Creating Travel Documentaries with Greg & Felicity

TMP 99 - Greg
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Jenn: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Travel Mug Podcast. This week, we're really excited to welcome Greg to the podcast. So, Greg and his wife, Felicity, have been recording travel documentaries since 2019, which seems like last year, but was somehow five years ago. I don't know where time is going. we love following their adventures along on Instagram, which is where we connected. So, welcome to the show, Greg.

Greg: you so much. Thank you for having me.

Meggan: You are so welcome. So Jenn mentioned it right off the top. I want to mention it as well. So adventure documentary. So tell us about your idea for those. What inspired them? How did you sort of get into them as compared to just typical travel or documentation of your travel? Talk to us about those.

Greg: Well, started off back in 2019. I've always traveled. I've traveled with my job for a lot of the time and then 2019, Felicity and I went on our honeymoon. We got married in the middle of 2018 and in 2019 we decided to go on our honeymoon and we'd, We'd saved it. We didn't go right after the wedding because of my work schedule and her work schedule.

And so we'd saved it and decided to do a whole month in Mexico in February March 2019 and I always like to point out at this point in time that what I really wanted to see while we were over in Mexico was the Mayan ruins. And so the first half of our, the first half of our honeymoon, sort of two and a bit weeks, we were traveling around to these most incredible Mayan ruins trying to go to some of those that aren't visited very often.

We like to get away from the crowds. And then the second half, Felicity wants to go over there, particularly to see a lot of the marine wildlife, particularly the whales you get over Magdalena Bay. And I always like to point out that if you look at the cost of going to see as many Mayan sites as you want when you're in Mexico compared to, you know, a day or two of some big marine activity, there is no comparisons.

We got out there and I'd made videos and I've done podcasts and things for a long time and I've made a lot of videos and we got out there and I was about halfway through the honeymoon and I think it was the day we'd just been to the big Xel-Ha Park there and we've been underwater with stingrays and things and we've just done some cenotes and we've been underwater in these cenotes and Because of my background because I have camera stuff, we'd taken I think we took, well, we had our phones to film on, we had several action cameras, we had our big film camera at the time.

And, kind of halfway through, and I was just looking back at some of the stuff, backing up some of what we'd recorded. And I just thought, wow, the footage we've got here, this could just be a documentary. What I'm looking at here, these are clips that could be a documentary on TV or something. And so, that initial documentary we put together at the end of the honeymoon, we thought, well, we'll give it a go.

We'll let it together, rather than just having, you know, your typical honeymoon video. Because A lot of people for our wedding, we'd say don't buy us presents, we've already got a house and things, you know, we're perfectly happy. But if you do want to get us something, get us an experience while we're in Mexico.

And so we'd intended to make this little video showing all the things we'd done, and it just became something bigger. And that, we put it all together, we edited it using all our software and everything, and then when we put that live, it, it got really great views on YouTube. And we thought, well, hold on a minute, we like travelling, people seem to like these documentaries, right?, we're clearly onto something here.

Jenn: Yeah, that's amazing. I love that it wasn't something that you initially set out to do, but it just kind of, kind of snowballed into an

Meggan: Happens.

Jenn: amazing thing.

Greg: I mean, can see it in that particular documentary. That, that one's not one we've released sort of professionally. It's not one that's on the Amazons and the Tubis and things. That one is still available to watch on YouTube, but you can tell. One of the funny things was I went on to a podcast I produce and the host of that had me on at the time that that came out.

And he said, wow, it was wonderful how, how carefully planned it was and how you got these jokes that fit together in the edit. And I was thinking, no, no, none of it was worked out because we had to create the jokes in the edit. But, you can tell the first place we go when we're over there is Teotihuacan and we made a huge mistake when we got to Teotihuacan because you can go in and you can sort of take your, your camera so you can get some photos and things, but a lot of the Mayan sites over in Mexico have a sign up saying you have pay extra for For commercial filming and certain types camera when we take our big camera in it's got sound gear and everything and that first day I made the mistake of saying well We've got our small cameras will be fine and we actually took one of our little action cameras and so the footage isn't as good And it was only afterwards traveling around some of the wee sites with the exception of Chichen Itza Which is obviously just a big tourist trap a lot of these sites when they say you've got to pay extra for commercial filming, When we're out there We suddenly realised the extra, when you translated it, was, y'know, maybe $5 at most for a day of filming.

And we're like, why just do that?

Meggan: We've missed our chance.

Jenn: Whoops. So, I love how you weave history into a lot of your adventure documentaries, because that's a really big draw for me as well when it comes to traveling. So, how does a history or a story inspire where you want to travel and make a documentary? Right.

Greg: When we start sort of planning the documentary, because obviously not having planned to make the first one, we kind of had the history in there, because it was, it's an interest of mine, it always has been. I've- Many, about 10, 12 years ago now, I wrote a very short history book, that one's not available anymore.

And I'm, just last year, I wrote a book about the history of magic. History is something that fascinates me, so I always like to go to historical places. But we made the Mexico documentary, and we were proud of it. And then we made one, Turkey, Fairy Chimneys and Underground Cities, where, again, I'd seen these underground cities and the idea of them, and I thought, well, I want to go and film something there.

And we made that one, and then we went off and we made one on the Isle of Man, because we happened to be there. And I was beginning to think, right, okay, we're making these, these travel videos, these travel documentaries, but what is it that's going to make them, you know, sell, you know? Is someone going to watch something called Turkey Fairy Chimneys Underground Cities?

Possibly, but what's going to draw them into it if they don't know who we are? And that was when we got to thinking, we thought, well, what can we do? And we thought, well, brilliant, we've got this idea. Felicity is a big fan of an author called Karen Chance who writes a lot about, uh, she uses Real historical characters as fictional characters in her books and one of those is Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Dracula, and so coming in 2020 and I suddenly just had this idea one morning.

I just thought why don't we just go to Romania? And find out about the real figure because he's a fantastic Vlad, Vlad Dracula, who was the Vlad the third, and he is fascinating because he lives somewhere between a historical figure and a legendary figure, you know, you discount the vampiric stuff, but to the people Romania, he's this incredible folk hero.

Whereas the rest of Europe looks at him as Vlad the Impaler, and because it was the, uh, German enemies that got to write his history, basically, and got the printing press out, they spread him out as this vicious, violent ruler, and the truth is somewhere between the two. But we came up with this idea, therefore, of going to Romania, and can we, can we find something, can we find a plot, and can we find a through line of action?

And the throughline we decided on was, well, can we find Dracula's castle? Is this something that we can find? Because there's so many places there that claim links to him. And so we made that our throughline and the idea of just travelling through Romania and just trying to see what, see if we could come to a conclusion in our own minds. Whether he was a hero or a villain.

Jenn: Right, yeah. Yeah, I love that and it, it's really fun to watch you guys travel like it's, it feels like you're there with you, like you're just kind of like bringing us along which I love that part of it too. Uh, so why don't you tell us like where, um, where you have travel documentaries on? I know we mentioned Mexico and Romania and the Isle of Man.

Greg: we've done the sort of the big travel documentaries we did, um, started off with Mexico. Then we did the Isle of Man. We did a week there, which is a nice, short, funny one. Then we did Turkey. Then we did Romania and Romania was the first one that really we sort of were like man, this is, this is the quality we want them to be this moving.

And as you say, one of our big things is we, we have a level of professionalism. You know, we use the best cameras we can get. We use the drone footage in that one. And very important, you know, when we do the drone for doing things, we make sure we have sought permission in advance and we have all the rights.

And if there's another host, we'll come back to Romanian drone flying because that's one, but when we were over there and we're filming, Our idea was, sort of, we don't want to take tripods, we don't want a camera crew. Everything is filmed by the two of us, which means, if one of us is in shot, the other one is filming, but talking to the other one of us.

But if we're both in shot, it's a handheld camera, almost like a selfie camera, and that was what we wanted, and I said, you know, no matter how big we get, and how much new equipment we add, because we do all the time, we've got to keep, maintain that sort of feel of being close and moving along. But then, we're, uh, Romania, and we decided to film Romania, It was March, just coming into March of 2020, and that was a big success, and obviously, the best time to kick off a career as a travel documentary was, was March of 2020, so, yeah,

Jenn: time. Yeah, I mean we launched a travel podcast in June of 2020. So like we're right there with

Greg: and, so, so, so we did that, and then, unfortunately, we, So it kind of got through to 2021. And in 2021, we were still, we were in strict shielding because of medical reasons in the household. So we weren't supposed to leave our homes very much at all. And then in September 2021, we'd raised some money for a lovely Scottish charity called the Station Research and Rescue Unit.

And they They live in a bubble. They live in this lovely little village in the north of, uh, north, uh, east coast of Scotland. And, lovely little village called Gardenstown. And basically they'd never had a coronavirus case there because everyone was checked on the way in and the way out. So we made our next documentary, which was Seeking the Cetaceans of Scotland.

And it's mostly, it's all about this charity and the work they do because we couldn't travel. And then brilliant, right? COVID's finished up. Let's get back on with the traveling. We can make these big travel documentaries. And March of 2022, I developed a severe pain problem with my back. Um, I've developed slight disability there these days. I walk with a stick. I was in a wheelchair for about a year. And when happened again, it put the brakes on traveling in a big way. So we sat there and went, well, we can't do a big travel until we've figured out what's going on with me. And so, 2022, we filmed a documentary about dinosaurs because Felicity's worked for a long time as a fossil guide, I've worked as a fossil guide, obviously, we both really love dinosaurs, and we could sort of do that in a way where, rather than doing a big travel like we've done in the past where I'd have to push my back every single day, we could break up the filming, do a couple of days filming one week, couple of days the next week, in different locations. And again, one of the things that helps us is the people that get on board.

And in that case, we had the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, who let us come in and film with them. And the most amazing one was the Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, uh, Sciences, which is the big natural history museum in Brussels. And we've been there before, and they've got these incredible Skeleton, but they've got these skeletons, these nine Iguanodon skeletons that are fully put together, standing up, but they're encased in these glass cases because they have to keep them free of moisture.

And they said, and we said, well, can we come over? We'd like to basically use your museum as our studio. And they said, yeah, that's absolutely fine. And would you like to talk to some of our paleontologists? And we, yeah, absolutely, of course we would, because, you know.

Meggan: Yes, we would.

Greg: so we got to the lab and see what they're working on at the moment.

And then we're up upstairs and you've got these glass cases. No, one's allowed in because of the. And we've got the camera set up and we're trying to get, and the guy comes over, he says, You doing alright? I said, Yeah, we're just struggling a bit with the reflections. He said, Why don't you just go inside the case?

He said, I'll go and get the keys, you just go in. He said, Feel free touch them and everything. And we're just sitting there going, Okay, this is just, this is,

Meggan: What if your hands are moist, Greg?

Greg: Well, I mean that wasn't the worst one, Because the worst one, when we're in the Oxford Museum of Natural History, Um, they took us behind the scenes there as well and the very first dinosaur ever discovered or the first dinosaur named was the megalosaurus and the very first bone of it discovered is its jawbone and it's And actually even on display in the Oxford museum natural history if you go there you can see A cast of the jaw.

The actual jaw is not on display, it's kept out round the back. And we took it round the back, and she got it out and put it on the table. And we're thinking, do we not need gloves for it? She said, no, no, no, no, pick it up, show it to the camera. And Felicity and I actually had a bit of a discussion at that point in time about which one of us was going to hold it. Because,

Meggan: a lot of pressure.

Greg: end, I said, right, I'll hold it, but it better not fall apart in my hands, you know, this is So, um,

Meggan: That's wild.

Greg: we've reached point now, I mean, the good news is we've reached the point now, with my back and everything, where just this year, I've managed to get on the road and start working properly, which means In a few months time we're gonna get, well actually not in a few months, few weeks we're actually going off for a week or so to film a short documentary and then later on we're gonna get out and film some proper travel documentaries again this year.

So we're finally back in the flow.

Meggan: Oh, that's so good. I'm so glad that sort of things made their way back around. But it also sounds like, you know, you took the cards, you were dealt at the time, and you still made something that's valuable to share with people. So that's really great because sometimes people be like, Oh, I just I'll take this as downtime or whatever. But you you made the most of it. So that's excellent.

Greg: absolutely, I mean when we got to Covid, when we were during the pandemic and everything. I decided, especially during those first chunks of lockdown when everyone was completely lost, we did a completely new Zoom magic show every single week for several months. And we had all sorts of stuff going on with that.

And we were just creating, but I've always been of the philosophy that all I can do is play the cards I'm dealt. You can't rail at the universe and ask it to change. All you can do is well, this is the situation. I don't know whether I'm going to get better or not. All I can do is push through and do the I can as I am.

Meggan: Good for you. No, that's excellent. So that's a lot of things you've mentioned. So talk to us a little bit about it. How you go about researching what you're going to do a documentary on, like, what, what brings you to that

Greg: So what we look for nowadays is the theme is the idea of what is the the concept because we look back and actually our first one just by pure chance ended up because we were going into the The Mayan stuff and then the nature stuff. We had actually designed our honeymoon in such a way that it got better and better and better, you know.

I didn't want to turn it I mean, the last Mayan ruin we saw was the Mayan ruin of Calakmul. Now, to get to Calakmul, you basically have to drive six hours from civilization to the hotel that's there in the town. And they tell you, make sure this is the point where the last petrol station is. Make sure you feel your car there because we don't have any.

And then you drive down and it's this beautiful jungle hotel. So you're separate cabins and there's just mosquito net windows and things. You can hear the animals. And then once you're there, so that's probably 20 minutes into the jungle. After you've done this six hour drive from the nearest big town.

And then, you have to be taken, you have to get a guide, and you go in another hour and a bit into the jungle to this temple at Calakmul, and you're just in the middle of it, and it's just such an incredible place to visit, and you're basically alone there, we saw a couple of other people there while we were in the place, because it's so hard to get to, this is not the place, I mentioned Chichen Itza earlier, and I'll be honest, we were slightly disappointed with Chichen Itza because, By the time we got there, we'd seen some proper temples, way, blah, blah, blah.

And Chichen Itza, what we saw was people in swimsuits getting off their bus from Cancun. You know, it wasn't the same, wasn't the same feeling. These were not people that had come to Mexico to see the, see the Mayan ruins. These were people that were going to see it because it was there, right? And, but we built it up, and so when we put it together, we had this build.

But then when we did Turkey, Fairy Chimneys and Underground Cities, which is our, our second sort of big travel for one. Trouble with that one is it kind of, sort of looking back, I mean, it's wonderful, it's a fantastic video to watch. And it's worth watching just for, there's about a 15 minute sequence in the middle where I'm riding a horse, which is Basically worth the price of a, you know, it's free most you can worth, worth watching it for that because I am not one of nature's horse riders for a start.

I've been on a horse, I've been a horse maybe three times in my life and we got over there and we're all all set up to go and we'd spoken to people in advance, we said we're not big horse riders and they'd given us a special deal because we were going to film it and everything else and we got over there and the first thing that happened was they said, well, what do you weigh?

And, I mean, I have, I'm quite muscular as it were, I have quite, I'm heavier than I look a lot of the time, so I said, and they're like, oh, we thought you were going to be slightly lighter from looking at you, we need to get a different horse, so they got out this horse that thought it was on a day off, bless it, um, and was, not, was not best pleased with me, you know, it kept stopping, and, and I'm, Felicity and I, we're both vegetarians, we're both animal lovers, I will not, You know, sort of pressure a horse to move.

I won't kick it or anything else like that. I'm just sitting there going, no, just please move. And basically on this horse ride, we were going over the fairy chimneys, but we were going along pathways that were almost vertical and barely wider than the horse fit horses feet. And at one point I was looking down, it was crumbling and we were going vertical and.

The sound that is actually used in the documentary is the, the sound that we thought we could actually manage to bleep out enough of as I was going down the hills because at that point in time I was just, I don't know what, but so much so that we paused at one point in the middle of the, middle of the horse ride and there was a lovely little church up on a hill to go and see.

And Felicity went to see that on her own because my legs were not holding up my body to allow me to walk. And the worst part that was, in that condition, I went and sat down. And there was this young lady there, and she was there with her boyfriend, but I forget where he was from, but she was from Venice, and we sat with both of them, and he was, there was a language barrier between the boyfriend and the girlfriend, and neither of them spoke Turkish, which was the language their guide spoke, and she was absolutely terrified, you know, I was already on that point where, okay, look, it's terrifying, but I've got to get back, I'm going to have to get back on that horse in a minute, we're going to have to go the rest of the way, and I speak Italian because I spent several years over there touring shows.

And so I'm basically the only one, uh, sitting there with my legs shaking under the table, absolutely terrified myself, trying to explain to this poor girl that she has to get back on the horse because Cars can't get up here. ATVs can't get up here. The only way in or off this mountain, because it's getting dark, is to get back on the horse, and But my point was, anyway, so a good bit of Turkey, but the problem we found with Turkey when we came to put it together, is it felt like a series of of points, you know, uh, here's the underground cities, now we're going to here, now we're going to here, now we're going to here.

And it's something that I've come to notice in a lot of travel shows that I watch, which is if there's not a solid line, if there's not a starting and an end point, same as if I put together a show, or you tell a story, you've got to have a starting and an end. And if the travel documentary just becomes, right, well it's starting, and then we go and see that, and then we go and see that, and then we go and see that, and then we go and see that, and then we're done, You kind of just lose that focus, whereas now what we look okay, well what is the, what is the story? What underlies it? And sometimes, such as with Dracula's castle, that comes with a concept. So we knew we had this concept, we're gonna try and find Dracula's castle. And we didn't know how complicated that was gonna be at the time, so we sat down, we found any castle that had a link with Dracula, and then we had to kind of fit back through and go, well, well that one kind of does.

With that one, we found straight away, if you type Dracula's Castle into Google, what you're probably gonna get up is Bran Castle just outside of Brassov. And the reason that is, is because it's the one that they claim inspired the castle in Bram Stoker's Dracula. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Vlad the Impaler, he probably, there's a vague possibility he might have spent a night there once, but generally he's not, not involved with it.

But it was great, because that gave us a starting point to say, look at this castle, it's incredible, but it's definitely not belonging to Vlad the Impaler, so let's go and find other castles, and then we could plot our route saying Well, this one's going to be slightly more, that one's going to be slightly better, that one's going to be slightly better, and that's where we can end it.

And then, once we've got that through line laid out, we can kind of do anything we want along the way, because people are going to know, ah, but we haven't reached that final point yet. That's one where we sort of plan it out in advance. On the flip side, something like the Scotland Cetaceans documentary, when we went up to film with them, We couldn't know what was going to happen in advance.

Because we were going to go there, we were going to be taught, but because they are a cetacean research, and their main research is with the dolphins up in the Moray Firth, they basically, the way it was put to me is they basically have a license to annoy dolphins. Because If you see a wild dolphin, a wild whale, you are not supposed to go towards it.

If it wants to come and see you, you can, but you're never supposed to take your boat towards it. However, if your job is to research, document those dolphins in order to protect them, you kind of have to go into their groups. But what that means, if they do it once, they won't do it again for a little while.

And also, you don't know when the dolphin's gonna come past that bit of the Moray And we were very lucky, we saw them on the second day. We kind of, as we went through, we had to look at the documentary we were making and kind of go, right, what is the through line? How do we make this work? And so it ended up, basically, it falls into two parts that are put together into one.

And the first part was that first trip out on the boat, what it was like going on the boat and everything else. Leading up to actually spotting and photographing the dolphins. And then the second one, we had two sort of stories to the second half of that film. One of them is literally rescuing a, a fake whale.

Because we did the fake whale training and trying to get it back afloat and learning how that was done. And the second part was building up to the fact that we had actually been allowed to name a couple of baby dolphins. They record them all and we were given the right to name a couple of them. And building up to the end of the film where suddenly, I mean this was just pure luck, last day we were there, suddenly dolphins went past and the shout came through to us.

If they go west from here, nothing's happening. If they go east from here, We are getting in the jeep, we are dashing to the boat as quick as we can, and we got out see them, and then the whole question was, well, would we see these two baby dolphins again, because the chances of them surviving as babies are quite slim, and, and we did, we saw both baby dolphins again, and actually, since then, we have had sightings, over the next couple of years, we've had sightings reported of both of them, so that it was, so,

Jenn: I was gonna ask about that. I was, I don't want to spoil the names because I think people should go watch to find out what you named them but, oh my gosh, my husband and I laughed five minutes after we found out what you named them because I thought it was amazing. So I was gonna ask if you had an update on the baby So I'm glad that they're hopefully still

Greg: was spotted again last year, and one of them was spotted again this year, so they are doing well, it was early last year, late

Jenn: they're, out there.

Greg: so they're there. But, yeah, so, it kind of depends, when we start to research, sometimes we can do a lot of research, and then something like, seeking the first dinosaur hunters, that was an entirely different concept again, because that one, I knew, we were limited by my physicality at that point in time, and so, it really was a, A very scripted piece.

I had to really script it. And with that one, you can see that one's more scripted than we usually like. But part of the fun of scripting it was, we were, you know, I'd script a scene, but I was like, right, I'm going to script what we're going to say, but I don't want to say it all in one place. And so you can actually see, we're finishing sentences in Brussels that we started three weeks earlier in, or even more complicated, we're finishing a sentence in Britain that we're going to start three weeks later in Brussels, and so that was a, a complication, but that was more of a filmmaking complication rather than the joy of travels.

Jenn: Yeah, also, um, the weather was a big factor when you're in Scotland as well. So, kind of the beginning is like, are we even going to be able to make it out here? And I mean, anybody who's traveled has dealt with weather issues and, and, uh, it was interesting to see that play out

Greg: Well and we were quite lucky in a way, because as well as being, you know, sort of inviting us up there, the team from the CRRU, they invited us up, yeah, they let us join this team, they let us film. They're all happy to be involved in the filming and talk to us. And on top of that, we were basically given access to their video archives.

So had we got there and it rained all day, every day, we could still have used some footage of that, but really we want to have it, have it be ours, have it be that real footage. And also, as you say, it's quite fun to sort of play with the issues and the problems. And, and you know, part of the comedy of that is always going to come with things like we have to put on those survival suits for the first time.

And. I'm never graceful when I'm doing something like that. And it's all those, those sort of things that are just those real moments, no matter how well you plan things out, you're going to have these, these real moments. And it's why what we, what we prefer to, and what we're going to get back to doing is much more on the fly.

Like we did with Romania, where we know what we're doing. We've read about the subject. We know what we're talking about, but we don't really quite know how it's going to end. And you're always going to have little things like we had in Romania with Penari Fortress, where, until the day we got there, we couldn't find out whether it was open or not, because it gets closed on and off because of bear attacks.

And we got there, and there big warning signs for bears, nobody down the bottom, and we walked all the way up to it, having no idea whether we were actually supposed to be going up there, or whether it was closed for bear attacks,

Jenn: It's, uh, you never know with travel, and I think that that's one of the reasons that I love your videos. Like I said, it's because you feel like you're coming along, but it also feel like, it feels like so much more authentic that way. We're like, I don't know what's gonna happen Let's

Meggan: going to

Jenn: find out together.

Greg: that's very much what we're, what we're always going for, and I mean, it is great, because obviously, you know, we say that one of the great things about it is, it's We are people and that is really what it comes down to it's it's if you like us if you like watching us you're gonna Enjoy and the interplay we have and everything else that goes on and then there's the things you just can't account for and there's things And this is where the Instagram and other things come from because we like to enjoy then sharing some of the bits Behind the scenes because we are low budget filmmakers.

There are certain things we are What we can't deal with and certain things we can. So, for example, I think I put out recently. I say recently, it was probably quite a while ago now. But I know I put out some of the footage we filmed at the Do you know what? I completely forgot the name of the tower now.

Come back to me. And this is the, the tower that was one of the ruling points when Dracula was around in I'm trying to think which part of the country it was, it'll come back to me at some point. Anyway, we were filming there, and we can't close off an area to film. But usually, you know, people are quite nice.

When you're out travelling, you're trying to take a photo, you're trying to get people to stop. And this one particular bit, I was filming a piece to camera. Quite a serious piece of camera, and this lady just walked right behind me, as close, almost brushed right behind me, and it's a nightmare. Well, luckily, we live with technology, and we know about rotoscoping, and fixing footage, and all sorts of things, and so we went through and just had to go through frame by frame.

This has luckily gotten a lot easier these days, actually, but back then we had to go through frame by frame. And remove this lady from the entire footage. And we, but then we go and we share that on our Instagram. This isn't something we're going to try and hide from people. We actually share the, the two bits of footage playing side by side.

So it's showing is what we do sometimes because we, you know, we're not, not a top gear or whatever. The big travel show is where we can spend a million pounds an episode. So we have to work around it in post production sometimes.

Jenn: Uh, switching gears a little bit. I want to talk about magic. So, you are, are you on tour right now? Are we, we're interrupting the tour?

Greg: Well, I've had a couple of days off the tour, actually. I try and get back for a few days every so often. So we've actually just had a couple of days off. We're back on the road again tomorrow morning. But yeah, we've, we've, we've gone a bit crazy with our tour this year. Because, because I, I can again. I can get on and I can do a show.

And we're doing an evening show at the moment. It's called the Non Psychic Psychic Show. Which is a complicated enough title. But the basic theme of it is that whether or not you believe in psychic powers, and this is not something I even go into in the show, but whether or not you believe in psychic powers, at least some people who claim to have psychic powers are frauds and are using magic tricks to try and convince people, because that is, that is something I've seen myself, and you know, I know from history, and it's lovely because it's a 90 minute discussion on these fraudulent methods that people can use, and it can be quite fun, and at times quite serious because of the sort of the Emotion that comes behind an awful lot of those things, but it's a show and we've been It's one of those where I thought right I'm gonna try and get back to doing some evening touring I want to do some evening shows my back feels good enough And we started off and I've got to say now that I was going to come up with a new show because I'm not This show used to have sort of big straitjacket escapes and chain escapes and all sorts of things that I can't physically do anymore. And I was gonna write a new show and It was Felicity that said, Why don't we just tour the Non Psychic Psychic Show again?

You know you enjoy it that one, and you know people. And I said, Alright, I'll give it a go, but it might not go very well. It might not sell well. And we were going to do a tour from just in January and February. And now the tour lasts until the end of June. We're doing four or five shows a week. And we've actually just decided to extend it and do an autumn tour as well.

And we're going to do a little bit of touring. Um, probably an island in new autumn as well. So we're really sort of expanding that. And so that's keeping us busy. And after the years of COVID, you know, building up the travel funds again, so we can get out and have some more adventures.

Jenn: Yeah, absolutely.

Meggan: We hear you there.

Jenn: Yeah.

Meggan: Totally. So, obviously, this is all incredible stuff. You've had a hiccup, obviously, with the pandemic, as we all did, but also the back pain. You know, those kinds of things have come into play at some point since you started all this in 2019 by happenstance, after your honeymoon. And no one can predict the future, but sort of talk to us about how you see what you're doing now, like evolving into your forever career. And like, taking you towards retirement. So how do you think you'll maybe need to adjust in the future? Or how do you see this? If you could predict, uh, you're a non psychic psychic, I assume. So how do you see this potentially playing out in the future for you? Like, where do you want this to

Greg: we'd like to sort of move more towards making more of the documentaries, more of the travel. And we got so many, I mean, we had like, I think a lot of people that travel. We had a lot of time at home during COVID to sit there and plan travels for the future. So we've got various ideas knocking around that we want to get out and film.

And the idea was eventually to slowly transition. Now the, the documentaries are bringing in money because of the way we've produced those. And, you know, like I said, they're on things like Amazon prime, they're on Tubi and various other places. And because that does well for us, we're hoping we can build up more and more documentaries so they can take over and do less and less of the shows.

Because I really enjoy the shows and the shows are great, but I also like travelling and touring stuff new. So while we'll always do the shows, the idea is to get more of an even balance between the two, rather than mostly shows and then less of the filming. And I've never ever considered the possibility of retiring.

It's not The trouble is, a lot of people, they think, right, okay, well one day, I'm going to retire. I think this is a lot of people like us that travel, they go, right, well one day, I'm going to retire and then I'll travel the world. And I think, I don't even know if I'm going to make it to retire, nobody knows.

I'm going to travel the world, I'm going to do everything now. And actually, having had this condition come on me, and like I say, I walk with a stick, there are, there are days, my bad days at the moment, luckily they're fewer and fewer, but every day I walk with a stick, and, and on my bad days, I, you know, I do basically look like an 80 year old man shuffling along with a stick, and so I know what it's gonna be like to try and do some of these things when I'm older, because we're planning for them now, and I'm hoping that over the next year or two, because, Various complications with the back.

We're hoping over, over time that it will get better. No one knows that nobody can tell us anything about that at all, but we're hoping it might get better. And if it gets better, we can go back to doing some of the more energetic stuff. But if not, we are just finding ways to work around it. So I think the idea is to keep moving forward.

Jenn: Yeah. I think that's what we're all doing. Yeah,

Meggan: Yeah. definitely. I love that.

Jenn: Yeah. Hard to plan. So, do you have any, uh, favorite destinations that you've been, maybe that you've been documenting or that you traveled before that, before you did documentaries?

Greg: yeah, I mean I could go on for hours and hours about Italy But I won't because that was basically in 2007 I got an audition to go out and do a five week tour in Italy Uh, touring, uh, Little Children's Magic Show over there, to schools, Teach English. Uh, went out there, I joined up with a company, Action Theatre over there, I, I, agreed to a five week tour. That was in 2007, long story short, I finished touring with them in early 2018, so. You know, Italy kind of, kind my second home. So whenever people ask me like, where's your favorite? I always think, right, I've got to mention Italy. I've got to get that in Turin, Venice, all these places. But also because I was there so long and it feels like a second home, to a certain extent, I don't think of it anymore as traveling.

I, I, it was really nice because the last tour I actually did over there. It was the, the year, about six months before we got married, and so I took Felicity over there for the first time. And it was wonderful, going out there with her and seeing the whole country fresh again, and remembering, oh yeah, no, it's amazing what I get to do.

But in terms of, sort of, places we've travelled to, Calakmul, the, the jungle ruin that I mentioned earlier is hard to beat, but I think for an experience that's, that's like no other, it would have to be Magdalena Bay, over in Mexico, in Baja. And Magdalena Bay, it's this old, it's this whale watching camp on an island.

And you go over there, and it's just absolutely incredible, because you go over there, and we got taken over, and just by pure luck, when we arrived, we were actually the only people on the island. There's a, there's a flip, there's a but coming with this story, but I'll come to it. We the only people on this island, and basically you're staying in these yurts. Which I was fine with, it's the closest Felicity's ever got to camping, so she was just about okay with it.

But he's staying on these yurts, on these wooden grounds, and you could see the dolphins playing in the water outside the yurt if you sat in your veranda. And they had this restaurant on the island, sort of open little island restaurant, all inclusive and all of that and absolutely beautiful. And we were the only people there, which means all the staff in the restaurant were there for us.

And About four or five days before that, we'd got a bad bout of Montezuma's Revenge. We'd drank some water with ice in, which means neither of us was really up to eating anything at all. And we had this whole amazing restaurant sat there, but

Meggan: Oh.

Greg: And also we've been so careful because at about six in the morning each day, we were getting on a boat with our captain Miguel and he was taking us out for a six hour boat ride on, you know, and we were going fast to get to the places where the whales are.

So these choppy boat rides, so actually going out where with these guys and they know the whale so well. And one of the really beautiful things about this place, well sort of sad, but beautiful is this area was an area where there was an awful lot of whaling and a lot of the boats that are now used for seeing the whales were the old whaling boats and the whales you like to see out there are the gray whales and The gray whales were known in the past as devil fish And the reason they were known for that was if you were in one of these little boats trying to kill them They would destroy your boat.

They would fight back. They wouldn't have it. They would come destroy your boat. Now, because of the age that gray whales live to some of the gray whales that you go out and see now will remember having been attacked by boats. And yet they can understand now that we're visitors, that we're not gonna hurt them, and so the Grey Whales, it's absolutely amazing, you get out there and they're all spy hopping around, they're all sticking their heads out, looking around, they want to investigate you, they'll come up, they'll investigate the boat, and again, the crews, the captains of the boat are so incredibly kind and so respectful of the whales.

They won't go towards them. If they see one engine cuts off, if the whale wants to come and see you, it will, if it doesn't, it doesn't. And it was just the most amazing situation. And we spent three days there going, going out each day with captain Miguel. And it was just, just something that is so far from explainable and just that feeling but the whole thing about it was just a whole little mini adventure because The place you actually pick the boat up from to get over to the island because they have to take you across themselves They've got this little hotel I think it's Hotel Isabella or something and we got to the small town where they where they all are and We're driving around and we we've said we'll meet you at three o'clock to get the boat across and we're looking at the clock and Our sat nav doesn't have the slightest idea where anything is.

Our mobile phones aren't working because we're not connected to the internet over in Mexico. And so we're driving around this little town and we just can't find it anywhere. And eventually, I saw the little police station with the police car parked outside. So I pulled over. I just, I'm gonna have to go into the police station and ask.

Now, I don't speak very much Spanish at all, you know. I could get as far as Donde, but beyond that, I've got no idea I'm gonna ask where it is. So I went in and I went into this little police station and there's two police officers there, asleep. Um, feet on desk, fast asleep, just, just chilling out.

And I walked, I walked and sort of coughed. And they sort of up their eyes and And we tried to have a conversation, I was saying whales, whales, and eventually I found the Magdalena Bay image and one of our photos said this is what we're looking for and they were like oh yeah yeah yeah we know that where that is we know where that is and they called another guy from out the back and they went just and they're trying to explain where it is and they're trying to give us instructions and it's not going anywhere at all but no and in the end come with us come with us and they all went outside piled into their big Land Rover four by four thing. And so we had a police escort through this little town to get to the one. And the, the guys standing there, the, the poor captain and the other people there, they're standing there. And suddenly these people that they've just been waiting for these people to turn up suddenly this huge police procession, police pull in, we pull up behind, it's like, what's Well, who are we taking the Island now?

Meggan: Who are these important people?

Greg: Yeah.

Jenn: That's amazing.

Meggan: That's an

Jenn: Um,

Meggan: story.

Jenn: tell us where We, well, I know, but tell the other people where you can watch the documentaries that we've

Greg: Right. Well, Greg Felicity is the clue everywhere we are at Greg and Felicity on Instagram. We're Greg and Felicity on Facebooks, but also if you go to Greg and felicity.com, that will give you all the information about where you can watch all of the documentaries. Uh, if you're in the UK where you can find my magic show, if you are a, a huge theatre promoter in any other English speaking country in the world, and you'd like to get me over there for a tour, then go for it. That'd be great as well. But GregAndFelicity. com, GregAndFelicity pretty much everywhere over the internet.

Jenn: Perfect. And do you have any, can you give us an inside scoop on maybe where you might go next in travel or is it a secret?

Greg: What I can say is we are going away a little bit later on this month, and we are going back, because I miss it so much, we will be going back to Italy. However, I'm Going to say I haven't had it cleared with the wife. So I am not going to say which city we'll be heading to, but we are going, uh, going back to Italy.

So there'll be a documentary or a video from there coming hopefully by the summertime.

Jenn: Ooh, very exciting. We'll be, we'll be on the lookout and if you ever make your way across the pond to, uh, Nova Scotia, Canada. We are here and we can help.

Greg: absolutely will, Canada is just so, so very high up on our list, just because of everything, everything in Canada, I think, just

Jenn: Yeah, we have whales. We have a lot of whales here in Nova scotia.

Greg: it, yep, exactly, Scotia, you've got the whales, and just the, the size of the country, and just, wonderful, it's just so much our sort of place.

Jenn: yeah. Alright,

Meggan: It is.

Jenn: it here, let us

Greg: We will.

Jenn: Okay.

Meggan: that's coast to coast different. You can find so much here. It's a, it's, you know, the second largest country in the world. So it's, it's definitely a lot going on not to be missed for sure. you know, what you've mentioned in terms of where people can find you, we'll make sure to link that in the show notes in case there is some big time promoter out there looking to bring you to their town. , so folks can find you there. Thank you so much for joining us this week. This has been a really great discussion. Um, your lives sound very interesting. So thank you for sharing this with us. you can find us on social media at TravelMug Podcast and our website, TravelMugPodcast. com. We of course, we'll have Greg and Felicity on our social media coming up when the episode is released and you can support our show through Buy Me a Coffee or leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We'd also love it if you would share the show with a travel loving pal. Thanks for joining us. And until next time, bye.

Greg: Thank you, bye.