the vogel twins

This month we are going to take you to Washington DC! DC has been the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since the agency's inception in 1947. The CIA's mission is to collect, analyze, and disseminate intelligence to support national security objectives. Throughout its history, the agency has played a critical role in some of the most significant events of the 20th and 21st centuries, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. While much of the CIA's work is shrouded in secrecy, visitors to Washington DC can explore its history and legacy through museums and memorials, as well as specialized tours led by expert guides.

Today, we're thrilled to be joined by Rosanna Minchew, a spy guide and expert on the history and culture of espionage in Washington DC. As a guide for Spytours, Rosanna has led countless visitors on an immersive journey through the secret world of spies, sharing fascinating stories and little-known facts along the way. Today, she's here to give us a glimpse into that world and share some of her own experiences and insights.

This month we are taking you to Vegas! Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city, known primarily for its gambling. BUT we do not gamble or even know how to SO we decided to use the Best Bet Vegas tours to teach ourselves how to gamble like a pro! The team at Best Bet Vegas Tours are experienced local guides who share their passion and knowledge for Las Vegas with travelers from all over the world. 

This month we are taking you to Vermont! I don't know about you, but when I think of Vermont the first thing I think of is snow activities and for someone who doesn't ski or snowboard I was curious what else we could experience that still feels true to Vermont. And that is when we discovered Robert De-Grun-yer

Robert DuGrenier is a well-known sculptor, artist, and designer working primarily in glass, metal and marble. He is located in Townshend, Vermont where he has given people an opportunity to experience first hand the thrill of working with molten glass and create a unique work of art from start to finish at his studio. He also has tours of his maple bush and sugar house to taste his small-batch of award-winning Taft Hill Farm maple syrup. Today we will be discussing his amazing career and how you can experience these activities in Vermont with Robert.

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Our season is almost over! If you haven't already feel free to listen to this past season to get ready for our big rewind episode that airs at the end of the month! Hope you all enjoy your holidays with loved ones!

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For today's twin talk we want to highlight a special organization called Elephant Nature Park. Elephant Nature Park is an elephant rescue and rehabilitation center in Northern Thailand where you can volunteer and visit to help. They have been involved in dozens of rescues that have created their thriving elephant herd. The park provides a natural environment for elephants, dogs, cats, buffaloes, and many other animals under their care. Volunteers and visitors contribute to the healing while learning about their lives past and present. We were fortunate enough to visit this sanctuary back in 2018 and wanted to share their mission and our experience by reading an excerpt from Shannon's travel journal during that time. If you are interested in visiting or donating here is the link where you can help their organization continue to do the work they do!

Meet our guest Brittnay Sharman. She has house-sat in 15 countries, looked after 40 homes and cared for over 45 animals! But the craziest part of this whole story, she has traveled around the world to these amazing locations FOR FREE! Imagine traveling the world and not having to spend rent, thanks to becoming a House sitter she has done just that! Today Britt is going to share with us the life of a house sitter and how she was able to combine her favorite interests, travel and animals!

Meet our guest Troy Taylor. His full-time job is ghosts, true crime, and the unexplained. He is the author of more than 130 books and the owner of American Hauntings - a tour company dedicated to offering a historically haunted experience in towns across Illinois and haunted locations all over the country!

You may remember him from last year's episode “American Hauntings” where he shared some of his favorite haunting stories in Alton, Illinois and we joined him on a ghost tour there to show us where those stories began. To say we are big fans is an understatement since we asked to have him on again, but this time he will be covering the haunted tales of New Orleans!

With all the traveling we have done we can easily say this was the WORST flying experience of our lives. This is probably the second worst thing that can happen on a flight (the first being a plane crash) that we can now check off as a traveling experience. Unfortunately, it is one we have been avoiding the most. Tune in to hear what happened and how we survived 7 hours of flying with food poising! 

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Here is the second part of our experience hiking the Inca Trail with the Alpaca Expeditions! We cover what you can expect, our experience for the second half of the hike, and the impact of seeing Machu Picchu on our last day. We want to give a big shout-out to our tour guides, Yoel, Aldair, and Victor for making this experience so special but also to our group of new friends who got us through these 4 days with a lot of laughter and love! Expect some happy tears in this episode and how we were able to share this beautiful moment at Machu Picchu with our family!

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To say this was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of our lives is an understatement, but this achievement would not have been possible without the help of the Alpaca Expeditions. Through this tour group, we were able to check off a life bucket list and have the adventure of a lifetime. In this episode, we walk you through the first 2 of 4 days hiking the Inca trail and what you can expect as well as the incredible people we met! We will be covering the next half of the hike in the next episode so stay tuned!

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When we travel we like to collect specific memorabilia that represents the country we travel to, but is this a common goal? We debate and share the meaning of our souvenirs and how these objects can bring us back to that moment. 

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Alpaca Expeditions is the #1 tour operator in Peru, who prides themselves on superior service to their clients, creating unique and memorable adventures all around Peru. They pride themselves on being sustainable and responsible, committed to improving the lives of their team and families with better wages and services. They have been featured on Netflix, Lonely Planet, Forbes and others. But we can’t start to talk about Alpaca Expeditions without mentioning the founder first. From a porter to the owner of the number 1 Tour Operator in Cusco, meet our guest today, Raul Ccolque Ccolque. For more on this episode check out our webpage here. 

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It's officially that time of year again, the first half of our season is done! But don't worry we will be making sure to keep you updated on all the fun things you can do this summer specifically in New York.

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Yukako Satone is a Japan-born fiber artist, weaving instructor and the founder of craft studio Loop of the Loom based in New York. Loop of the Loom introduces the Japanese SAORI weaving method that everyone can freely weave for self-expression, self-discovery, and self-healing. Through the practice of SAORI weaving, she originated it as a unique session called "Zen Weaving". Since opening in 2005, she has been giving experiences of meditative and aesthetic weaving to over ten thousands of people from all over the world.

Guest: Yukako Satone

We talk about the destination bachelorettes we have been to and why we think it's something you should always say yes to! 

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Kerry Martin is a Melbourne-based and international award-winning family and pet photographer who considers pets very much part of the family. It’s for this very reason that she specializes in portraiture photography that includes dogs and families with their pets! 

Kerry is also Editor of Puppy Tales, a website devoted to the promotion of wonderful relationships between dogs and people. She shares her travels and adventures to help you plan the perfect trip with your pup or to create an exciting bucket list to achieve together.

Welcome our guest Kendall Fuhrman, she is an entrepreneur, travel vlogger, content creator, podcast host, and now author of her new book coming out called "You Are The Medicine" which follows her journey in Peru where she took one of the strongest psychedelics in the world  and learned to find her medicine within. She has a mission of inspiring others to find their happiness within and live their life to the fullest! 

She began her career in October 2018 when she quit her job and started her viral content and marketing agency, Fuhrman Ventures LLC where she quickly found success with freelancing and being a content creator online reaching 555K followers across her TikTok, Instagram and YouTube and getting paid to travel. She is passionate about manifestation, travel, spirituality and her goal is to share her story in the hopes of inspiring others on their self discovery journey as well.

Guest: Kendall Fuhrman

We know most people just want to get to their destination fast BUT you are missing out on all the fun things that layovers have to offer! We talk about all the tips and tricks on how to make layovers more fun and the amenities you may not know is offered  in different airports around the world.

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Meet our guest Eden Tijerina and Syrie Moskowitz, co-founders of Muses Escape. The Muses are a collective designed to empower the aesthetics of femininity in all its forms. They create opportunities for artistic women around the world to meet, collaborate with, and inspire one other. They host yearly and bi-yearly escapes to magical secret locations around the world. Each escape focuses on a different area of the creative arts and offers unique experiences, including curated classes with world renowned instructors, all in exquisite and historical locations, as well as hosting decadent NYC based events.

Traveling with your sister definitely helps combat being homesick but that doesn't mean we don't. We talk about our two biggest triggers and it might surprise you! 

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Victoria O’Connell is the CEO of Golightly. Which is an invite-only private club providing a vacation rental and home-sharing platform for women. She is an entrepreneur with over 17 years of experience co-founding and managing JDP Global, an international e-commerce and real estate company. With vacation rentals in Malta, London, Dubai and Miami, she’s long been a customer of alternative accommodations.

But it wasn’t until 2017 when her rental space was burglarized that made Victoria think about how she - and many women - feel vulnerable while both traveling and renting out one’s home. She realized that knowing more about who is renting your property, who you are renting from, and having a connection to that person through a private club, was the answer-which was how GoLightly was formed.

We love to plan our days when we travel but when we reflect on our favorite memories while traveling we realized it was always the most spontaneous moments! We reflect on one of our favorite stories from Japan where we met 3 Americans at a 7/11 in Shibuya and talk about how the night unfolded for us. 

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Happy Valentine's day! On today's Twin talk we discuss the good and bad experiences being on dating apps as a twin. From matching the same people to being able to avoid the "West Elm Caleb" type, dating apps have taught us a lot about what we look for in a partner. Although we have not been successful yet, it has provided some good content to laugh about with you.

Follow @thevogeltwins for updates on the podcast, tips on travel and more!

Follow @thevogeltwins for updates on the podcast, tips on travel and more!

Another season in the books! We recap on our third season and recollect some funny moments that happened while recording the people we met and conversations we had off mic with our guests! Tune in to listen to everything that has happened this past year and what you will be expecting this upcoming season next!

Our guest is Kwabi Amoah-Forson is a humanitarian from Tacoma, WA. Through various humanitarian campaigns he has helped others in need in his community. He also works to educate others on what peace really means and create dialogue for the subject. ⁠ ⁠ Tune in to hear how you can be a part of the Peace Bus Journey!⁠

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Meet today's guest Rebecca Rothney, founder of Pack for a purpose. The idea for Pack for a Purpose evolved from Rebecca’s travels in Africa with her husband Scott, where they had the opportunity to visit an elementary school and decided to bring 140 pounds of supplies to the children and saw what a big impact it was for them! When she founded Pack for a Purpose 11 years ago, her computer skills were almost nonexistent, she thought text belonged in a book, blackberries belonged in a cobbler, and she only spreadsheets on a bed.

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Say hello to our guest Brit - a travel writer and the voice behind the travel blog lifeofbrit.com. She is beyond passionate about inspiring other women to get out there and travel solo. Her mission is to help other "normal" people on a budget pursue travel too! She shares her tips and tricks on how you can profit your hobbies and have a passive income to help you afford your trips! 

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Meet our guest Rita Schmidt. Yes you heard that right THE Rita Schmidt from SEASON 1! She is a natural born psychic and has been a professional Tarot reader for over 25 years. But on this episode she will be talking about all of her metaphysical encounters while she has traveled as a medium. Some encounters were anticipated while some were NOT. Listen to hear more of her spooky encounters throughout the years as a medium on today's episode.

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Say hello to our guest Troy Taylor- His full-time job is ghosts, true crime, and the unexplained. He is the author of more than 130 books on those topics and the owner of American Hauntings, which is a tour company dedicated to offering a historically haunted experience in towns across Illinois and at haunted locations all over the country.

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Say hello to Allison Wolf! She is a travel content creator and digital nomad. She has traveled to 18 countries (across 4 continents) so far and have self-funded all of her adventures. Her biggest goals right now are to move abroad and launch a course that teaches others how to start working remotely so they can live a life with more freedom. We talk about our travels her viral Tiktoks and more!

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On today's episode we reflect on the times we have gotten lost while traveling. From our times in London getting drunk and ending up in the streets, Shannon getting lost in Oktoberfest for 8 hours then having a Japanese bus driver draw us a map of the town to having a pervert in Paris follow us on a train- we can easily say our times traveling haven't always gone smoothly.

Today our guest is Captain Garth Wells. Garth has been sailing the French since 1998, first as the mate, and now as Captain/Owner. He has sailed huge square-rigged vessels, modern day yachts, schooners, and commercial fishing vessels. Signing on to work on the French, he quickly realized that Maine was the ultimate in traditional boat sailing, combining beautiful scenery and good winds with the protection of countless islands. From how he has balanced family life as a Captain to his famous 4 day sail in Maine, we discuss how someone becomes a captain.

Guest Information:

Based in Cardiff, Wales, Kacie is a full-time food and travel blogger at The Rare Welsh Bit, an award-winning blog established in 2010 featuring recipes, restaurants, culinary travel, sight-seeing and more. With a background in journalism and over 10 years' experience in writing and editing, Kacie is also a member of the UK Guild of Food Writers and writes on a freelance basis for the likes of Visit Wales, Sainsbury's Magazine, Co-Op Food Mag and World Travel Market.

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Meet our guest Sherilyn- a full time content creator and social media hype girl. She is the founder of the travel community - Travel Addicts UK and also big on supporting others to release their inner queen of confidence and build an authentic brand online.

Follow @thevogeltwins for updates on the podcast, tips on travel and more!

Meet our guest Caoilfhionn, an Irish travel writer and photographer based in Scotland. She has spent the last 7 years building a career in travel through writing for titles such as Elle and Suitcase, photographing for global brands and most recently, starting her own content production studio, Crusoe Collective. She comes on to talk about how she turned her love for photography and travel into a career out and how you can do that too!

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Jessie Chen is an NYC-based travel blogger who started Lost With Jess when she bought a one-way ticket to Thailand and backpacked through Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand for 3 years! Right now, she runs marketing at a tech startup based in Brooklyn but still tries to travel as often as she can. Through her blog and photography, she advocates for a purposeful travel mindset so that we may leave the world a better place. We discuss how you can become more sustainable during your travels and ways to incorporate that in your everyday life.

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Our episode "How to be a tourist in your own city" we talk about being Long Islanders with our two favorite Long Island ladies Kristen Jarnagin (CEO) and Sharon Wyman (COO)of Discover Long Island and podcast hosts of Long Island tea. ⁠Discover Long Island is Long Island's official tourism, destination marketing, and leadership organization. They have a new podcast called Long Island tea that highlights Long Island to both locals and visitors alike, sharing the insider tips and "spilling the tea" on all the things that make LI such a beautiful and unique place to live, work, and visit. ⁠

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Jenna is a journalist covering indigenous news in the United States. She spent the last two years living in Alaska. Last winter, she was among 16 journalists selected by the Pulitzer Center to highlight the impacts of climate change, which brought her to the Alaskan Arctic. Prior to that, Jenna lived in South Korea, Nepal and India teaching English, reporting and solo traveling. Jenna talks about those experiences with us and how it has shaped her view of the world as well as the benefits she gained from solo travel!

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Have you ever considering selling everything you own to go live in a van and travel?! Well we have and our guest Brie shares with us how doable it actually is! She is currently traveling with her boyfriend Kevin and adorable dog Zoey and their goal is to hit all the national parks while finding their permanent home!⁠ ⁠ In todays episode we go into the details of van life-from purchasing their van through craigslist, managing the work life balance on the road to some of their favorite places they have visited so far! ⁠

2020 was a hard year to meet people and it made us think, how did we do it before this pandemic? Travel helps put you in situations where it is inevitable to meet new people but you may think our method is a little unusual. We take doing what "the locals" do a bit too literally. From bathing with grandmothers, singing duets to getting engaged we share it all on this episode! You might be surprised on how many different and obscure ways you can meet locals but the most unpredictable moments are the best. Hear all about these encounters in today's episode.

Happy New Years everyone! We can all agree that 2020 has been an interesting year for all of us and since it's that time of year for reflection we decided to bring back our REWIND episode where we discuss on our Season 2 episodes and share some behind the scenes that you didn't hear on the mic.

We wouldn't want to end this season with anyone other than Kaitlin Vogel! Just like us, she has traveled a bunch but has had some crazy travel disasters along the way. This episode we talk to her about the time she went to Greece and her hilarious adventure on the way there but most importantly how she doesn't allow travel disasters stop her from having a fun time.

Our mini series “Night Out” continues in Spain! But this episode would not be complete without our guest Jay! Jay had joined us during our time in Spain and shared her perspective of our nights out together. Things get uncovered and you will be surprised how much Kristin and I did not know until this episode! Tune in to hear how all the craziness unfolds.

Have you ever wondered if it was better to book tour groups over planning a trip yourself? We usually like to take the reins on our travel plans but this was our first time letting go of that control and putting it in someone else’s hands! Our trip was through the tour group called EF college and we let you know the pros and cons of travel groups like this one!

Our mini series “Night Out” is taking you to one of our favorite cities...SEOUL! We cover what you will expect during night out in Seoul and how we survived it all. We can easily say this was a memorable experience for many reasons but you will have to tune in to find out why!

This week we travel over to KOREA! We consider all our trips to be special but this one in particular has a special place in our hearts. We share how we prepared for this trip and how life changing it was for us. From Shannon losing her passport to Kristin almost getting arrested you can say Korea was one for the books!

In this episode we have our mom on for our early Mother's day special! We get told a lot that we are her “mini-mes” in looks but most importantly we have her adventurous spirit! Tune in to hear how this woman has shaped us and hopefully inspire you guys to travel with your parents someday too (if you have not already)!

One of the biggest struggles for travelers is how to organize your trip! It can be an overwhelming task at first but our close friend Matt has some great tips and tricks he shares on this week's episode! He shares how we inspired his travel bug but most importantly how his road trip around America taught him a few things about travel planning. He shares how his travel planning has evolved since and how you can use his tips to curate your own!

Some of the best nights are the spontaneous ones and we never knew what to expect when we went out in Florence. From Shannon living out her dirty dancing lift dream to Kristin meeting what should have been her future husband. This episode we share some of our nights out studying abroad in Florence and spoiler alert, we do not hold back! 

Bonjour! This episode we are taking you to the most romantic city in the world...PARIS! But how romantic can it be when you go with your twin sister?! We discovered Paris does not have to be a destination you take with your significant other and can be thoroughly enjoyed no matter what stage you are in life. From strolling through the city to our night out we share some insightful tips along with lessons for traveling around Paris!

Being Irish, traveling to Ireland was an experience that made us feel connected to our roots. Our guest, Colleen shares with us the impact it had on her and her family when they visited Ireland with her grandmother. She shares her grandmother's life before she moved to America, from her grandfather escaping prison to his future brother in law being the one who helped him escape! Connecting the dots of her family tree you won't believe what they discovered about her history.

Not all of our trips go according to plan and we always walk away with a lesson or two...this trip to London was no exception. We learned a lot about ourselves, the people we want to surround ourselves with as well as the value of our own company being enough.

Welcome to the craziest weekends of our lives...OKTOBERFEST! From following the Lederhosen’s all the way to the festival, sitting with a table full of Australians to Shannon getting lost for 8 hours you could say this weekend was "one for the books". You get a chance to hear both sides of the story- from Kristin trying to find her lost twin sister to what Shannon did for those 8 hours in Munich.

Ciao! This episode we transport you guys back to our fall semester abroad in Florence 2012. We cover why we choose Florence, our life as students and the lessons we learned throughout our months living there!

In this episode we discuss a list of benefits and lessons we have gained from traveling. The good and bad, travel is not only discovering new places but finding yourself within it. Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the idea of travel? Maybe you wonder how you could adjust to new settings? How would you make friends? For those wondering if they should book that trip, this episode may make that decision easier. And for those who are currently traveling add your stories and revelations you have had through travel

Happy New Year! On this episode we wanted to reflect and share with you some of our favorite "behind-the-scene" moments this season! We share our expectations for the podcast and how they have TOTALLY changed since now. But we also want to thank everyone who has joined in so far and look forward to sharing more with you in the 2020.

SPOILER ALERT. Do not listen to this episode in front of children or anyone who may not know the true identity of Santa Clause. In this episode we discuss one of the biggest scandals of our childhood...Santa's secret. We share some of our favorite stories we found on how others have discovered Santa's secret and add our own commentary to their situations.

Reminiscing and drinking are what the holidays are all about right?! In this episode we join our friend Joey and talk about our life choices with a little fun game called “Never have I ever” but the twist….Drink if you can not answer! You may be surprised at what we reveal and what we had to drink on!

We decided to take our love for the supernatural and take it to the next level by interviewing a local psychic, Rita Schmidt! She is a natural born psychic and has been a professional Tarot reader for over 25 years. In addition to doing private readings, psychic parties and corporate events, one of her passions is teaching classes and workshops on a variety of metaphysical topics. Helping people develop their natural psychic abilities is both exciting and rewarding to her. She has always been fascinated by the power, metaphysical properties and beauty of crystals and is now also a Certified Crystal Therapist! In this episode she shares her gift of Tarot with us and educates us on her life as a psychic and breaks down what that means. For the second half of the episode Shannon shares her intimate reading with Rita for you all to enjoy!

Guest Information

Anyone else waiting for their letter from Hogwarts?! Ever since we were 11 we have been secretly hoping an owl would come to our door with an invitation but in preparation for that day we decided to test our knowledge in Witch Craft to see how many spells Kristin knows….Did we mention she has never read the books?!

Jack Weppler is the main vocalist for SCR but we know him offstage as a close friend. Being fellow creatives ourselves we understand the struggles of pursuing an “unconventional career”. Jack gives us his perspective as a singer and how complicated the music industry can be but his moments on stage performing are what make it worth the struggle. We sit down with Jack to discuss imposter syndrome, combating the haters but most importantly why you should pursue your dream.

Today we have our college friend Jeff Scott discuss his journey to self discovery. Combating the feelings of when “life doesn't go as planned '' Jeff shares how he came to the realization of changing his mind set on life. Being comfortable with not being able to control his situation but being able to control his reaction to it. With that in mind he educates us on his self care routine, regulating his intake on social media platforms and how he stays motivated through hardships.

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Part 2 of the "27 Questions" series for our 27th birthday! This time its Kristin turn!

In honor of our 27th birthday we decided to ask each other 27 questions! This episode Kristin will be asking Shannon the questions but the twist is she has no idea what Kristin plans to ask.

No we didn’t have our sister on AGAIN, but none other than Kaitlyn Phillips! She is one of our oldest friends from high school and we dish out all the drama we experienced together. It’s incredible to think we missed our 10 year "friend-a-versary" but going on 11 years we are grateful Shannon sat at the worst lunch table ever to have been able to meet Kaitlyn.

Meet our oldest friend and next door neighbor Lexie Lodato. She is probably the first person to coin the term “The twins” and it has stuck ever since! Hear us reminisce about our childhood and laugh at all the memories we have shared together.

Since last episode our sister Kaitlin spilled some secrets we were inspired to share one of ours, our undying love for our cats! We want to defend the obsession and explain what makes cats so amazing which leads us to some other topics we love…from Harry potter, Dr Do-little, Drake and Keanu Reeves? A conversation combo you never knew you needed until now!

Meet our older sister Kaitlin Vogel! Since this episode has aired on her birthday it only seems natural to have her on as a guest and to have her share her love for astrology and the supernatural. From her times as a kid facing her nightmares of clowns to unplanned run-ins with fortune tellers she shares it all. For a lot of laughs and some chilling discoveries tune in!

Welcome to the Vogel twins podcast! In our first episode we wanted to introduce ourselves to you and tell you what it's like being an identical twin. We talk about some of the pranks we have played on people as well as the lessons we have learned from being a twin.