Shows / The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
American history experienced through American travel. The country is the classroom. I go to the place, walk it, and write what the visit felt like. Episodes talk through the same ground.
Episodes
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Museum Is Older Than the Country. The Fort Still Needs a Boat.
Charleston sells pastel streets. The collection started in 1773. Sumter is a ruin you reach by ferry. Why downtown is the 1680 peninsula and not the 1670…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
They Put the Racing Hall Across From the Track. The First Room Was a Casino.
The meet started while the country was at war. The Hall of Fame sits on Union Avenue because the track was already there. Why the Hall is across the street…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The State Reserved the Springs. The Cars Moved Into the Plant.
New York reserved the springs in 1909. The cars sit in the plant that used to bottle them. Hours, tickets, and whatever is on the ground floor this month live…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Sign Says Heinz. The Fifth Floor Is Why the City Exists.
People walk into a Strip District ice warehouse looking for ketchup. The name is a senator who died in 1991. The war that made Pittsburgh is upstairs. Read the…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
They Put the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for Doubleday. He Was a Cadet at West Point.
Baseball was not invented in Cooperstown. The National Baseball Hall of Fame opened there in 1939 on a story Doubleday never told. You go for the plaques on…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
You Walk Downtown Pittsburgh for the Architecture. A Hospital Fills the Steel Tower.
Pittsburgh still sells the Steel City. The tallest tower was built to rust. A hospital fills the floors. The walk is two hours from a white bike on Penn Avenue…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
They Asked Eisenhower to Run on This Ridge. The Tower Is Still There.
A cocktail family’s castle on the Metacomet Ridge. A 1950 newspaper picnic. The lawn where they asked Eisenhower to run. Read the article…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
They Put the Rock Hall in Cleveland for a Radio Night. The Pyramid Opened Nine Years Later
The Hall of Fame started as a New York dinner. Cleveland won the building because Alan Freed said “rock and roll” on WJW and the city would not let the museum…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Two Voids Where the Towers Stood
Two pools sit in the footprints of the Twin Towers. 2,983 names run the bronze. The plaza is free. The museum is seventy feet down. Read the article…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
Washington Was Eighteen Minutes Away. They Put the Plane in a Field.
United 93 left Newark late. The passengers learned the other planes were weapons. Eighteen minutes from Washington, the 757 went into a Somerset County field…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Packers Were Named for a Meat Plant. The Town Still Owns the Team.
Every other NFL team has an owner. Green Bay has shareholders — a packing-plant club the town refused to sell, in the oldest stadium still used by the team…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
Shea Sold You a Dog. Citi Field Sells You the City.
Shea sold a hot dog and a cup. Citi Field sells New York on a concourse — pastrami that falls apart, sausage that holds, a julep in a souvenir cup — and prices…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
Peak Season Is When You See the Line. Offseason Is When You See the Place.
Peak weeks are when a historic house performs for a crowd. Offseason is when you can hear the guide — if the kitchen is still open and you checked the last…
The Red Solo Traveler PodcastSeatbacks Making A Comeback, and The National Parks Goes Interactive
How the return of seatback entertainment elevates the premium flying experience while also cutting costs for airlines. I also explore how AI is making national…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
Arnold Took This Point in an Afternoon. The Granite Fort Came Later.
On September 6, 1781, Benedict Arnold took Fort Trumbull in minutes and burned New London. The granite pentagon you walk is the third fort on the point. Then…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The British Burned 27 Ships at This Landing. The Last Warehouse Is Still on the Dock.
On April 8, 1814, the British burned 27 ships at this Essex landing — the largest single American shipping loss of the war. The last steamboat warehouse on the…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Hotels Are Booming and is Breeze Airways A Breeze?
In this week's episode, we explore the reasons behind the surge in suburban and exurb hotels due to AI data centers, along with one travel blogger's journey on…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
Mystic Seaport Is a Village, Not a Building
Most museums put the past behind glass. Mystic Seaport put a working 19th-century port on the Mystic River and left the doors unlocked. Start on the Sabino at…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
He Invented How Holmes Looks. Then He Built a Castle on the River.
William Gillette put the deerstalker and the curved pipe on Sherlock Holmes, then spent the fortune on a fieldstone house above the Connecticut River. Helen…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
How Elites and "The Odyssey" Are Shaping Travel
In this week's episode, I discuss how elite travelers and "The Odyssey" are shaping and inspiring new travel experiences.Articles discussed:2026 Travel Trends…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Thimble Islands Are Private. The Granite Under Them Built Liberty’s Pedestal.
You do not get off the boat. The houses off Stony Creek are private, and the pink granite under them already left for New York — Liberty’s pedestal, Grant’s…
The Red Solo Traveler PodcastDeep Dive: The Thimble Islands Cruise Is a Must-See, Here's Why
Join me as I share my Thimble Islands cruise experience, exploring picturesque islands and the stunning Connecticut shoreline.Read the article…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Freight Trains Stopped in 1968. Essex Still Runs Steam to a Riverboat.
Essex, Connecticut: a river railroad that lost its passengers in 1933 and its freight in 1968. Steam came back on the centennial — and still meets a boat at…
The Red Solo Traveler PodcastFlying the Not So Friendly Skies
In this episode, I go over the misplaced priorities of American Airlines and how they can't seem to get out of its own way, and I review "Spider-Man: Brand New…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Card From One Museum Opens the Rest
Why there is no NARM storefront, why a Boston card clears Chicago and dies in Cambridge, and why the third ticket is the one that breaks the trip. Read the…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
Atlanta Turned Its Warehouses Into Dinner
Atlanta rebuilt a Sears catalog plant into dinner. A conversation from Louis’s circuit: Ponce, two barbecue rooms, three halls with different jobs, and why you…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
Work Trip Story: Flight Changes and How Work Trips are Semi-Vacations
In this episode, a harrowing flight change story where time and the universe needed to be on my side (for once), and how work trips should be looked at as…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
Carter Left Office After One Term. The Library Is About What Came After.
Louis walked the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta. Why the building is stronger on Plains, the Oval Office replica, and the decades after 1981 than…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
Atlanta Grew Around a Mile Post. The History Center Still Has It.
A conversation from Louis’s walk through the Atlanta History Center. Why the city exists because of a railroad terminus — and why the Texas, the Zero Mile…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Waterfall in Roswell Used to Power Confederate Cloth
The dam at Vickery Creek powered Confederate cloth. Then Sherman shipped the mill workers north. Why the waterfall hid the park, and why the monument is not at…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Braves Didn’t Just Leave Turner Field. They Built a Town.
Two hosts talk through Louis’s night at Truist Park and The Battery Atlanta: why the Braves left an Olympic stadium, what they built at the interchange, and…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
AI to Stop Flight Delays, and Permanent Daylight Savings Time is Dumb
On the show this week, I discuss AI as a tool to minimize travel disruptions, and why permanent Daylight Savings Time is a really bad idea.Articles…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
I'm Back Baby!
The return, rebirth or fresh start of the Red Solo Traveler Podcast. Listen as I lay out the plan for the show, how Deep Dive is a great compliment to the…
- The Red Solo Traveler Podcast
The Car Museum Off I-75 Is Named for a Wreck They Found on the Land
Savoy Automobile Museum, just off I-75 in Cartersville. Why they named a polished car museum for a rusted Plymouth they found on the land, and when the detour…