For his most recent television programme, John

Man: People always ask me why I only travel the hard way! A lot of television travel programmes are about relaxing holidays on the beach, but I’ve only ever made documentaries about really long trips. The last trip I did was a 50,000-mile journey around the Pacific Ocean, and it took 12 months. But then my very first trip was a ’round the world’ journey, and the most difficult one was probably a car journey from the North Pole to the South Pole!
   As you can imagine, I’ve seen a lot of the world! I’m lucky to be in really excellent health, but life is very short and I’ve done so much travelling that I want a change. Travelling long distances makes you extremely tired, and although it’s still a great pleasure for me, I want to do something more relaxing now,
   I think my next television series might be made nearer England. There’s
some really interesting work going on in Wales, where they’ve just found what remains of a 2,000-year-old town. Or I might do something about farms in France, or even cycling in Holland. There’s always something to film if you look hard enough!
   But I hope the programmes I’ve made about the really long trips will encourage other people to get on a plane and have some adventures. Some people seem to be afraid of going to a strange country and perhaps being iii there, but maybe they realise now that if I can do these trips, so can they. I’m only a very ordinary person. And obviously, you don’t have to travel on your own as I always have.
   I must say that until recently I hadn’t ever worried about being so far from home even when the children were very small. But while I was filming in Borneo last year my wife had to have an emergency operation, and it really frightened me because I couldn’t get back to England. Everything was fine in the end -- but I wouldn’t want to be so far away if anything like that happened to my family again.
   Perhaps if I spend more time at home I can do more writing. I’ve done two books so far. I write about places I’ve seen and my feelings about them. I don’t think I’ll ever write fiction or poetry, but I’d be interested in writing newspaper articles. My family says I’m very difficult to live with when I’m writing at home ... perhaps that’s why they’ve never complained about me travelling!