Practical voices from the Great Loop.
Great Loop Radio Podcast treats the Great Loop as a real cruising life, not a brochure. Kim Russo guides measured conversations about side trips, maintenance, safety, medical preparation, advocacy, solo looping, and the small decisions that shape a long voyage.
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Great Loop Radio Podcast is a service-minded interview show for the Great Loop community. It is calm, specific, and deeply practical. Kim Russo generally sets the table, names the topic, and brings in guests who have either cruised the route or can help boaters prepare for it. The conversations rarely stay abstract for long. Side trips are discussed through weather, surprise town festivals, backtracking, route choices, and the way a good day can depend on timing as much as destination. Loop stories are treated as working case studies. Tad and Libby Sheldon talk about doing the route in segments, putting the boat on the hard, choosing locations with technical support, and making space for life at home. Jackie Albina’s solo loop story brings another angle, with boating background and the growing visibility of solo women loopers. Lee Warren’s episode centers on a completed loop, guest logistics, planning, and the human connections that form around marinas and shared cruising miles. The Navigating Neetzels bring the perspective of a year on the water, including what they would repeat and what they would change. Safety episodes slow the pace and get serious without becoming theatrical. Wes Notovitz’s background and experience in safety frames safety as culture, not just equipment. Medical episodes are similarly concrete. Dr. Robert Levitan talks through wound care, antiseptic choices, bandages, surgical tape, infection signs, and the point at which a boater needs emergency care. Advocacy episodes add another layer, explaining AGLCA’s work around keeping Great Loop waterways open and safe for recreational cruising. The show’s value comes from that mix: first-hand cruising stories, route intelligence, maintenance realism, emergency preparation, and community context. It assumes listeners already care about the loop, so it spends less time selling the dream and more time asking what the dream requires. The result feels like a useful dockside conversation with someone keeping the chartbook open.
Made for: For boaters actively cruising, planning a Great Loop trip, or seriously imagining one. It especially fits people who want route stories paired with maintenance, safety, medical, and marina-level details.
What sets it apart: The show blends community storytelling with operational detail, so personal loop memories often turn into useful planning notes. Its strongest episodes make cruising feel neither romanticized nor intimidating, just specific and manageable.
America's Great Loop Cruisers' Association brings you this weekly podcast providing information and inspiration to help you plan your own Great Loop adventure.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Detailed cruiser interviews make route planning, boat care, medical readiness, and the rewards of detours easier to understand.
Great Loop Radio Podcast treats ambitious cruising as a chain of practical decisions, personal adjustments, and stories worth comparing. Kim Russo, identified on air as the director of AGLCA, guides interviews with boaters who explain how their plans held up once underway.
This is where your Great Loop daydream meets surgical tape, storage logistics, and glorious detours.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Great Loop side trip can gain its character from weather, timing, and the willingness to backtrack.
The Art of the Side Trip frames a Great Loop itinerary as more interesting when it has room to bend. Kim Russo of AGLCA talks with Terry and John D'Onofrio as they near the end of their loop, focusing on the places that come into view after leaving the main route and, at times,…
A segmented Great Loop story centered on maintenance, timing, and returning with fresh appreciation.
Tad and Libby Sheldon make this Great Loop Radio conversation a grounded look at a segmented Great Loop, where home commitments and boat upkeep shape the route as much as the water does.
A practical, no fuss primer on handling cuts and other medical issues when shore is far away.
Great Loop Radio centers on a practical question for cruisers: how to deal with medical problems while aboard. Kim Russo brings in Dr. Robert Levitan, founder of Maritime Medicine, and the discussion stays focused on wound care basics that are easy to follow.
A practical Great Loop episode about guest planning, friendship, and the social rhythm of the route.
Lee Warren's Great Loop story is framed around a practical problem: how to bring friends aboard and send them home while the trip keeps moving.
A practical East Coast timing conversation about tides, current, draft, and safer cruising decisions.
Tides make a Great Loop passage less about force and more about timing, and this episode frames that reality in practical terms. Kim Russo talks with Craig Allen, owner of Captain Craig's Boat Services, as loopers prepare to leave the Keys and Florida and move up the East Coast.
A practical year-in-review on the boat choices the Neitzels would keep.
A little over a year into their Great Loop adventure, Evan and Carly Neitzel can now sort some boat choices into changes and keepers. The most useful stretch makes a strong case for the lower helm: at locks, the starboard-side setup helped with grabbing a line and watching…
A segmented Great Loop story makes a grounded case for planning around real life and returning with fresh appreciation.
Tad and Libby Sheldon's Great Loop story works best as a reminder that the trip does not have to be swallowed whole. Their version treats the Loop as something that can bend around real life: commitments at home, the need for reliable technical support, and the value of stepping…
Fast takes from the fandom pressure cooker.
Slow audio from wherever the path leads.
Warm Lutheran sermons for honest faith.
Travel stories with the logistics left in.
Pittsburgh lives, told long.
This episode features an interview with Michael Martin from Great Loop Yacht Sales, providing a 2025 update on the boat buying market for Great Loop cruisers.
This episode discusses how to select marinas on the Great Loop, addressing listener questions with expert Karen Nettles from the Homeport crew.
Tad and Libby Sheldon share their Great Loop journey, which they completed in segments from 2022 to 2025 aboard their Kadey-Krogen 39 named Selkie.
Kim Russo interviews Evan and Carly Neitzel, known as the Navigating Neitzels, about their first year on the Great Loop.
Terry and John D'Onofrio say their Great Loop run will stretch to 14 months and about 11,000 miles, including roughly 3,000 miles of side trips.
Kim Russo opens with sponsor thanks.
This episode discusses the America's Great Loop Cruisers Association's advocacy mission to keep the waterways of the Great Loop open and safe for recreational cruising, including a plea for listener help.
This episode features a safety-focused conversation with Wes Notovitz, a Coast Guard Auxiliary member and emergency management professional, discussing critical safety practices for Great Loop cruising adventures.
This episode features an interview with Jackie Albina, a female solo looper, discussing her Great Loop adventure and boating background.
Kim Russo talks with Dr.
This episode features an interview with the Navigating Neetzels, popular YouTubers, discussing their one-year experience on the Great Loop, including what they would do differently and what they would keep the same.
Kim Russo opens the conversation by welcoming Lee Warren to the Story of Our Loop series.
["Craig Allen says a flood tide through an inlet can turn a 3-knot crawl into 9 knots and cut two hours off a Great Loop ETA.", "Kim Russo, the director of America's Great Loop Cruisers Association, brings him on from Captain Craig's Boat Services to explain tides and currents from Mobile to Charleston.", "Allen says the Gulf usually has one high tide and one low tide each day with 1-2 feet of change, while Georgia and South Carolina can show 7-9 foot swings.", "He covers Navionics, Tides Near Me, rising-tide departures, anchor scope, slack current, and backing out when a marina approach goes wrong."]
This episode features an interview with Rev.
This episode discusses what boaters on the Great Loop can expect when working with boatyards, featuring an interview with experienced boater Eric Martin.