The Barefoot Backpacker

Podcast #115: Travel Through The Senses

The image shows a tranquil woodland scene with a small stream winding through the centre, its water moving gently over dark rocks and shallow bends. The banks are covered in vivid green moss, creating a soft, lush texture that stands out strongly against the earthy browns and muted winter tones of the surrounding forest floor. In the lower left foreground, a person’s hand reaches out and lightly touches the moss, giving the scene a sense of scale and human presence. The hand appears small compared with the natural landscape, which makes the moss-covered bank feel especially thick and velvety. The stream curves away into the background, drawing the eye deeper into the quiet landscape, where bare tree trunks and scattered branches suggest a cool season or early spring. The overall mood is calm, fresh, and intimate, with the bright moss bringing life and softness to the rugged streamside setting.

Welcome to Episode 115 of my “Travel Tales From Beyond The Brochure” podcast.

In a recent podcast episode, I talked about aesthetics a lot, and I occasionally touched on the idea of ‘senses’. I figured it made sense therefore to do a full podcast on it, on how you, I, everyone uses their senses while travelling, and whether our senses affect how we travel, and the experiences we gain through them. Consider, too, how our memories of a place, of a trip, live in the senses, and we can easily be reminded of them if the same senses are activated in the same way after the event.

So here’s an episode on how senses affect us while travelling, and how we use them to experience our trips.

Topics discussed in this episode are:
Parts One and Two: Housekeeping and Introduction

Part Three: Sight and Vision

  • Travel is very visual
  • What makes a good ‘sight’
  • Photography
  • Being Blind (Part One)

Part Four: Sound and Hearing

  • Loud v Quiet sleep spots
  • Changes in sound intensity – eg cathedrals in busy cities
  • Is what you hear what you’d expect to hear
  • The difference in sounds between home and abroad
  • Diversity

Part Five: Smell

  • People don’t think about smell until it hits them
  • Spices and food
  • Out of place aromas
  • Underground railways
  • Personal hygiene and busy hostel dorms

Part Six: Taste

  • The cultural aspects of food
  • Coffee
  • Cuisines around the world
  • People have different tastes
  • The textures of food

Part Seven: Touch and Texture

  • The feel of buildings and trees
  • Things you touch in everyday living
  • Home décor
  • The weather
  • Being Blind (Part Two)
  • Barefoot Backpacking

Part Eight: Proprioception, Movement, and Spatial Awareness

Part Nine: Timing

Part Ten: Conclusion

You can listen via the feed above, or via Spotify, or on your podcast app of choice. Let me know if it isn’t, by the way, and I’ll see what I can do. In addition, a PDF transcript of this episode is available.

As always, if you have anything to say about the topic, or indeed about my podcasting in general, leave a comment or let me know. I now have a newsletter you can subscribe to, containing extra content, and it’s where I’ll be mentioning future podcast episodes if you want to make your own contribution.

I also now have a Patreon! If you like what you hear, and want to access exclusive content (or just to show your appreciation), then head on over to my page and donate to me!

There are no contributions in this pod. Apart from V at the start. As she is my default option.

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The Barefoot Backpacker

“I go to these places so you don’t have to”

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