I got my bags packed on a roll heading out there and I'm ready to go looking real good

in my passport photo.

Welcome to the amateur traveler. I'm your host Chris Christensen and this is a special

episode. If you have not listened to the amateur traveler and this is your

first episode I suggest you skip this one because we're going to be

talking about some of the amateur traveler history and you might want to actually listen to

one of the shows first. Also to be honest I'm recording this with a different sound set up and I don't think it's going to sound as good and I don't want you to get the wrong impression

I'm doing this special episode for two reasons one is I am traveling this week and unable to put the time in to put together the regular episode.

The next regular episode will be next week.

And we'll cover California's Napa Valley and the wine region of California.

The other reason I'm doing this special episode is that before that episode, the amateur

traveler will turn four.

So this is the four-year anniversary retrospective of the amateur traveler,

something that I haven't done the last three years, but this seemed like a good time to do it,

and in part this seemed like a good time to do it because I woke up this morning in Kazumel at the ninth floor of the Park Royal

Hotel overlooking the beach, the cruise ships, and the jungle that is Kazamel and it's the amateur traveler show that brought me here.

Because as I mentioned recently, the Park Royal Hotel or the Royal Holiday Company has brought me down here to review this hotel and they paid my way down here which I was very glad that people supported me doing that, but the amateur traveler has

taken me places quite literally that I wasn't expecting when we started the

show four years ago. I've often gotten the question I don't actually remember whether I've ever answered it on the show possibly in episode one

Why did I do the amateur traveler why did I start podcasting and why particularly a travel show.

One of the big reasons that I started podcasting is I am a podcast junkie. I basically subscribe to I think right now the count is 60 podcast that I listen to as they come out some are not as regular as others.

I used to listen to as many as 100 and now with a new feature on the iPhone

...