David Sunday 12-18-2011 Interview

My name is David Hoffman. I have a travel company called davidsbeenhere.com and what I do is I promote the world through video, pictures, city guides, products and I'm pretty much trying to change the travel industry. Through my own way. Make a dent at least, right? So how is it that you managed to do it though? Well, what I did is I thought of an idea to promote the world through video and I just went out and raised money to do it. We made the company work and after two years we sort of went through a lot of hurdles trying to figure out how to make money and then after that I came up with that idea for guides and products. Now I changed the site and I'm just going after trying to promote as many countries as possible before I die. I'm trying to do at least five to ten a year. I'm not trying to be somewhere that's living out there forever. I'm trying to raise a family obviously. So where have I been? Is that what you're trying to ask me? Yeah, where have you gotten to go? I've been to my whole life. I've been to Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Bahamas, Jamaica, USA. I haven't touched Mexico yet. I've been to Spain. I've been to Portugal. I've been to France. I've been to Italy. I've been to the UK. I've been only to England. I'm in London and Cambridge. I've been to Ireland. I've been to Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Poland. Holland. I've been to Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Montenegro, Croatia, Hungary. I haven't been to Slovakia. I haven't been to Austria. I've been to Jordan. I've been to a lot of places in Spain. I've been to where else? I haven't really gone. Morocco, UAE, Sri Lanka. Sorry. What's your favorite place? My favorite place in the world is Spain. That inspires you the most? Spain. Spain. Spain. Spain. And I don't stop going back. I'm going to Galicia in March. I don't stop going back. I like it so much and I haven't seen it all. What is it about Spain? Spain has the Roman ruins. That's what I like about it the most. Spain, the food, the people, the language. I love Europe. That's really the place I'm trying to conquer the most. I don't know why. I haven't been to Asia at all. Spain is just a place I keep going back to. It's where it all started for me. I went to Asturias and after that I started traveling. It's almost like you always have to go. My sister is there. I fly in, I can just go somewhere from there. I don't have to get a hotel in Madrid. It's like a second home. It's a second home, really. That's why I keep going through there. You have a lot of people that view your site, right? I guess people follow you where you go, right? Yes. So what do you think you really have to do, not just for the people, but for you? You really have to put out there. What destinations? Just more different. That's how I see it. I want to go to Kazakhstan. I want to go to Armenia, Georgia, deeper in there. Go into Mongolia, maybe Russia, the Trans-Siberian Railway. You can do a long trip, 45-50 days. Silk Road? Just town after town after town. Silk Road would be awesome. Silk Road is amazing. And Azerbaijan. Have you been to any cool islands? Any islands that are beyond what you ever thought you would experience? San Blas. I would recommend for any couple in the world to go there. And just go to one of these small little resorts. There are 8 cabins. It's probably not even that expensive. It's not expensive. What we did, we did an expensive one. And it was, let's say, I think it was $300 for 2 nights. Right? But you have to get there by plane. You have to get another plane in Panama. What's it like? It's like being on another planet. Because you're on a super small island. The Indians are in the island right across the bay. They have a bridge that connects to the airport. There, there's nothing except Indians. Everybody, the hotel staff is Indians. The Kuna Indians. They do some awesome stuff. They take you on excursions. They take you to the burial grounds. The Indian burial grounds from 100 years ago to 100 years ago. They're just never-ending islands. You go to beach to beach to beach. You can stay there forever. No one's out there. One of the cool facts about it is that they find a lot of marijuana because the Colombian drug lords come in and pass it through there. I plan on doing the Camino Santiago maybe April of 2013. That's what I would think about doing. Because this year, I mean, I already, I know I can't do it. I'm getting married in December. So I can't do it until after the wedding. Right? So it'll probably be then. That's the best time because if not, I'm going to freeze. Do you plan to go with anyone? It's supposed to be a spiritual journey. It's a spiritual journey. I just want to go out there, no music. I just want to walk. Straight up. I just want to walk. I'm going to obviously document the whole thing. People say that their lives change after that walk. Many people, especially Paulo Coelho. Paulo Coelho. Yeah, yeah. He's the author, the famous author. Great books. You know, it's funny that he has a book where he mentions Vitoria. And he mentions how he went to a hill that was all broken inside in Vitoria. Vitoria was an awesome place. Where is Vitoria? Vitoria is in Basque Country. It's south of Bilbao. So a little south of Bilbao. Between Bilbao and La Rioja. Is that part of the Camino? I mean, there's many. You can go through anywhere, really. There's many different routes. So you can do the entire north coast. You can start from the bottom of Portugal and go straight up. You can start from Sevilla. It's a long walk. It's a super long walk. And those are the main cities. In between that, you also have towns. So you go every day. You wake up at 6am. Then you walk until around 1pm. That's your walk. So it's about 7 hours walking. And depending on how much you walk, you end up in a town that has a hostel. So you end up in a town that has a hostel. You go there. You clean your clothes. You go with very little. Two shirts, one pair of pants, two pair of underwear, three pair of underwear. Very little. You clean every day. You dry every day. The next day you use it. That's how you do it. You stay at a little place. They have food for you when you get there at lunchtime. You can explore a city. You can actually stay in these bigger cities for two days and not kill yourself walking. Many people do that. That's really cool. That's amazing. You see the entire route and you meet people the whole way. You're going to meet people like crazy. The whole way. You get to interact with people. Staying in one of these hostels is amazing because that's really what you have to do. You go through Pamplona too, right? Pamplona. The Running of the Bulls, we did it. Scariest moment of my life. I think that's one of the best moments of my life too. I recommend it. I recommend you try to stay away and not run directly in front of them the first time. As far as an event that people should go to, just to be a spectator. You have to get something. You have to get inside it. You have to try to get a hotel room that's in the route. That's the best way. Everybody that was in there watching, that's the best way to watch it. Some of those are booked a year in advance. No, everything is booked a year in advance. That's when they start. I also wanted to ask, what's coming for 2012? What's coming for 2012? Give us an inside scoop before we end up here. I haven't told you exactly, but the 2012 confirmed. February 10th, I leave to Guatemala for 12 days. Go to El Salvador for 12 days right after I cross the border. Nine days in El Salvador are work and the last three I'm going to relax at my mom's friend's house. After that, I come back for eight days. Then I fly to Madrid, Spain. I stay there three days, get a car, drive through all of Galicia for 14 days. Then I spend four days in Asturias. Go back down. I might have to go to Barcelona. From Barcelona, catch a flight to Manta because I got invited by the Maltese Tourism Board. I got a hotel on the second island so I extended it for eight days. They gave me five days, so I got the eighth day. After that, come back. I might... I'm in talks with the Cyprus Tourism Board and we might go from there from Manta directly to Cyprus because it's a quicker flight and for them it's very cheap to get me there compared to getting me from Madrid or from Miami. I might go there for seven days. Come back to Barcelona. Go to Andorra for four days. Then come back to Miami. For sure... Go to Andorra? Andorra is a small country two and a half hours north of Barcelona. They speak Catalan. It's a mountainous state like Valencia. It's awesome. Everything in Catalan. It's Spanish slash French because it's on the border with both countries. It's very cool. You need four days there. It's the main capital. You can go skiing there if you want. Go to one of the ski resorts.