A (0:00)

January is upon us, the month that honors the Roman God Janus, the God of two faces. One face looked forward and the other looked back. Janus was the God of beginning and ending wars, and he was also the God of doors and bridges. And while I have absolutely no proof of this whatsoever, I also think that his two faces would have probably provided both questions and answers. Stay tuned for questions and answers. Volume 38 of on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Dripdrop. When you're properly hydrated, everything functions better. Your energy, mood and focus all rise together. That's why Dripdrop was created. It's not only about quenching thirst, it's about keeping your body and brain operating at peak performance. Drip Drop is doctor developed and proven to hydrate fast, helping both your mind and body perform at their best. It uses an exact balance of electrolytes and glucose for quick absorption, delivering three times the electrolytes and half the sugar of leading sports drinks. You feel the difference quickly with sharper focus, stronger energy and even a better mood. And it genuinely tastes great. There are 16 original flavors and eight zero sugar options. I've been using the zero sugar lemon lime packets to start my day with a glass of water. Right now, Dripdrop is offering podcast listeners 20% off your first order. Go to dripdrop.com and use promo code everything. That's dripdrop.com, promo code everything for 20% off. Stock up now@dripdrop.com and use promo code everything. This episode is sponsored by Mint Mobile. Now that the holidays are over, you might be feeling like you got a big spending hangover. The drinks, the holiday food, the gifts, it all adds up. Luckily, Mint Mobile is here to help you cut back on wireless spending. This January, with 50% off Unlimited Premium Wireless, you can get 3, 6 or 12 months of Unlimited Premium Wireless for just $15 a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. That's why I recommend Mint Mobile. You can get the same mobile experience you have now, but for less money. This January, quit overspending on Wireless with 50% off. Unlimited premium wireless plans start at $15 a month at mintmobile.comeed that's mintmobile.comeed Limited time offer upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six month or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 a month equivalent taxes and fees Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy capable device required. Availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Before I start, let me give a big shout out to listener Jenna Hayes, who appeared on the December 31st edition of Jeopardy. And gave this podcast a shout out. Well done, Jenna, and congratulations on your appearance. And of course, a big thank you for mentioning the podcast as part of your preparations for the show. The first question comes from Diana Mead over on Patreon. She asks, I have loved your look backs on past centuries and these will end after episode 2025. Will there be anything like this in the future? Well, I have received many questions this month that are basically along the same line and I'll use Diana's question because she's a Patreon supporter, membership has its privileges and the answer is yes, I am planning something. However, the current series is going to end in 2025 because that is, for all practical purposes, the present. I'm not going to predict what the world will be like in 2050 because that would just be making stuff up and I have no clue how to predict the future. That being said, I started the current series on episode 1500 and there's a lot of history that happened before that, so there will be episodes covering earlier eras. You'll just have to stay tuned to find out what it's going to be. Max S from the Discord server asks, is Spain the only country to have reached out about ads? I always appreciate those episodes as they help build my knowledge about a specific topic. How did that relationship come to be? Is there a country that you're surprised to have listeners from every advertiser whose ad I read on the show has reached out in some way. However, the relationship with Spain is special. They were the very first advertiser for the show. In fact, they reached out to me very early on in the show's history to ask how we could work together. My relationship with the nation of Spain actually goes back to 2010. I had been traveling around the world for about three years and had grown my travel blog to a pretty good size at that time. A representative from the Valencia Tourism Board, shout out to Wancho if you're listening, reached out to me and asked if I would speak at a conference they were holding on tourism and the Internet. It was the very first time anyone in the tourism industry anywhere in the world actually reached out to me. Since then, I've returned to Spain many, many times. Despite all my contacts in the travel and tourism industry, Spain has been the only destination that has truly grasped the power of podcasting and as far as a country I'm surprised to have listeners from that would have to be Eritrea. Kelly Kearns Brockington from the Facebook group asks, how do you keep your voice and throat healthy while talking up to 20 to 25 minutes per episode? Well, Kelly, that is very easy. I don't talk for most of the day. It isn't that I'm trying to protect my voice, it's just that I live alone and I'm not talking to anybody most of the time. I will literally go some days without seeing another human being just working on the next show. Someone like a teacher who is in front of people all day would have a far greater issue with their voice than I ever would. Barb Grass Miller from the Facebook group asks, is there a destination in the US that you haven't visited but always wanted to go to? Well, there are many places I haven't been, but at the top of my list are the remaining national parks that I have yet to visit. I visited the vast majority of US national parks and was set to finish visiting them back in 2020, but the pandemic changed that. The parks I have yet to visit in the United States, the U.S. virgin Islands National Park, Big Bend national park in Texas, Sequoia Kings Canyon and Channel Islands in California, and New River Gorge national park in West Virginia. None of these parks are particularly challenging to visit. I just haven't gotten around to visiting them yet. Thankfully, I've already been to the most difficult to visit parks in Alaska and American Samoa. Deborah Wales on Patreon asks, which city do you prefer and why? Amsterdam, Paris or Munich? Well, I have to take Munich off the list because I haven't really spent any time there. I drove through it while I was on a trip visiting UNESCO World Heritage sites in Bavaria, but I didn't spend any time. Amsterdam is a much more comfortable place to visit. As an English speaker, you can get around Amsterdam and for that matter, most of the Netherlands just fine. Using English Paris requires a bit more work, not a lot, but there's also more to see and explore. I think if I were to create a list of things I haven't seen in both cities, my Paris list is probably longer, even though I've been to Paris more times than I've been to Amsterdam. Henry Susky from Patreon asks, how much time did you spend with expats or Western tourists from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, North America, etc. While traveling? Well, Henry, the dirty secret of traveling is that you're going to meet more travelers than locals. And if you think about it, this is actually to be expected. If you're staying at a hotel, a guest house or a hostel, you're going to be interacting with other tourists. When you go visit tourist sites, it's going to be other tourists who are there. Depending on where you're traveling, there might be a language issue as well. Locals who work in tourist facing businesses will just be seeing an endless stream of visitors coming and going, and they don't really make any connections with anyone. I actually stayed at a hostel once in Minneapolis where I actually lived for years before I started traveling. And when I was there I mostly interacted with foreign tourists who were staying there just because that was where they happened to be. Alan Massaro on Facebook asks, what is your favorite historically based film and one you wish they would make? Well, Alan, that's an easy question. The greatest historical movie and my favorite movie of all time is Lawrence of Arabia. Oddly enough, despite my love of the movie and my several visits to Wadi Rum and Jordan, I've yet to do an episode on either T.E. lawrence or the Great Arab Revolt. A great historical movie doesn't necessarily mean it was accurate. There's always dramatic license taken when adapting history for the screen. Other favorites of mine include Patton, A Man for All Seasons, Cleopatra, A Bridge Too Far, the Passion of Joan of Arc, A Life in Four Chapters, the Last Valley and Kingdom of Heaven. The Director's cut and it has to be the Director's Cut because they're two completely different films. As far as what I would like to see, I think a film based on the Battle of Elysia would be really, really interesting. Matt Moring from the Facebook group Ass Was there any legal wrangling when the movie Everything Everywhere all at Once was released? Well, no. I had been using Everything Everywhere since 2006, the year I registered the everything-everywhere.com domain name. Back in 2010, T Mobile and Orange Mobile in the UK merged and their new name was Everything Everywhere, now just known as ee. They actually reached out to me because I think they were more worried about me than I was about then. In the end, they were in a different business in a different country and had far more money than I ever did, so there was no real issues with the name and the same is true of the movie. If anything, more people have discovered the website and the podcast accidentally in the process of searching for these other brands. So I say if anything, it was a very small net positive for me. Chris deloiacono on Facebook asks, what's the most extreme or daring adventure or stunt you did during your travels? I wouldn't call it a stunt per se, but I did go bungee jumping twice in New Zealand. I did a jump in Queenstown and then another one off the Auckland Harbor Bridge. I have not been skydiving and I have absolutely no desire to do so. I have been in the water with great white sharks in South Africa, but it was in a cage and it sounds far more dangerous than it actually was. I'm not really sure I can say I've done anything else I'd call extreme. I've done a lot of fun things, but I'm not really an adrenaline junkie. Tracy swansonromeg on Facebook asks, you have traveled so much, but now you stay home to work on this wonderful podcast. Have you ever thought about a pet? If so, what kind would you want? Unfortunately, the building I currently live in does not allow cats or dogs. The closest I've ever come to pets was a huge 175 gallon saltwater coral reef aquarium I had before I started traveling. It was beautiful and it really stood out, but it was also a lot of work. I've considered getting a nano reef aquarium, something around 20 gallons or smaller, but I just haven't made it a priority yet. Currently the only thing I have are houseplants Daniel Tomashek asks, do you have a favorite metal band to listen to? I would not say that I am a heavy metal fan per se. I listened to Metallica and Black Sabbath in high school, but I actually listened to Black Sabbath coming from a blues direction, not a metal direction, which their early stuff was actually more blues influenced. There are two bands I have a soft spot for, and again, I wouldn't say that I'm a fan of them per se. The first is Rhapsody of Fire. Wikipedia calls them an Italian symphonic power metal band. I discovered them by accident in the weirdest way possible sometime about 20 years ago. I fell asleep on the couch watching TV. When I woke up and I don't even remember what channel it was on, I remembered seeing a flaming skull on the screen. It was a music video that also had Christopher Lee in it, who played Saruman from the Lord of the Rings movies. The song was Unholy War Cry and the band was Rhapsody, now known as Rhapsody of Fire due to a trademark conflict. The other band I have a soft spot for is the Japanese band Babymetal. It's a cross between a cutesy Japanese kawaii band and heavy metal, which sounds absolutely ridiculous at first, but it actually works. Gary when you set out to travel the world like a high class bum. What logic did you use for your destination countries and places? Alphabetical bucket list ranking World Heritage sites? Throw the dice. Thank you for your good work. When I first started, my plan was pretty simple. I went west. I crossed the Pacific Ocean and jumped from island to island as best I could. I never really planned more than a week or two ahead of time. It took me most of 2007 to cross the Pacific and when I got to South Korea, then I began going south until I got to Australia. After a few years, my travels became more opportunistic. I'd go to places where I was invited or I'd manage to go somewhere for a conference and then take side trips around the region. The final question comes from Richard Short who asks, when did North American people begin to speak in a distinctly North American accent? In other words, Gary, when did your voice that we all know and love historically evolve into how we hear you now? Basically, the evolution of the North American English accent began almost immediately once people arrived and were separated from England. And I should note, there isn't one single North American accent. There are multiple accents that could be found across the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. That being said, for the most part there has been less diversity in accents in North America than there has been in the UK, where towns just 20 miles apart may speak with very different accents. Many of the North American accent features are actually elements of 17th and 18th century accents from England which which died out over there but remained here. In particular, the pronunciation of the letter R. This is probably a subject for a full episode, but there are some places like Smith Island, Maryland which speak an accent that is considered to be the closest accent to what might have been spoken in Elizabethan England. And it's not in England, it's in the United States. And I should also note, this isn't just an English thing. Once populations are separated, changes start to occur. That is why the French spoken in Quebec is spoken with a very different accent than the French spoken in France and why there are so many different Spanish accents all across the Americas. That concludes this month's question and answer episode. If you want to leave a question for next month's show, you have to join the Facebook group or the Discord server or become a supporter of the show on Patreon because those are the places where I will announce it. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast, and links to those are available in the show Notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you too can have it right on the show.