Thailand Tourism hosted a private screening for the local Los Angeles audience to introduce its new collaboration with DreamJobbing called The Local Traveler. The premise was to find a U.S. traveler and send them packing for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Thailand. The catch is they go solo, can’t stay at hotels/hostels and will be led through relatively unknown towns and regions. No Phuket or Chiang Mai on this trip!

This solo travel quest to find authentic and off-the-beaten-path adventures hits close to the heart of Global Traveler’s ethos! As Global Traveler‘s audience has traveled to places all over the world, we have strived to find experiences that are unique and lasting — hence our Bucket List articles and more.

The film showed us a female solo traveler become close to her hosts in rural towns with surreal views of the valleys in northeast Thailand, tie-dying with a woman doing it for more than 80 years and helping a seahorse back to the ocean in a town’s quest for sealife preservation.

Where have you gone that changed your expectations and got you out of your comfort zone?

— Carly Allen, executive vice president, associate publisher