BEST IN THE BIZ • November 2021

The best TED Talks for travel lovers

Ever fallen down a YouTube rabbit hole? Accidentally spent five hours watching cat videos and TV bloopers? TED Talks are the YouTube hit that turned downtime online into an educational experience. Question is, can any of them teach us about travel? We find the talks that hope to

Life Lessons from the Youngest Person to Travel to Every Country

“I learned how to be alone without being lonely.” This powerful declaration marks the crescendo of 21-year-old Lexie Alford’s 2019 ode to comfort-zone-climbing travel. The remarkable speaker was fresh off her record-breaking travels to 196 countries, making her, at that time, the youngest person to travel to every single one. Question is, what did she learn along the way?

How to be a smart tourist

Holidays are supposed to help us get away from our responsibilities, so how does this impact on the expectation for us to holiday responsibly? This very conundrum is the subject of Kristin Weis’ talk reflecting on our relationship with the places we pass through. It’s not all philosophy, though. Weis reveals three tangible ways to travel smarter and more sustainably.

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The value of travel

No stranger to living out of a suitcase, professional nomad Rick Steves is the perfect candidate to give his two cents on more thoughtful travel. In these 20 minutes, he uses humour and three decades of anecdotes to infer lessons from the people he’s met and the things he’s seen and to tell us how we can make our travels more meaningful than they’ve ever been before.

Why you must travel alone at least once in your life

Have you ever travelled solo? In his talk (at 4.30 minutes in, to be exact) Chintan Ruparel describes how he left behind a cushy advertising job, cleaned out his bank account and took off alone in pursuit of adventure. Aiming at “corporate slaves” who are “chained to their desk for most of their lives”, Ruparel gives us his seven top reasons for going solo.

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Learn to travel – travel to learn

Robin Esrock asked 1,732 people from 46 countries to reveal their biggest regret. The most common answer? Wishing they had travelled more. Luckily, Esrock does not suffer from this affliction, since a life-changing accident spurred him to begin his bag-packing adventure across the world. This talk touches on decision paralysis, independent travel and what he discovered in some of the world’s most ‘dangerous’ places.

How to travel the world with almost no money

Money is often the biggest impediment to travel, but can you do one without the other? Croatian travel writer Tomislav Perko says yes. In his talk, Perko describes losing his job during the stock market crash and hitting the road – and how he learned that travelling can sometimes be cheaper than living in your own country. Do you believe him? Watch and make up your mind.