0:02

In the intensity that you experience in New York

0:04

in terms of human nature of being surrounded

0:07

by people and their behavior, and is

0:09

similar to me anyway to the intensity

0:11

you experience in Wyoming with the complete absence

0:14

of people, Like it's just two

0:16

extreme versions of this country, and

0:18

I I am attracted

0:20

to extremes, so it really was satisfying

0:23

in similar ways. Welcome

0:25

to A Way to Go a production of My Heart Radio

0:27

and Fathom I'm jeral and Gerba and

0:29

I'm Pavio Rosatti. One of the beautiful things

0:32

about travel is using it to find ourselves,

0:34

escape ourselves, immerse ourselves,

0:36

showcase our best selves, and expose

0:39

ourselves to challenges and uncomfortable

0:41

realities of the world we live in. Traveling

0:44

can be a way to connect or disconnect,

0:46

a way to open ourselves to new relationships

0:49

or be completely alone. Sometimes

0:51

it's uncomfortable and sometimes it's not pretty.

0:54

While the know it all may say don't go there, the

0:56

traveler will go, be a witness

0:58

and turn that experience into recognition and

1:01

understanding. In her memoir,

1:03

No One Tells You This, writer Glennis McNichols

1:05

six readers From Canada to New York to Wyoming,

1:08

while chronicling her forty year, experiencing

1:11

thrills, loneliness, independence, grief, and

1:13

exhilaration. Well, we're thrilled

1:15

to have you here. Thank you so

1:17

much for joining us. Thank you said

1:20

that when you turned forty, you quote promptly

1:22

discovered it was nothing like what had been led

1:24

to believe. Your book explores

1:26

what makes a woman's life worth living, particularly

1:29

when that woman chooses to participate outside

1:31

of the framework society is set up for her, namely

1:33

marriage and procreation. What were the

1:35

expectations you had for your milestone year.

1:38

Um, I'm now forty five,

1:41

so sometimes I have to really think

1:43

back, and I'm glad I wrote the book when I

1:45

did, because now I think, oh, was it really such a big

1:47

deal? But it was such a big deal. And I think

1:49

I approached forty with a sense of dread

1:52

and panic. And I was

1:54

single, I didn't have children. There's

1:56

very little narrative

1:59

evidence that when you have neither of these

2:01

things and you turn forty, that life is going to be

2:03

enjoyable. I think we

2:06

really condition women

2:08

to think of aging as a process of shame

2:10

and dread, and we

2:12

don't. I'm rolling my eyes. I'm

2:14

just I'm just rolling my eyes because you don't

2:17

y yes, But I'm also like,

2:19

really, I know it's exhausting, but sometimes

2:22

I walk now, I feel like I've disengaged

2:24

from that thinking so significantly.

2:27

But I hear from so many women who have

2:29

read the book and men, to be honest, um,

2:32

who are experiencing that anxiety

2:34

and dread and panic, and I just and then

2:36

I walk into you know, Barnes and Noble

2:38

and look at the magazine rack, and of course there's

2:41

no visual evidence that you

2:43

can be uh

2:46

enjoying yourself in life as

2:48

a woman past a certain age, because we don't really

2:50

talk about that. So while I was feeling

2:52

all these things, I don't think it was a surprise. I was feeling

2:55

all of these things. And then I turned forty, and of

2:57

course I was like, wow,

2:59

actually I'm having sort of a great time.

3:02

And at the same time, I was having very

3:04

difficult um experiences with

3:06

regards primarily to my mother and a few

3:08

other things. And none of that I've been

3:10

prepared for. Neither of those things, like not no

3:13

one had ever suggested to me that I could enjoy

3:15

myself, and no one had prepared

3:18

me for the things that would actually be difficult.

3:20

So I spent an entire year complaining about that

3:22

I'm a writer. No matter what assignment

3:25

I was given, it could be about nothing

3:27

to do with women or h I would somehow

3:29

like worm in some reference to the lack of

3:31

narratives around female lives.

3:34

And by the end of the year, I in

3:36

Wyoming, I had this joke. It was an

3:38

oprah aha moment where I thought, well, you're a writer.

3:41

Enough has happened this year. All you

3:43

do is complain about the lack of stories.

3:45

Why don't you put this down and write

3:47

the story. Well, as

3:50

you know, I've read the book, and I love the book. You

3:52

go all over on this book,

3:55

but there's the descriptions

3:57

of being in Canada, New York City.

4:00

You hit the road and you went out west

4:02

to Wyoming. Yes, did

4:05

you know Wyoming? But why

4:06

Wyoming? It

4:09

started out as a

4:11

road trip a friend of mine, Joe Piazza, who

4:13

we've had on the podcast before, She came on to

4:15

talk about how she thought it would be a good idea

4:18

to test her marriage and its

4:20

first year by climbing Kilman Jara with her husband.

4:23

Curious listeners can find that it's

4:25

it's one of the first episodes, and I think she has

4:27

a podcast with heart admitted

4:30

she has so many podcasts. Prior to both

4:32

of those things, she was a

4:34

deputy editor for a large travel website

4:36

and got engaged

4:38

to her now husband, Nick, who's lovely,

4:41

and he lived in San Francisco, And so

4:43

she was moving from New York to San Francisco and needed

4:45

to drive and had a tiny yellow car and a very

4:47

large dog. And I said I would

4:50

drive with her, and we joked it was the grown

4:52

up version of your walking down

4:54

the aisle, Like I was, like, this was the sort

4:59

of procession across the country.

5:02

And because she she scheduled

5:04

stories for us to do along the way,

5:06

and one of them was she had booked us into

5:08

the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming

5:11

to do a story. I literally, I didn't

5:13

plan any of this. My only requirement was that we stopped

5:15

in South Dakota at Laura Engles house, which

5:18

is what I always I've driven in around the country many

5:20

times. Oh and we also stopped and will Not Grove

5:22

in Minnesota, which is a real place. Uh

5:25

why because that's where Laura Ingles

5:27

lived prior and I want to talk about La Angles.

5:29

I could definitely literally have an entire podcast

5:32

about Laura England. So we crossed out

5:34

of South Dakota. We went through the bad Lands,

5:36

we went to wild drug Black Hills. We get

5:38

into Wyoming and I was like, what is this place?

5:40

It is empty And we were in the emptiest corner

5:42

of Wyoming. And Wyoming is the least populated

5:45

state in the country, and we were in the

5:47

least populated part of it. And

5:50

where were you? The northeast corner

5:52

by shared in Wyoming, which I'm

5:54

Canadian, which is why part of this book was set in Toronto.

5:56

But the Battle of Little Big Horn took

5:59

place in that area of the state, is

6:01

why some people might know it. And

6:03

I was mesmerized by the emptiness. It was literally

6:05

like being on the moon. There was no other cars,

6:08

there was no evidence of people

6:11

for like two hours. And as we

6:13

arrived in Buffalo, Wyoming to

6:16

go up to the Dude Ranch, like a

6:18

huge storm coming the

6:20

horizon and we're in this tiny car and Lady

6:22

the Dog started getting eight more and more anxious,

6:24

and we're driving up into the mountains and we lose

6:27

the signal and there's lightning flashing

6:29

everywhere in these rock overhangs, and it was

6:31

literally the beginning of so many

6:34

terrible horror movies that we like

6:37

to, you know, apply to women

6:39

on the road. And we pulled into this ranch,

6:41

but it was pitch black and there was a saloon, and

6:43

a girl came out and said, well, here's your cabin, which

6:46

looked like a Laura Angles cabin. So we go

6:48

to sleep. I'm like, who

6:50

knows what we're gonna wake up to? And we wake up to this

6:52

beautiful, clear morning in the most beautiful

6:54

place I've ever been. It's in a valley in the

6:56

Big Horn Mountains, and it's picturesque

6:58

and it's been there for a hundred twenty five years.

7:01

There was literally it's called the morning Jingle where

7:03

they bring in the horses from the hills for people to

7:05

ride for the day. So I wake up and there's like a herd

7:07

of a hundred horses galloping across

7:09

the valley. He couldn't. That's not a bad way to wake up,

7:11

my god. It was literally it was a morning

7:14

that changed my life. And I remember I went and woke Joe up and

7:16

I said, where are we?

7:18

Like what I like? Where are we?

7:20

And we were supposed to just stay all that evening

7:22

and then drive to the Titans

7:25

and we it was a Tuesday

7:27

when we got there, and we stayed all the way

7:30

to Friday because we couldn't

7:32

leave. It was so amazing, and the whole all

7:34

the guests and the staff were like

7:37

mapping out how we had to be back in San Francisco

7:39

from Monday morning for me to catch my flight, and they

7:41

were calculating how long we could

7:43

stay before we actually had to get on the road

7:45

to make it back to San Francisco. So we say

7:47

it as long as possible. Drove straight to

7:49

San Francisco and I got back

7:51

to New York and I was so I've never had

7:54

such a strong reaction to a place other than New York City.

7:56

I was back for two days

7:58

and I had a just signed to book contract for

8:01

a separate book, My Guide to Puberty, The

8:03

Opposite of the Complete Opposite

8:05

of Exactly,

8:08

And I emailed the owner of the ranch because they

8:10

had spoken to me about their lack of social media and

8:12

how they wanted to get into it, and I just emailed

8:14

them and I said, I'm happy to come out and start all of

8:16

your social media for you in exchange

8:18

for room and board I don't have to be in New York for the month

8:20

of August. And I just did it because I thought, what

8:22

the hell, Like, it can't hurt to ask

8:25

I have I don't have to be anywhere in

8:27

particular for the next month. And they were lovely

8:29

and he emiled me back almost immediately

8:32

and he said, let us know your flight details.

8:34

Someone will come and get you, which is not a small thing

8:36

because the closest airport is two to three hours away.

8:39

Yeah. So I went back for the month, and I

8:42

know, I was just like, okay,

8:44

and that, I think too is parts of that you had been

8:46

quite difficult up so then, and I just had this moment

8:48

of being like, this is the power

8:51

and the freedom of being able to make my own

8:53

not just make my own schedule, but not have to check

8:55

in with people about staying

8:57

or going. Like I was like, I don't have to

8:59

be here for a month, which can be I

9:01

think overwhelming and scary for people

9:03

at the same time. And I was like, I'm going to go to Wyoming

9:06

for the month, and it was it changed my

9:08

life. That month has changed my life. And I've been back to Wyoming

9:10

to that place twice a year since what

9:22

was it like going back and having a

9:24

month? It was yourself. I woke

9:26

up every day like I can't

9:28

believe this is real. The only

9:30

comparison I have is the coming

9:33

to New York at twenty three and coming up from

9:35

the sub. I've never been to New York before. I've never been to the United

9:37

States before, which is kind of crazy in hindsight. It's

9:39

an interesting first impression to have. Yeah, well,

9:41

I it is. Well. I got on the train from

9:43

Queens. I landed very late at JFK on

9:46

a Friday night, and I took the our train into

9:48

Manhattan and got out at Sixtie Street

9:50

and Fifth Avenue, and it was like a Saturday

9:53

in the fall and a perfect September day. And I

9:55

remember looking up Fifth Avenue and

9:57

I literally and I traveled quite a bit up until

9:59

that point, and I live release that I'm never leaving.

10:03

I was like, I'm never leaving. I've never had that reaction

10:05

to any place but wyoming. So well, you

10:07

must have had some image of New York in your mind

10:09

before you got here, from movies and all of that.

10:11

And by the way, the our train

10:13

to sixtieth and Fifth Avenue, you stepped into

10:16

the picture of Manhattan. It's the Plaza

10:18

Hotel on one side, Berg Dorriff

10:20

on the other side, the Central behind

10:22

you, the Fifth Avenue, the whole thing. Did

10:24

you have any preconceived notions

10:27

of what you would find when you went to Wyoming. I

10:29

didn't even think about the fact I was going

10:31

to Wyoming because I was very focused on

10:33

going to South Dakota, which is my favorite

10:36

state to drive across. It's such a wonderful

10:38

state that starts out as like farmland on the east

10:40

side, and then you go across ninety I think

10:42

it is, and it gets increasingly empty.

10:44

The Buffalo Grasslands. You see signs

10:46

for wall drug the whole way, so that you're incapable

10:49

of not stopping it, while through the hand painted signs

10:51

five cents for coffee for

10:53

the whole the entire stretch. And

10:56

then you get the bad Lands and you

10:58

get to wal Drigg and then you're in the Black Kills,

11:00

and so I was really focused on that as

11:02

like my I've been there many times and I loved it so

11:04

much. Something across the state line, I was like,

11:06

Okay, now we're just going to San Francisco. So I was

11:09

completely unprepared

11:11

for how overwhelmed I would be

11:13

by it, by the emptiness I often

11:16

think. I

11:18

would tell people in Wyoming who were from

11:20

Wyoming and never been to New York that I thought it was

11:22

just like New York except the complete opposite, and

11:24

they thought I was crazy. But

11:26

in the intensity that you experienced in New York

11:29

in terms of human nature of being

11:31

surrounded by people and their behavior

11:33

and like all around

11:35

you, is similar to me anyway

11:38

to the intensity you experienced in Wyoming

11:40

with the complete absence of people. Like

11:42

it's just two extreme versions

11:44

of this country, and I I

11:47

am attracted to extremes, so it really was

11:49

satisfying in similar ways. Oh,

11:51

that's awesome. Can you describe your day

11:53

to day at the ranch? At the ranch?

11:56

Back at the ranch, I would get up at

12:00

it's August, so the sun you're really aware of the sunrise

12:03

and sunset because there's no artificial light. So

12:05

I would get up at about five five

12:08

and go watch the jingle. That's called

12:10

the jingle because the lead mayor of the

12:13

horses it traditionally wears the bell. Because

12:16

horses are pack animals, so they all congregate

12:18

together no matter where they are, So the

12:20

wranglers would go out and round up the hundred horses

12:22

where they've been allowed out into the hills overnight,

12:25

and then run them back into

12:27

the paddock to be fed. So I'd watch the jingle go

12:29

by. Then i'd hike up, because

12:31

it was in a valley, I'd hike up to the Mesa

12:34

for my morning hike and come back down

12:36

for at seven am breakfast. And then I

12:39

know it's really it's it's truly, it

12:41

was civilized, heavenly, Yeah, it really.

12:44

And then I would you, also, by the way, don't

12:46

need to remind yourself to do meditation every morning,

12:49

because that is essentially it's

12:51

an ultimate morning meditation. And sometimes

12:53

when I would get up to the Mesa, I would sometimes go up

12:55

to watch the sunrise, and

12:58

you would hear the coyotes how owling with the sunrise,

13:01

which, not being a person from Los Angeles,

13:03

was deeply fascinating to me. It

13:05

was really, I was so magical, and

13:07

it's so quiet, it's

13:09

such an absence of human noise that everyone's

13:12

in a blue moon. A flight path would cross

13:14

way up high, and I would be so resentful

13:16

of the plane having the audacity to

13:19

like which it was. And also I would hike every

13:21

day in the afternoon for a couple of hours, which

13:25

was lovely. And I didn't bring a radio

13:27

with me, which was they

13:30

were okay with it, but I would you always have to tell someone when

13:32

you're leaving to go hiking, so that they know if they

13:34

know that you're gone, so that if you don't return in a

13:36

certain amount of time, they send out a search party

13:38

because there's no signal there. It

13:40

is it's the it's the big

13:42

Horns, so there's no grizzlies on that side of the

13:45

state there and on the other side of the state in the Rockies,

13:47

but still an awareness

13:49

of like you are out in the wilderness.

13:52

And it took two weeks for me to go hiking,

13:54

and not automatically

13:56

from being a New Yorker who walks quite a lot, turned

13:59

my head to see if there was anyone behind me,

14:01

And after two weeks I was I've suddenly

14:03

realized, oh, you're not You're so

14:05

comfortable in this environment. You're like losing your city

14:08

habits of checking your one three

14:10

sixty surroundings at all times, which

14:12

was a nice feeling. And also you become

14:14

more like, to be clear, I'm not going to save

14:16

anyone in the apocalypse by like reading the stars,

14:18

but you become more aware of like

14:21

what direction the sun is rising and setting

14:23

to to orient yourself when you are out

14:26

there. And a couple of times I did get lost,

14:28

but not I wasn't off the horse trails, so I

14:30

had a moment of thinking, maybe this is the time

14:33

the wranglers come and find me, But you

14:35

fellow the hoop prints back and they eventually take you back

14:37

to the rant. Yeah, really

14:39

lovely. It is really lovely. So I would

14:41

go and watch the I would come back for breakfast,

14:44

and then I would write. I would go back

14:46

to my cabin and light a fire. And

14:49

when I described this, it sounds so ridiculous,

14:51

but it was really love I would light a fire and

14:53

right in the morning, and then I would lunch.

14:56

Everyone eats all the meals together. I would go down

14:58

for lunch and then spend the afternoon out

15:01

taking photos for them and setting up there Instagram

15:04

and stuff, and uh. Then I would go hiking

15:06

at four o'clock and come back for dinner

15:10

at seven. And then there'd be some activity

15:12

in the saloon that night, whether it was dancing or

15:14

a talent show or music or

15:16

sometimes I would drive down with some of the other

15:18

staff to the Occidental Hotel, which

15:21

is in Buffalo and has been there for a

15:23

hundred and fifty years. Maybe maybe a little bit less

15:25

teddy. Roosevelt used to go out there. Ernest Hemingway

15:28

stopped there. It's got a very storied

15:30

history, very Western history, and so

15:32

much taxidermy. Yeah, that's

15:34

what my day looked like. It sounds so nice.

15:37

It's so nice because you have the time to yourself, there's

15:39

built in community, there's a little bit of something

15:42

I love. A rowing fire in the middle of the summertime.

15:44

It's amazing and you I mean even in August overnight

15:46

it would wouldn't quite drop down to freezing, but that's

15:49

it gets chili. Yeah, what a dream. What's

15:51

interesting in your description about having had no

15:53

expectations of Wyoming is

15:56

that I think that's an increasingly

15:58

rare thing. We usually

16:01

know so much about the places we're going

16:03

to before we get there. We've mapped

16:05

out our trip, we've seen it on Instagram.

16:07

We're really super prepared. I'm

16:10

so just delighted in the idea

16:12

that this was discovery

16:15

for you. I think in the national

16:17

conscious, Wyoming often

16:20

takes second place where is confused with Montana,

16:22

which has a much broader

16:26

brand in this country. Because even when

16:28

I wrote part of the book is about

16:30

going to Wyoming, I talked about Wyoming all the time, and even

16:32

my friends who know this are always like, how

16:34

is your time in Montana? Are you going back to Montana?

16:37

So it's a little nobody in Wyoming

16:40

like Wyoming, except for Yellowstone, which is obviously

16:42

in Jackson, which is such a heavy

16:44

tourist area but also

16:46

unbelievably beautiful. Unbelievably

16:49

Jackson's an incredible place to go. It

16:51

is, but it's a little bit I think, no,

16:54

I mean wealthy, of

16:57

just a little bit. It's a little

16:59

bit like someone's idea of New

17:01

York being the Hampton's if that

17:03

makes sense, or of New York not Time Square because

17:06

it's that's tacky. But when

17:08

you're in the rest of Wyoming, there is a divide

17:10

of the way people talk about, Oh,

17:13

you've been to Jackson or have you been to Wyoming.

17:15

Oh that's interesting, it's because that's

17:17

not They don't

17:20

think about it in quite the same way. I

17:22

was in Wyoming. When you were having dinner

17:25

at the ranch, was it usually the

17:27

same crew of people who were working

17:29

on the ranch. I mean, was it a working ranch or were

17:31

they mostly visitors and travelers

17:34

and tourists. So it's a dude ranch, so it's

17:36

it takes every week, it has a new round

17:38

of guests, and then their staff comes

17:40

in May and works through till October.

17:44

So I segued

17:47

into sort of the staff group

17:49

pretty immediately and

17:51

eight with them. I'm still quite close to many

17:54

staff members, and got one of them to move to New

17:56

York City not that long ago. For thun Er for love,

17:59

she's twenty years younger and I helped

18:01

her get a job in publishing. But

18:05

I still talk to it. I still talk to UM

18:08

people quite often. I think I was a

18:11

bit not think I was an anomaly

18:14

when I arrived there. But one

18:17

of the things I've come to really value

18:19

about being in very rural Western

18:22

places is even though the politics

18:24

Woming is the red est state in the country, on every

18:27

level it's state local, they've um

18:30

statewide, federal. There's this sense

18:32

of taking people as they come, and I think that

18:34

comes from seeing so few

18:36

people that you you get in the habit

18:38

of being open

18:41

to whoever you meet because you encounter

18:43

them with some infrequency

18:46

at They're like, people drive two hours for dinner is not a

18:48

strange thing at all. So I people

18:51

really took me as I was, and I

18:53

never felt and have never

18:55

felt, um like the

18:57

wacky liberal from Brooklyn. They just

18:59

they It was. It was like I was accepted as that.

19:01

I would never feel like I needed to say

19:04

or not express my say in ti

19:08

deep desire to see Hillary Clinton as president

19:10

of the United States. And my experience

19:12

with those conversations was yeah, or

19:14

I'd say, you know, I live in New York City. I don't like guns

19:16

at all, and people would say, ah,

19:19

that's fine, I've got twenty three in my trunk, and I

19:21

feel like, yeah, I know, I know where I am. But there was never

19:23

I think some of the different

19:25

sort of pushback you can get in more

19:27

populated conservative areas.

19:29

It's it's a much different sensibility

19:33

in my experience. And this is why you've been going back

19:35

so much. That the openness, it's impossible

19:38

to find that that emptiness almost

19:40

any The only place I came closes and I

19:42

went to Iceland. But truly Wyoming

19:45

is truly empty. I mean this

19:47

is I have done a two hour drive

19:49

from Buffalo to Casper and seeing at

19:51

certain times today just like a handful of cars, it

19:53

does feel like being on the moon. It's it's really

19:56

an extraordinary experience. And

20:09

since you've been back several times, are you exploring

20:11

other parts of Wyoming or do you always go back to

20:13

this stud d I know most of Wyoming at

20:15

this point. I'm driven around it. But

20:17

it's that's not people will say, IM going

20:20

to yellow Stone for an overnight camping

20:22

trip and it's a seven hour drive away, like you

20:24

really getting. You're getting the

20:27

sort of sensibility of like driving far

20:29

distances because you have

20:31

to really So, yes,

20:34

I know Wyoming quite well. Right, Yeah,

20:36

we've been around. Can you give us a description

20:39

of the

20:41

the sense of community, the guests that are

20:43

there, kind of what everything looks like.

20:47

The guests that come to the ranch are frequently

20:50

from the middle of the country, which was an interesting

20:53

experience too. As a New Yorker, I think

20:56

we don't consider all

21:01

the time the experiences of

21:03

living with due respect, the experience

21:05

of living in with consin Ohio, Michigan,

21:09

these were often the guests.

21:11

Hunting is quite a regular thing, and it's

21:14

much different from New York lifestyles,

21:16

but they guests, which I'm much closer to the staff.

21:18

I know some of the regular guests. There's people have been coming back there

21:21

for forty years. Is it a lot of families, Yes,

21:23

it's family. They have families up

21:26

until the second week of August and then it turns into

21:28

adults only, and during

21:30

when they're they're very kid friendly. It's

21:32

a very kid friendly dude ranch. Lots

21:34

of activities for kids. But I know the staff

21:36

a little bit better. So what is a dude ranch?

21:39

Yeah, it's funny because when I first landed there,

21:41

I had no idea what a dude ranch was. I'd

21:43

never heard of it, and over the course of the last

21:45

few years, I realized it's a fairly common

21:48

vacation destination for much of the country

21:50

and also goes back more than

21:52

a century as as a common

21:54

experience. It's called dude because that used to be,

21:57

and many of them now are called guest ranches

21:59

now because you can be considered an insult because

22:01

it was the word used to describe an East

22:03

Coast man who didn't know what he was doing.

22:06

It was like a mocking term

22:08

of like, uh, an East Coaster who

22:10

would show up in their fancy clothes but have no practical

22:12

skills. A city slicker is it's

22:15

the old term for city slicker, and so they would call

22:17

it a dude ranch because wealthy people

22:19

from the East Coast primarily would come out

22:21

there to experience Western life

22:23

and sort of play at it and pretend

22:25

they were cowboys, which is not. The

22:27

difference now is that there's Western

22:30

life has so significantly shifted that this

22:33

is this running dude ranches

22:35

is now much of Western

22:37

life. I mean, I can't speak with great authority to that,

22:39

but that's certainly my impression. But a dude ranches where

22:42

you go and you ride horses into the mountains,

22:44

or the dude ranches all over the country in Arizona.

22:47

There's many famous ones in Montana.

22:49

In Wyoming, uh, fly fishing, yeah,

22:51

and you have like square dancing at night and

22:54

talent shows. I only know this one. It's called

22:56

Paradise Guest Ranch outside of Buffalo, and it

22:58

is the oldest dude ranch and the country

23:00

or in the state of Wyoming, and it's been in the family

23:03

since the seventies. So

23:05

there was a reference in one of your articles to a concept

23:07

David Brooks of the New York Times wrote about called

23:10

the odyssey years, which is a period of

23:12

improvisation that is a sensible response

23:14

to modern conditions. And

23:16

I wanted to know, do you

23:19

feel like you're still in your odyssey

23:21

years? Listen?

23:23

I hadn't actually hadn't heard that phrase

23:25

before. But that's interesting because I always love referencing

23:29

Odysseus and the odyssey, which is the

23:31

template for travel, travel and adventure

23:33

and everything. But Joseph Campbell, who I love

23:36

here with a Thousand Faces or the Power of

23:38

Myths, he used

23:40

to talk about how women's odyssey was motherhood,

23:42

childbirth and motherhood, but men's odyssey

23:45

was going out and exploring and finding

23:47

themselves. Yeah, trying me freaking

23:49

crazy. I was like, no, wonder, I'm obsessed with lower angles

23:51

and Princess Lai like the only two women

23:54

we get to see they literally go

23:56

out on the road. I think

23:59

we're all in odyssey years, like

24:02

life is the odyssey. And the difference

24:04

for me and

24:06

women who are not married

24:09

or don't have kids is that the odyssey we're on

24:11

is not documented. And

24:14

what feels overwhelming about that experience

24:16

is never having um a

24:18

reference or blueprint

24:21

or an experience to look to, to

24:24

um consult

24:26

with to guide your to guide your way.

24:28

This idea that a woman cannot be

24:30

married and not have kids and have financial

24:32

independence without being born into a wealthy

24:35

family and on top of that be

24:37

able to travel where she wants is so new.

24:41

It's so I say this in almost every interview,

24:43

but women in this country couldn't have credit

24:45

cards in their own name till which

24:48

is also the year I was born. Like, this idea

24:50

of me being able to dictate

24:52

how my life looks within reason

24:55

is so new that I think the

24:58

adventure, the scariness of

25:00

my experiences in

25:03

the thrill of it is not knowing,

25:06

not having examples of what that has looked like

25:08

over time, Whereas I think for better

25:11

for worse with marriage and motherhood, we definitely

25:13

have lots of examples, whether or not you like

25:15

all of them. So yeah,

25:18

we're all in an honesty though I mean countries

25:20

on an honesty's Glennys,

25:24

how do you make yourself feel at home when you're in all these different

25:26

places around the world. I walk everywhere,

25:29

I walk wherever

25:31

I am. I walk

25:33

the city. I don't

25:36

tend to take public transportation until I know

25:38

the city well enough to walk around it, and because

25:41

I'm a writer and I can often work from different places.

25:43

Instead of going to Paris for a weekend, the last

25:46

few years, I've gone for a month at a time, and

25:48

when I visit it was in Berlin this summer

25:51

for maybe five days, and I walked something like

25:53

fifty or seventy five miles when I was there. I

25:56

like to know the city on

25:58

foot. I think it gives you a much better understanding

26:01

of why it is the way

26:03

it is in, much more exposure to the people who

26:05

live there, and makes me feel like

26:08

I'm actually getting

26:10

to know one as opposed to just passing through, Which

26:13

is not to say I'm opposed to a very nice hotel room,

26:15

but that's often. I think Airbnb

26:17

has opened this up to and also dropped

26:19

hotel prices. But like I just walk everywhere.

26:22

That's my or I've in Berlin

26:24

and in Amsterdam. I rented bikes because I bike New

26:26

York quite a bit, and I bike Paris when i'm there, so

26:28

both those things. You know, We're seeing

26:30

a lot more articles and attention

26:33

being given to the experience

26:36

of women traveling either traveling

26:38

by themselves all over the world

26:40

and how to do it and how to do it safely, or

26:43

going on group trips that are

26:45

created by women, that are attended

26:47

by women, where the activities center

26:50

around women chefs, designers, artists.

26:52

What do you think about this? And I

26:54

love it? I at this point,

26:58

I don't remember the last time I traveled with someone

27:00

like it would really at this point, you really there's

27:03

such a short list of people I would say, yes, you can

27:05

come with me, because I'm so accustomed

27:07

to doing what I want when i want it now I say

27:09

that when I also joke I have an international

27:12

club of sort of single women in every

27:14

city I spend time in that I meet up with when

27:16

I'm there, Like I have a whole group of women in Paris,

27:19

like definitely, Wyoming, Los Angeles, like

27:21

um. And part of that is you

27:24

can travel by yourself. I think that iPhone

27:26

significantly change things in terms

27:29

of communication and knowledge

27:31

about where you were in this lack you know,

27:33

less isolation if you feel I mean,

27:35

I remember driving across the country with just a map and

27:37

it was wonderful, but there's much greater

27:40

sense of risk with

27:42

that. I think. I think that we are in a moment

27:44

of women really just enjoying

27:47

the fact that they are not obligated

27:49

to spend time with men

27:51

because they are paying their

27:53

own way. And what this is looking

27:55

like across the board, the ability of women

27:57

to pay their own way. We're seeing shifts in

28:00

every sort of experience of what that

28:03

looks like when women can determine what they want

28:05

their lives to look like because they're not financially

28:08

dependent on a man, which has

28:10

traditionally been right,

28:12

we could be the masters of our own destinies. Yeah,

28:15

maybe that's right. Although

28:17

I often see it's funny. When I was a teenager

28:19

and in my twenties traveling backpacking or whatever,

28:21

you would see sometimes use groups of

28:23

what I considered older women. They are probably in their

28:25

fifties traveling together, and they were

28:28

always like loud and laughing, and they always look like

28:30

they were having just the best time and

28:32

just gleefully going around. And I remember

28:35

not really understanding that and it not really

28:37

appealing to me in my twenties. And now I'm

28:39

like, oh, I get it, Like you are

28:41

having so much fun, you're simply not

28:43

considering all of the

28:46

things about men. It's just

28:48

it's really enjoy I think it's I don't think

28:50

about it that much anymore. Actually, I just go but yeah,

28:52

it doesn't surprise me at all. Glenn's. If we wanted

28:54

to continue following you, where

28:57

can we find you? I have an Instagram called

28:59

No One Tells You This, which is obviously

29:01

the title of the book. Glenny's.

29:04

It is always a pleasure to hear your stories. Thank you

29:06

so much for coming in tonight to us today is for

29:08

having me. This is so fun and that's

29:10

our show. Thanks for listening. If

29:12

you like what you heard, please subscribe, and

29:14

you know, leave us a five star review. Oh

29:17

Way Ago is a production of I Heart Radio

29:19

and Fathom. You can find the details we

29:21

talked about in the show notes and on our website

29:23

fathom away dot com. Don't

29:26

forget to sign up for our newsletter when you're there. You

29:28

can get in touch with us anytime at podcast

29:30

at fathom away dot com and follow

29:32

us on all social media at at fathom

29:34

Way to Go. Please tag your best travel

29:36

photos hashtag travel with Fathom.

29:39

If you want to really go deep on the travel inspirations,

29:41

pick up a copy of our book, Travel Anywhere and

29:43

avoid being a tourist. I'm Jarlyne

29:45

Gerba and I'm Pavio Rosatti, and we'd like

29:48

to thank our producer, editor and mixer Marcy

29:50

to Pena and our executive producer Christopher

29:52

Hassiotis. For more podcasts

29:54

from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio

29:57

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

29:59

you listen to your favorite shows.

30:02

H