Nomadic Spirit founder and editor Paul M. Rand interviewed Nicholas Epley for Big Brains, the University of Chicago’s flagship podcast. Epley, a behavioral scientist at UChicago’s Booth School of Business, has spent twenty years studying why we don’t talk to strangers, and his new book, A Little More Social (Knopf), is built around a finding any seasoned traveler will recognize: we underestimate how open strangers are to a conversation. The full episode runs thirty-eight minutes.

You’ll learn why strangers are more willing to talk than you assume, why the conversations from a trip stay with you longer than the photos, and how the single choice to approach or hold back shapes your daily wellbeing more than almost anything else.