>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made by two Rochesterians two women who decided at different points in their lives to hit the road for more than just a vacation.

Roughly a decade ago, we sat down with Christina Le Beau, a Rochester journalist and writer who decided with her family to try on a nomadic kind of lifestyle.

They packed their things into an Airstream.

They traveled the United States for years.

Their daughter had learning experiences far outside any classroom.

They followed their interests and their curiosity and sometimes stayed for a while in a single place, sometimes not too long.

And not long ago, Christina moved back to Rochester, but has plenty of affection for the nomadic lifestyle.

Learned a lot on the road.

More recently, Alison Konecki and her husband decided to get out on the road and out of the country.

She's a Rochester who has been living in California.

She and her husband charted a list of places around the world they wanted to experience, and they've been out there doing that for months.

Soon they're going to depart for Asia.

Money is tight, but they become pretty good at finding cheap ways to stay and dine.

And they meet a lot of locals, not just tourists, on these kind of travels.

Now, we've known for weeks that we wanted to bring these women together for a conversation about life on the road, but we should note that both had a similar request of us.

They feel strongly about some of the turmoil happening in our world.

They didn't want to be glib about travel or adventure when so many people are hurting.

And so I have assured them this is.

I think it's actually a really good time to have this conversation.

More Americans are inquiring about living abroad or traveling abroad for longer stretches.

And for Chris, I wondered, did the tenor of your experiences change over the last decade in this country?

Did politics become more prominent, more divisive, or was it the opposite?

Did you find more humanity out on the road and less vitriol?

So there's a lot to talk about, and I think it'll be a fun conversation, but there's a lot of substance here too, in studio.

Let me welcome back to the program, Chris Le Beau, writer and traveler.

But Rochester native back or at least Rochester resident once again.

Right.

Welcome back to the program.

>> Thank you.

It's great to be here.

>> When did we talk?

It felt.

>> Like 2016.

>> It was ten.

>> Years ago.

It was ten years ago.

>> Ten years ago.

And Alison Konecki, a traveler and arts administrator, joining us from.

I actually don't even know where where are you right now?

>> Alison?

Currently San Francisco, about to take off in another week.

>> All right.

Well, it's great to have you, Alison.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm going to ask Chris and then Alison to briefly describe what your approach to travel was or is.

And then we're going to kind of talk about individual experiences and what you've experienced for Alison as an American abroad.

It's an interesting time for Chris, seeing a lot of the country.

So 2016, we sat down when you were heading out.

>> Yes.

>> What did you think you were going to do ten years ago?

>> well, the impetus, if you maybe remember our daughter at the time was 12 years old.

we, you know, knew we were kind of losing time with her at home and we wanted to be able to spend more time with her slow time down if we could.

And we wanted to experience the country firsthand.

We wanted to see get out and see history where it actually happened, see science in action, visit wild places.

We didn't want to just to be visitors.

We wanted to live like locals.

We wanted to chase our interests expose our daughter to new places, new people.

let her pursue things that really interested her.

She was at the time very much into astronomy and space still is, although her, her studies have taken her in a different direction.

She's in college now.

and so we just wanted to kind of get out there and, and explore.

It really wasn't about escaping Rochester or anything like that.

It was more about exploring places we'd never been and seeing this whole big country and Canada as well.

and we didn't know how long we would do it.

We thought at least a couple of years and it turned into eight years.

And we ultimately decided to buy a place back in Rochester once she was off to college.

And, you know, we just wanted some place where we could kind of gather on breaks and you know, just have a home base.

We kept the Airstream.

We have spent the last year and a half renovating the house we just bought and now we're renovating the Airstream and then we'll be getting back out again.

>> Wow.

And one of the things I remember from our conversation was there was a lot of this is the kind of thing that people talk about but never do, right?

Whether it's for your child, an education, whether it's for your sense of wanting to understand a country better or the world better.

So I'm eager to talk to you about what you think those eight years told you about this country.

But I will say, having done it for eight years, longer than you might have thought, did you did you have any sense at any point, like, we shouldn't have done this or any regrets?

Or did you feel we could do this forever?

>> No.

Absolutely not.

I would still be doing this probably right now if if, you know, life wasn't life.

my husband and I both feel that way, that there's something about being out on the open road.

There's something about moving constantly.

you know, constant change having to be resourceful, resilient, like just sort of it makes you feel very alive, for lack of a better word.

and you know, but, but we, we, I think we knew we couldn't do it forever.

so this is kind of a nice way to have, we call it, I've been saying this is our hybrid era, you know, shout out to Taylor Swift.

this is our hybrid era.

And but, but there's nothing, there's, there's no regrets at all about doing this.

and if anything, I wish we'd done it sooner.

And yeah.

>> So Alison's story is a little different.

as a traveler and arts administrator from Rochester, living in California with her husband, you and your husband had talked for a long time about getting out of the country for extended amounts of time knowing that that would be very difficult financially, but you could be resourceful, you could find ways you could see more of the world.

So take us through the decision of why to do this.

Now you're sort of in the middle of it.

You're back in California for a little while.

I know you're going back out soon.

We'll talk about that.

But what you decided to do and how you did it.

Alison.

>> Yeah.

So we'd been talking about this travel for and saving for for about a decade, which is kind of crazy, but travel has always been really important to me.

And actually right before we moved to San Francisco, we took three months to woof, which is working on farms in France.

And so I've definitely done that kind of budget travel traveling cheaply and, and doing it in a different way, which is really fun.

I could also talk about that because that's a wonderful way to travel, but I'd always really wanted to really kind of see the world and see certain places that have always been on my radar back in grad school, actually, I learned about the Grand tour when kind of the well-heeled fancy pants aristocrats would kind of have a capstone to their education and go out and actually see the things that they had been learning about.

And it just always stuck in my imagination.

So something that I really wanted to do and I like what Christine said, kind of exploring our interests.

And that's how we really structured this trip.

It was I wanted to see some of the artwork I had studied in grad school.

I wanted to see some animals.

I love nature, so it was just a really fun time to talk with my husband and be like, what are our wildest dreams?

What do we want to see?

Where do we want to go?

and it was just fun to kind of let our imaginations run wild.

We did have to hone it in after a while, but it's really cool to explore all the things that you want to do, want to see and talk about why and what the priority is, and then create a plan from there.

So like I said, we did take a long time to save.

And you know, when I traveled and did the farming thing back in the day, you can do it really cheaply.

You know, we decided saved a little bit up and we're on our way.

We're at a different stage in our life and had to think about different things, very mundane things like, you know, health insurance, how to cover that while we're abroad.

So it looked a little bit different this time.

And I can dig into that if you want.

But that's, that was the planning in a nutshell.

>> Okay.

And you headed out for this big first leg when.

>> We left in September.

And that's when we did Europe.

And without a visa, you can stay 90 days.

So we planned it basically today, 89, in case anything went wrong with the flight, because they, they don't care if the flight is canceled.

You only have 90 days.

but yeah, so we planned it out and kind of explored from there.

We left it a little bit loose because it's a little bit easier to move around Europe.

And we just said we'll go there and hang out for a while.

>> If you're watching on YouTube, that is a very Indiana Jones esque illustration that we did.

Who did that?

Was that oh, that was Jeff on our team.

Hey Jeff, great stuff on that.

So you're seeing a little bit of the route there that included Iceland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Germany, again, Belgium, England, France, Spain, Greece.

for starters.

did you want to jump in?

I saw you there, Chris.

>> I just wanted to mention Allison talked about saving up for.

>> Her travels, and I wanted to mention that when we all the years we've lived on the road, we've actually worked on the road.

there are people who do what we did and save up, quit their jobs, save up and go.

but there are a lot of people who do what we did, which was continue to work.

My husband works for a company here in Rochester and they let him go remote the entire time.

He's, he's now still remote, even though we're back in Rochester.

Same company.

I'm a freelance writer and editor and you know, have been for a long time.

So I just wanted to mention that, that, that part of what was appealing about going on the road is that we both had jobs that we could take remote with us.

We could do them from wherever we were.

And we literally did.

I mean, Don always kept his East coast ours no matter where we were.

So like, we spent a summer in Alaska and he had a 5:15 a.m.

meeting every day.

it was 915 here, but he kept his East coast hours.

So, you know, you make it work.

>> Okay.

and Allison for you September 2nd, the winter.

You're back in California.

Going back out soon.

We're going to talk about that.

But what has been the plan for you beyond saving?

is it a pause in the job?

Is it a we'll see you when we get back and hopefully there's a space for us.

But what's that mindset?

>> Yeah, it's definitely left both of us left our jobs.

And if we could have kept them in work remotely, absolutely would have done that.

I think that's a great option.

It was not an option for our particular jobs.

and it was something we talked about and we were ready for a change and decided to kind of take the plunge, kind of a scary time to do that.

But we believed in kind of this, this plan we had for so long.

And so we decided to, to do it anyway, but yeah, we'll be returning and on the job hunt again.

so yeah.

>> So your next leg, you leave next week and where are you going?

>> We start off in Japan, then we'll be going to Taiwan, then Vietnam, then we're going to be going to Malaysian Borneo and Australia and New Zealand.

>> Has any of the upcoming travel been affected by the war in Iran?

>> I keep reading about flights possibly getting cut in Asia because of fuel shortages, things like that.

So we will see so far we haven't had to alter our plans too much.

we had been talking about trying to fit in Egypt.

It's been a dream of mine to go there forever.

Now's not the time.

So that was obviously next.

>> Okay.

so let me ask Alison first and then Chris, maybe related questions, but going abroad at this point, you and your husband depart in September.

You're all over Europe now.

You're going all over Asia.

And I'm curious to know as an American abroad, what the commentary has been like, what the if there's been any sort of backlash or commentary from others about this country or positive or negative, I guess what that has been like, anything that stands out to you.

>> So it was definitely very nervous as we left.

about that.

And obviously people, you know, everyone wants to know where are you from?

How, where are you coming from?

Why are you here?

tended to say we're from California.

instead of the U.S., it just kind of shifts the conversation a little bit.

People are like, oh, California, they want to know about California.

>> And why not just say the United States >>?

>> I think like I said, it just shifts the conversation.

oh, I'm from the U.S.

then it kind of is like, oh, let's talk about what's happening in the U.S.

When you say you're from California, people usually conjure up images of California and kind of want to talk about that.

Now, granted, if someone still wants to talk about the U.S.

and what's going on.

Happy to do that, but try and come from a position more of like, we're here to explore.

We're not, you know, here to kind of I don't know, get into some of those issues with people.

So like I said, always happy to have those conversations, but I just think it's different when you say I'm from California, you know, and it also the other thing is it just kind of locates you a little bit more when you say you're from the U.S.

It is so big geographically.

I think it makes for a more interesting conversation.

When you say, yeah, from California or New York, you know, inevitably when I say I'm from New York, people always assume the city.

And then.

>> I used to say no.

Oh, yeah.

>> Rochester.

Yeah.

A whole other part.

Yeah.

To Canada.

>> Close to Toronto.

>> Closer to Toronto.

did you have people ask you when they hear you're from the United States?

Do they ask you about President Trump?

They ask you like, do people like the president?

Do they ask you if you do?

Or did that come.

>> Up?

>> surprisingly, no.

I think people were probably very sensitive to it.

It surprised me honestly.

I usually got a oh.

oh kind of a look of recognition.

only once did I kind of get I hesitate to even call it a negative reaction.

I was in a market in Greece and I was chatting with with a market stall owner and then his colleague came over.

He's like, oh, where are you from?

And I said, California.

And he, the temperature just changed and he's like, oh, have a nice day.

And he turned around and I could tell he didn't, you know, want to engage.

And honestly, that's fine too, because it's definitely better than hostility.

And his colleague was like, that's an interesting time to be to be traveling to be from where you are.

And I said, yeah, it's challenging.

but honestly, that was the only time.

Otherwise people were really lovely.

And I don't want to be Pollyanna about it, but I do think most people just, you know, want to enjoy each other's company.

They, they know you're on the road.

They know obviously you're out there for a reason.

So we usually talked about like, oh, what are you doing?

What are you interested in?

which I think was really nice.

>> No, I mean, people really are lovely.

I mean, the world is filled with a lot of lovely people and it's easy to affix labels.

So Chris, get a little closer to your microphone, I've been told.

There we go.

And so your experience is different.

You're traveling domestically and you did it for eight years, 2016 to 2024.

>> Correct.

>> Okay.

So that coincides directly with a lot of big changes in this country.

Did that affect you?

Did things over those almost a decade?

Did it become did anything become more political?

Did did discussions become more political?

Did anything feel different over that time?

>> well, there's different answers to all those questions, but did anything feel different?

Well, yes, of course, because the country was undergoing such change and upheaval.

and we spent time, you know, in, in every state except Hawaii.

it couldn't drive there.

So we spent and most of Canada as well.

We, we, that was actually, I would say the only time we really encountered questioning was in Canada.

And what would oftentimes happen is when people would find out we were American.

you know, they, they would, we'd encountered a lot of like curiosity and concern from, from our Canadian neighbors.

and I would very quickly make clear that most of the United States doesn't support what's happening either that we're more on the side with Canada.

Most of us truth.

And that seemed to really help, but we, we had a lot of curiosity from people in Canada.

and.

>> What do they ask you?

>> Well, what do you think of Trump?

I mean, they were very direct.

We would, we would have people see our plates, you know, we'd pull in somewhere and they'd see we're from us before we even say anything else, we'd have people come up to us and say, what do you think of Trump?

and, you know, we would assure them, not fans, most of America, not fans.

And that, that, that that was good for them.

that's what they wanted to hear.

The people we encountered.

I'm not saying everybody in Canada is like that, but the people we encountered were were supportive that way.

and as far as traveling through the country, our country itself now one thing I do need to say right up front is you know, we, we, we spend a lot of time in the South a, a very big goal with our travels was to visit as many sites related to the civil rights movement, civil war and slavery.

A lot of areas of the South that were pivotal in those regards.

And so we were in politically very different climates than, you know, New York State or California.

but two things.

One, we're white, so let's just be straight there.

We didn't have problems traveling in those states.

during this political climate because, you know, we're not people of color.

So that was something that we were very aware of that we were probably treated differently.

even if, you know, some of our opinions became known or if they saw some stickers on our Airstream door or whatever it is that would give them a clue as to where we might lean.

we were treated very differently, I think, than we would have been if we were people of color.

That's number one.

But number two the thing that I will say consistently through those eight years is that we found just lovely, good people everywhere.

I mean, there were a few conversations I had oddly, mostly in like waiting rooms while I was waiting for the truck to get serviced.

That seemed to be where these conversations got struck up with a few, you know, people who were not politically aligned.

but for the most part, the thing that was so wonderful is everywhere we went, everywhere in this country, north, south, east, west, small town, big city.

Didn't matter.

We found so many people who were just good and kind.

People who cared about other human beings, cared about the planet.

Like it just if nothing else, it gave me hope.

I mean, that was the thing that I keep going back to when I think about our time on the road is, you know, when, when, when everything is happening, that's happening right now and it's just escalating and there's so much bad in in this country right now.

the thing that honestly keeps me hopeful is knowing that there are more people who think, who care for other people than there aren't.

>> So square this up because we get this caricature of each other as political actors, right?

Or as identities as opposed to individuals.

So you're traveling in a lot of spaces where your politics were not shared.

>> Correct.

>> But most people were lovely.

>> Yeah.

>> And kind.

>> Kind.

And I mean, I, you know, in some cases I knew their politics and in some cases, most cases I didn't.

I mean, that was the thing is, it's like there was.

>> No reason they.

>> Knew your politics.

>> Yeah, yeah.

And just I guess it's not even so much about.

But yes.

>> I'm not saying I'm surprised.

I want to know what you think the lesson is there and how we look at each other.

>> Well, I mean, I, I guess I go back to what I said, earlier that I, I think there are more people more good, there's more good in this country than bad.

now, you know, there's a lot of nuance to that because which, you know, we don't, we won't get into with, with, with all of this.

I mean, in terms of who you support and who you don't.

but there's just a lot of it just gave me hope that when I look forward to what's, what's going to happen, say, in the midterms, what's going to happen in the next presidential election just knowing what I know from the people I've met throughout the country, there are just so many more people who don't support the kind of divisiveness and, and hatred that we're seeing.

And I just have to believe because honestly, it's the only thing that lets me sleep at night if I don't believe this, that you know, that we're going to be okay, that there are enough of us who who support our fellow humans and our planet, that we're going to be okay.

That's that's that's what I take away.

>> So every state but Hawaii.

>> Every state but Hawaii still can't figure out how to drive there.

>> And there are.

>>, let's see here 11 provinces in.

>> There's nine I think there are like provinces and territories.

There's like 13 ish, something like that.

>> It's nine.

>> I knew it was.

Is it a one sided ten?

It's nine provinces, but then territories.

>> And three territories.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we've been to every everywhere except Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Newfoundland, Labrador.

okay.

>> Now producer Megan Mack says it's ten and we have all failed Canadian geography.

>> I think.

>> And I'm embarrassed.

>> I can't I can tell you how many we've been to and then let's see, add those up in my head.

Are there that is that including territories?

>> I was told there'd be no geography quizzes today.

>> Is that including territories?

>> Okay.

>> Yeah.

Okay.

So anyway, bottom line is you've seen a lot.

Yeah.

How many miles did you put on?

Do you.

>> Know?

>> no.

Except our.

Well, I mean, I could guesstimate probably 300,000, something like that.

Okay.

Maybe maybe maybe not quite.

>> And any significant surprises for you?

Good, bad or the other in traveling this country?

>> Oh, boy.

good.

Bad or the other.

Well, good is, you know, one of the things I just said that gave me hope meeting so many people who were like, you know.

>> The real.

>> Humanity, the real humanity.

Yeah.

And just the beauty of this country, the utter beauty and wildness of places that you don't really get to see in unless you are lucky to live there, you know?

I mean, Alaska, we spent a summer in Alaska and we've spent a summer in the Canadian Rockies, spent a summer in the Canadian Maritimes you know, a bunch of national parks, of course, throughout the country.

And just the, the, the beauty of this country and that as far as bad.

>> I think we got a picture on, on YouTube of Alaska.

>> Yeah.

That's our that was an amazing trail at Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska.

That's an ice field.

That ice field feeds a bunch of glaciers.

this actually leads right into what I was going to say.

as far as bad the other thing about all these travels is even though we knew intellectually about things like climate change and you know, the way that humans are affecting the planet, it's really a different thing to be able to see that up close to, for instance that trail we just saw there to see, to walk on a, on a receding glacier, okay.

To visit a marine laboratory that's repopulating the coral reefs to, you know, to see the, to see the way that animals, wild animals, caribou and musk ox in Alaska or sea turtles and manatees in Florida to see how their migration patterns have had to change because of climate change.

Like to, to, to physically see those things, to experience those things.

again, even though intellectually we know all that, it's a very different thing to experience it firsthand.

And it just makes you want to protect it more and our daughter is now actually majoring in environmental studies.

She's graduating this, this spring.

so I think that affected her as well.

>> Do you think that the people who live in the places you just described, do they feel the urgency that you felt as kind of a traveler seeing it up close?

>> I think the people who yes, I think the people who, who live there and see that up close do, but there's also a big disconnect.

I mean, Alaska is a very conservative state.

And yet, you know, you can't help but see how climate change is affecting Alaska, for instance, or Florida.

Florida is an exceptionally conservative state.

And yet so much of what's happening with climate change is affecting that state.

so there's a disconnect.

And this is that forever question in our politics, you know, your vote against your best interests, you see it up close and yet you still vote another way.

It's, it's a confusing thing.

>> When you traveled over those eight years in this Airstream, you, your husband, your daughter, you're deciding kind of as you.

I mean, it's not like you didn't have any plan, but you're deciding as you go and you've got flexibility to say, we're going to spend, we're going to go here, we're going to spend more time here.

Is there anywhere that you.

Oh, there's another picture on YouTube.

>> Oh, that's White Sands National.

>> Park.

That's in New Mexico.

Yeah.

That I mean, this is a great example.

So is there anywhere that you were surprised that you ended up spending that much time or somewhere that that really grabbed you and your family and you said, we've got, we've got to do this.

>> Well, New Mexico is a good example, actually.

We ended up spending a lot of time there over the years, including six months during Covid lockdown.

That's where we we were in Santa Fe during deep, you know, march to fall of 2020 when everything went into lockdown.

That's where we chose to spend our, our time with another traveling family who we were friends with.

We, we, you know, set up shop at a campground and kind of lived there for six months.

but you know Fargo, North Dakota funny, right?

I mean, we think of it because of the movie, but we, we were heading down from Canada and had to stop in Fargo for some truck work and ended up kind of falling in love with the place.

there were a lot of places like that actually, where we would stop over because we needed to have the truck serviced or go grocery shopping or, you know, just someplace to stop on the way to somewhere else.

And we would get to know it because these are places you wouldn't normally go for vacation.

and that was kind of the point.

One of the points of this, this type of travel was to be able to live like locals you know, find the local hardware store, find the local coffee shop kind of, you know, be resourceful, figure things out everywhere you went.

And even though it might not have been the most exciting things, it was new.

So it made it really interesting.

>> What is the flattest part of the country?

>> The flattest part of the country?

well, Death Valley is, is pretty flat.

>> Western Ohio is the.

>> Western Ohio incredible.

Yes.

The, the, I mean there are there.

Yes.

The middle of the country, you know, there are, I don't know, there's a lot of flat parts even in the parts you don't think are flat.

>> What is the most surprisingly beautiful part of the country?

>> Most surprising.

>> I mean, like we saw White Sands.

That's beautiful.

Yeah.

Like we get it.

>> But well, funny thing, I will say just a little shout out for for local after all these years traveling and going all over, we still think the Finger Lakes is one of the prettiest parts of the country.

Absolutely.

>> I will agree with you.

There.

>> yeah, so, so finger lakes, definitely beautiful, but surprisingly, I, I I don't know, I mean, there's so many times we would, you know, we're big hikers.

That was a big motivation for what we did too.

there's so many times you just get up on top of a mountain and I think the White Mountains in New Hampshire, you know, you get up on top of a mountain and it's just pure Alaska.

You're just in awe of this, this country, this, this planet, this, you know, it's just the beauty is, is astounding.

>> Does it make you feel smaller.

>> In, in a good way?

Yes, it absolutely does.

It makes, I think if more people could understand what specs we are in space and time, I think there would be so much.

I mean, it sounds.

You know, Allison said Pollyanna ish.

I mean, this sounds Pollyanna ish, but I do think if people had the perspective of understanding how small humans are we would, we would not be as divisive as we are.

And we would, we would, we would understand that we do need to protect our resources.

>> I've got some similar questions for Allison on the other side of this break, but we've got to take the only break when we come back, we're talking to Christina Le Beau in studio and Alison Konecki remotely from California.

Both are travelers.

And I mean, not going on vacation, but getting out and spending a lot of time on the road.

Chris with her family, eight years in an Airstream all over this country and Canada.

Allison and her husband since September, out on the road throughout Europe, now heading to Asia for months at a time.

And how they do it and what they're experiencing as Americans in the conversations they've had.

we're going to talk to Allison about her experiences in Europe so far and where they're going next.

And then we're going to take some of your feedback, some questions from the audience as well.

On the other side of our only break.

I'm Evan Dawson Wednesday on the next Connections.

In our first hour, the Rochester Police Department is recruiting.

They're going to talk about their needs in the department, how many spots they have to fill, how they're trying to do it, where they're looking, and what that recruitment process is like for people who might want to be candidates in our second hour, it's the RPO season reveal.

Talk with you on Wednesday.

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>> All right, we got a fact check.

Chris is a journalist and a writer.

So Chris, did the fact check.

>> Wait wait wait, don't hold me to that.

>> Hold on.

Ten provinces, three territories in Canada.

>> Ten provinces and three territories.

>> Did you make it up to Tuktoyaktuk?

That's my that's my favorite name.

>> But we did go to the Arctic Circle.

>> That's that's where it is.

Yeah.

>> that is, that's where you're talking about is Canada.

well, you said, you know, that but we did make it to the Arctic Circle and are we back on?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh we are.

Yeah.

We're on.

Okay.

>> We're fact checking ourselves.

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I didn't know we were back on again.

we did make it to the Arctic Circle.

in, in Alaska there is a highway which people might know from the TV show ice truckers or it's something called, it's called the, the Dalton Highway and it goes north to the Arctic Ocean and it was built for the Alaska pipeline.

So it's mainly a truckers road.

but you can also drive it.

And we, we had planned to go all the way to the Arctic Ocean.

we ran into a few, we were traveling with some friends, we ran into a few issues that prevented us from going all the way, but we did go to the Arctic Circle and we went over the Brooks range, which is the highest pass in Alaska.

And so we got, we almost got to the Arctic Ocean next time.

Amazing.

>> all right.

Alison Konecki and her husband have been out traveling all throughout Europe, and we've got some pictures to share from some of their journey.

that started in September starting.

You started in Iceland, didn't you?

>> Oh, yes.

Yes.

Started off with a bang.

>> Okay.

Everybody I've ever talked to have been to Reykjavik and Iceland loves it.

I've got pictures of you snorkeling in Iceland, which is not something most of us who hear Iceland think about.

Tell me about that.

>> So this is snorkeling in silfra fissure.

It's you get to actually snorkel between two continents.

This water is filtered.

for oh my goodness, I don't even know how long.

And then it pops up and it is some of the clearest water in the world.

It was incredible.

It's also some of the coldest.

It was just about freezing, which is why you just kind of hang out there and don't move much.

You're wearing a dry suit, but those gloves are just wetsuits, so the more you move, the more water goes in and your face is just frozen.

But it works.

You just kind of float along, marveling at this beauty and trying not to freeze to death.

>> Well, this is a good place to start with.

Some of the audience has questions really, for both of you.

But I'll start with you, Allison, because we're going to work through your travels here.

Questions on sort of how to afford this kind of thing.

And one of the things that you've written is that you and your husband knew there were certain things in Europe that you really wanted to do and that you were willing to sort of set aside some savings for that.

And then a lot of days we're supposed to be sort of no or low expense days, and you make that work.

Is that a way to kind of balance it for you?

>> Yes.

the vast majority of our days is, you know, wandering around just enjoying where we're at taking it slow.

but there were a few activities that we decided we needed to budget for, like that snorkel.

Everything in Iceland is expensive.

So that was something that we budgeted for.

And for this whole trip, we just kind of identified a few key things that were really important to us that we thought were worth the money and the budget.

Otherwise.

I mean, luckily, I'm a museum nerd.

museums in Europe are very affordable, if not free sometimes.

So that was great.

And it worked out because I love art and history.

So but yeah, it's just kind of looking at all the places you're going and what really is important and rises to that level of like, yeah, this is, this is worth setting aside some money for.

We also this was not like vacation.

We're not staying at fancy hotels rarely do that on vacation anyway.

clean and in a good location to get where we want to go was the name of the game.

So you're kind of not spending a lot of money on accommodation.

And I like food.

You know, food is important.

So we had probably a bigger you could do it even cheaper.

But food is important.

So we had kind of like a modest budget there, but no fancy restaurants more just kind of, you know, street food.

bistros, cafes, that kind of thing.

And you can get such good food without going to fancy restaurants anyway.

So and when you're thinking about budgeting for this trip, it was a big, like, like I said, we saved for so many years, but the first few years, it was just kind of like saving money, saving money.

And then as we got closer, we started looking at an actual budget, how long we could be out on the road, the average expenses for the places.

And to be fair, on this trip, we did not pick necessarily the most affordable places.

This trip was about going to some places we'd always dreamed about.

So that managed what we were able to do in terms of time.

And I think I mentioned before, a lot of the budget was more mundane things that are not very sexy, but very important.

out of pocket health insurance while we were gone on top of travel insurance cell phone plan.

we did maintain our apartment.

I know a lot of people who leave on these trips.

They like sell their house or they, you know, let go of their apartment lease.

We kept it.

so it the thing about planning for a kind of travel like this is you really have to look at, what your plans are on the other side.

what you need while you're gone and then creating individual budget from there.

So it's really hard to say like, oh, you need X amount of money and you also have to look at what you're trying to get out of the trip as well.

Like for me, I just wanted to see art being a place kind of see people eat some good food.

No big expectations in terms of like crazy activities.

So so yeah, I think that's kind of.

>> Yeah, I think that's a good model.

so we're, this is not meant to be rapid fire, but you went to a lot of places.

So we're going to kind of go fast and I'm going to, I'm going to tell you a country that you went to in order.

If you're watching on YouTube, we've got some pictures to share.

And you just tell me a brief a brief glimpse of this part of the trip.

So next from Iceland, you went to Germany.

What did you do there?

>> We actually landed in Munich, the very last day of Oktoberfest.

We had been planning to avoid it because of the expense, but we landed and were like, how can we not go to Oktoberfest?

And it was a hoot.

It was a hoot.

Wow.

I those tents were so packed we could not sit down to have a beer in the tent halls, but we got to watch the chaos and then have a beer outside in the rain instead, which was also fun.

So that was crazy.

>> Might have been even better.

From there.

You went to Austria.

What'd you do in Austria?

>> Oh my goodness.

we stayed at this little farm in I don't even know the town because it wasn't even a town.

It was this farm in the valley.

And right outside our door there were these cows.

We woke up to the lowing of cows as the light kind of struck the valley.

It was just beautiful.

Yeah, it was incredible.

>> Then to Italy.

>> Oh, we spent a good amount of time in Italy because it's Italy.

Who doesn't want to spend time there?

this is when we went to Venice.

I, I love traditional crafts and art.

And so we stopped in, in traditional craft.

or traditional mask workshop.

And so I got to see this gentleman as he was making the masks.

He was telling me about the process behind him are these molds.

And I asked him like, how old are they?

And he's like, I don't even know.

They've been around before me.

They'll be around after me, is what he said.

>> Wow.

back to Germany again from Italy.

>> Yeah.

So when we went back to Germany this time, we actually stayed in a teeny town that probably no one has ever heard of because we had a family connection with a home there.

And we got to just kind of breathe and plan the next part of our travel.

And really quick, what was awesome about that is we had some friends of family who would check in on us all the time and wanted to make sure we were having a good time and invited us to this little festival that they were having for Saint Martin's.

bought me this delicious pork filled lunch and we were just chatting and they found out I hadn't had schnapps before.

So they brought over all this schnapps and were like, oh, you got to try this.

And some of the friends didn't speak English.

I didn't speak German, but they were translating and we were just having a great time just sitting and chatting in this little kind of community hall in this tiny German town.

>> Love it.

Then to Belgium.

What did you do in Belgium?

>> ate chocolate, drink beer and then visited this lace museum which was incredible.

It's called bobbin lace and I don't know if you can see, but in the image there are, my goodness, hundreds of little pins and they go rapid fire moving these bobbins around to follow a pattern.

I would love to explain more, except I can't even wrap my head around it.

And I talked to them about this process and I watched it.

But it is just incredible how they make this lace.

And they were so generous with their their time.

These people in the in the Lace Museum explaining the process.

And this woman was like, oh, it's great because you cannot think about anything else.

So it's perfect for stress because everything goes away.

You have to have 100% focus on what you're doing.

>> Wow.

then to England.

>> Oh, we went to we went to London, the Cotswolds, Cornwall.

this is, this image is from the Cotswolds.

We went on the Cotswolds way.

Felt like an English heroine walking through the countryside.

We saw pheasants.

They would kind of scatter as we walked near them.

And all these sheep, lots of sheep.

It was.

It was wonderful.

It was so beautiful.

>> From there to France.

What did you do there?

>> we stayed in the Dordogne region.

So it's famous for its castles.

This is like a true medieval castle.

>> This looks fancy.

You said nothing fancy.

This looks fancy.

>> It looks fancy.

But let me tell you, they have a drawbridge.

An actual drawbridge with spikes coming up, because that was their plan to impale people.

Should they try to cross when they didn't want them to?

And those little holes where they would pour boiling oil down to their intruders.

So a real nasty sort of castle, very fun.

>> They don't still do that, do they?

>> Unfortunately, no.

>> Okay.

and from there to Spain.

>> Oh my goodness, I loved Spain.

the food and the art just blew me away.

I couldn't even narrow down photos for you guys.

I wanted to send so many.

This is from the Dali Theater Museum.

So Salvador Dali built this huge he calls it one artwork.

And it's this building with all these fantastical rooms.

And it's just his imagination.

Run wild.

You feel like you're actually walking through his mind.

I loved it, it was incredible.

>> And finally, even though you went to Greece High school, you went to the country of Greece.

The real, the original, the OG Greece.

>> The OG Greece.

Yeah.

We ended up spending, I think about a week in Athens, although we had planned to go elsewhere, there was a big farmer strike where they were blocking creating blockades in the road with tractors and such.

Interesting to encounter that and learn about that.

and what was happening, but we ended up hanging out in Athens, which is not a bad place to be.

Every time we turned around, we would look up, see the Acropolis, see the Parthenon.

It was, it just never ceased to thrill me.

I would look up and my heart would kind of leap.

It was so exciting.

>> So after all this, I asked Chris if this kind of travel makes you feel small, and she said in a good way it does.

Seeing the beauty of this country, seeing the beauty of the world in some ways can't help but make you realize your place in it and maybe humble you a little bit, and maybe inspire you to protect it more.

Did you feel like that at any point?

Alison?

>> Oh, absolutely.

I was nodding my head vigorously when Christine was saying that because it makes you feel small, but I'll just say again.

Yeah, in a very good way, because you feel really lucky to be a part of this kind of incredible world.

And you do care about kind of protecting it.

You care about the people that you're encountering too.

Like you can see images of places, but and obviously it's wonderful.

Can't go everywhere.

but to see it in person made me appreciate it on a deeper level and really also realize kind of the fragility of these cultural sites, these natural sites because you see it up close the things that do threaten these, these places.

>> So let me get a little feedback here from the audience.

Barb says before she left, Chris was in a healthy food book club I was in.

And I'm wondering if she found.

I see you searching your memory here, Barb.

>> I know who she.

I know.

>> Who says.

I'm wondering if she found easy ways to find healthy food on the road.

>> well the easiest is to travel with your own kitchen, which we did.

That was one of the best things about what we did is that our house was with us everywhere we went.

That was my favorite part, probably and beyond that it's really not a problem anymore to find, especially there's apps, you know, the internet, you can find anything, anywhere at any time.

And so we have never had a problem finding good food, healthy food anywhere.

>> and Christian wants to know if both of your guests were actively trying to avoid tourists on their travels.

I'll start with you, Craig.

Chris.

>> well, not actively trying, but I will say there's something to that.

stereotype.

Oftentimes and especially because we were homeschooling our daughter, although on the road, it's called road schooling.

That's what people call it road schooling.

And there, there tends to be a bit of a stereotype about homeschooling families at things like, you know, park national park ranger programs and sort of being a little overly enthusiastic about everything.

And so I will say that we, we, we were aware of those kinds of things of trying not to be those people.

and, and yeah, so I don't know about actively avoiding tourists.

It's kind of hard to do, but we did try to live like locals instead of live like tourists as much as we could.

>> Let me press that point before I get Alison's answer on this.

Why do you think the experience is better if it doesn't feel like you're in sort of a five star resort and more, that you're living among the locals?

>> Well, okay, so we're living, we're living in campgrounds usually, or, you know, sure.

But understood what you said.

I mean, it is different if we're living, we're in our own space.

I don't know that it's so much to me.

I don't know that it's so much where you're staying.

I think it's more the time, the amount of time that you're allowed you can spend there.

I mean, if you're, if you're somewhere for a very short period of time, especially if you don't think you're ever going back again, you know, people might try to cram in everything and see the highlights.

And we sort of approached every place we went, like we we would go back again.

So if we didn't see everything, it's okay because we would go back now.

Did we get back everywhere?

No, but a lot of places we did.

and so it was more about just doing things that weren't, I mean, yes, we did a lot of the touristy things.

We did a lot of the highlights of all the places we went.

That's part of the appeal.

But we also just tried to, you know, kind of be there and and, and partake of the local economy.

And you know, I mentioned earlier finding local hardware stores, I always find those places fascinating.

go to coffee shops, laundromats, you know, I had to do laundry on the road and laundromats.

And, you know, you meet really interesting people in laundromats and tourists aren't going to meet those people.

so it's more that kind of dynamic.

>> Yeah.

Alison Christian wants to know if you are actively avoiding tourists on your travels.

>> one thing we did change our travels on is when we were planning to go to Spain, we decided not to go to Barcelona simply because of what we were hearing that the, the tourist overload over tourist overload.

So we decided not to go there.

and add to that and kind of like what Christina was saying, like you do want to do some of the highlights, but it's also just in how you live.

other times of your day.

Like similarly we had to go to laundromats and do laundry because when you're on the road you have no other choice and went to grocery stores to shop and cook food and just kind of peppering in your day with like seeing some sights, but also like, you know, going to some different areas that tourists probably wouldn't normally go because they don't have to or they're not interested in.

So it was a mix.

Like there's some things I'm not I'm not going to avoid just because they're popular with tourists.

There's a reason they're popular, but I think it's just finding a balance and a good mix so that you get to see more than just the brochure side of a city.

Yeah.

Or a place.

>> So down to our last couple of minutes Christina Le Beau you're going to do this again.

>> in a, in a hybrid fashion, as they say.

we're, you know, we're keeping our house this time.

Last time we sold the house but yes, we are planning to to do this again for long stretches as much as we can.

We're right now renovating the trailer.

>> And do you feel like it would be kind of a semi-permanent existence going forward?

You keep the house, but you could six months on the road is like half and half.

>> We'll see.

I mean, that is the hope.

you know, who knows what will happen in in life, right.

But the, the intention is to do this as long as we want to, can yeah, we don't really, we don't see this being like a past tense of our lives.

I, you know, I think once a nomad, always a nomad, it's kind of in my blood now.

Like that, that, that desire for constant change and yeah, I think we'll, we'll keep doing this.

>> Alison you're going to get back on the road next week and you've got a lot of travels coming up here.

is that it for a while, you think?

And then you settle back down?

I mean, is that just a resource question?

>> Yes.

There will be a matter of resources.

I'll have to build back up.

But I think it's also just a mentality about travel.

although we're here to talk about kind of my international travels, the vast majority of them are exploring California when I'm here and national parks love exploring.

So yeah, always keep exploring.

and when I can definitely getting out and doing some international things, but always peppering in little explorations wherever you can.

>> I want to thank our guests for being here, for sharing their experiences.

really remarkable stories from Alison Konecki, a travel, a traveler and an arts administrator.

Thanks for sharing the story.

Safe travels on your next leg here.

We'll talk to you in the future.

Thanks, Alison.

>> Thanks for having me.

It's fun.

>> And Chris Le Beau, writer and traveler, Chris is going to do this again.

Let's let's keep talking.

I mean, I really I think there are glib ways to have these conversations and there's interesting substantive ways.

And I really appreciate what you both brought here because it's insight about the world that a lot of us, you're seeing more of it than a lot of us do.

So thank you for doing that and thanks for telling us about it here.

>> Thank you for asking about it.

>> Awesome stuff from all of us at Connections.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for listening.

It's not just the awesome people like Jeff who made the Indiana Jones map today.

We got a whole list and I should read that list more often.

Often because I want everybody who enjoys Connections to know how many awesome people work on this program.

It is a wonderful, wonderful group.

I just happened to be in front of the microphone.

Thanks for being with us.

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