You Might Also Like: Wayfinder: Life-Changing Travel

Daniel Scheffler (0:09)

Sometimes the experiences we need most begin with a simple yes. Yes to an invitation. Yes to the unexpected. Yes to moving forward. Even when part of us would rather stay put. But when we let go of what we thought was supposed to happen, we make room for something new. New places, new connections, and new flavors of life we never even knew existed.

This is Wayfinder, Life-Changing Travel.

This podcast goes beyond the guidebooks into the heart and soul of real life travelers as they journey around the world. I'm your host, Daniel Scheffler. Today, actor Harvey Guillén is taking us to the island of Ortigia, Sicily, where a spontaneous invitation from a friend arrived at exactly the right moment and gave him the summer adventure he didn't yet know he needed. What followed was a journey of unexpected opportunities, surprising connections and lessons in what can happen when we leave a little room for life to surprise us.

Harvey Guillén (1:54)

I didn't really get on a plane until I was in high school. I didn't travel at all by air until then. It was all long drives. We would take drives to Mexico to visit family, or we would take drives to the desert like Las Vegas and whatnot, which I always thought part of the adventure was that long journey to get to the destination so you would appreciate it more because growing up, we didn't have the luxury of like, let's get on a plane with all the family and like visit someone. So I remember just being in a station wagon driving to Las Vegas in the summer time when we're off school, and it was 110 degrees and the air conditioner not working and having to roll down the windows in the station wagon and have the sandy air just hit you in the face at 100 miles an hour and just literally cleansing your face really for visual. But in that desert gringiness that was peeling away at your skin, you still knew this was such a cool thing that you got to do. Even at that age, I remember just thinking, how cool we get to go on adventures. So I think I was bitten by the travel bug without ever having really fully traveled. Then I got my first scholarship check in freshman year of college, and I wasted it all on a trip to New York. It made me realize that travel is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer. Yeah.

When I was in college, we got to tour South America on a coral trip. So we went to Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina. And I was just blown away. Like I was horseback riding in Uruguay.

And I remember like the wind just going through your hair and just being like, this is life. This is living. This is what it's meant to be like. Who would have thought that I would be horseback riding in the middle of Uruguay? And I came back from that trip kind of like I have to find a career where I get paid to go and have adventures. And as I soon learned with acting, you can't make that a career. So that's my favorite part about my job is that I get to travel. Don't you miss being away from home for so long? Sure, you miss home, but you know that home is where you'll always come back to. Nothing compares to it. But also what a joy and privilege and luxury that we can potentially have a life where we can travel the world and wake up in a different bed and then look out the window and the view changes and that got me motivated to continue to want to travel more. So that started that.

Daniel Scheffler (4:12)

By the time he was a working actor, travel had already shown Harvey a world far bigger than the one he'd grown up imagining. So when a new friend offered a spontaneous invitation to Ortigia, a tiny island off the coast of Sicily, Harvey didn't need much convincing.

Harvey Guillén (4:31)

We were shooting a pilot together, and on a whim, they were like, come to Sicily, come to Ortigia, it's beautiful. And I was like, okay, I've never even heard of Ortigia. And I'm very yes and. So I got the ticket like 24 hours before, hotel booked, and it was this beautiful hotel right on the coast, and it looks over the ocean. And I had just actually gotten out of a relationship. And so when we had separated and broken up, it was really last minute. I was like, I'm still going to go on this trip. And I had the best time. I had this like, you know, e-pray love moment where I didn't know I needed it.