QUARANTINE CALL nyc

Pavia Rosati CEO + Founder of Fathom travel magazine 

Pavia Rosati is the founder and CEO of Fathom, the award-winning travel website that delivers insider information to passionate travelers.

She is also the co-author of “Travel Anywhere (And Avoid Being a Tourist),” which has been published in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, and France, and the co-host of A Way to Go on iHeart Radio.

Fathom finds the world’s best places, unlocking the world through inspirational stories, curated destination guides, and best-in-class resources. Prior to Fathom, Pavia spent nine years as executive editor at DailyCandy, where she covered food and travel, with a focus on emerging talent and best-in-class destinations.

She has written about food, travel, and culture for The New York Times, Travel and Leisure, Bon Appetit, Departures, and The Financial Times, among others. Pavia lives in New York City, but spends a good part of her life traveling to London, throughout Italy, as well as the rest of the world.

She can be found sporadically on Instagram at @pavianyc.

episode highlights 

3:04 On being quarantined in Chelsea, NYC, and lockdown cooking how her Italian relatives in her youth.
6:10 The Great Pause and how this is benefiting overtouristed destinations like Venice, among others.
7:30 Parallels with 9/11, Spanish Flu and the Great Depression, and how our consumer behavior might change as a result of this crisis.
10:40 Pavia talks about her time as Executive Editor at Daily Candy (aw, Daily Candy!)
18:00 Making sense of travel safety standards internationally, and how we will decide where to travel.
21:25 Is the road trip the nearest future of travel?
22:45 Will there be a rise in xenophobia against travelers around the world? How travelers from different countries will be perceived after the pandemic (including New Yorkers).
27:00 How a travel magazine like Fathom adapts content for the new normal.
29:05 How will travel insurance and safety protocols evolve?
35:15 Closing on a hopeful note: we will all travel again.

Links mentioned in this episodE

Website: www.fathomaway.com
Everything you need to know about travel insurance, on Fathomaway.com
Book: Travel Anywhere (And Avoid Being a Tourist): Travel trends and destination inspiration for the modern adventurer
Podcast: A Way To Go
Fathom on Instagram: @fathomawaytogo
Pavia on Instagram: @pavianyc

About Adventure Calls 

From her quarantine to theirs, world-traveler and author of How To Move Abroad And Why It’s The Best Thing You’ll Do, Jessica Drucker, calls up travel experts to find out what they envision for the future of travel in a post-pandemic world. 

Full episode transcript

Adventure Calls Episode 2: Pavia Rosati in NYC Full Transcript*

Pavia Rosati: Jessica. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Thank you for calling me.

Jessica Drucker:I had to call you. It was something that had to happen because, as you know, I want this whole podcast to sort of focus on interesting travel experts, but focus on the future of travel and your name just kept coming up in so many articles I read. So I'm excited to sort of get your expert opinion on how this world of travel will change

Pavia Rosati: Its...we’re living in...Um I mean, how many times a day have you heard the word unprecedented?

Jessica Drucker You know, I felt that Corona Virus or Covid - I was like, What's the word? What's Webster's word of the year? I actually think it will be unprecedented, right?

Pavia Rosati: Yes. Yes, I think so. I think that's really it. And that makes everything about the situation that we're in. So a know, a book

Jessica Drucker: I know. Well, let's go, let's go all the way back for a second, though. Most important question has your health, the health of your family and where you quarantining right now?

Pavia Rosati: I am quarantined in my apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City with my husband, who is a writer. Um, we are both already used to working at home. I have an office in downtown New York City, but I also sometimes work from home. He works from home all the time. Um, we get along really well. He saw this coming very early. So before we knew the difference between Corona Virus and Cove. It 19. Our house was stocked and the Amazon packages had stopped coming. We're shopping the way that my mother used to shop when she would go grocery shopping. She wouldn't go out and buy what she needed for dinner. She would sort of do the weekly shop, right? So we haven't been in a position were saying, Oh, no, we forgot to get protein for dinner tonight. We've been were pretty well stocked. My husband just made a for Todd for lunch and he said, Do we have any grated cheese? And I said, Oh, yeah, it's in a glass container on the fourth shelf. I did it yesterday, So we're sort of thinking less in terms of what I need because I'm cooking something right now. And Mawr, how are we stock to be cooking, which I love? I love I find this to be such I mean, this is how my mother cooked. This is This is how I saw my family cooking in in Italy growing up all the time. It was like, you know what you have. You have the supplies that you need, um, and I'm finding the cooking at home, one of the nicest things. And in fact, as we're thinking about what the future of travel is, the travel is partly getting on a plane. But travel is also about what do you do when you leave the house? And we were had this conversation last night. We were We were wondering if restaurant, if people will stop if people won't go out to restaurants as much, not only because of the safety factors, but just because this month or however many months we will be like this have rekindled a love of the family dinner.

Jessica Drucker: Yeah, that's really true. And if you are lucky enough to be healthy and you know not worrying about, um, about the disease side of it for yourself, I'm spending so much time with my family. I'm with my in laws and we had We have lunch together in the middle of the week on a work week. You know, that could never happen, would never happen before

Pavia Rosati And what's really nice... So I had a conversation with a friend about this. She early on heard it was happening, left her husband and Connecticut went down to Boca to take care of her parents. And she said, I set up their online grocery systems. I help them figure out videos so they can video with their grandchildren, my nieces and nephews, she said I would have never been able to do this on the phone from Connecticut. I also told her I said, You know, you will. They're bad circumstances for doing this, but the family time together, you're gonna treasure this forever with your older parents. Yeah, and because because any other time that she would have gone to visit her parents, Um, it would have been with the understanding of Okay, I'm here for four days. Oh, but I'm missing that that dinner party at home. And there was that opening I really wanted to go to in New York City. And so, yes, you're happy to be with your older parents. But there's always a sense of where else who could be. And this is really fascinating because this is family time, where there's nowhere else that you could be.

Jessica Drucker: Yeah, it's the great pause. I mean, everything is paused. Yeah, and I have to say it's, you know, I don't not enjoy it a little bit.

Pavia Rosati: There is something nice about things just getting to be really quiet. I mean, if we want to turn this to travel for one second, um, always Well, you know, there is no activity in Venice, and within a few weeks there were swans in the Grand Canal and you could see fish and locals were taking photographs of what was happening in Venice, and all you can think is that's really nice. It's really nice. I mean, the motor, you know, the reason why they're swans in the Grand Canal is really tragic, but But this is a pretty nice result. And I'm sure there were always swans in the grand canals of Venice. And wouldn't it be nice if this is a lesson that we could learn when we go back to being able to travel again?

Jessica Drucker:I do wonder about the younger generation kids who are, you know, in school, smart enough, old enough to be experiencing this. But, you know, young enough, to, you know, have the hope that something could change as a result. I mean, I certainly think that you know, anyone passes there in ages. Just gonna want to get back to it. But I do wonder how this will affect kids experiencing this from home.

Pavia Rosati: There have been so many parallels too well. Remember what happened after 9 11? Remember what happened after the recession of 2007 and how we bounced back? And how does this situation compared to that one and so unprecedented is a big word that we use the historic parallel that I keep and The other parallel that people keep talking about medically is the Spanish flu of 1918. The parallel that nobody's talking about, that it would really love a smart historian to start talking about is the Great Depression, which lasted an incredibly long time, hit almost everybody. But the thing that I keep thinking about is there's a generation of people who grew up during the Great Depression and the values that they learned thrift and not wanting to be wasteful and knowing the value of money that stayed with them for a lifetime. Right? Like these air, the nuns who taught me in grammar school when I was growing up very much grew up with this mentality. Similarly, in England, those who survived the blitz and had ration cards like these are not people who will waste a cup of sugar because these are people who remember when they could only get a cup of sugar per week. And so I wonder whether I keep thinking about what the lingering side effects will be. Um, psychologically on the people who have had to go through this. Will we be afraid to hug each other? Will be, be afraid to shake hands again. This, of course, will depend on how long this lasts, right, because if we're all back to normal within a couple of months, then that's fine. But if it takes us a couple of years to really bounce back from this, um, I don't know, this is again. This is something that I would really love to read. A smart person, right? A long essay on

Jessica Drucker:I definitely agree with you. I think that it's you know there's there's so many factors, but it's the cycle graphics right of this event and help consumer behavior is going to change and how much you know how much remains unknown to, because I think a lot of the the issue right now is that we just don't know, correct. And so that's also leading the way. Like if we know all the answers, I'll be less nervous to go to a restaurant when I have a vaccine or before I have a vaccine. But if it still remains that I don't know, and this could happen every year and it's, you know, like the flu in that way that it comes around every year will Damn. I mean, now I am going to be scared to do, you know, a lot more than I would if we just had some answers, and I think that's part of it.

Pavia Rosati: And we're looking for answers, and I just think it's too soon to expect that we can have any.

Jessica Drucker: Right? No, totally. Hey, let's go all the way back, though, because one thing I can't get to do with you that I would like to do is I want to brag about you a little bit because you are the founder and CEO of a travel magazine called Fathom. You sure have a long, wonderful history. Um, and I am a little bit of a fangirl about this, but I I have read that you spent nine years as the executive editor at Daily Candy.

Pavia Rosati: I did. I did. That was such a nice time in my life. It was such a good thing to be a part of. I'm so proud of the work that we did at daily candy. For those who don't know who are listening to this, daily Candy was pretty much the first of its kind daily email newsletter To tell you one cool thing about your city. It started a New York City in 2000. I joined the company in 2001. I was the first editor they ever hired. Um, it was a small operation that became huge. I mean, without daily candy, there would be no group with. There would be no refinery. There would be no Thrillist boots. Excuse me? Daily Candy really created the model for what became the email newsletter business. It was a fantastic thing to be a part of. And the people who were part of that team, um, are still super close. Today we all had is the old gang. We had a zoom call a couple of weeks ago, and I wasn't in a sorority in school, so I never had that feeling. But, um, the good things about a sorority, the sort of lifelong friendship I feel I have that with daily candy.

Jessica Drucker: That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I ate that up like candy every day. That was just like at the right time for me, in the way that I needed to consume content at the right time. So that was like a really big part of my life, my travel planning.

Pavia Rosati: It's always so glad to hear that it continues to remain in people's heads and hearts because daily candy, um, stopped publishing Ah, in 2014. So it's six years later, and people still, um, get a little paying when they say, Oh, daily candy. And it's always with that tone of voice, which is really very sweet. I also should say that, um that my business partner, Geralyn Gerba, um, at daily Kenny She was part of the original editorial team there and, um, fairy foundational to my life in so many ways.

Jessica Drucker: Yeah, I saw that. I mean, I can't help but put the timeline together to Daily Candy, stopped publishing in 2014 and I believe that senior that Fathom

Pavia Rosati: No, no no Fathom launched, so we started working on it. What? We were thinking about it for a couple of years, but I'm really not a business person. And I really, you know, don't have any interest in running a business. If I could have done anything at the time, I think I would have shut down things that I thought were bad. Okay, But, um, you know this idea for a travel website that did what I wanted it to do? I was like, Well, you know, the Internet does everything for me and makes everything easier. It makes it easy for me to buy books. It makes it easy for me to read. I read, write Wuthering Heights on a BlackBerry. I mean, that's ridiculous on, I said, But I realized the only thing the Internet doesn't really do well for me is help me plan my travel. The Internet is amazing at helping me figure out the cheapest plane ticket from London to be route, But what it's not very good at doing is telling me once here in Lebanon, should you go to Syria or should you go to Jordan. This, by the way, is a true case story. And so this is what you know. That trip to Lebanon was one of the things that got me thinking about. OK, well, if I could build a travel website for me in the way that I like to travel, what would it look like? And so I started noodling on this when it came time to, you know, I still have the notebooks that I filled in my backyard in the Hamptons over the summer on when it came time to finally tell someone Geralyn was the first person who I told, and for months we would kind of meat before were we did early wire frames with an old friend of mine from a, well, my life before daily candy. Um, and we kept talking about it and talking about it. And then at a certain point, I was just like, all right, I have to quit this job I was coming up on, you know, my nine year anniversary of daily candy and I said, It's absolutely time for me to go. And so, um, I left and then Geralyn quit. A few months later, we incorporated the company in September of 2010 and did, uh, did it small beta launch in April. Um, Geralyn was in Germany. I was in London and our developer was in Poland. And then we actually launched and got her first press hit. Um, at the end of in in August 2011. So we've been around a long time.

Jessica Drucker: You have had Fathom for 9 years, I guess. 9 10 years, which is actually better than you were at daily candy. So you Wow, I didn't realize that that is a long time.

Pavia Rosati: Yes, I you know, I'm that rare bird who's worked on the internet for a long time, but keeps jobs.

Jessica Drucker: Yeah, yes, but this is your job. You created this, you know, a debt from from start to finish. And so what? What is sort of like the guiding principle of Fathom and what makes Fathom different as a travel publication?

Pavia Rosati: Well, listen, there's only so much There's only so much originality that an editorial travel website can have, right? Like you. Yes. People go to a travel whip, so I'm not gonna pretend that I invented anything great here, Right? There are a ton of similarities between Fathom and the New York Times Travel Section and Travel and Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler. And um, don't you like? I compare myself to all these really nice August places. Well, but you know, what we wanted to make sure that we did that we would be brought to the project was a sense of credibility and trust. And those are three brands that I can name that you absolutely trust that you absolutely believe, um, won't guide you a stray. And so trust in the product was one of the most important things that we built this on, right, because yeah, let's go back in time. It's not as though the Internet wasn't full of travel websites, but they tended to fall into a couple of categories. There were the hotels dot com in the trip. Advisers that listed everything but ah list of you know, 18,000 restaurants in New York City isn't really helpful if you're trying to figure out where to go to dinner tonight on the other end. There were all of these blog's and they were super personal and they were great stories, but it was also like, Okay, who are you and why should I trust you? And then how do I know that your sensibility is the same as mine? And so what we wanted to do. But there's something great about blog's because their personal and their exploratory and they cover the whole world. And they are quirky. And so we wanted to bring a combination of something that had riel, journalistic rigor and credibility, and then combined that with the personal, um, voice and feeling that people liked in blog's. So that's what we set out to dio.

Jessica Drucker: Um, And so and you decided to start a travel magazine because you thought that would sell well or because, you know, lifelong traveler? No. I mean, listen, I set up that question for a reaction. Yeah,

Pavia Rosati You totally set out that question. I mean, anybody who goes into a media business right now, like if I was, if I was doing this for any sort of business reasons, I would have tried to figure out Ad Tech. That's the only thing that's making money anymore. Um, no. Why did I do this? Because, um, you know, it was a pigheaded case of If you want something done right, do it yourself. I knew that one day I'd want to go to Tokyo. Tokyo would be a really intimidating place to try to figure out so that all right, let me build the website that I want. When I finally do go to Tokyo.

Jessica Drucker: Do you think that you would make travel decisions now based on like what they're Cove in 19 history is like, Would you would that player

Pavia Rosati Right? Absolutely. I think there's no way that you can make that decision without doing so. So the travel conference, the African travel conference that was scheduled in May, has been postponed to October. And when I got the and this was a couple of weeks ago and it could just be that people don't want to be counseling things, so where postponing because it's easier to postpone. Then cancel. Um, and I said to my husband, Is that Oh, great. So I can go to Africa in October and he said, You're crazy. You're not going to Africa in October and they're not gonna have this conference in October. It's going to be too soon to tell until I mean the challenge with what life is going to be like after this is trying to make sense of what the's standards of safety are going to be, because until we have some sense of what safety standards are going to be, we're not going to feel safe. And maybe this is one of the reasons why Italy is one of the places that I want to go, because for me it's a very safe place to travel. I'm staying with family. I speak the language. God forbid something goes wrong. I feel like I can navigate the system in Italy in a way that I wouldn't feel comfortable going doing in Japan or in chili or in a place where I don't have extensive family, friends and contacts and speak the language as well as I dio.

Jessica Drucker: That's interesting. I do wonder if that will, because I know that you've said this before and I definitely see this as a trend that, um, that people will get much more local or regional in their travel habits shortly in the in the near in medium term. And I love to hear your your thoughts if if you have them on that, but but to the safety of family or friends, you might be more likely to like go to Seattle. But just because you have friends there and you might make your travel dishes and decisions based on that,

Pavia Rosati Well, I think that's right. I mean, my health care will follow me in the United States. I think one of the reasons why I have said, And I do think that local travel will bounce back faster. And by the way experts are saying this also, it's not just me. Um, one of the reasons why is you don't have to get on a plane, and there's something that is a little bit scary about a plane, because that's how this, um, virus spread in the first place was with people on getting on planes and so you can control the environment when you're travelling locally in a way that you can't when you're traveling globally, you can get in your car, feel a sense of safety and drive someplace close by that you've never explored before. Or maybe that you know, and feel comfortable in, and that there are very there fewer variables.

Jessica Drucker: What do you think about the road trip? Do you think that will become popular?

Pavia Rosati: I totally do. I think the road trip is going to become a really popular trip. I mean, it always has been. I think there's something about we started saying earlier. Everybody's rediscovered the joy of family dinner. I mean, if you're lucky enough to like your family, let's be clear about this. I feel bad for all the people who are realizing that they don't like the people who they live with, the people who are stuck in bad marriages and who I mean, we're definitely talking about the people who are lucky enough to have good relationships with the people who they live with. But if we are reconnecting with the mindset of simpler pleasures, there's something nostalgic and very sweet about the idea of hitting the open road. It implies a certain type of freedom. It implies a certain carefree, um, attitude that I think people will be really happy to connect with.

Jessica Drucker: Yeah, I think so, too. And I also think that if you do like the people that you're with in your in your quarantine, I think there's also something where it's good to know who you're with and what they're sort of level of, how conservative they are with the virus as well. Like, I mean, I don't know if I really want to hop on a on a road trip with someone who was kind of cavalier for a few months. Are like, you know, might might pick it up in the second wave by hanging out. Like, I think I'll probably pay a lot of attention to how conservative and careful people are as well. I think that will be part of my sort of consumer behavior,

Pavia Rosati For sure, right, because one of the really dangerous things that has happened in this is other people have become, um, points of danger. And that happened really fast. Um, and that's terrifying. I mean, that leads to xenophobia. That leads to, um, I mean, the rise of anti Asian slurs and in in the U. S. Has been horrible in China. Um, the Western journalists, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times they've all been kicked out listening to a podcast the other day, the New York Times correspondent um, break, before he was kicked out, went to report a story and he was in a restaurant and a Chinese man came up to him and basically was like whites calm get out. You brought the disease to us. My friends in Myanmar tell me that in Myanmar this is referred to as the white disease. Really? This is incredibly dangerous. Yeah.

Jessica Drucker: Oh, I did not know that mean. Of course. Of course. It's not all just one directional. I I should have thought about that, but wow. So I didn't even think about that. So if you decide to go to Vietnam or Thailand or my guest Myanmar, you could actually b you could actually have that reverse xenophobia on you. Yeah, I'm not expected. Interesting.

Pavia Rosati: Totally. No, I had some business that I had to do, My my family is in Trenton and I had to do some business and, um, I called and I said, Listen, folks, I can't be there for this. Um and they said, No offense, but you're in New York. We don't even want you here. And she laughed, but it was like, OK, you know me. I'm your friend. And it was very I I was seen as a person of concern and a person of danger. So this is somebody who knows me. This is someone who likes me to someone who was doing business with me. Now let's expand and let's let's look out from that and imagine getting onto a plane and you don't know who's who and where they're from and what they've done. And if they've been taking care of themselves and if they've been tested and if they haven't been tested, I mean, are we gonna end up with a different sort of passport? Where if it turns out that we are that once you've had cove it, you've developed and immunity to this, will this be the sort of thing where were issued, like green passports for safety? And we have a different sort of health clearance because we have a different sort of health clearance, right? I mean, there's some. So

Jessica Drucker: I was thinking about that with your with your conference toe. Africa, actually, because, you know, Africa closed down, you know, very, very much to the West, Sort of. I don't know if it was quickly, but I know it was very swift, like strongly the way that they did it on, and I just wonder, like if you as a as a you know, let's say an American, for example, are going Teoh a country in Africa for a conference. Will you even be allowed to get anywhere near? They're without temperature checks, having the right thing in your passport, proving that you've had, like, a vaccine. I mean, there could be so and because the U. S really, I mean, not to get political, but I think we see that we're having a hard time handling it because we didn't act in the in the way that say, like, Germany has been able to handle it or Sweden and we might actually find prejudice just based on our passport going into another country.

Pavia Rosati: We absolutely will find prejudice when we're going into and, you know, to a certain extent you can understand that in the absence of real clear answers, because we're still at the point in the pandemic that we don't have them, these absolutist policies are potentially dangerous, and on the other hand, they could be prudent, Right? So you know when the mayor closes the schools on Sunday night because there's a bad snowstorm that's coming on Monday and then when the bad snowstorm, when the nine inches turns out to be one inch and people say why do you keep the kids home from school well, better to have kept the better to have planned ahead for something you didn't need to dio then tohave a bunch of kids trying to figure out how to get home from school if it did turn out to be the blizzard that it was meant to be, right? I mean, it's somewhat of, ah, trite parallel, but it's better to over prepare and not need the precautions than two caught you then to be caught unawares, which is with your pants down, which is very much what happened to the U. S. We were caught with our pants down, and we're paying the consequences.

Jessica Drucker: Yeah, I'd be really interested to know you know how you'll how you'll look at travel or the itinerary planning that you do. Sort of medium term. I probably now it's really about dreams and hopes and armchair travel and stuff like that. We're

Pavia Rosati: Really trying to emphasize yes, escapism and that angle, because that's what people want. I mean, people very much are, um, asking us for and responding to content that has a sense of escapism. Wanderlust. Um, I don't love that word, but I've been using it a whole lot. I definitely hate the word bucket list and I've been using and I've been thinking about that. The whole lot also, um, you know, one of the things that we've been thinking about a lot more is safety. When it comes to travel, how can you ensure when you are traveling that you are safe? So my husband is very good about this. He always the night before you leave for a business trip, he will say okay about your travel insurance for you. And I'm like, Oh, you're so sweet. And it's just not something that I think about, which is incredibly reckless of me because I have woken up in the middle of the night in 1/3 World country in the hospital because I was in a terrible car accident. So I'm somebody who's had, you know? I mean, I lived, um, but I'm somebody who's lived through things who should have, um, airtight medical travel insurance. Andi, just don't think about it, But I wonder now. Then. I suspect now that in addition to planning for your trip, where am I going to dinner? Where am I staying? What do I have to see. I wonder if part of that kid is going to be all right. Do we make sure that I have enough of the medical supplies that I need? If I do have a condition, where is a doctor close by, like Do I have the safety precautions in place? Do I know what my medical insurance will cover in, um, the Dominican Republic or wherever you happen to be right? And so I think I think there's probably a way you wouldn't get on a when you talk about things like this. So he's like, Oh, that's the Bumbry side of travel. Anyone I think about that, tell me where I can find a good selfie. That's what a lot of dreamy trouble content tends to be, but in the same way that you wouldn't go to the airport if you didn't have a passport. And if you didn't have your visa lined up for the country that you're going to, these are certain precautions that we have to take before we go somewhere. Maybe we just add travel to the checklist like, Is it any less irresponsible to make sure that you have the hearings that you want were with that dress, Then, to make sure that you have the, um, medication you need if you have an upset stomach.

Jessica Drucker: Yeah, I know. And that's right. I mean, you usually travel. Insurance is kind of up cell at the end, and you're like, $30. I'm not getting that. I don't need it. And then you just click through to the thing that you're actually purchasing, but maybe it will be part of a package. Taking a little bit more seriously is your is the travel insurance side.

Pavia Rosati: I mean, there there is. I, uh, assigned, um, Fathom Editor Daniel Schwartz a story on this A couple of years ago, I said, you need to figure out travel insurance, and he's like that. It's so boring. I was like, do it. And he wrote this fantastic 411 about travel insurance. And you know what? The answer was simple. You buy an annual policy, it costs so little. Think about what a plane ticket cost isn't even what? 1/10 of a plane ticket costs and it covers you for the whole year. And they don't have to think about it. So you don't need the up sell at the end for what you get as an up sell at the end of buying a plane ticket on Delta. Um, you should just buy an annual policy and not even think about it. You have renter's insurance, you have homeowners insurance. You have car insurance. If your travel, you should have travel insurance done. I think one of the things were just gonna be aware of if we can take a macro look for one second is, um, safety, what it's going to mean to be safe when you travel. And this also raises another really important issue that will have a major impact on how we travel in the future is what are the new standards of safety going to bay? Because after not because after 9 11 getting on a plane changed forever. But we know that you have to take your shoes off and that you can't have any liquids over three ounces. This is the universal standard. Anywhere you go, right. So you know that if you get on a plane, these are the These are the drills you have to go through. We don't know what the safety precautions are going to be for the future, and some people are talking about Well, you know, Delta, for instance, has said that they won't sell any middle seats through the end of June. I mean, hallelujah. But, um, will that carry on as a policy? Um, someone on ah weekly call that I do with colleagues. Someone was saying, Yeah, I know there's some talk that restaurants, um should start serving plates at the table, much more room service style. So with a close over the dish. So you're getting covered dishes. Maybe servers were will wear masks. And one of the comments was, Listen, my clients who have restaurants, they don't want to do that of a server coming to your table with a mask. That's not Ah, hospitality. And that's a really valid case. But maybe our standards will have to change. And all of this is the stuff that's unknowable, because who is going to be setting these policies, right? So a couple of weeks ago, Governor Cuomo in New York said, All right, we said you didn't And and the CDC also said, Okay, we said you didn't have to wear masks, and you should leave them for the medical staff. Everybody should be wearing masks. So on that day, I started going out with the homemade mask that I found on the online little map of how to make him ask, um, that have been going out with that. And it took me a day to realize and to not try to judge the people who I saw on Seventh Avenue who didn't have masks on Okay three days prior. That was me without a mask,

Jessica Drucker: Right? Exactly. That's how fast it changes. And I think a lot of people take that for granted. But if you are in line to get onto a plane and a man tells you to take off your belt, you just do it now. But that would have been insane behavior before September 11 so we have no idea how our behavior is going to adapt and just out quickly.

Pavia Rosati: We have no idea is right, and then the other concern is who you know. It's unclear who's going to be setting the standards. Also, let's say that the U. S. Standard is that tables and restaurants are seated, you know, every other table, and there's a lot of space between tables. That's great. So this is what I'm used to because I live in New York and I went down to Charleston or I went out to L. A. And these are the standards there. But then I go to Boga Top, and the tables are all seated really closely together. I'm gonna have a hard time walking into that restaurant because I've suddenly gotten used to a certain standard of safety that maybe arbitrary. But that has become what my standard is, and so that will add a different level of well that will add a layer of discomfort to travel. If one country operates one way another country operates a different way right, and there is no consistency to what will make us feel safe.

Jessica Drucker: Yeah, that's that's very interesting, because normally it's kind of like I picture myself a little bit about like an arrogant, cocky traveler in my youth, and I'd be like, Come on, guys. But it's, you know, it's Columbia. This is how they do it, just get on board. But you, you know, you're you're probably not going to think that way anymore, because we kind of all went through this collectively at the same time. So there's some feeling of, like, responsibility, like, Well, we should all be implementing this because we've all been through this at the same exact time in his three right, and if they're not doing it, it's like you're looking down on them. It's not like a cultural difference as much as it is like a like a macro global ah, implementation.

Pavia Rosati: If we can't figure this out within our own country, how are we going to come up with cross national global policies that make everybody feel comfortable and safe?

Jessica Drucker: Yeah, that's crazy. It's It's really something I think about, and I know there's no answers. We can't know anything. We're totally just pontificating. But it'll be really interesting to listen back to conversations like this in a year or two years and kind of know the answers to these questions and think like, how are we right? And, you know, what do we predict? Or what could we have never seen coming? Because, you know, it's you know, we can't we'll be right about some things and all the things that we never expected that come out of this crisis,

Pavia Rosati: Correct. Yeah, very well said, Can I close on a hopeful note? You may. I want to Just first of all, thank you for asking me to come on and talk and for being, um And for wanting to know what I think about this. Um, we will ultimately get back out into the world. I have no doubt about that. I have total faith in this, Um, if we do it in a more responsible way, if we do it with more care and with more thought. If we do it with consideration for the people who make it possible for us to travel, um, by cleaning the hotel rooms by making the food by servicing the planes, maybe we can even end up better, more conscientious travelers. If governments can take a look at how much nicer the world is when things aren't overcrowded and then we can travel and more thoughtful and respectful ways. Then we'll make traveling a lot nicer for everybody.

Jessica Drucker: Yeah, I really I really hope that too. You know, we didn't even touch on over tourism, but I really hope that's another great result of this. I'm going to take you at that and stay hopeful. Where can people find you? And how can people find Fathom?

Pavia Rosati: So Fathom is the website is Fathom away dot com F A T H O M A W A Y. We have a book called Travel Anywhere and Avoid Being a Tourist that Jeralyn and I wrote. It's this really fantastic inspirational guide to the world. There's a chapter for going off grid. There's a chapter for food travel. There's a chapter for volunteer travel. There's a chapter for nature travel, and we are on instagram at Fathom Way to Go. I am on instagram incredibly sporadically @pavianyc P A V I A N Y C. 

Jessica Drucker: And you also have a fantastic podcast. Don't forget about that.

Pavia Rosati: We do have a terrific podcast called away to go that you can wherever you listen to your podcasts. It was a pleasure to chat with you.

Jessica Drucker: Thank you. It was great to talk to you to have a lovely rest of your day.

Pavia Rosati: Thank you so much, Jessica

*All transcriptions are autogenerated via Buzzsprout’s AI transcription service. Please excuse any errors.