Episode 211 - Ketti Wilhelm, Tilted Map
In this episode of Soul of Travel, Season 6: Women's Wisdom + Mindful Travel, presented by @journeywoman_original, Christine shares a soulful conversation with Ketti Wilhelm.
Ketti Wilhelm is the founder of Tilted Map – an award-winning travel blog and social media brand that shares actionable, realistic advice for how to make any kind of travel more sustainable. (It doesn't all have to be eco-lodges in the rainforest!) She's a dedicated sustainability advocate (with a Master's Degree in Sustainable Business & Energy from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy), an experienced writer (with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Montana), and an insatiable traveler, foodie and serial expat (having lived and worked in China, Italy, France, Spain and Nicaragua). She speaks fluent Italian, Spanish, and a bit of French, Portuguese and Mandarin. In addition to Tilted Map, her travel writing and photography have been published by many magazines, including Wanderlust, the UK’s most-read independent travel magazine, where she served as Sustainability Editor at Large. When not traveling, you can find her playing the Brazilian martial art of capoeira, or exploring the outdoors on a skis or a bike. She and her husband also lead group e-bike trips in rural parts of Italy that most foreigners never visit.
Early Travel Experiences and the Pull of International Travel
Ketti’s parents had a small business converting busses into luxury motorhomes when she was growing up; Ketti recounts traveling by road to RV shows to showcase their work, seeing these family trips as absolute adventures. She remembers thinking, “It was the most fun thing ever.”
Ketti continued to be driven by this call to adventure, looking for every opportunity she could to study abroad, spending two summers in a row studying in Central America and backpacking solo through Nicaragua and El Salvador. She followed those adventures with a semester in Spain and studying with a professor in Patagonia.
Continuing to forge her own path, Ketti began teaching in China, where she also began practicing capoeira and finding a community—and her now-husband. Working as a freelance writer was rewarding, but Ketti recognized the frustration she was experiencing with the approval and editing process.
After completing graduate school in sustainable business and energy, Ketti again knew that she wanted to forge her own path. “I thought, I don't actually want to do that either. I want to go back to writing about travel, but I want to include all of this sustainability perspective and climate change knowledge, everything that I've learned about in grad school, but go back to travel writing with that perspective.”
“And then I also want to start my own business and be able to do whatever I want instead of waiting for an answer, to be able to write a story. So that's, that's where Tilted Map came from.”
Leveraging Social Media to Catalyze Change
Christine and Ketti share the nuances of travel journalism and how her background and studies have helped Ketti tenaciously lead for change in travel. “I make a point of trying to make my Instagram content look like normal travel influencer content, right? And then I kind of sneak in…” with deeper conversations on sustainability and regenerative practices in travel and more.
Ketti also brings up a candid point about gender and how “influencing” is perceived — take a listen!
Working with companies online, Ketti has learned the right questions to ask to get to the heart of responsibly sharing with an audience. “Ask questions…Even if you don't know what the answer should be, the fact that you ask a question, they, they should be able to give you a response, right? That's the test. The test is not, is the answer the perfect answer? And do you know what the answer means?”
Ketti also suggests that content creators look at what the company is actually doing. What information do they share about climate and sustainability? Who else can you speak to other than the person with home you are connected directly?
Content creators really do have a role in shaping travel habits. It's not just about sharing experiences, but understanding and conveying the impact of those stories on both audiences and the destinations involved. There's a growing need for accountability and integrity when we share travel stories, especially on social media.
Authenticity in Partnerships
Ketti shares her positive experience with UnCruise, a company that has distinguished itself by working closely with local communities in Baja California. Unlike traditional cruise companies, UnCruise integrates genuinely into the local economy by engaging with local families, thus offering a more authentic and responsible travel experience. Plus, ships are very small (only fifty-five or so passengers per voyage!). Ketti’s decision to partner with them was based on their openness about their sustainability efforts and their direct connection with local cultures, serving as a model for others in their partnerships, too.
Carbon Offsetting vs. Carbon Removal
Ketti discusses her preference for promoting carbon removal initiatives over traditional carbon offsetting, which often suffers from credibility issues. By supporting organizations like Tomorrow's Air, travelers can directly invest in carbon capture technologies without the complicated equivalency calculations of offsets. This approach not only simplifies the process but also amplifies the collective impact of individual investments.
Creating direct impact in a model that aligns with their values, Ketti and her husband have begun leading intimate bike tours in Italy's Marche region, offering unique cultural experiences with local farmers and artisans. These e-bike tours are crafted to ensure sustainability and authenticity, aligning with Ketti's overarching mission to encourage meaningful and responsible travel.
“From my perspective, it’s so much more valuable to say: I’m going to put money toward something that is literally going to remove some carbon from the air permanently Instead of saying: I need to figure out the emissions of my flight in order to understand how much money I need to invest.”
Soul of Travel Episode 211 At a Glance
In this conversation, Christine and Ketti discuss:
· Sustainability in travel and how to make the conversation more accessible to greater audiences
· Greenwashing in content creation and brand partnerships and how to avoid it
· Carbon capture and shaping the tourism industry
· Hyper-local bike tours and the potential of local connection
Join Christine and Ketti Wilhelm now for this soulful conversation.
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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 #9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
Sustainable Development Goal #11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
Sustainable Development Goal #13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
Sustainable Development Goal #17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.
Resources & Links Mentioned in the Episode
Connect with Ketti on your favorite social media network! Instagram / LinkedIn / YouTube / Facebook
Learn more about the upcoming super-local Tilted Map bike trips in Italy at https://www.tiltedmap.com/biketrip/.
Special gratitude to our partner for this month, Explorer X and their newly launched Hero Travel Fund! If you’ve been dreaming of an extraordinary journey, one that takes you beyond the ordinary and into the heart of new cultures and perspectives, but the financial barriers have been holding you back, then the HTF is for you. Apply by February 28th: https://www.explorer-x.com/hero.
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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.
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Soul of Travel Episode 211 Transcript
Women’s travel, transformational travel, sustainable travel, women leaders in travel, social entrepreneurship
Christine: Welcome to Soul of Travel podcast. I'm your host, Christine, and today I am delighted to be joined by one of my favorite People in travel. Um, Keddie Wilhelm is joining me. She's the founder of Tilted Map and we have an impossibly long list of potential talking points, um, which is perfect, but I'm going to do my best to get us through those.
Christine: Um, I can't wait to, to get into this conversation. Um, so I'm going to turn it over to you to just introduce yourself and tell our listeners who you are.
Ketti: Hi, Christine. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. I, I've been, uh, sort of binging Soul of Travel the last few weeks and I'm, I'm Honored to be that you invited me to be here because you've had some amazing, so interesting guests, um, in the last, in the last few years. So it's really cool to be here. Um, I, yeah, like you said, I started, um, tilted map about five years ago now as a travel blog, sustainable travel blog and sustainable living.
Ketti: Um, so considering that I started in 2019, right before the pandemic, I was glad that I kind of started on, um, Planning to do both the home stuff and the travel stuff. Uh, because that side, the sustainable living side really got me through the pandemic years. And now, yeah, it's been my full time job for five years.
Ketti: Um, both the social media brand with Instagram and just started a YouTube channel, um, focusing on the same topics. And we try to cover sustainable travel in a way that's really. Sort of holistic and approachable. So it's how you can do any kind of travel more sustainably, not just, it doesn't have to be eco lodges.
Ketti: It doesn't have to be, you know, eco travel, safari, that kind of thing. If you want to do a city trip, how can you do a more sustainable one? If you're flying, how can you find flights with lower carbon emissions? Really travel, really meeting people where they are and covering sort of all aspects of sustainability and travel.
Christine: Yeah. Thank you. That was one of the things I wanted to say, um, as we, as we got going, as I feel like you have a real gift for making advice be accessible and realistic and actionable. So it's not just something that feels like I would read about it and then have no idea how to put any of those steps into practice in my own life.
Christine: That's what I think is that you have done really well. And also like, The education component is strong, but it's never to a point where it's too heady that anyone reading it can't understand it. And I think that's really important in this space. I think initially in the realm of sustainability, we kind of shot ourself in the foot because we created this very um, academic perspective of sustainability.
Christine: And I think in order to get more people involved, it's important to just. Let some of that go.
Ketti: Thank you. That, uh, that's a huge compliment. So thank you for that. That's exactly what I try to do, honestly, is make it so that people who do not care about sustainability will still be interested. Or maybe, you know, they care a little bit, but they're not going to go out of their way to research it. They just assume that there's nothing they can do if they're going to fly.
Ketti: How often have I heard that, right? Well, I'm going to fly. So what's the point in worrying about the carbon emissions once I get there or what do you, you know, people just think that. One sort of bad deed, quote unquote, cancels out anything else that they could bother to do. And then we're just, we're just locking 99 percent of people out of the conversation because they feel bad right from the start.
Ketti: Um, and because like you said, it's so, it's so academic. It's so how many times have I heard the conversation in sustainable travel circles of, well, are we talking about sustainable travel or regenerative travel? You just made 99 percent of people stop listening because, because people don't know the difference.
Ketti: People don't care about the difference. And most people are so far from having that level of conversation that they just, they just feel like it's not for them. And so, and so what's the point in even trying. So thank you. I'm glad, I'm glad that you're getting that vibe from my content.
Christine: Yeah. Thank you. Um, well, one of the things that I have done on the past few episodes is I have shared kind of like my guest meet cute. And so I have to share ours because it was really fun. I think, um, we were at WITS a couple years ago, a few past events ago, and, um, we were like both had our water bottles in our hand and we were like hunting for the place that we could refill our water bottles.
Christine: And we were both like. Exasperated because we're like, why is there no refillable water station? And like our eyes met and we like rolled our eyes and then you like looked and you're like, wait, is that a Montana sticker on your water bottle? Like it is. And then we're like looking in our clock. Cause we both want to be in this session.
Christine: And then you're like. Wait, is that a Pella phone case? I have to find you later. And I was like, okay, whoever that was, I am definitely finding her because the two things that you just noticed in the context of us both, like so mad we couldn't find a place to refill our water bottles. I was like, that's my person, whoever that is.
Christine: I don't know if you remember, but it was hilarious.
Ketti: That's so lovely. I do remember us meeting over the water fountain and rolling our eyes together and our eyes met and rolled at the same time over how long it took to find a water fountain in this huge conference hall. Um, that's so funny. I'm so glad you remember all those other details.
Christine: Yeah. Yeah. It was great. Um, but I think it's always just interesting how you find the people that resonate. And you know, since then, obviously I've been following your journey. Um, I would love for you to kind of, as we begin this conversation, share a bit about your early travel experiences, so we can understand how your travel journey began.
Christine: Maybe talk about how you first fell in love with travel and then. If there's an experience that was really a catalyst to realizing that sustainability needed to be a part of the travel conversation for you, you could walk us into that as well.
Ketti: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Well, I, I mean, I guess. As a kid, I didn't, I didn't travel internationally at all. Um, well, no, I can't say that because my mom will hear that and say, no, Katie, you went to the Bahamas for six weeks when you were 18 months old. Um, so that was my one, um, international trip as a kid. But my parents for my entire childhood had a business, a small business, just my mom and dad, where they would convert.
Ketti: 35 foot Greyhound buses into luxury motor homes one at a time. It took about a year to make each one. And then at the end of the year, when they finished, at least in the beginning, they, we would, the whole family would pack up the bus and drive across the country from rural Montana, where we lived to Texas or Virginia or California for a bus conversion show, and we would sell, sell the bus there.
Ketti: And I remember those trips feeling like. The biggest most exotic adventures. We were always like we were always leaving in the middle of the night for some reason I don't know if it was super early morning or super late at night But it was like once my parents finished everything that needed to be finished before we could go that was when we left So it was always dark when we left and that was an adventure And we were always sleeping in truck stops.
Ketti: That was the only place like that was where you could park, uh, you know, a 35 or 40 foot bus for free. And so we're sleeping in truck stops. And I remember the sound of the Jake breaks, you know, that like, like break sound from the 18 wheelers. That was the sound. Adventure to me that was the sound of like, oh my god, we are going somewhere and I don't remember I don't remember much about those trips But I remember just thinking it was the most fun thing ever and then one of my one of my earliest Memories really is of sitting like at the kitchen table My parents had this globe, you know An old school like real globe and I would sit there and I would spin the globe with my finger and I would stop it And And I would say, look, mom, I'm going to go to Mozambique.
Ketti: Look, I'm going to go to, I don't know, Vanuatu. Um, and I don't know where I got that really. I, I have no idea where I got that, but that was, you know, that was when I was four or five and then throughout school, um, I loved languages. I always had a knack for languages. I was the only kid in Spanish class in Montana who actually spoke Spanish by the end of high school.
Ketti: And I thought it was like a secret language. It was the coolest thing, uh, coolest thing in the world to me. And so I started college and I took every opportunity I could possibly get to study abroad. I did two summers in a row in Central America, um, doing courses on environmental justice and, um, sort of the.
Ketti: People there doing the work to undo the damage of the U. S. involvement in Central America in the 70s, 80s, 90s. Um, and then spent the, you know, a couple of weeks of that and then the rest of the summer backpacking by myself, uh, all over Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, which of course my parents, you know, I don't know, they were, I'm pretty sure they were pretty stressed out about it, but they maintained their cool impressively well.
Ketti: And this was back in the is where I would. Go and send them an email on an internet, on a computer in an internet cafe where half of the keyboard, only half of the keyboard worked. And so it was like, you know, missing letters in every word. Hi, I'm fine. Like hiked a volcano. Great time. Uh, yeah, that was, that was college.
Ketti: And then, um, I studied abroad, did a semester in Spain. I did, uh, some research in Patagonia with a professor. I finished college and I just wanted to go study abroad again. Um, that was the only thing on my mind. I had studied journalism with a minor in international development studies and all of my classmates in the journalism school were going off to work in small town newspapers for the most part.
Ketti: And I just. I mean, very important, necessary work. And I just didn't want to do it. Um, so I applied for jobs at NGOs in Eastern Europe, um, guiding in South America, which I ended up, I did end up going back and doing some guiding work in Latin America years later. But, um, and I applied for this job teaching English at a university in China.
Ketti: And that's the one that I got. So, after studying French and Spanish and a little bit of Arabic in college, I moved to China. Uh, while I was there, I lived there for about a year and a half, and Right in the beginning when I was there, I actually started, um, playing capoeira, which is a Brazilian martial art, um, in China, because I like met a guy in a bar who taught it and didn't speak any Chinese at the time and figured, okay, sure, I'll do this.
Ketti: Um, and then through capoeira event in Shanghai, I actually met my now husband, um, who's from Italy. And so after China, we. We went traveling together kind of to get to know each other. I mean, you spend two months living in a minivan with someone in New Zealand and you will, you will get to know them. Um, and then we moved to Italy together and I learned Italian there.
Ketti: We got married there. Um, and then that's where I went to grad school. And I had been, uh, to go back for a second, I had been doing some freelance writing for travel magazines while I was in China, because I knew I liked writing about travel. I always loved writing. Um, and I did want to be a journalist in some way, but I was really frustrated with the process of being a freelance writer and, you know, sending a pitch and waiting a month to hear a no word, a one word, no response or something, or, um, You know, just feeling like I couldn't write what I really wanted to write or everything always got turned into something else.
Ketti: Um, and the kind of real deep dives on sustainability that I was starting to be interested in, or really just anything honest or controversial was really hard to sell. And then it was really hard to, it was really hard to make money. Also, I, you know, I started realizing, Hey, I want to be the person making the ad revenue that you're going to be making for the next five years.
Ketti: After you publish this article, that should be going to me instead of getting a one time fee that I can, you know, I can barely live off of. So I got kind of frustrated with that. And then after we moved to Italy, I decided to go back to school and I got my master's in sustainable business and energy. Um, at a university, Bocconi University in, in Milan, Italy.
Ketti: Um, and from there, let's see, from there, I ended up getting a full time job doing marketing and communications, um, for a company in France, uh, energy and climate change research company in France. Um, and I did that for a little while, but I really realized at the end of grad school that You know, kind of the same as when I finished journalism school and all of my classmates were going to work at newspapers, I finished grad school and all my classwork classmates were going to be a business consultants because it was a business program.
Ketti: And I thought, I don't actually want to do that either. I want to go back to writing about travel, but I want to include all of this sustainability perspective and, um, and climate change, um, knowledge that I've, everything that I've learned about in grad school, but go back to travel writing with that perspective.
Ketti: And then I also want to start my own business and be able to do whatever I want instead of waiting for an answer, uh, to be able to write a story. So that's, that's where Tilted Map came from. Does that, does that answer your question? I feel like that was a long,
Christine: No, it was great. I, I think it's so, I always love hearing people's stories and like seeing the winding path and then seeing how all these things that we kind of gather along the way become, you know, represented in, in who we are right now and how we express and create things. And I was just thinking as you were kind of showing the beginning of your journey, um, I also started as a journalism major.
Christine: In college, um, I couldn't get any classes. I think we went to the same University of Montana.
Ketti: Oh,
Christine: um, I remember sitting in my Spanish class, my freshman year, and, like, our professor was saying, you know, everyone raise your hand if your major is this or this, you know. And in my Spanish class, when he said journalism, like, 80 percent of the people raised their hand.
Christine: And I was like, oh, that's why I didn't get any classes.
Ketti: wow.
Christine: so it was kind of crazy. I was like, maybe that's not what I want to do if everybody's doing this. And then I, I kind of switched majors throughout the course of time. And at one point I have, I've had a lot of majors. My path is super windy. Um, photojournalism was one, but then as you were talking about, you know, how the story you get to tell when you're pitching stories, and this really came to light.
Christine: To me when I was studying photojournalism, I was like back again to college I had gone off to do things and then I was like, okay, let's let's do this college thing So I came back so I was a non traditional student had a lot more perspective that also really annoyed Professors that were teaching undergraduate students.
Christine: I literally had a professor say You're an undergraduate, we don't do critical thinking yet, so you're gonna just need to answer the question. And you're gonna be great in grad school. And I, I remember just being like appalled and I was, okay, this is, this is a very interesting awareness that I definitely wouldn't have had sitting here as like a 19 year old, but as like a 25 or 26 year old that had been traveling and doing all these things.
Christine: I was like, I feel like critical thinking would be the most important skill you could foster in, in your students. But anyway, and then in journalism, the same thing, like, like one set of information kept just being like, this is the way you do it. This is the formula. This is the thing. And then I remember sitting, submitting some photos for an assignment and they had an editor come in from Eugene, Oregon, and she was going over photos and saying like, okay, I'm going to pick one off of this wall and.
Christine: you know, tell you why I think it's the most compelling or interesting or whatever. And she's like, well, I never do this, but there's two. And I just can't stop looking at them. And they both happened to be mine and they both like we're breaking rules. And I was like, aha, I see you say, follow the rules. But when someone comes in, they're picking the thing that doesn't follow the rules.
Christine: And I actually ended up not finishing in photojournalism either. So I'm like three quarters of the way there on both. But the, I guess that perspective was really important. I thought I won't ever really get to tell the truth because the truth isn't really what people are looking for because They're selling and buying things that other people want to know about.
Christine: And it was just a very interesting aha moment. So when you were saying that, like, I knew I wanted to be a little more thought provoking and I wanted things to be a little more complicated and I wanted to be able to bring all of this education. into this path. I just really resonated with that. And also, um, I think I'm a little envious that you were like, Oh, instead of me where I'm like, fine, I won't do it.
Christine: You're like, fine, I'll do it my way. Um, but I, I really, I like that. And I think maybe that's also what draws me to it is cause I, when I read things or I see things like you, you do it in a gentle way, but you still get the job done. And I just am always so grateful. For that, like, spark and that catalyst for discomfort and critical thinking.
Ketti: Thank you. Um, what's that expression that you have to learn the rules so that you can break them like an artist or something like that? I feel like that must be. What you did with your photos. Um, and I feel like I'm, I'm very glad, even though I'm not doing journalism per se now as a career in my business.
Ketti: Um, I'm really glad that that's what I ended up majoring in because I learned so much in that program about how to ask questions, how to stop talking long enough that people will listen, um, how to do research, how to be dogged and really just keep, you know, keep going after somebody and, and, Get a real answer.
Ketti: Um, so a lot of those skills I, I definitely still use today, but I, I took them in a very different direction. Um, and I think that's totally, I think that's especially true what you were saying about, um, About how people are selling something. And so they don't want exactly the truth. They want the truth that they can sell.
Ketti: I think that's overwhelmingly true in most travel media. And that was the other thing that was so frustrating to me is it was like, I don't want to just talk about the sexy parts of travel, I want to talk about everything and I want to be honest. And I want to talk about the parts that, you know, we need to change.
Ketti: Um, and I want to be able to say that we need to change them. But of course. Yelling at people doesn't make them want to change. Right. Um, making them feel bad just makes them feel called out and it makes them say, okay, I'm going to stop listening now because you're making me feel something and I don't like it.
Ketti: Um, and it's not empowering. So it's definitely, it's definitely a balance that it's taken me. to learn, you know, how to not go after people, right. How to be, how to be gentle, like you say, um, but still get the point across. So that's nice to hear that, that that's what you see in what I post. Um, especially on Instagram also, it's like, I make a point of trying to make my.
Ketti: Instagram content look like normal travel influencer content, right? And then I kind of sneak in, right? I like, I want it, I want it to be sexy. I want it to be visually appealing. I want it to be like a little bit hooky and click baity and, and interesting and have something that, you know, people are going to want to share because they're like, Oh, cool.
Ketti: What is this? Well, what this is, is actually carbon removal. What this is, is actually the different flight, the different emissions between trains and planes in these different trips, you know? Um, so I think that. There's a lot to learn from both sides of it, right? From this like hard journalism perspective, but also I've learned so much from getting into that influencer space where it is more about selling and it is more about appearances.
Ketti: And I, it's so frustrating to me how, um, how people really like talk about social media businesses as being so frivolous. Um, I think there's a lot of sexism in that also because when you hear like, what's the, the classic example of, oh, these ridiculous travel influencers, it's always the long flowing dresses and the floppy hats, right?
Ketti: It's always the female travel influencers that are ridiculous. Whereas the men who post about travel on Instagram are usually, oh, they're photographers. They're not influencers, they're photographers, they're video makers, they're not frivolous. Um, but there's a lot to learn about how to get people to pay attention, um, from the influencer space.
Ketti: So I've tried to combine the two.
Christine: Yeah. Oh, that's such a, I think that's such a resonant point to me right now too, because with the podcast, trying to figure out how to get more people in and listening, because when I hear from people and they start listening, you know, I always, you know, hear how much they learn and how much they enjoy it.
Christine: But that conversion piece is hard. And I think for me, it's because I, like I, I haven't done that well or I haven't figured out how to bridge that gap to give it that moment of interest and then sink people into the deeper conversation. I want to be them a part, want them to be a part of, and. I was just speaking with a group of influencers at, um, a rival conference.
Christine: They were there to kind of talk about how brands could partner with influencers. And, um, one of the women was like, you know, you, this, this, this, and this. And I was like, yeah, but I don't know how to be like, Grab a cup of coffee and we're gonna talk about anti oppression and travel. See you soon. You know, I'm like I have a hard time figuring out what that is for me and I know it's coming and then the other thing was, you know, she's like the thing on on social media that sells is Like conflict and discomfort.
Christine: So like where we're at actually is perfect for that because we are kind of triggering or pushing those buttons or, you know, getting people like social media does a good at getting people to get a rise, you know, and then that's when people engage, but hopefully you can do it in a way that's not just confrontational and just causing more of a rift because I think neither of our goals would be for that to be the case.
Christine: Um, and I'm like, yeah, but I don't know what my pain point is. And she was like, women who travel. You're done. I was like, Oh yeah, you're right. And then like just to kind of bring that home, I was at another event and meeting with an inbound operator and talking about creating travel. And he just kept saying to me, so you just run trips for women? I said, yeah. And then he'd like tell me some more about his business and he's like, but why? And then like, tell me some more. And he's like, And do people do that? And I was like, oh, I really wish this meeting was going to be over soon. It's only seven minutes, but it's a really long seven minutes. Um, so I just think it's interesting, um, how uncomfortable we can make people and then like, use that as the way to bring them into the conversation.
Christine: I don't know. I think that's something that I'm still learning. I have to pause now. Sorry.
Ketti: It's okay.
Ketti: Found a new spot for him.
Christine: No, but that's okay. All right. So I'm going to pause again. So it's obvious. Um, and so to take that a little bit further, or, you know, to kind of look at this conversation, I mentioned Or I don't know if I mentioned actually, but we mentioned WITS once, uh, last year, um, you were speaking at WITS, which was really exciting. And so I'm going to take a moment first to gush, and then we'll actually go into what I want to talk about.
Christine: Um,
Ketti: Please, gush away.
Christine: you're like, I'll
Ketti: Okay.
Christine: Um, but you know, sustainability is obviously something really important to both of us. Um, it's what we both kind of went on to study and have brought into our, into our world. And the conversation you were having was kind of understanding greenwashing and brand partnerships.
Christine: Um, probably summarizing that a little bit wrong, but, um, that was
Ketti: think that's probably the summary I should have used, actually.
Christine: And, um, for me, it was really incredible. And we kind of laughed afterwards. I was like, okay, I was literally moved to tears and yes, I'm kind of a geek about sustainable travel, but I was crying and. And why is because it's really been a long road, I think, to get conversations into spaces where they need to happen.
Christine: Not just in places where like you and I could sit and talk about this all day long and really feel nourished and excited by it. Like, I felt like this was in a room where I was really excited for people to be hearing this information and having this conversation. Um, and it was a super in depth presentation and discussion, so we can't get all of it right now, but I would love for you to just maybe share a few things.
Christine: Beyond, you know, what we just talked about, about what people might look for in this kind of relationship in the context of sustainable travel.
Ketti: Oh, yeah. Um, do you mean, like, from the content creator perspective, what people should look for? Or for
Christine: yeah, I, yeah, I think from the content creator and writer perspective, blogger, yeah.
Ketti: Yeah, yeah, sure. Well, so the main inspiration for me for that topic for the talk was really, um, how often I get offers from companies saying, Hey, we'll pay you 400 to make an Instagram reel promoting our carbon offsetting, whatever plan that we have. And for me, it's like, okay, you know, I hear that. And I'm like, all right, yeah, sure.
Ketti: Let's you want to talk about carbon offsetting? Let's talk about it. And I send back a list of questions where I say, okay, what kind of offsets are you buying? Are you investing in local projects or have you ever seen the projects that you're invested in? Oh, it's tree planting because it's always tree planting.
Ketti: Okay. Does this project keep track of the survival rate of the trees? It's actually usually called the death rate, which is funny. They use the, they use the less positive side of it because not all the trees are going to survive. Um, are they planting native species to ensure that they're actually a species that's going to survive in this place?
Ketti: Are they planting them at the right season to ensure that they're going to survive? Are they measuring how, you know, are they surviving for 10 years? All these questions, you know, I have. All these things that I can ask people. And I do, whenever I get an offer to promote something like that. And I never get an email back.
Ketti: I know nobody, they always just give up. They always just say, okay, you know, clearly this one is not going to just take our 400 and post something gushing on Instagram. Um, but most people have no idea. And so a lot of content creators. Our content creators, because they love travel, right? And so they have skills.
Ketti: Um, they might have lots of critical thinking skills. They're probably very good at researching trips, but this is a totally different topic that most people in travel know nothing about. And that's okay. I don't expect everybody to become an expert on sustainability and expert on carbon removal and carbon offsetting and, and all these things.
Ketti: But I wanted to give people a basis of, What to look for when you get, um, an offer like that, uh, from a company and not just, not just about promoting, you know, a company's carbon offsetting scheme, but promoting any kind of, um, sustainability project that, that a company is working on and once promoted. Um, and so some of the basic principles that I had people that I was trying to tell people was, okay, ask questions.
Ketti: That's like rule number one, right? Journalism School 101. Even if you don't know what the answer should be, the fact that you ask a question, if they, they should be able to give you a response, right? That's the test. The test is not, is the answer the perfect answer? And do you know what the answer means?
Ketti: The test is, did they take the time to get you an answer? Did they say, Oh, here, let me forward this to my chief sustainability officer, because we have a chief sustainability officer. Okay. Who can provide some more insight on, on these questions, right? So how they answer, how they, how they just react to being asked for more information can tell you a lot.
Ketti: Um, also what, what else are they doing? Right. Is it just, is it just a company saying we have this carbon offsetting program? Okay, great. What are you doing to reduce your carbon emissions? Instead of just, or, or are you just offsetting them? Right. Um, and then just look at their website, right? What else do they talk about?
Ketti: How do they present themselves as a brand? Do they have more information about climate about, um, climate and sustainability, and then ask who else you can talk to Right? Um, I have the one and only cruise company that I have ever worked with and probably will ever work with as a travel blogger is, um, UnCruise.
Ketti: And they're not really a cruise company at all. It's like I went on a trip with them in Baja, California, and it was, uh, a ship with, uh, This is 55 passengers or something like that. So nothing like a normal cruise and the shore excursions, which on, you know, mega cruise ships are like going to shopping malls and sure.
Ketti: There's, there's some outdoor stuff, but it's very, most of it is controlled by the cruise ship. Most of it is, um, through businesses that are run, uh, by the cruise ships. They're working with. A local family of rancheros in, in Baja California that literally like brings their donkeys down to the, to the beach every Tuesday, because Un Cruise comes by there every Tuesday during this season, and we've got these like, you know, guys in cowboy hat, these, these women that have made jewelry that they're selling us.
Ketti: And these guys in cowboy hats that are leading us on these boro rides through the mountains, right? So they're actually working with local families, local people, people who would normally be completely excluded from Any kind of foreign direct investment from tourism, right? They're not making money on travel.
Ketti: They're not in the travel industry They could use some extra money and they're making money because on cruise You know, really put in the effort to find them and to bother to create a relationship, um, with people. So now I feel like I can't remember why I was talking about that cruise
Christine: Because you partnered with them
Ketti: because I partnered with them, but what were we talking about before?
Ketti: I said that was the only cruise company I would ever. Why though? Where did it go, Christine?
Christine: I don't know, but it's okay because we got where we needed to be anyway.
Ketti: okay, good. Well, if the point comes back to me, I'll let you know. Um, okay, now I'm so curious, but okay. If you know, if you think we got where we need to be, then I'm happy.
Christine: I know. I think it's good. And what I was thinking of while you were talking to, and you know, you mentioned that it's not necessarily fair to believe that every content creator is going to become an expert in sustainability or any of these other aspects. Um, but like you said, just asking the questions helps you to know that you're on the right path.
Christine: I think it's really powerful to kind of have that permission to know, like you can do it in a way that feels like it's an integrity without having a PhD because I think people get, get lost in that. Um, but the other thing that I really wanted to, um, maybe bring to the conversation and another reason why I was really Moved by this presentation in that space is that as content creators and as people who tell the story of travel, like we really, and we influence, this is the word influencer, right?
Christine: We influence people's behaviors and we influence their choices and we influence where they travel. And I think that the responsibility of that is sometimes overlooked. Like, yes, it's great to tell. These stories of travel and to have these amazing travel experiences, um, and I'm not diminishing all of the incredible influencers and their businesses, but I think sometimes it's done.
Christine: Without fully understanding the weight of that responsibility. And to be fair, that goes into journalism and travel writing. And, I mean, many people have just really worked at selling travel for a really long time without realizing the impact is created once travelers get there. And I think that we have to bring those two things together.
Christine: And that there does need to be a little responsibility on the part of people selling travel to understand and understand. What they're doing and what they're creating. And again, I, I think this was just a great conversation for maybe people to have that like light bulb moment of, I do really wield a lot of power in influencing what travel looks like in our world.
Ketti: Yeah. Um, I have just been nodding along because I completely agree. Um, yeah, I think obviously it's, it's unrealistic to think that all content creators are going to become sustainability experts, but that in no way means that they don't have the responsibility to learn something or to ask questions. Um, And that actually reminds me, okay, I do know where I was going with that, with uncruise.
Ketti: Um, okay, now we've come full circle. So what I was thinking was when I first met a representative from uncruise, it was at another travel content creator conference a couple of years prior to that. And, I, you know, I didn't, I had no idea who they were. I saw their booth. I was like, Oh, something cruise related.
Ketti: I'm not interested. And then somebody else kind of told me, Oh, well, actually you might, you know, they're kind of different. They're not really a cruise company. And I went up and talked to them and I was kind of, you know, it was a little bit. I think confrontational. I was like, okay, so cruising, what can you like, what can you tell me about your sustainability policies? And this woman, she goes, well, I have to tell you, the first thing is that our ships do run on diesel fuel. So, you know, that's not. That's not the best. We don't have electric ships or anything like that, but we are working on a lot of things and I can put you in touch with our CEO who can tell you a lot more about our sustainability programs.
Ketti: And I was like, Oh, okay. So you just told me your biggest flaw. You're not trying to hide that. And you're putting me in touch with the very tippity top of the corporate food chain, right? Um, this is the person like the bucks, the sustainability, the sustainability all initiates from the CEO, not from.
Ketti: Somebody trying to convince the CEO to listen, right? So those were two, those were two things that I think anybody, any content creator can do that, right? Any content creator can ask, what can you tell me about sustainability? And who can I talk to? And then after that, I ended up, before I traveled with them, before I partnered with them, I ended up having like, Three or four calls with the CEO working with just one content creator because I had a million questions because, you know, my journalism background, I was like, I want to know this.
Ketti: I want to know that. Um, and he was happy to share all of that because he also cared. And so that's something that, you know, you don't have to be an expert to just Feel out the vibe right to see if anybody wants to talk to you about this and what they're willing to share
Christine: Yeah. And I, and again, I think just to go back, we were also, you know, this was in the context of businesses. inviting you to tell their sustainability story or because they want to focus on that. So, you know, I guess everyone might not be having this conversation. Although I know both you and I would be excited if they were, were having this conversation because there are so many people, like the more people that ask questions, the more people realize it's important. And that people are looking for those answers. And so I think that that's, that's really powerful too.
Ketti: exactly, that's I mean That's kind of part of the like voting with your wallet voting with your voting with your paying attention that I talk about um in all as in all aspects of sustainability, whether it's travel or consumer products the fact that you are willing to By the shampoo bar sends a message to Procter and Gamble that more people are interested in something without plastic, right?
Ketti: The fact that you as a content creator asking a question about sustainability shows that you care and eventually that all trickles up. You know, the fact that you go into a coffee shop and say, Do you have a mug for here? Oh, I would only like a mug for here. I'm not interested in the plastic cup. You know, eventually, I mean, I used to be a barista.
Ketti: People pay, people start hearing the same question over and over again. Eventually they're going to say to management, I'm sick of people asking for this. Can we please get some for here mugs, you know? Um, and I think that's a power that it's really sad to see people sort of forget that we have that power of influence, that everybody's an influencer, right?
Ketti: We all have, we're all. interacting with people every day and just the questions you ask and what you, you know, what you ask for, um, and what you buy has a huge impact cumulatively.
Christine: Yeah, and I think it's really, that's important too is because I think a lot of people feel like, What can I do? I'm one person. But like you said, it's that collective that as people keep coming together, other people see. You know, it's not just you, it's all these other people around you that are taking similar courses of action or asking similar questions and then that does stack up.
Christine: So, your one individual action is important in that puzzle. So, I think it's, it's great to think about it that way.
Ketti: Yeah. It's like what, you know, my second grade teacher always said, like, don't worry about what everybody else is doing. Worry about what you're doing.
Christine: Yes, my kid's least favorite message to hear. Laughter.
Ketti: You do you and do it right. And then everybody else, you know, you don't have to, you don't have to make everybody else perfect, but do what you, excuse me, do what you can.
Christine: Yeah. Um, well, I wanted to talk about, um, a little bit more about, uh, carbon literacy or carbon offsets. Um, I just took a position with the RISE Travel Institute and we're preparing our course on climate justice and carbon literacy. So I'm really excited about that. Um, it's obviously a topic that's like utmost important to us, which also feels silly to say because it's, should be really of utmost importance too.
Christine: Every person we know we're not there yet as well. But I wanted to talk about this Because I do think it's really important and it's like you said earlier on you know, one of the things that Right away tips people out of this conversation is flying because they know like I know I'm not getting it right already I flew there And I know something you talk a lot about is carbon offsets carbon calculators Just like really learning to understand what that means a little bit more and how you can still Take action.
Christine: Um, and I know you also talk a lot about Tomorrow's Air. Um, I've had Christina Beckman on the podcast for anyone who wants to learn more about Tomorrow's Air. They can go back and find that one. But I, I wanted to, to ask you to share, you know, one or two things that I think you feel are most important.
Christine: And then I'm going to encourage our listeners to go to your website because you have so much information. Um, we couldn't possibly get through it without like a 12 part series here. So.
Ketti: Yeah. Um, yeah. So I anymore. I really like to talk about carbon removal more than I like to talk about carbon offsets. Um, and that's kind of inspired by tomorrow's air. I've been Doing, um, been creating content for them, doing some, like, Instagram collabs with them, and I've written a couple of articles.
Ketti: I've interviewed Christina also a couple times, um, Christina Beckman, the head of Tomorrow's Air, um, for the blog, and written about them a lot, and I feel like at this point, carbon offsetting has such a bad reputation. That it's almost like, I, I don't want to encourage, so I don't want to encourage people to focus on carbon offsetting because it's like an uphill battle right from the start because people, people have this initial reaction of like, Ooh, but I'm pretty sure I've seen an article about that not working on the New York times.
Ketti: Right. Um, so the difference between carbon offsetting and carbon removal, just to clarify, in case anybody doesn't know, um, carbon offsetting is essentially the way I think of it is an accounting technique. Basically, right. Carbon offsetting is saying, okay. To offset right is to balance, like to clean up, to take something and fix it with, with an equal amount of something else.
Ketti: Um, so the project, the problem isn't necessarily the projects that carbon offsetting funds. The problem is the fact that carbon offsetting is based on saying, okay, we emitted X amount of emissions of CO2 or CO2 equivalent emissions for this flight. That means that we need to offset those amount of that amount of emissions by either preventing the same amount of emissions.
Ketti: Or by removing that amount of CO2 from the air. So we have to, first we have to calculate accurately how much we've actually emitted. Then we have to calculate actual accurately, um, how much, how much we're able to remove or prevent. That's two calculations where things can go wrong. And the whole thing hinges on paying for it to happen, right?
Ketti: So the whole thing hinges on putting a price on carbon, which under the first Trump administration, the price of carbon was lowered to 1 a ton, which is something like 200 times less than it should be probably actually, according to the scientific community. So you're taking, you're measuring something you're saying, let's say we emitted one ton of carbon for this flight, which is.
Ketti: A little bit low. That's maybe like a round trip flight from New York to the West Coast or something like that would be around a ton, roughly. Um, let's say we emitted a ton of carbon for this flight. Now we're going to say, okay, how much does that ton of carbon worth? Is it worth 1? Under the Trump administration, or is it worth 200?
Ketti: Okay, we're going to invest that 1 or that 200 into a project, but where is that project? You know, how, how verified is that project? Are we sure that it's actually working? If it's the example of planting trees, are we sure that those trees are surviving? So there's all these, there's all these accounting issues that make it like the problem is the fact that we have this equivalency where it has to be.
Ketti: We're removing or we're preventing the same amount that we're offsetting. That's a huge problem. And then the other problem is that people are expecting to get a certificate in return that says, okay, you fixed it. You know, you fixed the exact amount of problem that you created. That's not the way it works.
Ketti: Um, so what I really like about tomorrow's air is that they let travel companies and individual travelers. Invest in carbon removal and in sustainable aviation fuel without attaching it to An exact equivalency, right? Without saying you've now canceled out your flight. Congratulations. You haven't, they're just saying invest as much as you, I mean, you can give them as little as 10 a month.
Ketti: Um, which is fantastic because that allows more people to do the vote with their wallet thing. You know, that shows policymakers that shows corporations, look how many millions of individuals care enough about this to give 10 a month. Um, I think that is a lot more powerful than, you know, a couple of people giving huge, huge, uh, making huge investments.
Ketti: Um, so anyway, so, so tomorrow's there. You can, when you invest in carbon removal with tomorrow's air, they have a portfolio of different projects. Um, I just did, I'm doing a series of reels right now, trying to, uh, in a very lighthearted and fun way, explain the different types of carbon removal. But there's like direct air capture, which is literally a machine that.
Ketti: I will use the least technical terms possible, sucks CO2 out of the air, captures it from the, from the atmosphere, and stores it permanently, so it's not a problem anymore. There's also, there's enhanced rock weathering, which is like, you take this special kind of rock called olivine, which they mine in Norway, at a, at a mine that is, um, that has no emit, has no emissions, because it's all like, I think it's Can't be all electric, but all the energy, all the energy comes from, I think it is all electric anyway, this like no emission mine in Norway, you mind this special kind of rock, you grind up the rock, you spread it on farm fields in like the Southern United States.
Ketti: It, uh, Makes it so farmers don't have to buy a more expensive input to neutralize the pH of their soil and it absorbs, and it absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and then it flows into the oceans and Reduces the acidity of the oceans which allows the ocean. All of these things that are like these technologies exist That's just a couple of examples.
Ketti: There's biochar, which is like you take You take, uh, any kind of agricultural, you know, corn husks or something like that, any kind of agricultural waste, or I think the company that Tomorrow's Air works with uses, um, forestry, like excess forest, excess trees, trees that are cut down because they're in, uh, Um, they're in areas where they're at high risk for forest fires.
Ketti: They take those trees that had to be cut down anyway. They basically like cook them at a certain temperature that causes them to turn into this certain kind of charcoal that, uh, permanently captures CO2. And then that's also another farming input. There's all these different technologies that people do not know exists.
Ketti: And people don't know that they work and they exist. They're not, you know, this is not like something in the future, right? These are things that exist and function right now, and they need more investment to scale up. And so it's really, it's just really cool to see the power that you can have. And I think that is so much more valuable to say.
Ketti: And from my perspective, that's so much more valuable to say, I'm going to put money towards something that is literally just going to remove some carbon from the air permanently. Instead of saying, I need to figure out the emissions of my flight in order to understand how much money I need to invest.
Ketti: It's like, just invest. What you feel comfortable investing every month. Um, so that's the, that's the one side. And then they also have sustainable aviation fuel, which is another technology that's super exciting because it can be made sustainable aviation fuels, basically, um, jet fuel made out of anything other than petroleum that we.
Ketti: dug out of the ground, right. So it can be made from used cooking oil. It can be made from the CO2 that is captured through carbon capture technologies. Um, and then you use that to create jet fuel and you fly. You fly without actually needing to extract anything from the earth, which is amazing right now.
Ketti: I think it's something like 0. 01 percent of jet fuel that's used is, is SAF, is sustainable aviation fuel. And so that's another thing where. We need more investment to scale it up. Um, and you can invest in that with Tomorrow's Air. You can also invest in that with some airlines. Um, I'm much more inclined when, when I'm purchasing a flight and the airline website says, Would you like to offset this flight?
Ketti: Or would you like to buy sustainable aviation fuel? For your flight. I'm much more inclined to buy the SAF by the sustainable aviation fuel recently. Um, I actually went to my first speaking of tomorrow's air. I actually went to my first ATTA event, my first adventure travel trade association event, um, just last month in Norway, it was their, uh, climate action in travel summit.
Ketti: And it was the first, the first event that they've done that was specifically focused on climate change and climate solutions. It was fantastic. It was. Just, it was one of those things I found out about it like two weeks before the event and I was just reading the sales page, you know, the page describing this conference and I was just like, I have to be there.
Ketti: You know, it was one of those, it was one of those moments where I was just reading through it and it was like half the people who were speaking were people who I had already interviewed for my blog. Uh, I just thought I have to be there. I have to meet these people. This is what I need to be doing. Um, and so I went to that and it was absolutely fantastic.
Ketti: Um, and I learned so much also. It was so cool to. Be at an event where everyone is high level working in sustainability, or they were the CEO of the company. Um, and so it was really cool to finally be like, Oh, I'm the person who knows the least about this here, which is, which is fantastic. Uh, cause you don't grow without that.
Christine: Yeah, Oh, I'm glad that you went. I really had wanted to, and I was with Christina right before it, and I haven't, I haven't I haven't followed up afterwards to hear how it went, but I, I was so impressed with the, as well, with the programming and the people who are gathering and what that can, what can come out of that, and I also really appreciate your, your thoughts on, you know, the differences between the two, uh, ways of thinking about how we can um, travel in a more, um, responsible way with regard to this.
Christine: And I also was thinking of your reels and kind of laughing cause you know, you were talking about creating them and I'm like, well, here's your meme is like me with popcorn watching your reels.
Ketti: That's awesome.
Christine: So just think about that when you're creating them.
Ketti: Okay. That's what I, I love that. I, I will continue to imagine that. That makes
Christine: I'll at least bring something lighthearted to, to the, the conversation. Um,
Ketti: I mean, that's what you've got to do. You've got to bring something lighthearted though, right? Otherwise people are like, oh, this is a downer. I don't want to listen.
Christine: yeah, um, well, this is, this is going to be a complete, also probably unexpected, um, video. I don't know, antidote for our, our conversation, but, um, we're going to bring your husband into the conversation for a moment and you'll see why. And you're like, great. I want to talk about my husband. Um, but I also had the privilege of meeting him at WITS.
Christine: Um, and somehow also that like the Montana like zinger caught us and he's like, you'll have to meet my wife. I was like, who's your wife? And he's like, Oh, the speaker. I was like, Oh, it's fine. We've already, we're, we're good. We've met, but he's like, He was so great. And then, like, all, all these other women were like, Have you met this speaker's husband?
Christine: He's incredible. And I was like, this is, this is cracking me up. But he's like, was the ultimate, like, hype man and entourage and, like, carrying all of your stuff. And I was like, oh my gosh. The two of you together, I'm like, This just brings me joy in a way that it shouldn't really need to, but it does. And all of this is leading into the fact that I was thinking, like, man, traveling with those two would be very fun and very informative, and you are also creating something together, um, which is your, um, kind of, like, super hyper local bike tours that you lead in Italy.
Christine: So that was our segue to get us to that moment. Ha
Ketti: That was an impressively smooth segue, Christine. That was excellent. Well crafted. Um, yeah, we, so my husband's from Italy and he's from Milan and I lived there for three years also. And we both really miss it a lot. Um, and a couple years ago at a conference, I met, um, a local bike adventure tour guide, uh, who runs tours in the Marche region of Italy, which is like central Italy on the Adriatic coast.
Ketti: So basically like, Rome, the opposite side of the peninsula of the Italian peninsula from, from Rome. Um, and so we started working together. We went on a trip with him back in 2023, both my husband and I, um, and we loved it. It was. I mean, seriously, like I said, I lived in Italy for three years and I was like, this is one of the most unique, authentic, off the beaten path.
Ketti: You know, that term gets overused, but it really was off the beaten path. Like experiences I've ever had in Italy. I, we didn't see another tourist for five days of this trip. We were in places that absolutely do not have visit. I mean, sure. Like the rural, the, so the coasts, the, um, the coast of market, um, is definitely known, um, in Europe.
Ketti: A little bit in Italy. Sure. As a destination in the United States or the West, not at all, but it's also much more of a limited season. So we go a little bit in the off season. We have trips next year. We're doing trips in May and September and we take people like a little bit on the coast, but also most of the time we spend inland in areas where we're visiting.
Ketti: Farmers who, like, we visit an organic, um, olive oil farm where this man, like the farmer, Giorgio, his mother makes us lunch. Uh, we do an olive oil tasting and we see his different, like, mono varietal olive oils. He shows us all the different trees. And usually I end up being the interpreter and, like, trying to explain the difference between, you know, where he's telling me, like, look at the shape of this, uh, this olive.
Ketti: Like, this is how you can tell that it's this. And then you get to try all these different varieties and then you have lunch, uh, that his, that his mother makes for us. And then we visit a biodynamic winery. We visit all these really, really cool experiences that you're just not going to find on your own because a lot of them literally aren't even bookable anywhere else.
Ketti: There are people that our guide knows. And so he sets stuff up. Um, and then we have had, uh, Some input definitely on the trip as far as like having more vegetarian options for meals, making sure that there's no single use plastics, um, a few little things like that, which we, which has been really cool to sort of be able to say like, look, if we're going to bring people under the name Tilted Map, we need to not have single use plastics.
Ketti: Um, so it's been cool to have that kind of influence, but it's really, it's mostly, um, trips that are designed, um, Um, by our local guide, Marco, and they're just a lot of fun. Um, we did the first one with a group of, of blog readers this September. We had seven people, so we'd like to keep them small. Um, oh, and I didn't mention that they are e bikes also.
Ketti: So we ride like between, what is it? Um, something like eight and 30 miles a day, depending on, depending on the route, the day, um, you can do it. We had one woman this year ride a gravel bike, like a regular. I was super impressed by her. I have done one of these trips that we're going to do next year. We'll do two different, two different routes, but I've done one of these trips twice and both times I was like, no, I don't, I'll, I'll take the e bike.
Ketti: Uh, cause you can, you know, it's still a bicycle. You still have to pedal to go. It's not like riding a motorcycle. But you also get to feel like you're on vacation because you can take a break. If your legs are killing you, you can turn up the assistance level and it's like you just kind of pedal and it goes.
Ketti: You don't have to slog your way up every hill and feel like You know, you're feel like you're, you know, like, I want to be done. Right. You don't have to want to be done. You get to, you get to enjoy it. Um, so yeah, those are, those are, they've become really special, uh, trips that we're excited to have as part of part of the brand.
Christine: Yeah. Thank you for, for sharing about those. Um, one last thing that I just wanted to talk about quickly before, or it doesn't have to be quickly, but before we wrap up our conversation, um, you had shared a quote on your kind of application for speaking, um, on the podcast and I, I really loved it. And, you know, you had mentioned like how top of mind it was for you right now.
Christine: And. I think one thing that's really important in the context of sustainability is understanding why some things were saving in the first place. And so this quote just made me think about, like, that why. Um, and it's from Mark Twain that travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness. And many of, many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
Christine: And I think, um, I just, when I read that, I was like, okay, again, my person, I appreciate, um, like putting me into this spiral of thinking, but travel, I do think is so desperately important to where we are as a culture right now. And that's why it's really important to not say, okay, we're going to be sustainable by the day.
Christine: removing travel, like this isn't going to help anything. So I just wanted to talk about a little bit, like why that's on your heart heart right now and why, why that was the quote that you shared.
Ketti: Yeah. Um, yeah, I, I've been thinking about that a lot, I guess, since, since the election, um, and sort of having debates with people about whether travel really does, uh, broaden people's perspectives or not. Um, and I think part of that quote, cause the rest of it is something like, uh, what is it? Wholesome, charitable views of men cannot be developed by rotting in your own little corner of the world or something like that.
Ketti: And it's like, well, that's a little. bigoted in itself to say that the only way that you can develop a broad perspective is by traveling. There are certainly other ways to do it, especially now when you can, you know, you can learn so much. We have so much media and you can also interact with people, you know, where you are, who come from other places, you can read.
Ketti: Um, so I don't think you have to travel by any means to, to broaden your horizons. But I do think that it's just, it's different, like the perspective that people develop when they. know someone in another country, know, they're not going to want to bomb that country. If they've, if they've had a nice afternoon in a cafe in that city, and they remember somebody who they met there, then they're going to think of that place very differently than if it's just, you know, the scary place they see on the evening news. So that, yeah, I think, I think, I don't think it's a perfect quote, but I think it's a really interesting concept and I do wish that more people traveled, um, for that reason. But I also think it does have to be, you know, a certain type of travel. And I'm, I'm not saying, not saying that you can't broaden your horizons if you're staying in resorts or, or, you know, taking cruises or something like that.
Ketti: Those aren't really types of travel that I generally recommend, but what matters is what you do when you get there and the attitude that you have and. The effort that you put into meeting people and having, you know, having experiences that you wouldn't be able to have at home, because I think so many people go on a trip and then they spend that entire trip trying to make their experience as much like life at home as, as they possibly can, which is like, what's the point of leaving the house?
Ketti: Um, what's the point of leaving your, your home country? If, if you're just going to try to make everywhere else, like your home country, And so I think that even if you're staying in a resort, if you make an effort to get off the resort property, to go do different things, um, to talk to people, to ask questions, and also to not expect anything. that's the biggest problem with the way that a lot of people travel is they expect a lot of things. They say, well, I expect air conditioning, I expect ice in my drink, I expect, I don't know, I expect the food to taste like it does at home or something, you know, ridiculous, and it's like, just, just try to show up and just see what you find, right?
Ketti: Just take it as it is, um. And I do also think that another thing about making travel expand people's horizons, actually, is that I think, more and more, I think that you do need a guide. I think that to some extent, having some kind of guidance, whether that's, you know, like what I used to do for many years of my 20s, like couch surfing, actually staying in strangers homes, right?
Ketti: I didn't go on, I didn't have guided tours because I was spending as little money as I possibly could. But I was sleeping on somebody's couch and having dinner with them and meeting local people and actually, and having somebody who I could ask questions, you know, because I think if you're just in a lot of places, um, if you're just wandering around, having no idea what's going on, going to come away, you're going to have a higher, Possibility that you might come home being even more bigoted than if you have somebody who explains what you're seeing and why this is happening and what it means, you know, um, yeah, so those are, those are my thoughts on that quote.
Christine: Thank you so much for sharing that as you were speaking, I was reminded of a conversation I just had with Judy Carvajal and, um, she's in Ecuador and
Ketti: That's right. Yeah.
Christine: uh, talking about, like, um, We were talking about kind of the disservice of making travel comfortable. Like that has been the number one goal, you know, for, for many people in the business of travel is you're giving your travelers this experience, right?
Christine: So we have kind of created this expectation. And that in some ways dilutes, I think the power, the true power of travel. And I think, um, It might be time to just encourage people to get a little more uncomfortable because that is where, where the growth is. Not saying that you could never have comfort or luxury, but just, you know, be okay with a little bit of unknown and discomfort.
Christine: And then the other thing that you were saying, you know, kind of, like the recreating at home. Um, I don't, this episode hasn't aired yet, but I was talking with Ashi Bail and we were talking about in cuisine and travel, people will tend to only eat one version of that cuisine when they're traveling. So let's say if they're in Italy and they love, you know, spaghetti and meatballs, that's like the one thing they're going there to eat.
Christine: Whereas in Italy, there's going to be this, you know, huge amount of types of food that you could eat that would connect you to the culture and where you are. But because you went with this like one perception you didn't really have, you had a pretty flattened experience. And so I just think it's really, it's interesting to think about your intention and the way that it, it would be okay to not be at home when you're not at home and to not feel the comforts of home when you're not at home.
Christine: Because that's like, that grittiness and messiness is really the place where you're going to learn about yourself as well as learn about the place that you are.
Ketti: Yeah. 100. I absolutely agree. Um, I love, I listened to that conversation with you and Judy and that was, I thought that was, um, Fantastic. I completely agree about the comfort issue. Um, yeah. And then spaghetti and meatballs. And then people will get to Italy and realize that spaghetti and meatballs is actually not a thing in Italy.
Ketti: They have spaghetti and then they have meatballs as a separate dish. Um, and people get annoyed by that. People go to Italy and they get annoyed that the Italian food is not the same as it is in the United States, and that's fascinating to me. Um, but yeah, comfort, absolutely. And I definitely, or discomfort, you know, trying to get people to stop expecting everything to be perfectly comfortable.
Ketti: Um, and I think that also applies to the climate discussions, right? Because, You know, we talked a lot about carbon removal, but I definitely don't want to ignore the fact that we also need to reduce carbon emissions, right? We don't, it's hard to talk about in travel because, you know, you're flying, so you're emitting carbon.
Ketti: But what about once you land? I have people comment on my blog posts all the time and say, Oh, I didn't know that taking the train from Milan to Rome was better for, had a better climate impact than flying. I didn't know that. Right. And so that's the level, like we have to be encouraging people and we have to be explaining these things in an accessible way to people who have no idea.
Ketti: And we also, we have to, you know, we have to invest in carbon removal, a hundred percent, but we also need to work on reducing emissions, of course, flying less. Staying places longer and making sure that the travel that you do, once you're in a country, you know, you're swapping out flights for trains. Um, yeah, just reduction is, is also such an important part of the conversation, but without flight shaming, because then people, you know, people stop listening.
Christine: Yeah. Um, I love it. Thank you so much for sharing this. I think we got through almost everything that I had on this wishlist of a conversation. Like I said, we could have so many more and I really will encourage listeners to, um, visit your website, and sign up for your newsletter. And Check out your YouTube and all of the different resources because there's so many ways that you're sharing information, which I appreciate.
Christine: Um, before we end our conversation, I have our rapid fires, which I'm sure you're familiar with since you've been binging,
Ketti: I have been binging. Yeah.
Christine: be ready. Um, what are you reading right now?
Ketti: Yeah. Um, okay. Well, so this is actually a hard one because you should see the stack of books next to my, on my bedside table. But, uh, the one that I'm spending the most time on right now is called, um, what is it called? How to build an, uh, how, how to hide an empire. It's, um, subtitle is A History of the Greater United States.
Ketti: So it's about the imperial United States and it's fascinating. It's really good read, um, sort of. It's kind of my favorite kind of like, it's not a travel book, but it's very, you learn about a lot of different places by learning about us involvement in all these places,
Christine: Yeah. Ooh, that's so interesting. One of my, I don't remember which one of my daughters, but there was, Oh, my oldest. Cause she was saying, she's like, I don't want to take you to us history again, unless I can learn something besides. Like, the perspective on our involvement that's one sided. Of all these different things.
Christine: And she's like, I'd actually like to learn what it meant to like other countries. Or I'd like to learn, like, she'd like a little more depth to her history. And I was like, Oh, thank you for being my child so that I can facilitate some of these. She would probably be interested in it, actually. Um,
Ketti: think you being her mother probably has a lot to do with that also.
Christine: what is always in your suitcase or backpack when you travel?
Ketti: Oh, so this is, this is a good one. I have a water bottle actually that has a UV light in the lid. And so it kills. bacteria and viruses and anything that's in the water. Um, and I used that with like last year in El Salvador, I used that for 10 days where I had two bottles, one that filters water and then I would pour it after, pour the filtered water into this UV light bottle and then zap it and that kills anything that's left.
Ketti: And I use it to drink tap water anywhere I go. So. You don't have to buy bottled water and I've had it for, had it for like three years now and it's still going strong. So that's pretty cool. It's the brand is Lark L A R Q.
Christine: I have one of those on my travel wish list. I have the filter one, but I've been wanting to add the filter. The U. V. because sometimes I just am leery, like I've always had good luck, but I just, you know, the extra layer.
Ketti: No, for sure. Yeah. In places that's why, yeah. In places like Central America. I mean, when I was there in college, you know, I got E. coli and many other things, um, from not even drinking tap water, right. From like having a. Small bite of a plum before I remembered that it probably been rinsed in tap water So it's definitely a good place to take extra precautions.
Ketti: But yeah, I use that double bottle method and it works So
Christine: Um, to sojourn is to travel somewhere as if you live there, uh, whereas someplace you would still love to sojourn,
Ketti: honestly, this is the hardest question Christine because I I mean everywhere I'm gonna be in Mexico for six weeks this winter. So that's gonna be My next little sojourn. And I'm really excited about that. I love Mexico and Mexican people and Mexican food. Um, but other than that, I mean, I'd love to go back and spend some more significant time in China.
Ketti: I've never been to Japan. I would love to spend a few months there. Um, I'd like to spend some time in more areas of Southern Italy. I know Northern Italy a lot more since that's where I lived. Um, but then honestly also just, just anywhere. Scandinavia. I'm quite interested in Scandinavia. I'm interested in South Africa.
Ketti: I, I don't know. I can't, I can't provide an
Christine: the map and touch it and send me there
Ketti: Stop it with my finger and say, Mom, I'm going to sojourn.
Christine: Yeah. Um, what do you eat that immediately connects you to a place you've been?
Ketti: This one, the first time that you asked, that I heard you ask this question on the podcast, I was like, Oh, I obviously know my answer to that, and it's Chinese food. Like, authentic Chinese food in Chinatown in Manhattan, especially. Because after, you know, after I lived in China for a year, I realized how vastly different actual Chinese food is from, you know, What you get in most Chinese restaurants in the U.
Ketti: S. and in Europe is just a totally different thing. It's not even, it's not even related. Um, and of course it's different in every region of China too, but the dishes that you can get in these real Chinese restaurants, um, like especially, I found the best, uh, in San Francisco and in, and in New York City.
Ketti: Those dishes, they're actual specific dishes that I remember I used to order when I, when I lived there, and I can get, What seems like exactly the same thing there. And that just takes me back.
Christine: Um, who was a person that inspired or encouraged you to set out and travel the world?
Ketti: I, I mean, I think my parents, honestly, um, because of those trips that we did, uh, those bus trips when I was a little kid. Um, although I, I mean, I think that inspired me, but I can't say that they were ever, you know, They were telling me to go travel, but they just didn't tell me not to go travel. And that was enough for me.
Christine: Yeah. I think that's sometimes all we need as well. Um, if you could take an adventure with one person fictional or real alive or past, who would it be?
Ketti: So I, you know, my ideal superpower would be time travel, obviously. And so the first person that came to mind when, when I first heard this question was Freya Stark. She's a travel writer from like the late 1800s, early 1900s. And she was, she was just an absolute badass. Can I, can I say badass? Badass. I hope I can.
Ketti: Um, she, you know, she was, it was like 1900 or something and she was like riding a horse by herself through Iran, through Persia, you know, doing all of these crazy things where the experiences she must have had, I can't even imagine, um, sort of be able to, you know, See the world through her eyes and also just see the world at that time.
Ketti: I think would be so cool
Christine: Yeah. I still have a vision of a travel show that goes back and follows all of these early female. Travelers and explorers and travel writers and expeditionists like traces their steps and then also tells their stories. This is my version of an ideal travel series. So
Ketti: Oh, yeah, that would be that would be really cool. And there was you know back in a sorry But
Christine: I said we'll throw that out to the
Ketti: yeah, exactly that would be so cool And that's you know back in a time when there were hardly any travel travelers or travel storytellers that were women. I mean, yeah
Christine: Okay, last question. Who is one woman in the industry that you admire and would love to recognize in this space?
Ketti: Um, I would say, well, I would say since we've been talking about Tomorrow's Air, I would say Christina Beckman, uh, who founded Tomorrow's Air and is the director of it now. Um, and does so much to, to promote carbon removal and, and sort of the realistic, sustainable travel that, um, that I believe in.
Christine: Yeah, thank you for mentioning. I'm always happy to celebrate her and her vision. So I'm glad to give her a nod today. Um, and thank you for being here and sharing your wisdom and sharing some laughs. I always appreciate to be able to bring both of those into the same space.
Ketti: Yeah. Thank you so much, Christine. Thank you for having me.
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.
