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Optimal minimal.
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At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
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Can I ask you a personal question?
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Now would be a more appropriate time.
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What if I did the opposite?
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I must have a magnetic organism living tissue over a metal endoskeleton.
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This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn and their job recruitment platform which offers a smarter system for the hiring process.
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If you've ever hired anyone or attempted to do it, you know that finding the right people can be extremely difficult.
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This episode is brought to you by Ray Dalio's new book Principles.
1:46
If you're a frequent listener of this podcast, you might recall that Ray was a guest on the show.
1:52
His episode was extremely popular and in that episode he shared his thoughts on everything from how he makes investment decisions to cryptocurrency and beyond.
2:00
His story, Ray Dalio, you should look him up for sure, is fascinating.
2:06
He started his investment company, some people would call it a hedge fund, there are different names, Bridgewater Associates out of a two-bedroom apartment at age 26.
2:12
Now it has roughly 160 billion dollars in assets under management.
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Over 42 years he's built Bridgewater into what Fortune considers the fifth most important private company in the US.
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Along the way Dalio took tons and tons of notes on what worked, what didn't work, and it was refined over time for training purposes with his employees, managers, and so on.
2:40
Dalio became one of the 100 most influential people in the world, according to Time, and one of the 100 wealthiest people in the world, according to Forbes.
2:47
In this book, Principles, which has a permanent spot on my bookshelf, also has blurbs and testimonials from people like Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, and many, many more.
2:59
Ray shares in those pages the unconventional principles that he's developed, refined, and used over the past 40 years to create unique results in both life, business, certainly in investing, and which any person or organization can adopt to help further their goals.
3:16
These principles are what he believes is the reason behind his many, many successes, and Principles, the book, also offers a clear pretty straightforward approach to decision-making that Dalio believes anyone can apply both in life and work.
3:30
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Amazing that he actually has that URL. So, visit principles.
3:45
com for more details and to pick up a copy. Check Check it out.
3:56
Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is Tim Ferriss.
3:58
Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show.
4:01
More specifically, another edition of the Tim Ferriss Radio Hour, where I go back through the 300 plus guests who have been on this show, think about the conversations, and look for patterns or themes that we can explore.
4:13
And this episode will dig into travel, one of my favorite topics, and I will take partial credit or blame in advance as it might make you want to quit your job and head off to the airport with a backpack, coincidentally exactly what I am doing tomorrow, and why I'm recording this intro way, way past midnight.
4:35
Now, I've interviewed some fascinating people from around the world.
4:39
It's kind of crazy to think that this is my job. How happy am I? How lucky am I?
4:43
And in the next hour, we will actually travel around the world with them in a way, because we recorded these episodes all over the planet.
4:52
We'll also explore specific tips and strategies from our conversations related to how they think about travel, how they personally travel, the tools and gadgets they use, and the role that travel might play in your life.
5:01
First, I talked to the one and only Rolf Potts, the author of Vagabonding, one of my favorite books of all time.
5:11
Some of you may know, starting around 2004, I traveled the world for roughly 18 months after this complete implosion and deciding to either shut my business down or completely reinvent it and extricate myself.
5:22
The lessons learned over those 18 months form the basis for much of my first book, The 4-Hour Work Week.
5:28
On that journey, which ranged from the back alleys of Berlin to lakes in Patagonia, I had next to nothing.
5:36
One suitcase, one backpack, and only two books.
5:40
One of those books was Walden by Henry David Thoreau, naturally, and the other was Vagabonding, subtitle An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, written by Rolf Potts, which is about a lot more than just travel.
5:54
People, you know, they put off what they really want to do until they're too old to actually do it.
6:00
Next, my friend Kevin Rose and I share our travel experiences while sitting on tatami mats in a traditional inn in the Japanese hillside in Kanazawa, specifically, and we cover everything from how to cope when not speaking the local language to how Kevin has to hide his tattoos uh those tattoos in certain countries, including Japan.
6:16
went in to use the spa, and she goes, "Tattoos?" And I I said, "Yes."
6:23
And she handed me flesh-colored tape.
6:27
Then I talk travel and diving adventures, among other things, with Phil Keoghan from The Amazing Race.
6:31
And I just wrote down everything that I felt like I had all the time in the world to do, to get out, to go, "Okay, this is not a dress rehearsal.
6:40
You can die, you will die, you don't know how long you've got before you die."
6:45
And, of course, the incredible Kevin Kelly and I get into our favorite travel tools and gadgets.
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What else do you have in your backpack, which is stuffed here in the back of our car right now? So, let's jump right in.
6:58
Rolf Potts, @rolfpotts on Twitter, has reported from more than 60 countries for the likes of National Geographic Traveler, The New Yorker, slate.
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com, Outside, The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, it goes on and on and on.
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Sports Illustrated, National Public Radio, you name it.
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His adventures have taken him across six continents and include piloting a fishing boat 900 miles down the Laotian or Laotian Mekong, hitchhiking across Eastern Europe, traversing Israel on foot, bicycling across Burma, driving a Land Rover across South America.
7:30
Sounds like a long, long ass trip, and traveling around the world for 6 weeks with no luggage or bags of any kind.
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Rolf is perhaps best known for promoting the ethic of independent travel and his book on the subject, Vagabonding, which I mentioned before, subtitled An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, has been through 28 printings and translated into many languages.
7:54
It is, also, by the way, the reason I started the Tim Ferriss Book Club and produced an audiobook of this book because it could not be found and that bothered me.
8:02
You can find out all about that at audible.
8:04
com/timsbooks if you want to see the other books in that selection. But, back to Rolf.
8:09
He won the 2009 Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers and became the first American author to win Italy's prestigious, coveted Chatwin Prize for travel writing.
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Many people fantasize about travel, yet they never follow through.
8:24
They never book their trip and take those first steps.
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Rolf explains in what follows the concept of vagabonding and how it differs from just another vacation.
8:40
Well, I like that you bring up the idea of fantasizing about travel because I think it's something that everybody does.
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And it's one of those top three, if not top two or one, things that people dream about that.
8:50
And you And you see it in the movies all the time.
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Um and in fact, I mentioned this in Vagabonding, you know, the heist movie where the whole goal is to have this complicated um robbery so they can have enough money to to move overseas to a wonderful place.
9:04
And as I say in the book is you don't need to rob a bank to do that.
9:06
In fact, you can do that for a cost that is equal to and sometimes less than your cost of living in a major American city.
9:16
Uh and so, I think an important principle I bring up in Vagabonding is saying, "Don't Don't put this off."
9:23
If you're dreaming about travel, and most people do, and you know, if And if you don't dream about travel, that's fine, but I really address these travel dreams, which are so common, that don't wait until you to tell you're too old because um you know, retirement isn't necessarily the best time to to uh to do something like this.
9:39
And in fact uh Henry David Thoreau, I think Walden was the other book you you took on your travels. That's right.
9:46
Talks about how people, and I'm not quoting him directly, they you know, they put off what they really want to do until they're too old to actually do it.
9:54
You know, that's a paraphrase.
9:54
Um and so if you're 18, 28, you know, 38, 48, whenever you're dreaming about travel, put make your goals soon and and don't put off those goals because they're very attainable.
10:07
And you know, I think there's a lot of fears that are tied in to confronting vagabonding, which you asked me if the for the definition, it's vagabonding is long-term travel.
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It's not just a vacation.
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It's not a week or two off um that, you know, society gives you as a vacation.
10:24
It's 6 months or 2 years or you know, 6 weeks that you make for yourself to travel in earnest, not as a consumer experience, not as a vacation, but as you know, a more deeply meaningful life experience and as a way to actualize your wealth of time.
10:40
And I think this is an idea we'll come back to a lot and it's something that you write about as well as me is the idea of time wealth, the idea that your experiences are more valuable in life than the the things that you accumulate than the the things that are always being um touted as the most important things in life.
10:57
So, uh travel is a great way to cash in on your time wealth.
11:00
Um and and vagabonding just by definition is a more meaningful way of travel.
11:04
It's a way of slowing down and really uh discovering parts of yourself instead of just buying a lot of experiences, which is which we've sort of been conditioned to do uh as American uh consumers.
11:17
My first vagabonding trip was 20 years ago this year, um oddly enough, and Happy anniversary. Thank you. Thank you.
11:25
It was just this time that I was that I was straggling back to Kansas after having this amazing 8-month trip around North America.
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And it was a trip that I thought would be my last.
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I thought I would get travel out of my system so I could become a responsible American workaholic, and then maybe return to travel when I was old.
11:41
But, you you mentioned the idea of fear, and the fears I had going out were um you know, is this going to be expensive?
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It's going Is this going to be dangerous?
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Am I going to come back and be compromised professionally?
11:52
And all of those sort of turned into the into the opposite, that it was a lot safer than I expected.
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It was a lot cheaper than I expected.
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And I came back and and for 20 years I've been integrating uh travel uh with with uh a professional life that continues to diversify.
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I continue to to to do other things to make money uh while at the same time having big swaths of time to travel.
12:17
And I'm not suggesting that everybody needs to you know, become a vagabonder for a 20-year chunk, and in some ways I travel a lot less than I used to um you know, 10 or 15 years ago.
12:29
But, it's something that you can do.
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It's an option that you can have, and it's it's not an an option that you wait for life to give you. You create it.
12:34
Uh and so I'm a big believer in the active uh aspect of vagabonding, of saving your money.
12:43
Uh the lottery is another metaphor I use a lot in in vagabonding, that people keep waiting for the lottery to reward them.
12:50
Um but as as we all know, the odds that you're going to win the lottery is pretty low, but you we've already won the lottery.
12:55
We're born with time wealth.
12:56
And so it's just a matter of creating these travel experiences or these time-rich experiences uh through things like simplicity and uh just the decision to make these sort of things happen.
13:08
What type of sites or resources would you recommend to people who are trying to find uh comparable folks, let's just say.
13:17
People who will help them alleviate their fear of travel, or just in general, what type of online resources do you recommend? Um well, Google for one.
13:28
I mean, if you just Google, you know, 35-year-old years old, two kids, 1 year of travel, then odds are you'll find 20 blogs of people in that demographic who are doing just that.
13:42
So so really be be unabashed and very specific about Googling, you know, your fears or your demographic and just see who like you is is out traveling the world.
13:54
There's a lot of great traveler communities.
13:56
I've been affiliated with bootsnall.
13:58
com since the very beginning of vagabonding and part of their MO is just sort of creating community and and and support for people and they have they have blogs and resources on their site and there's other travel communities as well. Mhm.
14:14
Uh it's boots, the letter n, all. com, right? Yeah, bootsnall.
14:19
com and they've been operating out of Portland, Oregon for years and I've just quietly been doing very the nice work of reassurance and saying, "Oh, so you so you're worried about a an around-the-world flight?
14:33
Well, here's what around how around-the-world flights look.
14:36
You know, you're you're worried about a certain situation, you know, here's here are some resources for that."
14:42
And and they're not alone.
14:42
I most familiar with them because we we've been we've sort of shared a similar mission for a long time, but there are big communities of travelers who who are happy to help and and sort of help new newbies feel better about these prospects of of long-term travel.
14:58
For you, and and perhaps there are older examples, but you mentioned that you're you're you're taking a trip before we started recording and you're doing a home swap.
15:09
Is that is Would you mind perhaps elaborating on um how some of those options work, those that you're familiar with?
15:19
Because I think that many people who consider travel think in terms of one of their main expenses being staying in a hotel, right?
15:26
Uh and uh I'd I'd love for you to to share any of your thoughts on that.
15:31
Yeah, well, it it's shifted the way the travel world works in in in some ways that are delightfully convenient uh and in and in some ways that are a little bit strange.
15:42
I I I think that technology is one of these double-edged swords that in some ways has turned us into insufferable micro managers on the road.
15:52
But, can you elaborate on that?
15:52
Yeah, well, I'll I'll start with the negative. Um Okay.
15:56
You know, I I the travel culture which I started in, which was 20 years ago, but really my more international traveler travels are more like 15 years ago.
16:06
Um it's about showing up in town and knowing that when you get there, um the unexpected awaits you.
16:11
That you that you're going to walk to the hotel district.
16:15
You may may have a guidebook with some hotel recommendations.
16:18
Um but, you're going to shop for your hotel.
16:20
You're not going to find a deal online.
16:21
You're going to walk in there.
16:22
You're going to see the room.
16:24
Um you're going to haggle because in in in all throughout Asia, you know, basically any place outside of the industrial world, prices are up for grabs and and and haggling in person is so much more gives you so much more leverage than haggling online cuz you can go in, look at the room, and physically leave uh if the if the owner doesn't give you a price that you're that you're into.
16:45
And so, these days, it has become so convenient, not always a bad thing, but it has become so convenient that people just assume that the best deals to be had are the ones online.
16:54
And then pretty soon you've locked in.
16:56
You're traveling for 6 weeks, and you know where you're sleeping every night in advance, and it really compromises the flexibility of travel and and the serendipity of being inspired by a place and thinking, "I'm going to stay here for a few days."
17:08
Or, "Wow, I just met this traveler who told me about this great place up in the mountains, and I'm I'm not going to go to Varanasi.
17:16
I'm going to go up in the Himalayas and spend my time there.
17:20
This technologically enhanced micromanaging cuts into that serendipity in a certain way.
17:26
And And it also connects us to home.
17:28
And And again, it's a two-edged thing.
17:30
Um social media and the and the constant connectivity that comes with smartphones, for example, allows us to really find things that we couldn't find before, but it cuts into the idea of wandering around and finding things by surprise, finding things organically, and letting letting a destination reveal itself to us on its own terms instead of sort of finding that place as a consumer before we get there.
17:55
Um and a lot of technologies have eliminated things like loneliness and boredom.
17:59
Um which sounds good and and is good to a certain extent, but loneliness and boredom um can lead you to those moments that that sort of force you into a new version of yourself.
18:09
They force you to be more extroverted. They Totally agreed. Totally agreed.
18:12
They force you to read the local newspaper instead of, you know, looking through your Facebook feed, right?
18:18
Uh and so that's that is what we're up against with this technological these technological advances.
18:25
And I don't want to be the grumpy older traveler because I remember being being 20 and listening to these, you know, baby boom era hippies sort of lecture me on how travel used to be.
18:35
You know, back in a time when telephone answering machines and credit cards were seen as this decadent form of technology.
18:41
Um and and so I know that there are younger travelers who don't know anything but the constant connectivity of travel.
18:48
Um but unplugging is important and and we can talk more about that if if you want.
18:52
Um and we can also talk about the plusses and there I have many recent examples about how technology have have helped.
19:00
This recent home home exchange is just a long-time friend who lives in Brooklyn.
19:03
She's a writer uh and she wants a quiet place.
19:04
I have 30 acres in Kansas and so I get an awesome pad in Brooklyn for a week and she gets a quiet farm in Kansas for a time.
19:14
Uh I I think in places in more expensive places like Europe, you know, the hostel was your go-to.
19:18
It was where if you wanted to save money, you would go to the the to the youth hostel.
19:24
Um and it was a great place to meet people. You get a cheap bed.
19:26
You went you you would forgo a few amenities, but you would hang out in the hostel.
19:31
Well, I went to Amsterdam uh this summer.
19:35
Uh I teach a I teach a writing course in Paris every summer and my sister and my nephew came and visited me and we wanted to go see Amsterdam.
19:42
And using Airbnb, I was able to get a full cottage uh a 15-minute train ride outside of central Am- Amsterdam for about half the price as a hostel for three people in the center of Amsterdam.
19:57
So, instead of staying at at at somewhat grungy hostel in the red-light district, um we were staying in this little town filled with windmills, uh and we had our own house to ourselves, and we could just walk down the street and get groceries.
20:08
And so, Airb- That was an Airbnb hookup.
20:13
Couchsurfing is a similar has similar benefits.
20:15
Uh it just allows you to break out of not only that old hotel set of assumptions, but also out of the hostel set of assumptions.
20:23
The idea that the cheapest option in any place is going to be a hostel.
20:26
Uh especially traveling in groups.
20:28
For the three of us, if I'd been alone, maybe I maybe the the cottage wouldn't have been as cheap as the hostel, but with three of us, where you're getting hostel one bed at a time, um we just got the perfect place to stay through Airbnb.
20:42
Uh and so, those services and even social media, even going on Facebook or Twitter, and and I'm not a big believer of tweeting while you travel.
20:51
I think that that really puts you into this home mindset and it pulls you out of the place where you are, and the point of travel is experiencing what's before your eyes and not what's coming across your social media feed.
21:01
But before your travel before one travels, I'm a big fan of throwing throwing out a tweet or Facebook post that says, "Hey, look, I'm I'm going to be in this place.
21:10
What are some suggestions?"
21:11
Uh and that is something that didn't exist 10 years ago uh and is not tied to a business or social networking thing like Airbnb or in Couchsurfing, but it could just be that your buddy from high school has a friend who's in the military in Germany and and they have an ex-girlfriend who lives in Stockholm and suddenly you have a place to stay uh through very random circumstances.
21:36
And so that kind of it's it's the old model of sitting in the hostel or sitting in a guest house or a bar in an exotic part of the world talking to the six travelers who are there with you and them giving you advice on points further down the road.
21:50
That principle has been taken to social media and through networking, that's another way that technology has allowed the that that old hostel room is actually killed the the literal hostel room where people are now staring at
22:02
their phones in the hostel room, but it is it is expanded the virtual hostel room where instead of talking to the six travelers you're with physically, you can be talking to 600 travelers through your networks who might have some good advice for you. This next segment was recorded in rural
22:20
This next segment was recorded in rural Japan late one evening with my friend Kevin Rose @KevinRose on Twitter, affectionately known as Kev Kev by those in the know.
22:30
Serial entrepreneur, world-class investor, and all around wild and crazy guy.
22:35
We've been through a lot together and here we discuss Japan, how to do it cheaply, and many other things.
22:39
And the tips in this next segment apply to just about anywhere, not just the land of the rising sun.
22:51
And we are at Adaiya is the name of the place and if you hear any waterfall-like sounds in the background, that is because we have a natural onsen bringing water into the rooms where there are wooden tubs that are effectively indoor outdoor.
23:05
There's an open wall, so you look out into a forest / hillside, and the steam pours out into the great outdoors.
23:13
It is winter, so there's tons of fog and mist and so on.
23:17
It's just a magical place.
23:17
Yeah, it's it's absolutely beautiful, and one of the reasons why I chose this place to stay is one, I had never stayed in a ryokan, like traditional Japanese house before, and I always wanted to do that.
23:32
Um and number two, when you're talking about an onsen, like a natural spring, um it's very difficult because in Japan, if you have any tattoos whatsoever, you are forbidden from doing the onsen.
23:42
Like you can't go in public baths because they say that you're a yakuza.
23:47
Yeah, it's associated with organized crime.
23:49
So, if you have tattoos, as Kevin does, Yes.
23:51
My Little Pony on both deltoids.
23:54
That's they're beautiful.
23:56
I got the uh long-haired Yeah, with the tassels.
23:58
It's Yeah, it's a quite a breathtaking thing. It is breathtaking.
24:02
And uh you are not allowed to go to public baths or most of them.
24:08
Also true in say hotels where they have beachfront.
24:14
You're not allowed to go on the beach if you have exposed tattoos.
24:16
also hotels when you're going to just use their kind of spa.
24:18
Cuz I went in there one time, um I was staying at uh I think it was a Peninsula, and um went in to use the spa, and she goes, "Tattoos?" And I I said, "Yes."
24:31
And she handed me flesh-colored tape.
24:35
Like a like a little square of tape.
24:38
And and I have a few, and so I was like, "I'm going to need the whole roll."
24:41
And it ended up not being I I didn't actually happen.
24:45
I I didn't uh go in, so I would've been kicked out. But this is nice.
24:49
It's in our room, so every single room here has its own little private bath, hot water being piped in, and it's it's been very relaxing.
24:56
And I should say also, we're not going to talk about Japan the whole time, but I do think Japan is worth highlighting for a few reasons.
25:02
I mean, I was an exchange student here at age 15, which was really my first time abroad, and that year completely changed my life.
25:10
I lived with host families, I went to a Japanese school, I was the only uh American in my class photo, which was very easy Where's Waldo?
25:18
All in school uniforms, so like crew cut, white head, and Japanese kids, about 5,000.
25:28
And uh it has proven to be such a subtle and nuanced culture simultaneously.
25:37
You can come here as someone who doesn't speak Japanese, get completely lost, be completely bewildered.
25:41
The English level is generally pretty low here, so it can be a totally alien environment where you can't read any signs, and it's not dangerous. Right.
25:52
And the people will go above and beyond to try and kind of decipher what you're saying with your hands.
26:01
Well, not only that, so why don't you tell the story of of Tony and the earphones?
26:05
Well, what are earphones?
26:05
The earphones that he dropped on the sidewalk. Oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah.
26:09
So, 2 days ago, well, there was two stories.
26:11
Okay, so this is classic uh Tokyo for you.
26:13
Um and and it's part of the reason why I love Japan so much is like the people here are just so friendly and um really concerned with your well-being.
26:25
So, Tony, one of the the members that was traveling with us, that is traveling with us, he dropped his uh his headphones.
26:31
And just, you know, we're talking standard kind of Apple headphones, you know, white cord, whatever.
26:37
And we walked into a coffee shop.
26:41
And now, just for context, this is on one of the busiest streets in a shopping district in Tokyo.
26:47
Yeah, so there's people will just, you know, obviously stepping on the headphones and whatnot.
26:51
All over the place, just, you know, probably stepping on the headphones and whatnot.
26:53
Somebody on the second floor of a building across the street was looking out the window, saw that these these these small white headphones fell out of his pocket, ran down the stairs, grabbed the headphones, figured out which coffee bar we had gone into, and then proceeded to enter in and hand back the headphones, which was just nuts.
27:14
And then on top of that, the exact same coffee bar I had gotten out of the taxi, left my cell phone in the taxi, and, you know, of course, when you're in the States, you're like, "Shit, like my my cell phone's gone.
27:29
I'm never going to see it again."
27:31
And um so, I use Find My Phone, you know, the the Apple built-in feature so you can see where the your your phone is.
27:37
I used it off of my wife's cell phone.
27:39
And, you know, it's 20 25 minutes away from where we're at in a taxi, and I'm like, "Ah, damn it.
27:45
Like, how am I ever going to get this back?"
27:48
And I I press the button to which sends a signal to the cell phone.
27:50
So, it sends out an audible alert to the you know, so anyone whoever is is nearby can hear that.
27:57
All of a sudden, I'm watching on GPS, the phone starts getting closer and closer and closer.
28:02
This driver drives all the way back 20-plus minutes, comes up the stairs to the coffee shop where he where I had I had left him, and then hands me my phone back. I try to tip him.
28:15
You know, I'm thinking like, in the States, you know, you give somebody 20 40 50 bucks, like, "Thank you so much."
28:20
He wouldn't accept my tip and was just so polite, bowed to me, and left. It's just like Yeah. Oh, man.
28:27
It just makes you When you live when you live in the States, you're just like, "What What happened?"
28:34
Like We have a few friends with us.
28:37
And it also makes you feel like a uh in many many many instances, an uncivilized, hairy savage. That's what I'm saying.
28:45
Like like you wake up feeling You know you're going to be ashamed of at least 17 things you do that day. That's right.
28:51
Uh but it's it's a wonderful environment.
28:53
And one thing that I I want to underscore before we move on, and I'm sure we'll come back to it, is that you don't have to have a lot of money or spend a lot of money to enjoy Tokyo.
29:04
This is a a common misconception.
29:06
It can be extremely expensive, but it doesn't have to be extremely expensive.
29:11
And certainly Japan as a whole doesn't need to be extremely expensive.
29:15
When I was here at 15, I had no money whatsoever.
29:16
And you can, for instance, find stores that you would recognize, like 7-Eleven, that are completely different from the equivalent at home.
29:27
And you can go into a 7-Eleven, for instance, and you can grab one of my favorite on-the-go bites, which is onigiri.
29:33
These are rice balls wrapped in dry seaweed and filled with various meats, vegetables, or fish.
29:37
Say tuna, whatever it might be.
29:40
And those typically cost about 110 yen.
29:43
So, let's just call that a dollar.
29:43
And you can find those at 7-Eleven, a store called Sunkus, s u n k u s, or Lawson.
29:51
It's packaged in such a way that you pull apart the plastic, which keeps the seaweed separate.
29:55
It automatically wraps this rice triangle, and you have effectively an entire meal right there for somewhere between one and two dollars.
30:04
Yeah, it's Well, you know what's funny?
30:06
I don't know if I told you this, but I was out here with David Chang.
30:07
I'm sure a lot of people are are familiar with him, but he's one of probably the top five chefs in the United States. Very famous Momofuku. Momofuku.
30:14
Yeah, just like Milk Bar, right? Yeah, Milk Bar.
30:18
And uh we happen to be here on the same trip with some friends, and he was ranting and raving about these 7-Eleven uh egg salad sandwich.
30:29
And it's just like, you know, a multi like, you know, was he I think he has three Michelin stars at one of his restaurant.
30:34
I mean, I'm top of the world chef freaking out about a 7-Eleven.
30:38
Different 7-Eleven in the United States. Yeah.
30:40
I mean, not high-end food by any means.
30:43
I mean, a couple bucks for the sake salad sandwich, but prepared with like my beer says, prepared with pride.
30:51
Yeah, there's so much a couple of other go-to's I'd suggest in Tokyo.
30:52
If you can get a ticket, go to the Ghibli Museum, g h i b l i Museum, which is the museum.
31:01
It's Think of it as the Disney Museum for the Walt Disney of Japan.
31:03
And that's Miyazaki Hayao.
31:06
He did Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, a whole long list of blockbuster and kind of genre-defining anime films.
31:14
And it is it is one of the most incredible uh museums I've ever been to.
31:20
It's in the middle of what they call Mitaka Forest, which is right next to where is Inokashira Koen.
31:25
And then a lot a lot of things in Japan are also free.
31:28
You can go to Harajuku, h a r a j u k u, where you can find on the weekends Elvis impersonators doing their dancing.
31:37
This has been going on for decades now.
31:39
And you can also go to Takeshita Dori, which is I guess Takeshita Street or alleyway, where you find dozens or hundreds of teenagers and high schoolers doing cosplay.
31:52
So, they wear these crazy outfits and walk up and down the streets just showing off the weirdest outfits imaginable. are into that.
31:58
A lot of people are into it.
32:00
Like, do you are you kind of like when you see a cosplay are you cuz it's like a sexual thing?
32:05
Uh well, for so you know, I I think for some people that might be part of it, but it I I think that it's just a form of of hyper expression in a culture where a lot of people feel very repressed or overly polite most of the time. Yeah.
32:22
And so then they blow it out on the weekends and they like put in pink contacts and white hair and 12-in platform shoes and wear the wackiest imaginable.
32:31
Yeah, maybe it's more of a in the in the states cosplay is like a a bigger cuz they dress up like video game characters and things like that when you know, at Comic-Con and whatnot. Oh, yeah.
32:41
Well, there are a lot of things that are That's not really Japanese cosplay though.
32:45
It's There are a lot of things that are regular in other countries that end up being adopted by weird niche groups in the US and take on in some cases like creepier weirder elements, right?
32:54
Like tango in Argentina, normal.
32:56
Tango in some places in the United States, super weird. Yeah.
33:01
And I'm just saying that as someone who loves tango and dances dances in many places but primarily in Argentina way back in the day.
33:08
Same thing with Japanese stuff.
33:09
It's like, "Oh, manga, cool."
33:11
And then you find like a little subculture in a given city in the US and you're like, "Wait a second, it's all 40-year-old guys who are we're like reading creepy half porno hentai manga.
33:21
Okay, I don't think I'm going to hang out here Right, right. anymore. So, uh segue. Yes.
33:28
How do we segue from that?
33:28
Uh let's segue well, from hentai.
33:30
Hentai, you can look up this people interested.
33:32
There are There are two books that have helped me review and prep for this trip in terms of Japanese that I'd like to suggest people check out if you're interested in Japanese.
33:42
Uh very short and I was able to get through these really quickly.
33:46
Uh the first is probably for people who speak more intermediate Japanese.
33:47
Uh so, you'd want some basics first, but it is 13 secrets for speaking fluent Japanese and this is by I think it's Giles or Giles, g i l e s.
33:58
Let's say Giles Murray, m u r r a y.
33:58
So, 13 secrets for speaking fluent Japanese, very very helpful.
34:04
And then the second is maybe a bit dry for some people, but I like very concise grammar summaries that are quick reference.
34:12
And this is Japanese verbs and essentials of grammar.
34:18
And that is by Rita Lampkin, l a m p k i n.
34:25
Phil Keoghan, k e o g h a n @philkeoghan on Twitter, has worked in television for almost 30 years on more than a thousand program episodes in more than a hundred countries.
34:37
His work has earned him numerous awards including 10, that's right, 10 Primetime Emmys.
34:41
He is best known as the co-executive producer and host of CBS's series The Amazing Race.
34:50
But there's much more to Phil's story including unbelievable bucket lists, near-death experiences, and all sorts of other adventures and misadventures.
34:57
I was doing a story about a 22,000-ton shipwreck that had sunken in New Zealand and it was down about 120 ft underwater and it was on its starboard side.
35:09
22,000 tons is like it's as big as you you know, a cruise liner that you see going around at the ports around the world and big, really big.
35:20
And 120 ft uh is for people who've never done any scuba diving unless you have special equipment, I mean that's not a lot of bottom time. Exactly.
35:31
So most recreational divers get certified to dive to about 60 ft.
35:33
The best stuff that you see underwater is generally in the first 30 ft because once you get past 30 ft the color changes, you you lose all the reds and everything becomes very blue.
35:46
Um so I always say to people, "Look, you don't need to go deep unless you're going onto a wreck or something some real reason to go deep."
35:52
The only reason to go deep is you know, if it is a wreck you can get great diving in 10, 15 ft of water with the coral close to the surface, the colors are brighter and so on.
36:04
But this wreck was deep and and and as you said, the deeper you are the faster you chew through air and you eat up air and that affects how long you can stay down.
36:14
And the longer you're down deep, the more nitrogen you get in your blood and so it's it there's a real science to diving and you have to be super careful. Is you're a diver? I am.
36:25
Yeah, so you you understand that.
36:27
Seen people get nitrogen narcosis. It's at exactly 120 ft.
36:30
I saw a guy start to try he tried to take off all of his gear and just drop it in a small group.
36:34
And he was stopped by the god master.
36:36
That worked at Chippendales. I know that.
36:40
No, this was a different guy. No, different guy. Okay.
36:41
No, but but people I yeah, I've seen the same thing.
36:45
They take the regulator out and they start having conversations with fish.
36:48
Yeah, it's not a good idea. No. It's getting narked. Yeah.
36:51
Um yeah, so that's all the more reason to get properly certified.
36:54
So, um I was with some very experienced divers and way more experienced than me and they were they were doing the salvage and we were going to be the first people to shoot on the ship, get to go inside the ship and explore it.
37:09
And the the um cameraman that I was with was also very experienced, but because there was uh because there there's so much silt inside the boat and there was a current as well rolling through the boat.
37:19
We would we and we in those days we were shooting on film.
37:21
It's not like today where you could go down with a great uh GoPro and some lights and you know, you could film for a couple of hours.
37:28
We had uh a 2 and 1/2 minute roll of film in a 100-ft daylight spool roll that was in a little housing inside the case.
37:36
So, literally that's the only amount of footage we had to shoot on film.
37:43
And that's how long I go back.
37:43
So, the the plan was that we would go into the ballroom of the of the ship and big big ballroom and then the crew would come in from another door and we would meet in the middle so that we didn't stir up all the silt going into the same entrances.
37:59
We'd swim towards each other.
37:59
They'd get us coming towards them and so we go down and what I know now is if you go into a wreck, you tie a line on the outside of the wreck so that you have something to follow out if something goes wrong.
38:14
These guys were so familiar with the wreck and so experienced and knew the place so well.
38:19
They didn't tie a line on and I just sort of followed them in not knowing that that was sort of what you should do.
38:28
And you know, the other rule with diving is you never leave your dive buddy.
38:30
So I'm following this guy and I was too scared to tell him cuz I was trying to be a man that before that I was I'm really claustrophobic.
38:41
So I go in this little doorway and it would have been like let's imagine a small window like 2 by 3.
38:47
We go through this little porthole.
38:51
And then we start weaving our way through the ship.
38:52
And I as we going deeper and deeper and deeper into the shipwreck, I'm completely disoriented and I have no idea where I am.
38:59
My hands sweats just listening to the description. Oh, yeah.
39:00
And I started to breathe like breathe.
39:02
But every time I sort of like was at the point of tapping him to go you know, I got to get out of here. I feel panicky.
39:09
He just kept disappearing deeper and deeper and deeper and another corner, another corner and I thought and he was moving quickly cuz he's he's used to being in this wreck.
39:18
They're doing the salvage on this thing.
39:21
So finally we we come into an opening and then he shines the light around and there's this huge ballroom.
39:29
Now the ship is on its starboard side on its right side.
39:31
So all the tables on a ship are all bolted to the floor.
39:33
So imagine the tables on a right angle to us.
39:37
And then he gestures to me to hold on to the table.
39:42
And then he told me on the surface that he we were going to switch out the lights uh to save battery power cuz it's cold.
39:49
And now we don't have a lot of uh and we've got 7 mil wet suits on. It's pretty cold.
39:52
And you can feel kind of the current pushing through the ship.
39:56
And that's why we're holding on to the table so we didn't drift in you know, through the room.
39:59
And now we're looking ahead and he sort of points at me and looks ahead and says, "That's where the crew's going to come out."
40:05
And I knew that that's where they're going to come out. So I was like, "Okay."
40:08
So we're waiting with the lights off in the dark and I'm processing all of this and starting to try to slow my breathing down and like stay calm.
40:15
It's okay, you know, you're with an expert, everything is good.
40:20
And uh after what seemed like like minutes, or I wanted to turn my light on, but I also didn't want to do it cuz I thought he'll think I'm a wimp.
40:27
Like, why am I turning my I just wanted to turn my light on to see where I was, like, to have sent some sense of where I was. He flicks his light on.
40:37
Like, in Halloween when you take your light and you put it at the chin and you make yourself look scary. Right. That's all I remember. The light went on.
40:43
It's He's pointing from his chin looking up. He looks scary.
40:45
Then he gestures me with his hand, puts it out in front of me like, wait.
40:50
Then he points at my hands on the table like and gestures for me to hold onto the table.
40:56
And then, boom, he just disappears around a corner.
41:00
And I I don't have my light on.
41:00
He's got his light on and the light disappears and he's gone.
41:04
Well, in that moment I'm like, why is he leaving? Why did he just leave?
41:09
So, in in my haste to find my light to I'm I've start flailing around, let go of the table, and I feel myself drifting away from where the table is and moving drifting in into the ballroom.
41:23
And I just went into a mad panic and I couldn't find my light.
41:26
By the time I found my light, I'd silted up all the water around me. I couldn't see anything.
41:33
And now I don't know where the table was that I was meant to hold onto.
41:35
And I'm looking ahead, I can't see any lights, I can't see him.
41:37
And I started to breathe really, really fast.
41:40
And now, you're a diver, you understand this, but when when you dive and for anybody who's never uh had a regulator in their mouth.
41:46
If you breathe too quickly, there's a little diaphragm that allows for exhalation and inhalation in the in the regulator that you put in your mouth to suck in air.
41:57
If you go too fast, the diaphragm can't keep up with the speed of inhalation and exhalation and then you start to suck water.
42:03
So, I started like taking little bits of water and I'm beating the the the the valve and just panicking, like mad, mad panic.
42:11
And I thought, I have to get out of here.
42:13
And all you all you want to do is just get out, right?
42:15
But I don't know how to get out.
42:17
I don't know where up and down is.
42:18
I don't the bubbles don't go up when the ship's on its side like that and you're deep down, they hit the walls and then they run up the walls.
42:25
They they follow weird paths.
42:26
And I thought, I have no idea where I am right now.
42:30
I can't even see where the table is and panicking, panicking.
42:36
And I knew that someone had died in there.
42:39
Uh someone had gone in there and got disconnected from a group and he had died and drifted off into the ship and died.
42:44
I also knew that one of the engineers never made it out when the ship sank in the first place.
42:47
So And just to set the stage also for people listening, I remember when I did uh a dive at the Blue Hole in Belize, which is about 120 ft.
42:56
This is when this guy got narced.
42:59
It takes so long to get down because you're equalizing. Yeah.
43:01
By the time you get down, at least we were told that the time with the gear we had, you have 8 minutes. Yeah.
43:07
So all of this is happening Yeah. very quickly. Very quickly. Very quickly.
43:13
And we we weren't on nitrox.
43:14
Nitrox, as you know, is a is a is a mixed gas that you can get where it has more oxygen and less nitrogen, so it increases your bottom time.
43:22
So this is pre-nitrox days.
43:24
And so yes, you're absolutely right.
43:27
We had a very limited window, which is why he must have gone off to find the crew because he realized we were eating up a lot of time. And where were they? Where were the crew?
43:36
Well, I don't remember exactly how I got from there to the boat.
43:42
But this guy obviously came back to get me.
43:45
And really it it's all a blur between panicking, mad panic, eyes like wide like saucers, to being on the boat, to looking up into the sky and seeing the most amazing blue I'd ever seen in my life.
44:00
Like just look like totally surreal.
44:05
And then and and I'm lying on the ground like breathing, and I look up and all these faces looking down and "Phil, you good? You good?"
44:11
And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm good. I'm good."
44:13
Like trying to play like nothing happened, but my heart is pounding, like pounding.
44:17
And I was so like the feeling the feeling of euphoria, the the relief of being alive, to know that I was alive, was was like nothing I'd ever experienced.
44:32
And it really was all this stuff it was as if my IQ went up 25 points in that moment. You know what I mean?
44:41
Because I was like, "How dumb were you that you thought you were going to live forever?
44:46
How dumb were you that you did you've been doing all these dumb things in your life and you have real really have no purpose in life?"
44:55
And I started to think about This is all happening while I'm having these conversations and but I'm like I'm thinking, "Man, I I love girls and I haven't even like really explored that whole world and That's like the second or third thing that comes up.
45:12
It was actually right up there.
45:14
I mean, I was in my fours.
45:14
I was in my sexual prime. I mean, come on. It was right up there.
45:18
I I don't want to say it was the first thing cuz I don't want you to get the wrong idea about me, but it was up there.
45:23
And I was like, "Damn, you know, you've got a lot to do with your life."
45:28
So, no, but there were all these things that came to me and a lot of them were very selfish.
45:31
I was 19 years old, so uh I got myself together and I I wanted to find a piece of paper and a pen.
45:41
And I just wrote down just everything that I felt like I had all the time in the world to do and that I had to get down on a piece of paper to get out to go, "Okay, this is not a dress rehearsal. You can die. You will die.
45:54
You don't know how long you've got before you die.
45:57
You better figure out what you're doing with your life and you better get on with it straight away.
46:03
And one of the first things on my list was go back in the shipwreck.
46:08
Seriously, because I thought I cannot walk away from this fear.
46:10
I was so petrified of what had had happened, and I and I decided I would explain to the diver, you know, that I found it challenging. He knew that. Challenging.
46:22
But I said it's like kind of like falling off a horse.
46:24
I really felt like Got to get back on. Got to get back on. I have to go back.
46:28
Because if I let this fear get on top with some string or something.
46:33
Well, I didn't actually go back with string cuz I didn't even I didn't I didn't have time to do the lesson about the string.
46:38
But I But I went back with by disclosing a little of more of my fear to the other diver and he was more honest.
46:46
And and then he when he knew that and we had to get this thing shot, he was obviously more aware of, you know, he thought I was so cuz I was so gung-ho.
46:56
Like he didn't have any indication that there was any fear in me at all.
46:58
But then I kind of said, you know, listen, man, I I really freaked out.
47:01
He goes, "Oh, no kidding."
47:03
And I And I said, "But I need to go back.
47:05
We've got to go back and do this."
47:06
And we went back and we did it. And we shot it. And that was the start.
47:10
That was the first thing I ticked off my my list. Question for you.
47:13
So, when you decided to go back down, Yeah.
47:17
as you're descending and getting ready to go through that tiny opening, Yeah. what was the self-talk?
47:23
I mean, it's a long time ago, but what what is your self-talk like in a moment like that?
47:28
Well, it's something that I've used a lot since then, which was instead of internalizing everything, I looked out.
47:39
And what I realized was that this guy was super experienced and had been down on that shipwreck many times and come out of there successfully many times.
47:47
And if I followed his procedure, and if I observed him being an expert doing something, and looked out at that rather than turning it back into my own head about what I didn't know and what I couldn't do that I was in good hands.
48:07
So ever since that moment and all the crazy things that I've done I've taken a tremendous amount of comfort in being surrounded by people who I know are better at me at doing something who have tremendous expertise at whatever they're doing and to really
48:23
observe them in that moment when they are in there when they are using expertise that possibly they have take that is taken possibly at least 10,000 hours to get to and and to look at it in a way like wow how cool is that? I'm with this person
48:40
I'm with this person man or woman whoever it is that is allowing me and giving me the privilege to be with them to do what they do so well and they're specialist and they're so good.
48:52
you would be explicitly reminding yourself of all these things if you're going into a situation that is provoking nerves and fear. Is that Yeah.
49:00
That's the voice inside the head. It is.
49:02
It's I made up a quote which I really that I share with a lot of people which is focus on what you do have and what you can do instead of what you don't have and what you can't do.
49:18
Up next Kevin Kelly at Kevin2Kelly the number two at Kevin2Kelly on Twitter might just be the real life most interesting man in the world. He would be my vote.
49:29
I think maybe tied with another gent who's going to come up in a second.
49:33
Kevin is senior maverick at Wired magazine which he co-founded in 1993.
49:37
He also co-founded the All Species Foundation a non-profit aimed at cataloging and identifying every living species on Earth.
49:46
In his spare time he writes best-selling books many of them like the inevitable subtitle understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our Future.
49:55
And by the way, he's considered an incredibly accurate futurist.
49:57
His predictions have panned out over and over again, even though he spends part of the year with the Amish, but that's another story.
50:03
He co-founded the Rosetta Project, which is building an archive of all documented human language, and serves on the board of the Long Now Foundation.
50:10
He, alongside Stewart Brand and others, Stewart Brand might be the person tied with Kevin for the most interesting men in the world nomination.
50:20
He, alongside Stewart Brand and others, is also investigating how to revive and restore endangered or extinct species, including the woolly mammoth.
50:26
Yep, Jurassic Park stuff, but in real life.
50:31
I'd always wanted to travel with Kevin.
50:33
Uh for for 10-plus years, I would say I wanted, even before I knew him, to travel with Kevin, and I finally got my chance.
50:41
And it is represented in this segment.
50:43
We traveled through Uzbekistan together, long story.
50:46
Kevin touches on a lot of cool stuff, and we had a blast recording it in the back of a car as it sped through the mountains.
50:51
So, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Hi, this is Kevin Kelly.
50:58
I'm sitting in the back of a car crossing a mountain pass about 2,000 m in the Tian Shan Mountains in um Uzbekistan.
51:11
And Uzbekistan is a Central Asian country that's generally south of Russia, north of Afghanistan, and next to all the other stans like Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, uh Tajikistan.
51:23
Sitting next to me as we cross the mountains is Tim Ferriss, the legendary exploiter and explainer of world-class performances.
51:34
And we're going to do a joint um recording.
51:36
Um Tim's going to tell us about his favorite four cool tools, and we'll find out what he's up to lately.
51:43
Tim, why don't you tell us about your first cool tool? Okay.
51:50
The first cool tool I've sitting in the back here.
51:53
We have bags around us, bottles of water, a bunch of different gadgets and objects piled in my lap.
51:58
The first that I can talk about is actually in my other piece of luggage.
52:03
I don't have any checked luggage and it is a jacket that I roll up and travel with constantly.
52:09
It's from a brand called NAU. NAU.
52:12
I believe it's based in Portland.
52:14
And you can think of it as a blazer or a riding jacket.
52:17
What What makes it unique is a number of different factors.
52:22
A, you can roll it up and throw it on to say a black t-shirt and you look like you're ready for a business dinner or a formal or semi-formal occasion.
52:33
So it saves me the trouble of packing a lot of collared shirts for instance.
52:37
And there are collared shirts that that don't wrinkle, but they do take up more space than say black t-shirt.
52:43
So this NAU and it could be I I have a several different models at home. Weather resistant.
52:51
Of course with the design in the Pacific Northwest you would expect that which comes in handy.
52:56
So that would be my first cool tool.
52:58
Plenty of pockets, but there are lapels so you can get away with murder.
53:01
You could wear it in a light rain or you could wear it at a nice dinner and it it is an incredibly flexible piece of clothing.
53:08
So one of the hazards for me anyway if if I try to roll up a jacket, I never quite get the wrinkles out.
53:17
So no iron shirts you can kind of hang in your hot shower and it'll they'll dissipate.
53:23
How does this work in terms of unwrinkling it or do you does it just magically unwrinkle?
53:29
So this particular jacket has a number of features I think that disguise wrinkles.
53:36
And there's also just the material science aspect.
53:38
The the fabric blends that are used tend not to wrinkle, number one.
53:42
Number two, it has folds and pockets and lapels that for whatever reason make any wrinkles less noticeable.
53:54
And then there's the color.
53:56
So, if you want to avoid problems with wrinkles, generally, at least in my experience, you want darker clothing so that under light you're not casting you're not having shadows cast across or beneath the wrinkles.
54:08
So, this is a charcoal color jacket.
54:13
It's kind of like your typical suit jacket length or is it uh more like a outdoor jacket at the waist?
54:18
I'd say typical dinner jacket length.
54:24
Uh so, it's not getting cut off.
54:24
Doesn't show off any midriff for those of you who are looking for that.
54:29
You're out of You're out of luck.
54:29
Yeah, uh so, you you'd be able to see your belt if it were unbuttoned in the front. Right. Okay.
54:35
So, that's and it's very lightweight and about Tell the readers about how big it compresses into.
54:45
If you were to roll it up well, and if you want to know how to roll up a jacket like that well, you could actually go online and look at how, say, a judo uniform is folded.
54:54
And I if if you roll it up well, you are looking at let's just say the the bottom three quarters, meaning it'll cover the very bottom uh fabric of a standard-sized school backpack.
55:14
So, we're not talking about a hiker's backpack.
55:15
Uh so, if if I had to estimate, I would say we're looking at I get it down to about uh a roll that is 10 in in length and about uh 3 to 4 in in diameter.
55:30
Well, that's very impressive.
55:33
I carry a lightweight down jacket that compresses into something very small, but it is certainly not as fancy or or you know, suitable for dinner jacket like yours is.
55:46
And I mean, a couple other tips for folks and by I'm by no means a hyper-minimalist say Appalachian Trail hiker or anything like that, but I also have for instance a synthetic because I don't want to lose the uh insulating ability if if it gets wet.
56:03
I have a a synthetic down vest that is also stuffed into this backpack, which I can put on top of that sort of uh fancy-looking jacket in the case that I need more warmth.
56:19
Yeah, that's that's brilliant. That's a brilliant hack.
56:22
So, um again, that's called the Nau jacket? N A U, Nau. Nau, okay.
56:27
And approximately what's it what's it cost? Just give me a a range.
56:34
That's a really good question.
56:34
I bought it a long time ago.
56:35
It's not uh it's not cheap, but then again, if you're comparing it to any type of dinner jacket or outdoor jacket, it's not horribly expensive.
56:43
I'd say it's in the 150 to 350 range if I had to guess. Okay, good. Um that's fantastic.
56:49
So, what else do you have in your backpack, which is stuffed here in the back of our car right now?
56:54
My in my bag of tricks, I have a uh a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and uh just to put this in perspective, it is about the slightly larger than say a paperback book, like a 5 by 8-in trim paperback book.
57:14
It is narrow enough that I will very often stick it into a journal to protect it.
57:20
Uh meaning it's it's probably the the width of eight to 10 paperback pages.
57:24
Uh and it holds a charge very very well.
57:27
So, I use this often times uh if I have any issue with my laptop, I can pair it to my iPhone, which is a larger sized iPhone and balance the iPhone or lean it against a a glass of iced tea and I can get any type of writing done that I need to get done.
57:47
Also, if I feel like taking a a day trip but not taking this backpack, which is one of my main pieces of luggage and stuffed full of stuff, it's kind of heavy, I can take the I can take the keyboard and my iPhone and head off to some coffee shop say 10-15 minutes away without carrying all of my gear with me.
58:05
So, I'm going to try to describe this a little bit further.
58:09
It's very very thin and very lightweight.
58:11
It feels like it's made of aluminum and has kind of a matte texture matte finish on it. It feels very velvety.
58:22
Um and it's a mostly charcoal color with white letters.
58:28
And so, this would serve as a keyboard with a phone.
58:34
Um and then the keyboard itself is pretty large in terms of your finger spacing, so there'd be no cramping. That is really cool.
58:41
Yeah, it's a great device.
58:43
I've had this now for I would say 2 years and I have never had a technical fail.
58:49
So, as a form of backup, I find it to be very cheap insurance because as you can see in person, this is lightweight enough that I'm not going to get scoliosis for having this as additional piece of gear.
59:01
I just stick it stick it into a large format journal or even a magazine and I can travel with it.
59:07
Yeah, that's really cool.
59:07
And so, it pairs up like through Bluetooth, I imagine, right? That's right. Right.
59:13
So, you can pair it up to an iPad if you wanted to as well as a phone if you happen to be carrying. Oh, definitely. Yeah.
59:20
So, what's that called again?
59:20
This is a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and we'll put the exact model in the show notes Okay. for everybody.
59:30
And, next up we have These These all kind of travel together.
59:36
I I very rarely take these out of my backpack in this case.
59:41
This is Max ear plugs silicone ear plugs, which unlike foam ear plugs are not inserted into the ear canal and then left to expand.
59:51
These are effectively smeared over the ear opening and you have in all caps, do not insert, just cover ear opening.
1:00:01
These I found through swimmers, in fact, and they are very waxy and almost look like candies, some type of caramel, but they're white colored and I find them to block sound much more effectively than any type of foam ear plug, although there are some good ones on the market, to be sure.
1:00:25
Do you use them just once or can they be reused or recycled or they last a little bit then you have to they get grungy or what what what's their use?
1:00:34
I definitely reuse these.
1:00:34
I would say if I had to guestimate, I would say four to five nights and then they they start to lose their adherence because they get they get less tacky over time.
1:00:46
The most important feature or benefit that I don't want to overlook is that as someone who tends to rotate from back to side, so I sleep on my back and on my side, foam ear plugs will very often hurt.
1:01:02
They'll get pushed into your ear when you roll onto your side.
1:01:05
That is not the case with these.
1:01:07
So, uh So, for side sleepers, this these are a real a real cool tool because it allows you to sleep on your side while you have these ear plugs in. Definitely.
1:01:19
And, the as someone who kind of tosses and turns, in my case, I don't tend to wake up on my side, but I'm constantly going onto my side and foam ear plugs often will wake me up. Okay, cool.
1:01:30
And is this mostly just used for sleeping or can you use these or do you use these for other sorts of sound that maybe These these ear plugs uh live in each of my bags that I tend to travel with.
1:01:43
So, I have I have redundant caches of ear plugs, one in this bag, one in my other bag, and uh sometimes I'll even have them in jackets. But mostly for sleeping.
1:01:53
Uh mostly for sleeping, definitely.
1:01:54
or if you're sitting on an airplane and you're trying to read and just want to drown out the sound that Then you can use them as well, for sure.
1:02:00
Or you're swimming and you want to avoid swimmer's ear.
1:02:02
Swimmer's, okay, right, correct.
1:02:04
Okay, so um what's your fourth uh cool tool?
1:02:07
My fourth cool tool, and I might I might might go over slightly here, but my my fourth cool tool is a neck pillow.
1:02:18
And I I want one of those.
1:02:21
I've tried many different neck pillows.
1:02:23
Most of them are very uninspiring and even less effective for helping me sleep.
1:02:28
Uh this, and I'll do my best here, Cabeau, Cabeau, I I believe is the pronunciation, c a b e a u, and it has evolution pillow written on the side.
1:02:40
And you can see that it it compresses down very nicely.
1:02:42
It's the size of a uh what do you call that? Cantaloupe?
1:02:47
like a small Yeah, like a small cantaloupe or a large grapefruit.
1:02:48
And you can certainly compress it more.
1:02:50
Uh and the the actual bag that it comes in allows you to wrap it up and then compress it down to a smaller size.
1:02:58
And it is just a very nice in essence memory foam neck pillow that also clips in the front.
1:03:06
What I found is not only does it help me sleep if I'm sitting upright, but it's it's also very, very helpful for getting to sleep when I'm laying prone, whether it's on an airplane or even in a hotel room.
1:03:16
If if the pillows are of dubious quality.
1:03:22
And um do you have to inflate this uh with like pumping air in, blowing air into it, or is it self-expanding? It's self-expanding.
1:03:31
Uh so it you could think of it almost like a sponge-like material that you can compress down, and then when you release it, it uh inflates, or I should say rather expands, automatically.
1:03:43
And is it one of those horseshoe shape um items, or is it it just a little kind of wedge that sits behind your neck?
1:03:51
It is a horseshoe-shaped.
1:03:53
Uh if you imagine a horseshoe being hung around the back of your neck, uh that is the shape.
1:03:57
It can clip in the front, and the design is such that there's a ridge that supports basically the occipital area at the back at the base of the skull.
1:04:07
So it's very very ergonomic in that way in that sense. It is.
1:04:13
It's the most comfortable neck pillow that I have found.
1:04:14
And so I am It's pretty light.
1:04:17
It's a little bulky, but it's pretty light.
1:04:19
Yeah, it's it's light, and as far as neck pillows go, not very bulky at all.
1:04:27
But if you're going to have a neck pillow, generally speaking, in my experience at least, it's going to be inflatable and quite uncomfortable.
1:04:35
Or you're going to end up with this type of compromise, and this is this is the best I found. Right.
1:04:39
So it does I mean it could pretty easily disappear into a day pack.
1:04:41
Oh, I I think it absolutely could.
1:04:44
And certainly, if you wanted, you could lash this to the outside of a pack.
1:04:47
I happen to have enough space in my bag, so I include it, but you could lash it or hang it on the outside. Okay.
1:04:55
One one other cool tool that you have, which is more common here than I would have expected, but in retrospect, I shouldn't be surprised.
1:05:03
It is very very hot here.
1:05:05
It can get very very hot, and the sun is extremely powerful to the extent that we visited a solar furnace not long ago that can be used to melt various objects at absurdly high temperatures.
1:05:19
3,000 degrees centigrade. Yeah, exactly.
1:05:23
Uh and uh you have well, our guide has our esteemed guide has an umbrella, smart move to create shade wherever he wants it, and you have an umbrella, but you made a modification to your umbrella.
1:05:36
Yeah, so I just had an ordinary cheap, you know, Chinese black really compact umbrella that I carry in my little camera bag all the time, and I spray painted the top of it silver, so that it reflects the light, and it makes it a little bit cooler on the inside cuz just with a black umbrella, it tends to absorb that infrared and re-radiate it back down on your head.
1:06:03
Um I having a silver reflective layer bounces at least, you know, 60% of that back into the sky, it's a lot cooler.
1:06:11
And um there are versions of the silver umbrella that are extremely lightweight.
1:06:20
They're not as collapsible as the ones I have, but they're made for hiking.
1:06:24
They're they're they're I think they're called like the silver dome, if I'm not mistaken, and they weigh only a few ounces.
1:06:30
Um and people out west, if you're climbing even at the high altitudes, um a lot of the long-distance hikers now carry an umbrella, portable shade.
1:06:40
And then they walk along under the shade, shade follows them, um and it really makes a huge difference when you're backpacking um because you can really work up a sweat in a hat doesn't allow your head to cool off, but the umbrella does.
1:07:01
Well, there you have it, folks.
1:07:01
The Tim Ferriss Radio Hour with just a handful of the guests and experts I've spoken with across more than 300 podcast episodes.
1:07:10
And I myself am jonesing to throw on the backpack, some sandals, and hit the road, which is exactly what I'm doing tomorrow.
1:07:18
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1:07:20
And the Tim Ferriss Radio Hour continues to be an experiment.
1:07:22
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1:07:33
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1:07:35
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1:07:37
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1:07:44
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1:07:54
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1:07:54
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