We recommend: Podcasts for your inner wanderer
Editor’s note: We’re giving playlists a break this week—and tuning into podcasts. The splainer team lists their favourite episodes on travel and vacation to help you gear up for your summer getaways. Below are some classic—as well as obscure—series and episodes to help you rediscover the joys of travelling. We hope it will inspire all of us to refresh our bucket list.
Rick Steves Audio Tours: If you’re looking for the perfect guide for your Europe trip, look no further than Rick Steves. He is a famous American travel writer and TV host who is widely known for his guidebooks and audio tours for European cities. With his detailed instructions—which include where to turn and what to look at—you can explore the most touristy parts as well as niche interests in a perfectly leisure pace. Fair warning: Some of his anecdotes are extremely corny so if you don’t like dad jokes and puns, this one might not be for you. All you have to do is go to his website and download the Rick Steves Audio Europe App. Aarthi has used his audio guides for Rome and absolutely loved the experience.
Zero to Travel: Here’s a more academic listen. Host Jason Moore does deep dives and interviews on all aspects of travelling—right from philosophical questions like why we do it to more practical solutions like tricks and navigation. Aarthi suggests this incredibly profound episode called ‘Dark Tourism and the Complexities of Dark Destinations with Professor James Threadwell’ which opens the discourse around the concept in criminology called ‘deviant leisure’ and how that translates to modern-day tourism.
Atlas Obscura: Atlas Obscura is a website that has collected over 14,000 different hidden and wondrous places that people can explore. The podcast has short audio guides about some of the most fascinating, weird, odd and hidden wonders on the planet. For example, one of the episodes is about an Indian village where every person’s name is a song. You will also find the amusing story of the world’s quietest place. One of our favourites is the episode on the boiling river in the Amazon—where the temperature goes upto 93°C. There are over 400 episodes to pick from, you won’t get bored.
2 Beers Till Takeoff: Big Sid, a Brit and Phil, a Canadian host this funny and thoughtful travel show which normally features a guest from a different country who takes you on a ride with them on how to explore that location. These are packed with information about each location and the best tips. And due to the chemistry of the hosts, you’ll end up laughing at different points while listening to an episode. A good way to start off would be to go through their episode list and pick a place you were curious about. More recently, the episodes of Brazil and Cuba are worth checking out.
Musician Michelle Zauner aka Japanese Breakfast on Women Who Travel: Indie pop star and writer Michelle Zauner talks about her childhood trips to South Korea and the back and forth between Oregon—her family home in the US—and her mother’s homeland Seoul. Rich, vivid recounting of her heritage of Korean food makes for some major wanderlust. Zauner also shares what it’s like to tour as an artist—which she does under the moniker Japanese Breakfast—the details of which make one immediately wish one was a touring musician as well. Food is an essential facet of travelling and this is a good episode exploring its role in the activity.
