Dave and Deb of The Planet D are known as Canada’s adventure couple, but they freely share their wealth of experience with all the world on their popular travel blog.
Dave & Deb wrote an article for AdventureTravelPlanning.com about how they became world-class adventure travelers, so you might want to read it as well for more of their interesting and helpful insights.
Dave and Deb truly live a life of adventure, and now they’re going to share it with you as they take you on a journey with them to The Planet D.
ATM: You have a wealth of experience traveling as a couple. What are your top recommendations for others traveling as a team?
The Planet D / Dave and Deb: When traveling with anyone be it your partner, spouse or friend, you have to be clear in the way you are going to communicate.
If things are bothering you, you need to be able to talk it out as adults. Don’t let things fester or build up because by the time you blow up, you won’t be rational and could say something you regret. But if you keep the channels of communication open throughout the trip, everyone should have a much easier time.
You need to be clear on your intentions. If you want your trip to be an adventure and spend your time camping, trekking and challenging yourself, but your travel partner wants to spend time at the spa, going to museums and relaxing on the beach, you won’t have a very good time at all. These things need to be discussed.
If you don’t have similar travel styles, you most likely won’t travel well together. That is not to say that you shouldn’t be willing to compromise. Nobody is exactly alike, so you need to talk things over and try something new as well. If someone wants to see a sight or try something different, you should be willing to go along.
I like The Planet D motto: “Anyone can do it!” What are some of the best first steps you recommend to jumpstart someone’s adventure lifestyle?
Take it slow. You don’t have to go out and run across a desert or cycle a continent for your first adventure.
Start small and do what makes you feel comfortable. If hopping on a flight to Asia is an adventure for you, do it. You will find that once you get out there and try something new, you will want to do more and more and your fear of the unknown will start to subside.
Just make sure to take it slow at first so that you don’t turn yourself off of going on another adventure. You should enjoy yourself, not go through your travels with fears and frustrations.
And don’t let anyone tell you what a definition of adventure should be. Each person has a different idea of what adventure travel is and nobody is wrong.
You’re a very active couple. What would be on The Planet D top-10 list of adventure travel experiences?
1) Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro
2) Trekking to Mount Everest Base Camp
3) Studying Muay Thai Kickboxing in Thailand
4) Skydiving and Flying a Stunt Plane in New Zealand
5) Flying over Mount McKinley in a 1966 De Havilland Beaver Bush Plane
6) White Water Rafting Class 5 rapids in New Zealand
7) Surfing in Bali and Sri Lanka
8) Trekking the Headhunters Trail in Borneo
9) Flying a Stunt Plane in New Zealand for Deb and Skydiving at the same place for Dave
10) Cycling from Cairo to Cape Town
What adventures are high on your bucket list?
1) Trekking in Bhutan
2) Making it to Antarctica
3) Traveling to the North Pole
4) Trekking in the Amazon
5) Crossing a desert by foot and Crossing the Sahara by camel
6) Riding a horse through Mongolia.
What are your thoughts on buying “adventure travel” insurance for those who like high-adrenaline (risky) activities? Do you use it?
We always travel with insurance but we haven’t bought extra insurance for risky activities.
I love the travel video page on The Planet D blog. Can you tell us a little about your favorite adventure that you captured on video?
Mount Kilimanjaro was a lot of fun to film. We loved going through the different climates and landscapes.
You start in a hot and muggy tropical rainforest and then end in below freezing conditions with piercing winds. We were in the best shape of our lives during that climb and we could take our time to really enjoy the experience as well as film each step of the journey. It was one of the most amazing and fun adventures we’d ever done and to have it on video makes it even better to be able to relive the moments again and again.
If you had to choose just one, what would be your favorite cultural experience?
I think that would have to be a Kava Ceremony in Fiji. It is an important aspect of visiting any village in Fiji, and it is customary to present the gift of Kava Root to the executive head of the village. The villagers then grind up the Kava Root, strain it through a cloth and make a potent drink out of it.
First, the village chief drinks the Kava, and then it is passed around to the visitors starting with the men. It makes your tongue and mouth go numb and tastes a lot like mud. After the official ceremony of drinking is finished, you dance with the villagers as they sing and play music. It is a wonderful combination of tradition and festivities.
What are some of the more interesting foods you’ve encountered while on your journeys for The Planet D?
We’ve had bugs in Mexico and Cambodia and Snake in Vietnam.
We didn’t try any dog or scorpion in China. We actually felt very bad for the scorpions and the dogs there. The Scorpions had skewers pushed through their skin, but not enough to kill them, so they were kept alive suffering until someone bought them. They were then thrown into oil and instantly deep fried.
The dogs were kept alive in small cages and taken out one by one when someone bought them, killed right in front of the cage and then had their fur blow torched off right in front of the dogs that were waiting to be killed next. It was devastating.
We aren’t huge on trying foods that are killed in inhumane ways, and if I had to do it again I wouldn’t eat the snake in Vietnam because I think that they suffer quite a bit as well.
I know that a lot of people will say that everything suffers that we eat, but sometimes things are just far too inhumane for me to justify eating simply for the experience of saying that we have tried it.
Please tell us about one of your favorite exotic experiences. What intrigued you most about it?
That would have to be our first time at the Thaipusam Festival in Malaysia. It is a shocking event where 1.5 million people converge on the Batu Caves outside of Kuala Lumpur to honour the Lord Muruga.
Worshippers put spikes through their cheeks, hooks in their backs, they carry heavy kevadis on their backs and pull chariots and people connected to their hooks by chords. It looks extremely painful and these people are completely devoted. They put themselves into a trance and as you walk through the crowd and hear the drums beating in the middle of the night, you almost feel as if you, too, are going into one.
We spent 2 full days and nights at this festival and it was amazing. A very exciting adventure and event to witness.
Do you have a favorite destination, or two? If so, what is it that keeps bringing you back?
There are a few destinations that we have been to more than once: Thailand, Mexico and France.
Thailand is amazing because it’s central to everywhere in South East Asia. It’s easy and cheap to travel around, and it’s beautiful. It makes for a great home base when touring that part of the world.
Mexico is one of our favourite destinations; we love the culture, the music and the energy of the country. It is so large that you can go back over and over again and discover something new.
France is another place that we love. We love the food, the wine and the history. It’s a beautiful country and we never tire of visiting Paris.
So, where is the next destination on The Planet D list, and what do you plan to do there?
Next up is the Mongol Rally, a cross continent road rally from England to Mongolia.
We’re traveling through 15 countries from Western and Easter Europe to Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and a few more “Stans” until we reach Mongolia. It’s all for charity.
We’re raising funds for the Christina Noble Foundation. A project that supports homeless and abandoned children in Mongolia and we’re donating our car to Adventures for Development at the end of our journey.
Dave and Deb of The Planet D are an adventure couple that have been traveling full time since 2009. With over a decade of world travel, they have hiked, biked, paddled and climbed their way through nearly 50 countries. They share their adventures on their travel blog The Planet D through photos and words where they tell the truth about travel – the good, the bad and the unexpected. Their Motto at The Planet D is “Anyone Can Do It.”