Curiosity, Wonder, And Serendipity. Hidden Travel with Steve Brock

Sometimes it’s not the most iconic travel destinations that resonate most with us. Sometimes it’s the hidden places and the unexpected moments that echo in our memories many years later. In this episode, Steve Brock talks about how we can cultivate curiosity and blend serendipity with planning to make the most of our travels, as well as finding hidden places closer to home, and how we can use the different senses of time to make more of our travel experiences. Stephen W. Brock is the author of Hidden Travel: The Secret To Extraordinary Trips. He’s also a photographer and his website, Explore Your Worlds, focuses on the intersection of travel and creativity. Show notes * Finding hidden places close to home * Planning trips while leaving room for serendipity and new discovery * Why curiosity is a practice we need to develop to make the most of travel * How the memorable moments of travel might be the ones you don’t plan for * Different experiences of time — kairos vs chronos * Recommended travel books You can find Stephen Brock at ExploreYourWorlds.com Transcript of the interview Jo: Stephen W. Brock is the author of Hidden Travel: The Secret To Extraordinary Trips.. He’s also a photographer and his website, Explore Your Worlds, focuses on the intersection of travel and creativity. Welcome, Steve. Stephen: Thank you, Jo. Jo: It’s great to have you on the show. So let’s get right into it. Why ‘Hidden Travel’? Why did you go with this theme? Stephen: Because I think that I have found over the years of travel, that some of the most important experiences that you have on a trip or in life, for that matter, tend to be the hidden ones. The ones that don’t happen in the big moments, sometimes even in the small ones. I think that ‘Hidden Travel,’ in the book it explores more than just hidden places, that’s part of it. But it’s those hidden emotions that you have, the hidden experiences, hidden connections with people, and with other types of things. And even within yourself those kind of hidden longings that you may have, that you don’t ever get a chance to experience except when you’re on a trip. Jo: Wow, so many things I want to talk about there. But it is interesting because you talk about hidden travel, and we’ll get into the travel piece. But we’re recording this still in pandemic times. And one of the things that I think is keeping me sane is trying to ‘travel’ more locally to me. How do you suggest we find these hidden places closer to home? Stephen: I think part of it is kind of a key theme of the book. And for me, almost as a life philosophy is this idea of intentionality that it doesn’t come to you without some effort. A lot of people say, ‘I just want to go lie on a beach. I don’t want to have to work.’ But I think the fun thing is, when you’re home, you can actually be practicing a lot of things about travel. You can be honing your skills at paying attention. You can be learning how to explore. You can work on growing your own sense of curiosity. So I think there’s a lot of things. I just know this, that for me, one of the things I found is just all the wonders that lie within a half-hour from my home here. This last summer, when we were in lockdown, we were still able to go outside and go outdoors. I’ve done fly fishing, for example,