Remember traveling? While you’re stuck inside in the pandemic, you can still travel far and wide thanks to the Far from Home podcast by public radio veteran Scott Gurian. Scott takes you along for the ride on one of the world’s epic road trips from London to Mongolia and back across the deserts of Iran and mountains of central Asia. The Peabody award winner talks about how a not-so-adventurous guy from New Jersey came to document that trip and others.

Countries featured: Iran, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Cuba, Mexico, USA

Publications featured: NPR, WNYC, Planet Money, Pacifica radio

Scott discusses beginning his career by making it up as he goes along in advocacy and community radio (6:44), his “driveway moment” that turns him on to NPR and getting into mainstream public radio in Oklahoma (13:17), being thrust into covering Hurricane Sandy (25:47), how a trip to Cuba set him on a path toward Mongol Rally and travel podcasting (30:00), the nitty gritty of the economics of podcasting, the ins and outs of public radio universe and the tension between podcasts and radio (41:10), jpw frozen equipment in Alaska and sketchy bootleggers lead some stories to fall through (47:00), his years reporting about the Hurricane Sandy response and the Peabody winning story (51:08), and finally the lightning round (55:25).

Here are links to some of the things we talked about:

Scott’s podcast Far from Home - http://bit.ly/3qpH2Ec

HowSound podcast by Rob Rosenthal - http://apple.co/3pmQdnk

WNYC’s Peabody winning coverage of Hurricane Sandy response - http://bit.ly/3ai2VQb

Scott’s story on Antigua and Barbuda for Planet Money - http://n.pr/3d5rlOy

Vox podcast Today, Explained - http://bit.ly/3dapcRD

An Arm and a Leg podcast - http://bit.ly/37beYwH

In the Dark podcast Season 2 - http://apple.co/2GYGUdc

Chef Yotam Ottolenghi wiki - http://bit.ly/2OsLX92

Milk Street cooking website - http://bit.ly/3qlDu5D

Bill Buford’s book Among the Thugs - https://amzn.to/3jN3J2D

Throughline podcast - http://n.pr/3s44jfl

WNYC’s On the Media radio show - http://bit.ly/2NkxhZ8

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Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats

From: freemusicarchive.org

CC BY NC