If you travel around Canada, you'll find lots of regional dishes, but there isn't really a strong national culinary identity the way there is in Italy or Mexico, for example. On the latest episode of Far From Home, my friends at Canadian Geographic send me on a quest to figure out how exactly to define "Canadian cuisine" beyond the stereotypical maple syrup, poutine, and butter tarts. The answer turns out to be much more interesting than I ever could have imagined!
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Far From Home is an immersive travel and culture podcast where Peabody award-winning journalist Scott Gurian reports fascinating stories from his journeys to faraway places like Iran, Chernobyl, and Mongolia.

If you’re discovering the show for the first time, you might want to start with the episode about the medicine man in Peru or check out the one about the guy who’s traveled around the world making balloon hats. The story about visiting Chernobyl was also pretty popular among listeners, as was the episode about the experiences of African Americans traveling the world.

And if you’re looking for a series to binge, listen to the first season, which tells the story of an 11,000 mile / 18 country road from the UK to Mongolia in a ridiculously tiny car (highlights: check out this episode from Iran and this one from Turkmenistan)!

New to podcasting? See these step-by-step instructions for how to listen.

In 1971, a group of squatters took over an abandoned military base just across the harbor from downtown Copenhagen, Denmark. They created a politically autonomous anarchist zone -- in other words, a commune -- with its own flag, marching band, and consensus-driven governance process, and they decided to call their community Christiania. The thousand or so residents were free to do pretty much whatever they wanted as long as it didn't infringe upon the rights of other people. There were just a few rules: no private ownership of land or housing, no weapons or violence, and no vehicles. But as the years went on, Christiania faced a number of challenges, and now -- more than half a century later -- it's at a turning point where some people question how much longer it will be able to survive.

This first episode of Far From Home's 4th season was produced in collaboration with 99% Invisible. Read More →

In the course of reporting my documentary about Freetown Christiania, I took two trips to Denmark and recorded many hours of interviews that unfortunately ended up on the cutting room floor. In this bonus episode, I present some of the highlights as well as some additional context and backstories of the people I interviewed.

[N.B.: This episode contains some explicit language]

Season one tells the story of an epic journey I took with my brother and some friends, raising money for charity. Over seven weeks, we drove across Europe and Asia, through 8 time zones, 5 mountain ranges, and a few deserts, all the way from the UK to Mongolia!

Listen in and follow along with our adventures as we face everything from language barriers to mechanical trouble, getting horribly lost to paying bribes to shady traffic cops.

On the second season of the show, I ditch the car and slow down the journey, sharing my unexpected adventures and chance encounters with interesting people around the world as I continue my travels to places as diverse as Cambodia, Chernobyl, Spain, Japan, and Peru. The goal as always is to get lost down back alleys, venture off the beaten path, and look for stories in far-flung corners of the world that most tourists never visit. In the end, I find that wherever I go, despite whatever cultural, political, and geographic differences people have, they’re generally far more alike than they are different.

On the third season of Far From Home, I continue sharing stories from around the world as well as closer to my own backyard. Amid a global pandemic, economic turmoil, and protests for racial justice, I check in to see how folks are doing, and I feature more reporting from far-flung places from my pre-COVID travels.