Armchair Travel

Travelling for answers

Whether searching for new ways to live or just to find yourself, this month’s travel TV offers some armchair inspiration – plus a legend returns

t’s a life’s ambition to follow someone into a wood “I and watch them dig a poo-hole.” Sue Perkins gets to grips with both a small shovel and the #VanLife movement in Sue Perkins’ Big American Road Trip (All 4), driving her tricked-out RV across California and Colorado. Along the way, she meets the Instafriendly youngsters who’ve adopted the lifestyle as a way to travel, as well as the greyer Nomadland-esque wanderers who’ve been forced on the move thanks to broken communities and collapsed industries. The wry, game Perkins may never sound entirely convinced that life without a toilet, shower and laundrette is for her, but you may well be.

TV chef Andi Oliver and presenter daughter Miquita are most certainly changed by their visit to The Caribbean with... (iPlayer). The pair set about rediscovering their family roots, taking them from Antigua to Barbuda and then Barbados. But while there’s the requisite beauty shots – swimming with turtles – the pair spend time among the locals, such as the Rasta community who’ve reclaimed a sugar plantation, coming to terms with the islands’ history of slavery,.

“Don’t be afraid to dream big,” says Nirmal Purja at the start of 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible (Netflix). Big is certainly the name of the game here. Nirmal and his team set out to bag all 14 of the planet’s 8,000-metre-plus peaks in just seven months, the previous record being over seven years. It’s arguable what’s more astonishing here: the incredible footage from the roof of the world – avalanches pummelling down Annapurna – or Nirmal’s inspirational positive outlook, that drags his team up into the ‘death zone’.

With seemingly most the UK’s travel presenters filming in either Scotland or Cornwall, Sean Fletcher instead heads 200-miles up Offa’s Dyke Path, tracing the trail dividing Wales and England. In between walking (and canoeing, and gliding) through that rather glorious scenery, Wonders of the Border (ITV player) sees Fletcher meets the people who’ve made these borderlands their home and hears their stories.

Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out the A t t e n b o r o u g h - f r o n t e d G r e e n Planet (iPlayer), taking viewer s across the world to see the planet from the perspective of the plants. It’s ever ything you’d expect from a high-end BBC natural histor y show: wonderful, innovative cinematography, easy-to-digest science, a thumping environmental message a n d o f c o u r s e , t h a t d e l i g h t e d Sir David twinkle. Class.

Rediscovering their roots

Andi Oliver (left) and daughter Miquita enjoy local life in the Caribbean; (below) Sue Perkins gets into the spirit of things for her Big American Road Trip