Deviate with Rolf Potts

“Syria is a mix of everything. There are multiple Christian cultures, multiple Muslim cultures, and multiple languages. It’s the crossroads of the world. It made for some of my best travel memories from that time of my life.” — Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate (which was remixed from an episode of Ari Shaffir’s You Be Trippin’ podcast), Rolf and Ari talk about when and why R...

“In El Salvador, I dropped $5 out of my pocket at the border, and some guy came running up to me. At the beginning of the trip I would have been surprised by that. But by that point I would have been surprised if it didn’t happen.” —Matt Savino In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Matt talk about how the first version of his travel book was way too long, and what he ended up editing out (6:0...

“When we got into this, we didn’t know how to make videos. That’s a skill we’ve had to learn, because the industry has changed so much, from photos to videos. We are still learning all the time.” —Anne Howard In this episode of Deviate, Rolf, Mike, Anne and Kiki talk about they got started traveling as a couple, how they made it affordable, and how they made the trans...

“Influencers are forever reinforcing the same images. They’re spending no time in the actual place, other than the requisite time to take the photo. From the local community’s point of view, these kinds of tourists bring very little value.” –Stuart McDonald In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Stuart talk about why Stuart chose to make his office in West Bali, and why...

“We’re having less enjoyable travel experiences, even as our photos show us having this amazing time, because we’re performing a version of travel for people who aren’t even there.” In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and David talk about the time-honored practice of Americans pretending to be Canadian on the road, and why Americans at times have had a bad reputation abroad (2:30);...

“Traveling, for me, is all about destroying stereotypes and narratives about people and places.”  – Matt Green In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Matt discuss Matt’s mission to walk every street in New York City (3:00); walking across the entire United States and breaking stereotypes (12:00); bucket lists as a catalyst for action (28:00); and Matt’s experiences walking in unfamiliar places and f...

“We need positive visions of how all this technology gets deployed, because what we visualize is what we build.” –Jane Metcalfe In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Jane talk about the pioneering work she did with Wired during the dawn of the “digital revolution” (3:00); how and why Jane’s professional focus shifted away from digital issues and into food and health issues in the...

“My parents passed away and it created this sense of recklessness in me, but in a positive way: I wanted to create a travel experience and push myself and learn about myself. Because you never know how long you’re gonna be around for.” –Daniel Troia In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Daniel talk about why Daniel chose to bicycle across America with no money or food, the privileges that set...

“The parent’s job as teacher on the road is to just create surface area between your kid and yourself and the world.”   –Julie Frieder In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Julie talk about what a “Wonder Year” is, how she got involved with family travel, and why traveling with children is possible and enriching for everyone involved (1:30); how to get started planning a family va...

“Look at any photo from a moment of supposed zeitgeist in American history, and it will be clear that not everyone in that moment represented the cutting-edge of culture.” –Rolf Potts In this essay episode of Deviate , Rolf talks about why he enjoys listening to Rob Harvilla’s podcast 60 Songs That Explain the ’90s at double-speed, but that he’s disappointed Rob has never alluded...

“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 about (or alluding to) the 2023 Th...

“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 good story, and how he balanc...

“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 close-to-home adventures in England (7:00); t...

“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 their fandom later in life (8:00); how it could be d...

“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 healthy perspective on informa...

“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 of travel moments in an existential way (...

“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 decision to move to Poland for love, and...

“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 problems – Rolf and  The Vagabond’s Way book cl...

“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 career (8:00); how, as a writer, to...

“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 standard tourist routines and see places in unexp...

“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 North Am...

“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 dates back to a series of journeys she took aroun...

“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 Vagabond’s Way book club participants discu...

“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 rural and small-town Kansas, and how these place...

“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 (2:00); the five different historical categorie...