Adventure Travel with George Kourounis - Royal Canadian Geographical Society

Area/Topic
Extreme Adventure, Storm Chasing, The Explorers Club, Nature Documentary Filmmaking

George Kourounis
Explorer In Residence
Royal Canadian Geographical Society

George Kourounis has a passion for the world’s extremes. As an explorer, storm chaser, TV presenter, and Explorer-In-Residence for the RCGS, he’s travelled to 80 countries on all 7 continents to document extreme forces of nature so that others can appreciate the power of Mother Nature’s temper tantrums.  For 25 years he has chased tornadoes on the Great Plains, driven into the eye of hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, rappelled deep in the crater of active volcanoes in the Congo & South Pacific, climbed mountains in North Korea, and earned a Guinness World Record for become the first person to set foot at the bottom of the Darvaza flaming gas crater in Turkmenistan while leading an expedition for National Geographic.

http://furiousearth.com/Stormchaser.html

Summary
George Kourounis, an explorer in residence at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, shares his journey from being a musician and sound engineer to becoming a full-time storm chaser and adventurer. He specializes in traveling the world and documenting extreme forces of nature and natural disasters. George discusses the changing media landscape with the rise of social media and YouTube, and how it has both made it easier and more difficult for aspiring explorers and filmmakers. He also talks about his involvement with the Explorers Club and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and his passion for documenting extreme places and natural phenomena, particularly volcanoes. George Kourounis shares his fascination with volcanoes and his experience of getting married on top of an exploding volcano. He discusses the concept of adventure travel and the importance of stepping outside of one's comfort zone. George also talks about his expedition to Turkmenistan's flaming crater, known as the 'Doorway to Hell,' and his mission to study the microbes living at the bottom of the crater. He describes the challenges of obtaining permission and the intense experience of being at the bottom of the flaming pit. In this final part of the conversation, George Kourounis discusses the intentional efforts of Turkmenistan to put out the fire in the Darvaza gas crater and reclaim the gas for profit. He also talks about the unique architecture and empty streets of the capital city, Ashgabat. George shares his experiences connecting with locals in Turkmenistan and other countries he has visited. The conversation then shifts to the topic of food, with George sharing his most bizarre food experience of eating a piece of a 10,000-year-old woolly mammoth in Siberia. The importance of being cautious with food and water while traveling is also emphasized.

Takeaways

• George Kourounis specializes in traveling the world and documenting extreme forces of nature and natural disasters.
• The media landscape has changed dramatically with the rise of social media and YouTube, making it easier for anyone to create and share content, but also increasing competition.
• George is involved with the Explorers Club and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, organizations that promote discovery, exploration, and conservation.
• His passion lies in documenting extreme places and natural phenomena, particularly volcanoes. Volcanoes are fascinating and beautiful natural phenomena that can be both destructive and awe-inspiring.
• Adventure travel is about stepping outside of one's comfort zone and

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Transcript

Jason Elkins (00:01.187)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. We've got quite the adventure on today. I'm super excited. We've got George Kourounis. He is an explorer in residence at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. I practiced this a little bit before I hit record, then I still kind of flubbed it, George. We were talking about what a cool title that is and kind of what all that means. So welcome to the show, George. Happy to have you here.

George Kourounis (00:31.06)
thanks so much, Jason. My pleasure.

Jason Elkins (00:33.859)
And that's just kind of the tip of the iceberg for some of the things that you've been involved with, you know, storm chaser, volcano explorer, repeller, just world traveler. You've done so many cool things. I think we could do a whole series of podcast episodes on your adventures. And so I really appreciate you being here. We're going to get touched on some of that stuff.

George Kourounis (00:56.916)
Looking forward to it.

Jason Elkins (00:58.563)
Hey, George, before we start, I really want to go back kind of to the beginning. We can go back as far as you want to go, as far as you think is necessary to go. But most people that I interview for the show here have kind of an interesting moment in their life or something that happened early on that kind of got them headed in the direction that they went. So how did you get from where you were to where you are now?

George Kourounis (01:21.62)
That's a long and winding road. I think, yeah, well, let me give you a bit of context first. So I specialize in traveling the world and documenting extreme forces of nature and natural disasters. That's sort of, that's my thing. And I host a lot of TV shows, so I like to showcase the beauty and the power of Mother Nature to as many people as possible, because I absorb some of the risk on their behalf.

Jason Elkins (01:23.971)
That's okay. We got an hour.

Please.

George Kourounis (01:51.348)
in order to show people how powerful storms and volcanoes and avalanches and all these things are without them having to, you know, put themselves in the path of danger, right? So you can enjoy sitting on the couch watching the TV and watch me put myself in the face of Mother Nature's wrath. And I've been doing that. Yeah, I know.

Jason Elkins (02:13.571)
So what is wrong with you? What, what, I mean, I know some people are like, man, that guy's crazy. What is wrong with him?

George Kourounis (02:21.172)
Yeah, people fall into two different categories. They think I'm either like crazy, or they think what I do is really cool. And there's very little middle ground I have, I've noticed. And I don't think I'm crazy. I try to do these things as safely as possible, because I want to keep coming back and doing more and more and more and touch wood. I've had a hundred percent safety record, not a single broken bone or overnight stay in a hospital and

Jason Elkins (02:29.731)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (02:51.476)
I want to keep it that way. But I grew up, I'll expose my age here. I was born in 1970. So I was a kid of like the 70s and 80s. And we were like total free range children, right? No cell phones, no GPS. And my parents were very cool in that. And once I had a bike that I would just disappear all day with my friends and we'd go exploring. I grew up in Quebec.

just outside of Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. And there's all kinds of woods and lakes and Gatineau Park and all. It's just so many places for a young kid to just disappear and explore with no consequence. Well, I mean, the consequences could be dire if you messed up, but the responsibility was on us to keep ourselves safe, right? And so I learned a lot of independence.

And I remember very fondly a few instances where I was like swimming in a flooded creek after a huge rainstorm, super dangerous, or riding my bicycle in a hail storm as these chunks of ice are falling from the sky. So I had this introduction to nature and being out in the wild at quite a young age and this spirit of independence. And then when I turned 14, I set all of that aside.

Because I wanted to be a musician and I still am. I play the bass. I've been playing bass since I was 14. And I studied music at Ottawa U briefly. And then I moved to Toronto when I was 19 or 20. And I studied sound engineering and I went, I spent years working in recording studios. Some of the biggest in the country, some of the biggest in North America, as a matter of fact. And just in the back of my mind, I still had that, that feeling of, you know, when I was eight or 10 years old, wanting to

Jason Elkins (04:38.787)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (04:49.428)
do some more exploring. And I got a camera and I live in Toronto, we've got the CN Tower here in Toronto, it's this huge tall tower, and it gets struck by lightning about 100 times a year. And so that became a focus of mine, both sort of metaphorically and literally, I would go out to try and photograph the CN Tower getting struck by lightning and each bolt is five times hotter than the surface of the sun. It's just amazing.

And I would do a little more and a little more. And I did my first tornado chasing trip in 1998. I flew down to Oklahoma city, met up with some other storm chasers who acted as mentors to me. And they would bring a few people on to help fund their own storm chases. And it just, every year I would do a little more, a little more. And eventually I had to quit my job working in these recording studios because a TV producer called me up and said that he'd read about me in the newspaper.

Jason Elkins (05:37.059)
Mmm.

George Kourounis (05:50.42)
because I was going and documenting tornadoes and hurricanes. And this was the same year as Hurricane Katrina, 2005, which, I mean, as much of a disaster as it was, I was interviewed by every news agency imaginable because I was the one guy that was driving down into it while millions of people were trying to get away from it. So it was a catchy news story. And so he read about me after that, and we pitched the idea of making the Angry Planet TV show. And...

Jason Elkins (06:08.803)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (06:20.5)
We did 50 episodes of that TV show filmed literally all over the world. So anyway, that's a convoluted way of sort of giving you the path that took me from a little kid growing up in Quebec to my career as a studio engineer to eventually becoming a full -time storm chaser, adventurer, explorer. So that's sort of the condensed version.

Jason Elkins (06:41.859)
Wow, very, very cool. And I have a few questions along those lines. So I'm imagining, you know, kind of when you're pre 14 young, young kid going out, I, I can relate to that. I'm, I'm about the same age you are. I grew up in the same kind of, same kind of world where, you know, it wasn't that unusual for me to go, just go camping in the woods by myself overnight and, you know, come back the next day and, you know, my mom was upset, but you know, it was, it was.

It was within the realm of possibilities of things that I could do. And I'm sure like when you went in, I'm just curious like kind of how your family and the people around you felt when you went into music and then all of a sudden you're like, man, I'm gonna go chase storms. I'm gonna go, you know, look for lightning and tornadoes and hurricanes. Did you get pushed back or were your parents still pretty cool?

George Kourounis (07:35.38)
I got zero pushback. Like my family has always been very supportive of what I do as long as they basically always had like two conditions. Number one, they didn't care what I did, as long as I did it well. When I wanted to get into music and such, you know, my parents, my father grew up in Greece from the old country sort of thing. So he was kind of skeptical of that. But they agreed. It's like, if you if you want to do this, be good at it. Be the best you can at it.

Jason Elkins (07:37.283)
Okay.

Jason Elkins (07:50.147)
Okay.

George Kourounis (08:04.564)
and just be safe. So, you know, be good at it and be safe. And if, as long as I checked those two boxes, then everyone was cool.

Jason Elkins (08:13.475)
That's cool. As you mentioned that, I actually, I can imagine some families, like when you say I'm going into music, I can imagine actually getting more pushback from that. It's like, great, I'm so happy you finally decided to set the music aside a little bit and go do something productive with your life. And yeah, yeah, it's kind of like, I remember I used to see a bumper sticker assigned. I saw something somewhere like,

George Kourounis (08:23.508)
Precisely, right? Do something sensible like chase tornadoes and drive into hurricanes.

Jason Elkins (08:41.219)
Don't tell my mom I'm doing this. She thinks I'm a piano player in a horror house or something. I don't remember what the joke was behind it, but it was like, whatever you're doing, there's, you know, Chasing Storms is better than that. I don't know, but it's super cool. Did you, when you went into music production, was your goal to be in front of the camera?

Or in front of the microphone or like, were you the, did you want to be the talent? Did you want, I'm just going to ask you, did you want attention? Is that what, I mean, was that at all part of the music thing? Okay.

George Kourounis (09:08.66)
I never really had any interest to...

George Kourounis (09:16.628)
Yeah.

George Kourounis (09:21.108)
Well, of course, right? When you if you're gonna, I'm not gonna lie to you, of course, if you if you're gonna go play in rock bands, you want to be up on stage. And I did a lot of that I played all kinds of gigs all over here in Toronto, mainly played every bar you could imagine and played some pretty big venues. And that's great fun being on stage and feeling the energy of the crowd and the music's blaring and you're up there, the band is grooving, it's tons of fun. But I also worked as a sound engineer sort of as the backup plan.

Jason Elkins (09:29.699)
-huh.

George Kourounis (09:50.612)
Right. So I could help produce music and engineer music. And then I actually went from music studios and spent most of my career of that part of my career working in sound for film and television. And that actually really helped because it introduced me to the process of making television, the vocabulary. I got to meet a lot of people in the industry. I knew how television worked. And once I started.

Jason Elkins (09:50.723)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (10:19.22)
chasing storms and doing these crazy expeditions, I would film, I would film myself, I would have a little editing set up at home. And I used all those things that I learned to help sort of propel me forwards. And that eventually I ended up being in, you know, in front of the camera and being the host of this television program. But I was also one of the cameramen, we had a tiny crew making Angry Planet for the first three seasons.

There was me and one other guy, Peter Rowe, who was the director, producer, cameraman. I was the host. I was second camera operator. And we had one guy doing all of our post -production, all the editing, the mixing, the sound, putting in the music, everything. So the whole team was like three people and one executive at the Outdoor Life Network, which was the broadcaster here in Canada when we started making it. So it's funny because...

Jason Elkins (10:58.595)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (11:14.036)
At the time, it seemed like a sort of a wandering convoluted route. But looking back now, I can see how one step led to the next and how I learned from one thing, which helped to propel me forward. And just every step along the way just worked out quite well for me. Probably because I engineered it that way. I sculpted that that way. But yeah, at the time, it seemed very meandering.

Jason Elkins (11:32.643)
Yeah, I can.

Jason Elkins (11:39.875)
Yeah, as I listen to you and as you know, and I've seen quite a few of your episodes and I can see where, you know, now that you've described a little bit about your history and with the music and the production, it kind of all makes sense to, you know, to myself as kind of the casual listener or observer. It's very cool. And I'm also, you know, you think of today with YouTube, you know, I would love to touch on that because there's so many people out. It's different.

than what you did, you know, the obstacles and the challenges and all the things that I'm sure that you ran into when you were doing it. And now there's people out kind of, I don't, maybe I should let you put it in your words, but maybe kind of replicating the same type of thing on a different scale with maybe smaller cameras, maybe lower expectations of production quality. I don't know. So what are your thoughts about, because you were doing all this before YouTube, really, right?

George Kourounis (12:35.796)
Long before YouTube. Yeah, the media landscape. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (12:37.379)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I watched your videos recently again on YouTube, but they weren't YouTube videos. They just, you know, they ended up there. But.

George Kourounis (12:43.7)
Yeah, they were just television shows that have now been uploaded to YouTube. But yeah, the media landscape has changed so dramatically. And it's, it's hard to keep up. It's become more of a level playing field because now anybody can literally just pull out their phone, film something, film themselves, upload it to their YouTube channel. And if it catches on, then suddenly you have millions of people.

viewing your stuff without the support of a big TV crew or a production company or a TV network, which I had to have in the early days. So in some ways it's become easier, but in other ways it's become more difficult because there are so many competing platforms. You've got all the streaming services, you've got YouTube, you've got podcasts, you've got all the traditional media. So,

Jason Elkins (13:25.571)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (13:42.868)
the number of eyeballs watching any one particular thing, there's so much more competition because everything is so spread out. And that makes it difficult for doing bigger productions because the budgets are now smaller and everybody has a camera in their pocket. Everybody. There used to be a time when I would make a fair amount of my income from selling video to news agencies, right? After...

Jason Elkins (13:47.363)
Hmm.

Jason Elkins (14:01.635)
Right.

George Kourounis (14:10.644)
during and after a hurricane, I'd be there and I'd be getting the shots. That would be very difficult for people to get. But now, the value of that has dropped down to almost nothing because everybody shoots on their phone, uploads it to Twitter or YouTube, and then the media agencies just grab it and rebroadcast it. So, yeah, and it's changing so fast. I don't even know what it's gonna be like in five years from now.

Jason Elkins (14:32.547)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (14:40.227)
Yeah, I can imagine, you know, you're trying, you've got this idea for, let's say, you know, an angry planet in the modern world, and you're trying to pitch that to somebody to help, you know, finance your trips to go do these things and capture this video. And you're trying to pitch it to them. And this is how much money I'm going to need. And they're like, yeah, but there's going to be 50 other people already there filming it. And.

We'll just wait and see which one gets the best footage and we'll grab it off of YouTube. And yeah, I can see that. That would be, that's definitely a change in the landscape, isn't it?

George Kourounis (15:14.484)
Yeah, and the same thing goes for travel videos, just generic, normal travel videos, right? There used to be a time when if you wanted to watch video about wherever around the world, you had to literally watch a travel show. But now, because of YouTube and all these, anyone who travels anywhere can now edit together a nice video of their trip to Malta or Australia or whatever. And if they get a following,

Jason Elkins (15:31.491)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (15:43.092)
then they're able to make a little bit of money, then they can do some more and do some more. And now, like, there's so many choices, we're spoiled for choices. But it's so scattered, right? So yeah, there's good things and bad things about the media landscape right now. But it's definitely, you know, it's challenging.

Jason Elkins (16:04.643)
Right. So are you still, are you participating in that? Are you, what are you, are you doing anything on YouTube currently? Are you taking advantage of those opportunities or how does it, I guess what I'm saying is how does YouTube play a role in your life?

George Kourounis (16:23.348)
Well, I've got a small YouTube channel that I certainly don't update nearly as often as I should. That's one of the things about YouTube is you got to keep feeding that beast. Any social media is like that. It's a monster that needs to be fed. And I've been negligent about keeping my YouTube channel up to date. So maybe you thank you for the inspiration to do that.

Jason Elkins (16:45.859)
Well, I was just mostly just curious. It's like, cause we talked about the shift and it's such a big shift compared to what you were doing in the past. And, and I sense just from having conversations with you and doing a little bit of research, you've kind of shifted, you're doing other things that aren't necessarily reliant on having a big YouTube following. So let's discuss that a little bit kind of as the landscape shifted in television production.

you know, the documentary stuff like that. So what did you shift into? What are you up to now?

George Kourounis (17:22.068)
Great question. I sort of divide the media landscape into sort of two sections. Television, broadcast, streaming, that's sort of for credibility. And social media is for relevance. And I kind of separate those two. So I do a lot of social media, of course. And I'm working on a few different TV projects right now. Coming up.

Jason Elkins (17:35.459)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (17:51.06)
There's a CNN show called violent earth. And you'll see me on the volcanoes episode of that. There's a TV program called mysteries from above. And season three is broadcasting right now on some of the streaming services. I don't know exactly what you could do to search for it mysteries from above. And it's all about interesting places all over the world that can only really be seen or appreciated in a view from above from satellite imagery or

Jason Elkins (18:16.035)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (18:20.372)
drone photography, things like that. So I'm one of the contributors to that they bring me in to comment on these, these images that they pull up, it's really, it's really cool, some fascinating places around the world. Sometimes it's an archaeological site. Sometimes it's a natural phenomena, whatever. So they bring me in as like the natural phenomena guy to comment on that. So it's always a constant. There's a constant turnover of doing different TV.

Jason Elkins (18:41.219)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (18:50.004)
TV programs, speaking events, social media, travel, of course. I'm going to be going to Greenland very soon. I'm partnering with the Explorers Club and Panante, which is a French expedition sailing company. So I'm going to be going up and down the West Coast of Greenland. This will be my third time going to Greenland. I absolutely love it.

So I get companies who bring me on board as a special guest host sometimes. So when I'm not planning one of my own expeditions, quite often I'm going out on other people's expeditions as well to share stories and provide some insight on some of the things we might be seeing while we're out there, especially some of these big adventure travel trips, like sailing up and down Greenland, things like that. So it's always busy. There's always something going on. Plus the weather is always...

Jason Elkins (19:19.011)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (19:43.508)
changing. So there's always something for me to go out and document, whether it's here in Canada, in the US, or sometimes worldwide. And of course, with the way that things are going, I think I'm going to be pretty busy on the the old storm front there for the next foreseeable future.

Jason Elkins (19:54.915)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (19:59.523)
That's yeah, that's, that's what I'm hearing. Are you doing, would you say you're doing less? Well, let me, I guess the question I want to ask you is, do you still enjoy the production part of it? So you did mention that you do, okay, you know, you still going out and documenting use that word. So are you still actively involved in the production? Do you still enjoy that part or do you, would you rather kind of let somebody else do the production and you show up and comment, you know, you know, you mentioned commenting on stuff, having, you know, being a guest speaker.

You know, contributor, what are your thoughts on that? I'm just curious.

George Kourounis (20:34.868)
I love the whole process. Like I love being on camera and I love sharing my insights and such and I get a real thrill out of that and I enjoy it a lot. But I also like being involved in the process of production. And I don't think I'll ever give that up. I love doing it. Yeah, it's great fun.

Jason Elkins (20:53.507)
Have your cameras gotten smaller or are you kind of old school and like the bigger cameras and the stuff that you used in the past? I'm just curious. I'm trying to imagine you out there with your iPhone taking a picture of a tornado or something like that. So what's that look like?

George Kourounis (21:07.764)
The quality of cameras has just gone up so exponentially. It's unbelievable. I have fond memories of the old days where I was running around with a big shoulder mounted video camera with the eyepiece, you know, recording onto tape. So yeah, I'm no stranger to that. But those days are pretty much long gone. You can shoot 4K on your iPhone or, you know, it's just unbelievable how much technology has changed.

Jason Elkins (21:19.907)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Elkins (21:24.643)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (21:30.275)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (21:37.379)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Tell me I'm super curious about the Explorers Club. I know that this conversation is not necessarily a an infomercial or pitch for the Explorers Club, but it's something that's been on my radar screen that I don't know a lot about. And I suspect there's other listeners that have heard of it, but it almost sounds like the super secret society that like I don't know. That's just the story in my head. So tell us what the Explorers Club is.

George Kourounis (21:59.924)
It kind of is. So it was founded in 1904. The headquarters is in New York City in Manhattan on the Upper East Side. And it is a private club that consists of about 3 ,500 explorers around the world. And it could be geologists, anthropologists, astronauts, photographers, filmmakers, artists, anyone who goes out in the field and does

expeditions. And it's, it's this wonderful organization that promotes discovery, exploration, conservation. And every year we have these big get togethers in New York City. And it's just this wonderful thing. You could be walking around in this crowded room when you turn around and there's James Cameron or Jane Goodall or Buzz Aldrin.

Right. It's just so surreal. No matter what you've done, if you're at the Explorers Club headquarters, you could sit down and talk to anyone and every person has got stories that will just blow your mind. And it's a wonderful place to meet other people and plan expeditions. And it's just, it's just so surreal. And there are chapters all over the world. And I spent four years as the chairman of the Canadian chapter here. So we have a very vibrant.

chapter in Canada, about 250 to 300 members here. And yeah, it's we have grants that we offer to up and coming explorers and students who are going out to do field research. And we had a partnership with Discovery Channel for a while. So I was on the committee that was helping to decide which expeditions would help get funded by Discovery Channel. And yeah, so it's this really cool brotherhood and sisterhood of like minded

explorers. And it's not easy to get into. It's a it's a process. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (24:00.163)
I was that was going to be my next question is if if somebody is listening to this right now says, man, that would be fun. You know you kind of hinted on some of the the requirements or the you know the. I guess you know yeah.

George Kourounis (24:13.556)
You need to be sponsored by two existing members and you have this lengthy application form and it has to be vetted and goes through a committee. And so it's they take it very, very seriously as they should. But the the headquarters in New York, the former president described it as Hogwarts for adults. You go in there and it's this like five story brownstone used to belong to the singer sewing machine family. And there's artifacts everywhere. You've got Perry's

sled, you've got flags that went to the moon with the Apollo 11 astronauts, and it's just mammoth tusks beside the the fireplace. And it's just so surreal. But if you want to learn more, if you think if you think maybe this might be your thing, and you want to connect with this type of community, and I know a lot of the listeners of this podcast that might fall into that category, just go to explorers .org and take a look.

Jason Elkins (24:56.579)
to you, sayin' a pa -

Jason Elkins (25:10.627)
All right, very, very cool. I appreciate that. Is there a pact of secrecy that you have to sign as part of this process or, and if there is, you won't tell me cause it's a secret.

George Kourounis (25:17.588)
There's no secret handshakes or anything like that. I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you. No, it's not like some secret society or anything. It's just a club of the coolest people in the world.

Jason Elkins (25:30.403)
All right, so anybody listening to this sounds like they should definitely check that out, because I know all of our listeners are the coolest people in the world. So very cool. I appreciate sharing that. And OK, so let's talk a little bit about the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, because that's a big part of your life right now. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about what you're doing for them. A little, you know, whatever you want to share about that, because that's another thing that I'd like to learn more about.

George Kourounis (25:55.348)
Yeah.

I love the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. They've been a part of my life for quite a few years now. And their mandate is to make Canada better known to Canadians and the world. And so that involves a lot of educational outreach. They just did a big expedition discovering Shackleton's ship, the Quest, his final ship that sank, I think it was 60 years ago. They literally just discovered it a few days ago off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

amazing. And so they do, they do a lot of different things. They publish Canadian Geographic magazine, they have these gigantic atlases. That's sorry, giant floor maps that they sent to schools around the country so that kids can literally walk on these giant maps that fit on the gymnasium floor and they can see different

Well, the different maps represent different things. They might have one that shows the different watersheds across Canada or one that shows indigenous territories. So that's one small thing they do. And a few years ago, they bestowed upon me the title of explorer in residence. And there's a handful of us, about six or seven of us. And each one of us has a different specialty. Jill Heinerth is a world -class cave diver.

Jason Elkins (26:54.115)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (27:19.092)
Ray Zahab is an ultra runner who does things like running across the Sahara desert. Adam Schultz, a friend of mine, he canoes across the entire Arctic and he's a fantastic author. So we all bring something different to the table. It's kind of like the Avengers of Canadian exploration. We all have our own little sort of superpowers and and we do outreach for them and do expeditions and just educational stuff.

Jason Elkins (27:38.883)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Elkins (27:46.915)
George, I'm curious, if I was speaking with one of your colleagues that you just mentioned, and they were to describe what your sector is, I mean, we've already been chatting. I know kind of what you do, but how would they describe what you bring? What's your specialty?

George Kourounis (28:03.412)
I'm the master of disaster. I'm like, I'm the storms and disasters guy. That's my niche, right? So extreme places. So I document extreme places, the hottest, the coldest, the wettest, weather phenomena, geologic phenomena. I put cameras in the path of avalanches. I've flown with the hurricane hunters into the eye of a hurricane.

Jason Elkins (28:05.443)
All right.

Jason Elkins (28:14.243)
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what I figured.

George Kourounis (28:32.756)
been chasing tornadoes for 25 years, including the largest tornado that anyone has ever documented. 2 .6 miles wide in El Reno, Oklahoma. I've been mountain climbing in North Korea. I rappel down inside active volcanoes in the Congo and Vanuatu and Guatemala, places like this, standing next to lakes of churning lava with pieces flying overhead. So anything that involves Mother Nature having a temper tantrum, that's

That's where I gravitate to, like a moth to a flame.

Jason Elkins (29:06.467)
That's your niche. Man, I have so many questions for you. And at this moment, you mentioned all those things. You mentioned volcanoes, lava, tornadoes, hurricanes. I know you've done extreme blizzards, avalanches, all this stuff. I don't know if this is possible. This is like when I ask somebody that's traveled a lot, like yourself, what's your favorite place? It's a really, really, really difficult question.

George Kourounis (29:08.116)
That's my niche.

Jason Elkins (29:34.819)
But I'm gonna ask you kind of the same question. If you could only do one extreme thing, if you had to focus on volcanoes or blizzards or hurricanes for the rest of your life, that's all you could chase, what would it be?

George Kourounis (29:53.044)
Great question. I'm kind of leaning towards volcanoes. And here's why. Because volcanoes are the one force of nature that creates as much as they destroy. Right? Most of the land that we stand on at one point or another was created by a volcano. They are responsible for our atmosphere. They're responsible for the land we stand on. And we even believe that...

volcanic activity may have been one of the sparks that started life here on Earth. So we owe our existence to volcanoes and each volcano has a different personality. You've got some that are so explosive and so dangerous that if you're within five miles of it, you're in the extreme red danger zone. There are other volcanoes that I've literally walked up to and set my boots on fire walking on fresh lava flows.

So each one acts differently. And of course they can be extremely destructive. And a super volcano like Yellowstone or Kikai Caldera, pardon me, I'm smashing up my office here. I'm getting so excited. I'm waving my arms and knocking things off the desk. That's what happens when I talk about this stuff. A super volcano has the potential to maybe not make us extinct, but certainly change life.

Jason Elkins (31:09.827)
Yeah.

George Kourounis (31:19.156)
you know, in a catastrophic way across the entire planet. But at the same time, we owe our existence to these phenomena. So I find them really fascinating. I find them beautiful. Watching a volcano erupt at sunset with lava flying through the air is just... It fills me with this sense of awe that is hard to replicate from anything else. I love them so much that in 2007...

My wife Michelle and I had our wedding ceremony on top of an exploding volcano on Tana Island in Vanuatu in the South Pacific. And this volcano is very reliable. I knew this volcano because it erupts every five minutes for the past 800 years. And I thought this would be a perfect spot to have our wedding ceremony because I know that if we went there, it would be active. And we filmed it for an episode of season one of Angry Planet. So I'm...

trekking up the side of this volcano with my tripod and a camera wearing a tuxedo and she's got her wedding dress on and we are exchanging our vows while the volcano is exploding in the background. It was just, it was surreal.

Jason Elkins (32:28.419)
I would not be a very good podcast host if I didn't ask you, what did she really think about that and how did that work out for you?

George Kourounis (32:35.7)
Well, when I proposed, we filmed the proposal sort of surreptitiously. And when I proposed, I said, Honey, will you marry me? She said, yes. And then I had to sweeten the pot a little bit. I said, what do you think about getting married on a beautiful tropical South Pacific island? So of course, she says yes to that. And then I sort of snuck in at the end, how about on the crater's edge of an exploding volcano?

And she said yes to that right away. She was like super enthusiastic about it. And then six months later, with a film crew, the film crew was me and my friend Peter. That was it. There was two of us. There was her, the two of us. We had a few locals who performed the ceremony and that was pretty much it. But it was fantastic. Literally chunks of lava flying hundreds of feet through the air in the background while we're exchanging our vows.

Jason Elkins (33:05.315)
With a film crew.

Jason Elkins (33:10.979)
Okay.

Jason Elkins (33:26.083)
-huh.

All right. And it worked out. All right. That's what I was trying to figure out how to ask that without asking. So thank you. That's, that's pretty cool. And does she, and if I was having the conversation with her, what do you think she would, how do you think she would describe it? Would she be throwing her arms up in the air? Like you are knocking stuff off your desk and all excited about it. Or is she a little bit more reserved?

George Kourounis (33:30.74)
It worked out. We're still married.

Ha ha ha ha!

George Kourounis (33:51.38)
she had a great time for sure. She's come on some adventures with me. Most of the time I'm working so she can't travel with me as much but we've been shark diving in the Bahamas together and we've we've been to Indonesia, trekking on volcanoes there and you know, we've done some adventures for sure over the years. So

Jason Elkins (34:11.267)
How long did you know her before you proposed and had the... Okay. So she kind of knew what she was getting into.

George Kourounis (34:14.548)
Nine years. So we were together for a long time before I proposed. So she knew what we were getting into. Yeah, no problem for that. I started chasing storms about the same time that we started dating. So that part of my career progressed at the same rate and time basically as our relationship. So when the time came for me to propose, she was...

not surprised whatsoever. It's hard to surprise her now. Yeah, like when I went to North Korea, I remember this distinctly. I said, honey, I'm gonna go to North Korea to go climb mountains. And she said, okay, like not a not a blink of an eye.

Jason Elkins (34:41.795)
She knew she was signing up for and was on board with it.

Jason Elkins (35:00.355)
Huh, that's cool. That's not easy to find. As a single man, 50 years old, I've been married twice, divorced twice. And yeah, it's not always that easy to find somebody that kind of gets it. You have maybe have that conversation early on like, hey, I'm pretty adventurous. I kind of really like to travel. It's really important to me. And the way I travel is probably not the way most people want to travel.

George Kourounis (35:14.58)
Yeah, I know.

Jason Elkins (35:26.531)
And there can be a little bit of, I like to travel. Yeah, that's great. I'll go along. And then even some of the people you meet, you say, okay, well, if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? And that's where it always gets really interesting, you know? Because if it's, no knock on Hawaii. Hawaii is great for volcanoes, right? No knock on Hawaii. But if the first response, anywhere in the world, you've got a magic wand, you can go anywhere in the world, where do you want to go? And for me, if it's Hawaii, I'm like, okay, I don't think we're going to be a good fit.

And again, no, yeah, no knock on Hawaii to anybody that's listening. You know, I've spent some time there, great place or some cool stuff.

George Kourounis (35:56.628)
Yeah, I understand that.

George Kourounis (36:03.476)
I love Hawaii. It's one of my favorite places, right? I've stood at Kilauea Volcano watching a waterfall cascade of lava pouring into the ocean. You can also sit on a beach and get a sunburn. Hawaii is whatever you want it to be, right? It's not the location. It's about what you choose to do there.

Jason Elkins (36:05.859)
Yeah, yeah.

Jason Elkins (36:13.571)
You know what though, George? Yeah. Yeah.

George, yeah.

I love that you brought that up because if someone said to me, I want to go to Hawaii to stand on the volcano and mess or and play with the lava, that's a totally different response. That's okay.

George Kourounis (36:33.62)
Precisely. It's not about the location. It's about the purpose, right?

Jason Elkins (36:40.451)
You know what I love? I love the you mentioned because Bollies are great example of that. A lot of people have this idea they want to go to Bali and there's some cool spiritual reasons to go. There's some cool stuff there, but there's also some cool volcanoes, some cool scuba diving, some cool things that. You know it. Yeah, yeah, I get it completely so.

George Kourounis (36:52.692)
Yeah.

George Kourounis (36:58.228)
Precisely. Yeah. Like when I go to Florida, I don't go there to go to Disneyland. I go to Florida because, you know, Hurricane Wilma is coming ashore. Yeah, exactly. Right. So it's not so much about the destination as it is about what you make of that destination. Right. I mean, I love going to the most obscure odd places like Turkmenistan or Tonga.

Jason Elkins (37:07.331)
when everybody else wants to leave. Yeah, I know you're the.

George Kourounis (37:27.54)
And so, I mean, I'm one of those guys, this is an adventure travel podcast. So everyone here is listening, going, yeah, I get it, I get it. And of course you do. I think once in my life, I've gone to a beach resort and just relaxed for a week. And that was like 1997. I did that.

Jason Elkins (37:34.211)
huh.

Jason Elkins (37:48.067)
What was that like for you? I mean, you didn't go back and you said once, so it wasn't like, man, I should do this more often. But what were the challenges? Let's discuss it if you can remember that. That was a while ago.

George Kourounis (37:53.044)
Hahaha.

George Kourounis (37:59.892)
Well, I enjoyed it. I had a great time. There was a friend of mine from work who worked at one of the studios and we went to where was it? It was St. Lucia. And I was in my 20s and yeah, we had a great time. I loved it, but I haven't gone back to an all inclusive resort since, right? It's not my thing.

Jason Elkins (38:10.499)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Elkins (38:26.243)
I'm not knocking them because maybe sometimes people like yourself and myself, maybe it would be good for us to slow down once in a while and just, you know, yeah, just kind of.

George Kourounis (38:35.312)
I'm not knocking it either, right? It's everyone has their own different idea of travel. And that's fine. No one idea is better than another to a certain degree, right? Like if you're going big game hunting in Africa, I'm gonna sneer at you, but there's nothing wrong with going to an all -inclusive resort, right? It's fine. It's fine. It's just not for me.

Jason Elkins (38:58.564)
It's just, it's depends on what you're, what you're looking for and what you're at. I think most of the listeners to the podcast are probably not spending a lot of time at the El Inclusive resorts or the, the big cruise ships. and I think this is an extra, you know, let's chat about what is, you know, we know what travel is, what is adventure travel? It comes up sometimes, especially when I'm reaching out to potential guests and I say, I've got this adventure travel podcast. Well, we really don't do adventure travel. Okay. So that.

It opens up the conversation. Well, what is adventure travel? For me, adventure travel is really more about curiosity, stepping outside of your comfort zone and exposing yourself to something new. So it's easier to describe for me what it's not. It's probably not the cruise ship. Unless maybe if you've never been on a cruise ship and maybe you are agoraphobic and don't like to be around a lot of people, maybe it is.

George Kourounis (39:54.484)
Well, it depends on what you're doing, right? Like, for example, back in December, I was I was on a cruise ship. I was down in Antarctica. It was my fifth time going to Antarctica. But that's you know, that that's an adventure trip for sure. But yeah, I totally agree with you in that. Yeah, it's all about getting a bit uncomfortable about maybe doing things you've never done before, trying things you've never tried before.

Jason Elkins (39:56.067)
Yeah, right.

Jason Elkins (40:03.363)
Well, that's, yeah, that's not quite what I'm talking about. That is.

George Kourounis (40:23.348)
Right? Adventure is a sliding scale for some people, you know, just going to, I don't know, going to Mexico, going to Cancun is an adventure. Okay, fine. That's great. You're expanding yourself, right?

Jason Elkins (40:35.939)
Going to another country where they speak a different language maybe because that can be incredibly uncomfortable. Yeah.

George Kourounis (40:40.436)
which is always a challenge. Absolutely. Yeah, you plunk me down in the middle of a country where I don't speak the language and it's gonna be a challenge. Absolutely, right? So yeah, it's all about pushing the, pushing back the edges of comfort and complacency, right?

Jason Elkins (40:48.835)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Elkins (40:59.043)
Yep, absolutely. And speaking of that.

George Kourounis (41:00.372)
And I guarantee, I guarantee that there are people listening right now that frequently do stuff that freak me out, right? So it's different for every person.

Jason Elkins (41:12.067)
Yeah, yep, absolutely. And I just, the whole concept behind the big world made small, the, the, the naming of the podcast is really about just bringing us together. Not like we all have to be the same, but just, you know, making the big world feel a little bit smaller. I started it when I was on my first trip to Southeast Asia last summer. I've traveled a lot and I'd never been to Southeast Asia because it seemed so far away. So many complications, whatever, whatever, all these stories. And once I got there, it's like, you know, yeah, it is far away.

plane rides a little bit long, but it's, you know, but it's 15 hours. I've spent 15 hours doing a lot of things and 15 hours to get to Southeast Asia was the best investment of time I probably ever spent. And it was like, and I get there and the people are more, more similar than they are different enough differences to make it super fascinating. But at the same time, you know, they walk down the street holding their kids hand the same way, you know,

George Kourounis (41:43.54)
Yeah, I'm familiar with it.

George Kourounis (42:09.076)
We all want the same things. It doesn't matter where you go, right?

Jason Elkins (42:10.723)
You know, yeah, they look at their kids the same way. They look at their partners the same way they they smile. Their smiles are no different. You know, sometimes bigger like Thailand, you know, the land of smiles. They've got a lot of smiles, but it's still a smile. And so that's kind of the goal is to just if anybody listen to this, you know, hasn't been to a country where they speak a different language, I hope you'll do it. You know, go do it. Just go somewhere. Just see something a little different. And that's because.

When people are traveling and getting to know each other, then I think a lot of our political conflicts and problems kinda, I don't know. I don't know if we can change it all right now, just talking about traveling, but that would be my vision and my goal and my hope. So speaking of different places, go ahead.

George Kourounis (42:54.452)
I remember a quote, there's a great quote, I can't remember where it came from, but it's, I'm trying to remember. Travel is the one thing that you spend money on that makes you richer.

Jason Elkins (43:05.891)
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yep. I, and I'm, I'm so on board with that. If, and that has been challenges for me in the past in relationships where it's like, well, do we buy a new living room set? No way. That's I, and I look at, you know, okay, you know, we get an influx of cash and I'm looking at it like, okay, where can we go with this cash? How much time can we spend with this, with this cash doing whatever?

And other people in my life might've been looking at like, well, you know, what kind of vehicle can we do with that? And I was just, I'm oblivious. I've been traveling full -time for two and a half years. I had two pairs of jeans that I've been traveling with until I accidentally managed to bleach one of them. So for the last month or so I've had one pair of jeans. And then yesterday I went and bought two pairs of jeans and I felt weird about it. I was like, I really don't want to buy these. I'm just weird like that.

George Kourounis (44:03.252)
What more do you need?

Jason Elkins (44:04.739)
Yeah, yeah, it's like, you know, I mean, but I've got my son with me and he insists that we wear some clean clothes while he's here. That's what we're doing anyway. So speaking of kind of off the beaten path types of places and places that definitely would push most people out of their comfort zone, even the super experienced travelers, you know, you mentioned North Korea, but then also is it Turkmenistan?

George Kourounis (44:15.284)
I think that's reasonable.

Jason Elkins (44:33.219)
that we were chatting about, right? Yeah, so let's chat about that a little bit. You've got some projects going on there and what can you tell our listeners about your experience with Turkmenistan?

George Kourounis (44:33.62)
Turkmenistan. Yeah.

George Kourounis (44:44.148)
Most people have never even heard of Turkmenistan, and I'm guessing most couldn't find it on a map, even if the map was labeled. It's a, it's a, yeah, exactly. On the gym floor, you're standing on it. It's under your left foot. Turkmenistan is one of the former Soviet republics that when the Soviet Union broke up and it became one of the Central Asian stands, right? You've got.

Jason Elkins (44:50.755)
Mm -hmm. On the gym floor.

George Kourounis (45:13.46)
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan. And it's in the Karakum Desert. It's north of Iran, south of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. And it's a very, some people refer to it as the North Korea of Central Asia. It's the most closed politically of all of the former Soviet republics. It has...

a leadership that can be dictatorial. I'm choosing my words very carefully here. Well, yeah, I mean, I have a good relationship with them. But but it's it's, it's a difficult country to get access to, to do any kind of work in. But they're very rich in natural gas. And so at one point,

Jason Elkins (45:50.083)
Yeah, never know who's listening. Yeah.

George Kourounis (46:08.724)
they were drilling for natural gas out in the Karakum desert and the drilling rig collapsed into a sinkhole that formed that was about 100 feet deep and 230 feet across. And now all this natural gas, this methane, methane is the main component of natural gas, was leaking from this crater in the desert. And at some point, it was lit on fire, thinking you would burn off in a few days. And that was

over 50 years ago. So this crater has been burning ever since. And you've probably seen photos or video of it on social media. Sometimes it's called the doorway to hell or the gateway to hell. And it looks like the devil himself is about to come jumping out of this perfectly circular pit that's full of fire. And so it's not a volcano, but it's kind of similar.

Jason Elkins (47:01.283)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (47:07.092)
And I was fascinated about this place for a very long time. And during the Angry Planet days, we tried to get permission from the Turkmenistan government to go there and film at this place, and it didn't happen. But then years later, I had heard that National Geographic was looking for expeditions to feature on a new TV series they were producing. And so I pitched the idea to Nat Geo. I wanted to go to this crater.

and I wanted to set foot at the bottom of this crater, gather soil samples from the bottom, study them, do a DNA analysis to see if there's any kind of bacteria or microbes living at the bottom of this flaming pit. And that could give us clues as to where we might want to look for life on other planets, because there are planets out there outside of our solar system that have hot methane -rich environments. So...

Jason Elkins (47:59.779)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (48:02.644)
The fools at NatGeo said yes. And then I now I had to figure out how to do this. So I had the backing of NatGeo Television. I had to apply for a science grant from the National Geographic Society. I was able to get that. So I had the funding in place and it took over a year and a half to get the permission from the Turkmenistan government to bring in a foreign TV crew, to go to the crater and do all of these things. It was so stressful.

most difficult expedition I've ever done before I even set foot in the country. I had, it was crazy.

Jason Elkins (48:37.411)
Hey, George, I'm curious. The way you describe the creation of this crater, I'm drawing connections here that was the government somewhat embarrassed by how this whole thing came about? Is this a thing where they don't really necessarily want to talk about their drilling prowess? Is that what's behind it? Yeah.

George Kourounis (48:59.252)
Precisely. This is a Soviet era industrial accident. Right? So it's part man -made, it's part natural, but it's a black eye to the Turkmenistan government. But because it's so spectacular, which I've been to Chernobyl, I spent three days in the exclusion zone filming in Chernobyl. So yeah, it's very similar. Yeah, Soviet eco -disasters and I, we did a whole episode on...

Jason Elkins (49:04.579)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Elkins (49:14.947)
Kind of like if you wanted to go to Chernobyl, there might be a little bit of pushback. All right, we're going to talk about that too. Yeah.

George Kourounis (49:28.276)
Soviet era eco disasters. So I've been Yeah, I've been to

Jason Elkins (49:33.059)
So when you say, hey, I want to come feature your burning crater, there's like, hold on a minute here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. -huh.

George Kourounis (49:36.66)
Right? Yeah. yeah, yeah, they Google me and then they know maybe not such a great idea. But we got we got permission and I was able to bring a team there. I had a microbiologist, Dr. Stefan Green. I had a rope rigging team with me. And what we did is once we got into the country, we did we took the team out, set up camp beside this flaming crater. It's the best campsite ever because it just lights up the night sky. It's so beautiful.

Jason Elkins (50:04.419)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (50:05.428)
You can just stare into the flames for hours at a time. It's hypnotic.

Jason Elkins (50:09.891)
And all the gases are getting burned off, so there's not really a fume issue. I mean, yeah.

George Kourounis (50:14.26)
It doesn't smell like every now and then you get a bit of like a propane kind of smell, but it burns very efficiently. There's not a lot of smoke, almost no smoke. It's just these beautiful flames. And so my job was to go down to the bottom. And so we spent days studying the crater. We stretched fire resistant ropes across the entire span. And I've got a heat protective, like aluminized suit that you would, the kind of suit that you would wear in a steel mill.

Jason Elkins (50:18.563)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (50:23.395)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (50:42.452)
And I had a self -contained breathing apparatus, like a firefighter's breathing apparatus. I had a climbing harness made out of Kevlar so that it wouldn't melt, custom made. And after several days of studying the crater and learning how the heat patterns worked, I was able to go out on the ropes, kind of like zip line out to the center. And then I was able to rappel down and set foot at the bottom. And now the clock is ticking. I've got 17 minutes worth of air.

Jason Elkins (51:11.171)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (51:11.412)
So I had to shoot video, I had to gather samples, I had a special probe that I was using to take temperature readings. And it felt very much like being on another planet, because I felt like I was in a space suit. I was in this environment that is completely alien. I'm surrounded by fire at the bottom of this crater, like a coliseum of flame. And as I'm digging in the ground to gather these samples, fire is

Jason Elkins (51:24.515)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (51:35.139)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (51:41.492)
coming out of the hole that I'm digging because it's opening up new paths for the gas to come out. It's igniting. It's just insane. And it was so hot down there. I'm on the verge of passing out. My alarms are going off because I've got some special gas alarms on my harness. They're going off. My low air alarm is going off on my air tanks. And I signaled for my team to haul me up and out. And once I make it to the

Jason Elkins (51:59.971)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (52:10.772)
the crater's edge where all my colleagues were. It was a tremendous relief. We took the samples, we had them analyzed in Chicago. And yes, there's microbes living down there, some really exotic microbes that thrive in these hot methane -rich atmosphere down there. And I was awarded a Guinness World Record for being the first person to ever set foot at the bottom of this crater. And we made a TV show.

Jason Elkins (52:30.051)
Hmm.

George Kourounis (52:37.972)
Now the unfortunate part was that the TV show was called Die Trying, Crater of Fahir.

Jason Elkins (52:42.979)
Wait, wait, wait, you signed up for a show that was going to be called die trying. Did they get?

George Kourounis (52:47.796)
I know, right? And I was trying to convince the folks at Nat Geo to change the name because I was the guy that was trying, not the people sitting in suits in Washington, DC at Nat Geo headquarters, right?

Jason Elkins (52:59.683)
Wait, that's funny. Did they come up with that name before you did this? Or was that?

George Kourounis (53:05.812)
Yes. So it was a five or six part series and each episode focused on a different expedition. So the series was called Die Trying and my episode was Crater of Fire. There was one of the other episodes featured Alex Honnold, of course, the climber who freesoloed El Capitan. There was another episode that had some great white shark researchers. So it was a variety of different expeditions. Mine was just the one episode.

And despite my protests, they did not change the name. And luckily, I did not die trying. But it became this big thing, right? It went viral. And the fire pit in Turkmenistan became their number one tourist attraction. Not that they get a lot of tourists in Turkmenistan, but everyone who visits goes to this crater.

Jason Elkins (53:57.603)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (54:01.46)
And I helped to popularize it. And I went back, that original expedition was in 2013. And I went back pre -COVID, it was 2018, 2019. And I was brought on board a Central Asian road trip by Exodus Travels as a special guest. And we stopped at the crater and now there's all this infrastructure there. There's a fence, a short fence around it and there's flush toilets and...

Jason Elkins (54:28.451)
A gift shop? Is there a gift shop?

George Kourounis (54:29.78)
There's no gift shop, but there's like picnic tables and yurts where you can spend the night. When I was there, there was nothing, just empty desert.

Jason Elkins (54:35.875)
And they don't have a zip line. They don't have a zip line across it. That's good. That'd probably be heartbreaking.

George Kourounis (54:38.836)
They do not, they do not. So right now I'm in the process of trying to go back there and do a follow -up expedition, because there are several craters there. There's one that's filled with water, there's one that's filled with mud and a small amount of fire, and then the main fire crater. And over the past nine months or so, the government has been tapping into the gas reserve underneath the crater. So the level of the fire has dropped.

So I want to go back and study the changes that have happened over the past nine months, because I don't know that the fires, who knows how much longer they're going to burn for. And so I'm in the process right now of trying to secure permissions to go back.

Jason Elkins (55:22.243)
George, I know you're not involved in the committee meetings over there in Turkmenistan, but do you believe that they are intentionally trying to put the fire out through some of this, these techniques, or is it just, they are, okay.

George Kourounis (55:34.96)
I know they are. I know they are. I've spoken with them. Like they literally have tapped into doing exploratory well where they've tapped into the reservoir and they've seen success. They've been able to pull gas out of there. And they want to reclaim that gas so that they can sell it. Right. So there's money to be made. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so there's money to be made by the by the

Jason Elkins (55:54.819)
Okay, all right. Yeah, I got it. So they're just looking at it's just sitting there burning away. We're not getting anything out of it. So let's tap into it and okay.

George Kourounis (56:04.116)
Turkmen gas. So that's, you know, that's good. But it would also reduce the carbon footprint of the of the crater because it is emitting quite a bit of carbon dioxide and some methane. And also, the country doesn't like being known for this crater, right? It's it's it's a bit of an embarrassment. So I'm trying to go back, do another science expeditions before

you know, the crater, well, I don't know if it's going to get extinguished, but if it does, then we've missed our opportunity to do some more science there. So it has value.

Jason Elkins (56:45.507)
So my take on the country, and this is just from watching a few YouTube videos, so I'm not, I'll be honest, but it's, I get the sense that they invested a lot of resources in making their capital city quite extreme. Like the white, it's kind of the white marble palaces and all this stuff that I, in the videos, I've never seen any actual people or very few people.

George Kourounis (57:02.536)
Absolutely.

George Kourounis (57:10.964)
It's like that in real life. Yeah. The capital city has, it's the government buildings are all clad in this beautiful Italian white marble. They're all shaped. If these interesting architectural designs, like there's this dentistry building that's shaped like a tooth. The oil and gas building is shaped like a Zippo lighter. They're all covered in marble, but the streets are pretty much empty. It's this weird, almost like a science fiction movie city.

It's beautiful, but it's bizarre.

Jason Elkins (57:41.859)
So I can see how they're like really kind of want to make it look really cool in some sense. So yeah, so having people say, ooh, I want to go there and see the burning oil well disaster or gas rig disaster. I can see where they're like, but look, we've got a building over here shaped like a Zippo and we've got another one over here shaped like a tooth. And yeah, I could see where they might be sensitive to some of that stuff.

George Kourounis (58:06.452)
There is a lot to see there. There's some amazing archaeological sites across the country. It's a fascinating place. It is not at the top of anyone's bucket list or very few people for sure. But if anyone is interested in going across Central Asia on a road trip, include Turkmenistan in that if you can, because it really is a fascinating place. And swing by the crater. And you can look down and see where I...

Jason Elkins (58:18.243)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (58:32.995)
Were you? Yeah.

George Kourounis (58:36.084)
where I was standing and try to imagine yourself down there.

Jason Elkins (58:40.259)
Man, man, I can't imagine. Were you able to connect with locals there or was that a challenge?

George Kourounis (58:48.18)
well, there's a language barrier for sure. But I was, yeah, absolutely able to connect with quite a few locals there and they're friendly people. It's funny because when I went back on that road trip, I went out to the crater again, of course, and there are all these tour guides that are bringing people out there. And, and they knew who I was. I've kind of become this like miniature celebrity in Turkmenistan.

Jason Elkins (58:51.043)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (59:17.812)
Like, just because when all the tour guides go out there, and they're explaining what's going on to the tourists, they'll talk about the guy who went down there, right? So they were very surprised when I showed up again. And you get to talk to some of the locals. And I remember having just wonderful experiences in the days leading up to the big expedition, because we're in the capital of Ashgabat. And we're doing stuff like driving around the city gathering supplies, like shovels and...

Jason Elkins (59:27.747)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (59:47.476)
rope and food, all these things that we need and just, just meeting the people and going into these tiny little shops. And yeah, that's part of the fun of visiting any country. I love shopping in any new country, especially places like where the language is different. Like going into a store in Japan blows my mind because you look at the counters and there's like, there's all these products and I don't know what any of them are.

It's like, what is that? Is that laundry detergent? Is that food? I have no idea what I'm looking at. Right? I just love that experience.

Jason Elkins (01:00:15.875)
Right.

Isn't it funny? It's interesting how some places they will bottle their soaps and detergents and that type of stuff in bottles that to you and I look like a two liter of Fanta or soda, right? It's just so interesting. Yeah, it's like, you really got to check things before you consume them, which actually, yeah, yeah. I don't know that.

George Kourounis (01:00:33.94)
Right?

George Kourounis (01:00:40.916)
It's so much fun going into shops.

Jason Elkins (01:00:46.435)
You don't necessarily need to share the place, but I'm just curious, have you been to a country where you just feel like overall in general, like, yeah, the majority of the people really are not friendly, really are like just like not welcoming of outsiders at all. And just like they just should be left alone and we should just not go there.

George Kourounis (01:01:07.54)
I might get some backlash for saying this, but Egypt, Egypt is beautiful. It's amazing. I was there not too long ago. I was again, hosting a trip. it was a partnership between the RCGS and Exodus Travels. And so I got to go to the pyramids and go down the Nile and go to Abu Simbel, all these amazing places. But the, especially Cairo.

Jason Elkins (01:01:13.603)
Okay.

George Kourounis (01:01:35.572)
Cairo is not a wonderful, friendly city. And a lot of people share this experience where there's a lot of people out trying to scam you. People are very aggressive there. They see tourists as ATMs. And it's just, it's a difficult situation there, of course, because there's a tremendous amount of poverty. As I don't know, it's just because so many tourists go there, I think it's sort of this culture has developed of...

people wanting to take advantage of the tourists there. At least that's sort of what I experienced. But to be honest, my experience there was actually, it was more good than bad. I've never been to anywhere where it's just been a bad experience. I would go back in a heartbeat. I loved my time in Egypt. You just have to be very conscious of aggressive salespeople, people trying to scam you, people trying to bribe you for various things. So just...

Be aware of that. And if you're going to travel in Egypt, don't make it the first place you go. Like if you're a novice traveler, don't go and go hitchhiking across Egypt or something like that, right? If you're going to go to Egypt, go with a reputable travel company. They'll help you out. But it has its challenges for sure.

Jason Elkins (01:02:51.555)
Okay, well, I appreciate sharing that. And one thing I did wanna touch on with you, because I believe it came up last time you and I were chatting, the topic of food came up. And so I just wanna just, we don't have a lot of time left, but I just wanna touch on that because that's such an important part of adventure travel for me. I suspect it is for you as well. So what's your most...

George Kourounis (01:03:10.868)
so much.

Jason Elkins (01:03:17.475)
If you can think of it, what's your most interesting, bizarre food experience or story that you'd like to share with our listeners?

George Kourounis (01:03:23.764)
So I love to dive into local food whenever I travel. You're talking about Southeast Asia. the food there is so good. I'm a noodles guy. I was in Borneo last year, and I think I ate fried noodles on the side of the road for like six meals in a row or something. It's so good. But in terms of like weird food, at least by North American standards or Western standards, I've eaten lots of insects. I've eaten.

Jason Elkins (01:03:32.131)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Elkins (01:03:40.995)
Yeah.

George Kourounis (01:03:51.732)
scorpions and tarantulas and you name it. The strangest thing I've ever eaten for sure was in Siberia. We were filming an episode of Angry Planet and we were on a road trip going from Yakutsk in Siberia to Oimikon, which has the world record for being the coldest town in the world. And we, of course, we did this in the winter as one does. It was like minus 40.

And we were filming with some permafrost scientists, right? Talking about how the permafrost is melting and releasing methane into the atmosphere. So there was an environmental aspect to this as well. And they took us down into this series of tunnels in the permafrost in the city of Yakutsk. And inside one of these rooms was this amazing site. So as the permafrost melts, things are being discovered that have been trapped in there for thousands and thousands of years.

So in this room was the fully intact head of a woolly mammoth. Had the tusks, had the hair, still had flesh. And it's 10 ,000 years old. It's amazing. And so I'm in this room. I'm doing my bit to camera, talking to the audience about these, pardon me, talking about these creatures being discovered in the permafrost. And when our Russian minder left the room, I signaled to my cameraman to keep rolling and I broke a little piece off.

and I ate it. Just to say, well, a couple of reasons. One, just to try it. It tasted like the worst freezer burn you could possibly imagine. But there's this legend in the Explorer's Club. So I'll circle back to the Explorer's Club. Back in the 1950s, allegedly they served mammoth at one of the dinners that they hosted that allegedly came from Alaska. Well, it turns out...

Jason Elkins (01:05:20.739)
Please.

Jason Elkins (01:05:32.771)
Okay.

George Kourounis (01:05:44.948)
A friend of mine actually did the DNA analysis of a piece of the meat that someone had kept in their freezer for decades. Turns out it wasn't mammoth. It was actually green sea turtle. So of course I'm a member of the club. So here I have this opportunity to legitimately on camera eat a piece of woolly mammoth. And so I just couldn't let that opportunity pass. And it tasted terrible. It was awful. But the worst part is that

Jason Elkins (01:05:57.347)
Okay.

George Kourounis (01:06:14.132)
about a day and a half later, as we're driving along the old Gulag Road, the old road of bones, right? This is the old Stalin era road that they would send political prisoners to to build this road. And if you died, they would bury you in the road. That's why it's called the road of bones. Middle of nowhere in Northern Siberia, I start getting sick. I'm getting the chills, fever, and I'm thinking,

Jason Elkins (01:06:22.243)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Elkins (01:06:29.379)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:06:35.523)
Mm -hmm. As one probably should.

George Kourounis (01:06:39.476)
As one should, but now I'm thinking, did I wake up some 10 ,000 year old virus and am I patient zero for a global apocalypse? Because that's the beginning of like quite a few science fiction movies start like this. Well, yeah, am I typhoid Mary basically, right?

Jason Elkins (01:06:45.027)
Ooooo

Jason Elkins (01:06:53.603)
Wouldn't you feel like an ass? Man, wow. Whatever killed all the mammoths has just returned through George.

George Kourounis (01:07:03.604)
I know. And I'm thinking, God, what have I done? And I'm sick, my stomach problems and such. And the only facilities are these Russian truck stop outhouses where everything that goes down in the hole, in the outhouse, freezes instantly. So you end up with a steep sided pyramid of human waste that pokes up above the hole in the ground. And I'm, my God, it was just miserable. And it's minus 40.

Jason Elkins (01:07:15.811)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Jason Elkins (01:07:21.219)
Immediately. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:07:27.299)
Yeah.

George Kourounis (01:07:32.212)
But luckily I didn't die and I didn't start a global pandemic. So that's good. But yeah, of all the weird things of like the electric eel and the goat penis stew and the ant larva and all of the weird, weird things, the rotten shark in Iceland and the fermented horse milk in Kyrgyzstan, of all of those things, that was certainly the weirdest.

Jason Elkins (01:07:37.251)
man, that's too funny.

Jason Elkins (01:07:55.459)
-huh.

Jason Elkins (01:08:01.411)
Okay, so out of all of those things that we would, you know, unusual, weird, whatever word we want to use, out of all those things you just kind of mentioned, are there any of them that were like, yeah, I get it. I know why they eat that. It's really good.

George Kourounis (01:08:16.348)
a lot of the stuff isn't bad. Like tarantulas don't taste bad, right? The scorpions are very bitter. I'm not a big fan of scorpions, but tarantulas are not too bad. Like I get that. Yeah, it's all a matter of whatever you're used to, right? I remember being in Yangon and there's a street vendor going by with a huge pile of crickets.

Jason Elkins (01:08:23.203)
Yeah, okay.

Jason Elkins (01:08:37.155)
and s -

George Kourounis (01:08:43.604)
and he'd sell them like a dollar for a bag of crickets. And we'd just sit there and eat them like popcorn with chopsticks. And it was just delicious, right? I get it.

Jason Elkins (01:08:49.375)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's all about the preparation I've heard. And, I was in Namibia and I had an opportunity to eat some of the Mopani worms. And the first, the first time I tried it, honestly, it was quite repulsive. I ate it. I did the video cause you know, so I could post it on social media, ate the Mopani worm. I was like, yeah, that just tastes like fermented grass or it was just not good.

George Kourounis (01:09:01.972)
yeah, I've had those.

Jason Elkins (01:09:18.179)
But then a few days later, it was, it was just dried. I think it was just dried. So there really wasn't much to it. But then a few days later, I was in a different setting and a, and a, you know, one of the, the villages and like, it was in a family table and it was, they were very proud of it. So of course I was going to try it again. And it was really good. Like they knew how they, it tastes like bacon. You know, they had seasoned it and probably cooked it in ghee or some sort of fat or something. And it was.

George Kourounis (01:09:18.196)
Was it cooked or was it raw? Live? Okay, yeah.

George Kourounis (01:09:38.676)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:09:47.171)
It was actually really good and I was like, yeah, I get this now.

George Kourounis (01:09:50.068)
Yeah, I've had the Mopani grubs in Namibia. Yeah, yeah, I know how they prepare them. Yeah, it's good. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:09:52.099)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm happy because I always say, well, I'll try anything once. I would say, okay, maybe you should try anything two or three times because if it was just the first time I would have been like, yeah, I'm a punny worms. Those people are crazy. Why would they enjoy that? But, well, you're, you're probably right, but I'm a slow learner. I've, I've, I've eaten, I've like, you shared your story about the mammoth. I've eaten things that I knew I probably shouldn't eat.

George Kourounis (01:10:10.196)
There are a few things that you don't need to try twice.

Ha ha.

Jason Elkins (01:10:24.483)
just because of the sanitation issues and I'll eat it and I'm like, and then I get sick and then the next trip back to the same place. I'm like, I'll try it again. Just like maybe I've built up a tolerance. So yeah, Venezuela was really tough on me. I think I've been to Venezuela four times and ate basically the same food each time and had the same results. And, and now I'm living pretty much living in Columbia and I, I like to think that I've built up that immunity from repeatedly eating things I should meet. I don't know.

George Kourounis (01:10:26.42)
Yes.

George Kourounis (01:10:34.452)
Yeah, some lessons are hurtler.

George Kourounis (01:10:54.1)
Well, a lot of it has to, it comes down to your gut biome, right? What your body is used to digesting. And when you change your diet, it doesn't necessarily agree with your existing gut biome. And so you can run into all kinds of challenges there, right? The traveler's diarrhea and such. Yeah, just suffer through it.

Jason Elkins (01:10:54.763)
But yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:11:07.491)
But you just got to work through it until you get by on changes. I remember the first time I got sick in Venezuela, my host was just, he was just like, it's just because you're not used to our food. Well, it's miserable. It's, yeah.

George Kourounis (01:11:19.668)
Yeah, but being sick when you travel is miserable, right? Like, it's one thing to, you know, to joke about these kinds of things, but if you're, if you have a delicate constitution, please be careful with what you eat, and especially water, run into lots of problems with unclean water in places like Bangladesh and India and places like that. So you got, you got to really, really be careful because that'll really ruin your trip. I don't care how adventurous you are. If you've got explosive diarrhea and you have to go on a 10 hour bus ride,

Jason Elkins (01:11:33.891)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:11:47.107)
It's horrible.

George Kourounis (01:11:49.172)
you're not going to have any fun whatsoever. So I do try to be at least a little bit careful. Because that sucks, man. That's the worst.

Jason Elkins (01:11:51.811)
Yeah, it's.

Jason Elkins (01:11:56.707)
It, it, it does. And I remember I, one of the times I flew directly from Caracas to Toronto with that. That's a long flight, you know, and it's, yeah, it's, it's bad. And, and sometimes, I mean, I remember going in, I was on Los Rocos, a small Island, north of Venezuela and part of Venezuela. And, you know, I went to the pharmacy and I didn't have any Spanish skills at all. And the guy working there didn't have any English skills. And.

George Kourounis (01:12:07.54)
Yes.

Jason Elkins (01:12:26.531)
I was trying body language, trying to explain what I had going on. And I didn't know if he thought I was pregnant, constipated, or I don't know. But he gave me something that he was convinced I should take. Yeah, it was a full body body language conversation. And yeah, he gave me something. And for a moment I thought, okay, he must understand. Clearly he must understand what's wrong with me. But then I...

George Kourounis (01:12:33.392)
I'm trying to picture the hand gestures. I'm trying to figure out the pantomime that you would have used.

Jason Elkins (01:12:55.971)
Later I was like, well, what if he thinks I'm constipated? Cause it looks kind of the same. I was like, this is going to make this problem a lot worse. But anyway, that's enough of that. So maybe, you know, take some stuff with you if you can, if you're traveling. I think it's always great to have some Imodium, Imodium, some Pepto -Bismol. I've heard that if you take Pepto -Bismol as kind of a prophylaxic, you just take it.

George Kourounis (01:13:02.708)
Yeah.

Yeah.

It happens.

George Kourounis (01:13:14.676)
Emodium is your friend. I always travel with it. Always, always. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:13:23.875)
you know, periodically throughout the trip, that helps. I've heard people say Coca -Cola, I don't know. But it's good to have some of that stuff with you. Yeah.

George Kourounis (01:13:34.484)
Well, it's funny you mention that because some emergency workers as a rehydration regime, Coca -Cola with salt in it as an emergency, it's kind of like Pedialyte almost. It's like an emergency rehydrator. So if you have a lot of like really bad diarrhea, have a bottle of Coke and put a little bit of salt in it. It'll help get some of the electrolytes back in your system. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing. It's better than just straight up water. And you can get Coca -Cola anywhere.

Jason Elkins (01:13:45.571)
Jason Elkins (01:14:00.899)
And you can find Coke pretty much anywhere. And...

George Kourounis (01:14:05.716)
I was able to get, I was able to buy Coca -Cola in North Korea. So if I could buy it there, you could buy it anywhere. Yeah. It was, absolutely was. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:14:10.387)
really?

Do you think it was real Coca -Cola? Yeah? Really? Huh, that's an interesting, I'm gonna share that with, my son seems fascinated about North Korea. And so I'm gonna share that with him so he can do a little bit of research and cause that's a, I would not have expected.

George Kourounis (01:14:30.292)
I was surprised myself.

Jason Elkins (01:14:32.003)
But I probably bought it in Cuba too, so it's probably not a place that it should be, but I'm sure I bought it there, so.

George Kourounis (01:14:36.628)
No, I think it came. I think it came from Thailand or something. I looked at the at the label. I can't remember where it was bottled, but it was somewhere in East Asia. No, no.

Jason Elkins (01:14:43.843)
okay. But they don't have a distributor anyway. And George, fun, fun conversation. We went a lot of different directions. As I mentioned, like you did a whole, you've done TV series about things. We could probably do a whole series of podcast episodes. And I'm curious, what did I forget to ask? What should I've asked? Or what do you want to make sure our listeners know or hear before we wrap it up?

George Kourounis (01:15:09.172)
Well, it's funny, I was just thinking about the other day. So exploration, I'm an explorer, right? And we're all explorers, we're all born explorers, ask anyone who has a toddler, right? They'll tell you. And at some point we sort of get the exploration squeezed out of us, by adults life. And I tried in my mind to distill the essence of exploration down into the smallest nugget.

Jason Elkins (01:15:21.155)
Mm -hmm.

George Kourounis (01:15:37.396)
possible. And I was able to get it down to three words. Let's go see. So let's is a it's a it's a it's a group effort. It's a team. It's you and me. It's not just one person, right? No, nothing great was ever accomplished just by one person alone. Go. That implies there's a call to action. There's there's a journey to be undertaken, whether it's across the world to Siberia, or maybe down the street with your toddler to go to the library to learn about something that they're interested in.

And then C, there's an educational aspect. There's something to be learned. Maybe something that you didn't know, maybe something that no one knows. Maybe you're making a pure discovery if you're a scientist, or maybe you're just learning about the culture and cuisine of a new country that you've never been to. But the essence of exploration, doing things that you've never done before, let's go see. And I think that's pretty poetic. I like that.

Jason Elkins (01:16:34.435)
I can't add anything to that. That's beautiful. I love it. That's mic drop. Don't drop your mic. You've got a nice mic. I can see it on the screen. George, wow. What a great way to end the conversation. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking your time out of your day to share with us. And I'm inspired to go, let's go see, right? So yeah. All right. Thanks, George. Have a great day.

George Kourounis (01:16:42.536)
You

George Kourounis (01:16:55.956)
Let's go see, thanks so much, I appreciate it. Cheers.