In this feature-length video essay that explores the role places play in storytelling, Rolf examines how Kansas — his home state — has been imagined, distorted, and mythologized in cinema and television for more than a century. Blending archival film clips, historical analysis, and deeply personal narration, Kansas Never Plays Itself traces how cinematic shorthand…
“All the Light We Cannot See” novelist Anthony Doerr and Rolf talk about travel and writing (from 2012)
Note: This encore episode is dedicated to the memory of Alice Potts, who died on August 20, 2025, aged 81. “In America aging is often seen as an insult rather than an inevitable human process. We don’t celebrate getting older; we ‘fight’ age by pretending to be young.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate Rolf…
Writing-craft lessons from Rolf’s would-be first book, ‘Pilgrims in a Sliding World.”
Vagabonding pioneer Ed Buryn on what indie travel was like in the 1960s and 1970s
Journalist and broadcaster Ash Bhardwaj on the motivations of travel.
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.
Mars on Earth: Wanderings in the World’s Driest Desert
Why a chapter about “slum tourism” was edited out of The Vagabond’s Way (with Chloe Cooper Jones)
Long-term travel 101: Matt Kepnes on how to save money on an extended journey
