"Michael Palin on his favourite trips."

The more I can't do it, the more it is missed. 

Around the world in seven journeys: Michael Palin on his favourite trips, by Scott Bryan (The Guardian)

As the BBC shows a retrospective of the Monty Python star’s long-running ambitious travel shows, he gives us the rundown on his adventures

These days travel documentaries hosted by a famous face are commonplace. But the gold standard are still Michael Palin’s. Part of that is down to the sheer ambition of the Monty Python star’s series (Pole to Pole took five and a half months; Full Circle 10 months). But much is down to Palin’s connection with people. “I always found that my travels gave me a different perspective and a much wider perspective, away from the west as a centre of the world’s ideas,” he says. “And to see your own country and your own people from a different perspective. Remember, we are all members of the human race.”

I think I've seen them all. Palin might agree with me that there is a certain melancholy involved with travel. You must be prepared to deal with it. You need to enjoy the physical act of travel (movement), and understand the melancholy.  

From September 6, 2014, something else about Palin from the NAC archive.

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Michael Palin: "The world is an absurd and silly place."

To me, Palin's travelogues are among his finest achievements.

Michael Palin: ‘The world is an absurd and silly place’ ... This summer’s Monty Python reunion was joyous, says Michael Palin. But that doesn’t mean he wishes he had stuck to comedy – or Hollywood, by Stephen Moss (The Guardian)

... “My view of the world, really,” Palin says, “is that if you screw your eyes up and look at the world, it is an absurd and extraordinarily silly place, with everyone taking themselves very seriously.” That may be the clue to the Palin screen persona: the little man bullied by self-appointed autocrats who fights back. By all accounts, his engineer father could be something of a martinet; his relationship with John Cleese (who calls him “Mickey”) appears to be that of headmaster and errant pupil; and several of the characters he has played, notably Jim Nelson in Alan Bleasdale’s TV drama GBH, have been seemingly insignificant men who respond heroically when faced with a crisis.

In Python, he was often the put-upon fellow towered over, physically and sometimes intellectually, by Cleese. But in the end, he gives as good as he gets.