Blog - Rolf Potts

“Las Vegas is hard to capture in art without leaning on cliche. The movie Casino doesn’t lean on cliche because it created the cliche. The Hangover created the cliche for this next generation. Culture is is causing people to act a certain way when they get to Las Vegas.” – Tod Goldberg In this episode of Deviate,…

“That first day in Mumbai, there was the slum to the side of us, there were sports cars that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars next to people walking with no feet next to 200 people crammed into a bus. Separating those layers in a nuanced way lifts the writing that shows that…

“All writing is trying to destroy a stereotype, and the individual that you’re writing about — the figure in the landscape — is actually the ideal.” —Paul Theroux Paul Theroux‘s highly acclaimed novels include Blinding Light, My Other Life, and The Mosquito Coast. His 1975 book The Great Railway Bazaar is credited with revitalizing...

“”When I was in the third grade my teacher announced to our class that Ronald Reagan had been shot. When she asked if we had questions, I raised my hand and asked her if the Indiana – North Carolina basketball game was still going to happen that night.” – Chuck Klosterman In this episode of Deviate, Rolf,…

“A joke is kind of like a little life-lesson in addition to being funny. If your joke is really good, there’s a little nugget of truth in it.” – Cedar Van Tassel In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Cedar discuss why kids want to be paleontologists and astronauts, and the existential “book” Cedar wrote when he…

“When we don’t foster local filmmaking traditions, we end up making movies about what we think life is like in the cities we do see movies about.” – Jason Bailey In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Jason talk about how being from Kansas influenced their careers as travel writers and film critics, and the long cultural…

This week I appeared on Yonder Radio, an hour-long audio show and podcast produced by the Center for Rural Strategies, to talk about my feature-length found-footage video essay Kansas Never Plays Itself, which draws on a century of film to analyze how cinematic shorthand shapes the public’s imagination of places. What’s the name of this…

“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 about why Andrew took a USA road trip to reconnect…

“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:

“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 roommate Michael Weinreb about Chuck’s book Football, rather than Chuck himself (2:00);…

“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 Hutchins. They discuss the concept of “Time Wealth,” how it can be actualized…

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 film clips, historical analysis, and deeply personal narration, Kansas Never Plays Itself traces how cinematic shorthand…

"All the Light We Cannot See" novelist Anthony Doerr and Rolf talk about travel and writing (from 2012)

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 pretending to be young.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate Rolf…

Writing-craft lessons from Rolf's would-be first book, 'Pilgrims in a Sliding World."

Vagabonding pioneer Ed Buryn on what indie travel was like in the 1960s and 1970s

Journalist and broadcaster Ash Bhardwaj on the motivations of travel.

Kim Krizan, who cowrote Before Sunrise with director Richard Linklater, talks about the travels (and historical moment) that influenced the movie

Kim Krizan, who cowrote Before Sunrise with director Richard Linklater, talks about the travels (and historical moment) that influenced the movie.

Mars on Earth: Wanderings in the World's Driest Desert

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 save money on an extended journey

Travel memoir lab: How to blend travel writing 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