Soul Boom - Drew Binsky

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

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What universals have you found of people all around the globe? I've been to every country in the world, 197. I've always liked people. I've always been curious about how others live their lives. I've been traveling nonstop for 15 years, and in those 15 years, I have noticed a bigger, bigger shift and the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer. There are places, man, it's hard to even comprehend how people are living.

And we live in this beautiful bubble in America. A lot of people are just oblivious to what is really happening in most of the world. Definitely most of the world. I generally have hope for most places. The biggest takeaway I've had from visiting every country is that we are all the same. It's so cheesy, it might sound so lame, but if I'm in a tribe in Africa

or if I'm walking around Tokyo, people want to be connected to family. They want to feel loved, and they want to be loved. They need to work to keep a roof over their heads to support their family. People laugh, they have a sense of humor all over the world. Humans are humans. We all bleed red.

It's a beautiful thing to see, whether you're in a big city or in a village, town. people are welcoming and people are dying to share their culture with you, you just have to be in a position to let them share their culture. There's this fear that we have. We're being thrown shit by the government, by the media, by war. Tell me about your trips to Iran and what people need to understand about the Iranian people. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up.

Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers. friends and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast. A quick shout out to our sponsors. Please support our sponsors and help support the show. Grow Therapy. Visit Groth Therapy.com slash Soul Boom today to get started. That's growth therapy.com slash soul boom. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Quince. Go to quince.com slash soul boom for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

Now available in Canada, too, that's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash Soul Boom for free shipping and 365-day returns. Ridge. Just head to Ridge.com slash Soul Boom and don't miss out on one of their biggest discounts of the entire year. That's Ridge.com slash Soul Boom for up to 40% off, OneSkin. For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code Soul Boom at OneSkin.co slash Soul Boom. Enjoy the show. What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten? The grossest thing is fermented shark in Iceland, but I've eaten... I ate that. It's pretty bad.

It's so bad. It's horrific. Yeah. I can eat most anything, and it made me gag. Same. Just opening up the thing, I just, I can smell it now. Yeah. Oh, it's the worst.

But I've tried literally everything. If it's a delicacy, I'll eat it. Live octopus in Korea, you take it out of the tank and put in your mouth in one bite. I've tried dog. I don't like it, but I've tried it. I've tried testicles of every animal. I've tried, uh, do you've tried testicles of,

have you had elephant testicles? Not elephant. Those would probably be like this big. Um, I recently tried baboon with the Hazabe tribe in Tanzania. We hunted baboon and they hunted baboon. I shadowed them and then they cooked it over the fire and we ate it. And that was cool.

Taste like chicken. It's a little gamier and stronger. Like you have to chew really hard, but it's not like that bad. I was really scared to eat it. And then I was like, and then I drank blood. from a dead carcass of a goat with the Masa tribe of Kenya. They do it like daily. I just like to

do it. If people are doing it, why not? Wow, that's crazy. I love what you do because it highlights the universality of humanity. And kind of like Anthony Bourdain, you highlight such heart and humanity every place you go. Some of the craziest and most beautiful and uplifting tribes and cultures and experiences on the planet. I've been to every country in the world, 197. And how old were you when you finished that task? I wanted to finish before 30 and then COVID hit, so I finished at 31. Okay.

Yeah, I'm now 34. That's an amazing story. I've always liked people. I've always been curious about how others live their lives. And you brought up Anthony Bourdain. He was my role model in middle and high school. I would watch his shows, multiple shows with my father. And we, I just like, I remember watching him in Iran and being like, that looks unbelievable.

That episode was incredible. Right. And I got the goosebumps, man, like that. And I just remember him, like, the way he gets into houses. And his whole thing is food, but food is just a gateway to the culture and the people. And the way he's able to just connect with local people and just human to human, forget everything else. Yeah, sometimes he would talk about politics or current situations in countries, but it wasn't a political show at all, in my opinion. It was just like, these people are living these lives.

what do they eat? How do they dress? What religion are they? What's meaningful to them? And that is stuck with me. So that just as I was traveling, I kept meeting interesting people. And then I started making videos about them. And then it just kind of took off. So I still like am giddy about my next videos. Everybody asked me the question, aren't you tired? You made over a thousand videos. You've been to every country. And I'm, I can't wait like for my next trips. What is your next trip? Western Sahara. Okay. Yeah. Okay. You know where that is? I do know where that is. It's north of Mauritania and south of Morocco. Good man. Near Algeria, there's disputed territory.

Yeah, yeah. And it's under control of Morocco. Yeah, Polisario is like the Algerian side and Morocco, Morocco thinks it's there. So if you say it to Morocco and they will think it's theirs, this is getting, they're going to get a lot of comments on this. But I'm actually going to go in through the Algeria side. There's refugee camps on the border. And I'm able to, I got a permission to enter Western Sahara through the refugee camps. So that'll be interesting. But I just came from Myanmar, I'm sure that place is interesting to you. You sent me some great photos from there. Yeah. Have you been there? No, I haven't been to Myanmar. You've been to a lot of places.

India, you've been around. I've been to a few places. Thailand, Vietnam, India, Iceland, Iceland, Ghana. Ghana. Yeah, you saw those episodes. You go to some dangerous places and in some dangerous ways. You're not just going to Western Sahara. You're going in through a refugee camp. Right. I had no idea there were refugees. camps there. Is this because of an ongoing long-term civil war? There's been a long conflict between Morocco and Algeria for control of the land and there's different cultures living there. And so the people living in the border towns, they're sent over to the other country, living in refugee camps. So I actually don't know too much more than that. And that's, I like to be

spontaneous when I travel and I like to learn when I'm there. So you're not going to overly research I never over there. Never, never overre research. I just like to put myself in the position with a local, good local guide. Local guide is key that they're they're passionate about their culture. They speak good enough English to communicate to my audience and they're cool and they're not shy and awkward on camera. If they check all the boxes, that's all I need. I will just show up like Portault Prince, Haiti was probably the most scared I've ever been. I'm happy to talk about it. But had a great local fixer. We call them fixers in our community guide. And we went into this gang and that was like a, I just put my full trust in him, which is what I've done since day one. And I'm still alive.

been kidnapped, robbed, mugged. Believe it. No one believes me. One time in Georgia, I was buying street food and I took my wallet out and some homeless woman grabbed my wallet, but then I grabbed it back from her. That's the only time I've ever had something snatched. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Not cameras or camera bags or anything like that? Because that's... No. I should really knock on wood. You have a good

piece of wood here. I don't want to get kidnapped. Or kidnapped's my biggest fear. I mean, I go places where that's a serious concern. And kidnapping would be rough for on every measure but let's let's talk about Haiti for a little bit since you brought it up when did you go and what was your trip like i went to Haiti two years ago so that must have been 2020 you flew into port of prince you had a fixer and he brought you in to meet gangs yeah his name is sean um we went to sit is so sit sitzile yeah you seem like you know it or been there i've been there yeah what year did you go i went to

Sitte Soles about 10 years ago or so. There were a lot of gangs there, but this was before the president of Haiti was assassinated. Right. And the gangs started running amok and they now control maybe a third of the country. Yeah, it's super sad. They control that whole Cite Soleil, that whole community, which is right by the airport. And I went in with my guide, Sean, just me and him. And we crossed the checkpoints, which was not easy. I've crossed hundreds of checkpoints in my life. This one, you have guys with huge weapons, with tattoos all over their faces, with girls in their teeth, and they're looking in the car.

Like, who's this guy? And Sean makes arrangements with them that I'm coming. And I had to pay some bribe to whoever for the chief to get access. And I was like, I remember curling my toes so hard in my shoes that my toes were sore the next day. It was crazy. And if you watch that video, you can see on my face how scared I was. But terror, yeah.

I just went because like. But what made you? you decide to go film with the gangs as opposed to just going to Haiti? Because there's parts of Haiti you can go to that are not gang. I'm soon going to go to Cap in the North. I've heard great things about it. This story was just specific on this community. I had heard about this community. I knew that gangs controlled it. And there's still, it was like 20,000 people at the time when I went there living there, like regular, innocent people. And so that piqued my curiosity. Like, who are these people? How are they living? And I know it's super sad and terrible, but I want to know what's

happening. Like, just like you, like I'm extremely curious. I want to know everything if I can. And nobody has gone there. Like CNN, whatever, vice, they're too scared or couldn't get access. Yeah. So you were the only one who kind of went in. Correct. Since the gangs over the last five or six years have completely controlled that territory. They always partially controlled it. Yeah. Yeah. And what did you learn? What did you find? It was extremely sad. Right off the bat, I walked into a community and there had just been some heavy rains. I walked in a house of a woman and her husband and four kids. And the house was about half the size of this room.

And water was up to just below my waist. And they, they, to look on their face, they just, nothing. Like, refrigerator is gone. Like, everything was like beds. Like, it was like an empty, it was like an empty house with just water in it. And they were all just standing in it. The kids were outside the house because they're too short to stand inside the water. And the mom and dad were, I literally, I was touring around the neighborhood and I happened to catch them when they were just, they were just standing there.

There was nothing on the walls. They were just standing there. And it was so sad. They didn't have any money to buy anything. And I mean, that goes beyond, that's, that's beyond the gangs. That's just like, it was just extremely sad. And the whole country is, it's one of the most unfortunate situations I've ever seen. I think it's worse than Yemen.

I did a road trip through mainland Yemen for 10 days. Yeah. And up until Haiti, Yemen was the worst, the most poverty and the most unsanitary living conditions I had ever seen until I went to Haiti. Yeah. It's a complicated history. And I've been working in Haiti since the earthquake in 2010. Okay.

That's 15 years ago. Yeah. So before that, I think it was okay. Hey, folks, are you excited for a carefree summer in the sun? Don't make me laugh. The sun shines year-round where I live. But that doesn't mean that I'm not still filled with anxiety, burnout, grief, overwhelm, stress. That's why I am so grateful for grow therapy.

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want to run so that they can profit from it. You know, did you have any hope for Haiti? visiting there or was it hard to find any? I mean, it's hard going into the gangs because they're not exactly like doing humanitarian. I did tour around Port-au Prince also and went to some nicer restaurants, but I don't know. Hope is a good question. Which is very funny, right? Because you can go up to Pessonville, 45 minutes drive, and you can eat at like a four-star Lebanese restaurant, and that's 45 minutes away from where these gangs and where that couple is standing in the water. You mentioned, most big cities in third world countries are like that. I spend a lot of time in Manila.

Deanna's from the Philippines. You will find literally Beverly Hills neighborhood and right across the street, I could hit a golf ball to where this community is and it's like the biggest slum in Manila. And it is right next door. It's like a freeway separates it. Wow. And a lot of the world is like that. American cities are not that different.

You can be in Beverly Hills. True. Drive half an hour south and you're in Compton. Very true. Yeah. You know, it may not be like, like, total, like ghetto and ten shacks and stuff like that, but that line between the haves and the have-nots is really severe. I've been traveling nonstop for 15 years.

And in those 15 years, I have noticed a bigger, bigger shift in the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer. And really, even just over 15 years. Yeah, just 15 years. Yeah. Like, I revisit cities over time and I see that Johannesburg is another one. Like, there are places, man. It's hard to even comprehend how.

people are living. And we live in this beautiful bubble in America. We're in California right now. Like a lot of people are just oblivious to what is really happening in most of the world. Definitely most of the world. I generally have hope for most places. I have to say like, I don't know, like they need a full regime change, which I don't know when or how is going to happen anytime soon. And until that happens, I don't know how it's going to get better. It's so sad. I really think about Haiti often. And I want to revisit and go to some nicer places because it's beautiful. Listen, Haiti at its best was still colossally broken, and so many systems are not

working there. And now with the gangs owning huge chunks of various cities and farming communities, and these gangs are absolutely ruthless, and they're kidnapping shopkeepers that sell, you know, watermelons and wanting $1,000 for them, they're not just kidnapping, like, rich white people or the elites they're uh anyone merciless there does need to be some kind of a real scourge there to you know kind of start over and and a massive rebuilding and i don't see the united states as being willing to undertake it or canada or france or other people that have you know meddled in haiti for hundreds of years so uh i don't know how that's going to happen

and the united nations brought colora to haiti so the hajans don't trust the u.n Because all of these Nepalese troops came in from the United Nations and brought cholera, polluted the rivers. 10,000 people died. It's a water disease, right? And they never took responsibility for it or paid people off. And then Brazilian troops came in from the United Nations. Did you hear this?

And they were doing sex trafficking. So Brazilian United Nations troops were, it was, it's just, it's been nightmare after nightmare for that poor country. So we try and educate rural girls in remote areas and hopefully give them an education and scholarships that they can move forward in their lives and in some way contribute to the success of Haiti. Wonderful that you're doing that. And I would love to take part and share that message and build that in my narrative. Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great.

What universals have you found of people all around the globe? What do you mean by Universal? It's just like how they act? Yeah, I mean, how different are people there really from Borneo, from Bolivia, from Dubuque? Great question. Dubuque, Iowa? Yeah. How did you throw that one in there?

I don't know. Dubuque. It's a nice, nice place. It's a nice place. I played golf in Dubuque. Shout out. You played golf in Dubuque? Yeah, I went to college in Madison, Wisconsin, so I played golf all over the Midwest.

All right. Yeah. Who knew that we'd have a golf course in Debut? A couple of courses out there. How's that lava? Okay. It's growing a little bit. Yeah.

You're keeping an eye on it? Keeping an eye on it. It looks like it's like a, there's a rat skull in it now. It's changing shapes every second. Okay. The biggest takeaway I've had from visiting every country is that we are all the same. It's so cheesy. It might sound so lame, but no matter if I'm...

We are the world. We are the children. If I'm in a tribe in Africa or if I'm walking around, Tokyo, like people, they want to be connected to family. They want to feel loved and they want to be loved. They need to work to keep a roof over their heads to support their family. They need people laugh. They have a sense of humor all over the world. Humans are humans, right? We all bleed red. And it's a beautiful thing to see whether in a big city or in a village, town, any experience I've had, people are welcoming and people are dying to share their culture with you. You just have to be in a position to

let them share their culture. That's something I've realized too. Like everyone is almost every single person would, if someone from Uzbekistan came to L.A. and it was your wife's friend or someone's friend, you would love to show them something. Like it would be your honor, your duty to like make sure this person is enjoying themselves in your hometown. And I have felt that everywhere. Burundi. I've been there a few times. I love that country. The Mibia, like people are so genuine. And there's this fear that We have. We're being thrown shit by the government, by the media, by war, by rape. And it's terrible that we are just consuming this 24-7. You never see pot. Afghanistan has never had a positive headline ever. I've been Afghanistan four times. I've made 20 videos there. It's one of my favorite places in the world. Wow. And all my videos have been positive. Afghanistan is a beautiful country. It's right where the east meets west. So you'll see different faces. You'll see white faces. You'll see redheads like me. People were speaking to me. Ginger Afghans. There's ginger Afghans. People there were speaking to me in Dari or Farsi, which is what they speak.

And I was like, I don't understand. You'll see like Asian looking faces, the Hazare, which is a tribe. 10% of the country is Hazare. And they look Chinese, but they're Afghans. Yeah. And then you'll see Pashtun, which are like, the Taliban are all Pashtun. So that face with the beard is other Pashtun. But there's like 80 more ethnic groups in Afghanistan. Crazy. So the Silk Road went right through Afghanistan. So you'll see these beautiful little towns and villages with these old historic mosques and Mazuliams from the 14th century, 15th century, kind of like Iran. And it is just unbelievable. Like, historically, it's amazing. Then you have the mountains and the desert and all different climates. I've never seen mountains like I've seen in Afghanistan. I've never tried fruit.

Okay. I love fruit. The best cantaloupe and plums and cherries and strawberries by far is in Afghanistan. And I can tell you, as someone who's been to every country, it's not even particularly close. they have the best climate for growing fruits and there's and it's like 20 cents to buy a watermelon this big it's really i remember having some kick-ass apples in morocco they have good apples in morocco because they grow up in those atlas mountains and i was like wow because i come from washington state yeah apple cap on i was like high standards this is a damn good apple i've had apples in morocco they're good um so yeah but that's amazing they need to do a fruit tour of afghanistan great great fruit um i love the tea culture they're extremely hospitable um they're kind of

of like Iranians, I mean, this will also get comments in your thread, but it used to be the same country back in the day and then they speak the same language. But so the same way that Persians are very over-the-top hospitable. They even have a word for it. It's called Tadov in Farsi, which is like, like, you purposely will go out of your way to be obnoxiously, like, welcoming, like, I'll open the door for you. But like, if you try to open the door, I'll, like, slap you away to open the door. Or like, when you pay the bill at the restaurant, it becomes, like, aggressive. that they will want to treat you. They have that in Afghanistan.

I went out with some Iranians to dinner, and I went over to the waiter and gave on my card and had it prepay. And they were, they flipped out. They flipped out. I thought they were going to attack me. I thought they were going to punch me. I was like, easy.

Yeah, they're like that. Afghans are like that too. They're humble. And they dress traditionally. It's an outfit. I think it's called the Shavarkamis. It's an Arabic word, but it's like a thob,

which is like these long, dresses for men and it's one color and a lot of them wear the headscarf. And the difference between Afghanistan and Iran is Iran, they're way more hipster and modern and cool with those glasses on and like trendy things. And Iran and Afghanistan is none of that. Very few people have smartphones. They have flip phones. So you don't have this culture of like everybody scrolling. And they're just so unbelievably nice. I don't know how else to tell you. There was a moment in a village where I was just passing by and this man forced me to come in his house and he wanted me to stay the night in his bed and he was going to sleep on the floor. And I was like so polite. I was like

I can't do. And he was like grabbing my shirt. He's like, no, this is your bed for the night. We want you to stay here. And I have not had that anywhere else. So I, I know we don't have a lot more time, but I would talk about Afghanistan for an hour. One of your favorite countries next door to Afghanistan is Iran. Yes. And we referenced the Anthony Bourdain episode of Iran, which was such a beautiful piece of television. Tell me about your trips to Iran and what people need to understand about the Iranian people. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up.

Iran has 100 million people, 120 million people, and it's the most misconceived country in the world. Yeah. It's the biggest gap I've ever seen between the government and the local people. Every country in the world, they're not the same. The government is not an exact indication of how the people are. Maybe in Scandinavia, it's more similar than others. But in Iran, I went there during Rome.

I've been there four times. I went the first time during Ramadan with Deanna in 2018. Nobody was fasting. In the public eye, you couldn't even drink a sip of water on the streets. But everybody and people were just bad-mouthing the government and people were just, the country is not a religious country. That's what people need to understand. Most people don't pray five times a day.

Really? Oh, yeah. The majority of people in Iran do not play. So do you think that this changed since the revolution in 79, 80, that it became less, less religious? Are you, are you only talking about the cities or small towns and villages as well? Small towns are more religious for sure. Yeah. But I'm talking about overall, if you had to take a population of Iran, this is a fact, like my tour guide, Amin, who's a really good friend of mine who I've gone with him every time and he's really well versed in everything Iran,

culture, history, current politics. Yeah, he gave me, he told me 75% of people don't pray five times a day. And I don't know if that's, I don't know how you would be able to measure that. But I have visited, I have visited North, South, East, West Center on the border of Pakistan, on the border of Turkmenistan, on the border of Armenia, borders of Iraq, the Kurdish regions, cities, I've traveled all extensively. And I would say that most people, they all would talk shit about the government. Before 1979, Iran, like, Tehran was like Paris. You know, people will go to the beaches and bikinis and they were drinking parties, bars everywhere.

And the U.S. had really good relations with Iran. They had embassies. I don't know about really good relations, but you could fly back and forth. There were embassies involved. And women could go to college, become doctors. And it was very progressive in lots of ways. Correct. Right.

And then the Islamic regime took over in 1979. And that's why it's called Tarangeloas here. There's a million, over a million Iranians here. A lot of them came to L.A. because the weather. And they're great people. They're great people. They're unbelievable people. Yeah.

But the country has just gone backwards since 1979. And I don't know what's going to happen. I hope that I hope for the people there that there will be a regime change, but who know, I think it's so strong that I don't see it happening. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Council, they are. Yeah, GSI has an iron grip on all of the systems.

Correct. And they're armed to the teeth. And they're not afraid to use their weapons against the Iranian people. And as we saw, 20, 30, 40,000 people killed in demonstrations. And they're still getting. arrested. Terrible. They're going through footage and you can read about it.

They're just hauling people in off the streets from protests that they took part in, you know, four or six months ago or something like that because there's now a media blackout. There's no internet. That's terrible. There's no social media. And they're using this opportunity to, even though a lot of the top leaders have been killed, it's apparently just. It goes deep.

It goes really deep. I'm not sure exactly how we have a real regime change and democracy brought to Iran. I'm not sure we agree. I don't see it happening, unfortunately. But the people are lovely. And I went to some crazy underground part. You know, it's a dry country. They don't serve liquor and you can get arrested if you drink.

But underground in Iran, they're popping bottles. And I've never seen more people like drink. There was like four handles of vodka this big on a table of like 20 people. And in an hour, there was gone. They're like, there's some black market smuggling going on in Iran. But besides that, the same thing that said about Afghanistan with the history and the, beautiful architecture and all that stuff is all prevalent in Iran. But the people are so lovely. And they live in a country that's oppressed and internet, such a basic thing that we don't even

think about. I'm trying to contact, I mean, my great friend who's been my guide on every trip. And he'll respond once a week. You get the one checkmark on WhatsApp, which means it wasn't received on his phone. And then he'll text me like, hey, I didn't have the internet for the last week. And somebody had a Starlink that I know and I'm connecting next door. Like, it's crazy. Yeah, I know as a member of the Baha'i faith, and that's the birthplace of Baha'i, sure. Most of the Iranian people are very warm to Baha'is and loving and understanding. It's the regime that really hates the Baha'i faith and what it stands for and views Baha'is as spies for either England or Israel or the United States or whatever is convenient and imprisons them and tortures them without any question. but I have yet to meet an Iranian that didn't say, oh, I know Baha'is.

I love Baha'is. They're kind and good people. And they don't see them as a threat. I may have told you this the last time I saw you, but I traveled in Iran with me and my guide and my camera guy and another local. And the camera guy, it was a local camera guy in Iran, he was Baha'i. And I remember making a joke because it was a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, and a Baha'i. It was the four of us.

Oh, nice. We were in a car. Walk into a bar. Yes, exactly. We were joking about it. And he was like, don't tell anyone on Baha'i. He wasn't in my video, so I'm okay, talking about it now. He's like, we go to temple in someone's house, and we pray in someone's house, and we meet on Friday.

Yeah. But unfortunately, I can't let anybody know. I could be, my family could be killed. Yeah. And he told me that. And I was thinking, this religion was born in your country. Yeah. 150 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. And you can't even openly be. that in your own country. Like, name me another place. I haven't thought about this until now, but name me another situation that's the same, where religion is born in a country and it's illegal to be, well, the Dalai Lama lives in India

because he can't live in China. But I don't even know if that's true. You can still be a Tibetan Buddhist in Tibet. Correct. But you can't be a follower of the Dalai Lama in Tibet because he is an enemy of the state of China, which is now importing tons of Han Chinese to Tibet and changing the entire makeup of the of the area. I did a story with the Uyghurs a year and a half ago in Xinjiang province of China,

and they also are sending a lot of Han Chinese people there. Are you familiar with what's happening out there in Western China? The genocide? With the Uyghurs and the work camps and whatnot, I know a little bit about it, but I'd love you can film me in. This is like a tour around the world. I love that. I wasn't able to mention those things because I would be,

first of all, my guide would be arrested and probably kill. I would be banned from China. And it wasn't my mission to go there and expose the labor camps. People can do their own research. And I said that in the video. I was like, you can read what you want about this place, but I'm here to document the culture. And the Uyghurs, there's millions of them. They ethnically look almost Turkish or Tajik.

They're Muslim. They're the little hats on. And they're like more white than anything else, like white facial features. And they're bigger humans than like. small, short Chinese. Like, it's completely in the same way that India, I said, is different in everywhere you go. And China's huge, right? So they have this, they have beautiful culture, like markets.

They have mosques and they were, they didn't want to take me to one because they didn't want me to showcase their religion. And I push it. I was like, guys, like, and I had to have a guide there. You can't just freely walk around. Sure. In fact, I left the guide and I freely walked around and I bought a goat at a market and, and offered it to a family as a, as a gift.

that a kid that was taking me around and then I got stalked by the police and the police came to our hotel and they sat me in a room. They had like GoPro strapped to their chest and there was all these lights on that like I was being filmed and they made me open up my camera and they said they asked me questions like what are you doing here? Why were you here? Why did you leave the guide? Why did you go to this restricted zone? It was 20 minutes away from the city. Why did you go a restricted zone? And they he made me delete every video on my camera but they didn't know the trick that on Sony, you can simultaneously record on two SD cards. I did that on purpose.

So I knew that if I ever got caught, I'll just throw away. I'll just give them that. Look at you, a little rebel. Wow. Yeah, so I kept all the footage. I got the goat footage. They tried to get my goat footage. I got the footage.

Why were they so threatened by you going into a Uighur town and giving a goat to a kid? They don't want any outsiders there. They're skeptical. Like in Tibet, it's a restricted zone. China knows what they're doing. They've killed reportedly over a million Uighur Muslims over the last 10 years. They're sent to labor camps just because they're religion. And so they didn't want, they didn't know who I am.

I'm white and they don't know. And I have a camera on my hands also. It's different if I'm just Joe Schmo just like enjoying the day with just enjoying, but I have to document everything. That's part of me. So I think the cameras were skeptical and I needed some kind of permit to enter that region, which I think was bullshit. They just said that.

So it's a restricted zone. China's weird, man. I love China. There's so much beauty there and I will keep going back there. But the restricted zones are weird. And like I've been to Dandong, which is a city on the border of North Korea. And like, yeah, I was also kind of there was like spies around me and they stopped me. And I guess that's not shocking because it's near North Korea.

But China, when you're in China, you feel like 24-7 you are being watched. And you are. Even in the taxis. Yeah. There are cameras in the taxis. you can see them. They're not even hitting cameras. It's about this big. It's like a quarter. It's like on both sides of a quarter and it's like two of them and like everywhere. And a lot of it's all facial recognition now, even not only in the

airports, like you walk into a McDonald's and it'll like scan you. It's crazy and it doesn't make me feel comfortable. Yeah. Would it make you feel comfortable? No, no. I don't like that. But this is this is where it gets a little weird. Like in contemporary American culture, especially a kind of on kind of reactionary internet culture there are you know bad guy countries and countries that we need to kind of like ban and and whatnot and but no one really talks about china right because there's just too much money there's too much business right and no Hollywood stars will speak up about right you know hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs being killed or put in prison camps or work camps or what have you.

So you have someone like John Sina, you know, he accidentally said something about China and they got mad and he had this apologetic video, please China forgive me. And he spoke some Chinese because he wants to sell his movies in China. Of course. And he wants to be a big star in China. But we people don't, there's one thing that is very frustrating to me

about folks in their 20s is that they read about something online and they get behind. some movement, but they're not really researching what's going on in the world. We can talk a lot about Gaza, but no one's talking about South Sudan, which has been Gaza like for 20 or 30 years. No one's talking about eastern Congo. No one's talking about what's happening in Yemen. And no one's talking about what China is doing to repress and kill its part of its own populace. So we can talk about Iranians gunning down their own citizens in the streets, but you won't hear any administration talk about what China is doing to the Uyghurs.

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I always tell people the best education you can have is by actually going and like meeting people eye to eye. You know this. You don't learn until you do, right? Physically do. It's hard, no one, it's hard for someone just to go to Western China. It's expensive and it takes a lot of time and people frankly don't even know how to get the visa or what to do there. Sure. But I think watching videos about it, I don't want to sound conceited. Watching Drabinski videos is a great place to start. I try to take people on a journey and show them real life and how people are living. And I really stay nonpolitical.

Like I don't have a political agenda at all. The only time I will be slightly political is if I'm in Syria during a war and all the buildings behind me are completely destroyed. I can't just not talk about the war. So I'll kind of... Right, but that's not even politics. That's just like basic human decency and suffering and basic justice issues. You're not saying I'm pro-Assad or anti-Assad or anything like that.

You're just like... Right. Oftentimes people want to talk about politics. That's great. I put the camera on them and I'll ask general questions, but I'll never share my opinions because in many ways I'm just apolitical. I'm a humanist and I just try to connect with people and share their stories because they're beautiful, frankly. And if I happen to meet a gangster or a criminal, well, I also want to know

what they're up to. Like, I'm not trying to bend the rules. I'm not trying to say, I'm trying to show the world what it is. There are these conflict zones all over the world, and so many of them don't get any attention by Americans or young Americans. What's your take on that? Having visited those places. I think it's terrible. I think it's horrible that Americans either don't know or don't want to speak up about these other places. It's not sexy. Or don't care enough to dig a little deeper. Like Russia, Ukraine was a hot topic for four years. I haven't seen a single article. It's the war still going on, by the way. You have a lot of friends in Ukraine. There's still devastation happening. It's still, Odessa recently been Monkharkey, which is where I went recently on the border of Russia,

half destroyed. But it's not sex. to talk about it anymore because now we're talking about Iran. I think it's devastating that we're not educated enough as all of us. I'm talking about Americans specifically, but we're so fixated on what's happening within. And we do have a large country. Let's say if you're from Singapore, for example, like it's tiny. Yeah. You drive 30 minutes and you're in a difference. It's the size of a golf course. And most countries are really small. It's something to think about. The U.S., 40% of Americans don't have passports because to their defense, they think they don't need it because they can go to a beach they can go to the mountains they can go

here they can go here and other countries you can't do that so America is so big that we've because it's there's so much happening and there's 400 million people we just want to consume what's happening here and we're that's what's normal that's what's taught that's on the TV like no one watches global who watches global news here in a household they're watching the local news station or maybe the national news they're watching a news station that is politically biased, whether on the left or the right that's delivering a certain brand of siloed news. That they don't question that they accept as fact. But that's the root of the problem, though, because I've spent a lot of time in Europe. I've spent two and a half years of my life

in Europe. They're all educated about the world, about conflicts. They all speak multiple languages. They travel. Once again, European countries are small. It's easy to get in a car and drive two hours from Czech Republic to Slovakia to Romania. So that's one. And it's easier to fly from Switzerland to North Africa or to Asia or the Caucasus. I keep bringing that up because that is true. We are kind of like, I keep looking at the Mexico. I can see the U.S. and the globe right there. We're just this isolated, kind of like how Australia is isolated.

We are connected to Mexico and Canada, but we're still isolated compared to the rest of the world. It takes long flights to get around. So that's a problem, but we can't fix that problem. We can't fix the fact that we're isolated. So I do think that we need better news. We need... Yeah.

Yeah, right? I think that's one fix. We need centrist news that you can trust that doesn't have a bias. Right. And that isn't afraid to report on world events. And that just doesn't exist. On YouTube, I have a good friend named Johnny Harris. I was in Myanmar with him two weeks ago.

And he reports on non-political things like we're talking about. And he's building a whole community of other reporters that are doing the same. So it does exist on YouTube, but how are you going to find it on YouTube? You have to physically go on search and search like niche Western China. I'd rather it be on the TV where people are sitting at dinner in Tennessee and they're being fed. Yeah. Slowly. They're being fed these things.

But no one under 70 is watching TV while and watching the news and eating dinner. Right. They're on their phones. Yeah. So then we've got to get it on their phones. Yeah, but that's the problem there. These algorithms are tough, man. How good are the algorithms?

There are universal qualities of spiritual belief in practice. It's very easy to look at differences. It's very easy to kind of say, well, Buddhists don't believe in God. And in Islam, it's all about Allah, you know. And so they're so, so different. And it's like, yeah, but there are a lot of similarities, right? Both have a concept of charity and philanthropy and service kind of baked into the identity. Right.

There is a longing for transcendence from this, the mere human experience of like pooping and fucking and eating and, you know, whatever it is we're trying to do, you know, zooming. And there is always a concept of kind of a universal love that overrides everything. That we are more than just material. That the, that the experience of being alive is more than just atoms and molecule. that the experience of our human journey continues after death. You know, ceremonies around death have been part of, yeah, have been part of human culture for 100,000 years.

The earliest evidences of spiritual belief are in burial sites where people are buried with the stuff that they will need to continue their journey. Why did humans always believe that the journey continues? This is in every culture of the world. Every culture of the world has some concept of something great, a God, a divine spirit. I mean, even Buddhism that has reincarnation or Bodhisattva's coming down. Like, well, what is driving that?

What force is driving that? I mean, that's very clear in Hindu, in the Hindu tradition. So there are these universalities that are kind of married with the human experience that I think are really valuable to look at. Across the board in all religions, basically, you're saying. in all religions and all cultures. I guess religion does just teach you to be a better human, like do good. To do good.

That's one of the universals. Yeah. A kind of a moral guidance, a moral compass of kind of like, hey, you can do better. Every religion has a kind of a concept of like we have kind of a lower or animal nature and we have a higher nature that we strive that is also backed up by science with like thinking happening in the prefrontal cortex versus, you know, the, base brain and the amygdala that's all, you know, fight and flight. For sure. So yeah, yeah. I think that's really well said. I agree. Yeah. I fully agree.

So one thing we ask every guest on the show is this word soul, this crazy word soul. How would you world traveler, Drubinsky, define the word soul? Oh man, that's a tough one. Soul to me means humanity. Everybody in the world is beautiful. They're kind souls. They're living humans. They were born the same way you were born. They're going to die the same way you're going to die. And being able to see that eye to eye and experience that. And it humbles you. I look at myself, when I went to Hebrew school when I was 13, I remember I learned that Muslims were bad people. I guess I went to the wrong Hebrew school. But I remember thinking that like Islam is scary and this religion hates us. And all my best friends are Muslim now. Like most of them.

Of my 10 best friends in the world, like seven of them are Muslim. And frankly, I love Islam. I love it. I'm screaming out loud. Like, I think it's beautiful. And so that has given me soul. The word soul can mean so many different things. And I would never have had these experiences if I didn't go to a country like Oman or Yemen or Syria

and had these experiences with, there's two billion Muslims in the world. And I think the religion is very peaceful and very beautiful. Unfortunately, it's the 0.001% of them that screwed up for the world and made all the headlines. So connecting with people deep down inside, having moments with them and being able to share that with the world is something I'm eternally grateful for. I actually can't believe I do this for a living because I love doing, I would do it if I don't get paid. So I'm really grateful and lucky that I got in at this at the right time and that I was able to build this team. And I feel like we're just getting started. I hope when I'm 60, I'll still be able to, you'll be 90.

No, you'll be 85. I'm 34. Wait, did you my math right? Yeah, you're 25 years older. Right? Totally blanking. I'm 26 years older. Yeah.

So when I'm 60, you'll be 86, which you'll still be running this podcast, I hope. And I hope to have me on your show. Yeah, of course. And I hope to be able to tell many more stories. I'll have my walker and like a little IV. Exactly. Yeah. And I hope.

My CPAP? and we can go traveling together. Sure. Yeah, I love it. But I want to, I want this to keep going. I don't want this, like, I finish the country as I was such a great goal of mine to visit every country. Everyone's like, what are you going to do next?

And I'm just like, I want to keep finding pockets of the world that no one knows about. And there's infinite amount of that. Yeah. Right? Absolutely. Like throw a dart at a country. I want to go there. And I want to go where the dart lands in the country.

Apparently there's a town in Haiti where they're the descendants of Irish workers and railroad workers. I love that. And you go to this town in Haiti and they have like red hair and white skin. That's awesome. And you know, there's a lot of places like that. Yeah. Well, Drew, thank you so much for coming on. It was a pleasure. I admire what you do. You've built a beautiful travel empire with gorgeous stories. Thank you. And you're bringing the world together. So thank you for your work. Thanks for having me, Rain. Let's do it again soon. Okay. Haiti. Haiti. I'm, I, are you serious? I'm totally serious. The Soul Boom podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify. Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.