What makes the perfect vacation?

Is it the destination? The hotel? The food? The activities?

Or could it have more to do with understanding what kind of traveler you are?

In this Season 2 finale of Explorations All Over, I sit down with travel advisor Dee Koger to explore how our personalities, preferences, and travel styles shape the vacations we choose—and the memories we bring home.

Our conversation covers everything from family travel and multigenerational vacations to cruises, independent travel, and the questions Dee asks her clients before recommending a destination. Along the way, we discuss why two people can take the exact same trip and have completely different experiences, and why your favorite travel memory may reveal more about your ideal vacation than your bucket list ever could.

Whether you work with a travel advisor or plan every detail yourself, this conversation may change the way you think about travel planning.

Thank you for joining me throughout Season 2. From Christmas Markets and Antarctica to Ancient Faiths, Uganda, French Polynesia, Turkey, and now this conversation with Dee, it's been an incredible journey.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode and whether you'd like to hear more conversations like this in future seasons.

Connect with Explorations All Over on Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to follow the podcast so you don't miss the adventures ahead when Season 3 launches this September.

Because the best journeys begin long before we ever leave home.

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In this immersive episode of Explorations All Over: Far Flung Adventures, Russ takes you from the streets of Istanbul to the skies over Cappadocia, through the ancient city of Ephesus and into the everyday moments that ultimately changed how he and Duncan viewed Turkey — and perhaps how they saw travel itself.

Featuring:
• the sounds of Istanbul’s call to prayer
• bustling spice markets and hidden neighborhoods
• hot air balloons rising over Cappadocia at sunrise
• underground cities, ancient mosaics and Ephesus
• unforgettable meals and unexpected human connection
• and field recordings captured in the moment throughout the journey

This isn’t just a story about Turkey.

It’s about what happens when you challenge your assumptions and step into a place you don’t fully understand.

Because sometimes the trips we almost don’t take…
become the ones we never forget.

🎧 Companion visuals and videos from the trip can be found on the Explorations All Over YouTube channel (coming soon!)

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For many trips, I’ve traveled with a purpose.

I wanted to learn something.
Understand something.
Come home with a story that explained not just where I went — but why it mattered.

French Polynesia was different.

This wasn’t a trip about meaning or growth.
It wasn’t about checking boxes or chasing experiences.

It was about letting go.

In this episode of Explorations All Over, I share what it felt like to slow down in one of the most beautiful places on earth — floating in crystal-clear water, swimming alongside reef sharks, diving coral reefs, and stepping inside those iconic overwater bungalows you see in photos and wonder if they’re even real.

But I also talk about something else.

How easy it is to miss the moment while trying to capture it.
How travel doesn’t always have to change you.
And how sometimes the most meaningful journeys are the ones that ask nothing of you at all.

If you’ve ever felt the need to make every trip “count,” this episode might just give you permission to travel a little differently.

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Travel reviews are everywhere.

Five stars. One star. Glowing praise. Brutal criticism.

But what do those ratings actually mean?

In this episode of Explorations All Over, Russ steps away from a destination story and looks at something almost every traveler relies on when planning a trip: review sites.

Drawing on nearly two decades of experience as a bed & breakfast and boutique hotel owner—and as someone who has written nearly 1,100 reviews himself—Russ explains how to read travel reviews in a way that actually helps you make better decisions.

Because star ratings rarely measure quality alone.

More often, they measure something else entirely: fit.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why a five-star review can still lead to a disappointing experience
• How to identify patterns that matter in hotel and restaurant reviews
• The red flags that can signal questionable or unreliable reviews
• Why it’s important to speak up during a stay if something goes wrong
• How businesses respond to feedback—and what that tells you
• Why different travelers can leave completely different reviews of the same place

Russ also shares a recent dining experience that perfectly illustrates how two guests can walk away from the same restaurant with entirely different impressions—and how those differences show up in the reviews we read online.

The takeaway?

Read the reviews.

Just don’t let the stars decide for you.

Let them help you ask better questions.

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Russ loves hearing from listeners and often responds directly.

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Subscriber-only episodes are available starting at just $3 per month, giving you access to additional stories and deeper travel experiences.

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Uganda isn’t usually the first place people imagine when they think about Africa.

For us, it became one of the most humbling experiences of our travels.

In this episode of Explorations All Over, we journey into the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest for a mountain gorilla trek — an experience that demanded patience, effort, and a willingness to give up control. There were no guarantees we would see anything at all.

The climb was steep. The forest was dense. And the rules were simple: move slowly, speak softly, and remember whose world we were entering.

What followed wasn’t a safari moment or a wildlife spectacle. It was something quieter — a brief encounter spent at eye level with another living being, and the realization that we were not the only ones doing the watching.

If this episode stays with you, I’d love to hear from you. You can connect with Explorations All Over on Facebook and Instagram, or leave a comment wherever you listen.

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Ancient Faiths, Modern Worlds is not an episode about geopolitics or theology.
It’s about what happens when travel quietly reshapes the way we see belief, belonging, and one another.

In this episode of Explorations All Over, I take you through sacred spaces across cultures and continents — from the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Masada, Vietnam, Antarctica, and Dubai. Along the way, I found myself unsettled, humbled, and unexpectedly changed.

Standing barefoot on cool marble, listening to prayers spoken in unfamiliar languages, I recognized something deeply familiar. The words were different. The cadence was different. But the intention wasn’t.

This journey confronts contrast:
ancient faith and modern conflict,
certainty and compromise,
vastness and excess,
humility and control.

It’s a story about moments that stayed with me long after the journey ended — the wall surrounding Bethlehem, the scent of frankincense, the quiet of Antarctica, the abundance of Dubai — and how they reshaped the way I hear prayer and think about faith.

I didn’t come away with answers.
But I did come away listening more closely.

Because in the end, there is far more that unites us than divides us — and that might be the only thing that really matters.

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Antarctica isn’t a place most people plan to visit.
And that’s exactly why this episode isn’t about planning a trip.

In this episode of Explorations All Over, I reflect on what happens when you step into an environment that doesn’t accommodate you — where scale breaks your sense of proportion, silence carries weight, and life unfolds without regard for human presence.

From misjudging the size of distant icebergs, to standing still as whale spray appears on the horizon… from kayaking at eye level with dolphins, to realizing how thin the margin of comfort really is — this isn’t a checklist of sights, but a meditation on awe, vulnerability, and return.

Because even if you never go to Antarctica, you’ve felt versions of this before:
that moment when the world feels bigger than you… and you come back changed.

This episode is about why we travel at all — not to escape life, but to re-enter it with clearer eyes.

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In the Glow of Christmas is the first episode of Explorations All Over Season 2—and the beginning of a more immersive way of traveling together.

Rather than focusing on schedules or daily itineraries, this episode invites you into the atmosphere of Europe’s Christmas markets along the Rhine. From the warmth of mulled wine cradled in your hands to the glow of lights reflected on cobblestone streets, this journey is about how the season feels—and why these moments linger long after the trip ends.

As I travel through cities like Cologne and into the heart of the Black Forest, I share the sensory details, quiet observations, and unexpected reflections that made this experience so meaningful. You’ll hear not just where we went, but how it felt to be there—wandering through markets, tasting familiar flavors, and soaking in the sounds and rhythms of the season.

This episode marks a shift for Season 2 of Explorations All Over: travel as lived experience, not just a recap of where we went and what we did. Along the way, I’ll still share helpful insights and lessons learned—both the wins and the moments that didn’t go quite as planned.

So grab a warm drink, settle in, and join me in the glow of Christmas.

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