80 Days shortlisted for the Podcast Awards

We’re absolutely delighted to have been shortlisted in the People’s Choice Podcast Awards this year for the first time. We are nominated in the Education Category, alongside shows we respect, like The History of Witchcraft and Dig.

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Our fate is in the hands of the listener-judges now, so fingers crossed that we’ll have good news when the winner is announced!

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Introducing Season 3 (S3.00)

S3 Intro

After a long wait, it’s time for an update on Season 3 of 80 Days: an exploration podcast! There are a few announcements about the future release schedule, some teasers of things to come and all the details about our new Patreon page, where you can sign up to support this podcast if you like what we do: www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast

You can support us at lots of different levels from $1 per episode up to $10 per episode, depending on what kind of rewards you want to benefit from.

The show will always be free, but we’d really appreciate any pennies you can throw or way to help cover the costs of making it possible. We’re looking forward to sending out episode 1 of season 3 next week – the Australian Island of Tasmania.

Thanks

Joe, Luke and Mark

Welcome to Hairy Baby: our Season 2 Sponsor

Hairy Baby Clothing CompanyWe are delighted to announce that Season 2 of 80 Days: an exploration podcast is being sponsored by Hairy Baby, the home of the funniest and most uniquely Irish t-shirts. The three of us enjoy their sense of humour, from Irish takes on iconic historical and pop-culture images to unique phrases from our childhood, so we’re very happy that they are supporting us. While Hairy Baby sell t-shirts (and mugs, among other things) and we produce a history podcast of small and often overlooked countries around the world, our missions are related – we both want to give creativity with an Irish accent a global reach. As 80 Days strives to tell the story of the whole world, one place at a time, Hairy Baby are launching a campaign to sell a t-shirt to every country in the world before St Patrick’s Day 2018 to celebrate their 10th birthday (The Round the World Challenge). We hope our loyal listeners, as far-flung as Brunei, Alaska, Panama and the Isle of Man, who have tuned in so far, can help them out as a thank-you for their assistance in making Season 2 possible.

Daragh Murphy, founder of Hairy Baby said;

“In the last three years alone we have exported our Irish humour Tees ‘n’ Things to over 70 countries, which is a reflection of how far and wide the Irish Diaspora has travelled. We believe the Irish have landed up everywhere so we thought it would be cool to highlight that fact by challenging ourselves to ship to every country in the world by Paddy’s Day 2018. When we were researching the challenge, we came across 80 Days and thought it was the perfect fit to compliment our own goal. Joe, Luke and Mark are typical of their generation and have a quality product in the 80 Days podcasts. We want to ship to every country in the world and the lads want to tell everyone about those them, especially the more unusual places.”

Hairy Baby will print the official 80 Days t-shirts for those who backed our recent Kickstarter campaign. You can also purchase our exclusive 80 Days t-shirt here throughout Season 2 and part of the proceeds will contribute to our costs this year. We have also secured a special 10% OFF coupon code on Hairy Baby for our listeners throughout Season 2. Use the Coupon Code “80days” on hairybaby.com and get 10% off anything your purchase.

Season 2 is going to be more detailed and better than what’s gone before thanks to the incredible support we’ve gotten through our Christmas Kickstarter Campaign. This has made it realistic to upgrade equipment, carry out some interviews with experts from a number of countries and even do some on-site recording for a few of the episodes. This wouldn’t have been possible without Hairy Baby and the dozens of listeners who chipped in. And you can still make a contribution if you purchase our exclusive 80 Days t-shirt during Season 2.

Season 2 is nearing the end of production and will be released before Easter 2017.

Listeners can look forward to stories from a wide range of places, including areas with heavy Irish links, like Newfoundland, to less familiar countries including the Gambia and Uruguay. We’re very excited.

General information: 80 Days: an exploration podcast is dedicated to exploring the history, geography and culture of little known countries, territories and cities from around the world. It is brought to you by three self-proclaimed history and geography nerds, Luke, Joe and Mark, broadcasting from Hong Kong, Switzerland and the UK, respectively. The podcast, details of how to subscribe and much more information about the places already explored in Season 1 can be found on www.80dayspodcast.com. Feedback, suggestions and comments are always welcome, no matter where in the world you come from.

Kickstarter Campaign fully funded… and then some!

We are delighted with the response we got to our Christmas Kickstarter Campaign! The drive closed today, and we raised 300% of our target, ending with over €1000 in support to help us make Season 2 of the podcast in the coming months. Thank you to all of our dedicated backers; a list of their names will appear on the site soon, and you will hear many of them thanked by name on-air in Season 2.

Kickstarter funding graph

We’re also very excited to announce that we will be welcome a season-long sponsor aboard for the next batch of ten countries – more details on that soon.

We want our listeners to be involved in making a great show, and were so happy to have so many people step up to make that happen. You can always get involved too, by letting us know what you think of the show, recommending locations, sending us unique trivia, leaving us a review on iTunes (or wherever you get your podcasts), sending us sounds from interesting places around the world, or even just telling a friend about the podcast.

Once more, thank you toall of our backers – you are making Season 2 possible.

Irish Abroad Newsletter

80 Days was featured in November’s Global Irish Newsletter published by the Irish Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs (@GlobalIrish), which showcases achievements and news from Irish people worldwide. Commenting on the podcast, they said:

With special thanks to Joe, Luke and Mark. Their novel approach to learning about the world and sharing their insights is an excellent example of innovation and ties that transcend borders and continents. These qualities are hallmarks of the Irish diaspora and seeing that so well articulated in this podcast is great.

To read the full article, click here!

80 Days featured on news site Broadsheet.ie

This week, 80 Days was featured in a post on Irish news-and-humour website Broadsheet.ie. The post focuses on the fact that the three of us who host 80 Days are originally from Ireland but now living around the world. It clearly resonated with other Irish people in similar situations, because along with a big increase in website traffic and listeners from Ireland, this week, we’ve had a surge of interest from all around the globe, the US, UK, Japan, China and more. This is a link to the article: “Irish Men of the World.

If you’re enjoying us telling stories about the world, then please subscribe to the podcast, tell a friend about it, or leave us a review on iTunes (or wherever you get your podcasts). And – as always – get in touch if you think there’s somewhere interesting we should be exploring soon.

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Subscribe to the podcast

​The wait is over ! 

The first episode of 80 Days is live. To start the podcast, we are bringing you to Namibia, a beautiful south-west African nation with a troubled past and a promising future.
If you use iTunes, follow this link to subscribe: https://itunes.apple.com/ie/podcast/80-days-exploration-podcast/id1139128775

If you use another app, search for 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, or import the following link: https://80dayspodcast.com/category/podcast-episodes/feed/ 

Episodes can also be viewed on this website. If you like what you hear, subscribe, share, review and – most importantly – let us know. We hope you enjoy listening.

Introduction

Episode Zero

Welcome to 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by three history and geography nerds in an internet-powered balloon. Your hosts are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly (in Hong Kong), Mark Boyle @markboyle86 (in the UK) and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach (in Switzerland). Each episode explores a little known country, city, territory or settlement from around the world.
This is an introductory episode, explaining who we are, the origins and structure of the podcast. We will release episodes once a fortnight in seasons of ten episodes each. Please subscribe to get the latest episodes as they come out.

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