User reviews

This show beats the vulgar american 'amazing race' by leaps and bounds. Very real. No fantasy. Absolutely brilliant! Can't wait for the next season.

When it's good, its great but there's a hell of a lot of back (and sob) story repeated over and over again. Totally unnecessary. Really doesn't need a presenter and should stick to current format.

What I always wished reality shows like Amazing Race were like, a real race without the games or collusion or host getting in the way. Who can think on their feet, navigate an unknown country, communicate without language, and strategize over maps and transportation connections? The twist is, without modern technology, which was really only 10 years ago when we didn't have smart phones, had to use sketchy internet cafes or better yet, rely on helpful (and sometimes not) strangers. To round it out, a narrator keeps the viewer focused and shares just enough entertaining historical or current events about the different locations the teams visit to bring fun, hope, thrill and compassion to the show.

Thoroughly enjoyable programme showing the realities of travelling without the 'benefits' of air-travel or mobile phones. Ignore the call from one misguided reviewer who wants a 'presenter' and road-blocks etc. There are enough natural barriers of weather and border crossing closures, plus dwindling finances to add some believeable hazards to the journey. Don't mess with what works.

Real people, real emotions, amazing places, great scenery and people, the pressure of the competition, relationships being tested ...it has everything, fantastic show. Can't wait for the next season!!

Love this show. Having travelled in Asia (series 1) and lived in South America (series 2) I find this show particularly interesting recognising many of the places they pass through and with similar experiences and nightmarish journeys. A great cross section of participants each with their own backstory which is gradually revealed throughout the series. Looking forward to the next series assuming they can find another difficult challenge. It wouldn't be the same not travelling through 3rd world or unstable & unpredictable countries.

Really easy viewing for all the family and a nice escape from the world's troubles right now! They pick great characters and I hope they keep making more of them.

I travelled a little bit of EU & Asia, & series 1 sure has me keen for more! Series 2 is Central & South America. A good variety of people have been chosen from all kinds of ethnicities & other social backgrounds. The challenges of traveling in different countries with the variety of challenges & beautiful exeriences are great to view from home. Its like being there. And we get to see how each couple plot plan & deal with the challenges that arise. This is a brilliant series. My only musing of how to improve would be to reduce the race aspect for certain parts & raise the experiences. It could be like completing certain social assistance work in different places.

Yet again a fantastic concept and delivery of a programme, ruined by distances being quoted in kilometres.

In this country, we still use miles as a distance measurement meaning the kilometres quoted mean absolutely nothing in relation to how far these people have to travel.

Very short- sighted gaff which spoils the whole concept and which has been mentioned by other people who are not necessarily of the "more mature" generation.

Other production values are great, well filmed and presented all round otherwise.

Each episode does leave you looking forwards to the next, the kilometre thing, irrespective of Canadian distance measurements shouldn't have been overlooked.

Attempting to calculate the quoted distances becomes pointless and should have been thought out, prior to screening.

Anyone going into this expecting The Amazing Race is going to be let down but as a fan of TAR, this was a much welcomed change in pace.

Season 1 was really well done and the travel was interesting. I enjoyed the back stories and "story arcs" for each team. The lack of continuous elimination was very much welcomed because I personally can't stand pack toxicity when it comes to this style show. I really hate forced drama. Edited suspense wasn't too bad until the last couple episodes but wasn't awful (i.e. 2 teams look like they're neck and neck to reach the check in but in reality they were 2 hours apart). The winning team wasn't my favorite but they still earned it.

Season 2 left a little bit to be desired but was still watchable. Central and South America have similar landscapes and climates so the diversity wasn't quite as vast. Still beautiful though. I feel like the team backstories weren't quite as interesting/inspiring as season 1. Not to say their past isn't relevant, just didn't quite have the charm as the previous teams. Towards the end, I really started to not enjoy a couple of them due to their predictability and confrontations. Thankfully the winning team this season was my favorite throughout and I think it was their groundedness that kept me cheering them on.

All in all, it's worth a binge if you're in the market for a new competition show for the first season alone. Season 2 is still enjoyable, just a little different.

We've had various attempts to do an Amazing Race style program over the years instead of actually taking on the American franchise. This is the latest one and it just makes you wish that our audience knew what they were missing. The backstories can get annoying, the totally unexplained sight seeing sections (even though it's meant to be a race). The nearest you get to challenges are them doing local jobs to get money, but these are normally very boring to look at.

I expect some teams are told they have to go a different route for variety, or to visit particular attractions so they can get good camera shots. It feels so manipulated and there's hardly any tension in most legs. There aren't many episodes and there's few teams. They should trust the British public to be able to cope with a more competitive and tense and exciting format. Lost from 2001 was a more interesting version of this kind of race, and with more daring casting. But best of all would be to just do an Amazing Race.

It is impossible to talk about this show without talking about another show: The Amazing Race. Both shows are quite different and I love both.

However The Amazing Race stopped being a race some years ago and now is just "an amazing tour around the world" where the teams are flown from place to place and then compete in challenges.

In the Race Across the World we go back to the roots and the teams are really racing.

I love this show. The teams really need to plan their trip and then they need to race. You get to see places that you wouldn't see otherwise and it is all about the race. Since each team is free to pick the itinerary you will see different routes and styles of travel.

The teams also find jobs here and there to collect additional money to keep traveling. I find those misleading because they are easy to find everywhere and are relatively well paid. That is the unrealistic part of the show. In real live it would have been hard to find those jobs, but at least give us a good look into the life of the locals and many times the racers learn valuable lessons.

Overall both shows complement themselves and are both recommended for anyone that enjoys shows about travel.

Here the pace is quite high and each episode is one leg, where the contestants need to reach a new checkpoint, many miles away from the starting point.

I have watched every series of this absolutely wonderfully written produced show. Like many reality shows a large part of the show are the people whom take part and their personalities. The teams made up each of 2 contestants range from friends siblings married couples etc they all begin with the same amount of money that they must budget and use to travel from one country to another they are not allowed any communication technology such as mobiles computers or iPads all they are given is a paper map. At the start they are given the next destination point and check in how they get there is up to them! I can promise this show is not only entertaining it also is eye opening to the many places in this vast world and the local inhabitants and how they live. At each check point they are ranked on time of arrival and leave the next day on that ranking when they are told the next leg of their journey and destination. I only wish this show had been around when I was younger and fitter as I think each contestant is so enriched by their journeys and locals they meet an experience like no other the winners win £20.000 however personally I think the money is secondary to the amazing time they have had.

I half love and half hate this show. I love seeing the new places, the challenge of it, even though that often doesn't makes sense, but also the people. How the different people rise to the challenges they face each day.

What I really struggle with are the forced human interest narratives the producers push on the contestants. Each person has to be on a "journey" and must "grow" over the course of the episodes. Maybe this does happen to some extent, but the forced over the top way it's presented is so inauthentic and repetitve it becomes nauseating.

I lasted the whole first season, but could only take one or two episodes of each subsequesnt season. I could see the story arcs the producers were glomming onto the contestants and it was too cringe to continue.

Reality TV in general is spoiled in this way, but I think this show had real potential and would have been so much better with a lighter touch.

Show needs a presenter, check points, road blocks and challenges with each leg having an elimination, no wait I'm thinking of the "amazing race" ( UK readers check it out) Race across the world does have a last of the summer wine pace about it, which is appealing.

Watched one episode (Japan/Korea) and was very disappointed. Obviously not a race as the contestants are sent (presumably be the shows producers) to experience different areas of each country. Busan to Sokcho is a 7 hour bus ride. Cheap and easy. Yet one pair went to Seoul for a night out, another pair ended up in a penis sculpture park on the east coast, Another pair 'worked' in a Busan fish market for a day. Bare in mind, as in many other countries, it's illegal to work in Korea without a visa. Just a ridiculous fake show that tries to be part travel show part race but ends up being neither. The faux emotions of the contestants grate as they are clearly not really racing nor aggravating each other with their choices.

Please stop.

This is not good television, BBC. I know you're not exactly faced with much opposition on ITV (home of 'Dancing on Ice' no less) but this is dire. Years ago this wouldn't get made, because it's cheap and nasty television that you've thrown money at to make look have decent.

It's not though. It's weak entertainment and will not be fondly remembered in years to come.

That's not however what the BBC aspire to though. It's the McDonald's of television. Quick, easy and disposable. A quick fix of entertainment and don't worry, it'll all be on IPlayer.

One of those shows that the one star on IMDb was made for.