Doug Barnard | The Mo Show Podcast | E39 (Travel Vlogger)

[Music] welcome to the mo show podcast episode 39. uh why are you looking me like that i'm excited i like it i like it um today we have uh mr doug bernard from connecticut united states of america doug is a um he's a travel blogger and he's been in saudi for a few weeks doug how's it been going the second time around here in saudi arabia it is uh it's going great yeah i really love it here i mean i i just enjoy my time here and it's it's interesting it's it's interesting to compare to how it was two years ago which feels like a short time but i feel like so much has changed that was your first time yes right in early 2020 right before everything went crazy just before that uh yes cobit whistle so before that were you ever even in the region i was a little bit um i guess i'd spent two nights in dubai on like a long layover kind of situation that was my only experience in the gulf and one eight hour layover in doha when i left the airport for a few hours but other than that that was it that was it yeah let's get to the chase what made you become a travel blogger man you know i always watched the kind of the og travel youtubers um for for years and years like uh mark wiens and um he's good that guy yeah he's just iconic because his um the way when he tries stuff you know his face yeah but yeah i always watch those i always loved those and i guess i'd never really even thought about it for a long time growing up because i didn't travel too broadly when i was growing up i mean my family and i would usually take trips down to florida i'm from northeast from new england in the u.s connecticut and so we would take little trips down to florida and i think the first time i went abroad was to the bahamas which is you know right across from florida basically so i had never gone anywhere um very far away or different for me until i was studying abroad in my junior year of university and i studied abroad in spain but i somehow convinced my mom to go on a trip with me before my semester started to india and that was my first like epiphany moment where it was it was almost like i kind of realized oh my gosh there's actually like a whole world out there and like everything you see it actually like exists all the time out here and like you can go there like it it was kind of just like amazing and the older i got like i started realizing like you can just buy a ticket and go to these places that's something i didn't even really consider um so that was kind of the first time that i had this bug uh travel bug and then i studied abroad i traveled a bunch independently mostly in europe um during that semester and then after that it was kind of just like okay i'm i just want to keep doing this um so i finished college and started working full-time in new york city uh but still taking um pretty short trips uh you know to all different places whenever i could um and then that eventually led me to uh coming to saudi arabia actually the first time so just about two years ago and i felt like i was finally at a point where i wanted to start my own youtube channel uh and i decided that saudi would be a great place to do that so i just kind of showed up and went for it we have 197 countries on this planet why did you choose saudi arabia why did you choose saudi arabia i'm super interested i actually do not know the answer well um good choice by the way yeah absolutely it's been a great choice yes so how come so i've always been interested i mean in this region and saudi arabia specifically um because you know before they they opened up tourism and and whatnot here uh it had especially in the us this kind of mysterious vibe around it and no one really knew what it was like and you only saw things on the news or like yeah basically only on the news about it and it was like this forbidden place that no one was allowed to go and then um they announced at some point um that they were going to open up the kingdom for tourism and so i was immediately just interested in going i hadn't even thought about youtube or anything yet but i was like well i i want to go see it as soon as it opens and so i remember i would google all the time for one or two years between when they had announced the tourist visa to when they actually made it available i would google all the time saudi arabia tourist visa release date or whatever and then finally they did it and uh i just booked like as soon as i could um and the reason so part of it was just this fascination with this region and and this mystery factor of saudi arabia um and then part of it was by that point when i was actively planning to come here i decided i did want to start a youtube channel and i figured from a strategic standpoint coming here [Music] and being one of the first [Music] youtube people or tourists to record their experience and share it you know maybe i would be one of the first people on youtube to really offer that perspective and it would give me a little uh jump start so those were kind of the two main uh reasons and and that's basically how i decided it well you know someone walking around with a camera or what was formerly a video camera was a no-no as recent as maybe a decade ago like you'd get flagged especially if you were near embassies uh you know government buildings you would be stopped and questioned and asked for your permit what i love about now is how anyone can walk around and film whatever they want whenever they want with whoever they want so this is all very new to us by the way uh if to you it might look like it's something that's been allowed for the longest time so you are one of the let's say trailblazers the fact that you're here in saudi you know showing the world what's really behind the scenes of this mysterious place that you refer to because it was i mean for the longest time we were we were never allowed you know tourists were never allowed here absolutely i was in school in england and it took so much to try to get a couple of friends over uh bless my dad god rest his soul he was you know he worked in the airline for a good 20 years 30 years of his life and god i don't know what kind of strings he had to pull to make it happen but it was a lot more difficult back then really to get people from uh from abroad over here you basically had to finagle some kind of business visa yeah do something like you need to know someone to be able to pull a string that can that can get uh a non-saudi into saudi wow uh even even a brit or an american it wasn't it wasn't easy and now how long did it take you to process a visa uh five minutes it took five minutes super fast yeah i was shocked so hopefully soon it'll take me five minutes to get the american visa [Laughter] inshallah so so that was your big calling your big break if you will coming here to saudis when you realize you know what this is for me yeah i'd say so i mean it was just uh amazing i mean not only from the um youtube perspective of you know things kind of clicking and realizing okay like this is something i enjoy doing and i i can do it but just um the the reception i got here as a you know one of the first peop tourists on a tourist visa to come here was was just amazing and eye-opening for me and so that itself was also um pretty affirming yeah in its own way yeah amazing way for to many people including me uh i view it as a dream job i mean if you were to ask a hundred people doug in a room what is your dream job i think you'd get 70 plus out of the 100 that would say travel blogging to get paid to go on vacation now i don't think i mean i'm i think you're you're you're pretty much there ish but soon i mean god just to travel the world and and and have uh sponsors you know cover your your expenses or hotels you know comping you to uh to to come and stay at their hotel so that you can showcase them in the best possible light does it feel like work to you sorry this is where i'm going does it feel like work work to you day in and day out um it definitely does i want to say first of all it absolutely is uh my dream job and it's uh still mind-blowing to me that i am able to do this um i've only been doing it full-time since january so about 11 months that's it yes full-time i felt like you've been in the game for a lot longer than that honestly yeah so awesome but it's absolutely a dream come true but um at the same time it is definitely work and i find myself um a lot of time working a lot harder on on this job than i was when i was working full-time in a traditional office in new york city um and and part of that but but at the same time i'm enjoying it a lot more a lot more um but part of what makes it interesting is that uh it's no longer a nine to five it's no longer okay come into the office and do your work and then you go home and you're off the clock um it's i have more flexibility but at the same time that makes it where i always could be working on on something and so it's great in the sense that i can wake up on a monday and say you know what today's my weekend or whatever i can you know schedule my days and my hours as i want but at the same time then right after that monday you know then that saturday and sunday uh maybe i'm working all day yeah so it's flexible and i like that yeah at the end of the day but it's definitely a lot of work and you're your own boss it's freedom it's what many people strive to have definitely but you got to have which i'm definitely still working on you got to have the discipline to create your own boss well there's a saying for yourself if you want to get it done if you aren't disciplined with yourself someone else will be right so that one hit home with me when i read it recently absolutely um traveling through saudi so you're back for the second time you went straight to riyadh and enjoyed the festivity festivities of the season yes you looked like you had a good time there i had a great time you know uh it's amazing to see what they're doing there every other season um especially because you know like um like we were talking about uh it's it's just this whole entertainment sector is so new to saudi so it's um you know i normally wouldn't make a video about um an amusement park for example in like america definitely not because it's i don't know there's nothing unique or interesting about it but um you know i would normally focus on videos about people and culture and food and you know everything that's real travel but um here because it's in saudi i feel like it is fascinating um because it's so new and you're i'm watching in real time from an outsider's perspective this country that never had this kind of stuff for the longest time is suddenly doing it and going all out really and um building the some of these sites from what was desert four months ago to just these insane places so it's exciting and i can see it's really cool to see how excited um the you know saudi people are especially young people how excited they are about these kind of things it's it's cool and it's kind of infectious so yeah family are cool about you being here how did they react when you're like i'm going saudi well they are now more than cool and they you know love all the friends that i've made here and are just uh actually extremely appreciative of the hospitality and and generosity and kindness that i've been lucky enough to receive here it's it's actually mind-blowing and and uh my family is super grateful for that but the first time i came here um my family was definitely uh hesitant not so much about saudi but um actually like three weeks before i was going to come here the u.s ended up uh assassinating the iranian general in iraq and as a result there was a lot of conjecture in the media like oh is this gonna cause some kind of proxy war retaliation and you've got the whole saudi iran rivalry so my parents were very nervous that some kind of conflict could break up between saudi and iran or whoever else in the region just because there was a lot of uncertainty and tension yeah in fact my grandfather actually called me a week or so before i was supposed to come and and said i really don't think this is a good idea you know i i will pay you to not go he offered to refund me directly for my ticket and anything i booked and i was like hey you know i don't know but please i felt really confident yeah absolutely it was all coming from a good place and totally um i felt very confident about it and and um you know i think it's easy when you're coming from a totally different part of the world to just think especially when it comes to the middle east because people don't really i don't think the average person differentiates that much between um the different cultures and countries in the middle east so it's so easy i think as an american for example to see um just headlines and think wow that whole region is just like a total mess stay away yeah but you know it's like then you you start reading about what saudi actually is and it's like no this is i mean like an extremely modern society with millions of people living there going about their daily lives every day and it's like of course it's it's extremely safe so i felt really confident about it and i convinced them pretty well but i remember this image that'll always be burned into my mind of my mom was taking me to the airport from my house in connecticut my dad had just said goodbye to me in the driveway and he almost like had tears in his eyes and there's real like he's not a guy to normally get um emotional like that um so i felt pretty um almost guilty in that moment yeah because i know i was putting him through so much stress yeah but i only felt okay about it because i was so confident that it was gonna be fine um and it's funny because now uh a year later two years later he's uh i think he's he's um his perspective has changed a lot my whole family is about region and different places and their friends and the people that they speak to definitely definitely and he was less nervous about me telling him i was going to iraq than he was with saudi originally which is insane so i think with with expectations and and him seeing that you were okay and saudi you know the middle east isn't you know so bad after all so he was probably more at ease hearing you're going to these other neighboring countries absolutely um the people talk to me talk to me about the people how have you been treated uh since you've been here well uh basically i can't say enough uh we've been overfed things about them yes certainly overfed oh everything is over the top here in in the best way i mean just it's just incredible i mean i just tell these stories to my parents on the phone that you know i just met this guy and then he invited me to his house and we had dinner and the second you get there offered coffee and and tea and and dates and all this and it's just mind-blowing like it really is i mean and it's i just think truly like hospitality is just a value that's built into the culture here and i mean it's just not something you would necessarily experience in that same way in america for example or the west i mean people are kind there and don't get me wrong they're they're amazing they're welcoming to foreigners but it's just not this level of like taking care of the guests is such like an innate value so it's amazing and sometimes goes over the top of the overindulgence and blood over indulgence and and gluttony um but for the most part yes it comes from a great place right yeah it is um yeah it's just always too much rice in dishes like if four of us are eating in one of those local mendy houses which i've known i know you've been to there's just too much rice i mean the rice on the table would be for 12 people were four yeah so i wish we can just look into reducing like if it's four people on the table make it a portion for five you know just in case we'll give the rest of extra little a little over indulgences i think the only thing that bothers me strategic rice allotment yeah yeah and you know we can have it breakfast lunch dinner hospitality is uh truly in the dna of uh i feel in the arab region something about it the middle east they just love showing you how much they appreciate your presence by feeding you yeah and it's the kind of thing like i almost feel guilty about it in some way waistline because i just feel like it for me like um you know i'm not from this culture and it just feels so over the top and it's like i haven't um done anything to deserve this or earn it it's like i just showed up here and now you guys are treating me like royalty basically and it's it's so kind and generous and um but yeah it's almost like i don't know how to thank them yeah and i hope like i've said to and i've made so many great friends here and just throughout my travels i'm and i've asked all of them please come to the us so that we can try to give you back somewhat a similar experience um just take them to in and out and give them 10 double doubles exactly it's the best way you can repay me [Laughter] the american way the american way the best way um favorite region so we have 13 uh how many have you visited so far i know you did riyad you did jeddah where else did you go so i have been to yeah riyad and jeddah uh and then on this trip actually before um i came to riyadh and started spending time there throughout season and everything i uh went to um medina briefly just uh kind of drove through but got out and walked around for a couple hours um train or drive drove okay yeah uh and then take the train next time yeah beautiful scenic trailer you can take the train an hour and a half from jetta airport okay cool yeah it's really nice high speed train they just put it together 300 kilometers an hour wow you're there in an hour and 30. very cool yeah i didn't even know about that they just put it together five or six years ago amazing i took my mom in it she's you know uh just over 70 years old and she did it with ease she loved it she was like this is you know where where was this a couple years behind absolutely but it is it is the best way to to get there it also goes to mecca i wish if the uh hadaman high-speed rail are listening to me just extend extend the beautiful train service from medina to allah it's only 200 kilometers but you'll just open a whole new world uh of people who live in jeddah and makkah to get to with ease yeah absolutely i'll go every weekend as opposed to fly because it's it's it's a bit of a drive to aloha it's it's about six or seven hours from jeddah and the flight is an hour and a half but i mean you'd always want to avoid a flight yeah and all the hassle on either end especially after hearing your experience uh coming from riyadh yesterday to here you had a bit of a dreadful experience we won't name the airline unless they really pissed you off no no it's just being dramatic it wasn't that bad but okay see it wasn't the most luxurious but anyway uh medina yes so we drove through there and we did do the drive to alola which i know i that is a tough one to pronounce but you you got it just right yeah but you don't have to see you don't have to say wow that was good okay yeah all right it came from here huh alula has a very nice when when paris vera who was on the show of course uh when when the first time i heard it said in american accent like it's got a very nice ring to it you know alula it's a lululemon you know if it was a if it was a female she you know she'd almost sound like a pretty one yeah yeah it sounds like a like a hula like hawaii [Laughter] it's nice it's it's it's kinda it sounds good in in english it's a cool name i like it yeah yeah so you did that the first time you were here no this was actually on this trip oh no way yeah so i was actually traveling with a couple british friends for a couple weeks okay um yeah so we went uh medina alola then we drove up to um taboo tabuk yep and then uh had a few days uh and we explored some of the smaller coastal cities along there including duba al waja um is amazing yeah i think first of all i mean i miss that one put it on the list okay dude i'll show you some pictures it's it's nuts i've heard that name before and then yeah so it's just red sea beautiful i um yeah i mean the the whole landscape up there is just insane crazy so while i show you these pictures uh i'll put it up on uh on the screen cool because it um so whatever you guys are seeing now doug is seeing as well there's a few pictures so scroll through it that's an island of allah that is sorry that is currently being developed uh by the ministry of tourism to into a resort look at that it's amazing who yeah literally it's just and this is the kind of thing that i always say is is just interesting about saudi as is like no one no one expects this from back home no no no you show this to them they'd be like oh that's uh yeah you know the maldives exactly seychelles yeah it's just for sure look at that untouched unbelievable i mean we weren't allowed to go on those islands we did about 40 minutes there and uh and we were like all right let's call it a day because they were like getting ready to uh to develop it okay um but it just blew me away and this is about a four hour drive from jenna beautiful beautiful uh so you did a bit you did a bit of traveling tabuk and then and then back down to jeddah um yes then back down to jeddah and uh basically straight over to riyadh anything bother you any negatives in your travels be honest this is a podcast about honesty besides maybe the reckless driving no i've been to india it's fine okay no further questions uh i would say if i was really nitpicking because honestly um there's really nothing major that comes to my mind i mean i truly enjoy it here but i would say um the walkability you know as of someone who is the borderline new yorker real new yorkers wouldn't consider me a new yorker but i'd you know like to think i'm somewhat crusty tri-state yeah exactly you know every you walk everywhere in new york it's totally walkable and and it's just you know i wouldn't think to get around any other way unless it was really far um so here sometimes i like i'll see a place i need to get to but it's across this massive freeway and i'm like oh it's so close but i'm gonna order an uber yeah so that would be the one little thing i could do risk my life or own an uber i know what you're talking about yeah i just really want that albany it might be worth it yeah but you have good taste your content editing and creating and the challenges in being a blogger is that something you enjoy doing or is it more tedious how do you look at that the stuff that we don't see sure well well i i definitely um enjoy it overall there's parts of the process that i enjoy more than others um i for example like the editing process not to get too detailed but the way i typically do it is i'll just film a ton of stuff and then i sit down and throw all the clips in and i just go through and sometimes i've filmed like a three minute clip for example and i use like four seconds of it but when you're sitting through and you have to like just watch back all of the useless blank space it just takes long to i don't i don't love that first part where you have to go through and like manually cut and put everything together but i love when it's really starting to come together as yeah as a you start seeing the vision i get like so excited and it's like an adrenaline rush and you put the music and like that moment just hits and you're like oh that's good yeah seeing it come together yeah so i love it and um overall i can't really complain about it it's it's it's great do you do it yourself you edit yes i'm actually just starting to work um on a partial basis with an editor mainly to take care of that initial um storyline layout and then i take most of the polishing and the tweaks and stuff but um to date i've never put out a video that i haven't fully edited myself so so far everything is 100 me yeah you translate your content as well i do the same yes yeah and i think it's um it's huge you've probably seen the same it's i think it's it's like a must-have almost for sure definitely um i remember my first couple of episodes in if i'm late with my translation by a couple of hours i get comments oh me too where is the arabic how dare you it's coming i call my editor these guys are going crazy you gotta help me out man yes what was the best moment ever um in in your travels was there a moment where you were like god i love doing what i'm doing this is the best moment of my life well i'll say in a general sense this isn't a moment although i have a few to to share but um in a general sense i just think the best and coolest part of this that i didn't even really think about when i first started this whole thing was like i've only been traveling full-time for a year and i have really like genuinely good friends from like a lot of different places in the world now i mean iraq sudan azerbaijan like um serbia just places and and they're real friendships not just like oh cool huh that was fun see you never again like these are people that i'm i think i'm gonna stay in touch with probably for the rest of my life and and like that i truly like and care about and i just think that is so like incredible that i'm gonna have friends from all over the world and so that's like the best thing i think that i've taken away from this whole thing is is that all because you chose to travel yeah it's so important yeah and just yeah making the decision to go there is has given me a lot but doug i mean imagine doug that would have never left connecticut and and and and and how your outlook on life and the world would have been compared to now and how tolerant you are and open and inclusive and so much i mean i would i honestly think that your patience first thing patience when you travel you get to understand cultures and you just become more patient and if that's the only trait we get in life is more patience then you win but can you imagine how much more things you're saying like networking the people you've met the stories you've heard the friends you've made oh yeah you just can't lose when you travel and understand cultures and make relationships and oh my gosh yeah and it's just yeah it's like it's real world lessons and and yeah appreciation for things that i just never even thought about and um yeah so all of that has been invaluable but the thing i'm like most that that is just the best part of this experience for me is like that the people that i've met and just knowing the relationships that i've formed it's just really really um like i'm really grateful for it but best moments i'm trying to think of like you said this moment where you're just like oh my god i can't believe i'm here right now the one that comes to mind where i i remember like thinking as it was happening like i think i'm experiencing euphoria which i've never really felt like i was just laughing and like i'm not in control was um i was in egypt and i was in the sinai peninsula uh and i have a video about it we hiked up um mount sinai mount musa which i know there's controversy some people say the real one isn't saudi i don't know but what they uh let's move on swiftly exactly [Laughter] let the battle in the comments begin no but um yes i was hiking up mount musa mount sinai and uh it was just so um kind of like impromptu like i had a i think it was someone um from youtube or instagram a friend you know on internet friend said hey i know a guide um who's done this doesn't really speak much english but he can take you up and so i met up with the guy it was like 1 30 in the morning because you hike up to get there for sunset and for sunrise uh so you're hiking basically all night um i met this guy and he spoke closer to zero english so it was just that whole like all right we're in this together we really can't talk to each other but you're doing the whole um yeah um and we just started hiking and he really went fast like they must he basically ran up the mountain so i was dying but um we get up there it's pitch black and it takes i think like four hours to hike up um but it was just i mean the setting was just insane you're just looking up and you can like see the milky way and just here it's just pitch darkness and you're just looking up at the stars it's just incredible and then i get up we get up there and you're stopping at little huts along the way every you know half hour or so there's tea and the you know stuff like that um and we just get up to the top and because we basically ran up the side of the mountain we made it up there with a lot of time to spare so um we end up going in this hut and there's just this one old man sitting there uh and he said he lives up there for i want to say like uh it was something like 30 days at a time then he goes down but he lives up at the summit and runs this tiny little shop and it almost reminded me of um like a himalaya vibe like there were flags everywhere and it was just so dark and like cozy and i was just sitting in there and drinking coffee and it was just it was freezing cold i was all bundled up and i don't know i just it sounds so cliche but you just feel really alive in that moment you're just like where the heck am i like how am i doing this right now and just this man sitting here talking to him and just it's hard to describe but i tried to capture it in the video but it's one of those things you really can't capture because you've probably never had a moment like that no absolutely not yeah surreal yeah and then the sun comes up and it's beautiful of course and it's just and you're almost like a little delirious because it's so you know you stay up all night so it's just like and i just remember being up there and like to i just like was it was just like a rush you know nature mind it does things to the soul yeah 100 know and and a lot of feel like a lot of the travel i've been doing is is um city focused so that is yeah just especially when you have those moments out there is amazing yeah amazing i mean whenever i want to reset or reboot it's uh just an hour and a half two hours to tithe top of the mountain and uh yeah a bit of stars fresh air can can do for you a nice hike absolutely um is is good for the soul it's healthy favorite country not named saudi arabia okay so i've had to think about this one a lot in the past but not named saudi arabia i like how you phrased the question no because i know what your second favorite country is after the u.s

so we're going to take the u.s and saudi out of this okay ballot um so i think um i kind of have to break it up uh the most fulfilling like all-around travel experience where i've just like this was one of the most incredible experiences of my life was visiting iraq um which yeah and it was pretty recent it was in august actually which turns out it was a terrible time to visit because it's insanely hot but um they get about yeah 50 degree fahrenheit maybe 120 120 fahrenheit 50 celsius yeah yeah it did hit that one thank god i remember thinking like i've never even like fathomed that heat like this really exists on this planet like this is like incomprehensible and i'm not built for that kind of heat uh genetically you probably haven't seen a day over over 89 in connecticut [Music] yeah but but besides the heat um it kind of was just um in the same sense a little bit that um like i was saying earlier about saudi and why i wanted to come here was this mystery and it's in a different way because it's just been um unfortunately this war-torn country for the past 20 years and especially because america's involvement in it you're just it's all over the media and um all you see is negative um so going there just in and of itself was fascinating for me to be like i'm in baghdad that's insane that's something i never thought i would say um it's gangster uh yeah and i'm personally also really i i i i'm fascinated by and love current events and and um i don't know that kind of studying that kind of stuff and reading um about this region and things that are happening here so it was it like really checked all the boxes for me and then on top of that the people um really in a similar way to saudi we're just like you said it's the whole arab region hospitality yeah top notch hospitality was incredible and i just felt like it made it that much more impressive because of everything that that country has been through and those people and then to me as an american which my country in a lot of ways did that to that country and oh i i see i see yeah i see your position the fact that i was still welcomed in such and yeah and it uh tells you a lot about them exactly it's just like it speaks to the yeah the people there it's amazing and and uh they jump off the page by the way if you put all the arabs like in the rank uh hospitality cuisine warm-heartedness they they are they are at the top the very top of the list really they are interesting yeah okay yeah well that was certainly my experience what about walking around day to day what was the life like there um it's a lot more normal than you would expect honestly i'm asking you as an american i've never been there yeah yeah i mean i don't know uh it was it it basically felt um like any other um well not any other like i wouldn't say there are a lot of differences for sure but it felt like an uh city in an arab country and talking baghdad but with a lot more um uh humvees and men with guns and blast walls but there was never anything any kind of action that i experienced there so visibly it looked a little bit different but besides that stuff it felt very much like a real arab city with you know tea shops and shisha and people walking around and nice parts and and uh older parts and so it was it was really cool so you felt safe as you were in saudi like no no issues i wouldn't say um as safe as saudi but um i personally and i want to always give a disclaimer when i talk about this but um if you feel comfortable yeah yeah i personally felt safe i was with the guide the whole time who took great care of us and made sure paperwork and checkpoints and everything went smoothly um so i'm not saying it's always a safe place i mean nowhere is always safe but um i personally never felt deeply uncomfortable there yeah oh yeah which is amazing and my reaction is the way your parents probably reacted when you told them saudi is so safe mom and dad and and when i hear you say that i'm like of course it's safe i mean what do you think and here i am reacting to you telling me iraq is safe and i'm like wow you know because uh i i have the news channel on you know a couple days a week i i hear stories i read well yeah and and that's the thing that's why i don't want to say oh it's 100 safe everyone go to iraq like there are first of all like i wouldn't recommend anyone like from the us for example like oh you know you've never really traveled to this part of the world before go go for it go there yeah i mean there's things that would make a lot of people uncomfortable like there are a lot of checkpoints there's a lot of guys with guns around there's a lot of like visible stuff that would make someone potentially really nervous for sure it's like snow florida keys no and things do happen there i mean uh like a month i forget exactly but a few months before i was there like there was a massive um bombing unfortunately and i think a bunch of people died and so it i mean it happens but it's not like an everyday thing at this point which is thank god but um you know things can happen anywhere and that was part of my rationale and you know it's um for me just personally the benefit of visiting that place you know there's always going to be a risk and i thought the upside outweighed the the risk for there so that was amazing that you did a really really like if you i would be interested to know what other countries you have in your pipeline after that so maybe you can give us a scoop later on uh do you count how many countries you've visited do you have like a tally of your coverage yeah i do i actually have an app on my phone that i mark off um mainly for my kind of visual just to look at it and like that's pretty cool but um what are you at what's the number it's around 40 i think 40 in my mind i was 25 i was thinking 25 40. well done that's a lot yeah it's and it's it is a lot and it's i'm super lucky to have done that at um especially young age and and um yeah i mean some the thing the thing that i used to do especially when i was working full-time in new york was i would take a trip so maybe i have a week off from work or taking you know time off from work and i would go um [Music] and i would try to make like semi-long layovers on either end of the trip so i would go like i did it to thailand for example flew to thailand but on either end of the trip we had like a 14 hour layover in shanghai china so then i go out of the airport and i made it so it's like 8am to 8pm or whatever so you get a full day on either end and you you know it's a it's not a like certainly haven't seen china or done china at that point but you get a taste and i count it i don't count if i have only a layover in the airport in a country without leaving but yeah you went out you ate you and sometimes it's overnight so yeah that's how i've been able to add some to that counts yeah yeah but gotta have a meal you got to exit the airport and have a meal exactly but that's the way i've been able to i mean there's a pretty large handful of the 40 that are like that so that i've been able to tack onto um trips to elsewhere would you want to go back to china and really experience it like shanghai um guanzu they've got some cities there yeah 100 would love to go back yeah yeah they are like i've just seen some images of their cities you can understand why they are a world superpower oh yeah you know and they were built in what like overnight basically a lot of in a lot of cases saw a picture of shanghai in 2000 and 2020 yeah i mean it was like dubai you know there was nothing there and now there's you know 40 120 floor skyscrapers yeah insane it it really is and the thing that that that that i think is crazy about china is not only that whole phenomenon but it's such a big and populous country like there are cities there that we've probably never heard of that have millions of people living in them like tens of millions sometimes and it's like that's insane that's like having a new york size city that you've never heard of like that's just crazy i saw a top gear episode i mean you just reminded me of something and jeremy clarkson was like we're in this city ever heard of it and i'm like no and he's like it has 20 million people here in my mind i'm like that's the number of saudis there are with a billion how is this yeah how is it how have i not heard with a billion people i mean you are gonna they're gonna be some cities where that you haven't heard of yeah and it's just crazy to think that like there are people living there but millions that their whole life exists in this city and i think this about the whole world basically that like you've never heard of and their whole life everything they know is in this place that you've never even thought about of and that's another cool thing about travel in general is just that whole thing the amount of uh roads freeways bridges that they are building every year the stat was crazy if i had a um if i had a jamie equivalent of it here as to what rogan has i would have had him google it right now but the number of thousands of miles of freeways that they built per year dug it was like if i'm not mistaken it was about a hundred thousand per year those crazy bridges that are 150 story bridges between like valleys yeah i never knew they had the infrastructure down like that it's yeah and it's like clockwork i've heard them it's like building buildings like a building was built in a month yeah 20 30 story buildings was built in a month they they did it during the olympics it's it's like they make it out of legos i don't know what they do it's it's if anyone's going to do it's going to be the chinese you know they really are something yeah they really just know how to okay we're gonna do this and then they just get it done again no delays or anything like that [Music] it's unreal yeah um what's something we don't know about you what's your darkest secret oh god i went thriller is there something i mean we we love the person you are on on your content you're this happy really go lucky person it brightens up my day and i'm sure many other peoples but is there something that you can share with us that perhaps we don't know about you do you have a dark side well okay uh this wasn't this is i'm glad you get my humor thank god or this would have been a much shorter podcast yes yes um well two things i can think of from my life before youtube we'll call it uh one is um i actually really like um well i really enjoy performing uh specifically theater and singing i was a singer a lot of uh growing up in musical theater and then acapella in college so i have that whole thing that was a big big part of my life for a while um and now i think i probably kind of scratched that itch to have some kind of creative outlet with the vlogging and youtube stuff that i do but um that was something and then um the other thing is uh that i that comes to mind is um what i studied in in college and university which was um hospitality so i studied uh the official name of the degree was uh hotel administration i have a bachelor of science in hotel administration i don't even know such a degree was offered in such a field yeah i know a lot of people don't and uh we used to get made fun of uh at uh my university for being uh you know taking classes in napkin folding 101 and stuff mostly by the engineers and the ones that were really hardcore but uh yeah so i had to take uh cooking classes and full chef gear and um and and classes about the hotel industry um uh and i even interned at a fancy new york uh midtown uh restaurant one summer um with uh you know all the rich and famous clientele coming through and the chef was like a real gordon ramsay-esque figure like a real uh tough guy yeah yeah yeah so put it nicely yes so uh um yeah it was it was uh an interesting experience i do feel like i've taken a little bit of the hospitality background into what i do now because you know travel tourism it's all kind of part of that whole world um but yeah that was my uh focus in life for a while i think everyone at some point or another should be in the shoes of a waiter slash hotel staff 100 you know 100 because these guys bust their ass when they're trying to serve us and i just i just think it's nice to know what you're asking of that person and you won't know what you're asking of that person unless you were in their shoes absolutely said a lot about a person by how they treat a waiter amp so for me if you're rude to a waiter i'm probably not gonna you know yeah it's done um yeah it teaches you a ton i think and uh yeah one of the hardest jobs ever that i have come to appreciate um is housekeepers uh it's one of the most physically demanding jobs like if you actually look at the statistics and workplace injuries and i hope i'm not misstating any of this but i remember for when i was in university it's one of the most uh like physically taxing jobs anywhere because they're up and down all day and lifting and bending over and and um you know so they put us through the whole practicum when we were in school doing those kind of jobs and it's i mean you just gain a whole new level of appreciation for that and waiters and anyone who's in the service service industry industry yeah i mean it's i agree with you you don't know what it's like unless you walk them out in their shoes absolutely and if you're privileged you'll you'll never know and that's really proof that life is just not fair in some degree i hate how money rules the world yeah it's something that that actually i think about it a lot if it wasn't for money imagine if we're all equal like and and many of these famous gurus say that there is a way for everyone to be rich and to have zero poverty and zero world hunger the smartest guys in the world have said there is a way to do that really like like it mechanically or physically or financially it will work a society where everyone is as rich as the other it can work interesting i'll i'll i want to look more into that but um it was said by by naval who anything he says i take to the bank he's like we can live in a society where there is no poverty i think that was a lie no no poverty maybe not necessarily all on the same level okay that where there is no world hunger where there is no poverty um where everyone is comfortable and um i believe that for sure i mean i mean they try to assign like a numerical figure to it like oh jeff bezos could end hunger tomorrow if he wanted to just give x billion uh you know dollars to to this and it doesn't happen yeah yeah recently and with kovitt like the rich got richer okay then bezos get to 200 bill and musk just overtook him recently i think so um it's it's it's now at a point where 99 of global wealth is in the pockets of the one percent yeah talk about a disparity and so that's another thing i think that um oh my god that i've come to appreciate from travel is just i mean understanding not understanding but seeking to begin to understand like um the disparities in wealth and just everything in the world i mean because you come from the us which like yeah we have major wealth disparity big problem but i mean things are still pretty good for most people there i mean really good if you're good at something you'll be rewarded right and there is a sports i love sports culture in the us if you bust your backside you will get paid top dollars yeah i just i'm big i'm big on the nba and and you know also a bit of nfl i'll go to any live sports what was your nfl team it used to be san diego okay i thought you were gonna say patriots you're a celtics fan yeah but but but but it is i'm sorry school in boston new hampshire killing me man at a time when brady are you the jets or the giants giant giants uh i mean you're all so close to new england i know my parents grew up on long island so my dad says yeah rapid giants are there any jets fans out there um yeah the unlucky ones i've been to uh the giant stadium for a game a few years ago yes it's amazing it's amazing yeah fun nothing like an nfl game i yeah i used to go to a lot of uh nfl games back in the day and it's yeah oh my gosh it's just amazing biggest sport in the us isn't it i think so i mean 17 games in a season 16 games it was 16 and they added a 17. they added a seven actually your guy tom brady is very um annoyed about it but you know it's all well he's approaching because he's 42 years old something crazy like he said he wants to play till 15 oh my god he won in tampa bay isn't that that's something unreal the guy is insane i mean goat yeah he is i could say that we have you know you know we have our history as giants fans with with uh brady but he's definitely the goat yeah can't deny that he's something yeah uh with your like roaming around and visiting new countries and editing and filming is it stressful yeah i think it can definitely get stressful i mean i'm definitely not uh like a one of those zen people who has you know their mindset totally balanced and is like super productive and it just has it all like figured out i i usually get overwhelmed about certain things and um [Music] and i think it's easy to especially when it's so easy doing and you probably know like from uh doing the show it's so easy to work so hard on something and you put a product or you know video or whatever you're making that's you're so proud of and then it all comes down to the numbers that's like your real um at least immediate feedback and it's i think that can be really stressful if you if you that's really your only um kind of measure measure yeah uh and it doesn't go the way you're expecting or you start to see a downtrend or something and you know these are little things to complain about but it definitely adds it definitely stresses me out at times very valid uh point of stress for sure it's interesting actually like i was talking before about the coolest moment best moment uh about climbing the mountain in egypt and i loved that video i worked so hard on it and i just thought it was like one of the best things i'd made it just didn't do that well and i was like man and then i went to get a haircut in iraq and just like filmed it and put it on youtube and boom that hit yeah and it's just funny but people want what they want wow it's always when you think you have your audience figured out right i've i've actually had a bit of experience with that episodes that i thought would kill weren't as as much and episodes that i wasn't happy with went through the roof yeah yeah um yeah you just you can never monitor your audience and knows what's gonna just um you know external factors that that might hit or like you know some things in the news that week and then something that you've made becomes really relevant so things but yeah it can be stressful with the punches there is a question that i love that tim ferriss asks his guest and um maybe one day tim you you would hear this podcast as if and he asks if you can put something on a billboard for 24 hours for the world to see just for 24 hours a message what would that sentence or message be oh man pretty cool to have the attention of the world for 24 hours yeah seriously it's a tough question i know it's a tough question probably um like and subscribe [Laughter] just kidding just picture of you great one um next one no no no i can't leave it um oh man i don't know um well if i think about like what my goal is with what i'm doing and i think about it would have to be something about what i'm doing right now because it's kind of become my whole life at this point uh is this traveling and making this content and that it would probably just be some kind of message about um just encouraging people to be more um spontaneous with the travel side of their lives and just you know if you're on the fence about going to a place just go and just do it and experience it because i don't think i think it's really regret taking a kind of decision like that as long as it's not insanely risky something that's just um silly but yeah some something like that just telling people to explore and meet people that you that that you don't understand or that you feel uncomfortable about i mean like even for me i'm a pretty open-minded person but i remember the first time i came to this region which was in the dubai um for a short layover like what i was talking about before and um i remember like i walked out of the plane and i got to the passport control and it's just all these men in their white um uniforms which and it's not though they're right so it's the same thing kendora okay here it's taupe and the even the chamois they had white and just it was just it was just like intimidating i was like whoa like this you know you see this outfit on the news and stuff and then you're just like okay i'm here uh and it but but to like have those kind of experiences where you're like a little bit like whoa like what am i doing and then you get through it and then you realize oh these people are all also amazing and like now my friends so i don't know that was a really long-winded answer but you know i love it something about getting out there and meeting people like that doug one of the things people realize when they come to saudi uh non-saudis obviously is how powerful and effective social media is in this country like the literacy of us saudis with social media is it something you picked up on and perhaps capitalized on that people are so social media savvy here absolutely yes uh yeah it's something i definitely didn't expect and it's funny um because uh this whole phenomenon was one of the biggest uh surprises of my first trip here um so the first time i came here i came totally alone knowing not a single person in the entire kingdom uh and on my first full day i think in riyadh i was walking around as my second day ever vlogging just just feeling nervous holding camera facing myself walking around and i went to sukhazal near the masmak fort in riyadh and i was walking around the market just filming i'm in a market and this is what it's like you know and uh walked by this nice older gentleman who had a shop there and he said hey sit and then have coffee with me so i was sitting there and then he goes come come to my shop so i guess he was at his friend's shop he goes come to my shop and and it's funny my first thought because i was still new to saudi was okay like here comes the sales pitch he's going to try to sell me whatever and of course none of that happened we get to his shop he doesn't even talk about his products sits down offers me more coffee and dates and anyway beside the point but um then we're just sitting there at his shop and all of a sudden there's a guy next to me who goes oh where are you from and it's i actually caught it all on video it's my second video ever uh and oh cool okay hey you should come to my house or my farm for for dinner tonight and he had his like cute little nine-year-old son there so i was like okay yeah sure you know let's do it and i went with him and as we're going and with a couple of his friends he kind of mentions uh offhand you know i'm i am famous here and i was like what and i figured okay famous and he pulls up his instagram he's got 2.5 million followers and then i was oh wow okay you're you really are famous so anyway we go to his um like farm as he calls it or like majlis i think would be uh another word um we're sitting there and of course we we have cubs and the whole thing and tea and coffee and shisha uh and at one point during the night he's uh posts me on his on his uh snapchat story takes a video of me and his son or something he's picking on snapchat to you yeah big i think bigger oh snapchat i think uh i think it's big here snapchat is probably bigger than instagram yeah i think so right it's it was saying there's a shift now but snapchat is everything here okay yeah yeah yeah knowing that now i had to dust off my old snapchat account when i came back to saudi for the second time but uh so he mentioned you on stop so he mentions me on his story and i think okay cool and all of a sudden like a moment after he does that my phone and i pull it out and it's just like the phone couldn't keep up with the notifications of people adding me but and it basically did that for the next 24 hours and wow literally overnight i had like a kind of sizable following about saudi arabia because of this guy yeah and his name is uh meri some of your audience might know him um from riyadh and he basically put me on the map here uh and um that video ended up being my still to this day my most popular video ever um so far it's my second video ever and um for the rest of the first trip i was basically just got right into like being a snapchat influencer and following my whole trip and i remember all my friends back home being like what is going on with doug what did they do to him yeah but i really i have to give a lot of credit to him because he really started me off with the saudi audience amazing and connected me with them yeah that's pretty cool yeah i know you said no regrets but honestly any regrets do you carry anything that you wish you would have done differently yes actually i actually have a big one which is that i didn't start uh doing this sooner to be honest um because uh you know i i did travel a fair amount before i started my youtube channel i know i said i didn't start uh really traveling until my junior year of college but between then and two years after college when i started the channel i went to some pretty amazing places i mean i went to like thailand china india twice on two separate occasions which is basically a travel vlogger's dream um and korea hong kong um lots of eastern europe uh but i didn't vlog any of it which there's plenty of time luckily and it's definitely was part of the process of getting to the point where i started it and felt confident to start it but man i have people all the time coming please come to india and i'm like oh actually i've been there twice already but i'm definitely coming back to film but i man if i had filmed some of the experiences i had that would be awesome so that's the only one starting earlier yeah you as i am we chatted before we started we are products of covet yeah i started this in kovid and you left your day job due to covet yes laid off it's always a silver lining absolutely i would say i'm sorry that you got laid off but i'm not no because look at the world that opened up for you yeah it was the biggest blessing in disguise to be honest because i yeah i got laid off in august and then it was basically the kick in the butt that i needed to put things into gear and do this um on a full-time basis um so yeah i'm really grateful for amazing you look like you're really enjoying it you know you look like you're not like it doesn't feel like work it definitely does sometimes it's probably not the part that i put in the videos i love the honor but uh i love it doug i love it i mean as far as i'm concerned you you you are enjoying it i mean you're never going to have a job where it's all great exactly i mean even if god knows whatever the next best job in the world is is going to have its moments um but i mean i speak on behalf of of everyone in saudi arabia and those who live in saudi arabia that we thank you for the light that you're showing our country in the places that you're going to and how much you enjoy doing what you're doing over here and getting the word the good word out to the to who's ever interested in visiting that this is what saudi arabia is like uh unfiltered unscripted on everything so for me i i'm super thankful for that well thank you i appreciate it and uh it's it's been uh just the best the greatest pleasure of my life to be able to do it and to be able to get the feedback that i've gotten in the support from you know people like in friends and family but also you know the people that watch my videos and that supported me and got me to this point but awesome and saudi specifically the hospitality and the reception here has been unbelievable so i'm extremely grateful to the saudi people and a lot of people that i've met along the way have you ever eaten goats before you came to saudi i don't think so maybe in india maybe and and i would imagine you're a few goats in like if you've had one two one too many sitting so far it's like all you eat now is what i'm trying to say oh yeah it's a main food group for me now nothing quite hits the way that does thanks man um really appreciate you taking the time god i think we've been rolling for a good hour and a half have we yeah yeah you'd be surprised time flies when you're with uh on the mo show do we miss anything is there something that you want to leave us with put out there um god i've just been picking your brain a lot is there something that you want to share before we say thank you you know um i don't think so i'm trying to think it's been an awesome experience here and yeah i mean i don't know like and subscribe like subscribe yeah thanks doug thank you so much for having me on taking the time it's an honor and it's an absolute honor for me being i'm shocked this is your first podcast but i hope many more times well what a way to start out seriously it is an honor you've been an amazing host i was a little bit nervous but that was an incredible experience god i'm really glad you enjoyed it and i'm gonna keep watching you we're gonna put all the links for your channels in the description box in youtube and again man just you're making us proud and i really appreciate your content thank you thank you appreciate it thank you so much thank you [Music] you

2021-12-02 08:25

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