Deviate with Rolf Potts

“One way of making famous landmarks more comprehensible is to look for surprises, good and bad, that go beyond what you are expected to encounter there, details that open you up to the raw imperfections of the encounter itself.”  –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate – which is a redo of episode 229, which didn't air

“Not everyone who's lucky is talented and not everyone who's talented is lucky.”  –Tom Bissell In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tom talk about Tom's lack of travel experience when he joined the Peace Corps, and how he dealt with his early failures (2:30); the role that luck (as well as craft and obsessive reading)

“One way of making famous landmarks more comprehensible is to look for surprises, good and bad, that go beyond what you are expected to encounter there, details that open you up to the raw imperfections of the encounter itself.”  –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and The Vagabond’s Way book club participants

“One ironic anxiety of travel is that suddenly you're living in 'organic time' and you're not used to it.”  –Rolf Potts In this "vagabonding audio companion" episode of Deviate, remixed from Aaron Millar's Armchair Explorer podcast, Rolf talks about his earliest travel dreams, and what compelled him to finally take a v

“A wonderful aspect of traveling by train is the transactional relationship between passengers who feed off one another, picking up tips, offering advice, guarding each other’s belongings, and generating a trust that is unique to railway travel.”  –Monisha Rajesh In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Monisha discuss how

“We live in an age where you can take a series short flights inside a country to speed things up. You end up going to more places, but you experience less, because you're not really committed to that chicken bus full of really interesting people who want nothing more than to interact with you.”  –Rolf Potts In this epi