Travel Man
In this Channel 4 series, actor and comedian Richard Ayoade spends 48 hours per episode exploring a popular city across the world, accompanied by a new celebrity guest each time. The format is fast-paced, with each show only lasting around twenty minutes, delivering you a wide variety of sights and sounds in a short space of time. Richard Ayoade’s awkward humour and deadpan delivery make him a perfect host for providing interesting facts and cracking jokes at the same time. The guests more often than not form a great dynamic between themselves and Ayoade, with some favourite appearances of mine including Mel Giedroyc and James Acaster. Joe Lycett took over as host in 2021, and has delivered an entirely new but equally entertaining spin on the show in his first three seasons.
The Grand Tour
In the wake of the iconic Top Gear trio of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May parting ways with the series, Prime Video brought them back together on their streaming service in a format similar to the previous show. With this came a return of the Specials: one-off episodes in which the hosts would travel to a random location and head on a journey in a specific vehicle. I choose these Specials over the ones featured in Top Gear because I feel like they’re an improvement in all regards. They’re more chaotic than ever before, the budget is far higher, and the trio are just as funny as they’ve always been. Top Gear may have the nostalgia factor, but Specials like the Mongolia and Colombia ones blow it out of the water.
Jack Whitehall: Travels with my Father
Maybe the most popular on this list, this Netflix original series consists of five seasons, each focusing on a specific country or continent that Jack Whitehall and his father take a trip across. Although the series got weaker during the later seasons for me, the first two are still a great watch. And while I may not be the biggest fan of Jack Whitehall’s comedy, I found the dynamic between him and his dad very entertaining, and their interactions on their travels take me back to all the holidays me and my family have been on.