Deviate

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Category: Places & Travel

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Subscribers: 228
Reviews: 1
Episodes: 238

meg
 Dec 8, 2020
Love this podcast. I first came across Rolf Potts via his Vagabonding book many years ago. He is relatable and well spoken, and his episodes fill the void during covid since we can't travel to far away places. Thanks Rolf!

Description

Rolf Potts veers off-topic in this unique series of conversations with experts, public figures, and intriguing people.

Episode Date
Walk and Talk: Notes from a peripatetic salon across northern Thailand
Apr 16, 2024
Essential tips and strategies for telling travel stories, with Andrew McCarthy
Mar 12, 2024
What it’s like to spend a full year traveling within a day’s radius of your home
Feb 13, 2024
Sports, superstitions, and sacraments: A Deviate Super Bowl Special (2024 remix)
Feb 04, 2024
Tim Ferriss and Rolf discuss travel, time wealth, and “success management”
Jan 09, 2024
The best journeys explore mindscapes as well as landscapes (book club remix)
Nov 28, 2023
Going abroad for love, and travel writing that says something new about a place
Nov 14, 2023
Seek places where your very presence makes you interesting (book club redo)
Oct 31, 2023
Travel memoir lab: Truth, luck, & multi-genre storytelling (with Tom Bissell)
Oct 17, 2023
Seek places where your very presence makes you interesting (book club remix)
Oct 03, 2023
Vagabonding audio companion: A life in (and philosophy of) long-term travel
Sep 19, 2023
A train isn’t just a vehicle; it’s a place (a remix encore, with Monisha Rajesh)
Sep 05, 2023
Travelers experience more when they slow down and ask lots of questions
Aug 22, 2023
“Dare to do Dirt”: Seeking rural places (and how to best experience them)
Aug 08, 2023
Vagabonding audio companion: Why (and how) travel souvenirs matter
Jul 25, 2023
Travel can return you to a kind of childhood (online book club remix)
Jul 11, 2023
What museums reveal about places (and what they have to offer travelers)
Jun 27, 2023
Vagabonding audio companion: How to study abroad (even if you aren’t a student)
Jun 13, 2023
Fear, family, and walking the Camino de Santiago (live with Andrew McCarthy)
May 30, 2023
Travel burnout is a real thing (and it’s OK to feel it sometimes), with Matt Kepnes
May 16, 2023
The Mystical High Church of Luck: Decoding Las Vegas (with Ari Shaffir)
May 02, 2023
How travelers create quests and find community (online book club remix)
Apr 18, 2023
Art introduces us to places before we go there (live from the Faroe Islands)
Apr 04, 2023
Travel can be a way to see the future (and experience the past), with Kevin Kelly
Mar 21, 2023
The best age to travel is whatever age you are now (an online book club remix)
Mar 07, 2023
Seek out global connections while you’re still at home (with Kristin Van Tassel)
Feb 21, 2023
A Native American football team beat the 1927 NFL Giants: The story of John Levi
Feb 07, 2023
Why you go someplace is less important than just going (with Tony Perrottet)
Jan 31, 2023
Integrating love of travel & love of home (with philosopher Chloe Cooper Jones)
Jan 17, 2023
Travel contracts your possessions and expands your life (with Eric Weiner)
Jan 03, 2023
Travelers create their own distinct global culture (with anthropologist Pegi Vail)
Dec 20, 2022
The travel industry is here to help you; feel free to ignore it (with Seth Kugel)
Dec 06, 2022
Deviate Live in NYC: The Vagabond’s Way (onstage at KGB Bar with Ari Shaffir)
Nov 24, 2022
Reinvent what it means to be an “explorer” (with Kate Harris)
Nov 20, 2022
The subtler risks of travel carry rich rewards (with Carl Hoffman)
Nov 13, 2022
Uncertainty makes for the truest adventures (aka Tim Cahill’s Travel 101)
Nov 08, 2022
Traveling solo opens up new possibilities in a place (with Stephanie Rosenbloom)
Nov 01, 2022
Keeping a journal helps you make sense of the journey (with Lavinia Spalding)
Oct 25, 2022
Paul Theroux on the merits of travel and the paradoxes of the global economy
Oct 18, 2022
Seeking real crowds beats crowdsourcing (from The Vagabond’s Way book launch)
Oct 11, 2022
Preconceptions can blur what you see firsthand on the road (with Eddy Harris)
Oct 04, 2022
Travel deviations can be as appealing as travel plans, with Ari Shaffir
Sep 20, 2022
The Vagabond’s Way: An audio introduction to Rolf’s new book
Aug 23, 2022
Vagabonding audio companion: Love, finding home, and telling TV travel stories
Aug 16, 2022
“On the Ice”: What it’s like to live and work at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station
Aug 02, 2022
A Critical Race Theorist’s guide to writing smut novels, with Dr. Kevin Harrison
Jul 26, 2022
Traveler ideals, hospitality, and the disappearance of an Italian priest in Syria
Jul 12, 2022
Refuse to be Done: The art of creative persistence for long-haul projects
Jun 28, 2022
Marcia DeSanctis on revisiting places, souvenirs, and travel as self-reinvention
Jun 14, 2022
Chris Guillebeau on life goals, work, and travel as alt-university [encore]
May 31, 2022
Hitchhiking for pastries: The art of structuring a journey with an obsession
May 17, 2022
How to embrace uncertainty and redefine success by taking a “pathless path”
May 03, 2022
What travel teaches you about the human body, with Dr. Jonathan Reisman
Apr 19, 2022
The creative art of making a living as an adventurer, with Alastair Humphreys
Apr 05, 2022
The strangers we meet on the road, and how they can deepen our journey
Mar 22, 2022
Vagabonding audio companion: What it’s like to come home after a long trip
Mar 08, 2022
Meghan Daum on career-reinvention, flyover country, nuance, and Gen X
Feb 22, 2022
Paul Theroux on reading, teaching, and slow travel in Mexico [encore]
Feb 08, 2022
How inexpensive countries are the secret to prolonging the journey [encore]
Jan 25, 2022
Lost in the Valley of Death: The life and disappearance of Justin Alexander
Jan 11, 2022
A mixtape (of sorts) about mixtapes: Music as intimate communication
Dec 28, 2021
Holiday Special: Celebrating the Sears Christmas Wish Book [encore]
Dec 14, 2021
Digital nomadism [bonus]: How technology has changed the way we travel
Nov 30, 2021
Van Life before #VanLife (encore): Revisiting a classic USA road trip
Nov 02, 2021
Tales from the vagabonding trail: Discussing “Marco Polo Didn’t Go There”
Oct 12, 2021
Vagabonding audio companion: Travel brainstorming, with Ari Shaffir
Sep 28, 2021
Maintaining creative fitness: How my podcast augments my writing career
Sep 14, 2021
Finding the best places to live: Searching for home in America [encore]
Aug 31, 2021
Travel writing in the “Mad Men” era: The myth and legacy of Holiday Magazine
Aug 17, 2021
The Olympics started out as a travel fest: All about the ancient Greek Games
Aug 03, 2021
Experiencing Japan the slow way (on the 750-mile Shikoku Pilgrimage)
Jul 22, 2021
Vagabonding audio companion: How your earliest journeys transform you
Jul 13, 2021
Digital nomadism: A history and future (from a documentary film in progress)
Jun 29, 2021
Travel in the “Mad Men” era: Stewardess work at the dawn of the Jet Age
Jun 15, 2021
The curious case of a con-man who infiltrated the world of elite travelers 
Jun 01, 2021
Memories you didn’t know you remembered: A deeper dive into nostalgia
May 25, 2021
What a 20th century monk can teach us about living (with Sophfronia Scott)
May 18, 2021
Life changing travel experiences: Epiphanies of expatriate life in Korea
May 04, 2021
Paul Theroux on the necessary obstacles of immersive slow travel [encore]
Apr 20, 2021
Triumph in the middle of nowhere: The most 1980s underdog story of the 1980s
Apr 07, 2021
On the road with the superstars of Negro League baseball, 100 years on
Apr 01, 2021
Notes on the philosophy (and deeper meaning) of travel, with Emily Thomas
Mar 23, 2021
Pam Houston on home, and the beauty of our pared-down lives [encore]
Mar 09, 2021
Long-distance hiking at home: The art of journeying out of your own back door
Feb 23, 2021
Pico Iyer on the creative task of travel across the world and deep within [encore]
Feb 09, 2021
What it’s like to take your kids on a three-month journey in the Himalayas
Jan 22, 2021
The joys and idiosyncrasies of global train travel (with Monisha Rajesh)
Jan 12, 2021
Five Travel Lessons You Can Use at Home (a road-trip intro to Deviate Season 4)
Dec 30, 2020
Life changing travel experiences (with Ari Shaffir): Walking across Israel 
Dec 14, 2020
How to write a travel memoir (and how failure is the best teacher)
Dec 08, 2020
Strategies and arguments for the simple life (from an off-grid perspective)
Dec 01, 2020
American Pilgrim: Revisiting Rolf’s lost Travel Channel Thanksgiving special
Nov 24, 2020
Solo travel: Celebrating the pleasures of (and strategies for) journeying alone
Nov 17, 2020
Vagabonding audio companion: Time Wealth and the spiritual texture of travel
Nov 10, 2020
Coming-of-age on the road as a dirtbag backpacker (with Pam Mandel)
Nov 03, 2020
On penis theft, creepy clowns, anxiety, and how culture tells us what is real
Oct 27, 2020
Pandemic love, cheating death, & cassette tapes: A personal history of nostalgia
Oct 13, 2020
A folk history of Satanic Panic, backmasking, and rock music in the 1980s
Oct 06, 2020
What it’s like to travel 37 countries (and counting) in a wheelchair
Sep 29, 2020
20 lessons learned from 20 years as a travel writer: A TravelCon keynote
Sep 22, 2020
Sex, travel, and the art of being a better bad tourist (with Suzanne Roberts)
Sep 15, 2020
Drunk in China: A vicarious Middle Kingdom adventure via its favorite booze
Sep 08, 2020
Growing up racially diverse: A not-so-politically-correct roundtable
Sep 01, 2020
Eric Weiner’s journey into the ways philosophy compels us to live better
Aug 25, 2020
Life changing travel experiences: The best hostel ever (in Cairo)
Aug 18, 2020
Brian Koppelman on the intimacy of podcasting and the genius of Iron Maiden
Aug 11, 2020
Vagabonding pioneer Ed Buryn on what indie travel was like in the 1960s
Aug 04, 2020
Kevin Kelly on how travel has changed over the past 50 years [rebroadcast]
Jul 28, 2020
Remembering Bettina Gilois (and what writers can learn from her work)
Jul 21, 2020
Talking with my parents about how to handle it when your parents die
Jul 14, 2020
Bonus: Unpacking the mission of travel-writing in the 21st century
Jul 07, 2020
What the world’s last subsistence hunters can teach us about humanity
Jul 02, 2020
Revisiting The Great Gatsby, high-school-style, in quarantine
Jun 30, 2020
Why travelers visit museums (in places like Iceland), and what they find there
Jun 23, 2020
Life changing travel experiences: Jumping freight trains in the Pacific NW
Jun 16, 2020
Kate Harris on the way travel can lead us into deeper questions about the universe
Jun 09, 2020
Andrew McCarthy on the Proust Questionnaire (and Brat Pack legacy)
Jun 02, 2020
How to balance creative success with business success: An open chat
May 26, 2020
How underground exploration is the perennial frontier of adventure travel
May 19, 2020
Honeymoon without her husband: Maggie Downs’ uncommon world journey
May 12, 2020
The win-win of being a mentor, with Cal Fussman and Alex Banayan
May 07, 2020
Why a “Shelter in Place Film Festival” beats bingeing video right now
May 06, 2020
Using your travel skills to make quarantine life better: An open chat
May 05, 2020
Reports from my travels in quarantine: A Deviate Season Two coda
Apr 28, 2020
Life changing travel experiences, quarantine edition: Paris and Prague
Apr 23, 2020
How COVID-19 will transform the business of long-term world travel 
Apr 21, 2020
What fear is, how it works, and how to manage it (with Eva Holland)
Apr 14, 2020
On losing one’s parents to COVID-19: A traveler-report addendum
Apr 07, 2020
How COVID-19 will transform airports (and other pandemic considerations)
Apr 02, 2020
Why the way we discuss (and interpret information about) COVID-19 matters
Mar 31, 2020
What it’s like to travel during COVID-19: Reports from around the world
Mar 26, 2020
How Nomadic Matt got COVID-19. Plus: Reports from stranded travelers
Mar 24, 2020
How to make sense of health data in a time of pandemic (and beyond)
Mar 19, 2020
How to enhance your career by becoming a better public speaker and reader
Mar 17, 2020
On sabbaticals: How to take a career break without breaking your career
Mar 10, 2020
Ari Shaffir and Rolf do a deep-dive on the finer points of indie travel
Mar 03, 2020
Remembering Nirvana, and how music can frame experience (and memory)
Feb 27, 2020
How music affects you when you’re young (or, the joys of Jane’s Addiction)
Feb 25, 2020
Life-changing travel experiences: China and Mongolia with my parents
Feb 18, 2020
Why dinosaurs matter (also: Rolf fact-checks the dino book he wrote at age 7)
Feb 11, 2020
What Matt Green discovered by walking every single street in New York City
Feb 04, 2020
A personal history of being a lifelong pro-sports fan (Super Bowl special)
Jan 28, 2020
The power of small choices across decades: The Sgt. John Monk story
Jan 21, 2020
Chris Guillebeau on goals, writing books, and travel as alt-university
Jan 14, 2020
How to balance a life of artistic ambition with sanity and happiness
Jan 07, 2020
Indonesia: An argument for (and essential tips on) traveling the archipelago 
Dec 31, 2019
Why Noah Baumbach’s “Kicking & Screaming” might be the best movie ever
Dec 24, 2019
Deviate Christmas Special: Celebrating the Sears Wish Book [Rebroadcast]
Dec 17, 2019
Bonus: On the therapeutic uses of reading classic literature and scripture
Dec 12, 2019
What narrative therapy is, and how it can make your life feel more coherent
Dec 10, 2019
America’s most solemn historical sites rarely offer an honest take on history
Dec 03, 2019
Author Alex Banayan on seeking mentors for life (and writing) guidance
Nov 26, 2019
On the under-appreciated reality of revelry, sex, and misadventure in travel
Nov 19, 2019
The world’s cheapest destinations, and why (besides savings) they’re great
Nov 12, 2019
Paul Theroux on aging, slow travel, and the inherent complexity of Mexico
Nov 05, 2019
Bonus: Storytelling for the screen: A lecture from the Paris Writing Workshop
Oct 31, 2019
Benjamin Percy on how comics and movies teach the best lessons about telling stories
Oct 29, 2019
Why travel guidebooks still matter (and how to best use them on the road)
Oct 22, 2019
An insider’s guide to traveling America’s National Parks in the 21st century
Oct 15, 2019
Van Life before #VanLife: Rolf unpacks his very first vagabonding journey
Oct 08, 2019
Ryan Holiday on how to conceive, research, and write a “Big Idea” book
Oct 01, 2019
“American Beauty” has not aged well: Reconsidering the film, 20 years on
Sep 26, 2019
Wesley Morris on why Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” remains a classic
Sep 24, 2019
Explore Europe on Foot: The hows and whys of trek-travel on the continent
Sep 17, 2019
The case for why trekking on foot is the best way to embrace slow travel
Sep 10, 2019
Pico Iyer on travel, impermanence, and what Japan can teach us about life
Sep 03, 2019
A first- (or second-) timer’s guide to experiencing Paris at a slow pace
Aug 29, 2019
How keeping a travel journal can transform your experience of the journey
Aug 20, 2019
The Shawshank Redemption’s brilliant reworking of Stephen King, 25 years on
Aug 13, 2019
Celebrating the subtle (and not-so-subtle) genius of Pulp Fiction, 25 years on
Aug 06, 2019
Bonus: Nomadic Matt’s top-19 lessons learned from a decade of travel
Aug 01, 2019
Matt Kepnes on how to travel for years (instead of days or weeks) at a time
Jul 30, 2019
Alastair Humphreys on making outdoor adventure a more active part of your life
Jul 23, 2019
Will New Orleans still be there in 100 years? Examining the fate of a city.
Jul 17, 2019
Backpacker, Go Home: How Tourism Is Ruining Everything (or Not)
Jul 16, 2019
Seth Kugel on how to (truly) get off the beaten path as a global traveler
Jul 09, 2019
Sports-movie screenwriter Bettina Gilois on the art of depicting true-life stories
Jul 03, 2019
Why David Lynch’s The Straight Story is a travel classic (and how it got made)
Jul 02, 2019
Celebrating the best travel movies ever (and what, exactly, makes them good)
Jun 18, 2019
Storming (and making sense of) Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Beach, 20 years later
Jun 11, 2019
Author Dave Cullen on what the media gets wrong after mass-shootings
Jun 04, 2019
How to travel lighter, safer, and smarter (featuring Sarah von Bargen)
May 22, 2019
How to travel with no luggage at all (and what this teaches you)
May 21, 2019
5 ways indie travel has changed (and stayed the same) since 1999
May 09, 2019
How philosophy can (truly) improve your life, featuring Monica McCarthy
May 08, 2019
Ari Shaffir unpacks Rolf’s experience of doing psychedelics for the first time
May 07, 2019
Deviate Season One finale with Ari Shaffir
Nov 13, 2018
An outsider’s inside history of the Beat Generation, as told by Charles Plymell
Nov 06, 2018
Author Pam Houston on the joys of creating home amid a lifetime of travel
Oct 16, 2018
Andrew McCarthy on storytelling, celebrity, and how travel changed his life
Oct 09, 2018
Major Jackson on the poetics of time (and how best, in life, to spend it)
Oct 02, 2018
White Zombie guitarist J. Yuenger on music, expat life, and long-term travel
Sep 25, 2018
Traveling Russia onboard the Trans-Siberian express: A 2018 case study
Sep 19, 2018
The great railway bizarre: A Trans-Siberian story (plus audio endnotes)
Sep 18, 2018
Writer-producer LaToya Morgan on TV storytelling and creative self-discipline
Sep 11, 2018
Punk icon Ian MacKaye on why we should question the official history of rock music
Sep 04, 2018
How to survive a natural disaster (and recover when it’s over)
Aug 21, 2018
Wesley Morris on podcast-fame, sports, and performing blackness in America
Aug 14, 2018
Satanic backward masking changed 1980s rock (but not in the way you think)
Aug 07, 2018
Celebrating the best places to live (and the quest for home) in America
Jul 17, 2018
On American Highways II: A brief history of the Negro Motorist Green Book
Jul 11, 2018
On American Highways I: A brief history of family road-trips in the USA
Jul 10, 2018
How to break up with your smartphone (and rediscover your real-world life)
Jul 03, 2018
Classic rock is not dead. Classic rock is undead. Long live classic rock.
Jun 26, 2018
Remembering Bourdain, and what we talk about when we talk about travel writing
Jun 19, 2018
Why 1980s coming-of-age movies matter
Jun 12, 2018
How to talk to someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one
Jun 05, 2018
Paul Theroux on the art of listening, and the necessary obstacles of deep travel
May 29, 2018
The way we grow food has been broken for 10,000 years (but we can fix it)
May 22, 2018
Kevin Kelly on the lost world of 1970s Asia (and why you should travel now)
May 15, 2018
Kink Doctor Dulcinea Pitagora on sex therapy, BDSM, and dominatrix work
May 08, 2018
Sarah von Bargen is here to help you correct your bad self-help habits
May 01, 2018
The way we teach and learn has been broken for 300 years (but we can fix it)
Apr 24, 2018
How we die in America (and why it’s important to talk about it)
Apr 17, 2018
Deviate Live in New York City: Travel Stories and Souvenirs
Apr 10, 2018
How romance novels reveal the secret history of life in America
Apr 03, 2018
Ari Shaffir on travel, memory, and the odd psychology of souvenirs
Mar 27, 2018
Unsane writer James Greer on the death of Cobain and birth of Gen X
Mar 20, 2018
The Epic One-Against-Five Foul-Out Basketball Game of 1964
Mar 13, 2018
Adventure writer Tim Cahill on fear, and what it’s like to be dead for ten minutes
Mar 06, 2018
Filmmaker Rod Pocowatchit on Native American zombie movies and DIY film
Feb 27, 2018
Baseball writer Rany Jazayerli on fandom, and growing up Muslim in America
Feb 20, 2018
Sophfronia Scott on God, mid-life career change, and defining a generation
Feb 13, 2018
The weird and complicated history of America’s national anthem
Feb 06, 2018
What it’s like to be a Latino police officer in America
Jan 30, 2018
What it’s like to be a black police officer in America
Jan 30, 2018
A Shadow History of Rock Music in the 1980s
Jan 23, 2018
Novelist Tod Goldberg on murder, and why sports is so emotionally affecting
Jan 16, 2018
Sharknado producer David Latt on how the B-movie sausage gets made
Jan 09, 2018
Novelist Cynthia Sweeney on getting your big creative break at mid-life
Jan 02, 2018
Bookslut Jessa Crispin on Keanu Reeves and the joys of celebrity fixation
Dec 26, 2017
The Sears Christmas Wish Book was (truly) great American literature
Dec 19, 2017
Comedian Ari Shaffir on ‘shrooms, hugging, and quitting smartphones
Dec 12, 2017
Disaster Artist writer Tom Bissell on bogus authenticity and violence in art
Dec 05, 2017
Everest mountaineer Alison Levine on introversion and finding mentors
Nov 28, 2017
Hollywood composer Rolfe Kent on the joys of throwing out quality work
Nov 20, 2017
TV host Ernest White II on black/white, gay/straight male friendships
Nov 20, 2017
Bestselling author Tim Ferriss on how to create a successful podcast
Nov 20, 2017