EPISODE 3
April 22, 2021
Carolyn McCarthy is originally from Boston. She has lived for the past 15 years in Chile, 12 hours south of Santiago in a rural area where she’s based herself as a writer, authoring 50-plus travel guides for Lonely Planet focusing on the Americas. A fluent Spanish speaker and skilled at tough travel, Carolyn has explored the Amazon basin via dugout canoe, and solo hiked Patagonia for Lonely Planet’s Trekking in the Patagonia Andes. She has documented life in some of the most remote corners of Latin America. More recently, she transitioned to working remotely as Global Communications Coordinator for Tompkins Conservation. The foundation’s landscape-scale projects focus on restoring native species in Chile and re-wilding threatened wildlife, such as the Jaguar and giant otter in Argentina. Carolyn’s website is http://www.carolynmccarthy.org/
TRANSCRIPT:
Louise: Hello, welcome to Women Who Walk. I’m Louise Ross, the author of Women Who Walk the book, the inspiration for this podcast. And just as I did for the book here, I’ll be interviewing and unpacking the journeys of impressive, intrepid women who’ve made multiple international moves, for work, for adventure, for love, for freedom. You can find show notes for each episode, and my books, on my website louiseross.com.
[00:00:51] Hello listeners. And welcome to Episode 3 of Women Who Walk. My guest today is Carolyn McCarthy. Carolyn is originally from Boston in the U.S. and she has lived for the past 15 years in Chile, 12-hours south of Santiago in a rural area, where she has based herself as a writer for Lonely Planet.
[00:01:16] Since 1998, she has authored 50-plus travel guides for Lonely Planet focusing on the Americans. A fluent Spanish speaker and skilled at tough travel, Carolyn has explored the Amazon basin via dugout canoe, and solo hiked Patagonia for Lonely Planet’s, Trekking in the Patagonia Andes. She has documented life in some of the most remote corners of Latin America.
[00:01:43] ABC’s Nightline profiled her Travels in Panama for Lonely Planet, referring to her as a professional road warrior. Her independent travel writing has appeared in BBC Magazine, National Geographic, Outside, Boston Globe, and other publications.
[00:02:03] In 2019, she was appointed remote global communications coordinator for Tompkins Conservation. Founded by Christine and the late Douglas Tompkins, both business leaders from adventure and apparel outfitters, Patagonia, The North face and Esprit, the foundation’s landscape-scale projects focus on restoring native species in Chile and re-wilding threatened wildlife, such as the jaguar and giant otter in Argentina. Carolyn’s work with Tompkins Conservation involves outreach to international press on these and other projects.
[00:02:47] I’m really delighted to share this interview with you today as Carolyn is quite the authority on traveling through Latin America. And to me, living, working, and traveling solo, often in remote regions, is indicative of her enormous courage.
[00:03:12] Welcome Carolyn. Tell us where you are and maybe set the scene a little.
[00:03:17] Carolyn: Thank you Louise. It’s great to be here with you. I am in the south of Chile in the Lakes District, which is about 12-hours south of Santiago. It’s a region of lakes and volcanoes. Out my window, I see Lago Llanquihue an enormous blue Lake. I have Osorno volcano on one side of it dominating the scenery, it looks like a Mount Fuji. Behind it, there’s another volcano called Puntiagudo. I’m sitting on the flanks of a different volcano called Calbuco.
Osorno volcano. Photo by Carolyn McCarthy
[00:03:46] Louise: I remember that uh, one of those volcanoes, I didn’t realize you were surrounded by three or you mentioned three, but one blew a few years ago. Didn’t it?
[00:03:56] Carolyn: It did. That’s the volcano I actually live on, which is Calbuco. Actually the anniversary is on Earth Day, the 22nd of April. No one was injured, but it was an enormous eruption that came out of the blue. Basically it spewed ash all the way to Argentina and closed down the airport in Buenos Aires. But here locally, we got rubble and little pieces of rock about the size of a dime or smaller that rained down on the house and the roofs, and a lot of people’s roofs collapsed and they had to dig themselves out, but thankfully everybody was okay. It was quite an experience.
[00:04:34] Louise: It was frightening at a distance, so I can’t imagine what it would have been like in the midst of it.
[00:04:40] Carolyn: People always said to me, you’re going to build your house on a volcano? Isn’t that risky? I think maybe you were one of them. And I said, there’s three hundred volcanoes in Chile. What are the chances that this one would go off? It turns out that the chances were pretty good.
[00:04:57] Louise: I mentioned in my introduction to this episode that you’re originally from Boston. Can you tell us how you found your way to Chile?
[00:05:06] Carolyn: I was working at a place in Boulder, Colorado with foreign students from all over the world and I really got the bug to travel and learn Spanish. So I traveled to Latin America and did some backpacking for a couple years and I ended up being a hiking guide in Chile, and really loving the experience. And it’s actually where I live now. That first brought me to Chile and it brought me back the following year and brought me back several years later when I got a grant to write about people living in remote parts of Patagonia and about their pioneer stories and their heritage and their lifestyle, which was so incredibly traditional, even in modern day society.
[00:05:50] Later, I started working for Lonely Planet, writing guidebooks. I used Chile as a base throughout the years and I finally realized that I had such a strong connection here that I wanted to make it more permanent. Now I have a home here and spend a lot of time here.
[00:06:06] Louise: I just want to let listeners know that Carolyn and I both worked at the same Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and that perhaps was a foundation for our cultural curiosity. I don’t want to put words into your mouth, Carolyn, but it sounds like that was a springboard for you heading to Chile. Is that right?
[Note: In Episode 1, I talk about working at The Economics Institute and this is where Carolyn and I met.]
[00:06:30] Carolyn: It was. We worked at this place where there were people from, I think 150 countries and it gave you the itch to go absolutely everywhere. I felt like Latin America was the most accessible and I wanted to learn Spanish. So that’s where I started. I’ve gotten a little bit further afield, I’ve done some trips in Asia and in Africa, but that’s where I was bitten by the bug. I credit it with really giving me a deep respect for other cultures. People all the world over have such a deep connection and it’s great to travel and find that connection.
[00:07:03] Louise: You touched on this, that your initial travels to South America were for language immersion to learn Spanish. Did I get that right?
[00:07:13] Carolyn: They were. Initially I went to Mexico to do some study, to be a teacher of English as a second language and start some immersive Spanish classes, which I would highly recommend to anyone to take immersive language classes in the country that they want to go to because it was so helpful for me, and I traveled throughout Mexico and really fell in love with its culture. So it seemed like an easy way to start this whole exploration, and then I headed further south throughout Latin America.
[00:07:46] Louise: You also touched on the evolution of your travels through Latin America as the vehicle for you to then begin working with Lonely Planet. I wonder if you can tell us a little about that?
[00:07:58] Carolyn: I used Lonely Planet guide books on my travels, the handbook to South America, a big fat Bible, I used it all the time. It never occurred to me that I could write these things because they seem broad reaching and so detail oriented. They seem just to have so much information in them that I thought they were these incredible resources and probably really exhausting for the person doing it.
[00:08:24] I was living abroad and a friend said to me, ‘ They’re looking for people, why don’t you apply?’ I thought, I could give it a shot, it’s going to be really tough, maybe I’ll last a year or two. And over 50 books later, it really taught me a lot! As a shy person, I didn’t assume, when I traveled to Latin America, that I could talk to anybody, but with the excuse that I was working for a guidebook and that I was writing about these places and I needed inside information, I could ask anybody any question. Suddenly, that really broke it open for me to receive the generosity of people who were happy to share about their culture, their food, so it was a tremendous experience. Part of it was going back over the years to the same places because I would redo the Argentina book six times. I would redo the Peru book three or four times. I would do the Chile book five times. And so you go back to these places over time and you see how they change and political waves and economic waves. It’s really interesting to see these places evolve through time and have your friendships in these countries grow.
[00:09:33] Louise: Do you see that some of the things that you’ve written up have changed the environment of the places that you returned to. In other words, as tourism has picked up in places that you’ve covered, has it changed as a result of tourism?
[00:09:55] Carolyn: I would say for big changes you see how mass tourism can change a place. We were in the business of doing more independent traveler tourism, which I think is lower impact in general. You’d certainly see the difference in a place that never had cruise ships to how it would look after it had cruise ships stopping there and 12,000 people getting off once a week for the summer, how that would change the flavor of a place. So there’s definitely higher impact and lower impact tourism.
[00:10:27] Part of our ethos was to support small businesses, family owned hotels and restaurants and, over time, getting to know some of these people and seeing that they were able to put their children through studies because they had an income from the travelers who visited them. That was really exciting to be able to enact change on that level. Not in a sense of changing the whole country, but changing individual people’s lives that created a tremendous difference for families.
[00:10:55] I’d also say, you do see places that get a rut of tourism, like Machu Picchu, where it’s so famous it can’t sustainably survive the onslaught. There’s tactics that we can enact to combat that, but I think it’s also important for travelers to make good choices and travel more responsibly or travel in a way that they’re going to try to connect more deeply with these cultures that they don’t just demand services and hot water in a place where there’s barely any water because they have to use cistern.
“What will Choquequirao, an Incan site in southern Peru, look like when they build the tram across the Apurimac River to bring 3000 visitors per day? I hope we never know.” Photo & quote by Carolyn McCarthy.
[00:11:29] Part of writing about travel is a responsibility of informing the public what situation they’re going into and what the limitations are and how they can best work with that place for the best outcome.
[00:11:44] Louise: That was a wonderful answer, thank you so much. Do you think that readers of Lonely Planet really integrate that information and travel accordingly?
[00:11:54] Carolyn: I think the people who travel long-term who do a longer journey, people who take a gap year, they become really aware of their impact on these cultures and the cultures impact on them, really aware of what this all means. So I do think a lot of people think very deeply about it.
[00:12:12] People come at travel from a different place. People use travel for business. They use it as a weekend getaway, and sometimes it’s not on the top of your mind, what your impact is because, maybe you’re so burnt out from your regular life that you just want a margarita on the beach. And so you’re not really thinking about the cascade of consequences of that margarita. We’re all guilty of those moments, but there’s definitely a different circumstance.
[00:12:39] Louise: There’s a beautiful photo on the front page of your website of you with some villagers, and they’re painting your arm with a, some kind of tattoo? Is this the kind of unique experience that you have as a Lonely Planet writer, or is that an experience that Lonely Planet readers traveling to the areas that you’ve covered would have?
[00:13:02] Carolyn: That particular photo is taken in the Darien Gap in a very isolated village where they still live traditionally. You access it via a dugout canoe. People can get there, but you have to really want to get there. The beauty of slow travel or being attuned to your environment is that you can go to these places that are off the map if you have the time, if you have the patience and the adventurous spirit of not needing to know everything that’s going to happen and magic can happen there. Perhaps the job was conducive to getting into the nooks and crannies of countries that usually other people don’t have the time or resources to do so, so that might be part of it, but it takes an openness to get to these places.
[00:13:46] One of my favorite aspects of writing these books was writing box texts called off the beaten track. In order not to saturate a remote area with tourism, we would just give some clues on how to get there, what you might find if you go off the beaten track. Some of these places were the most fantastic experiences I’ve ever had, but to paint them in detail would be to invite busloads of people . Whereas maybe the adventurous soul would get there with some clues and they would find something interesting. Certainly something where maybe there isn’t even a lot of lodging options and so they would have to figure it out for themselves. For the adventurous traveler, I think there’s so many places to still discover.
[00:14:29] Louise: Oh, I love that answer too, because it sounds like there’s less tourists that would make it to a fairly isolated region like that. And then what you’re documenting is really just a teaser of the possibility of what’s available to see.
[00:14:44] I know that you had really extraordinary experience at one time with someone who was something to do with the drug trade, a drug lord of some sort?
[00:14:58] Carolyn: I’ve definitely been in places that are shady and you’re figuring out on the spot where you are and what’s going on. And I’ve been in places where we’ve called it all off, but that particular situation, fortunately I’ve not had.
[00:15:14] Louise: You go back and forth between Latin America and the U.S. and I wonder, given that you’ve lived in Chile for how many years is it? I think you said it earlier, but tell us again.
[00:15:26] Carolyn: It’s been 15 years.
[00:15:29] Louise: When you do go back to the U.S., what’s it like adjusting to the U.S. culture after time in Latin America?
[00:15:38] Carolyn: Certainly friends and family are a huge pull and it’s always great to see them. With the people closest to you, you feel like you can pick up without any time having passed. The only way I can explain it is like Gilligan Island, the TV show from the 1970s. Maybe your listeners are not American, but people were shipwrecked and they lost touch with society so when they went back, they didn’t understand what pantyhose were and all these things.
[00:16:03] I come back to the U.S. and it’s like, one year everywhere there’s kale. One year there’s grain bowls. I think on my last visit to Washington DC, there were motorized scooters and they were a plague. They were everywhere. There’s always something happening in the United States that isn’t happening in other places yet. I still light my gas stove with a lighter, instead of an automatic lighter!
[00:16:30] So, there’s always some kind of phenomenon happening that makes me feel like I’m not in on it. But in the same way, I like the fact that I’m connected to doing things like after years of having a woodstove, I can build a fire in any moment. And I feel like that’s something that probably most of my best friends in America can’t say.
[00:16:50] Louise: When you’re at home, you’d be out in the field, you’d be doing your research, then you’d come home and then you’d hunker down for sometimes a month just writing up the research material into the guidebook. Tell us what that experience is like.
[00:17:06] Carolyn: It’s a little bit schizophrenic because you spend a lot of time in the field, traveling, full immersion, lots of social contact, talking to people from all walks of life, and then you get home exhausted and you might take, two or three days to crash. And then you realize you have a deadline looming ahead, and you’ve got six weeks or four weeks to write it all up. So like a mad person, you take out your notebooks and your photos, and then you start to put it all together. Usually the last thing I do is write the chapters about culture and history, because it takes me a little bit longer to formulate ideas around those things. It was always a balance between two extremes of being very social and out in the world and also being very interior, often missing a lot of holidays because I had a deadline so I could get that work done. But then in between projects, there would be a pause where you could go back and tend to your regular life.
[00:18:09 ] Louise: Obviously your life feels like a regular life, but perhaps compared to your contemporaries in the U.S., who are your age mid-to-late-forties, and they’re all married with families. What’s that like for you to lead this adventurous, intrepid life when your contemporaries are mostly settled, in partnerships and marriages with families in very urban environments.
[00:18:35] Carolyn: You get used to it and it becomes your normal, so you don’t even think of it as strange. There are certain professions that lead you to having an episodic life where your life happens in between the work and the pauses in between the work. Certainly, writing guidebooks and doing travel writing is like that where your life is episodic, you pick it up again every couple months, and then you might have an intense several weeks or even a month to spend with people you love. And then you’re off again.
[00:19:03] The rhythm of life is quite different versus people who have an everyday norm. It can be a little bit lonely, but it can also be nice to have immersion when you need immersion. There’s pros and cons in both. Going back and visiting friends and family, it’s really fun and enjoyable and there’s things to envy. Inevitably everyone will always say they envy the job that I have.
[00:19:28] You realize that you’re not going to be able to have a settled life and do what you do. So what, what do you prefer? What do you want to do? For many years, that decision has been life on the road because if you have that kind of personality, it’s all together too seductive not to choose it.
[00:19:47] Louise: Life on the road doesn’t necessarily make it easy to meet a partner or have a relationship because if you’re always on the go, it’s hard for someone to find you or for you to find someone else. What’s that been like for you?
[00:20:02] Carolyn: It’s very hard to have a relationship with someone who isn’t a good communicator because you’re going to be long distance much of the time. It’s hard to have a relationship with someone who doesn’t have a similar lifestyle because when you’re at home, you’re living this life where you do a daily dose of normal with the person you love next to you and by your side. My life being more episodic, it’s not conducive to that. It is conducive to doing periods of immersion in between. So I’ve had a tendency to have relationships with people who lead a similar life, who also work a lot and have breaks in between. Someone who can understand that lifestyle.
[00:20:46] Louise: Now your work has transitioned recently and you transitioned from Lonely Planet into a new job. Tell a little about what that is.
[00:20:58] Carolyn: Several years ago, I got an opportunity to start working with Tompkins Conservation an organization that does work in Chile and Argentina, and is actually looking at doing more work throughout the Americas. The organization has helped create 13 national parks in Chile and Argentina and preserve 14.5 million acres, which is tremendous, especially when you come to understand that it’s actually a really small organization, with just very dedicated people working for it.
[00:21:29] I came across this organization in their early days when they were first doing their projects in Chile, their flagship project of Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park, before it was national park, when they had the idea to save Valdivian Rainforest from logging. And then it grew to be so much more than that.
[00:21:50] Now they’re focusing a lot on rewilding and reintroducing extirpated species and doing work to fight the biodiversity crisis that’s happening today with the mass extinction.
“After a 70-year absence, jaguars are once again roaming free in the Iberá Wetlands of Argentina! It’s the first time jaguars have been restored to an area where they have gone extinct.” Photo & quote by Carolyn McCarthy
[00:22:05] It’s an organization that I really respected and I saw it evolve from its beginnings. They need someone to do global communications and having been in Chile for this amount of time, I felt like it would be exciting to start this kind of work, particularly with the climate crisis. So it was really exciting to start exploring communicating on environmental matters.
[00:22:32] Louise: Do you feel your work with Lonely Planet positioned you well for this?
[00:22:37] Carolyn: My work with Lonely Planet, going back in a periodic way to different countries and areas, is that, I’ve personally seen climate change. I’ve seen glaciers recede, I’ve seen storms get harsher, hurricanes in the Caribbean and strange weather patterns where the locals always say, this isn’t how it used to be.
[00:22:58] You get a really clear sense that it’s not just happening in one place it’s happening everywhere. And so I think that connects you to the reality of it in a way that watching programs on television about it might not give you the same sense of urgency.
[00:23:16] A big aspect of these projects is community outreach and working with communities and their needs and understanding that even from a travel point of view, if you don’t build growth sustainably, then it’s going to be a disaster. And it’s really hard to go back and start again. It’s the best idea to build it right from the start. So seeing these parks get started with small local community projects alongside them that can mutually benefit is really important.
[00:23:47] Louise: On social media, you’ve posted a couple of beautiful videos of the rewilding. In the show notes, we’ll put a link so that listeners can check that out. And so as we wind up, I wonder what’s next Carolyn? Do you see yourself staying in Latin America or is there a move in the future?
[00:24:04] Carolyn: Can I be so unsophisticated to say, I don’t know. I didn’t see myself staying in Latin America to begin with and then look what’s happened. I would say I have roots that have grown and I have a deep affection and understanding that grows with time. Being a travel writer, there’s always other places that you want to understand more deeply. I wouldn’t say never, in terms of going somewhere else, and I’ve actually expanded my work throughout the years to include a lot of national parks in the U.S. and started writing about Africa and traveled to Tibet. There’s certainly other places I’d like to get to know better.
[00:24:46] Louise: Thank you so much, Carolyn and for listeners, can you share your social media?
[00:24:52] Carolyn: Sure. So my website is CarolynMccarthy.org and my Instagram is McCarthyOffMap, which is also my Twitter, which I use less frequently, but you can find me there. And thank you for listening.
[00:25:11] Louise: Thank you for listening today. And if you would like to read a transcript of this episode, you can find it in the show notes on my website LouiseRoss.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review Women Who Walk on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser.