I’ve featured author and digital-culture pioneer Kevin Kelly in a number of podcast episodes over the years — in large part because he is so insightful on topics like travel, technology, and life in general. The opportunity to participate in one of Kevin’s “Walk and Talk” sojourns in Thailand was a big highlight for me…
Journalist and broadcaster Ash Bhardwaj on the motivations of travel.
Though I’ve never aspired to be a visual artist — or even studied art history in a formal way — I’ve always been enchanted, as a traveler, by modern art museums. I recall being so fascinated by what I saw at the 1997 Gwangju Biennale in Korea that, more than one decade later, I bought…
Kiki and I visited the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Strasbourg in Alsace, France, the same week I watched Orson Welles’s quirky 1973 essay-film F for Fake, where, in the context of another French cathedral, Welles noted: This has been standing here for centuries. But, it is without signature. …It might be just this one anonymous glory, of all…
It was very cool to see my book Marco Polo Didn’t Go There alongside titles by the likes of Anthony Bourdain, Orhan Pamuk, and William Least Heat-Moon (as well as Marco Polo himself) on the Kerkermeister Pension’s “Travel Writing Stairs” in Auerbach, Saxony. The Kerkermeister Pension is run by teacher and world traveler Adam Lee…
Earlier this year, I posted a “partial list of ‘best of’ lists where Vagabonding landed on the list,” which outlined where my debut book had appeared on various “best of travel” roundups in recent years. While this included a “10 Must Read Books for Every Travel Lover” list from India Today, I did not realize…
The first copy of Vagabonding I ever held in my hands sits in this display case at The Atlanta Hotel in Thailand. The story of how it ended up there is inseparable from the tale of my own travels in that part of the world. As was the reflexive habit among young budget wanderers passing…
Kim Krizan, who cowrote Before Sunrise with director Richard Linklater, talks about the travels (and historical moment) that influenced the movie
Kim Krizan, who cowrote Before Sunrise with director Richard Linklater, talks about the travels (and historical moment)
that influenced the movie.
The following is an outtake from an email Q&A interview I had with travel writer and filmmaker Ash Bhardwaj, for his 2024 book Why We Travel. Ash Bhardwaj: What were the formative moments in your writing career? Rolf Potts: There are many moments, big and small, that will feed into any writing career. The most significant…
Mars on Earth: Wanderings in the World’s Driest Desert
