Travel That Changes The Way You Think About The World With Pam Mandel

“We’re all so far downstream from who we used to be.” Pam Mandel We all have ideas about places that are far away from us, but when you talk to real people who live there, it’s hard to hold on to your preconceived notions. Those encounters can remain with you in memory even as you change and the place you left changes too. Pam Mandel is an award-winning freelance travel writer and co-founder of The Statesider, a newsletter of U.S. travel stories. Her latest book is The Same River Twice: A Memoir of Dirtbag Backpackers, Bomb Shelters, and Bad Travel. Show notes * When travel changes the way you think about the world * “It’s complicated.” Thoughts on Israel * Tapping into memory when writing * How to explore an unknown place — when to branch out of your comfort zone, and when it’s a good idea to retreat to the ‘known’ * Making more of traveling in the USA * Is there such a thing as bad travel? * Travel book recommendations You can find Pam Mandel at NerdsEyeView.com and The Statesider. Header photo: Seattle by Luca Micheli on Unsplash Transcript of the interview Joanna: Pam Mandel is an award-winning freelance travel writer and co-founder of ‘The Statesider,’ a newsletter of U.S. travel stories. Her latest book is The Same River Twice: A Memoir of Dirtbag Backpackers, Bomb Shelters, and Bad Travel. Welcome, Pam. Pam: Thanks for having me. Joanna: It’s exciting to have you here. I want to start with a lovely quote from the book where you say, ‘I imagined the road miles accruing to me like I was being tattooed with maps of where I’d been.’ And there were so many countries in the book, and you’ve obviously traveled since. What are the places that particularly stick in your mind that remain with you as those tattoos? Pam: Wow. You’re right, I have been to a lot of places since I wrote this book. And one of the places I got to go, I think it’s five years or six years ago now is Antarctica. And you, of course, can never forget that. Lately, more recently, I’ve been traveling in the U.S., my home country more. And a few years ago, I spent 10 days driving around the Mississippi Delta. I was really affected by that trip, it really stuck with me. I think it’s really important that we explore our home countries too. And to be in the place where so much American history had happened was really affecting. I think about Mississippi all the time. It really changed my view of my own country. It changed my view of American history, it changed my view of what these places that we look like as red states in the U.S. The other place that really sticks with me was…I went to art school. I have a BFA. And I did a bunch of art history. I had wanted forever to go to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. That was definitely a dream come true. But I had not realized the tragedy of what happened and the history there. And so I was deeply affected by my trip to Cambodia too, and I think about Cambodia frequently all the time. Joanna: Wow, those are three really different places Antarctica, the Mississippi Delta, and Angkor Wat. I don’t think you could have picked three more different places. But that in itself says something. I mean, obviously, they’re all very different.