Travel Podcasts, Discovered
Rolf Potts veers off-topic in this unique series of conversations with experts, public figures, and intriguing people.
50 most recent episodes displayed below
Visit website →“I asked everyone if they were lonely. All the guys my age said 'no, I'm too busy; too much going on.' When I answer that quickly I'm either lying or it's something I'm afraid of.” – Andrew McCarthy
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Andrew talk a
"I think you have to pick your battles when you're collaborating with people." – Kim Krizan
Kim Krizan (@kimkrizan) is the Oscar-nominated cowriter of the Before Sunrise movies, and the author of Spy in the House of Anaïs Nin.
Notable Links:
Kim K
“I wish I loved sports, and particularly football, a lot less than I do. It consumes too much of my memory and too much of my time.” – Chuck Klosterman
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf talks about why he's talking to Chuck Klosterman's former roomma
“In teaching us to appreciate rather than accumulate – to seek awe rather than outcomes – travel can be an ongoing exercise in gratitude.” – Rolf Potts
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf remixes his interview from the All the Hacks podcast, with Chris
In this feature-length video essay that explores the role places play in storytelling, Rolf examines how Kansas -- his home state -- has been imagined, distorted, and mythologized in cinema and television for more than a century.
Blending archival f
“I’m interested in writing because I don’t want to sleepwalk through life. I feel like we have an appallingly brief time on earth, and we’re here to see and understand and do as much good as we can before we’re gone.” –Anthony Doerr
In this episode o
Note: This encore episode is dedicated to the memory of Alice Potts, who died on August 20, 2025, aged 81.
“In America aging is often seen as an insult rather than an inevitable human process. We don’t celebrate getting older; we ‘fight’ age by prete
“No endeavor to write a travel book is ever lost, since it gives you a useful perspective on (and intensified attention to) the reality of the travel experience itself. When embraced mindfully, the real-time experience of a journey is invariably its
“Realizing that you will die greatly clarifies your vision of life, and stimulates opportunities for making the vision real.” –Ed Buryn
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ed discuss the impetus behind Ed’s first travels to Europe by van in the 196
"No one motivation is ‘better’ than any other. We travel with different motivations at different times, and they sometimes overlap." –Ash Bhardwaj
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ash talk about curiosity as a motivation for travel (1:30); the a
"Time spent traveling on trains, just staring out the window: I don't think that's lost time. That's when we have our best ideas." –Kim Krizan
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kiki introduce their interview with Kim Krizan by talking about their
"Time spent traveling on trains, just staring out the window: I don't think that's lost time. That's when we have our best ideas." –Kim Krizan
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kiki introduce their interview with Kim Krizan by talking about their
“If you're someone who's always dreamed of going to Mars but you don't have the time to become an astronaut, you can just visit the Atacama Desert.” –Mark Johanson
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Mark talk about how Mark became interested in th
“Travel does not require leaving your city or state or country, but it does require leaving your comfort zone. And that can happen a block or two away from where you live.”
–Chloe Cooper Jones
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Chloe talk about why
“The most difficult part about traveling the world isn’t actually the logistics of a trip—it’s finding the courage to go in the first place.” —Matt Kepnes
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Matt talk about how his travel style has changed over the
“We do a lot of writing alone, in our own space. But writing is not a solitary practice. The business of writing requires a community.” –Angelique Stevens
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Angelique talk about what her writing life is like in the
“Anybody with curiosity and wanderlust can have their own Hippie Trail. They just need to get away from home, embrace the world, and have an adventure.” –Rick Steves
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Rick talk about Rick’s 1990s book Asia Through
“My life has often forced me to watch the Super Bowl in unusual circumstances. The first Super Bowl found me in boarding school in England, huddled under my bedclothes with an illegal transistor radio.” –Pico Iyer
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and
“In solitude, I often feel closer to the people I care for than when they’re in the same room.” –Pico Iyer
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Pico talk about how the best travels are often counterbalanced with a kind of stillness, in which one can
“Syria is a mix of everything. There are multiple Christian cultures, multiple Muslim cultures, and multiple languages. It’s the crossroads of the world. It made for some of my best travel memories from that time of my life.” —Rolf Potts
In this epis
“In El Salvador, I dropped $5 out of my pocket at the border, and some guy came running up to me. At the beginning of the trip I would have been surprised by that. But by that point I would have been surprised if it didn’t happen.” —Matt Savino
In th
“When we got into this, we didn’t know how to make videos. That’s a skill we’ve had to learn, because the industry has changed so much, from photos to videos. We are still learning all the time.” —Ann Howard
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf, Mike, An
“Influencers are forever reinforcing the same images. They’re spending no time in the actual place, other than the requisite time to take the photo. From the local community’s point of view, these kinds of tourists bring very little value.” –Stuart M
“We’re having less enjoyable travel experiences, even as our photos show us having this amazing time, because we’re performing a version of travel for people who aren’t even there.”
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and David talk about the time-honor
“Traveling, for me, is all about destroying stereotypes and narratives about people and places.” – Matt Green
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Matt discuss Matt’s mission to walk every street in New York City (3:00); walking across the entire Uni
“We need positive visions of how all this technology gets deployed, because what we visualize is what we build.”
–Jane Metcalfe
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Jane talk about the pioneering work she did with Wired during the dawn of the “digita
“My parents passed away and it created this sense of recklessness in me, but in a positive way: I wanted to create a travel experience and push myself and learn about myself. Because you never know how long you’re gonna be around for.”
–Daniel Troia
“The parent’s job as teacher on the road is to just create surface area between your kid and yourself and the world.” –Julie Frieder
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Julie talk about what a “Wonder Year” is, how she got involved with family trav
“Look at any photo from a moment of supposed zeitgeist in American history, and it will be clear that not everyone in that moment represented the cutting-edge of culture.”
–Rolf Potts
In this essay episode of Deviate, Rolf talks about why he enjoys l
“Something about the motion of walking is conducive to generating both ideas and conversation. You can empty your mind and open your mind at the same time.”
—Kevin Kelly
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf reports from a “Walk and Talk” across northern
“We 'massage' the truth to make it fit the narrative we need it to fit in our lives.” –Andrew McCarthy
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Andrew talk about how Andrew got started in travel writing, and how writing himself on the page helped him s
“Unless we explore our neighborhood, we can’t imagine what might be right under our noses, nor be able to celebrate it, mourn its demise, or take action.” –Alastair Humphreys
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Alastair Humphreys discuss the concep
“I hate the Kansas City Chiefs with a passion reserved only for things that I love.” —Tod Goldberg
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf shares his 2002 NPR “Savvy Traveler” dispatch about trying to watch the Super Bowl in Thailand (3:00); then he and Tod
“Billionaires can’t take a week off? What’s the point of having a billion dollars if they have fewer options than I do?” –Tim Ferriss
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tim discuss common travel fantasies, and the fears that keep people from trave
“Sometimes it’s good to sit still and let a place move through you instead of you moving through a place.” –Rolf Potts
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and The Vagabond’s Way book club participants discuss how one can be vulnerable to new experience
“When asked to give advice to young people looking to become travel writers, I invariably tell them to go – alone – and live in a country where they don’t speak the language.” –Thomas Swick
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tom talk about the the
“One way of making famous landmarks more comprehensible is to look for surprises, good and bad, that go beyond what you are expected to encounter there, details that open you up to the raw imperfections of the encounter itself.” –Rolf Potts
In this
“Not everyone who’s lucky is talented and not everyone who’s talented is lucky.” –Tom Bissell
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tom talk about Tom’s lack of travel experience when he joined the Peace Corps, and how he dealt with his early failure
“One way of making famous landmarks more comprehensible is to look for surprises, good and bad, that go beyond what you are expected to encounter there, details that open you up to the raw imperfections of the encounter itself.” –Rolf Potts
In this
“One ironic anxiety of travel is that suddenly you’re living in ‘organic time’ and you’re not used to it.” –Rolf Potts
In this “vagabonding audio companion” episode of Deviate, remixed from Aaron Millar’s Armchair Explorer podcast, Rolf talks about
“A wonderful aspect of traveling by train is the transactional relationship between passengers who feed off one another, picking up tips, offering advice, guarding each other’s belongings, and generating a trust that is unique to railway travel.” –M
“We live in an age where you can take a series short flights inside a country to speed things up. You end up going to more places, but you experience less, because you’re not really committed to that chicken bus full of really interesting people who
“Domestic travel to rural places can be as important as international travel that is more obviously cross-cultural.” –Rolf Potts
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Marci talk about how the best trips are guided by curiosity about eight key things,
“A souvenir can be anything from a travel experience that honors a certain moment in your life, certifies the journey that took you there, and celebrates the confluence of people and places and actions that made it possible.” – Rolf Potts
In this ep
“In alien parts, we speak more simply, unencumbered by the histories that we carry around at home, and look more excitedly, with eyes of wonder.” —Pico Iyer
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and The Vagabond’s Way book club participants discuss how he
“We do not just keep and collect things. We trouble ourselves to repurpose, create, and invent things just to carry, a little easier, those stories we cannot live without.”
—Kendra Greene
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf speaks to the directors of tw
“Quietly use travel to deepen your life, and to build stronger relationships – not only with other cultures, but with your home. Figure out ways to give back.” –Rolf Potts
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and David talk about how travel allows you t
“Not every fearful decision I’ve made has been bad, but most of my bad decisions have been based in fear.” –Andrew McCarthy
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Andrew talk about the two halves of Andrew’s professional life – acting and travel writi
“The truth is that our travel anticipations, and our memories, have a way of holding only the most striking parts of an experience—the parts that don’t cause burnout.” —Matt Kepnes
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Matt talk about travel journalin
“Things don’t happen in Las Vegas. Things are happened in Las Vegas. All actions in the town are so meticulously predicted and orchestrated that spontaneity itself exists only as the ghost of compulsion.” –Rolf Potts (in 1998)
In this episode of Dev