Simon Reeve is back on BBC Two this September with a second series of Wilderness, and it's a genuinely tempting watch for anyone with a working bucket list. The four-part run drops him into Papua New Guinea, Mexico's Sea of Cortez, Canada's Yukon and Mongolia — and his chat with Wanderlust is full of practical reasons why ordinary travellers should consider the same places.
The series is loosely colour-coded (blue, green, white, yellow — a BBC idea Reeve initially mocked and then admitted worked), and the definition of wilderness is refreshingly honest: not untouched land, but places where human industrial impact is low. As Reeve points out, plastic ends up on mountaintops and at the ocean's deepest points; there's no true pristine left.
The standouts: in PNG's Torricelli Mountains, Reeve filmed a tree kangaroo some scientists feared was extinct, guided by villagers from Mupun who protect the species through the Tenkile Conservation Alliance. In Mongolia, he crossed thousands of miles of Gobi to the Margaz Mountains and — despite BBC nerves about spending a fortune on nothing — came away with snow leopard footage and time with eagle hunters. The Sea of Cortez, which Cousteau called the 'aquarium of the world', showed him how fast marine life rebounds when protection kicks in; bull sharks and threatened hammerheads now shoal there. The Yukon, meanwhile, delivers characters like 'Bear Man Phil', a former bear hunter turned saviour.
Reeve's advice is blunt but useful: the Yukon is the easiest of the four for visitors, then Mongolia, then the Sea of Cortez, with Papua New Guinea the toughest. The reward, he says, is inversely proportional to the luxury of the trip. He also argues the Torricelli Mountains in particular need a light-footprint tourism economy as an alternative to logging and mining — so responsible travellers going there are genuinely doing good. If a trip is too far, he suggests a donation to the Tenkile Conservation Alliance instead.
His personal favourite? The snow leopard search in the Margaz Mountains, and if he could return to any one spot in five years, it would be the Sea of Cortez, to see if new protections keep boosting marine life. Wilderness airs on BBC Two and iPlayer this month — worth a look before you book anything.