How to Travel More Thoughtfully: Amanda Kendle of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

Thoughtful Travel • Sustainable Travel • Meaningful Journeys

What does it really mean to travel thoughtfully—and how can it transform the way you experience the world? In this conversation, I sit down with Amanda Kendle, longtime travel writer, lecturer, and host of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast. Amanda has been exploring and teaching about responsible, mindful journeys for decades, helping travelers discover how curiosity and connection can shape more meaningful adventures.

Episode Highlights:

• How Amanda’s early travel experiences shaped her lifelong passion for exploring thoughtfully.
• Why curiosity is one of the most powerful tools travelers can pack.
• Simple trip practices to make your journeys richer.
• How to balance joyful experiences with responsible, sustainable travel choices.
• Why mishaps and unplanned moments often become our most memorable travel stories.

Next Step

Choose one way to experiment by stepping outside your travel comfort zone. It might be leaving an afternoon unscheduled, starting a conversation with a local, or swapping one planned activity for spontaneous discovery. Thoughtful travel often begins in the unexpected.

Reflection

“You did what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better.” — Maya Angelou (via Oprah)
How can you apply this idea to your own travels? Consider one past trip where you’d now make different choices, and think about how those lessons can guide your next adventure.

Connect with Amanda Kendle

Amanda is the host and producer of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast, a lecturer in media and communication at Murdoch University, and the Vice President of the Board at RISE Travel Institute. She has been a freelance travel writer and blogger for over 20 years, focusing on how we can travel in ways that benefit both travelers and the communities we visit.

• Website: Not A Ballerina
• Podcast: The Thoughtful Travel Podcast
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Links & Resources

• RISE Travel Institute
• Why We Travel by Ash Bhardwaj 

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Transcript

Welcome to Conversations for Curious Travelers

[00:00:00] Erica: Welcome to Conversations for Curious Travelers, a Trip Scholars podcast. I'm your host, Erica Forrest. In each episode, we explore how travel helps us learn more about the world and ourselves. If you travel, not just to escape, but to grow, connect and understand you are in the right place.

[00:00:23] Erica | Trip Scholars: Today I am happy to welcome Amanda Kendle to the show. Amanda is the host and producer of the decade old, the Thoughtful Travel Podcast, and has been a freelance writer and. Travel blogger for over 20 years, focusing on how we can travel in thoughtful ways that are better for the traveler and the places being visited.

She's a lecturer in media and communication at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, a sought after speaker for travel topics and is also the vice president of the board at RISE Travel Institute. Amanda, welcome to the show.

[00:01:01] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Thank you very much, Erica. I'm very excited to chat with you today.

[00:01:05] Erica | Trip Scholars: I am especially happy to have you here because I do think of you as a thought leader in this space. and I love your podcast, 

Amanda Kendle’s Early Inspiration for Thoughtful Travel

[00:01:12] Amanda Kendle (she/her): I would love to start by hearing a little bit about how some of your early travel experiences kind of helped you get to where you are today, which is a wonderful place to be.

It is. I'm very lucky. Well, yeah, thanks. I often go back to my very earliest travel experience and I've been really going back to that this year because it's 40 years ago that

 up sticks for six months. And we have a thing called long service leave here in Australia. So my dad was able to be paid for six months after working in the bank for decades. So he was paid while we traveled around Europe for six months. So I was nine years old and it was a very unusual thing to do, but we went, you know, we didn't have like tons of money, so it was a very budget trip. We're in a, what we called a camper van, like an rv which we'd bought in. London and then sold at the end.

And so we spent six months my parents and my younger sister and I driving around Europe. of course that was utterly life changing because, you know, I live or grew up in Perth, in Western Australia. You cannot drive to even the state border unless you spend several days. You certainly. Don't, get to go anywhere where you hear other languages or see other currencies being used or anything like that. So that was, yeah, utterly, utterly life changing. And I, yeah, I've been reminiscing about it on my podcast this year, chatting with my dad, who's in his late eighties now, about our memories from that time. So it's been really brought home to me just how much, learning about other cultures and just seeing that. Different things exist at that young age. Really made a, a big impact on, my love of travel From then on,

[00:02:54] Erica | Trip Scholars: I love that that really lit the spark and that you're revisiting that now in conversations with your dad that you're sharing with others. 

[00:03:01] Amanda Kendle (she/her): it's been a very special year being able to do it.

[00:03:04] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah. And then how did you move from that experience as a child to traveling as much as you have 

[00:03:12] Amanda Kendle (she/her): So I think from that point, I always wanted to take any opportunity I could to travel. It wasn't until my mid twenties that I really became mega obsessed with travel, but that was actually through moving away.

So I started off. By moving to Japan to teach English. So that was at the time, you know, a thing that quite a lot of people did here. It was still quite profitable. It was just on the cusp of, you know, you could actually send money home and pay your mortgage and that kind of thing. So I moved to Japan 

I wanted to leave Perth. It's a beautiful city, but by some measure it's the most isolated city in the world. 

[00:03:47] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah.

[00:03:48] Amanda Kendle (she/her): we are the end of the world here and everything took, you know, an extra decade to get here.

You know, fashions were here three years too late and stuff. So, you know, we always grew up with that feeling that we wanted to go somewhere. So I moved to Japan and obviously like, you know, living and working in a country as different as Japan is, like traveling on steroids, it was completely life changing. I absolutely loved every minute of it, and while I was there I got to travel a lot and I stayed away from Perth for nearly six years in the end,

[00:04:16] Erica | Trip Scholars: Wow. 

[00:04:17] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yeah, I have to keep traveling.

[00:04:20] Erica | Trip Scholars: I love it. And when you were traveling then in your twenties, were you mostly in Asia or in other continents as well?

[00:04:27] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yeah, so I had good few years in Asia and then moved on to, so I had studied German through school and so I had this yearning to go somewhere where I could, I thought I could speak the language, so it took me a lot longer to be able to speak the language than I thought. But, so I moved on. we actually took the trans Liberian from like, so from Japan we met, went to Vladivostok, took the trans Siberian train across Russia.

One of my favorite ever experiences and. I ended up teaching in Slovakia, in Bratislava for a year then getting work in Germany in southwest Germany. And I was there for a few years. All of those times, of course, I spent every spare moment and spare spare yen or, or in Slovakia every spare bit of currency traveling.

So.

From Travel Blogger to Creating the Thoughtful Travel Podcast

[00:05:12] Erica | Trip Scholars: You have lived in so many different countries as well as traveled to many more. And then eventually you started the Thoughtful Travel Podcast And now I know you even teach other podcasters at universityHow did you turn all of those travel experiences into what you're doing now?

[00:05:32] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Oh yes. It's a good question. It's quite a windy path, but essentially I'd always loved to write, so it always kind of came from there that, when I used to always say I would become a writer and of course, you know, life took other paths because you can't just, turn 18 and become a writer and, pay your bills, obviously. But when I was living in Germany, I had enough time and enough kind of space in my head, I think, to start writing.again.So that's when I started proper travel writing, I guess. And so I was mostly writing for magazines at first,I had a few publications, a few editors that would call on me, but then one of them said to me, Hey, my friend's got a blog and he's hiring writers. And I was like, I don't even know what a blog is. And he said, they'll pay you every week. And I was like, oh, I, I stood up and sat up and took, took notice at that point. because you know, obviously magazine writing is a thankless task when it comes to getting paid. It takes forever. So I started writing for a blog, which was, at the time it was called Jaunted. It eventually got bought by Nust. So I worked with them for a few years and that's what really got me started into the kind of online world.

because once I was working with them, I thought, I need my own blog. I figured out then what it was.

[00:06:45] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yes.

[00:06:45] Amanda Kendle (she/her): So I started not a ballerina and. I, yeah, just continued with that. And yeah, 10 years ago, added the podcast. When I started the podcast I thought, oh, I'm starting this a bit late. Everyone's got a podcast already. But thankfully in hindsight, that wasn't actually true.

[00:07:02] Erica | Trip Scholars: No, it just kept growing.

[00:07:04] Amanda Kendle (she/her): When I started PE a lot of people would not know what a podcast was, so

[00:07:08] Erica | Trip Scholars: Just like probably when you started blogging, a lot of people did not know. So I can see why the university is so lucky to have you helping teach media and podcasting because it is changing so quickly and it's so nice to have somebody who's actually doing it to be able to help the next generation along.

That's wonderful.

[00:07:28] Amanda Kendle (she/her): a bit both ways. because of course my students are mostly late, late teens, early twenties, and they teach

[00:07:33] Erica | Trip Scholars: I teach you. Yes, I'm a former teacher. I could not agree more.

[00:07:37] Amanda Kendle (she/her): I've thought that every, even when I was teaching English in Japan, the stuff I would learn from my students, teaching them conversational English, you know, I got to learn so many things about the nuances of life in Japan that

other way except by being stuck in rooms with people, making them talk.

So fabulous.

Personal Growth Through Travel and Thoughtful Experiences

[00:07:57] Erica | Trip Scholars: So Amanda, you have obviously had so many powerful and profound travel experiences that really helped shape who you are and eventually helped you decide to. Share this way of seeing the world and seeing travel with other people with a thoughtful travel podcast. I was wondering if maybe you could share with us one story that had a big impact on you and really did help you see yourself or the world differently.

[00:08:26] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Oh, there are so many, but I think probably I would go back to my time in Japan as being so influential. So when I arrived in Japan, I'd actually spent part of my uni years, I really suffered badly with anxiety. I actually dropped out of uni for a while and came back, and in hindsight it was like undiagnosed ADHD you know, leading to anxiety and all kinds of mental health. Ups and downs in my

[00:08:50] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah.

[00:08:51] Amanda Kendle (she/her): I still knew, even though I was struggling in some ways with like everyday life, I really wanted to be traveling. so I went to Japan and I think there was a couple of things that had such a huge impact on me personally there. And they were things like just being confronted by endless novelty, which I realize now is exactly what my brain and,

[00:09:14] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yes,

[00:09:14] Amanda Kendle (she/her): to be honest, really love.

[00:09:16] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yes,

[00:09:16] Amanda Kendle (she/her): so being somewhere that I could just you know, I was literally learning new things every day. It just made my heart sing to go to school and to find out, you know, the reason behind the, you know, the latest national holiday or lots of things like that. And it's also where I learned that I really love people.

I was actually quite shy as a teenager and when I was. Yeah, confronted by having to teach every day. That was the way I could live abroad. really, you know, Japanese people are typically fairly reticent to speak English, even in a class. They really, you know, it's culturally they really don't like to make it a mistake.

And, so as a teacher you really have to sometimes, drag that conversation outta them. So those kind of skills. be able to do that have served me very well ever since. I mean, I wouldn't be running a podcast otherwise. that's yeah, that's one of the most impactful experiences.

That's for me personally. But I also want to touch on maybe how, when I first started to understand that it wasn't all about me. because as travelers we often think, yeah, it's about me having a good time or about me relaxing or whatever. And it took me a lot longer to kind of realize that, because no one was really talking about that.

And you'd hear about, you know, traveling sustainably and having, you know, a reusable water bottle, but not much more. But I remember, one time I was going it was a blogging trip to Bali and I'd never been to Bali, but it's very common here and it's, it's closer than actually any

[00:10:47] Erica | Trip Scholars: Great.

[00:10:47] Amanda Kendle (she/her): essentially to go to Bali.

But, so I'd put it on Facebook. It was like the early days of Facebook when you always put everything up there. And one of my French students actually posted on it and she said, please don't ride an elephant. And I was like. Oh, okay. And I never really even thought about it, but and I was like, okay, you know, and we had a little chat about it.

I was like, okay. So I started to learn more about you know, for example, you know, the perils of wildlife tourism That really started, it wasn't just that moment, but that's the one I remember that made me start to

[00:11:19] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah,

[00:11:20] Amanda Kendle (she/her): that we have. And then so many more trips since then. And of course the amazing people I get to meet through the podcast.

So, yeah. And life was never the same from

[00:11:31] Erica | Trip Scholars: no, no,

[00:11:33] Amanda Kendle (she/her): ride forward. 

[00:11:33] Erica | Trip Scholars: Once your eyes are open to that, you see opportunities for growth and change lots of places in your life. I want to go back to what you were sharing about your time in Japan. appreciate that you were sharing that you were dealing with anxiety

But that through. Your service as a teacher, you were being inspired of push yourself outside of your shell. 

 And that also at the same time you were recognizing about yourself that you do have. This desire for new things and openness to curiosity about the world and that that was also inspiring you and fostering your own personal growth.

So I love that you tied all those things together there. Thank you.

[00:12:16] Amanda Kendle (she/her): to tie those things together. Erica, like really only the last couple of years have I understood this, but it kind of made my life all make sense in hindsight. So,

[00:12:26] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah.

[00:12:26] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Something that really drives my travel because I'm very curious about even just tiny things, you know? When my son was little, he

[00:12:32] Erica | Trip Scholars: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:33] Amanda Kendle (she/her): rubbish trucks, garbage trucks 

[00:12:35] Erica | Trip Scholars: yeah.

[00:12:35] Amanda Kendle (she/her): wherever we traveled we would be really, and I was equally curious as he, as a 4-year-old to find out, how was the garbage collected in this new town? What color were the rubbish bins and how did they sort things?

And you know, just the little everyday things that are interesting and different everywhere.

[00:12:50] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yes. Yeah. The joy of being around children especially is that that sense wonder is just ever present. But you've probably been finding it in a lot of your research too, that there is this amazing overlap between people who have this, keen desire for new experiences with how that overlaps with curiosity and that those people are often drawn to travel.

And so those of us who want to do a lot of those things get to do a lot of travel, but that it's also a skill that people can develop or, know, an aspect of personality that people can develop and they can start with small things like being curious about the color of the rubbish bins. It is a skill we can build at home so we can enjoy it more when we're traveling and be more comfortable when we're in those new experiences.

You probably find a lot of that in the research that you do in this space too.

[00:13:45] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yes, absolutely. I think that that desire for new knowledge and chasing your curiosity down rabbit holes is something that I love to encourage people to do and to connect it to their own current curiosities. Like,

[00:13:57] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah,

[00:13:57] Amanda Kendle (she/her): I had a podcast guest recently who said to me, or he was saying in his approach to travel, it was like you don't go to art galleries at home, don't go to art galleries when you travel, like, you know, you're not going to suddenly like them.

[00:14:09] Erica | Trip Scholars: A good idea.

[00:14:10] Amanda Kendle (she/her): About at home. You know, what do you love at home? If you're really obsessed with like the newest beers at the pub at home, do that.

Go to the pubs when you travel and learn about, their local beer culture and those kinds of things and follow your own kind of curiosities. And I thought that was such good advice.

Inside the Thoughtful Travel Podcast

[00:14:26] Erica | Trip Scholars: I could not agree more I really encourage people to think about what do you already love to do?

What's already part of your life? And then how can you tie that in? To your next trip,So that's, that's just beautiful.

Yeah, I'd love to get to talk a little bit about your podcast itself. It is funny you were saying when you started 10 years ago. Is there even space, because I think many of us recognize you,as a a pioneer in this more thoughtful travel space. So first I just wanted to say thank you for paving the way for more of these conversations.

I recently saw that you reached the amazing milestone of having a million downloads.

[00:15:03] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yes.

[00:15:04] Erica | Trip Scholars: To your show.

 congratulations.

[00:15:07] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Thank

[00:15:08] Erica | Trip Scholars: it makes me really happy to know that many people are interested in traveling more thoughtfully. you have a different structure to your show and we'll be linking the Thoughtful Travel podcast below.

But for people who haven't listened yet can you tell us a little bit about how you structure your show and how you kind of share multiple stories around a theme?

[00:15:30] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yeah, so I first began the podcast that I listened to were mostly straight interview podcasts, you know, similar to the conversation we're having, but it was 10 years ago. So a lot of the conversations were very bad and not edited. So that kind of put me off the idea these days as straight interview show is.

Brilliant. that kind of put me off the idea of having just an inter, just a single interview. And I always like to do things the difficult way. Most episodes of the Thoughtful Travel Podcast are exactly as you said, Erica centered on a theme, and I'll usually have. Extracts from conversations with three different guests. This week's episode was about creativity and travel. I had three different people. I'd had conversations with them over the last few months. One spoke about going on writing retreats. One was teaching art workshops on a cruise ship, which is an exception.

I don't often talk about big cruise ships, but she had a good story. And the other had, been writing about her homeland in Greece, so, and how she feels creative when she goes back to Greece. So those three, six or seven minutes from each of those conversations, I love, it's a fun process to kind of weave them all together. To figure out, how I can make a topic episode. So that's how the podcast kind of comes together. Most episodes, I'll do a few exceptions, but 90% of the episodes, it'll be three guests on a theme. So it's a lot more work and a lot of editing. Which I kind of didn't really understand when I started out. However it keeps me really interested and I think that's part of it because I'll have a, you know, when I record a conversation with a guest, they'll pick a few different topics. I've got a kind of an ongoing list and which I'll change, you know, add things to. But I've got a few kind of evergreen topics like the travel story you tell over and over, you know, because typically people have that one or two stories. Always

[00:17:21] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah.

[00:17:21] Amanda Kendle (she/her): at dinner parties or whatever. And often out of those stories I'll think, oh, ooh, well there's a whole topic there. And then I'll think, okay, I've gotta find a couple more people to talk, talk about that topic, add it to the list. And so it's an ongoing kind of iteration of of putting it together.

[00:17:36] Erica | Trip Scholars: Well, it's really, really great for listeners because to have, have one key theme and then you always have such insightful guests. So there is a lot of great advice. As a matter of fact, the creativity one I facilitate a group called Empty Nesters Taking Flight. 

creativity is a theme that just comes up over and over.And so I shared the episode with that group today so I appreciated the insights about finding places where creative people can go, but also that super important idea that being in new places really allows creativity to blossom in us and grow, and how can we nurture that. So that was awesome.

Yeah.

[00:18:20] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Episode was so instantly useful. 

[00:18:22] Erica | Trip Scholars: a, it's a lovely group, so I was happy to get to share it with them.

[00:18:25] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Oh 

[00:18:25] Erica | Trip Scholars: yeah, I wanted to ask you something else. Many people are well traveled.

They're already highly curious people like we were just talking about. And so they're already in this space I know that you also share this. Awareness that as people travel more in this way, they become more open-minded. They become more open-hearted.

How do you do it where you're serving people who are already in this space, but also welcoming or kindling that for folks who might not be in that space.

[00:18:55] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Mm. It's such a good question because I have grappled with like over the years, especially in

[00:19:01] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah.

[00:19:01] Amanda Kendle (she/her): like who is my audience? You know? Can they be all of those people or not? I focus on the storytelling and it doesn't really matter where you are in your journey.

[00:19:12] Erica | Trip Scholars: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:13] Amanda Kendle (she/her): to hear stories, and so I think. that the stories just land differently depending on where you are in that space. And especially when we're thinking about being, open-minded and also kind of, yeah, the general kind of being thoughtful with your travel. I never want to tell anyone you're doing it wrong. Don't do it that way.

[00:19:33] Erica | Trip Scholars: exactly.

[00:19:34] Amanda Kendle (she/her): at a different point of learning. I remember when that person wrote on my Facebook about don't ride the elephant, and it never occurred to me

[00:19:42] Erica | Trip Scholars: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:42] Amanda Kendle (she/her): You know, those kind of things. I want to make sure that, very non-judgmental. So if a guest ever like interviewed in a way that made them sound judgmental, I would just cut that part. So really brutal with my editing, because I don't want my listeners to ever feel judged, I just want them to get new ideas. So I guess that that approach, I hope, makes it. for both. Yeah. People who are just starting to think more about spreading their wings more and people who have it.

Because I have people in my listeners amongst my audience who have traveled far, far more than me or lived and

[00:20:20] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yes.

[00:20:20] Amanda Kendle (she/her): you know, like a dozen or more countries and they have so much experience and it's wonderful. But then I also try and tap into that before an episode when I'm. putting it together. If I think, there'll be people in my audience who have good ideas on this, I'll drop a note into my Facebook group or even reach out to individuals and say, Hey, what are your thoughts on this? So that I can include that in the episode as well. So, yeah, I've never discussed this with anyone before, but it is, yeah, it's a tricky balance to

[00:20:47] Erica | Trip Scholars: I know when I started Trip Scholars, I. Wanted to invite everybody who was interested in travel and yet finding a way that it can be of service and useful to people at every stage in their journey. And I know we're both teachers and so much of that is similar to teaching.

it is good stories and meeting people where each of us are at. And thenmaking it available. For however people want to step into the next part of their life, they're stepping into. So I appreciate that. I actually haven't talked about that with anybody either.

[00:21:19] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Oh, thank you. No, it's really interesting topic to me. I think it helps that when I started, I felt like I knew nothing. So I

[00:21:25] Erica | Trip Scholars: yes, yes.

[00:21:26] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Approach it as I'm the expert, but that my

[00:21:29] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah.

[00:21:29] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Even if I do think I know something, I just,

RISE Travel Institute

[00:21:32] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah, I, I thinkalways coming with curiosity and humility and just wanting to learn more. Exactly. And that, that kind of leads into some of the other work that you do with RISE. it's a very interesting organization. You guys are doing fantastic work.

Could you talk a little bit about what RISE is and why you decided to devote so much of your time and expertise to it?

[00:21:59] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yes, gladly. So RISE, the RISE Travel Institute is based outta the us. The founder is the lovely and very clever, Dr. Vincie Ho, who's originally out of Hong Kong. RISE does education for travelers, the acronym RISE stands for responsible, impactful, sustainable, and ethical.

So it's through that lens that we are trying to educate travelers to act in those ways, I. First came across RISE in, its inaugural year. It started during the pandemic, as did many businesses. in 2020. I saw, on LinkedIn that they were running this course. And I was like, that sounds like. A curriculum for my podcast. It just sounded like all these topics that I wanted to know more about. it's their flagship program. a certificate in sustainability and anti-oppression in Travel is the, the full name. And I was like, oh, I really want to do this. I reached out and got involved and I did that 10 week course I was writing about it somewhere the other day and I said, and this is true, it's the first time that I ever did all the readings in a course I'd done ever, because it was really interesting,

[00:23:06] Erica | Trip Scholars: compelling 

[00:23:07] Amanda Kendle (she/her): compelling and every week was a completely different topic. Like there was a week about voluntourism, the perils of volunteer tourism, which I knew a bit about, but wanted to know more, or wildlife tourism kind of decolonizing our travel experiences, that kind of stuff, even like how to take.

Photos more respectfully

[00:23:24] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah.

[00:23:25] Amanda Kendle (she/her): like all kinds of different topics, which every single one was fascinating to me. So I loved the course. And then as part of that, if you wanted to get the full certification, you. Needed to complete a capstone project. So I did that and that was actually about elephant tourism and got to dive deep into

[00:23:44] Erica | Trip Scholars: full circle.

[00:23:44] Amanda Kendle (she/her): full circle.

Yeah. Through that. I got to know Vincie I invited her onto my podcast, got to know her more. And then, yeah, a few months passed and she's like, Hey, we're expanding the board. Would you like to be on the Board of RISE? I was like, oh, that would be absolutely amazing.

So it's five, probably four years on and I'm the vice president of the board at RISE Travel Institute at the moment. It's an amazing group of people that I get to work with and doing some really good work. So,

[00:24:13] Erica | Trip Scholars: Well, I am grateful that you do do all of that work and I know how intensive it can be to serve on a board that is really at the forefront of making changes. And we'll put links below for all our listeners who are interested in learning more about it and hopefully signing up.

So you guys have the flagship program and then you have a couple other things that you're doing as well.

[00:24:37] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yeah, so we have a bunch of different educational experiences, but there's a few things coming up. We work in conjunction with several universities so that, we can get some of those students involved. We are working more towards working with study abroad people

they, yeah. Head overseas can have some ideas about how to act appropriately, respectfully, and get the most out of their experience, learn the most, et cetera. 

[00:25:02] Erica | Trip Scholars: I encourage people to visit the RISE website So thank you. 

What Does Thoughtful Travel Mean to You?

 I was wondering if you could talk with us a little bit about, when you say thoughtful travel, when you talk about thoughtful travel, what does that mean to you?

[00:25:15] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yeah, it's a good question and I think there's two key parts to it and it's kind of back to what I learned from my own travels. First of all, being thoughtful in the way. it impacts yourself as a traveler. So how, what can travel do for you? Can travel help yougo beyond your comfort zone?

Can it give you confidence? All of those kind of, you know, personal benefits. And then how can we be more thoughtful about the impact that we have? You know. Are we leaving a place worse or better when we've been there? Are we thinking about what it is like to be a local in a place that we visit and not interrupting that? I guess broadly speaking, when we travel, a lot of people travel just to have a good time, which is fine, but I always encourage people do that. But just. Think about some other things that you can do intentionally that are beneficial to you and the world.

Amanda Kendle’s Tips for Thoughtful Travel

[00:26:20] Erica | Trip Scholars: Could you share a couple of your tips for doing that? 

[00:26:24] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yeah, so I kind of have just a before, during, and after kind of structure of how to be a bit more thoughtful. So I think before a trip, a lot of people really love doing the planning of a trip. You know, that's, half the joy or more of planning and I

[00:26:38] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah.

[00:26:39] Amanda Kendle (she/her): But I would encourage them not to just be planning, you know, oh, I'm going to do this on this day and booking this, or you know, looking at. You know, 20 different luxury hotels and choosing the, the one that seems the most luxurious or whatever. But I love to, in that before phase, be trying to learn a bit more about a place almost by osmosis. So watch a TV show that's set in a place, read novels, set in a place, watch movies, stuff that, it's not about the place, but it's there. I went to Denmark a few years ago and Before that trip I watched a couple of different Danish TV series and one of them was about a teacher. And I learned, you know, just incidentally from that, it was, you know, it was a drama, but she was a teacher and you got to see in the classroom. And of course that's interesting to me to start with. But then I learned more about, you know, the Danish education system or I, you know, I could gather some things about the Danish education system from that show.

And then when I was in Denmark. So then we would get to the, during part, and this is one of my big things, is try and find ways to connect and talk with local people when you're there. And I had the good fortune of renting. It was through Airbnb, but it was the basement of a. Place where this older couple were living in Aarhus in Denmark, and she had just retired from being a school teacher. And I was like, oh, brilliant.

[00:27:59] Erica | Trip Scholars: So you got to ask her all the questions that had been bubbling.

[00:28:03] Amanda Kendle (she/her): my son would be there just rolling his eyes at like, that might be enough questions, you know, but she was very happy to talk to her about it and, you know, to find out. I was like, oh, you know, it looked like this, this, and this happens. Is this all true? And she could tell me, you know, some was true, some was not.

It wasn't, you know, she, her opinion was the education system wasn't as perfect as it was portrayed you know, outside of Scandinavia. But these were the pros and cons and it was fabulous. Several days worth of conversation. But

[00:28:29] Erica | Trip Scholars: Oh, I love it. That's awesome. That's so great.

[00:28:32] Amanda Kendle (she/her): ask about that if I hadn't done this kind of before preparation and, you know,

[00:28:36] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah, it can really make it richer and deeper and allow so many other opportunities for connecting with local people that you wouldn't have if you didn't do that first.

[00:28:46] Amanda Kendle (she/her): A hundred percent. 

[00:28:47] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah. I love it.

[00:28:49] Amanda Kendle (she/her): so you focus on the before and the during, and then I know you also focus on the, after the trip piece.

yes. because I think it's very easy to come home and then you have to get straight back into everyday life. And it's like the trip is completely gone. you're back at work or something and you're like, oh, I can't even, I don't even remember that I was away.

[00:29:08] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yes.

[00:29:08] Amanda Kendle (she/her): all

[00:29:09] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yes.

[00:29:10] Amanda Kendle (she/her): So, I really encourage people and try hard myself to find lots of ways to bring that trip back with you in both like kind of emotional and psychological ways and physical ways. So that can be you having photos on the wall or making a photo book so you've got stuff to physically look at that brings back those memories.

because you know, digital stuff just disappears. 

[00:29:33] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yes,

[00:29:33] Amanda Kendle (she/her): to have those physical memories and also like a souvenir or two that. You use, like today I'm drinking my tea from my mug from Amsterdam,

[00:29:43] Erica | Trip Scholars: Amsterdam. Love it.

[00:29:44] Amanda Kendle (she/her): I use this mug often and it reminds me of a weird part of a particular trip, but it just brings me back there.

So there's that. And then also even like the mindset, I lived in Japan for a couple of years and I went to many tea ceremonies and when I make my pot of, I actually kind of became addicted to green tea. I still drink green tea constantly, but when I make my pot of green tea in the morning, I'm often reminded of. that quietness and that moment of being settled in contemplation that a tea ceremony has. So I try and bring that into my day as well. So I really try to eek out those experiences for decades if possible.

[00:30:25] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah, that you're very intentional about infusing things that can trigger memories states of mind that you were in into your life when you return. So thank you for sharing all of that, those great ideas. And it was interesting to me.

I had developed my learn through travel approach. Before I had been hearing all of your before, during, and after. And I think it is so important to recognize that the travel experience can really extend into our lives in such profound ways and such deep ways.

So I, I just love that that's what you're doing. 

[00:31:06] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Great minds think alike. Let's decide that Erica.

[00:31:09] Erica | Trip Scholars: yeah, like when you were talking about watching the Danish TV show, one of the things that's so exciting about doing any that those activities or preparation before we go is it was kindling all these.

Questions and ideas that you had, and then you wondered, and you probably were researching and everything before you got there to find out some of that. And then when you finally got to talk to someone who lived that life, you had so much to bring to that conversation. It was so rich uh, and it changed you,and now you're carrying it with you.

So it was a beautiful illustration of how valuable it can be to invest that time at the beginning. 

[00:31:46] Amanda Kendle (she/her): so too, and like as a little side bonus because that woman and I got along really well because I had all these questions, and also I could tell her about the Australian education system. Each morning that we were there, she brought us fresh bread rolls, which I don't think she did to every guest.

Yeah, there are benefits on multiple levels to bringing that curiosity and doing that research in advance.Do you have any suggestions for.travelers who want to be more thoughtful but aren't quite sure where to start.

Resources for Thoughtful Travelers

[00:32:15] Erica | Trip Scholars: Like, do you have any resources you like to send people to? Obviously your site podcast and the RISE Travel Institute. What, what are some resources you would recommend to people?

[00:32:27] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yes. Well, thank you. Those are good resources to start with. And I was also thinking about a book we read recently on the Thoughtful Travelers Book Club. It's by a British journalist Ash, Bhardwaj And he wrote, Why We Travel. And it's a really accessible read and it's, you know, a lot of it, it is his experiences, but intertwined with a lot of really thoughtful research on how travel makes us feel and, you know why we keep doing it.

So I think that that's a really good read to put us in that thoughtful framework. But honestly I think the rest of it is follow your own interests is the best way. I. encourage that deep diving. 

We can, find someone who has a very niche interest that we share on the other side of the world, and we can find that because of the internet. So I would really encourage, I spend a lot of time kind of googling these things in Reddit. because Reddit is weirdly a great resource for people having quite serious discussions about really interesting differences in culture.

And similarly on YouTube, now that, 

[00:33:32] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:33:33] Amanda Kendle (she/her): and I, so he's 15 and so he spends a lot of time in YouTube and we spend a lot of time watching videos

People who are traveling in different places and really going quite deep. So I think that rather than prescribing a lot of homework reading, follow your interests, but just be really intentional about, I want to know more about, whatever your passion might be. Google that along with, a place you might go to or, where's the best place in the world to do this? And head right down those rabbit holes. Embrace them.

A Small Step Toward Thoughtful Travel You Can Take Today

[00:34:03] Erica | Trip Scholars: I love it. Thank you. So you have given us all kinds of great advice today and inspiring stories.For people who are wanting to travel more thoughtfully, do you have one small, simple step people could take today or this week to become more thoughtful travelers?

[00:34:21] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yeah, I thinkthe most useful way to become more thoughtful is to do an experiment. So, do something that is different on your next trip. And this'll be different for everyone, but it might be that I have a friend who's a real type a planner, always books every hotel night. I don't always book every hotel night and it freaks her out. But recently she was based in Italy. For a few months, and she messaged me one day to say, Amanda, I'm going to Bratislava. I'm going for three nights and I haven't booked my accommodation and I'm not going to. I know it took her a lot to get to that point, but I guess she'd figured out that it was worth the experiment and, and then like the day before she left, she's like, oh, do you think there'll be enough to do?

Maybe we need to go to Budapest as well. I lived there for a year. You will definitely find enough to do for three days. Just do it, you know, take this chance. 

[00:35:12] Erica | Trip Scholars: Good for her.

[00:35:14] Amanda Kendle (she/her): she loved it. So but I was very proud of her that was a big step for her to take that experiment.

So, do something that is different on your next trip. So if you always plan every night, decide that a couple of nights, you're not going to plan until you get there and you'll just see what happens or that you'll put more free time into your schedule so that you can just. You know, someone else around that you meet, what you could do on that afternoon and go with the flow.

So I think that a lot of the really thoughtful moments come out of the unscheduled moments, the having time to go down, you know, a different, literally a different alleyway A lot of people, especially today because it's, it's increasingly difficult to travel without having things booked. You know, back in the

[00:35:56] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah.

[00:35:57] Amanda Kendle (she/her): booked

[00:35:57] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah.

[00:35:58] Amanda Kendle (she/her): and you would just rock up and look at your physical, you know, guidebook and go and find a hostel to stay in. Whereas these days, you know, if you want to visit like Anne Frank House, one of my most favorite museums in Amsterdam.

[00:36:10] Erica | Trip Scholars: It's very powerful

[00:36:12] Amanda Kendle (she/her): know,

[00:36:12] Erica | Trip Scholars: months.

[00:36:13] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yes, exactly.

[00:36:15] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah.

[00:36:15] Amanda Kendle (she/her): there are a lot of things we have to book for, try and not do that all the time.

[00:36:20] Erica | Trip Scholars: that's great advice. So challenge yourself to experiment, push yourself outside of your comfort zone. Try something new and travel's the perfect place to do that. Perfect time in our lives. 

[00:36:31] Amanda Kendle (she/her): then my advice is if it doesn't go as to plan, then the good thing is that on my podcast, whenever I do a things went wrong episode, they get downloaded more than any other episode. So when things go wrong, basically all it means is you have a fabulous story that people are going to love hearing for

[00:36:50] Erica | Trip Scholars: It does indeed. Yes. That's super advice. And so true. It is the mishaps that make the best travel stories often.

[00:37:00] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yep.

Closing Inspiration About Thoughtful Travel

[00:37:00] Erica | Trip Scholars: Love it. So we always like to leave our listeners with a question or a quote that they can take with them into the week ahead. Do you have a favorite you could share with us?

[00:37:12] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yes, I do. And, sorry, but it's not just a quote, it's a quick story. 

[00:37:15] Erica | Trip Scholars: Okay.

[00:37:16] Amanda Kendle (she/her): years I have talked about that quote that you might have heard from Maya Angelou about, you know, when we know better, we do better. And that's kind of that philosophy of I didn't know about not riding the elephant and then I did, and now I don't ride an elephant and so on.

So, and I think in traveling thoughtfully, there's so many things that we just don't know. A lot of travelers are not doing the wrong thing intentionally. They just don't know. And as you learn more, then you can travel more thoughtfully and you know, it just compounds from there. But I went down a rabbit hole recently about that quote and I discovered that actually it's not something that Maya Angelou wrote. Oprah Winfrey was reporting back on something that Maya Angelou had said to her, the quote actually kind of came from her so the real quote is you did what you knew how to do and when you knew better, you did better. 

[00:38:03] Erica | Trip Scholars: Ah, that's good.

[00:38:04] Amanda Kendle (she/her): more.

[00:38:05] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yes, it does.

[00:38:06] Amanda Kendle (she/her): did it the way we knew how, because that's all we'd been taught or, or we'd been exposed to. And then when you knew better, you did better. And I think for as thoughtful travelers, that should be like the whole philosophy of, you know, we're

[00:38:18] Erica | Trip Scholars: Yeah,

[00:38:19] Amanda Kendle (she/her): perfect, you know.

[00:38:20] Erica | Trip Scholars: no.

[00:38:21] Amanda Kendle (she/her): you can feel under real pressure to, oh my goodness, I didn't bring a keep cup on this particular trip, and now I'm like the worst, most unsustainable. I might as well, you know, never go anywhere again. You know, or I didn't slow travel because I really had to get back in time for my kids' graduation or whatever.

You know, there's so many things we can do wrong. But as you just gradually do a little bit more right, then that's all we need to do. 

[00:38:43] Erica | Trip Scholars: Indeed. Yeah. That's a wonderful quote. Thank you. And applicable, not only to travel, but to life also.

Where to Find Amanda Kendle and The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

can you tell us where we can follow what you're doing?

[00:38:54] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Yes. Thank you so in any podcast app, just look up the Thoughtful Travel podcast. Or the website is not a ballerina.com/podcast and I'm also having lots of fun at Substack lately. So that's at thoughtful travel.substack.com.

[00:39:11] Erica | Trip Scholars: Perfect. Thank you so much Bye, Amanda.

[00:39:15] Amanda Kendle (she/her): Thanks, Erica.

[00:39:16] Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me. I know your time is valuable and I'm truly grateful that you spent some of it here together. Please come visit me@tripscholars.com for free travel resources, workshops and travel coaching. And if you enjoyed today's show, please follow, review or share. It really helps other curious travelers find us.

Until next time, curious Travelers.