‘The perfect blend of very stupid and very clever’: 14 podcasts Guardian writers recommend for long road trips | Podcasts

The days are long, the roads are longer: Australians are used to lengthy summer road trips that would easily cover the breadth of a couple of European countries. With children in the back, the journey can seem even longer.

Guardian Australia’s writers have come to the rescue with a list of podcasts to make the white line fever a little more entertaining.

Comedy

Three Bean Salad
Have you ever wanted to hear three middle-aged British comedians discuss topics as diverse as eggs, time travel and pencils? Of course you have. Each week Benjamin Partridge, Mike Wozniak and Henry Paker randomly draw out a topic submitted by the audience and discuss it – usually for about six minutes, before spending another 45 minutes going down daft conversational rabbit holes. It is worth starting from the first episode as there are some ridiculously long-running jokes. It is the perfect blend of very stupid and very clever and you’ll never be able to explain to anyone why you love it without sounding mad. Sian Cain

Who Shat on the Floor of our Wedding?
This true crime podcast follows a well-worn path: two women get married on a boat in the Netherlands and at some point during the festivities somebody poos on the floor. The couple, Karen Whitehouse and Helen McLaughlin, and their faithful, deliciously deadpan Kiwi mate, Lauren Kilby, set about tracking down exactly who the shitter is, rigorously questioning family, friends and forensic experts. I mean, do you need to know more? Celina Ribeiro

Pop culture and lifestyle

99% Invisible
99% Invisible (or 99PI, as fans refer to it) is a show about design, exploring how and why objects – and systems – are the way they are, and often how they could be better (or worse). The show’s calming Public Radio presentation and incredibly wide-ranging topics (global supply chains, the Ninja Turtles, the hook to “Who Let The Dogs Out”) gives it the air of an experienced sommelier uncorking fascinating mysteries for curious and discerning patrons. Patrick Lum

Split Screen: Thrill Seekers
Thrill Seekers, season two of the Canadian podcast Split Screen, is a six-part documentary-style story told entirely by the people involved. It revolves around a British reality show in which 12 contestants are taken on the trip of a lifetime – but the less you know about that the better. (There is of course a huge catch). The series is extremely well constructed, full of humour and life and charm, but is also very profound. The final episode may find you as it found me: jaw on the floor, screaming, crying. Joe Koning

Ruthie’s Table 4
In Ruthie’s Table 4, chef and owner of The River Cafe in London, Ruth Rogers, interviews well-known chefs, actors, writers and musicians as they look back on their favourite memories of food. In the kitchens of their childhood, through years as poor students, and now in adulthood, their stories are enough to make anyone want to go home and cook for their loved ones. From Eddie Redmayne’s love of cavolo nero rigatoni to Elton John’s memories of shelling peas, take a funny, heartwarming and oftentimes incredibly nostalgic trip down memory lane. Maddie Thomas

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud
British fashion designer Bella Freud asks her often famous guests (Zadie Smith, Kate Moss) to lie on her couch and talk about their intimate feelings about clothes and fashion – but they reveal much more. She asks simple questions like ‘what was the first piece of clothing you fell in love with?’ or ‘would someone’s poor dress sense deter you from falling in love with them?’. These gentle conversations explore identity and broader social connection, and leave you with a sense of compassion and kindness towards herself and her guests. Perfect for a languid afternoon listen. Camilla Hannan

Ruined
Ruined is a podcast with a simple premise: to ruin horror movies. Host Halle Kiefer loves the genre, while her co-host Alison Leiby is afraid to watch, but wants to know what happened. Each week, in gory detail, Halle walks Alison through the plot of a film. The pair have great chemistry and humour, and an extensive back catalogue. Listen to the movies you’ve missed, or use it to persuade a horror-resistant friend or lover to dip their toes into spooky waters. Just don’t put it on with kids in the car. Alyx Gorman

Science and technology

Otherworld
If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call? Jack Wagner. Pulling his listeners into a rabbit hole of skin-crawling curiosities from around the world, Wagner investigates modern paranormal stories that challenge logic from the dreaded Man in the Hat to cryptids. Whether a paranormal believer, agnostic or skeptic, Otherworld will have you checking under the bed. Mike Hohnen

Shell Game
In this surreal six-part series, veteran journalist Evan Ratliff creates an AI-generated voice clone of himself and lets it loose in the world. His digital doppelganger takes spam calls, does interviews, calls his loved ones and speaks to a therapist. The result is existential, amusing, and – in the case of a scammer realising he is talking to a chatbot – maliciously satisfying. Donna Lu

True crime

Mr Big
The ABC’s Mr Big podcast is the binge-worthy podcast I’ve been telling all my mates to listen to – true crime fans or not. The first episode introduces a scratchy recording from a Crown Casino hotel room where listeners hear a man admit to the 2008 murder of Mary Cook. But the whodunnit in this series focuses less on the murderer and more on the man he’s talking to, and there’s a juicy twist that lays the foundation for the rabbit hole this investigation dives down. I actually listened to the full series knowing ‘the twist’, and it was still impossible to turn off. But definitely not one for little ears in the car. Molly Glassey

The Secret History of Antarctica: Death on the Ice
A south pole research facility is where this mystery unfolds. Meticulously reported with a refreshingly unconventional podcast voice, Stephen Davis investigates the unusual death of Australian astrophysicist Rodney Marks. Anyone curious about life inside a confined Antarctic base over a long, dark winter – and the type of people governments select to live there – will enjoy this six-parter. Mark Saunokonoko

Current affairs, news and history

The Rest Is History
So late to the party! I resisted the appeal of The Rest is History for years, but now I’m all in with the podcasting juggernaut. Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook may offer a slightly anglocentric view for some people’s tastes, but the joy is in their chemistry, their boyish enthusiasm for old-fashioned (but irreverent) narrative storytelling, and the mix of fun with fascinating detail. I particularly loved recent episodes on America in 1968, Evita and The Murder of Franz Ferdinand. Is it ever OK to refer to someone (Nelson’s lover Emma Hamilton) as a “strumpet”? You be the judge. Mike Ticher

Things Fell Apart
What constitutes truth, and our ability to form any sense of consensus on reality seems so fragile at the moment and in Things Fell Apart Jon Ronson once again sets out to find out why and how our ability to agree on the simplest of facts has become so perilous. Each episode follows a similar structure and contains a reveal, some may even call it a twist. But Ronson is such a careful storyteller it never feels like he is stringing the audience along, but rather letting you live in the moments of misunderstanding and disinformation that has begun to split us all apart. Miles Herbert

For listening with kids

The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel
This serialised fictional podcast is a high-production, never-stop-the-cliffhangers affair that is captivating for older children and entirely tolerable for the adults in the car with them. In it, friends of Mars Patel – a naughty-ish 11-year-old – start disappearing. Could it have something to do with the prestigious school run by a tech billionaire with a Messiah complex? It’s been around for a while, but since when does that matter?

Notable mentions:
ABC Kids’ bite-size Short and Curly, where ethicists and kids grapple with ethical questions like ‘how do you know if you’re dreaming or awake?’ and ‘should grownups lie to you?’ is a good one for sparking conversation. Untrue: An (un)true crime podcast for kids is a true-crime style mystery involving crime-fighting dogs by Australian children’s literature power duo Kate and Jol Temple, snappy and well written. Squiz Kids is a good one for kid-friendly news and current affairs, and National Geographic Greeking Out’s half-hour-ish episodes recounting the wild myths of Ancient Greece (and beyond) will get you a couple hours down the highway with few complaints. Celina Ribeiro