On a typical commute into downtown Portland, an activity that typically eats up to two hours per day, I could catch up on some Z's, listen to music, something else relaxing, or learn something new via podcasts. Apple's Podcast app is one of the best default installed apps I have used.
I get burned out on genres and I almost never listen to the same podcast episode twice, unless I happened to have fallen asleep and forgot what happened in the podcast. These are sorted in order of what you should listen to first before the others. Not everyone that I admire from their non-radio works is good at both podcast scripting for audio listeners and are a good podcast host. These are just suggestions of what I think make for pretty good commuter listening.
Non-fiction
Short podcasts (<30 minutes per episode):
- Planet Money
Longer podcasts (>30 minutes per episode):
- Freakonomics Radio
- How I Built This
- This American Life
- Agent Marketing Syndicate (for real estate but mostly business)
- The Tim Ferriss Show (mostly business and life-hacking topics)
- The Art of Manliness (really funny if you are a woman listening to this)
- The Moth
- S-Town (crime investigative reporting)
- Crimetown (crime investigative reporting)
Fiction / Fantasy / SciFi
Short podcasts (<30 minutes per episode):
- MarsCorp
- The Bright Sessions
- Lore (by Aaron Mahnke)
- Darkest Night
- The Deep Vault
- Welcome to Night Vale
- Terms
- Star Trek: Lost Enterprise
Longer podcasts (>30 minutes per episode):
- Star Trek: Outpost
- The Penumbra Podcast
- The Leviathan Chronicles
- The Cleansed
- Archive 81
- The Dark Tome
- The Bunker
- Drabblecast Audio Fiction
- Clarksworld Magazine
- Lightspeed Magazine
- The Black Tapes / Tanis / Rabbits
