Travel Fuels Life®

While we are stalled and waiting to travel, I've written a new book called Whiskey Lore's Travel Guide to Experiencing Kentucky Bourbon. Friends in the Corner podcast host Dan Pauley reached out to talk with me about my new book, my love of travel and my love of whiskey. I enjoyed the interview and thought it might have some cool insider information for my listeners, so I am simulcasting the podcast on Travel Fuels Life. I hope you enjoy it.

With a busy travel season ahead, wouldn't things be a lot easier if you had a checklist to go by, to make sure you aren't forgetting any important details before your big trip? Tina and Keith Paul join me to discuss almost out of date passports, visas, immunizations, arranging transportation to your hotel, and more. Those things that can make your trip go from a pain in the neck to a dream.

What is it like to leave your home country and start a life in a completely new culture? This week, I talk with Pete Collman of the Bohemican Podcast about his decision to move from the United States to live in the Czech Republic. We talk logistics, culture, history, wonderful places to visit, the process of adapting, and language barriers.

With all of this cheap airfare and a good economy, we are starting to experience concepts like Over-tourism, dealing with increased carbon footprints, the destruction of the coral reefs, the fires in Australia, and uncontrolled pollution from single use plastics. I recently heard Traveling Jackie give a keynote at TBEX in Billings, MT about responsible travel - so I invited her on the show to give us some food for thought on how we can start to create a more sustainable vision for our travels.

What is like to travel to Antarctica? What is it like to travel to the Arctic Ocean? My guest Lisa Marquardt of The Hot Flash Packer blog found by traveling to both in 2019. Join me as we discuss how she did it and get tips on how we can travel to one or the other.

We spend much of our time looking around for places to travel. But how often do you look up? Join me as I interview Valerie Stimac, the author of Lonely Planet's Dark Skies: A Practical Guide to Astrotourism, as we look at dark sky designated viewing areas, how to travel to eclipse and aurora viewing areas, see meteor showers, and search the galaxies.

As opposed to the event centered South Lake Tahoe episode, we’ll shift gears a bit this week, because we’re heading to an area rich with old west history. So prepare for some stories, characters, and a much more laid back feel in the high desert of Carson Valley. And when you hear that term desert, don’t let it fool you, this is very fertile land full of ranches, farmlands, incredible scenery, and the Bently Heritage Estate Distillery where I’ll take you around this state-of-the-art soil to bottle eco-system that is unlike any distillery experience I’ve had.

Welcome to the final two episodes of Season One. I’m going to take you along with me to two tourist destinations, one is South Lake Tahoe, which is known as a ski-resort destination, but I visited it during the shoulder season to see what it offered - and next week’s episode is based a destination you may or may have heard of - Carson Valley, which will not only spin you back into the old west, but which will also yield one of the most fascinating distilleries I’ve seen yet... Join me in a theatre of the mind presentation where we'll check out Heavenly Gondola, Epic Discovery, the MS Dixie II, great places for food and whiskey (since I'm gearing up for my new podcast Whiskey Lore) and a few surprises along the way. Think of this as your audio travel blog. And don’t worry about taking notes, I’ll have a full show notes page prepared with links to everything I’ve talked about in the show. So just relax, put on your seat belt and come along for a ride as I discover Nevada.

It's always great to catch up with travelers I've met on social media and this week, I was driving through East Tennessee and had a chance to catch up with Clayton Hensley aka @KnoxRoadTripper. Having worked in Knoxville for both television and newspapers, he's taken his flair for writing about East Tennessee and his family travels and turned it into a blog. I wanted to chat with him about where he travels to, how he engages his kids, and find out more about what he likes to do in and around East Tennessee.

Meet Vicky Sosa, a South Florida native that decided to boot the 9-5 lifestyle for an opportunity to see the world. Starting with a blog and a part time job, she asked her boss if she could work remotely and now she is house-sitting and getting to experience the world all with her stuffed travel mate Buddy the Traveling Monkey. In this week's episode we'll chat about: And more. Get full show notes at travelfuelslife.com/podcasts

Lori Sweet and Sylvio Roy of VoyageWriters.com join me this week to talk about Galapagos - the experience, planning your time, regulations and fees, biodiversity/history, and whether you plan on your own or use an agency. And hear some exciting news about the introduction of whiskey-lore.com

This week we're talking to Greg and Betsy Ball of EuroTravelCoach.com who sold their home in Texas to live 9 months of the year in Europe. They're going to fill us in on some of the techniques they use to survive and thrive on the road for that length of time with no permanent residence including how to deal with the Schengen Zone.

After 4 weeks of talking about optimizing our money for travel, it's time we spent a couple of weeks on how to generate income or find ways to creatively source the travel gift that money gives us. So this week, I'll talk with Shane and Jocelyn Sams - two teachers from Kentucky who stumbled into a way to make money so they could travel using knowledge they already had. And they now share that knowledge with others. We'll find out how this all lead to their location independent lifestyle.

Brother and sister reunite as we give both male and female packing tips to avoid those pesky and sometimes very expensive baggage fees. We'll tell you what we have in our bags as well as some handy tips to get through TSA and we'll even tell you what bag we're using that can save you all of this money. And see photos of the items we packed and a list of those items out at travelfuelslife.com/baggage

In our four part series on helping you optimize and maximize your dollars so you can increase your travel and travel lifestyle, I talk with Scott's Cheap Flights Co-Founder Scott Keyes. We talk about how he got started finding cheap flights and grew his newsletter to over 1.6 million subscribers. We also talk about how you find mistake fares, strategies for pulling the trigger on great deals, and some of the best deals they've found. Mixing this low fare service with the miles and points we discussed the last 2 weeks, and packing of your bags that we'll talk about next week, should give you the ability to fly for low or no cost.

In this second episode featuring Brandon Neth of FinanceBuzz.com, we talk loyalty programs and how they fit into the miles and points game. From airlines to car rentals, hotels to meals, we'll find out how to maximize those points and stack them to get optimal benefits. It's a week where you'll learn to squeeze out value from every credit card and loyalty program opportunity.

My guest this week is Brandon Neth. Brandon works on both social media and audience growth management for FinanceBuzz.com and he also runs a powerful Facebook Group called FBZ Elite - Travel and Points (private Facebook Group). Brandon has mastered the art of getting and using miles and points and he's going to share his knowledge with us during this two part power packed episode. Even if you're experienced with miles and points, there is likely something here you'll learn that you didn't know.

Join me as I talk with Angela DiLoreto of Fitting In Adventure about her recent cruise to Alaska and her other cruising adventures to Greece, Cuba, and Mexico. We'll talk about good experiences, bad experiences, tips on getting the best deal, and more.

Imagine selling everything you own, fixing up a van and driving with no firm destination. Brie and Shawn are two thirtysomething's that did just that. We'll talk about how they got started, how things are going, and how to plan the seeds of travel in your partner's mind. And check out the show notes on TravelFuelsLife.com/Podcasts

This Spring I returned from my first trip to Scotland, but I almost didn't. I fell in love with a lot of things about the place and it seemed like the perfect subject for a podcast. So here are the Top 10 things I learned about Scotland that I didn't know before I went.