Podcast
Outside Podcast
Hosted by Outside · EN
Outside’s longstanding literary storytelling tradition comes to life in audio with features that will both entertain and inform listeners. We launched in March 2016 with our first series, Science of Survival, and have since expanded our show and now offer a range of story formats, including reports from our correspondents in the field and interviews with the biggest figures in sports, adventure, and the outdoors.
21episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
How a Normal(ish) Woman Got To The South Pole Unsupported, with Monet Izabeth
4d ago01:00:01Tap to summarizeWe love our spur of the moment adventuring. Maybe a pal calls us up for a self-inflicted, day-long backcountry sufferfest, maybe we decide on a whim to see how many miles we can push it on a bike ride, maybe we sign up for a Turkey Trot 10k with no training. But there is one woman who has taken that “maybe I’ll get off the couch and just try this hard thing” mindset to the ends of the Earth. Literally. This past January, Monet Izabeth became the first American woman to ski solo and unsupported to the South Pole; 700 miles, 57 days, whiteouts, extreme wind, and minus 40 temps. Monet is no elite athlete. She’s a self proclaimed normal-ish woman who asked, “I wonder if I can do this?” And then went to the ice sheets of Antarctica to find out.
Transcribe →How Running Can Heal Your Body, Mind, and Community, with Anthony Clary
2w ago00:54:15Tap to summarizeEndurance running is objectively terrible: the immediate quad and lung burn, the myth of runner’s high, the blisters, the chafing—running is brutal. And yet, there are brief moments when running can make you feel strong, capable, and proud. Just ask Anthony Clary. After a college football career, Anthony began running following a terrifying prediabetic diagnosis. But what started as a health scare transformed into a passion. Anthony battled through some of the worst things life can throw at you and found belonging, community, and purpose though running. And then he did something even more remarkable—he figured out how to make sure an entire community of people feel the same thing every time they lace up their shoes.
Transcribe →What a Healthy Relationship With Your Phone Looks Like, with Catherine Price
3w ago00:55:40Tap to summarizeWe use our smartphones in service of our outdoor time all the time. We plan trips, track our runs, hikes, and bike rides. Use compass and mapping apps to better navigate outdoor fun. We take photos and videos of our adventures, archive these precious memories in our Favorites folder. And if that’s all we used our phones for? Well, then we’d be happier and society would function better. Unfortunately, we live in the real world, which science journalist and author Catherine Price has documented rigorously and with depressing clarity in books like “How to Break Up With Your Phone.” Fortunately, she’s given equal thought to alternatives, in books like “The Amazing Generation” and “The Power of Fun.” That second one taught her a lot about the role time outside has to play in helping all of us redefine our relationship with technology and ourselves.
Transcribe →LIVE! Matt Lyons, Katie Burell, & Eland Stribling On Why The Outdoors Are A Joke (From Outside Days)
4w ago00:56:25Tap to summarizeIn the runup to the third annual Outside Days festival in Denver, Colorado, at the end of May, we’re revisiting a panel that podcast host PaddyO moderated—or rather tried to moderate—while stand up comic Eeland Stribling, Instagram and TikTok phenomenon Matt Lyons, and the new host of the Warren Miller ski and snowboard film Katie Burrell, riffed on the endless ways we can poke fun at our outdoorsy selves. After all, if you can’t laugh at yourself while sleeping in the dirt, running unreasonable distances, or applying chamois cream for the 57th time during an especially grueling bike ride that is, ahem, “fun” then you probably need a snack. Take a listen and be sure to check out the full lineup of bands, panels, speakers, and events, and snag your tickets of course, for this year’s Outside Days festival at https://outsidedays.outsideonline.com. See ya in Denver at the end of May!
Transcribe →The Joys and Wonders of Never Leaving Your Campsite, with Rolland Tizuela
Apr 1500:49:55Tap to summarizeHot Take: We should camp for camping’s sake! If you’re anything like me, your camping is often (always?) in service of some greater objective, whether it’s a backpacking trip or mountain you’re climbing or a weekend of mountain biking. But are those objectives actually greater than simply hanging out under the clouds and stars for a few days? Campthropologist’s Rolland Tizuela doesn’t think so. The San Diego-based creator focuses on making camping accessible and approachable for beginners, inspired in part by research he conducted on the culture of hiking and camping while getting a degree in sociocultural anthropology. In Rolland’s view, everything we do at camp—from cooking to tent siting to going to the bathroom—is a fascinating form of community building. It’s a conversation that has me excited to bring little more than a tent and a mellow attitude to my next overnight outdoors.
Transcribe →The Lifelong Benefits of Uprooting and Moving to Santa Fe with Katie Arnold
Apr 800:49:36Tap to summarizeEvery great character has a captivating origin story—the thing that explains not just the how but also the why of who they are. Santa Fe’s Katie Arnold is a great character: a writer, ultra runner, and Zen practitioner who rattles off insights about running, adventure, and the outdoors the way most of us rattle off to do lists. And her origin story is a classic: gal graduates college into a big city job, but a yearning for not just someTHING else but also someWHERE else rewrites her whole script. For Katie, the thing was a yearning for wide open space and where was Santa Fe, a place with the trail access, high alpine beauty, and an adventurous, irreverent community she didn’t realize she needed until she found it. What happened next was nothing short of life changing, and holds lessons for anyone with an itch they can’t quite scratch and yearning for wild places.
Transcribe →Anniversary Special!!! - Why Outdoorsy People Are The Funniest People, With Scott Losse
Apr 100:38:42Tap to summarizeToday we are celebrating one year of PaddyO as host of the new interview format of your beloved Outside Podcast. We’ve got some big plans for this next year, and to commemorate the occasion we are revisiting one of our (and your) favorite chats. Enjoy this conversation with standup comedian and snowboarder Scott Losse. And thank you for tuning in! … An interesting thing happened when Scott Losse started poking fun at snowboarders and mountain bikers in his Instagram posts: He went from being sort of known around Seattle as a stand up comedian to blowing up across social media as the guy saying all the things a lot of us think when we’re at the mountain, on the trails, or in the bike park. Losse’s observational humor about the outdoors has transformed his trajectory as a comic; more importantly, it helps ensure our often painfully self-serious social feeds, filled with inspiring-but-totally-unrelatable accomplishments, get a little more silly.
Transcribe →Where Surfing Ends and Music Begins, with Third Eye Blind’s Stephan Jenkins
Mar 2500:47:40Tap to summarizeIn the mid-90s, the cultural collision of music and sports was everywhere in pop culture. You saw it through the brand new X Games and MTV Sports, in movies like “Point Break” and “Airborne,” and you heard it through what we used to call “alternative rock.” The band Third Eye Blind was a staple of this era, so you’d think that frontman Stephan Jenkins might have followed a similar trajectory to his rock god peers of the era. But you’d be wrong. Stephan, a surfer since childhood, grew up in the Bay Area and his break of choice is San Francisco’s notoriously big, dangerous, and sharky Ocean Beach. And he’s not just out in the water looking for stoke; he's a tireless ocean advocate. For as long as he’s surfed, Stephan has fought for kelp restoration and plastic reduction along the California coastline. He also regularly volunteers with the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation, which helps veterans treat PTSD through surfing. This connection endlessly—even subconsciously—influences the music Stephan makes. Turns out, when you spend your life in the water and making music, the two things combine in ways that it takes a lifetime to understand.
Transcribe →Awe, and the Scientific Proof that the Outdoors is Good For Your Brain, with Dr. Paul Piff
Mar 1801:00:47Tap to summarizeYou’re on a hike and the faff of daily life won’t stop clanging around your head. Then, all of a sudden, the to-do list instantly evaporates when you notice dappled light dancing on the trail. Calm sweeps over you and you’re filled with a great sense of connection and gratitude. This is the phenomenon of awe and it’s not just an ooey-gooey feeling; it’s a new area of scientific study. Just ask social psychologist Dr. Paul Piff. Through ingenious experiments conducted on the South Shore of Lake Tahoe, Piff and his research team have identified that corner of California as potentially the epicenter of awe. After hiking along its shores and gazing upon its iconic waters, Piff’s Tahoe participants have responded with increased feelings of selflessness, empathy, and happiness. And the good doctor believes that if we can harness the effects of awe we can tackle the greatest societal issues of our time: the loneliness epidemic, digital addiction, and even the intractable polarization of society. This is all investigated in great detail in Outside TV’s new show “ Beyond Awestruck: The Scientific Search For Connection”, out now. And in this chat Dr. Piff outlines how our time outside is far more meaningful than cool views and handfuls of GORP.
Transcribe →The Joy (and Agony) of Skiing, Surfing, and Climbing in the Dead of Night, with Chris Benchetler
Mar 1000:49:34Tap to summarizeOutdoor folks love to push themselves to go farther, faster, higher, etc., and there’s a good reason for it: When you climb a big mountain or finish that half marathon or ski that steep run, it can translate into a confidence that makes hard things in the rest of our lives seem less daunting. But most of us are just as—or maybe more—familiar with the feeling of talking ourselves out of big goals, because they seem too complicated or scary to pull off. When that happens, we’d all do well to listen to skier and artist Chris Benchetler. Chris’s latest film, “Mountains of the Moon”, literally stretched the boundaries of what’s possible in adventure filmmaking. The movie was shot almost entirely at night, often in sub-zero, rugged backcountry terrain where massive lighting installations were built to paint the darkness and capture the athletes in their one-of-a-kind glowing skeleton suits (did we mention all the music is from the Grateful Dead?). It’s astonishing that the film even got made, but Chris has built a career and a life based on a simple principal: don’t avoid doing the hard thing just because it’s hard.
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