Media in Minutes

Beyond the Destination: How Travel Writing Can Change the World with Joe Sills

• Angela Tuell • Season 5 • Episode 19

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Joe Sills never expected to become a travel writer. Growing up in a small town in West Tennessee surrounded by cotton fields and limited horizons, he couldn't imagine that the places he saw on Discovery Channel would one day become his workplace. After a winding path that included dropped college courses, pizza delivery and graphic design, a workplace shooting became the catalyst that pushed him back toward journalism and eventually into a career documenting some of the world's most remote and vulnerable places.

What began as simple wanderlust – "planting flags and checking off countries" as he candidly admits – evolved into something far more meaningful. Today, Sills focuses his camera and storytelling abilities on conservation efforts, sustainable tourism initiatives and giving voice to communities on the frontlines of human-wildlife conflict. His work in places like Nepal's tiger territory and Bolivia's high-altitude flamingo habitats goes beyond typical travel coverage to document the complex relationships between local communities, wildlife and environmental challenges.

Perhaps most moving is Sills' recent expedition to Svalbard in the Arctic Circle, where he helped lead children with special needs on a transformative adventure. Many had never left their hometowns, let alone experienced the wonder of snowball fights amid pristine Arctic landscapes. For Sills, these moments represent the culmination of his professional evolution – using travel as a vehicle for transformation rather than mere escapism.

As the travel industry faces mounting concerns about sustainability and environmental impact, Sills offers balanced perspective on both challenges and opportunities. He expresses serious reservations about mass tourism models like massive cruise ships while celebrating smaller, more sustainable alternatives. His upcoming projects – documenting Nepal's tourism dynamics and participating in endangered species reintroduction in South Africa – demonstrate his ongoing commitment to using journalism as a force for conservation awareness. Through it all, his philosophy remains refreshingly simple: "If I can take my camera and my words and shine a spotlight on someone who doesn't have the tools to tell their story, whether it's an animal or a person – that's what I want to do."

Read Joe's Tiger story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joesills/2024/07/28/camping-with-tigers-brings-curious-travelers-to-bardiya-in-nepal/ 

Connect with Joe on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joesills/?hl=en 

Listen to past episodes of The Get Lost podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/get-lost-podcast/id1466710154 


Please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to the Media in Minutes podcast here or anywhere you get your podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/media-in-minutes/id1555710662 

Angela Tuell:

Welcome to Media in Minutes. This is your host, Angela Tuell. This podcast features in-depth interviews with those who report on the world around us. They share everything from their favorite stories to what happened behind the lens and give us a glimpse into their world From our studio here at Communications Redefined. This is Media in Minutes. Today we're talking with Joe Sills, a travel writer, guidebook author, photographer and podcast host whose work explores the intersection of adventure and conservation. Joe has covered modern travel trends around the globe, with a focus on sustainability, human-wildlife, conflict and delicate ecosystems. From the delta in Botswana to the jungles of Nepal and the wetlands of Brazil, joe has documented some of the world's most remote and vulnerable environments. His writing has appeared in top outlets like National Geographic, lonely Planet and Forbes. Whether he is highlighting ecotourism efforts or uncovering off-the-wall travel experiences, joe brings a thoughtful, adventurous lens to every assignment. Hello, joe.

Joe Sills:

Hi Angela, How's it going?

Angela Tuell:

It's going well. Thank you for joining us and I'm looking forward to talking with you today.

Joe Sills:

Look, I'm honored to be here. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate the ask and I'm looking forward to talking to you a little bit about our wonderful industry.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, you've traveled all over the world, super, super jealous of a lot of these travels from Botswana to Brazil. We could go on and on. What first sparked your love for travel and how did that evolve into a writing career?

Joe Sills:

So yeah, I'm on six continents now. I haven't been to Antarctica, that's still on the list. But I would say that the love of travel came from growing up in a small town in West Tennessee. A lot of people think Tennessee's mountains and things like that, but in the western part it's just a river delta, like it's cotton fields and a Walmart and that's it. So when I was a kid my parents would drive me around the southeast and the midwest and that sort of got me used to being on the road.

Joe Sills:

But I never thought that it was a career, like I didn't know that I was a sports journalist, you know. So I didn't know that I could go and see these places that I had looked at on TV, on Discovery Channel, like it just was so alien to me. And I remember my first trip out west. I went to California and I was in Yosemite National Park and I just kind of like stopped and looked around and touched the granite rocks on the side of the trail and something clicked like right there and said, hey, man, like all of this is real, so why don't you go see as much of it as you can?

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, oh, I love that, and you've been. I don't want to just say lucky, because I'm sure you've worked incredibly hard to get there. There was a lot of luck there was Because you've made I mean you've been able to make that your career, which is very hard to do.

Joe Sills:

Yeah, it was hard. I'd say that I was driven by a need to break out of my surroundings. The truth of it is I had a very rocky up and down career in college, Like I dropped out. I tried to be an Egyptologist and that didn't work and I ended up delivering pizza, doing graphic design and, long story short, after a shooting at my workplace, I decided to go back to journalism. Uh, and that was great. That was great, Actually, like one um um. Everybody was okay.

Joe Sills:

So shooting could have been worse um, but it sparked that idea to go back to, like my creative roots and I started a travel blog back then. This was like 2013, 14, and as I was living out of the back of a Ford Escape, like going to national parks, an editor at the Travel Channel reached out. They asked me to come on board and that was that. Wow so that's where the luck comes in. I didn't know that travel writing was like a thing that you could get paid for.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, yeah, now you know, and now you found out, it's that you don't get paid a ton for it usually.

Joe Sills:

No, yeah it's. I think it's the world's most glorious side hustle.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, I love that. I love that. You know, as you mentioned, you're involved in so many things, from travel, writing, authoring guidebooks, photography, podcasting. Could you tell us more about your current work, what it looks like now?

Joe Sills:

Yeah, so right now I'm leaning heavily on creative stuff. I'm leaning on visual things Commercial photo shoots are big right now, commercial video shoots are big right now, and also copywriting and doing like marketing comms strategy. A lot of that is behind the scenes, like I'm not usually on camera, my byline might not be on a story, but it's what's paying the bills now because of the landscape of travel writing itself being, as you said, it's like, pretty unsustainable.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, what do you do in the travel writing aspect right now?

Joe Sills:

So, as a travel writer, I still go out. I do guidebooks for Lonely Planet, which is a great way to actually have objectivity. You're not on a press trip. You don't owe anybody anything. You're actually not allowed to be on a press trip to do that. So you have to go out and investigate a place on the ground, like in the real world, and oftentimes these are far flung places like Bolivia, where there's not a lot of info online. So you either have to go to where the old guidebook was written and updated or you have to do something new. And then I also still write freelance for whoever I can get a pitch with. I write for Forbes, I write for National Geographic, some whenever they're kind enough to return my email, and pretty much whoever I can, because I'm still out there. At heart, I'm a travel writer and I want to write about travel. That is what fuels my soul, yeah.

Angela Tuell:

And you focus a lot on conservation and sustainability with your travel writing right.

Joe Sills:

That's true.

Angela Tuell:

What drew you to those themes in particular and how do you approach covering them, you know, responsibly, while you're still, while you're going to those places.

Joe Sills:

Yeah, I mean obviously by trade. I think travel writers have a huge carbon footprint and it's just how it is Always. You can buy like carbon offsets and contribute to positive causes and I guess in a way that makes me feel better about it. I don't know if it really changed anything or not, but maybe I try. But conservation when I talk about conservation, I try to focus a lot on wildlife conservation.

Joe Sills:

I'm a nature lover and my impact has just happened to be in places like the fringes of the Nepal border with India, in a place called Bardia, and I was able to write about human wildlife conflict there with tigers, big cats and elephants. In Africa, I've written some about rhinos. I stayed at a rhino orphanage for a while and I've actually been able to work with scientists in the field to document a lot of their work, and that just stems from growth, I think. When I look back, I mean the first few years of my career as a travel writer. Like everybody, I was planting flags and checking off countries on a list. Flags and checking off countries on a list, right, and it was very self-serving like look at me, I'm in this beautiful place, give me all the attention I'm gonna awesome. Um, I want to go meet like hot instagram babes right, which it turns out wasn't really what what I ended up doing?

Joe Sills:

at all um, I never found them, but I was gonna say are they all over the place with you?

Angela Tuell:

no, no, no, not at all. I never found them. I was gonna say are they all over the place?

Joe Sills:

No, no, no, not at all. Like I would see these, these people on Instagram who are fantastic photographers, and that one inspired me to go, but I never really found that when I was in that stage of my life. Now I have a wonderful partner, Liz, and we see the world together, but at the time, like as a young kid in my 20s, like that wasn't the goal Right. So now I just want to make a difference. Like I checked off flags and I kind of realized it's a little hollow, right, but if I can take my camera and I can take my words and I can shine a spotlight on someone who doesn't have the tools to tell their story, whether it's an animal or a person, that's what I want to do, because I think that can actually help someone.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, and that's when I mean, that's what journalism is all about a lot of times.

Joe Sills:

Yeah, yeah, that's true At the core of it, when you are being a real journalist, so to speak. Yeah, it should be about real causes and a real impact.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, what do you think? I won't ask you your favorite, but what are your most memorable stories that go along those lines?

Joe Sills:

I have two that really stand out One I just mentioned and it's called Camping with Wild Tigers, and I wrote that in 2014.

Joe Sills:

Okay, and it was a crazy story to write, I was not on a press trip, I was coming off of a hike around the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, in the Himalayas, and I had a chance to connect with some people that run a sort of like a glamping resort thing sustainable glamping resort thing down in another region of Nepal.

Joe Sills:

That's literally just like a river delta, hot human jungles, and so I went down there and we hung out Liz and I hung out with the owners of this camp for a couple days and some volunteer rangers, and we were in very rustic surroundings. I mean, these are huts that people live in, with thatched roofs, like you would imagine in an African bush or something like you would imagine in like an African bush or something, and just the wonderful people. But they're having a heck of a time with wildlife conflict because they live on the fringes of this national park where there are elephants and tigers, rhinos, leopards, and people are having like endless encounters with these animals. So we wrote about the methods they're using to try to make their community safer, like camera traps. They use drones to try to chase elephants away from crops, which is a better alternative than like running at them with a flaming spear.

Joe Sills:

You know right um, right, so that story was really, really meaningful. Unfortunately, a woman was killed while we were there by a tiger. Yeah, like, literally, like I think it was less than two kilometers from where we were camping.

Angela Tuell:

Oh my goodness, and you were camping.

Joe Sills:

I mean well, all the homes are open too.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Joe Sills:

Yeah, it was really intense and it took me, I think, six months to like really write that story properly. Yeah, and give it the justice that I thought it deserved for that community. So it's up on Forbes. If you Google Joe, sills and Tigers, it's the first thing that pops up.

Angela Tuell:

Awesome. We will include that in our show notes for sure. What do you wish more editors or outlets understood about reporting on sustainability and environmental issues? I know it's more of a thing now than 10 years ago, but how would you answer that?

Joe Sills:

I think that sometimes I get responses from editors about a sustainability pitch and they say, oh, we've already covered something like this, well, that's, that doesn't really matter. You should still be covering other things like that, because the point is momentum. And if you find a really cool story about a lodge that's doing things sustainably in a wildlife area or a community that's changing the way that they interact with the nature and the plants and the animals in their area, just because you did one story like that in country A doesn't mean you shouldn't run it in country B too, because those could be totally different audiences.

Angela Tuell:

Right, absolutely, and it helps you understand the big picture. You mentioned two stories. We only talked about one. What was the other one?

Joe Sills:

So the other story is one I haven't really written yet. I was so lucky to be on an expedition this spring in Svalbard in the Arctic Circle, so this is a group of islands very north of Norway, even like several hours flight north of Norway.

Angela Tuell:

Okay.

Joe Sills:

It's just snow. It's just snow Like there are mountains. You can't tell where they're there and they're not, because it's just snow. Everything's white. There's polar bears. It's intense, but I went up there to help an explorer friend lead a group of children from a special needs school in the UK to the Arctic Circle and it was insane. Like these kids, a lot of them had never left home. Really they'd never been outside of their hometown, so it's the first time they've been in an airplane.

Angela Tuell:

Wow, and that's where they're going.

Joe Sills:

For real. Liz and I met up with them at the airport in London and met these kids for the first time. I think there were like a dozen of them, okay, maybe ages like 10 to 17.

Angela Tuell:

Okay.

Joe Sills:

And they all have some need, some special thing that's going on with them that has caused the outside world to put a label on them, whether they're on the spectrum for something or whether, like in one case, it was just a kid that couldn't walk, he was paraplegic. So they have these labels and their whole life. You know the outside world is saying, look, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do that, you can never do these things. And Mark Wood, who's a polar explorer in the UK, said, well, screw that. Like, let's take them somewhere, let's prove to them they can do anything.

Angela Tuell:

Oh wow, that's awesome yeah.

Joe Sills:

So we took them to Svalbard Mark, liz, myself, several other people Shout out Rory, hamish, vic, but a bunch of people who are like bona fide explorers, yeah. And then we're kind of tagging along as the film crew and we took these kids to go dog sledding and they went on snowmobiles, they climbed through ice caverns and got to see this incredible, vanishing part of the planet wow, that is fantastic.

Joe Sills:

I cannot wait to read that, so you have to write it I know I have to find the downtime and like the headspace to do it yeah, that's another one, to tell it properly, right? Yeah, it's like I can't just whip that out. Um, it has to be like I need a week to sit down and really hammer this out yes, yes, we'll be watching for that thank you so on the flip side, you also write about off-the-wall destinations what are some of the most unexpected places you've visited how'd you?

Angela Tuell:

find them unexpected places.

Joe Sills:

Um, finding them has a lot to do with the Lonely Planet gig. Okay, you end up in these really ridiculous places, for instance, ayuni, which is a town in South America, in Bolivia. It's famous for having these like expansive salt flats, that kind of go as far as the eye can see. Ayuni is a bit of a destination Like travel industry. People probably have heard of the Bolivian salt flats and Uyuni, but when you're there it's like this gateway to all these other really incredible off the grid literally off the grid places. So one of those is a place high in the andes I think it's just like 13 000 feet or something like that, where flamingos nest really yeah, and to get there from a uni you have to get in a four by four and drive literally like five hours through the desert wow

Joe Sills:

and you you're on what for real looks like mars, like the red rock lunar landscape, and there are just these like very bizarre lagoons made out of like salt and and sulfur, and in these lagoons are sort of these white alabaster islands, surrounded by pink or like aquamarine water, and that's where flamingos nest. Wow, yeah, so you end up in places like that. I have to Google it because I wrote the book. I literally wrote the book on this, but now I can't remember. Eduardo Avaroa Andean National Reserve that's the name of it.

Angela Tuell:

Okay, wow. So what book is that in?

Joe Sills:

That was in the that will be in the new Bolivia guidebook for Lonely Planet that should be out this fall. Okay, I don't have an update on it, but we wrote it in April, something like that. So it takes a while for them to actually publish that kind of thing.

Angela Tuell:

Okay, we'll have to watch for that one too. So you mentioned earlier that you are also a photographer. You mentioned visual. How does the visual side of storytelling influence the way you report?

Joe Sills:

It's absolutely massive, to the point where when I go to write a story, I literally will pull up an album on my phone or my laptop of the photos that I took on the trip and while I might have like the opening line or two in the story in my head to get the atmosphere of the place and to really paint that picture with my words, I'm using photos I took like on the ground and it is totally essential to what I do. I could never do it without a camera yeah, and you have to capture everything in the way that you're seeing it.

Angela Tuell:

There's also that?

Joe Sills:

yeah, because when you, when you are shooting as a photographer um, really, I'm talking about having like a Nikon or or Sony or Canon and a real like an SLR or a mirrorless camera because you have this viewfinder that you kind of see the world through and it blocks out other distractions when you look at it. So you kind of train your eye inadvertently to see the world in that way through these lenses. And I liken it to back in the day when I was like a skater kid. You saw the world as a skater like. You saw curbs differently. It wasn't where you park your car, it was like a place to jump on and grind or do a trick or something Right. And photography is the exact same. You see the world through these lenses and it frames your whole story from a visual and copy standpoint.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, I think that makes you a better writer.

Joe Sills:

I hope so.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, so what are you the proudest of in your career so far? I know there have been some amazing things, such as winning Adweek's interview podcast of the year being a member of the Explorers Club broadcasting the first daily podcast from an expedition in the Arctic Circle, and I'm sure I could go on.

Joe Sills:

Yeah, it sounds crazy when you say it like that. The Explorers Club is important to me because as a travel writer, I wasn't like in the world of science. I didn't come into the Explorers Club through academia. I'm not a researcher, but I learned in my travels that there have always been a few media members that are part of the Explorers Club, which is this sort of scientific research-based institution in New York, and the idea is to get in, you have to contribute in a meaningful way to science. So that was important to me to know that. Hey, I've done enough work here outside of the travel space but because I'm in these weird places, that in a very small way, this camera and my pen, figuratively, have contributed a little bit to science. Yeah, for me for a long time, that was really the highlight. The ad week thing is cool. I think 2020 was a big year for podcasting or a lot of them there. I was stunned to win that. I mean, it was beating out like what I would call real media companies. It was just me and my house.

Joe Sills:

That is fantastic but the most proud I really think it's that svalbard trip that I haven't written about. That was indescribable, like the look on these kids faces. I just I can't even. I'll never get over it. I'll never get over watching these kids just have a snowball fight. You know they like never get snow like that. So while all of the adults are like let's go to the ice caves and let's look for polar bears, and let's talk about science and they're just like snowballs. It was great.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, it really shows you what it was life changing for you too.

Joe Sills:

Yeah, it meant, it meant so much.

Angela Tuell:

So for PR pros listening, which that's a large part of our audience.

Joe Sills:

Hello PR pros.

Angela Tuell:

What is some of your advice for us, or you know any pet peeves?

Joe Sills:

Patience. You guys already know that Travel writing is such a hard game and it's getting harder all the time. There are so many buyouts of major companies. Even when you get your foot in the door these days, corporate America will slam it in your face.

Angela Tuell:

Right.

Joe Sills:

Like I recall getting my first assignment at Nat Geo and I thought wow, this is it.

Joe Sills:

Like this is a dream. Now I'm going to have a working relationship with them, because all my other working relationships start off with you know, a foot in the door and then you're off to the races, right. But it's not like that you got to with them. In my experience I always had to come back as if they had no idea that I even worked for them, and mostly I think they don't. And some companies are wonderful you have an amazing relationship with like Travel Channel is a perfect example. I was like, I felt like I was their go-to or one of their go-tos for many years and then they got bought by a bigger company and they don't even do travel anymore. It's just ghosts. So patience is so, so important and also, I think, understanding that if you work on a writer, on a story, and it doesn't work out, for whatever reason, give them another shot. As long as they're not like an abrasive, horrible person, there's probably a reason why that didn't work out and it might be out of their control.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, we're all humans, right, Give each other grace.

Joe Sills:

For sure yeah.

Angela Tuell:

That is good advice. How often are you traveling now?

Joe Sills:

Pretty constantly. There have been years where I'm off of the road for six months at a time. These days, I'm lucky to get six days at home. Wow, yeah, these days I'm lucky to get six days at home, yeah, so because the economy is so up and down right now, I feel like I'm having to work really, really hard and to earn less. Quite honestly, it's just how I think it's going to be for a little while.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, you know, when you're a freelancer, when you have your own business or any of those, it's hard to turn down work as well, so you take everything you know I don't want to say you take everything, but you know you take the work and because you're not sure what's going to happen, You're not, but I will say there's so much power in saying no to an opportunity. That is true.

Joe Sills:

Yes, because if you get overloaded and overcommit, it's as bad as you're doing a horrible job, maybe even worse.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, yes, that's a good point. Yeah, so do you prefer, or what do you prefer, in hosted trips, and how do you decide which ones you'll take?

Joe Sills:

Hosted trips are such an interesting bag right now. Um, back in the day, um in my twenties, I took everything. I was like let's's go, I'm going everywhere. These days, I'm much more selective about who I work with. Um, in a hosted trip. I need to know what your client is like. Um, from a pr side, like, are they gonna be a chill, understanding client or are they gonna nitpick you on minutiae, right? Um, like, I had a trip one time where, uh, the the client was telling the pr agency, um for me and a group of writers to send like receipts of everything. Like to like a gas station visit, like if you bought the wrong gummy worms, or like a beer or something. Like they weren't going to pay for that, and I think nitpicking is like the worst. You need to have a partner that has some experience with the media and knows, like where that right middle ground is Like, cause you do have to like kick us a little bit sometimes, right?

Joe Sills:

You got to get the ball rolling after a trip, but you also can't drive people nuts because you know, maybe I'm writing that story for $500., Maybe I'm running it for $1,000. Maybe I'm running it for $50. Right, you know, and that's hard to do when you have. You have to pay the bills.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, yeah, it's the I mean. Obviously we love working with clients that understand that as well from the PR side.

Joe Sills:

Do you think they do? Do you think like it's, it's understood on the client end, like how the industry works?

Angela Tuell:

I think some do. You know it's our job to teach them if they don't, or tell them or show them.

Angela Tuell:

I do really love some sub stacks we receive from journalists that give that kind of advice too, because we share those things with clients, but you know some of them, whether they are a government or an international government entity or um some have policies and things that they have to follow, you know, that are more strict, and so that part is more challenging, for the clients usually do, or we like to work with ones that do.

Joe Sills:

I'm glad to hear that I've had some press trip opportunities where you say yes and then you get into this situation where it feels like you're filling out a grant application to go on a trip and I'm like I don't know. Like I'm very lucky through some of my relationships, I can almost always guarantee I'm going to place a story, but at the same time, most of my colleagues are not that way. They cannot operate that way Right, and also there's value down the line. Like hey, maybe we did a trip in 2022, but now, hey, I did a main story on it Four or five years later. I'm doing a roundup and here you go, here's some new placement.

Joe Sills:

Like that matters, you know.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, we do up and here you go, here's some new placement like that matters, you know, yeah, we do. We do tell clients that as well. Like it may not pay off at the right when the trip is over, but you may see something years later totally.

Joe Sills:

Yeah, it's very normal absolutely.

Angela Tuell:

What travel or sustainability trends are you seeing emerge right now that either excite or concern you?

Joe Sills:

Super concerned about cruising. I just did an episode of the Travel Devil podcast about this. I am just not about these. Like big thousands of people on board cruises with water parks and like the emissions are insane.

Angela Tuell:

It's like something like four times um when an airplane emits per mile travel wow yeah, and airplanes are the word, or I thought airplanes were the worst yeah, they're pretty bad, but a cruise ship turns out is way worse.

Joe Sills:

Um I what I like, though, is the trend towards smaller cruises. I like, uh, there are a lot of sailing cruises popping up and even like boutique things where there's only 20 people on like a chartered sailing vessel.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, that's like our client DreamYacht Worldwide. That's what they do.

Joe Sills:

Sick. Yeah, exactly, actually, that's a perfect example of what they do. If you were to go down to the Virgin Islands, charter a yacht with somebody like DreamYacht, then you're cutting your carbon footprint massively, right. So that's something I'm keyed in on. Also, you've got to be aware that, hey, like our public lands in the US big time under threat, so the national parks that we love so much, that we overcrowd quite a lot, they're not guaranteed to stay the way they are, to even be accessible, certainly not to grow. So I'm deeply concerned about that.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, those are ones that are on all of our minds, I think so before we go, maybe we'll end on a positive note. Oh, yeah. I would love to know what else is you know what's next for you? What cool destinations or stories?

Joe Sills:

Yeah, so if there's any editors listening right now, I'm off to Everest Base Camp in about three weeks, oh really.

Joe Sills:

Yeah, I'm not climbing Everest because I like my nose and hands, but I want to go see this mountain because I've been to the Himalayas and they're really special to me. Also, nepal hot topic right now but I have a lot of colleagues and friends there that are from there, that are young, so I want to interview them, get their take on tourism in the Himalayas. Is it good, is it bad? Do you want us here or not? So I'd love to place that story somewhere when I get back. And we have a lot of photo support we have, like Nat Geo Explorers going with us Doesn't give you the keys to their editing staff, by the way. It's a totally different branch. So that's coming up. And then in next spring I'm doing a really, really amazing project in a country in South Africa. I don't know how much I can say about it, but we're going to reintroduce a large number of endangered species back into a reserve that they've been missing from for 13 years.

Angela Tuell:

Oh wow, that sounds like a really cool story.

Joe Sills:

It's going to be awesome, and that's what I mean by like making a positive difference is like, if I can take this camera, I can take my words and I can shine it on something else, let's go. And, by the way, while I'm there, if I can meet local people that are also doing that, that haven't had the opportunity to do it on a big stage, I want to hook them up.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, that's all we can do. Right Is try to make the world a better place by ourselves you know, whatever we can do to make that happen?

Joe Sills:

That is the deal. Like elevate everybody else. Don't get into the competitive mindset of like people taking your job. Just try to help other people and if you do that, you're going to be okay.

Angela Tuell:

How can our listeners best follow your work or connect with you online?

Joe Sills:

So look for me on Instagram and it's at Joe Sills like a window S-I-L-L-S. And you can also look up archived episodes of the Get Lost podcast. That was a bi-weekly travel podcast. It's on hiatus now, but we did some really really cool episodes. We went to the Amazon in Peru with Matthew McConaughey, we went beneath the Giza Plateau with Rami Romani, who's Zahi Hawass's godson, and we rode a train across Siberia. So some really really fun travel stories that'll get your head out of politics for a while.

Angela Tuell:

That's what we need as well. We will definitely link to those in our show notes, and thank you so much, joe.

Joe Sills:

Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be with you.

Angela Tuell:

That's all for this episode of Media in Minutes, a podcast by Communications Redefined. Take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to our show. We'd love to hear what you think you can find more at communicationsredefinedcom slash podcast. I'm your host, Angela Tuell. Talk to you next time.