Outside Podcast

For a community of hardy souls in Maine, there’s no better way to feel fully alive in winter than immersing yourself in the frigid Atlantic. Yes, the entrance is jolting. But if you take it slow, you allow for what members of the group call “a conversation with the nervous system” that produces a sensation you can’t achieve any other way: a powerful, blossoming inner warmth that’s both delightful...

Figuring out how to get better sleep and more excise and is hard—which is why we tried out some new programs for you. Every year, Outside reporters put their bodies and minds on the line to test new routines designed to help us become healthier, happier, more productive human beings. Hear from three of this year’s subjects about what stuck, what didn’t, and how you can benefit from our mistakes.

If you’ve ever seen a skier pull a hot dog out of a jacket pocket while on a chairlift or devour a towering plate of nachos back at the lodge, you know that few athletes chase calories harder than skiers. And with good reason. Charging down a mountain in the cold empties your body’s glycogen stores—fail to refuel, and you’re going to get sore and sad very quickly. And when it comes to favorite pow...

Escaping the craziness of the season to head into the wild can sound amazing—right up until that overnight snowstorm crushes your tent. Because while the appeal of getting out there, away from the bustle of parties and gifts and eggnog, can inspire especially bold trips, there might be nothing more disappointing than a holiday mission that ends in disaster. For our final episode of 2022, we bring...

Witnessing the Aurora Borealis can feel like you’re glimpsing another world. For some people, that’s exactly what’s happening. Photographer Hugo Sanchez captured his first images of the spectacle accidentally, when he was taking shots of a meteor shower. But soon he became hooked, and then, when his young son died, the dancing lights took on a whole new meaning. In this replay of one our favorite...

Talk to the victims of crashes and their families, and they’ll tell you: when a motor vehicle injures or kills a bicyclist, the American justice system lets drivers off the hook. The harsh truth is that our roads are frighteningly dangerous for cyclists, and our country has a high tolerance for traffic deaths. In this episode, part of Outside’s ongoing coverage of cycling crashes and deaths, we ch...

Racing around a mountain resort to aid injured skiers sounds like the ultimate adventure job. But with housing and other costs soaring, getting paid in fun is no longer cutting it. Last year a battle over wages in the ski industry sparked conversations about what those workers—who frequently put their lives on the line—deserve. In the final episode of our fall Weekend Read series, we bring you the...

He was born to a herd of wild horses on an island off Virginia and found his way into the heart of a little girl on the dusty trails of the Southwest. Legend was a descendant of fabled swimming ponies: every year, cowboys lead them across a quarter-mile crossing between the islands of Assateague and Chincoteague, where 60 of them are put up for auction. In this episode of our Weekend Read series,...

As Ukraine prepares for months of frigid conflict with Russia, its troops might look to another nation that held its own against the Red Army in the cold: Finland. During the winter of 1939-1940, Finnish soldiers, many on skis and using snow caves as shelters, weaponized the freezing conditions, fending off the much larger Soviet Union army for 105 days and ultimately conceding only a small amount...

Richard Carr was halfway across the Pacific, alone on a 36-foot yacht, when he began sending frantic alerts that he was being kidnapped by pirates. The retired psychologist had set off from Mexico 26 days earlier and was bound for the Marquesas Islands on the first leg of a lifelong dream: sailing around the world. But when his family woke up to a series of frightening and confusing messages, it b...

People encounter all kinds of threats in the natural world, but a virus presents an especially ominous challenge, as Outside contributing editor David Quammen can attest after decades of research on the topic. Quammen forecast a COVID-19–like pandemic in his 2012 book, Spillover, and beginning in the 1980s, he wrote a column for Outside called Natural Acts that had him pursuing fascinating scienti...

Kurt Steiner has spent his life skipping stones, developing a technique to produce throws that defy the laws of physics. Ask him why he’s committed his entire adulthood to this lost art and he’ll say he has no choice. This is the first episode in another Weekend Read series, offering you exceptional Outside features—both new articles and gems from our archives.

The exuberant king of survival TV insists that our wild adventures are about more than just chasing fun—they can help get us through the struggles of our everyday lives. And that’s the undercurrent of his new book, Mind Fuel: Simple Ways to Build Mental Resilience Every Day, which contains a year’s worth of daily, bite-size prompts to explore our relationship to things like joy, trust, and courage...

Alone in the wilderness, facing a grizzly that was determined to kill him, Colin Dowler had only one option: fight for his life. The 44-year-old had been on a solo hike to scout routes up a coastal mountain in British Columbia when the animal attacked. Without bear spray, and miles from the nearest help, he thought he was as good as dead. It wasn’t until the grizzly was tearing into his abdomen th...

It began in the waters off Antarctica: a crew of eco-vigilantes found the illegal fishing ship they’d been hunting. It wouldn’t end for some 10,000 miles, when one of the vessels sank. So went the longest law-enforcement chase in nautical history. In this episode from the new series The Outlaw Ocean, investigative journalist Ian Urbina chronicles the pursuit of one of the world’s most notorious sc...

Farmers aren’t supposed to get emotionally attached to their livestock. But when you suddenly find yourself caring for two newborn sheep, these things happen. Outside contributing editor A.C. Shilton had long dreamed of becoming a farmer when she and her husband purchased a plot of land in Tennessee and began managing chickens and horses and cows. Then she added a few sheep with the idea of slowly...

When a rafter was stung by a scorpion, she assumed she’d be fine. Within hours she lost her ability to see or speak clearly. It was the beginning of a nightmare that nobody in her group of experienced adventurers saw coming. After all, there aren’t supposed to be deadly scorpions in the United States. But as her condition grew more frightening, they began to believe they had a serious emergency on...

John John Florence has remarkable physical talents, but his greatest asset as an athlete might be his enduring positive attitude. The 29-year-old is often his happiest when things go sideways and he’s forced to adapt. This explains why, after suffering a major knee injury earlier this year during a competition, the two-time world champion surfer decided to spend his rehab sailing from his home in...

There’s a reason that reality shows set in wild places hold our attention: we can’t help but imagine that it’s us out there. This is especially true when we watch Alone, the hit series on the History Channel that has contestants truly by themselves in all kinds of brutal environments, doing their best to both survive while also filming themselves. This raw approach to voyeuristic entertainment ult...

Spoiler alert: It’s not because you’re a wuss. Adults rarely cry because of pain or physical discomfort, so why do so many of us cry during outdoor sports? It happens to almost everyone, of all genders, including professional athletes like skier Cody Townsend and climber Emily Harrington. Writer and athlete Gloria Liu investigated this phenomenon, which she calls the Sports Cry, to figure out what...

There’s a reason a strenuous outing makes you desire a greasy mound of meat: it has a lot of what your body needs. This we learned from talking to six Outside writers and editors about their greatest aprés-adventure burgers, and by unpacking their stories with the help of two registered dietitians. As it turns out, most of us are underfed when we head into the wild, and the result is a deep hunger...

Eric and Pam Bealer were living in a cabin in rugged coastal Alaska when they made a dramatic decision: they would exit the world together. Pam was suffering from multiple sclerosis and did not want to see her disease through; Eric did not plan to live without his wife. When they set off into the wild for the last time, they left behind instructions for whoever entered the cabin first. For the fin...

When retired art dealer Forrest Fenn hid a million dollars’ worth of gold in the Rocky Mountains, he sent thousands of people on a desperate journey. One of them, an ex-cop from Seattle named Darrell Seyler, risked everything on his search. In this first episode of the new series Missed Fortune, created by former Outside Podcast host Peter Frick-Wright and inspired by his magazine story for Outsid...

For Caitlin Giddings, leading cross-country bike tours was supposed to be the ultimate escape from the monotony of normal life. Instead it was a kind of torture. Giddings was in her twenties when she was seduced by the idea of turning her passion for cycling into a paycheck. She wanted freedom and adventure! What she got, however, was a lot of whining and grief from troublemaking clients, includin...

To portray the hero of the Thai cave rescue in the new film Thirteen Lives, the Hollywood star had to go deep—literally. Mortensen plays the part of Rick Stanton, the legendary British cave diver who helped lead the rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach from the far reaches of a flooded cavern in northern Thailand. The actor’s preparation included months of conversations with Stanton and a harr...