Unlikely Explorer: Overcoming Doubts and Divorce, Documenting the Human-Elephant Conflict In India, and Holding Two Truths with Kim Frank

·1 hr 14 min·4 clips

Kim Frank describes a breathwork experience where she felt herself become the elephant Drishti.

1. Zero To Travel Podcast centers this episode on Kim Frank's book Elephants in the Hourglass and her reporting on human-elephant conflict in India. 2. Host Jason Moore speaks with Kim Frank, an award-winning writer, Explorers Club fellow, and Royal Geographic Society fellow, about why her work matters. 3. The episode asks how one person can tell a complicated conservation story while also rebuilding a life after divorce and self-doubt. 4. Kim says she wrote Elephants in the Hourglass: A Journey of Reckoning and Hope Along the Himalaya to illuminate Asian elephants in India, not just African elephants. 5. She explains that the book became more personal than expected and included her experience as a divorced mother of two daughters. 6. Kim describes herself as an 'unlikely explorer' who was not a scientist or adventurer when she began. 7. She says fear and lack of confidence shaped her early work, and that she wanted readers to see vulnerability rather than a polished explorer narrative. 8. Kim argues that action starts with one step, whether someone is leaving a difficult situation or taking on a new project. 9. She says writing and voice memos help her process field experiences and notice where she gets in her own way. 10. Kim credits Vinnie Geffen, founder of Atlantic Productions, with telling her to write the book before trying to make a documentary. 11. She recalls him saying, 'sometimes you have to fight for the story,' a line she links to her years of returning to India. 12. Kim describes guilt around travel and work after becoming a mother and says people often asked, 'who's watching your children?' 13. She says her daughters and ex-husband, David, supported her fieldwork, including a dangerous nighttime assignment with elephants and firecrackers. 14. Kim reports that she now asks her daughters directly how they feel about her traveling, instead of assuming their answer. 15. She says Goldie asked only that she not miss an eighth-grade moving-up ceremony. 16. Kim says the phrase 'the space in between' refers to the relationship among humans, elephants, nature, and the truths that are not always visible. 17. She points to Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world, as a metaphor for things that are present even when mist hides them. 18. The interview moves with a reflective, personal style, and Jason Moore keeps asking about family, fieldwork, and conservation ethics. 19. People interested in responsible travel, conservation, and women balancing work and family will likely connect with it. 20. Listeners wanting a fast travel checklist or light destination banter may skip it.

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