Around The World in 80 Days is the first travel documentary by Michael Palin, he was approached by the BBC to see if he wanted to do his own version of Jules Verne's - Around The World in 80 Days trip. There's certain aspects of this that I had forgotten recently, I have a feeling that the first time I watched it, I probably started watching it half way into the first episode.

Palin tries to stay as close to the Phileas Fogg route as possible, that's why it might seem a rather unique route of travelling across the globe. Michael was in fact the only one to complete the journey overland and sea, his camera crew changed throughout and this is partly the reason that the Jeddah to Dubai part of the trip is not recorded.

Palin's charisma, warm personality and willingness to do slightly odd things makes the journey all the more exciting, whether it's squatting over the side of a dhow (where he also converts an old chap into a Bruce Springsteen fan), being shaved by a blind man, eating cobra or having a chinwag with some tubby Americans.

Despite the relative luxury of the journey for the most part, he does have the deadline to meet and is nearly always on the move, you can see that its taken its toll by the end of the 80 days because he looks a little deshevelled!

This documentary takes you through the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, India, Singapore, China, Japan, and the United States through various methods of transport, as varied as dogs, cargo ships and dhows.

It's as good a travelogue as has been produced over the last few decades and definitely on par with his other documentaries.