Pole to Pole: Michael Palin's 30th Meridian

The series sets out to follow the 30-degree east line of longitude from the North Pole to the South Pole. Getting started took a plane ride from the Pole to the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, and the filming of the series began from there. Palin visits the remotely inhabited island in the first episode. Spitsbergen is the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago, with Longyearbyen as its administrative centre.

Location precision: The island is large and the show names no exact spot; the pin marks Spitsbergen itself.

Heading south, Palin visits Chernobyl following the 1986 nuclear disaster. The place sits 90 kilometres north of Kyiv and is a partially abandoned city today. In the same episode he also explores Kyiv and receives an unusual mud bath treatment in Odesa. The Odesa stage was filmed only a few days before the coup attempt of 1991, and from there Palin catches a ferry to Turkey.

Location precision: The episode summary names Chernobyl, not a specific street or village; the pin marks the town.

In Istanbul Palin experiences a Turkish hamam and explores the local bazaar, then heads south to Rhodes to understand its history. The city straddles the Bosphorus, between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, and sits on two continents. The episode then runs on through Egypt, where Palin heads southwards on the Nile River, exploring ancient Egyptian ruins and tombs, before a ferry from Aswan carries him to Sudan.

Location precision: The series summary names Istanbul but not the hamam or bazaar; the pin marks the city centre.

At Wadi Halfa, Palin travels by train to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. The town is the terminus of the rail line from Khartoum and the point where goods move from rail to ferries going down Lake Nubia, close to the border with Egypt. It features in part four of the series, "Shifting Sands".

Location precision: The series names only the town; the pin marks Wadi Halfa itself, not the station or quay.

In Tanzania Palin fulfils a lifelong dream of visiting the Ngorongoro Crater. The protected area is named after the crater, a large volcanic caldera in the north-east of the country, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Palin reaches it before the train and ferry legs that follow in the same episode.

Visitor guidance: The crater lies within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northeastern Tanzania.

Palin takes a train to Kigoma, then rides the oldest ferry in the world down Lake Tanganyika. The ship is believed to be the MV Liemba, built in Germany in 1913 as the Graf von Goetzen and sailing between Kigoma and Mpulungu in Zambia. It featured in the 1992 BBC series. Kigoma itself is a city and lake port in Tanzania.

Location precision: The series calls it the oldest ferry in the world; the identification with the Liemba comes from the ship's own article, and the pin marks Kigoma, not the ship.

In episode seven, Palin travels to Victoria Falls and tries whitewater rafting on the Zambezi River before heading to Zimbabwe, where he visits the grave of Cecil Rhodes and meets members of a bowlers club. Scottish missionary David Livingstone was introduced to the falls in 1855. He named them after Queen Victoria.

Location precision: The summary names the falls and the Zambezi, not the rapids where he rafted; the pin marks the falls.

Palin detours to Chile for an alternate route to Antarctica. One more flight brings him to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, and to his final destination, the South Pole. The station stands on the high plateau of Antarctica at 9,301 feet above sea level, and closes the line of longitude that began at the North Pole.