When it comes to helming a successful travel show, Emmy Award-winning actor Eugene Levy has one thing most hosts don’t: a serious lack of wanderlust.
Levy’s aversion to adventure, however, helps set apart his Apple TV+ series, “The Reluctant Traveler,” from similar shows, with much of its appeal centered around seeing Levy go way, way out of his comfort zone.
The series, which made its debut last year, is back for a second season this spring; new episodes premiere March 8. While the show’s inaugural season highlighted destinations across several continents, the new batch of episodes takes Levy, who also is an executive producer of the program, on a grand tour of Europe.
Hotels editor Christina Jelski interviewed Levy and fellow executive producer David Brindley to talk about how destinations are chosen, Levy’s “reluctant” approach to travel, set-jetting — and whether Levy uses a travel advisor for his own trips.
Christina Jelski: Eugene, with one season of “The Reluctant Traveler” under your belt, would you say you’re as reluctant as ever?
Eugene Levy: I’m considerably less reluctant. I’m loving doing the show. I really am. I’m actually loving doing the traveling, [but] I think there are probably two things that will always kind of keep me in that kind of “reluctant” bubble, which is a lack of curiosity and basically no sense of adventure. But that’s me. And I don’t think that’s ever going to change.
C.J.: Who’s in charge of choosing destinations, hotels and itineraries? And Eugene, how much of each trip is a surprise?
E.L.: A lot of it is a surprise. I mean, I know where I’m going when I’m on the plane, but [David] is really the guy responsible for figuring out where we’re going and what would be interesting.
David Brindley: We have a big, amazing production team that sort of put together a lot of ideas, and once we landed on a big, overarching [theme], which was Europe, then we started to drill into that.
We were very keen that it [not be] the Europe that everybody immediately would have thought to visit. We’re not going to London, we’re not going to Paris, we’re not going to Rome. We’re actually starting in the northernmost reaches of Sweden, in a very rural area, and we end up at the most southerly point of Spain in Tarifa. And that adds to that layer of surprise, I think.
E.L.: It’s kind of a behind-the-scenes look at Europe.
German health resort Lanserhof Sylt is one of several unique accommodations featured in “The Reluctant Traveler” in Season 2. Photo Credit: Alexander Haiden for the Lanserhof
C.J.: Last season, you featured some pretty notable hotels and resorts. Are there any unique or over-the-top properties that were particularly memorable this season?
E.L.: There are a lot of over-the-top hotels, which I personally love, but one memorable experience was a beautiful hotel in Germany, on the island of Sylt, called the Lanserhof. It’s a kind of wellness hotel, and people go there and check themselves in for days of fasting and detoxing. And that’s one of the places David took us.
D.B.: You were delighted.
E.L.: I was delighted, until you realize they don’t serve coffee. They don’t serve wine. They don’t serve cheeseburgers. They don’t serve anything. It’s just consommé, and you may get a piece of bread after your three days of fasting.
D.B.: There’s a great moment when you talk to the doctor, who’s the first person that you meet at this hotel, and the doctor says that he will select what you do and will be eating. And you say, “Great, you select the food and I’ll pay for the trip.”
E.L.: You’re selecting and I’m paying. That’s good.
C.J.: Set-jetting has been a hot trend, with travelers flocking to the places where their favorite TV shows and movies were filmed. Have either of you gotten any feedback about viewers doing some set-jetting to the places you featured last year?
D.B.: I didn’t know it was called that, actually. We’ve actually had amazing feedback from the hotels in series one, and they’ve had a huge amount of people visit as a result. The Kruger Shalati hotel in South Africa, which is the [hotel in a] train on a bridge, I think a lot of people have gone there, and also the very first hotel we visited, the [Arctic TreeHouse Hotel] in Finland has definitely seen people come visit because of Eugene’s trip.
And I think also what’s great is that we almost give an itinerary. So, you definitely could watch the show and then go and have that exact experience for yourself.
C.J.: Speaking of itineraries, do either of you use a travel advisor to plan your own personal travel?
E.L.: We do work with a travel agent. And it’s great. I mean, it saves you so much headache. They do everything for you. So yeah, [my family and I] now use a travel agent. Wouldn’t think of going anywhere without one.