Skid Row To Appalachia: The Forgotten People Of Rural America - Peter Santenello - #1132

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
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What was your original inspiration? What drove you to do this?

**Peter Santenello** (0:37)
I was here in Austin. It's so cool because I lived here early 2000s, worked as a waiter at Fleming's Steakhouse, and I just had these dreams of traveling the world. Can't wait to see the world one day because I didn't travel growing up. Our family didn't go anywhere. I always wanted to go to Europe, and my goal was to save $20,000 in two years, go to Europe.
Seven months, get to Ducati in Italy, rip that thing through the Ops, send it home, have my life figured out.

**Chris Williamson** (1:06)
Bro, that's a fucking dream. That was a dream. That is an absolute dream.

**Peter Santenello** (1:09)
But then I went, I did a winter in Switzerland, snowboarding, doing every job imaginable, and then flew. I'm like, what's this place called the Republic of Georgia? I've never heard of that. I took a one-way, Republic of Georgia, landed, all the mafios got off the plane, which was the whole plane. The BMWs were waiting for them, sped off on the tarmac. It was me in the airport. It was so corrupt at that time, had to pay a bribe to get into the airport. Had to pay a bribe if I wanted to enter. He's like, $20. I said, before, he's like, you enter through me, $20.
When you're young and curious. How old are you? I was 26, 25 then, 25, 26
So when you're young and curious and adventurous, there's nothing better.

**Chris Williamson** (1:58)
Dangerous combination. There's nothing better. Dangerous combination, dude.

**Peter Santenello** (2:01)
So Georgia was like the gateway drug. That would be like-

**Chris Williamson** (2:05)
Where is Georgia?

**Peter Santenello** (2:06)
The Republic of Georgia. So you're south of Russia, Caucasus Mountains, on the Black Sea, Armenia right below Azerbaijan, Sorda near Turkey, borders Turkey actually.

**Chris Williamson** (2:20)
Okay.

**Peter Santenello** (2:20)
So like on the east side, let's say, where Bulgaria is over here on the western side of Turkey, east side. Okay.
But that was the gateway. Then you're like, where can I go from here? You look on a map and you're like, huh, Tajikistan, what's that like? So instead of going back in seven months with the Ducati, I scrapped the Ducati idea. I'm like, I can always save money, but I'll never be able to travel like this again. Maybe never. So I'm going to go all the way around. It was 50 countries, two years. Ran out of money in Uzbekistan.

**Chris Williamson** (2:58)
Great place to run out of money, I imagine.

**Peter Santenello** (3:00)
Yeah. I got cash advances on my credit card for like 25 percent interest.
And it was the best debt I ever got it because it was like, here's my moment. And at that age, you sleep anywhere in anything.

**Chris Williamson** (3:15)
Were you filming any of this? Were you making? No. No. So I did imagine if you had the GoPro back then. Holy shit.

**Peter Santenello** (3:21)
You know, I'm glad I didn't because I got to see the world without thinking about making content. Because you know what making content is. It's not all fun and games. It's work. You have to get the story. And I was totally free at that time just to let my imagination go wild.
So that's what kicked off the international interest. But back to Austin, I'm working as Fleming Steakhouse dreaming of seeing the world. And it was here. I'm looking down from my hotel. I'm like, that's the place I used to work. It's closed down now. And I'm like, what did that feel?
I think Steve Jobs said it best. I'm not going to say it as well as him, but he said, like, you can never see it going forward. Connect the dots where your life's going, but you can look back and connect the dots.

**Chris Williamson** (4:11)
Only make sense in reverse. Life has to be lived forward, but only make sense in reverse.