Rumbling engines, hot desert, endless stretches of road. Nowhere is the American Dream as big and American as here. The Southwest is the queen of backdrops, the mother of all clichés. A drive through Earth’s most film-worthy landscape where the boundaries between reality and illusion blur.

The explorers departed from the River Thames, traversed oceans and made their way to India and Africa. London became known as the capital of travel. What remains to this day is the city’s enthusiasm for the world and a knack for manufacturing exquisite globes.

The coconut conjures visions of distant shores, snow-white beaches and blue lagoons. It’s also an economic resource and tastes incredibly good. Sometimes, though, Queen Coconut just lets herself drop, rolls into the water and embarks on a voyage across the sea.

Open sea, alabaster beaches, blue grottos. What could be more beautiful than the Mediterranean? But a visit to Sardinia on an old, well-travelled sailing yacht is a next-level experience. Amidst the crooning of the lines and the thrumming of the shrouds, you’ll discover beauty where you never thought to look.

A man, a flying machine and a manoeuvre you won’t read about in any book. One day, Oliver Braun packed up his things in Germany and started a new life. The print salesman from Bad Homburg became an African bush

The Swiss aren’t only good at making cheese, cowbells and expensive watches. From Bern to Geneva, they’re developing instruments that search for life on distant moons. But that’s not all: high up in the Swiss Alps, astronomers are peering into the universe to discover the origins of space and time.

Shortly before the monsoon starts, people in Isan turn their eyes to the sky, hoping the heavens will send rain to northern Thailand. To increase the odds and ensure a good harvest, they fire rockets up to the gods.

The realm of polar bears and whales begins north of the 66th parallel. From Svalbard, early explorers set off into the icy wilderness. But this remote corner of the world is changing. Researchers, free thinkers and nonconformists converge on a territory being shaped by a new way of thinking.

A boy grows up on a remote farm, goes to sea, becomes a pilot and flies around the world. Fleet manager Fokko Doyen builds his own story. It takes us to Africa, has to do with travel and the wonderful things that seeing the world can achieve.

There it lies in the sea, south-west of Sardinia. An island off an island – ancient, authentic and just a little bit old-fashioned. Famous people sometimes stop here, but that doesn’t matter, they don’t play an important role. What matters on Isola di San Pietro are the marinai, the tuna and the taste of the sea.