Meet Simon Reeve – Telly’s Most Intrepid Traveller

“THIS is the true Golden Age of Travel. Not that time long ago when railway attendants wore white gloves. Now relatively ordinary folk can enjoy travel experiences even emperors couldn’t have experienced in the past. It has never been easier to travel around. Who knows how long it will last? Go for it now.”

They even supplied me with armoured underwear called ‘blast boxers’ to protect my vital parts

Globetrotter extraordinaire Simon Reeve showing trademark enthusiasm on the phone from the tranquil haven of his Devon home. Tranquil at least until it’s football practice time with his lively four year old. When you are away from home for four months of the year (it used to be six before Jake came along) making perhaps the best TV travel documentaries of the past decade, home comforts matter.

For a man who has circled the globe to present groundbreaking BBC series such as Caribbean, Sacred Rivers, Indian Ocean, Tropic of Cancer, Equator, Tropic of Capricorn, Pilgrimage and Australia, it must seem a pretty routine journey up to Manchester to speak at Destinations: The Holiday and Travel Show at EventCity on Friday and Saturday January 22 and 23?

No. He genuinely loves to engage with his public. “I want to encourage people to have extreme travel experiences – to experience extreme beauty but also extremely authentic encounters, which are not always beautiful. For me travel has to tweak your buttons. I don’t subscribe to that division between tourism and real travelling. The world’s a huge place – go out there and look at it. A show like Destinations helps people to plan challenging itineraries.”

On the surface 44-year-old Simon’s last telly assignment, a two-parter on Ireland, might seem tame for a presenter who has dodged bullets in war-torn Mogadishu, hunted with the bushmen of the Kalahari, tracked lions on foot, survived malaria and been detained for spying by the KGB.

In a war zone and, below, discovering the tranquil beauty of the Irish coast 

It wasn’t even his own idea to do it, but he was captivated by what he encountered. “A lot of my travels have been exotic  but closer to home there is much that is fascinating, almost otherworldly. 

“I was in Belfast for the Glorious 12th, the Orange Parades. It shows the huge divisions still in the country, and yes, I was spooked by the giant bonfire of palettes, but it was also bizarrely a family fun day. I was just capturing the feeling of being there. That’s what you have to do.

“I also went out to the extensive leafy suburbs, which no one thinks might be there in that city, our preconceptions ruled by 'The Troubles'. And the end of the road in the series was the quirkily different visit to the Wicklow Monkey sanctuary where Willy the Monkey Man makes a valiant effort to give lab animals a new life. It was leftfield and didn’t fit in with the main story, but it felt right. TV is about taking people on journeys and surprising them.”

The next surprise in store for Simon’s viewers (his programmes have been shown in an amazing 110 countries) is a New Year series on Greece. He hopes to bring a clip to EventCity. 

“We have turned up a few things from the forests of Crete to the mountains of the North, from a bear sanctuary to a priest built like a bear who works as a bodyguard. It has similarities to Ireland. You can compare and contrast. Europe’s much more exotic than it’s given credit for.”

Of course, the real Destinations Show button-tweakers for his fans are recounting the dangers he has famously encountered? What have been the scariest bits?

“Oh, definitely driving on India’s roads. And going on the streets of Mogadishu. They even supplied me with armoured underwear called ‘blast boxers’ to protect my vital parts in the event of an explosion!”

Malaria, caught in West Africa where it is endemic, was a more insidious threat to his life. “Like a muppet I didn’t take the tablets. I thought I was invincible in those days. I know better now. I was lucky to get special treatment being a visitor. They gave me a special drug made with Vietnamese sweet wormwood and it cured me.”

Nothing, though, is ever going to cure the irrepressible Simon Reeve of his travel bug.