Not Too Late to Get Your Summer Travel On Says Pavia Rosati of Fathom
Show Snapshot:
The countdown to Labor Day is on! But it’s not too late to pack your bags for a sweet summer escape. Today’s guest, travel pro Pavia Rosati, co-founder of Fathom's award-winning travel website, shares a treasure trove of time-tested recommendations from her latest travel book, “Travel North America (And Avoid Being a Tourist).” Designed to stoke your wanderlust while sticking closer to home, Pavia shares under-the-radar locales, classic favorites, and practical trip-planning advice for the modern traveler. Plus, what to always pack!
In This Episode We Cover:
1. How to be a traveler, not a tourist.
2. Travel fun beyond a checklist.
3. The pandemic is keeping us closer to home; how to explore your backyard.
4. Focus on why you travel, not just where.
5. Backyard bucket list: Fireflies in Mexico, ice columns in Vail, wildflowers in the Mojave.
6. How to travel in a group (without being a jerk).
7. Exploring “the land that time forgot.”
8. Still time for summer fun – East Coast, West Coast escapes to put on your list
Plus, what to pack, what’s touristy but terrific, and how to conquer jet lag.
Quotable:
Everything that we do at Fathom tries to be super realistic about the way that people actually travel. We don’t write based on trends, because travelers don’t make travel choices based on trends. You don’t go someplace because it’s new, you go someplace because it’s awesome.
I went to Utah early March, and on the first day hiking, we were super high up, the guide pointed to something in the red rock formation and said, “Oh look, it’s a fish skeleton. And I was like, “Dude, what? A fish skeleton? Look how high up we are.” And he explained that millions of years ago, an ocean ran from the Arctic down. It ran from Canada through the middle of what is now the continental US and emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. So, this old ocean, if we see it on a map today, would be bookended by the Appalachians on the East Coast and the Rocky Mountains on the West Coast. This blew my mind. Because if you think Bryce Canyon, those weird hoodoos, and those rock formations, you’re essentially looking at the bottom of an ocean floor.
More Resources:
Pavia’s books
Travel North America: (And Avoid Being a Tourist)
Find Pavia’s Travel Advice
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty (00:07):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women on life after 50 who are unafraid to age out loud. I’m your host, Katie Fogarty, and I’m back in the podcast booth after our July break. I put my toes in the sand, visited friends, spent time with family, threw parties, and drank oodles and oodles of rosé. And it was wonderful. But I’m delighted to be back in my happy place, hanging out with you all and spending time in the company of amazing women. We have a great lineup for August. All month long we’re talking summer fun and creative careers with a cadre of women who know what’s what. And with six weeks until Labor Day, there is still plenty of time for summer fun vacations and weekend escapes.
So, I’m delighted to welcome travel expert and author, Pavia Rosati to the show. Pavia is the CEO and founder of the award-winning editorial travel platform, Fathom and the co-author of an inspiring new book, Travel North America and Avoid Being A Tourist, that will stoke your wanderlust while making you rethink how you travel and why. Welcome Pavia.
Pavia Rosati (01:09):
Thank you, I wish we were on video so you could see the big smile I have on my face, that was so nice.
Katie (01:15):
Oh, I’m so excited. I’m so, so excited because it’s been months and months of shelter in place, travel restrictions. I know everyone is itching to hit the road, hop a plane, and I just wanna hear all you have to share. Your book is so beautiful.
Pavia (01:32):
Thank you.
Katie (01:32):
But I wanted to kick off by asking you quickly by asking you quickly about the title of your book. Because it says Travel North America and Avoid Being A Tourist. What do you see as the difference between being a traveler and being a tourist?
Pavia (01:43):
Well, first of all, that was the nicest way to possibly set up the fact that this is book two in a series. The first book is called Travel Anywhere and Avoid Being A Tourist.
Katie (01:53):
Nice.
Pavia (01:53):
You can see what we’re going for here right?
Katie (01:55):
I love it, yeah!
Pavia (01:56):
Yeah. So, you know, the idea behind everything that we do, not only in this book but everything at Fathom is about trying to get under the skin of a place that we go to and that, if that sounds creepy I don’t mean it to. What I mean by that is you wanna go someplace and really feel like you’ve been there and had a meaningful experience as opposed to, I had a checklist, I saw that top touristy thing that’s maybe on everybody’s list of the things you have to do when you’re in this place. And that’s really more of a surface understanding of a place. So when we talk about traveling as a traveler and not as a tourist, that’s what we mean. We mean really spending time, slowing down, getting a little comfy, and really leaving a place with a nice understanding of what it’s all about.
Katie (02:49):
I love that. I so agree. I’ve had a chance to live abroad, I lived in Japan after college. And it was such a different experience to really put your roots down into a place, to see what’s it’s like to live there. And if you can, kind of, conjure up some of that magic when you’re on vacation, where you feel connected versus just like you’re passing through, it does make the experience more special. So, what are, you know, what is the first sort of rule of thumb if you want to approach a vacation as a traveler rather than as a tourist. What kind of mindset shift do you need? What kind of things do you need to do?
Pavia (03:28):
Well, first of all, throw away the checklist. And I think you should have fewer expectations of what you’re gonna get out of your trip. What do I mean by that? I mean, if you’re going to Italy for the first time, don’t try to see the whole country in one trip. Because think about Italy like this, and the experience of Italy. And I’m gonna just use that as an example because “la dolce vita”, everything it conjures, everybody knows, right. So, let’s just use Italy as shorthand for “I want to have an incredible trip.”
Katie (04:02):
Yes.
Pavia (04:02):
Let’s say you go to Italy, and what do most Americans have? We have about a week to ten days when we travel, if we’re lucky a couple of weeks. But look, we’re not French, we don’t get 5 weeks off every year, we have limited time that we can spend, so we have to budget our vacations really carefully. So, let’s assume we have a week off, with the weekends, we have 10 days in Italy. You could say, “All right, I’m gonna go to Rome for 2 days, I’m gonna go to the Amalfi Coast for 2 days, I’m gonna go to Florence for 2 days, I’m gonna go to Venice for 2 days, I’m gonna go to the lakes for 2 days, and I’m gonna stay in a Tuscan villa for 2 days,” and I don’t know, I think I’ve probably exceeded my quota of days there.
Katie (04:37):
[laughs] Plus, I’m exhausted. Woah, that’s a list, right.
Pavia (04:40):
Exactly, exactly, exactly. Imagine instead, so listen, it’s great right because you will give the Statue of David a high five in Florence, you’ll see the Sistine Chapel in Rome, you’ll ride a gondola in Venice. But imagine instead, if you went to Rome for 5 days and then you went to a house in a village in Umbria, an hour from Rome for 5 days, instead.
Katie (05:09):
Heaven.
Pavia (05:10):
Well, think about this. By day 3 of your time in the small village, the person at the cafe that you go to every morning for your cappuccino standing at the bar, maybe they’ve gotten to know you, maybe they want to know how your family back home is doing. You can feel like you’re really part of village life in a couple of days in a way that you couldn’t if you’re just breezing through. And then imagine a year later, when you’re home and you’re talking about your trip to Italy. You won’t, yeah, it’s not that exciting to say that I gave David a high five, but think about, “Oh and then, oh honey do you remember Marcella, she knew our coffee order by the second day that we were there, it was so great to have a place that we went every morning, we really felt we were part of that town.” That’s just one example of a way of thinking about the kind of vacation that you want to have and how if you slow down, don’t try to do it all, you’ll end up probably having a really, richer experience.
Katie (06:13):
Absolutely. When you said Italy as well, I’m just like remembering a trip that we took several years ago and the kids were young, and we did stay at a villa and you know, we would play by the pool and we would hang out, and we would smell like the big shrubs of lemon and rosemary and all of the wonderful sensations and it was just relaxing to be there and sort of pretend it was our home. I just fell in love with that country and would love to go back. Italy is just magic if you do allow yourself to slow down and soak it all in. Pavia, I want—
Pavia (06:47):
Well, the other— sorry.
Katie (06:48):
Tell me.
Pavia (06:48):
The other thing I want to add is guess what?
Katie (06:50):
What?
Pavia (06:50):
Italy is always gonna be there. You can always go back.
Katie (06:54):
Yes, yes. Except for the pandemic has made it so hard to travel, so Italy feels like a dream that I long for at this point.
Your book focuses on North America. Did you focus on destinations closer to home because of the pandemic, or was this an area of the world that you always wanted to explore?
Pavia (07:12):
Well, let’s just say it was a nice coincidence right. When we first started thinking about what our second book was going to be, the pandemic was really just getting started and I think we had a different concept for a travel trend. But when we started working on this, again, super early on, the things that…I don’t know, my coauthor Jeralyn and I, she has a different memory of the phone call. She’s right by the way [Katie laughs] I’m sure that I’m wrong because she has a better memory than I do, but I remember the publisher saying, “Hey it would be fun to do a series based on geography, let’s start with your home country first.” So, I think that that was really it, which means inshallah, if everything goes really well then it would be wonderful if my bookshelf at some point could have: Travel Europe and Avoid Being A Tourist, Travel South America and Avoid Being A Tourist, Travel Africa and Avoid Being A Tourist. TBD. You never know where life is going to lead you.
But it ended up being really fortuitous timing to write about this book during the pandemic because everyone is staying close to home. And by the way, that trend of Americans traveling in America, and Mexicans traveling in Mexico, that’s what’s happening all over the world. My friends who have hotels in Italy say, “Oh my goodness, we’ve discovered Italians in the summertime.” [Katie laughs] and I’m hearing the same, I’m in London right now, the English are discovering England. So this trend is really playing itself out all over the world, of people discovering what’s in their own back yard.
Katie (08:53):
I love that. We actually took our family up to ski in Lake Placid over the winter break because it’s in New York State and we were able to travel within our state without having to incur the sort of five-day quarantine things that would happen when you would cross a border. So we, you know, used to go to Vermont and we literally chose to remain in New York because it was something that was an option to us during the pandemic. You’re right, we are discovering our own backyard and we have a beautiful backyard and your book really captures it, it’s gorgeous, it’s full of stunning pictures, it’s all the locations, the inns, the scenery, which we expect in a travel book. But your book is special because it's full of super fun sidebars, quirky content, content that makes you think.
Pavia (09:43):
Thank you!
Katie (09:44):
Yes, you have a section called hobbies in the wild, and spa treatments are listed as “The Woo-Woo Ways” and you have chapters on choosing your travel companions, conscious travel, travel that gives back. I want to dive into some of these more during the show, but I do wanna hear a little stage setting. How is your book different from a typical travel guide, and why was it important to take a fresh approach?
Pavia (10:08):
Well, Katie, we take a fresh approach to travel with everything we do at Fathom, it’s just our way. Listen, joking aside, the typical guidebook, which is maybe, first of all, how do you do North America in one book, right? You’re talking about an encyclopedia. So, maybe a traditional guidebook, if I think about a Lonely Planet guidebook or a Fodor’s guidebook, will have the city, it’ll give you the history, it’ll tell you these are hotels, restaurants, shops, things to do, right? And frankly, there are bookstores full of those books, there is an internet full of these things, our own website included. So, nobody needed that kind of a guidebook anymore.
We were looking instead at how would we tell the story of travel around North America? And partly, everything that we do at Fathom, I am serious about this, tries to be super realistic about the way that people actually travel. We don’t write based on trends, because travelers don’t make their travel choices based on trends. You don’t go someplace just because it’s new, you go someplace because it’s awesome and you want to experience it. So in designing this book, we thought, and we were like, okay what do we think about when we plan our trips? What excites us? And that’s how we came up with the framework for this book.
Katie (11:41):
I love that. I love the fact that you talk about what excites you because that’s why we’re going on vacation right? To tap into whatever it is that we are into. Your book talks about nature as a travel muse, I want to explore that with you, but first, we’re gonna talk a very quick break.
[Ad break]
Katie (13:05):
Okay, Pavia, we’re back. I wanna explore a little bit more about this notion of nature as a travel muse. Walk us through the ideas in that chapter.
Pavia (13:14):
Well, we’re turning the page to Chapter 5, it’s called “Follow Nature’s Lead”. The idea behind this chapter was if you do want to take nature as your starting point for inspiration, what can you do and where can you go? So we divided the book according to the four seasons. So what does that mean? It means you can go see wildflowers in the Mojave desert in the spring, or you can see the wildflowers in Texas hill country also in the spring. Summertime, there’s a Chile season, Chile peppers. Hatch Chile season in New Mexico is something that we highlight. Fireflies in Mexico, just explode all over the sky. Autumn brings wine country in Ontario. I know, wine country in Canada, and not just the Ice Wine that some people may know about, but you can also find terrific Pinot Noirs and Chardonnay. Leaf peeping, we all go to Vermont, but Michigan, the Upper Peninsula also has terrific leaf-peeping. And then winter, it’s just like, where can you go see the ice sculptures and frozen waterfalls in Alaska and the ice columns in Vail, Colorado. So that is one aspect of a chapter.
Another aspect of the chapter, we have about a dozen hotels where you can stay and feel especially close to nature. And then another chapter that we have here is if you wanna follow animals because everybody loves animals, where to go to see polar bears, where to see pacific grey whales, where to go see butterflies, where to go to see birds, walruses, wild horses. These are all things that can inspire your trip.
Katie (15:07):
I love that organizing principle, that you can sort of follow your interests, whether it be animals or nature or sort of under the radar finds that you have. You also have a chapter with a very unusual title, it caught my eye, it says “The Land That Time Forgot”, and I was like, what’s that all about? This chapter is amazing. Please tell our listeners a little bit more about this.
Pavia (15:28):
That’s really nice of you to say. So, the land that time forgot was inspired by my first time visiting Utah. Okay, anybody who has never been to Utah, stop what you’re doing right now, and plan a trip to Utah. Utah is amazing.
Katie (15:43):
Stunning.
Pavia (15:44):
And full of, oh my goodness, full of natural wonders, I mean Zion, Arches, Canyonlands, amazing.
Katie (15:54):
And this is summertime travel, right, for Utah?
Pavia (15:56):
No, well, no because Utah is appealing at all times of year. So, I went in early March, and on the first day hiking, we were super high up, the guide pointed to something in the red rock formation and said oh look, it’s a fish skeleton. And I was like, “Dude, what? A fish skeleton, look how high up we are.” And he explained to me that millions of years ago, an ocean ran from the Arctic down and emptied out, it ran from Canada through the middle of what is now the continental US and emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. So this old ocean, if we go see it on a map today, would be book-ended by the Appalachians on the East Coast and the Rocky Mountains on the West coast.
Katie (16:41):
Wild.
Pavia (16:41):
Okay, Katie, this blew my mind. Because if you think about all the stuff that we look at, Bryce Canyon, those weird hoodoos, and those rock formations, you’re essentially looking at the bottom of an ocean floor.
Katie (16:54):
That’s amazing.
Pavia (16:54):
If we emptied out the ocean we could see all kinds of interesting, weird, crags and mountains and all sorts of things, and this is what we see now. So this chapter was inspired by that hike and the point of this chapter is where can we go in North America to see what things were like millions and millions of years ago?
Katie (17:14):
Oh my gosh, I love that, I just love this whole idea, it’s almost like time traveling.
Pavia (17:20):
It is kind of like time traveling, right. You know, nature was here before humans were, but then we also… So, if we’re looking at the stuff that nature built, we’re talking about millions of years. If we’re talking about when humans came to North America, we’re talking about tens of thousands of years. And the places that you can go, some of which are pretty unexpected where you can see old remains of the earliest humans who inhabited North America.
Katie (17:50):
So wild, so wild. Where would you go in America right now, for people who are listening to this in August and thinking, “I want to carve out some of this summer fun.” Would it be Utah, would it be Bryce? Where would you pick to recommend people go for, sort of, to be blown away by nature, or maybe for people who want old-fashioned Americana kind of family fun?
Pavia (18:16):
Okay, let’s split this East Coast, West Coast. I think if I was on the East Coast, I would head to the Chesapeake and maybe go to St. Michael’s, a terrific little island, not just because I would really like to eat a diet of crab cakes for a week, that would just be a really nice added bonus.
Katie (18:34):
[laughs] Yum.
Pavia (18:35):
Another thing that’s really stunning is Skyline Drive and going down to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia and down into North Carolina. Absolutely beautiful. I went to college in Washington DC and anytime I needed a break I would borrow my friend’s car and just drive Skyline Drive by myself, it’s so beautiful.
Katie (19:00):
Fabulous.
Pavia (19:00):
On the West Coast, oh my goodness, I can’t tell you how desperate I am to get to Montana. I just want to go to Montana, big sky, lots of stars, nature at its wildest and most beautiful. So, I would go to Montana. It’s probably a little too hot to go down to White Sands in Texas, but as it starts to cool off, I’d absolutely go there.
Katie (19:28):
So, what is White Sands in Texas? I’m not familiar with that spot.
Pavia (19:32):
It’s one of the millions of parks that don’t get enough credit in the country and it’s awesome and it’s beautiful. That’s it.
Katie (19:45):
Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned sort of the top of the show that people have this checklist so everyone’s heading to the same spots and taking the same Instagram photos. Opening up your book and seeing all of these different ideas and all of these different places got me really excited. Another thing I loved about this book is that you approach chapters that help you think through how you could make your whole experience better. You talk about choosing your travel companions, and what is conscious travel and travel that gives back. Walk us through choosing your travel companions. Obviously, you’re taking yourself, so that’s one of your companions. How do you navigate a group trip, how do you navigate a family trip, where people might have different competing interests?
Pavia (20:32):
So, this chapter is called “The Company You Keep.” The basic premise is, every trip you’re gonna take, you’re either traveling for work or pleasure and you’re going by yourself, with a loved one, or with other people, meaning, and other people can be multigenerational family, it can be girlfriends, it can be a reunion, it can be a big birthday party. So, every trip you take is going to be a variation of that. So, we break it down and we give you recommendations of places you can go by yourself and reasons for traveling alone; you are getting over a heartbreak, you want to celebrate an occasion in your life, you just need some quiet time on your own. All really good reasons to tell the people who you love at home, “I love you, but I need to go away from you for a while.” [Katie laughs] When you travel with a honey, and you want romance on the agenda—and I’m not talking about rose petals on the bed—you want a place where you can really focus on each other, we have a bunch of those places also. And then we also have ideas for traveling in a group, whether that group is a multigenerational family trip, whether it is a bachelor or bachelorette party, people still do those, right? Yeah, people still definitely do those. And then we also have suggestions for how to travel with people and specifically how to travel in a group without being a jerk.
Katie (21:58):
Tell me about that, that sounds important. [laughs] I wanna make sure I’m not a jerk.
Pavia (22:03):
Traveling in a group without being a jerk is the golden rule of traveling with people. When you’re traveling in a group, there’s often one person who ends up doing too much of the heavy lifting. This is the person who finds the hotel or finds the place, figures out how everybody’s gonna get there makes all the arrangements. Too often, everybody else ignores that they owe her money, they have to Venmo her for the room—also by the way, sadly and tragically, it’s usually a her—and one person, and this is the person who on the day that everybody is supposed to get there, gets a million text messages, “Where’s my car? Where am I supposed to be? Wait, where are we all meeting?” [Katie laughs] You’re laughing, but you know it’s true, right?
Katie (22:47):
Yes, I know. Groups are hard, groups are hard.
Pavia (22:51):
But this is just a reminder when you’re going on a group trip, to set it up properly, early. If you are that girl, and some people are just the control freaks who want to be that girl. I’m often that person, right.
Katie (23:04):
Right, you’re a pro.
Pavia (23:04):
If you are that person and you don’t want to get angry that you’re doing all the heavy lifting, decide early on. You know what, I’m gonna assign Katie to find the restaurants, I’m going to assign Damon to figure out the water skiing that we’re gonna do. Assign everybody a task so that everybody can feel like they’re part of the trip.
Katie (23:27):
Makes so much sense.
Pavia (23:28):
And also, think about, if you were on this trip, be proactive. Call up the person in charge and say, “Hey Becky, how can I help you? How can I help you so that you’re not doing all the work on this trip?” So anyway, this is just a reminder of that
Katie (23:45):
Yeah, I love that. Traveling is about seeing the location, the scenery, but it's about enjoying yourself with the company that you’re keeping. Either your own company or that of your family or your friends. We actually did a little bit of that when we were in Italy like I was saying, where we had the kids decide and do some research beforehand about the things they wanted to do and they were excited about so it wasn’t just like they were being dragged around by mom and dad to do the things that mom and dad thought were cool.
Pavia (24:13):
That is so important and this is a trend that we applaud and that we encourage. Get the kids involved, even the little kids. Get them to plan some of the things that they wanna do. If it’s a museum, how many museums just have so much of their collection online so the kids can get a sense of what they wanna see, and when they actually do see that dinosaur or that painting that they loved, they’ll be extra excited.
Katie (24:39):
Yeah, that’s so smart. I love that, that’s so smart. And we did, I would also say be open to things. I do remember we did a family pizza making, I do not remember which one of my kids voted for this. And my husband and I, you know, did sort of like an internal eye roll, that sounds a little cheesy—no pun intended, with the pizza [Pavia laughs]—but it was an absolute blast. It was so much more fun than I ever would have expected, and the kids adored it, which is probably part of the reason why we really enjoyed it, and it was fun. It was super fun to do. And that would not have been on our screen had we not been open to hearing from our travel companions, our three children, about what they were into.
Pavia, I’m curious. Speaking about opening your mind, has your approach to travel changed as you’ve aged? Because you’ve been doing this for a while. When did you launch Fathom? You’ve been a lifelong traveler, but when did Fathom launch, and as you’ve gotten older—because I know you’re approaching, I think you’re 50, am I right?
Pavia (25:35):
Yes.
Katie (25:35):
How has your approach to travel changed? Or has it?
Pavia (25:39):
It hasn’t. No, it hasn’t. Maybe I’m a little more professional about it. I ask different questions when I check out a hotel if I know that I have to write an article about the hotel then if my only concern was do I wanna sleep here? But in terms of the places I’m attracted to and the things that I like, it’s all the same. I mean, when I was 20 years old and backpacking broke around Europe for 6 weeks, I would check out a cool hotel in an emerging neighborhood, but I’d sit in the lobby. And if anybody looked askance at my filthy clothes and my stringy hair, I wouldn’t, I’d just say, “I’m waiting for my mom.” [Katie laughs] Or maybe if I was feeling flush, I’d splurge for a cappuccino or something like that. Now that I’m older, I can, those are the places that I stay in, but I’m still drawn to the same types of experiences and meals and neighborhoods that I’ve always been drawn to.
Katie (26:38):
And what are those?
Pavia (26:41):
I like emerging neighborhoods. I like neighborhoods that are up and coming, where there are cool galleries and interesting boutiques and small restaurants, I’ve always liked those. Small, boutique, indie, local, it’s kinda funny, these things have all become such industry cliches that I feel like I’m reading from some marketing textbook right now. But that’s really, that’s what we built Fathom, that’s what Jeralyn and I built Fathom to be, a reflection of those things that we were drawn to.
Katie (27:12):
Yeah, Fathom is such a stunning website and—
Pavia (27:15):
Thank you.
Katie (27:15):
And I feel like I’m drawn to indie, small, you know, emerging as well and I don’t like, I’ve never been on a cruise, I don’t like big corporate hotels, you know the five-star type of big resorts are not my jam. So I feel like I need to be traveling with you, so tell me what’s on your—
Pavia (27:34):
Call me anytime.
Katie (27:35):
[laughs] Tell me what’s on your summer travel bucket list. Because I promise not to be a jerk if I wind up there with you. [laughs]
Pavia (27:42):
Well listen, I’d be happy to have you close by. This is tricky because I have been in London since December. So, I’m incredibly limited by what I can and cannot do because not every country that I would want to go to wants me from England, to be showing up.
Katie (28:00):
Okay because of the pandemic.
Pavia (28:01):
So this would be a very different question if I was living in the United States. The reason why I mentioned this is because this is an important thing for everybody who is traveling, pretty much for the next year, to keep in mind. Rules are changing, things are shifting, and you need to be absolutely flexible about your travel plans. Because a flight might get canceled last minute and you might not arrive in the morning someplace, but at night. You might have to quarantine when you go somewhere. God forbid, the Delta variant shuts things back down if you had a safari booked for this December, you might have to punt it to the following year. I just want everybody, let’s go through our travels the way that we’re going through life, with a little grace, with a little understanding, with flexibility.
Katie (28:52):
Flexibility is so key, that’s something that we’ve all learned. And I feel like we’ve had trips canceled, my son was supposed to be in the Galapagos for a junior year of a high school trip, now he’s heading off to college. A year and a half have passed and he’s not doing that trip. We lost the opportunity to do a very big family reunion, 100 of us were going to The Sagamore and that didn’t happen, it got moved twice, and it’s disappointing. But we are, you know, doing what we can. I think flexibility is something that we all need to bake into not just our travels, but how we live our life. So, if the world were your oyster and borders were open, from your London perch, where would you be spending your two to three weeks?
Pavia (29:39):
I mean, do you know how many places I wanna go to? Can we just make these two, three weeks extra long? [Katie laughs] So first, I would go back to my magic happy place on the Amalfi Coast because I go there every year at least once a year, and it’s been two years since I’ve been, and that’s just a really long time. I really wanna go to Montenegro. I want to go to Paris for a couple of days, it’s been a couple of years since I’ve been to Paris and my best friend lives in Paris—well, she spent the pandemic in Bombay and she’ll be in Paris, I really wanna go spend a couple of days with her. If I could go back to the United States and spend a long time, I would go to the central coast of California, I’m really curious about the Cambria area in the country. Montana, as I said. I’ve given you too many places, right?
Katie (30:31):
No, oh my god.
Pavia (30:32):
This is way more than a couple of weeks. Also, a couple of years ago, I had a magical trip planned to Norway to see the fjords in the summertime and was turned away at the airport because even travel experts sometimes are idiots about their passport, [Katie laughs] and I’m desperate to redo that trip.
Katie (30:49):
Oh my gosh, that is such a bummer. I would love to do that too. This is actually so perfect, I’m taking mental notes because I want to go to all the places that you just outlined. I am resurrecting something that I used to do, during my first season, I did it on my opening show or two, and it’s called a speed round. This is such a nice segue into that speed round. I’m hoping you’re gonna participate and do it with me.
Pavia (31:14):
Happy, happy to.
Katie (31:16):
Okay perfect, okay. So, a place you’ve never been that you would wanna go to.
Pavia (31:24):
Tanzania.
Katie (31:25):
Tanzania. Okay, my daughter, by the way, spent part of her gap year there and adored it. Okay, a place you never want to go back to.
Pavia (31:32):
Oh, Dubai. [Katie laughs] Tied with Cyprus, which I knew Dubai would be lame, but Cyprus was disappointing and lame.
Katie (31:42):
Okay, that’s no good. So, two strikes, Cyprus is out. What’s touristy but terrific?
Pavia (31:49):
The Vatican.
Katie (31:50):
Oh my gosh, I agree.
Pavia (31:53):
The Vatican.
Katie (31:55):
Just going into St. Peter’s I was blown away by the scale of this building. It’s astonishing that human hands made it.
Pavia (32:04):
Do you wanna know the hack for how to get around? I know this is the speed round.
Katie (32:08):
No, go for it.
Pavia (32:08):
I’m gonna give you a paragraph as opposed to one word. The hack for The Vatican, you get your tickets, get an early morning ticket. You don’t have to pay all the extra money to get in before the crowds, but you go in with the early morning tickets, you get your tickets online, so you don’t have to wait in line. You get your tickets online, as on the Internet, so you don’t have to stand online in real life.
Katie (32:29):
Right, smart.
Pavia (32:31):
As soon as you get in, make a beeline for the Sistine Chapel, because as everyone is working their way through the beautiful Egyptian and ancient Roman galleries, they haven’t yet gotten to see the Raphael’s and they haven’t gotten to see the Sistine Chapel, so you go there first and you have it all to yourself, and then you work your way back.
Katie (32:50):
That is a paragraph worth listening to because when we wandered our way all the way through and made it to the Sistine Chapel, my 5-year-old threw his arms around my knees and said, “I wanna leave.” And I was like, “This is what we came for.” We burnt him out, we shouldn’t have done that right away.
Pavia (33:09):
So you do the best part first.
Katie (33:11):
Yeah, so smart, so smart. Okay—
Pavia (33:13):
And then the little kids will be excited about the mummies at the end.
Katie (33:16):
Of course, that keeps them awake. So Pavia, what should you always pack?
Pavia (33:23):
Curiosity and an open mind.
Katie (33:26):
Okay, I like that one. Was should you never pack?
Pavia (33:31):
Too much, too much stuff.
Katie (33:34):
All right, expensive luggage, yes or no?
Pavia (33:36):
Hell no.
Katie (33:37):
[laughs] We’re doing the backpacks.
Pavia (33:41):
Wait second, quality luggage, yes. Expensive luggage, just because it’s expensive, no. So you don’t wanna buy like a $20 piece of garbage that’s going to fall apart. Investing in a piece of Tumi luggage for a couple of hundred bucks, that thing is gonna stay with you forever. But nothing overly precious, right. Your luggage is your workhorse.
Katie (34:03):
Yes.
Pavia (34:03):
You want something, you kinda want it to be like a car. If you buy a junkie car, it’s not gonna serve you well. You want a quality car, you’ll spend money on a Volvo, on a Toyota, that will last you and stay with you for years and years.
Katie (34:18):
Right, but nothing that you’re afraid to park. So, that makes so much sense.
Pavia (0:34:20.9):
Nothing that you’re afraid to park, yeah.
Katie (34:22):
Okay, cure for jet lag, this is my last one, cure for jet lag. We’re gonna end on a high note because everybody needs this.
Pavia (34:30):
Power through and caffeine.
Katie (34:33):
[laughs] I love it, I love it. Pavia, this was so much fun. I am literally gonna go home, open your book, just blindly open it, put my finger on something and then commit to getting there in the next year because your book is full of amazing places, no matter where your finger lands, you’re gonna have an amazing experience and setting yourself up to enjoy our own backyard because we have a very beautiful backyard.
Pavia (35:01):
That’s so nice of you to say, thank you so much that means a lot.
Katie (35:04):
Yeah, I love this book, I loved it. I can’t say enough good things about it. Pavia, how can our listeners find the book and find you and find Fathom and all of your wonderful travel tips?
Pavia (35:13):
Well, thank you for asking. The book is Travel North America and Avoid Being A Tourist, it is everywhere fine books are sold. If your bookstore doesn’t carry it, please ask them to. You can find us on Fathom, we are continually publishing incredible travel stories from interesting travelers all over the world. And that’s at fathomaway.com, F-A-T-H-O-M-A-W-A-Y .com. We are on Instagram @fathomwaytogo and we would love to see where you’ve traveled, and we always encourage people to tag their photos #travelwithfathom so we can see where they’ve been.
Katie (35:52):
I love it. Pavia, thank you.
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women over 50 who are aging without apology. Join me next week when I sit down with podcasting powerhouse, Zibby Owens, the host of the mega-popular podcast, moms don’t have time to read. She gives us the 4-1-1 on summer books not to miss and so much more.
Special thanks to Michael Mancini, who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time, and until then: age boldly, beauties.