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Last week, Collette kicked off its brand new podcast, Travel Unpacked. I’m thrilled to co-host this podcast with my fabulous colleagues – Josh from Marketing (from Collette Talks fame) and Kelsie, from Product – who keeps a literal bucket list! Upcoming, we have some great guests slated.
If you missed it, or prefer to read through the topics we covered, check out the transcript of Episode 1: Ready for Takeoff. Thanks for tuning in, traveller!
Hosts:
Hi! Welcome, everybody.
Josh:
Welcome to our listeners to our first episode ever of travel unpacked. This is a guided travel podcast by Collette. And I'm Joshua.
Kelsie:
I'm Kelsie
Nicole:
I'm Nicole.
Josh:
And we are your hosts and we're so excited to be on with you today to talk all things, travel and all things about us as we do this introductory podcast.
Nicole:
Let's talk a little about who we are to our listeners who might not know what Collette is and definitely don't know who we are. So Kelsie, how long have you been at Collette?
Kelsie:
I have been at Collette for nine years. I started in the sales department and I moved over to product after being there for two years because I realized was a lot better fit. I love solving problems and fixing issues and putting things into order. I actually oversee a team who does exactly that. So they are the Wizards behind the curtain. They're making sure that our tours are going very smoothly and ironing things out when they don't.
Nicole:
It's funny too. You don't always think of product as like you think of it as the tour that our travellers take. And you know that the team is putting those tours together, but you don't always think about the logistics that your team's always handling. You guys are always like elbow-deep.
Kelsie:
Yeah, it truly takes a village. So we have four or five different departments within the product department that does something different to make sure that our tours are going exactly the way that the designer planned. So it's not just one person who decides that the tour is going to go to city a, b, c, that it starts with that person, but it goes through about a dozen different hands before the first passenger even gets on the bus.
Nicole:
And Josh, how long you been at Collette?
Josh:
I've been at Collette for over 11 years now. I know many of our listeners probably know me from Collette talks, as you mentioned, which was on Facebook. And then we've transitioned over to this podcast that we're really excited about. And I worked throughout the company. I was a tour manager many times. I have done our Southern charm New York city, Iceland, Cuba, been all over the world. And I'm really excited to kind of sit down and talk to our listeners and to hear what they have to say about travel and really start to unpack that.
Nicole:
Nice and I've been here probably the longest if you go from a technical standpoint, but I've been at Collette in marketing for 16, going on 17 years. I started as a writer. I moved over to our social responsibility program, how we market that I absolutely loved my time focusing on because it's one of our core values at Collette is giving back in our communities. It was a great time to really be able to focus on that to the nonprofits that we work with and kind of help build our employee volunteer program. So I love that. And now I am overseeing our awesome creative team. So when you see our brochures, our website, our social media pages, anything, it's our writers and our designers are all over these touchpoints. So it's really exciting. It's a very creative travels, a very creative thing to, like, write about. And it's very fun. As we're going to unpack it in this podcast, it's just a very fun industry like we are a fast-moving, fast-evolving industry. So we have a lot of stories to tell because we go to all seven content. So between our whole team and all of our travellers and everything that they tell us, there's just so much to do on the marketing side and share these stories with the world.
So it's a lot of fun, but also as a family-owned company, I'm in the family, so I have grown up Collette. I took my first Collette tour when I was probably eight years old, which is pretty crazy. I was on the bus playing Bingo with our travellers probably before you were born. Kelsie and it was a lot of fun. We don't really do bingo anymore, but it was honestly a lot of fun. Although I do remember this one time that my bingo card was almost full. And right. I waited probably 20 minutes for this one square to be called and it was never called. And my mother had asked the tour manager if it had fallen on the floor or something and it had fallen on the floor. I think about this all the time when anyone mentions bingo.
And now we don't really I mean, we're off the bus. More on our tours now. Modern travellers changed. So we've changed, too. We're taking walking tours of our cities where boat rides tuk tuks, you name it. Like we've really managed to mix it out, mix it up. So those days of like playing bingo on the bus are definitely I'm talking about the 1980s, so I'm dating myself of that. Yeah, I've been taking Collette tours for a very, very long time. That was the gist of that.
Josh:
I love that. I think the first time I actually travelled outside of the country was before Collette. I accidentally made my way into Canada. I was driving across the country, moving from Massachusetts to California, and we wanted to go to Niagara Falls. We got into the wrong lane. My car was fully packed all the way from top to bottom. And once we were in there, I realized I was heading into Canada. That was back when you didn't need a passport to get over the border. I was going to say, how do you accidentally cross the border? I know I was so nervous. I was like, you're going to make me unpack the entire car. It was my entire life all packed up. Ready to go. But the actual first time I then left the country by plane was with Collette. It was about seven months. I was in this position here and I got to go to Australia. I mean, what an amazing experience to be told. The first time you're going to lead the country, the first real-time you're going to go out and explore the world is going to be all the way to Australia, all the way to New Zealand. And it was a life-changing moment. And since then I have been to, as I mentioned, over 20 different countries.
Kelsie:
I love how you say a life-changing moment. I think the most important thing about travel is that it does broaden your horizons and you get to learn more and see other people and experience other cultures. What would you say when you went to Australia was your biggest culture shock?
Josh:
I think I mean with Australia it was just it's just everything it was, it was, it was easier to go to Australia, you know, they do speak English so it wasn't so much a big shock to go there as it was when I would go to maybe Cuba or I would go to Iceland where the language was different or the food was different. I mean, that was really an amazing experience there. But when you leave it's just realize there's so much more than just your own backyard. There are so many different cultures, the Maori culture, and you get a chance to really meet people and understand their life and what it means to grow up there, what it means to be them.
Nicole:
And was it shocking to get on the airplane and be on it for like 19 hours?
Josh:
That was really shocking. That was because you fly over here on the East Coast here, obviously at our headquarters in Rhode Island. So then we flew over to Los Angeles. And then it was about a 15 hour flight over the Pacific to get to Australia. We went to Sydney, Melbourne and then the Northern Ireland of North of New Zealand. And it that was a long time. That was a long flight.
Nicole:
One of the things we get asked about a lot for people interested in going to the South Pacific is that flight. And so one of the things we're going to talk about on this podcast is tips. And here's a tip that I just learned from my brother-in-law who takes this flight all the time. He says, you're going to fly out at night and it's hard to stay awake, but you want to stay awake if you're coming from the East Coast of the u.s., stay awake at the very beginning and fall asleep at the end because you're going to land in Sydney if you're going that way, you're going to land in Sydney in the morning. So you want to basically try to turn your body around on the airplane so that you have minimal lag when you got there. So he said bring books, bring downloaded shows on your tablet or watch what they have on the plane, but try to stay awake as hard as it is because it will make your adjustment a little bit easier. And the flight a little more entertaining.
Josh:
It feels like a lot of the flights that we take, even when you go to Europe, are the overnight flights. And you want to make sure that when you're there, you want to hit the ground running. You know, nobody wants to just go back to their hotel and sleep. You really want to experience everything. At least I know that's what I want to do when I get to a destination the first time.
Kelsie:
And also just stop thinking about time you're there. You need to immediately just be on that time zone because if you count backwards in your head of what time it is at home, you're going to be tired the entire time you're there, I promise.
Nicole:
Oh, 100% I think it's like I spend on depending on where I go, sometimes the first couple of days, just fighting the urge to take a nap because as much as my body wants to is the worst thing I could possibly do as far as adjusting. Because you do you feel like when you're that tired, you it doesn't help you. It really doesn't. You want to do a full night's sleep, but if you're giving yourself a one hour nap, you're going to wake up feeling like you're in a fog.
So that's flight packing tips. But we're going to have this season. I'm going to have a lot of guests on and talk about all sorts of different things, travel, including tips. Because I feel like when our travellers write to us or when they reach out to their tour managers, they have a lot of questions, a lot of things that they want to know more about. So we're really excited to be able to unpack that for the next season with you.
Josh:
I love that. And you know, we talk about, you know, tips and things and I want to talk really briefly about like, do either of you buy anything when you're on tour? Because one of the tips I have is I know sometimes you can buy a lot, you can get a lot of tchotchkes and you know, you have stuff around the house. But the one thing that I purchase when I'm on tour is a Christmas ornament, and I do that because it also allows me every year to pull out that ornament, put it on the tree, and have that memory of that experiences or the experience that I had in that destination. So I know, I know my husband's a little jealous because I have maybe 40 of them to put out and he has maybe one or two with me. But I just love that because you can really remember what you did when you went on that tour. And it's nice because then you pack it up at the end of the season and then it goes away and it feels fresh again. Does anybody else do you collect anything or do you do anything like that?
Kelsie:
I'll love that idea, Josh, because when I started, I had the idea to have this shelf in my living room and I would buy one little thing everywhere I went. I am at now out of space and I am dusting too much. So I moved on from that and I started buying a little piece of clothing wherever I went. So I have a nice pair of shoes, I have a cool Blazer from Barcelona. But while I was in Barcelona, one of my travelling companions told me that she likes to bring home a bottle of wine. And what she does is she brings one of those little wine pouches or like some bubble wrap, and then she fully just intends on bringing home a bottle of wine or the local liquor or maybe even a bottle of olive oil. So I did that this time. I wrapped it in jeans. Next time I'll make sure I'll bring the bubble wrap. But I brought home a bottle of wine and a bottle of olive oil and was so cool about the olive oil. It was cold pressed. It was right from Spain and it was 5. And I've been cooking with it. I know. And it's delicious.
Nicole:
I feel like I'm so late to the game because while I have a lot of places I want to go, I've travelled a lot in my life and I have never had the tradition of I know people who have collected shot glasses. I, my mother-in-law collects postcards and my husband, when I first met him, if we would travel, he would always get postcards for his mother because even if she didn't go there, her. Now she loves postcards around the world. I know people who collect t-shirts and different things. So I don't have a system. I just if I'm in a place, I will often just shop for what it's known for. So the silk and Sienna and Italy or the olive oil. And in Tuscany, there's. I'll just kind of do that. You know, I don't have I don't have a system. So I do have a hodgepodge of things at my house. A sweatshirt that says London and some ornaments from the Christmas markets, from a trip I took in 2019 with my family. So I don't I feel like it would have been a great thing to have that shelf in that like, oh, I do this around the world. My sister does Starbucks mugs from all over the world. She has a bunch of Starbucks mugs with like Portugal or whatever written on it. And I think it's really cool to have that thing that you do when you go somewhere.
Kelsie:
It probably makes shopping easier, but I feel like if, as you are a coffee lover, iced coffee, I feel if maybe if there was Dunkins around the world, you would have collected some bunch of them.
Nicole:
And, you know, they don't have iced coffee in a lot of countries that you'd be surprised. Like in Europe, you would think this would be very common. It is not. I can only say one thing in French and it's je voudres un café au lait avec glas, which means I would like an iced coffee. My brother-in-law is French-Canadian and he taught me how to say that before my honeymoon in France. So it's like the one thing I can say in French is to ask for iced coffee, because it is not easy. I've had to make it myself out of hot coffee in many countries, and I will. Unless, of course, you're in a country can't drink the water, so you can't have the ice. Then I just have to drink coffee. Yeah I'm one of those people who. I'm from New England. True New Englander and Rhode Islander. It could be two degrees out, and I definitely still want my iced coffee.
Josh:
So we talked about souvenirs and things that we like, which kind of brings me to another question that we have. Does anybody have, you know, bucket list that you really are considering and thinking of as I make lists of souvenirs and things that I want, is there anything that you guys are thinking of in terms of travel that you would like to go and experience?
Kelsie:
It's so funny that you say bucket list. I am a crazy person. I have a physical bucket list where I've written down all of the Wild Things that I want to do. When you say physical bucket list, is it in a bucket in your house? It is not in a bucket. It is on a bus. It's in a bucket. On my one note in my phone. OK so the digital bucket the digital bucket has little checkmarks in 2023 activities, right? So it's things like hot air balloon ride and jumping out of a plane. Skydiving but what I really like to do is I like to take that bucket list item and then apply it to a country that I'm going to. So I love that idea. For example, this past January, I was in Spain with Collette. I was there for business, but we stayed there for a day. Later, we went to Monserrat and we did a hot air balloon ride and it was phenomenal. It was one of the coolest things I've ever done. You it's really cold. Early in the morning. You can't feel your fingertips new crawling to this basket. And then you hear this big shot of the fire and it lifts you up and you're floating towards the clouds. And then all of a sudden you're inside the cloud. You can't see anything. And then within all of a sudden, you're above the clouds and you can see the mountain, the distance. And this sun was coming down and shining off of all the clouds. And it was just the most surreal, quiet, calm moment of my life and one of the coolest things I've ever done.
Nicole:
I’ve never actually considered going in a hot air balloon. I don't know why it scares me a little bit.
Josh:
That's one thing that I want to do. I've tour guide at our Albuquerque balloon fiesta, so I get to see it and everybody, when they come down from the balloon, they just talk about, as said, an amazing experience because it's just so different up there. It's so quiet and so peaceful. So I think this year, this is the year I'm going to do that because I've done lots you know, I have done skydiving and I love that, but I would love to own a hot air balloon. So I think all three of us have done skydiving. All three of us have done skydiving. And it's a hot air balloon is nothing like skydiving. So that is like full of anticipation. And I hope my heart is pounding. You can't breathe your skin. Your face is pulled back towards your ears. This is so relaxed and quiet. Oh, Yeah. If you're a hot air balloon, it's a little bit like skydiving. It's going very wrong when you're going down. No call, have you? So we've all skydived. Bungee jumping is also on my list. I have bungee jumped. I did it. Have you?
Nicole:
Yeah, I did it in queenstown, in New Zealand, which is like known for bungee jump. But that's where it was invented I believe, hasn't it. Yeah yes, yep, Yep.
And I did it there with my family in 2005. I was super excited to do it, but it was a little bit of a terrifying experience and a confusing experience for me because right before I jumped, the guy who was working there asked me if I wanted water and I was thirsty. So I was like, yeah, I could use some water. I'm parched. I am parched. And I was parched and I was like a little nervous to jump, so I wanted that water. Anyway, fast forward about five minutes. I'm like standing on the edge and getting ready to go. And the guy's about to push me. And the last thought I have is like, whatever happened to that water? And he pushes me and now I'm falling and I hit the water below. And I honestly, I thought I'd died. I really did. I'm like, my rope must have broke. I'm going to just plunge into the sea and it's over. But then as quick as I even had that thought, I was yanked back up. And I think that he was asking if I wanted to be dipped in the water. And I said yes, the rest of my family said no. And they weren't what I was were up to my entire torso was soaked. So they dip you in and pull you up. And I thought it was all over. I thought I'd died. But did you get that glass of water? No no. But then after that, not even after that. And then my dad, he jumps next. And now I'm in the boat. We're all watching him. We thought he died. He didn't know what to do with his body. So he's just, like, dangling and he's not moving. He's just dangling.
So we're all looking at him like, oh, my god, you killed dad. Yes he's just because my sister made him do the jump. She's like, you've travelled to all these countries and you've never done bungee jumping in New Zealand. So she kind of pressured him into doing it. And then, yeah, he just kind of hung in there and he just said he was just enjoying it. But yeah, so it was, I, I did it once and I don't think I'll do it again, but it was checked off my bucket list.
Kelsie:
Do you remember the fall? Like, did you keep your eyes open?
Nicole:
I don't remember that part. I just remember the water confusing me. I probably kept my eyes shut because it is terrifying. I'd say I think skydiving was scarier, but they're both the different type of adrenaline rush.
Kelsie:
So what about the jerk at the end? Like, how did it like did it jerk you back up or did they all pretty well attach everything?
Nicole:
It's not because I think it would kill people's knees if it wasn't done wrong. So I think I mean, I was young, too. I was in my 20s. But no, it was all very gentle. I felt good about it, but it was fun. It was a fun thing. You we did it as a family and aside from those little moments of trauma, was really good and definitely something to do in Queenstown where it was invented.
Kelsie:
Have either of you done ziplining at all?
Nicole:
No, I want to.
Josh:
I did ziplining in Costa Rica, and that was probably one of the most amazing experiences that I have, because you go through a lot of, you know, it was maybe, like, 10 or 20 zip lines that you do throughout. And then the last one we do the Superman where you're laying on your stomach and they hook you up in the back and then you go for about a mile over the rainforest. And it is truly one of the most amazing experiences, I think, that you could ever have, especially in Costa Rica, where they're known for their zip lining and they're known for. Is it being the highest or being the longest? And maybe both, because you are really up there really high. I mean, you're above the trees in the rainforest and you are just going and continuing and it doesn't stop. And it's amazing. You go through all the emotions as you're travelling.
Kelsie:
Yes, I've actually done it over the Royal Gorge in Colorado.
Josh:
Wow Yeah. That might be a little more frightening, too.
Nicole:
We have this traveller who celebrated recently her 80th birthday ziplining. And it's like one of my favourite videos is to watch her and everyone sing Happy Birthday at the end like this. You know, she is celebrating 80 flying over the rainforest in Costa Rica and I couldn't wait to bring in 80 then ziplining. I love that. I love that. You know it's just it tells you a lot about our travellers so honestly it's just they're curious people they want they have so many things that they want to do, as do we. That's the beauty. I think as you when you're here and you're working at Collette, you kind of see it. We are travellers. And then our travellers obviously are out there exploring the world. So we have this thing in common. And that's why I think the product team works so hard to make sure the tours, you know, are exactly what they're looking for.
The type of modern traveller today that just wants adventure and they want to meet the locals like we go so far to make sure that happens. And I feel like it's such a great thing because we also love travel. Like you meet anyone here at Collette, everybody just is a traveller. Like, I remember when I first started, they asked everybody in our department, Where's your dream? Destination of mine was Costa Rica, and I still have yet to go. So I have a huge long list. I don't have a dollar list like Kelsie does. I have a bunch of places I've gone pretty well travelled in Europe and North America. I've been to Africa, but not on Safari. I've been to Egypt, so I've been to the continent. And it was probably the coolest, most unique place I've been, because it really is so far from our reality.
Josh:
And in the US or in North America, it's just something special about Egypt in general, because I think you grow up and you read about Egypt and you see the pyramids and you hear about, you know, King Tut and then actually be there, which I was about five years ago. It's now that is truly magical. That is just amazing to be in the pyramids. And I walked up actually in the main pyramid all the way up to the top where they would have had the tomb. And it was just something that you can't even explain. So surreal to be there and to be up there and knowing it was made. I mean, that's the part that's just Unreal. Like, how do they do that?
And yeah, we had archaeologists with us really kind of sharing some tidbits as we walked around, and it's really a truly fantastic experience. So if anybody wants to go to Egypt, I definitely highly recommend that. Yeah, that was definitely one of the coolest, probably the coolest place I've been so far. Yeah, I don't have a formal bucket list, but Costa Rica is on the top of it and I have yet to go to Asia. I really want to go where? I've been thinking a lot about Japan lately. I want to go to Japan. It sounds very cool. So I don't know what kelsi on your bucket list. What's like the top place you want to go?
Kelsie:
Egypt is very high on my bucket list and my activity in Egypt would be running a camel through the desert, not riding a camel through the desert running. You know that scene from the mummy when they're all racing towards the pyramids, that's. That's what you want. You want to do the exact thing. I've already set it up. I reached out to a tour manager who's promised me he'll get me a running camel. I don't know where I'm going. That's not it's not scheduled. But he said Yes. But also, Montana is really high on my list, which is really new for Collette. We've only been going there for, I think just a year or two.
Nicole:
I love that it's Egypt or Montana.
Kelsie:
Egypt or Montana. It's, you know, it's one or the other. It's higher. But no, Montana is gorgeous. I mean, we're all obsessed with the show Yellowstone. Right so I want to go out there and see all the vistas.
Nicole:
And then, Montana is when we created the tour, literally, because our travellers wanted us to and wanted to see this part of the world. And it's like really popular. It's beautiful. It's absolutely stunning. I had never really probably had Montana on my list prior to seeing what we're doing there. And yeah, it's pretty cool for me.
Kelsie:
Travel, I prefer vistas and forests and oceans and more wildlife and natural opposed to the cities like Japan and New York. I mean, they're both great. You get a lot out of both, but I like more of the mountains and nature.
Josh:
I love that. And I definitely Montana is on my United States bucket list. Definitely the upper North Pacific Northwest area is represented. Now, just to California on the Bay. I never went to Washington, Montana, Idaho. That's the area. I haven't been there. I say this because he's gone cross-country like 11 times in his life. I did. We're drivers. We love to go. And I've been to California and back and did the whole Southern route. But I've never gone North. I think the Northeast. I've lived in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota. But other than that, no, that Pacific Northwest area still calling my name. Well, you got to get out there. You know how many states you've been to? I have been to 42 states. So definitely it's that Northwest and then obviously Hawaii in Alaska, those are two big ones that are on the list.
Kelsie:
I actually got married in Hawaii, on the beach, barefoot.
Nicole:
Oh, that's amazing. I love Hawaii. It's a great place. I want to go with my family.
Kelsie:
Let's go. Josh, I've also been to I've been to 32 states and Washington, d.c. I'm also missing that chunk, the Pacific Northwest. So Washington, Oregon, Montana, but I'm also missing that deep south, like Mississippi, Arkansas. So it's like one or the other. But I've done a lot in the middle, actually grew up in Colorado and then so I've driven back from here to Colorado. So what I have what I'm picturing is maybe a road trip in future seasons or we can go and experience all that together. Let's do it.
Nicole:
I haven't counted how many states I've been to, but I think you guys both have me. I feel like I repeat the same states over and over. So and I love being in New England. I love the Four Seasons. So I lived in California for a little while and it was a lot of fun. But coming back, I almost got into a car accident looking at the foliage because I hadn't seen it in four years because I had never been back in the fall. I always visited in the winter and in the summer. So I mean, there's nothing that beats a New England fall.
Josh:
Oh, that's my favourite. It is the best. And the best part about New England, too, is you can go through all those states in one day. You know, sometimes you forget how lucky you are to be able to travel to Maine, to New Hampshire, Vermont, all just in one day or some other states. You know, you could be driving for hours and sometimes days just to get through.
Kelsie:
You know, it's 11:45 and I've been to three states this morning. I started in Connecticut. I dropped my mother off in Massachusetts, and I drove here to Rhode Island.
Josh:
There we go. So as you can see, we have a lot to unpack this season and we're really excited to have our listeners with us and we're really excited to hear from you throughout the season, you know, things that you would like us to unpack as well. So we're just we're really happy to be here. We're going have a lot of great guests. It's going to be a great season.
Nicole:
We're super excited because obviously we love travelling, but it's going to be great to sit down with our guests and talk about, you know, with previous travellers. We're going to talk about different destinations, bucket list trips, guide to touring, what Collette does for listeners who aren't familiar with Collette or with guided tours, and we're going to really dive in and show what that differences. We'll talk with some of our wonderful partners around the world. We have these great, you know, in Ireland we go to, you know, farm. We have these farm to table experiences. We might have a guest that's one of those local farmers and just can talk about side of things, that side of that's the small business, the family-owned that we support through our tours that our travellers meet on the road. So nothing's off the table. Absolutely nothing. We want to talk about all of it with you.
Kelsie:
We're super excited and we'll give you some tips and tricks as we go along as well, especially of things to not forget to pack. So for today, don't forget to pack your bubble wrap.
We’re excited to come back on our next episode with a very special guest to talk travel… and the Balkans – a destination that is very much trending right now. So don’t miss our next episode of Travel Unpacked.
That’s a wrap!
