This article investigates the use of podcasts for out-of-class listening practice. Drawing on Vandergrift and Goh's metacognitive approach to extensive listening, it discusses their principles for listening projects in the context of podcast-based listening. The study describes a class of 28 intermediate German students, who listened to self-selected podcasts for one semester. Participants kept personal blogs in which they documented their podcast use, each wrote a podcast review and completed a survey on their use of podcasts, their blog and listening strategies. They also participated in focus group interviews (n = 15) about their podcast experiences. Study findings suggest that the blogging activity provided language learners with the guidance and structure needed for varied and regular listening practice. Participants enjoyed the ability to choose their own listening materials and were able to align them with personal listening practices and individual listening goals. This impacted positively on the use of listening strategies.