Lizzie Wood - Freelance Journalist

No Place Like Home

'Lizzie Wood chats to author and broadcaster, Simon Reeve'

Author and broadcaster Simon Reeve has an enviable occupation many of us dream about before we ‘grow up’ and settle on a ‘proper job’: he travels to often undiscovered, primarily impoverished, parts of the world in order to educate both himself and the general public on otherwise silently struggling destinations. He’s travelled 25,000 miles around the equator and, more recently, spent months visiting every one of the thirteen countries dissected by the Tropic of Capricorn – both documented on the BBC and a good, 3,450 miles beneath us here in the UK. He talks passionately of the beauty and relative safety of North Colombia, as opposed to the South, and life changing moments spent in Bukhara, located on the Silk Road in Uzbekistan, and yet, Reeve frequently refers back to his home in London – ‘the greatest city in the world’ – and how fortunate he has come to see himself, having a British passport, and all that brings with it.

Although now best known for his travel documentaries, speaking with Reeve, it becomes immediately obvious that this career was never chosen or born out of any childhood passion for exploration and adventure. He openly admits that he’s not the ‘kind of guy who buys an inter-railing ticket and disappears off across Europe’; nor did he board a flight until he was employed, and in his early twenties. Rather, Reeve was thrown into the BBC’s spotlight as Al Qaeda flew into the Twin Towers in 2001, and his book ‘The New Jackals’, which predicted the rise of Al Qaeda and the inevitability of an attack of never-before-seen proportions, became a New York Times bestseller. Initially providing commentary on the people behind the unfolding ‘War on Terror’, Reeve’s natural intrigue, curiosity and basic thirst for knowledge eventually led him into travel journalism, seeking parts of the world about which the vast majority of us know little about – and perhaps should know more.

First came ‘Meet the Stans’, a 2003 BBC documentary that took Reeve across central Asia to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan; then the ‘House of Saud’, aired in 2004, where Reeve found the Saudi’s to be hospitable and welcoming – a very different experience to that of Frank Gardner, who visited one year after Reeve and whose cameraman was fatally shot, himself left paralysed. Another documentary, ‘Places that don’t exist’, again brought Reeve to our screens, taking him to breakaway states and unrecognised nations, but it was his 2006 series, Equator, that cemented his reputation as a popular broadcaster.

During our conversation, Reeve laughs at the suggestion that his is an ‘idealised’ job, arguing that this depends on your perception. He adamantly argues that making travel documentaries is not a job that takes you from one luxury pool to another, and that it is, in fact, hugely tiring, draining, not to mention poorly paid. However, it is also extremely rewarding to travel across the planet, and enhance your understanding of the world in which you live.

When you consider the remoteness and isolation of many of the places Reeve travels to, his earlier laughter is unsurprising – Reeve has spent significant parts of his travels under threat, whether that be the risk of being shot in Mogadishu, or the fear of suffering a horrific car crash in Saudi Arabia. Reeve is well aware of the risks involved in what he does, and knows that a situation can change rapidly, altering his sense of place, and the whole experience. Reeve talks with great empathy and understanding on the subject of Gardner and Cumbers, having visited the exact location of the tragic shooting only one year prior, with the same guide, and having enjoyed such a different experience. Nevertheless, the risks are managed as best they can be, and Reeve assures me that you’re just as likely to have a skiing accident – as his friend Tom just has on their recent holiday.

Despite the danger, Reeve is welcomed wherever he travels, a fact that continually surprises and amazes him. Asking why, Reeve affirms that people are very rarely hostile, even in war zones, and have the ability to distinguish between a person and the government of the country they’re from. People’s natural behaviour is simply to be curious, inquisitive and friendly.

Although his initial interest lay in regions of conflict, Reeve finds that his interests are developing beyond this, becoming increasingly fascinated with the ‘stories that happen along the way’. A long list of destinations he’d like to visit for the first time, or spend more time in, roll off his tongue, including North Africa, India, South America and Russia – a country I’m told covers 11 time zones – and yet he finds it hard to define what it is that piques his interest in a country. Any number of things, I’m told: eccentric cultures and characters, amazing open spaces such as in Australia, incredible wildlife such as in Botswana, or even troubled politics. Reeve is a generalist, not a specialist, and enjoys a general fascination with places and stories.

Given Reeve’s background as an author on such serious topics as global terror, I am intrigued by the light-hearted style for which his documentaries are renowned. Reeve acknowledges the fact that he adopts a humorous style, but hopes that this does not make his reporting insincere: by taking five minutes to taste delicacies such as penis soup in Madagascar, he hopes he will then be given five minutes to highlight the poverty endured in this country. His aim is to reach as wide an audience as possible, to educate the public, as well as himself.

Reeve never went to University: he asserts that it’s a dangerous game to have regrets, but that if he lived life over, he would enjoy the friends, fun, confidence and contacts that University brings with it. Nevertheless, he has learned an important lesson from travelling – he has, after all, graduated with Honours from the University of Life. Despite the cliché, Reeve asserts that seeing the planet has placed his own life in context, allowing him the realisation of how lucky he is to have a British passport, belong to a country that 90% of the world’s population would give anything to live in, and where debates in parliament focus on the decibel level of fireworks, as opposed to the suffering of the indigenous population. Reeve is ‘chuffed’ to be British, his favourite city, of all those hundreds he’s travelled to, is London and, with so much world experience under his belt at such a young age, for him, there still really is no place like home.