There’s two things I like very much, traveling and having other people pay for it. Why not do that for a living? Look at all the television shows where some person gets paid to travel around the globe. Those are great shows, but I think I have an angle that hasn’t been exploited. Most shows jump from country to country each episode. I’d love to do a show where a single country/region is the focus of the show. The first country I’d like to travel through is Russia. Start at the Estonia-Russian border heading towards St. Petersburg and zigzag east across until I reach the Bering Straits. I’d like to spend a full year traveling and then turn that into 52 episodes. Most importantly, I’d like to find things of interest that are overlooked by other travel shows. If the network likes the results from that, I’d follow up the next year by traveling through the former Soviet republics. After that I’m not sure where I’d go, but I’m sure I could think of something.
I actually know someone that works for one of those networks and she’s working on a pitch for a show with the theme of cousins backpacking through Europe. They liked her original pitch and want her to work out specific details and make the pitch again. I’m thinking of using my camera and computer to do a sample episode with Madison as the location to show what I’d like to do in Russia.
Now that would be TV worth watching! I think you could easily fill 52 weeks’ worth of shows on Russia and still barely scratch the surface. Look at how long Charles Kuralt spent traveling the U.S.
I took the opportunity to visit Russia some years ago, and I don’t regret doing it. Back then it was still the USSR, and it was completely fascinating - like no other place in Europe. I was just there for a week, so I only got to see a small part of it. It was a 3 city tour: Moscow, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), and Kiev. But I enjoyed going someplace that few Americans had seen at the time.
Even if it doesn’t turn into TV material, I still hope you have the opportunity to go. The Trans-Siberian Railroad would be a cool trip.
Cheers.
Comment by Kevin Brady — Monday 5 December, 2005 @ 21:10