Channeling Your Inner Magellan: How to Circumnavigate the World with David Mink

Living a Life in Full is a conversation you always wanted to have with that person who gave an amazing TED Talk or the author of one of your favorite books, or that inspirational Olympian you always wanted to know more about. It's graduate level conversations with those making a difference in the world and in the lives of others. This show brings you new ideas and approaches so that you can live a life in full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout and I hope you enjoy this episode. This episode of Living a Life in Full is brought to you by ATI Physical Therapy. If you need physical therapy, choose ati. ATI offers exceptional care, trusted expertise and remarkable outcomes customized to your needs. ATI has over 800 clinics coast to coast in 25 states. We want to start feeling better fast. ATI can help address chronic pain or recovery from an injury or surgery expertly, quickly and conveniently. ATI's first program uses a performance based methodology to safely return injured workers to their workplace. FIRST is designed to increase strength, endurance and cardiovascular functioning. ATI's sports medicine provides athletic training services to help athletes get back in the game. ATI has hundreds of professional collegiate, high school, middle school and club relationships nationwide. ATI also offers a variety of specialty services including home health, hand therapy and women's health. To Learn more about ATI's advances in evidence based practice, clinical outcomes, and their innovative new smartphone app, please visit atipt. Welcome to another episode of Living a Life in Full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout. Today we have quite an interesting guest for the show. His name is David Mink. David has circumnavigated the earth six times. Yes, you heard that right. Six times. He's also visited six continents and he's been to about 50 countries, and rightfully so. He's the current president of what's called the Circumnavigators Club. He joined the Circumnavigators Club about two decades ago and has served on its Board of Directors and as an officer. And he serves on the Board of Directors for the Circumnavigators foundation, which we'll talk about as well. His wife, Dottie is also a circumnavigator. He's a native Philadelphian who now resides in Southwest Florida with a summer home on the Jersey Shore. He graduated from Albright College in Pennsylvania and is currently a trustee there. He is also a member of the Naples, Florida Press Club, where he serves on the Scholarship committee. In his early career, he was a journalist for a number of Pennsylvania newspapers and then Transitioned into the family business, where he developed a specialty in handmade rugs, which subsequently served as the gateway to seeing the world. In recent years, his travel has been more pleasure and curiosity based. Welcome to the show, David.

Thank you.

So I want to kick things off and start off with discussing some of your personal travel experiences and then get to know a little bit more about the circumstances. Navigators Club. So your world travels began with your position with the family business, is that correct?

Yes, actually, I. I didn't do any serious international travel until I was about 30 years old, you know, other than maybe Canada or the Bahamas, something like that. And I was in the newspaper business and decided it was a time in my life to make a change. So I joined our family business. And just to give you kind of what I think is one of my funnier anecdotes, having been a journalist, I never wrote about travel. I wrote about politics and crime and features and things like this. But I was planning a big trip to start off with the family business. So I decided to write to the New York Times just to inquire if they might be interested in some stories from me. So I wrote to them and told them, gave my resume as a writer, told them that I was making a trip. Now, this is in the 1970s. I was going to Turkey, to Iran, to Pakistan, to Afghanistan, to India and to Nepal. And I wondered if they would be interested in any stories from it. I got back a very cordial letter from them. Dear Mr. Mink, as you probably know, the New York Times is well covered in all these countries that you mentioned, but should you ever decide to go to someplace truly interesting, please let us know. And that was about the end of my travel writing career, and I decided to just concentrate on traveling for business and pleasure.

That's great.

So that's how I got started.

So you kicked off with places like Afghanistan. And I can imagine. I mean, been to a few of those places about 20 years ago. And it was not easy traveling. It was not necessarily the most, you know, luxurious or comfortable kinds of ways to travel. What was it like for you back then?

Well, again, this was. I was always interested in traveling, but I never had the ability or the money or the time to do it till I got involved with the. With the family business. And my first stop on this trip that I mentioned was in London, and just a wonderful experience. The first time, 30 years old, going to England. And then I was very surprised. I had kind of anticipated what I thought the best countries on that route that I just mentioned. To you would be. And the truth of the matter is, my first real stop, which was in Istanbul, was the one that blew me away. It was just the most amazing moment to experience Turkey and just all how exotic it was. I just had never had anything like this. I won't say the other countries were disappointing after Turkey, but Turkey definitely was my. My favorite at that time.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's. I can certainly understand why. So now I know we'll get into this with the club, but you've been around the world six times so far. How did you do them? What were your routes? What were those experiences like?

Well, and when we talk about the club, I'll give you a little bit more information about this, but what happened was I never went around the world or circumnavigated intentionally. It was just the way it happened, except for one, my most recent one, which was. Which I'll tell you about in a minute, which was intended strictly to be a circumnavigation. So my trips were business trips. And for those old timers who might remember, there was Pan Am 1 and Pan Am 2, and they traveled in opposite directions and they circled the globe every day or every route, they would stop in different cities. Like on Tuesday they might stop in Tehran, and the next Tues, or the Wednesday, they would stop in Delhi or so on and so forth. So it was very easy to get on, you know, a nice 747 and go around the world. So the type of trips I took just allowed me to just keep on going until I got around the world. In. In 2002, the Circumnavigators Club had their hundredth anniversary, and there was a pretty substantial story in the New York Times about it. And I read the story and I said, you know, I've done that. And it never really had occurred to me that this was that significant. So I inquired to the club about becoming a member, and voila, that happened. When my granddaughter, Katie Koontz, was 14 years old, she said, papa, I'd like to join your club. I said, katie, you can't join the circumnavigators till you're 18, but when you graduate from high school, I'll take you around the world. And that happened quicker than I imagined. So when she turned 18, I made my first intentional circumnavigation. We went, Katie and I and my wife, we went. And my daughter actually went along as well. The four of us, we went New York to Rome, to Venice, to Dubai, to Beijing to New York in 14 days. Wow. And it was the most marvelous experience without a hitch. And we had a great time doing it. But then. Then she officially became a circumnavigator. This my granddaughter, and she became the youngest member of the circumnavigators club at the time.

Wow. How cool.

So that's. So that's the circumnavigations. Now, in addition to that, I've done, you know, lots of traveling for my own pleasure and, you know, especially in recent years, where I can go where, you know, basically wherever I want. But I mentioned that we were in a family business, and my father, Kenneth Mink, was an outstanding individual, and he was a great world traveler himself, which was the reason I had the bug to travel. And he had a tradition. If he would send me on a business trip to Asia or anywhere, he would never let me come straight home. He always said to me, you need to stop someplace on the way home that you've never been to before. And he said, I know you'll be in a hurry to see your family and you'll want to get home. Let's just take two days and stop somewhere else. It'll be worth it. And because that I got my first trip to Paris, to Lisbon, Rome, etc. Etc. That is. That would be good advice for me to give to other people.

I really like that. I mean, and I get your point, too. You know, it's sort of like the issue of, like, well, you want to hurry up and get home. You know, you've done whatever you're doing, but your dad had. That is great advice. I think that's something I'm going to try and bake into my travels when time allows to be able to do that, because. And look at the place. Lisbon, Paris, I mean, my gosh, those are fantastic places as well, too. And when you've gone sort of that far away anyway, the ability to do that and have that experience just sounds wonderful. So are there any. That's a great piece of advice. Are there any things that you. That you've learned or that you've seen change over the years and miles of your travels? I mean, The Pan Am 1 and 2, unfortunately, have kind of gone away, but what other kinds of adventures or memorable things can you share with us?

Well, travel today is actually easier than it ever has been, except for the fact that it's more complicated in making your connections. It was easy when There was Pan Am 1 and Pan Am too. Now, to go around the world, you have to. There are ways to do it probably with one airline, but for most cases you have to pick and choose, you know your routes and how you do it. The other thing that I would say the biggest change, and I'm sure we don't want to get too much into politics, but strangely enough, the world seemed much safer to me in those old days than today. And the reason that when I took my granddaughter on that round the world trip, I picked Dubai was because she's a, I must say a good looking 18 year old college student. And I couldn't pick any place in the Middle east that I felt comfortable taking her. I would have liked to take her to Istanbul or to Cairo, you know, maybe someplace in Jordan, but it just didn't seem, you know, safe. I picked Dubai because it's pretty civilized and I wasn't afraid of taking her there, but it wasn't nearly as exotic and as interesting as most of the places I could have chosen.

Yeah, gotcha.

So there's definitely a factor there of, you know, of safety that I don't think I felt in the old days.

Yeah, that's a good point. So I think the experiences too, like you're talking about with changing airlines and things like that make it a little bit more challenging. My family and I were coming back from a family wedding in Durango and we had weather issues in trying to get to Denver to then get back to Chicago. And we're all like using our apps and we're using our phones, we're making phone calls, we're doing this, this and that. And I thought, you know, back in the day you would have just been and standing in a line and sort of hoping for the best and trying to coordinate things. So it sort of seems like there's good and bad with the technology that we have available to us to be able to do those things. And I think we'll talk more about this later on in our conversation. But some of the airlines and some of the websites that are available to try and actually do a circumnavigation and some of those rules. So you're currently the president of the Circumnavigators Club. You've been an active member for a number of years. You very graciously pointed me in the direction of the Circumnavigators Club Log, a magazine called the Log, which I think you've been very active editor and writer and contributor to. So you first. It was 2002 that you first found out about the club and then got involved with it. Okay, tell us about that. So it just sounded kind of fun, and it sounded like the next thing to do on a bucket list vis a vis travel or. Or what drew you into the Circumnavigators Club?

Well, of course, I've had many, many great experiences being a member, but I think I was mostly intrigued at the time of adding this as a credential. It just seemed. I hate to say this, but it would look awfully good in your obituary.

That's true.

When we talk in a little bit about some of the people who founded the club and who were the early members, just to be affiliated with a group that's this historic has been a real, real thrill to me.

So doing the math, if it was its hundredth anniversary in 2002, 1902 was the founding year. Is that right?

Right, 1902. And I think the thing that's interesting about that. Okay, let me just backtrack for a second. To be a member, you have to circumnavigate. You have to. You have to go around the world.

Okay.

You also have to be of good character.

Okay.

Which is, which is why we have all of our members have a sponsor and a seconder.

I see.

But in 1902, there were no airplanes. The Wright brothers came a few years later. So there really was only one way to go around the world, and that was by boat.

Gosh.

So these three guys met in the Indian Ocean, and as we talk a little bit, this club, which was really an old boys club for many years and had lots of little traditions and things like that, they just decided that it would be fun to form a club based in New York for people that are going around the world and use this to share their experiences. These three guys who started us now are known as the Three Immortals. So that gives you a little, A little feel for the. For the tone of. The tone of the club. You gotcha now. In fact, there were no women in the club until the first woman was admitted in 1983.

Wow.

Not that. That long ago. And her name happened to be Jean MacArthur, the wife of General Douglas MacArthur, who was also a member.

Wow.

So she. So she was our first woman. Now, the club today is pretty diverse. It's, I would have to admit, demographically, a little on the older side because of why that would be interesting to people. And also, you know, people who are retired or have the money or that want to travel, it's pretty easy to do for them. But anyway, the club has been around for all those years, and I just wanted to be a part of it.

Wow. So tell us a little bit about the history and the legacy of the club. I know from some of the details that I was doing on the research, there's an interesting gavel, and it's really kind of a who's who. I don't know if you know them off the top of your head or can make, you know, make note of some of the luminaries that are members of it, but can you share a little of that with us?

Oh, sure. I can give a good shot at that. The gavel is a whale tooth gavel, and it was given to the club by William Jennings Bryant.

Wow.

And I guess everybody probably has heard of him. He ran for president, I think, about four or five times. He was the prosecutor in the Scopes Monkey trial. But at the time that he lived in the 20s, I guess he was arguably the most famous person in. In America.

Wow.

Everybody knew him. And he. And he went around the world and he became a member of the club. And he brought with him this gavel made out of a whale tooth. And we use that gavel to open all of our annual meetings, after which it gets packed safely into a. Into a safe, and we bring it out each year for the. For the. For that. So William Jennings Bryant was a member of some of the ones that really fascinated me. One is Harry Houdini. And I have to give you a little interesting aside here. I just discovered, literally yesterday, that there's a website called Wild About Harry, and it's totally devoted to Harry Houdini. And the guy who runs it is about to make a speech on Friday at the New York Historic Society, which is how I found out about it. So I contacted him and asked him if he knew that Harry Houdini was a member of the Circumnavigators Club. And he said, no, he didn't. So I sent him. I have been sending him some of the photos and letters that we have and stories from Harry Houdini, all of which this guy had never heard of. And he is arguably the most, you know, expert on the life of Harry Houdini.

Wow.

So he was one that I really, I think, fascinated me. Now, Harry Houdini was on the board of governors of the Circumnavigators Club at the same time as John Philip Sousa, probably a more. Not more familiar name than Harry Houdini, but John Philip Sousa, of course, was the March King. And he wrote a march, the Circumnavigator's March, which, if anybody wants to take the time to find it on the, on the Internet. It was the last March he ever wrote.

Wow.

Dedication to the Circumnavigators Club.

That is so cool. We'll look for that and put it in the show notes so that, that we got to hear that. That's cool.

So Harry Houdini and John Philip Sousa sat on the board together. And I can just imagine what those conversations must have been like. You know, the most famous magician in the world and the most famous composer at the time in the world sitting together.

That's, that's.

So those were two. Those were two. And to take Bryant, you know, there's three of the really big names then along the course of the years. Another one that I think is one of my favorites is Robert Ripley. Believe it or not. Ripley.

Oh, sure.

And he was a member and he had lots of interesting anecdotes where he would go to the meetings and he would, you know, come up with all sorts of little presentations that would fool the club. So he was a, he was a member then we had some, some more luminaries over the years. As I said, Douglas MacArthur was a member. Then we do, and we probably will talk about this later on. We have our Order of Magellan, which is given to a lot of prominent people. So we've had six. Six astronauts as members.

Wow.

Only. Only. Well, one is about to become a member. No, he is a member. He's about to get the Magellan Award. His name is Robert Crippen. He's not the most well known astronaut ever, but he should be. He's in the astronaut hall of Fame. He made four missions. He was the Commander Versaille Ride, who was the first woman to fly in space. And he's going to get our Order of Magellan next year. But also members, astronauts who have gotten it were John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, and the two Kelly brothers, Mark and Scott Kelly.

Wow.

And as I said, Douglas MacArthur. And I'd have to really start to dig deep. But there were a lot of other people that were, you know, well known at the time.

It's so interesting that, I mean, that aspect of drawing such a. I mean, talk about diversity in a different kind of way of expertise and walks of life and being able to, you know, that thread of travel and doing it in a circumnavigating kind of way to be able to do that. It seems like an astronaut. Not that it's easy to become an astronaut, but once you're in orbit, you know, they should. There should be an award for how many Times they've circumnavigated or how fast they've done it or something.

So I remember Scott Kelly. Scott Kelly spent a year in space and I forget how many times he went around, but it was. Nobody will ever break his record as far as I know. As far as being a circumnavigator.

That's amazing. So you mentioned the Order of Magellan. Tell us about that. What's that all about?

Well, they began, they came up with this award in. Sometime in the very early 60s. And it's been a real eclectic group of people who have given it. There's no real criteria. The person needs to be. Have done something significant to make the world a better place. Now if you look at the list of people, you might say, I don't know if that person should be count or not. So we have Barry Goldwater, for example. Got it. Ted Turner. Got it. Well, in more recent times, since I've been involved, Sandra Day o', Connor. I don't think you can argue that she's a pretty outstanding person. And then, well, Herbert Hoover. And we like to say, we know he wasn't a very good president, but he was a very good person. And particularly after his presidency, he did a lot of philanthropic and humanitarian things. So he was, he was affiliated with the club for, for over 30 years before he died. Wow.

I'll be darn.

And he's been dead for a long time.

Yeah.

The club also had the tradition and which we've gotten away from of the current president of the United States being the honorary president of the Circumnavigators Club. And the last person that had that honor was Jimmy Carter. And I think at some stage after the game, after that, the member said, you know, this is a little ridiculous. Time to. Time to do away with it.

Retire then.

And I'm kind of glad that we have. I wouldn't want to be having to ask the current president to be our honorary president.

That might be a little awkward. Wow. So besides being astronauts and doing it that way, what, what are the rules? What are the various ways, you know, Post Pan Am 1 and 2, that people can. Besides the. Because I know there's like, is it traveling across the meridians or how does it work?

You have to cross every meridian. Now the original concept of the club was of course a one way around the world trip.

Okay.

Which is what I did on all my trips. We decided at some point in time, before I was heavily involved, to make some, some exceptions to how you would do it as Long as you crossed every meridian. So it didn't necessarily have to be on one trip.

Okay.

It could be one trip. You go one way and then, you know, a year later you go the other way and, and you cross all the meridians and that counts.

Okay.

And then there's the, the little things that we like to joke about. Like, you know, you could go down to the South Pole and walk around the pole in 30 seconds and you would technically have done it. We haven't any. Had anybody tried.

No one's done that one yet.

Okay. But we, but we do have people who have done it. We have people who have gone. Members. I'm just going to give you a few here. We have a guy lives in England who went around the world in a helicopter.

Wow.

We have another guy who went around on a motorcycle. Now, considering that part of the route would have to be over water, I'm not sure exactly how he did it, but he, he did it on a motorcycle. We have Bertrand Picard who went around the world in a hot air balloon. I have a friend that lives in Colorado now who was in the navy and he did it in a submarine.

Wow.

So there's, there's lots of ways. And then of course, we have a number of members who have circumnavigated by sailboat, either solo or with others. But most of the people have done it either a combination of flying and sailing.

Gotcha. Wow. And I had, early on in the show, I've had Daniel Rents and, and his partner have traveled kind of around the world on motorcycles. And I think most recently they're putting together a documentary around that. And it just, you know, it seems like there's very arduous ways to do that like sailing by yourself or on a motorcycle or whatever. I would much prefer, you know, planes and trains and automobiles kind of a thing. But gosh, I just, I tip my hat to you and to others that have done it and even done it in these other kinds of, of ways. I can't imagine submarines and things like that. That's just mind boggling. So you've made reference to people in different parts of the world. I understand that there's also regional chapters like in the United States and there's international chapters. Can you tell us about that?

We have, over the hundred plus years of the club's existence, there have been a number of chapters and chapters have this tendency sometimes to come and go. So one time we had a chapter in Tokyo which no longer exists, and others. So right now we have two international When I say that being New York based, we have two international chapters. One is in the UK and the other is in Singapore. And Singapore is interesting because. It's the only chapter we have that isn't trying hard to get new members. Because basically the, the president of the Singapore chapter said to me, almost everybody in Singapore has circumnavigated. So, so if we opened it up, we'd have two or 300 members before we knew it. So they, so they're limited to 50 members and it's a great, it's a great bunch there. So that's our other one in the States, we have strong chapters in Washington D.C. in Chicago, in the Pacific Northwest and Southwest. But our biggest chapter is in Naples, Florida. And this is partially because of the demographics are just perfect. Lots of affluent people who have loved to travel. So we have over 100 members in that chapter.

Wow.

We also have a big chapter in Palm beach and a big semi or a chapter, I will say is very big in Miami.

Okay.

And so there's, there's 14 chapters altogether. The chapters have their own functions. That's really how they get to share their stories and, and experience the club. And then of course, we have a lot of members in what we call New York Metro. These would be people living within striking distance of New York City that get together on a, on a regular basis.

Gotcha. And is it headquartered now at the Yale Club in New York City? Is that right?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes. We were headquartered for many years at the Williams Club and the Williams Club and we had a really nice rapport with them. The Williams Club dissolved its clubhouse and moved in with the Yale Club, and so we followed.

Gotcha.

So our technical headquarters is the Yale Club, but it's not particularly intimate. Like the Williams Club was nice. We had like our own little space in it. But, but technically the Yale Clubs are headquarters and our members can stay there when they come to town. We have functions there and it's a nice.

That's great. That's great. So there. And there's a variety of other kinds of things that the, the club's involved with. There's something I, I believe I read about it in the, an issue of the Log called the Goodwill Connection. What's, what's it do? What's that about?

Well, the Goodwill Connection is pretty simple. We have members, whether they're in chapters or whether they're independent, who are available. If someone is traveling and they want to get the lay of the land or they want to know where to go to dinner or Meet them, they contact the goodwill chairman. The goodwill chairman puts them together, and they have a way of having a better experience than just going to someplace, you know, by themselves.

That's great. Well, I have a friend who's a very accomplished cellist, and he is also quite the traveler. And as you can imagine, people that, you know, want to stay in practice but also want to travel aren't going to be, you know, hauling around their instruments and, you know, the. The delicate nature of those instruments and the value of those instruments. So they've kind of done something similar where. Where people that are on ensemble or quartets or whatever have this network that's very similar to what it sounds like the Goodwill connection does, where then you can connect up with people in whatever city or town that they have connections and get to know them, and they'll show you around and they'll share their instruments and you can play with them. So I think that Goodwill connection is a great idea. I mean, you can read about things and whatnot, but the warm touch of someone, that's part of that. That's fantastic.

One thing I'd like to point out is that we emphasize that we are not a travel club. We are a club of travelers. There's a big difference. And I'm constantly just amazed at the amount of traveling that our members do. I mean, they are never sitting still. And. And that's one of the. The intrigues that two of our members, one is a guy by the name of Don Parrish who lives in Chicago, and the other is Albert Podell who lives in New York. And they're sort of two of just a few people who are vying to be, you know, the most traveled person, you know, in the world. Albert has written a book. He's a very funny writer, and he often contributes to our stories in the log. He's. He's, I think, number tied for number one on the Wikipedia list of travelers.

Wow.

And. But Don Parrish has been written up as possibly the most traveled person in all of history.

Wow.

Now, that sounds like a big deal. But you have to remember that since you couldn't really fly anywhere until in the 50s, all the people you know, whether it would be Marco Polo or Magellan himself, really didn't have the opportunity to travel like a guy like Don. He has been not just to all the countries and all the continents, but to specific places. He hunts down the World Heritage Sites, and he's always on the road and just an amazing traveler. There's another club which you may or may not have heard of, called the Traveler Sentry Club. And in order to be in the Traveler Century Club, you have to go to a hundred places on their list. They're not all countries, but, like, for example, Scotland would count, you know, separately. Alaska would count. But you hit a hundred of these places, and you can join that club.

Wow.

And those are. And that's a club that's more of a country counting club. Our members, for the most part, are not into that. They travel just because they love to travel, not because they're trying to tick off another notch, another country. Yeah. But we do have a lot of people that also. Also do that.

Wow. Well, and we'll look up. We'll do our research and get some links in the show notes to learn about those folks in the Wikipedia is that.

I know you want to hear about the biggest passport in the world.

You took the words right out of my mouth. That's where I was going with that. So we'll put this in some of the links as well, too. But David was kind enough to send me this photo of this unbelievable looking pass. What is it, like, 3 inches thick? It's just. It looks ridiculous. It's unbelievable.

Well, so here's the story. This guy's name is Eric Aborski, and he lives in New York and Peru, strangely enough. And the Smithsonian, the Smithsonian magazine, which you can Google up if you want to. The Smithsonian magazine has said that this could be the world's largest Passport. It has 300, 331 pages in the single passport. But to make it really interesting, he has more passports because they couldn't get any more in that one. So all his passports combined, he has 1400 pages, password pages.

Unbelievable.

And it's just an amazing. An amazing thing. And I think I may have told you this when you and I chatted prior to this podcast, that Eric has so many traveling points that sometimes he would go from New York to Tokyo for lunch. He just. He'd just get on a plane and fly to Tokyo and he's, wow, lunch or dinner and spend the night and come home the next day. So. Because it never cost him anything because he had millions and millions of points to spend.

The problem is he has to. He has to check his passport because it's so heavy. That is unbelievable.

And of course, you can't get a passport like that today because the US Government has restrictions on how many pages you can have in a passport. So that password, there will never be one that big again.

Wow. That is. That's incredible. And I really encourage People to when you have a chance. When we've got the links posted to, we'll. We'll get this in a variety of places. So I had to have that one time I had used up all the pages and, and like, you know, as you and a lot of our listeners will know, like sometimes when you get a visa for some place, you have to have a totally blank page to be able to, you know, put that full kind of page visa in. And so I had run out. I was going on a trip and needed to do that. And then I sent my passport in and then they sent it back, like with other pages stitched into it. And I just thought, oh, that is the kind of the coolest thing. So I just was blown away when I saw this fellows with it looking so, so huge. So. So it seems like people, you know, travel for a lot of reasons. Sometimes it's, you know, for the. The pure pleasure of it and exploring and getting to meet other people. Sometimes it's combined with work, like, you know, sort of how it started off with you and the family business. There's also a philanthropic side. I know, like a lot of the travel that I've done. I have a nonprofit that I run in Global Health, and that's taken me to some interesting places, places over the years. But the Circumnavigators Club also has a philanthropic side. And you're a trustee with your alma mater and serve on a scholarship committee for the Press Club. So tell us about. Obviously you have your involvements in a variety of different kinds of scholarships and humanitarian kinds of things. What is it that the foundation for the Circumnavigators Club does, and what have they done in the past?

Well, the foundation, which is. Is a separate, although affiliated organization and it is a, you know, a. Whatever that number is.

Yeah, 501.

That makes you a charitable. Charitable organization. And it was founded. I. I couldn't give you the date right off hand, but sometime in the. In the late 60s, I think. And it was created with this concept of sending college juniors around the world on research projects. But to be completely honest with you, it was more to send them around the world, to have the experience of going around the world. Because the Circumnavigators mission is to make the world a better place through friendship and understanding. We want people to understand that, especially Americans, that there's a whole big different world out there. And if we want to really go anywhere, we have to be able to. To understand it. So we send these college juniors around the world, and they do their research project, but they come back with an experience that is really, really the main reason for going. Now, the foundation is affiliated with several universities, so the universities are also involved in the choosing of the students. And Georgetown's one of them, Northwestern is one of them, Arizona State is one of them at the moment, Florida Gulf Coast University is one, because I mentioned we have that big chapter down in Naples, Florida. And these students, usually a dozen or more, applied for this chance to be one of our scholars. And then one gets chosen from each of these groups. Wow. So we have anywhere from, you know, from four, as little or sometimes as two that are going every year.

Do they go together as a group or do they go independently to different places, or how does that work?

They go completely independent. They have to come up with their own itinerary, their own mission. I wish I could tell you a little bit more about their various research projects, but they tend to, tend to be a little more on the technical side, you know, scientific wise. But, but, but they're interesting and things that these, these young students are, are interested in researching.

That's great. So, so someone first of all has to be in one of those universities and then they apply. They're probably not members already, but then this would qualify for them to, to be members. Is that correct? They don't have to be a member first, I'm guessing, right?

No, no, they, they. When they finish their circumnavigation, we give them a free ride.

Nice.

Till they're, till they're, till they're 30 years old.

That's great.

And, and then we hope that they, that they continue to contribute.

That's nice. I mean, what a good, you know, kind of de facto ambassador that they, that they, you know, they get to learn, but they also then get to represent the club, they get to represent their university, they get to represent the United States. They get to do the work. And we'll do a little background research on that too, and get some links in, because I'm sure some of the listeners will want to research that and find out about that. I think that's just really a fantastic benefit. So let's take that kind of then to the next step. So I'm not a fortunate undergrad to apply for something like this. So for the rest of us, if they're. And listeners too, if you're interested in traveling the world or all the way around it, what are some of your bits of advice about? Where should they start? Is there like an ideal route or an enjoyable Interesting route or what would you recommend?

Oh, I think this just has to be an individual choice. The thing that, Chris, that annoys me from time to time is when I hear about people that go halfway around the world and just go back the way they came, where it wouldn't cost them any more to just keep going and have gone around the world and had a different experience, you know, out of it. But I think that, you know, going around the world, unless you're just really, like I did with my granddaughter, intentionally going for that purpose, it's just a matter of visiting the places that you want to visit and, and then just make it, make it happen. Now, I have a number of people who I try to recruit to be members of the Circumnavigators Club who have just missed like, a little. You know, they've. They've done everything except from Japan to China. And so I like, I like that people will kind of grasp the concept and look at it and say, hey, listen, it is great to go, go to go around the world. Now, I've just read that there's now possibly a new scheme and that's to go around the world, up and down over the poles.

Oh, my gosh.

Instead of going around, they're still going around the world, obviously, but they're not crossing. They're not crossing the meridians because they're going, you know, from top to bottom,

of course, and they'll be doing it on a camel or a submarine or. Wow. Unbelievable. Well, you know, I think you're spot on with that because I think it's as I've imagined wanting to do something like this. You know, I've thought about, well, where are the places that, you know, I'd want to spend a little time in. I don't want to just, you know, do it and, you know, do it with the stopwatch running kind of a thing. It's like if you're going to go to the effort of doing that, then go to places that you do want to see that you want to spend some time in that you want to, you know, maybe you have a person has contacts or there's things they want to see or do in particular in those spots, and then just sort of stitch that as one entire trip rather than back and forth, because I think you lose a lot of time and it costs a lot of money for those back and forths, as opposed to, if you can kind of depending upon a person's circumstance with work or family or life or budget or whatever to be able to do that. I looked into. We'll put this into the show notes too, with some links. I looked into the Star alliance, which actually has a specific, like around the world website to try and do that. So it's, and it's, it would be a variety of different kinds of airlines. And last time I looked There was like 1300 destinations. They hit 191 countries, which I thought was kind of amazing. And then they just had like a one specific fare. And I think you had some kind of flexibility, you know, like, of how long you had, like, I don't know if it was a year, I can't remember. But people can, you know, check out that site. We'll put the link in and see if it, you know, is a benefit for them of what they're wanting to look at. And I know I've also stumbled upon Cook Travel and I think that they're kind of known for like having good, affordable business class airfares, not necessarily around the world tickets, but I think that, you know that something like that can be stitched together as well as air tracks. And then what is it? One World also has around the world fairs. So they have like an Explorer Fair and then they have a Global Explorer. I'm not exactly sure what those differences are, but again, we'll put those, those links in for people to, to take a look at it. So. And also, just, just for clarity's sake, we don't have any. I wish I had an affiliation like, you know, with, with some of these, they get, you know, like free tickets or something. So all these will be, you know, straightforward. They're. We're not, we don't have any relationships with any of these. These will just be straightforward things with folks. So no, none of the entities that we're talking about in here do we have any kind of marketing relationships with or anything like that. So. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, David.

And let me tell you what I think is the best.

Please.

We, we have, we have a member, he lives in Scotland, but he's a pilot and he's the captain of a around the world trip that National Geographic sponsors. Whoa. And what they do is they take a, you know, I don't know what kind of plane it is, a 757 or something, and they take out about 60% of the seats and make it all spacious and like first class. And then they go around the world and they have a big crew and they have a chef, you know, on board who gives them the gourmet. The places that they stop, they have tours lined up that, you know, people get a chance to experience this. I think the whole trip takes about a month. But you can find it on the National Geographic website. But here's the kicker. It's somewhere around $80,000 a person.

You get to keep the plane.

So it's not, it's not for the thrifty travel. Yeah, it's an amazing, amazing one too.

Well, you can imagine it's such high quality with, you know, anything with the National Geographic brand, I mean, is going to be done the right way and would be just an amazing experience. So that's, that's really fantastic. Well, and we'll put in too in the show notes there's a variety of interesting authors. There's a friend of mine, Chris Gillebo, who's been to every country and, and he has like a kind of what they call travel hacking. So it's like ways to be able to use certain kinds of credit cards to get points and, and he'll post periodically on his website and, and I follow him on his email list of, you know, being able to get like, you know, Singapore Airlines, you know, the top notch first class suites that they have, you know, by virtue of, you know, using points cards and things like that. And there's a, you mentioned the world's most traveled that I'd highly recommend. We'll put a link in there for that. And then there's people that have very inspirational books. There's a guy named Rolf Potts who wrote a book a while back called Vagabonding and he's got some little series and documentaries and things that are available for streaming. And the points guy, nomadic mat and all those things. We'll put in the show notes too. So if you can't afford the $80,000 tab of the National Geographic one, there's some other ways that people on different budgets can do it. And I think it's interesting you made the point about one of your most popular regional ones is folks that are in the Naples area. And I think there's also, I mean like with these nomadic mat and people, there's also sort of a subculture or a tribe, if you will, of people that are in their 20s and 30s that will do nomadic work, so to speak, they'll travel the world while building websites for people. So as long as they have an Internet connection in their computer, then they can kind of work from any place and are able to see that too. So I'm inspired with things like your foundation with being able to get students out there, but also, you know, the travel bug and the interest of, you know, spending time and having a good experience, not just, you know, ticking stuff off, you know, tagging a country versus spending time there and getting to start relationships and really get a feel for the culture and the people that, you know, that this is happening at, you know, both ends of the age continuum. I think that's fantastic. So. Well, I can.

Let me tell you a quick story about a guy who was a member of the club. This goes back to 1953.

Wow.

His name was Bob Christopher and he was. He was a working professional photographer. But he decided he wanted to go around the world on $80. He was playing obviously on the theme of around the world in 80 days. So he decided he was going to go around the world for $80 and he did it. And it's a wonderful story, but there's a little anecdote that I love to tell. He caught the Orient Express and got a third class ticket for $1. Okay. So now he's got $80 to spend. There's one of it right there.

Wow.

And he's in a. He's in a compartment with a young Turkish lad and he tells him about his trip and how he's doing this for the 88 hours, blah, blah, blah. But then as it got dark, he got. The circumnavigator got worried that maybe if he fell asleep that this young Turk would steal his camera. But he dozed off and. And when he awoke and the young man was gone and he thought, oh, boy, you know, where's my camera going to be? He went to where the camera was. And not only was the camera there, but there were some Turkish coins and a note in English. And the note said, I got to just. I'm going to dig this out and read this to you. The note said, I wish I could contribute more to your great journey, but I am a poor student. May Allah watch over you. Over you. Your Turkish friend. Oh, and Bob said he kept. Bob said he kept those coins for his entire life and just cherished them. So that's. It just shows you what a, what a wonderful world that can be.

Oh, thank you for sharing that. I totally agree. I. My first. I had not. I grew up in kind of a challenging situation and family wise and so stuff. And we really didn't travel. My folks were divorced, et cetera, et cetera. And I just had this budding wanderlust that I was able to sort of satisfy when I was between my junior and senior Year of college and did the proverbial, you know, backpacking through Europe kind of thing with two friends and, you know, super budget, super, you know, low ability to pay for anything. So it was hostels and URL passes and sleeping on the trains to see save a night's, you know, room and board kind of thing and pensions and whatnot, and had similar kinds of experiences. And. And we did it. This was 19, circa 1980, so whatever a dollar was worth back then versus today. But after doing it and doing the math, I don't think it included that. We flew Iceland Air, which was kind of the way to do it back then. It was very inexpensive to go from Chicago to Iceland to. To Luxembourg. And I think not including the airfare, we did it for, like, my part of the budget was like $12 a day. But the downside was I think I lost £15 in the process. So those kinds of things, I think are still doable, but, you know, able to, you know, do them in a nice, hacky kind of way with points and working well on the field and the generosity of the people that you see. I remember flying back on Iceland Air and I probably looked kind of pathetic and emaciated and dirty, and the couple sitting next to me on the plane offered me their dinner. So that's, I think, kind of the vagabonding style and the experience of travelers, fellow travelers. So I know you've got more trips planned. What's up on your itinerary? Where are you heading off to next, David?

Well, I'm a. I'm a. I'm a snowbirder. I spend most of the year as a Florida resident in southwest Florida, but I have a summer home up in Ocean City, New Jersey, where I am right now as we talk. And I'm leaving shortly with two of my grandsons and my son and my wife to go to Scotland for the British Open.

Oh, wonderful.

So we're flying over to England and then to Scotland, and then my friend, my English friend, like many English do, has a vacation home in Portugal, and we're going to go to Portugal and. And stop there and then come home. And then around Christmas time, I'm lucky enough because of the circumnavigators to be invited to have dinner at the House of Lourdes.

Wow.

One of the. One of the members of the UK chapter is a. Is a. Is a lord, I guess I should say. How fun he's able to do that.

Oh.

So we'll be doing that. And then in. In April, I'll be Doing a bucket list trip that I've never done before and I'll be going along with my wife to, to South Africa.

Oh.

Place I, I've been to Africa, but I've never been to South Africa, so I'm looking forward to that.

Oh, fantastic. That is great. Well, it's nice to also hear that your journeys include multiple family members as well too. I mean, I think the experience of sharing travel with loved ones is wonderful, is exquisite. So good for you with that. And if you need anybody to help carry your bags or anything, David, just let me know. So I'd be happy to lend a hand wherever I can. Just last couple of things I could, I could spend all day with stories and picking your brain about things. But a couple last questions. Any other thoughts or advice that you want to share with our listeners around travel or anything that we haven't already covered? David?

Well, I did have something I wanted to mention because here I am. You probably are guessing from my conversation that I'm just a little over 70 and have done a lot of traveling in the last 40 years, but I can still make a rookie mistake. So my wife and I did a, a tour with a travel company, Talc, to South America last year and the two of us flew into to Santiago, Chile. And when we got there and we read the notes from the travel guide reminded us that we had to have a visa for Brazil and we went. What? Nobody told us that. So, so we, so we spent the whole day, we went to the, to the embassy, the Brazilian embassy. I never had ruder treatment than I did there.

Oh.

Basically they refused to speak to me in English and since I couldn't speak Portuguese. Oh no. But he basically they said it was impossible. And then I had both the travel company and American Express, who I booked a trip to through, try to get me a Brazilian visa. So as it turns out, we've had a very nice trip to Chile in Argentina. And then when the rest of the group went on to Brazil, we stayed behind at the Iguazu Falls.

Gosh.

Which wasn't too bad.

Yeah, that's of all places to be stuck. That's good.

But I, but I thought to myself at this age, how could I have not checked to see if I need a visa? So please, all of you, your listeners, don't go anywhere without making 100 sure that you need a double check.

And isn't it fascinating? I mean, I've done things where it's like you can go to the country, get the visa and it's no big Whoopty doo. And my daughter and I went to Brazil a few years ago, and she was under 18 at the time. And it was, you know, we were able to get it, but it was no easy task. We had to notarize things from her mother that I wasn't, you know, like, going to take her to Brazil and kidnap her or something like that. And I was just recently in Nigeria in January, and, man, I mean, it was like I have never had, you know, and I had help. I had a person that, you know, had contacts and things there. But literally I was supposed to go to Washington, D.C. to the Nigerian Embassy, even though there's a Nigerian Embassy in Chicago, to get my visa physically there because they had to interview me. And, you know, through, you know, the friends that, you know, had a father who is a former ambassador, and through his network, they were able to, you know, work around that. But I thought, gosh, it's, you know, there's certain countries and certain situations that it is just surprisingly difficult. So, yeah, that's. I think it's. I wouldn't even call that a rookie mistake because sometimes it is just such a surprise. So that's, That's a point.

Well, I, I learned. I learned my lesson, I think, on that one.

Yeah.

Well, the other, the other, I was

gonna say sometimes, what is the old joke, a good scare goes much further than good advice or something. So. So, yeah, exactly.

In fact, this trip I have coming up, we're going to Portugal. I've been to Portugal like six times. I never needed a visa, but I thought, you know, I better just check and course, I don't need a visa, but I, you know, again, I'm not going anywhere anymore that I don't ask about.

Exactly. Triple check. So.

Well, now, I know, I know. I know you've heard. I know your listeners have heard this and you probably have, too, but this is one of my favorite pieces of advice. Before you take your trip. You put all your clothes on the bed and all the money on the bed, and then you take away half the clothes and double the money.

That's good. That is very good advice.

Good.

Well, David, thank you again. I could just spend all day picking your brain, but my last question is, because I'm sure listeners are curious about this, and certainly this is one of the reasons why I wanted to reach out to you. If people are interested in getting into the Circumnavigators Club or learning more about the Circumnavigators Navigators Club or the club's foundation we'll put links into it. But any, any specific kinds of things. Should they just go to the website or what's the best way to learn more about it and get more involved?

Well, we like to have members, obviously, because, you know, we're a sharing club. And so, you know, we encourage, you know, people to join if it's as long as they've circumnavigated and they're of good character. We don't have any trouble finding a sponsor or seconder for people who don't know anybody. If they inquire with us, you know, we find somebody to meet them or talk to them on the phone or whatever. So the best thing to do is to go to the, to the website circumnavigators.org there's an email address, there's a real address and just get in touch with us and we'll be more than happy to do that. Now, if they live in any of these areas where we have strong chapters, that's even better. If they're in the Naples area, Naples, Florida or Palm beach or Washington, we have lots of people that would, you know, reach out to them. And these different chapters have, have lots of parties and functions and speakers and, you know, it's, it's worth doing. Now for members who live where there isn't a chapter, they become what we call an at large member. And unfortunately for the at large members, they have to work a little harder to participate because there's no chapter there. So. So the at large members either come to New York for things or they just enjoy having the credential.

That's nice. And then is the, the, the magazine, the log, which again, I just, I love your content. I've. I've read some of them now at this point and just really enjoyed it. And the stories, the photography, I high, you know, it's just also, just outstanding. So people can access those also to learn more about the club. Is that correct or do you have to be a member?

No, no. You can go onto the website and you'll see a link to the, to the current copy of the log.

Great.

And then there's also a link to past copies so they can go back, you know, two or three years and read some of the stories. And some of them are very good. We have some. When I got to the point where I took over the editorial direction of the log. Now this, this log has been out since 1910. Really? Wow. Some of the, some of it's older than I think. I, I know it's Older than Time magazine, for example. But. But in the early days, it was a very. Kind of an interesting but somewhat plodding magazine because, you know, in those days, like Moby Dick, the writing wasn't exactly. It was. It was great writing, but it was a little plodding.

Yeah.

And then. And then sometime in the. Maybe in the 60s or so, the magazine became more of a vehicle for showing people standing around holding their cocktail. Go. So my direction was to change this and take advantage of the. Of the great photographers and the great writers that we have and get some really outstanding writing and photography which we. We have accomplished.

You have here. Here. I mean, just. David, tip of the hat. It really. I really highly recommend. Again, we'll put links in. Knowing that this is publicly accessible. It's just. It's beautiful and in a variety of ways and very large and very informative. So thank you for making that public and having your editorial experience show and shine through this way. It's fantastic. Well, David, gosh, again, thank you so much for your time today. I very much appreciate it. I think that listeners will have a lot of content that they can take a look at with links and things, as well as enjoying some of the stories and hopefully being able to get involved with the club and share some of their experiences as well, too. So thank you again, David, for being a guest on the show today.

Okay. I'm happy to do it. Thank you for inviting me.

Absolutely. Take care.

Okay.

Living a Life in Full is a production of Stout Media, a subsidiary of Gordian Knott, llc. Assistant Producer Gracie Wong Music Dan o' Brien Sam Rude Graphics Larry Newberry Executive producer and host, Dr. Chris Stout to learn more, stop by our website, alifeinfull.org for show notes and please recommend us to your friends and leave us a review on itunes. Thanks.