“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 interested in certain places, and how Rolf's latest book is designed to be read over the course of a year (2:00); how nomads can create consistency and community in new places, and how to find good cities for families in Italy and the Balkans (4:45); how to find places to stay in places where last-minute reservations are hard to come by (8:30); how to choose where to go on a given vagabonding journey (13:00); how having a mission can give focus to your travels (17:45); and how guidebooks can still be a useful travel tool (21:10). Discussion moderator Luke Richardson is a traveler, author, and DJ based in England. Notable Links:

• The Vagabond’s Way, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Paris Writing Workshops (Rolf's class in France)
• Nottingham (city in England)
• Fudge Tunnel (sludge-rock band from Nottingham)
• Amalfi Coast (destination in Italy)
• CouchSurfing (homestay service)
• Hitching for pastries (Deviate episode)
• Kevin Kelly on Deviate
• Storming 'The Beach,' by Rolf Potts (essay)
• Marco Polo Didn't Go There, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Faroe Islands (Bradt Travel Guide)
• The Land of Maybe, by Tim Ecott (travel memoir)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 travel to a place affects what you see and experience there, and how isolation affects people's worldview in a place like the Faroes (13:00); Faroese history, art, and culture, and how World War II transformed it (24:00); how the weather affects one's experience of the Faroe Islands, and what it's like to travel there (34:00); and how the Faroe Islands have changed -- and stayed the same -- over the years (46:00). Matthew Landrum (@MatthewLandrum) is a writer, speaker, and teacher. He is the translator of Faroese poet Katrin Ottarsdottir's Are There Copper Pipes in Heaven, and the author of Berlin Poems. He lives in Detroit where he teaches at a private school for students on the autism spectrum. Faroese music, art, and literature links:

• Eivør Pálsdóttir (Faroese singer-songwriter)
• Teitur Lassen (Faroese singer-songwriter)
• Christine De Luca (Shetlandic poet)
• Viking metal (music subgenre)
• Týr (Faroese folk metal band)
• Trom (TV series set in the Faroe Islands)
• William Heinesen (Faroese novelist and painter)
• Magic realism (style of literary fiction)
• Faroese ballads (traditional music and dance)
• Ring Cycles (Germanic heroic legends)
• Völsunga saga (Norse saga involving dragons)
• Hjalmar and Ingeborg (Faroese ballad)

Faroese travel, language, and geography links:

• Streymoy (largest and most populated of the Faroe Islands)
• Tórshavn (capital city of the Faroe Islands)
• International Summer Institute in Faroese Language
• Norn language (extinct North Germanic language)
• Týr (Norse god of war)
• The case for trekking on foot (Deviate episode)
• Vágar Airport (only airport in the Faroes)
• Akvavit (Scandinavian distilled spirit)
• Kirkjubøur (cathedral-ruin village in the Faroes)
• Gásadalur (village near Múlafossur Waterfall)
• Heimablídni (Faroese home-hospitality meals)
• Skerpikjøt (Faroese wind-dried mutton)
• Lutefisk (traditional Scandinavian dish)
• University of the Faroe Islands (school in Tórshavn)

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“"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 interest in photography affected his experience of Asia (7:30); how seeing other cultures gave him perspective on his own culture, and on himself, and his countrymen (15:00); how photography gave him intensified attention to what in the world might be changing (23:00); how AI and other technology are changing how we live, create, and travel (30:00); how to travel in such a way that you are open to phenomenon and experiences you don't know of yet, and how technology might enable a "protopia" future (40:00). Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) is a co-founder of Wired magazine, a co-founder of the Rosetta Project, and he serves on the board of the Long Now Foundation. He is a photographer, writer, and futurist, with much of his work centering on Asian and digital culture. His three-volume photo book Vanishing Asia draws on 50 years of vagabonding travel experiences, and his newest book, Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier, debuts in May of 2023. Notable Links:

• The Vagabond's Way, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman (poetry book)
• Communitas (egalitarian ethos of shared interest)
• Jan Chipchase (design innovator)
• Wired (magazine)
• Rick Prelinger (American archivist)
• Stewart Brand (founder of the Whole Earth Catalog)
• Shenzhen (city in China)
• A Pattern Language (1977 urban design book)
• "What AI-Generated Art Means for Human Creativity" (article)
• "A Brief History of Smell-O-Vision" (article)
• Burning Man (event in the US)
• Kumbh Mela (event in India)
• Musical.ly (defunct social media app)
• "movement.html">Forget Utopia. Ignore Dystopia. Embrace Protopia!" (article)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"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 yourself permission to travel at all ages in life (10:30); how travel can give you perspective on the notion of "success" (22:00); what various book club participants have learned from (and discovered on) their travels (34:00); and the details of Rolf's annual Travel Memoir writing class in Paris (41:00). Notable Links:

• The Nomadic Network book club (online events with Rolf)
• Marco Polo Didn't Go There book club (Deviate episode)
• The Vagabond's Way, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Rolf's 2022 appearance on the Tim Ferriss Show (podcast)
• On Kawara (Japanese conceptual artist)
• Mallory Square (waterfront plaza in Key West)
• Oia (village on the Greek island of Santorini)
• Tony Perrottet on Deviate (podcast episode)
• Real on the Road (David Hunter Bishop travel blog)
• Rolf traveling with Sudanese in Syria (blog dispatch)
• Sei Shōnagon (10th century Japanese author)
• John Muir (American naturalist and author)
• Gobi Desert (arid region in East Asia)
• Van life before #VanLife (Deviate episode)
• Søren Kierkegaard (Danish philosopher)
• Bennifer (high-profile celebrity relationship)
• Paris Writing Workshop (Rolf's summer writing classes)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 using migrant-economy buses (1:30); how seeking international restaurants and grocery stores at home can be a window into distant cultures (8:00); Kristin's motivation to learn Spanish in middle age, and how it connects to her perspective as a teacher (16:00); Kristin's harrowing experience of getting lost on a run in Nairobi in 1990, and how getting lost in a place is a way of experiencing it in a deeper way (20:30); how Kristin experienced the country and culture of Moldova through soups and salads while being hosted there by a former student (34:30); and how to stay open to being lost without compromising yourself, and embrace unfamiliar languages as a traveler and learner (41:00). Kristin Van Tassel teaches writing and American literature at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. She writes essays and poetry about place, teaching, van-tassel.html">motherhood, and travel. Notable Links:

• National Portrait Gallery (art museum in Washington, DC)
• Lindsborg (Swedish-American town in Kansas)
• Long-distance hiking at home (Deviate episode)
• Guanajuato (city in Mexico)
• Zacatecas (state in Mexico)
• Meeting Sudanese refugees in Syria (dispatch by Rolf Potts)
• Hmong people (ethnic group in Southeast Asia)
• Salina (small city in Kansas)
• Kimchi (Korean side-dish)
• "Swamp Creatures," by Kristin Van Tassel (essay)
• "Swallowing Fear in San Miguel de Allende" (essay)
• Hangul (Korean writing system)
• Punta del Diablo (beach village in Uruguay)
• Nairobi (capital city of Kenya)
• Rolf's 2010 no-baggage round-the-world journey
• The Vagabond's Way, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Chișinău (capital city of Moldova)
• Anna Gabur's baking-themed Instagram
• Borscht (Eastern European soup)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"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 Oklahoma team called the Hominy Indians, and how the team's star player, John Levi, was the father of Rolf's junior high gym coach (0:00); John Levi's early years as a football player at Haskell Institute, and Haskell's games against teams like Baylor and Minnesota (5:00); Haskell's game against the Quantico Marines at Yankee Stadium, and how it led to John Levi being offered a baseball contract (10:30); how professional football was different in the 1920s than it is now (14:00); how Osage County, Oklahoma was in the midst of an oil boom in the 1920s (17:30) the specifics of the 1927 New York Giants versus Hominy Indians game (20:30); and how John Levi's legacy was embodied by his son, a U.S. Marine veteran who later became a physical education teacher in Wichita, Kansas (22:30). John Levi, Jr. served as a medic for the First Marine Division during the Korean War. He later taught physical education for several decades at Hadley Junior High School in Wichita, Kansas. Now retired, he lives in Green Valley, Arizona. Sports-related Links:

• John Levi (Arapaho multi-sport athlete)
• Hominy Indians (1920s Oklahoma football team)
• 1927 New York Giants (football team)
• Playground of the Native Son (2013 film)
• "They Might be Giants" (article about the Hominy-Giants game)
• Super Bowl 57 (NFL football championship)
• Jim Thorpe (Sac and Fox Nation multi-sport athlete)
• Barry Sanders (NFL running back)
• Patrick Mahomes (NFL quarterback)
• 1923 Quantico Marines Devil Dogs (football team)
• Red Grange (college and NFL running back)
• Olympics amateurism rules (aristocratic sporting ethos)
• Harrisburg Senators (minor-league baseball team)
• History of the National Football League
• Pottsville Maroons (defunct NFL football team)
• Kansas City Cowboys (defunct NFL football team)
• Akron Pros (defunct NFL football team)
• Buffalo Bisons (defunct NFL football team)
• Barnstorming (traveling sports exhibitions)
• John Mosier (NFL tight end)
• Russ Campbell (NFL tight end)

Other notable Links:

• A personal history of being a football fan (Deviate episode)
• Haskell Institute (Native American school in Kansas)
• Carlyle Industrial School (Indian boarding school)
• Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
• Osage County, Oklahoma
• Killers of the Flower Moon (2023 movie)
• David Grann (author)
• Hominy (town in Oklahoma)
• Fairfax (town in Oklahoma)
• Growing up racially diverse (Deviate episode)
• Battle of Inchon (Korean War amphibious invasion)
• Second Battle of Seoul (Korean War urban battle)
• Battle of Chosin Reservoir (Korean War winter battle)
• Band of Brothers (book by Stephen Ambrose)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 different types of modern and historical travelers, and how the "unexpected" affects these journeys (17:00); the appeal of Egypt to both ancient and modern tourists (22:30); how mythic ages can be a prism through which to see a place (33:00); how travel and geographical endeavor is an important task for a historian (44:30); and how the experience of travel has and hasn't changed over the years (55:30). Tony Perrottet (@TonyPerrottet) is the author of six books, including Pagan Holiday: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists; The Sinner’s Grand Tour: A Journey Through the Historical Underbelly of Europe; and The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Greek Games. Notable Links:

• The Nomadic Network book club (online events with Rolf)
• Vagabond's Way sweepstakes (online giveaway)
• Yousuf Karsh (Canadian photographer)
• Petra (ancient Nabataean city in Jordan)
• Troy (ancient city in modern-day Turkey)
• Grand Tour (travel rite from 17th-19th centuries)
• Explorer's Club (professional society in New York)
• Lionel Casson (historian who wrote on ancient Rome)
• Ludwig Friedländer (scholar who wrote on ancient Rome)
• Wenamun (ancient Egyptian traveler)
• Appian Way (ancient Roman road)
• Gladiator (2000 film)
• Sultan Hotel (Rolf's favorite hostel in Cairo)
• Valley of the Kings (ancient tomb complex in Egypt)
• Felucca (Mediterranean sailing boat)
• Egypt's Entrepreneur Awards
• Belle Époque (period of French history)
• Giacomo Casanova (Italian adventurer)
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German poet)
• Theseus (mythical Athenian king)
• Nero (Roman emperor)
• Ephesus (ancient Greek city)
• The ancient Greek Olympics (Deviate episode)
• Sagas of Icelanders (medieval narratives)
• Alhambra (Islamic-era fortress in Spain)
• Souvenir (book by Rolf Potts)
• True Cross (crucifixion cross sought by medieval pilgrims)
• Holy Prepuce (foreskin sought by medieval pilgrims)
• Paris Writing Workshops (Rolf's writing classes)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 with repeated exposure (15:00); how art and travel, home and adventure, became important aspects of Chloe's life (23:00); how the archetype of the "Hero's Journey" evokes aspects of home as well as travel (35:30); Chloe's investigation and experience of "dark tourism" in Cambodia, and how it gave her perspective on how other people view her disability (45:15) and how there's no easy way to navigate the polarities of the self, but trying to do so can result in a hard-won experience of beauty (1:08:00). Chloe Cooper Jones (@CCooperJones) is the author of Easy Beauty: A Memoir. She has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Writing, and was the recipient of a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, as well as a Howard Foundation Grant from Brown University. Notable Links:

• Bernard Bosanquet (English philosopher)
• Sublime (philosophical concept)
• Paris Writing Workshops (Rolf's summer writing classes)
• The Vagabond's Way, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Lake Como (lake region in Italy)
• "The Loss of the Creature," essay by Walker Percy
• Teotihuacan (pyramid site in Mexico)
• Pico Iyer (travel writer)
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (book)
• Quality (philosophical concept)
• "Such Perfection," (Believer essay by Chloe Cooper Jones)
• The High Line (elevated greenway park in New York City)
• Roland Barthes (French literary theorist)
• Souvenir, by Rolf Potts (book)
• The Sheltering Sky, by Paul Bowles (novel)
• Heroes of the Fourth Turning (2019 play by Will Arbery)
• "The Grateful Acre," monologue from Arbery's play
• Hero's journey (narrative template)
• Minangkabau people (ethnic group in Sumatra)
• Wanderjahre (journeyman tradition in Germany)
• Gyoza (Chinese dumplings)
• Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist monk)
• Killing Fields (genocide sites in Cambodia)
• Poetics, by Aristotle (philosophical treatise)
• Catharsis (purging or purification of emotions)
• The Philosophy of Horror, by Noël Carroll (book)
• Dark tourism (phenomenon of travel to tragic places)
• Tuol Sleng (Cambodian genocide museum)
• Francis Galton (English explorer and geographer)
• Tuk-tuk (auto-rickshaw common in SE Asia)
• Sørumsand (provincial town in Norway)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 traveling by freighter ship (2:00); Eric's satisfaction in returning to places he's visited before, such as India, and how to remain open to uncertainty and surprise on the road (9:30); how conversations about travel differ from generation to generation, culture to culture, person to person (20:00); what it was like for Eric to have his book The Geography of Bliss adapted into a TV show, and the nuances behind the concept of "happiness" (28:30); how the experience of travel is inevitably intertwined with the experience of home (38:00); how luxury hotels can insulate you from the experience of a place, and how "adventure travel" is modern concept (43:30); and how Eric's relationship to home, and to time, has changed over the years (58:30). Eric Weiner (@Eric_Weiner) is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and speaker. His books include The Socrates Express, and The Geography of Bliss, which is being made into a six-part docu-series, featuring actor Rainn Wilson, and due to air on NBC's Peacock streaming service. For more about Eric, check out https://ericweinerbooks.com/ Notable Links:

• Philosophy compels us to live better (Deviate episode)
• Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss (TV series)
• The Vagabond's Way, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Boatswain (deck boss on a freighter ship)
• Seven Pillars of Wisdom (book by T.E. Lawrence)
• Eric Weiner's Atlas of Ideas (email newsletter)
• Keitai denwa (Japanese mobile phone culture)
• Grunge (1990s alternative music culture)
• K-Pop (Korean popular music)
• Hangul (Korean alphabet)
• World Happiness Report
• Rainn Wilson (TV actor and producer)
• Quilts for Kids Nepal (nonprofit organization)
• Ibn Battuta (medieval Moroccan traveler)
• Beryl Markham (aviator and author)
• Kamba (ethnic group in Kenya)
• Thar Desert (arid region in India)
• The Geography of Genius, by Eric Weiner (book)
• Yi-Fu Tuan (Chinese-American geographer)
• "Little Gidding" (poem by T.S. Eliot)
• Uffizi Gallery (museum in Florence)
• Teaism (DC-based teahouse)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 "gentrifying" force (2:00); how the world of travel has (and hasn't) changed since Pegi made her film ten years ago, and how immigrants and migrant workers also represent travel communities just like backpackers and expats (11:00); the ways the notion of "journey" can serve as a metaphor for non-travel experiences, and how travel can expand one's sense of time (26:30); what stories travelers choose to tell about places, and how drug-scenes have fueled travel communitas over the years (31:00); the role digital photography now plays in travel, and the individualized notion of what an "explorer" is (39:30); and the importance of allowing yourself to get lost on that road, the "structured danger" of most adventure travel, and relying on your "personness" (rather than technology) as a traveler (49:00). Pegi Vail is an anthropologist and filmmaker who directed the documentary Gringo Trails.  She is also a sustainable-travel consultant whose academic work has focused on visual anthropology, Indigenous media, and the role of storytelling to the political economy of tourism in the developing world. She is the Co-Director of New York University’s Center for Media, Culture, and History. Vail is a founding member, curator, and featured storyteller of the popular not-for-profit storytelling collective, The Moth. Notable Links:

• The Vagabond’s Way, by Rolf Potts (travel book)
• Williamsburg (gentrified neighborhood in Brooklyn)
• Banana Pancake Trail (travel circuit in SE Asia)
• Lower East Side Tenement Museum (historic site in NYC)
• History of hosteling (inexpensive lodging system)
• Hippie Trail (overland travel circuit in 1960s and 1970s)
• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (novel)
• Hmong people (ethic group in SE Asia)
• Nelson H. H. Graburn (anthropology scholar)
• Communitas (communities created by shared endeavor)
• Arnold van Gennep (ethnographer who coined "rites of passage")
• Chaebol (South Korean industrial conglomerate)
• Rolf and Ari Shaffir talk psychedelics (Deviate episode)
• Backpack Ambassadors, by Richard Ivan Jobs (book)
• Margaret Mead Film Festival (documentary film festival)
• Spike Lee (American filmmaker)
• Melvin Estrella (Pegi's partner and film producer)
• J. Edgar Hoover (American law-enforcement administrator)
• Eurail Pass (European train pass popular with backpackers)
• On Photography, by Susan Sontag (book)
• The Explorers Club (professional club in New York)
• Saul Bellow (American novelist)
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost, by Rebecca Solnit (book)
• Beryl Markham (British-African aviator and author)
• Digital detoxing (intentional refrain from using digital devices)
• Hippocampus (part of the brain)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"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 when he was young (1:30); tourist desire, the "beaten path," and the contradictions of what travelers seek in AirBnbs and related property-renting services (10:30); dealing with language barriers overseas, and social versus literal risks overseas (20:00); balancing general tourist advice versus nuanced insights as a travel writer, and the role new technologies play in travel decisions (27:00); and why it's a good idea to avoid places that have been deemed "trendy," and how to break out of the bad habits of travel (40:30). Seth Kugel (@sethkugel) is a travel writer, freelance journalist, and host of the Amigo Gringo YouTube channel. He was the Frugal Traveler columnist for the New York Times from 2010 to 2016, and he is most recently the author of the book Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious. For more on Seth, check out his website http://sethkugel.com/ Notable Links:

• The Vagabond’s Way, by Rolf Potts (travel book)
• Transnistria (breakaway part of Moldova)
• Nagorno-Karabakh (breakaway part of Azerbaijan)
• The World in a Selfie, by Marco D'Eramo (book)
• real.html">Principe Real (neighborhood in Lisbon)
• Wichita Vortex Sutra (poem by Allen Ginsberg)
• Nancy Mitford (English novelist)
• Barbarian Days, by William Finnegan (book)
• Arthur Frommer (guidebook writer)
• Bukittinggi (city in Sumatra)
• Malcolm X (American activist and traveler)
• Bangkok Post (English-language newspaper in Thailand)
• Hindustan Times (English-language newspaper in India)
• "Free Fallin'" (song by Tom Petty)
• Punta Cana (resort town in the Dominican Republic)
• "i-learned-driving-through-the-heartland.html">Driving Through the Heartland," by Seth Kugel (article)
• Chicken Annie's and Chicken Mary's (Kansas restaurants)
• Red Queen's race (metaphor about running to stand still)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 postpone one's dream travels to a seemingly more appropriate time of life, and how it's hard for your friends to appreciate and understand your travels when you get home (7:30); how to not let your smartphones and photographs get in the way of your best journey (15:00); how to best decide where to start on a journey, and why allowing yourself to get lost is sometimes the best way to find experiences a place (23:00); why the philosophical concept of "time wealth" is important to Rolf, and how travel allows you to express a unique feeling freedom (31:30); how the The Vagabond's Way is the "spiritual successor" to Vagabonding, and how Rolf keeps travel in conversation with his home life in Kansas (36:00); and how to savor a new place in the moment, even as that place is changing (44:00). Ari Shaffir (@AriShaffir) is a comedian, writer, podcaster, and actor. He is the host of the Skeptic Tank podcast. His new comedy special, JEW, is available on YouTube. Notable Links:

• Paris Writing Workshops (Rolf's summer creative writing classes)
• The Vagabond's Way, by Rolf Potts (travel book)
• Henry Rollins on Ari's podcast Skeptic Tank
• Commonplace book (method of compiling knowledge)
• Jasmin Shah (photographer)
• Wenamun (ancient Egyptian traveler)
• Matsuo Bashō, (Japanese poet and traveler)
• On Photography, by Susan Sontag (book)
• Mentawai people (inhabitants of islands near Sumatra)
• Cypress Hill (American hip-hop group)
• Pico Iyer (travel writer)
• Pagan Holiday, by Tony Perrottet (book)
• Icelandic Sagas (Nordic historic narratives)
• Koshary (Egyptian national dish)
• Chefchaouen (city in Morocco)
• Tétouan (city in Morocco)
• Inle Lake (lake in Myanmar)
• Eddy L. Harris (travel writer)
• Aosta Valley (region in the Italian Alps)
• Instagram shot of Rolf's first vagabonding trip
• Mary Oliver (American poet)
• Lindsborg, Kansas ("Little Sweden")
• Lower East Side (neighborhood in Manhattan)
• Umbria (region in Italy)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 adventure into your life (44:00). Kate Harris (@kateonmars) is an adventure writer, named by Condé Nast Traveler as one of the “world’s most adventurous women.” Her work has appeared in Outside, The Walrus, and Georgia Review. Her book, Lands of Lost Borders, is a national bestseller For more about Kate, check out www.kateharris.ca Notable Links:

• Rolf’s Q&A with Kate Harris (book foreword)
• Silk Road (network of trade routes)
• Ernest Shackleton (explorer)
• Fridtjof Nansen (explorer)
• Annie Dillard (American author)
• Wind, Sand and Stars, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (book)
• Henry David Thoreau (writer)
• My Journey to Lhasa, by Alexandra David-Neel (book)
• Aksai Chin (region administered by China)
• Marco Polo (historical figure)
• Tomas Tranströmer (poet)
• Atlin (community in British Columbia)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 around the world on a series of local buses, trains, planes, and ferries (2:30); how to overcome the common fears of traveling in this manner, and how tourism infrastructure isn't required for travel in places (9:30); how making yourself vulnerable to new places leaves you open to the people who live there (22:30); the role that simple conversation, smells, and open-ended activity plays in the lives of isolated communities (30:00); and Carl's advice for leaving yourself open to spontaneous travel experiences (40:00). Carl Hoffman (@lunaticcarl) is the author of four books, including The Lunatic Express, and Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest. Notable Links:

• People, Places & Things (play starring Kristen Bush)
• Meridian Hill Park (urban park in DC)
• Maggie Downs (travel writer)
• "Strange Bird" (Outside article about a pilot in the Congo)
• Moluccas (archipelago in Indonesia)
• Asmat (region in Papua)
• Sambal (Indonesian chili sauce)
• Buru (island in Indonesia)
• Pramoedya Ananta Toer (Indonesian novelist)
• Suharto (Indonesian president from 1967-1998)
• Sons of the Waves, by Stephen Taylor (book about sailors)
• Sago (palm starch used for food)
• Cando (town in North Dakota)
• Mentawai Islands (archipelago in Indonesia)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 having a "quest" on a journey (8:00); how boredom can enhance the experience of travel, and why rest-days are important to a journey (15:00); why one should avoid whining (and compulsively talking about bowel movements) on group journeys (21:00); why packing too much gear -- and obsessively trying to save money on the road -- can be counterproductive to engaged travel (25:00); why it's important to be daring with trying new food on the road (40:00); and why bad travel experiences make for better stories than pleasant ones (45:00). Tim Cahill is a journalist, author, and pioneering travel writer. For more from Tim, check out his Rolling Stone and Outside archives, or his 2004 Q&A with Rolf. Notable Links:

• The Vagabond’s Way, by Rolf Potts (travel book)
• Outside (magazine)
• Hold the Enlightenment, by Tim Cahill (book)
• Stoicism (ancient philosophy)
• Royal Commentaries of the Incas, by Garcilaso de la Vega (book)
• Francisco Pizarro (Spanish conquistador)
• Book Passage Travel Writers Conference
• The Old Patagonian Express, by Paul Theroux (book)
• Uinta Mountains (mountain range in Utah)
• 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
• Fish River Canyon (canyon in Namibia)
• Richard Bangs (travel-TV host and author)
• Leimebamba (province in Peru)
• Skua (predatory seabirds common in Antarctic regions)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 in a new play (11:00); how to better savor your travel experiences while they're happening (21:00); certifying versus savoring experiences, and how to balance travel as an external act with a more spiritual internal process (31:00); and strategies for savoring solo travel experiences (46:00). Stephanie Rosenbloom (@stephronyt) is a travel writer for The New York Times, where she has been a reporter for more than a decade, and the author of the book, Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude. For more about Stephanie, check out http://www.stephanierosenbloom.com. Notable Links:

• The Vagabond’s Way, by Rolf Potts (travel book)
• On Karawa (Japanese conceptual artist)
• Flâneur (urban stroller in France)
• The Marais (district in Paris)
• The Motorcycle Diaries, by Ernesto Guevara (book)
• Thích Nhất Hạnh (Buddhist monk and author)
• Savoring, by Fred B. Bryant (book)
• Uffizi (art museum in Florence, Italy)
• The Birth of Venus (painting by Botticelli)
• LiveTrekker (route-tracking app)
• Souvenir, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Busking (street performance)
• Evernote (task-management app)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 journals give you perspective on the person you used to be, and how the journaling habit develops over time (9:00); strategies for being vulnerable and honest in a travel journal (15:00); strategies for being consistent with a journal on the road (19:00); employing non-visual senses and evoking less-than-ideal experiences to capture more subtle textures in a travel journal (25:30); how a journal gives you a pretext to approach and even interview people who interest you on the road (33:00); how to take notes in the field, how to maintain an ongoing relationship with old travel journals, and why travel journals serve to make a journey more meaningful (41:00). Lavinia Spalding (@laviniaspalding) is a travel writer and series editor of The Best Women’s Travel Writing. She has author of Writing Away, and co-author of With a Measure of Grace and This Immeasurable Place. For more about Lavinia, check out http://laviniaspalding.com/. Notable Links:

• Jack London (novelist and journalist)
• Busan (city in South Korea)
• Before Sunrise (1995 Richard Linklater movie)
• Bullet journal (method of note-taking)
• Clove cigarettes
• Rainer Maria Rilke (Austrian poet)
• Khentrul Lodro Thaye Rinpoche (Buddhist lama)
• Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (children's song)
• Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Travel Writing and Global Change (TEDx talk by Lavinia Spalding)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"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 paradoxes and hypocrisies of global charities and industries in a resource-rich place like Africa (9:30); how writing fiction differs from writing nonfiction (19:00); and where Theroux is headed next (22:00). Paul Theroux (@PaulTheroux_) is a pioneer of travel writing and author of many highly acclaimed books, including The Great Railway Bazaar,  The Tao of Travel, and  On the Plain of Snakes. His newest novel is The Bad Angel Brothers. Notable Links:

• The Vagabond's Way, by Rolf Potts (travel book)
• Paul Theroux on the art of listening (Deviate episode)
• Paul Theroux on the inherent complexity of Mexico (Deviate episode)
• The Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux (travel book)
• Figures in a Landscape, by Paul Theroux (essay collection)
• Cain and Abel (Biblical brothers)
• East of Eden, by John Steinbeck (novel)
• Cobalt mining in Africa
• Tim Cook (CEO of Apple, Inc.)
• Big-box store (large-scale retail system)
• Chinese industry in Africa
• NAFTA (free-trade agreement)
• Malawi (country in southeastern Africa)
• Phil Knight (CEO of Nike)
• Dark Star Safari, by Paul Theroux (travel book)
• PrairyErth, by William Least Heat-Moon (book)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"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 organized the quotes and anecdotes and philosophies that went into the book (10:00); how mistakes and misadventures are an inevitable part of the travel process, and how time is one's truest form of wealth (14:30); how the quiet experience of travel counts for more in life than travel that is performed for status (20:00); how no amount of planning can prepare you for the discoveries of each new day on the road, and how curiosity is more important than expertise on the road (27:30); how over-dependence on technology can compromise the novel experience of travel (33:30); advice for people leaving their country for the first time, advice for people traveling inside the US, and advice for keeping travel fresh over the long-term (38:00). Ernest White II (@ernestwhiteii) is a storyteller, explorer, producer, and host of the television travel series Fly Brother, now in its second season on PBS and Create TV. Check out his subscription-based membership community, Fly Brother & Friends, which promotes travel and personal transformation. Notable Links:

• Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts (book)
• The Vagabond's Way, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Mary Oliver (American poet)
• Ross Gay (American poet and essayist)
• Thích Nhất Hạnh (Buddhist monk and author)
• The Daily Stoic, by Ryan Holiday (book)
• Commonplace book (compilation of knowledge)
• "Song of the Open Road," by Walt Whitman (poem)
• Memento mori (philosophy)
• Souvenir, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Damara (mountain-dwelling people in Namibia)
• Duvall Street (tourist district on Key West)
• Bukittinggi (city in Sumatra)
• Randang (Minangkabau meat dish)
• Culture shock (cross-cultural anxiety)
• Isan (rural northeastern region of Thailand)
• Sørumsand (town in Norway)
• Fly Brother Season Two (TV show season)
• Junction City (town in Kansas)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"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 was like for Eddy to travel as a Black American in Africa in the 1990s, and how his experiences there became a book (12:30); how Africa has changed, and is changing (24:00); observations of Native Stranger that Rolf quoted in The Vagabond's Way, such as how to deal with beggars on the road (30:00); and Eddy's experiences being a Black American in France, and his core motivation for travel (37:00). Eddy Harris (@EddyLHarris) is a writer, filmmaker, and author of several books, including Mississippi Solo, Native Stranger, and Still Life in Harlem. Notable Links:

• Luxembourg Garden (park in Paris)
• South of Haunted Dreams, by Eddy L. Harris (travel book)
• Malcolm X (American activist)
• Alex Haley (American author)
• Jufureh (town in the Gambia)
• Taxi Brousse (share taxi common in Africa)
• Soho Square (garden square in London)
• Cape Coast Castle ("slave pen" fort in Ghana)
• Mobutu Sese Seko (ruler of Zaire from 1965 to 1997)
• Robert Mugabe (ruler of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2017)
• Albert Pujols (baseball player)
• Central African Republic (nation)
• Josephine Baker (American dancer who moved to France)
• Normandy (region in France)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"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 loneliness compels you to be a better traveler (2:00); what it was like to workshop travel stories in class, and how writing for the page compares to writing for the comedy stage (12:00); Rolf quotes Ari from The Vagabond's Way about why it's OK to get lost when you travel, and what it's like when you wander out of tourist zones in another country (22:30); and how naysayers can preempt your travel ambitions if you listen to them (46:30). Ari Shaffir (@AriShaffir) is a comedian, writer, podcaster, and actor. He is the host of the Skeptic Tank podcast. For more information on Ari, visit his website. Notable Links:

• Paris Writing Workshops (travel writing class)
• Luxembourg Garden (park in Paris)
• The Vagabond's Way (Rolf's newest book)
• Souvenir, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Deviate Live in NYC (podcast episode)
• Thích Nhat Hanh (Buddhist monk)
• Callback (comedy)
• Xylia Buros: Nomad (podcast episode)
• The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay (book)
• High Times (magazine)
• Chefchaouen (town in Morocco)
• Tétouan (city in Morocco)
• Tataouine (city in Tunisia)
• Farang (Asian slang for white European)
• Kathoey (trans identity in Thailand)
• Boney M (Caribbean pop group)
• Marco Polo Didn't Go There, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Felucca (Egyptian boat)
• Temple of Hatshepsut (Egyptian temple)
• Dili (city in East Timor)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 bookstore).

“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 ethos begins with the willingness to give oneself permission to travel in life, and how Rolf's new book, The Vagabond's Way, furthers the vagabonding ethos in a daily-reading format (15:00); the difficulty of figuring out which place in the world is your "favorite," and how food becomes a part of one's iconic travel memories (32:00); and why it helps to be confident and "ride tall in the saddle" if you sometimes feel out of place as a traveler (41:00). Ernest White II (@ernestwhiteii) is a storyteller, explorer, producer, and host of the television travel series Fly Brother, now in its second season on PBS and Create TV. Check out his subscription-based membership community, Fly Brother & Friends, which promotes travel and personal transformation. Ernest will moderate Rolf's virtual launch event for The Vagabond's Way at 5pm PT on October 4th, 2022. Notable Links:

• TV host Ernest White II (Deviate episode two)
• "Pandemic love" Deviate episode
• Deviate episode with filmmaker Rod Pocowatchit
• Deviate episode with baseball historian Phil S. Dixon
• Kansas City Monarchs (Negro Leagues baseball team)
• Gordon Parks (Kansas-born photographer and filmmaker)
• Nicodemus, Kansas (town settled by African Americans)
• Lindsborg, Kansas (Swedish-American town in Kansas)
• Zacatecas (state in Mexico)
• Van life before #VanLife (Deviate episode)
• Expat life in Korea (Deviate episode)
• Commonplace book (method of compiling knowledge)
• The Daily Stoic, by Ryan Holiday (book)
• Matsuo Bashō (medieval Japanese poet and traveler)
• Wenamun (ancient Egyptian traveler)
• Muhammad Ali (boxer)
• Code-switching (situational linguistic alternation)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 "Buddy" (8:00); what the landscape working conditions, and living conditions are like in Antartica (24:00); what community life is like among the people who live and work in Antarctica (42:15); and the best and worst aspects of working in Antarctica, and how one might go about applying for a job there (1:02:00). Karen Pszonka (@zonks) works as support staff for the United States Antarctic Program's science research at McMurdo Station. Notable Links:

• Ice Bound, by Dr. Jerri Nielsen (book)
• Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, by Sara Wheeler (book)
• Doomsday Glacier (Antarctic glacier)
• Europa (moon of the planet Jupiter)
• IceCube (neutrino observatory at the South Pole)
• Sea spider (marine arthropod)
• Ob tube (research instrument)
• Sea angel (type of sea slug)
• Royal Society Range (mountain range in Antarctica)
• Hut Point (peninsula in Antarctica)
• Medevac (medical evacuation)
• Manhauling (human-powered sledges)
• The Nutcracker (ballet)
• Skua (type of bird)
• U.S. Antarctic Program job opportunities

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 level, and how people reacted to them (3:30); what it's like to represent lesser-known places like Wichita in urban fiction and other writing, and how Kevin came to co-write NBA player Korleone Young's book (20:00); and the way Kevin's music is another form of storytelling that draws on specific experiences and places (29:30). Kevin.php">Dr. Kevin Harrison is a writer, musician, and assistant teaching professor at Wichita State University. He is the author of Cameron Banks: The Reality Show, and co-author of One and Done: The Korleone Young Story. Notable Links:

• Urban fiction (literary genre)
• Kaye-Monk-Morgan on Deviate
• Korleone Young (basketball player)
• Zane (erotic fiction author)
• Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens novel)
• Iceberg Slim (writer and former pimp)
• Dolemite (Rudy May Moore film)
• Gordon Parks (Kansas-born photographer and filmmaker)
• She's Gotta Have It (1986 Spike Lee film)
• Selena Montgomery (pen name of politician Stacey Abrams)
• Barry Sanders (football player)
• Curtis McClinton (football player)
• The Forgotten Phenom, by Jonathan Abrams (article)
• LeBron James (basketball player)
• Hot Water Cornbread (Kevin Harrison song)

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 and Deir Mar Musa monastery in Syria (3:00); the warm and hospitable experience of traveling in other parts of the country (10:00); Father Paolo's "interfaith dialogue" initiatives at Deir Mar Musa  (18:30); what happened to Father Paolo after the Syrian government cracked down on dissent and protest in 2011 (29:00); and how Father Paolo's monastery fostered interfaith dialogue over debate, and what his legacy is in Syria (43:00). Shaun O'Neill is the author of A Church of Islam: The Syrian Calling of Father Paolo Dall'Oglio. Notable Links:

• The strangers we meet on the road (Deviate episode)
• Paolo Dall'Oglio (Italian priest and peace activist)
• Deir Mar Musa (Christian monastery in Syria)
• 2011 Syrian uprising (phase of the Arab Spring)
• Sufism (mystic Islamic practice)
• Neuromancer, by William Gibson (novel)
• Tahrir Square (public area in Cairo)
• Hafez al-Assad (Syrian president from 1971-2000)
• Kurdish Syria (northeast part of the country)
• Alawites (ethnoreligious group)
• Interfaith dialogue (interaction between religious traditions)
• Desert Fathers (early Christian monks)
• Free Syrian Army (civil war faction)
• Daesh (militant Islamists in Syria and Iraq)
• Pope John Paul II (Catholic leader)
• Of Gods and Men (2010 film)
• Frans van der Lugt (Dutch priest killed in Syria)
• Syncretism (combining of different beliefs)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 track of your progress (8:00); "swooper" versus "basher" writers, and approaches to revision (14:00); the importance of place to narrative, and its role in research (21:15); how point-of-view affects a narrative (30:00); the important of "inciting incidents" and other techniques of narrative structure (38:00); strategies for getting "unstuck" in a narrative (42:30); and counterintuitive strategies for revising a creative work (52:00). Novelist Matt Bell (@mdbell79) is the author of several books, including, most recently, Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts. Notable Links:

• National Novel Writing Month (creative writing event)
• Lauren Groff (novelist)
• IKEA (ready-to-assemble furniture)
• Anne Lamott (author)
• Kurt Vonnegut (author)
• Iceberg theory (writing technique)
• Appleseed (novel by Matt Bell)
• Scandinavian noir (genre of crime fiction)
• William Inge (playwright)
• Orpheus and Eurydice (Greek legend)
• Point of view (narrative mode)
• Graham Greene (novelist and travel writer)
• Poetics (work of dramatic theory by Aristotle)
• Amy Tan (author)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 travel writing (6:00); how we all change as travelers over the course of a lifetime (13:00); the way the things we bring home from our travels shape our memories of places (21:30); and how travel is a way to reinvent oneself (30:00). Marcia DeSanctis (marciadesanctis1) is a Contributing Writer for Travel + Leisure. Her 2022 essay collection is entitled A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life. Notable Links:

• Barbara Walters (American TV host)
• Muammar Gaddafi (Libyan revolutionary)
• The Millions (online literary magazine)
• Souvenir, book by Rolf Potts (book)
• Alexander Pushkin (Russian poet)
• Kievan Rus' (medieval state)
• Leningrad (former name of St. Petersburg)
• Trans–Mongolian Railway (Asian train route)
• A&E Biography (TV program)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 book (44:00); and overcoming adversity as a creative person (56:00). Chris Guillebeau (@chrisguillebeau), who visited every country in the world before his 35th birthday is a New York Times bestselling author. His books include The Art of Non-Conformity, The $100 Startup, The Happiness of Pursuit, and Side Hustle. He is also the host of the Side Hustle School podcast. For more on Chris, check out https://chrisguillebeau.com/ or his 193 Countries Project at https://www.instagram.com/193countries/. Notable Links:

• School of Travel (podcast)
• The 4-Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss (book)
• Paris Writing Workshops
• World Domination Summit (event)
• Ryan Holiday (author)
• Scrivener (note management application)
• Evernote (note management application)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“"Curiosity is contagious.”  –Sophia Bentaher In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Sophia talk about structuring journey around specific passions and obsessions, and her own decision to hitchhike Europe in search of pastry recipes (2:00); how your national or ethnic identity affects how you are seen as a traveler (13:00); Sophia's experiences as a woman hitchhiker in places like France, Switzerland and Italy, and how she documented her experiences on a spreadsheet (21:00); how the quest for pastry transformed the journey (38:00); how the travel experience led her to open a pastry business in Marrakesh (49:00); and how processes and stories are sometimes more essential than outcomes (57:30). b.co/">Sophia Bentaher (@sophiabnthr) is a food traveler and writer, with a French-Moroccan background. Her obsession for food, specifically desserts, led her to drop a 9-5 lifestyle and go explore Europe to learn a traditional cake recipe in each country. Notable Links:

• The Wet and the Dry, by Laurence Osborne (book)
• American Chinatown, by Bonnie Tsui (book)
• Excel (spreadsheet software)
• Hero's journey (mythology template)
• Wanderjahre or Compagnons du Devoir (learning journey)
• Third culture kid (cross-cultural identity)
• Crostata (Italian tart)
• Cornes de Gazelle (Moroccan cookie)
• The Alchemist (novel)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“The pathless path is an embrace of uncertainty and discomfort. It’s a call to adventure in a world that tells us to conform.”  –Paul Millerd In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Paul talk about American ideas of success, what these ideas mean, and how certain kinds of success don't improve one's life-path (1:30); how Paul used travel and overseas living to reinvent his relationship to time and help put himself on the pathless path (16:30); how we instinctively sense when we're on a wrong path, and what to do when we feel this way (30:00); and Paul's ten principles for embracing the pathless path (40:00). boundless.com/">Paul Millerd (@p_millerd) is a strategy consultant, and the author of boundless.com/the-pathless-path/">The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story for Work and Life. Notable Links:

• Wu wei (Taoist concept of inaction)
• Joseph Campbell (comparative mythologist)
• Søren Kierkegaard (philosopher)
• Jerry Colonna (financier)
• Seth Godin (author)
• Tim Ferriss (author and podcaster)
• Commonplace book (method of compiling knowledge)
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (writer)

Ten ways to embrace the pathless path: 1) Question the default 2) Reflect 3) Figure out what you have to offer 4) Pause and disconnect 5) Go make a friend 6) Go make something 7) Give generously 8) Experiment 9) Commit 10) Be patient The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Once I started medical school and my scalpel met the cadaver’s skin, I discovered that exploring the body felt quite similar to exploring the outside world.”  –Jonathan Reisman In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Jonathan talk about how doctors and travel writers and both be generalists, and how travel puts can put us into a new relationship with our bodies (1:30); what travel to a place like India can teach you about toilet hygiene (7:00); what eating unfamiliar or strange-seeming food on a journey can teach you about the body (15:00); culturally specific ideas about fat, eating fat, and the idea of being fat (21:00); what Americans are getting wrong about health, nutrition, technology, and the human body (31:00); how the pineal gland regulates sleep, and what we know about it (35:00); and how travel helps us understand how our bodies work (42:00). Dr. Jonathan Reisman (@jonreismanMD) is an internist, pediatrician and ER physician, and author of The Unseen Body: A Doctor's Journey Through the Hidden Wonders of Human Anatomy. Notable Links:

• Jet lag (physiological condition)
• Travelers' diarrhea (intestinal infection)
• Gastritis (stomach inflammation)
• Sinusitis (inflammation of the sinuses)
• Kamchatka (peninsula in the Russian Far East)
• Haggis (Scottish savory pudding)
• Cholesterol (steroid alcohol found in fat)
• Triglycerides (constituent of body fat)
• Endocrine organ (part of the body's hormonal system)
• Pineal gland (endocrine gland that secretes melatonin)
• Ambien (medicine for sleeping problems)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“The worst of what adventurers do is an exercise in vanity, chasing a scrolling, envious audience. At best, an adventurer makes people smile, challenges them to think, brings about change and inspires action.”  –Alastair Humphreys In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Alastair talk about what the task of an "adventurer" is these days, and how Al got his start in adventure travel (2:00); how one might approach becoming an adventurer in this day and age, and how to balance embracing versus recording the adventure (7:30); the nuts and bolts of managing things like sponsorships and social media (19:00); communicating with one's audience, including optimizing blog posts and email newsletters (35:00); working with agents, and when and why to self-publish books (47:00). Alastair Humphreys (@Al_Humphreys) is an English adventurer, author and motivational speaker. Alastair was the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year in 2012, and has written thirteen books, most recently Ask An Adventurer. Notable Links:

• Bill Tillman (20th century English mountaineer)
• Bear Grylls (British adventurer)
• Microadventures, by Alastair Humphreys (book)
• Buffer (social-media managing application)
• "Five-Bullet Friday" (Tim Ferriss email newsletter)
• Google Forms (survey software)
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, by Gary Vaynerchuk (book)
• Alastair Humphreys newsletters
• Austin Kleon weekly newsletter
• Kindle Direct Publishing (self-publishing platform)
• Creative Penn (website for writers)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Part of what enabled me to kiss that stranger was knowing I would never see him again.”  –Colleen Kinder In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Colleen discuss why she started the magazine Off Assignment, and how it came to encompass letters to strangers (2:30); some of the specific stories included in Letter to a Stranger, and the role potential romance can play in meeting strangers (9:00); Rolf's memorable travel strangers, how new travelers interact with people and places with a different energy than seasoned travelers or expats (27:00); places that force us into contact with strangers, like subways and hostels (33:00); and what it's like to see travelers as a stationary person, and what local strangers must think of travelers (42:00). Colleen Kinder (@colleenkinder) is an essayist and editor whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New Republic, and The Best American Travel Writing. She is the editor of the anthology Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us. Colleen's magazine Off Assignment accepts "Letter to a Stranger" submissions from all manner of travelers. If you'd like to submit an 800-1500-word letter to an unshakeable stranger you’ve met on the road, please read the magazine's submission guidelines. Notable Links:

• Leslie Jamison (essayist)
• Pico Iyer (travel author)
• Interview with Julia Cooke (Deviate episode)
• Lavinia Spalding (travel author)
• "To a Stranger," by Walt Whitman (poem)
• ficar.html">Ficar (Brazilian Portuguese slang)
• Speed dating (matchmaking process)
• Hijab (garment worn by some Muslim women)
• "Blot Out," (Egypt essay by Colleen Kinder)
• Craig Mod (writer)
• Before Sunrise (1995 travel movie)
• Ajijic (Mexican town popular with retiree expats)
• Leaving the Atocha Station (novel by Ben Lerner)
• Semester at Sea (study-abroad program)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“In the Hong Kongs and New Yorks and Londons of the world you need to find ways to get outside, because it can be depressing to be in a great world city and be trapped in an 800-square-foot space.”  –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Rueben discuss what it's like to come home after a life-changing journey, sharing the story with others, exploring one's own hometown on foot (2:00); the wisdom captured in quotes, and the power of poetry (22:00); the notion of what is possible in less-expensive cities and neighborhoods, avoiding consumerist living, and spending money locally (35:00); the excuses people make to postpone taking their dream trips, and how friends and family can keep you accountable (45:30). Reuben Dreiblatt is the host of "The A.T. With You & Me," a podcast about through-hiking the Appalachian Trail. Notable Links:

• Van Life before #VanLife (Deviate episode)
• Long-distance hiking at home (Deviate episode)
• Friluftsliv (Norwegian ethos of being outdoors)
• The World Beneath Your Feet (documentary)
• Matt Green interview (Deviate episode)
• Souvenir, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Lower East Side Tenement Museum (NYC museum)
• What narrative therapy is (Deviate episode)
• Commonplace book (journal method)
• Wanderlust, by Rebecca Solnit (book about walking)
• Walt Whitman (American poet)
• Standing on the shoulders of giants (metaphor)
• Ed Buryn interview (Deviate episode)
• Asheville (city in North Carolina)
• places-travel-2022.html">52 Places to Visit in 2022 (New York Times article)
• Gary Snyder (American poet)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“My pandemic essay was so badly received; I got massively dragged on Twitter for it, practically canceled. And then it ended up in Best American Travel Writing.”  –Meghan Daum In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Meghan discuss what it means to be called "the voice of a generation" (4:00); why Meghan moved to Nebraska early in her career, and what it's like to live and create in the provinces versus the metropole (9:20); the difficulty of continuing to make a living as a creative person, and mid-life career reinvention (16:00); Meghan's essay about moving to rural Virginia during the pandemic, how it was poorly received, and her anxieties about living as a "geoarbitrage" outsider (22:30); Meghan's career pivot into commenting on the culture wars, and how social media algorithms made this cultural rift more of an issue (35:00); and Rolf's concerns that the politicization and performative certainty of social discourse will make young people less open to the vulnerabilities and uncertainties of travel (44:45). Meghan Daum (@meghan_daum) is the host of The Unspeakable Podcast and is the author of six books. Her most recent book, The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture Wars, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2019 and is just out in paperback. Notable Links:

• Girls (HBO TV series)
• Rolf's Atlantic essay about Girls (2012 article)
• My Misspent Youth, by Meghan Daum (essay collection)
• Sophfronia Scott on Deviate (podcast episode)
• The GenX Reader, by Douglas Rushkoff (essay collection)
• X Saves the World, by Jeff Gordonier (book)
• Quality of Life Report, by Meghan Daum (novel)
• I Left NYC for Greener Pastures, by Meghan Daum (essay)
• Geoarbitrage (lifestyle-design strategy)
• Culture war (values conflict within a society)
• Alexander Kinglake (19th century English author)
• The Daily Stoic, by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman (book)
• Cultural appropriation
• Michel Foucault (French theorist)
• Quick Studies: The Best of Lingua Franca (criticism anthology)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“We don't have a lot of time on this earth. When you get to my age you've got to use it wisely. The thing I object to most is people wasting my time.”  – Paul Theroux In this episode of Deviate, Paul Theroux and Rolf discuss their travels through Mexico and magical realism (4:30); teaching as a way to get to know a country and the importance of reading (20:00); and Paul’s experience traveling along the US-Mexico border and geo-political complexities between the two countries (29:00). Paul Theroux (@PaulTheroux_) is a pioneer of travel writing and author of many highly acclaimed books, including The Great Railway Bazaar,  The Tao of Travel, and  On the Plain of Snakes. Notable Links:

• Sinclair Lewis (writer)
• William Faulkner (writer)
• Jorge Luis Borges (writer)
• Gabriel García Márquez (writer)
• Magical Realism (style of fiction)
• James Joyce (writer)
• Aldous Huxley (writer)
• Jack Kerouac (writer)
• Rebecca West (writer)
• Harriet Doer (writer)
• Leonora Carrington (artist)
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, by B. Traven (novel)
• Nathaniel Philbrick (author)
• Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (book)
• Subcomandante Marcos (revolutionary)
• Zapatista Army of National Liberation (militant group)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Calculate what you spend on a daily basis at home for all your living expenses, cut that in half, and you’ll have a daily budget that can take you around the world indefinitely.”  –Tim Leffel In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tim discuss the advantages of traveling to cheaper parts of the world (3:00); how living overseas can actually be cheaper than your life at home (13:00); strategies to save money on the road (23:00); setting a budget, and counterintuitive sightseeing (34:00); and breaking the myth of expensive European travel (51:00). Tim Leffel (@timleffel) is an award-winning travel writer and author of The World’s Cheapest Destinations and A Better Life for Half the Price. He is the editor of the narrative web publication Perceptive Travel. For more about Tim, check out https://timleffel.com. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"I realized that Justin Alexander was the latest person to disappear in a long history of travelers disappearing in India's Parvati Valley. It's a dark aspect of this really beautiful place." – Harley Rustad In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Harley discuss how Harley learned of Justin Alexander's story, why he chose to report it, and what makes travel to India unique (2:30); who Justin Alexander was, and what life events and desires led to him being a world traveler and social-media persona (8:00); what makes India's Parvati Valley unique as a mountainous place where backpackers sometimes disappear, and how "India Syndrome" affects travelers (30:00); Justin's decision to live in a cave in the Parvati Valley under the influence of a local sadhu (40:00); Justin's August 2016 Facebook message to Rolf, the timeline of his life before his disappearance (47:30); speculations on what became of Justin after he was seen for the last time, and what his legacy is (57:00). Harley Rustad (@hmrustad) is the author of Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas, and Big Lonely Doug: The Story of One of Canada’s Last Great Trees. Notable Links:

• Adventures of Justin Alexander (Facebook page)
• Adventures of Justin (Instagram account)
• Adventures of Justin (YouTube channel)
• Chris McCandless (subject of Into the Wild)
• Timothy Treadwell (subject of Grizzly Man)
• Hippie Trail (1960s/1970s Asia travel subculture)
• Tom Brown Jr. (American survivalist)
• Royal Enfield (type of motorcycle)
• Mentawai Islands (archipelago near Sumatra)
• Hero's Journey (mythic narrative template)
• Joseph Campbell (comparative mythologist)
• Sterling Hayden (actor and adventurer)
• Parvati Valley (mountainous region in India)
• Hashish (drug common in the Parvati Valley)
• India Syndrome (delusional state)
• Sadhu (Hindu religious ascetic)
• "Lost in the Valley of Death" (2018 Outside article)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Mixtapes were more than a way to share music in the 1980s and 1990s: They were, in fact, a type of extraverbal language — a vivid, inexpensive form of folk communication." – Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf talks about the film Cassette, and reads an informal essay about how mixtapes are a kind of lost language (00:45); then Rolf, Liesl, and Michael talk about how person-to-person connection was essential to sharing music in the 1990s, and the legacy of cassettes (8:00); the era when cassettes were a new technology, and the craft and care that went into creating mixtapes (22:00); how finding new music is different in the era of online algorithms, versus what music curation was like before cassettes (33:00); and how music and music-nostalgia is generationally specific, according to what technology was used when a given generation was young (45:30). Zack Taylor is an actor and cinematographer, known for Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape (2016). Notable Links:

• Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape (film)
• Rondo Rolf essay and track listing
• High Fidelity (2000 movie)
• The Fall (English post-punk band)
• Kevin Young (poet and author)
• Gouache (type of paint)
• KROQ-FM (LA "alternative music" radio station)
• Siouxsie and the Banshees (English rock band)
• Fishbone (American rock band)
• Henry Rollins (musician)
• Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (documentary film)
• Cut-up technique (art method popularized by William S. Burroughs)
• Payola (music industry practice)
• "Home Taping Is Killing Music" (1980s slogan)
• "It's Raining Tacos" (Parry Gripp song)
• Lou Ottens (inventor of the cassette tape)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“The Sears Christmas Wish Book was, for me, a kind of foundational text — a secular counterpoint to the Bible stories I learned around that time in Sunday School. I paged through the holiday catalog’s 620 glossy pages as if they amounted to an intoxicating graphic novel of desire, rich with abundance and possibility.” – Rolf Potts, from “Literature of Desire” In this episode Rolf reads an audio version of his Christmas-themed essay “Literature of Desire,” and discusses the wonders of the Sears Christmas Wish Book with novelist Tod Goldberg (@todgoldberg). Tod is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, including the novel Gangsterland, which is currently being developed into a television series. He is also the director of the University of California-Riverside Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA, and the co-host of the Literary Disco podcast. Introduction (00:35 – 11:20)

• Vintage Sears Wish Book online archive
• What Exactly is Christmas Tree Flocking? from Mental Floss
• Klonopin (anxiety medication)
• Janis Ian (singer-songwriter)
• Enchroma glasses (to correct colorblindness)

Literature of Desire essay (11:20 – 32:20)

• Richard Warren Sears (catalog founder)
• Mr. Sears’ Catalog (video) from PBS’s American Experience
• Sears Catalog Home (ready-to-assemble houses)
• That ’70s Show, Happy Days, Good Times, Welcome Back, Kotter (TV shows)
• Christie Brinkley and Renee Russo (fashion models)
• Pong (video game)
• Big Jim’s P.A.C.K. (toy line)
• Jay J. Armes (private investigator)
• JJ Armes action figure (TV commercial)
• “Is Jay J. Armes For Real?” from Texas Monthly
• WishBookcom

Sears Wish Book memories (32:20 – 50:10)

• Action figures (dolls marketed to boys)
• Toughskins (jeans for children)
• Huffy (bicycle brand)
• BEST (showroom retail store)
• “Kerouac’s Fantasy Baseball Obsession” from Mental Floss
• Coleco’s Electronic Quarterback (game)

This episode was sponsored by the Paris Writing Workshops, which offer intensive one-week travel-writing courses in the artistic heart of Europe. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

"When you smell a place, that's when your experience of it starts.” – Rolf Potts Wade Shepard (@vagabondjourney) is an itinerant writer and filmmaker who has been traveling the world, through ninety countries, since 1999. Digital nomads interested in lending experiences or insights to the documentary film The Nomads can contact Wade at wadeshepard@protonmail.com. Notable Links:

• Baywatch (TV show)
• Damara (African ethnic group)
• Herrero (African ethnic group)
• @lukeoakvt (Rolf’s nephew’s TikTok account)
• Malagasy invasion of Africa (10th century battle)
• Pollyanna principle (positivity bias)
• Mursi (African ethnic group)
• FOMO (fear of missing out)
• The Beach (1996 novel)
• The Beach (2000 film)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"I will never have another vagabonding journey that compares to that first one -- even though I have since traveled to far more exotic parts of the world -- in part because there's something special about embarking on a long-term trip for the first time." --Rolf Potts In this encore episode of Deviate, Rolf and his old friend Jeff Nienaber talk about their 8-month van trip across North America back in 1994, how they prepared for it, and how it differed from current-day #VanLife excursions (5:30); how they exercised on the road, and how the conditions and travel-hacks of van journeys were different for two young men in 1994 (23:30); the route they took through North America, what happened along the way, and how they kept daily journals recounting events (36:00); the experience riding with cops in Houston, celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans, volunteering at a church in Mississippi, meeting girls in Florida, and seeing New York for the first time (51:00); the experience of staying at a Trappist monastery in Massachusetts for one week (1:14:30); visiting National Parks in the American South, Northeast, and West, and memorable books read along the way (1:28:00); and why the trip was life-changing (1:42:00). Van trip preparation and planning links:

• Digital nomadism (travel lifestyle)
• #VanLife (travel lifestyle)
• Composting toilet
• Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon (1982 book)
• On the Road, by Jack Kerouac (1957 book)
• Travels With Charley, by John Steinbeck (1962 book)
• Vanagon (Volkswagen van)
• Volkswagen Westfalia (camper van)
• Trangia (alcohol-burning camp-stove)
• A (literal) photo album from my 1994 van vagabonding trip (blog post)

Links regarding early months of the 1994 trip:

• 924 Gilman Street (Berkeley punk club)
• Northridge earthquake (1994 earthquake)
• "The Mystical High Church of Luck" (Salon essay about Las Vegas)
• Lollapalooza (music festival)
• O. J. Simpson murder case (1994 media incident)
• USCGC Northwind (Coast Guard icebreaker)
• Bourbon Street (historic street in New Orleans)
• The Geto Boys, by Rolf Potts (2016 book)
• Fifth Ward (Houston neighborhood)
• Cops (TV show)
• Canton (town in Mississippi)
• In His Steps (Mississippi Christian outreach ministry)
• Waffle House (southern restaurant chain)
• Savannah State (historically black university)
• Debbie Does Dallas (1978 pornographic film)
• Tompkins Square (New York park)

Trappist monastery experience links:

• St. Joseph's Abbey (Massachusetts monastery)
• Trappists (order of Catholic monks)
• Thomas Merton (Trappist monk and writer)
• Memento Mori (existential expression)
• Chant (1994 Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos album)
• Compline (end-of-day church service)

Links regarding the final months of the 1994 trip:

• Ocala National Forest (protected area in Florida)
• Shenandoah National Park (Virginia wilderness area)
• Mount Washington (tallest mountain the northeast U.S.)
• Arches National Park (Utah wilderness area)
• Fisher Towers (photogenic cliffs near Moab, Utah)
• Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey (1968 book)
• Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman (1855 poetry collection)
• The Razor's Edge, by W. Somerset Maugham (1944 book)
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M Pirsig (1974 book)
• Uinta National Forest (protected area in Utah)
• Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming wilderness area)
• Glacier National Park (Montana wilderness area)
• Pike National Forest (protected area in Colorado)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel's 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we're happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Life's journey is as rewarding as my travel journeys. It's been fun to travel the world as a slightly older person." – Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and participants in the Nomadic Network book club discuss the stories behind the travel tales in his 2008 book Marco Polo Didn't Go There, including what inspired him to collect the essays into a single book, and why he decided to include endnotes (2:00); which stories stand out as favorites, for both Rolf and his readers, and how Rolf finds stories on the road (12:30); how his writing and his travels have changed in the years since these stories were first written (19:00); what it's like to create a home amid a life of travel, and how journaling feeds creative writing (26:00); and the new book Rolf is working on now (35:00). Matt Kepnes (@nomadicmatt) is the founder of TravelCon and the author of Travel the World on $50 a Day and Ten Years a Nomad. The Nomadic Network is a global community of travel-enthusiasts who support and inspire one another to travel better, cheaper, and longer. Travel essays mentioned:

• "Storming The Beach" (Thailand)
• ​"Going Native in the Australian Outback" (Australia)
• "Backpackers’ Ball at the Sultan Hotel" (Egypt)
• "My Beirut Hostage Crisis" (Lebanon)
• "Be Your Own Donkey" (Egypt)
• "Turkish Knockout" (Turkey)

Notable links:

• Paris Writing Workshops (writing class)
• ​Travelers Tales (publisher)
• Wilfred Thesiger (travel writer)
• Gertrude Bell (travel writer)
• American Notes, by Charles Dickens (travelogue)
• Herodotus (Greek historian)
• Best Hostel Ever (Deviate episode)
• Whodunit (storytelling genre)
• Bootsnall (travel community)
• Mentawai Islands (archipelago in Indonesia)
• Tracy Kidder (journalist)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“You open up a map, and it's like, 'I could go anywhere here.' It's just a world of possibility.” – Ari Shaffir Ari Shaffir (@AriShaffir) is a comedian, writer, podcaster, and actor. He is the current host of the Skeptic Tank podcast. For more information on Ari, visit his website. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Putting together the podcast has been like swimming laps or practicing free-throws -- it's creative cross-training that benefits my broader writing pursuits, even as it allows me to explore esoteric topics that fascinate me.” – Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate (which is remixed from Jay Acunzo's 3 Clips podcast) Rolf and Jay talk about how a visual medium like travel gets translated to audio, and how podcasting serves Rolf's creative career (4:00); how the walking episode differed from normal ones, and the walk naturally mixed spiritual and practical themes (10:00); how to approach an interview without an outline, creating unstructured content that is beholden to things like having to take a pee (15:00); ow smooth conversation is often the result of planning and effort, deviating yet remembering what the core topic is (22:00); using spontaneous moments in a strategic way, and how Rolf will organize and plan the podcast looking forward (34:00). Jay Acunzo has worked for companies like Google and ESPN, and his projects (such as his 3 Clips podcast) aim to demystify the creative process behind creating memorable projects, careers, and companies. Notable Links:

• Long-distance hiking at home (Deviate episode)
• Idiosyncrasies of global train travel (Deviate episode)
• Thich Nhat Hanh (Buddhist monk)
• Paris Writing Workshops (creative writing class)
• Guildhall School of Music and Drama
• Archive of Deviate episodes with Ari Shaffir
• Scriptnotes (screenwriting podcast)
• The Rewatchables (movie podcast)
• Super Bowl special (Deviate episode)
• Why dinosaurs matter (Deviate episode)
• J. Yuenger on music and long-term travel (Deviate episode)
• Ian MacKaye on rock music (Deviate episode)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“We all have different priorities in life, and there is a place for each of us where we can live according to what those priorities are.” – Winona Dimeo In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Winona discuss what people are looking for in a place to live (2:00) and Livability.com’s latest rankings for America’s most livable cities (23:00). Then, Rolf takes recommendations from listeners on their favorite places to live in America (53:00). Winona Dimeo (@winona_rose) is the managing editor of Livability.com, a website that ranks America’s most livable small and mid-sized cities. For more livability tips, check out its rankings of the best small to mid-sized cities in the USA. Livability also publishes its methodology. Cities mentioned in the main interview include: Portland, OR; Austin, TX; Minneapolis, MN; Pittsburgh, PA; Manhattan, KS; Lawrence, KS; Overland Park, KS; Lindsborg, KS; Ottawa, KS; Wichita, KS; Buffalo, NY; Rochester, MN; Kingsport, TN; Sevierville, TN; Fargo, ND; Savannah, GA; New Orleans, LA; Cincinnati, OH; Yellow Springs, OH; Athens, OH; Astoria, OR; Lincoln City, OR; Nashville, TN; Asheville, NC; Black Mountain, NC; Brevard, NC; Traverse City, MI; Marfa, TX; Charleston, SC; Bend, OR; and Hood River, OR. Notable Links:

• Konza Prairie (biological preserve)
• Tallgrass National Prairie Preserve
• Kanopolis State Park
• Stiefel Theater
• "One of the Coolest Cities in America Doesn't Even Realize It Yet" (Thrillist article)
• Dollywood (theme park)
• Alicia Underlee Nelson (travel writer)
• Gooding (band)
• 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, by Patricia Shultz (book)
• Oregon Shakespeare Festival
• Transcendental Meditation
• Wollowa Mountains (mountain range)
• Terminal Gravity (brewery)
• Maharishi Vastu Architecture

Audio contributors:

• Adam Karlin (Staunton, VA)
• Alicia Ard (Bend, OR)
• Sarah Bell (Phoenixville, Pennsylvania)
• Gooding (Kingston Springs, TN)
• Steven Gray (Pensacola, FL)
• Avery Gunns (Truth or Consequences, NM)
• Max Hartshorne (Northampton, MA)
• Michele Hermann (Buffalo, NY)
• Karen Hugg (Ashland, OR)
• Jamie-Lee Josselyn (Galena, IL)
• Brian Kevin (Joseph, OR and Enterprise, OR)
• Tim Leffel (Chattanooga, TN)
• Deborah Lewis (Middlebury, VT)
• Dinty W. Moore (Athens, OH)
• Chrystine Olson (Graham, NC)
• Patricia Schultz (Beacon, NY)
• Jessica Voigts (Traverse City, MI)
• Jason Wisdom (Fairfield, IA)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel's 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we're happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Holiday gave its writers room to tell a comprehensive story. A place was evoked in thousands of words instead of the usual 800 we are now accustomed to reading." – Pamela Fiori In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Pamela talk about the origins of Holiday Magazine, why it attracted good writers, and how its creation was connected to advertising markets (2:15); famous articles to appear in the magazine, and why it was successful (7:00); who the magazine's audience was, how television and political-cultural changes in America affected things in the 1960s (15:00); the decline of Holiday Magazine magazine amid the economic and cultural changes of the 1970s, and why there are no archives (24:30); and the legacy of Holiday Magazine in the 21st century. Pamela Fiori made publishing history in May 1993, when she became the first woman to be named editor in chief of Town & Country, America's oldest continuously published general-interest magazine. She is the author of Holiday: The Best Travel Magazine that Ever Was. Notable Links:

• Holiday Magazine (travel publication)
• See the USA in Your Chevrolet (song performed by Dinah Shore)
• The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1950s TV show)
• Travels with Charley (1962 John Steinbeck travel book)
• Saturday Evening Post (American general-interest magazine)
• Ladies' Home Journal (American women's magazine)
• Curtis Publishing (American magazine publisher)
• Ted Patrick (magazine editor)
• Joan Didion (American essayist)
• Roger Angell (American essayist)
• Here is New York (essay and book by E.B. White)
• Mad Men (TV show about advertising)
• Big Sur (coastal region of central California)
• Travel + Leisure (American travel magazine)
• Mag Men, by Walter Bernard (book)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"In ancient Greece, entire eras were measured by Olympiads. It's how history was arranged. The Olympics were that important." – Tony Perrottet In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tony discuss how the ancient games was a religious festival, now it was never delayed, and why it was important (2:00) non-sports events that happened the the ancient Games, performance enhancing potions, and Greek competitiveness (17:00); the sporting events competed in the ancient games, and how they differed from modern sports (24:00); the training and diet that went into the games, aristocrats versus commoners who competed, and which ancient Olympians are still remembered (32:00); and what non-Greeks thought to the games, Greek skeptics of the games, and what it's like to travel to the old sites of the ancient Greek games (45:30). Tony Perrottet (@TonyPerrottet) is the author of six books, including Pagan Holiday: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists; The Sinner's Grand Tour: A Journey Through the Historical Underbelly of Europe; and The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Greek Games, upon which this interview is based. Notable Links:

• Ancient Olympic Games (sporting festival)
• Olympia, Greece (location of the ancient Games)
• Statue of Zeus at Olympia (ancient tourist attraction)
• Herodotus (ancient Greek historian)
• Pausanias (ancient Greek geographer)
• Symposium (ancient Greek drinking banquet)
• Monty Python (British comedy troupe)
• Gilgamesh (Mesopotamian mythological hero)
• Enkidu (Mesopotamian mythological hero)
• Funeral games (ancient honor ritual)
• Pankration (ancient fighting sport)
• Ben Hur (epic historical movie)
• Pierre de Coubertin (founder of the modern Olympics)
• Milo of Croton (ancient Greek wrestler)
• 300 (2007 epic historical movie)
• Battle of Thermopylae (ancient Greek battle)
• Diogenes the Cynic (ancient Greek philosopher)
• Karate gets its due at the Olympics, by Tony Perrottet (article)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Don't define your journey while you're still on it. Be open to it. Don't think it's only going to be one way." – Paul Barach In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Paul discuss why Paul chose Japan for a pilgrimage, and the seven categories of disciplines he used on the hike (1:40); the route and history of the Shikoku Pilgrimage (9:40); Paul's experiences on the trail (21:00); and Paul's lessons and regrets from the trip, including why you shouldn't define your journey while you're still on it (34:30). Paul Barach is a stand-up comic, storyteller, producer, and writer. He is the author of Fighting Monks and Burning Mountains, about his experience hiking the Shikoku Pilgrimage trail. Notable Links:

• Kūkai (Japanese Buddhist monk)
• Burning Mountain Temple (Shikoku pilgrimage site)
• Camino de Santiago (Spain pilgrimage route)
• Shikoku Henro Trail (online resource)
• Ryokan (Japanese inn)
• Kyokushin (karate style)
• Gōjū-ryū (karate style)
• Ichiro Suzuki (Japanese baseball player)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Travel is life's best education, if you allow it be." – Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf remixes his interview from the Looking Up Podcast, by Max McCoy. They discuss why travel is a great catalyst for finding direction in life (1:30); how being lonely, lost, and bored allow you to experience travel in a deeper, more vulnerable, more spiritual way (12:30); how traveling and journaling about it can focus one's writing discipline (20:00); the relationship of one's travels and one's work over time (31:00); how to whet your travel appetite by finding adventures at home, and how to navigate relationships as a traveler (41:30); the weird ways souvenirs can deepen the experience and memory of travel (46:00); and Rolf's life advice to his younger self (50:00). Max McCoy is the host of the Looking Up podcast. Notable Links:

• Van Life before #VanLife (Deviate episode)
• Epiphanies of expatriate life in Korea (Deviate episode)
• Time Wealth and the spiritual texture of travel (Deviate episode)
• Thomas Merton (American monk and writer)
• Rumi (13th-century Persian poet)
• Stephen King (American horror author)
• Astronaut pen (writing tool)
• Paris Writing Workshops (Rolf's writing classes)
• Geoarbitrage (lifestyle-location strategy)
• Robert Creeley (American poet)
• Souvenir, by Rolf Potts (book)
• One Month On the Mekong, by Rolf Potts (essay)
• Donald Barthelme (American author)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Digital nomadism is still being figured out. In twenty years digital nomadism will have a concrete reality that we can't even predict now." – Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, which is excerpted from an in-progress documentary called The Nomads, filmmaker Anne von Petersdorff asks Rolf to discuss how digital nomadism is defined, how it has emerged from earlier generations of travel and human mobility, and how it is more than just a "Western" trend (3:00); how the digital nomad movement will affect the nation-state and global citizenship, and how these notions have historically always been in flux (10:00); the importance of respecting local cultures versus treating destinations as utilitarian backdrops, and how the concept of digital nomadism is changing (24:00); and what happens to the concept of "home" when one is leading a nomadic life (32:30). Anne von Petersdorff is a scholar, writer, filmmaker, and educator from Berlin, Germany. Wade Shepard (@vagabondjourney) is an itinerant writer and filmmaker who has been traveling the world, through ninety countries, since 1999. Digital nomads interested in lending experiences or insights to the documentary film The Nomads can contact producer Wade Shepard at wadeshepard@protonmail.com. Notable Links:

• Digital nomadism (location-independent lifestyle)
• Nation-state (political unit)
• Social welfare (government support for individuals)
• Go Viral (media festival in Kazakhstan)
• China and Mongolia with my parents (Deviate episode)
• In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin (travel book)
• Epiphanies of expatriate life in Korea (Deviate episode)
• @lukeoakvt (Rolf's nephew's TikTok account)
• Grand Tour (upper-class 18th/19th century travel ritual)
• Thomas Cook (19th century travel entrepreneur)
• Dispatches, by Michael Herr (Vietnam War book)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Stewardesses were instructed to not serve caffeinated beverages or alcohol during a hijacking, and were encouraged to use their femininity to manipulate the hijackers." – Julia Cooke In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Julia talk about how Julia came to write a book about international airline stewardesses in the golden age of jet travel, and how commercial air travel as we know it came of age more than half a century ago (1:30); what Pan Am was, what made it special, and the role of stewardesses on the airline (11:00); the former Pan Am stewardesses that Julia interviewed, how she found them, and what she learned from them (18:30); how stewardesses foreshadowed and became a unique part of the feminist movement (26:00); how military flights, refugee flights, and hijackings were a common part of the Pan Am flight experience in the 1970s (30:00); and the research methods and surprises that came with writing Julia's book (41:00). Julia Cooke (@juliaccooke) has written for Condé Nast Traveler, The New York Times, Playboy, The Village Voice, and The Atavist. She is the author of Come Fly The World and The Other Side of Paradise: Life in the New Cuba. More about her at https://www.juliacooke.com/ Notable Links:

• PanAm (airline)
• Eero Saarinen (architect)
• Paul Theroux (author)
• Italo Calvino (author)
• Second wave of feminism (social movement)
• The Power of Glamour, by Virginia Postrel (book)
• Internationalism (movement)
• Coffee, Tea, or Me? (fictitious 1967 memoir)
• The Skies Belong to Us, by Brendan I. Koerner (book)
• Barbara Romack (pro golfer)
• Flag carrier (type of airline company)
• Operation Babylift (1975 evacuation of children from Vietnam)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Wanderlust can dictate the course of your life.” – Dave Seminara In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Dave discuss the philosophical underpinnings of wanderlust (2:00); the subculture of competitive travelers (10:00); the mystery of William Baekeland (20:00); and the impact of wanderlust on peoples’ lives (44:00). Dave Seminara is a writer and former diplomat. His latest book, Mad Travelers: A Tale of Wanderlust, Greed and the Quest to Reach the Ends of the Earth, is a deep exploration of wanderlust, focused around the true story of William Baekeland, a young Brit who conned many of the world’s most traveled people as they sought to reach the planet’s most remote and off-limits places. For more about Dave, check out his website at https://daveseminara.com. Notable Links:

• Most Traveled People (club)
• Nomadmania (club)
• The Travelers’ Century Club (club)
• Charles Veley (traveler)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“This is a weird time to be grateful for, but I'm sure we'll feel heaps of nostalgia for it.” – Kristen "Kiki" Bush In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kiki talk about how interacting with objects from your past (or getting rid of them) forces a kind of nostalgia on you (2:00); how cultural nostalgia can fall on generational lines, and how venues like YouTube curate generational nostalgia (7:30); how nostalgia can hinge on sports and music from the past, how going to concerts to reconnect with times of your life, and the phenomena known as the "nostalgia bump" (12:00); how journals are a way to collect and hold on to moments and memories, and what it feels like to revisit them (24:00); how technology has changed the way we interact with other people, as well as the way we experience things and remember and revisit things (31:30); and how it's hard to tell what from the current moment will evoke nostalgia later (36:00). Kristen “Kiki” Bush is an actress, known for Paterno (2018), Liberal Arts (2012), and Synecdoche, New York (2008). Her TV credits include The Affair, The Good Wife, Elementary, and Law & Order: SVU. She has performed onstage at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public, the Old Globe, Goodman Theatre, and Lincoln Center. Notable Links:

• A personal history of nostalgia (Deviate episode)
• Revisiting "American Pilgrim" (Deviate episode)
• Generation X (demographic cohort)
• Emergency! (TV show)
• Denny Matthews (Kansas City Royals announcer)
• Disintegration (1989 album by The Cure)
• Robert Smith (musician)
• Dillon's (Kansas supermarket chain)
• Van life before #VanLife (Deviate episode)
• "I Wanna Go Back" (Billy Satellite song sung by Eddie Money)
• "If You Don't Know Me by Now" (1972 Harold Melvin song)
• Our Town (play by Thornton Wilder)
• The Joshua Tree (album by U2)
• 2017 Joshua Tree Tour (U2 30th anniversary album tour)
• Live Aid (1985 benefit concert)
• Achtung Baby (1991 U2 album)
• Kyuss (1990s rock band)
• Cleveland Browns (pro football team)
• NCIS: New Orleans (TV show)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"For as much as we seek our paths and have questions about the journey, there is a sense deep within us, like a primeval compass, that shows we already know where to go." – Sophfronia Scott In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Sophfronia talk about how they came to know of Merton, and how his journals reveal his truer self (2:00); being "spiritual but not religious," the language of beholding versus the language of belief, and how interactions with nature are a spiritual exercise (9:00); human versus divine love, and how the most spiritual moments are often the most difficult ones in life (17:00); the importance of seeking a life of needing less, and how not be in a constant state of wanting (25:00); contemplation versus activism, learning to love people we do not agree with, and regulating desire in a world of abundance (34:30); and what Merton's example can teach us in the 21st century, in an age of click-bait and decontextualized life (45:00). Sophfronia Scott (@Sophfronia) is the author of five books. Her newest, The Seeker and the Monk, is about Catholic writer and activist Thomas Merton. She last appeared on Deviate to discuss mid-life career change, and her role in defining Generation X. Notable Links:

• Thomas Merton (monk and writer)
• Merton Prayer
• Conjectures of a Guilt Bystander (1968 Merton book)
• The Seven Storey Mountain (1948 Merton autobiography)
• The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (1975 book)
• Festival of Faith and Writing
• Barbara Brown Taylor (theologian)
• New Seeds of Contemplation (1962 Merton book)
• Moonstruck (1987 movie)
• Abbey of Gethsemani (Merton's monastery in Kentucky)
• Henri Nouwen (theologian)
• 2021 Capitol insurrection (attack on the U.S. Congress)
• Sandy Hook shooting (2012 mass shooting)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"I came to live and work in Korea and walked out two years later way more equipped in life, not just as a traveler, but as a person." – Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and his old friends Brian and Steve talk about the factors that led them to live and work in South Korea when they were in their twenties, and what they experienced when they first arrived (2:30); the cultural differences, idiosyncrasies, and lessons learned as expat English teachers during South Korea's globalization boom-years (17:30); culture shock, North Korean provocations, anti-U.S. sentiment, and how what was "normal" was different in Korea than in the U.S. (30:00); drinking-culture, dating rituals, expat meltdowns, what they loved about being in Korea, and how it changed their lives (47:30). Notable Links:

• Lost Generation (Paris expats in the 1920s)
• Jeonju (city in South Korea)
• Van Life before #VanLife (Deviate episode)
• Mid-20s crisis (quarter-life anxiety)
• Michael Bolton (American singer)
• Culture shock (cross-cultural disorientation)
• Confucianism (Asian system of behavior)
• Hagwon (private learning academies in Korea)
• Parasite (2019 South Korean movie)
• Chan-Ho Park (Korean MLB baseball player)
• Sunshine Policy (South Korean diplomacy)
• Dokdo (islet disputed between Korea and Japan)
• Busan (city in South Korea)
• Korean bathhouse (sex-segregated spas)
• Bosintang (Korean dog-meat strew)
• Man Bites Dog, by Rolf Potts (essay)
• Tico (small Daewoo car in the 1990s)
• Ondol (Korean heated floor)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“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 the genre of literary travel writing, and his more recent travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Dark Star Safari, and The Last Train to Zona Verde. His newest book, out this month, is Under the Wave at Waimea. In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Paul talk about Theroux’s book Figures in a Landscape, and strategies for writing about the “human architecture of a place” (4:30); the attitude and time-investment required for meaningful travel reportage (19:30); the qualities that determine successful travel writing (24:50); the essential discomforts and obstacles of travel (31:45); the uses and shortcomings of paper maps in developing countries (39:15); and where Paul is traveling next (45:00). Books, articles, and films mentioned

• “Paul Theroux on Blogging, Travel Writing, and ‘Three Cups of Tea’” (2011 Atlantic interview)
• The Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux
• The Mosquito Coast, by Paul Theroux
• The Tao of Travel, by Paul Theroux
• Deep South, by Paul Theroux
• American Notes, by Charles Dickens
• Barbary Shore, by Norman Mailer
• Journey Without Maps, by Graham Greene
• Sea and Sardinia, by D.H. Lawrence
• Travels, by Ibn Battuta
• Travels, by Marco Polo
• Lafcadio Hearn’s Japan: An Anthology
• India: A Million Mutinies Now, by V.S. Naipaul
• “Paul Theroux’s Quest to Define Hawaii” (2012 Smithsonian article)
• “Mandalay,” by Rudyard Kipling (poem)
• Rashomon (1950 Akira Kurosawa film)
• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943 film)

People mentioned

• Doris Lessing (novelist and poet)
• Tom Wolfe (author and journalist)
• Robin Williams (actor and comedian)
• Elizabeth Taylor (actress)
• Michael Jackson (singer-songwriter)
• Rod Steiger (actor)
• Mike Nichols (film director)
• Margaret Mead (anthropologist)
• Colin Turnbull (anthropologist)
• Bronislaw Malinowski (anthropologist)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“If you put Harrison Ford, Sting, and Andy Chapman in a room together in Kansas in 1981, the girls of Kansas would have trampled the actor and the rock star in an effort to get closer to the charismatic young soccer player.” – Rolf Potts In this essay episode of Deviate, Rolf talks about the iconically 1980s sports phenomenon known as Major League Indoor Soccer, and how the league came about (5:00); his childhood fixation with the Wichita Wings, and how the presence of the pro soccer team and its players affected his mid-sized Kansas hometown (11:00); and the most famous game in MISL history, which pitted the Wings against the St. Louis Steamers, and what became of major league indoor soccer -- and its legacy --as the 1980s wound down (23:00). God Save the Wings (@GodSaveTheWings) is a feature-length documentary about the Wichita Wings, an indoor soccer team of European party boys who went toe-to-toe with all major markets in the crazy 1980s. Its latest screening is April 12-18, 2021 at Kansas City FilmFest International. Tim O'Bryhim (@WichitaStory) is the producer of God Save the Wings, and co-author of Make This Town Big: The Story of Roy Turner and the Wichita Wings. Notable Links:

• Wichita Wings (indoor soccer team)
• NASL (American outdoor soccer league)
• Henry Kissinger (politician and diplomat)
• Pele (Brazilian soccer player)
• MISL (soccer league)
• Show, Sex, and Suburbs (Sports Illustrated article)
• Norman Lear (TV producer)
• Green Bay Packers (NFL football team)
• Krazy George (professional cheerleader)
• Andy Chapman (MISL soccer player)
• Nolan Ryan (baseball player)
• Tony Dorsett (football player)
• St. Louis Steamers (indoor soccer team)
• Slobo Ilijevski (MISL soccer player)
• Mike Dowler (MISL soccer player)
• New York Arrows (indoor soccer team)
• ESPN (sports TV network)
• FNN-Score (sports TV network)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Baseball history needs to be looked at again. The statistics don't make sense unless you understand the story that went behind those numbers.” – Phil S. Dixon In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Phil talk about the racial integration of Major League baseball in 1947, and the decades of high-level black baseball that came before it (4:00); how baseball was segregated in the 19th century, and why the Negro Leagues were formed in the early 20th (9:30); "barnstorming" baseball in local communities in places like Kansas, and what life on the road was like for these black teams (17:00); how Phil researched the history of the Negro Leagues, and the challenge of finding century-old game statistics (29:30); and how the Negro Leagues stars compare to other baseball players from history (39:00). Phil S. Dixon (@NegroLeagueMan) is the author of seven books about baseball, and cofounder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. Notable Links:

• J. L. Wilkinson (owner of the Kansas City Monarchs)
• All Nations (barnstorming professional baseball team)
• Barnstorming (traveling sports matches)
• Bud Fowler (pre-segregation professional player)
• Pythian Baseball Club (19th century black baseball team)
• Moses Fleetwood Walker (baseball player)
• Rube Foster (founder of the Negro Leagues)
• Topeka Jack Johnson (baseball player)
• House of David (baseball team from a Michigan commune)
• Grover Cleveland Alexander (baseball player)
• George Giles (baseball player)
• Only the Ball Was White, by Robert Peterson (book)
• Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History, by Phil S. Dixon (book)
• The 1931 Homestead Grays, by Phil S. Dixon (book)
• Buck O'Neil (baseball player, manager, and scout)
• Satchel Paige (baseball player)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Asking questions about travel, and exploring ways philosophy has changed travel, can help us think more deeply about our journeys.” – Emily Thomas In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Emily discuss the relationship between philosophy and travel (2:00); speculative fiction as a form of travel writing, and the relationship between feminism and travel (13:30); maps as a way of representing the world, and the aesthetic significance of mountains (24:00); beauty versus the sublime, and American naturalism and literature (32:00); and "cabin porn" and doom travel (40:00). Emily Thomas (@emilytwrites) is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at Durham University. She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge, and has published extensively on the philosophy of space and time. She is  the author of The Meaning of Travel. For more about Emily, check out https://emilythomaswrites.co.uk. Notable Links:

• Age of Discovery (period of European exploration)
• Francis Bacon (philosopher)
• Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe (book)
• The Blazing World, by Margaret Cavendish (book)
• Mary Kingsley (explorer)
• Isabella Bird (explorer/writer)
• Mary Wollstonecraft (philosopher/writer)
• Egeria (pilgrim)
• Utopia, by Thomas More (book)
• Henry David Thoreau (philosopher/naturalist)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (philosopher/essayist)
• Climate change (large-scale shift in global weather)
• Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer (book)
• René Descartes (philosopher)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“How do we become who we are in the world? We ask the world to teach us.” – Pam Houston In this episode of Deviate, Pam discusses her interactions with writing students (2:30); living an non-traditional life (16:30); developing a notion of home (25:00); and how Pam’s life on the ranch affects her writing (34:00). The episode concludes with Rolf reading his short essay “Creating a new sense of home is part of the travel process.” Pam Houston (@pam_houston) is an author and professor of English at the University of California, Davis. Her books include Cowboys Are My Weakness and Contents May Have Shifted, with her latest, Deep Creek, set for release in January 2019. For more information on Pam, check out her website at https://pamhouston.wordpress.com/ Notable Links:

• Santa Fe Writers Workshop
• “Some Kind of Calling,” by Pam Houston (essay)
• “Pam Houston on (Finally) Finding True Love” (essay)
• Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey (book)
• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard (book)
• My Antonia, by Willa Cather (novel)
• Alice Munro (author)
• Terry Tempest Williams (author)
• The Meadow, by James Galvan (book)
• West Fork Complex (2013 wildfire)

This episode is brought you by the Santa Fe Workshops, which offer a variety of online and in-person classes and seminars in writing and photography, including "The Particular Beauty of Our Pared-Down Lives," an online writing workshop featuring author Pam Houston (March 30 - April 15, 2021). The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“In COVID times it's harder to get on a plane and go hiking in, say, Austria or Italy. So we said, 'why not do a 20-mile hike out of our back door?'” –Kristen Bush In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kiki sit in a Kansas town known as "Little Sweden" and talk about the joys and challenges of having walked 22 miles there the day before (3:00); the difference between urban, rural, and wilderness walking, how these experiences differ for men and women, and how the suffering of a long walk affects the experience (20:00); the subtle beauty, idiosyncrasies, and historical narratives contained a landscape like Kansas (28:00); Rolf and Kiki's resumed hike to Coronado Heights, and how meeting a dog named "Larry" the day before made their day more interesting (41:00); how walking enforces a more deliberate pace of travel, and how people see you differently when you're walking (53:00); how routine tasks like "using the toilet" or getting tired when you're walking allow you to get in touch with your body in a new way (1:00:30); how walking frees you from having a "consumer" relationship to the world, and how it makes you realize the miracles inherent in everything (1:08:30); and an "Easter Egg" bonus about walking and silence (1:16:15). Kristen “Kiki” Bush is an actress, known for Paterno (2018), Liberal Arts (2012), and Synecdoche, New York (2008). Her TV credits include The Affair, The Good Wife, Elementary, and Law & Order: SVU. She has performed onstage at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public, the Old Globe, Goodman Theatre, and Lincoln Center. Notable Links:

• Lindsborg (Kansas town known as "Little Sweden")
• Ol Stuga (restaurant-bar in Lindsborg)
• Grain elevator (building that stores grain)
• Flâneur (urban mode of walking)
• Wanderlust, by Rebecca Solnit (book about walking)
• The Flaneur, by Edmund White (book about urban walking)
• Of Walking in Ice, by Werner Herzog (book)
• Christina's World (painting by Andrew Wyeth)
• Larry Lapsley (African-American pioneer in Kansas)
• Nicodemus (Kansas town established by African-Americans)
• Coronado Heights (butte near Lindsborg)
• Dala horse (traditional Swedish carved horse)
• Hemslöjd (Swedish gift shop in Lindsborg)
• Edward Abbey (American author and essayist)
• Thomas Swick (travel writer)
• Søren Kierkegaard (Danish philosopher)
• Thích Nhất Hạnh (Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk and author)

This episode is brought you by the Santa Fe Workshops, which offer a variety of online and in-person classes and seminars in writing and photography, including “The Particular Beauty of Our Pared-Down Lives,” an online writing workshop featuring author Pam Houston (March 30 – April 15, 2021). The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“The boundaries of life are responsible for the beauty of life.” – Pico Iyer In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Pico discuss the people we become when we travel (4:00); what led Pico to travel (10:00); travel in the age of technology (20:00); finding the remarkable in the unremarkable (32:00); ping pong as a metaphor for life (40:00); the importance of impermanence (50:00); and the idea of being versus becoming (1:01:00). Pico Iyer (@PicoIyer) is a novelist, essayist, and one of the most influential travel writers of his generation. He is known for such books as Video Night in Kathmandu and The Lady and the Monk, with many of his works receiving significant critical acclaim. He has also written for such publications as The New York Times, Time, and Harper’s. For more about Pico, check out http://picoiyerjourneys.com/ Notable Links:

• A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, by Pico Iyer (book)
• Autumn Light, by Pico Iyer (book)
• Walt Whitman (poet / essayist)
• John Muir (naturalist)
• Herman Melville (writer)
• Let’s Go (travel guide series)
• Salman Rushdie (writer)
• John Burroughs (naturalist / writer)

This episode is brought to you by the Santa Fe Workshops, which offer a variety of online and in-person classes and seminars in writing and photography, including “Across the World and Deep Within,” a travel webinar featuring author Pico Iyer (February 16-18, 2021). The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"I learned so quickly that children change everything about travel." --Bruce Kirkby In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Bruce discuss how Bruce got his travel-writing career started, and why he ended up traveling to a Tibetan Indian monastery with his young family (3:00); what it is like to travel overland with young kids in tow, from Canada to India, and how having a child on the autism spectrum affects the experience (12:30); what it was like to travel to Asia with a sixteen-person TV crew in tow (23:00); what it was like to life a low-tech offline life and teach English in a remote (yet changing) mountain region in Tibetan India (27:30); how Bruce and his family navigated the tension between tradition and modernity in Zanskar, and how being there for three months differs from a shorter visit (38:00). Bruce Kirkby (@bruce_kirkby) is a Canadian adventurer, photographer, and writer. His newest book, discussed in this episode, is Blue Sky Kingdom: An Epic Family Journey to the Heart of the Himalaya. More about Bruce and his career can be found at: http://brucekirkby.com/. Notable Links:

• Mergui Archipelago (group of islands in southern Myanmar)
• Family Ties (1980s TV show starring Michael J. Fox)
• Kate Harris (Canadian travel writer)
• Kate Harris on travel (Deviate podcast episode)
• Zanskar (mountain region in Tibetan India)
• Ladakh (union territory in India's Kashmir region)
• Autism spectrum disorder (neurodevelopmental condition)
• Big Crazy Family Adventure (Travel Channel show)
• Long Way Round (TV travel doc featuring Ewan McGregor)
• Monkey mind (Buddhist concept)
• 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan spiritual leader)
• Rumspringa (Amish rite of passage)
• Leh (capital city of Ladakh)
• Being a better bad tourist (Deviate episode)

This episode is sponsored by the Santa Fe Workshops, which offer a variety of online and in-person classes and seminars in writing and photography, including "Three Simple Lines & The Color of Wind," a hybrid writing-photography webinar featuring Natalie Goldberg and Eddie Soloway (January 27-29, 2021); and "Across the World and Deep Within," a travel webinar featuring author Pico Iyer (February 16-18, 2021). The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Riding trains offered a great chance to chat with people we'd never cross paths with in our lives normally.” –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 around India (2:00); her more recent experience of taking the Trans-Mongolian train across Russia and into Asia (14:00); what it was like to travel by train in North Korea, China, and Southeast Asia, and how they differ from European trains (28:00); what it was like to take trains across Canada and the United States, and which global trains Monisha likes best (45:00). Monisha Rajesh (@monisha_rajesh) is a travel journalist, and the author of Around India in 80 Trains, and Around the World in 80 Trains. She currently lives in London with her husband and two daughters. Notable Links:

• Indrail Pass (Indian rail-pass for foreign nationals)
• Saint Basil's Cathedral (church in Moscow's Red Square)
• Eurail Pass (rail-pass covering 33 European countries)
• Trans–Mongolian Railway (long-haul train route)
• Circum-Baikal Railway (railway in Russia's Irkutsk region)
• War and Peace (novel by Leo Tolstoy)
• Game of Thrones (fantasy TV series)
• Korean State Railway (train system in North Korea)
• Southwest Chief (American Amtrak route)
• German Baptist Brethren (Anabaptist group)
• Qinghai–Tibet railway (Asian train route)
• Skeena (Canadian passenger train service)
• Mandovi Express (train route in India)
• Flight shaming (environmental social movement)
• Sunset Limited (American Amtrak route)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“The best experiences in life can be had for the price of showing up.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kiki take a road-trip to Colorado (with Salvie the cat yowling in his pet-carrier) and discuss how Rolf's 2010 essay "5 Travel Lessons You Can Use at Home" can apply to home-life during a time of pandemic, including the notion that "Time = Wealth" (5:00); the importance of knowing how to "Be Where You Are" (8:30); the advantages of knowing when to "Slow Down" (20:00); the merit that comes in knowing how to "Keep it Simple" (25:00); and how life is more dynamic when you "Don’t Set Limits" (39:00). Kristen "Kiki" Bush is an actress, known for Paterno (2018), Liberal Arts (2012), and Synecdoche, New York (2008). Her TV credits include The Affair, The Good Wife, Elementary, and Law & Order: SVU. She has performed onstage at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public, the Old Globe, Goodman Theatre, and Lincoln Center. For information on the Paris-based Travel Memoir classes Rolf is offering to Deviate listeners in 2021, inquire at deviate@rolfpotts.com, or via the online forms at the Paris Writing Workshops website. Notable Links:

• "5 Travel Lessons You Can Use at Home," by Rolf Potts (essay)
• "A personal history of nostalgia" (Deviate episode)
• Late Night with Seth Meyers (news satire talk show)
• Rocky Mountain National Park (American wilderness area)
• Geographers' A–Z (British street atlas)
• Thomas Guide (Los Angeles street atlas)
• Marie Kondo (Japanese organizing consultant and author)
• No Baggage Challenge (Rolf's 2010 minimalist journey)
• Hoarders (reality TV series)
• Bumble (dating app)
• Atomium (landmark building in Brussels)
• Kanopolis State Park (hiking area in Kansas)
• Marquette Pioneer Trail (hiking area in Kansas)
• Lindsborg (Swedish-settler town in Kansas)
• Sterling (small-college town in Kansas)
• Coronado Heights (sandstone overlook in central Kansas)
• Richard Rohr (American spiritual writer)
• This Week in Flips (producer Justin Glow's YouTube channel)

This episode of Deviate alludes to Rolf's experiences with Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"A lot of people seek out spiritual travel-sites without any ties to a specific religion: When they're in Israel and they'll go to the Western Wall and feel so spiritual there; a month later they're in Thailand and they'll go to a Buddhist retreat. They just glom on for a minute and play pretend." – Ari Shaffir Note: Rolf is giving away copies of books by Deviate guests (like Paul Theroux, Kate Harris, and Chris Guillebeau) for people who buy Tortuga backpacks online, or who buy copies of Vagabonding at local independent bookstores. Just email a receipt (and, if applicable, a photo of yourself at your local bookseller) to deviate@rolfpotts.com, and Rolf will share a list of available books and mail a free copy of your choosing to any USA address. In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ari discuss Rolf's pilgrimage across Israel 20 years ago and why he took it, and Ari's experiences there in a yeshiva and on a kibbutz as a young man (4:45); what it was like to walk in the agricultural north of Israel near the Sea of Galilee, and navigating the Jewish versus Arab cultural aspects of the country (15:00); longing as a part of travel, and what it was like to go to Israel as young man and see women in swimsuits after traveling in conservative Arab lands (29:00); the proliferation of Christian sites throughout Israel, getting picked up by Israeli girls while hitchhiking and going to Tel Aviv (36:00); the difference between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and what it was like to visit sites like the Wailing Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (51:00); Rolf's experience of canvassing for a pub in Jerusalem as an act of self-abnegation, and fasting on the Mount of the Temptation near Jericho (1:13:00); and the tendency of some travelers to superficially embrace the local spiritual tradition in places like Israel and India and Thailand, and how travel is in itself a spiritual act (1:26:30). Ari Shaffir (@AriShaffir) is a comedian, writer, podcaster, and actor. He is the current host of the Skeptic Tank podcast. For more information on Ari, visit his website. Notable Links:

• Galilee (region in northern Israel)
• Orthodox Judaism (traditionalist Jewish sect)
• Yeshiva (Jewish educational institution)
• 613 commandments (tradition from the Torah)
• Messianic Judaism (sect that combines Christianity with Judaism)
• Oslo Accords (1993 Israel/PLO agreement)
• Yardenit (baptismal site on the Jordan River)
• Saint Helena (influential 4th century Christian pilgrim)
• Megiddo (ancient city site in Israel)
• South Lebanon Army (Christian militia)
• Jerusalem Syndrome (mental disorder)
• Wailing Wall (site in the Old City of Jerusalem)
• Al-Aqsa Mosque (Muslim site in Old City of Jerusalem)
• Via Dolorosa (processional route in the Old City of Jerusalem)
• Souvenir, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Christian holy site)
• Tom Rhodes (American comedian)
• Zion Square (public square in Jerusalem)
• Jericho (Palestinian city in the West Bank)
• Mount of Temptation (Christian pilgrimage site)
• Pai (town in northern Thailand)
• Yetzer hara (in Hebrew, the inclination to do evil)
• Karen people (ethnic group in Myanmar)
• Rohingya people (ethnic group in Myanmar)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Earnest, hard-won failure can teach you as much as anything." – Rolf Potts Note: For information on the Paris-based Travel Memoir classes Rolf is offering to Deviate listeners in 2021, inquire at deviate@rolfpotts.com, or via the online forms at the Paris Writing Workshops website. In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Jeremy discuss breaking into travel writing and learning through failure (4:00); what defines travel memoir, and how it's different from other kinds of travel writing (11:00); the role of research in travel writing, and the balance between personal expression and reportage (17:00); the travel writing industry, and what topics are covered in Rolf's Paris Writing Workshop (25:00); and how “flaneuring” in place like Paris can lend a new perspective on place (37:00). Jeremy Bassetti (@jeremybassetti) is a writer, editor, educator, and host of the Travel Writing World Podcast. His website, travelwritingworld.com, features interviews with travel writers, book reviews, author profiles, and resources for travel writers and their readers. For more about Jeremy, check out jeremybassetti.com. Notable Links:

• • Storming the Beach, by Rolf Potts (essay)
  • Van Life before #VanLife (Deviate episode)
  • The Last Whalers, by Doug Bock Clark (book)
  • Deviate interview with Doug Bock Clark (podcast)
  • Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert (book)
  • On the Plain of Snakes, by Paul Theroux (book)
  • Deviate interview with Paul Theroux (podcast)
  • Braver Than You Think, by Maggie Downs (book)
  • Deviate interview with Maggie Downs (podcast)
  • Writing Away, by Lavinia Spalding (book)
  • Deviate interview with Lavinia Spalding (podcast)
  • Drunk in China, by Derek Sandhaus (book)
  • Deviate interview with Derek Sandhaus (podcast)
  • The Painter of Modern Life, by Charles Baudelaire (essay collection)
  • Psychogeography (urban exploration strategy)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets.

This episode of Deviate explores the benefits of minimalism (3:00); changing ones life philosophy and getting rid of bad habits (11:00); pragmatic approaches to personal finance and avoiding debt (20:00); living off the grid and life tips (29:00); and finding a life purpose (42:00). Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"The perception that most Americans have about the original Thanksgiving is very much a Hallmark-card stereotype, where the native people and the colonists came together and broke bread and sang 'Kumbaya.' In truth, there was a great deal of trepidation on both sides." – Paula Peters

Full video episode

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf presents an audio remix of American Pilgrim, the Thanksgiving Special he hosted for the Travel Channel in 2008. The episode begins with some contextual history of the Pilgrims' voyage from England, and a visit to chef Bryant Alden's kitchen in New Hampshire to discuss what food the Pilgrims ate (5:00); next, Rolf sails out of Plymouth Harbor with John Brewster, and learns about the sea conditions the Pilgrims faced coming over from England (12:00); at Mayflower Brewing Company in Plymouth, brewer Drew Brosseau talks about the importance of beer to the Pilgrims (17:00); elsewhere in Plymouth, Reverend Bill Fillebrown talks about how religious convictions shaped the lives of the Pilgrims (21:00); at Plimoth Plantation, indigenous descendants talk about relations between with Pilgrims and the native people in the area (27:30); in rural Connecticut, Rolf talks with farmer Courtland Kinnie about the Pilgrims' agricultural practices (30:40); finally, at Fort Hood in Texas, U.S. Army Major Chuck Assadourian talks about the Pilgrims' approach to defense and security (34:00). As the holiday season gets underway, a reminder that Rolf's travel books make great Christmas stocking-stuffers. Vagabonding is a perennial gift favorite for travelers, though please also consider Rolf's travel-essay collection Marco Polo Didn't Go There, his travel-history book Souvenir, or his comic-book adaptation of an ancient Egyptian travel tale, The Misadventures of Wenamun.

Fort Hood deleted scene

Notable Links:

• Pilgrims (English settlers in North America)
• Plimoth Plantation (living history museum)
• Mayflower II (replica of 17th century ship)
• Wampanoag (Native American people)
• John Alden (Mayflower Pilgrim)
• Squanto (Patuxet tribal liaison)
• Pottage (thick stew)
• Edward Winslow (Mayflower Pilgrim)
• William Brewster (Mayflower Pilgrim)
• Mayflower Compact (governing document)
• Barque Eagle (U.S. Coast Guard training cutter)
• Mayflower Brewing Company (craft-beer business)
• Cooper (profession)
• William Bradford (Governor of the Plymouth Colony)
• Peregrine White (baby boy born on the Mayflower)
• Puritans (English Protestant sect in the 17th century)
• Pilgrim Progress (church-procession reenactment)
• Patuxet (Wampanoag village affected by plague)
• Wampum (traditional Native shell beads)
• Richard Warren (Mayflower Pilgrim)
• Fort Hood (U.S. Army post)
• Isaac Allerton (Mayflower Pilgrim)
• Myles Standish (military adviser for Plymouth Colony)

Wampanoag deleted scene

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Savoring is attending to the moment.” – Stephanie Rosenbloom In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Stephanie discuss solitude versus loneliness (3:00); the joy of eating alone (14:00); the art of being a flaneur and savoring experiences (22:00); the joy of going to museums alone (32:00); the relationship between anticipation, experience, and retrospection (43:00); and exercising your travel muscles as part of everyday life (54:00). Stephanie Rosenbloom (@stephronyt) is a travel writer for The New York Times, where she has been a reporter for more than a decade, and the author of the book, Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude. For more about Stephanie, check out http://www.stephanierosenbloom.com.  Notable Links:

• Abraham Maslow (psychologist)
• AllTrails (website)
• Bella DePaulo (Professor of Psychology)
• Thích Nhất Hạnh (Vietnamese Buddhist monk)
• Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience, by Fred Bryant (book)
• The Lonely Guy (Steve Martin movie)
• Charles Baudelaire (poet)
• Sandro Botticelli (painter)
• The Birth of Venus (painting by Botticelli)
• Elizabeth Dunn (psychologist)
• On Photography, by Susan Sontag (collection of essays)
• Marcel Duchamp (painter / sculptor)
• LiveTrekker (app)
• A Philosophy of Walking, by Fredric Gros (book)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Getting in touch with reality is literally the essence of spiritual life.” – Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf remixes his interview from the Far Out Podcast, by Julie-Roxane and Alasdair. They discuss "Time Wealth," and vagabonding as a philosophy for life (3:00); sifting through mediated information, versus getting local information on the road, and "reality" as the essence of spirituality (13:00); appreciation versus achievement, embracing the possibility of travel, and how you get smarter about travel the more you travel (24:00); seeking to have an "option-rich" life, the freedom that comes with not having preconceptions about where to go or what to do, and the joy of being surprised on the road (46:00); travel as a way to find out what you value and love in life (58:00); and the importance of slowing down, on the road and in life (1:03:00). Julie-Roxane and Alasdair (Instagram: @thefaroutcouple) are travelers, entrepreneurs, guides, coaches, and co-hosts of the Far Out Podcast, where they chronicle their adventures in unconventional living. For more about Julie-Roxane and Alasdair, check out https://www.jrkrikorian.com and https://alasdairplambeck.com. Notable Links:

• John Muir (naturalist)
• Stoicism (school of Hellenistic philosophy)
• Platonic idealism (philosophical doctrine of ideas)
• Rolf on the Tim Ferris Show (podcast episode)
• The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen (book)
• Henry David Thoreau (philosopher)
• Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman (poetry collection)
• Situationist International (French avant-garde movement)
• Dérive (experimental urban behavior)
• The best hostel ever, in Cairo (Deviate episode)
• Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer (book)
• Falling Upward, by Richard Rohr (book)
• Antonio Machado (Spanish poet)
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig (book)
• Paris Writing Workshops (Rolf's summer writing classes)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“That sort of fearlessness, and the assumption that the world is a good place – I like holding onto that idea to this day.” – Pam Mandel In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Pam discuss the good that can come out of bad travel, and how Pam became a person who spent a lot of her teen years outside of the US (2:30); how Pam came to travel to Israel and work on a kibbutz as a teenager after high school (9:00); the magic of traveling while young, and Pam's experiences of hitchhiking across Europe (21:00); Onward travel to Egypt, Pakistan, and India, and how the assumptions of travel as a woman in certain countries are different from those of young men travelers (30:00); what it was like to write a book about experiences that happened 40 years ago (45:00); and how Pam now sees her coming-of-age travels as a complicated mix of good and bad experiences (51:30). Pam Mandel (@nerdseyeview) is a travel writer and co-founder of The Statesider, a travel newsletter. Her book The Same River Twice, comes out this November. For more about Pam, check out her Nerd’s Eye View blog.  Notable Links:

• Hippie trail (1960s and 1970s travel subculture)
• Kibbutz (collective community)
• Tony Wheeler (founder of Lonely Planet)
• Squatting (practice of living in abandoned buildings)
• Child marriage in Pakistan
• stations.myshopify.com/">Fields & Stations (magazine)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Beliefs are contagious. The stories we tell take on their own logic and become real, in a way. As travelers in another culture part of your role is to try and understand what narrative ecosystem you're a part of."  – Frank Bures In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Frank discuss "culture shock," and the origins of Frank's book (2:00); narrative ecosystems, "penis theft," and culture as a lens to view to the world (10:00); the form cultural panics and idiosyncrasies take in the West (23:00); and how to treat conditions that are both cultural and biological (30:00). Frank Bures is a writer and the author of The Geography of Madness, which Newsweek called one of the best travel books of the decade. His writing has appeared in such publications as Harper’s, Lapham’s Quarterly, and the Best American Travel Writing. For more about Frank, check out www.frankbures.com. Notable Links:

• Penis theft (culture-bound syndrome)
• Culture shock (cross-cultural anxiety)
• Korean fan-death (culture-bound syndrome)
• Traditional Chinese medicine (cultural pseudoscience)
• Anorexia nervosa (eating disorder)
• Bigorexia (body dysmorphic disorder)
• 1967 Singapore genital panic, by Frank Bures (article)
• Satanic Panic (moral panic in the 1980s and 1990s)
• 2016 "creepy clown" scare (viral panic)
• Chemtrails (conspiracy theory)
• Premenstrual syndrome (emotional disorder)

This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Nostalgia isn't rational, and just like Warrant's 1990 song "Cherry Pie" reminds me of 1989 more than the recorded sound of my own voice from 1989, watching the movie Dazed and Confused for the first time literally made me long for a time in life that was less happy than the time I was living in when I saw it." — Rolf Potts

In this essay episode of Deviate Rolf talks about four recent factors in his life that have changed the ways he views nostalgia (4:00); how he may well could have been killed in a motorcycle wreck in Asia in 2019, and how the accident affected his way of seeing the world in the months after it happened (8:30); how the word "nostalgia" has conventionally been defined, in both the modern and premodern sense (18:45); Rolf's complicated memories of youthful interactions with movies like Star Wars, Dazed and Confused, and Before Sunrise (23:00); how Rolf met a traveler named Kristen Bush (aka "Kiki") in Kansas during the pandemic, and what factors made their connection unique (34:45); how Michel de Montaigne made sense of his near-fatal horse accident in the 16th century, versus how Rolf has come to make sense of his motorcycle accident in Asia (40:00); how Rolf has trouble intuiting his own past when he listens to his own voice on old cassette tapes (43:30); and how Rolf and Kiki have come to make sense of their past, present, and future together, and how this pandemic moment will one day feed its own nostalgia (48:30). Kristen Bush is an actress, known for Paterno (2018), Liberal Arts (2012), and Synecdoche, New York (2008). Her TV credits include The Affair, The Good Wife, Elementary, and Law & Order: SVU. She has performed onstage at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public, the Old Globe, Goodman Theatre, and Lincoln Center. Notable Links:

• "Turkish Knockout," by Rolf Potts (essay)
• "Laos in the time of cholera," by Rolf Potts (essay)
• Jonathan Yevin on no-baggage travel (Deviate episode)
• Schadenfreude (experience of joy in the misfortunes of others)
• Hyposmia (reduced ability to smell odors)
• Marguerite Yourcenar (French novelist)
• William Faulkner (American novelist)
• Starship Enterprise (fictional spacecraft on Star Trek)
• Woodstock (1969 music festival)
• Grunge (rock music genre)
• Bumble (dating app)
• "The Dark Side of Travel Romance," by Rolf Potts (essay)
• Ceylon lesser albatross (butterfly species)
• Howard Cosell (American sportscaster)
• Joan Didion (American writer)
• John Muir (naturalist and author)
• Josh Radnor (actor and filmmaker)
• Embracing "slow travel" by trekking (Deviate episode)

Books, movies and TV shows mentioned:

• Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut (novel)
• Stranger Things (TV show)
• Mad Men (TV show)
• Epic of Gilgamesh (ancient Mesopotamian poem)
• The Odyssey, by Homer (ancient Greek poem)
• Star Wars trilogy (first three films of the sci-fi franchise)
• The Wonder Years (TV show)
• Dazed and Confused (movie)
• Before trilogy (travel movies directed by Richard Linklater)
• "The Lady with the Dog," by Anton Chekhov (short story)
• The Essays, by Michel de Montaigne (book)
• Monday Night Football (sports TV show)
• Liberal Arts (movie)
• Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts (book)

Music used in this episode:

• "Cherry Pie," by Warrant
• "Perpetuum Mobile," by Penguin Cafe Orchestra
• "Where is My Mind," by Maxence Cyrin
• "Breathe Me," by Sia
• "Ndima Ndapedza," by Oliver Mtukudzi
• "We Move Lightly," by Dustin O'Halloran
• "At the Hop," by Sha Na Na
• "Gnossiennes," by Erik Satie
• ""Comptine d'un autre été," by Yann Tiersen
• "All the Small Things," by Blink-182
• "Svefn-g-englar," by Sigur Rós

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“There are the actual facts of what was happening in popular culture in the 1980s — and then there was this tantalizing notion that music played backwards was going to seed our minds with evil. Which was scary, but also kind of cool to a certain kid-like way of thinking.” — Rolf Potts

In this rebroadcast episode of Deviate Rolf delves into the idea of "backward masking" in rock music, and how it came to influence notions of "Satanic Panic" in America over the course of the 1980s. Returning to the show for this musical deep-dive are Jedd Beaudoin (@JeddBeaudoin), who hosts the syndicated music show “Strange Currency,” and Michael Carmody (@Carmody68), a musician, record collector, and entrepreneur. Together they discuss preacher Jacob Aranza's underground-classic 1983 anti-rock book Backward Masking Unmasked and its idiosyncratic take on popular music (4:00); the history of rock and roll and American culture that led up to Satanic Panic in the 1980s (31:10); how rock acts exploited the idea of Satanism to sell records just as preachers, politicians, and pop-journalists fixated on its supposed dangers to attract followers (42:10); and the legacy of Satanic Panic and the seeming lack of evil in today's popular music (1:05:45). Rock and roll curiosities mentioned

• Backmasking (audio technique)
• Gene Simmons’ Tongue (Snopes article)
• Blood in KISS Comic Book (Snopes article)
• Paul is Dead (Beatles urban legend)
• Aleister Crowley (English occultist)
• Robert Johnson sold soul to the devil (blues myth)
• Sign of the horns (rock hand gesture)
• Eddie (zombie-like Iron Maiden mascot)
• Dark Side of the Rainbow (movie/album mashup)
• Acid rock (psychedelic rock subgenre)
• Judas Priest suicide lawsuit
• Ozzy Osbourne suicide lawsuit
• Norwegian black metal (extreme metal genre)
• Classic rock is not dead. Classic rock is undead (podcast episode)
• Hammer of the Gods (controversial book about Led Zeppelin)

Movies and TV shows mentioned

• CHIPs “Rock Devil Rock” episode (1982)
• The Decline of Western Civilization (Penelope Spheeris documentary)
• Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (documentary)
• Rosemary’s Baby (horror movie)
• The Exorcist (horror movie)
• Trick or Treat (horror movie)
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl (stock movie character)
• Dream Deceivers (Judas Priest suicide trial documentary)

Other people, institutions, and events mentioned

• Satanic Ritual Abuse (moral panic)
• Day-care sex-abuse hysteria (moral panic)
• James Vicary (subliminal advertising researcher)
• James Watt (Interior secretary under Reagan)
• Tipper Gore (senator’s wife and anti-rock crusader)
• Captain & Tennille (soft-rock artists)
• Bette Midler (singer-songwriter)
• Church of Satan (religious organization)
• Transcendental Meditation (spiritual practice)
• Dada (avant-garde art movement)
• 1 Samuel 15:3 (genocidal Bible verse)
• West Memphis Three (wrongfully convicted ritual-murder suspects)
• Shout at the Devil (Motley Crue album)
• Columbine High School massacre (mass shooting)
• The weird history of America’s national anthem (podcast episode)
• Manson murders (cult killings)

Rock Devil Rock CHiPs TV clip

Quincy punk-rock episode clip

This episode was engineered by Torin Andersen of KMUW studios in Wichita. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel's 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we're happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Face the fear, and go for it.” – Cory Lee In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Cory discuss what challenges disabled travelers contend with, and how Cory got started as a traveler with spinal muscular atrophy (2:30); good destinations for travelers with mobility issues, and what challenges present themselves on the ground for travelers with disabilities (10:00); non-traditional activities like adventure travel or volunteering for people with disabilities, (20:00); and what it's been like for Cory to write and blog about disability travel, and how it became his full-time job (26:00). Then, Rolf is joined by listener Zachary York to discuss what it's like to travel with Neurofibromatosis type I (32:00). Cory Lee (@coryleetweets) is the founder of Curb Free with Cory Lee, a travel blog sharing his experiences from a wheelchair user’s perspective. Cory is a 2-time Lowell Thomas Award winner for Best Travel Blog and was named the 2018 Person of the Year by New Mobility Magazine.  Notable Links:

• Spinal muscular atrophy (neuromuscular disorder)
• The Wheel Chair Singers (disabled gospel singing group)
• Accessible Travel Club (Facebook Group)
• Accessible Travel Online Resource Book (Travel Book)
• Americans with Disabilities Act (civil rights law)
• Volunteering for the Disabled in Northern Ireland, by Cory Lee (blog post)
• Saku Travel (Estonia tour agency catering to disabled travelers)
• Gatorland (Florida theme park)
• Zachary York (traveler with Neurofibromatosis type I)
• Mount Whitney (tallest mountain in the contiguous U.S.)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Embrace your travel mistakes. You can't 'fail' at travel; you can only learn from travel." –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, which excerpts a keynote talk from TravelCon, Rolf talks a bit about his background of growing up in Kansas and dreaming about travel, his earliest vagabonding travels, and his first forays into travel writing (3:30); then Rolf shares his "20 lessons learned from 20 years as a travel writer," (7:30). Notable Links:

• TravelCon (travel-media conference)
• ​george.com/about.html">Don George​ (travel writer)
• Rolf's ongoing travel writer interview series
• Eva Holland (travel writer)
• Bachata (Dominican dance style)
• Merengue (Dominican dance style)
• Omo Valley (tribal region in Ethiopia)
• Mursi people (ethnic group in Ethiopia)
• Ranong (town in Thailand)
• Gringo Trails (2013 travel documentary film)

Podcasts and essays alluded to:

• Nomadic Matt Kepnes on travel (Deviate episode)
• Van Life before #VanLife (Deviate episode)
• A Trans-Siberian story (Deviate episode)
• No Baggage Challenge (round-the-world video series)
• The wrong town in Morocco (blog/video dispatch)
• Up Cambodia without a phrasebook (travel essay)
• Cowboys and Indians, Thai-style (travel essay)
• Going Native in the Australian Outback (travel essay)
• A Vagabond Finds a Home (essay)
• Toura Incognita (Conde Nast Traveler article)

20 lessons learned from 20 years as a travel writer

1) Relationships count more than platforms

2) Distinctive content counts more than self-promotion

3) If in doubt, ask for help

4) If in doubt say yes

5) There is always more to learn

6) Don’t postpone things

7) Be an expat at some point in your travel career

8) Take it slow

9) It's OK to make mistakes

10) Don’t set limits

11) Walk until your day becomes interesting

12) Meet people

13) Report back on the human world

14) Try something different

15) Actively learn new skills

16) Dare to be lonely, lost, and bored

17) Remember the ethical dynamic of travel

18) Develop a notion of home

19) Success is a matter of doing it long enough

20) Make the lessons last a lifetime

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Sometimes we do things for ourselves in the name of adventure, without thinking about how this affects other people.” – Suzanne Roberts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Suzanne discuss what it means to be a bad traveler, and the ethical quandaries that come with being a tourist (3:00); examples from Suzanne's book about her interacting from a position of privilege with trekking guides during a mudslide in Peru, giving a Power Bar to a leper in India, or wanting to help underaged prostitutes in Nicaragua (12:00); burning-ghat tourism in Varanasi, and how places where death is more public make one confront the notion of death and "aliveness" in a more realistic way (23:00); sex, dating and relationships abroad (34:00); and the challenge of writing about sensitive cross-cultural topics, and the utility of "sensitivity readers" versus good on-the-ground reporting in travel writing (55:00). Suzanne Roberts (@SuzanneRoberts) is a travel writer, memoirist, and poet. Her books include the 2012 National Outdoor Book Award-winning Almost Somewhere, her new travel memoir Bad Tourist, and four collections of poetry. For more about Suzanne, check out https://www.suzanneroberts.net/  Notable Links:

• A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid (book-length essay)
• Postcolonialism (academic critical theory)
• White savior complex (trope applied to some travelers)
• Aguas Calientes (place in Peru)
• Ghats in Varanasi (riverfront area along the Ganges)
• Memento mori (artistic or symbolic reminder of death)
• Thomas Merton (Christian writer / theologian)
• Attar of Nishapur (Sufi poet)
• Sholeh Wolpé (Iranian-American poet)
• Favela (type of slum in Brazil)
• Poverty porn (media stereotype)
• Souvenir, by Rolf Potts (book)
• AWP Conference (American literary event)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“There is this arrogant assumption that the things we don’t know or understand must be bad, because if they were good, we would already know about them or understand them.” –Derek Sandhaus In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Derek discuss the culture and traditions of baijiu liquor in China (4:00); Derek’s introduction to China and baijiu, and how Sichuan, more than any other province, is known for making baijiu (15:00); the history of baijiu, its significance to Chinese culture, and the rules that surround its consumption at meals (22:00); how alcohol influenced Chinese culture and agriculture over the years, and how foreigners have interacted with baijiu (31:00); the challenge in introducing baijiu to the American market, how it has as many variations as different as vodka and tequila, and how to find and enjoy baijiu in the United States (36:30). Derek Sandhaus (@dsandhaus) is a writer, traveler, and author of several books on Chinese history and culture, including Baijiu: The Essential Guide to Chinese Spirits and Drunk in China. He is a cofounder of Ming River Sichuan Baijiu and currently serves as the brand’s communications director. He is also the editor of DrinkBaijiu.com.  Notable Links:

• Baijiu (Chinese liquor)
• William of Rubruck (missionary / explorer)
• Marco Polo (explorer)
• Chengdu (capital of Sichuan province in China)
• Zhou Enlai (first Premier of the People's Republic of China)
• Chiang Kai-shek (Chinese politician)
• Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (Chinese scholars)
• Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup (Chinese scholars)
• Jiahu (Neolithic settlement in China)
• Henry David Theroux (author)
• Ernest Hemingway (author)
• Taoism (philosophy)
• Richard Nixon (American president)
• Ming River (baijiu brand available in the U.S.)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"​So many hate-filled​ things—whether on social media​ or just people talking—are based on stereotypes that are not accurate​. Too many people ​simply ​don't ​interact with people who are different from ​them." —Joe Rodriguez In this episode of Deviate, childhood friends Rolf, Kaye, Tony, and Joe discuss the racially specific nicknames people gave each other in high school back in the 1980s (7:40); how exactly their racial and socioeconomic situations influenced the way they grew up as young people (14:30); why it's important to respect specific aspects of other people's lives, even if you can't entirely relate to them, and how individual people don't necessarily represent everyone in a given group (37:00); what it feels like to be judged by strangers on the basis of your race, especially when you come from a minority group (51:30); how their race and the location of their neighborhoods affected their extracurricular lives as teenagers, and how diversity exists even within individual racial groups (1:06:00); how dating and marrying across racial lines can give you a deepened perspective on racial difference ​(1​:18:00); and how the personal experience of racial diversity is so much richer, more nuanced, and intertwined with "social capital" than the way it's discussed in the click-bait atmosphere of social media (1:30:00). Kaye Monk-Morgan is an Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs at Wichita State University. Tony Johnson works with troubled youth as an intervention specialist with the Wichita Public Schools. A former newspaper journalist, Joe Rodriguez works as the Director of Development at Wichita's Holy Savior Catholic Church and Academy. Notable Links:

• Wichita North High School
• What it’s like to be a black police officer in America (Deviate episode)
• What it’s like to be a Latino police officer in America (Deviate episode)
• The power of small choices across decades (Deviate episode)
• On Political Correctness, by William Deresiewicz (essay)
• Wichita State Shockers men's basketball (sports program)
• Nico Hernandez (Olympic boxer from Wichita)
• Mike George (20th century professional wrestler)
• Lawrence Welk (20th century TV bandleader)
• Code-switching (linguistic "language alternation")
• Colin Kaepernick (American athlete and activist)
• Kansas Bureau of Investigation (criminal justice agency)
• Barry Sanders (former NFL running back from Wichita)
• James Jabara (Korean War jet ace from Wichita)
• Việt Kiều (Vietnamese diaspora term)
• Mullet (1980s haircut)
• Tiger Woods (American professional golfer)
• Grinnell (academically prestigious college in Iowa)
• Arapaho (Native American tribe)
• Art Deco (arts and architecture design style)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel's 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we're happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"The more we try to seize happiness, the more it slips from our grasp. Happiness is a by-product, never an objective. It's an unexpected windfall from a life lived well." --Eric Weiner In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Eric discuss why practicing (rather than just studying) philosophy is important (2:00); which philosophies make the most sense during pandemic, and Nietzsche's notion of "Eternal Recurrence" (10:00); aging versus staying young, and the similarities between Greek and Buddhist philosophy (21:00); how travel underpins the philosophical journey, and how train travel promotes deep thinking (31:00); how walking enables thinking and reflection, and the value or art and music (42:00); and loving life while also coming to terms with death (53:00). Eric Weiner (@Eric_Weiner) is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and speaker. His books include The Geography of Bliss and The Geography of Genius, as well as the spiritual memoir Man Seeks God and, his latest title, The Socrates Express. Eric is a former foreign correspondent for NPR, and reporter for The New York Times. For more about Eric, check out https://ericweinerbooks.com/ Notable Links:

• Stoicism (school of philosophy)
• Friedrich Nietzsche (philosopher)
• Albert Camus (philosopher)
• Groundhog Day (film)
• Thích Nhất Hạnh (Buddhist monk)
• Epicurus (philosopher)
• Simone de Beauvoir (writer / philosopher)
• Falling Upward, by Richard Rohr (book)
• Henry David Thoreau (essayist / philosopher)
• Arthur Schopenhauer (philosopher)
• Adagio for Strings (string orchestra arrangement)
• Michel de Montaigne (philosopher)
• Eric Hoffer (philosopher)
• Søren Kierkegaard (philosopher)
• Bhagavad Gita (Hindu scripture)
• Socrates (philosopher)
• Plato (philosopher)

This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel's 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we're happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"There are so many ways travel can change your life, in ways you could never imagine before you leave home."  –Daniel Neely In this episode of Deviate, Rolf reads his essay, Backpackers’ Ball at the Sultan Hotel (7:30) before he and Dan reflect on the international cast of characters they met at at the Sultan Hotel in Cairo, and how workaday activities can make the city more interesting than tourist attractions (36:30); the friendships you make in hostels and how they end up shaping your life (44:45); how smartphones may have changed the vibe of some hostels, and how interacting with strangers at hostels can change your life (60:00). A native of Arizona, Daniel Neely served as Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras in the early 2000s. He now works as a Senior Advisor in Emergency Preparedness at the Wellington (New Zealand) Region Emergency Management Office. He previously appeared on Deviate episode 42, "How to survive a natural disaster."  Notable Links:

• Backpackers’ Ball at the Sultan Hotel, by Rolf Potts (essay)
• Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour (collection of letters)
• Il signor Bruschino (Rossini operatic farce)
• Kuchuk Hanem (19th century Egyptian belly dancer)
• Johnnie Wadie Red Tabel (Egyptian spirit)
• Herodotus (ancient Greek historian)
• Hello America (2000 Egyptian movie)
• Saqqara (ancient burial ground in Egypt)
• Pyramid of Djoser (archaeological site in the Saqqara necropolis)
• Giza Necropolis (Egyptian pyramid complex)
• Djellaba (Arab robe)
• Keffiyeh (traditional Arabian headdress)
• Hijab (Muslim veil)
• “Kicking & Screaming” might be the best movie ever (Deviate episode)
• Kushari (Egyptian street food)
• Dahab (backpacker town in the Egyptian Sinai)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel's 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we're happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“My ambition was not financial, but a creative ambition toward fulfillment and satisfaction -- and to be a better human toward those whom I loved.” – Brian Koppelman In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Brian discuss podcast fandom, and how listening to podcasts is intimate in a way other media is not (2:00); self-improvement and ambition versus fulfillment, and the cultural reach of what Brian has created (11:00); the influence of music, and how a single album or artwork affects you at certain ages or times of your life (22:00); and masculine emotions as they are expressed in music, and writing to music informs your creativity (41:00). Brian Koppleman (@briankoppelman) is a screenwriter and co-creator / showrunner of the television show Billions. His screenwriting credits include Rounders and Ocean’s Thirteen. He is also the host of The Moment podcast.  Notable Links:

• Grantland (sports and culture website)
• Bill Simmons (podcaster and sports writer)
• Wesley Morris on podcast fame (Deviate episode)
• Killing Yourself to Live, by Chuck Klosterman (book)
• This Is What They Want (Jimmy Connors documentary)
• "I Contain Multitudes" (2020 Bob Dylan song)
• The Four Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss (book)
• Rolf Potts on Travel Tactics (Tim Ferriss podcast episode)
• Seth Godin (business executive)
• Scriptnotes (podcast)
• Ryan Lochte (Olympic swimmer)
• Neil Peart (musician)
• Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road, by Neil Peart (book)
• Tracy Chapman (singer-songwriter)
• Exile in Guyville (Liz Phair album)
• Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerney (novel)
• The Number of the Beast (Iron Maiden album)
• Judas Priest (music artist)
• Stryper (American Christian metal band)
• Spoon River Anthology, by Edger Lee Masters

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Realizing that you will die greatly clarifies your vision of life, and stimulates opportunities for making the vision real.”  –Ed Buryn In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ed discuss the impetus behind Ed's first travels to Europe by van in the 1960s, and his early forays into self-printed and self-promoted books about the experience (3:00); how travel to Europe was different 50 years ago, and the joy and freedom that comes with not knowing what happens next (14:30); Ed's philosophies and influences, including living in "the now" (21:00); how travel allows you to reinvent yourself, and how meeting people is the best gift of travel (36:00); and Ed's ambitions for poetry and travel, and his advice to travelers in today’s world (44:30).

Ed Buryn is an author and photographer who was one of the first to popularize the term “vagabonding” through the publication of his books Vagabonding In Europe and North America and Vagabonding in America. For more about Ed, check out https://edburyn.com.

Notable Links:

• Kevin Kelly (writer, editor, and publisher)
• Tony Wheeler (founder of Lonely Planet travel guides)
• Bill Dalton (founder of Moon travel guides)
• Charles Plymell on the Beat Generation (Deviate episode)
• The Drifters, by James Michener (book)
• Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis (book)
• Henry Miller (author)
• CouchSurfing ((homestay and social networking service)
• Richard Halliburton (traveler and author)
• Tarot (playing cards used for divination)
• Nevada City (community in northern California)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks has employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“I met people who would say, ‘I wish I had more time to travel like you do.’ They had more money than time, and I had more time than money. In terms of traveling it’s much better to have more time than more money. …If you have a chance to travel, just do it. You won’t regret it.” – Kevin Kelly Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) is a polymath in the truest sense of the word. Aside from being a co-founder of Wired magazine, he is also co-founder of the Rosetta Project, which is aiming to build an archive of all documented human languages, and he serves on the board of the Long Now Foundation. He is a photographer, writer, and futurist (he was “futurist adviser” on the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie, Minority Report), with much of his work centering on Asian and digital culture. In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kevin discuss the inspiration for his Asia travel in the 1970s (3:00); getting around and dealing with language barriers (15:00); the people he encountered while traveling in Asia, and the life-expanding nature of his journey (32:00); what he packed (47:00); modernity and technology in Asia, and managing his photography during travel (1:07:00); and self-actualization, discovering oneself through travel, and what the future holds in Asia. For more on Kevin, check out http://kk.org/ Notable Links:

• Asia Grace, by Kevin Kelly (photography book)
• “Shoulda Been Dead” (This American Life episode on Kevin’s Jerusalem conversion experience)
• Out of Control, by Kevin Kelly (book)
• Kevin Kelly’s interview with Tim Ferriss (podcast episode)
• “1000 True Fans” by Kevin Kelly (essay)
• Aerogram (pre-stamped airmail envelope)
• Poste restante (postal pick-up service for travelers)
• Maureen Wheeler (publisher)
• Tony Wheeler (publisher)
• Rick Steves (travel writer and publisher)
• Hilary Bradt (guidebook publisher)
• Bill Dalton (guidebook publisher)
• Lonely Planet (travel guidebook)
• Moon Guide (travel guidebook)
• Rough Guides (travel guidebook)
• National Geographic (magazine)
• Video Night in Kathmandu, by Pico Iyer (book)
• Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman (book)
• Hippie Trail (travel route)
• “Remembering the Hippie Trail” by Rolf Potts (essay)
• Recomendo (weekly recommendation newsletter)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“The opening line of your work should hold within it the germ of your entire idea. Attention spans are growing ever shorter. Grab your reader while you can.” – Bettina Gilois Bettina Gilois (1961-2020) was an award-winning screenwriter and author who worked in Hollywood for more than thirty years. Her screen credits included McFarland, USA and Glory Road. In this rebroadcast episode of Deviate (which originally aired in July of 2019), Bettina and Rolf discuss writing about real people (4:00); Bettina’s career path and the importance of perseverance (24:00); the importance of simplicity in storytelling (41:00); why certain stories are worth telling (56:00); and the craft of writing (1:15:00). Notable Links:

• Bettina’s Chapman University page (includes links to craft-advice essays)
• Thomas Kinkaid (painter)
• Billion Dollar Painter, by Bettina Gilois (book)
• Andy Warhol (artist)
• Talking Heads (band)
• Ari Emanuel (talent agent)
• Twister (film)
• Robert Durst (real estate heir)
• Rick Hall (record producer)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"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 and his parents, Alice and George Potts, talk about how surviving the COVID-19 pandemic has changed their relationship, and how it gave them a pretext to go through a "death checklist" together (3:00); how one's grandparents and parents live on in one's memories and one's conversations, the life-values they passed on, and what it felt like when those loved ones declined and died (14:00); how, over the years, elderly people and philosophers have come to terms with notions of decline and death (31:00); and personal insights about what it's like to have grown older after having lived a long life (44:00). George and Alice Potts are retired schoolteachers based in Kansas. George taught science at various Wichita high schools, as well as at Friends University, where he pioneered graduate-level programs in Zoo Science and Environmental Studies. He also helped facilitate the Outdoor Wildlife Learning Sites (OWLS) program for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Alice taught second graders in the Wichita public schools for more than 30 years. In 1994 her classes succeed in promoting legislation to declare the barred tiger salamander the Kansas State Amphibian. Notable Links:

• loved-one-dies-checklist.html">What to Do When a Loved One Dies (AARP death checklist)
• How we die in America (Deviate episode)
• The therapeutic uses of reading scripture (Deviate episode)
• On losing one’s parents to COVID-19 (Deviate episode)
• 1985 World Series (baseball championship)
• Joe Louis (20th century boxing champion)
• John Prine (singer-songwriter)
• Alzheimer's disease (chronic neurodegenerative disease)
• You Are My Sunshine (folk song)
• Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone (folk song)
• Ecclesiastes (book in the Old Testament of the Bible)
• Epistle of James (book in the New Testament of the Bible)
• Crowfoot (19th century Siksika First Nation chief)
• Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber)
• Epicurus (ancient Greek philosopher)
• Varanasi (Hindu holy city in India)
• Lamentations 3:22-23 (Old Testament Bible verse)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“One of the miracles of travel writing is to constantly be reminded of how much we don’t know.” – Doug Bock Clark In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Doug discuss how travel writing is defined, and what purposes it serves in the twenty-first century (3:30), the boundaries of travel writing, the nuanced task of trying to humanize people in a travel story, and the future of the form (19:00). Then, Rolf reads his essay, "Why Travel Writing Matters" from the Fall 2017 issue of The Chattahoochee Review (29:00). Doug Bock Clark (@DougBockClark) is a GQ correspondent and a contributor for the website of The New Yorker. His first book, The Last Whalers, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2019. He also produced the feature documentary Assassins, which premiered at Sundance in January 2020 and was inspired by one of his investigations. Notable Links:

• The Missionary and the Uncontacted Tribe, by Doug Bock Clark (article)
• Down Myanmar’s Sacred Irrawaddy River, by Doug Bock Clark (article)
• Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo (book)
• Peter Hessler (writer)
• Storming “The Beach”, by Rolf Potts (essay)
• Making sense of The Beach, 20 years later (podcast episode)
• Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, by Rolf Potts (book)
• William of Rubruck (explorer)
• Siberut (island in Indonesia)
• Andaman Islands (archipelago in the Bay of Bengal)
• Zhang Qian (2nd century BC Chinese envoy)
• The Histories, by Herodotus (ancient travel narrative)
• Orhan Pamuk (Turkish author)
• Why Travel Writing Matters, by Rolf Potts (essay)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Santa Fe Writing Workshop, the leading experiential photographic workshop and writers lab in the US. Offering world-renowned professional photographers and Pulitzer Prize winning writers both in the U.S. and abroad, its reputation has been built upon a foundation of creativity and community for individuals of all levels. Prioritizing inspiration and openness to new ideas as much as it does craft, the Santa Fe Writing Workshop establishes itself as an enclave of creativity and education. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"The Lamalerans hunt in a way that is almost exactly the same as the way people hunted during Moby Dick's time. Going on one of these hunts is analogous to what Ishmael or Queequeg was doing." –Doug Bock Clark In this episode of Deviate Rolf and Doug talk about how he came to write about the Lamalerans, and how he aimed to evoke a sense for what it's like to live in the isolated fishing communities of that part of the world (2:30); how and why the Lamalerans came to embrace a traditional hunting and barter lifestyle, and what indigenous groups are trying to live similar lifestyles (7:30); unique social rituals, spiritual systems, and ways of speaking carried out by Lamalerans (18:30); what aspects of modernity had been embraced by the tribespeople, and why, when Doug went to that part of the world (25:00); Doug's personal experience of living on the island with the Lamalerans, and how he chose to tell the story of the islanders​ (33:00); how the influence of technology and the outside world, including tourism, is affecting the Lamalerans (41:00); and what encounters with cultures like this can teach us about who we are, who we were, and who we will be (53:00). Doug Bock Clark (@DougBockClark) is a GQ correspondent and a contributor for the website of The New Yorker. His first book, The Last Whalers, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2019. He also produced the feature documentary Assassins, which premiered at Sundance in January 2020 and was inspired by one of his investigations. Notable Links:

• Aboriginal whaling (traditional hunting method)
• Lembata (island in Indonesia)
• John Allen Chau (American missionary killed on North Sentinel Island)
• "The American Missionary and the Uncontacted Tribe" (article)
• Lashed-lug boat (ancient boat-building technique)
• Melanesians (indigenous peoples in the South Pacific)
• Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (novel)
• 19th century American whaling (industry)
• Ishmael and Queequeg (Moby-Dick characters)
• Amish (traditionalist Christian sect)
• Rumspringa (Amish rite of passage)
• Bahasa Indonesian (language)
• Lamaholot (language)
• Siberut (largest the Mentawai Islands, near Sumatra)
• Human Planet (TV documentary series)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks has employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"One reason why Gatsby is called a 'Great American Novel' is that it illuminates a conversation we haven't stopped having in this country. We keep pretending to be people we're not." –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate Rolf and his old high school friends reflect on the role of Nick Carraway as the narrator of The Great Gatsby, how he deals with race and privilege, and whether or not his perspective is reliable (7:00); Fitzgerald's use of language and juxtaposition in depicting characters and their relationships (22:00); the characters' lack of moral grounding amid the opulence and wealth, and how it drives the story (28:00); how the youth and the age of the characters in Gatsby resonates differently depending your age when you read it (38:30); and how big questions like love, money, and life are addressed in the novel (49:00). [Easter Egg "Lightning Round" kicks in at 51:45.] Morgan-Kaye.php">Kaye Monk-Morgan is an Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs at Wichita State University, where she facilitates leadership and professional development opportunities for low-income and first-generation students. Erin Perry O'Donnell operates Dovetail Community Workshop, which teaches woodworking classes in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tom Davis teaches English at Sumner Academy of Arts & Science in Kansas City, Kansas. Notable Links:

• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (novel)
• Wichita North High (public school)
• Black buck (racial slur)
• Nouveau riche (class-specific term)
• Unreliable narrator (storytelling point-of-view)
• Bromance (close male relationship)
• Wall Street Crash of 1929 (stock market crash)
• 1918 Spanish flu pandemic (influenza outbreak)
• Poor Richard's Almanack, by Benjamin Franklin (book)
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (memoir)
• Immanuel Kant (German philosopher)
• Baby boomers (demographic cohort)
• "The Ivy Crown," by William Carlos Williams (poem)
• Playboy Mansion (former home of Hugh Hefner)
• Kato Kaelin (pop-culture personality)
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl (stock character in films)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“You can’t ever really know what a museum will offer you until you get there.” – Kendra Green In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kendra discuss their own earliest fascination with museums (2:40); the appeal and particularities of Icelandic museums (10:00); museums as a form of national identity (24:00); the relationship of collecting to the creation of museums (35:00); and museums as a way of engaging with one’s imagination (46:00).  Kendra Greene is a writer, artist, and author of The Museum of Whales You Will Never See. She has worked at various museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the Chicago History Museum. Karen is currently Associate Editor of prose at the Southwest Review and a Fellow at Harvard University's Library Innovation Lab. For more about Kendra, check out http://akendragreene.com.   Notable Links:

• Chicago Museum of Science and Industry (museum)
• Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago museum)
• La Brea Tar Pits (Los Angeles attraction)
• Icelandic Phallological Museum (penis museum)
• Museum of Jurassic Technology (Los Angeles museum)
• Cabinets of curiosities (pre-museum collections)
• Jack London (author)
• John Steinbeck (author)
• Nábrók (Icelandic necropants)
• Egil’s Saga (Icelandic saga)
• The Tourist, by Dean MacCannell (book)
• Elgin Marbles (Greek sculptures)
• Petra’s Stone Collection (museum)
• Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft (museum)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. Airtreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The Airtreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. This episode of Deviate is also brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, and many other industry outlets. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"He gave us five rules for jumping freight trains, and we broke every one of those rules once the adventure began." --Brian Hartenstein In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and his longtime friend Brian recall their old ambition to jump freight trains across the Pacific Northwest, and what factors inspired it (4:00); what kinds of research and preparation they did to make the train-jumping experience possible (16:30); the early hours of their attempt to reach Canada by catching a boxcar from the Vancouver, Washington rail yard, and the dangers of challenges that awaited them (28:30); their unanticipated detour through the Columbia Gorge to Pasco, and their experience of getting detained by railroad police in Spokane (35:00); making the decision to escape Spokane by retracing their route, and getting stuck in a "hobo jungle" in the town of Wishram (56:30); making sense of the adventure afterwards, and how train-jumping has (and has not) changed in the social-media age (1:15:30). Brian Hartenstein is an English-teacher-at-large, and the author of Me Gook, a Korean memoir. Notable links:

• Van Life before #VanLife (Deviate episode)
• Jack Kerouac (American novelist)
• "Travel," by Edna St. Vincent Millay (poem)
• The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, W. H. Davies (1908 memoir)
• Chris McCandless (traveler, subject of Into the Wild)
• Hero's journey (narrative template)
• Dr. Giggles (1992 horror movie Rolf appeared in as an extra)
• Emperor of the North Pole (1973 movie)
• Wishram, Washington (freight-depot town)
• Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison (1952 novel)
• Rainbow Family (counterculture group)

Freight-jumping links:

• Freight jumping (train-travel method)
• Burlington Northern (railroad company)
• Freight Train Riders of America (criminal gang)
• Boxcar Killer (serial killer, a.k.a. Robert Joseph Silveria Jr.)
• Boxcar (type of freight car)
• Covered hopper (type of freight car)
• Flatcar (type of freight car)
• Gondola (type of freight car)
• Stobe the Hobo (YouTube playlist)
• Remembering Stobe the Hobo (Facebook group)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.  Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Travel is often one part geography and nine parts imagination.” --Kate Harris In this episode of Deviate Rolf and Kate discuss Kate’s early fixation with exploration and interest in Mars (3:00); science as a catalyst for exploration (10:30); the universality of the human experience and her trip through Asia (21:00); the concept of borders (32:00); nostalgia and the transformational effect of travel (43:00); the role of home in relation to travel (52:00); and letting adventure into your life (1:02:00). Kate Harris (@kateonmars) is an adventure writer, named by Condé Nast Traveler as one of the "world’s most adventurous women.” Her work has appeared in Outside, The Walrus, and Georgia Review. Her book, Lands of Lost Borders, is a national bestseller For more about Kate, check out www.kateharris.ca Notable Links:

• Rolf's Q&A with Kate Harris (book foreword)
• Silk Road (network of trade routes)
• Mars Desert Research Station (Mars simulation in Utah)
• Morehead-Cain Scholarship (UNC program)
• Ernest Shackleton (explorer)
• Fridtjof Nansen (explorer)
• Annie Dillard (American author)
• Wind, Sand and Stars, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (book)
• Henry David Thoreau (writer)
• My Journey to Lhasa, by Alexandra David-Neel (book)
• Aksai Chin (region administered by China)
• Marco Polo (historical figure)
• Tomas Tranströmer (poet)
• Atlin (community in British Columbia)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks has employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"I had a great day in Cambodia, and I was like, 'Oh my god I'm so happy right now.' I had no idea what I was doing, or what I would discover, and I just trusted that I would be OK." --Andrew McCarthy In this episode of Deviate Rolf and Andrew discuss his relationship with interviews and the origin of the Brat Pack (3:30); fear and journaling in the time of pandemic, and treasured possessions (12:30); regrets, and artistic truth (23:00); writing as a way of thinking, and what Andrew values in his friends (29:00); and happiness, quarantine-reading, The Great Gatsby, and coming to terms with ones youthful success (38:00). Andrew McCarthy (@AndrewTMcCarthy), who rose to fame as a teen actor during the John Hughes 80’s era, is a television director and writer of such books as The Long Way Home and Just Fly Away.  Notable Links:

• Proust Questionnaire (set of interview questions)
• Confession album (19th century autograph book)
• Pretty in Pink (1986 film)
• St. Elmo’s Fire (1985 film)
• Camino de Santiago (pilgrimage route)
• Weekend at Bernie’s (1989 film)
• "Hollywood’s Brat Pack," by David Blum (article)
• Brat Pack (group of young actors in the 1980s)
• Mannequin (1987 film)
• Emilio Estevez (actor)
• George Carlin on "stuff" (comedy routine)
• Off the Road, by Jack Hitt (travel book)
• Joan Didion (American author)
• The Art of Memoir, by Mary Karr (book)
• The Big Lebowski (1998 film)
• Stoner, by John Williams (book)
• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (book)

This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. This episode is also brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories made with the traveler in mind. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.  Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"The dualities of the 'creative person' and the 'business person' don't need to exist any more, because one person can do all of it." --Sachit Gupta In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Sachit discuss creativity versus business success, and the currency of social media (2:30); the diminishing returns of listening to advice, and the importance of action (16:00); interview and preparation techniques, and how how "bringing value" can apply to spiritual ideas as readily as business ideas (24:00); being creative in business, and how creative people are now expected to do their own marketing and promotion (36:00); thinking innovatively, and breaking with habit and tradition (44:00); how success can be compromised in the clickbait era, and creativity in the age of social media (59:00). Sachit Gupta (@sachitgupta) is the founder of Platforms Media, where he helps creators build, grow, and scale their online platforms to amplify their message and connect with brands. He is also the host of the Conscious Creators Show.  Notable Links:

• Tim Ferriss (entrepreneur / podcaster)
• Entourage (television show)
• The Mixed Reviews (podcast)
• Kanye West (rapper)
• Rick Rubin (record producer)
• Craig Ferguson (television host)
• Scrivener (application)
• Punk icon Ian MacKaye (Deviate episode)
• Why dinosaurs matter (Deviate episode)
• Fallibility, reflexivity, and the human uncertainty principle (article)
• Range, by David Epstein (book)
• Powerhouse, by James Andrew Miller (book)
• Understanding Media, by Marshall McLuhan (book)
• Rolf's nephew Luke's TikTok (social media feed)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.  Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"Even the briefest trip into a tunnel or a cave can feel like an escape into a parallel reality, the way characters in children's books vanish through portals into secret worlds."  --Will Hunt In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Will talk about our imaginative relationship with underground places, and how it often starts in childhood (4:30); the concept of "urban exploration" in the industrial spaces underneath cities, and Will's fascination with a NYC graffiti artist named REVS (11:00); the catacombs of Paris, how easy it is to get lost underground, and how hard it is to map underground passages (26:15); going underground as a form of time travel, the microbes that live underground, and the relics that can be found underground (40:00); the spiritual aspect of spending time underground in the dark zone of a cave (51:00); and how and why to get started exploring underground (59:00). Will Hunt’s (@willhunt__) writing, photography, and audio storytelling have appeared in The Economist, the Paris Review Daily, The Atavist, The Guardian, Discover, Audible Originals, and Outside, among other places. He is currently a visiting scholar at the NYU Institute for Public Knowledge. Underground is his first book. More about Will at: https://www.willhunt.net/ Notable Links:

• Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá (underground church in Colombia)
• Mount of the Temptation (hill in the Judean Desert)
• Panoptikum (labyrinth in Budapest)
• Freedom Tunnel (railway tunnel in NYC)
• Urban exploration (exploration of abandoned places in cities)
• Revs (graffiti artist)
• Catacombs of Paris (tunnel network)
• Philibert Aspairt (man who died in the Paris catacombs in 1793)
• Cataphiles (urban explorers who illegally tour the Mines of Paris)
• Metro-2 (purported secret underground metro system in Moscow)
• How Getting Lost in a Cave Affects the Brain (article)
• Strataca (salt-mine museum in Kansas)
• Lakota Wind Cave (site in South Dakota)
• Homestake Mine (deep South Dakota gold mine)
• Gregory of Nyssa (Christian saint)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel's 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we're happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“You need to create your own life, and gather memories while you still can. There are no guarantees that you will have a 'next year' or a 'ten years from now' or even a tomorrow.” –Maggie Downs In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Maggie discuss how she started traveling (3:00); “trying on” different versions of yourself during travel (17:00); and travel as a way to reflect on your life (37:00). Maggie Downs (@downsanddirty) is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and Lonely Planet’s True Stories From the World’s Best Writers and Best Women’s Travel Writing. She is the author of Braver Than You Think. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.  Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“I reached out to dozens of potential mentors. The two that that changed my life are the ones who didn't give me advice upon first meeting me, but asked me questions..” –Alex Banayan In this episode of Deviate, Rolf, Cal, and Alex discuss how Alex realized he desperately he needed help in writing his book The Third Door, how Cal Fussman came to help him with the project, and why asking questions is as essential of a mentor as is giving advice (5:30); why the vulnerability and tension of good storytelling is more essential than conveying dry facts in writing a business book, and how Cal encouraged Alex to recount a humiliating story about sending a single shoe to Warren Buffet at the behest of a bad-faith mentor (23:00); what happens when a would-be mentor gives the mentee advice out of narcissism or bad faith, and how to know when not to heed the advice of a mentor (35:00); how to find and recount the most vulnerable and appealing part of your own life-narrative, and how Cal taught himself how to tell good stories (42:00); what Cal and Alex's mentoring sessions looked like, in terms of what Cal was trying to get Alex to understand (51:00); what Cal learned from Alex as his mentor, how Alex's insights improved his career, and what older people in general can learn from younger people (56:30); and what kinds of advice Cal and Alex have for people seeking to discover and fine-tune mentor-mentee relationships (1:02:00). Cal Fussman (@calfussman) is a journalist, author, and Writer at Large for Esquire Magazine, where he has interviewed the likes of Muhammad Ali, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Robert DeNiro and hundreds of others who’ve shaped the last half-century. Alex Banayan (@AlexBanayan) was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30, and Business Insider’s “Most Powerful People Under 30” lists. He is the author of the international bestseller The Third Door. For more about Cal and Alex, check out their websites, https://www.calfussman.com and https://thirddoorbook.com. Notable Links:

• • Larry King (television host)
  • Warren Buffett (American investor)
  • Reid Hoffman (American internet entrepreneur)
  • Nelson Mandela (former President of South Africa)
  • Muhammad Ali (boxer)
  • Gary Vaynerchuk (entrepreneur)
  • Elliot Bisnow (entrepreneur)
  • Tim Ferriss on how to create a successful podcast (Deviate episode)
  • The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho (book)
  • Sonia Sotomayor (Supreme Court Justice)
  • Charles Dickens (writer)
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky (author)
  • O. Henry (writer)
  • Sugar Ray Leonard (boxer)
  • Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer (SNL sketch)
  • @lukeoakvt (TikTok account)

This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, the New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.  Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.