Today, we travel to the heart of Wadi Rum Desert in Southern Jordan with Ahmad Mara'yeh, a Bedouin man and co-founder of Rum Planet Camp.

In this episode, Ahmad shares why understanding the local culture and connecting with its community is as vital as experiencing its landscapes.

We also touch on the impact of tourism on Wadi Rum and how Ahmad has incorporated sustainable practices into his family’s camp. You’ll also hear about his experience meeting Matt Damon in the desert.

Original Air Date: Oct 3, 2023.

• Last chance to join me this Fall on a 10-day trip to Jordan
• Follow Rum Planet Camp on Instagram @rum.planet.camp
• Read my article in AFAR Magazine, Heading to Jordan? Skip the Bubble Tent and Stay Here Instead.
• Learn more about Lindsay’s projects Dance Afrikana and The New Red Book

Get more information at: Going Places website

Join our Going Places newsletter to get updates on new episodes and Yulia's travel storytelling work. Subscribe at goingplacesmedia.com/newsletter!

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 goingplacesmedia.com.

Our theme music this season, Abbad El Shams, is provided by Rawan Roshni, a Palestinian/Balkan singer based in Jordan.

Today, we're speaking with Lindsay Gary, a Houston-based professor-scholar, multi-disciplinary artivist, and social entrepreneur on a mission to educate, connect, and empower the African diaspora in the US.

In this episode, Lindsay talks about staying true to your purpose, finding time in our busy days to dedicate to what matters, and the value of asking important questions as a method for finding our paths forward. It’s what has led her on her journey in becoming a choreographer, educator, founder of a nonprofit, and artist.

Original Air Date: Feb 24, 2021.

• Join me this Fall on a 10-day trip to Jordan
• Follow Lindsay on Instagram @doctor_linds
• Check out Lindsay's website
• Learn more about Lindsay’s projects Dance Afrikana and The New Red Book

Get more information at: Going Places website

Join our Going Places newsletter to get updates on new episodes and Yulia's travel storytelling work. Subscribe at goingplacesmedia.com/newsletter!

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 goingplacesmedia.com.

In today's episode, I speak to Khadija Farah, a travel and documentary photographer based in Nairobi, Kenya. Khadija’s work appears in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian and more.

Khadija is a member of Inland Stories, an international cooperative of long-term documentary photographers. Her work is part of the 2020 Lit List by Authority Collective, Women Photograph, Diversify Photo, and World Press Photo's African Photojournalism Database (APJD). Khadija’s projects includes In Bibi's Kitchen, a cookbook with recipes and stories from eight African nations for which she produced all on location images.

Original Air Date: Nov 11, 2020.

• Join me this Fall on a 10-day trip to Jordan
• Follow Khadija on Instagram @farahkhad
• Check out Khadija’s website
• Learn more about In Bibi’s Kitchen, a book of recipes and stories from the African continent

Get more information at: Going Places website

Join our Going Places newsletter to get updates on new episodes and Yulia's travel storytelling work. Subscribe at goingplacesmedia.com/newsletter!

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 goingplacesmedia.com.

Growing up in Mumbai with her extended family, Vibha Chokhani was destined to live a traditional lifestyle. Women in her life were married young and spent their days as homemakers, yet this path never felt right to her.

First woman in her family to get divorced, to get a master degree, and to live in a foreign country, Vibha has learned how to step into the unknown and in this episode, she traces her journey of transformation and acting in spite of fear on a path that took her from India to the United States and back.

Today, Vibha is a leadership and transformation coach based in Mumbai where she is supporting leaders worldwide to build capacity of “skillful human presence” in themselves in order to build capacity for their teams and organizations.

Original Air Date: Oct 14, 2020.

• Join me this Fall on a 10-day trip to Jordan
• Follow Vibha on Instagram @vibhachokhani

Get more information at: Going Places website

Join our Going Places newsletter to get updates on new episodes and Yulia's travel storytelling work. Subscribe at goingplacesmedia.com/newsletter!

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 goingplacesmedia.com.

Today on the show, we're exploring the idea of rest (including cognitive rest), how the US culture sees it differently from Europeans, and what the relationship is between rest and creativity.

And stick around in the end for a special announcement.

• Read the CNBC report on US attitudes toward vacation
• Read the Financial Times article, Europeans have more time, Americans more money. Which is better?
• Check out the 2023 World Happiness Rankings
• Read this article on the history of the 5-day workweek
• Learn more about cognitive rest from this Harvard Business Review article
• Check out what Lola Akinmade has to say about rest

Get more information at: Going Places website

Join our Going Places newsletter to get updates on new episodes and Yulia's travel storytelling work. Subscribe at goingplacesmedia.com/newsletter!

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 goingplacesmedia.com.

Aziz Abu Sarah is a peace builder, cultural educator, entrepreneur, author and international speaker. He’s also a Palestinian man who lost his brother to the Israeli soldiers and who is currently working with his Israeli partner, Maoz Inon, to imagine a new vision for both Palestinians and Israelis.

If there is only one episode you will tune in to this season, let it be this one, because it will give you an idea of how to talk to people who don’t have the same views as you when it comes to Palestine - Israel, one of the most important issues and injustices of our time.

Aziz is a National Geographic Explorer and a TED Fellow who co-founded Mejdi Tours, a travel company that takes people to places like Palestine/Israel, Northern Ireland, and South Africa and presents multiple narratives about those places. His recent efforts with Maoz Inon include a Ted talk titled A Palestinian And Israeli, Face To Face, and meeting Pope Francis in time for the G7 Summit.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• What it's like to meet with Pope Francis
• How Aziz stays engaged in the face of pain and loss
• A Palestinian and an Israeli joining forces
• Aziz tells the story of losing his brother and becoming a peacemaker
• What it's like living under the Israeli apartheid structure
• What Aziz wants people to see when they see Palestinians
• The power of poetry in Palestinian culture
• Mejdi Tours and the Dual Narrative method
• Seeing beyond tourism stereotypes in Egypt
• The asymmetry between Palestine and Israel
• The crux of Aziz's peacemaking approach
• Moving beyond pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli labels
• Fighting fear with hope
• What the peacemaking vision in Palestine and Israel looks like
• How you can get involved in the peacemaking process
• Why Aziz thinks hope is an action

• Learn more about Aziz on his website
• Read Aziz's Ted Ideas story, How I Learned to Forgive My Brother’s Murderers
• Check out the Ted Talk by Aziz and Maoz, A Palestinian And An Israeli, Face To Face
• Read Al Jazeera op-ed by Aziz and Maoz, When It Comes to Israel-Palestine, True Naivety Is Believing in Endless War
• Learn more about Mejdi Tours
• Learn more about Land For All
• Get involved at InterAct
• Learn more about the Palestinian poet Samih al-Qasim
• Follow Aziz Abu Sarah on Instagram
• Follow Maoz Inon on Instagram
• Check out Aziz's book, Crossing Boundaries: A Traveler's Guide to World Peace

Get more information at: Going Places

Beth Santos is a passionate entrepreneur and community builder who many women in the travel industry will recognize as the CEO and founder of Wanderful, an international collective of travelers and travel content creators on a mission to make travel better for all women.

Beth is the author of WANDER WOMAN: How to Reclaim Your Space, Find Your Voice, and Travel the World (2024). In this conversation, we discuss the stories that make this book so special, the challenge of not only writing , but also marketing and promoting the book, breaking through the noise, and what we can do to reclaim our space as women in travel, a true majority in the travel industry that still gets treated as a niche.

We also talk about AI and its impact to our fragile storytelling and media eco-system. I try to surprise Beth by asking my ChatGPT bot questions about Beth and her work and prompting the bot to impersonate Beth. What we learn about AI in the process is fascinating!

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Beth reads an excerpt from Wander Woman
• The challenge of writing a book
• Rethinking the traveler versus tourist narrative and the privilege of travel
• Reclaiming our space as women in travel
• Book publicity and the fairy godmother complex
• Yulia talks to AI about Beth
• The impact of AI on travel creators
• How Wanderful plans to use AI
• Beth responds to ChatGPT impersonating Beth
• Is there a digital space that is safe to build our businesses in?
• Celebrating 11 years of Wanderful
• Building one DEI table in travel

• Learn more about Beth on her website
• Check out Beth's book, WANDER WOMAN: How to Reclaim Your Space, Find Your Voice, and Travel the World
• Learn more about Wanderful, a community of travelers and content creators redefining travel for women worldwide
• Get your free solo travel guide from Wanderful
• Check out WITS, a conference for women in travel
• Listen to Beth's podcast, The 85 Percent
• Follow Beth on Instagram
• Follow Wanderful on Instagram
• Check out Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World, a book by Dr. Anu Taranath
• Check out Black Travel Alliance
• Check out Native Women Wilderness

Get more information at: Going Places website

Join our Going Places newsletter to get updates on new episodes and Yulia's travel storytelling work. Subscribe at

Villain hitters. Fortune tellers. Bamboo cage makers. Meet the people keeping Hong Kong's traditions alive.

Lindsay Varty is an author and former professional rugby player from Hong Kong who writes about Cantonese culture and history in an attempt to generate a greater love and understanding of her home for herself and her readers. So today on the show, we're traveling to Hong Kong with Lindsay and me.

Lindsay is the author of several books including Hong Kong Slang, Welly the Wild Boar and the local best-seller, Sunset Survivors, which features a collection of photographs and interviews with local artisans who work in some of the city's oldest, most traditional trades.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Meet the keepers of some of Hong Kong's disappearing traditions like villain hitters, fortune tellers, and bamboo pole noodle makers
• Why some Hong Kong artisans don't want more sales
• Is growth always good?
• What Hong Kong leaves behind when it moves forward
• Hong Kong's real estate problem
• How to avoid the cliches of Hong Kong
• Looking for identity and belonging as third-culture kids
• Hong Kong's walking tours with Lindsay
• Lindsay's upcoming book on third culture kids

• Learn more about Lindsay's work on her website
• Check out Lindsay's book, Sunset Survivors
• Follow Lindsay on Instagram
• Follow Lindsay's Sunset Survivors project on Instagram
• Check out VoiceMap
• Check out The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir by Karen Cheung

Get more information at: Going Places website

Join our Going Places newsletter to get updates on new episodes and Yulia's travel storytelling work. Subscribe at goingplacesmedia.com/newsletter!

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