Quebec City with Melissa Rodway

What if the dream trip starts feeling like a job? We sit down with traveler and author Melissa Rodway to unpack the real highs and lows of a life built on movement—starting with a wild childhood year in Western Australia, a no-guidebook leap through Europe in the 90s, and the pre-smartphone hacks that kept her safe and curious in Costa Rica.

The story turns when she quits an advertising job and heads to Southeast Asia for months of motion—Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China—where gritty bus rides collide with occasional five-star stays. Melissa shares how travel fatigue sneaks in, why purpose is the antidote, and the moment a seasoned traveler taught her the hardest lesson of the road: know when to go home. Those long rides turned into pages, and pages into The People You Meet, a witty, honest travel book about culture, food, and the human dramas that follow you across borders.

Then we switch gears to a slower kind of adventure: five winter weeks in Quebec City during her year off. Daily cross-country laps on the Plains of Abraham, ice skating under big skies, a Nordic spa two minutes from home, and the electric roar of Carnival with its ice canoe races on the St. Lawrence. We dig into the ice hotel, maple syrup snow taffy, tourtière, French schools for all levels, and why Quebec is built for outdoor lovers in every season—plus practical tips on walkability, ferries to Lévis, nearby trails, and affordable stays that make lingering easy.

If you’re craving travel that’s deeper, steadier, and more you, this conversation is your map.

Map of Quebec City

You can find Melissa:

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fly_travel_media/

Her website at: https://flyrodway.com

Melissa's book: The People You Meet Book

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Melissa And Early Wanderlust
• 2:10 Western Australia Childhood And Bali In ’81
• 5:00 Independence, Exchanges, And Rocky Mountain Jobs
• 8:20 First Europe Trip Without A Plan
• 13:15 Costa Rica, Pre‑Smartphone Travel, And Safety
• 17:45 Quitting Advertising And Southeast Asia Loop
• 21:10 Luxury Meets Backpacking And Purpose
• 24:00 Travel Fatigue And Knowing When To Quit
• 28:20 Website, Instagram, And Finding Melissa’s Work
• 29:50 Why Quebec City For A Year Off Start
• 33:20 Winter Routine, Solitude, And River Calm
• 36:30 Carnival Magic And Ice Canoe Racing
• 40:10 Ice Hotel, Tubing Park, And Summer Swaps
• 43:20 Language, Music, And French Schools

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:14

Hi, welcome to our podcast, Where Next. Travel with Kristen and Carol. I am Kristen. And I am Carol. And we're two long-term friends with a passion for travel and adventure.

SPEAKER_00: 0:26

Each episode, we interview people around the globe to help us decide where to go next. Well, thank you, Melissa, for coming on. I appreciate that. I am so excited. I want to start talking about your travel, your website, your experiences. Um, you know, growing up, did you do a lot of travel with your family?

SPEAKER_01: 0:47

So the story is that uh when I was about seven um in 1981, my dad took us to Western Australia. So we lived uh just outside of Perth in a very, very small community. So he was a teacher at the time, so we did a teacher exchange, so swapped houses and jobs. Our school was very remote. It was uh in the middle of nowhere. We had to take like a bush path to get there, and it was pretty wild. And this was 1981, so um there was no helicopter parenting happening, and basically our parents just like opened the door and off we went and we survived. And we didn't want to go. I remember when we first heard we were leaving, we all cried and thought this was terrible. And then a year later, when we were supposed to come back, we didn't want to come back. So it's just tells you how quickly you adapt. Um, but in that year, we went to Bali, and that was 81. So no one was really going to Bali. Now Bali is like extremely touristy, but not at that time. So when we went, I had very, very blonde hair, and all the women were giving us chocolate and touching my hair like I was some like divine spirit. And my sister was very tall for her age, she was 12, and they wanted to marry her off. And uh, it was pretty wild for my mom. So that was pretty big. And then we rented a van at one point, and we traveled around Australia in a van and into New Zealand pre-internet. So 81 is like you're kind of, you know, just going off. And uh my parents probably sent the odd letter or phone call back to our relatives in Canada, but you're pretty cut off. So that was pretty cool, actually. I would say that was the first sort of, well, at seven, that was a pretty major thing. I'm from a small town. I live in Toronto now in Canada, but I grew up in a small town about an hour and 20 minutes northeast of here. And my parents also grew up in another small town. So this was probably quite big for them. And the message my dad always gave us was um, you know, you can create a life anywhere. So, you know, that that was yeah, that was pretty big. And then after that, I mean, we did a lot of camping and other things, but I wouldn't say that as a family we traveled a ton together. That was probably the biggest thing that we had done.

SPEAKER_00: 3:12

Right. And then so after that, you didn't do any other big trips, it was just camping and things like that. So it didn't happen until Yeah with my family, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 3:20

But my parents always encouraged us to like go and do things. Um, so you know, I spent like a summer in Quebec, which we'll talk about later when I was 15 or 16. My sister went off up north to work in resorts. We both went out west to the Rocky Mountains in in Alberta and Jasper to work. Like we were always encouraged to just keep doing things and to have experiences and to do them actually without anyone that we knew. So go to camp, go to this, go to that, but don't go with your friends. That was sort of the message. So, yeah, so there was a lot of independence. Um, I went to Belgium in high school on exchange for two months in high school. Nice. It's a different world now, and I don't know that that was the best thing in hindsight, but uh that was the message at the time. My brother and sister went back to Australia, and uh I went to Europe and to Western Canada, and uh yeah, so it's being independent and having adventures has always been a big message in our family for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 4:23

Makes a lot of sense with your where you've where you've gone. Are your siblings are they still in Australia or did they come back?

SPEAKER_01: 4:29

No, they just went, uh we all took a year off after high school and they went backpacking around and working there. And uh, I never wanted to go back, to be honest. It doesn't seem different enough to me. I mean, obviously they have different animals and a different climate, but I don't feel like the culture is different enough for me to go again.

SPEAKER_03: 4:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:53

But uh they had a great time and still have friends from there, so yeah, huge connections for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 4:59

So when you took off your year after high school and you you said Europe, did you go to Europe for a year?

SPEAKER_01: 5:06

I went for a few months. So I spent half that time in Jasper in the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, which I absolutely love. So I don't know if you guys have been to Ban for Lake Louise or Jasper, but yes, you have. Yeah, Jasper is like the most normal of all of them. It has um not so much of I mean it's touristy, but it's just more, it's a little calmer. It's just a bit more of a normal lifestyle if you're gonna be in one of those towns. Anyway, I absolutely loved it there. I spent way too long there. I was there from off and on from 18 to 21. Had way too much fun there. So we can make the story. Um, but it was fun. And then so part of the year I was out there and then I went uh to Europe for a few months and was in like France and Germany, Austria. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I was useless. So I was actually how did you pick the places or know where you just kind of I didn't do it well. I I will be so honest about that. Luckily, we had a family friend there who who had moved to France, and I used her as a base, and she helped me like plot out a trip while I was there. But again, this is like this was dumb. I was by myself, I was 19 years old, I had no idea what I was doing. I'd only lived in a small town. I didn't even have a guide book, I didn't even know they existed. I had no clue about lonely planets. I was so naive, I just bought a plane ticket and showed up. And there was no internet, there was no research, there was nothing. How did you get that braveness from? Yeah, it's kind of it was kind of like there was no option. That braveness was like you didn't question it, you just kind of did it. And in hindsight, I'm like, that was that wasn't great. Um had a good time. Yeah. Yeah, I always say I didn't have insurance, I did not have a clue what I was doing. So I survived it. I met some people along the way. I learned the hard way about how to do this. But it's not like you know, a lot of people romanticize about that. And I think now, if you're 19, it's probably all a lot easier because of the internet. But back then it's Did you have like a suitcase where you held with your hand? Or just a backpack? I'm still a backpacker. I just remember one day reading someone gave me a very old lonely planet. I was in the middle of nowhere in Switzerland, and I read somewhere that this bus might come by, and I'm like, this edition is many years old. Like, I hope this bus still comes by. Like it was just crazy. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_00: 7:44

Some of it did the bus come?

SPEAKER_01: 7:47

Yeah, I got I got on the wrong bus, but you know, I I I figured it out. But it is, it's just such a different time now. I mean, that was the 90s, and um, yeah, here we are.

SPEAKER_00: 7:57

So you know, I went to Costa Rica in 2002, and um I had all this extra vacation time and I wasn't gonna lose it. I had 16 weeks vacation. I took 12 out of 16 weeks, but one month I went to Costa Rica and I had talked to this company, Costa Rican Adventures, and I wrote on a piece of paper, uh, because the internet, we didn't really do that either. Uh 50 people's names and phone numbers that if once I got there, if I needed help. And I just I wrote everything down. I gave uh my family the itinerary and then I kept changing it. And uh, you know, you had a calling card that I called and said, okay, I'm gonna go live on a kayak for three days. I'm not doing that, or I'm going over here instead, and just kind of went with it. I think that was more normal. And for our age growing up, too, it was more normal. Whereas now for my kids who are 18 and 21, you know, over the every moment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:51

Right. So different. Oh, totally. And there's a part of me that you kind of miss that. Like that, that was a real like, if you're going, you're going, and whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen. But I do think it's a lot safer now, to be sure. And it's easier, it's so much easier. But there is some real beauty to that, that way it used to be, I think.

SPEAKER_00: 9:12

So, what what what was your favorite trip on that trip? How long were you gone for? Or was it like how did you kind of uh go? Because it sounds like a couple months you'd go and then you'd come back. And I don't know if you were in school or working or yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:25

So that year that I took off, I wrote my exams early from high school and I went out west and lived there for I think um five, six months, and then I went to Europe for maybe three months backpacking and trying to figure out what I was doing. And then I went back out west, and then I went to university in Montreal in Quebec after that. Ended up moving back um to Vancouver Island at one point. I I moved a lot in my 20s. Yeah, sounds like it. Yeah, yeah. Well, you learned, you had fun. I was trying, I was trying to find my place, right? I think sometimes um people think the 20s are the best of times, and sometimes they're the hardest times are pretty confusing of like what you're supposed to do. And I think the biggest lesson I've learned is that as you get older, you actually feel younger, and you're like, ugh, like I can, you know, when you're young, you have all this pressure, or so you think to like figure it all out. And then when you get older, it's like, oh my god, I was a baby. Why did I do that to myself? Um but that's uh yeah, oh I love that.

SPEAKER_00: 10:33

Figure it out. So, and then um you went to work, but then you have a travel um website and you you travel a lot now. Um, or you know, how did that transform? So your 20s, did you do the travel and then now you're working, but then you do take a lot of time off. And then of course we want to talk about the year off that you took.

SPEAKER_01: 10:55

Yeah. So um I've never done the career thing very well. Um, I have made very strange decisions that didn't really suit me because uh yeah, I probably if I could go back in time, that's one thing I would do over. However, in my late 20s, I started traveling more and more and more. So I would say around 29 is where it became like a part of my lifestyle. So I Costa Rica was my first big trip like that, and then I was hooked. It's such an amazing country, it's safe, it's there's so much to do, it's beautiful. Um, and that I got the bug from that, to be honest. And then so I I will just fast forward through that. A few years later, I met somebody who worked in the travel industry, and so we traveled as much as we could. We were from different countries. That ties into um my book that we can talk about in a minute. Yeah, but anyway, so we met on a cycling trip in Cuba. He was from England, I was from Canada, and we ended up traveling together for many, many years. Uh, he moved to Canada at one point, that's a whole other story. And then when I was 35, I quit my job. I was working in advertising and I hated it. Yeah, I just it wasn't for me. And so we took time off and went to Southeast Asia. So on that trip, we went to Thailand, Lao, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China. And that's what my book is about that I just put out. It's called The People You Meet. Subtitle is Luxury Leeches Love and Lao La with a host of interesting characters in Southeast Asia. So this was a trip where he worked in luxury travel and he was researching routes of the world. And I was pretty much just along for the ride, which is fine by me because I actually hate planning trips. I like going on them. I don't like all the dirty work. It's horrible. But we he was on an agenda. Like it was, I would say 90% backpacking, 10% luxury. So we were staying in some, you know, less than desirable places a lot of the time. And then once or twice a week, sometimes more, but sometimes less. We'd stay in a really like over-the-top luxury, you know, where the likes of Angelina Jolie would have been. Like it was very expensive and we didn't pay a dime for it. It was very like one extreme to the other. And the point of it was for him is that he was making these connections so that down the road he would be able to sell these hotels in itineraries to his luxury clients. But for me, I get very restless. So, as wonderful as all of this was, and it was, after a few weeks, I got very cagey because I didn't have a purpose. And I think that's one thing that has come up through travel over the years is there used to be this real dreamy thing about I'm just gonna head off and travel and see what happens. But I don't think that it's like that as much anymore. You have digital nomads who are like working while they're traveling, people who are volunteering, people who are like picking up odd things to do. I think we all need purpose. And if you're on the road for weeks and weeks or months and months, you can get a little crazy. So I was so I was sitting on these buses and trains, and they were very long, sometimes like 36 hours on trains and buses, and it was not easy. No, and in my head, I started creating all of these um stories about what was happening, who we were seeing, what was going on between the two of us. And so I wrote these emails once a week, because again, we I didn't have a phone. I was going to internet cafes, and some people won't even know what that means.

SPEAKER_02: 14:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:52

We were like lucky to have a computer at a guest house or a hotel. So then I started sending these emails, and people were loving them, and they started sending them to friends and family. Long story short, I turned that all those emails into the book. That was a long way to answer your question. So for me, um for that, I just I just quit my job. I was 35, and that was probably a good and bad thing to do at that time, but I didn't really care and I wanted to do it, and off we went. It wasn't easy rebuilding after that, but um, it's always worth it. So yeah, I did that for four months. He continued um for nine, but we were on the road every day, like almost every day, on in a new place, doing something different. And after four months, I was like, I'm out, I'm done. Um, it's very exhausting. And this is another thing that I learned on that trip. And trust me, I love more than anyone being away. I love adventures, I'm up for pretty much anything. I love who I am when I'm away because I think that you're a very different person. But there is something that I learned on that trip called uh travel fatigue, and it is alive and well. And I remember I had met this woman. She was in her 50s at the time. I was in my 30s, and she has done everything. This woman was remarkable. She was like the icon, the legend of any traveler I've ever met, even to this day. And I remember I was with her somewhere. We were in northern Lao or Thailand. I don't know where the hell we were. Anyway, we were somewhere, and these two young girls came through with backpacks uh to get tickets on some random bus. And she looked at them for a bit, and then she looked at me and she said, They need to go home. And I said, What are you talking about? What do you mean? She said, They're done. They're they're over it. They've probably been on the road too long, and their trip should end. And she said, That is one of the biggest lessons, the most important lessons in traveling that nobody talks about is like when you know that it's time to go home because you stop seeing things. You're seeing things, but you're not seeing things, becomes a job. It becomes about your ego saying that you've been to XYZ even though your heart is no longer in it. And so, so I learned that lesson on that four-month trip where I was like, it doesn't matter if you take me um to Hawaii at the moment, I'm done. I'm out. So that was for me a very interesting thing. So yeah, after that I came back, rebuilt my life a little bit, and then uh when I was 48, I took another, like I took a year off again and did another like series of trips.

SPEAKER_00: 17:37

So and then I have a question back on the you know, the travel fatigue. I experienced that too when I was backpacking across Europe. I just like I just feel like I need to do something. I'm like, if I could work when I was there, I probably would have stayed a lot longer. But have you heard that from a lot of people?

SPEAKER_01: 17:51

Is that like other travelers? I don't think people like to talk about it, but um I'm very honest. So if you go on my Instagram, I wrote a huge thing about it when I was in um Chile and Argentina. I think I was still in Chile, and I almost came home. I had only 10 days left to go, and I was like sick over it and just a disaster. And my partner was like, You've got 10 days, you have to like suck it up and get through it. But I wrote a huge thing about it, and so many people, yeah, so many people were like, Oh my god, thank you. Yes, and you know, what when you when anyone admits to anything that we're afraid to say, people come out of the woodwork and they're like, Oh, me too, me too. But no one wants to admit, like there's a lot of ego in travel, I have to say. Um, not for everybody, but there's a lot of bragging rights, and there's a lot of, you know, I'm better than you because I've been to this number of countries and blah, blah, blah. And it's so stupid. But um, yeah, I think I think people talk about it more and more now. I think because of mental health is like a big deal. And I think also people have uh come up with new ways to combat that, right? Like, say if you're feeling that badly, then just find a location to like stay. If you can, if you have the luxury of time and money, then just stay put somewhere for a bit and have a normal life and do normal things. I think that like we've normalized travel more and more and more. Whereas back in the day it was just glorified as this, like, you know, beautiful dream that every day you're skipping through the tulips. And it is not true. It is hard. It is hard. It is hard.

SPEAKER_00: 19:31

Yeah, especially people that move around a lot, like every week living in a new place. That sounds totally exhausting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:37

Yeah. And when we did this trip in 2010, we were every two days uh somewhere new, if not like, you know, I think the longest we stayed anywhere was three or four nights. That was it. So it's very tiring.

SPEAKER_00: 19:50

If people wanted to look at these trips on your website, where do they find you? I will say my website is not up to date, but you can go there.

SPEAKER_01: 19:57

It's flyroadway.com. Yep. But the best place is Instagram. So that's fly underscore travel underscore media, and there you will see everything. And I if I had an assistant, my website would be really great, but it is not really great right now.

SPEAKER_00: 20:16

Okay. Tell us you don't live in Quebec City, but you l love it. You've spent a lot of time there.

SPEAKER_01: 20:23

In 2023, I took a year off, and as I said, my first destination was Quebec City, which a lot of people thought I was crazy, especially if you're Canadian. They're like, that's not very exotic. But um, I love it there, and it's very European. So uh, and I it's very wintry and I'm a winter person, and I always wanted to spend time there. So I lived there for five weeks. It is an eight-hour drive from Toronto, it's a three-hour drive from Montreal. And you know, I don't know if you guys drive a lot in the States, but to us, like we drive all the time. It's a big country, so driving is is what it is. Yeah, so I spent some time there. I had an Airbnb that was very cheap. It like for me in uh Canadian dollars, it was about 800 bucks for five weeks, which is nothing. Five weeks. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah, it's very, very cheap. It's Quebec, the province of Quebec has always been a little cheaper than other places. Personally, I really loved it. It's also very beautiful in the summer, but I was there for the snow, and basically um my life consisted every day of like um cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, ice skating, whatever, any of those combinations. And then I lived um two minutes from a beautiful Nordic spa. So I often went there later, would come home, read a book, have a bath, watch Netflix, and go to bed. And I did that for five weeks solid, and it was heaven. Did you get any travel fatigue then? No, exactly. I had no, I had only one set of friends, like a couple that I'd met. I was I took I had an incident before I got there. My car was broken into and I lost almost everything the night before I got there. So that's another story. We can go there if you want to, but we know so I befriended this couple uh at a French school. I went to school for one week, which interrupted my winter activities, but I did it. And outside of them, I had zero social life, and I loved that too. It was just like heaven. And I lived along the St. Lawrence River, which is very beautiful, and in the winter it's full of uh ice flows, and so you could just see the ice moving constantly along the river, and it was very meditative and peaceful. And I mean, they get so much snow there. So if you're not a winter person, it's not for you.

SPEAKER_00: 22:50

Okay, and then so you know, because I'm not really a winter person, but I know like it's it's not like bad weather, there's bad clothing, right? So do you like do they walk around with like snow pants, like just when you're cruising around? I did. I lived in them.

SPEAKER_01: 23:04

Yeah, yeah. I went outside all day. And if I wasn't like skiing or skating or whatever, I was just walking. And the thing about Quebecers is they um they go outside no matter what. So there was a winter, there's a winter carnival there every year, and the year I was there, it was like between minus 40 and minus 50. That's extremely cool. Yeah, Celsius. But they're still out, everyone's there. Yes. So you everyone is wearing like snow pants, snow boots, like you you have to. There's otherwise you're gonna be inside for like many months. Do schools ever have snow days? Um, I don't know. I'm sure that they do there. We do here in Ontario quite a bit. I'm sure in Quebec they do too. But the thing is, is they're very prepared. Like if there was a snowstorm coming, their plows are out like right away. They are under, they have this under control. Toronto, we are not equipped. Like we had so much snow this year, it was insane and it was a disaster. But Quebec is like, it's part of their lifestyle, it's part of their culture, the snow. So they're nothing to do.

SPEAKER_00: 24:09

Yeah, it's probably like our mountains in Colorado. Like they want those skiers, they have it ready. Yeah. Okay. And then I've heard about uh a sport called canoes, ice canoeing. Can you tell us about that? And I wanted to also, yeah, that's part of the Carnival de Quebec. Is that that's I was just looking. It's February 6th through the 15th this next year. It sounds so much fun. It's so much fun.

SPEAKER_01: 24:32

Um, so ice canoeing is a traditional sport in Quebec. And during the carnival, there are um competitions. It's one of the most exciting parts of Carnival, Carnival, and they actually have teams from all over the world that come and do it. So I have tried it. It's very hard, but it's very exciting. So basically, what happens is you are put into a very large canoe and it's made of metal, and they give you a paddle with a spike on the end, they give you spikes to attach to your um uh sorry, spikes to attach to your boots, and they give you some wetsuit uh leggings and things like that. Not your full body, but just like from the knees down and knee pads. So I'll try to sum this up for you. But basically, you're in a with five or six other people. If you are in ice, because you're on the river, you are you have one knee in the canoe and then your other leg is like pushing off ice. Wow. You're pushing to and you're pushing the boat at the same time. You're looking to get to open water. As soon as you hit open water, everybody does like a 180, they jump in the boat and they start paddling. And if there's any like ice around them, they have this spike to like chop up the ice. So you're paddling through the water. Once you hit ice again, everyone's out, you're pushing, you're running, you're like trying to get to open water, you do it again. It's insane, but it's really fun. How long does it go for? Like, oh, so when I did it, they take you for like um an hour, an hour and a half. And but when you watch the event, uh the race, they're doing they're going back and forth across the river, the St. Lawrence River. And I think the river is is about a kilometer long. So it depends what category you're in, but sometimes they're going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, depending on what race they're in. It's insane. It's insane. Yeah, but it's I think everyone just like cheering on the sidelines sometimes. Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 26:30

Oh, it's super exciting. Yeah. I mean, they compete. I mean, like I've seen pictures, and and there's one picture I'm looking at, and there's uh snow and water. So there's a canoe of paddlers, and then another canoe behind them still still pushing in the snow to get to the water. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 26:48

Yeah. And in Quebec itself, I mean, they do it for carnival for like it's an international event, but around Quebec proper, they compete all when like there's people that this is their life. This is their team, this is what they do all winter long. So it's a big sport there.

SPEAKER_00: 27:03

Okay. And then so at the carnival, you said in February, is this kind of like tied to Mardi Gras here in the States or Carnival in Brazil? Like no, it's its own um yeah, no, it's its own French tradition.

SPEAKER_01: 27:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, French tradition. Well, yes, it's a French, a French place. So um, yeah, it's really fun. They have like ice sculptures and an ice palace, and like there's just tons to do. It's a small city, it's not big at all, and it just really uh is electric for those 10 days, I think it is, or two weeks.

SPEAKER_00: 27:35

The ice castle and the sculptures, you can stay in an ice hotel, it sounds like, just like in Sweden, I think you were mentioning.

SPEAKER_01: 27:43

Yeah, the ice hotel is um about half an hour away. So that's in a place called Balcartier. So they build this every year with a different theme in mind. So that I forget how many rooms there are, like 16, maybe something like that. And every room looks different. And they have like a hotel lobby, it's all made of ice. You can just go, you can spend the night, it's 400 bucks, or you can just go for 25 and tour around the hotel and have a welcome drink and all of that. It's like really, really neat. And the couple that I did meet, they did it. They spent the night. They said they were very warm. They have like a sauna, I think, in a hot tub that you have to go into the night before just to like get your body warm. And then they provide you with like proper sleeping bags and blankets and all that. And if you really can't handle it, they book a hotel room for you to go into in the middle of the night. But my friends survived it and they absolutely loved it. So that's a super cool thing to see, even if you don't want to stay overnight, like just to hang out there for an hour or two. It's awesome. It's it's really impressive.

SPEAKER_00: 28:44

It looks incredible. And I'm assuming it's not dripping on you, it's frozen and oh yeah. Oh, it's cold.

SPEAKER_01: 28:50

Like when I was there, it was so cold. Yeah, and then attached to that, they have a tubing park. So if you're into tubing, which I had never done properly, it's actually like going to a ski hill. Like you have to go up the um, you know, the tow rope, and they have like black diamond, intermediate, easy runs, and it's really fun. So that's a really fun day. And in the summer, you can go there for like a water slide. So if winter's not your thing, it's a pretty cool little area to check out anyway. Obviously, no ice hotel in the summer, but right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:24

And so it's is the whole um province French speaking then? Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 29:30

Well, yes, there are communities in Quebec that are anglophone, um, but major the majority is French. So, but yeah, like there's parts of Quebec where people grow up speaking English and they probably their French is not that great, but that's rare. I mean, I would say 80 to 90 percent of Quebec is French. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 29:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 29:52

You can get by. Like in a city like Montreal, Montreal is very touristy. Quebec City is also very touristy, so if you don't speak French, you're fine. Because they rely on tourism. It's also a bit of a government town, but they rely on tourism heavily. So you will survive. But it does help to know like a little bit, because you know, a little bit goes a long way. It's inundated with tourists in the summer of that place.

SPEAKER_00: 30:15

That sounds good. And so you say you went to a French school there. Is that very common? And is that is it pretty advanced French or is it like a brand new movie? Just because that sounds like also like some people want to travel with a purpose. So let's go to Quebec City and learn French while we're there.

SPEAKER_01: 30:31

Totally. It's a very good idea. So for me, it happened because um all my stuff had been stolen at that time and I didn't have I couldn't like ski or anything. I got it all back. That's a different story. But, anyways, for one week I was in kind of stuck. And so I decided to do it. And um yeah, you can be any level. You can be brand new to the language, you can be intermediate, senior, whatever. And the people that I met, there were a lot of young people actually, um, but from many different countries that had come there to learn French. And uh it was pretty cool. It was not easy. My it was not a like uh easy breezy. I was like writing news articles and looking at, yeah, it was it was it was hard, but I loved it and I loved my teacher, and I'm glad that I did it. But one week was enough. And I speak French pretty well, actually, but yeah, we can all be better.

SPEAKER_00: 31:25

So you you only took five weeks. Did you have to go back to work, or how come you didn't stay longer?

SPEAKER_01: 31:31

Um, so that five weeks was part of uh my year off. So that was my first adventure, and then I went back to Toronto for like three weeks, and then I went to South America. If I had to stay there the whole year, I would have been fine. I loved it. There's so much to do in Quebec. Like there's if you're outdoorsy, everything is within reach. So right in the middle of the city is a park called the Plains of Abraham, which is actually a very um historical place for Quebec and Canadian history. It's the site of a major battle. But now it's like if you're a winter person, you can cross-country ski there for free. There's, I think, 15 kilometers of trails. It's beautiful. There's a massive skating oval there. In the summer, it's a beautiful park. It has beautiful views of the water, and they do tons of festivals in there. Um, so it's like right in the middle of the city. And how cool is that? I mean, if you can't get somewhere, you can hang it there. But everything around there, like ski hills, um, other places to skate, everything is under an hour. So, like in Toronto, you have to drive forever to get to places like this, but in Quebec City, everything is close. I was skating at phenomenal places that were 25 minutes away. Once I drove an hour and a half to do like a skating thing that was in the forest, it was 15 kilometers of ice skating, like around trees and with different animals. Oh my gosh, I've never heard of that. Yeah, it's an amazing province. Do you need these poles when you skate in the trees? No, okay. They will like clear it, Zambonian or ISAT or whatever it is they need. Oh, yeah. But they take that stuff really seriously there. Like they are serious outdoorsy people. It's awesome. But yeah, so if I had had to stay long, I cried the whole way home. I didn't want to leave. I I could just live here. I mean, I cry often on my way home from most trips, but um, I felt very uh connected there and that I could easily live there. It was amazing, and I would live there. It's just like my French is pretty good, but not good enough to have a proper job there.

SPEAKER_00: 33:39

All right. You say that as a kid, when I would leave vacations, I would cry. And then when I first learned to wake surf in Shasta Lake, I felt like uh tears were forming because I was like, oh my god, this is so much fun. You know, it's yeah, if that happens.

SPEAKER_01: 33:55

Yeah, totally. I mean, I don't know. Sometimes I'm like, what does that say about my regular life? Maybe that's the problem. But um, it's fun to go away, right? And to have a different life. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 34:08

Very curious also. And I think uh Carol will be talking questions, but food. I was curious about the the food, and I know there's French onions. Well, no, no, the well, I'm sure they have onions suited in Quebec. Um, but if there was traditional foods or things that they would eat that was different or specific to Quebec.

SPEAKER_01: 34:26

So I um I drank a lot of hot chocolate because I love it, and it's very good there. Actually, they have some really amazing places there. They're known for maple syrup in Quebec. Uh so you can go to like a maple sugar shack or a tasting or whatever, and they actually pour um maple syrup in the snow, and you roll it with like a a stick and it creates like a a sucker. Like it you have to look it up to uh wow, that's very unusual. I love it.

SPEAKER_00: 34:59

It's so natural, right? Just one ingredient.

SPEAKER_01: 35:02

They have a lot of they have an amazing culture there, Quebec. It's very different than other parts of Canada. So they're into food, they're into like having fun, they're into drinks, they're into music. Like that's sort of their thing. But in terms of food, French onion soup certainly is huge. There's a pub there called um Uncle Antoine's, and that's the English version. In French, it's uh L'Encle Antoine, I think. I don't know, maybe I butchered that. Anyway, it's very good. And they have like the it's very European there, so you'll be in these restaurants that are often very old and like there's stone everywhere, and you feel like you're kind of in a cave, and I don't know, it's beautiful. Um, other things, they eat a lot of tortillas, which is like a meat pie. That's very good, actually. And then they um, well, poutine is what everyone says Quebec is known for, but I don't really understand that. I don't like it. It's called Poutine. It's French fries with gravy and cheese curds. It's kind of gross, actually. A lot of people love it, but I don't think it's that great. But there is a place in Quebec that I did not make it to that was recommended. So um there's a parliament building in Quebec City where they the government that has a government, and I'm not a political person, but it's a really cool tour. You can do free tours there in English or French to check out the parliament buildings. And then in the summer, they have a beautiful garden in the front of that area, and they have a restaurant and they uh serve everything that's grown from that garden, and everything's fresh, and it's apparently really delicious. And they also have like a beekeeping area and they make their own honey. So if you go there in the summer, it's called Le Parlementaire, and it's apparently amazing. So very affordable. So you probably can't get the the suckers, the maple syrup suckers in the summer, huh? And you need the only like in tourist shops. But if you want the like true, like authentic experience, yeah, it's you go like they have they set them up everywhere in the snow, and it naturally is cool. And Quebec City itself, like it's full of patios and restaurants, and like there's probably I didn't eat out there a lot because I was on my own and I don't always love that. Um, and I was saving my money for my adventures and gas. But um, but yeah, there's tons of restaurants there, tons and tons and tons.

SPEAKER_00: 37:23

Yeah, I mean good. Okay, so we're ready for our rapid fire questions. Always okay. All right. So what would you have for breakfast? So I mean normal breakfasts each day there in Quebec City.

SPEAKER_01: 37:35

Um, I don't think my experience is something you're gonna be interested in, but they do have a lot of like Oh, I want to know. So, you know, you know, really.

SPEAKER_00: 37:44

Um granola, that's like the most popular across the world.

SPEAKER_01: 37:49

Yeah, like peanut butter and honey toast. Um, but crepes, crepes are very big there, so that's everywhere. Like they're into bakeries, so like there's a lot of pan chocolat and croissants and all that kind of stuff. And they have like delicious fruit, like they have an island, it's called Ile d'Orléans, it's five kilometers outside of Quebec City, and it's 7,000 people and I think six different communities, but in the summertime it's all like orchards and vineyards and gardens and beautiful produce. Yeah, and that's a really if if you're going in the summer, that's a must. You can cycle around there or just drive around or do whatever. So you say it's like an island, how like what kind of like yeah, you cross a bridge, there's like I think a bit of a causeway, and then it's just yeah, it's just like an island. What do they call it again? Uh Ile d'Orleans. So island of Orleans, if that helps. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 38:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 38:47

Yeah. Um, it's beautiful, so beautiful. So a lot of delicious food comes from there and uh like yeah, fruits, vegetables, all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 38:58

Alrighty. And then the money situation, a lot of times I like to ask, is it like just credit cards? Are you better to exchange? I mean, for you, it's you're in Canada going to Canada. So, but is there the money? It's all the same as Toronto or is it different?

SPEAKER_01: 39:12

Yeah, so Canadian money is the same through the whole country. Um, but it's like anywhere. So credit cards are accepted everywhere there. And then um it's up to you uh as to what the exchange rate is like for you when you come to Canada. But yeah, it's uh, you know, modern place, so whatever works for you. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 39:33

And what's the music like? Anything unique about music in well, all of Quebec or because since it's more mainly French focused?

SPEAKER_01: 39:41

Yeah, I mean, they they would certainly be also inundated with English music, so they know English music, but they also are very loyal to uh bands that are from Quebec. Yeah, so there's some amazing French music, and a lot of people don't like it that aren't people are not from Quebec, but I love it because I love that province. So yeah, it's fun. I don't know how to describe it, it's kind of like folky party, like it's like a kitchen party kind of tone. But um yeah, like uh what are those things called? Ukulele's and fiddles and like all that kind of stuff. Not all the time, but that would be like the Maritimes in general, the East Coast of Canada, that they're kind of known for that. But yeah, Quebecers have some pretty amazing musicians. I mean, the most famous one, of course, is Celine Dion, but I wouldn't say she's representative of like traditional French music, right? She's pretty international now. But yeah, they have some.

SPEAKER_00: 40:38

His name is uh Roque Vazine.

SPEAKER_01: 40:40

That's right. So yeah, he's like pretty famous from Quebec. And there was another one called Mitsu. She was also pretty famous from there. Yeah, they're different, they're different people, they're super fun, and yeah, they just have their own kind of way. I love them. I think they're like I love the culture of Quebec. It's fine. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00: 41:02

And so when you get there, do you drive around a lot? Like, so if you somehow got to Quebec City, do you need a car or is the is there public transportation?

SPEAKER_01: 41:10

Um, there are buses there for sure. If you're there in the summer, you if you're only staying in the city, there's a lot you can do in the city that is walkable, and it's a walkable city. I walked those streets like every day, all the time. Um, but there's things to do also outside of the city for sure. So for me, I I certainly needed a car. Um and also it's touristy, so like groceries, you don't want to go to like the grocery stores right in in the tourist areas because they're gonna be a fortune. So yeah, but there are public buses, but I I did have a car and I would recommend it. But in the summer, too, I mean, there's a ferry, a beautiful, a beautiful part of the city is that there's a Chateau Frontenac there, which is an old hotel. It's a Fairmont Hotel, and it just towers. If you Google Quebec City, that's the first thing you're gonna see. So it just like towers over the St. Lawrence River, and there's a beautiful boardwalk along the river. But you can take the ferry across the river, the St. Lawrence River, to the neighboring town of Levis to look at Quebec City. Oh, the chateau. Okay, yes, and that's beautiful at any time of the year. Summer, fall is beautiful. Quebec City in the fall, I've never seen colors like that. Like the trees are unbelievable. So that's something I would tell people to do. Yeah, they have something called the Montmorency Falls there. They're beautiful, like the whole city, the whole province is so pretty. But in the fall, it's so gorgeous with leaves.

SPEAKER_00: 42:41

It sounds like you need to spend a year there, go through all the seasons.

SPEAKER_01: 42:45

Do you know what? I when um COVID hit, a part of me was like, Oh, I wish I had just gone to Quebec for COVID and just like been stuck there. I think that would have been just awesome. But hindsight, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 42:58

I mean, totally. Alrighty. And then how about the closest place to surf? Where do people is there any kind of surf culture, whether it's behind a boat or um like at the big great lake?

SPEAKER_01: 43:11

I mean, I don't know. I can't tell you about Quebec. Quebec's full of lakes, just like Ontario. So Canada in general is the land of lakes and rivers, but we don't we have ocean of on obviously there's three oceans that we're surrounded by, but um, I'm not in that world. So I can tell you that in Toronto we have the odd moment where people are surfing on Lake Ontario, which is one of the Great Lakes. But that is rare, but it does happen. But I don't know in Quebec, I can't tell you. I'm sure they must have an area too where it's wild enough for that, but they are also, and maybe along like in the Gas Bay Peninsula or on the river somewhere, it might be like that, but I wouldn't know. You'd have to Google that one. Okay, sounds great.

SPEAKER_00: 43:53

And then your book again is called I copied and pasted it, uh, The People You Meet, Luxury, Leeches, Love, and La La with a host of interesting characters in Southeast Asia. And you said there's a couple books called The People You Meet, so be sure listeners. Uh The People You Meet by Melissa Rodway, if you want to Google that. And we'll put we'll put a link in the show notes as well. How to find it on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01: 44:17

Amazon. Yep, that's perfect. Thank you. I appreciate that. And it's fun, it's an easy, fun read. You'll feel like you're on the adventure with me. You'll feel like you're right beside me. That's my tone. That's how I I write, like as if you're there. It's hilarious. It's very honest. And um, yeah, you'll learn a little bit about that part of the world, like certainly geography, food, culture, climate. But um, more than anything, it's just a really good adventure, and you'll be happy that I did a lot of these things for you because they're not always pleasant.

SPEAKER_00: 44:51

Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm very you mentioned uh like Cambodia, that you you really loved it. So I'm very excited because I would never go. Eh, I don't know. I don't know if I need to go to Cambodia. China too. Wasn't that another one that we were like, oh, China, like that you really liked or something, or was I was it Cambodia only? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01: 45:07

Um, Cambodia was my favorite, China was my least favorite. China is it was. I was trying to remember, yeah. That did it's very challenging, yes, but very beautiful. It's a very beautiful place, but it was not an easy place for me. But no, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 45:25

Well, thank you very much. And thank you for having me. I really appreciate that. Have a great weekend. Okay, thank you. You too. Bye. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, can you please take a second and do a quick follow of the show and rate us in your podcast app. And if you have a minute, we would really appreciate a review. Following and writing is the best way to support us. If you're on Instagram, let's connect. We're at where next podcast. Thanks again.