Travelers often find each other quite by accident. And no how different their backgrounds and experiences, travelers can usually find that they have a lot more common ground than they might initially think.

Jen Rice is an American traveler, currently living in Tbilisi, Georgia, who comes from a high-powered business background; I spent my whole life around universities. But once the topic turned to travel, we were speaking the same language: exploration, experience, opening to the world.

We had a great talk. Not only was it interesting to hear about Jen's travels, but also how her business and travel experiences are deeply entwined.

Please enjoy this conversation with Jen Rice!

Jen's Bio:

Jen Rice is an American global nomad, executive coach, strategy mentor, photographer, and writer. Her 6-year solo-travel journey through 24 countries has been deeply transformational, rewiring how she listens to her gut, emotions, and the deeper knowing beneath the noise. Along the way, she uncovered a powerful insight: that leadership, strategy, and team performance all depend on how leaders think, not what they think about. That realization fuels her mission today: to help executives and teams achieve more together through a Whole-Mind approach.

Before launching her company, Groundbreaking, Jen spent three decades in management consulting, helping global brands unlock growth and efficiency through customer-centric strategy.

Ashton Szabo is the General Manager, Principal Teacher and co-owner at Alchemy Yoga & Meditation Center in Bali. When a friend and I met Ashton during a recent trip to Ubud, Ashton and I arranged to get together at some point to record a podcast to discuss his many travels.

And I am so glad we were able to connect! Ashton is both a spiritually deep teacher and an effortlessly regular guy. We chatted for an hour about his spiritually explosive trips to China and India, his new home in Bali, the nature of his spiritual journey, and how he eventually found himself immersed in the ancient recognition philosophy of Tantra.

The best thing about talking to Ashton is that it's both deep and fun. I kept finding myself laughing and nodding as we talked--Ashton's travel stories are profound, funny, relatable, and have encouraged an inclination I have to go to India for six months.

We shall see--but many thanks to Ashton for joining me on "Interesting People Interesting Conversations." I suspect that you will enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

My friend Daryush and I met Polina Rylkova in a restaurant in Ubud, Bali. We were all travelers with a spiritual bent and it didn't take long for us to become travel buddies. We went to water temples and ecstatic dance, ate at various restaurants, had coffee at a Balinese coffee plantation shop, and talked and talked and talked.

We had a blast!

And before I left Bali for Bangkok, I just had to get Polina's story on my podcast. She's a traveler after my own heart. And I'll let her introduce herself and her journey:

"My name is Polina and I'm a free spirit, multi artist and a curious for life and knowledge traveler.

I was born in a beautiful mystical city St. Petersburg, the cultural capital of Russia. But I consider myself as a very multicultural soul travelling the world and discovering my own purpose of life through admiring the beauty of places and people on my journey.

I'm very open to discover the world through eyes of different cultures and places, and to share my own comprehension of the world.

For living and for soul I teach English and German online, dance with fire, create music, write about life, do yoga, practice joy of being connected to the nature, celebrating the beauty of all different moments of colorful life and being aware of my own existence in the mighty infinity of our world.

For me life is a lifelong experiment, a beautiful theatre performance, a field of sharing knowledge and wisdom of emotions and a celebration of sharing with people the diversity of life.

I have tried quite a lot this life, like hiking the highest mountains, diving into the most mysterious oceans, being married to the most loving husband, finding friends from all around the world.. and yet, still, people's smiling eyes is the most powerful, joyful and motivating life experience I have ever experienced in my life. Every single time. Like watching into the soul of the Universe."

With a personally valuable but vocationally challenged degree in general science fresh in hand, John Lowell, at 23, faced the prospect of putting on a tie and hitting the bricks in his home town to find a job and start paying off his student loans. While sitting around the dinner table on a short trip to San Francisco to visit his father and brother, his father's question locked-up the brakes, sending that ride to a skidding, squealing stop - thank God. "Have you thought about travelling?" Umm, no. What do you mean? That started in motion a two month prep of finding odd jobs in SF and soliciting a contribution from his grandmother that would lead to a one-way ticket to London, his brother's backpack and sleeping bag, and a one page rundown of where and how to find work picking olives in Peloponnese, Greece (which turned out to be a dead end). Ten months later, John returned, a thoroughly changed person on a track that, without that dinner conversation, would never have been unveiled.Interesting People, Interesting Conversations: Conversations About Travel and Adventure, a podcast with host Matthew Ismail, launches with this odyssey of travel and discovery. Welcome!

John Lowell was second-generation born and raised in Portland, OR and now lives in San Francisco where he's lived for a total of about 25 years (with breaks). He has also lived and worked in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Taipei, Taiwan (2 yrs.), and Nairobi, Kenya (3 yrs.), spanning half a dozen different industries. He's currently starting his own, long incubated venture focused on bringing a digital daydreaming experience to fellow daydreamers.