Adventure Travel with Kristine Eksteine-Nizka - Love Your Italy

Guest Bio

Kristine Eksteine-Nizka is the founder of Love Your Italy, a travel planning service and blog focused on helping travelers explore Italy, with a special emphasis on the Dolomites. Kristine and her husband Michal live in Europe and draw from their personal experiences living in Northern Italy and extensive travels throughout the country to create tailored itineraries and practical advice for visitors. Her approach combines a deep understanding of Italy’s diverse regions with a commitment to responsible and enjoyable travel.

Show Summary

In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Kristine about her journey from growing up in Latvia to becoming a travel planner specializing in Italy’s Dolomites. They discuss how Kristine’s passion for travel evolved through years of personal exploration, including her time working as a flight attendant and living near Lake Iseo in Northern Italy.

The conversation delves into what makes the Dolomites unique, from their limestone peaks and extensive cable car networks to the challenges of overtourism and the importance of responsible travel. Kristine shares how her business, Love Your Italy, offers custom itinerary planning and a vibrant online community for travelers seeking to navigate the region thoughtfully and safely.

Listeners also learn about the practical side of Kristine’s work, including why she chooses not to handle bookings directly and how she supports travelers with detailed planning advice, emphasizing safety and local respect. The episode highlights her dedication to making Italian adventures approachable, especially in areas less familiar to the average tourist.

Big World Made Small guest features are invitation-only and selected based on story, experience, and fit with the show. Guest support helps make the episode possible, but it does not determine who is featured. This helps keep the show free of third-party ads and interruptions while keeping the focus on real, story-driven conversations.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 1:05

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the Adventure Traveler. Super excited to have each and every one of you back today, and also super excited to have my guest. I'm I'm gonna do this a little different because our our regular listeners are used to me totally messing up names almost every other episode. And I'm gonna do something different today. I'm not even gonna try. I'm just gonna say Christine. We've got Christine here, and those of you looking at the show notes uh can see how her last name is spelled. I'm gonna ask her to tell us a little bit about her last name and how to pronounce it. Christine, welcome to the show. Happy to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Hi Jason, so happy to be here. So the last name. Yeah, that's that's yeah, that's a thing. So my last name is Eksteine Niska. So it's a Latvian Slovak mix. When I got married to my husband, I could not let go of my Latvian last name. So I decided I will just add the Niska O to it.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

It's now I it works and it sounds so great when you say it. But I as you know, I tried a few times before I hit the record button, and I was right up until I hit the record button, I was I was gonna take a stab at it. I thought, you know what, let's just let's play around with this just a little bit. And and you mentioned that people where you're at now, cause you cause you live tell everybody where you live now.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Right now I live in Czech Republic, just next to Prague. I actually see it out of my window. And uh yeah, people here struggle. They do not struggle with the Niska part, because you know, Czechoslovakia, they have basically the same, although they do spell it incorrectly all the time.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

I bet. But you don't you don't use like your last name and an email address at all or anything, do you? Because I because I know the reason I asked that is I've learned to make my, you know, anytime I try and choose an email address or whatever, try and make it as easy as possible. Because there's so many times when people are like, let me get your email address, and you're you gotta spell it all out for them. And I was just curious if if that comes up.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yeah. I do not use it in my work email. Yeah, it's just Christine at loveyouritaly.com. That's easy. That is, but the work em uh the personal email, I'm sorry, is Christina.eksteina at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

So did do that. Yeah, yep. Any anyway, so so you've got you've got quite a story. You've obviously do not live where you grew up. And so we're gonna get we're gonna dig into that, kind of figure out how you got from where you were to where you are throughout the course of the conversation. But let's just start with Love Your Italy, because because actually that's we've we've already mentioned two countries now, now we're on the third country. So, you know, your company, you're the founder of Love Your Italy. So let's give our listeners kind of an idea of what you do at Love Your Italy.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

I'm gonna start from the back of it all, like from the end, because Love Your Italy right now has niched down to Dolomites travel planning. Okay. So we have a blog part where we teach people how to tra plan their trips to the Dolomites, and we have travel planning services where we offer custom itineraries, we offer itinerary reviews, consultation calls, and pretty much everything can be worked out. But it started actually, I had a general travel blog before. It was a different website. I was writing about Japan, I was writing about Patagonia and then I started writing about Italy, and I was like, oh yes, this, I want to write about this and this and this and this and this and this. And I had like 20 articles on Japan, 20 on Patagonia, and then it was already at like 40 for Italy, and I was like, okay, this is getting a bit unbalanced.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Obviously, there's something about Italy that's caught my attention. Yeah, uh-huh. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Maybe, maybe. So I decided, okay then, I am gonna start a new website about Italy, hence love your Italy. And then I started writing about the Dolomites. And that was, I think at this point it was three years ago that I started writing about dolomites with the idea that we are gonna be writing about all of the other of Italy. We are still on the Dolomites and nowhere near finished. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

So so you only do the doll what I heard you say, this is what I picked up out of what you just said, was that you help people uh through obviously the blogs, gathering information to help them prepare their own trips, but you also work with them to help build itineraries, review itineraries. And is it is it exclusively the dolomites then? If if somebody comes to you and says, We want to go to southern Italy and here's the itinerary we're looking at. Can we can we work with you to have you help us put it together? I suspect you probably could, but it sounds like the dolomites are really your what you're doing. Help me figure that out.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

That's actually a bit of a disagreement point with my husband at this point.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Okay, so are you saying we shouldn't discuss this? We should say all right. Tell us your side. You you're the one with the mic. Tell us tell us your perspective.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

It's actually really funny because we were just talking about it today with my husband. We started talking about because we are kind of uh reworking all of the main pages on the website right now, and he's going through the about me section, about us, and I have all of Italy there. And he was like, but we are doing just the Dolomites, and I was like, but you know, we know all of basically all of Italy. So yeah, if someone came and wanted to do southern Italy, like we could do it. I would be honest about the parts which we have visited and which we haven't, obviously, so they know what's happening and what's not, but we know Italy, we know how people think there, we know how Google Maps and the actual roads there look, how to do everything. So for us personally, and I use us because my husband is also travel planning with me, so it's kind of our common thing. And for us, it's much easier to figure everything out, all the details out, than it is for first for a person who hasn't been to Italy. And even if they've been to like Rome, it's completely different. If you go to Rome, that's like it's tourists. It's prepared for tourists, it's gonna be okay with it. But if you go to like the middle of nowhere Sardinia, that is gonna be a lot different. So it's kind of like you can do it.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

I get that because you know, if you look at the US, for example, let's say you're from Europe or Latin America and talking about visiting the US, well, visiting New York City, which is where most people go the first time. Difference between visiting New York City and maybe getting an RV and travel around the West and visiting Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, those are two totally different types of trips. Not that either one are really super complicated and they people can figure them out, but it is a it's a different thing. So so should we have you put your website like if I go to your website right now, it says Love Your Italy, is there a branding change coming on here in the future that you want to announce on this show? Or because because this this episode is gonna be around for a while. So do you think that if somebody listened to this several months from now is it's gonna be Love Your Dolomites, or are you are you shifting at all, or what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

No, we are sticking with Love Your Italy because we still think that we will do the whole Italy.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

And I think fingers crossed that we are adding Venice.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

I I wanted to say by the end of the year, but let's be realistic. Next year we'll add Venice and Milan and like other destinations. So northern Italy for now.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

When a traditional tour operator that actually has packages they put together and they they've got packages on their website, when they might say we're adding a new destination means they're adding a new itinerary that you can book with them, that type of thing. Is that what you're talking about? Or when you say we're gonna probably add Venice, does that mean you're just gonna start writing more blog posts about Venice, more information about Venice? Because it sounds like you work with a lot of maybe the more do-it-yourself type people. And I don't want to put words in your mouth, so correct me if I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

No, actually, that's a really good question because we are gonna be adding the articles and it's gonna be like uh how to plan a trip to Venice, what you need to know, where to stay, best activities, what to do on a rainy day, and stuff like that. Because we kind of have at this point 50-50 with people who want to plan their own trips. So we want to help with that. Our goal, our our mission is for people to find the things that they love in Italy. That's how the name actually came for to me that love your Italy, because each one of us has something different in it. And uh so for Venice, it will be like all of the stuff you need to plan your own trip. Plus, let's say we haven't gotten that far yet, but it's probably gonna be either Northern Italy travel planning services or just Venice or just general. We haven't gotten to that part. What we are doing right now is we are trying to fix the confusion that my ADHD created on the website.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Yeah, you and I you and I discussed the ADHD thing a little bit last time we spoke, and it was it was pretty funny because I can relate to it completely.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Yeah, yeah. So so travel, I I I want to dig into for our listeners and just kind of me in general. I'm just curious. When you say travel planning services, because there's a lot of different words we use advisors, planners, agents, all these different words, and I and sometimes they mean exactly what it sounds like they mean, but for you, somebody says, Look, I read your articles, I want to go to the dolomites. Can you set it up for me? So a traditional travel agent might say, Okay, yep, I'm gonna book your flights, I'm gonna have someone meet you at the airport, I'm gonna have someone drive you to the lodge, I'm gonna have your guide meet you the next morning, take you on a hike, and they just kind of book it all for somebody. And then there's others that don't necessarily book the stuff, but will sit down and go step by step. Okay, this is a great place. Here's what I suggest. You can do this, do this, do this. So, where do you fit in that spectrum and what should people expect if they want you to help them plan their trip?

SPEAKER_00 11:08

I will not book things.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Okay, that's I thought that might be the case, and that's why I wanted to get into that. So, what's the value to the person working with you then? If you don't book things, there's probably other value that balances that out.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Yeah, as one of my last clients said, the Dolomites are so confusing. And that's a person who's traveled Switzerland, Austria, the US, and like everywhere. I think he said he's actually climbed Kilimanjaro, and the Dolomites confused him. So the value is that we have 10 plus years of experience with Italy in all shapes and forms. We did live in Italy. We missed that part, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

So we're gonna we're gonna get to the history. We're gonna get to the history. We're just we're just figuring out how you how you do things now.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

So Yeah, uh, that's one that's the one country I didn't mention, though. I mentioned a lot of other countries where I've been and did not mention Italy.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Well, yeah, we're yeah, that's true. But I'm happy I'm happy you brought that up. It's making a lot more sense now why you do Italy stuff. But okay, so you don't book stuff, but you you know the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

I know the stuff and I plan the trip.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Why don't you book the stuff? I'm just gonna ask you why because I have some ideas in my head of why you don't get involved in that part of it, but I'm just gonna ask you, you know.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

It's more reasons because I did not want to go through the struggle of setting up a travel agency with all of the legal stuff since I don't work like it would probably be easier if I worked only with Czechs here in Central Public. But since I work with the US, since I work with UK and all of the other countries, like it's just not worth it for me because I do not want to book things. It might be a bit controversial.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

I I get it. I'm I'm listening to you, I'm like, yeah, it's a which is why some people use traditional traveling, but oh, I think the light bulb just went off, Christine. Tell me. Here's what I just here's what just popped into my head, and I'm curious. I don't know if okay, if I'm a travel agent, I'm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I'm a travel agent, and I've got a client that wants to go to the Dolomites, and I really know nothing about the Dolomites, but I know Christine. So maybe I reach out to Christine and say, Hey, Christine, this is kind of what these clients want to do. Can you if you can work with them or me or whatever to put together the itinerary, I'll take care of booking everything. Does that happen, or is that just like a brilliant idea? Or where does like that? Because that's what I'm thinking. So the person that doesn't want to book their own stuff, maybe I don't know. Is that a business idea?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

That's a that's a business idea. That is awesome. Yeah, and by the way, the main reason but that doesn't seem to happen.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

It sounds like based on your reaction, that doesn't sound like a typical scenario. I was envisioning that as like, oh, that must be part of how it works, but maybe not yet.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Well, not yet. Now it's gonna be on air. Yeah, but like the reason why I don't want to book stuff is I don't want to triangulate. You know, if someone has a hotel that I booked for them and they can't make it to that hotel, they tell me I cannot make it to the c hotel. Can you figure out if I can come later? I call the hotel, like, hi, my client cannot make it today. Can they come later? Yes, they can. They can come on this date. They will need to pay this. Okay, let me see. Hi, so the hotel said blah, blah, blah. Hmm, can you ask them?

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Yeah, I I get it. And you know what? Probably everybody that's listening to this can relate to that because there's enough of them that have worked in tourism long enough, either as advisors or or whatever. And I've been on a few different sides of that as well. So I get that. In a sense, it's and with technology the way it is. I mean, if you help them put together a great itinerary that that is all lined out, they've got the phone number right there. Or maybe, you know, just call the hotel. It's probably, and you know what? A lot of guests are like that too. They're like, why am I gonna bother calling my my agent or my advisor when I'm, you know, three hours away from the hotel, my advisor's in another kind of I'll just call the hotel. So exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that makes sense. And obviously, your clients um it works well for them. Do you get involved in helping people with everything from just like a day activity all the way through multi-day itineraries? Or what is that? You I mean, because sometimes people are just reading your stuff and and doing it, so you might not even know exactly what they're doing. But the ones that actually reach out to you and ask for help, is it usually, hey, we're gonna be there and we want to do something on Thursday? Can you help us figure something out? Or is it more, hey, we're gonna be we want to go in three months and can you help us put together 10 days? So what does it usually look like?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Anything in between. Like all of that and everything in between. I have a client who reached out, oh, it's been already like nine months at this point. She's gonna be going to the Dolomites next month. So we've been doing the trip planning. I helped actually with the whole northern Italy uh sorry, northern Italy for her. So I planned everything from Milan to like Como, Verona, Dolomites, and she and she actually changed it. She ends now in Venice, so it's been a nine-month process. She's so lonely though. Yeah I love working with her, so she's she might be listening.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

That was like really important. She sounds she sounds like a wonderful person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

She is so nice. Like, I'm each time she reaches all that, like, hey.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

That's that's cool. That's that's the fun part. And especially if you're not the one involved in the the in-between with the hotels and all that that we were just discussing. Hey, it just occurred to me though, I I feel like I kind of dropped the ball. Where the heck are the dolomites? I I think you you finally, you know, you did mention northern Italy and enough a couple times, so it's like, oh yeah, I'm sure a lot of people already know, but I'm not sure I'm crystal clear. I know it's northern Italy, but I don't know if the Dolomites are part of the Italian Alps. I don't know if it's on the border of Switzerland. I have no, I don't really know. So without the use of maps or graphics, because some people are just listening to this, help help our listeners figure out where the dolomites are and maybe kind of why they should why they should know what they should know about the dolomites. Because you said they were confusing too. So I want to touch on that a little bit. Or at least the one man mentioned that it was confusing.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

It's the northeast Italy. So the Dolomites, people think it's one huge national park, it's actually a bunch of national parks stuck together, and it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so kind of like it's all a mix there. And people are not exactly agreeing on the exact borders of the Dolomites. So because sorry, I jumped like over.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

No, no, yeah. Well, here let me let me ask you this just based on what you've said so far, is what I hear is the Dolomites are a a mountain range, a range of mountains.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

That's the that's the part that I missed to mention. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

But but it makes sense. So they're a mountain range, and if we use if we talk about Italy, I'm trying to try to think how we describe this with without a map or whatever, but so people think of Italy as a boot, right? So if you go up the heel, if you go from the heel all the way up along the coast to the very top where somebody's the back of their knee would be or their their calf would be or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

The front of their knee, actually.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Wait.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

So it's the you know where Venice is? That's kind of like easier to figure out.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Yeah, but it's on the back side of the boot, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

So it's up. I did not make it into the uh yeah, no, I got confused as all. So yeah, that's like the shape. The shape is like this. So if you go up and to the right, to the right, when you look at the map, that's where Venice is. So basically in between Venice and top right corner.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Or something. I just confused myself with the map. I'm geographically challenged.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Don't say that. You're a travel advisor, not advisor, but you know what? Just kidding. Okay, well, so a lot of our listeners like, geez, Jason, I think we kind of figured it out. You didn't have to bring up the whole boot thing. You just anyway, so okay, I gotcha. It's up in the top right corner.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

It's a mountain range. There's a bunch of national parks that are kind of in that mountain range. Now, is that mountain range part of the Alps? Or are the Alps on the other side? Or what is how does that all work?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

It's uh part of the Alps, and it's the limestone Alps. So the unique thing about the Dolomites, why they are so special, is that they are actually a bit of a different material than your typical Alps. They are limestone, so they are lighter in color. So if you look at pictures, generally the dolomites are a bit like lighter colors. They are light grey, beige, sometimes orangey. So they are made of limestone, so that's the main thing that makes them so special. And um on the on our last trip, we found out that there used to be volcanoes, also. So there are some parts of the dolomites that actually have black rocks, and that's like millions and millions of years ago there used to be volcanoes. So you might even find some old, old lava there.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Okay, very cool. And I've seen so many beautiful pictures, and they really do stand out. It's it's almost I I'm not an expert by any stretch, but if somebody showed me a picture of the dolomites, I would probably recognize oh, that looks like the dolomites. Because it does, it does look different. I'm sure there's other places in the world that have similar rocks, but it does seem to stand out. Obviously, it's the mountains, so obviously it attracts people that like to hike and climb and spend time in the mountains, but I suspect there's other stuff there as well. And I don't know what it is. So let's talk a little bit about what else should people know about the dolomites other than their lighter colored limestone rocks that have spectacular scenery, because I'm sure there's a lot of other cool stuff there as well that I don't know about.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

One thing that I really, really want to mention that uh just came up in my Facebook group is that you do not need to hike to enjoy the dolomites. Which is one it really, it really conf uh surprises a lot of people because they think, oh my god, I cannot hike that much. I'm old, or I had the surgery, or like just your general illnesses that come up with um trouble walking.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Here's my take on that, Christine, as someone that is pretty far removed. I mean, we used to offer dolomites trips. I ran a travel business, but I had somebody on my team that did it, so I didn't really get too involved with that particular trip. But I think the challenge is I don't know, the tourism board, the the local community, the the operators in the area keep using pictures of people hiking on these big rocks. Like, I don't think I've ever seen any marketing about the dolomites that wasn't somebody hiking on a rock. So no wonder everybody thinks that that's the only thing to do. And it's what you're saying makes sense because if you think like the Tetons in Wyoming, Yellowstone Park and the Tetons, how many millions of people go visit the Tetons and never, never get on a trail, you know? But they're spectacularly beautiful. You know, and but nobody thinks I I don't want to, I'm not gonna go to the Tetons because I don't like to climb. Well, okay. So what do you think it is? Why why does everybody think it's only climbing and and I just want to continue that path you were going on?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah, because uh as you said, everyone is always walking in the mountains when you see any marketing, right? Like so little pictures are around of people just taking. A cable car and the view is there. I actually I have already a general short uh hypes and viewpoints in the Dolomites article, and I'm planning to write more because there are just so many, like in an hour, even in half an hour, if you walk for half an hour, you can find so many incredible views, or you can just take a cable car up. The Dolomites have incredibly good cable car networks in all of the valleys. And that brings me back to my previous point, sorry, why the dolomites are so complicated, because it's a lot of valleys there. So that means valleys, mountain passes, and it actually is many regions of uh Italy. It's Veneto, it's Alto, Adige, so and some more. I don't want to go into the geography, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

No, no, I I get that, but but just when you say valleys with cable cars, I'm thinking it sounds like a really cool. I mean, it's almost seems like you put together an itinerary of just a driving itinerary. You drive, take the cable car to the top of the mountain, you know, on Tuesday. And I really love cable cars. I'm in I'm in Medellin, Columbia right now. They've got an amazing cable car network. And I can go get on the metro and go to a cable car, go up to the top of the mountain. It's pretty damn cool. And I don't have to I don't use a lot of energy doing it, so you don't have to hike, I guess. Yeah. Are these are are these valleys presumably there's towns and villages and stuff like that in these in these valleys that what is how would you describe the just the general nature of these towns? Because when people think Italy, they probably have when they think of villages, I'm not even sure village is the right word. Is village the right word for Italy? Not really, is it? It's kind of like uh Or maybe it is.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

I think there was everything from tiny little villages, basically settlements to, you know, Rome, Milan.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

Okay. So when Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

In the Dolomites, it's mostly I would say towns size-wise. Because they are not really they are not cities uh that they are bigger than villages. Although I do use villages and towns interchangeably because it's really kind of like I yeah, I don't know what I have no idea what the definition would be.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Do you Okay. And for some reason when you mentioned that, just the way something about the way you said that, like I I don't think we can have this conversation without touching on I guess the easiest way to say it is over tourism. Because there's some parts in Italy that that seems to be a very big issue, talking about Venice and Rome and and all that stuff. Is that even an issue in the Dolomites? Or are the Dolomites do the Dolomites attract a different crowd? Do they are they happier to see people in the Dolomites than maybe they are in a no? You're shaking your head no, so okay, I'll stop talking. You start. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Well, it is a problem in the dolomites as well. A big part of the range is over-touristed, and it's really it's kind of so sad because people generally tend to go to the same big names, which is Lake Bryas, which is Cacheda, Alpedicius, Cortina now with the Olympic Games, did not help. So the spots that you see on Instagram, the locals are really, really not happy when people go to those spots. So which is it's kind of like it's a double-edged sword, you know, because they kind of live on the tourism. A big part of the valley, oh, of the valley of the mountains, lives on the tourism because there's a lot of family-run hotels that families run for generations, which is a thing that I really love. There's a lot of family businesses, little small businesses of locals that live on the tourists, and at the same time, there are the locals who really, really do not like tourists, and I get them also because there are so many times I'm trying to be really politically correct right now.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Sorry, that's why I'm struggling. Just go for it. It'll be out there forever. Just say whatever. Don't worry about politics. Well, let me maybe I can ask the right questions, then it's on me because nobody will get upset with me. But yeah, so that that is the child. I grew up in an environment where, you know, in Sheridan, Wyoming, at the base of the bighhorns, and tourism was like summers. It was tourist season. And if you drove down Main Street in Sheridan, there was motel, motel, bar, restaurant, motel, you know. It was very, very, very tourism-based. Guess where I'm going with this is but and then there were other people who didn't work in tourism or didn't see the direct connection, especially if they were a retiree, maybe, or they had some sort of pension. They they're like, I, you know, I benefit nothing. If they're actually it hurts me if the tourists, if the tourists, the the tourists, the tourists, I can't speak today, if the tourists are in town, it if they just get in the way, traffic's bad, things are more expensive, my, you know, it's just a pain in the butt because they get nothing, they get no benefit out of the tourism. But then you've got other people in town that own the motel or they have a restaurant or they have a job as a tour guide or something like that. And so I get that. Everybody listening to this already knows this. They're just chasing each other. That's that's a minute and a half, I'll never get back in my life. But where I'm going with this is what do they say in these towns? Is it is it generally a we want less tourists, we want higher-end tourists, people that spend more money, fewer backpackers, and more luxury people, or does there seem to be a consensus for what should happen in these towns?

SPEAKER_00 28:34

The main thing is people want more responsible tourists.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Yeah, and why I really, really, really understand the locals who are against tourism is, and this is the polycorrect part, which you did not guess. Sorry, the big, big influencers on Instagram, on Facebook, when they promote the places, quite often they do the things that are illegal to do. Yeah, so why did I try to be polycorrect? They are breaking the law. No need to be polycorrect about that.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Yeah. Give us, would you give us an example? You don't have to mention anybody by name. But I mean, I mean I'm envisioning people getting off trails or going to vistas that they shouldn't be on that probably are dangerous and they're filming it, and then the tourists show up and think, I want to go to the same spot and get the same photo up, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Is that the Yeah, they go over fences. Like, for example, if you go for a walk or a hike in the dolomites, you will quite often meet farm animals. You will meet cows, you will meet goats. So obviously there is a kind of fence at some point point or another, and people will climb over these fences and go to private property. They will walk there, they will have a picnic there, they will leave their trash there. You know? That was the biggest uh like scandal last year that uh at Sacheda, which is uh you've probably seen it's like those really big teeth that are kind of like pushed out of the ground. Okay, a cliff, and on the other side there's uh really nice meadow. Is how you pronounce it. Basically a toll gate there.

unknown 30:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

He just he put a toll gate in the middle of trail and said, like, if you want to go here, you have to pay five euros because that's my private property. And like it is his private property. Okay. And like the biggest amount of people that was there, his number, was 8,000 people, I think, went off the cable car in one day.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

If the Okay, you you mentioned the cable car, that threw me off because what I'm envisioning is a meadow with a trail, and if you want to go up the trail, you gotta pay some five euros.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Uh, you take a cable car up to two and a half thousand meters, I think.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Oh, okay. I got your own.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

So and then the you have a bunch of trails there, and there's one really popular one that just goes like it's called the sacheta blanked mind edge trail, I think. Okay. Do not quote me on this. Sorry, I just blanked on it. I know the name, I promise.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

So anybody taking notes, make sure to go over to her website and get the name.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

So you go from the cable car right at the edge of the teeth, and you can like look down to the different valley, both sides. It's a really beautiful place. And people would just go off the trail, and they would not care that there's a fence and it says private property, do not step, or that it's actually it's a national park, so you should not go off trails because it's protected. And they would just walk there, destroy the grass, destroy the plants, they leave trash, they do not care about the nature. And that's kind of also a bit of my personal problem. Because on the one hand, I love the places, I like promoting them because they are so beautiful and so unique. And at the same time, I'm trying to teach responsible tourism. But how many tourists listen to that part, you know? Like, do not go off the trail, but the picture will be prettier from there. Do not go off the trail. And then, of course, it's drones, which are illegal in most of the dolomites. Please, everyone who listens, drones are illegal in most of the dolomites. And they have actually now hired, like many places have hired rangers, which will confiscate your drone if you fly it there.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Okay. That's that's a good good point. But I'm curious, I'm still stuck on this turnstile. I've got this picture in my head of a s of a turnstile in this on this trail in this meadow. Because that's what you were saying. Somebody said, if you this is if you want to access my private land to go get your photo. Drop some money into the turnstile, or is it does it take credit cards? What is this? Help me help me picture this.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

He did take credit cards. He has a machine.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

But was this but was this all fully mechanized, or was there somebody standing there? Like he he had an employee or somebody standing there collecting money. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Well you can walk around it, you know. Like it's uh if I could show you a picture, you would see it's like it's like zigzags of trails. So you could take the straight route, or you could just go all over and go back up to the main photospot.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

But like he then you're getting off the trail again, and that's not you're not supposed to do that.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

No, it's actually a different trail.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Oh, okay, okay. Well, you know, I I don't know. So did this guy is there does he get pushback? Do people are people upset that he's doing this? Because just what I've heard so far, I'm like, well, why not? Is it like I do know this? I mean, why not do that?

SPEAKER_00 33:37

I mean it Yeah, I agree with him as well, like completely, because that was the you know, like it is the tour bus, the big tour buses come. That's the tour groups. They go up, they all go to the same photospot, and they go back down. So obviously, when there's three buses in a row come, 40 people, 40 people, 40 people, someone's slower, so someone's gonna go around. And like his land, his see, I'm blanking on words today. I'm so sorry. Where cows eat.

SPEAKER_02 34:05

His land, his meadow, pastures, pasture, pastures. Whatever you want to call it. A place where the cows eat. A place where the cows eat is usually what I call it. So that works fine.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

So it gets destroyed, like and I understand. So he got what he wanted either enough money to fix it or enough people to just go around. Like, I agree with him completely.

SPEAKER_02 34:30

Yeah, and you know, and I I'm always thinking of angles. I'm like, and if he could do some sort of trash collection point, okay, yeah, you gotta pay five euros to go in or maybe 10 euros to go in, but here's a trash collection point. So leave your trash here or bring it back here or whatever, make make it really easy for people to not litter, because that's sometimes it's not the problem. I'm not ever gonna say the reason people litter is because there's not enough trash cans. That's not why people litter. But even people that that litter are more likely to not litter if they've got if if they look if they've got something in their hand they gotta get rid of. I hope this is not controversial, but if they've got something in their hand they're they want to get rid of and they look around and there's nowhere obvious to put it, that's when things tend to get put on the ground. So anyway, I just imagine this guy with his turnstile, his trash bins. Anyway, that's enough of that subject. Okay, what other things are there to do besides take the cable cars and take take pictures in the tops of the mountains? Is there a food scene there? Is there uh are there hot springs or rafting, paragliding, all that guy, all that good stuff?

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Zip lining, I'm just adding to your list because all of those are there. There's ziplining as well. Okay, if more adventurous, there's climbing, there's via ferratas, canyoning, e-biking is really great now. And well, if you have the legs for it, mountain biking as well, winter activities, snowboard skiing, uh sledging, that was really fun. The bogganing. The bulganing.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

That was so fun.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

Yeah, that's that is fun. And that's something, you know what, that's probably something a lot of people have not done that should go do that. I mean, we did that as kids. That was a big thing, but okay. All right. We've talked a lot about the Dolomites. Um, we've talked a lot about your business. We haven't, we haven't figured, we haven't even got to figure out how the heck you got to this place in your life. So let's go back in time and tell us about, let's go back to when you were, I don't know, let's say 12. What was going on in your world when you were 12 years old, Christine? We're gonna start there and we might go further if we need to. So let's just pick that spot.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

When I was 12, I'm working through in therapy what I was going through. No, okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

Don't tell us everything. Just should we pick a different age? Yeah, you know what? I think we're all I think we all either are going through therapy to about what happened when we were 12, or we should be. Most of us anyway. Probably even more so if you work in the tourism business. If I had a time machine and I went back to when you were roughly 12, 13, 14, and I said, Christine, what do you want to do when you grow up? What would you have said? Is that an easier question?

SPEAKER_00 37:17

That is easier, yes.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

All right.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

I think around that point I was changing from the traditional I want to be a singer to the I want to be uh I want to own my own business. But I was thinking about uh having a shop, like a little all you can buy shop, all you need to buy. Because my parents have one. They've had it since before I was born, so my first steps were done in a little village, and I mean like 500 people live there, village shop, oh what in a convenience store. They have a convenience store.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

A convenience store. Okay, and this was in where you grew up was Latvia. Latvia, yeah. That's I for a minute I was afraid I'm gonna say Lithuania, but I think it's Latvia. All right, so Latvia. You know what was going on in Latvia at that in your childhood, do you remember? Because you're presumably you're young enough that it was you know, you weren't there when the USSR fell apart or anything like that, but I suspect there were some remnants of that. Maybe your maybe your family and stuff. So what was it like growing up in Latvia?

SPEAKER_00 38:26

It's kind of it's a small village, it's a lot of poor people, a lot of people do not have education, so it was a lot of people thinking that it was better in USSR. And I kind of get where they're coming from because in the USSR there was if there was one good thing, is that everyone had a job. They knew they will have a job, they knew they will have their income, they might not have been able to buy anything from that money, but they had the safety net that they will not be starving, they will have what to do, they will have opportunities. So when I was a kid, actually around that time, let's go back to my 12 years old. I was already dreaming about getting out of the village because I've always been really fascinated with traveling and with seeing the world, with learning more. And yeah, so I was already s thinking I will have my own business, but I will not have a convenience store in a village, but I will have my own big company, I will be doing things that will make help me earn a lot of money so I can travel.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

So and you also mentioned you mentioned singing. It sounded like you you shift you transition from maybe wanting to be a singer earlier, but oftentimes when somebody says something like, I want to be a singer, there's this desire to go somewhere and use that. It's it's like saying I want to be a professional basketball player, football player, or actor. It's that's a an opportunity to get out of a place that maybe you don't want to spend the rest of your life, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Actually, that's really a good way to look at it. That's actually pretty a light bulby moment for me.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

So yeah. Epic. And well, maybe, maybe I know because um I grew up in a small town in Wyoming and and got very involved in theater and music. And you know, I went to college as I was a music and theater major, and I I guarantee, I guarantee part of it was I want to go, you know, to California, I want to go to LA, Hollywood, that you know, that didn't last very long for me because I realized it wasn't it wasn't about music and theater, it was about me just wanting to go explore the world. And then I found other ways to do that. So you did too.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

It sounds like I don't think those years until I actually got to the point where I met my husband are the ones that are interesting for all of the listeners or viewers.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Okay, well how well tell okay, at least as I'll make you deal as long as you tell us how you got out of the town.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

Uh so from the first step was I went to the secondary school in the big town. Half an hour.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Half an hour away.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Half an hour away. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

Sounds good. And what did you study in secondary school?

SPEAKER_00 41:09

In the secondary school, I went to the general secondary school, which had a strong math and sciences leaning. So then guess what? I went to university for business administration.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Alright, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

That's dreams come true.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Hey, I get it. The second time I went to school, it was business administration. So yeah, we we have we have a few things in common. All right, so what in your mind were you still thinking? You mentioned Canine Store, but I think you were thinking much bigger than that. So when you went to business administration, what was the goal for the with that?

SPEAKER_00 41:46

The funny thing is, at that point I did not want to own my own business anymore. I wanted to work in some director role for someone else.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Because kind of if you own your own business, you always have to think about your own business. If you're working for someone else, you work your nine to five and sell a V. At least in Europe. I know it's different in US. You always think about your work, but in Europe you can kind of like you clock off your away. But in about of depression, I dropped out of that university because nope. So then I was working in a bigger convenience store. Let me think, let me think, let me think.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

It's like a I I just want to know how you got out of town. I will just jump quickly because this is like I see you squirming and wiggling around. So go ahead. Let's talk about what you want to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

No, no, this is like my this is my ADHD moment. So um, like I was um first level manager, like a senior cashier shit bleed in uh Walgreens, I would say, as the equivalent for it. And um then I decided to use my vacation and every single euro I had in my pocket to go to Italy.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

Okay, very cool. From because you were still in Latvia, you were working in Latvia. So you're like, I'm taking everything I've got, I'm gonna spend it on a trip to Italy. I love that. All right.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Yeah, and I was couch surfing, like I did not have money. I was couch surfing, I was eating McDonald's in Italy because I could not afford the normal meal, but I did go to Italy and Ryan there, the tickets were like 40 euros, I think, round trip. So that's like for free. So I spent a week in Italy and that was my travel bug that beat me. So then I was looking at some job opportunities because the job was not good that I was doing, and a flight attendant role was open. So that was the capital city then. I applied. I went through the hiring process because there was a process for it. I went through the medical check and I got hired.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

So all right. Couple quick questions. Do you remember, like, okay, I've got a little vacation time and I've got very little cash, but I want to you just you obviously wanted to go somewhere. You didn't want to buy something, you wanted to go somewhere. Do you remember what was driving you to go and why you chose Italy?

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Italy for a couple of reasons, because I've always dreamt about Italy, going, visiting, because it's just been such a fascinating place for me with the nature, because you have like normal four seasons at the top, and then you have the south, which is warm always. And there's so much history, there's so much nature, there's so many differences, and it's just always been fascinating to me as a location, and I always wanted to go. So I was looking through it was two thousand and I want to say thirteen when I was looking through the tickets. So there were not so many options for cheap flights. So when I noticed that oh you can fly to Italy for really, really cheap, that's where I'm going.

unknown 45:03

Like

SPEAKER_00 45:04

I did not do any research. I think it's somewhere on my website that that was my first trip on my own. I did not do any research. I did not even check what to see in Italy. I just knew I wanted to go.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

I love it. Did you actually, I gotta ask you this because this is the first time I've heard somebody say that what you just said. I ask a lot of people when I meet them if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you want to, where would you go? You know, if you could go somewhere anywhere for two weeks, where would you go and why? And I'm not surprised a lot of people say Italy, especially here in Latin America. They will say Italy and then I'll say why. I've never heard anybody say use the word nature when they talk about Italy. I've heard culture, food, most pretty much culture and food, you know, they want to, or they, or the sites, you know, they want to see, they will literally say, I want to see the Coliseum. And in my mind, I'm like, that's why you want to go to Italy, but okay, whatever. But I I haven't heard people say nature. So I'm curious, are you saying nature now as somebody that knows an awful lot about Italy? Do you believe that back in 2016 or 13 or whatever you said when you bought that plane ticket? If I had asked you then why do you want to go to Italy, do you think you would have said nature, or is that ch just changed as you learned more about the country?

SPEAKER_00 46:22

No, actually, one of the places I was checking how to get to was like Como. So that's um that's the nature already then, because I I just remembered one of the things. My mom really loves all of those romantic movies. I don't know who makes them, but a lot of them are set in Italy.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

Like the no novella type movies.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

Novella type movies, and you know they are by like Como or like Gaza. So yeah, that's where the nature came from because the tickets that I could get to were to Bergamo, which is Reiner calls it Milan Bergamo, although the it's like one and a half hours on the highway to get from one to the other. But so we went to Bergamo with my friend, and then we explored there for a few days, and then we took the train to Milan, and I was checking like if I could go, how I could go to Como to see the lake, and I decided not to because we did not have so many days. We had like seven days, I think, altogether.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

Um you had enough days to change your life. That's pretty cool, right? So look how many look how many more opportunities you had as a result of that $40 Ryanair ticket. So then you and then you're like, I want a job that allows me to travel and do this stuff, and you got a job as a flight attendant. So tell us about that. Was everything sexy about the idea of being a flight attendant, or was it like, I'm just gonna use this opportunity to go see more places? Tell us a little bit about what you thought going into it and then what the reality of it was once you started working the job.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Yeah, so uh I thought it's gonna be this, you know, movie portrayal of the flight attendant, like oh, tick tik tic tic tic tick service and stuff. The reality was a bit different. It started with the six weeks of intense training, and by that I mean from eight in the morning until six in the evening, you had lessons, and then you went home, swallowed some food, and took your notebook of safety regulations and procedures, and then you read it until you fell asleep and repeat for five weeks, and only one week of it was service, how to tour drinks. So if anyone listening is thinking that oh, flight attendants are just glamorous uh waitresses. Nope, we have a lot of training, we will be able to save your life up in the air, which is kind of I've had situations that no, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:51

Well, the curious person in me wants to dig into that a little bit, but I I don't want you to have to rehash too much trauma, but but I I love But I love what you said about yeah, because people that don't know any different, pretty much that's what they see of the flight at the end. It's like, okay, you have to go to school to learn how to do the demonstration to put on the the life track or how to put on the oxygen mask, how to buckle your seatbelt, and then serve drinks. And there's obviously so much more involved that people never see.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

You learn how to deal with bomb threats on boards, you learn how to deal with medical emergencies. You spent, I think, two days, it was just CPR training. So, you know, on the normal sized person, on an infant, you have the infant doll and you learn how to make or do CPR on infants. It's kind of so you learn to what to do if uh poisonous chemicals appear on board, if a fire starts, evacuation procedures on ground, on the water, if half of the exits are not working, if less than half of the exits are working, if you have the tail up, so you need to evacuate everyone. And you learn to evacuate every single plane in less than 90 seconds. So it doesn't matter how many people are on board, it can be evacuated in less than 90 seconds.

SPEAKER_02 50:07

Christine? Jeez, as I listen to you, I'm thinking, how how long was the overall training? You you mentioned a five-week phase, but I think it was longer.

SPEAKER_00 50:16

How it was six weeks altogether uh of um school theoretical training. Then you have, oh geez, I don't remember already how many uh flights you do, actual flights with a trainer. It's called line training. So you do everything and uh each year you have again a recurrent training. So you go over the procedures and exams and here's yeah, here's what popped into my head.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

I was like, geez, if I spent five weeks of practicing and learning about all the stuff that can go wrong, I'm not sure I'd want to get on a plane. I think I get to get into my five weeks and like, okay, now it's time to go get on the plane. I think, uh I think I'm just gonna go home and I'm gonna take a boss. Do people do people drop out? Because that not only is it just constant reinforcement of all the bad things that can happen, but there's also a constant reminder that it's your job to deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 51:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

And that not everybody wants that kind of responsibility. So what does that look like? Is do people drop out frequently b just because not because they can't handle the workload, but just because they're like, whoa, uh that that just feels like a lot.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Yeah, people drop out for different reasons. And it's not just that you learn these things, you have exams at the end. So you need to pass those exams, and they are not easy.

SPEAKER_02 51:44

Yeah, yeah. Well, uh yeah, I'm I'm happy we touched on it. So tell me, when you started realizing, oh, okay, it wasn't quite what I thought it was gonna be, how did that end up working out for you? Did you move forward? How long did you do it? And kind of what were your biggest takeaways from your because obviously you're not a flight attendant right now. So what are your biggest takeaways from that part of your life?

SPEAKER_00 52:07

My biggest literal takeaway is my husband. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

All right. It's a good one. All right. So how long into how long into that part of your career was it before you met him? Was he on your first flight?

SPEAKER_00 52:20

It was half a year. Okay. So it was uh quite a funny story. I love set telling the story because it was like half a year into my flying, and he had been off for half a year or so for personal reasons. He needed to take time off. And on the first two flights back to work, I was a flight attendant.

SPEAKER_02 52:40

So So what just just so I'm clear, when you say he had taken some time off and he came back to was he working, was he working as an attendant or with the airline as well?

SPEAKER_00 52:51

Yeah, the most important part, he was a pilot.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

Okay, okay. I mean, I could have guessed that. Just based on a lot of stereotypes, I was gonna guess that that I didn't want to. All right, so okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

But just a note on your about the stereotypes. When you spend 200 hours a month in an airplane, you kind of don't have time to meet anyone else.

SPEAKER_02 53:13

Well, and and also just the reality of like, okay, you meet somebody else, and the first question is, you know, they meet you on an app or they meet you in a a bar or rest probably a restaurant or at the convenience store when you're trying to go get something to eat because you don't have a lot of time. And it's like, oh, well, oh, where do you live? You know, I live just down the street around the corner. Where do you live? Well, I live in another city and I'm just here for you know three more hours before I get on the plane to go to the next place. And but I come through often, so maybe here I let's exchange numbers. It's yeah, it would be really hard to meet people, especially people that wanted to have a relationship. But if you meet somebody that basically live in the same lifestyle, it it makes sense, right? I get that. All right.

SPEAKER_00 53:57

Yeah, and uh like back to the story. I did not know he's a pilot because I had been working for the whole time that he was off. But the senior, like on each flight, there's a senior, and if it's a bigger flight, there's a person, but in our case there was a senior flight attendant, she knew him, and she set him in the business class. I did not know that he's a pilot, and I thought that he's the business class passenger, and she was like, Oh, would you like to serve our business class today? Okay, because like that's a higher way of service, and she was like, Okay, go and look, go and offer him some food, go and offer him some drinks. And he doesn't have a ring, you know. Like, do you want to know meet him? And I'm like, No, he has a ring. Like, no, no, he doesn't.

SPEAKER_02 54:41

And if you're gonna go to the room, so she so she knows he's a pilot, she's messing with you a little bit, trying to get you to go flirt with this guy who you're probably gonna end up working with, uh, you know, in a few weeks, you'll probably be on a flight together, but yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

And then he wrote to me on Facebook, and I was like, How the heck did he find me? Because we had like 10 Christines at that point in our Baltic. So, but since he worked for worked for the company, he could just check who was on the flight so he could find me on Facebook.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

So were you creeped out like initially?

SPEAKER_00 55:24

I was on your flight, and like I I was like reluctant to reply, like you know, by the way, I work as well. Like, yeah, like okay, you work for the company. That makes more sense. So we started chatting and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

Were you based in the same city? I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

At the point uh we worked for Air Baltic and it had only one base, so it's like we were based in the same city, and um, yeah, half a year later we started living together.

SPEAKER_02 55:53

Okay, and Air Air Baltic would be a Latvian company. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

Yeah, Latvian airline.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

So you're so you're more or less living in Latvia, but you're traveling quite a bit, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_00 56:06

Yeah, at that point uh that was like that. So we were we worked a lot, as I said. But then um he had an opportunity to change the airline or potentially for Ryanair, which offered at that point better opportunities. And then we had to figure out where to go. And then we were looking through the bases for Rainer because they have them all over Europe. And one of the three that he could put in was Bergamo, because I was like, Bergamo, I want that! It was beautiful Italy, so and uh he got assigned to Bergamo, so that's how we moved to Italy as Bergamo.

SPEAKER_02 56:41

Very cool. Where where was he from originally?

SPEAKER_00 56:45

Slovakia.

SPEAKER_02 56:47

I thought so because we had the conversation about the last name, but I just wanted to make sure. So he was for okay, all right, very cool. So did you end up, did you switch over to Ryanair? Did you go a different direction? What did you do?

SPEAKER_00 56:59

Well, we decided that I will not be working. So I went back to university. I got a degree in business psychology, and it was distance studies. So my university was in Latvia, and I was studying online before it was cool.

SPEAKER_02 57:14

Yeah. Look at you, remote learner. Do okay, and your life had changed since the first time you went to school because you went for business administration at one point. You said you decide at some point that okay, this is not working for me. When you went back the second time, you were a little older, maybe more ready for it. What was your so the person I've the reason I want to go here is the person that's listening to this that might need some inspiration. When you went to school the second time you were doing it online remotely, what was was that just way better for you? Did that work out well? Or was anything you want to share with somebody that might be thinking about going back to school? I guess I don't know what I'm I don't know where I'm going with this.

SPEAKER_00 57:50

Yeah, so what was changed was I knew myself better. Because like you are telling 18-year-olds to choose what they want to do for the rest of their lives, and many of those people are gonna go into crazy depth, and they still don't know. So like first, if you can take a gap here to find yourself or like to travel to even to just work, try some jobs before. Because I tried uh one, two, three, four different jobs before I settled on the business of psychology. And by that point I already knew that okay, no, like shops and that kind of stuff, it's not for me. I knew I like working with people, but I was looking into psychology general, realized no, my head is not okay for all of the medical terms. Not gonna happen. But I still had this curiosity about business. So when I found this business psychology and I looked into what's there, what I'll be studying, what I can do, I was like, oh yeah, this is exactly for me. That this is perfect. Uh by the way, uh I jumped over the part while we were working for Air Baltic. We traveled so much. So I traveled. I myself traveled for like 20 different countries during those three years. There actually, that picture, I don't think the light is good enough for it, but that's from Oahu. We went to Hawaii.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

Okay. Very cool.

SPEAKER_00 59:23

So, like, for instance, it's exactly opposite in the world, you know, 12 even more people.

SPEAKER_02 59:27

Yeah, exactly. It's a little ways away for you. Presumably, you had benefits to fly with partner airlines and stuff like that. Because I'm imagining Air Baltic, I've been I haven't seen them in too many airports, so but I but they're part of a network you get to get to take advantage of. I'm happy what you shared about the school because what I heard was first time you went for business administration and you're working at a a Walgreens type of place, thinking, you know what, I just want a job that I can go nine to five, and when I'm done, I'm done. And and I just want to have that. To now, fast forward, we're having a conversation about going back to school and figuring out what you really want to do based on some experiences you've had. And obviously, you know, you you're a business owner and I know that you're not working nine to five. So I mean, so any so anyway, so you go back and you all right, so take us take us from there. You're you're going to school online, you're in Italy. When did the business really kind of start to take shape with the blogging? And how did that all come? How did we get from that point to where we are now?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:30

So while I was in school, I didn't really work. I was in the university, I was going to language courses as well to learn Italian. So I did not really have time for any work. And by the time I was already almost finished with the school, I had okay, almost finished. Out of four and a half years, I had one and a half left. My husband got an even better job offer in Slovakia. So we moved over to Slovakia. I decided that while I study remotely, I can also work. I started working, I get pregnant.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

Of course. All right. So you're in Slovakia, you've got a little bit of school left. You just started a job and now you're pregnant.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:13

So thank heavens for probationary periods, because I could just say, okay, not gonna do this.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

Yeah, I've given it some thought. I just don't think this right fit for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

Not fit for me. Nope. So yeah, by that time, then I was already thinking that I want to do something because this is school, and by the way, different language curses, Slovak this time. I was like, okay, I want my own income. I cannot just I don't like asking my husband for money. Like I would like at least something for myself. So I was trying to figure out what we what I could do, and somehow the blogging was kind of coming up from time to time. Like I would see it on Facebook, I would see some ads somewhere or whatever. So that was kind of already dripping in my mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:03

So you've been to a bunch of places.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

So when I was pregnant, I I realized that okay, my husband has no schedule, basically. He has eight days of a month, and then he has stand-by days, and he can just be called, like, okay, you go you're going to for 10 days to somewhere. So since I was pregnant, I was like, okay, I cannot work a nine to five or any other work because we will have a kid figure away. Like, how? Kindergarten or whatever, you know, I need to take her. So I was looking into the blogging more and more. So I started the first vlogging course while still in university, while having a newborn on my hands.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

And uh look so you so you did you make the decision immediately to go into travel blogging? Because that's kind of earlier in the conversation you mentioned you're writing about Japan and other places, and then just more and more Italy stuff. And so you shifted into Italy and then the Dolomites. And how far into the blogging did you get before you started realizing I can actually help people put together itinerates, review itinerates? Did you figure that out pretty quickly, or did that come along later?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:22

It came along later. I was blogging the first blog for like three almost four years, and that was I was just going with blogging. And uh when I started the new site, I realized okay, I cannot run both of them, so I sold the old one. And um then I really put myself in. We are already now at 2024, by the way, timeline-wise. Okay, so I pushed myself into this planning into the Italy thing, and uh my parents actually my always support, they support me through everything, and uh they were like, Okay, our friend wants to go to the Dolomites, can you help him? We called with the friend, like I know him as well, he knows me since I was born, like uh childhood my parents' childfriend, and I was just telling him again and again, uh not again, more and more and more, and it was like, Oh yeah, you can do this, you can do this, and if you go here, you can do that, and blah blah and like I finished the call, and I was telling my husband, Oh, I love this, I want to do more of this.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:25

Yeah, yeah, very it the the light bulb went on, and all right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

So this is okay, can I do this actually for people? So I started putting some feelers out about it, and then like randomly, completely randomly, a lady from USA wrote to me. So, hi, I'm going to the Dolomites and I have this itinerary, and I'm really not sure about it. Could you help me? Could you look over it? I will pay you.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:52

Nice. Very cool. So, so that's how the business was born, and you're you're doing that. Is there anything else that you're doing in that mix that we well, here, let me just ask you this way, because we discussed a bunch of things, talked quite a bit about the Dolomites, your business, the business model, obviously your history, how you got up to this point. And I think I'm pretty clear on what you're doing, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything in our listeners' aren't. So let me just ask you this way, Christine. After everything we discussed, is there anything that I either forgot to ask you or you wish that I had asked you to give our listeners a better opportunity to understand about you, your business, Italy, life in general, or anything like that that you that we should discuss before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

So one thing that's kind of going through my mind right now is that it's not just a blog where I help a lot of people. I have a really active Facebook group where actually the blog has been kind of on the back burner for a bit because the Facebook group is so active that I just don't have time to write the articles. And like if anyone is planning to go to the Dolomites and uh like my services are rather low priced because I'm in Europe, so the expenses are not so huge, but they might still be too expensive for some people. The group is also a place where I can answer questions where I have a lot of experts just like helping out out of the goodness of their hearts.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:15

Okay. And this and this group is specific to the Dolomites, Italy. Just do me a favor, mention the name of the group. Obviously, we're gonna have a link to your website. Presumably, if somebody goes to your website, they can find the Facebook group, all that stuff. But what's the name of the group?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:30

It's uh called Dolomites Travel Tips, Love your Italy. So, like literally.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:36

All right, all right, very, very cool. Because I would imagine though if blogging, blogging seems like, okay, I'm gonna sit down, put some time and effort into an article, I'm gonna put it out there and hope that people read it, hope that Google finds it or AI finds it or whatever. Whereas the the Facebook groups, there's a lot more interaction. You can see the questions that people are asking. Instead of trying to guess what I should write the blog post about, you can see the questions they're asking, and you probably recognize the same questions. Coming up probably every day because I'm in a few groups, travel groups as well. And it's like, oh, you know. But anyway, so it gives you a chance to engage with them, with them more.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

So all right. Yeah, and that's how like I can push more of the sustainable, responsible travel as well. Because like the blog, it's kind of as you said, you put it out and it's there, and then you hope at some point you will have time to go back and rework the work.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:30

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:31

But the Facebook group it's much more present. Like it's what's happening now, what's important now. On our last trip, uh, as I told you before, we just went to the dolomites and I noticed so many people being not safe in the mountains. They would go with half a liter bottle of water, like a tiny bottle of water, they would go on a hard hike which is exposed. You don't have shade, you are going 900 meters altitude change upwards, and you have only a tiny bottle of water and like old sneakers that are falling apart. So I just made a post on the Facebook group like I've noticed these things, please do not do these things, do these things instead. And it had like 60,000 people reach. Yeah, so yeah, exactly. I can reach a lot of people really quickly, and these important things they need to get out really quickly.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:20

And sometimes people just don't know. It's really easy for somebody that knows to look at somebody else and say, Well, that was dumb. I saw a video just within the last few days. An older gentleman, be careful saying that because I'm an older gentleman, I guess, but an older gentleman was in Yellowstone Park and got too close, and a buff, a bison, what we call buffalo in the you know, anyway, hit him, flipped him up, and broke some bones. And and as somebody from Wyoming, I recognize how easy it is to look at that and say, what a dumbass. You know, wow, why would why are tourists so dumb? Because I grew up in Wyoming. So I know I every summer we'd see the news, and it was Yellowstone was right there. And I grew up around big animals, so I learned not to get close to big animals like that, and the tourists just don't know. And they literally just don't know. So it's important that you've got this ability, you know, don't do this. This is not good thinking. People need to hear that message.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:18

Exactly. And I'm so happy for this opportunity because you were asking me what I wanted to do at 12, and actually now I kind of thinking back to it. For my whole life, I wanted to help people in one way or another. And if I can help someone not get dehydrated or get hypothermia or whatever, in the mountains, if even one person listens to me and is like, okay, yeah, I'll take more water, I'll take proper shoes, then like I'm happy. Like just please don't get hurt.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:52

Yeah, I get it. Because people do get hurt, they don't know. And that's one of the things about travel. You're you're going from a place that you're you know the dangers and the risks. You're, you know, you probably don't do quote unquote stupid things when you're 50 mile radius of your house because you know what things are stupid and what are not. But then you go across the world and you uh find yourself in high altitude mountains all of a sudden in the middle of summer, and you've never you've never been more than 20 minutes away from a convenience store where you can go get a bottle of water, you might not think, oh, we should probably take some water with us. So anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:25

Last thing is you don't you cannot research what you don't know. Like if you don't know it, you don't know what to search for. Yeah, ooh, that's a good point. If I can reach 60 people, 60, 60,000 people who will see this message, and even if like half of them will think, like, that's dumb. Of course, everyone knows it, and a bunch of them will think, why are you telling me what to do? I had those comments. Do not look at other people like, uh-huh. I saw rescue helicopters at least once a day. I will tell this to people.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:53

I I love it because here's the thing if you post, make sure you take water with you. You're the the people that are gonna comment are probably I I love people, but I've I've been on social media enough. They're gonna, well, of course, duh da, that's so dumb. Anyone that doesn't take water is a dumbass, da-da-da-da-da. But there's that one person that's like, oh, I didn't even think about that. They're not gonna comment. Oh, wow, Christine, thank you so much. Because I it it hadn't occurred to me. They're not gonna comment because they're afraid everybody else's everybody else has basically already said they're dumb. So they're gonna they're not gonna say thank you, probably in the comment section. They might, but they might reach out to you and say, Hey, Christine, can you help me with my itinerary? You know, I I under I understand how this works. So anyway, Christine, this has been so much fun. Thank you. Thank you so much for spending so much of your time with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:43

And thank you for having me. I love this.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

Yeah, it was see earlier on you said, Oh, I'm a little nervous, and yeah, there's nothing meaner about. All right, well, let's uh we'll find areas and ways to collaborate in the future. And for all of our listeners, please do make sure and go to the go to the show notes. There'll be a link right to Christine's website, which you can connect through there to to the Facebook group and and just get involved if you're in. I would say if you're just interested in interesting people, do that. But obviously, if you're interested in the dolomites, it's a no brainer. So, Christine, thank you so much. Let's uh I'll see you again soon. You have a great day.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:21

Bye.