Since the mega-popular Serial podcast aired its season finale about a month ago, your ears may have felt a little lonely. Luckily, thanks to Serial, podcasts are having kind of a moment right now, and there's so many more out there to occupy your time until the This American Life spinoff returns.
Whether you want to laugh, cry or feel like you can conquer the world, there's a podcast just waiting for you to download and play it for free. Here are seven podcasts you should make a part of your life right now.
1. To Be Informed - Listen to NPR: Hourly News Summary
NPR is obviously the OG of radio, so it doesn't get much better than listening to its hourly news podcast. Subscribe to this podcast, and every hour, you'll get a five-minute update on the major news of the day so you don't need to drop everything just to keep up with what's going on in the world.
2. To Become Smarter - Listen to Radiolab
Every week, Radiolab tackles big, philosophical questions, and it uses stories from all different subject areas, from science to history to economics, to try and come to some sort of conclusion. Your mind will be blown at least once each episode, if not more.
3. To Make You Think - Listen to Invisibilia
Invisibilia is a new podcast from NPR, and it's already picking up some steam. The title is Latin for "all the invisible things," and as such, the podcast looks at all the things that make us human that we might not have really thought about before.
4. To Laugh - Listen to Comedy Bang! Bang!
You've probably heard of Comedy Bang! Bang! before, but it's no less worth mentioning here. Not only is host Scott Aukerman hilarious but his roster of celebrity friends will keep you in stitches, too.
5. To Cry - Listen to Crybabies
Actress and writer Sarah Thyre and journalist Susan Orlean host this podcast where they discuss the things in pop culture that make them cry, from The Bangles song "Eternal Flame" to Toy Story 3 to the Manson Family. Just try to keep it together while listening to this.
6. To Be Motivated - Listen to EntrepreneurOnFire
If you need a little encouragement to go out and get stuff done, listening to the podcast EntrepreneurOnFire might be a good place to start. In each episode, host John Lee Dumas interviews today's little-known successful entrepreneurs. Even if you're not in business, you'll be able to apply these learnings to anything you do.
7. To Be On the Edge of Your Seat - Listen to Welcome to Night Vale
In the tradition of serialized radio dramas of yore, Welcome to Night Vale is a twice-monthly podcast that provides updates on the goings on of the fictional town of Night Vale. It's kind of like a War of the Worlds broadcast for modern times, so this one might be best listened to during the day.
Image: Patrick Breitenbach / Flickr
