← Going Big! with Kevin Gentry
Going Big! with Kevin Gentry
From Backpack to Boardroom: Daniel Houghton on Leading, Exploring, and Going Big
00:48:35
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- [00:00]
Kevin Gentry
This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and Talkspace, the leading virtual therapy provider, is telling everyone let's face it in therapy by talking or texting with a supportive licensed therapist at Talkspace, you can face whatever is holding you back. Whether it's mental health symptoms, relationship drama, past trauma, bad habits or another challenge that you need support to work through. It's easy to sign up. Just go to talkspace.com and you'll be paired with a provider, typically within 48 hours. And and because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule. Plus, Talkspace is in network with most major insurers and most insured members have a zero dollar copay. Make your mental health a priority and start today. If you're not covered by insurance, get $80 off your first month with Talkspace. When you go to talkspace.com and enter promo code SPACE80 that's S P A CE83 to match with a licensed therapist today, go to talkspace.com and Enter promo code SPACE80.
- [01:00]
Daniel Houghton
A couple things to think of in relation to going big. The first one is that you're not going to go big alone. And if I look back and I'm certain that you have the same set of memories, the people that mentored you and they gave you the time of day that would sit down and actually listen, you know what I mean, and have a conversation, those people are rare and when you find them, that's who you're going to go big with and you need to be on the lookout all the time. That's my first piece of advice and I guess for everybody on the other side of that, my encouragement to you is there's lots of young, excited 21 year olds a lot smarter than me that that can probably help you go big. Never underestimate what you're capable of. And most of the time it's a phone call away from either finding the right person or the right partner to go big with. And you always got a little more in the tank than you think you do, even when you are certain that it's on empty.
- [02:13]
Welcome to the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host Kevin Gentry and this is the place where we celebrate bold moves and big ideas. Each week I sit down with inspiring leaders, entrepreneurs and change makers who are making a significant impact in their careers and in their communities. Whether you're looking to level up your leadership, pursue your passion, or just get inspired to Take your next big leap. This is where those stories come to light. Now, if you're listening on iTunes, YouTube, or anywhere else you tune into podcasts, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode. Now let's dive in to what it means to truly go big. Well, ladies and gentlemen, joining me today on the Going Big podcast is Daniel Houghton, who at the age of 24, became the CEO of Lonely Planet, the world's largest travel publisher. Three years after graduating from Western Kentucky University, he took the helm of a beloved travel brand and drove its transformation in the digital space to all new places and all new reach. And really excited, Daniel, to have you here today. So much to talk about in terms of going big. I mean, you're a testament to the power of thinking big and going big. You have such a fascinating story on so many levels. And just as when I interviewed several episodes ago, Jimmy Hutchison of Spin Spin magazine, who took a legacy brand and really brought it into the modern age through a lot of the digital space, you did the same thing. And it's, it's just fascinating about how you underwent that and the, in the lessons, the consequences for all of us about how we think about going big. But I want to start off the conversation, Daniel, because I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of you in many ways, big fan of your terrific book. Wherever you go, I, I give this. I've got a bunch of copies. I've given it to a lot of people. I'm going to continue to give it to people. I love your take on travel. So to kick us off, we're, we're, we're embarking on the summer travel season. What's the kind of go big way you think about how we should think about travel beyond our comfort zones?
- [04:40]
Yeah. Kevin, thank you for having me. First of all, it's a privilege and a real pleasure to be here. You've been such a mentor to me over the years that anything I can do to, you know, to tell my story and engage with your audience is just a huge privilege. So, first of all, I just wanted to say thank you. Yeah, it's been a wild ride so far, I guess, in my career and I guess more importantly as a traveler. And I think if, you know, if you want to encourage people to go big with travel, especially with what's coming up this summer, there's no time like the present is the first thing I would share. Tony Wheeler had the founder of Lonely Planet, his wife. He and his wife Maureen Wheeler founded Lonely Planet 1973. And Tony used to basically just look at people and say, well, just go. You know what I mean? Like you just. The first, the hardest, absolute hardest part is deciding to go. And then everything after that's going to be a lot easier. And if you think about how you plan travel, that's always where the angst is. My encouragement is if you're, if you want to get out of your comfort zone a little bit, try to connect travel to something that you have a passion for. Doesn't matter if it's wine or golf or music or history. You know, if, if getting outside your comfort zone is a little intimidating, then you pair it with one of those things you already love. And I think that'll get you over the top.
- [06:09]
Well, great. Well, I want to dig into that a lot more too, because, you know, travel in one sense is, is maybe we think of in a, in a relatively small space in our lives, but yet it's often so profound. It really can be about meaningful experiences, memories, family experiences, key, you know, commemorations of key dates or, you know, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations. It's so important. So, again, a lot, lot to talk about. But now I want to get back to this crazy story of you. You were just three years out of college, you were a photojournalist, and then you became CEO of Lonely Planet. Forbes magazine named you to their 30 under 30 list for the transformation of the media landscape that you led. Right. So tell us, tell us about this. First of all, how did this start? How did the photojournalist from Western Kentucky become the CEO of Lonely Planet?
- [07:08]
Yeah, I think that's a good, that's a good question. I'll ponder pieces of that, I think, for a long time. I think the real answer is I was fortunate to be able to discover my unique gift from an early age, and that was not turning around media businesses. To be super clear, my passion was with a camera. You see one behind me, certainly a lot nicer than the first one I was given on a family trip to Alaska as an 11 year old or whatever it was. But I was hooked. And as a poor student, I was relieved to find out you could in fact go to college to study photojournalism and that you didn't have to be good at chemistry or advanced algebra or any of the other things that I failed because I didn't qualify for a lot of scholarships. We can just leave it at that. What I found when I got to my alma mater was perhaps the most talented you know, one of the most talented media programs faculty in the country, loaded with Pulitzer Prize winning staff that really just invested, you know, into the students in a way that I don't think probably matches too many other instances institutions. This is Western Kentucky, Western Kentucky. Now that's a, you know, state school. And I have to be thankful as a third generation student, maybe that had something to do with they let me in, my grandparents went there, my mom went to Western Kentucky. But the level and the sort of the drive that was instilled in you from the entire time we were there, I think set the pace for the rest of my career. So I went to, I was going to be a newspaper photographer and I was for a time at the Seattle Times. The best days of that industry were behind it even way back in 2007, 2008. So I knew I wouldn't be finding my future there. And I'll tell this part of the story just because I think it's important for anyone that has a creative project or pursuit or something on the side. The only reason I wound up at Lonely Planet is because when I left the newspaper, I started my own one man multimedia business. And I didn't have a lot of clients, I had a few. But what I did have was time. And so I didn't know what else to do other than go create work that I hoped to make for other people one day. It's what you do when you're 21 years old and you have a degree and no income. One of those side projects was a thing called the iPhone photo of the day. And back in 2008 when the iPhone 3G came out, that was a little more compelling than it would be these days. If we're talking pre Instagram, you know, Facebook existed but you couldn't upload high quality images to it. And long story short, hundreds of thousands of page views later, you know, if you googled iPhone photo, my website was right under Apple and Verizon and ATT and all that stuff.
- [10:19]
And this was a product, this was a product of your creative gift. You're a good photojournalist and you took advantage of the opportunity.
- [10:26]
Then people saw it is what it was, but it got attention and I didn't really know what to do with that kind of traffic at the time. So I just kept creating one of the. I got lots of emails, you know, I got emails from photography companies, sent me gear to use and all sorts of stuff that excited 21 year old Dan Daniel. Um, but what I also got was a little Bit of an audience which I hadn't had before. And one of the members of that audience turned out worked to the little thing called a family office. Now my dad had an office in the house. It was right outside the door to my room. But this, this was a different kind of family office. And I got called in there for a meeting and ended up meeting the principal. A couple of weeks later, self made, totally self made entrepreneur, sold his company for a small fortune, large fortune, took care of people along the way. Most of those people still worked at the family office when I got there. And he used to tell people that he didn't know I wasn't 35 and I didn't know he had a dollar. And both of those things were true, completely true. He saw what was coming as it related to like everything that was happening in streaming. I think I started there in 2011. And so, I mean, Netflix was still mailing people DVDs, right. So we weren't quite there. But he knew people were going to vote with their eyeballs and he wanted a really important travel brand to sort of anchor the space. And travel was a space that we both loved. Like, he loved it because Lonely Planet, the TV show, was on in the United States, I think on PBS probably mostly from like 1 to 6am, you know, for the better part of 20 years. I loved it because I grew up traveling with the guidebooks. And yeah, 18 months later we had written the BBC a check and it was ours. So that, that's how that happened. It's fascinating.
- [12:31]
Okay, so, so, okay, that there's more to this. I know. And this, that's incredible. And that got our attention. But you, you touched on something that was happening in the industry then. And we know we live in a dynamic world. It's, there's a lot of creative destruction, a lot of things happening all the time. Then the print versions of travel guides sales were plummeting. Bookstores were closing.
- [12:56]
Yeah, Borders had just closed when I, when I took over, had like internationally gone bankrupt. If you think about like big bookstore chains.
- [13:04]
Gotcha. So when you came into the role after your mentor and benefactor purchased Lonely Planet from the BBC, you had to face some tough decisions because of the changing marketplace. So tell us, how did you address that? I mean, the story is pretty well known that you had to make some painful, quick decisions and cuts right away. Could you tell us about that?
- [13:33]
Yeah, that was, that was difficult business. There's really no other way to put it. It. I, you know, in some ways I didn't know enough to be dangerous. The first meeting I had with the C suite that I was supposed to lead, the CFO asked if we wanted to review the piano. And I said, that sounds great. You know, what is that? I lost the room pretty quick. I'll put it to you like that. Everyone but him, to be honest with you. And out of the 11 or 13 or whatever that it was, he was the only one I kept. So the leadership had to change demonstrably because. Because the pace had to change. The way we innovated had to change. And if you didn't agree, you could just look at that. P and L. And I eventually figured out what those numbers meant. In fact, his CFO kept me there the entire weekend at the KPMG offices and pulled me aside afterwards and said, I'm not laughing. Why don't we just sit down and look at it? I'll explain. It's not really that complicated. I'll explain it to you. You know, I have a. I had a bachelor's of. I have a bachelor's of arts degree, so global finance and foreign exchange. I mean, we were getting killed on foreign exchange just with currencies. I was so far over my head, I didn't have a lot of hope. But the problem was actually very simple. Spending too much money with not enough revenue, It'll kill you every time. All of the leadership that we had on board, at least at the sea level, which was vast, okay, with incredible resumes, people that intimidated the absolute bejesus out of me. People from places that I knew were powerhouse firms, but every single person just wanted to hire more people and spend more money. And it's just. It's just going to be a little bit more. And they had been getting a little bit more for a long time, and that. That wasn't going to do it. So when I realized that group therapy wasn't the proper method, I eventually just took them all out to dinner one at a time and just tried to, like, actually understand. Are you trying to protect your team? Are you trying to protect the culture, which might be actually really important? Like, let me try to get to the root cause and understand. But at the end of it, we're going to have to do something very, very drastic or we're going to die. Because we had three weeks of payroll. We had no bank would loan us money, not even a bridge loan. Nobody loans money to a company that's on the brink of insolvency. That's what you have a principle for. But that's not an endless bank either much more of a strategic investor. And we, you know, we never spent a dime the entire time I was there on advertising, trying to promote our posts or wow, thing like that. Like, we just. We both. We didn't fundamentally believe in that. Because if you turn that gas tank on, when do you turn it off? You know what I mean? We wanted to grow organically and for real reasons. In the end, much of the leadership that I needed, not all of it, but much of it, was actually within the business. And my absolute favorite example, because you remember, I'm 24 in this scenario, I got laughed off the stage. People spit at me when we terminated them. That's a true story. It was not fun, you know, by any means, to fly all over the world in all of our offices. Hi. This. Yes, Daniel. Nice to meet you. So I actually have some really terrible news we're gonna have to talk about before we get too far. It was. It wasn't great. You know, it was not great, but somebody had to do it. The best example of talent being hidden within the business was that when I was in the Melbourne office, sort of attempting to play Melbourne, Australia, because this.
- [17:23]
Is an international company, right?
- [17:25]
Yeah. We had offices on five continents. So we couple places in the United States were in New York. We were in San Francisco. Oakland. We were in Beijing, China. We were in a couple different places in India making guidebooks for Indian travelers. We're in London. And then we had a host of. Still. They still have a host of foreign partners all over the EMEA region in Europe and sort of everywhere else in almost. I think it was 13 languages we were publishing guidebooks in. But as I was walking around the Melbourne, Australia office, this guy walked up and said, hey, I work on social media team, and I just want to. Do you have five minutes? I just want to show you something that I think we can. That'll help a lot. And he had a little, like, PowerPoint presentation. We sat down and he goes through his slides. He didn't want to spend any money. He didn't want to hire anybody. It was just. Here's what I think we've been doing wrong. Here's where I think travel on Instagram and Facebook and Pinterest and all these places are going. And here's what I think we should do. Give me 60 days. And if you don't see results, like, you know, we can try a different plan. So I go back to the CFO's office and get all excited. I'm like, well, I just found the new global director. Of social media. Like, I don't know what. I don't know what this kid's making, but he was older than me, first of all. It turns out he was an intern. Unpaid. He was an unpaid.
- [18:49]
But in many ways, it's kind of like you.
- [18:52]
He was the director of social media globally, and that's not a joke. And we went from, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand followers to 2 million in his first year. He got raises frequently, I'll put it to you that way. And it's remarkable what can hide within a business if you give people the opportunity to. To speak up every once in a while.
- [19:15]
Indeed. Wow. But again, his story is sort of like yours, and somebody put confidence and trust behind him based on just a variety of factors. So that just leads me, I think, to a logical question. What did experience. What did it teach you about leadership development and spotting talent? I mean, you just spoke to it to some degree, but you came away with some valuable lessons, I'm sure, as a result.
- [19:46]
Well, I. I definitely learned a lot of things of what not to do. You know, you don't fall in love with a really fancy resume or somebody that you can't find anybody that can ever have anything bad to say about. And I don't mean bad. I just mean, you know, if. If some. If something is too cool for school, there's. There's probably a reason. Um, and.
- [20:12]
Kevin Gentry
This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. May is mental health awareness month, and Talkspace, the leading virtual therapy provider, is telling everyone, let's face it, in therapy, by talking or texting with a supportive licensed therapist at Talkspace, you can face whatever is holding you back, Whether it's mental health symptoms, relationship drama, past trauma, bad habits, or another challenge that you need support to work through. It's easy to sign up. Just go to talkspace.com and you'll be paired with a provider, typically within 48 hours. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule. Plus, Talkspace is in network with most major insurers, and most insured members have a $0 copay. Make your mental health a priority and start today. If you're not covered by insurance, get $80 off your first month with Talkspace when you go to talkspace.com and enter promo code SPACE80. That's S P A CE80. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to talkspace.com and Enter promo code SPACE80.
- [21:12]
Daniel Houghton
The biggest lesson I learned, I think, is you have to understand what people's motivation is. You know, we moved people all over the world. I mean, we probably moved a dozen people and their young families from Australia to not Nashville, Franklin, Tennessee, population 50,000. And they're moving from what's long been known in Melbourne as the most livable city in the world. And if you've never been there, anyone listening, please go to Melbourne, Australia. It's incredible. It's what we, I think, strive to and a lot of other cities, from the multicultural perspective to the food to everything. Yeah, you have to understand what people's pure motivation is because one, you don't pick up someone in their young family and put them on an airplane 18 hours across the world and let them sell their home or move out of their apartment. And I mean, we had people move that. People that, you know, gave birth in the United States because we moved their families across. And we were really like, we're not, we were not a big, you know, this. We're not Meta or Google or someone that had a team of, you know, international lawyers, but we made it happen on a lot of times, a shoestring. But, you know, you have to understand people's motivations and what really drives them. If, if it's a raise every three months, you know, that's, that's what, maybe, maybe if you're in sales, maybe that's fantastic. You want someone really hungry in that way. But I think you just have to understand what motivates people and, and then be willing to call it when you don't, because there's nothing worse, absolutely nothing worse than that.
- [22:49]
Wow. All right. Well, in terms of what motivates people, I want to turn to a different thing. But before we close out this chapter, as I mentioned, you know, a few episodes ago, I interviewed Jimmy Hutchison, who started as an intern at MTV and ultimately turned Spin magazine, an iconic publishing brand, into a who place through digital transformation. But that's effectively what happened with Lonely Planet, right? You, you, you moved it from what was a dying space into a new space and the reach increased. I mean, you told that story about your social media director.
- [23:27]
Yeah, I think, I think it. I don't want to take credit for being the first leader at Lonely Planet for. To attempt something digital because there were roots at the earliest intersections of technology, down to the fact that lonelyplanet.com was actually the number 25 website ever put on the World Wide Web. Tony Wheeler became friends with a couple folks in Silicon Valley and they flew down to Australia and said, hey, this computer thing is going to be big. You're going to want, you're going to want to participate here. At one point there was an entire series of guides on Palm Pilot and shouldn't admit, but I'm old enough.
- [24:11]
I actually had a good old Palm Pilot.
- [24:13]
Yeah. I mean, so the history was there, the execution and, and, and sort of the fear is what, is what had kept it back. And I'll try to make it really clear. The philosophy in the business was this. We make money off of our content and our content makes money through the sale of books. And if we ever take that content, put it on one of those, or in any other format, God forbid, one of these, that'll be the end of it. You know what I mean? We can't do it. And that to me was just incongruent, I guess, maybe because I'm a millennial and born in the late 80s and grew up, you know, wiring my parents home, wi fi router together and all that kind of stuff that we weren't supposed to know how to do. You know, I, I just, to me, you were preventing people from accessing and engaging with the brand. And it's shame on you as a business if you can't figure out a way to make money. Now, we had a couple really particular rules, one of which was we really hated display advertising. And, you know, you mentioned Jimmy a couple times. I'm not sure I'll ever be that talented. I've been fortunate enough to meet Jimmy and just an incredible entrepreneur. And what he's done with Spin is amazing. What we were really trying to do was open up all the platforms so that people could engage with us when and how they wanted, because travel is. You and I are sitting here talking about, dreaming about going places one day to you. And I've had the good fortune to be on the road in some amazing places together once or twice, you know, to. We're on the road and we need to know exactly where we're going for dinner tonight or, you know, and, and you have FOMO because you don't want to mess it up. Because if you do, well, that's on you. It was only three days. Nobody wants to go have a bad meal. Right. So. Yeah. Did I answer? Did I answer your question? I feel like you did. All right.
- [26:11]
Okay. Your book, wherever you go. I told you, I love this thing. I give, I, I, I, I've got a whole stack of them. I still give them out. I, I have a conversation with people. You got to read Daniel Oton's book, you're Too Kind. Why did you write it? What were you hoping to achieve by writing it?
- [26:26]
The reason I wrote the book is because I just have a profound belief that when we travel, and I'm not just talking about going on vacation to the beach with your family, when we travel through airports and through different countries, or to a place you've never been, or to a place you'd never go, and just, you got stuck there. The point is, you get to experience cultures you've never seen, you get to engage with people you never would have met, and you get to experience just a really different side of the world. It doesn't really matter if you're walking through Kansas or Wyoming or you're in India or Malaysia somewhere, like, you're going to encounter people generally going about, in many ways, the same things, but in profoundly different ways. And I think when you're forced to sort of experience that, again, some of it's been against, you know, each of our wills because you get stranded in some airport or something. But, like, those are all. Those are all opportunities to sort of see a piece of the world you didn't get to see before. And I wanted other people to feel the same way. I. I will admit that I. I think I bit off more than I could chew originally, because they originally asked me to write a biography, and I said, no, there's no way. I'm definitely not done yet. And they said, well, what do you want to write a book about? And I said, well, travel actually could change the whole world. If more people. If more people went and they say, you write a book about that, that's a book. What I realized very quickly is that just how stupid it was that me just. I could try to convince anybody of that. In fact, I got very nervous after I began writing the book because I sort of had my thoughts and went through the creative process and then said, this isn't compelling. You know, this isn't going to make anybody that's never been anywhere. So what do I do? How do I fix this? Because I know this to be true, right? And if I wrote it again, hopefully I would do an even better job. What surprised me, and maybe it should have just smacked me in the face, was that everyone likes to talk about travel, from Richard Branson to Laura Decker, to a gentleman that I met my own age that had never been out of his wheelchair, and his friends carried him around Europe in a backpack. So none of us have an excuse. That's that story. That's Why I wrote the book. And you're just too kind for calling it out and sharing.
- [29:08]
Oh, well, you're, you're very humble and, and you, you, you have changed many people's outlooks about a key part of their life and that is how to experience travel. So in your book, you tell a lot of stories and you're, you're right, you've got these great interviews with people like Sir Richard Branson, but you tell the stories about the, the guy that was essentially carried around by friends. Remarkable stuff. What, what one experience in your life of travel. And by the way, just, just for the benefit of people listening, you're, you're both your parents worked for the airline industry and so that's how you got to experience it. I, I want to go back on that. Just a moment. How was it you first learned about travel?
- [29:56]
Yeah, I grew up in, in a really fortunate situation, if you like to go places. And it had been a part of the family for a long time. My grandparents, after my grandfather got home from World War II from the Pacific Theater, bought an Airstream, had six children loaded a minute and drove them to all the 48 states they could get to. So my mom sort of grew up in that way and sort of natural for her to become a flight attendant. My father was drafted into the Navy during Vietnam and, you know, wound up working on airplanes and getting hired by Delta. And so I sort of grew up in a very blue collar house, but that had extremely white tablecloth privileges and benefits. You know, if you think about the opportunity, especially in the early 90s, when you could turn up to the airport and basically get on an empty Delta plane and from Atlanta, you know, largest airline in the world, busiest airport in the world, to the most destinations, I think all of those statistics are still true today. That was quite a menu of options, but they were very strategic. Like, I would, you know, people ask me a lot, should I take my young children internationally? And I would tell you no, personally, I'm not going to tell you. Not like I'm not saying don't do it. It's just if you're asking, I would say no, I didn't go out of the country I think, until I was 11 or 12. And I have memories of other trips, you know, but like go experience it. That's what grandparents and aunts and uncles are for, you know. But when they turned that on, which is sort of the sweet spot of they Both been there 30 years, which meant we were pretty close to the top of the list. I mean, I flew anywhere I could go. I went to South Africa, I went to South America, a lot of places I shouldn't have gone as a 18 or 19 year old kid that sticks out like a sore thumb, but that's where the travel bug came from.
- [32:01]
Gotcha. Well, let me ask you this. So because your father was an inline mechanic and your mom a flight attendant, you had those privileges where you can show up if there are seats available.
- [32:11]
It's a big.
- [32:11]
Yeah, so you'll have to show up. And three seats had to be available. And you had disappointments, I'm sure when things didn't, didn't work out or your expectations were raised. But then also you had to kind of like release yourself and say, okay, we're gonna go here and just see what happens. Is that what influenced your attitude about like go beyond your comfort zone?
- [32:34]
Yeah, I think so. I, I, I was a brat, I'm sure. More than once at the airport. Okay. Because my parents met snow skiing. I love to snow ski. They met at Breckenridge on the Delta ski team. If you want to realize how old I am. Back when airlines had enough money that they still had ski teams and we would go skiing every year. And you know, as a 13 year old kid, all you want to do is go skiing and fly off some jump and you know, it's like if there's only three seats, you know, we had my little sister Kate at that point, she can stay right here. You know what I mean? She doesn't have to, she doesn't, she doesn't even like to ski. She doesn't have to go. You and mom can go somewhere else and dad and I will go skiing. Well, that year there was no seats to Salt Lake City and there was none to Denver and there was none anywhere that we could get to from Atlanta. And we tried two days in a row and at the end of the second day my dad booked at my mom and said, we're good, we're, we're flying to Jackson Hole. And I thought, oh my God, I can't believe we're going to go ski at Jackson Hole. That's not what we were there to do. We were there to go snowmobiling in Yellowstone. And when they told me that as a 12, 13 year old, I have never been so disappointed in my entire life. Now fast forward to today. I think I've been to Yellowstone a dozen times. I went three times last year. One trip I just went to go fly fishing. Didn't catch anything, but I did in Glacier Long story there. I would give anything to go through Yellowstone on a snowmobile. You can't do it anymore the way that we did it. They've, they've outlawed it essentially. I mean you have to go with a thousand dollar a day guide and very sort of like we. They liter just rented us suits and we. I'm sure different listeners have experienced this back in the day. I don't know when they stopped it back in 2006 or something around, around then. But. So I don't know. It's just full circle to think. Yes, have definitely been forced into trips I didn't want to take with things I did not think that were going to be fun and you find out that they are. So if you have children, just tell them it's going to be fine and take them anyway. That's, that's what you should do.
- [34:38]
All right, well, I have a couple other follow up travel questions because I want you to be able to impart some of this advice to those listening. But before we wrap up the book portion, you mentioned interviewing Sir Richard Branson. All these fascinating people. This flight attendant I remember who's flown just this amazing number of miles in her career.
- [34:58]
Her Elvis Presley. It was the most incredible story. She had Elvis on the plane three times.
- [35:05]
Wow. Back in the day when celebrities flew commercial right before the sort of private jets.
- [35:10]
Yeah.
- [35:11]
What did you learn from. Or just a couple of takeaways from those conversations?
- [35:18]
Yeah, I think, I think one of the main ones is that it's a little bit like you sometimes experience in corporate America where sort of everyone's making it up as they go. You know what I mean? Like there's this idea that, oh, that person's been to so many countries and they've done all these different things. You know, I, there's no way I could do that. Like, I can't just pick up and disappear to India. I'll get sick, I'll get lost, I'll get fill in the blank. And. And while I would never recommend that anybody do anything blindly ever. There's nothing more important than your own safety. Otherwise, y' all, it'll be your last trip. You know, the world's actually a pretty safe place. And even in the most dangerous countries in the world. Tony Wheeler wrote a book about all of the Stan countries. And I mean all of them. I mean every single one of them has a warning, a travel warning, both from Interpol, from, you know, USTA do.
- [36:16]
Not Uzbekistan and Uzikistan and Kazakhstan.
- [36:21]
And you know, it's like you go there and now I've been to a few dangerous countries, ridden in some bulletproof vehicles, but even in those circumstances, you know, you meet people and you're like, I should have come here a long time ago. Like, what was. What are we thinking? You know what I mean? And that doesn't mean you can't get into trouble or that you can't make a mistake. But I think that's the biggest lesson from all those interviews is just that no one claims to be an expert. You know what I mean? There is no master's degree in travel. It's sort of a shame it's not.
- [36:53]
Like.
- [36:55]
A trade school class, you know what I mean? Maybe an opportunity for Mike Rowe, how to Travel. But it's such an important thing because it's not. It's not straightforward. There's a lot of logistics, but that's definitely the most important takeaway.
- [37:12]
All right, well, Daniel, you're still young. I know you and your wife are. Have a young child or young parents, but you've had an amazing career already in photography and photojournalism, in other aspects of media leadership, we'll say. And also in writing. And you mentioned about your decision to leave Lonely Planet. How do you decide what new opportunities to pursue and what to take a pass on?
- [37:42]
Yeah, I think for me there's two things. The first one is how does this align with my goals for myself and my family? And that's everything from really big trips that I want to do. And I mean big trips, trips that are going to take a year, that would take the whole family, pull the kid out of school, that kind of stuff, like bucket list type stuff. And then like, how am I going to raise my family? And we do have a new little one, a little boy. And he sleeps very well in the Airstream, which is great to much relief. That was actually the first night he ever slept, was in the Airstream. And my wife said, we're never leave. We live in here now permanently. Which is just fine by me.
- [38:26]
All right, so you've traveled to something like well over 35 countries, more than 2 million miles. What's two? First question for those listening, trying to figure out where they should go. What are two or three places you think are just the most magical that you'd say, I, I'm so glad I'd even go back there. Or when you, when people ask, where should I go, what would you say?
- [38:52]
Yeah, I reach for my book, because I made you a short list. I'll follow up a little bit on your Last question. Which is related to why I sort of choose what I choose. What I'm doing now in addition to working as a full time photographer, I guess what I do for fun, what I do to continue to encourage people to get out and see the world is I maintain an editorial database on my website. There's no ads, there's no stupidity. It's just travel. It's just locations information.
- [39:28]
So what's your website? So we can, we can check this out.
- [39:30]
Danielhoton.com we can link it in the show notes, I'm sure. But it's just danielhoton.com and you can find it all from there. But I tell you that because as I am about to list a couple places and I made you two lists, I made you a USA list and then I made an international list depending on what people like. So I'll just hit you with a couple of these and then if anyone.
- [39:50]
Awesome.
- [39:50]
All right.
- [39:51]
Okay. USA because you're a big advocate for if, for, for Americans. Go check out America. There's a lot here. So tell Americans where to go in America. Anybody where to go in America.
- [40:03]
30 something countries to find out that I have so much fun in the United States. And now I'm a sucker for national parks. Okay. And I sort of live in the middle of the country so I, I can sort of get to all of them in a similar amount of time and none of them are quick except for, except for the Smoky Mountains in my home state. But I'll hit you with a couple destinations now. These three in the US are places that I've recently been. You can find some stuff in that, in that link if you like. But Glacier national park is the first one. There's a lot of angst that people have about wanting to go to Glacier because if you go start to research it, it'll tell you in order to come to Glacier national park, you have to win a Recreation.gov lottery ticket to have permission to come. And that is technically true. You just have to get up before 6am and then you don't need a lotto ticket. So there's your free tip. Enter the gate before 6am you don't need a lottery ticket. You should definitely go see Glacier. It looks like the Alps in America. It is so profoundly different from the rest of the Rocky Mountains. Couldn't say enough good things. I'll be quick on the next two that the next one. I don't pick a lot of cities, but this one's a favorite is Savannah, Georgia. And there's Some great coastal areas around there, whether that's Getaway Island, State Park, Tybee island, but that whole area right there in Savannah, it's such an old city, like Revolutionary War history, Civil War history. It's. It's unbelievable what they've been through. And if you've never been to Jekyll island, like where the Federal Reserve was conceived, it's an absolute must go. And then the last one, I would say, like, if, if you can want to join this, on to the next one. Just go straight up the coast. I think people radically overlook the Outer Banks and I mean the entirety of the whole national seashore. I know everyone, especially in Virginia, has like their place that they love to go, but I would encourage you to kind of go top to bottom. Take the ferry to Oricoc. I think it's free. And if it's not, I think it costs like $10. But places that you just would. Doesn't look like America, you know, the international ones. My recommendation, if you want something easy and you haven't been out of the country in a while and you're not like totally sure, I'd go drive the Ring of Kerry in Ireland. Just rent a car, get a little used to driving on the wrong side of the road. Rent a very small car. The roads are very tiny. And then I would tell you Shanghai is my other favorite global city in the world. I'd probably go to Tokyo right now instead. With everything that's happening and what's on my bucket list, I'll just tell you that's not happening anytime soon. With a toddler is a Belmond train. If you've never heard of the travel company Belmond, it's B E L M O N D. It is not cheap. Okay? But they have. If I'm not obsessed with trains, I'm obsessed with Airstreams and boats. But whether you're obsessed with trains or not, they run the train, the modern day Oriental Express and another train called the Eastern Orient Express, which runs through Malaysia and Singapore. And it's been. I've. That is a region I've been around. Like I've been to Singapore, but I've never left Singapore, the city. And so that's if, if we're talking international, that's. That's what's at the top of that.
- [43:30]
Wow, thank you. Well, Daniel, you're talking about now doing your photography. What's. What's next? Or just how do you think about all this stuff? You're, you're. Now you, you've got a toddler so, and you got a Gulf Stream. So you're, you're Airstream. So you're, you're, you're, you're traveling around the United States. What's, what's next and how, how should we be thinking about going big?
- [43:53]
Yeah. I tell you what, if I ever wind up with a Gulf stream, I'm picking you up.
- [43:57]
Yeah. A big mistake, I meant to say.
- [43:59]
But I will tell you that the Airstream Globetrotter is, I'll tell you a fun fact. When they decide that a high ranking government official and someone that's not the president or the Vice president has to travel to, let's just call it a potentially dangerous theater. Okay. What they do is the military takes an Airstream Globetrotter, that Airstream makes them, and they strap it inside of a military aircraft, C130. And that's how they get the Secretary of State or whoever it is that they're traveling because it's the only aircraft that can basically do really exotic, I'll just use the word exotic landings as to avoid potential conflict. So it's fascinating, a heck of a travel vehicle. I'll just tell you that. It's like a boutique hotel on wheels. But. Yeah, ask me the question again.
- [44:58]
All right, well, I want to pause on it because I'm going to ask another question first and then we're going to actually close out on this. But okay, so I love to ask this question. What would you tell now, knowing what you know?
- [45:09]
Yeah.
- [45:10]
What would you tell a younger version of yourself to do differently? Now you're still a younger version of yourself and you had this fascinating story, but what would you do any differently?
- [45:22]
Yeah, two, probably two things more listening to my core gut instincts. I think that must be something that you just have to keep stepping on a rake over and over and over again in life. Or maybe I'm a slow learner, but like when I look back, I should have obviously always trust your gut. And maybe that's cliche or whatever, but it's, I think about that a lot. I try to tell myself that one a lot. And the second one is, is basically that you, you know, you're not going to get another chance. When I think back about the trips that I've had with different people, people that I've met on the road, friends that you make on the road, you should, you should always take the chance to do it because you're not going to, you know, it's the only thing we can't get back, that we can't, that we can't borrow against you can't borrow against somebody else's time to create more of it. And it's worth it. It's worth every ounce of it. Yeah. Now I think your, I think your previous question was around.
- [46:35]
Yeah, no, no, no. I'm going to ask this, but I just want to lay it up in terms of just the reminder. It's Daniel Houghton, H O U G h t o n.com for your photography, right?
- [46:44]
Yes, sir.
- [46:45]
And you've got like a travel blog or something like that, or email too.
- [46:48]
Yeah, you'll see a couple of things. There's a free newsletter that basically just emails you once a week. A place in the United States that I think you should go. We've talked about a few. And then, Sorry, I'll let you ask the rest of your question.
- [47:03]
No, and then your book, I, I, I just can't say enough good stuff about wherever you go. Just check it, it'll just change your perspective. And again, travel is such an important part of our lives, our family's lives, and I, I just love the idea about just pressing ourselves to think beyond our comfort zone. So, so you've really gone big, but you're a very modest and humble guy and, and you're, and you, and you're really great about just following your, your passion and your gifts. So just close this out. Daniel, to anybody listening, how would you recommend, based on your own experiences, that we think about going big in our lives?
- [47:47]
I think there's a couple things to think of in relation to going big. The first one is that you're not going to go big alone. And if I look back and I'm certain that you have the same set of memories, the people that mentored you and they gave you the time of day that would sit down and actually listen, you know what I mean, and have a conversation, those people are rare and when you find them, that's who you're going to go big with. And you need to be on the lookout all the time. That's my first piece of advice. And I guess for everybody on the other side of that, my encouragement to you is there's lots of young, excited 21 year olds a lot smarter than me that can probably help you go big. And you know, everyone made fun of the millennial generation when we were coming out of school and now everybody makes fun of the Gen Z generation. And you know, most of that stuff's unwarranted or just workplace silliness. But you know, never, never underestimate what you're capable of. And most of the time it's a phone call away from either finding the right person or the right partner to go big with. And you always got a little more in the tank than you think you do, even when you are certain that it's on empty. And I don't just say that as a new parent, it'll serve you well on the road as well.
- [49:27]
Well, Daniel Houghton, it is a great honor and pleasure to know you and count you as a friend. I, I just, you're, you're very inspiring in the way you live your life. And thank you for sharing some stories today. Thanks for joining us on the Going Big podcast.
- [49:41]
You're too kind. Thanks for having me. And it's just such a privilege to, to have some time with you.
- [49:46]
All right, well, we'll have to have you back in a few years to hear even more good travel stories.
- [49:50]
There you go.
- [49:51]
All right.
- [49:51]
Thanks, Kevin.
- [49:52]
Thanks for tuning in to the Going Big Podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling energized and ready to tackle your biggest goals. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, YouTube, but wherever you listen to podcasts, it really helps spread the word and it gets these inspiring stories out to more people. You can also find more content, resources and updates at our website, goingbigpodcast.com Remember, the only limits are the ones you don't challenge, the limits that you impose on yourself. Keep pushing, keep growing, and above all, keep going big. See you next time on the Going Big Podcast.