As random as it sounds, Joanna Lumley does a mean travel doc and she’s just been commissioned for yet another adventure as she heads back East, this time to the land of the rising sun. Joanna Lumley’s Japan will be making its way to ITV in the not too distant future, bringing three more long-trekking journeys from the Ab Fab star, who’s starting to pick up a reputation for finding genuinely unique insights into the places she visits.
As you can guess from the title, Joanna will be immersing herself in the wonders of Japan and from the early details released by ITV, it sounds like she’s got a pretty intense schedule ahead of her. The journey is set to take her from the near arctic conditions in the North to the sub-tropical islands in the South of the country, ticking off as much as she can in-between along the way.
In an attempt to get under the skin of the people, places, culture and history of Japan, Joanna will be visiting some of the lesser known destinations within the country’s 6,800 islands. Starting out in the cold chill of Hokkaido, the second largest island in Japan, she’ll be travelling by train and car to see the stunning wilderness and endangered wildlife of the national parks that make up much of the rugged terrain.
She’ll then be journeying South to take in the sprawl of Japan’s largest, central island of Honshu, beginning with the earthquake-rattled Tohoku region before heading in to the bright, bright lights and tech-crazed city of Tokyo. To get there she’ll be taking in the Shinkansen (Japan’s bullet train), travelling at speeds of up to 200mph. From Tokyo she’ll be heading South-West to the old Imperial capital city of Kyoto, which is literally teaming with history and ancient Japanese shrines and temples.
The final leg of the journey will see Joanna walking on Japan’s least populous main island of Shikoku, to the South of Okayama. From there she’ll cross over to the volcanic Kyushu island. The 2,000-mile epic journey comes to an end on the stunning beaches of Kohama, a tiny pacific island that sits closer to Taiwan than mainland Japan.
Joanna Lumley’s Japan follows on from the success of her last travel-based documentary series, Joanna Lumley’s Trans-Siberian Adventures, which was a great travel doc and an epic journey for the actress, model and documentarian-type-person. It aired in 2015 and tracked her as she travelled from her childhood home city of Hong Kong right the way through to Moscow. If it’s anything to go by, we should get another probing, insightful and beautiful travel documentary from Lumley in her next outing too.
