Beerless in Bavaria

by Kelly Amabile on

Russ Johnson, the
Connected Traveler, gave a funny podcast report from
Oktoberfest last week. The sober observer explains why he is beerless, and
shares his first-ever flea circus experience. It’s entertaining stuff.  (There is a video too but I couldn’t view
it, as it only works on Windows.)

I’ve only recently begun listening to the numerous travel podcasts that keep popping up. Although I’ve just skimmed
the surface of what’s out there, so far (besides the Gadling podcasts, of course ;-), I’m most impressed with Russ’
reports. Erik also mentioned Connected Traveler last
month, and I have to guess that maybe Russ worked on toning down his polished sound. This newest podcast was festive, a
little silly with a touch of sarcasm, I enjoyed it thoroughly. You can listen to the mp3
here and read the entire dispatch
here.

Lifelist Intro – New Feature

by Erik Olsen on

Are there things in life that you’ve always dreamed of doing, that you
told yourself with utter seriousness: I will do that someday? If so, then you have started your life list. It may be
just in your head for now, but the fact is, you’ve started a list of things that will make your life more fulfilling,
more adventuresome. That’s a good first step.

Now we want to help.

In the spirit of the grandfather of life-lists, John
Goddard, we are beginning a feature called Lifelist. Every week or so we’ll choose one great adventure and do some
of the research for you. We’ll help you discover new ideas, find outfitters, stories and everything else we can, to
help you build your own life list. Ever said you were going to climb
Aconcagua, scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef, learn
Arabic, BASE jump some high rocky place? So have we.

We hope too that this will be a collaborative effort, so if you have items on YOUR lifelist that you’d like us to
include, send us tips or post comments. Also, if you’ve ever done any of the things on the lifelist items we feature,
tell us. We’d love to hear about it, and to get some dialogue going.  As we progress, we hope you add these babies
to YOUR lifelist and start knocking them off, one by one.

Gadling Destination Podcast: Cafe Reggio

by Erik Olsen on

We’re going to try
something a little bit new here with our gadling podcasts. We’re calling
them Destination Podcasts, and they are little audio slices of life from various places we
visit. For this one, we started off with
someplace easy: a small cafe in New York called Caffe Reggio that is famous for attracting clientele like the Beats,
Bob Dylan and the poet Joseph Brodsky. Give a listen and tell us what you think!

Give a
listen.

Host: Erik Olsen.
Format: 4.5 minutes

Gadling Podcasts in iTunes

by Erik Olsen on

I hope you had the chance yesterday to listen to our
podcast interview with John Chatterton. Chatterton is a
legend in the diving community who currently co-hosts the History Channel’s Deep Sea Detectives and whose story was
told in the book Shadow Divers, by author Rob Kurson. FYI: Shadow Divers will soon be made into a film directed by
Ridley Scott. Well, this is just one of several podcasts we have done over the past months, all of which can be
downloaded from our podcast section and/or subscribed to via
an RSS feed.

But we are also now on itunes. If you go to the itunes podcast directory and look under travel,
you
can subscribe to the Gadling podcasts and have them immediately added to your list of podcast feeds. Very cool.
We’ll have more podcasts coming soon with travel experts and adventurers, so stay tuned.

By the way, if you haven’t checked out any of our previous podcasts, we’ve done some good ones since we first started
doing this. Here is a list:

     — James O’Reilly,
Executive Editor of Traveler’s Tales

     — Lonely Planet’s Don
George

     — Eric Stiller, kayaker and
the author of Keep Australia on Your Left

     — Jim Benning, co-editor of
the online travel site Worldhum

     — Dean LaTourrette and
Kristine Enea, travel authors

Gadling Podcast: Intv. John Chatterton of Shadow Divers

by Erik Olsen on

If you have never heard the name John Chatterton, I assure
you that you will know of him soon. John is one of the central characters in the new book Shadow Divers, easily
one of the most riveting books I have read in years, and soon to be a movie directed by Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Alien,
Blade Runner, Black Hawk Down).

The book chronicles the adventures of John and his buddy Richie Kohler, who
discover a wreck off the coast of New Jersey that turns out to be a mystery German U-Boat. Nicknamed the
"U-Who", the boat’s existence puzzles the German government and even the most die-hard U-Boat experts, and
over the course of six years, John and Richie spent countless hours trying to determine the identity of the wreck. In
the process, three people die, succumbing to the wreck’s dangerous depths (it lies at 230 feet), and John and Richie,
at first bitter rivals, are drawn into a lasting friendship that lasts to this day.

Having read the
book, it was no surprise to me that it is being made into a film. Like Into Thin Air and Perfect Storm, the book is not
only an adrenaline rush, but is filled with intense human drama that will translate perfectly to the screen.

In our podcast interview with John, you will hear some of the story behind Shadow Divers, and hear a very cool,
self-professed "regular guy" talk about his passion for diving and how his life has changed as a result of
the book. John and Richie are now the co-hosts of the History Channel’s superb TV program Deep Sea Detectives, which
takes them around the world to explore the origin and demise of other wrecks.

It was a pleasure to
speak with John. He’s a totally cool guy.

Give a
listen.

Host: Erik Olsen.
Format: 24 minutes