Laura Manske travel tips

Admittedly travel-averse, Eugene Levy—multiple award-winning actor, writer and comedian—has come a very long way since his debut season of Apple TV+’s The Reluctant Traveler last year. Now premiering a second season on March 8, the seven-episode series spotlights Sweden, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy, Greece and Spain. It is gorgeously filmed, tightly edited, uplifting and funny: A luxurious travel deep-dive that soars with insight and smiles. Levy’s wry humor is on-point entertaining. For insider info about how this quirky and enchanting show was brainstormed and created, read my article Actor Eugene Levy On Going From ‘Schitt’s Creek’ To ‘The Reluctant Traveler’. Levy and I recently talked about the newfound joys he discovered not only on the road, but also within himself. Plus, how travel can best widen your horizons.

Feeling the love? Seas the day and time travel to yesteryear with future-forward Princess Cruises, when the original cast of TV’s iconic The Love Boat show—which aired for a decade on ABC; now streaming on Paramount Plus, Apple TV+ and other channels—sets sail from New York City on a round-trip voyage that anchors at picturesque ports in New England and Canada aboard the Enchanted Princess, August 31 - September 7, 2024.

Award-winning Somebody Feed Phil—the delectably illuminating food-travel show hosted by big-hearted, energetic funnyman Phil Rosenthal on Netflix—premieres its 7th season on March 1. The series’ eight new episodes spotlight Dubai, Mumbai, Kyoto, Taipei, Washington D.C., Orlando (with a twist), Scotland and Iceland. Rosenthal’s TV career is rooted in comedy. He was the creator, writer, executive producer and showrunner of the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, starring comedian Ray Romano, which ran for nine seasons on CBS. These days, Rosenthal’s well-fed, globetrotting gallops have inspired an enormous fan following. Rosenthal and I recently sat down to dish up behind-the-scenes scoops, sentiments and surprises about the new season. (Stay tuned for my upcoming Forbes review of Somebody Feed Phil.)

Grab your seat! For avid adventure seekers and armchair travelers alike, this year has soared exhilaratingly high with fresh films and documentaries that spotlight wildlife and wanderlust deep in dazzling nature destinations. Now a new seven-episode series, National Geographic’s Incredible Animal Journeys, crowns the end of 2023, premiering November 19 on National Geographic and debut-streaming November 20 on Disney+ and Hulu. Narrated by actor Jeremy Renner, this horizon-stretching show swoops into action-packed lives of migrating animals, which traverse the globe via often arduous paths that have been replicated generation after generation. Viewing animals’ relentless drive to survive and thrive is an eye-opening revelation. This series was extensively filmed over more than three years on seven continents and 20 countries with an international crew, who unearthed charming, challenging, courageous, complex and intimate animal encounters. Travel fans will especially swoon at stellar scenery. Check out the trailer (below).

For fans of nostalgia TV as well as avid animal and travel lovers, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom is back in a big way. Sixty years ago, this beloved show innovated the nature adventure genre, enthralled viewers with its global destinations, won multiple Emmy Awards and galvanized conservation goals and gains. It offered an eagerly anticipated, families-gathered, weekly gaze at creatures in far-flung locales to a television audience that averaged 34-million Americans for much of its initial, astonishingly lengthy 25-year run. Between then and now, weaving through subsequent decades, Wild Kingdom had been transformed again and again, showcased on Animal Planet and as a web series. Now there is a fresh fourth project, the all-new Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild, which will premiere October 7 on NBC-TV (as part of its “The More You Know” programming block on Saturday mornings), as well as via NBC.com and NBC VOD. It is co-hosted by wildlife expert Peter Gros (who joined the original series in 1985) and wildlife ecologist Rae Wynn-Grant, Ph.D., a National Geographic Society research fellow and host of the PBS podcast Going Wild. Currently primed for 26 episodes set in North America, Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild kicks off with journeys to California’s super-parched Mojave Desert for desert-dwelling tortoises, the Maine Coast for Atlantic puffins (nicknamed “parrots of the sea” because of their colorful triangular beaks), the Florida Coast for aqua-agile manatees and Austin, Texas, for high-soaring-quick-swooping Mexican free-tailed bats. I reached out to Gros and Wynn-Grant to share their behind-the-scenes insights and inspirations, as they forge modern Wild Kingdom paths, while still applauding the footsteps of legendary zoologists Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler, who, as co-hosts of the documentary show’s dawn in 1963, put this legacy wildlife wonderland on the map.

Ever wonder what it is like to be a National Geographic photographer or filmmaker, traveling the world, experiencing exceptional adventures and witnessing spectacular, even rare, sights? I interviewed the intrepid Bertie Gregory, whose new show, Animals Up Close With Bertie Gregory, premieres September 13th on Disney+. This six-episode series — which swoops and soars in Antarctica, Botswana, Central African Republic, the Galápagos, Indonesia and Patagonia — weaves stunning footage and compelling narratives about elusive pumas, imaginative B1 killer whales, distinctive forest elephants, endangered wild dogs, intriguing seals and sea lions, Godzilla-like marine iguanas, iconic gorillas, awesome devil rays, fierce guanacos and handfuls of other creatures that are often not entirely what you might expect them to be. For insightful specifics about each episode, read Forbes’ Love To Travel? Wild About Nature? ‘Animals Up Close With Bertie Gregory’ Will Astonish You. Gregory and I continue our conversation, below, about the power of passion to fuel your dreams.