Welcome to Traveling Through, a podcast hosted by David Prior, where we trace the places, encounters, and unexpected discoveries that have influenced some of today’s most creative minds. Listen on Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

With such a prestigious post as editor of The New Yorker, you might expect David Remnick to spend his days crisscrossing the globe. In the second episode of Traveling Through, we learn the reality is more complicated.

For nearly three decades, Remnick has dispatched some of the world’s finest writers to the farthest corners of the map, shaping stories that transport readers everywhere from the Amazon to Afghanistan. He has reported from Moscow during the collapse of the Soviet Union, interviewed presidents and musicians, and won a Pulitzer Prize. Yet these days, he rarely strays from the well-worn path between his apartment and his office in New York City—and he almost never takes a vacation. “If my life were different,” he tells David Prior, “I’d probably go on more trips.”

In this episode, refreshingly devoid of wanderlust clichés, Remnick talks about lying to his parents so he could move to Paris, reflects on why travel “woke me the hell up,” and argues that reading can sometimes be as rewarding as boarding a plane. The conversation itself travels to Moscow, Ethiopia, India, and beyond—including to the editorial meetings where The New Yorker decides which stories get told and who gets to tell them.

As Remnick reminds us, not all journeys require a passport. Some only require a pen.

Watch the full episode above, or listen by subscribing on Apple Music or Spotify.