No Show

The Globetrotting David Goldberg

• Jeff Borman and Matt Brown

Share episode

The chance to speak with someone who has visited 191 countries was just too good, which is why academic, entrepreneur, advisor to world leaders, and world traveler David Goldberg joins us. What are tips for traveling in a fraught world? What's the hairiest travel situation he's been in? What's an underrated country you should visit? Did he know from an early age he'd become an international man of mystery?

Matt Brown:

Here we go. Our passion for travel is what drives this podcast Podcast, by the way, is called no Show. I'm Matt Brown, joined us always by Jeff Borman, and the chance to speak with someone who has visited 191 countries, which I think this leaves only two left. We could not pass up the chance to meet a person who's done that, and that person is our guest today David Goldberg. David knows everybody and he has been everywhere.

Matt Brown:

David is true, he's an academic, he's an entrepreneur, he's an advisor to world leaders and international organizations. He was the founding chairman of the Digital Media Platform, lensdrop. He is also a director at Altura Airlines, where he's currently building an all business class airline. He teaches international affairs to the youth of America. He was a Eurasia fellow at Harvard University, a Fulbright recipient. He has helped develop national programs in India on global education and conflict resolution, way, way back when he was an intern at the White House in 2002, a topsy-turvy time to be an intern, but then again, isn't every time a topsy-turvy time to be an intern at the White House. And to top it all off, he is going to be knighted in Italy next month. David first, welcome to no Show. Second, who is knighting you and why are they knighting you? That is amazing. That is a first for the show and a first for us. I don't think we've ever met anybody who's going to be knighted.

David Goldberg:

Well, I'm deeply honored to be here. Thank you so very much for that warm introduction. Clearly you did your homework, but I'm very happy to be here. I'm actually deeply honored to be knighted as well by the Parte Quelfet, which is an organization based in Florence, italy, that has been knighting people since 1266. It was actually originally founded and funded by the Medici's and approved by Pope Clement IV, I believe, and since then they have been knighting people who are making significant contributions to society and since 2015, they've expanded beyond Italians to all people across the globe who are making large contributions in a variety of different capacities, not just in the European theater. So it's great to happen and I'm really excited that it'll be happening in November.

Matt Brown:

Jeff has. Just I want to get to some of your experiences getting into and out of, maybe more importantly, some of the world's most challenging countries. First, I wanted to just mention that Jeff has just returned from a trip to Egypt and, Jeff, you were flying out literally as rocket fire began from Gaza and Israel. Is that right, yeah?

Jeff Borman:

it wouldn't be a trip with me if it didn't end in some kind of natural disaster, terrorist attack, rocket fire. On October 6th was the day that we left, and what I have not really heard anyone talk about is the coincidence of that was the and you can't see me, but in air quotes right, it was the celebration of Egypt's victory over Israel, which succeeded Gaza Strip. So I guess I was not as caught as off guard after learning of that coincidence right, it's a monumental day. And then monumental events followed, and so, yeah, it was a terrible day. We were taking off from Cairo. The pilot came on and said we're normally going to leave to the east, but today, to avoid rocket fire, we're going to fly over Libya, to which everyone cheered. For the first time in the history of aviation, getting in and out of the world's most challenging countries. That was child's play. There was really nothing to it a little extra security. I'm really interested in hearing David tell us some of your experiences getting in and out of the world's most difficult places.

Matt Brown:

Have you had a place that was really hairy to get out of.

David Goldberg:

Libya. Libya would be the most hairy To get into and out of Libya. You need a local contact. You need a local contact who has some relationship with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and they're the people who guide you in the country and take you in and take you out.

David Goldberg:

And getting out of the country and into the country, at the time that I went, you were stopped by the border guards and you were asked a number of questions to the granular detail of what you do for your work and your job and your living, and where's your business card and your website, and they go on and on and on, and you're standing there at the airport hoping that this questioning will end prior to the departure of your flight.

David Goldberg:

It's all happening in English and sometimes there's a language barrier which makes things much more difficult, so Libya would be the one place that that has happened. There are a bit other places that you always hope that there's no problems getting out of, particularly certainly in North Korea when Americans were allowed to go to North Korea. Right now there is a ban that Americans cannot go to North Korea, but at the time that I went, they're very, very careful about the pictures that you take and what you have on your camera and what's on your at the time, your SD card, and so I made sure that I was following those rules to have no problems upon exit. But you had to be very, very careful there.

Jeff Borman:

Have you ever been stuck in a country and I don't mean just flight delay, but like detained, held back?

David Goldberg:

I have not, luckily. I have worked very, very hard to try to find out every regulation and rule that exists for a country, both written and unwritten, and I think that's the real key here. There are official rules, but what helps the most is to try to talk to someone else in a perfect world that holds the same passport as you, because that's the only thing that matters. And what was their experience? That tends to be the most important. I'll also say that your demeanor, your behavior, your ability to communicate with officers at the border is extremely important. It can make things go much more smoothly or much more difficult, based on how you are and how you're behaving and how you're interacting in the relationship, though brief, that you create with that immigration officer.

Matt Brown:

What other advice would you give people who wanna travel now?

David Goldberg:

The first is to go to. Absolutely not let the complexity of the moment stop you from seeing the greatness and beauty that exists in this world. And while I think there are certainly places that maybe a few weeks ago I would have had no hesitation or reservation to enthusiastically tell people to go to, that today I certainly would, particularly some in the Middle East I wanna tell people that the world is a very big place. It is far bigger than you ever could imagine that it is. There are many, many, many wonderful places that you can go that have absolutely no problems, and if you come from a big city that maybe has its own problems, you're probably gonna be able to go somewhere that's even safer than the place that you live. So my first piece of advice is to absolutely 100% go.

David Goldberg:

My second piece of advice is you have to tune into the networks. There's tons on Facebook. There's tons of communities that exist within different cities. There's some in New York. If you can get to the previous travelers that have done things, they can connect you to this guide, to this contact, to this driver, to this fixer. It's way more important than any lonely planet or voters or fromers or guidebooks that we used to have. Far more important is the experience of people who were actually on the ground recently and had this person at this WhatsApp number. Help you do what you need to do.

Jeff Borman:

The Egypt trip a few weeks ago, and not that Egypt is terribly exotic, but it was the first time for me leaving the Western Hemisphere. Since COVID right, I've been Honduras and Mexico and Costa Rica and Canada, right, but leaving North and South America this was the first since 19. And being a real former restores perspective for me. You see the world, you get some context and you tolerate a lot less complaining from yourself and those around you when you're reminded how small our problems really are, and I was overdue for that.

David Goldberg:

And I have that experience all the time, absolutely. When you leave your bubble, you leave your fishbowl and you go into a different fishbowl, you begin to see the world in a very, very, very different light, and there are lots of different lights and lots of different fishbowls to see from. And that's one of the beauties of travel you get to take yourself out of the place where you're so comfortable and you can put yourself into a place where, wow, I can see through the eyes of other people, I can have conversations from perspectives I could never have imagined, even if there's language barrier, and you're trying to communicate. And that's the greatness of travel and it's the reason I encourage everybody to go wherever it is that you can go or you desire to be.

Matt Brown:

I heard that you led an interactive roundtable forum in Afghanistan recently and it was with young men and women on the meaning of democracy. You know, I think as Americans we kind of universally right now are thinking about the idea of democracy and how that idea, depending on your history in this country and with this country, can feel like it sort of lives in a bubble. Oh, this is what my idea of democracy is, and I'm curious when you sat with these young people in a country that we've had a charged relationship with over the last 25 years, what was it like?

David Goldberg:

It was absolutely incredible.

David Goldberg:

This was before the takeover the most recent takeover of the Taliban, and before the US had left.

David Goldberg:

The US was still on the ground and speaking to these young people about democracy, their desire to know more and their want to understand how places like the US built their own democracy over 200 years and what lessons they can learn.

David Goldberg:

It was invigorating, it was refreshing. They all wanted to take some of what I was showing them about what we have done, not trying to say this is what you have to do, but this is what our history has done for us. They wanted elements of that in their own country to be able to build a stronger, freer, more democratic Afghanistan. And that was a room that was completely equal in gender. The women were participating, the men were participating, they all listened to each other. It would be a room, I think, that would be unheard of today in Afghanistan, and they want a better Afghanistan for themselves and for their children, and one that is deeply involved in the fabric of the global community. And I have the hope that, even though there has been tremendous steps back from that vision, I still know that those young people are there and that they're going to lead the future of that country.

Jeff Borman:

The Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul continues to use the name of the major brand, though it has no affiliation, and this was something that view from the wing Gary Leff wrote about a week or two ago. They don't do IHG rewards points or honor the free mini bar benefits right? That's what he was writing about, and it's now owned by the Taliban and it's running about 20% occupancy. He says that half the hotels sheen leaders are only you know. Only about half are turned on to save electricity.

Jeff Borman:

The properties HR manager carries an M4 assault rifle and a Glock and has bomb making skills, and when I read stuff like that, weird as it sounds, it makes me want to travel. I want to go where even the long arm of the IHG SOP machine can't reach, and I feel like talking to you, I may have a kindred spirit. So what does the business travel world need to learn from you the hotels, air government agencies when you go into what most people would think of as the most unsavory, risky places on earth? What is the business side of travel need to hear from you?

David Goldberg:

Yeah, first I do want to comment about. You know, of course that's the intercontinental. I think that you're talking about the hotel that was that was attacked in Afghanistan, in Kabul, the intercontinental, a long time ago. And you know, one of the things that the the, the contacts, the fixers in Afghanistan will tell you is we don't want to tell you where you're staying and they always want to put you up in a small hotel because they're safer, right? People don't know the names of those hotels and, as as you pass them, you know the history that's happening and I remember driving in Afghanistan, pass some of those more Western brand hotels and thinking to myself they have such history, they become so much of a center of what happens in a city.

David Goldberg:

But, in terms of your question, what does the business community have to learn? I think there's a lot. The first is they have to make it easier. It's very difficult when every airline is following a different set of rules and a different set of practices and a different set of procedures. It's gotten a little bit better, but sometimes you can get your online boarding pass and sometimes you can't. And sometimes you really do need three hours before going to an airport and sometimes you don't. So I think if there was a standardization across airlines so that websites look similar and that their practices are similar, I think that would be very helpful. Secondly, there has to be a digitization. Some airlines have picked up on this and some have not, but I would love to see I can scan my passport into every airline and every airline. If I do my steps correctly, I can get to that online digital boarding pass and I can use it.

David Goldberg:

That's that's one, but in a different vein, I also think that the business community can also find out that loyalties are people who want to be loyal to a brand. What I have spoken about with with people in my travel circles is they quite frankly, honestly, don't feel like they're getting enough. I'm hearing oftentimes I've stayed loyal to this airline and they've changed their program and now my points don't have value. Delta just went through a major situation there and they tried to fix it somewhat. Same with hotel chains. It takes so much for me just to get my one free night. I'm not loyal to them, so I hope that they'll develop programs that help people to become more loyal and want to be more loyal when you were a kid.

Matt Brown:

Did you set out thinking you know what I'm going to see every country in the world. Or did this just happen naturally? How did this become the case where you became an international man of mystery?

David Goldberg:

Matt, this is an awesome story that I've never told. I'm so happy to be able to tell it on your podcast. Almost no one, including the person in the story, knows it. When I was a kid, I had this travel project pick a state and you had to call up the travel agencies and get the pamphlets and cut it out. I think I had New Hampshire or something. I'm making this big project for this oak tag board thing for my school and I loved it.

David Goldberg:

When I was in college, I happened to come across this program called Semestracy, where you get on a ship and you go around the world. At that point they were still sailing around the entire world. Now they've reduced it slightly just because it's so expensive across oceans, but they're still an incredible program. I actually circumnavigated the world and we started in Vancouver, british Columbia, canada, and we ended in Miami. The long way, 27,000 nautical miles, and that was the 9-11 voyage, because we left just before September 11th and September 11th happened when we were just outside Japan and we docked in Japan. I think it was September 13th of 2001.

David Goldberg:

And when I was on that voyage I became so in love with travel and I come home and I actually did it again. I did another one of their voyages. I loved it. I convinced my university to keep giving me credit. It was this great thing. A couple of years later, one of my sister's friends says to me so I heard, you're going to every country in the world. I had never thought about it, I had never said it, I don't know where she got it from and I thought you know, that's kind of a cool idea. I'm going to do that and that's how it happened, david.

Matt Brown:

you've done so much work in the world with public, private organizations and groups that are looking to find solutions to very thorny problems. If the president called Jabhatan, if he called you up tomorrow morning and said Dave calls you Dave because he's very informal I'd like you to take over a legacy institution in the government. It's called the Peace Corps. Would you do it? And if you did it, what would be kind of the your demand of how you'd want it to change before you took the job?

David Goldberg:

This is an amazing question. I would demand that there's an increase in presence. The world needs so much more Peace Corps. I have been to the most impoverished villages on the planet in Congo, in Mali, in Burkina Faso, in DRC, democratic Republic of Congo, in Angola and there is so much good work, but then on the needs to be done, and then, on the other hand, I work with amazing young people every single day of my life and there has to be a connection between those amazing, energetic, hungry to make a difference in the world young people and all these places in the world that needs it.

David Goldberg:

There are lots of organizations doing it, of course, and there are lots of universities that are playing an important role, of course, and the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps are playing an important role, but I think we need to expand it dramatically. And I really would love to see is we have an unbelievable problem with college costs in the United States. Take tens of thousands of dollars off their college costs. Find a way to do it, mr President, if they're willing to give you two to four years in the Peace Corps.

Matt Brown:

I too. Listen, listen. I vote for you. Listen to that, listen to the bipartisanship of that. It's one of the great Democrat-led initiatives of the last 100 years. And we're crossing aisles, we're crossing streams. Sergeant Shriver, bill Moyers, david Goldberg, those three names all in a row. I love it.

Jeff Borman:

You just mentioned that you teach in it. Well, you alluded to it anyway that you teach international affairs at a secondary school in Long Island. That stage in their lives, most students, most kids, haven't seen much of the planet. What are your students most need to learn from you and the experiences you've collected?

David Goldberg:

I think they most need to learn that the world is a really complex place. One of the most incredible challenges I have is particularly it's gotten worse, actually, since I started my first teaching position in 2004. They like instant answers. They want to check Instagram, they want to get a snap, they want to go on to X or Twitter, whichever you want to call. They want the answer immediately and to understand that problems are complex and they go back decades and sometimes send insurries.

David Goldberg:

That these are not simple problems to understand is probably the most important lesson that I hope that they learn from me that it takes a long time to understand where these come from. They have deep national feelings, deep identity, deep history that need to be handled very gently. I try to impart that to them every single day. It is a challenge. It has gotten far worse over the years. They want that answer immediately, solve the problem.

David Goldberg:

But with the right guidance and the right direction and the right support, you will see students change their perspective and begin to understand. Hold on. This is not so easy and the best way to do that is to put them into those roles. It's the old law school way of doing things right Mock trial or something that really resembles that, make them play that ambassador or that president of that country. Give them some simplified or documents that show what they have to deal with and when they have to do and they have to personify that role, it begins to click and they begin to see the world as a much more complex place. And these problems, as those solvable, are much more difficult than they first thought.

Matt Brown:

David, I have a mystery question every week that I give our guest, and this week you're special because you're going to get two. The first one is one that we've used before. I want to know what your favorite suitcase is?

David Goldberg:

There's no question. Easy answer E bags. I have no financial interest in this company I'm not saying it for that reason, but E bags has made the best travel back. Actually, maybe they have a luggage, an actual suitcase I don't, I don't use that. I like my hands free at all times. But it's a left right opening bag, it has great organizational compartments and it has withstood 191 countries of extraordinary abuse, so it's a great bag, e bags.

Matt Brown:

I'd like to take this moment to thank our new sponsors. So thank you guys. We'll have a link in the bio. And second, so you've been to 191 countries. How do I want to phrase this? Give us a country that is unexpectedly great to visit Mali, oh, wow, okay, right off the bat Mali, west Africa.

David Goldberg:

I know I'm saying that at a time when the politics and the safety there is different than it was when I was there just two years ago, but Mali is an incredible country. It used to have incredible tourism to Timbuktu, to Dijene, and of course that has gone down significantly as the there are political and safety questions. So by no means am I telling people to go to Mali. But if you're asking me for a country which surprised me and I think is incredible and hopefully one day will be at a safety point that people can go back, that answer would definitely be Mali. You go to these towns like Dijene, these gigantic markets in front of gigantic, beautifully maintained mud masks, and if you go on a Monday, the entire city is one gigantic marketplace where all the women are wearing beautiful colors and there's fresh food and you can get anything you want.

David Goldberg:

The roads are dirt, there's no cars going through it and it's like you're in a movie and right now, at least when I went two years ago, you know there's almost no Westerners there. There are some hotels that they used to tell me it used to have rooftop bars and things. That certainly is not the case anymore, but everyone welcomes you and they want you to try their food and they want to teach you about Mali and history, even when there's a language barrier. It's just this energy. You know who could spend a whole day in a market that you can do in two hours if you just walked? I did and I loved every second of it. There would be one country that really surprised me about how incredible it was and beautiful driving on the roads and seeing the rolling grass and the beautiful villages, and how wonderful everybody was with fresh fruits, and I hope that the politics there and the safety situation there can get significantly better so many more people can experience what I did Be honest.

Matt Brown:

It's honesty time Most overrated travel experience.

David Goldberg:

That's a question nobody has ever asked me. This is you know, this is so politically charged the most overrated travel experience.

Matt Brown:

You know what? Wait, I have a way to rephrase it. As you know, over tourism is a plague upon certain parts of the world. What's a place that could maybe use a little bit of a break? The?

David Goldberg:

answer is Thailand. Thailand is beautiful, but you, some of these islands are so overrun with Westerners they're barely Thai. I mean, I guess legally, geographically, un-wise, they're Thai, but there's so many Westerners and so much tourism money. You reach a point and you go where am I? And I think they're fixing that. I know that they're working. I know the Thai government is working on that. I'd also say a place like Machu Picchu in Peru, which I hear now has limited numbers, but it was so many people that you would climb to the top and you hope you don't fall off because there's so many people.

David Goldberg:

One of the things that scares me in the travel world that I have not done and I'm certainly not capable of it, is you. I don't know if you've seen these pictures of Mount Everest and there's like lines of people to get to the top. I mean that is a failure of government, right? They need to restrict that, they need to control that. There are ways to do that. There are countries that do great jobs at those kinds of things and I hope they do, because that's not what you want to see. You know people waiting in line to be in very difficult situations in one of the hardest hikes in the world.

Jeff Borman:

When I was doing work in Thailand. One time I referred to Phuket as the Daytona Beach of Southeast Asia. I agree with you fully. If you love a good Thai meal, please don't go to Phuket, thailand. Yeah exactly.

David Goldberg:

And yet there are places I always find you know. Sometimes you can go to a place that's so filled with tourists all the tourist restaurants you go two streets to the right in a European square and you're with the local people. Or you go to an island that somebody hasn't, one of the smaller islands off Greece. It doesn't just have to be Santorini or Mekinos. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of islands that are great, that are not Santorini or Mekinos or Eos, which people know of. So oftentimes it's not that hard to get away from the mass tourism if you just look slightly, and now there's so much information about it, david.

Matt Brown:

Goeper. There you have it. Maybe at some point he'll come back.

David Goldberg:

I would be delighted to be my honor and privilege.