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PODCAST

Travel Tales by Afar

Travel, at its best, changes the way we see the world. Join us each week as we dig into stories from people who took a trip—and came home transformed. Travel Tales by Afar is your ticket to the world, no passport required.

society & culture places & travel

All Episodes

24:16

Is This Europe’s Most Underrated Food Tradition?

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2024/07/25

Some of our favorite travel moments are the ones you’d never in a million years expect. These are where the best travel stories are born. And this week, Afar’s executive editor, Billie Cohen, has a very delicious, very serendipitous story for us. As you’ll hear in the episode, Billie was in Estonia (one of Afar’s picks for where to travel in 2024) for work. It was 9 p.m. and she was due to fly home the next day. But then her guide, Hanno, mentioned something about the country’s “open café days,”

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19:27

In Mumbai, Everyone Thought I Was a Local. Here’s How...

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2024/07/18

When Afar editorial director Sarika Bansal was 22, she moved to Mumbai. As you’ll hear in her Travel Tale this week, she grew up in New York and visited India (where her parents were born) frequently. Yet the visits often felt cloistered. But many years later in Mumbai, she didn’t have to worry about meeting family expectations, and she was free to develop her own connection with the place. And therein lay the challenge. Because while she looked like everyone else, she didn’t have “the cultural

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20:20

The Unexpected Magic of a Turkish Barbershop

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2024/07/11

When it comes to relationships, often there’s the planner—and then there’s the go-with-the-flow-er. And today’s episode of Travel Tales by Afar is all about what happens when the planner hesitantly chucks the travel to-do list and lets serendipity lead the way. Beth Santos is the planner in this particular story. She’s the founder of Wanderful, an online women’s travel community that grew out of her solo travels as a young woman, and is an incredibly prolific and passionate entrepreneur and

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23:28

Replay: Comedian Michelle Buteau, "I Got Stood Up in...

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2024/07/04

This week, we’re replaying one of our favorite Travel Tales episodes: Comedian and actress Michelle Buteau—and her best friend—fly to Paris to meet their supposed French boyfriends. Only things don’t exactly go to plan . . .Michelle Buteau is a comedian and actress, known for her roles in Always Be My Maybe, The First Wives Club, Someone Great, Russian Doll, and Tales of the City. She is also the host of The Circle and has stand-up specials—including the award-winning Welcome to Buteaupia—on

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35:21

Why This Man Biked Across the United States—Without...

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2024/06/27

In late 2016, Daniel Troia was struggling with grief. Grief over the loss of his parents and grief over the division he saw unfolding on his TV, night after night. It made him angry, and that made him want to do something to change things, or at least to change his perception of things. So, in 2018, he set out on a cross-country bike ride. His plan was to ride from California to New York—with no food or money. He thought that if he was forced to rely on the kindness of strangers, he would also have

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30:12

A Poet’s Pilgrimage to Italy’s Violin-Making Capital

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2024/06/20

When poet Tess Taylor’s son, Bennett, was three years old, he heard the violin for the first time. For weeks afterward, every day he asked her for a violin, so finally she took him into a local violin shop and asked for help. The shop owner put a tiny violin and bow in his hands and Bennett asked, “But how do I make it sound beautiful?” Fast-forward nearly a decade and Bennett was still playing the violin—expanding into bluegrass and classical music, finding his footing as a musician. Tess had read

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33:01

Big Animals, and Even Bigger Adventures, in a Part of...

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2024/06/13

When most of us think about nature in Argentina, our minds go immediately to Patagonia—which is a spectacular place worth visiting (it’s one of the most memorable places I’ve been to). But in this week’s episode, we’re exploring two regions in Argentina that most travelers miss: El Impenetrable National Park in the north and Patagonia Azul in the south. These places are relatively unfrequented in large part because, up until a few years ago, there really wasn’t an easy way for travelers to access

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24:58

A Canadian Biologist's First Encounter With the...

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2024/06/06

Today we’re launching Travel Tales, season five. And we’re kicking off this season with a roar, although the subjects of today’s episode (polar bears) are much quieter than you’d imagine. Nearly two years ago, host Aislyn Greene attended a TED Talk event in New York, held in partnership with the Canadian tourism board. There she met environmentalist and entrepreneur Kevin Smith, who shared his tale in an episode from last season, about how a grizzly bear changed his life, and she met biologist

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38:40

Introducing The Decision Coach: How to Make Big Choices

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2024/05/02

Back in February, we interviewed Nell McShane Wulfhart, host of the Decision Coach podcast. She was a fantastic interview—lively, funny, and passionate about helping people make big decisions. She’s also the first one to say she’s really just a “professional bossy boots”—it’s not like you can go to the university of decision-coaching—but over the years, she’s honed her advice-giving skills. And out of all that came her podcast, which features six people who are on the cusp of life-changing decisions

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48:32

Unpacked: The 25 Most Exciting Places to Travel in 2024

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2024/02/08

We're three weeks into the new year. Maybe you're a freshly minted, idealized version of yourself. Or maybe your new year's resolutions are as distant as the icebergs of Antarctica. But no matter what your life looks like, there's one thing you can count on: travel.Today, we’re sharing a special episode from Unpacked by AFAR. Unpacked by AFAR is back for a new season which unpacks the most captivating and challenging topics in the travel industry. Like this episode, where AFAR editors Sarika

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37:53

The Plus-Size Traveler on a Mission to Change the World

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2023/12/14

How often do you do something that scares you? This week on Travel Tales by AFAR, Jeff Jenkins—host of the National Geographic show Never Say Never—reminds us that life begins where our comfort zone ends. On his show, Jeff tests the limits of his physical and mental abilities. He climbs mountains, cave dives, learns to sumo wrestle, races in a Maori canoe (called a waka), and does basically anything else that is likely to terrify-slash-excite. His adventures also serve another purpose: as

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35:28

A Canadian Grizzly Bear Changed My Life

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2023/12/07

The Great Bear Rainforest is one of the most spectacular, pristine protected places in Canada. But it wasn't always this way. Kevin Smith, a boat captain who grew up in British Columbia and now owns and operates Maple Leaf Adventures, was instrumental in helping turn the local economy from extraction (logging) to tourism. Since then, he's guided thousands of travelers through the wilds of the rainforest and helped build relationships with the Coastal First Nations who have lived there for thousands

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31:42

Life Lessons From a Dutch Art Movement

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2023/11/30

Can geometric shapes heal the world? That's what the artists of the De Stijl movement—which came of age in the Netherlands after World War I—believed. Piet Mondrian is one of the most famous members of this group, which forbade circles and embraced light, color, and geometry as a way to move past the chaos of the war. As AFAR contributing writer Chris Colin discovers on a trip to Utrecht, that's not quite as bizarre as it sounds. And as he bicycles through quaint streets, meditates along charming

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37:50

A Blind Surfer Takes on Kauai’s Legendary Waves

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2023/11/22

For writer Ryan Knighton, surfing is one of the rare occurrences where he feels completely free. Because, in addition to being an excellent writer, a dad, and a curious individual, Ryan is blind. But that's never stopped him from exploring the world. So more than a decade ago, he learned to surf and has been riding the waves near his home in British Columbia ever since. But he’s always had a hankering to surf in a location he doesn’t know intimately. So this year, he traveled to Kaua‘i, where he

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32:17

On France’s Newest Food Trail, Life Is One Long,...

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2023/11/16

What's it like to eat your way along France's Vallée de la Gastronomie, a 400-mile food trail that begins in Dijon and ends in Marseille? That's the question we're exploring in this week's episode of Travel Tales by AFAR. Host Aislyn Greene, who spent some formative time in France as a 20-something, returns to hunt truffles, meet famous French cows, and taste wine in a cave. Don't miss these moments! 2:25: Her introduction to French food 8:13: Truffle hunting in Burgundy with the world's cutest

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22:08

Dolly Parton Went From a One-Room Cabin to a Smoky...

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2023/11/08

The Great Smoky Mountains have had an outsized impact on Dolly Parton—they shaped the way she grew up, influenced her music, and are the only place where she feels truly restored. Which is why she has spent her adult life giving back to the region, primarily through tourism. On this week's episode, we travel to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, for the unveiling of Dolly's new hotel, HeartSong Lodge & Resort. She shares what makes the hotel special, what's coming next, and sits down with our journalist to

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25:46

A Food Writer Returned to Nigeria. The Experience...

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2023/11/02

After 15 years of living in the United States, food writer—and author of the new cookbook My Everyday Lagos—Yewande Komolafe finally revisited her home city: Lagos, Nigeria. In this episode of Travel Tales by AFAR, we hear the story of that journey and how it helped her heal, and how it helped her reconnect with the Nigerian foods she grew up with. On that first trip back home, she discovered: The things that make home feel like home, even when it doesn't look the same A new connection with

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36:30

Facing Mountains, Loss, and My Inner Overachiever on...

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2023/10/26

Writer and avid hiker Peggy Orenstein is exactly the kind of person you should send off into the wilderness with an iPhone and a pair of hiking boots. And for this episode, we did just that. In October 2022, Slovenia rolled out the 167-mile Juliana Trail, a route that circles Slovenia's Triglav National park and the Julian Alps and takes walkers back in time. Peggy tackled a portion of the trail and along the way, she found: Well-preserved remnants of World War I. A rich farm-to-table

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27:55

Traveling With the Ghosts of Mumbai

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2023/10/19

How does a place change when the person who defined it for you is now gone? That's the question we're exploring in this week's episode of Travel Tales by AFAR. Author Shruti Swamy grew up in the United States, but her parents grew up in Mumbai, India, so she has a unique relationship with the city, in some ways intimate and in some ways totally distant. Her aunt, Ila Mami, was the person who helped her find Mumbai’s pulse, who helped her fall in love with the city’s colors and tastes and smells

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37:41

50 Years After Picasso’s Death, I Retraced His Life...

Travel Tales by Afar ·

2023/10/12

50 years after Picasso’s death, AFAR associate editor Mae Hamilton traveled to Spain and France to retrace his life in Europe. She started in Málaga, Spain, where Picasso was born, and ended in Mougins, where Picasso spent his final days. As an art lover, she believes that art is one of the best ways to get to know a place. In this week's episode of Travel Tales by AFAR, Mae shares her story as well as: The ways that art can help us understand a place more deeply. Mae’s favorite places on her

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