Podcasting While Traveling: Your 5-Step Plan for Recording on the Road
Hello, from Albania. Here I am with my favorite travel bud, Cristal Dyer aka The Tofu Traveler. We waited until after our trip to record our travel guide for Albania.
As someone who has podcasted from hostels, hotels, and bare-bones medieval apartments, I’m proof that you can record a quality podcast from anywhere. Want to take your show on the road? On Podcasting Step by Step, I walk you though my 5-step plan for recording while traveling.
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Should you podcast from the road?
But first, take a step back and ask yourself if you should be podcasting while on your next travel adventure. Does it have to be right now?
While in Bali with a friend of mine, I had the urge to podcast all the time and roped my friend into recording an episode on ‘how to survive long-haul flights.’ But she put her foot down when I wanted to record another one.
“Can’t we just hang out?”
She had a fair point. We don’t need to document every second of our lives. Sometimes it’s good to be in the moment and reflect later. And if you meet cool people on the road, you can always interview them later.
If you want to podcast on the road, that is totally cool, and can also be very fun. Just sharing some options with ya.
Think about the goal of recording from the road. What do you want to get out of it? If it makes sense, do it.
Have a podcast plan before you arrive
I recently podcasted from a travel show in London. There were hundreds of vendors and other people there and I knew this would be a good place to get many soundbites all at once. If you’re podcasting from a conference, follow this five-step strategy to record a great episode:
Have a plan before you get there of who you want to talk to and why. If you’re podcasting to promote your business, interviewing people who are potential customers is a wise idea.
Use the same one to three questions for every person to unify your episode’s theme.
Break the ice with potential interviewees to gauge whether they’d be good on mic. Are they friendly? Do they have enough energy? Are they interesting to talk to, or overly salesy?
If they seem like a good match, ask if you can take a few minutes to interview them, and respect their time.
After the interview, thank them, exchange business cards, and make sure you follow up to thank them and let them know when the episode is out.
Equipment you need to podcast in person
At the travel show, I recorded using the following equipment:
Cable to attach the mic and recorder (cable usually comes with the Samson Q2U)
Top tip: Make sure you have enough battery power to get you through the day.
I recorded my mini-interviews reporter-style, with me holding the mic and putting it in front of their mouths. You want to stay in control of the mic, and try to keep eye contact with them so they don’t move their head around and start speaking off-mic.
Also, if they hold the mic, you’re at risk of them 1) talking forever and/or 2) introducing rustling, hand-movement sounds into the audio.
If I were interviewing someone in-person in a quieter place and was only doing one interview, I would have brought:
two mic stands (usually comes with mic)
two cables (usually comes with mic)
The reason for the two headphones is so we can both hear whether we are on mic or not (guests have a tendency to lean back way from the mic), and having mics in stands is better than holding the mics for sound quality.
If you want to get all NPR-style on the road
If you have the money, time and desire to go full-NPR, those folks like to use shotgun mics in the field to capture ambient sound in their narrative podcasts and radio shows. Street noise. Coffee brewing. Forks hitting plates. If you want to do this kind of thing, know what sounds you want to capture before you go and wear headphones so you can monitor what you’re capturing in the field.
I have yet to invest in a shotgun mic because I like to keep things simple. However, my friend Lyn Lindbergh recently told me about a portable mic she’s in love with: the Shure MV88.
Lyn hosts the Couch to Active podcast and co-hosts The Lindberghs podcast, so she’s recorded at fitness conventions and air shows and said the mic did an excellent job at minimizing background noise. Plug it into your iPhone (sorry, Android people) and you can record audio and also video if you want.
Top tip number 2: If you go to a podcast conference, play around with the mics, enter raffles to win them, and failing that, see if the vendors have any special offers on their equipment.
In the next episode of Podcasting Step by Step, you’ll hear more from Lyn, who will share what every co-hosted podcast needs so it doesn’t go up in flames.
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