William A conversation between Bob and Bill, the creator of the Where Have You Been (WHYB) podcast. Bill explains that his show focuses on the personal stories and life-enriching experiences of travelers rather than just logistical tips and tricks. He shares his own late-blooming passion for travel, which was sparked only ten years ago by his wife, and discusses his upcoming 24-hour journey to New Zealand to visit his daughter. The two delve into the cultural significance of travel, comparing it to the way people in St. Louis use high school affiliations to quickly understand someone’s background. WHYB? https://youtube.com/live/sFVDiDvg_x8 Bad AI Transcript Hey everybody, welcome to a conversation with Bill from the Where Have You Been podcast or WHYB podcast. So where have you been? For a minute there, I was thinking just WHYB and I know that's not the name of the show. So it's kind of interesting the way it works out that way, WHYB. Yeah, I've had people try to tell me I should push it that way, and I feel like that would just confuse people more than I already confuse people. And at WHYB podcast on most of the socials, I guess, right? Yeah, pretty much everywhere. Oh, good. We're just going to get these things out of the way. We'll hit them again later, but I always like to just start off with that. So people, you know, they're like, I don't really want to listen to Bob.
Bill's the interesting one. Let's just go listen to him directly and just forget this whole Bob situation. So then they're all set, right? So they don't have to think about anything. That'll do. So, Bill, why are you asking people where they've been? Are you the government? Officially, no. But unofficially, I guess someday you'll see. Honestly, it's something that, you know, obviously… Well, maybe not everyone knows, but you were also a guest on my podcast as well. That's how we met. And I wasn't sure if you knew that. So now you do. Honestly, it's just something that I have a passion for travel. I've had a passion for travel for many years and just found that having conversations with other people who are passionate about travel just turn into very long conversations and they're very enjoyable. And so I thought, well, I have a radio background. Maybe we turn this into something fun.
Oh, yeah. There you go. Look at that. I'm being all fancy here. So this is your website here. Where have you been? Yeah, no, that's fun, though. I mean, it is interesting that, you know, sometimes people ask that question, but not all the time, right? So some people really aren't interested in where people have been, but honestly, it tells you a little bit about the person, don't you think? Whenever you find out, you know, if this person's been to certain places, doesn't it kind of like, Oh wait, this, you know, puts them in a little, and I don't want to say categorizes people, but it certainly gives you an idea about them perhaps. Yeah, for sure. And I think that you and I may have even touched on this when we talked before that really travel, I think really kind of opens your eyes to,
what's really out there in the world and really can enrich your life in so many ways. And so when you find out that someone has traveled around, you know, even if it's just around the U.S. or whatever, it's still I think it does. It does tell you something about somebody. A, they've got they've had some funds to be able to travel. No, that's not what we're looking for. But yeah, it really does kind of tell you something about somebody, I think. And it doesn't mean that someone who hasn't traveled doesn't have that. had some enrichment in their life or some fulfillment but it's just a completely different thing once you actually do it if you enjoy it well but the other thing would be not so much not, but you, then you find out, well, they don't like to travel. Maybe they're like, no, I don't want to travel anywhere. I don't, I just stay home. And so then that, that says something as well. Right. So, um, not that there's anything bad with it. It's just, you know it everybody's uh
you know, kind of personalities are all different. And so all these things help make up your personality in St. I'm from, I'm in St. Louis, Missouri. And one of the, one of the weird things about St. Louis, I'm not originally from St. Louis, but I moved here when I was, you know, out of college. The, one of the things that people always ask people from St. Louis who grew up here is where did you go to high school? And they ask that question because then it gives them an immediate, huge amount of information on that person. Because depending on where you went to high school and depending on what era now, it's becoming less and less relevant, but it was very relevant for people my age. And it gives the person who you're talking to, okay, now we know you went to the county school. We know you went to a city school. We know you went to a private school.
And so then it kind of shapes the conversation because then you go, oh, then maybe you know this person or that person or whatever. And so the travel question is kind of a similar setup, right? So you ask the person about that. You're like, well, for me, I'm like, well, I've traveled mostly domestically, right? So then you go, oh, have you been here? Have you been there? And it's like an almost immediate narrowing of topic areas for you, which, so you don't have to sit there and go, well, you know, it snowed last week. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'll be honest with you though. Most of the people that I talk to, well, especially, especially when, with the podcast, I don't talk to a lot of people who, uh, has, who says, uh, I traveled once or twice and I just didn't really like it. That would be a very short podcast episode, but you know, I'm sure that there's people out there that that's happened. Um, a thousand percent. Um,
My mom was one of those. She she enjoyed she enjoyed vehicular travel, did not care for airplane travel whatsoever. And so she was very limited. But so I guess I'm not really tying that together because she did, I guess, enjoy travel to some degree. But she just didn't really want to do the long range travel, you know. So is this recently or in the past? Because I think airline. airline travel has changed drastically over the last 20 years. Yeah, it didn't matter. It didn't matter. But then, you know, my dad, who's still alive, God bless him. He doesn't really care about travel either. Like we used to take the family trips when we were young. We used to do Florida. I grew up in Western New York. So we would go to Florida every winter for a week or two or whatever. And in the summertime or spring, we would go to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. And that was basically it, unless we were going to see family somewhere.
And my dad's somebody who just, I don't think he, you know, he might go see his brother down in Texas or wherever he's at now. But again, it's, that's a trip to see family, not a trip to travel. And so. That's interesting. And that makes a difference as well. Right. So because I think, I don't know, statistically, I can't answer this question, but I think families are more dispersed nowadays, like say in the 21st century here. than they were in the 20th century. And so there becomes a lot of travel just to see family because you don't get to see them regularly. Like before where everybody was each other's neighbors and everything. So that could be a change as well. And for some people like myself who are very lucky and blessed, you have family who lives in New Zealand, which is where I'm heading actually in a couple of weeks to see my daughter finally. Oh, wow. That's right. Yeah. She's a Kiwi. She's a Kiwi then.
I think you and I talked about it. I wanted to try to get there. Well, now I'm actually going. So thank goodness. Wow. Now, how long a flight is that? Start to finish from Pittsburgh, which is where I'm based. It's about 24 hours each way with layovers and such. So where are you going to bounce from? Like, where do you go? Which is the points of switching or at least waiting? Well, they are located in Wellington. So I'll bounce to Dallas and then it's straight from Dallas to Auckland, which is at the very upper tip of the North Island coast. And then a little, just a quick flight from the tip to the southernmost part of the North Island. Yeah, there's a show called Wellington Paranormal. I've heard of it. You should check it out. Maybe I should before I go, yeah. Yeah, just in case. That way you can avoid some nastiness down there in Wellington because it's a comedy show. Yeah.
But that's a long way to go from Dallas all the way to Auckland. You'd think they would break it up somewhere in the middle. I guess there's no real place to break it up. Not really, I don't think. No, I think it is what it is, man. You're going to load up in Texas and then be on the plane forever. Yeah, I just feel bad for those around me. I've got to find something to stop my snoring. So do you sleep on the plane? I guess you do. I would never. I have a hard time. I typically don't. No, I typically don't. So the longest trip I think I took, I've been to Europe a handful of times, but I feel like the longest flight, maybe it was just because it was my first ever international flight, was to Athens. And I did not sleep on the flight. And I had a really rough go.
Because we only had like one day in Athens and then we were taken off for Santorini. And we walked and walked and walked and it was hot. And we wound up in a museum near the Acropolis or whatever it was. And I literally fell asleep standing up. Oh, no. Yeah, literally fell asleep standing up. And it was time to go get some coffee after that. Oh, my gosh. I've never done that before or again. That's wild. Yeah, I've never. I got to try planes either. I'm, I'm alw
