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 and his parents, Alice and George Potts, talk about how surviving the COVID-19 pandemic has changed their relationship, and how it gave them a pretext to go through a “death checklist” together (3:00); how one’s grandparents and parents live on in one’s memories and one’s conversations, the life-values they passed on, and what it felt like when those loved ones declined and died (14:00); how, over the years, elderly people and philosophers have come to terms with notions of decline and death (31:00); and personal insights about what it’s like to have grown older after having lived a long life (44:00).

George and Alice Potts are retired schoolteachers based in Kansas. George taught science at various Wichita high schools, as well as at Friends University, where he pioneered graduate-level programs in Zoo Science and Environmental Studies. He also helped facilitate the Outdoor Wildlife Learning Sites (OWLS) program for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Alice taught second graders in the Wichita public schools for more than 30 years. In 1994 her classes succeed in promoting legislation to declare the barred tiger salamander the Kansas State Amphibian.

Notable Links:

• What to Do When a Loved One Dies (AARP death checklist)
• How we die in America (Deviate episode)
• The therapeutic uses of reading scripture (Deviate episode)
• On losing one’s parents to COVID-19 (Deviate episode)
• 1985 World Series (baseball championship)
• Joe Louis (20th century boxing champion)
• John Prine (singer-songwriter)
• Alzheimer’s disease (chronic neurodegenerative disease)
• You Are My Sunshine (folk song)
• Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone (folk song)
• Ecclesiastes (book in the Old Testament of the Bible)
• Epistle of James (book in the New Testament of the Bible)
• Crowfoot (19th century Siksika First Nation chief)
• Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber)
• Epicurus (ancient Greek philosopher)
• Varanasi (Hindu holy city in India)
• Lamentations 3:22-23 (Old Testament Bible verse)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Realizing that you will die greatly clarifies your vision of life, and stimulates opportunities for making the vision real.” –Ed Buryn

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ed discuss the impetus behind Ed’s first travels to Europe by van in the 1960s, and his early forays into self-printed and self-promoted books about the experience (3:00); how travel to Europe was different 50 years ago, and the joy and freedom that comes with not knowing what happens next (14:30); Ed’s philosophies and influences, including living in “the now” (21:00); how travel allows you to reinvent yourself, and how meeting people is the best gift of travel (36:00); and Ed’s ambitions for poetry and travel, and his advice to travelers in today’s world (44:30).

Ed Buryn is an author and photographer who was one of the first to popularize the term “vagabonding” through the publication of his books Vagabonding In Europe and North America and Vagabonding in America. For more about Ed, check out https://edburyn.com.

Notable Links:

• Kevin Kelly (writer, editor, and publisher)
• Tony Wheeler (founder of Lonely Planet travel guides)
• Bill Dalton (founder of Moon travel guides)
• Charles Plymell on the Beat Generation (Deviate episode)
• The Drifters, by James Michener (book)
• Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis (book)
• Henry Miller (author)
• CouchSurfing ((homestay and social networking service)
• Richard Halliburton (traveler and author)
• Tarot (playing cards used for divination)
• Nevada City (community in northern California)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

"No one motivation is ‘better’ than any other. We travel with different motivations at different times, and they sometimes overlap." –Ash Bhardwaj

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ash talk about curiosity as a motivation for travel (1:30); the ancient Greek concepts of happiness that underpin human motivations like travel, and how mentors influence travel (14:00); serendipity as a motivation for travel, Type One versus Type Two fun, and the dangers of "voluntourism" (21:00); how "awe" differs from "wonder," how to bring these perspectives home, and how "eroticism" can be a part of travel (36:30); "grief travel," and how one's sense for travel can become intertwined with a sense of hope (48:30).

Ash Bhardwaj is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster, and the author of Why We Travel.

Notable Links:

• Paris travel memoir workshop, with Rolf Potts (creative writing class)
• Banana Pancake Trail (backpacker route in Southeast Asia)
• Hedonism (philosophical concept involving pleasure)
• Eudaimonia (philosophical concept involving happiness)
• A Moveable Feast (posthumous memoir by Ernest Hemingway)
• Georges Perec (French novelist)
• Beginner's Mind (Zen Buddhist concept)
• Levison Wood (British explorer)
• Arsenal F.C. (English soccer team)
• Joseph Kony (Ugandan warlord)
• Flow (focused mental state)
• Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Hungarian-American psychologist)
• NGO (non-governmental aid organizations)
• Air Vanuatu (national airline in the South Pacific)
• Hokitika (town in New Zealand)
• Pounamu (stone valued by the Māori)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“If you're someone who's always dreamed of going to Mars but you don't have the time to become an astronaut, you can just visit the Atacama Desert.” –Mark Johanson

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Mark talk about how Mark became interested in the Atacama Desert, and his experience in other world deserts (1:45); what Mark sought when he traveled through the region (16:00); what it's like to experience the area, and why it's known as "Mars on Earth" (26:00); what travelers can do there, and what it's like for Mark to live in Chile (36:30).

Mark Johanson (@markonthemap) is an American journalist and travel writer based in Santiago, Chile. His first book is Mars on Earth: Wanderings in the World’s Driest Desert.

Notable Links:

• Atacama Desert (desert plateau located in Chile)
• Coober Pedy (town in the Australian Outback)
• Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey (book)
• The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje (book)
• The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin (book)
• Man in the Landscape, by Paul Shepard (book)
• Chinchorro mummies (ancient remains in the Atacama Desert)
• Qhapaq Ñan (Inca road system)
• Arica (province in Chile)
• Altiplano (Andean Plateau)
• Lands of Lost Borders, by Kate Harris (book)
• Pan-American Highway (road network)
• Cusco (city in Peru)
• San Pedro de Atacama (town in Chile)
• Elqui Valley (wine and astronomy region in Chile)
• Gabriela Mistral (Nobel Prize-winning poet)
• Pisco (fermented spirit made from grapes)
• Pisco sour (cocktail)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.

“Travel does not require leaving your city or state or country, but it does require leaving your comfort zone. And that can happen a block or two away from where you live.” –Chloe Cooper Jones

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Chloe talk about why a section about “slum tourism” was cut out of Rolf’s newest book The Vagabond’s Way (2:30); how so much of what we talk about when we talk about travel has industrialized middle-class presumptions (7:30); the motivations and ethical considerations that underpin seeking out disadvantaged neighborhoods as a traveler (15:00); how preconceived narratives and “cultural extraction” often motivates people’s experience in a city, in ways that do not always benefit the city (25:00); what “dark tourism” and “voluntourism” are, and what the ethical ramifications are for travelers (32:00); and the difference between articulating ideals, and the work of acting on those ideals (45:00).

Chloe Cooper Jones (@CCooperJones) is the author of Easy Beauty: A Memoir. She has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Writing, and was the recipient of a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, as well as a Howard Foundation Grant from Brown University.

Notable Links:

• Integrating love of travel & love of home (Deviate episode 210)
• The Vagabond’s Way, by Rolf Potts (book)
• The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, by John Baxter (book)
• Slum tourism (tours to poor areas of a city)
• Poetics, by Aristotle (dramatic theory)
• Republic, by Plato (Socratic dialogue)
• Immanuel Kant (philosopher)
• Slumdog Millionaire (2008 movie)
• Apartheid (system of institutionalized racial segregation)
• Favela (slum in Brazil)
• Yelp (crowd-sourced business review app)
• Dark tourism (tourism to places associated with tragedy)
• 1990 Hesston tornado outbreak (Kansas weather event)
• Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (tourism attraction in Cambodia)
• Saw (movie franchise)
• Voluntourism (volunteering-themed travel)
• Hurricane Katrina (2005 Gulf Coast weather event)
• Lower Ninth Ward (New Orleans neighborhood)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.