We have to make a long drive from California to Texas at the end of the summer to transport my D’s car from her internship location to school. Does anyone have any good podcast recommendations to help keep us entertained?
What are the interests of the people in the car?
If you want a mix of topics, here are my favorites in these areas:
History - History Extra or History This Week
Basketball - Titus & Tate
Economics - Grant’s Current Yield or Eurodollar University
Investing - Super Investors or Macro Voices
Crime - The Cooper Vortex (I don’t enjoy violent crime podcasts and this is non-violent)
Mindless Goofiness - Smartless
Ooh, and if you like Cold War Espionage - The Agent is fantastic
How I built this
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Business wars
Song exploder
I don’t know the specific name but there was a moth storytelling podcast my friend’s mom listened to for a 5-hr drive when we went to a trip with them! pretty sure it was called storyslam or something like that.
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These are awesome and I have actually been to a live one. Very fun.
Also… Npr - Tiny Desk is awesome if you like music.
There are also known big name artist that do tiny desk also. Just search.
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Thanks so much all! It will be my husband and I and our daughter. Honestly, D will probably spend most of the drive with her earpods in listening to music and reading. She may listen to a podcast if something catches her interest. My husband loves history but for this long or a drive I’d love to have a variety of things to mix it up. Seems like you have all given me a lot to add to the list!
Another option we like is listening to books on Audible during long driving trips.
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Our go-to podcasts that everyone in the family like include This American Life, Radio Lab, and Planet Money. Other favorites include Hidden Brain, Invisibilia, Crime Junkie, Criminal, Revisionist History, This is Love, The Curious Case of Rutherford and Fry, and several of the Doctor Death series. (one of our favorites!) When we really want something brainless we look for a Dateline with Keith Morrison. We all enjoy doing Keith Morrison impressions on a long trip.
S-Town (from the Serial podcast producers) really had me hooked. I think I binged it in one weekend working on a yard project. And of course, the Serial podcast itself is also just so well done and interesting.
If you are into movies, try The Big Picture and/or The Rewatchables. For TV, try The Watch.
It depends on what types of podcasts keep you entertained. There is no limit to options, including highly specialized shows that would never reach a large enough audience to be popular in mainstream media. For example, I really enjoy the podcast Anime Out of Context, which involves anime being reviewed by a guy who does not like anime. I often find it hilarious, but if you aren’t familiar with the anime being reviewed, you probably are not going to like it.
For longer periods, I tend to favor continuous stories, rather than isolated episodes. The Left Right Game (The Left Right Game — QCODE ) seems fitting for something to listen to while driving on a long trip, assuming you like that kind of podcast (supernatural exploration, sort of like From or Lost). Or if you prefer based on true stories, ones like Dirty John or Doctor Death had enough mainstream popularity to be remade as TV shows.
we like to listen to podcasts that follow TV shows… . .we’ve listened to two different "the office " podcasts, the game of thrones podcasts, ozark podcasts to name of few. i love Wait Wait Dont tell me (npr); and while a victim to the pandemic, i always enjoyed the npr word/trivia game Ask Me another.
For history, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History is absolutely phenomenal, and (bonus for long trips) is longform (many many hours long). It’s absolutely stellar, especially his free series (he has a few) on WWI, and on the transatlantic slave trade.
Also, 99% Invisible is ostensibly about design, but it’s more about design in everyday life, so you get all sorts of interesting and unexpected topics.
we love Planet Money, Science Friday, Hidden Brain, and Ihave been listening to Arthur Brooks’ How to Build A Happy Life from The Atlantic. We trend towards shorter, and varied topics. I also am easily irritated by voices, so we skew to ones that don’t make me nuts