New Extreme Travel Series for Five

LONDON, May 29: Building
on the success of Five’s Rough Guide To… series, the new 4×1-hour program Rough Guide To Ultimate Escapes will feature celebrity presenters in pursuit of a
once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Produced by Lion
Television, Rough Guide To Ultimate Escapes will follow presenters Julia Bradbury and Toby
Amies, along with guest celebrity presenters, going off the beaten track for
their own thrill-seeking adventure.

Stephen Mangan of Green
Wing will cycle the mountain
terrain of the Himalayas in Bhutan, Asia, while James Cracknell explores
Venezuela, bungee jumping from a bridge and paragliding off the summit of the
highest mountain in the Andes. Dom Joly will explore the flora and fauna of
Nicaragua, attempting to climb an active volcano and ski down the volcanic ash
slopes. Sin Cities’ presenter
Ashley Hames will travel to the rain forests of the Philippines’ jungle to
attempt a record-breaking abseil into one of the country’s most remote caves.

Meanwhile, Bradbury will
head to Indonesia in search of an indigenous tribe and drink pigs’ blood, swim
the Devil’s Pool on the edge of the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and trek the GR
20, the toughest long-distance trail in Europe. Amies will travel to the San
Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest, exploring remote beaches and natural
wildlife and kayaking with killer whales. He also sky dives in Namibia, Africa,
searches for the skeleton coast of the world’s only desert elephants and takes
a bike ride on “El Camino de la Muere,” the road of death.

Five’s commissioning
editor of factual entertainment and features, Robi Dutta, said: “Rough Guide
To… has proved a hit with our
viewers and it’s exciting to build on this success and develop Rough Guide
To Ultimate Escapes. It’s
adrenaline-fuelled, informative and fun and will take our viewers on the trip
of a lifetime.”

Hilary Rosen, the
executive producer for Lion Television, added: “Whether it's paragliding in the
Andes, walking in the African Bush or mountain biking across Bhutan, all of the
films provide fresh insight, combined with the Rough Guide take, to some of the greatest destinations in the
world.”

The publisher and
co-founder of Rough Guide,
Martin Dunford, commented: “We’re delighted to be working with Five again and
feel this new series is exactly what the Rough Guide brand is all about—fun, adventure and
discovering new ways of seeing the world.”

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski