Too Many Ticks
~ Words by Vickie Sam Paget, Sky Blue Content ~
TV presenter and travel writer Robin Esrock talks to Canadian Traveller’s Vickie Sam Paget about how being hit by a car can lead to world travel on an immense scale and a deeper understanding for the human condition
Travel writer Robin Esrock is sitting in front of me in a café on Vancouver’s hip Commercial Drive and I haven’t got a clue what to say.
And it’s not often that I’m lost for words; just ask my friends.
You see, I’m speechless because Robin Esrock has DONE IT. He’s really DONE IT. When it comes to Bucket Lists, he’s kicked that travel bucket so many times it doesn’t even know what hemisphere it’s in. He has almost ticked-off too many Bucket Lists.
As presenter of World Travels he visited 36 countries in three years—and that was just the tip of the iceberg. I’m gobsmacked; I just don’t know what to say. Thank goodness he brings me back down to earth by telling me that all started when he got hit by a car.
“Ten years ago, I was hit by a car in downtown Vancouver,” he stated nonchalantly. Having left his native South Africa, he worked in online media in the UK for a spell, before moving to Vancouver and starting an online record label. This led him to work for a talent agency, where he spent his days nurturing young bands. “But the industry was just imploding,” he explained. Things came to a head when he set up a showcase for one of the bands and he managed to attract 10 major labels to the junket.
“These guys killed it,” he said, his enthusiasm palpable. “But they all said they couldn’t sign them; there was a signing freeze and they didn’t know if they would have a job next week. And then I was hit by this car on my way to work and it was the best thing that ever happened to me!”
Why is being hit by a car such a good thing, it’s fair to ask.
“It was the biggest wake-up call you could possibly imagine—that you’re taking life way too seriously for one thing. There is so much to see and do and I was focussing on making other people’s dreams come true. What about my own dreams?
“So when I got hit by the car, I got 20 grand and I got a round-the-world ticket. I took my lap top and decided to record that year of my life. I pitched the Vancouver Sun and I got a column out of it.
“If that car hadn’t hit me, I don’t even want to think about where I’d be. I’d have worked that job to the bone and watched my passion die. But for whatever reason a driver decided not to stop at a stop-street.”
When he returned to Vancouver, he continued to be somewhat unsettled. He was house-sitting and sleeping on his brother’s couch, but he started to get approached by tourism boards who wanted to promote their destinations.
“Life was a little absurd. People said my life should be a TV show because I was basically a squatter one day and then the next day I would show up at a five star hotel with my back pack!”
He pitched his concept to two production companies: “Every star in the universe aligned and it happened. I was amazed because I thought I was the last person this would happen to: I don’t look TV; I don’t sound TV. We did three years and 36 countries and I ticked off my Bucket List over and over again.”
Getting his project accepted by a production company gave Esrock a real taste of something he would find himself chasing for the rest of his days.
“When my producer told me that the show was green-lit, I was in shock. I’ve had that twice: the first time was when I bought my round-the-world ticket and the second time was with the show. It’s fear and happiness and elation and anxiety and joy: it’s living. And I’ve become addicted to those moments. That’s what I chase.”
After the TV show, Esrock spent two years travelling around Canada researching his book, The Great Canadian Bucket List. He checked out the ‘Sour Toe Cocktail’ in Yukon, took a yoga class on top of the mountain in Alberta and floated in the Prairies’ secret Dead Sea, Little Manitou Lake. His book came out in 2013 and went to number one. Three books that focus upon Western Canada, Central Canada and Atlantic Canada followed hot on the heels of that, and in February, books that showcase the Prairies and Northern Canada are set to hit the press.
Esrock is currently working on the pièce de résistance of Bucket List books: The Great Global Bucket List. It’s coming out at the end of 2016.
Surely—surely—a man who has travelled so much that he can write about the globe as if it is his own back yard has a unique view of the world we live in. I open my mouth and manage to ask him how he sees the world.
“I’m very optimistic, which puts me in complete conflict with the media that we consume,” he explains. “There is so much negativity; so much cynicism. The first thing people ask me when they learn what I do is: Isn’t it dangerous? I’m a professional tourist, how can that be dangerous? You have to be desperately unlucky for something bad to happen, yet the one incident that does happen consumes the media.
“I’m alarmed at the fear that gets put out there, especially in the travel space. For the most part people are way more happy to help you than hurt you. But there’s this idea that everyone is out to get you. The stories in the news are vastly different to the reality.”
Esrock’s faith in humankind may well have to do with a project that he started when he first went travelling a decade ago. He asked the people he met on his travels to ‘finish the sentence’ to three key questions.
“I asked 1,760 people in 70 countries the same three questions. I wanted to learn something from everyone I met.” He asked them to finish the following sentences: I am inspired by… I regret… and Today I am grateful for…
“From all walks of life, rich and poor or young and old, the answers were fantastic. They are universal. You would think that money and power would be important because they drive so much of our lives. Yet, when you ask people they say: family, nature, music, health, creativity, love. That’s what is important.”
Image: Robin Esrock
This travel interview first appeared in Canadian Traveller magazine.
