Unpacked by Afar | Travel Smarter, More Responsibly

Welcome to episode one of a four-part Unpacked series on Dubai travel: the history, the ambition, and the glamorous, multicultural city it's become today.

In this episode, host Aislyn Greene and the Dubai-based travel writer Nicola Chilton set the stage: They walk through how a fishing village and pearling outpost became one of the fastest-changing cities on Earth—and what it's actually like on the ground today.

Halfway through, Aislyn hands the mic to Nicola—who will host the remaining three episodes—for a conversation with her longtime friend, Sahar Parham Al Awadhi, an Emirati chef born and raised in Dubai.

They take a deeper dive into the city's history along Dubai Creek: the abra boats, the spice trade, and the neighborhoods where "old Dubai" is still very present.

Together, they set up the rest of this Dubai series: three more episodes on the city's architecture, food, and culture, all filmed in the same studio, so you can watch as well as listen on YouTube.

This week's guests

Nicola Chilton is a UK-born travel writer who has lived in Dubai for more than a decade and will be hosting the rest of this series.

Sahar Parham Al Awadhi is an Emirati chef, the first Emirati chef at the Jumeirah Burj Al Arab, and the founder of Abra, a new restaurant inside Dubai’s Etihad Museum.

Plan your own Dubai trip

First, begin with these essential Afar resources, including the best hotels to book (and why hotels are so much more than a place to stay), a guide to the evolving food scene, and how to spend four days in Dubai, according to locals.

Where to stay, what to do, and what to eat from this episode

Jumeirah Beach — base yourself here for easy access to Dubai’s best hotels, restaurants, and free public beaches.

Jumeirah Marsa Al Arab — opened just over a year ago, directly across from the iconic Burj Al Arab.

Al Maha, a Luxury Collection Desert Resort — about an hour from the coast, inside the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve, where gazelles and Arabian oryx wander past your private plunge pool.

Dubai Creek — hop an abra, the little wooden boats that cross between Bur Dubai and Deira, for about 30 cents.

Al Fahidi historical neighborhood and Al Shindagha Museum — Bur Dubai’s restored old neighborhoods, now galleries, cafés, and museum houses.

Karak tea — Dubai’s ubiquitous, inexpensive spiced milk tea, best bought roadside from a canteen window.

Abra — Sahar Parham Al Awadhi’s new restaurant inside the Etihad Museum⁠, built around “new Emirati cuisine.”

XVA Hotel — a boutique stay inside a heritage house near Dubai Creek, with its own gallery and café.

Arabian Boutique Hotel — another heritage-building stay near the water, home to Arabian Fish House.

One&Only One Za’abeel — for skyline views from one of Dubai’s newest towers.

Hatta — a mountainous exclave about 90 minutes from the city, popular with residents for hiking, mountain biking, and kayaking.

Chapters

00:00:00 Welcome to Dubai
00:03:00 From Bangkok to Eleven Years In
00:06:00 After the Spring Unrest
00:08:00 Beaches, Desert Camps, and Mountains
00:14:00 Enter Sahar Parham Al Awadhi
00:19:00 Reviving Emirati Cuisine
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Afar contributing writer Emma John road-trips the Great Victorian Bathing Trail, uncovering the best spa towns in Victoria, Australia—from thermal springs on the coast to century-old bathhouses inland.

A traditional spa vacation was never Emma John's thing—she needs to be on the move to relax. So when she set out to explore Victoria Australia spas along the newly opened Great Victorian Bathing Trail, she brought her road trip instincts with her: 250 miles of driving, looping from Melbourne down to the Mornington Peninsula, across Port Phillip Bay by ferry, and back up through the best spa towns in Victoria, Australia—Hepburn Springs and Daylesford.

On this episode of Unpacked, host Katherine LaGrave talks with Emma about what she learned when a self-described spa skeptic spent a week soaking, swimming, and drinking mineral water across the state with Australia's highest concentration of natural springs.

THIS WEEK'S GUEST

Emma John is a contributing writer to Afar based in London. For her story on the Great Victorian Bathing Trail, she looped through Victoria's most notable bathing destinations—geothermal spas, sea pools, mineral springs, and lakes—timing her trip around a six-week cricket series between Australia and England. What began as a well-earned reward after weeks of demanding sports coverage turned into a deeper reckoning with what wellness travel actually means.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why Victoria, Australia, has the country's highest concentration of natural mineral springs, and how the Great Victorian Bathing Trail links geothermal spas, sea pools, and lakes across the state

Alba Thermal Springs & Spa on the Mornington Peninsula, where automatic doors and unfamiliar bathing etiquette left Emma completely disoriented—and how she started letting go of the need to get it "right"

Hepburn Springs and Daylesford, the twin towns at the heart of Victoria's spa country, home to 80 percent of Australia's mineral water and the 1895 Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa—Australia's oldest

Drinking straight from the source: the sulfurous Soda, Locarno, and Sulphur Springs pumps scattered through Hepburn's town park, and why locals still fill their bottles there every week

A 45-minute private mineral bath that changed Emma's mind about "forced relaxation"—and the moment she realized her real obstacle wasn't the spa, but her own instinct to rush

The layered history beneath the trail: a walk with guide Rob Hyatt of the Koorie Heritage Trust, who explains how the Yarra River's true name is Birrarung, and how Lake Daylesford's creation displaced the Dja Dja Wurrung people from land and water they'd relied on for generations

Why Emma's top recommendation for skeptics isn't a spa at all: the Searoad Ferry between the Mornington and Bellarine Peninsulas, where a pod of wild dolphins showed up uninvited

Dinner at Kadota, a Japanese restaurant in Daylesford run by chef Aaron Schembri and his wife Risa Kadota, plus an unplanned stop in the town of Trentham that Emma's still thinking about

CHAPTER MARKERS

00:00:00 Introduction: A Road Trip Built Around Water

00:04:00 Hepburn Springs: Australia's Oldest Bathhouse

00:08:00 The freedom of road trips and letting go

00:10:30 The history of these Australian waters

00:17:00 The Searoad Ferry and an Unexpected Pod of Dolphins

00:19:00 Drinking the Springs in Hepburn's Town Park

00:22:00 Kadota, Daylesford, and an Unplanned Stop in Trentham

00:23:30 How Emma's Idea of Wellness Changed

LINKS & RESOURCES

Emma John's Afar story: An Australian Road Trip Built Around Swimming, Soaking, and Sauna

Alba Thermal Springs & Spa

Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa

Lon Retreat & Spa

Koorie Heritage Trust

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Travel journalist Kathryn Romeyn shares how to find Thailand off the beaten path—from Nan Province night markets to Khao Sok's rainforest—plus the best time to visit Thailand if you want fewer crowds and lower prices.

This week on Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene explores Thailand off the beaten path with journalist Kathryn Romeyn, who's covered Southeast Asia since 2014 and calls Bali, Indonesia home. Kathryn returned to Thailand again and again since her first real trip in 2018, and wrote Afar's guide to seeing the country differently.

In this episode, part of Unpacked's Off the Tourist Trail series, she and Aislyn dig into Bangkok's overlooked neighborhoods, the north's least-visited provinces, and—critically—the best time to visit Thailand if you want to skip both the crowds and the price surge of high season.

THIS WEEK'S GUEST

Kathryn Romeyn is a Bali-based travel journalist who has covered Southeast Asia since 2014. After spending years visiting nearly every other country in the region—Myanmar, Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam—she finally gave Thailand a real chance starting in 2018, and has been chasing its lesser-known corners ever since.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why finding Thailand off the beaten path means letting go of five-star expectations—and how a $50-a-night, family-run guesthouse can outshine a luxury resort

The best time to visit Thailand: why the shoulder seasons (roughly March–July and October–November) beat the crowded, expensive December–January peak, and why to avoid the hot, rainy August–September stretch

Inside Nan Province, in Thailand's mountainous north near Laos—road-tripping through opium-turned-coffee country, staying in teak bungalows, and meeting a local guide from the Karen community

Local flavors worth seeking out: sai oua northern-style sausage, chicken wings crusted in makhwaen (a wild jungle pepper related to Sichuan pepper), and the tamarind crunchy shrimp at Thanyamundra that Kathryn can't stop thinking about

A nightly ritual in Nan: communal floor dinners at bamboo khantoke tables between two illuminated temples, complete with live folk music and unmatched trash-sorting discipline

Why Koh Yao Noi—a small island with one gas station and one doctor—offers an escape from the group-boat crowds hitting Phuket's more famous islands

Skipping the standard Phuket–Krabi–Chiang Mai loop for Khaosok National Park where limestone karsts rise out of Cheow Lan Lake and langurs swing through the jungle canopy

Why hiring a private guide or outfitter (like Smiling Albino or Red Savannah)—rather than a big-group tour—unlocks the kind of moments you can't find with an internet search

CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Rethinking Thailand's Reputation
00:02:00 A Freelancer's First Real Trip
00:07:00 Getting Lost in Bangkok on Purpose
00:11:00 Island Escapes and the Road to Nan
00:16:00 Guesthouses Over Five-Star Hotels
00:21:00 Night Markets and Local Food Secrets

LINKS & RESOURCES

Kathryn Romeyn's AFAR story: How to See Thailand's Wonders Without Feeling Like a Tourist

Thanyamundra Organic Resort

Nan Seasons Boutique Resort

Cape Kudu Hotel

Koh Yao Noi

Smiling Albino

Red Savannah

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The spices in your cabinet are probably five to seven years old—and that's not an accident.

On this episode of Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene sits down with Sana Javeri Kadri, founder of Diaspora Spice Co., who spent nine years dismantling a 500-year-old system and replacing it with something radically different: direct relationships with regenerative spice farming partners across India and Sri Lanka. What starts as a question about how old the spices in your cabinet really are unfolds into a conversation about colonialism, cultural erasure, and what it actually takes to trace a turmeric root back to the family who grew it.

THIS WEEK'S GUEST

Sana Javeri Kadri founded Diaspora Spice Co. in 2017 at age 23, after discovering that the global spice trade—largely unchanged since European colonization took hold roughly 500 years ago—left farmers earning almost nothing while spices sat in warehouses for five to seven years before reaching store shelves.

Sana built the company around regenerative spice farming partnerships, working directly with 140 farmers across India and Sri Lanka to source turmeric, cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper, and more, paying farm partners an average of 4x commodity price. Sana splits time between Mumbai and the Bay Area and is the author of The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook, a book five years in the making and built entirely around the farm families behind the spices.

IN THIS EPISODE

How Sana Javeri Kadri traced the spice trade's roots back 4,000 years—and how colonization, not commerce, is what broke it roughly 500 years ago

Why regenerative spice farming partnerships let Diaspora Spice Co. pay farmers well above commodity price, and what that income jump has meant for farming families year over year

The 14-month search for pesticide-free cardamom, and what it actually takes to find a handful of true regenerative spice farming partners out of dozens of samples collected

Inside Eko Land's cinnamon and clove processing facility in Kandy, Sri Lanka, where quality control means tasting bark from individual trees—and why true cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) is almost impossible to find in the US

What 9 years of relationship-building with Pragati Turmeric farm partner Prabhu Kasereni has looked like, from a 23-year-old showing up unannounced to writing a cookbook credited entirely to the farmers themselves

CHAPTERS

00:00:00 The Age of Your Spice Cabinet
00:03:00 The 500-Year-Old Trade Problem
00:10:00 Building Diaspora and Regenerative Farming
00:18:00 The Search for Cardamom and Pepper
00:26:00 Pragati Turmeric in Andhra Pradesh
00:34:00 Cinnamon and Cloves in Kandy
00:42:00 Nine Years, One Family's Story
00:48:00 The Cookbook and What Comes Next

INKS & RESOURCES

Diaspora Co.

The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook

Pragati Turmeric

Guntur Sannam Chilli

Stay connected

Be sure to subscribe to the show and sign up for our podcast newsletter, Behind the Mic, where we share upcoming news and behind-the-scenes details of each episode.

And explore our second podcast, Travel Tales, which celebrates first-person narratives about the way travel changes us, and View From Afar, where we spotlight the people and ideas shaping the future of travel.

Unpacked by Afar is part of Airwave Media's podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An African safari doesn't have to mean a traffic jam. On this episode of Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene travels to Tanzania's southern circuit—visiting two parks most first-time safari-ers never consider—and discovers what happens when you trade the famous Great Migration crossing for a dry riverbed with not another human being in sight.

To get there, she consulted Elizabeth Gordon, co-founder of Extraordinary Journeys, who helped reframe what an African safari could be. What followed was eight days in Ruaha National Park and Nyerere National Park: a walking safari with a guide who reads the wind with a pouch of ash, a river full of hippos and crocodiles that Aislyn took to calling "danger soup," and a fly camp on a lake where a ranger stayed up all night speaking hippo so she didn't have to.

Come back next week for a bonus episode about what happens when a lion leaves the park—and meets a herd of cattle.

THIS WEEK'S GUESTS

Elizabeth Gordon is the co-founder of Extraordinary Journeys, a bespoke travel company designing African safari itineraries—and trips throughout South America and Asia—for travelers who want more than the standard route. Born in Kenya to a mother who joined the Peace Corps, earned her pilot's license, and built a house on a game park outside Nairobi, Elizabeth grew up between Kenya and France, studied in Beijing, and managed safari camps in Namibia before launching the company with her mother.

Pay Mbaryo is a walking guide and naturalist with Nomad Tanzania in Ruaha National Park. A farmer's son who grew up in the Gorongosa district, he has spent 15 years in the bush and navigates unmarked wilderness using what he calls a natural GPS. In a decade of guiding, he has never once had to use his rifle.

Gerald is a guide with Nomad Tanzania in Nyerere National Park, in his fourth year on the Rufiji River. He can identify a hippo's path out of the water by sight and smell—and he was the one who handed Aislyn a hippo skull to explain exactly why you don't want to be in that path.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why Tanzania's Southern Circuit—specifically Ruaha National Park and Nyerere National Park—offers a better African safari experience for first-time visitors than the Great Migration crossing: fewer people, better guides, and wildlife that doesn't know you're there

What a walking safari in Ruaha actually feels like: reading the wind with a pouch of ash, approaching a mother elephant and her calf without being detected, learning to make a toothbrush from a tree, and discovering the Small Five

How Pay spent 15 years learning that birds, buffalo, and elephants are all sharing information with one another—and why walking safari means becoming part of that conversation rather than watching it from a Jeep

The Rufiji River at Nyerere: a wide, curving expanse of "danger soup"—filled with hippos and crocodiles—and what an afternoon on the water teaches you about the elephant as a keystone species

What fly camping looks like when Nomad's team digs a bathroom into the sand, rigs a hot shower, serves gin and tonics under the stars, and a ranger stays up all night so you can fall asleep to the sound of the hippo brass band

CHAPTER MARKERS

00:00:00 Introduction: African Safari, But Different

00:04:00 Why the Southern Circuit

00:08:00 Arriving in Ruaha

00:12:00 Walking Safari With Pay

00:20:00 The Small Five and the Keystone Species

00:26:00 Nyerere and the Rufiji River

00:33:00 Danger Soup: Life on the Water

00:38:00 Fly Camping With Hippos

LINKS & RESOURCES

Extraordinary Journeys

Nomad Tanzania

Nomad Kigelia Camp, Ruaha

Nomad Sand Rivers Camp, Nyerere

Ruaha National Park, Tanzania

Nyerere National Park, Tanzania

View From Afar—Great Migration episode

Stay connected

Be sure to subscribe to the show and sign up for our podcast newsletter, Behind the Mic, where we share upcoming news and behind-the-scenes details of each episode.

And explore our second podcast, Travel Tales, which celebrates first-person narratives about the way travel changes us, and View From Afar, where we spotlight the people and ideas shaping the future of travel.

Unpacked by Afar is part of Airwave Media's podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices