Into South America & Across the Western Front

If traveling to South America is on your radar in the coming year you'll want to hear our chat with Adam Booth, Sales and Marketing Representative in the US and Canada for Explora, a company that’s been named the World’s Leading Expedition Company multiple years in a row. Specializing in immersive experiences across South America. Adam will join Travel Expert Onanta Forbes on this week's show. Then we'll talk with the author of a new book called "There Will Come Soft Rains, A Journey Along The Western Front." Briana Gervat is the author and she actually walked the entire Western Front so Briana will share her adventure with us. 

Transcript

Into South America

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Well, hello and welcome to the Informed Traveler Podcast, a weekly travel podcast where our goal is to help you become a more informed traveler. I'm your host, Randy Sharman. If traveling to South America is on your radar in the coming year, you'll want to hear our upcoming chat with Adam Booth. He is the sales and marketing representative in the US and Canada for Explora, a company that's been named the world's leading expedition company multiple years in a row, specializing in immersive experience across South America. So Adam will join travel expert Onanta Forbes and I in just a few seconds. And then we'll chat with the author of a new book called There Will Come Soft Rains: A Journey Along the Western Front. She is Brianna Gravat, and she actually walked the entire Western Front. Yes, that Western Front, the one from World War I. It was quite an experience, so Brianna will share her adventure with us. But first, let's kick things off chatting with travel expert Onata Forbes, who joins us each week to discuss some of the travel news and travel trends. You can follow her adventures on Instagram, Facebook, and ex at Onanta Forbes. OnantaForbes.com is her website. And this week we are joined by our special guest, Adam Booth, who is the sales and marketing representative in US and Canada for Explora. Explora.com is the website. Hello to you, Adam, first.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Hi there, Randy. Thank you for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Good to be with you. And Onanta, who joins us uh every week. Uh, I'm gonna turn it over to you, Onanta, and just uh tell us what piqued your interest uh when you heard uh what Explora has to offer.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

Yeah, it was an exciting opportunity. You know, a lot of my uh guests and my travelers uh are looking for alternatives to maybe typical sun destinations in Europe. Um there seems to be a lot of airlift to South America now. And so I thought, you know, I want to know who um I can present to our travelers as an opportunity to explore South America. So with Explora, they um travel to different destinations, but uh I think the best person to tell us about those destinations is Adam. So Adam, tell us where you have your accommodations and the experiences that our travelers can um look into.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Sure, yeah, it would be my pleasure, Omanta. And again, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you both. Um so again, I I, as Randy mentioned, I represent a company by the name of Explora, and it's a company that it's a South American company. It has a long, very storied history that uh many of our listeners may not know about, so that's why I'm glad to be here to share the story. Um, but it was a company that was founded in 1993 by a man by the uh by the name of Pedro Ibanez. So he was a Chilean entrepreneur, very much uh an entrepreneur as well as a very passionate explorer. Um he's from Chile, and he used to spend his time uh you know growing up and going down to Chilean Patagonia at the very bottom of South America, hiking, camping with friends, going on adventures in the mountains, the beautiful forests. Um and he kind of came up with this idea um at a certain point where um at this time kind of slow intentional travel, very immersive travel wasn't really much of a thing. Um and he at least kind of what you know what he could see and where you know whereabouts he was based out of. Um and so he kind of came up with an idea that he wanted to begin a an exploration company, a travel company that could allow guests to really immerse themselves in remote places of South America. Um and that's where the company began. Um and it began opening our first lodge in 1993 in Torres del Pine uh National Park in Patagonia of Chile. And it's been quite over the past, you know, coming up on about 35 years now, the expansion has been absolutely um amazing. Um now Explora owns and operates a network of all-inclusive luxury lodges around the entire continent of South America. Um, so they began in Patagonia, as I mentioned, Torres del Pine National Park. Um it's one of the most famous national parks on earth. Um, definitely probably the most famous region um of Patagonia. Patagonia is a huge territory shared by uh by Chile and Argentina. And today there's a network of about nine, by the end of the year, um, we're opening actually two more lodges in Patagonia. Um so by the end of the year, we're gonna have five lodges in Patagonia, three on the Chilean side, and two on the Argentina side. And we also have lodges and other exciting places as well. So we have a lodge on the Easter Island, um Easter Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America, the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, the number one stargazing destination on the planet, the Sacred Valley of Peru, uh near Machu Picchu, and as well, we have a very interesting um experience in the Uyuni Salt Flats of Bolivia, the largest salt flat on the planet. And so it's very much been uh quite the expansion since kind of Pedro began the company in 1993. Um but I I would quickly add that the expansion, it's been very it's been very deliberate, right? It's been a very um, I don't want to say a slow expansion by any means, but a very um cautious expansion because they wanted to make sure that they were building lodges in very deliberate areas, very unique ecosystems, very remote places of South America that had something truly special to to to offer to folks and um to allow people to connect to nature, connect to remote ecosystems. Um so it's been quite an exciting journey since the the the company began in 1993.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Well, it does sound exciting because a lot of the places that you've just listed off are on a lot of people's bucket list trips. And for me, you know, when I hear that, I get very excited because one of my bucket lists is to go to Easter Island and to see the beautiful statues and to learn about it, which is part of how you share the experience with the guests. You sit down with them and you kind of go over what's what they're looking for when they're upon arrival, and then create um their time there. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

That's that's perfectly correct. Yeah, you're you're exactly spot on. Um so again, we're we're very much an exploration company. Um, we're pioneering exploration, and our lodges, we just use our lodges as kind of base camps to explore the surrounding ecosystems. And as you mentioned, uh we're all inclusive, all meals, all drink um included, domestic uh airport transfers included as well. So it's very simple. You fly into the right domestic region and we take over from there. And depending on the destination, we offer anywhere between 30 to 50 guided explorations. Um and the great thing for all of our guests is um virtually none of these activities and explorations have to be pre-booked. All right. So there's a couple, there's a couple exceptions, a couple activities that may have an additional cost or that we may require advanced notice. But ultimately the the ultimate concept is when your guides come to the lodge or your your your your yourself comes to the lodge, sorry, our guides will give you a welcome orientation. They'll sit you down, give you a nice welcome drink after your journey, um, and kind of figure out why are you here, you know, what were you, what what what interested you bringing you to this location, um, what are you looking to do? What are your physical capabilities? You know, so we're very much an adventurous exploration company. Um, it does not mean that you have to be able to hike a mountain to enjoy your time with us. You know, we can do we can do the hard stuff, we can also do the very gentle, easy stuff as well. We can go on a beautiful kilometer uh trail walk through the forest with the mountains in the distance, turn around, come back, and then just enjoy the beautiful scenery. So we really have something for everybody, and it all can be decided upon arrival at the lodge. Um, and the great thing is we reassess every single evening. So at six o'clock in the evening before dinner, every single day, our guides will sit back down with you and essentially ask you, how's your day today? How are you feeling? Let's talk about tomorrow. Um, do you want to sleep in? You know, do you want to do a half day exploration? Do you want to do a full day exploration? And what they'll do is if you can kind of imagine it, they'll you'll gather in one of the common areas of the lodge and they'll pull out a map and they'll put a map on the table in front of you, and they'll ask you if you want a glass of wine or a beer or a water, whatever you would like, and they'll begin drawing on the map. And they'll say, This is where you went today. This is kind of the area that we explored. Um, this is these are the options that we have for tomorrow. What do you want to do tomorrow? Where do you want to go? So it's very educational in nature, um, educating our guests on the ecosystems that they'll be exploring. And then depending, depending on the destination, we offer a range of activities as far as hiking, horseback riding. We have our own horseback riding stables uh at some of our destinations, uh, bike riding, e-bikes, snorkeling, scuba diving. So a whole you know, plethora of activities and explorations that we can offer.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

So it really does, you know, uh encourage couples or solo travelers or small groups to come to the destination and into your properties of the day, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Correct. Yeah, we I often get asked, you know, what is our typical demographic of guests? And it's a bit of a difficult answer to question uh um question to answer because we do have something for everybody. Ultimately, you know, our guests, our travelers are people who are curious, they're looking to involve themselves in beautiful natural landscapes. You know, typically there are there are more active people who want to get outside and want to learn a thing or two about the ecosystem that they're in. But we get we get a lot of multi-generational families, you know, with with older couples, you know, grandparents, younger parents, you know, young kids, teenagers. And kind of the concept I was just talking about a few minutes ago, where you come to the lodge and decide every single evening what you want to do the next day, it creates opportunities where if you come down as a multi-generational family, not everybody has to do the entire same thing, right? The, you know, the you know, the grandparents or whoever else, they can go on a simple walk, you know, to enjoy the scenery. The kids can go on a horseback ride or the teenagers can go on a long day hike themselves with their parents, whatever, you know, whatever people want to do and if they want to split up, if they want to stick together, we have something for everybody. Um, and that's kind of the the beautiful thing about it. We want people to, you know, immerse themselves and in the way they feel most comfortable. Um but at the same time, you know, it's a beautiful thing. Our guides, they'll always kind of try and push our guests out of their comfort zones a little bit. Our experiences are very empowering. Like I said, we get a lot of multi-gen families, a lot of couples, a lot of honeymooners celebrating their weddings, of course, and a lot of solo travelers, as you mentioned, Onanta. Um people who, you know, they want to come down, you know, and and experience something for themselves, and they maybe want to participate in some of our small group explorations and engage with other guests of the hotels, other like-minded guests. Um ultimately, yeah, we have something for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

And what I like about it too is that South America, the time zones are similar or manageable from North America. So you don't have extreme jet lag, which is good because you know, going to other destinations like Asia and Europe, you do have to acclimate yourself quite a bit before you can really enjoy the destination. So it's a win-win, you know, destination, um, the opportunity for Canadians to get to the to the location and then experiencing um something perhaps new for them. I I like it.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Definitely. Yeah, you're you're correct. There is there is very little, if any, time change depending on the time of year that you're going. For instance, right now, the the time in Chile uh is the exact same time as Eastern Standard Time. They're on Eastern Standard Time essentially as us. So there would be no time change, and that can fluctuate depending on the year. Um, I also want to kind of highlight a real uh unique point for us. You know, we're very much involved in sustainability and conservation. Um, we are a company that is B Corp certified, and that essentially means that we maintain very high standards for environmental and social responsibility. There's not many travel companies that are out there that are B Corp certified. And then in addition to that, Explora owns and operates two of our very own private conservation reserves. And so uh one of them is on the edge of Torres del Pine National Park in Patagonia. It's about almost 15,000 acres in size, where we created the national uh the conservation reserve in partnership with the Nature Conservancy. And then we also have a conservation reserve in the Atacama Desert of northern uh Chile called the Puritama Conservation Reserve, which is over 17,000 acres of land that we own. Um, and we do a lot of conservation work. We have a team that is is working tireless tirelessly every single day to study the ecosystem, preserve the biodiversity, support the cultural heritage, um, and and so on and so on. And so we're very much involved in these um responsible ways of you know low impact travel and really supporting the ecosystems that we're exploring. So um, yeah, it's it's a great way to um when you come and visit our lodges, um, there's there's a deep kind of purposeful meaning behind your stay with us. Check out our website, you know, Randy mentioned it at the beginning, uh www.explora.com, and you can read all about our different destinations, you know, in Patagonia, in the Atacama Desert. As I mentioned, you know, the Atacama Desert, it's the highest altitude desert on Earth. It's the world's best stargazing destination on the planet. We have our own uh private observatory high-powered telescope in the backyard of our lodge where we can go out with our guests every single evening and take turns, do some initial stargazing, and then take turns using our high-powered telescope to look at the planets, look at the different constellations. Um, so again, it's very, very immersive, very educational. Um so please, yeah, check out our website. Um, you can find all about the destinations we operate in, the conservation reserves. You can read more about that, which I kind of began speaking about. Um and then yeah, we would love to have you know anyone listening come down to come down to Patagonia or or Peru to visit Machu Picchu with us or Easter Island. And um I promise you we're gonna take good care of you and you're gonna have an amazing time.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Well, it does sound like uh an amazing experience. I do like the whole idea of uh all inclusive. Uh and when you say lodges, how big of uh lodges are like how many rooms are we talking about? And and uh I get the idea that it's a constant flow of people in and out. It's not like it's a set tour or anything like that, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah, exactly. So our lodges, the biggest lodges we operate have max have 50 rooms, all right. So we have a few lodges that have up to 50 rooms, um, and then a couple of our lodges go as small as 10 to 20 rooms. And so they're not they're not these huge, um, you know, uh kind of more larger, typical, all inclusive that uh we might be more familiar with. They are kind of smaller in scale. And the really cool thing about them, they are luxury lodges, they are all inclusive, but they're kind of more understated luxury. The architecture, the the lodges are always meant to kind of blend into the surrounding ecosystem. We kind of want to act, we want to have as low impact as possible, almost act as if we're not there. Um, the emphasis for us is always on the outdoors. And so the lodges are very beautiful, understated luxury. Um, but you're not gonna find, you know, TVs in the bedrooms, that sort of thing. Um, we have you know, swimming pools, jacuzzi's, you know, you can get a massage, you can take an afternoon off if you want and get a nice massage. We have the saunas, that sort of thing. Um, but for us, yeah, the emphasis is always on the outdoors. Do you have Wi-Fi? We have, yes. It's a great question.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Because everybody wants that.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

We have, yeah, we have perfectly operating Wi-Fi at every single destination. I was just uh last year, I hosted a trip, a group of travelers to our lodge on Easter Island, which is a five-hour flight into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, very remote, one of the most remote islands on Earth. Of course, as Onanta mentioned, famous for the Moai statue. There's almost a thousand of these statues all across the island. And even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, we have perfectly operating Wi-Fi. So we get a lot of travelers who, they're busy people, you know, they want to stay in touch with their loved ones back home or they got to do some work on the laptop, whatever the case may be. We have perfectly operating Wi-Fi at all of our destinations.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Well, if you're traveling with teenagers, you gotta have Wi-Fi so they could at least get an hour of gaming in, no matter how wonderful those surroundings are around them.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Correct. Yeah, that's that's another important point as well. So no worries, you're not gonna be that uh totally removed from technology. You're gonna have the essentials. Um, so there's a nice combination of the two, the surrounding ecosystem as well as the technology needed to not go too crazy, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Well, it does sound like a great way to explore South America. As you mentioned, people can get uh more information on your website, explora.com. Adam Booth joining us, sales and marketing representative uh in US and Canada for Explora. Any last words, uh Adam?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

So I do encourage everyone to go on the website, read about our destinations. You know, if you've never been to South America before, you know, my mom, she just visited our lodge in Peru and went to Machu Picchu a couple of weeks ago. That was her first time to the continent, and she had an absolute amazing time. So if you've never been to South America before, this is maybe a new, kind of more adventurous, off-the-beaten path destination for yourself. We make it very easy, we take very good care of you. Um, and I promise you're gonna have an amazing time with us and uh and some awesome stories to bring home to your loved ones and for yourself more importantly. So um that's kind of where I would leave it off with.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

So appreciate uh you joining us, Adam. Appreciate uh you doing this, and uh thanks again to the both of you.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

My pleasure. Thank you, Randy. Appreciate it.

Across the Western Front

SPEAKER_01 19:36

This is the Informed Traveler Podcast. I'm Randy Sharman. Just want to remind you of our website, theinformedraveler.org. That's where you can find our contact page if you have any questions or comments about the podcast. You can also email me too with any questions you might have. My email address is Randy at theinformtraveler.org. You can check out our social media pages too at facebook.com slash informed traveler, Instagram at informed traveler, or on X at Inform Traveler. That's where you'll find a number of videos and reels from our adventures throughout the year and audio clips from our past shows. Plus, you can sign up for our monthly newsletter. It's released at the beginning of every month. Our April issue is now available. Just go to our website, theinformtraveler.org, click on the newsletter button, and it'll take you right there. Or better yet, you can subscribe to it and have it arrive in your inbox each month. So I was looking forward to this conversation for quite some time. It's with the author of a new book called There Will Come Soft Rains, a journey along the western front. And she is Brianna Gravat. Her website is BriannaGervat.com. Brianna joins us now to share her adventure with us. Hello, Brianna. It's so nice to chat with you.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

Okay, Randy, it's so nice to chat with you too.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Uh, I'm excited to hear all about your book, There Will Come Soft Rains, a journey along the Western Front. I'm a bit of a uh a history nut, and especially when it comes to military history. But as your uh website says, this isn't just about the Great War, is it? There's much more to it.

SPEAKER_04 21:11

Yes, no, absolutely. There's so much, there's so much military history regarding the Great War that, you know, there are so many wonderful historians that have dedicated so much of their time and their writing to it that I wanted to tell the story of what the war still means to this day and and the impact that it has on the world that we live in.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

So what came first? The the idea of walking along the Western Front or the idea of a book or the book come hand to hand? How did it all come about?

SPEAKER_04 21:38

The idea of walking the Western Front came first, but obviously as soon as the idea came, I said I thought, I have to write a book about it. I can't just I can't just walk the Western Front and say nothing about it.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

I would think so. Was it all planned out or just sort of forest gump it and start walking? Kind of like together.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

No, it was uh no, so I got I was very lucky. So I connected with um the founders of the Western Front Way, which was an organization that was founded to um to promote the dream of of a soldier that a British soldier that died in the Great War who dreamed of um making a path of peace along the Western Front that people can come to and and uh and uh practice a pilgrimage and really learn from the mistakes and the tragedy of war.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

So how long did it take you to to to walk this? I mean, again, you you didn't sort of plan from start to finish, and it's like, okay, I feel good today, I'll keep going, or there's a hotel down the road I can stay at night. Uh like how did this again, it's it's just amazing amazing to me.

SPEAKER_04 22:45

Well, okay, so I had a hotel on my back because I carried a tent. And um, a lot of the days it was kind of I had an idea of the legs of the journey that I wanted to uh fit to complete. Uh, but generally because it was, you know, a lot of walking, sometimes it was between 12 and like 16 miles. Like 16 miles would be the amount that I would be like, that's that's more than enough to walk in a day.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

And you're doing this by yourself, right?

SPEAKER_04 23:12

Yes, very much by myself. And a lot of the time I was alone entirely because I didn't see anyone. You know, you might hear cars in the distance or something, but generally speaking, you didn't see anybody, even in small hamlets. It was it was it was eerie in a lot of ways, but also profoundly beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Uh-huh. So where did the title come from now? There will come soft rains, again, is the title of the book, and it's a journey along the western front. So, where did the title uh spring about?

SPEAKER_04 23:40

So uh I so as I was writing the book, I for the first year, maybe even the set the first two years, so it took me three years to write the book, but I was struggling. I was like, what do I call it? Because, you know, that you know, there's a lot of people that will say, Don't judge a book by its cover and all this other stuff, but I truly think a title is what, you know, get invites people to read the book. And so I played around with all these other things, and then I was reading, um, you know, as writers do, they get distracted. And I was reading Ray Bradbury's um on writing. And he had written, he talked about a short story that he wrote called There Will Come Soft Rains from a poem written in response to the end of World War One.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 24:21

And I thought, what a beautiful title for a book.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Mm-hmm. So I've read two lots of this. Credit to Ray Bradbury.

SPEAKER_04 24:33

And Sarah Teesdale. And Sarah Teesdale.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

So like, did you make notes along the way? Again, I'm I'm just fascinated by how this all comes about, where you just decide to walk along the Western Front uh following certain battles, certain uh trenches. Like like where did you have a map that you kind of followed? Like how did this Okay?

SPEAKER_04 24:55

So the Western Frontway was actually like they actually mapped it out and they had different um paths for hiking and biking and even maybe even driving. But obviously, I'm not I'm not a road biker, so I'm like, I'm gonna I'm gonna walk. So I followed this. I had this GPS system that I was able to follow the way. And it's not like it wasn't the ex you know, the Western Front shifted whether it was, you know, five meters or two miles. It did shift. So I walked not a straight line, but just I I found my way from um the border of France and Switzerland all the way to the North Sea. So I followed, I went through the battle, the battlefields of Verdun, the battlefields of the Marne, the Somme, and then eventually the Yapes Alliant all the way to the Sea. So that was my that was the I followed that path through some of the major places that and then also um with the ability to visit the memorials that have been built uh around them.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Mm-hmm. And you like we we said at the beginning, it's not just a story about the Great War, it's not just about battles, it's it's just the whole um feelings that you get standing in in certain areas. Uh so were were some places stood out for you more than others, and and what were some of the more moving moments that just sort of hit you that you didn't think was gonna happen?

SPEAKER_04 26:15

I mean, I like, you know, being American, I've gone to so many of the Civil War battlefields, you know, you go to Gettysburg and or even like being on Long Island with the 250th anniversary of the revolutionary war, you know, like you know that there is these major battles. So I I had experienced those kinds of things before, but I wasn't expecting, I I don't know. I I I think you know, you go to those places and they're they're they're you know, they're kind of cordoned off, like they're but the Western Front is just so expansive, it just never ends. So, you know, you you accom you come across the first bunker or you come across the first trench, and then you never stop coming across them. There's not, you know, there's not a day that goes by that you don't pass something that is a reminder of the war. And so the pro most profound place for me was Verdun. Um, where one of the most horrific battles of the war took place, and it was such a powerfully haunting place, and it was difficult to be there because they kept on fighting, and then to to alleviate the fighting that took place there, they're like, Oh, let's start the battle of the Psalm. That'll stop it. That'll end the war. And you know, you go with this knowledge, you know, the hindsight is 2020, and you're just like, What is this? Why you know, you being a history buff, you know, you it just it history just repeats, it just continues to repeat, and we don't learn anything from it.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Uh and and you it's interesting that it's not it's not like you're taking sides, right? Did it matter which side you were on?

SPEAKER_04 27:49

No, I think that I think that when you you know, if you look through the lens of the Great War and then you're like, oh my gosh, like you know, you a lot of people still look at the Great War and they're like, oh, the German Bosch and they were and they were just so awful. And it was like, hey, it takes two to tango, especially in the Great War. It you can't, I I don't think that you can take sides. I think that you can look back and think, wow, what a ridiculous amount of men that fought aga that decided this was a great idea, you know?

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:17

And but I don't think that with the Great War you could sit there and say, okay, the the French and the British and the Americans and and the Allies were right, and the attente was entirely wrong.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

So exactly. That's what I mean. It's like when you're walking along the front, well, there's on depending on which direction you're going, on the left side it could be the German soldiers, and on the right side it's the Allied soldiers or French soldiers or whatever, right? And it's amazing to me when you say it like the front move, and so one battle they would maybe gain a few hundred yards, and then the next week or so they would lose a few hundred yards, and in between all that is thousands and thousands of dead soldiers.

SPEAKER_04 28:56

Exactly. So I think that in a way, like, you know, looking at the war in that way, looking at it as a war of attrition and stalemate and stagnation, or just such a small amount of movement that you can't take sides because it's just all sorrowful, it's all a grievous ex experience.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

So what it's like I I'm I I again, I I'm sort of at a loss for words here because it's uh it's it's not a military strategy book. It's about uh feelings and what you got out of it and everything like that. So so so give me some highlights of of what struck you, what you were surprised about, uh maybe some of the people you met along the way.

SPEAKER_04 29:38

All right, there's a lot, there's a lot to unpack there.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

All right, so yeah, no, it's not a fair question, is it?

SPEAKER_04 29:44

Well, that's three questions. So we'll we'll we'll put it we'll pull it apart. Um so what struck me, I think I'm such a nature-oriented person. I love being outside. I try to get out as much as I can every day. Um so I think the opportunity, the ability to camp out and to be out there and to watch the sunrise and watch the sunset and then and then experience all the beauty of the French rural landscape, that was so that I think was what made walking through these this de devastation, devastated landscape more bearable, made it more um, made it a little easier. You know, obviously walking 16 miles is not an easy feat every day, and walking 500 miles is not, but I think that that that was one of the most impactful things. That was, you know, just waking up and knowing I'm gonna spend the entire day outside and I'm gonna learn something, I'm gonna feel something, I'm gonna see something. I think that's what enabled me to keep on going. Um, also, like it's funny because a lot of people, you know, being American, a lot of people are like, oh, you know, they the French don't like us. I didn't have that experience.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

That's good.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

Yeah. I like, you know, I I talked to people, I met so many wonderful people. And a lot of the times people like the French are very kind of like nonchalant, be like, oh yeah, you have to love France, you have to like us, you know. Here's our food, here's our wine, here's our art, here, take it. And and if you do, they're so much more respec receptive. So a lot of the people would see my backpack and my boots and be like, Oh, what are you doing? And then I'm like, Oh, just see Marseille Le Chemin de la Grand Guerre. Like, I was walking the the path of the Great War, and they're like, Okay, cool, have fun.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

See ya.

SPEAKER_04 31:34

Yeah, pretty much, pretty much like, all right, keep going. There's a lot of it.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Well, there is the logistics part of it too. I mean, camping every day, setting up camp, um, you know, food, water, supplies, uh, all those things. How did you manage that?

SPEAKER_04 31:51

Um, well, I didn't camp every day. Like there was like I would camp for two nights and then stay at a hotel, you know, and but uh with with food, I honestly really became enamored with uh sardines and cashews.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

I was gonna say sea rations maybe just to feel what the soldiers felt, but really honestly, like the way you that that never handy now that you say like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:16

I I probably ration myself with like things that I can carry. And um yeah, so I I would like that that was like my backup supply. So I would I would make sure that I at least had some food and enough water. But after a while, you know, when you're walking in the heat of August, no amount of water is enough.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

True. Um Is it an easy walk though? Like can anyone do it?

SPEAKER_04 32:40

Um it depends on their mental and physical fortitude, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Well, I wouldn't say all 500 miles, but if someone wanted to do uh a short little like walk maybe for a couple of days just to get the idea of it, um is that possible? Uh I suppose people do it all the time, do they not?

SPEAKER_04 32:59

I think that there's there's been a really big uptick in the amount of people. I think the pe a lot of people go to visit the battlefield. So, you know, you have a lot of the Brits that go visit the Somme, and they'll go for July 1st, which is the first day of the Psalm, and then you have people that, you know, you'll have German mil like German peop uh young men in the German military that will go to the battlefields, and you have Americans that go over, but a lot of Americans that go over will go to Normandy and visit the World War II sites as opposed to the World War I sites. So I think that if they were to walk it, I would recommend if they are not walkers or avid hikers, go to the north, where it is a little more flat and um the b battlefields are more concentrated.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Are the are the uh monuments uh not not necessarily the monuments, monuments. Uh like are the uh battle sites preserved well? Like you know you're walking along a trench, even though it's probably covered, it's been over a hundred years now. So um are they preserved? Are they well marked?

SPEAKER_04 33:59

Now they are well marked, so the Western Frontway really um d got a um like the the idea to mark the trail. But the the it's ever since after after the first world war, because there were so many people that lost their lives and so many, so many women, fathers and mothers lost their sons in the most horrific ways. They uh I think in 1919 was when they when they unveiled the tomb of the unknown soldier. And then it was not long after that that they started building the monuments to dedicate to the soldiers that had fallen. And so there are a lot of the battlefields, you have monuments from the 1920s that they're still there's they're they're profound, and then there's manicured cemeteries and they're still finding bodies. So it's you go through these major battlefields and there are really, really large um war memorials that are that you can visit, or you can go through the smaller places like I did and see remnants of a bunker or a trench line. And so it it's it's interesting because you have these massive places that that um commemorate the dead, and then you have these smaller places that you know I I say at some one point in my book that there's pretty much a cemetery for every kilometer that I walked along the Western Front.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Wow. Um so what do you want people to get most out of your book when they've read it?

SPEAKER_04 35:23

Um that French food is delicious, no doubt. No, uh what I want I want them to have a better understanding of how just epic history is and how we tr we can't compartmentalize it. Like we can't just sit there and talk about the Great War and be like, okay, it began in August 1914 and it ended on November 11, 1918, and then all these things happened. Like you have to look at it, what happened before it and what happened after, and that it's like it's just this ebb and flow and this tide, and that you can't just you can't just be like, okay, I know about the Great War because I know those dates.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

You you can't I you you know you're not gonna statistics and numbers.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

Exactly. It's people, it's artists, it's painters, it's it's it's mothers who lost their sons, it's wives who lost their husbands, it's it's children that lost their fathers. It's it's so many stories woven into one lamentation, one one, you know, one funeral dirge. So ideally, like I not ideally, but you know, the the optimist in me, the the person that is hopeful is that someone might pick up my book and think, wow. That's that's not about my trip. Like my journey was my journey, and you know, I don't expect everybody to understand it or you know, want to undertake it themselves, but I just want someone to take a step back and look at history and be like, oh my gosh, this was really, really sad.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

Mm-hmm. Well, I think, yeah, that's that's sort of it's it was it's really, really sad. And I and I think people should keep remembering what happened. And this is one way to do it. And if someone wanted to do this, then so what's a good way to start? What's a good way to maybe uh you know take in a few days of a particular battlefield if you wanted to visit?

SPEAKER_04 37:14

I would uh for me, I would, I would choose like say there's there's a lot of people that have relatives that fought in the war or they have connections to certain places. So I would say pick that place and then pick areas around that. And what's beautiful about technology these days is that like not only can you use, you know, um, you can you can develop your own hiking trail as well and say, I want to see X, Y, and Z. I want to see these points along the Western Front and Um and visit them. And also like the internet is a beautiful thing in those ways as well, because say you do want to get from one place or another, like, do you want to rent a car? Do you want to like I I would recommend if you want to see a lot of it and you don't want to walk the whole thing, yeah, definitely, definitely have a lot more structure than I did.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

How do people get the book? Can they go on your uh website and just order it?

SPEAKER_04 38:03

They can order it through Amazon. I'm trying to find a way to make it a lot more available both through my website and through um another another um way, but for now Amazon is the way to go.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

The book is called There Will Come Soft Rains: a journey along the Western Front. And Brianna Gravat is the author. You can find out more information about Brianna on her website, BriannaGravat.com. Uh, appreciate your time, Brianna. It was amazing chatting with you.

SPEAKER_04 38:32

Yes, absolutely. Randy was amazing chatting with you as well.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

And that is our show for this week. If you have comments or questions, we'd love to hear from you. If you have a show idea, send that along as well. My email is Randy at theinformedraveler.org. And if you like what you heard, tell a friend. You can check out our website too at the informed traveler.org. In the meantime, thanks for listening. Travel safe and be an informed traveler.