Excess Baggage

Anita Anand looks at the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office around the World with the Director of FCO Consular Services Julian Braithwaite. She also talks to Professor Jim Al- Khalili about his travels in the Middle East.

producer. Chris Wilson.

Anita Anand explores pilgrim routes from Canterbury to Kerala and meets Tony Giles, the blind and severely deaf traveller, who has undertaken two solo trips around the world.

Producer Chris Wilson.

John McCarthy looks at endangered peoples of the world with broadcaster and traveller Piers Gibbon who has stayed with South American tribes and studied their use of plants. This has lead him to taking part in their rituals involving poisonous frog toxins.

Closer to home, hunter-gatherer tribes first inhabited the Hebrides 10,000 years ago but have left little for archaeologists to study. Professor Steven Mithen tells John how years of going there to excavate have brought him a deep appreciation of the islands and their present day people.

What kind of appreciation do visitors have of the islands of Great Britain? John talks to Immaculate Mwaungulu from Tanzania about her impressions on her first visit to the UK - including an interesting insight into tapwater.

Producer: Harry Parker.

John McCarthy meets the human rights advocate Bianca Jagger and asks her about a lifetime of travel from her home country of Nicaragua and student protests in the Paris of the sixties to her recent work in the state of Orissa in India protesting at the effects on the local tribes of aluminium processing there. John also talks to the Welsh actor Matthew Rhys about his trek on horseback across Patagonia. He joined a group of Welsh Patagonian riders recreating the original nineteenth century journey from the Atlantic to the Andes in search of fertile land to settle.

Producer: Harry Parker.

John McCarthy looks at travelling to Yemen. Ginny Hill of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and travel writer Tim Mackintosh-Smith debate the delights and dangers of this ancient land; these days seen in the west as a source of terrorist activity but rich in Muslim and pre-Islamic culture.

Producer: Harry Parker.

John McCarthy meets ophthalmologist Lucy Mathen who runs an organisation performing cataract operations in north east India and Andrew Ready who leads a team transplanting kidneys in Trinidad and Ghana. He asks them about operating in less than ideal conditions and the impact their work has on the local communities.

Producer: Harry Parker.

John McCarthy meets Dr Lavinia Byrne who leads tours to the ancient sites of Syria and tour operator Amelia Stewart who has started to offer trips there and talks to them about why the many layers of its past make it so rewarding for those fascinated by history. The Greeks and Romans, the early Christians, Islam and even the French have all left a mark on this multi-layered country that is beginning to attract more western tourists who now see it as a much less dangerous destination.

And broadcaster Steve Blacknell tell John about his fondness for the smallest Channel Island of Sark and how its peace and quiet and lack of motor cars really mean you can get away from it all.

Producer: Harry Parker.

John McCarthy talks to journalist Clive Aslet about the nature of British villages, how they've changed and whether they have become places to visit rather than to live and work in. He tells John some of the stories associated with them and where to find the most attractive villages in the country.

Producer: Harry Parker.

John McCarthy talks to Doreen Tayler who explored northwest India visiting places featuring in Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim. The trail lead her to places that defied her expectations, from strange rituals on the Pakistan border to the summer capital of the Raj and she discovered the best places are not always the most visited.

Modern computer technology is making its mark on the way we travel and John meets Rough Guides founder Mark Ellingham who is now producing guide 'apps' for mobile phones and Paul Smith a writer and blogger who journeyed to New Zealand relying entirely on offers made on the phone message service, Twitter. He asks them if the traditional guide book is dying.

Producer: Harry Parker.

John McCarthy talks to the chair of The Royal Society for Wildlife Trusts, Michael Allen, about great writing on the British countryside and how the Trusts are encouraging people to get out of town and become involved with conservation pursuits. Journalist Patrick Barkham tells of his love of butterflies and how hunting all the native species leads him to some unexpectedly wild spots in Britain.

Women's historian Susanna Hoe is a regular visitor to Tasmania and explores the island from the point of view of some of the significant women in its past, the places associated with them and the burgeoning tourist industry there.