Podcast: Where Have You Been? — Travel Stories
Host: Bill Roehm (William Roehm)
Release date: August 16, 2026
Listen on: Apple Podcasts
Full Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Paul Partridge: Evidently, I wasn’t accelerating fast enough because she like zoomed up, kind of like, right up behind my tail then zipped around really fast. And as she was going by me, gave me the bird. And I said, I thought, maybe I was having a religious experience because I said to my wife, was that a nun? And she was dying laughing. And my kids were in the back seat and they were laughing. And she said, I really think it was.
[00:00:37] Paul Partridge: I think it really was. And I was like, that’s absolutely hilarious. Yeah. So we get a kick out of that.
[00:00:42] Bill Roehm: Welcome to Palermo. Welcome to the Where Have You Been podcast. I’m your host, Bill Roehm. And each week on the pod, I have conversations with incredible guests from all walks of life. Expect to hear funny, crazy, emotional, life changing, and even sometimes life-threatening stories and experiences that will entertain and inspire you. As always, I appreciate your likes, subscriptions, ratings and reviews wherever you are listening. It doesn’t sound like much, but it truly helps the pod get to the ears of more people who may enjoy it.
[00:01:14] Bill Roehm: And check out the website, WHYBPodcast.com for links to the socials where you can find pictures from the guests and their stories. And also buy merch if you’re so inclined. Now let’s get to this week’s episode. Thank you for being here. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back into another episode of the Where Have You Been podcast. Where else would you rather be than right here? With another incredible guest. First of all, I am your host, Bill Roehm, as always, but you probably already knew that.
[00:02:07] Bill Roehm: And this week, I’m super, super excited to talk with someone who probably the most well-established travel writer and photographer that we’ve definitely had on the show. And I would venture to say also currently entrepreneur as well. I have Paul on the show today. Welcome to the show, Paul. And if you would be so kind as to let our listeners know exactly who are you.
[00:02:38] Paul Partridge: Sure, Bill. Well, thanks for having me on. I’ll do the Benny Hill version, which is, I kind of have an interesting career path. I spent years as a financial advisor before becoming a travel writer and a photographer. And, you know, people say, how in the world, you know, did that happen? Well, it’s, it came about for a lot under a number of different circumstances, but my wife works in the travel business and I started out my career as a writer.
[00:03:15] Paul Partridge: So I’ve been a writer for my whole career. I started as a sports writer, believe it or not, and then transitioned into travel writing. So even though I had a, I owned a business, we had a retirement planning company. I still was doing writing and traveling quite a bit on the side. So I had sort of a, sort of a side gig or it was more like, you know, a passion gig, I guess you would say.
[00:03:38] Paul Partridge: And once we, once we sold the retirement planning firm, I decided, hey, why don’t I do that thing that I was always doing on the side anyway and make it official. And I didn’t want to retire. So started the business that we call Travel Villa Guide. And I think, you know, it’s kind of based around my own experience that I’ve now met many other people that kind of sort of fit this description. And, you know, actually, you know, by coincidence, I get a face mail, what do you call it, Facebook message today from a friend of mine.
[00:04:15] Paul Partridge: And it was a picture of her and her family. She has four kids and they were at a, like a little family reunion or get together. And the caption said, this happens so rarely these days, but when it does, my heart grows six sizes. And that’s exactly kind of how I feel and where we are, you know, our family is stage of life. And you know, the older we get, the harder and harder it gets, you know, it becomes to get the people we love in the same place at the same time, you know, the kids grow up, they move out, parents get older, friends get busy with their lives.
[00:04:51] Paul Partridge: And so I kind of started thinking, when I was planning this, you know, what if for one or two unforgettable weeks, we could kind of create a different world, one where everyone who matters is under one roof and the world can wait and where the stories you’ll be telling years from now, you know, start to unfold. And that’s kind of the whole, the whole raison d’etre for Travel Villa Guide.
[00:05:19] Bill Roehm: Yeah. Well, and let’s be honest here, when you were talking about how the journey sort of happened, finances can be exciting, but travel is more exciting, I think, more enjoyable, maybe.
[00:05:35] Paul Partridge: I’ll say, I’ll say, and I mean, I hope, I hope we get into it. But there’s a lot of parallels with things like legacy, inheritance, and heirlooms and things like that, that, that kind of go from finance and things that I was doing for decades and finance, that I realized transitioned beautifully into travel. So we’ll probably get into it as we chat.
[00:06:06] Bill Roehm: Yeah. So, so you mentioned what the website is, and let’s actually just put that out there, the website, and any socials that you have, let’s just do that now before I forget.
[00:06:17] Paul Partridge: Yeah, it’s just it’s three words travel Villa Guide, but it’s all together. So it’s travelvillaguide.com. Very, very easy. That’s the, that’s the website and anybody’s, if they hear anything today, that sounds interesting. They’re welcome to go check that out.
[00:06:35] Bill Roehm: And so really, what you’re doing there is helping to facilitate, not just a trip, or a vacation for someone, but you’re trying to help foster that family feeling or maybe it’s not even necessarily family, maybe it’s friends, maybe, you know, whoever, but whoever wants to be together and not have them have to book separate rooms or, you know, if it’s a large gathering, you’re not having to try to find some massive, like this is kind of what you’re doing, right?
[00:07:05] Paul Partridge: Yeah. So the way I describe it, Bill, is I like to say, you know, we create a world where families and close friends can celebrate life’s most important moments. So whether that’s 80th birthdays, 50th anniversaries, a family reunion, could be a college friends reunion, we do a lot of multi-generational trips. That’s a big thing. So anything where a group comes together that wants to be together, that’s important. And, you know, it’s not solo travel, it’s not adventure travel, it’s families and close friends celebrating, you know, important events.
[00:07:47] Paul Partridge: And honestly, the important event is, hey, after 10 years of trying, we finally got together, you know?
[00:07:58] Bill Roehm: Absolutely. Yeah, I’ll have the link, obviously, in the show notes for everybody as well. What kind of places have you helped people get to?
[00:08:03] Paul Partridge: Yeah, so quite a few. I would say that, you know, broad strokes, the most common destinations for our folks are Europe. So a ton of Italy, I would say the top ones are Italy, Greece, France, Spain, the UK, and then the Caribbean, actually the Caribbean too. The Caribbean is pretty popular, a number of the countries in the Caribbean. Costa Rica has become more popular in recent years. That’s kind of like an up and coming destination. But yeah, we’ve sent people all over the place.
[00:08:52] Bill Roehm: And just, you don’t have to get into all the nuts and bolts of everything that you do with all of your work that you put into this. But just give me an idea of how much work it takes to plan something like this for a group. I know it’s probably different in every instance.
[00:09:08] Paul Partridge: Yeah, and you know, I would say, Bill, on average, you know, our average group is like, I would say 10 to 16 people is probably like the average. And you know, the hardest part of that is getting everybody together, right? Because in that group, you probably get people who are living opposite ends of the country, maybe different countries, you’ve got different ages, quite often. So the amount of planning is crazy. And what happens is, generally on these things, there’s one planner, and that person is the point person.
[00:09:42] Paul Partridge: And they’re always the point person, and they always have been, and I guess they always will be. The problem with being the point person is that you never really get to go on the vacation with everybody. You’re there physically, but you’re spending your time running around and make sure, you know, do we have this thing booked? Is the car here? How are we going to get to dinner? Do we have reservations? It’s a constant juggling. And, you know, God forbid you’re in a hotel, we purposely don’t send our folks to hotels.
[00:10:24] Paul Partridge: Because when you’re with a group, don’t get me wrong, I love hotels. But when you’re with a group, you know, a hotel is a nightmare. If you got 15 people, and everybody is in a different room on a different floor. And just to get everyone together, it requires, you know, a camp counselor to pull it all together. And then not to mention meals, meal time, right? You have, okay, everyone’s on the phone, where’s Jimmy? Where’s Abby?
[00:10:53] Paul Partridge: And you try to herd cats, and then you do that, and then you get down there and they say, I’m sorry, we don’t have a table for 15, you know? Right?
[00:11:08] Bill Roehm: That’s brutal.
[00:11:08] Paul Partridge: Yeah, it’s brutal. So, daily.
[00:11:13] Bill Roehm: Sally’s in the shower too long.
[00:11:13] [Uncertain speaker]: Oh my God. Yeah. Where, you know, has anybody seen Aunt Doris? When was the last time? When was the last time anybody saw Aunt Doris?
[00:11:24] Paul Partridge: Oh gosh. So, having, you know, so we take that, all that craziness off people’s plates, number one, by, you know, sending them to a place that gives them the space in the room to be together without having to coordinate stuff. So, like, if you want to get everyone together, you just walk into the kitchen, you know? So, in the planning.
[00:11:41] Bill Roehm: And, you know, I’m thinking too, like, even when you get a bunch of couples together, and like, one half of the couple is tired, but the other one’s not. And you feel bad leaving them, especially if you’re in a hotel, but if you’re staying in the same place, it’s so much easier to say, you know what, you lay down, I’ll come back and check on you in a little bit, I’m gonna go downstairs.
[00:12:01] Paul Partridge: Yeah, it’s, you know, you have, it’s wonderful, you have the space to gather and you have the space to be by yourself, if you want, right? Because everybody has their own room, so you have that benefit like you would in a hotel. But you have the, you know, the gathering spaces that, yeah, if you’re not the one taking the nap, maybe you want to hang out by the pool, or maybe you want to, you know, sit in the garden and read a book or whatever, but you have that option.
[00:12:32] Paul Partridge: And look, the whole reason that we’re doing this trip is for us to be together. So let’s have as much together time as we can, you know, we can have coffee together in the morning, we can sit by the pool, we can all, we can have all our meals together. We can, we don’t have to, you know, get pushed out of the restaurant at the end of the night. We can stay and open another bottle of wine, tell stories, have some laughs, go outside, sit under the stars.
[00:13:03] Paul Partridge: It just, it’s just so much more relaxing. It gives, you know, optionality, it gives you a lot more optionality and privacy and all the stuff like, look, the other thing is, you know, we’ve all been there taking these trips, you go to a resort with a bunch of people and you realize, oh, we’re not the only ones here. And, you know, the first day at the pool, you see, oh my God, all the chairs are taken.
[00:13:29] Paul Partridge: We can’t even sit down at the pool. So then the next morning, what do you do? You’re like, you’re up at 5am, like before the sun to try to fight for your chair at the pool.
[00:13:45] Bill Roehm: Been there, done that.
[00:13:46] Paul Partridge: Yeah, right.
[00:13:47] Bill Roehm: Get that [unclear word] or whatever.
[00:13:49] Paul Partridge: Exactly. Like you have to, you know, sort of like, oh yeah, I’m on vacation, but I’m getting up earlier. Just to just to stake out my two feet.
[00:14:00] Bill Roehm: And not to catch the sunrise or whatever.
[00:14:03] Paul Partridge: Yeah, that would be nice. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:14:06] Bill Roehm: So I think it’s awesome what you’re doing. I hope that people check it out. I think it’s just, I don’t know of anyone else that I’ve heard of that does this form of travel planning for people. So I love it. I love it.
[00:14:19] Paul Partridge: Yeah, great. Thanks.
[00:14:20] Bill Roehm: Yeah. So again, I’ll have everything on the show notes. People check it out. If you’re interested, I do want to know one of the things I like to ask my guests before we really get started into like the meat and potatoes, so to speak of the episodes is how did travel become a thing in your life? When did that start for you as a child or somewhere along the way? Or how did that become a thing for you?
[00:14:42] Paul Partridge: This is an easy one, Bill. I married a Jersey girl. And this particular Jersey girl had travel in her blood. And she passed it on to me. Her dad worked for Exxon. And he was an engineer. And he traveled quite a bit. In fact, the first time I remember going to their house and meeting them, the first thing I noticed when I walked in the door was one of these giant Pan Am, remember Pan Am, the airline?
[00:15:12] Bill Roehm: Yes.
[00:15:13] Paul Partridge: There was a giant Pan Am map that they had framed on a wall. And it had all little pins in all the little places that he had been. And there were a lot of pins. So he had traveled all over the world. And I know when my wife was a teenager, for example, they lived in Hong Kong for two years. And that became sort of a launching point for them to do a bunch of other travel to both Asia and Europe.
[00:15:42] Paul Partridge: And she just kind of fell in love with travel. I didn’t have that experience growing up. I don’t think I was on a plane until I was probably in high school. But when we got together, she was in the travel business. And that was a thing she was always going to do. And so she passed along that love of travel. And once I got a taste of it, it was hook, line and sinker for me. And then like I said, I had a chance to travel and write and do some things like that, which gave me a lot of great experiences.
[00:16:18] Paul Partridge: But my father-in-law, when he was about to turn 80, we were doing a planning a family trip. And he made one request. He said, look, I’d like to have something where we’re all together, but I want to be under one roof so we can maximize our time together. And at the time, I kind of thought he was talking about convenience. But looking back, I think that kind of radically changed the way I think about group travel anyway.
[00:16:56] Paul Partridge: And just the difference of being all together and having the whole, I don’t know, I guess we were going for maybe 10 days or so. We just had as much time as we wanted together. And it felt like we were just in our own little world. And we all went and did different things during the day, but we always would get together for the meals. And so it was a wonderful experience. And that kind of changed me in terms of how to go about these things.
[00:17:30] Bill Roehm: Yeah, it’s very romantic in a way, actually, that story of how that happened and kind of steered your direction of what you’re doing now. What was that first trip that you went on with her that was like, okay, I get it?
[00:17:42] Paul Partridge: Well, I’ll tell you, I know, I really, this one is etched into my memory, Bill, is we were married, well, coming up to be married for 10 years. And so my wife, in addition to living in Hong Kong, she also lived in Italy for a while. And she is madly in love with Italy. She’s half Italian. And she declared that she couldn’t be married to a man for 10 years who’s never been to Italy. So she arranged a trip for our 10-year anniversary for us to go to Italy.
[00:18:20] Paul Partridge: And that was my first taste of Italy. And I’m happy to say that it was the first of many, many because it was amazing the thing that really sticks into my craw, because it led to so many things. We stayed in a former papal retreat. And the notion that all priests take this vow of poverty, it doesn’t pertain to popes, because this was the craziest, nicest place I had ever seen. It was like the summertime retreat of some popes that had been converted.
[00:19:01] Paul Partridge: And they, beside the fact it was beautiful, they did some amazing things like the chef. So if you were at breakfast in the morning, for example, and the chef would wander in, and she would say, hey, what are you feeling for dinner tonight? And the first time it happened, she said, I’ll make whatever you want. And I was just looking at Lynn saying, is this for real? And so I kind of panicked, to be honest. I think I ordered lamb chops or something because it was like, you can have anything in the world.
[00:19:38] Paul Partridge: I couldn’t think of anything really fast. So I mean, I love lamb chops and I saw some sheep. So I’d say, how about lamb chops? She said, I would love to make you lamb chops. But this went on the whole time we were there. So that was magical. They had things like their own wine. It was just like crazy stuff that I had never experienced before. And it was crazy good. And the other part of that story, I’ll tell you, is the place that we stayed in was like a little, it was like a cross between a hotel room and a villa.
[00:20:16] Paul Partridge: It was separate from the main building. So it was our own little bungalow, maybe I’ll call it. But it was right next to a garden. And what we discovered on the first night, we had seen them walking around, but there were some peacocks on the property. And I don’t know if you have experience with peacocks, but they can be pretty loud. And I guess in the old days, they were used by, armies would take peacocks with them because they were great.
[00:20:45] Paul Partridge: They would make a lot of noise if it was an intrusion. And believe me, when they go, you can’t miss, it’s not like, do I hear something? No, you can’t really hear it so good. And there was a male peacock that had a very strong interest in the female peacock. And he was expressing that interest at like five in the morning with a series of calls. We’ll call them calls, I’ll be nice. But they made you jump out of your bed like you thought, oh, someone’s having their fingernails pulled out or something.
[00:21:30] Paul Partridge: Yeah. Right. So the first night was lying wide awake, hearts beating a million miles an hour. And this peacock is still going on and on. And finally, I don’t know if he had success or what, but he finally stopped. But I was awake. I mean, I was done. I was. And she has the remarkable ability to be able to just fall right back to sleep. So I said to her, you know what, I’m going to go, I’m going to grab my camera and I’m going to go, the sun’s going to come up and I’m going to take some shots around at sunrise.
[00:22:04] Paul Partridge: All right, see you later. And so I was out walking around and then, I don’t know, a couple hours late, I see someone loading up a car to depart. And, you know, I just kind of strolled over. I didn’t know if they were, you know, Italian, American, French, I didn’t know anything. But I thought I just would say good morning. So I said, hello, good morning. And it turned out to be an American. And we chatted a little bit and he said, hey, just out of curiosity, how did you pick this place, this, you know, retreat?
[00:22:41] Paul Partridge: And I said, oh, you know, my wife actually did it. She handled it. I believe she booked it through a company in Virginia. And it’s amazing. We’re really very pleased to be here. Long story short, it turned out that his wife owned the company through which we had booked the property.
[00:22:59] Bill Roehm: Oh, wow.
[00:22:59] Paul Partridge: And what’s even crazier is I had mentioned, you know, I said before we had kids, my wife was in the travel business. She lived in Italy. She speaks some Italian. Anyway, he said, well, is she ever thinking about going back to work? And I said, well, yeah, actually, we’ve just been having that conversation recently. And he said, well, would she ever consider talking to my wife because we’re looking for somebody who has experience with Italy and, you know, maybe not full time, but eventually full time, but certainly part time to start.
[00:23:40] Paul Partridge: Would she be interested in something like that? So I was trying to be very cool because I knew that this would be like a dream job for my wife. But I said, yeah, yeah, I’ll have a chat with her when she gets up. It’d be great. I’ll take a card or something like that. And she can always reach out. Anyway, I went back and told my wife she was beyond thrilled. And long story short, she did end up taking a job with them.
[00:24:08] Paul Partridge: And it led us on many world journeys to go visit hotels that they represented hotels across Italy and some other places. And it led us on many, many adventures. So a bit of serendipity, thanks to the peacock. But yeah, that’s how my international travels began.
[00:24:31] Bill Roehm: That’s maybe one of the more unique stories that we’ve ever opened with. Pretty, pretty fantastic. Okay, so I have to I have to say this, I have to say this to every guest, I guess I don’t have to. It’s my show. But this is a point where I asked you just to and you can you can answer this question any way you’d like to you take you take it for what it’s worth. I know you’ve been a lot of places.
[00:24:55] Paul Partridge: Sure.
[00:24:55] Bill Roehm: But Paul Partridge, where have you been?
[00:25:01] Paul Partridge: Where have I been? All right. Well, how broad do you want to go on that? Because the answer is a lot of places.
[00:25:08] [Uncertain speaker]: It is I’ve seen a lot.
[00:25:08] Paul Partridge: Yeah, I probably probably 40 countries or so. But, you know, most of the countries of Europe have been to Australia. I’ve been to many countries Mexico, Central America, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama. I’ve been to five, five of the seven continents about that.
[00:25:32] Bill Roehm: Amazing.
[00:25:32] Paul Partridge: Yep. Been to been to China, been to Hong Kong, even you know, Canada, Mexico.
[00:25:41] Bill Roehm: I do I do want to mention because one of the places that I noticed on your list and as we are recording this, this episode will be out on this coming Sunday, which is what 16th of August. But as we’re recording this, Colombia is dealing with massive earthquake, lots of lives lost. So I just want to mention, you know, hearts and thoughts and prayers and everything. I hope things are getting better by the time this airs.
[00:26:01] Bill Roehm: But I’m sure there will be a ton of work to do there.
[00:26:06] Paul Partridge: So yeah, and to the same point, like a couple of weeks ago, Bill tragically, the same thing happened in in Greece in a place that we’ve been to and have developed a special attraction to and affinity for is Paros, the island of Paros. They had some wildfires and unfortunately affected one of the one of the people that we that we know there. So, so yeah, we in fact, we were we were desperately trying to to to to contact him to find out, you know, one, you know, is he okay?
[00:26:42] Paul Partridge: Number two, what could we do, you know, to help? So yeah, there’s a there’s a lot of that going on. But yeah, definitely thoughts and prayers to yeah, both of those countries.
[00:26:56] Bill Roehm: Yeah, for sure. I actually have a friend who’s in Colombia, who is right in that area. And I had a little bit of a moment today to where I was like, I sent a message to her and you can tell when it gets delivered, right? She’s the one who told me that it happened like right when it happened. And now I was sending her message and it wouldn’t go through and it was like, Oh, no. And it was just I’m sure there was just service loss for a little while.
[00:27:19] Bill Roehm: But I’m sure she’s okay. And everything’s, I mean, she’s heartbroken. And and but you know, but they’ll get through it. Everyone will rally together. I’m sure with each other. So anyways, I didn’t need to take this and sit in a sad or negative direction. But
[00:27:31] Paul Partridge: No, it’s real life, you know, is the nice thing is that I mean, I’m always amazed at the resilience, you know, of folks and we there’s a place in Italy that we especially like in in Umbria called [Unclear place name]. And they had an earthquake, I don’t know, probably 10 years ago. And they’re just getting to the point where they’ve kind of put the pieces back together. And it’s like better than ever. But we were there right after it happened.
[00:28:05] Paul Partridge: And in just the sort of the esprit de corps of people just, you know, everybody comes out of the woodwork to try to to try to help and put the pieces back together. And it’s it’s really, it’s really quite inspiring.
[00:28:18] Bill Roehm: Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that in times of tragedy, we really see the best of humanity. And I understand too bad that it takes that for it to happen. And it doesn’t just happen more often when when it’s when things are good. But it’s glad to see that it’s there. So
[00:28:35] Paul Partridge: I agree.
[00:28:35] Bill Roehm: So well, let’s take us somewhere happy. Where should we go, Paul?
[00:28:42] Paul Partridge: Yeah, I know there’s so many.
[00:28:47] Bill Roehm: Where? Tell me, I mean, honestly, like, yeah, you’ve been so many places. Obviously, I know you have a wealth of stories. I’m sure from Italy, maybe we kind of circle back to Italy, if that’s okay with you, or I’m not going to tell you no, if that’s where you’d like to start.
[00:29:02] Paul Partridge: Well, I mean, Italy is always great. You know, one of the one of the places that I’ve really, really fallen and fallen kind of head over heels over is Sicily. Now, I like if you can drop me anywhere in Italy, and I’m going to be happy. But I was surprised that how much, you know, I really love Sicily. We went to really as the celebration, we did a family heritage trip. As I mentioned earlier, my wife was is half Italian.
[00:29:27] Paul Partridge: And her mom, mom was from or her family was from a little village called Cammarata in Sicily. And after she passed, we made it our mission to get there. She had talked about it so much in between Lynn’s aunts, her mom, we had heard the stories, you know, for years, and we really just wanted to go and see and kind of honor her at the same time. And when we went, I’ll tell you two things that just two things that pop in my head.
[00:30:01] Paul Partridge: We landed in Palermo. And again, been to many places. I live outside of New York City. So I know a thing or two about traffic. I have driven in Rome, I have driven in places that are notoriously famous for the for crazy traffic. And I had never seen anything like Palermo. It’s not so much the traffic, but the drivers are very, let’s say, what’s a good way to put it there. They’re very free. Okay, we don’t necessarily have traffic, you know, rules and regulations that anyone feels obligated to to adhere to.
[00:30:48] Paul Partridge: And, and they they do like to drive quickly, which adds another layer to it. But I don’t want to drag the story of I was kind of in my mind, getting to Cammarata in the one of the first things I remember is driving out of Palermo and getting on the highway and getting flipped off by a nun.
[00:31:11] Bill Roehm: Why? Yeah, what could you have possibly done?
[00:31:11] Paul Partridge: And you know, it’s one of those little, like smaller than than a beetle kind of Italian cars, you know, the it’s almost like, like, it’s almost like a ladybug, you know, with with wheels.
[00:31:25] Bill Roehm: And I know what you talk about.
[00:31:31] Paul Partridge: Yeah. Yeah. And, and evidently, I didn’t, I wasn’t accelerating fast enough, because she like, you know, zoomed up, kind of like, you know, right up behind my tail then zipped around really fast. And as she was going by me, gave me the bird in, you know, I said, I thought, you know, maybe I was having a religious experience, because I said to my wife, was that a nun? And she, she was dying laughing. And she and she and my kids were in the back seat, and they were laughing.
[00:32:06] Paul Partridge: And she said, I really think it was, I think it really was a nun. Absolutely hilarious. Yeah. So we got to be getting a kick out of that.
[00:32:13] Bill Roehm: Welcome to Palermo. Wonder how many Hail Marys that cost her.
[00:32:18] Paul Partridge: Yes, or us. So that driving experience was I did, I did want to put, you know, a little, a little relic on the, on the dashboard, you know, seeing the way everybody was driving, because I thought it would be it might be something that might come in handy. It felt like, you know, at any second, you’re gonna, you’re gonna crash, or may be made to crash. Anyway, we made it to Cammarata. One of the things I’ll say about our service that’s kind of neat is we, we assign a local concierge to the house.
[00:32:48] Paul Partridge: So it does a number of things. It’s especially valuable to people who are going to a country that where they don’t speak the language, or maybe it’s their first time in the country or whatever. So to have a local concierge who makes all the arrangements for you, who can give you the inside info about, you know, avoid this beach, go to this beach, or here’s a good restaurant to go to that’s not going to be crowded.
[00:33:26] Paul Partridge: This place is this tourist trap is not worth going to that kind of stuff is very, it’s invaluable. And again, it allows you to be on vacation with with your with your favorite folks instead of being the planner. But the concierge that we had in the in this house, we had rented a villa in the concierge, we had knew a guide who was happened to be friends, good friends with the mayor of Cammarata. So he arranged for for this gentleman to be our guide.
[00:34:03] Paul Partridge: And, you know, we went there, he didn’t say anything to us. He didn’t give us any, you know, he didn’t tip us off to anything. We were expecting a nice day exploring Cammarata. He had taken us to Agrigento the day before, into all the wonderful sites there. So we had spent a day with them already. But when we arrived at to the town hall waiting for us was the mayor and an entourage that included some assistants and maybe some people in government there that we didn’t know the everyone’s, everyone’s job, but they had the the press there they had, they had the local newspaper and photographer there because the Americans are here.
[00:34:44] Paul Partridge: And the first thing he did is he gave us a grand tour of the town hall. And then he spent the entire day with us. And he took us down the streets into the places where my wife’s mother’s relatives lived, because he knew the name.
[00:35:09] Bill Roehm: Oh, my gosh.
[00:35:09] Paul Partridge: And he said, your great aunt lived here and other great aunt lived there. And that’s where where your uncle lived. And your mother would have known this person and that kind of thing. So as you can imagine, that was spectacular. He he threw a big lunch for us. And to have that, you know, experience, number one, but to have it with your kids and for them to see, you know, and get connected back generations, you know, live and in person.
[00:35:43] Paul Partridge: Yeah, it was just it was just amazing. And it never would have happened if, you know, our concierge hadn’t have found or known this this guide that was connected to the to the mayor. So it was a bit of serendipity. But we, you know, we try to create this space and, you know, put people with the homes that that have these kind of, you know, insider connections and at least knowledge that can open the door to some of these moments, we call them.
[00:36:09] Bill Roehm: Yeah. How old were your kids then?
[00:36:17] Paul Partridge: See, they were teenagers.
[00:36:17] Bill Roehm: Yeah, I just I definitely we and we touch on this a lot on the podcast, but I just think it’s so important for kids, especially like that age, like teenage really starting to understand, you know, when they go somewhere, like they get they maybe get it more than a younger younger child does. But yeah, it’s just so important for for children to be exposed to things like that.
[00:36:42] Paul Partridge: So yeah, and I think, you know, I think there’s a direct line of sight there, Bill, because I’ll tell you in the case that, you know, my two daughters who were teens at the time, one of them went on to live in Spain for a year in Italy for half a year speaks Spanish, speaks Italian. And my other daughter works in the travel business. And she works in the same company as my wife does. So I think that travel bug, you know, that that that definitely seeped in by having, you know, these kinds of experiences.
[00:37:19] Bill Roehm: Yeah, absolutely. And we’ve talked about some of that offline too, with like the way my kids are. And just, yeah, I mean, and I think it touches everyone differently. And maybe some not as much as others. But yeah, there’s definitely something, something that happens for sure. So Liz, that’s amazing. That experience.
[00:37:39] Paul Partridge: And I mean, I’m happy to share a couple more Italy stories, if you want to hear them, or we can move on to something else.
[00:37:46] Bill Roehm: No, I’d love to. Absolutely.
[00:37:50] Paul Partridge: As we were talking, as I was telling that story, two other couple other things popped into my head. One is I will just mention this because for your audience, if they’re looking for something unique to do in Italy, we went and I’ve also sent some people there to the Palio. Have you heard of the Palio?
[00:38:15] Bill Roehm: I don’t think so.
[00:38:16] Paul Partridge: Yeah. So the Palio is one of the world’s oldest horse races and it takes place in the city of Siena. And they race on bareback in the town center.
[00:38:29] Bill Roehm: Okay, I have heard of this. Yes.
[00:38:31] Paul Partridge: Yeah.
[00:38:31] [Uncertain speaker]: But it’s awesome.
[00:38:32] Paul Partridge: Yeah. And there’s a tremendous.
[00:38:34] Bill Roehm: All the towns are kind of areas against each other, right?
[00:38:38] Paul Partridge: Actually, you know where it is? It’s the neighborhoods.
[00:38:40] Bill Roehm: That’s what I mean.
[00:38:41] Paul Partridge: Siena.
[00:38:41] Bill Roehm: The neighborhoods.
[00:38:42] Paul Partridge: Yes. They’re called contrada. And again, through, you know, again, through a concierge help, we were, we actually got invited to, we were adopted by one of the contrada called the Aquila Eagle. And we got to, so the horse, so each neighborhood has a horse that represents the neighborhood. And that’s the race is almost, I don’t want to say it’s life and death, but maybe it’s more important than life and death.
[00:39:13] Bill Roehm: And isn’t it sort of like not necessarily the neighborhood that you live in today, it’s necessarily the neighborhood that you grew up in?
[00:39:20] Paul Partridge: Yeah.
[00:39:20] Bill Roehm: I feel like I’ve heard stories of like husband and wife are like split up for the day because they’re moving against each other.
[00:39:27] Paul Partridge: It can happen. It depends on how you decide to play it, right?
[00:39:29] Bill Roehm: Yeah.
[00:39:29] Paul Partridge: So, you know, for me, if it was, if he did it by states, you know, I live in New Jersey. I said, I married a Jersey girl, so I live in Jersey, but I grew up in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. So it was by states, I would, you know, maybe I would be for New Jersey, or maybe I would be for Rhode Island or something, right? It’d be kind of the similar thing. But the rivalries go back, you know, five, 600 years or more.
[00:39:51] Paul Partridge: And there’s been a lot of chicanery, you know, tied into these races where horses and or jockeys have been kidnapped. They may or may not have been drugged. They may or may not have had large sums of money bet on them. There’s a very, there’s a very interesting sideshow to all we’ll call it to these horse races. But when you, so it’s a three day event actually happens twice every summer. And it turns out to be a brilliant idea because it draws a lot of people.
[00:40:29] Paul Partridge: So it’s a great, it’s a great for the economy. But for these, you know, three days, the best thing that can happen is that your horse and your neighborhood wins. The second best thing that can happen is that your enemy, every neighborhood has enemy, that your enemy loses. So as part of the dealings that go on in back rooms, etc., sometimes, and the horses get drawn by a lot. So you don’t, you don’t, you don’t raise and bring in your own horse.
[00:41:07] Paul Partridge: There’s a pool of horses. And then by lot, sometimes people think it’s by chance. Sometimes people think it might not be by chance, but the horses get selected and assigned to the neighborhood. And you may decide that, oh man, you know, our horse doesn’t have a chance to win. So what are we going to do? We’re going to align with another neighborhood so that our enemy neighborhood loses.
[00:41:43] Bill Roehm: Okay.
[00:41:43] Paul Partridge: So that might be, you know, trying to, when they line up at the beginning, you try to line up in such a way that maybe you’re going to block another horse or you, you trigger the, the gate too early so that they have to do a restart and everybody has to re-line again. Or you don’t let a horse in on a turn or something like that. So there’s all these, all this strategy that’s going on.
[00:42:10] Paul Partridge: It happens on, the riders run bareback and it’s in a town square and it’s not square. It’s very, it’s very lopsided. It’s, well, it’s an, you know, it’s an old, it’s an old town. And so there’s some weird angles that shut out. They put padding on it. So if, you know, the horses run into it, they don’t get seriously hurt. But if that happens, lots of times the jockey gets knocked off. And the rule is if the horse finishes the race with or without a jockey, the horse wins.
[00:42:49] Paul Partridge: So there’s many races that the horse wins without a jockey.
[00:42:57] Bill Roehm: Oh my gosh.
[00:42:57] Paul Partridge: So we got, like I said, we got invited to be part of one of the neighborhoods, which meant that we got to go to the dinner. So before the, before the race, there’s a practice race the night before. And then after that, every neighborhood has a big dinner where big part of the neighborhood shows up and eats together. So it was in this, I want to say like a church that had been partially, I don’t know if it had been bombed out or what, but it was like, just like some of the walls were still standing, but the rest of it wasn’t.
[00:43:41] Paul Partridge: And it looked like a scene out of Harry Potter because they, they had, you can imagine they had these tables that went on forever because you have literally, I don’t know, they must’ve had, you know, 2000 people there.
[00:43:57] Bill Roehm: I was going to say hundreds.
[00:43:58] Paul Partridge: Yeah. No, no, it was hundreds. So these tables go on forever. They’re all set up in, of course, chairs, but they had lights and there was a stage and the, you know, dignitaries are up there and they, then they bring in they bring in the jockey to great fanfare. And that jockey gets toasted and sung to and paraded around and, and young women come in and dance. And it’s, it’s quite a spectacle. And we thought that our horse didn’t have a chance of winning just by watching the face of the jockey during the dinner.
[00:44:34] Paul Partridge: Because instead of, if that was happening to me, I’d feel like, you know, King for the day, he looked terrified. And, you know, they’re so passionate about this that, you know, sometimes, you know, if they don’t think the jockey does a good job, then they’re not necessarily happy with him. And things have happened to the jockeys, let’s just say. So he was looking terrified. And I thought, oh boy, he knows he doesn’t have a chance in this race.
[00:45:07] Paul Partridge: But the experience of eating with, you know, a thousand or two thousand people, singing songs and dancing and drinking wine. I mean, it really was absolutely one of the spectacular things arranged, as I said, by the concierge. And then also she arranged for us. The last thing you want to do is you can, there’s in the center of the square is where the most number of people can fit. And once you go in there, it’s like, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Kentucky Derby, but they had that center area where generally it’s like college kids go in there because, you know, once you go in there, you’re stuck in there for, you know, like all day.
[00:45:54] Paul Partridge: And it’s the same thing in this, in the center of the square here. So we knew we didn’t want to do that because you literally have to stand there for hours because they do, prior to the race, they have about, I think it’s about a three hour parade where the entire town dresses up in the costumes of the original [unclear word]. So, you know, you have these elaborate costumes and medieval garb on male and female, and you have the trumpeters and you have the the flag throwers and, you know, giant oxen pulling big carts and zillion horses, music.
[00:46:44] Paul Partridge: It’s really something, but that goes for three hours in the hot sun. And then they have the Italian cavalry comes in. Anyway, by the time the races run and finishes, you’re stuck in that center. They don’t let anybody in or out. So you’re in there for, you know, maybe the better part of five hours. So our crew said, well, we, you know, not being able to get to a bathroom for five hours is not going to be possible.
[00:47:14] Paul Partridge: Anyway, so we got, it was arranged for us to be on the outside and to get to our seats, which was on sort of a, what looked like kind of like a high school bleachers kind of thing. They were bleachers. But to get to, you had to go through this, it was a restaurant and then up some stairs winding around and then you had to crawl out a window to get to get to the bleachers to watch the parade and then eventually the eventually the race.
[00:47:51] Paul Partridge: So the Palio, I would say, by the way, I mean, if just for your entertainment on a Friday night, Netflix has a documentary, I believe it’s called the Palio, that is extremely entertaining. Tells this whole story, shows it, shows the race, shows the backstory, shows the history of it. And it’s really terrific. And I recommend that to anybody who thinks that this sounds interesting.
[00:48:18] Bill Roehm: So very cool. And noted the Palio,
[00:48:18] Paul Partridge: That was one of our great trips.
[00:48:23] Bill Roehm: I need to know though, did your race, how did your horse do?
[00:48:28] Paul Partridge: The jockey got thrown off.
[00:48:28] Bill Roehm: Oh gosh. And did the horse do?
[00:48:33] Paul Partridge: The horse finished in a very lackadaisical way.
[00:48:33] Bill Roehm: Okay. You guys did not turn out well then.
[00:48:39] Paul Partridge: He was not, he was not in the running to win.
[00:48:39] Bill Roehm: So your jockey was foreshadowing.
[00:48:44] Paul Partridge: Yeah, I think he knew that, I guess in some ways he probably was probably relieved that he got tossed because it kind of is a built in excuse there. What can I do? I got thrown. So I think if anything, like actually it happened right in front of us where we were standing, happened right in front of us where we got thrown. And the first thing of course is, oh my God, is he okay? And he immediately, he immediately get up and we realized, okay, he’s fine.
[00:49:21] Paul Partridge: All right. Now that he’s fine, it’s all good. He’s going to be fine. He wasn’t going to win anyway. So we’re just happy that he was okay. But yeah, that was an amazing experience. I was thinking about why. You’re getting me telling these stories Bill. And as I tell them, it makes me think of another one.
[00:49:45] Bill Roehm: I’m not doing anything here, buddy.
[00:49:45] Paul Partridge: And so I know.
[00:49:48] Bill Roehm: Oh, I love it.
[00:49:51] Paul Partridge: You’re triggering all sorts of things. I was thinking of the first time I was in Rome and it was just my wife and I. And it kind of, it reminds me of one of the things that, anyone who’s ever traveled with a group is one thing that’s very obvious and that’s that people have very different ideas of the perfect vacation. So for years, planning trips and trying to make them better and better for people, I had this sort of riddle that I was trying to always solve, which was, how do you plan one trip that makes 12 different people happy?
[00:50:35] Paul Partridge: And through lots of experimenting over the years, we invented something called travel type matching. And it’s really based on the idea of, well, two things. Number one is that we figured out there’s four different travel types, similar to people take personality tests. Sometimes when you apply for a job or you take a new job.
[00:51:10] Bill Roehm: That’s exactly what I was thinking of that from, is from applying for a job.
[00:51:14] Paul Partridge: Yeah. I think it’s called like [Unclear name] or something like that. That’s one of them anyway. So my thought was, let’s apply that to travel and as a way to try to get to, if you’re on a trip and you’re the type that likes to hang by the pool and you’re traveling with friends or relatives that like to do three museums before noon, one of you or both of you, are going to be unhappy. And it also gets to this thing.
[00:51:48] Paul Partridge: I don’t know if you ever had this yourself or you ever heard it from folks that come back from a vacation saying, oh my gosh, I need a vacation from my vacation.
[00:51:58] Bill Roehm: Yes, sir.
[00:51:58] Paul Partridge: Yeah. So to me, that’s, you know, it’s generally one of two things. One is the easy answer is, hey, you tried to do too many things in too few days. That’s, you know, that’s common and that’s easy to figure out and that’s easy to fix. The other is there’s a misalignment. So, you know, you, I don’t want to say you were forced, but you were brought along on activities that you might not have picked if, you know, left to your own devices.
[00:52:30] Paul Partridge: Right. So it’s more exhausting going to spending three hours in a museum if you hate museums. Right. And, you know, that can be said for a lot of things. So we came up with travel type matching and we had there’s four different types and I’ll just, I’ll give you a kind of a quick recap of them. So the first one is called an immerser. And an immerser wants to understand the place inside and out. And they’re the ones reading every museum plaque, you know, and they ask, they’re always asking the guide a lot of questions.
[00:53:13] Paul Partridge: And, you know, you’ve gone on a two hour, you know, guided museum experience and everyone’s looking at their watch saying, you know, it’s time for lunch and the immerser is going, but I have another question for the guide. So that’s the immerser. It makes me think to my wife is an immerser. I am not. But first time we were in Rome together, we were we were at the Pantheon and we sat there and that’s, have you been, that’s one of the most amazing structures I’ve ever seen in my life.
[00:53:55] Bill Roehm: Yes, I have.
[00:53:55] Paul Partridge: Yeah. It is. It’s incredible. It’s incredible, right? I mean, it’s, it’s 2000 years old and they had an unsupported concrete dome in like, you know, the year 100 AD.
[00:54:11] [Uncertain speaker]: Mind-boggling. Mind-boggling.
[00:54:11] Paul Partridge: And the oculus, the devil’s hole at the top, you know, that the light comes in or if it rains, it rains right inside. And but the way the light goes around is, you know, the columns are amazing. The bronze doors are amazing. Anyway, the Pantheon is an amazing place. And I was just sitting there like, you know, my jaw open staring at it. And my wife, she had brought, you know, I don’t know, three different guidebooks and she was going through, you know, the history and how it was made and who was around and the architect and every fact you could possibly imagine.
[00:54:58] Bill Roehm: When she goes into a place like that, if they have like a little gift area, does she buy the books?
[00:55:02] Paul Partridge: She’s already has them built. She’s pre-ordered them. She doesn’t, she doesn’t need to buy them there. So buy a magnet when she’s there. That’s about it.
[00:55:16] Bill Roehm: I got it.
[00:55:16] Paul Partridge: So, you know, she’s the leader of the immersers. She’s the leader of the immersers. So, but after about 20 minutes, you know, I said, when would you mind if we went in and the whole time was outside? Yeah. We were standing outside and she was reading fascinating stuff. Don’t get me wrong. Yeah. But like, you know, that was feeding her brain and what she, you know, crave to know. And so she’s an immerser. I’m an experiencer.
[00:55:53] Paul Partridge: That’s the second one.
[00:55:53] Bill Roehm: And to be clear, we’re not, we’re not making fun of Mrs. Partridge.
[00:55:58] Paul Partridge: Oh gosh, no, no, she’s just, she’s making a little light. It’s, I was, she would, I mean, if she told the story, she would say, you know, it would be from her perspective would be, and I had all this great stuff and I had done all this great research and he was like in a hurry to get in. Right. So, and she, you know, she’s equally right.
[00:56:16] Bill Roehm: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:56:16] Paul Partridge: But, you know, so the four types, it’s important to know what everybody likes. So an experiencer is somebody who relies on their senses, right? So they want to see it, taste it, smell it, you know, experience it for themselves. And they’re the type of person that kind of wanders off, you know, and you go, oh, where did, you know, where did Paul go? And then, you know, comes back later with a local fisherman who he invited to dinner.
[00:56:50] Bill Roehm: Yeah. So that’s, that’s a true story, I imagine.
[00:56:50] Paul Partridge: Yeah, could be. And then there’s the adventurers and they come alive through activity, right? So for them, you know, if they’re not hiking or kayaking or climbing to the best view, they get restless, you know, they’re just like, I gotta do something. And that’s the person that says, you know, I’ll meet you at seven in the morning and actually means it. Right? They’re the adventurers. And then the last one is called the relaxers. And you can kind of imagine there that, you know, they found the perfect chair by the pool on day one.
[00:57:33] Paul Partridge: And if you want to find them on day seven, they’re right in that same chair. Because that’s all they need. They need a beach or a pool or something for them. You know, the vacation begins the moment they arrive, they say success. We’re here. And now I’m gonna just relax. Where, you know, other people say, no, wait, this has just begun, right? Now we’re gonna do all the fun stuff.
[00:58:01] Bill Roehm: So I think I think if I was to self diagnose, yeah, I think I would say that I am truly an explorer who thinks he wants to be an immerser. Because sort of, I’m sort of like the, it’s sort of at the end though. So I’m the explorer who goes, okay, I didn’t do the research ahead of time. But now I need to know more.
[00:58:26] Paul Partridge: Yes, yes.
[00:58:26] Bill Roehm: That’s what I do. I never do, but I want to.
[00:58:26] Paul Partridge: That’s why we love guides so much.
[00:58:34] Bill Roehm: Yes.
[00:58:34] Paul Partridge: And the truth is, you know, honestly, the, first of all, most groups include all four different types. And honestly, most people are more than one, right? So it’s not, you know, sometimes, like I’ll speak for myself, sometimes I’m an experiencer, sometimes I’m a relaxer, right? Depending on the occasion.
[00:58:53] Bill Roehm: That’s my experiencer, not explorer. I said the wrong thing.
[00:58:59] Paul Partridge: Oh, no worries.
[00:58:59] Bill Roehm: You know what I mean?
[00:59:01] Paul Partridge: Yeah, sometimes I’m an adventurer, right? But I mean, if I had to just pick one, I would say I’m an experiencer. But you know, what we decided and what we thought, well, we’ve come closer to solving the riddle, is that, you know, we say the best trips give everyone something they’re excited about, and then still bring everyone together for the moments that matter most. Right? So the way that a lot of people do it is they, you know, they’ll have breakfast together in the morning, and then everybody goes off, you know, and does their thing.
[00:59:33] Paul Partridge: And then meet around the pool in the afternoon, maybe for a happy hour, or if not, we all have dinner together. And we all tell the stories of what we did that day. So that way, you know, everybody’s kind of finding their happy place. And at the same time, we’re still honoring, you know, the number one reason that we’re doing this trip is that we can all be together.
[01:00:08] Bill Roehm: And honestly, that’s it’s brilliant, not just because of the fact that everyone kind of gets to do whatever they’re most inclined to want to do. But the whole thing that you just mentioned that the whole thing of when everyone comes back together and gets to share their adventures of the day, even if the adventure was sitting by the pool and watching, you know, somebody swim or, you know, whatever it was, but this sharing that your experience is just like we do on the show.
[01:00:34] Bill Roehm: That’s that’s the coolest part for me. I mean, besides experiencing things yourself, but I love hearing and telling the stories.
[01:00:40] Paul Partridge: Yeah, and that’s, you know, that’s what starts to that’s what starts to stick in the old memory bank, too, right? It’s like, you know, I think about, again, I can only say my own experiences. But, you know, there’s plenty of times that we we take trips. And so we do we do a family trip every year. And it’s my wife’s brother and sister and their spouses, our family, our kids, my son-in-law. We do one of those every year.
[01:01:14] Paul Partridge: And, you know, sitting around the dinner table, everybody telling their stories, it seems like every year I hear a different story. I learned something else from, you know, a family member like, I never knew that about you. I’ve known you for I’ve known you for 30, 40 years. And I didn’t even know that. And yeah, that’s that’s, you know, that’s the great part of it.
[01:01:37] Bill Roehm: And then that time sitting around together sharing the stories becomes a story and a memory, which I just love it.
[01:01:43] Paul Partridge: Yeah, yeah. And it’s, you know, I always go back to the way most people, when they’re planning a trip, you know, it’s always like, what’s the first question they ask? What’s the first question anybody asks?
[01:02:01] Bill Roehm: Well, depends on the person, I think.
[01:02:01] Paul Partridge: Well, my experience is it’s
[01:02:11] [Uncertain speaker]: [Unclear short question.]
[01:02:11] Paul Partridge: Where are we going?
[01:02:11] Bill Roehm: And then, yeah, what’s the budget?
[01:02:11] Paul Partridge: Yeah. But it’s usually starts with the destination. And you’re right. You know, and look, why do we travel in the first place, right? To see new places to experience new things. And yeah, I love those things too. But the trips that stay with us aren’t just about discovering new places or checking things off of a checklist. To me, they’re about sharing them with the people we love. You know, it’s great to have a view, but sharing the view makes it better.
[01:02:44] Paul Partridge: You know, it’s great to have a delicious dinner or amazing meal, but sharing the meal is better. Sharing the laughter is better. And creating those stories that, you know, you’ll reminisce about years from now when you’re sitting around, you know, at Thanksgiving or whatever. So, you know, when we’re doing these things. Another thing that, you know, kind of latched on to the trying to solve the question of how do you have one trip that makes 12 people happy is the first question that we have when somebody comes to us is not, you know, where you’re going.
[01:03:21] Paul Partridge: It’s who’s coming. So we want to know who’s coming, you know, is this the first time the family’s been together in years? You know, are you celebrating a special birthday or a special anniversary? Tell us about who’s coming and why. We want to know the why, right? Is this the trip where the grandkids finally get to spend a week with their cousins? You know, that kind of stuff. And once we understand that, choosing the destination becomes easier and also choosing where you stay becomes easier because we’re going to serve that reason, that occasion.
[01:04:01] Paul Partridge: And look, it makes sense if you think about it, because if you’re celebrating grandma’s 80th birthday, that looks a lot different than college friends coming together, you know, after 10 years.
[01:04:22] Bill Roehm: Without a doubt, yes.
[01:04:25] Paul Partridge: Yeah. So anyway, that’s why we’re trying to solve the problems before they happen, though.
[01:04:35] Bill Roehm: I really, truly, I said it before, I think it’s brilliant. I really do. I think it’s a really awesome idea. And I just am shocked if somebody hasn’t thought of it before. But I’m glad that you did, because I think it’s really awesome and a great unique way to look at things, especially for big groups. So yeah, listen, we I’m looking at the clock, I cannot believe we’re already over an hour 10 or around an hour.
[01:04:55] Bill Roehm: Go ahead.
[01:04:55] Paul Partridge: Whoa, where did that go?
[01:04:55] Bill Roehm: I know, it happens. So I would say we probably have one or two time for a couple more before we get into the final five questions that I always wrap with. Take me, I’d love Italy, we can stay in Italy. But is there anywhere else like one of your favorite stories or experiences from anywhere else in the world that you’ve been and I promise you, you’re coming back on the show sometime down the road? Because we we didn’t touch on anything.
[01:05:21] Bill Roehm: So
[01:05:21] Paul Partridge: No, we just get started.
[01:05:27] Bill Roehm: I know.
[01:05:27] Paul Partridge: Yeah, I’ll tell you, you know, I mentioned, you know, I mentioned Paros earlier. And I’ll tell you, I can tell you a story about that. And again, it kind of time I don’t mean to be, you know, clubbing this idea over the head too much. But it’s, it gets back to the concierge again. You know, most people I think, I probably should have said this earlier, but I think when I say the word concierge, I think people think, oh, yeah, you know, they make restaurant reservations, or they book tickets, or maybe they, you know, they arrange a car service for you or something like that, right?
[01:06:03] Paul Partridge: And yes, they do those things and ours do those things as well. But to me, that’s not where the greatest value lies. You know, to me, the greatest value is especially if you go into a place either that you’ve never been before or a foreign country. And it’s like having a local friend who’s like already done all the homework for you. And, you know, when you go to a even a foreign city that you’ve never been to, or I mean, a city in the United States, right, the first time you’ve ever been to, you know, wherever I was, San Francisco, or whatever it is, the first time you go there, if you have a friend in town who can show you around, you know, it makes such a world of difference.
[01:06:46] Paul Partridge: And, you know, especially overseas, right, if the person they speak the language, they know the local customs, they know, you know, they can help you get settled. And the other side of the coin is, if something, you know, is amiss, they can take care of it. So, you know, if you’re in Greece and in August, and you rent a house, you know, maybe you rent a house through Airbnb or something like that, and you get there, and you get there on a Friday, and, you know, it might be over 100 degrees, and let’s say the air conditioning goes out, and, you know, you’ve got 12 people, 12 unhappy people, and it’s a Friday, you don’t speak Greek, you don’t know the owner of the house, you don’t know where the owner of the house even lives.
[01:07:39] Paul Partridge: He or she could be in Greece, could be down the street, or they could be in Athens, or they could be in Istanbul, or London, who knows where, in New York. You have to find the owner, and then they have to solve the problem from wherever they are on a Friday afternoon on an island in Greece. Let me tell you, that problem is not going to get solved for days, if you’re lucky. And if you’re not lucky, it may not get solved at all, or it may get solved, you know, on the last day that you’re there.
[01:08:14] Paul Partridge: And to be able to have someone on the scene, where you can just say, hey, as you can see the air conditioning is out, do you think you could have that taken care of for us? We’re going to the beach. That is a whole different, that’s a life-saving sentence that you can say.
[01:08:37] Bill Roehm: Oh, for sure.
[01:08:37] Paul Partridge: You know, it really matters quite a bit. Anyway, I didn’t mean to get too askew on that one, but it relates to this particular story about the first time we went to Paros. That was a multi-generational trip, and it was one of those planes, trains, and automobiles just to get there, Bill. We got there, we were completely exhausted. And we dropped our bags, and we headed to the nearest beach, and we all just laid on the beach and fell asleep.
[01:09:13] Paul Partridge: And about 90 minutes later, I woke up, and I was completely covered in sand, and I had sand in my hair, and in my ears, and probably in places I probably shouldn’t mention on the podcast. But in everybody else, I looked around, I was the first one awake, everybody else looked the same. And it looked like the sandstorm scene from Lawrence of Arabia.
[01:09:41] Bill Roehm: Oh my gosh,
[01:09:41] Paul Partridge: Yes. And later, we met our concierge, and we said, look, not for nothing, but are all the beaches on Paros like this? And she just started giggling. And then she told us about the Meltemi winds and how they wreak havoc during certain times of the year on certain sides of the island. So in July and August, they run especially strong. And if you’re trying to do a windsurfing, you happen to love it. But if you try and sit on a beach and enjoy the beach, you absolutely hate it.
[01:10:18] Paul Partridge: So she schooled us on which beaches to avoid, which sheltered coves would be calm and peaceful, and also devoid of crowds. And some days, we had the beach almost entirely to ourselves. And listen, I live in New Jersey, so a beach that has six people on it is my idea of paradise. And sometimes the best local advice is the advice that saves you from making the wrong decision before you even know it’s the wrong decision.
[01:10:56] Bill Roehm: For sure.
[01:10:56] Paul Partridge: So I kind of look at the concierge as somebody who’s like protecting your experience. You’ve put a lot of time, effort, and money, frankly, into creating this. And you just want to be focused on the people that you came to be with. And they kind of protect that, if that makes sense.
[01:11:17] Bill Roehm: Oh, for sure. No, that’s awesome. I don’t know that I’ve ever really worked with something like that with the concierge, but it’s definitely something that I’m going to keep in mind going forward, depending on what kind of a trip that I’m taking, I suppose.
[01:11:32] Paul Partridge: Yeah, especially for the groups. Yeah.
[01:11:35] Bill Roehm: Let’s do this. And it hurts my heart to say that we should probably head to the final five questions, but I’m also excited because we have a little bit of extra time. So you can feel free to expand as much as you’d like to on these answers. And so if you have some fantastic stories and experiences that go along with these, then by all means. Yeah. And you don’t know these questions, correct?
[01:12:00] Paul Partridge: I do not, unless I do like a Carnac, the amazing Carnac from Johnny Carson, you know, try to predict them.
[01:12:07] Bill Roehm: Well, no need. Hopefully most of them are easy for you, but none of them are difficult. Unless I’m just having to make up your mind. So, okay, let’s start off with question number one. And we did not really talk about food. So I’m interested to know what your answer is going to be like in this for this. So question number one, and I say this every time I phrase the question very specifically. So question one is of all the places in the world that you have ever been, what has been one or two of your favorite meal experiences that you’ve ever had?
[01:12:45] Paul Partridge: Yeah. Well, I told you one and I’ll tell you another one. The one that, you know, has to rank at the top is the one in when we were at that papal retreat where the, you know, the chef comes by and says, what would you like to eat today?
[01:13:00] Bill Roehm: Gosh, yeah.
[01:13:00] Paul Partridge: Yeah. So that’s the first thing that pops into my mind. And I’m going to go the opposite end of the spectrum, Bill, on the other one and tell you about the greatest sandwich I ever had.
[01:13:12] Bill Roehm: Oh, please. You know sandwiches.
[01:13:12] Paul Partridge: Yeah. So that was on the island of Capri. And it’s going to get my wife and I, and we took the ferry over and we were famished when we got there. We were like, you know, we had planned a hike. We were going to do, we had some things that we wanted to do, including a hike, but we were both saying, oh my God, we got to eat something before we, you know, before we go on this hike.
[01:13:36] Paul Partridge: So we just randomly stopped in this small little, I don’t know if you would call it even a deli or something. It was like a little, a little family run cafe, I guess, and just ordered prosciutto and mozz and they had homemade bread.
[01:14:03] Bill Roehm: You have me already.
[01:14:03] Paul Partridge: Oh my God. And we sat on a bench overlooking the ocean and we made more sounds eating these sandwiches that, you know, I think people were stopping and going, what are they doing? What are those two up to? Because we were just like, this is amazing. And we didn’t want it to end. You know, it was like, you know, can we just keep going? It was, but there was, it was, yeah, that was great. That was the greatest, that was the single greatest sandwich ever.
[01:14:43] Paul Partridge: And it, I can, to the point where I can think of the second best and also was in Italy and actually just happened this year. But yes, I went from you can eat anything you want in the whole wide world too. How about a sandwich? And just unbelievable.
[01:14:53] Bill Roehm: And I’m so glad that, and I know there’s others out there that are like me, but, and it’s like, I can, I can like judge myself on how good the food is that I’m eating. Like if I have, you know, say a steak and it’s, it’s really good. I mean, it’s really good. I still know that it’s not one of the best things I’ve ever eaten because I have made those noises that I haven’t, I haven’t forced them out.
[01:15:23] Bill Roehm: They just happen.
[01:15:23] Paul Partridge: They just happened. You just, you can’t stop. I mean, it’s, yeah, man. Yeah.
[01:15:32] Bill Roehm: [Unclear phrase] those experiences because I’ve had them and I want them every time I eat, [unclear phrase]. So yeah, that’s so incredible. Okay. Well, question number two is completely different.
[01:15:46] Paul Partridge: Okay.
[01:15:46] Bill Roehm: And question number two is difficult for some people. And maybe you don’t have an answer that has happened. But give it a shot. Question number two is of all the places in the world that you have ever been.
[01:15:55] Paul Partridge: Yeah.
[01:15:55] Bill Roehm: Even if I came to you and said, Paul, here is a free trip. Take whoever you’d like, go enjoy yourself. You would say, no, thank you. I don’t want to go back for whatever reason.
[01:16:06] Paul Partridge: Oh, wow. Well, the easy answer is Cleveland, but-
[01:16:20] Bill Roehm: That is an easy answer, especially if I’m from Pittsburgh, but go ahead.
[01:16:23] Paul Partridge: I’m not going to do that to my friends in Ohio. No, and actually that’s not true because I do like Cleveland.
[01:16:31] Bill Roehm: Yeah, me too, actually.
[01:16:31] Paul Partridge: You know what? This might sound like an even stranger answer, but I would say, I think I might say Las Vegas, Bill.
[01:16:37] Bill Roehm: Okay. It has been used before, which is nothing to worry about. But I get it. Tell me why, though, for you.
[01:16:51] Paul Partridge: That first experience when you walk into the first casino and you walk through it, I just wanted to just keep walking. It’s not me. The whole thing is just not me. And ironically, my wife is there as we speak.
[01:17:08] Bill Roehm: And you’re not.
[01:17:08] Paul Partridge: And I’m happy not to be there. She’s there on business, although she wouldn’t be there either if it was up to her.
[01:17:14] Bill Roehm: I gotcha. Okay. Very fair answer. And I completely understand. And even people who have gone there and have enjoyed it have said, yeah, but I’ve enjoyed it. And that’s good enough. I don’t need to go-
[01:17:28] Paul Partridge: No, yeah, yeah. No, there’s no right or wrong answer. I don’t think there- No. I mean, I think about a polarizing city for me is I happen to love Venice, but I’ve met so many people who don’t like it at all.
[01:17:40] Bill Roehm: And is it usually because of the crowds and maybe it’s a little smelly sometimes if they go the wrong time?
[01:17:46] Paul Partridge: Yeah. I think Venice is a place that it really can depend on when you go.
[01:17:53] Bill Roehm: Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, I’ve only been once and I didn’t even share about the crowds. That didn’t bother me a bit. It just was so beautiful.
[01:18:03] Paul Partridge: Yeah. To me, it’s like a Brigadoon magical place. It’s sort of like looking at the Pantheon, where I go, like, how is this possible? It’s crazy, crazy, crazy good. But like I said, I’ve met plenty of people who say, how can you like Venice? It stinks and there’s too many people and it’s expensive.
[01:18:23] [Uncertain speaker]: Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. It’s so worth it.
[01:18:34] Bill Roehm: Okay, well, we’ll taking question two then and flipping it and maybe that is part of your answer. But so question number three is, of all the places in the world that you have then, but I add a caveat to this, if you only had one or two trips left in your lifetime, for whatever reason, doesn’t have to be a morbid thing. But for one or you, you only have one or two trips left in your lifetime, what are those one or two places that you would absolutely have to go back to?
[01:18:55] Paul Partridge: Oh, wow. I don’t think there’s a wrong answer here, Bill, on this one, because I don’t know. I mean, I immediately think of about six or eight and kind of feel the same way. I happen to be very partial to the Azores.
[01:19:09] Bill Roehm: Okay. And why?
[01:19:09] Paul Partridge: Well, the whole reason that I went there in the first place is I’m half Portuguese. So I made it a goal to get to Portugal. I’ve been to Portugal many times and then to the Azores because that’s where my mother’s family emigrated from, was from the Azores.
[01:19:37] Bill Roehm: Okay.
[01:19:37] Paul Partridge: And I just fell in love with it. It’s funny, it’s one of those crazy things. Well, it wasn’t the Azores trip, but the first time the first time I went to Portugal, I flew over on TAP, which is [unclear phrase] and got on the plane with my wife. We sat next to each other and all the stewards and stewardesses spoke Portuguese to me and English to my wife.
[01:20:08] Bill Roehm: Oh my gosh.
[01:20:08] Paul Partridge: And it happened everywhere I went to, if I go into a bakery to get a little pastry or something in the morning or a coffee or whatever, speaking Portuguese to me every time.
[01:20:22] Bill Roehm: Wow. How cool is that?
[01:20:22] Paul Partridge: Yeah. So I’m home. But my Portuguese is like, unfortunately, I can say all the things that my mother said to me when I was a kid, like turn off the lights, wash your hands. And when someone’s having a conversation with you, you can’t answer with wash your hands.
[01:20:45] [Uncertain speaker]: [Unclear short reply.]
[01:20:52] Paul Partridge: Yeah. You definitely get some funny looks. But yeah, the Azores, I totally fell in love with. You know, it is a bunch of islands. So it’s not, people say the Azores, but which island? We spent the most time at the biggest one, because that’s again where the family was from. That’s called São Miguel. But we went to another island called Pico where the monks figured out how to grow wine grapes on rocks.
[01:21:14] Bill Roehm: Oh my gosh.
[01:21:14] Paul Partridge: They didn’t have soil. So they said,
[01:21:22] Bill Roehm: Wow, they really wanted wine.
[01:21:22] Paul Partridge: Yeah, they did. And some of the best wine, what I’ve heard at least is the harder that the grapes have to work to stay alive, the better quality the wine is.
[01:21:40] Bill Roehm: Yeah. I’ve heard that as well.
[01:21:40] Paul Partridge: This particular wine that comes from growing on rocks is quite delicious. The problem is that they only make so much of it. And the way the distribution goes is the island of Pico gets first dibs. If there’s any left, then the capital island, São Miguel gets second dibs. If there’s any left, then the mainland of Portugal, specifically Lisbon, gets the third dibs. And there’s generally not more than that. Maybe you might go to Óbidos or you might find it in some other cities, maybe in the Algarve or something.
[01:22:29] Paul Partridge: But it very rarely makes it out of Portugal and never makes it to the US. So believe me, I have tried very desperately to get this wine. Even to the point where I grew up in [Unclear place names], there’s a lot of Portuguese and there’s stores that just import everything from Portugal. And there’s a wine store that does that. And so I said, oh, they’ll have it for sure. I can go and get it. And drove to New Bedford, Massachusetts to try to get it.
[01:22:59] Paul Partridge: And they said, no, we would love to get it, but we can’t.
[01:23:09] Bill Roehm: Wow. You need a concierge in Portugal to buy you a bottle.
[01:23:13] Paul Partridge: Yeah.
[01:23:13] Bill Roehm: And ship it to you.
[01:23:15] Paul Partridge: Well, we took as many as we were allowed to. But yes, I would have to do annual trips to go and load up on it. But it’s amazing. And it’s not like a very expensive wine, because it’s a local wine. So I don’t know, maybe it’s $15 a bottle or something. So it’s not any kind of extravagance. It’s just a taste extravagance. It’s its own unique taste that just, again, maybe it’s because I’m a local.
[01:23:47] Bill Roehm: It just agrees with you.
[01:23:48] Paul Partridge: It agrees with me. Yeah, I love it.
[01:23:51] Bill Roehm: So love the answer. Is Portugal then just going to stick with that? Or do you have a second one that’s like, you know,
[01:23:56] Paul Partridge: I’ll just make I’ll just to make it easier. I’ll just I’ll say the I’ll say the Azores. I would want to.
[01:24:01] Bill Roehm: Perfect.
[01:24:01] Paul Partridge: I would like to do that.
[01:24:05] Bill Roehm: All right. Awesome. Okay, question number four is just a little different. So now I’m going to say of all the places in the world that you have never been, but the same caveat, you only have one or two trips left in your lifetime for whatever reason. You know, what are those one or two places that you absolutely have to get to that you’ve never been?
[01:24:26] Paul Partridge: Well, yeah, I think this is this is an easy one for me because again, I mentioned, you know, my daughters have the travel bug and my eldest daughter and her husband the last two years. They so last two years ago, they went to South Africa. And I’ve never been to South Africa. And how they describe it in the pictures they came back with in the stories that they told made put that high on the list. And then this year, their trip was New Zealand.
[01:24:57] Paul Partridge: And I’ve been to Australia, but I’ve never been to New Zealand. And so, again, the same thing, their trips and their pictures and their stories have put that high on the list for me.
[01:25:11] Bill Roehm: Yes. Yeah, makes sense. And I, I don’t think I’ve talked to a person who’s been to New Zealand who would say they wouldn’t go back. I, I didn’t get to explore as much of it as I would have liked to when I was there earlier this year, but it’s a beautiful place, beautiful people, great food. Really incredible.
[01:25:33] Paul Partridge: Did you do both North and South or did you do so?
[01:25:37] Bill Roehm: I actually pretty much stayed right around Wellington. It’s where my daughter lives currently.
[01:25:40] Paul Partridge: Oh my gosh, she lives there.
[01:25:42] Bill Roehm: Yeah, yeah. Not for much longer. She’s been there for a couple, two, three years and they’re moving to Costa Rica here in October. So
[01:25:47] Paul Partridge: Whoa, that’s, that’s going to be a change.
[01:25:54] Bill Roehm: And we’ve been there a number of times. So she, you know, she’s, she knows all about it. Her boyfriend maybe doesn’t and oh, but I’m sure she’s told him a lot of stories. So.
[01:26:03] Paul Partridge: Yeah. And it’s, you know, there’s a similarity between the two countries because, you know, in, as you know, in New Zealand, there’s sort of, you know, there’s a Northern and a Southern experience, right? Yeah. And then I think it’s similar in Costa Rica, right? You kind of have that.
[01:26:22] Bill Roehm: It is more than West coast and East coast more.
[01:26:22] Paul Partridge: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have that, you know, it’s sort of like jungle or beach.
[01:26:27] Bill Roehm: Yes.
[01:26:27] Paul Partridge: Right. Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty, it’s pretty cool. It’s pretty cool.
[01:26:34] Bill Roehm: Yeah. I hope, I hope they enjoy it. So. Well, it’ll be easier for me to visit.
[01:26:38] Paul Partridge: Yes. I love that.
[01:26:38] Bill Roehm: Yeah. Me too. Fabulous. So listen, this has been fantastic. The question five, the one I wrap with is super, super simple because you already had the answers, you know, the answer and it is simply, what do you have planned on your docket for the rest of this year, maybe into 2027? Where are you going?
[01:26:58] Paul Partridge: Yeah. In days today, Monday, so in five days heading to the Emerald Isle. So I’m going to go to Dublin and, and then Killarney, Dingle, Galway, Connemara, spend some time in Ireland. That’s going to be, like I said, that’s coming up in a week. December, we are just making plans now to try to do some of the Christmas market things in, we’re going to, we’re thinking probably Austria.
[01:27:37] Bill Roehm: I can show you pictures from Vienna. Yeah. I goodness. Just wait.
[01:27:43] Paul Partridge: Yeah. I’m happy to say we, we, we did a trip to Vienna a year ago.
[01:27:52] Bill Roehm: For the Christmas markets though.
[01:27:52] Paul Partridge: Not for the Christmas markets. We did it. Yeah. And, and we just, I mean, I fell in love with Vienna. And anyway, so yes, we were going to, we’re going to, we’re going to do the Christmas markets and Vienna is definitely on the list. Maybe Salzburg, probably a third location. There’s some people that want to do some skiing. So
[01:28:13] Bill Roehm: I was going to say, get to Prague if you can get to Prague.
[01:28:17] Paul Partridge: We, yeah. Again, we did that last year.
[01:28:17] Bill Roehm: Okay.
[01:28:17] Paul Partridge: So it’s not, it’s not as, probably won’t happen on this trip, but I agree. Absolutely stunning [unclear word].
[01:28:24] Bill Roehm: Yeah. Again, just, I was purely thinking about Christmas markets, but you know, awesome, awesome, awesome.
[01:28:30] Paul Partridge: Yeah. So that’s happening. And then the only, the farthest I could say is I know in February, February we’re going to do, we’re going to go to Florence in, in February, and probably we’ll tack something on to that one as well.
[01:28:49] Bill Roehm: Awesome. And I, jealous in a way, I have my own exploring to do, but some of the places that you’ve been in a number of times and just, you know, I’m going to get there. I’m going to get there. So, but yeah, well,
[01:29:04] Paul Partridge: I’m going to root for you.
[01:29:04] Bill Roehm: Thanks, Paul. I appreciate it. You and I are definitely going to stay in touch.
[01:29:08] Paul Partridge: Oh yeah.
[01:29:08] Bill Roehm: Definitely going to have you back down the road at some point. You’re going to keep traveling. Plus you have so many more stories that we didn’t even touch on. Thank you for taking this much time with us as, as we wrap things here. Do you have any like final words, any last things you’d like to say before we hit stop on the episode?
[01:29:26] Paul Partridge: Yeah. I’ll tell you two quick things. If I could, one is I have a little gift for your audience. If that’s of interest.
[01:29:31] Bill Roehm: Oh my gosh. Yeah, absolutely.
[01:29:31] Paul Partridge: Yeah. Yeah. And then one last thought after that, but let me, so if something we’ve talked about today resonates with you, I put together a free guide called The Gift of Time Together. And it’s a simple three-step guide to creating unforgettable trips and lasting memories with your favorite people. And you can download it for free. And it’s, it’s gift, you know, like in present gift.travelvillaguide.com. So it’s like our website, but it has the word gift in front of it.
[01:30:10] Paul Partridge: So it’s gift.travelvillaguide.com.
[01:30:17] Bill Roehm: Yeah.
[01:30:17] Paul Partridge: If it helps you create stories that you’ll still be telling, then it’s done, you know, exactly what I hoped it would do. And I would say my final thought, Bill, is that I would say again to your audience, if, you know, if you’ve been thinking about taking one of these trips, you know, by that I mean a multi-generational trip or a family reunion or a friends reunion, milestone anniversary, I would say, you know, don’t, don’t wait for the perfect time.
[01:30:49] Paul Partridge: Because the older we get, the harder it becomes to get the, our favorite people, you know, together in the same place at the same time. So if you’ve been thinking about that, I would say start the conversation now. You know, years ago, I almost made this mistake myself. I had a chance to visit the Galapagos with a group of friends and I almost turned it down because I was busy. And I’m so glad I didn’t because I would have missed one of the most interesting places on planet earth.
[01:31:21] Paul Partridge: And I also would have missed the chance to swim with sea lions, which was kind of fun. And I remember one swam right up to me underwater, stopped, looked me straight in the eye as if to say, hey, watch this, then swam over to my wife and jumped completely over her, like something out of a Flipper movie. Everyone on the beach burst into applause. And, you know, I was still talking about it, you know, five years later or whatever it was.
[01:31:54] Paul Partridge: And I’m talking about it not because I went to the Galapagos, but [unclear phrase].
[01:32:07] [Uncertain speaker]: [Unclear short reply.]
[01:32:07] Paul Partridge: You know, I was sharing it, you know, back to what we talked about earlier, the thing that made it like super extra special was, you know, sharing it with, you know, people that I love. And that’s what I want from everyone, you know, for everyone that we work with or that we don’t work with, you know, a week or two where, you know, ordinary life can wait and everyone who matters to you is under one roof and you’re fully present, fully alive and in the middle of a story you’ll still be telling years from now, just like we are right now.
[01:32:44] Bill Roehm: Yeah, man. Really awesome. Thank you again so much, Paul. I can’t thank you enough taking this much time and good luck with everything that you have going on. And yeah, we’ll talk soon.
[01:32:56] Paul Partridge: Thank you, Bill. I really enjoyed it.
[01:32:56] Bill Roehm: And there’s another episode of the Where Have You Been podcast in the books. Thank you so much for listening today. It was another great guest with some great stories as always. And I hope that you will support all of the guests by checking out the show notes and going to their web pages, seeing any socials and projects that they may have going on. And please again, I’ll ask as always to like, subscribe, rate and review the podcast.
[01:33:15] Bill Roehm: It really does help to allow the podcast to grow and reach more people. And I appreciate you for doing that. Also, if you haven’t done so, check out the website, WHYBPodcast.com, where you can find blog posts. If you’d like to be a guest, please register to be a guest on the site and check out the merch page. There’s some really cool stuff if you’re interested in representing the pod, along with some other cool travel items and apparel that I’m working on every day as well.
[01:33:46] Bill Roehm: Join me again next week for another great guest with more incredible stories. New episodes drop every Sunday just after midnight Eastern time. Until then, thank you for being here and have a great day.
