“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 Thailand. Interviewees and conversation topics are listed by time-code below. Participant write-ups a…

“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 see himself in the world (2:30); when he does and doesn’t conflate certain details in the interest of a…

“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 concept of his new book Local: A Search for Nearby Nature and Wilderness (1:30); what Alastair found on his…

“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 Goldberg discuss how they became NFL football fans as kids in the 1970s, and how this affected thei…

“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 traveling (5:00); how we can redefine what “wealth” is and live fuller lives (18:00); why keeping a health…

“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 experiences on the road instead of micromanaging an itinerary (2:00); how monuments to mortality help us think …

“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 thematic limitations of memoir writing, and the early stages of Tom’s career as a journalist (2:00); his…

“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 episode of Deviate – which is a redo of episode 229, which didn’t air properly due to technical probl…

“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 failures (2:30); the role that luck (as well as craft and obsessive reading) has played in his writing caree…

“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 episode of Deviate, Rolf and The Vagabond’s Way book club participants discuss how to break out of st…

“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 his earliest travel dreams, and what compelled him to finally take a vagabonding dream trip around No…

“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.” –Monisha Rajesh In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Monisha discuss how her interest in train-travel d…

“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 want nothing more than to interact with you.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and The V…

“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, rather than checklists (2:00); what Marci has learned from several decades of writing guidebooks to …

“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 episode of Deviate, Rolf and Suzanne talk about the ways souvenirs help narrate our travel experiences …

“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 prepares for the book-club sessions (1:30); how the first days of one’s journeys have an optimistic…

“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 two very different museums — Dawn Hammat of the Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum & Boyhood Home …

“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 to “waste your twenties” in a good way, and how Rolf has come to define “adventure” (2:00); how to pla…

“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 writing – and his transformative first journey on the Camino de Santiago in 1994 (2:00); Andrew’s decision…

“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 journaling, and a journal Matt has designed for travelers (1:15); why travel burnout happens, and how Matt fi…

“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 Deviate, Rolf and Ari discuss Rolf’s 1998 Las Vegas essay “The Mystical High Church of Luck,” and their …

“Nothing against bucket lists, but sometimes that interest that makes you weird and nerdy at home is going to make you vulnerable to all the weird nerdy people in some distant new place who are also interested in that thing.” —Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and The Vagabond’s Way book club participants discuss what compels us to be int…

“You hear how there’s many words for snow in native cultures in Canada; there are actually over 20 words for ‘fog’ in the Faroe Islands.” –Matthew Landrum In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Matthew discuss what makes the landscape and culture of the Faroe Islands distinctive, and how Matthew came to study Faroese (2:00); how your motivation to tr…

“”I wasn’t partying. I wasn’t relaxing on the beach. I was photographing – working – every minute of the day. That was a means to see as much as I possibly could. And to keep looking.” –Kevin Kelly In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kevin discuss the ambitions and connections that led Kevin to Asia not long after high school (2:30); how Kevin’s i…

“Success is often about finding just enough material wealth to fund the life that makes you happy.” —Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and The Nomadic Network book club participants discuss how travel can intensify the attention you pay to life at home (2:30); how the best discoveries of travel can’t be planned, and how you can give yours…

“Travel has become a way to remind myself how it feels to get lost, and then get unlost. It is a way to remember the discomfort of uncertainty and the unfamiliar. It’s an exercise in receiving the unexpected.” –Kristin Van Tassel In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kristin discuss being in DC, living in Kansas, and Kristin’s family trip to Mexico …

“Running back John Levi is about as easy to stop as a 200-pound eel. With his speed, and his shifting, sidestepping style of running, tacklers slide off of him like rain off a slicker.” –From the Minneapolis Star, October 1923 In this episode of Deviate, Rolf talks about a 1927 football game between the New York Giants and an all-indigenous Oklahom…

“For ancient Roman tourists, the whole point of travel was to go where everyone else was going. Sightseeing was a form of pilgrimage.” –Tony Perrottet In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tony discuss the habits idiosyncrasies of ancient Roman tourists, and how they relate to modern travel (1:30); the class tensions and expectations inherent in dif…

“A willingness to fail is an important part of difficult beauty. Because difficult beauty will arrive first not as beauty at all.” –Chloe Cooper Jones In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Chloe discuss the philosophical concept of “easy beauty” and “difficult beauty” in the context of travel (2:30); how our relationship to places changes over time …

“Travel is one of the few activities we engage in not knowing the outcome and reveling in that uncertainty. Nothing is more forgettable than the trip that goes exactly as planned.” –Eric Weiner In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Eric discuss the tendency of travelers to idealize the very recent bygone past in places, and Rolf’s experience of trav…

“Travel expands time, because you’re not experiencing the everyday of what you normally do. It’s all about discovery, and experiencing that with other people.” —Pegi Vail In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Pegi talk about how she originally sought to depict a “visual ethnography” of world travelers, their global impacts, and their power as a “gen…

“Why fly fourteen hours from New York to Johannesburg to see a South African version of Brooklyn? To me, the only reason to know what destinations are ‘hot’ is to avoid them.” —Seth Kugel In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Seth talk about how the travel industry both helps and hinders the travel experience, and how Seth first experienced travel w…

“There’s no getting lost when you travel, because you’re already there. You’re already where you’re supposed to be, which is somewhere in this new place.” –Ari Shaffir In this episode of Deviate, which took place at New York City’s KGB Bar, Rolf and Ari talk about the premise of Rolf’s new book The Vagabond’s Way (2:20); why it’s important not to p…

“Travel is often one part geography and nine parts imagination.” –Kate Harris In this episode of Deviate Rolf and Kate discuss how travel can transform one’s idea of what “exploration” is (3:00); the concept of borders (14:00); nostalgia and the transformational effect of travel (25:00); the role of home in relation to travel (34:00); and letting a…

“I didn’t know where we were going, and I didn’t know how long we were going to be gone. I brought no food, not even a bottle of water. When that boat left the dock, I felt so free. I threw off all these anxieties about control.” –Carl Hoffman In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Carl talk about the premise of The Lunatic Express, which took Carl a…

“Eat what is put in front of you. They are not making fun of you. The rooster’s head floating in the soup really is given to the honored guest. If you insist on being a picky eater, stay home.” –Tim Cahill In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tim talk about the premise of Tim’s classic essay “Professor Cahill’s Travel 101” (1:30); the importance of…

“When you’re not sitting across from someone, you’re sitting across from the whole world.” –Stephanie Rosenbloom In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Stephanie talk about the rewards of traveling alone, and how to mix solo and companion travel within a single trip (2:00); how going alone makes you more receptive to museums, restaurants, and walking…

“A travel journal helps you remember more than what you did and saw. It will helps you remember how you became the person you are today.” –Lavinia Spalding In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Lavinia talk about the section of Rolf’s book The Vagabond’s Way that touches on travel journaling, what what purposes a travel journal can serve (1:30); how…

“When you travel, you find out what it is you really want. You find out what you’re capable of, what your ambitions are.” –Paul Theroux In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Paul talk about how brotherly conflict is a time-honored trope in literature, and how travel can be a way to find your interests and ambitions in life (3:00); the ethical parado…

“This is your one life. Think about it: If you dream of travel, it’s not as hard as you might think. You can find ways to make it happen.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ernest talk about how “vagabonding” is defined, how Rolf has come to define home, and what the premise of The Vagabond’s Way is (2:00); how Rolf researched and or…

“I didn’t go to Africa to “feel African,” or become African. What I wanted to do was put myself in the shoes of the person I was traveling next to.” –Eddy L. Harris In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Eddy discuss why Eddy’s Africa travel book Native Stranger was not always well-received by America’s cultural gatekeepers in 1992 (3:30); what is wa…

“Naysayers can be the biggest obstacle for people who want to travel. Even if they know nothing about a place, they’ll think of reasons why you shouldn’t go there.” –Ari Shaffir In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ari discuss how the experience of travel changes as you get older, what it’s like to record an interview in public in Paris, and how lo…

“At its best, travel is embraced not as a flashy backdrop for our lifestyle ambitions, but as an act that touches every aspect of our being.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf reads the introduction chapter from his latest book, The Vagabond’s Way, which debuts on October 4th (and is available for preorder now from your favorite bookstor…

“I think sometimes as travel writers our most important job is to be a listener — to listen to the stories that people are telling each other in a place.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ernest talk about why home is such an important place in one’s life, even when one travels to more far-flung places (3:00); why the vagabonding et…

“One thing we like to say [in Antarctica] is that nothing on the continent can kill you, except for the entire continent.” –Karen Pszonka In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Karen talk about how Karen first got a job in Antarctica (1:40); what weather is like during the Antarctic winter, the research being done at McMurdo, and a penguin named “Bud…

“I told him, ‘You didn’t have a long, lucrative NBA career, but that doesn’t make you a failure. Yet if you let other people tell your story, that’s how you’re going to be depicted.” –Dr. Kevin Harrison In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kevin talk about how Kevin started writing what he calls “smut novels,” how he sold them at the grassroots lev…

“I talked as much about the National Basketball Association in Syria as I did about politics. Syrians felt so global and interested in everything. As a young backpacker, I don’t know that I appreciated the historical moment that I was in.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Shaun talk about how they first came to know of Father Paolo …

“The noun part of “writer” seems to require outside validation, but the verb part of it — “writing” — is something you’re either doing or you’re not.” –Matt Bell In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Matt talk about the importance of creative persistence and obsession (1:45); the importance of maintaining creative discipline and keeping concrete tra…

“Travel imparts a liquid language whose sole property is the flow of questions.” –Marcia DeSanctis In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Marcia talk about what it was like to work as a TV producer for Barbara Walters (1:30); how she made the decision to transition into prose writing, and how a sense of curiosity and abandon can inspire travel and tr…

“Have a bias toward action.” – Chris Guillebeau In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Chris discuss Chris’ quest to travel to every country in the world (4:30); discovering and fine-tuning your passions through travel (17:00); exploring creativity through various mediums, and discontentment as a catalyst for change (27:00); knowing when to write a b…