🚐🌄 Sacred Landscapes: Sam Gennawey's 175,000-Mile Quest for Meaning
The Not Old - Better Show
Paul Vogelzang
4.7 • 106 Ratings
🗓️ 25 January 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
🚐🌄 Sacred Landscapes: Sam Gennawey's 175,000-Mile Quest for Meaning
The Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates Interview Series
🌄 What if your second act began at 60… behind the wheel of a van?
Meet Smithsonian Associate Sam Gennawey — former urban planner, theme park historian, and now full-time van lifer. Sam made the bold decision to leave his Los Angeles loft, hit the road in a Mercedes Sprinter he calls Darlene, and spend six years exploring America's most sacred places: our national parks. Sam Gennawey will be appearing at Smithsonian Associates coming up. Please check out our show notes for more details about Sam's presentation, but we have Sam today!
🚐 175,000 miles. Nearly 390 parks. Countless stories. But this isn't about travel tips. It's about rediscovery. It's about confronting our history — the awe-inspiring and the uncomfortable — and asking what it means to age with purpose.
🎙️ In this episode of The Not Old Better Show for Smithsonian Associates, Sam shares the most moving moments from the road — the quiet places, the stories we don't tell enough, and how volunteering inside the parks helped him find meaning, community, and clarity.
📚 His new book, Sacred Landscapes, isn't just a travelogue — it's a blueprint for intentional living, especially for those of us asking, What's next?
🎧 Whether you're dreaming of a van, a new start, or simply a deeper understanding of your country, this conversation will inspire you. Sam Gennawey will be appearing at Smithsonian Associates coming up. Please check out our show notes for more details about Sam's presentation, but we have Sam today!
Listen here on Apple Podcasts! https://notoldbettershow.info/4456zJi
#SmithsonianAssociates #VanLife #NationalParks #ReinventionAfter50 #SecondActs #NotOldBetterShow #PurposeDrivenAging #SacredLandscapes
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Not Old Better Show, |
| 0:09.2 | Smithsonian Associates Interview Series on radio and podcast. |
| 0:13.4 | The show covering all things health, wellness, culture, and more. |
| 0:17.6 | The show for all of us who aren't old, were better. |
| 0:20.5 | Each week, we'll interview superstars, |
| 0:22.9 | experts, and ordinary people doing extraordinary things, all related to this wonderful experience |
| 0:28.8 | of getting better, not older. Now here's your host, the award-winning Paul Volusag. |
| 0:36.7 | Thank you. |
| 0:37.7 | I just love that music today. |
| 0:40.7 | What if you could trade everything familiar for a van and a map and chase meaning, not mileage? |
| 0:48.4 | Our guest today does just that. |
| 0:51.2 | Spissonian Associate Sam Genoae is no ordinary traveler. He's a former urban planner |
| 0:57.9 | and respected theme park historian who decided in his 60s to do something radical. He left behind |
| 1:04.7 | a conventional life and hit the road full time in a black Mercedes sprinter van he calls |
| 1:10.6 | Darlene. Over six years, he covered more than |
| 1:14.9 | 175,000 miles he's still at it. He's visited nearly 390 National Park sites and lived out what |
| 1:25.1 | many only dream of, reinvention with purpose. |
| 1:29.5 | But this isn't just a story about pretty landscapes or checking boxes. |
| 1:35.9 | In his powerful new book Sacred Landscape, Sam Genoa asks harder questions about memory, legacy, resilience, |
| 1:44.0 | and what our public lands say about us. |
| 1:48.6 | Sam Genobey shines a light on both the beauty and the blemishes of American history, from the grandeur of Sequoia to the haunting silence of former internment camps. |
| 2:00.6 | And he does it all with his boots on the ground and heart wide open. |
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