A: So Dan we're talking about your travels and living overseas, and you havea concept you call slow travel. Can you explain what slow travel is?
丹,我们来谈谈你在海外旅行和生活的经历,你的观念是“慢旅行”。你能解释一下什么是慢旅行吗?
B: Yeah, I mean especially maybe because I'm a blogger, we're always seekingto define things in unique ways. And there's a lot of terms out there. There'sexpat; people that have left their native country. There's backpacker, which issomeone who tries to keep their cost very low and they're continually movingfrom place to place. There's flash packer, which is a term that means you stillhave income from somewhere and you have more tech and toys, and you stay atmaybe nicer hotels. But what I did was always a little bit different, which is Iwould go and get long term leases or medium term leases at apartments. So Iwould go and get a house or an apartment in a place for anywhere from one to sixmonths, and enjoy what it feels like to actually live somewhere. And that to meis so exciting, you know. Although the sights and everything are cool, andhanging out with tourists can be fun, I much prefer to go down to the localcafé, open up my laptop, talk to the people that are working there, and reallyget a sense for what it's like to live in a city. And over the course of mycareer what that's looked like is you really develop a deep connection with theplaces that you live in. You might hire people there. You have really goodfriends there. One of the downsides of being a tourist is that you never reallycan develop friendships. And so what I found is that I go back to revisit a lotof the places that I once lived because I have lifelong friendships there. Sothat to me has really been the benefit of slow travel and I have a theory aboutfriendship. I think, you know, really you can't go to place for just one month.People won't invest their time in you. So if at least you're going to stay in aplace for three to four months, I think that's sort of the turning point with alot of people and they'll say, "Hey, yeah, you know what, let's go try to befriends. Let's go out and do something together."
A: So Dan, you're talking about slow travel and you're saying that basicallyyou go and just live in a place. And I think a lot of people would be reallyhesitant to do that. I mean, that sounds exciting but it's like a really bigstep. How would you convince somebody to do this type of lifestyle?
B: Well, the first thing is to get connected on the blogosphere with a lot ofother people who are doing it because I think that once you see other peopledoing it, the mystery comes away and you realize hey, this is something that Icould do. This is achievable for me. So I call that like a precedent caseanalysis. If you can see some other guys doing it and you can relate with them,not such a big deal anymore. The next thing is like I always try to go somewherewhere I have a project. I think it's a great way to really get engaged becauseit's so easy just to go to a place, get a short term apartment, and then go toStarbucks, and then that could just be your life. Whereas, you know, when wecame here to Bali, we decided that we're going to set up a house and we're goingto invite interns over. And we're going to meet entrepreneurs from all aroundthe world and that's why we're going to Bali because Bali is the place thateverybody wants to go. If you mention Bali to somebody, they're like, "I wouldlove to go to Bali someday." And that's great for meeting people so that's whywe came here. My last location in the Philippines, I went there with a projectto hire people because I knew it was a great place to hire people. A placebefore that in Vietnam, I decided that I wanted to do investments in Vietnam.It's a great place to put capital. Of course, that was before the financialcrisis so that didn't work out for so long. But I find it the idea of having aproject gets you engaged. For me as a business person, I've never gone somewhereand not hire somebody there. And that act in and of itself helps me to getengaged. Now, if you're not a business person, a lot of people would come to aplace like Bali and say, "I'm going to learn how to surf or I'm going to learnhow to cook local Indonesian food or I'm going to learn the language." Thosekinds of projects I think are really useful for the slow travel concept. Andthey're a unique opportunity because if you're a tourist, you don't have time toset up a business or to learn the language and that's the unique opportunity forthe slow traveler.