Guest Bio
Richard is a serial entrepreneur and proven change-maker, leveraging 15+ years of leadership in sustainable finance and tourism for innovative solutions in the travel industry. As the founder of One Planet Journey, the authority on deep travel, he helps brands and destinations future-proof their operations by connecting them with the high-value, conscious traveller.
His mission is to make deep travel experiences the norm. He believes in an industry where authenticity, personalisation, sustainability, immersion, and exclusivity define successful hospitality and travel.
Show Summary
In this episode, Richard Lindberg, founder and CEO of One Planet Journey, discusses the philosophy of deep and meaningful travel, emphasizing the importance of understanding the purpose behind travel experiences. He shares his entrepreneurial journey, the challenges faced during the pandemic, and the birth of his travel platform. Richard provides insights on how to immerse oneself in local cultures, navigate negative perceptions of travel, and the role of AI in travel writing. He also reflects on the joys and challenges of traveling with a partner and encourages listeners to embrace deep travel for a more enriching experience.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ One Planet Journey redefines deep travel by focusing on meaning and intentionality.
- ✓ Travelers often begin in a “dreaming” phase — looking for emotional connection and inspiration.
- ✓ Deep and immersive travel requires curiosity, openness, and deliberate choices.
- ✓ Online negativity and reviews can distort public perceptions of destinations.
- ✓ AI can be a helpful tool in research, but authentic human storytelling remains vital.
- ✓ Navigating travel with a partner takes communication, compromise, and shared goals.
- ✓ Off-season travel offers more authentic, less commercialized cultural experiences.
- ✓ Deep travel encourages self-discovery and fosters lasting cultural connections.
- ✓ The travel industry is shifting toward values-based, sustainable practices.
- ✓ Engaging with locals creates more impactful and memorable journeys.
What You’ll Find on One Planet Journey
- Curated guides for deep, purpose-driven travel
- Insights and tools for sustainable tourism planning
- Resources for destinations seeking conscious traveler engagement
- Stories that highlight authenticity and cultural connection
- Thought leadership on the future of deep and meaningful travel
- Support for brands aiming to align with high-value, mindful travelers
Learn more about One Planet Journey and connect with Richard at:
https://oneplanetjourney.com/
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason Elkins (00:00.978)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. Happy to have each and every one of you back here today and very excited to have my guest with me today. His name is Richard Lindberg. Richard is the founder and CEO of One Planet Journey. Richard, welcome to the show.
Richard (00:19.074)
Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Jason Elkins (00:21.428)
It’s an honor. We had a conversation a few weeks ago and I thought, man, we just need to come back and record a little longer conversation so we can share it with the listeners and appreciate you doing that. Richard, where are you physically located at the moment?
Richard (00:36.93)
I’m in Stockholm, here up where we just had our first snow. So winter is not only coming, it is here.
Jason Elkins (00:42.684)
Jason Elkins (00:46.504)
Congratulations, that’s exciting. So tell me this, do people in Stockholm look forward to the seasonal change or is it something you dread as it comes? What’s that like in your culture?
Richard (00:58.104)
Well, I hate to speak for everyone since I’m actually not from Stockholm, I’m from the south of Sweden and I don’t look forward to it. In fact, I normally try to escape to more southern countries during the winter, but sometimes work gets in the way and I’m stuck here. I mean, it can be pretty pretty sometimes when the snow actually sits and…
but when it goes slushy and icy you don’t want to be here.
Jason Elkins (01:28.604)
Yeah, I get it. grew up in Wyoming and lived in Vermont and and
been traveling for four years, think intentionally trying to avoid the snow. I haven’t seen snow, other than on the top of the mountain, I haven’t seen snow in four years. So I’m gonna hopefully that trend will last. So anyway, Richard, gonna cover a bunch of things, super excited to hear your story. Before we do that, let’s give our listeners kind of just that maybe 30, 60 second elevator pitch on what is one planet journey? What are you doing with that?
Richard (02:00.654)
So One Planet Journey, you can see us as an inspirational platform for deeper, more meaningful travel. what we mean by that is that instead of just looking at, know, where am I going, you’re asking yourself, why am I going? So it’s a bit more profound purpose to your trips. We usually call it, it’s like you want to hire a return on investment on your journeys. You’re already spending a lot of money on it, so why not get a better deal out of it?
personally, how you connect with the destination and the culture. So that’s the concept we’re working with. And we run a magazine, digital magazine that you can find on oneplanetjourney.com, where we have a global audience tuning in to read a little bit more long form type of articles, like I said, with inspiration as the primary aim. And we also do more B2B content towards the industry as well about the concept itself and how you can use it.
to attract this type of discerning traveler that the detraveler is, right? And there’s higher profit margins at end of the rainbow there.
Jason Elkins (03:10.74)
Very cool. Do you feel like most, let’s look at the consumers that are visiting the website. Do you find that, I don’t know if that’s a tough question, but are most of the people in the kind of decision stage are trying to decide where they want to go or have they kind of already locked in on something and they’re coming and absorbing your content to help them prepare, they’re excited about it. Do you have a feel for that?
Richard (03:34.806)
Yeah, I think they’re in what we call the dreaming stage. So you really haven’t decided where to go yet, but you’re in that sweet spot. You’re excited, you know you’re going somewhere, but now you’re looking for that kind of spark. And that’s what we try to put in the content as well, real travelers writing it. It’s not me writing all of it. We do some articles ourselves, of course, but it’s people like
themselves, you know, they have been to some amazing adventure they want to write and tell about it so they do with personal reflections. So yeah, it’s the dreaming stage, the planning stage, maybe also for some. They read this content and say hey, you know, that night market in Singapore sounded insanely cool, I want to go there and then they might, you know…
look further and do more research about it and stuff like that. But that’s where I think we are and that’s also why I think when we see our metrics for how long they stay on the site and how long they actually read the articles, they are long the articles, so we do see that also reflected.
Jason Elkins (04:48.692)
Okay, I’m curious if someone gets on the site and they spend some time and they kind of dial in on the night market in Singapore. Do you then connect them with operators or advisors that can help them plan that or is that kind of the next step? What does that look like?
Richard (05:06.678)
Well, mean, it’s not implemented yet, but it’s probably a logical next step. We haven’t even introduced advertising on the site yet. We do have a lot of traffic to support it, and it’s something we’re actively pursuing now. So there would come some kind of, you
I was inspired by this and then there will be of course relevant links and stuff to that. But there might be other more concrete things coming as well aside from advertising also.
Jason Elkins (05:42.108)
Okay, well cool excited to see see where that goes and then you mentioned that you work with Destinations and and maybe operators to kind of help them figure out how to get their word out. Is that Tell tell us a little bit more about that because I know we’ve got a lot of people listening to the show that our tour operators or Work for DMO is that type of thing. So what are you doing there?
Richard (06:04.077)
I mean, one of the things that we offer, of course, is sponsored posts. So where they can actually, they have to be done in a way that it looks like a normal article, right, as well. So inspirational in tone and following our guidelines. But it’s a way to tell the audience about their services, what they do, how it resonates according to the detravel philosophy.
And yeah, so that’s one way of course they can do other things like in the newsletter and social media as well Take over of certain pages on the site if they want to do a more broad campaign So there’s lots of them we have like the deep travel report that we recently launched a few weeks ago That’s another opportunity also to have more visibility if they want to be more towards the industry itself because there’s the B2B angle as well and there is a host of other
things that we are actively planning for next year. I can’t really really loom yet because we’re negotiating with partners. So there’s plenty of different touch points of how to get connected with our audience.
Jason Elkins (07:05.598)
That’s okay. Come back next year.
Jason Elkins (07:20.052)
Okay, very, cool. We’ll probably end up coming back into that a little bit later in the conversation, but this is the fun part, the part I really enjoy and I know our listeners enjoy is let’s figure out, Richard, how the heck you got from wherever you are, wherever you were to where you are now. How far back in time do you think we should go to kind of get a feel for that?
Richard (07:40.906)
Well, it’s a bit of a crooked story. I mean, because as an entrepreneur, know yourself, right? It’s never like this. It’s filled with ups and downs. And sometimes you change your mind. I don’t like this industry. I want to do this instead and stuff. So, but quick summary is that…
Jason Elkins (07:58.312)
You know what Richard? Richard, you’re not alone in that, as you mentioned myself as well, but one thing I’ve noticed about this after having about 150 guests on the show, we all have these really weird up, down, left and right journeys, so tell us yours.
Richard (08:14.045)
Yeah, I mean I started out as a business guy at university, dreaming about doing management consulting at some of the brand names that you probably know. But then I…
I was doing telephone sales during the evenings to fund my studies, so I didn’t want to take any loans. I met this guy there once evening and he had an idea for a tech company software for mobile phones. This was way back when, before the iPhone even.
We decided to write a business plan because that’s my skill right from the business side of studies and we ended up winning and long story short on that, that company we actually created from that business plan which won a lot of competitions also which made us continue. We sold the company a few years after to US investors and Swedish investors. We had offices in Asia, in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley.
And just a really pivotal type of software which made us, know, our clients were the telecom sector and we met some really cool people around the world. But yeah, we sold it. And then after that, I’ve been working with sustainability in one way or another. It’s been.
everything from a non-profit where I tried to get more students at universities engaged in these kind of environmental climate issues and that was very interesting work for a few three four years. We did some large projects with corporates as well on that, Sweden and internationally. And then I moved to London 2014 to 16 working with Impact Investing or Sustainable Finance, you know it has many names.
Richard (10:05.57)
which London was an epicenter for that for those years. And there I met another very interesting person who became my co-founder for a tourism or travel related thing and that was my first foray into travel. That was in 2017. We did that for a few years.
Jason Elkins (10:24.372)
Okay, Richard, Richard, before we get, because before we get there, I’m curious, I have a few questions already. You, for one, you kind of took a sharp turn in my mind, just what I heard, which we discussed, that happens, from kind of the business, the telecom stuff, and then we started talking about sustainability and environment and stuff like that. So that sounds like an interesting change. So I want to get to that, but before we do that,
Richard (10:30.976)
Mm-hmm. Sir.
Richard (10:47.019)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (10:53.254)
And maybe, maybe we can do both at the same time. I would love to hear before you started, before you started school, well, before you start college and went the business management route, what were you like in high school? What were you into? What was, what was it growing up? Did you, was travel stuff on your radar at all? Or were you just, just, I’m going to go to business school and make a bunch of money.
Richard (11:03.512)
Okay.
Richard (11:18.702)
Let’s be honest, it was the money. So I was more single-minded back then. I mean, before university, mean, travel has always been there, because living at home with my parents, of course, we traveled a lot. We have family all over the world as well. it’s been…
Jason Elkins (11:22.77)
Yeah.
Richard (11:39.758)
both the US but a lot of the Europe, Southern Europe, France, I’ve been going there, Southern France every year out of my life basically and a lot of that. So London is what I consider my second home. I kind of grew up there when I was a kid and I lived there as an adult several times.
So yeah, definitely London is my second home. That’s how I see it. So there’s a of places like that. So travel has always been there, but and also for work, of course. But at that young age, as you mentioned, like even before college, I wasn’t actually thinking about it as a career. No way.
Jason Elkins (12:16.413)
Did you enjoy it? you? I just curious. Did you look forward to going to any of these places?
Richard (12:21.099)
Yeah, absolutely. That’s also why I kept coming back to the same places after I moved out of my parents’ house and started the university and all that. For me, traveling is almost not traveling, it’s just the second nature. It’s just normal part of life. I love Sweden, it’s one of the best countries to me, but there’s so much more also to see.
Jason Elkins (12:27.028)
Okay. Yeah.
Richard (12:50.815)
sampling different countries, different cities, it’s just felt normal.
Jason Elkins (12:55.156)
Okay. Well that says a lot about probably a lot about your upbringing because not everybody thinks travel is normal at that age or even at my age. Were your parents, did they work connected to travel at all? was this, you mentioned family that you would travel and visit but what was, what, do you have an idea what inspired them to travel enough that you were traveling a lot with them?
Richard (13:04.139)
Yeah.
Richard (13:24.789)
My dad was a doctor, my mom was a teacher, so it was nothing to do with their careers. And because of their normal careers, so to say, I mean, we travel during the summer mostly, and then of course, on the winter breaks and stuff. So it was more the traditional travel schedule, which I don’t do anymore at all. I try to stay in Sweden during the summer actually and travel at other times.
But I don’t know, they always like to get to warmer climates. And I think they liked the Mediterranean atmosphere and stuff. And that’s stuck with me as well. I mean, there’s a reason for why it’s the most popular travel destination, right? European Mediterranean countries. So I guess they were not that creative in the sense that they went down there and we stuck there and I’m stuck there as well.
Jason Elkins (14:15.72)
Yeah
Richard (14:19.759)
Bye!
Jason Elkins (14:20.82)
Well, it seems like a pretty great place to go. We, you know, I mean, you compare that to maybe people growing up in the U.S. We go to Florida. You know, I didn’t, but that’s kind of, you know, they tend to go to Florida or maybe Cancun or something like that. And one thing I’ve enjoyed about a lot of the Europeans that I’ve met.
Richard (14:37.901)
Hmm.
Jason Elkins (14:44.062)
they have a tendency to have visited a lot more countries just because you have so many other countries and every country has slightly different culture and language and food and all that stuff so I can see how that might…
Richard (14:55.661)
This with a lot of countries, people actually think that, you must have gone to like 150 countries. I haven’t, I’ve been to like maybe 50. But what I do is I find someone I really like and then I go there. So for example, France, I know, I must have been there.
50 times at least, if not more, London, can’t even count. I also live there. So I just go to the same places. Then I discover something new, of course. But I really, really like to go back. The repeat visitor is me defined.
Jason Elkins (15:33.616)
Okay. Interesting. Let’s, let’s explore that a little bit more. I don’t know. I don’t know where to go with that, but it sounds interesting because there’s on the other side of the spectrum while there’s a few different directions people go, but some people are just like, I got to go to as many countries as I can. You know, there’s some people out there that just are on a mission to visit all of them and do a YouTube channel every place they go or a YouTube video every place they go.
You’re slightly different. Have you? I don’t know. I don’t have a question. Richard, give me something here.
Richard (16:09.038)
Well, I I can see the allure, right? You want to see every country on earth? Sure, I wouldn’t mind it, but it’s definitely not a mission. If it comes, comes. What I do like is, I guess, where we come into Deep Traveler, it’s understanding a destination or a place, the culture. I don’t speak every language of these countries I go to, of course, but I try to pick up some phrases and stuff like that that excites me.
Just going like I understand the way I understand Sweden. I like to go in that level almost with other places, you know and The quirks and how people behave and how they speak Making friends of course is also another benefit from actually staying a bit longer and stuff. So that’s always you know, like in London, for example, I
I can be a goddamn tour guide there if somebody wants me to show them around. I know every street, I’ve taken every trail there is, you know, so it’s just… I do everything. I don’t like to leave something out. try to, you know, I go to museums, I go to nature, anything I want to see it. So…
Jason Elkins (17:26.164)
Get that that that makes sense. I appreciate that was a good answer to a question I didn’t really wasn’t able to spit out but it was really good I’m curious. So like when you go to London do you? Tend to I don’t know maybe have a place there, but do you tend to stay at the same? Places and then branch out from there to go explore everything or do you like go to a different? Location in London each time or what does that usually look like for you?
Richard (17:50.368)
No, it’s been different. Growing up, my family lives there as well. was lot of west side London, know, Kensington, Chelsea, Barnes, these kind of areas out in the west. When I lived there more as an adult and I had my own apartments, I stayed in Canary Wharf or in the centre.
I love the centre of London, of course it’s so buzzing and that kind of atmosphere, but London is so much more. I’ve been out all, know, zone 6, 7, you know, with the tube and walking different trails and seeing every side of London there is. And it’s so beautiful there, know, nature, which you, they have beautiful parks in the centre, but it’s not, and the river of course, but it gets really rural as soon as you get out a few zones from the centre.
And that’s really cool.
Jason Elkins (18:41.768)
Yeah, do you have some tips for people that are listening that, because I’ve been traveling full time for four years. When I started this, I was like, I’m going to stay a few weeks here, go on to the next place. I just, I had this in my head that I was going to visit 50 countries before I turned 50 and all this stuff.
And then the first place I had traveled quite a bit for work, but this was my full time traveling thing. The first place I went was Columbia. I thought I’d stay a month and then six months later I was like, my visa is running out. I gotta go somewhere else. Went somewhere else for a bit, stayed quite a while and then came back to Columbia. I keep going back to Columbia. and, and I tend to move much slower than I thought I would have. And I’ve picked up some things along the way.
And I’m just curious kind of what tips you might have for people that want to really immerse themselves in a community. Because you can’t just say go to X village, X city, whatever, and just stay there for six months. Because they might feel isolated. They might not actually have that experience. So what tips would you give to somebody like that?
Richard (19:50.892)
Yeah, we get this question a lot and we actually have articles on the topic. But some quick fire ones, of course, is that first of all, it’s a mindset thing. You have to want it, otherwise it won’t work. So that’s why we talk a lot about intentionality and deep travel. It’s something you have to actively work on. But let’s say you’re there, you want some tips. OK.
I would definitely pursue your special interests, your passions, right? Try to find like-minded people there. That’s the best way. You will enjoy it and then you will find people that you can actually tolerate and get along with.
So for me, I like history and stuff like that. So you always find people are interested in those kinds of things. I also like a lot of physical activities, so sports, gym, for example. Join a local gym if you’re gonna be there for longer time, right? Good way to meet people as well. And what else? Go shopping at the local food markets.
have your own place, make food, it’s a great way to understand the culture as well.
Like I said before, picking up some local phrases. If you’re a nomad, for example, and of course you have co-working spaces, another great way to meet people. Not only other travelers, but there are some locals as well, of course. I would try to find as many touch points as possible where you know there will be locals there, because there’s nothing better than to get their perspective on it and for them to really
Richard (21:30.159)
get you even deeper into it like you want to by yourself, right? Make sure if you’re do tours and stuff like that, try to pick something that’s really run by somebody from the place itself.
I do a lot of research before I go. I read books before I go, during the time I’m there and also after. So if you’re into reading like I am, that’s a good way. Journaling is another to get more reflective on your experiences, which can also help you.
have a better experience next time you go somewhere, right? Because when you start jotting things down and you really think about it, what did I enjoy? What did I not enjoy? The thing with deep travel is it’s a personal growth and personal development is so intricately tied to it. And that’s something we talk about a lot. And it’s a way for you to like, is that get a higher return on investment as you go along in your own journeys as well. It helps you connect deeper.
Jason Elkins (22:33.214)
You know, right, right. One of the things you said kind of triggered a thought for me. You said you like to read and research a lot before you go. And it occurred to me, there’s been a few things that I’ve read that if I wasn’t so open-minded and adventurous, I may have actually avoided going to a place like Columbia.
Richard (22:33.677)
with the destinations.
Richard (22:57.608)
Mm, yeah.
Jason Elkins (22:59.836)
or Thailand or you know, because what I’ve noticed is I read some stuff before, I don’t read as much ahead. I think I kinda like surprises. So I tend to not read so much until I get there. And then when I’m there, I get really interested or I, especially the social media groups, the expat groups or these forums, and you start reading stuff in there and you’re like, wow.
Why are these people here? They clearly don’t even seem to like it here and they’ve got so much negative energy. Do you have thoughts on how people can avoid being influenced by the negative stuff or is that important to process? I’m just curious what your thoughts are.
Richard (23:26.315)
Hmm.
Richard (23:44.013)
Well, my personal opinion, it kind of ties into this with reviews and stuff as well, right? I don’t care. Because for me, I make up my own mind and this applies in life in general, not only for travel, of course.
If I want to have an opinion about something I have to live through it myself. I’m not going to listen to anybody else that much. I mean, I guess that’s also why I’m running my own businesses because I’m not…
Jason Elkins (24:12.838)
It’s just part of who you are.
Richard (24:16.268)
So I mean, take read, do the research of course, but take everything with a grain of salt because these things are so exaggerated, both on the positive and the negative side. Right. So, uh, if you want to go to Columbia, go to Columbia. I’ve heard so many great things because now obviously I’m so connected with travelers all over the world and people are writing and other people. And, you know, when you hear their experiences and I’ve asked these kinds of questions that you’re raising about safety and stuff.
It’s like a totally different thing than what you read in the general news or news cycles and stuff. So make up your own mind. The research for me is more background material to understand the country I’m going to. It’s not to dissuade me from going anywhere or encourage me in that way.
It’s for me, like when I went to Rwanda, for example, I wanted to understand what the country is like now after what happened there in 1994 and things, or what’s going on. How is London changing as a city, you know, with all the changes that’s been going on since 2016. Stuff like that interests me. but yeah, reading is a great way, I think, to…
to understand the place. It’s a compliment of course to getting to know the people.
Jason Elkins (25:36.105)
Right, I guess as you started answering that, I expected you to say, stay out of the expat forums on social media. One way to avoid that. But really, that’s what your website is for as well, is for people to go get that stuff that’s not all negative, just people sitting around complaining about stuff.
Richard (25:57.632)
Yeah.
We actually have that as a policy or a guideline point for our writers. I usually say that quite bluntly. I don’t want any negative stuff, right? Because if you had a bad experience, you know, at a restaurant, that’s your bad experience. It’s not 100 % guaranteed that will be for somebody else. So leave that out. I don’t like that kind of vibe in the writing.
it doesn’t serve anything. And there’s plenty of places that do negatives so much better, so let them focus on that. No names mentioned. So no, we focus on the positive inspirational things, as I mentioned in the beginning, and then people can use our part as one part of the research and then they go to other sites for other pieces that they need for their research.
Jason Elkins (26:31.06)
Facebook.
Jason Elkins (26:54.324)
Very cool. Are you, I’m just curious about the writing part. How many articles or how much are you actually writing for publication? Kind of as you’re traveling or just over the course of a year, is that a major time commitment for you or are you doing other stuff?
Richard (27:14.188)
It’s dwindling. I started out writing most of it, know, when we got started, of course, then it’s just gone down, down, down, down all the time, my own writing, which I hate because I do like writing. But obviously, as the business grows, there’s so many other things, as you know, taking time.
Also because you have to expand, have to think about the business, the monetization, marketing, all those kind of things take time out of your… What I actually spend a lot of time on now is editing. We also have some people helping with that, but I’m a bit of a control freak, so I spend a lot of time on the editing. it’s very hard to automate these kind of things because it’s a lot of feelings-based, you know, having that…
okay this word just doesn’t work here let’s change it we need this keyword here or something like that you know it’s i haven’t found a really good way to automate things like that so i’m still using it but hopefully that also gives it a more human touch which we want in the articles
Jason Elkins (28:21.18)
I actually as you mentioned that it makes sense Do you feel like your articles that that are on your website that you’re working with is experiential based human? I’m curious if you were running a blog for tech articles
Do you feel like it would be much easier to automate? Like you could probably use a lot of AI to just automate a lot of that stuff, but you can’t because of the nature of your writing or do you just feel like that’s generally the same across industries?
Richard (28:55.616)
Now for travel, the hybrid travel we do, it’s an absolute no-no with that kind of AI automation. And that’s also one of our, actually the top point in our guidelines, no AI. that, yeah, that’s something, of course. If I were running a tech blog and just reporting on, let’s say, new developments in this space, yeah, because there’s not too much feeling, people just want the information.
really matter that much. If it’s a longer piece of your analyzing a specific company or a specific phenomenon of technology, sure then you would have to write it yourself, but for shorter just info pieces.
do it. Of course with AI I was just commenting on somebody on LinkedIn this morning is that it’s riddled with so many mistakes so far, right? So it is time consuming and if you use AI to sift through all the, you have to do so much double checks and the research anyway to make sure it’s factually accurate. So I mean you see a lot of content out there that where people don’t take the time to do that then it’s ridiculous and the trust goes down in the basement.
Jason Elkins (30:06.416)
It’s amazing how bad some of it is. And I don’t know, I was gonna say especially in travel or maybe I just notice it because I’m more likely to see things that are travel related. But yeah, it’s pretty crazy. What about for idea generation?
Richard (30:09.077)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (30:24.688)
How do you feel about, right, mean, because that’s where I’ve gotten the most use out of it is just bouncing ideas around, because it’s not relying on the AI, it’s just to get my brain working sometimes. It’s like I’m asking myself the question, I hear a response, and I go in and go back and forth, and then I come up with ideas. How do you feel about it for that?
Richard (30:42.796)
you
Totally. I use AI every day, so let’s not knock the technology. I love it in one way. So for ideas, validating stuff, it’s great. Because there you’re not so reliant on actually getting 100 % right. It’s a sounding board. So for that, I’m totally for it. And I do tell the writers as well, if you need to do it for research, find out something extra at some point, course. Or even to create some kind of outline, that’s fine.
Jason Elkins (30:47.742)
Yeah.
Richard (31:14.06)
well, know, what points to cover if you’re… because sometimes your brain is so focused on specific things that you like that you forget other things and I say to the writers keep in mind the reader, right, we have to provide practical value for the reader and that means that even some things that I don’t think about myself has to be in the article.
to give that kind of value to the reader so that there the AI can help but don’t let it do any output, final output kind of thing.
Jason Elkins (31:42.932)
All right, I don’t think you’ve used it in this conversation. I’m curious, do you use the word blog? I’d love to have that conversation. Is your website a blog? What does that really mean?
Richard (31:56.172)
No, we say it’s a magazine and that’s the type of feel we want to have in the articles as well. mean the articles have elements of personal reflections, but that’s because I think it fits the narrative with Deep Travel and the whole personal development angle.
But otherwise it has a lot of, you know, this kind of practical information as well. So sometimes we do these practical tips on this, this, how to get from one place to another. So it has more of a magazine feel and that’s what I’m trying to build here. You know, the lines might blur sometimes, but I don’t use the word. Never been a huge fan of the word actually, but.
Jason Elkins (32:40.937)
Okay, I was just curious, because if I met you in a bar or whatever and you explained to me what you’re doing in my limited understanding of magazine publication, I would say, it sounds like a blog. And you’d look at me, no, it’s not a blog, it’s a magazine. And I might say to you, Richard, what’s the difference? So I’m curious, because I bet you’ve been asked that question.
Richard (32:55.765)
Hmm.
Richard (33:01.259)
Well, if I or my wife wrote all the content myself or ourselves, it might more lean towards a blog, but since we have 50 plus different writers contributing content at any time, it’s definitely not that, because it’s something completely different in my mind.
Jason Elkins (33:23.797)
Got it. So what I just heard you say that a blog is more of a personal, these are my articles. This is what I write and it’s kind of freestanding tied to them. Yeah. Okay. All right. Cool. Well, thank you. I I learned something new every episode. So I appreciate, appreciate that. Um, let’s go back. Cause I feel like we missed a week. That was a really great, uh, diversion. And I want to go back to the point where you said you had, if you could remember exactly where we were, um,
Richard (33:30.771)
My feeling is like that, yes.
Jason Elkins (33:54.164)
And about the progression, you did the tech communications project and then you started your first foray into the travel space. So tell us more about that.
Richard (33:57.835)
Okay,
Richard (34:06.867)
Yeah, so this was while I was in London, the last time I was living there. then it was that we wanted to do a kind of service that was like TripAdvisor style, but reviews of hotels, restaurants, anything travel related based on sustainability factors. So we had like a 200 kind of framework factors that you could rate one to five, you know.
based on scientific and sustainable development goals and stuff like that. We developed it, we got a lot of reviews, ratings flowing in on the page. And then when it was time to start monetizing…
pandemic came around so And there were a lot of people involved in that project, you know, because we had developers and marketing people and the whole works So I had to put that down because I saw the writing on the wall quite early in this whole mess and You know when your potentially biggest clients are all bleeding money and they’re asking themselves if they’re gonna survive Then I didn’t see how we’re gonna monetize anytime soon. So
I put the time quite early in the process and then we didn’t have any lockdowns in Sweden so we were out traveling here quite a bit, me and my wife. Once things started to get back to normal I had an urge to get back into travel and that’s how One Planet Journey was born.
Jason Elkins (35:37.919)
Hey
So I’m curious, I read an article, maybe it was an article you posted or shared, because I see a lot of your stuff on LinkedIn. But I read something recently that talked about some of the bigger review platforms that had somehow gone in and analyzed how people responded to questions about sustainability. And it was interesting, because it kind of brought up this whole thing. Like, how does a hotel guest…
Richard (35:46.987)
Hmm.
Jason Elkins (36:06.517)
Really like if you if I go to hotel you say is the place sustainable or is it? environmentally friendly that’s a really hard question to answer and if I think you know what it seemed like a great hotel The sheets were clean. There was a sign that said don’t you know you can reuse your towels and It wasn’t too noisy at night and I had an overall good experience I’m probably gonna just go down the line and check everything good unless there’s a reason not to So what are your thoughts like how do you get?
Richard (36:11.307)
Mm.
Richard (36:33.322)
Hmm.
Jason Elkins (36:36.873)
consumer to rate something on sustainability and have that those numbers mean something because obviously you’ve given it you gave it lot of thought with this other project
Richard (36:45.641)
Yeah, I mean, so you know how all these certifications are out there, right? So certain hotels, have these logos everywhere. And for them to get that, there’s a lot of things they have to do.
Jason Elkins (36:57.109)
Mm-hmm.
Richard (36:59.071)
They can be broken down into social aspects, environmental aspects, cultural, financial, all that kind of stuff. So what we did was break those things down into quite easy, did the hotel ask you to reuse your hotel? Simple things like that. Was there organic food on the menu? Did they have vegan choices? Yada yada yada. Did you see solar panels on the roof? Was there electric charging points for the car rentals or, you know, in the parking lot? So…
Jason Elkins (37:15.061)
Okay.
Richard (37:27.815)
a bunch of questions like this, over 200 actually. Obviously nobody’s going to rate all of it. You you have certain things that you saw and stuff. So we pictured this service as a kind of like reality check. These certifications are one thing, but what do people actually see and experience themselves when they’re visiting? So it was like a compliment to all of that. And we’ve seen some of the review platforms incorporate some sustainability
Jason Elkins (37:47.434)
night.
Richard (37:57.661)
But it’s like one question paper or something like that. This was more comprehensive It is very difficult and of course with the whole reviews in general. There’s so much fake stuff that can be done. So It wasn’t an easy thing. I mean you had spent a lot of time and effort also to weed out what’s Yeah
Jason Elkins (38:17.494)
That’s interesting. Do you think right now if if I or somebody came to you and said I? Want to launch a new review site? Whatever and Like do you have a knee-jerk reaction like yeah? This is probably not the right time because of all the fake stuff and the AI because I’m thinking
Richard (38:26.314)
Hmm.
Jason Elkins (38:38.038)
pretty soon within a few years, people aren’t even gonna read reviews anymore because both the reviews themselves and the responses are being AI generated. And it just seems like a death spiral loop of why do I wanna go read reviews that were written by a computer to see how the owner responded, what was written by a computer, and it’s like, that doesn’t really help anymore. What do you think?
Richard (39:01.34)
I think that I’m, you although it was sad of course to end the project, given that we did that before the AI craze came out, I’m happy that we actually did it and didn’t pursue it because, you know, I don’t know all the technical wizardry, but…
I cannot see how reviews will survive with AI coming out like this and where it’s so difficult to understand if it’s fake or not and the whole farming, you know, with people sitting there in factories writing or automated writing of reviews, negative or positive. Yeah, I mean, somebody has to come up with some kind of insanely good solution to combat that that I don’t see. So that’s why I don’t pay attention, like I said before, to reviews.
Jason Elkins (39:45.6)
Yeah.
Yeah, no, same here. I’ve been having this thought is, and it can be faked. I know that AI video and stuff like that’s gonna get better and better, but I’m starting to really think that kind of a video testimony, especially for small operators that really create a good connection with their clients, you know, let’s say I’ve got a little 10 room lodge somewhere.
And if I can get three or four people that have stayed there that will book a 15 minute call and just have a conversation and create some little clips and you’ve got, you you go to the website, there’s a little carousel of video testimonials.
I think that could be pretty huge for an operator. mean, obviously you’re not gonna capture the wide breadth of reviews, because if someone really hates it, they’re probably not gonna wanna show up and have a conversation about it. What do you think?
Richard (40:43.922)
Well, mean, I think video, again here, it depends on how it goes with the technological development, but yeah, there’s, it will be harder to fake, let’s put it that way. And actually, I mean, there’s, do you know Martin Rosenberg? He’s doing overseas TV info. He’s pretty active on LinkedIn as well. They have this kind of…
Jason Elkins (41:04.34)
or not sure if I’ve connected with him, yeah.
Richard (41:06.666)
I’ll connect you because he is doing something really cool. think with video and in this regard where they have this platform where people upload kind of video testimonials of places they visited and I think that’s a really cool thing to do. Of course they have since it’s his platform they can also monitor and stuff like that so you won’t have it’s not like anybody can upload just stuff like that so
Jason Elkins (41:19.86)
cool.
Jason Elkins (41:35.015)
Probably probably good thing have some control over who knows what’s gonna show up
Richard (41:36.734)
Yeah, so, yeah, no, it’s a very cool thing. And we also pushed it in one of our newsletters and I think they’re growing quite fast. So, but yeah, I’ll definitely connect you with him.
Jason Elkins (41:50.547)
Yeah, it’s just been an interest to me. Obviously, I spend a lot of time having conversations and I create some video clips and stuff like that. I was thinking, geez, if I owned a lodge, I’d want to have some video clips of people that stayed at my lodge and turn that into one instead of the TripAdvisor carousel that everybody has. Just have a few of my, of course, my very excited and the guests that really had a great experience and want their little video clips on there.
Richard (42:02.313)
Mm.
Richard (42:06.502)
Yeah, exactly.
Jason Elkins (42:18.758)
Anyway, okay, so yeah.
Richard (42:19.85)
I think just the one point on that is the thing, right? With all this AI and fakeness and what have you, or inhuman-ness, there is a counter-revolution always to any of these things. One thing swings on the extreme and one on the And that is, I think there will be much more value placed on the real thing, the human experience of this.
It’s something that we want to capture and one of the reasons also now for One Planet Journey and the success we’ve had so far in terms of traffic is I think because people also see this and they want something genuine.
Jason Elkins (42:57.334)
Do you, I’m just curious, I’ve spent some time on your website, it’s beautiful and there’s some great articles, but one thing I didn’t notice, do you consciously make an effort to make it clear to readers that kind of what your editorial guidelines are around AI? mean, it be smart for company to brand themselves as a no AI magazine?
Richard (43:20.01)
I thought about it, but no, I think it’s…
As I said also, I use it myself every day for various purposes. I don’t want to come out or have a company come out as being some kind of Luddite. Basically, that’s not what we are. We like this technology, but just for the writing aspect, maybe I think it goes without saying also because the search engines will penalize you if you just publish AI slop, which is interesting since they’re creating the AI also.
Jason Elkins (43:27.082)
Right.
Richard (43:53.789)
I don’t think we need to mention that people will just see or read and understand that it’s actually based on actual human experiences because we also don’t want people writing about stuff that they haven’t done, right? Don’t tell me about Five Bars and Budapest if you haven’t been to them. Which is 90 % of the travel writing I feel, maybe I’m exaggerating, but that’s, you know, when you read stuff, it’s like anybody could have written this with two minutes on the AI.
Jason Elkins (44:23.198)
And you know, it’s interesting because you, most people are not going to notice that unless they’ve been there. So you mentioned five bars where? No, no, I get that, but I’m just trying to refer back to that in the sense that if you’ve been to five bars and then you read an article about five bars, it was done by AI for somebody that’s never been, it’s going to probably be pretty obvious.
Richard (44:50.601)
Mm.
Jason Elkins (44:50.954)
But if you haven’t been, it’s a little bit harder. I’m not really going anywhere with this other than it can be a little tricky. People might not always recognize it.
Richard (45:01.034)
It depends on where you are in your travel journey, booking process, let’s say. And that’s why said we’re in the dream inspiration phase. So if you already committed to yourself, you’re going to Budapest, flights, hotels, everything is booked. Now you’re looking at what to do, what to eat, fun stuff to go out drinking in the evening or something. Then you just…
you only maybe need some quick, quick examples. You’re not interested in reading a long essay about it. So there are different phases of discovery as well for this type of thing. And where some kind of like shorthand travel writing, listicles that you see everywhere, social media, top 10, do this, don’t miss this in Budapest or Prague or whatever, they might work in those cases, right? And then, of course, not every travel.
is the same, we try to say that you should see deep travel as a spectrum.
Every journey has a different purpose. Sometimes you just had a rough time, let’s say, and you just need to relax. You just want to be on the beach for five days. That’s okay. It doesn’t have to be deep. It’s a normal trip. Other times you’re on the extreme end. You might want to do mindfulness seven days in a temple or something. Very deep. And there’s everything in between. Different journeys, different times, different types of information you’re after. We feel a certain…
purpose, but we don’t do everything.
Jason Elkins (46:40.17)
You mentioned that you guys weren’t really locked in in Sweden during COVID. And you also mentioned that you kind of. The initial business plan with the reviews kind of that went away and then you came out of COVID and started one planet. Why? What was your I mean, were you sitting around thinking about this a lot while you were? Not traveling the world. I mean, why did you decide to do this?
Richard (47:09.298)
Now, so let’s see, end of 2022. think that’s, 2022 things started going back to normal, right? Roughly, at least here in Europe. Yeah, so what we decided to do, me and my wife, was to take the car here from Stockholm and in November, yeah, was just beginning of November, we took the car, drove down to Lisbon and we stayed there for a month and then we…
Jason Elkins (47:17.514)
Seems, I think that’s about right, yeah.
Richard (47:37.726)
continued driving to what was the next destination? Yeah, so Nice no no Lisbon to Marbella Marbella was the next one month there one month in Nice one month in Amalfi and And of course a lot of stops and stuff during the wait. So we were away for like five months plus November 22 to April 2023
a very deep travel type of journey, which I didn’t even know about at the time, you know, in those terms. But the whole thing was a game-champ. We still keep talking about this trip almost every day. Right. It was so bloody great in every way you can imagine, you know, because we were living there, were renting cool apartments in the cities, you know, using local food and getting to know people. it was off season, so it was much more calm.
is also the reason now I always try to travel at this time. And for us from Scandinavia, mean, we can still swim. It’s no problem. I was swimming in Nice in January, for example. There was not many people. Yeah, no, but I mean, it’s still 18 degrees. It’s like, okay, that’s normal here. So for me, it was an eye-opener because like I told you before, you know, for example, in Nice, we were always going during the summer. That was like, always be there in July,
Jason Elkins (48:45.588)
No big deal.
Jason Elkins (48:52.862)
Yeah.
Richard (49:03.541)
stuff to see the fireworks July the 14th.
And this was like so much better in my mind. I understand of course it’s nice in the summer also, but I just weighing all the stuff together this was a better choice for me, for us and this trip really hammered hope also that I like the whole world of travel and so we came home and I decided to get back into it and this time I said to myself I don’t want to be reliant on
the success of this on other people. So I didn’t want to do any techie kind of thing with development and stuff. Of course, now with AI, you can use it for coding, no, so that’s why I wanted to focus more on content and thought leadership and things like that. that’s why it developed. So that trip was the birth pang of One Planet Journey.
Jason Elkins (50:01.686)
That’s very cool. And is your wife involved in One Planet Journey as well? I think you mentioned earlier, it sounds like it’s something you’re working on together, right?
Richard (50:10.151)
Yeah, mean, to a lesser extent, but yes, she’s not in the same amount of hours put in, but in terms of influence, yes, she’s very instrumental to it, a lot of the marketing and things like that, which is her domain, definitely.
Jason Elkins (50:31.286)
It’s not fair to ask you to tell me what she thinks, and so I’m not gonna do it that way, but I’m curious, this trip that you took, you mentioned five months, was it as profound for her, do you think? Because it sounds like it clearly was for you.
Richard (50:40.648)
Mm-hmm.
Richard (50:45.129)
I think so. Yeah, I know. think for her as well. Because I got to show her also a lot of my favorite places in Europe. And I think also for her it was, you know, living that long, so to say. And it was just like a continuous adventure, Because I’m also very, I don’t like to sit still. So I had to do stuff all the time. So it was just insane. So…
She… yeah, no, we both talk about it, so I don’t think it’s in my mind only.
Jason Elkins (51:20.086)
Very very cool. I’ve been traveling nothing. I don’t like the word alone, but I’ve been solo traveling for four years and I’m also about shared experiences. So I make a real conscious effort to connect with other people locals other travelers as well, but I also recognize that traveling with a Spouse or a close romantic partner can be challenging sometimes as well. So we
You smiled. Do you want to share anything there? I’m not trying to pull anything out.
Richard (51:50.992)
No!
I think, mean, looking back to it, because we have, you know, we know what works for the relationship, so it was no different there. I have things that I like to do and I know what she likes to do, so I’m more of a planner, for example, but I always make sure to put in things that I know she likes, so the wineries and all that kind of things.
It’s for her, right? So if I do the driving, I’m very happy. So that’s the deal for me. And there was a lot of driving. I think it was 15,000 kilometers in total because we went through Eastern Europe on the way back as well.
Jason Elkins (52:35.892)
Yeah, that is a lot of dry and that’s I guess referring back to when I mentioned if you’re from the US, maybe you go to Florida or Cancun. Not everybody. Obviously, there’s a lot of people. We do a lot of different things. But I grew up in Wyoming. So if I were drive as far as you went on this trip, I could probably drive from Wyoming to Florida and it would be.
pretty much the same food, the same language, the same everything, the entire way. So when somebody from Sweden talks about, yeah, we took the car and drove to Portugal and then over to France and the Amalfi Coast. I’m like, it’s almost, and I’m a full-time traveler. It’s hard for me to get my head around how cool that is. So do you think Europeans really appreciate how cool that is or does it just, whatever?
Richard (53:26.497)
I do think so because a lot of people travel in their own countries as well, especially if you’re from France and Italy of course. We see a lot of local domestic tourism as well in these countries and I think that’s great. So yeah, I think they appreciate it, definitely.
Jason Elkins (53:47.318)
Did you, because obviously you can travel around a lot of these places by train as well. So are you happy with choice to take the car? Would a train have been a similar experience? How do you compare and contrast? mean, obviously everybody has their own, but maybe you have some unique insights that other people don’t have.
Richard (53:52.809)
Hmm.
Richard (54:07.763)
Trains can be great, we do a lot of train related content as well of course, so night trains and stuff like that in Europe. I think Europe is a great continent to do train travel. But for this particular trip, the car was irreplaceable, you know, because we had a lot of stuff obviously being away for five months, you know, and…
We’re very, I am, she’s great with food and I’m very picky. I don’t like to eat out that much. So we had a lot of stuff with us, you know, and for that regard, yeah, let’s not get into that. It’s a long story, but.
So yeah, we had a lot of stuff. the car, and then, know, just for the spontaneous, let’s also, we’re close to this place. You know, let’s take the car there. It’s easier to do those things when you’re in control of the transport mode yourself. So.
Jason Elkins (54:57.749)
Bye.
I was going to think that would be probably my biggest difference would be the car just allows me to have so much more flexibility over the spontaneity. The you know, I’ve been on a bus so many times where I drive past a really cool looking something on the side of the road. No, like what is that man? I really want to stop and check that out, but it’s not really an option or you know, it could be an option if you’re willing to ask the driver to stop, let you out and then try and catch the next bus. But that, you know,
Richard (55:15.773)
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (55:28.161)
It just gets lot more complicated. So I often think having a car is pretty beneficial if you’re the type that does that. If you just drive to your next hotel and hang out there for a month and walk everywhere and stay in the city, then maybe you don’t need it. anyway, we’ve discussed quite a few things. Super, super fascinating. And I’m curious, Richard.
Richard (55:30.739)
Yeah.
Richard (55:45.96)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (55:55.081)
What did I forget to ask you? What do you wish I had asked you? Or what do you want to make sure our listeners know about either you, your magazine, your company, or life in general? What would you want to throw out there before we wrap up?
Richard (56:10.971)
Well, I hope the subject matter and the-
type of travel philosophy that we stand for and write about is interesting. And if it is, would encourage people to either follow me on LinkedIn or if you’re in the industry, I would encourage you to read our recently launched reports, the Deep Travel Report 2025, which is available on the website for free. Just register with your email and download it. Lots of good tips on how to position yourself, how to communicate to attract this type of deep traveler, which is a very
hard-to-please type of character with lots of demands and stuff, right, but also long-staying high spending and experience driven so there’s a lot of potential upsides as well in terms of revenue, right, so That’s what I would say follow and read and yeah, subscribe to the newsletter, of course for more general updates and
Otherwise, travel deep is what I would say. That’s a much better way of traveling.
Jason Elkins (57:16.157)
I love it. It’s a great message. It’s something that definitely resonates with me. Even our business names, One Planet Journey, Big World Made Small. I kind of think we’re thinking kind of the same. And I appreciate you taking time out of your day to come join us. And I look forward to collaborating on some projects with you in the future. Just kind of following what you’re doing. It’s super exciting. So thanks, Richard. Appreciate it. I’ll chat with you soon. Bye.
Richard (57:40.009)
Thank you so much.
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