Simon Reeve's journey along the equator begins in Gabon, where he meets villagers who have been banned from hunting. They now perform traditional dances for tourists to earn a living. When it is time to continue, the team's drivers suddenly demand £1,000 per day to continue working. When the BBC crew refuse to pay, the whole team is abandoned in the rainforest. But Simon develops a temperature of 40C and starts vomiting blood. He is diagnosed with malaria and forced to rest before continuing along the path east.

Simon Reeve's journey along the equator across Asia begins off the coast of Sumatra, in the far west of Indonesia. A collection of perhaps 18,000 islands here are home to more than 220 million people. At night the islanders sing of lost loves and the lure of working on the mainland.

The third and final programme in the series starts in the Galapagos Islands, where Simon goes swimming with sea-lions. The islands might look gorgeous, but Simon discovers there are concerns that the 100,000 tourists who visit each year are threatening the fragile ecosystem.