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Transmission: 6 x 60-minutes on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Two and simulcast on Ö÷²¥´óÐã HD
Starts March 2010

Simon Reeve, best-selling author and broadcaster, embarks on his most ambitious journey yet, circling the world following the line that marks the northern border of the Earth's tropical region.

This epic trip completes Simon's trilogy of journeys exploring the tropics, after his acclaimed series Equator and Tropic Of Capricorn, and is his toughest, longest and greatest challenge – a six x 60-minute journey around the extraordinary Tropic Of Cancer on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Two.

Simon starts his journey on the paradise beaches of Mexico's Pacific Coast, and then circumnavigates the planet, heading east across the Caribbean, the Sahara, crossing borders in North Africa closed to foreigners for decades, and then on through the deserts of Arabia and the remote jungles of Asia, to finish in Hawaii. 

He visits 18 countries, meeting amazing people, witnessing bizarre and beautiful sights, and encountering spectacular and endangered wildlife.

In Mexico Simon is put through his paces by a masked female wrestler, while in the Bahamas he uncovers the suffering of Haitian refugees. North Africa is full of surprises, from a long-forgotten civil war to a vast scheme to extract millions of gallons of water from underneath the desert. In the jungles of Burma he meets villagers struggling to survive under brutal oppression.

The 22,835 mile long Tropic of Cancer marks the northern border of the Tropics, the region of the planet with both the richest natural biodiversity, and the greatest concentration of human suffering.

This new series has a strong current affairs theme, as Simon explores some of the huge challenges facing the Tropics, including poverty, the drugs trade, climate change, industrial pollution, and forgotten conflicts.

But it's also a spectacular travelogue, taking Simon and viewers to some of the most remote and beautiful places on earth.

Simon Reeve says: "Following the Tropic of Cancer, the northern border of the Tropics, was a unique opportunity to explore and witness a slice of life in the most interesting and important region of the world: the Tropics!"

He continues: "The whole point of the journey is that tracking the Tropic of Cancer took us off the beaten track, to places we wouldn't normally visit, and parts of the world that are rarely visited by foreigners, let alone TV crews.

"It was an extraordinary opportunity and a fantastically exciting journey that was also frightening, uplifting, exhausting, upsetting, challenging and surprising.

"I heard stories, saw sights, and ate food I'll be remembering and dreaming about till the end of my days."

Presenter biography

Simon Reeve is a TV presenter and best-selling author. He has travelled to more than 90 countries, including troubled states in the Caucasus, Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Far East and Central Asia, and been around the world three times for the Ö÷²¥´óÐã series Equator, Tropic Of Capricorn, and now Tropic Of Cancer. Other series Simon has previously fronted include Explore and Places That Don't Exist.

He's been awarded a One World Broadcasting Trust award for an "outstanding contribution to greater world understanding".

On his travels Simon has been detained for spying by the KGB, taught to fish by the President of Moldova, tracked by terrorists, electrocuted in a war-zone and protected by stoned Somali mercenaries in Mogadishu. He's hunted with former cannibals in South America, walked through minefields, witnessed trench warfare in the Caucasus, struggled across the country enduring the most violent conflict on the planet since the Second Wolrd War, and wandered through a radioactive-waste dump while protected by little more than a shower curtain. 

Simon's books include Tropic Of Capricorn (published by Ö÷²¥´óÐã Books), and The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden And The Future Of Terrorism, a New York Times bestseller, published in 1998, which predicted the rise of Al Qaeda and a new age of apocalyptic terrorism. His book One Day In September, the story of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, is also an Oscar-winning documentary movie.

PH/FS