This summer, I’m doing a lot of driving. We’ve had two road trips so far, and are currently in the middle of another one. Perhaps the biggest road trip is the solo drive I’m taking 998 miles to our new house. Charles is in the moving van so I am bored and alone in my car the whole time. Well, almost alone. I have Biscuit with me, eating chicken nuggets and putting her head in the air conditioning vents.

On these long (solo) trips, podcasts are pretty much my bestt friend. They keep me entertained and focused instead of listless and bored, which I think makes me a better driver overall, especially when going that distance. Here are my favorite podcasts, as of right now!

This Podcast May Kill You

This one is super fun. It’s about diseases but is told in a bubbly way, going through biology, the epidemiology, and the outlook of the disease in the present time. The hosts are both ladies with doctorates in microbiology and are fantastic storytellers. They make even the most complicated diseases easy to understand and share lots of interesting facts on the way.

The Anthropocene Reviewed

I like this one because it reads like a well-thought-out essay because it is. It’s a 20-minutes-ish long deep dive into thoughts on something. Could be anything, from the movie Harvey to the Taco Bell Breakfast Menu. It’s poetic and thought-provoking, but also light enough for a morning commute.

Sawbones

Another disease podcast, this one is much more comedically inclined. Sawbones covers medical history, from the bizarre to the trendy. It’s hosted by a family medicine practitioner and her comedian husband, so she brings the science, and he brings the comic relief.

How I Built This

This is a business podcast, where the host interviews people with successful businesses that you’ve heard of. It’s interesting to see what it takes to make a hugely successful business, and also the kind of stressors and growing pains that these business owners face.

Terrible, Thanks for Asking

So, this one isn’t light. Each episode goes into someone’s story of loss or tragedy. They cover the whole gamut, so I usually pick and choose which ones I want to listen to. You can pick from mental illness, child loss, assault…pretty much anything. It’s hosted by a wonderful storyteller named Nora, whose husband Aaron passed away from cancer after a long battle. She talks about her own loss, but also the odd phenomenon that, no matter what loss you have suffered, you can relate to others, even when their loss is drastically different from yours.

Most Notorious

I love True Crime podcasts, but I feel like a lot of them fall into the “reading Wikipedia with added swear words” category. This one is extremely well-researched, and covers a lot of lesser-known crimes and heists, making it different from the others in a big way.

Happy listening! Let me know your favorite podcasts down below!