Best travel podcasts: virtually escape with the help of these series

From celebrity travel anecdotes to gap year tales
Daniel McCullough / Unsplash

Wish you weren’t here? Plug into a travel podcast instead.

Armchair escapism has been a pleasant (and sorely needed) respite to the vast majority of the population sheltering in one place, whether that’s leafing through old holiday snaps or listening to the pleasant witterings of the well-heeled who have been there, done that.

Here’s where to go when you can’t go anywhere. ​

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Join Londoner Eleanor Clarke on her travels from Bangkok to Boston as she reports back to jealous friend Lizzy.

Listen on Acast and Apple Podcasts

Excess Baggage

BBC journalist John McCarthy meets authors, reporters and intrepid travellers around the world.

Listen on BBC and Apple Podcasts

The Big Travel Podcast

Journalist Lisa Francesca Nand explores the lives of politicians, Paralympians and celebrities through their travel stories.

Listen on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher

Travelogue

Condé Nast Traveller editors meet hotel owners, tourism officials and globetrotters to check out new openings and hotspots.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Zero to Travel

Travel expert Jason Moore chats with adventurous people about how to travel on a shoestring.

Listen on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher

Postcard Academy

Every week UK-based American Sarah Mikutel interviews expats and adventurers who packed up everything to start a new adventure in another part of the world.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

The Armchair Explorer

With a podcast title that implies the sedentary wish fulfilment we all desire. Travel writer Aaron Millar takes a deep dive (sometimes literally, in the episode in which he goes shark diving) into some of the world’s lushest environs. He sees it, you hear it. Gorilla trekking and Alaskan wilderness exploring also abound.

The Travel Diaries

This podcast is as much about the explorer as the explored, as Holly Rubenstein interviews globetrotters about eight travel chapters in their life, from earliest childhood holiday memory to the bucket-list trips they haven’t ticked off yet. Actor Dev Patel, explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler are among the list of interviewees.

The Food Chain

A Beeb-produced podcast available on BBC Sounds, is a smorgasbord of delectable, bitesize podcast content digging back into the corporation’s archives, examining what it takes to put food on your table. This means going places — sometimes including out of this world, to see what can be grown in space — and back in time, as chefs examine their life in five dishes. See the world on a plate.

The Rough Guide to Everywhere

You name the place, and the Rough Guide team (the lads behind the popular travel guides) have written the book on it. In the publisher’s podcast, The Rough Guide to Everywhere, you’ll find top tips on how to be a well-liked, conscientious traveller, including advice on when to take photographs (and, more importantly, when not to) and on witchcraft in western Iceland.

National Trust podcasts

You don’t have to go overseas, of course. Enjoy a staycation with the National Trust podcasts, an audio amble-cum-ramble through Capability Brown’s gardens and into the Lake District, then beyond. They’re also a fascinating guide to the history of the many stately homes in the Trust’s care (an ideal opportunity for some fantasy property-hopping). They’re 20 minutes long, the perfect time in which to close your eyes, sip a hot brew and slip away somewhere distant.

Watling Street

To really get a feel for the lie of the land, head to Watling Street, a four-part podcast that delves into the marvellously murky liminal world of psychogeography with authors David Bramwell and John Higgs as they wander every inch of the titular old way. Guests include Iain Sinclair, Alan Moore and Miranda Kane, and episodes last about 50 minutes — perfect for plugging in on your state-mandated walk.

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