In this season 16 bonus episode, outgoing host Jacqueline GaNun passes the mic to Alexis Derickson. Alexis tells us how she plans to use her previous journalism experience and what she hopes to learn — and bring to listeners — as host of The Lead.

Alex Crevar moved to the Balkans in the 1990s and has been reporting from there ever since. His vivid and insightful travel stories are published in outlets including The New York Times, National Geographic and Lonely Planet, but his focus isn’t on filling a résumé — it’s about traveling genuinely and responsibly.

In this episode, Alex recalls how he fell into travel writing and why he’s been doing it for more than 30 years. As a cyclist and hiker, his hobbies also inform his adventure journalism, and he talks about his role in creating the Via Dinarica hiking trail and Trans Dinarica cycle route across the Balkans in Southeastern Europe.

Guest: Alex Crevar, freelance travel journalist.

Host: Jacqueline GaNun.

Alexandra Travis works to tell stories that have gone uncovered. As a documentary producer at Scripps News, she creates long-form, in-depth video journalism focusing especially on the experiences of Black people in the South.

In this episode, Alexandra talks about what it feels like when she realizes there’s a story she can tell using video, why focusing on Black stories is important to her and how her documentaries connect with audiences. You can watch her award-winning documentary “Ropes in Brown Hands,” which is about an Oklahoma town that’s home to one of the nation’s oldest Black rodeos, here.

Guest: Alexandra Travis, documentary producer at Scripps News.

Host: Jacqueline GaNun.