The family just did our big annual road trip to see my family in Northern VA. That meant over twenty hours on the road. I almost always create a new Roadtrips playlist every year (first in iTunes, then Rdio, now Spotify). This year’s was a little different since I let the kids add songs to it… and they did (for better or worse). We didn’t end up listening to it on the big drives, but it was great for our trips around town with everyone in the van.
We mostly listened to podcasts. This year, I created a new playlist in Overcast of things I’ve been meaning to catch up on, or that I know the kids like. It worked great, especially since I limited all of those podcasts to only the 5 most recent episodes. It kept us from getting too many episodes of the same podcast in a row, and kept me awake since I never knew what was coming up next.
I had to skip podcast series where you have to have listened to all the episodes to know what’s going on, so no Limetown.
Here’s what we listened to, along with my recommendations (1-5 stars):
- The Cut on Tuesdays: 5 stars. You never know what you’re going to get with the one. It could be an interview, or a fun story about “bad” dinner parties (my favorite episode), or a story about the history of birth control.
- Revisionist History: 5 stars. Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast is now in its fourth season and it’s great. Super thought-provoking and great storytelling.
- Scene on Radio (The Seeing White season): 5 stars. We only listened to the last four episodes of the season, but it’s amazing. It’s a great introduction to the history of whiteness, its power over the systems that run our lives, and some hopeful ideas on how to fix it. It’s like a podcast of Dismantling Racism and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
- Everything is Alive: 4 stars. A really silly concept: that everything is alive, so let’s interview them, but it turns into some mind-bending, funny, and touching conversations. I especially like the elevator one.
- Every Little Thing: 4 stars. There’s some heavy stuff in this playlist, but ELT isn’t one of them. Audience questions get turned into explorations of things you never thought about. It’s always educational and fun.
- Lore: 4 stars. You know about this one already, right? Scary stories haltingly told.
- Sawbones: 3 stars. The kids love this one. It’s hit or miss for me. Some episodes are great and hilarious. Others just don’t work for me.
- Solvable: 3 stars. Solid interviews with people changing the world. A little dry, but worth listening to.
There you go. Hopefully that helps your end-of-summer roadtrips a little more pleasant. Enjoy!