Matt Bowles: My guest today is Scott Brills. He is an international entrepreneur and world traveler who currently runs businesses focused on adventure tourism in Tanzania and food tourism in Japan. He is the co-founder of the award winning Pamoja Safaris in Tanzania and the founder of Eat Japan which runs small group multi day guided tours focused on the Japanese culinary world. Scott has earned certifications in the fields of tea, sake, shochu and wine partnering with distilleries around the world. He distills his own spirits and most recently spent time in Japan developing a new line of sake from scratch. He is also in the process of launching his own tea brand later in 2025. Has been a full-time digital nomad since 2002. Has started companies in 6 countries, he speaks 5 languages, and he has now traveled to over 100 countries.

Scott, welcome to the show.

Scott Brills: Wow, what an intro. You make me sound more cool than I actually am. But I appreciate it.

Matt Bowles: Man, I am so excited to have you here. This interview has been a long time coming. We know a huge number of people in common. I am super excited to sit down and talk about a whole bunch of things with you today. But before we dive into that, let’s just set the scene and talk about where we are today and what we are going to be drinking through this interview. I am actually in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina today. I have just opened a bottle of Montefalco Sagrantino from Italy, a very nice red wine that I’m going to be drinking through throughout this interview.

But where are you, my friend, and what are you drinking?

Scott Brills: So, I just got back from some holiday time back in my home state of Michigan. Now I’m in Dallas. Gotta do just the time to do my level 2 wine sommelier training this weekend. Saturday, Sunday. Right now, it’s Monday when we’re recording this. However, since I sampled 19 wines over the weekend and then I drank wine all day yesterday afterward, I decided to do something a little bit different. This is one of the higher end sakes made by Obata Shuzo, which I actually did an internship with this last summer in Japan. So, I am drinking sake rice wine, a little bit different than the norm, but thought I’d change it up a bit.

Matt Bowles: Amazing. Well, cheers to you, brother. Wonderful to have you on the podcast and I feel like this is a really great place to start with the sommelier training. I want to hear all about this for people that have seen, for example, the Netflix documentary series Psalm about people training to become master sommeliers and that kind of stuff, which I highly recommend. If people haven’t seen that. In terms of what goes into this, can you share a little bit about the training that you are doing and what types of things that involves what your experience has been like so far?

Scott Brills: Yeah, so I’m on level two of four. There are a few different qualifying bodies with this, same as there is with tea and sake, which I’ve done or I’m in the process of doing. This particular training is through WSET, which is the Wine Spirits Educational Trust. I’ve used them for education in sake before and honestly, I don’t know enough about wine to even consider myself even moderately learned in the subject. And I thought it’s about time to change that.

So, I’m learning about the different grape varietals, where they’re grown, the characteristics of each type of wine. At the end of this course, which I’ve got another weekend of training, I’ll be able to at least know the major wine, grapes and regions and everything. And so, you know, when I go to the store, it’s not just like throwing a dart against the wall, like I’ll be able to actually figure out, okay, if I want to pair a wine with this type of food, I should probably look for this.

However, you could go much deeper into it. There’s level three, there’s level four. There’ also a quarter of Masters wine training. And I don’t think I’m going to go all the way with this. I really just want to do the 80, 20 and learn enough so that I feel confident in it when I’m going out to eat or whatnot, picking a wine from the wine list or even talking to other people about wine, not necessarily people that know about wine, but even people that don’t.

And then being able to be that person, that’s kind of the conduit into teaching them a thing or two about wine or recommending something. I love learning about stuff so that I can teach other people about it and so that I know more about it. Because the more I found that you know about a subject, the more you’re able to enjoy it.

Matt Bowles: I love that man. And I have not taken any type of formal wine training at all. It actually sounds amazing to me.

Scott Brills: Drinking a lot of wine is training.

Matt Bowles: That’s what I’m saying. I mean, that’s the type of training that I do, but I incorporated it into my travel. So, when I’m traveling to a wine producing country, I will be very intentional about going on wine tours, going out into the vineyards and then learning from those people on the tours. While I happen to just be drinking amazing wine and looking at incredible scenery and all that kind of stuff. It sorts of sinks in as I learn more about it. So, I sort of learn a lot through travel. But I’m curious about you. Have you incorporated wine experiences into your travel and what are some of your most memorable wine experiences?

Scott Brills: Yeah, I was just in Basque country over the summer and right before the Japan experience, when I was interning at Obata Shuzo, which is Obata brewery basically, and went to some amazing Txakoli producing regions. Chocolate is a type of grape that they grow up there in northern Spain and really light, almost fizzy white wine that goes great with the tapas that they have up there, pinchos as they call them in the Basque language.

And so yeah, I always go not only to the wineries, but also breweries, distilleries. I try to mix it all in because I love to drink. Not just alcohol, but I love just like drinking. That’s why I’m also somewhat knowledgeable about tea as well, because I just love the range of flavors you could get and I love knowing how you got to be able to get those types of flavors in your drink, especially without any additives. Like, I’m really big on wines and sake and even spirits that don’t use additives. That’s just the way it was brewed, fermented, then distilled, if it’s a spirit.

And then maybe it got some additional characteristics from the wood it’s aged in. Just like that. Because you can make something taste like anything if you have enough chemicals in it, which you can add any number of chemicals, wines or whatnot, to change the color or the acids or whatnot. But I really love maybe the pet mat movement, where it’s like, this is just, just how it is, this is how it came out. And this is the natural flavor, 100% flavor, just from nature, basically, and human interaction with the grapes.

Matt Bowles: Well, I definitely want to go through more of your story in terms of your travels and how you stumbled across a lot of these things and got interested in them initially. But I’d like to start way back and just give people a little bit more context on you. Can you share a little bit about where you’re originally from, where you grew up? And when you think back to growing up, can you share a little bit about how your interest in travel initially developed, your parents and grandparents travel experience and how you were raised and the types of stories that you were raised with?

Scott Brills: So, I grew up in metro Detroit, Michigan, about 20 minutes away from the city, 25 minutes away from the Canadian border into Ontario, Canada. Since as far back as I can remember, I had an interest in travel, definitely partially sparked by my grandparents, my father’s parents, and their travel around the world.

In the 70s and 80s after my grandfather retired from the Detroit Fire Department and he had saved up money and that’s how they decided to spend it was traveling around the world, including to Russia and USSR at the time, and China in the 80s, not a lot of people did that, especially Americans. We were not on super friendly terms, especially with the USSR. China was starting to thaw, and China was developing rapidly, but that was pretty rare back then.

So, whenever we’d visit them, usually during spring vacation, I’d go down there with my father and. And they would have money from their travels that they’d give to me as a souvenir. And we’d see the photos or the old slide projector type thing. And it’s the first major travel memories that I have is just interacting with them. And of course, at that time you’re just going wherever your parents are going. You don’t have any ability to golf on your own, you don’t have the money or anything.

But the first experience that I had outside of that to actually travel partially on my own was I did a, it’s Kind of like a student ambassador program called People to People, Student Ambassadors. And I was able to go to China for three weeks when I was 13. They had chaperones that went with us. I was with a group of other students around the same age. And I soaked it up. I loved it. It really changed my life because then as soon as I was able to, when I was 18, I actually went during my first year of university to Japan, lived over there for nine months, learned Japanese. And of course, that was a huge defining moment in my life because I’m still very connected to Japan, have three businesses that involve the country, and it’s really like my home away home.

I really love it. I spent my formative years there, first years on my own, basically 18, 19, 20 years old. And I still go back every year for two, three months at a time. But also, beyond that, I also had a professional exchange program through the Rotary Club. Rotary International sponsored one of our local clubs, chose me to go in Metro Detroit. And I went to Turkey for five weeks with some other young professionals, 25 to 40 years old. I just made the cut. I think I just turned 25 at the time. And I went to Turkey, and I love Turkey as well.

So, if you, you may notice a pattern emerging here. You know, I’m going somewhere and for the first time, just like, whoa, this is amazing. And I realized really early on I’m lucky that a desk job wasn’t for me. I thought that’s what everyone had to do, right? Like, you grew up, you went to college if you were able to, or wanted, and then you got a desk job. And I thought that was my fate for a while. But I realized after going to Japan for those nine months when I was 18, 19, I came back and pretty promptly I went back to my old job at a big box electronic store and left that after three months. I’d changed so much, and it just wasn’t the job for me anymore.

And then I started up my first company at the age of 19 doing web development and IT work and just went from there and eventually, you know, had enough money and free time to travel around the world, which was always my goal from the start.

Matt Bowles: Well, I want to talk to you about both your travel journey and your entrepreneurial journey, which I know eventually dovetailed very much with each other. But just thinking all the way back to the stories that your grandparents told you about their travels, why did they choose to go to places like Russia and China in the 80s when other people weren’t making those choices and what types of experiences did they have there or lessons did they learn there and what types of things did they convey to you? I think it’s very cool that you were able to go to China when you were young after hearing your grandparents’ stories about being in China and you going at a very different time and making some of those connections.

But share a little bit about their travel style and philosophy and what you learned from them about travel in general.

Scott Brills: I think it sparked the interest that there are these places that were so different through the photos and souvenir money that they would bring back. And it may be something genetic, who knows, because they were going to these far-flung destinations that not many people would go to. And then, you know, you have me as well that I tend to prioritize such places. Having driven from the UK to Mongolia and the UK to Cape Town, a lot of these countries that are usually not on many people’s radars, it’s becoming more of a thing with social media and some travel creator will post about this cool thing in this country and it’s drawing some tourism there.

But when I was going through Central Asia over 15 years ago, you just had a lonely planet to get you through. It was a very different time. I’ve been to Kyrgyzstan, but I haven’t been to mainland France. Still to this day I’ve driven through, I don’t count that I’ve driven through a little bit near Calais, coming over from England, but I have not been to mainland friends, so maybe I just get that from them. But I think the major effect that they had on me was just showing me that that was available and that was possible.

As far as their reasoning for doing or whatnot, honestly, they may have said I was pretty young. I just remember the feeling of learning about it and knowing that that was an option and not necessarily an option for me at that age, but it definitely sparked my imagination.

Matt Bowles: Well, I also want to talk to you about the origins of your now very deep connection and love for Japan. Can you share a little bit about how that particular relationship started? How you started getting interested in Japanese language and culture and then when you went there, describe your first experience actually going to Japan. What was that like? What did you experience?

Scott Brills: So, I was a geek. I mean, hey, I still am just a little bit different. But I always loved Asia just from the get-go, you know, with China. Maybe that was sparked by my grandparents and going to China at some point, not long thereafter. I mean, I was already interested in video games from a young age. And I got interested in anime and manga. And this is before there were really a lot of different types of media with which to enjoy that in the U.S.

Not to date myself too much, but I initially wanted to learn Japanese just because I remember thinking this too. Oh, I could play the unreleased video games that are only sold in Japan and understand them. We’re talking about role playing games, stuff like that. Final Fantasy, some people may be familiar with that franchise was really big into that and anime and stuff like that too. And there’s unreleased anime at the time. And I was like, oh, that’d be cool to be able to understand that. I had some friends that were into that as well. So, we had our own little kind of posse. And I just remember thinking, oh, that’d be cool.

However, by the time I decided to do this, I had already gone through my required language credits. Two years of learning a language in high school. I chose Spanish. I did mediocre at best. I think I was straight C student in Spanish. I didn’t do great. So, I thought, oh, as many people may think, oh, I didn’t do good at that. So, I’m just not good at learning languages. And that was false. The reason why I didn’t do good is I wasn’t really interested in it at the time. I was just doing it because I had to. I had to take two years of a language. I thought Spanish would be the easiest one. So that’s why I did Spanish.

I’m happy I have that background now because I use my Spanish every so often. Generally, every year for a bit when I’m traveling Spanish speaking countries. But for Japanese, it wasn’t until my senior year that I decided to take Japanese 101 basically. So, I was in class with a bunch of freshmen. Luckily, I mean, our high school had Japanese. It’s not maybe a little bit more common nowadays, but I’m sure there’s still tons of schools that don’t offer that. And I was lucky in that not only did they have it, but the teacher of the class was friends with my parents.

So, Mrs. Newcomb, who taught us her husband, worked with my parents at the police department in the city we lived in. Through that I had a connection. And it’s not like it helped me get into the program or anything. I just decided to do it when I was picking my course schedule. But that led the way to doing it. I think I got straight A’s in that class. And then my teacher, Mrs. Newcomb recommended me for the program that I eventually joined because she had done it when she was just graduated from high school years earlier. And she said, you know, hey, like you’re going to college, I think this program might be a good fit for you. You should apply for it.

And it was through Lansing Community College, which is in the center of the state of Michigan, right near Michigan State University. I applied to this. I got in along with 15 other students. We took one semester of crash course in Japan, Japanese language. We were split into two groups. One group had some experience with Japanese language. The other one had no experience whatsoever with Japanese. And I was on the one that had some experience. Amazingly, out of the 16 people, I was maybe top three in the Japanese language ability with just that one year of high school Japanese went over there, lived for nine months, learned Japanese to the extent where I could speak it on the phone. They wouldn’t know I wasn’t Japanese.

I still had a lot to go. I mean, I was good at intonation. I’m still good at intonation when I am speaking other languages. But that made me feel good. I was dreaming in Japanese, maybe six months in. It gave me that confidence. It really changed my life as far as it was my first time outside on my own. We’re talking about the first club, first bar, first real relationship, a lot of things. Also, my pallet totally changed. I went from being your average white guy, eating casserole and pizza and whatnot. I went over there, and I remember the first time I had kimchi. It’s not Japanese traditionally, but I had kimchi over there at a Korean restaurant. And I remember thinking, wow, this burns and it hurts.

But I like it, I want more of it. I just kept eating it because that pepperoni was so spicy to me. I would take it off the pizza, pepperoni was too spicy. That’s how white I was. It was very white. And I came back, my mom’s like, what have you done with my son? Like, I brought three things of kimchi back with me because we stopped by Incheon airport on the way back to Korea. And I remember I grabbed some kimchi. I was like, oh, I got to bring some of this back. I don’t know if I can get this in Michigan, you know.

So, it completely changed my life. And then from that point on, I basically went back every single year after that. And that’s also been part of my digital nomad journey because I spent a lot of time over there. I even worked at some tourism related lodging like a ski lodge and whatnot in Nagano. And that kind of got me into the tourism industry. As well. And the food industry. You never really know where life’s going to take you. It’s kind of random, right? But I remember thinking, wow, I’m so happy I decided to learn Japanese. And I’m so happy I decided to go on that program to Japan.

Matt Bowles: Well, I also want to ask you about your experience that you mentioned going and living in Turkey. I can remember the first time that I went to Istanbul, and it was just mesmerizing. I mean, it was really incredible. What was your first impression and then your experience living there for an extended period? What impact did that have on you?

Scott Brills: So, the first time there was about five weeks through the Rotary International program that sponsored me to go over there. And I went with four other young professionals. Everyone was older than me, just like with Japan. And I was a young one, just barely made it into the program. And it was a whirlwind. We started off in Istanbul, and Istanbul wasn’t even in the district we were supposed to visit, but everyone wanted to go.

So, we did two nights there, and then we went host family to host family throughout the whole country. Basically, the whole western part of the country along the coast, starting with Bursa, and then Chanakale, and then going down the coast, Salihli, Denizli, Bodrum, Göcek, Marmaris. We went all over. Many people don’t know these city names, but basically, it’s in the western part of Turkey.

We had two to three nights with each host family, all the host families, you know, one person, generally the man, and then the family was a Rotary Club member. For those who don’t know, Rotary Club is basically a service club that’s in most of the countries of the world, over 100 years old. It’s for people. Generally, the whole theme is, you’ve got enough where you’re happy, you want to give back to others, whether that means time or money. That’s basically it.

So, my first night on my own, when we went to our host family, we split up and went to my host family in Bursa, which is not too far away from Istanbul. And they knew no English. Nothing. Nothing at all. And I was like, oh, wow, okay. Like, the first dinner was four hours long, you know, and everyone’s speaking Turkish around me. And it was like, I need to learn Turkish. And I think that it’s an exchange, bro. So, like, Turkish professionals came over to Michigan as well, to my Rotary Club district there, and they did a similar thing.

However, they all spoke English. And so, I was like, wow, we’re definitely behind the times when it comes to prepping for this trip, we didn’t have any language introduction or anything. It was kind of all on your own. So, I was like, okay. Immediately, I was like, okay, I got to learn. So, I got out my, like, little Lonely Planet phrasebook, and just like I did in Japan a few years earlier, I just tried my best and got to the point where I was able to at least know enough to make people know that I tried. And we went all over the country. I saw a lot of depth of culture and history.

I had no idea at that time that Turkey used to be part of the Greek Empire. That’s where the city of Troy is located. I had no idea. Did they drink alcohol or not? They’re a Muslim nation. Yes, they do. Many people do over there, especially in the cities. So, like, that was really cool. It was my first time going to a majority Muslim country, and the hospitality that I encountered, and the warmth of the people was amazing. I really fell in love with that country as well. And I’ve been back there since. I’ve lived in Istanbul for a while and continued learning a little bit more Turkish. Definitely not as good as my Japanese by any means, but you know, enough to get around to talk to the taxi drivers, to order stuff at restaurants, and my intonation was good enough.

And I looked like a Turkish person, because Turkey is a melting pot of everything. You know, you can have blonde hair, blue eyes, you can look Asian. Everyone just assumed I was Turkish. So that also gave me a little bit more impetus to learn the language. I was like, oh, I can actually blend in here. Not like Japan, where, like, no matter how good my Japanese is, nobody’s going to mistake me for a Japanese person.

Matt Bowles: Yeah, man. I can remember my first time in Istanbul, and it was just unbelievable. I mean, I can just remember, like, standing right between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia on the green there and hearing the call to prayer, and then you’re going out onto the Bosphorus and then getting this Turkish food that is, like, unbelievable. Like, late night spicy Adana kebabs. And I mean, I’m just like, amazing, man. I’m like, how can I get more of this and stay longer? I mean, it was just really incredible.

So, I think that’s really awesome that you had that experience and then to couple with the Japanese experience. Now, I do now want to ask you, you alluded very briefly to your experience doing the Mongol rally in 2009. I think it was that you did that. And for people that have never heard of this. Can you explain what it is, what the concept is, what it involves, what it entails? Just sort of set up the premise and then why you decided that this was something you wanted to do.

Scott Brills: It is a charity rally, not a race. There’s no point in getting there first. And this is how it used to be up until Covid and the Ukraine war. It’s changed a little bit since then. But at the time you left from the U.K., and you drove to Mongolia with just, I mean I had paper maps, I had printouts from like MapQuest or something like Google Maps. I did it in 2009.

So, it wasn’t pre all smartphones, but I can tell you I did not have a smartphone. And you raised money for charity? My buddy Colin and I did it. We were raising money for a couple of charities. One was actually through our connection with a Rotary Club in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. And they were working on a project to build a kindergarten for the children of the employees of a prison that was set in the middle of nowhere in Mongolia.

So basically, the issue was that the children, once they reached school age, couldn’t live there anymore because there was no place to go to school. So, then the family would be broken up because the mother would go with the child generally to the local place where they had school, a local town or whatever. And then the men would be sad, they’d drink too much, treat the prisoners bad. It was just this cascading thing. So, they found that working together with I think Prison Fellowship International and the Rotary Club, and then donations from us and some other donors, we were able to build, not to build the actual building, but we outfitted it.

We bought stuff for inside of the school and everything. We basically bought everything you would need to run a classroom. And yeah, it was finished right after I finished the trip. But it involved taking a crappy car. You’re not taking a four-wheel drive vehicle. The whole fun of it is that you’re doing it in a very underwhelming vehicle. So, the original aim was to do it in like a one-liter vehicle, one liter engine. They don’t sell those in the U.S. anymore. The smallest engine car I could come across was an old Geo Metro, a 2001 Geo Metro with a 1.3-liter engine and four doors. I found it in Ohio. It was rusted already. It was in bad shape. Our buddy who was a mechanic, offered to help us fix it up and we actually bought it in the States. My stepdad drove it over to New Jersey, shipped it to U.K.

We picked it up in U.K. and then drove it from there. We spent about six weeks, didn’t make it to Mongolia. My buddy Colin ran out of money, ran out of time. We were delayed multiple times. He had to go home, basically, once our car broke down in Tajikistan and we had to hitchhike back to the main town of Dushanbe, and then he had to fly home. I flew on to Novosibirsk in Siberia, Russia, took the Trans-Siberian Express from there, all the way over to Ulaanbaatar, met up with my connection, the Rotary Club over there, and then, oddly enough, I’d run my first marathon in the Gobi Desert a few days later.

Matt Bowles: I’ve got to hear about this. Okay, so, first of all, I did the trans-Siberian in 2019. I did it from Moscow to Ulaanbaatar. So, I did the Trans-Mongolian route as well. Went through Novosibirsk and went all out into Irkutsk, and we went up to Lake Baikal and saw all of that stuff along the way and then ended up in Mongolia. I spent less time in the Gobi Desert than you did. I went out there briefly and just saw the absolutely unbelievable landscape that is the Gobi Desert. I mean, what an extraordinary landscape that is. But you had a little different experience in the Gobi Desert.

So, I want you to tell this story. So, you take the Trans-Siberian, you get there. How did you end up running a marathon by accident?

Scott Brills: So, I didn’t get to drive through the Gobi Desert. Like I said, we broke down into Tajikistan near the Chinese border. So, we weren’t able to actually drive our vehicle in Mongolia. What we did was we sold the vehicle to a guy that helped us out, who we basically rode back with from the middle of nowhere. He ended up being a gangster. He gave us $1,000 in U.S. currency to buy the car, and then we were done with the car. Right. So, when I got to Ulaanbaatar, solo, met up with my friend Bridget, who is the past president of the Rotary Club there, one of the Rotary Clubs in Ulaanbaatar.

She was driving me back to her flat. I had scheduled to stay with her for a few days. And she said, hey, didn’t tell you yet, but I’m actually going down to the Gobi Desert in three days to participate in the Gobi Marathon. You can come with me, or you can stay home and watch my cats. So, I was like, well, obviously I’m going to go with you, but what is this? And she’s like, oh, it’s all on the website. So I go to the website, I check it out, and it’s like, okay, go be marathon. You know, like, it’s these dates, and this is the entry fee. Full marathon, half marathon, whatever. And I was like, okay, I’m going to go with her.

So, I paid the dues, signed up for this marathon. Keep in mind, I had zero running experience. I had zero training. I’d been driving a car for six weeks. I used to get a doctor’s note to skip out of the mile during high school. That’s how much I hated running. So, I was not the best person to do this, But I thought, how hard can it be? So, I signed up for it. And a few days later, we were in a, it’s like an old Soviet. They call it like a bread box bus, driving 16 hours down through the middle of nowhere Mongolia to get to the Gobi Desert. We had an overnight, about eight hours in, then we did another eight hours, got to the encampment where I met the other participants.

Meanwhile, on the way, I should say, I learned from my friend that she’s not running the marathon. Which doesn’t surprise me in hindsight. She’s 69 years old. Not that it’s a limitation, of course, but, you know, I just assume, like, wow, she’s. She’s hardcore. Okay, cool. Also, remember, I never ran a marathon. I had no idea what it entailed.

So, she had signed up to do the 5K. And I found this out on the way down. So, when I got there and I talked to the four other people doing the marathon, there was one guy doing his 180th marathon, another guy doing his seventh marathon that year, and then a mix of other people. And a lot of people were doing a half marathon. And they’re like, so, how’s your training been? What’s your marathon experience? And I was like, I just decided to do this three days ago. I haven’t trained at all. I don’t know what I’m doing. And they’re just like, what? So, they’re pretty incredulous. And I started being, oh, maybe I messed up. Maybe I shouldn’t be here. But regardless, ate a bunch of pasta.

Next morning, wake up, drive with everyone, go to the start line, which was 26.2 or so miles away from where we were camped in the Gobi Desert. There’s a start line set up, and four or five of us, I forget, we start off and start running, and I’m in front of the pack for a whole three minutes. And then I’m at the back along with a German lady. Different German lady than my friend.

And funny enough, everyone else outpaced us so quickly that after a little while, we couldn’t see them anymore. We couldn’t even see dust coming up from where they were running. And all the support crew was gone. They had all gone to the half marathon start line to set that up and get that race. So, it’s just the two of us. We get to abandon not the road. I mean, it’s just a track in the middle of the desert. And she’s like, I think they said to go left here. And I was like, I think they said to go right. But also, there’s supposed to be a red ribbon tied to the bush, and I don’t see any red ribbon.

So, we decided to go left. And then we go to another fork of the road. We decided to go right. And I’m like, oh, no, I’m pretty sure we’re lost. And there’s nothing. Like, it’s just a flat expanse of desert. You can’t see anything. We have no idea. But I saw a ger, which is Mongolian word for a yurt, round tent in the distance. And I had just run out of water. I gave the last of it to my new friend.

We decided to go over there, knock on this guy’s door. He’s like, oh, come in. Come in. You know and gives us some tea and some. Some hard cheese, which is kind of what you do in Mongolia. And, you know, we sit down. They had a TV there. They had a satellite dish, and they turned it on. I remember distinctly it was Barack Obama giving a speech. And I was like, it’s like, this is so weird. Also, my legs are starting to cramp up because I had to sit down. I’m like, well, this is very nice. You kind of got to do the thing, right. It’s a hospitality thing. Nomads. And there’s, like, a way you do things. And so, I and my friend eventually pantomimed that we need a ride on the guy’s motorbike that was sitting outside.

And the guy was pantomiming, okay, like, got some money? And I’m like, no, but I’m sure we could borrow some once we find civilization again. So, I got on the back of the motorbike. We can only fit me. And so, my new friend, she’s like, you know, I think I see some people over here. I’m just going to walk towards ours. I’ll see you over there. If I don’t get over there, just send them back for me. And I’m like, okay. So, they know the land around there, right? So, they took me to one of the checkpoints. I say borrow some money from somebody there and give it to the guy, and he’s happy. And they’re like, okay, well, yeah, like, nobody had noticed we were missing, right? Nobody. I was like, what the heck? And I was like, well, my friends still out there. And they’re like, oh, no, we already accounted for her. She’s good. I’m like, okay. And they’re like, well, you could just continue on if you want, or you can stop. And I’m like, no, no, I’m doing this. I was like, where’s the other checkpoint? Like, what do you mean? I think I skipped a checkpoint. And they’re like, it’s fine. I’m like, no, no, no. If I’m doing this, I’m doing this, right?

So, they’re like, well, they’re already packing it up, but you can follow the prints in the sand, and you can go there. So I went back to the previous checkpoint, and then I continued from there. Then, basically from then on, there was nobody at any of the checkpoints, you know, And I eventually made my way there to the finish line 6 and a half hours later, and everyone was waiting for me, cheering me as I came in, and by far the last person. But I finished. You know, I finished, and then for the next three days, I could barely walk.

Matt Bowles: Well, congrats on finishing, man. And I really appreciate that story, too, especially the encounter with the Mongolian nomads, because as well, when I was there in Ulaanbaatar and out in the Gobi Desert, we as well connected with some of the Mongolian nomads, who of course, speak no English, but we had a translator with us, you know, local Mongolian, who was able to translate.

And it was really an amazing encounter because these are the OG original nomads, and we’re explaining to them we’re digital nomads, which is kind of like that, but different. But we sort of have the same lifestyle quandaries that we’re actually Would love if we could just ask you some questions, because you guys have been doing this for, like, thousands of years.

Scott Brills: Oh, cool.

Matt Bowles: You know, how does dating and relationships and finding love in the nomad lifestyle work? If you’re moving around all the time, how do you maintain community? How do you do that? All the questions that we get, we’re like, can you share some wisdom with us and teach us the ways. And so it was actually like this really cool cultural exchange, getting to hang out with the Mongolian nomads. And I think they were pretty amused as well. They’re like, what are, who are these people? But they’re kind of cool and fun.

Scott Brills: Yeah. These newbies that are just pretending to be nomads.

Matt Bowles: Yeah, exactly. But super fun and wonderful people. And what an extraordinary landscape the Gobi Desert is. My gosh I have been telling everybody about it since I went there, so I love that story, man. Well, another place that I know has had a really profound impact on you and your life that I think you went to the following year for the first time is Tanzania. It is a country that I dearly love as well. I have been back a couple times. I was just there most recently at the end of 2022. I was there for about a month, based mostly in Arusha.

Scott Brills: Oh. Same time I was. We probably overlapped.

Matt Bowles: Amazing. I summited Mount Kilimanjaro when I was there, which was a really incredible experience. The previous time that I was there, I had spent time in Dar, and I had spent time in Zanzibar. So, I kind of done that. And then this was more doing Kilimanjaro and then also doing the Serengeti, the Ngorongoro Crater, and all that kind of stuff, which, you know, for me was, it was really spectacular, and I almost didn’t do it.

And the reason I almost didn’t do it is because I had previously spent about a month or so in Kenya, and I had done the safari in Maasai Mara, and I had done it during the great wildebeest migration. And I had kind of seen all of this really amazing stuff. And I was like, do I really need to do another safari? And the people I was with were like, first of all, we’re going to go to the Ngorongoro Crater, which is way different. Second of all, we’re going to take a hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti.

And they start telling me about how they’re planning this. I was, all right, I’m in. I’m doing it. And sure enough, it was unbelievable. I mean, it was one of the most incredible, special experiences that I’ve had. So, Tanzania is a place that I love. I’m excited to go back again at some point soon. Really profound love for the country and the people. You obviously have a much deeper connection to it than I do, but I would love to take it all the way back to your very first time going there. Can you take us back to 2010, share the context and then what your initial trip to Tanzania was like?

Scott Brills: Yeah. So, in 2010, I went to Tanzania for the first time because it was on my father’s bucket list to do a safari. So luckily, he took me along with him as we’ve done multiple times. I’ve been all over the world with him and we’ve done father son trips to many countries, but that was our first time in Africa. So I went there in the summertime, our summertime at least, so July, August, and we had like about a two-week safari itinerary planned. Not just with us, we went with a tour company. So, it was a tour company that kind of specializes in trips for mostly retired Americans. So, like older Americans.

So, it was mostly a bunch of retirees. And then my dad was the second youngest person there and I was the youngest by far. We had a great time. We were in three vehicles, three different Land Cruisers with three different guides. And every day we’d switch it up and ride with someone different. And we got to know each of the guides. And there was one guy that stood out a lot and his name was Josh, and he was very personable, great English. You could tell he really loved his job and loved his animals, and everyone always wanted to ride in his vehicle.

To the point where I felt bad since I was the quickest one out of the vehicles. Every time I was like, okay, maybe I should give someone else a chance to ride with Josh. So, after that time was up and everyone went home, including my father, I decided to stay a little bit longer. This was always in the works. I decided I wanted to go to Zanzibar on my own for about a week. And then I had scheduled a climb up Kilimanjaro, which takes just over a week. And my friend from the U.K. was going to fly in and join me for that.

So, I went off to Zanzibar and I had Josh’s number and he kind of helped me with some of the logistics. Again, this is pre me having a smartphone, so it’s just kind of texting, you know, as far as like, I took the bus from Arusha to Dar es Salaam and then I took the ferry to Zanzibar. You know, nowadays I fly, but back then, you know, I was doing it more the broke backpacker style. And plus, like, it’s an interesting way to see the country. Not that I’d recommend that bus, but I did that, and I stayed in touch with him and eventually just barely completed Kilimanjaro.

We had bad weather last night; he invited my friend and I over to his house to meet his wife. And at that time, two kids were now three. On the way there, I remember asking him, ‘you’re really good at what you do. Have you ever thought about doing your own company, just kind of going off on your own? And he said, I’m diversifying my income. I’m thinking about starting up a store in my village and stuff like that. But I haven’t really thought about that in particular. Well, I said, I had a really good time. I think you’re awesome. And I know how to start up and run businesses remotely because at that time I’d already been doing my web design and IT company for a few years.

And I said, I also know your target market, which is Americans generally. He deals with Americans. And so, I said, what do you say we go into business together and I will develop it. I’ll do all of the business development stuff and get the clients, and you provide all the service on the ground. And if it doesn’t work out, that’s fine because I’ve never done business in Africa before and I’ve never done business in the tourism sector. And you’ve never been an entrepreneur. But I’m just seeing an opportunity here and I’m running with it. So, he said, yeah, okay.

So, I went off and I did that. And we didn’t have any money to put into it. It was all bootstrapped all the way. We had one client our first year and that was someone he already knew. Slowly but surely, we just built it up every year to the point where now it’s a pretty steady business. You know, it’s my main business by far. He quit that company years ago. It does this company full time. We have staff over there. We have staff remotely as well. And it’s become a legit business. You know, we are going into year 15amazingly of promoted safaris. And yeah, we offer private custom trips through Tanzania and Eastern Africa.

We just try to differentiate ourselves through having really good people, awesome guides. Because you’re spending all your time with these guides. They better be cool. High maintenance, high-capacity vehicles. As far as like the Land Cruisers that we use, they’re kept in really good shape and offering experiences that some companies don’t offer, such as living and hunting with the Hadzabe tribe, which is one of the last hunter gatherers in East Africa. Some other companies do that, but we really focus on relationships. We have relationships with tribes’ people throughout the Country.

And so, when someone asks, hey, I want to overnight in a Maasai village or something like that, we were like, oh, we got a guy. We’re friends with them, and we make everything customs, boutiques, whatever you want to call it. But we’re a smaller company, but we really differentiate ourselves in that way.

Matt Bowles: Well, I want to ask you a number of questions about this business that you run. And the first question I think I want to ask you, one of the things I really appreciate about you and going through a lot of your content, is how thoughtful of a person and an entrepreneur that you are in terms of really focusing on sustainability. I know your partner is local and he’s Maasai, I believe. And I want to just ask if you can just share in general for folks and maybe just kind of like frame this broadly and then talk a little bit about how you learned and navigated this.

Just in terms of things that I’ve been observing about some of the neocolonial dynamics that seem to be entwined in a lot of the tourism space on the continent of Africa in particular. And sometimes that can be pretty extreme. For example, when I was there in 2022, the government of Tanzania was violently dispossessing some of the Maasai people from their ancestral homelands, presumably at the behest of some foreign corporate tourist interests that were trying to come in there and do certain things. But even if we’re talking about things that are less violent or obvious than that, just how you think about as a foreign owner of a company or part owner of a company, just concepts of tourism leakage and some of the things that go on when there are international tourist interests that get involved in certain things there and stuff.

And I’m sure you see a lot of this in space. And I’m curious just over the years, since you’ve been immersed in this and studying this and seeing what’s happening all around, can you give people a context for the broader picture there, what’s going on? And then also, you know, what people should be paying attention to as customers. Right. But then also how you as a business owner have navigated this and built your company.

Scott Brills: So, I am in partnership with Josh, who is Masai. He grew up without electricity or running water until the age of, I believe, seven or so before his parents moved to Arusha town. At that time, it was a very small spot in the early 1980s. Then he had the opportunity to go to school and then to higher education as well, which for a lot of kids even nowadays, is not an option, even though it’s mandated to a certain age that you go to school.

In Tanzania, each tribe gets some leeway as far as their customs and their practices, you know, historical practices and whatnot. So, a lot of families, I’ll say Maasai families in particular for this example, have a lot of children. Then why do they have a lot of children? Because they need the children to help tend the animals. They have large herds of animals, and so that’s what they do. And if the kids are going off to school, they’re not able to look after the animals. And then what do you do with this giant herd of goats, sheep, cows and whatnot?

So, it’s a tricky situation there. As far as our company, we try our best to work primarily with locally owned companies. So generally, that’s locally owned lodging providers. The four seasons in the Serengeti is amazing. I’m not going to say it’s not. It’s amazing. If you have got the money to go there and you want to check that out, we can make it happen.

But for the most part, we have local providers, which a lot of them are former safari guides that save their money and save their money, and then they started up their own, let’s say, luxury tented camp in the Serengeti. This one guy that we know, he already has seven properties. That’s just kind of what they do, because tour guiding is a tough job. It’s very physically and mentally taxing. And so, if they’re planning for the future, a lot of these people, they’ll save up their money and then they’ll graduate from being a tour guide and then to running a business and running these properties. So, we’re happy to support them. Also getting into hiring more women guides, women porters for Kilimanjaro, which is more of a new thing.

Traditionally, that hasn’t really been a popular choice of career for women for multiple reasons. One is that, you know, it’s mostly men, and then it’s kind of intimidating for women to go into that field when there’s not a lot of other women, you know, showing the way. Also, it’s definitely more customary for women, if they go into the workforce there, to be there until they get married, generally in the mid-20s, and then they’ll drop out to raise a family. And so, because of that traditional culture that many people that own the safari companies didn’t want to hire women even if they were available, because they’re like, we’re going to put all this money into training them.

And it takes years of training and experience to become a good guide. And then they’re married and have kids. Then I lost an employee. I lost the money and time I invested in this person. And as someone that runs a company, I understand that, you know, but also there are women that don’t want to do that, you know, and so it’s just. It’s more of a thing now. I would say within the last five, ten years, maybe. Definitely the last five years, Covid notwithstanding, where you see more women getting more of the limelight. There’s actually a camp that was staffed only by women, and that got a lot of press. There are more women porters. I saw someone I follow on social media, she just did a climb up Kilimanjaro, and she was telling the story of two women porters that are up there, single mothers that are taking that job because it provided so much for their children. You know, we love that.

Any way that we can provide some inroads for that kind of thing, for that societal change to happen. My partner Josh and I are 100% behind that. As far as the colonial kind of outlook or ethos in the industry at times, that’s kind of where the term safari entered the English language is back in the hunting safaris of the late 1800s. You know, the British that were colonizing East Africa at the time, Kenya and Tanzania and Uganda, this all used to be part of British East Africa. And so that was what you did over there is, you know, the wealthy Brits and other nationalities went over there, and they shot the wildlife for trophies generally, and safari in Swahili, which is the main language of Tanzania and Kentucky, Kenya, that part of East Africa, also some other countries. It means journey. It means travel journey.

So, the name of our company actually means travel together. So Pamoja means together. And then safari means travel or journey. So, travel together. Journey together. We picked that name because it really goes to the heart of what we’re trying to provide. It’s not just ticking off the boxes of animals and sightseeing and whatnot, but also to make authentic connections with your guide, with the tribes you might visit, the people that you’re staying near. You know, we want to show them. The local communities want to tour them around, let’s say, Arusha, where we’re based, and introduce them to some nonprofits doing work around there for clean water for albino children. You know, I really want them to see that because, honestly, the animals are awesome.

And I love animals too. From a young Age, that’s why I got into the business partially, is the animals. I love animals. But what do people remember most? I’d say it’s 50% animals, 50% people. So, they always talk like our guests when they come back and I ask them, hey, how was it? You know, they’re talking about how awesome their guide was. They’re talking about how amazing visiting the Maasai community was. They’re talking about, wow, I just donated 500 to buy 10 water filters.

And we donated them and so that they’re not going to see them being distributed, but we’re going to take them on future safaris and distribute them by hand to some of these communities that we’re going through. So, Tanzania is the way I make most of my money. So, I am in debt to that country and those people for providing that opportunity. And I feel it is our duty to give back in whatever way we can. We do that in multiple ways, but I feel like we have that ability, and we should do that not only for the good of the community in which we operate, but just because it’s the right thing to do.

Matt Bowles: Can you also talk about some of the other dynamics that sort of came to my attention as I was spending time over there was staff, in some cases, being underpaid by some of the companies and also tipping dynamics and give people just. If they’re thinking about doing this and want to be a conscientious customer, what should people know about and be aware of?

Scott Brills: Okay, so I’m going to split this into two answers. One for safaris, one for Kilimanjaro. They’re both kind of the same, but it’s a little bit different story. So, the general thing is when you go on a safari, you’re spending X number of days out there. You generally have the same guide. And in East Africa at least, so you’ve got the same guide that you’re going with through the whole entire journey together. And at the end of the trip, you’re expected to pay some gratuity to the guide if you had a good time. And that culture is firmly ingrained there. Thank you, America. Right. You know, and our generous tipping culture, but to the point where it’s kind of like restaurant or service industry staff in the U.S. Where a lot of these people aren’t paid anything by the company.

They’re paid like the base amount to go on the trip and nothing more. It’s not enough to support themselves and or their family. So, they are paid almost nothing. And they rely on guests for their paycheck, basically. The problem with this is, of course, that they can never be guaranteed any amount of money for any trip. Let’s say they’re out there with a group of guests from China. China does not have a tipping culture. It’s not China’s fault or the guest’s fault that there’s no tipping culture. They’re just not used to it. So, they may not tip at all. They may tip too little, they may tip too much, who knows? But that’s just an example of why you can’t have your staff relying on that, because it’s just not reliable. A lot of the guides out there love Americans because Americans tip so well, but we’re kind of an anomaly. Most of the world doesn’t do that.

Yeah, there’s a little bit of tipping in Europe and some other places, but it’s nowhere near what Americans are used to giving. And that doesn’t mean that America’s better at or anything. It’s just a different culture. We decided pretty much from the get-go to do away with tipping. What we say to our guests is we are paying all of our staff, including the hotel staff, which aren’t even our staff. We are paying everyone a very decent wage or we’re giving good gratuity to the staff at the lodging. And if you feel like anybody goes above and beyond and you’re super impressed, bring some money and feel free to give anything extra. But do not feel like you’re obligated to give anything extra because everyone’s being paid very well.

We guarantee that base rate to our guides so that we’re able to attract and keep the best talent. Whereas many of these companies, they’re just, you know, they’ll take anyone and, you know, like, we’re like, we don’t want anyone. We want people, you know, they have 10 plus experience, years of experience, great English, they’ve been to college. You know, they’ve worked with these big providers, and they know how to treat guests and how to get over any situation that may arise. You know, it’s super important to us because like I said, our company, our ethos is kind of based on traveling together with amazing people, people in your group and then your guide or guides as well. Now with Kilimanjaro, it’s very similar. When I went on Kilimanjaro in 2010, I thought it was super awkward. So, they tell you that, like, okay, bring multiple envelopes, bring a bunch of cash up the mountain, bring a bunch of small denominations so you can pair it out to, like, this much for the groups of chefs, and this much for the porters and this much for your guide and your assistant guide.

On the last day, they were all gathered around me and my friend, and as I was, like, handing out envelopes of cash to these people, and I was just like, wow, this is not a great experience. You know, not only the fact that it might be kind of risky taking up all this cash with you up the mountain, but also it just kind of left a bad taste in my mouth about, you know, at least I brought the envelope, so it’d be even weirder just counting it out in front of them. And everyone sees what each other gets. So, we decided to do the same thing in Kilimanjaro. We pay really good rates. We attract the best talent, whether that’s chefs, guides, assistant guides, porters. Everyone wants to work with us. Whenever we have a Kilimanjaro track, they hear through the grapevine. We have group supporters just standing outside my partner’s house just asking for a job. You know, it’s not the best way of doing things, but, you know, I can’t believe that they don’t have anything going on, and they’re looking for work. Good on them. You know, they’re trying to get some extra work.

So, we decided to guarantee everyone a base rate. We pay them well, and we tell our guests, hey, if anyone goes above and beyond, you know, some of those porters, they know what to do to get some extra money, you know, and good on them. They’ll take their boots and clean them at the end of the day when they’re muddy. Hey, that’s very entrepreneurial. I respect that. And so, I tell our guests, you know, bring some money and feel free to give anyone some extra if you think that they went above and beyond. So, yeah, I think it’s very important, and we’ve been doing that for many years, and I wish more companies did it, But I’m also happy that it makes us stand out in a crowded field.

Matt Bowles: So, let’s talk about the offerings that Pamoja Safaris has right now today for people that might be listening to this. Maybe they’ve never been to the continent, or they’ve never been to Tanzania, and they’re interested, potentially in doing some of this. Maybe they’re interested in summiting Mount Kilimanjaro and are wondering what’s involved with that. Maybe they’re interested in doing a safari. But maybe people haven’t heard of things like the Ngorongoro Crater.

I hadn’t heard of it until I started spending time in Tanzania. And then I was like, I’ve heard of the Serengeti, but what’s the Ngorongoro Crater? And then I went there. I was like, oh, my gosh. It was like, unbelievable. Explain. Just assuming that people don’t have an in-depth knowledge of what these places are like, can you share a little bit about the experiences you’ve designed and what people could experience if they were to come through your company?

Scott Brills: We do custom private trips. So, it could be for one person, it could be for two, five, whatever number of people. What I basically ask is, okay, how many people are you? What time of year do you want to come? How many days? Okay, here’s what I recommend for itinerary. We can switch anything up you want and go from there. Whether it’s Kilimanjaro or for safari. We do safaris throughout the entire country.

Most people, for the first time, they’ll do an itinerary that consists of Tarangire National Park, which is close to Arusha and is famous for its elephants. Then we’ll go to the crater. Like you were saying, Matt, it’s really cool. You’re able to get really close to the animals because they’re more used to humans being there because the Maasai used to graze their cattle there. And then we go to Serengeti, which is kind of like the crown jewel. It’s the size of the state of Connecticut in the U.S. and simply enormous. About 15,000 square kilometers. For those that don’t know how big Connecticut is, you know, we’re able to spend as many days there as you want and do a hot air balloon safari in the morning. Or see the great cats, you know, cheetahs, leopards, lions. People are like, what animals are you going to see?

They say, see the Lion King. You see everything there. With the exception of no Timon, there’s no meerkats. Meerkats are only in Southern Africa. There’s no Timon. But everything else. Pumbaa, rafiki, that’s all there. Rhinos as well. Can’t forget the rhinos. We’re able to get a lot closer to the animals than a lot of people expect. We’re able to like, and it’s not that we’re encroaching on this space. The animals aren’t scared of vehicles or of people because it’s been a protected area for so long, hunting band and everything, that they feel safe with us there. It’s not the Case in many parks in Africa; some people may have seen viral videos of an elephant attacking a vehicle or something like that. You know, like Zambia or Botswana.

A lot of times that’s in places that used to be open for hunting. And it’s kind of become a national park more recently. And the animals still remember, especially the elephants. Elephants live to be 70 years old, and they remember. We’re lucky in that the Serengeti has been a protected ecosystem for a long time and the animals feel safe. You’ll see an elephant just walking right in front of the vehicle, or a lion sit down in the shade right next to you. And so, I’ve done a lot of safari experiences around the world where you need binoculars to see stuff. It’s not the case here. Bachelors can come in handy sometimes, but a lot of times they’re super close.

People are taking photos and videos with their cell phones. They don’t need a big lens, their camera. So, I think we’re really lucky with that. You know, I’ve been throughout Africa. I’ve driven through most of northern and eastern and southern Africa, and I’ve done safaris in other countries. And yes, I am biased. I have a company in Tanzania, but I’ve been these other places and Tanzania’s not the cheapest, but it’s the best place. There are cheaper locales there. You could do a safari cheaper in South Africa and in Kenya, they charge a little bit more for park, park fees in Tanzania, but they don’t have Ngorongoro crater, which is 12 by 12 mile, 20 by 20-kilometer, extinct volcano full of animals. You know, they don’t have the Serengeti, where the great wildebeest migration of about 2 million wildebeest zebras are going around in a circle, basically following the rains and the good grasses.

Part of them are up in Kenya for about two months out of the year. But for the majority of the time, they’re in Tanzania. Nowhere else. Kilimanjaro is the largest freestanding mountain in the world and also the biggest peak in Africa. Zanzibar, white sand, crystal clear blue waters that about 50% of our guests go to after a safari or Kilimanjaro on the coast of the country.

There’s a lot going on. I’ve been lucky enough to visit throughout the country. I’ve been to most of the national parks, including some that are way off the radar. Some of our guests are coming back for a second or third time. The last to go to the south too, like, Ruaha or to Selous now called Nyerere National Park, which has a lot less people in it and they just want to kind of have a private experience down there. But we can make it all happen. We’ve got a lot of experience, a lot of connections. We’ve made stuff happen that’s never been done before in the whole history of the country. So let me know if we can do it.

Matt Bowles: I love it, man. And I understand you’re willing to offer Maverick Show listeners a special incentive as well, which is amazing. I want you to share what it is, but I also just want to emphasize for folks that I can tell you that this is a very crowded space, and it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to sift through and filter in two categories. One is how am I going to have a really spectacular experience and really get good quality and amazing experience to see and experience what I want to do, whether it’s hiking up Kilimanjaro or going on a safari?

The other one is how can I do this ethically and sustainably? Right. I mean, so if you’re putting those two filters, you’re going to spend a lot of time filtering through a lot of companies and sorting through a lot of stuff. And so, I really love the way that your company operates and all the things that you do in your 15-year track record and everything else. So, for folks that are hearing this right now and they’d love to experience some aspect of Tanzania with promoted Safaris, what special offer can you give to Maverick Show listeners and how can they grab that?

Scott Brills: If you want to do any safari that is six days or more, which is generally the case, a lot of our clients do 6, 8, 10, 12 days. We’re happy to give 500 bucks off per person, so it’s a healthy discount. But we’re happy to extend it directly to any listener of the show.

Matt Bowles: Amazing. Which is right about the price of if somebody wanted to tack on something like a hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti or something like that, which I’ve been telling people was one of the most special experiences that I had in Tanzania. And that was the thing that my, you know, my friends that were organizing this like, dude, we’re taking a hot air balloon at sunrise. I was like, okay, fine, I’m going. They’re like, yeah. And then we land and we.

And so, you are literally up above, you know, as the sun is rising, you are in the air, and it is completely silent and you’re just silently floating and you’re looking down and you’re seeing all of these animals in their completely natural habitat. Because it’s cool when you do the game drives and when you drive around, and you pull up in the jeeps and stuff like that. But you’re clearly on some level intruding in a natural habitat, right? Even if the animals are kind of used to it and stuff, when you are floating over the top in a completely silent air balloon, you are just watching hippos jumping out of the water and playing with each other. It is mind blowing. I mean, I was floored.

I’ve been telling everybody about it. I’m like, whatever it costs, add it on, do it. Trust me, you’ll be telling stories about it for years. And so, this is an opportunity for people to basically get that added on and comped. So absolutely amazing stuff. So, we are going to link up a special link in the show notes which is going to be www.pamojasafaris.com/maverick. And if you go through that link, you can either type it in or just go to the show notes. We’ll have it linked up directly. You’ll be able to get that special discount and experience Tanzania.

Scott Brills: We haven’t offered this to anybody ever before, by the way. We don’t offer discounts. So, this is only for the show because Matt asked about it and I was like, all right, we’ll do it.

Matt Bowles: A Maverick Show exclusive. We appreciate that, Scott. Amazing. All right, we’re going to pause here and call that the end of part one. If you would like to check out Scott’s safaris and other Tanzania experiences, see detailed itineraries and all of that, you can go to pamojasafaris.com/maverick and by using that link, you’re going to be able to lock in your $500 discount once again. That’s spelled P-A-M-O-J-A safaris.com/maverick we are also going to link it up in the show notes along with everything else that we have discussed in this episode and all of the ways that you can find, follow and connect with Scott. That is going to be at themaverickshow.com, just go there and go to the show notes for this episode and remember to tune in to the next episode to hear the conclusion of my interview with Scott Brills. Good night, everybody.