Some journeys begin with a single step — or, in Matt Gray‘s case, a drive across the border to see Niagara Falls from the Canadian side. Raised in Larchmont, New York, with summers spent on family road trips down to North Carolina, his early travels stayed close to home but planted the seeds of curiosity and movement.
Matt, tell us a little about yourself and how your love for travel developed.
It’s funny – it wasn’t until I was 17 years old that I left the United States, and I just drove across the border to see Niagara Falls from the Canadian Side with my Mom when we were looking at universities together. I grew up just outside New York City in Larchmont, New York and we spent most of our summers driving down to North Carolina to see my grandparents. My Mom loves a good road trip, and would always find interesting stops along the way for us to visit on the way. I think despite these travels remaining pretty close to home, they made me very comfortable with moving around frequently.
What was your first trip abroad and how did it affect you?
My Dad had a tradition with me and my brother that he would take one of us on a “father son” trip, alternating each year. We would always go to either Myrtle Beach, SC or the Outer Banks, NC – two places my Dad grew up. When I turned 18, I suggested we go somewhere new and we settled on Aruba after I researched the Caribbean. While it was a pretty “stereotypical” American vacation staying in a Marriott on the beach, it was the first trip I planned, I got to see somewhere new, and it ignited a spark that has stayed with me.
The real catalyst for my love for travel was studying abroad when I was 19. To be honest, I only went to the study abroad office because most of my friends were going and I figured I might regret it if I didn’t – but I didn’t feel strongly about going. I settled on the IES Abroad program in Vienna, Austria as it was one of the few programs that was in a non-English speaking country where I didn’t need to know the language ahead of time. That summer, I took my first redeye, was greeted in German when I landed, and was off to what would become the most transformative 4 months of my life.
It was a new place, and a new community, but my roommates and I hit the ground running. We all became close friends and spent the semester traveling to as many places as we could. Prague, Krakow, Budapest, Munich, Salzburg, Bratislava, Bologna, Venice, London, & Geneva to name a few. Plus, I think all of us grew so much as we experienced life in Europe which was so different from what we were used to in the US.
Do you feel you’re different from most Americans who travel and if so, how?
At some point, I think I graduated from Tourist to Traveler. I don’t know exactly when that was, but I remember meeting my older cousin in Barcelona when I was living in London, and him saying “we can do 1 touristy thing because you’ve never been here before. But that’s it. Otherwise, we’re just going to enjoy the next few days chilling and living in Barcelona.”
That really stuck with me, and has shaped the way I travel – my mentality is generally that I’ll try to see and do whatever I can – but not make myself crazy trying to see every tourist site in every city. I’d much rather enjoy a coffee in the park, or go out for drinks with locals than tick off every stop on a walking tour. This makes traveling much more sustainable as a lifestyle, and I’ve found that I always make my way back to the places I like best so there really is no rush.
What were the biggest surprises in your travels?
You read a lot about how dangerous the world is, and as I started visiting some places a bit more off the beaten path, I saw first-hand how exaggerated most of this was. In general, I’ve had very few complications traveling, never felt unsafe, and nearly everyone I’ve met has been extraordinarily friendly and helpful when I’ve needed it. Ultimately, we are all human, and I think most humans are quite nice people regardless of where they live in the world.
Now let’s turn to Pangea, the app you have developed, What initially motivated you to create it?
I lead a product team for a fintech company for nearly 10 years and as I advanced my career I spent quite a bit of time traveling for business between several of our key offices in New York, London, Pisa, Delhi and Jakarta. I loved getting to explore new places, and connecting with colleagues around the world, but also found that it was always a bit lonely traveling solo.
I had a few times where I bumped into coworkers in the hotel in India, only to realize one of us had just arrived and the other was leaving the next day. And also times where I’d spend a weekend exploring somewhere in Europe solo, only to see that I had a college friend who was in a different city after they posted on Instagram at the end of their trip.
I realized that despite most people booking their travel plans weeks or months ahead, we didn’t share where we were going until after the trip had started (or even ended) which was quite inefficient. I wanted to create a way to keep track of everyone’s schedules and plans, with the goal of optimizing to see friends more.
For every bump in with an old friend in a new city, or time that you get connected to someone’s local contact ahead of time that happens serendipitously, there are 99 other times when this doesn’t happen due to lack of knowledge. Pangea was built to solve this.
What inspired the name?
Pangea was the original super continent nearly 300 million years ago before the tectonic plates separated into the 7 continents we know today. By connecting travelers to one another, and to people in any city around the world my hope is we can get the world back closer to this state.
Ultimately, most people have friends, or have friends who know someone from nearly every country in the world. And I think if we help people realize these connections, it will make the world a much kinder and more empathetic place. We are all human, and especially as we’re seeing more conflict around the world, it’s more important than ever to focus on our similarities rather than our differences. My hope is Pangea can play a role in this.
Explain to us exactly what Pangea does and how NomadMania travelers can benefit from it.
Pangea is designed to enable serendipity. It’s a free & simple way to share your plans with friends, see who else is traveling (or wants to travel) to the same places as you, and get notified when your plans overlap. We want to make it easier for people to coordinate their plans, and see their friends more IRL, wherever that might be.
You simply add your upcoming travel plans – both confirmed trips (i.e. London from July 13-25th) or tentative plans (i.e. I want to spend 4 days in Laos in August or September) into the app, and decide who else can see these plans. You can make them public if you want to meet other travelers on the app, or keep them private so only your friends can see them. When you add a new trip or start your journey, your friends are notified. This allows everyone to comment, share recommendations, decide to join you, or introduce you to their local contacts in a city.
We also have some basic trip planning functionality like an itinerary, and let people share their recommendations all directly in the app. I love being able to take a look on the map and see where my friends are planning to go in the future, because then I can adjust my plans accordingly to join or see them more.
I think the NomadMania community could get a lot of value as frequent travelers. They can add their other NomadMania friends, or others they travel with to keep track of plans and meetup more IRL. We could even create a “Group” in the app for NomadMania travelers to keep track of one another, and for other Pangea members to discover NomadMania. It’s also a great way to share where you’ll be with people back home – my parents love always being up to date about where I am and where I’m going!
What were the biggest challenges in this project and what are your greatest rewards?
As I’m sure as you’ve learned too, building an app is not as easy as anyone thinks. Figuring out exactly which features were valuable for our users, especially new users who weren’t already connected to the community was a challenge. And getting those features to a level of maturity and simplicity that people loved using them is a continuous initiative. The app is still in the Public Beta phase, but we are working hard on streamlining everything for a launch this summer!
And what are your long-term aims with this? Where do you see Pangea in, say, 5 years?
I want to build Pangea into a leading travel brand and platform over the next decade of my career. I’ve always been passionate about building products, connecting people, and exploring the world. Pangea brings these three passions together into one project. The travel world is still very fragmented, and requires so much work for travelers to plan and organize their trips. Plus, so many people aren’t traveling as much as they’d like to because they have no one to go with.
Pangea will solve some of the most pressing problems for the community, and continue to stay focused on the “who” as much as the “where” or “when.” As the Wizard of Oz said, “it’s not the places you go, it’s the people you meet along the way” I see Pangea as a key enabler of this – connecting people to community & experiences around the world.
And where do you see yourself as a traveler in 5 years?
Well, after the NomadMania Conference in Uzbekistan last month, and hearing so many inspiring stories from you and many of the other UN Masters I’ve decided to go for 193. I love exploring new places with new people and want to continue on this path. I’m at 101 now but don’t want to rush it, so plan to add 5-10 new countries each year in addition to continuing to spend time in some of my favorite places, especially Cape Town, South Africa which is my favorite place so far.
I’d also like to complete this journey with as many friends as possible, and plan to leverage both Pangea, and many of our partner communities to help find or organize meaningful groups to explore my remaining 92 countries, some in extended periods as a Digital Nomad, and others as more traditional trips. I’m very much looking forward to the Benin & Togo trip with Nomad Mania in January for example!
Share your travel agenda with us until the end of the year.
This is a bit complicated but here’s what I have planned as of now. This is directly exported from Pangea. You can of course get my “live” schedule in the app at any time! If we’ll overlap anywhere, definitely let me know as I always love meeting new people around the world.
- 🇲🇰 North Macedonia: Thu 03 Jul – Sun 06 Jul
- 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: Wed 09 Jul – Sun 13 Jul
- 🇬🇧 London: Sun 13 Jul – Fri 25 Jul
- 🇺🇸 New York: Thu 24 Jul – Tue 29 Jul (Tentative)
- 🇮🇩 Bali: 2 Weeks in Aug (Tentative)
- 🇱🇦 Laos: 2-4 Days in Aug (Tentative)
- 🇲🇲 Myanmar (Burma): 2-4 Days in Aug (Tentative)
- 🇻🇳 Vietnam: 2 Weeks in Aug (Tentative)
- 🇺🇸 Salvo: Fri 05 Sep – Sun 14 Sep
- 🇺🇸 New York: Tue 16 Sep – Thu 18 Sep
- 🇩🇪 Munich: Thu 02 Oct – Sun 05 Oct
- 🇦🇹 Vienna: 2 Weeks in Oct (Tentative)
- 🇨🇿 Prague: 2 Weeks in Oct (Tentative)
- 🇿🇦 Cape Town: Wed 15 Oct – Thu 18 Dec
- 🇪🇹 Addis Ababa: Thu 13 Nov – Sun 16 Nov (Tentative)
- 🇺🇸 United States: Fri 19 Dec – Sun 28 Dec
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland: Mon 29 Dec – Sun 04 Jan 2026 (Tentative)
- 🇧🇯 Benin: Wed 07 Jan – Sat 10 Jan 2026
- 🇹🇬 Togo: Sat 10 Jan – Tue 13 Jan 2026
- 🇿🇦 Cape Town: Tue 13 Jan – Mon 13 Apr 2026 (±5)
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And finally our signature question – if you could invite any 4 persons, from any period in human history or even fictional character – to an imaginary dinner, who would you invite and why?
This is a hard one, but while I’m thinking about Pangea, I think I’d probably have to pick the 4 creators of the “Marauders Map” from Harry Potter: James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. I read the novels growing up and the concept of a Magic Map that would let the owner see where everyone was in real-time was fascinating.
This obsession with the map eventually lead to much of the inspiration for the map in Pangea which not only shows me which cities my friends are in now, but also where they plan to be in the future! I’d love to get their take on what we’ve built and figure out if they have any “Magic” tips for us.
