Were you born with the wanderlust gene?

Nisreene Atassi, Expedia Global Head of Social Media, and host: I’m Nisreene Atassi and this is Out Travel The System. This week we’re talking about being born with the wanderlust gene. We’ll talk trends…

Christie Hudson, head of Expedia PR for North America (sound bite): When we couldn’t take the Europe trip we had planned, we went to national parks instead.

Nisreene: ..hear from guest Yolanda Edwards, founder of Yolo Journal.

Yolanda Edwards, founder of Yolo Journal (sound bite): I just started to notice, “This just doesn’t feel like the way I like to travel. Why do we have to cover what’s new? Why don’t we cover what’s good?”

Nisreene: ..and really get down to business.

Christie (sound bite): Expedia actually polled 12,000 people, asking them what they wanted most out of their travels in the coming year. And a third of respondents globally planned to check a bucket-list destination off their list this year.

Nisreene: So here we go.

[Intro music]

Nisreene: Today we are talking about all things wanderlust. And don’t worry, we’re not going to talk about all of the basic Bs out there on Instagram. We’re talking about the real wanderlust. I’m not sure if you guys know this, but there is actually a wanderlust gene. That’s right. It’s a real thing. DRD4-7R, to be exact. And apparently 20% of the world’s population have this wanderlust gene, probably myself included. So this gene is said to cause a strong desire to wander, travel and explore the world.

In this episode, we’re really going to unpack what makes people made to travel. Is it something that they’re born with or is it something that they’re sort of shaped into doing? We’re also going to take a look at how the pandemic has changed our views of travel and what the future holds. And, of course, this conversation is only going to be made better by a special guest I’ve got with me today, Yolanda Edwards. She’s the founder of Yolo travel journal and she definitely has the wanderlust gene.

This episode means a lot to me because we’ve traveled a ton as a family ever since I was a young girl. And, honestly, some of my fondest memories of being with my family are of us traveling, whether it was my dad dangling from a chairlift on a ski trip, or, you know, just me and my sister wreaking havoc on the airplane and making the flight attendants hate us because we were making all sorts of weird concoctions with our airplane food. We’ll get into that in another episode.

So, without further ado, it’s time for our data hacks segment. Here we go. As you know, our research allows us at Expedia to get deeper and deeper into all sorts of trends and topics. We pass that on to the benefit of our listeners, who we know are always eager to hear all of these amazing tips and tricks. So here it is, the data hacks segment that you’re going to get every single week. Welcome back our data correspondent Christie Hudson. Christie is also the head of PR and spends her days minding the data for all of the amazing tips, tricks and travel trends out there.

Hi, Christie! Welcome back.

Christie: Hi!

Nisreene: All right, Christie. So tell us, what is research saying in terms of wanderlust?

Christie: I have data for you. Surprise, surprise. So, at the beginning of this year, Expedia actually polled about 12,000 people around the world, asking them what they wanted most out of their travels in the coming year. And here’s what they said. A third of respondents globally plan to check a bucket-list destination off their list this year. And “bucket list” could mean some really big, once-in-a-lifetime trip, like going to Bali and staying in one of those overwater bungalows. Or it could just be getting your family together and going to Disney World or going somewhere you’ve never tried before or revisiting a place you haven’t been since your honeymoon 20 years ago. It looks different for everybody, but what that means is people want to do something big.

Another one in five travelers want to experience a culture or destination completely different from their own and get out of their comfort zone. And 70% want to try new foods and local delicacies they’ve never tried before, which is just a big break from the everyday routine. And what this really shows is that after being on lockdown during a global pandemic, people are craving a break. They’re craving to get back out there and experience things that you can kind of only get through travel.

You know, we also saw that play out across the board as vaccines rolled out. You know, what was the first thing we did when we got vaccinated? We took a trip. When we couldn’t fly during the pandemic, we drove. When we couldn’t take the Europe trip we had planned, we went to national parks instead. So travel didn’t come to a halt even during global disruption. The data shows us that the destinations just changed. So I think wanderlust is a strong undercurrent in all of us.

Nisreene: Thanks, Christie. Always so informative. I love it.

[Musical interlude]

Nisreene: I’m super excited to welcome Yolanda Edwards! Yolanda is a longtime magazine editor. She is the former creative director at Conde Nast Traveler magazine, and has turned a lifelong zest for travel into a career and hobby. She is literally living all of our dreams. Yolanda most recently founded the beautiful and inspiring Yolo Journal and Yolo Intel e-newsletter. Both of those feature some amazing travel guides for people who really want to get off the beaten track.

Welcome to the show, Yolanda. So great to have you!

Yolanda: Hi! Thank you so much for having me. I’m so happy to be here.

Nisreene: So I wanted to chat with you a little bit about the word ‘wanderlust’, because for me personally, I sort of feel like it has really evolved and morphed into something not necessarily what it was originally destined to be. And you’ve been in travel for a very, very long time. When you hear the word ‘wanderlust’, what does it mean to you and how do you feel like it’s evolved over the years?

Yolanda: You know, it’s funny. I don’t think I use the word ‘wanderlust’. Obviously I have a lot of it, but there’s something about it. I guess, like, maybe because I grew up in a very religious family, like, anything with the word ‘lust’ – I’m so not religious now. But it’s funny. It’s a word that I, um… I think I’m almost anti-wanderlust. I sort of want to help propel people more into figuring out how to really get to where they want to be and to not be so, like, looking at what other people are doing and thinking that that’s the only way to do something.

Nisreene: Yolanda, tell us a little about your background, sort of how you got to where you are today.

Yolanda: So I grew up in a very non-traveling family. My dad’s a piano teacher and never really had this kind of desire to go anywhere except for… I grew up on the West Coast and so he was big into Yosemite. So, like, camping in Yosemite was kind of the extent of my travel. And then when I was 16, I had my first chance to go to Europe, and it really came from a friend. Her parents said, “Why don’t you come to Europe with us?” And so I met up with them in Greece. It was the trip that really changed my life. I had never been so far away. I had never been somewhere where nobody knew where I was. I just loved this, like, this freedom feeling. And so from then on, I’ve always been, like, doing whatever I could do to hit the road.

Luckily, as a young adult, I found my way into being a photo editor at Condé Nast Traveler. And in the beginning days – this is, like, in the late ’90s. In those days, in the olden days, you didn’t have websites for photographers. So photographers would come in once a month. Nobody in the photo team wanted to actually go through looking at all these portfolios, meeting with the photographers. So I started to realize, like, these photographers were actually going places around the world that were really cool and they had documented them. They’d actually been there. And then I would go from those meetings where I’d be finding out about all these great stories, and I would go into a meeting where editors were talking about, “Oh, I heard about this new hotel that’s opening up from this publicist and I think it’d be so great if we could do something about this new hotel that’s going to open up.” We don’t have any photos of it because it won’t be open until the minute that it comes out in the magazine, but we’ve never been there and how do we know it’s good? And it’s all based on a PR machine. And so I just started to notice, like, this just doesn’t feel like the way I like to travel. Why do we have to cover what’s new? Why don’t we cover what’s good?

Nisreene: So how did you deal with something like that? Obviously you’re going into these meetings, it sounds like you’re clearly not vibing with the energy that some of these major travel magazines are really trying to put out there. And I’m getting the sense that you were really trying to make that shift into lesser-known destinations or sort of hidden gems and things like that. How did you manage through that? What did you end up doing to try and sort of forge a new path forward?

Yolanda: So when I lost my job at Traveler when publishing just started really falling apart, I decided to start my own magazine called Yolo Journal. And the concept of Yolo was to do a really beautiful print magazine, really with images that were from photographers that had already been places. So I was not assigning photography, I wasn’t assigning stories. I would just talk to the photographers. It was much more meant to be this kind of emotional storytelling and really feel a little bit richer and not so prescriptive. And it was probably two years in after I started the magazine, I started a newsletter called Yolo Intel. And the newsletter is much more like… I’ll do everything from, like, black books on different cities – and cities that I don’t know well, I find people there that I want to know from them. Like, I wanted to have that feeling of, like, these are really tried-and-true favorites of people. And if somebody is like, “Guess what? I went back to that place and it wasn’t good,” we’ll go in and we’ll take it out because all of the newsletters live in an archive, so we’re always updating it.

Nisreene: What you described about your journal and newsletter, it’s almost like a guest book at a vacation rental, where you go and you read through all the things that people have done. I always do that whenever I get to a vacation rental. I find the guest book and I read, because people always leave, like, their favorite things about it.

Yolanda: Oh, that’s such a good tip! I love that!

Nisreene: Yeah, well, I feel like that’s kind of the energy that I’m getting from your magazine, which is great. I want to go back to that sort of early childhood moment when you sort of really started to feel the force of travel sort of pulling you there. Did you know that there is, like, an actual wanderlust gene and it’s basically a genetic makeup that some people have and it, essentially, is a gene that makes people sort of predisposed to wander and discover?

Yolanda: Wow!

Nisreene: They just have this drive to explore. And it almost made me feel like maybe you have that, because, you know, for somebody to feel that connection to exploration and seeing new things at such a young age, that feels like something. What do you think about that? Like, have you ever heard about the wanderlust gene?

Yolanda: You’re blowing my mind. I love it!

Nisreene: I think you’ve got it, Yolanda. I think you’ve got it.

Yolanda: Oh, my God! This is so exciting. No, I’ve really never heard of that. And it feels very… like I need to go deep on that as soon as we stop talking.

Nisreene: The official name is DRD4-7R. I feel like maybe you’ve got it.

Yolanda: I remember Calvin Klein, in the ’80s, had these beautiful ads. You could barely even see where they were, but, like, an outline of a white building – which now I know would be Santorini or somewhere in the Cyclades. Sure, I liked the the models and the clothes, but I really was like, “Where is that? How do I get there?” You know? And that, for me, is always, like, that thing. So maybe I really have that gene.

Nisreene: Yeah. But I actually feel like there’s a little bit of that gene almost in everybody and they just need a really amazing experience to, like, wake it up. I’ve yet to meet anybody who says, “I don’t like to travel.” And then there are other people who are like, “Yeah, I absolutely love traveling, but I only travel two times a year. But that doesn’t make me any less sort of obsessed or in love with travel.” Like, have you heard stories from anybody where they didn’t think they were a big traveler and then they had that one moment or that one experience where it, like, was really, like, a big metamorphosis for them?

Yolanda: I would say maybe my dad. My dad, as I said, when I was younger, never really cared about traveling. It wasn’t really about going somewhere, meeting people from another culture, experiencing different food, having any sort of immersion in anything that’s the Other. My dad was supposed to go to the Vietnam War and then he ended up being put into the Army Band and didn’t go. And I think he’s always had some sort of heaviness around Vietnam. Somehow, he went there. I don’t know. He was invited by a friend or, for some reason, he ended up there. And he became obsessed and he was going there every single year and he would go for, like, half the summer. And he found ways to make it work financially where he ended up, like, teaching piano in some school. He’s started studying the language. I mean, he, it’s, like, now become his entire life. He’s just obsessed with, like, studying Vietnamese and getting himself back there.

Nisreene: I love that. That’s incredible.

Yolanda: Yeah. I mean, like, COVID was horrible for my dad because he couldn’t go to Vietnam.

Nisreene: Yeah.

Yolanda: But, you know, like, that’s a great case of something completely shifted in him, from being, like, shutdown to the outside to being, like, completely all-in.

Nisreene: Yeah. See, it’s there. I think we’ve all got it and I think it’s just like – you know, I’m obviously not a scientist, so I’m going to use the term… like, dormant? I don’t know. There’s just something that – and sometimes you just need to have that sort of push to really open it up for you.

Yolanda: I also think it’s a lot of fear.

Nisreene: Yeah. Oh, yeah, 100%.

Yolanda: Travel costs money. It’s a big investment for people, so they often will do the things that somebody else has done and said was good. And many people just do the safe travel. Language is a big barrier for many people. You know, like, many people don’t feel comfortable fumbling their way through trying to make… make sense or trying to use a couple of words to get by. And I just always try and put myself into the shoes of people who, you know, they’ve never been to Europe before. We know people who – we have a place in Upstate New York and we have many friends who are, like, New York City is just too far for them. Like, it’s New York!

Nisreene: Yeah. Our society today has been trained to become, like, incredibly obsessed with physical items. And so, to shift your focus and to become obsessed with, like, an emotional experience or an intangible sort of thing that might happen to you, which I think travel falls into that, does take a bit of a mind shift. But I think, you know, some people are just made for it. They recognize it right away. Others maybe take a little bit more convincing.

Well, obviously we’ve had a rough two years, you know, for the travel space with the pandemic. How has your perspective on travel shifted during the pandemic? I’m curious if you feel like there are sort of new norms that have emerged. You know, have you… are you adjusting the way you travel or has your perspective changed at all coming out of the pandemic?

Yolanda: I think, yeah. I mean, it definitely changed so much during and post for sure. I would say the way it really shifted during the pandemic was when we couldn’t travel, I just had this crazy imagination and I had to, like, keep the travel going. I mean, I think everybody made, like, dinners and cocktail hours that reminded them of either their favorite restaurant or a place they’d been or made them feel transported to somewhere other than the house, the apartment, room they’d been in for entirely too long. I had friends who… one friend who owns a hotel and another friend who is a kind of travel designer. And the three of us were all missing each other and missing travel. So we decided, let’s make an imaginary road trip. And so I said, “Okay, great, I’ll kick it off. I’ll start on my social, on my Instagram, saying, like, ‘Today I’m creating an imaginary road trip. I’m going to land in Italy and then, like, follow along.'” And people would say, “What do you mean you’re traveling?” I’m like, “Read the caption.”

Nisreene: I feel like there’s probably a lot of people out there who might still do things like that just because they, you know, they don’t have the means, necessarily, to travel all over the world. But that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to sort of feed your desire to travel through other avenues. Obviously, food, music, culture in general is just, like, a really great way to to feed that. I know that’s a lot of how I fed my wanderlust a little bit during during the pandemic. Are you traveling differently at all, Yolanda, post-pandemic?

Yolanda: I would say longer, traveling for longer. I’m not interested in the, sort of, short flights and… I mean, I’m definitely on the road a lot, but I’d rather minimize that kind of back-and-forth sort of thing.

Nisreene: Yeah, I think it’s bringing us back to slow travel, you know?

Yolanda: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nisreene: The, sort of, ‘wanderlust’ trend, if you will, I think did two things. One, it made people feel like there was a really, really specific type of vacation that they had to have that was Instagram-worthy. Two, it made people start to think that it was, like, a volume-play, right? Like, “I’m trying to get X amount of stamps on my passport” and things like that. But, I think, now I love going back to the same place multiple times, because I feel like you could go back to Spain ten different times and have a completely different vacation every single time.

You’re obviously in Rome. You’ve been in Rome for a while. What are some some places that have continued to inspire you?

Yolanda: I would say, what you just said about the sort of repetition and not feeling like you need to check things off a list and making sure you hit all the things because you’re only going to go there one time. That is definitely something I try and stay away from. I mean, we were just in Istanbul. I’d never been to Istanbul and we were there about a month ago now and we didn’t get to Hagia Sophia. And I was so disappointed, but I was like, “Whatever, we’ll come back. It means we have to come back.” So I do think that there is something so great about the… that sort of sitting and watching and not being somewhere where you’re supposed to be or you’ve been told you’re supposed to be. And I, when our daughter was really young, we spent a lot of time in Paris and I really understood the French much better – or I really had such an appreciation for France in a different way – when I would sit there on a park bench as she just played in the playground and I watched everybody pass by. Those sort of daily, you know, seemingly mundane things happening in front of you are actually the things that I think sort of stay with you more.

Nisreene: So you mentioned bringing your daughter to Paris with you, which is probably something that a lot of people would be really, really stressed about, probably try to avoid. But you obviously wanted to bring her there. You know, when she was younger, how did you balance your, like, desire to travel and sort of see the world but also having a child? What advice would you have for moms and parents who are sort of in this boat where they’ve, they felt like they were really made to travel, now they’ve got kids and they’re trying to find the balance?

Yolanda: So when Clara was about two years old, I was a travel editor at a parenting magazine called Cookie. And when I signed on to do the job, I said, “You know, you guys, the only way I can do this is if I can travel with Clara. So she has to come with me everywhere I go.” And that was, like, low salary, but nice job perk. And I think it was one of those things where I just, I just got so used to her always, always being with me. And, you know, until they’re two, it’s, like, they’re on your lap and it’s fine. And then it becomes, like, another seat. And then… I mean, yeah, we didn’t travel like the way we do now, but we brought her with us everywhere. I think that the… it’s almost like training yourself to, like, just get used to the idea of them having meltdowns and, you know, throwing up on you on the plane and all the things that are such a drag. But, like, I’m so glad that we brought her along, even if it was more expensive, not always convenient, sometimes, like, really a drag. You know, we have a great traveler as a 19-year-old now, so…

Nisreene: Yeah. I’ve got a great story of my daughter having explosive diarrhea on my lap on a flight to San Diego. But, you know, that’s what travel memories are made of, right?

Yolanda: I do, too. And throwing up. Yeah.

Nisreene: Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful moments.

Yolanda: Always have an extra pair of clothes for you when you travel with your kid.

Nisreene: I’ve had so much fun chatting with you, but unfortunately time goes by so fast when you’ve got amazing conversation. Any other plugs that you want to make sure you know our listeners walk away with or anything else that you think would be good for them as they… You know, we’ve got a lot of listeners who feel like they were made to travel and have that wanderlust gene.

Yolanda: If you want to follow me on Instagram, my Instagram is my name, Yolanda Edwards.

Nisreene: All right. Listen, Yolanda, I really do think you should go and get genetically tested for the gene and then come back on the show, just to tell us what the findings were.

Yolanda: I’m going to do that. Thank you.

Nisreene: Thank you so much for coming on the show today. It was such a fantastic conversation. Really, really loved having you on.

[Musical interlude]

Nisreene: I think what I loved so much about this episode was because I had my daughter right before the pandemic, I haven’t really had a chance to travel with her. And hearing Yolanda talk about the experience of being in France and Paris with her daughter and watching her child experience a new destination for the first time just really made me feel super inspired and makes me want to travel with my daughter. And I know traveling with toddlers is difficult and sometimes a nightmare, but this really helped remind me that it’s all worth it to watch them experience a new place for the first time. So, thank you so much, Yolanda, for reminding me that the beauty of travel can be absolutely amazing when you’re experiencing it with the ones you love.

For more info on episodes, guests, and to find travel inspiration, be sure to visit Out Travel The System’s blog at Expedia.com/stories/podcast.

All right, I want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in today. And whether you’ve actually got the wanderlust gene or not, it really doesn’t matter. All you need is that one moment to really awaken your senses and really invigorate your love for travel. So go ahead and find that opportunity.

I want to thank Yolanda Edwards, of course, for joining us. And if you want to find out more about Yolanda and access some of her amazing travel guides, be sure to sign up at yolojournal.substack.com.

If you have any questions, comments, thoughts or, better yet, travel suggestions, be sure to DM us. We are @Expedia on Instagram. Oh, and don’t forget to give the show a follow and subscribe on your favorite podcast player so that you don’t miss an episode as soon as it drops.

Out Travel The System is brought to you by Expedia, with special thanks to PRX and Sonic Union. I’m the Executive Producer and your host, Nisreene Atassi. Special thanks to the following:

Additional writing by Rachel Sullivan
Producer Rishika Sharma
Associate Producers Syma Mohammed and Nathanael Taylor
Production Assistant is Alex Thiel and Carolina Garrigo
Theme music and original composition by Kevin J Simon
Music edit, sound design, and mix by Rob Ballingall
Music supervision by Justin Morris
Executive Producer and Writer Halle Petro
PRX Executive Producer Jocelyn Gonzalez

Out Travel the System is recorded with Sonic Union in New York City.

Be sure to join us next week as we talk all about small-town American destinations with Matt Hranek. Get ready for some solid Americana!

Till next time, this is your host, Nisreene Atassi, for Out Travel The System. Happy Travels!