Globe Trekker / Lonely Planet

Then came cable TV—and in 1994 Lonely Planet (later Globe Trekker) became the first travel show of its kind to be beamed around the world, bringing tens of millions along for the adventures (and misadventures) with the original hosts Ian & Justine. A devoted audience tuned in weekly across India, Asia, Latin America, Australia, Europe and the USA. For many, Globe Trekker was their first window on the world.

Globe Trekker was created by Ian Cross, founder of Pilot Films & Television based in London. Production took place before smart phones and email.  Globe Trekker aired for 20 years and earned more than 50 international awards. These weren’t ‘travel vlogs’— these were 1-hour films showing one backpacker’s journey through the unknown, shot over 4 weeks, each episode was then scored by a composer who wove field recordings into original music.

Globe Trekker was a novelty — nothing like it had ever been seen on television before.

Ian & Justine were unscripted and often unshowered: They transmitted their authentic backpacking selves navigating surprises, and improvising solutions while traveling to remote corners of the world in over 100 countries with a film crew of five, a stack of paper maps, traveller’s checks, photos of our families stuffed into our passports so that we could show the locals that we also belonged to loved ones.

Paper maps, phrase books and strangers were our guides. Those analog travel tools facilitated connections between humans across culture and language, nurtured our imagination, honed our instincts and our common sense.

Filming on a tiny budget meant that the crew slept in the very places we featured: on top of a chicken coop, in a hammock, sometimes in a hotel, sometimes in a horse stable. In many countries beer was cheaper than bottled water. In the late 90s a call to London cost £14 a minute — so the crew was rarely in contact with HQ — which, frankly, was part of the charm.

The Lonely Planet / Globe Trekker series was groundbreaking for its time; it changed the face of travel television and ushered in a new era of immersive, host-driven programming. Though Globe Trekker all but vanished by 2015, its influence continues to be felt in every travel TV host and YouTuber who winks at the camera and says “Come with me, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”