Women Who Travel Podcast: Kelsey McKinney of ‘Normal Gossip’ on the Chaos of a Group Trip

24.10.2024 - 20:05 / cntraveler.com

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Kelsey McKinney has received more than her fair share of salacious tips during her tenure as the host of Normal Gossip. One theme that crops up time and time again? Group travel. This week, Lale chats with the podcaster and author of the upcoming book, You Didn’t Hear This From Me, to find out about her own memorable travel escapades, the places she loves for eavesdropping and connecting with strangers, and why she’ll never, ever, go on another bachelorette.

Lale Arikoglu: Hi, there. I'm Lale Arikoglu with another episode of Women Who Travel. Let's admit it, we all gossip and we all share stories about our travel experiences. Some are personal, some are about friends, some are about people we've never set eyes on. We swap anecdotes about characters. We meet on the road and we tell many, many tales.

So to explore, I'm with writer and journalist Kelsey McKinney, who's just launched a new season of her podcast, Normal Gossip. I'm a big, big fan of Normal Gossip. I listen to it all the time. Most recently, a memorable show about bachelorette party as I was cleaning my apartment and I sent it to all my friends. Hi, Kelsey. Welcome I'm going to say to the studio, but we're looking at each other on screens right now.

Kelsey McKinney: Hello, Lale. Thank you for having me.

LA: I have been such a fan, for some time, because who doesn't love gossip and stories about other people's lives that don't affect you? How has your relationship with gossip evolved since it started to be your job?

KM: My relationship with gossip leading up to the creation of Normal Gossip is that I grew up evangelical. I was taught that gossip was a sin. I stopped being religious at some point in my young adulthood and realized that gossip is so much more than I was taught to believe it is. It's not slander, which has its own beautiful word. It's not libel, which has its own word. It's this kind of expansive, massive thing that we all do all the time.

You talking to your mom about what's happening with your cousins is gossip. You talking to your friends about some girl you hate is gossip, but also you talking to your coworkers about someone at work who's maybe dangerous and you should stay away from is also gossip. The definition is so, so, so broad. And so that's kind of how I became infatuated with it as a concept.

And then I started Normal Gossip with my co-creator, Alex Sujong Laughlin, and now I consume gossip all the time and it's all I think about. So my relationship with it has changed in that I am now in possession of maybe more gossip than anyone else in the world, and I think I do think about it a little