Michael Palin's top five travel tips

The Monty Python star has been awarded the Readers' Choice award in the Independent Travel Awards 2015

Michael Palin’s remarkable television success began in 1969 with Monty Python’s Flying Circus - yet he is even better known for the travel documentaries he began 20 years later, with Around the World in 80 Days. Since then there has barely been a patch of the planet that has not welcomed this highly engaging presenter - whose TV journeys have taken him from pole to pole, across the Himalayas and the Sahara, and full circle around the Pacific.

“I’ve learned a lot from the world,” he says. “I’ve learned to see myself from a different perspective, to see the rest of the world from a different perspective, to see our own country from a different perspective.”

He has also learned five important principles of travel, which he shares with readers of The Independent.