Unpacked by Afar | Travel Smarter, More Responsibly

Latest Episodes:

Dubai Food Tips From the Chefs Who Know It Best Oct 21, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to episode three of a four-part Unpacked series on Dubai travel, this time focused on Dubai food: how a city long known for celebrity chefs and global concepts has grown a homegrown food scene with a flavor all its own.

Guest host Nicola Chilton first sits down with Kathy Johnston, Chief Chocolate Officer of Mirzam, the Dubai-born, bean-to-bar chocolate company celebrating its 10th birthday. Johnston explains how Mirzam ties its recipes to the region’s spice-trade history, from a maps and monsters collection inspired by the tall tales traders told on Dubai Creek to a mango bar built around the monsoon trade with India and an Emirati range featuring halwa and aseeda. She also talks about sourcing more ingredients locally as farming grows in the UAE, and shares her own picks for where to eat in Dubai.

In the second half, Nicola talks with Mohammad Orfali, the chef behind Orfali Bros Bistro, which opened in 2021 and holds a Michelin star. Orfali, who grew up in Aleppo, Syria, and moved to Dubai in 2006, walks through the pandemic-era opening, how a too-fancy burger became a local favorite, why he calls his cooking “Dubai cuisine,” and how locally grown produce is changing the way chefs cook, a useful listen for anyone planning a food and travel trip to the city.

One more episode is still to come, on Dubai’s culture and creative community, and every episode is filmed in the same Dubai studio, so you can watch as well as listen on YouTube.

THIS WEEK'S GUESTS

Kathy Johnston is Chief Chocolate Officer of Mirzam, a bean-to-bar chocolate maker founded in 2016, with a factory, café, and boutique in Al Quoz, Dubai.

Mohammad Orfali is the chef and co-owner of Orfali Bros, Three Bros, and Manao. Born in Aleppo, Syria, and based in Dubai since 2006, he opened Orfali Bros Bistro in 2021 with his two brothers. It holds a Michelin star and ranks No. 1 on the Middle East & North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants list, according to World’s 50 Best.

PLAN YOUR OWN DUBAI TRIP

Start with these Afar resources on Dubai food and what to do: a guide to the city’s evolving food scene and how to spend four days in Dubai, according to locals.

Where to eat, what to try, and Dubai food worth seeking out from this episode:

Mirzam Chocolate Makers — Kathy Johnston’s factory, café, and boutique in Al Quoz. Try the date and fennel bar, a thin dark chocolate shell filled with locally grown dates and fennel seeds, or the best-selling Emirati range, with bars inspired by traditional desserts.
Halwa — a hot, spiced Emirati dessert traditionally made in enormous copper bowls, which Johnston calls “a hot mochi jelly with all of the spices and nuts in the kitchen that you could find.”
Orfali Bros Bistro — Mohammad Orfali’s Michelin-starred neighborhood bistro, open since 2021 and built on what he calls “freedom of cooking.”
Middle Child — Johnston’s pick for cozy, produce-driven food from a chef who grew up in Lebanon.
Khadak — Johnston’s pick for South Indian food from two chefs who work with local farms and chefs.

CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Welcome to Dubai Food 00:05:00 Mangoes, Monsoons, and Honey 00:08:00 Insider Picks and Emirati Sweets 00:14:30 Orfali Bros Opens Its Doors 00:21:00 Freedom of Cooking 00:25:30 Fresh Produce and What’s Next

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A Marine Biologist, a Kuku Yalanji Guide, and the Real Story Behind Two UNESCO Sites in North Queensland Oct 16, 2026

Show notes

In a new ongoing series, Afar is asking a deceptively simple question: What does a UNESCO World Heritage designation actually do? This episode starts in North Queensland, Australia, home to two UNESCO sites that sit side by side: the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics, which includes the Daintree Rainforest.

First, host Aislyn Greene talks with Dr. Eric Fisher, a marine biologist and Biology Manager at GBR Biology, about why Great Barrier Reef snorkeling remains the most direct way to connect with a reef system that’s home to more than 600 kinds of coral, six of the world’s seven sea turtle species, and more than 1,500 species of fish.

Fisher explains how a 1960s-70s campaign to stop oil mining on the reef led to the 1975 Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act and, eventually, the reef’s 1981 UNESCO inscription—and why the reef has spent over a decade at the center of debate over whether it should be listed as “endangered” due to climate change, coral bleaching, and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks.

Fisher also opens up about building GBR Biology, the team of marine biologists and First Nations culture guides who lead guided Great Barrier Reef snorkeling tours for the tourism company Experience Co. (which also owns Reef Magic), and why he believes every traveler should experience the reef in person—ideally more than once, since it changes by the tide, the season, and even the hour.

Then the episode heads inland to the Daintree Rainforest, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988 as part of the Wet Tropics of Queensland.

Juan Walker, owner and head guide of Walkabout Cultural Adventures, discusses growing up on Kuku Yalanji country, teaching Kuku Yalanji language in local schools, and what the Queensland government’s 2021 handback of more than 160,000 hectares to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people has—and hasn’t—meant for his community’s access to traditional land.

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

Dr. Eric Fisher is Biology Manager at GBR Biology, a division of Experience Co. that leads guided Great Barrier Reef snorkeling tours out of Cairns and Port Douglas. A fish ecologist by training, Fisher built GBR Biology’s team of marine biologists and First Nations culture guides after years leading snorkel programs for Reef Magic.

Juan Walker is the owner and head guide of Walkabout Cultural Adventures, which he founded in 2008. Born in Mossman, Queensland, Walker is Kuku Yalanji on his father’s side and Torres Strait Islander on his mother’s side, and teaches Kuku Yalanji language at a local school.

CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Welcome to the Great Barrier Reef 00:03:15 Oil Plans and World Heritage 00:05:45 Endangered or Not? 00:09:05 Guided Snorkel Tours With Eric 00:15:55 Daintree on Kuku Yalanji Country 00:20:40 Is It Really Land Back?

LINKS & RESOURCES

Explore Afar's coverage of North Queensland

Travel with Juan and Eric

GBR Biology—guided Great Barrier Reef snorkeling and reef conservation tours led by Dr. Eric Fisher’s team
Walkabout Cultural Adventures—Juan Walker’s Kuku Yalanji cultural tours in the Daintree
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority—background on reef management and conservation
UNESCO World Heritage List: Great Barrier Reef
UNESCO World Heritage List: Wet Tropics of Queensland

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Dubai Hospitality and the Making of a World-Class Hotel Scene Oct 14, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to episode two of a four-part Unpacked series on Dubai travel, this time focused on Dubai hospitality: how a city with more than 800 hotels and 150,000 rooms built a world-class hotel scene on one of the Arabian Peninsula’s oldest traditions: the welcome.

Guest host Nicola Chilton starts in the desert with Philippe Zuber, CEO of Kerzner International, who oversees eight Dubai hotels, including two Atlantis resorts and three One&Only resorts. Zuber shares his “secret spot” for first-time visitors, the calm kind of desert rather than dune bashing, and explains how the mix of desert, skyline, and sea shapes the travel experiences he recommends. He also talks about the role hotels play in the city’s social life and what it’s like to work alongside colleagues from 200 nationalities.

Then Nicola sits down with Mohammed Kazim, a Dubai-born cultural entrepreneur, who traces Dubai hospitality culture back to Al Wasl, the “connecting point” where trade routes met, and to a three-day welcome code that obliged hosts to shelter and feed any guest without asking questions. It’s why Arabic coffee and dates are still the first thing you’re offered, and why standards at Dubai’s hotels run so high, plus his travel tips for first-time visitors.

Two more episodes, on food and culture, are coming next, and every episode is filmed in the same Dubai studio, so you can watch as well as listen on YouTube. (Listen to the first episode here.)

This week's guests

Philippe Zuber is CEO of Kerzner International, which operates eight hotels in Dubai—including two Atlantis resorts and three One&Only properties—plus 23 more worldwide and 12 in development.

Mohammed Kazim is a Dubai-born cultural entrepreneur and co-founder of Tamashee, a brand reviving traditional Arabian Peninsula sandals through contemporary design, and of Tamashee Experience, a cultural travel business that takes visitors to tribal communities across the region.

Plan your own Dubai trip

First, begin with these essential Afar resources, including the best hotels to book (and why hotels are so much more than a place to stay), a guide to the evolving food scene, and how to spend four days in Dubai, according to locals.

Where to stay, what to do, and what to eat from this episode

Atlantis The Royal—Kerzner's ocean-themed integrated resort, home to a culinary lineup that includes Carbone, Milos, and a breakfast spot ranked among the world's best.
One&Only One Za'abeel—Kerzner's newest urban resort, paired with CYRO, its wellness and longevity concept, for sweeping views of Burj Khalifa.
Bab Al Shams—one of Dubai's oldest desert resorts, about an hour from the city, where visitors are welcomed with Arabic coffee and can try camel rides, horseback riding, and a divine hammam.
Burj Khalifa—the world's tallest building, best experienced in person according to Zuber: "You come to Dubai for that."
The Palm Jumeirah—the world's first handmade island, best viewed from Nobu at Atlantis, The Palm.
Satwa—a lived-in, unpolished neighborhood just behind Downtown Dubai where Zuber says you'll find the "real energy" of the city's 200 nationalities living and working side by side.
Arabic coffee and dates—the traditional greeting rooted in the Arabian Peninsula's hospitality code, served from a dallah, the long-spouted coffee pot pictured on the one-dirham coin.
Tamashee—Mohammed Kazim's brand of contemporary Arabian Peninsula sandals, and Tamashee Experience, his tribal-immersion travel business.
Dubai Creek—where, according to Kazim, the roots of Dubai hospitality culture and the city's modern diversity first took shape.

Chapters

00:00:00 Welcome to Dubai Hospitality 00:02:00 Desert, Skyline, and Sea 00:09:00 Al Wasl's Three-Day Code 00:14:30 Coffee, Dates, and the Dallah 00:17:00 How Hotels Raised the Bar 00:19:00 Tamashee and the Creek

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Dubai Travel Tips From a Longtime Resident and a Native Emirati Chef Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

Welcome to episode one of a four-part Unpacked series on Dubai travel: the history, the ambition, and the glamorous, multicultural city it's become today.

In this episode, host Aislyn Greene and the Dubai-based travel writer Nicola Chilton set the stage: They walk through how a fishing village and pearling outpost became one of the fastest-changing cities on Earth—and what it's actually like on the ground today.

Halfway through, Aislyn hands the mic to Nicola—who will host the remaining three episodes—for a conversation with her longtime friend, Sahar Parham Al Awadhi, an Emirati chef born and raised in Dubai.

They take a deeper dive into the city's history along Dubai Creek: the abra boats, the spice trade, and the neighborhoods where "old Dubai" is still very present.

Together, they set up the rest of this Dubai series: three more episodes on the city's architecture, food, and culture, all filmed in the same studio, so you can watch as well as listen on YouTube.

This week's guests

Nicola Chilton is a UK-born travel writer who has lived in Dubai for more than a decade and will be hosting the rest of this series.

Sahar Parham Al Awadhi is an Emirati chef, the first Emirati chef at the Jumeirah Burj Al Arab, and the founder of Abra, a new restaurant inside Dubai’s Etihad Museum.

Plan your own Dubai trip

Where to stay, what to do, and what to eat from this episode

Jumeirah Beach — base yourself here for easy access to Dubai’s best hotels, restaurants, and free public beaches.
Jumeirah Marsa Al Arab — opened just over a year ago, directly across from the iconic Burj Al Arab.
Al Maha, a Luxury Collection Desert Resort — about an hour from the coast, inside the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve, where gazelles and Arabian oryx wander past your private plunge pool.
Dubai Creek — hop an abra, the little wooden boats that cross between Bur Dubai and Deira, for about 30 cents.
Al Fahidi historical neighborhood and Al Shindagha Museum — Bur Dubai’s restored old neighborhoods, now galleries, cafés, and museum houses.
Karak tea — Dubai’s ubiquitous, inexpensive spiced milk tea, best bought roadside from a canteen window.
Abra — Sahar Parham Al Awadhi’s new restaurant inside the Etihad Museum⁠, built around “new Emirati cuisine.”
XVA Hotel — a boutique stay inside a heritage house near Dubai Creek, with its own gallery and café.
Arabian Boutique Hotel — another heritage-building stay near the water, home to Arabian Fish House.
One&Only One Za’abeel — for skyline views from one of Dubai’s newest towers.
Hatta — a mountainous exclave about 90 minutes from the city, popular with residents for hiking, mountain biking, and kayaking.

Chapters

00:00:00 Welcome to Dubai 00:03:00 From Bangkok to Eleven Years In 00:06:00 After the Spring Unrest 00:08:00 Beaches, Desert Camps, and Mountains 00:14:00 Enter Sahar Parham Al Awadhi 00:19:00 Reviving Emirati Cuisine

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The Australia Spa Road Trip That Won Over a Wellness Skeptic Sep 23, 2026

Show notes

Afar contributing writer Emma John road-trips the Great Victorian Bathing Trail, uncovering the best spa towns in Victoria, Australia—from thermal springs on the coast to century-old bathhouses inland.

A traditional spa vacation was never Emma John's thing—she needs to be on the move to relax. So when she set out to explore Victoria Australia spas along the newly opened Great Victorian Bathing Trail, she brought her road trip instincts with her: 250 miles of driving, looping from Melbourne down to the Mornington Peninsula, across Port Phillip Bay by ferry, and back up through the best spa towns in Victoria, Australia—Hepburn Springs and Daylesford.

On this episode of Unpacked, host Katherine LaGrave talks with Emma about what she learned when a self-described spa skeptic spent a week soaking, swimming, and drinking mineral water across the state with Australia's highest concentration of natural springs.

THIS WEEK'S GUEST

Emma John is a contributing writer to Afar based in London. For her story on the Great Victorian Bathing Trail, she looped through Victoria's most notable bathing destinations—geothermal spas, sea pools, mineral springs, and lakes—timing her trip around a six-week cricket series between Australia and England. What began as a well-earned reward after weeks of demanding sports coverage turned into a deeper reckoning with what wellness travel actually means.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why Victoria, Australia, has the country's highest concentration of natural mineral springs, and how the Great Victorian Bathing Trail links geothermal spas, sea pools, and lakes across the state
Alba Thermal Springs & Spa on the Mornington Peninsula, where automatic doors and unfamiliar bathing etiquette left Emma completely disoriented—and how she started letting go of the need to get it "right"
Hepburn Springs and Daylesford, the twin towns at the heart of Victoria's spa country, home to 80 percent of Australia's mineral water and the 1895 Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa—Australia's oldest
Drinking straight from the source: the sulfurous Soda, Locarno, and Sulphur Springs pumps scattered through Hepburn's town park, and why locals still fill their bottles there every week
A 45-minute private mineral bath that changed Emma's mind about "forced relaxation"—and the moment she realized her real obstacle wasn't the spa, but her own instinct to rush
The layered history beneath the trail: a walk with guide Rob Hyatt of the Koorie Heritage Trust, who explains how the Yarra River's true name is Birrarung, and how Lake Daylesford's creation displaced the Dja Dja Wurrung people from land and water they'd relied on for generations
Why Emma's top recommendation for skeptics isn't a spa at all: the Searoad Ferry between the Mornington and Bellarine Peninsulas, where a pod of wild dolphins showed up uninvited
Dinner at Kadota, a Japanese restaurant in Daylesford run by chef Aaron Schembri and his wife Risa Kadota, plus an unplanned stop in the town of Trentham that Emma's still thinking about

CHAPTER MARKERS

00:00:00 Introduction: A Road Trip Built Around Water

00:04:00 Hepburn Springs: Australia's Oldest Bathhouse

00:08:00 The freedom of road trips and letting go

00:10:30 The history of these Australian waters

00:17:00 The Searoad Ferry and an Unexpected Pod of Dolphins

00:19:00 Drinking the Springs in Hepburn's Town Park

00:22:00 Kadota, Daylesford, and an Unplanned Stop in Trentham

00:23:30 How Emma's Idea of Wellness Changed

LINKS & RESOURCES

Emma John's Afar story: An Australian Road Trip Built Around Swimming, Soaking, and Sauna

Alba Thermal Springs & Spa

Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa

Lon Retreat & Spa

Koorie Heritage Trust

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How to See Thailand’s Wonders Without Feeling Like a Tourist Sep 10, 2026

Show notes

Travel journalist Kathryn Romeyn shares how to find Thailand off the beaten path—from Nan Province night markets to Khao Sok's rainforest—plus the best time to visit Thailand if you want fewer crowds and lower prices.

This week on Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene explores Thailand off the beaten path with journalist Kathryn Romeyn, who's covered Southeast Asia since 2014 and calls Bali, Indonesia home. Kathryn returned to Thailand again and again since her first real trip in 2018, and wrote Afar's guide to seeing the country differently.

In this episode, part of Unpacked's Off the Tourist Trail series, she and Aislyn dig into Bangkok's overlooked neighborhoods, the north's least-visited provinces, and—critically—the best time to visit Thailand if you want to skip both the crowds and the price surge of high season.

THIS WEEK'S GUEST

Kathryn Romeyn is a Bali-based travel journalist who has covered Southeast Asia since 2014. After spending years visiting nearly every other country in the region—Myanmar, Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam—she finally gave Thailand a real chance starting in 2018, and has been chasing its lesser-known corners ever since.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why finding Thailand off the beaten path means letting go of five-star expectations—and how a $50-a-night, family-run guesthouse can outshine a luxury resort
The best time to visit Thailand: why the shoulder seasons (roughly March–July and October–November) beat the crowded, expensive December–January peak, and why to avoid the hot, rainy August–September stretch
Inside Nan Province, in Thailand's mountainous north near Laos—road-tripping through opium-turned-coffee country, staying in teak bungalows, and meeting a local guide from the Karen community
Local flavors worth seeking out: sai oua northern-style sausage, chicken wings crusted in makhwaen (a wild jungle pepper related to Sichuan pepper), and the tamarind crunchy shrimp at Thanyamundra that Kathryn can't stop thinking about
A nightly ritual in Nan: communal floor dinners at bamboo khantoke tables between two illuminated temples, complete with live folk music and unmatched trash-sorting discipline
Why Koh Yao Noi—a small island with one gas station and one doctor—offers an escape from the group-boat crowds hitting Phuket's more famous islands
Skipping the standard Phuket–Krabi–Chiang Mai loop for Khaosok National Park where limestone karsts rise out of Cheow Lan Lake and langurs swing through the jungle canopy
Why hiring a private guide or outfitter (like Smiling Albino or Red Savannah)—rather than a big-group tour—unlocks the kind of moments you can't find with an internet search

CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Rethinking Thailand's Reputation 00:02:00 A Freelancer's First Real Trip 00:07:00 Getting Lost in Bangkok on Purpose 00:11:00 Island Escapes and the Road to Nan 00:16:00 Guesthouses Over Five-Star Hotels 00:21:00 Night Markets and Local Food Secrets

LINKS & RESOURCES

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Sana Javeri Kadri's Regenerative Spice Farming Revolution Sep 04, 2026

Show notes

The spices in your cabinet are probably five to seven years old—and that's not an accident.

On this episode of Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene sits down with Sana Javeri Kadri, founder of Diaspora Spice Co., who spent nine years dismantling a 500-year-old system and replacing it with something radically different: direct relationships with regenerative spice farming partners across India and Sri Lanka. What starts as a question about how old the spices in your cabinet really are unfolds into a conversation about colonialism, cultural erasure, and what it actually takes to trace a turmeric root back to the family who grew it.

THIS WEEK'S GUEST

Sana Javeri Kadri founded Diaspora Spice Co. in 2017 at age 23, after discovering that the global spice trade—largely unchanged since European colonization took hold roughly 500 years ago—left farmers earning almost nothing while spices sat in warehouses for five to seven years before reaching store shelves.

Sana built the company around regenerative spice farming partnerships, working directly with 140 farmers across India and Sri Lanka to source turmeric, cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper, and more, paying farm partners an average of 4x commodity price. Sana splits time between Mumbai and the Bay Area and is the author of The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook, a book five years in the making and built entirely around the farm families behind the spices.

IN THIS EPISODE

How Sana Javeri Kadri traced the spice trade's roots back 4,000 years—and how colonization, not commerce, is what broke it roughly 500 years ago
Why regenerative spice farming partnerships let Diaspora Spice Co. pay farmers well above commodity price, and what that income jump has meant for farming families year over year
The 14-month search for pesticide-free cardamom, and what it actually takes to find a handful of true regenerative spice farming partners out of dozens of samples collected
Inside Eko Land's cinnamon and clove processing facility in Kandy, Sri Lanka, where quality control means tasting bark from individual trees—and why true cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) is almost impossible to find in the US
What 9 years of relationship-building with Pragati Turmeric farm partner Prabhu Kasereni has looked like, from a 23-year-old showing up unannounced to writing a cookbook credited entirely to the farmers themselves

CHAPTERS

00:00:00 The Age of Your Spice Cabinet 00:03:00 The 500-Year-Old Trade Problem 00:10:00 Building Diaspora and Regenerative Farming 00:18:00 The Search for Cardamom and Pepper 00:26:00 Pragati Turmeric in Andhra Pradesh 00:34:00 Cinnamon and Cloves in Kandy 00:42:00 Nine Years, One Family's Story 00:48:00 The Cookbook and What Comes Next

INKS & RESOURCES

Diaspora Co.

The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook

Pragati Turmeric

Guntur Sannam Chilli

Stay connected

Be sure to subscribe to the show and sign up for our podcast newsletter, Behind the Mic, where we share upcoming news and behind-the-scenes details of each episode.

And explore our second podcast, Travel Tales, which celebrates first-person narratives about the way travel changes us, and View From Afar, where we spotlight the people and ideas shaping the future of travel.

Unpacked by Afar is part of Airwave Media's podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast.

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For a Crowd-Free African Safari, Head for Tanzania's Southern Circuit Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

An African safari doesn't have to mean a traffic jam. On this episode of Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene travels to Tanzania's southern circuit—visiting two parks most first-time safari-ers never consider—and discovers what happens when you trade the famous Great Migration crossing for a dry riverbed with not another human being in sight.

To get there, she consulted Elizabeth Gordon, co-founder of Extraordinary Journeys, who helped reframe what an African safari could be. What followed was eight days in Ruaha National Park and Nyerere National Park: a walking safari with a guide who reads the wind with a pouch of ash, a river full of hippos and crocodiles that Aislyn took to calling "danger soup," and a fly camp on a lake where a ranger stayed up all night speaking hippo so she didn't have to.

Come back next week for a bonus episode about what happens when a lion leaves the park—and meets a herd of cattle.

THIS WEEK'S GUESTS

Elizabeth Gordon is the co-founder of Extraordinary Journeys, a bespoke travel company designing African safari itineraries—and trips throughout South America and Asia—for travelers who want more than the standard route. Born in Kenya to a mother who joined the Peace Corps, earned her pilot's license, and built a house on a game park outside Nairobi, Elizabeth grew up between Kenya and France, studied in Beijing, and managed safari camps in Namibia before launching the company with her mother.

Pay Mbaryo is a walking guide and naturalist with Nomad Tanzania in Ruaha National Park. A farmer's son who grew up in the Gorongosa district, he has spent 15 years in the bush and navigates unmarked wilderness using what he calls a natural GPS. In a decade of guiding, he has never once had to use his rifle.

Gerald is a guide with Nomad Tanzania in Nyerere National Park, in his fourth year on the Rufiji River. He can identify a hippo's path out of the water by sight and smell—and he was the one who handed Aislyn a hippo skull to explain exactly why you don't want to be in that path.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why Tanzania's Southern Circuit—specifically Ruaha National Park and Nyerere National Park—offers a better African safari experience for first-time visitors than the Great Migration crossing: fewer people, better guides, and wildlife that doesn't know you're there
What a walking safari in Ruaha actually feels like: reading the wind with a pouch of ash, approaching a mother elephant and her calf without being detected, learning to make a toothbrush from a tree, and discovering the Small Five
How Pay spent 15 years learning that birds, buffalo, and elephants are all sharing information with one another—and why walking safari means becoming part of that conversation rather than watching it from a Jeep
The Rufiji River at Nyerere: a wide, curving expanse of "danger soup"—filled with hippos and crocodiles—and what an afternoon on the water teaches you about the elephant as a keystone species
What fly camping looks like when Nomad's team digs a bathroom into the sand, rigs a hot shower, serves gin and tonics under the stars, and a ranger stays up all night so you can fall asleep to the sound of the hippo brass band

CHAPTER MARKERS

00:00:00 Introduction: African Safari, But Different

00:04:00 Why the Southern Circuit

00:08:00 Arriving in Ruaha

00:12:00 Walking Safari With Pay

00:20:00 The Small Five and the Keystone Species

00:26:00 Nyerere and the Rufiji River

00:33:00 Danger Soup: Life on the Water

00:38:00 Fly Camping With Hippos

LINKS & RESOURCES

Stay connected

Be sure to subscribe to the show and sign up for our podcast newsletter, Behind the Mic, where we share upcoming news and behind-the-scenes details of each episode.

And explore our second podcast, Travel Tales, which celebrates first-person narratives about the way travel changes us, and View From Afar, where we spotlight the people and ideas shaping the future of travel.

Unpacked by Afar is part of Airwave Media's podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What We Lose When a Language Dies Aug 20, 2026

Show notes

By the end of this century, half of the world's 7,000 languages could be gone. On this episode of Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene hands the mic to travel writer Lucy Kehoe for a conversation about saving language with journalist Sophia Smith Galer, author of the new book How to Kill a Language.

For Sophia, saving language is personal: her Italian grandmother spoke Emilian, one of Italy's Indigenous tongues, and it's quietly slipping away. To understand what we lose when a language dies, Sophia traveled from the mountains of Oman to the hills of California, seeking out endangered languages and the communities fighting—or grieving—for them.

She and Lucy get into why these languages matter to every traveler, how language and landscape are woven together, and what it means to travel thoughtfully to a place whose language is at risk—beyond learning a few phrases. It's a conversation about treating language as part of the culture we come to experience, and about meeting it with curiosity and respect rather than as something quaint.

THIS WEEK'S GUESTS

Sophia Smith Galer is an award-winning journalist and author whose new book, How to Kill a Language, traces the forces—colonialism, globalization, migration, and war—pushing thousands of the world's languages toward extinction. Multilingual in English, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic, she reported it across California, Oman, Ghana, Ecuador, Italy, and Greece, meeting speakers of critically endangered languages in person to capture not only their words but their connection to a place.

Lucy Kehoe is a London-based journalist who covers travel, food, and the environment, with a particular interest in how people relate to landscape and place.

IN THIS EPISODE

The statistic that stopped us cold: by 2100, up to half of the world's 7,000 languages could vanish, and the rate of loss is expected to triple over the next 40 years
Why a language is far more than a way to order coffee—Sophia's case that it holds the past, present, and future of a people connected to a place, from Oman's Jibbali (with distinct words for animal versus human shelter) to a California tribe down to 12 adult speakers
What it really asks of travelers: not memorizing phrases, but bringing respect and dignity to an endangered language, and asking who profits from "language tourism" and whether speaker communities are truly part of it
Where to find language on the road—Planet Word in Washington, D.C., the Armenian alphabet monument outside Yerevan, a Ukrainian language tour in Kyiv, and Oman's frankincense heritage experience
The range of feelings Sophia found among speakers themselves—pride, determination, and quiet resignation—and why she believes the fate of each endangered language belongs to its own community to decide

00:00:00 A Grandmother's Vanishing Tongue

00:04:00 Why Endangered Languages Matters

00:06:00 Words Shaped by Place

00:10:00 Tourism Done Respectfully

00:16:00 California's Last Speakers

00:24:00 Ladino, Museums, and Hope

LINKS & RESOURCES

How to Kill a Language by Sophia Smith Galer — buy on Bookshop
Sophia Smith Galer's website
Lucy Kehoe's website
Planet Word, the language museum in Washington, D.C.
Armenian Alphabet Monument, outside Yerevan
Museum of the Frankincense Land, Oman

Stay connected

Be sure to subscribe to the show and sign up for our podcast newsletter, Behind the Mic, where we share upcoming news and behind-the-scenes details of each episode.

Unpacked by Afar is part of Airwave Media's podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Five Questions for the Man Who Walked a Fault Line in Japan by Feel Aug 19, 2026

Show notes

This kind of Japan travel doesn't show up in guidebooks. In January 2024, a major earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula, lifting the seabed 15 feet into the air and exposing an ocean floor that locals walked across—harvesting octopus and abalone—to get home.

This week on Unpacked, Five Questions, host and Afar executive editor Katherine LaGrave is joined by Afar contributing writer Ryan Knighton, who recently wrote a feature about traveling along the peninsula. Ryan, who is blind, visited Noto two years after the earthquake on a slow walking tour, drawn by the parallels between this remote coastal peninsula and his own earthquake-prone home on Vancouver Island.

What he found was a place not broken, but mid-repair—and a Japanese art form that made sense of everything.

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

Ryan Knighton is an author and Afar contributing writing whose stories consistently find the textures, flavors, and human stories that sighted travelers walk past. A former English teacher in South Korea, he brings a slow, sensory approach to Japan travel and beyond—listening to sushi chefs talk about their knives, walking earthquake fracture lines with his feet, and finding the people who hold a place together.

IN THIS EPISODE

What blind travel in Japan actually looks like: why guides, sushi chefs, and strangers become the mediators of a place, and what it feels like to walk an earthquake fracture line with your feet instead of seeing it with your eyes
Why Ryan chose the Noto Peninsula for his Japan travel debut: a remote, earthquake-prone coastal community with striking geographic parallels to his own home—and a story of post-disaster recovery he felt compelled to witness in person
The food that made the trip: Tokyo-style sushi whose origins trace directly to a 1923 earthquake, Japanese barracuda, Noto sea salt gelato at 10 a.m. in a parking lot, and a tuna described by his wife as looking like a ruby
The scene that didn't make the final cut: a couple walking home after the earthquake on a newly exposed seabed—15 feet of ocean floor lifted overnight, scattered with octopus and abalone, with kids too excited about sea creatures to be scared
How kintsugi—the Japanese art of repairing broken objects with gold—became the metaphor that unlocked the entire story, and why it took a gold leaf factory on day one to understand what Noto was actually about

LINKS & RESOURCES

CHAPTER MARKERS

00:00:00 Introduction

00:02:00 Japan Travel on Foot and Without Sight

00:05:00 The Ethics of Disaster Tourism

00:07:00 Food as Craft, Craft as Place

00:10:00 The Scene That Didn't Make the Cut

00:12:00 Walking the Fracture Line

00:14:00 Mr. Squid and the Spirit of Noto

00:16:00 Kintsugi as Metaphor

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