Travel & Leisure

Free Speech

The 10 best podcasts on the Internet

1 Genius Ideas Hundreds of wealthy men fork over $6,000 every March to attend TED, a four-day conference in Monterey, California, where the world's brightest thinkers share smart ideas about solving humanity's greatest ills. TED (the acronym stands for technology, entertainment, and design) attracts speakers such as biologist E. O. Wilson on biodiversity, pathogen expert Dr. Larry Brilliant (yes, that's his real name) on pandemics, and BMW's car sculptor Chris Bangle on design. Each lecturer has 18 minutes to give the speech of his or her lifetime, and about 200 of the most popular are archived as podcasts at ted.com (select "Talks" on the home page).

2 Language Lessons Spanishpod offers free language lessons straight from the mouths of native speakers. While some sessions focus on the basics (ordering food in restaurants, for instance), others teach practical skills you'd otherwise have to learn on the street, such as how to abbreviate words for text messaging. The company behind Spanishpod, Praxis Language, also offers free Chinese classes. spanishpod.com, chinesepod.com

3 Financial Smarts If you're tired of the same old financial reporting of the Commie News Network, as Stephen Colbert might say, or the right-wing hacks at Fox, as Bill Maher might say, check out American Public Media's "Marketplace." Kai Ryssdal and his team of down-to-earth reporters distinguish themselves from other business shows by exploring the human factors behind economic trends. Segments dissect pocketbook topics such as how to juice the economy with your measly tax rebate, how lies grease the wheels of the business world, and how minting pennies hurts the economy. Get the daily 30-minute podcast at http://marketplace.publicradio.org.

4 Photography Lessons Each episode of this video podcast features a professional photographer telling the story behind his or her favorite photographs. The lensmen and their pictures belong to the legendary photo cooperative Magnum Photos, whose 80 members have chronicled the world's most important events since lens legend Henri Cartier-Bresson cofounded the agency in 1947. From Bruce Gilden's historical slideshow on Coney Island to Jonas Bendiksen's musings on Soviet satellite nations, each brief documentary provides a view into the eye of an artist. inmotion.magnumphotos.com/podcasts.aspx

5 Sports Stories Sure, Bryant Gumbel's Real Sports, with more than 10 years of Emmys to its name, gets lots of in-depth interviews with controversial figures such as Floyd Landis and Terrell Owens. But it's the quiet, unusual stories that distinguish this program from talk shows ridden with locker-room one-liners. Take, for instance, the tale of the 77-year-old nun who competes in triathlons, or the middle-age track star who passed himself off as a high-school student to keep competing. Subscribe to the show's podcast and access its archive by searching for "Bryant Gumbel" in Apple's iTunes Store.

6 Classic Americana Aptly described as "movies on the radio," This American Life, a Peabody Award–winning hour-long show, has aired on NPR every week since 1995. Correspondents, including nonfiction luminaries David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, and Bill Buford, track strange and wonderful people, from a pot-bellied building superintendent who turns out to be a Brazilian assassin to an indecisive man who has spent a decade picking out his couch. Host Ira Glass manages to weave their tales into three-part themed shows. Each episode is available as a free download for one week after its original broadcast, and you can download more than 600 past episodes by paying 95 cents per show. thislife.org

7 Travel Advice Chris Christensen created "Amateur Traveler," a weekly hour-long audio and video podcast, to keep you as far away from tourists wearing jean shorts and Big Johnson T-shirts as possible. Each episode explores world destinations with guidebook writers, journalists, and veteran nomads. You'll learn the best place to find lobster paella in Barcelona, how to motorbike through India, and where to go for a far-flung family vacation. Whet your wanderlust by scrolling through the archive of more than 125 past broadcasts. amateurtraveler.com