Evan McElligott on Opening Your Mind Through Travel

Living Your Passion

Are you ready for nearly 30 minutes of a killer Irish accent? If so, Episode 18 with Evan McElligot (pronounced "Mack-Elli-gOT"), is for you.

Thanks - again! - to Amanda O'Brien, for the introduction. Amanda Pants, if you'll recall, also email introduced me to another past guest, John Lee Dumas.

The day we recorded this episode, Evan was celebrating his 36th 37th birthday!

And yes, that is the beach - the waves - you are hearing in the background of this recording.

Evan's passion is what he calls "cultural exchange" through travel (aka "travel in the new generation" or ... as I paraphrased "opening your mind through travel").

In case you missed any of the previous episodes, you can catch them here by visiting the Living Your Passion landing page.

Are you ready to open your mind (and think about travel differently)?

During this episode ...

• Evan discussed his history - and passion - for the travel industry ... and how September 11th changed his world forever.
• Evan chatted about how he travelled to Australia for a year and a half, then New Zealand for a few years, and ended up in Maine (yes, Maine as in one of the 50 states in the Union!).
• Evan explained more about his business, Longer Vacations.
• I shared my experience getting "Don Julio'd" on our honeymoon.
• We talked about our families recent trip to Norway.
• Evan talked about the concept of "cultural exchange."
• Evan shared how he's really ALWAYS had a passion for travel (I love how he says "brochures").
• We talked about group travel vs. "doing it locally." Interesting ....
• Evan told us the incredibly high number of people who are traveling.
• Evan talked about some staggering numbers around how much money actually stays in a country when people travel. CRAZY!!
• I shared by "giving back to the locals" experience in Ireland from 1998.
• Evan shared his "tips and tricks" for finding, then living your passion. Awesome.

More About Evan

According to his About Page ... in Evan's own words, "I am no stranger to this business and you could say, I have been in it since I was a boy, when I was brought to Cyprus and The Holy land on a family vacation andIMG_2967 I haven’t looked back since. I got into the travel industry quickly after college and I have experienced many different aspects of it; from sales and reservations, to airline representative, then onto airline management and for the last 6 years, I have owned and managed my own business, assisting adventurous globetrotters, just like you. All in all, a collective 15+ years in the business and hopefully many more to come. I left County Kerry, Ireland many moons ago. I settled in Australia for over a year and then traveled extensively around South East Asia. I then moved to New Zealand for two years before moving on and finally settling in Portland, Maine. An amazing destination in itself and I am very thankful to live in such an a beautiful part of the world." Find out more on his About Page.

Links Discussed In This Episode

• Longer Vacations - Evan's company (and passion)!
• The Power of Flow - book I'm reading about Synchronicity and ... flow.
• Longer Vacations on Facebook - like him!

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Finally, if you know someone who bleeds passion (or maybe it’s you), please email me at djwaldow at gmail dot com. Oh, and if you have a connection to LeBron James, please let me know. I think he’d be a great person to talk to about his passion for basketball. #DeadSerious