All Episodes
Deviate with Rolf Potts — 268 episodes
What movies (do and don’t) show us about places before we travel there
Exploring the idiosyncrasies of male friendship, with Andrew McCarthy
Debunking the mythology of BEFORE SUNRISE, with co-writer Kim Krizan (in Paris)
Super Bowl special: Why football kind of matters, with Chuck Klosterman (kind of)
Time is your truest form of wealth (and travel helps you embrace your riches)
Kansas Never Plays Itself: How movies lie when they take us places
Traveling as a writer, and awkward book-tour experiences, with Anthony Doerr (from 2012)
Talking with my parents about how to handle it when your parents die (in memory of Alice Potts, 1943-2025)
An audiobook about how (not) to write a travel book: 9 lessons from my failed van-life memoir
Vagabonding pioneer Ed Buryn on what indie travel was like in the 1960s and 1970s (encore)
Why We Travel: Happiness, curiosity, wonder, sex, healing, and other motivations for hitting the road
Before Sunrise (redo): Screenwriter Kim Krizan on what led up to the classic travel-romance movie
Before Sunrise: Screenwriter Kim Krizan on what led up to the classic 1995 travel-romance movie
Mars on Earth: The world’s driest desert, and what travelers might find when they go there
Why a chapter about “slum tourism” was edited out of The Vagabond’s Way (with Chloe Cooper Jones)
Long-term travel 101: Matt Kepnes on how to slow down and save money on an extended global journey
Travel memoir lab: On blending travel narrative with a broader memoiristic life-narrative
How a journey on the Hippie Trail changed Rick Steves’ life (and influenced Rolf’s travels too)
A travel writers’ Super Bowl special: Pico Iyer and Rolf discuss NFL football from the global perspective
Pico Iyer on how solitude, stillness, and silence play an essential counterbalance to the traveling life
Life changing travel experiences: Memories of traveling to Syria, 25 years on (with Ari Shaffir)
Travel memoir lab: How to fast-track your travel book by working with a hybrid publisher
HoneyTrek: A case study in making a full-time living as travel influencers and content creators
Live from Bali: How tourists, influencers, and nomads transform destinations (for good and for bad)
Vagabonding audio companion: Obnoxious travelers (and how to avoid being one)
What you discover when you walk down every single street in New York City (encore)
A history and future of digital and biological technology, with Jane Metcalfe
Bicycling across the USA (with no money or food) looking for human connection
Wonder Year: The Art of Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling
How Rolf Ruined the 1990s: A personal history of my grunge-bandwagon band
Walk and Talk: Notes from a peripatetic salon across northern Thailand
Essential tips and strategies for telling travel stories, with Andrew McCarthy
What it’s like to spend a full year traveling within a day’s radius of your home
Sports, superstitions, and sacraments: A Deviate Super Bowl Special (2024 remix)
Tim Ferriss and Rolf discuss travel, time wealth, and “success management”
The best journeys explore mindscapes as well as landscapes (book club remix)
Going abroad for love, and travel writing that says something new about a place
Seek places where your very presence makes you interesting (book club redo)
Travel memoir lab: Truth, luck, & multi-genre storytelling (with Tom Bissell)
Seek places where your very presence makes you interesting (book club remix)
Vagabonding audio companion: A life in (and philosophy of) long-term travel
A train isn’t just a vehicle; it’s a place (a remix encore, with Monisha Rajesh)
Travelers experience more when they slow down and ask lots of questions
“Dare to do Dirt”: Seeking rural places (and how to best experience them)
Vagabonding audio companion: Why (and how) travel souvenirs matter
Travel can return you to a kind of childhood (online book club remix)
What museums reveal about places (and what they have to offer travelers)
Vagabonding audio companion: How to study abroad (even if you aren’t a student)
Fear, family, and walking the Camino de Santiago (live with Andrew McCarthy)
Travel burnout is a real thing (and it’s OK to feel it sometimes), with Matt Kepnes
The Mystical High Church of Luck: Decoding Las Vegas (with Ari Shaffir)
How travelers create quests and find community (online book club remix)
Art introduces us to places before we go there (live from the Faroe Islands)
Travel can be a way to see the future (and experience the past), with Kevin Kelly
The best age to travel is whatever age you are now (an online book club remix)
Seek out global connections while you’re still at home (with Kristin Van Tassel)
A Native American football team beat the 1927 NFL Giants: The story of John Levi
Why you go someplace is less important than just going (with Tony Perrottet)
Integrating love of travel & love of home (with philosopher Chloe Cooper Jones)
Travel contracts your possessions and expands your life (with Eric Weiner)
Travelers create their own distinct global culture (with anthropologist Pegi Vail)
The travel industry is here to help you; feel free to ignore it (with Seth Kugel)
Deviate Live in NYC: The Vagabond’s Way (onstage at KGB Bar with Ari Shaffir)
Reinvent what it means to be an “explorer” (with Kate Harris)
The subtler risks of travel carry rich rewards (with Carl Hoffman)
Uncertainty makes for the truest adventures (aka Tim Cahill’s Travel 101)
Traveling solo opens up new possibilities in a place (with Stephanie Rosenbloom)
Keeping a journal helps you make sense of the journey (with Lavinia Spalding)
Paul Theroux on the merits of travel and the paradoxes of the global economy
Seeking real crowds beats crowdsourcing (from The Vagabond’s Way book launch)
Preconceptions can blur what you see firsthand on the road (with Eddy Harris)
Travel deviations can be as appealing as travel plans, with Ari Shaffir
The Vagabond’s Way: An audio introduction to Rolf’s new book
Vagabonding audio companion: Love, finding home, and telling TV travel stories
“On the Ice”: What it’s like to live and work at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station
A Critical Race Theorist’s guide to writing smut novels, with Dr. Kevin Harrison
Traveler ideals, hospitality, and the disappearance of an Italian priest in Syria
Refuse to be Done: The art of creative persistence for long-haul projects
Marcia DeSanctis on revisiting places, souvenirs, and travel as self-reinvention
Chris Guillebeau on life goals, work, and travel as alt-university [encore]
Hitchhiking for pastries: The art of structuring a journey with an obsession
How to embrace uncertainty and redefine success by taking a “pathless path”
What travel teaches you about the human body, with Dr. Jonathan Reisman
The creative art of making a living as an adventurer, with Alastair Humphreys
The strangers we meet on the road, and how they can deepen our journey
Vagabonding audio companion: What it’s like to come home after a long trip
Meghan Daum on career-reinvention, flyover country, nuance, and Gen X
Paul Theroux on reading, teaching, and slow travel in Mexico [encore]
How inexpensive countries are the secret to prolonging the journey [encore]
Lost in the Valley of Death: The life and disappearance of Justin Alexander
A mixtape (of sorts) about mixtapes: Music as intimate communication
Holiday Special: Celebrating the Sears Christmas Wish Book [encore]
Digital nomadism [bonus]: How technology has changed the way we travel
Van Life before #VanLife (encore): Revisiting a classic USA road trip
Tales from the vagabonding trail: Discussing “Marco Polo Didn’t Go There”
Vagabonding audio companion: Travel brainstorming, with Ari Shaffir
Maintaining creative fitness: How my podcast augments my writing career
Finding the best places to live: Searching for home in America [encore]
Travel writing in the “Mad Men” era: The myth and legacy of Holiday Magazine
The Olympics started out as a travel fest: All about the ancient Greek Games
Experiencing Japan the slow way (on the 750-mile Shikoku Pilgrimage)
Vagabonding audio companion: How your earliest journeys transform you
Digital nomadism: A history and future (from a documentary film in progress)
Travel in the “Mad Men” era: Stewardess work at the dawn of the Jet Age
The curious case of a con-man who infiltrated the world of elite travelers
Memories you didn’t know you remembered: A deeper dive into nostalgia
What a 20th century monk can teach us about living (with Sophfronia Scott)
Life changing travel experiences: Epiphanies of expatriate life in Korea
Paul Theroux on the necessary obstacles of immersive slow travel [encore]
Triumph in the middle of nowhere: The most 1980s underdog story of the 1980s
On the road with the superstars of Negro League baseball, 100 years on
Notes on the philosophy (and deeper meaning) of travel, with Emily Thomas
Pam Houston on home, and the beauty of our pared-down lives [encore]
Long-distance hiking at home: The art of journeying out of your own back door
Pico Iyer on the creative task of travel across the world and deep within [encore]
What it’s like to take your kids on a three-month journey in the Himalayas
The joys and idiosyncrasies of global train travel (with Monisha Rajesh)
Five Travel Lessons You Can Use at Home (a road-trip intro to Deviate Season 4)
Life changing travel experiences (with Ari Shaffir): Walking across Israel
How to write a travel memoir (and how failure is the best teacher)
Strategies and arguments for the simple life (from an off-grid perspective)
American Pilgrim: Revisiting Rolf’s lost Travel Channel Thanksgiving special
Solo travel: Celebrating the pleasures of (and strategies for) journeying alone
Vagabonding audio companion: Time Wealth and the spiritual texture of travel
Coming-of-age on the road as a dirtbag backpacker (with Pam Mandel)
On penis theft, creepy clowns, anxiety, and how culture tells us what is real
Pandemic love, cheating death, & cassette tapes: A personal history of nostalgia
A folk history of Satanic Panic, backmasking, and rock music in the 1980s
What it’s like to travel 37 countries (and counting) in a wheelchair
20 lessons learned from 20 years as a travel writer: A TravelCon keynote
Sex, travel, and the art of being a better bad tourist (with Suzanne Roberts)
Drunk in China: A vicarious Middle Kingdom adventure via its favorite booze
Growing up racially diverse: A not-so-politically-correct roundtable
Eric Weiner’s journey into the ways philosophy compels us to live better
Life changing travel experiences: The best hostel ever (in Cairo)
Brian Koppelman on the intimacy of podcasting and the genius of Iron Maiden
Vagabonding pioneer Ed Buryn on what indie travel was like in the 1960s
Kevin Kelly on how travel has changed over the past 50 years [rebroadcast]
Remembering Bettina Gilois (and what writers can learn from her work)
Talking with my parents about how to handle it when your parents die
Bonus: Unpacking the mission of travel-writing in the 21st century
What the world’s last subsistence hunters can teach us about humanity
Revisiting The Great Gatsby, high-school-style, in quarantine
Why travelers visit museums (in places like Iceland), and what they find there
Life changing travel experiences: Jumping freight trains in the Pacific NW
Kate Harris on the way travel can lead us into deeper questions about the universe
Andrew McCarthy on the Proust Questionnaire (and Brat Pack legacy)
How to balance creative success with business success: An open chat
How underground exploration is the perennial frontier of adventure travel
Honeymoon without her husband: Maggie Downs’ uncommon world journey
The win-win of being a mentor, with Cal Fussman and Alex Banayan
Why a “Shelter in Place Film Festival” beats bingeing video right now
Using your travel skills to make quarantine life better: An open chat
Reports from my travels in quarantine: A Deviate Season Two coda
Life changing travel experiences, quarantine edition: Paris and Prague
How COVID-19 will transform the business of long-term world travel
What fear is, how it works, and how to manage it (with Eva Holland)
On losing one’s parents to COVID-19: A traveler-report addendum
How COVID-19 will transform airports (and other pandemic considerations)
Why the way we discuss (and interpret information about) COVID-19 matters
What it’s like to travel during COVID-19: Reports from around the world
How Nomadic Matt got COVID-19. Plus: Reports from stranded travelers
How to make sense of health data in a time of pandemic (and beyond)
How to enhance your career by becoming a better public speaker and reader
On sabbaticals: How to take a career break without breaking your career
Ari Shaffir and Rolf do a deep-dive on the finer points of indie travel
Remembering Nirvana, and how music can frame experience (and memory)
How music affects you when you’re young (or, the joys of Jane’s Addiction)
Life-changing travel experiences: China and Mongolia with my parents
Why dinosaurs matter (also: Rolf fact-checks the dino book he wrote at age 7)
What Matt Green discovered by walking every single street in New York City
A personal history of being a lifelong pro-sports fan (Super Bowl special)
The power of small choices across decades: The Sgt. John Monk story
Chris Guillebeau on goals, writing books, and travel as alt-university
How to balance a life of artistic ambition with sanity and happiness
Indonesia: An argument for (and essential tips on) traveling the archipelago
Why Noah Baumbach’s “Kicking & Screaming” might be the best movie ever
Deviate Christmas Special: Celebrating the Sears Wish Book [Rebroadcast]
Bonus: On the therapeutic uses of reading classic literature and scripture
What narrative therapy is, and how it can make your life feel more coherent
America’s most solemn historical sites rarely offer an honest take on history
Author Alex Banayan on seeking mentors for life (and writing) guidance
On the under-appreciated reality of revelry, sex, and misadventure in travel
The world’s cheapest destinations, and why (besides savings) they’re great
Paul Theroux on aging, slow travel, and the inherent complexity of Mexico
Bonus: Storytelling for the screen: A lecture from the Paris Writing Workshop
Benjamin Percy on how comics and movies teach the best lessons about telling stories
Why travel guidebooks still matter (and how to best use them on the road)
An insider’s guide to traveling America’s National Parks in the 21st century
Van Life before #VanLife: Rolf unpacks his very first vagabonding journey
Ryan Holiday on how to conceive, research, and write a “Big Idea” book
“American Beauty” has not aged well: Reconsidering the film, 20 years on
Wesley Morris on why Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” remains a classic
Explore Europe on Foot: The hows and whys of trek-travel on the continent
The case for why trekking on foot is the best way to embrace slow travel
Pico Iyer on travel, impermanence, and what Japan can teach us about life
A first- (or second-) timer’s guide to experiencing Paris at a slow pace
How keeping a travel journal can transform your experience of the journey
The Shawshank Redemption’s brilliant reworking of Stephen King, 25 years on
Celebrating the subtle (and not-so-subtle) genius of Pulp Fiction, 25 years on
Bonus: Nomadic Matt’s top-19 lessons learned from a decade of travel
Matt Kepnes on how to travel for years (instead of days or weeks) at a time
Alastair Humphreys on making outdoor adventure a more active part of your life
Will New Orleans still be there in 100 years? Examining the fate of a city.
Backpacker, Go Home: How Tourism Is Ruining Everything (or Not)
Seth Kugel on how to (truly) get off the beaten path as a global traveler
Sports-movie screenwriter Bettina Gilois on the art of depicting true-life stories
Why David Lynch’s The Straight Story is a travel classic (and how it got made)
Celebrating the best travel movies ever (and what, exactly, makes them good)
Storming (and making sense of) Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Beach, 20 years later
Author Dave Cullen on what the media gets wrong after mass-shootings
How to travel lighter, safer, and smarter (featuring Sarah von Bargen)
How to travel with no luggage at all (and what this teaches you)
5 ways indie travel has changed (and stayed the same) since 1999
How philosophy can (truly) improve your life, featuring Monica McCarthy
Ari Shaffir unpacks Rolf’s experience of doing psychedelics for the first time
Deviate Season One finale with Ari Shaffir
An outsider’s inside history of the Beat Generation, as told by Charles Plymell
Author Pam Houston on the joys of creating home amid a lifetime of travel
Andrew McCarthy on storytelling, celebrity, and how travel changed his life
Major Jackson on the poetics of time (and how best, in life, to spend it)
White Zombie guitarist J. Yuenger on music, expat life, and long-term travel
Traveling Russia onboard the Trans-Siberian express: A 2018 case study
The great railway bizarre: A Trans-Siberian story (plus audio endnotes)
Writer-producer LaToya Morgan on TV storytelling and creative self-discipline
Punk icon Ian MacKaye on why we should question the official history of rock music
How to survive a natural disaster (and recover when it’s over)
Wesley Morris on podcast-fame, sports, and performing blackness in America
Satanic backward masking changed 1980s rock (but not in the way you think)
Celebrating the best places to live (and the quest for home) in America
On American Highways II: A brief history of the Negro Motorist Green Book
On American Highways I: A brief history of family road-trips in the USA
How to break up with your smartphone (and rediscover your real-world life)
Classic rock is not dead. Classic rock is undead. Long live classic rock.
Remembering Bourdain, and what we talk about when we talk about travel writing
Why 1980s coming-of-age movies matter
How to talk to someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one
Paul Theroux on the art of listening, and the necessary obstacles of deep travel
The way we grow food has been broken for 10,000 years (but we can fix it)
Kevin Kelly on the lost world of 1970s Asia (and why you should travel now)
Kink Doctor Dulcinea Pitagora on sex therapy, BDSM, and dominatrix work
Sarah von Bargen is here to help you correct your bad self-help habits
The way we teach and learn has been broken for 300 years (but we can fix it)
How we die in America (and why it’s important to talk about it)
Deviate Live in New York City: Travel Stories and Souvenirs
How romance novels reveal the secret history of life in America
Ari Shaffir on travel, memory, and the odd psychology of souvenirs
Unsane writer James Greer on the death of Cobain and birth of Gen X
The Epic One-Against-Five Foul-Out Basketball Game of 1964
Adventure writer Tim Cahill on fear, and what it’s like to be dead for ten minutes
Filmmaker Rod Pocowatchit on Native American zombie movies and DIY film
Baseball writer Rany Jazayerli on fandom, and growing up Muslim in America
Sophfronia Scott on God, mid-life career change, and defining a generation
The weird and complicated history of America’s national anthem
What it’s like to be a Latino police officer in America
What it’s like to be a black police officer in America
A Shadow History of Rock Music in the 1980s
Novelist Tod Goldberg on murder, and why sports is so emotionally affecting
Sharknado producer David Latt on how the B-movie sausage gets made
Novelist Cynthia Sweeney on getting your big creative break at mid-life
Bookslut Jessa Crispin on Keanu Reeves and the joys of celebrity fixation
The Sears Christmas Wish Book was (truly) great American literature
Comedian Ari Shaffir on ‘shrooms, hugging, and quitting smartphones
Disaster Artist writer Tom Bissell on bogus authenticity and violence in art
Everest mountaineer Alison Levine on introversion and finding mentors
Hollywood composer Rolfe Kent on the joys of throwing out quality work
TV host Ernest White II on black/white, gay/straight male friendships
Bestselling author Tim Ferriss on how to create a successful podcast