Unwrapped travel

Regular Travelfish.org readers will be aware that we have a particular travel insurance provider that we recommend. That provider is World Nomads. We promote them because while they’re not the cheapest provider, we think that they’re the best match for independent travellers to the region.

And yes, we promote them on an affiliate basis (meaning we may earn a commission if you click across to their site from a link on Travelfish.org). They’re the only travel insurance provider that we work with in this fashion.

I’ve met the people who started World Nomads and they have always struck me as stand-up kind of people — the type of people that I trust. When it come to insurance, trust is important.

Now just like anyone else, they’re running a business, not a charity (though they do support many) and I assume they don’t pay out every claim, but likewise I assume they do pay out a lot. I’ve seen them personally intervene in cases that have somehow gone off the rails. That’s important. Nobody is perfect. If you make a mistake, you admit it and try to fix it as best as you can.

We do put our money where our mouth is. Both Samantha and myself use them without fail whenever we travel outside of Indonesia (we have separate coverage for within Indonesia from a different expat provider). As luck would have it, we’ve never had to make a claim.

We use World Nomads because we trust that the people behind it will do their upmost to assist us if we need it. It’s one thing to promote something because it sounds ok, it’s quite another to promote something because you use it for yourself and your children.

Where am I going with all this? Bear with me while I ramble on web-nerd-stuff.

One of the factors Google uses to ranks sites is to count up the number of natural links that point to a site. Afterall a link is generally a “vote” on the quality of the linked to site. This created an entire industry of link buying and link selling. Sites would buy hundreds or thousands of links in an effort to game Google. Crucially, these links do not adhere to Google’s guidelines (code can be added to tell Google to ignore a link). They want Google and, by default, the reader, to think it is a natural link. They’re hoping that Google won’t realise the links are paid for and so will push the destination site up in the search engine rankings.

Originally these links would be off on the sidebar or in the page footer. But Google cottoned on to that, so then the link buyers asked to have the links closer to the main text (“This story is sponsored by” kinda thing). But Google is cottoning onto that too. So then the link buyers started asking for the links to be in the actual content (write whatever you want, just add a link to X somewhere in the copy).

For publishers, especially small scale publishers, the earning potential can be substantial. I personally know people who charge US$300 to $500 for a single link. When you have 100 pages on your site, the money adds up quick.

But there’s a cost to this practise. Trust. Publishers who sell links are lying to Google and so to their readers. They’re saying this link is a natural link when it isn’t. They’re essentially the vital cog in a black-hat SEO tactic designed to game Google. They’re helping a website to appear higher in Google than it should.

Obviously each site owner is entitled to make their money however they want, but Travelfish.org does not engage in this practise and we try whenever possible not to link to sites that do.

So what on earth does this have to do with travel insurance?

Travel insurance companies are one of the biggest link buyers out there.

How can you trust a business that actively uses misleading SEO tactics to try and boost their ranking in Google?

World Nomads does not buy links.

We are regularly approached by travel insurance companies offering paid link deals. We ignore the emails.

So, what they do instead is they set up fake profiles and post messages on our messageboard with leading questions like “Has anyone heard of X insurance?”

So the insurance provider having found we won’t sell them a link are now posting fake messages on our messageboard to try and drum up business and create more “natural links”.

I find this rather annoying, hence this post.

So next time you see a link reading “This story was sponsored by X Insurance” remind yourself that if they’re lying to you before you even click on the link, how do you think they’ll treat your claim?

You can learn more about our recommended travel insurer World Nomads here. Yes, that is an affiliate link.

We pay all our writers by international bank transfer and have done for years. Nearly all the time it works fine. We’ve very infrequently had problems wiring to accounts in the US, but generally speaking we’re able to pay a bunch of people, month in month out, without problem.

Place money in waterproof bag, attach to pigeon, tell to fly to London.

All the payments are done through the Westpac ebanking platform meaning there are no painful trips to the bank required, and over the years it has proved to be a convenient and reasonably affordable means of paying people.

Until now.

While the following was kicked off by a mistake by us, the ongoing problems clearly indicate some issues that Westpac could better handle.

Back on 18 August (yes, over a month ago) we sent a wire to the UK account of one of our writers for an amount just shy of A$2,000. Their invoice listed all the details we normally use for transfers to the UK (account name, account number, SWIFT code and intermediary bank details). We had made a previous payment to this account without problem.

On the invoice, the account number was listed as (xxxx) xxxxxxxxx. When we tried to enter this into the ebanking, the system choked on the brackets, so, in our error, we tried it without the bracketed section. The details were accepted and a receipt number was issued. Bingo.

The problem of course was that the bracketed section was vital (it is the branch indicator) and so without that number, HSBC (the intermediary bank) would be unable to determine which branch to send the money to. We discovered this weeks later, when we realised that with the first transfer, we just removed the brackets rather than the bracket and number.

Anyway. At this stage we didn’t know anything was wrong, but just to be clear we are aware this entire shebang was kicked off by our error.

A week later, on August 24, we received a message from the writer, politely enquiring after the funds.

We then called Westpac who advised the branch identifier was missing, so we then filed, by email, a payment adjustment request. According to Westpac, this request would be forwarded to HSBC who would connect the dots and forward on the money.

On 30 August we received another message from the writer, noting that the money had not been received.

So on 30 August we contacted Westpac again, only to be told that they had “overlooked” forwarding the details to HSBC. So, they would do so immediately and confirm this action by email. We never received an email from them.

On 31 August, we called Westpac again to ask after the email and to check the instructions had been forwarded to HSBC. Instead we were told that the funds had been returned from the UK and had been retransmitted by Westpac (without notification to us) with the full correct details. This apparently took place without the money hitting our account at all. We were also advised that this action would be confirmed to us by email. We never received an email from them.

On 6 September we received yet another message from the writer, noting that the money had not been received.

On 6 September we checked with Westpac and were told the funds were re-transmitted on 31 August for effect 1 September. Westpac agreed to contact their “investigation branch” and have a trace sent to recipient bank. During this call, the consultant noted that “IBAN should be used in UK transfers, but that transfers would work without one, just easier for the recipient bank”. We then advised that we had an IBAN, but they neither requested that nor any extra information. As with the other calls, the consultant then advised the above would be confirmed by email. No email was received.

On 9 September we received yet another message from the writer, noting that the money had not been received.

On 9 September we checked with Westpac and were advised all Westpac can do is wait for response from UK bank.

On 13 September we received yet another message from the writer, noting that the money had not been received.

On 13 September we contacted Westpac again, and were advised that the UK bank had responded, saying “we are investigating and will revert”.

On 16 September we received yet another message from the writer, noting that the money had not been received.

On 16 September we contacted Westpac, they advised they would forward another trace and at our request copy an email to us — this email actually was received. We also instructed Westpac that if funds are returned from the UK bank, the funds to be returned to our account and we are to be advised. Absolutely do not re-transmit to UK.

On 17 September we received yet another message from the writer, noting that the money had not been received.

Separately to this, on 16 September, we sent a new wire for the same amount and the writer received it within 12 hours — so they have been paid, but Westpac and HSBC, given it has been a month, we’d really like that $2000 that you’re collectively sitting on, back please.

Update
On 20 September, we called Westpac again and were told they wait five days before chasing HSBC.

On 21 September, still no money back from Westpac.

Last week we headed across to Kuta Beach on southern Lombok for a holiday. While it wasn’t exactly a work trip, as we plan to cover Lombok anyway I thought I’d try a bit of an experiment and do some research solely on my iPhone4. The result? I’ll never buy a sheet of grid paper for mapping again!

One note before I get started: I realise not everyone is quite the Apple fan-boy I’ve developed into, but in many cases there are Android equivalents to what I’m going to cover here.

Mapping: Everytrail Pro
I love drawing maps — really — but as anyone who has tried to draw a map from scratch knows, it can be a trying process. Roads don’t line up, alleys disappear, and don’t get me started on towns with hills and valleys. Once you’ve got it down on paper, you then need to mark the points of interest — now was that guesthouse on the left or the right? The taxi rank on the northwest or southwest corner? Oh God, it’s 40 degrees outside — do I really have to walk down and check? You know the drill.

One app makes this all go away. Everytrail Pro records a GPS track as you go — it’s incredibly accurate — and you can punch in points of interest (waypoints) as you go. This then records the longitude and latitude for each place. Once you’ve finished walking out the map (or doing it by motorbike or car for bigger towns) you can then upload the data to your free Everytrail account, from where you can then download it in a variety of formats — I take it by GPX for transfer into OpenStreetMaps, which is the platform we’re slowly migrating to with Travelfish.

Even if you’re not after the road layout, Everytrail can still be used to punch in data points as you go, so you can then supply them to your publisher with longitude and latitude points — something that I’m happy to wager is going to increasingly become a requirement.
EveryTrail Pro in iTunes (US$3.99)

Waypoints
If all the mapping is overkill, but you still need longitude and latitude, Waypoints is an excellent app for telling you exactly where you are. It works better if you stand outside, so get a reading before you walk into the club. I’ve generally been able to get a reading within five-metre accuracy. It does give elevation readings as well, but I’ve found them to be a bit more mysterious.
Waypoints in iTunes (US$2.99)

WiFi Finder
WiFi Finder is a crowd-sourced application that lets you find WiFi (free and paid) sources that are nearby. I’ve found it to be pretty useful, though 3G coverage here in Bali isn’t too bad so I find myself needing WiFi less than if I was in one of those developing cities like Sydney, Australia where free WiFi is about as easy to find as a reasonably priced latte. The great thing about it is you can download the database so that it works offline, meaning you don’t have to HAVE WiFi to FIND WiFi! Duh! This is useful not just for your personal use, but if your brief includes listing places that offer WiFi.
WiFi Finder in iTunes (Free)

Gowalla and FourSquare
As Facebook Places isn’t active yet in Indonesia I couldn’t give that a run, but I tried both of these apps and definitely prefer Gowalla — Foursquare feels way too much like a pissing contest for my liking. Tripadvisor also has a similar app. Whichever one you choose, these can be very useful in discovery. Turn it on, allow it to use your location and see what pops up nearby. On Gowalla you can click on a particular place that’s nearby and it will tell you how many people have checked in there. This could be a sign of a popular place worth checking out.

A note on both of these apps: the information, especially the location, can be off. For instance, Foursquare lists Frangipani in Bali (a bar a 30-minute drive away) to be at the end of my street — so don’t use either of these as a definitive source. There’s no substitute for going there yourself.

Secondly, while these were both useful, personally, I’d prefer talking to people and you’re certainly tying yourself to an “electronic niche” in relying on these too much.
Gowalla in iTunes (Free)
Foursquare in iTunes (Free)

Twitter
If you’re not on Twitter already, get on it. Set up a hashtag following destinations you’re going to be writing up and save them as a search. Be specific, but not too specific. So, #bali is a better fit than #indonesia. Then keep an eye on the stream and see what people are tweeting about: it could be a new bar opening, a hotel with crappy service or a beach you’ve never heard of. Twitter can be a great discovery tool — but it can also be a major time sink, so be disciplined!
Twitter in iTunes (Free)

More discovery
There are a slew of other location-based travel apps of interest, but one that really stands out from a discovery point of view for finding hotels is HotelsCombined’s iFindHotels. You just turn it on, let it detect your location and then it shows you all the hotels it has in its system nearby. Then you can click on the ones you’re interested in to see if they fit the profile for the properties you’re looking to review. A few other apps have similar functionality.
iFindHotels in iTunes (Free)

Instapaper Pro
This lets you clip interesting online stories (could be magazine or news stories, travel write-ups, blog entries and so on) and save them to your iPhone for reading later. You can also sync it with your desktop. It is a very good app and I’d recommend it to anyone who reads a lot online.
Instapaper Pro in iTunes (US$4.99)

PDF Reader
If you’ve grabbed some resources in PDF format (or any other kind of research material — train and ferry timetables spring to mind) then this is a great app for reading them easily.
PDF Reader in iTunes (US$0.99)

Photos
The camera is a built in part of the iPhone, but if you’re taking snaps of accommodation (if you’re not already being asked to do so, expect to be asked soon), consider turning on “Location Services” as that will stamp all your pics with longitude and latitude. The camera is also useful for all the other typical stuff: business cards, timetables, shots to jog your memory and so on. Obviously organise your photos into albums – they’ll be easier to keep track of and sync with your computer when back home.

Notes & Voice memos
Two more built-in (and so free) apps. My process was to review a property, snap photos, and then once outside jot all the details into “Notes”. I’d just start a new page for each listing. If you find the keyboard tricky to work with, then record a voice memo instead — either way you’ll have all your first impressions recorded immediately, when they’re freshest, which should result in better end-version write-ups.

Email & Skype
Email is built in and obviously helpful for receiving those emails from pesky editors. Skype is handy for calling them to tell them to leave you alone (use the above-mentioned WiFi Finder to find a free connection to call on).
Skype in iTunes (Free)

One app that is missing?
Evernote is the one overarching app that would be perfect to collect all this information into, but, as far as I can see, there is no way to export the information back out again, which makes it close to useless for our purposes.

Update:
Thanks to @hackneye and @bm_ for pointing out that Evernote actually does allow you to export the data (in a HTML format with the images in subdirectories etc, or in an XML format) so it could be a nice envelope to stuff with all the data you collect afterall!
Evernote in iTunes (Free)

In summary
With one iPhone you can record your notes (typed or voice-recorded), find WiFi, record longitude and latitude, look after pretty much all of your mapping needs, take photos to jog your memory for when you’re writing up 40 near-identical thatch bungalow operations, use location-based apps to stalk other travellers and see what they’re into, receive emails from annoying editors and yell back at them via Skype. Then there’s the browser (mobile Safari) which is handy for online research and checking the football scores.

Sure the iPhone isn’t a cheap phone, but, combined with even just some of the above apps, you’ll be amazed just how much time it can save you while you’re on the road. Publishers are forever demanding more work for the same coin and they’re increasingly going to be asking for data like longitude, latitude and accommodation photos. For once it needn’t be a headache.

Just don’t forget to back up!

Got any suggestions for other apps to ease a travel guide writer’s pain? Please share!

Oh and one more thing, if you’re in an app-buying mood, don’t forget to check out our travel guide apps for Southeast Asia!

If you’re running a travel blog and view it as a potential income source, stop calling it a travel blog and start calling it a travel website.

From the content director’s (sorry I just can’t use curator) point of view, the process doesn’t change one iota, but from the advertisers point of view the perception can change considerably.

Stop calling yourself a blogger. Start calling yourself a writer (or photographer, artist etc).

Stop running a blog. Start running a travel website.

About 3 days, 3 hours and 19 years ago I was outside Waterloo station in London at the end of a 12 hour drinking binge when I ran straight out onto the road and into the path of a woman driving home. She hit me square on my left leg and I was flung about 20 metres forward, landing in the middle of the road, smashing a handful of teeth out and knocking myself unconscious. I was bleeding from nose, ears and, well all over my face.

The driver was hysterical as she thought I was dead.

I know all this because my drinking partner, a Kiwi by the name of Chris, was on the other side of the road and pretty much saw the whole thing happen. The paramedics said the only reason I wasn’t killed was because I was as drunk as I was. I ruined Chris’ New Years. I ruined the driver’s New Years, and I most certainly ruined my mother’s New Year’s Day the next day when she called from Sydney and I told her what happened.

I should have stopped drinking then.

In the years before and since, I’ve been stabbed, shot at, robbed and almost maimed myself in more ways than I care to remember as a result of drinking and needless to say I’ve offended and hurt people close to me by things I’ve said and done (or not said and not done) while drinking.

I’m done.

I’m sad to say I’m stopping. Really. I enjoy drinking and I love getting drunk. Start with a martini or two, a few g&t chasers then on to a steady night of beer. But as people who know me know, drinking for me involves drinking till there’s none left. A dozen pints in Bangkok? no problem — I love to get drunk. Don’t bother making me a single, I’ll start with a triple please. There is quite simply nothing like it.

Many a morning, more and more commonly as the years have rolled on, the morning after the night before has seen me swear I’d not drink again, or at least not till that night. My health has suffered, and my kids have probably never seen me in a restaurant for lunch or dinner without alcohol in front of me.

It’s an easy decision to make when you can barely move for the aches and pain, which is why I decided to stop drinking a couple of weeks ago, when I was utterly sober and sensible.

So this New Year’s Eve, I had my last drinks, at a friend’s birthday party cum New Year’s bash.

I’m done.

I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life hammering my body with drugs and alcohol. Twenty years of drunkedness easy. The next twenty years are, for me, going to be twenty years of sobering up. It’ll take the best part of a decade to soak all the tequila, vodka and gin out of my system and at least another decade for the beer.

The decision to stop drinking is an easy one. The method of stopping is more of a challenge, but I’m just as determined to stop as I was once to get drunk.

Expect a lot more mocktail reviews of Travelfish

Making a customised version of your website, tailored specifically for mobile phones is a challenge. This morning I had the misfortune to come across one of the worst I’ve seen — and from people who certainly have the resources to be doing a far better job. Accor Hotels.

How to do it wrong

I wanted a simple bit of information — the telephone number for the Lombok Novotel — so I picked up my iPhone (as I planned to call them from it) and Googled “novotel lombok“.

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 1

Bingo! Pretty much just what I was looking for. So I clicked on the number 1 result for “Lombok Novotel“. The result however, wasn’t quite what I expected. After being redirected through a couple of domains, I ended up at an advert for an iPhone app.

Exhibit 2

Exhibit 2

The app sounds kind of interesting, but all I wanted was the phone number, so I opted for “No”… thinking I’d get the hotel page for the Novotel on Lombok. But no, instead I got a hotel promotion page for two hotels, one in Berlin and one in Prague.

Exhibit 3

Exhibit 3

As neither Berlin nor Prague are all that close to Lombok in Indonesia this was … unexpected. It seems that the app had totally forgotten what I arrived looking for and I was going to have to start from scratch. So I scrolled down a little and got the search prompt. Given it was a search, I just typed in Lombok.

Exhibit 4

Exhibit 4

Fool that I am, I didn’t notice the asterisk next to the “Check-in” field (afterall I didn’t want to check-in, I just wanted a phone number). Likewise I didn’t bother with the other fields. You know where this is going right?

Exhibit 5

Exhibit 5

Yup. I had to enter a date of arrival (even though I didn’t have one). So I did.

Exhibit 6

Exhibit 6

Fingers crossed!

Exhibit 7

Exhibit 7

Finally! This is the hotel whose number I’m looking for. Of course the telephone number isn’t displayed, so I risked a click on the hotel’s name.

Exhibit 8

Exhibit 8

Eureka!

So just seven screens from the initial Google page I was able to find the telephone number of the Novotel Hotel on Lombok, which, should you care to know, is (+62) 370 653 333.

To add to the misery, there doesn’t appear to be a way to override the Accor website’s mobile detection, so even though I really wanted to, there was no way for me to access the “traditional” website on my phone.

This is extremely poor usability to round out what was a thoroughly crappy user experience. Accor could and most definitely should be doing far better.

How to do it right

In comparison, if I clicked on the Google page on my laptop I was taken to this page.

Exhibit 9

Exhibit 9

And there you go, (a bit blurry I know) the phone number for the Novotel on Lombok. One Click! Fancy that! Google really does work wonders sometimes!

Regular Travelfish readers will be aware that we have, for a long time recommended the Australian-based World Nomads for travellers travel insurance needs. We think they’re a great company who are very focused on what independent travellers need.

That said, their rates have been inching up, and over on the Travelfish forum there has been a long-running Q&A session about travel insurance rates at World Nomads. In order to get some perspective from the World Nomads side of things I got in touch with Katrina Greeves who is the Product Marketing Manager there, and ran some questions by her about what was the reasoning behind these changes in price. My questions in bold.

Hi Stuart,

Thanks for the chance to answer some of these tricky questions posed the Travelfish community. We really appreciate the feedback – your community’s suggestions will help make our travel insurance better.

What has changed with how World Nomad’s organises its country brackets?
The price for travel insurance always changes depending on your country of residence and where you are going. We’ve recently made some changes just for residents of the UK and Ireland, which has affected the price of our policies if you’re going to S.E. Asia. For residents of the other 140+ countries we cover, our country brackets remain the same.

What brought about that change?
When lots of people from the UK and Ireland run into trouble in SE Asia and make a claim on their insurance, eventually, the pricing for everyone else is affected. Unfortunately, this is what has happened over the past 6 months with WorldNomads.com travel insurance, and that’s why S.E and Eastern Asia has been bundled into the same region as the USA, Canada, The Caribbean and Japan for the time being.

So, what you’re saying is, the rates are going up because a lot of Brits claim on their travel insurance – but isn’t that the whole point of having travel insurance?

Actually the main reason people should consider travel insurance is to provide help if they get sick or injured when travelling. Not everyone needs to make a claim, but the costs involved in helping those that do can be substantial. When you consider that it can cost up to $200 000+ for emergency medical expenses if you’re seriously injured, the cost you’ve paid for your insurance is probably the last thing on your mind.

Let’s be straight: In this case, our insurance underwriters for UK and Irish residents have been required to pay out claims in excess of premiums earned and so need to increase our pricing to cover those losses.

To explain, we work with multiple underwriters around the world who price risk (a.k.a travel insurance) differently. Our prices can change depending on a number of different factors:

a) the number of claims made from travellers in a particular region;

b) the amount that is paid out to help people when they get sick, injured or have their belongings stolen; and

c) the number of travellers going to a particular region, their age and how long they’re travelling.

Roughly what kind of increase in price for a traveller heading to SEA for three months does this equate to?
This is a tricky question to answer as there a lot of factors which change a travel insurance quote including: if you’ve bought a policy with World Nomads before, your country of residence, what adventure activities you’ll do and if you need extra cover for your laptop or other high value items. For a single, UK traveller, going to S.E Asia for 3 months and who’s not a World Nomads member, the base premium price increased by £32.65.

Other rates, especially for French travellers, seem unusually high – is this for the same reason?
The short answer is yes, over the past 12 months we’ve had to increase our prices for European residents.

Some people in the Travelfish community have noticed that our product for European residents is similar to other insurance providers. While we can not comment on why their prices are different, how they service their customers or pay their claims, we aim to provide the best value product, 24/7 travel assistance when things go wrong, and useful travel advice to keep our customers travelling safely.

World Nomads have a great brand, closely associated with backpackers and independent travel and they’re the first insurer many backpackers think of when they look for travel insurance. But the new rates make WorldNomads significantly more expensive than other insurance providers. What advice can you give to travellers who are trying to decide between WorldNomads and one of the other cheaper providers?

Yes, World Nomads travel insurance was built for independent and adventurous travellers. We don’t promise to be the cheapest, yet we’ll always add value where we can – like the flexibility to buy travel insurance and claim online (even while travelling), up-to-date travel safety advice, free language guides or offering travellers the chance to donate to community development projects through our Footprints program.

At WorldNomads.com, we’ll continue to choose insurers and emergency assistance partners that can support our customers globally, when they need it most. By all means, choose a travel insurance provider to suite your personal requirements. Whether it’s the price or the knowledge that you’re buying from a reputable company who’ll help you when things go wrong, just remember that insurance policies do differ and can change, and you should read the fine print to make sure you know what’s covered (and not). Our team is always ready to help answer your questions too – askus@worldnomads.com

Thanks Katrina for taking the time to answer the above.

They say that a picture says a thousand words so I won’t waffle on about the about chart (bigger version here), other than to say it represents the rather precipitous fall in daily hotel reservations through Travelfish via one of our affiliate partners.

This is all reservation enquiries, so doesn’t take into account cancellations — meaning the fall is actually considerably worse than what the above illustrates. I should also note the airport shutdowns instigated by the yellow shirts had an equally destructive effect on reservations — I just don’t have time right now to make two charts!

Given that matters are sizing up for another meltdown around October/November this year (ie just in time for the peak tourist season) it is difficult to understate just how damaging all this is to the Thai economy. While it is clear Thailand has very serious societal issues that do need to be addressed, crucifying the travel and tourism industries seems hardly to be the way forward.

Who would have thought six years ago (when we started Travelfish.org) that today Indonesia would be seeing relatively progressive economic development accompanied by encouraging signs on the tourism side of things, while Thailand would be actively working to reinvent itself into the region’s new basketcase.

So just a quick note that we’ve just released a version of the Travelfish website for mobile phones — or rather for the iPhone in particular (I’ve not been able to test it on Android yet). It is a mobile version of the entire site except for the forum and the member centre (which I’m still working on).

You can see the mobile Asia travel website here.

Just walking down the footpath can be a memorable experience in Southeast Asia — you could easily cross paths with an elephant, meander past a blind musicians or step aside to make way for a column of monks — yet one of the most memorable facets is the food. Clayton, Chad, and Lyndon, three Canadian chef-travellers, decided to record their experience as they cooked — and ate — their way across Southeast Asia. We did a short interview with the guys and have showcased some of their videos on the site — you can read the full interview with Chefs Without Borders here.