A new celebrity edition of Race Across the World kicks off on BBC One and iPlayer on Wednesday 28 October at 8pm, and the route is a tempting one for anyone who likes the idea of slow, overland travel. Four famous pairs start in Kuching on Malaysian Borneo and have to reach Melbourne, Australia — a 4,660-mile slog across three countries and two continents — using only local transport, a paper map and a daily budget of £26.
The line-up mixes music and TV names: singer Ella Eyre with childhood friend Nana, former Soccer Saturday host Jeff Stelling racing with his son Matt, Eurovision star Sam Ryder alongside best friend and tour manager Kaz, and siblings Princess and Junior Andre, the children of Katie Price and Peter Andre.
The starting city alone is worth a trip. Kuching, capital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, is nicknamed "cat city" — kucing is the Malay word for cat — and feline statues dot the streets for visitors to hunt down. It sits on the Sarawak River, crossed by the S-shaped Darul Hana Bridge, and the floating-looking Masjid India Kuching mosque makes a striking photo. The riverside Waterfront promenade is the social heart of the city, lined with food stalls, cafes and museums. Eat well while you're there: Sarawak laksa and Kolo Mee noodles are the local signatures, shaped by the city's mix of Iban, Bidayuh, Malay, Chinese and Melanau communities.
Kuching is also the classic jumping-off point for Borneo's wild side. Bako National Park, an easy trip away, offers rainforest trails, weird eroded rock formations and the chance to see proboscis monkeys — found only on this island, the world's third largest, which Malaysia shares with Indonesia and Brunei.
The finish line could hardly be more different. Melbourne has a claim as Australia's cultural capital, with a famous coffee scene, street art and boutique shops crammed into its pedestrianised laneways. Art lovers have the National Gallery of Victoria — the country's oldest — plus the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, and the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum offers a proper introduction to the culture and history of the Kulin nations. Sports fans, meanwhile, can time a visit around the Australian Open, the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix or an AFL match, the homegrown code many locals treat as a religion.
The show's appeal for travellers is obvious: it proves how far you can get on local buses, ferries and trains with a modest budget and a bit of nerve. Even if you'd rather not retrace every checkpoint, the route links two very different destinations that pair surprisingly well — Borneo's jungles and rivers at one end, a big, artsy southern-hemisphere city at the other. Episodes air weekly, and the source promises deeper dives into each stop as the series progresses.
