and who discovered the equator? hello and welcome to the travel show, coming to you this week from behind—the—scenes at our home here at it is here where we plan the shows and edit the films from all over the world, finding stories, juggling logistics and, just like everybody else, trying to find the biggest bang for our buck when it comes to travelling abroad. over the past decade here at the travel show hq it has been ourjob to create new content for you every week on a fairly modest budget. so no wonder we picked up a tip or two along the way about how to get the most for our money. we get the best value we can by packing in as much as possible on each trip, travelling light and using our network of local fixers and producers as often as we can to help bring down travel costs and our carbon footprint. so how can you save money when you travel abroad in 2023? here is our global guru, simon calder, with some ideas. when so many of us are feeling the squeeze financially it is no wonder that some travellers are considering cutting back on adventures. when money is tight, seeing your ideal destination on tv or social media can stir up a load of negative feelings and leave you believing that your dream holiday, isjust that, a dream. in 2022 the travel show team went dune bashing in qatar. attended age—old ceremonies in chile, and saw some amazing creatures that also call this planet home at yellowstone. right over there in the distance is a grizzly bear. and this is how you can get to some of these destinations. the usa is full of wish list locations, hollywood, miami beach, new york city and natural wonders like yellowstone which lucy and the travel show visited in early 2022, coinciding with its 150th anniversary as a national park. this is old faithful, probably one of the world's most famous geysers. there she goes. people save for years to see amazing places like yellowstone but with the cost of living soaring, are such trips becoming out of reach? as always, if you can travel at times of low demand you will get the best deal. keep costs down by taking cabin baggage only. most transatlantic airlines now charge extra for anything you want to check into the hold, but at the same time offer generous hand luggage allowances and there is less chance that your valuables will go astray. in april, uk air passenger duty for fligths to north america increases to £87, or in anything other than basic economy, £191. you can avoid the tax by taking a ship to dublin or a train to paris and booking a flight from there. but allow plenty of time to make the connection if you miss the onward flight, you are not getting a refund. the same idea works in the opposite direction. if you are starting in north america and planning to visit a number of european countries, make britain the first nation you visit, not the last. for all its colour, scenery and wonders, south america appears on the wish lists of surprisingly few travellers. and that may not be about to change. according to a survey by the leading uk travel association, abta, significantly fewer travellers this year are looking to visit a country they have never been to before. with shrinking disposable income, that is understandable. but try and think big. in late march, carmen and the team switched spring for the southern hemisphere autumn in the long, thin and spectacular south american nation of chile and got to part in some amazing experiences. when you think of mummies, you think of the ancient egyptians wrapped in bandages but these guys here, there are masks, sticks where their bones were and what is fascinating is the smaller mummies of children and babies. south america really rewards travellers who can invest time and a trend we have noticed at the travel show supported by industry data is that the average length of stay is increasing. if you can spend weeks rather than days in a place you will get under the skin of it and have a much more enriching and enlightening experience. even better, stay with a family to understand the culture more deeply and to keep a lid on costs. homestays are easy to find online and typically have a minimum stay of a week or two. last month, the first—ever and sometimes controversial fifa world cup to be held in the middle east came to a thrilling conclusion as argentina lifted the trophy in qatar. every global sporting event creates a kind of travel vacuum after the game is over. but the alluring setting, the culture, the nature, not to mention the sunshine and the beaches remains as rajan discovered when he visited the gulf state in the buildup to the tournament. so i put my mouth here. yes. — and bite, right hand. again, again. if the middle east is on your list of places to go this year, now could be a very good time to be there. since the world cup, qatar has a vast number of hotel rooms to fill and so it has become the region's bargain basement location. in february, a room in a good budget hotel in central doha, five minutes walk from the national museum and ten minutes from the souk is selling at around $60 a night. roughly half of what you would pay for the equivalent property across in dubai. at the travel show it is notjust money we're looking to save, it is the planet as well. happily, the two often go hand—in—hand. last summer, ade and the team saw the effects of climate change itself. since the fires have hit this whole area it now looks very different. as they visited the greek island of evia to see how it is recovering from devastating forest fires. look at that. just as far as the eye can see, all you are looking at is burnt trees. environmentally, tourism is unquestionably part of the problem. but if greece is on your travel agenda this year, then there are ways of limiting the impact on the planet and your pocket. between the two biggest cities, the capital, athens and thessaloniki in the north it used to be that the only quick way to make the journey was by plane. thankfully there is a new and much more environmentally friendly high—speed railway taking underfour hours between the two cities. you can save money by being under 2a or over 64 and if you are somewhere in the middle, just sign up for the ht card. it is free and gives you a 15% discount reducing the cost of the cheapest ticket from 9 euros to less than 8. this is the classic africa of storybooks and the location of the great migration. for me, the most remarkable travel show trip of 2022 was the one that ended the year. a 2—parter out in africa how does a blind girl go on safari in which visually impaired social media star lucy edwards joined the team in kenya. sobs. it's ok, it's ok. it's completely fine. honestly, when you call baraka a blessing, he is a blessing. it is a blessing to be blind because it means he is meant to teach people a lesson. he is meant to be here to get people... to understand you should not be poaching these beautiful animals. the film made me think more deeply about africa and in particular the wildlife that coexists, often uneasily, with humanity. i have been lucky enough to go on safari in seven african countries and i found the costs are lowest in uganda and zimbabwe with namibia also offering some good deals. to limit the cost and the environmental impact, consider going on a guided walking safari rather than just hopping into the nearest 4x4. you might find it a more memorable experience. during the pandemic, many of us realised just how intense was our passion for travel. and i am so excited about the opportunities to explore economically and responsibly this year. i have not regretted a single trip i have ever taken, only those i had to cancel. go out and see the world. i will meet you on the road. next we are off to ecuador and in the 18th century french scientists thought they had discovered the location of the equator. but they got it wrong. thousands of years earlier the pre—incas were almost able to plot location almost as accurately as a modern—day gps and we find out how they did it. this is the south american nation of ecuador. famed for the wildlife haven that is the galapagos islands and large swathes of the amazon rainforest. let's not forget the meaning of ecuador�*s name itself. the equator. and in 1982, to mark its position as the middle of the earth, the ciudad mitad del mundo monument was opened on the site of the imaginary line that divides the northern and southern hemisphere. since then it has attracted hundreds and thousands of visitors. its location was based on a series of expeditions carried out by the french academy of science in the 18th century, known as the french geodesic mission. but since the advent of gps, it has been discovered that the site is actually wrong by 240 metres. this, infact, is where the equator is. now it may feel wrong to compare technology from the 18th century to what we have in the modern day, but as civilisation known as the quitus, who lived in ecuador even before the incas had already worked out the true location. travel to catequilla above the city of quito and you will find an important pre—incan astronomical observatory, used to learn more about the seasons as well as space. as the world faces ever—growing problems such as climate change, experts like christabel believe that this discovery proves that some of the answers we need don't lie with new discoveries in the future but lay buried in our past. well, finally this week, a year on from the start of the war in ukraine, it's not only the country's population and infrastructure that has come under bombardment, but also much of its cultural heritage. recently a secret convoy of trucks containing 51 works of art managed to avoid russian shelling and slipped out of ukraine to travel all the way to madrid for safekeeping, and if you're heading to the spanish capital, you can see the collection there until the end of april. here is the story of how it got there. the cultural heritage of ukraine is in danger at the moment. i think the museum is in danger, too, and in a sense the paintings were ta ken to safety. i hope that they will stay in europe for a long period of time. the national museum of ukraine is situated in the government district of kyiv. it's basically a stone's throw from the cabinet of ministers, which of course is situated very close to the presidential administration, so in case of attack on the government district, the museum will be in very high danger. the quantity of problems which we faced was unbelievable. museum staff basically barricaded themselves in the cellar, where paintings were removed. literally two months living in this cellar, because they could not go home because public transportation did not work. electricity cuts, air raids, and of course we had many problems organising shipment of this art. as you can imagine, there is no insurance company in the world which is ready to insure anything moving through ukraine. two trucks reached the polish border. we were already relieved, and in that very moment, a missile exploded in a polish village. poland immediately closed the border, and that moment everybody thought that it was the beginning of the third world war. we talked to the ukrainians, we talked to poland, and after more than ten hours on the border, both organised passage for these trucks when the border was still closed. and by sheer miracle, the trucks arrived to madrid on time. for us, these works are symbolic, and of course it's a part of their cultural heritage. it's a part of their identity, and they are extremely happy that they are right now in madrid, in safety. during the opening i was pinching myself to be sure that it's a reality, because it was so difficult to believe that it would happen that, in a sense, for me it was a miracle. let's hope those pieces of art will one day be able to be enjoyed back in kyiv. well, that's all we've got time for this week. coming up next week: we're off to new york to see how the big apple's legendary nightlife is finally back with a bang, and also asking just how ethical is it for tourists to go and see ancient egyptian mummies in museums thousands of years after they died. these are human bodies, and no—one would accept to have a member of his family displayed in such a manner, where people take selfies. well, that's bound to be a good one, so hope you can catch that next week. and don't forget there is more great travel content on the bbc. the details are at the bottom of your screen now. but in the meantime, from me, carmen roberts, and the rest of the travel show team at hq in london, it's goodbye. the first half of this week has brought very split fortunes temperature —wise and the coldest of the weather has been found in southern parts of the country. wednesday was another cold day, particularly where it stayed grey and murky, but temperatures in the south, and this is reading for an example, are set to climb a little in the next few days. contrast that with the situation in the north of the uk where we've had some really mild days in the north of scotland. temperatures here actually dropping away a little. we will all end up pretty much in the same boat temperature —wise. this is the earlier satellite picture, this haze of cloud is the low cloud that kept it so cold in the south—east corner. then this bright white cloud, a weather front slipping southwards, that clearing away to the start of thursday. and behind that we've got this area of high pressure trying to build its way in. so a little dry weather on thursday. we've swept away the very persistently cold and murky air that's been found across the south, so brighter skies on thursday and pretty much all of us in the same air mass, so all with temperatures between seven and 9 degrees. if few showers in eastern parts, some of which will continue into friday. many places are dry as we go through friday. patchy cloud and early fog across england and wales, that will tend to clear before we see sunny spells and sunshine. temperatures, much of a muchness across the country, 6—9. a frontal system to the north west of scotland pushing into northern ireland as we go through friday evening. overnight into saturday that front will sink a little further southwards but not much left on it because it's running into that big area of high pressure. just a band of cloud, may be rain seeking south across england and wales. northern ireland and scotland seeing limited sunny spells, a fair amount of cloud, temperatures again in that range of 7—9. high pressure holds on in the south on sunday but up towards the north we see this weather front developing. an area of low pressure quite a long way away to the north but it will start to squeeze in some strong winds across scotland. gales are likely, particularly in northern and western parts. this band of rain pushing in from the north—west. elsewhere, or have dry weather and cloud and quite a mild feeling day on sunday, 9—ii. very windy on sunday night. gales continue to affect some parts of scotland, perhaps northern ireland and northern england too will stop wintry showers for a time. but on monday we see logic dry conditions, spells of sunshine but we are into more of the north, north—westerly wind so slightly chillier field but nothing dramatic. temperatures north to south between seven and ten. next week, high pressure will continue to hold on across southern parts. mainly dry here with frontal systems diverted across the north of the country. this weather set up will for the most part bring us relatively mild conditions. the greatest chance of any cold weather will be found across the north of the uk. unlike the last few days, southern parts will hold on to the mildest of the weather. so let's take a look at some city outlooks for next week. the greatest chance of wind and rain, and the greatest chance of cold weather will be found across the north of the uk, particularly in the north of scotland. whereas further south they will not be as much rain, staying largely dry and it will also stay mild. temperatures for example in plymouth up to ii mild. temperatures for example in plymouth up to 11 degrees. goodbye for now. hello, i'm christian fraser. you're watching the context on bbc news. for his birthday president zelensky gets tanks. lots of them. president biden says it shows the the western alliance is united and more determined than ever to back ukraine. the white house decision to send abrams has eased concerns in berlin. after weeks of deliberation chancellor shultz has agreed to send the german made leopard 2s. the house speaker kevin mccarthy has blocked democrats adam schiff and eric swalwell from serving on the intel committee, opening a new front in the deeply divided chamber. and the burnley man that took on the big banks and won — we'll talk to the man behind netflix�*s new hit film bank of dave. tonight with the context, former conservative cabinet minister justine greening and ron christie