France’s top television travel show is to feature the ultimate voyage – a trip all the way around world, taking in some of its most spectacular sights – as the highlight of its 2007/8 series, thanks to a partnership with oneworld®, the leading quality global airline alliance.
A two-man team from the programme Echappées Belles (Wonderful Escapes) – director Charles-Antoine de Rouvre and cameraman Axel Ferrault – spent almost four weeks flying around the globe tracing the path of the world’s most famous mythical traveller, Phileas Fogg of Around the World in Eighty Days.

Their journey took them from Paris to London, then on to Cape Town, Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Osaka, Tokyo, Singapore, Perth, Sydney, Christchurch, Auckland, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Quito, Santiago, Madrid, Amman then back to Paris.

In all, they spent more than 125 hours in flight, on a total of 18 sectors, including flights with virtually all the alliance’s ten member airlines – American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN, Malév Hungarian Airlines, Qantas and Royal Jordanian – plus a number of the grouping’s 20 affiliate carriers.

Their journey started at the Greenwich Meridien, the meeting of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans at the Cape of Good Hope and crossed both the Equator and the international date line. Along the way, they met well known travellers and other fascinating characters.

They filmed on board their flights and on the ground at a number of airports they visited, including behind the scenes recordings to show what goes into the preparation of a flight departure and what crew do between flights.

The end result – titled “Around the world, the ultimate voyage” – will be broadcast on national French network France 5 at prime time on Saturday evenings in four 13-minute segments screened each week throughout June.

It will be broadcast again later this year, as a single 52-minute special.
Director Charles-Antoine de Rouvre said: “I embarked on this round-the-world journey as a challenge, because it truly represents the ‘ultimate voyage’. This trip was only 30 years ago the privilege of a select few, but now it is a reality for an increasing amount of people.
“To those who are still dreaming of traveling around the world, I wanted to show that it is possible and that this amazing experience is best when shared with other people, for human interaction makes it even richer.”