Francis Tapon has hiked the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and in 2007, he became the first person to walk the 5,600 miles from Mexico to Canada and back to Mexico along the Continental Divide Trail.
In addition to walking across America 4 times, he’s walked across Spain twice. In total, Francis has been to over 120 countries. In March 2013 he set off trip to explore Africa. He spent five and half years doing just that, visiting all 54 African countries, and climbing the tallest mountains in 50 of those countries.
In this episode we discuss:
- How Francis manages to hike through snow without a warm jacket (or underwear)
- Practicing discomfort and gratitude
- The two traits Francis learned from spending five and a half years in Africa and traveling to all 54 African countries
- Falling in love and getting married in Africa
- The benefits of growing up with exposure to multiple cultures
- Collecting “cultural souvenirs” as we travel
- Why the idea of “cultural appropriation” makes no sense
- How the weather changes culture from Africa to Europe to SE Asia
- What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us
- The role of history in American, European, and African cultures
- How the Moors shaped modern Spain
- Slowing down in Spain and reevaluating what’s important in life
- Francis provocative writing style and why it’s so hard to write a book about Africa
- Reverse culture shock on returning to America after a long time away
- The East Coast mentality and “default question”
- What the rest of the world thinks about Americans that we don’t realize
- The three areas where America is hands down the greatest country in the world
- Where Francis plans to go next and making the most of life before we move on
- What it means to “Hike your own hike”
Links:
- Francis’ Website (https://francistapon.com/)
- Francis’ First Book Hike Your Own Hike: 7 Life Lessons from Backpacking Across America (https://francistapon.com/Books/Hike-Your-Own-Hike/)
- Francis’ Second Book The Hidden Europe: What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us (https://francistapon.com/Books/The-Hidden-Europe/)
- Francis’ Patreon Account (https://www.patreon.com/ftapon) – Get access to “The Unseen Africa” book as Francis writes it
- Francis’ TEDx Talk “How and why travel transforms you” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2Bd8pNYH8A)
- Francis’ TEDx Talk “Bring Out Your Inner Black Sheep” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVfADBIsgB8)
- Francis’ TEDx Talk “7 surprising lessons from picking up 3,000 African Hitchhikers” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WxfRLByD60)
- The Jacks R Better sleeping bag that Francis uses and recommends: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CfBrJX5zoU)
- Francis’ gear list from hiking the Continental Divide Trail (https://francistapon.com/Travels/Continental-Divide-Trail/CDT-Gear-List)
- The Time Paradox book by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd (https://www.amazon.com/Time-Paradox-Psychology-That-Change/dp/1416541993)
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Transcript
Neville Mehra:
My guest today has been celebrated by National Geographic and the California Outdoors Hall of Fame. When you hear about his travel and adventure accomplishments, you might think I’m describing Magellan or Lewis and Clark.
Francis Tapon has hiked the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail. And in 2007, he became the first person to walk the 5,600 miles from Mexico to Canada and back to Mexico along the Continental Divide Trail.
In addition to walking across America, four times, Francis has walked across Spain twice and visited 120 countries in total, but he’s not exactly getting from place to place and collecting flags as fast as he can. In March, 2013, Francis set off on a trip to explore Africa. He spent five and a half years doing just that visiting all 54 African countries and climbing the tallest mountains in 50 of those countries.
Francis, welcome to Never Normal.
Francis Tapon:
So nice to be here. Thank you.
Neville Mehra:
So out of all the guests I’ve had so far, I think you, you embody the Never Normal, probably better than anybody else. And that’s, I think that’s saying something I want to go back to the beginning. Like, how did all of this start, where you, what kind of vacations did you go on as a kid? Was this like, have you always traveled this way or was there, when did you get it? When did you decide like, Oh yeah, I’m just going to walk across clear across America.
Francis Tapon:
Well, my mom is from Chile. My father is French and I was born in San Francisco. And so as a result, I was in order to see any kind of family, I would have to get onto a plane and go a great distance. My dad had a bit of wanderlust. He liked to travel quite a bit. And so probably there’s some genetic, you know, disposition there though that I have. And so yeah, so I think that’s where it all started. Perhaps
Neville Mehra:
One kind of common theme in your travels is that you take the long route and often walk or hike. How did that, how did you decide or what, is there something about walking specifically that for you? It’s just like the preferred mode of transportation. Obviously you could, you could get from point a to point B faster. Why do you choose to walk from something like Mexico to Canada and back?
Francis Tapon:
I’ve always been pretty athletic. And so I think part of it is just, I enjoyed the endorphins that come from doing. And so I think that’s one of the issues. I really got into backpacking when I was like 30 years old and my parents never really took me on any kind of camping trip or anything like that. So I can’t really credit them for that. And, but when I got into it, I was like, I think part of the walking experience is it’s meditative. I mean, there’s some people who meditate every day, which I don’t I probably should here, it’s great. I just can’t focus that well, but when you’re walking and especially back in the day before we had smartphones and little gadgets, you didn’t have anything in your ears to distract you. So, I mean, you literally had nothing else to do except put one foot in front of the other and look around at the scenery.
Francis Tapon:
That was it. And so there’s something meditative about that when you start at some people could get bored out of their mind for doing that. And I can understand that sometimes I got bored too, but just like, I think people who go on meditation retreats or these silent retreats where they don’t talk to anybody for a month or something like that, I think there’s, you, you break through a threshold sometimes not everybody does it, but they break through this point where they have some aha moments and they really start to really think about things that they hadn’t thought about or think about things in a different perspective. And you become “Never Normal”.
Neville Mehra:
Thank you. I, yeah, use the analogy to meditation is interesting because I think in both cases you either are, or you learn to become comfortable with yourself, right? We can, it’s very easy to sit in front of a computer or a smartphone these days and just fill yourself with distractions or just like, you know, information, read the news check whatever’s going on. Just totally overstimulate yourself to the point where you’re never really just like alone in a quiet place and, and dealing with your own thoughts, your own emotions. I can imagine when you’re walking, there’s gotta be some days where it’s just like, you’re basically just on the side of a road with not a lot of scenery and just going, and there’s really nothing there besides you and yourself. Right.
Francis Tapon:
Right. Although I almost never did road walks. So there was, I was always through the mountains. So usually the, the, the scenery was pretty stimulating, but when you’re walking across, let’s say deserts is about 700 miles of deserts in California, in Southern California. That’s about another 700 miles of deserts in New Mexico deserts sometimes can have monotonous scenery, although I love them. But anyway, sometimes they can. And so therefore you don’t, it’s kind of like walk out on the side of a road where it’s like a lack of stimulation, but again, it allows you to transport your mind somewhere else. And just in some ways, like, for example, the opposite of that is when I was walking through a thousand kilometers of snow in Colorado, then you’re just so focused. I mean, you have to focus on every step because you’re postholing. And for those who don’t know what postholing means, it means that you step on kind of semi-hard snow and your foot breaks through the snow, and then you kind of get stuck. And so every single step is laborious, so you can’t even see the trail. And so that it very difficult. And so therefore you have to be focused. You have to say, am I going North, East, West, South? What, which direction am I going to work? Could the trail be? And you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re just, you’re very alert. When you’re hiking through snow versus hiking on a simple path, that’s in a desert, that’s clear and obvious. So anyway, so you go from these, from these different types of extremes.
Neville Mehra:
Yeah. I can see that. I mean, even for me like skiing, for example, there’s times where it’s just, it’s, it’s meditative in, in the way that you’re describing where it’s difficult enough, that I’m just sort of forced to put away all these other thoughts and just focus on the one it’s like brings your full focus to bear on the one thing at hand. Cause I know it’s like you know, either you, you follow that line or you’re going to wipe out on the way down. And so you’ve just got to like channel your entire focus to where you’re going, as opposed to, you know, that thing someone said in a meeting or you know, who you’re worried about that exam next week or anything else that’s not here. And now on your Mexico, Canada, Mexico hike, I read that you were hiking with the pack that weighed less than three kilos or less than six pounds in total. Is that right?
Francis Tapon:
Yeah. It’s less than six and a half pounds. That’s without food and water though. So that’s just gear. So the actual, when you throw in food and water, like for example, when you’re walking across desert, you might not have any kind of water for, let’s say 40 kilometers. And so as a result, you have to carry a lot of water, which adds a lot of weight. So the actual weight of the pack with food and water would be at the maximum 15 kilograms, which is about 35 pounds maximum. I mean, that, that’s when I was totally loaded with food and water, but that was very rare. The average weight of my pack was probably closer to 15 pounds or about seven kilograms
Neville Mehra:
Now. I mean, when I think about, you know, travel, especially like going to an airport or something and, you know, having a, like a big suitcase packed full of stuff, most people run into the problem of their suitcases so heavy that they’re like paying extra fees and things like that. And they’re, I mean, you were going for seven months, you know, no shelter, just you know, hiking and you were doing it with, with all had the shelter. I had a tarp no, you know, external like hotel or whatever. I mean, whatever, whatever you had when you were carrying with you and you were doing that with, with under six pounds, whereas, you know, people are taking a suitcase and they’re struggling to get by with like a 40 pound weight limit from an airline. For example, I’m really curious what goes, I mean, so, so that, and, and they’re only going for a weekend, they’re going for a weekend and you’re going for seven months through desert mountain, snow rain, and God knows what else. So every single ounce of weight that goes into that pack I’m sure is very carefully thought out…
Francis Tapon:
What might surprise a lot of people when they think about backpackers and mountaineers and that kind of stuff, they got to bring up a good knife. I think I had like a teeny tiny knife that was, you know, a few centimeters. I mean, it was, that was about it. So that might surprise some people that I didn’t bring like some honking knife to defend myself against the bears. Whatever, but in general the other thing that’s important obviously is your sleeping bag and just a minimal amount of clothing. Now I had a sleeping bag that’s made out of from a company called jacks R better and they, and it’s the letter R so the jacks R better. I really like their sleeping bag because you can actually wear it as a serape. So it’s basically, it has a hole in the middle that that’s attached with Velcro, and then you put it over your head and you wrap it around yourself as a result.
Francis Tapon:
I didn’t bring a parka. So that could surprise. A lot of people are saying, wow, you went through the snow without even a jacket. I had like a teeny thin three ounce windbreaker. And that was it. Well, the secret was that when I woke up in the morning, I got out of my sleeping bag and then wore my sleeping bag. And then the other secret to staying warm in the cold temperatures is just keep moving. Cause your body generates a ton of heat, just walking. And so as a result, as long as I kept moving, I would usually stay warm even in kind of a cold conditions.
Neville Mehra:
And is there anything, anything else that you bring that would surprise or that you do bring rather than would surprise people, anything to bring any sort of entertainment with you? Anything, a book or anything like that? I mean, it’s such a small amount of weight that you’re carrying. I imagine it doesn’t leave a lot of room for anything other than the bare necessities
Francis Tapon:
I didn’t bring any kind of entertainment on the Appalachian trail, the Pacific crest trail, but on the continental divide trail, I did eventually bring, I think a few, a couple of months into the trip. I bought an, a little MP3 player. So it was a tiny little thing that I could store audio books or, or that kind of stuff for podcasts. I don’t even know if podcasts exist back then, but definitely audio books existed. And this was 2007. So I listened to that. Until the batteries ran out, I just put in a AA battery cause I couldn’t have a way to recharge. So I would just carry a couple of AA batteries with me. And that was my entertainment. Now, as far as books are concerned in order to walk 35 miles a day, you don’t have to walk fast, but you have to walk constantly.
Francis Tapon:
And so you’re walking at a normal place. One point I remember this guy who’s 60 years old passed me. I mean, I was walking, I wasn’t walking very fast, but I was walking from sunrise to sunset. I would walk, you know, sometimes 14 hours a day. Sometimes you have more 15, but as a result you can put in the miles. So if you’re walking only three miles an hour, you know, you just do the math, you can pump in 35 miles. Just by walking constantly. I would walk while I eat. I walked while I brushed my teeth, I even walked while I took a piss. I was constantly walking. And so as a result you could do a big amount of miles that, that the, the side effect of all that walking is that at the end of the day, you really have zero energy to read a book
Neville Mehra:
That almost seems like a feature rather than a bug, as they say that you’re just sort of always on the go, you get the miles. You’re not, as you’re not it, you’re not like kind of sprinting and then resting and then sprinting and resting. You’re just at like a steady continual pace. And then, yeah, there’s no sort of downtime where you’re bored or just like sitting there hungry or something like that. Like you’re just always on the move. Is there anything that that other people who do these kinds of like long distance or through hikes typically bring, you mentioned the knife or that other people would maybe expect you to bring that you intentionally leave out, that you just don’t see as necessary?
Francis Tapon:
I remember that I took for my underwear. I use basically spandex shorts. So they’re like, they look like biker shorts. If you’re familiar with how a biker short looks like, they’re kind of hugging you tight. And that would be my underwear as well. So in other words, I wouldn’t have any w and what I would do is I would go into a, when I go into town. So I would typically carry about four days of worth of food. And so, because after once you get to like five, six days of food, your pack starts getting really heavy and it starts to not make any sense. So I would resupply at towns that were near the trail, not on the trail. So I would often have to hitchhike down the mountain in order to get food. And then hitchhiked back up the mountain to where I left off to keep going.
Francis Tapon:
When I went to a restaurant I would go into the bathrooms that you could lock yourself into. Those were the best bathrooms. And then I would just do my laundry just washing a sink, my clothes while I put my order in. So I’d say I order some food. Let’s say I order some pasta, and while they’re cooking it, I’d go in there and just wash my underwear and then put it right back on wet. And while I was eating in the warm restaurant, it would dry because it was a fast drying material. And then I’d wash my shirt and put it back on, even if it’s wet or sometimes I would have a spare one, but anyway, I only had two shirts and two underwears.
Neville Mehra:
It sounds incredibly unpleasant. You
Francis Tapon:
Know, it sounds unpleasant, but, you know, I guess I have a high degree of tolerance for discomfort for, so for me, it didn’t bother me. I was like, I’m in a warm restaurant. It’s kind of feels kind of cool on my body. And then by the time I left the restaurant, it was pretty much dry. And if it wasn’t, you know, just a bit of walking, generates body heat and it will dry out whatever you’re wearing. So, yeah, I, I don’t, I’m trying to think of other things that people bring, but I am sure there’s a million things that people bring that is, are sentimental or important, or they think it’s important that I don’t bring, but I have a list of my gear list on my website. So if anybody’s curious, they just go to FrancisTapon.com/CDT so continental divide trail.
Francis Tapon:
And then there’s a gear list. If you click somewhere there, you’ll, you’ll find the gear list and it will list exactly all the little things that I brought. I’ll make sure we don’t. Yeah. The other thing that might surprise people is I didn’t purify water very often. Almost never. In fact, I think I had it like a couple of tablets to purify, but I think picking your water sources was more important than just picking a random source and then purifying that. So I would be very picky about where I got my water and I got to be fairly good. I never had Giardia. So that was another thing that I did that is somewhat unusual for backpackers.
Neville Mehra:
Yeah. That would be my first concern, as soon as you said, like not purifying water, but I suppose if you know where the stream is coming from, and you’re, you know, a seasoned pro at doing this and, and no animals are sort of upstream of you using it as a toilet you’re okay. Cause that’s the concern you mentioned a high degree of tolerance for discomfort. I, I think that goes without saying that’s perhaps the understatement of the century here is that I mean, in order to even consider most of these adventures you’ve been on, I think that tolerance for discomfort is a prerequisite, but it’s something that I think most people could probably build in themselves with if they have the desire, you know, is to start small and realize that, yeah, sometimes it’s a little uncomfortable, but there’s a tradeoff. And the more you’re willing to be a little uncomfortable, the more cool, exciting adventures, different experiences you can have along the way.
Francis Tapon:
Yeah. And I think that it serves you so well. And so everybody has a, a risk tolerance. Some people have a discomfort tolerance, everybody has that, but it really serves you so well to try to push that further out and really stretch yourself. The reason is, is that, for example, when I went to five, four or five years in Africa and I came back here, I found it utterly thrilling to have hot water in and just, or turn on a light and electricity came on. And by the way, I had appreciation when I was on the Appalachian trail, the Pacific crest trail, when I’d come. And like suddenly I had a warm dry bed. So a lot about life and your happiness in life is all about gratitude. And in the 21st century, we, as homo-sapiens, especially in the high-end high income world have become incredibly soft and just demanding about all sorts of things that our ancestors didn’t have and we’ve set a new bar. So my suggestion is to lower that bar down so that whenever life gets a bit challenging and difficult or what some people think is challenging difficult, you’ll look back and say, I’ve done so much worse than this. This is fine. I can get through this. And I think that I think is something that can be a lifelong skill that will keep you happy.
Neville Mehra:
I couldn’t agree more. And I should say I’m a hundred percent guilty of what you’re talking about. Right. And I think Louie, Louie CK, the comedian has a, has a bit about this. I think it was Louie CK that like, you know, even just a few years ago, there was no such thing as, as an internet or like wifi on an airplane. And now it’s like, you know, they’ve introduced it. And immediately, as soon as it goes down, everybody’s like, Oh God, the wifi in the airplane is down. And he’s like, you’re sitting on a chair in the sky and it’s like, the internet went down for a minute. And all of a sudden, this is the worst day of your life. They’ll, they’ll complain that
Francis Tapon:
Slow internet, slow internet at 600 miles. Now I can’t watch my YouTube. What’s wrong with this? I can’t watch you YouTube. I can’t watch my porn on the airplane.
Neville Mehra:
I don’t recommend watching porn on an airplane, but I do recommend practicing what you described, which is being comfortable with less. And, and I think it is something that the stoic philosophers talk about this, that it’s something that you can deliberately practice like to NAMM your, your history and your life so far is, is a great example of this, but just basically deliberately depriving yourself, right? Because most of us, as you said, who live in these kinds of first world countries have very comfortable lives for whatever difficulties we may face in general. We’re very comfortable. Most of us have, you know, hot water and shelter and all the basics. And so we get bent out of shape when we’re missing something much more trivial than those. And so it’s like, if you just take a bit of time and subtract, you know, go camping or something like that, and just don’t have some hot showers, it’s such a simple thing. And then to appreciate it when you, when you have it again is a powerful, is that something that you deliberately practice now yourself? Do you like schedule time, you know, in discomfort or do your travels just kind of provide enough of that? Yeah.
Francis Tapon:
Yeah. I guess my travel was provided and then of course my memories and my history has, has done that a lot. So to me, it’s, it’s not it’s now second nature. So I I’m, I’m very grateful every day, every single day. Sometimes I I’m just like when I’m tying my shoes, I’m looking at my fingers and I’m like, wow, I’m so grateful that all these fingers are still working, you know, that there’s coordination and they can do that. They’re not trembling, you know, just like, or like, I’m grateful that my elbow doesn’t hurt. You know, it’s like, wow, look at that. My elbow is still working well, you know, I just, I, I look, I think about things, the random things like, wow, my, my eye is not itchy. You know, Hey, my nose is not running right now and I’m not coughing. You know, there’s just, you can just go on a list of things that are just going right all the time. Your body’s amazing. My heart is still beating. It’s amazing. It just doesn’t stop. And Hey, these are all good things. And it’s just it. As a result, you can just feel a lot better about everything.
Neville Mehra:
Absolutely. I mean, this is such an important topic. It’s definitely a detour from travel, but I think it’s a great example of the kind of lesson that you can learn by, as we said, sort of depriving yourself. But I go out of my way to try to practice that gratitude and do exactly what you’re talking about. Just take a moment to realize that, like, even if you have some small calamity in your life, your heart is still beating. Just that alone is a baseline. Like if that’s, if that’s working, things are going okay, like it could be a lot worse. And having that as a routine in your day, or just like little checkpoints where you check in and you say to yourself, you know, is everything okay or not? My heart’s beating still got two eyes. Not that you couldn’t get by without those, but you know, little things like that.
Neville Mehra:
One of the most common ones you mentioned like your nose isn’t running. I think for, for almost all of us, whenever we get sick and you end up with like a stuffy nose or something, it’s, it’s annoying. I mean, it’s, you know, minor, but it’s annoying when you can’t breathe comfortably. And as soon as it comes back, like we just sort of go back to normal once our, we get over the cold or whatever. And it’s so rare that we actually stop and say, I thank God. My nose is just like clear today. I can breathe normally. Right. While we’re on the subject of gratitude, just one other kind of a quick one I do myself is I try to, whenever I feel sort of like, just even slightly annoyed, like, Oh, I have to do this, or I have to do that.
Neville Mehra:
I try to reframe it as I get to. So like my wife and I had just had a baby a few months ago. And there’s times where it’s like, you know, you’re busy with something and you realize, Oh, I got to go change your diaper. I have to change your diaper. And it’s by no, I mean, first of all, my wife does 99% of that. I really have no place to complain, but still, like, you might have this thought in your mind where you’re kind of busy doing something and, or you thought, you know, you’re running late and you’re like, Oh no. Now I’ve got to have to change your diaper. And I just try to catch that thought as it comes up in my mind and switch it to, I get to change your diaper. I get to cause I have her because she’s here because she’s okay. But also just the simple things. Like I have diapers that we have a stock of diapers. How much more annoying would this problem be? If I didn’t have any clean diapers right now, we have diapers hadn’t even been invented yet. And I had to go wash some, you know, weird cloth or something just to like, there’s a million little things like that where you can just like all the way down the line, just be like grateful for the fact that, that you get to do something rather than you, you have to do something
Francis Tapon:
In many African villages that I visited. The babies would just run around without any diapers whatsoever because they didn’t have they just have sand, you know, sometimes some, some of the houses themselves are, you know, sand floors or whatever. So if the baby pees or poops, it just drops in and they’re always, there’s no kind of diaper rash,
Francis Tapon:
Cause there’s no diaper. And if they did have diapers, if they do wear, you know, yeah. They it’s cotton and they have to handle wash every single diaper. And just then that’s how human civilization was for, for forever until the last couple of decades.
Neville Mehra:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that, that was everywhere. It’s only this whole concept of diapers are fairly recent. I I’d love to disposable diapers, disposable diapers are what we think of now as a diaper, as opposed to yes. Like the, if you can think of like the cartoon baby with like the safety pin on the side, right. Because they had like a cloth thing and you had to print it. I’d love to kind of pick up that as a, as a topic though, not diapers, but you’ve spent time as we discussed in 54 different all 54 African countries and over five and a half years. And you spent, I w I mean, we could do the math five and a half years, 54 countries, but you spent, let’s say a non-trivial amount of time, like weeks in each country, you weren’t just kind of five weeks on average, five weeks on average in each country. So you really had a chance to get to know the lifestyle, the local people in each place to see kind of like when you were also climbing mountains. So to get in touch with some of the nature and all that, you, weren’t kind of flying in, buying a souvenir at the airport and heading to the next country.
Francis Tapon:
I was always Overland. I was always I would drive places. I had a car and the truck basically, and yeah, I never, I very, very rarely took planes. Planes were mainly nor to get to the Island nations. There’s seven Island nations. And so obviously you can’t drive there.
Neville Mehra:
W I want to kind of go back to a point you made of just seeing a different way of doing things. What could or should we in America learn from Africa? I mean, it’s, it feels almost ridiculous to reduce Africa is 54 different countries to just Africa, but are there, were there certain, we talked kind of philosophically before, so there’s certain other things like that, that you experienced that that you sort of brought back with you from your trip as a, either new practices or beliefs from, from your trials.
Francis Tapon:
I did bring back, you know, one thing we talked about is just this gratitude thing. And so by all those experiences with Africans, I could realize like, wow, these guys are happier than many Americans, and yet they have a 10th of what the typical American may have. And so obviously a lot of this is in your mind. And I think the number one thing that I was impressed with perhaps among the Africans is their forgiveness, their societies in general, again, there’s 54 countries, so there’s a lot of diversity. However, one of the common themes that I would find is that Africans have a tendency to be more forgiving than any other continent people from any other continent. And I try to do now. And just the other thing obviously, is they’re very patient. They, so those are two attributes that I have tried to incorporate in my life, forgiveness and patience.
Francis Tapon:
And that is a common theme that you, a common positive theme that you find in Africa. So it’s easier said than done, but I think that when you see it in action, it’s, it’s motivating and there are some side effects to that. It’s a double-edged sword. When you, when a society is very forgiving, it can’t, it can encourage abuse of that forgiveness so that people might be more likely to do things that are either wrong or irresponsible, because they know there’ll be forgiven for their sin. So that’s the downside, but there’s obviously many positives that come out of that as well. So that’s, I focus on the,
Neville Mehra:
And while you were on that trip, I’m not sure how about, I think it was about halfway through something else happened. You fell in love
Francis Tapon:
When I was in Cameroon, which is a country in the middle of Africa. I met a woman named Rejoice — as in to celebrate — Rejoice. And I got married in Zambia near Victoria falls. And then she traveled with me to about 32 African countries. So nearly half the trip I was alone and nearly half the trip I was with Rejoice
Neville Mehra:
An amazing story. I mean, I, that like is that, that alone feels like a lot of your adventures feel like they could be turned into a movie or a, some of them have been turned into a book. Just, just that though, just kind of falling in love in, in Cameroon and getting married in Zambia and continuing to travel together is another fairytale. How did you decide to actually get married while traveling as opposed to just kind of, you know, continuing the trip together and maybe see where it goes
Francis Tapon:
Was practical? The ironic thing is neither of us were very excited to get married in the sense that, you know, like we it’s just an institution. We’re not like, you know, religious, she, she’s not religious, which is by the way, hyper rare in Africa. I think one in 10,000 people is not religious in Africa, so it’s super, super rare. But what the problem with her is that she’s from Cameroon and the Cameron passport can go to only about 46 countries, I think without a visa, without a prior to getting to visa and getting a visa is very difficult. And so if I’m not married to her, there’s, it would be extremely difficult for her to travel within Africa. Very, very difficult. It was difficult even being married to me, even though we had the paperwork, even though we had the managers marriage certificate, even though my name was on her passport it’s, it was still a challenge to get her into countries.
Francis Tapon:
And I often had to, you know, slam my fist on the table and say, come on guys. I want to bring my wife to Ethiopia. Why can’t, you know, I’m not going to just leave her behind, you know, we’re traveling over land. And it was upsetting for her to think that here she is an African who cannot visit her own continent. And here I am a non-African from another continent, and yet I have no problems just going everywhere and they throw me visas, you know, easily. So it’s an unfortunate situation that Africa has been improving, but that’s one practical reason why we said, okay, if I want to be with this lady. And certainly I knew that if I wanted to travel with her outside of Africa, then it’s completely difficult. You know, let you know, forget about coming to America. You know, she’s just, it would just not work. So I had to face a decision, like either I marry her or I say, goodbye, that’s that was, that was the option. Because, you know, girlfriend, boyfriend just not going to work. So I said, okay, well, I’m you know, I’m 46 years old. I’ve never been married in my life. Let’s give it a go. So, yeah. And so it took me a while to find that that the woman was willing to marry and
Neville Mehra:
That’s amazing. I love that story. Congratulations to you and Rejoice
Francis Tapon:
So now it’s been almost five years practically. Since I first met her,
Neville Mehra:
I come from a, a sort of mixed cultural background like yourself. You said you were French and Chilean. I’m a half Irish and half Indian living in Spain at the moment. But I grew up in the U S and my wife is Russian. So we’ve got a lot of kind of cultural influences swimming around in our family and, and yours as well. How, how has that gone over the first, you know, almost five years now, have there been any sort of major cultural clashes, any things that you’ve sort of discovered where you kind of take it for granted that there’s a certain way of doing something and that’s just not a, a universal thing.
Francis Tapon:
It’s funny because we sometimes joke rejoice and I joke that I’m more African than she is, and she’s more American than I am. She’s. So, as a result, our, sometimes our clashes have to do with I’m more easy going than she is, which is a classic African trait. And she’s more like a little Nazi and like, you know, let’s do things this way, this way and plan things out. And so, so she’s not, she’s never normal regarding to Africa. She’s not a normal African in many ways. Certainly some aspects of her. So but I think so I don’t think that our disagreements or struggles or whatever are any, are not like classic African versus the, you know, the United States perspective. It’s, it’s just personality traits, but it’s, she doesn’t adopt a lot of the African traits that are, that are classic. So in that sense, we’re, we’re kind of different, but I do predict by the way that Neville your, your baby, your child, is going to be a very interesting creature when she grows up
Neville Mehra:
There is to ask more, but, but slightly afraid. I just a quick side note though, I will say
Francis Tapon:
No cause of your multicultural background. In other words, I think that that in itself is going to be it, you know, I think that, and of course you and I are biased because we’re multicultural, but I just think that when children are exposed at an early age to many different cultures, they’re much more likely to be a world citizen. And so I think as a result, they become more open-minded they become more curious and they ended up, you know being interesting in one way or another. They become never, they’re never normal because they’re, they’re not the classic homosapien who was has a more region regionalized background one country, one culture. And you can, by the way, for those who are listening to this or watching this thing, you know, like, well, I was born in Chicago. My parents were from Chicago. I’ve always been from Chicago. Well, you can still cultivate that. You know, it’s not like, you know, just that your daughter is spoiled. She, she got lucky and I got spoiled, you got spoiled. We all got spoiled just because we were born into this environment when you, and I didn’t do anything to deserve this. So we’re just like,
Neville Mehra:
Yeah. Digging into that a little bit more. It was actually Tim Ferriss was talking about this in a podcast episode, not in the context of being multicultural, but more in the sense of him. I think he studied abroad in Japan and it’s something that I’ve always felt, but I hadn’t quite put into words until I heard him say it. And it’s basically this idea that when you’re exposed to another culture early on, it’s not that one culture is better than the other or anything like that. But more that seeing two different ways of doing things, sort of flips a switch in your mind that like there isn’t one sort of normal way or there isn’t only one way. And I certainly had that in my house growing up there was like, you know, my dad does something one way. My mom does something a different way.
Neville Mehra:
It wasn’t necessarily a clash, but even just like, you know, religions holidays we all spoke English as a first language. So it wasn’t a linguistic thing, but there’s just various kind of little cultural elements where I saw that there were, there were different ways you could do it. And again, neither one was presented as right or wrong. And so that sort of gave me this ability to just pick and choose. And, and later on in life, it was like, Oh, well, there’s not only these two cultures. Right? So as you travel and see more of the world, you can be like, Oh, I really like the way they designed bathrooms in Japan. I really, the way that, you know in Spain, they prioritize family and conversation. And this idea of like the sober Mesa after you eat and like just sitting and talking and not always being in a rush and just, you know, not seeing that okay, well, in my country we do things a certain way and that’s normal and everything else is, you know, maybe interesting on vacation. Whereas like, I’m, I feel like I’m just kind of collecting these various little bits and pieces from around the world as almost like cultural souvenirs.
Francis Tapon:
Right. That’s what that’s exactly. That’s a good way of putting it. And we try to incorporate that in our everyday life. I think that’s some, that’s the purpose of my travels is that I’m trying to pick up a lot of cultural souvenirs and trying to grab the best of humanity.
Neville Mehra:
When people talk about this idea of like cultural appropriation, it never made any sense to me because it’s like, culture is not like a fixed thing that one person owns. We’re all, we’re all borrowing and learning from each other anyway, like there’s, there’s, there’s no thing that you can find in any culture, like the entire Japanese culture has elements of Chinese culture that they borrowed at some point and became normal for them. It’s not a coincidence and vice versa. Yeah, absolutely. It’s not a coincidence that like ramen and la mien. And if you go to like I don’t know, Uzbekistan or something, and you find log Mon, like they’re all noodle dishes that have sort of similar names, like, yeah, that’s not a coincidence. We’ve all been borrowing and learning from each other for as long as we’ve all been humans. And yet like suddenly there’s this idea that like, Oh, no, no, if you were the, you know, the typical dress of that person or that culture, like that’s not allowed, you mentioned that that’s kind of the inspiration for your travels. And we first got connected when I, when I read your book, the hidden Europe and the subtitle is what Eastern Europeans can teach us. And it’s been I think 10 years since the book was first published, I know you’re working on a updated 10th anniversary edition, but I’d love to just dig into that subtitle a little bit. What can the Eastern Europeans teach us?
Francis Tapon:
They have a tremendous amount of grit that’s for sure. I mean, I think it comes from their historical background of the 20th century, which was really, really rough. I mean, one of the roughest places to be on the planet in the 20th century was Eastern Europe. They suffered through two Wars. They went through the Nazis stormed in the Soviet stormed in it was it was a, it was a is. And as a result, I think that that, there’s no way that that could not have an impact on you as your culture. It will, that will seep into your DNA somehow. And so, as a result, I think that that’s one thing that is a common thread that Eastern Europeans have it’s, it’s a, it’s a land of incredible grit and people who are, you know, also the weather itself. I mean, you’re sitting in Spain, I’m sitting here in California, but Eastern Europe, especially in the winter is often quite challenging. So all that stuff kind of hardens you up and toughens you up. And I think that that’s something that is, is good because again, it goes back to what I was saying before. You know, I think that we, as a species have become very soft in the 21st century.
Neville Mehra:
That’s something kind of surprising that I learned on my, on my travels as well, this idea of, I mean, it almost sounds cliché. Like, you know, you go to Russia and you think about, you know, winter being important. But I think just in, in certain cultures over all the cultures that have kind of strong seasons and especially harsh winters, the degree to which like preparing for winter, right with the game of Thrones, winter is coming the degree to which that’s impacted the culture over the years in, in some kind of predictable ways. But also in some that I didn’t realize till much later, like I was traveling in Southeast Asia and places like Vietnam and Indonesia. And it’s basically like, there are seasons, but the seasons are like the wet season and the dry season and the burning season. They’re not, you know, like fierce winter and then summer.
Neville Mehra:
And so things like, as something as simple as like, you know, fruit, let’s say you can pull a mango off the tree kind of most times of the year. So you’re basically never going to starve to death. Like there are other concerns, but you’re just, you’re, you’re not going to end up in like this harsh winter where there’s nothing growing. And that just creates, I think, a different set of priorities. Those are the, the cultures and the countries that ended up being more chilled out, less anxious about the future, less people on like anti-anxiety medication, again, other challenges that they have. And then you go to places that have harsh winters and they’re much more like we got to prepare for the future. We need to plan. We stick to a schedule because I think at some point, you know, in, in cultural memory is this idea that if you don’t do those things, winter is going to come and you’re not going to be prepared and you will have nothing to eat or you will have no shelter and you will freeze or starving. Right.
Francis Tapon:
And you see that certainly the case in Africa. And there’s a, there’s a compounding effect because in much of Africa, it’s so debilitatingly hot that you really feel lethargic a lot of the day and you just have no energy and no desire to move your off. And yeah, there’s a mango right there sitting on a tree, you just pull on it. There’s abundant wildlife, through much of African history. So life flourishes in much of Africa and it’s not a harsh environment and the weather is the harsh part, but it’s, but instead of like making you hunker down and like hurry and work like crazy, it makes you just want to sit down and just sit underneath a tree, which is what much of the continent does much of the time. You’re just sitting, you see just sitting underneath the tree, just talking, you know, there’s no air conditioning, there’s no electricity. I think, yeah, it certainly infects the culture and it has to, and that’s part of, that’s part of the process. And that’s just the reality. Yeah.
Neville Mehra:
And you can even see maybe like a less extreme, but still a similar effect between even like Northern and Southern Europe. Right. The Southern European countries are the typically, you know, more relaxed, Spain, Italy, Portugal, right. Greece, just, yeah. Less of like a go, go, go, got to get it done. Let’s work as hard as we can. And be as efficient as possible. And then you compare that to, you know, say Finland, Germany, right. These cultures that have that sort of stereotypical Protestant work ethic, but just in general, more kind of like yeah, go, go, go build amazing cars, you know, build cell phones, like all these they’re, they’re much more like technically oriented economies and cultures. Absolutely. Interesting to see that, Oh, were there other takeaways that you had from Eastern Europe where there, I mean, again, you, you subtitled the book, what Eastern Europeans can teach us. How else did your years of travels through the region kind of affect you or change your mindset?
Francis Tapon:
It made me think a lot about history. When you get into casual conversations with Europeans in general, they bring up history a lot more than Americans. Do Americans have a short-term history. We even had a president who said, I think it was Truman, who said, history is bunk in others like BS. And so our, and, and there’s some pros and cons to all this. There’s some advantages to knowing your history and to thinking about it and knowing your origins and all that kind of stuff out the other time, you can be, get swamped by it and let it rule your life into and give you and flexibility. So I’m not suggesting one or the other, but it really I found it fascinating how much Europeans, more than I think, I don’t know any other continent, but certainly I’m, I’m imagined that I haven’t been to China yet.
Francis Tapon:
I haven’t been to India yet. They have a very long rich written history. So my guess is that they’re also kind of obsessed with history, but in other cultures like Latin America and, and Africa and, and the United States you just don’t see that. So the Americas and Africa are just not as history focused as the European continent and probably the, the Asian, the rest of the Asian continent as well. So there’s some pros and cons to both of that, but I just find that fascinating. And I think it’s something that it’s ideally you learn from it, you watch history, you understand it, but you don’t let it rule your life and get obsessed with it. It’s the clever balance.
Neville Mehra:
Yeah. There’s a there’s a fantastic book. It’s a bit academic, but I, I really enjoyed it. It’s a, it’s called the time paradox and it’s I’m going to forget the both authors names, but one of them is dr. Professors embargo, who did the, one of the famous sociology experiments right back in, in Stanford, in the, I think it was like the sixties or seventies, but they, they talk a lot about the different time perspectives that we all have. Like, are we more history focused or more future focused or, you know, more sort of in the present moment and there’s no one perfect orientation. Like if you’re all present focused, right. You’re not building for the future and saving up for winter. And if you’re stuck in the past, maybe you have depression. So there isn’t so much a right or wrong.
Neville Mehra:
But I think we often you know, we don’t, we don’t realize that we are sort of oriented one way and that’s not maybe the only option. And a lot of it as we’ve been discussing is actually cultural. One of the things that struck me is this idea that like, as Americans, I think we’re very future-focused and we sort of always see that tomorrow is potentially better. You know, these days there’s the that maybe is like crumbling a little bit. And I hope that’s only a short-term effect where, where people have started to get a little bit more pessimistic. But for most of us, I think both of our lifetimes, if you were to ask the average American person will life in general, be better say 10 years from now than today. The answer has almost always invariably in America been yes. In the world. In fact, I mean, and that’s what, I don’t know that that’s true for other cultures though. That’s, that’s the thing, like when you talk about Eastern Europe, I think there’s a fatalistic sense in a lot of countries where,
Francis Tapon:
But I think that that’s, yeah, you’re right about that. I mean, cause some of them have shrunken in size and you know, they have this, this, yes, there’s ups and downs, but I’m just saying in, in the, in over centuries, should I say generally things have gotten better almost everywhere, but I know what you’re saying. You’re talking about in a smaller thing, America has pretty much gone uphill the entire time and we’ve never had a really real down downward spiral, like a certain countries like Poland, you know, just disappeared from the entire map for 123 years. A lot of the Baltic countries just gone after 20 years. And they got sucked up in the Soviet union and on and on. So they had much more severe ups and downs in that sense. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you. I liked this. I thought of this thing when I said that Europeans live in the past Americans live in the future and Africans live in the present.
Neville Mehra:
That’s perfectly put, I think there’s, again, these are broad generalizations, but I think there’s a lot of truth to that. And you mentioned you,
Francis Tapon:
I mean, how about, how has it in Spain, for example, I mean, do you find that, I mean, in Spanish, like you said, are, are kind of like the more relaxed side of Europe, but I think that you’re are you in Valencia where yep. I’m in Valencia. Yeah. So, I mean, that’s a long, rich cultural history. I imagine the they’re talking and when they talk about CATIA line and when they talk about Galicia and they talk about their history and Madrid and you know, they probably just go off on you and you’re like, what,
Neville Mehra:
There’s an incredible amount of Spanish history that I certainly never learned in school and being here and realizing all of these like kingdoms that were eventually United and all of that, that it’s, it’s, it’s been eye opening and the Moors and Wars and, and the it’s like, we sort of gloss over. It’s like, Oh yeah, everyone knows the story. Like the bores. And there was a, you know, and then the Spanish came like, you know, w reconquered the country and like kicked out the Moors and we talk about it, like, it was this sort of like, you know, thing that happened for a few weeks. Whereas like for 700 years, this was like part of the Muslim empire at that time. And the number, when you start digging into it, the number of cities, the number of words, the number of buildings, the here in Valencia, for example, it’s a, it’s, it’s almost kinda like the bread basket of Spain, right.
Neville Mehra:
We grow not just the oranges that that are, you know, Valencia is named for vice versa, but a ton of rice. In America, we think of Paella as a Spanish dish, but the Spanish think of it as a Valencian dish. It’s a regional specific thing. All the rice for that grows here just like on the outskirts of the city, there are giant rice patties. It looks like you’re in like Bali. If you just go just even like a tiny bit outside the city, there’s a lot of agriculture and all kinds of fruits and things growing. Reading the history of Spain, it was the Moors that brought that technology of irrigation and turned this area into the bread basket of Spain. The Moors who came and conquered and ran this area for 700 years.
Neville Mehra:
But for us, it’s just like, Oh yeah, there was some period where the, you know, the Moore’s were there. Spanish history is one part of it, but I think there’s certainly a different attitude when it comes towards time in general for kind of famously, right. All the men, yada yada it, it’s interesting to see how it applies to across, across different cultures, because I would say in American culture, if you are, you know, on your way to an appointment or something like that, and maybe you run into a friend the fact that you have a scheduled event, like takes precedence without question, right, that you, you need to go somewhere and that’s your priority. Whereas here if you, if you, you know, run into someone at the grocery store or you happen to know the clerk, or, you know, two people meet each other on the street, those are often long conversations where people just happen to bump into each other.
Neville Mehra:
And that’s just talk for about 20 minutes. And the fact that someone’s got an appointment, or there’s someone waiting in line at the hair salon or whatever, it doesn’t matter. Like the more important thing is keeping that connection going and like not like not being rude to the other person by, by sort of being Curt or short with them. And the, the fact that there’s an appointment, Oh, well, whatever, for 15 minutes late, it’s not the end of the world. I don’t want to upset grandma by not acknowledging her when I bumped into her on the street, just cause I’m running late to something
Francis Tapon:
That’s big. That’s a very popular thing to do in Africa even more. So they take it to another level. It can be frustrating
Neville Mehra:
At times when you’re on the wrong end of that, like you’re running late for something or, you know, you’re next in line. And they’re just having this long conversation, but it does make you kind of stop and question, like, what is really important? Like, so what if I’m 15 minutes late? Like why is that such a big deal relative to the human side of things like honoring the fact that you happen to see this person, right. We talked about gratitude before. It’s, you know, you bump into like a family member or something like that. Maybe you should be, you know, grateful for that, the fact that that happened and they’re still here. Cause you never know. I I’m of two minds about it. Right. We talked about borrowing from different cultures. I tend to be a pretty like scheduled future oriented, go, go, go person. So being here is like a kind of tempers that a little bit. And I, we, we talked a little bit about your books, so the hidden Europe, but you had another book before that hike your own hike. And is there, is there an Africa book coming because you spent, as we said, five and a half years there and traveled all throughout, are you, are you working?
Francis Tapon:
Yeah. And I’m pumping out to those who want to get the chapters. As I write them, I have a Patreon accountant. So just go to Patreon.com/FTapon then you’ll find it. And I send out a chapter at least a chapter a month, usually more. And I’m hoping to get it done by next year. Well, in fact, it has to get done by next year. No question about it. Right now I’m in embroiled in, in, in revising my hidden Europe book, but yeah, there’ll be an Africa book it’s called the unseen Africa and five years of travel to all 54 African countries. And it’s really challenging to write it out. I have to confess because in this politically correct age that we live in saying anything that’s kind of critical of black people can be quickly construed as either racist or bigoted or whatever.
Francis Tapon:
And when I write, I try to write bluntly and honestly, and any culture, any society has shortcomings and, and people have shortcomings. And so I could write about that easily about Eastern Europe and didn’t feel any kind of repercussions, but now as I’m typing, I’m like every single time, like, Ooh, that sentence, that’s, somebody’s going to take that out of context or they’re just going to misunderstand what I’m trying to say. And so it’s just a very frustrating book to write in many ways, because I ha I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, especially, you know, I’m from the United States where we have the whole black lives matter movement and the politically correct movement. And I’m not politically correct. I’m very blunt. And, and yet I’m sensitive to it because I’m from San Francisco, possibly the most politically correct city in America. And it’s so I’m very aware of it. And I think it’s this balance because
Francis Tapon:
For those who are not from politically, correct, they look at me how I’m writing and kind of like I’m kind of waffling or having to re remind people like, look, I understand this. I’m like, why is he writing in such a software? You know, why is he just say it as it is? So it’s just a very challenging book to write in many ways in the end, I’m defaulting to my normal way of talking, which is no . And just tell it like it is. And if you think I’m a racist, well, sorry. And you know, don’t buy my book. So in the end that’s going to be my thing, but I’m trying to not offend the entire planet. So it’s a challenging book to write.
Neville Mehra:
Yeah. Having read your, your previous work. I, yes, it’s certainly blunt, but I think, you know, it’s not, it’s not targeted towards any one group of people so much as everyone like, Hey, I’m going to go to your country. And 90% of it is these are the cool adventures that I had. And what I learned in 10% of this, you know, what’s really frustrating about the Czech Republic. Let’s start with the name.
Francis Tapon:
Yeah. And so, and that’s all fine and good for Eastern Europe, or I can make fun of the Serbs and I can, you know, point out the Albanians and how, you know, or whatever, or the Russians and Ukrainians and, and people will it’s, especially since I kind of do it equally to all of them, like, as you say, but it’s just a different beast when it comes with Africa, if all of a sudden I’m either making fun of them, I’m like, well, they’re poor. And you’re just being starless, . I mean like, like, you know, don’t, you have some compassion. Well, maybe it’s because it’s the white man’s fault. That’s why they’re all up or whatever. It’s just like, it’s, it’s, it’s a much trickier thing if you, if you just, if I wrote the hidden Europe and just replaced it with African country names, I would just get so much shit for it. And in fact, that’s probably what I’m going to do. I mean, it’s just, I’m sorry, but that’s know. I just think it’s something that needs to be, I have a unique perspective. I’m not normal. I just gotta let it hang out.
Neville Mehra:
Yeah. And I think the fact that you’ve been to so many countries, as you said, gives you that, that unique perspective and sort of enables you to make those comparisons, because I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but the way it comes across to me is not, I’m better than you. Here’s why, but rather every place in the world has its idiosyncrasies and it’s fun and interesting to tease them out and sort of look at them as we’ve been doing in this conversation. Right. It’s just that no, one’s here to say that like, Spain is necessarily better or worse than any other country in Europe, but it is different in this, in this particular way. And that’s fascinating.
Francis Tapon:
Right? And, and people are fine with stereotypes of African countries as long as they’re positive stereotypes. So if I say, you know, Africans are so joyful, they love to dance. They have great music. They’re very funny. They have a great sense of humor. They’re patient, they’re generous.
Francis Tapon:
They’re you know, they’re hospitable, nobody’s going to fault you for making any of those generalizations. Everybody’s going to sound like, yes, absolutely. I know that’s great. But if I say they’re lazy , I’m like all of a sudden, boom, that’s going to just like, be a completely different thing versus a, so that’s the irony is that we’re, we’re very we’re very quick to applaud stereotypes that are positive, but if a stereotype is negative, then boy, you can do you’re automatically a bigoted. And so, and yet we all know that a, there are generalities among cultures, there’s generalities between men and women. There’s general oddities between a teenager, what a teenager’s like there’s generalities for everything under the sun. And that’s just reality. And generalities can be positive and they can be negative. And we know that about everything, but somehow in our culture nowadays, we’re so easily triggered that people resist any kind of negative generalities of a cultural group, especially if that cultural group is poor or, you know, a minority or something like that.
Francis Tapon:
That’s when it’s really because if, if I make a generality that people in the Forbes 400, the richest people in America are, you know, selfish, jerks. If I make that negative, well, it’s fine because they’re rich white men. So we can go ahead and insult them as much as we want. But if you, you know, insult a homeless person and saying, you know, Hey, that guy is mentally dry. Who knows what then all of a sudden that’s wrong. So it just, it it’s, it’s, it’s a frustrating world that we live in, in that sense. I think there’s so many benefits to being culturally sensitive and, and, and sensitive to groups that have been persecuted. But at the same time I think we’re often going overboard to the point where we’re shouting out debate and discussion, and we’re quickly resorting to name calling in order to try to humiliate whatever person is trying to make a relatively balanced or objective comment, or at least stir discussion in a kind of non-hostile way. And no matter how delicately you try to put things there’s, there’s a an army of people on the internet who tried to twist that and make you seem like a demon.
Neville Mehra:
I think we have freedom of speech and we sort of talk about it in this kind of like, like we all respect it as this really important, right? But we forget that you don’t need freedom of speech to say kind of, you know, things that everyone agrees with. You only need freedom of speech. If you’re going to say things that are potentially, you know, inflammatory or not, everyone’s going to agree with her that put you in the minority or put you against the people in power or whatever. And so, you know, another reader, myself, even, we may not agree with everything that you say, but I think the fact that you, you know, you should have the right to say that and have your opinion and put that out there and then yeah, let us debate it. Let us consider it, let us say, Hey, this Francis guy wrote this thing and he’s wrong.
Neville Mehra:
And here’s why, or I agree with them. Or he has this take on Malawi. And I think he’s totally off base. You know, I lived in Malawi for 30 years and here’s what I think about it. But if you can’t even make the original point, then we can’t have that discussion. If we can only, you know, if we can only say certain things about certain people or certain places, then I think that’s, that’s even more dangerous because those opinions are still there. They’re just hidden. And we can’t discuss them, which is, you know, not, not where we want to be. Again, most importantly, I think you’re in your particular case, right? You’re, you’re even handed with, you know, here’s, what’s wrong with your country gets applied to many different countries as you travel the world. What about back home in America? Are there things that, you know, a lot of us who do long-term travel like this, this idea of reverse culture shock gets discussed, right? Where we spend a lot of time away from home. In your case, you spent five and a half years in Africa and then came back to America where there certain things that I’m sure there were comforts and stuff that were nice to get used to again, but were there other elements where you’re like, this is crazy, what’s wrong with these people? Why do they do it this way? Being back in the U S
Francis Tapon:
It’s probably. Yeah, no, there are things, I mean, I suppose I saw a lot more things better through the eyes of my wife. Cause she comes from the Sarah desert and you know, a place that has no electricity, no running water. She had to get her, she had to walk a good distance to get water from a well, and she comes to America and she’s just surprised by the amount of go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go mentality. They have. And you yourself confessed that you kind of suffer from that as well. And I certainly do too. Cause we, you and I grew up in this kind of go, go, go environment. And I don’t necessarily say it’s a bad thing. It’s just a characteristic. It’s just a feature and there are some benefits to it. Obviously we’re a very productive society.
Francis Tapon:
We, you know, come up with all sorts of inventions and, and, and we’ve developed medicines and we’ve developed agricultural techniques to feed nearly 8 billion people. You know, these are all good things and there’s the downside is, you know, it’s a, double-edged short, so we have a society that can be sometimes so future-focused, or at best its present focus that, you know, we just, we just don’t have time to, it’s kind of sometimes slow down and smell the roses, which goes way back to the beginning of our conversation, which is walking, hiking in the widow wilderness without any kind of connection to technology to have to give yourself a break and to kind of slow down that, that vigorous, vigorous pace that Americans have. And so I don’t, you know, it’s a, it’s a quirky thing about the U S culture, but I think it, and we’re not the only ones have it. I’ve never been to China, but I’ve imagined the Chinese are also pretty go-go goals. And certainly in Japan you’ll see that. So there are certain societies that have that. I think Europe in general, if we were to generalize has a kind of more of a balance with the Northern Europeans being a bit more go, go, go, which you kind of alluded to before. So I guess that’s probably the thing that would stand out the most is just our productive nonstop culture, which is, I mean, nonstop work.
Neville Mehra:
I certainly agree there. I think just a prioritization of work in general, right. Work is so heavily intertwined with our egos and I don’t mean ego in the sense of like, I think I’m better than everyone else, but just our sense of who we are. Growing up in the East coast, specifically in DC, the stereotype is that we always ask, what do you do as the first question? Even if someone from like DC moves to California, the joke is supposedly the California is, are gonna make fun of the person for always asking like, Hey, what do you do as the first thing? Not only am I guilty of that or was I guilty of that growing up, but the idea that, that wouldn’t be your first question, right? Didn’t even occur to me that like you would ask that.
Neville Mehra:
And obviously not as like a ten-year-old, but as like a 25 year old, for example, where everybody’s so career and status driven on the East coast, the idea that like anything other than like your job would be sort of a way to define who you are. It was just almost an anathema to me at that point. We in America, I think also suffer from this like American centric view of the world where we see everything that’s revolving around us because in many ways, geopolitically that’s true. And in some ways, culturally with Hollywood and things like that, but there’s just, you know, there’s billions and billions of people out there around the rest of the world who just, they’re just there. They don’t love him or hate America. They’re just indifferent. They’re just living their life in their own place. And we sort of have like projected this idea that like everybody in Uganda is sitting around and thinking about us all day, one way or the other, which item from, from your child was, I’m sure you’ve experienced is often not the case.
Neville Mehra:
Not never, but just often not it’s just, people have their own, you know, I got to go get water today. I’m not worried about, you know, what this president said or what’s going on in this country or whatever. I think we also, we tend to think of ourselves as like, you know, America’s the greatest country in the world and you know, that’s fine, right? I think everyone can be patriotic wherever they’re from, but we sometimes lose sight of the fact that other countries are better at different things and it’s not better overall just, you know, we all have strengths and weaknesses. I think America’s absolute though, are what we talked about at the beginning. Comfort. If you want to sit in like an air conditioned SUV with cushy seats and a drive to the Costco and have to walk the minimum distance outside between the parking space and the door of the store, walk into the store and be treated as a King customer service and go back home and just have everything be as comfortable, convenient and customer focused as possible. Those three Japan definitely has amazing customer service, but those three customer service, comfort and convenience, I think America is like, you know, above the rest of the world, hands down, if those are your priority.
Francis Tapon:
Yeah, no, that’s definitely true. It definitely stands out and the, on those metrics for sure. It, you know, it amazes rejoice for example, that, you know, you can buy something and then return it. Even though you’ve used it, she’s just like in Africa and you buy something, even if you re try to return it new in the box, shrink, wrapped, they’ll still say like, Nope, you bought it. You keep it. Yeah.
Neville Mehra:
That is a definite difference with, I think most of the world, although our American sort of corporate culture is certainly spreading and you see more and more that sort of Costco style to use the same example around the world. I think we’re, we’re close to wrapping up, but I would be remiss if I didn’t ask what’s next. I mean, we talked about all the crazy adventures that you’ve had so far, and, and I know you’re working on the unseen Africa book, but where do you go from here
Francis Tapon:
East and West Asia? So Western central Asia, should I say is my next trip? That’s my big project that I unfortunately right now, because of COVID-19, I’m a bit unable to travel and also I’ve want to finish my book. So I should have finished my book by now, but anyway, that’s another story, but the trip is to go from Pakistan all the way out to Israel and see all the stones in between. And the whole Gulf States see all that there’s roughly 25 countries in that region. And I’m, you know, basically diving into the heart of Islam cause that’s the kind of the shared thread throughout all those countries. And after that would be going to East Asia. So to go from India all the way out to, you know, the Philippines and in Japan and that kind of stuff. And I would include Siberia, I suppose, and Mongolia and Southeast Asia. And then the third big trip would be to buy a boat and go to the islands specifically the Oceana. So all the Pacific ocean islands, including Australia and New Zealand. So those that’s the three big trips that I have planned out for this 2020s. And that should finish up most of the world for me. And maybe I’ll see some Caribbean islands I haven’t seen. And just as a handful of other countries, like in South America, I’ve, haven’t been to like five countries in South. So then
Francis Tapon:
That will kind of complete the tour and then the world will end for me. No, I have no idea what, after that, who knows? Well, I’ll be doing after that, but that’s the
Neville Mehra:
Given your history. I wouldn’t be surprised if you went back and did them all again, in the reverse order or something like that.
Francis Tapon:
Yeah, I know. Yeah. Who knows what I’ll be feeling by then, but know I might, you know, I might surprise people and just become normal. Finally. I might get a real corporate job somewhere and just like settle down.
Neville Mehra:
No, I was gonna say, I think it would be retirement age by the time at the pace that you travel, which is quite a leisurely pace by the time you hit all of those countries on those various trips. I, I think it’ll be at least a couple of decades from now.
Francis Tapon:
Yeah, yeah. But maybe I’ll maybe I’ll have a blown through my retirement money and now all of a sudden have nothing left. And so therefore I’ll have to be a 65 year old who actually has to work, but that will be fine if, if, if I have to work at 65, I mean, like, I wasn’t sure I would even, Oh, I still not sure if I’m going to get to 65. And so, you know, I, I, I thought to myself, okay, well, I have no idea how long I’m going to live and have you, by the way, had any of your classmates died already and you have people you grew up with your age group.
Neville Mehra:
Yeah. I mean, fortunately and unfortunately, right. I haven’t lost any of my closest friends, but there are people who I knew kind of growing up in school and things like that who who’ve passed on. And it’s that’s an eye opener, isn’t it? Yeah. That’s what I was about to say. It was a fortunately it’s just like, yeah, it reminds you how fragile life is and how none of us. I mean, I’m, I turned 37 yesterday and yeah. That’s, I mean, every, every day is a, is not guaranteed. Right?
Francis Tapon:
Yeah. I remember this, the first one that I distinctly remember was a kid in high school and he got leukemia and he died at like 16 years old or 15 years old, something like that. Then I remember in college, one of my closest friends in college hung himself suicide. Okay. So maybe that’s not appropriate as a, as an analogy. Cause there, it was purposeful, but he died. And then in business school, when I went to Harvard, there was this guy who got brain cancer, like a five or 10 years after he graduated and died from brain cancer at younger than you dude, like 35 years old or something like that. And he died of brain cancer. And just things like that happen and let alone, you know, the random accidents and things like that. It’s, it’s, that’s what I think motivates me to you know, live the richest life that I can live now and, you know, project maybe no more than five years in the future, because you may not get five years. You may not even get five hours. So, but, but I think five years is a good metric because it’s enough time to like, not be too obsessed with every moment of life
Francis Tapon:
And allow yourself to have some space. But at the same time, I think it’s a mistake when people just assume that they’ll make it to 70 or 80 years old, that’s also kind of a dangerous thing. I’m going to leave your audience with one final thought of regarding cause your podcast is called Never Normal. And that could have been the title of my first book, which is called hike, your own hike, seven life lessons from backpacking across America. And the idea of hike your own hike is the same thing as Never Normal. In other words, I think in society, we have a tendency to focus on what the rest of society is doing expectations and things like that. And the idea of hiking your own hike. It’s a phrase that we use on the Appalachian trail, which is listen to what other people think about or what they’re doing.
Francis Tapon:
That kind of stuff, get advice, but ultimately listen to your soul, listen to your values and don’t deny them so that you hike the way you want to hike. People will say about, you know, you got to wear different shoes or no, you got to have a different type of backpack or, you know, you got to walk faster, you got to walk slower, you can listen to those advices and you can even incorporate, but ultimately stay true to who you are and hike your own hike. And which has quite a similar message as your message, which is Never Normal and be true. But I think too many people often get obsessed about what the rest of society thinks and it takes, and as a result, they deny aspects of themselves objectives that they want to do. And it’s sad.
Francis Tapon:
In my case, for example, I went to Harvard business school. The expectation was that as an MBA, you’re going to go out there and work on wall street, make a lot of money and or, or any kind of company, fortune 500 company and do a lot of money. And I just thought to myself, I want to hike my own hike. I don’t, I, yes. I know the expectations that everybody who are in my class have of me and my parents have of me, but I wanted to stay true to what I really want to do with in life. And that’s what I did. And if I hope I’ve inspired some people who are listening to this or watching this to not crush that side of themselves, and instead to keep listening to your podcast and maybe get inspired that, Hey, don’t be afraid to do what you actually love to do.
Neville Mehra:
I couldn’t say it better myself. That’s, that’s exactly why I’m doing this. Not because any of these people who I’m interviewing yourself included have lived the perfect life and you should copy them, but just to show all the options that are out there and, you know, as you said, hike your own hike, be Never Normal. And I think the more we, the more we travel the world, the more we really discover ourselves and who we really are. And we shed all of that kind of baggage that we’ve picked up along the way of other people’s expectations and society and culture, and just open ourselves to the world of all the possibilities that are out there. And I think it’s experience at all and enjoy Francis, thank you so much for coming on and sharing that message and telling us some of the lessons and stories from your travels. I we’ll link to everything in the show notes, your books, we’ll be looking forward to the Africa book. And I didn’t even know about the Patreon, so that’s cool. I’m going to sign up for that so it can read it as it comes out. I don’t even have to wait for the wait for it to be officially published, but as I said, we’ll link to all of that and everybody go check it out.
Francis Tapon:
And one last thing also, I’ve done three TEDx talks. And so you might want to link to that or those who are listening, just search for my name under TEDx, under YouTube, and you’ll see the three TEDx talks and that might also be useful for some people.
Neville Mehra:
Awesome. Again, I’ll link to all of that Francis. Thank you so much for joining. I look forward to continuing to follow your adventures around the world.
Francis Tapon:
Thank you so much, Neville.