Happy New Year!

Today, we're speaking with Dr. Anu Taranath, a speaker, facilitator, and faculty member at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she teaches about global literature, race, and equity, and directs study abroad programs on human rights.

Anu is the author of Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World, a book that puts our movement across the world in a larger context of systems of power. She also writes a column for AFAR Magazine.

We're closing the year with a conversation that's full of lightness, joy, and delight. I hope you enjoy it!

Reminder:

We are running a 10-day trip to Jordan from June 5-14, 2026. We'll visit the Dead Sea, Petra, Wadi Rum, Amman, and many off-beaten spots in between. We'll meet a renowned artist who designed the country's newest currency, spend time with the Bedouins in the desert, and more.

Go to https://goingplacesmedia.com/jordan for details on early-bird booking, which ends on Jan 4, 2026.

Going Places is an audience-supported platform. You can become a member for as little as $6 a month. Visit us at goingplacesmedia.com to learn more.

Thanks to our Founding Members:

1. RISE Travel Institute, a nonprofit with a mission to create a more just and equitable world through travel education
2. Radostina Boseva, a film wedding photographer with an editorial flair based in San Francisco

Today is the last episode of the season! Thank you so much for listening. We’re taking a break and will be back with new episodes this Spring.

1. The origins of Anu's justice work: too foreign to be an American
2. Growing up in a South Asian family in Texas
3. How Anu creates spaces of belonging from New York to New Delhi
4. What the hyper-individualistic U.S. culture teaches us about community
5. The politics of travel: how power structures shape the way we travel
6. Anu reads an excerpt from her book
7. Helmet-to-cheek: looking for sweetness, lightness, and joy wherever we go

1. Follow Anu on Instagram: @dr.anutaranath
2. Read Anu's book, Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel In an Unequal World
3. Check out Anu's column at AFAR Magazine
4. Watch our panel with Anu: Travel, Power, and the Role of Creators in a World on Fire

How do a nomadic Costa Rican-Polish-American and a British-Pakistani raised in Saudi Arabia start a travel company together?

Today, we're going to find out.

We're speaking with Sibu Szymanowska and Hira Aftab, co-founders of The Hybrid Tours, a travel company that uses the power of travel and storytelling to challenge stereotypes and foster connections with activists, refugees, and changemakers worldwide.

Use code GOINGPLACES to receive $100 off any of The Hybrid Tours' upcoming trips.

Reminder:

We are running a 10-day trip to Jordan from June 5-14, 2026. We'll visit the Dead Sea, Petra, Wadi Rum, Amman, and many off-beaten spots in between. We'll meet a renowned artist who designed the country's newest currency, spend time with the Bedouins in the desert, and more.

Go to https://goingplacesmedia.com/jordan for details on early-bird booking, which ends on Jan 4, 2026.

Going Places is an audience-supported platform. You can become a member for as little as $6 a month. Visit us at goingplacesmedia.com to learn more.

Thanks to our Founding Members:

• RISE Travel Institute, a nonprofit with a mission to create a more just and equitable world through travel education
• Radostina Boseva, a film wedding photographer with an editorial flair based in San Francisco

• Hira and Sibu’s origins in the human rights work
• How a trip to the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan started it all
• Traveling as a visibly Muslim woman
• Meeting survivors of partition in Pakistan
• What decolonizing travel really is
• Creating travel content with a human rights lens
• Sibu's lessons from 5+ years of full-time travel
• Traveling overland from the West to North Africa
• Hira and Sibu dream of starting the world from scratch

• Follow The Hybrid Tours on Instagram: @thehybridtours
• Check out upcoming trips with The Hybrid Tours
• Join The Hybrid Tours newsletter
• Watch Sibu's Instagram series on traveling from West to North Africa overland
• Check out Hira's Instagram post on misconceptions about Muslim women
• Check out Hira's organization, Our World Too, and listen to their podcast
• Check out Baraka Destinations
• Read about U.S. wheat flooding Jordan's markets
• Join me in Jordan next June

Going Places is a reader-supported platform. Get membership perks like a monthly group call with Yulia at

Today, we're speaking with Vanessa Abbe, a travel advisor who joined me on my last group trip to Jordan.

Travel to Jordan has dropped 90% in some cases in the last two years.

In this conversation, I wanted to hear Vanessa's take on what it’s like to travel to Jordan for someone who’s never been, as we experienced the country largely empty of tourists together.

We are running a 10-day trip to Jordan from June 5-14, 2026. We'll visit the Dead Sea, Petra, Wadi Rum, Amman, and many off-beaten spots in between. We'll meet a renowned artist who designed the country's newest currency, spend time with the Bedouins in the desert, and more.

Go to https://goingplacesmedia.com/jordan for details on early-bird booking, which ends on Jan 4, 2026.

Going Places is an audience-supported platform. You can become a member for as little as $6 a month. Visit us at goingplacesmedia.com to learn more.

Thanks to our Founding Members:

• RISE Travel Institute, a nonprofit with a mission to create a more just and equitable world through travel education
• Radostina Boseva, a film wedding photographer with an editorial flair based in San Francisco

• Is it safe to travel to Jordan?
• The impact of tourism cancellations on Jordan's tourism community
• What it was like for Vanessa to travel in proximity to Palestine
• Meeting the people of Jordan: an Ammani photographer, a sustainable farmer in Madaba, the Bedouins of Wadi Rum
• Vanessa's top experiences in Jordan
• Considering going to Jordan? Vanessa has this to say

• Join me in Jordan next June
• Follow Vanessa on Instagram: @adventures_vkabbe

Original Air Date: Feb 25, 2025.

Going Places is a reader-supported platform. Get membership perks like a monthly group call with Yulia at goingplacesmedia.com!

For more BTS of this podcast follow @goingplacesmedia on Instagram and check out our videos on YouTube!

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Going Places with Yulia Denisyuk is a show that sparks a better understanding of people and places near and far by fostering a space for real conversations to occur. Each week, we sit down with travelers, journalists, creators, and people living and working in destinations around the world. Hosted by Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel journalist, photographer, and...