Outside Podcast-logo

Outside Podcast

PRX

Outside's longstanding literary storytelling tradition comes to life in audio with features that will entertain, inspire, and inform listeners. We launched in March 2016 with our first series, Science of Survival, which was developed in partnership with PRX, distributors of the idolized This American Life and The Moth Radio Hour, among others. We have since added three additional series, The Outside Interview, which has editor Christopher Keyes interrogating the biggest figures in sports, adventure, and politics, Dispatches, a diverse range of stories on newsworthy topics, and Sweat Science, which explores the outer limits of athletic performance.

Outside's longstanding literary storytelling tradition comes to life in audio with features that will entertain, inspire, and inform listeners. We launched in March 2016 with our first series, Science of Survival, which was developed in partnership with PRX, distributors of the idolized This American Life and The Moth Radio Hour, among others. We have since added three additional series, The Outside Interview, which has editor Christopher Keyes interrogating the biggest figures in sports, adventure, and politics, Dispatches, a diverse range of stories on newsworthy topics, and Sweat Science, which explores the outer limits of athletic performance.

Location:

United States

Networks:

PRX

Description:

Outside's longstanding literary storytelling tradition comes to life in audio with features that will entertain, inspire, and inform listeners. We launched in March 2016 with our first series, Science of Survival, which was developed in partnership with PRX, distributors of the idolized This American Life and The Moth Radio Hour, among others. We have since added three additional series, The Outside Interview, which has editor Christopher Keyes interrogating the biggest figures in sports, adventure, and politics, Dispatches, a diverse range of stories on newsworthy topics, and Sweat Science, which explores the outer limits of athletic performance.

Language:

English

Episodes

Jack Johnson Reaches for Hope

6/22/2022
On his first album in five years, the singer-songwriter brings us a collection of heartfelt tracks that offer warmth and comfort when we really need it. Making folks feel good is, of course, what Johnson does best. For more than two decades, his music has served as the soundtrack to our fun times: hanging at the beach, taking a road trip, kicking back with friends after surfing or biking or skiing. But on Meet the Moonlight, which drops on Friday, June 24, he had to work a little harder than...

Duration:00:42:11

How Blockchain Technology Can Get Us Outside

6/15/2022
Amid all the noise surrounding Web3, something fascinating is emerging: a new kind of immersive adventure storytelling. An innovative effort is underway to leverage the same technologies that get gamers excited about buying an outfit for their avatar to instead reward people for engaging in real-world outdoor experiences. The shift is going to have an enormous impact on how writers, photographers, and filmmakers tell their stories—and equally as important, how they connect with you, their...

Duration:00:24:52

Swimming for Your Life in the Open Ocean

6/11/2022
After two young pilots crashed their small plane into the water off Hawaii, they realized their best hope for survival was to make it back to land on their own. Sydney Uetmoto and David McMahon had been on a regular route between Oahu and the island of Hawaii, but now they were just specks in the sea with no way to call for help. In this riveting tale from the Out Alive podcast, we hear about their remarkable endurance in the face of overwhelming odds. This episode is brought to you by...

Duration:00:32:46

How We Find Love in Wild Places

6/8/2022
Is there something about adventure and risk that opens our hearts? Absolutely. In this episode, created in concert with an Outside article about love in the wild, we bring you tales of romances that bloomed outdoors. You’ll hear about two ultrarunners who fell for each other during a 60-mile dash through the Alps, a high-altitude climber who led her wary date down iced-over ski runs (it all worked out eventually), a pair of whitewater kayakers whose attraction for one other caused them to...

Duration:00:44:18

A Thriller from the Death Zone

5/25/2022
Writer Amy McCulloch was a young adventurer looking to challenge herself when she set her sights on 26,781-foot Manaslu, in the Himalayas. On a guided expedition, she encountered the expected risks of high-altitude mountaineering, as well as a darker threat she’d never imagined: members of her own team harassing and sexually propositioning her in an environment where she was incredibly vulnerable. She returned home with a harrowing true tale of resilience—and an idea for an epic novel. Her...

Duration:00:31:08

The Many Ways Dogs Can Heal Us

5/18/2022
Our furry friends are the best of adventure playmates. But they can also provide pure, unconditional love that gets us through the darkest times. A series of dogs have supported Colorado outdoor writer Annette McGivney since childhood, as she endured domestic abuse, the loss of family members, and a bitter divorce. She’s not alone: after McGivney published a pair of essays for Outside Online detailing her relationship with her dogs, she was flooded with responses and questions from readers....

Duration:00:35:49

What It Feels Like When You Eat a Deadly Mushroom

5/11/2022
There’s a distinct pleasure to eating wild foods that you forage yourself—unless you pick the wrong thing. Imagine the horror you’d feel upon realizing that the risotto you cooked for your dinner party was made with *Amanita phalloides*, a.k.a. the death cap. You’d found the fungi off a trail near your home, sure they were common meadow mushrooms. But you were mistaken. Now you and your friends are in the hospital, fighting for your lives. In this classic episode from our archives, we put...

Duration:00:31:10

The Sometimes Shady, Always Weird World of Truffle Hunters

5/4/2022
In forests across the planet, secretive hunters are searching for that rare and insanely expensive wild delicacy: the truffle. The organism, which grows underground, tethered to tree roots, can fetch thousands of dollars per pound from upscale restaurateurs. The only way to find these particular fungi are dogs specially trained to sniff them out. Not surprisingly, the truffle business is not unlike the illegal-drug business, with lots of sneaking around in the night and powerful characters...

Duration:00:33:31

One Woman’s Wholesome Mission to Get Naked Outside

4/27/2022
Outdoor athlete and Outside contributing editor Gloria Liu very much wanted to be one those people with the confidence and carefree spirit to occasionally hike, bike, or ski in the nude. Unfortunately, the decade-old memory of an uncomfortable event at a backcountry hot spring kept her clinging to her knickers. So, like any good competitor, Liu underwent a three-step training plan designed to get her comfortable playing in her natural state while in the woods—not to mention grant her all the...

Duration:00:32:09

Learning to Listen to Wild Sounds

4/20/2022
When we open our ears to the marvels of natural soundscapes, we experience the energies of the world in a unique way—and begin to understand the mysteries behind them. But when we habitually ignore what we’re hearing, we both miss out on one of the best parts of being human and enable the loss of an enormous diversity of species on this planet. So argues biologist and acclaimed author David Haskell in his new book, Sounds Wild and Broken. Considered by many as the premier nature writer in...

Duration:00:35:26

Is TikTok Motivating People to Get Outdoors?

4/13/2022
Something surprising is happening on the video app best known for silly dance moves: users are finding inspiration for adventure. There are some fundamental differences in the way TikTok works that make it stand out from other social media platforms, and those differences may make it a space that’s more prone to bringing different kinds of people together to try new things. Camping. Hiking. International travel. It’s no utopia—like other social apps, TikTok has been called out for causing...

Duration:00:34:11

Cheryl Strayed’s ‘Wild’ Decade

3/30/2022
In the ten years since Cheryl Strayed published her memoir about grief, addiction, and hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, her life has changed dramatically. When the book came out in March 2012, she was a working mother of two, snatching whatever time she could to write. But within months, Wild was picked for Oprah’s Book Club and became a bestseller. Strayed has since published two more books and become a beloved advice columnist with a popular podcast, Dear Sugar. Meanwhile, the PCT has seen...

Duration:00:28:47

An Agonizing Endurance Race Around a Single City Block

3/23/2022
What motivates someone to run more than 3,000 miles around a single city block? Transcendence. Just ask the entrants in the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race, which takes place every year in Queens, New York. In order to get to the finish line ahead of the cutoff, competitors must complete the equivalent of two marathons a day for 52 days in a row. As physically grueling as that sounds, the greatest challenges are mental. In this replay from our Sweat Science series from a few...

Duration:00:40:27

How a Vigilante Botanist Became a Cult Icon

3/16/2022
An ex-punk and former train engineer who is self-taught in the sciences, Joey Santore does not fit the mold of the stereotypical botanist. He has lots of tattoos and no college degree and is known for illegal tree-planting projects. Then there’s his voice: a native Chicagoan, he can sound like he’s on an SNL skit about Da Bears. Maybe all this explains why his YouTube channel, Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't, has more than a quarter-million subscribers. We join Santore on a peyote hunt in the...

Duration:00:24:59

A Professional Athlete’s Battle with Mental Illness

3/9/2022
On the outside, Drew Petersen seemed like a guy who was living the dream. He is extremely fit with a powder-snow-catching beard, and he’s prone to hoots of joy when skiing down amazing mountains around the world. But on the inside, he was for many years hiding loneliness, anger, and a deep sadness. Only recently, in the wake of a near-death accident on Oregon’s Mount Hood, has he begun to face the mental health challenges that nearly drove him to oblivion. He’s also made the bold choice to...

Duration:00:33:22

Can Nature Heal Heartbreak?

3/2/2022
In recent years, research has demonstrated that spending time in nature can help with everything from anxiety to attention deficit disorder to high blood pressure. Florence Williams knows this as well as anyone: her celebrated 2017 book The Nature Fix, explained the science behind the many physiological and emotional benefits of being in natural environments. So when she went through a painful divorce from her husband of 25 years, she turned to the outdoors for healing—and chronicled her...

Duration:00:33:51

When Athletes Dare to Dream Like Artists

2/16/2022
Professional skier Markus Eder had a fantasy of an impossible descent that would take him across glaciers, through frozen tunnels, into a terrain park, even out of the back of a pickup truck. It made no sense. And yet somehow, over eight years, he found a way to make it happen by thinking more like an artist than an athlete. The result is [The Ultimate Run](http:// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbqHK8i-HdA), a wildly creative stoke film that’s loaded with gnarly stunts and stands out...

Duration:00:26:39

A Father’s Death in the Mountains—and What Came After

2/9/2022
In 1999, Alex Lowe was a star climber and father to three young boys when he died on Tibet’s 26,335-foot Shishapangma along with expedition cameraman David Bridges. The lone survivor of the accident was Conrad Anker, Alex’s climbing partner and best friend. A year after the tragedy, Anker married Jennifer Lowe, Alex's widow and mother to their three young boys, Max, Sam, and Isaac. Ever since, storytellers have been captivated by this tale, but now a powerful new documentary by Max Lowe,...

Duration:00:33:49

Olympics Special: The Doubts that Power Mikaela Shiffrin

2/4/2022
The most dominant ski racer on the planet is constantly questioning her talents—which may be the secret of her greatness. Mikaela Shiffrin has won two Olympic gold medals and more than 70 World Cup races, but unlike fellow American skiing stars Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller, she isn’t known for her speed-demon recklessness. Instead, she’s lauded for her perfect form, tactical brilliance, and workaholic approach to training. In this episode, based on excerpts from an exclusive extended...

Duration:00:30:35

What Surviving an Avalanche Can Teach You About Risk

1/31/2022
Over two decades of ambitious adventures, elite skier and climber Zahan Billimoria has had some very close calls in the mountains. That doesn’t make him unique. What does is his passionate belief that we all have a lot to learn about the true meaning of risk. As the founder of Samsara Experience, a training program for outdoor athletes, he’s developed an approach to safety that instills a crucial caveat: danger is inevitable, and it's ultimately up to each individual to decide how much...

Duration:00:38:14

See More