Here’s a quick note for any­one look­ing for free online cours­es: The Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia — San Diego now gives you free access to more than 80 cours­es. (Access the full list here.) The cours­es, most­ly root­ed in the sci­ences, can be accessed via iTunes or rss feed. We’ve inte­grat­ed some of these cours­es into our own meta list of Free Online Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties. It now includes about 215 cours­es, and we’d encour­age you to book­mark the page and use it often.

Every now and then, we like to list the top rank­ing edu­ca­tion­al on pod­casts on iTunes. No mat­ter how much time goes by, one thing seems to stay the same: peo­ple like pod­casts that teach for­eign lan­guages, par­tic­u­lar­ly Span­ish, above all else. Have a look, and if you want to learn more for­eign lan­guages, vis­it our For­eign Lan­guage Les­son Pod­cast Col­lec­tion. It cov­ers 26 dif­fer­ent lan­guages.

#1. Cof­fee Break Span­ish iTunes Feed Web Site

#2. Gram­mar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Bet­ter Writ­ing iTunes Feed Web Site

#3. Learn Span­ish at SpanishPod101 iTunes Feed Web Site

#4. Learn Span­ish Sur­vival Guide iTunes Feed Web Site

#5. Learn to Speak Span­ish iTunes Feed Web Site

#6. The French Pod Class iTunes Feed Web Site

#7. Span­ish Pod­casts for Begin­ners iTunes Feed Web Site

#8. Learn French with Cof­fee Break French iTunes Feed Web Site

#9. LearnItalianPod.com iTunes Feed Web Site

#10. JapanesePod101.com iTunes Feed Web Site

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Over the past year, we’ve seen a steady sup­ply of new trav­el pod­casts com­ing online. Some are pro­duced by the pub­lish­ers of major trav­el guides; oth­ers by pas­sion­ate indi­vid­ual trav­el­ers. Many are in video, some even in HD. These pod­casts will gen­er­al­ly help you trav­el much more knowl­edge­ably. And, in most cas­es, they’ll say some­thing about a trav­el des­ti­na­tion that a tra­di­tion­al guide nev­er could. This col­lec­tion will grow over time. You can find it housed per­ma­nent­ly in our Pod­cast Library locat­ed on the top right of each page. (There you can also find our col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons, which will be handy, too, for your trav­els.)

• A Year in Europe iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A well reviewed pod­cast. “Scott and Sheryl quit their jobs and sold their home. Now they’re on a year-long excur­sion through Europe where they’re explor­ing the places they’ve read about and dreamed of vis­it­ing. Fol­low them on their jour­ney as they expe­ri­ence the cul­tures, art and his­to­ry they find fas­ci­nat­ing.”

• Ama­teur Trav­el Pod­cast — Video iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Focus­es on trav­el sto­ries with a dash of trav­el news, trav­el tips and trav­el resources. And, yes, as the title sug­gests, it’s in video.

• Antho­ny Bour­dain — No Reser­va­tions iTunes Web Site
  • Pro­duced by the Trav­el Chan­nel, this video pod­cast com­bines trav­el with the love of food.

• Beau­ti­ful Places (iPod/iTunes) iTunes Down­load Web Site
  • This video pod­cast focus­es on the great out­doors. Des­ti­na­tions explored here include Big Sur, Yosemite, Rocky Moun­tain Nation­al Park, etc. You can find an HD ver­sion of the pod­cast here.

• Big in Tai­wan HD iTunes Feed Web Site
  • These videos high­light the peo­ple, cul­ture, sights & sounds of Tai­wan.

• Copen­hagen Pod­walks iTunes Web Site
  • Pod­casts that will get you around Den­mark’s cap­i­tal.
• Dis­cov­er France with Sebastien iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Gives you a good look at French towns. In video.

• Find­ing Amer­i­ca iTunes Feed Web Site
  • See the real Amer­i­ca in video. Trav­el every major road in the USA and see the coun­try from some­thing oth­er than a glossy, man­u­fac­tured per­spec­tive.

• From­mer’s Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Trav­el info from Kel­ly Regan, edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor of From­mer’s Trav­el Guides, and David Lytle, edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor of Frommers.com. So far audio only. (It’s curi­ous that the big pub­lish­ers are pro­duc­ing less dynam­ic pod­casts than the small guys are.)

• Inside Grand Canyon iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Learn about Grand Canyon Nation­al Park with a park ranger as your guide. This is a video pod­cast.

• iPod Trav­el­er iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Two Lon­don­ers give you their per­son­al look at Europe. This audio pod­cast was dis­con­tin­ued in 2007, but the exten­sive archive remains.

• Italy From the Inside iTunes Web Site
  • A native Ital­ian tells first-time trav­el­ers how to make the most of Italy. Some in audio; some in video.

• Italy Trav­el Guide: Rome, Venice & Flo­rence iTunes Feed Web Site (Also HD movies here)
  • A close look at Italy’s great cities.

• Let’s Trav­el Radio iTunes Feed Web Site
  • An inter­net trav­el radio show that takes you to the four cor­ners of the world. Fea­tures talks with glo­be­trot­ters, artists, chefs and musi­cians.

• Lone­ly Plan­et Trav­el­casts iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Pro­duced by one of the lead­ing trav­el guide pub­lish­ers, these pod­casts are very inter­na­tion­al in scope. Audio only.

• Lon­don Land­scape TV HD iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A visu­al HD guide to the great city of Lon­don.

• Saman­tha Brown: Pass­port to Latin Amer­i­ca iTunes Web Site
  • Pro­duced by the Trav­el Chan­nel, this well-reviewed video pod­cast often focus­es on Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca, which is some­thing that’s hard to find .… at least so far.

• Trav­el in 10 iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A 10 minute trav­el pod­cast that takes lis­ten­ers to des­ti­na­tions around the globe to present sound­scapes and audio­tours from hip hotels, great restau­rants, con­certs, fes­ti­vals and events.
• Trav­el with Rick Steves iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Pro­duced by one of the big­ger names in the trav­el indus­try, these audio pod­casts give you good glob­al cov­er­age. I should men­tion that Steves has some oth­er focused pod­casts includ­ing: Rick Steves’ Europe in Video; Rick Steves’ Italy Audio Tours; and Rick Steves’ France Audio Tours.

• The Trav­el Des­ti­na­tion Pod­cast: Tips for Trav­el­ers iTunes Feed Web Site

• Unabellav­ista: How to Tour Italy iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Learn about Italy’s art, his­to­ry, archi­tec­ture, food, and lan­guage. In audio.

• Walks of a Life­time iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Pro­duced by Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Trav­el­er. “Stroll across the world, from crowd­ed city cen­ters to rus­tic coun­try routes, with trav­el expert Rudy Maxa in Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Trav­el­er mag­a­zine’s selec­tion of the world’s great­est walk­ing tours.” In audio.

• Video Trav­el Guides from Italy iTunes Web Site

• Wash­ing­ton Trav­el­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A week­ly walk­ing tour of the US capi­tol.

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Times Online (the large UK-based news web­site) has post­ed today a fea­ture that offers an intro­duc­tion to pod­cast­ing. It explains the whos, hows, whats, etc. and pro­vides some help­ful links, includ­ing one to our col­lec­tion of For­eign Lan­guage Les­son Pod­casts.

Pod­cast­ing offers an amaz­ing way to access free, high-qual­i­ty media, across many top­ics, wher­ev­er and when­ev­er you want it. And it’s some­thing that even techno­phobes can eas­i­ly fig­ure out. For more infor­ma­tion on how to work with pod­casts, see our our Pod­cast Primer. We take you through pod­cast­ing step-by-step. Also check out our exten­sive Pod­cast Library, which gives you access to audio­books, cul­tur­al pro­gram­ming, sci­ence pod­casts, uni­ver­si­ty cours­es and more.

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