Backpack Digital – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Hayden has finally produced the chat he had with Tony Lloyd from El Cafecito Travel Talks.

After being interviewed on Tony’s podcast, Hayden realised that Tony may in fact be one of the most interesting people in the world - listen in to hear a story of truly following your heart.

El Cafecito Travel Talks can be found on all podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts

Get in touch with Hayden on Instagram: @backpackdigital

Hayden rambles about: The gym, motorcycle nostalgia, cubed to globe & being 'disappointed but hopeful'. 

Get in Touch with Hayden on Instagram: @backpackdigital

A behind-the-scenes look at the creation of something you love is always welcome; Hayden wanted to grant you that opportunity in the season two closer. Cody Crabb and Nicole Mello (the musician and the writer, respectively) join Hayden in unpacking the entirety of season two, looking back at funny, inspiring, and memorable moments from past episodes. Featured primarily among them are Guy Earnshaw, Sean Whitehead, Richard Phu, and, believe it or not, Hayden Lee himself. 

The three of them also discuss how the scores are created, how the show notes are written, and how each other’s accents sound to one another. The crew also looks forward to season three, discussing upcoming social media, post-season Q&As, and what else Hayden wants to go down in season three. Stay tuned! 

• 2:23 - Hayden talks about the upcoming post-season Q&As and the upcoming opportunity to win a GRAYL purifier filter. 
• 4:06 - Hayden discusses social media and how to follow Travel Stories Podcast throughout season three. 
• 6:35 - Hayden and Cody discuss how the scores are created for Travel Stories Podcast. 
• 8:04 - Hayden and Nicole discuss writing the show notes for the podcast. 
• 10:07 - Hayden, Cody, and Nicole get distracted and start doing accents that none of them are particularly good at. 
• 12:24 - Hayden gets everyone back on track, and the three of them get back into discussing and unpacking Season Two. 
• 13:58 - Hayden, Cody, and Nicole talk about coming up with a team of people that works for you. 
• 17:35 - The crew gets back into looking back on season two and unpacking it, including looks at Guy Earnshaw, Sean Whitehead, Richard Phu, and Hayden Lee. 
• 27:24 - Hayden starts talking about what’s going to be going down in the upcoming season three. 
• 32:47 - Hayden plays outtakes from season two. 

Get in Touch with Hayden on Instagram: @backpackdigital

In this episode of Hayden's Travel Journal, we rejoin Hayden on his motorcycle journey as he enters the mountains in central Vietnam.  It's not all easy riding, as Hayden finds out, encountering buses, trucks and realising why everyone said "DO NOT DO THIS JOURNEY" on the research he did before going. The roads are certainly not for everyone, and one small mistake can mean either a devastating accident or a memorable story. Plenty of stories about the views and experiences on this journey coupled with tips about doing this type of travel make this journal entry an interesting instalment. 

Get in Touch with Hayden on Instagram: @backpackdigital

Putting your faith in the universe, and letting your mind and body take over in order to free your soul, can sometimes be essential to traveling. Your adventure may not be complete if you are too aware of yourself. Katharine “Kate” Elliot had an angel in pink tell her she had to learn to let the universe guide her, and that has granted her some of her greatest travel moments. Let Hayden tell you about how some cool stuff that will be going down next week before Kate brings up her book, A Camino of the Soul: Learning to Listen When the Universe Whispers . Her and Hayden discuss paying attention to all the messages the world is sending you, and how to follow those messages and listen to the universe. She talks about she wrote her book, and what led her to discovering her writing. 

The highlight, her story “Angel in Pink,” follows Kate as she hits a dark moment, believing she had lost her path in the universe. She felt like she was drowning, aching, and her doubts and fears started to choke her; the world around her started to lose meaning, after her divorce, during her Camino, and she wanted to be able to cleanse herself of her hurt. An angel in pink - an elderly Spanish woman dressed in a light pink Sunday suit and pearls - spoke to her, more in spirit than in language, and told her to walk her path in faith. Kate’s faith in the universe was restored by her angel. Hayden and Kate continue into discussing how to let your brain and your body take you over, and how to let your spirit float free and be at the whims of yourself and of the universe. If you put your faith in the universe, you can be guided along your path to adventure to your destined destination. 

• 1:30 - Hayden talks about how some cool stuff will be happening next week! 
• 4:00 - Kate talks about how she started paying attention to all the messages out in the world, and how that led to her learning to listen to the universe, follow her heart, and write this book. Kate encourages listeners to be in the now; if you accept things as they happen, then, someday, you will know why they are happening. 
• 9:33 - Kate talks about her book and how she started writing it when her mother-in-law and close friend passed away, and how it carries through her walking Northern Spain’s Camino. 
• 12:07 - Kate’s story begins; it takes place in Spain, just outside León. It’s a Camino story, and she calls it: “Angel in Pink”. Kate was walking the Camino, and, for the first time, she was starting to feel like she didn’t belong; she was beginning to lose her belief in her path in the universe. She stopped outside a cafe, and she heard a voice greet her; she looked directly at an elderly Spanish woman dressed in a light pink Sunday suit and pearls.

Get in Touch with Hayden on Instagram: @backpackdigital

Traveling yourself is vastly different from hearing stories, or seeing pictures, even though those are fine substitutes. However, nothing can pair up to the real thing, a fact Hayden learned for certain while he was in Vietnam. Hayden shares a message from Billy and calls for people to send him messages, and lets us know about his intentions towards Snapchat and Facebook Live while he is traveling in Brazil. He also introduces Cody Crabb, the composer for Travel Stories Podcast, and they discuss scores Cody has done for past episodes, how Cody writes the scores for episodes, and how important scores and music are to stories and media. Most importantly, however, Cody answers Hayden’s question of, “John Williams or Danny Elfman?” Follow Hayden as he tries cacao for the first time, sees the most spiders he has ever found in one place, tells a waitress she is beautiful, and gets a scroll illustrated by a blind monk. He also visits a very “businessman” hotel to treat himself, and shares his experiences with synesthesia - in Hayden’s case, the ability to see sounds. You may not be able to visit Vietnam, but Hayden’s travel journal entry just might be the next best thing. 

Get in Touch with Hayden on Instagram: @backpackdigital

If you change your thinking, you can change your actions. Hayden wholeheartedly believes in this philosophy, and it was this philosophy that led him to trying to never say no. It was his decision to always say yes to adventures that led him to his love on the Ganges. Hosted by Jackie Nourse of The Budget-Minded Traveler, Hayden Lee shares how he started the Travel Stories Podcast, how sharing stories can help bring a place or a feeling to someone who has never experienced it, and how to integrate your travel life with your daily life. 

He also talks about catching dengue fever, the growth travel can bring you, and the way to capitalize on the roles you take on while you travel. He believes in “minis,” or mini-romances, as much as he believes in saying yes to everything, and finding perfect moments while traveling. Most of all, though, Hayden believes in love at first sight. Hayden’s main attraction is his story, “Love on the Ganges,” a riveting tale of the time Hayden nearly died in the Ganges River while in the Himalayas, and how survival meant making a soul connection with a woman who did not share his language, but did share with him her name. Hayden nearly died on the Ganges, but he came away with a story that brings indescribable feelings of wonder welling up. A soul connection was born in the Ganges, and left Hayden with the belief that if you just say yes, you will experience what you are meant to live. 

• 4:10 - Hayden talks about where it all started, and how he got into traveling in the first place. 
• 6:45 - Hayden goes on to discuss how he got dengue fever, as well as how much India has impacted him as a person. 
• 11:45 - Hayden talks about how stories can help to bring a place or a feeling to someone who has never experienced it. As he tells it, all of your senses go into an experience that can’t be contextualized without your story; when you tell the story to someone, you’re sharing all of your senses with them, and even sharing it with yourself. 
• 14:37 - Hayden considers coming back to normal life and integrating into your daily life the experiences that have changed you and molded during your travels. Primarily, he talks about attempting to hold on to your growth when you come back home. 
• 17:27 - Hayden discusses his goal in starting the Travel Stories Podcast, and how you hold on to the feeling of being a traveler through sharing your stories with those on the same wavelength as you. He believes you experience things differently than everyone else in your life and anyone else traveling and having their own adventures, so he likes to think of his listeners - and himself - as being able to live vicariously through the travel stories told on the podcast. 
• 22:21 - Hayden considers the roles that you have when you travel, and how best to foster your personal growth within your role when traveling and having your adventures. He and Jackie also talk about traveling on your own versus traveling with others, and “exploring yourself as you explore the world.” 
• 27:07 - Hayden starts to tell his story, titled by Jackie as “Love on the Ganges”.

Get in Touch with Hayden on Instagram: @backpackdigital

Realizing that you may be seen as an ignorant or privileged traveler can be a blow, but if you just put yourself out there and try new things, you can overcome that image in a heartbeat. Hayden does exactly that as he drives in Vietnam, meets a snake “as thick as a Pringles tube, and twice as daunting,” and rowed a boat for a woman who had not taken a break all day. Hayden also has some serious adventures with food, including learning that you can live off just coconuts or just chili water, and finding a variety of American pets to snack on at a food market on the Mekong Delta. Show notes writer Nicole Mello also stops by to answer questions about what to do in Boston, and to explain the Boston Tea Party to Hayden. 

Get in Touch with Hayden on Instagram: @backpackdigital

Fear is a paralyzing emotion, but, in the end, it can truly be your best motivator, and Sean Whitehead has firsthand experience with both ends of that double-edged sword. Sean is not only a friend of Hayden’s and the singer of the band that Hayden and previous guest Guy Earnshaw were once in, but he is also an avid traveler. Sean wants to share his story of traveling in the Alps, and how fear, a good friend, and a bar of Snickers got him to the top of a nearly sheer-faced mountain. 

First, Sean shares a tale of traveling to Brazil and ending up in a weird, dodgy neighborhood, where he was served an Americana pizza that came, not with meat and cheese on it, as you would expect; no, instead, it came with egg and peas on it. It was in Brazil that Sean learned that there is more to life than just doing things the easy way. He found that doing things you have never done before can only lead to adventure. He also tells a story about a self-drive tour he took with his friends in Iceland, how they took their own route around the country, and the amazing place in the mountains they found to watch the Northern Lights from. Sean shares what he thinks on talking to new people when you’re in a new place in order to figure out where to go and what to do while you’re there, and when you should follow their advice. 

He also discusses how to decide what you are going to do when you are traveling. The highlight of Sean’s episode, however, is his story from Austria, aptly titled “Somebody ‘Alp’ Me,” a predictably punny name from Sean. Along the way, he and his friend John end up hiking in the Alps with no gear, a bottle of water, and a Snickers. Between them, they hike a kilometer and a half upwards, eat their one Snickers, drink their one bottle of water, have two panic attacks, but they manage to make it to the top alive. Though the fear was like nothing Sean had ever experienced, the adventure influenced his decisions in future travel, and he thinks he would not be the same now had it not been for that day. 

• 0:45 - Hayden shares a letter he got from a listener, and sends out a call for podcasts that discuss what there is to do in Boston. 
• 4:54 - Sean Whitehead comes into play after a long intro; he is a traveler, a friend of Hayden’s, and the singer of the band that Hayden and Guy Earnshaw were in. 
• 7:21 - Sean shares a tale of traveling to Brazil, his language barrier, ending up in a weird, dodgy neighborhood, and eating an Americana pizza that was not quite right. 
• 12:45 - Sean starts telling a story about a self-drive tour he took with his friends in Iceland. During the trip, they took their own route around the country, and found this amazing place in the mountains to watch the Northern Lights. 
• 14:53 - Sean discusses what he thinks about talking to new people when you’re in a new place in order to figure out where to go and what to do while you’re there, and when you should follow their advice. 
• 17:47 - Sean starts to share his story from Austria, which he calls “Somebody ‘Alp’ Me.”

Get in Touch with Hayden on Instagram: @backpackdigital