ONE OF OUR OWN
Staff writer Daniel Scheffler has not one but two podcasts. He’s a podcasting fiend
Daniel travels the world constantly and tirelessly — he’s traveling right now. I haven’t actually checked that, but the odds are just so overwhelmingly in favor that he is somewhere fascinating. I’m going to presume he is.
Even his home is fascinating, he lives in Madrid. You and I live… well, we don’t live in Madrid do we?
Daniel is an extraordinary writer and he writes incessantly, and if this isn’t your first day here you will have read some of his pieces, you couldn’t not have. I mean, it’s metaphorically like you’d trip over him in the hall, if you were here, and if we had a hall. Here’s one of his great recent pieces https://wonderlusttravel.com/south-africa-a-country-of-extreme-and-troubling-contrasts/ and here’s his author page: https://wonderlusttravel.com/author/danielscheffler/
What distinguishes our man from a lot of the glop of travel writers out there is he tells it like he sees it, and he doesn’t always see something through rose tinted glasses. He is, ahem, very honest. I’ve always believed that just being flattering in your reporting is mostly worthless, whereas being honestly critical is extremely valuable. To the reader at least, and that’s who I most care about, but to everyone else too. And when Dan likes somewhere, or someone, it’s all the more meaningful, because his opinions can’t be bought (and, not naming names, in the travel space a lot of opinions can be bought).
He brings that holistic passion to his podcasts. His Without Maps podcast, a spin-off of his Substack newsletter of the same name, is a collection of travel stories which he describes as “showcasing the humanity we believe in.” It focuses on what he calls “good old fashioned storytelling, some that will make you weep in a teacup, or laugh inappropriately in public.” Personally speaking, I have never wept into a teacup. But I fear this is my shortcoming rather than Daniel’s overreaching.
This podcast can be found wherever podcasts lurk. Start here: https://withoutmaps.podbean.com/ (One of the podcasts is with some insufferable bore who publishes a travel site – ignore that one.)
Daniel’s newest aural accomplishment is the wonderful Wayfinder, produced by iHeart. These people know podcasts. Go here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wayfinder-life-changing-travel/id1849139692
Wayfinder is more place based than Without Maps, which is more interview oriented. But this is not guidebook stuff, it’s intimate, personal and philosophical. Daniel says he wants us to discover what can happen when we “follow our senses and trust our inner compass to lead the way.”
What a really good idea!
