Simon Reeve's memorable moments

“I have been privileged to travel around the planet and meet the most extraordinary people, some living in very difficult conditions in extraordinary places.

Very few TV crews visit some of these places so it’s our responsibility to convey a sense of the place, the people and the life that they’re living. And it’s essential that we’re truthful to their lives. People living in difficult conditions often don’t realise it – they’re difficult from our perspective – and they’re just getting on with everyday life. They have good and bad days, humour as well as heartbreak.

One of the most impressive characteristics of us humans is our adaptability, be it to climactic or seasonal changes or conflict. Farmers in the Philippines have adapted their rice terraces over the centuries to harvest the maximum amount of food; miners living in a remote part of Madagascar have moved to towns to earn a living mining for sapphires; Kazakh fishermen who lived by the Aral sea which was shrinking an disappearing had to change their way of life and began to farm camels. Humans can adapt like no other species and that’s the reason we are so successful.

We may be separated by different language and what seem to be different cultures but one of the most amazing aspects of travel, however far you go, is the realisation that we are all basically the same. People just want to raise their children, get them a good education and provide them with healthy food. That’s the focus whether you’re in Britain, Botswana or Belize,