355: Mindful Travel In an Unequal World: How to Move Beyond Guilt, Build Solidarity, Challenge Power, Notice Joy, and Find Belonging with Dr. Anu Taranath

355: Mindful Travel In an Unequal World: How to Move Beyond Guilt, Build Solidarity, Challenge Power, Notice Joy, and Find Belonging with Dr. Anu Taranath

Author: Matt Bowles: Full-Time World Traveler Since 2013 September 22, 2025 Duration: 53:34
Hear from the author of my most recommended book for travelers: Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal 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 In part 2 of this interview, Dr. Anu Taranath talks about her motives for writing her book “Beyond Guilt Trips”, the value and importance of stories, and how we can understand guilt and shame in order to move beyond them and build real solidarity.  She then explains and unpacks the all to common division between cross cultural engagement “at home” vs. "abroad” and offers tips on how we should think about personal transformation through travel and becoming more thoughtful at home.  Anu then talks about the importance of noticing the small moments of everyday joy and reflects on how she has incorporated travel into her parenting. She also unpacks the concept of ‘complexity’ and explains how it can sometimes be used as a tool to illuminate important nuances and at other times be used by powerful interests to obfuscate the way dominant power structures function in order to demobilize opposition and maintain unjust power arrangements.  Finally, Anu reflects on what “belonging” means to her today and names the 3 best places in the world to get Indian food outside of the Subcontinent.    ⁠ → 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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