After 50 days and more than 15,000 kms, the two leading teams were both within touching distance of victory. Friends Owen and Alfie sped towards the IndonesianThe country consists of over 17,000 islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. island of Lombok in a speedboat. Mother-and-daughter team Eugenie and Isabel followed in another close behind.

Just eight minutes ahead of their rivals, Owen and Alfie arrived on a beach to find at a table with a book on it. It told them they had won the race and £20,000.

The show has been a huge hit, attracting audiences of over 7 million.¹

Contestants are not allowed smartphones or credit cards, and can only travel by land or sea. They are given a small amount of money and have to earn more as they go.

They are also given a map of the world, a travel guide with ads for local jobs and a GPS device to help them find various points along the way.

In a review for The Daily Telegraph, Benji Wilson called the show "the perfect antidoteA cure for something. It originally meant a medicine against poison. to an ever-shrinking world that we all fear will end up being just a screen in the palm of your hand.

"Without phones or the internet, without likes or subscribes or followers or fake friends it asks: 'Who are you? Where are you going and how are you going to get there?'"

Humans have travelled since the dawn of our species. According to one expert, Christopher Ryan, for most of history "we've lived as nomadicPeople who move around and do not live in one place are nomadic. hunter-gatherers moving about in small bands of 150 or fewer people."³

One of the most famous travellers of all time was Marco Polo, who left Venice in 1271 at the age of 17 and travelled to Shangdu in China.

Throughout the ages, finding trade routes and new lands to settle in have been major reasons for travelling. Religion has played an important part too. In the Middle Ages many Christians made their way on foot from England to Rome. Muslims today are encouraged to visit MeccaIslam's holiest city and the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad. Only Muslims are allowed into the city, and millions make pilgrimages there. .

Are human beings born to travel?

Yes: Most of us enjoy going to new places and gaining what the writer Henry Miller called "a new way of looking at things". Just staying at home gives us a very limited view of the world.

No: If we were, we would all be nomads and never have created settlements. The term "civilisation" derives from the Latin word for city, and the expansion of cities is a key feature of modern life.

Or... It is not just human beings. You only have to watch migrating birds, or sheep trying to escape from a field, to realise that very few creatures are content to remain in the same place for long.