Corfu • 2020 • episode "S1E2" • The Greek Islands with Julia Bradbury

89:00

This special episode sees Michael revisit his fifth travel series – Himalaya. For Michael, this epic journey across the world’s highest mountain range is the fulfilment of boyhood dreams inspired by the 1953 ascent of Everest by Hillary and Tensing. Beginning in the famous Khyber Pass, he travels through Pakistan and India and ascends into Nepal and Tibet to reach Everest base camp itself, before venturing into the mountain kingdom of Bhutan. But Michael’s journey isn’t all about scaling peaks – it’s also about finding out what life is like for the people who live in some of the harshest environments on Earth. He is curious to see countries that were cut off by the mountains for centuries and that have developed their own distinct cultures and ways of survival, to discover the different ways that religion influences society here, and to meet the hardy inhabitants of the mountains.

2020 • Travel

58:46

Adventurer and journalist Simon Reeve heads to Vietnam to uncover the stories behind the nation's morning pick-me-up. While we drink millions of cups of the stuff each week, how many of us know where our coffee actually comes from? The surprising answer is that it is not Brazil, Columbia or Jamaica, but Vietnam. Eighty per cent of the coffee we drink in Britain isn't posh cappuccinos or lattes but instant coffee and Vietnam is the biggest supplier. From Hanoi in the north, Simon follows the coffee trail into the remote central highlands where he meets the people who grow, pick and pack our coffee. Millions of small scale famers, each working two or three acres, produce most of the coffee beans that go into well known instant coffee brands. Thirty years ago Vietnam only produced a tiny proportion of the world's coffee, but after the end of the Vietnam war there was a widescale plan to become a coffee growing nation and Vietnam is now the second biggest in the world. It has provided employment for millions, making some very rich indeed, and Simon meets Vietnam's biggest coffee billionaire. But Simon learns that their rapid success has come at a cost to both the local people and the environment.

2014 • Travel

47:10

Five months into his journey, Levison Wood faces a 1,300-mile walk across the Sahara, one of the most inhospitable places on Earth, to reach the Egyptian border. He's joined by a Sudanese guide, two nomads and three badly behaved camels. Together they encounter some of the most spectacular sights of the mission, camping among the ancient Meroe Pyramids. The explorer then tackles his toughest physical challenge - crossing the Bayuda volcanic field - where temperatures can reach 55C. Trekking 20 miles a day through blinding sandstorms, Lev soon starts to run out of water.

S1E3 • Walking the Nile with Levison Wood • 2015 • Travel

58:57

The seasoned traveller explores the South American country, beginning in the north-east - where Europeans first landed and grew rich on the profits from sugar and tobacco plantations run with slave labour. In Sao Luis, Michael finds out about a ceremony based on a 200-year-old tale before heading to the coastal lagoons of the Lencois Maranhenses National Park. Journeying inland, he gets a glimpse of the fast-disappearing world of old-style cowboys known as vaqueiros, has his fortune read by a Candomble priest and learns to drum with the Olodum cultural collective.

S1E1 • Brazil with Michael Palin • 2012 • Travel

47:10

Levison and Alberto trek through beautiful landscapes and colonial cities, climb active volcanoes and mountains, navigate deadly highways and meet fishermen and migrants.

S1E3 • Walking the Americas with Levison Wood • 2017 • Travel

47:04

Levison and Alberto avoid escaped convicts and poisonous trees as they take in Mexico and Belize's jungles, the hurricane-wracked island of San Pedro and Guatemala's lawless wilderness of El Petacon.

S1E1 • Walking the Americas with Levison Wood • 2017 • Travel