348: Colombia from the Pablo Escobar Era to Today & Using Travel as a Tool to Recover from Cancer with Mari Monsalve

348: Colombia from the Pablo Escobar Era to Today & Using Travel as a Tool to Recover from Cancer with Mari Monsalve

Author: Matt Bowles: Full-Time World Traveler Since 2013 August 4, 2025 Duration: 56:23
Hear about living in Escobar-Era Medellin, Surviving Cancer & Leaving an Abusive Relationship to Solo-Travel the World. ============================ Get the Monday Minute my weekly email with 3 personal recs for travel, culture, and living beyond borders you can read in 60 seconds. ============================ ON THIS EPISODE Mari Monsalve starts off talking about her involvement with two empowering travel events: The WITS Travel Creator Summit and Latino Travel Fest. She then reflects on her grandparents experience immigrating to Florida in the 1960s during Jim Crow segregation. Mari tells the story of growing up in Miami and then moving back to Medellin during the Pablo Escobar era and what it was like to live there during that time. She then talks about moving back to the U.S. as an adult, developing her interest in world travel, and organizing a transformative trip to Iceland. Next, Mari opens up about leaving an abusive relationship to travel the world solo, being diagnosed with cancer, and choosing to use travel as a tool to recover from cancer. She shares stories at different points in her cancer journey from Paris, Morocco and Thailand. Finally, Mari reflects on her last trip to the Pacific coast of Colombia, shares some ethical considerations for visiting Colombia, and makes specific recommendations for how to respectfully immerse in her beautiful country. → Full show notes with direct links to everything discussed are available here. ============================ FREE RESOURCES FOR YOU: See my Top 10 Apps For Digital Nomads See my Top 10 Books For Digital Nomads See my 7 Keys For Building A Remote Business (Even in a space that’s not traditionally virtual) Watch my Video Training on Stylish Minimalist Packing so you can join #TeamCarryOn See the Travel Gear I Use and Recommend See How I Produce The Maverick Show Podcast (The equipment, services & vendors I use) ============================ ENJOYING THE SHOW? Follow The Maverick Show on Instagram and DM Matt to continue the conversation Please leave a rating and review — it really helps the show and I read each one personally You can buy me a coffee — espressos help me produce significantly better podcast episodes! :)

There’s a certain texture to life lived in motion, a collection of stories that emerge not from postcards but from the messy, beautiful reality of planting roots in foreign soil. The Maverick Show: Global Travel Stories & Life Beyond Borders captures that essence through long-form conversations hosted by Matt Bowles, who has been navigating the world full-time since 2013. This isn't a guidebook podcast; it’s a series of intimate dialogues, often unfolding casually over a shared bottle of wine, where the destination is understanding. You’ll hear from a diverse range of voices-expats, digital nomads, women forging paths abroad, and diaspora storytellers-each sharing the raw, unfiltered nuances of what happens when you cross borders for good. The focus is on the human narrative beneath the itinerary: the cultural misunderstandings that become breakthroughs, the loneliness and liberation, and the profound ways a global life reshapes identity. Listening feels like pulling up a chair at a cafe somewhere in the world, eavesdropping on a conversation that’s equally about internal discovery as it is about geographic change. Matt’s own experience as a long-term traveler informs these discussions, steering them toward the substantive lessons learned far from home. If you’ve ever wondered about the true weight and wonder of building a life between cultures, this podcast offers a genuine, thoughtful window into that journey.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The Maverick Show: Global Travel Stories & Life Beyond Borders
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