Unpacked by Afar

Welcome to Unpacked Five Questions, a podcast that takes you behind the scenes of one great travel story. In this episode, executive editor Katherine LaGrave sits down with writer Latria Graham, Afar's Unpacked columnist.

Latria spent seven weeks driving the nearly 5,000-mile Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail—alone—to report a story about the Corps of Discovery's most essential and least credited member: York, an enslaved man whose skills, knowledge, and presence helped make the entire expedition possible.

Latria traces the trail from Kentucky to the Pacific Northwest, stopping at massacre sites, Indigenous mounds, sunflower fields, and a 50-foot statue of an Indigenous woman with a star quilt—asking what it means to travel responsibly through landscapes layered with historical trauma, and the questions that still remain about York's life.

Meet this week's guest

Latria Graham is a writer and Afar's Unpacked columnist, whose work turns over some of travel's biggest and most difficult questions—from whether we should visit museums with complicated histories to how we can better support hospitality workers. Follow her on Instagram at @missgraham.

Episode highlights


Why York—the enslaved man who traveled the entire Corps of Discovery expedition—was essential to its survival, and how historical accounts minimized him for generations while Black historians have spent decades restoring his full dimensions


What Latria found at the statue of York in Louisville, the Dignity of Earth and Sky sculpture in Chamberlain, South Dakota, and Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park in North Dakota: three sites that grappled honestly with what the trail erased


How to travel responsibly through landscapes layered with trauma: spending money with local restaurants and farms, practicing leave no trace principles, sitting with hard history in small museums, and knowing when not to take the riskier hike


Why the rivers mattered most: every confluence, every overlook, every moment the water changed direction—the one thing on the trail that was there before the history and will be there after it


The questions the trail left open: what actually happened to York after the expedition ended, whether a GIS map or an app might tell these stories better than a book, and what it means to make sure history lives as fully realized human lives rather than names and dates

Links & resources


Follow Latria Graham on Instagram


Read her Lewis and Clark trail story for Afar


Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail

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LGBTQ+ Americans are more than twice as likely as the general population to hold a valid passport. That stat sits at the heart of (Out )on the Road: The Radical Joy of Queer Travel, a new book from writer Lindsey Danis that's part memoir, part guide.

Most conversations about queer travel start and end with safety. Lindsey wanted to write past that, toward joy, belonging, and power. In this episode, they and Aislyn talk about the honeymoon trip that reshaped Lindsey's whole life, the research that turns fear into freedom, and why traveling as exactly who you are is its own kind of homecoming.

Meet this week's guest

Lindsey Danis is a writer and the author of (Out )on the Road, a travel memoir and reported guide written by and for LGBTQ+ travelers. Their work explores queer travel, belonging, and the search for joy on the road. You can find their work at lindseydanis.com.

In this episode you'll learn

Why Lindsey scrapped an entire early draft that was a straightforward travel memoir, and what they wrote instead.

How research becomes the bridge from fear to joy, and the two tools Lindsey relies on before every trip.

Why a honeymoon in Vietnam and Thailand changed not just how Lindsey travels, but where and how they live.

What Lindsey hopes allies take away from the book, including readers who never expected to see themselves in it.

Episode chapters

00:00 A Surprising Stat
02:00 The Book They Needed
05:00 Scrapping The Memoir
09:00 Hiding And Choice
12:00 On Passing
16:00 Two Favorite Tools
18:00 A Toast In Vietnam
20:00 The Honeymoon Shift
25:00 The Galapagos
27:00 A Note For Allies
30:00 Next Stop, Sri Lanka

Resources


Movement Advancement Project — a color-coded database comparing US state laws on gender identity and sexual orientation: mapresearch.org


EqualDex — a country-by-country index of LGBTQ+ rights and attitudes worldwide: equaldex.com

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Welcome to Travel to Listen, a new Unpacked series hosted by veteran music journalist Tim Chester. Over four episodes, Tim took us into the cities where music is more than entertainment—it's the shortcut to a place's soul. In this season finale, he heads to Detroit to explore the legendary Motown sound—and to find out what's next for the little house on West Grand Boulevard that started it all.

Meet this week's guests

Adam White is the author of Motown: The Sound of Young America, co-written with former Motown president Barney Ales. A former editor-in-chief at Billboard, Adam has spent 40 years exploring the Motown story and writes a weekly blog about the label at adamwhite.com.

Robin Terry is the chairwoman and CEO of the Motown Museum—and Berry Gordy's great-niece. Raised by her grandmother Esther Gordy Edwards, who founded the museum, Robyn is currently leading the $75 million expansion.

Guest host Tim Chester is a freelance travel and culture writer who has spent the past 20 years exploring the world through the lens of music. His reporting has appeared in NME, Spin, and Afar, and his travels have taken him from Manhattan to Malawi and Beijing to Berlin in search of the festivals, scenes, and stories that reveal a city's soul.

Chapters

00:00:00 Welcome to Detroit
00:02:00 Why Motown Endures
00:04:00 The Detroit Advantage
00:07:00 The Motown Family
00:09:00 Inside Hitsville USA
00:12:00 Psychedelic Soul
00:16:00 Hitsville Next

A Music Fan's Travel Guide to Detroit

Detroit's Motown story is anchored to one street, but the city's music scene runs much deeper. Here's how to experience it.

Start here: the essential stops

Hitsville USA / The Motown Museum — Berry Gordy's original house at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, where Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, The Temptations, and Martha and the Vandellas all got their start. Note: the museum is closed during its $75 million expansion, but the plaza in front of Hitsville is open and activated with food trucks and live performances all summer.

Esther Gordy Edwards Center for Excellence — the nearby space hosting the museum's first major exhibition, Psychedelic Soul, running through September 2026. A deep dive into Motown's overlooked '70s era, Norman Whitfield, and the Temptations.

Michigan Central Station — the newly restored Beaux-Arts landmark that anchors Detroit's broader reinvention. A short drive from Hitsville and worth the detour.

Hear live music

Smokey's Soul Town on SiriusXM — not a venue, but essential listening before and during your trip. The show is recorded at the museum and hosted by Levi Stubbs III and John Mason.

The Current (Twin Cities) — if you're road-tripping from Minneapolis, keep this on. Their gig listings track what's happening across the Midwest music scene.

Go deeper

Standing in the Shadows of Motown — the book and documentary that finally gave names and faces to the Funk Brothers, the studio musicians behind the sound.

Hitsville Next — the Motown Museum's emerging artist community for singers, songwriters, musicians, and engineers. hitsvil​leusa.com

The full Travel to Listen series

Episode 1: Macon, Georgia — Little Richard, Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers, and the small Southern city that punches far above its weight. Listen now.
Episode 2: Minneapolis — Prince, the Minneapolis sound, and a city still making music history a decade after his death. Listen now.
Episode 3: Southern California — the spacey, grungy desert rock scene beyond Coachella. Listen now.
Episode 4 (this one!): Detroit — Motown, Hitsville USA, and what comes next.

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It’s the last Feel-Good Friday before host Aislyn and producer Nikki take a summer break. And they’re sending the season off with two of summer’s great pleasures: a viral World Cup food obsession and a very American bourbon.

First, why international soccer fans are falling hard for ranch dressing—and getting stopped at airport security over it. Then, a first-of-its-kind whiskey blended from all 50 states, arriving just in time for the Fourth of July and America’s 250th birthday.

This week’s Feel-Good Friday stories

International visitors flooding the US for the World Cup have discovered ranch dressing, and they want to take it home by the bottle. Aislyn and Nikki tackle the great World Cup ranch debate.

An independent bottler spent five years and a cross-country road trip visiting more than 100 distilleries to create the first whiskey ever blended from all 50 states. PLUS a limited 1776 edition drawn from the original 13 colonies, made to mark the country’s 250th.

Bonus: A couple of cautionary tales about packing wine home in your luggage, and a solemn vow never to pair good bourbon with ranch.

That’s a wrap on Feel-Good Friday for the season. Aislyn and Nikki will be back after a summer break — until then, happy Fourth of July, and happy summer.

Chapters

00:00:00 Welcome to Feel-Good Friday

00:02:00 The Great Ranch Debate

00:05:00 Liquid Smuggling Confessions

00:07:00 United States of Bourbon

00:10:00 Cheers to Summer

Stay connected

Be sure to subscribe to the show and sign up for our podcast newsletter, ⁠Behind the Mic⁠, where we share upcoming news and behind-the-scenes details of each episode.

And explore our second podcast, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Travel Tales⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, which celebrates first-person narratives about the way travel changes us, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠View From Afar⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, where we spotlight the people and ideas shaping the future of travel.

Unpacked by Afar is part of ⁠Airwave Media⁠'s podcast network. Please contact ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertising@airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you would like to advertise on our podcast.
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On this episode of Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene and producer Nikki Galteland hit the road in Michigan and find epic adventures, gorgeous waterways—and a new way to connect.

Join them as they follow Michigan's mitten counterclockwise, exploring the state's many waterways. They paddle the Au Sable River, flying over the Lake Huron shipwrecks of Thunder Bay, ferry over to the car-free Mackinac Island, savor, the deep quiet of Drummond Island—and the sparkling-wine country of the Leelanau Peninsula.

It's a Great Lakes road trip built on short drives, Up North history, and the kindness of strangers, and it turns into a case for why traveling this way might be one of the best ways to build a friendship.

Meet this week's guests (aka our new Michigan friends)

Adam Hume runs Oscoda Canoe Rental on the Au Sable River.

Kathy Erickson helps put on the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon, the 120-mile overnight race she lovingly calls the world's toughest spectator sport.

Stephanie Gandulla is a maritime archaeologist at Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

Captain Richard Biffle pilots the glass-bottom Lady Michigan for Alpena Shipwreck Tours.

Patrick Conlon is the general manager of The Inn at Stonecliffe on Mackinac Island and one of roughly 500 people who live on the island year round.

Emily is the wine club manager at MAWBY on the Leelanau Peninsula.

You'll also hear from Jared, the pilot who flew Aislyn and Nikki over the wrecks in a 1975 Cessna, and Sarah, the guide who showed them around Alpena for the afternoon.

This summer (or next fall...or spring...) plan your own Michigan road trip, hitting the spots featured in the episode

Detroit: Start in the Motor City with Afar's Detroit guide.

Oscoda and the Sunrise Coast: Paddle the Au Sable River with Oscoda Canoe Rental and sleep on Lake Huron at the Sweetwater Sea Bed & Breakfast. Time your visit to the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon if you can; this year's race starts July 25.

Alpena and Thunder Bay: Start at the free Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center, then ride the glass-bottom Lady Michigan with Alpena Shipwreck Tours over the wrecks of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and climb the New and Old Presque Isle lighthouses.

Mackinac Island: Stay at The Inn at Stonecliffe (a humanitarian hotel), bike the 8-mile car-free loop on M-185, and sample your way through the island's famous fudge shops.

Drummond Island: Base at Drummond Island Resort and walk the Maxton Plains, one of the world's rare alvar grasslands.

Leelanau Peninsula: Taste sparkling wine at MAWBY, the oldest winery on the peninsula.

The stops that didn't make the episode but are worth a visit!

The Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie


Traverse City, home to delicious restaurants, fantastic cider, tall-ship sails, the annual cherry festival, and so much more


Saugatuck, where Nikki and Aislyn stayed at the retro Pines Motor Lodge

And Dablon winery in Baroda, which is part of the Lake Michigan Shore AVA (find more wineries to explore in the region)

Plan the whole route with Afar's Michigan guide and Afar's guide to road trips.

Stay connected

Be sure to subscribe to the show and sign up for our podcast newsletter, ⁠Behind the Mic⁠, where we share upcoming news and behind-the-scenes details of each episode.

And explore our second podcast, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Travel Tales⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, which celebrates first-person narratives about the way travel changes us, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠View From Afar⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, where we spotlight the people and ideas shaping the future of travel.

Unpacked by Afar is part of ⁠Airwave Media⁠'s podcast network. Please contact ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertising@airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ if you would like to advertise on our podcast.
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