiences, why she thinks travel is such a powerful catalyst for change and why we believe it's so important for people to experience this for themselves.
She also shares about mental health and traveling while managing anxiety. Picking up from her chapter as a contributing author in the book, wondrous The Unearth Women Guide to Traveling Smart, safe, and Solo by Nikki Vargas and Elise Fitzsimmons. And speaking of Nikki, this episode might have one or two moments that turn into a bit of a mutual love fest for my three-peat past guest. And spoiler alert, she's going to be back in season five talking about her new book. It was so fun to bring that into this conversation. Love these soulful conversations. We rely on listener support to produce this podcast. You can support me and amplifying the voices of women by making a donation on PayPal. The link is in the show notes. And don't forget, this is a special pod swap, so you don't want to miss Esme's interview with me on the trip that changed me perhaps. Take a moment now, pause this conversation and download it for later. I'll also share the link in the show notes. Join me now for my soulful conversation with esmi Benjamin.
Christine: Welcome to Soul of Travel podcast. Today I am super excited to be joined by one of my favorite podcast hosts, Esay Benjamin, and she's here to tell her journey, but also we're going to talk about podcasting and her podcast. So I'm super excited for this. She's an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster based out of New York City, and she's also one of my favorite types of creative, multi-passionate women who are doing so many things. So I'm going to turn it over to you to say hello and share a little bit more about who you are and what you're doing in the space of travel right now.
Esme: Oh, thank you, Christine. I'm excited to be here and connect with you and your listeners. Oh God, this is the worst question you can ask a British person who knows right up there with icebreakers. Okay, so my name is Esme. I am a writer and an editor and a broadcaster. I work for a publication called Full-Time Travel where I'm editor in chief and I oversee all the content there. And then we also have a podcast called The Trip that Changed Me, which is an interview format podcast, much like this one where I speak to people who've had transformational travel experiences.
Christine: Yeah, thank you. And I'm so excited too for our listeners to just know that we are doing a pod swap. So I am interviewing you today, and then we're going to have another episode where you're flipping it and interviewing me. So I'm really excited to also be able to play with that in these upcoming conversations. Yes. Well, to begin our conversation, I'd love for you to just share a little bit about how you got into travel, how you found travel, or how it found you, because it seems that is often the case for many of my guests.
Esme: That's a nice question. So initially when I started out in journalism, my beat was fashion, but over time I started to feel like it didn't really fit me. I felt like I was never wealthy enough for that industry. So I moved more into wellness. And when I came to the States, I got a job over here for a company called The Culture Trip, which is a publication, but they also do all kinds of trips. I think they're mainly focused on trips now, but I was their wellness editor, which was kind of blending my two passions, wellness and travel and, and that's where I'm at. And then I moved on to full-time travel after that.
Christine: Thank you. Well, you mentioned your podcast, the trip that changed me, and you are talking with many other travelers about the experiences that transformed their life. So I'd love to ask the same thing of you. Can you share about one trip or experience that was really transformational that you felt had a profound impact on your journey?
Esme: I had to think long and hard about this one because I think every traveler has so many experiences that have shaped them. But I think mine began in 2020. So I was actually in Hawaii when the pandemic first kicked off, when it was declared a pandemic. I think I got back into New York the day that lockdown began. And as everyone can remember from that time, it was so intense and so stressful. The whole world was feeling it. And then probably a couple of weeks into that experience, one of my very dear friends from university passed away suddenly. That was just, it was really hard. It was really shocking. I hadn't spoken to him in a while. And as is always the case, I felt like, wait, I thought we had more time. I thought we would do more traveling together. So it was difficult and to work through grief when we're all cloistered away from each other.
There was no option of having a funeral or anything like that. So it was tough. And then there was just so much more grief in my future that I didn't realize my grandfather passed away from cancer. I managed to go back home to see him caught covid while I was there. So that was fun. And then after that, probably three months later I had a miscarriage and the following day my nana passed away. So it was in the space of 12 months. I lost a dear friend, two grandparents and a baby and was, I just didn't think I could take much more. I can remember the day that my mom called me and it was the day after I'd had the miscarriage and I thought she was calling to check up on me, but she said, the hospital have just called and they said, Nana's not going to make it.
She's going to die today. And I'd gone into my husband in the bedroom and I just collapsed on the bed in floods of tears. I don't think I've cried like that since I was a tiny child when it just racks your body. I couldn't catch my breath. So then I think I just hit an all time low and my husband and I decided to go to Miami for a week just to rest our hearts and get some sunshine. And while we were there, we just started having conversations and I was like, what if we just put everything in storage, gave up our apartment and just went traveling around the country for a while and he was sort of like, oh yeah, I don't know how actually interested he was in doing this, but I think he felt that I was in such a bad place that he had to get behind the idea. And so that's what we did. It was made more complicated by the fact that neither of us could drive. So we had to pass our driving tests and go through all of the stages of packing everything up and negotiating, breaking the lease and with our apartment and all of that kind of stuff. But ultimately, we did leave on the 1st of July, and that was that we headed off around the country for a big adventure.
Christine: Wow. Well, first of all, thank you so much for sharing all of that with us. I appreciate that. And secondly, I do remember when you were posting about setting off on that trip, and I remember the post about saying that neither of you had a driver's license and you were headed out to explore that us. And there was so many thoughts in that moment. So I grew up in Montana, so I grew up driving very early because I had to drive, my grandparents had a ranch, so I drove farm equipment and driving tractor and all these things. And so it was such a moment of realization of the differences of experiences you can have just within the United States. And I was like, oh my goodness, I hope that they're going to be okay. So that was quite an adventure in and of itself. I'm very sure. Yeah,
Esme: Montana was our first stop and one of the things that struck me besides the obvious incredible beauty of the state was that all along the highways there are those little white crosses to mark every fatality, every traffic fatality. And I was like, okay, we've got to be careful. But we didn't get in any scrapes, not even a minor crash, even a deer darted out in front of us one day and we missed it by a fraction of an inch. But yeah, nothing terrible happened, thankfully.
Christine: Yeah, that is very good. I do also always say I'm a confident driver because of that, because of that is kind of an ominous thing when you're learning to drive to be very present too. And I grew up on one of the most dangerous stretches of road within the state as well because of hills, traffic, weather, all these kinds of different things. So yeah, that was definitely a place for you to start, I guess. But I do know that travel can be so healing, and I know that so many of us reach towards that when we need space to examine and reflect and just uncover something within ourselves that maybe we've hidden from ourselves. And I told you I have been binging the trip. That changed me a little bit in preparation for our conversation and listening to some episodes I had missed. And that was definitely one thing that I think is so interesting about travel is that we have this kind of idea that it's used for escape, so we kind of grab it as our reset, but what it actually does is flips that for us and it becomes instead of an escape like this immersion or this immersive process, I think that's very healing and internal.
So it's, I think it has a little bit of built-in trickery, but from the guests that you have heard from, what do you think have been ways that travel has changed lives and why do you think it is such a catalyst for change and growth and that inner reflection?
Esme: It's such a good question. I think really it comes down to the fact that it creates a pause in our lives and then within that space, other stuff is able to rush in. I think you don't realize how much your identity and all the pieces you place around yourself in your day-to-day life constrain you in some ways. And so when you go to a new place and you don't know anybody there, you are able to shed all of that and be really present and just start to think about your possible selves. I think that's what it comes down to is who might I be? Who do I want to be? Do I feel like I'm on the right track in my life currently or is there another way that I could go? I think, yeah, I think even with my conversation, my husband in Miami, we were able to have that conversation because we'd taken a breather from the daily grind and all of the burdens and responsibilities that we had at home, and we were able to have these bigger conversations and start to dream about what we might do.
And I think a lot of my guests have explored that. In the case of Nikki Vargas, my good friend who is also a friend of this podcast, when she was on the podcast, she talked about a particular trip to Argentina that she took when she was first starting out on her path to journalism. And at the time she was engaged of her partner who was French. They'd spent some time living abroad, but she still felt like there was so much more she wanted to do and so much more travel in her future. And during this one particular trip she took to Argentina, she had a chance to take a breath and really get real with herself and realized that she wasn't happy and that she wanted to call off the engagement, quit her job and completely rearrange her life. I think when we travel, there's a possibility for things like that to happen.
Christine: Yeah, I think so many of us have kind of become romanticized that process a little bit because of books like Eat, pray, love and Wild, where we've seen on the big screen that process. But I do think that is a really true thing that happens, and I just listened to that episode as well because I wanted to hear someone else interviewing. She's been on three times and we're getting ready for our fourth conversation, which is really exciting to talk about her book, about that journey. So that will be really fun. But I do think that pause and the thing that always goes through my mind, and you mentioned and alluded to the idea of letting go of all of these roles that we have in these parts of ourselves or these things that we present outward in our daily. For me, I feel like with my backpack on my back, the minute my feet step off onto the tarmac or the dirt or wherever I am when I land, I just breathe.
And it's like all of those things just stayed in my seat and I get to just be me. And sometimes it's really hard because you forget who you are outside of all of those roles and expectations, and it's so easy to quiet your true self down and just keep armoring through all of those things. And so I think pretty quickly you start having these conversations with yourself that you don't have in your daily life or things are difficult or exciting or different, and the way you approach it just feels so different in that space. And it's really, I think alivening and sometimes can be throw you off your feet a little bit, which is also really helpful.
Esme: Yes, I think that's another part of it, right, is the element of the unexpected, the culture shock, being outside of your comfort zone. I think that makes a big difference. There was an interview I did with Marucci who's the owner of a travel company. Oh my God, I'm blanking on the name, but I can send it to you for the show notes. It's a really great episode. And she had been living in London, and this is a trigger warning, but she had experienced a horrible attack on her front doorstep and it had left her with P T S D. She didn't really know what she wanted to do, and she was feeling directionless, and she spoke to her parents about it and they were like, I think you need to take a solo trip, which seems like crazy advice if you've just gone through a huge trauma to just cast out there on your own.
But actually it was the best advice because she was like, I think they knew something that I didn't know, which was that I needed to start to build up my confidence again, my confidence in my own intuition, in gut feelings, and in my own capabilities to take care of myself and know that the world is not that scarier place and that things will be okay for me. So she ended up going to Cambodia, which I think is also a really interesting place for her to be because she was in non pen, this city that is still recovering from its own trauma, and that's where she found her healing and became a completely different person with a whole new career path as a photojournalist.
Christine: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. I can definitely relate to the idea that people would feel like that was a really challenging choice or a difficult choice or wrong choice to make. But immediately when you mentioned that they said that she should take a solo trip, I was just thinking of how much that forces you to rely upon yourself and trust yourself and find your strength. I mean, you have no choice but to do it, and it might take a few days of you sitting in your room and not leaving before you figure out that you're going to be okay. But there's just something about how much you have to depend on yourself in a way that you don't normally do that I think does make solo travel so powerful and transformative for people. I'm curious, you kind of mentioned the year of travel in the us. Did you have any aha moments or insights or did you and your husband experience anything that you didn't expect? I know you said he was not really as in need of the journey when you set out, but did he find that he was later on or how did that evolve for both of you?
Esme: Yeah, I think there were lots of interesting takeaways. I think we've both been raised, born and raised in cities. So although we love the outdoors, I don't think we'd consider it to be a real part of our personalities before. But spending time out west and becoming so used to hiking, we were hiking every single weekend going to all of these national parks, and I started to feel like this is something that I actually really need in my life more than I'd anticipated. It also helped because the particular miscarriage that I had was called a missed miscarriage, which essentially is when your body doesn't realize that the pregnancy is no longer viable, so the heart's not beating anymore, but you are not for want of a better term, shedding the pregnancy. So I felt like my body had totally betrayed me, and it was really tough.
It was a real one two punch because on the one hand I was like, oh, I've lost the baby, and my body hasn't realized that I've lost the baby. I think learning to trust my body again was much easier in the environment where I could start to really build my strength and hiking every day. I really felt that I felt myself getting stronger and stronger, and again, starting to trust in myself, trust in my own body that I can make it to the top of the mountain. That was hugely helpful. So part of the takeaway was that, and then I also, once we reached California, I found out that I was pregnant again, and so then I had to really confront all my anxieties about whether I was going to lose this pregnancy as well. Plus my particular health insurance doesn't cover me for out of state expenses, so I had no way of knowing what was going on in there until I got back to New York. So we had to spend the next six weeks trying to make our way back to the state so that we could get an ultrasound and find out what was going on. But ultimately it was all fine, and I now have a 10 month old daughter, so it was a happy ending.
Christine: Yeah. Well, again, thank you for sharing that. And I think one thing that I love this space for is really actually being able to open up all these conversations around things that women experience in their lives. And when I was preparing to speak to you, we have bulleted to talk a little bit later about traveling with anxiety. So I think that's a perfect segue to that. But I am also getting ready to travel for a year with my daughters and just even this morning have been really grappling with, because I had a reaction to a medication I took for menopause that was kind of missed because it was very early for me and all these things were happening, and then I took the medication and it has destroyed me and I've really had constant conversations with my body. So as you were talking about that, building that trust, I mean, I just sit here and I'm like, you've done so well today.
These are the conversations I have constantly right now and getting really frustrated that we might not be able to travel. I am not sure if I'm going to be able to, and then knowing how healing travel is, then I'm like, is this actually just what I need? But when you're caring for three children and traveling, how healing are some aspects of that going to be? So this is such a really relevant conversation to me personally right now, is trying to figure out how to build that trust, but how much travel can allow you to reconnect to yourself and how important it's for women, I think to have conversations like this so that we can kind of understand these greater issues that I think don't get talked about because they're really uncomfortable and people aren't sure how to respond to them, and they just kind of get pushed aside.
And I think they're really important to have. So I really appreciate you being so open and sharing and that any of our listeners that are hearing this, hopefully that gives them some freedom to also discuss things that I think are really important for women to be bringing to the table because I have just sat here so many times grappling with, I wish there was a place to even look for information. Even my doctor has been no help. She's just like, this is an unfortunate thing that has happened and it shall resolve probably someday at some time and you might feel better, but there's no real understanding of what has happened. And so anyway, that's a side note, but I just really appreciate you sharing that and for people listening to just know it's kind of three points of healing we've talked about with travel, that healing isn't necessarily a superficial healing as well. It can be a really deep powerful place for healing.
Esme: I agree. And I think my life in New after the miscarriage, it was hard because a lot of my friends were getting pregnant or having children, and I just felt isolated. And I think physically moving forward and having that sense of momentum as we traveled across the country, that really helped me feel like I was letting go of some of that baggage and some of that grief. I think it's so important.
Christine: Yeah, thank you. Well, the next thing that this feels like also a great segue, but I know that you wrote a really interesting article on relationship therapy retreats and this, because I went back to the movie Couples Retreats and was thinking about that movie. No
Esme: One just told me about this movie and I was like, I didn't know existed. I need to watch it.
Christine: But it was a really great article. Again, just kind of looking at the different ways that people can use travel to heal literally and to create spaces for conversations. And I know that you also recently received a call that was optioned for a TV series, which I think also must be incredibly exciting. So I'd love to hear more about what you learned about these retreats and what this experience has been like to kind of see the words that you've written be resonant and picked up and what's happening with all of that.
Esme: Honestly, it was so unexpected. So I think the idea first came to me through a press release, a random press release about a psychologist, a therapist who was doing these retreats, and I was like, Hmm, that's interesting. I didn't know if it exactly fit what I'm doing at full-time travel. I did do a version of this story for full-time travel that was like a q and a with a woman who runs a retreat in Sedona for couples, but I wanted to kind of examine the dark side, and that's not quite right for full-time travel. So I was like, all right, let me really dive into this and do a lot of reporting. I spoke to three different retreat leaders slash therapists and three different sets of couples who had been to these retreats. The retreats are held in exotic locations like Costa Rica or the Dominican Republic, and the couples work one-on-one with the therapists for eight hours a day for a week.
So it's super intensive, but I think that if you're in crisis, if you're a couple, a lot of these couples had wound up there because there'd been some infidelity in their relationship. And I think when you're in that level of crisis, one hour a week of therapy over Zoom just is not going to cut it. They needed more help. So it is kind of a last resort and it is very expensive, but for the people who attended these retreats, they felt like it really gave them hope where they had none previously. So after I'd done all this reporting, I started pitching it. Honestly, I can't even explain how hard it was to find this story at home. I think I pitched 11 different editors. I had a couple of people who wanted to ask more questions, but ultimately passed on the story for various reasons.
Finally, this editor from El who I'd emailed a month before responded and said, if it's still available, I am interested in publishing it. So I was like, it's still available, and we worked together. And so then it got published right around, I think it went live like a week after my daughter was born, and I got a message on Instagram a few days after from a literary scout who works with a lot of big producers and directors saying, I'm interested in the optioning rights for this story. Do you own the rights or does Hearst own the rights? Anyway, this is real inside baseball for your audience who probably are not writers. But yeah, so ultimately I don't own the rights. Hearst own the rights, but they started to publicize this story because they saw a lot of potential in it, and there was more and more interest, I think about a dozen different people entities spoke with the team at Hearst because they were interested in optioning it, some for scripted series and some for unscripted, but ultimately it has been optioned finally, and Hearst has brought me on as a consulting producer for the project.
So although I know this is a fickle industry and who knows what will happen with it right now, it's in the early stages of development, which is super exciting.
Christine: How fun. I mean, just probably an experience that in the industry that you're in, you didn't ever expect to be kind of going in that direction. But I think that's just kind of cool to see something like that happen. And it's so interesting to me as a reader to think that you had to shop around so much to find that article at home because it's very interesting. And when I read it, I was just like, oh yeah, this is such an interesting topic and these stories of these people are very interesting and I can see right away how people could imagine a script around it because it is very, I think there's something really relatable and completely unrelatable about it that makes it very interesting.
Esme: Yes, and it's also, it's right in the sweet spot trend wise. It is kind of like a white lotus meets couples therapy. So yeah, now I'm like, that makes perfect sense that I'm not surprised it was optioned, but at the time, there were times when I was pitching it and I was like, am I crazy? Is this not a good idea? And I think, again, less than interesting, your gut and intuition, I think this is a good story. And ultimately it was better than I even thought it. It had more potential than I thought it did,
Christine: And perhaps it needed to spin around in the universe for a while so that it did land at the right time when all this other conversation was happening. Well, we did mention a little bit about, well, both Nikki now and Wondrous and traveling with anxiety. So I want to jump into that part of our conversation and for our listeners, you were contributing author for the book Wondrous, and anyone who wants to learn more about that can go back to episode 78 and hear and specific about that book. Nikki and I talked through it when it came out, but you contributed to the section on mental health and travel and specifically talking about managing anxiety, which again, for me feels so relevant. So I wanted to talk a little bit about why that was important for you to write and then we can talk even a little bit about some of the techniques that you mentioned. And there was also a packing list that I would love to just pull a few of both of our favorite tips, I guess, from that section.
Esme: Well, I think normally when I read about travel and wellbeing, the advice is always so that it's like, oh, try and eat more salad or do yoga by the pool in the mornings. And I was like, it just feels uninspiring. And so I started to think about trips that I'd taken and times when I needed wellbeing tools. And this one particular trip came to mind, which was a trip to Borneo that I took when I was 23, and my friend and I decided to do this jungle track experience where you take a boat out into the middle of nowhere and there's a little camp there and you go look for orangutans and you're really in the jungle. And in my mind, I think I forgot that I do not bugs. I'm quite scared of wildlife. I'm quite bougie if I'm honest. I like a nice hotel.
So I think even though I was young at the time and I was used to staying in places that were just fine basic, this was very basic. It was like little huts on stilts with a chicken wire around the outside and a tin roof and the jungle at night. For anyone who hasn't been to the jungle, it is so loud. There are so many unfamiliar noises, squawks and splashes, and was thinking in my mind, I was picturing we'd seen a snake in the water before we went to bed. So I was picturing snakes coming in, I was picturing crocodiles, I was just spinning out which anyone who has anxiety will be familiar with. And so then to cope with it, I had to do these breathing exercises. And so that's what I included in the chapters of the book was a few different kind of meditative exercises. Some of them, well, a lot of them breath related, some of them like yoga related that people can do to just kind of level themselves and bring themselves back from the brink of a panic attack, which is where I found myself that day in the jungle.
Christine: I think it's so helpful, and I also found it really interesting that for me, it's taken a long time to even realize that I had anxiety or had anxiety when I traveled. I had found myself coping with it or managing it but didn't even realize I had it or was managing it, which I felt was very interesting to me. And again, going back to topics that we don't really talk about and should talk about, you mentioned in your chapter that one in three women suffer from an anxiety disorder, which I had no idea, but makes a lot of sense if I look at my peer group and conversations we've had more honestly and open recently. But for me, one of the behaviors I noticed is I wouldn't call myself a nervous flyer, but at some point landing, and I think it comes from some repeated flights to Mexico on a very bumpy airstrip where the flights were pretty, the landings were pretty traumatic. I noticed that when I notice that we're landing, I always have my hands on both armrests and I start breathing really calmly. And then just as I know we're about to land, I kind of count backwards from three to one, and then as the tires land, I exhale
Esme: Big exhale.
Christine: I was like, oh, I had no idea that's what I was doing. But after rereading this, I thought, aha, this is exactly an example of how I'm helping myself through those situations, even if I wasn't doing it consciously.
Esme: And I really think if you're doing travel, there are going to be some moments where you do experience some anxiety. And I think sometimes it's something as simple as my first flight took off late, so therefore I might miss my connecting flight and you're getting nervous about that, or it's something like spending the night in a jungle with all kinds of crazy creatures, but whatever the case, I think there's always going to be moments where you need to study yourself, and that's absolutely fine. I think we all have those moments where we need a bit of extra support and no shame in using any medications for that because I have used them myself, and I know plenty of other people who have, but you don't always have those on hand when you need them. And it's just nice to be able to have something natural and easy that you can reach for when you need to feel more grounded.
Christine: And I would definitely encourage people to look into breathwork. I think it's so healing just in general in our daily lives. I think mean especially you live in the city and it's a place that's super energized and you go from 7:00 AM till 9:00 PM before you even noticed it happened. So being intentional about breath is just, it's so, so important. It's something I've really tried to instill in my daughters whenever they're finding something is out of their control, I really invite them to focus on some sort of breathing. And so I think that'll be something that's kind of built into their toolkit as well. And then the other thing for me that I noticed that I do is wiggle my feet in the ground onto the ground to just be present to myself, but also to feel grounded and secure and safe. One of the other techniques you mentioned, which I've also, I think it was even Nikki, I heard her saying something similar about writing, but the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 technique to get you back into your body but present to your surroundings. Is that one that you are familiar with or use very often of kind of naming? I think it's like five things you see, four things you hear or something like that. If I'm not saying it wrong,
Esme: Yeah, I can't think of what it is off the top of my head, me. So it is five things you see, four things you can feel or that are touching you, three things you can hear, two smells and one thing you like about yourself. So you can write those down or you can just think them. And often it's also how I like to get into meditation when I get around to meditating is by just trying to be sensorially aware. What is it that I can hear? Because often you're like, oh yeah, it's quiet in this room, but is it really quiet in the room? Can you hear right now? I can hear there's people outside on the street walking by. I can hear them. I can hear my dog occasionally. I can hear my humidity, my humidifier is emitting a little white noise. Once you start to notice those things, you become so much more grounded in the moment and focused on where you are and that reduces your anxiety significantly.
Christine: Yeah, that's one that I have also used with my kids as well, but I think it is also we'll do it just hiking because I think sometimes as little kids, they are peeing around and they are paying attention, but they'll start talking about whatever it is that they're talking about at the moment, and I just almost make it a game. What are five things you see? And the four things so that they can kind of understand how to be present. I think that's also something that we've lost through all of the busyness and chaos of our daily life that we can maybe pull back in a little bit easier when we're traveling and if we practice it there, then it might be easier when we come back and return to the busyness of our life.
Esme: That's a great idea. I think anchoring yourself in the present moment is harder than you think, and I think it's why people say, I can't meditate. I'm terrible at meditating because they think clear your mind, clear your mind, be present, but your mind is always going to do something. So the way I like to think of it is give it a job. If you give your mind a job, then you can really focus. And that's why a lot of the breathing techniques that I use to calm myself also involve counting, even if it's just like inhale, count to one, exhale two, inhale, three, just simple counting that really helps you focus on something and that helps with the downshifting.
Christine: Yeah, so I did mention the packing list that was in here, and I just wanted for listeners, you can definitely find the book. There's also a million other amazing topics in this book for women who are travelers, but some of my favorite things that I recognize or that I use when I travel are essential oils, which is mentioned. And again, early traveling with my kids, I would always diffuse lavender wherever we went and in their rooms, and it was kind of this way that they knew kind of where they were or there was this common thing that helped them to feel comfortable. Also helped me to feel calm, which is helpful. And I always put extra cozy, big fluffy socks, kind of a comfort item for me or a favorite sweatshirt even if I don't think I need it. One of those things that just if you're feeling uncomfortable or unsure, there's something about that comfort for me that helps me to just be more at ease. But I was wondering what are a couple of your favorite items?
Esme: I have a little yoga mat that I travel with, which is, I think it's by Manduka and it's very thin. It's really just a tiny sheet that you can put down anywhere, but so it's really easy to throw that in a suitcase and it means that when you get off a long flight or whatever, you can just do a few stretches in the hotel room. I personally love that because I know you do a lot of yoga as well, but my body just feels really funky if I don't at least do some stretching once a week and especially after a long flight. That's something that's really necessary. I do love what you said about the oils, and I think that's completely right, not just again, because it brings your focus to something sensory, but the idea of the familiar scent, because there's something specific about smells and scents, that familiar ones, they just really take us right back there to where we initially smell the scent. So if you have it at home then and you use it while you're away, I can totally imagine that that would make you feel a lot calmer. I love that.
Christine: And I do yoga socks every once in a while too, because that's a little bit easier sometimes than a yoga mat, just the sticky spots, so then I can,
Esme: That's good.
Christine: Can attempt to do yoga wherever I am.
Esme: Also, I know this is, not having a phone is not conducive to reducing anxiety at all, but I do really rate some of the meditation apps and that's why I actually learned a lot of these breathing techniques. It's nice because you can just put your headphones in and do it wherever you are. Personally, I love Headspace. They also have amazing bedtime stories that I really, really love and sleepy sounds. So if you have issues with insomnia, which I quite frequently do, it's so good for that.
Christine: Yeah, I'll also give a good shout out to Headspace. That's my favorite Make it All Easy app. Well, I know you launched today season four of the trip that changed me, which is so exciting. Congratulations today as we're recording. So obviously when this airs, there'll be episodes out, but I'd love for you to share one of your favorite past interviews and then also one that you're most looking forward to in this upcoming season.
Esme: Oh, God, there's so many good ones. I'm trying to think of one that your audience would particularly, I think one that I think is actually interesting was with the writer and illustrator, Mari Andrew, who I am a big fan of. I think all of her writing is so heartfelt and just really resonates with me and a lot of other people, obviously, otherwise she wouldn't be so popular. Her Instagram, definitely check it out if you haven't already, but her story was about a trip that she took to Hira in Greece, and it was a solo trip. She's somebody who prides herself on solo travel. I think she's written about it for New York Times and all kinds of other publications. She really considers herself at her core to be a solo traveler. But on this particular trip, she started to feel differently about solo travel, and I think the way she put it was that it was so heartbreakingly beautiful and that she realized that beauty is meant to be shared, and she started to feel like, actually, I'd like to bring people with me when I have these experiences because whether you are reflecting back on something with somebody years later or just being more in the moment and bringing things to each other's attention, it is special to travel with somebody.
So I thought that was an interesting flip on the idea of solo travel because most people who are solo travelers that I have on the podcast obviously are advocating for more of that. And I do think that solo travel is life-changing for so many reasons as we discussed before, it really helps you shed your identity because there's nobody around who is like, you don't usually do that, that's not very you. But yeah, I think it can also be special to travel with other people and there is an opportunity for it to be life changing.
Christine: Yeah, that's really interesting that she had that awareness, but it really makes sense because part of why I even started my travel company is because I really wanted women to have those experiences that I was
Esme: Happy in community.
Christine: Yeah, it's really relatable that she would be feeling that way.
Esme: And there's another one with this, a woman called Rachel Cigna who's a journalist by trade. She used to live in Brooklyn, and she's also a food and wine expert, specifically she loves natural wine. And she went on at the beginning of her career, a trip to Burgundy in Paris, a press trip. That trip while she was there, she decided like, okay, I love Paris. I love natural wine. My best friend and I could open a natural wine bar, but on this trip, she also met this Australian winemaker, and the two of them hit it off and began a budding romance. And so ultimately she had to make a decision between Paris and the bar with her best friend or moving to the middle of nowhere to live on a vineyard with this man she was wildly in love with to start a family and maybe become a winemaker herself. And it's a really interesting journey that we go on with her. And she talks a lot about falling in love with places as well as people, because I think that sometimes we go to a place and it just something about it, even if we've never been there before, there's just something about it that feels familiar and inspiring to us, and I think you can really become smitten with different locations around the world.
Christine: I felt that way, and I think this is how you and I actually originally connected was when I was in Antigua in Guatemala, the minute again, my feet hit the streets and the cobblestone and the doors, and I just was like, there is just some part of me that already lives here. And I almost felt like I was going to open one of those huge doors and find her. That was kind of how I felt when I was in that space. And I still feel very called to go back there and spend some more time because of that connection. But it is really interesting how a place will just catch you off guard, and there's something about the place. I loved the people obviously as well, but just something about me felt very aligned as soon as I was in that place.
Esme: I love to ask people the question on the podcast, where were you from in your past life? That feeling of I've been here before, something about my soul recognizes this place. It's my place.
Christine: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So who is someone coming up that you're really excited to speak with?
Esme: Oh, it's a tough one. There are so many cool people. The first episode that just went live today is with Laurie Wooler, who is the former assistant of Anthony Bourdain. She's an amazing writer in her own, and the two of them worked on lots of books together, and her story is about going to SSRI Lanka to film parts unknown with Anthony, and just it's so lovely to hear her anecdotes about him. If you're a fan of his, which many people are, then yeah, it's just lovely to hear a humanizing side of him and the way that he was as a traveler and as a person. And also to hear Lori's story about being somebody who is newly sober and trying to travel, because I don't think that we appreciate fully the way that food and drink are entwined or the experience of being somewhere. It is so ritualized. You eat this meal and it comes, it's paired with the local craft beer or the local rice whiskey, whatever it is. So for her to break those habits was I think a big deal. So yeah, she talks a lot about that and just her experiences of diving into the cuisine in SSRI Lanka and yeah, she's great. So I definitely recommend listening to her episode.
Christine: Yeah, thank you. And one of the questions I always ask is if people could take an adventure with one person, fictional or real live or past, who would it be? And Anthony Boarding definitely is a very frequent person who's mentioned. So I think many of our listeners definitely would love to listen to her episode, so I hope they'll check that out. I have just been finishing, I'm not done yet with Elizabeth Becker's episode, and I'm in love with that, and I really want to have her on my podcast now. Oh my gosh. As you alluded to, there was so many things you probably could have talked to her about that I was like, oh, I'd love to ask this question and follow up to that question.
Esme: I know some of the guests I have on, I get to the end and I'm like, oh, I can see the clock ticking. And I'm like, we've got to wrap up, but I feel like we need another hour
Christine: That happens to me all the time and is in fact happening to me at this moment. So for our listeners, I obviously want to encourage 'em to check out the podcast. Where can they find you?
Esme: Yes, so the podcast is called The Trip That Changed Me. It's available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, basically anywhere you find podcasts. And you can also find my work at full-time travel.co co and on my website esmi benjamin.com.
Christine: Great. Thank you so much. And I do also have a few rapid fire or rapid fire ish questions. Okay. Our conversation. So the first is, what are you reading right now?
Esme: What am I reading right now? I actually am between reading, what was the last thing I read? Oh my God, I'm drawing a complete blank. This is what life is like when you've just had a child. I just have no memory whatsoever.
Christine: Yeah, well, just so you know, it never really gets better. And I have three, so it's horrible.
Esme: Oh, good.
Christine: Although my husband just put on a movie from my childhood Real Genius, which is like a 1980s Val Kilmer movie that I watched obsessively when I was a child, and as soon as he put it on, I could remember almost the entire film. And I was just thinking, why does that have to be taking up space in my brain right now? But I can't really remember if I need to pack a lunch tomorrow.
Esme: Yes. Oh, one thing I read that was really good recently was Big Swiss.
Christine: Okay, thank you.
Esme: It's a book about a, she's the one who transcribes therapy sessions for a living, and she falls in love with one of the patients whose interview she's been transcribing and then meets her in real life, and they begin a love affair, but she doesn't reveal that she knows all of this stuff about her life and experiences. It's very funny. It's very imaginative. Definitely a good read
Christine: And also sounds like it should be picked up for what is always in your suitcase or backpack when you travel.
Esme: Oh my God. I hate to say my phone, but unfortunately my phone more recently, I did buy a Leica camera, which I am trying to take everywhere with me because it means I have to rely on my phone less because I feel like we all create so much content on our phone now, which it's amazing that you have that, but if your goal is to put your phone away more, which mine is, then having your own nice camera is definitely a good hack.
Christine: Yeah, I mentioned that I'm preparing to travel hopefully still for the year, and that's one of the conversations I just been having is I was going to, should I get the nicer iPhone so I know I can just take pictures? Great. And my old DSLRs, I mean, it just can't even compete or should I get a new camera so that I actually don't have to use my phone and I can kind of see the world through my camera again, which is something that I used to love to experience. So I can really relate to how important that is, especially if you don't want to be distracted by everything else that happens on your phone to Sojourn is to travel somewhere as if you live there for a short while. Where is a place that you would still love to sojourn?
Esme: I would love to sojourn. This is a funny one, but Miami. I don't know why I love Miami so much, but I really do. I feel like I love, the beach is beautiful, the water is perfection. I love the Latin American vibe down there. The people are really fun, and it's just a fun scene and I feel cool to spend some time there. And as I'm getting older and I'm thinking about leaving New York, there's only a couple of places in the States that are calling to me and Miami is one of them.
Christine: Interesting. Well, we'll look out to see where you end up. What do you eat that immediately connects you to a place you've been?
Esme: I think probably Pad Thai is my, I mean, I always eat, I love Thai food, but I also love Thailand. And whenever I feel like I'm missing it, I think it's the place I've spent the most time out of. Anywhere that I've traveled, I've probably spent several months there when you add up all the visits into one. So yeah, I love to just try and transport myself back there with a good patai or a green curry,
Christine: And it's just impossibly good and super difficult to replicate. I just had my kids make me Thai food for Mother's Day, actually, and it was very sweet. I was like, it's not quite the same. Yeah,
Esme: Good try. Yeah.
Christine: Who was a person that inspired or encouraged you to set up and explore the world?
Esme: I think this is probably an obvious answer, but my parents, I think that's where my love of travel began. They traveled a lot before I was born. They spent a lot of time in India specifically, that's their favorite place. And I think there were a lot of little artifacts and things from India in our house, like little stainless steel cups, which you see at Indian restaurants when you go. My dad also used to import Ayurvedic products, so we had Ayurvedic toothpaste, Ayurvedic creams and stuff, which I didn't, again, I never thought anything of it until I was older. But yeah, when they traveled there, I don't think they even had, I mean, God, there wasn't even Coca-Cola or anything in those days, and they didn't have proper cameras. They had slight, they had slideshow, they weren't printed photos. They would sometimes get the projector out and do a slideshow of stuff from the early eighties in India. And I think that definitely ignited my desire to see the world.
Christine: Yeah. Well, here's the question I already mentioned, but if you could take an adventure with one person, fictional or real alive or past, who would it be?
Esme: It would be David Attenborough, and I would go with him to the Galapagos Islands or something where he could really tell me about everything and I could just listen to his soothing voice all day.
Christine: Yeah, that would be clear. Then you get your meditation app and your travel in one.
Esme: Yes, exactly.
Christine: So Soul of Travel is a space for honoring women in the industry. Who is one woman you admire and would love to recognize in this space?
Esme: Oh my God, there are so many. I'm not thinking of anyone off the top of my head who feels like they all feel equally worthy.
Christine: Yeah, absolutely.
Esme: I guess I'd just like to say give a plug to Nikki as if she needs anymore. She's pretty killing it, but she like we're having on her fourth time, and I'll probably have her on again as well. But yeah, she always inspires me. She has such a love of travel and a voracious appetite for life and is just a good human being and one of my best friends. So I guess I'd say her.
Christine: Yeah. Thank you. And it's going to be really hilarious to share this episode with her. She'll be like, oh my gosh, she cries.
Esme: Yeah. I appreciate it.
Christine: Yeah, I agree. I really appreciate who she is in the industry as well. So I will let you go ahead and just shout her name one more time. So thank you and thank you so much for the interview. It's been so fun. I'm glad that we were finally able to do this after kind of going back and forth for several years, and really glad that it timed with the launch of this season of your podcast. And can't wait to talk to you soon on the other side of the mic, as it were.
Esme: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. It's been lovely.
Christine: Thank you.
You can find me on Facebook at Lotus Sojourns on Facebook, or join the Lotus Sojourns Collective, our FB community, or follow me on Instagram either @lotussojourns or @souloftravelpodcast. Stay up to date by joining the Lotus Sojourns mailing list. I look forward to getting to know you and hopefully hearing your story.