i don't think i ever had a moment of doubt because i never gave myself a chance to think about it
i love the fact that i just i don't know why that idea occurred to me in the moment that i'm still
gonna go traveling i'm gonna go traveling for two months yeah with a broken leg on crutches
by myself like backpacking you know staying in hostels like not you know not getting picked up
and like shuttled around in a limo but like but you're saying something important which
is you felt something you knew something deep within and you just listened to it
yeah versus letting your head get the best of you which is yeah that might not be the best idea
welcome to another episode of everyday badassery i'm your host christine lozada
and in this episode if you're watching with us we are bumping along the road on a bus
on the mississippi famous blues highways and i am chatting with actually let's let her introduce
herself who are you who am i my name is kenny wilhelm and i write a blog called tiltedmath.com
and it's about travel and sustainability true to form this is a traveling podcast and we are
filming this thing in the back of a noisy bus and if you're watching you're gonna see a bunch
of shots from the mississippi trip that we were on it was awesome but this is a podcast meant to
inspire you to be just one percent more badass today than you were yesterday kenny's story is
amazing because it really is a why not and just do it so let's start somewhere you might not
expect one boot one shoe actually is it what does that mean one foot one shoe you had one boot and
it was summer it was summer so was your boot sweaty yeah i went to sevilla known as the frying
pan of europe yeah yeah yeah on crutches like i didn't even wear a bra the whole week i was
there because i was like this is just it's too much sweat i had no idea sevilla was like that
because when i was there i was there in winter it was cold oh yeah i spent new years alone
okay hold on where does the story start yeah and did you have the boot you had the boot before you
went you didn't like before i went to take care of this while you were there no so i've been
living in china for a year okay i started doing capoeira which is a brazilian martial art when i
was in china yes the number one way to ruin a pedicure go on yes that's right we talked
about this i broke my leg doing capoeira like three days before i was supposed to leave china
what were you doing in capoeira that made you which i pronounced it incorrect yeah
that made you break your leg okay so it's actually my husband that i was sparring with
the man who is now my husband who had met like a month before so if you broke your
what happened to him i married him i think he's funny helped me pack up my apartment in china and
a couple years later we got married no so we were on this very soft like boxing boxing gym
flooring so he did a takedown called which is mean scissors and it's like one leg behind you one leg
but in front and you sound sexy flip the person over it is sexy when it goes well it's very sexy
um and but we're on this squishy floor and so my foot just kind of stuck on the ground instead of
instead of slipping out and letting me fall over backwards yeah i fell over backwards but my legs
stayed under me so i broke my fibula in many places what was his reaction when it happened
he he looked like he was going to die he looked like he wasn't like the bloodshed [ __ ]
that would have meant that i wouldn't have married him
no i've never seen him look uh like he was actually gonna make me faint i think
um so i went to the long story short we go to the hospital and um it went in china they wanted to
they wanted to do the surgery that night luckily that didn't work out because i later got better
medical advice which was don't do the surgery right away yes anyway i'm sitting on a gurney
sitting on a gurney with my friends um my chinese friends who are translating for what the doctor is
saying and one of my friends goes well it's gonna ruin your summer trip but at least it makes a good
story or something or at least it'll be okay and i was like [ __ ] no it's not gonna ruin
my summer trip i'm still going and i i think it was the delirious pain or painkillers which they
hadn't even given me at they sent me home with two lore tabs from the hospital leg it was like
this is not you cannot do this um yeah no a friend of mine who worked in a hospital in china had to
like illegally sneak sneak pain killers from me to get help because they saw my broken legs
so i think it was the fact that i was sitting there in the hospital and for some totally poorly
thought out reason i said no i'm still gonna go traveling i didn't even have time to think about
it so you decided to take the trip did you go like where did that start where did you travel to
and did you fly there directly from where you were at right there gosh no okay so made the decision
in the hospital bed to actually continue to actually do the trip yeah um to not give it
up somehow i never reconsidered that decision or i mean if i did it was like i had already i had
already you know said it so said it so firmly that i was like okay i'm gonna i'm just gonna do this
um i went home to montana which is where i'm from for surgery i was there for a couple of
weeks my best friend from mexico was gonna meet me in montana i was gonna be in seattle we were
gonna like road trip the whole us and then i was gonna fly to belarus to meet some friends
from belarus i ended up cutting off half of the monsanto part but my friend from mexico or
half of the u.s part my friend from mexico met me in montana we flew to new york city i you
know got the biggest compliment of one of one of the biggest compliments of my traveling life
in the subway this guy goes are you local i was like nope i am from montana sir oh okay i figured
you were a new yorker because i thought only a new yorker would ride the subway on crutches
i've made i love it um backpack yeah hobbled around new york for a few days and then
flew over to belarus and took a bus up through lithuania latvia estonia took the ferry to finland
flew down to spain and then went to visit my then boyfriend yeah being you know like in
italy answer this in whatever comes to your mind first what was the hardest part about that trip
learning to slow down oh i just got goosebumps tell me mom i mean that was the first time that
i realized that you can have just as much fun traveling by just seeing a few things sitting down
there were afternoons when i sat down in a cafe and i was like i'm tired
my one of my legs is tired the other leg is swollen and hurts my arms are exhausted i
keep trying to put different kinds of padding under my armpits because i'm putting on miles
and miles on crutches every day and i hope i'm like raw um i'm tired i just want to i just
want to sit but i still want to feel like i'm traveling and i would just sit down in a cafe
in some plaza and order a tiny beer for like 45 cents in estonia and i would just watch people
and i would meet a ton of people too because when you're traveling and there's something a
little bit different about you people come up and talk to you and i met so many people on that trip
and i mean that's i think that happens anytime that you just slow down when you're traveling
yeah and you kind of get out of your own way and get out of your own this is about me i have
to go you know i have to go take an instagram picture in this location i have to see every
tourist spot on the map and you just start saying i'm just gonna experience what's going on yeah i
love that i used to be the fast traveler that would just sprint through everywhere i went
and one of my favorite things now is to always schedule in time no matter how busy a trip is so
now i travel way slower but i always schedule in time to be wander lost which is i purposely
just get lost i spend a lot of time finding fun places to just sit down and people watch yeah
and when you quietly observe and also let the world in you meet amazing people and that's when
i mean we're always on the hunt for adventure but that's when adventure truly finds you
it's in those moments quiet when you're slowing down and you can listen and take it away
exactly i love that i'm curious if you how long ago was this this was uh 2015. have you have you
taken that mindset into like how has that changed you today oh absolutely yeah i've i'm not afraid
to travel by myself anymore because anything is easy compared to that wow i mean i was living
in china at the time and i'm also not afraid to try to learn a language anymore because they have
language is easier than chinese yeah languages like easier they're trying to learn better yes um
you know coming from coming from a native english speaker who grew up speaking only english yeah um
yeah so i've i've learned that i can travel slowly i don't need to rush to see everything because i'm
going to have a great time even if i just see the corner cafe a lot of times yeah um yeah hell yeah
and are you a badass i think i'm a badass why you because you reminded me that i'm a badass
and now that i've reminded you why would you tell somebody else you worry about us
because i'm trying to change the way people travel because i'm trying to change the world
and make and make more sustainable travel possible in any type of trip that's my goal
that's what i that's what i write about now hell yeah and every now and then when i talk to
a tour guide who says i noticed this just happened this morning i noticed that you brought out your
reusable fork last night when we were at the restaurant with all the disposable plastic forks
i was really impressed by that and i'm gonna talk to the restaurant and i'm gonna try to
work on some of this stuff because that is like that's what makes it that's what makes it worth
it to me and i get comments from readers all the time who say like i had never considered taking
the ferry instead of flying between these greek islands but now that you've explained how easy
it is and you've explained the difference that it makes and the climate benefit of doing that
yeah now i'm gonna look into it for the first time and i think it's really easy to get caught up in
thinking that the world's too big to change and oh i'm just one person and it's not true
this is not true it's not it's not true because there are so many other people doing the same
thing there are so many other people looking for ways to do better and you don't have to be perfect
i think that's also the most badass thing is to realize that you don't have to be perfect
to make a difference you have to make a small improvement in what you can control
so many gems in this yes i think you can see why i was so excited to bring kenny onto this podcast
such a badass if you found some value in this make sure you cheers that like button or leave
a comment or review below it really does help to distribute this to more people and journal along
with us download the free badassery journal link in the description below for more on that make use
of what you heard today you know where to find us info in the description but here's where you find
kitty so instagram is my main social profile um at tilted map i'm also on facebook um yeah but
i mean i i try to share i try to share i try to get people involved on instagram when i try to
have have a conversation about ways to travel more sustainably yeah and then i really dive deep into
like tactical things and tips and destinations where there's something unique that makes it
this destination has you're gonna have a lower impact if you take your vacation on this island
versus this island um so i go into a lot more detail and stuff like that on my blog
i love that can you say i am a badass for yourself in chinese oh well sure badass
i have no idea how to say badass