CastRoller

Simon Reeve visited most of countries on The Tropic of Cancer. He found deep jungle and vast deserts, deep poverty and vast wealth. He talks to Sandi Toksvig about his experiences, including sneaking illegally into Burma. Arnhemland in Northern Australia is one of the least known parts of the country and has been home to the aborigine people for many thousands of years. Sandi talks to travel journalist Wendy Gomersall who has visited the area and the indigenous people and Sab Lord who acts as...

Sandi Toksvig talks to two writers who use landscape as core inspiration for their work: James Crowden on Somerset and Sharon Blackie on the Scottish Highlands and Islands. And Sandi meets writer and academic Stevie Davies to explore the Suez Canal.

Prof Brian Cox flew to the top of the atmosphere, dived to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, descended into a cave soaked in sulphuric acid and witnessed a total solar eclipse tells Sandi how visiting some of earth's most extreme locations gave him an idea of other planets' environments. Chief executive of Oxfam Dame Barbara Stocking talks to Sandi about her recent visit to Chad, and explains how lack of water is at the heart of the humanitarian crisis and that the role of women in organising wells...

Zoologist Mark Carwardine talks to John McCarthy about his life travelling to film, photograph and write about animals, including whales off the Mexican coast. As a leader of wildlife expeditions,he shares his thoughts on the ethics of animal tourism, ecology and the environment. John also meets Robin Bayley who went to Mexico in search of traces of his great grandfather who went to work there before the revolution of 1910. And Mexican author Chloe Aridjis tells John about her perspective on her homeland from Europe.

John McCarthy asks Moroccan author Laila Lalami whether the reality of Casablanca lives up to its romantic reputation or offers an altogether different experience for the visitor. Writers on the Arctic Charles Emerson and Richard Sale discuss with John how climate change is affecting access to the mineral wealth of the polar region and the possibility of conflict there.

Don McCullin is renowned as a photographer for his stark pictures of conflicts and catastrophes. In his seventies he has turned to photographing landscapes and Roman ruins. John McCarthy asks him about his life of travel. Journalist Monica Porter left her native Hungary as a child after the uprising of 1956. In the times she has returned there since, she has witnessed huge social changes from communism to membership of the EU. She joins travel writer Andrew Eames, who horse-trekked across Hungary,...

Peter Curran meets trekking-guide writer Kate Clow who has trail blazed many long distance walks in rural Turkey including the Lycian Way, the St Paul Trail and hikes in the Kaçkar Mountains, and art historian Francis Russell tells Peter about exploring the huge range of often unexcavated ruins which are Turkey's heritage of several civilisations. Also Peter Curran asks Peter Allison about his experiences as a safari guide and the magic of watching African animals in the wild.

John McCarthy explores Germany in the company of two writers and travellers and asks why more British tourists don't visit the country,

John McCarthy talks to Charlie McGrath who advises travellers from gap year trekkers to journalists about how to minimise the risks without removing the thrill of adventurous travel. Sarah Porter and James Lewis went hiking in North Pakistan where, despite the Taliban, they found breathtaking landscape, welcoming people and that the greatest perils were on the highways. Guide writer Claire Boobbyer recently drove herself on a journey all over Cuba photographing propaganda billboards. She...

John McCarthy meets Christopher Aslan Alexander who ran a carpet weaving workshop in Khiva, Uzbekistan, the author Deborah Moggach who visited Ghana to find out about the role of women and girls in society there and Professor Clive Harber who has been visiting Africa for nearly forty years as an academic specialising in education.