Chad Gallivanter

About Chad Gallivanter

Chad Gallivanter is your guide to the overlooked, the historic, and the just-plain-fascinating corners of travel. Based in Florida but chasing stories everywhere, Chad blends investigative curiosity with a storyteller’s pacing - digging deep into local history, cultural quirks, and the moments that shape a place’s identity. Each episode unfolds in deliberate, well-structured segments, weaving archival research with on-the-ground travel insight. Sometimes it’s a deep dive into a city’s forgotten past. Other times, it’s a smart, sensory-rich exploration of where to go now. Always fact-checked, always engaging, and always told like a story you can’t stop listening to.

Publisher

Chad Gallivanter

Category

history · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

13 Aug 2025

Latest episode

20 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

57 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Sept 2026

   He Pitched for Billy Mays. Now He Builds Lamps in a St. Augustine Shed.

   In the oldest city in America, a few steps north of Ripley's, there is a garden shed in the parking lot of the Old Town Trolley Welcome Center. Inside it, Jason Pappas makes lamps by hand while you watch. Bright, glowing, customized plastic lamps assembled piece by piece from the same repeating shapes, built to order out of recycled material that traces back to a 1960s design. Jason is not a typical St. Augustine shopkeeper. He spent years on the road working home shows, fairs, and stages, ...

2. 

   20 Sept 2026

   Cocoa Beach, Florida: The Astronaut Secret Hiding in Plain Sight

   There's a plaque by the pool at a hotel on North Atlantic Avenue that most guests walk right past without a second look. It ties back to the seven men who became America's first astronauts, years before the world knew their names, and it's not the story you'd expect. This episode traces that thread through the rest of Cocoa Beach: Ron Jon Surf Shop, the flagship that grew from a single storefront into the largest surf shop in the world, and the Florida Surf Museum tucked right beside it. A f...

3. 

   17 Sept 2026

   Dolly Parton Locked a Box in 2015. It Won't Be Opened Until 2046.

   In 2015, Dolly Parton recorded a song called "My Place in History," sealed it inside a chestnut wood box at Dollywood's DreamMore Resort, and left instructions not to open it until January 19, 2046, her hundredth birthday. She died this past August. The box is still sealed. I toured both of Dolly's resorts, DreamMore and the newer HeartSong Lodge, to see what she built into these places long before she was gone: her wardrobe on open display in HeartSong's Acoustic Lobby, a chap...

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Contact Chad Gallivanter

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.