As experts in wildlife tours and adventures ourselves, we‘ve long been huge fans of Sir David Attenborough. We wanted to illustrate just how extraordinary his career has been, and this has really become apparent as our research team has spent weeks and months watching back documentaries from the 50s to the present day, to unearth just how well travelled the British icon is.
 
Our study looked at a total of 43 documentary series (we excluded shows which only featured narration without physical location footage). Within these shows, Sir David presents from some 333 distinct locations around the world, across 83 different countries, spanning all seven continents and the Arctic.
 

• Most visited locations: California (8 locations recorded) and Borneo (4 locations recorded)
• Most visited countries: USA (57), Australia (37), UK (29), Canada (9), China (7), New Zealand (7), Kenya (6), South Africa (5), Ecuador (5), Argentina (5)
• Most visited continents: North America (80), Europe (63), Africa (46), Oceania (43), Asia (35), South America (33), Antarctica (7), Arctic (1)

At the start of his career, Sir David Attenborough travelled to the exotic lands of Java and Bali in Indonesia, as well as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – which would have been an enormously enthralling and otherworldly learning experience for the 1950's viewer to watch at home. His Oceania adventures continued into the late 50s, with his show The People of Paradise taking Attenborough to places like Koro and Beqa in Fiji, as well as Pentecost Island in Vanuatu.

Fast forward to the 1960s, and African countries start cropping up in Attenborough’s documentaries; whilst filming Zoo Quest specials he visited Meru National Park in Kenya and Madagascar. Then in the mid-70s for the Tribal Eye his African adventures included filming in Mali and Benin City in Nigeria.

So far, 55 of the Explore team have played the game – and we've got an average score of 45%. From relatively new joiners in the IT team scoring 10% to our Product Director who’s been with Explore over 10 years and, at 116%, is ‘more David Attenborough than David Attenborough’ – one thing is for sure, we’ve all got very long lists of places we’d still like to go.

Bang on Explore-average at 45% David Attenborough, Michelle Bisang joined the Explore marketing team last October as Marketing Projects Coordinator. Born and raised in Switzerland, she’s since visited 36 countries – her favourite of which has been Indonesia. Next on her list is our Botswana Wildlife Safari.
 
James Adkin, our Programme Manager for Asia, is responsible for designing our small group cultural, walking and cycling tours in the region. He’s also the mastermind behind our UK and cycling programmes. James is 76% David Attenborough having travelled to 62 countries.  He’s recently returned from Japan but Spain continues to hold on to first place in his heart, for its food, landscapes and culture. On the bucketlist? It has to be Antarctica and South Georgia. 

Our Digital Marketing Executive Amy Fiske is 17% David Attenborough. Having completed the game she jumped straight on a flight to Tokyo and joined our Simply Japan tour, already ticking off her next country. 

It’s not too late! On our interactive map you can also build your travel ‘wishlist’ – flagging all the destinations around the world where you’d like to travel in the future. 

To compare your travel ambitions with the general public’s, we commissioned a unique survey to discover the travel hopes and travel regrets of respondents from different age groups. 

The survey revealed that the majority of the over 70s have travel regrets, with 62% saying that there is somewhere in the world they regret never having visited.

Some of the countries mentioned frequently in the over 70s travel regrets include Australia, New Zealand, USA, Japan, and Canada.   

Attraction, Place or Activity	% of Over 70s Who Regret Never Doing This
Seeing the Northern Lights	39%
Visiting the Maldives	19%
Seeing the Great Pyramids of Giza	19%
Visiting Machu Pichu	19%
Seeing Niagara Falls	19%
Visiting the Taj Mahal	18%
Walking the Great Wall of China	17%
Seeing the Petra ruins in Jordan	13%
An African safari	13%
Driving a Californian road trip	11%

 

Other experiences the over 70s said they regretted not doing included:

• ‘Seeing Japan in the Spring – to see the cherry blossom’
• ‘I would have loved to visit the Italian Lakes’
• ‘More long-distance train travel, like The Ghan’
• ‘Seeing the fjords in Norway’
• ‘Visiting New York and seeing a Broadway show’
• ‘Driving Route 66’

Our survey also asked the younger mid-life generation about the travel experiences that they hope to accomplish in the next decade or two. A massive 85% of people aged 40 to 55 say they hope to discover a new country, with Italy, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and USA coming out as the most popular places that mid-lifers want to visit in the next ten to twenty years.
 

 

Attraction, Place or Activity	% of Over 70s Who Regret Never Doing This
Seeing the Northern Lights	46%
Visiting the Maldives	35%
Lying on a beach in the Mediterranean	33%
Seeing Niagara Falls	30%
Going to Disney Land/Disney World	29%
A Californian road trip	26%
Doing a European cruise	24%
Partying in Las Vegas	23%
An African safari	21%
Great Pyramids of Giza	20%
Taj Mahal	16%
Gondola Ride in Venice	16%
Walking the Great Wall of China	16%
Visiting Machu Picchu	15%
Trekking the Inca Trail	9%

Other experiences 40–55-year-olds said they want to do in the next ten to twenty years include:

• ‘Going to see the cathedral in Florence, Italy’
• ‘Seeing a sunset in Ibiza’
• ‘Taking the bullet train in Japan’
• ‘Revisiting Bahamas where I had my honeymoon’
• ‘Australia for the amazing wildlife’
• ‘I want to visit Disney World at Christmas’
• ‘I would love to visit India as I’m interested in spirituality and Vedic astrology’
• ‘Touring the Scottish Highlands’

Survey methodology: Using Censuswide, we surveyed 502 British people aged 70 or over with questions about places and travel experiences around the world that they regret not having visited yet. Also using Censuswide, we then surveyed 530 British respondents aged between 40-55 years old to discover the places and travel experiences that they hope to achieve in the next decade or two.

Map research methodology: Using IMDB, Wikipedia, BBC iPlayer, YouTube and more, we counted the number of locations David Attenborough has visited whilst filming travel shows and documentaries throughout his career. The research looked at his extensive filmography and counted each different location, country and continent Attenborough was seen to have visited during every episode. Shows which are only narrated with a voice over were discounted from the final research numbers. Data correct (to the best of our knowledge) as of February 2023. Think we've missed something? We'd love to hear from you if you've got evidence he's filmed somewhere else. Please send it to HDARU@explore.co.uk

Filming location sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Attenborough_filmography
• IMBD.com
• Daily Motion
• BBC iPlayer
• Youtube.com

List of documentaries/shows:

1. Zoo Quest to Guiana
2. Zoo Quest for a Dragon
3. Quest for Paradise Birds
4. Zoo Quest in Paraguay
5. The People of Paradise
6. Festival in Adelaide
7. Zoo Quest to Madagascar
8. Zoo Quest Special: Elsa the Lioness
9. Quest for Capricorn
10. Zambezi
11. A Blank on the Map
12. The Tribal Eye
13. Life on Earth
14. The Living Planet
15. The First Eden
16. Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives
17. The Trials of Life
18. Life in the Freezer
19. The Private Life of Plants
20. Attenborough in Paradise
21. Survival Island
22. Cities of the World
23. The Life of Birds
24. The Lost Gods of Easter Island
25. The Life of Mammals
26. Life in the Undergrowth
27. Life in Cold Blood
28. Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life
29. First Life
30. Frozen Planet
31. Kingdom of Plants
32. Galapagos
33. Rise of the Animals: Triumph of the Vertebrates
34. Life Story
35. David Attenborough’s Conquest of the Skies 3D
36. Great Barrier Reef
37. Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur
38. Life That Glows
39. Attenborough and the Giant Elephant
40. Attenborough and the Sea Dragon
41. Life in Colour
42. The Green Planet
43. Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough