A reader wrote in with a unique message this week, there’s a new travel show concept and it needs your support.
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New Travel Show Concept
A new TV show that is in development treats deserving, nominated guests to once-in-a-lifetime travel experiences. The Adventure: Lifechanging Travel is running a campaign to complete its pilot episode.
“Discover the world, discover yourself, one adventure at a time.”
This is really after my own heart. It’s why I travel, and it’s why I am passionate about encouraging others to travel. In nearly 1,000 blog posts over almost a decade, it’s the reason I write every week. Travel can change perspectives, and lives, it opens doors to new beginnings and closes them for old thoughts and mindsets.
The “show cross” includes some other travel shows I love that I will feature below, namely, Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown and Somebody Feed Phil. The crew developing the show includes Emmy Award winners and the sizzle reel has a high degree of quality.
The compassionate side of the concept also encourages me. In a year where we all could use some good news, it would be nice to see regular people seeing things for the first time and getting a chance they otherwise wouldn’t. Commercially-speaking, I think this could be one of the greatest aspects of the show and one that would lead to it actually getting picked up by a network or streaming service.
How You Can Participate
Creator, Curt Anderson tells LiveAndLetsFly.com that the show is 90% funded, but the last 10% is where backers come in.
The Adventure has a campaign to close its final 10% of funding on IndieGoGo. I don’t often promote products from IndieGoGo because of the lack of accountability in delivering, but unlike products that may or may not ever come to fruition (I’m looking at you, Sonny) backing this project starts at just $15 with an achievable goal.
If the show is funded and produced, there may also be an opportunity to put forth someone who could participate in an episode.
Anderson states:
“Readers can be a part of the show by pledging any amount and earn some cool rewards (and be entered into a drawing to win a Weekend Getaway package with a pledge of $25 or more).”
Other Travel Shows In The Meantime
While I have you… here are some other travel shows you might love until we can all fly again and where to find them (hint: most are on Netflix.)
- Chef’s Table – The follow-up to Jiro Dreams of Sushi came in the form of a food travelogue celebrating its sixth season currently. The show visits Australia, Sweden, Argentina, Italy, and the US in the first season alone. (Netflix)
- Dark Tourist – This show focuses on visiting the cities and countries where historical events took place (dark tourism.) Previous episodes have included exploring Colombia in South America where Pablo Escobar once prowled, the Fukushima nuclear site, and Phnom Penh in Cambodia. (Netflix)
- Somebody Feed Phil – Creator of Everybody Loves Raymond (and the real-life equivalent of the eponymous character), Phil Rosenthal travels the world to expand his palate. His quirky, awkward style is embraced solely due to his unabated enjoyment of trying new things around the world and leaving his comfort zones of Los Angeles and New York. (Netflix)
- Street Food – Another from Bob Gelb (Jiro Dreams of Sushi), this travel series explores street food vendors around the world. (Netflix)
- The Kindness Diaries – In a travelogue more akin to The Adventure, The Kindness Diaries follows Leon Logothetis as he travels solely based on the kindness and generosity of others. (Netflix)
- Tales By Light – This travel documentary delves into the travel pictures that captivate audiences and the stories behind them. (National Geographic)
- Travel Man – The host and a guest travel to new major cities each episode, constructing a 48-hour itinerary. (Amazon Prime Video)
- The Layover – Anthony Bourdain explores major hubs around the world in just 24 hours concentrating the must-do spots from around the world. (Hulu, Discovery+)
- Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown – Perhaps the greatest travel TV show ever made, Parts Unknown let Bourdain break away from the food constraints of No Reservations and dive deep into the culture of destinations. He was clear this show was his passion even up to his untimely death during the final season. (Hulu, HBO Max)
- Pedal The World – Felix Starck travels by pedals a journey through 22 countries and more than 18,000 km. (Netflix)
- Idiot Abroad – The Office (UK) creators Steven Merchant and Ricky Gervais send untraveled and dry humorist Karl Pilkington (Mancunian to the core) on adventures he doesn’t want to take. The series opens with a Chinese driver eating a bird embryo in a scene and reaction that more or less sets the tone for the series. This is a favorite of mine for a number of reasons, but sadly, it’s unavailable for streaming currently. If you haven’t seen this, and you enjoy watching other people’s displeasure – buy it.
Conclusion
The Adventure is a great concept. There’s nothing I love more than introducing someone to a place I have found and love for the first time. Whether it’s Mango Sticky Rice in Bangkok, Thailand with my daughter, or seeing someone’s face the first time they have gelato in Italy, the lights of Times Square, or even coming through the Fort Pitt tunnel at night with the city unfolding before them. Seeing new things is life-changing. For the cost of a meal out, we might be able to get this concept across the finish line and help someone who deserves it see something that will forever change their lives.
If you wish to contribute to the pilot, here is a link to the Indiegogo project page.
What do you think? Is this a project you would back, a show that you would watch? Do you have other travel tv shows you’d recommend?
Maybe I’m a bad person, and this is just sour grapes, but I’m not giving money to make a TV show about someone traveling when it’s not yet safe for *me* to travel. It doesn’t matter how “deserving” they may be.
You’re always entitled to your opinion and your feelings.
It is definitely a time that requires careful attention. We have detailed travel/production health-safety protocol in place, written in coordination with epidemiologists. Additionally, we’ve partnered directly with the Tourism Boards of the countries we’ll travel to. The response from tourism boards around the world has been phenomenal, as each is anxious to partner with us to help rebuild their tourism when the time is right.
We’ll travel in April to produce the Pilot (which provides two more months of vaccinations in our destination country), and we don’t expect the show to actually debut on television until fall/winter 2021, at which point we hope the world to be in a much better space for travel.
On the one hand I appreciate the idea of travel from a perspective of enriching lives and fostering cultural understandings. But to play devils advocate, these shows – and the encouragement of mass travel – also come with a price. Nepal is a perfect example. And if you travel there from Bhutan you can see first hand the difference of one country overrun with travelers for years and another country desperate to preserve its culture amidst the desire of so many to visit. It’s a shock to behold if you combine both on a single journey and a testament to just how much travel has impacted and ruined many places. Bhutan, at least, seems to be getting it right.
These shows may try to encourage more sustainable and gentle adventures, but the fact is that once the throngs start pouring in you can’t stop the development. Resorts build up. Airports are expanded. Money is pouring in. That’s certainly good, but perhaps the lesson to take with Bhutan is how to do it gradually and assure a respect for its people, life, and natural environment. It pains me today to see what has happened in Bali over the decades. Or even Lombok. Langkawi, Cambodia, Vietnam and so many others. Nepal being the poster country of tourism gone wild.
I dread the day that Brazil and the NE coast and other areas will get truly discovered beyond Brazilans and the cult of foreign people like me that love it there. It will happen, I’m sure. One day one of these shows will highlight the thousands of miles of unspoiled beaches and charming villages and all heck will break loose. More people will come. Developers will enter. Yes, some locals will be enriched (depending on the amount of corruption involved) and claim a “better life.” But is it?
I am torn. I agree, Kyle, that it’s important for us to travel, meet, and share. But at what cost? And I wonder how much this tears at the heart of the very reason we do it. Because, in the end, we change them far more than they ever change us.
I’ll let my nerd come out. Star Trek. There was, “The Prime Directive.” That is, never influence or change another planet you visit. Gene Roddenberry was always ahead of his time in ideas that relate so much to our own world.
And this. My great grandmother, a true Kentucky back woods Appalachian, once sat on the porch of her home in a village outside of Hazard. She recounted to my mother, who had just married her grandson who had escaped to Lexington and made a life for himself, telling her stories about in the 1950’s when people started coming to these areas of Appalachia to “study” and see this forgotten corner of America. She said to her, and it has stuck with me forever, “We never knew how poor we were until they came. We were happy. Until they told us we shouldn’t be.”
We need a social credit system like china.
People get certain rights just by being. But not others. Being able to stay alive should be fundamental right. The fake Christians and Republican bastards do not think being able to stay alive is a fundamental right. Hence they do not like universal health care.
They on the other hand think polluting the air and cutting down forests is a fundamental right, even though they had virtually no hand in creating clean air or old growth forests.
White Republican males are scum. They are also terrorists and traitors.
On the other hand AOC is also nuts. Govt. Help is fine but if you are popping out kids while on govt. Dole you should be castrated. Popping out kids you can’t support is not a fundamental right.
Anyway cheap travel is not a fundamental right. Either you have done good for the society through social welfare and you get to travel cheap or you pay a lot to travel. It should hurt so you are more thoughtful.
I nominate this post for post of the year!
With everything in life, we should each consider the costs…both edges of the sword. My goal is to create a show who’s sword is far sharper on one side than the other.
Why do Kyle’s articles include the disclaimer and credit card sign up link, but not Matt’s? Does Kyle’s compensation depend on revenue generated from his articles?
The last thing we need is another travel show. It only serves the interests of the producers no on else. Get an encyclopedia, you don’t need self styled travel gurus to introduce the world to you.
Tip for all travel shows: Don’t use the ‘O-Sole-Mio-as-background-music trope for…every…scene…in…Italy.
😉