839 Circumambulating with Nicos; South Pacific Islands

Travel with Rick Steves

In this episode of Travel with Rick Steves, philosopher and writer Nikos Hadjikostas shares his transformative journey across the globe, emphasizing travel as

Key takeaways

• Travel is not just about visiting destinations but about transforming one's perspective on life.
• Indonesia's 18,000 islands represent an 'infinite microcosm'—a reminder that no place can ever be fully explored, making return visits meaningful.

Main topics

• Philosophy of travel as life's journey
• Indonesia as an infinite microcosm

Notable quotes

"Mohammed wanted you to get out of your neighborhood and see the world."

"Indonesia is an infinite microcosm—there's always more to discover with every visit."

Conclusion

Travel with Rick Steves invites listeners to view journeys not just as physical movements but as profound personal and

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) Last year, Nikos Hadjikostas left his island home on Cyprus for a few months to see how people lived in several countries of East Asia. But the nearly 18,000 islands of Indonesia threw a wrench into his way of thinking on how you can get to know a place and its people. I realized I could never truly explore the world because the Indonesian islands are an infinite microcosm. Coming up, Nikos brings us a philosopher's perspective for the journeys of our lives. Speaker 1 (0:30) James Grant Peterkin's studies took him from Scotland to live on the remote Polynesian outpost of Easter Island. He reminds us there's upwards of 20,000 islands scattered across the South Seas. The geopolitics of the Pacific, for really the first time, certainly since World War II, has suddenly become extremely important again. Come along for the next hour as we find out what an adventure across the world can show us. It's travel with Rick Steves. Speaker 1 (1:00) You might have missed the recent news about one of the smallest countries in the world. The South Pacific island nation that you would have seen listed as Nauru has just changed how you spell and say their name. The people of the Republic of Nauero, that's N-A-O-E-R-O, want the rest of us to know how they pronounce and spell their island home. So, in just a bit, we'll get inspired to explore the far-flung islands of the South Pacific with Polynesian culture and history expert James Grant Peterkin. But first, let's pay a long-overdue visit with Nikos Hadjikostas. An early midlife crisis sent Nikos out on his own personal odyssey across the world to learn and observe and experience life in as many ways as it would present itself. He joins us now on Travel with Rick Steves to encourage us to let our travels open up new views of the world. Speaker 1 (1:52) After years as a media executive, Nikos Hadjikostas abandoned the business world and set his sights on a larger and more fulfilling goal, to explore our planet as if it was one single destination. Starting from New York and traveling for six years, he visited six continents and 70 countries delving deep into their peoples, cultures, and natural wonders. That life-transforming journey inspired his first book. It was called Destination Earth, a new philosophy of travel by a world traveler. While many travelers today concern themselves with destination solely for bucket-list fulfillment or amusement or relaxation, Nikos proposes a more meaningful way of viewing travel and its relation to life. Speaker 1 (2:36) Nikos has since settled in Cyprus with his partner Jane and writes philosophical essays collected in his recent books, Conversing with Kafavi and The Eternal Ragpicker. I sat down with Nikos a few years ago to talk about the transformational power of travel and found him to be one of the most fascinating minds I've come across. So we've invited him back to catch up on his recent writing, travels, and life in Cyprus. Nikos, thanks for being here and welcome back. Oh, thank you so much for inviting me and for your superfluous introduction. Superfluous, that's my middle name. Okay, speaking of names, your last name is Haji Kostas. Yes. And I travel a lot through Christendom and Islam, and when you travel, you run across this word hajj or haji. And I always think of it, it's relating to the Muslim idea that you should make that pilgrimage trip to Mecca. Speaker 1 (3:30) And when somebody comes back and if their dad did that, he's known as a Hajj, right? Yes, and it applies also to Christians. And when, I guess, one of my ancestors visited the Holy Land, which is Jerusalem, and he got the Hajj. And since we were under the Ottomans, it was customary also for the Christians to get the Hajj. I love this when I think of the Hajj. I always, my Muslim friends tell me that one of the pillars of Islam is to make the Hajj, to do the pilgrimage. But they say that a progressive approach to Islam interpretation would be that Muhammad didn't necessarily want you just to go to Mecca. Muhammad wanted you to get out of your neighborhood and see the world. Exactly. So that's the fundamental reason to go on a pilgrimage is to broaden your perspective through travel. And I just think that must be an inspiration for you. Speaker 1 (4:24) Mohamed would like your approach. Yes, that's the best introduction to both of my new books, actually, that were published two years ago. The one conversing with Gavavi has as a subtitle, Reflections on the Journey of Our Life. So it connects with a pilgrimage, in a sense. I see life as a journey, and the real journeys that you and I do, and all travelers do, are connected to the... bigger journey of our life. And there are many analogies, and I bring forth all these analogies in my books. I know three of your books, and that's a thread through all of them. And it is this whole idea that we gain a certain enlightenment through our travels, or we broaden our perspective, we get to know our neighbors. I love how Mohammed said, don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you've traveled. And from Mohammed's perspective. Speaker 1 (5:21) You're pretty well educated because you've traveled a lot. What did a long trip, you traveled for six years, what did that do to your mind? Well, it expanded my mind. It transformed the way I see the world, the way I view societies and other people. I'm not the same person anymore. So you talk about the transformative effect of travel, and I think I have been transformed. And some of this... elements of my new self, I hope, trickle through the ideas in my books. So you wrote a book called Destination Earth, and the whole idea was to see the world as a single destination. What do you mean by seeing the world as a single destination? Well, we usually visit a very specific place, let's say the Dolomites in northern Italy, or we visit Central Europe. Speaker 1 (6:16) And we have this idea of exploring a region, but nobody ever thought of exploring the whole planet in the same way as one explores a region. And that was my idea. My idea was instead of creating an itinerary to explore France, I created an itinerary to explore the whole world as if it were one singular country. So you've got ideas that apply, are applicable to the whole world, not where do you stand for the sunset, but how do you understand different concepts. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with philosophy writer Nikos Hadjikostas. He's compiled dozens of essays into his latest work, The Eternal Ragpicker, Essays on the Human Condition. Speaker 1 (7:03) We have links to our previous interviews with Nikos in this week's show notes. That's at ricksteves.com. And you can learn more about all of Nikos' writings and his books on his website. And that's nikoshadjikostos.com. I'll spell you that word. H-A-D-J-I-C-O-S-T-I-S. Nikoshadjikostos.com. Nikos, you like to write about infinite... microcosms. Tell us what an infinite microcosm is. Okay, that's an interesting idea. It can be found in my book, The Eternal Rock Picker. I had a very transformative experience in Indonesia. I arrived in Indonesia after two and a half years of traveling westwards around the world. Like Jules Verne in the 80 days, I started from Europe and I moved through the Pacific. So when I reached Indonesia, I was very proud. Pride came in. I traveled almost half the world. I traveled almost around half the world. And then... Speaker 1 (8:09) I realized that Indonesia has 18,000 islands, 1,000 of which are inhabited. And I was going to visit like four or five. And then I did my maths and I realized that I needed 20 lifetimes just to explore the few inhabited islands of Indonesia. And I had a big collapse and I wrote a piece called Defeat that I was defeated. I realized I could never truly explore the world because... The Indonesian islands are an infinite microcosm. It's a microcosm because it's all these little islands that are very small, but they are infinite because... It's an interesting thing. It's like those little tricks on your eye where the closer you go with the microscope, the more you see and the more you reveal. Exactly. And I use the microscope analogy to introduce the concept. I say that... Speaker 1 (9:05) There is another infinity, the infinity of the small, the infinity inherent in what seems to be finite. This is the infinity of the limitless degrees of magnification with which a microscope can explore what appears contained and measurable. As it turns out, with every new degree of magnification, a microscope discovers a new world. And in the same way, with every new visit, Of Indonesia, you discover new aspects of Indonesia. So it's infinite. Indonesia is infinite. I'll have what he's having. Another example is our big cities. I use this example, London. I've studied in London. I visited London, I don't know, 20 times. And still there are more museums to see, more places to discover, more beauties, interacting with people. Speaker 1 (9:59) Nikos, a lot of Americans are stressed out by that because they can't see it all. And I remind them, it's a blessing not to see it all. It gives you an excuse to come back. You can never exhaust London of what it has to offer. Going to Paris is the work of a lifetime. And the whole world is your playground with that attitude. In your Destination Earth philosophy book, you talk about connections are forever. This is a fundamental appreciation if you're going to be doing a lot of traveling, which you've done. Tell us about... quote, connections are forever. Yes, we think that when we meet someone, when we travel and we have a meaningful interaction with him, that when we depart and we probably not going to visit again a country, let's say Papua New Guinea, that our connection with this person dissipates or vanishes. But this is untrue because that interaction molded our being. Speaker 1 (10:56) and his being, and it stays with us. So every interaction we have becomes part of who we are. And when you have this philosophy, and I go a little bit deeper into that, then you stop seeing these casual interactions as being casual, and they become more interesting and more meaningful. So don't be defeatist about the meeting. If you're going to say goodbye in 10 minutes and never see that person again, you're not wasting time. You're knitting the world together. Exactly. I love it. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Nikos Hadjikostas. His newest book is The Eternal Ragpicker, Essays on the Human Condition. I would like to add something on the connections of forever. This is also an interesting concept. The idea that, let's say, we fight with somebody and we start hating him, okay? Speaker 1 (11:47) then this is a connection of hatred that we create, that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives. When you are mindful of that, then you try to avoid it. You try to avoid creating a negative connection because then you know you will carry this negative connection for many, many years. Wow. My default was to think the positive, but there's a negative other side of the coin. So what you hate will contribute to the gross hatred in the world. Yes. And what you love will continue to contribute to the gross love of our world. And that makes us more responsible as travelers. We try to be our best selves so that we become loved and we become a positive element in the other people's life too. Sometimes we say, ah, I didn't like this country because people were not very kind with me. But were you kind with them? Did you show your best self? Speaker 1 (12:49) When they were impolite, were you polite? What was your response to that? So our response is central also in creating this relationship that would last forever. Speaker 1 (13:06) Nikos Hadjikostas is a world traveler and writer and something of a modern-day Greek philosopher. You'll find his writing on Substack and in his latest book, The Eternal Ragpicker, Essays on the Human Condition. There's more with Nikos in just a minute, including his advice for connecting with strangers in our travels. And a bit later, we're heading for the South Pacific on Travel with Rick Steves. Nikos Hadjikostas calls travel the ultimate university, offering the most condensed, wide-ranging, and deepest courses in all fields of life. He's our guest right now on Travel with Rick Steves from his home on the west coast of the island of Cyprus. In your Destination Earth book, you have