Welcome to Ritual Sisters, the podcast where your hosts and fellow travelers, Michelle and Kelly, explore the ways that ritual can help you feel better through the ups and downs of life. So let's take a deep breath and start this journey together.

All right, ritual Fam, we are here with a special guest today. We are here with Paige McClanahan. She is a travel writer and author living in France, and she is the author of The New Tourist, the Power and Perils of Travel. That came out in June, 2024 and just came out in paperback in May this year. Welcome, Paige.

We are excited to have you here and talk about travel. Thanks so much for having me. Yes. Welcome, welcome. Well, Paige, we would love to start with just asking what got you into travel wi writing, and why is travel important to you? Wow. That's a big question. Yes, I love it. Yeah, I mean, honestly, travel has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember.

I mean, even just as a kid, I mean a lot of kids do this, I guess, just like staring at the globe or flipping through the atlas and you know, I grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, kind of a. A middle class family that didn't travel a ton but took some vacations occasionally, and I just, you know, relish the idea of travel and as soon as I was old enough to like get a job and earn some money and travel on my own, that was where I was putting all of my time and energy.

And I moved abroad at the age of 26. Um, I moved to Switzerland as this was in 2008. So, um, I have lived outside my home country now for the last 17 years, um, and bounced around between Europe and Africa, so I. I was living in Switzerland and then West Africa and then England, and then East Africa for four years before I came to France in 2018.

So I've moved around a lot and you know, I've been a tourist and you know, in a lot of places. I've also been a foreign resident in a lot of places, like I am here in France. And I feel like those experiences have been incredibly rich, incredibly challenging in a lot of ways. Um, you know, living so long outside my home culture, in a lot of cases outside of my home language, you know, here in France.

And I just, you know, became fascinated as, as a journalist, you know, professionally as a journalist. I've covered economic issues and trade issues and sustainable development issues, environmental issues. Um, and I did travel writing kind of on the side as I was, as I was, you know, moving around a lot. And then when I moved to France in 2018, before I lived in Paris, I spent five years in a little village in the French Alps where tourism is really the lifeblood of the local economy.

It's this little village in the mountains that gets a lot of skiers in the winter and hikers in the summer. And for the first time, I really became a resident of a place that relied on tourism completely for, you know, to, to run the economy. And I started taking the journalistic lens that I had sort of trained on more, quote unquote, serious as I thought about, thought of them at the time topics.

And I was like, let me take that journalistic lens and put it on. Travel and tourism, which has already been a huge part of my life, and which now as a resident of a tourist destination is an even bigger part of my life. And the more I started to look there and, uh, do reporting there, and this is when I was really starting to do a lot of the stories with the New York Times, I really just, it just was so rich and so complex and there were so many nuances and I found those nuances so interesting and so relevant.

I thought, let me, let me sort of throw myself into this and see what I can do. And pretty sure pretty soon I kinda came up against the limits of, you know, a 1500 word news article and I wanted to go in even more depth. So I got the idea for a book where I could really sort of paint more scenes and get out there and meet more people and bring all this to life from my readers in a way that I hope would be both engaging and fun and thought provoking.

And yeah, so that was, that's the story of how I came to write this book. It's a really good book. It's, yeah, you kind of go into different, you know, industries around the world and how we can be more, you know, conscious of the people when we're traveling and the environment. So I'm excited to dive into that.

Mm-hmm. But before we get into that, we, we love to ask everyone what phase of life you're in right now. So I know it's a big question, but can you tell us a little bit about Yeah. Where, where you're at in life? Oh my gosh. Wow. Thank you for that question. I honestly, so I'm 43 years old. I feel like I've just been kind of reborn.

I'm like a little toddler starting like phase two of my life. I feel like I had phase one of my life. And now I'm at the very beginning of phase two and phase one was kind of achieving a lot of goals that kind of, I felt like society had set up for me or that, you know, I had set up for myself. That may be a little bit arbitrary, getting a good degree, getting good grades in school, you know, succeeding at the sports I went to succeed at, you know, when I was younger.

Kind of like some of these social markers you have, you know, getting married, having kids professionally, sort of like writing for this newspaper, writing for that newspaper, writing for that newspaper, writing for that newspaper, you know. And now I kind of like, and publishing a book, you know, these are all my kind of like big to-do lists in life.

And now I've kind of done all those things and it's like, whoa, okay, so what's next? And it's like, I've kind of ticked all the boxes in life. Well, not all of them obviously though, did two things. I ticked a lot of the, I've ticked a lot of the boxes that I had sort of set out for myself as a sort of a young, kind of imagine like 20-year-old Paige.

Like, what do I wanna do? Okay, I've done all of these things and that's like. Okay, now I'm just kind of freestyling. I can like, here's the life that I've created personally and professionally. You know, what do I wanna create now? What do I wanna do now? I don't feel compulsion to kind of. I have to achieve this prestigious thing or that prestigious thing, and it's like, no, I just get to create and share what I feel like is most compelling.

And yeah, it's so, it feels really rich and a little bit confusing sometimes, but really exciting too, if that makes sense. I think that's been a little bit of a theme with some of our guests of that. I feel like so much of this, the talk about life is like focused on your early life and then it's kind of like, what, what do you do, you know, when you're in this other phase of life.

So it's, it's really inspiring to talk to people that are feeling that energy of like, what, what can I do now? Yeah. And you know, I had a, a chat with a good girlfriend of mine, actually a friend of mine from college who is like, she's in a completely different world. She works in like. You know, software development and stuff.

And she's achieved a really high position at the company. She was like, if you'd asked me age 20, what is my, like, where do I wanna finish my career? She's like, it would be in the job that I have right now. And she's 43 like me. And so she's like, and I'm here and it's cool, but it's kind of like, okay, what next?

You know? And now she's like, I wanna try to, you know, retire by the time I'm in my mid fifties so I can like. Invest in women-owned businesses. I'm like, yeah, Eve, go for it. So like, yeah, it's like what do you, you know when the world just feels like a blank canvas again, and we're ready to let go of expectations, other people's expectations.

Society's expect expectations. Some of the false expectations maybe we put on ourselves. What can we make and do? And that's a, it's a fun. Place to be. I feel like getting older is wonderful. I, I'm enjoying life. The more I get older, it's such a gift getting older. And Paige, I love how sacred that question is of what's next.

And I'm hearing too, just how it's gonna be a different rhythm, right? Like checking the boxes. That's such a different piece and rhythm than this blink canvas. So yeah, I'm excited to hear more. One thing that I really loved from your book was you kind of, you talked about that, this idea of that it's when we're gone, people eventually won't remember us.

And that totally a freeing feeling of like, who cares what I do in this life? In this life. I had, I had never thought about that before and I really loved that perspective. You know, it's like, I love Ricky, your bass, you know, he and I remember, I dunno if you saw like. The opening monologue he did for the Golden Globes.

I forget it's like five or 10 years ago or something. It's very, and he was like telling people about the, you know, he's about to roast all the very famous people in the audience in his opening monologue, and he's like. Chill out, everybody. They're just jokes. We're all gonna die and there is no sequel.

Like take yourself a little bit less seriously. Like, why don't you come on? And it's like, seriously, like, well, you know, I mean, a hundred years from now, basically everyone who is currently on this planet will be dead, right? I mean, sorry, it's kind of grim, but like we're all, this is such an ephemeral.

Experience that we're having as human beings. And really there's gonna be very little Mark left. I mean, I mean, you know, unless you're Shakespeare or something, but most of us are gonna leave very little Mark and I don't have any sort of, you know, aspirations of, you know, leaving a sort of a lasting impact on humanities.

I mean, I could, I could do my best I guess, but. Really just like, I feel like we're all here to learn to sort of love and grow through suffering and create and support each other. And let's, let's do that without fear, you know? So that was kind of, I had to get to that place before I could like, have the courage to write a book and put out in the world.

Oh, interesting. You know, because like you're gonna do something like that, you're gonna be judged. Yeah, you know, you might be judged nicely, you might be judged badly, uh, but you're gonna be judged. And I had to get it to a point of being like, you know what, the most important thing is the act of creation and there's a real value in that.

And actually I can kind of detach myself from the outcome and really put the focus on, on creation. Gosh, getting a little bit meta here, but um, I feel like as I've gotten older, it's been easier to kind of arrive at that. Um, at that kind of place yes. Will deeply resonate with that page. Um, what would you say your relationship's like with rituals and ceremonies?

Ooh. Do you know? I would say I would love to develop a deeper relationship with rituals and ceremonies, little things in the day. I mean, one thing that I love to do to kind of mark a moment is, yeah, lining a candle. Even sometimes before I work, if I'm like, okay, I'm gonna work on something that I wanna sort of put a lot of thought or focus or heart into, and I wanna be focused, you know, just like.

Light a candle, say a little sort of intention as I'm lighting the candle and for the time that the candle is burning. That's sort of that, you know, the marker of my intention and that I'm gonna let it guide me. But yeah, I mean rituals, you know, I think of rituals with my children. Saturday morning rituals and the important, you know, my kids are, I have two daughters who are nine and 11.

Oh. And the importance of establishing family rituals and how much that, you know, just how grounding that can be. For them to, you know, a sort of a weekly basis, a daily basis, you know, the nighttime kind of rituals, listening to the same, listening to the same kind of like. Meditation music at bedtime and doing Saturday morning pancakes, which I grew up.

My dad did that for me and my sister Playing pancakes or what kind of pancakes? Oh, you know, for my dad, it's always blueberry pancakes. Aw. And for And my kids. Um, yeah, normally, you know, they like maple syrup. They're good American kids in that sense. You know, for sort of like we love our syrup. A lot of French people are kind of like maple syrup.

Funny tasting, you know, put some nello on there, you know? Um, yeah. So, so, yeah. But I mean, I think really, really powerful and, and meditation, of course, I've had sort of, you know, moments of greater and less sort of focus on meditation in my life. But it's such a, you know, when I get there and when I do it, it's so grounding and so beautiful and, um, you know, a real anchor in the, in the day.

Your kids have Saturday school. I remember that when I was a stage student in France. I hated Saturday school. They don't, at the moment, they don't have that in France. They, I think they, I'm not sure, like since moving to France in 2018, there has been no Saturday school as far as like I'm aware. First in, we were, where we were in a little village and now in Paris, like the kids have never had Saturday school.

I think they got. Rid of that, like maybe 10 or 15. Like I, I, I shouldn't say, I don't know exactly when they got rid of it, but I, I know it has been there in the past and it's not there now. I didn't go at the right time though. I went, I was an exchange student in like 2008. So well done like going to school in French and everything as a high school student were you or?

Yes. Yeah, I was. That was my junior year of high school. That's impressive. That is, I did a month in France as an exchange student when I was 16, like the month of July. Mm-hmm. And that was intense and hard in a lot of ways. And actually going to, but I obviously I wasn't going to school, I was just kind of hanging out with this family.

But going to school, that's, um, it takes guts. Yeah. Truly. Yeah. I don't, I don't know if I fully understood what I was getting into, but they are intense about school. And I remember I got my. It was Thanksgiving and I had been invited by some ex-pats to a Thanksgiving celebration, but Thursday was our gym class and we were having our ping pong unit.

Oh, okay. And so I got like called into the principal's office and lectured that I wasn't taking gym class seriously enough by choosing to go do. American Thanksgiving instead of being wrong. So that gives you, excuse me, as my roll my eyes to the very back of my head. Like, if that gives you a taste for Yeah.

You know, it's interesting. Yeah. This sort of approach to discipline, um, rule following, I find, I mean, you know, of course American schools have evolved since I was in school, but um, yeah, I find very different and yeah, they're pretty, they can be pretty strict. I love your rituals and the candle. That's really beautiful.

We were just talking to a group of writers and that was one of the writers' ideas was like having a different candle for kind of different project. Oh, that's a good idea. I have enough candles. I, I should dedicate each one again. Yes. Yeah.

Alright, Paige, we would love to hear from you with your wonderful expertise of travel. Uh, what are some. Ways that people can be more conscious of the people and the environment when they are traveling. I know that's also a big question. Well, you know, this is such an important question and I think a lot of people are asking themselves this question now more than ever really, and I think it's both important to really understand and appreciate the challenging or destructive potentially aspects of tourism, while also not forgetting that.

Tourism can be a really positive and constructive force in the world. I mean, you know, tourism is the most powerful means of communication we have across cultures today. And so we need to take advantage of this opportunity. And if we use tourism in a positive way, it can actually be a good thing for us as individuals and for honest to humanity as a whole.

But, okay, so what does this mean? If we're sort of breaking it down? It means both working to minimize the negative. And maximize the positive impacts of our travel. And I kind of think about it in three buckets, really. Um, the first one is tread lightly. So it's, you know, your, your impact and really taking the time to educate yourself about your presence in a place and what that's gonna mean.

So, you know, if you're gonna travel to a city, you know, in a couple of months, you take the time to. Look up, are they having challenges with tourism at this place? What do those challenges look like? You can use that information to inform your decisions about the kind of sites you're gonna see. Maybe the time of day you're gonna go, maybe some places you might avoid, um, the kinds of businesses you're gonna frequent or not.

So take the time to educate yourself and aim to. Try as lightly as possible during your visit and contributing in a way that's economically supportive of the place and then getting more into sort of like contributing to the, the positive aspects of tourism. I think, you know, it's so important. The second bucket, I would say is look beyond the surface and we can use, if we use our travels as a chance to get beyond the cliches of a place, then we can really start to maybe challenge some of our own preconceived notions.

And broaden our perspectives of the place itself. And then maybe of our own homes, you know, 'cause that's a wonderful gift too, that we can get from traveling. So look beyond the surface, look out for overlooked narratives in a place like I live in Paris, which is probably one of the most, you know, mythologized cities in the world.

So, you know, for, for people who are coming here, you know, whether it's France or like readers who reach out or whatever, you know, I love to recommend that people explore like the black history of Paris, the Arab, the huge, like Arab community, Arab culture, Arab history here in Paris. Um, you know, there's a, there's a beautiful little sort of like Japan town in Paris, some of the, the overlooked aspects of history in Paris.

Like, let's skip, you know, we can get beyond like. The impressionist paintings and Eiffel Tower and the Mona Lisa, which are all wonderful. Have I done all of those? Have I seen all those things? Yes. You know, and there's like, let's go. There's so much to discover. There's so much richness to be found if when we start to look beyond the surface, so as a third bike, so tread lightly, look beyond the surface, and the third bucket is.

Stay open and really like keep yourself open and curious and really humble. When you travel, when you travel, always remember that you are a guest in someone's home and that the place you're visiting, you're gonna have, I mean, it's like, you know, this is only natural. We're gonna have a sort of a projected image of the place before we get there.

But that's just your projection, right? The place isn't real until you get there and it shows itself to you, and it might, the actual city might not line up with your, with the image that you had in your mind. There's actually something, this is a little bit like urban, legendary, but it, it really hits home.

There's something called Paris Syndrome was like, it said that Japanese tourists come to Paris and sometimes have like a bit of a breakdown because they see a city that's kind of. Gritty and crowded and maybe too hot in the summer and it doesn't fit their sort of idealized notion and that they can have sort of like a mental health crisis while on vacation because they're so disappointed that, you know, they haven't fulfilled this sort of ideal dream they had in coming to Paris.

So stay open to what you encounter, even if it challenges your expectations, even if it makes you a little bit uncomfortable. And that's another point that I, you know, like to make in the book is that. Travel is like a really powerful means of putting ourselves deliberately, like choosing to put ourselves outside of our comfort zone.

And that can be fun and exciting and exhilarating. It can also be hot and crowded and you can feel like an idiot and you can feel rejected. You know? I was like, I mean, who hasn't had these experiences when you're traveling, you know, or you're bored or the thing doesn't work, or it's closed, or, you know, lean into that, you know, when the, when those sort of discomfort.

When that discomfort arrives or when you're confronted with something you weren't expecting or something that feels a little disappointing, like kind of stay with that. Don't close yourself off to that. See that discomfort. As a gift. It's, it's there to sort of tell you something. It's there to give you something, you know, maybe it's a new appreciation for something you have back home.

Maybe it's a sense of, you know, you can kinda dig through it and find a new sense of compassion for the people who live in the place you're visiting. So stay with, you know, stay. Uh, so there we go. Try, um, tread lightly, look beyond the surface and stay open. Those are my three kind of buckets for things to remember as we're.

Traveling. Oh, I love those buckets. And it reminds me too, you know, when you travel, you are out of your comfort zone. And then it's so interesting when you travel with other people who are also out of their comfort zones. And yeah, you might see people who you're very close to at home. In this new way abroad.

And that has been, yeah, a big learning curve for me, especially with my family. So yeah. Thank you Paige, for highlighting those things. Well, totally. I mean, speaking of, I'm, I'm talking to two therapists right now. I'll mention something that my therapist told me, just like. A couple of weeks ago, maybe recently, where we were talking, you know, we were talking about the fact that I am, you know, an American living overseas.

I'm planning for various reasons to stay outside the United States for till my kids are grown at least. And I feel really homesick sometimes. It does, it does get me sometimes. And the older I get, the more I. Think I feel drawn to the United States, but you know, I'm here gonna raise the kids here. You know, that's, that's for sure.

And she was telling me, she was like, actually, you know, studies have shown that people who live outside their country of origin have a base level of stress, just have a general level of stress higher than people who live in their country of origin. So that means that like if you know me managing my stress, like, okay, I need to just do even that much more.

To keep my stress sort of like, you know, in within the frameworks of what I can handle, because there's this base level, and so it's like, okay, as an American who chose to live abroad, that's some stress that I signed up for, that I'm gonna try to use in a positive way as best I can. But yeah, when we travel, we're really thrown at the deep end, right?

It's stressful to be outside of your, your daily rhythm, you know, your language, your like, you know, here we don't have. Air conditioning, it's like, and you get, and all of a sudden, whoa. Lots of stress. Just a lot of things to manage and sure it can be good stress, but it's a l it's a lot. And yeah. If you're experiencing that with other people, how are they gonna respond?

How are you gonna respond? It's, yeah. Tra like traveling with other people, it's certainly a good way to get to know them in a whole new way. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. The next time you see somebody having a mental breakdown while traveling, have a little compassion for them. Yes. Let's bring the compassion. Totally.

I mean, you know, another thing I like to to say is that like real travel begins where your comfort ends, right? Because it's like you can go, you know, we can all like, we all just need to relax sometimes. Putting my hand up here, I just need to like go and relax sometimes. Sometimes you just need to go to a hotel, like sit by the pool.

Drink your margarita. Go to the buffet. Go to bed, saying like, fine. Like, do that. That's like self care. But travel, like if you're really traveling, it's gonna be uncomfortable, right? And if you are traveling, and so kind of like when we're traveling, I feel like we need to get into a mind space where we're sort of ready for that.

Like we're not kind of scared of that. We're anticipating that. And when it comes up, we're not gonna be scared of that. It doesn't, you know, when things become uncomfortable, when things become stressful, it's not like, oh, I'm doing something wrong. No, no, no. If you were just staying inside a perfect tourist bubble and not having any real interactions with anybody, only speaking your language, going to the brands, you know, going to your Starbucks and your McDonald's to minimize the stress of being in another place, right?

You're not really getting the full benefit at the experience. So do we need to take, we need to take care of ourselves. Obviously. That's hugely important. If we're ready to travel, if we're ready to put ourselves out there, then we can step into that discomfort. And the gifts that it can bring. But yeah, it's, it's stressful.

It's stressful. It's, it can be good stress, but it's, it's new and challenging. Absolutely. You spoke about this a little bit, Paige, but I'd love to dive more in to mistakes you've seen people make during their travels or just the tourism industry in general, like bigger mistakes. Yeah. You know, I think one thing that I've seen a lot in that I think we can all sort of, even in myself and I'm trying to, you know, trying to work on, it's just really being content with.

A service level, a service level, sort of acceptance of things, I guess. And one, and this kind of goes back to one of the buckets I was talking about earlier, um, but for the, my research for the book, I was in Iceland and I spent some time at a canyon on the south coast of Iceland, which has become famous as the Justin Bieber Canyon because it's this really little out of the way canyon that was literally just like part of some farmer's land, you know, a little bit off the, kind of like the main ring road.

It became really popular on social media, but there was not, there wasn't any infrastructure or anything to welcome people, so it kind of became overrun. Justin Bieber showed up with a film crew and shot music video there, and then after that the crowds really rose. I was there in. Oh my gosh, 2023 to research the book.

And I spent some time hanging out with, uh, a woman who works for the government who manages it there. And now they've built, they had to close it down to give it time to kind of come back and they built a parking lot and toilets and stuff. So they have some infrastructure now and like a walking path to keep you off the really delicate grasses.

But she was telling me, she was like, you know, people come and they take a picture. They leave, you know, and all day, every day she sees all these cars coming and going. People come, they walk up, they take a picture and they leave. And she was like, people are coming for a picture of the landscape. I wish they would come to see nature, appreciate nature, and understand the really complex and vibrant nature we have here in Iceland.

Like she was just wishing that people would come. Ready and eager to have a more in depth experience of the place. And she wasn't saying don't come, and she was being incredibly well. She was there to sort of welcome people and greet them and like, you know, make sure they stay on the path and this kind of thing.

And she was, you know, incredibly, yeah. Warm and welcoming of tourists, but just like I wish people would be. Wouldn't be content with just the picture of the landscape. So that's one, and I've seen that, you know, and, and you know, I've, I've certainly been content with service level stuff and as a tourist sometimes, but yeah, that's one thing that I think I can work on and that probably, maybe we can all work on in different.

Context. Have you ever been to Yellowstone? And I haven't actually. It is. This is, yeah. That's an excellent example. It's the wildest place for tourists. 'cause yeah, the, it's very, yeah, the landscape is so delicate and it's also really, um, dangerous because if you walk off the walkways, there's all these like geysers, gey, the geysers, like, oh yeah, yeah.

And then there's all these buffaloes and Yeah, people just, they wanna get so close to all the wildlife and Yeah. It's like, no, this is not your playground. Yeah. This is a natural area that's dangerous. And you're here as a visitor. Yeah, I mean that makes me think another thing that I, you know, the sort of trend or something I see in tourism that kind of is like, maybe we could work on that is just the sense of like maybe kind of bucket list travel or being like that was on somebody else's like top 10 list.

Ergo it must be on mine. So like so and so says I have to see this before I die, therefore. I must see this before I die. The kind of checklist approach to, to travel and it's like, okay. Not to say like, you know, I think goals are a wonderful thing and we should all like, set objectives for ourselves and stuff, but I would just encourage people to, to do some sort of like inward, to do some introspection about what's really motivating their, their desired, their compulsion to go to go see a place.

And often I think. You know, there's this very human instinct of like, the Mona Lisa is famous. If I get a selfie in front of the Mona Lisa, a little bit of her immortality rubs off on me, right? And my ego, I don't, you know, like, why do people wanna get a selfie in front of the Mona Lisa? Or why do people wanna get, like, you know, that picture of some, you know, the, some famous scene in in Yellowstone.

And I think a lot of it has to do with. Trying to like hang our little flag into something immortal or something that feels immortal. I don't, I don't know if that resonates at all with you, but it feels kind of ego driven and so I guess I would encourage people to question their motives and make sure it's coming from a place of deep curiosity and humility rather than something kind of ego driven.

Instead of just, yeah, I just wanna snap the picture and show that I've been here. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, that's really, that's really deep. And Oh, there was something I was gonna say around that. Pictures. Oh yeah. Sometimes, um, a question I like to ask people, they say, oh, I'm going to this country, this city.

Mm-hmm. And I'll say. Why is that landscape drawing you in? Mm-hmm. Because it is, sometimes it is, oh, I know someone that's been there, I'm gonna now go, versus like really tapping into the heart space and thinking what landscapes are drawing me in and why, and that's helped me even understand, you know, where do I travel next?

You know, what people do I wanna spend time with. Totally, totally. You know, especially, you know, we've seen just in the last, you know, just recently, you know, we're recording this in June, just in the last sort of week or so, some tourism protests in some big like tourism cities here, um, in Europe, including Barcelona, which had some antit tourism protests last year.

And so I think especially if you're feeling compelled to visit a place. Say Barcelona, that has had challenges with tourism. You know, not to say that, I mean, Barcelona needs tourism. Barcelona wants tourism to a large extent, to a lesser extent probably than, than what they've had. But I'm not saying that nobody should ever go to Barcelona, but like.

If that's your, if a place like Barcelona is on your list, yeah. Really sit with that and question it and maybe what you really wanna see. If you really wanna see a historic Spanish city that has really fascinating architecture, there are probably other cities in Spain that you can visit. That will really, that will give you that experience without visiting a place where a huge part of the local population is pretty upset about how tourism is, is happening in their, you know, in their homes.

So I think if you kind of start to pick apart your motivations or try to understand what it is that's really driving you, then you know you can use the information to make decisions that'll be in line with the greater good. And then before we move on to our ritual section, are there any memories that stand out?

I'm sure there are many. Uh, what memories stand out to you that really kind of exemplify that experience of really beautiful travel where you get to connect to another culture and learn from it? Oh, wow. Well, there's one. Story that I love and I recount it in the book. And it was actually, it happened during the, the trip that I took for my research that I was the most scared to take.

So I was like way outside my comfort zone. I went as a solo female traveler and journalist, sort of slightly undercover, um, to Saudi Arabia. So this was, oh my gosh, what was this? 2023. Yeah. And um, and I was in Saudi Arabia and I had like ordered a burka on Amazon, tried to learn some phrases in Arabic. I was traveling by myself, was kinda going under the radar.

I was like, I'm just gonna go as a tourist. I'm not gonna request any official interviews 'cause I don't wanna attract the wrong kind of attention. I'm just gonna go and see what tourism is like there. Now and I ended up having an experience that really blew out of the water. A lot of my expectations and one specific story was on my last day I was in Riyadh and I had spent the day, um, going around with a fantastic Saudi tour guide named Fatima, who I later profiled for the New York Times.

She was gonna drive me to the airport in her pickup truck, which we spent the day haul around in her pickup truck. The battery in her pickup truck died, and we were in this busy parking lot in the middle of the city. Like, you know, my flight's taking off in however many hours we need to sort of get out there.

And this young man just like sees, you know, Fatima like lift the hood on her truck and he like jogs over and they're speaking in Arabic and I heard the word for American. And you know, and he's, you know, she gestures to me and he switches into English instantly. Anyway, he gave us a jump and it was like, okay, thank you so much, Abdullah, you know, for your help when we go to the airport.

And he was like, no, no, no, no, no. He wanted to talk to me and he wanted to tell me about the trip that he had taken to the United States like he had just after he and a friend after finishing their architecture degree. Had gone to New York and Orlando and he was like, I had such a great time. And I was like, cool, you know, that's so cool.

And he was like, do you know? I was so scared to go like what you see about guns and crime and everything. I was so scared to go. But you know what? I was in New York and I was in Orlando and even in New York, like people were so friendly. And I felt so safe the entire time. And then, you know what he told me?

He was like, and you know the United States is nothing like what you see on the news or in social media. And I was like, Abdulah, thank you for that message. And I got chills and I was like, you're gonna be in my book. Thank you. That can me chill. 'cause that was exactly the experience that I had had in coming to Saudi Arabia.

I was so scared to go and I was met with such hospitality. He was just one Saudi. I also had a moment where like I rented a car and I was literally driving myself around. So, and like the car would start and I got jump, it was like, it was like running theme of automotive problems in Saudi Arabia. There was, so, I was met with so much hospitality the whole time I was there.

So much hospitality and I felt, so there was not a moment where I felt uncomfortable in Saudi Arabia as a, as a so woman. Western white woman traveling. So now I tell this story to people just like he tells, I hope. He tells Abdullah, tells his United States story to his Saudi friends, and it's like, and this is the power of travel, right?

We don't have to believe what we, you know, and does that change, that experience, change what I think of like Saudi politics or like their treatment, uh, you know, gay people or, you know, ongoing challenges with women's rights. You know, obviously the country's not perfect, but do you know what, neither is my home country.

That is a good perspective, right? Like, you know, I see Saudi Arabia just like I see my home country, the United States, right? A beautiful and deeply flawed place that's home to millions of diverse souls, including the United States. You know, many of my closest friends and family and Saudi Arabia is a beautiful and diverse place that's home to millions of beautiful souls, including my tour guide Fatima and Abdullah, who gave us a jump.

Countries and places are so much more than what. Leaders who are in the interest of making us scared, want, want us to believe, and travel is such a powerful way to get at that truth and to remember that, do you know what we are all human beings having a very brief, ephemeral experience on this planet like.

Let's love and let's suffer together and let's grow through those experiences. Yeah, let's make the world a better place.

All right. Do we wanna help people incorporate some of these wonderful ideas when they travel? So do you have kinda specific things people could do? Like for example, the buckets that you mentioned, how, how could people actually put that into place, into action? For sure. I love this question. 'cause yeah, it's great to take the sort of like the big, you know, ideas and actually like, okay, what does this mean in my life?

How do I actually do this? So yeah, the first book I mentioned tread lightly. I mean, one really concrete thing that you can do is before you travel, I mean, even if it's right before, but ideally like, you know, before you're sort of making some reservations, set up a Google alert, you know, for the place that you're visiting.

Like say it's in Paris, Paris and tourism. And see what comes up and follow the news. Take some time to sort of do some reading on it, like what issues are they having with tourism? How is it like the Louvre here, for example, if you do that. Google News search today, um, June 17th, the day we're recording this, the Louvre has just closed because of a general strike of the workers who are like, we're fed up, we don't have enough support.

The, you know, they're going on strike. The loof is closed. As of yesterday, today, because out of protests for, they're saying we're, we're suffocating under the weight of the tourist visiting our museum. So if you have a Google alert, you're gonna see that and you're going to know, and you're gonna go, you're gonna come to Paris and you're gonna check out some.

Museums that actually could probably use some more visitors or that aren't so overwhelmed. So yeah, set up a Google alert. A Google News alert for tourism and your destination of choice so you can start to educate yourself about how tourism is happening there. And you can use that knowledge too. Make sure you tread lightly when you're there.

Yeah. So the second bucket, look beyond the surface and say wherever you're going, like try to find. An overlooked narrative or an like out of the beaten, you know, off the beaten track kind of place or something that's surprising. Um, again, I'll use the example here in Paris of you can go visit the Grand Mosque of Paris.

You can go on like a walking tour of black Paris. I've done two different walking tours of black Paris that are fascinating. And then if for an extra challenge, if you're active on social media share. This sort of like overlooked narrative on your social media, right? So you're helping enrich the public perception of Paris is a city that's not just.

Berets and Baguettes and the Eiffel Tower, right? That it's a place, it's a really diverse place with a mixed history, including, you know, a lot of legacies of colonialism and, and all this stuff. So go find an, you know, an unexpected destination or site or walking tour and share that on social media. And the third one, um, stay open.

I would encourage you to, um, keep a travel journal even if you're. Not writing paragraphs and paragraphs every day, you know, just to write about how you're feeling and what the experience is like, and to stay in touch with any discomfort that's coming up. Right. And even if it's like. Oh God, my legs were aching and we were standing in line and it was too hot and my mom and my cousin were fighting.

Um, hey, that's part of the experience, right? Like it's all here to serve us. Um, so keep a travel journal and to just kind of stay in touch with what's happening with you. And also, of course, you know, you can mark down the little moments, the little stories or little exchanges like maybe. My moment with Abdullah, you know, you have that and then that night you're writing in your journal, you can note that down and I think it'll just, you know, encourage a rich and rewarding experience.

So yeah, those are my three, three concrete tips. Yeah. Can you go a little, like, dive a little bit more into how people can document their travels in Yeah. Like ways that would be meaningful. Yeah. You know, I think about this a lot as somebody who, I have to say, I don't feel especially like adept at social media.

I'm trying,

we really are. Um. Yeah. You know, really trying to decenter yourself if you see yourself as like, this is what, what I'm trying to do and, and not always succeeding. And I, you know, recount an episode in the book where I was in Cambodia to os sensibly to learn about the complex histories of tourism there and the ongoing challenges.

And what do I post on social media? This very like, light and fluffy and kind of me centered little reel from, you know, enor. Um, and so I kind of like tease myself a little bit about that, but you know, in a lighthearted, gentle way. So share in a way that doesn't make you the center of the story. Share in a way that centers something else.

And of course, you know, you're there, you are telling the story. It is your story, you're the one telling it, right? Remember that. But you can choose as a storyteller, you know, you have a platform, whether you have 50 followers or 50,000 followers, you know, you have a platform. Um, use that platform to center the voices, the experiences, the histories.

Um, that you encounter in your travels that you feel aren't represented as much as they ought to be. So, you know, make it more about the place and the people you're visiting than about you, is what I would. Because it's always gonna be about you, right? You're the one, you're the one posting it, and that'll be a really, um, that can be a really powerful gift to give to the people who follow you, and they can take something really concrete away from that as well.

That's a good point. I don't, I think we oftentimes don't think about just you, those, those of us that don't have a big platform. Just Yeah. That we are impacting the people in our immediate circle. And so yes, being aware of how we present those images and stories. Ugh. And I love that phrase, like, decenter yourself 'cause Hmm.

Yes, Paige, I am gonna be thinking about this for a while. I might, I might have to email you after. 'cause that Yeah, there's so much, there's so much there. Yeah. And, you know, and there's, um, you know, there are ways to, of course, it's, it's your story. So you're, you're part of it. And not to say, oh, like, you know, there are no place for a selfie, or there's no place for your lived experience, but, or maybe, you know, you can share a story about.

Discomfort, you know, some discomfort you had or like, I felt really outta place or I tried, I came to Paris and I tried to speak French and somebody laughed at me like, that has happened. You know, and, and share that and you know, and just be, be open and honest. So in that case, you know, you are kind of centering your own experience and writing about it.

But I feel like in a writing about it in a way that's kind of. Open and vulnerable and, and sharing, you know, that that can be an invitation for other people to share their vulnerability or to, to kind of lean into that too. So, yeah, I think, you know, just doing it with a lot of thought and care and again, sort of like.

Checking that ego that just sort of like ego. Do you know what? You're gonna be just a little puff of smoke very soon, so just calm down, I guess. You know, like, it's okay. Just let, let go. Like, let's see what we can do for. The greater good while we're here. Well, thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you.

Yeah, this was incredible and yeah, we learned so much. This was amazing. Well, thank you for having me on and thank you for having your podcast. I think more therapists should have podcasts. This is wonderful. Thank and thank you for your thoughtful questions and for your interest in the book. And um, it's been a lot of fun talking to you.

Amazing. Take care, ritual fam. Yes, talk soon. Alright, bye bye. Alright, ritual fam, we hope that you enjoy today's episode with Paige. We would love to hear from you, send us your travel stories, and as always, it is so helpful for us when you leave us a review wherever you're listening. Give us a follow on Instagram at Ritual Sisters Pod.

We also just started a Facebook group. If you are more of a Facebook person. And let me tell you, you are really going to want to be staying tuned because our Patreon is coming out in September and we're going to have a lot of bonus content for you over there. So if you want to hear Kelly and i's travel mishaps.

Of course you do. Then you are going to want to stay tuned. You can find out what happened when Kelly encountered a grizzly bear in Glacier National Park, and you can also find out why I spent a day sobbing on the streets of Rome. Hmm. I wonder what happened there. So if you follow us on our socials, then you can stay tuned about how to get access to all of that really fascinating content.

Alright, well, as always, wherever you are, whenever you are, you go ahead and have. A magical time. Goodbye

making magic visible.

Our direct.

Spreading joy and harmony in our.