This Bainbridge Island podcast wants to take you on a walk

Bainbridge Island author and journalist Jon Mooallem didn’t shell out for a bunch of audio gear.

He just pulled out the small voice recorder he uses to interview people, put it in an old wool sock and then, well, walked around.

And that’s how The Walking Podcast came to be. The episodes range from about 30 minutes to an hour – you know, a walking break. There’s no narration, just footsteps, ambient noise and whatever else he comes across.

“The whole point of the podcast is to put as little effort into it as possible,” Mooallem said, speaking to Bill Radke on KUOW’s The Record.

“I’m going on these walks anyway," he said. "If people are listening and getting something out of it, then that seems great."

He’s been surprised to hear how people are using the podcast: white noise for cubicle life, a way to feel outside at the physical therapist’s office, making a commute more bearable.

“People talk about podcasting as the medium where you build the most intimate connection with the audience,” he said. “I didn’t expect that would apply to me, because I’m not communicating. And yet it does actually feel like that.”

Mooallem said he’s run into people he barely knows who have listened to the podcast and said they feel like they know him better.

His rule of thumb is “not to try,” but that doesn’t mean that the podcast hasn’t caused some stress for him, relatively speaking.

He said there was one day he came back from an early morning walk and his wife asked him, “Was this one for work?”

“I threw up my hands because I didn’t know anymore,” Mooallem said. “So it’s not that it’s stressful. But being that I was committed to zero stress, once the needle ticked up to 0.1 stress, it felt like things were getting way too big.”

At one point there were fears that the latest podcast would be his last, but Mooallem has committed to more episodes in the future, although the podcast is currently on hiatus.

“Is this an ironic non-podcast podcast performance piece?” Radke asked.

“I don’t know how to answer. I try to be as genuine as I can be,” Mooallem said. “People have said, ‘Oh, it’s a joke.’ But then – who is the joke on? Because I’m the only one who’s inconvenienced by it.”

Produced for the web by Kara McDermott.