We’re replaying out feature interview on the Sunshine Travelers Podcast giving you the scoop on how to get the group trip out of the group chat and out into the world. We share stories from our travels together and chat travel with Scott and Melissa.

This episode originally appeared on Sunshine Travelers Podcast, we also interviewed Sunshine Travelers Podcast on our show, make sure to check out their tips for visiting the Caribbean episode too!

Group Travel Advice – Episode Transcript

0:35

Welcome to this weeks episode of the Travel Squad Podcast. Today we’re airing our interview that we did on the Sunshine Travelers podcast about group travel earlier this year.

0:56

In this episode, we talked to the dynamics of group travel, discuss great tour operators and options for organized group travel, and dive into a few tips to make group travel successful.

It might seem easy to travel with a group of friends, but that same group of friends may have completely different travel styles, and we talked about the best ways to navigate that.

1:16

Scott and Melissa are the hosts of Sunshine Travelers Podcast and their podcast is filled with episodes on destinations, travel hacks in the Caribbean.

In fact, we had so much fun interviewed on their podcast, we invited them to be on our podcast to talk about all things Caribbean as they’ve traveled to so many Caribbean islands and can provide you squaddies with a lot of insight.

1:36

So be sure to check out that episode after tuning into this one.

One of the things we’ve talked to many of our friends and listeners about is traveling as a group of friends.

Everyone has their preferences when it comes to travel.

Some people like to get up early and see as much as they can, while others prefer to have some downtime.

1:56

Some like to eat early, others like to eat late, some like to grab a quick bite, and others want a leisurely meal.

Some like to have everything planned and make reservations, while others prefer to go with the flow.

Then there’s the topic of budget for the trip.

2:12

It’s one thing to travel as a couple, but adding friends to the mix and keeping everyone happy is a whole other story.

Today we were talking with a group of friends who do just that and record their experiences on a podcast.

Please join me in welcoming Kim, Brittany, and Jamal The Travel Squad Podcast to our show.

2:35

Hello, hello.

Thanks for having us.

We are so excited to be here.

Thank you, Scott and Melissa for having us on this podcast today.

Yeah, it’s a real honor.

We’re really excited to be here with you guys.

This is the first time that we’ve actually talked to multiple people at the same time our podcast, so we’re really excited about this.

2:55

Usually it’s a one-on-one or two on one conversation for us, so this is going to be fun and exciting.

It is exciting and on our end too.

We don’t do a lot of interviews on other podcasts, so this is special for us.

3:11

Well, let’s let’s let you guys like introduce yourselves, talk a little bit about you guys and then kind of go into when and how you started travelling together as a group of friends.

So Kim and I met back when we were 12 years old, and so we’ve been friends for a really, really long time.

3:31

And I actually met Jamal when I was 17.

We worked at a Target together and Kim was my best friend.

Jamal and I were dating so the group of us started to hang out.

But really our relationship started to develop when we all moved down to San Diego.

3:48

Because at this by this point we were all adults and we started to want to travel a little bit more.

And Kim and I for budget purposes wanted we would hike to explore places.

So we did a lot of hiking.

We hiked all throughout San Diego and we were just talking about all of our hiking adventures and we decided that we were going to make it a goal to hike Machu Picchu.

4:13

So we did exactly that.

We hiked Mike Machu Picchu, but we wanted to hike with.

I didn’t want to leave Jamal out and of course Kim didn’t want to be 1/3 wheel.

So we invited another friend along, Jamal’s sister and we all did this great epic trip to Machu Picchu.

4:32

We did the the hike on the Inca Trail and from there our travel started.

And then on a trip, Kim actually came up with the idea of the podcast.

And that Machu Picchu trip was actually my first time ever going on an international trip.

4:50

I never did a lot of traveling growing up.

I was 26 years old when we took that trip to Peru, and immediately after we planned another trip to Mexico City.

And then it was just Bang Bang bang, trip after trip after trip for a good three years until we were in Mexico City again and happened to start talking about this travel podcast.

5:12

I had fallen in love with podcasts.

As fellow podcasters yourselves, you probably listen to a lot of shows, too.

All day long I listened to them.

And so they were in my ear and I was like, you guys, we have to talk about this.

The excitement of travel is just, it’s palpable.

5:27

We have to share this.

And like Brittany said at the time, we weren’t rich.

We still aren’t rich now by any means, but we were managing to go on all of these trips month after month after month, US trips, you know, hiking trips, international trips, all of it.

5:43

And so we just knew we had something we wanted to share and and we did it.

Yeah, Kim was the brainchild really behind it.

And I won’t lie, we were at a wedding, so we were, I don’t want to say inebriated, but we had a few drinks at us, so we had the liquid.

So we had the liquid courage.

5:59

And when Kim came up with the idea, we were all feeding off of each other saying, yeah, yeah, this is going to be great.

People ask us all the time how we do it.

And like Kim alluded to, I mean, obviously one of the biggest hindrance of being able to travel a lot is money.

But we always had little travel hacks or certain things that we would do to save.

6:18

And so we thought that would just be a great platform to tell people about it since everyone always asks us.

And of course, share the fact that we’re all traveling together as a group because not a lot of people really do that.

And that’s something that we all did that was unique.

And you did it a lot too, right?

6:34

So it wasn’t just like, oh, this trip, I mean, it sounds like they’re at the beginning like you, you did lots of trips together, correct?

Yeah, absolutely.

So our first one that really kicked it off was to Peru, where we hiked Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

And then after that, Kim mentioned we went to Mexico City to visit a friend, but we also went to China together.

6:54

We went to Ecuador together.

We actually just got back from Costa Rica together and then we did some some domestic trip too.

We went to Idaho and some other states where we Rd. tripped around and travelled as this group so.

We were on a national parks, which is a huge part of what we still talk about.

7:12

Right, yes, I do notice that is that you guys, which is something that we want to do more of.

And so like just seeing your content and having your content, listening to your content on the, you know, in the national parks is such a great resource for people, right, Because that I think that is a very popular thing within the US for people to go do.

7:31

On one of our most recent podcasts, we we talked about that when people ask us like, what’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?

It’s easy for us because we can spout off somewhere internationally we’ve traveled to.

But recently we had someone say what’s your favorite domestic place?

7:48

And we stumbled.

We were like, and it’s like, how can you travel podcasters be able to answer that question?

The reality was is that we just love travelling internationally.

So that on that, that you you prefer international.

But the US is so underrated.

There’s so many beautiful hidden gems in this country.

8:07

Oh, absolutely, without a doubt.

There really are.

And that’s the thing about America.

I mean, we really are a young country.

So when you’re comparing cities, and that’s of course, if you’re thinking cities, international is the way to go because there’s hundreds, if not thousands of years of history.

Whereas here in the US we don’t.

8:23

So kind of going back to the national parks, that’s why we really love exploring America via the national parks because you really get to see its natural beauty that way.

I feel like only a handful of cities in the US really have that kind of character that you could maybe find internationally.

8:38

Otherwise a city’s a city here.

So I, I don’t necessarily disagree with you.

Sometimes international may be better if you’re going the city route.

Yeah, I, I absolutely agree with you.

And matter of fact, we’ve even said like as long as we can get out and go and, you know, we have our health and stuff like that.

8:56

Like we want to go as far as we can and then when we can’t travel quite as far, that’s when we’ll go out in our backyard more often and stuff like that.

But you’re 100% correct.

There’s a ton of hidden gems and that’s why we like talking to fellow travellers, because you guys come and tell us about the places that you’ve been and we’re like, yeah, now we got to add that to our list.

9:19

That’s something else.

Yeah.

And you guys are avid hikers, but I wanted to just say, wow, the first international trip to Machu Picchu, that’s like, wow.

Jamal always gets mad at me because that’s technically not true.

9:36

Technically, I went from San Diego to Rosarito, which is a 30 minute drive across the border, a week before this Peru trip with a group of girls.

We didn’t have phones working.

We had handwritten directions so where to meet our friend that.

So that was technically my first little teaser into it.

9:52

But Jamal doesn’t consider that to be true, and he considers Peru.

Yeah, Peru was the real first one.

She flew in versus crossed the land.

So that’s that, that’s the real international travel right there.

So I’m going to take edit that.

Brilliant thing and ended up in Mexico.

10:08

Yeah, so then you.

Said after Peru, it sounds like y’all started traveling to a lot of places now.

So thinking about it like as a friend group and as like you know, lots of people with lots of different opinions.

How did you start coming up with the ideas that you named off a bunch of places of for the trips, like where to go and what you guys wanted to do?

10:29

Well, I think it was a lot of different things.

I think 1 was we would kind of throw out a name of a country or state and kind of see the reactions of other people and see if anyone kind of bit.

So at one point Jamal threw out China.

They were like, OK, why not?

10:45

And I think it was one that just kind of landed for us all because I think with us being a group of three or four, you all have your own unique opinions about where to go to next.

So first we just kind of started throwing out ideas and then once an idea stuck, we would just stick with that for a while.

11:03

But also sales a lot.

We travel with on the West Coast with Southwest a lot.

Southwest has a ton of sales for flights.

And so I think one day we were coming off of a trip, we were in the airport.

I was looking through my e-mail.

11:18

That’s where we always end up booking.

And so I had SW was having a sale and I just happened to look at like trip to Boise, ID and I said, you guys, this flight is so cheap.

And so in that moment, we booked that next trip while we were on one.

11:37

Yeah, we talked about that a lot.

Is that if you will, instead of picking a place where you want to go, if you’ll look for those great travel deals, you can travel so much more.

But if?

You got in your mind a certain place that you want to go, then the cost of airfare is what the cost of airfare is going to be.

11:58

And there’s always places that you’re going to want to go to just book that trip.

But one thing that we talk about on our podcast a lot and share is that we let the sale sometimes dictate like China.

Yeah, I wanted to go to China, but it was an international trip, flights, tours, hotel, everything included if I remember correctly, because this was in 2017, but I don’t think it was any more than 1200.

12:22

Thirteen, $100 per person.

And I said how can you go wrong for $1300 to get all the way to China, spend 8 days there and have an amazing time seeing all the history, eating the delicious food.

And then Brittany alluded to Boise, it was a Southwest sale, but we do that a lot of times.

12:42

SW sale.

What’s the closest airport to this National Park?

And we find it.

Are we going to be going hiking at a lot of the times?

To get back to your original question is where do we decide to go, You know, coming off of Machu Picchu, Yeah, that’s a very strenuous hike.

12:58

But we like to hike and we like nature and national parks.

So a lot of times too, at least domestically, the choices were always geared around the national parks of where we would be going and when we would go would really depend on the sale of the airfare when we can find it.

13:13

I think that’s an awesome temp, right is to kind of have that list and then say, OK, when does this, when does this make sense based on the sales?

We’re definitely millennials because that Boise trip was not just inspired by a sale, but it was inspired by a picture that Brittany and I saw on Instagram.

13:31

People in these Hot Springs, They’re natural Hot Springs but formed pools just outside of Boise.

It’s snowing, but they’re wearing beanies and bikinis.

And we were like, we need to go to Boise for this.

We got the pic.

13:46

That’s cool.

Nice.

Let me just ask the question is, what is your most memorable place that you guys have travelled together?

I think for me it’s the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

It’s not just that we travelled there together, but we spent four days on hiking and we had never hiked, we had never backpacked, we had had not camped in years.

14:11

We were doing that at a high elevation and then we were also joining I think four other groups or four other couples along the way.

So we were completely out of her element.

So she need forming a bond with them as well as the other people we were with was so memorable.

14:28

And so how did that like, what was that like?

So meeting other people like on the trip and they were like hiking with you too.

So.

And then how did that like, yeah, what was that like?

That’s super interesting to me.

It’s something.

That we do a bit of actually these guided experiences.

14:44

We’ll do guided tours, which is actually what we did for China.

So they kind of plan everything, take care of everything, but you’re with people.

It was the same for Machu Picchu.

We partnered with Alpaca Expeditions and we showed up and we joined a group of I think, yeah, like 6 or so other couples.

15:02

We were with them for the full four days.

Some of them we even became such good friends with that when we were in Denver, a couple lived in Boulder.

We went and had breakfast at their house and met their family.

So even though we travel as a group together, we do a lot of these group type trips that make our group bigger.

15:22

And I mean, we’ve had, we’ve met friends in China that are now still travelling with us.

We’ve met friends in Ecuador that we keep in touch with.

Very cool.

Yeah, that’s really neat.

Yeah, do what?

So let me just ask why we’re at this point.

So besides the Alpaca expeditions, is there is there other particular ones like that you are like that you’re drawn to companies that do that or do you just kind of look to see of things that are of interest to you?

15:48

Well, Alpaca Expeditions is a specific vendor who’s licensed to do the tours to Machu Picchu in terms of guided tour companies that we use, if I’m understanding your question correctly right there.

Yeah, we love and use Gate one.

16:04

We have only really used Gate One travel or our group tours that we do and I wouldn’t recommend anybody else.

We’ve always had a great experience with them.

You can choose independent tours where the flights, hotels are included, but you’re on your own to do whatever you want in the city that it lands you or completely fully guided like we talked about in China or the Dalmatian coast when we’ve done Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, that was a fully guided South Africa and Zimbabwe was fully guided.

16:38

Gate One has always been great and we’ve met so many friends on those tours that we keep in touch with or still continue to travel with like Kim Set.

There’s two other companies I would toss in there that we haven’t actually used, but Here and now travel is another one that caters more towards people under 40 ish or so and.

16:58

We can’t go on that one.

They’ll take any age, it’s just you’ll probably be with a bunch of youngsters.

But G Adventures is another one kind of like that.

I’m actually eyeing a Iceland tour with them in December.

Nice.

That’s good to add some of those because we do have people that are just, they want to show up and go on something.

17:18

They don’t want to figure it out on their own.

They don’t want to have to make all the arrangements.

Melissa calls that me, but I know.

It’s nice sometimes.

And then out of the the three of you guys, who’s the actual planner, who’s the one who spends most of their time doing all the planning, putting everything together, and how do you split that up?

17:42

I would definitely say I’m number one on planning with Kim being my backup.

But I will give Jamal credit in the fact that he does all of the planning in terms of airplane, trains, transportation.

He is our transportation planner, but the.

17:58

Driver on trips.

He is the driver, but Kim and I do most of the actual planning, contributing to the Word document that we have ongoing and making sure things line up.

And kind of like I’ll start to list out all of our ideas of places we want to go, and then we’ll start to segment it by days and areas.

18:19

And then if usually I’ll get that started first, Kim will then add on to it.

And then if we have other people coming with us, usually they’ll throw in an idea or two, but they’re pretty laid back in the travel planning process.

And then once I have that template from Brittany and Kim, then I put it together to say, OK, are we taking trains if we’re internationally or what’s the best metro route?

18:43

How do we get from here to there?

That way, when we’re already in country, I know what line we need to take from what station to what station, and it just makes it a whole lot easier.

So I get the A template and then I fine tune it.

But really, it’s Kim and Brittany who are really coming up with all of the ideas of what we’re gonna do.

19:04

And they’re.

Usually the one who’s fulfilling the itinerary, morning, noon and night.

And then I go in there to say too much hiking.

We need another rooftop bar in here, we need a Thai food restaurant.

We need some downtime.

That’s awesome.

19:20

So you actually you were reading my mind because that was really could be my next question is how do you balance what everybody like in your group wants to do?

And then how do you balance that or how does that work on the tours that you do like, how can you like help people out?

19:35

Yeah, when you’re on a guided.

Tour and you’re not leading the experience.

How does that work?

Out what I would say when you’re on a guided tour, it really is go with the flow.

I mean you really have no choice.

So you just have to read the itinerary of the tour that you’re booking ahead of time to know like, OK, we’re going from hotel to hotel.

19:56

We’re not even in one place two nights in a row and it’s just going to be go, go, go.

Or some of them of the guided tours, they do have three days or you’re only doing something for half the day.

Then the other half of the day is at leisure.

So you can fill that with relaxation or your own time to do something that you want that the tour’s not doing.

20:17

So I would say that one’s easier to balance because of that, but also harder too, because at some point you really have no choice depending on.

How extensive of a tour that you booked in terms of US traveling together?

I’ll let one of the ladies take that question too you.

20:33

Know we’ve kind of developed a reputation for being travelers and planners and the people that come along on the trips with us are our other friends.

They don’t.

Typically.

Want to contribute much to it.

They, they really want us to plan the trip and they, they kind of treat it as a guided tour of their own really.

20:50

I was just going to say, yeah, we often travel.

As Kim mentioned, we met a couple in China who actually live in the US from Oklahoma.

So she’ll throw in a, my one request is we do this and so of course I’m going to accommodate it.

But if I ask her for anything else, she’s just like whatever else you guys had planned, whatever you were thinking of doing, and she just likes to show up for the rest of the trip.

21:14

Most of the time people haven’t even read the Google Doc itinerary that we put together, they just show up blind.

And we’ll say I did.

Scott has become more of a planner now.

Sometimes we have a lot going on, you know, just between podcast things and different things.

21:29

And so our recent trip to Curse out, he actually planned a lot more.

And I got blamed for that.

Did you not read that?

So I totally understand that.

Brittany and I will have a little bit of those bickerings too, because she’ll fill it with a lot of stuff and I should probably go in and look at the document.

21:48

And if it happens to be a trip where I really am only driving a rental car and don’t really have to worry about figuring out transportation in a city, we have that dynamic going on just as well.

So Kim gets to witness it all sometimes.

So it’s not always perfectly smooth sailing, right?

22:05

He never is.

What?

Tip, I guess would you would you have for people to be able to, you know, travel as a friend group?

I like your suggestion, Brittany, about, you know, asking or your your one friend says this is the one thing I want to do.

22:21

I mean, I think that might be a great suggestion that you would say everybody OK, like chip in something like what is high on your list to do?

We’ve done that with when traveled with her, you know, our grandchildren.

But like, what tip would you have for people traveling and planning a trip together?

Go ahead.

22:37

Go ahead.

My biggest tip would be to actually take the lead.

Most people in a friend group won’t actually take the lead to say here are the dates we’re going to go.

Here’s some hotels that we could stay in.

I’ve booked it.

Who’s coming?

Like they want someone to do it and then they’ll follow.

22:53

And at least with the friend groups that I’ve travelled with, taking that first step to put it into action gets the whole group moving.

My tip would be that to stay flexible because everyone’s going to have different places they want to see or eat or activities they want to do.

So I think if you’re travelling with a friend group, obviously you’re going to a destination hopefully you both want to go to or your group wants to go to and enjoy, but there has to be some flexibility.

23:18

You can’t just be completely hard on the schedule and not have any leeway because with reality happening, everyone’s going to have a different opinion.

And you just have to let it flow a little bit and just kind of weave in and out of a fluid itinerary that everyone can enjoy.

23:34

Because if you’re traveling as a group, you want everyone to enjoy that experience.

It’s not just your vacation, it’s their vacation too.

When you do a group travel like that, do you spend the entire time together or do you have some time set aside where like you can kind of go off and just do your own thing and, and let everybody have a moment where they can go their own way inside of a location?

23:56

That’s a great question.

We do sometimes we’re with each other most of the time, but most often we’ll have sometimes away from each other.

For example, we had mentioned we went to South Africa.

After going to South Africa, we landed in New York.

We spent a few days in New York.

Jamal really wanted to go to a Was it the Yankees?

24:13

The Yankees game.

I had no interest, absolutely no interest.

Jamal’s sister had no interest, so we decided to go grab, go to a deli and grab some ice cream and watch The Bachelor and our Airbnb while Jamal and his friend group because we were also with another couple and they went to the game and they enjoyed it.

24:33

So I’m absolutely OK with spending some alone time away from Jamal and away from whoever else we’re traveling with.

We were actually just in Costa Rica and Jamal and Zana, Jamal’s sister, they weren’t able to make it on a hike, so Kim and I spent a girl’s day just hiking out in the Costa Rican jungle and we had a great day together.

24:53

Yeah, I would say if circumstances dictate in the moment, we do exactly what Brittany mentioned.

But a lot of times our time away from each other is when we are in our own rooms at night.

And when we first started traveling, that wasn’t even a luxury because to save money, we would always be hunkered down in the same hotel room too.

25:13

And so that space and luxury is something that’s come with time for us.

But for the most part, we have never really like plugged it in to say, hey, we’re going our separate ways unless there has been something in an itinerary on a place where we’ve been where we just couldn’t come to a consensus.

25:30

And we said, all right, we’re going to do this, you guys do this, We’re going to be back up here.

But that’s far human between.

But it does happen.

And I think that’s a great tip for people because you think we’re doing this trip together.

We literally are going to do everything together.

But no, like if you had different couples, like go on a dinner date on your own or like you said, go to a ball game, go do an activity that you like.

25:51

So I think that’s that’s a great tip.

And so Jamal, one of my one of my domestic things that’s on my bucket list is to go on a I’m a Braves fan.

I want to go on a road trip with them.

So like when they’re doing a three city road trip, I want to go to all all the games on that three city trip.

26:09

I’m right there with you on.

That one, I’m in New York and I know at this point in time it’s not the original Yankee Stadium, but Yankee Stadium is iconic.

It’s like another time when I we were in Chicago, I said I have to go see a game at Wrigley Field.

And I’ve been to Boston but hasn’t been during baseball season.

26:25

But you better believe I’m going to go see a game in Fenway one day, so I understand.

I can talk baseball night.

So we’ll why don’t you guys tell us a little bit about your podcast.

So not only do you travel together as a friend group, you also decided that you would, as you said you would start capturing this in a podcast.

26:45

So tell us a little bit about that.

Our podcast is called Travel Squad Podcast and our mission is to bring the excitement of travel into the podcast audio form.

Back when we started, there weren’t as many good podcasts as there are now.

And so we were trying to listen to them and they just, they weren’t capturing how exciting the anticipation of a trip coming up is or when you come back for a trip, how you’re on that high for a while.

27:11

And so we wanted to bring that.

And we also wanted to show people that you can work full time and you can still travel.

You can have any type of a budget and you can still travel.

So we wanted to give specific details on trips that we would take after work on a Friday, fly in before work on a Monday and how we would make that happen, exactly how much we spent and how we saved money if we didn’t, you know, have a big budget for it.

27:33

And I think that’s that’s really been our mission over the last five years that we still hold today.

I.

Have a colleague that one Monday morning we were talking and so I asked her what she had done over the weekend and she had actually traveled to Morocco.

And I was like, you don’t just travel to Morocco over a weekend.

27:49

I mean, what are you doing?

She’s like, yeah, we went to Morocco.

I think maybe it’s a three day weekend for them, but Oh my.

Gosh, so.

So it sounds like that’s that might be a little bit of what you’re talking about, maybe not quite so extreme.

Yeah, usually not so extreme, but you guys have the luxury of being on the East Coast.

28:07

And as you guys were talking about you, you prefer international travel.

Well, it’s so easy for you guys because you’re around so many different islands and then you’re not far from Europe, whereas for us, we have to go across the entire United States and then then still go to Europe, you know.

28:23

So for you guys, it’s a little bit easier to do those international trips.

Only because we just, we actually just talked about that.

For me to go to the West Coast though, I was in Las Vegas last week for work and it took all day to get there.

So, you know, early my day and then get there in the afternoon.

28:43

You know, we just kind of look at it as when you’re going overseas like that, you’re going overnight, you were going to sleep, you know, most likely overnight anyway.

So it doesn’t really count into that as much as like when we’re traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast and it just literally takes you all day long to get there.

29:02

Yeah.

That’s such a great point that you that you make because I, we just don’t think about that, right.

We can hop to the Caribbean, we can hop, you know, to Europe a lot quicker than if you’re on the West Coast.

That’s interesting.

Some point in the near future, I’m going to move to Florida and then I’ll be following in your footsteps with all of the Caribbean travel.

29:20

It really is.

I tell you, you know, I don’t know if you have a certain place that you’re looking at to move, maybe be closer to a hub type airport because for us we actually have to travel like to either Atlanta or New York to get to South Florida.

29:37

So you.

Might want to keep that in mind.

When you’re when you’re looking.

That’s true if you have a choice.

But we have found the good thing is even though now we have a connection airport, if we use things like points and stuff like that, thankfully it’s sometimes even cheaper than it was to fly out of Atlanta.

29:55

And that was something that we weren’t expecting.

That was actually a surprise to us.

So that’s been.

A nice perk.

Yeah, nice little perk.

So going back to the podcast you guys, you started your travels in which are five years into it now.

The five years into the podcast, traveling together, we’re going on 8 or 9 if I’m doing quick math correct in my head, so long time.

30:18

That’s great.

In the in the podcast, do you guys focus on any specific areas or you’re just documenting kind of what you do?

So I think our podcast, we try to capture as much as we can travel wise.

So we will follow all of our trips, whether they be international, domestic or hiking trips to National Park.

30:37

We also like to do roundups, you know, best cities to visit in summer or best destinations to visit in certain seasons, certain months.

Sometimes we’ll focus on the credit card aspect of things, sometimes we’ll have guests on who specialize in different departments of the travel industry, so we just try to capture as much as we can travel wise.

31:00

We’ve always put out a Travel Tuesday episode weekly, and those are typically 30 minutes to an hour long.

And then more recently we started putting out mini episodes on Fridays that are about 15 minutes or 10 minutes long that are more of those quick hits, like 5 apps you should have on your phone when you travel or 10 medications you should always travel with.

31:21

So we have a lot of stories about not having medications or needing medications when you’re traveling.

So little things like that.

Just kind of bonus episodes that aren’t necessarily documenting trips that we’ve taken, but still adding value to the traveller.

Where would you say so for a lot of our listeners like this will be the first time that they’ve heard of travel squad podcast.

31:41

So where would you have them start maybe in your podcast lineup to kind of get a feel for you are or like how could they kind of find content that they might be interested in I.

Think our website would be the best place to search for ittravelsquadpodcast.com/episodes.

31:59

There’s a search bar in there so you can search destinations that maybe you’re interested in traveling to.

That’s actually how most people find us, right guys?

People are going on a trip, they’re searching in Spotify, they come across our show.

But you can do the same on our website.

Everything is categorized there.

32:15

We also have different categories for National Park trips, international trips, US trips, or tips, so you can kind of just see what pops up when you click on the category 2.

And that’s perfect because if you are looking then for hiking destinations and you guys advice like that would be you guys would be totally the the place to go for that because that’s not we, we haven’t done, you know, besides just little short hikes.

32:41

So.

You know, a friend recently said to us that she wasn’t really into podcast because she feels like she has to start at the very beginning.

And I thought that was really interesting because although some podcasts are like a series, a lot of travel podcasts aren’t necessarily.

32:56

And I told her, why don’t you just pick up where you find an interesting episode and then just bounce around in that.

And I can think that can be said for most travel podcasts.

You don’t have to start at the very beginning.

If you see something that was just aired a week or two ago and that’s what really captures you, listen there and then go back into the archive to see what else there is that captivates.

33:17

You I think that that’s such a great point.

There’s somebody’s on your website and they’ve binged on some of the podcast episodes and planning a trip.

What other resources do you have out there for travelers?

On our website, we have a ton of trip itineraries.

So the exact same trip that we’ve taken, the exact same trip that we have a podcast on, we have built out these PDS itinerary guides on them.

33:39

For longer trips, like a week or two weeks, they could be 30 pages long and it takes you through where to fly into, what to do on day one, morning, afternoon, night, where to stay, where to eat, everything we did basically with the learnings that we had, how much it cost, squad tips like buy your tickets early because the line is long.

33:58

And we have quite a few of those now that some are paid that you can download for anywhere between 10 and $30 depending on the trip.

So very, very affordable.

But we also have a ton of free itineraries that Brittany has been doing so much work to develop so that anyone can download.

34:14

And those free itineraries are for the shorter, like one day, two days in a major US city doing something just a quick little guide.

So those are little teasers for people to just one find some good stuff to do.

But really see the meat and potatoes are what are going to be in those other itineraries for those longer trips that we have more internationally or week long road trips that we’ve done things of that.

34:38

It’s almost like you’re on the group trip with us because we are doing all the planning for you and all you have to do is show up and have fun.

And then they can listen to the corresponding podcast episode, right?

To kind of like hear about that trip and then and then have that.

That’s awesome.

And because I think that is a big hurdle for people, he is not like knowing where to even start when planning a trip.

34:59

So you’ll have done a lot of the work.

And that’s sort of what we’ve been doing for a really long time, is we would get the Rick Steve’s guide, we would read that, and then we would listen to something that he had recorded on that.

35:14

And so between what he had written in the guide and what he was saying in the audio, that’s really how we got started.

That’s awesome.

Now look at us.

So we kind of teased this before, but let’s come back around and talk a little bit about budget because when you’re traveling with different groups of people, so like, how do you make that piece of it work, especially if people want to do like credit card points and miles and rewards and stuff like that?

35:43

I think you 2 would be way better to answer this one than me.

Well, in all honesty, sometimes we have not really talked about a budget because if we’re doing it domestically, a lot of times a lot of us will fly Southwest.

And for a very long time while we were travelling together, Kim was still in San Diego before she moved to Austin.

36:03

So whatever the flight cost was for Kim, it was the same for us and we knew it.

And if it was going to be expensive, then we weren’t going to do it or pivot to something else.

Now that we’re in different cities and trying to meet up somewhere, when we get together, it’s kind of harder because then we’ll say to ourselves, well, the flight for us is not very cheap during this day.

36:27

It’s better here.

We’ll see how it matches and we’ll try to coordinate that way.

But in terms of an overall budget for a trip, it’s never really spoken because sometimes a lot of our bigger international ones are the guided tours, which usually give you a lot more bang for your buck.

36:44

So we have been fortunate enough in our travel group to avoid that.

Now that’s not to say that the topic of budget doesn’t come up because if we’ve taken a few too many trips recently or in the year, so to speak, and one of us throws out an idea, we’ll say, hey, we can’t swing that right now, how about this?

37:03

And then we’ll do it as a pivot or postpone that trip to be at a later time.

I also think too, when we’re in the planning process, if Kim, for example, says I want to see at the Atlantis and Dubai, we’re going to see is that possible and can we all make that happen?

37:20

But I think in terms of budgeting, our friend group, we’re all in the same level where we don’t want to go super cheap, but we’re also not going to go super expensive unless we have a specific reason to do so.

And if we do have a specific reason to do so, then we’ll try to fit it in, even if it’s just for one night.

37:39

So who’s the most bougie out of the the travel group?

Well, that’s easily going to be Kim, although in fairness to Kim, in fairness to Kim, you know, she mentioned earlier that Brittany’s the one putting jam packed from morning, noon and night, something in there.

37:56

And on our last trip that we all took together to Costa Rica, we were staying at some really nice hotels, resort hotels.

And again, those were included with our guided package with gate one.

It wasn’t a guided tour, but they pieced together the hotels and everything like that.

38:14

And I started to have the epiphany like him and say, man, as I’m getting older here, I need more downtime.

I need to really enjoy these resorts.

I told Brittany next time, she’s really out of luck here.

You know, we’re slowing it down a little bit.

So, you know, those conversations are teased and it will probably come into practice on the next couple trips where we find that good balance of everybody getting what they want to some degree.

38:38

But Kim is the bougie one, but Jamal is following right behind her on that.

Well, I think you’ve taught us something.

We have not done a lot of these, you know, planned trips, but you know, the booked tours or that kind of thing.

Although I do get a lot of the emails just like all the flight deals and the hotel deals and some of them it’s like, wow, that really, you know, including the airfare, that can be a really great deal.

39:01

We’re definitely going to check out.

I’ll put a link to some of those in the show notes.

We’re definitely going to check those out.

But that’s a great point.

That can be a great way to say, OK, like we kind of know going in, right, everything’s planned.

Here’s the price of the trip.

Can you?

Can you make it?

And my my advice is absolutely do it because in was it 2017 Africa. 2018. 2018 So this was at the very early stages of my travels and I my travel budget was a lot smaller than it is now.

39:31

Africa was quite expensive of a tour, somewhere around $5000 for the gated gate. 1 week and a half tour and so I I doubted myself and I decided not to go.

And to this day, it is the biggest regret that I have in my life because I could have say irresponsibly, quote UN quote, charged it to a credit card.

39:51

And today I would have had that paid off and I would have those memories and I wouldn’t have that regret.

So that’s my philosophy with budgeting is just do it and you’ll figure it out.

I think it’s the truth, yeah.

I definitely think there’s some truth to that, yeah.

Especially because we like to focus on the memories, right?

40:10

It’s the memories that we’re creating, and it’s the whole reason that we do a podcast.

We’ve said before that if no one ever listened to a word of our podcast that we published out there, thankfully that’s not true.

But if no one ever did, we’re capturing in our own words, in our own voices, the memories that we’ve created through our travels.

40:32

And so that’s irreplaceable.

You know, our family, our kids, our grandkids, their kids, you know, whatever.

We’ll have these stories that we tell about our travels right from our own mouths.

And so I think creating the memories is a huge part of what we are all doing when we travel.

40:52

Creating the memories while traveling.

But what you said, I wholeheartedly agree because I’ve said that a million times, is my favorite thing about the podcast other than really helping people learn to travel better, give them tips, advice, etcetera.

It’s really the fact that when I’m old and Gray, I will have digital audio to go back and listen to, to re listen to my trips, bring back those memories and family, kids, anybody else, they have that same opportunity and my story or our story really lives forever.

41:24

So we have three questions that we want to ask each of you that we kind of wrap up with.

But first, I just wanted to see is there any other, you know, tips or advice or anything else that you want to share about, you know, traveling together or just about your podcast in general?

I would say when you’re traveling with a group of people that are always has to be give and take.

41:45

There’s been lots of times where Kim has suggested something maybe more on the bougie end that we didn’t want to do.

But we’re all on the trip together and she needs to have her opportunity where I’ve wanted to do stuff and everybody has catered to me to do it.

42:01

So when you’re traveling with a group of people, whether it be once or multiple times, there’s always that give and take.

Just give and not necessarily take because it’s going to make it for a more enjoyable experience with everybody when everybody gets a little bit of what it is that they want and are looking for out of that trip.

42:18

I’ll add on to that too.

I think that traveling as a group sometimes has a a negative cloud over it.

People think we’re going to fight or we’re going to get tired of each other.

But actually I feel quite the opposite.

Even if those things do occur on one off basis, my friendship with these two will would never have been as strong as it is today had we not been traveling so much together.

42:41

And then of course, have this podcast together.

I mean, Brittany and I have been friends since we were 12, but we are, we’ve never been better friends than we are today.

And and my friendship with Jamal as well.

So travel can really, really bring you together and keep you together as friends.

Well, great.

Let’s jump into These are the same questions we ask all of our guests.

42:59

For the first is what’s the favorite place you’ve ever visited?

Oh, that’s such a good question.

I love this question.

For me, I would have to say Uganda.

I don’t know if you guys have been at all, but we got to experience land safari, river safari and then jungle safaris and jungle treks, hiking to see chimpanzees and mountain gorillas in the wild.

43:20

So that’s got to be my number one place that I visited.

We’re doing our first trip to Africa in October of this year and so.

Where are you guys going to?

We’re starting in Cairo and going to do a Giza first, then we’ll travel to Kenya and do a 10 day safari.

43:39

Then we’re going to leave from there and go to South Africa, down to Cape Town.

I’m super excited for you guys.

You guys are going to have a blast.

Africa might be my favorite continent as a whole, but to not be repetitive and say Uganda also, which is top on my list as well.

43:56

Not necessarily number one, it’s give and take, right?

Is it nature or is it city?

And I know we had that conversation earlier, but I’m going to have to go with Japan.

Japan’s probably been one of my favorite countries that I’ve ever visited for the food, the sites, the history, the culture, the people.

44:12

Some of the most friendly in the world.

Linliest cities I’ve ever been in Japan.

Top of my list for sure.

Did you have a favorite place in Japan?

I would have to say Osaka was maybe my favorite because I’m a foodie and that’s a foodie place in Osaka.

44:28

But Kyoto, you get that classical architecture and it’s really not a metropolis at all.

I mean, there’s 1.4 million people in there, but there’s no skyscrapers, you know?

You really have that classic Japan.

So it’s tough.

I can’t say one or the other, but if I’m going to go off of food and just have to give an answer, I’ll still with Osaka.

44:47

That’s consistent with what we heard this past weekend from someone who just returned.

Kim, what about you?

My favorite country is Thailand.

I didn’t go with these two.

I went with a a group of another three other people and we spent about 11 days there going through the southern islands, Bangkok.

45:03

All of it was amazing.

Beautiful, really really good food, extremely affordable, nice people, lots of tourists there I like.

The cherry on top of this trip was the full moon party on Copenon and I’m so glad I did this in my 20s because I don’t think I could hang now in my 30s.

45:20

But it was epic and I’ll never forget it.

So what’s still on your bucket list?

For me, Antarctica, I really want to make it to Antarctica and do a cruise out there.

That’s just going to be the icing on the cake.

I mean, that’s for most likely the last continent that somebody needs to hit.

45:37

If they’ve been to, you know, six other ones, it’s probably Antarctica.

And one of these days I’m going to make it, that’s for sure.

So we’re trying to organize a listener cruise to Antarctica for 2026.

Well, sign us up for that because if that’s the case.

45:53

That’s coming up with this, which is funny because I think it’s like that’s the one place that any guest that we’ve talked to that we talk about.

And so I think all of our guests on our podcasts are going to be, I believe, then being on the Antarctica cruise with yeah.

Excellent.

Well, I’m looking forward to a keep us posted on one of them.

46:11

I’ve been actually eyeing New Zealand a lot recently.

I would love to go to both the North and South Islands more particularly with S Island because it’s more known for.

It’s like hiking the glaciers that go in there, the wildlife that you can see, the landscapes are amazing and you could spend easily three weeks exploring New Zealand.

46:31

So I would love to go there.

My bougie side is going to come out when I say this, but my next place I really, really want to go is the South of France.

I want to go to Nice.

I want to go to San Tropez.

I want to be on the beach on a David drinky cocktails by the ocean.

46:48

Doesn’t sound drinky to me.

That sounds like a great trip.

Right and.

Then I guess finally is where are you guys going next?

So Jamal and I are actually headed to Iceland.

We leave on the 4th of July.

We’re going to spend seven days exploring the southern parts of Iceland, doing a lot of hiking and doing a Zodiac boat on a lagoon.

47:13

It’s on our bucket list it.

Definitely is, yes.

And the reason, the only reason that we haven’t done New Zealand, of course, Australia, because again, so for us then we have to go across the United States trying to do that is we need the three weeks or like you mentioned, right, to make that trip worthwhile.

47:30

But it’s it’s something that’s got to happen.

And matter of fact, I keep saying we got to do it before we do Antarctica because I really wanted the Antarctica to be my last continent.

Makes sense.

A lot of people do consider it the last continent they visit, so you got to make that happen soon before your cruise.

That’s true.

47:46

We have a way of figuring out how to fit a lot of travel into unplanned time.

So while they are in Iceland, I’m going to be going on a Mexican Riviera cruise with my family and a huge group that we’re going with.

It goes out of Long Beach to Cabo Puerto Verita and Mazatlán.

48:03

Those are all that’s an area that we really want to explore.

We spent a good bit of time in in Kuhn and that, you know, Riviera Maya area, but we would love to explore more of Mexico.

If you need tips, let us know.

We’ve been all over Mexico.

That sounds good.

48:19

Well, and that’s what I was gonna say.

So now we have lots of We’ve been told that once you do a safari, it’s kind of like an addiction.

So we’ll have to go check out your content on Uganda and many of these other places right before we plan our travels.

48:36

I would recommend you gone to be the next one because what you just said is very true. 1 Safari and you have the itch and you just want to keep on going on them and you’ll have a great time in Yukon.

Yeah, that one sounds amazing.

So Kim, Brittany, Jamal, thank you for coming on our show and for all of our listeners.

48:55

Go check them out.

They’re the Travel Squad Podcast.

Until besides your website, besides the podcast, where else can people find you and connect with you on social media?

We are travel squad podcasts on all the socials.

Well, thank you guys.

Thanks so much for having us.

Yes, thank you.

49:12

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49:30

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