What I'm Watching: The Reluctant Traveler

Take one part epic comedic actor, add one part exotic travel, and leaven with dry wit and some comfort zone stretches, and you get a hit.

I had been streaming Happy Valley, and after completing the second season, I needed something lighter to break the funk, and Apple TV+ recommended “The Reluctant Traveler”. A series featuring the comedic actor Eugene Levy - a super funny guy - and him being challenged to face his fears.

First and foremost, Eugene Levy, of “American Pie” fame is just one incredibly fucking funny dude. Seriously, he is over the top, in your face, yet totally relatable in a way that many of us Gen X find endearing. He is a national treasure (of Canada¹) and this series is yet another example of why. Hell, he even makes an “American Pie” reference in the first episode while he is meeting people in the Lapland area of Finland.

Second, where he travels to are places that are just jaw dropping. Sure, the hotels are not run of the mill, or places that you will stay if you go to a conference (most of my work travel) but instead they are quirky (the Train Car hotel room in South Africa), but they coupled it with activities that push his comfort zone, and are once in a lifetime experiences.

Naturally, when he was in Utah he tells us that the hotel was about $3K a night.

Fortunately I wasn’t drinking at the time, because that would have been a

A little sleuthing on the show unearths that it is a very small production crew, and unsurprisingly it is unscripted. Let Eugene be Eugene, is a damn good strategy.

I will admit that I was in a watching funk, having just finished a dark British police procedural, I needed something less intense, and The Reluctant Traveler was a good choice to mix it up.

It is on AppleTV+, it is truly funny, and I learned that it was renewed to a second season, so yipee, there will be more!

1. He more than balances out Celine Dion and Nickelback

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