“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”

- Marcel Proust

The RISE Travel Institute podcast brings you raw, thoughtful conversations with scholars, activists, and travellers on what ethical travel really means. Think social justice, sustainability, and decolonial perspectives, all wrapped into the kind of listen that’ll shift how (and why) you travel.

Share your go-to travel playlist or podcast with us. Whether it's road trip anthems or deep-dive travel stories, we want to hear and feature what fuels your adventures.

♻️ Secondhand culture: Thrift shops are where culture, character, and the best fashion collide. This guide spills the secrets to thrifting like a pro, even on holiday.

🧜🏻‍♀️ Mermaid in Paris: The Seine just reopened for public dips for the first time since 1923. Bonjour, Tour Eiffel!

🌳 Tasting nature: Italy’s national parks are secret food havens, where trails lead to truffles, cheeses, and coastal risottos.

💼 For job seekers: syd life is hiring a full-time remote Operations Lead to keep their fast-moving health startup running smoothly.

Topas Ecolodge

📍 Sapa, Vietnam
Website | Instagram | Google Maps

Perched on a misty mountaintop in northern Vietnam, Topas Ecolodge is all rice terraces, rolling clouds, and bungalows built for dreaming. But this place isn’t just about the views.

Built hand-in-hand with local communities, Topas champions what mindful tourism can look like: hiring almost exclusively from ethnic minority groups in local villages, composting waste, and running a mini glass recycling plant onsite. Even the ingredients in your dinner are sourced from nearby farms, keeping things fresh, local, and low-impact.

It’s the kind of place where you wake up to drifting clouds and spend your day trekking through H’mong villages experiencing stories that don’t show up on Google Maps.

In this week’s What’s Hot & What’s Not, meet Rohith, a mindful traveller who believes that every journey is more than just a trip.

Rohith is all about responsible travel and truly immersing himself in the places he visits. For him, travel isn’t just about ticking off destinations, it’s a deeply human experience that helps us grow when we approach it thoughtfully and with respect.

🔥 What’s Hot

choosing to stay in locally-owned accommodations, try regional food and immersing oneself in the local culture, embrace slow travel without the pressure of capturing every moment in pictures or videos, asking for consent before photographing people, making mindful gestures, dining at local restaurants, listening deeply to what a place and its people have to offer, preferring train journeys when possible and always carrying your own water bottle.

❄️ What’s Not

using travel as a mere escape centered around personal desires, weekend getaways, rushed backpacking, ticking off countries in record time, staying in impersonal chain hotels detached from local ecology and culture, flying frequently for short distances and bargaining with small vendors.

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Psst… want to see what all the hype’s about? Flip through the Bali e-guide preview — it’s got a little taste of what’s inside: 100+ curated stays, eats, and experiences that are kind to the planet and good to its people 🌿