Top 10 Hidden Gems in Cardiff, Wales with Eugene Fogarty

Welcome to Hidden Gems: Cardiff, Wales

Jason: Hey, Jason here with ZeroToTravel.com. Welcome to the show. Thanks for hanging out, letting me bring a little travel into your ears today. This is the show to help you travel the world on your terms. And you may have noticed, once a month at least, I’m sneaking in these hidden gems episodes, and I like to introduce people, and myself, to new destinations. I like to explore places that I haven’t been, so that’s something I’ve been trying to do regularly, at least once a month in the interviews, to bring you a sneak peek into a destination perhaps you’ve never visited. Maybe one you visited that you’re revisiting through a little bit of an audio journey here. So this is a fun one. You’re going to get a little bit of a tour around Cardiff and a sense of Wales and the culture and why it may be overlooked sometimes, and some of the things to see and do and so on. I know you’re going to enjoy this one. Stick around on the back end. You’ll get a quote from one of my heroes. Can’t believe I haven’t quoted this person yet. And that’s it. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Eugene. Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you on the other side, my friend.

An Irish Tour Guide in Wales

Jason: Eugene Fogarty, welcome to the Zero to Travel podcast, my friend. Thanks for being here.

Eugene: Thanks for having me, Jason. Looking forward to it.

Jason: I mean, you even got a babysitter to be on this show to watch your one-year-old. So that says something, man. Thank you.

Eugene: Thank you. Dedicated to spreading the love for Wales today.

Jason: Exactly. Where did you grow up, man?

Eugene: So I actually grew up in Dublin, in Ireland. So I’m not from here in Wales, which is, I guess, as a tour guide, something that’s always in the back of my mind. Always a bit maybe self-conscious about it. What if all these local people are overhearing me talking and, like, who’s this guy? Who does he think he is, coming here and telling people about it? What does he know about Cardiff with his funny accent? That kind of stuff.

Jason: I don’t have the statistics on this, but based on some people in my network, based on some guests of the show and things like that, there are a lot of, quote unquote, foreigners doing tours in countries that aren’t their home country where they grew up. And I think there can be some advantages to that as well, because perhaps you see it in a different way. A lot of times you come into a new country. I live abroad. I live in Norway. I grew up in the US. The cultural things are heightened, maybe, in some ways, because you didn’t grow up in it. It wasn’t just sort of the background noise you were used to. You can kind of pick some of these things out. And I’m not saying, oh, that means everybody that comes from outside the country is better or worse as a tour guide. There is a dynamic there that can work to your advantage, I feel.

Eugene: Yeah, no, I think so too. Even in Dublin, I don’t know if I’d be the best person either, just because I’m from there. Doesn’t mean I’m an expert on it. But I think as an outsider coming into Cardiff, I’m a bit less biased. Now, I’m definitely pro-Cardiff, pro-Wales, want to promote it to the world. But I think I’m more inclined, I’d like to think, to tell people what is interesting from their perspective, rather than maybe making it like, this is where I grew up, and this is where I used to hang out, or too many kind of personal things, rather than what the people are actually looking for.

For example, I do always find, like you said, the statistics are probably right. Well, we don’t know the statistics, but there’s a general feeling that tour guides aren’t always from where they’re working. But I feel like in English-speaking places, they’re probably more likely to be from the place that they’re talking about. I find that a lot in the likes of, let’s say, Dublin, Belfast, and Edinburgh, as nearby examples. If you’re doing an English-language tour in a central European capital city, maybe they’re less likely to be local, and more international, because of the language. Well, here, maybe you’d expect the local person.

Anyway, not to dwell on that too much, but I think it was one of those things that I had a chip on my shoulder about initially. I used to be really self-conscious that, oh, a local person is going to come and out me as a fraud and outsmart me and debunk everything I say. I realized after a while that local people don’t always know their home cities very well. They come on tours because they want to have a fun experience with their family and friends and do different activities they’re not used to doing. And even Welsh people, and people around the world generally, don’t know much about the history of Wales or Cardiff anyway. So it’s kind of a blank slate most of the time.

Jason: Yeah. Well, you have the advantage of being Irish. I mean, everybody loves the Irish.

Eugene: Yeah. A bit of a generalization.

Jason: So lovable, Eugene. So lovable. So chatty and so charming and so well-spoken.

Eugene: Yeah, I think that helps. Maybe. I don’t know. There’s worse nationalities to be from from that perspective. And of course, Ireland’s not that far away, so it’s not as if I’m from the other side of the world necessarily or something. I’m pretty well ingrained in Welsh life anyway. My wife’s Welsh, my oldest child goes to a Welsh language primary, elementary school. So yeah, pretty well ingrained in local culture and life anyway.

Jason: More than many, I’m sure. When you live the everyday life, especially the family life too, and you had time there before you had a family, you get to see all different facets of a culture, I think, in the everyday existence of living there. And we are going to give you listeners out there some travel fodder, perhaps some inspiration to put Wales on your destination list. Not the open sea animal we’re talking about. Wales, the country. I think everybody knows that. But just making bad jokes here.

No, but I feel like it is a country that perhaps can get overlooked, sandwiched where it is between England and Ireland, and you’ve got Scotland. And I feel like that’s sort of the trinity, the tourism trinity, if you will. And then you’ve got Wales. That’s not to say you don’t have tourism there, but I feel like, perhaps speaking more for American tourism, they’re often going to England or Ireland or maybe Scotland, as opposed to putting Wales on the itinerary. So that’s why I thought, man, this will be fun. We’ll get to talk to a local. We’ll get to talk to an expert tour guide to give us a little taste with this list of some of the things we could do. This isn’t the end-all, be-all list. We know that there’s a million things to do, but we want to give everybody a little taste. It’s a fun way to do it.

From Radio to Tour Guiding and Two Years Across the Americas

Jason: We’re going to get into that in a minute, but I do want to ask you a little bit more about your background, because it looks like you were in radio, then you worked doing tour guiding in London. Was that a conscious decision? Sometimes you fall into these sorts of careers. And I know being a presenter on radio and things like that, you have all these different skill sets you have to bring to a company like this. Did you fall into the tour guide thing? Or did you intentionally say, hey, I’m really passionate about showing people a city and this is just something I want to do?

Eugene: So yeah, mostly I fell into it. I guess it also kind of makes sense too, perhaps in hindsight, with what I studied in university especially. So I studied history and then a master’s in journalism, kind of with the idea of getting involved in sports, radio, newspapers, whatever, all that kind of stuff. And I guess I did do stuff in that area. I just never really got paid for it properly. I worked in local radio stations in different places, and internships at websites and local newspapers and stuff like this. Anyway, in the end, after different travels around the world and different things, I ended up working in it.

Jason: Wait, hold on. Hold on. Wait a minute. Different travels around the world. You can’t just gloss over that part here.

Eugene: Yeah.

Jason: What about the travels around the world? What did you do?

Eugene: Yeah, lots of stuff. I’ve been to, oh, I don’t know, 65 countries, maybe something like that.

Jason: You forgot to mention that when we set this up.

Eugene: Yeah, I guess it was relevant too as well. I’m sure we’ll come back to how it was relevant. But yeah, I’ve been all around the Americas, from North to South. I lived in the US for a year or so and spent longer periods in certain countries in Latin America as well. Met my wife in Santiago, Chile. Even though she’s from over here, we met, whatever that is, 8,000 miles away.

Jason: I met my wife in Brazil, so we both met our wives in South America. And now you’re in Norway.

Eugene: And now I’m in Norway.

Jason: But wait a minute, was it like a gap year thing? Or what were you doing?

Eugene: Yeah, in regards to that trip, if you’d recently graduated in Ireland, at least this was the case, I’m sure it still is, but 13 years ago or so, you could get a visa for the US quite easily, really. As long as you pay for it, of course. And you’re supposed to then go and find a job in what you’ve studied, but you don’t actually have to do that in advance. You can do that when you get there anyway. So I’d been to San Diego the previous year and thought, that’s a pretty nice city to maybe live in. You know, a different lifestyle to the UK and Ireland, for example, with the nice weather all year round and beaches and palm trees. A bit more exotic.

So yes, I lived there for a year, doing different things as well, but not quite what I wanted. Like construction, events, bars, stuff like this. And then after the year there, I just crossed into Mexico and then continued south across the following year, kind of culminating in, well, Chile mainly, because I had an old high school friend who was living there at the time. So I spent more time there because he was there. And ultimately I worked in this backpacker hostel for a few months. And then my wife was there and we met. And yeah, that’s how that happened. But yes, that was a whole two years away. More or less most of the Americas in that trip.

Jason: Well, what were the biggest lessons personally that you pulled from that experience that maybe you still carry with you today?

Eugene: Yeah, I guess it’s a long time ago now, but it was the time of my life, basically, especially the second year, the more traveling year, rather than staying in one place. I think just confidence generally, I would say. In meeting other people, and then also maybe just having new experiences I wouldn’t have maybe been willing to try before. Be it, I don’t know, surfing down a volcano or climbing a volcano, or other things that I can’t quite think of, or mountain climbing or whatever it might have been, or surfing, or different activities and adventure stuff that I maybe hadn’t been doing as much of before.

So in terms of now, what I do for a living, I definitely carry that trip and many other trips into it. Because I think something that might set me apart, and not in a brag way or anything, but something that I definitely use as a tour guide is that I feel like I can relate to everybody, because I’ve probably been to where they’re from or know something about where they’re from. And a lot of the time, they’d be surprised I’ve ever been there. And again, it creates this bond as a consequence. And you kind of have their confidence or their buy-in when you can relate to them in some way. Thankfully, because of my interest in travel and geography in general and other people, I think I carry a lot, especially from that trip, into what I’m doing today.

So that’s only one trip, for two years. I’ve spent a summer in Vancouver, spent a summer in Boston, lived in Brussels for a year, which we’ll get back to because that’s part of why I now do this, I think, and different Euro trips over the years. A big honeymoon to Southeast Asia and the Far East. I’m going to Rome this weekend. So, you know, there’s always somewhere I’m going over the years. I never really did that as a family growing up. Our vacations were always in Ireland, pretty much always in Ireland, not too far. Maybe to the UK for a football game or something. But then once I was an adult, it was like, oh, great. Well, if I made the money to do it, I could go off and do whatever I wanted. So I was finally set free to chase all these places that I’d always wanted to go to, or follow these curiosities.

Jason: Yeah, that’s amazing. And having the travel experience, of course, I’m sure makes it not only relatable, like you mentioned, being able to speak to where somebody’s from and have that instant bond with people, but also having gone on tours and experiences yourself, I’m sure, consciously and subconsciously, that all fed into how you crafted these itineraries and how you curate the things you’re going to see and things like that, which is the travel experience. Essentially, it’s the curation. Sometimes it’s not so much curation as, I’m just going to go out and see what happens. But in the case of a tour, of course, you have to have an itinerary. You’re going to see certain things.

Brussels, London, and Starting Fogo’s Free Tours

Jason: Before we get into the list, tell us about the Brussels and London connection. How did that work?

Eugene: It feeds in nicely. So after getting back from the longer two-year stint away, I’d already met my wife, my now wife, by then. Actually, by the time I got back to Europe, she was in Andorra, doing partly a kind of year abroad, but needing to do stuff that was semi-related to what she was studying, which was languages. And in Andorra, they speak French and Spanish and Catalan and different things, so that was somewhere that she went for a term or semester. So we met there, and anyway, we got back to our respective places, Oxford for her, Dublin for me. And then it was like, well, what am I going to do now?

So anyway, this opportunity came up, logically, to work in a bar in central Brussels.

Jason: That’s the first thing I think about when I’m trying to figure out what to do.

Eugene: That’s equally as far away from Oxford as Dublin is. So what’s the difference, I suppose? So I went and lived there for a year, just to work in this kind of international bar that’s in the heart of the city center. It’s called Scott’s. It’s next to this big gallery called the Galeries Royales, really close to the Grand Place, the main square there. But I also then volunteered at a radio station for a bit during that time. So that’s kind of why I was convinced to go. The owner of the bar was like, oh, I know a guy who has an English-language radio station. You could work there too. So, okay, let’s give that a go.

Anyway, the bar I worked in had this relationship with a big pan-European walking tour company, and they would come into our bar for their halftime break and get hot chocolates and waffles and Belgian beers and all the usual stuff. And that operation had a setup in London. So when I moved to London after a year, it was like, well, can I get involved in London, just to start doing something when I arrive? And yes, that’s how that started out. But I wasn’t actually the tour guide. I was in administrative roles, and then I was the manager of the operation in London. That company was also in Dublin, so I spent some time at their Dublin operation as well. I was kind of back and forth.

And then after a while, my wife’s work brought her to Cardiff. So it was a case of, well, when am I going to move to Cardiff too? But then when I came to Cardiff, I thought, nobody’s really doing free tours in Cardiff, at least not at that time. So I thought, well, can I do this? Can I set up my own thing? I feel like I can do the background a bit, but can I be the tour guide? Can I do that bit? Because I hadn’t really done that side of it before. But again, studying history and journalism, I think they’re kind of relevant, because you’re researching and presenting information in a coherent manner that people can follow and understand. So I did feel like I was putting those academic skills into practice in some way.

And yeah, maybe that’s also partly why it was nerve-wracking and I was self-conscious. This is going back now just over eight years. That’s probably why in those early months I was self-conscious of local people, and nervous doing it, because it was a totally new thing. I’m doing something I’ve never done before for people from all walks of life. And I don’t necessarily know what I’m talking about, or don’t feel fully confident in what I’m talking about. I hadn’t even lived there that long at the time to be giving tours of the city.

And here we are now, just over eight years. The first ever tour was Easter Saturday 2018. So that’s just a couple of weeks ago, eight years ago. And there’s been about 2,000 different tours since, mostly conducted by me. It’s a small city, so it’s a small operation, really. And I do most of the tours, and I’ve created them all myself. And yeah, thankfully, still going strong. I love doing it. I love meeting all these people. I always take it for granted. I think most people don’t meet people from 150 different countries in their day-to-day life.

Jason: Right. Yeah.

Eugene: So you have all these conversations that most people don’t have. So you kind of forget what a unique situation I’m in sometimes.

Why Travel Leads You Places You Can’t Plan

Jason: When you go to the office, you get to meet people from all over the world. That’s something we talk about here, like a lifestyle business. If you’re wanting to be around that vibe, it sounds like travel maybe introduced you to it, working in a hostel, things like that, being around that vibe.

Just a couple of lessons I want to pull out from your mini bio here before we get into the meat of it with the destination stuff. It’s always thrilling to me when I hear these stories and how travel, just the act of going out and traveling, like you spent the year in America and then you went traveling and then you ended up in Brussels. I mean, all of this led to what you’re doing today, but unexpectedly. And I feel like that is one of the things about travel. Sometimes it can be hard to save up money and take off, and you’re like, well, what am I going to do afterwards, and all these things. But I’ve heard so many times how the travel experience has led to some career they didn’t even know existed, or some sort of life path that unfolded because they went on the trip in the first place. So for anybody listening that needs to hear that, that needs a vote of confidence to go traveling again or for the first time, don’t let that idea of, well, I don’t know what I’m going to do afterwards, hold you back, because maybe it leads to the thing you do afterwards. I think that’s super powerful.

Eugene: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more, really. Especially, I feel like you spend a lot of time waiting for your friends to join you. Or like, oh, you’re coming up with a plan together. And then it just keeps on being pushed back and pushed back, for example. And then it’s like, well, if you’re really eager yourself and it’s what you feel like you need to do or want to do, then maybe just don’t wait. Just go and do it yourself if you have to. Especially memories from my early 20s of thinking, oh, I’ll go on this Euro trip, or I’ll go to this place, and friends kind of dawdling. And it’s like, okay, I’m just going to go and do it. People can come if they want to come, but I’m going to go and organize it.

Jason: Kind of what you did with the company too. You’re like, there’s no free tours here. I’m going to take what I did professionally in other cities, and I’m going to bring it to where I live. We’re going to link up, so if maybe after this you’re already booking your ticket to Wales, who knows? Either way, if you’re there, we’ll link up to the website, fogosfreetours.com. You have the free tours, and then of course you have some private tours and paid things and stuff like that, which we can talk about.

We have some destination stuff to cover. We always do this in a list format, just because it’s fun to go through one by one. Then we never know where the conversation is going to go, but it’s a starting point. How many experiences did you want to highlight today as we go through this?

Eugene: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think I have a list, maybe the best part of 10 things here. Some stronger than others, of course. Some that, when we get to it, I’ll be like, maybe I don’t want to do that one after all. But basically 10.

Jason: All right. We’ll go with 10. All right, give us your first one.

Alexandra Gardens and the Cherry Blossom Window

Eugene: Yeah, mostly Cardiff-based, but we’ll see if we can spread it a bit further. So the first one is very timely. We have this little park in central Cardiff called Alexandra Gardens, which is actually quite central, relatively, but at the same time, something even local people don’t know exists. So it’s a little public park, kind of hidden amongst a rectangle of very nice Edwardian, early 20th century, neoclassical-style buildings. So it’s where Cardiff University is, and Cardiff City Hall, and the main museum, and the courthouse, and all these fancy buildings. But in between all of them is this little green park. Now, it’s only a two or three minute walk from the very center of town, from Cardiff Castle, for example. But even when I was in it a few days ago, I overheard a local walking past talking to their friends, and the woman said, I never knew this park existed, even though it’s right in the center of town.

The reason it’s first on the list today is because it is the perfect time of the year to visit it, this exact week. Of course, I’m sure you’re not publishing this chat this week, but it’s something for next year. Because it’s full of cherry blossom trees, basically. And it’s the perfect time of the year for them. It’s the two-week window where these trees come out in full bloom, and the whole park is basically just pink, with hints of white as well. And on top of that, there’s also lots of tulips that are in full bloom in the park as well. It’s quite a small park, really, but it’s just full of colors at the moment. So lots of purple tulips, yellow tulips, pink cherry blossom trees, all in full bloom at exactly the same time.

But also, scattered amongst them, you have lots of interesting memorials and monuments to different things that, again, people don’t often realize exist. Like the Welsh National War Memorial for the World Wars, the Falkland Islands memorial, the Commonwealth memorial for people from other countries around the world who died during the World Wars, statues to different figures involved in founding Cardiff University and so on, and the Spanish Civil War memorial, for example.

So basically, it’s just on my mind at the moment because it is the perfect time to visit it. And every tour I’ve been having the last week or two has been going to the park, because it’s the best window of time to visit this place in the year. I always feel guilty about it, really, because as the years have gone by, I used to go there on every single tour, and I don’t now, because there’s only so much you can fit in. And even though it is a highlight and my number one hidden gem, I don’t even show everybody, which is a bit strange, I guess. You just can’t do it all, and you can’t make every tour go on for hours and hours, of course. You’ve got to pick and choose what you do. But I always make a conscious effort at this time of the year to make sure I fit it in, because it is the single prettiest thing in Cardiff, and the best in this current two-week window we are in, because of the cherry blossom trees.

Jason: I was going to say, who doesn’t love a hidden park? And then if you stumble on it and it’s just an explosion of color, that’s not a terrible surprise either.

Eugene: And everyone loves cherry blossom trees, of course, as well. So it’s interesting. It’s kind of like this hidden gem, but this is the two-week window when the trees are out, and suddenly there’s more people in the park than are in it the whole rest of the year combined, because everyone’s coming to get their photographs for social media, of course. And then they never step foot in the park again or take an interest in the memorials. It’s all about the pictures of the pretty trees, of course. But I joke about that, and I’m guilty of it myself at the moment.

Jason: I get it.

Cardiff in a Nutshell: Why Wales Gets Overlooked

Jason: Well, there’s other things around to see there, it sounds like. And before we get into number two, can you just give us your elevator pitch, let’s say, on Cardiff as a city, as a capital city? What’s the vibe like? What’s the culture? Just kind of an overview of the city.

Eugene: Yeah, that’s interesting. Because this kind of goes back to what you said just when we started, I think, about how people think of England and Scotland and Ireland, and Wales often gets overlooked in that way. Partly for logistical issues, or people maybe think Wales and England are the same sometimes, which they’re not, or people just don’t know it exists, or forget that it’s there, kind of tucked away to the side of England.

But Cardiff, I always say, is a city people don’t really know much about. Maybe they don’t really have much of a preconception, positive or negative. They think maybe, if they know anything, especially in the UK, that it’s somewhere for rugby matches, because there’s a massive stadium right in the heart of the city center, one of the biggest in the UK. And it’s also maybe a place for bachelor parties, stag and hen parties, for example. And they just don’t really think much of it beyond that.

But then in my experience, when people come, and people generally come because it’s a chance to tick off another country, like, Cardiff, that’s the capital of the country, let’s go there. Tick. Wales, done. And then off they go again. So at least it has that selling point. That’s generally what lures people in. And then when people come, they realize, oh, I wish I’d given more time to Cardiff and to the country in general. I wish I hadn’t just done it as this one-night quick stop before continuing back to London or somewhere else in the UK. Because there’s more to see and do. It’s prettier than I thought. There’s a lot more going on. There’s such beautiful places nearby that I can’t get to because I haven’t given enough time to get there, be it castles, beaches, scenery, museums, all sorts of different things.

And actually, whenever there’s somebody from Cardiff on a tour, or somebody who lives in Cardiff on a group tour, I’ll ask, what do you like most? And the thing that comes up most regularly is generally the same sentence. People always say it has the feel of being a cozy town where everybody kind of knows each other, while also being a capital city at the same time. So it has everything you would want for a capital, like attractions, events. Big things do come here. It has all the shops and restaurants you’d want and so on. But at the same time, it feels like a small community, and it’s not too busy. It’s never overcrowded. You’re free to wander and walk around everywhere, and it’s all very easy to get around. So it has that local community, quiet, small town feel, while also getting to be the capital of a country. So it has everything you would want as a capital too.

Jason: The huge cities, the Parises and New Yorks of the world, have their time and place, of course, but there is something nice about visiting the more intimate cities in that way. Easier to get around, still lots to do and see, but more of, like you said, a neighborhood feel, maybe, in some ways. I don’t know. The ultimate compliment that you can give a place as a traveler is, oh, I wish I’d spent more time there, right? So if you’re hearing that a lot, that’s always a good sign of a place to perhaps schedule more time for in the first place. Speaking of that, well, we’ve got nine more reasons. Do you want to move into the next point?

The Secret Cyberman of St John the Baptist Church

Eugene: Yeah. So if I said the word Cyberman, does that mean anything to you?

Jason: Cyberman? Cyberman? It sounds like an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie from the ’80s.

Eugene: No, but it is kind of TV and movie related, I suppose. So the Cybermen are a villain in a TV show called Doctor Who, which I’m sure you’ve heard of.

Jason: Yes.

Eugene: Yeah. So Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction television show in the world, since 1963. But anyway, it’s been filmed in Cardiff since 2005. So the last 21 years or so. And in the meantime, there’s been 15 series, or seasons, of the show across the last 21 years. And it does get filmed in other places from time to time, but generally it’s always Cardiff, and Cardiff’s always there in the background. And it’s not really supposed to ever be Cardiff, though. It’s supposed to be London in different time periods across history, or it’s supposed to be New York or Washington, DC, for example. It’s supposed to be Norway, actually, in one notable instance. It’s supposed to be Paris and Moscow and Sydney and other parts of the UK and so on. So Cardiff is kind of just doubling up. So things like Cardiff Castle portray the Tower of London, or the Great Wall of China somehow, or Cardiff City Hall plays the White House in Washington, DC.

Jason: How does it do that?

Eugene: Yeah, well, they use parts of the building and certain angles of the buildings to make them look like they’re other places. And they don’t linger on it too long, otherwise you’d figure it out pretty quick, I suppose. I always think the Great Wall of China example is like half a second, blink and you miss it, because you’re not fooling anybody with this one, just using the walls of Cardiff Castle instead.

But the reason I mention the Cyberman, first of all, is because fans of the show know that it’s filmed in Cardiff, and I do lots of tours about Doctor Who filming locations around the city. But there isn’t really much to see apart from me saying, this is where this episode was made, and this is where this episode was made. This can get a bit repetitive, maybe. But the one thing of note, which is always fun to show people, or anybody who’s interested in television or sci-fi in general, is a little figurine of a Cyberman.

Now, the Cybermen are one of the most well-known villains in the history of Doctor Who, probably the second most well-known, I suppose. And they’re six-foot-tall metal robots, basically. And there’s a figurine of one inside a church in the middle of the city center. The church, first of all, is called St John the Baptist Church. It’s 840 years old, the second oldest building in the city center. A really pretty place in any way, well worth visiting and having a look at. But for many people, the big point of interest is this little figurine.

So inside the church is a little corner with a little altar and some wooden barriers and wooden beams going up toward the ceiling. And on top of the beams, there’s a row of Christian Middle Ages crusaders, like those who would have gone off to the Middle East at the time, whatever that was, 800, 900 years ago. And one of them, along this little row of crusaders in armor with their St George’s crosses and their swords, is a robot alien from a fictional television show, just standing there amongst them.

Jason: That’s the traditional holy relic.

Eugene: Exactly, yeah. So he’s just standing there in the same position, with the same kind of St George’s cross around his chest, pretending he’s holding a sword as well, for example.

Jason: The church having a bit of fun?

Eugene: Yeah, exactly. This is something different. I think people think sometimes, oh, is this appropriate? The church almost paying homage to or worshipping a fictional character. Is that really what it should be doing? And I’m like, well, for some people, that’s what they already do anyway. So what’s the difference here?

Jason: There’s some social commentary there.

Eugene: Yeah, I guess. I never know how to phrase that.

Jason: Food for thought.

Eugene: Food for thought, exactly. It’s always a big thrill for Doctor Who fans, because, again, it’s called the secret Cyberman. It’s not that well known. The average local doesn’t know it’s there. The average visitor doesn’t know it’s there. I think it’s a bit more well known than it used to be, due to social media, but generally it’s something that people don’t know exists. So it’s a real highlight of the Doctor Who tour, going to show people this thing, because they would just never expect to find a Cyberman in a church.

Jason: That is unexpected. It’s not the thing you would think would happen. It’s good marketing for the church, I would say.

Eugene: I think so. And they’re just having fun with it. So that’s part of the local history, I guess, a modern part. And it brings attention to this old church, which was worth going in for a look anyway, because it’s so colorful and pretty inside, but it has this added pull of something a bit different to bring you in as well.

I remember the first time I went in to find it, a few years ago, I had to ask a volunteer, well, where is it? I’m looking for something from Doctor Who, do you know where it is? And he really didn’t want to get involved in the conversation, I felt, or didn’t want to have to show it to me. I always thought maybe he thinks that’s not the reason why people should be coming in here. But in the meantime, I think they’ve bought into it a lot more and they’re more proud of it. Especially the minister at the church. She’d be like, whatever brings people in is fine by me. And we pride ourselves on being a bit more quirky and alternative and welcoming to all sorts of people than most other churches. And the Cyberman’s kind of a reflection of that.

Something I completely take for granted, for example, is the churchyard garden. This is right in the middle of the city center, by the way, right next to some of the major bars and markets and different things. They have pride flags hanging between the trees in the garden of the church every June, for example. And I wouldn’t give it a second thought, really. I just take it for granted. Oh, yeah, that’s what they do. That’s normal. But every year there’s always some visitor that says, wow, look at those flags. You would never get that back where I’m from, or something.

Jason: Yeah.

Eugene: So the whole thing just ties together, I guess, how inclusive the church is, and how alternative they are a little bit as well.

Jason: Love that.

Eugene: But yeah, Doctor Who. So, on that final note, I suppose, on Doctor Who, it’s like every step you take in the city has been in the show at some point. So it really is a character in Doctor Who, and it’s always there in the background. I guess unless you watch the show, you wouldn’t be aware. But people come for Doctor Who reasons a lot of the time. The sole purpose of their trip to Cardiff is because they watched and loved this show. It’s one of those shows where you’re either super into it, or you’ve never watched it.

Jason: Right, right. Yeah. I’ve never watched it, in this case. But I can appreciate a good sci-fi show. And it sounds like if people are touring it through those eyes, they can also see at the same time the Great Wall of China, the White House.

Eugene: Yeah, that’s it. And it’s funny, if it comes up on another tour, people might ask me, what’s the industry in Cardiff these days? Because it’s not coal mining like it used to be. And it’s like, oh, actually, one of the more interesting ones is TV production. And people are highly amused when they realize all these sites are supposed to be these grand places around the world. You just wouldn’t think of it in the same way, really.

Castle Arcade and Cardiff’s Victorian Arcades

Jason: All right, what else have you got for us?

Eugene: I guess we’ll have something a bit more, I don’t know, obvious maybe this time. So Cardiff is full of arched indoor shopping walkways that are called arcades. They often get called galleries in other countries. I think I mentioned one earlier, actually, with Brussels, the Galeries Royales in the middle of the city center. But arcades, anyway, as we say. Cardiff has more arcades, these indoor shopping streets, than anywhere in the whole of the UK, and more from the 19th century than anywhere in the whole of the UK as well. So they are something quite distinctive about the city.

Now, this wouldn’t really be a hidden gem to anybody who lives in the city, because everyone knows that they exist. But I guess they’re kind of a striking thing to a visitor, that Cardiff has all these nice 150-year-old shopping walkways. And they’re all full of locally owned independent shops as well. So it’s all little cafes and tea rooms, restaurants, art galleries, bookshops, board game shops, antiques and jewelry, wedding dresses, all sorts of different things. And they’re all very pretty. They’re all really well maintained. Some of them are more bustling than others, or get more footfall than others. But generally, if you ask the average local person, what’s your favorite thing about Cardiff, often the arcades might get mentioned, because some of the better cafes or coffee shops or eateries are inside them, and they’re all very attractive. And as you said, they’re quite unique to the city.

So they come about in the 19th century because Cardiff grew really rapidly during that time, due to the industrial success of Cardiff exporting coal around the world. And basically, Cardiff wanted to be a bit more upmarket and tap into high society a bit more, and wanted to advertise itself around the world as being a successful, wealthy city, and took inspiration from Paris or Milan or London, which also had these shopping galleries. And on top of that, of course, it rains here a lot. So these streets exist as a way of showing off how Cardiff had grown so much in such a short time in the 19th century, but also as a way of hiding from the rain, because Cardiff is statistically the wettest city in the UK, at the moment at least. So these streets were created so that rich people could go shopping without having to worry about getting wet in the 19th century.

But anyway, that’s them on a broader level. There’s seven of them from that era around the city center. The best one, or maybe the more hidden one, is called, well, it’s not a hidden arcade, it’s called Castle Arcade. It’s right opposite the entrance of Cardiff Castle, so super central in that regard. But the hidden thing about it, I suppose, is that it has a second floor. It’s the only one that has a stairway that goes up to a balcony above that is accessible to the public. So anybody can go up the stairs, walk around it, and get really nice views and get photographs, for example, from great angles as well. And in the arcade, there’s lots of massive mirrors and lights and chandeliers, so the whole thing looks super grand, and even longer and bigger than it already is. It’s also lined with little cafes, mostly, and looks like maybe a street or alleyway in Paris, for example, with these little tables outside cafes and restaurants with candles and lanterns and flowers, all side by side by side. So it’s a really nice row, a nice little passageway to walk through, and to get a good view of from the balcony. It’s just something you wouldn’t expect to find in Cardiff, I feel.

Jason: Yeah, it sounds like a good overarching point to bring up too, in the sense of a lot of cafes, local independent shops, and things like that. So you can almost stumble into any one of these and find hidden gems within those as well, in terms of places to eat and have coffee and things like that. That’s great.

Eugene: Yeah, you’ve brought up a good point there, which wasn’t going to be something I would necessarily have mentioned in great detail, but it’s worth bringing up, I think. Cardiff is definitely somewhere that’s become more well known as a foodie, coffee shop type of destination in the last couple of years. And more people in the UK are aware of it from that perspective and come for a foodie weekend. So there’s lots of nice independent cafes and restaurants all over the place. The best of which, at least the coffee shops anyway, for me, are all inside the different arcades as well. So a double perk of that, I suppose. Pretty, interesting, historical and so on, but also with great stuff inside them as well.

Womanby Street: Vikings, Victorian Slums, and Live Music

Jason: Awesome. All right, what else have you got for us? I’m already planning my time for a visit.

Eugene: Yeah.

Jason: I know you have quite a long list and a lot of history too. I want to respect your time. So if we need to bring this down to like seven with a bonus mention or something, we can totally do that.

Eugene: Yeah, that’s all right. Let’s do something a bit darker then, I think. There’s maybe a couple of darker ones. So I guess I’ve said it in passing a little bit, and I don’t want to ramble on about it, but one of the things about Cardiff that people wouldn’t know is that it’s really young. It’s only been the capital of Wales since 1955, so only 71 years. It’s considered to be, somehow, the youngest capital city in Europe. I don’t know how they make sense of that, because there’s newer countries than that, but it’s a tagline the city likes to use sometimes.

And even though the city’s been around in some form for 900 years, it’s only really in the 19th century that it grows into the biggest place in Wales. It was quite an insignificant place in Welsh history for most of its existence, until the coal industry leads to the rise of the city. So in the 19th century, people suddenly moved to Cardiff from all over the world in search of work, and the population just exploded. Infrastructure couldn’t keep up necessarily, so people ended up living in these living conditions, or areas, that were called housing courts, which essentially would be what we call slums today. And there were something like 75 of them dotted around the very heart of the city. Little passageways with a handful of townhouses, and people would have been crammed in, multiple families in individual rooms and so on. So basically not very pleasant, essentially.

And almost all of these have been wiped out in the meantime, built upon or replaced or changed, and they don’t exist. But there are two bits that do still exist today, right in the middle of the city, that people would pass every day without realizing that at one point in time, they were essentially the worst living conditions in the whole of the UK.

So there’s a little street in Cardiff called Womanby Street. Womanby, with a “by” at the end. It’s kind of old. It comes from Norse, a thousand years ago. It used to be a different name that was too long to say, so they’ve gradually shortened it in the meantime. There’s a little alcove, or a little passageway, off Womanby Street, which is now a little row of offices and apartments and stuff. But it used to be a court. That little row of offices used to be a slum 150 years ago, where people were crammed in and didn’t have any sanitation or clean drinking water between them. And now it’s this little secret alcove where people have their office or have their apartment, and it’s seen as being one of the nicer places in the city center to live. But it’s very much the remains of a 19th century Victorian slum.

And the street it’s the offshoot of, Womanby Street, is a rare example of any kind of Viking settlement in the city. Only the name, there’s no physical remains. But that street itself used to be where sailors would arrive over previous centuries and find lodgings and alehouses and inns and brothels and places to live and so on, and entertainment and whatnot. So it’s quite significant. It’s only a little side street. It’s really close, it’s right opposite Cardiff Castle, for example, it’s really central, yet it is kind of off the beaten path, even though it’s so close to the main stuff. And it has this long legacy of pirate activity and Viking activity and slum living conditions in the 19th century. Now, it is the live music street of the city center, lined mostly with bars that play different types of live music in their respective places. So the whole street is quite an interesting look into the city’s past.

Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir and the Land of Song

Jason: Is the live music scene as robust as it is in Ireland, let’s say? Is it that kind of thing culturally?

Eugene: Not in the same way, I’d say, unfortunately. No, a little bit different. So you wouldn’t be able to walk down a street in Cardiff, or most places in Wales, unfortunately, and hear live music coming out of a bar, be it acoustic guitar or bands, or a group of people playing their individual traditional instruments, kind of jamming in the moment with their traditional music. I feel like that’s a real drawback to Wales compared to Ireland.

Jason: Well, it’s special to Ireland, the trad session thing.

Eugene: Exactly.

Jason: It is awesome. I love that about Ireland.

Eugene: Yeah, same. And I do get asked about that, and it’s a real shame that there aren’t places that would have something like that. Because Wales does have that legacy of similar types of traditional instruments that Ireland has, just not really in the trad session way. So in Cardiff, there’s lots of live music, and there’s lots of venues that play music constantly, just not in the traditional sense.

The big thing in Wales, music-wise, historically, that sets it a bit apart is the concept of something called a male voice choir. So in the 19th century, groups of coal miners would band together in the evening after a long day down the pit. As a hobby, they would gather in the local community hall and sing together. And there’s still lots of these, the legacy of that, around the country today. Choirs of men singing traditional Welsh songs, many of which would be in the Welsh language. It kind of goes hand in hand with rugby as well. You’d probably get one of these male voice choirs on the field before a rugby game, singing the national anthem or singing different songs, or in the hotel reception of the team, singing them out as they leave for a big game, for example.

And there is actually a male voice choir in Cardiff city center that practices underneath a rugby stadium. They’re called the Cardiff Arms…

Jason: Is this one of the hidden gems?

Eugene: This could actually be. Well, it is now. Yeah, they’re called the Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir. And they gather, I’m going to get it wrong now, but maybe every Thursday at like 7:30 p.m., underneath Cardiff Arms Park. And it’s like an open practice, where they gather and sing, and people can come and watch.

Jason: Okay, I’m calling that a hidden gem.

Eugene: Yeah, that’s absolutely a hidden gem.

Jason: I mean, it’s got the history, it’s got the music, it sounds like it’s free to attend, which can be a nice thing for travelers.

Eugene: Yeah, not what people would maybe think of as music for this part of the world necessarily, but definitely quite distinctive and interesting at the same time. Wales is often referred to as the land of song, because it’s known for having good quality singers, be they men or women, and especially in this choir form, for example. So singing is a big part of Welsh culture and Welsh life historically. So yeah, there we go. Another hidden gem without even realizing it. Two for one.

Jason: Yeah, look at that. You’re so good at your job. They just spill right out of you. All right, give us two more. We’ve got two more.

Clwb Ifor Bach and the Welsh Language

Eugene: Well, let’s go with language then, I think, just to make sure we get that in. So of course, Wales has its own native language, the Welsh language. Welsh and English are equal to each other in Wales in terms of their status, so you see everything in both languages all the time. I don’t want to be presumptuous or anything, but I think a lot of people around the world maybe wouldn’t know that Wales has its own native language, necessarily, because of course many people aren’t aware of Wales too much in general.

So first of all, it exists, and it’s much more widely spoken than people often realize. So it’s quite striking when you come to Cardiff, or into other parts of South Wales, how much you would hear it around you. Of all the Celtic languages in northwestern Europe, especially comparing to Ireland and Scotland, Welsh survives much more prominently. Many more first language speakers, many more kids going to Welsh medium school, like mine, for example, where Welsh is the first language at school.

So for a visitor coming to Cardiff, I always try to stress that the Welsh language is a big part of day-to-day life. It’s not just rural people, older communities, small villages far away from the bigger towns and cities, as you might naturally have assumed, as can be the case in Ireland and Scotland. In Wales, you would see it everywhere you go, first of all, but you’d also hear it everywhere you go, and often in just normal, everyday scenarios. So you could be sitting in a bar or a cafe in the middle of Cardiff city center, and you would overhear people at the next table speaking in Welsh. Often it’s students, for example, just chatting about their day and their life and whatever, just sitting at the next table having their normal chat in Welsh. You hear it a lot on public transport, especially families chatting away, or friends chatting away, of all different ages.

And of course, in my day-to-day life, I said my two children, one of whom is in school now, he goes to the local Welsh school, and you encounter lots of families whose first language is actually Welsh, even in the city, who would pick up their kids and speak to them in Welsh. It’s the first language at home, for example.

But as a visitor to Cardiff, let’s say, going back to music and Womanby Street, maybe the best place to hear it would be through music sometimes. So there’s a bar called Clwb Ifor Bach, which is Welsh. It means the Club of Little Ifor, and it overlooks Cardiff Castle, really. It’s on Womanby Street too. It does different stuff, but it’s mainly considered to be a Welsh language music venue. So you have bands and musicians performing in Welsh in the middle of the city center that anyone can go and see. It’s quite a famous venue. It’s been around for the last 40 years or so. Some notable bands, like Coldplay, for example, have played in it. They’re not in Welsh, though, in their case. But I think it has a stronger Welsh language focus in more recent times. And anybody who’s a Welsh speaker could go in and order their beer in Welsh and so on. So it’s seen as maybe the best place in town, all very central, where you could overhear a lot of the native language as well.

Jason: That sounds like the place for me. I want to go there. I guess they made an exception for Coldplay. If you’re going to get them in a small pub, you’ve got to go for it. All right, I love it. Have you got one more for us?

The Cardiff Castle Tour Most Visitors Skip

Eugene: Yeah, I’ll go with something a bit more touristic, I think, for this one. So Cardiff Castle, of course, is the main site in the city center. It’s the oldest building in Cardiff. It goes back, in parts, almost 2,000 years. And it’s a real mishmash of different things. So I often say it’s not the most traditional castle, necessarily. If you’re picturing a British castle in your mind, you might have a fortress with drawbridges and moats and different things. That’s not quite what Cardiff Castle is. It’s more of an eclectic mix of different generations coming together. So it has some Roman walls, a 900-year-old Norman tower, World War II bunker passageways. It has 600-year-old towers that have elaborately decorated 19th century rooms, and so on.

Jason: So it’s like a cross-century Lego project.

Eugene: Yeah, exactly. That’s the way of putting it. Wales overall has over 600 castles, supposedly more castles per square mile than any other country in the world. And Cardiff Castle would be one of the more eclectic, or diverse, of those castles, I guess.

The hidden thing about it, though, because that’s all pretty obvious, really, is the tours they offer. So first of all, anybody can visit the castle. Actually, anybody can walk in the grounds of the castle for free. The interior grounds are like a public walkway and public park where anybody can go in, more than ever before, as well. So that’s nice for locals and for visitors. Anybody can then pay to go inside, but there’s also additional tours that the castle offers, which go into a bit more depth. And the main one’s called the Castle Tour. So you get to join a group with a guide, and he or she shows you rooms that you don’t get to see if you just pay to go in on your own and walk around. So if you join the tour, you get to see rooms that are unavailable to the public otherwise. Like the rooftop garden, which looks like something from ancient Rome. Or the smoking rooms, where the families who used to live there retired after dinner to smoke their opium and drink their whiskey, or whatever they did back then, and talk business. The bedrooms that are covered with wallpaper that has references to fairy tales, but it’s all 19th century wallpaper and 19th century dolls and teddies, so it looks a bit creepy, I suppose, as well. So you get to see all this extra stuff on this tour.

I’m giving this a big plug, even though it’s not even me who does this. And anybody who ever does it thinks it’s the best thing to do at the castle. But I feel like most people who visit the castle don’t do the tour. And it only costs a little bit, a maximum of five pounds extra, to do it. So yeah, a real highlight. And anyone who ever does it says it’s the best thing they did, and they learned so much more than just walking around on their own.

Touring Cardiff with Fogo’s Free Tours

Jason: Well, Eugene, you’re generous like that. You’re going to give him a plug because that’s the kind of guy you are. You just want people to have a good time in Wales. I am excited to visit Cardiff one day, and then I’m going to hit you up for one of the free tours that you offer, or maybe even one of the paid ones. Share with everybody, if they’re coming through, how to find you, where they can meet up, what they should do in terms of your company.

Eugene: Yeah, well, I guess it’s quite simple, really. I think you gave the website earlier, but it’s just fogosfreetours.com. So that’s F-O-G-O-S. Fogo is just a nickname. You might have guessed that by now based on my last name there. It’s the first three letters with an O at the end. A very Irish way of making a nickname. I would say, in hindsight, I should have just called it Cardiff Free Walking Tours, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

So we have the regular city free walking tour, starting in the center of town multiple days per week, and it covers all the history of the city and the evolution of Cardiff. But on top of that, really, the history of Wales too, and the culture of the country. So a lot more about language, sport, food, dragons, flags, symbols of Wales, all the stuff that makes Wales different to the rest of the UK and identifies it as a country that’s not the same as England and Scotland or Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, for example.

But then, of course, on top of that, there’s lots of other types of tours as well. Some of which are free, some of which are paid, some of which are private, about other parts of the city, other topics or elements of the city, and other parts of Wales as well. So about Doctor Who filming locations, as has been mentioned during our conversation, or about the darker side of Cardiff history, so more about slums and executions and ghosts and so on. About Cardiff Bay, the waterfront area, which is the old industrial port and is now the modern waterfront, which we haven’t mentioned, actually, but is a very nice part of the city to visit. And I do tours where I visit all the different arcades around the city, as mentioned, of course, as well. And then other parts of Wales, mainly Swansea, the second biggest city, of course. So yeah, lots of different tours, lots of different ways of doing them. Some of them public and free to join, some of them paid per person, some of them private.

Jason: All very flexible. Something for everybody. We’ll link up to that. And I mean, it sounds like it’s going well. You’ve been running it for multiple years now. Congratulations.

Eugene: Yeah, going very well. Ups and downs, with COVID, I suppose, in the middle there. But that’s quite a few years ago now at this point, really. But yeah, over the last two years, really busier than ever, and people thankfully keep coming. That’s kind of the thing with Cardiff, really. It’s not super touristic, so that might be something that’s appealing to a lot of people in many ways. Not super touristic in terms of numbers of visitors. It’s got lots for tourists to do, as we’ve been talking about, or things to see, but it just isn’t the most visited place. It has that perk, as we’ve said, of being the capital of a country, but it isn’t always on everyone’s list of places they feel like they have to visit in the UK, even though we feel it should be, of course.

So there’s lots of ups and downs across the year. It’s not always super crowded on tours all the time. It’s not always really busy all the time. But after eight years of doing it, you learn the ups and downs, the waves and patterns of people. Easter, in Europe especially, is always a very busy time, and then winter time is obviously a little bit quieter. But thankfully, it all evens out in the end. And thankfully, people seem to like what I’m doing most of the time, and people keep coming on the tours as well.

Life in Wales and a Day Trip to Tenby

Jason: Thanks for sharing your expertise today. For all the reasons you just mentioned, fewer tourists, maybe a bit off the beaten path, not as well known, those are all the reasons why I thought it would be great to have you on to talk about this. Before I let you go, I’ve got to ask you for maybe one bonus, something to see somewhere else in Wales. And I wanted to ask you what your favorite thing is about living in Wales.

Eugene: Okay. My favorite thing about Wales is, where to begin? This kind of ticks off both answers to the two questions at the same time, anyway. It’s very outdoorsy. I know we’ve mostly spoken about Cardiff during our time together, but on a wider Welsh note, I’m going to end up giving you a really long answer. People often think of Ireland and Scotland and have a picture in their minds of what those countries are like. Very green, hilly, friendly people. All that kind of stuff you think of when you think of those countries. And people seem to have that ingrained in their minds. Wales has all that too. It just doesn’t seem to be as well known or as well advertised around the world.

And the country is quite small, of course. It’s only a short distance from the capital, and you’re suddenly at national parks with some of the tallest peaks in Britain, and rolling hills, and just green as far as you can see. You have some of the most well-known beaches and surf areas of the UK, or even in Europe, in some cases, not too far, on a day trip from Cardiff, for example. There’s cliff paths everywhere, cycle paths everywhere, just castles and country estates and museums, only short distances from Cardiff city center, for example, as well.

So basically, especially now having a family, the real selling point of living in Cardiff and South Wales in general is that it’s a really outdoor place. You’re never that far away from any of these types of scenery or landmarks that I just mentioned. And it’s a really great place to bring up children, or to live as a family, as a consequence. I know it might rain here all the time, but it’s almost like, if you wanted, every day is a beach day, if you really wanted. I’m always saying I’m as likely to be at the beach at Christmas time as in summertime, doing beaches and castles with the kids and stuff like this. So that’s really the perk. Obviously, being cheaper than the likes of Ireland and London helps too. But definitely the outdoorsy way of life is the big thing, really.

I guess on top of that, if I was to pick one thing beyond Cardiff to see, especially as a visitor, I would say the best place for a visitor to visit in South Wales, and we’ll separate South and North Wales, because they’ll say their own thing up in the north of the country compared to what I’m saying, is a small town called Tenby, T-E-N-B-Y, which is about 70 miles, 100 kilometers, west of Cardiff. I always think it has everything you would want in an individual village. It’s really colorful, lots of independent places. It’s right on the sea. There’s a beach in the town. There’s a castle on the beach. It’s got a fortified wall around it. There’s boat trips out to sea from the center of the town itself. Lots of ice cream shops, fish and chip shops, old-timey sweet shops. Basically, it’s kind of like everything a tourist ever wants in a place they visit, all in one little village. And it’s Wales, so it’s not super touristy and overcrowded all the time, essentially, either. So you can get there for a day from Cardiff by train, and if you’re here for a multiple-day visit, that’s definitely worth spending a day trying to get to, the town of Tenby.

Jason: Sounds lovely. It’s always nice too when you show up to a place and you have, perhaps, Cardiff as a base. You’re seeing things, you can take day trips, but then you can also go have some outdoor adventures, come back, and still have things to do. I like that kind of flexibility. And well, you certainly gave us a lot of reasons to come visit. So maybe we’ll get to meet in person one of these days.

Eugene: Yeah, that’d be great. I hope so.

Jason: We’ll make sure to link up to everything in the show notes, man. Thank you so much for sharing some of your story today, and your time, and your expert advice on travel in South Wales.

Eugene: Thanks so much, Jason. It’s been a pleasure. There’s so much more I feel like I should have said or could have said, but no, it’s been great sharing my experiences and trying to promote Wales to you and your listeners. Thank you.

Jason: Well, we’ve got to give people a reason to visit, right? So there you go. Plenty from this episode. Thanks so much.

Eugene: Thank you.

Closing Thoughts and a Quote from Dolly Parton

Jason: There you have it. Thank you once again to Eugene Fogarty. Of course, we’ll link up to his tour company, Fogo’s Free Tours. I love that people get free tours out there, and it’s a great way to get the lay of the land in a new place and figure out what you might want to come back to. If I’m on one of those, I always kind of scout the area. I’m like, oh, earmarking different places. And then I always hit up the guide at the end to try to get some recommendations for local places to eat. Usually I’m pretty hungry after those things. Anyway, what am I talking about? I must be hungry right now. I’m rambling.

Let me wrap this one up for you with a quote. Dolly Parton. I can’t believe I haven’t quoted her yet. She obviously passed pretty recently, and she’s got so many great quotes. She was like a mystic. She had some kind of crazy wisdom about her, and she could always say things in such a succinct and profound way. And I’m going to share one from her in a moment.

Quick reminder first: ZeroToTravel.com/newsletter for the free newsletter if you want to keep in touch off the pod. And Airwave Media is our podcast network. If you go to AirwaveMedia.com, check out some of the other great shows they have.

I’ll leave you with this one from Dolly, who said, “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time. Peace and love to you and yours. Cheers.