Outside Podcast
Episodes
Changing How You Breathe Could Change Your Life
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve been breathing wrong your whole life. That’s the message journalist and outdoor athlete James Nestor delivers in his new bestseller Breath,...
A Harebrained Dream of Building a Cabin in the Woods
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It sounds like a fantasy: join forces with a good friend to build a sweet little cabin in the woods. And for Bryan Schatz and Patrick Hutchison, that’...
What We Really Know About Life in Outer Space
17 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, the search for extraterrestrials has been accelerated by a wave of new technologies that allow us to better probe distant reaches of ...
Why Big Wild’s Songs Feel Like Adventures
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You know how when you listen to certain songs, you feel you feel like you’re being transported to a totally different place? Most of the time, this ...
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Wants YOU to Save the Planet
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson has to be among the busiest scientists in the world. She runs a conservation consulting firm, Ocean Collectiv...
Trapped Underwater and Running Out of Air
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you were to try to come up with the most outlandish survival story imaginable, you’d be hard pressed to do much better than the tale of Michael P...
The Dirty Awesome Truth About Summer Camp
15 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a misguided notion that the ultimate kid’s paradise would look something like a cross between Disneyland and Willie Wonka’s chocolate fa...
That Time the Camp Snake Tried to Eat a Counselor
08 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Amazing things happen when young people spend their days outside and their nights sleeping among new friends—and a week far, far away from their par...
A Close Encounter with the Real Moby Dick
24 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For a good number of travelers, the ultimate bucket-list experience is swimming with whales. There’s something about the idea of being in the water...
A Kayaker’s Brush with Death
17 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nouria Newman is one of the best whitewater kayakers in the world. She’s won numerous prestigious competitions and has completed historic first desc...
Running While Black in New York
10 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There’s been a running boom in the age of coronavirus, with veteran runners and newbies alike lacing up their shoes to get outside. But the experien...
A Love Story Interrupted by a Bison Attack
03 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It’s an established fact that outdoorsy people have the best stories about dating. Getting to know a potential partner while climbing, paddling, or ...
How Kara Goucher Stood Up to Running's Goliath
27 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Olympic marathoner Kara Goucher went public in 2015 with her accusation that her former coach, the legendary Alberto Salazar, had skirted antidop...
The Filmmaker Who Cracked Open Lance Armstrong
20 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The first question most people have when they hear about Lance, the new documentary series about the world’s most infamous cyclist, is: Why now? ...
What Happens to a Cyclist's Body When It's Hit by a Car
05 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Last summer, 34-year-old Andrew Bernstein, known to his friends as Bernie, was riding his bike alone on a road outside Boulder, Colorado, when he was ...
A Half-Baked Trip that Ended with a Magical Eclipse
29 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As every seasoned traveler knows, the most meaningful trips are the ones where everything goes wrong. Take, for example, climber and longtime Outside ...
The Switch in Your Brain That Turns Down Stress
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a technique that would allow us to vanquish fear and beat back stress? There just might be. In his latest book, ...
Chased by a Jaguar in the Heart of the Amazon
15 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The longer we’re stuck at home, sheltering in place, the greater our hunger for tales of far-flung journeys. For this week’s episode, we’re offe...
Why You Desperately Want to Jump in a Lake
08 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Unlike most other animals, humans have to be taught to swim, and yet many of us feel an irresistible pull to the water. There’s something about subm...
Is the Battle Over Nike’s Vaporfly Ruining Running?
01 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past few years, the sport of running has been upended by a debate over shoe technology. It all began in early 2017, when Nike announced a pro...
An Unsettling Crime at the Top of the World
25 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the isolated Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, some 800 miles from the North Pole, the tiny town of Longyearben is the kind of place where people ...
When 18 Tigers Were Let Loose in Zanesville, Ohio
18 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Now here’s a mind-boggling fact: there are more tigers in captivity in the United States right now than all of the wild tigers in the world combined...
What It’s Really Like Being on ‘Naked and Afraid’
11 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When experienced wilderness guide Blair Braverman was invited to audition for the Discovery Channel reality show ‘Naked and Afraid,’ she saw it as...
The Dawn of a New Sports Bra Era
05 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Recent years have seen all kinds of major progress in outdoor sports equipment, from maximalist running shoes to electric bikes to crazy-lightweight c...
How Nature Heals an Injured Brain
26 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After suffering a brain injury in a bicycle accident, Sarah Allely found it difficult to read, write, and watch television. She struggled with everyda...
What A.I. Hears in the Rainforest
19 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Topher White founded the nonprofit Rainforest Connection with the intent of creating a low-cost monitor that could help remote communities in their ef...
A Tale of Two Dramatic Big-Wave Rescues
12 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Every winter, the Pacific Ocean produces massive swells that roll across the open sea and crash into the Hawaiian island of Oahu. For more than 50 yea...
A Long-Shot Bid to Save the Monarch Butterfly
05 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Conservationists hoping to protect a threatened wild species tend to take a standard set of actions. These can involve political campaigns, lawsuits, ...
Ben Greenfield’s Radical Fitness Strategies
29 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s fitness space, self-experimentation is the name of the game. All kinds of people are embracing new technologies and diets in the hope of ...
The Only Time It's OK to Jump Off a Chairlift
22 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At some point, almost every skier or snowboarder who has sat on a stalled chairlift has wondered, Could I just jump off here? The resounding reply fr...
Seeking Magic and Solace in the Northern Lights
15 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ask scientists about the aurora borealis and they’ll explain that the spectacular display of lights we see in the wintertime sky is caused by solar ...
Rich Roll Is the Oprah of Endurance Sports
08 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As host of one of the most popular interview shows in the podcast universe, Rich Roll is known for his limitless empathy. That approach grew out of hi...
How a Ski Accident with My Daughter Changed Everything
19 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It’s around this time of year that we tend to ask ourselves the big questions: Am I living the life I want to be living? Am I a good a person? And, ...
How Kikkan Randall Keeps Coming Back
11 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Of the many story lines that came of the New York Marathon this November, perhaps the most inspiring was the performance of Kikkan Randall. The 35-yea...
When Nature Gets Heavy Metal
04 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Search a major online music platform for “nature” and you get a lot of stuff designed to help you relax. Recordings of chirping rainforest creatur...
Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi’s All-In Partnership
27 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When Free Solo was released last fall, it was an instant sensation—the movie that everyone was telling their friends they had to see. The picture,...
Getting Stung by the Nastiest Creatures on Earth
20 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On the new History Channel show Kings of Pain, Rob “Caveman” Alleva and cohost Adam Thorn get bit and stung by the nastiest insects, reptiles, and...
Richard Louv Wants You to Bond with Wild Animals
13 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Author Richard Louv is best known as the author of Last Child in the Woods, his 2005 bestseller that established the phrase nature-deficit disorder a...
The Hardest Part of a Rescue Comes Later
06 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In our last episode, Peter Frick-Wright told the story of the time he broke his leg at the bottom of a remote canyon and was saved through the efforts...
When Our Podcast Host Shattered His Leg in a Canyon
29 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
About two years ago, Outside Podcast host Peter Frick-Wright was canyoneering in Oregon when he jumped off a ledge and broke his leg. He was stuck at ...
The Curious Rise of Adult Recess Leagues
22 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Recent years have seen a surge in adult-recess leagues across the United States. By some estimates, there are now 1.6 million grown-ups participating ...
Why the Godfather of Barefoot Running Trains with a Donkey
16 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
No one has had a greater influence on modern recreational running than writer Christopher McDougall. His 2009 book Born to Run introduced the masses t...
A Wild Odyssey with the World’s Greatest Chef
08 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
At midlife, food writer Jeff Gordinier felt like he was sleepwalking. His marriage was crumbling, and he’d lost his professional purpose. Then he go...
Dispatches: The Wrong Way to Fight Off a Bear
01 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The odds of getting seriously injured by a bear in North America are slim. There are just a few dozen bear attacks on the continent every year, and on...
Dispatches: Getting Past Our Fear of Great White Sharks
25 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Recent months have seen a media frenzy around the return of great white sharks to the waters surrounding Cape Cod. And with good reason: over the summ...
Science of Survival: Defending Your Home from a Raging Wildfire
18 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The 2018 Carr Fire was one of the worst wildfires in California history. By the time it was contained, it had burned 359 square miles, destroyed close...
The Outside Interview: David Epstein on Why the Best Athletes Like to Dabble and Frequently Quit
10 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the world of athletics, the idea is that if you want to be the best, you have to specialize young and maintain near laserlike focus. The archetypal...
Dispatches: Doug Peacock on the Fight to Protect Grizzly Bears
27 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Doug Peacock took an unlikely path to becoming an icon of conservation. Following two tours in the Vietnam War as a Green Beret medic, he sought solac...
Dispatches: Will Drinking a Gallon of Water a Day Make You Healthier?
13 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Water is critical to human life. Our bodies are more than 50 percent water. We can survive months barely eating, but even a few days without water and...
Dispatches: This Is What a Runner Looks Like
07 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When Mirna Valerio first began running ultramarathons, she immediately got a lot of attention, but not for the reasons you might expect. Because of he...
Dispatches: Is Sunscreen the New Margarine?
30 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this year, Outside contributing editor Rowan Jacobsen wrote a feature that questioned whether our efforts to avoid skin cancer have caused us ...
What Awe in Nature Does for Us
23 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A large and growing body of research has found that time outdoors makes us happier and healthier, but there’s relatively limited science explaining ...
Dispatches: Bundyville, The Remnant
16 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For the past few years, journalist Leah Sottile has been looking at the question of who owns public lands in the West. Her reporting began with the Bu...
The Doctors Prescribing Nature
02 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, a grassroots movement of physicians have begun prescribing time outdoors as the best possible treatment for a growing list of ailment...
Sweat Science: The Mysterious Syndrome Destroying Top Athletes
25 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A while back, Outside contributor Meaghen Brown noticed a strange phenomenon among the elite ultrarunners that she was training with. Runners would co...
Why a Walk in the Woods Cures the Blues
19 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
About six years ago, ecologist Chris Morgan was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room when he picked up a copy of Outside and read the cover story, “...
Science of Survival: Snakebit, Part 2
12 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For the last 19 years, Tim Friede, a truck mechanic from Wisconsin, has endured more than 200 snakebites and 700 injections of lethal snake venom—al...
The Radically Simple Digital Diet We All Need
04 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
These days our smartphone addiction has gotten so intense that many of us now habitually use the devices even when we’re supposedly unplugging. We l...
Science of Survival: Snakebit, Part 1
28 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When Kyle Dickman set out on a spring road trip with his wife and infant son, he was fueled by a carefree sense of adventure that had defined his life...
Dispatches: Buried Treasure and Duct Tape
15 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
So you just found a buried treasure. Hooray! But wait, what do you do next? Are other treasure hunters going to stalk you day and night? Are you going...
Dispatches: Bob Ross’s Strategies for Survival
08 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Bob Ross is one of the most beloved painters of his generation, and he focused almost exclusively on the outdoors. Depicting the “happy trees” and...
Sweat Science: The Keto Conundrum
01 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The ketogenic diet, a.k.a. “cutting carbs,” is all the rage in the fitness world. But is it better for you than any other kind of diet? And does ...
The Outside Interview: Bill McKibben on the End of Nature
17 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
No one has done more to sound the alarm about climate change than writer and activist Bill McKibben. He’s been doing it since 1989, when he wrote hi...
Dispatches: Can You Outrun Anxiety?
02 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 2008, Katie Arnold was hiking a trail near her home in Santa Fe with her baby daughter strapped to her chest when a man attacked her with a rock. T...
The Outside Interview: Steven Rinella Wants Hunters and Hikers to Hold Hands
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As the host and creator of the MeatEater podcast and Netflix series of the same name, Steven Rinella spends a lot of time talking about hunting, fishi...
Dispatches: Sports Recovery Secrets from Scientists
05 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Recovery is the new frontier of athletic performance. The quicker you recuperate, the more you can train, and pro athletes across sports have been rev...
The Outside Interview: Mindfulness for Peak Performance
20 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Every day there’s more research showing the benefits of mindfulness. It reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, boosts the immune system, and may eve...
Dispatches: The Mountain Bikers Fighting New Trails
12 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Since the sport’s early days in the seventies, mountain bikers have carved illicit trails on public and private land. Pioneering riders create windi...
Dispatches: Bianca Valenti Is on a Big Wave Mission
05 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past year, professional surfing has undergone a remarkable and very unexpected evolution. Beginning in 2019, the World Surf League is offerin...
The Outside Interview: Using Pain to Reach Your Potential
22 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Former Navy SEAL David Goggins has spent the past two decades exploring the outer limits of human performance, both in the armed forces and as an endu...
Sweat Science: The 3100-Mile Run Around the Block
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There are a lot of really tough endurance races out there, but perhaps none are harder—both mentally and physically—than the Sri Chinmoy Self-Tran...
Dispatches: Can We Please Kill Off Crutches?
18 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Almost everyone who’s used underarm crutches agrees: they are terrible. They’re hard on your wrists, they cause falls, they cause nerve damage. Th...
Sweat Science: Loving the Pain
11 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There’s no more painful pursuit for a cyclist than the hour record.It’s just you, by yourself, on a bike, going as far and as fast as you can in 6...
Dispatches: What Dogs Really Think about Dog Gear
27 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
For more than two decades, Ruffwear has been reinventing gear for dogs. The brand makes booties, jackets, collars, toys, and pretty much anything else...
Sweat Science: Don’t Waste Your Breath
20 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Pararescue specialists—known as PJ’s in the military—are the most elite unit in the Air Force. But if you want to be a PJ you have to make it th...
Dispatches: Can Nature Heal Our Deepest Wounds?
14 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Wilderness therapy has been used for decades to help troubled teens and addicts, and recently all kinds of people are seeking out guided nature experi...
Sweat Science: The Pull-Up Artists
08 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
John Orth is a violin maker from Colorado. Andrew Shapiro is a college kid from Virginia. They have little in common except that for the last two year...
Dispatches: One Fork to Rule them All
30 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this first episode of a new series exploring how gear gets made, we investigate the origin of arguably the most refined fork in history. When desig...
Dispatches: Alex Honnold on “Free Solo”
23 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The new movie Free Solo is arguably the greatest film about climbing that’s ever been made. In just over 90 minutes, it chronicles Alex Honnold’s ...
Dispatches: Wild Thing
09 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist Laura Krantz doesn’t believe in Bigfoot. She’s trained to be skeptical, and all the best Sasquatch sightings and photos have been debun...
Science of Survival: Burnout
25 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe you saw the fire coming, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you were ready for it, maybe you weren’t. Maybe you did everything right. Maybe not. Maybe ...
Science of Survival: The Future of Fire
11 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
To reduce the intensity of megafires in America, we’d need to treat and burn about 50-80 million acres of forest. So, how do we do it? What would it...
Science of Survival: Fighting Fire with Fire
28 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How do you protect yourself from wildfire on a warming planet? You burn everything on purpose. No, seriously. Thanks to climate change, the whole worl...
Science of Survival: The Sky is Burning
14 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There are between eight and ten thousand wildfires in the United States each year, but most quietly burn out, and we never hear about them. The Pagam...
Dispatches: The Hidden Graves of Kuku Island
24 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Carina Hoang grew up in a wealthy family in Vietnam. She had a nanny to take care of her and a maid who cleaned up after her—she didn’t even wash ...
Science of Survival: Struck by Lightning
11 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Most of the time, when lightning makes the news, it’s because of something outlandish—like the park ranger who was struck seven times, or the surv...
The Outside Interview: The Simple Secrets to Athletic Longevity
26 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone gets older, but not everyone bows out of competition in middle-age. Journalist Jeff Bercovici wanted to know: Why? Why do some athletes flame...
Dispatches: Shelma Jun Can Flash Foxy
19 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Climbing was Shelma Jun’s fallback sport. A snowboarder and mountain biker, she found her way into a climbing gym after injuring her shoulder and lo...
Dispatches: Knox Robinson Crafts Running Culture
12 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Knox Robinson grew up watching his dad run and went on to race track himself at a Division I college, but he was never defined by the sport. He’s mo...
Dispatches: Ayesha McGowan Wants to Be First
29 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ayesha McGowan came late to competitive cycling. An accomplished violinist, she didn’t enter her first organized biking event until after college. D...
Dispatches: Mikhail Martin is a Brother of Climbing
22 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When Mikhail Martin started climbing at a Brooklyn gym in 2009, he was one of very few African Americans to rope up. Today, his group, Brothers of Cli...
Dispatches: Bundyville
15 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 2014, the federal government rounded up Cliven Bundy’s cattle over a matter of unpaid grazing fees. So the Bundy family gathered a posse and took...
Dispatches: Kellee Edwards’s Story is a Trip
08 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Kellee Edwards had a dream of getting her own show on the Travel Channel. She also had a plan. As a black woman trying to break into the overwhelmingl...
Dispatches: Alexi Pappas Dreams Like a Crazy and Runs Like One, Too
01 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Distance runner Alexi Pappas is the rare dual-threat of Olympic athlete and movie star. In the 2016 film Tracktown, which she wrote, directed, and pla...
Science of Survival: A Very Old Man for a Wolf
24 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
One day in 2005 or 2006, a young wolf in Idaho headed west. He swam across the Snake River to Oregon, which was then outside the gray wolf’s range. ...
Dispatches: The Woman Who Rides Mountains
17 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Maverick’s, the monster surf break off the Northern California coast, has long been a proving ground for the world’s best big-wave surfers. But th...
Dispatches: Kris Tompkins’s 10-Million-Acre Life
10 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
After building Patagonia into an internationally renowned apparel brand, the company’s first CEO, Kris Tompkins, walked away from the job, following...
Science of Survival: “F/V Destination, Do You Copy?”
03 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It was the kind of disaster that wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. On February 11, 2017, the fishing vessel Destination disappeared in the Bering S...
Dispatches: Bear Grylls Will Never Give Up
20 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Apparently nobody told Bear Grylls that reality TV stars never have long careers. A dozen years after the cheeky Briton exploded onto American televis...
Dispatches: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild Creativity
06 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In her acclaimed 2012 memoir, Wild, Cheryl Strayed delivered a fresh take on outdoor writing—a redemption story set on the Pacific Crest Trail. The ...