National Geographic explorer Clare Fieseler has a way cooler job than you.

National Geographic explorer Clare Fieseler has a way cooler job than you.

Hey, pals!

As a species, we humans love to explore. We also love to share our explorations with other people (think of all the family vacation slideshows and home movies people have suffered through over the years). There are tons of podcasts out there celebrating travel and adventure and we figured we’d showcase a few so we could live vicariously through them.

But podcasts aren’t just a great way to chronicle interesting journeys or share travel tips; they’re also a perfect travel companion. Clare Fieseler knows this better than most. She’s a National Geographic explorer and Smithsonian fellow. And in her spare time, she’s also a marine ecologist studying coral reefs around the world.

Fieseler travels to some of the most remote parts of the globe for her very cool job(s) and a lot of the time her destinations lack the creature comforts one might be used to living in the U.S. Often there’s no WiFi or even running water or flush toilets. So podcasts are often her only entertainment. Before she leaves on a long trip, she downloads a month’s worth of shows to keep her company during long plane rides or bumpy bus journeys or lonely nights spent running experiments.

Here’s what her playlist is looking like these days:

Longform

No Filter

She Does

Love + Radio — The Living Room

Radiolab — The Man Behind The Maneuver

Listen to the rest of the show!

This is just one segment from a whole show about adventure! Click here to explore the entire episode.

Most Recent Shows

Monday, Oct 08 2018The Big Listen ended production in May 2018. While this site is no longer updated, all the content remains available for archive purposes.

Tegan & Sara, Podcast Super Fans (Encore)

Thursday, May 24 2018Musicians Tegan and Sara are podcast obsessives. This episode, we take a peek at their extensive playlist, plus hear about their own idea for a podcast. Also, the hosts of the LGBTQ show Nancy share their funny and tragic coming out stories. And the Pakistani American host of Beginner walks us through all the things she never learned as a immigrant, like biking and swimming. Plus: saving podcasts for posterity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Keep reading...

The Big Listen Finale! (Encore)

Thursday, May 17 2018This is the final episode of The Big Listen. Boo! Hiss! Our show is going off the air (read more on that here) and we’re shifting our focus to other projects. So this is last you’ll hear from us. But we’ve so enjoyed getting to share all the great shows we’re listening to with you. Thank you for spending some time with us. Keep reading...

Peering Into Nicole Drespel’s Inbox (Encore)

Thursday, May 17 2018Over the course of your life, you’ve probably had at least a dozen email addresses. And I’m going to go out on a limb and say that at least a couple of those have been super embarrassing. Comedian Nicole Drespel can relate. Not only has she had deeply mortifying email addresses, but she’s also sent more than her fair share of ridiculous emails. Keep reading...