Sometimes, when you’re facing a long day at the office and it’s raining outside, your next vacation can seem a very, very long way off.
But plug into one of our top travel podcasts, and you’re instantly transported to far-flung destinations or taken on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure with some of the world’s foremost explorers.
Whether you’re looking for world-class storytelling that will inspire you to get out there and see the world, you want to find out more about trending destinations, or you’re after practical travel tips, there’s a travel podcast out there for you.
Read on for the 20 best travel podcasts in 2025.
Our top 20 travel podcasts
1. The Travel Diaries
The Travel Diaries is an award-winning podcast hosted by U.K.-based journalist Holly Rubenstein.
Each week, Holly interviews a different high-profile traveler, with guests ranging from famed explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and astronaut Tim Peake to entertainers like Shaggy and Stanley Tucci.
Plenty of travel experts feature too, including Sir Richard Branson, travel documentarian Simon Reeve, and Divia Thani, the Global Editorial Director of Condé Nast Traveler.
The hour-long interviews are based around the seven travel chapters of her guests’ lives, including their earliest childhood travel memories, the places they fell in love with, and the hidden gems they’ve uncovered along the way.
Travel category: Celebrity travel interviews
Best for: Travel anecdotes and inspiration
2. The Atlas Obscura Podcast
A guide to the world’s most weird and wonderful places, The Atlas Obscura Podcast aims to inspire wonder and curiosity.
With The Atlas Obscura co-founder Dylan Thuras as your guide, visit the village of Kongthong, India, where every person’s name is a song composed by their mothers, or learn about the Orfield Anechoic Chamber in Minneapolis—one of the quietest places on the planet.
And with a 15-minute episode landing every day Monday through Thursday, there’s plenty of content to get stuck into.
Travel category: Unusual places and attractions
Best for: Deep diving into unique places you’ve probably never heard of before
3. Armchair Explorer: Travel and Adventure Inspiration
The world’s greatest explorers tell their best travel stories on this multi-award-winning documentary podcast.
Armchair Explorer delivers immersive on-location documentaries that take you on journeys most people never get to live. It provides fascinating deep dives into cultures around the world and inspires you to live life to the fullest.
Traverse Siberia with the Nenet reindeer herders, embark on a 53,000-mile bike ride around the world with Dr. Stephen Fabes, and go bear-trekking with ecologist Chris Morgan.
This podcast kicked off back in January 2020, so plenty of adventures already await you.
Travel category: Inspiring adventure storytelling
Best for: Getting off the beaten track
4. Travel with Rick Steves
Renowned U.S. travel writer and broadcaster Rick Steves has written over 100 TV travel shows and authored over 30 best-selling guidebooks.
On the Travel with Rick Steves podcast, he hosts a weekly one-hour conversation with guests and callers, as he encourages listeners to get off the beaten track and immerse themselves in different cultures.
He covers a range of topics in each episode, mostly about European destinations.
There are plenty of crowd-pleasing subjects, like Italy for food lovers, Dracula’s Romania, and Portugal's art and architecture, but Rick also delves into more niche topics such as Celtic Middle Earth and the birth of Korean cool.
Travel category: General travel and culture
Best for: Finding out everything you need to know about traveling in Europe
5. The Dirtbag Diaries
The Dirtbag Diaries is a podcast that makes you want to fling yourself headlong into the great outdoors.
Outdoor writer Fitz Cahall launched the grassroots podcast all the way back in 2007 with the aim of making the campfire tale accessible to all.
In each episode, a different adventurer or athlete shares their story. Here you’ll find tales from tour guides, park rangers, skiers, climbers, cyclists, runners, roadtrippers, backpackers, and more.
There are also fascinating deep dives into different places and events.
Travel category: Outdoor adventures
Best for: Getting inspired to go outside
6. Women Who Travel
Condé Nast Traveler’s Women Who Travel is a podcast for anyone curious about the world around them.
Every week, host and Condé Nast Traveler editor Lale Arikoglu interviews female-identifying guests about their most unforgettable travel experiences, and shares her own memories of traversing the globe.
Discover a wide range of content, from celebrity interviews and historical deep dives into women explorers to expert insight on specific destinations and evocative stories about guests’ adventures.
Find out about living as a Cairo bookseller, residing wildly in Patagonia, chasing poachers on the Masai Mara, and more—all from the perspective of women.
You’ll pick up plenty of inspiration and tips for your own adventures here, too.
Travel category: Women travelers
Best for: Women who travel, and people who are fascinated by the world around them
7. Zero To Travel Podcast
The hugely popular Zero To Travel combines heaps of travel inspiration with practical advice and key resources to help listeners travel more and travel better.
Since 2013, host Jason Moore has been sitting down with travel experts and journalists to share super-useful travel tips on everything from traversing Europe on a budget and planning a career break to discovering the best eco-dive spots.
There are plenty of inspirational stories, too. Jason interviews some fascinating people including ‘the world’s most traveled person’ Harry Mitsidis; James C Hopkins, who left a life on Wall Street behind to become a Buddhist monk in Kathmandu; Daniel Troia, who cycled across the U.S. with no money; and many more.
Podcasts drop multiple times a week.
Travel category: Travel advice and stories
Best for: Actionable travel advice and inspiration
8. Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet
If you’ve ever chuckled (or rolled your eyes) while scrolling through TripAdvisor or Yelp, this one’s for you.
Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet features dramatic readings of one-star reviews written by people who just might be overreacting.
While this podcast isn’t always travel-inspired, there are plenty of episodes based around hotels, beaches, restaurants, and tourist attractions to enjoy.
So sit back and listen as hosts Xandy and Christine Schiefer take you through complaints about a bar’s “no throw-up policy,” a nudist beach with too much nudity, and more.
Travel category: Comedy
Best for: A laugh
9. Amateur Traveler Travel Podcast
The Amateur Traveler Travel Podcast with Chris Christensen is packed full of actionable advice and practical tips to help you plan your next trip.
Running since 2005, this award-winning podcast deep dives into destinations from around the world, from Greenland to Northern Morocco.
Chris puts a firm emphasis on culture-rich travel, and there are plenty of interviews with local people and fellow travelers to enjoy.
Travel category: Travel advice
Best for: Finding out everything you need to know about specific destinations
10. Alan Carr’s 'Life’s a Beach'
Alan Carr’s 'Life’s a Beach' sees the British comedian interview a different famous guest about their travel exploits each week.
They talk about their favorite places, share hilarious travel anecdotes, and generally have a laid-back chat.
Guests include Spice Girl Mel C, pop singer Camila Cabello, and Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness.
Travel category: Comedy
Best for: Travel content with plenty of laughs
11. Wild Ideas Worth Living
Journalist Shelby Stanger interviews explorers, athletes, authors, scientists, entrepreneurs, and health experts to find out how they’ve taken their wildest ideas and turned them into a reality.
Learn about baking cakes on glaciers, micro-adventuring, and hiking Patagonia in a wheelchair. Or tune into episodes about running 150 marathons in 150 days, cave diving, and finding Bigfoot.
This one is sure to give you plenty of inspiration for your next big adventure.
Travel category: Adventure travel and outdoors
Best for: Adventure travelers looking for inspiration
12. Curious Tourism
Curious Tourism investigates how we can make travel better for both people and the planet.
Travel writer Erin Hynes and podcast producer Kattie Laur sit down with a wide variety of guests to discuss topics like avoiding overtourism, travel privilege, cultural appropriation, and traveling with disabilities.
It’s the perfect podcast to tune into if you want to find out how to travel the world in a more thoughtful, considerate, and responsible manner.
Travel category: Responsible tourism
Best for: Learning how to travel more responsibly
13. Simon Calder’s Independent Travel Podcast
Leading U.K. travel journalist Simon Calder delivers frequent, bite-sized travel dispatches on his Independent Travel Podcast.
He covers travel news, interviews travel experts, and discusses plenty of topics that will interest frequent fliers, from dealing with turbulence to how to get the best exchange rates.
Simon also delivers plenty of travel inspiration, covering hidden gem destinations and providing short travel guides.
Travel category: Travel and tourism news
Best for: Staying on top of what’s going on in the world of travel and tourism
14. JUMP with Traveling Jackie
JUMP with Traveling Jackie aims to motivate listeners to get out there and see the world.
Here you’ll find raw and personal travel accounts, with both guest and solo episodes.
Get inspired by stories of what it’s like to walk across Jordan, live in a truck camper, or get off the beaten path in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Or tune in for travel advice, such as what to pack, where to travel in different seasons, how to access safe drinking water when traveling, and more.
Travel category: Travel advice and inspiration
Best for: Motivation to travel
15. Flying Smarter: Air Travel Explained
Wondering which airports have the best lounges? Or how exactly pilots are trained? Or what airport codes really mean? This one’s for the aviation nerds.
On Flying Smarter: Air Travel Explained, 'Air Travel Andrew' delivers answers to those burning airport and airplane questions.
Not only is commercial aviation a fascinating topic to delve into, but this podcast is packed with tips and hacks that will help you become a smarter passenger.
Travel category: Aviation
Best for: Becoming a savvier air traveler
16. Wander Woman: A Travel Podcast
In each episode of her super-popular Wander Woman podcast, award-winning broadcaster Phoebe Smith transports listeners to a different destination.
This magazine-style show uses colorful descriptions, interviews with locals, and audio clips for a behind-the-scenes look at trips including bog hiking in Estonia, visiting a historic hikers’ teahouse in the Canadian Rockies, and tracing Halloween’s origins in Ireland.
Travel category: Travel stories
Best for: Travel inspiration
17. The Adventure Podcast
In a series of long-form conversations, filmmaker Matt Pycroft speaks to big names in exploration and adventure to find out their most riveting stories.
So if you’re interested in getting the inside scoop from wildlife cinematographers, environmental activists, or polar photographers—essentially, people who have very interesting lives—this podcast is for you.
Travel category: Adventure stories
Best for: Unusual and exciting stories
18. The Offbeat Life
The Offbeat Life is designed to help aspiring digital nomads achieve their location-independent dreams.
Podcaster Debbie Archangeles interviews people who swapped their nine-to-five for life on the road—to offer advice and tips for others looking to adopt this carefree lifestyle.
Much of the conversation centers around finding purpose, overcoming setbacks, the moments people knew they needed to change their lives, and, of course, how they monetize their passions.
Travel category: Work from anywhere
Best for: Learning how to become a digital nomad
19. The Travel Podcast
The Travel Podcast, from Not Just Travel, delivers advice and tips from industry insiders and covers all the hottest destinations to help you build your bucket list.
Find out everything you need to know about dream vacation destinations like The Maldives, Japan, and Australia, and pick up actionable travel advice along the way.
Travel category: Travel tips and advice
Best for: Staying in the know about the hottest destinations
20. Not Lost
While the Not Lost podcast doesn’t currently publish regular episodes, there’s plenty of older content that's worth diving into.
This podcast follows the story of journalist Brendan Francis Newman, who hit the road when his relationship and pop culture podcast both came to an end.
Brendan visits different destinations with the aim of getting invited to a stranger’s house for dinner.
A friend joins him in each destination, and the pair get to know their temporary home by eating, drinking, dancing, chatting with strangers, and podcasting.
Destinations covered include Montreal, Mexico City, and Portugal.
Travel category: Human interest
Best for: Deep dives into different places and their unique cultures
An alternative to travel podcasts: Online travel communities
If you love reading, writing, and chatting about all things travel, then it’s worth considering joining a travel community on Whop.
While travel podcasts are a fantastic way to gain inspiration and motivation to get out there and see the big wide world, Whop’s travel communities offer something extra.
Here, you can meet other travelers and get heaps of inspiration and advice. Ask questions and join in conversations to get first-hand experience of other peoples’ travels.
Not only can you listen to other people’s stories, but you can interact with experts teaching you how to make the most of your own explorations. Many travel community creators also offer handy resources you can use to plan your trips.
Here are a couple of awesome Whop travel communities to take a look at:
- Girl Boss Abroad — A community for digital nomads
- TravelEasely — Money-saving tips, destination guides, and safety resources
- The Aviation Hub — Updates on the latest aviation news and hacks
Share and monetize your travels with Whop
If you're a wanderer and you want to start monetizing your own travels, you can do it with Whop.
Create a travel community, pack it with useful content for other travel enthusiasts, and make money for your personal travel fund from memberships, courses, ebooks, and more.
