"Vanishing Postcards" Podcast: Soak In the Sounds Of America's Backroads

  How many travel podcasts are there? At least as many coins that have been tossed in fountains in tourist areas in search of a fulfilled wish. Here's why innovative podcasters can begin with a podcast topic covered by thousands and find a niche that is refreshing, unique, and makes other podcasters wonder why they didn't think of this idea.

 Vanishing Postcards is billed as a "podcast for backroad wanderers." In the podcast's first season, which began in April 2022 and ended in October, creator and host Evan Stern traveled the backroads of Texas, his home state. 

 

Graphic of Texaco gas station with Vanishing Postcards

Here are some of the episode names from season one.

Postcards from Ghosts - “Weeping Women and the Ghoulish Side of Galveston” 

Postcard from Houston, “Wasting Time at The West Alabama Ice House”

 Postcard from The Rio Grande Valley, “Community and Conjunto”

The creator of Vanishing Postcards and its host Evan Stern is one of a proud few who can claim Austin as his legitimate hometown. Having caught the performing bug early on, he first gained attention at age 11 with a second-place finish in Austin’s famed O. Henry Pun Off, and has since appeared on the stages of New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. 

A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the British American Drama Academy, whether acting Shakespeare, or charming audiences with the turn of a Cole Porter phrase, Evan Stern is first and foremost a storyteller, with a sincere love and appreciation for history, travel and the art of raconteurship.

Stern is now ramping up for season two, with a trailer just out. It's called The Route 66 Season.

In many ways Vanishing Postcards is the post-modern, podcast version of Blue Highways, which is one of those rare books that continues to define a generation and became a metaphor for life as a journey.

The year of his journey was 1978. He was Bill Trogdon, or William Least Heat-Moon, according to his Osage lineage. He was 38 then, on an extended road trip in a Ford van following a somewhat circular route around the United States, sticking to the highways marked in blue on his old road atlas.

Vanishing Postcards offers listeners the benefit of hearing what the backroads sounds like. It's a special listening experience. 

So don't just listen to any travel podcast, listen to Vanishing Postcards. You will not be sorry.  It’s a documentary travelogue that invites listeners on a road trip exploring the hidden dives and histories found by exiting the interstates. 

Season two episodes launch on June 9.

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