Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Dog on a Swing asks, I believe in the last Q&A you mentioned that some episodes can take years to be created as you figure out how you want to approach the subject. What are some examples of episodes with long lead times?

Yes, there is often a long time between coming up with an idea and doing an episode on it. Sometimes, like the recent episode on salt, it is just a matter of never getting around to it.

Likewise, the episodes on how horses came to North America and the episode on Quasi-War took a long time to come to fruition.

Other times, I’m just not sure how to explain a subject to an audience with a wide range of backgrounds. There are episodes on the standard model and quantum physics that I like to do, but I’m not sure how to structure the episode and how to explain it in an easy-to-understand way.

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I’ll conclude with a question from Oatmeal who asks, What audiences do you think the podcast caters toward?

My intent has always been to create a show for people who are curious about the world and love to learn. Regardless of where they are from or what their background is, if you are a curious person, and most people are not, then this is the show for you.

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Let’s get started with the first question. Andrew Reck asks, “When you were doing travel photography, what did your kit include? (what was your) Go to lens for urban or streetscape photos? Nikon, Canon, Sony, etc?”

When I began traveling, I purchased a Nikon D200. It was a crop sensor camera, which was fine, but I always had issues with how it performed in low light. I eventually upgraded to a Nikon D300s and waited for years for Nikon to upgrade their crop sensor line.

After years of waiting, I finally gave up and decided to switch platforms completely. I eventually purchased a Sony a7rii. It was a big switch not only going from Nikon to Sony but also from a crop sensor to a full-frame camera.

I never carried very many lenses with me. It just isn’t practical for doing travel photography. Lugging everything around got in the way of getting shots, and having to change lenses in the field caused problems as well.

I only used three lenses on a regular basis. A 50mm f/1.2 prime lens, which I have to admit I seldom used, a 16-35mm wide angle lens, and a 24-240mm super zoom lens.

Those lenses really were able to do pretty much everything save for wildlife photography. I had a 600mm lens that I used for wildlife, but I wouldn’t usually travel with that.

That being said, since I started the podcast, I haven’t taken my camera out of my bag.

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Matt Goulet Top asks, “Do you think if the Allies were successful in assassinating ? Hitler, it could have turned the war in Germany’s favor, given a more competent military leader could fill his place?”

It totally depends on when the assassination happened. The most serious attempt to kill Hitler was Operation Valkyrie, which took place in July 1944. The plotters behind the assassination didn’t plan to fight the war better. They wanted to come to terms with the Allies.

Honestly, I don’t think there is anything the Germans could have done once they invaded the Soviet Union. In the big picture, the resolution of the Second World War wasn’t a matter of decisions on the battlefield. A more competent ruler might have made the war go on longer, but I don’t think it would have changed the outcome.

Once the United States was in the war, the industrial advantage, coupled with the Soviet’s manpower and the British navy, put the Germans in a position they couldn’t win.

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Craig Oliver asks, “Outside of the Packers, what sports teams do you follow?”

I tend to support all of the Wisconsin teams. This is definitely a down year for football in the state, but the Bucks are doing OK and recently won a championship, and the Brewers are perpetually disappointing.

There are several sports that don’t have teams in Wisconsin. In those cases, most people either support teams in Chicago or the Twin Cities. Given that I lived in the Twin Cities for years, I tend to support the Wild in hockey and Minnesota United in soccer.

Outside of the state, I’ve adopted Liverpool as my English Premier League team., and Bilbao as my La Liga team. In International Rugby Union, I tend to support the All Blacks, which I saw win the World Cup back in 2011.

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Michael Miller asks, During your travels, have you ever encountered paranormal activity, voodoo, or something akin to that? If so, what happened, and do you believe in the paranormal?

Nope. I have never experienced anything like that, and I don’t really believe in it. There has been an explosion in cameras over the last ten years. Billions of people around the world now carry a camera in their pockets every day, yet there hasn’t been an increase in photographic evidence. What little exists is still blurry photos.

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Sevy asks over on the Discord server, “What’s the most and least popular episode by listens? Usually, you do encore episodes that are statistically less listened to. Do you incorporate the data back in to see what the new popularity is?”

The honest answer is that I don’t know. There aren’t wild swings in downloads per episode. They are all pretty much the same. This has held true over the last few years.

The least downloaded episode is probably one of the earlier ones, and one of the most downloaded episodes are a recent ones.

That being said, when people tell me what their favorite episode is, I never get a consistent answer. Different people like different episodes.

One of the fundamental premises of the show is that the topics are somewhat random every day. I don’t want to let individual episode popularity determine what episodes I do in the future.

I’ll just keep doing whatever topics I find interesting.

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Nonato Nonnie Ramirez asks, Have you been to the Philippines, and what is unique that you can have a podcast about it?

Yes, I have been to the Philippines on two different occasions. I’ve explored Luzon, going up to Baguio, Banaue, and Vigan, and I also went to Puerto Princessa to visit the underground river.

I haven’t done many episodes on the Philippines, but I do have several on my list. Topics I have in mind include Jose Rizal, the Siege of Manila, the history of Manila, and the Philippine–American War.

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Nonato Nonnie Ramirez also asks, “What is the most dangerous travel adventure experience you had? Risky travel due to weather or extreme sport or natural disasters or crime?”

The most extreme thing was probably a hike I made to the Erta Ale volcano in Ethiopia. The people organizing it told us nothing about what it entailed. In fact, we didn’t even know we were going to be hiking.

Erta Ale is basically an open lava pit, one of the few like it in the world. It is also located in the Danakil Depression, one of the hottest places on Earth. As we were driving there, the temperature reached 50C or 122F, probably the hottest I’ve ever experienced.

Before we got started, they gave us beers, which it turned out was a horrible thing to do because alcohol gets you dehydrated. We still had no idea what was in store. It turned out we began the hike after sunset because of the temperatures. We walked for hours in the extremely hot night desert…and we had no water, and our guides were walking so far ahead of us they had no idea we were getting dehydrated.

Were it not for the fact that a guy with a camel was following behind us with water, I’m not sure what would have happened in the pitch dark of the Ethiopian desert.

When we finally got to the volcano, there were noxious fumes. Other groups that were there had gas masks because they knew what they were getting themselves into. We did not. We had to put ourselves upwind to avoid the fumes we had no idea we would be encountering.

In the middle of the night, we began walking to get back before sunrise.

What made the entire episode so bad was that I had no idea we would be doing it. We weren’t prepared.

I’d actually do it again, but only because I know what I’d be getting myself into now.

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Tim DeLong asks, “Have you ever been recognized by a listener because of your voice? Like in a checkout line or while ordering at a restaurant?”

Nope. It has never happened, and to be honest, I’ll be shocked if it ever does.

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Fabio Fidanza asks, “How did you come up with the title music?”

I selected the music from a stock music website. It is only a small snippet of a much larger piece. I actually played the entire piece on episode 100 of the podcast if you want to listen to it.

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Jerry Gardner asks, “Did you dress up for Halloween? If so, who or what? Instead of handing out candy, did you give trick-or-treaters cards with fun facts on them?

No, I haven’t dressed up for Halloween in probably 25 years. That isn’t to say I never will, but I’ve spent a lot of the last several years in places that didn’t celebrate Halloween.

Also, I didn’t give out any candy because I live in an apartment building that doesn’t have very many kids.

That being said, if I was giving out something, I wouldn’t do something so lame as giving out cards with facts on them. If I did that, kids would rightfully toilet paper me or throw eggs at my door.

If you are going to give something out for Halloween, do it right. Don’t give out fruit or popcorn balls. Fun-sized candy is the baseline. If you give that out, kids won’t hate you, but they also won’t love you. They will just forget you.

What you really want to do is give out full-sized candy bars. Yes, this will cost a bit more, but you will be remembered forever. I can still remember the houses that gave out full-size candy bars decades after I got them.

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Brian Ross asks, “What was the most memorable food you ate on each continent?”

In no particular order:In Africa, it would be foul—a bean dish I had with shaved dried beef that I had in Cairo. I’ve never had it before or since, but it really stuck out in my mind.

In Europe, I’m going to go with Calçots. These are usually only found in Catalonia. These are large green onions that are roasted over a fire, served on a terra cotta roof tile, and they are only served at the beginning of the year.

In Asia, I’m going to go with a Japanese dinner that was served to me on the island of Yakushima. To this day, I’m not sure what I was served, but it was amazing. I think I’ve mentioned this meal before in a previous Q&A episode.

In Oceania, I’m going to go with Poisson Cru. This is the national dish of Tahiti. It is raw fish in lemon juice and coconut milk. I had it from one of the food trucks that go around the island known as La Roulottes.

In South America, I have to go with an Argentine Asado, which is their version of BBQ. Argentina has the best beef in the world, and an asado is one of the best culinary experiences you can have.

In North America, I might go with a Boucherie than I had in Lafayette, Louisiana. It is a Cajun tradition where they use all the parts of a hog in a community celebration.

…and I actually have an answer for the best thing I had in Antarctica. The answer is….ice. And no that isn’t a joke.

When we’d go out from our ship in a zodiac, we would look for bits of glacier ice that were floating in the water. However, we had to find pieces that were crystal clear and didn’t have any bubbles inside to cloud it. We would bring it back on the ship, and it would be used in the evening in the bar for drinks. We would literally be drinking part of the Antarctica ice sheet.

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Finally, the last question comes from Janelle Alvstad-Mattson, who asks, “You’ve made so many episodes at this point that it made me curious if there are any topics you have told us about that you have already forgotten the details of.”

The answer is yes and no. For a long time, I figured there would come a day when I’ve done so many episodes that I accidentally did one that I’ve done before.

It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I’ll come up with an idea for a show and then remember what I’ve already done it.

It isn’t an issue of forgetting things so much as a matter of recall. Once I see the episode artwork, everything tends to come back immediately.

I would say that I could extemporaneously talk about the vast majority of the episodes I’ve done without any preparation. And for some episodes, I could probably talk ad nausem about them.

The remainer, I think I’d probably just need a few minutes to review what I have already done.

So, it isn’t a case of completely forgetting, but just needing a refresher.

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Let’s jump right into things, John Higham asks,

What counts as “visiting a country?” My litmus test is “Did I spend the night?” By that measure, I’ve been to 51 countries. But I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Vatican City, and unless you know the right people, you’re not spending the night. Does that count as a country visit? Or I once spent several hours on a tour along the wadis in Oman but did not stay the night. Is that a visit?

What’s your standard for “a visit?”

John, this is a good question and one that comes up quite often in various travel communities.

I understand why people use a stay overnight standard, but it is one that I don’t subscribe to. Let me explain.

Back in 2007, I visited Macau. I took the very first ferry in the morning from Hong Kong to Macau, and I spent a full day in Macau. I walked all over the island. I explored all the major attractions. I had three meals there, and then I took the last ferry back from Macau in the evening.

I didn’t say overnight, but I think I absolutely visited Macau.

Consider this compared to someone who flies into Macau, gets a room at an airport hotel, sleeps, wakes up in the morning, and goes directly to the airport to leave.

Most of their time in Macau was actually spent unconscious in a closed room. They didn’t see or experience anything, yet they technically spent a night in Macau.

To me, visiting a place involves doing and seeing things, not being holed up in a room sleeping.

So, what constitutes a visit is going to vary depending on where you are visiting.

So, I’d say you have absolutely visited Vatican City. It’s the smallest country in the world. If you’ve been inside St Peter’s and the Vatican Museum, you’ve literally explored more of the country on a percentage basis than you probably have for any other country.

I’m not sure why being asleep in a closed room would make your experience any more meaningful.

On the other side of the coin, a few years ago, I spoke at a conference on Hainan Island in China. I was at a resort hotel for several days, but I can’t say I really saw anything beyond the hotel. That is the only time I’ve been in the People’s Republic of China proper, not including the Special Administrative Regions.

Have I visited China? I guess technically, yes. But have I really visited China? No, I don’t think so, not really.

I think trying to force a rule for every country doesn’t make sense because every country is different. I literally walked across the country of Monaco, but I didn’t spend the evening there. I stayed in Nice.

The criterion I use is, was it a meaningful visit? That is going to vary from person to person and place to place.

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Fabio Fidanza asks, are you into cooking?

While I could answer this question with a simple yes or no, the actual answer is a bit more involved.

From about 2007, when I started traveling full time, to about 2020, when the pandemic started, I rarely cooked a meal for myself. I didn’t have a kitchen to cook in or store food. Even when I was staying somewhere like a hostel that did have a kitchen, I didn’t find the idea of storing food in a communal refrigerator and waiting in line to use pots and pans very appealing. Especially when I could just go get a cheap, decent meal somewhere nearby.

When I did finally get a place that I could use as a home base, I kept doing what I had been doing for years. I ate out pretty much every single meal.

Eventually, I slowly started preparing my own food, but I was doing it with a George Foreman grill. George Foreman…. great boxer. One of the greatest heavyweights of all time, however, I found the gill to be horrible.

Eventually, I got to a point where I was making almost all my meals at home, and I was becoming more adventurous with what I was making. I’ve been working on particular recipes, experimenting with them, and working on making incremental improvements.

One of the things I’ve worked on is perfecting the recipe for Scotch Eggs. Scotch Eggs is pretty simple. The first time I made it, I just used a standard recipe.

With that starting point, I began making incremental improvements. I realized that you couldn’t just use any hard-boiled egg. You had to have one that was medium-boiled, such that the yolk wasn’t hard but also not runny. That took me down the rabbit hole of trying to find the perfect eggs as well as determining the perfect method of cooking them that could be replicated.

I’ve switched from ground pork to a ground pork and beef mixture and experimented with seasonings, coatings, and other things.

I’m currently going through a similar process with crispy pork belly. My first attempt was a solid B-.

I’ve also recently become a devotee of cast iron. It turns out a cast iron pan that I use, that my father used to use to fry fish with, is actually around 80 to 90 years old.

So, to answer your question more directly, I wasn’t into cooking, but now I am.

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Trina Wellington DeAnda asks, “What is the longest you’ve been stuck somewhere you didn’t plan to be while traveling? Where? What happened?

Probably the longest was in 2010. I was stuck in Spain when the volcano in Iceland erupted, which stopped transatlantic flights for five days, and then there were more delays on top of that as all the flights that were canceled had to be resolved.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, but for the fact that my father was in the hospital, and I really needed to get back to the US.

Other than that, when you are traveling full-time, you are never really stuck. I was going to visit Tokelau, a small set of islands in the Pacific, but the boat going there was broken. I went to American Samoa and Tonga, came back to Samoa, and the boat was still broken, so I just left and never made it to Tokelau.

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Nik Cap asks, “You may have answered this in some form or another; Visiting the Seven Wonders in the World are on my bucket list, but besides the Seven Wonders of the World, are there Seven little know or overlooked wonders that should also be be on the list?”

First, Nik, I assume you are talking about the New Seven Wonders, not the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, because there is only one of them still standing.

The short answer is, yes, there are a whole bunch of places that are overlooked. A good place to start would be the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. There are currently over 1,100 natural and cultural sites. I’ve personally been to over 400. I’d say 9 out of 10 are worth visiting.

Not everything has to be an ancient ruin. There are some incredible sites which are part of the history of the Industrial Revolution. You can find many of these in Europe, especially in England.

There are incredible Roman ruins that are almost never mentioned. You can find fantastic sites in Southern France, Jordan, Algeria, and Spain.

There are some amazing national parks that almost no one visits. Nahaanni National Park in the Northwest Territories of Canada and Torrengat Mountains National Park in northern Labrador are two of the greatest parks I’ve ever visited, and they both get fewer than 1,000 visitors a year.

Most people visit places because they know about it. That is why everyone visits the same few places…because they don’t know anything else.

If you do just a little bit of research, you’ll find a plethora of great, underappreciated places almost anywhere you visit.

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Evan Byrne asks Two parter: 1) how are you doing? Evan, I am doing well.

2) when do you plan on touring the global clubhouses of the completion club?

Not anytime soon. The schedule of researching, writing, and recording a daily podcast doesn’t leave much time for exploring the world.

For the last three years, the production of the podcast has been a solo affair. Every aspect of every episode was done by me. I’m now in the starting stages of getting help, so maybe at some time in the future, I might have the ability to travel again.

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JimmyAK asks over on the Discord server, When you take a vacation and line up 5 or 6 episodes to play while you’re away, do you need to still uploaded them each on the day they are scheduled to play? Or do you get to upload all of them at once and set them to their day somehow. I’m just wondering how “automated” your vacation actually is. (Stay safe in PR!)So long as they are already recorded, which my encore episodes are, it is easy to schedule everything in advance.

Recording and scheduling is the easiest part of what I do. The hard part is researching and writing. If I had everything written and ready to go, I could easily record and queue up weeks or months of shows.