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www.voyagingvagabond.com
Real talk are interviews getting to the stories you don’t hear/see on instagram – the terrifying moments of travel; the blunders; lost passports and getting behind the “what’s your favourite destination and why?” question and getting into the real stories of travel, the ones we don’t show Instagram.
I met Chantel at the first TravelCon in 2018, we both bonded over how F***king hot Austin, Texas was and how much we were both sweating. And how literally no one else was talking about it. “We’re at 87% humidity!? What is wrong with these people, do they not have pores?” It was then, in that moment, I knew we’d be friends.
We both shared our feelings about the ridiculousness of the typical Instagram travel perfection and our goals of being real with our audience. Her blog and storytelling has inspired so many women to travel, no matter your body, situation, sexuality. So many of her values aligned with mine which is why I thought she’d be perfect to interview.
Firstly, What’s your most memorable travel blunder?
When your kayak instructor tells you to leave your phone in your dry bag. You should probably listen. I, however, DID NOT. Insistent that I had kept my phone in my lifejacket every time I kayaked up until this point I figured that this time would be no different. I could even snag some sweet videos for my Snapchat.
Say it with me now,
DUMB DU DUM DU DUMBBBBBBBB.
Sure enough, less than 10 minutes into kayaking through the Adriatic my cell phone slips out from under my armpit and sinks to the ocean floor at rapid speeds.
I naturally reach down to try to grab it to no prevail while almost tipping myself over in this kayak. I instantly freeze and yell out to my partner “I JUST DROPPED MY $&#@$*# PHONE.” With my kayak instructor yelling back “THERE ARE BOATS COMING AND YOU NEED TO GO.”
So here I am in Croatia, middle of the ocean, phone racing towards its watery grave. I tried to ride out the numbing shock for as long as possible and just be happy to be in this moment.
Which, I’ll be honest, was kind of easy. Especially when you’re on a small private island eating lunch at the beach on a bean bag in Hvar. But then as my kayaking excursion was coming towards an end and I remembered that I would have to take a ferry ride in a couple of hours without my phone, reality started to set in.
Our instructor suggested calling his friend who is a professional diver to see if he could get it. I thought okay, my phone was waterproof, there could be a chance we could save it. (DUMMMBBBB) I called his buddy Nuno, told him what happened, and he told me he could help me, tomorrow.
Well, I ate the $10 I spent on a return ticket for that day, stayed the night at a random hostel and then didn’t hear from Nuno the next morning despite my call and pleading voicemail. I was without a phone for two months after that and my partner and I had to rely on her TERRIBLE Blackberry which is a story in itself. But I did spend my extra afternoon in Hvar at a gleaming hidden beach and became really good at reading paper maps thanks to that.
What’s some truths you’ve found about travel that no one talks about? (eg. Finding a good shower, weight gain, travel burnout)
I feel like nobody talks about how much time is actually spent on traveling. Everybody posts their pictures by the beach but nobody talks about the 6-hour ride in a smelly bus or the flat tire that you had in that random city with that rabid dog that added an extra two hours before you got there.
What’s a ridiculous travel story that makes you laugh now, but at the time was highly traumatic?
My partner and I had been on the road together for almost three months straight, every day together, and towards the end of a train ride from Prague to Berlin we got into a tiff. Now, looking back I really have no idea what the fight was over. But I do know we were both angry enough to need some space when we rolled up to the train station during the 2 hours before our next train. We would keep catching glances of each other around the train station but were both too stubborn, exhausted and aggravated to give into apologizing, over what, I REALLY don’t remember. LOL.
But then it came to 20 minutes before the train left and I don’t see her on the platform, 15 minutes, 10 minutes no sign of her. I’m walking up and down the platform, walking back into the train station, going up and down escalators. The Berlin Hauptbahnhof train station is huge and I wasn’t seeing her anywhere. 4 minutes before the train left. I tried to justify in my head that she knew where we were staying, it was a direct train, she had been hopping trains through Europe for months at this point.
She knew when our train left, she was going to be on this train. I have to get on this train, because she MUST be on it.
I get on the train. Head to my seat, lock up my bag and walk up and down, carriage after carriage trying to find my girlfriend. Each row filled by someone I didn’t know. I thought maybe she was in the bathroom, I missed her in passing but after going through what felt like 20 carriages she wasn’t there. I sat down and figured she was wandering up and down trying to find me too.
Well, I guess I dozed off and woke up an hour and a half later drenched in sweat and still no girlfriend. I start to panic. I’m talking raised by my immigrant mother, wondering the absolute worst, PANIC.
My girlfriend’s back in Berlin.
She missed the train.
That worry went next level when the train stopped in Hannover. A loud, German announcement comes over the intercom and a resounding groan fills the carriage and EVERYONE starts reaching for their bags. I kindly ask a woman nearby what the message was and she simply responds, “GET OFF TRAIN….NOW.” Wide-eyed, in Hannover, don’t know why, still with no phone, I get off this train. I have no idea what this delay is going to set me back.
Are we getting back on the train, where is my girlfriend, do I have to take another train?
I am in the middle of a busy platform, having this intense moment of panic, low key fighting back tears and I look up to see a ray of sunshine exuding out of a train door as it opens to reveal my girlfriend getting off of the train. At that point, I ran into her arms, gave her the biggest hug and apologized for being so awful. I was elated and over the moon to have her back by my side as we figured this situation out together. It felt like a piece of home was given back to me. We quickly realized we would have to take a later train and during that time my partner let me in on her little secret.
She saw me pacing on the platform in Berlin, she watched me get on the train, she just sat pretty and insisted that if I wanted alone time then dammit she was going to give it to me. She was living it up in the one carriage I apparently didn’t check and when the German announcement came on a kind man informed her that the air conditioner wasn’t working and they were transferring the passengers onto another train.
This girl’s lucky she’s so cute.
When did you start travelling? What attracted you to travel?
I took my first international trip when I was nine. Being so young I didn’t realize that I was even attracted to traveling. My family just hauled all of us to the airport and we made our way back to the motherland, Portugal. The minute I left the airport the travel bug sunk its teeth into me and hasn’t let go since.
I was in awe of this different way of living, the scenery and the people I met during that trip. For the first time in my life, I felt that wonder of being in a new city where my explorations went as far as my two feet could take me. My parents would let me walk to Cafe Funchal which was a block over from our hotel every morning. I would sit there with a book, eating pão com manteiga and sipping on my orange juice waiting for my family to trickle into the cafe. I fell in love with that independence. Those mornings spent people watching outside of a Portuguese cafe at nine years old stirred in me a desire to see as much of the world as my life would allow for. I’ve been chasing those feelings ever since.
Do you have an amazing/terrible/memorable ‘did it for the gram’ story?
I was at some seedy bar in Lagos, Portugal a few years ago with some friends and someone thought it was a good idea to order absinthe shots. NOT ME. I also didn’t think it was a good idea when they were lit on fire. What I did think was a good idea was recording me taking this shot “for the gram.” The minute this booze hit my tongue I knew I was puking. Instantaneously. I calmly removed myself outside and puked excessively in front of what I thought was a blacked out window panel which I later found out was completely see-through on the bar side.
As I’m leaving dinner on the cobblestones my girlfriend informs me that there are two police officers briskly walking towards us. I’m wiping my mouth and mustering my best smile right as I hear “hola.” This stoic officer strikes up a conversation with my girlfriend. Well, Officer Garcia proceeds to tell us that the reason he came over was that my girlfriend was “so exotic looking” and he had a “what do you say, FETISH for Asian woman.” At that point, I was so relieved that this cop wasn’t about to give me any issues for puking my brains out in front of them that I let him flirt with my girl a little more. But TBH, I think she was kind of into Mr. Officer.