Travel Podcast Transcript

In this podcast, Trevor and Chad talk about

differences between trip and travel, backpackers
vs. tourists, and five expressions related to
traveling.

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Chad: Welcome to the Real Life English Fluency+ Podcast. I'm Chad, I'm here with Trevor
and today's subject is going to be about traveling.

Trevor: Aww yeah.

Chad: Do you like traveling?

Trevor: Man, I hate traveling. I like to stay in the same spot and never go anywhere else.
That's why I moved to Brazil. [Many native English speakers use sarcasm for humor.]

Chad: So in these podcasts we're going to be talking about expressions related to that specific
subject. We're going to be talking about words that people commonly confuse, about that
subject. And lots of other vocabulary related to the subject, as well.

So today's subject is travel. Trevor, you mentioned you like to travel. What kind of traveler are
you? And what kind of travelers exist?

Trevor: So, there's basically two types of travelers. We have backpackers and the
standard tourist. And a backpacker is someone who's usually wearing a backpack.

Chad: What is a backpack exactly?

Trevor: A backpack is a luggage or suitcase that is on your back.

Chad: Exactly.

Trevor: So it's like what kids take to school all the time.
Chad: Uh-huh. Exactly.

Trevor: So backpackers usually have a big, huge backpack with basically their life on the end.
And they might travel for long periods of time, might go to many different countries, and they
want, they favor light travels so that they can fit everything on their back to make it easy to
move around.

So where as a tourist might have an extra bag or two even. Where they need a taxi to travel
around, to get to their hotel. They're more likely to stay in a hotel.

Chad: So what are those bags called? You have a backpack. But what do the traditional
tourists generally use when traveling?

Trevor: You say suitcase or luggage would be a more general term.

Chad: Okay, cool.

Trevor: And so backpackers more focused on spending the least amount of money and travel
for the longest period of time. Because usually they're on a fixed budget [a limited amount
of money to spend], but sometimes they don't have a fixed time. So that they can try to make
their money stretch.

Chad: What does "stretch" mean, in this case?

Trevor: So in this case "stretch" means just to last a long time. So they try to get a lot of good
value for their money. And, where as opposed to a tourist usually only has a fixed amount of
time. And so they're okay with spending more money to make sure that they get as much stuff,
as much sight-seeing in as they can.

Chad: Sightseeing..."what is sight-seeing?"

Trevor: So, sightseeing is when you go to a place and you look at all the sights, or all the
popular tourist spots. So, if you went to Rio de Janeiro you would go to Christ the Redeemer,
would be a very famous site to see.

Chad: Sugarloaf.

Trevor: Sugarloaf, yeah.

Chad: Pão de Açucar [Sugarloaf in Portuguese]

Trevor: Or the beaches, Ipanema, Copa Cabana. Those were all, that would all be siteseeing.
So it doesn't necessarily cost money, but it generally does. So like going to museums, stuff like
that, would be sightseeing. And so, tourists are more likely to pay money to do these activities,
while backpackers are looking to spend as little money as possible.

Chad: I guess a tourist generally travels with more money so they can do the more luxurious
things.

Trevor: Yes.

Chad: Like bus tours, day tours.

Trevor: Right, any kind of tour is very "tour-isty" thing.

Chad: Exactly yeah. Probably pay for a driver or a guide. And these kinds of things, too.

Trevor: Exactly. Where as a backpack might be more likely to even hitchhike.

Chad: What is "hitchhike?"

Trevor: So "hitchhike" is when you try to get form one location to an other for free. So
usually you put your thumb up into the air as the cars drive by. And you hope one of them will
stop, pick you up, and take you to... closer to where you're trying to go.

Chad: Excellent, have you ever hitchhiked before?

Trevor: I have but nothing like serious, only like little tiny times.

Chad: Like within a city?

Trevor: Yeah, like I was in Florianópolis [an city in the South of Brazil] over summer in
Brazil, or Christmas time and we hitchhiked, you know, like a hundred meters.

Chad: Okay, so short distances.

Trevor: Yeah.

Chad: Never from one city to another city.

Trevor: No, but when I went to a Vipassana, which is a meditation course, in Rio [de Janeiro].
There was someone who hitchhiked all the way from like the south of Argentina.

Chad: Wow.

Trevor: It was like 3,000 kilometers.

Chad: All the way up to Brazil?

Trevor: Yeah.

Chad: Oh my God.

Trevor: That's crazy.

Chad: That's a long way.

Trevor: Yeah.

Chad: Great, so that has clarified that for us, but what about... where would a backpacker
stay? I'm assuming that a general tourist generally stays in hotels and places like this, where
would a backpack stay?

Trevor: So a backpacker would more likely stay in a hostel.

Chad: Okay.

Trevor: Or even have their own tent and camp.

Chad: A tent?

Trevor: Yes. So a tent is like a portable [movable] house that you set up. And they usually
have like a sleeping bag, which is like a portable bed. And they can set it up anywhere.

Chad: Great. Sometimes in Australia, at least, people often we can either say "a hostel" or
sometimes the name of these places is even called "a backpackers." The name of the place.

Trevor: Right, yeah.

Chad: Like, I'm going to stay more at a backpackers. Would you say that in the United States?

Trevor: No, not really. But now that you mention that, when I was in Florianópolis, the place
—the hostel—I stayed at, was called "Backpackers."

Chad: Okay.

Trevor: That was the name of the hostel.

Chad: Okay so moving on to this next section of today's podcast. Misconceptions or

commonly misused words.

Trevor: Alright, so what do we got today?

Chad: So, two words that are very commonly misused, especially here in Brazil with my
students, I've noticed, is trip and travel. Okay? Trevor, what's the difference between the
words trip and travel?

Trevor: Well the main difference is that trip is a noun and travel is a verb. So you would say,
"I'm going to go travel next week." Or you say, "I have a trip next week."

Chad: Okay, you "have a trip" or you're "going to go traveling," "you're going to travel."

Trevor: Or you can say you can go on a trip.

Chad: Okay, so using these words in an example. I'll ask you a question. How was your last
trip?

Trevor: My last trip was good, I traveled to Florianópolis (like I mentioned previously), and
got to, first time touching the Atlantic Ocean .

Chad: Did you travel around the city.

Trevor: I mostly stayed in one spot. But I did travel from one side [of the island] to the other,
went over this big hill and there was a cachaça distillery [a distillery is a place where they
make liquor].

Chad: What is cachaça?

Trevor: It's a famous Brazilian alcohol they have here. They make caiparinhas out of them
and it's made from sugar cane.

Chad: And how did you go there, did you go on a bus trip or a boat trip?

Trevor: Well actually, my friend just drove me over.

Chad: Okay. But in this case in can be like a trip can be how you went there, a bus trip, a
plane trip maybe. Cool. So that's the difference between trip and travel. Trip is a
noun, travel is a verb. But I think sometimes we use trip as a verb as well, but it changes its
meaning a little bit.

Trevor: Right.

Chad: How do we use that, Trevor?

Trevor: So the most common way is to say if you're telling someone like "stop trippin'" or
"stop tripping out."

Chad: Okay, what would that mean?

Trevor: So that means that someone is overreacting. And you think that they need to calm
down, to settle down, stop overreacting.

Chad: Okay, so if someone was overreacting about the weather like, "Oh my God it's raining, I
can't go outside." What am I gonna do?" What would you say to me?

Trevor: I would say, "Stop trippin' out man. It's not that big of a deal. It's just rain."

Chad: Alright so trip, as a verb is used to tell someone to stop overreacting [informal]. "Don't
trip out."

Trevor: Okay so moving on, so there is a difference in British English and American English
when it comes to going on trips. And so that is the difference
between vacation and holiday. So Chad, do you wanna explain the difference between
those?

Chad: Yeah well I was, I'm Australian, we tend, we speak more so British English...I would
always refer to my holidays, for example when I go traveling when I go on a trip, I would say,
"I'm taking a holiday," or "I'm going on holiday." Or even when I was studying at school, we'd
call it "school holidays." But I believe in the United States you refer to this as a vacation.

Trevor: Right, so the holiday is the actual day. Like Christmas is a holiday, New years—
holiday. But if you want to travel if you want to go on a trip, then we say, "we're going on
vacation," or "we're taking a vacation." So just the opposite word, or different word.

Chad: Yeah, so you would use holiday for the actual day, that is like a public holiday, like
Christmas.

Trevor: Or even, it doesn't matter if it's public or not. Any kind of celebration, you know
there's Jewish holidays, that's not like a national holiday, and stuff like that.

Chad: Ok cool, so the only difference there is that in the United States you would use vacation
for when it's, you're going traveling, for a trip. And in Australia and I think most of British
English, we say holiday for everything.

Trevor: Yeah.
Chad: Life's a holiday. Alrighty. Okay so moving on to the main course of today's podcast is
expressions related to traveling. The first one, off the beaten path. What does that mean,
Trevor?

Trevor: When we say off the beaten path, you can kind of visualize what that might mean. So
a beaten path is something that people walk through or walk on all the time. So imagine you
have nature and you walk through a hiking trail or a path over and over again, then it's going
to be just dirt underneath it. There's not going to be anything growing. So it's like a path. So
it's beaten down by your feet by people's feet over and over and over again.

Chad: So the beaten path would be the path that everyone takes.

Trevor: So yeah, the beaten path would be like the path that a tourist takes. And to go off the
beaten path means you go somewhere that most people aren't going. So it's more
adventurous, it's more wild. You don't really know what to expect. And this is something more
likely the backpacker will do.

Chad: Okay.

Trevor: Because the of the stuff that's off the beaten path tends to be cheaper as well.

Chad: I tend to find that when somebody goes off the beaten path, they tend to go more
deeper into the culture, of where they're traveling.

Trevor: Right, because think of it like if you're in a forrest if you're walking on dirt, you're not
really getting the full essence of the forrest. But if you go hiking through the bushes, you're
getting a more, you could say, cultural experience of the forrest.

Chad: Exactly. You're seeing like the actual animals that are there and the wildlife.

Trevor: Yeah so, and so that's one of the attraction to the backpackers, is that it's a lot more
involved with the culture, when you go off the beaten path.

Chad: It's like a real experience, right?

Trevor: Yeah, so for example instead of going to a tourist... a tourist city even, you go to like a
small surf town, or something like...

Chad: Perfect.

Trevor: Alright, so the next one we got is itchy feet. You wanna explain that?
Chad: Yeah, itchy feet. Well first of all, this word itchy, itchy is that tingling feeling that you
get in your body where you suddenly wanna uh scratch it with your hand.

Trevor: Oftentimes when a bug is crawling on you. It feels like a little itch.

Chad: Yes, it's itching, it's itchy. But when I say someone has itchy feet. If I was to say,
"Trevor has itchy feet." It means he can't stay in the same place for a really long time.

So I guess this is common as well for a backpacker or someone who likes to experience many
different places, you can say, "Wow you have itchy feet, you really wanna travel."

Trevor: Imagine someone's who itching a lot. They're always moving, scratching themselves.
So if you have itchy feet, you're always moving your feet. You can't really stay in one place for
too long.

And so it's a little bit different from a backpacker because a backpacker is more just traveling
for the moment. Whereas someone who has itchy feet doesn't want to live in the same place.

So maybe it's like an eternal backpacker. Maybe every year or two or even less they wanna
move to a new location.

Chad: True. That kind of makes me think of another expression that we use a lot—you've
probably heard of this one—to have the travel bug.

Trevor: Mmm, yeah definitely.

Chad: Do you say this in the United States?

Trevor: I don't say it but I think other people do.

Chad: Okay, because when I say bug—bug can be like an insect.

Trevor: Yeah, it's kinda like something that infects you.

Chad: Exactly. So now it's also used like a virus, you have like this bug. Something that's...like
maybe the flu is a bug that you get and you become sick.

But when I say someone has has the travel bug, it's as if they've got some kind of infection,
some kind of virus, something that makes them wanna just continue traveling.

They finish their trip and then they come back to their home, their like "Hey, I'm gonna start
planning my next trip. I gotta get out of here again. I gotta travel."
Trevor: Exactly, all they wanna do is travel. So, cool. Alright, so moving on to the next
one. Hit the road, (Jack).

Chad: Yeah, to hit the road.

Trevor: So, why did I say Jack?

Chad: That's a song right?

Trevor: Correct

Chad: Hit the road Jack. What does that mean, hit the road?

Trevor: Hit the road means to leave. It means to go on the road and move away from your
current location.

Chad: Go to your destination, right?

Trevor: Yeah.

Chad: I think that hit the road is sometimes used for these people that just love to adventure,
like in their car. Like, I'm just gonna hit the road and just drive to some destination. You're
not even sure where it is.

Trevor: Right, yeah that's one way to use it. You can also use it as almost like a mean way to
tell someone to leave. "Hey man, hit the road! Get outta here."

Chad: It's like I don't want you here anymore, just get in your car and drive away. Never to be
seen again.

Trevor: Right, so that just depends on their tone. But it can also be like if me and Chad were
planning on going to like a soccer game, and we're like, "Hey man, it's 6:00, you wanna hit the
road?" Just like a way to say, "Do you wanna leave?"

Okay, so the next expression we got is smooth sailing.

Chad: Smooth sailing.

Trevor: So what does that mean?

Chad: I like these two words together. Smooth is when something is very easy, it flows. And
sailing is, comes from a boat, like a sail ship, to sail on the ocean.

Trevor: Mhmm. And what is a sail boat?

Chad: A sail boat is just like a general, normal boat which has a sail is actually like, that, it
looks like a big, looks kinda like a flag. A big piece of material which captures the wind and
pushes you through the ocean.

Trevor: Right, so sailing is when you use the wind to move your boat as opposed to a motor.

Chad: Mhmm. So smooth sailing—the expression—we use this to say that you didn't have any
problems, everything went well, it was a very easy process and nothing effected you, and you
just kind of went with the flow, you went with the wind.

Trevor: Right, so for example, if Chad comes back from Australia I can be so, "Did you have
any problems going through customs?"

Chad: No man, it was smooth sailing the whole way. So, no interruptions, nothing stopped
me, there was no problems with my visa or anything like this, passport. They didn't wanna
check my luggage. Everything was smooth sailing. Not that I had anything illegal in my
luggage or anything like that.

Trevor: Oh no, no, no. We're up standing citizens [someone who does nothing illegal] of
the law.

Chad: Okay, so smooth sailing. The next one we're going to talk about is R&R. This is a
common acronym people will say a lot. To get a little bit of R&R. What does that mean,
Trevor?

Trevor: R&R is short for rest and relaxation. So this is definitely more commonly used by the
"touristy types." They go on vacation to get some rest, relaxation. Maybe they have a week off
from work and wanna relax from all that stress.

So this kinda, this is used more for like a short vacation. Where maybe just for the weekend or
for a week. Where you've been working hard at work or maybe with your kids. You've been
stressed out and you're like, "Man I just really need some R&R."

Chad: Mhmm. Yeah I guess this is the purpose of these trips is purely to just rest and relax.

Trevor: Exactly.

Chad: Obviously, by the name.

Trevor: Yeah so this would be like going to the beach, going to a resort, just kind
of lounging by the pool.

Chad: What do you mean by "lounging?" to "lounge" by the pool.

Trevor: So lounging would be...just kind of just resting and relaxing.

Chad: Yeah, when I think of lounging, I think of like a dog just laying on the ground, you
know. Just lounging around.

Trevor: I think of someone by the pool, who's in one of those pool chairs. And they got like a
MaiThai or some kind of alcoholic beverage. Like a fruity alcoholic beverage.

Chad: Mhmm. Piña Colada.

Trevor: Piña Colada, yeah. Caiparinha.

Chad: Caiparinha in Brazil.

Trevor: Yeah and just, you know, sun tanning and enjoying the, maybe he has the ocean in
the background just resting and relaxing.

Chad: Exactly so an R&R trip would not be a way of experiencing the culture of a different
place. It's just to sit by the pool, lounge around and relax.

Trevor: It's kind of like recharging your batteries.

Chad: Exactly. So that concludes the Real Life English Fluency+ podcast about travel, we
hope you enjoyed it. We're gonna play you out with a song by Percy Mayfield, Hit the Road
Jack. You wanna hit the road?

Trevor: Yeah let's hit the road.

Chad: Let's hit it, man.

Trevor: Get some açaí.