If you have ever watched Celebrity Race Across the World and thought you could do better than the celebs fumbling with train timetables in a foreign language, there is now a reason to test that theory closer to home. Coverage from Secret London points to a new series of the hit BBC show with a London-based experience attached, giving fans of the format a way to get a taste of the race without leaving the UK.
For anyone who has somehow missed it, Race Across the World is television's most addictive travel competition. Pairs are given a budget roughly equivalent to the price of a single plane ticket, banned from flying and from smartphones, and sent racing across thousands of miles using ground transport alone. The celebrity version applies the same rules to famous faces travelling with family members, and it has quietly become one of the most popular shows on British television precisely because it shows travel in its messiest, most human form: missed connections, overnight buses, and strangers pointing the way to the station.
The London angle is a natural fit. The show's earlier series have regularly used British cities as checkpoints, and the capital is packed with the kind of places the programme loves: grand terminus stations like Paddington, King's Cross and St Pancras, hidden alleys, markets and neighbourhoods that reward people who navigate on foot rather than by GPS. An experience themed on the show plays directly to that — a chance to see the city the way contestants do, working out routes yourself instead of following a phone.
Even without the tie-in, the show is a reminder of how much fun low-tech travel can be. Pick a destination, give yourself a rail budget instead of a flight, print a paper map and see what happens. It is a very different, often better, way to travel.
Note: the original article page could not be fully loaded when we reviewed it, so details such as dates, locations and booking for the experience were not available — check Secret London directly for the latest.
