Today, we’re speaking with Matt Bowles, a longtime Palestinian human rights activist.

With a Master’s Degree in International Peace and Conflict Resolution, Matt has over two decades of human rights and activism experience. He led activist delegations to monitor human rights abuses in the north of Ireland, co-founded an organization to stop U.S. aid to Israel, organized solidarity delegations to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and did solidarity work with the indigenous Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico.

In the past few years, many more people around the world have tuned in to the injustice that has been happening in Palestine for the past 75 years. If you want to understand the origins of this injustice AND what you can do to help stop it, this episode is for you.

I first became immersed in the struggle for Palestinian liberation in 2017, when I visited the West Bank and saw the Israeli soldiers at checkpoints, the humiliation of people, the treatment of Arabs like second-class citizens, and the Israeli system of apartheid with my own eyes. Matt has been working on Palestinian solidarity since 1998. It has been so helpful to hear the perspective of someone with this much longer view on the struggle.

Become a Going Places member for as little as $6 a month. Visit our reimagined platform at goingplacesmedia.com to learn more.

Thanks to our Founding Member: RISE Travel Institute, a nonprofit with a mission to create a more just and equitable world through travel education.

• Current moment in the Palestinian human rights advocacy
• Travel media's sanitized version of seeing the world
• How Matt's Palestinian advocacy started with the Black liberation struggle in the US
• Britain's first and last colony (is the same?)
• The gap in awareness between what Palestine is and what the media shows
• The power asymmetry and the longest military occupation in modern history
• Confronting antisemitism and misrepresentation
• What the Rwandan, Guatemalan, and Cambodian genocides can teach us
• Matt dismantles "It's too complicated"
• Why do we give states more rights than people?
• The origins of this settler colonial project
• Why the US shifted its Palestine stance in 1967
• The history of Palestinian nonviolent resistance
• Why is there zero accountability for the State of Israel's actions?
• US law enforcement training with IOF
• What can an individual do? A lot!
• What gives Matt hope today
• Why Yulia believes that Gaza will change the world

• Listen to Matt's Maverick Show podcast
• Follow @maverickshowpod on Instagram
• Subscribe to Matt's Monday Minute newsletter
• Learn more about the International Solidarity Movement
• Learn more about Jewish Voice for Peace
• Learn more about If Not Now
• Learn more about the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement
• Check out the

Today, I'm sharing a story I wrote for the Adventure Travel Trade Association in 2024. It's about Yuimaru, the Okinawan spirit of cooperation that helped Okinawans move on from the tragedy of World War II.

Okinawa is a small subtropical island in the East China Sea, halfway between China and Japan. In 1945, it endured one of the worst battles of the war, known as the Battle of Okinawa, during which an estimated 200,000 people, most of them Okinawan civilians, lost their lives.

Last November, I celebrated my birthday in Okinawa. This year, I'm returning to the island on a very special Going Places women-only trip.

We'll be traveling in the footsteps of Amamikiyo, the goddess who created the world, according to Okinawan beliefs, and spend time with a yuta, a practicing female shaman, in the northern mountain villages.

Learn more about the trip here.

Become a Going Places member for as little as $6 a month. Visit our reimagined platform at goingplacesmedia.com to learn more.

Thanks to our Founding Member: RISE Travel Institute, a nonprofit with a mission to create a more just and equitable world through travel education.

• ATTA: In Okinawa, Returning to the Communal Roots of Adventure Travel
• Learn more about our upcoming trip to Okinawa in November here

Going Places is a reader-supported platform. Get membership perks like a monthly group call with Yulia at goingplacesmedia.com!

For more BTS of this podcast follow @goingplacesmedia on Instagram and check out our videos on YouTube!

Please head over to Apple Podcasts and SUBSCRIBE to the show. If you enjoy this conversation, please share it with others on social and don’t forget to tag us @goingplacesmedia!

And show us some love, if you have a minute, by rating Going Places or leaving us a review wherever you listen. You’ll be helping us to bend the arc of algorithms towards our community — thank you!

Going Places with Yulia Denisyuk is a show that sparks a better understanding of people and places near and far by fostering a space for real conversations to occur. Each week, we sit down with travelers, journalists, creators, and people living and working in destinations around the world. Hosted by Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel journalist, photographer, and writer who's worked with National Geographic, The New York Times, BBC Travel, and more.

Learn more about our show at

Today, we're speaking with Arto Sivonen, an activist and strategist fighting FOR human rights and AGAINST the climate crisis.

Originally from Finland, Arto divides his time between Nairobi, Bengaluru, and Helsinki as the founder and CEO of Måndag, a creative change agency.

A lot is happening in Africa and on the Indian subcontinent regarding young people leading movements for change, and Arto has the pulse on these movements.

I first came across Arto and his work when I saw one of his Instagram posts about organizing for Palestinian human rights in Helsinki. With statements like: "Call us a bunch of utopians, but we think positive change is unstoppable," Arto shares his radical change ideas with us.

Become a Going Places member for as little as $6 a month. Visit our reimagined platform at goingplacesmedia.com to learn more.

Thanks to our Founding Member: RISE Travel Institute, a nonprofit with a mission to create a more just and equitable world through travel education.

• The tension between capitalism and activism
• What could the world of radical honesty look like
• Why ethical storytelling decenters the storyteller
• Why Arto thinks East Africa, the Middle East, and India are places to be right now
• Taking the global North off the pedestal
• Climate colonialism: sustainable tourism in the context of colonization
• Can ecotourism ever be good?
• What's wrong with travel?
• Climate crisis in Polynesia
• Why Arto thinks flying is too cheap
• Arto's life in two suitcases between India and Kenya
• How land in America is connected to consumerism
• What it was like living in Nairobi and Bengaluru
• Yulia and Arto have a favorite spot they share in Finland
• What gives Arto hope

• Follow @artosivonen on Instagram
• Learn more about Måndag

Going Places is a reader-supported platform. Get membership perks like a monthly group call with Yulia at goingplacesmedia.com!

For more BTS of this podcast follow @goingplacesmedia on Instagram and check out our videos on YouTube!

Please head over to Apple Podcasts and SUBSCRIBE to the show. If you enjoy this conversation, please share it with others on social and don’t forget to tag us @goingplacesmedia!

And show us some love, if you have a minute, by rating Going Places or leaving us a review wherever you listen. You’ll be helping us to bend the arc of algorithms towards our community — thank you!

Going Places with Yulia Denisyuk is a show that sparks a better understanding of people and places near and far by fostering a space for real conversations to occur. Each week, we sit down with travelers, journalists, creators, and people living and working in destinations around the world. Hosted by Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel journalist, photographer, and writer who's worked with National Geographic, The New York Times, BBC Travel, and more.

Learn...